Recovery Arc: Intensive training

Sakura was up early, ate, and headed out to the training field where she found Sasuke already waiting. "So did you get here recently or-"

He rolled his eyes, "no, I didn't spend the night here training. I ditched the hospital this morning and just got here."

Sakura laughed, "You're starting to be too much like Sensei."

"Please don't joke like that."

"Oh, I think it's sweet, one of my cute genin is imitating me," Kakashi said, appearing near them.

Sakura and Sasuke looked at each other surprised, and Kakashi cocked his eyebrow, "what are those looks for?"

"Uh well, Sensei-" Sakura started to say.

"You're on time for once," Sasuke said.

"Hm well, we're going to start training now, so come at me with whatever you have."

They jumped back right away, putting distance between them and their sensei. Sakura looked to Sasuke, who nodded and ran through the hand signs "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!" He spit a massive fireball towards Kakashi obscuring his vision of them. Kakashi countered the fireball with his own meanwhile, Sakura made several clones before dropping into the earth.

The clones ran around the fireballs as they dissipated, Sasuke charged down the middle. He noticed Kakashi's left eye was still covered. The two engaged in taijutsu, and Sakura's clones ran in, and Kakashi wasted no time throwing kunai to make them all disappear. Sasuke went in for a high kick as Sakura burst from the ground poised to deliver a strike.

Kakashi sidestepped and smacked Sasuke into Sakura, sending the two tumbling to the ground, "I taught you that Sakura, it won't work on me."

They untangled themselves, and Sakura groaned. "Yeah, I should have thought about that more. I'll be sure to fool you next time, Kakashi-sensei."

Sasuke and Sakura decided on another forward assault, and the two alternated, trying to land a hit on their sensei. Sakura fell back. "Doton: Doryūheki"

Kakashi looked surprised when three earth walls appeared around him. Sakura stumbled but managed to throw a brace of shuriken as Sasuke from above cast another fireball. The smoke cleared, and Kakashi was gone.

Sakura immediately jumped and left an explosive tag on the ground that exploded, but Kakashi didn't appear below her but instead almost got Sasuke, who was quick enough to jump away. "I fell for that once. I won't let it happen again, sensei." he landed by one of the charred walls but wasn't ready for when the hands sticking out of the ground popped in a puff of smoke and foot shot out of the wall and kicked Sasuke into the other wall.

Kakashi stepped out, "You still have a long way to go, my dear genin. Now come on the fight isn't done yet keep it coming."

Sasuke and Sakura didn't last even ten minutes longer, though, Kakashi did say afterward, they're doing leagues better than when they first graduated. Sasuke and Sakura leaned against each other's backs, both feeling exhausted. Their sensei walked up "come, we're not yet. Time for a little run; we're borrowing one of Gai's training exercises, so we'll be doing laps around the village."

They groaned but got up and followed their sensei. It didn't take long to realize they would need to ration their remaining chakra to reinforce their bodies during the run. Sakura wasn't sure how long they ran, but Sasuke seemed to have overestimated himself because of his chunin exam training and poured a little too much power into speed and found himself burning out and collapsing. Sakura made it a whole two steps past him before falling over, feeling like she had no chakra left in her system. Kakashi showed up and looked at the two of them "alright kiddos, one hour break, then whoever gets to the training field first gets lunch for free. The other will have to work for theirs."

Sakura lost the race back after denying Sasuke's idea to let her win other than bugging the hell out of her that he would suggest it. She also knew that the enemy wouldn't relax or go easy on her. Kakashi had them punching and kicking the training post and throwing kunai and shuriken at targets. Once midday was approaching, Kakashi laid out Sakura's punishment for not winning earlier. She had to do another lap around the village but without using chakra, and Kakashi stressed that he would know if she did. She managed it barely and was rewarded with having to pay for her own lunch. It felt odd for the team to be eating ramen without Naruto around, but once they were done, Kakashi had them back at it with more weapons training by introducing them to Tanto's and having them learn basic forms for the rest of the day.

Once it was well after sunset, Sakura entered her house and laid on the floor after taking her shoes off. She groaned and didn't even flinch as Ino poked her side. "Yo, how was your training?"

Sakura groaned, "everything hurts, and my chakra is almost gone. I think I'll just sleep here."

"Oh, cool, so I can steal your bed then." Ino crouched down next to her and poked her ribs

Sakura didn't even squirm; she just nodded, "yep, go ahead and have it. I'm just gonna melt into the floorboards."

"How about a bath because frankly, you smell. I'll make some dinner while you do that."

Sakura held a hand up, limply, "Help me up."

With some groaning and a few choice curses towards her body, Sakura was back up and made her way to the bath. The next two days were similar, with Kakashi pushing them to their physical limits and keeping them from resting for too long. On the fourth day, Kakashi nodded, "good progress. We'll be doing a rest day so just try to meditate a few times today."

"You had us get up at five in the morning to tell us we weren't gonna train today?" Sasuke said.

"Waking up so early is part of the training. Now run along with my cute genin, enjoy your rest."

Once he was gone, Sakura looked at Sasuke, "any idea what to do?"

Sasuke rubbed his neck. "I'm going back to sleep."

"Um- how is the uh curse mark doing?"

Sasuke tensed but relaxed quickly "it's doing fine. Kakashi-sensei seal helps to keep it from hurting."

"That's good. Well, I'm gonna go back home and crash as well, so I'll see you tomorrow Sasuke."

"See you tomorrow."

The days went by, and once the second week was about to start, Kakashi smiled in a way that they started to hate "Today we start survival training. I want you to run into the woods. You have thirty minutes, and you need to avoid being captured by me for the rest of the day. If you are captured, I'll tie you to a post where the other can rescue you. You lose if you're both captured or if one of you is still captured by the end of the day. You start now."

Kakashi made several shadow clones as Sakura and Sasuke ran into the woods. "We should split up, minimize how much presence we have in one spot, and find a hiding place," Sasuke said.

Sakura nodded, and the two split in opposite directions, both making some clones to run off in various directions to hopefully stall Kakashi. Sakura pulled her chakra in tight and stepped as lightly as she could while looking for a place to hide. She climbed into the top branches of a thicker tree and kept her presence as small as possible. Meanwhile, Sasuke slipped into the water among a patch of reeds.

Kakashi's clones moved through the woods as the original sat on one of the training posts with a book out. "Hm, they're hiding pretty well, but not well enough." the sounds of fighting broke out near the water and woods. He wasn't too surprised to see one of his clones coming back with Sakura tied up and thrown over his shoulder though she was making it difficult by flailing about and trying to kick his face.

"You did a decent job of suppressing your chakra and overall presence, but it wasn't enough."

"Thank you, sensei," she said while trying to fight against his clone, tying her to a post.

He sighed, looking down at her. "You could stop struggling so much."

She grinned as she kicked the clone in the stomach and cut through her bindings. Sakura tried to scramble away, but Kakashi grabbed her and had her tied to the post in no time and had also confiscated the small blade she had used to cut her ropes.

Sasuke stopped surveying the area and making sure he was alone before doubling back. He had heard fighting in the woods and needed to make sure Sakura didn't get caught. Sasuke sighed to himself, seeing her kick one of the Kakashi's and try to run, but she eventually got caught and was tied to the post next to the one Kakashi himself was sitting on. He thought about how to get her free. A distraction might be best to draw the clones, and then he can try to cut her free then buy time fighting Kakashi before running for it.

He fell back into the woods to set up his distraction. Once it was ready, he triggered the explosion. Sasuke took a long arc to get back to Kakashi and Sakura. He saw the clones running off towards the explosion. Sasuke threw a brace of shuriken at Kakashi as he moved around the opening. Kakashi easily blocked them and stood up, his eye scanning the tree line. Another brace of shuriken flew out of the trees, followed by Sasuke with a Chidori crackling in his hand. As Sasuke ran past, he threw a kunai into the post Sakura was tied to.

Kakashi fell back, narrowly avoiding Sasuke's Chidori "my own move against me? I see how that feels now."

Sasuke was doing his best to buy time while Sakura used the kunai to break free. Once she was free, she threw the kunai at Kakashi "Sasuke, I'm good, let's go!"

Sasuke threw down smoke bombs, and the two ran for it again. Sticking together this time. "Let's get farther away from the post. Hopefully, there will be a better place to hide." Sakura said.

They managed to survive for another hour with Sasuke getting captured and Sakura rescuing him before both were caught on their retreat back into the woods. Once they were declared the losers of the exercise, Kakashi told them where to improve and what they did well.

Kakashi made them practice and practice at erasing their presence and how to cover their tracks. The training didn't last as long as the previous days though he did preface they'd be doing it again for two more days. They had varying amounts of success in those two days.

The last days went by with varying amounts of chakra exercises and physical exercises where charka was forbidden. Once the two weeks were up, Kakashi let them rest for two days before starting D rank missions again until they got word Naruto was back from his mission and heading straight for the Hokage Tower, so they decided to meet him there. Sakura was surprised to see who was traveling with Jiraiya-sama and Naruto. "Wow, they're pretty," she muttered.

Sasuke side-eyed her "yeah... who are they, though?"

Naruto spotted them and ran over "hey! You're alright, Sasuke! Wow, you two look like you put on some muscles, what happened?"

Sakura sighed. "In our stupid attempt to save you, we got put on suspension, and Kakashi-sensei had us go through intensive training during that period. It was... rough but worth it." she grinned. "I bet I could beat you in a one on one fight, Naruto."

He looked shocked but smiled, "oh, that's awesome, but it sucks you got in trouble you didn't do anything wrong." he seemed to get an idea and looked back. "Hey, Tsunade-baasan, I got a favor to ask!"

The blond woman clenched her fist, "oh, another favor? How about you stop calling me a granny and show some respect."

It clicked in Sakura's head, and she grabbed Sasuke's shoulder, making him tense "Oh, that's- You're Tsunade Senju! One of the Sannin like Jiraiya-sama. You're a huge inspiration to kunoichi and those in the medical field."

Tsunade smiled and seemed to get an ego boost "yes, I am. It's good to see someone who actually respects me."

Naruto groaned, "come on, Baasan, they got in trouble for helping me when we got attacked by that weird shark guy, and-" he stopped looking at Sasuke.

Sasuke looked away, "my brother."

Tsunade shot a glare at Jiraiya, who grinned sheepishly and backed off. She sighed, "I'll see what I can do, but first the hospital, I suppose, so I can look at your friend."

"Wait, why are you here, Tsunade-sama?" Sakura asked.

"She's been selected to be the Fifth Hokage apparently," Naruto said, looking annoyed.

They processed that information as the group headed to the hospital, but the team wasn't allowed into Lee's room with Guy and Tsunade. As they stood around outside the room waiting, Sakura said, "so how was the trip? Anything crazy after that whole event we were part of?"

Naruto grinned and started going on about his training and how he fought Kabuto and how he turned out to be a spy the whole time, and he saw Orochimaru's real face and saw the three Sannin fight, and big sis Shizune. Sasuke held his curse mark at the mention of Orochimaru. They saw Lee leave his room without a word; he didn't even stop to say anything as they greeted him. Once Tsunade exited and looked at them and made a shoeing motion, "Naruto, don't you have somewhere to be?"

He seemed to realize he had forgotten, "Oh yeah, I gotta go see Iruka-sensei! You guys wanna come with me?"

Neither of them agreed, and three left the hospital, splitting up at the entrance.