Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Sakura began her first steps towards her career as a ninja, still just a small child, she already knew she had every disadvantage.

The academy administrator had obfuscated it but hadn’t denied it – civilian born shinobi were not particularly valued, they were barely aided by their teachers, and few graduated outside of wartime conditions. Those that did tended to die young as the third member of a team or remain as genin in the genin pool, basically amounting to nothing but easy fodder fit for manual grunt work only. In Konoha civilian shinobi made themselves, without the investment of others to help them.

The shinobi at the enrollment desk didn’t say it like that of course, he used misleading words that spoke of hardship that could be overcome with enough determination, as if her success would be proportional to her efforts alone. It wasn’t entirely an untruth – civilian shinobi were like diamonds in the rough, with most of them being the ‘rough’ and the diamonds being the rarities like Minato Namikaze, a man who had the luck to be placed on the genin team of a sannin, and forged himself into a diamond with his own skill and some luck.

Genius of Minato’s caliber was extremely rare outside of a clan however, like one in a million odds, with the other million civvie kids being a waste of time and resources. Clans were vaunted in Konoha and the teamwork espoused only worked when everyone had something to contribute – only the best civvies became ninja and even then they usually had little value. Still, as much as civilians were considered useless, Konoha still needed them to do the grunt work, to die in the stead of those more valuable, so they couldn’t drive all of them away. Someone had to staff the admin offices, hospitals and schools and the like, while the clans took all the top positions with their additional skills and resources.

Sakura was smart though, smart enough to understand what they were saying and what they weren’t. She understood that she had few prospects – her civilian silk merchant clan had little value to Konoha and especially the military side, and she had no contacts or other resources. All she had available to her was the scraps that those with more power deigned to leave for them, and that didn’t amount to much especially without a teacher to walk her through it.

It was knowing all this that she still decided to apply for the forces. She was five years old, soon to turn six and be eligible to join the academy as a civilian entrant, stood with her parents at the administration building for her enrollment. The shinobi working the desk had made it plain what he thought of her, though she doubted her parents noticed. It was hard for her not to see the way the ninja’s eyes had darted over her small form, an unimpressed flick of his eyes dismissing her as never having a chance.

Sakura knew she didn’t look like much, with her skinny arms and bright pink hair, but she didn’t care about that. Ninja were all about misdirection and deception, and looking the way she did was a simple way to get people to underestimate her. You would never know she spent hours peeking into training grounds to watch the ninja train, reading any information she could get her hands on no matter how irrelevant it might seem, just from looking at her.

Her parents weren’t happy with her choice to become a ninja, but they too shared the belief that she’d give up eventually. “Its the way of the world.” She heard her father say to her mother one night when she was supposed to be sleeping. “We are weak, and so is she, but as yet she’s refused to accept it. The world will set her straight before long.” Because the weak were at the mercy of the strong, and the strong made sure they knew it.

Sakura hated it, but like her father said, it was the way of the world. She’d first have to get strong, if she ever wanted to change it.

“Are you sure you want to do this Sakura?” Her mother asked her one last time, hands wringing fretfully.

“Yes Kaa-san.” Sakura’s voice was soft but certain, her intentions unchanged in the face of commitment.

“Very well, we’ll sign you up.” Her father nodded, and all three signed their names to the document that would essentially give Sakura into the care of the military academy until such a time as she dropped out or graduated into the military itself.

That was fine though, everyone knew that the village had the power to make them do whatever they wanted – civilian or ninja. Taking orders directly as a ninja wasn’t much different than being at their mercy as a civilian except that she might be able to build enough strength to have some power for herself.

That was why she was doing this. She didn’t want to be a shinobi, to do whatever awful thing the village told her to do, but similarly she didn’t want to be a civilian, so useless as to be thrown away without care for the village’s benefit.

That’s what had happened to her uncle – a sacrificial lamb for Konoha. He had been part of a convoy which had walked into Kiri at the village’s request, ostensibly for trade but they’d all known it was just to use as a cover for their shinobi to slip in and find out whether the rumors of civil unrest were true. Her uncle never returned, but the shinobi had, with the information they’d wanted and the news that the convoy had not lasted the night inside the walls of Kirigakure.

So Sakura wasn’t going to be a civilian, even though the idea of being a travelling merchant somewhat appealed to her. She was going to be stronger than that, and if she was to be sent to dangerous places, at least then she’d have half a chance of walking back out again.

Clearly though, it was going to be an uphill battle all the way.

Despite asking the enrollment shinobi for tips to prepare her for the academy, all the man had told her was to build her stamina and make sure she could read and write. She already knew she had to do that, but the advice was useless – the biggest problem Sakura had in her personal development was in application. How did she know how far was too far to push? Was it better to build up bad habits trying to practice alone, than to not start at all? She was still small and didn’t want to stunt her growth making a mistake that could easily be avoided with some guidance or supervision.

So far she’d focused on learning as much as she could that might be useful but not using any of her knowledge so she wouldn’t potentially hurt herself. Watching the genin or other academy students train didn’t mean she could copy them exactly – she didn’t know the best way to run without hurting herself, and running alot was so painful she wouldn’t necessarily know she was doing it right or wrong until the damage was severe. Making mistakes in ninja training could have serious consequences, which was why having a teacher was so important.

So instead she focused on other things like book learning and basic trade. It wasn’t much, but she’d watch others go about their business too – even if she couldn’t do it herself at least she was familiar with the jargon of various different roles, in case she ever had to go undercover herself.

Disappointed by the lack of care from the enrollment shinobi who barely answered her questions, Sakura let herself be led away by her parents. There was no point wasting her time if she wasn’t going to get the answers she wanted, it was better to find somewhere else to look.

So it was that she found herself once again heading to the training grounds to try and learn what she could from practicing shinobi. So far nobody had really cared to have her hanging around, but if she was discovered (and she wasn’t always even with her pink hair, her chakra was miniscule and she had learned how to hide it somewhat at least) she usually just moved on to a different training ground to watch there instead.

Sakura would be joining the academy soon, so she couldn’t get by with just watching any longer. She had to make a difference in herself – something physical.

It might be wise to wait until classes actually started and hope that the academy teachers would teach her how to do it right, but she’d watched enough of the outdoor academy classes to know that the teachers weren’t there for things like that. The academy was there for everyone but like everywhere else, the clans took priority. And the clans already taught their children how to do the basics like how to run, so for the most part they were skipped over.

Civilian students barely got any attention in those lessons that she watched, so struggled on without guidance or even much in the way of correction. Even once she joined the academy, she couldn’t rely on the teachers to help her. It was part of what made the Yondaime so exceptional, to have succeeded at making something of himself despite the added difficulty compared to the clan children.

To be fair to the teachers though, many of the students who weren’t obviously from a clan (and many of those who were but already knew the basics) were too busy fooling around to really learn, treating it more like playtime in the park than a lesson on taijutsu.

It meant she’d need to find someone who would teach her the very basics at least, so she could start her time at the academy at a similar stage to the clan children rather than so far behind them.

As of yet she’d had no luck. Being a child, not even an academy student, meant she’d been dismissed immediately any time she’d worked up the courage to ask for tips from anyone. She’d asked adult shinobi and younger, academy age or barely genin, even a jounin once or twice. She’d asked anyone for help and if they’d even deigned to answer, usually it was to reject her. Some had teased her awfully, discouraging her from trying again. Even the more genial ones had turned her away carelessly.

Now she had some leverage though, something that might get her past the initial ‘no’. Being a shinobi-in-training was different to just being some random kid – it might be enough for someone to invest a little time in her.

Sakura just had to find the right person to ask.

With that in mind she packed herself a small lunch from the leftovers in the fridge, dressed in her training clothes and headed out to find a teacher.

As the daughter of the Haruno clan, merchants, it wasn’t unusual for her to spend much of her day alone or wandering the village. As long as she was home by dinner it wasn’t a problem, which was pretty normal from what she’d seen in Konoha. Being too shy and studious however, Sakura didn’t spend her days at the park with the other children (many of whom were mean to her and she too weak to fight back) but instead haunted the training grounds or sometimes the mission office, soaking up all she could.

There were some training grounds that she knew to avoid completely – the ones that were used for more dangerous jutsu, or by those who had already expressed her unwelcome. There were some that she’d had better luck at though – where she hadn’t been noticed or chased off. It was a risk of course, being around ninja who weren’t mindful of her watching – she had gained a few cuts and bruises from mis-aimed kunai or jutsu in the past.

So she began her usual habit of checking training grounds in use. Each one was bordered, and there was a small sign at each entrance for the private ones (which were most of them except the academy and genin grounds). It seemed like luck wasn’t with Sakura so far though, as most of them appeared to be empty. How disappointing. She’d just have to keep trying.

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It was well known that Konoha was the ‘nice' ninja village. The label made Sakura wonder about the others, if Konoha was supposedly the best place for civilians to be, and even here their lives meant little. Even its shinobi were of little regard it seemed like – she'd certainly seen enough moments of derision between shinobi, especially the big clans. The Hyuuga were cold and unkind to everyone, and cruel to their own kin (yes she’d seen the use of the caged bird seal, just once, but once was enough), the Uchiha were meant to be police and peacekeepers but seemed disdainful of everyone. A good chunk of her experiences with shinobi, both toward herself and when she was watching from afar, they seemed to look down on others. Hardly the spirit of cooperation their village touted.

Sakura had looked at her village and decided that you could tell how ‘good’ a place was by how illegal it was to talk about its bad parts.

In Konoha it was treason to question the system, because it was to oppose the Hokage’s will in so doing, which was sedition and therefore treason.

Even her opinion of how civilian shinobi were treated was treasonous despite being true and that was telling; that truth was often a treasonous thing, to be harshly suppressed.

She knew Konoha wasn’t as ‘good’ as it liked to let people think it was. Her dead uncle had shown her that much, along with the rumors of missing children that just never seemed to be investigated. Perhaps Konoha found a use for them, like they’d found a use for her uncle. Either way she was in no position to oppose the system which left people like her at such a disadvantage, at the mercy of others who didn’t seem to have mercy to spare for them.

(She would find out in just a few years where some of those children had gone, when Orochimaru was driven out of the village. The number of missing children lessened after that, but didn’t stop entirely.)

Right now she had little but luck to rely on to keep her out of a situation she didn’t want to be in. Signing up for the academy helped, putting herself in service to the village, at least that was the intention. She’d still be screwed if she relied on that though, so she had to find someone to help her, someone to at least ensure she was doing it correctly so she could build on a solid foundation.

Of course she found Gai.

The man had seemed cheerful and nice, and exuberance was far better than the apathy and disinterest she was usually met with. She didn’t know Gai but had heard of him around the village a few times, but the man was a strong ninja and was often out of the village (or too fast for her to stop and speak to). Most of the times she’d heard about him had been because he was known as strong but strange, very very strange.

Right now though he was stood in front of a market stall loudly apologising for apparently having startled the seller.

Sakura trotted forward before the (very tall) man could disappear as he seemed prone to doing. Maito Gai was loud and his smile seemed to gleam, surprisingly non-threatening for a barring of teeth like that. The merchant seemed nervous regardless, and Sakura could understand why when the jounin turned those pearly whites to her a moment later.

“Ano, jounin-san?” Sakura hesitated a moment, not sure exactly what to ask now that she was speaking to him.

“Ah! What can I do for a Beautiful Blossom of Konoha?” Gai was loud, but he considerately knelt so as to be no longer towering over her so significantly.

“Um, I’m starting the academy soon, but I want to start training so I’m prepared. Could you help me?”

“Most precocious of you Young Flower! Of course I, Maito Gai, will offer guidance to the next generation and fan their Flames Of Youth!” The ninja had swept her up before she could thank him, all but throwing her onto his back and whipping through the air. It seemed only a second later that they were stood in a training field and Gai eased her off of his back, surprisingly mindful of her rather unsteady legs.

“Wow.” She breathed, eyes wide and pink hair a bit of a mess.

“Ah, you have never travelled at such high speeds? One day perhaps you shall also be able to traverse distances at such speed yourself.” The thought made her grin, even if it had been a bit surprising. No wonder people wanted to be ninja if they could do things like that!

“I’m going to do it.” Sakura nodded her head in determination, then scuffed her feet shyly. “Um, if someone would teach me how?”

What followed was the most difficult training session she’d ever experienced. None of her personal training came anywhere close. Gai was friendly but firm, and he corrected her constantly and pushed her hard. It was everything that she’d been asking for; he made sure that whatever she was doing she did correctly. Mostly it was stances and stamina work, but those were important to get down pat, a solid foundation.

Admittedly he did seem to overestimate how far she could push herself (a hundred sprints, push ups and sit ups, really? Sakura was five) but accepted when she met her limit and encouraged her to push through when she thought she could do no more. She found that even though she might collapse from exhaustion or puke from it, after a few moments to rest she could usually do a few more despite what her body was telling her.

In the end Gai only spent about two hours helping her, but she couldn’t have been more grateful.

“Thank you very much for your help Gai-sensei.” She panted, hair a mess and barely catching her breath. She probably looked a state. “Will you be able to train me again in the future? I’ll work hard on what you’ve taught me, I promise!” She’d never lacked for stubbornness and now she knew how to do the basics she’d do them diligently until she mastered them.

“I will do my best to meet with you to train whenever I am in the Village!” Gai assured, exuberant now as he was two hours ago. “In the meantime I am sure you will do Konoha proud as a Flowering Blossom! Perhaps we will meet again as we both run around Konoha in morning exercises!” Because of course she’d also been instructed to run five laps around Konoha in the mornings from now on.

“I’ll do my best!” It would’ve sounded more determined if she wasn’t still panting and exhausted from the workout she’d just had.

Still, even though Gai couldn’t commit to training her more routinely, his help had been very useful and Sakura now felt confident enough to work on her physical exercises by herself. She also now had someone she could turn to for help in the future, not that she planned to abuse it. Gai had made it clear in his own way that he was a busy man, and she wasn’t willing to waste his goodwill on unnecessary things.

It wouldn’t be long until she started the academy, but now that she had been taught how to work on her strength and stamina she was confident she would be ready for her first day. Sakura had always had a good memory and rarely needed correcting twice – with Gai’s guidance, exhausting though it was, she finally had what she needed to prepare for her shinobi career without causing herself irreparable harm in her attempt. She might not be starting the academy with the advanced taijutsu skills of the clan kids, but she’d at least have the basics down to a T. It was as good as she was going to get for now.

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In the time she had left before she started at the academy, Sakura worked tirelessly on what Gai had assigned her. She wasn’t able to do 5 laps around the village yet but she could manage one complete circuit after working at it as much as she could. Coming home with her muscles aching and feeling like they were overcooked noodles became the norm for her, but it was a price she gladly paid to grow stronger, and her improvement was clear. She hadn’t even been able to complete one lap of Konoha when she started and now she could – that was all the proof she needed that hard work could get her results.

The basic katas and balancing exercises that Gai taught her along with the exercise regime were repeated over and over until her improvement was clear. Coupled with her slowly improving stamina, Sakura was pleased with her progress.

Her parents were less impressed with the state she came home in most days however, nor the state of her clothes but they did add muscle-relaxing bath salts to the grocery shop so at least there was that. Otherwise little seemed to change for Sakura until her stamina improved – she still spent most of her free time reading or helping out her parents whenever her muscles couldn’t take any more, which was most of the time.

So it was that she started the academy feeling much more prepared than she would have without Gai-sans help. It calmed her nerves a little to know she’d done her best, but butterflies fluttered in her belly all the same as she headed to her classroom for her first day.

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Sakura had known that civilian kids like her were not considered worth much in the academy, but it was still disappointing to see how true that really was.

She was in a class with many other students – most of which were civilian kids like her, with a few minor clan members thrown in. Half her class could barely read or write by all accounts, so the first few lessons were frustrating for everyone involved. The sensei for her class, Hironomu-sensei, mostly assigned reading and writing homework for them, involving simple worksheets that were to be taken home and competed. Anyone who still couldn’t read and write appropriately by the end of the month, he said, would be dismissed from the academy, though they could reapply the following term if their skills improved.

“This isn’t a kiddie school.” Hironobu-sensei told them sharply. “This is the shinobi academy. I’m here to shape you into weapons fit to serve the village, not hold your hand and help you with your letters.”

Sakura found him to be generally unkind, but not in a malicious way. It was clear that Hironobu sensei didn’t really give a rats ass about being a teacher or encouraging the growth in his students – they would harden their shells or get out of his classroom and either way he’d be satisfied.

She could see the logic in it – like he said, this wasn’t kiddie school, they needed to get used to the harsh realities of becoming ninja, but the way that he did so was discouraging for many. Sure, you needed to be strong and resistant to such tactics as a ninja, but this was just a classroom of six-year olds.

Despite the usual rough handling that Sakura was used to receiving from most strangers and especially shinobi, Hironomu-sensei did teach the class with decent enough diligence. He gave them what they needed to know and it was up to them to work on it and remember it – something that Sakura had no problem with on both counts. Many of her classmates seemed pretty stressed by the end of the day though – inundated with so much information they were clearly overwhelmed. Only those like Sakura (mostly the clan kids) seemed unbothered, probably because they already knew a good chunk of what had been covered in class. Sakura certainly did – she was up to learning kanji, well past learning the basic letters and words some of the other kids were still at.

What Sakura also found most telling was that during recess while they ate their lunches, while most of her class ran out to play in the yard, the few minor clan members worked on katas by the side of the academy building rather than going to play. Even break time wasn’t a break for them, and Sakura followed their lead, working on the basic stances and katas Gai had drilled her through weeks ago now.

Hironomu-sensei eyed her curiously when classes resumed, clearly aware of her lunch break activities, but said nothing of it. There was no hiding that she was a civilian kid – no ninja clan had pink hair like hers – but so far she was keeping up with the minor clans, well ahead of many of her peers, and showing focus and dedication that none of the other civilian children had. He said nothing of it however and continued the lesson, once more burying them all under basic knowledge that Sakura thankfully knew most of, allowing her to focus on the things she didn’t.

Physical training that afternoon wasn’t quite so easy for her unfortunately. Despite her work the last few weeks to build upon her strength, she just couldn’t compete with the clan kids who had likely had years of training already by this point. She didn’t do too terribly at least, far better than she would have without Gai’s help for sure, but even some of the civvie kids were keeping up with her. She’d not been the most physically active child until recently and it showed, but Sakura knew she'd get better at it with work. Still, it was with relief when the lesson ended and they were ushered off to the showers.

Interestingly the showers were gen ed, and also first come first serve so there was a fair bit of pushing and shoving going on as people tried to hog the water. They were only given ten minutes to bathe and get ready for their next lesson, which wasn’t very long given the number of kids trying to shower in the limited facilities and how long it took to pull on clothes when you were still wet, especially as Sakura had opted to wear tights today. A mistake she wouldn’t be making again for sure.

The day ended with a lesson on shinobi rules and regulations and by 4pm they were set free, kids streaming out of the academy building eager to go home, Sakura among them.

Hironomu-sensei's words followed them out as they took their worksheets and reading lists with them. “I don’t care if you don’t do the assigned reading – you'll just fail out during testing.” He’d told them as they left. “Its not my future I’m fucking over, so do whatever you want. Just beware of the consequences of it.”

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Her parents were waiting for her when she got home, eager to hear how she’d gotten on. It was clear that they’d expected her to be miserable upon her return, ready with consolation and comfort, and when she beamed at them and told them how she was going to work hard to bring her physical skills up to match her academic ones, they were a bit at a loss. Even so they gamely congratulated her, her father even teasingly asking if she’d still have time to spend with her parents as they cooked dinner or was she just too busy?

Grinning, Sakura bounced towards the kitchen. “Of course I can help kaa-san cook dinner. You can watch from the side like always papa.” Because her tou-san wasn’t the best cook in the house, even if he could cook rice just fine – cooking was kaa-san's job. (In truth it was her father’s job to do food prep while her mother cooked, but Sakura often took his role instead.)

Cooking and eating dinner with her parents were about the only things she had time for though, because Sakura was going to spend the rest of her free time at her favorite place; the library. Now that she was in the academy she was allowed to access more of the books there, not to mention she needed to get started on the reading list Hironomu-sensei had given her. Her physical strength may be behind (though improving) and her taijutsu and other ninja skills near nonexistent but Sakura’s brain was her greatest asset. Memorization and recall were her strengths and they were far easier for her to keep ahead of her class with at her current stage.

Sakura was determined to give it her all, to work smarter and harder than the rest. She felt like she was off to a good start – a far better start than she’d expected with Gai’s brief but intense guidance. Building up her physical strength would take time though, effort and dedication to build up the musces and muscle memory without causing herself harm. Knowledge though? That wouldn’t hurt her to gather as much as she had time for, and that was where she truly proved herself in these early days.

Hironomu sensei was generally dismissive of her after that, but kept an eye on her all the same. It was clear that this class had the lowest potential in its students but Sakura kept on doing her best, regularly holding the top spot in academics and middling in physical scores, though at a steadily improving rate. A good chunk of her class treated the academy like it was a vacation from chores at home, so her decent scores and visible improvement did stand out amongst the other students for the most part. There were several who seemed to be trying hard like she was, but most showed it in opposite scores from hers – stronger physical and lower academic results.

By the end of the first term, Sakura’s class had lost over half its members, and been combined with another class of kids her age. She wasn’t surprised – despite the warning it seemed like many of the kids really hadn’t done the assigned reading and so had just flunked out during the first testing phse, if they hadn’t dropped out because of their sensei’s harsh attitude.

To give him some credit it wasn’t like Hironomu-sensei was cruel– he didn’t hit them, or truly humiliate anyone, he just didn’t care. So long as students weren’t being disruptive, that was all that mattered to him. Those that did interrupt his lesson found themselves being sent out to run laps instead.

The workload was heavy for those who didn’t have decent skill at reading and writing however, but none of their texts had kanji in them just yet so those still learning weren’t completely screwed. Sakura didn’t doubt that kanji would start cropping up soon though, if only here and there – she'd seen a worksheet another kid from a different class was muttering over which had pictures of kunai, shuriken and the like with the hiragana and kanji next to them. Sakura’s kanji was excellent for her age but there were lots of words she wasn’t familiar with that she’d need to learn too – thankfully memorization like that was easy for her, so she wasn’t worried about when it came up.

With the shock of losing so many students at the end of the first semester there was a definite change in her class. The work was still easy for her overall but the diligence of the students was typical higher, with most of the lazy or uncommitted students no longer in class. The drop outs were able to reapply each year so it wasn’t like they weren’t able to become ninja if they came back, but they were deemed not worth the effort at this stage until they matured.

Without them the class became a bit more focused and also more competitive. Sakura wilted a bit against the strong personalities but gamely carried on with her efforts regardless, even if some of the other kids had taken to teasing her because of her studious nature and high scores.

She wasn’t exactly making any friends.

So many of their classmates had dropped out by the second term that the other kids realised how cut throat things could be. Sakura wasn’t about to let them bully her out but that didn’t make going to class any more pleasant, especially when they weren’t learning much in the way of combat skills just yet so she didn’t really know how to defend herself. So far most of their physical classes were for building stamina and dodging, along with basic stances.

Her parents attempted to convince her that staying in the academy wasn’t good for her, that she kept coming home exhausted and dirty after long days in class followed by getting pushed in the mud on her way home. Her parents didn’t realise that Sakura was steadily making her tormentors work for it – putting up more and more of a fight each time, giving as good as she got. Instead she learned to sneak into her own home, creeping in through the window and cleaning herself up when it happened, or hiding from the other kids so she didn’t get messed up in the first place.

By the end of that first year, Sakura was top of the class despite all the things working against her, and her proud grin had a sharp hint of teeth.

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At the start of her second year in the academy, Sakura found herself in a class with more clan kids than civilians. It wasn’t that surprising – a lot of the civilian kids had dropped out, but even some who hadn’t weren’t in her class. No, Sakura had proved herself during the testing at the end of her first year and was no longer in the lowest tier class. She was in the lowest bracket of her new class though, according to the scores they were given. Sakura’s training had brought her up to the level of the clan kids – but just barely.

Amongst her classmates were members of several prominent clans, though the majority were still made up of minor clans with the exception of a few. There were three Uchiha’s in her class, all girls (or perhaps very girly boys, it was hard to tell at their age and they all wore their hair long) along with two Akimichi boys. An Aburame wearing their dark glasses and long coat that made telling their gender impossible and a Hyuuga boy with his pale blind-looking eyes and bandage around his forehead. The rest she wasn’t able to identify just from a look – not all of the clans wore their clan symbol openly on their clothes or had characteristics that were easy to spot.

Sakura knew very little about the clans, only the clan symbols and a few notable traits to identify them by. The sort of knowledge she had was what you might pick up from crowd watching and overhearing conversations, with a few tidbits thrown in from her parents’ business (certain clans had contracts with them, but that information wasn’t very useful.) Still, it was enough to help her identify some of her new classmates and she’d only learn more from being in a class with them.

Information gathering was one topic that had been covered in her first year, because it was one of the few useful things a child could provide for its village at this stage in their education. So she sat in her seat and quietly studied her classmates, curious as to how this new class was going to work out. Unfortunately her hair stood out like a beacon as a non-clan child and she was too shy to introduce herself in the face of the disinterest or scorn she was met with by some of her classmates. She wasn’t hopeful, but it was early days yet and even if she didn’t make any friends, she was here to learn and could do that without them.

(Even if having friends, building a network would be useful for her to share skills, she’d just have to fail in that personal assignment for now.)

She hadn’t been particularly well liked in her first year. Despite her scoring 100% on most of her academic tests, nobody had come to her for tutoring nor had they (or she) offered the hand of friendship. Sakura could only hope that this year would be better for her. With that in mind she watched as more of her new classmates trickled into the room, hoping to see someone who looked receptive to making a new friend. None of the clan kids even looked her way. Of the civilians, none of the boys looked at her twice and a few of the girls did only to sneer at her pink hair and pale skin, her small stature. They looked at her liked she was competition, and not good competition either.

One girl stood out from the rest though, in that she was actually stood at the front of the class, hands on hips and blonde hair in a long ponytail high on her head.

“My name is Yamanaka Ino and I’m going to become head of intelligence like my tou-san!” She declared proudly. “So you better watch out class 2-b!”

Sakura couldn’t help but be envious of the other girl’s confidence and surety – Ino looked perfectly put together but still like a shinobi-in-training, while Sakura was still wearing the bright, un-shinobi-like colours her parents continued to ply her with. She had managed to get clothing better suited for the academy, but the colours were her mother’s choice. Sakura could say it was a compromise, but in truth she only had so much power over it – her mother was the one paying after all and had the final say.

In a class of more experienced civvie kids and minor clan members, Sakura stood out like a pink balloon at a funeral.

Aside from that outburst which gained Ino some attention from the class, especially the civilian girls, most of her classmates seemed uninterested in interacting outside of clan lines or at all in the cases of some of them. It looked like there were less kids here just to play around and they’d been here long enough to know that the classes might still get shuffled around depending on student performance. At the moment there were still three classes of kids her age and they were still years from graduation. The sentiment of not bothering to make connections with others until they’d proved themselves worth it continued, with the exception of Ino who valued everyone, because anyone could be a spy and send information her way, Sakura supposed.

Sakura kept to her table however, even as students clustered around the Yamanaka girl. She saw the blonde eyeing her briefly but Ino didn’t approach, seeming content with reinforcing connections amongst those who had flocked to her. Sakura had heard of the Yamanaka flower shop and knew that their clan were prominent shinobi, though little more than that. It was clear that the other girl was taking a different tactic to most of her classmates though – nobody else had been so bold as to introduce themselves like that, calling attention to themselves with the intent of reaching out. The only thing close was an Uchiha who’d snootily announced their clan name and derisively turned away from another kid who had tried to talk to them.

It was only a few minutes before their new sensei came in, looking unsurprised by Ino at the front and breaking up the group around her. It seemed to Sakura that this sensei had had Ino in her class last year, or perhaps knew of her well enough to predict her behaviour. If this had been Hironomu’s class he would have had Ino out running laps for being disruptive as soon as he saw her at the front of the class. Their new sensei just waited for everyone to sit down and didn’t even hurry them to do so.

“You will call me Sasaki-Sensei. This is class 2-b, so if you’re in the wrong class then leave now and give yourself a failing score on basic navigation.” Their new sensei’s voice was smooth and surprisingly deep given that she didn’t look older than her twenties. Her hair was brown and tied into a bun, but her blue eyes were sharp.

“This is the curriculum for each term this year. You’ll learn it, or you’ll be bumped down to 2-c, if not kicked out entirely. To receive a passing grade in this class you need at least 75% on a test, or a suitable alternative. For example if your skill in stealth is below 75%, you’d need exceptional skill in another area, like strategy, logistics, or clan skills, to compensate and average out your scores. This doesn’t mean you can slack in areas you’re weak in however, so keep that in mind. If I don’t feel that you’re giving it your all, I’ll demote you to the lower class regardless.” Their sensei then listed off the topics they would be covering and approximately how long each unit would be covered for.

Sasaki sensei’s speech heralded a great change for Sakura – far more topics were going to be studied this year, along with practical work. Sakura was determined to do her best.

She soon learned that the array of topics weren’t the only changes introduced in 2-b.

Being in the class with the clan children meant that her teacher had a bit more interest in her students, but also that there were things that weren‘t being taught in class because they were all expected to know already. Fortunately Sasaki-sensei seemed willing to give Sakura reading references for some things that weren’t covered for those reasons. That was about the extent of her kindness though – despite her cordial responses to Sakura’s requests for more information or training, she would do no more than offer a few book titles in a few subjects. It wasn’t in her interests to offer more than that, she said.

It was frustrating, especially when the knowledge gap was so obvious and yet seemingly impossible to fix because nobody would help her. Come winter, nearly all the clan kids were walking about seemingly unbothered by the cold, wearing at most a coat and gloves to compensate, while she and the other civvie kids were all freezing even in their thick layers. When she asked how they were keeping warm they just sneered at her scornfully, like not knowing how to keep herself warm with chakra was her own fault. At least now she was in their class she could see some of the things they were learning that she wasn’t but it didn’t make it any easier to find out how to do those things herself.

Sakura spent many evenings of her second year at the academy fruitlessly trying to recreate things she’d seen other clan kids do, but she had to be careful. The first time she’d tried some of the stretches she’d seen a clan kid do they’d gotten her in trouble for ‘trying to steal clan techniques’. It was just stretches, but having a label like that against her could be serious if someone wanted to screw her over.

They were only just starting chakra control exercises in this new class too, but it was clear that many of the other students already knew how to meditate and reach their chakra, as well as a few control exercises themselves.

To her teacher’s and classmate’s surprise though, chakra control was yet another area where Sakura excelled. Her reserves were tiny, but her grasp of it was very precise. It was just too bad that those classes came in the spring, because she really could have done with learning in the winter – then she’d know the heating trick all the other clan kids had and not had to wrap up in the obnoxiously hot-pink coat her mother had bought for her.

Even so, while she was praised for her control, Sasaki-sensei warned her about her low reserves and advised her to build them up during meditation practice instead. She didn’t necessarily have to do anything differently, just to do more of it – to stick leaves onto her body all over instead of just one, things like that.

The first time Sakura passed out from chakra use was awful. Her reserves were so small it didn’t take much, and her sensei had scoffed at her poor performance. There was only one way to increase her chakra pool though, and that was to use it. The first time Sakura passed out would be the first of many times as she pushed herself just barely within safe limits to expand her chakra pool. It’d never be huge, but if she kept at it she might at least make average, and with her prodigious control that would be sufficient.

Suffice it to say that Sakura was a great deal busier this year with many more subjects being covered in class. It was lucky that she’d already read so much of the library because she had less time for extra-curricular learning – everything she did now was related to her lessons. The lessons were a bit more practical this year, but each lesson also had holes in that she needed to fill because she didn’t have a ninja family to teach her. Having read so much of the academy material in the library meant that she had some of the answers but not all of them, and finding them out was harder than expected. That wasn’t the only thing harder this year either.

The difference in difficultly compared to last year’s class was significant – here Sakura was at the back of the pack for laps in both speed and stamina and her knowledge had huge holes compared to the clan kids. At least she didn’t lag too far behind. Sakura wasn’t the only civilian kid to struggle though, mid-winter saw a slew of class transfers as most of her cohorts were dropped down into the lowest class, one of the Uchiha had gone up a class tier and one of the Akimichi had dropped out to work at their parent’s shop according to Ino. There was only one new addition to her own class, a burly civilian boy who apparently had caught the attention of a patron and had no time for any of his new classmates.

Her comparative mediocrity only drove her to work harder during class and in her own time however, pushing herself constantly. Her focus rotated so as to allow each part of her to recover after a work out – physical training of the upper body followed by building up her chakra reserves, then moving on to lower body strength and stamina, followed by intense studying or information gathering while her body and chakra recovered. It left her with little time to spend with her parents, but she usually made time around dinner to help them out and eat with them, even if she was out the door again or holed up in her room to study immediately afterwards. The mornings on the weekends were also still spent learning from her parents – trade routes and other merchant skills they taught her in the hopes she’d take up the family business one day.

Despite her parents’ disappointment that Sakura still had yet to drop out of the academy and focus on her ‘real’ future, she was able to avoid an outright argument mostly by virtue of not being around to hear it. The tension over the dinner table was evidence of their disapproval enough, but the situation hadn’t yet reached the stage of a full out discussion (or argument more likely, when Sakura refused to give in to their wishes to abandon her budding military career). Her dedication to her training was proof of her commitment and so a somewhat awkward ceasefire was in effect on the topic.

The only real difficulty Sakura had, beyond her parents stubborn stance in opposition of her own, came down to food.

Her mother might have reluctantly accepted that Sakura wouldn’t withdraw from the shinobi academy, but she still held hope that her daughter would change her mind. With that in mind, she regularly tried to direct her daughter to more appropriate pursuits and push her towards normal female standards. One that she regularly commented on was Sakura’s physical appearance – her hair and her figure, despite her being young and not even starting puberty yet. She no longer looked after her hair and nails as devotedly as she used to, unwilling to commit such time and attention to them and it showed compared to her previous perfectly brushed hair and tidy, clean nails of before.

Sakura was also working hard in more than just her academic studies, no longer focusing solely on her pursuit of knowledge. Now that she was pushing her physical limits, Sakura needed to eat a lot more than she used to – and a lot more than other kids her age. Her body was beginning to show some muscle definition from a whole year of physical training and in her mother’s opinion it was ‘unsightly’ and ‘unattractive’. With her classes and personal efforts to work on her chakra reserves she required even more sustenance - and it all boiled down to how much she had to eat.

“Oh but Sakura you’ll put on weight if you eat that much! You need to go on a diet, no boy will ever want to marry a chubby or muscly girl.”

Her mother meant well in her own way, but the deliberate obstruction of the necessary calories did Sakura no favors. She was forced to start looking for alternative ways to get food or risk starving herself, a topic Sasaki sensei had briefly covered and could be summed up by saying it was ‘bad’.

With her parents controlling the purse strings though, there really wasn’t much she could do. It was one thing for her to help with dinner and add more ingredients to it when she could, but her mother still made her bento and just shorted it in retaliation and Sakura had no way to supplement that meal. If she tried to find some small jobs to do to earn some money then it would cut in to her training time, and Sakura wasn’t sure she could afford that without getting bumped down a class.

It was only during one of her evening sessions of learning the layout of the village (she was determined to have home-ground advantage after it was covered in a tactics class, and that meant learning all the ways to get around her neighborhood, then the village proper, including hiding places and shortcuts) that Sakura found her way to Yamanaka flowers.

The shop was brightly lit and welcoming, even in the evening sunset. She could see Ino manning the counter, chattering about her day to her father as they worked.

Sakura had learned a little bit about Ino-chan's father; that he was high up in the intelligence department and was a valued shinobi of Konoha. She’d seen him pick up Ino after school a few times and Sakura had been surprised at how friendly he seemed, it was almost like he wasn‘t a shinobi working T&I at all. She hadn’t been sure how much she could trust his trustworthy-looking face and demeanor given his workplace, but it had fascinated her all the same because she could see the same thing in Ino.

Ino, who came across as friendly, encouraging her ‘friends’ to do what she wanted. Sakura had seen her do it, the way she spoke as though what she was suggesting would be good for them, even when sometimes it was only really good for Ino. That didn’t undermine the fact that sometimes Ino’s advice truly did seem to be in the best interests of the other person – she'd even given small bits of advice to Sakura, and stood up to some of her bullies in class.

Sakura understood the concept in owing a debt, saw that Ino’s apparent altruism came with strings, but she’d never seen any sign that those strings were bad things. Ino had never asked anyone to do anything bad for them, and Sakura had already learned from both Sasaki sensei and in her attempts to get training before the academy, that acquiring debts and having something of worth to trade was how things worked between ninja. Sakura had little to offer but Ino would take her and tie them together anyway if she wanted, because she might have something she could offer in the future.

It was no wonder that Yamanaka flowers was so welcoming then, that the Yamanaka were so friendly. They traded in information, and investing in a nobody could pay out later with just a little effort now. It was an interesting difference to the more common shinobi way – of someone having value already and not being worth the effort otherwise.

Thinking deeply on the subject out in the street, Sakura really shouldn’t have been surprised when Ino leaned out the front door with a smile but those attentive blue eyes. “Hey Sakura-chan, you want something? Tou-san says you’ve been stood out here a few minutes. Is there something you need?”

And that was the crux of it, Sakura thought. Ino was always there ready to offer help when it was needed, with the unspoken promise of future payment down the line. That was okay though. That was how things worked in the shinobi world.

“I was just exploring and found your shop Ino-chan, sorry for loitering.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but close enough – Sakura wasn’t about to admit to mulling over the Yamanaka method of making connections and trading favors.

“Oh cool! That’s a useful thing to be doing Sakura-chan. My dad takes me out all the time for stuff like that. He says its important to know your village, so that you’ll notice when something is amiss. He literally says that ‘amiss’. Who uses that kind of language?” Ino made sure to tilt herself so her words could be heard in the shop, where her father called out a playfully affronted ‘oi’ in protest. “Anyway did you want to come inside? We’ve got some new pink peonies that are just like the colour of your hair I swear!”

Until now Sakura hadn’t really reached out to Ino, nervous about tying herself to a shinobi family without understanding what doing so would mean for her. Sakura didn’t think it would be possible to find out without doing it though, and if she was going to owe a debt to anyone, Ino seemed like the safest bet. So she gave a determined nod, hands clenching in front of her and trying not to feel as though she was stepping into a lion’s den instead of a flower shop.

“Great, come on in then!” Ino wasn’t shy, taking her by her hand to lead her inside, already calling out to introduce her to her father as she did so.

“This is Sakura-chan then.” He acknowledged her, a friendly smile on his face as he stood behind the counter, but she could see how his eyes had the same sharp intelligence that Ino’s had. “I’ve heard you work hard in your classes and your scores are very good for a civilian student. How are you finding the academy?”

“I like it.” Sakura replied, keeping it simple. “Sometimes it’s hard filling in the gaps where clan kids get taught things at home but I’ve read all the books for my rank in the library, so I’ve got most of them filled.” She may as well be upfront about where she’d need help though. Ino’s father eyed her speculatively but Ino herself was gaping visibly.

“You’ve actually read all the academy-ranked books in the library? All of them? For real?”

“Yes, I finished them during my first year at the academy. They’re only so useful until the topics get covered in class though, since its dangerous to try much of the practical stuff without a teacher on hand. I’m still working through the worksheets that Sasaki sensei gives us though, sometimes she gives me extra ones, or book recommendations which aren’t in the academy library.” Sometimes she had to buy the books from a bookshop if she could convince her parents to get it for her, and sometimes the books were actually in the genin section and Sasaki-sensei gave her a note, but usually she didn’t so Sakura just had a list of book recs she couldn’t action yet.

“I can’t believe you’ve read all the academy library books. What about other stuff? Like random books – have you read everything?” Ino couldn’t seem to wrap her head around it, but Sakura just smiled because the other girl was also fishing for information.

“I’ve not read the whole library.” Sakura clarified, flushing a little. “I mean, I’ve read a lot of it? All the academy stuff, like I said, and then just random things really. A lot of the stuff I want to read is restricted to genin so I sometimes read non-shinobi books like uh, like gardening books! Or travel guides, self-help booklets, reference books and some fiction, of course.” Not only was she still just a little girl who liked stories at heart, but they worked to normalize some of her studying habits, if her parents saw her reading a story book instead of shinobi books all the time.

Both Ino and her father seemed impressed (and a little perturbed in Ino’s case) at her achievement, and Sakura flushed under their awe.

“I admit it never occurred to me that the academy library might be lacking for those who don’t have a clan backing them.” Inoichi told her, which Sakura personally doubted but didn’t say out loud. “Which areas would you say lack the most?”

“Hm, definitely it needs more introductory books for topics mentioned in class but not extensively covered. Poisons for example, they get talked about in class but there aren’t any books available for them. There’s not much on chakra either – really only the academy three and some chakra control exercises, there’s no mention on elemental or yin/yang beyond that they exist. Basic training guides would be good too, I’ve had difficulty in the past practicing alone.” She flushed, realising the list she’d just rambled off. “Of course most of this stuff needs a supervisor so is restricted to genin rank in the library, but being genin gates a lot of useful knowledge that could be worked on in the academy even if only theoretically...” Not to mention making learning top-heavy for civilian kids who make it to genin rank, burying them under things to study and work on if they gained the rank (which few would manage without basic understanding of the topics already).

“I see, that does sound troubling.” Interestingly Inoichi did seem to be taking her words seriously, and she hid behind her hair shyly. These things had been bothering her a while and just remained bottled up, so Inoichi was getting the brunt of it just by asking. “What about things you are learning at the academy? Any problems there?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Sakura hummed thoughtfully, shifting a little. She’d had some problems of course because of the teachers not having much interest, but she wouldn’t say they were sabotaging her at all. “The class sizes are a bit big so practical lessons don’t give much personal attention, but otherwise...” Sakura flushed darkly, eyes on the floor. “I could do with more information about how to notice and correct mistakes in training, and get a diet plan. My mother is a civilian and has Opinions about how much and what I should be eating. I’ve seen a lot of disparity between what kids in my class eat too so I’m not sure what my intake should be like.”

Both Ino and Inoichi were frowning at her, she could see through her bangs. Ino was visibly eyeing her up like she could see Sakura’s ribs through her clothes (it wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t much better either, she was skin and bone with some muscle definition, no fat).

“I can definitely see how that could be a problem.” Ino’s father folded his arms and rubbed his chin with one hand. “Diet can be a bit iffy because clan techniques can influence that – take the Akimichi for example, they have a diet plan that I wouldn’t recommend for anyone not an Akimichi. The Nara too tend to have special food pills because they’re too lazy to eat properly.” He shook his head with a sigh. It was another example of the sort of thing the academy wouldn’t teach because the clans would teach it differently, so they didn’t see the point in covering it despite having non-clan students. Ironically if Sakura were in the lower tier class it might have been covered since it was made up mostly of civilian kids.

Quite frankly, even if Sakura had documentation from class detailing her increased need for nutrients it was entirely possible her mother would dismiss it ‘for her own good’. As if, should Sakura ever give up her ambition of becoming a ninja, the muscle wouldn’t diminish eventually on its own. Reasoning with her mother was becoming more difficult however, which was partly why she was trying to avoid her and do things for herself instead.

“I can bring it up-” Inoichi started, but Sakura interrupted him, apologising as she did so.

“Please don’t do that Yamanaka-sama, I don’t want to draw attention.” It wouldn’t do her any favors to cause trouble, not when her position was already precarious. If she annoyed her sensei it was unlikely she’d be staying in the mid-tier class for long.

“Very well Sakura-chan, and please, call me Inoichi-san. If you don’t want to have it brought up to the council then Ino will just have to bring you a good bento instead.” He beamed, and Ino looked affronted at being volunteered before she shrugged and nodded.

“Sure, kaa-san and I can just make a second bento in the mornings, its no big deal.” Her mother did most of the work so all Ino would be doing would be bringing it into the academy in the mornings. “Oh, what about poison resistance training though daddy?” She turned to Sakura. “Sometimes kaa-san puts tiny amounts of herbs and poisons in my bento to help me build up a resistance. It’s rarely enough for me to even notice or get sick, but its part of my training. Kaa-san works in the gardens and handles a lot of plants that can be used in poisons, and one day I’ll be able to work there too if I keep at it!”

Sakura listened with interest, eyes wide – poison in her bento, really? “That sounds amazing.” Sakura breathed. “Don’t you run the risk of making yourself immune to painkillers and anesthesia though?”

Ino nodded, pleased that Sakura seemed interested. “It is a risk for sure, but also not? Not that many Yamanaka are front-line fighters, most of us work in T&I or in capture teams, so our exposure to injuries tends to be low and only during the time we’re genin and maybe chuunin. Because of that, most of the poison resistance focuses on sedatives and actual poisons. It isn’t usually a problem because chakra can replace sedative medicines, or we could just be knocked out if its that bad.”

“Medical techniques can do that? We only get taught basic first aid in class.” Medical ninjutsu was another barely mentioned field. Sakura could understand not covering topics like medicine and poison overmuch – they were specializations one would usually only get into as chunin or skilled genin but she’d like at least to know that such things existed to see if they might be of interest to her.

“I’ll lend you some books.” Ino said decidedly, turning away from Sakura, hair fwipping along behind her. “Now, about those peonies.” She pulled a few out, holding them close to Sakura’s face so she could contrast them to her pink hair. “Nice, just a little darker than your hair so they stand out.” She tied a few into a small bunch and slid them behind Sakura’s ear, tucking her hair away from her face as she did so. “No need to hide that pretty face. Besides, you don’t want your hair getting in the way when you’re training right?”

Blushing brighter than the peonies now adorning her hair, Sakura stood there awkwardly as Ino laughed at her embarrassment. Inoichi chuckled nearby as he tidied up some of the flowers on display, giving her a moment to collect herself.

“Thank you Ino-chan.” Sakura’s voice was barely audible and came out more like a squeak, and she would have been affronted at Ino’s father chuckling quietly off to the side if she wasn’t already so embarrassed.

“No problem Sakura-chan! I’ll get you all sorted out, no problem!” Ino beamed at her and Sakura couldn’t help but smile shyly back, even though they both knew this was just a favor owed. It didn’t matter really – trading favors with Ino didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends, and part of being a shinobi was having different kinds of friends. Trust was a rare commodity, but ‘friends’ could become real friends and even if they didn’t, Ino’s way of feigning friendship was a pleasant ruse. It didn’t matter that they barely knew eachother, the illusion of friendship with Ino was more than she’d had up till now and it was a nice feeling.

Friendship was its own currency, Sakura supposed. To have a kind interaction was relieving after so long without it. Sakura used to be able to get by with just her parents but with things becoming so tense with them, that was no longer the case. Somehow it didn’t surprise her that the clan famed for their mind techniques and understanding of people were able to weaponize friendship. They were taught at the academy that ninja had no emotions but Sakura doubted humans could just not feel anything, and if there was one feeling she knew well it was loneliness. If her determination to become a strong ninja were any less, her drive would easily be usurped by the desperation she felt to no longer feel lonely.

One day she would have to pay Ino back for her friendship, though with what she had no idea. For the time being she’d accept the debt she was accruing, but she was determined to show that she was worth the investment.

“It’s getting late Sakura-chan, you should probably head home soon.” Inoichi’s calm voice jolted her out of her thoughts and she flushed again, bowing reactively to him and then Ino.

“Y-yes of course, sorry for taking up so much of your time Ino-chan, Inoichi-san.”

“It is no problem at all Sakura-chan. Its nearly dinner time though, and I know Ino wanted to learn how to make katsudon today.”

“Yeah! I’m learning to cook! It’s important to be able to cook tasty meals! One day I’ll be living on my own and I don’t want to have to buy takeout all the time. Maybe I should look for a husband who could cook though...” Ino hummed thoughtfully and her father laughed, ruffling her hair, much to her vocal displeasure.

Sakura giggled a little herself as she left Ino to her daydream– finding a husband who could cook instead, it was certainly very different from what Sakura’s mother would approve of!

For now though Sakura trudged home, flowers tucked in her hair and hope for the future blooming in her chest. Hopefully her parents would forgive her tardiness and be happy that she’d finally made a friend.

------------

From the next day onwards, Ino brought in a bento for Sakura’s lunch and would sometimes sit with her during break. The clan heiress seamlessly added Sakura into her group of friends, although Sakura struggled to bond with anyone else but Ino. Sometimes the other kids did ask her for tutoring if they were struggling with something in class though, and that was improvement enough.

Under the umbrella of Ino’s influence Sakura’s life did get much easier. Every now and then Ino would bring in a new book from the Yamanaka library for her to read. Nothing forbidden or too advanced, but Sakura was grateful either way and eager to gain any knowledge she could get her hands on. Ino also offered Sakura tips and advice during practical classes when she struggled with something, taking note of her exceptional control but lacking much variety in her katas and other practices.

“My clan jutsu all need really good chakra control.” Ino told her one day. “I can’t teach you any of that stuff of course, but we have to do lots of chakra exercises to build up our chakra and our focus and some of those might work for you.” Their signature techniques had them essentially throwing their minds into someone else’s after all, so keeping themselves together was important.

Most of the exercises Sakura had seen had more to do with controlling how much chakra went to a single area, like her hand or forehead to hold a leaf to it, but what the Yamanaka did was very different. It wasn’t necessary for Sakura to learn the extra techniques but any greater control she could gain would be useful, even if she would never apply it in the same way as Ino would one day.

With the extra help, Sakura found her classes a little easier, and her personal studying far more lucrative. Ino’s mother also included her in some mild poison resistance training, though not to the extent that Ino did. She was grateful for it, but also grateful that Ino’s mother only did it intermittently – while Sakura got used to having to attend the academy while feeling queasy, she certainly wasn’t having a good time doing it. It did make her feel more prepared to be a shinobi however – functioning normally when you were mildly poisoned gave her experience in working at suboptimal condition and trying to hide it – in pretending, basically. Ino was amazing at it – you'd never be able to tell she was sick to her stomach some days when she had her mask up (though both girls would often lunch together away from everyone else and complain those days, trying not to be sick).

It was also nice because Ino’s mum made delicious bentos, and when there was poison in something it would come with a little letter. Sometimes the letter would just be instructions of the sort of symptoms she’d feel and what to do if she had a bad reaction, but sometimes they’d be coyly written, telling her to try and figure out for herself which part of the bento was poisoned. The food was always beautiful too, a sharp contrast to Sakura’s mother’s bento which no longer came with the ocoto-sausages or rice shaped like cats as in her youth. It might not be from her own mother, but Sakura still got to experience a small sort of mother’s care in those letters and lunches and was unspeakably grateful for them.

Having Ino around kept Sakura from feeling too upset about her parents though, as the other girl was always energetic and upbeat. Even when they weren’t hanging out together, Ino was loud enough that she could be heard from across the room, reminding Sakura that she wasn’t really alone. Sakura had thought at first that Ino was going to be class-friends only, since the other girl didn’t like to do much of the ‘boring’ training Sakura did outside of class, but it turned out that wasn’t the case. Ino would ditch her if it was taijutsu or bukijutsu training after class, but she would sometimes join Sakura in exploring the village, or take her out to show her something cool she’d found.

The first time Ino met Sakura’s parents, Sakura was petrified. Her parents had been glad that she’d made a girl friend, right up until they’d realised that Ino was the daughter of a prominent ninja, and heir to that ninja clan. Ino never hid that she had ninja roots either – she wore her fashionable yet practical clothes – so different from civilian style – with pride, along with her kunai pouch fastened to her hip.

Watching the Yamanaka blow past her parents disapproval was astounding though – Ino was so friendly and bold that she managed to talk right past any stiffness or offense, and within ten minutes both of Sakura’s parents seemed to think Ino was no longer the negative influence they had upon realising she was a shinobi-in-training. Instead she was ‘cute’ and ‘a budding young lady’, even if she was perhaps too forceful in her approach.

It was amazing to watch, and Ino even stayed for dinner that day. She chattered non-stop about her family’s flower shop and all the gossip she’d heard while working there. Not a blip of anything ninja related came out of her mouth and yet she never stopped talking. Sakura probably spent the whole meal with her mouth open in shock, right up until Ino was waving her goodbyes and being seen to the door, where her bright expression and wide smile faded to a more neutral look.

“Well they definitely don’t like ninja.” She said with a soft laugh, though it didn’t sound as if she found it very funny. “Any time I mentioned my family they definitely disapproved. Honestly Sakura, I’d consider planning to move out as soon as you graduate – I don’t think they’ll let you stay long once you get your hitae-ate.” It was clear that there was already conflict going on as Sakura rejected their authority on her life choices, and that would only get worse once she became a legal adult as a genin.

Flinching at Ino’s words, Sakura hunched in on herself but nodded, eyes on the floor. On the one hand Ino’s certainty that she’d graduate was warming, but on the other being told that her parents wouldn’t accept her was disheartening. She’d known it was the most likely scenario of course, but had hoped that her parents wouldn’t actually kick her out – but Ino didn’t think that would be the case and she was the one from a clan of mind readers. Sakura’s parents had never had a problem with hiring ninja for their business, but clearly having one for a daughter was another matter entirely.

“I’ll plan for it.” She assured mournfully, and Ino gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

“At least you have time to prepare. Hey, we can use our village exploration sessions to find a good apartment building for you! That way you’ll have a place all picked out in advance and you won’t get stuck somewhere crummy.” If they scouted at night too it’d give them an idea about nightlife in that area. It would suck to pick an apartment and then find out it was next to a noisy pub at night, and some areas bustled during the day too.

It was an exciting thought, looking at where she might want to live one day. The motivation behind the move might be upsetting, but she would have moved out one day anyway, she knew that for certain. Sakura loved her parents and her home, but it was ill-fitting for her. Her soft pink bedroom with its lace and stuffed toys, they felt like they belonged to another little girl sometimes, not Sakura.

Ino said her goodbyes then, with one last comforting pat, and Sakura closed the door once she was out of sight down the lane.

“Ino seems like a sweet girl.” Her mother came out to see what was taking her so long, ushering Sakura in to help clear the dishes. “Its too bad she’s in the ninja academy, she’s got the look of a good merchant on her.”

Sakura said nothing, dutifully clearing up after their meal and helping prepare her bento for the next day when she was done. Her parents chattered over her head about how nice Ino’s clothes were, her hair, how polite she was and good at conversation, and the whole time Sakura felt like they were drawing negative conclusions against her. After all, Sakura wasn’t a good conversationalist, being too shy most of the time. She didn’t look as put together as Ino even when she was still trying hard to look pretty and she hadn’t been trying to do that for ages. Sakura didn’t measure up to Ino.

Head bowed, Sakura retired that night in silence, frustrated words kept behind bitten lips as was becoming the norm.

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True to her word, starting the next day Ino took her to scope out apartment buildings even though she wouldn’t be moving out for over two years at that point. Ino would boldly wander the halls of apartment buildings with her as they looked around, and the pair would giggle over the pricier places they would one day aim for. Not all the landlords would let them in of course – they were two little girls, not yet ninja even, but a few cheerfully showed them if they had an empty apartment for them to have a look inside. One old lady who managed a nice apartment block by the academy explained some of the differences between lets, such as furnished and unfurnished, some coming inclusive with certain bills, some having communal gardens, or hot water best available at certain times of the day because of a shared water tank. One of the places they looked at was more like a dorm, so had a shared bathroom and kitchen too. Sakura wasn’t fond of those, but there was no doubt that they were cheaper.

Spending the time home-hunting with Ino was fun, and Sakura felt that she learned a little bit more about her village and the people in it too. Her parent’s house was a small but comfortable 2-storey with a little back yard not too far from the market district and she’d lived there since she was born. It was strange imagining living anywhere else. As they walked through an apartment building they were checking out, Ino would pose questions like ‘where’s the nearest grocery store’ ‘how far is this from x location’ so they could try and decide how convenient that location was.

Personally Sakura couldn’t imagine living in the more residential districts further out, she was so used to the hustle and bustle of being nearby the markets, but Ino didn’t like how cramped everything felt. Either way it wasn’t long before Sakura had a list of apartment buildings and locations that she’d prefer, once she really was looking to move out.

For now she felt a little better having done some research to prepare for the eventuality of moving out.

Her second year at the academy followed a pattern from then on, with Ino becoming a bigger part of her life and joining in with some of her out of class training too. The other girl was invaluable when it came to information and she seemed willing to share it with Sakura, which made things a lot easier for her and filled in many of the holes in her knowledge that came from being a non-clan shinobi. It was nice having someone in her corner to help her, even though it meant that she owed Ino a lot.

One day she was going to be a strong kunoichi and she’d stand with Ino on equal footing, true friends instead of having favors owed between them.

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In her third year as a student, they had a new teacher named Iruka-sensei.

He was younger than her previous sensei, but seemed more engaged in teaching them. He did struggle a little bit with how unruly this class was though, there were some strong personalities amongst her classmates.

Interestingly, being in the top-tier class wasn’t too different to being in the mid-tier one for Sakura. There wasn’t the same jump in difficulty compared to the one from bottom to mid-tier. The subjects in class were now a mix of practical exercises for experience, like missions being run in the training grounds, and strategy, logistics, things like that which Sakura had read about in the library or could logic out herself so she didn’t find too hard. Her success in the class came then from her knowledge, and the lighter workload – something ostensibly because most of the class were clan kids and heirs, and so had clan training taking up much more of their time. Though there was still plenty of new subjects being covered in class, much of their class time was now focused on application of what they’d learned in real world examples, and lots of sparring and taijutsu training as well.

Fortunately Ino was still supplying her with new books every now and then, but the blond girl was now splitting her time three ways – with Sakura, her new group of followers (Ino had been bumped up to this class too but most of her previous clique hadn’t), and two other clan boys that Ino told her would one day be her genin team.

It gave Sakura a jolt to hear that – she knew genin teams were the end goal of the academy, but she hadn’t realised how close they were to it. The reality of her career choice was beginning to hit her – she would be a shinobi, and soon be applying the examples in class into real life scenarios. It was a daunting thought but she grit her teeth – this was her goal; to become strong, and live. She would continue to work as hard as possible to attain that goal.

Her success so far had earned her placement in the better class and it finally felt like the class itself wasn’t working against her. The improved investment in the students showed in small ways like better quality equipment and more in depth explanations from her teacher. Sakura could have sworn she’d seen a nin on guard duty during their first lesson in taijutsu too – it would make sense to protect the class of clan heirs she supposed – they were all in her class – and Sakura got the impression that many of her classmates had been in the same class together for some time which would make sense if they were better protected as high-value individuals. It was entirely possible that there was no ‘top tier’ class Sakura could have joined last year if the class was limited to clan heirs and the like, and she’d actually been /in/ the top tier class of her year. Now she was in the high-value class which doubled as the advanced class.

All that did raise one question that Sakura just couldn’t answer though.

Why was Naruto here?

The boy was the worst in the class, worse even than Kiba, who was really only there because of his clan heir status and physical skills as his written work was poor, particularly for topics he wasn’t interested in. The blond boy was regularly dirty and ill-mannered, seemed to struggle to keep his mouth shut and had very little to show for his placement here.

It just didn’t make sense to her that he would be here instead of a lower class if he was struggling so badly. It was clear that she was missing something but whatever it was that gave him enough importance to be in the protected class it wasn’t enough to give him clothes without holes or a higher level of literacy for his age.

She decided to keep an eye on the loud boy but to otherwise keep her distance for now, despite Naruto’s efforts to draw attention to himself. Until she knew what she might be stepping into, it wasn’t in her interests to draw attention like that – not when she was still worthless in value compared to the rest of her class. Until she was strong, it would be too dangerous to be noticed.

Her resolve wavered as days went by and Naruto continued to shout and rave in class, boisterous and bold but with nothing to back it up. Luckily the blond boy often skipped class – and if Sakura was really lucky he’d take Kiba with him and the class would be without its two main distractions.

Poison training with Ino continued, and as he parents still didn’t know about the arrangement, Sakura’s own bento was often eaten as a snack after the academy. After a few weeks though, Sakura began to notice that Naruto rarely had a bento during class. The other boy struggled enough with his learning without adding lack of food to his lack of focus, so one day Sakura waved at Ino to wait for her and tentatively approached the loud blond boy, who was kicking at rocks to one side of the academy training ground.

“Naruto-kun?”

The boy looked up in surprise – hardly anyone ever approached Naruto, only Kiba when they were off to play, or when Naruto was in trouble.

“I saw that you didn’t have a lunch these last few days...” She shyly raised her own, flushing a bit because the bento was wrapped in a pink cloth stitched with delicate sakura blossoms. “Its not much, but you’re welcome to it.”

“R-really? For me? Thanks Sakura-chan! You’re the best!” The boy went from hesitant to exuberant and Sakura nearly recoiled at the sudden burst of energy. “What about you though, won’t you go hungry then?”

“N-no, Ino-chan brings me a bento from her mum. The one my mum makes me isn’t usually enough food since I’m training a lot, but I saw that you didn’t have anything at all...” The food likely wouldn’t fill Naruto’s belly either, but it was better than nothing.

The smile that spread across Naruto’s face was blinding, but Sakura was already backing away before the boy could continue his effusive gratitude. A small kindness was one thing, but she was still hesitant to get close to the class anomaly, even if it was difficult to watch him struggle.

Sakura knew the feeling of struggling alone, knew the difference it made to have a hand reach out to her. It was hard resisting becoming that help for Naruto and she was partially failing already, but part of her questioned how far she was willing to go for her own safety and strength. Would she go so far as to lose that small piece of empathy and kindness within herself?

Not entirely as it turned out, as evidenced by the fact that Naruto found himself with a small pink bento regularly from then on. It really wasn’t much food but it was still more than the blond boy often had for himself.

Aside from giving him her lunches, Sakura kept her distance as much as she could from Naruto. The blond seemed to accept her lack of interest in spending time with him, though it didn’t stop him trying to invite her out, but it did give her something of an immunity to the pranks he pulled on the class. (And it was a dead giveaway as to whether Naruto was the culprit or not if Sakura was caught in the prank too.)

Overall Sakura was very happy with her new class and classmates. She still stuck mostly with Ino or kept to herself, but she tried her best to be at least a little familiar to her other classmates. She didn’t have to worry about them remembering her later of course – her hair was distinctive and she was constantly competing with Ino for top kunoichi, occasionally so with the surprisingly meek Hyuga Hinata as well (for such a quiet girl she still managed to do well in her scores).

For the first time, Sakura had a sensei who seemed willing to invest time even in a nobody like her. He had a kind demeanor and it didn’t just seem to be a façade like Sasaki-san. He was willing to offer her resources that nobody else had. His time outside of class was limited, but he was also willing to indulge in the true currency of shinobi – trading favors.

For once, Sakura was able to gain more from someone, because Iruka was not only willing to trade with her, but also willing to make use of her in ways that were helpful to both of them. She helped him prepare for his classes, helped with some of the simple paperwork for the academy that took more time than anything else, and in return Iruka invested some of that free time in her training. It wasn’t much, just fifteen minute sessions here or there, but it was still individual attention and it was just what she needed. Someone to correct her shurikenjutsu throwing, or her taijutsu stances. Someone to give her insight into things she could never have on her own as just a ninja-in-training.

Iruka also sent her on errands. Ostensibly it was to deliver paperwork or messages to ninja, but it allowed her some exposure to the ninja ranks, got her recognised as ‘Iruka’s little apprentice’ as she came to be known. The payout for Sakura wouldn’t be until later, if at all, but getting known amongst the ranks was important. People didn’t help strangers nearly so much as they might if they at least knew of you, she learned, and Sakura was distinctive, which definitely helped. Even if all she was doing was hunting for errant ninja who needed a reminder on an overdue mission report, it saved Iruka doing it himself and it made her useful, gave her some credit with her sensei and others.

Besides, it wasn’t like she had a whole lot else to do with her free time. While before her parents had tried to encourage her to learn the family trade, Sakura’s stubborn attendance of the academy had continued to frustrate them, as they had thought she would give up long ago. That she wouldn’t bow to their wishes and begin to learn the family trade more dutifully was a bone of contention and so she had been excluded from such learning entirely.

There was no point in teaching her the intricacies of import and export if she’d never go into the business, after all.

It was unfortunate and upsetting for Sakura, and also made her home life increasingly tense, but it was the logical result of her continued refusal and she’d seen it coming. While she’d enjoyed the lessons with her parents as a child, learning how to tell good silk from bad, running the fabric between her fingers to know the feel of it, it was a loss she had no choice but to accept.

Now her hands were calloused, and although her mother had insisted on buying her hand creams at first to try and keep them supple, they weren’t soft enough for her mother. They weren’t a lady’s hands. They weren’t the sort of hands fit to slide through silk, they weren’t hands fit for a Haruno.

It went unsaid that Sakura was unfit to be a Haruno.

So Sakura continued to avoid home, and it came as no surprise to her that the avoidance began to go both ways. Her parents started taking more and more trips out with the merchant caravan as she got older, unlike before where they maintained the ‘home base’ here in Konoha rather than join the caravan itself, or if they had to go, usually only her father would leave.

She couldn’t say that she minded the extra freedom but it was definitely strange returning to an empty house for weeks at a time. Her parents left her some money, but since they were merchants they didn’t leave her enough for her increased diet – they knew exactly how much things should cost and how much they thought she should be spending. Sometimes she’d request more money for other necessities, and eventually her parents left her more than just what she needed for food, but she had to budget it carefully.

The first time Sakura had to buy a new outfit for herself after she outgrew her old one, the Haruno circle didn’t decorate its back like it had on most other garments she’d owned.

It stung, losing that feeling of pride and connection to her family. Sakura loved them but also wouldn’t be accepted by them.

She thought Ino noticed the first day she came to class without the crest on her back, but the blond girl didn’t bring it up, to which she was quietly grateful.

Fortunately, some of the errands Iruka-sensei sent her own brought her in a little pocket money – some of the ninja she delivered messages to playfully called her out for getting started on D-ranks early, and that opened up a can of worms where she looked into whether or not she actually could – the answer was no – but by making it known she was looking for work, some of the people she’d become acquainted with would send for her instead of requesting a mission for it.

One enterprising ninja had ‘hired’ her to keep Iruka-sensei distracted while they filled out their belated paperwork, which was hilarious for her because Iruka-sensei's errand was to go hunt for that nin to get the paperwork. She got paid a small fee for putting off the paperwork chase as long as possible, then delivered it to Iruka and got her 15 minutes of personal training for a double win.

It wasn’t much in terms of income, but it was money all the same. Short of getting a part time job (which she did get briefly, temping in a kitchen and later helping close down the market stalls on her free days) there wasn’t much she could do about her income situation until she became a genin and could take paid missions. She made do for now, and all in all her situation was pretty ideal. Sakura was happy with her development in and out of class and even if things weren’t perfect at home she felt settled in her progress and less like everything was working against her.

Sakura would spend the rest of her pre-genin career in Iruka’s class, building up her skills and expanding the small network of connections linking her to people in the village, until the day she graduated.

Chapter Text

Sakura graduated as the top kunoichi in her year.

The pride she felt over her achievement couldn’t be understated – she'd had the odds stacked against her and not only succeeded but come out on top. It had been a tight race between herself, Ino and Hinata in the end and all three girls held spots in the top five of the class overall, with Uchiha Sasuke taking first and Aburame Shino coming in second with just a single point higher than Sakura.

Walking out of the academy with the hitae-ate tied around her forehead was proof that her efforts had borne fruit, that she was good enough, strong enough to do this. The smile on her face couldn’t get any bigger and there was a jittery anticipation running through her. She was a genin now. Team assignments would be in just a few days. It felt like a new beginning.

All around her were cheerful families. A few kids who had failed were mournfully walking home but for the most part there was an air of celebration. Her own parents hadn’t come to wait for her but she hadn’t expected them to. Instead she waited long enough to congratulate Ino when she came out a short while after and then departed the academy with a skip in her step.

Her good mood lasted all the way until she got home.

Her parents hadn’t even waited to see if she’d graduated or not. Sakura returned home with her hitae-ate proudly displayed, to find most of her belongings already in boxes, cluttering up the foyer.

“Congratulations Sakura-chan.” Her father said quietly, without cheer. “You are now a ninja of Konoha. We’re giving you until next week to move out, though we’d prefer it if you managed by this weekend. To help you do so, here is some money for a deposit, but don’t expect any more from us.” He passed her a fat wallet with a decent stack of ryo, visibly enough to move her to a decent enough place, though keeping up the rent from then on would be up to her.

Numbly accepting the money, Sakura was still stood in the genkan as her father turned away from her and left her there. She could hear the sounds of boxes being filled coming from further in the house – her mother hadn’t even stopped packing to see her.

Sakura was out the front door before she really had time to think about it, but she realised very quickly that she didn’t actually have anywhere to go. Her only sanctuary had been her bedroom and now she didn’t even have that.

After a few minutes of quietly weeping hidden behind some bushes in her backyard, Sakura shook herself out of it. She’d known this would happen eventually, maybe not the way that it had, but it had always been coming. Crying about it wasn’t going to help, or change anything except give her a headache.

It was time to put her and Ino’s plan into action.

The first thing she did was count the money that her father had given her since that was her budget for the new apartment. She had some of her own money squirrelled away in her things, probably boxed up now since her parents wouldn’t have found it, but she would save that for rent or food money rather than including it in with her father’s money. It was a good amount at least; enough to last her two months somewhere cheap or one month in a nicer place. How generous, she thought to herself bitterly.

Sakura was heading towards one of the first apartment buildings on her list when it occurred to her that she’d promised to bring Ino with her when she went apartment hunting for real. It was graduation day though, and she expected that Ino would be celebrating with her family and she didn’t want to disrupt that.

She should at least ask around and see whether there were even rooms available in her preferred buildings, she decided. There was no point dragging Ino about if there weren’t even rooms to look at.

Within an hour two things became clear – one: most of the apartments by the academy weren’t available, and two Ino was celebrating with her family, along with the Nara and Akimichi clans, and she had the eyes of a magpie when it came to Sakura because the blonde had spotted her long before she’d been seen in turn.

“Sakura-chan!” Ino waved at her, sitting at an outdoor table with the Ino-Shik-Cho alliance at a new restaurant that’d opened up just a few weeks ago. “Over here!”

Not wanting to be rude, Sakura trotted over shyly, bowing in greeting to the group. She’d become acquainted with both Ino’s parents over the years, along with Shikamaru and Chouji, but had rarely seen either boy’s family besides briefly when they were being picked up after school. She was Ino’s friend as opposed to a friend of the group – despite her efforts Sakura wasn’t any better at making friends.

Ino’s enthusiasm waned a bit as she got a good look at her friend. “Apartment hunting already?” She deduced, getting a miserable nod from Sakura. “Well that can wait, for now you’re celebrating with us!” Ino roped her into joining with ease. Nobody bothered to disagree with her and her father went so far as to pull up an extra chair for her next to Ino.

“I see you graduated as well Sakura, as we expected. Congratulations, you worked hard for it.” Inoichi’s voice was warm and friendly and Sakura smiled even though her eyes were wet with tears.

“Thank you Inoichi-san. I’m not the only one who worked hard though, I think everyone did. Except Shikamaru.” She managed to tease, earning a laugh from the whole table – Shikamaru’s dad included, though Shikamaru himself just groaned. “I couldn’t have done it without Ino’s help though.” Ino truly had been helpful to her and even though it was likely Sakura could have graduated without her, it would have been far more difficult and she’d be much less prepared. As it was Sakura felt that she was as ready as she could be to become a ninja, but she wouldn’t have gotten there on her own.

“I don’t know about that.” Shikamaru’s father commented idly. “I heard a few years ago that a little girl with pink hair spent the day training with Gai. Bold.” Nobody trained with Gai if they could help it – the man was insane. Since that day Sakura had only approached the Green Beast once more and that was to help her with a taijutsu style. She learned the academy style of course but at the time she’d still been in Sasaki’s class and struggled without much guidance. Gai had ended up helping her with not just the academy taijutsu but he gave her the introduction to a few other types to better suit her body type.

“I did it twice.” She corrected lightly, flushing. Training with Gai was always a learning experience, but one to be undertaken rarely in her opinion. There was far too much Youth to cope with more than once a year. Fortunately with Sakura’s flawless memory she only needed one session to perfect her movements, after that it was just practice and repetition.

Shikamaru was looking at her like she was crazy and the rest of the table were laughing – as if training with him once hadn’t put her off for life, Sakura had gone back for more? It was no wonder she was top kunoichi – she was clearly insane.

“Going to Gai is definitely one way to make good progress with physical conditioning and taijutsu.” Chouji’s father chortled. “That boy never lacked for enthusiasm and dedication, that’s for sure. I take great pride in having been the leader of his genin team.” In part because it gave him a hell of a reputation.

Sakura had never heard that tidbit before and her shock was clear. “I actually can’t imagine him being a genin.” She admitted sheepishly. “Gai-san is just so.... I can’t imagine him being any other way?” Chouza laughed agreeably once again, because that was one way to put it.

“He’s got a good heart though, all my boys do. I’m glad you were able to train with him and I’m sure it brings him great pride to see you succeed with his help, Sakura-chan.” He took a gulp of his drink, smiling kindly. “He has a genin team of his own now you know, they are all very dedicated. They’re a year older than you, but it is possible that you will see them around.”

She could only imagine what a genin team under Gai would be like, and her thoughts appeared to be shared by the other kids at the table given their looks of horror. Sakura couldn’t imagine being on a genin team with Chouza as her leader either though really – the man was so kind and easy going, he was the exact opposite of most shinobi interactions Sakura had experienced. It was no wonder he’d churned out a ninja like Gai – the only person who had given her the time of day all those years ago.

It was more than that though – being a ninja at home was one thing, but being out in the field meant the kid gloves came off. Sakura found it hard to imagine Chouza’s warm face going hard on the battlefield, but she knew it must be true. She wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to see it though.

Part of being a ninja was deception however, and whether Chouza and Inoichi both used a warm and friendly face as their deception, at least it was a kind one. It was likely Sakura would never know how much of that was their true nature, but she was likely happier not knowing anyway. It did lead her to realise that she too would need a similar false face if she wanted to be a better ninja. Right now her deception only extended far enough to put on a confident face to cover her shyness rather than anything more extensive but she knew she’d learn eventually.

For now there were far more immediate things for her to work on, like finding herself a new home and preparing for her new genin team.

Apparently sensing her friend’s thoughts, Ino rounded on her, eager to hear how Sakura had gotten on with her apartment hunting so far.

“So you got started without me huh? How far down the list are you?”

“I’ve gone through the first five places, but only one of them had an opening and it was too expensive. I was going to try west of the market district next. You’re welcome to join me, but I thought you might be celebrating...”

“Of course I’ll join you Sakura! All of my team can! We don’t usually celebrate much till dark anyway, so we’ve plenty of time to find an apartment. We might have to wait to move your stuff in till tomorrow afternoon though.”

“Do I have to?” Shikamaru groaned from across the table. “You always drag me into things Ino.”

“Just for that you’ll be helping Chouji with the heavy lifting too!” Ino shouted at the lazy boy while the rest of the table laughed at his plight.

The rest of the meal passed comfortably and Sakura enjoyed herself by the end of it, even if it was overshadowed somewhat by her parents. When they were all finished she was glad that she would not be returning home just yet. Sakura quietly dreaded going home but knew she would have to eventually, even if she put it off. Apartment hunting with Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji was a good distraction though.

“I’m sorry I can’t invite you over for tonight.” Ino apologised when they all stood to leave. “It’s kind of a big deal with the triad clans otherwise I totally would.”

“It’s okay Ino, I appreciate you inviting me to your meal.” She didn’t say it would be okay because it wasn’t, but she would cope. Sakura was a genin now, she couldn’t afford to be weak (she had never been able to afford to be weak, not if she wanted to live.)

“Alright well we have a few hours before I have to get home, so let’s go to the next apartment – the big red one that looks like someone spilled ketchup down the walls.” It really did – it was a very bright red building.

“Sure. I want to swing by the markets themselves too – I’m thinking I’ll probably need to sell some of my old stuff since it won’t fit in whatever place I buy so I want to see what stalls there are.”

“No problem, we can have a walk through the market while we’re home-hunting for you.”

“Thanks Ino.”

Thankfully apartment hunting was a lot easier this time around. Having all of them along also gave Sakura more credence when she spoke to landlords about vacancies, and one of them even quoted her less on the deposit than the number she’d been given two years before, likely because having the three allied clans in her corner gave her some endorsement.

Having Chouji and Shikamaru along was interesting – Sakura hadn’t spent a lot of time with them over the years. Normally she only hung out with Ino on her own. The pair seemed nice enough even if Shikamaru complained a lot. Chouji was very kind and quiet, though Sakura thought perhaps it was because he was shy. Either way they both had interesting insights on the apartments they visited. Shikamaru pointed out how one was close to the T&I building and so was more likely to have crazy neighbors, while Chouji pointed out good places to eat nearby. One of the apartments they looked at was right across the street from a barbeque restaurant and Chouji commented on how she’d get the smells from the kitchen all the time so to keep that in mind. It smelled good, but she’d be getting barbeque cravings whenever she was home.

Finding a place that all of them liked seemed like an impossible task until Sakura realised that the only person who needed to like it was her. Sure they had some valid points (Ino recommended being near a spa, Chouji places to eat and Shikamaru somewhere quiet) but she’d be the one living there, and quite frankly she’d have to compromise on something.

In the end they found a decent middle ground – an apartment that wasn’t too expensive, but wasn’t too crappy either. It was on the small side but it had a separate bedroom and a bathroom, with a small open plan kitchen/lounge and was big enough for Sakura on her own.

The apartment was unfurnished, because Sakura hadn’t seen the point in paying for more than she’d need (or could afford). She was going to be bringing her futon from home, along with her desk, chair and wardrobe (thanks to Chouji, apparently he really could lift anything). For the time being she’d just have to go without a couch or other unnecessary things.

The building her new home was in looked a little shabby but was structurally fine, a solid red-painted building (not tomato red thankfully). It was the one Chouji had pointed out had the barbecue place nearby so Ino had laughed at her when she’d lamented where all her mission pay was going to end up being spent.

“It smells so delicious.” Sakura sighed. “I’m never going to be able to open my window unless I have money to spend on their food.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” Chouji commented, nudging Shikamaru who was quietly laughing at her.

It felt daunting to sign her name on the lease and hand over a good chunk of her money, but she did it all the same and took the keys for the apartment happily enough in return. Ino squealed in excitement as Sakura took the keys to her new home, interrupting the boy’s congratulations to cover their ears and grumble.

Unfortunately there was no way they’d have enough time to move Sakura into her new place before they all had to get home that night, so Sakura assured them she’d be fine until tomorrow. She was lucky to get the place same day as it was and only possible because she’d had cash in hand when she’d signed the lease.

It was with some regret that Sakura said her goodbyes to the group, wishing them well in whatever clan stuff they were doing that night.

“We’ll see you tomorrow okay Sakura? Probably not bright and early though.”

“Sure, around noon?”

“Okay, bye Ino-chan, bye everybody. Thanks for your help today.”

The group split up, heading to their respective homes. Sakura dithered for a little while before eventually deciding to clear her mind with some training – she didn’t really want to go home and face her parents. Taking the coward’s way out and staying out till late training was just good sense really. She barely held herself back from just spending the night at her new apartment even if it would mean sleeping on the bare floor.

By the time Sakura went home it was long after dark. There were no dinner leftovers for her so she grabbed some fruit to snack on before bed and vowed to make herself a decent breakfast. Her plan fell by the wayside when she opened her bedroom door to see the only thing in her room not boxed was her futon. All the boxes were clearly labelled and sealed except one which had the sorts of things she’d need for a few days – toiletries, change of clothes and the like.

Appetite lost, Sakura set the fruit on one of the boxes to have in the morning instead and despondently turned in for the night.

------------

The next morning dawned bright and clear, but Sakura spent the morning sleeping in after her late night, and when she did wake up it was an easy decision to stay in her room until she heard her parents leave for the day. Given the free run of the house for a while she set to making herself some bentos so she’d be able to eat without the awkwardness of trying to cook while her parents were home, since they weren’t including her in meals any longer. It wasn’t unusual for them to sit at the kitchen table and work through the days earnings and she really just wanted to avoid them for a while, so bentos it was.

After that she forced herself to set her emotions aside and survey the boxes that had been packed. There were a lot of them, far more than she would have thought. She hadn’t realised that she owned that much stuff, although her parents had packed away everything related to her it seemed. Even things like the pink mixing spoon she’d playfully been given as a girl to lick cake batter off of wasn’t visible in the kitchen, presumably packed away. There didn’t seem to be a single trace of her left in the house so it was to be expected that a good chunk of random pink objects were boxed up among her more typical possessions.

All her academy stuff was boxed up too, weapons and books included so some of the boxes were pretty heavy. It would definitely take a lot of work for her to move all these boxes by herself, so she was extremely lucky to have Ino’s team voluntold to help her.

A lot of her belongings she wasn’t sure what to do with – all of her old clothes and toys from when she was a kid were boxed up too and she wouldn’t need those. She probably wouldn’t have space in her new apartment for them. She separated out the boxes that were clearly of little use to her to deal with later.

In the end it wasn’t too hard to come to a decision about it all. Anything that she didn’t want to keep in her new, slightly cramped apartment she would be able to sell without much hassle later. Some of the clothing that had still been in her closet despite not fitting for years was worth a lot of money – as silk merchants it came as no surprise that most of her clothes had been good quality. Actually a lot of her belongings were good quality, and since she likely couldn’t take too much with her since her new apartment wasn’t going to be very big, she had quite a bit to sell. It was clear her parents wanted nothing to do with it since they’d boxed it up for her to deal with, so she didn’t feel bad about selling it herself.

By the time noon was starting to near, Sakura had prepared herself as much as possible to move out, organizing the boxes and rearranging some of the items into boxes of things she wanted to keep, and stuff she didn’t. It was with determination instead of sorrow that she readied herself to move out of her childhood home. When Ino knocked boisterously on the door Sakura was ready to go, having eaten a big breakfast and packed her bentos up as well.

Thankfully Ino had come through for her once more, and she’d dragged not only Shikamaru and Chouji along with her but also Chouza and Yoshino, Shikamaru’s mother too.

“I figured you could use some extra help with heavy lifting.” Ino said. “Plus since you’re selling some of the stuff we might know someone who wants something, depending on what you have. Shikamaru has a cousin who’s little who might like some of the clothes, and Chouji has a huge family too. Plus we’re all going to eat at his family’s restaurant when we’re done, no argument.”

“No argument indeed Sakura-chan, we’re happy to help. Well, perhaps not Shikamaru.” Chouza teased gently.

“Th-thank you very much Chouza-san, Yoshino-san!” Sakura had never expected such kindness offered to her. It was especially jarring considering how her own parents had essentially abandoned her.

“It is no problem at all Sakura-chan. Let’s get started shall we?”

With the help of Ino’s soon-to-be team and accompanying parents it didn’t take too long for Sakura’s belongings to get moved to her new apartment, with the ‘to sell’ boxes placed by the door to be taken on to the Akimichi’s. Anything left over would likely end up being taken to the market if they had the time or Sakura would do it herself later.

With the help of Yoshino and Chouza it only took two trips to get all the boxes. It was boggling to watch the large man stack box upon box and carry them out, while also carrying her desk in one hand while everyone else just took one or two boxes. Chouji too carried a fair few boxes – enough so that he’d had a hard time seeing his path and unlike Chouza he’d had to stay in the middle of the group since he couldn’t sense the movements of others around him and needed someone to help him.

(Watching as Yoshino was the one to hoist up her wardrobe on one shoulder had been unexpected though and the woman had laughed at her gob-smacked expression. Maybe training with Gai was worth it if she’d be able to do that herself one day.)

Once all her belongings were moved into her new place the group started unpacking a few essentials – setting up her futon for her and putting her bentos in the fridge. It quickly became apparent that she was lacking some essentials so a list was started, topped with plates and cutlery and quickly followed by all sorts of things as Yoshino got her hands on it and went to town.

“We’ll sort most of this out later.” Yoshino assured her. “For now we need to make space for the things you need!” Indeed even somewhat sorted, there were still stacks of boxes that Sakura would be selling on that were cluttering the place up.

“Not to mention its time for dinner!” Chouza boomed, ushering them all out of the door. “We have a big meal prepared for us to reward us for our hard work!”

Even though Sakura had done far less box-carrying than she’d first anticipated she had to admit that her belly was rumbling and she was looking forward to the promised food. The group trooped out carrying the last boxes that Sakura didn’t want to keep, eager to eat (and sit down, since there wasn’t any seating except the floor and not actually enough space for them all even then).

Sakura giggled when they entered the Akimichi restaurant and found plates laden with barbecue waiting for them. They had all been complaining about walking past the barbecue restaurant outside her new apartment so this would satisfy the cravings.

“I told tou-san about it.” Chouji informed her as they all dug in to the cooked meats and vegetables. “So he knew we’d all want barbecue today.”

“Thanks Chouji, that was very thoughtful of you.” Sakura flushed a bit when the large boy beamed at her.

There was some discussion over the food about Sakura’s new place and what amenities were nearby it. It didn’t have a laundry room in the building itself so she’d have to go to the laundromat a few streets down. Apparently there was one closer, Chouji told her, but it was known for sometimes having dirty water because the pipes feeding to it were so old and bits of rust tainted the water so it wasn’t recommended unless she wanted to risk washing her clothes twice.

Ino lamented on how far it was from the onsen, until Sakura pointed out that she could just have a sleepover at Ino’s if they wanted to go, since the blonde girl lived much closer. Ino seemed pleased with the suggestion of a sleepover even though she still grumbled about not being able to sleepover at Sakura’s until the other girl bought a sofa or spare futon (or acquired enough blankets to substitute, which wasn’t an impossibility given how many she’d been gifted). Apparently gifting blankets wasn’t unusual. Konoha did get cold in the winter and plenty of places didn’t have great heating so it made sense, but still meant she’d have to find a place to store a bunch of blankets. It was spring now – she wouldn’t need them unless she really did plan to make a bed out of them.

Once the food was consumed, Chouza led them across the main dining room to where several people from the clans were sat across several tables. Sakura was surprised at how many people there were. While they were eating it looked like many of the items from her boxes had been laid out to be displayed for the group to see if they wanted anything. With her now present to approve the sales, several people started haggling over what they wanted. A few even got into a bidding war over a hand carved doll she’d had since she was a girl but hadn’t actually liked very much – it was beautiful but almost eerily so and she’d had little time for playing with dolls since her uncle died.

There were some items that she was sad to see go but simply couldn’t justify keeping. She’d had a few keepsakes that she’d taken out of the boxes to keep at home – small mementos like a family photo inside an intricate metal frame, the last gift her uncle had given her before he’d been killed. She’d kept one or two of the stuffed toys her parents had gotten her but they’d lavished her in gifts as a little girl so she still had many to sell.

While this was going on, several people offered their condolences for her situation to Sakura, much to her discomfort, though she offered her thanks all the same.

Sakura hadn’t wanted it spread around that her parents had kicked her out the day she became a genin, but Ino disagreed with her. “It’s not a shame on you.” Ino had sternly scolded her. “It’s a shame on them, and ninja like to know who they can trust. The Haruno’s may not have legally disowned you, they may have given you money to leave, but they still kicked you out. That’s a shame on them, and I expect they’ll lose some business from their ninja customers when they find out about it.”

Ultimately there wasn’t anything Sakura could do to stop Ino from spreading her situation around. Ino was the gossip queen and she didn’t answer to Sakura. That the blonde girl had mentioned it during the celebration dinner in front of all of her team and their parents meant that trying to keep it quiet was impossible now anyway.

An unexpected positive of Ino’s blabbering mouth was that as she sold her unwanted belongings at the Akimichi restaurant, Sakura wasn’t the only one who had brought items she didn’t need any more.

“My daughter outgrew these ages ago.” One Nara told her, handing over a mesh shirt that looked a little worn but of very good quality. “It’ll likely be a little big on you for now, but it’ll definitely be useful in the future!” They hadn’t even been there to buy any of Sakura’s items, just gifted her the shirt and left. They hadn’t even mentioned any payment. When she’d tried to bring it up next time, she was rebuffed there too.

“Oh Nonsense!” Chouji’s mother had boomed, laughingly. “Think of it as a housewarming present if anything. It should keep you for a while at least.” The sturdy ceramic stewpot and stack of frozen meals were carefully packaged, and Sakura flushed at the kindness she was being shown even as she had to ask Ino for help once more just to carry it all home.

“I can’t believe everyone was willing to just give me this stuff, they hardly know me and I’ve nothing to pay them back with.” she fretted during a lull as several of the guests cooed over one of the kimonos she’d worn as a very small child.

“It’s because they know you’ll remember their kindness Sakura.” Ino told her seriously, sticking close and helping to organize (read: she took charge) of the items being haggled over. “You’ve proven yourself by becoming a kunoichi, and they’ve heard about you being kind to others, not to mention your perfect memory. Doing this is less of a debt situation, and more about fostering goodwill. They know that should anything come up, you would show kindness to them and their families in return. This is how things work between the Yamanaka, Nara and Akimichi clans. It’s how we’re so tight knit, instead of just bound with favors and shared goals. It’s about loyalty and helping out when help is needed.”

“Well I’m very grateful.” The weight of what she’d been given was heavy but she’d do her best to live up to it and make sure that none of them regretted this. Honestly she wasn’t too worried about living up to it – she knew herself and knew that whenever anyone asked her for help she gave it, so all she was waiting for was the opportunity to do so. One day she’d be able to help these people in return somehow. Maybe it’d be something she did intentionally, or perhaps it would just be in the course of her duties as a ninja. Maybe one day she’d save their lives, or the lives of their children or loved ones. She hoped to be someone who was capable of such things even beyond the small acts of kindness she already did.

Already, unknowingly, Sakura’s goal of becoming strong enough to live in a village that would throw away the lives of those without value had shifted. No longer was it purely survival that drove her to become strong, but the desire to become strong enough to extend that hand of generosity to others as well.

In the end Sakura brought nearly as much back to her new apartment as she’d taken away to sell. Her new stuff was far more practical and useful however, not to mention a good chunk of it also being food to go into her fridge and freezer – which was fortunate when she realised that she still had yet to go grocery shopping. She also brought home a good chunk of money, which definitely took the pressure off on her finding work as soon as she could. Some of the kimonos especially had been worth a lot.

The mesh shirt she’d been gifted went up in her closet until she was big enough to fit it, along with a few training clothes she’d been given (along with a hideous green jumpsuit like Gai’s that Chouza had ‘kindly donated’ to her and would likely never see the light of day). A thick winter coat went in there too, as it had been too small for its previous owner. She might not need it for a while but if she did get sent out on a mission to somewhere cold, she’d be at least somewhat prepared. Sakura had also gotten a spare kunai pouch, along with a few other holsters to allow her to take more out with her or diversify her inventory.

Ino’s mum had stopped by briefly at the restaurant and gifted her a graduation present in the form of some tinctures of poison that she’d built up enough resistance to over the years to use and for lack of anywhere else to put them, they’d gone into her closet too.

Many of the items on Yoshino’s list of necessities had been crossed off but there were still a few things that she needed to get. Some of the more urgent items had been gifted to her by Yoshino herself; Shikamaru’s surprisingly energetic mum had disappeared briefly and later returned with a grocery bag full of essentials like soap, toilet roll, laundry detergent as well as some beautiful crockery from her home – white with small deer depicted around the rims. It made sense in a way – eating off these plates, she wasn’t going to forget who showed her such kindness was she?

The supplies would be enough to last her for a few days if not a week if she was careful which was great because it was team selection tomorrow. Sakura didn’t expect to have a whole lot of free time once she was assigned to a team – there was so much that was restricted to genin level that she was eager to get started.

She didn’t have time to completely unpack all of her belongings, not if she wanted to be ready and rested for the academy the next morning. She did at least manage to put away essentials and have things in the right room, but had smartly prioritised sorting out the items she’d need in the next few days rather than just unpacking everything. The only exception to that was her books, which she unpacked in the morning. Over the years she’d bought more books than she’d realised, recommendations from Sasaki or Iruka-sensei, and a few from Ino that the other girl had gifted to her. She didn’t have a bookshelf but taking them out of the boxes and stacking them meant the spines were visible, in case she needed to research anything later. It was as good a way as any to spend her morning, distracting her from how different things were now, or her anxiety over team selections.

The living room looked more like a library when she was done, and Sakura had put her desk and chair in the middle of the room to use as a table since she didn’t have one otherwise. It was a bit strange to eat at her desk surrounded by books but it did the job.

The quiet took some getting used to, the knowledge that nobody was going to come through the door that afternoon when her parents came home or to sit in the kitchen and go over their paperwork. It upset her but she grit her teeth against it – this was her life now and she’d just have to get used to it.

------------------

Heading to the academy that morning was daunting, but like all the times before, Sakura bolted down her anxieties and marched onwards anyway. She’d dreamed of this day, of starting her career as a genin. The weight of her hitae-ate was odd and heavy on her forehead but she’d get used to it (or move it somewhere else if it proved too distracting – she'd seen other ninja wear it as a belt and the like). The distraction of getting kicked out her home had delayed this realisation, that she was really a ninja now, that she was past the biggest block before her in her quest for strength.

Passing the academy was no guarantee for success for a civilian shinobi however, she was now onto the next biggest hurdle, that of not being dismissed as dead weight or fodder for whoever else was in her team. Given the number of clan graduates she’d definitely be on a team with at least one, if not both of her other team mates having that background – being more valuable than her. She’d just have to hope and work hard not to get sidelined, if her sensei was so inclined.

Stepping into the classroom was like walking into a wall of sound. Newly promoted genin stood in clusters or sat in their chairs, bubbling with anticipation and nerves, eager to find out who they might be teamed up with and who their sensei might be. This part of the process Sakura didn’t know much about, but she was just as nervous as they were, albeit quieter about it.

Ino waved at her from across the room, where she was bemoaning her fate at being inevitably paired up with the ‘Shika’ and ‘Cho’ part of their triad, but given how dramatic she was being it was easy to tell she wasn’t being serious.

Sakura overheard someone at the front of the class warning that Iruka-sensei was coming down the hall, moments before Naruto barrelled into the classroom, a huge smile on his face and hitae-ate tied around his head. Ino had told her the day after the graduation test that the blond boy had failed, but clearly something had changed. Ino’s frown told Sakura that the other girl didn’t know about it, whatever it was, but that she also didn’t shout out an interrogation to the boy implied that perhaps she had some idea about what might have happened, or knew that something had happened that she wasn’t allowed the details on and had tied it to Naruto. Regardless, to Sakura it just showed another discrepancy in the enigma that was Uzumaki Naruto – the boy valuable enough to be in the protected class but still ignored and left to fumble in the dark.

She almost wasn’t surprised when said mystery was assigned to her team.

She definitely was surprised when Uchiha Sasuke was – that boy definitely had value to the village and an entitled attitude to prove it. That she’d been placed on a team with both boys was as much confusing as it was distressing – either she was deemed worthy enough to keep up with two high-value assets or she was there as the bright pink distraction to die before them if anything happened. For her own state of mind she decided it had to be the first option, even though it was more likely a distressing mix of both.

At any rate the decision was clearly already made, if Naruto’s shout of rejection wasn’t going to change their assignment (mysterious valuable asset the boy apparently was) then her discomfort with the team up wasn’t going to get the time of day either. Sasuke didn’t seem particularly happy either, but when did he ever? That their sensei, Hatake Kakashi was apparently going to keep them waiting while everyone else left was just another displeasing result of today.

Sat in an empty classroom with the two boys ten minutes later, she determinedly turned to face them, knowing she didn’t look like much in her still pink attire (she hadn’t had time to buy new genin-level equipment yet what with her abrupt moving) but taking the top kunoichi spot spoke for itself on her worth.

“Naruto.” Abruptly the boy, who’d been ranting about being on a team with Sasuke, shut his trap with a snap. “Shouting about it isn’t going to change anything. We’re all on a team together now, and genin teams stick together until someone on the team makes chunin, or dies. We need to work together, or at least not antagonize eachother, until promotion. If you really don’t want to be on his team that much, you’ll just have to work hardest and get promoted right away.”

Naruto remained silent through her words, appearing to sit and think them over. “I’m gonna become chunin in no time then!” He declared, leaping from his seat and enthusiastically beginning some pushups. At least it shut him up, for the most part. Sasuke just glanced at her and then seemingly ignored her, looking out the window.

“I guess you’re not completely worthless.”

Well that was a promising start. She knew Sasuke was very driven, and very angry. The few times he’d shown any emotion at all it was usually anger.

She supposed she’d proved herself by being kunoichi of the year, or more likely by being not completely useless during spars. It was well known in their class that Sasuke didn’t care very much about something unless it was combat related. Then again shutting up Naruto was no small feat either so he could just be commenting on her ability to do that.

He got pissed off when Naruto disrupted class too severely, so it was understandable that the two boys didn’t get on – their only interactions that Sakura had ever seen were confrontational – and usually with Naruto ending up eating dirt. It seemed like things had changed now that Naruto could create so many clones (or so he had boasted when he came in earlier), even if his taijutsu was still pretty shitty. The boy could be a real threat if he could shape his kage bunshin into decent combat specialists not to mention his ridiculous chakra stores, but for now at least he seemed only to be relying on brute strength and numbers, neither of which he knew how to use well.

Sakura herself wasn’t the greatest in combat, though the amount of times she’d had to fight against bullies and in her spars meant she wasn’t completely inexperienced either. It wasn’t her strongest area though, even if she was no slouch, but her greatest combat asset was being able to come up with strategies. It meant that now she was looking at Naruto as a team mate with intention to really help him and work with him, she could see how to help him grow. Hopefully their sensei would help him meet that potential, because right now the boy needed a lot of work.

For now though, having Naruto mostly shut up and doing exercise seemed just fine, while she mulled over ideas on how their team might work. Her thoughts didn’t entirely distract her from her ire at being kept waiting for so long, especially when Kakashi finally did deign to show up and didn’t seem to take the three of them seriously at all, playing games with them and not-very-subtly taunting them. (There had been no reason for them to do the meet-and-greet on the roof, every other thing out of his mouth was a lie and he didn’t seem interested in the answers to his questions either) but Sakura gamely went through it even has her hopes for the future dipped lower and lower.

She hadn’t expected to simply be given her team roster and essentially sent home for the day, after hours of waiting around. Even without the threat of another test looming over them, for it to be assigned the next day when there was still plenty of time today left her a little at loose ends. Sakura had expected her training to begin once she met her sensei (or actually hours ago, when he was first meant to show up). She’d cleared her schedule with that expectation and now felt adrift, lacking in guidance just as she had so many times before without someone to train her.

This was hardly the first time though, so Sakura did as she’d always done when lacking in a teacher: go to the library. Now that she was a genin there were far more books available to her and she may as well get started. Naruto had invited her out to dinner (Sasuke had left the moment their sensei had vanished) but she’d declined. Her apartment was full of bentos and if she wasn’t meant to have breakfast she’d at least have a big dinner – not to mention she didn’t want to spend the money she had left frivolously.

There was one major benefit to the extra time before the test though – now that Sakura was a genin and not trying to move house as soon as possible, there were other things available to her. Taking out a bunch of books and scrolls from the genin section of the library was just the start, she was also now qualified to purchase better quality weapons and equipment. The training gear she’d bought for herself in the last year or so was still fine, but wouldn’t be suitable for missions and she wanted something more combat ready for her test tomorrow. She had enough money from selling her belongings to buy a few good quality items, including some new clothes.

She was due for a new set anyway, her last one was getting a bit small and worn since her parents hadn’t wanted to waste a lot of money on her ninja stuff, but it had done the job (and hadn’t been pink, since she’d picked it out herself). She only had enough money for one outfit for now though, but it’d do the job, and the bandanna she’d bought could be sewn into her hitae-ate and pulled over her hair if she needed to be stealthy. Having no idea what the test would be like, Sakura was doing her best to prepare for anything.

That was why her second night at her new apartment was spent reading through the new books she’d taken out of the library, eager to arm herself with as much knowledge as she could (including a few newer books about Konoha clans and recent history in the hopes of finding out anything about her sensei). Her research wasn’t very fruitful on Hatake’s front, but she did get through a few basic books on chakra that she’d been wanting to read since Sasaki-sensei had given her the book recommendations years ago.

The next morning found her waiting at the training ground that Kakashi-sensei had instructed them to go to, idly flicking through a scroll she’d brought with her. Sakura had arrived early and sat down to wait in the still-dewy grass. It didn’t surprise her when Sasuke turned up a few minutes later or when Naruto did so a few minutes late, nor when Kakashi-sensei didn’t turn up at all.

“Are you really surprised? He pulled the same stunt yesterday and didn’t seem to care about us at all.” Sakura chastised Naruto when the blond boy wouldn’t stop complaining. “He’s our superior anyway, you need to be careful about being disparaging towards him. You could get a black mark on your record for that.”

Naruto seemed surprised, and also a touch confused until Sakura sighed and explained what disparaging meant. Sasuke just snorted in disdain.

“You’ll need to work on your literacy Naruto, you won’t get far if you can’t understand what someone else is saying. We might end up on a mission to gather information on wealthy nobles one day, and they all use complicated words just to be stuffy.” She frowned, having seen many when her parents still included her in the family business. “We all need to improve now that we’re officially genin. It’s like Iruka-sensei said the other day, we won’t be safe in the academy anymore, but out in the real world it’s a lot more dangerous.” If they lost a spar they’d likely lose their lives too, second chances weren’t guaranteed.

Despite her light efforts to work with her new team in planning for whatever sensei’s test might be, Sasuke seemed to have no interest in working with them. He kept himself physically apart as much as he did emotionally, and as much as it annoyed her she knew he wasn’t about to change and work with them just because of her words.

When Kakashi did finally grace them with his presence and declare himself to be their target (or rather, the bells he carried) Sakura’s face fell. There was no way they could take on a jounin, especially individually. That their failure would cost her hitae-ate as well was just icing on the shitty cake. Sakura was determined not to give up without a fight though, whatever sensei was testing them on (because she doubted it would be their actual success, she’d seen jounin train, had worked with Gai, and knew that just wasn’t possible unless he let them win) she hoped he found it in them. Without knowing what he was looking for she’d just have to do her best to show all she could do in the hopes it was what he was looking for.

No amount of determination was going to make her or her team any less poorly matched against him though, and it was no surprise when Naruto immediately ended up in trouble for running straight at the man. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes even with the fear of Naruto’s kunai pointed at his vulnerable back.

Their showing was likely equally as poor, when Kakashi seemed to easily uncover her hiding spot a few minutes later. The genjutsu he cast on her was sticky-feeling against her own chakra and she spiked it to release herself before she could do more than see red blood spilling across the ground in front of her. When her eyes were seeing reality again Kakashi no longer stood in front of her and she took the opportunity to dive back in to the trees and find cover. At least she’d gotten herself out of the genjutsu, something not too difficult when she’d already been focusing strongly on her chakra trying to conceal it, easy to notice the new chakra interfering.

A scream from further away informed her that Sasuke had his own encounter with their sensei and she huffed a sigh. Kakashi had taken each of them on individually and bested them with ease, as she’d known he could. They had to try something different. It was with that in mind that she tracked the disgruntled boy down, hearing a cacaphony of Narutos bellowing battle cries further away as she did so. That boy made a great distraction, even if shouting at an enemy was otherwise a really stupid idea. She’d give him more praise for it if she didn’t know that Naruto himself was likely shouting along with his clones, giving away his position uselessly.

It didn’t matter anyway, not really. Just from what little she’d seen so far it was clear that he could find them no matter how hard she tried to hide, was much faster than them, and he’d cast that genjutsu on her so quickly he was either really good at them or had time to cast it on her when she hadn’t even known he was nearby (or both, probably both).

They stood no chance against him, they weren’t getting those bells. But there was no reason not to show off as many of their skills as they could and give it their best effort. And if that meant that Sakura had to take each boy by the ear and direct them into following a plan that would give them half a chance, she’d do that, because clearly they were all failing on their own.

(She might’ve given more weight to any plan Sasuke could have come up with if she didn’t come across his exposed head buried in the ground, completely stuck. Even she had a few ideas of how she could’ve gotten out of that predicament but he was clearly still stuck there.)

“Alright, we clearly have no chance against him on our own. We need to work together or nobody is getting those bells.” She said huffily as she dug the boy out with a kunai. Sasuke just grunted back at her and she had to resist the urge to hit or shout at his stubborn face.

“Do you want to be a genin or not? You can always go back to the academy if you want.” She sneered in as close an approximation of an Uchiha as she’d ever done.

He glared at her like she’d burn to a crisp just from his eyes alone but she just folded her arms and glared back at him, leaving him to dig the rest of the way out himself. He might have magic eyes one day, but today was not that day. When the boy pulled himself out of the dirt he was aggravated and silent, but he didn’t leave either. She’d take it as a win.

Twenty minutes later Sasuke was serving as distraction while she corralled Naruto into following her plan as well, and while they didn’t get the bells, their troll of a sensei passed them all the same.

They’d done it. They’d passed sensei’s test.

They were a team.

Chapter Text

They were not a team.

Since joining Team 7, Sakura found herself underwhelmed. After the bell test Kakashi had not managed to recreate the teamwork the three had shown, nor had he taught them anything new in the whole of their first week, so far as she could tell.

Sakura had thought that things would change for her once she was a genin and had a sensei – a supervisor who could help her, answer her questions and dedicate more time to her than one teacher split across a class of thirty. The first week together proved that wasn’t going to be the case though. Even with just three students, Kakashi spared her little attention. He didn’t pay much attention to any of them really. Assigning them repetitive running and conditioning tasks with an occasional hands-off D-rank was how he started his tenure and it didn’t get much better from there. While he spoke repeatedly about teamwork, his version of it mostly seemed to involve Naruto and Sasuke sparring their aggression out while she was sat off to the side. He didn’t challenge their minds or even appear to pay much attention to them while they did as he asked, offering very little to them even in the way of critique. Sakura was counting their first week as a total wash.

The rivalry between the boys did none of them any favors either, and Kakashi only seemed to use it to encourage them to work harder against eachother even though they were just as likely to sabotage eachother or screw up the mission with their efforts. She had hoped to have a good sensei, but lacking that to have a good team, yet under Kakashi’s neglect they all seemed to bring out the worst in eachother. Naruto was constantly worked up because of Sasuke, making him more unbearable than he’d ever been at the academy, and their bullshit on top of Kakashi’s lackluster efforts was filling Sakura with an anger of her own, which did her no favors in her performance either.

Sasuke baffled her a little bit if she was honest – he was a clan kid, son of the clan head, so he should definitely know more than her about what it meant to be a shinobi. He should know that sparring with someone was better than just using a training post but he complained every time he was forced to fight the ‘dobe’. He should know that working with others, especially from a position of power as the one doing the favour, would incur him a favour in return, not to mention that teaching someone else could improve skills more than anything else. He just didn’t seem to care. He ascribed to the typical Uchiha sentiment of ‘you are of no interest to me unless you have worth’ with none of the Yamanaka ‘you could have worth in the future’ attitude. Worse, he seemed to think he was owed something, and that was a baffling mentality for a ninja to have.

He didn’t seem to understand investment, or teamwork, or much of what little they were being taught by Kakashi.

To be fair though, even Sakura sometimes doubted the Yamanaka’s ‘they might have something of worth later’ when it came to Naruto – the blond boy had huge chakra stores but was dumb as a rock most of the time. Huge numbers of clones wouldn’t matter if they weren’t utilized properly. She’d taken the opportunity once to throw kunai at a few of them once when Naruto spammed out so many the whole clearing was full, and the boy had no peripheral awareness – she'd popped sixteen clones without him noticing, before Kakashi told her off.

Sakura was about ready to give him up as a lost cause. It was clear he had some skill, with his clones and sometimes his traps, but it was incredibly difficult to get him to think of them on his own. It felt as though he was sabotaging his own progress in a way, because to still be that brainless when you had kage-bunshin to speed your learning and perfect techniques just seemed impossible. Naruto had stamina and chakra out the wazoo but all he could use them for were spamming copies of himself to run screaming at his enemy, flailing punches wildly.

Being on a team with Naruto meant that her dodging reflexes and spatial awareness increased sharply. Naruto had a habit of flailing out his arms like an idiot and smacking people in the face – she’d seen it happen over and over in the academy but since she’d usually kept her distance it hadn’t been an issue for her. Now Naruto was always nearby and he’d smacked her in the face dozens of times. Despite being apologetic and fussing whenever it happened, Naruto didn’t curb his movements so Sakura had adapted instead. She couldn’t say that it wasn’t useful, but training because of her team mate’s incompetence rather than because of any intent to train was still annoying.

Improvement was improvement regardless of how or why however, and Sakura had a lot to work on still.

Each morning she worked on some meditation to try and calm her temper and prolong her patience, but despite her best efforts she was usually fuming by the time she went home. In some ways it was fortunate that Kakashi’s training sessions were so short because she really doubted she could endure much longer than a few hours of the sheer frustration they entailed.

At least the entire week wasn’t a waste, only the time spent with her team. Her free time was put to full use.

Just as when she was attending the academy, Sakura returned to the resources she had available to her. She had all the genin rank books in the library she could access now that she had graduated. Sakura was somewhat disappointed though, as a surprising number of them were just as bare bones as the academy ones where, referencing chunin as the next step to learn anything more useful than the basics or visual identification of a technique or skill. For example there were a fair few thick books on flora and fauna used for poisons but nothing about how to actually make them into poisons, and plenty of anatomy textbooks but nothing about how genjutsu or medical jutsu could be used to affect them.

The memorization was easy enough for her despite the thickness of the books, but the lack of practical application left her stymied once again. Being able to visually identify something that could be used as a poison, or recognise the symptoms of a successful poisoning wasn’t useless, but that knowledge wasn’t going to help her in any way if she couldn’t act on it – whether to counter the poison or to create her own. Sakura wasn’t going to survive as a strong ninja if she could only visually identify a poison or seal or whatever else. That sort of knowledge was only good on paper, and Sakura would not be a paper-ninja. She had to learn things she could use if she was ever going to be strong and survive.

She had thought that so much more would be open to her as a genin, and it wasn’t entirely incorrect but a good chunk still required special permission from a sensei or chunin rank in order to ensure that accidents didn’t happen by inexperienced nin. (And to restrict available knowledge, Sakura thought bitterly).

To be fair there were a small selection of E and D rank ninjutsu techniques available, but with Sakura’s reserves she could barely manage to try a technique a couple of times a day before running out of chakra, barely enough to practice it never mind add it to her arsenal for combat. The only technique she’d learned that would come in useful was the tree-walking exercise which came to her easily, even if she could only stick on for ten minutes so far.

At least it was something she could work on more passively to build her chakra reserves, and she didn’t need supervision so long as she was careful. It was something to start with, even if it wasn’t nearly enough. She’d try water walking once she felt confident with her tree walking, but the last thing she wanted to do was hurt herself, since if anything happened she’d be alone and likely not found for some time, so avoiding potential injuries would slow her down. It was a lot harder to use these chakra techniques than what she’d been doing before, which was mostly enhancing her muscles so she could run using chakra. Her impeccable control meant that she wasted very little of her chakra doing so, unlike water walking and tree walking where it was expelled through her feet – she wasn’t getting most of it back the way body enhancement did.

Disappointed after her first week, Sakura tromped home to her apartment (looking a lot more lived in since she’d had a lot of free time with Kakashi’s training sessions only taking half the day) to make herself some food and then head out to do some more research. Her cooking skill was increasing at least, and she still had a few frozen meals from Chouji’s mother in her freezer. Unfortunately all the bentos she’d made for herself were gone, as she’d found on the first proper day of training that Naruto was still unprepared to bring his own, and despite taking on a few missions since then the boy didn’t seem to have gotten that covered yet (unless you counted Ichiraku ramen’s as a lunch option, which they definitely weren’t running enough missions to fund). Eventually he’d have to learn to make his own bentos or earn enough money to buy one, but for now she’d keep preparing it for him. At least Sasuke seemed self-sufficient on that front.

The smell from the barbeque place outside her window taunted her – she didn’t have enough income yet to give in to that temptation especially if she was still making bentos for Naruto as well as herself. Hopefully she’d get to try it soon though, if they started taking more missions.

---------------

Unfortunately for Sakura things didn’t get much better from there. Kakashi sensei seemed to manage okay-ish with the boys but not at all with her. It wasn’t just a lack of attention her way that was the problem, it was that what they were being taught (what little that was) was all oriented towards heavy combat – taijutsu and ninjutsu, both of which were areas Sakura was limited by, and all of which were paced to the boys’ needs rather than her own.

That basically amounted to her being told to run laps or do pushups to work on her stamina while the boys sparred or were sometimes told to join her. At least she had learned from Gai how far she could push herself (it sounded like an oxymoron but while Gai did push limits he wasn’t teaching kids to break their bodies, but to stop just short of that) otherwise Sakura may have done herself some harm overdoing, or not pushed herself hard enough. Kakashi tended to watch the boys in their activities rather than her, and it would have felt good to know that he trusted her to get on with her task if it wasn’t for the fact that she could actually do with some critique, if only on her first try to make sure she was doing it correctly.

Sure, she was ahead of them with chakra control but they had far greater reserves than her. At her current level Sakura could only fire off a few low or mid-level jutsu without seriously draining her reserves, while the boys could go many times more than that. Naruto seemed to be able to use ninjutsu indefinitely and Sasuke was skilled with it too. Their ninjutsu sessions were all therefore focused on chakra control and using the precisely right amount of chakra to use a jutsu, and they were of little use to Sakura at all.

Sakura was good with small things, henges and kawarimi were such a small drain that she could use them repeatedly. Henge was especially good since it required fine control for more elaborate work, but she could only fire off a few before she could do no more and quite frankly her control was so good that she couldn’t improve on it much further with those techniques. While doing so would slowly increase he reserves, there was still a limit unless she wanted to cause permanent damage to her coils, so it still left her at loose ends a lot of the time.

It seemed pretty clear that Sakura was on this team as the token girl. Kakashi sensei wasn’t her teacher. Her presence here was just incidental and she was as useless to them as they were to her. It was beyond frustrating, she felt she was trying her best and had nothing at all to show for it. That first month passed and she felt she’d learned almost nothing new, and the only thing she’d gained was a little experience taking on D-ranks and a new understanding about her own depths of patience.

She had tried speaking to Iruka sensei about her difficulties but he’d told her to keep trying, to learn to adapt to Kakashi’s teaching style and come back to her in another month if she was still having no luck. He did give her some background on Kakashi though; that he was a prodigy, and was likely treating them the same way he was when he was learning – unfortunately none of them were prodigies so leaving them to their own devices wasn’t going to have the same result. Sakura might be top kunoichi and have a high score for memorization and the like, but there was a huge leap between that and being a genius. Not to mention that even as a boy Kakashi likely had access to far greater resources than she did.

Kakashi hadn’t wanted students, that was plain to see even without knowing his history of failing potential teams. The man had been Anbu once and was an elite ninja – even if he’d had any idea how to treat a newbie shinobi it was a waste of his time to do so. Kakashi was the sort of person you sent fully trained nin at to get boosted into elite territory themselves, not genin who were probably worse than Kakashi had been when he was still in the academy. It was either that or he ascribed to the typical ninja mentality of ‘don’t do anything for free’ even though they were his students and he was obliged to teach them, they had nothing to offer him for his services so he didn’t bother.

Sakura resented him, but she didn’t doubt that he was a powerful ninja. He was just a shit jounin sensei.

She found herself doing more without her team than with them, despite her offers to include them. Naruto seemed happy to come along if it was to go out for food, but he had no interest in running laps around the wall with her in the mornings, or taking on D-ranks for extra cash and more missions to their name.

“No way, why would I wanna do more chores when I don’t haveta?” He’d asked, honestly confused.

Sasuke hadn’t even bothered to listen to her invite – he just disappeared the moment that Kakashi called an end to training. Sakura knew that he trained in his clan compound, but he seemed to have no interest in training with her, not even to spar. She’d be offended if she didn’t already have a really low opinion of him, quite frankly.

Uchiha Sasuke was arrogant and petulant, and for all he had been lauded in the academy as top of the class and all that, the boy had spent a good chunk of his time in team seven so far throwing tantrums.

Not shouting, flailing or screaming tantrums of course (that was Naruto, though his at least were short lived), but to say he was sulky was an understatement. Sakura didn’t like Kakashi’s shenanigans either but she didn’t get in a huff about it – she tried to work around it instead. Sasuke seemed used to people just doing what he wanted or going away and didn’t quite seem to have any plan beyond getting pissy when things didn’t go his way, and going off on his own to train repetitively without much growth.

He especially didn’t like it when Kakashi denied him, or trolled them in the training he did give them. None of them liked it when Kakashi ‘encouraged’ them with paint bombs or tripped them into muddy puddles, but Sakura honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the Sharingan could cause them to shoot laserbeams from their eyes, with the pent up aggression coming from Sasuke. The Uchiha heir also attempted to strike back at their sensei when he could but he’d yet to actually land a successful blow in retaliation.

Honestly the boy was throwing up all kinds of red flags. Ino had explained to her back in the academy how interesting children could be – how deceptive as well. Sasuke’s tantrums and pouting might be cute now, she’d said, but once he wasn’t a little boy anymore they’d be unacceptable and dangerous to boot. Being from a family of mind readers and psychologists, Ino thought that broken people were interesting and had spent a good chunk of their last few years at the academy fawning over the sullen boy.

Sasuke may have the drive to be a ninja, but he definitely didn’t have the emotional maturity to be one. How he’d been allowed to graduate was a mystery really – being heir to the Uchiha clan and of graduation age was one thing, but putting him on a team with Kakashi as their sensei? Kakashi might be an amazing ninja but his emotional maturity wasn’t that much better from what she’d seen.

Then again, with Kakashi as evidence it was likely that Konoha just didn’t put much value on emotional maturity in its soldiers.

Truly though, Sakura knew better than to use Kakashi as a measuring stick for anything. The man was clearly skilled but incredibly laconic, and had been pretty neglectful so far. Sakura was smart, and she’d tried to think of things from his perspective, to understand what he was doing and why and whether he was trying to teach them something less obvious perhaps, (look underneath the underneath and all that) but it felt like she was grasping at straws. They were fresh genin, they knew practically nothing, and Kakashi refused to teach them anything of worth.

He also didn’t seem to care when his failures as a teacher came up in front of others, though in truth that had only happened on one front: Naruto’s mission reports. The boy could barely write, his penmanship was all but illegible.

Naruto’s reading and writing really were as bad as she’d feared back in the academy – there was a reason he’d been bottom of the class (aside from teacher prejudice). Unfortunately his poor skills were now her problem since it was clear Kakashi wasn’t going to do shit about it. Sasuke didn’t care at all even when they’d had to hand in mission reports and Naruto’s had been rejected for illegibility. The second-hand embarrassment Sakura felt seemed to be more than either boy experienced – Naruto just laughed it off.

After it happened several times and nothing was done about it, Sakura stepped up to try and sort things out since nobody else seemed to be intending to.

“You may not care about it now Naruto, but you’ll never make Hokage if you can’t write out a mission report.” Sakura told him sternly. “I’ve still got some of the books and worksheets I used when I was learning to write, I’ll lend them to you. Just make sure you do them, unless you want to be a genin forever.”

She felt like a mini-sensei as she took over instructing Naruto in areas she strongly felt needed working on, but hadn’t wanted to push since she wasn’t actually in charge. Well, Kakashi didn’t seem to be doing his job so she’d just step in and fill it as best she could.

“Make clones.” She told him, stood in the training field while they waited for Kakashi one morning. “I’m setting them to work.”

“Eh? I can do that, but why Sakura-chan?”

“So you’ll learn through them.” She’d seen Kakashi use the shadow clone a few times to split his attention or provide a ‘live’ target for them to practice against.

“Uh, I will?” Naruto just seemed confused, and Sakura felt once again how hopeless her team really was.

“You make shadow clones right? Sensei uses them sometimes too and he’s always able to report what his clone was doing, even carrying on a conversation mid way through. Its the value of that type of clone, that they can return memories once they disperse...?” As she continued Naruto’s eyebrows rose higher and higher until she couldn’t continue. Naruto used these clones en mass daily, yet he really didn’t know?

“So all this time you’ve been using shadow clones and just not...paying attention to them?” Sakura couldn’t keep the disbelief out of her voice, nor how unamused she was off her face.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so?” The blond rubbed the back of his neck with a wide, sheepish grin. “I mean, I just send ‘em off to do whatever I want ‘em to, that’s all I need right?”

“Naruto you should have absorbed their memories of what they were doing. Theoretically you should have improved your technique in say, taijutsu from all the times you’ve summoned clones to fight and die for you, but you’ve not improved at all. Are you telling me its just because, once again, you aren’t applying your brain?”

“....eheh? I’m sorry Sakura-chan, I’ll do better I promise!” The boy wilted dramatically and Sakura just barely refrained from pulling her hair out. Or his.

“Please do.” She managed to push out between grit teeth. “You have an incredible tool at your disposal with your shadow clones Naruto, you have no idea what I’d do to be able to have a technique like that work for me. You could be learning complex and varied subjects and surpass everyone in your age group and more if you just applied yourself. With those clones, you could be learning about past missions to prepare you for future ones, about politics or interrogation techniques or poisons or anything that caught your interest! Even something as simple as having a clone out to watch your own fights so you could get a clear picture of what’s going on, the value of it! And you’ve squandered it so far Naruto.” She glared at the boy sternly, bleeding frustration. “You’ll never make it to chunin like this, never mind Hokage. So yeah, do better. Because if you fail, you’ve got no excuse – not when those clones and your stamina give you every advantage.”

And geez, between Naruto’s clones and Sasuke’s eventual cheat-eyes, Sakura felt massively outmatched.

It only made her building anger grow towards their sensei. Naruto might have trouble using his head as anything but a battering ram, but that Kakashi, who had proved that he could use kage bunshin himself, hadn’t deigned to tell Naruto how to effectively use it was infuriating.

Getting angry at Kakashi wasn’t going to help her right now though, so she refocused on Naruto, setting him a daily routine to help him grow. Clones set to handwriting practice, to reading books she’d give him, and to critique him during combat. She didn’t want to overdo it in case that amount of knowledge (when he was paying attention to it) caused problems, but there was no way to learn but try, so she’d set him to start with just a couple created in the morning, then to disperse them individually before he went to training and see how much information he retained.

She felt useful giving Naruto instructions, helping him become a better shinobi (and person, who couldn’t write clearly at their age after years of lessons?) but jealousy burned in her belly. Naruto was treated poorly, sure, but his potential as a ninja seemed unmatched. If he made the most of the next few years he’d be unstoppable. Sakura had carefully planned out her years at the academy and it felt like if she’d had Naruto’s abilities back then she’d already be strong, strong enough to survive this village. Instead she was still mediocre, disadvantaged compared to those from bloodlines and barely measuring up to them despite her best efforts.

She’d known from the start that she would be at a disadvantage becoming a shinobi, but to be placed on a team with two clanned orphans, boys with some of the best genetic benefits she’d ever heard of, felt cruel. Six years of her best efforts and she’d still come runner up to Sasuke as rookie of the year, and now Naruto had a tool that could circumvent time as a limitation in training by simply creating more of himself. Sasuke didn’t even have his sharingan and he’d beaten her just with his earlier training and the resources of his family.

It wasn’t fair, but life wasn’t fair. She couldn’t let despair hinder her, she just had to find another way to pull out her potential, since Kakashi seemed like he’d not bother. She just had to be strong enough to survive, and comparing herself to her team seemed unhelpful at this stage. Anything could be a weapon, or turned into one, she just had to keep an open mind and learn as much as she could.

Chapter Text

There were a hundred little things that Sakura never would have learned without someone to ask who would actually answer her questions. In the past it had been Ino or Iruka sensei she went to if she really couldn’t find something out for herself, but now she had a sensei he was meant to be the person she learned from and went to.

As a test, she’d tried asking Kakashi-sensei a few of her questions, just to see what his answer would be (if he answered at all). About half the time he dismissed her outright regardless of the simplicity of the task (“How do you seal things into a sealing scroll sensei? How do you find out what your elemental affinity is? How do you anchor a genjutsu?” “You’ll find out when you’re chuunin Sakura.”) and the other half he’d answer cryptically, as if she could figure it out for herself if only he gave her a few clues, as if she hadn’t researched and mulled it over as much as she could already before asking him that a few meagre remarks would be enough for her to work it out.

It smacked of the same sort of deflection she’d gotten as a student at the academy, being told that the answers lay once she made genin. Now it was chunin, and she wondered if it was just that her teachers didn’t want to teach and merely foisted the work off onto whoever might be stuck with her in the future. The only answers Kakashi tended to answer honestly were Naruto’s, and that was because they were usually so simple he really shouldn’t have made it out of the academy without knowing them. Sakura was so embarrassed on his behalf sometimes, but all she could do was answer whatever simple question Naruto had when Kakashi wasn’t there (or just wasn’t willing to answer) and hope it helped.

It was possible that Kakashi truly had no idea that fobbing her off with a few cryptic remarks really wasn’t enough for her to figure it out on her own, maybe he just didn’t get how not everyone thought the same way he did, or could be taught to do so. Kakashi was a prodigy, and he’d been from a clan, even if it was a diminished one. He’d likely learned everything Sakura had and more before he even hit the academy, nevermind being on the Yondaime’s genin team.

Regardless, it was entirely possible that Kakashi was trying to teach them something with his tactics, even if those lessons might be ‘don’t trust your superior to come help you’ or ‘be aware at all times for ambush’. They definitely weren’t the sort of lessons any of them on Team 7 wanted to be learning, but they were valuable all the same. Their sensei had a reputation for being aloof but an extremely successful ninja, but Sakura knew enough about him by now to know what it had cost him to get there – pretty much every important person in his life was gone.

She’d be more sympathetic if he wasn’t fucking her over with her antics. She needed a teacher who would actually teach useful skills, not miserable life lessons.

It was frustrating, and disappointing. Whatever kind of ninja Kakashi seemed to want them to become, Sakura wasn’t living up to it. She constantly struggled with his teaching style (or lack thereof) and had better luck with learning from scrolls. Thankfully Kakashi did at least correct her taijutsu stances, even if he didn’t teach her any more of them or let her spar with the boys very much, usually pitting them against eachother instead.

Sakura had spent most of her life learning, pushing herself to reach further so that nobody else could push her down. To have her teacher turn a blind eye to her time and again, not even deigning to answer her questions nevermind go out of his way to help make her strong, made her bubble with anger. She’d spent enough time being pushed aside and ignored for the more ‘worthy’ kids, she wasn’t just going to accept it lying down.

Her options were limited though, and she knew it. The teamwork on team 7 was awful enough without her being uncooperative. Their working together for the test seemed more like a fluke, because it hadn’t happened since despite her attempts to pull the boys together (attempting to catch Tora with team mates with shit teamwork was both infuriating and a lesson in repetitive failures). She could easily imagine Kakashi throwing her aside completely if she tried to give him an ultimatum to get him to teach her. The fact that, compared to the other new genin teams, her team seemed to spend the least actual time training and running missions was just more fuel for the fire. She’d overheard from Ino that Asuma had their team up at 10am running missions till afternoon, then training till at least dark. Kakashi rocked up to training usually around lunch time and did maybe four hours of training/missions with them, before disappearing before the sunset was anywhere near.

Sakura didn’t even want to consider what Gai’s team was doing – she sometimes saw him when she was doing her own morning exercise, but she started hers about an hour after sunrise when they were already finishing their laps around the village.

Part of her longed to go to Gai and ask him for help. She’d seriously considered it several times, but ultimately hadn’t approached him yet. Gai had his own team and as much as she wanted to be on it, she wasn’t. Trying to get training from another sensei wouldn’t reflect well on her or Kakashi, but he’d be able to shrug it off and she couldn’t. Her reputation would take a hit for trying to undermine her sensei, for not trusting in him to find her a teacher should he need to. It would mean her inadvertently saying that she thought Kakashi an inferior teacher, and while it would be true it would merely show her to be insubordinate. That wasn’t a black mark she wanted on her record, not when she was already bottom of the food chain and struggling. If others took offence to her actions she could see herself actively shunned, something she just couldn’t afford.

So she didn’t approach Gai-sensei, and continued her persistent efforts with her team, to no avail.

A few days later Ino spotted her on her way to the library after training and dragged her off to chat about their new teams (gossip about Sasuke mostly). Sakura found herself admitting some of the difficulties she was having with her team. She only gave a brief overview to her friend though, and she didn’t admit to exactly how much she was struggling, though it wouldn’t surprise her if the Yamanaka was able to tell.

“Why didn’t you say things weren’t working out for you Sakura? I could help set you up, get you in touch with someone to teach you genjutsu or even just loan you some books!”

“Thanks Ino, but I’ll stick it out for a little bit longer. Anything I do outside of my team is going to make a statement and I don’t think I’ll come out of it looking very good.” She grimaced, and Ino frowned but didn’t disagree.

Sakura also didn’t really want to incur more ‘debt’ from the Yamanaka unless she felt she'd truly hit a wall, though the likelihood of needing to do so eventually at this rate was high. Ino would happily grant her access to some of her clan’s books if Sakura just asked, but she already owed the blond so much and until she fully gave up on her team she was loathe to build a bigger debt than she felt she could easily repay. Taking Ino up on her offer of a tutor was even more a no-go, something like that would be very costly to Sakura and it really would get her in trouble with her sensei for looking for an alternative teacher without his permission or knowledge.

It frustrated her immensely that she was at this manufactured disadvantage. Had she been from a clan it would have been expected for her to receive supplemental training from clan members and to read the books in the clan library. But because she wasn’t, they were denied to her and her skills were stunted for the lack. Because she didn’t have those advantages at birth, she wasn’t allowed to acquire them for herself now. It seemed so pointless to make it all so difficult just because of what sort of family she had been born into.

Worse, if Sakura tried to complain or push for change, especially at her paltry level, she’d be laughed out of the room to say the least. If she said a word about it then it’d just be held against her as proof that she wasn’t good enough to suffer hardship.

The struggles of civilian-born ninja tended to be brushed off with dismissals like ‘it builds character’ or ‘if they can’t handle it they weren't fit to be ninja anyway’, but that sounded like bullshit to her. Everyone had a breaking point, the academy taught them that too – how to interrogate people, to hold what they wanted against them to pump a prisoner for information. Having to fight the system as a civilian-born was just another way to add pressure on to a person. Sure, they might be strong enough to succeed and it’d speak well of that person, but they could just as easily break later and harbor resentment against the village for its cruelty. It was a callous way to treat the village’s greatest resource; its people. Perhaps a few gems might be churned from the rest, but most would simply be destroyed.

Sakura was determined to be one of those gems that came out of it. She wasn’t going to be crumbled to dust. She’d fight all the way, even if that meant fighting against her own sensei.

To win a battle though, required allies. Ino had been happy enough to offer Sakura resources and friendship, though truly how much the clan girl truly cared for her was a mystery. Even so Sakura wasn’t completely alone and she liked Ino, even if it did feel like having her nose rubbed in it a bit with the absent privilege Ino was so accustomed to. Just hanging out with the other girl was informative though, and it was no hardship – Ino was pretty generous and was happy to have a girl-friend who was shinobi enough to keep up with her but girly enough to still want to do hair and nails together (with lots of discussion about kunoichi tricks like senbon in hair and poison in nail varnish.)

As was fairly typical of a meeting with Ino, the blonde chatted away for most of the conversation, subtly poking Sakura for information but mostly just gossiping. Sakura enjoyed the normalcy of it if she was honest. It was a nice break from her frustrations. When Ino chatted about her team though, Sakura did her best to listen and learn and not begrudge her friend the promising team she had.

It sounded like being in a team for Ino was annoying but ultimately a steadying experience. Asuma was a rock for all of her team and Chouji and Shikamaru were drilled in supporting eachother and Ino. They always had eachother’s backs because their techniques required it. It helped that all three had known they’d be a team since they were little, so all had some degree of friendship/cooperation to build on. Even if Ino ranted about some of the boy’s (and her teacher’s) less appealing habits it was clear she held fondness for them and was having a decent enough time with her genin experience so far.

Sakura was jealous, but honestly didn’t know why she’d expected differently for herself. Her entire experience at the academy had been an uphill battle, why should her genin team be any different? What had she expected, after being put on a team with a barely or mis-educated outcast and a revenge-twisted psyche meltdown waiting to happen, with a not much psychologically steadier sensei to lead them?

Sometimes Sakura wondered if she was cursed. Surely not every civilian born shinobi had this sort of sheer bad luck?

It didn’t really matter in the end – they were her team and she was stuck with them. Even if they seemed to be a pipe bomb waiting to explode she had no choice but to make of it what she could (and hope she wasn’t destroyed when it finally went off).

-----------------------***************--------------------------

Since Kakashi-sensei rarely made himself available to team 7 (late to training, often vanishing during training, making himself unapproachable even when he was...) Sakura found herself keeping most of her problems to herself. It wasn’t like talking to Kakashi usually got her anywhere anyway, but things were getting a bit dire for her at this point. Training was hard on her clothes and equipment– much harder than at the academy – and thus her wallet. Even worse, now that she was a genin living alone her budget was a lot bigger than when she‘d lived with her parents and had them to buy household essentials.

It meant that she was having to fund her own food and supplies and unfortunately they just weren’t completing enough missions for her to afford that. The D-ranks they took, though simple, were often time consuming and made worse by Naruto and Sasuke bickering and mucking things up, or Kakashi trolling them. The amount of times they’d handed in a successful D-rank and had their pay docked for leaving a mess, or breaking something, it was enough to bring her to tears of frustration.

It pissed her off if she was honest, because she’d had to stress over her diet and ninja resources for years now and had thought that once she was a genin taking missions, that time of her life would be over. No longer would she have to choose between dinner or new sandals, or replacement kunai and the like. She’d be taking on missions and could pay for those herself, no longer having to beg her mother for such necessities.

Well now her mother wouldn’t buy a damn thing for her, and one D-rank a day at best was coming nowhere close to cutting it. She had no idea how Naruto was doing it, she knew the other boy lived in an apartment on his own, but it was possible the ‘jiji’ was paying his bills for him still.

If she felt like she was actually learning something from her efforts then it’d be a small comfort at least, but she didn’t even have that. They literally just did whatever chore they were assigned, usually with interference from Kakashi or disruption from the boys (painting that fence had been a nightmare truly; giving two ridiculous boys buckets of paint and what did they think was going to happen? Of course they’d all end up wearing it. Weeding missions weren’t much better but dirt came out a lot easier than paint.)

Sakura usually tried to throw in some chakra control exercises while she worked at least, although she’d recently taken to sharpening her focus on her sensei in order to try and track him. So far she’d not had much luck – even when straining her ears or trying to sense with her chakra (not something she was very good at or really had any idea how to do beyond what she’d read) she usually couldn’t tell when he disappeared from wherever he was lounging and popped up behind them.

When her sensei wasn’t around she tried listening in to those around her to learn more about the goings on in the village, trying to pick up on tidbits of information being passed around. She found herself lacking stimulation with just basic chores to keep her busy and she’d already learned that trying to corral the boys was a waste of her efforts so just left them to it. She needed to keep busy and push herself, but there were some things that just weren’t her job and babysitting her own team was one of them. She wasn’t their mother (technically that was Kakashi’s job anyway, not that he was doing much of any part of his job as far as Sakura was concerned.)

Ever since she decided to start at the Academy Sakura had needed to cram as much into her time as possible, physical training, reading ahead, doing all she could to give herself a leg up. Compared to now, she was achieving hardly anything in the few hours Kakashi gave them per day. It felt like Team 7 was wasting her time. She knew Sasuke felt similarly – he'd spat such words out a few times especially while they waited for Kakashi to bother to show up or during some mundane chore, but so far as she knew he’d not done anything beyond complain to them. It grated to agree with the surly boy on something like this, but at least she wasn’t the only one who could see what a problem this was. Naruto seemed happy enough, though to be fair he was the only one still learning things at a decent rate (for Naruto) since he’d been so far behind to begin with.

With little else she could do, Sakura filled her copious free time with self-study, returning to her list of subjects she’d wanted to work on and could do so without supervision. It wasn’t ideal, but she’d make the most of her own time as best she could.

She also took on more solo D-ranks to bolster her record, as well as to get her access to otherwise restricted areas. Anywhere from dishwashing at a restaurant (learning about customer service for her infiltration skills too) to walking Inuzuka dogs (access to the kennels and insight into a clan). She made use of all of it, building the skills and knowledge into her repertoire.

Technically as a newly graduated genin on a team she wasn’t meant to be taking solo D-ranks, but her reputation as ‘Iruka’s little helper’ once more became of use. Whenever Iruka was on the missions desk he’d let her take a D-rank or two, and a few others who had heard of her reputation did the same. Not all of the desk ninja allowed her the extra work though, or had something suitable for her to do on her own that day, but Sakura didn’t push it if they wouldn’t give her the mission and just came back later when someone else was on duty and tried again.

She gained a larger reputation beyond Iruka for her dedication in doing extra missions, but also because she was always polite even if the desk ninja denied her request for missions. Sakura was professional and didn’t throw tantrums, try to wheedle for what she wanted or anything like that. Acting like she was a shinobi, an adult of their village, meant that she was treated as such in turn. The interactions with the missions desk ninja tended to be brief but were enjoyable on both sides for the sheer lack of emotional effort required on either side. Whenever she turned up with her team it’d gotten to the point where some of the shinobi there gave her commiserating looks over her team’s behavior. She was building a rapport, slow and steadily. Better yet it was one separate from her team, which seemed to be a good thing considering what a joke they were considered to be.

Her efforts eventually yielded Sakura more visible results.

One of the more common D-ranks involved cleaning bloodstains. Out of clothes, upholstery, floors and other things, it wasn’t uncommon to get that kind of mission. Some were obviously from training accidents but some were pretty obviously suspicious. It wasn’t unusual to have to clean up a wagon that’d taken damage on the road, gotten bloodstains on it, but civilians were less practiced with getting out bloodstains and quite frankly people tended not to want to clean up blood spilled by people they cared about, or in places they'd felt safe. So clean-up missions were pretty common, busy work for genin mostly.

Sakura had gotten pretty good at it – she remembered some of the tips from her mother about getting stains out of silk and it turned out that not many people were great at handling silk. Sakura may not have progressed much in her family training but she’d learned how to handle the silk. After the first time she handed back a neatly cleaned silk kimono, she began getting requests to clean stains out of other people’s kimonos too, not just bloodstains. Some mission information had things like ‘its been in my closet for years, I couldn’t bear to throw it out but the last person to try fixing it only made it worse...’.

It was a small thing, but being personally requested and/or recommended for a job made pride fill her. It wasn’t much, she wasn’t renowned for her combat skills or anything amazing like that, but it was renown, and she’d take it.

It was also a mission that she could do on her own, was in fact easier to do on her own than with her team, so it worked well to supplement her income – as well as her reputation. It wasn’t much, but it was something, and that was more than she’d had till now.

Sakura was grateful, but a few more D-ranks a week with no guarantee of actually being given one at all wasn’t something that she couldn’t rely on that forever, even if doing them solo meant not having to split her pay. She was going to have to cut costs somewhere at this rate, perhaps launder her clothes in the river instead of the laundromat the next time Kakashi pushed them in a muddy puddle or Naruto splattered paint on her. Whatever she ended up doing, she had to make sure she had enough money for rent and food, since those at least couldn’t be shorted on.

Perhaps she should have picked a shittier apartment to move to, but Sakura couldn’t regret getting her tiny place instead even if many of her troubles would be null if it cost a little less. She’d just have to get by on a shoestring budget just as before.

The smell of the barbeque place outside her window continued to taunt her.

Chapter Text

Only six weeks into being a genin and being able to access the genin-level materials at the library and she’d read everything she was allowed to.

Literally.

Genin were given access to more than academy students but it was mostly minor jutsu or introduction booklets to different specializations. Going further in those specializations usually required special permission from someone in that field or to be chunin rank.

Some things were understandable – fuuinjutsu was heavily restricted for example, because even a pretty basic knowledge could allow for someone to make a huge bomb, intentional or not. Other areas were restricted just because the people who had such knowledge were usually kept under observation or on record – advanced infiltration and interrogation techniques, poisons, medical and fuinjutsu just to name a few. The village didn’t want that just lying around, teaching people how to spy or make bombs without anyone knowing about it.

It left Sakura in a quandary though, because the library was her only willing teacher and it was where she gained most of her skill and knowledge from. More would become available to her once she was chunin of course, but there was no guarantee that would happen any time soon, or that she would even be able to pass the chunin exam with her skills at their current levels. The chances of her sensei granting her access to anything specialized was slim to none as well.

To compensate, she’d been working harder to master the skills she did have, as well as adding small flairs to build upon what she knew. Things like using kawarimi on smaller and smaller objects, maintaining the henge for longer periods and with more depth of character and background. Jutsu modification became something she worked on too – for example she’d learned a very basic genjutsu from the ‘intro to genjutsu' scroll which gave the impression of darkness falling, and altered it just a touch to make it seem like fog was rolling in instead. She’d also become well versed in tree and water walking, as well as hiding her chakra (she thought so anyway, but her practical experience was untested in combat.)

Not everything she worked on was jutsu related though that was her main focus since she knew she was lacking in that area. The basic cypher scroll she’d found had been interesting and while it had only shown her the building blocks, she could ascertain more just from playing around with layering codes. After all, if she couldn’t learn any more then she’d have to build off what she did know. She knew the basic principles of many different fields of knowledge and it was up to her to take it further.

With her evenings now free with the library resources exhausted, Sakura found herself practicing in another important area instead; infiltration.

During the academy, she and Ino had explored the village in its entirety (even the flower district, once they’d learned how to henge), so they would be able to tell if something was amiss. They’d only done walk-throughs though, watching who went to which areas, what sort of people, what they looked like. They usually explored a different place each time, and spent a few hours there, getting familiar with the area and those who frequented it.

Aside from their adventure into the flower district, the girls had never hidden their identities. Doing so within your own village was considered disrespectful, not to mention it could get you in trouble depending on who you pretended to be, who caught you and what you were doing. If for example, Sakura tried to gain access to the chunin section of the library and got caught, she would have a black mark placed on her record for imitating a senior officer. Picking your target was often more important than a good performance when it came to a disguise. Actually using those disguises against an ally was only typically acceptable when trying to deceive consenting parties such as family or team members – which was why Ino and Sakura’s practice before now had been at the flower shop.

Unfortunately they’d never been able to make it more than two steps into the shop before Ino’s father had cheerfully greeted them by name, no matter how intricate their disguises, whether they used chakra or not.

It was a fun exercise with practical applications and Sakura always felt like she learned a lot about her village whenever she did it. Small things like when regular deliveries should arrive and what came in them, who came to purchase them, those sorts of things were like the heartbeat of the village. If anything should be amiss, it would be blips in those everyday things that’d clue her in. Now that she was a real shinobi and not just an academy student she was part of the village’s defence, and that meant keeping her eyes open and reporting any strange activity. How would she know if something was strange if she didn’t know what was normal?

Sure, this sort of training wasn’t going to make her any stronger physically and it wasn’t going to give her any kind of immediate reward, but it was useful and she could do it alone and without authorization so long as she was careful. Of course she wished she could spend that time on training something that would make her more powerful, but that wasn’t something she could change just yet. Sometimes it felt like the only thing she could control in her situation was herself, and she found herself lacking. At least she was doing her best with what she had available, little though it was.

If Sakura could recreate herself, she would make one very simple change. (That was a lie, she’d change so much, but tried not to get too fixated on things she couldn’t actually do anything about.) What she’d want was some kind of extra skill. Sure, she was smart, but clans were churning out geniuses on the regular so her ability to memorize was nothing really. She couldn’t make the logical leaps that a true genius could, she had lackluster chakra stores and couldn’t do much special with what she had. Sure, chakra control, but that wasn’t much when her overall stores would limit how much she could do regardless of how precise she was with it. Not to mention she had barely any skills that she could use her vaunted chakra control for – she barely knew any jutsu and Kakashi had yet to teach any more!

No, she’d love a skill like Sasuke’s cheating eyes, or Kakashi’s tracking ability – even Naruto with his sensitive nose and surprising intuition were more useful, not to mention his ridiculous stamina. Maybe with a lot of work she could become decent in skills like tracking, but it felt like everyone else had a natural advantage over her.

Wishing wasn’t going to miraculously grant her those extra skills though, so Sakura continued to build on what she had and work on things she didn’t as best she could. She memorized any information she could get a hold of, and maybe she wasn’t going to blast her way to the top the way the boys on her team likely were but she could follow instructions to the letter and more. There were plenty of skills that required a lot of memorization and strict instruction, such as medicine or fuinjutsu, even genjutsu to a degree. Unfortunately all three were gated subjects beyond basic primers, but Sakura just knew if she could get access to more materials then any of them might turn out to be the subject she excelled at. Not to mention it would keep her busy in her free time.

Her fixation on working all the time earned her regular chastising from Ino whenever they met, but despite her little apartment being not too shabby, Sakura still had yet to adjust to the silence of living alone, especially without something like a thick book to distract her. Even then she’d be more likely to read in the library or take a book to the park rather than read at home alone. Don’t get her wrong, she loved her new apartment, but it was still a bit...bare. It didn’t feel like home just yet.

Still, hearing Ino talk about her team gave her a reference point to some extent as to how much she should be working, at least with regards to Ino and Chouji.

Shikamaru was another matter entirely. The boy had slept through his classes, gave his least effort in practical lessons, and even as a genin he seemed to sleep his way through as much as he could.

On the one hand Sakura understood – she'd wanted to sleep through some of her classes too, when she’d read all the available material on the lesson and wasn’t learning anything new, but she’d never let herself. She’d never had the luxury of dragging her feet or even looking like she was, not even when she was the smartest girl in the class, with him as the smartest boy (regardless of his grades). If Sakura had slept through a single lesson she’d be on punishment laps if not kicked out of the class entirely – she was a nobody after all, and if she wasn’t there to learn then why keep her around?

Still, to continue such lackadaisical behaviour as a full on genin seemed grossly incompetent to Sakura. It was one thing to slack off in the academy, but out here as a genin his life would be on the line along with that of his teams’. Sleeping through training could mean he wasn’t strong enough when he needed to be strong, and Sakura felt fire sear through her at the sight of him, sleep-rumpled and unapologetic about it when she’d seen him at it once.

Sure, she could understand him at least a little, but that didn’t mean she could accept his apparent disregard. So sure of his own survival, that he wasn’t in any danger. Sakura knew how dangerous the world could be, and knew she wouldn’t be protected from it the way he would as a clan heir.

Sakura bust her ass to make herself strong, so that she wouldn’t ever go out on a mission and get killed. Devalued by her own village, Sakura had known for a long time that if anything went wrong outside the village’s walls, her sensei would protect her team mates before herself – valuable clan kids, even if the Uzumaki clan was apparently defunct. If she wanted to live, wanted to succeed, she had to make sure of it herself, just like she always had. Becoming a genin hadn’t changed that. The only person who had ever been in Sakura’s corner was Sakura herself.

She’d love to be able to say that she trusted her sensei to save her if he could, if the boys were already safe, but she couldn’t. Even being last on the list would still be on the list, but she didn’t think he’d risk it, if it came down to it. She thought he’d save the boys out of duty and protect them out of duty, and leave her to die in order to keep them safe. He didn’t seem to care for her at all.

Hatake Kakashi didn’t seem to want them to like him, he didn’t want them to trust him. Every interaction they’d had with him he’d trolled them, shown that they couldn’t take him at his word or expect him to be there for them. She wasn’t sure if he was just an asshole or if he just never wanted to be responsible for losing someone else ever again and so never let them see him as someone to rely on at all.

After weeks of training where he’d show up late, barely teach them anything and regularly interrupt their D-ranks by startling them or throwing things at them or otherwise getting them into trouble, Sakura personally didn’t expect Kakashi to come to her aid at any point. She didn’t expect him to be there and save the day when things went wrong. Although most of the experiences in the village were minor and silly, they emphasized that Kakashi was often the one getting them into trouble and leaving them to get out of it on their own, not coming in to help. He didn’t step in when the boys caused some kind of mess or the client tried to ‘accidentally’ spill their hot coffee over Naruto. Kakashi didn’t help.

It meant that after a few months, Sakura related her sensei with frustration and resignation. When she saw him she felt a jolt of paranoia and tension, not relief.

It was no surprise that eventually the dam burst. The only surprising thing was that it did so over something so minor.

Kakashi was late again.

Usually he was late of course, despite his continued insistence that they all meet up at seven in the morning. There had even been a few days where he’d not actually bothered to turn up at all and Sakura had been near in tears of anger and frustration. This time he was a few hours later than usual, which meant they’d been waiting for over 5 hours by the time he turned up.

They’d spent the morning doing stretches (while the boys bickered) and calisthenics (while the boys bickered) before the boys sparred (they got into a fight during laps and it’d gone from wrestling in the mud to a full on brawl, jutsu flying) and Sakura was so so sick of it, so sick of feeling like she was being forced into being team mum for a team that didn’t give a shit about her. Trying to manage the two boys was a full time job and usually a futile one, but so little got done when they were around. Sakura couldn’t even focus on her own training when they got this bad because neither had any situational awareness and she’d come close to taking fireballs or thrown clones to the face.

So when Kakashi finally showed up, scruffing each fighting boy and dropping them next to her like they were naughty puppies, usual eye-smile in place before declaring they’d all have to run laps for such behaviour, Sakura snapped.

Such shared punishments weren’t uncommon of course and they incensed her each time because she hadn’t done anything wrong and was sick of being punished for it. Worse it was laps, something she’d just been doing and was already worn out from, was on the verge of overworking her leg muscles if she pushed much harder, and she just knew this was how today was going to go, with more of the same useless work and disregard for her wellbeing and progress. Kakashi wasn’t going to teach her anything new.

When she didn’t immediately depart to run her punishment laps as she usually did Kakashi eyed her curiously, but his expression flattened from its false amusement once she opened her mouth.

“If you’re not going to teach us sensei, then find someone else who will.” Finally at the end of her rope, Sakura stood firm in front of their sensei, blocking his path out of the training ground where usually ditched them during their drudgery. “I could understand if you didn’t want to get attached, or were just trying to teach us hard lessons, but there is only so much the three of us can learn on our own and we’ve been on our own long enough to meet our limits. Ditching us or refusing to teach us even the most simple skills – its been two months you’ve been our sensei and we’ve barely done more than work on our stamina in that time, while our yearmates have been receiving /actual/ lessons.”

“You have a problem with your training?” Kakashi’s voice was low, mild, but his eyes were sharp. Nearby, both boys stopped what they were doing to watch what was happening.

“What training!? The only things I’ve learnt since you took us on is the depths of my patience and just how limiting the genin library is – I know, because I’ve read it! All of it!” Here Kakashi twitched slightly and Sakura took it for surprise, pleased she’d managed to shock him. “This can’t go on Hatake-san. Either teach us, or find a different teacher.”

“Maa Sakura-chan, those are some serious words.” Despite the playful lilt to his voice Kakashi’s eyes had never looked so serious.

“You’re right, they are. But I’ve worked as hard as I can to make something of myself on this team and achieved almost nothing. I’m learning less now than when I was in the academy, because so many skills require a sensei to oversee them. It feels like the only thing I’m on this team to do is try and curb the boys’ bullshit, to hold their hand through missions so they don’t get into mud fights or break things. I live alone Hatake-san. I pay my own rent, I make my own bentos, or I would if I had enough money to do either of those things with the few D-ranks we get done when they don’t take all day and get a pay cut taken from them! We took a weeding mission last week that took us four hours to do! It should have been a one hour mission at most, if we hadn’t had to spend the extra time fixing the boy’s fuckups, just like always.”

Sakura’s voice had turned bitter and hard. Sasuke and Naruto had returned from where they’d only half-left to start their laps, but were both silent in shock over her outburst. Sasuke seemed offended at being included in her accusations but she told no lie – the Uchiha boy was so fixated on learning ways to murder his brother he didn’t give a shit about D-rank missions, which meant he tended to half ass them if he read the details at all (or if Kakashi gave them, sometimes he withheld information just to be a troll). He’d been just as bad as Naruto in pulling up herbs and flowers instead of weeds during that mission and it was hardly the first time his disregard had caused such problems.

Kakashi just stared at her for a long moment, Sakura glaring back at him steadily. It was true that Team seven’s missions had been going very poorly – something Kakashi had found funny at the time but it was true that none of the kids were progressing with much speed or success.

Because Kakashi had been blockading their training. He had seen too many children die wasted on battlefields to allow it to happen to these children. Soft Sakura, with her delicate face and pink hair, Sasuke, a boy destined to destroy himself as much as the person he hated, and Naruto, son of one of his precious people and naïve idiot to boot. He couldn’t allow the world to chew them up and spit them out like it had everyone else, he’d been determined to see them live to adulthood and that meant not allowing them to excel, not allowing them to break themselves against this world.

Of course Sakura had put a stop to that and not even two months in. In truth he’d seen for a while that stifling them wasn’t going to work forever, and wasn’t going to help them the way he wanted it to anyway. Rather than spending their childhoods growing and maturing properly, he’d only been filling them with resentment instead while they struggled to progress on their own. They certainly hadn’t been coming together as a team as he’d wanted.

He’d wanted them to grow, and grow up. Give them experience just being alive so they might have more to draw from when bigger problems came up. Sasuke seemed the most resistant to any sort of growth however – clinging to his old hurt so it was as fresh now as back when it first happened. Having lost everything himself Kakashi could understand, but he’d learned how badly you could fuck yourself up from something like that. His years in Anbu had been miserable, grueling, with only his skill as a shinobi to comfort him. His life since leaving black ops had been much better for him – more stable, less difficult just to endure even if having a social life wasn’t easy for him. It was still better than the identity loss that came with Anbu.

Still, this problem was mostly of his own making. He’d wanted to protect them in his own way and hoped that the three would band together against him in the universal ‘an enemy of my enemy is my friend’ alliance at least, but it had just never happened. Sakura was right and he should have stepped in much sooner and adjusted his efforts when they failed to act as he’d intended.

Sakura’s harsh words were jarring and hard to hear but Kakashi knew better than to lash back in response, especially when he’d brought this on himself. It’d be easy to dissolve the team right there but that was just petty, and Sakura wasn’t in the wrong. No, he’d take what he could from her words and mull the rest over – it wouldn’t serve him to act in haste.

Rather than address what she’d said at all, Kakashi remained silent for a few drawn out moments, the tension thick between them, before he clapped his hands together with an eye-smile.

“How about a mission? That sounds like a good idea!” Because evading unpleasantness was a Kakashi-sensei trait and why would she expect one episode of shouting at him to make a difference? Nevertheless they all marched to the missions desk and Kakashi got them a mission, eye-smiling like nothing was wrong while Sakura stomped behind him like an angry earthquake. No longer hiding her displeasure, Sakura’s anger was palpable and even the obtuse Naruto was keeping his distance. Iruka gave her a concerned look from behind the desk but said nothing as they took the mission and walked out again.

Humming tunelessly, Kakashi led them to their mission location, thankfully just a few blocks away in a residential area.

The client was a sharp-eyed, surly looking woman who wanted them to do manual labour in the form of pulling down an old shed and building a new one. She took one look at their team and sneered.

For the next twenty minutes the old woman watched them, making comments about their unsatisfactory performance, their clothing choices, Sakura’s hair, her worn clothes, her forehead.

“Why don’t you piss of and let us do the work you hired us for?” Sakura snarled, twenty minutes into the job and already at the end of her rope. Normally she’d bite her tongue and get on with her work but today of all days she was done keeping her mouth shut. It was clear their pay was going to get docked even if she was on her best behaviour so why bother?

Luckily the old woman looked away in a huff rather than pick a fight with a twelve year old so Sakura turned back to her work, seething visibly.

“You need to toughen up Sak-”

“Oh come on!” Sakura all but threw her hands in the air and turned away from him. “Really? You’re really going to say that. I’m a civilian-born shinobi sensei, I’ve spent more than half my life being shat on by everyone else for being better than me with half the effort, I’ve got thick skin. I just learned not to stand there and take it when I could be doing something productive with my time instead. So. Excuse me.” She left them standing there agape, their client’s mouth hanging open in shock and displeasure.

She left them all there, staring after her as she went to the training grounds to blow off some steam. She honestly didn’t expect the rest of her team to show up a few hours later – normally Kakashi called an end to training after a mission, but instead here they all were.

Her hands ached from punching the training post, trying to get out her aggression and frustration. She should’ve known that one verbal confrontation with Kakashi wasn’t going to change anything – the man brushed it off time and time again whenever Naruto’s illegible reports were rejected or he himself had done something considered inappropriate. Only Sakura had changed, no longer hiding her true feelings.

“The client docked the pay for the mission, but I gave the rest to Naruto and Sasuke.” Kakashi told her. “I’m disappointed that you walked away from a mission Sakura.”

“I’m disappointed all the time sensei, I’m just spreading it around now.” Anger was replaced with bitterness now, and she didn’t even turn to look at them.

“You’re really going to let the team down Sakura-?”

“This team is a joke and you know it!”

The words burst out of her and she didn’t regret it, not when Kakashi’s eye widened in shock or Naruto recoiled as if struck. Sasuke didn’t react at all and it was likely he agreed with her.

“I’ve tried, okay? I’ve tried to pull us together, to help Naruto grow and pull Sasuke in to work with us, but I’ve failed. I always fail. I’m not their nanny, I don’t know how to make them focus on their work and behave themselves. None of us work together, we don’t even have a professional relationship. The ninja on desk duty look at our team like we’re a disgrace every time we walk in because our mission history is terrible – we've barely completed a handful of missions without a complaint attached to them. Our completion rate is terrible, our conduct as shinobi is terrible and I’m ashamed to be part of this team.”

Sakura’s voice was strained and high, and she clenched her fists at her side, face red. Unfortunately Sakura had always been something of a stress-crier and rather than steaming with anger she simply burst into tears.

“They all say your genin team is meant to be like a family.” Sakura bit out around a sob, lowering her head to hide her face. “All through the academy, that’s what they say. Many ninja that are jounin today still have close ties with their genin teams, or mourn those they’ve lost if their team members didn’t make it. They practically promised us a family.” She sobbed, and Naruto shuffled over, awkward and not sure how to comfort her. Kakashi just watched, expressionless, while Sasuke scoffed and turned away in anger.

“Fuck that.” The dark haired boy spat. “I don’t need family. If you want one so badly you should just quit.”

Sakura didn’t even bother retorting- getting into a fight with Sasuke rarely achieved anything, the boy was more bull-headed than Naruto on some topics. That he couldn’t grasp the idea that family didn’t mean pain, didn’t mean you had to give up being a ninja to have, was his own failure.

“Because we’re all desperate for a family sensei, none of us have someone to come home to, but it seems like only some of us actually want it.” Sasuke could reject them all he wanted but she’d seen enough in the last few months, seen his small smiles when Naruto did something funny or when they all sat close together to discuss training. He might never allow himself to have that closeness for real, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want it.

“We’ll just have to be family then.” Naruto said boldly. Sakura looked up at him and saw determination in every line of his body. “Screw the teme, we’ll be family just the two of us.” The boy side-eyed their sensei but said nothing.

“Maa maa, no need to glare so meanly Naruto-kun.” Kakashi waved a hand. “You guys are my team, and maybe I’m not very good with that but I’ll do my best.”

“Alright! You can be the weird uncle!” Kakashi looked like he regretted his inclusion now, but Sakura giggled, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“Now, what’s this about you living alone Sakura-chan? I was under the impression there were no problems with your family.” Bowing her head, Sakura just averted her eyes and didn’t look up as their sensei sighed. “Well, a team may be a family but forgive me if I don’t invite you all to live with me. I have an apartment that is already overcrowded with my ninken.”

At the thought of sharing an apartment Naruto at first seemed ecstatic, then went white. “Uh, my apartment might fit us...?”

“Not a chance Naruto, I’ve seen that sty. Even if you did keep it clean, which you don’t, the building looks half a step from collapsing, if the mould doesn’t get you first. I’ve got a little apartment off of the market district. Its small, and some of my furniture is made out of stacks of books instead of wood, but you can come over whenever, either of you.”

Sasuke turned away fully, rejecting her offer in a way that she’d expected though was disappointed by. Naruto seemed to be jumping for joy at the invitation and Kakashi just looked intrigued.

“At any rate, you won’t be spending much time there. Training begins at seven tomorrow morning, so make sure you’re ready.” He warned them.

It was unlikely that all their problems were fixed with this one thing, but for once Kakashi seemed engaged with the team and Naruto was pulling together. Despite Sasuke’s hard words he hadn’t left yet either, the four of them stood together in the training fields, Naruto’s arm around her and Kakashi next to them as if he was part of the team for once.

Maybe it’d all fall apart again tomorrow, but maybe not. For the first time since Team seven was formed Sakura finally had hope for the future.

Chapter Text

Training the next day started at seven sharp.

Yeah, you read that right. It started at seven sharp.

Sakura had taken to doing her stretches and basic exercise in the mornings and her doing them usually got the boys to join her at least somewhat, but this time she’d barely started her morning routine when Kakashi appeared beside them with his eye curved up in a smile and a ‘morning kiddies’.

Gobsmacked, Naruto had pointed at him dramatically and then stood there with his mouth open, pointing. As if he’d started to shout his habitual ‘you’re late!’ but realised Kakashi was actually on time for once and wasn’t sure how to handle that. Sakura giggled at him and even Sasuke smirked, though he turned his face away so it was difficult to tell.

What followed was both terrible and great. Kakashi still had them do their stretches and exercises but he pushed them harder and faster on them than they’d ever gone before, and then he started them working on taijutsu. Sakura loved it even as much as she regretted this change – her taijutsu was limited mostly to the bare basics of her few sessions with Gai-san and what the academy taught her. Kakashi had them each go a round against him, then all three of them together against him. He wiped the floor with them, but Sakura felt her determination burning in her chest, the drive to beat him. It was good to feel that fire again, to be challenged in a way she felt she could overcome with enough effort.

Sparring against Naruto and Sasuke afterwards was eye opening in its own way though, particularly in an all-out spar and not just restricted to taijutsu.

While Sakura may be miles behind the boys in terms of raw combat power, she definitely had a few things going for her. Having learned water walking from the genin library texts meant that all she had to do was find a body of water and become basically untouchable, thus undefeatable during their spars. Sure, they could throw kunai or shuriken at her, or Sasuke could try shooting a fireball, but her evasion was good enough that they’d run out of ammo or chakra before she ran out of stamina. At one point Naruto had tried to make his usual swarm of clones to get her, forming some kind of clones bridge which failed, then trying determinedly to swim after her and grab her ankles. She’d eventually fallen into the water laughing when the pond had been so full of swimming Narutos that she’d barely been able to take a step without standing on a head or hand and the disrupted water (along with her laughter) had led to her falling in.

Comparing herself to Naruto and Sasuke had done her no favours in some regards – neither boy were good examples of normal ninja. Naruto especially. While compared to them both Sakura fell short in terms of strength and stamina, it turned out that she wasn’t as far behind as she’d thought compared to others from her class. Her training regimen meant that actually her stamina and speed were superior to most of her classmates, and while she lacked strength on her own, when chakra was allowed she excelled in taijutsu. Her budding chakra-enhanced speed and strength made her a strong opponent even if she was limited in what moves she knew. While the previous few spars she’d had with the boys had been taijutsu only left her feeling inferior, it turned out she easily gave Sasuke a run for his money once chakra was allowed, and he was still best at combat so far as she could tell.

Going against eachother like this, all out, allowed them all to truly gauge where the other was and how effective their skills were to be on the receiving end of. Sakura might beat Sasuke out for speed with chakra, but the Uchiha had her beat on accuracy and kept up with her speed and strength even without the light chakra augmentation she had going on. He was smart enough to just wait her out when she tried her water-walking trick on him too – quick to realise that she had a hard time hitting him just as he did her, and if he conserved his chakra he could literally just wait her out since her reserves were so small.

Naruto meanwhile was even more limited in his taijutsu than Sakura by a wide margin, using mostly a brawler fighting style if it could be called that and simply spamming clones. His abilities were minimal and his method was simple but it didn’t detract from effectiveness – Naruto's boundless stamina and refusal to give up meant it was very tough to win a fight with him even with his lacking skill.

They spent several hours on taijutsu practice and sparring before sensei finished off their training by having them focus on chakra techniques. They were basic but necessary, practicing moving chakra through the body to different areas. Sakura already knew most of it from scrolls as precursor work to wall and water walking, but the practice was useful and her reserves were small enough that such techniques still worked to stretch her coils and build her reserves. By the end of the session he had them make their first attempts at tree walking, with the promise of future practice when the boys struggled at it.

By the time lunch rolled around Sakura felt exhausted and pushed like she never had and was more than happy for it. The time after lunch was spent taking D-ranks, and with Kakashi giving them some tips and corralling any bad behaviour, they managed to complete three missions before dinnertime and team training was coming to an end.

Rather than separate after handing in the last mission however, Kakashi led them all to a small door in an out of the way side street with barely a sign over the door to identify it. They all trooped in and up the stairs beyond the door, only to be pleasantly surprised by the warm smells of cooking food lingering in the reception area at the top. It turned out that there was a restaurant upstairs and took up the top floor of several of the shops below. A waitress led them down the long hallway, littered with unmarked doors on either side, and opened the door to one such room to reveal a table with four chairs around it. Small eating rooms, rather than one open dining area.

Following along behind their sensei like ducklings the trio of genin took in the unexpected sight of this hidden restaurant. Kakashi took the seat closest to the door and they all took the seats left.

“What is this place sensei?” Sakura asked the obvious question.

“Yeah, I’ve never seen anything like it! The front door didn’t say anything like this!” Naruto’s excitement made him louder than usual and they all wiggled their fingers in their ears in response while the boy aplogised sheepishly.

“This place is called Rinosuke’s, it’s a restaurant that caters primarily to ninja, although its open to anyone really.” Kakashi told them. “Because of the way the rooms are set up and the discretion of the staff its pretty popular for more paranoid ninja. The food is also really good too. I’ve been coming here for a while, their saury is the best.” He nudged the menus towards them and the three examined them with interest.

“We won’t do this everyday, at least not at a restaurant, but its important to do a follow up to discuss how the day’s training went and what needs work. I’ll also use this time to let you know in advance about future training if I need to, unless the point is to test your improvisational skills anyway. For now just pick something to eat – food is on me, but don’t go crazy.” He said the last to Naruto more than anyone, aware of the endless depths of his belly.

As instructed, they all picked something off the menu and gave their orders when the waitress returned. There was a small lever they could pull that alerted the waitress to their need for her, and a similar bell in return to warn those in the room that a waitress was coming, so there were no unexpected entrances.

Sakura found it fascinating and it was clear neither of the boys had been anywhere like this before either. The waitress delivered their drinks while their food cooked, and they all discussed how training had gone while they waited. Then Kakashi had them give opinions on how their team mates had done during training as well.

“Sakura’s taijutsu was limited, but what she did know she was solid in. She had a few moves outside of the basic academy taijutsu but it was surprising when she pulled them off.” Sasuke said when prompted to give his analysis on her.

“Ah yes, I saw a few non-academy moves as well Sakura-chan, where did you pick those up?”

“Oh, before I made genin I sometimes asked for help with my physical training. Most people wouldn’t give me the time of day, but Gai-san gave me a few tips a couple of times....” She trailed off when Kakashi’s recoiled dramatically.

“Somehow I am not surprised you’ve trained with Gai.” Sakura was a go-getter after all, and there wasn’t anyone more driven in the whole of Konoha. ‘a couple of times’ meant more than once as well – most people learned the error of their ways upon asking for help from Gai and then hid any time they saw him again. It was no wonder Sakura was on his team – she was crazy.

While he was lamenting this new development, Sakura was trying to appease Naruto’s loud press for answers, eager as always to understand things he didn’t know. She told him a bit of what training with Gai was like and even Sasuke looked like he wouldn’t want to touch her academy training routine with a long pole, nevermind Gai’s himself.

Their food arrived while Sakura was telling stories and they all dug in. Kakashi’s food disappeared in increments without any of them ever seeing his face despite the privacy of it just being them in the room, seeming amused when the boys tried to catch him at it. Once he’d finished and they were on their last bites, Kakashi drew their attention.

“I think that training went well today. The missions went well too and all around it was a good effort. Going forward I’m going to mix things up a bit to challenge you, depending on your mission. You all have areas you need to work on, but you’re also all shinobi and have skills you can utilize to help you. For example painting a house when you can chakra-walk means an easier mission and also training in chakra control. Depending on the mission I might give you a benefit or limitation. One day I might even have you catch Tora using only wall-walking.” He mused aloud, pretending not to notice the trio’s dismay.

“There will also be some more general practice you can do during missions though. For example Naruto’s shadow clones would be invaluable if he was reliable enough to use them. Tasks that would take hours could be done in minutes. So its your job to make that happen. Naruto, you need to learn some focusing techniques and learn to listen as well – similarly your team needs to learn how to give you relevant information in a way that you can understand and use. For example a weeding mission, you need to know what is a weed and how to pull it up otherwise you could ruin someone’s garden very quickly. That is the unofficial mission that the three of you have: Communication, and teamwork understood?”

The three nodded, though Naruto looked a bit put on the spot. “I’ll also be giving you some tasks that’ll help you learn your own body Naruto, where it is and where its going so you’re no longer a hazard to your team. They’re low level chakra techniques too so hopefully it’ll help your chakra control at the same time.” Teamwork would have to evolve to include Naruto’s clones as well as just the boy himself, something they struggled with during spars right now. It would come with time and effort though.

He turned to Sasuke next. “The communication aspect of this mission will predominantly fall on you Sasuke, as communication is your weak point also. So far client interaction has been almost exclusively on Sakura, with Naruto chiming in now and then especially at the missions desk. From now on that’ll be your role. You need to learn how to conduct yourself professionally. There’s ways of being aloof and still being professional, still being able to communicate with your team. If you hate talking so much there’s the hand-sign language you can use instead, but you need to have some way to talk.” Kakashi told him firmly.

Sasuke didn’t look happy, but par the course he didn’t say anything either. Kakashi let it lie. He hoped Sasuke could step up in this manner though, not just for the way it’d help him work with his teammates but because having him as the front man was the best front man for team seven – he'd be afforded more respect than Sakura by far because of his heritage and her pink hair, and Naruto’s situation meant he was mistrusted by most of the village even discounting his poor social skills.

“As for you Sakura, you need to work on your presentation a little more. You’ve done your best but you also come from a civilian background and have some of the mannerisms that identify that. There are a few small tricks and concealments that you’re lacking that give you away. Sasuke, could you tell me what they are?”

The boy glared mulishly at them but eventually relented, his scowl looking more like a pout on his boyish face. “Her hair needs to be tied more securely. My mo- kunoichi usually have hair clips or other shinobi-grade hair accessories. You also speak and hold yourself in a certain way when it comes to clients – less so when you’re facing shinobi, but your posture shifts and the way you talk as well.”

“That’s right. There are small, habitual things that shinobi do like the way they talk and hold themselves that is different to civilians. You may find that you get more respect as a young kunoichi instead of them seeing you as a child playing dress-up if you can correct these small things. They’re subtle but its those sort of cues that others may be reading and responding to.” Kakashi told her. “Part of that is also wardrobe, which you’re fairly on top of but is missing a few bits.” He looked horribly uncomfortable for a moment before saying “Do you need me to help you with that?”

Sakura was touched that he’d offer to go clothes shopping with a preteen girl and would be mortified if she wasn’t also finding his discomfort hilarious. “No thank you sensei, though I do appreciate the offer. I can ask Ino for help, I know she’d be thrilled to take me clothes shopping especially if we keep doing this many missions and I can afford the good stuff.”

Kakashi nodded and tried not to make it too obvious how relieved he was to be alleviated of that burden. Being a good sensei was harrowing work.

“That’s good to hear. Sundays will continue to be our rest day so you can see if she’s free for then – I intend to keep up the current rate of missions so you should have plenty of money by then.” He eyed Naruto speculatively. “Also ask her if she’d take on Naruto some time. He needs a wardrobe update too.”

“No I don’t!” The boy squawked, clutching at his orange jumpsuit. “I don’t need anything! Don’t let Ino get me!”

“Sorry Naruto, but if we’re talking about presenting ourselves as ninja then that jumpsuit definitely has to go. Its one thing to wear for training – its hard wearing, I’ll give it that, but its not appropriate in front of clients, nevermind leaving the village in it. You’ll be a bright orange target for any enemy nin to go for.” Sakura told him. “I’ll ask Ino. She’ll either jump at the challenge or run away screaming, I’ll let you know sensei.”

“Alright.” He seemed resigned to it. If Ino didn’t want to take on his brightest (in colour) student then he’d just have to bite that kunai and do it himself. He held out hope though. “As for the rest Sakura, I’ll show you the ‘proper’ way to move and interact with clients and shinobi of higher and lower authority next time we take a mission so you’ll have a template to follow going forward. I can also give you all a few tips on standard shinobi behaviour and the like amongst the Konoha ranks, to minimize the risk of you offending anyone.”

“Thank you sensei, I appreciate the critique and guidance.” It was exactly what she’d been needing for so long.

Not being taught things like that could cause dissention among civilian and clan shinobi. If Ino hadn’t told her in the academy not to wear harshly scented products then she never would have known, and any nin with a sensitive nose (so all of the Inuzuka at least) would have habitually avoided her if not been offended at her discourtesy. Similarly things like eye contact were important to some clans but offensive to others, particularly clans with dojutsu or animal traits. If they wanted to stop offending people they’d have to learn, and it was up to Kakashi to teach.

“If I see the three of you working on these tasks well then I’ll reward you with a training session in an area of your choice.” When Naruto looked confused he clarified. “If you want to learn kenjutsu for example, you could request that as your session and I’ll give you training in it. If you just want to learn a new jutsu, or even an information session on a subject of your choice, like foreign politics or how the hokage tower works, I can do that instead. There are some areas I may not be able to make good on right away if they’re outside my skillset though, so keep that in mind. It’ll be easier to teach you things I know myself, like tracking and jutsus, but I’ll do my best in other areas or find someone to teach you for those sessions.”

It was a generous offer and very good motivation. The three of them looked more determined instead of resigned to these additions to their training, with such a reward for their efforts. Sensei hadn’t even said they had to succeed, only that they had to try and they’d earn a reward.

After that they were mostly done. Kakashi paid the bill while they discussed other small bits they’d learned during training that day, and the four separated to their individual homes in good spirits.

---

The next morning began the same as the first. The early morning spent doing exercise followed by learning a few new taijutsu moves. The second slot instead dedicated to mission practice and then actual missions again after lunch. Splitting the day into segments seemed to be the new routine and it was definitely working. It felt like they were finally improving instead of just treading old ground. Training also extended beyond just practicing techniques or building muscle, instead sensei was coming up with practical missions for them to act out, such as protecting a client or catching an infiltrator.

In those scenarios Kakashi would play the part of enemy nin, random civilians and the like and they had to act accordingly. His penchant for disguise gave even practiced Sakura a run for her money, and the trolling teacher threw himself into the roles (including screaming damsels, which was just horrifying.) They’d spent most of one day ‘protecting the client’ while Kakashi pulled all kinds of shit, ostensibly that a real, terrified civilian would do, while his assigned ‘guards’ tried desperately to protect him. He even allowed them to practice throwing him to the ground and covering him so they would know how to protect a real client. (And once he switched out with a clone so when Naruto threw ‘him’ to the ground he popped instead and the genin ate dirt. He was much better as a sensei now but there was still a troll underneath.)

As promised he’d led them to the missions desk that afternoon and conducted himself ‘appropriately’. It’d freaked out all the ninja who saw him at it and that alone seemed to make it worth it for him, beyond the learning exercise it was for his students. The good thing with Sakura being the main target of such a lesson also meant it usually only needed to be shown once, unlike with Naruto who took multiple repetitions to get something down and even Sasuke often took a couple tries to get it perfect.

Unfortunately Kakashi’s professional and attentive attitude caught him some unwelcome attention from their clients, but that just allowed him to show them how to handle inappropriate attention without causing offense. It was part charm, part subtle social manipulation to make it impolite for the other person to take action on their intentions and Sakura had never seen such a smooth sidestep of unwanted advances.

“Why don’t you just tell her to let go of your arm though?” Naruto didn’t seem to get why it wasn’t acceptable to just push someone away when they did something like that.

Sakura answered him. “Because they’re the client Naruto, and we want her future business as well. If we upset her now then she might not bring missions to Konoha in future. This is especially the case for traveling merchants and the like but even people who live locally – if they’re that unhappy with the service Konoha shinobi provide they could hire someone else or even leave the Village.”

Naruto seemed to think that’d be for the best if they were that sucky to stay in the village, but understood at least that losing business was bad.

“You need to be especially careful when you don’t know much about the mission client.” Kakashi took over her explanation. “For example catching Tora seems like a crummy D-rank right? But that mission comes from the Fire Daimyo’s wife. If we upset her, she might complain to the Daimyo and he might take it out on Konoha. Sanctions or higher taxes, he might even take his business elsewhere. That’s what’s happening in Suna right now. Their Daimyo is outsourcing missions from their country instead of giving them to their hidden village. Now, Sunagakure is struggling financially, its shinobi don’t have enough missions to support their village. We don’t want that to happen here, so maintaining good relations with our clients is important. Even if it does mean catching Tora every week and being polite when handing the demon cat back to her.”

With explanations like those, even dull missions were proving informative. With the added element of their new tasks and learning to make use of small jutsu in their D-rank, it definitely felt like they were getting more use out of their time. Sakura was happy, they were no longer being held back and it felt a lot better.

Dinner that day was at Ichiraku ramen at Naruto’s insistence. Since he’d done well that day it was an easy reward to give and the hearty food would do them all good anyway, and soften Naruto up for Kakashi’s next plan. They all discussed the days training as before but this time when they finished Kakashi held them all back.

“Alright, today we’re doing something a little bit different. After our talk the other day I realised I’ve been remiss in your welfare outside of the training fields. For that reason, I’ll be doing home-visits after dinner today.”

Both boys protested loudly but Kakashi shut them down before they could go on for too long. “If you need some time to get your homes in order that’s too bad for you. Its important for me to see how you’re living on your own, when you don’t have time to hide. Not only that but its important for your team to know where you are in case they need you. We’re a team and that means we’re there for eachother even out of hours, myself included.”

The rest of the meal was spent trying to prevent Naruto from sneakily sending shadow clones to tidy up his apartment. He wouldn’t abandon Ichiraku’s ramen himself though, but he did try and drag it out so they stayed too late to visit, something which Kakashi put a stop to by having the rest put in to-go bags instead. Naruto had succeeded in taking up a good chunk of time though, so Kakashi gleefully declared it’d be too late to visit his home that night as well as theirs.

Since it was nearby, Sakura’s place was the one they went to first. She led them a few streets over, to the other side of the market and her new apartment building. Kakashi made a point of asking a few questions and making sure the boys took note of what number her apartment was and which windows were hers in case they needed to get to her quickly, before she led them upstairs.

The front door was only lightly trapped, since trapping wasn’t a strong skill of hers and she didn’t have much in the way of supplies, so it only took a few moments before they were stepping inside. Kakashi hummed at the sight of her traps but said nothing – at least she had a few put up even if there was much room for improvement. Most of her traps were straight out of the academy book, with a few civilian inspired traps slipped in, the sort that were easily missed as signs of intrusion rather than shinobi traps which were to prevent it.

When she lived with her parents there was only so much she could do to defend them (and herself). She'd tried laying a few traps around but inevitably her parents would trigger them (even though she’d told them not to go into her bedroom, or touch the trap she left on the kitchen window that didn’t lock properly anymore).

Now that she had her small apartment though she could do what she wanted with it. There wasn’t actually that much she could do though – Sakura knew if someone was determined enough they’d get in easily, and she didn’t want to make them so difficult that she might set them off herself if she came home fatigued from a mission.

Besides, the massacre of the Uchiha clan told her that no amount of defenses would save her against a powerful foe. There was no true safety in this world, though she could at least make them work for it.

All thoughts of traps were easily dismissed however, when Sakura led them all into the apartment proper with a quiet ‘welcome to my home’, apologising for not having house-slippers for them all.

The living room was a bit cramped with them all stood inside it, and the lack of furniture was very clear immediately. Still, the apartment itself was in good condition and she’d settled in decently well. She stood off to the side as Kakashi poked around, checking in her cupboards and checking the water coming out of her taps while Naruto bounded over to check out her bedroom.

“Oh man what is that smell? It smells delicious!” Naruto exclaimed, and even Sasuke seemed interested.

“I know right, it always makes me hungry to smell it. Its the restaurant outside, I haven’t been able to go yet though since money has been tight.” She lamented.

“We can’t have that now can we.” Kakashi cut in, pulling his head out from under the sink. “Perhaps we’ll make it the dinner destination for tomorrow evening. Like I said before, dinners out won’t be regular but that’s part of why I’m here – to make sure your living conditions are suitable but also because we’ll be instituting team dinners going forward. Once a week, each of you will take on a dinner day and we’ll come over for dinner. That includes my place too.” He sounded morose but determined to follow through regardless.

“You’ve got a nice apartment here Sakura I’m pleasantly impressed.” He told her. “I see the Nara’s contributed towards your crockery.” The deer designs were something of a giveaway.

“Yeah, Ino helped me move so of course she pulled Shikamaru in to help and word spread...” She smiled sheepishly.

“Well you have a set of four plates, so you’re ahead of me on the whole ‘team dinners’ bit.” Her sensei admitted sheepishly. “Not sure about eating around the desk though.”

Sakura flushed, but without a steady income she couldn’t afford to waste the money she had on non-essentials like furniture. She’d been hoping to save up enough to get a nice low table to eat at, something that’d work with a kotatsu in winter. Perhaps she’d be able to push up those plans to get one sooner, if they kept up the current pace of missions. There was no way they’d fit four place sittings around her old writing desk, currently being used as a temporary table.

Kakashi’s exploration included her bathroom, bedroom and even her closet. When he caught sight of the green jumpsuit buried in the back of it he recoiled so hard he nearly tripped over her poison supplies and Sakura tried not to bust her gut laughing.

He seemed satisfied with what he’d found, even if Sakura’s apartment was only half-furnished and even her wardrobe was missing some seasonal essentials. Kids grew so fast at her age though, her old stuff hadn’t fit and she’d donated or sold most of it when she moved with Ino’s help.

“Alright then, everything looks good Sakura. Let’s go to Naruto’s apartment next shall we? He can put his leftovers in the fridge then too.”

The walk to Naruto’s apartment was fairly long and took them to a run down area near the flower district.

The abrupt comparison between Sakura’s small but quality little flat, half empty though it was, and Naruto’s decrepit apartment building couldn’t have been starker. The outside of the building was coated in peeling paper and graffiti, the place looked deserted and a good number of the windows were broken. Only Naruto’s, with plants growing in the window visible from the street, looked lived in at all.

Inside wasn’t much better. Leaf litter had blown into the reception area and the place felt dead and empty as they all trooped up the stairs to the only occupied apartment. The front door seemed ill-fitted in its frame and the lock didn’t work properly, but Naruto just swallowed down his words and opened the door for them, revealing the contrast of bright greenery and stained wallpaper in the main room beyond.

Naruto’s place was a sty. It would be easy to blame the boy for living like this, or to blame the village for making life so hard for him (most of the items in the apartment needed replacing and there was no way Naruto could afford that.) but the truth was somewhere between the two. Sure, Naruto had problems getting what he needed from the village, but that didn’t stop him from taking out his own trash or wiping up his own spills.

The boy seemed to be aware of how bad it was though, if his distress and discomfort where anything to go by.

“Alright Naruto, I know you don’t like it but its important we see what is normal for you so we can help. Before you make a bunch of shadow clones to clear the worst of this away I want to understand how it got like this in the first place.”

Naruto’s red face and uncomfortable body language was difficult to look at but after a moment of quiet shame the boy’s words burst out so fast he could barely be understood.

Kakashi seemed to catch most of it though, even if Sakura glanced at Sasuke in confusion.

“Alright, first off we can address the obvious: if people are destroying your belongings or breaking in, get better protections. Or move house, that could work too. But still protections. You’re a shinobi, so it’d be easy to just trap the hell out of the front door and only ever use the window.” Naruto looked at Kakashi like he’d hung the moon, and their sensei scratched at his cheek through his mask in discomfort at being looked at in such a way. “Similarly if you’re having trouble purchasing what you need from the market then either find someone to shop for you or find a shop that serves you better. You’re a shinobi now so there’s some shops that’ll serve you now that wouldn’t before. Its one thing if a random kid is denied service but quite another if a shinobi of Konohagakure is, do you understand?”

Naruto nodded his head vigorously, tears wet in his eyes. He’d been kicked out of so many stores that he’d stopped trying, he’d gone to them all. But store ownership could change and new stores could pop up, he could try again. Now that he was a genin if they denied his service they could get in trouble for it too, he just had to try.

“Alright then. I’d recommend making those shadow clones to tidy up now. I’ll spot-check you in the next few months to make sure your apartment doesn’t get this bad again, so don’t let it alright? And if you have any further problems then communicate them to your team. Your team is here to help you, but they can’t do that if they don’t know what the problem is.”

“Okay sensei, I promise I will!” Naruto seemed to be fighting back tears even as he made the symbol to summon his shadow clones.

Working around the clones, Kakashi did the same checks as he had in Sakura’s home. Naruto had more basic furniture than her but his was in terrible shape. The only thing doing well at all in this home were his plants, but unfortunately they were not the only things to live here and she didn’t include Naruto in that statement. His freezer had apparently broken down years ago and whatever lived in there now was practically sentient, his fridge wasn’t much better and definitely hadn’t been cleaned in a long while. Kakashi remained neutral as he advised his student on what he’d need to do to clean the messes and how often he should be doing cleaning in the future so it didn’t happen again.

When he tested the taps, Kakashi frowned heavily when the water trickled out at first, then came out of the heaving pipes cold and unclean looking. Sakura saw him shift to the side and what looked like a shadow clone of his own split off and left out the window almost quicker than she could sense, had she not spent so long trying to track him during missions lately.

Sakura and Sasuke had remained by the door, unwilling to move while so many shadow clones bustled about cleaning up. It wasn’t long before they were shuffling out and leaving the clones to work while they went to Sasuke’s home, the boy silently seething as he reluctantly led the way.

It was a surprisingly long walk to the outskirts where the Uchiha compound was, far from the village centre and the markets. The air was silent and eerie, made worse when Sasuke opened the gates to his compound and led them inside. The walk within the compound was much worse, and Naruto kept flinching like he expected a ghost to pop out and smack him at any moment. Even Kakashi seemed somber as he followed his erstwhile student. The only lights in the compound were a few streetlamps along the path Sasuke took them down – the rest had all been turned off.

The house Sasuke led them to was a single-storey traditional home, large and fancy, but the gardens were growing a bit wild and it was looking a bit unkept in places. Even if Sasuke’d had the heart to keep it in good maintenance he still wouldn’t have had the time to do so – the place was large and took a lot of work. When he led them inside, dutifully offering them house slippers as a good-mannered son had been taught despite clearly not wanting them here, it soon became clear that whole sections of the house had been sealed off.

Sasuke led them past closed door after closed door, to the kitchen. The only other rooms that hadn’t been closed up were his bedroom and the bathroom.

Kakashi dutifully took a look around while Sasuke stalked him, arms folded and glaring. Naruto meekly looked around, curious despite the oppressive atmosphere. Sakura too eyed the place curiously, but felt only ice in her chest at what she saw. The clan grounds were huge and the sheer number of people who had been killed here was overwhelming. That so many had died in one night, under the very nose of the village, was terrifying. Sakura didn’t think one person could be so strong, but that just meant that something else had been at play that night, for so many to die without a warning making it out.

The Uchiha compound felt like a mausoleum and she hated it.

Luckily, Sasuke seemed to want them to leave just as much as they wanted to leave, so it wasn’t long before she, Naruto and Kakashi were departing, trading out their borrowed house slippers for their own shoes. Kakashi had the courtesy to walk them all to the Uchiha gates before departing for his own home via the rooftops, giving the remaining two a wave.

“Will you be alright getting your place cleaned up Naruto?” She asked. It was late, but Naruto at least she could help with his home. Sasuke... she didn’t think there was anything she could do to make his house feel more like a home and doubted he’d let her try anyway.

“Nah, I’ll be fine Sakura, hehe.” He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Kakashi’s right you know? I should be keeping my place cleaner now that I’m able to.” He had the skills now, and the knowledge. Getting the supplies should be easier too now that he was a ninja. It was jarring – he was so used to being unable to do certain things because nobody would tell him how or sell him what he needed but those days were mostly over. The habits he’d built were still there though and would take time to unlearn. Fortunate then that he had kage bunshin to speed along his learning as much as they could his speed his cleaning too.

“I’ll see you in the morning Sakura-chan.” He waved his goodbye when their paths diverged. She waved back, happy to go home to her comfortable apartment but more aware of how lucky she was to have it, compared to the homes the boys returned to each night. It was a disquieting thought, but only made her more determined to get the last few pieces her place would need to truly make it a home. Starting with a kotatsu table.

She spent the last hour before bed clearing a space for her future furniture and musing on whether she’d be able to fit Naruto in her small space if his apartment wasn’t salvageable.

Chapter Text

The next morning began the same way as the previous two, with morning stretches and exercise followed by more taijutsu practice. Naruto and Sakura were being slowly introduced to taijutsu styles more appropriate for them under the guidance of Kakashi’s shadow clones, while Kakashi himself was able to help Sasuke with more advanced forms of his clan style.

The second segment of their morning however, normally spent training, was switched with their missions slot that day allowing them to take a few D-ranks before breaking for lunch. Instead, after lunch they were given a different task: rather than learning any jutsu or mission practice, they were to find Kakashi’s apartment since they hadn’t had time to visit the night before.

“While you’re wandering around the village looking, I’m going to pick up some groceries and start cooking for tonight’s team dinner.” Kakashi informed them cheerfully, eye-smiling behind his mask. “If you’ve not found me by the time I finish cooking dinner then I’ll come get you.... once I’ve finished eating dinner myself of course. Wouldn’t want it to get cold!”

“We’re gonna find you in no time!” Naruto declared loudly, pointing at their sensei dramatically. “You better make lots of food Kakashi-sensei, because I’m hungry!”

As always, food was a wonderful motivator.

Finding Kakashi’s apartment would be tough since none of the genin had any idea where he lived and of course the man himself hadn’t even given them a hint before disappearing. The brief attempt they made to follow him was quickly thwarted by their sensei using a shunshin. Stymied, they instead had to complete their mission in the intended manner – using what tracking and information gathering skills they had been taught at the academy or otherwise learned by themselves.

The test was as much one of their own ingenuity and knowledge of their skills, because Kakashi hadn’t started them on proper tracking training beyond the very basics that any nin would learn. It was up to them to use what they knew already in this arguably easy venture.

Asking around after their sensei was doomed to fail of course – no one was about to give away the home address of a Konoha ninja without authorisation, even to his own (supposed) students if only because it was funny to see them struggle. After a half hour spent fruitlessly trying though, eventually they had to admit that no stranger was going to give them that information. So Sakura turned to her age-old tactic of asking Ino, while Naruto and Sasuke went to ask Iruka-sensei (in part so Ino wasn’t distracted by Sasuke’s presence).

“That weird guy with the stuck up grey hair is your sensei? Yeah I’ve seen him a few times, usually around the little bakery by Nobu’s weapon shop. That’s all I’ve got for you though, sorry.”

“No problem, thanks Ino!” It wasn’t much but it was a start.

Meeting back up with her team to share what little she’d learned, Sakura wasn’t surprised that Iruka hadn’t been able or willing to divulge such personal information. It was possible he could find out but unlikely he’d succeed given Kakashi being of higher rank than him – it'd look suspicious. A simple test from their sensei wasn’t worth that much trouble so the boys understandably didn’t push the issue.

With Ino’s information they weren’t entirely empty handed though, so they set off towards Nobu’s weapon shop to look for a bakery near to it.

Finding the bakery took a little bit of time and when they arrived Sakura stopped the boys from walking straight in. “We need to come up with a reason for asking questions – nobody's given us the time of day so far. We need some kind of ruse...” The academy had taught them how to manipulate people into giving information, how to alter how they were perceived to gain an intended result.

Of course she came to regret her suggestion a few minutes later when Sasuke of all people suggested she pretend to be a fan of Kakashi’s looking to buy him his favorite treat. Either her mark would believe her lovesick plight or they’d find siccing her on Kakashi hilarious. The ninja who had seemed to actually know Kakashi had all found it funnier to deny them the information so it only made sense to offer them a more amusing alternative. No doubt many would like to get one over on the eternal troll, as she’d heard Kakashi referred to a few times on their quest.

“I’m never going to live this down.” She grunted, taking a deep breath and pasting on the most infatuated expression that she could, hands clasped together like an excited little girl.

Ten minutes later she came back out with an armful of sweet snacks and a dead expression on her face.

“Well? Did she say anything?”

“Yeah Naruto, she had plenty to say. Apparently Kakashi-sensei comes by every week or so, he’s ‘a sweet boy but probably a bit old for me’ and he once had a cake-eating competition with Gai-san here.” Information gathering? Well she’d gathered information but she wasn’t sure how useful any of it was. “She wouldn’t give me his address of course but she did say she’s seen him grocery shopping at the corner store by the big wisteria tree, so we’ll try there next.”

Unfortunately the grocery store wouldn’t divulge any information to them at all and the trio loitered outside, not sure where to look next. Sakura tried her fangirl routine on a few people but nobody had more to tell her, though one shinobi with a bad cough started laughing so hard his friends had to take him to the hospital he was coughing so bad.

“We need to try something else. None of us are skilled enough to get information like that from people delicately.” The academy taught soft interrogation only and information gathering was usually passive – listening in on conversations and the like. “We don’t have time to do the sort of in-depth scam we’d need like getting his address from a place he usually takes deliveries from, without knowing what those places are first. We could try finding his personal records but I really doubt that’ll get us anywhere....”

“Dobe. Use your nose.”

“Whaaa?”

Sasuke looked frustrated at having to elaborate, but did eventually continue. “You’re always saying he makes your nose twitch when you get too close, so you can smell him right? Get sniffing.”

Apparently all his words were used up then and Sasuke folded his arms and turned away from them. Still, it was worth considering.

“What does he smell like Naruto? Can you smell him here?”

“Uhhh, he sorta smells like dogs and lightning? Its hard to explain.” He took a deep sniff and then sneezed. Sakura and Sasuke flinched away with a grimace.

“I can sorta smell it here but he’s not been here in a while....”

“Well he smells like dogs right? Where else do you smell dogs that isn’t the Inuzuka quarters?”

After that it was just a case of following Naruto’s nose and asking people if they knew where their sensei lived, usually with a ruse like being a fangirl to try and encourage people to give them the information.

It was starting to get dark by the time the three caught a fresh scent trail and Naruto all but bounded ahead, leading the way to a tidy looking apartment building and up to one particular door.

Of course considering they’d been tracking him mostly by the smell of his dogs it should really be no surprise when they opened his front door and were promptly buried under them. A small horde of various sized dogs raced out to investigate them, from small ones which tripped them up to bigger ones that sat on them once they were on the floor.

“Let that be a lesson to you kids.” Kakashi told them as he came to the door looking strangely domestic wearing an apron instead of his flak vest. “When you’re following a scent, be careful when you find it. You don’t want to be so eager upon finding your prey that you walk into their traps.” In this case said traps whuffed at them and licked their faces enthusiastically, but he doubted the kids would find that much better than if they’d walked into an explosive trap. Dog tongues were wet and smelly.

“Alright everyone, let them up. Wash your hands and faces kids, dinner will be ready soon.”

The three genin rushed inside to get the dog slobber off their faces, though Naruto took a bit longer because he kept stopping to pet the dogs still falling all over them. It seemed that most animals kept their distance from him so having some within petting range was a novelty for the boy.

While Kakashi finished making dinner, his ninken gave him a tour. Because of course Kakashi’s dogs could talk, and the man was too lazy to show them around his own apartment.

“Here are a few of his traps, so you can see he takes security pretty seriously.” The gruff voiced pug told them from atop the head of a much larger dog as he began with the important stuff. “So don’t just come busting inside. If you need Kakashi urgently then your best bet is to throw something at his window to get his attention. If you really have to come inside then use the front door and knock.” That out of the way, Pakkun showed them around the rest of the decently-sized apartment including Kakashi’s bedroom, which had a bookshelf and futon inside and little else. Of course he’d had all afternoon to hide away anything incriminating if he wanted but there just wasn’t much to see anyway.

If not for the dogs and assorted pet paraphernalia Kakashi’s apartment would be pretty barren, but so full of dogs as it was it just didn’t feel that way. It was hard to notice the bare walls and lack of personalization when you had to look at your feet anytime you moved to make sure you didn’t step on a dog. The apartment itself was of a good size though, leaving enough space for the boisterous ninken to move around without much trouble. The doorways could get clogged pretty easily when they all crammed in though. Most of the apartment was open plan though, so at least there weren’t hallways to clog up.

Luckily before any of the genin could go rooting through his drawers or anything, Kakashi was calling for everyone to get settled at the table.

Knowing that Naruto was a bottomless pit, Kakashi had cheated slightly and made a huge bowl of rice to bulk up the meal, which mostly consisted of a few different side dishes and sauces. It might have seemed a bit much, and unlike their often lazy sensei, if Sakura hadn’t caught him watching carefully at what each of them spooned on their plates, clearly trying to see what their preferences were but also likely if they had any bad habits. Naruto naturally avoided anything that recognisably had a vegetable in it, but if he didn’t recognise it then he was fine with eating it. He scarfed down the rice though, and Sakura didn’t remember seeing a rice cooker in Naruto’s home. Maybe he’d get one now and eat rice, instead of instant ramen all the time.

“This is delishuss Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto praised, mouth full. Living with a bunch of dogs (ninken they may be, there was only so much could be done to improve a dog’s manner while eating) Kakashi seemed nonplussed, but even the ninken seemed to know better than to speak with a full mouth.

“Swallow before you speak pup.” It was Pakkun who spoke up, clearly the organizer of the dogs given how much he’d taken the lead so far. He was doing Kakashi’s job for him, but as long as Sakura didn’t have to, she wasn’t about to complain. Besides, Naruto didn’t seem too affronted by the correction, just paying the dog more attention as Pakkun took the response to be an invitation and began extolling the importance of eating a healthy meal. He managed to get the recalcitrant boy to at least try a couple of the vegetable dishes, to which Naruto disliked a couple but was surprised at a few. The whole table winced when he said things like “it didn’t taste like that when I tried one as a kid!” or “does cooking it right really make it not bitter anymore?” It was clear that he’d been left alone as a child with no cooking skills or understanding of how to make food edible. Some vegetables were just not tasty (or good for you) to eat raw, and it’d put him off them entirely. It was also possible he’d been given expired food, though nobody wanted to say as much.

It was another opportunity to teach the jinchuuriki the sorts of life skills that clearly nobody had bothered to do so before, and eager for any kind of attention, Naruto soaked it up. It bothered Sakura how everything seemed to become a lesson for Naruto, he was so far behind everyone else, but having experienced how hard it was to find anyone to teach her or give her the time of day, she wasn’t going to begrudge him learning these things now. She just wished he’d already been taught them, both for his own benefit, and because it felt like they couldn’t start the advanced lessons until Naruto caught up with the basics.

Still, she kept her mouth shut. Some of what Pakkun talked about even she hadn’t been fully aware of, though mostly because cooking was something she was still learning. The little dog had a decent teaching manner too, and seemed to effortlessly carry the bulk of the conversation, allowing the less vocal of the team to listen in without being pressured to talk themselves.

Overall, dinner at Kakashi’s was surprisingly nice. The apartment was cramped and full of dogs who kept giving them the puppy-eyes so it was something of an ordeal to actually eat the food without being compelled to give it away, but none of them were so misbehaved as to steal off their plates, even if they teased at doing so a few times.

Naruto got into a heated argument with one of Kakashi’s more exciteable dogs (Bisuke, Sakura thought it was? Or possible Uhei. The introductions had been a bit quick and with the dogs all moving around it’d been hard to actually match names to faces) and the absurdity of it had Sakura trying to hide her snickers into her hands while Kakashi just looked long suffering.

All in all the meal was surprisingly enjoyable. It was easy to ignore the slight discomfort of being in the personal space of a very private man, but Kakashi never made them feel unwelcome. Even the ninken, likely supervising their every move, they felt like friends instead of monitors. Maybe it was just the doggy charm.

It helped that the dogs were all mouthy little shits, if she heard Kakashi’s muttering correctly. They happily talked shit about him, ragged on him and told embarrassing stories. They teased him over how the table, crockery and cutlery were all newly bought because he had forgotten to do so himself for years since he broke his original set and just never gotten around to buying more – usually eating stood up or at the kitchen counter. Even Sasuke looked amused at their sensei as he was teased by his own ninken.

Sakura enjoyed it. Since the beginning Kakashi had kept his distance, seeming more like a cold photograph of a man instead of a real person. It was likely played up for their benefit but she appreciated the effort to humanize him all the same.

Seeing that side of her sensei, interacting with his ninken after opening his home to them, it did soften her opinion towards him somewhat. She knew he’d not been obligated to do this – he could easily have opted out and not bothered, excluded himself from such things and kept his distance but he’d chosen not to. It didn’t erase the fuckups of how he’d been before but it was a clear indication of his intention to throw in with the team and not hold himself back any more. She had some idea of his history, enough to know how significant that was.

It was a good meal, one that she wasn’t alone in being reluctant to end. While Kakashi cleared away the dishes (Sakura helped) Naruto took the opportunity to roll away with the ninken. Unfortunately it seemed the Sasuke was at his limit for social interaction and was quick to make his intentions known. Waving him off was easy enough – the boy barely stayed long enough to politely thank sensei for the meal and walk out the door. It was clear that Naruto especially wanted to stay longer with the dogs but with Sasuke’s departure felt pressured to leave as well, now one of their team had already left.

Luckily Kakashi granted him some mercy, which was unexpected since he’d already stepped so far out of his comfort zone for them. He’d made them surprisingly welcome though, and chasing them out of his apartment would’ve fit his MO even if it might have undermined that welcome. Kakashi was one to work within the loopholes though, but clearly not in this case.

“Tomorrow team dinner will be at Naruto’s.” He informed the two of them. “Since you’ll need more help for it that a few days of preparation won’t give you Naruto, I’ll walk you home and make sure you’ve got all you need, and supervise tomorrow. Sakura, your team dinner day will be the day after, then Sasuke last. The rest of the week will be as normal. If going forward you’d like to switch which day you’re assigned, we can do that, but just assume for now that this is the order we’ll do it in.”

Sakura nodded her understanding. That gave her a little bit of time to make sure she had what she needed to cook for more than just herself, which she appreciated. Naruto also seemed relieved for the help, even if the thought of cooking for his team also filled him with apparent dread. Given Kakashi’s involvement at least they could be reasonably assured that no food poisoning would occur and that Naruto wouldn’t set the building on fire.

Naruto furtively whispered to Kakashi and Sakura politely gave him some privacy, since it was just the boy panicking about what to cook and how to cook it, what he’d even need. Kakashi seemed nonplussed. “I’ll show you at the grocery store.” Their sensei replied, which didn’t stop the torrent of Naruto’s distress.

Heaving a small sigh, their sensei stood, a silent signal for them to do so as well. Obligingly Sakura put her shoes on in the genkan and followed them outside as she gave her farewells.

They split up outside the apartment, with Kakashi leading Naruto away to the grocery store, the blond boy loudly exclaiming over Kakashi’s meal and declaring his would be just as good as they left. He gave an exuberant wave as they walked in the opposite direction to her flat, one she returned with more normal enthusiasm. That hadn’t been so bad. Not so bad at all.