The next day, Sakura marched to team seven's meeting place with a purpose, glad to note both her teammates were already there. Despite their sensei's perpetual tardiness, neither boys ever failed to be on time.
"Hey guys, listen up!" She called out and was happy to see both Naruto and Sasuke standing at attention when she came closer. Though, the Uchiha looked like he hadn't slept a wink with a paler complexion than usual and dark circles around his eyes.
"Sakura, what's up?" Naruto sounded a bit subdued and there was a nervous glint in his eyes. "Is this about yesterday, I can explain-"
She waved him off. "Eh, no, but sorry about that Naruto. Should have been more specific."
The blond boy sputtered and started rambling, something, something about Sakura being faultless and amazing. She couldn't be bothered to listen and she refused to be sidetracked.
"No, see I've been doing some reconnaissance-"
"In your own village?" Sasuke interrupted, rudely, might she add.
"Yes! I've been keeping tabs on the other teams." Now she got their attention, the shift in seriousness was visible. Boys. "Team ten is already tree walking, team eight is learning about their chakra natures... It got me thinking, what have we been learning?"
Now she hadn't really been spying on the other teams, though maybe she ought to be, but future Ino had bragged how she had learned tree walking within a week of graduating and Hinata had once wistfully talked about their first day with their sensei and how she had given them all chakra paper for fun.
"Nothing." Sasuke grit through his teeth, clearly infuriated by the idea the other two teams were pulling ahead of them.
Naruto opened his mouth, almost seeming to want to defend Kakashi-sensei, then he deflated. "Well... we've been training, sometimes."
To be honest Naruto was probably the one gaining the most from their physical training sessions, since occasionally their sensei could be bothered to correct the boy's lacking form. Sasuke and her, though, were basically stagnating since graduation. At least, she would be if it wasn't for her individual research and training.
"Sometimes," she agreed out of goodwill, "But then he makes us gather here at eight, only to make us wait for the next two to three hours. Do you guys think this is on purpose?"
Both her teammates answered simultaneously, kind of giving her the same message despite the difference in syllables.
"Duh."
"Of course it's on purpose, you don't really believe he gets lost every time do you?"
She tried not to look or sound offended but she was sure there was a vein on her forehead showing. "Imeant, do you think making us wait has a purpose?"
Silence.
"Do you think it's another looking underneath the underneath kind of thing? Like, maybe we're supposed to use this time productively." She tried.
In a rare moment of common understanding, Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other. Some form of communication went on between the two before Sasuke decided to ask her. "Are you going somewhere with this? The teamwork thing again?"
"I don't know, maybe." She admitted. "But I do know that I don't like the idea of the other teams pulling ahead of us, and I know you guys like it even less." There was agreement there. "And if Kakashi-sensei won't teach us anything new then perhaps we can learn from each other."
Sasuke scoffed. "As if."
She couldn't say she was surprised, and this whole thing wasn't for him anyway, but she had still thought of a solution for his reluctance.
"Fine I guess I won't show you how to tree walk. How's the water walking going anyway? I've bet you've been practicing all night, judging by the bags under your eyes."
He glared at her, then nodded. "What do you want in return?"
She blinked. Yesterday evening had been spend on training schedules for the team, thinking she might be able to convince Naruto to be her genjutsu dummy. Not once had she thought she might ask anything from Sasuke.
For a second she felt like the shy girl, yearning for the boy's attention again with his eyes so intently on her. Then she pushed that feeling aside and decided to shoot her shot. "I've been trying to find my specialty and I've been practicing genjutsu. I want to try somethings... and maybe have you guys tell me whether my illusions are any good."
Sasuke mumbled something that may have been an agreement and Naruto was his usual enthusiastic self.
"Alright, I'll show you guys the Kage bunshin no jutsu then!"
Despite knowing the offer was futile, as for her the jutsu was completely unachievable with how much chakra it demanded, it still made her feel warm. Trust in Naruto to have no reservations in sharing with his teammates. Sasuke seemed interested at least, never mind that she doubted he would manage it anytime soon.
"It's a deal then?" She held out her hand in the union sign and Naruto joined in happily enough. The Uchiha boy looked like he wouldn't want to be caught dead doing something so corny but briefly touched his fingers over theirs, anyway, before pulling back as if it burned.
That was how Kakashi found them, both boys running up trees, leaving kunai marks at their highest points and Sakura in a lotus position on the ground, occasionally offering her insights.
If Sharingan Kakashi, master of a thousand jutsu, had to think of one thing that he was completely out of his depth at, it was probably teaching. Sure, he had trained junior ANBU operatives before, but those had a strong foundation and the proper conditioning to fall back on. This lot? Hell, these brats barely knew how to hold the right end of a kunai. He knew he couldn't fall back on his experience of grueling ANBU training, that might kill them. So, now that he finally had a genin team, he kind of found himself at loss for what to do with them.
It stood to reason that when his 'know it all' kunoichi had started teaching theonelesson he had actually thought of, to the rest of the team, Kakashi was just a bit miffed. Just a tiny bit.
"One would think, the smartest girl on the team would have learned to refrain from teaching Naruto to walk on things after one incident." Kakashi sneaked up behind said girl and watched her startle and then attempt to hide the fact she had been caught off guard by continuing to meditate.
"Sensei," she offered with a fake serenity, "It's not a compliment when I'm the only girl on the team." There was some poorly veiled irritation in her tone. Good.
He smiled behind his mask.
"Besides, I have learned."
"Oh?"
She continued. "You don't see him blowing up the trees now do you? Large reserves weren't the issue as much as the complete lack of control was."
"So it would seem." He agreed readily enough, seating himself against the tree behind her. This irked her, as he purposely kept out of her range of sight, an alarming position to be in for most shinobi. "And what inspired this sudden... interest in your teammates' growth?"
"Quid pro quo." She replied. "I do something for them, they do something for me."
Kakashi considered the only kunoichi on his team for a moment. Keeping in mind hers and Naruto's unimpressive scores of taijutsu in the academy, he had started with physical conditioning first. However he had soon noticed she was unusually capable and strong for her lackluster efforts. The exercises bored her rather than tire her. It had made him look a little closer, something he wasn't prone to do with her, and he noticed how her chakra circled her network actively during the training. Now all shinobi subconsciously supported their muscles with chakra, the reason for the vast difference between the strength of shinobi and civilians.
However Sakura was doing it consciously and with a lot more efficiency. He had needed his sharingan to fully understand what she was doing but to put it simply, it was like she was using her chakra to produce her own steroids with all of the desired results and none of the drawbacks.
It was, well... it was a work of genius. It also made his training routine rather pointless for her. What Sakura needed was training that would help grow her weak chakra reserves -though he had never seen someone achieve so much with so little-, perhaps a taijutsu form better suited to her than the academy standard, and a way to simultaneously keep her mind engaged lest she lose interest.
However, Naruto was still a full league behind both his teammates and was now truly benefiting from an instructor that actually looked his way, occasionally that is. And Kakashi could admit, to himself, all alone, in his heavily guarded apartment, that he was partial to Naruto. To him, Naruto needs came first and not just because he would one day be a great asset to the village as a Jinchuriki, but because those sky blue eyes, that unruly mop of blond hair and the faint smell of ramen that clung to the boy reminded him of better days. His best days.
Yet there she was, the kunoichi he had never intended on training up in any seriousness, turning to the teammates holding her back and making them into assets for her development. Overshadowed or not, it seemed she was determined to grow into something remarkable with or without his help.
And he approved.
True talent would grow under any conditions after all.
That didn't mean he couldn't occasionally give her a push in the right direction. While he had originally planned to tell her off for meddling in her teammates' training, suggesting she'd better leave such things to their more experienced jonin-sensei. He decided he would cut her some slack, she had just saved him the effort to teach the exercise to those two dunderheads, and Kakashi did hate effort.
Besides, she deserved some credit for covering for Naruto's incident with her convenient knowledge about the Uzumaki clan. Adding in the fact that they were massacred and he had practically witnessed Sasuke's change of heart towards the boy.
"Very well, that doesn't explain why you are sitting on the ground instead of training along with your teammates." He commented slyly.
Finally she gave into the urge and turned around to face him.
"I'm not just sitting here I'm-"
"Meditating?" He interrupted, "Let's not pretend like you don't already do that every other minute, including while you are reading."
Her face remained stoic but her cheeks heated up a little, it was a good try though.
"I already know how to tree walk." She tried next.
"U-huh." He agreed. "But there's still merit in doing the exercise. Let's see how long you can keep it up before you run out of chakra. Your yang chakra needs more developing anyway."
To his amusement, he saw her expression fall. Poor Sakura, she hated pushing her limits, and she hated getting sweaty even more. Though luck.
"Also, I want you to jump between trees, don't touch the ground until you run out, okay."
Now she was glaring at him, how cute. "Fine." She said tersely, then she stomped off.
Hm, perhaps he was starting to like this sensei business after all.
Sakura was having a bad day, no, a terrible day. It had started off well, with Naruto and Sasuke almost easily agreeing to her proposition to be her genjutsu dummies in exchange for her knowledge. Then Kakashi-baka had to go and ruin it.
She had just about finished explaining the exercise and Sasuke and Naruto had done a couple of test runs under her instructions, when their evil sensei had chosen that exact day to turn up early, for once. Only an hour late, this time. Which was all good and well if he didn't seem to take personal offense in seeing her sit still, rather happily too, might she add.
He had made her run through the tops of the trees until she had fully run out of usable chakra, then she had to climb down on her own strength while her teammates watched. She had arrived to the ground, hair slick with sweat and a smell to her pits no amount of liberally applied deodorant could cover up.
Kakashi-sensei hadn't allowed her to wash up, instead he had herded them off to a load of D-ranks. Miserable D-ranks she now had to complete without the support of her chakra, unless she wanted to risk exhaustion, and smelling like the hormonal teenager she was. There were definitely a few dirty looks thrown her way from their clients.
She wondered what their problem was, considering they were just mowing their lawn and chopping timber which was smelly work anyway. Some of the glares might have been directed to Naruto, though, but that only served to piss her off more.
At the end of the day she was left with a terrible mood, no chakra, no energy and worst of all, she had never gotten to test her genjutsu. It was a good thing her parents weren't home by the time she was, so she got to spend a long time under the shower, scrubbing away all traces of everything she had gone through earlier.
She was finally planning to settle down in her room, with 'the history of genjutsu' she was reading for fun and a cup of green tea when a pebble rocketed off her window. A second one followed suit.
"What now?!" She demanded to know while she stalked to the window and pushed it open. A pebble found the center of her forehead instead.
"Oops sorry, Sakura!"
"Naruto!" She growled.
Her eyebrows rose when she realized both boys were standing in her front lawn and the Uchiha was holding a scroll. That was unusual to say the least.
"What is it?"
Naruto took the lead this time. "Well, we were both thinking, we never did get to pay you back for your help today. If you still want to, we would like to help you with your genjutsu."
"If you have the chakra for it." Sasuke added.
She actually had to take a moment to consider it. Some of her reserves had recovered during the day but thanks to the physical labor they had to do, not much. That and she had no idea how much chakra casting her genjutsu on other people would cost. Her stomach offered a solution by growling rather notably.
"Team dinner first?" She asked.
Naruto whooped enthusiastically but demanded it would be ramen, he had this fantastic place he had been planning to introduce them to. Sakura rolled her eyes but gave in fondly. As nobody else would be home anytime soon, Sakura went to lock up her home before joining her teammates in the front yard.
Despite Sasuke looking like he had smelled something nasty, and it wasn't her this time, he followed them all the way to Ichiraku's and sat down with no comment. The stall was rather cramped and the stools were spaced together so close that their shoulders were nearly touching.
It was a good thing Naruto could monologue for days on end without external input, and was seated in the middle, as without infatuation fueling her she couldn't think of any common ground she could use to engage her other teammate in conversation. Before, she used to kind of just talk at him, mostly about herself, but with the painful knowledge of his imminent betrayal well... she felt kind of awkward around him, to understate things.
There were days when she fantasized about changing him still, moments like now when he seemed to reach out to them ever so silently. But old Sakura had hoped to save him for almost a decade before it had finally sunk in. Itachi Uchiha had destroyed the boy she had perhaps once known, in life and in death.
"-And then Iruka-sensei said it wasn't okay to eat ramen every day and he introduced me to broccoli. Yuck, I thought I was being poisoned. I can't believe something so gnarly can be good for my health."
The girl behind the counter was hiding a good natured giggle, Sasuke was openly sporting a look of eternal suffering and Sakura couldn't help raising her eyebrows.
"Wait, you never eat anything else?" She asked.
Naruto scrunched up his face, appearing to think, then seemed to realize that eating the same food every day was deemed socially unacceptable. "Uuuh, of course I do, you know... sometimes." He said in the most unconvincing manner.
"Riiight." She replied.
Children were naturally build to handle lack of varied nutrition better than adults but eventually the singular diet, that Sakura knew to be mostly instant noodles as Ichiraku's was considered a treat, would catch up on anyone and cause major health risks in the long run. So long as your name wasn't Uzumaki Naruto. His bloodline combined with his status as a Jinchuriki made the boy a walking medical miracle. In fact, he would have probably lived to be well over a hundred years if it wasn't for-
"Broccoli was probably a bad first choice." She mused out loud to distract herself. "He should have brought something naturally sweeter."
"Like tomatoes." Sasuke agreed.
"Hm, never had any before." Naruto admitted and Sasuke looked personally offended.
"Order up." The man behind the counter placed their bowls before them, followed by three bottles of ramune in different colors. "Drinks are on me today, to welcome the friends of our number one customer." He winked warmly at Naruto, whose cheeks started coloring just a bit red.
"Thank you." Sakura offered respectfully before snatching a bottle away, true ninja style. "The pink one's mine." She then said cheekily.
Predictably, Naruto went for the orange one and that left the blue one for Sasuke. Then it was silent for a hand full of minutes as all three turned to appreciate their warm, salty bowl of admittedly delicious ramen.
Just a few minutes, as apparently that was all it took for Naruto to finish a bowl. Sakura stared incredulously at his empty plate while hers looked barely touched in the same time span. It wasn't like the portions were small either. When, without ordering anything, the woman placed another portion before the blond boy, Sakura decided to stop questioning it and simply mind her own food.
The fulfilling meal did wonders for her chakra supply, though her energy had taken a steep dip while digesting it all. It seemed she wasn't the only one who dragged their feet to their usual training ground. Only Sasuke held it together and walked at a brisk pace ahead of them.
Then he stopped so abruptly it wasn't hard at all to pretend she couldn't stop on time and bump into his back. It earned her an annoyed glare but also a perfect chance to use one of the focal points of genjutsu, touch. She had done the same thing earlier when she bumped into Naruto while getting of her stool.
"Alright get on with in." He then demanded, as if this was all a precious waste off time. It did make her wonder what on earth had motivated the Uchiha to come along with Naruto in the first place.
Filling the thought for later, she shrugged. "Fine, let's see if I can manage. I'll keep it simple to start."
She brought her hands together to form the ram sign and closed her eyes. Some of her chakra had already been distributed to her teammates cranial nerves, that had been the easy part, however the burst of chakra required to activate the technique left her staggering. That was not good, she would have to learn how to do this more efficiently.
For a moment it was quiet and Sakura feared she had just wasted a bunch of her precious chakra on a dud.
"Hey, Sasuke's shirt is orange now!" Naruto bellowed in surprise.
"I don't see the point in turning Naruto's track suit blue." Sasuke deadpanned.
She breathed a sigh of relief on to grit her teeth when she felt Sasuke dispel her technique. Now she would have to redo the whole things if she wanted to practice some more. First she would defend her choice of technique.
"The point is,Sasuke,that I need to be able to make realistic changes that are unrecognizable and subtle. See, I don't have to kind of power to confound somebody into believing the sky is full of purple flying pigs named Ino. What I'm trying to develop are little changes that could make a big impact."
"Such as?"
Sakura was kind of happy with that question, despite the dry tone in which is was delivered, and went in full on lecture mode.
"What would your first thought be if you saw flying pigs? My guess is you would immediately assume you're caught in a genjutsu. It takes a kind of overwhelming force and skill to make your target lose their grasp on reality, to make them truly believe, without question, that pigs can fly. But people are a lot less likely to question the things they see if they might as well be real. For example, imagine I throw a kunai and my opponent moves to block it and I can make the enemy believe it's thrown a little higher or lower than it actually is. Dangerous right? Imagine I can copy the voice of one of their allies to distract them? Imagine I can conceal an exploding tag, or make somebody believe there is an exploding tag when there isn't. Imagine-"
"Alright, we get it." Sasuke interrupted, though she could swear she noticed some form of begrudging respect in his eyes.
Of course, Naruto also needed to put his two cents in. "Awesome, Sakura! That would be totally badass!"
"Of course, I chose something obvious now." She admitted. "But it would really help if I could change subtle things around you guys every once in a while and have you two point it out if it's not realistic enough."
"There is another thing you will need to work on." Sasuke noted, surprising Sakura.
"Like what?" She asked earnestly.
"If you want to cast your genjutsu under the radar, you have to be more subtle when you're actually casting them. I know you caught me when you bumped into to me earlier, and Naruto at the ramen stand."
Naruto made a confused sound that refused to register in her mind as she was gaping like a stranded fish.
"I- well I, uh..."
"You never touch us, so it was kind of obvious." The Uchiha stated matter of factly.
He was right too, of course. It was a matter she would need to think on, preferable surrounded by books and a notepad full of ideas andnotby her two expectant teammates.
"Noted." Was all she could think to say with so many thoughts running trough her head. "Thanks." She added as an afterthought.
He shrugged and then pushed something in her hands while refusing to look at her. "It's a genjutsu scroll. Quid pro quo, right?"
Having no idea anyone but Kakashi-sensei had heard her say that, she kind of fumbled for a reply. "R-right!"
"Huh, what does that mean?" Of course, the expression meant nothing to their blond teammate.
"A favor for a favor." Sakura turned to explain automatically, in that moment her other teammate started to walk away.
"Bastard, where are you going?" Naruto yelled.
"To train. I've payed my dues."
She pocketed the scroll. "I guess I'm sort of low on chakra anyway. Naruto you can break the genjutsu now."
The boy scratched his neck. "Nah, this is an improvement. Sasuke looks a lot less depressing now."
Her first reaction was to giggle, but there was something off in his tone, something... embarrassed.
"You know how to... right?
He looked away. "Well..."
And that's how she had spend the rest of the evening rehashing the lectures of the academy on how to recognize and break out of genjutsu. The odd part being that Naruto acted as if the information was new to him. While he wasn't a natural, seeing as he was barely aware of his own chakra, in the end he did manage to disrupts its flow somewhat effectively.
It was dark by the time she finally got to spend the long awaited time with her books and then she found she couldn't focus at all. She was too preoccupied with the events of today. While not a day she wanted to repeat per se, the time spend with the boys had been nice if nothing else. Naruto's presence had cast a warm glow over her evening and Sasuke had been almost pleasant, his insights actually helpful.
From her pack, she pulled the scroll Sasuke had given her and nearly gasped when she noticed the Uchiha insignia carved on the wooden dowel. This was clan stuff, secret and coveted, something she would never find in any library anywhere in the world. Even if it involved nothing she could use, Sakura was excited just by the thought of reading something nobody else could.
What... a nice thing to give her. She traced the delicate carving with her thumb and suddenly felt an overwhelming sadness overcome her. Why couldn't this team stay hale and whole?
Why couldn't he stay?
Things will move along a bit more in the next chapter or so. Question: should I do my version of the wave arc? Or should I skip it all together because it has been done too many times? No, none of this story is pre-written, and while I have an outline of where I want to go with it... the details are being decided as I go.
I really do want to focus on character development more in this story. While 'Reign' is a bunch of events following each other at a fast pace (sometimes too fast, I can admit), this fic will move at a slower pace.