There was glitter in her hair and a pile of little black books on her lap, each bookmarked with strips of cardboard decorated with drawings of kittens. Shiranui was next to her, head thrown back against the lounge cushions as he laughed. The surrounding jōnin ignored them- except for maybe Yūhi, who Sakura could feel glaring at the back of her head- with practiced ease, only the few newbies unaccustomed to their antics.
"If I get murdered because I left a trail of glitter behind on my next assassination I will come back from the grave just to make your life miserable." Sakura complained, opening the first of the books and blinking numbly down at the page for a moment.
A-rank, approach with caution, twenty five million ryo bounty. A black figure with her chokutō and her scars.
"Nah, you don't have anything covert for at least a week." Shiranui shot back, finally calming down from his laughing fit. Her lips pinched and she opened the next bingo book, shutting it almost immediately as she saw an identical ranking.
"Do I want to know how you know that?"
"I mean Takeo really likes it when I do this thing with my tong-"
"Right!" Sakura cut him off, emphasising the move by clapping the third bingo book shut. It was yet another completely ridiculous bounty on her head, even if she'd thankfully managed to keep them from connecting her disguised appearance with her real one. Sakura wasn't quite sure how she'd deal with going from constantly exploiting being underestimated to recognised and feared. "As much as I love hearing about your sexual exploits I currently have some more pressing concerns."
"You're just jealous you can't compete with my title as the gossip king yet."
"I don't have to be a slut to do that." She snorted, lifting the final book.
"And yet you don't know what's in that one." He pointed to the small book and she shot him a glare. She couldn't help the sharp intake of air through her nose when she looked down to the open page, however, and she could practically hear the smug grin Shiranui donned in response.
"Kumo?" She asked tiredly, eyes tracing over the information without really absorbing it.
"Kumo." He confirmed.
Apparently Kumogakure had taken her frequent forays into the Land of Lightning personally.
It was hardly Sakura's fault that an extremely high percentage of the country's population were natural sensors, meaning that a usual infiltration into it required highly expensive and time consuming to produce specialised gear, leading to her abilities making her the only Konoha shinobi capable of pulling off such missions cheaply and quickly. And because the missions were so difficult, they paid really well.
She hardly deserved the S-rank, 'kill on sight' and forty million ryo bounty. They'd dubbed her the 'Null-Storm'- a flattering comparison to the second Tsuchikage- and labelled her a user of the 'kekkei-genkai' called storm release. Considering how much she looked like both her parents she very much doubted it was a bloodline limit, but storm was a good enough name as any, she supposed.
Sakura sighed. Shiranui had won. She really had been dropping the ball if she'd had to be told she had an S-rank in a bingo book.
"It's been a tiring two years." She pouted, the defence sounding weak even to her ears.
"Well you'll have plenty of opportunities to beat me soon."
"What does that mean?" She asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously. Shiranui waved a hand at her dismissively before pointing to a recently promoted tokubetsu jōnin in the corner.
"Never mind that, what do you think of the fresh meat." He said, leering unashamedly at the poor man's ass.
"I don't know why Raidō puts up with you."
"Puts up with me? Pinky, sweetheart, Raidō joins in."
Sakura's training stopped rather suddenly. She simply walked into team Ro room one day to yet another burst of confetti and ridiculous decorations. A golden party hat was slipped on her head as she read the 'You're leaving for now!' banner.
She tilted her head.
"I'm leaving?" She asked. And Tiger nodded.
"You're getting reassigned." He said.
"Reassigned?"
"Nevermind that! We have cake!" Cat cried, slipping an arm over her shoulders and dragging her over to the conference table. "Your training ends today so we're celebrating!"
"My training is ending?" She asked, feeling increasingly confused and a little frustrated. This was the kind of thing that really shouldn't be a mystery if she'd been doing the necessary legwork in her gossip circuits.
"You'll have better things to do, but they're a surprise!" Cat nodded.
"It's not like you really need it anymore anyway." Panda added. "There's not much that can kill you once you've got an S-rank in the book."
"But that doesn't mean I can just stop training."
"Of course not!" Tiger said as he pulled over a chalkboard. "That's why we're here!"
He started scribbling over the surface and a piece of cake was pushed in front of her. Sakura stared wide eyed at the board as yet another ridiculously intricate training schedule was written up.
(The cake was raspberry and dark chocolate. It was delicious.)
"You see we've devised something that will work on easing your body into only training normal amounts per week…"
The next day she found herself just a little hungover and with nothing but free time on her hands.
She donned a wildly impractical blue shirt and white skirt (over a protective layer of ninja fishnet, she wasn't that laid back about her clothing choices), strapped on her familiar weapons pouches and chokutō and tied her hitai-ate across her forehead. Her pink hair fell in loose waves over her shoulders as she set off to wander the village without the threat of training or the next mission hanging over her head for the first time in months.
Soon, she found the Hokage.
"I'm just saying, surely there's a way you could teach me to heal hangovers without the years of studying." She needled the woman. "You are the legendary slug princess, are you not?"
"You should know better than anyone how much hard work that precise level of chakra control requires. Not to mention that the brain is an incredibly complex part of your body, one wrong move from misinformation and you're dead!"
Sakura sighed. "It was worth a shot."
"You would have made a damn fine medical ninja if you weren't such a jōnin, Haruno." The Hokage chuckled. Sakura felt her brow furrow.
"What does that even mean?"
"All jōnin are complete weirdo's, Brat. Medic-nin need to be competent human beings." The Senju told her, face serious.
"What about you then?" Sakura replied and the woman clapped her on the back- no doubt leaving bruises from her monstrous strength- as she laughed.
"There's an exception to every rule!"
"Sa-Sakura-chan?" An oddly familiar and yet unfamiliar voice called from behind her. She turned, one eyebrow raised quizzically, only for her eyes to widen in surprise at the sight of the orange blob behind her.
"Naruto!" She said, an only mostly manufactured excited grin pulling at her lips. "You've barely changed. Though…" her eyes narrowed and she took three decisive strides until she was standing before him. Her hand pressed on the flat of her head and moved forward, stopping just under the Uzumaki's mouth. She drooped. "Everyone's tall but me."
"Don't worry, Sakura-chan, you're still pretty even if your tiny." He laughed and she snorted.
"Of course, of course." She tucked her hair behind an ear before throwing a glare at the white haired Sannin standing next to the Hokage and leaning in to faux-whisper. "Hey, Naruto, travelling around with that old pervert, he didn't try any funny business, did he? No leaving you with dangerous ruffians or taking advantage of your general naivety?"
"Mhm, I don't think so? He did force me to edit his new book, though, so that was pretty annoying." The Uzumaki said matter of factly and entirely oblivious to the steel that was pooling in her eyes.
"Oh, really? It wouldn't happen to be the book Kashi-sensei is so desperately trying to ignore us in favour of reading, would it?"
"Yep! That's the one!"
"And do you like the book?"
"Nah, its pretty boring." The Uzumaki said seriously. Sakura pat his shoulder and turned a far to sweet smile on the white haired Sannin.
"Looks like you just scrape by, Ero-sennin!" She said cheerfully. The man frowned down at her.
"I am the great Jiraiya, toad sage extraordinaire! I don't just scrape by anything!" He loudly proclaimed, throwing his hands into a wild pose. She tilted her head innocently.
"Isn't your entire career a series of just scraping by?" She asked, causing the Sannin to wilt.
"Naruto-nii-chan!" A voice cried and they turned to see the moderately sized Honourable Grandson standing before the group. Upon catching their attention the kid sped through a series of hand signs and turned into an extremely busty naked lady, swirls of steam covering his newly feminine privates.
Sakura supposed it wasn't a bad strategy if you're opponent was twelve and extremely hormonal, though it would be more likely the shock factor to work than anything else. Shinobi were very quickly acclimated against caring too much about nudity. Her eyes slid to the very flustered looking Sannin and his over the top antics.
Somehow, she didn't think it would actually work on him in battle.
"How was that! A real drool of jutsu, wasn't it!" The kid cried, popping back into his original form.
"Konohamaru, sorry, but I'm not a kid anymore. From now on you shouldn't use that ninjutsu either." Uzumaki said. Sakura felt a moment of pure shock that maybe he had matured very, very differently from what she expected. Then he dissolved into a yelling match over perverted ninjutsu with the kid and all was right with the world once more.
Sakura looked towards the Hokage and pointed. "It's three generations of ero-sennin."
She grimaced. "Naruto has grown more and more like you in these past two years, hasn't he Jirayia?"
The Sannin chuckled nervously in response.
"Right, the nostalgia ends here though. Kakashi." The Hokage said and Hatake closed his book with a snap.
"Well it has been a while, hasn't it?" He hummed and slipped the book away. "From now on the two of you will come with me on team-related missions." He said and Sakura felt her mystery 'reassignment' abruptly make sense. It was a brilliant ploy to both give in to the people involved's sentimentalism whilst also assigning a second ANBU trained jōnin to protect the jinchūriki. "It's different than before. It's no longer teacher and pupil. Starting today, we're equal Konoha shinobi."
A gloved hand dangled two bells before them.
"Well, I am curious as to how you've developed."
The Uzumaki cheered and Hatake led them to the original team seven training ground. Sakura found herself smiling. She loved her ANBU work but there was something to be said for the sheer level of ridiculousness that tended to hit Team Seven. They stopped before the three posts. She twisted her hair into a senbon-secured bun.
"The rules are the same as before. No matter how, try to get the bells from me. If you don't come at me with the intent to kill, you will never succeed in getting the bells. For Sakura, the transparency jutsu and henge is banned." He said sternly and she pouted. "You have until sunrise tomorrow."
"Why does she have banned jutsus?" Naruto asked, pointing at her and frowning.
"He wants to get a full idea of our abilities." Sakura laughed. "Not a knife in his back."
"Aah, Sakura has become a silent assassination expert. I would likely not get away from her without serious wounds if she were to sneak up on me." Hatake added.
"I think I get it." Nodded the Uzumaki. "This place is nostalgic." He said, wistful eyes looking over the surroundings.
"Yeah."
"This is where you first trained, isn't it?" Hatake said.
"The three man team…" Uzumaki murmured.
"Sasuke was around then, too."
The Uzumaki slid to the ground, radiating absolute despair. Sakura raised an eyebrow at Hatake and he looked back incredulously.
A hand clapped the book shut and Uzumaki perked up in a pavlovian response ingrained during their genin days.
"Well then, shall we begin?"
"You won't do it while reading a book this time, Kakashi-sensei?" Uzumaki taunted.
"You scared?" Sakura added.
"I think I should save the enjoyment for later. Besides, this time I get the feeling I should take it a little seriously too." He said and slid up the forehead protector, tomoes whirling slowly. Sakura's grin widened and she shifted into a defensive stance.
Naruto threw a barrage of shuriken that Hatake ducked and responded with his own. Sakura skittered her way to the outskirts of the conflict and settled in to watch. This was just as much about her learning the Uzumaki's capacities as Hatake learning them, after all.
Uzumaki jumped Hatake's shuriken, only to be faced with a second, higher wave. In a flash he spawned a shadow clone that pulled the real Uzumaki out of the projectile's way and Sakura's eyebrow rose. That was an unconventional move. The clone henged into a giant shuriken only for Hatake to appear behind him and trap him in with the blade at the back of his neck. A mimic of their first bell test, only this time another clone of Uzumaki's held a kunai to Hatake's back.
Uzumaki really had gotten smarter.
"Well, your haste hasn't changed." Hatake drawled. "Alright start!" He promptly disappeared. Sakura's eyes swept around the training ground and she smiled. Jumped into the middle of the clearing.
Smashed chakra-enhanced feet into the ground. The earth exploded. She smiled at Hatake's head between the rocks.
"Hiya!"
He landed on top a large chunk of rock. "Alright, this time I should also do something on my end."
Sakura and Uzumaki shared a glance and then they were both launching forward. Uzumaki created a series of clones and moved to flank Hatake as Sakura flooded her body with her nature transformation, the pulsing licks of blue setting her alight and making everything faster, stronger.
Kakashi sped through hand signs too fast for her to see and a ring of earth senbon rose and launched at them in a blur. Sakura ducked into the gap between two slabs of rock, sliding through the space and popping back up once the senbon had passed. She immediately had to dodge a kick to the head and kill her momentum, but she was saved from further attacks by Naruto appearing behind Kakashi.
Sakura slipped forward and got her hand on a bell just as the man took a rasengan to the back and disappeared into a puff of smoke. She breathed sharply through her nose, eyes and ears searching for some sign of Kakashi.
This was going to be a long fight.
Sakura was panting next to Uzumaki as they hid behind a tree, a helpless grin on her face. She wasn't going all out- couldn't if she wasn't really aiming to kill- but this was more about Uzumaki anyway.
"If we could somehow stop him using both hands we could get to the bells." She said.
"Yeah but Kakashi-sensei's unreasonable strong."
"The sharingan drains too much chakra, so we could just wait it out, but he'd probably be expecting that which would make it hard to pull off."
"Ah! I got it!" The Uzumaki cried, leaning in to explain the plan to her and she laughed.
It worked in the end. Hatake fell to his vices and they both held a bell, the Uzumaki ending the match in the most unpredictable way possible.
"You've become strong, huh?" Hatake drawled as they wondered into town, all bruised and battered from the long fight. "I'm amazed you were actually able to get the bells."
"Maybe I've even surpassed you, Kakashi-sensei!" Uzumaki said as he strutted along next to them.
"Maybe give it a few more years, Naruto." Sakura interjected.
"Haha! But anyway, I'm still young, an-"
"Are you sure, sensei?" Sakura teased. "Aren't you turning thirty this year?" Her eyes widened in mock horror. "Wasn't the Sandaime thirty five when he died?"
The look he shot her was entirely deadpan.
"We haven't gotten Ichiraku ramen yet!" The Uzumaki cried and Sakura nodded seriously.
"We should go, it'll be Kakashi's treat!" She grinned and he cheered.
"Sorry, I have to create and submit a list of formations for the new teams. So it's goodbye for now." Hatake vanished.
"Ah! He disappeared!"
"Cheap." Sakura snorted. "Come on Naruto, I'll shout us lunch."
"Is this like a da-"
"No." She said firmly and he wilted. "Hey, Shikamaru, Temari-san!" Sakura called, waving at the approaching pair. She felt a sour flash of jealous as she noticed that the Suna girl was taller than all of them.
"Hey! If it isn't Naruto!" The Nara called, clearly easily recognised the mix of blonde and orange. "Did you just come home then?"
"No, I came back yesterday."
"Has any of your idiocy left you? Have you changed well?"
"He's gotten smarter in combat but somehow hasn't seemed to have actually matured." Sakura interjected with a thoughtful frown. The Uzumaki did a strange combination of radiating happiness and wilting. "What are you guys up to?"
"There's a chūnin exam soon. I'm going back and forth between the Sand and the Leaf for meetings." The Suna girl said.
"It's troublesome but I've become an examiner so I was told to go and see off messengers from the Sand."
"A chūnin exam? That brings back memories." Uzumaki said.
"Yeah and Naruto, what are you planning?" The Nara asked.
"What do you mean?"
"It's a chūnin exam. The only person who hasn't become a chūnin from our class is you."
"EHHHH?" Uzumaki screamed. "Even the annoying idiot?!"
"Yep, Kiba did really well in the exams." Sakura said, having spent the required hours listening to the Uzumaki's babbling to decipher his insults.
"Plus." Shikamaru said and pointed at Sakura. "Sakura, Neji from the class above us, Kankurou of the Sand and Temari are already jōnin."
"Ah! Sakura, you're a jōnin?!" Uzumaki said.
"Yep!" She grinned. "I was promoted just over a year ago now!"
"Congratulations!" He beamed back at her earnestly before whipping his head around to stare at the Nara. "What about Gaara?"
"He's the Kazekage." The Nara said.
"No way!"
"The Sand's Kazekage has been taken by an organisation called Akatsuki! We just received the message!" The decoder yelled, having thrown herself bodily into the office in her haste.
"Right." The Hokage said, adapting to the situation rapidly. "Team Kakashi, I'll tell you your new mission. You are to go immediately to the Sand, find out the situation and relay it to Konoha. After that follow the orders of the Sand and back them up."
Sakura's mind whirled. If the Kazekage was taken from inside the village then…
"Can we please take a medic-nin with us?" She asked and the Senju raised an eyebrow at her. "If Gaara was taken from the village there are likely a large amount of casualties and Suna is not know for their quality of hospitals. If competent shinobi are being held up by otherwise treatable wounds…"
"Fair enough." The woman said. "You can take Shizune, but she is there in the capacity as a medic only." She gestured to the woman sitting to her right, the brunette squeaking and rushing to stand. "Ino and I will survive without her."
"Thank you, Shishou-oba-sama." Sakura replied with a slightly mocking bow and the Hokage scowled.
"Get out, you brat!"
Team Kakashi plus the Hokage's assistant hurriedly left the room.
They gathered outside the gates as fast as possible. Of the four, Sakura reached the meeting spot only after Hatake. Both of them ANBU trained to do fast turn arounds but Hatake with the ridiculous amount of chakra to be able to shunshin everywhere. She glowered at the smug eye smile her sent and vowed to figure out how to travel large distances faster. Naruto appeared next, with the brunette medic appearing alongside the Hokage and Umino soon after.
The Uzumaki was dressed in his orange jumpsuit, but the rest of the four-man group were clad in practical shinobi black and their flak jackets. Sakura had tied her hair into braids and knotted them at the top of her head as she'd run over, in deference to the Suna heat and likely S-rank fights.
"Well… off we go." Uzumaki said and Sakura waved as they turned to go as a group.
A mane of white hair appeared in front of them and she had to resist the urge to draw her chokutō. She then proceeded to watch the Sannin have 'secret' whispering sessions with a series of people that Sakura did not need her enhanced hearing to make out every word of, and then wave them off with a ridiculous pose and a worried frown.
Finally, they launched into the treetops and towards Sand, only stopping to pick up Temari on the way.
The group arrived in Sunagakure in record time for a team with a genin on it, the Uzumaki proving his ridiculous stamina and pushing them harder than they probably should have. Sakura was panting but she took a moment to send a filthy glance at Hatake, the man looked entirely unruffled despite the pace. He sent a smug eye smile back and she felt an eyebrow twitch.
It was hardly her fault. For all her training her body was still only fifteen, and her size made everything except agility twice as hard.
"Temari-san was with you? We've been waiting, please this way!" Said a very spiky haired man, leading the five of them through the streets. "The Kazekage was abducted and after that Kankurou pursued them but he was wounded."
"What?! They got Kankurou too?!" The Suna girl cried.
"Yes and he was caught by the enemies poison and we have no way to neutralise it. At this rate, he has half a day at the most."
"Let's hurry, Termari-san." Said their medic. "I'll examine him."
They entered the sick room and the Hokage's assistant and the Suna girl raced forward. Sakura stepped inside the door and locked eyes on a tiny woman who was staring at Hatake in shock and unleashing killing intent.
"The white fang of Konoha!" She growled and launched herself at him. The Uzumaki blocked her and sent her sliding. Sakura put on a burst of speed and rushed forwards to the woman's side, chokutō at her stomach threateningly.
"The white fang has been dead for decades." Sakura said, her voice low and dangerous, even as the Uzumaki was yelling behind her. "Take a closer look."
"She's right sister, there's a strong resemblance but it's not the white fang." A nervous looking old man from the side added. The old woman's eyes narrowed for a moment before widening dramatically.
"No way! I was just pretending to be stupid! Gyahahah!" She cried and Sakura sheathed her sword, to the apparent massive amount of relief of the battle ready Suna-nin around her. She turned her back on the woman- a massive snub after seeing her abilities- and went back to leaning against the wall. Watching the medic work with sharp eyes.
"You're not normally this rude." Hatake drawled next to her, his own eye carefully watching the surroundings.
"She deserved it."
"Mhm, maybe but still." He said. Sakura sighed.
"I'll play nice so long as no one attacks any of us again." She conceded and he nodded.
The Hokage's assistant and the old lady were racing out of the room, the brunette only pausing to talk to Hatake before she left. "Wait for me, I won't be going with you in the actual pursuit but I'll make extra antidotes for you guys if I can." Hatake nodded and she ran off.
"Let's get going!" Uzumaki cried, throwing himself into a stretch in the centre of the room.
"Naruto, hold on a bit." Hatake walked forward. "We are waiting for Shizune to return. But before that there is something I'd like to ask. What came of the pursuit of the Akastuki after that?"
"Kankurou went after them alone." The veiled man replied. "There were no others." Sakura's brow furrowed. Was Kankurou the only one who had cared enough to follow, or were Suna's forces just in that bad of a shape?
She supposed they must have been, they'd lost far more men in the crush then Konoha did, after all.
"Then, have we completely lost them?" Hatake asked.
"Yes… we have." The Suna-nin at least had the grace to look ashamed about it.
"Mmm, well could you please show me to where Kankurou-kun was fighting?" Hatake said. "Though I might not seem like it I am an expert at pursuit, even if a small amount of their scent was left behind-"
"That won't be necessary." Interrupted Kankurou himself, pushing himself up to sitting with trembling limbs. "There are two enemies, one abducted Gaara. You should follow Gaara's scent. Even assuming they split up, the other caught a bit of their clothing on Karasu's hand."
"Making a success from a failure. You are indeed a shinobi of the Sand."
"Kankurou, are you okay?" Uzumaki cried, supporting the sickly teen with a hand. "Hi!" He grinned at the teen's confused expression.
"Kankurou, are you actually sure that one of the two you followed was Sasori?" The old woman interrupted, appearing with the old man in tow.
"Chiyo-baa-sama and Ebizou-jii-sama?" Kankurou exclaimed.
"What about that… Kankurou?" The old man wheezed. The Hokage's assistant pushed past him, preparing a bottle of what was hopefully an antidote.
"Yeah, it was Sasori of the red sand, he said so himself." The teen replied and Sakura eyed the forlorn expression on the old woman's face. She had a bad feeling that was going to be problematic.
"Sasori of the red sand?" Hatake asked. "May we hear more about the Akatsuki? Please?"
"We don't know much." The veiled shinobi said. "But the one who took the Kazekage was a long range fighter who used bombs, and had a giant bird he would fly on the back of. Sasori was one of our best puppeteers before he defected over twenty years ago. He was known as a genius model creator. And a heavy poison user."
"Hatake-san." The Hokage's assistant murmured, passing the man two injectors. "They work by breaking down any poison in your system for three minutes, giving you a small window of immunity." Hatake nodded and pocketed them.
"Alright, let's go." He said and the three of them followed the veiled shinobi to the gates. He paused just as they passed under the walls.
"If you wait a little, we can have a skilled shinobi too."
"Really-?"
"I'm going too!" Cried the fan girl, running through the streets and Sakura nodded approvingly. The wind user would be a great asset.
"Temari! Stay here and work on the defence of the country border!" A voice cried from the battlements. Sakura looked up with a growing feeling of annoyance. The old woman was leaning over the edge. "From the shinobi of the Sand I'll be more than enough."
The veiled shinobi and the fan girl both protested but she silenced them.
"DON'T TREAT ME LIKE AN OLD WOMAN!" She screamed jumping off the battlements and landing between them. Sakura fought the urge to make a snippy, likely war-inducing comment about her very apparent senility. "I've wanted to give my cute grandson some love for a while now."
At least there was some steel behind that. She may yet not be too emotionally compromised.
Hatake offered no comment on this turn of events and instead summoned the ninken and gave them orders, the eight dogs sniffing the scrap of cloth and splitting up in seperate directions.
"Right, we'll travel this way." He pointed straight out from Suna. "Since that's where they were heading, last they were seen. Once my ninken find the scent they'll direct us."
"Alright, let's go!" Uzumaki cried and they broke into a sprint.