Sakura stood and considered for more than a few minutes, but the manners that had been drilled into her and her hope that Kakashi really had slowed down on purpose pushed her to an answer.

"Thanks for letting me watch that jutsu, Kakashi-sensei. I appreciate it." She tried to pour as much of her gratitude into her voice as she could as she pulled out a small notebook and field pen. Then she diligently wrote down the name of the jutsu, the hand seals, and what effects it had; all in a code, of course. She wasn't about to carry around jutsu secrets that just anyone could read!

She also took a short bit of time to mull over the seals and put her own thoughts on why they worked, a practice she'd taken up back when learning the Academy jutsu. Sadly she hadn't had to use it since, but now that she was finally learning new jutsu she wanted to put her whole effort into it.

Tiger for fire, or maybe the qualities of earth depending on the next few seals. Strength but also intense focus. Dog for… water? The opposite of fire, but also the ability to persist. Which follows with horse, used often in genjutsu and revealing genjutsu. So give a fire the properties of water, perhaps, and the ability to persist, and also difficult to sense. Then snake for the stability of earth again, but the flexibility in structure to direct the flow of chakra. Then finally Tiger again, both earth and fire related. That makes a lot of sense, actually.

She put the notebook back with a satisfied nod, then checked on the rabbits – they were coming along nicely, even with the weird chakra flame rather than a normal flame. Still a bit more time to fully cook though, which was good. She settled herself down on the ground next to the fire, sending a surreptitious glance Kakashi's way. He was lying down again, with his book once more laid over his face.

A roll of her eyes was all that warranted, so she got right into her practice. Back in the Academy when they'd been learning hand seals, she'd done the math on how many different combinations there were of two hand seals back-to-back. She had theorized if she could separate it out, it'd be easier to practice them all one at a time and make each one individually a different kind of muscle memory. That way she'd be prepared to perform any jutsu at any time!

Then she'd learned there were 132 individual combinations of two different hand seals and she had promptly given up on that dream. Instead she'd practiced the ones she'd needed to pass the Academy and nothing more. Now, here she was out in the wilderness on a crazy dangerous mission going to who knows where with her sensei. She was far too exhausted to practice taijutsu. She needed to conserve all her chakra and let it recover for her day full of running tomorrow, so she couldn't practice any nin or genjutsu. Kakashi-sensei had been optimistic, in her opinion, about how much chakra she'd have left to practice the emergency chakra flaring signals.

She had brought an introductory medical scroll with her. She wasn't able to apprentice under Tsunade, but Sakura still thought she had it in her to be a good medic if she put her mind to it! Though, with as tired as she was, reading anything academic was probably way beyond her. The words would just flit through her head and she'd end up reading the same paragraph over and over.

So, hand seal practice it was! That was a simple, mind numbing task she could perform. It was sure to have results eventually. It didn't matter how, it didn't matter when, but being better with her hand seals would never be a bad thing.

She was tempted to, once again, just practice the hand seals for the Academy Jutsu. She was even more tempted to practice the hand seals for the jutsu Kakashi-sensei had just performed.

Instead she did her best to do what she felt needed to be done, not what she felt she wanted to do. Putting in the work to shore up her fundamentals and prepare herself for the future would pay off dividends later, even if it felt boring now. It was better to have a strong foundation to build from.

Konoha wasn't built in a day, after all, even with the Shodaime's mokuton! Slow and steady is the way to go, even if it is boring.

She started in on the first combination, not even molding chakra. She just let her fingers move. Monkey – Dragon. Reset. Monkey – Dragon. Reset. Monkey – Dragon. Reset.

She performed it slowly, every transition taking multiple seconds as she was deliberate about her placing. When she was done with one hundred of them, she checked on the rabbit before moving on to the next set.

Monkey – Rat.

When she was done with that set of one hundred she one once more checked the rabbit. It still wasn't quite done so she moved on to the next set. She ended up getting all the way through the combinations that started with monkey, and the ones that started with dragon. She had to take a quick break during the ones that started with rat in order to eat the rabbit, thankful it was finally done.

They ate in silence and she got the feeling Kakashi was waiting for something the whole time. It set her on edge, the idea that he was expecting something to happen. She ended up peering through the darkness as best she could, trying to find whatever hidden dangers were out there. When she couldn't find any and the tension persisted, she grasped for a topic to break the silence. A few moments of thought gave her the idea to ask him about the watch schedule.

"Maa, I don't think there's anything too bad around here. We're still pretty close to Konoha. There aren't too many bandits that would come this close, even with the invasion that happened so recently."

That was certainly reassuring! "We should still have a watch tonight though, right?"

"Hmmm, should we?" he seemed to be asking the air. He tilted his head back. "You set up perimeter traps, right?"

"Of course, sensei!" She wasn't exactly sure how he knew that, as she'd done it while hunting the rabbits, but she didn't want him to think she was slacking.

"I trust you did a good job, Sakura-chan. I don't think we need to keep a watch tonight."

She swallowed nervously. "Are you sure you don't want to check them, Kakashi-sensei?"

He looked down away from the sky and peered at her with his one uncovered eye. "Do you want me to?"

"I, er," she began. She didn't want to admit weakness, but she also wanted to make sure they were safe tonight if they were relying on her work! "I think I did a good job," she finally said with a determined nod. "That just means I did a good job by my standards, though. I'm still, uh, new. Just a genin, right? What if there's a chunin missing nin, or even a jonin, and even though I did my best, they still notice my perimeter? Yes, sensei, I think I want you to check on them."

"Good analysis, Sakura-chan. But there's no need. I checked them out shortly after you set them up; you did a great job. We'll be just fine tonight!"

Sakura stared at him in shock – when had he checked on them?! And why didn't he tell her! Other than when she was setting them, they'd been together the whole time! Sometimes she had a hard time remembering her lazy sensei really was a super cool ninja with badass skills. Then he'd do something like this and she'd have to remember not to be blown away.

He ruffled her hair as he complimented her and she swatted his hand away. Then she smiled at him. "Thanks, sensei."

"Ah, eat your dinner Sakura-chan. Don't want to eat cold rabbit."

"It's not that much better when it's hot," she grumbled.

"Trust me, as someone who's eaten a lot of cold rabbit - it is." He winked at her, or perhaps blinked at her. Either way it made her chuckle.

They finished eating and Kakashi went back to either reading or dozing, she couldn't really tell. She went back to her hand seal practicing. She did one hundred repetitions of each combination, picking up where she left off with Rat. She got through all the ones starting with Bird, Snake, Ox, and Dog. Then she got about half way through the pens starting with Horse before she finally fell asleep in the middle of practice.

~~Nakairi~~

When they woke the next morning, Sakura cleaned up camp the way she had been taught to in the Academy, also going around to retrieve or break down her traps. Kakashi didn't even pretend to be asleep longer than necessary. As soon as she rose with the sun he got up as well and began helping to hide the remains of their camp. With that done, they were off and away on a quick run.

"Aren't you going to ask where we're going, Sakura-chan?" he asked after they stopped for her first break of the day. "Aren't you curious?"

She took a few deep breaths to calm down, making sure to move regularly and keep her body nimble. The moment she had breath in her lungs to speak, she exploded "Of course I'm curious sensei!"

He stared at her, his lone eye widening in a bit of shock, so she hurried to continue. "I promised, though, didn't I? I'd be the perfect mission partner for you. So even though you're my sensei, you're also my commanding officer right now. We're on a high level mission; it's got to be an A-rank, or a B-rank at least. You'll tell me whatever I need to know, when I need to know it. I trust you, Kakashi-taicho," she said the last part with a smile and a mocking lilt to her voice, but only to mask the deep sincerity she meant it with.

Kakashi would take care of her. She knew it as truly as she knew that her chakra would always be there at her command. It was a simple, easy fact of life. Of course it was; they were Team 7.

"Maa, it's important that you trust me Sakura-chan. I'm glad. But," he continued as he put a finger up into the air and took on a lecturing tone "a ninja should always be curious. Information is the lifeblood of a true shinobi. I want you to always be thinking. Where am I going? What is the mission? Why am I on this mission?"

"Isn't it our job to follow orders, though? In the Academy, they taught us the importance of the chain of command. Information security was also really important, right? Like, if a little birdie tells you to take the long way around," she used their secretly agreed upon code for sensei needs to take an ANBU mission "then I shouldn't be curious about that, right?"

"Hmmm, good. You aren't just accepting what I'm saying, you're thinking about it. That's the best first step. Consider this though, Sakura-chan. It wasn't just you they were teaching at the Academy. It was all of our upcoming ninja. Many of them won't graduate to become Jonin, let alone Chunin. For them, yes, the chain of command is very important. Genin follow on missions; Chunin lead missions. So for a Chunin, getting into the habit of always searching for more information is good. Jonin also go on dangerous missions, where you can't always trust the information you've been given. Like our first mission to Wave."

Sakura flushed at that reminder. Of course she should be curious, because without the correct intel mistakes happened!

"If you were going to stay a Genin, I wouldn't bring this up." Kakashi said casually, as though her eventual rise to Chunin was a sure thing and not a goal she'd been more and more worrying might be out of her reach. "Hell, if you were going to just be a Chunin, I might not even mention it. Some Chunin don't often lead important missions, only smaller ones where it's less about managing information and more about managing team mates."

He stared at her hard then and she paused in her stretching.

"You though, Sakura. You won't be a Genin for long. And you won't be a Chunin forever. So it's time you started acting like it, ne?"

His casual faith in her sent her hands together, twisting her fingers in front of her chest. Despite Naruto's casual and frequent shouts about becoming Hokage and Sasuke's lineage being an Uchiha, she knew how rare Jonin actually were. She knew how few shinobi actually made that Jonin rank. It's an elite portion of the military, for certain. As much as she likes to believe that she's badass shinobi material, she always secretly harbored the belief that it would be a miracle if she made Chunin.

She bit her lip and offered up a simple response. "But I'm just a paper ninja, Kakashi-sensei. I'm not like you, or Naruto, or… I'm not that strong."

"Really?" was all he asked as her lip quivered. "Even if you were 'just' a paper ninja, which I don't know I agree with, the last 'paper ninja' I fought nearly blew me up."

He held up an explosive tag between his fingers and waved it in her direction. It made her smile to see him joking with her.

"Right. So, what can you tell me about the mission then, sensei?"

He nodded at her. "Listen while we run; we're supposed to be in Tanzaku-gai to meet the client in two hours, and at the rate we've been going it'll take us two and a half."

"Kakashi-sensei!" she screamed at him as she took off after him through the trees. That jerk! She didn't want to be late for their mission!

~~Nakairi~~

It turned out that he had lied about needing to be there in only two hours; they had a full four hours until they were supposed to meet the client and leave. Which just made him an even bigger jerk.

Still, it did give her time to clean up and make herself presentable for meeting the client.

Tanzaku-gai was a strange place. She had never been before but heard wild retellings of it from Naruto's stories of going to retrieve Tsunade. He had described it as being a den of debauchery.

To her it just looked like a normal town. The walls surrounding it were well manned with militia men, but none of them looked particularly scary. People were out roaming the streets and going about their lives. Certainly, some of the buildings had big, garish signs that proclaimed them as places where anyone could win their fortune, but if it was just a few casinos, that wasn't all that bad was it?

Sakura fiddled with her clothes, doing her best to look appropriately presentable and professional as she and Kakashi leaned against the outside of one such casino waiting to meet their client. Kakashi wasn't even reading his Icha Icha Icha series or anything! He was just casually lounging, his one eye skittering over the crowds.

He had given her the run down on the mission already while they were traveling: high value escort mission. There was a local casino that was owned by a company which was based in the Land of Rivers. Apparently in addition to the normal influx of goods that, unlike cash, couldn't be deposited in a bank and needed to be returned to their company headquarters for appraisal, they had received something special.

This was a relatively routine B-rank mission for experienced chunin or new jonin, according to Kakashi. Lots of bandits knew about this particular route and that they usually had lots of high value goods being transported. The stupider ones, and the occasional missing-nin, were always willing to take the risk, apparently.

Whatever the casino had received in payment for some debt, however, was apparently valuable enough that they had requested their mission be increased to an A-rank this time around. When Kakashi-sensei had mentioned this, Sakura immediately frowned. She'd had a moment's hesitation after he finished his explanation but decided that in order to be more true to herself and to follow her sensei's teachings, she would ask her questions to learn more about the mission rather than repress her burning desire to know more.

"Even if it's an A-rank now, Kakashi-sensei, it doesn't seem like something that would require you. Maybe just send a slightly more experienced team of jonin than normal? You're kind of famous – even Zabuza knew you! Is Konoha really that short staffed? Was the invasion really that bad?"

"Hmm, you're asking the right questions, but from the wrong direction. What reasons might the Village have to send me on what seems to be such a normal mission?"

Sakura had opened her mouth to answer, but he cut her off mid leap between trees. "No, think about it for a while. We'll be at Tanzaku-gai in a few moments."

So now Sakura was standing, fidgeting, and still thinking on what reasons the Village might have to send her sensei on what felt like something any number of Jonin could have handled. She had imagined that all their missions together would be secret, black ops assassinations. She had assumed she'd be sitting alone in the forest while he snuck through some Daimyo or local lord's castle and decimated their forces.

A tall, weedy man with balding brown hair and thin framed glasses eventually came out of the casino they were standing by. He looked up at Kakashi's hitai-ate and visibly relaxed. "Ah, Shinobi-san. We thank Konoha for sending someone so quickly. We understand our request might have come sooner than our usual mission request, and with such unexpected changes to the parameters. We appreciate Konoha's ability to be so flexible in our hour of need."

Kakashi just tilted his head towards the man and muttered a quiet "Of course. Are you Yoshioka Seiji-san?"

"Ah, yes. Please, come inside. The caravan and I plan to leave within the half hour, but there's no need to wait outside. We can offer refreshments while we wait."

The man hurried them inside and instantly Sakura understood much better what Naruto had meant about the debauchery. The place was dimly lit, with the occasional bright or flashing light. There were pachinko and slot machines everywhere, and so many card tables she could barely even count them. Even though it was mid day, the place was packed. This wasn't like the casinos she'd seen before, not at all.

And the entertainers! If you could even call them that.

Scantily clad men and women lounged and sauntered and flirted all over the place, serving drinks or chatting with patrons all the while. Men and women both laughed uproariously every now and again when one of the entertainers whispered something in their ear.

It was like she had walked into a totally different world.

She blinked once but that was all the reaction she showed, keeping her "serious professional face" firmly in place.

Kakashi of course didn't seem concerned at all and just ambled along lazily behind the man, Yoshioka, who was leading them to some rooms in the back of the casino. Once they entered it was like she moved into a whole different world again. It was just a normal office setting; a hallway, a bathroom, and a few office doors. They were led through one such door and were offered the mentioned refreshments as they were asked to sit.

There was a large man sitting behind a desk in front of them with his hands steepled just in front of his mouth. Off to the side of the office were a few hired hands, mercenaries by the looks of it. They all had long swords at their sides and a multitude of scars on their faces and hands. They all looked to be around Kakashi's age, perhaps, except for one younger boy. He was more likely around her age, with a head of thick blonde hair and bright green eyes. He also wore a chokuto, like the older men, but his looked more awkward at his side. She saw him fiddling with it as she walked in.

He stared at her and Kakashi-sensei as they sat down, eyes wide and mouth opened a bit in shock. They didn't look too unprofessional, did they? She thought they looked like perfectly normal ninja!

"It seems strange," the man behind the desk said eventually after a few moments of tense staring. "We requested a higher ranked mission than normal but received less shinobi for our extra money. Wouldn't you say that's strange, Yoshioka-san?"

The weedy man pulled out a small handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead. "The ways of ninja are mysterious and unknowable, Tanaka-buchou. I wouldn't presume to guess at how their minds work."

"Yoshioka-san doesn't normally attend with the caravan, does he?" Kakashi asked, rather than answering the unspoken question from the large man, apparently named Tanaka. "It's only, I spoke with Kamizuki-kun and he mentioned it's normally just himself, his team, and your hired hands that go on these trips. He said your men are quite skilled at dealing with would-be thieves and bandits, and he only ever has to run off the occasional foreign shinobi." He nodded his head towards the men with weapons. "He asked me to thank you for your continued trust in Konoha's honor to uphold a contract, and let you know he was sorry he couldn't come himself this time. The Hokage has asked him and his partner Hagane-kun for some important assistance recently. When he heard a request from you came in earlier than normal, at an A-rank no less, he asked me personally to take the mission."

Sakura bit the inside of her cheek to keep from staring at her sensei with pure shock. Most of that was a lie, so far as she knew! He certainly hadn't been requested personally for this mission, Sakura was certain of that. When explaining what this mission was about earlier, he had explained how the logistics department was working overtime to ensure the maximum amount of missions could be afforded per jonin, and how none of the jonin had any say in which missions they received or how long they were out of the Village for.

She remembered the names Hagane and Kamizuki, though; they were the two ninja guarding the gate before they had set out on their journey yesterday. When had Kakashi had time to talk to them?

"Kamizuki-kun, huh?" the man murmured under his breath. "How is his injury doing? I was told he took a nasty slice from a bandit on his last mission for us, and to expect Hagane-san with a few new faces for the next trip out."

"Ah, I wouldn't know about that," Kakashi-sensei said. The large man's eyes narrowed further, until Kakashi continued. "He might have had it healed in the hospital back in Konoha, I suppose? The last time he and I trained together, the only injury he had was a bandage on his right arm, but that was on the mend. He said he got nicked by knife, but with him who knows? He's always was one to underplay his injuries."

Kakashi gave a relaxed shrug and leaned back into his chair, seemingly at ease. Sakura bit the inside of her lip for a second, considering, then decided to do the same. If her sensei was relaxed, then she was too.

The large man stared at them for a few seconds before he sighed.

"I suppose I'll just have to trust Kamizuki-san's recommendation, then. We have a very important artifact that we'll be transporting, as you know. After some research into the item, however, we were informed that there's active requests to retrieve it from many nobles in the Land of Grass. We believe they've dispatched multiple high level ninja from Kusagakure in order to retrieve it. The man who gave it to us to settle his debts is notoriously loose lipped. You can see our concern."

Kakashi merely tipped his head forward a bit. Sakura felt a flutter of nerves at the mention of Kusa ninja. The last time she'd seen a Kusa shinobi, it had secretly been Orochimaru in disguise. That creepy, taunting smile leering at her until it began to melt, melt, melt away into nothingness still sometimes haunted her dreams.

She shunted her fear deep inside herself and let her inner voice yell out a Cha! Just try to scare me! If I see those Kusa-nin, I'll show them who needs to be afraid. And teach them not to get infiltrated by creepy snake guys either, shannaro!

Outwardly, though, she showed no change. Simple. Placid. Calm. Like a lake on a gentle summer day, lily pads floating in lazy patterns.

"I've yet to meet the shinobi from Kusa who could best me, Tanaka-san. I promise to do my best to keep your precious cargo safe."

The man just grunted. "They leave in 20 minutes. Be ready."

AN:

Hope you're continuing to enjoy! Some jutsu theory and basic practice for Sakura, and a brief look into Kakashi's version of "not having time to teach you anything" when he has a pupil who can keep up with him, and meeting the first client! I'm certain that there won't be any tension at all on this first mission, everything will be smooth sailing. Promise, scout's honor.