She arrived at the gates the next morning bright and early as requested, just as the dawn light hit the village gate. She stifled a slight yawn and began circulating her chakra in the pattern she had learned helped to keep her the most alert and awake. It was a trick she'd taken to using back in the Academy to keep herself focused for tests and spars after long nights of studying.

Her pack was on her shoulders and she was staring at the rising sun in contemplation. Kakashi probably wouldn't be arriving for another few hours, so she could use her pack as a pillow and sleep for a bit, rather than stay awake and wait for him, right?

She would have liked more sleep the night before but hadn't even been able to start packing until the sun had gone down. She had to go to the bank to ensure she and her mother had a joint account set up that they'd both be able to access whenever they needed to. Then she had to go to the mission office and change her mission pay to be deposited into that account, rather than waiting for her to attend in person to the missions office and be paid cash in person. She double checked her mother was still set up as her beneficiary in case she was killed in action in the field, then she made sure to update her status as unavailable to be requested for D-Ranks within the Village until otherwise noted.

And then she'd had to go shopping.

Three months was a long trip, and she had no idea as to the climate they'd be in or where they were going. She needed to be prepared for anything. She did her best to be thrifty, to not pull too deeply from the funds she and her mother needed to maintain the house.

With supplies gathered and her preparations complete, she'd gone home and had to explain to her mother that she was leaving with her sensei on some missions out of the Village and wouldn't be back for months.

That had not gone well.

Complaints about abandoning her only family. Complaints about being all alone with a much older man. Complaints about being a ninja at all, which were old and well-trodden arguments.

Eventually, it came down to money. It was a conversation they'd been putting off for a long time.

"This is just terrible timing," her mother had finally shrieked. "I finally got a job today, of all days! So of course you don't need to go!"

Sakura was shocked, as she hadn't expected her mother to be able to find any job. "That's fantastic news," she said cautiously. "Where will you be working, mother?"

"Oh, the café down on the edge of one of the ninja training districts needs part time help. Mostly cleaning and such, but if I do well they'll eventually bring me on full time and perhaps even let me do more! So you don't need to worry about money now, Sakura-chan. I can take care of us now."

Sakura frowned as her mother smiled. She really hadn't wanted to have this conversation, but her mother seemed to be pushing the issue.

"Mother," she began, slowly, cautiously. "How much does your new job pay?"

"Sakura-chan! That's not the kind of question a child should be asking their parent. You don't need to worry about that. You've been more than helpful since your father… since the invasion. But that's all behind us now."

Sakura rubbed her temples and tried to tackle it from a different direction. "The D-Ranks I've been doing have paid anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 ryo, mother. I don't qualify to take any of the higher paying ones without a team, and the amount available for me are fewer and fewer each week, now that the rebuilding is done. We've got enough savings for probably another month, maybe two under if we're lucky, if I don't take any more missions. If the number of missions I take stabilizes at where we're at right now, we'll be able to live, but we'd only be able to save whatever you make from your part time job. If it keeps going down, we won't have enough money to pay for all our bills and keep the house within probably four to six months, depending on how much you make at your part time job."

Sakura paused and stared at her mother, doing everything in her power to make the woman realize just how serious she was about this. "How much do you make at your part time job, mother?"

A long pause, and Sakura could hear the pain in her mother's voice when she finally admitted "It'll change a bit, based on hours, put probably about 3500 ryo each week."

Sakura took another long breath, slow in and slow out. "Right. That will definitely help. But I used to be able to do four or five missions a week. Now I'm down to about two, three on a good week. If I wasn't doing any missions, we'd be going from 15 or 25,000 ryo a week to 3500. Mother, that is not enough. Even if I stay in the village, I'll eventually have to join the Genin Corps most likely, as I don't know what team will take someone whose team mate turned traitor."

Her mother's face soured at that, but Sakura refused to lose momentum.

"Genin in the Corps only make 10,000 ryo a week. That's not enough for us to keep our house, mother. If you're willing to sell and move? I could maybe move into the Genin barracks, they have free accommodations for-."

"No." Her mother's eyes were steely as she put her foot down. "Our memories are all in this house. We're staying here."

"Then how much do we need to make to stay here?" Sakura challenged.

"I don't," she began before pausing. "I don't know. Your father always handled the finances, Sakura."

"We've been doing it the past few months. We haven't talked about it, but we both know."

"If you were to go see the matchmaker, though," her mother said. It was soft and leading, and Sakura nipped that right in the bud. She wouldn't let that thought even begin to sprout.

"That's a gamble. A big one. I might not find a match, not one that would be willing to take on our home as an expense. Even less likely that I'd find a match that would be in the Village; we might have to leave. But these missions with my sensei? They're a sure thing. They'll be B and A ranks, most likely. I won't get the whole pay, but I'll get a cut of them. And they can pay anywhere from 80,000 to more than 150,000 ryo per mission, mother."

Her mother bit her lips and twisted her fingers in her apron, concern clear across her face. "But those missions are more dangerous."

"The Village is dangerous. Everywhere is dangerous. We could be invaded again for all we know. At least this way, I'll be with my sensei. There is nowhere safer for me to be, mother. More than that, there's nowhere safer for you to be than here, near the shelters."

"You could come to the shelters with me, you could stop all this ninja business."

"That's not going to happen."

"The shelters didn't save your father."

The line had been drawn, their lots cast. They stared at each other, each unwilling to move. It was a test of conviction, who would give in first?

The rage gurgled and boiled in Sakura's gut at the fact that her mother would dare to be so callous. The disrespect to her own husband, Sakura's father, who Sakura missed desperately and dearly day after day. It burned her, the fury she felt. She wanted to scream, to shout, to lash out with fist and with chakra at the person who was supposed to protect her and instead used her grief to needle and guilt and hurt her.

But Shinobi Rule Number 25 was clear. You do not show tears on a mission. Sakura felt this was just the prelude to her mission, so she took her anger and her rage and her desperate despair and bundled them up into a tight little ball of emotion. Then she fed it to the dark recesses of her mind.

Say something like that to me again, you heartless cow, and watch what happens, cha!

Though her mind was in turmoil, her face was blank. Sakura was a shinobi. She was one who endured. It was only obvious she wouldn't be the first to back down.

Her mother looked down first, and Sakura had gone upstairs to begin packing for her trip.

Her mother had cooked her favorite breakfast the following morning and Sakura had received a rare hug before she left for the Village gate.

Sakura shook her head to clear the memories as she let out another yawn and watched the sun truly crest the horizon now. Dawn was well and fully here, and she let her chakra stop its circulation to keep herself awake and alert. Kakashi would be two, three hours late at least, she was certain, so she decided to use her pack as a pillow after all. Just as she was about to take the first strap off her shoulder, she felt a hand on her head and looked up.

"Yo."

"Kakashi-sensei?" She asked, confused at his arrival. "You're on time?"

"When my cute little student is so punctual, how could I possibly make her wait? Ready to go, Sakura-chan?" he responded simply.

Sakura gave him a side eye, then let her disbelief go in place of pure excitement at being off on another mission with Kakashi. It would be hard, she was sure, but Team 7 was still alive.

What more could she ask for?

"Ready!"

She was wrong. She was not ready.

Her sensei shot off and she took off after him, leaping high into the trees and following as best she could. He kept up a brutal pace, though she was sure that for him it was brutally slow. But she circulated her chakra, kept her breathing steady, and did her best to keep up.

Hours later she was beginning to flag. She'd taken regular, small sips of water as needed to stay hydrated and wet her palate. She'd added some energy tablets for high caloric content and electrolyte replenishment to the water, a necessary addition the longer and harder she ran.. She'd done everything right, but with the pace they were keeping up she was reaching her limit.

It was only a few hours into the day, perhaps a bit more than 2 hours, and she loathed being the one to slow them down. She almost forced herself to keep going, but tried to follow her sensei's teachings and look underneath the underneath. It had worked the day before in convincing him to bring her along, so she should do it more often, she figured.

Obviously, this wasn't Kakashi's top speed. He was a jonin; his top speed for long running would blow her out of the water. The fact she could keep up at all meant he was moving slowly for her benefit. She doubted he wasn't aware of her beginning to slow down or have more trouble. Her breathing was becoming more labored and she was certain he could hear the beginnings of her footfalls becoming arhythmic as she leapt from tree limb to tree limb.

Did he want her to call for a break? Or was he trying to hammer in that she really wasn't prepared for these levels of missions and that they should turn around and head back?

No, Kakashi wasn't one to go back on his word, and if he said she was coming he wouldn't try and scare her off. Not like this.

She put on a burst of speed to try and catch up to him in the trees, but a short sprint didn't manage to bring her close enough to him that she could speak. She fell behind again, and continued to fall behind even more. She didn't want to shout, as making unnecessary loud noises was against standard mission protocol and she really wanted to prove herself to him.

Frustrated and almost out of options, she eventually just flared her chakra out in a bright burst, hoping whatever sensing skills he had would notice. Sensor ninjas were rare, but she assumed some level of chakra sensitivity was required to become a jonin.

She didn't really have chakra to waste, given the size of her reserves, but thankfully she lost almost none at all while channeling it to help her run faster and leap through the trees. To her relief, Kakashi-sensei stopped the moment she flared her chakra. In fact, he stopped so quickly she almost ran right into him!

She landed right next to him instead and put her hands on her head to open up her lungs as she took in slow and deep breaths.

"Something wrong, Sakura-chan?" Kakashi-sensei asked mildly, not even out of breath or sweating at all.

That bastard!

Sakura took another few breaths, then a swig of water before answering him. "I'm at my limit for running, sensei. If we kept up that pace I would have started to fall behind you within another 5 minutes or so, at most. Can we stop for a break?"

She said it as firmly as she could. It might have been said quietly and quickly, but she didn't stutter and she didn't mumble. She refused to be embarrassed by knowing her limits. Knowing her limits was the first step to breaking those limits in order to get stronger.

That didn't make it less frustrating to recognize those limits, it just made it important to do it anyways.

"Good job, Sakura-chan. I was hoping you'd speak up. It's important that you know yourself. We're going to be working very hard these next few months, and sometimes I'll push you beyond your limits. In order for me to do so effectively, I need your input on where those limits are. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sensei."

"Good. Let's take 30 minutes for you to cool down, catch your breath, and refresh yourself. Do you have enough chakra left to run through any control exercises that will refresh your body?"

"Yes, sensei!" She was glad to be able to meet his expectations, even more glad she had guessed at his motives correctly. Looking underneath the underneath was hard, but so far it had been working out very well for her!

"Do so. I'll stay close enough to pay attention to your chakra levels and make sure you refresh yourself safely, and I'll stop you if needed. Also, this is the standard chakra burst pattern for if you have something you need to tell me and it's non urgent." He put his hand on her head, a common technique used to let other people feel your chakra if their senses weren't heightened enough yet to discern it on their own. He flexed his chakra in a weird way that Sakura thought she followed, but would need to practice to be certain.

He did it once more, the exact same way, and then a third time.

"This is the pattern to use if you have something to say that's an emergency or needs immediate attention."

He flexed his chakra again, hand still on her hand, in a way that did feel much more urgent to her. He did it two more times, so she once more had three opportunities to watch.

"Don't practice now; conserve your chakra for refreshing and our run. You can practice them tonight before we sleep, if you have enough chakra left."

She nodded her head and sat down into a meditative pose to begin refreshing her body. Kakashi sat down next to her, but in a much more relaxed pose as he leaned against the trunk of the tree they were high up in. He pulled out his pervy book and Sakura just rolled her eyes.

She wanted to say something and was about to repress it, letting her inner voice speak her irritation for her once again. She stopped as she remembered she was trying to be more true to herself. And if she couldn't be herself around her sensei, well then who else could she be honest with?

"You know the fact that you read that trash is the reason my mother told me not to come on this trip with you, right Kakashi-sensei?"

"Mmm?" was his only reply, as he turned another page.

"She thinks it's improper for a man your age to be all alone with an innocent girl like me, and that of course a pervert who reads porn in public would try to take advantage of me. Cha! As if I'd ever let an old man like you touch me!"

"Maa, Sakura-chan, it makes Sensei so glad to know you have your priorities straight. But you really should focus on your meditations."

"Is my chakra circulation not neat enough?" she asked, worried she had missed something in her manipulations.

"No, no, that's fine, but you should make sure you pay attention. We want to make sure you minimize the leakage that happens while you're circulating it, hmm? You should always try to conserve as much chakra as you can."

"That's rich coming from you, Chakra-Exhaustion-On-Every-Mission-san," she taunted him with a sing song. He gave her a glare over his book for that, and she smiled back at him as sweet as pie.

He nudged her with his toe and she rolled her eyes before closing them and focusing on her meditations. If she was wasting chakra, she really should pay more attention. She had little enough of it to begin with, wasting more of it than was necessary would be foolish.

Funnily enough, as she paid closer attention to what she was doing, she noticed that she hadn't lost her grip on her chakra at all. She was still keeping nearly all of it contained, as was usual for her. There was a tiny bit she was leaking, but it was miniscule and normal for her. The academy taught that tenketsu were inherently malleable, so circulating chakra by them in a non standard way would always have at least some leakage.

Perhaps Kakashi-sensei wanted her to try and get her leakage to absolutely nothing? It was a hard goal, but she wasn't about to start turning away from difficult goals now! This was all part of her plan to become the best, strongest shinobi she could be to protect her precious people. No one would leave her behind any more, shannaro!

She bit her lip and let her mind focus in, mentally clamping down on her chakra as she worked to refresh her body for the next leg of their journey.

~~Nakairi~~

The day fell into a routine easily. Sakura ran and ran and ran until she had nothing left in her to give to running. She would then flare her chakra in the way Kakashi had shown her, trying her hardest to get it as accurate as possible. She assumed she was close enough, as he never mentioned it to her.

As night fell, sensei finally called for a stop. There was still enough light out to be able to make a camp, but it wouldn't last much longer. Sakura walked in circles and took deep slow breaths for a few moments to cool down. Eventually she felt cooled down enough to be able to speak, rather than gasp for air, so she walked up to Kakashi and asked "Where do you want to set up camp tonight, Sensei?"

"Maa, anywhere is fine I guess," he demurred with a light scratch to his cheek. "Wherever you think is best, Sakura-chan. We need to be up early and running tomorrow anyways, so we don't need to set up a full camp tonight, right?"

Sakura just nodded and, for a moment, almost considered just setting her pack down where they had stopped and falling asleep into a pile at the ground. She was exhausted enough that the hard ground wouldn't bother her at all.

That was silly, though, and the kind of thing that an inexperienced genin would do. She had promised Kakashi she would be useful if he kept Team 7 together and she was determined to live up to that promise. So instead she set her pack down and said "I'll go scout, sensei."

She scuttled off at as quick a pace as she could go while being as stealthy as possible. There probably wasn't anyone around, Kakashi would have noticed, but it was important to build good habits. They had always said in the Academy that you should treat every mission like it's the most important mission, regardless of if it was or not. And, technically, she was on what was probably a B or A-ranked mission, even if it was only the travel portion. She had better do her best!

"Shannaro!" she whispered to herself under her breath as she searched the surrounding area. She pumped her fist and smiled as, while tracking, she found what she believed to be some kind of abandoned animal den.

She did a more detailed search of the den and its surrounding area and guessed that it was likely some kind of big animal, perhaps a bear? But it had been abandoned for a long while. The den was underneath the root of a large tree and would provide shelter from the elements for the night. If they did a little bit of finagling, they might even be able to have a small fire with some foliage keeping the light blocked.

She marked the place in her mind and trekked her way back to Kakashi-sensei. She pulled him alongside her as she led him to the place, then twisted her fingers as she presented it to him for his approval.

"Ah, good work," he said before crinkling his eye in a smile.

Sakura immediately relaxed at his approval and clenched her fists one final time before stretching them out and relaxing them. "Right," she muttered before speaking up louder "right, you said a temporary camp. So we'll stay in the den, I'll make some light cover. We can probably have a small fire, I think, if we do some additional coverage?"

"Hmmm," is all her lazy sensei said, which Sakura found frustrating but not surprising. She huffed in response.

"Sensei, if we can have a fire then that means we can cook. If we can cook, I should go hunt for something."

She paused for a moment, and when he didn't answer she forced the issue. "Should I go hunt for something, sensei?"

"Ah, yes that seems wise. Just in case, you know?"

She rolled her eyes. Let him be strange and mysterious. She's just glad to be out here with him and to be working again. She felt more free out here, on a mission, with a goal in mind and objective to achieve. Not that she knew what her goal and objective were here, in the larger sense of the mission, but having immediate goals was more than enough for her.

She headed out into the woods and with relative ease downed two small rabbits. While she was out, she set up a few perimeter traps around the area. Nothing that would harm anyone, they were still in Fire Country after all. But an alert to let them know that someone is coming seemed more than reasonable.

Skinning the rabbits and preparing them was gross, but something she did often in the Academy. She powered through it with what is, in her mind, considerable grace.

It's hard for her to remember sometimes that she was an Academy student less than a year ago. So much has happened since then, it feels like she's a totally different person. She arrived back at their little abandoned den to find Kakashi just relaxing on the ground with his small book laying against his face. She moved closer, slowly in case he really was asleep. Waking a sleeping shinobi, especially high level ones, was always a bad idea.

Instead he said from underneath the book "You can set up a fire right here, Sakura-chan."

He kicked a small area a few feet away with one of his feet and Sakura furrowed her brow. That area wasn't covered by the den, which would make it more difficult to hide. She recalled what they discussed, though, what she had promised him to get him to bring her along. She committed herself to listening to his commands to the letter while they're on these dangerous high level missions, definitely without any backtalk.

She began making the fire pit where he had indicated when, just as she was about to begin striking the flint to set the tinder aflame, Kakashi interrupted her.

"Sakura-chan, if you were going to hide a fire from other ninja, how would you do it?"

Sakura paused, only mildly frustrated that he would ask her this after he had been the one to choose a suboptimal location.

"I would have used the den we were in, sensei. It's a small location that provided a lot of cover. I would have used extra foliage to cover the entrance to the den as well."

"What about the smoke? The den would get all filled with smoke, and probably pretty hot too. I didn't think you'd want to get all warm and sweaty on your first night out."

Sakura flushed at the insinuation towards her old self, the one who hadn't been willing to work herself to her absolute limits for silly things like looks or appearances. She grit her teeth once before forcibly unclenching her jaw.

"I was thinking we'd only use the fire to cook, sensei; we wouldn't keep it up all night for warmth. The Academy taught us how to make different kinds of fires, and the cooking ones burn very hot but also turn to just coals super quick. Then there'd be much less smoke, which a small hole in the roof of the den would easily take care of. That way there'd be less light pollution too."

"That's a pretty good idea. You thought it out quite well. Good work!" Sakura couldn't tell if he was mocking her or sincerely congratulating her. Did he want her to get to work on her plan, or continue making the fire where he had indicated? Just as she was about to speak up and ask, he finally continued speaking. "What if you could use chakra, though?"

Sakura's mind whirled at the implication. A jutsu of some kind, perhaps? The first thing that came to her mind was a fire jutsu of some kind. Could you control whether or not a fire could be smokeless from far away? No, maybe there was a way to skip the whole "make a camping fire and let it burn down" step and head straight to the "coals for cooking" step with a fire jutsu. Or maybe a wind jutsu to disperse the smoke before it became an issue?

She didn't know enough about ninjutsu to be able to say with certainty, and she didn't want to guess and be wrong. She knew a little more about genjutsu, at least, and as her mind stumbled over that fact she had the perfect example of a technique come to mind.

"I think I would use a genjutsu, sensei. That might be able to hide the fire."

"Oh?" That simple word was his only response and Sakura huffed before she continued.

"Well, there's the False Surroundings Technique that the proctors used in the first part of the Chunin Exam. There must be another similar genjutsu that could produce an effect like that one, but also cover things like the sound of the fire crackling or the smell of the smoke."

She gave a decisive nod, more to herself than to her sensei, as though confirming that she was proud of her answer. To her surprise, her sensei actually pulled his book down a tad and his single eye stared out at her.

"A genjutsu, eh? I bet there's one that exists like that. The one I know for campfires doesn't cover all of those things, though. It's why I prefer to use ninjutsu to conceal any fire I make for camp, if I'm trying to be stealthy."

Sakura breathed out a sigh of relief; her idea was right! Or at least, close enough. Also, from the way he was talking, she might get to see him perform a jutsu – cha! He wouldn't teach it to her, he was clear about that before they had headed out on these missions together. She would be content to just watch it, though; maybe one day she'd be able to figure it out herself.

There was a pause between the two of them, a few moments of tension as both of them seemed to expect the other one to say something. Sakura couldn't figure out what her sensei was waiting for, so eventually she spoke up. "Did you want me to finish this fire myself, or…?" She trailed off leadingly, gesturing to it.

"Or?" He asked again, infuriatingly clueless.

"Or did you want to use the ninjutsu you usually use to make the fire hidden?" She kept her voice calm, she did; she was a good student and she would give her sensei no reason to send her home.

Even if all I want to do is punch his face in until he gives me a straight answer and teaches me that jutsu so I can do it myself, shannaro! And that genjutsu, too!

Sakura grit her teeth again – she was trying to repress her emotions less and become more open with her feelings, but her being on a mission with Kakashi-sensei was already a miracle. She didn't want to mess it up! There was a fine line between expressing herself about his porn reading habits, being a little cheeky, and crossing the boundary into pissing him off about not following orders.

"Hmmm, I suppose," he said in a low voice. He ambled over towards her small dug out fire pit and brought his hands up as though about to perform a jutsu. Sakura eyed him carefully but tried very hard to not look too eager. Kakashi tilted his head at her again, before some unknowable moment occurred to him that, finally, it was time to start the fire.

She watched as his hands flew through the seals Tiger – Dog – Horse – Snake – Tiger. As he finished the last seal, he whispered gently "Fire Style: Hidden Campfire Jutsu."

Sakura watched, enraptured, as he brought a hand to his mouth and blew through it. What came spiraling out was not the red-hot flames she expected, but a gentle, whispy, translucent flame. It had the lightest of blue tinges to it, but even in the dying light it's almost impossible to see. It felt just as hot as a normal fire would and caught easily on the tinder she had set up. But it didn't crackle or pop as the wood broke down, and it released no smoke. It barely even gave off a smell!

She turned to Kakashi-sensei and she knew she must look every bit the wide-eyed, easily impressed Genin but, well, that's such a useful jutsu! It's the kind of everyday usefulness she had originally hoped for from her jonin-sensei, before the world had gone to hell in a handbasket.

She quickly set up the rabbits over the fire; now that they wouldn't need to worry about bringing it down to coals first she can let them sit on a spit for a while. Then she went to her pack and began pulling out supplies. She bit her lip for a moment, unsure whether she should thank her sensei or not, but eventually decides to go with her gut and do what she believes is right.

She's seen him perform jutsu much faster than that, watched his hands blur so fast between hand seals that they were impossible to track. The fact he did it slow enough that she could follow? It must have been intentional, right?

He may not be willing to teach her on these missions, but he was clearly willing to slow down just enough that if she put the effort in she could teach herself. If that was the case, then there would still be so many amazing opportunities for her to learn from him. She'd take every chance she got and uses it to its fullest, shannaro!

Author Note:

I hope you enjoyed! Thank you so much to everyone who read, left kudos, and commented on the last chapter. I was so excited to watch other people enjoy my work. Hope you like this chapter as well, and I'll see you next week!