Later that night, set slightly away from the rest of their traveling party, Sakura was once again going through her practice kata. She wished she had someone to spar with but there was only Kakashi. She had promised not to bother him on their missions, even if this one was super boring so far, and she was determined to follow through on her promise.
He was already being so kind in helping her out! He had warned her he wouldn't have time to teach her, and she was certain that was true. He not only had to go out and do his regular patrols, but also double check that she hadn't missed anything on the ones he was sending her out on to keep her busy. So the fact that while she practiced kata he would occasionally come up and nudge a knee or a foot, or smack a hand or elbow to get her to provide more strength was incredible. She soaked up every moment of his attention like a flower aimed towards the sun. Silent and appreciative, without any expectations for when more might come.
She was hyper aware of him while she performed and he lounged around her, either laid down or sitting or leaning as he read. She liked to imagine that he also subtly watched her during boring parts of his books. The point was, even when relaxing, he wasn't ever fully still.
So she noticed when suddenly he froze.
Her heart rate skyrocketed for a moment as his body went stiff; was it the enemy ninja, finally come to steal the client's artifact? A night time ambush would be a good idea. She and Kakashi had been keeping a watch rotation and setting perimeter traps. If they had managed to get around her traps and waited until she was the one on watch, they had a much better chance of being successful.
When her sensei relaxed she assumed that whatever he noticed wasn't a threat. She continued performing, body moving slow and steady through practiced motions.
Suddenly, Kakashi-sensei got up from his lounging location and walked towards her. She quirked an eyebrow at him but kept her movements measured and steady.
"Start that set again, Sakura-chan."
She paused abruptly and stared at him. He just nodded, and she took that as the prompt to reset and begin again. She got to a few movements before where he had interrupted her when suddenly – whack. His foot kicked out sharply at her leg and she crumbled beneath the sudden pain and loss of support. She almost cried out but muffled the scream; they were on a mission and she shouldn't make any loud sounds.
"Again," he said.
She stood up from the ground, dusted herself off, tested her ability to put weight on her leg. Once she was satisfied, she began again. She moved even slower this time, anticipating when he would kick.
It came at the same point and she realized he wasn't applying nearly as much pressure to his kick as he should have to in order to knock her over. It still hurt to be kicked, but he should have had to kick much harder.
"Again," he said, but this time she interrupted.
"Can I try something first, sensei?"
He looked at her, tilted his head for a moment then nodded at her.
She took a few steps away from him, hoping he'd take the hint and not kick out at her as she went through the kata once more. When she got to the point where he would have kicked at her leg, she paused. She focused. She recalled everything she could remember from years ago when she had learned these sets.
She twitched. She inched. She shifted. Finally, though it was uncomfortable on her thighs, she felt her balance center in a more stable position.
She worked through the preceding and proceeding move, rather than the whole set, trying to burn that into her memory.
She walked back over to him and was about to ask to try again when she saw the glint of peering eyes beneath the moon, gazing at her between some trees. Her shoulders tightened and her hackles rose. She got ready to sprint towards the intruder, hand straying towards her kunai pouch until she realized that whoever it was must be who her sensei had sensed. If Kakashi had deemed them not a threat, then they were probably not a big deal.
Still, she was curious. She looked closer, trying to let her eyes adjust to the darkness and gloom from so far out. She focused the chakra near her eyes, trying to bring the world into focus on a whim. To her surprise it worked and she could see clearly who it was.
Taketa did a terrible job hiding himself behind a tree, and only the distance and darkness had kept him from her. She watched as he continued his approach, quickly darting from tree to tree. She ignored him and his terrible stealthing, opting instead to put all of her attention into her taijutsu practice.
"Again, Kakashi-sensei?" she asked, hopeful he'd agree but worried she'd squandered her chance at his attention.
He just nodded and watched her with a sleepy eye.
Out of the corner of her eye she watched Taketa while she went through the kata from the beginning. He was terrible at staying silent and came far too close; eventually she could see him even without channeling the chakra around her eyes. He kept coming closer still, close enough she saw his eyes widen the moment he saw her.
She felt Kakashi's leg impact her own, but her stance and balance were much improved. She still went down, but it wasn't a full sweep. Instead she fell to one knee but was able to get up faster. As she hit the ground and let out a whuff of air from Kakashi knocking the wind out of her, she heard Taketa's harsh intake of breath.
Honestly, it was a solid hit but nothing that dangerous to be shocked by. Normal spars were more dangerous than this!
"Better. Again."
She started over, but not from the complete beginning. A few seconds in she knew she'd be hitting the movement she'd be attacked and settled herself into the correct position. Her legs were strained from the stretch but her balance was sturdy and her stance was strong. The kick caused her to shake beneath the onslaught of Kakashi-sensei's strength, but she stayed upright this time.
"Good. Again."
She silently preened under his attention, his words of praise, and she was quick to perform it again. She had the same result this time, staying upright as he kicked her stance even as his kick impacted harder, more forcefully against her leg.
"Keep going."
She didn't even hesitate, continuing on through the rest of the kata. However she didn't get far until her hand hit a roadblock; Kakashi-sensei had caught her hand.
"No, not like that. Like you mean it."
The punch had been slow and languid, but it was still done with intention. She had thought so, at least. She looked up at him in askance, but all he said was.
"You're moving to a point. Move through it."
His face was blank, almost emotionless, but she didn't mind. He was teaching her, at least a little, and she refused to squander this opportunity.
Even as she took another step back from their defined 'practice space' to move through the motions and ponder over his strangely cryptic hint, her mind felt as though it was moving faster than a lightning jutsu. Why was Kakashi suddenly breaking his own rule to teach her? What was different now?
Had he been impressed with her initiative? Was her taijutsu just that bad?
Perhaps, but those were only underneath what he was doing. She thought harder, looked deeper as her body moved through ingrained motions. What was different now than any other night that she'd been practicing?
Taketa, the answer came to her in an instant. He hadn't started helping until he'd already noticed Taketa moving towards them.
Her first response was anger and her next movement was choppier, sharper, stronger than it should have been for a slow, movement focused kata. As she moved through that movement, the movement funnily enough that Kakashi-sensei had made a comment about, he hummed lightly.
It was a short punch, meant to be viciously inflicted before following up with a much larger attack.
Why would Kakashi-sensei focus his attention on her only when there were other boys around! He used her to stoke competition between Naruto and… and Sasuke, and now he was teaching her only when Taketa could see? It was unfair.
She took a deep breath and tamped down on her anger. She refused to let her anger control her. She would think rationally. She would look underneath the underneath.
Kakashi didn't care about that mercenary boy. In fact, they had made fun of him together. Kakashi had taken to poking fun at him silently through hand signals whenever the boy had made too many comments in a row about her being a girl.
Suddenly it clicked; her sensei was showing this boy that he believed in her. Taketa wouldn't ever believe she was worth anything if he saw her practicing alone; it would just vindicate his belief that she wasn't worth being taught. Kakashi was giving her legitimacy.
She felt a surge of affection for her sensei then, that he would do such a thing for her. She imagined Taketa's face as she moved through that same short punch and imagined punching him so hard he flew into a tree.
Her hand moved into and through the position it was supposed to hit and her inner voice screamed HA! Take that, Taketa! You dummy!
She over extended as a result and stumbled, but suddenly it clicked. Move through a point, not just to it. She smiled as she figured it out, and moved through the motions once, twice, three more times to ensure she could do it without overextending. Then she walked back over to Kakashi and nodded. His lone eye was inscrutable, but he gave her a light nod back and she began.
Slow. Breathe. Move.
Whack, went the kick into her leg and she stayed firmly upright. Then move, reposition block, move and punch, right into Kakashi-sensei's hand.
"Good. Again."
Again and again and again she performed the movements, Kakashi-sensei adding small tidbits here and there. By the end of the night when he called for a watch, they were nearly sparring, his instructions involving a very hands on approach and his verbal tips a never ending supply of cryptic and weird.
It was effective, though, and she felt so much better than she had even hours before. Like she'd learned and grown so much from him in just a few short hours. She'd been so engrossed in learning all he had to teach her, she hadn't even noticed when Taketa had left.
~~Nakairi~~
The next day of traveling had an awkward air. It was clear that all the mercenaries and Yoshioka, the weedy man who was nominally in charge, were tense. Taketa kept fidgeting and glancing furtively between the older mercenaries, Kakashi, and her. She had no idea what was going on at all, and she couldn't just come out and ask Kakashi. She didn't have the hand signals necessary to ask such a complex question. If she had to either speak the question or ask for the hand signals nonverbally she'd just have to do more exercise at night before she was allowed to practice her kata or her hand seals.
She didn't care enough to risk eating into her practice time.
Eventually when they stopped for a break to let the horses rest off to the side of the road the awkward tension increased as they all stood around silently. Kakashi, predictably, decided that the best way to handle this was to escape. He signed to her a simple Perimeter-check-me then disappeared in a swirl of leaves.
It was strange to see such a common jutsu look ever so slightly different. The farther they had gotten into the Land of Rivers, the less and less common Hashirama trees had become. As a result, the leaves left floating behind in Kakashi's wake were ever so slightly different than she was used to seeing.
She was finding that to be the case consistently, actually. Whereas when she had gone to Wave, the change in scenery had been increasingly drastic the closer they had gotten to the coast, here it was all slightly off but close enough to be familiar. Where Wave had been more humid and the forests became thinner, the forests and air stayed almost identical from the Land of Fire to the Land of Rivers. There was only a faint burbling of rivers or creeks to mark the difference; almost everywhere they went in the background of the forests the sound of running water became more common. The trees were smaller than in the Land of Fire, but just as tightly packed.
The tension between their small traveling party shifted as soon as Kakashi left them. It went from a knife's edge to a pot boiling over. She could feel the wariness change to anticipation. She looked and cataloged the faces and expressions of everyone. Yoshioka looked like worried anticipation, while the older mercenaries were resigned and Taketa seemed to be trying to hold something back.
He wasn't able to hold back long.
"Shinobi-chan! I hate to surprise you like this, and I apologize for intruding on your privacy, but last night I snuck towards you and that old man to ensure the sanctity of your honor!"
Sakura didn't technically have permission to speak from Kakashi-sensei, and it would be just like that jerk to show up from his perimeter search just as she spoke out loud, only for the purpose of giving her extra exercises to do. She just stayed silent, tilting her head at Taketa.
She heard one of the mercenaries mutter "Fuck me, this again?" and saw Yoshioka's face turn stark white.
"I know it is improper to intrude upon your space, but I saw what that old lecher was doing! Forcing you to fight him, it is no thing for a beautiful young maiden to do."
Thankfully it was at that moment that her sensei reappeared and she frantically began signaling him with an urgent need to speak her mind.
She wasn't the only one who eagerly attempted to grab his attention. The men at arms all put their hands on their swords as he appeared and very visibly backed away from Taketa. Yoshioka began earnestly speaking so quickly his words tripped over each other.
"Shinobi-san, I apologize most profusely, the boy does not speak for our agency. I did not know he snuck upon you in the night! Please, you must believe me, I -." He was cut off as Kakashi waved him away.
"Maa, normally you'd be right to worry, Yoshioka-kun." Sakura paused in her consistent and urgent signaling to please let her talk already dammit at the clear and drastic change in dynamic.
This was not a shinobi speaking to his client. This felt much more like a dangerous man speaking for himself.
"I wouldn't have let him get so close if I was worried about leaking Village secrets though. We were only practicing the basics when he was near, and nothing I would wager he could replicate. He doesn't have the skill."
"You noticed me?!" the boy shouted, clearly shocked he had been discovered. Sakura could imagine him supposing she had missed him, but to think he was good enough to escape her sensei's notice? She laughed, out loud, at the premise.
"Why are you laughing, Shinobi-chan?" Taketa inquired and Sakura let out a sigh of relief as she saw Kakashi-sensei surreptitiously signal to her permission-granted-engage.
"Of course my sensei noticed you, dummy," she said, warily watching everyone's expression as she insulted the boy. It was a risk, but she thought it might be appropriate. There was something in the air that made her think she was allowed to be a bit unprofessional here. She was being insulted, she knew that, but everyone seemed to be taking it much more seriously than she was; she was used to being considered the weak one. The one left behind.
But this felt much different than that, for some reason, and she couldn't figure out why.
"Even I noticed you! You weren't exactly quiet, running around like that."
"Impossible! There's no way you could have noticed me, I was very careful. I know you must think you are very powerful or skilled, going around playing shinobi with this old man, but I promise you the real world is a scary place. I have seen much blood and violence and if you continue in this farce, you will too! Such things are not meant for a woman's delicate sensibilities."
He seemed to come to some sort of resolve. "It seems that the duty falls on me to teach this to you. If you won't believe my words, perhaps you will believe my fists, in the language which you think you speak. Fight me, Shinobi-chan! And when I win, you must promise to quit being a ninja and go on a date with me!"
Sakura's mouth dropped in shock. Yes, professionalism had well and truly flown at the window at this point. She looked at Kakashi and he just shrugged as if to say "up to you."
Why was this her life?
She rubbed her head and wondered if she'd ever be free of pigheaded boys. She guessed she probably wouldn't be, but she could still hope.
"Fine," she muttered lowly. "Fine, I'll fight you."
She shucked off her pack and wandered over to Kakashi, muttering "This is so dumb, sensei," as she handed it to him to hold.
"Maa, just think of it as extra training?" She glared at him and he just smiled.
She walked back over to Taketa and saw him taking off his armor and unstrapping his sword. She watched as he made himself more and more vulnerable in the face of their impending spar.
The boy put his hands up in a decent approximation of a fighting stance and said, "Don't worry, Shinobi-chan. I will go easy on you."
"Ah, Shinobi-san," one of the mercenaries said as they were squaring up. She bet they were going to try and set up a bet to gamble on which of them would win with Kakashi. However, after a moment when Kakashi-sensei didn't respond, she looked up to see the man staring at her.
Shinobi-san, he had called her? Her?
"Er, yes?"
"He's my sister's kid. That's why he's coming along with us; I'm teaching him the ropes as a favor to her. He doesn't know what he's talking about, and we couldn't talk him out of it. Please don't kill him?"
She was bewildered he would ask such a thing; did she really think he would kill some kid in a spar? It wasn't like he was the enemy or something! Taketa began ranting about how they had no faith in him and to be more supportive, but Sakura paid it no mind.
She realized she had paused too long when the man began sweating and looking nervous, so she just smiled. "Of course," she said, trying to smile encouragingly. "He offered to spar; it would be very rude to use lethal force in a spar."
The man's shoulders drooped as though a weight had been lifted off him and he smiled wanly back at her. Taketa just scoffed.
"As if, Uncle. Even if she uses her dishonorable ninja tricks, she won't be able to escape the truth against me! It is not a woman's place to fight and it's time she learned that."
Sakura was getting real sick and tired of hearing him say such nonsense and got ready for a fight. Until this point, she'd just wanted to prove to the guy that she really could fight but the longer he talked, the more she wanted to pummel him into the ground.
She leaned back into a stance, much more refined than his, and waited for him to begin. She didn't have to wait long.
He charged and in his run she saw the hints of training. His steps were even and quick and as he pulled back for a punch, she saw his fist had some of the proper form to not shatter his hand or his thumb.
Even still, from her perspective the punch was wide and sloppy. She had no problem slipping into his guard and grasping his flying fist. Her other hand went to his shoulder and a quick pivot and twist brought Taketa straight to the ground.
She held his arm up by the wrist and moved a foot to the shoulder to keep him trapped. Her other, newly freed hand dipped into her pouch, a quick in and out to pull a kunai and place it against his throat. She took a tiny amount of glee, perhaps more than was necessary, in pushing it into his throat just hard enough for him to feel the bite of metal.
"Yield," she commanded.
His eyes burned as he stared up at her and she couldn't tell if it was embarrassment or anger she saw in his face.
"You would use a weapon in a fair fight!?" he shouted, and she rolled her eyes.
"I'm not the one who told you to take your sword off. You're the one who decided to 'go easy on me;' so why should I give up an advantage for your stupidity?"
"I see those shinobi have already taught you to fight without honor! Fine, if you insist on weapons, then we shall spar with weapons! But if you are harmed, don't hold it against me." His voice was low and dark, as though this was some proclamation she should be scared of.
She really doubted that this boy would ever measure up to the fear of Orochimaru in the Forest of Death.
She released him and they both walked back to their starting positions. He brought his sword to the fore and settled into a stance. She couldn't help but compare it to Zabuza from Wave. The sword was so much smaller, and the stance so much less confident. She hadn't fought Zabuza herself, but even having been there it made Taketa seem so much less in comparison. Like a child playing in his father's clothes, clearly too big for him.
He charged her again, sword ready for a strike. Perhaps he expected his strength to overwhelm her, but she merely brought up her kunai in place to deflect the blade off to the side. It only took a few strikes, repetitive and consistent, for her to notice a weak spot to take advantage of. She deflected the blade once more as normal, but the next time he swung she ducked. She sent an elbow into his gut rather than a kunai, and as he lost the wind from his sails and his stance weakened, she swept her leg out and took him to the ground. Once more she pounced, knife at his neck, and commanded again: "Yield."
He glared at her with fire in his eyes and knocked her knife away from his throat before scrambling up to his feet again. He let out a primal scream, pure anger and rage as he charged her again with his sword. She didn't even need to try. His anger made him sloppy as he charged, and she just sidestepped him and let her fist do the talking.
She remembered working with Kakashi the night before on her punches. This move was similar enough that she followed that same pattern, let the burgeoning muscle memory take over as she punched through him rather than at him.
She connected with his jaw and watched as he went sprawling to the ground.
"Fuck!" He yelled in pain and Sakura couldn't help the glee in her eyes, though she tried not to show it.
She had never been in a physical fight like this where she was clearly the opponent with an advantage in terms of training and strength. She'd always had to rely on her wits or her tenacity in terrible, horrible situations. Or worse, rely on her teammates to save her.
It wasn't much considering Taketa was just a civilian, but still – it wasn't something she'd have been able to do even just a year ago. She had grown, definitively, and that bolstered her spirits.
She was turning to Kakashi-sensei to see if she had met his approval but her eyes were drawn to his fingers, signaling mission-goal-protect. She had only a second to take in the tense posture of his body and the stern look in his eye before she grasped Taketa and flew to the top of the carriage.
At the same time she did so, a pulse of water came flying out through the trees, fast and dangerous as it splashed right at the position she and Taketa had been in only moments before. The earth was torn and gouged out where the water hit the ground, and four ninja appeared shortly after.
"Hand over the cargo and we might let you live."
They all had headbands on with clear indications that they belonged to Takigakure, the Village Hidden in Waterfalls.
"Maa, that's not very nice. We really don't have to fight."
"See!" Taketa hissed from right next to her, trying to gain the attention of Yoshioka. "I told Tanaka-buchou you should have hired ninja from Tanigakure. They sent four ninja against us and Konoha only gave us one! We're doomed!"
"Our orders are to retrieve the cargo and dispose of any witnesses. We can make it painless for you, leaf dog, and we might let your clients live. It's more than you deserve. And it's not like you'd be able to spare the backup to come after us anyways."
They laughed as they taunted Kakashi and Sakura's attention was drawn back to them again for a brief moment before Taketa's whining once more became all she could think of. Why wasn't she focusing on those shinobi? They should be her primary focus, not Taketa's whining; they're enemy nin! She tried her best to focus on them, to look at their faces and commit them to memory, to focus on their body movements but it was hard. The closer she looked, the louder a rushing in her ears got and the blurrier they became.
The only clear part of them was their headband, and even that she couldn't focus on for long.
"Konoha knows well enough who is after this cargo. If we had needed more than just myself, they would have sent more. But we don't." Kakashi sighed as he said this and began to pull up his headband out of the way.
Sakura, through her intense focus, felt like this bizarre inability to focus was almost worse than when she'd been almost forcefully put to sleep in the final stage of the Chunin exam.
She brought her hands into the Tiger seal to focus her chakra for a forceful disruption and muttered "Kai!"
Just as their faces and bodies came into plain view for her, many things happened at once.
One of the men, the leader based on their positioning and the fact that he'd been the one to speak, shouted in fear "Kakashi of the Sharingan?!" The other three ninja all shouted in response some form of "The Copy Ninja?!"
Finally, Kakashi-sensei disappeared. He quickly reappeared behind one of the three ninja and slid a kunai straight into his neck before the man even had a chance to react.
That started the fight in earnest.
It was slower than she was used to seeing, Kakashi keeping his moves flashier than normal; she had seen him in the invasion. He had been methodical, precise, deadly. This was more like when he had fought Zabuza, when he knew he was up against a dangerous opponent while he had valuable cargo and needed to keep the attention on himself to save his students.
How much of this was him trying to keep the attention away from her, and how much was just trying to show off for the client?
Sakura kept one eye on the fight as she glanced at the mercenaries and Yoshioka. She saw them watching in rapt attention as Kakashi met the enemy ninja blow for blow, jutsu for jutsu. He copied and countered every single thing they did, taking on three at once easily.
Until, for just a moment, his eyes strayed to her.
In that moment, when he moved his eyes from his enemy to her for just a split second to ensure she was still safe, a kunai snuck through his guard. It was followed by a sword and a series of water shuriken which all impaled him as he fell back to the ground, limp and littered with holes.
The three enemy ninja were all out of breath, covered in cuts and bruises and each near the edge of their limits. Up until his mistake, Kakashi-sensei had looked barely winded.
Sakura steeled her resolve and moved before the ninja had a moment to recover themselves. She grasped her specially prepared kunai, the ones she hoped she wouldn't need to use on this trip, and began throwing them with as much force and accuracy as she could.
Her Sakura Blizzard Jutsu was enough for a D Ranked Shinobi like her, or maybe a slightly better one that would just be classified as C Ranked. Maybe a confused B Ranked shinobi might get caught out if they were hurt enough. That was what she was banking on.
The shinobi all heard the kunai coming and deflected them easily enough. As they each deflected them, the small prepared packs on the back of each kunai, held by the most precarious of knots, each came undone and spewed leaves out and around the enemy.
One of them laughed and jeered at her, "What else should we expect from a baby leaf but a simple distraction of leaves in the air. We can still see you, runt." He glared at her and watched, smug smile in place, as she threw her last kunai.
The one with an explosive tag on it.
It ignited, and in doing so the explosion ricocheted out and cascaded larger and larger as it caught each of the smaller explosive tags, able to be created small enough to hide within the large Hashiama tree leaves due to their lack of a timed ignition trigger. They would only respond to a surge of her chakra; luckily, the explosion from the larger tag which did have that timed trigger was filled with the chakra that she injected the tag with when she made it and when she set it off. Just enough to explode the rest of the tiny tags.
As she caught all three ninja in her oversized explosion, she primed her legs to jump into the fray, ready to hold them off from the cargo until her sensei arrived.
Because he wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead. She refused to accept it and had in fact seen him perform similar tricks during other important fights. Her confidence in his survival sang through her heart and through her bones like the ringing of a bell singing truth, truth, truth, alive, alive, alive.
Before she leapt from her position though, she paused at a telltale familiar sound cutting through louder even than her explosion. It brought a smile to her face – the sound of a hundred, no, a thousand chirping birds in discordant harmony.
A bright flash appeared just as the explosion dissipated and there Kakashi-sensei stood, hand still sparking and impaled fully through the lead enemy ninja's chest.
She heard him mutter, eye dark, "Stay away from my student."
She let out a relieved laugh and called out to him "About time, Kakashi-sensei! Stop playing around!"
It was weird to talk so casually to her teacher who had his hand impaled through someone's chest, but she couldn't help it. She was relieved to be proven right as she stared at the crumbling form of earth that had been used for Kakashi's Earth Clone, still imbedded with kunai and slightly soggy from the water shuriken.
"Maa, my student is so impatient," he bemoaned. Sakura let out a lightly manic giggle, the adrenaline of the situation beginning to get to her. She glanced down as Kakashi finished up the remaining two ninja, each far less powerful then the two he'd already dispatched. Taketa was staring at her, wide eyed and incredulous.
She just rolled her eyes and picked him up, tossing him over her shoulder before she landed nimbly next to the carriage and dumped him on the ground.
Yoshioka stood up slowly, and the men at arms all kept their swords up and at the ready, surrounding him in case of danger.
"You," he began, staring at Kakashi-sensei. He had to swallow once, heavily, before he was able to continue. "Those foreign ninja recognized you."
Kakashi's hitai-ate was still up and his Sharingan eye spun menacingly as he stared at the client. "They did," he said.
"How did they know you, Shinobi-san?"
Kakashi moved to shrug and said "Any number of ways, I suppose. Perhaps I killed someone they knew?"
He said it so casually, and it was probably true, but Sakura saw the twitch of his fingers into the hand sign for assist and quickly picked up the thread.
"Sensei is being modest, Client-san," she interjected. The whole of their attention turned to her. It was both strange and gratifying to see how they regarded her with almost as much caution as they regarded her sensei. "He's one of Konoha's strongest ninja, without a doubt."
"Is this true, Shinobi-san?" Yoshioka-san asked Kakashi-sensei.
"Maa, some people have said so."
"Then why would you be assigned to our mission? Excuse me for saying so, but even if this is a very valuable and very expensive mission to us, I would have assumed with the current climate a shinobi as acclaimed and notable enough to be recognized on sight by their enemies would be used on more important matters."
"Who can know what goes through the mind of our Hokage, ne?"
"What my sensei means is that Konoha values our longstanding clients very much, Client-san. When you came to use with a need for increased security, our Hokage took your concerns seriously." She almost left it at that, then remembered Kakashi's story about being personally requested for the mission. "She checked in with your normal mission leaders to see what they thought, knowing that they couldn't attend, and they unreservedly recommended that you deserve the best we had. It is of no consequence to us to give such esteemed clients our utmost attention and concern. We value our long standing relationship."
As she spoke, her upbringing reared its head and she had the desire to bow. To show her respect for the client and to show the sincerity of her words. She stood, instead, feeling as rude as could be as she stared at a man much older than her and spoke to him like an equal, showing him only the barest of respect.
The only thing keeping her from bowing and caving into the pressure of her upbringing was her pride as a shinobi. She remembered what Iruka had said as they had graduated, telling them how proud he was of them.
"A Shinobi bows to one person, and one person only. No one else, no man, woman, or god can command their obedience or respect, their loyalty or their lives. Only their Kage."
So she stood, spine straight and filled with steel, a smile plastered on her face and hands clasped behind her back as she spoke to the client and her sensei scratched the back of his head.
"Maa, I couldn't have said it better myself. They probably only sent one group out; I haven't seen signs of any other trails leading towards us. Just to be safe, though, you all should stay here while we check." He then went a few steps away, into and beyond the tree line out of sight. Sakura followed and saw the tail end of him performing a few quick hand seals before he knelt down to the ground, slamming his hand there.
Pakkun appeared and Sakura went over to greet the little pug.
"Yo," he grunted at her.
"Hi, Pakkun-sensei," she whispered and gave him a wave.
Kakashi-sensei quirked an eyebrow at her and asked "Sensei?"
"She always was your smartest," Pakkun said and she nodded along with him.
Kakashi shook his head and snorted. "I guess you're right about that. Can you head out and check if there are any other teams headed our way, based on their scent?"
"Sure boss, no problem. Can I use a few of the others?"
Kakashi nodded and performed the Summoning Jutsu again. A few more dogs appeared and Pakkun barked at them. They all ran off, Pakkun following behind them. He paused and looked back. "What are you doing with the bodies, boss?"
"Maa, I think it's a good opportunity for Sakura-chan to learn about the realities of being in the field."
"Running her rough, eh? Good luck, Floral Green."
Sakura just nodded grimly. She wasn't sure she liked the sound of that.