[Chapter 4]
Sakura brushed her fingers wordlessly over the hitai-ate she'd placed on her bed stand the night before. They were genin of Konoha now.
She picked the headband up carefully, wondering how long it would remain unscratched, as she tied it around her neck, not quite ready to wear it on her forehead like a true ninja yet. Rolling out of bed she entered the single washroom of the flat she and Sasuke and Naruto shared, and quickly brushed her hair and teeth.
Staring calmly at her reflection in the mirror, Sakura felt as if this shouldn't be her body. She'd seen and felt so much in the past few years, how could this innocent pink-haired girl be her?
Hearing raised voices coming from the kitchen, Sakura sighed and made her way out of the bathroom. Upon entering the small living space, she immediately noticed that the table was a mess. It was obvious that Sasuke and Naruto had attempted to make some type of breakfast for her, but that it really hadn't worked out.
"Sorry, Sakura," Naruto sheepishly said, trying to hide the various mutilated fruits and cracked eggs behind him.
Sakura sighed loudly. "Naruto, I thought we all agreed that you should never attempt to cook again after the time we all ended up in the hospital," she said, wincing at how long it was going to take to clean everything up.
Sasuke looked vaguely guilty as she met his eyes, and she spotted the faintest hint of a blush at the tips of his ears.
"The dobe wanted to surprise you," he gruffly explained.
Ever since the massacre, Sasuke had lost almost all of the childness he had possessed beforehand, and as if to make up for it, Naruto had become even more immature. Without a doubt, the blond boy had kept them all from getting trapped in depression.
Naruto clumsily tried to rub off a splatter of what Sakura strongly suspected was tomato from the wall. "Hehe, I wanted to do something special because, you know, we're ninja now!"
Sakura rubbed her eyes wearily, feeling as if this was not the best way to start her morning. She glared disdainfully at the puddle of spilled milk on the floor.
"Let's just grab some ramen from Ichiraku's" she suggested. Naruto grinned a bit guiltily and grabbed both her and Sasuke's arms, dragging them from the small apartment.
"It's team placement day," the blond boy sang happily as he skipped down the stairs of their complex, still dragging the other two along.
Sakura squinted as they exited the building and the bright sunlight hit her eyes. It was exceptionally beautiful weather outside, she noted. Or maybe it was just from the fact that she hadn't woken up at an unnatural hour to go train today, knowing she deserved an extra few hours after having finally graduated the academy.
The sunlight was a soft touch of warmth on her skin, although Sakura knew it would grow warmer around noon, and there was a light breeze drifting through the village, tousling her hair without it being bothersome. The clouds were unusually fluffy and wispy, like spun sugar, and sitting beside her boys as they waited for their bowls of ramen at Ichiraku's stand, Sakura felt more content than she had been in a long time.
There was the faint nudging fear that she and her two best friends would be separated into different teams, but Sakura had quickly dismissed that notion. After the rollercoaster ride of emotions they had been through together, she doubted even the Hokage would be cruel enough to split them apart.
The stand-owner placed down their steaming bowls of noodles in front of the three, and beside her, Naruto immediately started slurping down his portion at an incredible speed. Sasuke had also started to eat, using his chopsticks to bring the noodles to his mouth before blowing on them slightly to reduce the temperature and then taking a polite bite. But Sakura found herself refraining, happy to just watch her two friends enjoy the breakfast. Today was going to be a good day, she hoped.
Sasuke looked at her sideways with a bit of suspicion. "Sakura?"
"Nothing, Sasuke-chan."
She smiled back at him and pulled her bowl towards her, finally starting to eat. The nickname was girly, but once they'd started using it after the massacre, it had stuck. It was at least a way to differentiate them from Sasuke's numerous fangirls, who always screamed after him calling 'Sasuke-kun'.
The three quickly finished up their food, and Naruto grudgingly stopped himself from ordering fourth bowl when the other two shot him a menacing look.
"I'm still hungry~" he complained loudly as they walked towards the academy for what would be the last time they ever entered the building in years.
"You're going to throw up later if you eat more than three bowls at once," Sasuke said, annoyed.
"Our new jounin sensei might give us some type of second test," Sakura added thoughtfully, "or at least I've read that most tend to do that."
Naruto blanched comically, pulling at his hair with his hands. "No way! I barely passed the academy test! I refuse to take another one" he declared deafeningly.
Sasuke pointed his nose in the air haughtily. "We'll be taking the test together dobe. There's no way you'll fail with me and Sakura helping."
Naruto laughed, relieved, and Sakura felt her heart expand at the subtle sign of Sasuke's care. Having entered the academy, Sakura opened the door of their classroom and held it open, bowing mockingly.
"Ladies first!"
The two boys huffed, but the trio made their way into the mostly filled classroom, many of the other students having arrived earlier. They made their way up the steps to their usual spots in the back row, and Sakura saw Iruka enter through the doorway almost right behind them.
"Good morning everyone!"
The class responded with an echoed greeting, and Iruka quickly got to business, arranging a few sheets of paper on his desk at the front of the room.
"Considering I already gave my farewell speech yesterday, I'll make it short today. Together with the Hokage and a few other ninja, I've placed you all in three-man teams, where you will stay and learn under a jounin instructor until you reach the rank of chunin. Now, once I've put you into teams, there will be absolutely no switches, so I don't want to hear a word of protest," Iruka said, making sure to look at everyone.
All the students nodded in understanding, although Sakura could see some of them sweating nervously or holding on tightly to the hands of their friends in the hopes that they would be placed together.
"Once I've called your name, come up to the front of the room and your new sensei will come and collect you. Team one will be Ami Matsuri, Takeo…"
Three students who Sakura didn't really remember ever having interacted with made their way to the front of the class.
Iruka droned on, calling more kids up, with a jounin coming in to lead them away after each group.
"Team seven will be Sakura Haruno, Sasuke Uchiha, and Naruto Uzumaki. Your jounin sensei is Kakashi Hatake"
Sakura heard their names being called out, and with a smile to the two beside her, she started to stand up.
Iruka hastily cleared his throat. "Unfortunately, Team seven's sensei hasn't quite arrived yet, so if you'll just stay in your seats for now."
Sakura blinked a few times confused, but with a shrug sat back down. To her right, Naruto let out a loud groan.
"Our sensei is going to be so lame" he complained.
"Team eight will be Shino Aburame, Kiba Inuzuka, and Hinata Hyuuga. Your jounin sensei is Kurenai Yuhi" Iruka continued.
"Interesting…" inner Hermione commented.
The three were greeted by a pretty red-woman at the front of the class. Iruka named the members of Team nine followed by Team ten.
"Team ten will be Choji Akimichi, Shikamaru Nara, and Ino Yamanaka. Your sensei is Asuma Sarutobi. And... that's it."
This time a man with brown hair who Sakura assumed was related to their Hokage entered. Soon, her, Naruto, and Sasuke were the only ones left in the classroom apart from Iruka.
Their previous teacher ran his fingers through his short ponytail. "Sorry guys, I'm sure your sensei will be here soon. I really got to run though," he said apologetically, gathering up his stuff and going out the door.
And with that they were alone in the classroom.
Sakura smiled weakly at Naruto and Sasuke who both looked pretty annoyed.
What did you say was interesting, Hermione?
"The team placements," inner Hermione responded.
Sakura had actually noticed what she meant. All the teams from one to four had been completely filled with civilian born children. From Team five onwards however, all three spots had been given to either clan-born students, or ones who had grown up in a shinobi family. She was the only exception.
It is weird, Sakura thought to inner Hermione, that if I hadn't become friends with Naruto and Sasuke I would probably have ended up in one of those first teams, already slated to become desk ninja or cannon-fodder.
She removed herself from her thoughts to watch the two boys, Naruto had moved around her to be right next to Sasuke, and was undoubtedly trying to convince the Uchiha to help him do something stupid.
"Come one! Please, Sasuke-chan? Our sensei deserves to be pranked for making us wait so long" Naruto begged, already on his knees in front of the other boy.
"Stop being weird dobe. Get up" Sasuke said, huffing and refusing to meet his eyes. Sakura could tell he had already resigned to helping the persuasive blond.
"I'll help you guys too," she called excitedly, "after all, we're going to have to make an elaborate trap. He's a jounin so he probably won't fall for an easy one."
Naruto turned around and grinned at her before getting up from the ground and dusting off his pants. "See, Sasuke-chan? Even Sakura's helping, so you gotta join too!"
Sakura followed Naruto as he happily pranced to the front of the room, knowing Sasuke was right behind her.
"Ok guys, here's the plan," Naruto said, as he picked up a piece of chalk to draw on the blackboard. "We're going to have a really easily noticeable but unavoidable trap over there by the door, so that our sensei will see it and decide to enter through the window instead. And that's where we'll put two more traps. The first trap by the window will be slow and easy to dodge, making him move to the side, which is exactly where the second trap will be. But that's not all, once the second trap catches him, it will force him to move back into the path of the first slow trap, which will by then be at the perfect spot to hit him as well. Understand?"
Sakura and Sasuke both stared blankly at the board, where Naruto had drawn an elaborate blueprint for where and how the traps worked along with a few notes on possible problems they could face.
His handwriting was completely illegible.
"Uh… Can you repeat your plan Naruto?"
The blond slumped. "C'mon guys!"
Despite the minor complications though, the trio managed to finish all the traps within an hour, and had waited for their sensei to finally show up. When he still hadn't showed up after another half hour, Naruto had groaned but told them they could at least use the time to add a new layer to their already elaborate prank. And so they had added even more traps near the single window the classroom had, creating a chain-event of items that would fall on their late teacher.
Finally, about an hour later, inner Katniss informed Sakura that there was someone approaching. Sakura didn't ask how she knew, just relayed the information to Naruto and Sasuke, and all three of them sat eagerly at their desks, ready to see their hard work pay off.
Soon, there were audible footsteps approaching the open door to the classroom.
"Good, now he should see the obvious prank there and go try the window," Naruto whispered under his breath to them.
Unfortunately a silver-haired ninja wearing a mask walked right through the open door and into their classroom, ignoring the cloud of dust as the chalkboard eraser that had been hanging above the doorway fell on his head.
All three of them stared open-mouthed at their new sensei, incredulous that he hadn't sensed the obvious trap waiting there.
"All that hard work!" Naruto cried painfully, and even Sasuke seemed a bit upset.
This won't do, Sakura decided.
She determinedly walked up to the jounin, and put both her hands on his solid chest. She pushed him out into the hallway and slammed the door in his face.
"Please use the windows, Sensei," she called through the wood, and she clicked the lock on the door into place, making sure he couldn't get in that way.
Naruto flashed her a subtle thumbs up.
Sakura didn't regret her first impression, even when minutes later all four of them were sitting on the roof and Kakashi cast them a disapproving glance.
"My first impression of you guys. I hate you," he stated emotionlessly.
Naruto tried to hide a snicker and failed. Sakura found herself trying not to laugh as well. Their new teacher's strong words were mostly ruined by the fact that he had tomato sauce dripping from his silver hair and feathers stuck with white glue all over his jounin uniform.
Kakashi glared coldly at the blond haired boy, which only served to make him snicker louder.
"I was going to have everyone share a bit about themselves, but it's probably not even worth getting to know you now, considering you're going to fail my test tomorrow."
"Sorry, Kakashi-sensei. Please forgive us," Sakura said without an ounce of remorse.
The masked shinobi crinkled his eyes at her, but his nose twitched.
"Very well, I'll give you guys a chance to introduce yourself," he declared. He pointed at Sakura. "You first. Name, likes, dislikes, dreams."
She frowned thoughtfully, gazing upwards. "Well my name is Sakura Haruno. I like training because then I can do a bunch of cool moves and beat up Sasuke and Naruto when they act stupid. I dislike cleaning up our shared apartment, because those two," she cast a pointed glare at Naruto and Sasuke, "are messy brats. And well, I guess my dream would be to have a happy life."
Kakashi nodded, outwardly not showing any sign of caring very much. Inwardly though, he wondered what type of shinobi dreamed of having a happy life. Didn't she know what the job entailed?
He crinkled his eyes again. "That's nice, Sakura-chan. You with the blond hair! You're next."
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" Naruto said loudly. "I like ramen and my friends and pranking annoyingly late bastards."
Kakashi's eyebrow ticked.
"I dislike cleaning up my room because I can always find everything despite what Sakura says. And my dream is to become the next Hokage!"
The jounin nodded and turned to Sasuke. "Last one."
The Uchiha was silent for a few moments. "My name is Sasuke Uchiha," he said quietly. "I like Sakura and Naruto… sometimes."
Sakura rolled her eyes. That was about as much affection as they would ever get from the gloomy boy. Before that night, it had been different.
"I dislike annoying people and things. And my dream… it's more of a promise. I'm going to avenge the Uchiha clan."
A moment of tense silence hung around before Kakashi broke it with a clap. "Well, nice to meet you three. There isn't really much you need to know about me, so I'll be off now. Be at training grounds three by six tomorrow morning!"
He disappeared in a poof, the only proof that he had been there in the first place being the dripped tomato sauce and loose feathers on the ground which had fallen off at some point during their meeting.
Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto wordlessly met each others eyes.
Naruto grinned nervously. "Well, that was fun?"
Sasuke shook his head. "Ugh. I hope he doesn't fail us tomorrow because of your prank."
"Hey, at least we'll fail together," Sakura comforted them.
They all sighed in unison.
Little did they know, in a small bar on the other side of town, Kakashi was sighing loudly as well.
"I really hate my genin, Genma" the silver-haired jounin complained to his friend.
The senbon-user grinned, taking in his tomato sauce and feather covered appearance. "You got Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto didn't you?"
Kakashi nodded soundlessly and slumped onto the counter of the bartender.
The next morning dawned bright and early, and Sakura found herself urgently shaking Naruto's shoulder to try and get him to wake up at exactly five-forty-five.
"Naruto," she hissed loudly, "we're going to be late!"
The blond mumbled something incoherent and rolled over. Sakura shook him harder.
"Naruto! Wake up!"
"Just a few minutes, Sakura" he groaned, resolutely clenching his eyes shut.
She yanked his blanket away from him, and he just barely managed to grab it in time, leaving him hanging onto one end and her holding onto the other. Sakura tugged again, and this time Naruto rolled out of the bed and onto the floor, still determinedly clutching his blanket like a lifeline.
Even after hitting the ground of his bedroom, the boy curled up into a ball and continued to slumber. Sakura groaned, exasperated, and pinched her nose.
"Sasuke-chan, can you bring some cold water over here?" She called out to the other occupant of the small apartment. Within moments Sasuke appeared, carrying a large bowl filled with ice cold water.
"Hn," he grunted, passing the water to her.
Sakura ripped the blanket off Naruto and dumped the entire bowl of water onto his head in one fluid motion. Instantly the boy sat up, sputtering.
"Agh! What was that for, Sakura?" He cried earsplittingly.
Sasuke stared dismissively down at him. "Hurry up, we're going to be late."
Naruto instantly sprung up, rushing to the door still dressed in his nightgown. "That's right! We've got Kakashi-sensei's stupid test thing today! Let's go," he yelled.
She couldn't help but rub her forehead for a moment before running after him. "Naruto, you need to get dressed, you idiot!"
It was only at about six-fifteen that the three genin arrived at training ground three, all out of breath, and Naruto sporting a large bump on his head. Not that it mattered, Kakashi wasn't even there yet.
Sakura wordlessly sat down and leaned back, lying down on the grass-covered ground of the training area.
"I'm going to catch up on some much needed sleep. Good night guys," she said to the other two. Naruto and Sasuke both followed her example and lay down on either side of her.
"Good night Sakura" Naruto said cheerfully, instantly followed by a loud snore. The blond had the uncanny ability to fall asleep in a second.
And that was exactly how Kakashi found his three genin four hours later, sleeping peacefully in the middle of training grounds three. Despite himself, he found a slight smile on his face.
Sakura woke up to a masked face right above hers. Dark black eyes looked down into her green ones, and she felt the tickle of a few strands of his gravity-defying silver hair brushing against her forehead.
"Wakey, wakey, Sakura-chan! It's not very nice to sleep right through a meeting with your new sensei," Kakashi crowed.
Sakura tried to hit him, but quickly noticed she couldn't move any of her limbs except her neck. Kakashi finally moved away a bit from her, and she noticed that both Naruto and Sasuke were tied up as well, their arms and legs pinned to the ground by ninja wire wrapped around kunai. The masked shinobi quickly woke up the other two boys as well, and soon all three were glaring at him hatefully.
"Ah! My cute little genin team," Kakashi greeted cheerfully. Sasuke glared and Naruto tried to yell but quickly found he couldn't because of a piece of cloth stuffed inside his mouth like a gag.
"As I told you yesterday, I'm going to be testing you today to see if you get to become a true genin of Konoha… or if you get sent back to the academy."
"Get to the point, Sensei" Sakura hissed.
"Never mind, you guys are definitely not cute," Kakashi said, sniffing. Sakura rolled her eyes. The jounin tossed down three scrolls, one landing beside each of them.
"I just gave you your team acceptance forms. Each jounin-sensei is required to deliver three of them, one for each student, to the Hokage by the end of today. Failing to do so will mean the team is officially disbanded and all the students get sent back to the academy to re-do their last year. As you can probably guess, your task is to deliver these in my place, and my mission is to stop you."
Sasuke scoffed a bit, and Kakashi seemed to droop.
"Hey! It's not that easy! There's another twist: Only the first two genin to deliver their scrolls to the Hokage will be accepted. The last one will be sent back to the academy. Of course, there's always the chance that none of you will make it."
"So is it a race, Sensei?"
Kakashi smiled at her, the same annoying eye crinkle in place as the day before. "Almost, Sakura-chan. The thing is, I've given you the wrong scrolls. Each one of you has the acceptance form of one of the others, meaning you will have to fight your teammate and retrieve your own scroll before even attempting to try and make it to the Hokage tower."
The three frowned, and Naruto tried to yell something, which came out inaudible and muffled.
"Well, I gotta be off now. Traps and important stuff like that," Kakashi said, lazily lifting a hand as if to wave them goodbye. He walked away, practically skipping, leaving the trio of irate genin still bound up and immobile.
Sakura groaned.
She couldn't form handseals with the way Kakashi had tied her up, but he hadn't placed any sort of restrictions on her chakra. Carefully sending out a strand of it from her right hand, the way Itachi had taught her during one of their control exercises years ago, she formed a chakra string to connect to one of the kunai the wire binding her was attached to. Sakura yanked it out of the ground with a sharp tug, and relished the freedom she now had over her right arm.
She immediately reached over her body to release her left arm as well, and rubbed it a bit to get her blood circulating again. Within a few seconds the ninja wire around her legs were gone too, and she stood up, wobbling only slightly.
"You guys need a bit of help?"
Sasuke glared, and Naruto yelled something else, muffled by his gag. Sakura laughed and helped un-tie both of them, removing the cloth from Naruto's mouth.
"So what do we do?" She asked, with a hint of seriousness, once all three of them were free.
Naruto looked a bit glum, and Sasuke contemplative.
"I don't either of you to go back to the academy," Naruto admitted. "I'll help you two deliver your scrolls to the old man Hokage."
"Tch. Stupid."
"Sasuke-chan's right Naruto, we're not going to leave you behind. I've got an odd feeling about this though, as if Kakashi didn't tell us something."
Sasuke unrolled the scroll their teacher had tossed him and quickly scanned over its contents. "Well, I've got yours Sakura. It seems pretty real, it has a signature and everything, approving you to become an active genin of Konoha."
"Does it mention anything about a team?" Sakura asked, frowning.
"Nothing. Just the individual."
"But Sasuke-chan, aren't genin supposed to be put into teams until they become chunin? That's what Iruka-sensei said, right?"
Sasuke was quiet for a few moments, his brain whirring. "Kakashi was trying to trick us," he suddenly said, with certainty in his voice. "He gave us the wrong scrolls."
"Good thinking Sasuke-chan. I bet he has the real ones on him, and we have to get those before we can bring them to the Hokage."
"It still doesn't solve our problem about only two people being able to pass though."
"We'll figure that out when the time comes," Sakura promised. "For now, let's go steal some scrolls from Kakashi-sensei!"
It was only an hour later that they finally found their sensei, relaxing under a large tree near the outskirts of the village.
"I thought he said he was going to prepare traps to stop us!" Naruto yelled in disbelief.
Sakura rolled her eyes. "He probably guessed we'd figure out that he gave us fake scrolls, so he waited for us to find him."
Sasuke hastily shushed them, as Kakashi glanced up suspiciously from his book for a moment to look around.
All three genin were hiding behind a bush at the moment, planning on how to steal the scrolls from their sensei.
"He's obviously not going to have them in plain sight," Sakura mused, "so the first priority is trapping him long enough for us to search his belongings."
"He's a jounin, we won't be able to immobilize him through force, despite the weak impression he gave us. We have to somehow trick him."
"I can do my signature sexy-jutsu henge!" Naruto offered enthusiastically.
Sasuke was about to harshly turn down Naruto's plan, when suddenly Sakura saw the cover of the book Kakashi was reading. She narrowed her eyes. "Actually, that's not a bad idea Naruto. He's literally reading porn in public right now."
The blond seemed ready to burst with excitement. "Hehehe, I practiced this for so long at the academy. You can count on me, Sakura!"
Sasuke thought about it for a moment, not really able to find any valid counterargument. "Alright, Naruto can try his stupid jutsu."
"Make sure not to peek when he's doing it, Sasuke-chan," Sakura said, laughing. "Ok, here's the plan. I'll set up a fuinjutsu trapping circle in the forest over there. It's relatively simple, so I doubt it will hold Kakashi-sensei very long, but I don't really know how to make it any stronger yet. I'll try and hide the trap with a genjutsu, but it won't work unless you guys keep him completely distracted. Make sure to subtly lead him into the center of the sealing circle, alright?"
Sasuke nodded seriously, and Sakura quickly examined the forest around them. "I'll make it right there," she said, pointing to a small patch of grass clear of any tree roots.
"Ok, on the count of three."
"1"
"2"
Naruto burst into the clearing and pointed his finger straight at Kakashi. "Found you, lazy-sensei!"
Sakura and Sasuke sighed in unison, before the latter jumped out to help his friend.
The battle was on.