Beta'd by ShipperTrish ^-^


Chapter 3: A Sense of Humour

When she arrived at the Konoha gates, Naruto and Sai were already there standing several meters apart. Sai was smiling brightly, standing rigidly at attention while Naruto leaned back against the large stonewall, scuffing his feet into the sandy road, sending plums of dust dancing around his ankles. He shot Sai the occasional dirty look that went completely unnoticed much to Naruto's obvious annoyance.

Sakura rolled her eyes and prayed that they'd be able to get along over the next three days without too much difficulty.

Kakashi, of course, wasn't present. After years of experience with his tardiness, his absence didn't even occur to Sakura's mind. She walked over to where Naruto was standing and pushed her back against the wall and allowed herself to slide down its rough surface so that she sat at Naruto's feet. Unstrapping her weapons pouch, she brought it onto her lap and started meticulously sharpening several of her kunai with a smooth piece of flint. She held each one up to the light, checking that the shine of metal was uniform and flat before testing the bite of the blade against her thumb.

Naruto gave her a sideways glance before opening his own weapons pack and taking out his own kunai and flint. He struck the two together, trying to emulate Sakura's actions. After the third time, he swore after stabbing himself.

Sakura held out her hand, palm up, gesturing with a curl of her index finger.

"Sakura-chan, what would I do without you?" he asked, grinning while sucking his thumb aggressively. He placed his own weapons pouch into her waiting hand and watched her work.

It hadn't taken her long to work out that standing and getting irate about her teacher's time keeping never got her anywhere and now she automatically found little things to do to pass the time.

When Kakashi finally turned up, they had already been waiting for an hour.

Sai had slumped to the floor and now sat cross-legged opposite Sakura and Naruto, watching her sharpen the last kunai 'til small blue sparks jumped off the flint.

Satisfied, Sakura stood up, brushing dust off her legs and bottom and reattached her weapons pouch.

"Kakashi-sensei! We have been here for hours…again! You said we'd g…"

"My bad, my bad," he said, holding his hands up with a lazy smile before roughly rubbing Naruto's hair. "There were some things I had to collect first. These missions take planning, Naruto."

"But…"

"Come on!" he called over his shoulder before breaking into a quick sprint.

They picked up their bags, sighing exasperatedly before ducking into a run, hammering the pace out in an attempt to catch up.

Sakura gave a quick glance over her shoulder at the city wall behind her then doubled her efforts so as not to fall behind.

The pace Kakashi set was punishing. They ran full pelt for the first three hours of the journey and he refused to let them take a break, saying that he wanted to put good distance between them and Konoha before nightfall. Even though the sun was starting to dip towards the horizon, the day hadn't seemed to cool down at all and to make matters worse, the air was thick and humid, making it harder to breath.

When he finally let them take a break to replenish their water supplies, Sakura could barely stand. She slumped into an undignified heap on the edge of the riverbank and panted in hard ragged breaths. Her muscles burned with the unfamiliar excursion and she cursed herself for not maintaining her general fitness over the last few weeks. Even Naruto who had the stamina of a nine-tailed demon fox looked exhausted as he stretched out his muscles against a nearby tree stump.

She closed her eyes tightly, trying to regulate her breathing, but only found herself overcome by an overwhelming sense of nausea which she tried to push down. A sudden clenching in her stomach told her this was futile and she was soon bent over double retching into the grass beside her. The hot sour taste of bile filled her mouth as Ichiraku's miso ramen evacuated itself from her stomach and she instantly regretted eating anything at all. Her vision swam with little green dots and she pinched the bridge of her nose to try and relieve the tension. Something cold pressed against her shoulder and she turned to see Kakashi holding a water bottle against her, his eyes focused on some unseen landmark directly in front of them. She snatched it, flicking the cap off and guzzled the cold fresh liquid down quicker than she should, allowing a lot of it to miss her mouth and flow down her chin and neck. She snapped the cap shut and pressed the bottle against her forehead gasping, finally gaining a little self-control.

"Thank you, Kakashi-sensei."

"Hm," he nodded gently without looking at her.

"How much longer do you think they'll follow us?" she said quietly.

His body stiffened slightly, very slightly, before relaxing back into his lackadaisical posture.

"Observant as ever, Sakura."

She watched the contours of his mouth shift into what looked like a grin underneath his mask.

"What do they want? Why haven't they attacked us yet?" she hissed, trying to keep her voice calm.

"They'll get bored soon enough. It's nothing to worry about. We need to get moving. Your legs will atrophy if you don't stretch them out properly."

He cocked his head and looked her directly in the eyes, his own eye dark and unreadable as he handed her a handkerchief.

She took it with a puzzled expression, which dissolved into a blazing red blush as she realized that her cleavage was sopping wet from spilling the water down herself.

"Keep it," he mumbled, lifting a hand up at her as he went to locate her two teammates.

Kakashi had slowed the pace down a notch after that. He allowed them to take small breaks to drink water and sooth their aching muscles.

An hour later, Sakura felt the chakra signatures that had been trailing them since Konoha fade until she was sure they had given up and gone home, whoever they were.

Kakashi allowed them to slow to brisk walking as the roads got thinner and the tree line became thicker. The light had slowly begun to ebb away when he finally decided that they should look for a suitable place to make camp.

They had found a small clearing in the dense forest about half a mile from the roadside. Naruto and Sai went in search for dry kindling wood while Sakura got to work on chopping larger branches into small logs. She drew her hand back, focusing chakra into the tips of her fingers before striking the large tree bough with precise sharp jabs. The wood splintered and cracked easily due to the lack of rain in recent weeks and soon she was hauling armfuls of perfectly cut logging back to the clearing.

The fire spluttered and cracked fiercely as the sunlight faded. Soon the sound of bird song was replaced by the insistent chirping of crickets in the undergrowth around them.

Kakashi handed them each a rice ball and sat cross-legged in front of the fire next to them. They each gratefully took the ration and tucked in.

Sakura chewed the bland rice thoughtfully, swallowing it down with long sips of water as Naruto chattered away to no one in particular about how he was going to single handedly obliterate the enemy. She eyed Kakashi who was sitting in silence, his head firmly back in the pages of one of those Icha Icha books.

"Kakashi-sensei, who were the men following us this evening?" she didn't need to raise her voice as Kakashi sat only a few feet away.

She noticed Sai's gaze was also trained on their teacher, his poise rigid and trademark smile completely missing from his face. So he'd noticed, too.

"Huh? Following us?" Naruto asked, looking from Sai to Sakura to Kakashi then back to Sai. His forehead pinched into a quizzical frown as he, too, turned his attention to Kakashi who let out a deep sigh, closed his book, and placed it on the grass next to him. He brought his elbows down onto his knees and interlaced his fingers, bringing his chin down to rest on his thumbs. He looked at each of them in turn before settling on Sai.

"Root," he answered simply.

"Root? I thought that Root was disbanded." Sakura said, looking at Sai and Kakashi in turn.

"They were, but that doesn't mean there aren't operatives still loyal to Danzo working under a similar regime. The fact that Sai was placed in Team Kakashi with a secret mission says as much. It would be naive to think that Sai was the only person Danzo used in such a way. Someone was keeping an eye on us, making sure we were going where we said we were."

"Why? And why have they left? Why aren't they still watching us?" she stammered.

"Because I'm with you." Sai said, his voice monotone. He never lifted his gaze from Kakashi. "Root has been following Konoha teams for several weeks now. I don't know why, but we were told to inform Danzo of any unexpected developments."

Sakura shifted her weight onto her other side, feeling suddenly unnerved and uncomfortable by the sudden tension.

"That's why you requested me, isn't it, Kakashi-sensei? Because you knew the ANBU Root division would leave you alone if I was with you."

A long silence seemed to stretch out before them and Sakura noticed even Naruto was paying attention, his blue eyes were wide as he tried to make sense of this revelation.

What the hell is going on? he thought.

After awhile, Kakashi visibly relaxed and stretched, rubbing the back of his head with a large callused palm.

"Heh, well you've got me!" his eyes wrinkled into a wide amused smile. "This mission isn't really a simple B-class. We're doing something a little more dangerous here."

"Dangerous?" Naruto whined, squinting his eyes at the new information he was struggling to follow.

"We have some rather disturbing intelligence that could threaten Konoha. We don't have the full picture and we can't have Danzo sticking his nose in just yet. The Hokage is also a little suspicious of his sudden interest in our missions as of late. That's why Sai is here, so that Root assumes we're already being watched and leaves us to do our job. I have yet to make any relationship with you, Sai, but I believe that Naruto and Sakura know and trust you now, so I'll use their good judgment and also put my trust in you."

"I see." said Sai, his false smile returning to his lips as he nodded in understanding.

"Sai is part of Team Kakashi now!" piped up Naruto. "He's been working hard to overcome that stupid emotion training, he's learned loads of stuff like working in a team, and he stopped calling Sakura-chan ugly and…"

"And you're dickless." Sai cut in.

"AH! Don't act like such a bastard when I'm defending you!"

Kakashi stared through the flames at Sai.

Nevertheless I will be watching you closely, he thought darkly.

­­

­As hard as they tried they couldn't get Kakashi to divulge anything else about the mission. He remained adamant that he would wait until they had crossed the Fire country border before they needed to know the fine details.

After an hour of persistent bullying, Sakura and Naruto finally gave up and she lay down, resting her head on her arms, looking up at the night sky through the trees.

Naruto busied himself poking the fire with a stick, watching the logs slowly dissolve into papery embers.

Sakura started with a jolt when she heard the first long droning note of a harmonica echo out from behind her. Sitting upright with eyes wide, she spun her head around to see Sai holding the little instrument in his lips and listened in awe as the hauntingly melancholy tune floated up through the trees.

"Sai-kun! I didn't know you could play!" she exclaimed in a giggly and delighted voice, an enormous smile spreading across her face.

Kakashi looked up from his book, looking quizzically at Sakura. It had been a long time since he'd heard such an innocently gleeful tone of voice from her, since before the original Team Seven had disbanded. It gave him a nostalgic twinge in the pit of his stomach. She'd grown up a lot in both ability and maturity over the last five years, but it was refreshing when on rare occasions he could almost see the same feeble twelve year old he had first started teaching shine through.

"I would consider myself excelling in most forms of art, Sakura-chan. Music is just something else I'm technically proficient at."

"Ah? That's so cool, Sai! But could you play something a little happier?"

"Happier?"

"You know, like more upbeat! Faster." She started clapping her hands together rhythmically, nodding her head at him to indicate an appropriate tempo.

He frowned a little before bringing the instrument back over his lips and proceeded to blow out another livelier tune.

Naruto nodded in encouragement, scooting over closer to his two friends before a horrified expression of recognition crept over his features.

"NO!" his face crumpled into a look of sheer revulsion.

"Not the Konoha National Anthem!!" he shouted, clasping his hands over his ears and writhing on the ground in obvious pain.

By this point Sakura was in hysterics, gripping her stomach tightly and wiping her watering eyes with the back of her hand. She could swear she saw a mischievous flicker of a smirk flit across Sai's lips at Naruto's obvious discomfort.

Sai paused after finishing, then brought the instrument up to his mouth once more and started to play something neither Sakura or Naruto recognized. The song gathered momentum and soon Sakura and Naruto were clapping along in time.

Sakura felt herself being dragged up by the shoulders as Naruto pulled her into a clumsy embrace.

"Naruto! What are you doing, you idiot?!"

Before she knew it, he was spinning them around the fire in some sort of manic waltz. She threw her head back and giggled as he upped the pace, twirling her around by the hand, making her feel dizzy and lightheaded.

They fell into rhythm with the music, stamping and jumping in time.

She stifled a laugh with her hand as Naruto bought out some of his best disco moves and looked across to Kakashi who was eying them in suspicion. She ran over to him with her hand outstretched, trying to catch her breath through her laughter.

"Come on, Kakashi-sensei!"

"No." he said flatly, his dark grey eye full of disgust.

"Aww, come on! Don't be so boring!" she stuck her hands on her hips and pouted. "Please, please, please!" she turned on the puppy dog eyes, knowing it was a cheap shot.

"I don't dance," he paused, turning his head to one side, "...Ever."

"Well, you're going to have to learn!" she said, her eyes glinting darkly as she leaned forward and grabbed his arm, pulling him onto his feet with ease and dragging him over to where Naruto was still dancing.

"Sakura, can't you find something more useful to do with your monstrous strength than traumatizing your poor old teacher?" he mumbled with hunched shoulders as Naruto and Sakura pulled him around the fire in ever increasing circles.

Sai watched the scene unfold before him with keen interest. The sight of his superior reluctantly "dancing" with his two young teammates was very bizarre. He knew Kakashi had the ability to escape the situation if he really wanted to, so Sai concluded he must have been secretly enjoying himself. He felt the corners of his mouth twitch in amusement and thought with surprise that he was starting to understand something about humour.

The next days trekking was hard work. Even though they moved at a much slower pace than yesterday, the terrain had started becoming tougher: soft grassy plains gave way to rocky uneven earth, hills became steeper and taller, gullies deeper and damper.

They'd spent that night with little shelter from the cold, stiff breeze and Sakura had woken grumpy after only two hours sleep with sharp rocks digging into her back. She sorely wished Yamato had been with them to erect some masterful wooden hut and glared angrily at the three men who seemed completely unperturbed by the situation.

They had come to a small badly surfaced road, which they had decided to follow for awhile.

Kakashi seemed to know where he was going and Sakura's sense of direction lead her to believe they were nearing the northern border of Fire Country. Sure enough, they soon reached a weather-worn signpost welcoming them into the Land of Waterfall.

"We should reach Takigakure before lunch. We'll rest up and buy some provisions, get a decent meal and warm beds, and set out tomorrow morning. Our destination is only three kilometres from there." Kakashi said as much to himself as his teammates.

"And then will you tell us the plan?"

"Yes."

They reached Takigakure quicker than expected and they'd heard it long before that. The thunderous sound of thousands of gallons of water plummeting onto rocks below echoed around the deep ravines for miles around. The presence of such vast quantities of water meant the ground soon became thick and lush with grass and wildflowers. Moss and lichen lined the gullies and ravines, cascading down in thick tendrils. It reminded Sakura of a hanging garden and she had to stuff her hands in her skirt pockets to stop herself from ripping large clumps of expensive medical herbs from the limestone walls. She made a mental note to stock up on the way home.

Nothing prepared them for the sight that greeted them as they turned the corner of the last gully they had been following. The waterfall loomed several hundred feet above them. The gentle breeze carried iridescent sheets of water towards them and billowing clouds of steam obscured the base of where the water hit the rocks. The basin was steep and almost perfectly circular with long carved steps leading round to behind the waterfall.

Naruto and Sakura both inhaled deeply, taking in the magnitude to the landscape.

Sai looked emotionless.

Kakashi looked bored.

Naruto craned his neck up, sweeping his gaze over the hundreds of steps that circled up to the top.

"So Taki is behind there?" he asked Kakashi, his stomach growling loudly.

"Yup."

"Ergh. So…hungry…Okay! It's a race to the top!" Naruto grinned manically, exposing his exaggerated canines.

"Naruto, why are you always trying to make up stupid competitions? You sound like Lee." Sakura snapped.

"I don't sound like Fuzzy Brows! The quicker we get there, the quicker I get ramen. And also listening to you moan about your feet is sapping my positive spirit," he countered with a cheeky grin.

"It's better than listening to your stomach every five minutes. Don't you ever stop thinking about food?"

"Well, at least I eat and don't always worry about the size of my ass!" Naruto stuck his chest out and wiggled his own posterior crudely in Sakura's direction.

"I do eat! And what's wrong with the size of my ass?"

"Okay then, Sakura-chan. I'll race you to the top. Loser buys dinner for everyone." He hesitated before adding, "Either way, you'll lose some of that weight, right?"

Sakura's eyes blazed. "NARUTO!!! You always take it too far!!!"

"No racing." Kakashi cut in, waggling a finger. "You need to conserve your energy if you want to…"

Too late.

They were gone, running full pelt up the stone walkway, taking the steps two at a time.

He watched them through a hooded eye and let out an exasperated sigh.

They used to listen to me once…

An orange and black blur was followed by a red and pink one, which caught up in no time and took the lead with long confident strides.

Kakashi and Sai looked at each other with blank expressions and slowly wandered up after them. Kakashi resumed reading and Sai stared ahead, moving with easy grace up the steps.

Naruto and Sakura pulled and pushed past each other.

As Sakura took the lead for a second time, she let out a triumphant laugh, tossing her hair back dramatically.

"Look, Naruto. Now you're going to get the perfect view of my ass beating you. I can just taste my free barbecue already!"

Kakashi strolled up the steps with casual ease, admiring the breathtaking view of the gully below. He'd counted three hundred and seventeen.

Hmm…Prime number… he thought absentmindedly as he stepped over the two exhausted heaps lying slumped against the wall, panting.

"I told you to save your energy. Only one hundred and eighty three to go."