Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sakura was a curious girl.

She liked knowing the ins and outs of things. When memorizing the Shinobi handbook was as easy as reading through it once, the repetitive lectures on history and the development of the current economy lost their appeal. As much as it looked enticing, she was much too polite to fall asleep in class- even when Iruka-sensei was going through the basics of bunshin for the fifth time in the semester. 

Sasuke-kun was a good distraction. He was definitely more interesting than the same lessons over and over again. Unlike the structure of the Warring States period, there are things about Sasuke she didn’t know. She had questions.  

And unlike Iruka-sensei’s lectures, those answers weren’t written in her already memorized textbook.

‘What a good excuse that’ll be,’ Sakura sarcastically thought to herself, crouched low in the shadow of her classroom. ‘I was just curious, Iruka-sensei- honest! I only wanted to see Sasuke-kun’s genin assignment, that’s all!’

Yeah, Sakura was sure that would go over well.

It was just as well that she wasn’t planning on being caught.

Every Academy student wondered what genin team they’d be on. Unlike Ino-pig, who was born to be on a team with Shikamaru and Chouji, there was no way of knowing until their final exam scores were calculated. Other students may have been satisfied with going into team assignments blind, but Sakura was not. If nothing else, it was fun planning how to infiltrate the Academy. She was a little concerned it was so easy, actually. Something she’d have to bring up with Iruka-sensei in the future- hopefully after she made jounin and he couldn't give her a detention for it.

She’d staked out the school after class for the last week, pulling up all the information she’d ever learned about intelligence gathering and stealth. She’d made mental schedules for all of the teachers, coupled with notes on their usual routes to and from the building. It only took a few bathroom breaks for her to map a route through the school to her target, marking potential stealth risks and barriers.

On normal nights there were usually a few chuunin instructors burning the midnight oil grading papers and writing up progress reports, but after the graduation exam, the place was deserted. She’d even waited until the early hours of the morning, watching a few chuunin messengers come and go from the building until, finally, no one had disturbed the building in over two hours.

Hidden high in the trees that lined the schoolyard, Sakura had counted every teacher as they left- they’d all gone home, even Mizuki-sensei, who tended to stay later than everyone else (He’d gone over to Naruto, for some reason, even though Sakura thought Mizuki-sensei hated Naruto-). 

Sakura moved forward in a textbook perfect crouch, slipping from the shadows of the desks to just beside the door. Moonlight steamed in from the windows across the room, catching slightly on the only panel that was slightly ajar.

She’d volunteered to take Choji’s turn cleaning the erasers and the chalkboard to secure her infiltration route. It had been so easy while cleaning the windows to ‘accidentally’ unlock one of the lower panes. Sakura giggled to herself. She’d passed the graduation exam today but she really only felt like a ninja right now, sneaking around the Academy at night like a delinquent.

Sakura shook her head, trying to refocus. ‘ This is a mission. Focus. You want to know if you’ll be on a team with Sasuke-kun, don’t you?

Sakura took a deep breath, letting it out slowly and steadily.

The classroom door slid open quietly, and peeking her head out into the hallway didn’t reveal anyone walking the dark halls. She waited a beat, and then quickly stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her. The last thing Sakura wanted was for someone to come along and see one of the classroom doors left ajar, the window unlocked and open.

Her preparations had been thorough, but you could never be too careful.

The target was on the other side of the school- a definite flaw in her escape plan if things went sideways, but unavoidable. She made her way down the hallway, ducking under the windows in the doors of the classrooms as she passed.

‘4-E, 3-A, 3-B, 3-C...’ Sakura counted her way through the halls, moving as quickly as she could without making any noise. That last thing she wanted to do was give herself away by her sandal squeaking or something equally embarrassing.

‘Found it.’ Sakura thought. Nestled between classroom 1-E and 2-A was the Academy records room.

Sakura supposed it was smart to put the records room down with the first and second year classrooms where few students would think to ask about it. There was another room near the teachers lounge with a nameplate reading RECORDS ROOM in clear kanji (an obvious decoy if anyone bothered to watch the teachers come and go)—but the nondescript room protected by the obliviousness of the six year olds who attended class in this part of the building was the real prize.

Sakura rubbed her hands together with glee. ‘Now who’s going to get Sasuke-kun first, Ino-pig?’ There was maybe a twinge of guilt for getting an unfair leg up in their competition, but, really, Ino had too many advantages to begin with for Sakura to feel too bad about it.

She dropped to her knees in front of the door, eyeing the lock. She’d practiced picking the lock to the girls bathroom until she could do it in less than a minute but that was no guarantee that this lock would be the same, or that she’d even be able to get the thing to open.

All of the time she’d spent to get this far would be ruined by a single locked door.

She frowned, digging into her kunai pouch for her makeshift lockpicks. ‘Sasuke-kun wouldn’t give up before he at least tried .’ Neither would Ino-pig, her mind also helpfully supplied.

She held her pin up to the lock, her tongue peeking out of her mouth as she guided it slowly in. ‘Relax. Just picture what’s happening inside the lock.’ Slowly, with each exploratory poke of her lockpick inside the mechanism, she gained a clearer and clearer picture of what she had to do. It was a harder lock than she was used to, but bit by bit she could feel the lock pins sliding into place.

‘Up, down, a little to the left and- ‘ Sakura jerked the door sideways, grinning as it slid away from the wall. Open.

Sakura allowed herself a congratulatory fist pump and a whispered “Shannaro!” before she quickly stepped inside the room and out of the exposed hallway. She closed the door as far as she dared behind her, wary of being locked in, and then turned to survey the place.

It was surprisingly small, considering this room supposedly held the academic records of every student in attendance. Floor to ceiling filing cabinets in rows of ten filled the space. It smelled like dust and paper- Sakura took a deep breath.

‘Smells like mission accomplished!’

She moved through the room, checking labels as she went. The rows seemed to be grouped by year, so she skipped to the far end of the room- 4th year classes A-E. It was easy enough to locate Class C and easier still to separate Sasuke-kun’s file from between Uchiro, Yin and Tsuchikane, Masa .

The file she pulled was thick. It seemed like the Academy had kept very good notes on the Last Uchiha. She let herself do a full-body wiggle of excitement before getting down to business. She sat down, her back against the filing cabinet and started to read.

‘Taijutsu kata consistent with Uchiha clan style, chakra levels read at above average… see scale for comparison in index A… ninjutsu scores, weapon scores… ’ Sakura pouted, flipping through the file. There was nothing in the file that Sakura didn’t already know from sharing a class with Sasuke-kun for 4 years.

(...well. From sharing a class with Sasuke for 4 years and watching him every day, that is.)

She flipped back through, stopping on a tab labeled Team Assignment: Team 7 under Jounin Kakashi Hatake. Attached: Personality assessment. Filed under: TA-HR-T07.

Sakura brightened. ‘Now that’s what I’m talking about!’

She carefully straightened the file and slid it back in place. Then she was up and scouring the shelves for the next genin team assignment file.

While the primary objective was confirming that she’d be Sasuke-kun’s teammate, her secondary goal was getting her hands on her own Academy file. Her scores guaranteed she’d be with Sasuke-kun of course, no matter what Ino-pig yelled at her across the room. 

Sakura wondered who their third teammate would be. It might've been Kiba, the lowest scoring genin in their batch of graduates, other than Shikamaru. Sakura’s nose wrinkled. His puppy was cute, but Kiba smelled entirely too much like wet dog for her to be happy sharing a team with him.

Sakura hummed as she thumbed along the spines of the files, absently searching for TA-HR-T07.

Her fingers stopped.

The Team 7 file was at least two solid inches, a ream of paper that pushed the file folder that encased it to the limit.

Sakura swallowed. She pulled it carefully from the shelf and sat, cradling it tight to avoid dropping it and sending papers everywhere.

‘I don’t… think this is normal.’ Sakura thought, looking up at the other team assignments. Sasuke-kun’s team file was larger than all the other files put together. The first tab was assigned to Sasuke-kun, and it comically bulged, obscuring the tabs with his teammates names. 

She opened to the first page, and began to read.

Name: Sauke Uchiha

Age: 12

Team Assignment: Team 7

Jounin Instructor: Kakashi Hatake (Sharingan no Kakashi)

Rank: Genin

Academy Ranking: 1st of 53, Rookie of the Year (see Add. D)

Skill Assessment: Excellent written and practical scores concerning taijutsu and ninjutsu. Trap making, general tactics, and chakra manipulation scores above average. Genjutsu, weapon training, and general theory scores were average. Chakra capacity in the 80th percentile. Doujutsu is dormant.

Personality Assessment: Driven and focused. Purposefully isolates and avoids making personal connections. Intelligent, with an eye for detail that lends itself to impressive situational awareness.

Under observation after Uchiha Incident due to prolonged effects of [REDACTED]. Documented disregard for personal and bystander safety during training sessions observed by Academy personnel-

Sakura frowned. Sasuke-kun was a little intense in taijutsu training, but weren’t they supposed to be? Then again, there had been that time with their live steel drills that he’d sent one of the other civilian kids to the nurse… or that time when he’d broken Kiba’s arm when the class had been going over submission holds. Or that time- Sakura cut herself off, swallowing. Now that she thought about it… Sakura pursed her lips, and kept reading.

-Academy personnel and ANBU operatives. [REDACTED] has resulted in latent obsessive traits becoming more severe, of particular concern in light of the Uchiha Clan’s tendency towards instability. Frustration with Academy teaching methods and perceived lack of improvement has proven to be an aggression trigger. Little respect for chain of command and non-combat military operations training. Strong correlation between martial strength and respect, possibly a reason for the ineffectiveness of psychological evaluations by civilian specialists and shinobi practitioners deemed “desk ninja”.

Lord Hokage has designated Uchiha Sasuke as a Level 2 flight risk . Chuunin on gate duty are to report times of egress and ingress to the Jounin watch commander on duty. Jounin squad leaders are required to make monthly reports to the T&I liaison concerning mission and training conduct.

This designation removes Uchiha Sasuke from team configurations with the following graduates: Hyuuga Hinata , Nara Shikamaru , Yamanaka Ino , Akimichi Chouji , and Aburame Shino.

Sakura blinked. ‘ There must be some sort of mistake!’ She thought to herself. She ripped through the file, reading as fast as she could. There, in black and white, was report after report, failed psych eval after failed psych eval detailing exactly how Sasuke failed to measure up to the boy she’d built up in her head for the past five years.

Worse, the reports made it sound like Sasuke-kun was… dangerous. Words like ‘reckless’, ‘collateral’, and ‘aggressive’ were peppered regularly throughout the reports, going all the way back to his first evaluations after the Uchiha massacre.

‘They just don't understand him!’ Sakura thought desperately to herself. ‘Anyone would be a little off after being what he’s been through- he just needs s-someone to care about him!’

It was just. It was hard to argue with the evidence laid out as clearly and concisely as the reports in her lap.

Disturbed, Sakura set Sasuke’s reports aside. There had to be more in the team folder that would let her know just what was going on with Sasuke-kun. There had to be something, otherwise- Sakura felt a ripple of unease. Otherwise everything in Sasuke-kun’s file could be true .

There was another thick file in Sasuke-kun’s team folder. She removed it gently, noting the way it looked like it had been shoved rather haphazardly in between the other reports in the team file. There wasn’t even a name written on the tab- maybe a last minute addition? Those chuunin messengers had been pretty late coming to the academy…

She opened to the first page and her eyebrows shot upwards. “No way.” she muttered to herself, rifling through the rest of the papers for the certificate of graduation.

This had to be a filing mistake. There was no way that Uzumaki Naruto graduated and made it onto a team with Sasuke-kun. She had watched him fail the graduation exam.

But lo and behold, there it was. The ink on the Hokage’s seal was smudged- it probably hadn’t had the chance to dry properly before it was sent off to file at the academy- but it was cosigned by Iruka-sensei and looked just as official as her own.

She sighed, blowing at her bangs in frustration. It must be nice, she thought a little nastily, to be the favorite of the Hokage and Iruka-sensei. At least she’d never relied on her clan name or favoritism to graduate. If she’d tried half of the things Naruto got away with, she’d have been expelled from the Academy and one of her younger cousins would’ve been drafted instead.

She flipped past Naruto’s brand new graduation certificate, thumbing through the multiple incident reports of vandalism and truancy in his file until she reached the personality assessments. She was pretty sure she knew what they would say, but she was still looking for answers to Sasuke-kun’s assessment and it wouldn’t do to skip Naruto’s file out of laziness.

Name: Naruto Uzumaki

Age: 12

Team Assignment: Team 7

Jounin Instructor: Kakashi Hatake (Sharingan no Kakashi)

Rank: Academy student Genin

Academy Ranking: 53rd out of 53

Skill Assessment: Performed below average in taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu. Performed below average in general theory, weapons training, and chakra manipulation. Scores were above average in practical tactics and trap making. Scores in the 99th percentile for chakra capacity.

There was a note, hastily scribbled onto the end of the skill assessment, clashing harshly with the typed report. ‘Learned Kage Bunshin in 2??? Hours’. Sakura made a mental note to look up what kind of bunshin that was. She knew for a fact that Naruto couldn’t make an Academy clone to save his life.

Personality Assessment: Loud, outgoing, and energetic despite passive social isolation due to [REDACTED]. Dedicated to Konoha and, due to relationship with Hokage-sama, has idolized the position of Hokage as a symbol of acceptance. 

All academy personnel are trained in the appropriate evacuation and safety protocols in case there is a containment breach. Use of lethal force has been authorized. All Academy instructors have shown basic proficiency in applying containment seals in case of emergency and have taken steps to limit the interaction of certain students with the subject (see Add. F).

[REDACTED] removes Uzumaki Naruto from team configurations with the following graduates: Hyuuga Hinata , Nara Shikamaru , Yamanaka Ino , Akimichi Chouji , Inuzuka Kiba , and Aburame Shino.

Sakura blinked. Why was this report making it sound like Naruto was going to- to snap and kill everyone? Naruto couldn’t substitute his way out of a paper bag, there was no reason for there to be evacuation protocols in case he, what? Had a temper tantrum?

She felt like she was losing touch with reality- like she had somehow ended up in a parallel universe where Sasuke-kun was some kind of loose canon and Naruto was dangerous. If it wasn’t filed away in the records room, the ink from the Hokage’s official stamp embossed on each file, Sakura would think she was caught in a genjutsu.

(She flexed her chakra and quietly murmured kai just to make sure. Nope. No illusions.)

She turned to the last file. It was thin. Almost pathetic in comparison to the size of the other two. Sasuke-kun and Naruto’s files were pushed away, and she opened the thin file in her lap.

Her smiling face looked up at her, a few years out of date, but still unmistakably her. She allowed herself a little smile at being right- she was on Sasuke-kun’s team after all. 

Not that it seemed to be such a dream come true, anymore.

Name: Sakura Haruno

Age: 12

Team Assignment: Team 7

Jounin Instructor: Kakashi Hatake (Sharingan no Kakashi)

Rank: Genin

Academy Designation: 2nd out of 53

Skill Assessment: Child of two civilian refugees, one from Kiri and one from [REDACTED]. Her genin contract is 5 years, per the Refugee Citizenship Act (see Add. B) signed into law by Lord Nidaime. Performed below average in taijutsu and ninjutsu. Performed above average in general theory, weapons training, and practical tactics. Scores were average in trap making. Scores in the 99th percentile for chakra manipulation. Scores in the 50th percentile for chakra capacity.

Sakura winced. She’d been so proud of her ranking in the class (2nd in the class, above all of the clan heirs and shinobi kids? As a civilian?) but when her skills were laid out so harshly in black and white… it seemed much less impressive.

Personality Assessment: Possibly possesses an eidetic memory due to the ease of class work and information retention. Flourishes in an academic environment, to the detriment of other shinobi skills. Performs all three Academy ninjutsu to Academy standards. No other jutsu known.

Was… was that it? Sakura flipped the sheet of paper over, looking for more. The report didn’t even mention Sasuke, or Ino, or- well, much of anything. Sure she wasn’t a ninja from a clan, with jutsu handed out to her like it was nothing, but she’d worked hard. 

Apparently no one had noticed. Worse- they noticed and said not good enough.

Sakura stared down at the paper, her chin tucked into her chest. Her entire career, summarized on one underwhelming page. Her proficiency in theory, so praised by her academy teachers, was nothing more than a footnote to highlight how much she was lacking in comparison to her future teammates.

She stood, suddenly, going back to the shelf of team assignments. There was one thing that Sasuke-kun and Naruto’s files had in common, and that was a list of people they weren’t allowed to be on a team with. She needed to- she needed to check that the creeping suspicion in the back of her mind was unfounded-

With each file, Sakura’s heart stuck more in her throat. How strange, that every student mentioned by name in Naruto and Sasuke-kun’s files were on the same two teams. How strange, that every clan heir was exempted from being on Sasuke-kun’s team. How strange, that every clan member was exempted from being on Naruto’s team due to his apparent instability .

How strange that she’d ended up being on a team with both of them.

Sakura sat back heavily, staring blankly down at the floor.  If she was with Sasuke-kun and another normal student, it would be different. You have to put the last Uchiha somewhere, after all, no matter his status.

Naruto changed things.

Naruto was apparently too dangerous to be assigned the same team as anyone with a name worth recognizing. Sakura scanned the list of names again, her mouth twisting. There were no names on the list that belonged to any of the civilian genin who had passed today. Clan children made up the bulk of the genin class this year due to a baby boom after the Third War; Naruto and Sasuke’s prohibition limited their pool of potential teammates to a pitiful few civilian graduates.

Sakura swallowed around the lump in her throat.

What did this mean for her? Even beside the blow to her personal pride, the differences in the files were worrying on their own. What would her sensei think, looking at her record next to her teammates?

Considering the underwhelming brevity, she probably wouldn’t be anything more than an afterthought.

‘Sasuke-kun, he- he was the last of the Uchiha clan. It makes sense to prioritize him. They needed to keep the Sharingan in the village by any means necessary. ’ Sakura’s thoughts raced in her head, trying desperately to reconcile this information in the face of her rising anxiety. ‘ It makes sense that they’d want to… want to-”

‘ Oh yeah?’ Inner Sakura asked, her voice loud and angry inside Sakura’s head. ‘You wanna explain to me how you’re okay with being in line of fire if Naruto snaps or if Sasuke-kun tries to go AWOL?” ’

‘He wouldn’t abandon-”

‘ How would you know?’ Came the answering sneer. ‘ The only reason we’re on this team is because we don’t have a clan full of ninja keeping us safe from this clusterfuck of a team assignment .’

Sakura recoiled from the vitriol dripping from every word. Each one sank deep in the softest parts of herself.

‘ The only reason we’re on this team is because we’re an acceptable loss.

Sharp bitterness curled in Sakura’s chest, choking her. Her forehead protector felt like lead, pulling her head low. The elation and accomplishment she’d felt at graduating and earning her rank completely evaporated.

She wasn’t on a team with Sasuke-kun and Naruto because she was special, or just as skilled, or a good kunoichi. She was on a team with them because even the least of the clan-born genin in her class was worth more than the brightest civilian born ninja.

Sakura felt as though the floor had fallen away from her feet. The idea that her village would… would look at her and then at her team, and decide that the other two members were worth more was crushing. That her teammates, who were apparently watched by fucking ANBU Black Ops , were valuable enough to justify the risk to her safety and her growth as a ninja… that any negative impact on her career was an acceptable loss because she didn’t have the right last name?

Sakura looked down at the last piece of paperwork left unread in her file with a blank gaze. Did she even want to keep reading?

Unfortunately, Sakura was a curious girl.

Her fingers reluctantly tugged the small packet of paper from the Team 7 folder, sandwiched between her record and Narutos.

Team Designation: Team 7

Jounin Instructor: Kakashi Hatake (Sharingan no Kakashi)

Genin: Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno

Team Designation: Assault

Notes: Due to the offensive capabilities of Uzumaki and Uchiha, the Genin Team Committee has determined that Kakashi Hatake would be the best fit as sensei for Team 7. Team estimated to stay together for 6 months.

In his capacity as genin on Team 7, Uchiha is suited for mid-long range combat with ninjutsu and bukijutsu. He is estimated to pass Chuunin exam within 1-2 exam cycles after which he will stay apprenticed to Jounin Kakashi Hatake to continue and develop his Sharingan (See App. F).

Uzumaki is suited for mid-close combat due to his durability and kage bunshin technique. [REDACTED] is also taken into consideration. Uzumaki is not authorized to participate in any Chuunin exams outside of the village without express approval of the Lord Hokage. Uzumaki recommended more specialized training in sabotage or ninjutsu until apprenticeship with [REDACTED] can be finalized.

Haruno slated for a team support role. Haruno is considered a possible candidate for medical corp pending dissolution of Team 7 post-Chuunin exam cycle. Promotion above genin is determined to be unlikely unless in a non-combatant role.

Sakura earned two and a half sentences in the Team 7 team report, and most of them were about how she wasn’t good enough. If her teeth were clenched any harder, she’d have cracked her molars already. She didn't know how long she would've sat there, re-reading the same damning words over and over again if the timer on her watch hadn't gone off softly.

Robotically, she checked the time. The earliest Academy instructors would be arriving in an hour. She’d already lingered too long.

She put the files away and made her way out of the records room in a daze, locking the door behind her. Her footsteps were light and sure as she slipped out of the window and out of the Academy.

It wasn’t until she was safe in her bed at home that she let herself cry.

Chapter Text

Sakura woke up feeling much more optimistic than the night before.

In the light of day it was easy to look back on those files and discount their contents as pure ironclad truth. After all, those reports were written too clinically to be the work of either of their chuunin instructors- and Sakura wasn’t about to take criticism from some paper pusher holed up in the Hokage tower that had never even met the students they critiqued so harshly.

The numbing insecurity ebbed as she bustled around, getting ready for the day. She brushed out her hair and carefully arranged her shiny new headband on her head. The sight of it filled her with pride.

Here was the proof that she was a good kunoichi, no matter what some stupid file said! Her class ranking was number 2, right behind Sasukes own score. There was no way she’d stall out at genin forever like her record implied- she’d just sailed through the graduation exam with flying colors. She was sure that any other rank exams would go just as smoothly for her- she’d never failed a test in her life!

Obviously, the adults who wrote the personality assessments she’d read in Sasuke-kuns file had been off the mark. If they were so wrong about her, then why should she believe that they were right about Sasuke-kun? He was in a dark place, and he needed someone (like Sakura!) to pull himself up into the light. Then the glimpses of the real Sasuke she knew hid behind his emotional walls would be visible to everyone who doubted him. 

Sasuke had changed a lot since she’d first met him in the Academy when they were six. She’d liked him originally because he was sweet, and cute, and good at all the things she struggled with in the Academy. Ino had liked him then as well, but it hadn’t been as big of an issue between them until after the Massacre. 

(When they were all younger, calling her feelings for Sasuke a crush felt appropriate. After the Massacre, Sasuke went about things with a certain intensity that was difficult to look away from. His determined resolve made shallow declarations of love seem even more so. In the face of his cool regard, Ino and Sakura had upped the stakes again and again, fighting for a scrap of that magnetic attention to fall on them. So Sakura and Ino exchanged their childish friendship for rivalry . Kunoichi didn’t have female friends, of course. They had rivals in love.)

Afterwards, Sasuke changed. He was cold and reserved but still incredibly competent . She supposed she could see how the teachers who only met him after the massacre might misinterpret that standoffishness as something more sinister. Sakura just couldn’t see where they’d gotten ‘flight-risk’. Sasuke was just… more mature because he’d been through a lot! That’s all.

As for Naruto- that was the easiest report to dismiss as bad intel, honestly. She’d be afraid of Naruto when Ino-pig could fly.

Sure she still had a kernel of doubt she couldn’t seem to remove no matter how many positive affirmations she repeated in the mirror, but she was sure that a few days on her new genin squad with Sasuke-kun would fix that.

Despite her original mixed feelings about her team assignment, Sakura still took the time to rub her victory in Inos’ face. It was the little things- like the expression of shocked disbelief crossing her rivals face when her name was announced with Sasuke-kuns’- that mattered.

Two hours later, still waiting in the Academy classroom for Hatake Kakashi to show up, Sakura tried to grimly hang on to that feeling of satisfaction. Unfortunately, being in Naruto’s company for this long was not conducive to feeling anything but annoyance.

“This is boringgggggg!” Naruto whined, his voice reaching a pitch just shy of being truly unbearable. In the corner of her eye, she saw Sasuke twitch.

“Would you shut up?” Sakura snapped, fed up. She’d spent her lunch in the library, trying to cram every last bit of knowledge into her head before she met her jounin sensei which meant that she actually hadn’t eaten much.

“But Sakura-chan we’ve been waiting for two hours!” Naruto threw up his hands.

“It takes as long as it takes.” Sasuke said, his voice heavy with scorn.

Naruto turned, a sneer on his face. “Well it’s takin’ too long!” He hopped up from his seat and went to the chalkboard, where Iruka-sensei had left the erasers. “I’m gonna make him regret being late to pick us up!”

Sasuke grunted, apparently done engaging with Naruto’s antics.

Sakura watched incredulously as Naruto propped the door open with the dusty chalkboard eraser. 

“S’not that good.” Naruto said. He turned to his fellow genin, rubbing at his chin as if in deep thought. “If I knew he’d be so late I’d have brought some paint or somethin’.”

“There’s no way a jounin would fall for that!” Sakura said, even as she inwardly agreed. She’d seen better from Naruto just this last week- while highly disrespectful, painting the Hokage monument without getting caught in the middle of a shinobi village was kind of impressive. This was just… sad.

“Hey, a good ninja works with what he’s got!” Naruto crossed his arms defensively. “That’s what Iruka-sensei says, anyways.”

“Since when do you listen to what a teacher tells you, Dead Last?” Sasuke said derisively.

That set Naruto off, and Sakura could only sit back as the two boys began to snipe back and forth at each other. Her eyes flickered from one boy to the other in surprise. She knew Naruto didn’t like Sasuke-kun because he was jealous but Sasuke had always ignored Naruto until Iruka-sensei took control of the situation. Sakura wondered if Sasuke-kun was getting irritated with their extremely late sensei despite his cool demeanor or if Naruto was just that annoying.

Seeing the way Naruto leapt up onto a desk to stare Sasuke-kun down almost nose to nose, Sakura thought it was probably a bit of both.

Of course, that was when their sensei decided to show up. The man didn’t even try to dodge Narutos falling eraser, a cloud of chalk dust rising from his hair and settling on the shoulders of his Konoha green flak jacket.

“My first impression is… I hate you all.”

That set the tone for their stilted introductions on the roof of the Academy and the first half of the test that would determine if they even went on to become genin at all.

Watching as the jounin handled Naruto while still reading his book , Sakura was starting to sweat underneath the rising sun. Some of those hits… if Kakashi-sensei hit her with any of those, there was no way she’d be able to complete the test.

She couldn’t see the alarm clock from her position hidden in the underbrush at the edge of the training ground, but judging by the angle of the sun her hour to get one of the bells was rapidly slipping away from her the longer she stayed put.

Sakura had to get a bell. If she was on a two man team with Sasuke-kun then everything would be different. She wouldn’t have to worry about whatever made Naruto so dangerous AND she was sure that being paired with her was just what Sasuke-kun needed to come out of his shell! They’d be unstoppable- there was no way she’d be a career genin on a team like that.

Sakura narrowed her eyes in renewed determination. Her chances were pretty slim in a one-on-one confrontation, even at full strength. Her stomach growled slightly, almost in answer.

She needed to retreat and formulate a strategy- maybe she could lure Kakashi-sensei into some traps or explosive tags? She only had the Academy issued tags, which were more smoke than explosion but maybe if she used them as a distraction…

She waited until Kakashi turned to dodge one of Narutos solid clones, putting her position on his blind side, before she retreated. Just in time too, as Narutos panicked yowl indicated that their teacher was done ‘teaching’ Naruto taijutsu and was probably looking for another target.

Sakura slipped from the shadow of one tree to another, keeping a solid trunk between her and Kakashi-senseis last position to hopefully prevent him from hopefully catching sight of her. She kept her ears pricked for any sounds of pursuit from behind.

She was listening so closely that she didn’t see Sasuke-kun until she’d almost stumbled over his prone form. Her eyes widened in horror at her crush laying in a pool of his own blood. His eyes, usually so sharp and keen, were dull with pain as he gasped. He was riddled with cuts and stab-wounds and she could see a brace of shuriken embedded in his forearms where he must’ve tried to fend off an attack from hitting his vulnerable face and neck.

“Sa…ku…ra…” He moaned. He shifted and she could see his intestines bulging through a deep slice looked as though Kakashi-sensei had taken a kunai to his vulnerable belly-

She screamed, high and piercing, and then slumped as her eyes rolled back in her head.

The minute she hit the ground, the illusion of the fatally injured Sasuke dissipated in a puff of smoke that heralded the release of a technique.

“Lesson two, genjutsu.” Kakashi, lounging on a nearby tree branch, sighed in disappointment. That had been worse than expected, even for the incredibly low bar he’d set for this bunch of graduates.  “Ma… what’re they teaching kids in the Academy these days?”

He turned away, looking towards the bright ember of chakra that smoldered in the periphery of his senses. One last lesson to teach before he failed these kids and could get back to reading in the peace and quiet of his dark apartment. He vanished in a swirl of leaves, leaving Sakura to wake up on her own.

Around 15 minutes later, the unconscious girl began to stir. She woke up slowly, and then all at once when the circumstances of her fainting spell penetrated her hazy mind. She looked around frantically for any signs of Sasuke-kun on the forest floor, pausing in confusion at the lack of blood and viscera that his broken body should’ve left behind.

There was nothing, not even an upturned leaf to show that Sasuke-kun had once been bleeding out in front of her.

That… that didn’t make sense. Sakura blinked. Unless, of course, Kakashi-sensei had caught her in a genjutsu. She thought about the extreme spike in stress hormones, heart rate, and cortisol she’d had at the sight of Sasuke-kuns broken body, enough to trigger a vasovagal response. She wasn’t usually so sensitive to blood, certainly not enough to send her into a fainting spell. Granted, she didn’t usually get a good look at someone's insides on a daily basis (at the reminder Sakura had to swallow her gorge before she threw up bile) but she usually wasn’t so frail as to faint.

She pressed her face into her hands and let herself give a short groan. To think her file listed her as a genjutsu type… what a terrible first impression to give her potential jounin sensei.

Sakura sighed and turned her face to the sky, calculating the time she had left by how close the sun was to its zenith. Her eyes widened in panic, and she stumbled to her feet. How long had she been asleep?! She had maybe 10 minutes left in the test if she found Kakashi-sensei right now- nowhere near enough time to set up any traps or try to apply any strategies to their encounter. She’d have to throw herself at him and pray he was too distracted with Naruto and Sasuke to stop her from snagging a bell.

She turned and stumbled back towards the distant sounds of combat, her legs numb and tingly after her extended time laid out on the forest floor.

When Sakura groggily stumbled back through the woods and into the clearing, she barely had enough time to take in Sasuke, covered in dirt, charge at Kakashi-sensei. Naruto,ignoring the fact he was hanging by his ankle from a tree, kept summoning clone after clone to attack. Sakura tried to find an opening in Kakashi-senseis guard, but between Sasukes relentless attacks and the sheer number of Naruto clones pressing in around him on all sides, she could barely see Kakashi let alone attack him.

Sakura braced herself to wade into the melee but before she could even make a move, the alarm went off. It was loud and piercing, and it easily cut through the fight to bring everyone to a stop.

She'd failed.

“Well.” The jounin said, shifting his weight so that the bells on his hip gave a mocking chime. “It looks like none of you got a bell.” 

Sasuke-kun looked mutinous, glaring at Kakashi-sensei. Naruto was still yelling, though his words seemed a bit slurred. Sakura looked at him in mild concern- his face seemed very red. How long had he been hanging upside down?

A kunai seemed to sprout from the trunk, slicing through the rope and dumping Naruto onto the ground with a dull thud. Only Kakashi slipping his hand back into his pocket hinted that he’d thrown the kunai at all.

“I’ve got some good news for you though.” Kakashi-sensei continued on. “None of you will be returning to the Academy.”

Sakura almost swayed with relief. The tension in Sasuke’s shoulders seemed to relax slightly. Naruto yelled in triumph, stumbling to his feet. He ran over to where Kakashi was standing, panting as he looked up at the taller man. His face was caked with dust, but he was still smiling from ear to ear as he opened his mouth to babble at kakashi-sensei.

“You should all give up on being ninja entirely.” 

Sakuras heart abruptly sank.She felt like the world was falling out from under her feet. Sasuke and Naruto erupted into protests beside her, but she couldn’t hear them over the roar of her racing thoughts.

She couldn’t just give up on being a ninja! She’d never really discussed it with her parents, but Sakura knew since she was very young that her parents promised her to the village when they’d emigrated here. What would happen if she washed out? Would her family be kicked out of the village?

“The point of the test was teamwork.” Kakashi said. “To see if you could put aside your differences and work towards a common goal. All of you failed. Naruto and Sasuke, you were arrogant enough to think that you could beat me alone, even after already failing once before. Naruto you were so focused on getting a bell from me before Sasuke did that you didn’t even think to make a clone to try and free yourself or try and coordinate with him. Sasuke, you didn’t even think to cut Naruto down as you ran right by him to attack me, and your reckless attacks destroyed almost as many clones as I did.”

Kakashi's lone eye drifted to Sakura.

“Sakura, if that genjutsu had been real, Sasuke would be dead.” Sakura flinched. It hadn’t occurred to her once she realized she’d been under a genjutsu. If Sasuke had actually been injured that badly and she’d fainted at the sight of him… he would’ve died right next to her. 

“In the ninja word, those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash.” Kakashi-sensei was speaking to all of them, but it felt as though his eye rested on her alone. Sakura broke eye contact and bowed her head, her face flushing red with humiliation. 

Those files in the Academy… Sakura realized with dawning horror that the files may have actually been tactful in its assessment of her skills. Kakashi-sensei had taken her out of the fight without laying a single finger on her.

“Those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash.” 

Kakashi-senseis voice sounded even more accusatory as his words played over and over in her head. Sakura bit her lip, hard, to stop the tears from building up behind her eyes. Was he pointing out how she couldn’t even fill the measly support role her file had indicated for her? No wonder Sasuke and even Naruto were valued more by the village than her if this was her best showing.

Sakura, so caught up in her circling thoughts of self-loathing, hardly paid attention to the conversation between her other teammates until she heard Kakashi-sensei speak.

“...I suppose I could give you another chance.”

Sakura snapped to attention. Kakashi-sensei gave them one of his infuriating little eye-smiles. 

“I’ll let you try again after lunch, how about that? Oh, before I forget- Sakura?” Sakuras only warning was Kakashi-sensei holding the tiger seal and his infuriatingly casual attitude before they were all engulfed in a large puff of smoke. 

“H-hey!”

Sakura could only give a strangled yelp as large hands gripped her by the upper arms and her back hit something hard. She tried to pull away, only to find herself held in place. When the smoke dissipated, Sakura found herself tied to the post that formerly held the alarm clock. She tried to wiggle free, but the rope escape techniques she’d learned at the Academy either wouldn’t work on knots tied by a jounin, or she was so pathetic at ninshu that she couldn’t even do those right.

“Wha- Kakashi-sensei what gives!?” Naruto yelled, looking outraged from his sensei to his crush. “Why is Sakura-chan all tied up?”

“Ma… I said one of you was going to be tied to a post without lunch, didn't I?” Kakashi scratched the side of his face with his index finger, sounding almost apologetic. “None of you got a bell, so I decided to tie up the person who did the worst during the test.”

Sakura wished the earth would swallow her whole.

“There’s no way that’s true!” Naruto yelled back. “Sakura-chan is amazing!” 

Usually the praise would have Sakura preening, but at the moment it felt like being prodded with a red hot poker. She could feel Sasuke-kuns unimpressed eyes like a brand, assessing her and finding her performance lacking. She wished she would pass out again- being knocked unconscious sounded really good right now. 

Kakashi-sensei just shrugged. “I’ll let you two eat lunch- we’ll try the test again afterwards. Remember- no lunch for Sakura-chan! No letting her go either~!” Then he disappeared in another burst of leaves.

There was a lurching, awkward silence.

“D’you think he’s gone?” Naruto asked, breaking the quiet.

“Hn.” Sasuke moved past Naruto towards their lunches. He sat down and opened his bento, apparently not phased at all by eating in front of a starving Sakura.

Naruto scowled. “What about Sakura-chan?” He asked, sitting down to complete the loose ring they made near the post Sakura was still tied to.

“I-it’s fine.” Sakura said. She forced herself to look at Naruto. Looking at Sasuke-kun right now was too difficult. “You should eat. You’ll need it if you want to pass Kakashi-sensei’s test.”

“It doesn’t seem right.” Naruto said stubbornly.

“You need the energy more than I do.” Sakura said, barely keeping her bitterness from leaking into her voice. They, after all, had actually used chakra today. She cleared her throat, looking at Sasuke-kun out of the corner of her eye. “You should eat my lunch too. It’ll go to waste otherwise.” She nudged her bento forward with her foot, moving it between her two teammates.

“Don’t be stupid.” Sasuke said brusquely. He held out a piece of rice, thrusting it almost into her chin. “You’ll be even more useless for Kakashi’s test if you’re starving.”

Sakura stared at her crush, dumbfounded. This was something out of her sappiest daydreams.

Sakura subtly flexed her chakra, expecting Sasuke to burst into smoke or disappear like Kakashi-sensei’s other illusionary Sasuke. Instead, Sasuke stayed frustratingly present, food still held out for her to eat.

“The bastards right, Sakura-chan!” Naruto said. He set his own bento aside in the grass next to him, closest to Sakura. He reached forward to snag her bento box, popping it open to reveal her mothers lovingly packed lunch. “You need- oh wow this looks delicious!”

“You can have some.” Sakura said again. Naruto’s bento looked… sad. The rice was burned, and no one had told him that putting cooked meat into a bento that would be at room temperature for hours was a good way to give yourself food poisoning.

“Only if you eat some rice.” Naruto said stubbornly. He pulled a rice ball out of her bento and unwrapped it. Still, he didn’t make a move to eat it. Apparently Naruto wouldn’t eat until she did, and Sakura could see Sasuke-kuns rapidly waning patience in her dithering.

Sakura’s eyes looked down at the innocuous bite of rice Sasuke was holding out for her. How often had Sakura dreamed of this? Of Sasuke-kun feeding her food he’d made himself, sitting together in the sun?

She swallowed her pride and leaned forward to take a bite of rice. It tasted like ashes in her mouth.

“You three!” Kakashi-sensei was suddenly right there, radiating a menacing aura that almost made Sakura choke. He seemed like an entirely different ninja to the laidback man who’d been kicking them around the training ground all morning. “You disobeyed my direct orders.”

Naruto and Sasuke both jumped to their feet in surprise, sending their lunches flying into the grass.

“Didn’t ‘ya tell us to never abandon our teammates? We weren’t going to let Sakura-chan starve just ‘cause you told us to, y’know!” Naruto demanded, squinting up at the taller ninja. “Or was all that just talk?”

Sasuke didn’t say anything, but his stance was firm- his body language saying he agreed with Naruto even as he remained silent. 

Sakura said nothing, her heart in her throat.

“In that case…” Kakashi suddenly relaxed, every trace of anger erased from his posture. “You pass!”

All three of them gaped at the jounin. All that… just to pass us anyway?

“Yes!” Naruto crowed, throwing his hands up. He whirled around, blue eyes sparkling. “Did’ja hear that Sakura-chan! We’re genin!”

Sakura blinked, her eyes darting from Narutos beaming face to Sasuke-kuns satisfied smirk and Kakashi-sensei's smiling eye.

They’d passed Kakashi-sensei's test and were officially genin. Or, rather, Naruto and Sasuke had passed Kakashi-sensei's test, and Sakura had done nothing. Again.

Sakura managed to paste on an appropriately pleased smile as she was cut free from the post and Kakashi-sensei told them to come back to the training grounds at 7am the next morning for their first day as a genin team. She managed to keep it up until they parted ways at the outskirts of the village proper, Team 7 separating to go to their own homes for the evening.

As soon as she was alone, Sakura let her face fall.

Those insecurities she’d managed to beat back this morning came roaring back with a vengeance. Never had her superfluousness been hammered in as effectively. Kakashi told them to ‘look underneath the underneath’. Well, Sakura could do that just fine. 

Kakashi thought she was worse than trash for being unable to support her comrades- her entire purpose, as far as he was concerned, of having her on the team. 

Konoha saw her as expendable, her skill negligible in comparison with whatever benefits Sasuke and Naruto brought to the table.

That wasn’t even addressing the snake summons in the room- the assertion that Sasuke and Naruto were dangerous to be around. She hadn’t seen any of that today, but then again, she’d also spent most of the bell test unconscious in the woods.

Sakuras nails dug crescents into the flesh of her palms.

Tomorrow, she promised herself as she reached her front doorstep. Tomorrow will be different.

It has to be.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Sakura woke up early. She was really starting to hate waking up the morning after a life-shaking revelation.

She lay in bed, staring at her ceiling- her eyes ached and were still puffy from crying into her pillow the night before. She’d cried herself out, until she’d run out of tears and had fallen asleep with her wet cheek against her pillow. The fabric was still damp and the skin of her face felt raw and chafed from rubbing her face against it.

Bitterly, she thought that a better ninja wouldn’t have cried- and she had to bite her lip to keep tears from welling up in her eyes again. Sakura knew from experience that once she started crying, she was useless until she pulled herself back together. So she had to nip those tears in the bud now, before she spent even more time feeling sorry for herself.

Sakura took a deep, measured breath, swallowing against the lump in her throat until it receded. Yesterday was a lot. Team training had been a lot. Her stomach roiled as she thought back to being tied to the post, the cool disaffected gaze of her sensei burning her like a brand. 

The whole scenario- being tied to the post for her pathetic performance, having to be hand fed by Sasuke and Naruto like a dog, the way Kakashi admonished them all but had really been talking directly to Sakura… even thinking about it made her want to grit her teeth and bury her face back into her sodden pillow.

So like most emotions that made her uncomfortable, she shoved them down and out of her head and tried to think past it.

After a few minutes tossing and turning, she ended up on her back. Sakura laced her fingers together over her stomach, staring up at the ceiling. So. Maybe those papers had more truth to them then she was comfortable with acknowledging. Fine. Beyond that, what did that mean , exactly?

One, Sasuke was considered a flight risk due to… something that happened on the night his family was killed. The whole incident was shrouded in mystery and rumor  (especially to the general public) but there were whispers of a maniac jounin who’d snapped under the pressure of his rank and went on a rampage through the Uchiha district before being driven off by ANBU. It sounded like something out of one of her mothers 10 ryo mystery novels, but she had no way of knowing it wasn’t true. If the large, blacked out splotches on Sasuke-kuns’ report were anything to go by, the truth of the Uchiha Massacre was classified so high above her pay grade that she’d probably have to be elected Hokage to get the clearance to know more about it. Whatever the details, all the Uchiha were dead except for Sasuke, who had been left alive but different afterwards.

Two, Naruto was considered somehow unstable and all of the teachers knew about it. Sakura bit her lip, pushing past her instinctive surge of annoyance when thinking about Naruto at all, trying to remember anything she could about Naruto’s background. An orphan, whiskers on his cheeks, a complete inability to perform most jutsu with the exception of henge- and apparently now something called a Kage Bunshin, which Sakura had never heard of and she’d read the entire contents of the Academy library!

The file had mentioned seals- she only knew about fuinjutsu in the abstract. It wasn’t something they were taught much about in the Academy, except for how to use sealing scrolls and how to safely handle explosive tags.

The report had specified ‘containment seals’, which implied there were entire categories of seals that Sakura knew nothing about. Were the seals to physically contain Naruto? Or maybe… Sakura remembered the way Naruto tended to visibly flicker with chakra any time he concentrated on performing a technique in class. That certainly wasn’t normal- no one else in the class had chakra that was visible outside the body when they attempted ninjutsu. Sakura assumed that it was just another symptom of Naruto’s truly abysmal chakra control…but what if it was more than that?

Maybe it was something about emitting a certain type of chakra? Sakura knew there were some bloodlines out there that affected chakra- a half-buried note in an earlier edition textbook she’d bought second-hand had mentioned a woman who could form her chakra into chains and everybody knew about the effects of the Shodaimes’ chakra on the forest. Maybe that’s what was going on with Naruto- his chakra had some sort of latent, undesirable effect on his environment. 

What she couldn’t fathom is what jutsu or bloodline could possibly be powerful enough to justify keeping a potential hazard around vulnerable Academy students. Academy students were the future of the village, a long-term investment that could devastate the village if targeted by a hostile force. It didn’t make any sense unless somehow the pros of Naruto being trained outweighed the potential risks.

Sourly, she wondered if she would get any of those containment seals the Academy instructors were trained to use, or if she was just expected to get out of the way if Narutos chakra went berserk one day. She sincerely doubted it.

Frustrated, Sakura got out of bed and stalked over to her vanity. She looked at herself in her mirror, scowling at the bags under her eyes and the limpness of her bright pink hair. Any other day she’d be fussing over her lackluster appearance, especially since she knew now for a fact that she was going to see Sasuke later for team training. The revelations of the last few days meant she could barely muster up the energy to care. 

She still liked him- still felt that thrill whenever she looked at him, or thought about him- but it felt tainted now, which frustrated her. The look in his eyes when she’d been set apart as the weakest participant in the bell test was worse than Kakashi-sensei’s apathy. The boy she liked looked completely unsurprised to see Sakura tied to the post. As if he’d expected her to fail as badly as she did.

Sakura’s jaw clenched, and to distract herself from the feeling simmering in her gut, she started to drag a brush roughly through her hair. The rough pulling on her scalp stoked her anger as she fumed.

For the first year of the Academy, Sakura had been relentlessly bullied by the other girls in her class. There was always someone on the bottom of the totem pole, and for that whole first year, it had been Sakura.

The next year, Ino shielded her from the bullies that saw a shy civilian girl as easy pickings. That reprieve lasted as long as their friendship did- when they started their rivalry, Ino withdrew her protection- and Sakura had to get mean to hold her own.

That vicious streak served her well, toughening her soft skin against Ino’s pointed barbs and giving her an edge as she fought her way up the class rankings with perfect test scores to accommodate her weak taijutsu technique. She lost almost every spar and the humiliation of constantly getting her ass kicked had driven her to desperate measures.

It wasn’t until she’d started fighting, well, dirtier, that she got even a few wins under her belt. Ninjutsu was strictly off-limits during those spars, but Sakura had scoured the Academy guidelines to see that internal chakra manipulation wasn’t prohibited, just external chakra techniques. She’d gleefully applied her exceptional chakra control to her weak taijutsu to augment her strength and durability- a neat trick to keep her hand in one piece while punching her classmates across the room.

She still relished the expression of dumb shock on the face of the first arrogant classmate she’d sent flying out of the ring with a single non-regulation chakra-reinforced haymaker to the jaw. She’d knocked him out almost instantly and had smiled in feral delight when he’d tumbled to a stop some 10 feet outside of the sparring circle. 

She hadn’t even bothered to look at Iruka-sensei as he called the match in Sakuras favor. Instead she’d scanned the crowd and met Ino’s wide blue eyes. Here I am, Sakura had thought proudly, her smile full of teeth. Are you watching?

The urge to force her teammates to acknowledge her, to change their minds through the application of violence, to make it hurt- she was very familiar with those feelings. It grew within her now the longer she stewed over it, anger growing as she chewed on the events of the bell test like a ninken with a bone.

She’d never turned this shameful, hateful part of herself against Sasuke. Or Naruto, but that was because she hadn’t cared what he thought about anything.

Her resentment had never been turned against a teacher either. Then again, she’d never had a teacher like Kakashi-sensei before.

She’d never heard of Sharingan no Kakashi  before reading his name in that report, but that didn’t mean much. The name Hatake was familiar, as was the name of Sasuke-kuns bloodline ability. She thought that all the Uchiha had been killed and that Sauke was the last, but maybe this Hatake was an illegitimate or disgraced Uchiha clan member who’d changed his name?

If Hatake Kakashi shared a surname with the only other Hatake she knew of, that theory certainly held water. Iruka mentioned Hatake Sakumo several times during his lecture on the beginnings of the Third Shinobi War, tactfully dancing around the assertion that saving his comrades at the expense of his mission was to blame for the beginning of hostilities. 

Later, Mizuki-sensei hadn’t bothered to obfuscate what he wanted the class to take away from the story of the White Fang. Instead he’d gone over the shinobi handbook rule by rule and pointed out every instance that the man had violated the code in some way. Hatake Sakumo, he’d told them, was a perfect example of what not to do as a Konoha shinobi.

Maybe the White Fang had really been an Uchiha? And then the Uchiha clan kicked him out of the clan after his failure… Sakura frowned. This was all conjecture. She didn’t really have much to go on when it came to their sensei- their jounin instructor could have nothing to do with the White Fang, and his moniker of Sharingan no Kakashi just a figure of speech.

It was very difficult to imagine such a weirdo being related to Sasuke at all. He showed up late, covered his entire face with a mask and his headband, and constantly read pornography in public. He seemed somewhat skilled, but in her opinion that was outweighed by how he had bruised Sakuras pride and essentially called her trash to her face. She wasn’t feeling very charitable towards him at the moment.

Sakura sighed and put her brush down on her vanity. She stared balefully at her gaunt, sleep-deprived expression. This was as good as it was going to get- she needed to leave or she’d be late for her first day as an official member of Team Seven.

She stood with a long, beleaguered breath. Took one last look in the mirror. And then she turned and went.

Sakura arrived at the training grounds for Team Seven exactly 10 minutes before 6am. She was the first one there and she took a moment to deeply breathe in the crisp morning air. She turned and sat on the bridge to start her morning stretches, avoiding the grass which still shone with the morning dew.

If she sat in such a way that she couldn’t see the training posts at all, well, that was her business.

A minute after 6am, Sasuke-kun showed up. Sakura would’ve thought he was paying her now mind, except she caught the way he cut his eyes at her and then pointedly sat on the hand-rail of the bridge, as far from where Sakura was stretching as possible.

Sakura pressed her face into her knee as she touched her toes, trying to hide the flush of humiliation that was spreading across her cheeks and ears. Any other day she would go over and try to take advantage of alone time with her crush but at the moment, her ego was feeling a little fragile right now.

Naruto showed up at 6:45am, yelling something about the power going out in his apartment last night and his alarm clock not going off on time. Sakura, who had gone through her warm-up routine twice at this point, didn’t care. At least with Naruto chattering about nothing, Sakura could listen to something besides the thoughts spinning in her own head.

It took until 11am for their erstwhile sensei to show up.

“You’re late!” Sakura and Naruto yelled together, glaring at Kakashi accusingly. Sasuke, glowering in the background, radiated his displeasure.

Kakashi scratched the back of his head lazily, his eye moving over them all slowly. “Maa, you’re all so energetic this morning.”

“Yeah, because we’ve been sitting here with our thumbs up our asses for six hours!” Naruto yelled.

Sakura made a face. Disgusting.

“Gross.” Kakashi said cheerfully, echoing her sentiments in intent if not tone. “Well, the good news is I have a way for you to burn off all that excess energy.” He slipped a small scroll out of his vest pocket. “Mission time!”

Narutos demeanor changed on a dime, his whole body lined with excitement. Sakura kept her eyes on Kakashi-sensei. Kakashi had done a bait and switch before and she was sure there was some sort of catch. Kakashi was much too pleased with himself for it to be anything otherwise.

She glanced over at Sasuke and was surprised to see him leaning forward with anticipation as well. 

“You first mission is…” Kakashi unfurled the mission scroll with a flourish. “Fishing trash out of the Naka River!”

Sakura sighed as Naruto erupted into complaints and Sasuke ever so slightly deflated. 

There it was.

Over the next month, Team 7 fell into a routine. The morning would be spent waiting for Kakashi to show up at the training grounds, twiddling their thumbs and completing the same stretches over and over until he appeared in a flurry of leaves. Then, after Naruto and Sakura shouted at him a bit, Kakashi would produce their assigned D-rank mission and they’d do their level best to complete it on time. Then, exhausted, they would drag themselves home to eat and repeat it all the next day.

It was mundane. Predictable, almost. 

It was so so easy to forget the lesson in humility she’d learned during the bell test. With every basic D-rank chore that Naruto seemed incapable of performing, with every customer interaction that Sasuke seemed to struggle with, her own shortcomings seemed further and further away. After a few weeks, only the slight twinge she received every morning she saw the training post stood as a reminder that it had ever happened at all.

That was, of course, until Kakashi decided to switch things up one day about six weeks after becoming a team. Or maybe Narutos whining for actual training had just worn him down enough to say yes.

“Fine, no mission today.” Kakashi said. “Instead we’ll do some sparring and taijutsu work. Is that okay with you Naruto?” The sarcasm in his tone apparently flew right over Narutos head. As did the sadistic gleam in Kakashis eye as he then proceeded to kick them up and down the training field.

Team sparring against Kakashi became a part of their schedule. It usually degenerated into Kakashi tossing Naruto clones around while Sasuke and Sakura tried to find an opening. Considering Sasuke had just about as much luck as she did in finding said openings (ie none), the sparring matches weren’t accomplishing much of anything other than watching Naruto get his ass kicked.

It didn’t really feel like Sakura was learning anything except that fighting a jounin as a genin was a stupid idea (which she felt was a given). Still, it was better than sitting on the bridge or weeding someones garden.

It only took another week or two for someone to crack. Sakura figured Sasuke must have said something, or maybe Kakashi was feeling extra lazy that day, but one day Kakashi decided they’d be fighting each other instead of him.

“Yatta!” Naruto crowed, jumping to his feet. Naruto whirled around, pointing dramatically at the still seated Sasuke. “You’re going down bastard!”

Sasuke didn’t sneer back, but he came pretty close.

“Hm. How about Sakura and Naruto go first?” Kakashi-sensei said mildly, grabbing Naruto by the scruff of his jacket and picking him bodily up and away from Sasuke. Kakashi gave him a quick toss toward the center of the training grounds. Naruto landed on his feet, staggering forward a few steps before whipping around to look at Kakashi-sensei.

“Ya didn’t need ta throw me!” Naruto squawked indignantly. He straightened his garish orange jumpsuit.

Sakura, who had walked on her own two feet to the center of their field thank you, rolled her eyes at Narutos dramatics.

“No weapons, no ninjutsu, no genjutsu. Standard rules, first to pin or land five clean hits wins. There is no out of bounds.” Kakashi said in a bored tone, ignoring Narutos huff as he settled into a ready stance. Sakura copied him, tensing her body like a bowstring. 

Their sensei was already pulling out his book, even as he lazily brought his hand down in a chop. “Begin.”

Sakura and Naruto stared at each other across the training ground, both of them waiting for the other to move. The moment stretched between them, the tension curdling into an almost awkward anticipation.

Kakashi looked up from his book. “Sparring usually involves actually fighting each other, you know.”

Both Naruto and Sakura flushed in unison. 

“I-I know that!” Sakura sputtered. “I’m trying to -”

“I’m jus’ being polite Kakashi-sensei-”

“Will you two idiots just fight already? You’re wasting time.” Sasuke spoke up cuttingly, his frustration visible in the way his brows were drawn up together and the firm downturned slant of his mouth.

“Ah- sorry Sasuke-kun!” Sakura said, flushing again.

She turned back towards Naruto to see her teammate spring forward with a yell. Startled, Sakura barely managed to jerk herself out of the way of Narutos full-body tackle. She lashed out with an undercut to Narutos exposed ribs as he passed, but missed.

“Nice try Sakura-chan!” Naruto said, spinning to face her. He moved in close again, taking the initiative and going on the offensive.

“Shut up!” Sakura yelled, ducking and weaving as best she could around his wild punches and kicks. She could feel herself faltering- any time that she managed to scrape out a win in the Academy was when she took the fight to them. Stuck defending herself against Narutos seemingly inexhaustible supply of punches and kicks, Sakura was slowly worn down. Every attempt to counter failed, as Naruto would simply dance backwards out of range before closing in again to punish her for the mistake.

When her guard dropped and Naruto staggered her by kicking the back of her knees, it was all over. She went down with a surprised yelp, her knees hitting the dust and going sprawling on her front. Before she could try to struggle to her feet, Narutos dense bulk was on top of her and pinning her neatly to the ground.

The lump in her chest grew until she felt like she was going to choke on it.

“Match goes to Naruto.” Sakura heard Kakashi say over the ragged sound of her breathing and Narutos own above her. “Four hits to zero.”

Naruto pushed himself off of Sakura, excitedly babbling something as he bounded up to their teacher. Sakura couldn’t really make it out above the roaring in her ears.

She stood, dust smeared down the front of her dress. Kakashi was saying something to Naruto that Sakura couldn’t quite make out- but for a second his eye flicked from Naruto to Sakura. They made eye contact for a brief second before Kakashi turned back towards Naruto. 

Was that disdain she saw in his lone eye or was she imagining it?

“Next up- Sasuke and Sakura.”

Sakura didn’t even have to turn to look at Sasuke to see the disgruntled expression on his face. It was plain to see when they took their positions and he didn’t look anything more than mildly bored, like he was looking through her.

When Kakashi dropped his hand, Sasuke moved almost too fast for Sakura to see. He covered the 20 feet between them in almost a blink, aiming a kick towards Sakuras head that she barely managed to lean away from. Even then Sasukes foot still glanced off her jaw, snapping her head back and her teeth shut with an audible click. There was a sharp pain and blood in her mouth and Sakura realized she must’ve bit her tongue.

Still reeling and off balance, she couldn’t even see Sasuke sweep her legs out from under her and send her tumbling into the ground. Again.

The fight had barely lasted five seconds.

“Sasuke is the winner.” Kakashi said. His voice was as apathetic as ever but Sakura thought she could hear the disappointment in his tone. “Two hits to zero.”

Sakura sat up. She wished Sasuke or Naruto had just knocked her out. She could see the training post in the corner of her eye.

She got to her feet and got out of the way to let Sasuke and Naruto take to the ring. She turned her head and spit a mouthful of blood onto the roots of a nearby tree where hopefully no one would sit in it.

“Sakura.” She turned to look at Kakashi. She didn’t open her mouth to reply, aware that doing so would just let blood drip down her chin.

“Go to the hospital to get that checked out while we finish up here.” Kakashi said kindly. He reached out and gave her a brief pat on the head. “We’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

Sakura blinked up at him, but nodded and started walking in the direction of the hospital. Behind her, she could hear the boys start sparring. She imagined she could hear the sound of Kakashi flipping a page in his book.

She walked along the dusty village streets to the hospital stopping occasionally to spit out globules of blood. Kakashi's kindness burned . It was one thing for her to be weak, to be considered a liability and an acceptable loss. It was quite another for someone who knew all those things to look her in the eyes and be kind about it.

The lump of humiliation and embarrassment and impotent helplessness she’d shoved down since she read that cursed file surged upwards, transformed by the pressure and heat into anger. It dredged up other things, other long repressed hurts and injustices that coalesced into a thin veil of absolute rage across her vision. 

The boulevard to the hospital was lined with trees. They were the only witnesses to Sakura letting out a furious scream and pivot to slam her chakra reinforced fist into a tree with a splintering CRACK. 

Sakura was still against the tree for a moment, holding her stance while she took rough choppy breaths. She kept her head down, letting blood drip freely from her mouth. Her eyes were shut tight as she tried to bring herself back under control.

It wasn’t working. Her anger seemed too big this time, ballooning out and escaping her grasp the more she tried to shove it down. At best the bright spike of incandescent rage seemed to subside- she could do nothing about fire that she’d lit in her chest. She could bank the coals, do her best to keep them from being stoked into a towering flame- but she couldn’t smother them deep within herself or make the heat go away entirely.

She called out to Inner Sakura, that manifestation of her inner will that always seemed to be strong where Sakura was weak, able to hold back the emotions that neither wanted to deal with- but heard nothing but silence in return. 

Sakura opened her eyes and straightened up. The tree had a sizeable crack running up the middle now, the wood having given way beneath her fist. She had to pull her hand out of the hole she’d cratered in the bark, which she did with a pained grunt. She looked down at her bloody hand. A long dark splinter was lodged between her knuckles, sluggishly oozing blood.

She looked at it blankly. It was strange to her at this moment that the splinter hadn’t gone up in smoke the second it’d slipped beneath her skin. Her emotions felt so visceral and real, this anger burning her up inside so potent, that she couldn’t believe that it didn’t physically burn the splinter out of her.

The splinter protruded slightly from her skin, and Sakura tried to pull on it. Her fingers twitched in agony and she left it alone, groaning against the pulsing pain that emanated from her wound.

Any thought of skipping the hospital went straight out of her mind and she continued down the boulevard towards the tall building marked as the medical center.

She wondered, as she stood in line at the reception desk, filled out the intake form awkwardly with her non-dominant hand, and sat in the waiting room, if there was someone in the building who could fix what was wrong with her on the inside. Whatever load-bearing psychological coping mechanism had given way during her short trip to the hospital could probably be set to rights. Then maybe she wouldn’t be feeling this toxic churning of anger and resentment that had taken up residence inside her.

But most likely, Sakura thought bitterly to herself as she cradled her hand and spat blood into a styrofoam cup the receptionist provided her, they wouldn’t care.

And why would they? It had been made perfectly clear what she was worth, written in stark black and white. 

She grit her blood-stained teeth, glaring at the linoleum floor. She’d make them see her. Just like the kids in her Academy class- she’d force them to acknowledge her. She clenched her fists, ignoring the stab of pain from the splinter lodged in her hand as it started to bleed. Bright crimson drops on the tile beneath her seat shone in the artificial light of the hospital waiting room.

If they wanted to ignore her, if they wanted her to go quietly… 

After she’d beaten those kids in the Academy, she’d looked to Ino. Their eyes had met across the dusty sparring ring and in that moment, for the first time since they’d broken off their friendship, they’d understood each other perfectly.

Sakura wished Ino was here. She wished Ino was here to see this moment, to lock eyes with Sakura and understand her without any words needing to be spoken.

Here I am.

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