Earthquakes and Riptides
Kakashi woke once again with the taste of lightning on his tongue. Adrenaline in his system and Rin’s heart staining his hands and Obito's tears staining his mind. He did his best to shake off the screaming betrayal his heart was going through and began lesson planning.
Today he’d start on Chakra natures, and explain what chakra actually is. Even if two of them already knew, he wondered if they truly understood what it meant. To be honest, probably not. Chakra was the breath of life, it was the burn of fire, the pull of the tides, the gale of the plains, and the crumble of earth.
He looked out the window. Dawn was still struggling to break over the horizon of Konoha, giving the village a deathly quality, as the only ones out and about were the Chunin patrols, and Gai and Lee. He goes to the kitchen, goes through the routine he goes through every day he’s in the village:
Get coffee, pray he doesn't burn the coffee, put dog food in dog bowls, summon Ninken, heat leftovers from last night’s dinner. Drink coffee. Make small talk with ninken. Dismiss ninken. Go see the memorial. Beg Obito for forgiveness and tell him that Kakashi always loved him. Beg ‘Sui for forgiveness for not seeing Itachi as a threat. Beg Minato-Sensei for forgiveness, and today he lets him know that his son’s a genin. He lets him know how reckless he is. “When I get there, you can kill me. Please forgive me, both of you, please. Please .” Tell Kushina how her son is literally her but with Minato's coloring, beg for forgiveness. Ask Rin why to beg for her forgiveness. Ask his dad why, let him know he’s doing okay. He always lies to his dad. Tell his mom he misses her. Asks her to help keep his dad happy. Look off towards the dawn.
Dawn brings in the start of a small death of who his students were today, and chances for learning who they’ll be.
-~~-
Sakura wakes with the dawn, burdened with the weight of her worlds on her shoulders and dried tears on her cheeks. Her hair glows in the soft light. She grabs a kunai, she sharpened it. sharper than her present state. Then her hair is significantly shorter, lighter, and with the dawn, the cherry blossom readies herself to grow. The world waits with bated breath.
-~~-
When Kakashi gets there, his genin aren’t there yet. He told them seven on the dot; it is now five. He pulls out the worn orange book that was a gag gift from Rin. Despite its shitty reputation, the novel was actually well written. Rin had informed him between giggles that she had heard it was a weird-ass love letter from the toad sage to his female teammate. Obito called bullshit. Minato and Kushina found their elicit reading material, and then they, for lack of better words, ‘freaked the fuck out’ and all of them had been grounded. Rin flinched after that when the words ‘D-ranks’, and ‘Tora’ were in the same sentence. Obito stated that Tora was an agent of T&I, and Kakashi didn’t state otherwise. The first of his new team arrives at five-thirty. and the taste of steady on the wind. the taste of rage like blood in the water.
Sakura shows up in a similar outfit as she wore yesterday. Yeah, that’s not going to fly. He thinks the red’s going to get her killed in the field. He notices her hair is much shorter than it was yesterday. It’s also choppy. What did she do, take a kunai to it? She stands, waiting. After ten minutes, she sits and takes out a sharpened kunai and plays the genin favorite: ‘I Have All My Fingers’. She keeps a slow and steady pace as if trying to teach herself to be comfortable with the blade. the earth cracks under the blade, She's willing to take a finger off. the steady slide of knife in earth and pulling earth from knife, repeating like a dull hum.
-~~-
Sasuke rarely sleeps. He can’t. Not with him out there and alive. He must kill him. He has too. It’s all he has left to live for. It's all he can do for the good of the clan. It’s all he’s got left of the Clan. Every Uchiha knows the Clan is right, the Clan is everything. The clan is all.
-~~-
At six-thirty, Sasuke comes from another training ground and Sakura doesn't stop. Instead of going faster, she slams the kunai even harder into the earth, cracking it further beneath her hand. If she misses, she’ll lose a more than a finger. Sasuke watches her, his posture slouching. He’s tired. Sasuke is consumed by ghosts and lies and hatred. He needs to learn to look after himself and care for his team. Kakashi knows how that feels.
Kakashi respects Sasuke a little. He respects that Sasuke willingly lives in the house where he waded through the blood of everyone he called family, minus Itachi. Itachi was not something Kakashi wanted to think about. He was curious to see what Sakura was going to act like around her ‘crush.’
“Aren’t you supposed to go faster?” Sasuke blithely states with a raised eyebrow. Sakura ignores him. “Also, what happened to your hair?”
She stops and looks at him, “We may be teammates, and I may love" that is not a normal inflection on that word. " you, but you messed me up. I won't let you do it again. I cut it,” She says, back straight and anger in her body language. Kakashi wonders why.
“With what? A kunai?” Sasuke scoffs.
“Yes.” The word is spat out with so much hatred. Kakashi flinches.
“It’s ugly,” Sasuke says. Kakashi watches as she fucking decks him. There's a crack and Kakashi is pretty sure she broke his nose.
"Woah bastard, what did you do?" This marks Naruto's arrival, and Sasuke is bleeding. Sasuke doesn't take either occurrence well.
-~~-
Naruto wakes up at exactly four AM daily, since the day after his birth, without fail. Since he was six, he’s used this time to make sure he can hide everything he owns and values, so nothing is destroyed by shitty petty civilians. Today he does this and stares over Konoha. He remembers his promise, to himself, and to whoever his mom and dad are. He’ll never show anyone but those who are truly precious to him his weaknesses. the red lights of the akasen glitter like rubies in the last rays of night.
-~~-
Sasuke tenses.
Fuck, dontpanicdotnpanicdontpanic, do not panic, Sasuke he thinks.
He... Sasuke panics.
He’s down to his knees, faster than Naruto and Sakura can see. Naruto looks at Sakura, eyes wide with fear. Kakashi is out of the tree and on the ground beside Sasuke by the time he hits his knees.
“Sasuke, breathe.” Kakashi’s stern voice shocks all three of the newly minted genin. Kakashi knew a panic attack wasn’t what anyone needed or wanted on the first day of training, but as the famous saying goes, shit happens. Sakura looks toward her new sensei.
“I didn’t mea- I di- Sensei I was holding back!” He doesn’t believe her but now’s not the time. He looks at her and she quiets. Naruto looks at both Sasuke and Kakashi.
“I’ll get some help.” Kakashi nods as he speeds off. Sasuke is trying to breathe.
Not five minutes later, Naruto comes back, a medic on his heels. “Listen, kid, I have a job to do. I don’t have time for your-”
“And I’m telling you, that my teammate is hurt!” She sees Kakashi on the ground with the Uchiha.
“What did you do, you demon?” the medic hisses.
“I didn’t do it!”
The medic sneers, unconvinced.
“He didn’t,” Sakura looks up. “Naruto did nothing wrong.” She glares the medic down. She’s already taken Kakashi’s new lesson to heart. The medic sneers at Sakura and Naruto, but coos over Sasuke. Kakashi gives the medic a look, reminding her of the Law. Sakura and Sasuke have no right knowing. “Demon fox” or not, the medic shouldn’t openly disdain Naruto, regardless of her opinion of the boy. the fact every 'respectable' adult did made his teeth grind.
“Your nose is broken, give me a second and it’ll all be well Uchiha-san.” Sasuke glares at the medic, as she’s said something truly fucking idiotic.
-~~-
Tobi spent a lot of time in pain. He spent even more time silently seething. The Uchiha in him was excellent at seething. Unfortunately, seething wasn’t going to fix his problem, nor was it going to bring about peace. A crash sounds in the background. Fucking hell, does Tobi-chan have to do everything around here?
-~~-
Sakura is folding in on herself. Naruto is shocked. Sasuke slightly shakes. Kakashi needs to know the truth about Sakura’s strength because if she's telling the truth, he’s all five kinds of fucked. Strength like that hasn’t been seen since Tsunade punched out the wall in the training ground, by accident.
“I’m so sorry, Sasuke-Kun.” Sakura’s voice falters. Sasuke looks at her. Her choppy hair flutters in the wind, and Sasuke looks at her differently than he did yesterday. He looks less brooding, less like a boy who’s already lost himself in the title of ‘Avenger’ and more like a boy who understands that even a cherry blossom can be a serious threat. Sasuke is coming to terms with the possible fate of his Quest.
“Sakura, I want to check something,” Kakashi says. He hopes it wasn’t a fluke. “I want you to punch...” He tries to think of something that won’t end up in his death. Or permanently maim him. “This.” He points to a wall facing the village. “With all of your strength.” Her face is grave, brows furrowed, and her shoulders are rolled back.
She walks with all the purpose and solemnity of an ANBU. She stops five inches from the wall and cocks her arm back. Kakashi feels the change in the air, the feel of the earth before an earthquake. The tense stillness of the ocean before a tsunami. This is Sakura’s chakra as it should be. It makes him wonder why she acts so timid, or rather tries to act timid. He doubts that it had nothing to do with her civilian parents. She makes contact with the wall and the point of the impact craters and explodes.
There’s a huge hole in the training ground, also looks like Genma just almost- nope, he actually did just get stabbed with one of the shards of wood. He ponders what he should say, and goes with what seems like the best answer.
“Great job my cute student!” he says, thumbs up and a fake dopey grin on his face. Her teammates are shocked and shaken.