Changing Stances

By

Archerelf

-

author's note: Sorry for the lateness and the spell errors….I'm burnt out…..

No flames please, if you don't like it, then don't read it.

--

Sakura hit the snooze button on her alarm clock as soon as it when off at 8:00 in the morning. She just did not want to get up. Nobody could really blame her either. It was Monday. She had a training stint (3 hours!) to go to today, and instead of seeing Naruto and Sasuke, or even Sai and Yamato, she got to see Hyuuga Neji and Aburame Shino.

Two boys who she knew almost nothing about. And now she got to try to beat them up for three hours. Well, every job has its perks. But then after that, she got to go to the hospital until nightfall at least.

Sakura did not like this idea at all and she had already vocally expressed her concerns. Tsunade didn't actually seem to care about the possible ramifications. What Sakura was least happy about were the two people she got stuck with. If anything, Shino and Neji were two of the smarter ones in the whole Rookie 9 but with bigger intelligence comes bigger ego and less willingness to compromise.

The clock now read 8:15. She pulled herself out of bed and traveled downstairs for food.

The whole thing was wrong. Tsunade was pulling apart teams that had become like families to each other. Sakura knew that Naruto and Sasuke were her support group. Kakashi made the list too, even. Sai, not so much. He had too much a tendency to insult her, even if he meant well, and generally, he and Naruto never worked well together.

Now that Sasuke was back…well, Sakura would rather not remember that particularly busy night that she nearly had to reattach two legs, an eye, and five of the seven wrist bones. Sait let slip a comment about Sasuke and Sakura just stood by with the medical equipment. It took Yamato, Naruto and Kakashi combined to pull them off each other.

Then again, it's not like she disliked being a doctor at all. It made her feel useful, because some people are always going to get hurt. Take Naruto, for example. He got healed more often by Sakura than almost anyone else she had ever seen.

Tsunade often spoke of how proud she was of her, which no other student had taken to medical jutsu like she had. Ino was in the same program, just much further behind. Sakura liked medicine. There were very few people in the village that knew how to wield a chakra blade. It was such a change from her Genin days.

She couldn't work under pressure back then. Years of training under a fierce, powerful sensei had to get used to a intense atmosphere. Some days, she almost wished for an emergency, blasphemously, to get her heart racing and the chakra flowing.

Sakura slipped upstairs and pulled on her clothes.

8:30. She had an hour and a half to kill.

--

Long before Sakura had even left REM sleep, Neji was up and meditating. He found it more relaxing than sleep and when done right, almost more invigorating. Usually, he beat the maids to waking up and most of his other family. Branch AND Main House, thank you very much. Hinata would sleep until 8 or so. He was willing to let her sleep as long as she didn't mutter the occasional, "…Naruto" in her sleep. That was a habit he preferred she'd break.

Neji's mouth twisted into a little smirk. He was actually looking forward today to training with Aburame Shino and Haruno Sakura. Both were intelligent and capable. He wanted a bit of a change from the usual routine. Not that he wanted to fully get rid of his team, but a small vacation would be nice.

So. He got the medic and the bug user, an interesting combination. Almost all of the Rookie 9 had seen Sakura in action already, most had gone to the hospital after missions at one point or another.

Now, he got to see her famous ground punching skills and chakra precision. Shino, now that was an interesting character.

He allows thousands of bugs access to his body and systems and systematically draws them forth and has them suck the chakra from other sources. Fascinating. Not to mention a little creepy, but every good ninja has their drawbacks.

He decided to go eat. Can't try to block the chakra points of others without some nourishment.

-

They all arrived at about the same time, Neji leaning against a tree, Shino with his hands in his pockets and Sakura looking anxious. She could already hear the other grounds full of life. She just felt nauseous. Easily mistaken for butterflies in stomach. She sighed, knowing that there was no way out of this.

She had spent most of her night coming up with reasons why it shouldn't happen. Of course, she had already outlined most of the reasons in her head and to the Godaime.

They spent a good five minutes in silence, awkwardly looking at each other back and forth.

"Just waiting on Gai-sensei then?" Sakura offered. No one said anything. It was better than complete silence. She was used to the playful banter of her team and not hearing it just felt odd. She was so attuned to Kakashi sensei randomly interjecting comments, Naruto's yelling, Sasuke's smirking and while she thought getting a vacation from it might calm her nerves, but she wasn't usually wrong.

This time, she was. Neji looked at her like she was idiot, and Shino didn't move. She was beginning to wonder if he was still alive on that tree.

Shino stood in silence as per usual. He usually did. Kiba was undoubtedly the loudest person there. Hinata barely made a peep and Shino just liked his quiet. Then Kurenai would show up, announce the day's activates and they'd get to work. Shino usually liked his team. Hinata was dependable and loyal, if a bit shy, and Kiba was fierce and funny, not unlike Naruto.

Now, he was with the moody Hyuuga and the happy medic. He wasn't unhappy with the choices; it would just take some getting used to. To be honest, Shino didn't care much about the edict of the Hokage. He knew something like this would happen to disrupt the teams and such.

He was a ninja, and was used to such change.

Gai, on the other hand, was doing something that wasn't very ninja-like: he was reading profiles about his new pupils and running on rooftops at the same time. He knew he was late, but his morning jog around Konoha ran a littler later than he thought.

He cursed his lateness, promising more laps later and wondered how his protégé was doing. He knew that Lee would be fine in another group, but he had no idea what he was getting himself into with his current one.

The possibilities intrigued him; the Godaime's first apprentice and the boy from the Aburame clan. He was working with all chakra based nins. Neji, he was used to training, just not on the same level as Lee. He knew that he'd end up training Sakura similar to Lee: with her strength, she could do so much more than she was working at now.

He was looking forward to Sakura, he had heard she was kind, but took after the Godaime: fierce temper with a sucker punch to match.

Of course, with Tenten, he was used to specializations, which is basically what he was doing again for that Shino kid.

Gai landed neatly and put his trademark smile and stance to work. Sakura managed a weak smile, but Neji remained expressionless. He was used to Gai's eccentricities. Shino was intrigued but didn't show it. He wondered what he could do with his own bug abilities. He had seen the Chunin exams and expected much of Neji, Lee and Tenten.

Gai sighed; he missed Lee's chipper.

He looked on the new kids: one looked bored, the other seemed nervous. Oh well, time to break the ice.

"Neji, I've seen what you can do, so for now, just warm up. Sakura and Shino, attack me."

"What?" Sakura asked, floored. She was taken back to the bell exercise with Kakashi. Well that wasn't a first for her, she had been told attack Kakashi before. But she never really got over the fact they were asking her to punch her trainers into oblivion.

"I said, attack me. Don't pull punches, I'm a Jounin, I can handle it." He flashed his signature smile and jumped back two hundred feet.

Sakura turned to Shino, mystified. Pulling out her gloves she quipped, "Well, he said not to hold back." Shino nodded and smiled. He had an idea. Of course, no one would be able to tell, with all the facial coverings he had on.

Gai looked from across the field: Shino was whispering something to Sakura. Her face remained passive, most likely to throw Gai off. He was ready for a challenge.

"GO!"

Sakura immediately took the offensive, and charged. She started to zigzag quickly and disappeared from the visible spectrum. Gai immediately jumped and went into a spinning kick to deflect her. In her hands were senbons, tips gleaming with some sort of unmentionable substance. Once those were thrown, and deflected, kunai and shuriken took their place.

Sakura immediately thought back to what Shino had told her. "Remember the Chunin exams? I'm going to place several bugs on you. Make knick in his skin and we can go from there."

She immediately understood his intent. All she had to do was get close enough to make a cut on his skin and Shino's bugs would instinctively take over.

The battle between them went on for another ten minutes or so. She felt like she was sparring with Lee again because Gai and Lee had all the same habits.

She felt uneasy about the bugs, she could feel them on her shoulder. Sakura couldn't tell how Shino got used to them.

Neji looked from the side at Shino and again at Sakura. He seemed bored stiff and he was making Sakura do all the work. She was chasing Gai up and down the entire field. Neji oscillated his head at Shino, who didn't seem perturbed. A large boom snapped his head back into focus.

Sakura had made a dent in the earth that could easily house the foundations of Hokage Tower. Tsunade would have been proud.

She was getting tired. The sun was beating down on her and frankly, she wanted to end the battle. Gai was a marvelous strategist and he knew that she was getting tired.

She channeled her chakra into her hands to make chakra scalpels. In a move Naruto might consider cheating, she elbowed Gai in the throat and made two long slices down his arms. The bugs immediately jumped off her and imbedded themselves in the wound.

Gai hadn't actually expected her to play dirty, but he couldn't fault her for it. He couldn't remember how many times he had defeated an enemy or stared down a nin and had to resort to some tactic that would have made one of his teammates cringe.

He cringed as he felt their bodies moving inside his arms. He felt positively sick by it.

He put up his bleeding wrists as a sign of peace and they both landed. By now, many Shino's bugs had flocked to the bloodshed and the wound was full of black.

Both Neji and Shino calmly walked over. Sakura grimaced.

"Call off the bugs."
"Why?"

"I have to clean the wound and I can't do that with a thousand legs in the way."

Slowly, the critters gathered in his hands in streams. Black, crawly streams. Ew.

Neji looked on in interest. He appreciated Sakura's ability already. Appreciated is the key word because he rarely liked people. Shino was still a mystery. He had style though, Neji had to admit.

Gai looked a bit pale. He actually hadn't expected to bleed, but he was proud of her already. She was sort of like Tenten, but had a more substantial right hook.

"I'm sorry, Sensei." Sakura fired the chakra back up in her hands and went over the wounds. They zipped up neatly and left only a small pink mark in his torn sleeves. Gai frowned, he never had any students apologize to him for harming him.

When she was done, she stepped back respectfully.

"Believe it or not, I had an inkling that you were going to do that. I was at the Chunin Exams too," he said bemused. He thought back to the complicated time.

"Shino. You never do any physical combat do you? We'll have to work on that." He turned to face his other pupil.

"Sakura. You are a testament to Tsunade's training, but we still have a while to go."

"Neji. What do you think?" Sakura rolled her eyes and Shino internally groaned. Neji was a perfectionist first and a genius second. Both of them knew whatever he said would probably be riddled with complaints or snide remarks.

Neji opened his mouth and then focused his prized eyes on his new teammates expressions. Sakura's was of mild disapproval.Shino's was unperceivable.

Neji was confused. He wasn't used to being looked down upon. He had endured taunts only once and a while. He then took it upon himself to 'teach' them why they called him a prodigy. Most of the time people just admired him. Tenten was like that, and Lee's cheer and constant support made this change odd. Exceedingly so.

"Sakura needs help with her stamina and Shino should probably learn some actual combat skills."

Sakura wasn't surprised in the least. Nothing he said was new to her. Girls naturally have less stamina than guys; that was Tsunade's first lesson. The second was to make the most of what she did have, hence the craters in the ground.

Shino snorted when he heard of what Neji proposed. He never did any real combat. He wondered if he still knew how to throw shuriken and kunai properly.

"However, both have exceptional chakra control."

Sakura perked up at the rare compliment. Gai smiled.

"I personally think that Tsunade put you three together for a reason. All of you have best chakra control of the 'Rookies'. But you can all learn something from each other. Shino, I want to train you further in combat. Sakura, you have to further stamina levels. Neji, you have to work on your interpersonal skills. There's also something else I think you can learn from these two. That you'll have to figure out for yourself."

Neji bristled.
"I'm a Jounin, what else can I learn from Chunin?"

"You're not as infallible as you think you are," Sakura called softly. She crossed her hands in front of her and both started to glow a light green. "Can you tell which is the scalpel?" She asked.

With difficulty, Neji shook his head. Just once.

"Or did you happen to see the few bugs on your shoulder?" Her hands stopped glowing. "I think I know the lesson that Gai-sensei wants you to learn. It was one that took my team a while too. Rank doesn't matter."

Neji was slightly shaken even if he didn't want to admit it. He often prided himself on being the best in whatever he did. He did recognize that there are those who smarter than he is, but those were few and far between. "I doubt that. In this system rank is everything."

Sakura closed her eyes and shook her head. "And suddenly it all makes sense why she put us together."

She had to concede that he was right to a certain point. In the system that they had, the missions went to those on certain levels. The Jounin exams were coming up in half a year, and Sakura knew Tsunade would recommend her. But rank wasn't always indicative of skill. Technically both Neji and Sasuke were on ANBU level. Sasuke especially. But the exams could be tricky. Sometimes the smallest things could trip you up, or you could get by on sheer dumb luck.

Some people like Iruka-sensei could have tested higher probably but just didn't want to. He had found his calling teacher younger ninja generations.

Gai watched the scene unfold with interest. All three were defensive with each other. Sakura, normally the peace maker decided to take a more personal role in her new team, one that shouted that she wouldn't be stepped on anymore. Neji was most defensive about his tentative position of captain.

He knew he was good, but he also knew that he was with people as skilled with chakra as he was. Not to mention, he was sort of annoyed that he couldn't find immediate weaknesses of his new team. Shino, as usual was staying back, and Gai couldn't figure out how he would interact.

"Okay! To start, 50 laps around the city!"

All three got up and took off without complaint. Shino and Sakura were evenly matched for speed.

Shino detested running. He always got tired easily and it seemed like a pointless waste. All that energy lost going in circles.

Sakura didn't mind the laps as much. It reminded her back in her Genin days to the training exercises. Kakashi had modified the bell exercise to involve stealth, so the two without the bell would take off after the solo one. That had been sporadic with occasional bursts of speed. She fell into a rhythm soon. But time would be against them. Konoha wasn't exactly small, so the laps took most of their training time. Neji ended a full five minutes ahead of them.

On her way around she heard shouts of Rasengan and saw fire spewing. She missed her boys. It just wasn't the same.

Shino similarly heard the barks of Akamaru and bursts of Hinata's chakra. They knew him better than anyone. Kurenai-sensei had guided him through a boot camp of sorts, as she had with all of them. Hinata had needed special care but she was better off today because of it. Shino could just imagine Akamaru and Kiba spiraling towards an invisible, while Hinata blocked the chakra points of another.

He gazed sideways. Sakura seemed nice enough, and she made it clear that she wasn't going to be bullied into submission. He would have expected nothing less of the Godaime's assistant.

Sakura immediately knew how Lee got to be so good at taijutsu. With training of this intensity every day, it was no small feat to be where he was.

Both landed in front of Gai panting slightly. His smile was brilliant in the hot sun.

"Okay, now 200 push ups! Show the power of youth!"

At about 137, he abruptly announced, "Sakura-san! Tomorrow I'll outfit you with the same weights that Lee wears! And you won't be able to take them off until I think you're ready."

"Shino-san. Tomorrow you'll work on target practice. Neji will be your target!'

She paled expectantly. She saw that those weights created big craters at the exams. She always experimentally wondered what they'd do for her….Be careful what you wish for, eh?

It was official; Gai was out of his mind.
When he let them go, Sakura turned and saw Sasuke trudging toward her. He seemed fine, if a bit edgy.

"I'm on my way to the hospital. If you have anything broken, I can't do it now." She knew that if Tsunade knew she was coming to duty running on empty, she'd get a sound lashing for her troubles. Then again, it was Tsunade's edict in the first place that landed her in this mess.

Sakura knew she was going to be downing a few soldier pills tonight.

"I'm fine. Your house tonight?" He questioned, never missing a beat.

"Yeah, tell Naruto if you see him." In a flash, Sasuke was gone. And she had never been so unhappy to see the white doors of the hospital.

--

Neji felt troubled. His normal concentration was shot. Both Lee and Tenten were loud and happy. He fed off of it. He honestly needed something to balance out his stoic and independent nature and that polar opposite came in the forms of his teammates.

Sakura was…calm, but not happy. She had a chip on her shoulder unlike the other girls. Shino kept to himself as always. Tsunade put the three relatively serious ninja in the same team. There was no balance at all.

No yin or yang.

His scowl grew more pronounced than usual. A pit of annoyance settled into his chest. And he didn't know what to do to rectify it.

Finally, he pulled the phone out of its cradle and called Tenten.

--

Shino went back to his house. As he ate gingerly, he focused his thoughts to the training. He didn't have any real problems with the new teams. Sakura seemed nice enough, he reasoned, and he could tell she was serious about her training.

That was a plus, he supposed. Neji had an attitude problem, but in a way, he was used to cocky ninja. Kiba was friendly but occasionally he was over competitive. Shino supposed it was a similar situation.

--

"Wow, Sakura-chan, you look beat," commented Naruto.

She opened a lazy eye at him. They were settled in her living room with a plate of food each in front of them. It was close to 8:30 and she was, in fact, beat.

"Gai's completely insane. I have a greater respect for Lee-san and Neji-san. That and hospital duty was no picnic."

Sasuke sat, sated with the food. It was customary for their team to converse around Sakura's living room. She usually cooked, or if not, then they went for ramen. It was better than being in an empty house for both Sasuke and Naruto. They'd talk about training, missions, life: anything that was on their minds.

Sakura was lying haphazardly on her couch. Sasuke took an adjacent chair and Naruto sat on a nearby stool. She sighed. Naruto started to tell a story about his new team.

Quickly, and unexpectedly, a she tensed into a shiver.

Naruto noticed first and Sasuke frowned.

"Sakura-chan! What's wrong? Cold?"

She opened her eyes and brought her hand to her face.

"I'm sorry Naruto. I think I'm just overtired."

"That isn't it." Sasuke untensed beside her. He was right. The man had more than the five usual senses.

She sighed. "Did you ever get a feeling that something really bad was going to happen? And then it did? Mark my words, something's wrong."

"Consider them marked. I agree. I've felt like that for a while." Sasuke spoke up.

"What, with the teams? Baba-chan?" Naruto asked.

"I don't know, but whatever's going to go one, we're going to be in the heart of it."

She didn't know how right she was.

--

Sorry for the pseudo cliffhanger. Anyway, next time the Naruto, Kiba, Ino team.

Please Read and Review!