Disclaimer: I have no claims to copyright and I don't intend to infringe upon it.

A/N: Now the awkward, dysfunctional relationship of Team Seven begins.

The First Flower of Spring

Chapter Six

If I Call Out...

Sakura tried to control the urge to fidget nervously. She was a disciplined, talented young shinobi. There was no need to be nervous simply because she and her two teammates were alone, waiting on Kakashi-sensei. After all, they'd chosen such a pretty bridge as their meeting point. She could watch the stream flow beneath the bridge and not think on Kagami-sama's suggestions for improving 'team relations.'

Even Naruto was being quiet, which doubled the awkward silence. Thinking of them in her head without honorifics was the first step in being able to say their names without them. That had been a reasonable suggestion that Shiho-nii had supported. Some of the others didn't bear mentioning.

"Hey, hey, Sakura-chan," Naruto's eager voice broke the silence between Team Seven, "where'd you get that weapon you had the other day? It was so cool!"

Sakura noticed that even Sasuke glanced over at her with interest. "Shiho-nii was a gift," she said. "From my family."

"You named it?" Sasuke asked, one dark brow rising toward his hairline.

"Ran-oba-san named him. He was hers first," Sakura explained, feeling somewhat cross as neither Shiki-dono nor Kagami-sama had suggested ways to divert her teammates' interest from Shiho-nii. Kagami-sama had said, You shouldn't lie to your teammates. After all, what if, years and years later, they find you've been lyin' for all that time? Shiki-dono's opinion had been simpler. Lie, he'd commanded. And do so well. It was Ran-oba-san who'd suggested the middle course of neither lying nor telling the truth.

"I didn't think you came from a ninja clan," Sasuke observed.

"Ran-oba-san wasn't a ninja, but her husband was." Skirting the truth like this was a difficult game for an eleven-year old girl to play, but Sakura had lived in a world of adults since the ceremony. But it was one thing to lie to adults, whose sense of danger and untruth seemed dull by comparison to the children they condescended to.

Luckily for Sakura, Team Seven was remarkable not only for their potential, but for their self-absorption. Whereas leaders usually emerged quickly in the three-man squads, each of the three members of Team Seven were alpha personalities. They were the three points on an equilateral triangle, as distant and strange from one another as points on a geometric plane that would never meet.

So, when she asked Naruto, "What kind of clones were those?" neither of the boys noticed that she hadn't really answered the question.

-X-X-X-

Team Seven completed more D-rank missions than any of the other rookie gennin. It wasn't simply to satisfy Kakashi's sadistic sense of humor, no matter what his cute little disciples accused him of. It was because sparring was a nightmare. It wasn't enough that Naruto and Sasuke acted like every encounter was some sort of personal grudge match that left them just short of hospitalized. Oh no, that would be too easy.

I must have been a terrible person in my past life, Kakashi sighed in his head as he supervised a match between Sakura and Sasuke. There was no splitting into pairs for Team Seven. If they did, he wouldn't be surprised if they were one man short before they ever made it out of the village. Every time he watched Sakura fight, his initial suspicion about her training was proven, but it appeared that despite all the high-level jutsu she'd been taught, no one had bothered to teach the young gennin moderation.

When Sakura fought, it was a kind of stomp you into the ground and then humiliate you with your own incompetence that stopped just short of being mean-spirited. He didn't think she even realized what she was doing. It certainly wasn't conductive to training.

"Sakura," he chided as he watched her dip her fingers into her ninja pouch as Sasuke prepared a fire jutsu, "what did I tell you about explosives?"

The young girl frowned but easily dodged the showy spout of fire that the Uchiha's jutsu produced. She'd fallen into a habit of throwing paper bombs at Sasuke just as his fingers formed the last seal of his jutsus, meaning his fire-based attacks exploded back at him. It was effective, to be certain, but he'd become rather fond of his students in these past few weeks and Sakura never used practice materials—from kunai to explosives, she acted as if she was always in live combat. If Sasuke wasn't so quick, Kakashi was almost sure they would have had a casualty by now.

As he watched her draw a pair of kunais with something like resignation, he thought, And this is the reason I usually spar with her myself.

Flickering from his perch, he appeared between them before they clashed. "Sakura," he said cheerfully, "after today's mission we're going to have a talk about what practice means, so you can have some teammates left before you reach chunnin."

Naruto, who'd been watching from the sidelines with his whole frame hunched forward, like he was only moments away from barging into the fight himself, cheered. "Yes! But no more lame missions, Kakashi-sensei!"

Kakashi rolled his eyes. There were entire days when he wondered exactly what it was he liked about his team.

Thirty minutes later, as his disciples closed in on Shijimi-sama's escape-artist cat, the bane of the current generation of gennin, he was generally amused. After all, Sakura and Sasuke both took the missions so seriously and obeyed his instructions that neither of them were to take point and just secure Tora, but still managed to miss the point of the whole exercise.

He could imagine Sasuke's look of bored indifference as he confirmed the identity of the cat, but Naruto's bellow of "Isn't there a mission with a greater sense of urgency?" threatened to destroy his eardrums.

That feeling, the one why he didn't quite know why he liked his team, returned threefold when they were standing in front of the Hokage, who Naruto had just flat out told he wasn't going to take the next mission they were being offered.

I thought it was about time for him to get fretful, Kakashi thought with a real sense of resignation. It appeared Naruto had reached his breaking point when it came to the inane missions intended to build a sense of comradeship between the gennin fresh from the academy. His gennin likely wouldn't know teamwork if it was a pretty prostitute parading naked in front of them.

That thought distracted him long enough to ignore Iruka's outraged lecture and Sarutobi's explanation of how the missions were distributed, but he found himself listening to Naruto's description of what he'd had for lunch yesterday despite himself. After all, this was all old hat for him, though it was the gennin's experience level they were supposed to be building.

"Listen!" Sarutobi demanded and Kakashi scratched his head sheepishly in apology.

"Maan!" Naruto whined, "You always lecture me, old man."

Kakashi wondered if the kyuubi brat really understood that receiving any personal recognition at all, let alone instruction, from the head of the village was something that ninja strove towards for years. I'm the one who's going to get a scolding for this later.

But Kakashi was just as surprised as the rest of his team when the Hokage caved in to Naruto's pouting. "Fine. If you insist...I'll have you do a Rank C mission. You'll be bodyguards for someone."

-X-X-X-

Sakura swallowed nervously. Bodyguards? It wasn't like she didn't have confidence in her combat abilities, but the thought of protecting someone was almost as strange as having friends other than Shiho-nii.

But she was Shiki-dono's heir and his last instructions had been to use her full abilities during sparring and if she ever left the village. Live combat is like living art. You must participate in it to understand it, Sakura, but I think you will learn to enjoy bloodsport in which you need not hold back. Be wary, however, he cautioned. If you begin to bloom, Konohagakure will not take kindly to the elimination of your teammates simply because they do not know better than to step between you and your objective.

She was also a little apprehensive about her upcoming discussion with Kakashi-sensei about practice, though it they went on a serious mission, he might wait to scold her until they returned. Sakura had observed the training spars at the Academy, but that was pre-gennin level combat. Kakashi-sensei surely didn't want her to remain at that level for Sasuke's sake, did he? Kakashi-sensei rarely ever let her spar with Naruto, but Sakura thought he'd likely be in even less danger than Sasuke, even though she could never tell his clones and the original apart.

Since the clones and the original argued on a regular basis over just who was the real Naruto, she didn't feel too badly about that.

Sakura was actually rather proud. The one time Shiki-dono had brought in a chunnin-sensei for her, she'd maimed the girl badly, if on accident. All of her other sensei had been jounin. So she thought for the one of the few times she'd fought gennin outside of the tunnels of Mizu no Kuni, she'd done really well.

It was just…Sasuke tried so hard to be hard and only managed brittle, to her eyes. One day, she thought with a glance at her dark-haired teammate, someone was going to bend him and he would break.

Weakness was the only sin Shiki-dono could not forgive. And just a little, Sakura felt the same way.

-X-X-X-

Kakashi kept a close eye on his students as they were introduced to their charge. While a drunken bridge-builder wasn't exactly a prime target for enemy ninja, it was just as well that his students learned, sooner rather than later, that bodyguard work was not all guarding delicate hime or ambitious and polished politicians.

But, as he watched Naruto complain, he was struck by an idea. "Tazuna-san," he said, gaining the grey-haired man's attention. "Do you mind if we delay our departure by an hour or so? This is my gennin's first trip outside the village and I'd like to supervise their packing."

"They're that incompetent, huh? I wasn't sure about being protected by brats to begin with."

Kakashi winced, expecting a tirade from Naruto, but as he looked over at his orange-clad charge, he was instead standing very still. Sakura's hand rested gently at the back of his neck.

"We're not incompetent, just inexperienced," she said quietly. "If you would like, Tazuna-san, I can recommend several excellent restaurants where you can wait."

Her politeness seemed to take Tazuna aback and he left, mumbling to himself about damn brats. As soon as the door slid closed behind him, Sakura removed her hand and Naruto collapsed to his knees, rubbing furiously at the back of his neck. "Ie, that hurt Sakura-chan!" he complained.

"It was only a pinched nerve," she commented without inflection, looking to Kakashi for further instructions.

"It's not really a good idea to use violence against your teammates," he chided her gently.

Her even green gaze told him she considered violence an efficient method of dealing with anyone, teammates included, but she also struggled to show proper remorse. "Hai, Kakashi-sensei. Sorry for hurting you, Naruto-san."

Naruto chuckled. "It wasn't as bad as all that, Sakura-chan. But hey, Kakashi-sensei, why did you want to supervise our packing?"

"How much do the three of you know about each other?" he asked as he began herding them out the door, not totally different than a similar exercise with cats. Naruto, for example, would be an orange tabby that was only moments away from tripping you as he twined between your legs, demanding attention. Sasuke would be incongruously fluffy and would be the kind of cat that was there but never seen, hiding behind the couch and sneaking into the kitchen for a meal when he though no one was looking. Sakura would be Siamese. A proud cat with wide green eyes that couldn't possibly understand why you were displeased when it kept eating the goldfish.

And all of them convinced they were the center of their very own worlds. "I know Sasuke's a bastard!" Naruto volunteered.

"Dobe," Sasuke sneered.

Kakashi heard, very faintly, what might have been Sakura whispered, "Baka," but her gaze was wide and innocent as he stared down at her.

He sighed. "I want each of you to understand how the other two live. So, while we're packing today, we'll see each other's houses." It was unusual, to be sure, but Kakashi felt that he could probably work through his whole bag of tricks and short of some sort of live-or-death combat situation, his disciples would be moved not an inch.

"Your house too, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked suspiciously. "'Cause it's not fair otherwise."

Kakashi ruffled his already messy blond hair. "Nope. Not today, kiddo."

Naruto scowled. "I'm not a kid," he defended.

"And I'm not convinced, but just for that, you can take us to your apartment, first."

-X-X-X-

Sasuke had his hands deep in his pockets as Sakura surveyed the cheap apartment complex with polite interest. Naruto rubbed his head sheepishly as he turned the key. "I don't get guests, so it's kinda messy."

As they trooped their way inside the sparsely furnished set of rooms, Sasuke scowled. If Kakashi was going to give them some kind of lecture about how he and Naruto were both orphans, he was out of here. He didn't want to know how his teammate lived and he didn't want his teammates to know how he lived, in that empty house he'd never completely got the bloodstains out of.

They'd wanted to appoint the 'last Uchiha' guardians, but he'd adamantly refused. As he was already in the Academy, they'd finally settled on allowing his sensei to look in on him from time to time. In the weeks after the Massacre, he'd worked his hands raw scrubbing the blood that had seemed to seep into the whole compound.

But whereas Sasuke couldn't stop the cleaning obsession that had started back then, Naruto seemed to be more of the live-and-let-live type. As in, he was fairly certain he saw a mouse take evasive action toward a darkened corner where the drywall had cracked. Empty cups of instant ramen were stacked high on the tiny counter space not occupied by Naruto's microwave and hotplate, waiting either to be taken out on the proper trash day or become a contemporary artwork on commercialism. Glancing into the only other room besides the toilet and bathroom, Naruto's bedroom, he watched as Naruto gingerly stepped around scrolls and books apparently left open on the floor for a reason, because when Sakura hesitantly bent over one to study its contents, Naruto said, "Ah! Don't lose my page, Sakura-chan."

Staring at the ramen poster above Naruto's bed, he retracted his first thought upon entering the apartment, the one that said maybe Naruto, orphaned without an estate to provide for him, had made a virtue out of a necessity. That might be partially true, but he was also fairly certain Naruto genuinely liked ramen. Maybe that display back in the kitchen had been a shrine of sorts. Or not. Sasuke wasn't kidding himself.

Being in Naruto's house made him uncomfortable, so he took up leaning against the wall and made like part of the furniture until they were ready to leave, Naruto's backpack stuffed near to bursting.

"You turn, Sasuke."

It was the first time in years someone other than sensei from the Academy or the Hokage had visited the Uchiha district and he felt the intrusion like someone had stabbed a kunai into his leg. He didn't want them here. So he packed as quickly as possible.

"You don't have any pictures of your family?" Naruto inquired as he looked on empty walls and spotless furniture.

"No," Sasuke bit out, but that was untrue, because he kept a tattered photograph of his parents underneath his pillow. Just in case he ever forgot what that man had taken away.

Sakura seemed more animated here than she had at Naruto's apartment, wandering off deeper into the district when Kakashi turned his back. "You like it here, Sakura-chan?" Kakashi teased.

"It reminds me of home," Sakura said with a faint smile that was neither happy nor unhappy.

That made him raise an eyebrow, because even he noticed that the further a person went into the district, the heavier the sense of desolation. Those houses had more time for the blood to dry in the wood before he could clean them, leaving the whole place as kind of a living museum to the aftermath of a genocide.

Or maybe it was his house she was talking about. Though she wore those oversized shirts all the time, maybe they were better off than he thought. She certainly seemed to have no end of paper bombs.

When it was Sakura's turn, she led them to a modest bakery. As she led them around the back and they deposited their shoes upon the stoop, Sakura turned to them. "I need to greet Ran-oba-san and tell her I'll be leaving."

It turned out she didn't need to search for her, because at that moment a tired looking middle-aged woman whose hair was liberally streaked through with white entered. "Sakura."

His teammate bowed very correctly to her. "I'm home, Ran-oba-san. I apologize for bringing my teammates here without notice."

She might have been a civilian, but the woman's green eyes were sharp as she looked them over.

"I will be going on a mission outside the village," Sakura announced quietly.

"I see. Be safe."

"Yes, thank you."

Kakashi cleared his throat as the woman returned to what Sasuke thought might have been the kitchen and store space to the front of the residence. "Are you always so formal with her, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura blinked. There were times when Sasuke wondered if the girl wasn't a little bit dumb, but at least she didn't follow him around like the other girls in the Academy. "Yes," she answered Kakashi after a marked hesitation.

"Where are your parents, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked curiously.

"Missing. They were declared dead a long time ago," Sakura answered easily.

None of them made her any gestures of sympathy, because she didn't seem to expect any. She'd declared the fact as easily one might say their birthday or something. Or with even less attachment than that.

For someone who would give just about anything to have his own family back to the way it had been, it pissed him off a little, but all he did was silently follow her to the upstairs.

However, when he got to the room he'd thought was her bedroom, he had to pause on the threshold. Because the room just seemed to exude masculinity. There was not a frill or a flounce in sight, and even if she was a kunoichi, there weren't even any girly accessories laying on the dresser. There wasn't even a proper wardrobe, just that low dresser for storage, a few boxes that looked like they held scrolls, and two bookcases that had their contents neatly arranged. There was a stand in the corner, but the kimono it held was very clearly a man's, deep blue with a design of white cranes. If he tilted his head a little to the side, he could see a design of the Haruno clan's crest woven into the fabric itself.

But Sakura entered the room confidently, pulling a pack from beneath her bed. Packing efficiently enough clothes—which seemed to consist almost entirely of those over-sized shirts and dark clothing, she knelt and reached beneath her bed again.

"Is everything you own in dark colors?" Kakashi asked.

"Yes," Sakura answered.

"They don't have much personality."

"Neither do I," Sakura answered acidly, which was strange, because she seemed so dispassionate about so many things.

Kakashi held up his hands in surrender. "I wasn't criticizing, Sakura-chan!"

She shot him a dirty look as she pulled a case from beneath the bed. "Alright, maybe a little," Kakashi admitted.

"Your room's so weird, Sakura-chan," Naruto commented. "I can't tell you live here at all."

Sasuke agreed. It was an almost aggressive nonpresence. He had known immediately who the room reminded him of. "Do you have a brother?"

"No," Sakura answered. With a soft click, the case opened and he saw row upon row of shining kunai. Not the generic, mass-produced kunai he saw so often, but specialized. Narrower, with a flatter blade and less of the distinctive diamond shape, the rings an elongated oval. Her fingers were strangely gentle as she caressed them, strapping on an extra holster on her nondominant leg and filling it with them.

"Can I see one of those?" Kakashi asked. Sakura was almost hesitant in handing it over, but she extended one, hilt first, to the jounin. Sasuke peered out of the corner of his eye at the blade, which had something engraved below the hilt. It was a four character idiomatic phrase: ichi-go ichi-e. One time, one meeting, with the meaning that every encounter happens only once.

If that had been engraved on all of them, it only confirmed that they were a custom order, which could be very expensive. Prohibitively so, for a weapon that could be easily lost or damaged. It was the kind of gift that would be given only for promotions to a high rank or some other significant event.

"I prefer junin toiro myself," Kakashi commented as he handed the weapon back. Ten people, ten colors, with the meaning that each person's tastes will be different. "Is this your favorite?"

"Not mine," Sakura said quietly, as from another both she pulled a sheaf of paper bombs that went into the extra holster. I like jaku niku kyo shoku." With the literal meaning of the weak are meat, the strong eat, Sasuke could be excused for looking at her like she'd grown another head.

"Hmm. What about you, Sasuke?"

"Akuin akka." Evil cause, evil affect. Exactly the kind of karmic retribution he hoped to heap upon the head of that man.

"Naruto?"

"I don't even know what you guys are talking about. Are you almost ready, Sakura-chan?"

-X-X-X-

Sasuke had been giving her strange looks since they'd left Ran-oba-san's house, but that was nothing new. Sakura had been nervous throughout the 'bonding' time, but luckily Shiki-dono hadn't happened to be there when they'd called.

Tuzuna had been just as grouchy after the delay as before, but Sakura took no notice of him. She was smuggled beyond Konoha's walls on a weekly basis, but it still didn't make it any less freeing to be out in the open forest, in contrast to the crowded urban streets of the bustling village. Tuning out Naruto, who sounded as if he was a prince who'd never been out of the palace in his life, Sakura subtly extended her chakra toward the scroll Shiho-nii was sealed in. Tiny reverberations, like pebbles thrown into a well, sparked across her consciousness, but then there was Shiho-nii, full robes billowing in an otherworldly breeze.

He smiled gently at her by didn't otherwise try to communicate when she was so surrounded by people. Reassured by his presence, Sakura focused on the task at hand, which was escorting the bad-natured bridge-builder and remaining unmoved by Naruto's constant need to talk.

He wore down slowly, as the day went on, but Sakura, who was walking on the right side of the path, noticed a puddle. When the weather had been balmy and dry for days. Sakura slipped her hand into her holster, sliding off the top paper explosive with the dexterity of a card sharp palming a card and was about to walk over the top of the water and "accidently" drop the explosive, when Kakashi-sensei caught her eye and indicated she should ignore it by the smallest shake of his head.

Sakura sulked a little internally, but she thought Kakashi might well have a lesson in mind. So, when the long chains ripped him into hunks of gory flesh, Sakura was unmoved. Once you had participated in true violence, you never forget the smell of it, the sight of it. Of knowing that human beings were only so much raw meat and the will to move it. Kakashi's substitution wasn't particularly convincing, the thin genjutsu layer over it so transparent that if it was physical she could have read a newspaper through it.

But it convinced the others. She'd never seen a look of horror on someone's face that matched the expression that Naruto wore as he wholeheartedly believed he'd watched his sensei be torn to shreds in front of him. Sakura's hands were already moving, unsealing Shiho-nii, deflecting the weighted chains the two ninja were using.

Even if they had caught Kakashi-sensei, his body wouldn't have looked like that, Sakura thought to herself. For one, the chunks had been too neat. Razor wire could accomplish it, but chains would rip, not cut. If his body was pulled into pieces, it would have been likely his entire spine would have likely ripped out in a single hunk, but even the force involved in that would be exponential.

If Kakashi-sensei didn't want me to attack them before, I guess that means I'm still not supposed to kill them? Watching warily from a guard position in front of Tazuna, Sakura hesitated while Sasuke used a flashy move to pin the chains with a kunai and perform some sort of aerial spinning kick that caught both the enemy nins in the head. Instinct prompted her that they needed only one, no matter what kind of information Kakashi hoped to gain from them, but she was still rather muzzy on how it would be looked upon if she was to eliminate them.

"Kakashi-sensei, leave better instructions!" she growled.

Luckily, the man himself appeared, otherwise he would certainly have found himself down one ninja from his quota. As Sakura listened intently with half an ear to Tazuna's explanation, she kept an eye on Naruto. Who hadn't even moved during the fight.

Sakura frowned. "Are you…all right?" she asked him awkwardly, drawing Sasuke's attention.

Naruto didn't answer her, just stood there, his breathe coming quick and shallow.

"Naruto-san?" No response. "Naruto!" she snapped.

He turned towards the sound of her voice slowly, but his eyes were wide and blank, blue as the sky above them.

Weak. She couldn't practically hear Shiki-dono's pronouncement. But Kagami-sama was not so hard. She'd given her a rule to follow: You must not judge men by the same standards used to judge monsters. Naruto was kind, gentle as he could be, and occasionally funny. He did not belong to the Haruno house.

"It's alright, Naruto-san," she said in the same voice she might have spoken to a nervous horse with. "The battle's over."

"Hn," the Uchiha sneered. "Scaredy cat."

It was a truly childish taunt and undeserved. Sparring was nothing like actual bloodshed. Many people hesitated in their first battle. And he'd thought he had lost Kakashi-sensei, which actually made it more of a comment on Sasuke than Naruto.

"You will do better next time," Sakura told him.

Naruto took a shaky breath and Sakura watched as blood slid down the back of his hand. "Really?" he asked her.

"Yes. But for now, we need to stop the bleeding."

A/N: No Shiki. And that somehow makes me very sad.