Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Legend of Explosive Youth! ❯ Team Seven: Icha Icha Jealousy ( Chapter 12 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

txy07_t7_strife.txt

2007-12-13 - initial file created, notes transferred from DWMB saves
2007-12-25 - Sakura's training notes made scenes, slotted them together
2008-05-18 - scene expansion both directions on those, gift to c-rank request; basic plot notes complete
2008-05-19 - Sakura/Kakashi explanation appeared, requiring a new scene to follow there
2008-05-22 - nailed that, and a few more notes for the C-rank
2008-06-08 - mission fight scene
2008-06-09 - aftermath, proofread. Done unless something pops up.

Note: This partly takes place before and partly concurrently with Team Six's mission to Wave Country - you'll know when they overlap.




"Neshan-sensei?" Tenten leaned her head in the doorframe of her former teacher's office.

He glanced up. "Eh? Oh, hey, kid. How are you?"

She stepped inside and flopped into the visitor's chair. As always, the faint 'clank' that violent motion drove from the vast array of weapons hidden across her person brought an involuntary smile to his face.

Her expression, on the other hand, was outright distressed. "My team is impossible!"

He pushed his glasses back up from where they had slid down as he labored over his paperwork and leaned forwards on his elbows. "I hate to break it to you, but Kakashi's almost more of a pain in the ass than he is a ninja. You're hardly the only person to say that about him."

"It's not just him!" she wailed, waving her hands wildly. "Sasuke's not so bad when he's holding -still-, but he's got all the cooperation skills of a shark and almost as big a stick up his ass as... as..." She paused to cast about for an appropriate description.

"As a certain Hyuuga?" Neshan prompted, starting to twirl a pen through his fingers.

She huffed. "Don't make me smack you."

He laughed, and she started ranting again. "And Sakura's nice in those once in a blue moon moments when forgets she's convinced that I'm trying to steal away her great overwhelming childhood crush-" she broke off and stabbed an accusing finger at the older ninja as he opened his mouth. "-Don't- say a -word-, you!"

He held up both hands, palms out, and grinned. "Wasn't gonna!" he lied.

"You forget - I -know- you. But even when she -isn't- glaring daggers she's still just one of Suzume-sensei's bubble-brained 'infiltration specialists' - which is a damn shame, since when she doesn't think Sasuke's around to be turned off by it she's actually pretty smart." She trailed off for a moment, then grinned. "She talks to herself, you know. When she thinks no one can hear."

"She's a Haruno. They do that. It's a bloodline thing."

"Really? And I thought she was just being strange... And informative." Her grin turned mischievious. "I don't think my hair looks like puffballs, do you?"

He blinked. "Yes."

"Creep. So we go on a mission and he charges off solo - or solo until she goes trailing after him like a duckling after her momma, and never a thought from -either- of them if its the right thing to do and if -I- try to talk them into a better plan rather than just ignoring them or following along after myself, then that... that... Hatake-BAKA tells me to 'calm down and not get so strung out'!" By the end of her complaint, she had begun to wave her arms again.

The Jounin laughed, then waved an admonishing finger at her. "Hatake-_sensei_."

She gave him a plaintive look. "Even if he's an idiot?"

"-Especially- if he's an idiot." He paused. "Which he is."

She rolled her eyes. "Is he -ever-. Even with all the trouble we three genin have been having he just floats around with his nose in that nasty book of his and spouts off about teamwork from time to time - as though -building- that wasn't just as much -his- job as ours! - and completely ignores the fact that Sakura hates my guts and Sasuke couldn't listen if his life depended on it! The only time he actually gets off his ass and -does- something is when it's our turn to torment poor Tora!" She sighed. "I wish you were our teacher instead."

He cocked an eyebrow and gestured at his desk - which, as usual, was covered in a minimum of three layers of cheap paper and messy handwriting. "Sure, I'll take it up in my copious free time."

She blushed, since she knew that the year he had spent instructing her while she waited for an opening in a forming or existing team had come entirely out of his own limited free time - without pay. "Eheh."

He waved it off with a grin. "So you wanted to vent about the fact that your team doesn't get along?"

Tenten sighed. "Yeah. I guess... I'm just so -frustrated-, because my team is just flying apart more and more every day, and they're good people despite that and I want us to be -friends-, too, the way you and I were..."

He stared at her for a moment, then smiled. "Are," he said, touched. "We -are-." She didn't know quite how to respond to the way her words had obviously meant more to him than she'd expected, and eventually he folded his hands in front of him. "I'll talk to Kakashi. I can't promise anything, but..." he trailed off and shrugged.




Legend of Explosive Youth Part Six

Team Seven: Icha Icha Jealousy

Much of the beginning (Neshan's scenes) by Valles, since it's his insert, the rest by ClassicDrogn with the usual kibbutzing by Greiver, Drakensis, and the Drunkard's Walk Message Board crew at large.




"What did you want to see me for?" Kakashi asked as he turned away from Konoha's monument to its fallen.

The younger Jounin shrugged and fell in beside him. "I talked to Tenten the other day."

"Oh? She told you something you want to confirm?"

"In a word." Subject broached, Neshan hesitated before picking his approach.

"And your conclusions from when you watched us?"

Knowing that he'd been seen wasn't a problem; he hadn't really meant to hide from Kakashi anyway. "From what Rin-sensei said about her own training," Neshan began, as gently as he could, given the subject of the opening, "it looks like you're modeling your teaching style after Yondaime-sama's."

That got a smile, which might or might not have been sincere, but either way was sketched more in the angle of the senior ninja's head and the set of his shoulders than any expression on his face. "I have, yes."

"You're missing something," he told him, with the blunt directness that made some ninja regard working with him as a trial. "Actually a couple of somethings, but there's one that worries me - and Tenten. Rin-sensei had always described him as being a lot more active than I saw you being, and, for that matter, as tailoring his cues and signals to his audience rather than relying on them to pick up the standard ones which they might not have been trained in, yet. He left some fairly extensive training logs; when I checked them... The difference was striking."

Kakashi's usual air of distracted affability sloughed away as he devoted his entire attention to turning that thought over in his head, and when he turned fully to face his companion the look in his exposed eye was enough to send a chill up its target's back - though no Jounin, however junior, would ever be so sloppy as to show the reaction. "You have specific advice, I suppose."

Neshan inclined his head, and smiled politely. "First, I would suggest that jutsu and other active forms of training should be mixed in as part of missions and regular practice, rather than inserted between them or left for students to find and apply on their own. Enabling that is the purpose of the combination of Jounin-sensei and D-class missions in the first place. Second... Teamwork must be taught, too. Shown. It won't just happen on its own - or if it does, will be of an unreliable and inferior sort. The high emotions of combat will foster the neccessary attachments if nothing else does first, but experience is needed to smooth over their interactions to whatever degree needed to work effectively - and at this stage, providing that experience is the teacher's role, not the student's."

They met each others' eyes for a long, tense moment, and then the pose of the loveable scarecrow snapped back into place. "You don't mince words much, do you?"

"It drives all sorts of people just crazy," Neshan answered conspiritorily.

[center]---=- + -=---[/center]

A couple of weeks after her visit with her interim sensei, Tenten arrived at the bridge Team Seven used as a meeting spot to find not Kakashi but Sasuke reading a book with a light blush on his face. If not for the fact that she recognized the cover as belonging to one of the historical romances she herself owned a copy of, she'd have been rather upset at him picking up bad habits from the jounin.

Looking up at the sound of her ninja sandals on the bridge he snapped it closed and grunted a greeting, then leaned on the railing and fixedly ignored her and Sakura, arriving a minute or two later, until the pink had faded from his cheeks.

"Here. I bought this by accident. You said you read this tripe," the boy said as he proffered the novel to Tenten.

"Oh? Thanks, but I already read that one, it came out around the time you graduated. It is a little racy, isn't it?" she giggled.

"Hnf." Why the hell did he keep getting this weird hot feeling in his ears, Sasuke wondered.

"The ending was so sad, though! After all that, to lose his new family as well."

"Keh. Ryomaru was a fool, abandoning his vengeance for such weakling emotions. He should have expected Ichima to return. Taking revenge at the cost of his own life... To acheive such a result after allowing himself to go soft like that, he should have been thankful." Only too late did he realize that discussing the plot meant that he'd actually read the foolish thing, which he'd had no intention of admitting - of doing, doing! - no matter how bored he'd been at the time.

This was easily more words than Sakura had -ever- heard Sasuke speak at once, and now he had a bright blush again! *AAAH! SO CUTE!* Inner Sakura squealed at the sight. *Hell yeah! No, focus, dammit! Why the hell is -she- getting a present! Can't she see that Sasuke-kun is MINE MINE MINE!?* "Why you... Puffball-head! How dare you try to besmirch Sasuke-kun's mind with dirty books and embarrass him like that!"

"Geeze, use a hyouton, Sakura!" the older kunoichi complained. Teasing, she grabbed on to the silently mortified Uchiha's arm and played at pressing up against his shoulder the way his fangirls tended to do. "A noble samurai like Sasuke-dono has a MUCH stronger mind than that!"

Of course, she had a bit more in the way of endowment than either Sakura or Ino had so far developed, something he couldn't help but notice with certain scenes from the foolish story unfortunately fresh in his mind. This distraction kept him from instantly shaking her off as he usually would with his grabbier admirers. "Besides, maybe he wouldn't mind a little -smirching-, ne Sasuke-kuuu- eep!"

The clanless girl's playful tone turned into a yelp of surprise as her pink haired team mate roared with jealous rage and charged, only barely dodging away from the furious girl's wild punch in time to avoid a bloody or broken nose. "Whoa, hey! I'm just kidding around," she yelled, trying to defuse the situation. "I've told you dozens of times I don't -"

"SHUT UP! I've told YOU dozens of times, stay away from MY Sasuke-kun, you... over-sized... knife-freak!" Two more punches whiffed by as the brunette flipped away from the railing to land on the arch over the end of the bridge.

"OVERSIZED!? Why you--!" Suddenly realizing that the other girl wasn't exactly talking about her waistline, Tenten's eyes narrowed cattily. "Don't get upset, LITTLE girl, you've got lots of room to grow! Oops, I meant, -time!-"

"JUST DIE, YOU SKANKY OLD WOMAN! SHANNARO!!" Before she even really thought about it, a pair of kunai were in Sakura's hands, then flying through the air at her supposed friend.

Eyes widening at this level of escalation, Tenten took too long to react to deflect the thrown blades and had to dodge again, letting herself fall backwards off her perch while keeping a grip on the wooden arch, using that leverage and momentum to do a flipping leap toward the younger girl. The sun and moon fork she preferred for close combat appeared in her hands and two quick swats with its blunt brass sphere knocked the second pair of kunai out of Sakura's hands, then a third in the jealous girl's solar plexus sent her sprawling.

Landing on her butt on the planks of the bridge with a painful thump, the youngest Haruno wheezed and gasped for breath, looking up at the taller, faster, stronger, cuter, bustier... *Damn, it's just not fair! Why does she get to be better than me in every category?* she thought, tears starting to well up in her eyes.

"Hey now, settle down," Tenten warned seriously, still holding a guard stance with her polearm. "Arguing is one thing, but pulling live blades is different."

Sasuke, still too embarrassed at the earlier discussion let alone being the object of a physical fight, couldn't even produce one of his signature moody grunts.

Scrambling to her feet, Sakura's mouth opened and shut a couple of times as she tried to respond, but finally all she could do was flee, stifled sobs fading into the distance as she ran.

Releasing her weapon, Tenten could only grimace at how very much their 'team' just did NOT work, before stalking off to perch on the branch of a nearby tree, fuming at how badly Sakura had over-reacted, as well as herself for provoking the girl. Even if she was just teasing and even if the green-eyed (literally and figuratively!) pinkie was practically begging for it, she still should know better.

Neither had significantly improved their mood by the time their sensei arrived an hour and a half later. "Yo," the jounin greeted lazily, eye curved in his usual carefree expression. He'd really outdone himself thinking up a good excuse this morning, as soon as the usual complaints were out of the way...

The usual shout of "You're late," of course...

Any second now...

"Ara? You could greet your teacher with a little enthusiasm," he complained. *And it was such a good excuse, too! Oh well, a few more minutes to read Icha Icha next time.* Looking around, he visually confirmed what his nose and more esoteric senses had already told him. "Sakura-san already left... Did something happen?"

Sasuke grunted, with a bit of extra irritation mixed into the brooding.

Tenten was a bit more informative, tersely but accurately summarizing the earlier confrontation. "I didn't mean anything more than some friendly joking around," she concluded, "but even if it's partly my fault, she didn't have to over react like that!" Huffing, she flopped back down at the base of her tree. "Talk about your jealous little brats..." she muttered quietly.

Kakashi considered the situation for a few seconds, then decided it was probably for the best if the kids had got it out of their systems. "Eh... Well, I guess she can miss today. She'll settle down, and then train a little extra next week to make it up. It's a simple mission today instead of training but you should be able to handle it without her, just buying some groceries..." Hmm, the list was fairly long. Perhaps he could have them drill it as bringing a wounded comrade out of a hostile zone, with bagged food standing in for a comatose person's limp weight and fragile condition.

[center]---=- + -=---[/center]

The sun had yet to peek over the horizon the next morning when Kakashi snapped awake at the sound of footsteps outside his door. He was already dressed and half equipped with his usual loadout by the time the visitor started pounding on it. A deep sniff as he approached revealed the perfume favored by his younger female student (something he'd need to talk to her about before going on any field missions, he reminded himself) and a glance through a peephole angled into the wall confirmed it, so he pulled out his favorite book before opening the door with the other hand. He waited a beat, looked up, and inquired, "Oh, Sakura-san... visiting your sensei at home? I didn't know you knew where I live..."

"My father told me," she explained shortly before brushing it off, grabbing his collar, and hauling him out into the stairwell. "Come on... You're supposed to be my sensei and even my taijutsu sucks, so teach me! I'm not waiting around for you to do as you like today!" Blinking, Kakashi pulled the door shut as he was tugged towards the stairs and pulsed his chakra at the points that would close a few of the locks and arm the more important traps in case someone tried breaking in, before obligingly putting the book away in favor of a ration bar to munch.

He was faintly surprised at the strength the girl was showing - not that he couldn't have resisted her, of course, but if this was what she had with only minimal Academy conditioning, he'd been doing an injustice to let her slide since becoming her superior. Shaking Sakura's hand loose from his vest, he gave the scowling girl one of his eye-smiles, then took the lead himself to the practise field. He'd visit Obito and Rin a little later, when he could tell them about his spitfire of a student's first serious lesson.

*Shannaro! I can't wait to see the look that'll be on that puffball-head skank's face as I dodge EVERY ONE of her flying weapons, then she gets a double kick to her feakishly-huge chest to go flying into a dumpster! Sasuke-kun will come to his senses and see that I'm the perfect girl for him, and we'll kiss softly under a blossoming cherry tree framed by the sunset, and... (blush) and... (giggle) and...*

And to think, teacher and student had almost been having the same conversation up to then.

[center]---=- + -=---[/center]

Several arduous hours later, Sakura flopped onto her back in the grassy training ground, soaked in sweat and exhausted both mentally and physically. She rubbed at her eyes as her thoughts rapidly spiralled toward depression. "I - I'm sorry, Kakashi-sensei," she apologized, fighting back bitter tears. "I just can't seem to get it... I guess I really am hopeless as a ninja after all..."

Kakashi's own feeling had been torn between mild frustration at having to keep breaking down concepts to more basic components and being honestly impressed with the drive the girl had shown and how quickly she'd grasped those components and reassembled them once he found the right way to explain. Though, between his mask and his lackadaisical attitude he'd given no perceptible sign beyond having kept his attention on her rather than going back to Icha Icha Paradise. The jounin quirked his eyebrow, blinked blandly at her, and soothed, "Maa, don't give up so soon, student. You've actually picked up a lot of the basics, you just have to find the rhythm and train it into your body. Taijutsu doesn't appear instantly, ne?"

"Find the rhythm...?"

"Yep!" he sang, an almost visible heart appearing as punctuation while his one uncovered eye screwed up with the hidden smile. "Hehee, you'll get to find out an answer to that question you asked the first day, too!"

Bracing herself up on her elbows Sakura cocked her head curiously and wondered, "Question? Which question?" but Kakashi had already started to wander off in the direction of the memorial stone, nose firmly glued to his little orange book. Grumbling, she pulled herself painfully to her feet and half-heartedly tried to slap away the dust and grass clinging to her drastically shortened maroon dress and twined in her hair. She'd hemmed the lower panels of her uniform last night, leaving it little more than a long shirt at this point. The big Haruno ring that had graced the front was gone completely, leaving just her tight black shorts to allow less restrictive movement (and just maybe, catch Sasuke-kun's eye. The war was on, shannaro!)

Oh well... Nothing for it but to wait and see what her wierdo sensei appeared with tomorrow, it seemed.

[center]---=- + -=---[/center]

*Yo, Obito... I think more and more how much you'd like Haruno... Or maybe, how much she seems like you. From strife within the team her drive to succeed has appeared, just like that time... Of course, her temper is even worse, if anything. Tenten's the level headed one, like you Rin, though she's more interested in her weapons than medic skills, and Sasuke is me all over, obsessed with blotting out the stain of a disgraced family member. It's a little different, but still so familiar ... it'll have a better end this time, though. I'll make sure of it... I won't let my comrades die...*

The masked jounin's thoughts fell silent then, mute witnesses to the ghosts that danced before him; a smiling blond, a serious silver-mane, a sweet-tempered chestnut, and a happy-go-lucky brunet. He'd gotten there far later than usual, and the sun had long set before he made his way home again.

When he showed up the next morning - barely even half an hour late! - with a set of bongo drums and happily plopped down to play a beat for her to practice to, it was all Sakura could do not to plant her face like a turnip from shock. *'I have many hobbies' he said... How the hell does that mean 'playing the bongos!?' What a super-wierdo!!*

[center]---=- + -=---[/center]

Their schedule of crappy missions resumed again the following day, but Tenten and Sakura managed to avoid repeating the incident, if only by not speaking to each other unless it was required for the mission. Combined with Sasuke's usual quiet it made for a refreshingly professional lack of chatter to the former ANBU captain. In the afternoons when the team would be dismissed for their personal training he and Sakura would return to the secluded practise ground near the memorial stone and he'd bring out his drums, teaching the agile girl more of that odd dance-based taijutsu style he'd picked up on a mission to the tropical islands north of the continent.

It was eminently suited to her build, maximizing Sakura's advantages in speed and strength to weight with its emphasis on kicks and knee strikes and minimising the disadvantages in toughness and raw power with unpredictable evasion and fast movement. The high mobility of the style would also allow her to quickly open and close the range on an opponent to mesh with her team mates ninjutsu and thrown weapon specialties.

Most evenings he'd drop by the Uchiha training grounds after his lessons with Sakura to see what Sasuke had learned that day and one or two days a week he'd check in on Tenten instead, but she spent most of her time refining her aim or adding to her stock of explosive tags, neither of which activities needed much if any input from him. Sasuke had the entire Uchiha jutsu library to learn from so he was content to let them manage their own schedules for the most part.

Oddly enough, he found himself looking forward to the afternoon sessions, the never ending guilt at the fate of his old team mates lightening in the face of Sakura's determined drive and eager ear for the stories of noteable missions, training techniques, and Maito misadventures he found himself telling as she moved through one form after another.

It was the most he'd talked about the past to anyone, really, even if he still dodged more personal issues, and he wondered privately if this was the kind of feeling that made some jounin take one genin team after another, or inspired the Academy's staff to stick with their much-griped-over positions. Meanwhile the girl's skill grew by literal leaps and bounds.

*Was this what Obito could have become, if he'd survived that time?* Kakashi wondered, contemplating the rapid progress the girl had made since finding her motivation. Actually, he'd have thought she'd have more trouble with the arm strength required to support some of the low-to-high moves, but ... *Wait...*

The jounin made no outward change as he tapped out an energetic beat, nor did he pause as he described the time Gai had heard he knew this style and challenged him to a dance-off for the title of "Konoha's Handsome Beast." Many of the refinements he'd taught her had in fact come from the other jounin, who'd quite happily won his 'title' with them. More importantly, though...
Now that he was paying attention, he could feel his student channeling chakra into her body for strength... not in short bursts as he'd expected, and would do himself, but the whole time. Most of the errors he'd had to point out came when her control would falter, and either leave her without the needed strength or simply distract her from performing them.

*She has that kind of control? It would be impressive even in a fellow Elite Jounin, let alone a rookie genin.* It did explain the problem she had with endurance, though if that was the case her recovery speed must also be very good. There was a bigger problem, however, and one he'd have to address.

"Halt," he commanded, stopping the beat and waiting until she landed from the whirling kick/kippup, standing attentively before him. She'd been working for most of their usual three hours already, and the girl was dripping with sweat, trembling from the sustained exertion and... no, she should not be that pale, espescialy after this amount of excercise. "Hmm, go ahead and start your cool-down, just light stretches for today," he told her.

Sakura was confused, the one thing her sensei had never done, no matter how late he arrived or even if all she had stamina left to do was jog around the clearing was cut the lessons short. "Sensei?" she questioned, a tinge of worry in her voice. *Have we ever seen him this serious,* she thought to herselves.

*Huh... dunno... We didn't do it!* came the reply.

"There's something important to discuss, before continuing," he explained, waiting until she began stretching to keep from cramping up before he continued. "Sakura, you've been channeling chakra to boost your stength and speed, correct?" he asked.

*Uh oh... I think we kinda did do it, though there waasn't much of a choice,* she told her inner self before replying, "Well, that is... kinda? I know it's like cheating but I just -have- to improve somehow, and if you stop these I'll be forced to--"

"Sakura." he interrupted, cutting off the babble in the making. "While it's true that ninja do not generally channel chakra that way aside from short bursts, as I'd thought you were doing, it's not because it's cheating. Someone who doesn't take every advantage they can make for themselves is not a ninja. The reason is that in battle, that kind of concentration... it's impossible. It's surprising you can do so even for training, actually." *Even I can't keep it up like that...*

Glad that her stretches made it natural to be looking away, the genin hesitantly replied, "Well, it's only a little strength... adding speed takes too much chakra, or really amazing strength, and hurts my muscles, too - I tried to channel a whole lot and pick up a boulder like Tsunade-hime in the Battle of Masaki's Glade when we were taught the technique in the Academy, and even though it worked it felt like my whole body was on fire for two days."

Kakashi's eye widened - he'd been to Masaki's Glade, and seen that boulder in the crater it left when it hit the Rain-nin troops. "How big was this boulder?"

Momentarily forgetting her worry, Sakura giggled at the memory. "Oh, it was huuuge," she laughed. "Nearly waist-high on an eight-year-old!"

"Hmm, a bit more reasonable that I was thinking," the man considered, "but still impressive in a student. A small but constant amount of chakra is only harder to maintain, however, which is what makes the way you've been training unsuited for use in battle."

The pink-tressed girl hesitated for a moment, before asking, "Kakashi-sensei, how much do you know about the Haruno bloodline limit?"

"Basically, it's another mind in the same body, allowing a second chance to notice important details or detect and resist genjutsu. At high levels, a Haruno-nin can perform even the most advanced ninjutsu without movement, as their inner self performs the neccessary seals."

"That's actually considered the chuunin-level ability, though the same kind of limits exist as normal for the chakra and control available to keep a chuunin from performing the kind of things you're probably thinking of. As an Academy student, we learn to learn to work in perfect unison with our two selves, to give perfect chakra control, while as genin the target is for both minds to be able to do different control excercises at the same time, or maintain one while performing a ninjutsu or genjutsu... Even without using that ability, I've always been good with control. Because Inner Sakura has been concentrating totally on chakra control, I've been able to have the attention to talk with you while training."

That was a more impressive ability than he'd thought, actually, and he wondered what the jounin level was considered to be, though such a secret was unlikely to be told even to him. Just keeping up two control excercises at once would normally take a high-class chuunin or special jounin. That still left the bigger issue, however.

"Maa, well, even such interesting discussions are not the same as a battle," he noted. "I'd wondered why you weren't using this style with your comrades in the morning spars aside from getting a bit more acrobatic in dodging. More importantly, you've been running close to chakra exhaustion each time, haven't you? Especially that first day, when you could barely even move. Such a dangerous habit is a bad thing to form. If you misjudged it you could die, or at best be unconscious for days."

That stopped her cool-down, and Sakura turned to face him with a serious look. "Kakashi-sensei... you finally decided to teach me something, so I've been going for it with everything to become a stronger ninja... isn't that what we're supposed to do, as teacher and student? As for the mornings... I wanted to get better with this, before I revealed it even to them." *Especially to that man-stealing wench, you mean! SHANNARO!!* Ignoring her inner self's shadow boxing and predictions of the ultimate victory of love for the moment, Sakura pressed on. "What battle lasts for three hours, anyway, even the Siege of Bellflower Pass was over faster than that once the walls were breached and actual fighting started."

"Hmm... Yes, we were in and through with that in little more than two, as I recall..." Watching as his student finished her cool-down set, the jounin considered a large number of things, but paying foreward his debt to the past won out, as usual. He called out, attracting her attention again. "You've studied enough of the forms to begin. Tomorrow, we will not meet here to study."

The girl's face fell and her shoulders hunched in despair. *Even though I gave it this much, to learn something unique and powerful...*

"Sakura," he said, more warmly. "Tomorrow afternoon, rest and recover your chakra. The day after tomorrow, we'll meet here and spar. If you can maintain the neccessary strength for this style, I'll acknowledge your ability and we will continue."

If she'd had the energy left, Sakura would have been hopping around in joy, just from the relief that he was't going to give up on her or go into some long lecture about how the shinobi arts aren't meant to be played at and she should take them more seriously. As it stood she did a happy little dance in place while her inner self proclaimed Kakashi's impending defeat as well as that of her rivals in love.

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The next day was a mix of excitement and apprehension for Sakura - her mind spun with strategies she might try, the glorius future of success, and the hotly denied but lingering specter of failing this all-important trial. Remembering Kakashi's words about the term 'cheating' not being applicable as a ninja, she considered setting traps in the area to try to catch him off guard, but decided that he was more likely to toss her into them herself and that anything strong enough to be worth the effort against a jounin was too dangerous for a sparring session.

There was another edge she could could give herself, but it would mean spending all the pay from last week's mission, and probably her allowance as well... Worse, it would mean sucking up to either Kikuko-oni or the Freaky Twins, because genin didn't have the clearance needed to buy soldier pills. She waffled over it for almost half an hour before finally deciding on her sister, because even if she had some wierd thing going on with that cinnamon-stick-chewing guy and Kiba's sister of all people, at least she didn't hang around with Ino-pig like her brothers, and aside from Tenten the blonde thorn in her side was the absolute LAST person she wanted getting any hint about her new skills until it was far, far too late.

With that thought in mind and knowing her sister wasn't on any missions at the moment she'd made her way to the training area favored by a fair number of Konoha's mid-ranked ninja. As usual it was filled with the sounds of a fight, but one of words for once instead of fists and chakra.

"By the kami, Amaboshi, you are -such- a jerk sometimes! That's IT, we're through!" The woman's screech had the distinctive growling undertones of an Inuzuka. From the sound of things, maybe whatever that wierd thing had been was in the past.

Coming through the light screen of brush, she could see her sister Kikuko shrugging at the hapless male who'd incurred the wrath of their mutual girlfriend. "Don't look at me," the older Haruno said, more calmy. "I figured it was a weekend thing, she's the one who wanted to keep you."

Sakura shuddered despite herself. She didn't care how acceptable it was in the shinobi world, where strong bloodlines were critical and too many male ninja got killed off compared to female heirs, who often stayed in administrative or non-ninja careers. It was going to be one-on-one, her and a guy, for sure! *That's right! Sasuke-kun is for us and no one else! Shannaro!* Inner Sakura agreed.

Setting aside any awkward feelings, Sakura put on her sweetest face and walked closer to where her sister was now rubbing her girlfriend's back, trying to calm the fuming Inuzuka down, two nin-dogs noting her approach with quiet yips. "Ah, please excuse the intrusion," the younger Haruno began quietly. "Maybe it's a bad time, but I could I talk with Kikuko-onee?"

The couple shared a look, then Hana gently shook herself loose. "Go on," she told Kikuko. "I'm no good company right now, I'll just go for a run with the guys," she said, stroking the ears of one of her dogs.

"Okay... Still on for tonight, or you want to take a rain check?" Kikuko asked. They had been planning on dinner and a club with Amaboshi, but at least part of that plan was now obviously void.

"Sure," the taller girl grinned. "We wouldn't want any of those poor boys to go on being all heartbroken because we were off the market. Somebody might do something permanent!" They shared a laugh before the dark-haired teen bounded off into the trees, her canine companions following to either side.

"So what's up, squirt?" Kikuko asked at last.

A vein pulsed at Sakura's temple and her cheek twitched, but she forcibly kept her expression sweet and voice even as she explained, "Now that I've graduated and joined a genin team, I need to put together a pack for longer missions. I was hoping you'd buy something for me at the chemists... I have the money for it, of course."

Kikuko grinned deviously and treated her younger sibling to an elbow in the ribs. "Chasing that Uchiha boy going well then? I'm not sure I support you moving into -that- kind of a relationship so fast, little sis..."

Slapping the offending limb away Sakura shouted, "NOT THAT!" *Not a bad idea, though!* Inner Sakura put in with the image of some improbably intricate gesticulation, but her public self wasn't even going to get into that topic if she could help it. "I want you to get me some soldier pills, damn it! Not... that!"

Gasping theatrically, Kikuko pressed her hands into her cheecks. "My goodness! The gracious movie-star kunoichi is actually planning to go on a -mission!- Be careful, you could break a nail, or get all icky!"

"Onee-san..."

"And soldier pills... surely such an example of feminine perfection couldn't be inadequate in any way..."

"O-NEE-san..."

"I know, it's so you can offer one to your leading man with a demure smile and a little smudge on your cheek, so he can be revived and take care of the bad guy for you!"

Fists clenched at her sides and eyes pressed shut in annoyance as she did her best to hold back her temper, the younger girl ground out, "Are you going to help or not, o-nee-SAAAN!?"

Giving over for now, Kikuko wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulders and sang, "Hai haaai... you shouldn't let yourself get so tense, oneechan, it'll give you wrinkles." She laughed and squeezed a little tighter as her sister grouwled and muttered about being a bitch, no where near quietly enough. "Tch, such attitudes," she scolded. "Unless you want me to show you what I've learned from Hana-chan about dealing with uppity bitches?"

Shuddering again, Sakura was quick to reply, "No thanks, big sister." Taking deep breaths, she relaxed as much as she could, and they headed back into the settled sections of Konoha.

She'd actually gotten the idea from Hana's younger brother, who'd mentioned once that many of his family's techniques had chakra demands that required the use of a soldier pill to keep them up at the genin level when they'd covered common ninja medicines at the Academy. Like she'd told Kakashi-sensei, she'd only been using chakra for a small amount of strength, because it would take too much to do more than that let alone increase her speed... but with the ability of a soldier pill to boost chakra production, she could get around her depressingly small reserves and go wild when she faced the jounin the following day. That had been the other reason to approach Kikuko - if an Inuzuka was good enough for her, a variation on their tactics should be good enough for her little sister.

And the thing about giving one to Sasuke-kun... Well, if her sister had been totally useless at romance she wouldn't have been going steady with Hana for almost a year now. She'd definately have to keep it in mind if the situation ever came up, it was pure gold even if it was exacly the kind of attitude that had kept her from going to her family for extra training after years of trying to find her own path as a ninja.

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Team Seven had done a mission that morning, providing birthday party entertainment at the Tsukino clan compound for the Main Family's youngest, who'd just finished his first year at the Academy. Sakura had put together an acrobatic routine, Sasuke had demonstrated some impressive fire-type ninjutsu, and Tenten had fun with trick kunai and shuriken throwing, with targets all around her and using deflection shots to even hit ones behind cover... and the little runts had still been horrible.

Worse, Kakashi-sensei had made them treat it as if they'd been providing security for a noble's social gathering, so they had to constanly be on the alert for him as a supposedly enemy ninja trying to spy or 'assassinate' the guest of honor. Who naturally had thought that having the famous Copycat Ninja randomly popping up beside him to stuff a chocolate into his mouth was the best part of the show.

"Shingo is SUCH a brat," she grumped as she made her way to the training area afterwards. "And if anything, Hokage-sama's grandson is worse! Me and my classmates were nothing like that at their age." A particular incident involving slingshots, fertilizer from a certain flower shop, and kids who had made cracks about a girl who lived at said flower shop and her new best friend tried to present itself from her memory, along with others, but was quickly repressed again. Sakura was absolutely a perfect angel, then as now.

"At least Moegi-chan wasn't a total wild mountain monkey," she thought aloud, before refocusing her attention in the issue at hand since she'd almost arrived. A hand drifted to her tool pouch and traced the outline of the little bottle inside. "I paid a whole lot of money for just ten of the things, should I really use one only for a spar?" she wondered. "No, not just a spar, this is a test, a test that will determine my future as a kunoichi. Just stealing a bento won't cut it this time, and it's not about relying on team mates... it's about victory in love and war and about being reliable myself. I have to go for it with everything." Her expression firmed up, decision made.

At least this time she wouldn't be facing Kakashi-sensei after a sleepless night and no breakfast, though her nervous stomach had refused more than a few bites of trail mix and a sports drink for lunch. Sakura pulled out the pill bottle and twisted the top until the opening was big enough to shake one out, then closed it again and replaced the vial in her pouch. She weighed the little red-brown ball thoughtfully in her hand.

It was waterproofed to keep from being ruined if a ninja had to swim, was drenched with water ninjutsu, or just caught in the rain, so she could probably slip it under her tongue now to be ready. On the other hand, the coating was only beeswax so it would melt in body heat. She wasn't sure how long the effect would last either, since there hadn't been time to experiment the previous night. Originally the pills were intended to provide enough energy to keep active for days, but that was swallowing one whole and letting it dissolve slowly in the stomach, not the kind of quick boost effect she was planning. Deciding against it until the moment came, she sat down with her back to one of the training logs to wait for her sensei.

She didn't have long to wait, he'd been getting less and less tardy to these lessons as they'd gone on so it was only a few minutes before the jounin puffed into existence with a little cloud of smoke and a swirl of leaves. She rose respectfully to greet him, getting a lazy wave in return. For all of that, Kakashi's one visible eye was alert and his voice serious as he said, "Well, no need to draw it out. Are to ready to begin?"

Face serious, Sakura popped the soldier pill into her mouth, crushing it between her teeth and spreading the bitter powder under her tongue as she stretched her back and rolled her shoulders. Immediately she could feel her body begin to hum with the rush of chakra as saliva turned it into a paste and the medicine was absorbed directly into the large blood vessels there. Grimacing at the taste, she took a stance and blustered, "I'm ready, Kakashi-sensei... Are you ready for me?"

Inner Sakura had already gone into a meditative trance to concentrate on controlling the unfamiliar bounty of chakra and channeling it into her muscles, and she hopped experimentally from one foot to the other, marveling at the feeling... could this be what Sasuke-kun felt like all the time? The pink-haired girl grinned ferally, then blasted into an attack routine on her sensei, who from all outward appearances was still just standing there with a lazy slouch.

As expected, he reacted immediately, batting aside the opening punches and hopping over the low spinning kick they led into, forcing her to double over at the waist and push off into a flip to dodge as he came back down with a stomp aimed at her extended knee. Sakura danced in a swirl of her own inner fire, and the flame danced with her, seeping its warmth into her bones even as it reached hungrily for her opponent.

Two sweaty, dusty, brutally strenuous hours later, Sakura could feel the effect of the soldier pill starting to fade, and her control had long faltered to the point she was back at her normal speed. Her outfit was blood-dark with soaked in sweat, her palms, knees, and one shoulder had been scuffed raw when their running battle had passed over a patch of bare stone, and her hair had been hastily tied into a sloppy knot at the base of her neck when her hitae-ate had come loose under the constant bouncing and jumping and left it to fall into her face, but the girl was determined to see the battle through to the end. Kakashi still looked fresh as a daisy, the rat bastard, though he'd gotten a leaf caught comically in his brush of white spikes.

Dropping backward into a bridge to avoid a high kick, Sakura continued the motion into a half dozen backward somersaults to get some breathing room. She pulled out the soldier pill vial with one hand, twisting the top around with her thumb in the same motion, and was about to take another when Kakashi was suddenly right in front of her face, hand interposed to cover the top of the bottle.

"That's enough," he told her seriously. "You haven't used such medicines before, have you student?"

Closing the container again and putting it away, Sakura worried that he was going to stop the lessons because of that, despite his speech about a ninja making every advantage she could. "No," she admitted. "This is the first time. I remembered one of my classmates talking about using them in this way because his family taijutsu needed large amounts of chakra."

"Hmm. There -are- a few clans that do such things... More importantly, using more than one in a short period can have bad side effects, so you shouldn't do that unless it's a serious situation," he ordered. "The equipment shop should have told you this, if it was your first time buying them."

"Ah, well... I had my sister get them for me, since genin aren't allowed to buy advanced medicines without special permission," Sakura explained. "They might even have assumed she was getting them for her... friend, Inuzuka Hana-san."

Kakashi blinked and considered this. He'd been a genin for such a short time, and so long ago, he didn't really remember if there'd been any such restrictions then. Things had been different at that time in any case. "Ah, is that so?" he drawled, to cover his musing. "Well, the test was to see if you could keep the control needed for chakra-boosted strength up for a long battle, so I suppose it's okay. I expect you not to use them for training tomorrow, or for at least another day after that, though. Oh, and don't take sleeping pills tonight either, or you'll die."

His eye curved up in a little inverted smile, tone utterly at odds with the actual words. Sakura smiled sickly and waved as he wandered off, the girl still panting lightly and still buzzing with energy even as the literal chakra surge faded away.

Then, as her breathing finally recovered, she squealed with excitment and punched at the air, kicking up her heels joyously. "OH HELL YEAH! I WIN, I WIN, I -WIN-, SHANNARO!!" Shouting and jumping happily she danced around the clearing, then decided to run and find her sister to give her a big hug for the help.

Pausing only to collect her forehead protector where it had been hung on a bush after coming loose she reflected that if the other girl wanted to complain about how grimy she was... well, Kikuko deserved it for the constant cracks about movie-star sensibilities.

[center]---=- + -=---[/center]

Kakashi didn't totally ignore the points Neshan had raised either, stepping up the team training in the mornings and incorporating some of the teamwork drills Minato-sensei had used into their missions, but there was only so far the parameters of, say, walking a kennel's worth of dogs, could be stretched to simulate a genuine field mission. No, any real work to those ends would have to wait until they started in on C-ranks - a good bandit hunt or caravan escort or two and everything should fall neatly into place. Thankfully, they'd just about done their quota of the basics and it would soon be time for that.

*How often can Madame Shijimi lose her cat, anyway,* he wondered after their fifth time returning the skittish pet. Kakashi could tell by the looks his subordinates were exchanging that they were getting fed up with such simple duties as well as they made their way out into the sunny afternoon.

Dodging a booze-swilling, grey haired civilian with a travel pack as he headed toward the room where mission requests were taken, Sakura was the one to break first. "Ne, Kakashi-sensei, can we please get a more interesting mission soon? If we wanted to weed gardens and find lost pets, we wouldn't have needed to spend six years at the Academy!"

"Hn. These missions... There's no challenge in them," Sasuke agreed. "I need to become stronger. Smelling strongly of mutts does not count." He would never, -ever- admit it, but some of the heroes in those samurai romances had an entertaining way with quips and comebacks. Unsettling an enemy in combat could be a valuable edge, he justified.

It had nothing to do with the way Tenten would grin when he came out with one. At all. And he skipped the worst of the mushy stuff in favor of fight scenes, too. Perhaps he should look into supplementing his taijutsu with a sword? It could be useful in an extended encouter or if he needed to conserve chakra. He wasn't tall enough to get the best use of a long blade yet, but maybe a good solid ninja-to, and a chokuto when he'd reached his full growth...

Oblivious to his musings, even Tenten still nodded agreement with Sakura's request.

"Well... I suppose I can ask Hokage-sama if he has a C-rank mission that's suitable tomorrow," the jounin agreed after a moment. "There's usually something going on... Hm, in that case, the three of you should probably take this afternoon off from training to put together your field supplies - a week's worth is the standard pack. If not tomorrow there'll be something within a couple of days. Well, ja ne..." Flipping open his little book, the masked jounin wandered off, down the street towards Konoha Hospital.

Awkwardness forgotten, the two girls traded high fives and even Sasuke smiled minutely, before they dispersed to follow their instructions.

[center]---=- + -=---[/center]

That moment of camraderie didn't last, unfortunately. Sasuke actually making eye contact to grunt a greeting to Tenten the next morning when he'd ignored Sakura as usual was all it took to get the younger kunoichi fuming again, and the brunette wasn't about to go intentionally setting her off.

Espescially with the prospect of something more interesting than yet another lame chore with a thin disguise of ninja training layered on top of it in the offing if the 'team' could just keep it together.

Kakashi was two and a half hours late that day - on the longer end, but by no means a record for him. It was still plenty of time for the tension between the two girls to have ratcheted up to a high degree, and twin shouts of "YOU'RE LATE!" assaulted the masked jounin's ears.

"Hmm, well, I was just on my way when I saw a cow with its head stuck in a fence, and I had to help it get free," he explained, before brushing it off. "More importantly, we should hurry up to the Hokage's tower or all the C-ranks will be assigned before we get there."

"He says that, but he's the one we're waiting for," Sakura muttered. Despite herself, Tenten couldn't help but agree as they (finally!) headed off to get a better assignment.

Since the new Academy semester hadn't started up yet, Umino Iruka was helping with mission assignments again today, and the troubled look on his face was plain when they requested a higher ranked one. His eyes flicked from Sakura, to Sasuke, and finally Tenten before coming to rest on their captain, worry over the preparedness of his former charges warring openly with the knowledge that the first were two of the best and their team mate had already been training for a year... that kind of inability to hide his thoughts was one of the main reasons he'd never risen higher in rank, though there were other factors that made him glad enough to remain a chuunin assigned to teaching or administrative duties as well.

The Sandaime looked on with quiet amusement as the internal struggle was resolved, and the Academy sensei passed him the list of C-rank missions without protest, but still shooting the old man a look that begged him to pick an easy one for these first-timers.

Sarutobi scanned down the page quickly with a serious face, then selected a mission scroll holding the details from the rack to one side. "Hmm, this one should do," he decided. Handing it off to Kakashi, he quickly summarized the assignment. "A supply shipment is being sent to the Rice Country border station, bringing food and other common items. As this trip does not include pay for the border guards, only casual bandits can be expected, so a single team will be sent to accompany them. The caravan is forming up at the South Gate stockyard to leave by mid day."

Kakashi gave the scroll a quick once over, mainly a glance at the included map, before rolling it back up and giving one of his eye-smiles. "Thank you, Hokage-sama, we'll be on our way then."

[center]---=- + -=---[/center]

Four days of uneventful travelling later, the end was nearly in sight - the caravan master had told them they should reach the border post within the next day's travel as the wagons were pulled off into a camp area to rest the oxen and and make a firepit to cook stew for the mid-day meal. It had been a pleasant trip so far all in all, moving through the countryside at a fast walk but not so quickly as to raise too much dust from the road, dry with the continuing sunny summer weather.

Tenten was finishing up her lunch when a sharp poke in the ribs made her look over at Sakura. The girl was scowling fiercely while across the campfire Sasuke was staring dreamily Tenten's way, until he noticed her looking at least. Shaking himself, the last loyal Uchiha turned away quickly, but not before his rapidly reddening face gave away where his thoughts had been wandering.

*Ohmigosh, that's so cute,* the brunette thought to herself, suddenly realising just why Sakura was so sure the older girl was 'trying to steal her man.' She'd caught glimpses of the occasional blush before but figured it was just the frosty Uchiha starting to come out of his shell a bit - with that look on his face, it was obvious he'd actually, finally noticed girls. *Just my bad luck that it was me he picked to crush on, darn it.*

Without waiting for her to put down her bowl the Haruno grabbed Tenten's arm in a painfully tight grip, the tin dish clattering to the ground as she dragged the brunette off to one side of the temporary camp. "You say you're only interested in this Hyuuga Neji," she hissed accusingly. "So why are you still stringing Sasuke-kun along!?"

"Ne, Sakura, I'm really not! Come on, let's not fight..." With little hope of actually getting her point across, Tenten tried to change the subject. "Hey, your chakra control is really good, right? Kakashi-sensei gave me this healing ninjutsu scroll but it's still a little beyond my reach, and I don't really have time to work on a third specialty anyway." She pulled her pack off and rummaged in a side pocket for a few seconds. "Here it is! Why don't you give it a look?"

Slapping the peace offering aside, Sakura growled, "You think I'd be satified with your castoffs, TEN-YEN?"

Stillness, the tensed feeling of a mountainside after a crack of thunder but before the avalanche jarred loose has begun to move.
"You've been looking for another fight for days," Tenten observed quietly. An impressive amount of malicious intent radiated off of her, making Kakashi look up sharply from his book at the building confrontation. "I don't know why you won't listen to me... but you just bought one. SO DIE AND GO TO HELL, YOU JEALOUS -BITCH!-"

Dropping the scroll the older girl spun, building momentum fpor a truly vicious smash with the brass butt of her favorite weapon... a strike that whiffed through the air as Sakura dropped away under it, feet coming up inside the arc of her follow-through to land punishing kicks in the center of the brunette's chest and the nerve cluster under her left arm. The sun and moon fork went spinning away as the arm spasmed and Tenten hopped backwards, gasping in shock and pain. She kept retreating as her team mate pressed the attack, spinning on her hands and spreading her legs into a rising hurricane kick that led into a flip and an aerial stomp, then an uppercut from the crouch of that landing.

By that time the older girl had drawn a quartet of kunai in her good hand even though the left was still tingling and limp, but she hesitated, not truly wanting to do permanent harm even in the face of such an offensive comment. *She's just being a brat,* she tried to tell herself. *She doesn't know how hard I've had to fight against that kind of attitude.* Remembering those times only fueled her anger, though, and the frown of concentration twisted into a wrathful sneer as her arm came up for a throw.

"Fufufufuu..." Sarcastic laughter and a golf clap interrupted the motion, as a form melted out of the large boulder sheltering the campsite from the wind. "I was going to wipe out the defenders for this caravan so my group could replenish our suppplies, since it seems we've run short... but it looks like you two are ready to take care of each other for me." The man was short but massively muscled, about as broad across the shoulders as he was tall. "It's always fun, watching a couple of cuties fight... don't stop, don't stop! If you amuse me, I'll even let the winner live, and give her a -special- prize!"

He pursed his lips in an exaggerated way and mimed a kiss, the gesture even more grotesque on his homely, squashed looking face. A Hidden Stone forehead protector with the slash of a nuke-nin was worn as a bandanna over his bald head. Heavy, khaki canvas pants with oversized pockets and a dark brown vest completed his outfit, while a truly massive axe rode on his back and a few shuriken graced the carrying strap across the man's bulldog chest.

"Hmm, Hajiku no Ishikiri, the Stone-Splitter," Kakashi observed, suddenly standing between the two girls, one hand on a shoulder of each. "I'll need to have a talk with my subordinates later, but for now I'll be your opponent."

"Sharingan Kakashi," the nukenin acknowledged. "Heh... that's fine, my own subordinates are more than enoguh for yours. Come on out! This... should be fun."

At his signal, senbon and kunai flew from the brush at the edge of the clearing, forcing Sakura and Tenten to dodge away while Kakashi simply knocked the flying weapons out of the air with a kunai in one hand while raising his hitae-ate to uncover his hidden eye with the other. At the same time, a pair of hands emerged from the ground to grab Sasuke's ankles in the 'Shinju Zanshu' Kakashi had used on him during the bell test. Not one to fall for the same trick twice, he crouched and stabbed each of them with a kunai as soon as he felt them take hold, then leapt clear as a second stone-nin climbed out of the ground, clutching his damaged hands to his chuunin vest.

"You bastard!" he growled, retreating behind the hail of weapons from his still hidden companions. "I'll kill you for that!" Unsurprisingly, his forehead protector and those of the second chuunin and the genin kunoichi who stepped out to meet him were also slashed like Hajiku's. The girl's wasn't originally from Hidden Stone, however, but the neighboring Hidden Grass. She quickly pulled out a roll of gauze and some medical tape and wrapped the wounds while their companion kept the Leaf genin occupied.

That chuunin was dressed in a similar tan body suit and slightly darker vest as the first, but where his partner was as bald as their captain his head was crowned in short, stiff, sandy blond hair cut into a flat-top style. Not wanting to use up all his weapons, he'd formed some quick hand seals, then leaned over to place both hands on a nearby rock.

"Doton: Funpi Sekihi no jutsu!" finger-long shards blasted away from the dog-sized stone, a lethal geyser of sharp edges that he swept after the leaf-nin as they dodged like water from a hose.

"Finally warming up to me, Kachinkachin?" the injured one asked the cloak clad, long haired ex-Grass-nin as she finished her rough field dressings. "Perseverance wins after all!"

"Idiot! This is no time for flirting, Kasui," the kunoichi rebuked him, "and if you don't stop calling me 'kachinkachin,' you'll find some senbon when you try to sit. Are you helping, or are Gansou and I going to have to do all the work?"

Clenching his hands into fists with a slight grimace of pain, the blond nuke-nin beat them together experimentally, then gave a cruel grin. "Heh, just watch me, Kin!" he boasted. "You won't have time to do a thing before I crush these Leaf brats!" He charged as Gansou's ninjutsu ended, lashing out at Sasuke with a blisteringly fast taijutsu combo that kept the genin on the retreat, only barely able to dodge or block.

Hajiku and Kakashi, meanwhile, hasd gotten into a battle of sand clones, half a dozen more or less damaged copies of themelves dueling up and down the face of the boulder while the two jounin jockeyed for position, each trying to maneuver the other into leaving an opening or giving himself enough time to prepare a more powerful ninjutsu, and the civilian caravaneers had quickly barricaded themselves on the far side of the wagons with their oxen.

Tiring of the dance, the stocky nuke-nin drew his axe and slammed it into the summit of the boulder with incredible force, splitting the massive stone evenly in two. The shockwave destroyed both sets of suna bunshin. Jumping back from the strike the Copycat landed in a half-crouch on one half as it settled, Hajiku taking position on the opposite piece. Their squads likewise seperated, Sakura taking advantage of the break to use a soldier pill.

The young Haruno had discovered first hand the problems Kakashi had warned her about, the stress of real combat with her life at stake proving far more of a challenge to the concentration needed to use her chakra than the most gruelling practise, and the desperate need for any edge possible making it impossible to hold back any ounce of strength or speed she could produce. The fact that two out of three of their enemies were chuunin, not genin, only made it worse - it was all the three Leaf could do to keep Kasui and Gansou from cornering them, leaving Kin to snipe with her senbon essentially at will. As a consequence Sakura's reserves had been bitten into sharply by only a few minutes of combat, between the need to boost both to the maximum and diminished control using it less efficiently.

She could feel her damn hitae-ate coming loose again, too, and with a growl she tugged it off then brushed her hair back and pulled it into place on her forehead to keep the pink mass out of her face, keeping a wary eye on the missing-nin team all the while.

The Stone-Splitter's hands flashed into a short seal combination, one Kakashi recognised but didn't bother countering since the simple jutsu's effect was nothing more than a set-up for later use, and if anything letting his opponent burn chakra to do it quickly was probably a better tactic.

"Doton: Saiseki Enshuujou no jutsu!" The rock where Hajiku stood abruptly shattered into thousands of fist-sized chunks. Some fell away into the cleft between the two sections but most stayed in place, rough egdes providing too much friction to immediately slide loose. The Stone-nin continued into a second set of seals without a pause, the sight prompting Kakashi to memorized the unfamiliar technique with the blood-red Sharingan eye in his scarred left socket. "Kataiishi Sankaku no jutsu!" Hajiku announced at the end of a moderate length series of hand seals, the crumbled stone at his feet flowing up his legs and clinging to his body, forming an armored layer complete with a rough helmet and two large, rounded shields on the forearms.

"How do you like my Hard Stone Armor, Sharingan Kakashi?" he gloated. "I'm sure you studied it well... too bad you'll never get to try it, because with my next move, the battle is over. Tenseki Juudan!" He rolled himself into a rocky ball, the head of his huge axe protruding almost comically from one side like the key on a wind-up toy. The ex-Iwa-nin began spinning rapidly before hurtling across the gap toward Kakashi.

Quickly dodging away from the strike and several more that followed the Leaf jounin quipped, "Hmm, well, that is an impressive jutsu, but... it seems a rolling stone gathers no moss."

Bellowing with fury the nuke-nin uncurled again and pursued, shaking the earth with the impacts as he slammed his axe into the ground just inches short of his opponent again and again. Kakashi led him futher away, the need to insulate the civilians and his team from the collateral damage that was the usual result of a high level battle having kept Kakashi from really opening up with his repetoir until then.

The genin's battle wasn't going quite so well, unfortunately. Whenever Sasuke or Tenten would try to pull back to use their ranged attacks, the Stone taijutsu specialist Kasui would slip around and keep them in close, and when Sakura tried to strike back she'd be driven away by Gansou's ninjutsu or still more needles from Kin, who all the time was getting small but telling shots in even if she ddin't have the accuracy needed to hit specific nerve clusters or vital points.

"This just isn't working," Tenten observed, breath coming in heavy gasps. "We need a new strategy, or *any* strategy to begin with," she complained quietly from her point of the trianlge formation. "I'm actually close to running out of hidden weapons, and there's been no time to unseal any more..." She trailed off and her eyes narrowed as she remembered a trick one of the teams she'd been hired to help train in pursuit tactics had pulled on her, but setting up the idea it had given her could be a problem with the way Team Seven got along - it wouldn't do any good if their enemies got all the details while she tried to explain to her team mates, and they hadn't formed the kind of rapport needed to understand what each other were thinking from gestures and scattered phrases.

While trying to figure out a way around that, she slipped a hand into her back tool pouch, puling out what looked like a deck of playing cards and stripped off the wrapper.

"What's that for?" the Grass kunoichi sneered, the nuke-nin trio having also backed off to catch their breath for a few seconds. "You going to challenge us to a game of poker for your lives?"

Taking the cue as a basis to buy a little more time, the brunette cut and shuffled the deck. "Oh, you never know, it might be interesting," she replied. "Maybe a different game, though... ever tried fifty-two pickup?" Ignoring her enemies' confused expressions, she she split the deck again into two stacks and jammed them under the cuffs of her fingerless gloves to be out of the way for the moment. Taking a quick step to one side she pulled Sasuke's near hand toward her belly and ordered, "Throw high!" before using the 'Henge' technique to become an oversized shuriken and fall into his grip.

After only a moment's surprise the Uchiha did just that, spinning to gain momentum before launching the two foot wide throwing star into the sky. Reaching the highest point of the steep arc the girl reverted to her natural form, quickly whipping out her weapon sealing scroll and opening it, then tossing it forcefully back toward the ground while holding the loose end so it would unroll in the air and delay her descent just one more crucial second. She used the time to slice a fingertip on each hand for fresh blood. Descending, she swiped the bleeding fingertips across the long line of storage seals, grabbing and throwing the weapons that appeared in a flurry of wood and steel at the cursing, evading missing-nin.

Kin finally found a moment to return fire as the Leaf girl neared the ground, a glancing blow to the abdomen that barely drew blood but was enough to throw off her landing, and which tangled in the pink silk of her top.

There was the crunch of breaking bone from her leg as Tenten struck the ground and went down, the jarring impact making her bite the inside of her cheek deeply as well. Despite that, the Leaf kunoichi pulled herself into a sitting positon before spitting out a mouthful of blood and giving a gory grin. "Paper wraps rock," she gasped, forming a ram seal.

All across the battleground, the explosve tags she'd wrapped around the various weapons as she threw them detonated... including the one on the kunai Kin had grabbed to throw back. The clanless girl was blasted sideways to land against the wheel of one of the carts, mercifully unconscious. Sasuke was knocked for a loop as well but still aware and uninjured, leaving just Sakura to finish cleaning up.

The Stone and Grass missing-nin were much worse off, having been in the middle of the field of exsplosions and when the smoke finally cleared all three were looking heavily charred, though since she was at the outer edge the enemy kunoichi had gotten off the lightest, mostly having just been bowled over since her heavy cloack stopped the worst of the scattering debris.

Gansou was worst off, having been in the middle of sealing for a mudslide ninujutsu to take advantage of the scattered weapons by throwing them back at the Leaf-nin, and hence unprepared to roll with the follow-up attack. He lay limply where he'd landed from the explosions. Kasui was a bit unsteady but well enough able to keep his feet, at least until Sakura's heels plowed into his jaw one after the other in a roundhouse kick. Already concussed by the force of the blasts he went down and stayed there as well.

Finding herself left alone against the enemy who'd proven most able at dodging her needles, the former Grass kunoichi bit off a curse and growled, "I just knew it was a bad idea, traveling with those morons." Seeing the pinkette bound towards her to finish the job, flipping across the cratered and weapon strewn battlefield as if it was nothing, she grimaced and called out, "Hey, are you going to chase me, or take care of your team mates? They don't look so good, you know..." A pathetic attempt at a distraction, but it seemed to work, and the nuke-nin slipped away among the giant, mushroom-studded trees before anything more could go wrong.

For example, getting caught by Sharingan Kakashi after he pulled his fist back out through the hole it had punched in Hajiku's axe on its way to the man's chest. The blow hadn't immediately killed the former Stone-nin but he was definitely out of the fight. From the look he sent her way the infamous Copycat Ninja was well aware of her arriving on the edge of their battle ground, and if he hadn't been more anxious to check on his team after the huge explosion she'd undoubtedly have been next.

Kin wavered indescisively for a moment, but finally hauled the bald man up onto a shoulder before leaving - for all that he was uglier than a mountain ape and had a temper to match, Hajiku was actually half-decent to the dark haired girl, and besides that he was the one who knew where this "Kimimaro" they were supposed to meet would be.

Kakashi was on the knife edge of chakra exhaustion as his raikiri faded away. He only took a moment to confirm that the Stone jounin was shocked into unconsciousness and that the new presence he'd sensedd approaching was only the genin kunoichi before pulling his hitae-ate down to cover the chakra-hungry Sharingan eye, and hurrying back to check on his team. He'd hated to leave them alone in the first place, but with the destruction his opponent had been casually dealing out they could easily have been injured or killed without even intending to. Maybe the girl would help the jounin escape and maybe she wouldn't - with missing-nin you could never tell, espescially when members of a group had come from different villages - but regardless his team was more important.

His heart clenched in his chest as he arrived at the camp area to find widespread devastation, and the student who'd simultaneously become his favorite and most troublesome kneeling tearfully over the other two where they'd been laid out by the wagons.

Looking up at his approach, she pleaded, "Kakashi-sensei, help me! It isn't working!" Then, much to his surprise, the pink haired genin flipped through the hand seals for the healing technique he'd given Tenten a scroll detailing, produced a soothing green glow between her hands, and pressed them against the older girl's abdomen where the tattered, blood-soaked top had been cut away.

Gently but firmly pushing her aside he knelt and examined the wound himself - charred skin sloughed off at his probing touch and exposed tissue gleamed wet with blood and fluids, but he couldn't see any fresh bleeding, and the tissue beneath the bits that brushed away was pink and as healthy as could be expected, given that it had only been treated with the absolute most basic medic ninjutsu in existence, little more than sterilization and a bit of cell stimulation. He didn't know much more effective ones himself, or rather while he'd copied the techniques the knowledge of the body to properly apply them was something he'd never studied in detail. All the same, they should be enough to keep the girl alive, and what he couldn't deal with would be put right when real medic-nin arrived.

Course of action decided, he ordered, "Sakura, I don't usually use soldier pills, so I'll need one of yours. I'm almost out of chakra right now." As the girl scrambled to comply, he looked up at her, and for once saw his student without a ghost hiding her face. "You did a good job," he told her, eye screwed up with a rare, truly genuine smile. "To achieve that jutsu on your first try... it's an amazing feat. The wound didn't close over because that's a much more advanced technique which even I can't do," he admitted, before popping the proffered medicine into his mouth and crushing it. Moments later his fastest dog summon was carrying a message to bring the medic-nin, and his own hands were engulfed in the radiance of a slightly more advanced healing ninjutsu.

On the man's other side Sasuke watched and listened and fumed at being so helpless, his balance still not recovered from the shockwave and rapid tumble when Tenten's body had knocked his legs out from under him. And just a little, he wondered at how his other team mate had improved, between that acrobatic taijutsu that was like nothing he'd ever seen, and mastering one of the most notoriously diffult class of ninjutsu in existence in a matter of minutes. Perhaps there was more to her than just another loud, annoying, grabby fan-girl after all?

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Being so close, Kakashi had accompanied the caravan the rest of the way to the small border post while his intact students were sent back to Konoha with the medic-nin and Tenten. For all the girl's burn had been large and deep, neither it nor the internal damage from the shockwave would cause her any lasting difficulty, or even significant amounts of scarring. By the time she woke up it was nothing more than a large patch of tender new skin, with a thin ridge of scar tissue around the edges where there had been damage from the explosive tag's heat but not to the point of needing to be excised and regenerated.

It was still confusing to her, waking up in a comfy, firm bed in a sunny white-painted room, when her last memories were of being tossed into the air as a giant shuriken, locked in deadly combat. The realization that she must be in the hospital was logical enough after that, and looking around she saw her team mates were also in the room, which was a bit of a surprise. Maybe not so much in Sasuke's case, given what she'd finally figured out about him, but didn't Sakura hate her guts?

The Uchiha boy was leaning against a wall with crossed arms, brooding, but looked up when he heard her breathing pattern change. "You're awake," he said simply, prompting a faint gasp from Sakura, who froze indecisively where she sat reading a magazine.

"Yeah," Tenten replied, voice rough from disuse. She cleared her throat before asking? "I guess you guys got 'em, then?"

"Keh," Sasuke snorted disgustedly and went back to his sulk.

Setting her magazine aside, the Haruno girl finally spoke up. "Ah, well, it was mostly your attack, but that kunoichi threw one kunai back at you. It was still tangled in your shirt when you set the kibakufuda off. There wasn't much after that."

Still not moving from his critical position of holding up the wall, Sasuke made the variation of snort indicating irritation. "The explosive tag attack knocked one of the rock chuunin out and left the other easy prey for Sakura's new taijutsu, and the girl an away after that. The one on the kunai stuck in your clothes tossed you into a wagon and knocked me off balance. Sakura found a healing ninjutsu scroll somewhere and figured it out after a few tries, then used it on the burn on your side. Then Kakashi finished with his enemy and the summoned medic-nin, who brought you back here." Summary complete, he pushed himself upright and left. The hospital's wall did not fall down, even without the support of the Uchiha clan, and the continuing evidence that he was not necessarily the center of existence lent an extra stomp to the boy's tread.

He knew he was being ridiculous. He knew that he should have realised people don't fit into neat little boxes for long, if at all. He knew that if they were really as useless as he imagined them, his two most annoying fangirls Ino and Sakura would have failed the sensei's tests like the rest of their contemporaries. He knew that he wasn't the only one who was allowed to change and become stronger.

It still stung his pride to have to admit he might have been wrong about things. It still rankled that he'd been unable to do anything but buy time against their enemies, that it was someone else who finished them off. It still struck at the deeply buried fear that he would never be able to match his brother, that he would never be able to achieve his vengeance. It still hurt that the first girl to ever come close to being worth his time in his eyes had gotten so badly injured, and it still confused him that he felt that way in the first place when he'd sworn to concentrate on increasing his capacity rather than worry about girly stuff like ... LIKING girls, and ... that kind of stuff.

He sulked along at full adolescent brood towards the Uchiha compound and the training grounds, where he'd at least be able to absorb himelf in physical effort and stop thinking...

He remembered some of the physical efforts described in tantalyzingly euphamistic detail in those damn books he'd somehow gotten hooked into reading, and blushed. A pair of old ladies sitting on a bench outside the hospital agreed that it was the most darling thing as he passed, and if they were just their grand-daughters' age...

Thinking hard about shuriken, the different types of shuriken, care and maintenaince of shuriken, and the best ways of throwing shuriken, Sasuke sped up just a bit more.

In Tenten's hospital room, an awkward silence had fallen. The older girl, her hair free from its buns for once and trailing down past her shouders in loose waves, was still looking curiously at her female team mate, wondering why she'd bothered to visit, and Sakura was fidgeting nervously, staring down into her lap.

Finally, the youngest Haruno stood, bowed, and gave the brunette a repentant look. "I'm sorry, Tenten... even if I was angry, I shouldn't have used such insults, nor attacked you that time. And... I can tell that you really haven't been doing anything to lead Sasuke on, somehow he just noticed you like he never noticed me, before."

*So does that mean he's noticed her now, so she can apologise? Well, at least she's making the effort, and it's a better result than just winning against the girl again would have been, let alone how it looked like things were going.* Tenten nodded slowly, then replied, "Apology accepted." Her serious face lightened a bit, though still not enough to call it a smile. "I probably shouldn't have teased you quite so much, either, Sakura... Wanna try this again?" She patted the side of the bed invitingly.

The pink haired girl smiled then and sat as indicated, prompting an aswering smile in return. "I'd like that," she said, then reintroduced herself, "I'm Haruno Sakura, I like Sasuke and dango, and ..." She ran a finger across her hitae-ate, still in its new place on her forehead. "...and I'm a serious kunoichi. Would you like to be friends?" Her face kept its smile, even as her eyes began to glisten thinking of things she'd said and done, and bridges that might be too burnt for repair.

"I'm Tenten of the Leaf," the year-older girl replied, "I like studying new weapons and seals, and dango too. I'm also a serious kunoichi, and I'd love to be your friend." Though not understanding the full reasons behind the tear that trickled out of the other girl's eye, she wiped it away with a gentle hand and rubbed her back reassuringly.

Just outside the door, Kakashi let his hand fall from the handle. His one visible eye narrowed in thought, and the mask moved as he frowned contemplatively. Deciding not to get involved with crying females when the problem he'd been intending to confront seemed to have been worked out already, he turned away again - time enough to talk to them after reporting on the mission he'd just returned from.

As for that other thing... after the continuing dischord he'd decided against entering the kids in the upcoming Chuunin Selection Exam, but now he wasn't so certain. Of course, he'd thought things had worked themselves out before, too, so it would really depend on how the next weeks' team excercises went.

Nodding decisively, he pulled out his copy of Icha Icha Paradise and moseyed in the general direction of the Hokage's tower.

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Sakura's eyes were still a bit red when she returned home that evening, after Tenten had been released. She rubbed the forehead protector on her brow again as she slid the door closed, then turned to see Kikuko on the couch, watching her with a curious look and a half-open trap manual in her hands. Instantly, the younger sister's expression clouded, and her eyes threatened to spill over again. "You were right, okay?" she bit out. "I was an idiot. Go ahead and laugh." Without waiting for a reply, she stormed up the stairs toward the sanctuary of her room.

Flabbergasted, Kikuko could only watch, and blink. The situation was the same on the second take, but still made no more sense. "Was that about... the movie-star thing? It couldn't have meant that much to her, could it?" the older girl wondered aloud. "Huh... Well, I suppose I can try not to treat her like such a kid any more, she did get assigned to field duty after all."

Setting her manual aside, she headed to the kitchen to brew some sweet tea and get out the rice crackers... it looked like comfort foods were in order, and maybe a sisterly heart to heart.

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[center](Would you like to know more?)[/center]

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Hyouton - 'ice release' (ninjutsu) - "use a hyouton" in this context is roughly the same as "take a chill pill."

This turned out to be much more of a Sakura-focussed chapter than I'd expected - that's all right, it still ties up the loose ends from Tenten's and Sasuke will get his turn in their parts of the Chuunin Exam.

Sakura's mention of famous battles is from her study of ninja history - research and information gathering was her best ability before graduation, after all. Kakashi on the other hand, while too young to have been present (or even born yet) for Masaki's Grove, was in the first group through the walls at Bellflower Pass and so has a slightly different perspective on it than the history books. For those keeping score, yes, that is the battle Kabuto was found in the aftermath of and adopted by a Konoha medic-nin, Yakushi Washimaru. As the turning point in the Leaf-Stone war many stories are tied to it among the older generation of ninja.

Sakura is twelve, Kikuko is a month or so shy of fifteen, Jinrei and Kenshiro are just over sixteen, and Ichimaru is nineteen. Their mother is thirty six and their father two years older to the day.

"Kikuko-oni" (Demon-Kikuko) is not a typo, rather it's Sakura ragging on her sister as siblings are wont to do. She loves her family, it's just that a lot of the time she doesn't like them very much. It's the teenager thing, if shifted back a couple years due to the rate ninja kids have to grow up.

She has one more brother who hasn't appeared though he was mentioned in passing, his name is (somewhat uninmaginitively, as the first born son) Ichimaru, a jounin ANBU squad captain whose mask is based on a cat. As such, further details about him are classified. Her mother is also a Jounin and just going back to active status since Sakura graduated, considering it a nice break after eighteen years of raising children. Her father retired on disability after losing an arm just above the elbow eight years ago - he recently obtained a nin-puppeteer style replacement but as that art is unfamiliar is still working on mastering it to the degree needed to be confident in combat again. He has also found that he likes having time with his kids, rather than being constantly away on missions.

On the subject of ninja and polyamorous relationshhips - To nip any protests in the bud, this isn't just me 'being a guy' and thinking that multiple girls are cool, because more than one other person in a relatoinship is more like adding an exponent to the difficulty of accomodating each other's personalities than adding to it, rather it's a logically derived conclusion from what we know of the nija world. (If it was that, Sakura wouldn't be squicked by the idea, for one thing! There ARE no ugly kunoichi in the series, and I'd give even odds that even Akamichi girls are hot, just more filled out.) First, special bloodline abilities really are a critical factor in whether a ninja is strong or merely average for the same amount of effort, and in this version at least the ability to consciously mold and use chakra is in itself a trait only present in a minority of the population, making matches between those with the ability essential to continue a ninja clan.

Second, we're consisently shown around twice as many male ninja as female among genin, and less than that at higher levels - only one of Akatsuki is a woman, and otherwise there's been all of one each in chuunin (Shizune), ANBU (Yuugao, the one who found Hayate after Baki killed him in the break before the Chuunin finals), special jounin (Anko), jounin (Kurenai), and kage (Tsunade, though the one half-silhouetted image of the Raikage in the lineup when Kakashi talks about the five great ninja countries is either female or bishonen, but given the number of the latter already there's no certainty) ranks and it's kind of arguable whether Shizune even counts, as I'm not including the Academy instructor (Suzume) among the field ninja. However, barring mass infanticide or widespread genetic disorders human birth rates are about equal, which means there's a lot more kunoichi or potential kunoichi than we've seen on field duty... and ninja on field duty, often get killed, reducing the available male population. Similar concerns are also what drive them to get serious about relationships by fifteen or sixteen, and popular wisdom holds that a ninja who hasn't formed some kind of stable relationship by eighteen will probably die single, too devoted to the job to make time for other people and the extra emotional stress.

In such a case, a ninja gal can either take a chance on a civilian who won't understand her life style to begin with and may influence any children toward being unable to use chakra, fight over the boys who are around and possibly lose or suffer disabling injury in the heat of the moment, or try to find another kunoichi they can get along with in that way. Similarly, because it is so difficult to find a working three-way match, two girls who are compatible dating and even being intimate with each other without a current male partner won't get more than a second glance, at least within a ninja village. Gay men get some small breaks from this from people who recognise the hypocrisy of holding them to a different standard, but it's offset almost as much by resentment at taking themselves out of circulation unless they're open enough for occasional female playmates even if none stay in a lasting way. The way both Haruno twins seem to be interested in Ino but not visibly competing over it absolutely rots the socks of their admirers, though the common knowledge of their being psychic and the degree to which they act in unison preempts most of the nastiest rumors.

None of this has any immediate relevance to the main cast, however, as they're all still just kids, with crushes (acknowledged or denied) the most the most any of them are up to - even if Ino is not as rabid in her pursuit of the class hottie Sasuke because she's flattered by the attention of Sakura's also smokin' brothers that relationship is still only at the 'friends with possibilities' stage. As to age of consent, if their society considers them old enough to take a life, they're old enough to create one, and there are any number of methods for ninja to prevent unwanted pregancies.

Amaboshi - sun-dried persimmon - a namelike word picked at random, in this case.

For those of you who've read Nathan's story, Teenage Genin Ninja Heroes, Sakura is not doing the technique he has her training in there - or at least, not quite. Certainly not when she uses a soldier pill, and has a surge of chakra that has to be tamed... but other times, when she's trying to do the most with the least and has the extra attention that would be taken up controlling that extra, more unstable chakra, she has noticed that aktering the way it flows within her muscles gives a bigger return than forming the same amount of chakra around her body like the Academy technique. And, with the Haruno bloodline developed for combat uses unlike the TGNH Haruno, she has a seperate mind to go into a meditative state and do that finiky control... so in a way, she kind of is using the technique, without even realising that it's not the same thing at all.

"Ten-yen" - a ryo, which seems to be the standard unit of currency in the Naruto world, was the name of a ten-yen coin, though such are now generally just referred to as "ten yen coins." As such, Sakura pretty much accused Tenten of being a very cheap slut, having been itching to get a rematch of their earlier fight now that she has some skills to apply. Tenten is sensitive about this issue to begin with as a teenage girl living alone, without even the thin shield of a family name to ward off scumbags who think there's much more entertaining ways she could live than as a ninja. This is made even worse by the fact that there's a spelling of "tenten" which means "moving from place to place; being passed around repeatedly."

hajiku - (1) to flip; to snap; (2) to repel - It seemed just right for an ugly berserker, ne? His clan is distantly related to the Leaf's Akamichi, as you may have guessed, but they have taken their development in different directions.

ishikiri - stone-cutting; quarrying; stone-cutter

Shinju Zanshu - Double Suicide Decapitation, supposedly. Different sources list the translation as "Inner Earth" or "Groundhog" instead of "Double Suicide," which make rather more sense.

Doton: Funpi Sekihi - Earth release: stone knife (Jomon-period tool, shaped like a rice spoon) + springing up; flying away

kachinkachin - (1) rock hard; stiff and unyielding (personality); (2) clangor - Kasui is making fun of Kin for repeatedly turning him down, the actual wording of the expression used at the end of the paragraph would be "ishinouenimosannen" - literally, "Even the coldest rock will get warm if sat on for three years," hence her reply about the placement of retaliatory needles.

kasui - (n) spike - no, his family name is not Wittowikki, nor does he posess a title like "the Bloody."

gansou - (n) rock formation

saiseki enshuujou - broken stone; rubble + maneuvering ground - a D-to-A-rank ninjutsu used to cover a battlefield in loose stone, either to reduce the ability of non-Stone-nin to move easily or to set up for other ninjutsu. The rank varies mainly based on how large an area is to be affected, the chakra manipulation itself is quite easy but becomes draining over a larger area.

kataiishi sankaku - hard stone + (1) (obsc) armor, helmet & shield (armour); (2) kakurei, kakuun & kakumei (first, fifth and fifty-eighth years of the sexagenary cycle; times of civil unrest according to onmyou-dou)

tenseki juudan - rolling stone + flying through/cutting across/longitudinal slice. Yes, the basic look is stolen from the rock dude in Ninja Scroll, if with a different weapon, but in continuity it's derived from the same roots as the Nikudan Senshou(? Sensha?) used by the modern Akamichi clan.

Again, there's a conglomerate japanese word for the expression Kakashi uses as a quip after this technique : "tensekikokemusazu" - a rolling stone gathers no moss

henge - transformation - opinions are generally divided on whether this technique is a real transformation or just an illusion, but I fall into the "real" camp for three reasons: a) Naruto ransforms into a fuuma shuriken and then matches the flight characteristics of a real fuuma shuriken for Sasuke's Shadow Shuriken attack on Zabusa, which would require actually having the apparent mass and aerodynamic properties of the object he turned into. b) Sasuke wasn't surprised at this happening, so it's not just Naruto doing some funky real transformation when everyone else just uses an illusion. c) Gamabunta tells Naruto to do a combination henge to turn them into something with claws and fangs for fighting Shuukaku, which would be pointless if said claws and fangs were just illusions. Again, there'd be no reason for him to know about it if Naruto's henge was different from anyone else's in being a real, physical change. Henge no jutsu is therefore classed as ninjutsu in this version of the setting.

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Omake: The same type as Kakashi?



Thinking hard about shuriken (his hand brushed the navel in a firm stomach, that abruptly turned hard as steel), the different types of shuriken (damn that was a big one, and so well made), care and maintenaince of shuriken (a glimpse of chest through a tattered pink shirt), and the best ways of throwing shuriken (it slipped easily around his fingers, all he had to do was twirl and...), Sasuke sped up just a bit more.

Screw target practise, he had a hot scene bookmarked and a full box of kleenex waiting.





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