txy07a_t7_strife
2007-12-13 - initial file created, notes transferred from DWMB saves
2007-12-25 - Sakura's training notes made scenes, slotted them together
2008-05-18 - scene expansion both directions on those, gift to c-rank request; basic plot notes complete
2008-05-19 - Sakura/Kakashi explanation appeared, requiring a new scene to follow there
2008-05-22 - nailed that, and a few more notes for the C-rank 2008-06-08 - mission fight scene
2008-06-09 - aftermath, proofread. Done unless something pops up.
2008-06-21 - caught a few more gremlins
2011-10-11 - chopped in half for FFn
Note: This partly takes place before and partly concurrently with Team Six's mission to Wave Country - you'll know when they overlap.
"Neshan-sensei?" Tenten leaned her head in the door frame of her former teacher's office.
He glanced up. "Eh? Oh, hey, kid. How are you?"
She stepped inside and flopped into the visitor's chair. As always, the faint 'clank' that violent motion drove from the vast array of weapons hidden across her person brought an involuntary smile to his face.
Her expression, on the other hand, was outright distressed. "My team is impossible!"
He pushed his glasses back up from where they had slid down as he labored over his paperwork and leaned forwards on his elbows. "I hate to break it to you, but Kakashi's almost more of a pain in the ass than he is a ninja. You're hardly the only person to say that about him."
"It's not just him!" she wailed, waving her hands wildly. "Sasuke's not so bad when he's holding -still-, but he's got all the cooperation skills of a shark and almost as big a stick up his ass as... as..." She paused to cast about for an appropriate description.
"As a certain Hyuuga?" Neshan prompted, starting to twirl a pen through his fingers.
She huffed. "Don't make me smack you."
He laughed, and she started ranting again. "And Sakura's nice in those once in a blue moon moments when forgets she's convinced that I'm trying to steal away her great overwhelming childhood crush-" she broke off and stabbed an accusing finger at the older ninja as he opened his mouth. "-Don't- say a -word-, you!"
He held up both hands, palms out, and grinned. "Wasn't gonna!" he lied.
"You forget - I -know- you. But even when she -isn't- glaring daggers she's still just one of Suzume-sensei's bubble-brained 'infiltration specialists' - which is a damn shame, since when she doesn't think Sasuke's around to be turned off by it she's actually pretty smart." She trailed off for a moment, then grinned. "She talks to herself, you know. When she thinks no one can hear."
"She's a Haruno. They do that. It's a bloodline thing."
"Really? And I thought she was just being strange... And informative." Her grin turned mischievious. "I don't think my hair looks like puffballs, do you?"
He blinked. "Yes."
"Creep. So we go on a mission and he charges off solo - or solo until she goes trailing after him like a duckling after her momma, and never a thought from -either- of them if its the right thing to do and if -I- try to talk them into a better plan rather than just ignoring them or following along after myself, then that... that... Hatake-BAKA tells me to 'calm down and not get so strung out'!" By the end of her complaint, she had begun to wave her arms again.
The Jounin laughed, then waved an admonishing finger at her. "Hatake-_sensei_."
She gave him a plaintive look. "Even if he's an idiot?"
"-Especially- if he's an idiot." He paused. "Which he is."
She rolled her eyes. "Is he -ever-. Even with all the trouble we three genin have been having he just floats around with his nose in that nasty book of his and spouts off about teamwork from time to time - as though -building- that wasn't just as much -his- job as ours! - and completely ignores the fact that Sakura hates my guts and Sasuke couldn't listen if his life depended on it! The only time he actually gets off his ass and -does- something is when it's our turn to torment poor Tora!" She sighed. "I wish you were our teacher instead."
He cocked an eyebrow and gestured at his desk - which, as usual, was covered in a minimum of three layers of cheap paper and messy handwriting. "Sure, I'll take it up in my copious free time."
She blushed, since she knew that the year he had spent instructing her while she waited for an opening in a forming or existing team had come entirely out of his own limited free time - without pay. "Eheh."
He waved it off with a grin. "So you wanted to vent about the fact that your team doesn't get along?"
Tenten sighed. "Yeah. I guess... I'm just so -frustrated-, because my team is just flying apart more and more every day, and they're good people despite that and I want us to be -friends-, too, the way you and I were..."
He stared at her for a moment, then smiled. "Are," he said, touched. "We -are-." She didn't know quite how to respond to the way her words had obviously meant more to him than she'd expected, and eventually he folded his hands in front of him. "I'll talk to Kakashi. I can't promise anything, but..." he trailed off and shrugged.
Legend of Explosive Youth Part Seven
Team Seven: Icha Icha Jealousy
Much of the beginning (Neshan's scenes) by Valles, since it's his insert, the rest by ClassicDrogn with the usual kibbutzing by Greiver, Drakensis, and the Drunkard's Walk Message Board crew at large.
"What did you want to see me for?" Kakashi asked as he turned away from Konoha's monument to its fallen.
The younger Jounin shrugged and fell in beside him. "I talked to Tenten the other day."
"Oh? She told you something you want to confirm?"
"In a word." Subject broached, Neshan hesitated before picking his approach.
"And your conclusions from when you watched us?"
Knowing that he'd been seen wasn't a problem; he hadn't really meant to hide from Kakashi anyway. "From what Rin-sensei said about her own training," Neshan began, as gently as he could, given the subject of the opening, "it looks like you're modeling your teaching style after Yondaime-sama's."
That got a smile, which might or might not have been sincere, but either way was sketched more in the angle of the senior ninja's head and the set of his shoulders than any expression on his face. "I have, yes."
"You're missing something," he told him, with the blunt directness that made some ninja regard working with him as a trial. "Actually a couple of somethings, but there's one that worries me - and Tenten. Rin-sensei had always described him as being a lot more active than I saw you being, and, for that matter, as tailoring his cues and signals to his audience rather than relying on them to pick up the standard ones which they might not have been trained in, yet. He left some fairly extensive training logs; when I checked them... The difference was striking."
Kakashi's usual air of distracted affability sloughed away as he devoted his entire attention to turning that thought over in his head, and when he turned fully to face his companion the look in his exposed eye was enough to send a chill up its target's back - though no Jounin, however junior, would ever be so sloppy as to show the reaction. "You have specific advice, I suppose."
Neshan inclined his head, and smiled politely. "First, I would suggest that jutsu and other active forms of training should be mixed in as part of missions and regular practice, rather than inserted between them or left for students to find and apply on their own. Enabling that is the purpose of the combination of Jounin-sensei and D-class missions in the first place. Second... Teamwork must be taught, too. Shown. It won't just happen on its own - or if it does, will be of an unreliable and inferior sort. The high emotions of combat will foster the necessary attachments if nothing else does first, but experience is needed to smooth over their interactions to whatever degree needed to work effectively - and at this stage, providing that experience is the teacher's role, not the student's."
They met each others' eyes for a long, tense moment, and then the pose of the lovable scarecrow snapped back into place. "You don't mince words much, do you?"
"It drives all sorts of people just crazy," Neshan answered conspiritorily.
A couple of weeks after her visit with her interim sensei, Tenten arrived at the bridge Team Seven used as a meeting spot to find not Kakashi but Sasuke reading a book with a light blush on his face. If not for the fact that she recognized the cover as belonging to one of the historical romances she herself owned a copy of, she'd have been rather upset at him picking up bad habits from the jounin.
Looking up at the sound of her ninja sandals on the bridge he snapped it closed and grunted a greeting, then leaned on the railing and fixedly ignored her and Sakura, arriving a minute or two later, until the pink had faded from his cheeks.
"Here. I bought this by accident. You said you read this tripe," the boy said as he proffered the novel to Tenten.
"Oh? Thanks, but I already read that one, it came out around the time you graduated. It is a little racy, isn't it?" she giggled.
"Hnf." Why the hell did he keep getting this weird hot feeling in his ears, Sasuke wondered.
"The ending was so sad, though! After all that, to lose his new family as well."
"Keh. Ryomaru was a fool, abandoning his vengeance for such weakling emotions. He should have expected Ichima to return. Taking revenge at the cost of his own life... To achieve such a result after allowing himself to go soft like that, he should have been thankful." Only too late did he realize that discussing the plot meant that he'd actually read the foolish thing, which he'd had no intention of admitting - of doing, doing! - no matter how bored he'd been at the time.
This was easily more words than Sakura had -ever- heard Sasuke speak at once, and now he had a bright blush again! *AAAH! SO CUTE!* Inner Sakura squealed at the sight. *Hell yeah! No, focus, dammit! Why the hell is -she- getting a present! Can't she see that Sasuke-kun is MINE MINE MINE!* "Why you... Puffball-head! How dare you try to besmirch Sasuke-kun's mind with dirty books and embarrass him like that!"
"Geeze, use a hyouton, Sakura!" the older kunoichi complained. Teasing, she grabbed on to the silently mortified Uchiha's arm and played at pressing up against his shoulder the way his fangirls tended to do. "A noble samurai like Sasuke-dono has a MUCH stronger mind than that!"
Of course, she had a bit more in the way of endowment than either Sakura or Ino had so far developed, something he couldn't help but notice with certain scenes from the foolish story unfortunately fresh in his mind. This distraction kept him from instantly shaking her off as he usually would with his grabbier admirers. "Besides, maybe he wouldn't mind a little -smirching-, ne Sasuke-kuuu- eep!"
The clanless girl's playful tone turned into a yelp of surprise as her pink haired team mate roared with jealous rage and charged, only barely dodging away from the furious girl's wild punch in time to avoid a bloody or broken nose. "Whoa, hey! I'm just kidding around," she yelled, trying to defuse the situation. "I've told you dozens of times I don't -"
"SHUT UP! I've told YOU dozens of times, stay away from MY Sasuke-kun, you... over-sized... knife-freak!" Two more punches whiffed by as the brunette flipped away from the railing to land on the arch over the end of the bridge.
"OVERSIZED! Why you-!" Suddenly realizing that the other girl wasn't exactly talking about her waistline, Tenten's eyes narrowed cattily. "Don't get upset, LITTLE girl, you've got lots of room to grow! Oops, I meant, -time!-"
"JUST DIE, YOU SKANKY OLD WOMAN! SHANNARO!" Before she even really thought about it, a pair of kunai were in Sakura's hands, then flying through the air at her supposed friend.
Eyes widening at this level of escalation, Tenten took too long to react to deflect the thrown blades and had to dodge again, letting herself fall backwards off her perch while keeping a grip on the wooden arch, using that leverage and momentum to do a flipping leap toward the younger girl. The sun and moon fork she preferred for close combat appeared in her hands and two quick swats with its blunt brass sphere knocked the second pair of kunai out of Sakura's hands, then a third in the jealous girl's solar plexus sent her sprawling.
Landing on her butt on the planks of the bridge with a painful thump, the youngest Haruno wheezed and gasped for breath, looking up at the taller, faster, stronger, cuter, bustier... *Damn, it's just not fair! Why does she get to be better than me in every category?* she thought, tears starting to well up in her eyes.
"Hey now, settle down," Tenten warned seriously, still holding a guard stance with her polearm. "Arguing is one thing, but pulling live blades is different."
Sasuke, still too embarrassed at the earlier discussion let alone being the object of a physical fight, couldn't even produce one of his signature moody grunts.
Scrambling to her feet, Sakura's mouth opened and shut a couple of times as she tried to respond, but finally all she could do was flee, stifled sobs fading into the distance as she ran.
Releasing her weapon, Tenten could only grimace at how very much their 'team' just did NOT work, before stalking off to perch on the branch of a nearby tree, fuming at how badly Sakura had over-reacted, as well as herself for provoking the girl. Even if she was just teasing and even if the green-eyed (literally and figuratively!) pinkie was practically begging for it, she still should know better.
Neither had significantly improved their mood by the time their sensei arrived an hour and a half later. "Yo," the jounin greeted lazily, eye curved in his usual carefree expression. He'd really outdone himself thinking up a good excuse this morning, as soon as the usual complaints were out of the way...
The usual shout of "You're late," of course...
Any second now...
"Ara? You could greet your teacher with a little enthusiasm," he complained. *And it was such a good excuse, too! Oh well, a few more minutes to read Icha Icha next time.* Looking around, he visually confirmed what his nose and more esoteric senses had already told him. "Sakura-san already left... Did something happen?"
Sasuke grunted, with a bit of extra irritation mixed into the brooding.
Tenten was a bit more informative, tersely but accurately summarizing the earlier confrontation. "I didn't mean anything more than some friendly joking around," she concluded, "but even if it's partly my fault, she didn't have to over react like that!" Huffing, she flopped back down at the base of her tree. "Talk about your jealous little brats..." she muttered quietly.
Kakashi considered the situation for a few seconds, then decided it was probably for the best if the kids had got it out of their systems. "Eh... Well, I guess she can miss today. She'll settle down, and then train a little extra next week to make it up. It's a simple mission today instead of training but you should be able to handle it without her, just buying some groceries..." Hmm, the list was fairly long. Perhaps he could have them drill it as bringing a wounded comrade out of a hostile zone, with bagged food standing in for a comatose person's limp weight and fragile condition.
The sun had yet to peek over the horizon the next morning when Kakashi snapped awake at the sound of footsteps outside his door. He was already dressed and half equipped with his usual loadout by the time the visitor started pounding on it. A deep sniff as he approached revealed the perfume favored by his younger female student (something he'd need to talk to her about before going on any field missions, he reminded himself) and a glance through a peephole angled into the wall confirmed it, so he pulled out his favorite book before opening the door with the other hand. He waited a beat, looked up, and inquired, "Oh, Sakura-san... visiting your sensei at home? I didn't know you knew where I live..."
"My father told me," she explained shortly before brushing it off, grabbing his collar, and hauling him out into the stairwell. "Come on... You're supposed to be my sensei and even my taijutsu sucks, so teach me! I'm not waiting around for you to do as you like today!" Blinking, Kakashi pulled the door shut as he was tugged towards the stairs and pulsed his chakra at the points that would close a few of the locks and arm the more important traps in case someone tried breaking in, before obligingly putting the book away in favor of a ration bar to munch.
He was faintly surprised at the strength the girl was showing - not that he couldn't have resisted her, of course, but if this was what she had with only minimal Academy conditioning, he'd been doing an injustice to let her slide since becoming her superior. Shaking Sakura's hand loose from his vest, he gave the scowling girl one of his eye-smiles, then took the lead himself to the practice field. He'd visit Obito and Rin a little later, when he could tell them about his spitfire of a student's first serious lesson.
*Shannaro! I can't wait to see the look that'll be on that puffball-head skank's face as I dodge EVERY ONE of her flying weapons, then she gets a double kick to her feakishly-huge chest to go flying into a dumpster! Sasuke-kun will come to his senses and see that I'm the perfect girl for him, and we'll kiss softly under a blossoming cherry tree framed by the sunset, and... (blush) and... (giggle) and...*
And to think, teacher and student had almost been having the same conversation up to then.
Several arduous hours later, Sakura flopped onto her back in the grassy training ground, soaked in sweat and exhausted both mentally and physically. She rubbed at her eyes as her thoughts rapidly spiralled toward depression. "I - I'm sorry, Kakashi-sensei," she apologized, fighting back bitter tears. "I just can't seem to get it... I guess I really am hopeless as a ninja after all..."
Kakashi's own feeling had been torn between mild frustration at having to keep breaking down concepts to more basic components and being honestly impressed with the drive the girl had shown and how quickly she'd grasped those components and reassembled them once he found the right way to explain. Though, between his mask and his lackadaisical attitude he'd given no perceptible sign beyond having kept his attention on her rather than going back to Icha Icha Paradise. The jounin quirked his eyebrow, blinked blandly at her, and soothed, "Maa, don't give up so soon, student. You've actually picked up a lot of the basics, you just have to find the rhythm and train it into your body. Taijutsu doesn't appear instantly, ne?"
"Find the rhythm...?"
"Yep!" he sang, an almost visible heart appearing as punctuation while his one uncovered eye screwed up with the hidden smile. "Hehee, you'll get to find out an answer to that question you asked the first day, too!"
Bracing herself up on her elbows Sakura cocked her head curiously and wondered, "Question? Which question?" but Kakashi had already started to wander off in the direction of the memorial stone, nose firmly glued to his little orange book. Grumbling, she pulled herself painfully to her feet and half-heartedly tried to slap away the dust and grass clinging to her drastically shortened maroon dress and twined in her hair. She'd hemmed the lower panels of her uniform last night, leaving it little more than a long shirt at this point. The big Haruno ring that had graced the front was gone completely, leaving just her tight black shorts to allow less restrictive movement (and just maybe, catch Sasuke-kun's eye. The war was on, shannaro!)
Oh well... Nothing for it but to wait and see what her weirdo sensei appeared with tomorrow, it seemed.
*Yo, Obito... I think more and more how much you'd like Haruno... Or maybe, how much she seems like you. From strife within the team her drive to succeed has appeared, just like that time... Of course, her temper is even worse, if anything. Tenten's the level headed one, like you Rin, though she's more interested in her weapons than medic skills, and Sasuke is me all over, obsessed with blotting out the stain of a disgraced family member. It's a little different, but still so familiar ... it'll have a better end this time, though. I'll make sure of it... I won't let my comrades die...*
The masked jounin's thoughts fell silent then, mute witnesses to the ghosts that danced before him; a smiling blond, a serious silver-mane, a sweet-tempered chestnut, and a happy-go-lucky brunet. He'd gotten there far later than usual, and the sun had long set before he made his way home again.
When he showed up the next morning - barely even half an hour late! - with a set of bongo drums and happily plopped down to play a beat for her to practice to, it was all Sakura could do not to plant her face like a turnip from shock. *'I have many hobbies' he said... How the hell does that mean 'playing the bongos!' What a super-weirdo!*
Their schedule of crappy missions resumed again the following day, but Tenten and Sakura managed to avoid repeating the incident, if only by not speaking to each other unless it was required for the mission. Combined with Sasuke's usual quiet it made for a refreshingly professional lack of chatter to the former ANBU captain. In the afternoons when the team would be dismissed for their personal training he and Sakura would return to the secluded practice ground near the memorial stone and he'd bring out his drums, teaching the agile girl more of that odd dance-based taijutsu style he'd picked up on a mission to the tropical islands north of the continent.
It was eminently suited to her build, maximizing Sakura's advantages in speed and strength to weight with its emphasis on kicks and knee strikes and minimising the disadvantages in toughness and raw power with unpredictable evasion and fast movement. The high mobility of the style would also allow her to quickly open and close the range on an opponent to mesh with her team mates ninjutsu and thrown weapon specialties.
Most evenings he'd drop by the Uchiha training grounds after his lessons with Sakura to see what Sasuke had learned that day and one or two days a week he'd check in on Tenten instead, but she spent most of her time refining her aim or adding to her stock of explosive tags, neither of which activities needed much if any input from him. Sasuke had the entire Uchiha jutsu library to learn from so he was content to let them manage their own schedules for the most part.
Oddly enough, he found himself looking forward to the afternoon sessions, the never ending guilt at the fate of his old team mates lightening in the face of Sakura's determined drive and eager ear for the stories of notable missions, training techniques, and Maito misadventures he found himself telling as she moved through one form after another.
It was the most he'd talked about the past to anyone, really, even if he still dodged more personal issues, and he wondered privately if this was the kind of feeling that made some jounin take one genin team after another, or inspired the Academy's staff to stick with their much-griped-over positions. Meanwhile the girl's skill grew by literal leaps and bounds.
*Was this what Obito could have become, if he'd survived that time?* Kakashi wondered, contemplating the rapid progress the girl had made since finding her motivation. Actually, he'd have thought she'd have more trouble with the arm strength required to support some of the low-to-high moves, but ... *Wait...*
The jounin made no outward change as he tapped out an energetic beat, nor did he pause as he described the time Gai had heard he knew this style and challenged him to a dance-off for the title of "Konoha's Handsome Beast." Many of the refinements he'd taught her had in fact come from the other jounin, who'd quite happily won his 'title' with them. More importantly, though...
Now that he was paying attention, he could feel his student channeling chakra into her body for strength... not in short bursts as he'd expected, and would do himself, but the whole time. Most of the errors he'd had to point out came when her control would falter, and either leave her without the needed strength or simply distract her from performing them.
*She has that kind of control? It would be impressive even in a fellow Elite Jounin, let alone a rookie genin.* It did explain the problem she had with endurance, though if that was the case her recovery speed must also be very good. There was a bigger problem, however, and one he'd have to address.
"Halt," he commanded, stopping the beat and waiting until she landed from the whirling kick/kippup, standing attentively before him. She'd been working for most of their usual three hours already, and the girl was dripping with sweat, trembling from the sustained exertion and... no, she should not be that pale, especially after this amount of exercise. "Hmm, go ahead and start your cool-down, just light stretches for today," he told her.
Sakura was confused, the one thing her sensei had never done, no matter how late he arrived or even if all she had stamina left to do was jog around the clearing was cut the lessons short. "Sensei?" she questioned, a tinge of worry in her voice. *Have we ever seen him this serious,* she thought to herselves.
*Huh... dunno... We didn't do it!* came the reply.
"There's something important to discuss, before continuing," he explained, waiting until she began stretching to keep from cramping up before he continued. "Sakura, you've been channeling chakra to boost your stength and speed, correct?" he asked.
*Uh oh... I think we kinda did do it, though there waasn't much of a choice,* she told her inner self before replying, "Well, that is... kinda? I know it's like cheating but I just -have- to improve somehow, and if you stop these lessons I'll be forced to-"
"Sakura." he interrupted, cutting off the babble in the making. "While it's true that ninja do not generally channel chakra that way aside from short bursts, as I'd thought you were doing, it's not because it's cheating. Someone who doesn't take every advantage they can make for themselves is not a ninja. The reason is that in battle, that kind of concentration... it's impossible. It's surprising you can do so even for training, actually." *Even I can't keep it up like that...*
Glad that her stretches made it natural to be looking away, the genin hesitantly replied, "Well, it's only a little strength... adding speed takes too much chakra, or really amazing strength, and hurts my muscles, too - I tried to channel a whole lot and pick up a boulder like Tsunade-hime in the Battle of Masaki's Glade when we were taught the technique in the Academy, and even though it worked it felt like my whole body was on fire for two days."
Kakashi's eye widened - he'd been to Masaki's Glade, and seen that boulder in the crater it left when it hit the Rain-nin troops. "How big was this boulder?"
Momentarily forgetting her worry, Sakura giggled at the memory. "Oh, it was huuuge," she laughed. "Nearly waist-high on an eight-year-old!"
"Hmm, a bit more reasonable than I was thinking," the man considered, "but still impressive in a student. A small but constant amount of chakra is only harder to maintain, however, which is what makes the way you've been training unsuited for use in battle."
The pink-tressed girl hesitated for a moment, before asking, "Kakashi-sensei, how much do you know about the Haruno bloodline limit?"
"Basically, it's another mind in the same body, allowing a second chance to notice important details or detect and resist genjutsu. At high levels, a Haruno-nin can perform even the most advanced ninjutsu without movement, as their inner self performs the neccessary seals."
"That's actually considered the chuunin-level ability, though the same kind of limits exist as normal for the chakra and control available to keep a chuunin from performing the kind of things you're probably thinking of. As an Academy student, we learn to learn to work in perfect unison with our two selves, to give perfect chakra control, while as genin the target is for both minds to be able to do different control exercises at the same time, or maintain one while performing a ninjutsu or genjutsu... Even without using that ability, I've always been good with control. Because Inner Sakura has been concentrating totally on chakra control, I've been able to have the attention to talk with you while training."
That was a more impressive ability than he'd thought, actually, and he wondered what the jounin level was considered to be, though such a secret was unlikely to be told even to him. Just keeping up two control exercises at once would normally take a high-class chuunin or special jounin. That still left the bigger issue, however.
"Maa, well, even such interesting discussions are not the same as a battle," he noted. "I'd wondered why you weren't using this style with your comrades in the morning spars aside from getting a bit more acrobatic in dodging. More importantly, you've been running close to chakra exhaustion each time, haven't you? Especially that first day, when you could barely even move. Such a dangerous habit is a bad thing to form. If you misjudged it you could die, or at best be unconscious for days."
That stopped her cool-down, and Sakura turned to face him with a serious look. "Kakashi-sensei... you finally decided to teach me something, so I've been going for it with everything to become a stronger ninja... isn't that what we're supposed to do, as teacher and student? As for the mornings... I wanted to get better with this, before I revealed it even to them." *Especially to that man-stealing wench, you mean! SHANNARO!* Ignoring her inner self's shadow boxing and predictions of the ultimate victory of love for the moment, Sakura pressed on. "What battle lasts for three hours, anyway, even the Siege of Bellflower Pass was over faster than that once the walls were breached and actual fighting started."
"Hmm... Yes, we were in and through with that in little more than two, as I recall..." Watching as his student finished her cool-down set, the jounin considered a large number of things, but paying forward his debt to the past won out, as usual. He called out, attracting her attention again. "You've studied enough of the forms to begin. Tomorrow, we will not meet here to study."
The girl's face fell and her shoulders hunched in despair. *Even though I gave it this much, to learn something unique and powerful...*
"Sakura," he said, more warmly. "Tomorrow afternoon, rest and recover your chakra. The day after tomorrow, we'll meet here and spar. If you can maintain the necessary strength for this style, I'll acknowledge your ability and we will continue."
If she'd had the energy left, Sakura would have been hopping around in joy, just from the relief that he was't going to give up on her or go into some long lecture about how the shinobi arts aren't meant to be played at and she should take them more seriously. As it stood she did a happy little dance in place while her inner self proclaimed Kakashi's impending defeat as well as that of her rivals in love.
The next day was a mix of excitement and apprehension for Sakura - her mind spun with strategies she might try, the glorious future of success, and the hotly denied but lingering specter of failing this all-important trial. Remembering Kakashi's words about the term 'cheating' not being applicable as a ninja, she considered setting traps in the area to try to catch him off guard, but decided that he was more likely to toss her into them herself and that anything strong enough to be worth the effort against a jounin was too dangerous for a sparring session.
There was another edge she could could give herself, but it would mean spending all the pay from last week's mission, and probably her allowance as well... Worse, it would mean sucking up to either Kikuko-oni or the Freaky Twins, because genin didn't have the clearance needed to buy them. She waffled over it for almost half an hour before finally deciding on her sister, because even if she had some weird thing going on with that cinnamon-stick-chewing guy and Kiba's sister of all people, at least she didn't hang around with Ino-pig like her brothers, and aside from Tenten the blonde thorn in her side was the absolute LAST person she wanted getting any hint about her new skills until it was far, far too late.
With that thought in mind and knowing her sister wasn't on any missions at the moment she'd made her way to the training area favored by a fair number of Konoha's mid-ranked ninja. As usual it was filled with the sounds of a fight, but one of words for once instead of fists and chakra.
"By the kami, Amaboshi, you are -such- a jerk sometimes! That's IT, we're through!" The woman's screech had the distinctive growling undertones of an Inuzuka. From the sound of things, maybe whatever that weird thing had been was in the past.
Coming through the light screen of brush, she could see her sister Kikuko shrugging at the hapless male who'd incurred the wrath of their mutual girlfriend. "Don't look at me," the older Haruno said, more calmly. "I figured it was a weekend thing, she's the one who wanted to keep you."
Sakura shuddered despite herself. She didn't care how acceptable it was in the shinobi world, where strong bloodlines were critical and too many male ninja got killed off compared to female heirs, who often stayed in administrative or non-ninja careers. It was going to be one-on-one, her and a guy, for sure! *That's right! Sasuke-kun is for me and no one else! Shannaro!* Inner Sakura agreed.
Setting aside any awkward feelings, Sakura put on her sweetest face and walked closer to where her sister was now rubbing her girlfriend's back, trying to calm the fuming Inuzuka down, three nin-dogs noting her approach with quiet yips. "Ah, please excuse the intrusion," the younger Haruno began quietly. "Maybe it's a bad time, but I could I talk with Kikuko-onee?"
The couple shared a look, then Hana gently shook herself loose. "Go on," she told Kikuko. "I'm no good company right now, I'll just go for a run with the guys," she said, stroking the ears of one of her dogs.
"Okay... Still on for tonight, or you want to take a rain check?" Kikuko asked. They had been planning on dinner and a club with Amaboshi, but at least part of that plan was now obviously void.
"Sure," the taller girl grinned. "We wouldn't want any of those poor boys to go on being all heartbroken because we were off the market. Somebody might do something permanent!" They shared a laugh before the dark-haired teen bounded off into the trees, her canine companions following to either side.
"So what's up, squirt?" Kikuko asked at last.
A vein pulsed at Sakura's temple and her cheek twitched, but she forcibly kept her expression sweet and voice even as she explained, "Now that I've graduated and joined a genin team, I need to put together a pack for longer missions. I was hoping you'd buy something for me at the chemists... I have the money for it, of course."
Kikuko grinned deviously and treated her younger sibling to an elbow in the ribs. "Chasing that Uchiha boy going well then? I'm not sure I support you moving into -that- kind of a relationship so fast, little sis..."
Slapping the offending limb away Sakura shouted, "NOT THAT!" *Not a bad idea, though!* Inner Sakura put in with the image of some improbably intricate gesticulation, but her public self wasn't even going to get into that topic if she could help it. "I want you to get me some soldier pills, damn it! Not... that!"
Gasping theatrically, Kikuko pressed her hands into her cheeks. "My goodness! The gracious movie-star kunoichi is actually planning to go on a -mission!- Be careful, you could break a nail, or get all icky!"
"Onee-san..."
"And soldier pills... surely such an example of feminine perfection couldn't be inadequate in any way..."
"O-NEE-san..."
"I know, it's so you can offer one to your leading man with a demure smile and a little smudge on your cheek, so he can be revived and take care of the bad guy for you!"
Fists clenched at her sides and eyes pressed shut in annoyance as she did her best to hold back her temper, the younger girl ground out, "Are you going to help or not, o-nee-SAAAN! ?"
Giving over for now, Kikuko wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulders and sang, "Hai haaai... you shouldn't let yourself get so tense, imouto-chan, it'll give you wrinkles." She laughed and squeezed a little tighter as her sister growled and muttered about being a bitch, no where -near- quietly enough. "Tch, such attitudes," she scolded. "Unless you want me to show you what I've learned from Hana-chan about dealing with uppity bitches?"
Shuddering again, Sakura was quick to reply, "No thanks, big sister." Taking deep breaths, she relaxed as much as she could, and they headed back into the settled sections of Konoha.
She'd actually gotten the idea from Hana's younger brother, who'd mentioned once that many of his family's techniques had chakra demands that required the use of a soldier pill to keep them up at the genin level when they'd covered common ninja medicines at the Academy. Like she'd told Kakashi-sensei, she'd only been using chakra for a small amount of strength, because it would take too much to do more than that let alone increase her speed... but with the ability of a soldier pill to boost chakra production, she could get around her depressingly small reserves and go wild when she faced the jounin the following day. That had been the other reason to approach Kikuko - if an Inuzuka was good enough for her, a variation on their tactics should be good enough for her little sister.
And the thing about giving one to Sasuke-kun... Well, if her sister had been totally useless at romance she wouldn't have been going steady with Hana for almost a year now. She'd definitely have to keep it in mind if the situation ever came up, it was pure gold even if it was exactly the kind of attitude that had kept her from going to her family for extra training after years of trying to find her own path as a ninja.
Team Seven had done a mission that morning, providing birthday party entertainment at the Tsukino clan compound for the Main Family's youngest, who'd just finished his first year at the Academy. Sakura had put together an acrobatic routine, Sasuke had demonstrated some impressive fire-type ninjutsu, and Tenten had fun with trick kunai and shuriken throwing, with targets all around her and using deflection shots to even hit ones behind cover... and the little runts had still been horrible.
Worse, Kakashi-sensei had made them treat it as if they'd been providing security for a noble's social gathering, so they had to constantly be on the alert for him as a supposedly enemy ninja trying to spy or 'assassinate' the guest of honor. Who naturally had thought that having the famous Copycat Ninja randomly popping up beside him to stuff a chocolate into his mouth was the best part of the show.
"Shingo is SUCH a brat," she grumped as she made her way to the training area afterwards. "And if anything, Hokage-sama's grandson is worse! Me and my classmates were nothing like that at their age." A particular incident involving slingshots, fertilizer from a certain flower shop, and kids who had made cracks about a girl who lived at said flower shop and her new best friend tried to present itself from her memory, along with others, but was quickly repressed again. Sakura was absolutely a perfect angel, then as now.
"At least Moegi-chan wasn't a total wild mountain monkey," she thought aloud, before refocusing her attention in the issue at hand since she'd almost arrived. A hand drifted to her tool pouch and traced the outline of the little bottle inside. "I paid a whole lot of money for just ten of the things, should I really use one only for a spar?" she wondered. "No, not just a spar, this is a test, a test that will determine my future as a kunoichi. Just stealing a bento won't cut it this time, and it's not about relying on team mates... it's about victory in love and war and about being reliable myself. I have to go for it with everything." Her expression firmed up, decision made.
At least this time she wouldn't be facing Kakashi-sensei after a sleepless night and no breakfast, though her nervous stomach had refused anything more than a few bites of trail mix and a sports drink for lunch. Sakura pulled out the pill bottle and twisted the top until the opening was big enough to shake one out, then closed it again and replaced the vial in her pouch. She weighed the little red-brown ball thoughtfully in her hand.
It was waterproofed to keep from being ruined if a ninja had to swim, was drenched with water ninjutsu, or just caught in the rain, so she could probably slip it under her tongue now to be ready. On the other hand, the coating was only beeswax so it would melt in body heat. She wasn't sure how long the effect would last either, since there hadn't been time to experiment the previous night. Originally the pills were intended to provide enough energy to keep active for days, but that was swallowing one whole and letting it dissolve slowly in the stomach, not the kind of quick boost effect she was planning. Deciding against it until the moment came, she sat down with her back to one of the training logs to wait for her sensei.
She didn't have long to wait, he'd been getting less and less tardy to these lessons as they'd gone on so it was only a few minutes before the jounin puffed into existence with a little cloud of smoke and a swirl of leaves. She rose respectfully to greet him, getting a lazy wave in return. For all of that, Kakashi's one visible eye was alert and his voice serious as he said, "Well, no need to draw it out. Are to ready to begin?"
Face serious, Sakura popped the soldier pill into her mouth, crushing it between her teeth and spreading the bitter powder under her tongue as she stretched her back and rolled her shoulders. Immediately she could feel her body begin to hum with the rush of chakra as saliva turned it into a paste and the medicine was absorbed directly into the large blood vessels there. Grimacing at the taste, she took a stance and blustered, "I'm ready, Kakashi-sensei... Are you ready for me?"
Inner Sakura had already gone into a meditative trance to concentrate on controlling the unfamiliar bounty of chakra and channeling it into her muscles, and she hopped experimentally from one foot to the other, marveling at the feeling... could this be what Sasuke-kun felt like all the time? The pink-haired girl grinned ferally, then blasted into an attack routine on her sensei, who from all outward appearances was still just standing there with a lazy slouch.
As expected, he reacted immediately, batting aside the opening punches and hopping over the low spinning kick they led into, forcing her to double over at the waist and push off into a flip to dodge as he came back down with a stomp aimed at her extended knee. Sakura danced in a swirl of her own inner fire, and the flame danced with her, seeping its warmth into her bones even as it reached hungrily for her opponent.
Two sweaty, dusty, brutally strenuous hours later, Sakura could feel the effect of the soldier pill starting to fade, and her control had long faltered to the point she was back at her normal speed. Her outfit was blood-dark with soaked in sweat, her palms, knees, and one shoulder had been scuffed raw when their running battle had passed over a patch of bare stone, and her hair had been hastily tied into a sloppy knot at the base of her neck when her hitae-ate had come loose under the constant bouncing and jumping and left it to fall into her face, but the girl was determined to see the battle through to the end. Kakashi still looked fresh as a daisy, the rat bastard, though he'd gotten a leaf caught comically in his brush of white spikes.
Dropping backward into a bridge to avoid a high kick, Sakura continued the motion into a half dozen backward somersaults to get some breathing room. She pulled out the soldier pill vial with one hand, twisting the top around with her thumb in the same motion, and was about to take another when Kakashi was suddenly right in front of her face, hand interposed to cover the top of the bottle.
"That's enough," he told her seriously. "You haven't used such medicines before, have you student?"
Closing the container again and putting it away, Sakura worried that he was going to stop the lessons because of that, despite his speech about a ninja making every advantage she could. "No," she admitted. "This is the first time. I remembered one of my classmates talking about using them in this way because his family taijutsu needed large amounts of chakra."
"Hmm. There -are- a few clans that do such things... More importantly, using more than one in a short period can have bad side effects, so you shouldn't do that unless it's a serious situation," he ordered. "The equipment shop should have told you this, if it was your first time buying them."
"Ah, well... I had my sister get them for me, since genin aren't allowed to buy advanced medicines without special permission," Sakura explained. "They might even have assumed she was getting them for her... friend, Inuzuka Hana-san."
Kakashi blinked and considered this. He'd been a genin for such a short time, and so long ago, he didn't really remember if there'd been any such restrictions then. Things had been different at that time in any case. "Ah, is that so?" he drawled, to cover his musing. "Well, the test was to see if you could keep the control needed for chakra-boosted strength up for a long battle, so I suppose it's okay. I expect you not to use them for training tomorrow, or for at least another day after that, though. Oh, and don't take sleeping pills tonight either, or you'll die."
His eye curved up in a little inverted smile, tone utterly at odds with the actual words. Sakura smiled sickly and waved as he wandered off, the girl still panting lightly and still buzzing with energy even as the literal chakra surge faded away.
Then, as her breathing finally recovered, she squealed with excitment and punched at the air, kicking up her heels joyously. "OH HELL YEAH! I WIN, I WIN, I -WIN-, SHANNARO!" Shouting and jumping happily she danced around the clearing, then decided to run and find her sister to give her a big hug for the help.
Pausing only to collect her forehead protector where it had been hung on a bush after coming loose she reflected that if the other girl wanted to complain about how grimy she was... well, Kikuko deserved it for the constant cracks about movie-star sensibilities.
continued in part B