The Backside of the Rose

Golden Warrior

Hello, hello! This is frickin' miracle, 3 chapters in 10 days. Awesome, isn't it? XD

Anyways, I've seen confusion as to whether this is a NaruxSasu, which it isn't. It's also not a SasuxSaku. This fic is about the youngsters, but the pairing is NaruxSaku. I hope this doesn't upset anyone, but I've stated it from the summary of the fic. Hopes this clears things up.

Without further stalling, I present the 5th chapter, Sakura's Training!

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"So, Sakura. Are you ready to begin?" Kakashi asked, ready to began teaching his student.

"Yes, sensei. What are you going to work on first with me?" Sakura asked.

"We're going to work on your horrific stamina and strength. It's almost like you and Naruto are dead-opposites. Most of the pre-ninja in the academy have higher stamina than you do. There's also another thing, you have no will power, or confidence in yourself. It's a deadly combo, Sakura and Naruto are two-peas in a pod, feeding off each other, and Sasuke is all-around skilled...though he has many flaws. This could be the strongest team since…Maybe my own. It's the fact of how powerful Naruto and Sakura's strengths are at their current level that amazes me. Sakura's Chakra control is past even Iruka's, and a few jounin.

Sakura sighed in frustration, obviously knowing her sensei was trying to capitalize on her weaknesses. "Alright then, I'm ready." She responded, still unsure if this would even work. She'd tried as long as she could remember to fix this problem, perhaps years. Now, Kakashi would try to fix it in a few days? This was a little too much.

Kakashi, nonetheless, presented her with something she had not expected. It was new apparel to be worn on her training sessions and missions.

"Clothes?" Sakura piped. (1)

"Weighted clothes." Kakashi corrected. These weights were definitely way too much for even Naruto and Sasuke to handle. He knew this would be a long stretch. He smiled to himself. This was a girl who worked extremely hard to achieve where she was now. Just by examining Iruka's report about her, he could tell she could possibly succeed.

"Sensei, I've tried this before. It won't work. I know that it's a temporary thing that only sticks with you if you stick with it. My muscles are naturally too small to handle these." Sakura explained.

"Nonesense; these are extremely weighted compared to anything you could've had access to before hand." Kakashi assured. "So, just put them on."

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Fifteen minutes later, Sakura thought her sensei was insane. She literally could not move her legs or arms. The weights had forced her onto the ground, and she couldn't pick herself up.

"S-sensei, I can't move" Sakura whined.

"I noticed. For now, you need to feed chakra into the weights to get them to work. At first, you won't be able to move, so by feeding chakra, it'll remove some weight so you can move and begin training. Then, after your body adjusts to the weights, it'll increase the weights until you can't feed more. The goal is to get you to that point, and then have you move as fast as you can with the weights on as now." Kakashi told her, shooting down her hope, and hopping to get her focused in on this extreme training.

Sakura stared wide-eyed, like she'd had a needle jabbed through her rear. How was she supposed to move her fastest now as when she was wearing these things?

"Now, feed 30 of your maximum chakra into the weights, Sakura." Kakashi instructed.

"Okay" Sakura complied, and did as she was told. The weights were increasingly less heavy, yet she could barely move.

"Good. Now, stand up." Kakashi commanded, and Sakura did just that. "I want 100 punches with each fist, and 100 kicks with each leg. Tell me when you are finished; I'll be over there-"Kakashi pointed to a tree, more specifically under the tree in the shade, "reading my book".

Sakura nodded grimly, and began the long training session.

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About three hours later, Sakura's first part of the training was completed. Each punch and each kick took a very long time to execute. She could barely stand right now, let alone waddle over to Kakashi and tell him she was finished. But, she managed to do it anyway.

"K-kakashi-sensei, I'm finished" Sakura stammered.

"Alright then, take five there. But only five minutes." Kakashi said.

Sakura didn't listen, she just knelt down, and rested her back against the ground, quietly recovering energy from her training.

After five minutes, Kakashi told her to run laps until he was finished with his book… which was only thirty more pages, so only a half-an hour. She ran at a solid pace, concentrating with her mind and soul to finish the task at hand.

"Alright, I'm done." Kakashi closed his book, and Sakura stopped. Kakashi went over to Sakura to offer her some water, but she immediately collapsed on the spot, and landed in Kakashi's arms.

Knowing she was through for the day, he brought her back to the camp, and let her rest. (2)He then went out and began his own training, something he'd not followed up with since he was assigned a team.

I wonder how Sakura will handle this… Kakashi formed a tiger seal…

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Sakura poked her eyes open just after she arose from her unconsciousness. Peering outside, she only saw darkness, or absolute nothingness. Frightened, she figured this would be a genjutsu, and bit her lip to wake her up from the jutsu. But, she didn't wake up, instead, she fell out of her tent, swirling into nothingness, as she cried out for help. A maniacal laugh could be heard from Sakura's viewpoint, scaring her further. She kept falling and falling until she landed on a very hard surface…

And woke up. Sakura blinked twice, and looked around. The darkness still was visible, only it wasn't evil, she could sense. It was the darkness of the night, which had just settled in by the way. Peering outside again, she was sure not to take a step in fright of falling. But as she looked around, she could tell this was reality, and got up again. She walked outside, and then turned to see a figure lying out on the ground.

She ran over to the figure, who she could tell was a man. He had long black hair, and a set of elegant earrings. His face was a pale as a sheet, and his eyes reminded her very much of a snake. Rolling him over on his back, she was about to check his injuries, when the man turned and grinned a psychotic grin, scaring the daylights out of her.

"You, you can't stop it from happening. I'll take the one whom you love most away from you. Or really, he will come to me on his own free will." The snake-eyed man informed her, and then cackled like a witch. Sakura was terrified of this man, and she ran away quickly, who was still laughing like a maniac. She noticed his words echoed with her as she ran into darkness, never ceasing to haunt her.

"You can't stop it from happening… He will come to me on his own free will!"

Sakura's eyes shot open with a scream. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she was cold-sweating all over. Her eyes shook back and forth, making sure the snake-man wasn't there anymore.

Okay, okay. Maybe this is another part to the dream, so I'm going to stay in here until Kakashi sensei comes. Sakura told herself.

Sooner than later, Kakashi could be heard running into her tent, with his visible eye closed to give her privacy, if she had needed it. Although she deeply needed the opposite of privacy.

"Sakura, may I look?" Kakashi questioned out of respect.

"Y-yes" Sakura replied, still very shaky.

"I heard you scream, are you okay? What on earth happened? You look terrible." Kakashi asked.

"I had a nightmare, nothing serious." Sakura told him. She didn't want to frighten her sensei or burden him with her senseless dreams of how a snake-eyed freak would try to take Sasuke from her.

Kakashi seemed to consider this for some time, before breaking the silence and asking her a question.

"Sakura, please tell me about your dream, if it's not too personal"

Sakura sighed, and explained the dream from start to finish to her mentor.

"The name of the man you met was Orochimaru." Kakashi said.

"W-What he said about taking Sasuke away from us… will it happen?" Sakura asked, hoping for an 'Are you kidding? Of course not!' answer.

"I don't know, anything is possible. But the dream you had, it was I who gave it to you." Kakashi informed her.

"What? Why would you do that?" Sakura asked him.

"Sakura, you need to learn a lesson before you continue training." Kakashi said sternly.

"What is it? I'm jealous? I knew that already." Sakura laughed.

"No, it's not." Kakashi shot her down. "It's how you interact with your other teammate that worries me"

"What? You mean Naruto? He's nothing great. Look at his abilities and grades. He comes from no clan, he has no parents to teach him, he has one jutsu, unlike Sasuke who has many fire-techniques, and his personality annoys us all." Sakura said, crossing her arms.

"Sakura, from what I perceive you don't like Naruto because something happened between you. Please, share it." Kakashi asked politely.

"It's nothing! It's just bothered me my whole life how Naruto just-" Sakura tried to rant, but she was cut off with a wave of Kakashi.

"Sakura" Kakashi then sighed. "I'll see you tomorrow." He exited her tent.

Sheesh, what's his problem? Sakura thought to herself.

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Well, that's it for this one! Hope you liked it! Please, reviews are awesome! Keep them up!

By the way, I think you'll notice soon that I'm making a separate training chapter for each character. I think I'll do three or four training chapters for each character. Sorry, if this slows everything down, but I feel it'll help overall

Peace out!

Golden Warrior