Waiting time
Two whole days. Two whole days had passed after Team 7 successfully escorted Tazuna back home and the pink-haired had thought about her motives for becoming a Shinobi. Sasuke and Naruto had used the time, when their sensei was unconscious, to train and fight each other. Sakura on the other hand had spent her time looking after Tazuna helping the men to build the bridge as best she could. Since her body was not used to this kind of exertion, her muscles creaked every day, but she started to accept the pain. While her first day had left her exhausted and powerless in her sleeping bag, the second day hadn’t been quite so tiring. Still she didn’t feel safe, the constant fog and the uncertainty, when Kakashi would wake up, demoralized the twelve-year-old with every hour she was awake. Nevertheless she dragged herself to the bridge and fought against her own fear and uncertainty. It was the evening of the second day, when she was sitting in the kitchen with Tsunami and both women were preparing for the next day and the boys retreated to the bedroom for the evening.
"Thanks for keeping an eye on my father and helping him with the bridge, Sakura-chan." heard the female member of Team 7 the voice of her hostess.
"No reason to thank me, Tsunami-san" waved Sakura off, after she had dumped the washed rice back into a pot and covered it, "That's our job, after all. But I hope that Kakashi-sensei wakes up soon. He can do more than me."
~ Because I'm still too weak to do anything ~
She was so absorbed in her thoughts, that she hadn’t even realized Tsunami had stood up and been behind her. Only when she noticed a weight on her shoulder, she realized, that she had drifted away.
"Thanks anyway. You're currently the only one out there with him and that makes me feel better. As for your sensei. I'm sure he'll wake up in the next two days, so do not worry about it." A sincere smile fell on Sakura's features as she heard the words of the elders, leaving her with a warm and comfortable feeling.
'HA! At least one sees our efforts and appreciates them. Because of they are pointless and we can not do anything. When Tsunami feels better, because we take care of the drinking head, then it is worth our fear anyway! CHA!’ Inner seemed to have absorbed the words and used them to whip herselfe up. Maybe Inner was not so wrong with her words, after all Tazuna's daughter appreciated her efforts and if it made her feel comfortable and safer, she would rise again tomorrow and accompany the old curmudgeon to the bridge.
"Thank you Tsunami-san. I will continue to pay attention to Tazuna-san. Does anything else have to be prepared for tomorrow?" She didn’t want to go on talking about her mission, reveal her inability, therefore she distracted the subject and was glad as Tsunami received it.
"No, that's all. I think we should end the day here too and go to sleep as well. Good night, Sakura-chan."
"Hm. Good night Tsunami-san." With a nod, the Haruno said goodbye to the woman and made her way to the bedroom of her team, but she didn’t enter the room. Instead she waited until she heard the door of Tsunamis bedroom, got her flashlight out of her bag and went outside again. When she hadn’t trained the previous night, she wanted it at least that night, without the necessary discipline she would not get on. Thus she started her endurance run and incidentally counted the laps she had made. It was barely a lap more than the first time, but more was more. Why a small victorious smile fell on her lips as she tried to catch her breath. She was not aware that she was being watched.
After Sakura recovered from her endurance training, she sat down on one of the boxes next to the house and stared at her hands for a while.
'Do you think Inner I should try the first exercises from the scroll? Chakra-circulation through the body and exercise with the leaf on the forehead held by chakra has worked smoothly in the academy. But there we had Iruka-sensei who supervised us and our progress. The warning that you shouldn't do the exercises without supervision, because of the risk of chakra-burns or burn in the worst case your chakra-tracks, is certainly not readily written down.’’ Sakura was unsure if she should take the risk. Should something go wrong, she would be an even greater burden than current and she wanted to avoid that. But if she was able to master the exercises, she had at least a greater chance of being helpful.
'You are thinking too much. In the academy we did it without big problems and Iruka-sensei even praised us for our control and didn’t pay any attention to us afterwards. Just go as in the academy, from theory slowly to practice in small steps. You'll know if something goes wrong.' Beaten by her own self, Sakura sighed softly. If she remembered correctly, the next exercise was to run up a tree with the help of chakra, but in the darkness she didn’t want to go near the forest, so she would pick another exercise. She remembered an exercise in which one had to concentrate chakra so hard, that it could be visibly released over the chakra points. The important thing was, that you didn’t use too much chakra and at the same time opened the necessary chakra points. Without it would build up an immense pressure and cause burns, in the worst case even by the pressure and too much chakra you could blow away your own hand and that was what she wanted to avoid in any case.
Taking a deep breath, the young Kunoichi straightened her shoulders and sat upright and straight, before mentally reviewing all the basics she had learned at the Academy. Concentrated she looked at her hands, practiced dry opening the chakra points and then collecting chakra in her hand, keeping the amount greatly reduced. Just enough to realize that more energy flowed through her hand than through her other. Then she tried to open her chakra points in her hand without interrupting the chakra flow. When initially nothing was visible, she frowned. She had done everything exactly as described in the manual, but her hand didn’t glow like it should, if the exercise was successful. Maybe she used too little chakra? Once again, she was gathering her chakra in one hand, this time more, so she clearly felt the difference to her other hand, where her chakra flowed normally. When she opened her chakra points afterwards, her hand began to glow light blue and the pressure in her chakra tracks decreased, so also disappeared the light.
"Presumably I have to keep the pressure upright as long as I want to keep the exercise active." murmured she to herself rather than start the third attempt, this time she kept the amount of chakra constant as her hand began to glow again. She minimized and increased the chakra amount, observed and analyzed how the changes yielded different results and after a while of testing, she let go and the chakra-coat disappeared around her hand. It wasn’t until she finished her exercise that she realized how exhausted she felt. She had lost all sense of time and due to clouds in the sky she couldn’t make out the moon.
'Maybe it's better if we stop training and go to sleep for today. We did the exercise and that before the other two, which should be tested first! If that isn't a success, I don't know either. We've really earned the night's sleep, Saku!'
A weary smile settled on Sakura's features before she made an almost silent, affirmative "hmhm" and slid from the box she was sitting on. Her legs felt like jelly and she found it hard to put one foot in front of the other, but somehow she made it back to the house, the bathroom, and the bedroom, before she crawled exhausted into her sleeping bag and fell asleep, even before her head landed safely on her pillow.
The third day didn’t go much differently than the last two days. With tense and aching muscles, the pink haired Kunoichi woke up after her two teammates, stretched herself to at least loosen her muscles a little and then went to the bathroom to wash and dress before going to the kitchen for breakfast. Naruto and Sasuke were discussing what they would do today, better said Naruto pleaded to fight Sasuke again to prove that he is better than the arrogant Uchiha. The two boys didn't even pay attention when she sighed deeply and shook her head. Instead they both left their empty plates and made their way outside, one always trying to push the other out of the way. She had got used to the fact that the two of them had more or less ignored her over the last few days. She couldn't blame them. She hadn't fought with them, hadn't protected their backs as a team normally did. She'd been weak and useless. No wonder they didn't trust her to do anything. She heavily breathed out through her nose after she had put her thoughts back into order and cleared her plate, as well as the other two plates from Naruto and Sasuke, into the sink and then made her way to the bridge, where she was already expected.
Although it had only been two days she had spent on the bridge with the men and Tazuna, she quickly found a certain connection. In the beginning, the men had hardly taken her seriously, had making fun of her, but no matter what tasks they gave the young girl, she went through it without really complaining. Everybody could see her, if something didn't fit her, she was disgusted or something was a little too heavy for her, but she never said it out loud and when she showed up again on the second day and picked up where she had left off, the men slowly began to accept her. On the third day it was almost as if she was part of the team right from the start.
"Nah, if it isn't Pinky-chan! Thought you ran away from us or did someone meet a secret admirer and dump us for him?" heard Sakura a young man calling when she had finally reached the bridge. He had introduced himself as Daichi the day before and had enjoyed teasing the Haruno with his jokes. No wonder when the entire team started laughing as Sakura turned red like a tomato because of the commentary.
"I told you yesterday to not call me Pinky, Daichi-san. My name is Sakura, S-A-K-U-R-A! Understood?! And I don't have an admirer, I just had to clean up after my two fools of teammates." She grumbled out in annoyance and hit the young man, perhaps in his mid-twenties, on the back of his head, as he was screwing something together on the floor. Which once again provoked an amused laugh on the part of those present.
"Ah, so mean, Pinky-chan, where's the fun? Relax a little." replied Daichi grinning and rubbed himself played indignantly the back of his head. Which caused Sakura to sigh in frustration.
"I'm here to work, Daichi-san. Apropo what's on today?"
"You're too stiff, Pinky. A little fun hasn't hurt anyone yet." she got in response and Daichi pulled the corners of her mouth up a little,provided that he let it go quickly, as he saw, that she frowned her forehead and her face was more like a grimace than a beautiful smile.
"You can get the next boards and porters with some of the guys from below. If we're lucky, we'll get a new shipment at noon today."
With a nod Sakura said goodbye to Daichi and his people and went to work. She dragged boards, pushed boxes from one corner to the next, brought tools or carried buckets of tar to the people who needed them. The mood among the workers was different than in the past days and if she combined it properly, it was because of the approaching delivery, they were expecting. Sakura could only hope that everything would go well.
Tazuna's harsh voice ripped her from her thoughts and activities when he called her name and when she stepped on him questioningly, she recognized his nephew standing behind him.
"Inari told me to tell you that your sensei has woken up and he wants to talk to you. We'll take a break now anyway and hopefully we'll get the delivery soon, so off you go."
Briefly Sakura nodded as a sign of understanding and followed Inari back to the house, where she also immediately entered the bedroom and found an alert Kakashi, as well as a grinning Naruto and a Sasuke leaning against the wall.
"Mah, such serious looks. Where have my sweet little genins gone?" Kakashi mocked a little and his visible eye seemed to grin.
"They've been on their own for the last two and a half days, Kakashi-sensei." Sakura replied as neither of her boys made any effort to say anything. Although she wanted to sound serious, she couldn’t prevent the relief in her voice. Their sensei was awake and would certainly give them instructions on what to do. Everything was better than being on your own without knowing what to do. Kakashi's next reaction she couldn't really interpret it, she couldn’t read enough on his face, though jerked off - whatever it was - quite quickly a relaxed and loose facial expression.
"Moe, so seriously Sakura-chan. Nothing else happened, I suppose. How have you spent the past days?" Kakashi looked at Sakura for a moment before he took a look at the two boys.
"After the fight against Zabuza, Tazuna carried you Kakashi-sensei to his house and as soon as we arrived, Sasuke-teme and I sunk exhausted on our sleeping clothes. Otherwise, Teme and I trained here behind the house. After all, I have to prove to him that I am better, believe it!”
"Hn, shut up Dobe, as if you could defeat me."
Even before an argument could break out, Kakashi interrupted the conflict and devoted himself to the last member of his team. "What about you, Sakura-chan?"
The two boys also turned in her direction and seemed to be waiting for an answer. The glances resting on her made her more nervous than she wanted to admit. Which is why she just shrugged her shoulders a little.
"I helped Tsunami-san and tidied up behind them, when they forgot to clear the table in their eagerness. Otherwise I looked around the village and occasionally I've seen what's going on at the bridge." That she helped build the bridge and trained at night, she rather kept to herself. Why wasn't she really clear, but she had the feeling that nobody on the team would believe her. Because of that she didn't feel well under the stern gaze of her Sensei and she wondered if he had noticed that she was hiding something. Fortunately he didn't go any further, only nodded slightly, before he thoughtfully looked at the two boys and apparently had an idea.
"Since the bridge isn't finished yet and we're going to stay here that long, you're going to train and I know exactly what."
The statement didn't just seem to surprise Sakura. Naruto jumped loudly into the air and was very happy that Kakashi-sensei would finally teach them something and it would surely be a mega cool awesome Jutsu. Even Sasuke was in a better mood than the past days and wore an almost invisible grin on his lips. He seemed just as excited to learn something as Naruto. Even if he would never say it out loud. Sakura herself was also excited, but also a little nervous. Kakashi hadn't taught them a single thing in the last few months since they became a team. So what made him change it now?
‘Perhaps the fact that we are on a mission, that is not meant for Genins and we have to reckon with opponents which are stronger and faster than us? He would do well to finally teach us something useful.' Mentally she could only agree with Inner and slowly followed her team outside and into the forest.