Title: Are You Ready?
Chapter: 7 – Don't Look Back
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 4255
Summary: AU. Sakura gives up on Kakashi as a teacher after Team 7 falls apart. Too bad fate, enemy ninja, and sheer bad luck have other plans.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. Part 7 of ? Unbeta'd.

Notes: Sorry for the delay in updating, everyone~ I had to go for surgery (everything's fine now!) and it knocked me on my butt for a good while.

Also, Queen Mo-Freakin has drawn me some absolutely AWESOME fanart! Please go check it out over at:

ap3x-phantom. deviantart art/ Are-You-Ready-735679599

and

ap3x-phantom. deviantart art/ Ready-as-Ever-737458798

Not going to lie, I feel so blessed. Thank you ALL for reading and enjoying my works, and thank you, so, so much again Queen Mo-Freakin for drawing such wonderful pictures for this story!

When Hatake-sensei dismisses them, Sakura and Ino trudge back to Sakura's place in silence. Sakura chews on her lower lip nervously as she tries and fails to guess what Ino is thinking about the first day of training with her new (and hopefully forever) sensei. Was he too harsh?

He'd seemed harsher to Ino than he'd been to her, which Sakura doesn't quite get. She's got as many faults as Ino (in her heart, she tends to believe that she's got more but Hatake-sensei hadn't seemed to see it the same way) and Ino has been very quiet since the breakdown of her flaws finished. Even through the rest of their training, Ino had attacked each task given to her grimly, and silently.

Optimistically, Sakura tries to believe it's because Ino is tired.

Sakura is, after all, and Ino doesn't look any better. Their steps are slow and slightly wobbly, their hands shake, their clothes are horrifically dirty and torn and their chakra's been worked down to embers. Maybe it's just that.

(She knows it's not just that.)

"Are you staying over for supper?" she asks, trying to think if she's got anything in the cupboards that Ino will like that won't take forever to make. Her parents won't be home tonight, she remembers.

"We'll order in," Ino says.

"I can't-"

"I'll pay for it," Ino interrupts. "Don't worry about it."

Sakura lets it drop, just sighs. "You get first shower then."

"Like I was ever going to go second," Ino scoffs.

"It's my place!"

"You treat your guests before yourself! Everyone knows that!"

They keep bickering, verging somewhere between half-serious and half-kidding the rest of the walk home. Sakura feels better for the arguing because it's more Ino than the earlier quiet. She hates it when Ino is quiet. Because of that, she doesn't bring up Hatake-sensei until after they've both showered and have eaten (leaving the takeout boxes strewn over her floor, all of them within easy reach of either of them decide they want more to eat).

It's tempting, more than a little, to just let Ino go home without asking. She bites the inside of her cheek, hard, and refuses to take the coward's way out-Sakura thinks in horror of how she'd feel if Ino just didn't show up the next morning to training and she hadn't even bothered to ask.

'Hatake-sensei wants you to teach me the basic way to cancel genjutsu," Ino says, leaning against the bed. "He says Asuma-sensei should have taught me it months and months ago."

"Are you mad at Hatake-sensei?" Sakura asks, getting up to sit next to Ino. Sakura's reassured when, the moment she sits down, Ino leans over to rest against her.

"I'm going to kick his ass."

Sakura plays with Ino's hair, spreading it over her shoulder to finger comb the still damp strands. In the lamp light they practically glow. "That's not what I asked."

Ino sighs. "I don't know. Yes. No. Take your pick. I'm mad but it's-"

"Not Hatake-sensei's fault?" Sakura suggests when Ino trails off. "Something like that?"

"Not really," Ino says grudgingly. "I mean, it's better to... to hear that I suck than die but it still..."

"You don't suck," Sakura tells her honestly. "You're better than I am. And Hatake-sensei didn't say you sucked either. He just wants use to be aware of our flaws."

"You're not the 'one-trick pony'," Ino says, rolling her eyes and nonetheless relaxing. "Though I suppose what with both of us being called walking liabilities, that's not saying much either."

"Ouch."

Ino grimaces. "Not my favourite thing to be called either."

Sakura braids all of Ino's hair, wishing it was longer, knowing it isn't because Ino used it against her in the Chuunin exams, and has unraveled her work to begin braiding it again before Ino says anything else.

"No," Ino says, "I'm not mad at Hatake-sensei. I'm offended."

"At him?"

"At being thought weak," Ino says. "Even worse—at being weak. He was right, damn him. And there's only one way to fix that."

Sakura beams at Ino. "By getting good enough to kick his ass, right?"

"Yeah," Ino smiles, then, and Sakura's world goes back to being the bright and beautiful place it had been that morning when Ino had shown up for training on their team. Ino isn't going to leave her team. She's staying. "We're going to kick his ass." Ino looks at her hands. "Show me the counter, would you? Then we're going out training."

It's past eight at night. They have to meet up for five tomorrow and Hatake-sensei isn't late the way Kakashi-sensei used to be. Ino knows that though so Sakura doesn't remind her. "Okay," she says, instead, "what are you going to work on?"

"My upper body strength," Ino says promptly. "He'll be more use if he's working to fix my ninjutsu deficiencies during official training and I can strengthen my arms without supervision. What'll you work on?"

"My stamina," Sakura says with a sigh. "I'm crap at being able to sustain myself through a battle and that's not something that shortcuts can be taken to learn. Just practice."

"We'll get better," Ino says with determination laced through her voice.

Sakura has to laugh. "Or die trying?"

Ino doesn't even have the heart to pretend to lie about it. "Pretty much," she says, standing with a groan. "If that's the only way that we're going to get stronger then it might be worth it."

"I'm not interested in dying," Sakura insists but gets up when Ino fixes her with a look. "But okay, we'll try this your way."

A week and a half later, Kakashi collapses on his couch, careful not to sit on any of the traps, even in his exhaustion, and wonders why he was daft enough to want to train two students, let alone one. He knows that logically, it's the only thing that makes sense. Having another person around has pushed Sakura to work even harder, especially as Ino is the one person who, more than anything, Sakura does not want to lose to.

He shifts, pulling a kunai out so that it doesn't gouge though his uniform, and toys with that as he tilts his head up at the ceiling. Saying that Sakura doesn't want to lose to Ino is a simplification, Kakashi knows. Their relationship is more complicated but it's clear that, whatever the reason, Sakura is determined to not be someone who Ino cannot be proud of.

That's... interesting. He wonders what sort of home life Sakura has. If he should ask. He's not sure it's appropriate for him to do so when she's managing admirably under his tutelage. But perhaps...

Sakura's training is going excellently. Her control is improving by leaps and bounds and despite the fact that she might not always get something down on the first try, she tries with all her being. Kakashi finds himself well pleased with her. She's going to be an utterly deadly kunoichi (and he was right, her flair for genjutsu is going to be prodigious) and he doesn't understand what other, older him, had been thinking to ignore the want she had to learn.

Thinking of that makes him think of Asuma. He really really doesn't understand what Asuma had been thinking to ignore Ino.

Ino is just terrifying.

It had taken him approximately three hours to decide that her claim, about her impeccable working ethic, had not been an idle boast. It had taken him two days to see that while Ino liked to talk trash and while she liked to chatter and gossip and laugh, she was violently driven to succeed. Sakura believed whole-heartedly in Ino.

Kakashi did too.

He rather thought that while Sakura was going to be the more powerful kunoichi, Ino was going to be the more deadly of the two of them. Sakura was kind, under her insecurities and her heart was gentle even as her strength would let her do anything, in time. Ino was steel and violence and utter ruthlessness hidden by a laugh.

If he thought about it for long, Kakashi found himself idly wondering if he was teaching both the next Hokage and the next head of ANBU. It was possible.

It was years down the road and he was just daydreaming. Every sensei probably had the same dreams for their teams-if they were good sensei.

And it was a good dream. He's only known them for less than a month and he believes in them. Kakashi wonders what is wrong with everyone in this time that they'd not seen the potential in them before.

Asuma had simply let Ino skate by and Ino had done her best-that she'd managed to keep up with no directed training aside from her father's sporadic lessons was impressive and a testament to her ability to work hard-and his older-self had been content to ignore Sakura, barely tossing her a few crumbs of training, until Sakura had found her own teacher.

He grimaces slightly. Tsunade-sama wasn't best pleased that he'd taken away the most promising apprentice she'd found in years. It is only the fact that it had been Sakura's wish to prioritize genjutsu that had kept the Hokage from sending him flying through a wall. Even so, she still found time to tutor Sakura in the medical-nin arts.

Kakashi gets up, running one hand through his hair.

It was well and good to train two of them. He enjoys the both of them deeply and watching their training made him feel good about being here in a way that nothing else did (the world was so different while still being the same; it was disconcerting). He also knows that he is going to have to find them a third if they wanted to participate in the Chuunin exams.

Already he'd decided that he didn't want them in the next exam-the ones coming up in a few months. He'd wait the extra six months and train them further and then... well, Kakashi would be deeply surprised if they didn't mop the floor with their competition.

Kakashi smiles.

It's a pretty picture.

A week after that, Ino lingers after he's dismissed her and Sakura for the day. "Yes, Ino?"

"My old team are all back in the village," Ino says, looking worried. "Hatake-sensei, will you still…"

"Come with you to tell them of the transfer?" he says. "Of course, I said I would."

Ino nods, a bit doubtfully, but doesn't argue that point. Kakashi considers it a minor victory that Ino has stopped vocalizing her opinion of each and every one of 'Kakashi-sensei's' flaws and applying them to him.

Trust is an essential ingredient to a healthy team. Sakura and Ino trust each other the way he's seen very few people ever do. Their teamwork is flawless and he knows that they spend all day in each other's company, eat supper, and then go train more together. Sakura's trust in him is a fragile thing that's blooming a little more each day.

Ino is harder to read, which bemuses him, because of the two girls, Ino is the one that says, constantly, what's on her mind.

But he doesn't really know where he stands with her.

Sakura's feelings, thoughts, and opinions are written across her face. Ino's better at keeping her own counsel.

"Did you want to arrange a meeting time?" he asks, leaving the decision up to her. "Or just wander up to them?"

She twirls a bit of hair around one finger, clearly considering the options. "They should be having yakitori right now," she says, with a sidelong glance at him. "Would that be okay?"

Kakashi is acutely aware of the fact that this is a test. Ino's voice is casual but her body language screams her nervousness. She doesn't know if he'll keep his word and facing her old team by herself would be difficult.

He is also aware that facing her old team by herself would destroy the small measure of trust he's managed to gain from her.

Well played, he thinks. Well played indeed.

"I've got time," Kakashi says. "Let's go and see what they say, shall we?"

Ino brightens. "Yes, Hatake-sensei."

He studies her. "Did you want to get Sakura to come along as well?"

She hesitates, clearly thinking it over, and then shakes her head. "No," Ino says decisively. "If it goes badly then… then I don't want them blaming her while they're still dealing with the shock. Maybe they will blame her later, I don't know, but I think it'd be better without her now."

Kakashi doesn't mention the fact that Ino looks slightly lost without Sakura. He's used to seeing them together, side-by-side.

It's somewhat of a shock as he realizes that he likes seeing them together-but why not? They're his team.

"You'd know better than I," he says amiably, beginning to saunter out of the training grounds. Ino follows him, her pace quicker than his to make up for her shorter legs. "Are you sorry you left them?"

"No!"

He raises one eyebrow at her.

She flushes and looks everywhere but at him. "You're not that bad," Ino mutters, crossing her arms over her chest.

"High praise," he murmurs, a laugh touching his voice.

Ino scowls at him.

Kakashi's smile widens a little more. "Let's talk about manipulation," he says, choosing to not antagonize her more… for the moment. "That was a pretty little scene you pulled on me."

Ino fumbles her next step before regaining her balance. "You were going to do it anyway," she accuses.

He appreciates that she doesn't try to deny it. Both Ino and Sakura have good instincts for when a lie would be useless.

Kakashi considers that. "… Yes," he agrees slowly. "So why the need to try and con me into it?"

She shrugs, looking uncomfortable.

"Out with it," he orders, his voice taking on the same sharpness he uses to train them. "Now, Yamanaka."

Her back straightens, her head goes back, and her eyes flash. Ino's pride doesn't like getting bossed around. From the tidbits he's gathered about her previous team, it surprises him not at all that Ino had been in charge of her teammates. "I suppose to see if you would," she says, a bit flatly.

He nods slowly. "You still don't trust me."

Ino glances at him sideways. Kakashi keeps his face blank and waits for her to decide what that means. He'd be lying to himself if he said it didn't hurt to know of her lack of trust-but on the other hand, he already knew that of his team, Ino's trust was the more flimsy thing. It's not a surprise to have her say it.

"No," she says. "I don't. Not really."

"We'll work on that," Kakashi promises as they approach the yakitori restaurant that Ino has led them to. It looks like any other place and if he hadn't been brought here, he'd never have thought anything of it.

Ino looks at the signs with a closed off expression. He wonders what she's thinking.

He doesn't ask. If she tells anyone, it'll be Sakura and there's some things that a sensei should stay out of.

They duck inside.

Ino is recognized by the server and she murmurs a few words that Kakashi doesn't bother listening to as he scans the place for exits, for people, for layout. He keeps an eye out on her though and, when she smiles (it doesn't touch her eyes) to the server and leads the way into the restaurant, he moves with her.

"He wondered where I'd been," Ino says, her voice muted. "Said he's glad I'm not sick or anything."

Kakashi hesitates a moment and then, figuring that the pluses were worth more than the risk, rested one hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently in reassurance. Her smile flickers a bit as she looks at him.

"It will be alright," he says. "You're not having second thoughts?"

She shakes her head. "No," Ino tells him. "No. I want to stay on Team 7."

"Then you will."

"Ino!" A boy's voice gets both their attention and Ino turns towards the round boy, waving his chopsticks to get their attention.

His student takes a deep breath and puts on a smile that looks more realistic than the one she'd given the server. "Chouji," she says, making her way over to the table.

Kakashi follows a few steps behind, taking in the boy who must be Shikamaru-he looks like his father and he's wearing a Chuunin's vest. Looking at Asuma, however, Kakashi is surprised at how mixed his feelings are.

Asuma had left the village. Had the luxury of doing that and studying elsewhere while the rest of them had stayed to clean up the destruction left in Kyuubi's wake. Kakashi tamps down on his feelings. "Yo," he says, lifting one hand and interrupting Ino and Chouji's conversation.

Asuma might have left and he might not have been Kakashi's favourite person in the village (they were all dead-though his students were making a good try at working their way into his heart) but Asuma had never been stupid.

His eyes narrow. "Who are you?"

Ino steps back and to the side, giving him space while casually making it clear where she stands. Kakashi wonders, again, what Asuma had been doing with her. He'd been given someone good and then not bothered to train her.

"Hatake Kakashi," he says, a bit dryly. "For more information you'll have to talk to Hokage-sama." Kakashi smiles thinly. "It's classified, you see."

Ino swallows a snicker.

Kakashi raises one eyebrow at her and she shrugs, a bit helplessly. He'd mind more except for the fact that she looks more relaxed. That's a good thing.

Asuma's narrow-eyed look doesn't change. "I'll ask her," he says coolly. Shikamaru is watching him with a penetrating look while Chouji is looking between him and Ino and slowly starting to look dismayed.

Kakashi wonders if Ino had said anything to Chouji that would make him suspect. If he does, though, that's not a big deal. They're not here to make a song and game of it.

"Good," he says. "We've got another order of business to talk about anyway." Kakashi nods at Ino.

He'll be here to help if it goes wrong but she's got to say it.

Ino's smile abruptly dies.

Her shoulders remain straight however, and her gaze is clear. "Asuma-sensei," she says, "with my father's permission, I've applied for a transfer to Hatake-sensei's team. It was approved. I'm no longer a member of Team 10."

Kakashi admires the nerve she has to say it so flatly-her voice doesn't even shake though he knows she's got to be torn up inside about saying it.

Shikamaru's face shutters. Chouji makes a dismayed sound.

Asuma looks at Ino for a lot moment and then, without a word, transfers his gaze to Kakashi. "Why would Hokage-sama approve of that?" he asks. "You destroyed the only team you ever passed."

Kakashi's temper boils more at the casual way Ino is dismissed than at the jab at his other self's competency. He happens to agree about his other self. "You'll have to ask Hokage-sama that too," he says, his voice level. "Ino-chan, we're done here."

Her eyes widen slightly at the honorific but she doesn't protest it.

"You can't be serious," Chouji says, as he turns to go. "Ino, why?"

Ino stiffens. "I'm very serious," she says, "and it's true. As for why… I wanted someone who would train me."

"And he will-?"

Kakashi is almost amused at the doubt in the Akimichi's voice. He knows Ino has probably ranted about his other self-and likely done so more than once.

"Yes," Ino says without looking at her old team. "He will."

They leave after that.

Kakashi squeezes her shoulder again once they're outside. "How about you go and find Sakura," he suggests gently.

The scene could have gone worse-but it also could have gone better and either way it was hard.

Ino nods. "Okay. I-thank you, Hatake-sensei. I'll see you tomorrow."

Kakashi watches her dart off through the crowds, gives the sky a glance, and then begins making his way towards the administrative building. He needs to talk to Tsunade. Failing that, he needs to talk to Shizune.

Preferably before Asuma gets there.

Sakura feels like she's the one on tenterhooks while waiting for Ino. When Ino stays behind (something that Sakura notices almost immediately) Sakura knows what's going on. She chews her lip, considers hanging around to go with Ino and then winds up walking home alone.

Ino would have asked her if she'd wanted her along.

Which means that Sakura is left alone to just think and wait and wonder how Ino's old team is taking it. Which leads her, during her shower, to thoughts of how her old team-Naruto and Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei-would have taken all of this. Would they even have cared?

The fact that she doesn't know if they would depresses her less these days. It is still super awful to think about but Sakura now can hold up her memories of training with Hatake-sensei and Ino against her first team's lack of care and the fact that things have changed warm her insides. Hatake-sensei says she isn't a failure. Ino has always believed that of her.

Sakura wonders if she's, slowly, starting to believe that as well.

She hopes so.

After her shower, she brushes out her hair and then takes out her notes on the medical jutsu she's trying to learn. Hokage-sama had been disappointed but not surprised when Sakura had admitted that she wanted to learn genjutsu from Hatake-sensei. She wondered how often that happened, how few people stuck out training to be a medical ninja…

That's not your fault, she scolds, her mental voice echoing everything that Hatake-sensei and Ino have said repeatedly. Sakura thinks she's starting to believe that too but every time she studies medicine-more field medicine over theory now, to adjust for her change in niche-training-she thinks of it again.

By the time Ino gets to her place, showered and tidy, Sakura has almost managed to silence the voice in the back of her mind that belittles her accomplishments.

"Hey," Ino says, standing in the doorway of Sakura's bedroom. "I let myself in."

Sakura blinks at her. "You got past my mom? And my dad?"

"You dad's in his office-his door's closed so that was easy. As for your mom… she didn't even notice me," Ino says, shrugging. "Busy watching some cheesy action flick. The ninja moves were totally implausible."

It's very Ino, Sakura thinks, to notice that sort of thing while sneaking through a room. "Have you eaten?" Sakura asks as Ino closes the door behind her and takes a few steps over to the bed to collapse on it.

Ino wraps her arms around Sakura's pillow and sighs. "No," she says, "I haven't eaten. I'm not hungry."

Sakura points her pen at Ino. "Nuh huh," she says, "you know we're not allowed evening training unless we eat."

Ino flings the pillow at her. Sakura catches it and flings it back. "You know that," Sakura repeats sternly. "Hatake-sensei doesn't want us getting sick and part of avoiding that is proper nutrition."

"I hate you," Ino says, though the words lack heat. "You're right. What do you want to eat? Stay in or go out?"

Sakura weighs how much money she has with inflicting a moody Ino on her mother and reluctantly kisses her money good bye. "Let's go out," she says. "Maybe we can get some okonomiyaki?"

She'd suggest yakitori, but she wants Ino to talk to her, not storm off in a huff.

Ino is silent for a few moments and then sits up. "Works for me," she says, with the false brightness that it's only recently that Sakura's realized she can sometimes see through.

It's illuminating to know that Ino is almost always lying in a way. And sad.

"Okay," Sakura says simply. "You go out the window and knock."

Ino rolls her eyes but is out the window in seconds. Sakura turns back to her books, like she's not expecting anyone to show up, and waits until her mother calls her down.

It's another, stupid lie but it's one that will keep her mom from freaking out that Ino, who is after all just a Genin, can get in and out of their house like it's no problem. Sakura's tried explaining that it doesn't mean anything but privacy means different things to civilians.

"Long time no see," Sakura greets Ino when she's been called down and meets her friend, her teammate, at the front door.

Ino rolls her eyes. "Yeah," she says, "like this afternoon."

But it gets a tiny smile out of her anyway. Sakura counts that as a win.

"Where to?" Sakura asks.

Ino shrugs as they head down the street, both of them ignoring the admonishment to not be out too late. "I don't care. Not hungry, remember?"

"How did it go?" Sakura asks.

Ino's eyes darken. "Badly," she says shortly. "Chouji's upset, Asu-Sarutobi-san ignored me, and Shikamaru didn't say a word. I'm sure he'll find words to say later, but now…"

Sakura winces. "I'm sorry."

Ino just sighs. "So am I."