A Wave of Petals

Kakashi watches. Watches as his lightning covered hand strikes a hole through Haku's chest. Watches as the boy dies, as Naruto screams at Zabuza, shouting accusations with a fury twisted tone and barbed tongue. Watches as the man caves. Watching as the villagers rally, as Gato's men go down, as Zabuza soon follows. Kakashi watches, sees it all happen in perfect clarity as the mist is now cleared from the air. Watches as a buzzing blond nearly tackles the porcupine Uchiha in a hug. Kakashi watches, looks at his gennin. Ah yes, his... two gennin? Spinning around Kakashi looks to where the third gennin and bridge builder should be.

They're gone.

An emotion that Kakashi refuses to call panic fills him with an icy sort of dread. His single visible eye (cause of headband back in place) widens. Kakashi steels himself. He swore he'd never let a comrade die. Not again. He's a grown man, an S-rank shinobi. He will find them. Kakashi calls on his pack once more; the dogs ninja hounds appearing in a familiar puff of smoke.

"Twice in one day, eh boss?" Pakkun calls out to him.

"The bridge builder and my third gennin are gone. Last spotted-" Kakashi gestures to the edge of the bridge ignoring the lump in his throat.

The pack nods in understanding racing over to try and track them down by scent. Kakashi scrounges the area with them. Soon enough, the boys become suspicious and walk over. Kakashi had almost forgotten they were there in the haze of his panic reasonable concern.

"Ne, Kakashi-Sensei where's Sakura chan?" Naruto asks, then cries out, startled when the dogs come to report back to Kakashi.

Pakkun bows his head and Kakashi understands without the pug even needing to speak. Scenarios race through his head making the shinobi queasy, each more gruesome then the last. It takes Naruto, powerful lungs and all, yelling his name from a foot away to snap Kakashi out of it.

He's a shinobi, damn it! Why was his control slipping so easily?

"Sensei?" the blond askes, surprisingly cautious. Even Sasuke seems to dread what they've all come to notice.

"Damn it!" He curses under his breath.

A c-rank, that's all it was supposed to be. He won't let another comrade die. He won't. He won't! Not after Anbu (that near perfect record of no casualties on Roe). A bitter laugh crawls its way up his throat, maybe team 7 really is doomed.

"Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan, Sakura-!" Naruto begins too below, Sasuke shutting up the in vain search effort with a harsh word and quick "tap" to the other boy's back.

Kakashi looks hopelessly to his ninja hounds. Not even a scent or lingering traces of excess chakra, huh; this trail wasn't silent. It was dead. Pakkun shakes his head softly and Kakashi dismisses them. Sasuke begins to choke and wheeze, it's then that Kakashi realizes the extent of the boy's injuries. He blinks, momentarily put into a horror drawn stillness. No, he won't let another comrade die! But sages' fury he was horrible at this teaching thing! When Sasuke blacks out and falls towards the ground, Kakashi catches the Ravneet in one arm grabbing onto Naruto's collar with a free hand and shushining to Tsunamis house.

The woman opens the door with a gasp and ushers them in. The three of them are a wreck and must make quite the picture, especially for a civilian, it's a wonder she's not flipping out Kakashi thinks, dragging the boys' upstairs. If she'd noted the girl's absence (she had) Tsunami didn't say a thing. It doesn't matter, Tazuna and Sakura are both gone and team 7 has failed the mission.

Sasuke is set up on a futon upstairs after getting the sebon out and cleaning the wounds with antiseptic that made Sasuke hiss upon appliance (he'd woken up when Kakashi had set him down) Kakashi heals the shallowest of the cuts with the most basic of basic medical chakra, something that Rin had forced him to learn. The effort to properly shape and form the chakra, then heal, leaves sweat across his brow. Medical ninjas have his respect.

Naruto buzzes around like an insect the whole time. Unable to keep still partly due to his Uzumaki blood and partly the fact that one of his teammates had disappeared while the other did his best to become a porcupine. Sasuke (now wrapped in bandages like a mummy) opens his mouth, probably to tell the blond to go be annoying somewhere else, when a large thunk and shouting comes from downstairs. The trio armed with hastily grabbed weapons had bolted down the stairs prepared for an attack. Two kunai clatter to the ground at the sight. Kakashi feels his body numb over for a moment. There's a body, two of them crouched in front of the lit stove, shivering with lips purple and skin paler than Sasuke's. Long strands of pink hair stand out against the smaller shivering figure.

Sakura.

-

He gasps and flails as they're dropped into the freezing water. Shore is so close but the cold burns against his skin. The pink haired one isn't awake, passed out, his mind supplies. With a grunt and a fair load of, I'm too old for this, thoughts, he grabs ahold of her small body, swimming and walking the small distance to shore. The pain is bitter and icy, like thousands of needles pressed into his skin. The girl hasn't moved at all and he's worried. Wave is cold, especially in the mornings. Bitter chills cause large amounts of fog to form around the coastal village. Tazuna knows this, so he runs. His arms shake holding onto the girl, Sakura he remembers her name is, and runs as fast as his old freezing body will let him.

He's panting and out of breath by the time they reach the house. It's a bit embarrassing how he nearly keels over, and Tsunami has to drag them inside the warm (thank kami) house. Sakura is much smaller than he and thus the water would've gotten to her faster. Has. With the way she passed out.... It's exhaustion of some kind, he knows, something never good for getting and retaining warmth. Tsunami rushes Sakura to her room, the poor girl shaking and panting in her arms, then strips her out of the sopping wet clothes and into clean dry ones. Everyone in this coastal village knows what wet clothes mean. Tsunami's seen children die of them, adults. The cold doesn't pick and choose.

-

When she carries Sakura back, she watches as Tazuna (now in his own dry clothes) stumbles, and plops down with a thud in front of the small lit cookstove, with thin holed blankets wrapped around his body. He's left some blankets for Sakura. They're itchy and old with holes from moths and plenty of tear accidents, but they are warm and right now that's what the pair needs.

 Tsunami senses a presence at the foot of the stairs and moments later a clatter, like the sound of someone dropping a knife, comes from behind her. Tsunami whips around to the shocked expressions of the pink haired girl's teammates. Well two shocked faces and the single wide eye of their sensei. Tsunami sighs, deciding that a nice cup of tea will be essential with this conversation. 

"Sakura-chan!" the blond cries bolting over to her side.

"Oh, poor Sakura-chan! What happened to you? Your face is so pale, and your lips are purple," he questions loudly, wrapping an arm around the shivering girl.

The bandaged black haired one slowly walks over and sits next to the blond, stuttering a breath when he takes her hand. It's ice-cold. Tsunami watches the light in his eyes dull with somber memories. (She's seen it enough around town and such to know.)

The silver haired one walks over, she can see the clear want to reach out and touch, feel, protect, in the tenseness of his body. Tsunami watches as that concern melts away (or gets frozen behind a mask of indifference) and he turns to the two adults, taking a seat at the table in the process.

"Now-" his voice is so falsely cheery it startles her, "why don't you tell me what happened to my cute little gennin," the other two boys glare at their sensei but quickly turn their attention back onto their third teammate. There is a promise of violence in the man's voice, should they hold anything back.

So, with that thought Tazuna begins to speak.

He tells them of the fight on the bridge, talking about the small pink haired girl standing at the ready with a death grip on the kunai in her hand. Tsunami watches the Jounin's blank stare as he takes in everything said. There is a flicker of surprise in his eye when Tazuna launches into the tale of how they got down the bridge. She hears the boys gasp when Tazuna tells them about going down the vertical support beam of the bridge, about how she didn't falter once. The gasp turns into a full out exclamation from the blond and an accusation from the raven when Tazuna tells them about how she walked on the water, it comedically happens just as the kettle screams.

"YOU WERE GIVING HER-"Sasuke shouts over the steam's wails, spitting her, like a curse, "EXTRA TRAINING!"

"WOAH SAKURA-CHAN IS AWSOME, YA KNOW!"

"Now, now," Kakashi (that's the man's name she recalls) brushes the raven off and gives her a quiet thanks when she hands him a cup of tea "Sakura-chan may have gotten the tree climbing exercises done on the first try, but I didn't give her any extra training." There's something she can't name in the man's voice, something that cuts deep and makes her want to shiver.

Sasuke sits back down, no longer facing Sakura or Kakashi and turns his chin up "Hm."

"Bastard," the blond mutters under his breath, a stern look from Kakashi keeps Sasuke from replying.

Tazuna sighs and finishes the tale. Kakashi says something about Chakra exhaustion when Tazuna confesses to how they'd gotten all wet and fallen in.

"It's rather impressive what even the youngsters of you ninja can do," Tazuna sighs, setting his empty cup of tea on its plate.

"Indeed, even among trained ninja, Sakura's control is impressive," Kakashi offers sipping his own tea.

"That so?"

Something akin to anger flares in Tsunami when Kakashi nods, his expression practically screaming regretfully. His eye flickers over to her and she clamps down on that white hot feeling of anger. Stupid sexist shinobi.

"Yes, unfortunately, Kunoichi tend to have better chakra control, but this one," he nods to the Pinkett's unconscious body, "is good even for those standards."

Tsunami watches, sees how the two boys look from their sensei to Sakura. In the two's eyes something begins to spark, Tsunami doesn't like it, and from the look in her father's eyes neither does he.

"Why is it unfortunate?" she asks feinting innocence, Tsunami knows that the Jounin is going to become irritated and see straight through her, but she's pissed off. So, she doesn't care.

"Yeah why?!" exclaims Inari who'd been hiding behind the counter this entire time, eavesdropping.

Kakashi sighs patting her son's head, "Well, it's very hard for Kunoichi to become stronger than Shinobi, so their minuscule better chakra control is wasted."

Inari, someone who's grown up with a strong and stubborn woman decides that he doesn't like this answer and Tsunami feels her chest swell in pride as he bats the Jounin's hand away and points a finger at him with an accusing glare, "And why do you think that is, huh?"

Kakashi feels his visible eye twitch.

"You Shinobi don't give the girls a chance, I know about you!" Inari declares pointing an accusing finger in Kakashi's face.

Naruto turns to look at Kakshi, "What's he talking about sensei?"

-

Kakashi wants to groan. Naruto looks at him with those clueless eyes and Sasuke glares at him for an answer. While the KI radiating off the family in waves is small, it's still there. The fact of Kunoichi, it's something that all Shinobi, all ninjas know. Something that they are taught and Kakashi is not an exception. Kunoichi are weaker, their beauty is what gives them value for assassination honeypot missions, while a few get to learn medical ninjutsu, as it's not a man's job to heal. Kakashi thinks of Rin, a memory of her breaking that idea and forcing her team to learn the ground level basics. The memory leaves as quickly as it comes.

Everyone knows that there are exceptions, like in all things, in the Shinobi world. But Kunoichi are not structured for heavy lifting. It's what they've been taught, all they know. (Not that it's an excuse! - Gelato_is_for_every_day) 

With a sigh he tells the group this, but a watered-down version of course; and while doing so, almost completely misses the disgusted and affronted looks from the family and... Naruto? The satisfaction on Sasuke's face is ripe. Kakshi doesn't know what he expects when Tsunami walks over to him. But getting slapped across the face isn't it.

"That is exactly why kunoichi are like that! Sexist bastards like you who would've gladly continued to train those two-" she gestures wildly at Naruto and Sasuke, "if they'd gotten ahead on the exercise, but not her! How are they supposed to get strong when their teachers will only give them the bare minimum and go extra easy on them because they're weak! Isn't it your job as a sensei to make them strong? I hate to break it to you, but we all start off weak and unexperienced. So, get your damn act together or resign; and spread the word out while you're at it!"

Her face is bright red in anger. The house is silent, so much so, that you can hear the light buzz of the stove and Tsunamis heavy furious breathing.

Kakashi gapes at the sheer audacity of this woman. He's got half a mind to teach her a lesson, but something tells him that it is a rightful scolding (because no matter what his pride wants to name it, that's what it was). She's braced, ready for a hit. He knows that she knows that she's got no way of stopping him. Kakashi rises from his chair. Tsunami flinches, then gives a soft disbelieving sound that carries over the affronted noise from Sasuke (who grew up with the "right" Shinobi ideology) and the question from Naruto. Their teacher stands, towering over the woman that just disrespected him and shredded his pride with a few correct words. Kakashi is stubborn, but like a good Shinobi, knows when to retreat and when he's wrong or outmatched. This is clearly one of those times; because despite the disrespect... she is right. Deep down he knows it.

Kakashi bows.

Sasuke growls, clearly wanting to rip into him about how Tsunami is wrong, and Naruto is silent but bouncing in his crouch on the floor. Tsunami takes a step back and a hand comes to cover her mouth, muffling what must be a sob of relief. Inari, the brat, is cheering and blowing raspberries at Sasuke. Naruto, not one to pass up a chance at making fun of the other boy, joins in. When Kakashi rises from the short bow, Tazuna is looking at him in pride, smiling. It reminds him of the look of a proud father and suddenly he feels choked up. Looking away he clears his throat.

"I apologize, thank you for setting me straight. I'll train these three properly from now on."

Tsunami bites her cheek, "Y-yeah, you better," her words are sharp but not biting.

Kakashi chuckles feeling somehow lighter, she reminds me of Rin, "Yes ma'am."