Hmm... A month, go ahead and shoot me.
...
"This is ridiculous," Naruto scowled, "Everyone already left with their sensei… Even Iruka-sensei left!"
They had been waiting for four hours; Sakura was amazed how Sasuke didn't even budge from his seat, while Naruto was basically bouncing off the walls.
"Just relax Naruto, he or she is probably dealing with serious issues right now," Sakura explained, although just as irritated, she had planned to get some inventory done in the shop that night.
The trio waited in silence until Naruto began fumbling with the board eraser; he took it in his hands and observed it, he then placed a chair near the sliding door. Sakura raised her brow, trying to understand what in the world was Naruto doing. Naruto climbed on top of the chair with the eraser in his grasp and placed it in the opening.
"Do you really think a jounin will fall for that?" Sasuke asked. Sakura believed that was the first time she had ever heard him speak. Although she loved those types of pranks, she had to agree with Sasuke. What jounin would actually fall for that?
"Never know!" he jumped off the chair and put it back in its place.
The door slid open.
The eraser made a little thump sound. The reason for that sound was because a masked man clad in his jounin uniform who attempted to enter had chalk in his already silver hair. Naruto laughed, hard. The other two questioned his authority.
"Hmm…" the jounin was about to say something, everyone listened in, "I already hate you three," the three became disappointed but Sakura didn't blame him, if someone were to see her fall for such a simple prank, she would hate them too.
…
"So let's get to know each other, each of you state your name, likes, dislikes, dreams, and hobbies," The jounin sighed audibly, "orange jumper, start."
"Can we start with you sensei?" Naruto seemed as if he wasn't prepared to talk about himself.
"Fine, my name is Kakashi Hatake, I like… I dislike… My dreams and hobbies… I don't feel like telling you that."
"Basically, all we learned was his name." Sakura murmured, Naruto grunted in agreement.
"Orange jumper," Kakashi commanded. Naruto jumped a little, startled.
"Okay! My name is Naruto Uzumaki! Believe it! I like ramen especially the one from Ichiraku's, I don't like the three minutes I have to wait for ramen to cool down," he took a deep breath from his rant and continued, "my hobby is to compare different cup ramen and I dream of being the best Hokage, so that everyone can acknowledge my existence!"
The silver haired jounin knew that from the kid's vigor, that he would make a powerful ninja. Someone would just have to lead the energy the right way.
He grew up in an interesting way.
"Girl."
Kakashi couldn't help but notice just how fragile looking she was, he wondered how such a weak bodied could actually make it this far.
"My name is Sakura Haruno, I like plants, I dislike rumors, my hobby is growing plants, and I dream of…" a healthy Kaa-san… "G-Getting married," she lied.
A typical girl, she probably won't want to be trained.
Kakashi sighed, "Last one."
"My name is Sasuke Uchiha, I don't like a lot of things, and I dream of- no will kill a certain man." His words dripped with certain… Hate, a hate that would drive any normal human mad.
Kakashi knew of his plot, in fact, every higher up knew, the raven haired kid had already seemed above average when it came to strength and intelligence.
Just as I thought.
Both Sakura and Naruto were shocked by the malicious aura Sasuke gave off. When the shock wore off of Sakura, she couldn't help but feel a little pity for her teammate.
"Okay," Kakashi clapped, "that's enough for today, we're training tomorrow, don't eat breakfast."
"Why not?" Naruto asked.
"I will make you barf it out. That's all you need to know."
Everyone gulped.
…
"Here you are Haruno-san," the nurse guided the tween to the door, "room 303."
"Thank you," Sakura bowed with a bag in her hands.
The bag contained charms, charms to ward away bad luck and sorrow. Although they never seemed to have worked, Sakura kept placing them around her mother's room every evening in hope that they could do something.
Sakura opened the door to find a lifeless woman sitting up in her hospital bed. She wondered sometimes if that woman was really her mother. As usual, Sachiko sat upright on the bed, staring at the blank wall, never making a sound or moving.
After that frightening episode two years back, Sachiko woke up the next day, and stayed in that position, never eating or sleeping. In order for her to get the nutrition she needed, the doctors put a feeding tube in her arm, and embarrassingly enough, a diaper to keep her from dirtying anything.
Sakura first put another charm on the nightstand before talking to her mother, it was a smooth, deep green rock, a customer had given it to her for thanks, it was explained to her that it was a good luck charm.
"See this gift Kaa-san?" Sakura smiled half-heartedly, "it was from another customer, and you'd never guess what happened today!" She told her mother everything, from how she blamed karma for her teammates to how her new sensei threatened to make them vomit out their breakfast if they ate any for the training session.
Her mother of course, never responded to her daughter's story, but Sakura didn't mind. As long as her mother was alive, everything would be just fine.
Though it felt as if Sachiko died a while back…
…
Sakura ate a bagel, by accident; it just looked so delicious…
It's not like her sensei had an ability to see what was inside that internal organ of hers. Plus he didn't seem like the man to actually hurt children, just threaten them. Maybe he had some sort of talent to threaten until she would vomit…
Was she only basing her judgement because of what she witnessed? Guilt washed over her face as Naruto complained about not having any of his precious ramen for breakfast, and Sasuke's stomach growled too loudly for him to conceal.
Worst of all, Kakashi was late, and she had a bagel.
"He's late, again." Naruto grumbled, along with his hungry stomach.
"Thanks for pointing out the obvious, dead last." Sasuke sarcastically replied, Naruto didn't seem too amused with the sarcasm.
"Well I'm sorry, do you want to keep thinking about your hunger?"
"Both of you, stop." The two glared in Sakura's direction. She wasn't in the mood to see them fight, because she was imagining what color her vomit would look like.
"Sakura… You look sick." Naruto pointed out; indeed she paled to a sheet white and was trembling a little.
"It's okay…" she felt a little anxious and nauseous at the same time, so she took the same pills she gave to Naruto the day before, "I feel better now."
"Okay… Do you happen to have food in that bag?" a mischievous grin replaced his hungry scowl.
"No, just medicine," disappointed, Naruto hid behind a rock to sulk.
They waited for another two hours and just when they decided to leave and forget their careers as ninjas, Kakashi arrived.
"You're late."
"I had to stop and help an old lady." Kakashi shrugged.
"You big fat liar!" Naruto pointed to Kakashi.
"Naruto, don't call our sensei a liar…" Sakura nagged, "after all we do need a sensei."
Naruto stopped his accusations even though everyone knew he was a liar in the back of their minds.
"No one ate breakfast?"
The tweens nodded, "Good."
Sakura could just feel the bagel being digested into nutrients, it just sloshed inside of her… Not making her hungry. She frowned in guilt.
"Sakura, is everything alright?" Kakashi asked, she jumped a little on the inside, "I'm just hungry…" she responded, lying.
"Good, let's get to training," he took two bells from his pocket, "the task today is to get these bells from me, when you successfully take them, you can have one of those lunches." Kakashi pointed to two lunch boxes set on a flat rock. The two who didn't eat salivated.
"But why is there only two?" Sakura asked.
"Two of you will graduate and one of you will go back to the academy," Kakashi placed an alarm clock on a wooden log, "you have till twelve, start." Before he knew it, they already went to hiding.
It was a competition that Sakura had a good feeling she would lose. She walked around in the forest, not even concentrating on her supposed task. The green foliage and the sound of small branches cracking under her sandals was calming, she sighed, thinking about her mother, thinking about giving up the ninja career in which she could probably never grasp. The shop now had enough customers and she knew how to survive, so why was she still learning how to throw shuriken?
She observed her skinny, pale arms. Even though she ate more, she was still fragile, she was able to do a couple push-ups, but even after continuously doing them every day and increasing the amount as she progressed, they never showed a visible result. She ate more foods with iron, but she still bruised easily, she tried getting a tan, it ended with a burn that somehow made her paler than before. Her body was obviously telling her something. Sakura sighed and observed the forest ceiling dancing in the wind, she was useless as a ninja, and she knew that wouldn't change.
"Sakura-chan?" Naruto woke her up from her reverie; she wondered how on earth was he able to find her, because she had thought she ventured out deep into the forest, "is everything alright?"
She nodded, "how did you find me?"
"It's easy to spot pink in a green forest," he laughed, "listen, Sasuke's down, we can go against Kakashi together and get the bells. Then we can eat the lunches in Sasuke's face."
"I don't think I'll be much help…" Sakura drawled.
Naruto furrowed his eyebrows and closed his eyes in front of the girl, "What are you talking about?"
She laughed, she laughed so hard even though it wasn't funny, the boy really was an idiot! He didn't even realise how weak she was. The laugh turned into sobs, and she was really at her breaking point.
"Naruto! You are an Idiot! Look at me! I can't even throw a kunai for god's sake!" she laughed a little more between her sobs and covered her mouth.
"Change that."
Her swollen eyes stared at him with confusion as her sobs stopped, "what?"
"Start learning how to throw kunai."
"But-"
"Let's get the bells," he grabbed her wrist, and the two ran out the forest and back to the training grounds.
They found their sensei standing in the middle of the grounds, reading an orange book.
"Throw a couple kunai at him, you can miss, just try and get him. I'll try another trick with my clones." Sakura nodded at the instructions, Naruto disappeared to hide.
She did as she was told and threw a few kunai at her motionless sensei, completely missing her mark. He caught a few and kicked away some others.
"Is that all you got?" her sensei yelled, throwing back a few kunai, she dodged them, almost getting hit by each and every one of them.
"Yeah…" she laughed awkwardly; Kakashi raised his only visible brow to that.
She kept throwing and missing, wondering where Naruto was and when he would derail his part in his so called plan. The jounin threw back another kunai that hit her side; Sakura went down on her knees, the pain unbearable. She hated Naruto at that moment.
"Are you actually that weak?" he taunted, making her doubt herself even more. Whenever she had gotten injured like this, she would normally forget being a ninja and go home, however, in this situation she couldn't just go home and heal herself like all those other times.
"Yes," Sakura admitted, "but if I run away like all those other times, I would probably lose the chance of being a good kunoichi." She got up slowly, pulling the kunai out of her side and wincing in pain. It ripped through her favorite red dress, which made her a little angry. Where was the knucklehead when she needed him? Was Sasuke alright? If Naruto wasn't coming out any time soon, she would have to find the arrogant guy.
"Sakura Haruno, I see both determination and anger in your eyes," Kakashi suddenly came from her back, she turned around, ready to defend and angry, "use that anger to take the bells."
He came at her with a kick to the chest, and she deflected it with her forearms. Kakashi was surprised that she could actually do such a thing.
"You've got potential, and Naruto, nice try."
Sakura was brought down to the ground by taijutsu and Naruto, he was tied to the log where the alarm clock was placed, and it rang.
Sakura winced to the shrill of the alarm, and being pinned down didn't help either.
…
"Congrats, you all failed."
Sasuke kept a stoic face on, Sakura cringed, and Naruto was yelling a few swear words here and there, all the while flailing his legs in the air because he was still tied to the log.
"Sasuke, let's start with you," Sasuke looked up, even though he kept a straight face, Sakura could tell that he was a little nervous to hear what their sensei would have to say.
"You are too arrogant, independent, and although you are the stronger one of the three-"
"Since when?" Naruto interrupted.
"You can't beat a jonin by yourself just yet, that's why you have to work with everybody else."
Sasuke looked down, his ego, demolished.
"Naruto," The blond grumbled to Kakashi's call, "you tried to make it work with Sakura but, if you got over your hate of Sasuke, you would've gotten the bells."
He arrogantly turned his head to the side, Sakura's side.
"Sakura," her breath hitched, "you want to become a ninja, right?"
She didn't move, neither would she speak.
"Then start acting like one, just like you did when sparring with me, so stop crying over yourself, and make yourself useful for once!"
"Yes."
"It seems that you learned your lessons," Kakashi put a hand on his masked chin," Tell you what, I'll give you another chance to pass, Sakura, Sasuke, you can eat the lunches, I need to go into the forest to relax for a couple minutes, whatever you do, do not feed Naruto."
They nodded.
"And remember those who don't follow the rules are scum."
They nodded again.
Kakashi left, both Sakura and Sasuke opened their boxed lunches, and Naruto's stomach growled, the blond winced in pain.
"Here," Sasuke held up his lunch to Naruto's face and took a small portion of rice into the chopsticks.
Sakura remembered about the bagel earlier on, "Sasuke, you need to eat more than I, I'll feed him."
Naruto went tomato red, he open his mouth wide to receive bites of rice and fried pork.
Suddenly, a poof of smoke appeared right in front of the three, an angered Kakashi walked through the smoke, "you broke the rules, and you are scum, but…" Kakashi said in a furious voice
"Those who abandon their teammates are worse than scum," his voice lightened and a smirk visible enough to see through the mask appeared, "Congrats, you all passed, and you are now Genin."
…
Later that night, a cheerful Sakura ran through the hospital halls; she quickly entered her mother's room and hugged Sachiko.
"Mom, I passed!"
Sakura told her still mother everything that happened that day, hoping that her mother was listening on the inside.