All rights to Naruto belong to Masashi Kishimoto.
A week and a half had passed since she had asked Lee to be her teacher, and she decided that she had never made a better, or more painful, decision in her life. A week was not enough time to show a lot of improvement, but she could endure the challenges of the day better than she had before.
Her hair remained in a ponytail permanently, since she found it the most convenient way to keep her hair and also work out. The dress her parents had given her was replaced with a much more comfortable outfit, one she could maneuver around in easily. It consisted of a loose, dull-rose colored tank top with some navy blue capris-slacks. She wore black, fingerless gloves on her hands and the generic black ninja sandals on her feet. Lee approved immediately, saying that her youth shined even brighter through her new appearance.
Her relationship with Naruto only seemed to get stronger. She would have lunch with him at least twice a week and she would walk home with him every day after training. Although she still had not told him about her secret training, he was always there to make sure that she was okay when she looked like she was about to faint. He persisted with his inquiry on what she had been doing because he thought he would wear her down and finally get to the bottom of why she always showed up to training exhausted. Sakura just told him that she took morning runs, which was not a lie either.
Sasuke was the same as always. He still ignored her and practically everyone else around him. Her heart still pained at his lack of recognition of her newfound conviction to become stronger, and he looked completely unaffected by how she had stopped clinging to him for everything. However, she willed herself not to care; if she was to be a serious ninja, she couldn't worry about petty things such as boys. At least, that's what she tried to tell herself.
Kakashi seemed a little distant from her all of a sudden. Even though she was happy that he was not hovering over her and he gave her room to grow, he more often than not isolated himself from her. It was not as though he was ignoring her, for she saw the furtive glances that he would give her. They always looked so solemn, so serious, and she could never tell what he was actually thinking. It was if looking at her brought back terrible nostalgia for him, and every time he connected eyes with her, he was reminded of something so horrid that he was compelled to shield his eyes away. She wanted more than anything to find out what was wrong, since it affected her too, but she still could not bring herself to talk to him.
His small bout of silence changed, however, when she went to training one day.
Lee had not been there to train her in the morning because he and Gai went off somewhere to some mountain to "hone their skills by the power of youth". He said he would not be back for a couple of days and to just work on the skills he had shown her. His lack of presence was a little discouraging, because even though she did not want to admit it, she drew her strength from his encouragement. Not having him there made her feel a bit displaced, since she felt that she could not go anyone else for the support he gave her.
That was why she found herself on the training grounds, full of energy. In her eyes, it was a bad day to be so, since she had already completed the water-walking activity Kakashi had given them the day prior. She had fallen into the water a few times, but once she got the hang of it, her stable chakra control made it almost second-nature to her. She prided herself a little (or a lot) on being the only one on her team who caught on quickly. Kakashi had instructed her to not help Naruto nor Sasuke out, and have them figure it out by themselves.
That was why she had assumed her position at the bank of the river, watching the two boys struggle to amble across the stagnant water. She sighed deeply and shook her head as Naruto fell in once again, cursing his chakra for not working with him. Sasuke had been a bit luckier than him, but had only managed to walk a few steps before the water exploded under the massive amount of chakra he directed towards his feet. When he fell into the water again, he grunted at what a dumb exercise it was, but he was relentless. He would not stop until he had gotten the technique down, since it was common knowledge that all good shinobi knew how to walk on water.
Sasuke then looked at Sakura, sitting with her knees up to her chest, longing to do something other than wait for the two of them. His eyes narrowed at her. I can't believe I'm lagging behind someone like that. He thought with animosity. Sakura did not seem to be affected by his gaze, since she was not looking at him as she usually would. Instead, she was looking at Naruto, seeming desperate to rush over to him and help. And since when has she actually cared about that dead-last? He asked himself. Instead of contemplating an action of a girl he obviously didn't care much for, he just pulled himself out of the water and started his exercise again. He would make sure that he got it that time around.
Sakura just sighed as she watched Naruto tumble into the water for the umpteenth time. Her shoulders relaxed as she felt Sasuke divert his attention to his own training. She was not impervious to the glowers he gave her, but she couldn't bring herself to stare back at him for fear of just angering him more. She could not understand why he seemed even more peevish around her than before, since she had made the conscious effort to change her obsessive tendencies. Sakura just pulled her knees tighter into her chest and rested her chin on them. She just wished that she had something to do so that she could distract herself from him.
That was when she felt a hand atop her head, ruffling her hair a little. She looked up, squinting a little at the glare of the sun, to see Kakashi's figure overshadowing her. "Bored, are you, Sakura-chan?" Kakashi asked with a raised eyebrow.
Sakura felt her anxiety around her sensei rise again. It was the first time he had actually struck a conversation with her in a week, and he acted like nothing had happened. She immediately returned her gaze to the ground while nodding slightly. Kakashi sighed, a little disappointed that she had not gotten over her insecurity around him.
"Well then, we can't have that. It's obvious you're a bit too advanced for these two, hm?" He asked. Sakura had to bite her lip to hold back a giggle, even though she knew it was far from true. Sasuke seemed to hear them and glared in their direction, but that only made him lose control of his chakra and fall into the river once again.
At that, Sakura couldn't help a little snort.
Kakashi smiled at her a little, relieved that she wasn't so up-tight around him that she was frozen solid with fear. He's met people who've had that reaction to him. "Come on, Sakura-chan." He said as he motioned for her to get up. She stood in a single movement, feeling fully energized to complete whatever task he would assign to her. The last time Kakashi had let Sakura go off on her own was when he assigned her to protect Tazuna. In turn, the situation kind of felt like déjà vu. "You boys continue to do this until you get it right! Sakura-chan and I are going to go do something different!" Kakashi called out to them as he started to walk away. Sakura followed after him quickly.
"I bet I'll figure it out before you do, teme!"
"In your pathetic dreams, dobe." She heard from behind her. She just rolled her eyes at their antics. She hoped that their competition would help them get the technique faster, because she knew that Naruto always did better if he had incentive. In that case, she decided she would help him out.
Before completely leaving the training grounds, she turned around. "Hey Naruto! If you can get the technique before Sasuke, I'll pay for the next meal!" She called out. At her voice, both of the boys' heads immediately shot up. Naruto's face immediately broke out into a grin, while Sasuke looked utterly stupefied.
"Hell yeah! You just wait, Sakura-chan! I'll beat this bastard no matter what!" Naruto said as he pumped his fist in the air.
"I'll hold you to that!" Sakura called back.
Sasuke said nothing.
She dropped the 'kun', he noticed. He just shook it off. As if he'd care.
Kakashi and Sakura walked slowly through the forest of the training grounds. Sakura was ambivalent about the situation: on one hand, she was excited to see what he had in store for her, but on the other, she was afraid of being with her sensei alone. She wish she had Naruto's support or even his cruddy jokes to lighten the mood. The aura that Kakashi gave off was aloof in a solemn way.
"Maa, Sakura-chan, do I have a fly on my back?" Kakashi asked casually as he pretended to twist his neck to peer at his back. It was a clear indication that he knew that she had been staring. Sakura's face quickly heated up and she shook her head violently.
"N-no, sensei. Nothing like that!" She said quickly. Kakashi just nodded his head once, but it was so faint that she doubted her own eyes.
"Well, I think this is a good spot." He said as he stood in a wooded clearing, much similar to the one they used to play the hide-and-seek-tag hybrid that Kakashi made up. The trees towered taller and the brown bark complemented the brown of the dirt beneath them, which made the leaves of the evergreen trees look even more vibrant. "I'm going to spend this time teaching you, Sakura-chan, because those two already have something to work on." Kakashi said.
Sakura cringed a little at the thought of leaving the two of them unsupervised. "Are you sure it is okay to leave Naruto and Sasuke alone?" Sakura asked dubiously.
Kakashi paused for a little before sighing, as if he had just realized that. He quickly made a shadow clone of himself. The clone looked at him, ready for instructions. "Make sure the two idiots over there don't drown each other." The clone nodded and then left. "Alright then, let's get started. I'm going to give you a couple of diverse techniques to practice Sakura, so try to divide your time between all of them." He instructed. Sakura nodded, still a bit unsure since she did not know exactly what she was doing.
"Okay…what are these techniques?" She asked.
Kakashi smiled a bit when she asked, and he could feel himself warm up a little with what he was about to tell her. He had devised those techniques specifically from what he had seen in her training with Lee and his own exercises. He truly put a lot of thought into his lesson, something he had not been used to doing since it had always come naturally to him.
"I'll demonstrate the first one." He said. "Now, you want to collect as much chakra in your feet as possible. This exercise correlates with all the other chakra control exercises we have been doing, but this one is much more advanced." Sakura nodded to show that she was listening.
Kakashi took off running before leaping a little bit. He did just as Lee had taught her and landed while barely making any sound, but then he was projected into the air. Sakura watched in amazement as a silver flash zig-zagged from tree to tree before settling himself on a branch. It had all happened in under a few seconds, so Sakura could barely keep up. It was if he had bounced on a trampoline with the amount of power that had propelled him into the air.
"Wow." Sakura whispered to herself. She could not formulate any other words besides that. She knew that the new technique would advance her evading capabilities and also her speed. However, even if she did learn the skill, there was no way she could be as fast as Kakashi.
Kakashi jumped down from the tree he was on, about ten meters away from Sakura. As if reading her thoughts, he responded, "It's all in the amount of chakra you put into it. Being able to propel yourself like this requires you to not only concentrate your chakra into one spot, but also put enough force in that it will give you a boost." He said. "It's much harder than it looks, but I know it will be a useful skill to have in the exam. Trust me on that." She could tell that he was insinuating something about the exam that was crucial for her to know, but keeping it conceived so that it would not be considered illegal. She appreciated his concern.
"Alright, I'll try it." She said as she closed her eyes shut, pulling on the chakra from her whole body and concentrating it into her feet. She felt the power drain from her other limbs and focus towards the spiral chakra network inside her foot. She could feel both of her feet fill with an energy that made her feel as though she was flying.
Sakura then started running in the same way Kakashi did. She took a leap, just as Lee had taught her, and just as the pad of her foot touched the ground, she focused all of her chakra into that point and tried to push herself upward. She felt a gust of wind overtake her face because of the change of motion as she sprung up towards the trees. She tried to perform the move Kakashi did when he crossed between two trees, but as she sprung herself off one of the trees, she did not have enough time to turn around before her back met the adjacent tree with a hard impact.
She immediately fell to the ground. She tried to push her chakra into her feet again so that she could attach herself to the tree, but her reflexes weren't fast enough. She braced for impact with the ground, having enough sense to cover her neck with both her hands before she damaged something that could not be fixed.
Suddenly, she felt two arms capture her before she connected with the ground. To stable herself a little, she clung on to the vest she knew too well. Kakashi was holding her princess-style under the tree which she fell from. She slowly let go of his vest and turned her attention to her hands. I had to be saved by him again. She said, her insecurities resurfacing.
He knew that what he did was the exact reason why Sakura did not feel comfortable around him. "Sakura-chan," he started, not looking directly at her as if not to intimidate her, which she was very grateful for, "don't think of it as you having to be rescued." He said as he placed her on the ground. Having been through the experience she had, she fell back a little bit and sat on the ground, waiting to stabilize herself. However, she still listened to what her sensei had to say. He knelt down so that he was eye-level with her. "We are comrades. If a comrade is in trouble, then their companions help them. That's just the way this life works. I didn't catch you because it was an obligation. I caught you because you are my friend and I don't want to see you hurt."
"Kakashi-sensei…" Her voice trailed off. She did not know what she wanted to say after that.
"I trust that if I was in a situation where I needed help, you would do just the same." He finished.
Sakura looked up at him. For the first time, he did not seem intimidating at all. He looked more like a brother, the way he smiled down at her benevolently. She took his words to heart. She was not an obligation of his, she was part of his team. But that meant that she would have to pull her own weight as well.
"I don't know sensei…" She said, a slight mischievous glint entering her eyes. "You look a bit heavy for me to catch." She joked.
"I hope you're not calling me fat, Sakura-chan." Kakashi said lowly. Sakura shrugged innocently. Kakashi narrowed her eyes at her playfully and ruffled her hair, taking some strands out of her ponytail. "Get back to training." He said simply. Sakura just smiled.
Sakura fell from the three for the twelfth time that hour. Kakashi did not make a move to catch her, and he expected her to know how to break her own fall. She did not mind this change, of course, because she knew that there wasn't always going to be someone there to catch her. He just stood against a tree, reading and occasionally looking up to monitor her progress.
Sakura breathed out an exasperated sigh as she struggled to get up again. "I don't understand what I'm doing wrong, sensei. Aren't I doing the same thing that you are?" She asked. Kakashi got off the tree he was leaning on and closed his orange book. He walked over to her and knelt down.
"Don't beat yourself up. I hope you weren't thinking that you would get it on the first try." Kakashi said. Sakura's shoulders sagged. She had been hoping that leaping would come to her just as easily as tree climbing and water walking. However, this required so much more chakra control and force than she had anticipated. "Also, I think you are too lenient with the amount of chakra you are putting in your feet. Training with Gai makes you a bit out of sync with your chakra control, doesn't it?" He said nonchalantly as he stood up and opened his book again.
"Yeah I guess so…" Sakura trailed off. Her head then snapped up to look at her sensei. "Wait, what did you just say?" She asked, her eyes wide.
"Hm? I said that training with a taijutsu master and his student must be much different that training with your chakra." He said, his face unchanged.
"Y-you know about that?" Sakura asked, looking down a little.
"Yes, I know you've been training with Gai and his look-alike protégé." He said as he once again snapped his book shut.
Sakura squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to look at the expression of disappointment that was probably on Kakashi's face. "I-I'm sorry, sensei! I…"
"No." Kakashi cut her off. "I am." He said. Sakura looked up at him, wiping away the tears that started to appear in her eyes. He took a seat next to her, his legs crossed. "I'm sorry that I drove you away. I guess I was too focused on Naruto and Sasuke and I neglected you." He said. "Also…you remind me of someone." He said solemnly.
"Of who, sensei?" Sakura asked. She could see Kakashi wince a little, as if just thinking about it stung. "On second thought…never mind. It doesn't matter." Sakura said quickly afterwards. She didn't want Kakashi to share with her anything that he didn't want to.
"Don't worry, it's fine." Kakashi assured. "But because you reminded me so much of…this person, I felt the need to shield you from harm, like I was never able to do to them." He said. Sakura pursed her lips, not knowing what to say to perhaps provide some comfort for her teacher. Before she could say anything, Kakashi spoke up again. "But because of that tendency of mine, I drove you away. Heh," he chuckled humorlessly, "this teaching thing is a lot harder than I thought it would be." He said, scratching the back of his neck.
"Yeah," Sakura said, trying to sympathize with him although she knew she would never be able to, "but you do a pretty good job." She said. "I'm really sorry that I found another teacher without your permission."
Kakashi sighed deeply. "Don't be. If you hadn't, things would have continued as they were. Besides, many of the best shinobi in the world have more than one teacher. That is…if you'll still accept me as your teacher." Kakashi said, stealing a side-glance at her.
Sakura thought about it for a little bit. Not about what her answer would be, because it was obviously yes, but about what she could bring to the team under the guidance of two teachers. Looking over at her sensei, who had a stoic yet slightly apprehensive look on his face, she smiled. She nudged him a little bit, just as friends would do. Kakashi did not look shocked by the action, but simply raised an eyebrow. "Don't get all mushy, sensei. I didn't fall out of a tree a million times only to not allow you to teach me."
Kakashi smiled under his mask and pat her on the back. "I admire your tenacity, Sakura-chan. Just so you know, I'm not going to baby you anymore. If I have to push those two into a fiery pit for training, you're going with them.
Sakura nodded and shot him a thumbs up. "You got it, Kakashi-sensei." She said.
Kakashi slowly rose and dusted off his clothes. He lent a hand to her to pull her up, and she took it thankfully. "Well, now that that's settled, we can get back to…" Kakashi started before a loud voice interrupted him.
"SAKURA-CHAN!" A very obnoxious blonde called out to her as he raced through the brush towards her.
Kakashi just sighed. "We'll continue this later." He said. Sakura just nodded.
Naruto jolted to a stop right in front of her, and she had to stagger back to avoid colliding with him. He was drenched in what was probably a combination of water and sweat. His orange jacket sagged in accordance to his shoulders and his mouth hung open like a dog's. He looked absolutely exhausted, but he still found the energy to smile at her.
"Guess what, Sakura-chan!? I figured it out! Water walking has been mastered!" He exclaimed, waving his arms around erratically and zealously. Sakura grinned back at him.
"Awesome job, Naruto! I knew you'd get it!" She said as she gave him a high-five. Kakashi looked upon their interaction with amusement, glad that there was a positive relationship between the two unlike before. "Did you get it before…?"
"Hn. Of course he didn't." Sasuke cut her off as he appeared right next to Naruto. He was also soaked to the bone, but he didn't even look half as exhausted as Naruto did. It was probably his own pride that kept him from looking so.
A vein popped on Naruto's head, but Sakura could tell that he was trying to get over the disappointment of losing to his rival. Sakura bit her lip. She really didn't like seeing Naruto like that. She punched his shoulder slightly, making him look at her. "Hey, at least you got it down. How about that ramen? I'll still treat." She said, hoping to cheer him up.
Naruto's spirits were immediately rejuvenated. He hopped over to Sakura's side and swung an arm around her shoulders, letting the water from his jacket soak into her shirt. She felt a little peeved at that, but she just let it slide. "Yahoo! Let's go, Sakura-chan!" Naruto said as he started to drag her away.
Sakura slapped his arm a little bit to halt him. "Wait, wait, wait." She said quickly as she turned back to Kakashi and Sasuke. "Kakashi-sensei? Sasuke-kun? Would you like to join us?" She asked, her eyes filled with hope. Naruto scowled a little at the thought of the pervert sensei and the bastard joining them.
So the 'kun' is back, huh? It was probably just a slip of the tongue before. Sasuke thought. Wait…why do I care? He scolded himself. He then scoffed aloud, turning so his back was towards them and heading back to the training grounds. "As if I'd want to do that." He said coldly.
All the males were awaiting Sakura's reaction, even Sasuke, who had only taken small steps so that he could still hear her response.
To this, Sakura pouted a little, trying to get rid of the slight pain in her chest at his rejection. "Oh well," she said as she sighed. "Your loss, Sasuke-kun." She shrugged. Naruto just smirked at this.
"I'm afraid I also have some stuff I need to take care of." Kakashi said as he gave them a mock-salute. Sakura looked disappointed at this as well, but Naruto looked absolutely ecstatic.
"That's too bad. Maybe another time?" Sakura asked. Kakashi simply nodded. "Okay, let's go Naruto. Bye, sensei!"
"Later, Kakashi-sensei!" The two called out before they raced out of the forest towards the village. Kakashi looked after them fondly, shaking his head slightly before taking off in his own direction.
Kakashi stood in front of the Memorial Stone, holding some flowers. It was not a gloomy day, as it usually was when he decided to visit his old friends. He placed the flowers next to the stone and closed his eyes in a sign of respect.
I'll make you proud, sensei, Obito, Rin. I promise. He thought. He then stood up and made his way towards the village, his orange book in hand but unopened.
Another chapter done! I really hope you guys enjoyed! Thank you to all of those who've made it this far, and a special thanks to all of those who reviewed!
By the way, I kind-of, sort-of have a pairing in mind for this series, but I would love to hear from you guys about what you want to see. I've already decided it's not going to be LeeSaku, because I want them to have a strong mentor-student bond. Anyway, let me know down in your reviews what you want to see.
As always, I hope that all of you beautiful people are having an absolutely fantastic day wherever you are. See you next time!