The next few days followed the same pattern, save a few key differences. For one, Ino started making it a habit of meeting me at my house after dinner every day, talking to me about her team, complaining about her D-Rank missions (to my silent envy), and bringing up stories of the childhood I couldn't remember.

The other change, far more concerning as the days went on: Kakashi was entirely absent.

Sensei, what on earth are you doing?

Training fell into an easy routine. Sasuke and I would show up early and work on our kunai throwing (straight lines for me, thrown objects to knock out of the air for him), and when Naruto arrived the boys would move onto Tree Walking exercises while I threw kunai and supervised. Chakra control exercises came to me easily, so my time was better spent on physical efforts.

It was during this part of our training, on the third day with no Sensei in sight, that Naruto started getting antsy and asking unfortunate questions.

"Ne, Sakura? You had a whole other life, right? Was your name Sakura there too?"

I glanced around the clearing. We were alone, fortunately.

"Naruto, didn't Inoichi-san talk to you? We're not supposed to talk about that," I deflected.

Sasuke flipped backwards on the tree branch he'd been sitting on, holding on with his knees. "Nobody is around. It's fine."

I threw another kunai into the tree. Thud! "Look, it's not important. It's a stupid name. 'Sakura' is fine, just call me that."

This was evidently the worst way to stave off curious pre-teen boys.

"C'mon, tell us!" Naruto wheedled, jumping down from his tree. "There's nobody around, I've got clones all over the place!"

"That bad?" Sasuke asked.

Thud!

"Look, it's not important."

I could feel their eyes boring into me. They weren't going to let this go. Better to get it over with. "… Fine. It was Karin." I threw another kunai.

"Karin? That's a super pretty name! Why are you so embarrassed about it?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke lost interest and resumed trying to hold himself under the tree branch by the soles of his feet.

I mumbled my response.

"What was that?" Naruto pressed.

"… It's short for Sakarin. It's a dumb name. My parents were jerks. Just drop it."

Sasuke dropped out of his tree, landing in a crouch like a cat. "… Those are similar names. Sakura. Sakarin."

I huffed and walked forward to gather my kunai. "Saccharine. The language where I come from, it means sweet. My sister said my great aunts and uncles kept pronouncing it Sakarin, so it stuck before I was even born. It's a dumb name. Forget I ever told you."

It was hard to say what was worse: all the boys in elementary school calling me 'Sack' and scrawling dirty things in my schoolbooks, or the girls constantly dropping sweets on my desk for the 'sweet girl'.

Going to a new middle school and going by Karin was the best thing that'd ever happened to me. Next to waking up in a world where nobody knew my real name, at least. I wouldn't have told the boys to begin with if they'd known English.

"Wow, so you must really like sweet things!"

I whirled around and threw my next kunai at him. Pop! He vanished in a puff of smoke.

"His dodging needs work," Sasuke mused.

"Stupid boys with their stupid clones that ask stupid- dammit, he remembers everything his clones hear, doesn't he?"

"You knew it wasn't the real Naruto?" Sasuke sounded impressed.

"… Sure, let's go with that."

Apart from the real Naruto running back to us and complaining, the rest of this part of practice went off without a hitch. Following was Jutsu practice, eating lunch once our chakra levels dipped, and then into taijutsu.

Sasuke grabbed my ankle in mid-kick and flipped me onto the ground. "You're moving too slowly."

I sat up and rubbed at my calf. I wasn't getting winded as quickly, but nothing could stop the lactic acid buildup in my muscles each day. "Yeah, I know. Maybe you should switch with Naruto; he's getting good, I'd probably be fine with a clone..."

We both looked toward where Naruto was brawling with several of himself at once. Every few seconds, another clone would vanish in a puff.

Sasuke snorted. "He still can't dodge. Get up."

I bowed my head in acceptance and climbed to my feet, reconciling to a new batch of bruises. As I started to fall into stance, I paused.

"Did you just… feel something?" For a moment the air had seemed to shiver.

"Hn?" Sasuke glanced around suspiciously.

There was a sudden chain of popping noises from behind us. "OW!... Wait, hey, Sensei! YOU'RE LATE!"

"Sensei!" I cried. I ran toward them, Sasuke on my heels.

Kakashi was standing over a fallen Naruto with a smile in his eye. "Maa, I leave you for three days and you still get blindsided so easily..."

"Sensei! Where were you? What happened?" I asked breathlessly, skidding to a halt in front of them. He didn't look injured, so it couldn't have been anything serious. Had he just been avoiding us this whole time?

"Settle down, kids. It's time for another meeting."

We followed him curiously and sat in the familiar semi-circle in front of the Memorial Stone, Kakashi at our head. His smile didn't fade.

"Good news, Team. The embargo has been lifted."

"YES!" I exclaimed, pumping my fist into the air. "Sensei, how did you do it?"

"Huh? What's that mean?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke crossed his arms. "We're allowed to take missions again."

"What?! YES!" Naruto leaned over to give me a high-five. "Yeah, Sensei, what did you do?"

"Maa, what makes you think I was involved?" he drawled.

We stared at him. He suddenly disappears for three days after hearing we were banned from missions, and as soon as he returns, we're allowed on missions again? In what world wouldn't Kakashi have been involved?

"… Let's just say a certain Konoha operative caught a team of foreign ninja skulking outside our walls."

Oof. Sucks to be them.

Sasuke glanced over at me, then back to Kakashi. "Did this team have anything to do with what happened?"

"Who can say?" Sensei said. "But it's enough of a lead to give T&I something to work with."

… Double-Oof.

This did not seem to satisfy Sasuke. If anything, his glare had intensified. "Where were they from?"

"Not important." Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "For now, focus on taking missions in your pay grade."

"Hell yeah!" Naruto whooped. "Oh man, I can't wait! We're gonna save princesses! Stop evil pirate-ninjas! Save cities from giant monsters!"

I carefully didn't look at him. From what Ino had said, D-Ranks ran more along the lines of grunt work. Babysitting, finding lost pets, digging up vegetables…

"I hope you are prepared," Kakashi said. "How have you been doing with your chakra control?"

"We're awesome! We're ready to learn cool jutsus now, Sensei! Believe it!"

"Oh-ho ho..." Kakashi chuckled darkly. "We'll see about that. I have a new trick that you may find nearly impossible..."

"Bring it on!" Naruto jumped to his feet. "I ain't scared! We've been working our butts off, no thanks to you!"

"Then follow me."

We followed Sensei into the forest, twisting and turning through the trails as the trees became taller and wider. Eventually, we stopped before a broad-bodied tree that stretched upward for several storeys.

"Now..." Kakashi smiled, dark amusement colouring his voice. "Climb to the top of this tree… without using your hands."

We all exchanged glances. Sensei worked in mysterious ways; there was probably a point to all this.

Almost in unison, we ran forward and made our way up to the top, each picking a branch to sit upon.

"Now what?" I yelled back down. Was he going to teach us a flying jutsu? This seemed like a dangerous way to start something like that.

Sensei stared up at us. He was too far away for me to make out the expression on his face. "… Come back down."

Bemused, we climbed back down and lined up in front of him.

"Was that supposed to be a metaphor or something?" I asked.

Sensei pinched the bridge of his nose. "Since when do they teach tree-walking in the academy?"

We shuffled and looked at each other. Naruto spoke first. "They don't, we taught ourselves. It was in Sakura's book! You're the one who said to learn from it!"

Kakashi sighed. "… I didn't think you'd pick the hardest exercises to do first. Have you started water-walking yet?"

I nodded. "Kinda. The boys were having trouble with it though, so they're trying to perfect their tree-walking first," I said, with an apologetic glance in their direction. Neither looked offended. Perhaps exceeding Kakashi's expectations had lifted their sense of pride.

"I take it you've already succeeded, Sakura?"

"Well, yeah. I've been focusing on other stuff."

Kakashi sighed again. "I suppose you leave me with no choice…"

My heart started thundering in my chest. Was this it? Had we exceeded his expectations so much, he was finally willing to train us in real jutsu?

"There is nothing to do… but to leave you three to your current training schedule. It's better than anything I had planned."

We drooped.

Sensei smiled. "After training tomorrow, meet me at the missions desk. Noon on the dot. Don't be late!"

We weren't, tempting though it was. It was decided between us to leave early and pick up lunch so we could eat outside the office.

I found myself sitting between the boys on a bench while we waited, making our way through char-siu bowls.

"… And so you should remember not to get too excited," I finished between mouthfuls.

"What if their Sensei is taking them on boring missions on purpose? We train a lot and Kakashi knows we're strong, right?"

I shook my head. "For the last time, Naruto, that's not how D-Ranks work. They start us off at the lowest level and we only get bigger missions after we prove ourselves." I fished the last few grains of rice from the bottom of my bowl. "Just be grateful we're getting missions at all."

Sasuke crossed his arms. "How many D-Ranks have they done so far? How many does it take?"

"Dunno," I said, snagging Naruto's empty bowl and throwing ours away together. "Ino said they've done two a day since the day after graduation, and they haven't taken any C-Ranks yet."

"Hn. So six days times two missions each day… Twelve missions, to get caught up with everyone else."

"We've spent those days building up our stamina," I said. "If the missions don't take very long, we might be able to do more than they would in a single day."

"Yeah! Let's do ten missions today!" Naruto cheered, jumping up to his feet on the bench.

"Maa, eager as always."

"Sensei!" I checked my watch. "You're early! It's only twelve-thirty!" I hadn't expected him to show until at least two in the afternoon. His early arrival greatly increased the number of missions we could feasibly do in one day.

"C'mon, Sensei, hurry up!" Naruto grabbed his arm and dragged him bodily inside the building, Sasuke and myself following.

And so began our first day of D-Ranks.

Initially, I thought Naruto was being wildly enthusiastic about getting ten missions done in a single day, but… they were pretty easy. Most of the jobs they had available were task-based, not time-based. Our training came into play far more than I would have expected. At first, I thought they were supposed to be basic jobs meant to ensure we wouldn't mess up something simple, but as we went on, I could see different skills coming into play that might be important on future missions.

Our first D-Rank involved digging up yams in a field. It would have been a daunting, depressing task a few days prior, but between Hand-Seal training increasing our dexterity, general training on moving quickly while performing complex actions, and Naruto's completely overpowered Shadow-Clone technique, we had the field cleared in a half-hour.

"Well, I'll be." The farmer who had hired us mopped sweat off his brow. "You're not the first ninja I've hired, but you damn sure are the quickest. Normally that takes the kids a couple of hours. It's nice to have professionals, I'll have to hire you more often."

"Well, anything else we can help with while we're here?" I asked. From what I'd heard, it was possible to add extra missions onto an already-approved contract.

The farmer scratched his head. "Well, if you're sure, I wouldn't mind some help getting the produce and equipment back to the storehouse. Your work so far has certainly been worth the pay."

It didn't take long at all, and the client was pleased with us. With his signature marking two missions complete and a glowing review to boot, we were ready to move onto our next mission.

The next mission we received was familiar to me; Ino had complained constantly about getting stuck with it. 'The Infamous Tora Mission' it was called in genin circles. Apparently, the Daimyo's Wife had a cat with a penchant for escaping, and we were next in a long line of rescuers.

We collected intel from the Daimyo's Wife on Tora's last known location, went to the training ground the cat was last seen in and spread out in a line to comb the forest.

"I hear something," I heard Sasuke say from several metres to my left. I closed my eyes. I couldn't hear anything, but I could almost feel something was different…

I walked in a diagonal line between us and up into a tree.

"Mreow!"

"Mission Complete!" I called down, hugging the spooked cat against my chest, one hand gently holding the scruff. "Poor baby."

The Daimyo's Wife was overjoyed. As it turned out, "about fifteen minutes" was also considered a very short time for this mission.

What were they even doing? I grumbled to myself. We didn't even need clones this time.

We were trying to avoid exhausting Naruto. Once we figured out how useful his clones could be in a pinch, we'd avoided deploying them unnecessarily.

Next was removing an old tree from a client's yard. Too easy. Zero clones, thirty minutes.

Next came removing furniture from a shop's showroom and painting the walls. With only one extra clone to help out, we were finished in less than an hour. Piece of cake.

"So what's next?" I asked when we were back at the missions desk. It was early evening, so we'd probably have time to squeeze in at least two more missions if they went the same way as the others. Kakashi looked almost painfully bored.

"Give us something harder, would ya?" Naruto jeered.

"Naruto! Don't brag!" A man at the desk shouted, throwing a new mission scroll at his head. His name was Iruka-sensei. He was apparently one of our teachers at the academy and something of a big brother to Naruto.

"Ow, I'm sorry, geez!" Naruto rubbed his head and unfurled the next scroll. "Huh? That farmer guy again?"

The Hokage, leader of the village, a hero among heroes, and for some reason fixture of the missions office, smiled. "He was very impressed with your results and came to commission your team in particular."

Iruka-sensei smiled. "So don't go around knocking the easy jobs. If you do the little jobs well, the bigger jobs will fall into place for you without you even noticing."

"Precisely." The Hokage puffed on his pipe. "It will be considered an extended D-Rank mission, with the potential of upgrading to C-Rank. Very rare to be given to a genin team on their first day. He has requested your help bringing in the rest of the harvest from his fields, and then to help deliver the produce to several villages beyond the outer perimeters of Konoha. While this should not be dangerous, we may upgrade your mission to C-Rank if you come across any bandits." He folded his hands together. "This is expected to take at least a week." His mouth twitched. "But this is not a maximum, should you find yourselves done sooner."

"He expects you in the fields at ten in the morning," Iruka continued. "If you continue impressing your clients, you'll be considered for increased levels of responsibility in your missions. I expect you to continue working hard. Get some rest, you've done enough for one day."

Sensei let out a long breath. "Finally."

When I turned around to look at him, he was already gone.

I groaned. "What a wimp."

"Lazy," Sasuke grumbled.

"Alright, Team! Let's get dinner! Ichiraku?"

"Ichiraku!" I cheered, grabbing Sasuke's arm before he could escape.

It was a damn good day.

When Ino came to visit that evening, I was more grateful than ever that we'd been accepted into D-Ranks today. I'd have been painfully jealous otherwise.

"… And Shikamaru keeps grumbling about it, but I'm going to make sure he works hard! I'm so excited! Our first C-Rank!"

I grinned at her over my teacup, crossed my ankles, and leaned back onto the grass. There was a cool breeze, the soft sound of crickets, and the moon shone brightly in the sky. A perfect evening for relaxing and chatting outside.

"When are they giving you the details?"

"We're meeting our client at the missions desk in the morning. Hokage-sama says the mission should only take a few weeks, but I'm going to pack extra supplies just in case." She scrunched up her nose. "Unlike your boys, I'm stuck with the laziest team ever. It's all the way in the Land of Waves, we'll be lucky to get there in a month with how those boys drag their feet!"

I snorted. "It's just escorting, I'm sure they'll do fine."

She nudged my shoulder. "I bet by the time I'm back you'll have already done five C-Ranks."

"I'll try my best, Ino-senpai." I grinned and knocked back the rest of my tea. Putting the cup aside, I sprawled on the ground, comfortable and content, enjoying the stretch after a long day of work.

Despite the ups and downs, life here was starting to look up.

Extra Special Trivia Part 10: "Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves." is a Dale Carnegie quote.