Summary: Team Seven was formed long before graduation. They met as children and rigged it so they'd be put together.
Warnings: Manipulation in abundance, but they're ninjas. Graphic description of injury based on a real injury (Shaun Livingston), another brief reference to suicide that isn't followed through (so you shouldn't either), a Sakura with civilian parents because this is AU and it worked better for the plot. A cause could be argued for negligence or abuse on the sensei's part, or you could wave it aside as canocial hate pointed at a young Naruto who doesn't know better, and canon levels of angst for both Naruto and Sasuke.
Genre: Friendship
Rating: T (playing it safe with the injury)
Sakura was still seeing lights when the orange glow of the seal faded.
She shut her eyes against the searing bright white lighting, cringing ineffectively away. Was this how her patients felt? No wonder shinobi were literally jumping out the windows to escape.
"None of that now. I saw those eyes open. Let's keep 'em that way." Reluctantly, Sakura did so, eyeing the woman speaking. Konoha's standard issued nurse outfit was a welcome sight. "You took a nice wallop to the head. I'm just going to check your skull and ask a coupla questions."
Sakura sucked in a quick breath, overcome by panic. She had what—she couldn't calculate the slim chance she had of answering correctly. She didn't have this world's memories yet. One wrong answer and she'd be whisked away to Ibiki's dungeon.
It wasn't paranoia if you lived in a ninja village.
Fingers gently prodded at the back of her skull. Pain flared when they trailed across the underside of the occipital bone. The pinkette didn't pull away, earning praised delivered as if the nurse was speaking to a baby.
Her lips thinned at the unprofessional conduct. It was an unfortunate habit of many of the nurse staff to assume that baby-talk speech pattern when dealing with possible head injuries. Even if they couldn't understand the words, babies could pick up on the tone of voice; comfort, calming, and soft authority all rolled into one. Sakura didn't immediately equate a head injury with the need to coddle, and that tone was outright insulting to use on a ninja.
"Slight swelling. Should go down in a day or two. You should stay in bed. No sudden movements. If you experience several headaches or if it doesn't go away, come back and see me, alright?"
Sakura nodded, perfunctory. She had no intention of returning to this woman's tender mercies.
"Now, just a few questions to check that everything's working okay in there. After that, I'll let your brother in to see you."
She would willingly admit that she had stopped paying attention to the nurse. As soon as the woman was out of the room, she was gone. She was going to fake amnesia. Conveniently, she always had a ready-made excuse for poor memory when she dropped into a new world.
Distracted, her shock was genuine.
"Brother?"
The nurse's overly cheerful smile fell. "Do you not remember him? I didn't think the swelling was that extensive. You wait right here, sweetheart, while I fetch a doctor."
She had a brother in this world.
A brother. She wasn't an only child.
Sakura was content being an only child. Growing up, it meant her parents lavished her with attention. She liked not having to compete for praise and affection. After seeing Kiba and Hinata's dysfunctional family bonds, the rosette considered her lack of siblings a blessing. She would come to understand that not all brothers and sisters were so antagonistic, and Naruto would literally beat decency into Neji, but the age of eight, a sibling was more trouble than it was worth.
How was she supposed to convince a brother that she wasn't behaving abnormally when she didn't know him? Was he older or younger? She hoped for the latter. He wouldn't question much and any changes he did notice could be vaguely explained away.
What was his name? How long could she get away with not using it?
The door edged open with a click. A small boy with a head of the fluffiest pink hair—even compared to her own—squeezed in the narrow space.
Sakura drank in the sight of her brother. He was young, four or five she guessed. He suffered from the same too wide forehead and slightly lower set eyes. Eyes just a shade lighter lit up when the fell on her.
"Nee-chan!" He scrambled up the bed.
She had to drag him up, tiny fists digging into the back of his shirt, because he wasn't tall enough to reach the bed. He wore a simple white shirt with a red circle on the front and black shorts. His hair—pink like hers, was he mocked for it? She would destroy anyone who made fun of his hair color—was a thousand wayward strands. It looked so soft and fluffy, and try though he might, did nothing to hide his eyes.
They weren't quite the same shade of green as hers, but she remembered hers used to be brighter as a child. Eventually, the harlequin green would cool to an emerald or jade color.
"Nii-san," she scolded, "you oughta be more careful."
"Never mind me. Wha'dya doctor say? When are ya getting outta here?"
"I don't know."
Her brother pouted. "But you're awake now. Dey can't keep you here fev'er." He tugged on her hands, saying something about how she should come with him. But all Sakura could think about was how their hands were the same size.
The hands of a child.
There was a building pressure in her chest.
She continued to stare down at her tiny hands, thoughts far away from the hospital room and her still babbling brother.
In the back of her mind, the knowledge that she was regressing in age with each world jump went unacknowledged. She didn't have enough information to pick out patterns and would worry herself to distraction trying. Better to focus on this world. She had moved on, for a lack of a more appropriate term, when Sasuke had found closure. Perhaps the key laid not in dying-thank the Sage-but in fulfilling some kind of purpose.
If her hypothesis was true, the faster she could figure out what she needed to do the sooner she could get back to her world.
Team Seven. It always came back to her team.
Four or five. Who would need her the most at this age?
Not Sasuke. His clan was still alive at this point in time. Her broody teammate should be enjoying a normal childhood. That left Naruto and Kakashi. She was honestly uncertain what her sensei was up to at this age. Her team was the seventh team the Academy had tried to foist on the jounin. So he would likely receive his first team this year, but Sakura couldn't fathom what use a five-year-old girl would be to him.
That left Naruto.
Of course it was Naruto. The Jinchuuriki had the worst childhood of them all, incontestably.
Somewhere out there, was a lonely boy without a friend. Hated by a village for reasons he wouldn't understand, but taking their scorn and shouts and murderous glares to heart and believing himself to be a monster.
Naruto only had a distant Hokage, preoccupied with the running and rebuilding of the village, to look after him.
The Ichirakus, if he had even met them yet, weren't enough to fill that void. Iruka-sensei, Team Seven, the rest of his precious people. It would be years until he won their acceptance.
Her blood boiled at the reminder. Naruto would have to fight and bleed to get the village to acknowledge him. Fall and stand back up time after time for a nation that thought him to be the Kyuubi in human form.
It wasn't fair that the sunny blond would be treated like a monster for fifteen years, suffering in silence, pretending the isolation didn't affect him. It shouldn't take literally reviving three-quarters of the village to be treated like a human being.
Her hands didn't look or feel like her hands. Soft, uncallused, lacking the practically invisible scars from when she was learning how to handle a scalpel.
She needed to leave. Had to find him.
Sakura deftly removed the wires measuring her vitals, brushing aside her brother's panic. She wasn't a critical case, but the sudden lack of data from her room would set off a warning at the nurse's station. Someone would be by check shortly.
She flexed her chakra experimentally, wanting to gauge how much she currently had access to. It turned out to be very little. Not unsurprising. She hadn't yet started at the academy and thus wouldn't have begun manipulating her chakra. Sakura had always had small chakra reserves, but exceptional control because of that. It would be enough to walk down a wall.
The only issue with her plan was her brother.
"We have to go. Do you trust me, nii-san?"
His eyes shone with conviction.
"Always."
Sakura took a minute to comment the moment to memory. Her brother's response was automatic but genuine.
She dropped to one knee and directed for him to climb on her back. Thin arms curled over her shoulders. He latched his right hand over the opposite wrist and murmured a quiet, "ready," in her ear. She drew on her chakra, months of practice and refinement allowing her to maximize her energy, guiding it to support the muscles in her back, arms, and thighs.
Her brother squealed happily at the smooth transition from kneeling to standing and, without stopping to think about it, Sakura's enhanced muscles pushed against the floor and the duo was out the window.
A second of free fall stretched an eternity.
Sakura breathed a sigh of relief when she dashed down the hospital's wall like she had been doing it all her life.
Her brother was all adrenaline and uncontainable energy when she finally stooped to let him down, a block away from the park she knew Naruto frequented as a child. "That was so cool! How didya do dat? Can you teach me? I wanna walk on walls!"
Drawn in by his infectious enthusiasm, Sakura explained in simple terms how chakra worked and how to manipulate it to defy gravity. Her brother was raring to go long before she finished her lecture. Her instructions to start by trying to hold a leaf to his forehead was met with an outrageous pout.
Sakura blinked, startled to see that expression directed at her. If that was what she had looked like when she didn't get her way, it was no wonder her parents hadn't denied her anything.
The dimension-traveler kept an eye on her brother as he set to his task. Already she could tell that he had more chakra than her, so she was safe to scan for a head of sunny blond with little worries.
Naruto wasn't one for talking about his childhood. Understandable, given how bleak it was. Hard to join in the laughter and games when parents glared at him and called him a monster while dragging their kids away. He graduated from lonely visits to the park to pranks once he started at the Academy, abandoning building connections with people his age.
If unearned scorn was all he would receive then he would give them a reason to look his way with those hate-filled eyes.
She hoped that he still frequented the playground. Naruto had failed the graduation exam three times, the last being with his own age group. Typically, enrollment started at seven or eight. But for him to have failed three times by the age of twelve, Sakura concluded he must have started early. The classroom provided him more socialization than sitting alone on a swing, mournfully wishing for someone to push him. If it were her, Sakura would have ceased trips to the park.
But, Naruto was predictable in that he was unpredictable. The last thing he should be doing was further cementing the idea that he was unwanted by putting himself in situations where he knew he was unwelcome.
If Naruto's character was to be trusted, she would find the boy hovering on the fringe of the playground.
And there was nothing she trusted more than him.
Her brother growled, eyes tracking the leaf that corkscrewed to the ground.
"Dis is too hard," he complained. He pouted exaggeratedly, and Sakura had to remind herself that he was only a child.
Oh stars, all of her friends were children again. Spoiled, egotistical, locked-in-their-own-drama children who hadn't experienced war. How was she supposed to relate to them when she no longer had a young child's innocence?
She sent a quick mental prayer that her time in this world was short. She hadn't spent long in the previous two worlds, months when averaged she hazarded since the exact time she spent in the mad Uchiha's clutches was unknown, but it would be just her luck that this was scenario in which she would have to spend years. And she absolutely did not fancy the idea of living through puberty again.
Focus, she chided herself. There would be time later to bemoan possibilities. The sun was beginning to set behind the trees, signaling the need to return home.
Sakura remembered what she was like as a child. Replicating the behavior would be troublesome, but not impossible. Wearing a mask for three-quarters of the day would be draining. She would have to invent excuses to escape the house often in order to preserve her sanity.
Maybe it she thought of it as a low risk infiltration mission? She couldn't act worth a damn, and was well aware of that fact, but lying was easier than plucking a kunai out of the air.
A liar was a fantastic actor and an actor was a fantastic liar. In Sakura's mind, the two skills weren't as closely tied together. As a ninja, she should be exceptional at both. Lying was easy, made even simpler when she could spin half-truths and take things out of context and allow targets to draw incorrect or intentionally misguided conclusions. With her unique experiences, she could technically lie while telling the truth or have the truth be a lie. Acting, however, she was terrible at. Ironically, she was too honest with her emotions to pretend something she was not.
She had even gone as far to write an essay on it once, when Ino had criticized her acting ability, in which she clearly outlined the dictionary definitions of acting and lying. And nowhere in the former's entry did it have an addendum that said "see lie."
So, lying and acting weren't mutually exclusive. It was much easier for her to lie than pretend.
And, yes, Sakura recognized how sad that was. She blamed Kakashi. If he wasn't such a notorious liar she wouldn't have had proof of how phenomenally easy lying was nor how well she could twist it to her purpose.
The pinkette stood, resolving herself to her task. She only had to pretend to be herself. A five-year-old kid wasn't a complicated story. She had a wealth of memories to draw upon. How hard could it be?
"Come, nii-san. It's getting late. We should be heading home." Tomorrow, she would return to watch for Naruto. Her brother blinked, concentration broken.
"Nii-san?" There was a cloud of smoke and boisterous laughter. When the screen of smoke vanished it was Naruto sat before her, hands wrapped around ankles as he sat cross-legged, wearing a sheepish smile and three whisker-like marks across each cheek. "Forgot I disguised myself."
Sakura felt a million things. Devastation was the first. She was just starting to come around to the idea of being a big sister and Naruto had violently ripped the rug out from under her feet. It was quickly overtaken by rage. A little at the blond for tricking her, but mainly at herself for not realizing the lie sooner. There was an undertone of pride. He had managed a complete transformation with her none the wiser.
She would applaud his ability to act like a child if he wasn't already one. As it was, she was going to use some of his mannerisms as a reference to make herself seem more child-like to her parents.
The deception wouldn't have succeeded if the real Sakura-when had she started thinking of herself as not real-had been in control. Unless she truly did have a brother. Only Naruto would be lucky enough to impersonate a brother she wasn't aware she had, have it work in his favor because she was a dimension-hopping traveler who didn't know whether or not she had a sibling, and have it turn out to be true.
The multitude of responses she could make flitted through her head. Naturally, she settled on revenge.
On a similar scale, of course. She was a ninja. Mind fucking with peers was a time honored tradition amongst Team Seven.
Large green eyes shimmered with tears. Her voice wobbled as she spoke. "So I don't have a little brother?"
"Please don't cry," begged Naruto. "Jiji will have my hide if I tell him I made a girl cry. Wanna hug? Hugs are suppos'a make it better."
He tried to give her a hug, but at the same time acted like his touch would shatter her. Sakura threw herself into his arms and sniffled into his shirt, not feeling at all disgusted or ashamed of her display of gross hygiene. A little bit of snot was nothing she wasn't used to. Besides, she was truly doing Naruto a favor in teaching him how to handle an inconsolable woman. He ought to be thanking her.
The boy visible floundered when his attempt to stem her tears made her cry more. "What do I hafta do to make it better? I'll do anything."
Tucked into the crook of his shoulder, Sakura's grin went unnoticed. "Anything?"
"Yeah, anything. I promise."
Like a flipped switch, her personality did a complete one-eighty. The tears dried up instantaneously and were replaced with a wide toothed smile. With the right motivation, it turned out, Sakura was capable of acting. Maybe, just maybe, Sasuke was onto something with his revenge as a motivation for power ideology. Not that she was ever going to admit that.
"You have to teach me how you did that."
Naruto gaped at her. "You really want me to teach you sumting?"
Sakura nodded. She knew the transformation jutsu, but it would give Naruto a sense of accomplishment to show off his ability and ''teach' her. She would then turn around and offer to teach him tree walking. He would leap at the chance, forever shining eyed at cool new ninja techniques, and insist he had to pay her back. From there, friendship would come naturally.
Because it was natural to use her knowledge to manipulate people to her advantage. With ease, Sakura ignored her sarcastic inner thoughts.
She was doing this for him. Naruto, more than anyone, deserved a friend.
"Meet me here tomorrow."
His grin shined too much like Gai's for comfort. "Right! Tomorrow. I'll be here. I promise."
It wouldn't be until later that Sakura, tucked into her pink bedspread like she hadn't been since, well since she was last this young age, would let out a bark of laughter.
Naruto's transformation hadn't broken when he climbed on her back. His wasn't an illusion. It was real.
Sakura decided she never wanted to stopped being surprised by what Konoha's number one unpredictable ninja was capable of.
Naruto clung to the connection he and developed with her. Every couple of days the two children would meet at the playground. From there, Sakura would lead them somewhere they could practice chakra exercises with scrutiny only from the blond's ANBU shadows.
Sakura was of two minds on their secret observers. She understood why the Sandaime would keep a close eye on anyone who suddenly entrenched themselves into a Jinchuuriki's life. Her young age actually factored against her. The Third Great Shinobi War wasn't even a decade gone. She would certainly be wary of a young child coming out of nowhere to befriend the village pariah. Child soldiers were fast tracked during the war so Konoha had the numbers, and the most effect sleeper agents were children-a generation that would grow and train only to be activated ten years later to strike a devastating blow from within.
Was there a better way to convince a downtrodden Jinchuuriki to jump ship? She thought not.
So she didn't begrudge the old man his suspicions as much as she disliked the constant need to be on her guard.
It led to Sakura carefully cultivating an image of a prodigy.
She'd bring the texts and scrolls she had supposedly learned from, patiently explaining the theory before demonstrating. She had feared, the first time when she explained how he could use his chakra to climb a tree without hands, that he might get jealous or frustrated that Sakura seemingly picked up these abilities with ease. That had been the foundation of his rivalry/friendship with Sasuke.
Probably out of a desire to not push away his only friend, Naruto responded with a fierce determination to master everything she showed him.
Sakura hated that he thought she would abandon him if the blond didn't prove his worth.
She exhaled. Their friendship was still new. Given time, she would prove her commitment to stand by his side and never leave.
What happened to these other Sakuras when she left? The first one had died, she technically killed a version of herself, and the second one was already dead when she arrived. Would this world's Sakura wake up one day to a life she wouldn't recognize because she had run around playing with it as she pleased? Would she get the memories of Sakura's decisions?
Sakura hoped so. It would be unimaginably painful for Naruto's first friend to suddenly abandon him because she remembered she was supposed to think the boy was the Kyuubi in human form.
Naruto ran full pelt into the training ground. Hardly breathing heavy, he stopped before her, practically vibrating with energy. She was envious of his stamina. "Jiji wants to meet you. I was dem'statin'—"
"Demonstrating."
"Yeah, that, how to walk on walls. Jiji was so su'prised his pipe fell out of his mouth! He asked me where I learnded," he was talking so fast she couldn't correct his pronunciation this time, "it, so I told him about you and he wants me to bring you so he can meet you."
Sakura squared her shoulders. She was ready for this.
LINE
She was not ready for the full force of the Third Hokage's weighty gaze.
It was impossible for him to suspect the truth. If she wasn't living it, Sakura imagined she'd only hear this brand of crazy from Kakashi's mouth. Meaning that she wouldn't believe it because Kakashi lied like there was a trophy on the line.
He peered down his nose at her. Had she mentioned she hated being pint sized again? His face was lined. A combination of old age and grief and stress. Hiruzen was shorter than the average ninja, but his lack of height was misleading.
Growing up in peaceful times in Konoha, Sakura and her generation of ninja had dismissed the Third Hokage. He didn't look super powerful sitting behind a desk all day. His titles as "The Professor" and "God of Shinobi" only held meaning during history lessons.
Now she knew the kindly grandfather demeanor hid nearly unraveled strength.
"You must be Sakura-chan. Naruto has spoken of little these last five weeks." Sakura mentally wilted at the Hokage's subtle displeasure. She still craved her superiors' recognition. "If I didn't pay for ramen, I'd never see him."
"That's not true, Jiji! I'm in here all the time. I pracally live here 'cuz you never leave it." At that, the blond boy glowered ferociously, clearly thinking his grandfather figure spent too much time in his office.
"Practically," she corrected, bring Hiruzen Sarutobi's attention back to her.
"You are well-read, child." Too well, the glint in his eyes said. Sakura stamped down on the rage that made her heart race. If she had been born to a ninja clan she would have been hailed as a prodigy, but, because of her civilian nature, having an aptitude for the shinobi arts clearly meant she was an infiltrator.
"I don't have many friends, Hokage-sama." She cast green eyes to the side to smile shyly at Naruto. "I spend a lot of time in the library."
The wizened man laced his fingers. "The section containing shinobi skills is off-limits to those without a hitai-ate or currently enrolled in the academy."
He did not voice his question of how she, possessing neither, gained admittance.
The entrance to the shinobi archives was watched over by the chuunin librarian. Most people the archives would be so well protected that a mouse wouldn't be able to sneak in. Fuinjutsu wards and barriers heavily layered. But such a system was entirely too complex. Any significant method of keeping unwanted eyes out would also limit their own village's access. Ultimately, it was more efficient to have a rotating roster of chuunin to unobtrusively guard the door and take note of who passed through.
Of course, that only work if the chuunin was competent. Most of the ninja that took the post did so because it was a month of safe, quiet work. A good position for recovering ninja that refused to stay abed.
Sakura gained access by subtle manipulation of genjutsu, but she wasn't about to tell the Hokage that she was tricking their own forces.
She purposefully glanced at Naruto, toying with her bottom lip, as if asking for permission. "I used Naruto's special Henge."
The boy had been delighted when Sakura explained the difference between the Academy Henge, which was only an illusion, and his version, which was an actual physical transformation, and how he could be the best stealth and subterfuge specialist if he'd stop wearing that hideous orange jumpsuit.
Never again. He had lectured her for an hour straight about the awesomeness of orange.
"I take it you're interested in becoming a kunoichi, Sakura-chan?" He received a firm nod. "Would you mind sharing the appeal? Tell me why you wish to become a ninja. I'm always interested as to what motivates those not born into the way of life to try it out."
Sakura frowned at the passive-aggressive claim that she wasn't cut out for the shinobi lifestyle. Drawing upon the memories of this world, she tried to come up with a reason that would satisfy the old man. She couldn't put a twist on her original reason, because her only friend wasn't from a prominent ninja clan this go around, nor was she willing to say she liked a boy that wanted to be a shinobi. Even though it would help to cement her as a normal child, and thus inconsequential in Sarutobi's eyes, she wasn't going down that path again. She had worked for the self-respect she now had. The blood, sweat, and tears. Weary eyes and headaches from reading scrolls written in too tiny font. Finally crashing from exhausting late at night only to get up at the crack of dawn again and again and again.
In the end, she went with a reason sparked by the experiences of this world's Sakura with ninja.
"Because shinobi are protectors and I want to protect people just like that police officer defending my family."
She had wound up in the hospital because of a break-in at her home. It had just been Sakura and her mother, neither a match for the man who had forced his way in. Luckily, the incident had been seen by a patrolling Uchiha and the woman had quickly apprehended the drunkard, but only after he had knocked Sakura into a wall hard enough to land her in the hospital.
Even after more than a month, she struggled to not react at the sea of black-haired and black-eyed ninjas running around the village.
It had been a punch in the gut. A reminder of a time when Sasuke wasn't Konoha's last loyal Uchiha before the wildly intricate plot was revealed.
The worst part was the indecision.
Every world was a blank slate, in a sense. A choice would be made once and then again but not be the same. Like standing on a road diverged, she might have chosen to take the left path while the Sakura of the world she inhabited went right. There was no guarantee that Itachi would go on to slaughter all but his younger brother. Perhaps Obito and Danzou would set their sights on a different pawn. The massacre may not occur altogether.
Simply, it was impossible to predict, and because of that, the dimension-traveler didn't know when or how she should approach the third member of her team. Torn between choice, Sakura had chosen to wait.
Hiruzen hummed, giving no indication of his approval. "How would you like to attend the Academy, Sakura-chan? Naruto's getting a head start, starting in the upcoming term. I would feel more at ease knowing he would have someone to relate to in his class."
"But what if the senseis split us up?" Naruto protested loudly.
The Sandaime gave him pointed wink. "There are some perks to being Hokage, you know."
The Hokage's plan was contingent on Sakura convincing her parents of her desire to attend the academy. At the age of eight, there had been no doubt of what she wanted. But that Sakura's best friend was a Yamanaka who loved to share her father's ninja stories.
At just five-years-old, Mebuki and Kizashi were hesitant in granting their only daughter's wish. No matter how you painted it, a ninja was a killer. Every trick of the trade was designed with killing in mind, even if other less repugnant uses were found. What parent wanted that life for their child?
Sakura overhead many arguments fought after they put her to bed for the night about how five was too young for her to reduce her only purpose in life to steel and blood. The ethicality of the situation was the basis of her mother arguing against. She wasn't really pleased with eight either, but had originally agreed that if her daughter still wanted a shinobi career in three years, that she would sign her up. But Mebuki Haruno fully expected to change her daughter's mind before her eighth birthday.
Unfortunately for her, Sakura was not her daughter. She was already a ninja. She just needed the training to go with it. With her father on her side, pointing out that attending the Academy didn't mean she would pass—Mebuki had pinned him with a rather poisonous glare for that comment to which his reply was: "She may suck at it."—her mother acquiesced reluctantly.
The Hokage's plan also threw a wrench in her own plan.
Sakura liked plans. There was a comfort in plotting, to the detail sometimes, exactly how to accomplish a goal. Long term plans were her favorite. The sense of triumph she felt when she achieved something months in the making was exhilarating. Accounting for every possibility pushed her cognitive skills to their limits and then some. She also enjoyed envisioning the many ways in which she could break down a task into manageable components.
Of course, plans had a nasty habit of going to hell at the first opportunity. Particularly where Team Seven was involved. Sakura was actually willing to swear to a conspiracy or some kind of curse. It was more unlikely than Jiraiya renouncing his perverted ways, but how else did one explain how often her gennin team found themselves the centerpiece of someone else's grudge?
Obito. Orochimaru. Danzou. Madara. Pein. The Raikage and Killer B's team. Chiyo-baa-sama.
Despite the knowledge that plans never survived enemy encounters, Sakura had a Plan. And it absolutely deserved the capital letter she awarded it.
If not for Naruto, Sakura would have chosen to wait. Having taken the young Jinchuuriki under her wing and having proven to have the makings of a prodigy, she was expected to graduate within the four-year limit. Failing years intentionally would garner suspicion, and yet it was the only way to meet Sasuke. It also wouldn't be fair to sabotage Naruto's training for their last member.
Sakura had to make a choice. Naruto or Team Seven. In this world she couldn't have both.
So, there she stood, staring at the sign that indicated classroom 42A. Beside her, Naruto didn't complain about the white-knuckled grip she had on his hand.
"Together, datteboyo?"
As one, they stepped through the sliding door.
The classroom was just as she remembered it. All clean, sharp angles. A half dozen tiers of desk leading down to the teacher's desk and chalkboard. No color. No posters. No distractions. Very militant, but that was only to be expected given the Academy was the Second Hokage's brain child.
Instantly, Sakura took dislike to the instructor.
Kuritikaruna-sensei was a tall, willowy man. He looked like one good breeze would push him over. Sakura's eyes, trained to detect injuries hidden by uncooperative ninja patients, picked up on how he favored his left leg. A knee injury, and a debilitating one if he went through the effort of becoming an Academy teacher.
Contrary to Iwa's or Kumo's beliefs, Konoha didn't let just any ninja teach the next generation. There was a teacher's academy with its own tests for prospective instructors. Rumor had it that Iruka-sensei and Mizuki had destroyed a room during their testing.
Needless to say, an injured shinobi didn't sign up for teaching unless an injury put them out of the field for more than a year.
The mild but welcoming smile he wore vanished once Kuritikaruna caught sight of Naruto. The other children reacted to the dramatic change. Whispers floated like rustling leaves. The demon boy was in their class. They should send him away before he gets them all killed. He was too young to be here anyway.
"Babies, practically, both of them."
The unknown speaker was agreed with, and thus the two five-year-olds were bestowed the disparaging nickname. Only Kuritikaruna, who had to display some professionalism, would refer to them by name.
He would do nothing to curb the class's behavior. If the demon brat couldn't handle schoolyard insults, Konoha was better off without him amongst her ranks. And not so secretly, he prayed the demon would catch on that he was unwanted quickly. Kuritikaruna's stomach felt leaden at the thought of teaching that monster ninjutsu.
"That asshole!" snarled Naruto, as the duo scaled the building to eat lunch on the roof.
She couldn't muster the energy to scold him.
The only good thing Sakura had to say about Kuritikaruna-sensei was that he didn't treat them with kid gloves.
He set the tone for the year by sitting on his desk and rolling up his left pant leg until they could see the knee.
One boy in the front row retched.
It was a mess of ropey scar tissues. A misshapen lump jutted out on the inside edge.
Pity welled in her throat. A critical look over informed Sakura that it was an old wound. It hadn't been treated right or in time, resulting in the formation of scar tissue that prevented the kneecap from properly realigning. Tsunade-shishou, if she had been present, probably could have had the man running again in eighteen months. But whoever had operated on Kuritikaruna-sensei hadn't helped whatsoever.
"Torn anterior cruciate ligament. Torn posterior cruciate ligament. Torn lateral meniscus. A badly sprained medial collateral ligament. Dislocated kneecap. Dislocated tiba-femoral joint," he recited like ticking the boxes on a checklist.
Sakura wasn't the only person to cringe, but she was probably the only one in the room that possessed enough medical knowledge to know of what an impossibility Kuritikaruna's injury was. A single grievance from that set was hard to come by in several people's lifetimes. Suffering them simultaneously must have been excruciating and horrendous.
"This is a consequence of being caught off guard. I got complacent. Was unprepared for an attack. I jumped away and landed awkwardly on my leg."
Her eyebrows flew up in disbelief. Calling a landing that resulted in a destroyed knee awkward was demeaning to the word awkward.
"My job is to teach you the basics. The core curriculum consists of reading and writing. That's nonsense your mothers' should have taught you by now." Kuritikaruna frowned when the majority of his students believed he was trying to interject a moment of levity. "Instead, I'll teach you codes and how write concise mission reports. Mathematics and geography will be included in history, where we'll break down the tactics and strategies of known and theoretical skirmishes, and trap-making. The bulk of your education will come down to taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu.
"I'm supposed to transform your potential, show you a little bit of everything so you have a good foundation for when you graduate and have a jounin-sensei to dedicate the time and effort into seeing each of you into your specializations.
"I am not going to do that."
Kuritikaruna sat patiently through the outraged cries his final line sparked. "I have four years to prepare you for a world you are not ready for. You desire to be ninja, so I shall treat you as one. There will be no slacking off. No tomfoolery of any kind. I will push you hard and fast. You will either keep pace or switch to an easier class."
If the man didn't have it out for her friend, Sakura would have greatly respected Kuritikaruna-sensei. But, apparently the "you" in his speech didn't apply to demons or the little girls that willingly partnered with him.
The chuunin launched into his first lecture, pinning up a map of the world that he could point to as he explained how the Village Hidden in Whirlpools fell during the Second Shinobi War.
Logically, it was understandable why Kuritikaruna-sensei would choose that event to open his advanced syllabus with. Uzushiogakure was Konoha's sister village. They bore the fallen village's red spiral insignia on their flak jackets as a symbol of their relationship. In an unpredictable turn of events, Mist, Stone, and Cloud formed an alliance, hoping to wipe Uzushio off the map with minimal losses. They succeeded in crumbling the nation of feared fuinjutsu users but suffered such heavy losses that Konoha and Suna won the war.
It was an excellent scenario to showcase the strategies used during war and how reputations were well earned. Kumo, Iwa, and Kiri had elected to play a game of numbers, pitting three villages against one and hoping to overwhelm Uzushio. It had backfired spectacularly, losing them a large portion of their forces and the war.
Kuritikaruna-sensei's pick was two-fold. It served as an impactful lesson in geography, tactics, and mathematics, applied in a manner that set the tone and encouraged the avidly listening students to think like ninja. But it also gave the man the opportunity to take pot-shots at Naruto, rapid firing questions at the Uzumaki that he couldn't answer.
Thus, Naruto's black mood when they broke for lunch.
"Just wait 'til Jiji hears about this," he muttered darkly.
"I don't think you should tell him about Kuritikaruna-sensei."
Naruto stared at her, aghast. "What? Why not?"
Because the structure of his class was the perfect setup to hide Sakura's extra knowledge. Her wealth of knowledge wouldn't stand out as much in his class as it would with an instructor that stuck to the approved, simplified curriculum. Especially is she could hold her tongue for four years.
Unlike civilian schools, where a teacher taught a single level and the students had a new one every year, Kuritikaruna-sensei would remain with them until they passed or failed the graduation exam. By that point, Sakura could wave off any concerns about how much she knew as have a hard-ass for a sensei.
Honestly, she felt a little guilty, but only because she didn't feel guilty about coercing Naruto to learn from a man that blatantly disliked him. Plus, it wasn't as if he wouldn't benefit from a more rigorous work ethic. He performed brilliantly under pressure, evolving each time he had been confronted with an impossible foe. If they could be the top two in their class, Sakura and Naruto would be guaranteed a spot together on a team.
"It's only the first day," she said in a commiserating tone. "He might not be so bad. You just need to give him a chance."
Blue eyes turned baleful. They both knew that not to be true. "Fine. One week. But only because you asked me to."
One week turned into two. A third week rolled unnoticed into a month. Days marched by, and before she was ready for it the hot, sweltering heats of the Land of Fire were upon them.
Kuritikaruna-sensei didn't let up on his hatred of Naruto. If they were assigned worksheets, his were always written harder. He was careful to have multiple versions of a logistics problem, for example, to be passed out at random. But after a month it was easy to see that Naruto always ended up with the hardest variation and the extra copies mixed into the pile were always at the bottom so no one else received it.
Much like the combined attack on Uzushio he had detailed on their first day, it backfired magnificently on him when Naruto turned in perfect papers. Unable to offer proof that the boy had cheated, because there was no one for him to cheat off of, Kuritikaruna was forced to give him full marks.
Naruto's stubbornness had won out over his sense of fairness. His sensei was like every other adult in the village, except for the fact that Naruto had the chance to prove his worth. So the blond had dug his heels in, put his head down, and worked harder than he had on any prank in order to demonstrate he had the capability to be a shinobi.
His outstanding scores spread throughout their year group, classes 42B, 42C, and 42D, as well as their senseis. It was through painfully tight smiles that they congratulated him on his ranking and said he had a real chance at being rookie of his year if he kept up the good work.
Thanks to the combination of his Uzumaki heritage and the Bijuu slumbering behind the seal on his stomach, the physical aspects of ninja training were a breeze for Naruto. He had the energy and stamina to continue when the older students fatigue, which inspired a fair amount of bitterness.
The harder Kuritikaruna pushed class 42A's youngest ninja-in-training, the harder they pushed back. Sakura had an advantage that he couldn't take away, and since he never bothered to split them for group projects because no one wanted to work with the Babies, she shared it with her best friend.
Sakura was so pleased she could have burst. Her planning was unfolding exactly as she predicted. They weren't going to break any records for youngest graduate, that honor would forever belong to Kakashi-sensei, but they would blow Minato Namikaze's and Itachi Uchiha's test scores out of the water. It would be a nice little bonus for Naruto, to look back one day when he learned the truth and see he was just as talented as the father he had the chance to know.
The rosette should have known better than to get complacent.
There was an Uchiha in their class. Kei Uchiha. Sakura only knew of him because he sat in the desk in front of her, Uchiwa fan emblazoned proudly between his shoulder blades.
Her first thought, upon not seeing him in his usual place, wasn't oh kami, he must be dead. She hadn't forgotten about the massacre, but she had never known the exact date either. Sasuke had never shared, only solemnly rejoining class after an extended stay in the hospital.
In all honesty, she hadn't given any thought to his absence. Sakura wasn't keeping track of classmates that she would have to wait six years for them to grow out of playground bullying in order to hold a civil conversation.
She continued to not spare a thought for her class's missing Uchiha after several months of no appearance, assuming that he had been dropped to class more his pace.
Then one day in late November, Kuritikaruna-sensei arrived late to class, guiding the broody vision of Sasuke Uchiha.
Sakura's heart felt like it was trying to do backflips. She thought she had steeled herself when she made the decision to stand by Naruto's side.
She hated choosing between them, even though the two boys in question had no idea that she had. It was agony. She had made numerous mental lists—she would never dare write any of her other world information down—and edit them twice over. The biggest deciding factor had been that Sasuke was unapproachable, at any age. Before the massacre he interacted within his clan, and afterwards avoiding interacting with anyone, let alone children his own age.
Even now, she could see how angry and closed off his was. With the massacre still fresh in his mind, his brother's words ringing in his nightmares, Sasuke would build a wall around his heart. Anyone who wanted a piece of it would have to force their way in.
"Sasuke Uchiha will be joining our class. He's displayed a drive grow in skill that is better suited to this class. Please treat him like you would another member of your class."
It may have been Sakura's paranoia talking, but she noticed how Kuritikaruna's dark eyes had darted in the direction of her and Naruto. And she was certain it wasn't to direct class 42A's newest member towards the only empty seat in the room.
Was she reading too much into his actions? Disliking Naruto and herself was no reason for the chuunin to lump Sasuke in with them, considering his aversion of them stemmed from the blond's status as a Jinchuuriki and Sakura's refusal to treat him as the monster the rest of the village had deemed him.
Sasuke was the same age as them, yes, but he was naturally gifted. And surely, in light of the tragedy he had suffered, his sensei wasn't encouraging ninety-nine percent of the class to make sure he knew his place as another Baby.
He took his seat with alacrity, hunching into the brooding pose that would inspire his future fan club, and Kuritikaruna-sensei commanded the room's attention so he could begin the day's lesson.
Sakura released a breathless sigh, hoping that would be it.
Team Seven was never that lucky.
It started with a pop quiz. Five questions, imaging the person writing the test to be a missing-nin who recently absconded with village secrets, asking them to calculate the speed and angle they would need to throw kunai, shuriken, and senbon when being pursued by each of the five major hidden villages from the village to the border to incapacitate the hunter squad of six ninja, sent after them. They were restricted to eight kunai, seventeen shuriken, four senbon, and a spool of rusty ninja wire, and instructed to plan for three encounters. The ratio of chuunin to jounin changed based on the village in question, as well as male and female. Occasionally, Kuritikaruna-sensei would include a specialization they had to consider. A sensor or a tracker or a kekkei genkai.
He set Sasuke's paper before him. "I don't expect you to do well on this one. Just do the best you can."
It was the worst attempt at sympathy Sakura ever witnessed. The rest of the class recognized the ploy, and the back of Sasuke's neck burned red at their badly contained snickers.
Naruto ground his teeth, looking for all the world like he was going to leap to his feet and rail at Kuritikaruna-sensei for being a bastard. As much as she was heartened by the defensive display on Sasuke's behalf, Sakura stomped her foot on the blond's instep. Naruto couldn't afford an emotional outburst. Kuritikaruna salivated over any opportunity he thought might cause him to slip from his top ranking.
Plus, Sasuke wouldn't take the act of generosity as it was intended, but as a slight on his abilities.
With Naruto secure in his spot as Rookie of the Year and not fighting for acknowledgement, there was no reason for him and Sasuke to be rivals. Sakura could have Team Seven running like a well-oiled machine if she could prevent that infamous rivalry from forming.
So Sakura resigned herself to inaction, blood simmering, watching as the self-dubbed avenger struggled to fill in his pop quiz.
They only had forty-five minutes for the quiz. When Kuritikaruna-sensei had first introduced them, he had given them the full hour. The allotted time was decreasing in increments of five as he worked to have his students read a situation and instantly generate a solution.
Sasuke took his time with each question. When he finally did start writing, it was a short two lines and he moved onto the next theoretical scenario.
Kuritikaruna assigned reading after a quiz, during which he graded and individually discussed their answers when he called a student down to retrieve their grade.
The silent task of reading ensured that his voice carried as he critiqued and corrected mistakes.
Eyes diligently trained on her textbook, Sakura paid it no attention once he called Sasuke's name.
"Unfortunately, I cannot give you any credit for this, Sasuke. You didn't follow the instructions."
The raven-haired boy tilted his chin defiantly. "No. I did better. It's stupid to plan for three encounters when all the pursuers could be dealt with in one, or avoided altogether."
Kuritikaruna worked his jaw for a minute. "I didn't say you could use ninjutsu."
"You didn't say we couldn't."
"The instructions explicitly outlined the tools you had to work with. Kunai, senbon, and shuriken."
"Your instructions also said to imagine myself as the escaping shinobi."
"Are you implying that you already know a C-rank ninjutsu?"
"I am an Uchiha." The fluorescent lighting caused his eyes to take on a red hue.
The sensei adopted a pinched expression. "It's meant to give me an understanding of how you think. It wasn't meant to be taken literally."
"I should hope not. No one else in this class would succeed in stealing another village's document if that was the case."
Kuritikaruna slapped the test paper on the desk. The sound echoed loudly in the stillness. "You did not follow the instructions provided, as such, I cannot award you any points for this assignment."
Scowling thunderously, Sasuke snatched his quiz and stalked back to his desk.
Spying the sharp red zero in the top corner, an epiphany struck Sakura like one of Darui's black lightning jutsus. Team Seven as she knew it was still on the table.
She only needed to convince Sasuke to fill in the role of dead last.
Naruto extended an invitation to the Uchiha to join the pair of them for lunch. Sasuke, predictably, rejected it.
"No skin off my back," shrugged Naruto.
"Maybe he just needs to cool down. Kuritikaruna-sensei was brutal with him today," Sakura offered gently.
"Nah, he's just being a bastard. I'll try again tomorrow. However long it takes." He stared distantly at the Hokage mountain. "No one deserves to be alone."
Nearly a year's effort of trying to break the demon's spirit and he had nothing to show for it.
Infuriatingly, the boy's confidence was bolstered by the pink-haired girl that was never far from him. He couldn't pinpoint it, but something about the girl made his skin prickle. She was more unnatural than the monster. The he got saddled with the sole survivor of the Uchiha massacre.
He felt for the boy, he really did. He emphasized being prepared for any situation and critical thinking. But no one expected Itachi Uchiha.
His regular students were growing irritated that a trio of six-year-olds were more skilled than them. It was a blow to their egos to be beaten in a spar by someone three years younger than them and half their size.
Kuritikaruna himself wasn't happy about being the one to teach them. The Kyuubi was responsible for his knee injury. For why some days he could hardly walk for the pain. For cutting his career as an infiltration specialist short.
Combat wasn't his strong suit. But when the Kyuubi attacked six years ago, every ninja in the village had scrambled to defend it.
Kuritikaruna didn't have the skills that lend themselves to battle the strongest of the Tailed Beasts. He focused his efforts on evacuating civilians.
Streets and buildings were reduced to rubble with a sweep of a tail. The shaking of the earth had ruptured the ground. He had pulled a child out of a sinkhole. Landing strategies were second nature. Ninjas didn't need to think about how much chakra they needed to circulate into their legs to support an otherwise physically impossible jump.
A chakra blast from the Kyuubi had rocked the village while he was mid-jump. The resulting shockwave had thrown off his trajectory. Kuritikaruna had twisted to protect the child in his arms and landed badly on his left leg.
Words couldn't describe how he felt when his leg caved in. Then it snapped like a rubber band.
In that moment, everything changed.
Kuritikaruna blamed the depression he fell into, the loss of his career, his inability to handle basic functions by himself on the Kyuubi.
So he had been beyond dismayed by the late addition of the demon brat to his class roster. For three days he had locked himself in his apartment, rolling a bottle of pain pills in his hand. He felt violently ill knowing he would teach the monster's jailer the tools he needed to finish the Kyuubi's job one day.
He refused to take the coward's way out. There would be no justice if Kuritikaruna didn't put the monster in its place.
That was the true reasoning behind the restructuring of his class.
It went against his honor to sabotage a comrade, but it was his only option. The Jinchuuriki couldn't be allowed to become a full-fledged shinobi. Sacrificing one class was worth it if Kuritikaruna prevented the demon admittance to the ninja ranks.
He didn't expect his regular students to handle the fast pace and heavy course load, so he was overjoyed when they took his warning to heart and exceeded his expectations.
Unfortunately for Kuritikaruna, the demon hadn't only not crumpled under the pressure, but risen to be the star student.
The girl had something to do with it. Her scores were too perfectly imperfect. Always just a point or two from full marks. Kunai struck cork just a hair's width off-center. She was flawed enough that she was second ranked to the demon's first.
Then came Sasuke Uchiha.
Kuritikaruna would be one of the first to admit he anticipated Itachi's younger brother to be on par with him. The boy was talented, certainly, but he didn't match his sibling's genius.
The chuunin had had every intention of working with the boy. Putting yourself back together when the world has shattered around you wasn't an easy task. Sasuke was only six. It was unfathomable that he came out as adjusted as he presented himself.
But he had the audacity to mock his quiz. Of course it wasn't intended for the students to literally imagine they were the ninja being hunted. It was a test of his ambush and trap skills and evasion. Kuritikaruna didn't care that the answers he wrote were more feasible or more ninja-like in method. Sasuke was a student. All he was required to do was follow directions.
Kuritikaruna deserved respect. His mission success rate was eighty-three percent. He would not suffer insolence from a boy who hardly started down the path to ninja.
Clearly, the Uchiha didn't need tutelage in the shinobi arts if he believed he knew better than a chuunin. Kuritikaruna mentally lumped the last Uchiha under the label of Baby with his other two least favorite students. As long as they kept quiet and did as they were told, he could focus his attention on the students the deserved it.
Kuritikaruna's class became a nightmare.
Where the man had never flagrantly showed his bias for his regular students, Kuritikaruna now devoted his undivided attention on them. He stopped looking in the corner where the future Team Seven sat. When quiz, they received theirs last and were the first collected, giving them the least amount of time to write them. They went last during kunai throwing, often resulting in Naruto and Sasuke not getting a turn at the targets. Due to the now unbalanced numbers, he had Sasuke join their group during sparring.
Even a child could pick up on his passive-aggressiveness and the way he was deliberately not intentionally letting them fall through the cracks. They were so much more advanced than their peers, so he was safe to leave them to their own devices occasionally so Kuritikaruna could better aid a struggling student.
It was a pretty excuse. On paper. No ninja worth their steel wouldn't recognize the distancing tactic as the set up for later, where he could claim the three of them pulled away and nothing he did got through to them. Perhaps they were too young, after all.
Sasuke certainly couldn't miss how he was overlooked in association with his new class's pariahs.
"What did you do to him?"
Sakura twisted her neck. Class had let out for the day. Typically, Sasuke was one of the last to leave. He'd remain, still as a statue in his seat, until the room had empty of all but their sensei.
To have him standing at the end of what had been dubbed the Babies' row, the desks shared by herself and Naruto, was a nice change of pace. Doubly so because he was interacting with them of his own accord.
"Nothing," she answered honestly.
"Unless you count popping his massive ego."
Sakura inclined her head in Naruto's direction. "We didn't have to do anything. He hated us from the first day."
Kuritikaruna had hated Naruto, technically, for being what he was, but she had found herself on that exclusive list by the end of the first week.
"He didn't want to teach a bunch of Babies." Naruto's lips curled on the last word. "Didn't think we could handle his class. Too bad for him, we're not going anywhere."
"I've never seen a grown man turn so red."
She was referencing Kuritikaruna's face when the class rankings were posted every month outside the office. On principal, the rankings only matter for a graduating class. They had no effect otherwise, just aided the chuunin instructors and the Hokage to form teams and match them to a jounin sensei. Kuritikaruna hoped to see hers and Naruto's names near the bottom of the list because it would serve as proof that they weren't cut out undercutting the minimum age requirement because it was the Hokage himself that had signed off on the early admittance paperwork.
"What about that time all his ink turned invisible when it dried?"
"That was you?" asked Sasuke. He appeared impressed.
They shared a conspiratorial grin. "We didn't admit to anything."
"How did you do it?"
Naruto's smile was all teeth. "Why don't you join us for ramen and I'll tell ya."
Sakura trailed behind the boys as they made for Ichiraku's ramen stand, content to let the sound of Naruto's explanation and Sasuke's carefully neutral questions wash over her.
There were worse ways for those two to strike up a friendship. She was grateful they hadn't killed each other in classic Team Seven fashion. She believed her team was the only one to bond over failed assassination attempts.
She tried to kill Sasuke once. He tried to kill her back. Sai had been put on their team for the express purpose of stealing the Uchiha's eyes from his corpse, and Sasuke had taken none too kindly to his almost clone replacement. Naruto and Sasuke nearly died every time they fought, but that could have been because they were idiots that didn't understand the meaning of friendly spar.
It was all or nothing with them. It had practically become Team Seven's second motto.
"We would make a wicked team," commented Naruto between slurps of his pork ramen.
"The two of you are more talented than the rest of the peons in our class," Sasuke said, begrudging.
"Did you really just use the word peon?" The raven boy shrugged, unashamed of his vocabulary.
"Anyway, I meant we should join forces for pranking Kuritikaruna-bastard-sensei 'cuz you had some pretty good ideas." Naruto's entire face lit up. "But now that you mention it, the three of us would make a kickass team. Can you imagine how angry they'd be if all three of us were better than them?"
Sasuke nodded. "No less than they deserve for thinking our age determines our potential."
"It would be nice to be on a team together. I don't think I could trust one of the others to have my back on a mission."
Both boys frowned, not liking the idea any more than the pinkette.
"If we're the strongest three in the class, they'll have to put us on a team together. Anyone else would hold us back," reasoned Sasuke.
"That's not how it works," Naruto said quickly, slashing his chopsticks in the air between him and the other boy. "There's only two guaranteed teams. A combination of a Yamanaka, a Nara, and an Akimichi that makes up the Ino-Shika-Cho trio—and can I say how weird it is that they name everyone in their clan in that manner so it doesn't break up the team name?—and the team made of the Rookie of the Year, the top kunoichi, and the dead last."
"What if a kunoichi is the Rookie of the Year? Would that team have two kunoichi, then?" Sakura asked.
The blond frowned thoughtfully. "I dunno. I'll ask Jiji. That's where I learned the team configurations from."
"So we have to be the second team," Sasuke deadpanned.
"Yeah. I've already got the top spot for our year and none of those girls can take Sakura's spot from her. That leaves you to be the dead last," Naruto concluded.
Inhaling his bowl, Naruto missed the look of consternation that flitted across Sasuke's face. Sakura could see the emotions battling in his eyes. His pride as an Uchiha, which mattered to him even more now that he was the only one to uphold the clan's name and reputation versus risking being assigned to a team with two unknowns that wouldn't help him achieve his goal of attaining more power.
Sakura knew his decision before he did. Titles like Rookie of the Year didn't matter to Sasuke. Power and strength were what he thought he needed at the moment.
He could work with them, at least.
Sasuke offered token grumblings, but they were all aware Naruto couldn't afford to drop in ranking. If he didn't maintain first, they had no chance of manipulating the team formations in their favor. Sasuke, on the other hand, could make it so he just barely passes, and the higher ups wouldn't think twice about it before attributing it to trauma, and then overlook it so they can have the Uchiha bloodline active in their corps again.
Sakura couldn't wait for someone to read the report on their team. The Kyuubi's incarnation as the top rookie. A civilian emerging as the top kunoichi. And the expected prodigal Uchiha just barely managing to pass.
She looked forward to Kakashi-sensei's reaction. It was too bad she wouldn't get to see it.
Naruto's jutsu had run its course. She blinked and Ichiraku's ramen stand disappeared.