Chapter 1: End of Spring
Chapter Text
“Sakura-chan! Congratulations on graduating from the academy.” His smile is kind, but his eyes are sharp and glinting. The tilt of his smile around his pipe is a familiar sight to her. He was always visiting the academy to tell them how proud he was of them.
She beams at him, clutching a scroll containing instructions for a meeting the following morning to her chest. ‘A meeting, with Hokage-sama!’
She was so excited; she was on a team with Sasuke-kun AND the Hokage personally congratulated her. Sasuke is going to be so impressed, and then he’ll fall in love with her, and she’ll have finally won!
***
Sakura stared blankly at the man before her, “A- ANBU? But I only just graduated, and what about my team assignment?”
He tilted his hat to her, “I see great potential in you Sakura, and it would only be for very special missions, ones only you can complete, and you wouldn’t need to take the seal. As for your team assignment, it will continue as it is, you would only be called in when needed, and you will be given a reasonable excuse for your absence, of course.”
It felt wrong, but who was she to question such an honor?
Sakura squared her shoulders, “I accept Hokage-sama, anything for Konoha!”
“Wonderful, I’ll have a hawk send for you when it’s time to meet your handler. And, you’ll keep this a secret, won’t you Sakura?”
“Hai, Hokage-sama!”
“Good, dismissed.”
***
At that moment a hawk lands on a windowsill, carrying a scroll containing the profile of Genma’s newest agent. His last agent had been killed in action, so he’s been stuck in the village for the better part of the last 2 months.
As Genma got up to open the window, his bed partner shifted, opening a lazy grey eye to stare balefully at the sunlight shining in.
“Mission?”
Unclipping the scroll from the hawk’s ankle, Genma ran a hand through his hair, “Nah, just my newest assignment.”
A single silver eyebrow quirked up in question, “Don’t look at me like that, I would tell you, but you’re retired, remember?”
“Oh, come on Tanuki, I had your dick in my mouth less than 5 hours ago.”
“Yeah, and despite that you still call me Tanuki half the time.”
Throwing on a pair of standard ANBU black pants and stuffing the scroll into the pocket, he turned back to the lump on his bed, “Besides, don’t you have a genin team to test right now?”
“You know me, I’m getting lost on the road of life.”
“Really, is that what you’re calling me these days?” Genma huffed, leaning down to wrap his ankles and slip on his shin guards.
“Maa, Maa, don’t get touchy, if anything you’re a black cat crossing my path.”
A senbon flickered past Kakashi’s exposed ear lodging in the wall next to his head, “Oh, so I’m bad luck? Come on, Kakashi, we both know I’m the best thing to happen to you in the last 6 months.” Genma reached down to grab his weapon’s pouch off the closet floor, securing it around his thigh.
Pushing himself into a sitting position and plucking the senbon out of the drywall, Kakashi, blinked lazily at his maybe-boyfriend, “Yea, yea, you’re the light of my life. You heading out soon?”
Gemma turned, shrugging on his ANBU vest and walked towards his side table, grabbing his mask from the drawer, “Now actually, apparently, the hawk had a bit of trouble finding me.”
Hopping onto the windowsill, Genma turned, slipping on his mask, leaving with a distorted, “Wish me luck, hopefully, this one won’t die on me.”
***
Genma stepped into the Commander’s office, having only been told he would receive a new agent. Boar glanced up from his files before continuing to fill them out. Minutes passed as Genma stood in parade rest, staring straight forward, before Boar finally put the last piece of paper onto a stack, signalling for them to be taken away. An ANBU with a cricket mask appeared from the shadows and flickered away.
Boar leaned forward resting his masked chin on his interlocked hands, “So, Tanuki, I’m sure you’re aware of why you’re here. You will be in charge of a new operative, she’s green, but she’s uniquely fit for Honey pot missions, and given your experience as a handler and the current lack of an active operative in the field, it’s been decided that you will be in charge of making sure she doesn’t die.”
Genma blinked, though Boar wouldn’t be able to see it, “Green, sir? How green?”
Boar tossed a file at him, if you could even call a manila folder with a sheet of paper in it a file, “Take a look.”
Genma flipped it open and was greeted with bright pink hair and baby fat. Fuck.
His head twitched up to Boar’s expectant gaze, “Sir?”
Boar sighed, “Is this going to be a problem, Tanuki?”
“No, sir. But I thought we didn’t recruit this young anymore, not since the Uchiha Massacre.”
“We don’t usually, but we also don’t usually have graduates with this kind of mindset and exotic coloring come out of the academy outside of clan children. She has no active connections outside of her parents. She’s a ghost. A ghost the Hokage wants us to make use of.”
“But sir, she doesn’t have the qualifications to be in ANBU, she graduated, sure, but she wasn’t top of her class. Respectfully, sir, her bukijustu is shit, she barely passed her taijutsu exam. She’s smart and has some of the best chakra control ever recorded, but she’s a textbook paper ninja.”
“She’ll learn or die trying and it’s your job to make sure the latter doesn’t happen. I don’t need to tell you this doesn’t leave this room, officially Haruno Sakura is a genin of the leaf, the shadows haven’t touched her, and it’ll stay that way.”
Genma raised an unseen eyebrow, “Unofficially?”
“You’ll have until the chunin exam to get her trained up, and then I want her ready to go into the field. Our spy network has been dropping hints to Intel that something big is coming. Secretive bastards won’t confirm anything though. So, we need as many operatives as possible ready to go when they finally let us in on it.”
“Six months to make this,” a disbelieving wave of the folder, “Into a competent assassin and spy? All while hiding it from-” flipping the folder back open Genma skimmed her team assignment- shit.
“I’m sure you’re very familiar with Hatake Kakashi. Will this be an issue?”
Genma swallowed the string of curses he wanted to respond with and instead gave a curt, “No, sir.”
“Good. Dismissed, she should be waiting for you at the west entrance.”
Fuck.
Chapter 2: The Rot of Fall
Summary:
Sakura's descent into the shadows starts with a maybe not-so-friendly face and more questions asked than answered.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Sakura stared at the empty training field, shuffling awkwardly to the side to sit under one of the trees that borders the field. She only had 30 minutes before she had to be at Team 7’s training ground for their test, but surely her ANBU assignment was more important, and the Hokage said that she would be given an acceptable excuse for her absences. Kakashi-sensei couldn’t be mad at her for being late if the Hokage said it was okay.
Sakura stared out at the empty field, until suddenly, she was staring at black pants. She squeaked; her head snapped up to look into the black eye holes of an ANBU mask. It looked a bit like a bear, or maybe a dog.
Sakura stumbled to her feet, falling into a sloppy bow, “Anbu-sama, thank you for having me.”
The ANBU tilted their head, seemingly taking her in. Sakura took that as her sign that she too could observe him, if not just a little bit. He had longish hair tied up in a bun, and he was slim but obviously muscular in a lean way. He had an air of danger to him, tightly coiled and unknown, his emotionless mask gave away nothing, she couldn’t even hear him breathing in the silence of the training field.
“Haruno, I’m Tanuki, you will call me Tanuki or sir. I will be your handler.” His voice was masculine and it had an almost lazy lilt to it.
“Hai, Tanuki-sama.”
“Ano, what do you mean by handler?”
“It means that when we’re in the field I make sure you don’t die, and I run the operations.”
Sakura stared once more, “Operations… what kind of operations?”
Tanuki stared back, before gesturing for her to sit back down and sliding into a neat half-lotus.
“How much do you know about your new assignment in ANBU?”
“Hokage-sama said that I was special and that only I could complete the types of missions he would be sending me on and that it would only be sometimes, depending on the mission.” Sakura gave a shy smile at the end of her explanation, ‘Special, I’m special.’
***
Genma stared in muted horror at the baby-faced child in front of him. She knew nothing, absolutely nothing of what she had agreed to. ‘Fuck, shit, bitch, this just got so much more complicated.’
Genma flopped backwards, his legs coming out of half lotus to splay, “Okay, alright, kid, let’s try this again, call me Shiranui, or Tanuki.”
He lurched back into a sitting position before casting out a low-level genjutsu that would his them from anyone who looked in their direction.
Flipping his mask to the side of his head, Genma began formulating a plan. He needed her to trust him, but more importantly he needed her to want to do what he told her to; and for that to happen he needed her to think he was her friend.
He gave his most reassuring smile, “You know those classes you and the other girls took in the Academy?”
Sakura stared up at him, even while seated and somehow that made Genma feel even shittier about what he was about to put her through, “The kunoichi classes? I liked those. Sensei said I was good at flower arrangements and herb identification!”
God, she was so young, and shiny. Green, he said. Yeah right, more like a fucking sprout and she was from a civilian background to boot, at least he came from a line of herbalists who specialized in poisons. Had she even killed anything yet? Let alone someone, fuck. Shit, alright Genma needed to get his shit together. Find a baseline, that’s what he always did, no reason not to find out what she’s actually capable of, it can’t be that bad, can it?
“Sakura, do you remember the other parts of kunoichi classes? The sex ed and Konoha genin sign you were taught?
“Hai, they said it was for when we did missions that required discretion. We didn’t learn very much in sex ed, it was sorta gross.”
Good, this is good she knows at least something, Genma doesn’t have to talk to a pre-pubescent girl about her body changing. Not very much sex ed, then again in a graduating class of majority clan kids what’s to be expected? The village doesn’t want bloodlines getting out nor do they want their clan heirs coming home pregnant or with bastards.
“Well kid, while you’re training with your sensei, I’ll also be making sure you don’t die or get me killed when we go on missions.”
Sakura’s eyes widened, “So I don’t die? Why would I be sent on any missions that I could die on? I’m not qualified for anything like that!”
Genma stared at her once again, “What do you think ANBU is? Do you understand what the black ops do?”
“I don’t know! I thought I would be helping with courier missions at most!”
Genma sighed, this was going to be a shit show if he didn’t figure out how to make her take this seriously.
“Anything ANBU would be couriering is worth murdering over. Village secrets, operative files, jutsu, treaties. Other villages would do worse than murder for the kind of information you thought you would be carrying.”
Seemingly cowed by his statement Sakura went silent. Genma needed to find out what she was capable of, but based on her file, she wasn’t capable of much, and based on when his bed partner probably left his house, he had a few hours before she needed to meet her team. Right then, stealth and speed tests for today.
Genma stuck out a foot and threw himself back to standing, startling Sakura, “Get up, I want to get through this as quickly as possible, we have maybe 6 months to make sure you don’t get me killed or demoted.”
“Oh, and officially, if you ever tell anyone about what we do, on mission or otherwise, it’s treason punishable by death. Including who I am, so if you see me out on the streets, you don’t know me and I sure as shit don’t know you. Get up.” Genma turned and began walking towards the middle of the training field, taking a quick glance backwards to see if she was following.
Sakura fumbled slightly in her haste to get up and follow him, “What are we doing?”
“I want to see if you’ll be able to outrun a pursuer for long enough to reach somewhere safe and I want to see if you can hide when I need you to. Cus if you can’t, you’re dead and quite possibly so am I.”
“How will you test that?”
“By giving you a reason to try. Now run, hide, and for every time I catch you, it’s another lap added to tomorrow’s training, and don’t stop till I say you can.”
“Wha-” A kunai embedded itself where her foot used to be, only a glint in the sun gave her enough warning to save her big toe from being severed from her foot. Sakura took off toward the tree line. ‘Good, she at least had some sense.’
***
Sakura sprinted through thickets, feeling branches whip across her body, ‘Oh god, oh god, what do I do?’
Sakura came to a screeching stop in a clearing spinning in a quick circle trying to see if Genma was nearby, ‘Think Haruno, you’re smart. What should you do if you need to evade a pursuer? What did Iruka-sensei always drill into us? Find cover and create multiple trails to distract whoever is tracking you.’
Sakura slammed her hands together, going through the signs for a bunshin as quickly as possible, a puff of smoke came out on either side of her. Near-perfect illusions of herself stood on either side of Sakura, staring at her waiting for instruction.
Sakura pointed at the one on her right side, “Circle back around north to the training field.”
And then to the left side, “Head east back towards the village, stick near the Naka.”
Both leapt back into the undergrowth. Sakura once again looked around at her surroundings, where could she hide? It had to be somewhere hard to get to but easy enough to get out of and defend from.
Sakura screamed when a kunai whipped past her cheek, “Good thinking with the clones, but you stopped moving. If you stop moving, you die. Again.”
Sakura stared out at her seemingly empty surroundings searching for where he could have been hiding based on the direction the kunai had come from. Realizing she had no chance of finding him, Sakura took off back towards where she thought the training field was. She just needed to buy herself time, time to think to figure out how to escape. Sakura swiped a hand across her cheek, a smear of red across the back of her hand was all she needed to know that Genma would not be gentle with her. ‘What if he ruined her face? Sasuke would never be interested in her if she had an ugly scar on her face, her forehead already made her less desirable!’
***
Genma caught her 5 more times before he decided she had done enough. Making it 11 laps tomorrow, which now, in retrospect was going to take for-fucking-ever. Overall Sakura had one of the worst bases he’d ever seen, she was slow, weak and had very little stamina. But she learned quick and didn’t stop running even after she was exhausted and covered in little cuts.
Genma continued to follow her as she stumbled around the forest before calling out, “Alright, Haruno, you can stop.”
Sakura collapsed to the ground, heaving, covered in little scabs and dirt. She’d stopped trying to find him in the foliage after the third time he had clipped her. He wasn’t sure if she had figured out that he always gave her a little warning before he threw a kunai at her, but if the little flinch she gave before speeding up as much as she could while still trying to cover her tracks was any indication, she had noticed the bird call he gave. Which was another thing he would have to try and teach her, ANBU bird calls. When Tobirama made the Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai, he really went for the whole Village Hidden in the Leave motif. So all those ghost stories about bird calls being a warning of impending doom in Fire Country? Let’s just say they weren’t all that untrue.
Genma hopped down from the branch he had landed on, walking on silent feet towards Sakura’s prone body. He had maybe 2 hours before Kakashi would show up at Team 7’s designated training field, assuming he was probably only just now leaving Genma’s apartment to begin his routine. He could keep her for those 2 hours, but then Kakashi would get curious like the nosy bastard he was and start asking questions no one wanted to answer.
Genma came to a stop next to her head, staring at the pile that was once Haruno Sakura, “I’m not going to lie, that was shit, kid. But good effort I guess?”
All he got in return was a feeble groan in between laboured breathing. ‘Right, no stamina, oh well, better make her look presentable before sending her off to her sensei.’
Genma leaned down and focused on channelling a small amount of healing chakra into the cuts on her skin, the scabs flaking off of the pristine skin left underneath. No trace left besides exhaust.
“You’re free to go, meet back here after you finish tomorrow at 1500 hours, if I’m not here begin your laps, you have 11. Oh, and before I forget, if anyone asks why you were late, blame your mother.”
Sakura blinked at him, “You want me to lie to my teammates? But what should I tell them?”
Genma waved a hand over his shoulder as he walked away, “Make something up, it’ll be good practice for when you’re deeper into wetworks and infiltration.”
And then he disappeared in a swirl of leaves.
Notes:
So, the story begins in earnest, I hope you like it.
I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the fic the bird calls in ANBU headcanon came from, but I read one and it was amazing. If anyone knows the name I would love to credit the author for the idea!
I'm trying to make it obvious that Genma is still very much a product of wartime and a terrible manipulative system but he also desperately wants to be good, but like child soldier issues, am I right?
Feel free to swing by my tumblr , I'm going to start posting inspo and writing thoughts there as well as various bits of naruto ramblings. Shoot me an ask if you have questions!
Chapter Text
Sakura lay in the grass for a moment in stunned silence, raising a trembling hand to her once bloody cheek. Feeling the remaining scabs crumble away, she dragged her fingers across smooth skin.
‘What was that?’ Slowly sitting up, Sakura took stock of her body, her trembling hands and the deep-seated fatigue from dashing around the forest for an hour and a half. She aches and yet the only signs of her experience was sweat and a bit of dirt.
She looks around again, trying to figure out where she is, but she stops paying attention to where she is running at the half-hour mark of her mad dash to escape Genma. Taking a glance at the sun to see what time it was, and how late she was going to be to her first team training session. Sakura's eyes widened as she finally figured out the vague time.
Sakura scrambled up on shaking legs, jogging as fast as she could toward where she thought team 7’s training ground was, “I’m 2 hours late!”
***
Sakura came screeching into the training ground, stumbling to a stop in the middle, whipping around in an attempt to find her teammates or sensei. She froze upon seeing the slumped form of Naruto next to a brooding Sasuke.
The blonde looked up at the disturbance before jumping up and screeching, “You’re late!”
Sakura stood in shock, staring at her obviously not-being-tested teammates, “Where is Hatake-sensei!?”
“Also LATE! I mean why would he ask us to com-” Sakura quickly tuned out the screaming blonde, instead focusing in on Sasuke, who was still brooding but now seemed to be brooding about the distinct lack of sensei in the training ground.
She walked over on barely concealed trembling legs to slump next to him, careful not to touch him, lest he feel how damp her skin was.
“How are you, Sasuke-kun?”
“Hn.”
Sakura didn’t know what to do with that, then again he did this every time she asked, you’d think she would have figured out what to do with him after all these years. But that didn’t matter, she had him now, on her team.
“Sakura-chan, don’t ignore meee! Besides, where have you been, you’re like suuuper late!”
“Shut up Naruto! I was-” Training with an ANBU, which I can’t tell you.
‘-blame your mother.’
Right, lying, that’s what she was supposed to be doing, “My mom asked me to help her at the market.”
“What?? But you’re a ninja now, and we had training!”
“Obviously not, because all you were doing was sitting under a tree.”
“Well yea, but that’s just cus Kakashi-sensei is like super late!”
Sakura raised an eyebrow and leaned back, crossing her arms in triumph, “Exactly, so technically, I’m not late yet, because Hatake-sensei isn’t here yet.”
“Ne ne, Sakura-chan, why do you keep calling him that?”
“Because it’s impolite to refer to him by his first name when we don’t even know him! It’s basic manners, baka!”
That made Naruto pause, staring at her for a moment before huffing away to sit beneath a different tree.
Sakura turned to stare at Sasuke once more.
***
Kakashi arrived an hour later, ambling into the training ground as if he wasn’t three and a half hours late.
Sakura and Naruto both jumped up and screamed, “YOU’RE LATE!”
“Ma maa, I had to help an old lady with her groceries.”
“LIAR!”
***
“-If you don’t come at me with the intent to kill, you’ll fail.”
Sakura stared once again that morning at the unhinged shinobi before her.‘God, what is it with these elite shinobi and their insistence on bringing death into everything? I mean he already told us it was serious, there was no need to-’
“Begin!”
Sakura startled out of her thoughts, stumbling slightly before sprinting away from the centre of the training field. She knew she needed distance and a plan if she wanted to even come close to getting a bell.
She continued to run in a wide arc around the training field as she made her plan, whilst Sakura didn’t think he would be following her specifically, she couldn’t risk him ambushing her while she planned. She ran past a particularly thick group of bushes before looping back to run parallel to her original path, making a clone to branch out and hopefully act as a distraction on her original trail.
‘How am I supposed to take down a Jonin on my own? I wasn’t even able to outrun an ANBU, never mind fight one. Genjustu? No, I don’t know any strong enough to stun a Jonin, let alone stop one. Maybe if I wait until Sasuke or Naruto distract him, I’ll be able to sneak one away?’
Sakura took a sharp turn back towards the training ground, now with a plan at least half-formed she had an action plan. All she had to do was wait for one of the boys to distract Hatake-sensei enough to create an opening for her to slip in and take a bell, there was no way in hell she was being sent back to the academy.
‘-if you fail, you’ll be sent back to the academy.’
Sakura tripped as she thought back to Hatake’s words, how would be send her back to the academy if she had already been assigned an ANBU handler? But more importantly, how would they have a proper Genin team if there were only two Genin and one Jonin, instead of the standard three-to-one ratio? ‘This test couldn’t possibly be Hokage-sanctioned if that was the case. Meaning there’s another point to this test. A shinobi must see the hidden meanings within hidden meanings.’
Sakura came to a halt at the edge of the training ground clearing, sliding down into a crouch as she crawled forward, watching as Kakashi sat on a stump, flipping through a bright orange book.
Sakura slumped down in the bush she had hidden herself in, maybe she wouldn’t end up needing the boys to distract Hatake-sensei, he did fall for the eraser prank after all and now this? He wasn’t even looking for any of them.
“Ne ne, Sakura-chan, what are we looking at?”
Sakura screamed, jolting onto her back, a leg braced on the ground and the other raised as a barrier to kick out with should her assailant try and get on top of her, drawing a kunai from her pouch, poised to throw at her possible attacker.
***
Kakashi knew from the moment he saw his new genin they were going to be headaches, the pink one was a fangirl, not to mention an eye sore, and the last Uchiha was giving him a vivid flashback to when he first started out as a shinobi. Sensei’s son was as loud as ever, it was a pity he didn’t get either of his parent’s brains.
So, when he set them the bell test, he knew he wasn’t technically allowed to fail them, given what kind of investment the village had in the success of this team, or at least two-thirds of the team. But a retired war dog had to have his fun somehow, besides, he couldn’t have people thinking he let them off easy, he had a reputation to protect.
Kakashi had sent a shadow clone after each of his students once they had all scattered in opposite directions. Naruto was getting stuck in the same trap repeatedly after falling for a decoy bell, and Kakashi’s copy had come to gloat. Sasuke had taken the presented opportunity to try and take a bell in combat, the clone substituting for a nearby log and disappearing. Not a bad attempt, but it's still not quite what Kakashi was looking for.
Surprisingly the pink one was doing okay, she had taken the right steps to evade a peruser, or at least one that she would normally encounter at this level. She had even taken the time to make a clone, intangible as it was, to act as a momentary distraction. All while still moving. Not too shit, not too shit at all. Then again, she had yet to do anything that would actually get her a bell.
Kakashi raised a brow as she suddenly began running towards the centre of the training ground where his main clone was, ‘Hmm, I guess she finally made up her mind.’
He watched as she crawled closer. He watched as she fell for the façade that was Make Out Paradise. He watched as she rethought whatever plan she had originally and then he decided he had watched enough.
“Ne ne, Sakura-chan, what are we looking at?”
She screamed and fell into the classic ground defence position that the academy teaches, almost picture perfect, good form, mindful of the amount of space she had within the bush she had shoved herself into. ‘Hmmm. A little less screaming and she might be worth something.’
Sakura stared at him for a moment before twisting to grab a kunai and shoving herself up. Her stance was frail, filled with openings. Unstable. Right, well what did he expect? Textbook perfect, but textbooks didn’t mean shit in a real fight.
Kakashi looked up at her, half expecting her to make an attempt for the bells, or at least maybe try and stab him a little, as a treat; but no. Sakura simply stared wide-eyed at him. Oh, well. Best make something of his time and see if that perfect chakra control was actually being put to use. ‘Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique’.
Kakashi watched Sakura’s eyes glaze over as her body began to slacken, the ability to ignore the mirage of his genjustu was an afterthought built from years of practice, but not necessarily one to be used this time.
The shadow of a mortally wounded Sasuke appeared, pleading with a shaking Sakura to save him. But she was still in her stance, useless as it was, her kunai drawn and clenched in trembling fingers. He could see her breath quicken, smell the cold sweat that had broken out across her body from the sudden rush of adrenaline; and yet she didn’t falter in her defensive stance. ‘Interesting. She’s having a chemical and instinctual reaction to the genjutsu, but it’s almost like something is blocking the genjutsu from fully taking hold. Like her mind is trying to remember why she had her kunai out in the first place.’
Kakashi was broken from his musing as Sakura gave a shrill shriek, dropping her kunai to the floor and rushing towards the mirage of a toppling Sasuke. ‘Ah, there we go. Either I’m slipping or she might actually survive this team.’
‘It’s a pity she’s not my problem.’
Kakashi turned away from the scene before him, slipping away in a swirl of leaves to check on his other two students.
***
Sakura felt Inner shudder against her mind’s door, a faraway screech of terror echoing through her mind. Sakura knew what would happen if she opened that door, but sometimes Inner had her uses. The handle rattled, the hinges whining against Inner’s attacks. She could feel something was wrong, Inner was never this angry usually, and yet she couldn’t remember what she was so panicked about earlier. She shrieked, her body jolting towards Sasuke, almost as if possessed she lurched to catch him as he fell; blood dribbling from the pincushion that was his body.
“Sasuke-kun!? What happened? Wake up! Please!”
Sakura turned him onto his side, his head in her lap, moving to check his pulse. And then she stopped. She couldn’t hear anything but him, everything was silent except for his labored breath, the birds that were tweeting mere moments earlier had suddenly gone silent, and the wind had stopped. Everything around her had seemingly died the moment Sasuke appeared. And his breath wasn’t hot, it wasn’t even there. She couldn’t feel him, it was like he wasn’t even real. Inner shrieked again, her disembodied wail hammering against the walls of her mind. The wood creaked on the door. Sakura’s mind’s eye turned inward, suddenly the dying form of Sasuke wasn’t important.
Sakura crept closer to the shuddering door, laying a hand on the centre of the door as the wails turned to hysteria.
“Shhhh, I need to focus. Please.”
The door only rattled harder, Inner wailing harder.
“Please.”
“Please.”
“Please!”
“Pleasepleasepleaseplea-”
Her mind went blank as a small crack appeared under her hand.
***
Sakura awoke to the sun directly above her, giving a sluggish blink she sat up, looking around. Startling when she realized that Sasuke’s body was gone. Looking back at the sun’s placement in the sky Sakura rolled onto her feet. ‘It’s almost lunchtime and I haven’t even tried to get a bell yet!’
Looking over at the bush she used to be in before… Before what? Why had she gotten out of the bush? She never would have seen Sasuke if she was still in the bush… Hatake-sensei appeared, and then she got up and then. And then?
Spinning back to the centre of the training ground, Sakura pointed accusingly at the empty clearing, “He cast a freaking genjustsu on me!”
The shrill ring of the timer went off, and Sakura slumped forward in defeat.
***
Sat next to a silent but somehow loud Naruto as a very alive and well Sasuke picked at his bento Sakura tried to think. ‘If even Sasuke couldn’t get a bell, then there’s no way I’d get one, and the idiot Naruto couldn’t even steal unguarded bentos. In short, we’re dead.’
Sakura looked up at movement in her periphery, watching in shock as Sasuke lifted a bit of his bento to Naruto.
“But Hatake-sensei said we weren’t to share with him?”
“We all need to be in good shape if we want to beat him, which means, eating enough.”
“No, it’s fine, you guys eat, I’ll be fine!”
“Just take it, idiot. I can’t have you dragging me down with you when you fail because of how hungry you are.”
“Don’t call me that!”
“I’ll call you whatever I like, Dead-last.”
Sakura watched the exchange in morbid fascination before jumping in, “We can’t break the rules, he said we would be punished if we did!”
“We’ll be sent back either way if we don’t have the energy to fight him.”
Sakura thought about it momentarily before raising her bite to Naruto.
“Really Sakura? You mean it?”
“Just take it.”
***
‘We passed…’
Sakura shuffled home, exhausted from her day. Opening the front door she gave a weak, “I’m home!”
Her father poked his head out from the living room, “Welcome home, Blossom! How was your first day of training? Was your sensei nice?”
Sakura sat down to remove her sandals, taking a moment to lean against the wall and rest her tired feet a little, “It was good, tou-san. He was… interesting. I’m super tired though.”
“That’s good, I’m glad you had a good day. Dinner is in 30 minutes if you want to go take a shower. Your mother made your favourite to celebrate! Tempuraaaa~”
“Thanks, tou-san.”
Sakura turned to walk upstairs, pausing when he father called out to her, “We’re so proud of you. And I know your kaa-san and I don’t always understand you, but we want you to know that we love you and we’re so so proud of everything you’ve done to reach your goals. You’re going to be amazing.”
Sakura turned back, a small smile playing across her lips, “Thank you. I love you guys too.”
She would make sure she prove them right. Serve her country, be a good shinobi, maker her parents proud.
Notes:
Now that that's out of the way some more plot can be introduced!
Life has been interesting my dudes, sorry this is a little late, rest assured I will still be attempting to stick to one a month!
xoxo
Banna
Chapter 4: Usurping Order
Summary:
Sakura learns and does some hard things. But its okay because she rewires how Genma understands physics and chakra.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Training was…something. Barely something if Sakura was being honest, all she really did was wait for Kakashi to show up for 3 hours and then watch Naruto try and hit Sasuke for an hour before Kakashi dismissed them. Apparently, d-ranks weren’t going to be happening for at least the first week, so he could “gauge their skills”, or whatever. If you asked her? He was a lazy ass and she had no idea how he managed to become a elite jonin.
Honestly, who did he think he was talking to them like that? Sasuke graduated at the top of their class. He had their files; what more did he need to know before they could start serving?
Walking towards the same clearing where she had met Shiranui-san yesterday, Sakura couldn’t help but feel like she was waiting for her life to begin in earnest. Like maybe she just needed a catalyst for her life to start being how she always imagined it. But maybe that was childish naivety.
Stopping at the edge of the clearing, Sakura took a deep breath upon seeing that Shiranui-san wasn’t there; laps, 11 of them. Ugh. Ugh. Ughhhhh… fine.
Leaning forward, Sakura started to run, a fast jog at most, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to actually run all 11 laps if she didn’t pace herself. She tried to zone out like she did back in the academy when they had to do long-distance runs, but she couldn’t get her mind to quiet; constant questions buzzed around. What now? What will tomorrow look like? Why me?
Sakura could feel her lungs begin to ache around lap 4, an unnoticeable shake to her legs with each stride taken. God this sucked, this sucked so bad. Sakura hated running; it made her sweaty and damp and gross, and she always thought she smelled bad after. No guy wants a dishevelled, sweaty pink blob. But maybe Sasuke would finally look at her if she were ANBU.
***
Genma stood once she had finished, sauntering over to her hunched form with the little covered cage in hand, “Alright, kid. We’re gonna spend today making sure we start this journey right. We’ll get you started on how to use senbon, a better kata set for you’re body type, and ANBU signs.”
Sakura looked up from her panting. Finally, an actual plan!
Genma placed the cage down beside her feet, removing the cover to reveal two small brown rabbits.
“But first, you’re going to kill one of these bunnies.”
What?
Genma took her silence to be a question, instead of muted horror.
“Don’t worry, it's basically a formality at this point. Back when the war was still going on, most academy students would do this at some point before being sent off to join the war effort. They found that we were more willing to do what's necessary if we already had some experience with death. Quick cut to the carotid artery, and then you'll field dress it. Plus, you can keep the foot after, you know, for luck!”
Sakura blinks at the rush of information locked between his words, “What?”
Genma bent down, opening the cage and gently pulled the rabbits out, “Yea, here, don’t forget to support both her front and back legs. There you go.”
Sakura cradled the rabbit to her chest, she could feel it breathing. Faster than her, but calming all the same.
“I can’t kill this…”
“Sure you can, I mean if you’re worried about getting blood on yourself, you can just snap its neck. Here, look.”
The rabbit Genma had been cradling suddenly, hung limply from his fist. She didn’t even get the chance to squeak before she died.
Sakura clutched the rabbit to her chest. Suddenly, the world had gone static, and the rabbit in her arms began to squirm. Alive. It, she was alive and that other was or it wasn’t, no it's definitely dead? But this one was alive. Sakura could feel its heartbeat, or maybe that was her heartbeat.
“O-oh my god? You killed it? That was a living creature, how could you?”
Genma glanced down at the limp creature in his hand before glancing back at a now very distraught-looking Sakura. Ah.
“Have you really never had to kill anything?”
“No!? Why would I have ever killed anything?”
“Kid, you’re a ninja? Surely you know that you’d have to kill something eventually. I mean, fuck something, you’re gonna have to kill someone someday, probably someday soon.”
Sakura drew in a hysterical breath, “But why are we killing bunnies? They didn’t do anything, I thought we only killed enemies? It's an innocent animal.”
Genma took a moment to process that. Innocent. Huh. When was the last time Genma had truly thought of his orders as anything but orders? Well, there was that one time he had to kill the children of a revolutionary from a small town in western fire country, but it didn’t really matter in the end. The insurgents got the message, and they’ve been peaceful ever since. So it was worth it.
“Sakura, we’re shinobi. We don’t get to ask questions like that, and it’d do you well to remember that. When the Hokage points, we stab, burn, kill and die for him. Honour and innocence is for samurai; and trust me, kid, we ain’t samurai. Understand?”
Sakura stared back at him, absorbing his words through the haze of shock still clouding her mind. She gave a weak nod once she noticed his expectant look.
“Good. The sooner you do this, the sooner we can start your training in earnest. Snap its neck or cut the artery. Hell, if you have another way you want to do it, be my guest, ANBU loves a bit of creativity in its recruits. But that bunny dies by your hand.”
Genma watched as Sakura shifted the rabbit from both arms to just one. Still supporting its hind legs like he had told her to, slipping her hand into her kunai holster. Good, better she gets used to the feeling of a knife going through skin, muscle and bone now. The girl shook as she once again shifted to hold the animal by its ears. It began to squire, feet kicking in protest. He had to admit her grip stayed strong, even as it shook; it was almost fascinating to watch how she didn’t want to and yet did as told. But it was ultimately a good sign, she’d get far on following orders.
Her eyes seemed to glaze over as she raised the knife to its neck. She pressed in slow, the rabbit began to wriggle harder. The first cut was ragged, a steady flow of blood, and the droplets fell onto her exposed toes. She jerked her foot back, dropping he rabbit in the process. Genma sighed as he watched it try and scuttle into the underbrush.
Sakura scrambled to catch it as it hobbled away, a pitiful trail of blood left in its wake. She fumbled with it when she caught it, its frantic wiggling causing more blood to spray across her hands. Sakura whimpered at the warm, sticky feeling it caused between her fingers, the fur of its ears suddenly slick. Genma watched silently as it all unfolded; at least she didn’t have to be told to keep going. Civilian brats were a little weird like that, unable to take the initiative to complete tasks unless told explicitly how to.
And yet she hadn’t raised her kunai to complete her task, watching transfixed as the wriggling got weaker and weaker.
“Hold it tight and finish it off. This is boring.”
“And cruel.” He added as an afterthought.
Sakura’s head jerked up to meet his eyes, impassive as they were. Cruel. Cruel?
“Oh, like having me kill an innocent animal isn’t cruel!?”
“No, what it is, is necessary. What’s cruel is making the thing suffer for your lack of conviction.”
Sakura continues to stare, and then Genma watches something a little sharper solidify in her gaze. Looking down once more at the jerking form of the rabbit, Sakura straightened her spine and raised her kunai. Gone was the tremor in her hands, replaced with a clinical stillness.
Her next swipe was clean, right across the rabbit’s spinal cord, the jerking coming to a sudden halt.
She flung the corpse at his feet, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. “There. Happy!?”
He glanced at it before raising an unimpressed eyebrow at her, “Very.”
“And now, you’re going to field dress it for me, without a knife.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know if you can. But more importantly because I said so, kid. We really gotta work on the whole, asking why instead of just doing as your told. It’ll get you and, more importantly, your teammates killed.”
“I’ve only ever seen it done, Iruka-sensei never let us do it. He said we would never need to know and if we did, we could go to the clinics provided for chunin and above.”
“Yea, and your ANBU right now, which means you need to be able to survive without all your gear. So, get to it, I’ll let you know if you’re about to go wrong. And then you’re gonna field dress the other one like you were taught and make a fire, one that won’t let the enemy know where we are.”
Sakura shuffled toward him, swooping down to collect the still warm carcass. She sent a timid glance his way before shifting her grip from its neck down to its ribs, squeezing downwards.
“Harder, you need to feel it’s organs shift down.”
More pressure, she was bent forward, letting gravity do dome of the work getting everything to move where it was supposed to. She began to squeeze in earnest, hand over hand as she moved down it’s body, the rabbits stomach beginning to bulge out downward.
“Good, good, it’s guts should start to come out of its ass now. Keep going”
With a wet squelch, the first parts of the rabbits’ guts began to squeeze out. Sakura was beginning to turn green, but she kept going. Good girl.
“I can’t!”
Damn, never mind.
“No one cares, and you obviously can. Do as told, shinobi. You’ve already proven you can do the hard part.”
She whimpered, her hands beginning to shake once more. But she listened, with a final hard squeeze, the rest of the rabbit’s entrails came loose in a neat little sack.
“Now flick it AWAY from me and you, just a nice hard flick from shoulder to hip. AWAY from us.”
God, the number of times he’s been splatted because some greenie got too excited.
Sakura shrieked as the bunny’s guts splattered against her back, rabbit pellets scattering down around her. Genma cackled, bending at the waist from the force of it. Well. That could have gone better.
She was still shrieking, in anger now, once she realised he wasn’t helping her. Her body was rigid as if that would solve her problem. Genma raised another unimpressed eyebrow.
“What are you waiting for, kid? I’m not gonna fix it for you. We have other shit to do today.”
Sakura gagged as she peeled the limp viscera off the back of her qipao. It was probably ruined now, but that wasn’t really his problem. Besides, it was a shit uniform, bright fucking red, it’s like she was asking to become a red smear.
“Shiranui-san, I need to go home and change!”
Genma sighed dejectedly, “No, you don’t, what you need to do is finish with that rabbit and then dress the other one, I wanna see you make a smokeless fire next. No one gives a fuck if you’re covered in blood or shit when you’re on a mission, especially if it’s not slowing down the mission.”
Sakura stared for a moment before looking away sharply, turning away, back towards where he had placed his rabbit, her unskinned rabbit swaying with each of her steps.
She made quick work of skinning both rabbits, well, the one she wasn’t allowed to use a knife on was a bit of a fight. It’s usually a little hard to tear skin the first time you do it, the human mind doesn’t like exerting that kind of force on things it deems worth empathy. But once she had made a large enough tear in the pelt to stick her fingers in and pull, it was quick. She was still a green-ish grey color, but she didn’t ask to stop this time. So, progress.
***
Sakura could feel frustrated tears beginning to form in the corner of her eyes as she dug the hole she would be making a fire in. She hated this, feeling the rabbit’s pelt tear under her fingers would haunt her, surely. It was just like Iruka-sensei said, as long as you pushed through the mental block, you could do just about anything. He liked to joke that tearing skin was just as easy as tearing a thick wool jacket. You had to put a little effort in, but once the first tear happened, it was quick. Easy.
She was gross and sticky, and she could smell the iron from the blood soaking into her hair. But the worst part of it all was that she could feel him looking at her, judging every move. If she cried now, he would judge her, she knew it. So, she persisted, she knelt in front of him and dug into the ground, two holes less than a foot apart, one at a slight angle connected to the other underground. Turning her back on him once more to head into the forest surrounding the training field felt like another admission of defeat. Rifling through the underbrush to find suitable dry sticks to make kindling, wet sticks meant smoke and smoke meant death.
She turned back once she felt she had collected enough to sustain a fire long enough to cook both rabbits. Stumbling when she found Genma watching her from a tree once again, his stare unblinking. She hadn’t even heard him move. Feeling brave, she made eye contact with him for the first time since she had asked to stop.
“How did you do that? I didn’t feel you move, I didn’t even hear you.”
He remained quiet for a moment, considering her.
“You’ll learn to do the same during your time with me. It’s a mixture of shifting your balance, chakra control and learning to subconsciously watch where you step. Knowing what will make noise when stepped on and when to cushion your steps with a layer of chakra.”
Sakura mulled over his words; they were vague but not in a condescending way. Or at least, she didn’t feel like they were; he had given her the base idea of the skill, just not the instructions to do it. And Sakura could work with theory. She stretched out her chakra, felt it trickle down her sternum, down her thighs, past her shins, before settling at her soles. Her shoes were a bit of an issue, though. Sakura could easily push her chakra out past her ankle bindings, but getting through the soles of her sandals was proving an issue.
Sakura released a frustrated huff as her attempts to push through her sandals failed for the third time, turning her gaze from her feet to the slightly shocked gaze of Genma.
“How do I get past my sandals? The soles are too thick.”
“How do you know you’ve done it right, then?”
Sakura’s eyes widened before her eyes flickered back and forward between him and her feet.
“Can I-?” she gestured at her sandals.
“Do what you have to do, I’ll let you know if you’re going wrong.”
Again, with the “I’ll let you know if you’re going wrong.” So much and so little freedom in only 8 words.
And so, Sakura crouched down, placing her kindling to the side and slipped out of her sandals. When she straightened, she began to slowly pool her chakra at her soles. Once she felt she had collected enough, she took a step, purposely stepping on a twig. It snapped, and the sound echoed in the quiet clearing.
“Not enough juice. Try again.”
Sakura retracted her foot, the twig coming with it. She tried to shake it off, but it didn’t budge.
“You’re stuck cus you grabbed it instead of cushioned.”
How helpful. Not. You’re stuck because you grabbed instead of cushioning it. What does that even mean!?
Sakura huffed quietly, turning her focus inward once again. Grabbing? Grabbing, what did grabbing feel like if chakra was energy? The trickling. The feeling of trickling water was what chakra felt like, and water was adhesive. So... if she wanted it to cushion instead of grab, she would have to create tension along the surface of her chakra output. Sakura pushed her chakra out like she had last time, but this time imagined a controlled dome over it, like catching air under a tarp. The stick fell away from her raised foot. Cushioned. Not grabbed.
Taking a hesitant step forward, maintaining her bubble, she placed he foot back down on the twig. Again, it crackled underfoot, but this time when she raised her foot it didn’t follow. But this time, she couldn’t feel the twig under her foot. It was like she had pushed a ball between her and the twig.
***
Genma watched transfixed as that once-in-a-generation level chakra control began to come into play. She was making her way through, silencing her footsteps like it wasn’t a skill chunin struggled with, simply because the amount of chakra control it took usually requires at least some level of elemental training. God, and to think, they were gonna have her waste away on team 7 next to the last Uchiha and the Kyuubi’s container, under Inu.
Inu, who was going to ignore her for the Uchiha, and making sure Minato’s kid didn’t croak or snap. What a waste of perfectly good potential. Look at her, she’s already figured out that it needed to be a constant controlled diffusion of chakra at the soles of her feet that would absorb the sound of whatever was underfoot. It took me 2 days to manage what she’s done in minutes. It’d be subconscious by the end of the week if I had any say in it.
Again, she lifted her foot, taking another minute to reevaluate how she had moulded her chakra. The trick was to create tension but allow whatever was underfoot to be cushioned into the expelled chakra, so the sound was absorbed, but no pressure was applied to the object. Watching her figure it out for herself was something of an art. She had just enough confidence in herself to take the initiative to do it herself, but was so used to having an adult make the final call for her that she needed Genma to give the go-ahead. All good groundwork for an undercover operative, now he just needed to make sure she would do it while under pressure. But that was for another day.
Again, she pressed down on the twig. Success. Utter silence, just the wind and the animals.
“Good job, kid. That was art, truly. Took me 2 days to manage that.”
Sakura jolted, like she had forgotten he was there. Hm. We’ll need to fix this whole getting lost in her head thing. It’ll get her killed.
“Try not to get too lost in your own head, kid. Even when we’re inside the walls, we still need to be aware. Now, I want you to keep doing that while you make the fire. Soundless steps. You can keep your sandals off. We can do sandals tomorrow.”
Crouching down to pick up her little bundle of kindling in one arm and her sandals in the other, pausing once she was upright to calibrate her other foot to match the one she had perfected, Sakura began to walk slowly back to where she had left the rabbits. And Genma followed, silent as ever.
She did make the occasional noise, a crinkle of leaves, the shift of dirt beneath her, but each time, she would pause and retake the step, and it would be silent. Persistent. Perfectionistic. Maybe a little neurotic. But, hey, weren’t we all when it came to this?
The fire she made was textbook, almost completely smokeless once it reached about 4 feet from the actual fire. And still she was silent. The longer the rabbit cooked, the less noise she made. It was bland, but it was food.
Genma broke the silence, “Do you know any other forms outside of academy basic?”
“No, but Iruka-sensei said that was normal and that our sensei would teach us additional forms.”
“Hm, well, he’s not right, but he’s also not wrong. Most of your classmates were clan kids, so they all have their clan’s signature styles in addition to the academy basics. You ever notice that they always ended up kicking the civie kid’s asses during spars?”
Genma watched her think it over, watched her think about every spar she never won against the other kids, except for other civilian born kids. She was tearing the remainder of her rabbit skewer into little pieces in her lap.
“So… I’m behind?”
“Nah, just starting at a different point. But honestly, there is a reason basically your entire graduating class was clan kids.”
Sakura paused mid-tear.
“Don’t think about it too hard, kid, it’ll drive you nuts. Put out the fire, and then we can start closing the gap between you and your peers.”
***
Once the fire was doused and the hole filled back in. Sakura came to stand in front of Genma once more.
“I don’t actually know if you’re any good at the academy basics, but your file said you were decent, and your sense passed you. So given that you’re on a front-line assault team, you must be a little better than decent, right?”
Sakura gave him a blank look.
“What’s with the look? I do sorta need to know where you're at flexibility-wise and like… if I gotta build you up from the ground up?”
“Front-line assault team?”
“Yea, you’re on a team of heavy hitters. In that, probably, the heaviest of hitters from your graduating class and your sensei is the Scarecrow? The White Wolf? Anything?”
Genma felt panic sweat begin to form at his temples.
“Nothing? What were they teaching you guys?”
“I don’t know-”
“Alright, well. Okay. Hm.”
Kami. What exactly were they teaching kids if they didn’t know who one of the Leaf’s largest invasion deterrents was?
“You ever seen a bingo book?”
A small shake of pink.
“Then today's your lucky day. Check this out. Flip through, see who you recognise.”
Genma handed her his bingo book. It was a couple of months out of date, but he hadn’t been out of the village for the last couple of months, so he hadn’t seen the reason to go and get the latest release. Besides, all she needed to know were the big names. For now.
Now, the one Genma gave her was the standard-issue bingo book released to anyone who had a forehead protector. So, it didn’t have all the goodies that the Jonin or ANBU issue bingo book did. Like known ANBU identities or s-rank bounties. Just your regular run of the mill A to D rank missing nin, enemy, ally and home-grown legends; and their respective bounties and designations.
Genma saw the moment she reached the S-rank section. Her eyes widened as she flicked through each page. Each rank section was arranged by village, and within each village section, the legends always came first. And there were very few faces as famous and unknown as Hatake Kakashi, Son of the White Fang, Copy-Nin, Kakashi of the Sharingan. Friend Killer.
“Kiddo, you have a bona fide legend for a sensei. Man's been in this business longer than I have.”
“There’s- there’s no way. He’s a useless idiot? D-do you know what we did today? For training?” Training was said with perhaps the most contempt Genma had ever come from something as brightly colors as she was.
“Watch it, Kakashi isn’t-” She didn’t even let him finish before she began again.
“He was 3 hours late. And then. And then! He had the boys spar while he read porn. PORN! For an HOUR. We didn’t even do any d-ranks!”
Sakura was huffing by the end of her short tirade. Her arms were still raised in outrage. Genma blinked, previous offence forgotten. That was perhaps the most she had spoken to him in one sitting, let alone with that much actual personality infused into it. But also,
“You have got to be shitting me. No fucking wonder you were here so fucking early.”
“You swear a lot.”
The laugh Genma release was wholly unintentional, “I am twice your age, kid, and I get paid to murder people. If that isn’t a free pass to speak how I please, I dunno what is.”
Again, with the thoughtful expression.
“So… I can swear?”
“Sure, you’re an adult. The only say I have in what you do and say is mission and village-related. Don’t go mouthing off about or at the village, or me or mine; and we’re good.”
“Fuck? Shit. Bitch…. Pussy.”
Genma gave another helpless giggle, “Nice.”
“Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system. Can we get to figuring out what kind of new taijutsu style I should be teaching you?”
“Fuck yeah!”
Genma shook his head, “Like a kid with a new toy. Whatever, come on, I wanna see you go through the katas.”
She was smooth, flexible, her footsteps still silent, a little off balance though. Genma could already see that it didn’t quite fit, then again, the academy style didn’t really fit anyone. It was more of a springboard into the basics of taijutsu, specifically balance, basic strikes and grapples. How to fall safely, how to break a hold, how to throw a punch that won’t break your thumb, how to throw a kick that would do more damage to your opponent than your foot. Just enough to keep you alive should the moment arise; a couple of steps above a civilian. Most shinobi had a preference for taijutsu style. Personally, Genma preferred striking to grappling, and it was starting to look like Sakura was also leaning that way. She’d probably never have the size necessary to be a grappling specialist, but given the line of work she was about to enter it would be a necessity. Genma was probably going to have to call in a couple of favours if that was the case. Kami, I’m going to have to ask Bison to help out.
“Yeah, alright, that’s enough. That isn’t gonna work for you. But that’s fine, we’ll get started on the style I like. It’s a strike and evade style designed for those of us that don’t necessarily like to fight for longer than 5 seconds if it can be helped.”
“Only 5 seconds, but the average spar in the academy was usually a minute or longer?”
“Yeah, and were you guys trying to kill each other?”
“No, but-”
“Then why would you assume the academy is anything like real life? Now watch me.”
She got quiet again, pensive, focused on his movements.
Genma flowed through the familiar katas, “This is only the first 10 forms, there are 38 in total. We’re gonna focus on mastering these first 10 for the next 2 days before we add more. I want you to be able to complete the entire set this time next week. Doesn’t have to be perfect, but I want them memorised and smooth.”
He narrated each move and its use as he made them. Coming to a stop a third of the clearing away from her, “Now you. Copy me, we’ll meet in the middle, then you alone, and I’ll correct you when you go wrong.”
She was off balance from the beginning, hesitance that spoke of physical activity not being a strong point for her. Gone was the smooth flexibility shown in the academy form, but repetition made for smooth movement, predisposition towards the movements she would learn. But she did alright copying his slow movements. Each twist of the hip and full body shift from strike to strike. Yeah, she’d learn.
They met in the middle with a downward strike meant to break a shoulder. Sakura turned swiftly to begin the sequence again, glancing at him as he stood up and began to pick apart her movements.
“You don’t move from the form until I say you can, and go slow, I want to see you do each movement. Speed isn’t the point here; mastering the technique is. If you stumble or fall over, we restart from the beginning.”
She fell 12 times before making it through the whole sequence. She had difficulty with the front kick, balancing on her toes while thrusting her hip forward. Overall, it took a little over 2 hours before he was willing to let her go through it at a normal pace. She did alright once she sped up, less time for her to lose balance or overthink ankle positioning, or whatever it was messing her up. Still uneven, still not quite the right style for her, but leagues better than the academy standard.
“Good. How are you feeling? Tired? Any chakra fatigue?”
Sakura huffed, crouching down and raising her arms above her head to clear and open up her airway. Maybe the academy was still teaching them some things that were useful.
“Tired, sore. Chakra feels fine, I haven’t been expelling any.”
Huh?
“Yes, you have? Sakura, you’ve been silencing your steps pretty consistently for the last 2 hours. You’d have to have expelled chakra.”
“No, I haven’t. It’s a bubble Shiranui-san, as long as I maintain surface pressure, the bubble remains contained to my network.”
“The fuck do you mean ‘maintain surface pressure’? Your reserves are too small for you to not be at least a little depleted, even with your level of control letting you put out the bare minimum.”
She had stopped breathing heavily, “I haven’t been? I don’t-?”
Genma gestured to her still uncovered feet, “What do you mean you haven’t been? You obviously have been? You’ve been taking silent steps this whole time? Explain to me what you’ve been doing.”
“I just told you! I maintain a layer of chakra at the bottom of my feet. The surface pressure created by the bubble absorbs any sound created from what I step on, leaving it unchanged.”
Genma stared, and then he looked at where Sakura had stepped for her katas. And then he was staring again, but not at her. But at the trail of nothing behind her. Not a single broken twig. The grass was barely displaced. Okay. So. Her chakra cushioned the physical object and absorbed the sound. No biggy. Sure. Okay.
“Sakura, when you said that it doesn’t leave your system, what did you mean?”
“It doesn’t leave? It cycles back in from where I pushed it out, like a circle. It cycles through, sorta like how the heart pumps blood, you know?”
“No? No, I do not know!”
Sakra was beginning to panic, “I don’t understand. I thought I was doing it right?”
Genma paused his spiral. She was right, “You were. You were completely silent for the last 2 hours.”
“What does chakra feel like to you?”
“Like water, but it's thick. I don’t know, it’s just there.”
“Yeah, but when you say maintain surface tension, what do you mean?”
“The chakra doesn’t leave my network; it just stays outside of my internal network. I’m not really using it for anything but to cushion and insulate whatever I step on, it leaves no chakra trace, so why wouldn’t I just let it cycle back in?”
“Right, okay, chakra control prodigy that can control whether the chakra fully leaves her system when diffused. You realise that’s insane, right?”
God, this is insane. The pure potential. If I managed to build her reserves up to her max potential, she could be really something. Granted, the amount of chakra I use to silence my footsteps is negligible, but the extra 3-5% chakra reserve can mean the difference between life and death. Not to mention the implication that her control is already this good as a fresh genin. I’m in charge of the training of what could become the next monster of the leaf.
Shit.
Sakura was looking at him like he was crazy. Which was rude, because frankly, what she said was crazy; it was basically impossible. And she was now his responsibility.
***
Sakura stared at the blank-faced man in front of her. He had gone silent after his question. She had assumed he didn’t want an actual answer. It wasn’t a big deal, he said she was doing it right, so what did it matter if she wasn’t diffusing the chakra?
“Well, what do you do? I thought you said I was doing it right?”
He seemed to blink back to her, “Constant diffusion of chakra out of the soles of my feet to cushion the down force so that the sound is absorbed upon impact.”
“That’s such a wast,e though? Why can’t you just keep it within your network?”
“Because what you claim to be doing is basically impossible. It’s like saying that you cut yourself and when you bleed you then suck it back in.”
“But it doesn’t leave my body, it isn’t being used on anything or transformed, only pushed out and then pulled back in.”
“Fuck me. Okay, so, when you do the academy basics, it's being ‘used’ and thus cannot be taken back in?”
“Yea, it’s like water evaporating, you send it out and mould it but then it’s gone. I dunno, this is stupid, that’s just how chakra works.”
“You have no idea how insane what you just said is. So, what you’re saying is that unless transformed or removed from your network completely, you retain all chakra manipulation?”
“I mean, it takes chakra to move and whatever, but yea?”
“Oh my god. Fine. Whatever, moving on because I cannot deal with this right now. Do you know how to whistle?”
“Yes? What kind of topic change is that?”
“The one that is currently happening because I said so. How good at whistling would you say you are?”
“I can do the ‘Little Ninja Going To the Front’?”
“Decent then, good, you remember those bird calls that would happen right before I knicked you that first day we met?”
Sakura frowned at the memory, “Yes, but why would I need to know that?”
“You ever heard the saying ‘Bird calls by fire light, buried by first light’?”
“No? Why should I have?”
“That’s right, your parents are merchants. It figures you never heard that kinda thing. Most clan kids know it because it’s common knowledge that leaf ANBU communicates through specialised whistle tones based on a bird called when ANBU sign isn’t an option.”
Sakura was starting to see a pattern in things she did or didn’t know. The pattern was that she was born to the wrong parents. Which wasn’t her fault, and Genma didn’t seem to blame her, but it was beginning to look like her lot in life was significantly hindered by the fact that she wasn’t a clan kid.
“It’s not that important. Moving on, try and copy the calls I make. Oh, and I want to start you on ANBU sign too. Sign along with me with the whistles.”
The whistle he released wasn’t complicated, but the pitch change was hard to manage, the shift of the tongue rather abrupt. She didn’t get it immediately, but with careful repetition, it became easier. After each new whistle tone, he would explain its meaning. Apparently, he had started with basic calls. Enemy, ally, approaching, fall back, wait, go. Things that would get the point across.
“This was never supposed to be a language, it's designed for stealth and emergencies. You can string them together to make basic sentences if you must, but keep it short. Now run through them again.”
He twisted to reach into his hip pouch, producing a small booklet, “Here, this has all the regulation ANBU signs in it, learn it, master it, start using it when we’re together. Do not lose it. Do not show it to anyone, and if you’re ever captured, you burn it before yourself. Understand?”
“Burn myself? What?”
***
Well, this is not how Genma wanted the day to go. He had entered this clearing expecting that, to some degree, he would be able to run through his little mental checklist of tasks to start her on and then send her on her way. But no. Now he had a chakra prodigy to figure out, and he’s now going to have to explain the ANBU seal to her.
“Right, so, you know how you haven’t been taken to HQ yet? Don’t have the uniform and the mask, etc? Well, when that happens, you’ll also get the seal. Every ANBU has that seal. Little swirl on the left shoulder, real cute.”
Genma shrugged out of his Jonin vest and began to roll the sleeves of his standard blues as she continued, “And that seal is really useful when on missions, it has a couple of things built into it. It lets you see where your teammates are, or anyone who has the seal, too. But one of the most important features it has is the off switch.”
Once his shoulder was revealed, he fell into a soft half lotus, turned slightly to let her see his deltoid. The red swirl was deceptively simplistic, bright against the pale skin of his upper arm. He often forgot it was there, always covered by his standard blues, and anyone who saw him shirtless either knew about it beforehand or knew to keep quiet about it. The ANBU swirl was made by Tobirama to solve a very specific set of questions: who could you trust, and what do you do if you can’t trust yourself?
“The main issue that Tobirama found when ANBU first began was that there was no way of certifying who was who once the mask was on. So, the seal started out as simply a way to connect the ANBU members in one large network. If you’re even a little chakra sensitive, once you had the seal, you’d have a beacon to every ANBU member alive. Assuming they aren’t suppressing it. Another thing I’ll teach you.”
Sakura had sat down at some point during his explanation, openly staring at the mythic ANBU tattoo. To have one of those was to be the elite, the best of the best.
“And then, Tobirama encountered another issue. What do you do when the best of the best can’t make it home? They know everything about the inner workings of the most secretive part of the village’s defence system. And we’re trained to withstand torture, mental and physical. But there are methods for getting information even after someone’s dead. And so, the off switch was born. A fail-safe is built into the seal that connects directly to your chakra network. And its only role is guaranteeing the secrets of the village stay secret. Even in death.”
“How?”
“If the seal detects your chakra network and heart stopping at the same time for longer than 5 minutes, it triggers what is basically a self-destruct sequence. Your seal will jump start your network with a fire nature transformation, and your body will light up hot enough to turn you to ash in less than a minute.”
To emphasise that last point, Genma mimed a little explosion with his hands. Chuckling a little at Sakura’s panicked look, Genma began rolling his sleeve back down. Impromptu history lesson aside, he had one last thing he wanted to get started on before he sent her on her way.
“So, yea, you burn that book before yourself if you can, but in all honesty, you shouldn’t be leaving the village with it. The only reason it should be on your person when you leave this place is if we get called out tomorrow. But that won’t happen, so that little book full of black ops secrets stays in your room in your weapons chest.”
“But won’t you want it back?”
“Nah, it’d be pretty silly if I still needed it after all these years. Plus, my captain gave it to me when I first came into ANBU, and so, from me to you. I’ve never been given a rookie to train up. Then again, this is a sorta unique situation.”
Genma leaned back once again, reaching into his back pouch to pull out a little scroll, “Now, the last thing of the day is an introduction to weapons. Specifically, the ANBU standard wakizashi.”
A pulse of chakra released a training wakizashi and another scroll. Wooden and blunt, but weighing about the same as most standard-issue blades.
“This will be yours for the next six months, and depending on your progress, I might let you touch a real one before then. But I doubt it.”
Genma saw the moment she decided to get offended.
“Ah, no. Not because you’re not good enough, but because 6 months is the minimum to get good enough that I can trust you not to kill yourself by accident, or me. But probably you.”
Grabbing the other scroll, Genma leaned over and offered it to her. “And this is the scroll containing the basic forms of the wakizashi. But to be honest, it’s likely that you’ll use smaller weapons for the majority of your career. Kunai, shuriken, tanto, senbon like me.” Gesturing at the needle between his lips.
“Read through that and I want you to sign along for what you know, and I’ll show you the signs for what you don’t know.”
***
Sakura dutifully read through the scroll, pausing to sign what she knew and watching intently when Genma demonstrated a new sign. Once Genma seemed satisfied with her understanding of the first few forms, he handed her the wooden wakizashi.
“Get to it, I want you not shit at these by the time I send you off.”
The whole process took a couple of hours, the sun beginning to lower in the west. And she was tired. And hungry. Her arms shook from the repetitive movements, her focus waning after hours of focusing on the chakra at her feet. She winced at the sound of her footsteps became more and more common the longer she practised.
“Yeah, alright, I think you're done for the day.”
“No, I can keep going!”
“Nah, you’re done. Go home, study the book and the scroll. Keep your steps silent, maybe throw in some whistle practice. Not the ANBU ones but pick up some more songs or something. See you tomorrow, kid.”
And then he was gone. And she was tired. And hungry. But she was also fuller than she could ever remember being.
***
Asuma would say with absolute confidence that each of his students was the epitome of their clans. The good and the bad. God, I’m going have a field day getting any of them to actually commit to training, especially because Kakashi’s absolutely going to pull some shit like put his kids through the next chunin exam just so he can get rid of them. Through promotion or death.
Ino wouldn’t shut up about the Uchiha kid or her fucking hair, Choji wouldn’t actually physically hurt anything, and Shikamaru could be dead as far as Asuma knew given how often his chest was rising and falling right now. But Ino was one of the most manipulative 12-year-olds Asuma’s ever met, and Choji was probably one of the strongest. And Shikamaru? Shikamaru had done what every Nara kid does in the academy if they want to be on the intelligence division track, passed just enough to graduate. Then again, it was possible, however small that possibility was given who his father was, that Shikamaru was unfamiliar with the old ways, academy teachers would identify early specialisations.
Back when Asuma was coming up, it wasn’t as standard anymore, given that most of them were graduating early to help in the war effort. But academy teachers used to be trained to identify early signs or predispositions for specific divisions and were in charge of making sure that certain behaviours were encouraged and noted down. Like, trap specialists were usually identified pretty early on because they were usually the class clowns. If they could manage to prank a chunin or above, it was usually noted down for future senseis. To anyone looking at the files it would look like demerits, but it was actually a system designed to keep their kids from getting too many ideas of what they could get away with, while also keeping future senseis in the loop of how often the little shits would try and blow you up.
Genjutsu kids were always found through chakra control testing done during the second year of the academy, same with possible med-nin candidates. Command track kids were a little harder to pinpoint, but they were usually popular, able to command a room, but more importantly, aware of their peers. Always watching, knew everyone’s name, knew how to take charge in group projects, that kind of thing.
Now, the intelligence division looks for kids who can beat the system, because if they know the margins for failure, they know the margins for success. Asuma is making the educated assumption that the lump under the tree, that is, Shikamaru, probably knew almost every answer to every test he was ever handed. Which means he scored just high enough to pass, so everyone would leave him alone, which also meant that he probably knew that Mizuki and Iruka would be watching how he scored throughout his academy years. He hoped. God, he hoped that’s what Shikamaru had done because if not, he might have a stupid Nara on his hands. Which sounded just about as impossible as him not knowing about the signalling system.
Training that day had been lacklustre, but they were fresh graduates, so it was to be expected that they weren’t used to spending 6 hours doing d-ranks and then training for another 4 hours. It took the promise of yakuniku to get them to cooperate with him, and even then, it was only 2 hours of sparring and then some teamwork drills. Never let it be said that Sarutobi Asuma was above bribery.
“Ino, go wake up Shikamaru, it's barbeque time.”
The smile he got in response was evil. And so was the little giggle she gave before leaning over and licking a long stripe along Shikamaru’s ear. I had forgotten they grew up together.
If the way Shikamaru lashed out and whacked Ino in the face was any indication, this was not the first time Ino had done that, and if the snicker from Choji was one, it would not be the last time. God, kids are so fucking gross.
“Alright, alright, enough. Ino, do not bite him. Shikamaru, you are obviously awake. If we wanna eat, we gotta head out now.”
The genin scrambled up to follow him, naturally falling behind the amble of Shikamaru. You’d think that it would be Ino leading the charge of Team 10, all that loud confidence, but no. Even at her worst, Ino would look to Shikamaru for the go-ahead in group situations.
The walk to the yakuniku restaurant was short; most of the restaurants in the village were located in the Akimichi sector near the civilian district. The kids talked animatedly in front, until Ino came to an abrupt stop, the whole procession coming to a halt with her.
“Sakura?”
Asuma had noticed the pink hair but simply filed it away like he did most people he passed while in the village. The kid looked roughed up, hair tangled, qipao covered in grass stains and was that dried blood on her back?
The girl startled, whipping around to face them, “Ino?”
“What happened to you? You’re filthy!”
Tactful as ever, Ino.
“Nothing! It- it was training!”
Asuma raised a silent eyebrow at that. It was plausible, but Kakashi would not be caught dead training a team of genin after 3 pm. The only thing that kept him from failing this batch was the fact that the council might have actually skinned him if he had. And genin were shit liars. Didn’t matter how ‘good’ they were by genin standards, any jonin worth their salt could smell a lie that bad from a mile away. And that, Sakura? Sakura was not a good liar even by genin standards.
Unfortunately, Ino was also a genin, so the lie held, “Really? Wow, what did your sensei teach you guys? It must have been pretty cool if you’re all messed up like that.”
The pinkette shuffled nervously, speeding through her explanation, “Nothing really, we just sparred, and I fell in some mud! That’s why I’m all gross! But I really gotta go home, see you Ino-pig!”
And then she was gone, didn’t even wait for Ino to respond. Asuma could tell that her sudden departure was strange just by the way Shikamaru’s eyebrow twitched and the way Ino seemed to deflate. Not to mention about 98% of what she had said was utter bullshit, it hadn’t rained in a week, where was the mud from? She wasn’t coming from one of the training grounds with a pond or near the river. What was to be gained by lying about sparring and training, something that she would have done that day regardless, unless she somehow hadn’t been doing that. And that stain on her back had definitely been blood, just not hers. She was lying about it. Asuma just didn’t know why or how.
Ino had turned to begin whispering to the boys, huddled together, occasionally throwing a wide, angry gesture to punctuate whatever grievance she had about the previous encounter.
Sensing that if he didn’t get them moving, they would be here for a while, Asuma chose to intervene, “Okay, let’s get a move on, guys, before the yakuniku place closes.”
It got them moving, but the mood was smaller, a little dimmer than before.
Notes:
Heeeyyyy........ so this is so late I'm actually ashamed ngl.
Sometimes you rock that soldier boy, and sometimes he rocks you. I ended up getting COVID last year and it fucked me for about a month and then work got weird. And then I sorta forgot about this, but also kept planning it at the same time, you know? Anyways, I'm so sorry.
I give you this big ass chapter as recompense, please lower the pitchforks and tourchs!
ALSO PSA!!!
I have removed the Non-graphic Rape/Non-consent. If you chose to read this because it had that, I am sorry, I realised that if I wanted to do this story justice, I couldn't just fade to black. However, I will try to do justice to the events while remaining respectful of what is being depicted.Love y'all, if you see any major issues or just wanna chat shoot me a message on tumblr.
Chapter 5: Crashing Waves in the Distance
Summary:
Sakura gets some new gear, Genma had a sorta not nice time with an old friend, and the mission to wave begins.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Sakura could say with utter confidence that she hated D-ranks. A month into being a genin, and she felt like she had become a ninja just to do the same chores her parents made her do. At least she was getting paid to do it. Kakashi would arrive anywhere between 30 minutes to 4 hours late to their 8 am meetings, meaning that she couldn’t just not show up for 2 hours and still make it like she had the first day. Which she had learned the hard way when she showed up at 10 and he made her run 2 laps. Granted, Genma made her run 12 at the beginning of every training session, but the point stands.
Kakashi only really had them doing d-ranks after the initial week of watching the boys’ spar. He would pat her on the head at the end of each day like she had done something worth congratulating. She had learned basically nothing for a month with Kakashi aside from how best to paint a fence or which plants were weeds and what weren’t; she could have learned that with her mother in all honesty.
But training with Genma was at least stimulating, and Sakura could at least claim to be learning and improving. Half their conversations were now in sign or whistles, her katas getting smoother. She now had the full set to master, same with her wakizashi forms. Sakura felt good. Well, she was sore, and she was slowly running out of salvageable qipaos, but she was getting better at getting blood out of fabric. And every time Genma said good job, it felt real, like she had done something to earn it.
So. Sakura’s days subsisted of her waking up to go wait in a training field until Kakashi showed up, usually before noon, 3 hours of whatever d-ranks were available for that time frame and then she would go get her ass handed to her for another 5-6 hours by Genma depending on what they were working on that day. Rinse, wash, repeat. And today looked like it was going to be like that as well.
Standing in the Hokage’s office waiting for another D-rank, Sakura could feel her soul trying to leave her body, and she could tell the boys were the same. Naruto hadn’t stopped vibrating since the second week. And Sasuke continued to respond in grunts and or glares of varying levels of reproach. And Sakura? Sakura did exactly what Genma told her to, acted like she didn’t get specialised training from an ANBU every single day. She performed exactly how she would have, as if she couldn’t see her muscles begin to tone and those 12 laps began to feel freeing instead of terrible like they did the first day. Which was to say, poorly. She performed poorly, one might even describe it as shittily. One being Genma and probably Kakashi in his head.
Sakura snapped out of her reflection to the sounds of Naruto finally losing it, “NO! I want a real mission! Something cool like escorting a princess! Gimme something worthy of me, Old Man!”
There was a moment of shocked silence as everyone took the outburst in. “Naruto, how dare you speak to the Hokage like that!? I taught you better than that!” Iruka’s yell was familiar right down to the way he said Naruto’s name.
Sakura turned to the Hokage in shock when he raised a calming hand. “Now, now Iruka-sensei, it’s quite alright. I have just the thing, and an escort mission came in recently. A C-rank.”
“Hell yea! Give it to me! What is it? Maybe we’re escorting the Daiymo’s daughter! Or, or, or maybe a famous movie star!?”
“Lord Third, I really must-”
“Iruka-sensei, please show the bridge builder in.”
A greying man walked into the office. He stumbled, his nose red and his eyes bleary. Drunk. The man was drunk, old, and he looked smelly. His glasses fell down his nose as he blinked at them. “Those are children? One of them is pink, and the short one looks stupid!”
“Hehehe, who’s the short one?”
The collective disappointed eyebrow raise could be felt from the moon as far as Sakura was concerned. And the collective decision to stand up straight and shuffle next to Naruto was almost instinctual.
Upon realizing who the man was referring to, Naruto proceeded to lose his shit, “WHAT!? I’LL KILL YOU!”
Sakura giggled quietly behind her hand as Kakashi quickly intercepted Naruto’s lunge to strangle the bridgebuilder.
Kakashi sweatdropped, releasing a sigh before craning his neck away from the thrashing genin to look at the Hokage. “Thank you, Lord Third. We’d be happy to escort the bridgebuilder.”
“Excellent, here is the scroll. I trust you’ll be okay briefing your genin on your own, as I have quite a busy day to return to.”
Quick bows from each of the genin, one still screeching, and then they were suddenly standing underneath a tree waiting for Kakashi to finish reading the mission brief.
Sakura watched Sasuke’s eyebrows raise in interest as Kakashi wordlessly set fire to the scroll once he was finished reading. God, he’s really driven. It's so cute. I bet he’s 30 seconds away from asking Kakashi to teach him how to do that.
“Kakashi, I-”
Kakshi didn’t even let him finish, a singular finger whipping up to Sasuke’s indignant lips, “Ah-ah. Mission briefing time~”
“Eyes on me, my adorable students. We’re going to be travelling to the Land of Waves; that’s 8 days there and 5 days back. Bring your mission packs, full weapons pouches, clothes and anything else you want with you. Ration bars too, enough for at least 5 days.”
Sakura raised her hand even though she knew the answer, but alas, appearances and behaviour profiles must be upheld to avoid suspicion, according to Genma. ‘Good practice for the field.’ More like just another more physical type of lying.
“Why would it be faster coming back?”
“Good question, Sakura! It’s because we’ll be travelling at a civilian pace there but a ninja pace on the way back!”
No shit.
“We leave tomorrow at 0800. Don’t be late. Ja ne!” And then he was gone.
And then she was alone. Again. Both boys had turned to leave as soon as Kakashi’s leaves hit the ground. Great. Now what?
“Guess ‘trainings’ over early today. At least this means I can get a little more done today with Genma.”
***
Genma wasn’t expecting her to show up this early. She’s never this early. Sure, he always showed up around 12, but that’s just because he knows Kakashi wouldn’t let them go before 2. Just enough time to get a little training done. Trying to add a new element to his arsenal always took a while; then again, there were very few shinobi who could add new variables to how they fought seamlessly, not including Kakashi. Once you got to a certain level, learning the skill wasn’t the issue; integrating it into what amounts to over a decade of instinct was.
Anyways, needless to say, the flash of pink in his periphery was unexpected. Especially since he had just gotten into a rhythm, his attempts to maintain awareness of the 5 seals around the training ground while going through katas were thoroughly disrupted.
Dropping his leg, Genma turned, “Sakura! What are you doing here? You’re-”, checking the sun’s angle, “at least 2 hours early?”
“We got a mission, it’s a C-rank, so Kakashi let us go early to get ready. We’re escorting a bridge builder to wave!”
Wave… Wave? Genma couldn’t claim to be that up to date politically, that is to say, he kept up to date on who was important, basic geopolitical events and which colours and forehead protectors were on the stab list, and which weren’t. But Wave was small, poor, and more importantly, controlled by one conglomerate; so why did Genma feel like he was missing something?
“Well damn, kid. Pretty exciting stuff in comparison to your regular old D-rank, huh?”
Sakura shrugged in response, “Yeah, I guess. The guy's a drunk, though, and the boys are still the same. Plus, I’m pretty sure Kakashi still doesn’t know my name.”
Genma chuckled, raising his hands and beginning to sign, ‘That’s not true. He probably knows it.’
Sakura’s eye lit up. She seemed to like sign practice. Over the month, Genma had started randomly signing at her instead of talking. The more exposure and practice she had, the better. She was getting better, her fingers less hesitant with each passing day.
‘What are we doing today?’
Lessons were very rarely given in sign, though. Genma found it a bit of a waste of time at this point in her understanding of ANBU sign to try and explain new katas in sign. Maybe when she wasn’t so new and he wasn’t trying to speed through her education.
“Well, since you just got a mission leaving the village for the first time, I guess we’re going to go over how to pack a mission bag the ANBU way, and then I’ll give you some stuff to self-study while you’re away.” Genma threw out the sign for ‘follow’ as he turned away from her, knowing that he didn’t have the right gear on him for that particular demonstration him so he might as well bring her with him.
Sakura’s footsteps had been silent for a month now, or at least they were when she was with him. He had instructed her to behave as she always did, before the training, when she was around her team. Anything she learned with him was a secret, and if Kakashi tried to teach her, she had been instructed to give it a couple of goes before getting it just to keep the façade up. But it was up to her discretion; he had given Sakura her file a week into their training. If she was going to pretend to be the old her, she needed to know who that was, to remember who that was. It was good practice for when she would need to pretend to be someone completely different.
“And if we have time after that-” Genma turned briefly to check that she was in fact following; she was. “We’ll go shopping. Cus lemme tell you, there is no way in hell I’m letting you leave the village wearing kill me red. The red was fine in village, but out there, you’d be nothing but a bright red target. Speaking of which, do you always wear your hair down? I get it, in village and all, but that’s not gonna fly out there. You’re not that good yet.”
Sakura was following a couple of paces back. She always was. “What’s wrong with my dresses and hair? I think it’s pretty!”
“I never said it wasn’t. What I said was that it wasn’t gonna fly out there. The hair alone is an invitation to get your throat slit. Long loose hair is a privilege given to those who know they can defend their heads. And you, Sakura, are not that good yet. If the enemy has control of your head, they have control of the rest of you; and then you’re dead. Here, look.”
***
Sakura didn’t even see him move, and suddenly the gravel of the path was digging into her knee. Her head jerked back to squint into the midday sun. And there was something cold resting on her collarbone. And her scalp hurt. And she could feel her own heartbeat in her throat.
The kunai never moved, and Sakura wasn’t breathing. His grip was strong, right at the base of her skull, his fingers tangled in the pink strands. She couldn’t move. She knew he was right behind her, but it felt like he was a million miles away when he leaned down a murmured, “You’re head dictates where you are. If they can get your hair in their fist, you’re dead. Or your team is.”
And then he was gone, back standing in front of her, kunai back in his pouch; and Sakura was still on her knees.
“Like I said, you’re not that good yet, so hair up and away when you’re out. I’ll show you some of the stuff my old squadmate did with hers. She never quite got good enough either, but she liked it long, and she was good, so she made do.”
Genma turned away from her kneeling form and continued on towards what Sakura distantly recognised as the shinobi apartments.
Sakura shifted from her knees, standing on slightly shaking legs and followed, “A- and my dress? What’s wrong with my dress?”
Genma paused again, and Sakura tensed.
“Well, for one, what colour are trees?”
Sakura relaxed slightly at the odd question, “Green?”
“And if you were trying to get away from the enemy, what would you be trying to blend into?”
“My surroundings…”
“Which are…?”
“Green. Not red.”
“Exactly. Plus, you have like zero fucking pockets on that thing and there’s so much extra fabric that could get snagged on something or grabbed. I mean, haven’t you noticed how much it flaps around when you move?”
Sakura looked down at her qipao, the loose hem resting just above the top of her sandals. She had noticed how, when they did evasion training, the hem would get caught on branches when she was tree hopping.
“But I like it…”
“Wear it within the walls, then. I didn’t say you had to stop. I just said that you needed proper mission gear. Preferably with pockets and less excess fabric.” Genma took another glance at her outfit.
“And less exposed skin. There is way too much of you unprotected and stable. Now come on, you have stuff to learn, and I wanna finish before the shinobi gear shops close for the night.”
***
Genma’s apartment was just like every other standard-issue jonin apartment, a small kitchen connected to a living room, a bathroom and a small bedroom. It was basic, and cheap, but more importantly, jonin were allowed to trap them however they pleased as long as the trap wasn’t at risk for damaging neighbouring apartments and all damages were to be paid by the tenant should an accidental triggering occur. Damages occurring during a genuine break-in were covered by the village, as they were then technically seen as damages accrued during the defence of the village. Plus, it was bigger than the ANBU barracks.
“Well, home sweet home. Shoes off, please. Tea? I have red, black and some kind of fruit tea Yugao gave to me when I moved in.”
Sakura knelt down to remove her sandals, her knees still red from their sudden meeting with the road. “Red, please. Thank you.”
Once Sakura had been settled at his living room table with a cup of tea, Genma left to dig out his mission pack and his weapons chest. He hadn’t touched his mission pack since he had been grounded 7 months ago, and his weapon’s chest was only taken out for cleanings and poison restocks usually.
His chest was originally his mother's. When she passed, his father gave it to him after he became a genin. Every shinobi’s weapons chest was different, and some weren’t even chests. Genma once knew a guy who kept all of his stuff in a pile under his bed. Anyways, Genma had what he considered to be a pretty normal chest, if a little bit unique in that it had small compartments designed for poison storage. His mother’s clan was a vassal to the Yamanaka when the village was first created; they were known for their knowledge on herbology. His mother chose to use that knowledge to make herself a poison mistress. And he continued where she left off, often being brought in as a specialist in the hospital because of that knowledge. Any good poison master knew just as many antidotes as they did poisons, even when they themselves were immune.
The Sakura watched attentively as Genma began to empty his mission pack, the waxed canvas familiar to her.
“This is my basic set-up, now, granted, some of this gets switched up depending on where I’m going and what I’m being asked to do. Pick through it and then tell me what you think you should be bringing to wave.”
Genma travelled light, like most wartime brats who learned that they could sleep on basically anything and needed very little to survive. Tarp, 10 meters of rope, 2 spools of ninja wire, his ANBU edition bingo book (need to update that before I leave the village next), a small pot and pan, a set of chopsticks, a week’s worth of rat bars, iodine tablets, a bar of scentless soap and tooth paste, a toothbrush, 3 bounty scrolls, 2 sets of jonin blues or ANBU blacks depending on which version of Genma was getting sent out, his poison kit, an extra set of senbon, an extra role of ankle wraps, and a med-kit. And a pair of thick socks and a sleep role, because this wasn’t wartime and he liked being warm.
“I was going to bring a sleeping bag, a tent, 5 outfits, some rat bars, my shampoo and conditioner and my soap, oh, and my toothpaste and toothbrush, and a med-kit, a pan, a pair of chopsticks, a water bottle, my spare kunai, my hairbrush, my coat, and then whatever you gave me to self-study!”
Genma took a moment to go through her list mentally, raising a finger. “Well, for one, wave is a tropical humid place, so nix the sleeping bag and coat, they’ll just take up space and weight you down.”
His middle finger raised next. “For two, you don’t need a tent; they’re bulky and only useful for long-term forest missions, which this is not. If you really can’t sleep on the floor or in a tree- which side note has he taught you to tree walk yet?”
Sakura gave a little shake of her head and a rueful smile. Well, that answers that. God, he’s such a shit teacher.
“Well, okay then. Anyway, if you really can’t sleep on the floor, I’d suggest picking up a sleeping mat. They fold up small and they’re lighter than a tent or a sleeping bag.”
“Third, a tarp can be a tent if you have a rope and need shelter from rain.”
“Fourth, if you must, 3 pairs of bottoms, 3 tops, and 1 set of clothes that aligns with the mission location’s temperature, any more than that is both a waste of space and frivolous.”
“And finally,” Genma flipped out his thumb from where it was tucked to his palm, “Are your toiletries scented cus if so, that’s not gonna fly.”
“My mom buys me floral scents? And my toothpaste is mint.”
“The toothpaste is fine, but we’re gonna pick up some shampoo and conditioner bars at the kunoichi store today. You should avoid strong scents when you’re in the field. Anyone enhancing their sense of smell with chakra can pick up on a trail like that.”
“Bars? What’s wrong with liquid shampoo and conditioner?”
“They’re bulky, and if they spill, it’s a waste and a mess to deal with. With a bar, they dry out and then you toss ‘em back into your pack. Plus, they last just as long as a full bottle and do the same thing as the liquid version.”
“Oh…I’ve never thought of it like that.”
Genma began to pack everything back away. “That’s fine, you’re green, like painfully, but that’s the point. It’s literally my job to teach you to think like this.”
Once his pack had been re-organised and placed to the side, he gestured to the chest next to the table. “Now this is my weapons chest, I assume you have something like it, basically, all ninjas have something like it.”
The ensuing silence did not fill him with confidence. Looking up at the badly concealed panic on her face basically destroyed what little he did have.
“I’ll take that face as a no, but that’s okay. How and where do you store your gear?”
“In the corner of my room,” Genma must have made a face at that because she quickly tacked on, “But never blade side down, and I promise all my gear is taken care of!”
That was fine, totally fine. I mean, he mentioned the guy who shoved it all under his bed right? This is, in comparison, way better. Plus, she was civilian born; of course, she doesn’t have a weapons chest yet. She probably only has the standard gear. Why would she need a weapons chest at this stage of her career?
“It’s fine, Sakura. Just means we have another thing added to the shopping list for this afternoon. In this stage of your career, I get why you don’t have a weapons chest yet; you probably only have the academy basic gear. Right? But that won’t be the case for long, so we better get you one today.” He finished the statement with a smile, hoping it would get rid of the anxious look in her eyes.
“Why am I always behind?”
What?
“You said all ninjas had something like it, but I don’t have one. I remember Ino showing me hers when I went to visit once. And I don’t have one.”
Well, fuck.
“…You’re not behind, you’re right at where you’re supposed to be. Your graduating class was just… irregular.”
“But they’re who everyone will look at to compare me to, so I am behind.”
Double fuck. Think idiot. How do you comfort a child? Triple fuck.
“Uh. Well, for one, they’re all clan kids. I mean I get it cus the clan heads all planned to have them in the same year so that they could maintain power structures and team traditions and whatever. But that’s not on you! I mean it’s pretty impressive that you didn’t flunk out at all with those standards! I mean, look at how many of your classmates didn’t pass their genin exams! I didn’t have one until I graduated either!”
The silence after his short, vaguely terrible attempt to reassure Sakura was awkward. But the small smile she gave him in return made up for it.
“Look. You’re gonna be fine, kid. You’ve got me, and I’m not gonna let you fall behind. Besides, do your teammates know how to tree walk or sorta use a wakizashi? I don’t think so. That’s all you.”
Sakura gave a weak giggle at his comment about the wakizashi, “Does that mean I can try real steel soon?”
“God no, I need you to keep all your fingers where they are. Attached to you.”
The next giggle was stronger. Good, I didn’t fuck that too badly.
“Now come look at the chest and tell me what you like or don’t like about it. And then we can head to the shops.”
***
Sakura had never spent much time in the shinobi shopping district. It was insular, not welcoming like the civilian shopping district. Then again, that made sense. Shinobi went to the shinobi shopping district, where you bought yards of ninja wire instead of bolts of fabric and weapons instead of cutlery and body armour instead of a new outfit. They didn’t want an unsuspecting civilian kid to get their hands on an exploding tag. Her mother didn’t like taking her there. She did it because Sakura needed her gear; but they always left quickly. Mebuki said it was because they were always in a rush, but Sakura thought it was because she wasn’t used to being surrounded by so many shinobi and weapons.
Now, with Genma leading her to his favourite stores, Sakura got to take it in, properly. The various stalls, blacksmiths, weapon vendors, shinobi clothing stores, and shinobi pharmacies. All run by what Sakura had to assume were specialists in the field or retired and off-duty shinobi. She could even see a couple of stores that seemed to be run by specific clans. It was beautiful, all dark greens and reds with earth tones, shinobi streaming through the street, it was sunny, but in those cloudy patches of warmth way, that was Sakura’s favourite. It hadn’t rained in weeks, but Sakura never did like summer rain much, always too humid. The street was loud like a murmur was loud in a silent room, smatterings of laughter in between bartering and the exchange of ryo.
The first store he leads her into is small, the shelves covered with weapon chests of every kind. “Tsuki! Where are you? I got a rookie in need of her first chest!”
“Calm the fuck down, Shiranui. No need to shout, I’m right here.”
Genma grinned at the woman who popped out from behind the counter, a disapproving hand on her hip. Sakura absently noted that she was missing an ear, although she didn’t seem self-conscious of that fact, seeing as her deep brown hair was pulled up and away from her face, not hiding anything at all. And she was pretty, under the age and the silver scaring along her temple.
Turning her gaze towards Sakura, Tsuki smiled brightly. “Now, who have you brought me? I didn’t think they gave brats to men like you.”
“Tsuki, this is Sakura, my newest rookie. Sakura, this is Tsuki, the best carpenter I’ve ever met. She does all the repairs on my chest when I fuck it up.”
Tsuki’s smile seemed to freeze at Genma’s words, but Sakura couldn’t figure out why she seemed taken aback. But she unfroze quickly. “Damn right I do! Now, Sakura, what are you looking for today?”
Sakira shook herself, squaring her shoulders. “A chest large enough to fit a standard-issue wakizashi, 4 sets of kunai, 5 sets of shuriken, 2 bushels of ninja wire, a basic sealing kit, a cleaning and sharpening kit, a wet stone, and 8 scrolls. With enough room for the possibility of future weapons specialisation, but nothing longer than a wakizashi.”
“That’s pretty specific, kid. But that makes my life easier at least. Anything else?”
Genma cut in, “And poison compartments like mine, please.”
Sakura whipped around to stare at him in confusion. “But I don’t use poisons?”
“But you will. Otherwise, what would be the point of me training you? It’s not like I’m ever gonna have a kid to pass the info to and the village has been on my ass about teaching someone it all, so it might as well be you.”
Sakura could almost feel her eyes glaze over at his statement, “Oh. Cool.”
Genma looked at her for a moment before turning back to Tsuki, “So how long and how much do you think it’ll be?”
Tsuki leaned down and brought up a notebook and began to write as she responded, “Gimme 3 weeks; this real nice oak just came in; it’s this amazing deep red. Oaks are a good wood, strong and resistant to the elements when treated right. I’ll throw that in no extra charge just cus she’s your kid, and the poison compartments‘ll be an extra 2250 ryo. So, that’ll all come up to about 17025 ryo.”
Sakura was floored by the price. Both by how technically affordable it was, but also how much of a chunk it would take out of her month of savings. She turned to Genma anxiously, “I don’t think I’ll be able to get everything you said I needed…”
Genma chuckled down at her, “Don’t sweat it, kid. Think of the chest as a graduation gift! But you’re covering everything else.”
“But-”
“Nope, graduation gift.”
Genma grabbed her shoulders, turning her around before she could continue to protest, giving Tsuki a quick shout of appreciation as they left the store. Tsuki’s laughter followed them out.
The next store he pushed her into was a clothing store. Racks upon racks of reinforced shinobi clothing, designed to be tear-proof and stain resistant.
Genma turned her back around to face him. “Okay, so here’s the plan. You’re gonna wander in there and pick out anything you like the look of, and I’m gonna wander off as well to find some of my own stuff. Please stick to dark tones found in nature, and then you’re gonna come find me and we’ll go through it, and I’ll help you figure out what’s good or bad, yea?”
“Kay.”
“Good, off you go!”
Sakura kept away from the dresses and skirts, passed over anything that looked too bulky or flowy. Instead, picking out a couple pairs of standard pants that ended at mid-calf in various shades of black, navy or grey. Tops were a little more varied, with different sleeve lengths and necklines.
Picking out a couple of simple t-shirts, sleeveless turtlenecks and a black long-sleeved turtleneck with thumb holes that she was particularly attached to. Although in all honesty, she just liked thumbholes in long-sleeved tops.
Sakura tried to stick to earth tones; she really did. Everything she had picked up was some variation of green, grey, black and brown. But a red short-sleeved wrap top caught her eye, and she couldn’t quite move on from it. It wasn’t bright red like her dress; it was a deep mahogany, with charcoal grey accents. It looked grown up, darker and more serious than her qipao.
It’s fine, I’m paying for it, and besides, he said I could wear what I want in village; this can be my in-village top. A graduation present for me, officially a fully-fledged shinobi.
Deciding that she had collected enough to have a week’s worth of training or mission options, Sakura turned to go find Genma.
She found him browsing the body armour section. A section that Sakura never looked at very hard because the one time she tried on Ino’s, she felt weighed down and uncoordinated. Which, looking back, was probably a bad sign given that she was now part of a profession that made her vulnerable to being stabbed.
“Ne ne, Shiranui-san, what type of body armour should I be using? I never had it before because it was too heavy, but I think I’m strong enough now that it won’t impact my ability to perform.”
“A basic top and then knee and elbow braces. I prefer the tank version because I need my shoulders to be more mobile as a projectile and striking specialist, but others might prefer a different set-up depending on specialisations. But you should be fine with that since you’re learning the same style I use.” Genma pulled down the neckline of his shirt to show her, thin chained metal from just above his collarbones down.
Pulling his shirt back into a comfortable place, he continued, “I mean some idiots use them as accessories. Then there are others that prefer to only have one knee or one elbow brace just cus that’s the more dominant side, so it gets more of a beating usually. It’s really up to you. But like, looking good isn’t worth dying for, you know?”
“Anyways, what’ve you got there?”
Sakura lent forward to show him all the things she had collected, watching as he went through each piece and checked the fabric and lengths, briefly pausing and looking at her in question when he found the red top. “It’s just for in village, promise! I just figured that I should start incorporating shinobi clothes into my everyday.”
Genma dropped the top, raising his hands as if to placate a small, scared animal. “Hey, hey, I don’t need an explanation. If you like it, it’s fine. It’s dark enough that I’ll let it slide. It’s not like Stone has conspicuous uniforms, and this is darker than theirs. It’s fine, Sakura.”
Leaning back down to continue his inspection, “Besides, it’s your money. More importantly, I may have opinions on those who put looking good above functionality, but I fully plan on making you good enough that you could fight in a bathrobe and be fine. Just not yet, you know?”
Sakura didn’t know how she felt about that. She liked that he had confidence in her, but she didn’t know how to feel about all that pressure. He had expectations of her, and from the sounds of them, they were large and heavy.
“But what if I never get that good? You said your old teammate never did.”
“She didn’t have me training her up, and she didn’t have the resources you have access to through me.” The way he said it was offhanded, almost like he wasn’t really paying that much attention to what he was saying.
“This all looks good to go. Now, come on, grab some body armour that fits right and you’re comfortable in and let’s get outta here. We have one more stop today.”
The cost of buying all her new clothing came out to just a little less than what the chest would have cost, but seeing as she wasn’t paying for that, apparently, it actually meant she would be able to buy the rest of her gear.
Genma seemed intent on making sure she was fully prepared for her C-rank, and possibly to take on a small army. Especially with the content of the third and final store he took her to. A weapons store, but not the big, easy-to-find one in the middle of the shinobi shopping district that her mother always took her to. No, this one was smaller and seemingly had a forge connected to it.
This time Genma didn’t give her a set of instructions, only pushed her in and then seemingly wandered off to look around for himself. Swords and staffs lined the walls, compartments filled with senbon, shuriken and cowltrops, stacks of different types of sealing tags, multiple types of kunai. Sakura’s eyes flit across it all, all of it familiar to her, though she’d probably never get the opportunity to use even half the weapons in the store. It was still beautiful.
Sakura went through each row, picking up 2 extra sets of kunai, a set of shuriken, 2 spools of ninja wire, a set of basic trap parts, and a new belt with pouches like Genma’s. His insistence that she has as many pockets as possible was odd, but ultimately made sense. More pockets, more places to hide or store stuff. Sakura continued to wander the store until she turned down the final aisle. Somehow, she had missed Genma in her wandering, but that was fine; the store was small, and she’d have no problem finding him once she was done browsing. The final isle, furthest from the entrance, was a collection of less standard-issue weapons and gear.
Mourning stars, meteor hammers, axes, nagitas, trench knives, senbon launchers, and a wide array of long and short swords. You name it, it was there. Every hyper-specific specialised weapon Sakura knew about, and a couple she couldn’t name.
Sakura spends little while staring at the wakizashis on display. Genma had been right; it didn’t quite fit her, a little too long, a little too heavy for the quick movements she was prone to. The need for a 2 handed grip limited her movements. But she still found herself enjoying it, and he had said she was getting better; she was becoming ‘less likely to accidentally lose her thumb every day.’ A win, if you will.
So, a wakizashi was too long, too heavy, required too much of her attention. But she liked the extra reach that a sword gave her. She liked that when Genma sparred with her, the sword allowed her to push him back further than a kunai could, forced him to dodge out of arm's reach of her and, by extension, forced her out of his reach. But just because she enjoyed training with the ANBU standard wakizashi didn’t mean it would be what worked best for her. So, it wasn’t a surprise when her gaze drifted to the rack of tantos.
Genma didn’t really use a sword, it was never the first thing he reached for unless his enemy was also drawing one; and even then, he still might go for a kunai. Genma was an assassination and mid-range specialist, and Sakura assumed that’s what he was trying to make her as well, but an ANBU must be well-rounded, able to use most weapons and at least 2 elements. Able to mould themselves into what the village needed of them.
Sakura had been thinking about it since the middle of the month, once she realised that a wakizashi wasn’t quite right. She needed something that she could use one-handed, something light but with more length than a kunai. A tanto was the most obvious conclusion to make. But maybe it was too soon; she had only become ‘not a danger to herself and others’ with the wakizashi, like, this week. Adding a new blade form to her training might muddle it all.
Just looking couldn’t hurt, though, testing the grip and balance like Genma had shown her how to. Sakura picked up a black bladed tanto, hands wrapping slowly over its forest green bound handle. She gave her wrist an experimental twist, just to see how it was balanced. Perfectly balanced.
A voice shattered her reverie. “I would be offended if I didn’t know it was a show of good training to test any blade you were thinking about taking into the field. How can I help you?”
She startled, almost dropping the blade. “I- oh, I’m sorry, I was just looking! I’m not ready to try anything new yet. I have to become proficient with a wakizashi first.”
The man before her was broad, his shoulders thick and strong, probably from working in the forge. He was bald but had a beard more grey than black. which honestly, Sakura never understood why men did that, but anyways, he had kind eyes, and upon further observation was missing a leg, or at least most of one; she wasn’t sure.
He gave her a rye smile. “Well, be that as it may, you can always get one for later.”
Genma came around the corner. “Knock it off, Ryusuke. Stop trying to get her to buy something she doesn’t need!”
He leant over once he reached them, looking into her arms, “What have you got there, kid?”
“Just a couple extra sets of standard gear for the mission, and a new belt with pouches like you. I’m not getting the tanto, I was just looking. Promise.”
Genma looked at her for a moment before asking, “Why’re you looking at tantos? Not an attack or a criticism, just wanna know the thought process. It’s cool if you were just curious. I feel that way about nagitas, not that I’d ever buy one, but they’re cool.”
Sakura paused to think through her answer. “Well, you said it was unlikely that I would be well suited to using the standard wakizashi, and whilst I do enjoy training with it, I think you were right. And more importantly, I value the increased reach that a longer-bladed weapon gives me, but I also don’t want to be restricted to using both hands for one weapon. So, I figured that a lighter, slightly shorter blade that would allow for one-handed wielding would be better for me. So, like, tanto I guess…”
Sakura anxiously fiddled with the wrappings of the tanto in her hands. The man, Ryusuke, burst into laughter. It was a deep, round laugh. It made her feel warm. Genma’s eyes had widened steadily at each sentence, the customary senbon between his teeth having slackened by the end of her explanation.
Ryusuke slapped Genma on the back, hard enough to jolt him forwards. “Well damn, Genma. Looks like you’ve got a smart one. She might actually make it if she's thinking like that already.”
Genma rubbed the back of his neck, a rueful look in his eyes that Sakura couldn’t for the life of her understand the cause of. “Yea, I guess I do.”
Shifting to look at Sakura Genma brought his hand around to his face, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with a knuckle. “Well damn, Sakura. You seem to have it all figured out. The tanto sounds like the answer to your issue. But you were right, I really don’t want you messing with anything else before you’re better with the wakazashi. Tell you what, we’ll look into getting you a practice one after you come back from wave.”
“No need, I’ll throw one in today for her.”
“Ryu, I can’t let you do that-”
“Fuck off, Genma. She's ur kid. Least I can do for the third generation of Shiranui to patronise this store. I didn’t even know you had a kid?” The question was leading, and Sakura wasn’t sure how she felt about it, besides the fact that she obviously wasn’t Genma’s child.
“Knock it off, Ryu. She's not my kid! She's my rookie. Got her last month and this is her first C-rank, so, shopping trip.”
Ryusuke’s smile dropped at his words, his eyes narrowing.
“I see. Can I speak to you real quick?” He leaned forward to grab Genma’s shoulder, “Don’t worry, kid, you’re still getting that training tanto on the house! Come back here after your mission and I’ll give it to you!” he yelled over his shoulder as he pushed Genma out back to the forge.
***
Genma would like it on record that he did not deserve the stink eye he was getting right now. And that the guilt sweat running down his back was unrelated to the disappointment that lay beneath that stink eye.
“Genma, what the fuck?”
“What do you mean, what the fuck?”
“That’s an 8-year-old.”
“She's obviously 12.”
“And that makes it so much better? I mean, what the shit, man? This is peace time. What the fuck are you doing with a 12-year-old rookie?”
“Look, I’m not exactly jumping for joy about it either, but you should have seen the look Boar gave me when I tried to question it.”
“And what, you said okay to taking on a pink-haired 12-year-old to be the next poison specialist of the leaf?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“That’s not why she was given to me. I only decided to teach her all that, like, today. Figured it would get the council off my dick about finding a successor in case I croak.”
“Then why was she given to you? Since she's not your kid and there's no way we’re going back to recruiting that young after Weasel lost his shit.”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Genma, I knew your Ma when she was coming up, so I want you to know that I say this with all the pseudo-unclely love possible. That bullshit.”
Genma ran a hand down his face, a grimace overcoming him. “I literally cannot tell you. Her jonin sensei doesn’t even know I’m in charge of her. I’m pretty sure only me, Boar, and the fucking Hokage know about this. And now you, because I am choosing to trust you. Don’t get my tongue cut out for this, alright?”
“I know you’re smart, Genma. Whip smart. Are you seriously gonna look at me and tell me this doesn’t feel like it’s got roots all over it?”
Genma felt a prickle go over his neck. “Fuck me, Ryu! You cannot be serious right now. You can’t be throwing that around. You may be retired and outta the mission rosters, but I’m not!”
Ryusuke scoffed, shifting his weight off of his prosthetic, “Oh fuck off, Genma. You know as well as I do Hiruzen likes you too much to let the war hawk near you.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Genma gave a withered sigh. “You know what, fine. I’ll keep an eye on it. And for the record? I know this is fucked. The second I opened her 2-page thick folder and saw baby fat, I knew this was fucked. But I cannot be talking to you about this. Seriously, I’ve already told you too more than I should.”
“You’d better.” Genma turned to walk back into the store, but Ryusuke wasn’t done, not yet.
“I know you, Genma. You wouldn’t have brought her here if she were just another faceless rookie. You care about her. You’ve always been a good shinobi. But this… I think this might require a good man.”
Genma was already walking back into the store, his mind clouded, the spike of adrenaline that came with talking about the war hawk of Konoha still running through him. Ha. A good man. A shinobi cannot afford to be a good man.
Sakura had waited dutifully by the register; her gear held tight to her chest. God, she’s so small. And young.
“Common, kid. Let’s get outta here. Throw it all on my tab with my usual order, Ryu!”
***
Kakashi was late, but that was on purpose. Very few things Kakashi did when not in active combat or in immediate danger were accidents, and even those were very, very rare. Again, being late was less on purpose now and more of a routine at this point. When he first started making himself late to things on purpose, it was more of a way to punish himself and keep Obito at the front of his mind.
And so, as he stood before the KIA memorial at 8:30 in the morning, he couldn’t help but feel at ease; the anxiety that used to cling to his bones at the thought of being late had long since left him. He knew he couldn’t be as late as he usually was, not if they wanted to make it to wave in 7 days, but routines were good. But this was good, even if he was technically running a different routine to everyone else.
Sending a silent prayer up to Rin and Obito, Kakashi disappeared, the feeling of a shushin so ingrained in him now it was like blinking at this point. Between one blink and another, he was back at his apartment. His pack had been untouched for almost 7 months now, being forced to take a team and then kill time until he could shunt them off into the chunin exams. And yet it didn’t have a speck of dust on it. In complete honesty, whilst he had adopted some of Obito’s traits, he never could get rid of his need to maintain at least some degree of order.
His pack held the essentials plus a good degree of extra bullshit that he wouldn’t normally bring with him. An extra med-kit, a truly stupid amount of extra ration bars, 3 emergency blankets, 4 extra sets of kunais instead of his usual 2, and a stash of hard candy in a waterproof baggy to protect them from Wave humidity. In all honesty, Kakashi didn’t fuck with kids, like at all, and his own memories of childhood and other children were apparently ‘grossly irregular’ and ‘a dumpster fire’, whatever that means. So, he was basing a lot of this off observation and the safe assumption that children were stupid and prone to injury. And stupid.
Giving his apartment a quick once-over, Kakashi left a note on his nightstand for Genma so that he knew where he was and approximately when he’d be back, seeing as he hadn’t seen him since the mission assignment. Engaging his traps on both his window sills and his door, Kakashi took a quick glance at the sun's location in the sky and determined he was now late enough to keep up appearances but would arrive early enough to reach the stopping point he wanted them to get to for today. His door closed with a soft click and the quiet hum of his seal trap coming to life.
Roof top travel was normal in most hidden villages, and it was quicker than running or walking in the streets. Ninja’s jumping from roof to roof and sliding down fire escapes or walking down walls was the norm. If it was early enough, you would see shift change greet each other between the two buildings closest to the main gate. Kakashi knew the route to the main gate like the back of his hand. It was mindless to hop from roof to roof. A block away from the main gate, he dropped down onto the street, raising from a slight crouch into a lazy amble as he made his way towards the 4 people in the distance.
Kakashi rocked up to the main gate an hour late, a personal best in his opinion. The screeching from Minato’s son said otherwise, but that wasn’t really his problem. The bridgebuilder was upset but also possibly too hungover to do anything but grunt at this hour. Sasuke seemed intent on trying to kill him with his eyes alone, and given whose family it was, it makes sense that he thinks he can do that. And the girl. The girl is different today.
She stood just like she always did, her shoulders rolled forward, her eyes on Sasuke and her hands idle but not ready. But her hair was up and away, braided tight and coiled into a low bun at the base of her neck, and she had seemingly done away with her dress. Instead, she wore dark brown calf-length pants with obvious pockets, a black long-sleeve turtleneck with thumb holes and a dark green sleeveless top. It was a complete 180° from her usual style, and whilst the commanding officer in him rejoiced at the more logical choice of dress, the rest of him felt wrong-footed in the sudden change. And curious.
Kakashi gave his signature close-eyed smile as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “My bad guys. I had to help a little old lady take her groceries home.”
“LIAR!”
Right on cue.
“Well, if we’re all here, let's head out! Lots of ground to cover! Common, I’ll show you all how to sign out for a mission!”
Walking was the only option given that the bridgebuilder was civilian. But God, do I hate civilian travel. It’s so inefficient and slow. The kids seemed content to walk, attempting to chat with each other, despite their clashing personalities. Which he supposes was good. Any attempts to actually get along reduce the likelihood he’d need to step in if any of them decide to stab each other too much. Seeing as he was being ignored and had been for the past 3 hours, Kakashi took the time to observe the kids’ packs.
He had given vague instructions on what to pack, assuming that their academy sensei would have briefed them on the different gear they would need in different climates. Now, Kakashi couldn’t really tell everything that was in the bags on account of them being closed, but he could make educated guesses based on sound, smell and what he could see. It always shocked him how the kids always seemed to perform on a sliding scale of horrendous to pretty damn good, but the pattern holds true once again.
Naruto’s pack was old and badly stitched back together, a pot dangling from a carabiner attached to a loop. It looked like he had brought an extra set of kunai, some loose shuriken, a trap kit, spools of ninja wire, a sleeping bag, a blanket, and what appeared to be several instant ramen packets pocking out of the overstuffed bag. Which was. A choice. Really a set of choices, all of which indicated that even if his academy sensei had explained how to pack a bag based on mission location, Naruto certainly wasn’t listening.
Sasuke was in slightly better shape, his bag looked lightly used, the waxed canvas still slightly shiny. The bag wasn’t bursting at the seams like Naruto’s, but Kakashi could tell from his position that it was still overpacked. Extra sets of kunai, sets of shuriken, spools of ninja wire, a sleeping bag, a med-kit, ration bars and… a large foldable shuriken attached to the side of his pack. Given that Kakashi hadn’t taught him how to use that, and he had also never seen Sasuke use it, Kakashi wasn’t feeling too great about letting him keep it.
And finally. Sakura. The girl, who by all accounts should have overpacked the worst. And yet, her bag seemed to have room in it; he could hear the tell-tale sound of crinkling tarp against rope and ninja wire. Ration bars, a med-kit, a cleaning and sharpening kit, sets of kunai, a set of shuriken, a sleeping mat, her toiletries (all unsented?), extra sets of clothes, and a compact shallow pot attached to the side of her bag on both ends so it wouldn’t clank when she moved. She was packed light, almost economical. He was expecting to have to have a talk about the dangers of scented body wash and the uselessness of bringing a tent on a mission to a humid country. Or like make-up or something. But this, this was... good. Really good actually, but odd.
“Sakura, come walk with me for a bit. The boys can keep an eye on the client.”
She slowed her pace immediately, turning her head to glance at him. “Yes, Sensei?”
“I notice that you’ve changed your outfit?” She twitched, taking another quick glance at him. Kakashi tried to make himself look more approachable than usual. Rounded shoulders and a slouch were usually all it took, but she seemed anxious. He gave her what he assumed a reassuring smile would be for her.
“Oh, um, yea. I liked my qipaos, but I figured it would be more logical to wear pants on actual missions. Less fabric to get caught on things and stuff?”
Things and stuff.
“I absolutely agree. That’s very smart, Sakura!”
Praise was good, right? Kids liked praise. Then again, he knew very little about Sakura, her file being the easiest to go over from the 3 brats. It was noted down that she deferred to authority, so it makes sense that she would enjoy praise.
“No more red?”
Kakashi didn’t really have a reason for this line of questioning other than he was curious and never let it be said that Kakashi Hatake was not a nosy son of a bitch. A title he wore with pride.
“No, no more red. I noticed that most of the chunin and jonin wear darker colors found in nature, and since this would be the first time I was leaving the village on a mission, I should probably do the same. Like camouflage?”
So, the academy wasn’t lying when they said she was smart. Very smart. Or at least she was observant enough to make educated connections and then act on them. She was also taking this first real mission seriously, which was endlessly gratifying considering that when he had seen the note about her being a bit of a fangirl, he had assumed that he would be stuck making sure she wasn’t starving herself or covering herself in perfume. But no, she had a healthy amount of fat, even some visible muscle upon a closer look and was basically scentless. Maybe she just needed a little time to be a child or whatever before taking her job seriously? Not that Kakashi knew anything about that, but like he said, educated guess work and vibes.
The next 2 days were much the same, slow and horrifically boring. The one-sided chatter from Naruto is now the only noise outside of the forest. He had already read this edition of Make Out Paradise 4 times, but he enjoyed the predictability of it. It was always very algorithmic; they always kissed by the 10th chapter, they always had a third act break-up, and then there were sprinkles of physically impossible sex throughout all of it. Plus, the comedy wasn’t half bad. It was a bit like that time he found Obito’s love letter to Rin; the second-hand embarrassment almost killed him between giggling too hard to breathe. So bad, you had to laugh. Then again, sometimes it wasn’t even porn, sometimes he just kept the sleeve and put it on something else. It was usually badly written porn, though.
It was on the third day that Kakashi noticed something was wrong. There were puddles up ahead. It hadn’t rained in weeks. And he couldn’t hear water moving nearby and he knew there weren’t any ponds in this area. Kakashi watched as Sasuke and Naruto walked by unaware of the sudden danger they were in. But Sakura was suddently tense, her shoulders had rolled back, her hands idle but now with a slight twitch in the wrist, like she was trying to stop herself from grabbing for a kunai. Good. Unexpected but good. Kakashi didn’t have time to think about it too hard before the trap was sprung, specifically as soon as Tazuna walked by the puddles.
Two ninjas with mist uniforms sprang from the puddles on opposite sides of Kakashi. It took basically nothing to trap everyone in a basic visual genjutsu. The mirage of him being torn in half was gruesome. Genjustsu, like this, is a little tough if you’re not familiar with how it works, you plant a suggestion, why altering what the optical receptors receive, the demon brothers technically controlled what it looked like, but it made sure they didn’t see him shushin away. Unfortunately for his students, for the plan to work, they also had to witness his death.
By the time the boys had turned, Sakura had already pushed Tazuna towards the tree line, her back to him, but a kunai already drawn to defend him. She was good; it was a textbook response to unexpected attack while dealing with multiple assailants and only one defendant. Naruto was frozen, staring at his ‘corpse’. Sasuke had prounced on the ninja lunging for his frozen form, delivering a swift kick to the back of his knees, wrapping his small hands around the mist ninja’s chin and the back of his head, and yanking. Neck snapped. Pretty good form too.
The other mist-nin yelled out for his brother. Jerking forward with a pretty brutal backhand, Sasuke went skidding backwards. The mist-nin advanced with him, raising his sword to strike downwards. Oop, that’s my cue.
A kawarimi with a stone behind the mist-nin took him close enough to grab his wrist before he could swing. “That’s enough of that. I can’t let you hurt my precious students.” A hard chop to the back of his neck had the nin falling forward, unconscious.
“Kakashi-sensei! You’re alive!?”
Kakashi made quick work of tying the nin up, glancing up to check on his students; however, they were staring at him in various levels of horror and anger. The most interesting part about them, however, was that Sakura was still tense. When Tazuna tried to come out from behind her, she roughly shoved him back.
“It’s alright, Sakura, the fight's over.”
Sakura twitched, flipping the grip on her kunai for defence. “Fuck off, how do I know you’re who you say you are?”
Kakashi raised an eyebrow. “Take a look and see if my ‘body’ is still there. What you saw was just a genjutsu. I wanted to see who they’d go for.” He gestured for good measure.
Sasuke had tensed again at Sakura’s words, jerking his hand back to his weapon pouch, but not taking anything else out. Both of them took quick glances at where his body was supposed to be.
“Kai.” A soft barely there burst of chakra rippled out from her.
Wow. She really doesn’t trust me. Rude.
Sakura had finally put the kunai away and let Tazuna out from behind her, though she did then proceed to gently nudge him into the middle of their messy circle formation. Satisfied that he was in fact actually himself and not an enemy, though still not relaxed. Which Kakashi was quietly thrilled with, because being naturally suspicious of everyone and everything was a good trait to have.
“WE SAW YOU DIE! YOU BASTARD!”
Sakura leaned over and swatted at the back of Naruto’s head with a reprimand ready, “You can’t talk to him like that; he’s a commanding officer, you dolt!”
Even Sasuke looked upset, though not too upset to then taunt Naruto for freezing up. Children are mean.
Sakura shuffled over to him. They made weird eye contact for a bit before she finally said, “Kakashi-sensei, I’m sorry for swearing at you. I should have trusted you.”
Right, well. I need to correct that line of thinking. Whilst Kakashi knew why she was apologising, what with her previous statement to Naruto, the situation was different. Naruto was being stupid. Sakur had been cautious, maybe a little aggressive, but that was to be expected from anyone who just experienced combat for the first time. Shit, speaking of, Sasuke just had his first kill, which means he needs to go to psych when he gets back. He’s gonna be a weirdo about it when I talk to him later. He’s been saying odd shit since I got him. Which, like, can’t blame him, but also, it must stop.
“Ah, no need, Sakura. I was actually going to tell you that I was quite impressed with how you reacted. You should always be on guard if something like this happens. You were right not to trust me. You reacted quickly and protected the client.”
***
In all honesty, Sakura wasn’t sorry; it was a dick move, but she did have to keep up appearances. And to some degree, she had panicked and forgotten how she was supposed to act when she saw Kakashi’s body get torn in two. Idiot, you didn’t even check on the body once the other enemy had been engaged. It would have been fine if she hadn’t cursed at him. Haruno Sakura did not curse because she was a good civilian daughter. A young lady. But Sakura did. Sakura was a ninja, an ANBU in training. Sakura would do worse in life than swear.
It was nice of Kakashi to tell her she had done the right thing in protecting Tazuna and not trusting him. She just wished he hadn’t said it so loud. Now Sasuke was glaring at her. Sakura didn’t think he had done it on purpose; he probably thought the civilian born didn’t know how to conduct herself as a ninja. Which, granted, as a fresh graduate, she didn’t really, but spending 7 hours a day with Genma had greatly improved her understanding of what was or wasn’t acceptable. But still, Sasuke-
Kakashi’s voice brought her back to the present. “Who sent you after Tazuna? Because you guys aren’t good enough to think you could take me in for a bounty. Demon Mist Brothers, right? You guys defected like 2 years ago, chunin?”
“Suck a cock and choke. I’m not telling you shit. You killed my brother.”
“Maa maa~ That’s so rude, and in front of children no less. Why don’t you come over here with me, and we’ll keep talking.” With that, Kakashi took hold of the rope around the mist-nin’s torso and began dragging him into the woods off to the side.
As if remembering that the kids were still there waiting for instruction, he turned back briefly and said, “Gimme like 10 minutes, keep an eye on Tazuna. I’ll be right back!”
…He was going to interrogate that man, maybe even torture him. Am I okay with that?
Inner whispered through the slit in the door she had made. He tried to kill us. Plus, he was the enemy, and we need the information he has; it's necessary for our survival. The door used to repair itself with enough time, but it hadn’t this time. Inner was supposed to help her; she was stronger than Sakura. But she was also angry. And mean. And violent. It’s why she had to stay behind the door.
Shut up. I know. I know.
Notes:
Hiiiii, im baaaccckkk
this is a big one but im starting to believe that they're all going to be around this length so yay for you guys I guess??
drop a comment, they keep be aliveeeee!
I'm already working on 6 but I dunno if that'll translate into it coming out in a timely manner. Bare with me.
Lots of love!
Chapter 6: Blood and Thunder
Summary:
The middle and end of the wave arc and all it's ensuing action, drama and mystery
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“You haven’t been completely honest with us.”
Kakashi looked pissed. Granted, Sakura could only see like a ¼ of this face, but the part she could see was visibly unhappy. He had disappeared for 30 minutes, not a sound coming from the area of the woods he had taken the mist-nin. He had come back alone. While he was gone, Sakura had gotten Naruto and Sasuke to help her get the other body into one of the bounty scrolls Genma had given her. Though he had said. “I'd better get all of those back; it’s a C-rank you shouldn’t be finding anyone worth a bounty. But just in case.”
Oops? I guess?
Tazuna sputtered. “Wha- Yes, I have.”
“No, because if you had been. The most we would have encountered were bandits. Maybe. Not chunin missing-nin. And the one I just finished speaking to says they were told to wait for you, specifically. So, let’s try this again. Who are you?”
“N-nobody, I’m just a bridge builder going back to his family.”
“Wave is a port-based country. Why would a bridge builder live there? Unless you do more than build bridges, a carpenter or builder, maybe? Why call yourself a bridge builder in a country with no major bridges?”
Genma had talked to her about that. Wave was a technically a series of islands, not really a country, however Tazuna lived on the one closest to the mainland, it was also one of the poorest. Wave’s entire economy was reliant on a shipping conglomerate; there were no large-scale bridges that connected the islands to each other or the mainland.
“Why do you think I’m based on the mainland? I’m just going back to visit my daughter and grandson. She lost her husband recently.”
“You’re going back to try and build a bridge to the mainland.”
Both men’s heads whipped to her. Fuck.
Tazuna started to visibly sweat. Kakashi was looking at her, but he didn’t seem upset with her. Fuck it. I might as well finish the thought.
“You live in one of the poorest areas of Wave, and you work on the mainland as a bridge builder. And now you’re going back. You said that you had just finished a large-scale project, over 5 kilometers long. That’s about the distance from the mainland to your island, isn’t it?”
Sakura was on a roll now, Tazuna wide-eyed at her. “You’re going to try and undermine the shipping conglomerate’s hold on your country’s economy by creating a free passage to the mainland, and possibly then build more to the other islands. And somehow, they know you’re on your way back. So, they sent those missing-nin to take care of you.”
Her mind was working faster than her mouth could keep up, she could practically feel the wheels turning. If they had already sent chunin after them, what was next?
Kakashi seems to have reached the same conclusion as her, because he immediately turns back to Tazuna and demands, “You need to tell us exactly who is after you. We are not equipped nor qualified to handle what you might of just dragged us into. I will not endanger my students just because you were too cheap to get this mission ranked correctly.”
“Look, please. I need your help. I couldn’t afford higher than a C-rank! I just need your help to get there safely! I already have a crew hired and the supplies arrived the day we’re set to arrive. My people are starving to death in the streets because Gato marks all imports up 300% and steals everything worth selling! I could fix it. Make it better for my grandson.” Tazuna’s speech had started out frantic and pleading, but by the end it was almost resigned.
There was a moment of silence as they all absorbed his words. Well, Sakura was fairly certain Kakashi just wanted to see what would happen next, but Naruto seemed to be actually thinking about something for once, so it should be encouraged. Sasuke was, as usual, blank if not for the slight pinch between his brows.
Sakura was conflicted, most of her felt for him. Truly. His people were dying, and he knew how to help them; he had the skills to help them. But the other part of her thought he was a fool. And she told him so. “You’re a fool if you think this Gato guy won’t just kill you when we leave. If what you said about how much control he has over Wave is right, you won’t be safe.”
Kakashi stepped in after she had finished, likely because she really shouldn’t be talking to a client that way. “Very good, Sakura. She’s right. What’s stopping us from ditching you right now?” Or not.
“Please don’t! I know I lied, but if you don’t help me, people will die! It’s not right!”
“We can’t just leave him! The people of Wave need us! We gotta help save them!” Apparently, Naruto had opinions. Dangerous ones. Then again, Sakura understood where he was coming from, they would be helping thousands, maybe hundred thousands if they survived. If.
C-ranks aren’t supposed to restructure entire countries. C-ranks weren’t supposed to involve high-ranked enemy ninja. C-ranks were for genin and chunin and bored jonin who needed the cash. They weren’t ready for this. It was dangerous, only a month out of the academy, and Naruto wanted to keep going. Moron.
Sakura couldn’t even attempt to stop herself from gaping at Kakashi when he said, “Fine, but only if we all agree to continue this mission.”
What the fuck?
She was shocked, stunned, bam-fucking-boozled. Because what the fuck is that? Oh, yea sure, like that isn’t a death sentence. They can’t restructure a country, they’re genin! Gato is going to send mercenaries, and then they’ll die. And Genma would be so angry at her.
“Let’s put it to a vote, do we continue or turn back? Hands for continue.”
Naruto’s hand went straight up, of course and so did Sasuke’s a moment later and then they both turned to her. Son of a bitch! She was already out voted, and Sasuke would be pissed at her if she disagreed with him. The motion to raise her hand as well was barely a thought before it had happened, the motion too fast and jerky to be natural. I’m going to end up dying or blowing my cover and then Genma is gonna make me run a million fucking shit balling laps. FUCK! Generally, Sakura tried not to swear too much out loud, her mother still very much disapproving of the habit, but Genma said she could with him, and she was doing inside her head so its fine.
Kakashi clapped once, “It’s decided, we continue.” He then turned to pin Tazuna with a shockingly cold look. “But you tell us everything from here on out. No more lies.”
God, I kind of hate all of them right now. Kakashi must have a plan or think it’ll be fine. Theres no way he would allow this otherwise, it’s dangerous and stupid and has Sakura mentioned dangerous?
***
Genma had been distantly anxious since she told him she had a mission. And not the kind of anxious that came before an ambush or, like, a fight. Anxious like he needed to follow her out those gates, she was good enough to survive most things a C-rank would throw at her but what if it all went wrong? What then? It was silly, she’d be back in 2 weeks, and it’d be fine.
With Sakura and his maybe-boyfriend gone, Genma suddenly had a lot of free time. Like an offensive amount. Granted, he planned to use it to get less shit at the hirashin or work on grappling. But first, he had a meeting with Boar. Yay. Because the last one turned out so great.
Getting into HQ was like it always was, convoluted but ultimately necessary. Into the forest, down a hole in the ground that you could only access if you had an ANBU seal, through a tunnel, down a specific tunnel from a set of 7 tunnels, feed your chakra into a seal that you were keyed into, and then up into the underground black ops bunkers. Home of the TI division and the ANBU HQ, complete with medical, training rooms, armory, and offices. And many, many cells and interrogation rooms.
The two divisions were separated but given the nature of their work often overlapped enough that Nidaime thought it more efficient to have them be in the same place. Plus, most of TI were ANBU simply because that level of clearance could only be given to those specialized and skilled enough to be in ANBU. Genma wasn’t overtly keen on most of TI, the kind of nin that succeeded in TI was often the weirdest type of nin. He liked Anko and Ibiki in the abstract, when they weren’t being strange and off-putting about each other or everything in general. Kuranai was cool but she only just made jonin and now had a collection of brats to look out for and thus probably wasn’t around as much. Which made Genma’s plans a lot shorter after he got this meeting over with, unless he could find Raidou or something, maybe force him to practice grappling with him.
Given the stories that people get told about the two divisions, you’d think that the HQ’s would be creepy and dark and sad. But it was actually quite boring and normal looking, lots of beige and florescent lighting; well everywhere prisoners never saw, that area of TI was an utter shit show, most of it for display but a lot of it was real. Boar’s door looked as annoyingly normal as it always did, a small plaque next to the beige door. A quick pulse of his tattoo to let him know Genma had arrived.
Boar’s monotone drifted through the door. “Come in.”
The door closed with a soft click.
“What’s this meeting about? I thought my assignment meant I wasn’t being sent out unless there was a need for me specifically?”
“You’re not. This is a check-in. I want to know how the asset is coming along.”
Ah. Well. This Genma could do. “The asset is progressing well; they’ve mastered tree walking and are a month away from moving onto real steel for the wakizashi. I have begun training her in my signature style; however, it is likely that she will require outside training to find the right style for herself. Her chakra control was flagged for a genjutsu affinity. Whilst I am not a specialist, I have begun teaching her simple genjustsu techniques, noncombative ones.”
Boar was signing forms when Genma got in and hadn’t stopped since. The rhythmic scratch of his pen was a dull background noise as Genma rattled off the basics of what he had been having Sakura do for the last month.
“-I plan to begin teaching them my mother’s techniques when they return from their current assignment.”
That got his attention. “A poison specialist?”
“I thought it was time to pass on my skills. I am getting old.” Genma wasn’t old by most people’s terms, but he wasn’t most people. He was a ninja. And an assassination specialist. The average life span of a ninja was 35. 20 for assassins. Genma was pushing it at 28.
“The council has been pushing you for years to take an apprentice. Why now? Why her?” It was the first time either had properly addressed Sakura the girl, instead of Sakura the asset.
Genma took it as a sign that he was allowed to address the girl. “Her speciality lends itself to silent deaths. Hard to explain deaths. What better way to do so than the poisons?”
“She’s not predicted to make it past 15. I’d suggest choosing one that’ll last. You’ve mentioned how long the process is to gain immunity and learn how to synthesise the poisons.”
Genma had, in fact said that during a meeting with the council when they asked him to take an apprentice when he was stuck in the village for a couple of months. “I assumed that the asset would be under my command for longer than a year. And she wouldn’t be my apprentice. Just a student.”
Apprenticeships were sort of old-fashioned. They were far more common during the warring state period when skills were coveted; clans each had a specialization and were insular to protect their knowledge. When masters had secrets and almost every intention of dying with them, an apprentice was the norm but not the expectation. Konoha didn’t operate like that. If a nin had skills unique to them that could be taught, you best believe they were going to be asked to pass them on so that the village didn’t lose an asset, sometimes even asked to give classes on the skill if it wasn’t too dangerous or specialised. It’s always good to have a backup plan.
“Just a student.” Genma didn’t know what Boar’s face looked like, and quite frankly, he liked it that way, but even without that knowledge he knew an eyebrow was up and judging him. It wasn’t like Genma hadn’t thought about it, but the logistics of her being his apprentice while within the seduction and infiltration division was a nightmare. Not to mention the fact that being her handler and her master would be a massive conflict of interest.
“I have no intention of taking an apprentice. My family line dies with me, and so do our practices. But not my mother’s knowledge.” Mostly true.
Apprenticeships were different from students; a student could be an apprentice, but an apprentice wasn’t just a student. An apprenticeship was as close to an adoption as it could be without being one. They learned their master’s nindo; they learned everything it was to be their master. Usually, an apprenticeship started early, and fresh graduates were taken, usually moving in with their master and then continued throughout their career until mastery was met. Minato had an apprenticeship with Jiraya. He never really had a genin team, instead joining any team that needed a third.
“Hm.”
Lie effectively. Like a winner.
The rest of the debrief went similarly. Genma said something, Boar made a noise that Genma attempted to decipher and answer correctly, Boar made another noise and so and so forth. Once Genma had been dismissed, he began the trek over to the intelligence division. If he was lucky, Raidou would be around; if he wasn’t, at least he would be able to check in on Shikao and get some advice. The jonin didn’t have a team this year on account of failing them for ‘being so stupid they couldn’t think themselves out of a paper bag.’ Then again, Genma was fairly certain that they just didn’t want to deal with kids when they could be collecting information and coming up with counterintelligence strategies.
Poking his head into Raidou’s team’s office and being met with an empty office was, to some degree, expected but not welcome.
On to Shikao then. Their office proved to contain what he was looking for. A person to bother. “Shikao~ It’s Genma, come to bother you!”
“Fuck off, Shiranui! I have shit to do.” It was less of a yell and more of a halfhearted grumble.
“You know, I have an actual reason to come see you. No need to be so rude. I know you’re not in one of your hyper-fixation spirals right now because you responded! The rules state I can come around if you’re verbal!”
“That rule was from when we were chunin and I had less paperwork.”
Genma scoffed, “Oh, please, you live for paperwork. It’s all spy paperwork and secrets anyway. Your two favorite things. Besides, I need a consult.”
That got their attention. Shikao was one of Shikaku’s cousins, a stern-looking person with the signature Nara ponytail and a deadpan expression. Red eyeliner decorated the inner and outer corners of their eyes. Genma didn’t know a signal stupid Nara, but he also knew that even the Nara had geniuses within their standards. Shikao was one of them. If there was one thing Shikao knew well, it was how to create a functioning intelligence network. Even when they were genin, Shikao knew everything there was to know about basically anyone genin would want gossip about. If Genma was asking for a consult from them, they absolutely wanted to know why.
“You? Need a consult from me? Why?” The ‘tell me everything’ had been left unsaid. They didn’t say that anymore, hadn’t since they graduated from the academy. Shikao had learned that more often than not, silence and waiting could get them just as many answers as pushing, usually more.
Never let it be said that a Nara will take any path but the one of least resistance. There was a reason people were warned about giving a Nara a reason to be motivated.
“I’ve got a rookie. Seduction and Infiltration Division. With a specialisation in assassination and intelligence gathering.”
Their eyebrow gave a twitch, a threat of a frown forming at the corner of their lips. “Can I get a name? Since she apparently works for me?”
“’fraid not. This one only reports through me to Boar. You get whatever Boar sends along to Intel.”
The frown was no longer a threat.
“That’s bullshit. I run the counterintelligence unit. Try again.”
Genma gave a frustrated sigh, throwing his arms up. “It literally isn’t! I’m pretty sure only Boar and the fucking Hokage know I’m in charge of her.”
Their eyes narrowed even further.
“Look. Are you gonna help me figure out how to make her a spy or not?”
“…Fine. Do you have a psych profile for her? What kind of mission is she going on?”
Now, they were getting somewhere. The nice thing about Shikao was that they understood the value of a secret. If Genma was telling the truth and he had been given a rookie that only the head of ANBU and the head of the village knew about, it wasn’t for them to know. Not that it would stop them from trying to figure it out passively.
“I can give you a mockup of the psych profile but you and I both know you aren’t cleared to know what they get up to.”
Shikao rolled their eyes. “Ugh. Fine.” Finally putting their pen away, they brought their arms up to cross them.
“She defers to authority, comes from a mostly stable home. Civilian born. Has a couple hang ups about ‘murder of innocents’,” Genma knew putting quotations on that was petty, but seriously? Who thought like that? “But she does as told. Highly intelligent, like maybe even Nara smart. She’s shown an aptitude for undercover work in that she’s been able to effectively hide the fact that she’s being trained by me from her sensei. Great memory too.”
The frown was back. “Hold the fuck on-”
“What?”
“She still has a fucking sensei?! How old is this rookie?”
“I can’t give you an age. But she’s pre-pubescent.”
“And in the SI division.”
“Yes.”
“Well fuck, no wonder no one but Boar and the fucking Hokage knows about this. The whole civilian council and a third of the shinobi council would be up in arms. We stopped taking actual fucking kids into that division after the second war.”
“I know the civilian council is touchy about the legal age for adulthood for shinobi, but I don’t think they would be that upset.”
“You said she came from a stable home and struggles with killing ‘innocents’, no clan brat thinks like that. There are no innocents other than the ones Konoha says there are to us. Thus, she’s a civilian born. Which means the civilian council will absolutely care. Clan brats are beasts from day one to them, but a precious civilian flower corrupted by murders?”
Well shit. They got me there. See, this is why I don’t talk to Nara very often; they always end up knowing too much about things they shouldn’t. Granted, Genma was the one who sought them out this time. But he always forgets that Shikao could and would talk a circle around him and then still leave with all the information they wanted from him.
Slumping and turning his head up to the ceiling in defeat, Genma groaned. “Fine. She’s a civilian genin, but I’m not telling you anything else.”
Shikao looked like they wanted to ask more questions about who it was, but Genma had now relearned his lesson; he needed to get this conversation to less treasonous territory. “Tell me how to make sure she doesn’t croak the second I leave her alone in the field.”
“How much time do you have to prep her?”
“5 months, but she’s out of the village with her team right now for another week and a half.”
“You said she’s hiding the fact that you’re training her from her sensei, who’s her sensei? It’s only impressive if it’s not a moron.”
“Come on, Shika. Try a little harder than that. Even I know that would be a dead giveaway for who she is.”
“Fine, Gen. But we’re gonna have to talk about how much I know about this girl now. I mean, come on, you seriously think there are that many genin teams with pre-pubescent civilian-born girls out of the village right now due back in a week and a half? If I were an enemy interrogator, you’d be fucked.”
Fucking shit balls.
Genma vaguely wanted to throw a tantrum. The kind of tantrum that only 4 people have drawn out of him in his adult life, one of which was about to bring it out of him again if he didn’t stop this.
“Shikao, can we not do this? Please? If I were being interrogated, I wouldn’t be running my mouth like this. It’s only cus it’s you. And please, don’t look her up. Seriously, please?” It was almost a whine. But it wasn’t because Genma was an adult and did not whine.
“Yeah, yeah. Fine, sit down. I can think of a couple of exercises we start the newbies with.”
Finally! Moving to take a seat across from them, Genma relaxed a little bit.
They grinned as they put their paperwork to the side, lifting a teasing eyebrow as they continued, “I know you’re one of those assassination and destabilisation specialists, but seriously, 5 minutes with you and I know enough about the girl to find her. Have a little finesse, at least make it a bit of a challenge.”
“Shikao, please-”
***
The boys had been prickly with each other, not really talking so much as filling the silence with meaningless chatter. Well, mostly Naruto. But Sasuke made noises in response sometimes. Which was nice of him, given that Naruto wasn’t saying anything worth note.
Sakura had been quiet for the last 5 days, occasionally chiming in when the boys were talking about something that she could safely wade in on. Kakashi seemed happy to travel in silence, his porn book at home in front of his face. She didn’t really believe that he was reading. She had seen his bingo book entry; there was no way he was that incompetent. And yet they were still on this mission.
They were on schedule, but only because Kakashi had been pushing them harder than he likely planned to. Probably because he wanted them to get this over and done with as soon as possible. Which made sense, but then why even continue with the mission in that case? It all seemed needlessly dangerous to Sakura.
Sakura hadn’t trusted the puddles, and she didn’t trust Tazuna, and she was starting to not trust Kakashi’s judgement. The puddles because it hadn’t rained in Fire Country in weeks, Tazuna because he lied about the mission rank, and now, they were in danger, and Kakashi because they were still doing the mission, still in danger. And now they were four hours from their destination, and she no longer trusted the woods she was in. It was too quiet, and Naruto had spooked everyone earlier by jumping at a rabbit. And now they were on a fucking boat. Genma always said that paranoia wasn’t paranoia if it was justified. Sakura really hoped it wasn’t justified.
The ferryman was anxious, kept looking around him like he expected to be attacked. Which. Did not fill Sakura with dread. At all.
They had all been told to keep quiet lest they draw attention to the technically illegal ferry they were taking. Well, it wasn’t technically illegal, but a large portion of the town was in on the scheme to get him back into the country to build the bridge, which wasn’t illegal but would maybe get them all killed if they were found out. This plan sucked absolute balls.
Naruto had already been shushed twice, but they had arrived at the island. The fog was rolling in fast now, as they got off the boat. Too fast. Wait, that’s not possi-
“DOWN!”
Sakura dropped faster than she could process Kakashi’s shout, dragging Tazuna with her as she went. Twisting on the floor, she shoved herself over Tazuna’s downed body, a kunai having made its way into her hand at some point. Only after she had processed the familiar weight of it in her hand did she look up away from Tazuna’s hunched form beneath her. Sakura hadn’t heard anything that made her think someone had been injured, but now, looking at the large sword with a smatter of blood on it lodged in a tree across the clearing, she wasn’t so sure.
Whipping her head back towards where the boys had been, a small rush of relief went through her as eyes met their stunned faces, Kakashi’s hands pushing them underneath him. And then it shrivelled at the sight of the headless corpse of the ferryman lying just behind them.
Sakura didn’t know what her face was doing, but it was bad enough that Kakashi’s head snapped behind him to follow her eye line. Watching him tense further did not make Sakura less inclined to panic. Her head had gone on a swivel once Kakashi had turned his gaze away from her. She refused to die or let Tazuna die. They had committed to this mission, and good shinobi completed their mission. Headless corpses be damned.
Meeting the eyes of a shirtless man in Mist gear crouching on the flat of the sword in front of her was not fun. In fact, it was terrible, because then he started to speak.
“The bridge builder, hand him over.”
Kakashi had gotten to his feet at some point, but he was keeping the boys behind him. And Sakura? Sakura was not behind Kakashi; in fact, she was the only thing between the mist-nin and their client. Fuck.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. We’re contracted.” Sakura had never heard that tone from Kakashi; it was cold, almost detached, but he still kept an arm out behind him next to the boys. She needed to move. Tazuna could not stay on the ground, and he definitely could not stay between Kakashi and the mist-nin who wanted him dead.
“Is it worth your lives?”
“We won’t lose them to you, the Demon of the Mist, Momochi Zabuza”
“Ah, does my reputation precede me? The Copy Ninja, Hatake Kakashi.”
Kakashi had done something. Though Sakura couldn’t say what he had done, only the sound of his clothes shifting and the gasp from Sasuke letting her know something had happened. She was preoccupied with slowly crawling backwards with Tazuna to her back now. As long as she kept her eyes on the enemy nin and kept herself between him and Tazuna, it was a win, or at least increased the chances of Tazuna surviving the encounter.
Sakura tuned back into their conversation. “Leave now, and you may survive.”
The chuckle the mist-nin released was sinister, goosebumps running down Sakura’s arms. The only bright side to any of the current situation was that she had managed to reach Kakashi and the boys. Thus, increasing her chances of surviving by almost 20%. Finally, back on her feet, Sakura pushed Tazuna behind the makeshift circle the boys had fallen into opposite her. She wasn’t feeling great about the fact that it was less of a circle and more of an arrow; it left their backs and, by extension Tazuna, undefended.
Shifting her position slightly, Sakura tamped down on the anxiety of losing sight of the enemy as she moved to face the ferrymen’s corpse, but it was ultimately the best strategic move to defend all of Tazuna. Keeping her attention to her surroundings, just like Genma taught her to was harder when she was this anxious, but as she slowly funnelled chakra into her eyes and ears, the familiarity calmed her slightly. Genma had been teaching her how to augment her abilities with chakra. It was a fairly easy skill to learn; some genin even did it subconsciously if they grew up with shinobi in the family. It was a controlled application of chakra that gave a boost to whatever it was being applied to.
The sudden screech of metal meeting brought her eyes back to the front. Kakashi had engaged the ninja. Their fight was fast, too fast for the boys to process if their confusion was to indicate anything. But Sakura had always had good visual processing speed. Now with chakra boosting her eye speed, she could track their movements, most of them at least.
A movement in her periphery had her twisting violently, her kunai finding its home in the mist-nin’s neck, his massive sword poised to swing down onto both Sakura and Tazuna. The mist-nin that had been behind her just a second ago. Who she had just stabbed fatally. Who was laughing? She could feel the vibration of his laugh through the kunai. But whatever was dripping down her hand wasn’t warm like the rabbit’s blood had been; it was cold and too thin. Jerking the kunai out, fully prepared to be splattered with gore, the rush of clear water shocked her.
“Ne, Kakashi, this one’s quick!” He called, and then he collapsed with a gush of water against her toes. Turning back towards Kakashi, Sakura watched as he was still engaging Zabuza, having only taken a quick glance at them at the call of his name. A clone, then, a water clone. Both boys had whipped around at the sound, having only seen the neck wound gush water before quickly turning back to watch the battle. They were doing complicated jutsu work now, from what she could see.
Knowing now that Zabuza had clones capable of physical attack, Sakura ran through one of the simple genjutsus Genma had taught her, a simple visual one meant to make those affected see what they expected to see within a certain area. Easy to break, but if you didn’t look for it, it was a pretty good distraction. Which is all Sakura needed right now, just enough cover to get Tazuna to safety. Yanking Tazuna with her towards the tree line once it was complete, Sakura turned one last time to check on the situation. The boys weren’t paying her any attention, and neither were the two battling ninja. The mirage of Sakura guarding Tazuna remained. Perfect.
The further from the fight, Sakura could get Tazuna the better. He had mentioned that his house was less than 30 minutes away on foot. There were very few perks of being ignored and written off, but this was one of them. The fact that none of the men had noticed her exit with their client works in her favour, the layer of genjutsu clinching her ability to get him away. Sakura had taken a gamble. A risky one, but one she felt she needed to. She knew how chakra-intensive physical clones were; she made the assumption that Zabuza would have only made one in preparation, assuming that Kakashi would be preoccupied fighting the real him and thus only one would be needed to kill Tazuna in his distraction. She hoped.
It was only after 10 minutes of civilian rate running that a house appeared in the distance. Sakura gave a gushing exhale at the sight of it.
Slowing slightly, Sakura turned to the out-of-breath man now jogging beside her and demanded, “Does anyone know where you live?”
“Of course?! Wha- what kind of question is that?” He huffed.
Shit.
“Is there a room without windows and only one entrance in the house?”
“Yes, why?”
“Because I’m going to leave you in it with traps engaged so I can go back and help my team. Now, move.”
Logically, Sakura knew what she had done would land her in shit. She had abandoned her teammates to fight an enemy of superior strength, but she had also prioritised the client and the success of the mission. Rule number 4. Once she had Tazuna mostly secured, she would go back to help. It had been 10 minutes since she left them and if she ran back at shinobi pace, she’d be back in 2. Kakashi had been winning last she saw, and the boys weren’t idiots, well, Sasuke wasn’t. They would be fine. They had to be.
***
Seeing Sakura take out a water clone had been shocking but reassuring, especially because she had done it in a ‘fatal’ way, again with the surprisingly not shit training. What wasn’t so great was the fact that she fucking rabbited with the client without communicating that to anyone. Now granted, it was what a good shinobi would do. Not the not communicating part, that was shit. But the getting the client to safety, then circle back once they’re safe and trust their teammates could handle it? Pretty good. But that wasn’t the kind of shinobi Kakashi wanted them to be. Team 7 weren’t supposed to be good shinobi; they were supposed to be good teammates. Obito’s words echo through Kakashi’s mind daily, a reminder of his failure to be a good man in his attempt to be a good shinobi.
Zabuza wasn’t an issue necessarily; however, having 2 genin to defend wasn’t the easiest. Especially when the guy you’re fighting doesn’t see anything wrong with occasionally throwing sharp objects at them very fast, just to distract you. Objectively, Kakashi would do the same, but right now, he didn’t have the same options for targets that his opponent did.
Zabuza hasn’t seemed to notice that he’s missing 2 people, which is great because it technically makes Kakashi’s life easier, but not by much. Which is how he finds himself in his current predicament, ¼ of his chakra reserve gone because of a drawn-out fight with sharingan use and chakra-intensive jutsu, drowning, and watching his 2 remaining students get their ass kicked. Spectacular.
The only reason they weren’t all dead was that Zabuza was, from what Kakashi could tell, a curious bastard and wanted to see what the kids would do next. Which was great because Naruto and Sasuke were not doing well. At all.
Did he just stab himself? Of course, why wouldn’t he?
Naruto kept stopping to monologue, and Sasuke seemed content to let him? Which is something Kakashi would need to fix. He was under no illusion that the boys would be able to beat Zabuza, but Kakashi was running out of time, and the chakra cycling through the water meant he wasn’t able to kawamari out. His best hope was the boys getting Zabuza to remove his hand so that the jutsu fell apart. Sasuke was good, but not a jonin enemy nin good, and Naruto could take a hit, but Zabuza was bound to lose interest in smacking them around soon, and that was just a water clone. Spamming shadow clones could only get him so far.
Naruto sent a wave of them towards the clone all at once, piling onto it, throwing arrant punches and kicks that did nothing. Seemingly tired of it now, Zabuza’s clone gave a wide swing of his sword, throwing the Naruto back and destroying the clones in one fell swoop. The real Naruto twisted midair, throwing the foldable shuriken to Sasuke.
When did he get it from Sasuke?
Sasuke took a running jump before torquing his body sharply to unfold the shuriken and throw it at the clone. It went wide, right past the water clone and then Zabuza managed to dodge with miraculous bodily control as he maintained his grip on his chakra cycling through the water prison, but jumped half his body length.
Well shit.
Kakashi got a sick sense of satisfaction as he watched the shuriken suddenly transform back into Naruto. Twisting his body mid-fall into the lake, Naruto seemingly managed to infuse enough strength and precision to aim his kunai perfectly at Zabuza’s face.
That explains how he got Sasuke’s shuriken; it was a transformed Naruto being thrown by a clone. There was no way Sasuke let him touch it.
Kakashi sucked in a desperate gasping breath as he instinctually caught himself on the surface of the water, his eyes still trained on the enemy even as he felt his body panic and try and overcompensate for the prolonged lack of oxygen. Zabuza was mad now, his pupils pinpointed as he seethed in rage. Sasuke took this moment to throw the real giant shuriken as hard as he could at Zabuza’s back. Kakashi wishes he could say he was shocked when Zabuza caught it with barely a glance, the ball bearings letting it continue to spin at a dangerous speed.
Naruto was still treading water as he watched them all. The boy was so green it hurt sometimes. Especially when he froze up again as Zabuza lunged at him with the spinning shuriken. Less metaphorically now that the metal on the dorsal of his gloves had caved into his hand. But at least the sound of screeching metal seemed to jar him into action as he began to swim frantically back to shore.
Disengaging and jumping away from each other, Kakashi watched as Zabuza began forming the signs for a Water Dragon. Kakashi felt the moment his Sharingan began to spin, it was a constant drain on him, but the mental bandwidth that it used to receive all of that information and then be able to use it like this was always newly terrible. But if there was one thing Kakashi knew how to do, it was perform perfectly while suffering. A less gifted man would have died from the strain, but being a Hatake had saved him. Enhanced senses meant a bigger predisposition to processing large amounts of stimulation.
The familiar form of a water serpent came up in front of each of them simultaneously, both colliding in a hail of chakra-infused water as Kakashi sprinted forward to engage Zabuza once more in close combat. He only had one more large justsu worth of chakra left to spare, and that’s only if he didn’t need to bolster his strength in a long, close-range exchange or cushion too many blows. He needed to end this. Now.
Twisting his guard, Kakashi jabbed his knuckles into the inner wrist of the hand propping Zabuza’s sword. The hand spasmed sharply, and Kakashi took his chance, jumping back a couple of meters before rushing through the hand signs of a Water Vortex, hoping that by relying on the preexisting water of the river, he wouldn’t have to expend extra chakra transforming his chakra into the water.
It was some spiteful comedian god’s idea of a joke that, at the same moment, Zabuza began the same hand signs. But perhaps the gods were being kind today, because Kakashi finished a second faster. He felt the chakra sap out of him like water through a sieve, but it got the job done. Zabuza was violently flung back, a crack resonating out as he smashed into a tree on the bank.
Just for good measure, Kakshi threw out a handful of kunai at Zabuza’s major joints, if only to make it less likely for the man to get back up and swing again. Motherfucker, that sucked.
Taking a quick glance at the boys to make sure they were mostly okay as he walked towards the downed nin, Kakashi was vaguely disheartened to realize that whilst they were okay, they hadn’t noticed that the girl was gone. But then again, her illusion was quite good. An area effect genjustsu with a visual cognitive suggestion that was prompting but not leading. Input an idea, and then their minds filled in the rest. No wonder Naruto and Sasuke couldn’t tell. Naruto was unobservant on the best of days, and Sasuke was sometimes too much of a Uchiha, even though he hadn’t even unlocked his Sharingan.
Chakra exhaust was an old friend of Kakashi’s, not a welcome one, but one that came by to visit at least two to thirteen times a year. And he wouldn’t say he was about to reach it, but there was a reason he was so keen to get off the water and save the 2% extra that he could. Back on solid ground, the boys had made their way to meet him. He had begun not so secretly leaning on Naruto to stay upright, and that ability was dwindling quickly the longer he kept his Sharingan open. He couldn’t risk Zabuza moving too quickly for his normal eye to catch in his weakened state.
He opened his mouth to speak, his eyes once again meeting Zabuza’s, only to widen in shock as a set of senbon found their way into his neck. The nin fell forward immediately, and Kakashi suddenly felt much more alert as he jerked his head in the direction that the senbon had come from. Meeting the black void of a hunter-nin mask was not fun, even when it had your own insignia carved into it, but a hunter from the bloody mist? Absolute shit.
An androgenous monotone broke through the silence. “I’ve come to collect Momochi Zabuza. Thank you for defeating him.”
The hunter shushined to Zabuza’s prone form, lifting it onto their shoulders before nodding once and disappearing. Which was weird, but Kakashi couldn’t quite put his finger on why, because the corners of his vision were going black and the ground was moving towards his face at an alarming rate.
***
Genma had her meditating every day. Specifically, she was meditating whilst releasing chakra through her gates in bursts. The way he explained it was that if she did it often enough, her chakra capacity would increase to meet the consistent drain. He theorized that the way she didn’t lose chakra if it didn’t leave her system was why her chakra reserves were so small, having never had to strain them. In the last month, she hadn’t felt an increase in capacity, but he insisted it would work, in theory. Traditionally, meditation to grow reserves would be in conjunction with a steady chakra drain, like doing it upside down on a tree so that the strain of staying attached would be a passive loss of chakra, but Sakura couldn’t do that. Hence, little puffs of chakra.
He had told her to avoid doing it on missions that didn’t have a lot of downtime, since she might end up needing her chakra. This was supposed to be one of those missions, but now, with Kakashi’s prone body next to her, in Tazuna’s too quiet house, Sakura couldn’t.
Sasuke was out guarding the bridge builders, and Naruto was on perimeter watch with his clones. The boys had been quiet since the battle. They hadn’t asked too many questions when she suddenly appeared without Tazuna, but she assumed to was because their Captain was down and they were still in enemy territory. Which she could appreciate, but it made her anxious to know that they might question her at any moment.
As the most ‘unskilled’ of the team, she had been given the task of looking after Kakashi, but she had managed to argue the boys into letting her take a shift of watching Tazuna each day. If only so that they weren’t exhausted after keeping guard and or watch all day. Her argument was sound. ‘If I’m the only defense left, then we’ll all die; we need both of you at least semi-functional.’ And they caved. So, ha, I maintained my cover AND guaranteed myself some time to train away from anyone who’ll have questions.
Speaking of which, she was supposed to be heading out to switch with Sasuke. It’s not like there was a lot going on in the house; most of its occupants were not even there. So, it was deemed more efficient for Kakashi to be the one left alone during the changeover over assuming Naruto would be alerted if the perimeter was breached. The only bright side to all of this was that no one died, and she was going to finish all her readings ahead of schedule because all she really had to do was sit and watch to make sure he was still breathing.
Rising to her feet, Sakura checked his pulse and temperature once more, just in case. Cold but with normal breathing, same as it was the night they dragged him here. Classic chakra exhaust recovery, he should be up by tonight. Checking her gear over as she walked out of the house, Sakura nodded to the clone stationed at the door. It grinned back with a wink. Silly boy, even when it wasn’t even the real him.
The walk through the forest to the building site wasn’t new to her, but it wasn’t familiar either. Tazuna had shown them all the way the night before, after they had put Kakashi into the windowless, trapped room she had made up.
Breaking out of the tree line and being greeted with the ocean breeze was nice. Sakura had never seen the ocean until this mission. Her parents’ trade route was based in the mainland. Sakura trekked down the shoreline towards the skeleton of a bridge in the distance. Say what you will about how absolutely idiotic the plan was, but the builders were quick and seemingly good at what they did.
Sasuke was perched on a pile of timber, overlooking the area, his gaze flickering to Tazuna every minute or so. Sakura gave a whistle once she was close enough, and Sasuke turned to whistle back. Genin were all taught a call and receive whistle, nothing like ANBU calls, but Tobirama seems to have stuck with a theme when creating a way to communicate from a distance without giving the enemy a clue as to what was being said. Then again, Genma had mentioned that every village had a variation, Suna had hisses, and Kumo had clicking. Sakura had no clue how those worked, but she imagined that was probably the point.
Sasuke gave her a nod before jumping down and walking back the way she came to relieve the real Naruto. She watched him leave before turning back to find Tazuna.
“Can I help in any way? I’m strong.”
Tazuna looked up from his blueprints to give her an assessing eye. “How strong?”
Well, that’s a little surprising. She was fully expecting him to ignore the question. Then again, he wasn’t drunk right now and seemed to take pride in his work. “I can probably lift two of your men at once? But if I use chakra, it’ll be more? I’ve never had to quantify it.”
The man beside Tazuna barked out a laugh. “Quantify it? I didn’t know they let your kind stay in school long enough to learn words like that.”
Her eyebrow twitched. “My kind? I didn’t know wave was so antiquated that they didn’t allow women to stay in schools at my age.”
“Not women, ninja. Murderers.”
Sakura’s retort died in her throat, a stricken look passing her face before disappearing into blankness. Turning back to Tazuna, her voice had lost its softness. “Do you need help, Tazuna-san? If not, I would like to secure the perimeter.”
Tazuna looked uncomfortable but chose not to comment; after all, he was the one who hired them. “No, we’ll be okay. Thank you.”
Turning away, Sakura made her way around the surrounding area. Once she was done, she walked towards the shoreline, making sure to keep Tazuna within her line of sight. Watch was always boring, but at least it gave her the freedom of anonymity. These men had no idea what she was supposed to do, nor how good she was supposed to be. This all culminated in to the fact that they wouldn’t consider it out of the norm if she decided to train a little.
Sakura moved slowly through her kata, the familiar feeling of arching and twisting a comfort. The sand made it a little harder to keep her movements clean, but it was good practice for what she had planned next.
Flowing into the final form before ducking into a handstand, Sakura began walking backwards on her hands back to her starting position, keeping her eyes on Tazuna. And so, the sequence started again, only this time faster. Each time she finished the kata’s she walked on her hands back until he was doing them at full speed and had a light sweat going. Deciding she was warm enough, Sakura dropped into a roll from her final handstand, ending on her feet once more. She walked slowly to the water lapping the shore.
Genma had explained the mechanics of water walking after how quickly she had gotten good at tree walking. Constant controlled fluctuation of her chakra bubble to accommodate for the constant movement of water molecules and its non-solid nature. Simple in theory, just keep enough chakra in a state of malleable and flux tension to counteract the fluid state of the water and she should be able to stay upright.
Kicking her shoes off and rolling her pants up, Sakura waded into the water until she was submerged to the knee before raising a tentative foot onto the faux surface and forming her bubble. The moment the bubble made contact, her foot went straight into the water, and yet when she pulled her foot out, the soles of her feet were still dry. More then.
Her second attempt was better; her foot gave a wobble on the surface, but she could handle additional pressure. The issue was that it wasn’t stable, like when a ball was on the surface of water, buoyant but not stable. Sakura wanted to be able to stand still on the water as if it were a solid surface, and for that, she would have to circulate her chakra at different rates and frequencies. Maybe. She’d never done it before, but it was possible. In theory.
Cycling her chakra a little faster proved inadvisable as it immediately made the water explode out around her foot. Sending an apologetic glance towards the spooked builders now staring at her, Sakura went back to experiment. Slower with a looser bubble? Stable but still sinking. Slower but with a constant change in frequency speeds to match the movements of the water? Success!
Slowly pressing her foot into the surface of the water, Sakura raised herself out of the water onto a single foot, staying balanced on the soft waves while she configured her other foot. It took less time than the first foot, but it was still an alien experience that took far too much of her focus. Genma had told her that it would take time for her to get used to it, but once she had it would come just as easily as breathing. If she tried to do this in a fight, she’d die for sure. She was barely able to keep an eye on Tazuna as she stood there, slowly bobbing up and down.
The builders, currently on their break, had watched the entire process in morbid fascination, including the rude one. Sakura took a tentative step forward and immediately began to sink. She tried to save it, her hand shooting out to catch herself on the water and falling right through. She resurfaced sputtering and completely soaked, even in less than a foot of water. Laughter rang from the shore.
Huffing, Sakura got back onto the surface, faster this time. She stood still to get used to the flow of the water beneath her feet once more. This time, when she took a step, she took a moment to calibrate before putting all her weight on the foot. After that, it was easier to walk. Occasionally, her foot would sink when she lost focus, but it became less common over the hour she was on the water. The men had lost interest after her first few failures.
Genma had explained that a good way to get good at water walking was to do her katas, just like she had when she was practising silencing her steps. Sakura had another 3 hours to kill, and she was fairly certain there wouldn’t be an attack at midday, but even so, she made sure to check her surroundings and Tazuna in between attempts. And even if there was one, she’d hear them coming; enhancing her sense had become second nature by this point. She went slowly, and every time she dipped into the water, she started again. By the time Naruto was supposed to be showing up, Sakura had managed to make it throw her kata set once and called it good enough. Luck was on her side, though; neither of the boys had learned to silence their steps yet and thus made a fair bit of noise when they walked through the woods. Naruto, especially, was heavy-footed and uncaring of the twigs he stepped on in his approach.
Sakura was back on land and in her shoes by the time he broke the tree line down the shore. Moving to take Sasuke’s old perch, Sakura took to surveying over the building site.
“Sakura-chan! You can head back now, I’m here!”
Sakura could almost see her own brain from how hard she rolled her eyes at his loud exclamation. “Naruto, I know you know the whistles. Use them, we’re in enemy territory.”
“But Sakura, you know it’s me.” He whined.
She raised a mocking eyebrow, raising a kunai in mock threat. “Do I? Or are you just a convincing henge?”
Naruto whistled sharply. And she replied in kind.
Jumping down, Sakura gave him a light shove in the arm as she passed. “They teach us that stuff to keep us safe. Use it, moron.”
“Yea, yea. But I don’t need that! I’m going to be Hokage!”
Sakura didn’t feel like responding to that and so kept walking back to the house.
***
Returning to consciousness was almost never fun, and Kakashi would know. He ended up doing it at least once a month while on the active mission roster. But returning to consciousness from getting knocked around was so much better than waking up from a chakra-induced coma. That shit did not fuck hard; in fact, it sucked hard. Waking up in an unfamiliar room without even one of his students within view did not make it better either.
He tried to speak, but his throat failed him at the first attempt. His second was far better, much like most of his social interactions; it took a couple of tries for him to get it right; assuming he attempted it the first time. “What happened, Sakura?”
Sakura’s head jerked up from the book she had been engrossed in. “S- sensei? You’re awake!”
Turning towards the door, she bellowed out. “Sasuke! He’s awake!”
Kakashi did not like that. In fact, he hated that. Where was the other one? Why did she only call for Sasuke?
Skittering footsteps echoed in the hall before Sasuke whipped around the corner, his face blank aside from his wide eyes zeroed in on Kakashi’s now upright form. “Sensei-”
Deciding Kakashi had had enough of not knowing things, he butted in. “Yes, hello, I am awake. Yay. On to more important things, where is your teammate?”
Sasuke didn’t even bristle at being interrupted like he usually did. Sakura chimed in from his side. “He’s out guarding Tazuna-san. We’ve been guarding him on shifts, while one of us keeps an eye on you and the other maintains a perimeter watch. You’ve been down for less than 24 hours. The mist-nin’s body was taken by a mist hunter according to the boy’s reports.”
Standard protocol for a team on a mission with a downed superior then. Maintain the mission while protecting the captain and the team’s overall safety. Classic. Also, a very good report for a genin. However, he now had a bigger issue.
“When will Naruto be back? I think we need to debrief.”
“Before sundown, Tazuna-san said that it was unsafe to travel after dark. If you need him back, I can go get him and be back in 2 minutes.”
Sasuke twitched when she said how long it would take to return with Naruto. Which was odd but not his main concern right now. Maybe the boy was just twitchy in general after what happen yesterday.
“That won’t be necessary, Sakura. The debrief can wait, however, I would like to talk to you about your actions during the fight. Sasuke, go back to maintaining the perimeter of the house.”
Sakura visibly paled. Suspicious. Sasuke sent both of them a look but followed the command.
“Care to explain to me why you abandoned your teammates?”
Sakura straightened further, which Kakashi didn’t think was possible and yet. “I didn’t! I removed the client from a dangerous situation and ensured the completion of the mission! Shinobi rule 4.”
“I didn’t teach you to value a mission above your teammates. Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum. Rules and orders are never more important than your teammates.”
She squinted at him. “I ran the odds of our team's survival if I wasn’t there, and I decided that they were worth taking to ensure the completion of the mission. I even laid a genjutsu so that no one would notice, thus increasing the chances of the mist-nin making a mistake in his attempt to get to Tazuna through the fake me. He had already gone for me once because I’m the only girl and have pink hair; it was a logical assumption that he’d do it again.”
“I don’t care. You don’t abandon your team. Not for anything. What if you had been wrong? Could you stomach coming back to the boys’ corpses? Because if not, then your so-called rules may not be worth it.”
“Yes, sensei.” Seeing her cowed expression, Kakashi considered his job done. “Now tell me when you started messing around with genjutsu, because I certainly didn’t teach you that.” She perked up immediately.
Praise worked last time; it should work this time. “It was a good area effect genjutsu, subtle.”
Sakura fidgeted with her fingers for a moment, almost nervous. Adorable.
“I went to the library. Iruka-sensei said I had good chakra control and that it would be good for genjutsu. So.”
“That’s very impressive, Sakura. I like the initiative, keep up the good work.” They lapsed into silence again. Kakashi actually took the time to take in his surroundings, including the disengaged traps on the door. The highly advanced traps on the door. Hm. Must be one of Naruto’s.
***
Standing in the clearing, staring at the hobbled form of Kakashi as he waddled up one of the trees would have been passingly amusing had they not been pulled away from guarding their client in enemy territory.
Naruto was yelling to her right, and Sasuke was being squinty again, which Sakur had taken to mean he was curious but refused to acknowledge it and was deeply upset about that fact.
“Now you try!” Kakashi called down. Bastard didn’t even explain it. Which was fine technically because I already know it. But fuck him! What if I hadn’t learned it already or known the theory? And the boys certainly don’t know it. Which means they’re fucked.
Sakura found the ensuing conversation about chakra both horrifying and utterly boring. The utter lack of comprehension on Naruto’s face made her question how Iruka felt comfortable passing him. But alas, here they were, in the woods, in enemy territory, and learning something Genma had informed her they used to learn in the academy.
Sakura watched as the boys ran at their trees, Sasuke making it further than Naruto before being propelled away from the amount of chakra he infused, and Naruto slipping on the second step from the lack of chakra. She sent a hesitant look at Kakashi, who wasn’t even looking at her, typical, before walking slowly towards her tree. She knew she had to make it look convincing, she had to make it seem like she still lined up with her hold psych profile, so all that anxiety she used to feel had to be present when she ‘experimentally’ stuck her foot to the tree. It latched on the first try, but Sakura let it slide just a little when she took her second step. The feeling was jarring enough that when she flailed her arm out to try and catch herself, it was real. She even let out a squeak that she knew her old self would have.
Falling stopped being scary after the first couple of times Genma pushed her out of trees when he was chasing her for evasion practice. Twisting her body to land safely became second nature. But she didn’t need it this time, her faux slip didn’t take her far, just a could inches and she was too good to lose her grip on just a tree. Genma had thrown enough senbon and shoved her around while she was tree-hopping for her to stay upright or at least land right in a hurricane. He had been incredibly unimpressed with her core strength when he had realised she couldn’t stand straight sideways for more than 2 minutes. So that had been another part of her endurance training. She was now up to 20 minutes.
Point being, this shit was easy for her, but she needs to convince them that it wasn’t. Trying to convince Kakashi that she had been practising genjutsu from a book had already been a gamble. The only reason it had worked was because Kakashi paid little to no attention to her.
Slowly walking up the tree as she listened to the background noise the boys made was almost soothing. Turning once she reached a branch at the canopy, Sakura hoisted herself up and sliced a line in the tree. Looking down used to be scary, but now, it felt like success, even if it was fake.
“Hey, guy!”
All three heads turned to her tree before raising up to where she sat. She gave a little wave.
“How’d you do that, Sakura!?”
“Very impressive, Sakura. See, boys, Sakura got it, maybe she’s just better than you.”
Sasuke’s gaze immediately iced over. Kakashi did that on purpose; she knew it. He’s always pulling this shit. Trying to motivate the boys by comparing them. And now Sasuke was upset with her.
Both boys turned away from her and back to attempting to brute force their way up their respective trees. She swung herself down and planted her feet, walking down the tree the same way she went up, hesitantly and achingly slow.
Coming up to their hobbled sensei, Sakura called out. “Is there something else I can do now?”
Kakashi took his eyes away from his porn and replied. “No, it’s okay. Good job. You can go watch Tazuna now.”
Typical. But also good for me. But it’s the principle of the matter.
Tazuna and his men had made remarkable progress in the last 2 days. Already there was the beginning of a bridge; according to what Tazuna had mentioned, it would be several months of hard work to complete it, and the lack of manpower its main obstacle. She gave a small smile towards him when he noticed her and sent a nod.
Just like she had the day before, Sakura kicked her shoes off, rolled her pants and stepped into the surf. Only this time she stood on top of it. Slowly, she began her katas, the flow of movement mindless. Occasionally, she would throw in some of the academy basics that Genma said suited her. An hour passed before she was comfortable enough to speed up, and another hour before she was at full speed. But eventually, around noon, she decided she was good enough now to start experimenting.
Genma made her test for her chakra nature after their first week working together and whilst he had yet to introduce elemental jutsu to her training, they had discussed what her water and lightning natures meant for her. Her main nature was water, and it made life easy since Genma was the same, though he didn’t use elemental jutsu very often. Her lightning nature posed more of an issue. Fire and Earth were the most common in Fire country, lightning and wind being the rarest, but he apparently knew a few people he could go to for help.
But back to the point, he had said that water natures were versatile. He talked about Senju Tobirama, who could pull water out of the air, out of plants. Who skated across water instead of running. Who was said to have been able to feel the water in someone’s exhale. She wanted that. All of it.
Given that the water would have very little grip, Sakura should be able to maintain the same speed and frequency of her chakra bubble; however, she now needed to account for the possibility of drag and resistance for the bubble. She made the bubble smaller and smoother along her foot and found herself still floating.
Sliding her foot slowly like she would have during her katas, but instead of lifting her foot, Sakura pushed off.
And she slid, only a foot or so, but the jolt of excitement that ran through her was enough of a distraction for her to lose focus and plunge into the water. Getting soaked didn’t even matter in the face of the confirmation that it was possible. She could skate across water, and it would be faster and easier than running.
She spent the rest of the day playing around with the theory.
***
Sakura was on perimeter patrol today. Kakashi had recovered 2 days ago and was able to take over Tazuna guarding with one of them accompanying him, and the other two were training or doing patrol. Though it was more Sakura patrolling or helping guard, and the boys throwing themselves at trees and guarding.
Sasuke came back two nights ago, claiming to have mastered tree walking, leaving Naruto to continue brute-forcing his way through. Last night, Kakashi had come back with a passed-out Naruto on his back, who had apparently finally managed it but was exhausted. The boy was still in the house, passed out.
Almost seven days to the dot of Zabuza’s first attack, and Sakura was starting to get antsy. Kakashi had said that Zabuza would take about a week to recover, now that they knew that the hunter-nin was an imposter, meaning that an attack would be coming any day now.
A crackle in the distance drew Sakura’s attention away from her musing. She turned her senses towards the noises as she jumped up into the canopy. Tree hopping silently towards the house, she began to have a bad feeling. If what Inari had said was true, then Gato had more than Zabuza and his accomplice on the payroll, which meant that he could attack more than one place at a time.
The whistle tone of a flare sent a trickle of adrenaline down her spine, its red mist coming from the direction of the beach when she chanced a look back. Sakura sped up. Kakashi would have only sent that up if he was truly under attack.
Sakura came up to the house just in time to see a group of four armed men break the tree line and start towards the door. Kawariming to the back of the house, Sakura scaled the side and yanked open the window of the boy’s room. Untrapped with an unconscious within Naruto. Did they know nothing?
Sakura crouched down and violently shook the boy in hopes that it would wake him. When it gave her nothing but a lolling head, she changed tactics, reaching into her pack, she took out a smelling salt stick and snapped it underneath his nose. Naruto retched violently as he jolted upright.
“What was that!? I think I’m blind!” he screeched. Sakura couldn’t get a hand over his mouth fast enough.
“Shut up, you idiot! We have enemies outside! Stay quiet.” Sakura removed her hand when she received a nod.
“Enemies? We have to go stop them!”
Sakura shook her head. “No. You need to go to the beach and let me handle this.”
“Why-”
“You need to go help Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke against the ninjas at the bridge. From what I saw, it’d just be mercenaries, which means that Zabuza is at the bridge. They’ll need your shadow clones to defend Tazuna and the builders.”
Naruto’s eyes weren’t quite glazed over, but she wasn’t feeling great about whether or not he caught all of that. She didn’t have time for this. The men would be trying to get inside soon. Inari and Tsunami didn’t stand a chance without her, and Sasuke and Kakashi needed Naruto.
“Go out the window and head for the beach. The flare went up a minute ago. If you run at top speed, you’ll reach them in less. I’ll defend the house and catch up. Go. Now!”
“But Sakura-”
The crack of splintering wood resounded from the porch, followed by a scream. “Go!”
He sent her a look before throwing himself out the window. Sakura barely saw it before she was running down the hall and palming a kunai. Skidding around a corner, Sakura almost collided with a frantic Tsunami.
“Sakura-”
Shifting her weight, Sakura slipped an arm around Tsunami and twirled her so that Sakura was between her and the oncoming mercenary. Flipping her hammer grip into an icepick grip, and deflected the downswing of the man’s sword. Sparks flew from the impact. Before the man could recover, Sakura slammed her fist into his stomach and used his ensuing bend to jam her kunai into his spine. She released the knife as he fell, turning back the way she had come, pushing a wide-eyed Tsunami towards the room Kakashi had stayed in. It was fine; she had more.
Yanking the door open and shoving Tsunami in Sakura demanded, “Inari. Where is he?”
Tsunami stared unblinkingly. “Tsunami. Your son. Where is he?”
She blinked as if seeing Sakura for the first time. “T-the other side of the house. In the study, I told him to lock the door when I heard them break the door down.”
A shout from down the hall had Sakura shoving a kunai into Tsunami’s hands and slamming the door shut with a twist of chakra to engage the traps. “Stay in there. Do not answer for anyone but me.”
Tearing down the hall once more, Sakura didn’t slow as she bent in her run and ripped the kunai from the dead man’s neck. Armed once more, Sakura made her way towards the study, listening intently for any sign of an ambush. When she reached the hallway the study was in, she was met with a man with a katana and two men with naginatas preparing to break down the door.
Before the first man noticed her, Sakura had already thrown a kunai at his jugular with enough force to knock him into his comrade. The element of surprise officially lost, Sakura threw a handful of shuriken in a ride arc in the hallway. The majority of which ended up falling uselessly to the floor or lodged in the walls. Dodging the wayward thro,w the remaining naginata user gave a cry as he charged her. Sakura looped a kunai out of her pouch into an icepick grip and charged as well. They clashed in the middle before Sakura had to duck under his hip to avoid the stab the man with a katana made. The man with a naginata made a noise in surprise at the appearance of a sword. Replacing herself with one of her thrown shuriken was easy and gave her the perfect opportunity to embed her kunai right between the ribs of the still recovering swordsmen; hopefully in the spleen, if Genma was to believe about its location. Kawamiring again, Sakura found herself on the other side of the hallway from where she had entered, now facing the last man standing.
The man with a naginata was at a disadvantage; the hallway was too narrow for him to properly manoeuvre. All the better for Sakura. She waited for him to make the first move; she wasn’t fast enough with her replacement jutsu without the distraction of her enemy having to work with another person, giving her time. Worse yet, she needed information, which meant she needed him alive. Something Genma had not taught her how to do. Seemingly having had enough of her silence, the mercenary charged again, and just like last time, Sakura blocked, but this time, he swung harder, and her arm buckled.
Sakura saw the blade come at her neck and panicked. Throwing her other arm up, Sakura barely managed to redirect the shaft of the polearm into her shoulder. The sear of metal through flesh was entirely alien. She shrieked at the feeling when he yanked the blade out of the meat of her upper arm. Barely stopping herself from falling to her knees, Sakura managed to throw herself into a backwards roll, the downward swing missing her stomach by inches.
Her left arm was fucked. Rolling to her feet, her arm limp at her side, Sakura threw a kunai at centre mass as best she could with her new lack of balance. Twisting to ease the strain of bringing her left arm up, she weaved a genjutsu. Something easy, something fast that would give her enough time to think. Anything to distract him. Throwing a layer of chakra at him, Sakura began to shift and warp his surroundings. She watched as the mirage showed a contorted hallway closing in on him. She watched as he waved his naginata at walls that would not stop, that took no damage. He dropped his polearm when the hall became too small for it to fit. Genma always said that the best genjutsu were ones that made reality change; if the victim believed it, they would conform to it.
Panting for breath, Sakura dropped her arms and turned to the man she had stabbed earlier. Laboured breathing. Stooping down, Sakura pulled the kunai she had left in his comrade’s neck out with a sucking noise and made her way towards the barely conscious man. He had both hands pressed limply to his wound; half-lidded eyes watched her approach. Sakura could barely feel her fingers, though they didn’t shake. Her mind blank, save for Genma’s words, “suffering for your lack of conviction.”
She knelt and slit his throat in one clean motion. Though she couldn't bare to look him in the eyes when she did it. His final breath was a gurgled exhale.
Standing once more, Sakura wiped her bloody kunai on his pant leg before stowing it. She took a moment to assess the damage to her arm. Sakura took note of the colour of the blood seeping out, dark red, probably not an artery, could be venous though. Falling into a half lotus, she pulled out her med kit, spraying the wound on both sides with antiseptic with a hissed clenched jaw before packing the wound slightly and wrapping it.
Standing once more, Sakura crept towards the shaking ball of a man, now on the floor, convinced that the walls would crush him. She slipped a line of rope out of her pouch and began to weave her chakra again, this time to convince his nerves that he was being crushed and nothing else, no sensation but the suffocating feeling of pressure. He began to gasp, completely unaware of Sakura’s meticulous movements as she tied his hands and ankles and then his knees.
Happy with her knots, she cancelled the jutsu and watched him blink back to life. She was beginning to shake; the thump of her heart echoed through her skull. But she couldn’t let it happen, not yet. Tensing her hands and her shoulders, Sakura rolled her shoulders back like Genma had taught her to.
“What is Gato planning?”
Still shaking off the aftereffects of the genjutsu, the man was slow to respond. “Are you paying me?”
Sakura hadn’t been expecting that. “No, but I do get to decide if you live long enough to maybe get paid. Assuming Gato even planned on paying you.”
“Y’haven’t got the nerve to.”
Sakura took out a kunai and gestured behind him. “I think your friends would disagree.”
He turned his head to follow the point of the kunai and seemed to make eye contact with the man Sakura had slit the throat of.
“You’ll let me live if I tell you?” he asked after giving her an assessing look.
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
“Gato’s plan?”
The man launched into his expiation. Gato was going to double-cross the Zabuza. A group of men, at least 30, were hired to kill whoever was left after the fight at the bridge. He and his team had been sent to kidnap Tazuna’s family as leverage to dissuade him from continuing to build the bridge.
“- And that’s all I know. Untie me.”
“Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” Sakura stooped down as if to cut his ropes, and instead, she flipped her grip and jammed it into his throat.
Cleaning and stowing her kunai once more, Sakura turned to the locked study door.
“Inari? It’s me, Sakura. You can come out now.”
The door creaked open, a tiny face peeking through a crack. “Is my mom okay?”
Offering her non-injured hand out, Sakura said, “Yes. I’ll take you to her.”
Inari accepted it, letting out a surprised squeak when she swung him onto her hip with one arm and fell into a jog.
Reaching the trapped room, Sakura sent a burst of chakra into the trap system and called out. “Tsunami, I have your son. You’re safe now.”
There was a clatter on the other side of the door before it was yanked open, and Tsunami tumbled out. Pulling her son into her arms.
“I have to go now. My team needs me. Gato is bringing a bunch of thugs to the bridge.” Sakura left them with the instruction to stay safe.
Stepping out of the house was like a splash of cold water to the face. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Sakura had just killed three men. The last of whom were defenceless. A man whom Sakura had said she would spare just to get information.
It was necessary; you couldn’t risk him trying to attack us or running back to Gato to tell him that we knew his plan now.
Sakura hunched over and vomited her breakfast into the grass, her stomach heaving. The sting of tears at the corner of her eyes. An explosion in the distance rocked her out of her spiral. Spitting the bile in her mouth to the side, Sakura took off running.
***
The scene Sakura came into was grim. Kakashi was visibly injured and fighting against Zabuza while also trying to protect Tazuna. The boys were nowhere in sight, and there was a large dome in the middle of the half-finished bridge. Everything came to a stop when a howling scream began to emanate from the dome, waves of kill intent shaking Sakura as she ran towards the now frozen fight.
“Kakashi-sensei! Sensei!” The jonin’s attention snapped towards her. Though her eyes were on Zabuza.
Coming to a stop beside Tazuna, Sakura took a glance at Kakashi, but his eyes were on her arm. “It’s Gato, he’s sending men to kill whoever is left standing after this fight! Soon-”
The sound of shattering glass interrupted her and drew everyone’s eyes back to the dome, the dome that was slowly cracking apart. Naruto was a few paces away from the accomplice, seemingly speaking to each other. An unmoving body lay not far from them. Sasuke. Oh god, Sasuke! Sakura made an aborted lunge towards them.
“I guess that means I have no reason to keep fighting you, then. Since it seems my employer never intended to pay me.”
Kakashi turned to look at Zabuza, his guard still up and his weight still on the balls of his feet. “How do you want to do this?”
Zabuza didn’t even acknowledge the question, instead focusing on her. “How do you know this?”
“I just finished questioning one of the thugs he sent to Tazuna’s house.”
“And he just told you this?”
“I said I’d let him go if he did.”
Kakashi interjected then. “Sakura, you didn’t-”
She didn’t let him finish. “Of course not. I killed him after he told me.”
Zabuza cackled, the force almost bending him in half. “I knew I liked you for a reason, Petal.” Turning towards the others, he called out, “Haku. Come.”
The accomplice, Haku, was suddenly standing dutifully at Zabuza’s side.
Zabuza gave an assessing once over of Haku before turning to answer Kakashi’s original question. “I believe we have some things to discuss, Copy-nin.”
“Sensei?” The pleading in her voice must have told him enough because he gave her a sad nod. She was running before she really comprehended it, skidding and falling to her knees beside Sasuke’s body. Her hands fluttered over his body, checking his pulse and finding nothing. Tears welled in her eyes, a broken-off sob leaving her chest cleaved open. Slowly, she began to tug out the senbon piercing his body. It wasn’t right, Sasuke shouldn’t have looked like that, all beaten and filled with needles. It was wrong. He was so strong, how could he be gone?
“I’m sorry, Sakura. It’s my fault; he was protecting me.”
Sniffling, Sakura turned to look at a sorrowful Naruto. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t imagine us without him. He can’t be gone!”
Dragging his body close, Sakura hugged him as best she could with her arm; she could almost imagine warmth in his skin.
“…Sakura… It’s too tight.”
“S-Sasuke! You- You’re alive!?”
“What!?” Sakura suddenly found herself shoved out away from Sasuke, her arms replaced with a flailing, screaming Naruto.
“I guess so.” Sasuke croaked, still slumped on the ground.
Happy tears replaced her weeping. Turning, she called out to Kakashi. “Sensei! He’s okay!”
Kakashi’s head whipped towards them, his eyes narrowing in on the obviously slowly rising Sasuke. He turned to say something quickly to Zabuza before jogging over.
Crouching at eye level with the now sitting Sasuke, he asked if he was alright, if his head was okay and if he was alright waiting a little bit so that Kakashi could handle the missing-nin they now found themselves temporarily allied with. The answering yes was as huffy as the Uchiha would have been had he not just seemingly come back from the dead.
Standing from his crouch, Kakashi then turned his sights on Sakura. “If you’d come with me, Zabuza would like more information about Gato’s movements.”
Sending Sasuke and Naruto one last teary smile, Sakura stood and followed him back to the pair of missing-nin.
“Did he mention when Gato would be arriving?”
“He said that Gato planned to come 15 minutes after the fight started. He said that Gato assumed that the fight would last less than that and that if he timed it right, he could catch whoever was left unaware and convince Tazuna to turn himself over by kidnapping his daughter and grandson. Those were the men who attacked the house.”
“Are those men still at the house?” Kakashi asked.
“No, I killed 3 of them while defending Tsunami and Inari. The last I killed after questioning him to prevent him from warning Gato of what we now knew.”
Kakashi sent her a look, as if to say, ‘We will be discussing that later. ’
“So, we any minute now then?”
“Ye-”
“Well, well, well. Looks like I needed a clean-up crew after all. Ninjas really aren’t worth their price.” Everyone’s heads turned towards the start of the bridge; at least three dozen armed thugs stood behind Gato. He was short and balding; a smug smile painted across his face.
“I dunno, Gato. It seems to me that you never planned on paying me in the first place.” Zabuza called out in return.
Gato sent them a mean smile. “Sure, but we’re you even worth the price if you weren’t going to finish the job? I’m afraid I have to fire you.”
The men started running towards them, flowing out from behind Gato like water through a sieve. Zabuza turned to Kakashi with a smile, one he returned with a tilt of his head. “You wanna take the lead on this, Copy-nin?”
Kakashi dipped his head into a faux bow. “Oh, I couldn’t, after all, he is your ex-boss.”
Zabuza drew his sword with a shout of excitement, jumping into the fray, Haku not far behind him. Kakashi followed soon after. Sakura backed up slowly towards the boys and Tazuna, a kunai having found its way into her hand just in case any of the men made it past the three ninja’s cutting through the group like butter.
Gato’s smile began to wane as the trio of ninjas got closer and closer, seemingly no worse for wear than before they started, save for a couple of scratches. As the last man fell to Zabuza’s sword, Gato turned tail to run, tripping in his haste to get away. Looking up from where he fell, he was met with an angry mob being led by Inari and Tsunami. Makeshift weapons raised menacingly. Zabuza stopped his pursuit and instead looked to Tsunami.
“You want him?”
Sakura had never seen Tsunami mad, only quietly resigned, but in this moment, she looked like a vengeful goddess, a staff clutched in her hand, one end pointed in accusation.
“Do you remember my husband, Gato?”
Gato sent a frantic look between the ninjas on one side of him and the angry mob on the other, and he stuttered without an answer. Tsunami raised her staff and brought it down like the thunder within her namesake.
“His name was Kaiza.”
Notes:
Heyyyyyyyyyyyyy
So, ur girl is sick again, guess im just doomed to get like 3 chapters out and then get sick in fall. don’t worry I will not disappear for 9 months this time. But yea, I wrote the second half of this a litttllllee bit delirious so if there are mistakes ignore them. SORRYYYYYY!! I am also sorry it is so stinking long, my B, i didn't mean to go 4k over my usual length, it just happened.I am also going back to school next week so bear with me.
BTW, obito died in the cave, I ain’t messing with space ladies and magic plants, okay? But also, if you haven’t clocked it yet, this is gonna be pretty canon divergent. In more ways than one.
I’m sorry if the fight scenes felt rushed or lacked any and all pacing, I hate writing them it took me 2 days just to write the finale fight because I feel so shit when I write them, but I promise I did try my hardest to make them good! I figure that the more I write this the better my writing will get. I hope.
I would like to state for the record that Sakura is not mary sue in this or at least I hope she isn’t, the only reason she won with a shoddy visual and physical perception genjutsu was cus her enemies were civilians and she, even as a genin with a month of specialized ANBU training would be canonically better trained than them. Which I think is fair.
I had a hard time trying to characterize how Sakura would act in those final moments, but ultimately decided that she would be calm and precise and almost ruthless because Genma had been priming her for that kind of reaction. However, I thought her reactions after the fight were more indicative of who she still is, a twelve year old girl who no matter how well trained had taken a life. An unarmed one, who she looked in the eyes as she did it.
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