Kakashi is a god damn sadist.
That's the thought that runs through my head as Sasuke and I lay panting in the dirt in our designated training ground. Apparently, Kakashi had taken being a sensei seriously to mean that he should run us through a training session designs for beginners. Not genin beginners though. ANBU beginners.
Needless to say we'd not even completed the warm up stage.
"You know, all things considered you all did rather well. You lasted three exercises longer than I expected." Kakashi mused with obvious amusement. He paused, before glancing up at Naruto who was still running laps, though even his bottomless well of energy seemed to be getting low considering his ragged breath. "Well, you two at least."
I glared weakly up at the silver haired bastard. "Don't patronize me." I hissed. "What kind of psychopath are you?"
"Oh? But isn't this what you wanted, Sakura?" He asked smugly. "You wanted me to take this seriously, didn't you?"
"I rescind my request. Please go back to being a shitty sensei."
"Isōrō, shut up." Sasuke groaned, rubbing his forehead in pain. From the circles under his eyes it seemed he'd had just as much sleep as I did.
After finishing our meal Kakashi walked us all to our respective homes. I should have known something was up when he walked Sasuke and Naruto home first. He'd deliberately taken a route that meant they bypassed where I lived so I would end up at home last. Bastard was sneaky with his revenge.
It didn't help that I'd been grilled by Sakura's parents when I arrived home. I'd assured them that everything was fine and gave them a basic run down at the test. Apparently Sakura's mom had taken a similar test for her genin exam. Sakura's dad was so proud that he'd been gushing right up until I'd turned in for the night.
They were good people, as far as there were in this world. I could honestly say I loved them, in a way. I did my best not to think about what I'd done to them by taking their daughters' place. How I'd stolen their own flesh and blood from underneath them and puppeted it arou-
Whoa! Where did that thought come from all of a sudden!? Back in the box with you! And repress! This is healthy.
"-kura! Sakura!" The loud voice of my blonde best friend brought me out of my emotional damage control, snapping his fingers in front of my face. "You were spacing out." He informed me.
"Oh… er, sorry." I mumbled, noticing that at some point I'd sat up. Sasuke was now crouched, apparently mostly recovered from his winded state, giving me a curios glance. "So what's up?"
"Well, I've got a bit of a surprise for you, my sweet little genin." Kakashi said in a teasing tone, gaining six glaring eyes for his efforts. "I've enlisted the help of a special friend of mine for a little… training trip."
As if on cue, which in retrospect it probably was, a ball came sailing across the training field. We instinctively jumped back at the incoming projectile, only Kakashi seeming unaffected as it exploded with smoke just where they'd been sitting. My arm came up to cover my eyes from the rush of air and dust that was kicked up.
I was happy to see that all three of us had fallen into fighting stances, ready for combat or escape.
When the smoke finally cleared I was faced with a massive banner kept up my ninja wire and kunai. The words: "Konoha's Most Sexy and Dangerous Assistant Sensei: Anko Mitarashi!" Were written in text. The smile that crawled onto my face was completely genuine.
There, stood in all her sexy, badass glory was Anko. Her face was alight with a large grin as she held her arms crossed across her chest. I could feel my face heat up considerably as I took in the sight. Anko was amazingly beautiful, maybe even more than she was deadly. I think I might be in love.
"Wow, even for me that's fast." Anko replied to what apparently was not an internal monologue. "Maybe i'll let you ride the Anko train one day, Pinkie, when you're a few years older." She gave a saucy wink as she flirted with me. Me!
"Kakashi." I call out.
"Yes, Sakura?" He asked, still amused.
"You're the best."
Kakashi chuckled at that, shaking his head absently before clapping his hands, focusing. "Well, you might not for long. See, there's a very special reason I asked Anko here for some help."
"And that would be?" Sasuke inquired.
"Yeah! Is Anko-sensei gonna show us how to do some awesome jutsu!? Like blow up mountains? Or make storms? Or boil water to perfect ramen temperature?" Naruto asked in his usual rambling style. Direct connection between thought and mouth, that one.
Not that I can talk, apparently.
"Not quite." Kakashi said before I felt a sudden chop to the back of my neck.
"Oh fuck." I astutely say as I faceplant into the ground.
Training with Anko apparently consisted of us being dropped a mile inside of the Forest of Death and told that we had until sundown to get out. To say it was hell would be underselling the next eight hours. By the time we finally vaulted over the perimeter fence, we were tired, bruised and varying levels of bloodied.
"Colour me impressed brats, you actually did it." Anko praises with a grin as she lands in front of us, casually dodging the kunai Sasuke threw at her on reflex. "Someone's feathers are ruffled, huh duckling."
Despite the hell she'd just put us through, Naruto and I snickered at the teasing. It didn't help that Sasuke could only glare at the Jonin, face bright red. Okay, maybe I do still love Anko.
With that in mind I began to limp towards the purple haired woman, my hand slipping into my pocket as I went. Pulling out my bingo book, I opened it on an earmarked page and held it up to Anko. It was her entry in the bingo book. "Can I have your autograph?"
Anko looked a little struck by the request before a Naruto-worthy grin spread across her face and she signed the bingo book. When she passed it back I looked over what she had written. "To my new favourite brat, Anko."
"Thanks, Anko-sensei." I said with a smile before I tipped backwards, losing consciousness before I hit the ground.
"-runo-san? Haruno-san, can you hear me?" A voice came into focus as I slowly regained consciousness, eyes bleary as they were assaulted by the bright light above. With a groan I closed my eyes and snuggled into the covers of my bed.
"Five more minutes." I groaned. "I was having the best dream."
"While I'm sure you were, we will be in need of this bed soon." The voice replied and I soon realised that I wasn't back home.
Opening my eyes I was greeted by the spectacled visage of one Kabuto Yakushi, jonin level medic slash spy, himself. And he was handsome, annoyingly so, much hotter than I could have really anticipated. He was very much a pretty boy and his amused smile only seemed to make him more attractive.
"Wow, you're really pretty." I blurted out, causing the "genin" to blush. I wasn't really sure how true the blush was, but part of me hoped it was.
"T-Thank you, Haruno-san." He replied with a slight stutter. "You're very kind."
"Sakura, its Sakura to those I like." I replied with a grin. "Does my Knight in shining armour have a name?"
"Kabuto, my friends call me Kabuto." He finally said. "Now I really must insist that you answer my questions so I can discharge you."
"You're throwing me out already? I thought we had something, Kabuto-kun." I said with a shit eating grin.
"You're not going to make this easy, are you?"
"You'll find that I love playing hard to get."
My grin was all teeth.
And so our first couple of months as genin began. Between the training with Kakashi, the training with Anko and D-Ranks, we slowly fell into a routine. The frankly hellish training slowly began to get easier as we acclimated to the challenges we faced. Every session meant going home less ruffled than the one before.
It wasn't long before Team 7 found themselves taking residence in a large house on the edge of the Uchiha District. It was by far the closest to their training ground and the forest of death. With how exhausted they tended to be at the end of the day, they rarely made it home anyway. And so, Ohana House had been founded.
It was during breakfast one morning, when their jonin sensei had decided to join them, that Naruto entered the dining room late. I knew something was wrong, ever since Kakashi had given them a lecture about always being open and honest with your team, the blonde had been acting shifty. I had a reasonable guess as to why but decided not to press the issue. This had to come from the blonde.
"Morning Naru." I greeted with a smile, which Naruto responded with one of his own, if strained.
"Hey Sakura, Sensei. Where's Teme?" He asked, fidgeting as he did.
"Busy making my breakfast." I reply a little too loudly.
"I'm making my own food, Isōrō!" Sasuke's voice rang from the kitchen.
I snorted in response, turning back to Naruto and patting the place beside me encouragingly. "Come on Naru."
Naruto sighed slightly, steeling himself before taking his place next to me. My eyes found Kakashi's, who glanced at Naruto at my subtle gesture. He stiffened slightly, closing his book with a snap and placing it in his pocket. He couldn't be aloof through this.
My hand found Naruto's, giving it a reassuring squeeze as the room fell into an unusual silence.
Sasuke seemed to notice it immediately as he entered with a tray of food. To see the ray of sunshine that is Naruto Uzumaki looking unsure and despondent felt like it broke some cosmic rule. He placed the tray down and took a seat.
It took a long beat of silence before I turned to the blonde. "Naru… You don't have to tell us what's bothering you if you don't want to. We've got your back."
Naruto let out a hollow chuckle that made my anger spike. "It's not that easy, Sakura."
"It is that easy Dobe." Sasuke refuted with a glare. "Ohana means family, remember."
"I do! It's just…" Naruto responded, shrinking slightly. "You might hate me."
"I already hate you." Sasuke snarked with a shrug of his shoulder, which I promptly punched.
"Not the time." I growled before turning back to Naruto. "Ignore him, he's being a prick, as usual…"
Naruto was able to give a small smile at my words before his face became serious and he took a deep breath. "I… I have the Kyuubi sealed inside of me!" He blurted out before scrunching his eyes shut, no doubt expecting vitriol and spite. I really wanted to burn down the entire village whenever I saw my blonde friend in this state.
There was a beat of silence before Sasuke spoke up first. "Huh, I knew it." He said, a little astonished that he'd been right in his assumption.
"You knew!?" Naruto screamed.
"Nothing for certain but… Well it adds up, your birthday and how everyone…" He stopped short before shaking his head. "It just seemed like the most logical conclusion. Explains way too much really."
Naruto looked astonished at Sasuke's lack of negative reaction before turning to me. "Pretty much what the emo said. Either that or your parents were deserters or something like that." I said with an awkward shrug. "Never made a difference to me. You're our Naruto, whether it's a fox in your stomach or just ramen."
Naruto's eyes darted between us before glancing towards our sensei. "Ditto." He said.
Naruto's eyes began to water, a hiccup escaping him as he tried and failed to keep himself together. Pulling him close, I held onto him as he cried in both joy and sadness, my eyes meeting the other two members of our team. Sasuke had a dark look and Kakashi… Well, if I didn't know that look in his eye wasn't directed at me I'd be shitting myself. All my jokes aside, he could very well level a good chunk of the village if he wanted to. I couldn't rightly say that I wouldn't be right there alongside him.
"So…" I began after Naruto finally got ahold of himself. "Is the whisker thing because of the fox or...?" I asked with a grin.
Naruto blinked up at me before a snort escaped him and he defended into a fit of giggles which I gladly joined. Kakashi just rolled his eyes with a chuckle and I even got a slight smile out of Sasuke.
"Forehead."
"Ino." I replied evenly, much too tired to really deal with the boy crazy blonde. My attempt to skirt past her was thwarted when she stepped right into my path once again. A sigh escaped me as I closed my eyes, massaging my temple with my finger. "Can I help you?"
Ino leveled a glare at me. "Yes, you can stop hanging around Sasuke-kun's House! I've seen you sneaking into there late at night."
I quirked an eyebrow at that. "Have you been stalking me?"
"No, I've been following Sasuke-kun!" She defended loudly, making my head throb with a rapidly developing headache.
"Like that makes it any better." I snarked, moving to sidestep her once again with similar results. "Can we do this some other time, Ino? I'm really not in the mood."
"Not in the mood!?" She shrieked, as though I was the one out of line. "Well I am in the mood, Forehead! You're not good enough for Sasuke-kun, neither you or that waste of space Narut-"
Ino was stopped from finishing her slanderous words by the feeling of my fist hitting her square in the nose. It was only that she was a kid and I was, at least mentally, an adult that I didn't jump on her and tear her apart. She backpeddled from the unexpected hit, much harder than her teammates would have used, soon falling on her behind.
"Speak about Naruto like that again and you'll be dragging yourself to the hospital." I growl, leaning down to come an inch from her face. "I don't give a flying fuck about your little crush on Sasuke, I will not stop interacting with my teammates for your ego. You want Sasuke so bad, try being less fucking pathetic."
With that I walked on, ignoring anything Ino might have shouted out towards me. I probably could have handled that differently but she had to go and mention Naruto. No one bad mouthed my little sunshine child dammit. Hopefully Ino would wake up from her childish obsession soon but until then I had little to no patience for that little brat.
"Can we skin it?"
"Yes, good idea Naruto! Momma needs a new kunai pouch." I reply, making a show of taking out a kunai. It was quickly snatched from my hand by our sensei.
"No killing the cat." He chided playfully.
"That's not a cat, it's a monster!" I protested, pointing towards the monster that was now purring in Sasuke's arms. A clever ploy, playing possum until our guards were down before it would no doubt kill us all. I mewled at me in response. "See! A confession, let's kill it!" My dive towards the monster was stopped when I crashed into Naruto, who had also tried the same thing.
"Not a fan of cats, Isōrō?" Sasuke inquired with a smirk, stroking the cat like some sort of Bond villain.
"I'm fine with cats as long as they're someone else's." I snark back. "Dogs are way better."
"While I can't help but agree, the mission is to bring Tora the cat back, alive." Kakashi commented and I suddenly remembered his dog summons. That was quickly followed by outrage that he hadn't let us meet his pack of speaking dogs. "Sasuke, keep hold of the package while I stop these two from killing it."
"Naruto." I say, turning to the blonde next to me.
"Yeah Sakura?" He asked curiously.
"When you become Hokage, make sure that thing has a kill on sight order." I replied, pointing after our third teammate.
"Sasuke or the cat?"
"Yes."
Our trip to the mission office ended up with us being assigned with our first C-Rank mission. It was time. Wave, here we come.
