AN: Sufficient Velocity and Space Battles are super far ahead, like by a month, and the Pa tre on is on CH 134. You can find the link on my profile if you wanna just get there. You can even find side stories that aren't here!
"These are compulsory, you are joining." Kakashi says, holding out little paper booklets for them. They have red markings, and black markings, and some of them catch her eyes.
"These clearly say optional." Sakura snags one of them directly from his hand, and gives it a quick look-over to make sure she's not full of it. She's not. "Right here, and here, and here, and here it says 'if your Sensei tries to force you please report them.'"
"Does it really?" Kakashi asks coyly, snagging it right back out of her hand before whipping out a marker from his sleeve of all places with a grand flourish that misses absolutely none of them with its sheer dramatic nonsense and pure extraness. "See, right here, and here, and here…" He quickly scribbles on it, slashing and drawing and writing with flair. "Here."
"Oh wow, it says compulsory and not optional in huge letters," Sakura gasps, managing to look wide eyed at the now very modified paper deposited in her hand, "how could I have misread this?"
"Are you sure you can read, Sakura?" Naruto pats her on the back with a huge grin hard enough to send her forward a little. She gets the joke, but it's not very funny. He actually couldn't read very well, they've spent several days of free time getting him up to an actual degree of competency. Still, him saying it does- she's ruining the joke.
"Ha-ha, very funny Naruto." She rolls her eyes at him instead.
"Humor aside, are you sure they'll accept this now that you modified and damaged it so clearly?" It's Sasuke that asks, and for the first time in a while they manage to see Kakashi pale. Well, er, paler than normal, most of his body is covered in cloth at all times and he doesn't get a ton of sun.
"I will get another one to Sakura, to avoid needing another meeting." He coughs into his fist. "The Chunin exams will be held in room three oh one five days from now at three pm, be there... Oh right, before I forget, we were going to have some kids kidnapped as a test for you to see if you're actually ready, but it was decided that Sakura brutally murdering three people to save some fake kids wasn't a very good test."
"..." The stares she gets are very awkward, and she's not sure they're deserved. They're inside the village, she'd never kill someone in the village, the capturability is way higher and she could just run if she was in a life or death situation because there are ninjas in every single space around! She's not a bloodthirsty monster - screw you traits - she's a pragmatist who has a sword! Swords kill people! Besides, anyone could be an academy student practicing henge inside the village, she's not killing potential kids playing a prank on the cute redhead. Her hair is still red, she kinda likes it this way, she can't wait to use her new armor in the exams; she's going to look so badass.
She shoulda chosen ninja wire or something, she'd have such a better reputation. Woulda really countered Neji's argument back with the rebels if she was a capture specialist instead. Plus you know, moments like this wouldn't happen so frequently. Swords kill people Kakashi, that's not distinct to her, he doesn't have to act like it is. He directly gave her a demon sword that thirst for blood!
"So we've decided to do something completely different and significantly harder, while the other two rookie teams get that test," Kakashi clarifies with what she can tell is a smile even without seeing it because of his amusedly sarcastic tone. She doesn't even need her mood chart to know when Kakashi is laughing at her expense. The worst part is that it works, the stares from her teammates get a lot worse at his words. "I'm clarifying now, anything that happens between now and three days from now is not a test. Your pre-test is at ten-o-clock PM, on Tuesday, if something happens before that, do not consider it a test."
"I feel like the test is going to be before -ow!" Naruto actually snickers at her as she slumps over with a broken nose. The sudden movement from Kakashi hitting her with a wet thunk.
"Been a while since I had to do that..." Kakashi trails. "Naruto, Sasuke, I want to make this very clear, do not let horrible things happen tomorrow under the assumption it is all a test."
His one eyed glare is really focused, "what-" that is before that single eye opens wide and he's forced to sidestep a giant hammer that slams into the ground where he was just standing. A puff of smoke erupts behind Naruto and Sasuke, but he's too busy watching the girl that appeared behind him and the wooden end of the murder tool that hits the ground so hard it bounces despite being flat. "Huh..." A single glance reveals the 'Sakura' he hit is now a log.
"Like I wasn't expecting that, get real Kakashi!" Sakura huffs, throwing a fist in the air. "Shannaro!"
"What does that mean?" Naruto asks, Sakura shrugs, Kakashi kicks her in the face.
Everything is balanced.
"I think Kakashi's gotten weaker, that didn't even hurt." Sakura says, pondering aloud to herself as she walks through the forest. One would think she'd return home after getting thwacked by her teacher, but she's got a better idea. They want to test her in the next few days, which people would think she'd be looking forward to but she's always hated tests. They're anxiety inducing, and then when they do arrive she knows the answers and then she has to sit there for an hour while everyone else finishes. She'd just sit there feeling like she answered too quickly and clearly messed up. She's looked over dozens of tests she did perfectly for crippling fear of a hasty mistake, it's freaking miserable.
That's a normal test, this one's orchestrated by Kakashi, she is so freaking good.
Nope, not happening, she lives in the woods until three PM on Thursday. That is her life now.
"Sakuraaaa! Come out damn-it!" It's Ino's voice which rouses her from her slumber in a tree. How many days has it been? Four maybe? She has to check her little notepad but yeah, it's been four days. "I've been to your house three times, your mom said you became a hermit! Haku walks this way when he brings you your meals, I know you're out here!"
Betrayed by Haku's need to feed her. She shakes her head in irritation, before looking down at the blonde girl that is once again deciding to shake up her life. The test was yesterday, right? So this wouldn't have anything to do with it. Though Ino is a ninja and therefore works for the Hokage, she could totally be in on it. "Hai!" She waves at her friend from above, catching her attention. There was always the possibility that by skipping the test she'd fail it automatically, but isn't being so sneaky the proctor doesn't find her somewhat of a passing grade on its own? Either way she didn't think about it til this morning which is probably a pretty good indicator that she still needs to work on certain common sense skills.
"What are you doing up there?" She is really quite high, she can barely see Ino down there, but Ino becomes a little more visible as she walks up the side of the tree. They taught Ino treewalking, that's pretty cool. She didn't see that when she looked at her skills last.
"I'm making wooden tools to get the Tool Making skill up so that if we lose our stuff during the Chunin exam we'll be okay." She explains, holding up a wooden pickaxe of all things.
"Sakura, Sasuke already did that," Ino scolds her with quite the furious pout, "you need to talk to your teammates instead of just assuming you need to do everything."
The infatuated girl grabs the pickaxe right out of her hands and tosses it to the ground below as soon as she gets up there, "forget silly stuff like that and come play with me."
"Ah." Sakura nods with a sudden understanding.
"Why do you look mischievous?" Ino asks her, scrunching up her features in confusion, just in time to get punched in the face hard enough to send her hurtling from the tree.
"Howwww?" Iruka of all people asks from the dirt below. He's being pushed into it face-first by her foot at his shoulder joint, his arm being held aloft by one of her hands, while she bends down so her other hand can hold the large of his back to ensure he stays down. Her entire weight is on him and not in a graceful way, if he was truly a genin he'd need a hospital visit. "What could I have possibly screwed up so badly you'd see through it with enough confidence to risk hurting her?"
"It was kind of a lot of things, teacher." She grunts with effort, stressing the joint-
"Oh, stop! Jeez!" He squirms underneath her, so she tightens her grip and slams her foot down, hearing a loud crack. "Oowww!"
"You haven't said I passed," She points out dryly, "now we're at the don't let the enemy go par-"
"No, you pass, let me go please, that hurts so much!"
"Ah." She quickly scurries off of him, careful to put her weight on the ground before she kicks away so she doesn't break anything. She quickly gets to a stand, and notices how he doesn't. Did she hurt him that bad or is he worried she'll put him back down again? Surely he's stronger than her, he's an actual Chunin… "So firstly, Ino doesn't visit that often. If I'm not available she waits a few days because if she's too insistent she risks me disappearing into the woods or something."
"... Sakura, you're already in the woods, she has nothing to lose." He grumbles.
"Yeah… Second is treewalking, Ino's lack of skills is something I actively fussed over, she'd tell me if she got a bunch of new abilities."
"She tried when her Jonin sensei taught her two days ago, you're in the woods." He grunts.
"Okay, but um, third, she wouldn't just throw away something I made like that. She's got a collection of crafts I've tried to make and horrifically failed in a box under her bed. It's kinda her version of the 'put it on the fridge' thing."
"... Sakura, that's a little creepy. Are you okay?"
"I'm great, thank-you," Sakura beams at the downed man, "I wonder how the other two are doing."
"They passed their tests at ten-PM yesterday, which you'd know if you hadn't decided to camp out in the woods!" He throws his one non-dangly hand up.
"You're right, I should have gone to the Forest of Death, I was just worried they were setting it up and didn't want to step on anyone's hard work…" She pokes her own cheek and ponders-
"That's so not the point here!" Iruka seems mad for some reason she can't understand.
It seems every step forward is two backwards.