Primrose
The mission continued, and it became even more difficult to complete.
In the middle of escorting Mr.Tazuna back to work, their team got ambushed again, except the enemies they encountered were two people they already had met, Zabuza and Haku.
Kakashi and Sasuke rushed in to fight the duo, and minutes later Naruto joined them as well after returning from the bridge-builder’s home. She could only once again just watch and hope for the best while she stayed on the sidelines and she hated it. She hated that despite showing a bit of promise it was Naruto who could fight off strong enemies. She hated that even with her best efforts, she still can’t do anything while Sasuke-kun gets impaled with millions of senbons.
The rest of the battle becomes a blur for her, out of nowhere more of Gato’s thugs come in to kill them all and Zabuza starts fighting them off in a rage. Kakashi-sensei was preoccupied with Naruto who had now seemed to be involved in red powerful chakra and was acting like a feral beast. Worst of all, Sasuke was just laying on the floor. Without thinking, she feels her feet walking and then running towards her teammates, abandoning the man they had promised to protect.
He wasn’t moving.
She kneeled next to him, her tears already forming in her eyes. His body had so many senbons in it with blood pouring from a cut on his forehead. She couldn’t believe it was happening. He was Uchiha Sasuke, he was the genius boy who could do anything. He never loses fights and he never breaks a sweat while doing so, Uchiha Sasuke was unstoppable. So then why was he not moving?
Her hands gently cradled his face, her eyes desperately looking for anything that showed her suspicions were wrong. “Please wake up, you have to wake up okay?” she begged him, knowing he could not hear her pathetic pleas. Panic began to bubble in her as the minutes passed and his breathing became more and more shallow, “Sasuke please,” she sobs, “you have to open your eyes.”
She couldn’t do this. She had already sworn to never pursue him, she had buried all her feelings deep inside of her and pretended like they never existed. But this? Losing him like this was too permanent and too sudden.
It terrified her to never be able to see him again.
With trembling hands she began to take out bandages and alcohol to clean his wounds, her tears kept falling while she fought back sobs. Footsteps echoed behind her and then the familiar voice of her Sensei came out quietly from him. “Naruto passed out from exhaustion, he’ll be able to recover soon.” he states slowly. “Zabuza killed Gato before he died from his own injuries. Officially, we are done with our assignment.” The words meant nothing in her ears, she did not care about this village or its bridge, not while Sasuke still hadn't woken up. Kakashi-sensei put his hand on her shoulder sympathetically, “Sakura.”
“No! He has to be okay!” she yelled in desperation.
“I’m sorry Sakura.”
“NO!” She didn’t want to believe it, it was stupid. It was stupid because Uchiha Sasuke always wins, he always gets away unscathed and he always walks away a victor. That’s the unstoppable and unmatched Uchiha Sasuke she knew, she couldn’t lose him like this, she refused to lose him like this. Her trembling hands gently wrapped around his and she noted how cold they were, she closed her eyes tightly, “Please, please wake up.” she begged in a whisper to any god that might be listening.
A minute passed, then another.
Behind her, the crowd was dispersing and people left slowly to carry on with their own lives. Naruto had slowly woken up with a groan, completely lost in what had happened after he passed out. Kakashi-sensei just kept silently consoling her, not saying anything else and keeping his hand on her shaky shoulder.
Then Sasuke squeezed her hand.
Sakura quickly opens her eyes, looking at his features and then locking her eyes with his. With a pained groan, Sasuke-kun slowly comes back into consciousness and slowly sits up. A new wave of tears start falling from Sakura’s eyes, but this time out of pure relief.
“Stop crying,” he says with a hoarse voice, “it’s annoying when you cry.”
Without thinking, Sakura wraps her arms around his neck, tightly holding him. Sasuke holds her gently with one arm, letting her cry on his shoulder. He was alive, he was breathing and talking and holding her gently and he was alive.
And that’s all that mattered to her at that moment.
Days after finally being back in the village, Sakura finally takes time to meet up with Ino and Hinata. Apparently, her team is the only one who has so far been able to get assigned a C-rank mission, and because of how dangerous it turned out to be, most of the information has been kept secret. Therefore, Ino had made it her mission to grill it out of her, “Come on Sakura! Just tell us what really happened!” The pinkette leaned back on her chair and sighed, “I just told you, I can’t tell you a lot about what happened.”
All three of them had decided to go eat at a cute pastry shop that had opened up in the village recently, it was very costly but Sakura didn’t really mind. Because her team were forced into dealing with such an extreme mission, and they managed to successfully complete it, team seven was very nicely compensated by the Hokage, so Sakura decided to treat her friends for a change.
Ino leaned closer to her, holding her vanilla milkshake in her hands and giving Sakura her best puppy dog eyes. “Pleaseeeeeee! I know something cool happened! And I’m dying to know, even the resident loudmouth of our class hasn’t said anything, and if he hasn’t blabbered about it it’s because it involved Sasuke-kun doing something cool and making him look lame!” she reasoned.
Hinata intervened, “Maybe Hokage-sama has a good reason to forbid them from releasing the full report Ino-chan.” the blonde girl pouted, “We shouldn’t pester Sakura-san about it.”
Yes! Good job Hinata! I knew I could trust you.
The blue haired girl blushed deeply out of nowhere, “A-although, i-i-if it’s not a b-bother.” she cleared her throat, avoiding Sakura’s gaze and fiddling with her fingers, “Did, um, d-did Naruto-kun. Um, did he d-do anything cool?”
Traitor! Sakura groaned with defeat.
Ino giggled at her antics, “Even Hinata-chan wants info on her lover!” She holds Sakura’s hands in hers, giving her a pouting look. “Sakura-chan~ Would you really be able to bear two girls in love not knowing their beloved’s fates?” she questions, making Sakura let out a defeated groan.
“Fine!”
“Yay!”
“But only one question!”
“Boo!”
The three girls laugh at the blonde’s reactions. After eating their fill, Sakura begins to give them a very short and very censored version of the events. She tells them how Naruto and Sasuke teamed up to take down an S-rank rogue nin, and how Kakashi-sensei was able to easily outmaneuver the enemies by himself. Then she mentions their very quick chakra control training, focusing on the childish competition both of her male teammates got into.
Sakura does not mention the events nor the terror she felt during the fight before the liberation of the Land of Waves, nor the fact that Naruto had turned into a feral beast or the fact Sasuke almost died. She did not want to worry her friends.
But she also did not want to give away that moment with Sasuke.
She allowed herself to keep that memory in her heart and only there, after all she had swore she would not fall for him. But doing that was easier said than done, especially when her relationship with him was becoming something else, she assumes that’s what it’s like to have comrades.
Something in the back of her head told her it wasn’t.
The next day she had met up with her teammates at one of the training grounds, Kakashi-sensei had randomly summoned them without really giving them an explanation. And like he always does, he arrived late. “Yo.”
“You’re late!” three voices echoed.
Kakashi-sensei rubs the back of his neck, “Well you see there was-”
Naruto interrupts him with a loud outburst, “Don’t even say it! We all know your excuses are bullshit!” Sasuke crosses his arms and nods in agreement. Kakashi-sensei just lets out a defeated sigh, “Anyways, I’ve summoned you here because our last mission has made it abundantly clear that whatever you were taught in the Academy is not enough.” The statement caught the attention of all three Genin, “We are gonna start your training all over, starting with the basics and moving into specialties.”
Training? As far as Sakura was aware, she was the only one in need of more training. Both Naruto and Sasuke were better fighters than her, they wouldn’t need re-training. Unless… Sasuke scoffed, “I don’t need any of your help Kakashi. I’ll get stronger in my own way.”
“Yeah! What the bastard said!”
Kakashi-sensei hummed, zeroing in on Sakura, “What do you think, do you need more training Sakura-chan?” he singled her out with the question and an expecting look in his eye, then it clicked. “It’s June.” She started, “The Chunin Exams are always held in the beginning of September.” she smirked at her sensei, and he mirrored her look “You want to train us for the exam, right Sensei?” Her two male teammates stared dumbfounded at her answer, apparently the thought had never crossed their minds. Kakashi-sensei placed his hand on top of his heart with pride, “Sakura-chan, you truly are the gift that keeps on giving. The best Kunoichi a sensei could ask for.” She could feel her face warm up slightly at his words.
Sasuke gave Kakashi-sensei a pointed look, “You should have started with that Kakashi.”
“Maybe, but that is not the priority here. The Chunin Exam requires teams of three to sign up. If there’s any possibility of any of you getting promoted, you three need to be fully prepared.” He puts his hands inside his pockets, “The test is notorious for the amount of casualties that happen during the competition, I would like to avoid the paperwork of it. So, I’m gonna re-train all of you.”
Sakura crosses her arms, looking at her sensei with disapproval. Next to her, both of her male teammates mirrored her actions. “What?” Kakashi-sensei asked defensively. Naruto grunted, “You really are shameless, sensei.”
With another poor excuse from the gray haired man and a very unconvincing apology, their training finally began.
When Kakashi-sensei had said he would re-train them he meant it, for the rest of the week he would start each day at 8am sharp with six laps around the training grounds, immediately followed by 40 squats, 80 push ups, 50 jumping jacks and 90 sit ups. Finally, they would do a full body stretch out to cool down and catch their breath, as well as help them develop their flexibility. They would once again repeat the same drills but with weights two more times until they finally moved on to re-learning the basic fighting forms taught at the academy. Their Sensei said the training was necessary to work on lengthening their stamina and bettering their overall skills as ninjas, Sakura thought he was just torturing them for calling him out on his earlier on the day.
By 12pm, they were allowed to take a quick 20 minute break, followed by target practice and basic genjutsu practice. While Sasuke was already well acquainted with both of those skills, both Naruto and Sakura still needed to develop their own even more to be able to match the Uchiha’s. Both of the boys in her team wasted no time making the training a competition and Sakura was not going to let them leave her behind. They would finish their training with a quick overall evaluation, courtesy of the lazy Jonin, and then by 8pm they were allowed to finally go home just to repeat it all over again the next day.
Sakura could feel aches everywhere in her body, however it only served as motivation to keep going with the torture, pain meant growth and she was eager to do more than just stand in the sidelines. As their skills and stamina improved, their Sensei changed the training regime to one on one specialized training and sparring sessions. As the copycat ninja of the leaf, Kakashi knew a million different fighting styles and he made sure to give each one a fighting form they could use with not much drilling.
Kakashi-sensei would make two shadow clones to fully be able to monitor each of them with better precision. With Naruto’s unpredictability, he’s taught a style that allows him to move on instinct rather than cues, combined with very powerful combos and outmaneuvers. During the mission at the bridge, Sasuke had barely learned to use his Sharingan and since Kakashi-sensei seemed to have one of his own, he taught him Uchiha fighting techniques that he could use with his powerful eyes as well as some that allowed him to no be dependent on them to win during a confrontation. As she compared her own personalized training with theirs, Sakura was more than sure Kakashi’s words back when they did the bell test were an absolute truth to him.
All he would teach her was how to outmaneuver an opponent and run away to safety. Sure she could throw a punch here and there, but the moves were meant to be used once she was caught or pinned down by an enemy. He taught her how to use the opponent’s weight against them to avoid any hits, how to put them in a hold and knock them out so to then be able to run away. How to use her kunais and shuriken to make it harder on an opponent to close their distance.
He would teach her nothing more than how to properly and effectively defend herself, but not how to attack. Never how to attack.
Kakashi only taught her how to stay out of the way during a fight, and it pissed her off.
“He’s such an asshole! Ugh!” Ino groans through the line, even with how busier their lives have gotten after becoming fully fledged Genin, the three girls still found time to at least call each other and talk. “Does he, like, live in the feudal ages?! Women can be frontline fighters too!”
Hinata hums in agreement, “It is rather unfair, but I am more surprised you haven’t yet talked with your Sensei about this, Sakura-san.” she muses, her soft voice echoing through the speaker. The pinkette only sighed with defeat, completely exasperated at the situation, “That’s the thing! I have told him, and everytime he either avoids my question with a lame excuse about how I am better suited for it, or how there’s already two heavy hitters in the team and blah, blah, blah.” Sakura complains, leaning back against the wall of her bedroom and finishing painting her toenails with a nice green nail polish Ino gifted her on a previous hang out. “If he gives me another stupid excuse I swear I’m gonna punch him so hard his teeth fall off!”
“You could research other fighting techniques by yourself,” Hinata suggests, “I don’t believe there is a rule that says only your Sensei can coach you.” Sakura hums in response, “Maybe.”
“Wait.” Ino exclaims, “That’s it! That’s your answer.”
“Huh?”
“Just get another sensei to train you!” Sakura huffs, “As brilliant of an idea, we can’t switch teams, remember?” Ino giggles in response, “Yeah, but there’s like zero rules about training with another Sensei. Like, just training.”
Sakura freezes, it was such an obvious answer and it never even crossed her mind. Ino was absolutely right, she didn’t need to try and change teams, she just needed to ask someone else to give her extra fighting training. A wide smile spreads on her lips, “Ino you absolute genius, I could kiss you!”
Her two best friends laugh at her outburst, “Save the smooching for later, first we gotta figure out who you should ask for help.”
“Should we help you with finding another Sensei, Sakura-san?” Hinata asks. A cheshire grin spreads on Sakura’s lips “Oh don’t worry about that Hinata-chan, I know the perfect man for the job.”
“Who?”
“The one and only Green Beast of Konoha, and rival of one Hatake Kakashi: Maito Gai.”