Chapter Twelve:
A compropmise
Kakashi gave them a close-eyed smile. "Any questions?"
Sakura raised her hand.
"Pinkie."
"Ne, ne, Kakashi?" Sakura innocently blinked at her sensei.
Kakashi's lone eye stared at her. "Yes?"
"If I kill you, will I get a promotion?"
Kakashi gave her a close eyed smile. "Rather ambitious, aren't you?"
"I'll take that as a yes," Sakura purred in delight, summoning her scythe with a gleeful smile.
Kakashi nodded, "Sakura here has the right idea. None of you will get the bells if you don't fight with the intent to kill me."
Sakura idly looked at Kakashi. In all honesty, he didn't look like a tough opponent. If killing this Jonin really meant she would get a promotion, she'd serve him up as an offering to Jashin-sama in a heartbeat. However, despite her reckless tendencies, there were two fundamental truths that the girl just could not ignore. The first being that she was in Konoha. The second was that Kakashi is a Jonin.
She smirked. While she was sure she couldn't really kill him, she was looking forward to giving it her all. She'd aim to break a leg at least.
"Fight me!"
Sakura looked at Naruto. His face was as determined as she felt.
"No way," she flatly interjected.
Naruto's mouth dropped open, face conveying betrayal. "But why Sakura-chan?"
"I want to fight him."
"But I want to too!"
"I wanted to first."
"C'mon Sakura-chan, lemme have a try."
("They're morons," Sasuke muttered. If he ever found out who the person responsible for grouping them together was...)
Sakura pursed her lips at Naruto's puppy eyed look. Orange was really making it hard for her to say no. She technically babied the idiot too much. However, she didn't like giving up on a prey. In this case, how could they decide who gets to fight him? The answer came to her immediately.
"We could fight," she suggested. "Winner gets to fight him."
Naruto blinked at her, then his face morphed into a disapproving one. "But I don't want to fight you Sakura-chan, you're my friend." He then scratched his head, face scrunched up in an almost constipated way. That meant he was thinking of a solution.
She glanced at Kakashi who was disinterestedly reading an orange book. He didn't seem to care which one of them he'd have to face first. In all fairness, he didn't even bother showing up on time which means the man probably barely cares about anything.
"Together!"
Naruto's yell got her attention. "Together?" She repeated, catching Kakashi looking up to shoot Naruto an interested look. The idiot sunshine did tend to have that affect on people.
Naruto enthusiastically nodded. "We can team up. There's no way he can beat us if we work together."
Sakura blinked. She had never thought of sharing a prey before, much less sharing one with Naruto of all people. She didn't even know how she'd approach fighting Kakashi with another person. Maybe the lack of proper coordination would throw Kakashi off as well.
"Umm, you're a little off there," Kakashi's voice drew their attention.
"Hey! We're not done talking."
"In a real fight, you two would be dead now. Didn't they teach you not to look away from your opponent at the academy?"
Sakura felt amused really. The academy was more like a ninja daycare honestly. Mock fights, friendship seals, daily pranks from the idiot sunshine. She felt confident in thinking that at least eighty percent of their class would be getting a wake up call if they really became ninjas.
"YOU'RE NOT EVEN LOOKING AT US!"
"Ah, you see, I'm at an interesting chapter. Don't worry, it won't-"
Sakura threw her scythe, aimed at Kakashi's head. He barely glanced at it as he side stepped it. She didn't waste any time, quickly body flickering to where her scythe next to Kakashi. She grabbed it and slashed it in an upwards motion.
The Jonin simply stepped back.
He made it look so easy that it annoyed her. If it was any of her classmates, they'd be dead already. She jumped back a bit, standing between Kakashi and Naruto. All she had to do was make him bleed. If he bled, he lost. The thought excited her.
"Now, now," Kakashi spoke in a reprimanding tone. "I didn't say start-"
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Sakura stared as her idiot sunshine multiplied. Was this really Naruto? As far as she could remember, he couldn't even do a half decent illusion clone. And now he could do solid ones without a sweat? He might have gotten stronger than she gave him credit for.
"Before you blindly charge at me," Kakashi interjected. "Let me at least start by teaching you a lesson."
That was suspicious.
"Ninja lesson one," Kakashi flipped a page. "Taijutsu. Well? What are you waiting for?"
"I'm gonna beat you to a pulp!" All the blondes yelled, charging at Kakashi.
Except one.
"Sakura-chan, hehe," Naruto scratched his head. "What do you think of my new jutsu? Pretty awesome, right? I sort of quadrupled my strength! Wait no, there's ten clones which means I'm ten times more strong! Way more impressive than anything Sasuke's ever done right?"
He was being stupid. But he had a point.
However, Sakura didn't even bother acknowledging the question. Kakashi was casually dodging every attack. What he couldn't dodge he redirected, making the clones beat themselves up. All this, without taking his eyes off his book. Yes, the shadow clone jutsu was impressive, however it needed practice.
"You're forgetting something very important," Kakashi pointed out, kicking the last clone.
"Yeah? And what's that?" Naruto glared, hands already up to summon more clones.
"If your starting strength is zero, it doesn't matter how much you multiply your strength. It will still be zero."
Sakura heard Sasuke snort silently behind them. She knew that Naruto was going to lose his out of character rationality at Kakashi's observation.
"THAT'S IT, NO MORE GOING EASY!"
Sakura stared as Naruto charged at Kakashi alone. She wanted to facepalm.
Kakashi didn't even glance at Naruto as he stepped away from the punches Naruto threw. Sakura was very tempted to throw her weapon at Kakashi to see if that would catch the man off guard, but Naruto's moves were to wild and unpredictable to do so without accidentally maiming the blond. She just needed them to stand still for a moment.
It seemed like Jashin heard her thoughts, Kakashi was suddenly crouched behind Naruto. His hands were positioned in the seal of the tiger. But she had to make sure Kakashi couldn't easily move and that she wouldn't maim her Orange idiot.
"Leaf Village secret technique: A Thousand Years of Death!"
Naruto was airborne.
'There!' She threw her scythe directly at Kakashi's exposed back, aimed towards his legs.
Her mouth morphed into a bloodthirsty smile as her weapon met its mark.
"Maa," Kakashi spoke up from behind her, earning her focus as he gave her a closed eye smile.
She glanced at where her weapon was buried into a tree log.
"Aren't you going to try and kill me, Sakura-chan? Or are you all talk and no bite like our wannabe Hokage?"
Sakura's lips twitched up in amusement. She was the one with the silver tongue, not Kakashi. Nope, Kakashi had silver hair, not silver tongue. Any attempts at riling her up was just amusing. Instead of responding, she glanced at Naruto who was glaring at Kakashi. His glare looked adorable really, it didn't suit his sunshine personality at all.
In fact, being a shinobi didn't really suit his sunshine personality at all.
She had a hard time imagining Naruto killing someone.
Though, knowing her idiot, he'd probably find a way around killing someone. If not, she'd be there to kill people for him.
She, after all, had no qualms against killing people.
"You are interesting, I admit." Sakura acknowledged, jumping back towards her weapon. She faintly heard Naruto emerging from the pond as she gripped her scythe and forced the tree log off of it with her feet.
"Always a pleasure to school baby wannabe ninja in real life," Kakashi cheerily replied.
She tensed up in anticipation. It was finally her turn to give the ninja a run for his-
There were suddenly shuriken etched into Kakashi.
He turned into a tree log.
"I hate to admit it, but Naruto's right.." Sasuke pointed out.
He was ignoring her glare. The ill mannered grouch bug got into her fight.
She ran towards Sasuke, ready to teach him the same lesson she taught Neji ages ago.
"Sakura, calm down."
"You stole my prey," she kicked at him.
Sasuke didn't resist the kick, wincing at the force behind it. He held his ground. "That Jonin ninja, he's a headache."
"So?" Sakura paused her attacks. She didn't want to seriously hurt the broody boy. Especially not when he wasn't going to fight back. There was nothing more unexciting than an unresisting opponent. It irked her that the Uchiha knew how to make her disengage.
"Look, there's two bells, right?" Sasuke reminded her. "We're the strongest graduates of our year. If we team up, we can take them."
"No way!" Naruto yelled, stalking towards them. He was dripping wet from his dive into the water. "Sakura-chan doesn't have to team up with you! I'm a better partner for her."
Sasuke scoffed. "You're just a loser."
Naruto glared at Sasuke.
"We can all just team up, if that's what you idiots want..." Sakura suggested, dejectedly. She wanted to go one-on-one against Kakashi. This wasn't fair. She had half the mind to give into her battle lust, but if even Sasuke thought they should team up she'd be an idiot to disagree.
Sasuke shook his head. "There's only two bells, idiot."
"Sakura-chan, forget about the teme and team up with me! With my shadow clone jutsu, there's no way that-"
"He already beat you," Sakura and Sasuke pointed out.
"We can just fight against each other for the bells later." Sakura pointed out.
"Naruto's basically a deadweight, Haruno."
Naruto glared at Sasuke while Sakura shrugged. "He's a good distraction."
"Hn...maybe..."