Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sakura grows up with a fierce desire to protect.

She is restless, always moving her hands, her legs, her thoughts.

Her new Jounin-sensei blinks lazily at her. “You go first, pinky.”

Sakura stiffens at the nickname. She's been teased before about her less than practical hair colour. That doesn't mean she should be written off as a Shinobi. “My name is Haruno Sakura,” she says pointedly, not quite able to sit still. “Please call me Sakura-san. I like books and track. I hate... perverts." She shakes off her irritation at the nickname he gave her. "My dream is to become a Jounin and protect Konoha.” She runs her fingertips through her hair. They rest over her headband for a moment as she thinks of the people in this village. Her family, of course. Ino-chan. Her tag team. The old shopkeeper who always gives her sweets when she buys something.

These people, Sakura believes in them. She traces that thought fondly to its conclusion, lowering her left hand to rest in her lap. Her people are all worth fighting for.

“Maa, Sakura-chan. We’re all friends, aren’t we?” The man's voice is light and playful, tethering on the edge of dismissive.

Sakura clenches her hands. Before she can think of a way to subtly show him that she feels uncomortable with him addressing her with so much familiarity when she doesn't even know his name, the Jounin motions for Naruto to introduce himself.

“I am Uzumaki Naruto! I like orange and Ramen and the old man Hokage! I don’t like waiting three minutes for my Ramen to get done. Oh, and the bastard. My dream is to be Hokage, believe it!” The blonde shoves his right fist forward. He keeps his eyes trained on the Jounin during his declaration, daring him to mock. It's hard to miss the stubbornness set in the lines of his face, given that he's shouting at the top of his lungs.

“You do realize we’re sitting right next to you,” Sasuke-kun mutters under his breath, loud enough for Sakura to catch it. Their eyes meet and he quickly looks away, raising his voice. “My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I don’t particularly like anything and I hate most things. My dream... no, my ambition, is to kill a certain man and restore my clan.”

Sakura freezes. She never heard his voice laced with so much hatred.

“Why do I always get stuck with the headcases?” The Jounin bemoans, reaching into his pouch to pull out a book. “Not cute.”

Her teeth clash against each other. The boys stare at their new teacher, offense skittering across their faces.

She shifts impatiently.

His voice grows cold, professional detachment ringing true in his statement. “I am not going to bother telling you my name. If you’re worth anything as Shinobi, you can find that out yourself. To make it short: You aren’t Genin yet.” The man keeps his eyes trained on the page he's opened.

Anger shivers through Sakura, hot and cold at the same time. She has been stuck in a classroom with two ticking time-bombs for hours on end, waiting for an underwhelming introduction and to be told that she did not make Genin yet.

Naruto goes off first. “What the hell?!” he shouts aggressively, pointing an accusing finger at the man.

Sasuke scowls, which is as close to verbal approval as Naruto will ever get.

Sakura's hands are still shaking.

The Jounin swiftly ignores them. “Meet me tomorrow at dawn. You have until then to figure out where. We’ll see if you’re cut out to be Shinobi. Personally,” his voice drops into a mock-whisper, and he makes sure to glance at all of them, “I don’t think you are.” He waves cheerfully and in the next moment, he’s gone in a whirlwind of leaves.

Sakura scoffs at his blatant dismissal. She'll show him. But for now she's stuck with two moody boys. Great.

Admittedly, she did feel disappointed when Naruto was assigned to her team. He's brash and dumb and loud - obnoxiously so. Sakura doesn't know enough about him to properly gauge his skills and personality beyond that. He has always been the comic relief for their class, but these roles tend to be defensive constructs. She wonders what's underneath.

And her other teammate – Sasuke. Sakura’s opinion on him is divided. On the one hand, she really does have better things to waste time on, seeing how she should be training hard to protect the people around her. On the other, staring at him is strangely therapeutic.

It hasn't quite sunken in yet, but that's her new team. A team is like a second family. Or the first, she mentally corrects, thinking of how lonely her new teammates must be. Suddenly she feels the overwhelming urge to tackle them in a hug. Family. She'll be damned if she can't become friends with the two boys. “What now?” She asks. “Should we go ask Iruka-sensei which training grounds we got assigned? He probably knows.” Sasuke-kun doesn't spare her a glance, rises to his feet and leaves without a word. Sakura deflates and Naruto glares daggers at his back.

They sit in silence for a bit while Sakura thinks.

“Hey, hey, Sakura-chan! Want to go have lunch with me?” Naruto blushes brightly. He beams at her, having gathered enough courage to ask her out.

She twitches. Him liking her like that won't do. “Please call me Sakura-san.”

Naruto pouts. “But Sakura-chan sounds prettier and uhm – that’s more like you!”

She grins impishly, flexing her muscles threateningly. Naruto gulps. She giggles. Maybe she's been too serious before. Maybe he will grow out of his crush once they get to know each other better. "Sure, Naruto," she says slowly, assessing how smoothly it rolls from her lips, “let's hang out and become friends!”

Naruto stares at her in disbelief. She pulls him after her, setting the familiar pace of a sprint. “Come on, Naruto! We'll have to catch Sasuke-kun first and we don't have all day.”

Her cheerful voice seems to get a rise out of him because he jerks his hand back and shoots past her, leaps brimming with excitement. “Last one to get to Sasuke is a slowpoke!” He shouts.

Joy spreads through Sakura's chest, wrapping around her heart like a blanket.

Too bad Naruto has no clue where Sasuke-kun likes to spend his afternoons training. She quickly races past Naruto, even though she could have just let him run into the wrong direction. That would have been no fun.

Sakura runs through the village, Naruto on her heels. She sends the people whom they pass apologetic looks for disturbing their peace. She almost crashes into a wall twice doing so. Whoops.

Then Naruto trips over a stray cat, hitting the ground. She pivots on her heel and rushes back to him, crouches down only for him to brush her help off with a sheepish smile. Sakura rolls her eyes – boys – and chucks her water bottle at him. “Drink up,” she tells him, and once he's done she snatches it from his grasp. “Better?” she asks.

He nods, oddly quiet.

Sakura’s eyes linger on him for a moment before she abruptly takes off again.

They're both sprouting grins when they stumble onto Sasuke.

Sakura is impressed by Naruto's stamina. She shifts her attention to her other teammate, who's obsessively pummelling a tree. “Sasuke-kun,” she greets half-jokingly, a dramatic quality to the tone of her voice, “your team needs your help on an important mission." Softly, she adds: "Are you really going to turn your back on us?”

Naruto nods furiously, arms crossed. “Sakura-cha... san is right! You're a bastard, but we're a team – hang on, Sakura-chan! We don't need him!"

Sakura winks at him. “As a matter of fact, team members balance each other out so that Genin squads can face bigger threats. So it makes sense for us to work together.”

Sasuke-kun scoffs, his punches chipping away at the bark. “You're supposed to help me be stronger!? You're both liabilities,” he says derisively.

Naruto reels. “No, we're not. I'm not weak and Sakura-san is smart and pretty and fast! And pretty!”

Sasuke-kun stops and turns around to look at them. His eyes are cold, but there's a red rim around them. He looks like he cried earlier. “You can't ever understand what –"

Sakura doesn't think. She crosses the distance between them and pulls him into a hug. Her heart beats faster in her chest, but this isn't about her.

He struggles against it, but her embrace is stubborn and firm. “Let – let go of me, Sakura!”

Sakura doesn't let go. “We're a team now, Sasuke.” She shifts her weight on impulse and hauls them into Naruto's arms.

Naruto laughs, bewildered. “It’s not important – what our stupid teacher says. We will pass that test and we'll be Shinobi of the Leaf, believe it! And then we’ll work together to make our dreams come true, Sakura! Bastard!”

Sasuke goes limp in their arms. He doesn't return the hug, but he doesn't struggle against it anymore. Sakura counts this as a win. “...Your breath smells like dirt, deadlast.”

Light dances across the clearing, leaf-shaped shadows providing cool but brief comfort. Sakura’s clothes are sticky against her skin. Her legs ache and her breath comes in ragged gasps.

She is closing in on her thirtieth lap when Naruto's loud shriek makes her trip. She is too tired to dodge the grass. But she has the self-awareness to tumble her way down in a practiced motion that prevents her from getting hurt.

She closes her eyes, impressions of colour and language already fading into background noises. The scent of grass lingers.

A soaring heat flashes past her and Sakura reels back, scrambling to her feet. “What the hell, Bastard!” Naruto shouts, giving her own thoughts a voice.

Sakura breathlessly dodges another fireball from her rapidly approaching teammate. Sasuke-kun comes at her with ridiculously heavy kicks that Sakura barely avoids by substituting herself with a log. She crouches down on a tree branch, reaching for a kunai to defend herself when Sasuke-kun suddenly appears and lunges at her. She leaps up to a higher branch. He stalks her out onto the narrower end, kunai clashing against each other. His face is blank, and when he knocks her kunai out of her hand she can only think this must be him taking revenge for the hug yesterday. Sasuke doesn't stab her. Instead, his lips twist into a satisfied smirk and his kunai glides back into his holster.

“I win,” he tells her smugly, voice oozing confidence. She snarls and is about to come at him with her bare hands, even though she knows better than to face off against Sasuke-kun in a Taijutsu match, when he drops back, left foot coming down on the branch with a crunch.

It snaps.

Sakura uses the momentum to leap onto another tree. Sasuke-kun grunts and follows her. She fends him off for a few seconds before hopping away from him. He sends fire after her. Sakura only avoids it because she slipped and landed on her bum. She gathers her strength and rises to her feet, and quickly realises that she is running out of breath and options when an idea hits her. She turns to face Sasuke-kun. In a flurry of punches and kicks she attempts to put some distance between them, but Sasuke-kun proves to be too strong. He narrowly dodges her strikes and his glancing blows leave her skin aching. She's about to land a satisfying hit when he sweeps her off her feet.

She falls sudden and she falls fast. Sakura just manages to shut her eyes in anticipation of the ground.

Hatake Kakashi catches her gently and winks at her. Sakura pushes him away, embarrassed, but his grip is like steel, even though he seems to be giving the book in his hands full attention. Sakura briefly makes out the title ‘Icha Icha’ when he glances to his left, shifting his position and obstructing her view. “Pups need to be taught manners first.”

She lets out a shaky breath and follows his gaze. Naruto is pulling at Sasuke-kun's hair, who struggles against the blonde. Naruto yelps and leans away but can't quite avoid the fist that plants itself into his face, which sends him tumbling backwards. Sasuke-kun’s trademark smug grin flashes across his face before he too gets dragged to the ground.

“Sasuke, I wasn't finished talking when you rushed off,” the Jounin chirps, grip finally loosening. He unceremoniously drops her and turns a page, feet dragging across the ground as he approaches the boys with a slouch. Everything about his appearance groans ‘heavy', but Sakura knows that shinobi are deceptive by nature. “I see the reports were wrong about your smarts.”

“You told us that we're supposed to capture Sakura and then you set a countdown for it!” Naruto protests, cheeks flushed.

The man lets out an exasperated sigh and flashes over to him. He proceeds to untangle Naruto's hands from Sasuke's hair, not even looking at the knots, too busy giggling to himself about his book. He snaps it closed and turns serious in an instant. “I wasn't done talking,” he repeats. Then he raises his head and looks her in the eye, tone switching to a mockingly childish whisper. “You were late to our spot, Sakura-chan. I was hurt.”

Sakura walks up to him, eyeing Sasuke warily. He seemed very eager to attack her. “I was just using the time you left us waiting productively. Besides, you never said anything about a spot, Hatake-san,” she says, matter-of-fact, her voice only carrying an edge of her frustration. He doesn't pay her attention, cooing at his book instead. Below her, Naruto stirs and scowls, slowly getting up again.

The Jounin hums. “I said ten, didn't I?”

“No!” Naruto cries out, shoulders shaking. “You didn't say anything! I missed my ramen date with Ayame-nee-chan because of you! We've been here for hours so we wouldn't miss the start of your stupid test and now you're telling us we're not good enough! Well, not telling but uh... we know that you're thinking it!”

“Implying?” Sakura offers helpfully, a smile spreading across her face despite herself.

Naruto nods furiously. “What she said!”

Sakura tunes him out and offers her hand to Sasuke, who calmly flicks a kunai at something next to her feet and forcefully brushes her hand aside. Sakura blinks owlishly at the dead snake in the grass. “It's not venomous,” she tells him.

He rolls his eyes and gracefully stands up. “It was annoying,” he says coldly, walking past her. But he can't hide his red ears.

Sakura grins. “Sure, Sasuke-kun!” She teases, heart fluttering in her chest.

Naruto snickers.

From the periphery of her vision, Sakura can spy the Jounin making a handsign. A clock appears from the resulting smoke. He waves lazily at it. “This rings when it's noon. Each of you will try to get these two bells from me.” He pulls out two small bells and holds them up. “If you don't have one by noon, you fail. You will come at me with the intent to kill.”

Naruto, after a split-second of gaping, howls and charges at him, kunai raised. Suddenly, Hatake has his arm twisted behind his back, the raised right hand in his grasp. Naruto’s eyes are wide. His weapon clutters when it hits the ground, the only noise in the clearing.

Hatake breathes close to Naruto's ear, but Sakura can still hear his words clearly from where she's standing. She folds her arms, forcing herself to stop twitching. “I didn't tell you to start yet, did I?” He says and releases Naruto.

Sakura's jaw drops open when he casually catches his book once it comes racing down and continues reading. She wants to be able to do that, too! “But there are only two bells,” Sakura reminds herself shakily. “And we're three people.”

Hatake Kakashi quips her an amused smile. “Yes.”

Then he spits a wave of water at them.

Sakura hurries to get out of the stream's path and barely avoids it. Once it stops Hatake smiles cheerfully at them. Sasuke is hovering on the edge of the treeline, Naruto has been drenched in water and propelled into some bushes. “Begin,” their proctor tells them.

Sakura doesn't waste any time. She runs like hell is on her heels and doesn't look back. Past the treeline, through the undergrowth and up the trees. She leaps from branch to branch, higher and higher, until she's satisfied with the distance she’s put between herself and the clearing. She gives herself a moment to catch her breath and doubles back. Good thing, Sakura thinks as she twists through the air, that she's done her stretches already.

She pauses once she reaches a good vantage point. From up here, she can spot Naruto -- a flash of orange far, far below her. She flops down to lean against the trunk. She's noticed some tension in her calves on her way, and lets her hands do the work.

The circles she draws spiral into ragged lines as Sakura's mind grows hazier. She's tired and her limbs feel heavy but she clings onto her determination. She will not fail this test!

At some point she stops massaging her legs and rises to her feet, in the hope that being on the move will help her stay awake. She didn't sleep last night, so she's not surprised that it pulls at her, lulling her in its embrace. Her world begins to blur.

She forces herself to fall into a run. Her legs are still aching, but it's little more than a faint buzz when she jumps from branch to branch. She descends slowly, not trusting herself to keep up the precision required for tree hopping. When she reaches the ground, she lets out a breath she hasn't realised she's been holding. She feels vulnerable, unease gnawing at her, telling her that something is irrevocably wrong.

Has she been lured into a trap? Before she can wrap her mind around that thought, a voice startles her.

“Sakura-chan!” Her mother calls.

It's everything that Sakura connects to home, and she wants to follow it. But she's on a mission, a mission to become a Genin and a Kunoichi. A mission to grow up. So she walks away from it until the voice grows fainter.

“Help me,” it groans hoarsely from behind her.

Sakura snaps around and freezes, horrified. Her mother is lying in a puddle of her own blood, hands clutching the deep wound in her stomach. Sakura runs towards her. “Sa...ku...ra,” she hears her whimper.

She reaches out for her. Her mother's head snaps around and she sees her face for the first time.

It's blank. Sakura screams.

The impact knocks all air out of her.

Reality warps around her and peels away to reveal Naruto's teary eyes, a desperate expression on his face. “Sakura-chan! Are you okay? You were cutting your legs, and I tried calling you but you wouldn't answer – so I started shaking you and shaking you and then you screamed and fell from the tree and hit the ground and then you wouldn't move and I thought – I thought...”

“I'm fine,” she insists and sits up, wincing at the sharp pain at the back of her head.

Naruto glanced at her legs, and she follows his gaze. Shallow cuts decorate them and blood is smeared across her skin, mixed with dirt and blades of grass.

Naruto doesn't let it go. “What happened?”

She looks away. “Genjutsu.”

Naruto pulls her to her feet and into a hug. “I don't know what that is, Sakura-chan. But I'm with you now.”

She relaxes and takes in his scent. It's musky with a tinge of spices. Salt and soy sauce. She smiles. Him and his Ramen. Her voice is soft. “Thank you.”

High above the tree tops, the sky darkens. They slowly let go of each other. Sakura nods at Naruto, who promply climbs the tree she fell from. She pulls out her first aid package, hisses when she disinfects the cuts and wraps bandages around her legs. Naruto lands next to her in a crouch. “It's time,” he tells her. “Are you sure?”

She grins. “Of course. I didn't spend the night with you guys just to stop at the first sign of trouble. The plan still stands.”

Something in her gaze must have changed, because Naruto's eyes soften and he laughs. "Way to go, Sakura-chan! You're so cool!"

She shakes her head and punches him. "Good luck," she tells him after he disappears in smoke.

Her legs still hurt when she puts pressure on them, but she grits her teeth and presses forward. When she reaches for a kunai, Sakura notices she's been digging her fingernails deep into her palms. She quickly shoves her hands into her pockets, her throat constricting, and forces the image of her dying mother out of her mind. Her mother is safe, her mother is at home, and her mother will make her favourite meal today in celebration of her officially making the team. Step by step, Sakura is getting closer to making that team a reality.

The wood grows denser and the sunlight dimmer, warm-hued colours only occasionally breaking through. Her eyes are kept carefully on track while she concentrates on her chakra and feels. She listens attentively to its rhythm and then makes its flares smaller and smaller, grimacing under the strain. It’s difficult, but she keeps it under wraps while trying not to misstep. She knows that Hatake Kakashi is an elite Shinobi. One mistake, and he’ll get her for real.

It’s the stray thought that she wouldn’t even see an attack from a Jounin coming that allows her to release her breath and relax her hands. Oddly detached, she realises that she must rely on common sense. Panic and anxiety won’t help her prove herself.

Sakura manages to get to her vantage point without being spotted, at least as far as she’s aware of. It’s a tree she idly nicknamed Control Room on a childish whim, mainly to rub it in the boys’ faces that she’s the one who came up with the plan. She winces when she trickles chakra into her feet, and calmly walks around the tree branch, defying physics with her chakra control. Upside down makes for an angle she has to get used to, but Sakura can’t help but grin, because the sense of achievement lingers. She made it.

She knows that it’s impossible to see her from where the others will be. The trees in between have thick-leafed branches and she can’t spot anything through them either. That’s why she chose this spot. She plastered mirrors to a different tree further south that face the agreed upon spot. Through them, she can see what’s happening without running risk of discovery, and potentially interfere if things go sideways.

She waits patiently for her teammate to arrive.

Naruto honors his reputation by making a flashy appearance, dropping from the sky, hands forming a sign. It is almost comical in its suddenness. “Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!” He shouts, a strained edge to his voice, and a heap of clones pop up below him. They cushion his fall and stop his momentum, but Naruto barely has time to catch his breath before his opponent is onto him.

He frantically leaps to the side as the Jounin’s jutsu barrels down on him, and scrambles to his feet while it is still crackling bright against the ground. Hatake flickers into her vision before he disappears again in a burst of speed, steering her frenzied teammate into her blind spot.

Sakura can’t make herself taller to see from a different angle anyway, so she sends a quick prayer that nothing goes awry, and focuses on her pulsating legs, quickly replacing her thin improvisational bandages with clean ones. Glancing at the mirror, she notes that they haven’t reappeared yet. But she can hear Naruto blabbing on about his Will of Fire, so he should be doing just fine. An idea flashes through her mind, and she berates herself for not thinking of this sooner. Instead of throwing the old bandages away, neglect that could help Hatake track her if the plan goes wrong but she manages to retreat, she ties them around her arms, taking care to make the bloodstains appear as obvious as possible. That should take attention away from her legs and it will be misleading the Jounin into believing that her arms are hurt.

When she turns her attention to the mirror barely two minutes have passed, but Naruto looks much worse for wear. His cheek is bruised, and he nestles his left hand close to his chest. He ducks under a swing of Hatake’s right hook, evading the blow by a hair’s breadth, his movement awkward, sloppy and very unlike him. He may be careless and direct, but his movements are fluid and not jerky like that. As Naruto curses and scuttles out of the trajectory of a second fist, Sakura realises two things. One, the Jounin is not only pulling his punches, but adjusting the strength of his attacks to stay just above the strength of his opponent, a stark contrast to him just dispatching them with his ridiculously overkill frontal attacks, as he is known to do. Two, Naruto avoids putting pressure on his left leg and is likely injured there, too.

It must be because of something Naruto said to him earlier, and she just hopes he didn’t accidentally give their entire plan away. She clashes her teeth together, thoughts spinning about the implications thereof, but soon dismisses them when he pivots on his heel and lashes out at the Jounin. Naruto wouldn’t. There are more important thing to focus on right now anyway. Ensuring that it doesn’t go too far, and readying herself to step in if Hatake decides to knock Naruto out. Nothing short of that would make Naruto back down. He is nothing if not determined, and that shows in the tensing of his jaw, the wide grin on his lips.

He is having fun, confident to hold his own, even handicapped, against the far superior Jounin who seems to be subtly testing his boundaries.

When Hatake decides he has seen enough, four kunai race towards Naruto, snagging the hem of his jumpsuit. He has hauled himself closer into the fight, and surprise wipes the smile off of his face as he is jerked into the opposite direction, getting pinned against a tree. Hatake whips out his novel - she didn’t realise he stuffed it in his pocket before the fight - and approaches him painstakingly slow, insults probably already tripping off his tongue. A recipe for disaster, knowing Naruto.

Sakura’s brows furrow in worry. She releases her grasp on the tree she’s dangling from and twists in the air, landing silently on her feet. Hatake hasn’t said anything yet, but Naruto’s ragged breath becomes louder as she paces closer to them in a half circle, hyperaware of her pull on her chakra. She seeks cover behind some shrub, observing them from a small distance. It should allow her to replace herself just in time if Hatake were to notice her, or if he were to make a move towards her teammate.

Hatake is not even an arm’s length away from Naruto, nose buried into his book. “Naruto, you really should know by now that I don’t have to pull rank to tackle my problems.” Sakura cringes at the terrible, terrible pun. “You’re not ready to be a Genin, never will be with that attitude.” He lowers his book and stoops down to examine Naruto’s face more closely. “Charging at me directly is not the first bad choice you made, but it’s arguably the worst.” Naruto bares his teeth, snarls, and headbutts Hatake, who reels back, managing to avoid the brunt of it, but Sakura saw the blow connect with his chin. She blinks. That was unexpected.

Her growing respect for Naruto is, as is slowly becoming more and more apparent, grounded in reality.

“And your worst mistake,” a clone declares proudly from above Naruto, “was to think I’d give up so easily!”

He then lets out a rather undignified shriek, diving out of the way of Hatake’s conjured fireball. It flares brightly but dissipates instead of burning the tree and Sakura shakes her head in disbelief. How? Was that a Genjutsu disguised as Ninjutsu?

Sasuke-kun steps into her vision. Sakura suppresses a groan. He must have absorbed the fire. She didn’t know he could do that, but she also didn’t know that he was such a show-off. Hatake immediately engages him in a close-quarter fight high above the ground. Sakura watches Naruto’s clone free the real one, yanking out the kunai one by one, dispelling himself as Naruto calmly inspects his wrist. From up close, his bruising arm looks even more painful. She hopes nothing is broken.

Naruto grimaces as he strains to bring his hands together for a sign. “Kagebunshin no Jutsu,” he whispers, nodding to his clones. They spread out to the edge of the clearing.

One of them stumbles close to her location. She sneaks up on him, still paying attention to Sasuke’s fight, the soaring heat blazing above them. A hand over his mouth, she pulls him behind a tree. He struggles against her grip, but goes limp when he sees her face. His eyebrows shoot up.

Sakura releases him and flips him off, her lips twisting into an annoyed scowl. He laughs at her silently. She inspects his injured arm carefully, face softening as her eyes track the damage. Sakura shoots him an apologetic look, concentrates and morphs into a copy of Naruto, mindful not to let the small flare of chakra escape from under her skin. It’s not meant to stay confined, so it hurts, but this conversion doesn’t take so much energy as to make it unbearable.

Ideally, Naruto would transform into her or she would cast an illusion on him and they would swap places. But neither of them are that skilled, so they mouth each other ‘Good luck’ before the clone distances itself from her. It will dispell itself so that there will be an equal number of clones to the ones Naruto made, but it has to put space between them first. Their teamwork brought them this far, and Sakura won’t chance her discovery now. She wants this too much to just give up, wants to become Genin together with these sad boys from her class. She wants to help them heal and mature, and she knows that this is where her help is needed most at the moment. She wants them to grow and wants to grow with them.

She will fight for that right.

When she feels the clone disappear, she knows that it’s time. They all gather around the real Naruto, who barks out orders at them. She can tell that he’s looking for her in the crowd, but she doesn’t risk giving herself away. Sasuke and Hatake have leveled down to the ground while their attacks have become increasingly fast and volatile.

She surrounds them along with the other clones, making a three-layered chain of Narutos that silently observe the fight as the real Naruto jumps in to join, never one to let himself held back by something as minor as an injury.

She is brimming with energy, but she can’t interfere, not yet, has to wait for an opening.

Sasuke lets himself fall to the ground and Naruto propels himself forward to engage with Hatake in Sasuke’s stead. The Jounin lazily deflects his blow, eye sharp and tracking both Naruto and Sasuke, who has reemerged behind him, wielding a kunai and slicing it upward in a precise motion. Kakashi replaces himself with a log and forces Naruto to flip backwards on one hand, narrowly dodging the other boy's sharp blade. Sasuke doesn’t spare him a glance, instead already making handsigns for a fire Jutsu. He mumbles something and gathers a wall of flames in front of himt, sending it rolling towards Hatake. The man yawns and leaps into the air, far, far higher than the wall. Sasuke sways, clearly exhausted, and Hatake lands silently, gracefully, in front of him. Naruto yells, “Now!” Suddenly, Sakura is moving, carried by a wave of clones whom the Jounin takes care of easily enough, picking them off one by one. But Sasuke’s there too, and so is Naruto, and together they succeed in holding Hatake’s full attention. Hatake slams his elbow into one clone, already spinning and delivering a roundhouse kick at Sasuke, who ducks and tries to grab the leg, missing it narrowly. Naruto sends a kunai flying to Hatake’s ribs in the same moment, and the Jounin snatches it out of the air, thrusting it back at Naruto with much greater speed. He shrieks and manages to duck out of the way, tripping and immediately regretting his sloppiness, as Hatake kicks him, the force behind it vicious.

Sakura eyes him sympathetically. Better here than in the field.

Hatake sighs and scratches the back of his head. “Are you done?” Then he mutters, “How is it not noon yet?”

Several things happen at once:

Sasuke jumps, diving at the Jounin.

Naruto howls, launching to his feet, and charges at Hatake, five clones at his beck.

Sakura is one of those clones.

Hatake sidesteps Naruto’s fists, but Sasuke grazes him with his kunai. He is startled by having managed a shalliw cut, hesitates for just a moment too long, so Hatake catches him off-guard and a jolt of electricity knocks the kunai out of his hand. Sasuke, enraged by this, falls into familiar katas of kicks and palm thrusts. Hatake spins, twists and whirls around, fending off Naruto, Sasuke and two of Naruto’s clones at the same time. But he missteps ever so slightly and places his foot on their trap with an audible ‘click’ among the grunts. Sakura reacts, plunging into the center of the chaos, and releases the henge and the chakra she has been nursing close to her chest for hours. It sends a small shockwave, knocking her teammates to the ground and freezing Hatake for just the second she needs.

Her hands curl around the bells and she yanks, retreating as soon as she has them.

Hatake Kakashi pins her down with a long stare. Sakura beams at him, all the bitterness at not really being part of the fight washed away. They did it! They actually beat the Bell Test!

The Jounin hums thoughtfully. “I assume I’m not supposed to move?”

“Naruto left you a nasty surprise there,” Sakura answers happily.

He shrugs nonchalantly, hands dropping into his pockets. “So, who gets the bells?” HIs voice is laced with faint amusement.

She eyes him warily, unsure of whether he’s going to make another move or not. “Sasuke and Naruto can have them,” she says, words rolling easily off her tongue.

Naruto protests, scrambling to his feet. “No way, Kakashi! Gotta admit, they both got better hits in than me!”

Sasuke broods, facing away from them. “I did the least.”

Hatake sends them all an approving eye-smile and dispels, setting of an explosion of mud, rubber ducks and fish that epically rises to the sky and equally epically splashes to the ground. “Epic,” Naruto whispers despite being at the center of it, and Sakura can’t help but agree. That moment, however, is ruined when Hatake casually presses a kunai to her throat. Sakura gulps.

“It’s not noon, is it?” He asks cheerfully, addressing no one in particular.

“Wrong,” Sasuke says dramatically as he rises and turns around, having been spared from the fountain by his fast reflexes and a quickly executed replacement Jutsu. He is thrusting the alarm clock forward. True to his word, the alarm goes off.

It’s just her luck that Sakura is still clutching the bells. Kakashi sighs and snags them away, tying them around his belt with one hand, not letting go of Sakura. He fumbles around his head and a moment later, Naruto’s and Sasuke’s eyes are glazed over and they drop like flies to the ground.

Sakura shrieks, but Hatake just pats her on the head and releases her.

He motions for her to sit in the shadow of a tree further west and she follows him dazedly. They sit, legs crossed. He pulls a scroll out of his flak jacket and makes a hand sign. Three bento boxes appear.

He nods towards the bento boxes and Sakura reaches for the left one with the cute paw prints. He chuckles. “I wouldn’t eat that one if I were you.”

Sakura shrugs, taking the one in the middle and sets it beside her. “What about Sasuke and Naruto?”

He waves her off and grabs the bento Sakura was about to earlier. “They’ll be fine.”

“Now, girlie,” a ruff voice behind her intones. “What on earth goes on inside your head?”

Sakura whirls around, squeaks, and falls in love. “Can I pet you?” She asks dreamily.

The dog in front of her lets out a bark. “You may give me that food next to you.” He preens. “And I like when Kakashi scratches my back.”

She obliges.

“Now,” The dog says once he’s eaten. “I’m Pakkun, Kakashi’s nindog. That’s why I got babysitting duty. He sucks at telling pups what he wants to get across, but I’ve actually written a book on scent tracking, so I know a lot of adjectives.”

Sakura nods, an image of a pen resting in his paws scuttling through her mind. She glances at Hatake, who has finished his bento and has gone back to reading his book. It sounds very reasonable.

“Listen up. “ The nindog’s voice has turned serious, so Sakura braces herself and straightens her spine.

“Rank is not about displays of power, or about how stubbornly persistent you are. It’s about responsibility, skill, usefulness to the pack,” Pakkun explains.

“I’ve been following you three around since yesterday and I know you’re the driving force behind them. I watched you hatch a plan and get the map of the training grounds. I was at your meeting and I know that Naruto pulled the Academy records from Kakashi and students who were assigned to him. That Sasuke found an old bingo book in his clan library, and that Naruto's clones questioned the pups who failed Kakashi’s test.”

He pauses. “I know that Naruto made the traps, and that Sasuke sabotaged the clock. And I know about the fights.”

Sakura lowers her gaze mutely. Pakkun begins pacing. “If I asked you who impressed us the most, your name would be the last thing you’d think of. But we’re not little pups with self esteem issues. Don’t make yourself smaller than you are. You orchestrated this. You’re the one who pulled two moody runts into a conversation and made them trust you, and each other, to have their back. That’s much more valuable than any Great Fireball or Clone Jutsu could ever be.”

Sakura flushes. Pakkun lies down on his stomach and looks her in the eye. “Don’t get me wrong, Sakura-san. You have a lot to learn. For one, your Genjutsu awareness is a real mess. You didn’t notice the one in the library or the one in the woods.” She frowns. There had been a Genjutsu in the library? “For all your brains, you’re rather daft. Mirrors that you don’t steer with ninja wire or chakra threads? What are you, a civilian? Not to mention you can only do the basics. No real taijutsu, only the academy version. I know you didn’t fight much, but trust me, it shows.”

He flashes her his canines, and she gets the impression that he's dog-smiling. “There’s nothing special about you, but that is one of your biggest strengths, too. You’re a blank slate. That means you have potential.You can become anything your pack needs you to be, and that’s the real mark of a leader.” He gives her a moment to process. Then he adds, “You made some mistakes, sure, and they’d get you killed. But that’s what Kakashi’s here for. To protect you and to teach you.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that, so she turns to the Jounin and asks: “Why did you put them in a Genjutsu?”

He hums and summond a bottle of Sake from a scroll. He cuts her bandages away and cleans her wounds with it. “They haven’t proven themselves yet, not in the right ways. Plus,” Hatake inclines his head, “what kind of Sensei would I be if I didn’t give all of my cute students the same lessons?”

Kakashi-sensei doesn’t show up for a while. “I don’t like where this is going,” Sakura says, frowning. She had dragged herself out of bed earlier this morning to complete her run and do her stretches before training was supposed to start. Graduating roused her ambition, taught her what dedication was. Even now she can feel it roaring in her blood, barely contained by the thin spread of skin over her bones.

She knows what’s happening and it's vaguely terrifying. Sakura’s younger carefree days are being outstripped by the reality of what she signed up for. It just hasn’t fully caught up with her yet.

Naruto snores loudly next to her. She doesn't bother suppressing her groan and sluggishly rises to her feet, still sore from yesterday. She turns to Sasuke, who guards the branch she supposes he claimed as his own.

“Sasuke,” she begins cautiously, pausing to wait for his reaction. He tilts his head awkwardly to look at her. “Do you mind sparring with me if Sensei isn’t here and Naruto is sleeping? You have the best form and I...”

He snorts, batting away her words as if they were flies. “You’re civilian-raised.”

She fidgets, thinking of how unfair it is that her childhood is looked down upon. She may not have gotten specialized training ever since she could walk, but her parents love her and they taught her other things, precious things. Swallowing, she looks away. “Yes.”

Sasuke scoffs, but there’s no malice behind the sound. “On one condition.” Sakura whips her head around in surprise. Sasuke looks down at her, the barest hint of a smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

“Name it,” she dares him, shifting her weight in anticipation.

He smirks, flopping down next to her. “You don’t ever force me into a hug again.” Sakura pouts. It’s an unfortunate request. “Ever,” Sasuke repeats firmly.

She sighs, but she already knows her answer. It’s not about what she wants. It’s about them supporting him unconditionally, and Sasuke learning to accept their help. While she thinks hugs would be good for Sasuke, her getting stronger and having his back might be even more important. Sakura strongly believes that if she works hard enough she can make this friendship happen. Either way, this will help her get stronger. Naruto is not in the habit of being awake before 9 am anyway, judging by him periodically skipping classes in the mornings and the way he wheel-barrowed into the clearing two hours ago to drop dead in the centre of it.

“Deal,” she says and they press each other’s hands against their throats. It’s an old custom. Shinobi only deal in lives.

Sakura feels her heart thumping against her ribs like stone and a fire in her gut.

They slowly let go, carefully assessing each other as their hands unclench and withdraw from the fragile spots.

Then she gets thoroughly crushed in combat, courtesy of Sasuke Uchiha.

“Ouch.” Sakura grimaces, wincing as she tries to get back up from the tenth-or-so time that Sasuke sent her tumbling to the ground. She’s pretty sure she will have bruises all over tomorrow. “Again,” Sasuke says mercilessly, thoroughly enjoying himself.

Sakura, breathlessly unwinding, agrees with Naruto. Sasuke really is a bastard.

This time, Sasuke lets her make the first move, easily side-stepping her attack and following up with a lazy kick to her back. She grunts into the grass and just manages to roll to the side, avoiding the jab of his palm to her throat narrowly. Thrusting into the air, Sakura kicks her feet against the back of his knees, jerking his upper body in the opposite direction, and this time it’s Sasuke that goes down.

Sadly, he’s entirely too good at getting back on his feet within the fraction of a second and he doesn’t leave her room to think. He punches her shoulder, light enough not to dislocate it, but strong enough to hurt from where he dislocated it earlier and Sakura readily admits defeat when he presses a kunai against her jugular.

They sprawl gracelessly against the logs on the ground and Sasuke wordlessly hands her fresh bandages and a bottle of water. “Thanks,” she says, unscrewing the cap with some difficulties. Her hands are still shaking from the adrenaline rush.

Without prompting, Sasuke lists her the flaws in her fighting. “You think too much,” is what he says first, and Sakura flushes. She knows that, but it’s difficult not to! “It’s not a bad thing if you can apply it well,” he adds quickly, realizing that he’s struck a nerve.

“For that, you’d need to be a lot faster with your attacks and ideally fighting mid-range. You favour your left side too much, and you don't improvise your moves at all. It’s pretty much the same sequence and anyone who fights long enough against you can and will pick up on that. “So you need either more variety or stronger, faster attacks that finish the fight quickly. Ideally both, though. Your punches are strong, but you don’t lead with your body. Or attack much beyond the throat or stomach. And your kicks are easy to predict, so you shouldn’t rely on them as much. I know you’re quick and flexible, but it doesn’t do you much good the way you’re fighting now.”

Sakura nods thoughtfully. She’s never heard him say this much in one go. He really seems to want to help her. “Thank you,” she says warmly, and hands him the water, hand lingering for a second on his. They lock eyes. “I really appreciate it.”

He shrugs defensively. “You’re my teammate.”

Not for the first time Sakura wonders what Kakashi had them see under his Genjutsu.

“So,” she says. “Basically I’m missing skill and originality and I need to find a style to match me.”

He grunts in affirmation. Sakura rests her chin against her palms. She resolves to train in combat more often now, rather than just running. What good does stamina and speed do if she can’t apply it properly?

“Do you have any advice on where to find instructions on styles?” Sakura asks quickly, before she can reign herself in.

His brows shoot up. “No. They’re usually passed down in a clan.”

She sighs. As expected. She’ll just have to return to the library then. She has some unfinished business there anyway, too curious to just ignore mysterious bookshelves and supposed Genjutsu.

Next to them, Naruto stirs. “Did I miss something?” He eyes them warily, evidently not trusting them to sit this closely together, then levels a glare at something behind them. Sakura cranes her neck to see. “You’re late!” He shouts.

“Yo!” Kakashi-sensei waves his hand casually, perched on the tree Sasuke sat on earlier.

Sakura shudders, thinking about how easy it was for him to sneak up on them and how long he could have been watching them. He’s their teacher, of course he’s better than them, but what if he had been an enemy nin? She needs to have a better awareness of her surroundings.

Sasuke seems to be thinking the same, because he visibly tenses and his expression morphs into the indifferent mask he uses on most people. Sakura hates it vehemently, and for this, she’s glad to have Naruto on her team, because back in the academy he could easily get a rouse out of Sasuke and make him show emotions. Even if it’s just anger.

But she hadn’t realised that Sasuke was starting to let his guard down around her, too.

Pride curls in her belly. They really are becoming a team.

“We have a mission,” Kakashi announces cryptically and Sakura peeks up in anticipation. “Let’s go to the Hokage’s office to pick it up.”

On the entire way to the building, Sakura can’t stop grinning. Their first mission!

Naruto squeaks, bouncing on his feet excitedly. “Is it a princess?”

“No, idiot. We’re Genin,” Sasuke scolds, but he scurries to the tower, too.

They flash the guard shinobi their registration numbers. The two Chunin snicker at Naruto’s picture. Sakura is suddenly really glad she didn’t let Naruto convince her to be photographed with heavy make-up only to be forced to re-do her picture. Naruto ended up pulling weird grimaces at the camera to somehow save the prank.

Sakura doesn’t bother hiding her smile widening as Kakashi tells them to go through the front door before he hauls himself through a third-floor window, uncaring about the shattered glass he leaves in his wake. “Sensei is really weird,” she announces, pushing open the door to the revered building she never stepped foot in before.

Sasuke grunts in agreement, and Naruto shoots past her like a lightning bolt, not paying attention to the impressive décor of the tower. High above them, there’s a citadel with vibrant glass ornaments and the walls surrounding them bleed colour and gold. There are wooden statues everywhere and Sakura feels compelled to reach out to all of them and follow their carved spines.

But the tree. Oh, the tree.

In the centre of the hall it towers and grows into the walls with its branches of green and light and life. It breathes and Sakura can’t tear her eyes away from this beating heart of Konoha.

She feels small and humbled and, at the same time, she hears the voices of thousands of people whispering into her ears, calling on her to protect.

Somehow, she knows. This tree is something ancient, something sacred.

Sasuke has to steer her up the stairs, past the mission desk and into the Hokage’s office.

It’s much plainer than the entrance hall. Every room has its use.

Naruto wears a scowl, pacing the room, while Kakash-sensei’s nose is buried deep in his book. It’s battered and worn. There are yellow fingerprints at the edges of the pages and it’s the same book he’s been reading for a week. He catches her incredulous stare and winks.

“Old man!” Naruto whines. “Can you tell me our mission now?”

The Hokage looks fragile in his thick robes behind his gigantic desk, but he chuckles and it fills the entire room. Sakura recognizes his thinly veiled amusement at Naruto’s antics and relaxes ever so slightly. “Of course,” the Third agrees. “Kakashi?”

Their teacher doesn’t look up. “Team 7 reporting for their first mission.”

The Hokage hums, stacking through the papers on his desk. “Let me see what I have for you. At this point of the day there’s only catching Tora and watering the crops on the Kobayashi family fields left.”

With every word she can see Naruto’s expression sagging. Sakura thinks it’s hilarious. She just knew he hadn’t listened to Iruka’s lecture before the teams were announced. Did he really expect a princess?

“We’d love to help the Kobayashi out,” She chimes in bravely.

Kakashi-sensei nods. The Hokage smiles at her, acknowledging her decision with the ink-dipped strokes of a brush, and dismisses them.

Naruto picks himself up with a protest on his tongue and trots down the stairs.

She laughs at him and he flips her off. “Manners!” Kakashi-sensei calls and she feels smug at the reprieve.

The Jounin and her hang back, watching Naruto drag himself out of the building and Sasuke quietly following.

“It’s curry, you know,” he tells her like it's a secret, holding up his book, and Sakura flushes. “The pack loves it.”

She pouts. “When do we get to see them?”

He tucks the book away and ruffles her hair. “Soon.”

The Kobayashi are a kind farmer family and they are invited to lunch during one of their breaks. Sakura wolfs down her serving and calls for a second one, only to realize that Sasuke and Naruto are attacking their fourth bowl of soup. She smiles contently and engages one of the civilian children bustling around the table in a conversation.

Somehow this devolves into a food fight, started by Asahi and enacted by Naruto and Sasuke, mainly. When things calm down, she makes sure they help with the clean-up while she quietly picks up on the field work. Idiots.

Kakashi shows her a water distribution jutsu for her troubles, and Sakura practices it on the crops, careful not to drown them. Her teacher flashes her a thumbs up when she gets it working.

At the end of the day, Kobayashi Haru hands them small baskets with freshly-plucked apples, which they graciously accept.

She feels warm on her way home, despite the cutting wind.

(When Sakura flops down on her bed she discovers a scroll on her pillow. When she squints she can see faint yellow curry stains on it. Inside, she will find instructions to a fighting style.)