"…and then he just said we all passed and walked off. He didn't even wait to see if Sakura-chan was going to be okay!"

While the indignation in Naruto's voice was rather flattering, Sakura supposed, the volume at which he was speaking was seriously aggravating her headache. Not for the first time, she wondered why she had agreed to come to dinner with her friends when all she really wanted to do was lie on her soft bed in her cool, dark room far away from loud noises and bright lights. She had read about the effects of chakra exhaustion on the body, but the dry, clinical textbook descriptions only reflected reality in the most superficial of ways.

But we passed! some part of her mind exulted. All three of us, and now I'm a real ninja and we're going to be training and doing missions together! The happiness she gained from that thought was almost enough to overshadow the bone-deep aching in her body, and she managed a brief smile.

"Didn't I tell you two not to give up your chances at passing for me?" she asked, glaring mock-seriously at Naruto and Hinata. "I even made you promise, if I remember right."

Naruto stubbornly stuck out his jaw. "No, you made us promise we wouldn't give you one of the bells when we got them, and we didn't," he said. "So you can't yell at us, because we gave them to Kakashi-sensei, not you."

"It was scary," Hinata admitted, flushing a little. "It was hard to tell, with his mask and everything, but I thought he might actually hurt you. That thing you did with the circle on the ground and the blue light—the seal—really made him mad, I think."

"Or afraid," Sakura murmured, so quietly she was sure the others couldn't have heard her. The idea that one of the most powerful jounin in the village was afraid of her was not a pleasant one. He had passed their team in the end, though, so whatever he thought couldn't have been that bad—unless he had only done so in order to be able to keep an eye on her. She thought that rather unlikely, based on Naruto's retelling of what had happened while she had been unconscious, but it was still possible.

Ino leaned forward across the table. "Hey, yeah!" she said. "I know we didn't learn anything like that at the academy. Have you been training without us, Sakura-chan?" Beside her, Chouji and Shikamaru looked up from their meals, all three turning identical curious looks on Sakura, while Naruto and Hinata still appeared interested even though they had already heard her explanation once.

Great, Sakura barely managed to keep from groaning aloud. Sarutobi-shishou is going to kill me. Given who her teammates were, it had been an easy decision to share the details of her lessons with them, but apparently she had failed to emphasize enough that they needed to keep it a secret. She wasn't worried about what her friends might think, but their parents' probable reactions—even Ino's, who had come to genuinely like her over the past several years—were a completely different matter.

"I'm sorry," she said, her heart sinking as she saw their disappointed looks. "My teacher made me promise I would only say anything to my teammates. I really do want to tell you, but I can't. Please…don't get mad at me?"

Much to her surprise, the three of them nodded. "I guess it's like the lessons my dad has been giving me, huh?" Ino said. "I'm not really supposed to talk about those either, since they're our family techniques. But can you at least tell us who your teacher is? Since…well…"

The blonde girl trailed off, blushing scarlet in embarrassment as Chouji glared at her, and even Shikamaru managed to look mildly reproving. While Sakura appreciated her friends' sensitivity towards the subject of her family, she couldn't help but be somewhat amused at the way they interacted. They would be a good team, she had a feeling, if they didn't end up killing each other first.

"It's okay," she said, smiling tiredly. "My guardian has been teaching me, since I don't really…have anyone else." The familiar pang of sadness came, strengthened by the memory of seeing her father's name on the memorial stone that morning, but it quickly faded as she looked around her at the faces of her friends.

"So, what did you have to do for your test?" she asked, hoping to dispel the pensive mood that seemed to have settled over the table.

Ino's face brightened, and she and Chouji snickered. "Oh, nothing much," she said airily. "There's an old shack a little ways outside the village walls, and Asuma-sensei gave us three hours to find it and get the katana he hid in it. He 'forgot' to mention it was trapped, though, so—mmph!"

"That," Shikamaru pronounced, retrieving his chopsticks from where he had stuffed a large clump of noodles into Ino's mouth, "was a very troublesome shack. I think the details are unnecessary, as we did pass the test. Eventually."

Wide-eyed and trying desperately not to laugh, Sakura nodded along with her teammates. She would have to make certain to get the whole story out of Ino later on, when Shikamaru wasn't around to interrupt. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Naruto had a mischievous grin on his face, and she wondered what he was up to.

"Does that mean you're not upset about not being on the same team as a certain other genin, Ino-chan?" he asked, his grin widening even further. "Say, one with black hair, black eyes, and the silliest red and white…Ino-chan? Are you okay?"

Ino was coughing violently, apparently choking on her noodles, but she waved Shikamaru and Chouji back as they tried to help her. "I'm fine," she managed to get out around huge gulps of her drink. "Too spicy…need more water!"

Yeah, right, Sakura thought, giggling to herself. Good diversion. It really wasn't very nice of Naruto to make fun of Ino's crush on a certain Uchiha heir, she supposed, even if it was funny. A glance over at Hinata showed that she too appeared torn between scolding Naruto or bursting out laughing along with him, though eventually the former impulse won out.

"Be nice," she admonished, leaning over to smack him lightly on the back of his head, though the barely-suppressed laughter evident in her voice somewhat ruined the effect. "It isn't Ino-chan's fault that she likes him. And…well, he is awfully cute, you have to admit."

Naruto stared at Hinata as though she had grown another head. "Not you too!" he moaned, burying his head in his hands. "My best friend is going to join the Sasuke fan club."

Hinata rolled her eyes and smacked him again, harder this time. "All I said was that I think he's cute," she muttered. "I also think he's a jerk, you know. He's been bugging me to spar with him ever since the taijutsu exam last week, just because I placed first in the class and he didn't."

"Hey! Sasuke-kun isn't a jerk," Ino said, blushing a little when she noticed everyone staring at her. "He's just really competitive and…um…driven. Besides, why don't you want to spar with him? Wouldn't it be good practice?"

"At four in the morning? Even my father isn't that obsessed with training," Hinata replied as she shook her head, prompting laughter from Naruto and Chouji. Sakura shared a bored look with Shikamaru while the two girls continued to argue good-naturedly, wishing they would move on to a different topic.

"So what do you think?" Ino asked. Sakura blinked and looked at her curiously, having lost track of the conversation while engaging in an impromptu staring contest with Shikamaru. Given that she had seen him fall asleep with his eyes open on more than one occasion, she was grateful for the interruption, as she rather doubted she could have won.

"Think?" she echoed. "About what?"

Ino looked somewhat affronted, almost causing Sakura to feel guilty about not paying better attention. "About Sasuke-kun, of course," she said, sounding as though she couldn't imagine any better topic of conversation.

Of course, Sakura thought, giving Naruto the evil eye. He had just had to bring up Sasuke around Ino, and now somehow she had gotten sucked into the conversation too. I'm way too tired for this.

"Ino-chan," she sighed, some corner of her mind warning that in her present state she was probably coming across more harshly than she meant to, "you know what I think about Sasuke. You asked me the same question months ago, and I told you I want to be a ninja, not a brood mare for the new generation of Uchiha. The idea of spending nine months out of every year pregnant for the rest of my life doesn't exactly appeal to me, and that's exactly what will happen to whatever girl he ends up marrying."

Everyone around the table was silent for a long moment, and then Ino said in a tiny voice, "I just meant whether you think he's cute or not, or if you think his attitude is cool." She glanced down at her plate and nibbled at her lower lip, something Sakura knew she did only when she was feeling particularly embarrassed. "I know you're not interested in him like that, and I'm not either, really…but it's fun to pretend sometimes, isn't it?"

Now Sakura really did feel guilty. Yes, she was tired and sore and still starving despite the large meal she had just eaten, but none of that was Ino's fault; neither was it her fault that Sakura felt rather bitter about the entire subject of relationships, given her status as village pariah. She shouldn't have been so blunt, especially when her friend had only been trying to draw her into the conversation.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, keeping her eyes downcast. "I just…today really wore me out, and I think I should go home and go to bed now. I didn't mean to hurt you, Ino-chan." Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out some money and set it on the table to pay for her dinner.

"I'll see you tomorrow for training," she said quietly to Naruto and Hinata as she stood up to leave, chancing a brief smile over at Ino, who smiled weakly back. "I did have fun tonight…" Not waiting for her friends' reactions, she hurried out of the restaurant, determined to get back to her apartment before she put her foot any further in her mouth.

- - -

"You're late!" Naruto yelled out from beside Hinata.

Startled, she almost fell over the side of the bridge and into the river, but fortunately, Sakura grabbed her arm. The two girls turned around to see Kakashi standing nonchalantly behind them, one arm raised in a lazy wave and the other holding the same orange book he had been reading the previous day as well. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Naruto sigh and turn around as well after tossing one final pebble into the river.

"How do you do that?" she quietly asked him. "I couldn't sense anything, and it's too draining to use my byakugan for very long."

"Training with Mother," her blond friend replied, shuddering theatrically, and she simply nodded in response. She had known Naruto's mother for long enough that she had a feeling she didn't really want to hear the details of whatever training method the woman had come up with for her son this time.

Kakashi coughed, and the two genin immediately focused their attention on him. "Now that we're all here," he said, ignoring Naruto's glare, "let's talk about your training." Hinata thought she saw his eyes linger on Sakura for a moment as he said that, but she couldn't be sure, and she supposed it made sense given how surprised he had seemed yesterday.

"First of all," he continued, "I want to know whose idea that ambush yesterday was." He sounded completely unperturbed by the idea of having to teach them, a rather sharp contrast to his words the previous day as well as what Naruto had said about how he had supposedly never passed a team before theirs.

Hinata was just relieved that he didn't seem angry at Sakura any more, assuming he ever really had been in the first place. Her father had taught her how to read people's faces, but Kakashi's mask made it nearly impossible for her to tell what he was thinking based on his expressions.

"Well, the idea to distract you and then trap you in a seal was Sakura-chan's, of course," Naruto said, grinning as he glanced in Sakura's direction. She immediately began to blush a startling shade of red, and Hinata felt a mingled sense of amusement and sympathy for her friend. It hadn't taken long for Naruto—and by extension the rest of their group of friends—to find out that the quickest way to cause Sakura to become flustered was to imply that she had done something worthy of praise, a reaction with which Hinata could readily identify.

Taking pity on her pink-haired and scarlet-faced friend, Hinata added, "But Naruto-kun was the one who came up with a plan to keep you away from the clearing long enough for Sakura-chan to inscribe the seal."

"Ah, the seal," Kakashi interjected, just as Sakura opened her mouth to say something. "Naruto and Hinata, did the two of you know what activating it would do to your teammate?"

Hinata was about to answer when Sakura said, "I didn't tell them, Kakashi-sensei. I just made them promise that they would each take and keep a bell when I gave them the chance." She had her eyes fixed on a patch of grass in front of her, and Hinata could tell she was uncomfortable with the attention Kakashi was paying her.

Kakashi nodded, as if she had confirmed something for him, then turned to Naruto and asked, "So you gambled your future as a ninja on a technique you knew nothing about?" His tone was uninterested, almost apathetic, but the words couldn't have been more calculated to upset Naruto if he had tried.

"Of course!" the blond boy exclaimed. "I trust Sakura-chan. I know she wouldn't let us down…right, Hinata-chan?"

Hinata gave a reassuring smile to Sakura, whose face had begun to resemble a tomato more than anything else. "Right," she said firmly.

"Good. Teammates need to be able to trust each other." It did not escape Hinata's notice that Kakashi had only questioned her and Naruto about whether or not they trusted Sakura, and not the other way around. He seemed pleased with their responses, though, or at least that was the impression she got despite his even tone of voice.

"Now, your performance yesterday wasn't bad for fresh genin, but all three of you need a lot of practice before we can do any missions," he said, and Hinata wondered whether she might be getting better at reading his half-hidden facial expressions, because he was definitely smirking at them now. Beside her, Naruto groaned, looking disappointed, while Sakura had finally managed to get her face back to its normal color and was now paying close attention to Kakashi.

"What should we practice?" she asked. "Hinata is really good at taijutsu, and Naruto is really good at ninjutsu, and I'm…not really good at anything, but I guess I'm better at ninjutsu than taijutsu."

Hinata frowned. She hated it when Sakura started acting like this, likely because it reminded her too much of her own behavior at times, but at the same time she understood what it was like to never feel quite good enough to satisfy anyone—and Sakura had had to deal with it all her life, while Hinata had at least had Naruto to confide in while growing up. Without him, she had a feeling she would have ended up even worse than Sakura. She was trying to think of something to say to her friend when, to her surprise, Kakashi spoke first.

"Yes, because every genin fresh from the academy can perform C-rank sealing techniques in minutes with nothing more than a stick and a kunai," he said dryly, sounding almost disappointed in her. "Acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses equally, or you'll get in trouble some day when you ignore one or the other."

As reprimands went, it wasn't very harsh, at least not compared to what Hinata was used to. She wasn't surprised, though, that Sakura seemed to take it hard, ducking her head and murmuring an abashed apology.

"But…Kakashi-sensei," she added a moment later, still not looking up, "I can't practice fuuinjutsu here. The Hokage told me not to—and I'm really not very good with taijutsu or ninjutsu, so I don't know what to do. I think I might be better with genjutsu, but we didn't learn any of those techniques at the academy. Could you teach us that?"

Kakashi looked at her for a few moments, then shrugged. "Maybe later," he said. "For today, I want to see how each of you compares to the others in taijutsu. All ninja should have a good grounding in unarmed combat, even if they never become masters of the art. Naruto and Sakura will spar first, then Hinata and Sakura, and finally Naruto and Hinata."

Turning to Hinata, he added, "I don't want you to use the full jyuuken unless you've learned how to reopen closed tenketsu, but anything else is fine." Hinata nodded; her father had started teaching her the basics of opening tenketsu, but she wasn't confident enough in her abilities yet to try doing so on her friends.

Much to her amazement, as soon as Kakashi motioned for Sakura and Naruto to begin, he pulled out his book and began reading. Even though Hinata could see that he was paying attention to the two of them, it still seemed rather irresponsible—especially if the book really was as perverted as Naruto said, which, judging by the blush visible above the upper edge of his mask, seemed likely. She found it difficult to reconcile the man standing near her with the legendary Copy-Ninja her father had told her about upon finding out he would be teaching her.

Still pondering that contradiction, she barely even noticed when Sakura and Naruto's match ended, and she defeated first Sakura, then Naruto almost automatically. It wasn't arrogance to recognize that neither of them was a match for her in this discipline, just as she knew she would never possess Naruto's nearly inexhaustible chakra reserves or Sakura's flawless control. Not for the first time since the genin teams had been announced, she thought how lucky she was to have them as her teammates, regardless of what her father had said when he found out.

Though it wasn't like he was upset about Naruto, she thought. If anything, he had been pleased to hear that his daughter's closest friend would be on her team, but his reaction to learning that Sakura would be as well had been totally different. There was nothing he could do, though; not even the Hyuuga clan head could overturn a decision made by the Hokage, and Hinata had made her own feelings on the matter clear years ago when she defied him by remaining Sakura's friend. That had been the first time she had ever gone against his wishes on a matter of any significance, and to this day she was unsure whether he had been more enraged by her disobedience or pleased—albeit grudgingly—by her determination and refusal to back down.

Just then, she realized the subject of her thoughts was looking at her curiously and poking her shoulder, and she blinked. Looking around, she saw that Kakashi and Naruto had apparently left, and now the two girls were by themselves. "Sorry, Sakura-chan," she said, "I wasn't really paying attention. Um…where did Naruto and Kakashi-sensei go?"

Sakura giggled. "And you made fun of me the other day for 'spacing out'?" she asked, pretending indignation. "I think we're done for the day, since Kakashi-sensei didn't say to come back after lunch. Naruto was complaining about being hungry, so he left too. We can probably catch up to him, though, since you know he's going to go to Ichiraku to eat."

"But we've only been here for a little more than an hour," Hinata protested. "Or, well, our teacher was only here for a little more than an hour, I guess. You'd think he could show up at the time he himself told us."

"Maybe tomorrow?" Sakura didn't sound too hopeful, though. "He said to be here at nine, but I bet he'll be late again."

"Probably," Hinata said, then blushed as she heard her stomach growl. "Do you want to go see if we can find Naruto and drag him somewhere other than a ramen stall? I don't really feel like having noodles right now."

Sakura nodded. "Sure, but you get to tell him that," she said, the corners of her mouth twitching as she fought back a grin—probably at the thought of anyone trying to get between Naruto and ramen, Hinata suspected.

"I'm doomed," she sighed, and the two girls laughed before leaving the training field and setting out to find their friend.

- - -

Sakura breathed in deeply, resisting the urge to close her eyes in concentration. Envisioning the pattern she was practicing, she formed a long series of hand seals and, as she exhaled, pronounced, "Fuuton: Fuuinkoku no Jutsu."

A small breeze swirled around her, stirring up dust from the ground. When it died down, she groaned in frustration as she saw the results of the technique: yet another horribly deformed, half-complete sealing diagram that appeared to have been scratched into the dirt by a drunkard. As such, it perfectly complemented the six others nearby, testaments to her failure to master the Wind Engraving technique that would potentially allow her to use her fuuinjutsu abilities in a straight fight rather than a prepared ambush.

"I don't understand," she sighed, turning to her teacher. "I'm doing the hand seals right, and I'm not even close to running out of chakra. It just…won't work right, even when I know exactly what design I'm trying to create."

The Hokage frowned thoughtfully. "Part of your problem, I believe, is that this technique does require a fair amount of chakra to perform," he said. "Increasing the amount of chakra you channel into the technique will help to some extent, but your greatest problem is one of precision. Do you know why I have forced you to practice visualization so much?"

"To help build my chakra reserves?" Sakura asked, not entirely certain what that had to do with her current problem. The exercises had definitely accomplished their purpose, at least to an extent; while her reserves were significantly lower than those of her classmates, before graduation Iruka-sensei had told her he was impressed with how much she had developed from the time she entered the academy.

"In part, yes," the Hokage replied, settling into a meditative posture on the ground and motioning for Sakura to join him. "However, there are other ways of accomplishing that goal. The true value of those exercises is in teaching control. Make no mistake—the technique you are learning now, while simplistic at its core, has the potential to stress your chakra control beyond nearly any other.

"Forming a single line, or even a basic shape like a square or circle, is trivial, is it not?" The question was obviously rhetorical, as Sakura had been able to do that for weeks now, and he continued, "Now put a number of those shapes together. You cannot simply create them one at a time, as the chakra required to sustain the technique that long would be excessive by anyone's standards, and if they overlapped then the creation of one could mar another."

Sakura nodded, though she had already heard this before, and she didn't see what it had to do with visualization exercises. Her problem was that no matter how clearly she pictured the image she was trying to create, her chakra refused to follow the pattern properly. It was a new feeling, not having enough control to perform a technique, and it wasn't one she liked. She had grown accustomed to her lower strength, though it still bothered her at times, but she had always thought that at least she could feel proud of her chakra control—because if she couldn't, then what did she really have to offer as a ninja? This technique had ruined that belief, though, and irrationally she wanted to blame her teacher for showing it to her.

"Sakura-chan," the Hokage said, much more gently than his normal 'teaching' tone, as though he could see how frustrated and upset she was becoming, "I am sure I explained that this is an exceptionally difficult technique to master. Creating a single shape with it is simple enough that it would not even be considered an E-rank technique, but with the types of patterns you have been attempting to form, it is easily lower A-rank in terms of the control required, if not the strength.

"More than that, it requires an entirely new way of controlling your chakra, which is what the visualization techniques are intended to help you with. You must directly affect the chakra flows themselves, forming them into the design you visualize in your mind rather than controlling them through the medium of the hand seals. The seals govern the creation of the winds that perform the actual engraving, but the patterns to be engraved are far too complex to be reduced to any reasonable number of hand seals."

I…think I see, Sakura thought, her frustration fading as she considered the new problem. Up until now, she had been trying to translate the images in her mind into hand seals, but apparently that was the wrong way to approach things. She had a vague idea of what the Hokage meant by directly affecting the chakra flows—it was somewhat similar to how the Henge technique required the user to picture his or her intended form, or how she mentally reinforced and expanded her chakra coils through meditation—but surely it couldn't be as easy as simply visualizing what the chakra should look like. If it were, nobody would need hand seals at all for any techniques.

"Apparently, I have given you quite a lot to consider," the Hokage said, smiling slightly. "I would have explained this earlier, as it was not my intention to cause you any undue difficulty, but I thought you understood it already. Do you see now how the visualization exercises are important?"

"Yes, Sarutobi-shishou," Sakura replied, not without a certain sense of disgruntlement at how much time she had apparently wasted on totally useless efforts to learn the technique. It was nice to know, though, that the rather annoying and mentally draining meditations she had been doing for the past several years would finally serve a purpose other than somewhat expanding her chakra reserves.

She could almost see how the theory behind them could be applied to manipulating chakra flows outside the body as well, but, not for the first time, she found herself wishing she had some ability like Hinata's byakugan or the Uchiha sharingan. Without being able to see the chakra flows, what the Hokage seemed to expect her to be able to do would be like copying a picture from memory while blindfolded. The moment of jealousy passed quickly, though, when she thought about everything her friend had to go through because of her Hyuuga heritage.

The Hokage smiled at her and stood up slowly, shaking dust and a few leaves from his robes. "Then I shall leave you to your meditation. Remember, you are not a Hyuuga or an Uchiha," he said, and for a moment Sakura wondered if he really could read her mind. "The key is not to concern yourself too much with the precise details of what the chakra itself is doing, but simply to focus on what you wish it to do; as long as the pattern is clear enough and your will strong enough, it will follow the paths you lay out for it."

With that confusing piece of advice, he turned and walked away, leaving Sakura both annoyed at her teacher's vagueness and excited at the possibility of learning something new. Even the difficulty of the problem had begun to appeal to her, though, and so she obediently closed her eyes and sank into a meditative trance with practiced ease. She would have to cut short her exercises today in order to be well rested for the mission Kakashi-sensei had promised to take their team on tomorrow, but she was determined to make as much progress as she could before then.

- - -

The day had turned out to be especially hot, and Sakura could feel the sweat plastering her bangs to her forehead and trickling down her body. Even more annoyingly, she could hear Naruto grumbling, despite the fact that he was nearly halfway across the yard from her—too far to make out individual words, but his tone came across quite clearly. It was hard to blame him, though; if she had known that their team's first mission would be something like this, she wasn't sure she would have bothered getting out of bed that morning.

Then again, she wasn't sure what she had expected. After less than a week of training, it wasn't like they would be assigned anything important or remotely dangerous. Still, weeding a garden seemed rather pointless, as it didn't require a ninja's skills in any way, and she was sure there were any number of schoolchildren who would have happily done the work in exchange for a bit of money to buy sweets or toys.

At least Hinata's happy, Sakura thought, looking over to where her friend was humming as she uprooted weeds, a peaceful expression on her face. Gardening was one of the few leisure activities Hinata's father permitted her, and she and Ino could go on about various types of plants and flowers for what seemed like forever. Truthfully, Sakura found it all a bit boring, but she couldn't deny that their knowledge had come in handy during the flower arrangement and natural poisons classes at the academy.

Suddenly, she heard Naruto yell, "I'm done!" and realized with a start that she had nearly managed to finish her section as well while she had been thinking. Quickly yanking out the weeds growing next to the last few plants, she stood up and stretched, wincing as the motion stressed sore muscles in her back. Hinata, who had taken more care with her plants than either of her teammates, finished a few minutes later, and the three of them walked over to where Kakashi was sitting and reading the strange, small book with the orange cover that he seemingly carried everywhere with him—and drinking a tall glass of chilled tea, which Sakura eyed covetously.

"We're finished with the garden, Kakashi-sensei," Hinata said, and Sakura would have sworn she actually sounded disappointed. "Is there anything else we need to do now?"

Kakashi shook his head. "Nope, you're done for the day. Don't forget to meet at the Hokage's tower tomorrow morning at nine for another mission." With that, he disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving behind three very irritated genin.

"That's it?" Naruto shouted, though Sakura was sure their jounin-sensei was nowhere within earshot. "We get there at nine, wait around for two hours until lazy Kakashi-sensei finally shows up, get this stupid mission that we finish in an hour and a half, and now we're done? What happened to training, or maybe a mission that a five-year-old couldn't do? I thought Mother was joking when she said this was what D-rank missions are like."

Sakura sighed, unable to disagree with any of her friend's complaints. She was starting to suspect that, if anything, they might have learned more by being held back at the academy another year. Thus far, their training had consisted of perhaps two or three hours a day of sparring or practicing the few ninjutsu they knew with each other while Kakashi stood around and read his book, occasionally making insulting yet oddly helpful comments, and now it seemed they wouldn't be receiving even that dubious level of instruction today.

"We should see if we can do something else," Hinata said, echoing her thoughts. "This was fun…well, at least for me, but I don't really think it's helping us become better ninja."

"At least we'll get paid," Sakura muttered, looking down so her friends wouldn't see the tiny flush of embarrassment spreading across her cheeks. Neither of them had to worry about money, but the payment for even a low D-rank mission like this one would help supplement the meager monthly stipend she received from the war orphans' fund. She would need new clothes soon—though, to her annoyance, more because she was growing taller than because her figure was beginning to fill out at all—and while she could probably alter the outfits she had, she really would like to be able to buy some completely new ones.

Naruto seemed to instantly cheer up. "That's right!" he said. "I bet I can buy lots of ramen and explosive tags and tripwires and maybe a new matte finish coating kit for my kunai and—"

"We get the point," Hinata sighed, clapping one hand over Naruto's mouth to shut him up. "But what are we going to do about training, if Kakashi-sensei isn't going to teach us anything? I can't…I need to be practicing more than just the jyuuken, since that's the only thing Father teaches me now."

Naruto scrunched up his face in thought. "Well…maybe he's still trying to figure out what to teach each of us?" he wondered aloud. "He does watch us an awful lot while we train with each other, even if it just looks like he's reading that perverted book most of the time."

"Maybe," Sakura said, though privately she couldn't help the sinking feeling that their chronically late jounin-sensei was avoiding teaching them because of her. "I guess we could give him another week or so; if we don't start doing anything useful by then, we can try talking to Iruka-sensei, or maybe even the Hokage. We are the first team he's ever passed, after all, so he might just not be used to teaching yet."

Neither Naruto nor Hinata appeared pleased with her suggestion, but they reluctantly nodded. With any luck, Kakashi would start teaching them soon. If not, Sakura figured they were in for a long week of pulling weeds, and she hoped for her back's sake that that wouldn't be the case.

- - -

Author's Notes: Thank you all for the reviews last chapter! I'm glad you enjoyed my take on the bell test, and I'm thrilled that Kakashi came across pretty much exactly as I had intended (more from his perspective next chapter, by the way). Also, thanks to everyone who has added this to their favorites/author alerts/C2s; while I love reading all of your reviews, it also makes me happy just to know that people like the story. To answer one question I've seen several times--namely, pairings--there's a reason why this story is categorized under General and not Romance. That doesn't mean that the subject will be completely ignored, but it won't be taking up any significant amount of screen time. My apologies to those of you who were hoping for more, but that just isn't the focus of this story.

As you may or may not have noticed, I've deliberately stretched out the timeline a bit in this chapter compared to canon. Yes, that means, among other things, that our intrepid band of heroes will not be going to Wave Country; while I imagine I could have made it an interesting trip, I have...other plans for them. And, on that note, thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it.