Sakura walked into ANBU headquarters and was almost immediately accosted by Robin.
"Blanky!" The man crowed, taking his customary position herding her through the building with an arm over her shoulder. "Good to see you up, I heard from the commander that you were fine but it was hard to believe without seeing for myself, you know?" He gave no time for her to reply, instead barreling on as he shepherded her into one of the team lounges. The room had a set of sofas, a conference table, equipment racks, lockers and a series of blackboards. It was also covered in a fair amount of personal clutter, from photos and posters on the walls, to a deck of cards and piles of chips on the table. "It was hard to believe you were alive after that shit. I mean I've seen some really messed up stuff but that was vomit inducing, Blanky. A ten on the gross scale."
"Robin!" A voice interrupted, a rich baritone under the distortion.
"Horse!" Robin replied, swinging Sakura around to face a giant of a man. "I brought the Blanky for you!"
"I'm Horse, I'll be you captain for the next few days." The man said, ignoring the gangly weirdo behind her completely to offer Sakura a hand. She shook it, her own disappearing entirely in the man's grip. "The other three should be here soon, but I wanted to get a feel for you before they showed up."
"Goodbye Blanky! Have fun!" Robin called from where he was disappearing through the door, Sakura waved vaguely after him.
"It's good to meet you, taicho." She said and he nodded, gesturing her to take a seat on one of the couches as he took an armchair.
"For the mission we'll be destroying a series of caravans through Earth country, so I'll get you to just watch the first one and provide support for the next two. The team is assault heavy, with a focus on sheer destructive power over stealth, so we'll be running hard and fast for the two or three days until we're back in Konoha. How's you're stamina?" He asked, voice methodical and professional.
"Great for a thirteen year old, but I'm still limited by my age." She replied and he hummed.
"We'll see how you go at first but speak up if it's too hard on you, any of my team would be more than able to carry you." His voice decidedly less professional and instead with an amused warble behind it.
She nodded, not doubting the statement. She really was very small for her age.
"Have you fought in a large-scale battle before?"
"Mhm, during the Konoha Crush. Since I was only a genin at the time I fought as purely a support, however."
"That's alright, you're not here to do the mission for us, you're mostly here just to learn how a team functions in the ANBU, so I likely won't ask you to do anything greater than a support role."
"Hey Taicho!" Called a voice from the door, a blonde man coming in followed by two others. Sakura realised with a burst of humour that the entire team were giants. As the only girl and a good two heads shorter than the shortest, she would look ridiculous next to them. "We have a newbie?!" He asked excitedly.
Sakura stood and bowed. "I'm Blank, I'll be shadowing your team on this mission. Please take care of me."
One with a spiky mane of black hair chortled. "She's a little small, isn't she taicho? Are you sure she'll be able to stay in one piece?"
"The commander seemed to think so." The captain replied, dry humour lacing his voice.
"I may be small but that just puts me at the perfect height to stab you in the balls, senpai." Sakura replied and the blonde teammate laughed.
"I like her!" He said and held out a hand. Sakura shook it firmly. "I'm Leopard, the asshole is Parrot."
"Otter." Mumbled the third, before he collapsed into a couch.
"Right!" Said the captain, who had started handing out a series of mission briefings. "Today we'll be heading…"
Sakura was perched on Otter's back- having gotten carried on and off since they left Fire country to conserve her energy for the fights- as they approached the second target. The first had gone completely smoothly. Sakura had watched as the team moved in sync to destroy the shinobi guard, comb the caravan for survivors and burn the wagons to ash.
For the second one, she would be providing support.
'Approaching' The captain signed and she slipped off Otter's back, shutting down her chakra signature to nothing and drawing her chokutō. Typically, support shinobi fought at long ranges, providing projectile fire and keeping watch for runners. Sakura would be using her kawarimi abilities to flit through the battlefield at high speeds instead. Providing an extra slice or opening when the others needed it.
The caravan became visible as the five members flitted through the trees. Eight shinobi surrounding the wagons, two samurai and fifteen civilians. Sakura activated her transparency jutsu and climbed into the very top branches, overlooking the entire scene, only able to comfortably perch on them due to her small size.
She stabbed a coated kunai into the wood.
With an almost soundless bird call, the captain signalled the attack and the four men charged. They managed to fell three of the eight shinobi in quick succession, but the remaining five reacted faster and rallied together. Sakura watched the fights keenly, her sharp vision picking out five targets and latching her chakra on to them in a manner of seconds.
She caught on the first one, deactivated the transparency jutsu, pumped her chakra into her chokutō and swept through the battlefield in a flash of electric blue. Six effortless kawarimis happening in quick succession and leaving a trail of chakra infused wounds. On her last swap she activated the transparency jutsu again, returning unseen to her bird's eye perch.
She jammed another coated kunai into wood and went again, going through a further four kunais before the battle had finished.
When the captain gave the all clear and Parrot begun burning the wagons she dropped to the ground, a bright grin underneath her mask.
"You did good, kid." Said Horse.
"Thank you, taicho!"
"For the next one I want you to take an approach, see how you do in an assault position."
"Understood, taicho!"
Sakura crept through the bush, the captain was to her left flank and the other three at the other corners of the approach. There were five samurai, nine shinobi, and twenty three civilians. The largest of the set by far, it had the greatest chance of something going wrong.
A quiet birdcall.
She leapt from the undergrowth, her electric blue chakra roiling over her chokutō and rammed through a shinobi's chest. She tore it out, already swinging through the air in an arc of blue, meeting the next opponent in a whirlwind of blades. Her eyes flickered around her as she ducked and dodged, slicing a line in the man's calf and landing a kick in his ribs. She sent out chakra instinctively, searching and coating opportune areas as she worked. The shinobi stumbled backwards and she switched with a chunk of dirt behind him, her sword slashing cleanly through his neck.
She ducked a water jutsu, ignored the slight pain of scratches where she hadn't moved fast enough and switched with a man's sword, gleefully driving her own into his eye. Launched off the body and rolled under a swipe of a katana, shifting to her feet to meet the blade's next swing with her chokutō. She pushed off, ducked the next swing and opened his stomach. Taking a jagged but thankfully shallow slice through the shoulder for her efforts.
Sakura glanced around, the shinobi were dead and the last of the samurai were being fought off by Horse. The battle was over. She helped the others move through the screaming civilians like slicing through beef. Entirely dispassionate in the face of the bodies.
"You know, if you didn't have such dogshit chakra reserves you could almost be tokubetsu level." Leopard laughed as he broke a woman's neck.
"They're not dogshit, they're fun sized!" Sakura yelled, pointing her chokutō threateningly at the man. The smell of ash filled the air as Parrot burnt the wagons.
"Oh yeah, and how much do you have left after all this fun?" The man taunted.
"Seventy three percent." She replied, smugly, sheathing her sword and setting a hand on her hip.
"Wait, really?" Interjected Otter, a significant amount of incredulity in his voice.
"I'm very economical." She sniffed, walking over the Leopard to climb onto the man's back in response to the captain's signalling.
"Aha, and how much does a shunshin use?" Leopard chuckled, following an exasperated captain through the trees.
"A fifth." Sakura mumbled.
"Sorry, what was that, I couldn't hear?"
"A fifth!" She yelled. "Fucking asshole."
"Oi, Parrot!" He cackled. "Could you imagine?"
"The fuck would you do? Fucking walk everywhere?" Parrot replied.
"I'd rather walk than be some brickhead doton user." She said and Leopard squawked angrily.
"Shut up!" The captain called and they instantly quieted. "Were on high fucking alert until Fire."
The rest of the trip was passed in silence, until Sakura shifted to run upon entering Fire country and Parrot and Leopard began needling Otter.
It was two hours out from Konoha when she heard it.
"Taicho, I hear fighting ahead." Sakura called. Horse glanced at her once and nodded.
'Formation 3' the captain signed and the four men settled into a diamond whilst Sakura activated full stealth mode and moved upwards, into the very tops of the trees.
They were only moving for five minutes before they burst into a clearing, a very tired looking Maito holding off a group of four missing-nins- three Kumo and one Konoha. The ANBU team wasted no time in diving into the conflict, working in tandem to take the enemy shinobi down.
Sakura watched from her perch, satisfied she didn't need to step in to help but coating a few options just in case. It was because of that she saw the fifth, just a flash of metal against the grass, sneaking up behind an oblivious Maito.
She dropped from the sky, drawing her blade and streaking it into the fifth missing-nin's back. The woman- konoha hit-ate with a scratch through it- gasped once before dying, drawing the attention of the green-clad jōnin. Sakura let the jutsu end.
"Thank you for your assistance, my comrades!" Maito smiled, teeth gleaming as he offered her a hand up. She took it, sure her expression was bemused under the mask. The man was covered in arcs of mud and blood, one arm hanging limply at his side and a significant limp as he walked. Sakura had to wonder what the hell had managed to do that to one of the best jōnin in Konoha.
"Always happy to help." The captain said. "Do you want a lift? My boys could use the workout."
"That would be most welcome!" Maito boomed, a disturbingly pained smile on his face. "I am afraid I would be unable to reach Konoha without collapsing!" His tone was chipper. He stretched into a pose and gave a thumbs up before wincing and passing out entirely.
The five of them stared down at the green mess for a moment before the captain sighed.
"Otter, carry him." He ordered and the man complied. "Blank, on me." She clambered onto the captain's back without a complaint. "Double time, detour to the hospital. Might as well get our shit looked at whilst we're at it."
The hospital was thankfully quiet when they arrived- a product of the amount of shinobi just not in the village to clog the system up- so they were seen to fairly quickly. Maito was rushed into the emergency ward but a few questions and Sakura found out that he'd be fine.
Her shoulder was healed and she headed back to headquarters, showering and changing into her chūnin gear before heading straight back to the hospital.
"Hey Naruto!" Sakura said, a smile on her face and a box of meat buns in her hands.
"Sakura-chan!" The Uzumaki yelled, clambering out from where he'd been… hiding under the bed?
"Are you… okay Naruto?" She asked, he sent her a blinding grin as he scrambled onto a seat.
"Totally!"
"Right." She nodded. "So, any juicy hospital gossip for me?"
"I'm getting released tomorrow!" He said, grabbing a pork bun in each hand and talking between bites. Sakura grabbed one and ate more slowly.
"I'll try to come see you but I'm not sure I'll be able to, sorry."
"That's okay Sakura-chan! You must be really busy, since you're a chūnin now!"
"Yeah, everyone's really busy nowadays. What's the first thing you're gonna do with your freedom? Hot springs? Training?" She leaned in with wide eyes. "Ramen?"
"RAMEN! Of course! Ero-sennin wants us to leave at the end of next week so I have to have Ichiraku's every meal to make up for it."
"A noble goal. How will you survive? Three years without ramen?"
"I'm really going to miss old man Teuchi." The Uzumaki sounded actually despondent. Her lips quirked.
"And what about me, huh?"
"Of course I'll miss you, Sakura-chan!" He replied. Sakura reached for another bun.
"What do you think Jiraiya will teach you?"
"I bet he'll teach me tonnes of awesome justus and I'll totally…!" The Uzumaki babbled excitedly, Sakura relaxed back in her chair and let it wash over her.
Sakura didn't see the Uzumaki again before he left.
She didn't really see anyone again as the next few months passed. She barely spent time in the village and any time she did spend was either sleeping, training with ANBU or training with the Hokage. Hatake was never in the village when she was, Shiranui was either working or sleeping, and T&I had even cancelled their monthly shoji tournament they were so overworked.
Before she knew it, the three months of her ANBU training were finished and the commander was handing her a painted mask whilst a fresh tattoo ached on her shoulder.
"Welcome to the force, Sparrow." Bear said as she swapped the blank mask for her new one. It was minimalistic with just a few black lines denoting a beak and the eyes surrounded in red. She changed her hair back to her natural colour.
"You do realise I'm not going to be tiny forever, right commander?" She said. He patted her back and laughed. She despaired.
"Information on your handler for solo missions and your team assignment for larger ones. They're expecting you in team room eight." He handed her a scroll and she nodded.
"Thank you, commander."
"Don't thank me yet, you're just about to take the kiddy pants off after all."
She headed for the team room, pausing just before knocking on the door to take the bun out of her hair and letting it flow freely down her back.
What would be a team introduction without some mind games?
She knocked.
"Come in!" A man called form inside and she opened the door, peering inside and fidgeting.
"Team Ro?" She asked, eyes flitting over the four, mask-wearing ANBU. There were three men- two sitting and one standing as what was obviously the leader- all with pretty common hairstyles, but there was a woman with very distinctive purple hair sitting on one of the couches.
Uzuki Yūgao? Was she really on a team with Gekkō's girlfriend?
"That's us." Said the standing one, voice cheerful underneath the distortion. Sakura jumped a little before heading into the room fully and closing the door behind her.
"I'm Sparrow, your new teammate, please take care of me!" She said with a bow, letting her pink hair spill over her shoulders.
"Good to meet you Sparrow, I'm the captain, designation Tiger." His voice sounded distinctly less cheerful. He pointed to the man immediately to his left. "This is Panda, our ninjutsu specialist." He pointed to the second man. "Monkey, our long range support and healer." He pointed to the woman. "And Cat, our kenjutsu specialist. As I understand it you'll be supporting us on missions where an extra member is needed but you'll be doing your own for most of the time." Sakura nodded.
"Yep, I'm first and foremost an assassination and infiltration specialist, but I've proven pretty good in the messier fights too." She said. One of them snorted.
"Yes, well, messy is our specialty." Tiger chuckled, rubbing a hand through his hair. "We'll run team drills for today, I want to see your full arsenal and get to know each other."
Team Ro assembled in a fairly simple training ground, sparse trees and a few pools of water. As Panda walked past he clapped a hand on her back and whispered. "Don't worry kid, we'll go easy on yah!"
"I'm not worried at all, senpai." She replied and he just shook his head slowly as he joined the other three in standing across from her.
"Alright we'll start off with a mock battle just to get a basic feel for each other. The four of us against Sparrow. Obviously nothing lethal or aiming to seriously injure, we'll stop when one side is knocked out or forfeits."
Sakura nodded. Briefly considered putting her hair back up and then discarded the idea. She wanted to make a statement.
She eyed the training ground. There wasn't much she could kawarimi with.
She smiled under the mask.
"Alright…"
If there wasn't enough rubble, she'd just have to make it.
"Begin!" Tiger called, the four immediately begun moving into positions but Sakura was already slamming her fist into the ground. There was an almighty boom and the earth shattered, chunks of rubble and dirt flying through the air. Sakura rode the wave of mess upwards, used it to disguise a series of hand signs, and activated full stealth. Her careful eyes flickered over the mess and she spotted Tiger balanced on a particularly big piece of rubble, the other three either gathering their footing still or circling the spot she was a second ago.
Sakura sent out strings and kawarimi'd with a chunk behind the captain, pulling a kunai and placing it at his neck as she dropped the transparency jutsu.
"Do you forfeit, taicho?" She purred. He swallowed nervously but didn't say anything, she felt something wrapping around her feet. It was a trap.
She cursed and stabbed the clone, making it pop out of existence and kawarimi'd out, going back to full stealth. This time she headed for Monkey, kawrimi'd next to him and smashed a kunai butt towards his temple.
Despite the fact that she was nearly invisible and very difficult to be sensed via chakra, the man managed to smash a palm into her wrist to block, undoubtedly leaving a bruise, centimetres before it hit. Sakura panicked for half a moment before she realised that it was because she was actually leaking a low level of killing intent she couldn't reign in. She could see the movements of the others out of the corner of her eye, about to descend on her position.
Well, if she was leaking it anyway.
Sakura giggled and unleashed the full force of her killing intent, concentrating it onto Monkey and making him freeze just long enough for her to catch him- lightly, she wasn't actually trying to hurt the man, he'd play along with the checkmate- with the kunai. The man dropped to lay still on the ground and Sakura turned, caught a swing of Cat's katana on the kunai, and kawarimi'd again just as wood was climbing up to her knees.
Her eyes widened. Tiger was a mokuton user.
She watched Cat pause, form half a hand sign, and then subtly gesture in Sakura's direction.
Cat was a sensor, but not a natural one. She wouldn't be able to see suppressed chakra like Sakura's very well, and very likely couldn't differentiate between clones faking her chakra and the real thing.
The ground beneath her feet began reforming and shifting, rising around her to form a sphere over her head. She threw herself upwards, tried to kawarimi out but her strings were cut, her shoulder smashed into solid earth infused with chakra and prevented her from escape.
Sakura clutched a hand over the throbbing limb, settled into a meditative position and concentrated, suppressing her chakra as much as humanly possible even as she shaped it to match the chakra that made up the bubble.
Outside, a water clone kawarimi'd onto the battlefield and headed for Panda. Sakura could feel the moment Cat determined she hadn't been captured and the chakra retaining the barrier was stopped.
She kawarimi'd with a second clone, leaving it inside the bubble and concentrated on suppressing her chakra, now on the very outskirts of the training field.
The clone going after Panda was melted into water with an exclamation from the man and the clone inside the bubble was wrapped in wood, effectively captured as the dirt was lowered back to normal. The clone dropped the transparency jutsu, apparently forfeiting as the trio of remaining ANBU circled it, Sakura and her final clone both kawarimi'd back onto the battle field.
Sakura turned visible as her clone stayed stealthy, drawing her chokutō and pumping it full of her electric blue chakra. The clone tightened its chakra signature to basically nothing, easy for it to do as it only had a tenth of Sakura's power.
Sakura grinned beneath her mask and launched herself at Tiger in an arc of blue and pink.
The man twirled as the captured Sakura melted into water and sent wave of wood after wave of wood, Sakura simply slicing through them with her chakra enhanced blade, spotting the attacks easily with her eyesight.
She caught a scuff of a foot behind her and she twisted underneath another wave of wood, spinning and throwing a volley of shuriken, driving Cat backwards. The back of the clone's kunai caught Panda's temple as he sped through hand signs, dropping the man.
Two down, two to go.
Sakura kawarimi'd next to the clone as it dropped the transparency jutsu and relaxed its hold on its chakra suppression, making its signature seem slightly bigger than her own. Making sure a sensor would read the clone as the real one.
They turned to the remaining pair together, facing them back to back and launching themselves in tandem. Sakura reducing her movement speed to match the clone's.
Cat moved to intercept them first, Tiger supporting the attack with sprouting barriers of wood rising up from the ground, and Cat swept into dance of the crescent moon, her blade turned to hit with the flat. A highly confusing attack using shadow clones and afterimages to make it near impossible to read their movements, it would have worked.
Would have if Sakura hadn't been trained by Gekkō.
There was one tiny, tiny opening on the move. Sakura and her clone simply positioned their swords in the correct place and watched the two clones burst into smoke and the real Cat launch herself away.
Sakura and the clone darted backwards from a wave of wood, slashing through the attack with their electric blue chokutōs and throwing one hand in the air and the other in a seal over their hearts. Opaque white mist covered the battle field and the two Sakura's henged themselves white and threw themselves towards Cat.
With her enhanced hearing, tracking people through the mist had become second nature and her clone flanked the woman as Sakura launched an attack from the side. Cat, clearly using her sensory abilities, went straight for the clone, sending a slash that she clearly expected it to dodge, the woman jolting when the hit instead went through its shoulder and it melted into water.
Sakura swung a hand forward only to be jerked to a stop, the tips of her fingers an inch away from Cat's neck and wood holding Sakura's limbs in place in the air.
She realised her jutsus, unravelling her signature as the mist dissipated.
"I forfeit." Sakura said and the wood melted away and back into the ground.
"That was impressive." Said Tiger as Monkey appeared from the sidelines to set medical green hands over her shoulder.
"Thank you, taicho, but I have to disagree, you were all going easy on me, after all."
"Of course, kid, but that doesn't mean it wasn't impressive." Interrupted Monkey.
"Says the first to get kicked out!" Taunted Panda, the man materialising next to Cat. He went the throw an arm over the woman's shoulder's but was stopped by a kunai pressed against his neck and he backed away, chuckling. "What got you again? A little killing intent?"
"It wasn't just a little! I genuinely felt like I was going to die."
"Come on guys, let's talk strategy and run a few partner drills." Tiger said, causing the pair to quiet. "What are your reserves looking like, Sparrow?"
"Twenty seven percent, taicho." Sakura replied. "The clones took the most out of me, I can only make six of them at the moment."
In true ANBU fashion, the team begun immediately making fun of her tiny reserves. Sakura sighed but her smile remained under the mask.
That night found her bruised and aching and with a bright grin on her face as she sat in a booth with her unmasked teammates, sitting against the wall with an inebriated Monkey (who turned out to be a tokubetsu called Sanada Eito) on her right and laughing at Cat (she was right, it was Uzuki Yūgao, tokubetsu), Panda (Kita Itsuki, tokubetsu) and Tiger (Tenzō, jōnin) across from her, all squished into the bench and well into drunk.
She took another small sip of her sake (she loved that this world had the attitude that if you were qualified to kill people professionally you were old enough to drink) enjoying the bubbly sensation it was giving her but not wanting to overdo it, as Tiger waved a hand at her melodramatically.
"You're fighting style reminds me a lot of our last captain." He slurred, sloshing sake out of his cup. "Completely fucking nuts."
"Talking shit about me kohai?" Came a familiar lazy drawl and Sakura whipped her head around to see Hatake standing at the end of her table, eyebrow raised down at the captain.
"T-taicho!" Tiger spluttered, straightening up and flushing horribly.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura said, ignoring the way the other occupants at the table turned to her with a mixture of horror and bemusement. "You're in the village!"
"Aah, our illustrious Hokage graciously gave me a three day break before my next mission." Hatake said.
"Man, things must be slowing down again." Her grin turned scheming. "Want to celebrate by getting roaring drunk and telling me a bunch of embarrassing stories about my new taicho?"
He blinked, looked at an increasingly distressed looking Tenzō, and nodded. "You make a convincing argument." He disappeared in the direction of the bar.
"Wait, you're that Sakura? You're Pinky?!" Tiger (loudly) whispered as he leaned over the table, taking a giant gulp of sake.
"Mhm." She mimicked his position. "What does sensei say about me?"
"Basically every shinobi in Konoha knows not to fuck with Kakashi's genin." Interjected Cat. Sakura nodded.
"And since I'm the only one still around-"
"The threat is three fold." Hatake said, appearing between Sakura and Monkey in a blink of an eye, Icha Icha in hand and a drink in front of him.
"I knew you were threatening people behind our backs." Sakura said. "You know after Wave the only one with the balls to come up to me was Genma."
"Aah, is that how that started?" He said and she nodded, drawing her knees into her chest and relaxing into her corner of bench. Somehow half of Hatake's cup disappeared during the movement.
"I cried, laughed at him, slammed a door in his face and then blackmailed him into buying me food." She raised her cup in celebration. "We've been besties ever since." A hand ruffled her hair.
"Congratulations on graduating, Pinky." He said, looking up from his porn with a serious expression on his visible slither of face. "You've earned it."
"Thanks, Kakashi-sensei."