A Wave of Petals

Kakashi sensei has been acting strange for the past two weeks. He's training them now. Actually training them. Her morning warm ups and training with the twins was nothing more than child's play compared to Kakashi. Never before had her body ached and burned so much, she dreaded waking up in the morning most days.

Sakura groaned, turning over in her sheets and not even bothering to shut off her alarm. After a whole two seconds her hand slaps down on the shut off button, if only to save the little sanity that Kakashi’s new training regiment hadn’t beaten out of her. Yawning, she rolls out of bed. Sakura hisses at the soreness of her body; though not unexpected, the pain still resonates deeply.

Sakura dresses, stretches and eats with mechanical motions. Every step jostles her sore limbs and sets the nerves alight with wildfire. Sakura was the most affected by Kakashi’s training. Between Naruto's boundless energy and Sasuke’s own strict training schedule, the boys had a leg up on her. She found herself growing sick of all the little things that the boys had that’d help them or set them ahead.

Sakura steps out the door shaking those thoughts out of her head. Shutting it with a quiet click behind her, she makes her way down to training ground three. Just like every morning for the past few weeks Kakashi is already there. Naruto shouts and waves, his bright energetic greeting brings a smile to her face. Sakura returns the greeting but with a more appropriate level of energy. Sasuke barely spares her a glance.

She finds that she doesn't even care. What was once an obsession has flattened out into tolerance. Sakura frowns. How could she have ever found that attitude attractive? She shakes her head. It is of little importance now. She’s a new girl now, with a sharp cunning made up of the broken shards of her old self.

Kakashi-sensei starts them off with stretching, lots and lots of stretching. From there they go into the rest of the warm ups before rounding them out with a few laps. Sakura groans as she jogs, her lungs burn making her breaths come in shorter bursts. When she finishes that last lap it’s all she can do not to collapse into a panting mess on the ground. The boys are hardly faring any better. Kakashi-sensei tosses each of them a waterskin. Each pouch has a bottle inside, with the pouch itself being a dark leather. There are seals drawn and sewn onto the inside of the pouch and a few on the bottle itself, cooling and expansion to name a few. The leather of Naruto’s waterskin pouch is lighter than the other two and has an orange tint, Sasukes is the darkest being a nearly pitch black whereas sakura’s is a dark red-brown color. Similar to her mother’s expensive stained mahogany desk where she keeps the important files for their merchant wares.

Being reminded of her mother makes her heart ache. It’s been almost two months since she’s last seen her parents. The two of them are currently a part of an extravagant merchant caravan that went to Suna. Sakura recalls that they’re supposed to be back within the week.

Kakashi calls them to begin again with an eye smile that has Sakura seeing red. Basterd, laughing at their misery.

“Kakashi-sensei! We’ve been doing boring drills for weeks now, let’s do something different!” Naruto shouts.

Sasuke places a hand on his face muttering, “I can’t believe I actually agree with the words that just came out of this moron’s mouth.”

Naruto rounds on the other boy, sputtering and holding an accusing finger to the Uchiha’s face, “What’d you say, you teme! My ideas are great, believe it!”

Sakura snorts, normally she’d be breaking things up before they could escalate, but the flicker of panic in sensei's eye and voice as he tried aimlessly to appease the two was just too much fun. She regretted that the moment the words, “Double drills,” left the exasperated silver haired Jounins mouth.

- Sakura sits together with her team in the shade of a large tree in the training ground three eating her lunch. A smile quirks at her lips as she watches Naruto protest all the veggies Kakashi is piling into his bento. Sasuke stays reserved but she sees him glance up at the other boy every so often. His eyes stray to her and she fixes him with a blank look.

If he wants to so casually dismiss her, then why should she not do the same. Give him a taste of his own medicine and maybe that pole won't be so far shoved up his a$s, she vaguely thinks. It’s a bit of a cruel thought but the girl is angered, with herself or those around her she can’t fully tell but the rage is there quietly simmering under her skin in an unusually calm fashion.

Leaning back against the tree she sets aside her bento. Inner has been strangely quiet ever since she shed her old, dainty fan girl mask of a personality. The secondary voice is still there, but faint. Sakura can feel the beginnings of a shift in her and has no clue about what to make of it.

She’d be lying if she said that that didn’t stew her internal anger and frustration.

Then I suppose it’s anger at myself mostly then, she thinks.

It’s a sobering thought. “Sakura-chan?” Naruto asks quietly.

All the boys are looking at her with soft but confused expressions. Sakura hears a little hiccup and whimper. It must be raining (because the sky is perfectly clear) because there is rain on her face. Trailing down her cheeks and chin then neck to pool annoyingly at her meager chest.

It takes her a foggy moment to realize the pathetic sound was from her.

Oh, she thinks, strangely detached, I’m crying.

A moment later she realizes she’s said that aloud.

Her voice was just as blank and detached as the one in her head. Greater looks of concern cover the boys' faces. Naruto, uncharacteristically gently, scoots over next to her and sits, gently laying a hand on her shoulder, then wrapping his arms around her in a soft hug when she doesn't protest the contact. In fact the girl leans into him and begins to sob.

She doesn't understand why she’s crying. She hates it; hates it so much. Poor weak little sakura, you’re so pathetic. Repeats in her head like a poisoned mantra. She wants to scream and shout and rage, maybe raze the world to the ground while she's at it. But the feelings lay trapped deep inside and the only thing that comes out is a shaking sob and fresh wave of tears. Within her all the hate and rage simmers deeper.

“I’m so angry,” she manages to get out between sobs. Her thin frame (that’s thankfully begun to pack on more muscle) shakes.

“So, so angry.”

“Then why aren’t you screaming or something?” Sasuke of all people asks, unsurprisingly crass. His voice is a gentle whisper.

Her answer is surprisingly poetic for the raw truth it bears. “Because the weak never get a voice.”

“Sakura-chan,” Naruto murmurs, hugging her closer.

Sasuke makes a strange choked sound that’d be funny in just about any other situation.

“Sakura, you aren’t weak,” Kakashi says gently.

She can’t find the space in her heart to believe him. He may now be training her, be training all of them properly but his otherwise strange behavior has left questions in his authenticity. At least for her, the boys seem to be too busy being excited about proper training to care. Not that she blames them.

“Then why?” she asks after a moment.

The three males regard her with confusion.

“Then why?” She asks again, voice raising in volume and intensity as that deep stewed anger suddenly seeps to the surface.

Narutos rubbing soothing circles on her back. She loves him for it. She doesn't care.

“Why do you train us yet act so, so strange. I feel like I don’t even know who you are, just the figment that you show us. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be but it’s pissing me off! Why do you act so strange being so cautious when it comes to anything, like a naughty child who's hiding a piece of candy from the adults. Is that what this is? You can’t bear to be seen with some gennin brats, like you actually value them? You don’t want to be seen with us? Seen as a good sensei? Is that it?!” By the end she’s practically screaming. Hot, salty tears stream down her face.

The boys are shocked. Kakashi's carefully crafted mask seems to chip away, all he can think of while his mind is still trying to process the whole thing is, Ah, this. In a way he’d known it was coming. But that hadn’t prepared him for it in the least.

Looking all around, Kakashi then puts up a sound blocking barrier. “I’ll give you the truth, I doubt you’ll like it though.”

Suddenly three steely expressions are glaring at him. Sasuke is huddled into Sakura’s other side. Kakashi can’t even tell if she notices, despite the arms she’s subconsciously slung around him, pulling the touch starved preteen into their little huddle.

As he bares them the truth of the situation. Telling them a bit about his time in Root and Anbu. Telling them about how Sakura’s abilities are so strange, about their team of powerhouses. He leaves out how Naruto’s a jinchuriki, but shockingly the boy in question pipes up about it.Tensely he looks for hatred and rejection as he speaks. But the other two gennin just pull him closer and whisper their affirmations that he is no beast. Kakashi continues speaking after the heartwarming moment. Danzo comes up more than once, each time he can see the rage alight in his gennins eyes. When Kakashi tells them his suspicions regarding the elder wanting to “train” Sakura, the boys go nuts. A good amount of KI sweeps off of them in waves.

“You’re saying that bastard wants to take Sakura chan awayato make her one of those stupid Root guys or expiriment on her!” Naruto shouts at an earpericing volume that makes the jounin-sensei wince.

“It’s only a theory.” He gently reminds the boy, more for the sake of his sensitive hearing than the fact that it is still just a theory.

“Bullshit,” snaps Sasuke.

Sakura is strangely silent. Kakashi can practically hear the gears turning in her head, and wonders if this is how he dies.

The silver haired man had told them a lot about Danzo, the council and even Anbu (some info of which was definitely classified but screw him).

“That creep,” she murmurs, “he wants Naruto as a weapon doesn't he. I bet that he leaked the information about Naruto being the nine tails jinchuriki to the public!” Naruto winces at this, Sasuke places a hand on his shoulder, “You mentioned the strange death of Kagami Uchiha-'' Kakashi sees where she’s going with this, he’d already arrived at the same conclusion.

The jounin wonders how great her intelligence truly is…. For a moment he wonders if he should stop her, Sasuke is as unhinged as ever and this might just tip him over the edge. But some part of Kakashi is saying screw it. The part that leaked classified info to these gennin who’ve somehow taken over his cold dead heart.

“...Sensei,” Sakura says glangince briefly at Sasuke, a look of uncertainty on her face.

Kakashi nods, moving forwards to take her small trembling hand in his own. From rage, a voice in his mind whispers. His voice is deep and gentle when he asks, “What is it Sakura?” “I,” her arm tightens around Sasuke, Naruto, bless him, senses the tension and pulls the ravenett somehow into the middle of their hug(?) The boy somehow doesn't even protest, “Danzo seems to be very obsessed with the Sharingan. Coupled with his unfounded hate of the Uchiha…” Sasuke tenses, eyes wide and sharingan out blazing red. The single tomato in each eye spinning wildly. Naruto and Sakura tighten their hug around the boy. the words weren’t spoken but he knows what she’s thinking, they all know, even Naruto.

Sakura stopped speaking, not wanting him to remember her next words for the rest of his life in sharingan clarity, it’d be cruel if he did. Instead they give him a memory of warmth and love, of being surrounded by team and family. A memory of the first time in years that Sasuke has felt that he truly has a home. The first time in years he’s felt love. The emotions are overwhelming and a few tears slip down his face. He shakes sobbing for a few minutes. Kakashi is unsure of whether to join in the hug and comfort his student when Sakura and Naruto grip his wrists with surprising strength and pull him into the hug. Family, safety, home, pack, the more primal part of him whispers.

Sasuke's tears turn from being from overwhelming emotion, to feeling safe and loved. When he opens his eyes they’re red and bloodshot from the crying. Upon seeing his face his teammates gasp. Sakura whips a compound mirror out of nowhere (!!!) and shows the boy his eyes. For the first known time in history, the sharingan has evolved from not intense hatred. But love…

Six tomoe rotating softly look back at him from the mirror. Sasuke looks at his teammates who are smiling softly at him. Family, something in him whispers. For once, Sasuke doesn't ignore it.

-

Naruto smiles joyfully at Sasuke. He’s elated for his teammate even if he’s still a bastard. Surrounded by his team, his family, Naruto’s mind corrects, the boy is happy. A part of him is raging and screaming, super pissed at that Danzo guy. Even his name burns like acid and stinks of evil and hate. Trust him, Naruto knows the stench.

Finally, the other three have noticed that they’re a family! The thought fills him with warmth. He hugs them all tighter and nuzzles into Sasuke's neck. The bastard blushes faintly, ha! Unknown to them all they’ve all thought the same thing simultaneously.

Finally, I’m home…

wc: 2,395

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A bonus scene for all the waiting I’ve made you do! Featuring Naruto’s lack of education regarding the Talk (both the boy and the world as a whole) 1734 words

A moment later, Naruto thinks back to all the cartoons and movies he’s seen on tv. He loves his team like a whole lot! So therefore he searches his memory for what to do when you love someone. The TV is his only guide since books are boring and he’s an orphan. Recalling something from a cartoon, Naruto looks up at Sasuke from where he’s nuzzled into the Uchiha’s neck, he still has the Sharingan on and his face is a little red.

Naruto pulls the boy closer to him then scooches to the other side of him so he’s now in between the gennin. Kakashi sensei is talking to a man with brown hair and a bandana. Their silence barrier was long taken down. Genma is his name, Sakura had informed them, recognising the man from Kotetsu and Izumo’s stories.

Speaking of Sakura, the girl is looking at him quizzically. She’d nearly fallen asleep on Sasuke’s other shoulder and now the bright blonde ball of energy was sitting in the middle. She didn’t mind, but questioned what he was up to.

Excited, Naruto executed his plan. Turning to face Sakura he pecked the corner of her mouth. Sasuke watched flabbergasted. His sharingan still turned on, and spinning wildly.

“Naruto!” Sakura cried, fist shaking in her embarrassed anger.

Then Naruto faced Sasuke. A look of horror crossed the raven's face before he shut his mouth and was about to turn away when the blond planted a kiss on his lips. Sasuke’s eyes were wide and he slapped a hand over his mouth, face flaming and heart beating erratically.

Sakura doubled over into a fit of laughter as the Uchiha’s face twisted into several different expressions, each more crazy than the last in a matter of seconds. The most hilarious thing was that he still had the Sharingan on so this moment was perfectly engraved into his mind forever! Sakrua laughed and laughed.

Naurto tilted his head not understanding what the big deal was. Sasuke and Sakura were his precious people, he loved them, and that’s what the people who loved each other did in the shows and movies. Besides he and Sasuke had kissed before, only twice and both were accidents, plus the bastard was more of a bastard at the time so it was kinda icky, but now the three of them (well four with Kakashi but Naruto had a feeling that it’d be weird and gross to kiss the man) were family and loved each other so it was all good!

Kakashi and Genma had looked back at his genin to witness the whole thing. Genma was rolling around on the ground totally losing his sh(t. Kakashi stared slack jawed at the scene, the laughing Haruno and flushed Uchiha sitting on opposite sides of a proud looking Naruto and was hit with the realization that Naruto was an orphan. One who hadn't had a true parental figure ever in his entire life.

Oh no.

No, no, no no no no no no, noooooooooooooo!

Kakashi groaned pathetically. Genma sat up an pointed at him then jerred, “The great Kakashi of the Sharingan, master of a thousand jutus, defeated by the ta-”

“If you want to live then you won't finish that sentence, Shirani.”

“Okay!” The jounin cheered.

Grinning maniacally when Kakashi slowly approached his genin like they were a pack of wild animals and not a few pre-teens going through puberty. Actually, that’s worse than a pack of wild animals, thought Genma with a shudder. Then the man was eternally grateful that he hadn’t yet been forced to take on a team.

Might as well talk to them all about it, thought Kakashi. And so he slumped into the grass, a few feet away from his genin and signed his death warrant.

-

Sasuke wanted to cease to exist. His sharingan was thankfully off but he had no doubt that this moment would be branded into his mind regardless. Kakashi of all people was giving the three of them the talk while some jounin rolled around in the grass pointing and laughing. The Uchiha could feel his face growing redder with each passing moment and every question Naruto had. And the blond had a lot of questions.

On the opposite side of the Uzumaki, sat Sakura. The girl was composed, even if her face was beet red. She even answered a few questions.

“What’s a period?” Asked Naruto with absolutely no social grace.

Three sets of eyes (four if you count Genma) turned to Sakura. Kakashi the traitor was letting her answer! Fine, if you want an explanation I’ll give you one. Sakura talked, she explained everything. E.V.E.R.T.H.I.N.G. in gruesome nauseating detail, even recalled one of her nastier periods to tell them about. Even Kakashi and Genma looked a little green as she recalled the pain, and nausea, telling them about how the pain and nausea made her vomit until she was blacked out on the bathroom floor. She described the inability to do anything with vivid detail, something that horrified the senior shinobi.

As she told them about how out of whack her emotions were, Sakura recalled facts she’d read in textbooks. She told them about why women got the cycle, how long it lasted and everything she could recall from countless texts and scrolls she used to educate herself when she’d gotten hers.

“According to various medical studies the female body has around twice as many nerve receptors as the male one meaning that if you were to stab a man and a woman in the same area if they had the same pain tolerance the woman would likely feel twice as much pain, just think about that in relation to the severe pain of periods for a moment please.” All the boys looked baffled at this. She watched as the confusion turned to horror and their faces went sheet white. She nearly cackles when Nauto and Sasuke subtly inch away from her. The two jounin do too but they are much more subtle.

Sakura thought back to the brief talk in the academy and wondered if that was all they’d ever gotten. Naruto had skipped that day of class. Sakura decided to take it upon herself to educate them further.

-

Asuma and Kureni watch as the pink haired gennin, Sakura, drags a group of defeated sheet white yet somehow still sickly green boys through the village and over to the direction of the library. They chat about it briefly but dismiss the strange sight.

When Kakasi and Genma stumble into the bar later in the evening and end up getting black out drunk, Asuma wishes he’d paid more attention before as the whole bar is subject to the drunken confessions of what Sakura had told them and shown them in numerous texts and scrolls. Kureni smirks while Asuma prays that Ino doesn't get any ideas from the pinkett.

He pictures her educating them as Sakura had her team and shudders. Though when Gemma tells them the story of how the pink haired girl had been in so much pain and so nauseous she’d vomited until she passed out, sympathy overtakes Asuma. Many in the bar feel the same. Some of the women even wince with flashbacks of their worse periods.

“Hey,” he elbows Kureni, “do you women often feel pain that bad?”

The men in the bar look at their female counterparts. Even the male bartender watches with rapt attention.

“Yes,” Kureni confirms, embarrassed but feeling brave, “The um, the pain can be really bad sometimes, luckily it’s not super common to black out from it or vomit.”

Gasps of shock and horror float through the crowd of men in the bar. Many had thought that the pink haired genin was exaggerating, but….

“Shit,” Kakashi murmurs, running a hand through his hair.

Suddenly Asuma has a thought that makes him sick, and angry, very angry, “Has that intense pain ever caused you to almost die?”

This time it’s not Kureni who answers.

It's Anko. Her confession shocking the bar to their cores, “Yes, it fucking has,” her voice is rough yet steely, “I remember being on a mission when I’d gotten a sudden sharp cramp. It made me wince and nearly drop my kunai, the enemy nin nearly took my head off for the lapse.”

Asuma feels sick. A feeling that many others can confirm.

Hana Inazuka speaks up next, swirling the amber liquid in her glass then downing it in a single gulp, “When I was young I almost died from the blood loss. I’d had a large injury that’d made me bleed then I had a very heavy period. Mom says that I would’ve died If they hadn’t found me in time since I’d passed out in the kennels.”

Gemma wants to vomit. He’d heard about that incident. Everyone just presumed that she’d lost more blood than anticipated in the injury….

“Oh, Kami….” someone murmurs.

“You know,” Yoshino Nara, mother to Shikamaru says, “I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s screamed in labor,” Shikaku shudders, wrapping his arms tighter around his wife at the memory.

“Yeah, contractions start out feeling like period cramps then they just keep getting worse. I’ve literally been under torture that felt better,” sighs Ino’s mother Orchid Yamanaka.

Yoshino nods much to the horror of their husbands and literally everyone else in the bar.

Anko, who works at T & I, laughs. A full belly below. “Fuck, trying to break kunoichi who’ve given birth with pain is stupidly difficult,” Many shudder at all that’s implied.

Kakashi is sure that there will never be blood in his face again for how white it is. He makes a note to talk to Sakura and try to figure out something for her period pain. Heck he might as well talk to their male hokage about it. Kakashi thinks that many would share his sentiment.

As it turns out when Kotetsu drunkenly shouts about doing just that, the whole shinobi filled bar shouts in agreement. Hirzen feels a headache from the moment his Anbu informs him about a crowd of shinobi at the door to the tower.

One hour long meeting later, Hiruzen is scheduling a meeting with the head of the hospital for tomorrow.

Somewhere in the civilian district Sakura is suddenly overcome with a feeling of intense pride.