Sakura was happy, but more importantly she was proud. It was just one small aspect, but she proved she could be better than the other two who were sprawled on the ground looking up at her. From her seat in the tree she listened as Kakashi-sensei put her in charge. Even better when she made it back to the ground he gave her a book, though she didn't know if she'd actually be waiting around long enough that she'd get to spend much time reading. She already knew how talented Sasuke was and she chose to have faith in Naruto who even in the short time they'd been together showed he was far more competent than anyone had been giving him credit for.

Apparently she overestimated the two because after a few more attempts neither had made much progress. She figured she might as well offer her help now, whether they listened or not would be the real issue. "Alright, Sasuke you're pushing too much chakra into your feet and Naruto you aren't adding enough. Plus neither of you are keeping a consistent flow, which means even if you get the right amount eventually you'll still fall because it's fluctuating," she spoke to the two boys who were both watching her with different expressions. She could tell Sasuke seemed annoyed, she was hoping it was at his failure not her pointing it out and Naruto seemed more than eager to listen. She knew she really needed to cut the blonde haired ninja some more slack, he was a good person even if he was a bit loud for her tastes.

"Alright what should we do Sakura-sensei?" Naruto asked a smile accompanying his question, she felt herself laugh slightly at the term.

Sasuke for his part didn't smile, but did turn his attention to her showing he was at least willing to hear her out.

She walked to the tree Naruto was trying to climb and lifted one leg, she pushed it against the tree and held it there. She then focused chakra on that foot and slowly increased the amount until the bark broke from too much pressure, which Sasuke had managed to do several times on accident. "What I want is for each of you to push your leg against a tree and let chakra flow to the soles of your feet, start small and see if your foot sticks if not keep increasing until you reach a point where it stays solid against the bark, if you go too far it'll break and you'll be able to tell the limit. If you do that for a little while you'll eventually be able to feel when your chakra is at the right level. Try walking around on the ground while keeping the flow steady. Once you have it under control try climbing the tree again and see how you do," Sakura laid out her plan. She knew Kakashi-sensei probably would have given them less information so they could learn it themselves, but Sakura wanted to see results.

"You know Sakura-chan, you're really good at this," Naruto sent her a grin over his shoulder as he lined his foot up with a tree and began following her directions.

"I thought she was Sakura-sensei now," Sasuke interjected with some sarcasm in his tone, but it was accompanied by the slightest hint of a smile and Sakura wished she didn't relish it as much as she did. Love wasn't a weakness she chose to believe that, but even she realized she couldn't be an asset to the team if she was, "Mooning over Sasuke" as Kakashi-sensei rudely put it. She wasn't going to wait letting this fester, tonight after her teammates completed their task she needed to have a talk with Sasuke and just get everything out in the open. She knew he didn't like her back, but she needed to hear it from him if she was going to try moving past it. Pushing that into the back of her mind for the time being she cracked open the book Kakashi-sensei gave her and started reading about the basics of genjutsu keeping her ears open in case Naruto or Sasuke needed further help.

Aside from a few questions they worked relatively quietly, the only noises were footsteps, falls, breathing, and the occasional crack of bark. It made for a weird, but oddly calming background noise as she studied. She couldn't place the exact passing of time, but almost out of nowhere both boys declared that they'd done it. Of course that meant they had to descend into an argument over who was first, it was so petty that it was almost funny especially considering how much longer it took them than her which she was more than happy to point, "Well, I did it before either of you so you shouldn't be so quick to argue about who was faster."

"Yeah, Sakura-chan was great," Naruto was once again throwing her compliments, Sasuke didn't say anything in agreement, but he stopped arguing.

"Thanks Naruto." She replied feeling proud.

Rather than continue talking about the subject Sasuke asked, "Is training over? There's still another hour or two of light, but Kakashi-sensei already left." Sakura wouldn't have been surprised if Kakashi was standing behind them somehow, but surprisingly nothing happened. After a few moments of silence they agreed as a group that for once they could take a break and leave early, but Sakura still needed to talk to Sasuke despite how much she was dreading the conversation.

"Sasuke can I talk to you?" She asked in a tone of voice that she wished was just a bit more confident.

"Is it important?" Sasuke appeared as nonplussed as ever, but Sakura was resolute.

She steeled herself and in a much more controlled voice she answered, "Yes. Naruto, I'm sorry, but this is private can you go on ahead?"

Apparently Naruto could read the mood because he agreed much more easily than she expected, "Sure, Sakura-chan I'll see you tomorrow for training."

She waited until he was out of sight and finally looked at Sasuke who still seemed unaffected. "Sasuke you know I like you it's not like I've done a good job making a secret of it and I know you don't feel the same, but I want to talk about it because I want us to be able to work together without my crush being a problem," Sakura laid it out and waited to see what Sasuke was going to say. Whatever the answer was she was going to take it and even if it hurt, it was for the best. This was something she was doing for the team, but more importantly she was doing this for herself. She wasn't a little girl who would constantly live in some sad limbo desperately pining over him.

Sasuke seemed to be taking a few moments to gather his thoughts, but finally turned to look at her and answered, "Sakura, it's not that I dislike you in particular, I'm not interested in dating anyone. As long as you treat me like you treat everyone else, we can get along as teammates. Clearly you can be useful, you managed to help Naruto up the tree so that's something." Apparently that was all he had to say on the subject because he turned around and walked away without another word. It could have gone much much worse, at least being useful was better than him actually flat out hating her like she thought half the time. She had a long walk home, she just needed to take some time to fix that little part of her heart that was broken and be ready to work hard tomorrow.

Kakashi felt a rush of memories as his clone finally dissipated and he felt almost guilty for watching what was clearly meant to be a private moment. However, it did give him reason to actually let his genin off early rather than popping in. Sasuke and especially Sakura needed some time to themselves after that little discussion. He had to admit he was proud of Sakura for facing what she feared would be a harsh rejection and he was happy that Sasuke was able to let her down easy in his own way. Calling a girl useful probably wasn't the greatest compliment, certainly not one Kakashi would use, but it was enough to shield her from some of the pain that came with rejection. Sakura understood his nature enough to know that was his way of being kind.

He should probably think of some way to reward her tomorrow. What did young girls enjoy anyway? Maybe he really was becoming an old man, he felt out of touch. Pakkun always used his paws as a reward, but Kakashi wasn't sure how that'd work. Well, he'd figure something out.

When morning rolled around Kakashi found his genin at their usual location, even before announcing his presence he could tell the air was a bit awkward. Usually Sakura would be trying to engage Sasuke in some conversation, but now she could barely look at him. Sasuke for his part was trying to look as impassive as possible by staring off into space, though he was far too stiff for it to appear natural. A contributing factor to the awkwardness was Naruto looking back and forth between them, he could obviously tell something was wrong, but none of the three said anything.

"Alright today's going to be out first mission and as team leader I'm going to select Sakura, this is largely because I believe she'll pick up this next training exercise much quicker than either of you so I'm not worried about her needing extra time. Since it's her first mission I'll take her to get the mission and if she needs help I'll send her back for some clones," Kakashi said cutting through the stagnant air surrounding his genin, "You'll be working on water walking, I'll leave a clone to help you out, this is much harder than walking up a tree so if you don't get it in one day don't be disappointed."

He needed to split up Sakura and Sasuke for a little while and he needed to have a talk with Sakura. He felt remarkably uncomfortable discussing her romantic feelings, but this was important for her growth as a person.

"Sakura, yesterday while you were training I had a clone watching over you three and I admit that I overheard your conversation with Sasuke," Kakashi spoke quietly as he led her away from the training grounds towards the village. Her eyes shot to him and she looked as if she was going to yell and maybe she had that right because it was a breach of privacy, but Kakashi cut her off continuing, "I only wanted you to know I'm very proud of how mature you were and I'll pretend I never heard anything if that's what you want."

"I-," she paused, "I know it was just a crush. I've only actually started speaking to him last week and we aren't friends yet, so I know there's no reason to be upset, but it still hurts."

Kakashi couldn't fully empathize with the situation, but he understood pain so he tried comforting her, "Sakura, there's no shame in being upset, pain makes you human. You're young and love isn't something that comes easily, one day you'll figure out who you're meant to be with and if it isn't Sasuke then that's perfectly fine."

She looked up at him with slightly wet eyes and he was convinced he screwed something up, so he was surprised when she hugged him. He pretended it didn't make him slightly uncomfortable and gently hugged her back, but when she pulled away and wiped her eyes he couldn't help, but be relieved. "Alright, I'm better. I just needed to get out those last few tears. Thank you Kakashi-sensei, let's go do that mission."

"Let's skip the mission," he quickly made another shadow clone who turned into a copy of Sakura and sent the copy back with the mission that he'd actually already had on hand, to get two clones from Naruto as support. "We're going to go buy some ninja supplies, girls like shopping right?"

"Yeah, Kakashi-sensei every girl loves going to buy ninja tools," she was obviously being sarcastic, but it pulled a small laugh out of her.

"So it's no good?" Kakashi asked any other thing he imagined young girls liking he wanted no part of.

She shook her head, "Let's go, but you have to buy me some more books." She ran ahead of him slightly and Kakashi could tell some of her energy was forced, but it was a good start and if some books could fix everything than he'd buy her plenty. All his A and S-rank missions left him plenty of money, especially considering how frugally tended to live. His apartment was nice, but small and his main hobbies were just training and reading. He had friends, but he didn't socialize too often and he didn't get into relationships serious enough that it'd warrant buying expensive presents.

"As long as they're educational," Kakashi followed along wondering if his second project was working, getting the boys to get along without Sakura being there to work as a buffer to attempt to stop fights. He'd find out once his clone disappeared and he'd see how the mission went once his fake Sakura completed the mission. He'd have to make sure she knew to lie to the boys.

Naruto wasn't stupid, he didn't study hard so he wasn't the most informed, but he wasn't stupid and anyone with any intelligence could see something was wrong with Sakura and Sasuke. They were both acting weird from the moment the three arrived at the training grounds and when Sakura came back briefly to ask him to make two clones she barely spoke to them, completely ignoring Sasuke. He figured his clones would question her, but since he was stuck with Sasuke he might as well see what he knew. Kakashi's clone was explaining water walking, but the idea was pretty much the same as with the trees it just needed even more precision and constant adaptation to the flowing water. Without himself or Sasuke being able to completely focus they weren't going to achieve anything.

Apparently Kakashi's clone was able to see that as well because just as Naruto was reaching the point where he couldn't keep quiet Kakashi's voice rang out over the splashing water, "Take a small break, you both need to focus. Figure out what's wrong." Naruto wasn't sure if he was referring to what they were doing wrong in training or what was wrong today with Sasuke and by extension Naruto.

Naruto went straight to the other male and finally asked the question he'd by dying to ask, "What's wrong with you?"

He really should have expected Sasuke's lack of answer, but it still angered him when the other boy only gave him what Naruto mentally thought of the "Sasuke face", it was a stupid mixture of annoyance and superiority that was way too deliberate to be natural. "You know what's wrong with Sakura-chan don't you?" Naruto accused and he finally saw a reaction, he pounced on it, "What'd you do to her yesterday? I know you guys talked about something."

"Why is that any of your business?" Sasuke bit back.

"Like Kakashi-sensei always says, we're a team like it or not which means if something is wrong with you two then it's my business too," Naruto was resolute, if there was one thing Kakashi had tried to teach them it was that being teammates meant there was supposed to be some bond between them. They might not be close yet, but Naruto couldn't ignore a blatant sign that both of his teammates were affected by something.

If he hadn't mentioned Kakashi-sensei he was pretty sure that Sasuke would have argued more, but eventually he gave in, "Sakura told me she liked me last night."

Naruto pushed his anger down, he hated that Sakura liked Sasuke, but she'd been better about it lately so why she would bring it up suddenly confused him. Still it wasn't anything crazy, pretty much everyone knew she liked Sasuke and Naruto said as much, "That's it? You knew she liked you, I knew she liked you, pretty much everyone does. You're not dating now or anything are you?" Naruto was almost positive that wasn't the case, it might explain some of the awkwardness, but not the weird mood. Sasuke's look informed him that no they were not dating.

Sasuke sighed before finally getting to the root of his problem, "I know the girls in school only liked me because they thought I was cool so I didn't feel bad about just ignoring them, but Sakura is my teammate and she confronted me directly. I don't want to date Sakura, but I know she's upset and now I don't know how to act around her. It's difficult to ignore when she can barely look at me and I know that it's my fault. You might think I'm a jerk, but I don't particularly like hurting people."

Naruto wasn't entirely sure what to say, "Sasuke-"

"No, enough I'm done talking about this. You asked what was wrong I told you now let's keep training," Sasuke walked back towards the water and Naruto followed him at a slightly slower pace. With both genin mulling their thoughts over neither made much progress.

Kakashi arrived with a body flicker appearing behind the two soaking wet boys it didn't seem that either did particularly well, when his shadow clone dispersed and the memories flowed back to him he quickly saw why. Although it wasn't the most conductive conversation Kakashi was glad that Naruto took the initiative to figure out what was wrong with his teammates and Sasuke was able to open up at least a bit. Sakura would arrive soon, she was dropping her books and scrolls back at her home and she'd be arriving soon after, "completing her mission."

"Alright can I have a progress report?" Kakashi asked the soaked genin.

They just gave each other loaded looks and answered together, "This sucks."

He didn't hide his laughter which Naruto joined, Sasuke just glared. While they discussed the more nitty gritty details of what they'd been trying Sakura finally arrived. There wasn't much training time left, so he didn't think she'd be able to finish and the boys could probably use a break to dry off. He decided on a plan of action, but he waited because it looked like the kids wanted to talk.

"Ah, Sakura-chan are you okay?" Naruto asked clearly nervous, but thankfully Sakura was in a much better mood, which Kakashi was proud to say he could take some credit for, not that he'd say so out loud.

"I'm doing much better, thank you," she looked over to Sasuke and gave him a small smile, "really I'm okay, now." Sasuke gave the slightest dip of his head which approximated to a normal person nodding.

For the time being things were looking up and with that in mind Kakashi said, "alright next up is team bonding," when he received three slightly looks that all screamed they were done, he finished with, "we're going to get some dinner, on me."

"Let's get Ramen!" Naruto yelled out running ahead.

A/N

I decided to have Sakura approach Sasuke towards the beginning of the story because I felt like there would be less emotional problems when she was still in a phase where she was crushing on someone she didn't know well and she was less emotionally grounded. Later in the actual series when she becomes a stronger individual she starts to truly fall in love with him and I wanted to cut off her bad behavior in the beginning so in my story she could still fall in love later from a place less rooted in childish obsession.

Sasuke for his part was closed off in the beginning, but I still wanted his first emotional scene with Sakura be before he really started his downward spiral forcing him to open up at least slightly when confronted with someone's honest feelings.

Kakashi in this story plays the role of a good mentor, but also a figure that the genin can emotionally rely on even when he acts kind of helpless when it comes to their emotions. Awkward big brother/ Lost father or something.

What did you think, did I manage to capture the characters in a way that somewhat made sense with the changes I made? I keep feeling like I'm not sure how to portray Naruto POV or Sasuke's which I haven't tried yet, but I'm doing my best. I'm most comfortable writing about Kakashi because from the start he's a different character and Sakura because I feel with a few small changes she could easily grow because she'd developed the least. However all characters will see growth and changes in personality and their interrelationships.

Thanks for reading, please leave a kudos and let me know what you think or might want to see. I'd love to hear from you guys if you think I'm doing alright.