Sakura watched the man approach the Client with a cloying sense of distaste He was the third worker that day to quit, but the first to make such a scene. She really didn't care about the ethics of ditching your long-time friend to protect yourself, but the hypocrisy of his yelling really pissed her off.
It didn't help that she was sporting a migraine, a result of Hatake's ridiculous training method.
(He'd decided that, since she'd already demonstrated her ability to tree climb during the bell test, she could focus on her multitasking abilities. She'd had to spend the day sticking to the top of the railing with chakra whilst trying to maintain string-fed chakra coatings on three seperate objects and fluctuating her signature. It was akin to trying to write two seperate novels with each hand whilst reading a third and listening to an audiobook.)
"I want to help you but if we continue this Gatou will notice us. And what's the point if you get killed?" The Hypocrite was saying, all righteous indignation and arrogance. "Why don't we quit building the bridge?" His voice softened like he was talking down a particularly stubborn child. Seeing the defeated slump in the Client's shoulders, (and hence the increasing possibility work would slow down and she would spend even longer in the god forsaken town) her tentative control over her annoyance snapped. The boards she'd coated in chakra shook as she threw herself off the railing and stalked towards the Hypocrite.
"Oi, asshole!" She said, the men watching the commotion looked over at the pink-haired, pastel clothed little girl death glaring and swearing at the Hypocrite in surprise. The Hypocrite turned to her, a mixture of confusion and offence on his face. "If you're going to run away like a coward with your tail between your legs then do it quietly! Some of us have better shit to do than listen to your hypocritical tripe!"
The Hypocrite spluttered down at where she'd stopped in front of him- placing herself in between the potential threat and the Client- before puffing up with undeserved pride and growing red faced. "There's no point to the bridge if we lose our lives!" He yelled into her face, like that justified being a nuisance. Sakura was Unimpressed. She sighed and rubbed a temple.
"No." She said, pronouncing her words slowly so that there couldn't be any possible confusion. "There's no point to the bridge for you if you are dead. The bridge will still bring new resources to the community if you are dead. The bridge will still circumvent the isolationist nature of your country that's allowed Gatou and his thugs to gain such a foothold if you are dead. And the bridge will still provide a massive economic boom for future generations if you are dead. Frankly, the bridge and its point doesn't give two shits if you're alive and if you don't stop screaming, me and my migraine will be perfectly happy to throw you off the fucking thing." She smiled a toothy, threatening smile. A potent level of killing intent seeped into the air. "Wether you're alive or dead."
The Hypocrite paled, became overcome by his own cowardice and scampered in the direction of the village. For some inexplicable reason the men around her seemed to take this as a fantastic motivational speech rather than a generic stating of facts and threat to one of their own's life, cheering exuberantly and going about their work twice as enthusiastically as they had previously.
Sakura stomped back to her railing angrily, threw herself on top of the thing and growled under her breath when she realised she'd lost her hold of both the chakra coatings and the halfway point she'd been holding her signature at.
Her lips curled into a snarl and she went back to work all while picturing a series of more and more violent deaths for her sensei.
(The utter ass had the gall to look amused when she spent dinnertime alternating between rubbing her temples and glaring a hole in the side of his idiotic, silver head.)
It was on the third day of training that she talked again, having completely retreated into sullen silence with the haze of migraines and chakra control exercises. The Client had stopped in front of her perch for far longer than usual, causing her to crack an eye open questionably.
"I would have thought you guys would take shifts or something." The gruff drunk said, one hand scratching his scraggly beard. "Why aren't the blonde and the other one on bodyguard duty?"
"They're training." She replied, tone flat. It did nothing to deter the old man.
"You don't have to?" He asked, she scowled.
"I am also training. My training just involves a lot less running and jumping and making a fool of myself, so I can do it here rather than having to train in the woods where they won't get in the way."
"Uh huh." The man nodded. "And you'll be enough to handle any ninja Gatou sends after me?"
"Tazuna-san." Sakura said, tone serious. "If Gatou had anymore shinobi to send after you, those shinobi would be stronger than Momochi and would have been sent four days ago, the moment he learnt that his last attempt had failed. I can assure you that if that had happened, we would be dead." The old man grimaced at hearing this, but for a point in his favour he didn't piss himself in fear or anything particularly pathetic. "That we are still breathing means that Gatou currently has nothing better than petty thugs and common samurai left in his arsenal, people that might as well be kittens for all the danger they pose to me."
For some inexplicable reason the old man laughed heartily. "I like your moxie kid!" He declared like protection detail was some kind of inane popularity test before wandering off to return to the work he was meant to be doing in the first place.
Sakura watched his retreating back incredulously before she felt her hold on a coating slip and she returned to her exercises with a frown.
Sakura didn't speak again that week. In fact, Sakura didn't register the much of the world outside of her training and making sure the Client didn't die. She had vague impressions of a hormonal pissing match going on between the boys and a small, annoying child but other than that she really couldn't tell you any details about her days.
What she did remember was the triumphant feeling in her chest as she went to bed that seventh night. The knowledge that she'd worked her ass off and as a result her coating process had become near instinctual, her mind keeping track of three different objects at a time with ease, and she'd eliminated the need for hand signs to perform the jutsu altogether. Her control over her signature had massively improved, and maintaining it in a near invisible state had become second nature even as she focused on other things. Her favourite part was that she'd figured out how to maintain her various chakra coats through a kawarimi, meaning she could effectively perform three instantaneous, untraceable switches before she needed to reset her technique. It was a drain on her chakra to maintain a hold on three coats for long periods, but with her control only putting in the absolute minimum for the technique to occur it was almost negligible.
When Hatake ruffled her hair and told her she'd done well, she didn't put on the most optimal expression and think through a hundred different situations. No. Sakura smiled. A smile that was little more than a small uptick in the corners of her mouth but was also real and filled with warmth. And she felt Pride.
His answering eye-smile seemed a little softer in response.
The bridge was eerie in the early morning mist, bodies strewn haphazardly over the concrete and the last blush of the orange dawn gleaming in the metallic edges.
Sakura stood next to Hatake and the Uchiha, a vaguely disgruntled expression on her face. They had completely cleared the bridge of work materials, making her newly perfected kawarimi techniques far less useful in the oncoming fight. It didn't help her mood that the conveniently strewn bodies turned out to be clones, either, though it was interesting to see how far the Uchiha had progressed in the past week.
Still, it was hard not to break into a smile when the adrenaline was pumping and violence was imminent, even if it was slightly subdued with the knowledge that Hatake wanted to put her on guard duty.
She understood. She did. For all that she'd held back in her scoring on the physical side of things during the academy, her and the Uchiha were pretty much on par with each other. The only reason she was above him over all was that she didn't think like a preteen and was far more creative, knowing how to use her versatility and chakra control to gain every possible advantage. Against a likely equally skilled opponent who had already witnessed and would know how to counter her fighting style; the Uchiha, with his giant chakra reserves and ability to simply brute force his way through things, would have a greater chance of winning the inevitable battle of attrition.
Sakura understood the logic. But that didn't stop her blade from feeling thirsty beneath her hands, nor the rise of bloodlust in response to the killing intent.
It was alright, though. She could be patient. She didn't last sixty three years as Tristan without patience.
Uchiha and the Accomplice launched themselves at each other, meeting in a flurry of weaponry and taijutsu. The explosion of ice senbon was as impressive as it was strange but it wasn't until the Accomplice pulled out an outright Kekkai Genkai that Sakura actually questioned the decision to leave Sasuke to face the kid alone. She was just considering abandoning the Client to join the fight against the Accomplice when a burst of smoke, a cloud of shuriken and a distinctive yell made her relax back into position again.
"Uzumaki Naruto! Has finally arrived!" The orange ball cried. His entrance was loud, showy and attention grabbing but it was undeniably the Uzumaki and Sakura knew the pair would be fine. Of everyone in Konoha, the pair had the greatest potential for strength and they knew each other inside out. In a few years, if the Uchiha didn't let his angst get in the way, they would be unbeatable.
She regulated her breathing, threw a series of coated kunai in strategic positions, and focused on the fight that would affect her most.
(The kunai were only there as possible escape routes, she wasn't yet able to swap with something so disparate from her weight and size without using up most of her chakra.)
"Sorry but I'm going to end this instantly." Baited Hatake, a hand holding onto his forehead protector.
"Sharingan again?" Momochi asked, flaunting his arrogance and obliviously poking at the trap. "Is that all you can do?"
There was a blur of movement and a splash of Kakashi's blood before he finally exposed the Sharingan and Zabuza was forced to summon mist once again to counter it. Sakura waited until it was completely opaque white around her before summoning a clone, henging herself white and completely burying her chakra signature. Her clone was unlikely to be overlooked again, but since she was almost completely invisible- both physically and with chakra- Sakura could very likely count on the pair of enemy shinobi being too busy to actually bother to find her. As her world became restricted to the sounds around her and the radiating warmth of the client, her mind raced through the scope of possibilities.
In the mess of fights it was easy to forget that Zabuza's target was ultimately the bridge builder, but for all the man was filled with prideful boasting and a showy fighting style, he was an assassin famous for silent kills. He knew how to take every advantage and throw out anything prideful or honourable for the duration of the fight.
It was an easy decision to fist a hand in the front of the Client's shirt and wait, her clone making a show of protecting the man's front even as her real eyes watched his back. When Zabuza appeared like the demon of the mist he was named after, Sakura tightened her hold on the man and leapt backwards in time with his swing, unsurprised when Kakashi appeared between them and glad to keep as much distance from the pair as possible.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Her clone screamed, face full of concern for the mildly bleeding man.
"You were too slow Kakashi, did the concern for these brats cloud your mind and make the mist ever thicker?" Zabuza gloated. "Don't worry, I'm about to send you to the same place as them. You can apologise in the next world for lacking the strength to protect them." The missing-nin faded back into the mist, disappearing from sight.
"Sakura." Kakashi said, turning over his shoulder and looking pointedly at the clone. "Stay here." With that he followed the demon into the mist, their quiet taunting melding with the gentle rush of the wind.
Hatake had won- Momochi just didn't know it yet- and the Client was ultimately safe. Sakura had permission to back up the boys. She smiled and begun making her way towards the source of the cold as quietly as possible.
She reached the edge of the mirrors, close enough to peak in to the mist-free dome and see the Uchiha's senbon riddled body and Uzumaki convulsing and clutching his head, when the chakra hit. It turned the very air into acid, rolling off the orange body in visible waves of malevolent red. Sakura stumbled, wavered and almost hit the floor. She was sure it was only the last week of training that kept her henge on and her signature stable even as her brain completely lost all coherency. Her clone was not so lucky, popping at the first hint of corrosive pressure.
Time seemed to pass in a blur, her wide eyes watching Naruto destroy the Accomplice uncomprehendingly, shaky steps following the pair after they smashed through the far line of mirrors.
It wasn't until the chakra abruptly disappeared that Sakura paused, metres from the blurry figures of Naruto and the Accomplice. Naruto frozen mid movement.
Her brain rebooted. Her thoughts came online. She stared incredulously as the pair argued over being essentially unable to kill each other because of sentimentality and their individual moral codes. Once Uzumaki's shouting somehow turned into the Accomplice spilling their life story Sakura accepted she would never understand the pair and rolled with it.
For all she could mimic human behaviours, learn the best faces to gain the best responses and follow observed patterns to decode common scenarios and fake the correct expressions, Sakura had never pretended to actually understand the majority of the population. She was missing far the too much of the normal emotional responses, the feelings behind her masks too often completely incorrect for the scenario.
She would never understand, so she didn't even bother to try. She simply assimilated the relevant political information and positioned herself behind the Accomplice, completely unnoticed by both parties as she blended easily into the unnaturally opaque white of the mist. It was painfully obvious that neither party was willing to kill the other.
Sakura would solve that dilemma.
She just had to wait for Naruto to do something loud and distracting to hide her actions behind.
He pulled through to the soundtrack of chirping birds.
The Accomplice blocked the kunai swing, his free hand twisting into a seal, but Sakura's blade was already arcing through the air. The hot shower of blood was already spilling over her face.
The boy dropped. Her smile ached in her cheeks.
Naruto shrieked and grabbed his kunai, face wide with horror as his eyes searched the mist, unable to see her as the crimson red had automatically been absorbed into the white of her henge. Sakura gave a moment to collect herself and school her face blank before she allowed it to drop. The white vanishing to reveal her cutesy, pastel pallet splattered with vivid red. Her poisonously green eyes popping feverishly in her face. Wide and manic despite her best attempts to feign blankness. The hand not holding her dripping chokutō was shaking from the beautiful rush of adrenaline.
Naruto turned green. Sakura figured he needed a distraction.
"Naruto." She said and he flinched. She made an effort to brighten her tone to something more human. "Sasuke should be waking up soon, it would be nice if someone was there when he did."
"B-but he…" Naruto stuttered and a rueful- if slightly too wide- smile pulled at her face. It seemed to calm him somewhat.
"Died? Are you sure? Haku used the same pattern of senbon he used on Zabuza."
He visibly brightened at this, turning to the fallen Uchiha in a rush, tripping over his own feet in his excitement.
Sakura took a moment to admire the image of Kakashi pulling his entire fucking hand out of Zabuza's rib cage before she closed her eyes, tipped her head to the sky and breathed. She focused on calming the pounding of her heart. Deepening her gasping breaths. Locking the monster back inside its box.
It wasn't nearly sated. It would never be sated. But it had gotten a taste. For the first time in twelve years the monster knew blood.
It would become more insistent on regular feeding after this.
"You alright, Sakura-chan?" Hatake asked, breaking through her fog and causing her to jump violently. The visible patch of skin was stubbornly expressing concern, but she could see the crinkling of mirth at her reaction hovering at the edges. Her expression went deadpan.
"I was fine until you gave me a heart attack, Kakashi-sensei."
"Ah goo…" Hatake went silent and turned to look, expression resigned, at the opposite side of the bridge. Sakura followed his line of sight and frowned at the approaching crowd of what looked suspiciously like gangsters, their figures becoming more and more visible as they moved out of the slowly clearing fog. Hatake stepped forward to meet them, Sakura automatically falling into position on his right flank.
It was clear that the comically short mole man at the front of the mob was the boss. His clothes were neat and expensive- if largely tasteless- where the thugs were wearing a mishmash of rags and armour. His steps across the bridge were short and shuffling but there was a crooked smile on his face. An expression that expected easy deference in the face of a crude threat of violence. He was the kind of man that would sit and laugh as children were beaten to death in front of him, but would be too squeamish to do it himself.
Sakura's face twisted in disgust.
"Ah, I guess Zabuza really was pathetic, to be killed by a group of children and old men." The mole man said, voice high and reedy.
"You must be Gatou." Hatake said, his voice was flat and unimpressed. His body language firm with the promise of power. The idiot did not take notice of the threat.
"I planned to do this from the beginning." The mole man bragged, voice oozing with greasy satisfaction. "I never planned on paying them any money."
"Sensei." Sakura said, voice whisper soft. Hatake tilted his head slightly to indicate he was listening. "I could kill the mole man safely." She was already threading her chakra across the bridge as she coated a palmed kunai.
"I have the ninja's battle each other and once they're weakened I kill them off with numbers!" He laughed. "It doesn't cost me anything! A good plan, don't you think?"
"But it would leave me with very little chakra left." She finished, ignoring the jeering crowd across from her. Her chakra was completely coating the tiny mobster, something that would set off red alerts to a shinobi but would feel like little more than a mild tickling sensation to a civilian. Hatake's head tilted further in contemplation.
"YOU BASTARD!" The Uzumaki screamed from behind them, all righteous fury and anger.
"Alright." Hatake said and Sakura reaffirmed her grip on her sword. "You cut off the head, I'm sure I'll be able to scare off the horde."
She tossed the coated kunai into the air and waited for it to reach the very top of its curve before catching on the coating around the mole man. She saw a flash of the thugs before her before her chakra was catching on the kunai and she was falling, a shrieking munchkin beneath her. It was simple enough to position her feet to force the man face first into the concrete, to use the momentum from her fall to drive her chokutō into his heart.
"Vive la révolution." She murmured into the greasy mop of hair.
The munchkin fell silent, bright red blood spreading out beneath the corpse. Sakura didn't find herself smiling. She hadn't enjoyed it. For the first time in her lives as she killed she was bored.
She exhaled softly through her nose and made a mental note that without a challenge, killing might as well be as exciting as cutting up meat for lunch.
"Great job, Pinky." Kakashi said, a gore covered hand ruffling her blood splattered hair. "Go and relax."
Sakura nodded, a burning mix of pride and disappointment in her stomach, and headed to sit next to the slowly waking Uchiha. The Uzumaki was pale with tears in his eyes, but the small smile he sent her looked mostly genuine. She nodded back, practiced fingers pulling out a rag and working on cleaning the blood from her blade.
Sakura's world shrunk to simple movements. She trusted her team to deal with the thugs.
"Hey, Hey! Our cute little kohai is back!" Hagane said, leaning out of the gate guard window and completely ignoring where Hatake was holding out a hand for their check-in papers.
"Hi Kotestu-senpai, Izumo-senpai!" Sakura said, her voice cheery and a brilliant smile on her face. Her pastel qipao was freshly washed and there were no traces of blood in her soft, pink hair.
"Did everything go alright?" Asked Kamikuzi, eyes trained on where the Uzumaki was screaming after the Uchiha, the black-haired boy ignoring him with a smug smirk on his face.
"It went great. The sign-in papers please?" Hatake drawled, his tone deadpan. The three ignored him.
"It was really scary!" Sakura said, her eyes wide and Hagane cooed down at her. "There was this evil mob boss trying to rule the country and he sent a missing-nin with this giant sword after us! He was called the demon of the-the… what was it Kakashi-sensei?"
"Momochi Zabuza, the demon of the hidden mist." He deadpanned and the pair of chūnin blanched at the name but Sakura ignored it and barrelled on, making sure to add as much childish awe to her words as possible.
"Yeah! And he fought sensei and there were giant water dragons and everything, but Kakashi-sensei kicked his ass." Sakura said, now being pat down and checked for injuries by the pair who had climbed fully out of the window. Hatake was leaning over it behind them, one hand filling in a procured check-in sheet and the other stuffed lazily in his pocket.
"You're alright Sakura-chan? You didn't get hurt?" Kamikuzi said and Sakura shook her head.
"Nope!" She smiled angelically. "I didn't get hurt at all, but we totally started a revolution, overthrew the mob boss and saved the country!" Hatake had now just started walking into the village, ignoring the scene entirely and happily leaving her behind. The Uzumaki and Uchiha followed as they ran in circles around him, now competing against each other to run up various trees and the sides of buildings. Sakura pulled away from the pair of chūnin. "I have to go, thank you senpais!" She waved at them as she left.
"Come see us anytime, little kohai!" Hagane called, waving as he was dragged back into the guard station by Kamikuzi. Sakura laughed, the sound high and musical.
"I'll bring cookies!" She promised before racing to catch back up to Hatake.
"You do realise that they'll have told the entire village within an hour." Hatake drawled, his lone eye roaming the surroundings warily, like he was expecting a green-clad natural disaster to appear on the horizon any second.
"And of course the story they tell will be wildly inaccurate, leading to more and more fanciful rumours and mass speculation over what actually happened. The shinobi of Konoha, being the nosiest creatures in existence, will be compelled to speak to one of our team to determine the original story. Everyone hates Naruto so they won't go to him, Sasuke's Sasuke and you're well known for fucking with people for the fun of it." She placed a hand over her heart and fluttered her eyelashes dramatically as she spoke. "I, however, actually have a good reputation as a delightful member of society, the kind of adorable little girl who helps little old ladies carry their groceries home and happily stays for tea to chat about their many grandchildren." Sakura had a skip in her step as she walked. "I've just become a highly valuable commodity." Hatake sighed.
"Just don't burn down the village anywhere I'd have to deal with it." He ordered weakly, tone resigned.
"Of course not, Kakashi-sensei!" She laughed before turning to draw the Uzumaki into a conversation. "Hey Naruto, do you think Iruka-sensei will be at hokage tower?"
Predictably, the blonde lit up and immediately looped the conversation into talking about ramen.
Uzumaki had dropped his crush on her almost entirely after seeing her murder a kid, which ironically had made him much more pleasant to talk to.
The next morning Sakura awoke to a tapping on her window. She glared out at the ridiculous man perched against the outside wall of her house before- reluctantly- opening it.
"What the fuck, sensei." She said, her tone deadpan. He handed her a piece of paper.
"Put some chakra into it."
The paper wrinkled violently and dripped water. Hatake nodded before rummaging through his pockets and withdrawing three scrolls, which she took.
"You're still going to be late for training today, aren't you?" She accused. He ignored her.
"Don't tell the boys about this, they're not ready yet." The asshole promptly disappeared.
Sakura sighed, shut her window, and opened the scrolls. Two she recognised as techniques from the fight with Zabuza, whilst the other was a more generic guide on channeling lighting releases into weapons.