Chapter Text
The new apartment isn’t as big as his old one - just a 1 bedroom, hole-in-a-wall apartment, with tatami covered floors and crappy heating - but given the current shortage of liveable apartments, Kakashi is happy that he’s managed to get an apartment at all.
Given that he’s had far too little sleep lately and is still coming down after a long mission, Kakashi is just about ready to send Sakura on her way and take a nap for the rest of the day. But just as he’s about to open his mouth and tell her so, she looks at him with an adorable puppy-eye look - like a puppy that desperately wants to please but is also afraid of getting kicked or yelled at - and she he sighs and swallows the words down.
Much like raising pups, having an apprentice comes with responsibilities. And Kakashi has already screwed up enough when it comes to this particular pup. Apprentice. Whatever.
“Guess you’re going to have to stay in the dormitories for a bit longer,” Kakashi yawns. “Hope you don’t mind?”
He pulls out the storage scroll with his things and places it on the floor.
Sakura shrugs, curiously looking around the apartment. Not that there’s much to see. “I don’t mind sharing a room with Tomomi and Aimi.”
“You’re three to one room?”
“Since the invasion, yeah. All empty rooms are used for the homeless.”
“I see.”
Still, three people to one room seems like a tight fit. It hadn’t seemed that big, even if he didn’t exactly get a good look in last night. He’ll have to come up with some sort of solution to that problem too, soon.
Because even if Sakura doesn’t mind sharing a room, Kakashi doubts that she’ll remain a genin for much longer.
He gathers his thoughts enough to unseal his belongings, which have apparently been neatly packed in boxes before being sealed away. There’s neat writing on each box indicating in which room the contents belong, as well as an acrid smell of smoke and sulphur clinging to all of it.
Without having to be prompted to do so, Sakura immediately jumps to opening the windows - both the one in the main room as well as the one in his cramped little bedroom.
“Thank you, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi says quietly, already feeling how the scents are building towards a throbbing headache.
“No problem, Kakashi-sensei. Anything else I can do to help?”
Again, Kakashi is struck by the urge to send her on her way, but the anxiousness she cannot quite conceal in her voice has him biting down on the urge. He’s done this, he reminds himself. He’s created this anxiety within her, this fear that he’ll reject her and leave her to fight for herself. I’d rather not be homeless during the winter if I can help it, and if that means staying with the Genin Corps rather than being your apprentice, then- Kakashi can still hear the words clearly in the back of his mind.
Sakura might have accepted becoming his apprentice, but she’s clearly not expecting him to keep her for long. Which, to be fair, Kakashi cannot blame her for.
This is his fault.
Those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash, but what about those who make their teammates look at them the way Sakura looks at him?
“How about you get the kitchen-things unpacked, and I’ll get started on this stuff?” Kakashi gestures towards the boxes marked as belonging in the bedroom.
To Kakashi’s relief, Sakura gives him a hesitantly teasing smile at that. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to set foot in the kitchen?”
Kakashi gives her a pretend-stern glare. “Do you think you can unpack without setting anything on fire?”
Sakura nods importantly, straightening up and standing at attention. Clearly serious, but also clearly ready to joke about serious things.
“Then it’s fine. For now.”
Sakura grabs the indicated box and heads over to the kitchen-nook, while Kakashi gets to work on wrestling to bed through the door into the small bedroom, which is just about barely big enough to fit his bed. Once the bed is in place Kakashi heads back to the boxes, finds the lightest one of the bunch and upends it on the bed. As he’d suspected, it contains his bedclothes.
Two boxes containing books and various weapons make a decent bed stand for his alarm clock and photos, and with a little bit of force he’s able to fit the box with his clothes between the foot end of his bed and the wall.
Back in the main room, Sakura has finished unpacking his kitchen utensils and has started on the living room boxes. He watches her as she hangs the curtains, using chakra to climb on his walls. The sight reminds him again of his many failures as a sensei - to all of his students really, but maybe particularly to this girl.
He shakes his head to shake the thoughts aside and starts to sort the remaining boxes and furniture. Most of it goes back into the storage scroll, which gives enough room to push the couch up against the wall and place the rug on the floor. Then Sakura is there, effortlessly lifting the heavy coffee table into place.
Again, Kakashi is reminded of her apparent ease with chakra control. She’d mastered walking up trees in less than an hour - a feat which had seemed so ridiculous Kakashi had flat out accused her of cheating - and he’d seen her fight a much more experienced comrade on water with seemingly no issue at all. Kichiro had told him she had excellent chakra control , and while Kakashi has his reasons for avoiding the man he has no real reason to doubt his judgement of Sakura.
He’d made sure that she’d get an apprenticeship with Lady Tsunade, when Naruto and Sasuke both left. And yet here she is. Not an apprentice to the most renowned medical ninja in the known world as well as the current Hokage of Konoha.
No, instead she’s his.
His .
Copy Cat Ninja.
Friend Killer Kakashi.
She’s his apprentice now. At least as long as she does not decide to leave him for the Genin Corps, again.
Part of him cannot help but think that she would be better off there, away from him. Or even better, with Lady Tsunade. But she’s made her choices, and the best thing Kakashi can do is honour those choices.
Even though the thought of having her as his apprentice is both terrifying and exhilarating. Terrifying, because there are so, so many ways in which this apprenticeship can go wrong. Exhilarating because despite all of that, despite his many failures in the not-so-distant past, she’s still here. Still his. Still so full of potential.
Pack , some instinctive part of himself whispers, which is also terrifying. Because Kakashi hasn’t allowed himself to have a pack in years. Not beyond the dogs, and a select group of jounin who’ve refused to leave him alone, even when he’d wanted it.
“Sensei?”
Sakura is looking at him, he realises. Standing in the middle of his living room/kitchen, looking lost and confused and worried.
“Sorry, Sakura. What were you saying?”
“I was just wondering if it was ok for me to ask about the scroll?”
Kakashi sighs and glances out the window. It’s getting late.
“How about I tell you over dinner? My treat?”
She frowns, as if she suspects that he’s just trying to distract her, but agrees.
Ten minutes later they’re sitting at Ichiraku Ramen, waiting for their noodles.
“To start with, you need to understand that I did not realise how bad things were for you,” Kakashi starts, fiddling with a couple of napkins and a pair of chopsticks. “In fact, it took me way too long to understand that you were sleeping in a tent. When I did realise, however, I worried. So I started keeping watch, trying to make sure you were safe.”
The food arrives. Kakashi wraps his hands around the bowl, allowing the heat to sink into his hands. He focuses on that sensation as he tells her about the merchant who’d been trying to sneak up on her, who’d not really been a merchant but rather a Kiri-defector in association with a band of fellow Kiri-defectors under the command of a former Kiri-jounin.
He’d sold her a storage scroll with a tracking device in it. For what purpose, Kakashi can’t tell, but he’d been sneaking up on her in the middle of the night. She’d been asleep and unaware, so Kakashi had intervened, taken the culprit to T&I and taken it upon himself to remove the storage scroll with the tracking device from her belongings.
By the time Kakashi is done speaking, Sakura is pale as a ghost. Worried, Kakashi urges her to eat and she slowly obeys, her hands shaking almost too much to hold her chopsticks. However, the hot noodles do her good and eventually her hands stop shaking, and her face takes on a more normal shade.
“I had no idea.”
Kakashi refrains from commenting that he’d noticed as much. That he’d purposely kept her unaware of the danger to her.
“Why was he after me?”
“I don’t know.”
“But T&I-”
“He committed suicide before he could be properly interrogated.”
Kakashi swallows his own food while Sakura is busy staring down into her now empty bowl, clearly trying to process the news. By now the noodles are little more than lukewarm.
“Has this happened again?”
Kakashi shakes his head. As far as he knows, no one has come for Sakura specifically since this incident.
“Do you have any idea of who it could be?” he asks, curious.
He has his own theories, but still.
Sakura shakes her head. “I have never been to Kiri. I’ve only been outside of Konoha a handful of times, for missions.” She laughs to herself, though there’s no joy in the laugh.
He’d figured as much. Still, it’s somewhat interesting that her thoughts do not seem to go the same way his does.
“Why would Mist-shinobi come after me?”
She looks at him with large, imploring eyes that makes him want to wrap her up in blankets and never let her out into the real world again.
“Like I said, he was a Kiri-defector, so his reasons might not have to do with Kiri at all.”
“But still, why me? Unless …” Her face takes on a vaguely green hue and she crosses her legs tightly.
Awkwardly, Kakashi pets her on the shoulder. “It’s possible. But you’re safe now.”
“I’m going to sleep with a kunai under my pillow from now on!”
Which is a very good idea, as far as Kakashi is concerned. He himself has been sleeping with weapons under his pillow - and in plenty of other nearby, convenient places - since he was six years old. It’s rather a healthy habit for a shinobi.
When they’re both full Kakashi pays for their food and they head out into the evening. Sakura is still looking green and tense, so Kakashi steers the way to the nearest convenience store and stocks up on essentials. It makes four large bags, and so he loads Sakura to carry three and carries the last one himself. Of course, he could easily carry them all by himself, apprentices are handy that way.
Once back in his apartment he guides the still mostly stunned Sakura to sit on the couch, while he himself unpacks the groceries. She doesn’t move or speak until he places a cup of hot tea in front of her, and even then she just whispers “thanks”.
They sit in a mostly comfortable silence, quietly sipping their tea as the evening grows later and later. Finally, when Kakashi is really starting to feel like he might fall asleep where he sits, Sakura speaks.
“Kakashi-sensei? Would it be ok if I … if I slept here tonight?”
He’d been intending to calm her down before following her back to the Genin Corps, but her staying here suits him perfectly fine. At least then he’ll know for sure that nothing will happen to her during the night without him noticing.
Even if the Genin Corps Headquarters isn’t a very dangerous place. She does have a nasty habit of getting in trouble when out of his sight, after all.
“Sure. The couch is all yours.”
The gratitude and relief on her face is both humbling and unnerving.
Pack , that internal voice of his whispers again. Protect.
And that is just terrifying.
The next morning Sakura wakes up to the scent of food cooking. She finds Kakashi-sensei by the stove, dressed in a strangely cute kunai-patterned apron that looks very strange on top of his jounin slacks and vest.
“Good morning, Sakura-chan,” he greets her, without looking away from what he’s doing. “Take a seat, breakfast is done soon.”
Obediently, Sakura puts away the blanket and the pillow she’d used, and takes a seat on the couch. However, she’s unable not to stare at her sensei. He looks so homely . If he notices her staring, he does not comment.
“I didn’t know you could cook,” she says. She’s only ever really seen him eat out. Then again, he had given her pointers on how to improve her own cooking.
“Cooking is an essential skill. For anyone, not just shinobi, even if nutrition is especially important for a shinobi.” As he talks, he tilts the frying pan a little, allowing the fire from the stove to mix briefly with the oils in the pan. The result is an impressive flare of fire, the flames making a woosh-woosh sound before dying down again.
It’s impressive, but Sakura scoffs nonetheless. “And you were worried about me setting the kitchen on fire.”
“Remind me again who set the Mitokados’ kitchen on fire?” Kakashi-sensei’s voice is teasing and warm, so the jibe doesn’t hurt. “And why do my things smell like smoke?”
He packs half of the food into two bento boxes, leaving them to cool as he serves the rest up for breakfast. It’s not a small meal either. There’s rice, miso soup, tamagoyaki, grilled fish and a couple of vegetable side-dishes, as well as a cup of green tea.
“Kettle,” Sakura says, gesturing to him. Then she gestures to herself. “Pot.”
“Eat up.” Despite the mask and the headband, Kakashi-sensei’s smile seems wide and happy.
Sakura might continue the argument, but the food really does smell and look terrific.
“Thank you for the food,” she manages to say before abandoning her argument and eagerly digging in.
They eat in companionable silence. Sakura does not even catch a glimpse of Kakashi-sensei’s face, but somehow the plates before him go empty anyway. She’s starting to wonder if he’s using some sort of genjutsu on her, to keep her from noticing. Discreetly she flares her chakra, just in case, but to no avail.
“So, what are we doing today?” Sakura asks after a while. He’d mentioned a test, yesterday, and she’s starting to worry. Just a little.
“I was thinking we’d start with a run, and then take it from there.”
That doesn’t sound too bad. Sakura sighs in relief.
After breakfast, Sakura heads back to the Dormitories to shower and get changed into a fresh set of clothes, while Kakashi-sensei cleans up after their meal.
Mid-morning she settles in at their agreed-upon meeting point, prepared for a long wait but pleasantly surprised when Kakashi-sensei is on time. Like, actually on time. Not just less late than usual.
“Ready?” he asks.
She nods her affirmation, trying not to stare or worry. Whatever test he’s got planned for today, it can’t be too bad, right?
Right?
Though him actually being on time cannot possibly be a good sign.
“Good. We’ll be running along the wall, around the village. So set a speed you’re comfortable with, and I’ll follow.”
Slightly awkward, because she’s not really used to taking the lead, Sakura does as told and settles in for a comfortable jog she can keep going for a good while. She’ll need to save her energy if they’re really going to jog along the whole wall. Apart from the village itself, the wall also surrounds a whole lot of forested lands and large training grounds, so it’s quite a stretch of wall. And Sakura plans to show that she’s perfectly capable of keeping a decent speed for long periods of time, thank you very much.
Mentally, she thanks Hajime for those evenings practising long-distance running.
Kakashi-sensei follows a couple of steps behind her, just as he’d promised.
They pass the marketplace, where the merchants are getting ready for another day of business. The main road, where she’d encountered Sasuke on his way out of the village. The memory makes her shudder and she pushes it down, focusing on the here and now.
After a couple of minutes they reach the wall, and Sakura slows down, unsure of which direction to take next. Does it even matter? Kakashi-sensei had only said that they’d be running along the wall. She glances questioningly at him, and he quietly points upwards.
She follows his finger, realising that he’s pointing to a spot on the wall, high above the rooftops.
Running along the wall indeed, she thinks.
With a deep breath she braces herself before taking the leap.
Running along the wall isn’t actually difficult. It’s much like using her chakra to climb a tree, except that running along the wall will force her to run in a horizontal position. Her chakra adjusts almost automatically, strengthening her muscles to help keep her upright - or is it horizontal?
“No chakra other than to stick to the wall,” Kakashi-sensei instructs from right behind her.
Sakura stumbles before glancing over her shoulder. He can’t be serious, can he?
“Use your muscles!”
He is.
Fuck!
With a frown she forces her chakra down, adjusting the flow until she’s using it only to keep her feet firmly on the wall. Again, it’s not that difficult in and of itself, but the strain on her muscles is immediate as gravity tries to pull her down.
Staying horizontal takes a lot more effort than just staying upright or upside down.
“No chakra!”
This time Kakashi-sensei’s voice is followed by a brief flash of pain across her back, which makes her yelp and stumble, almost losing focus entirely.
A pebble falls to the rooftops below her and Kakashi-sensei’s hand pushes her forward, urging her to keep running. With effort, she regains control over both her body and chakra, forcing her feet back into rhythm.
Every instinct she has tells her to strengthen her core with her chakra, to ease the strain on her muscles and keep her steady. Not even just her conscious chakra control, but she consciously has to push the chakra away from her core. She’s actively working against her instincts, which takes a lot more effort than just rolling with them, as she usually does.
And then there’s the quickly growing pain in her muscles as she struggles to continue to keep herself upright.
It’s like holding her breath, even though she really badly needs to breathe.
It is difficult not to use her chakra to help!
“No chakra!”
The comment is accompanied by another brief flash of pain, on her thigh this time.
With a mutinous glare straight forward - because she can’t afford to lose focus again by turning around to glare at Kakashi-sensei - she forces her chakra down. Back to her feet.
Even as her muscles scream in protest.
“You don’t need to throw rocks at me to get your point across,” she growls, allowing her anger and frustration to come through in her voice.
“Then either don’t use your chakra or duck.”
Kakashi’s voice is, of course, as light and unbothered as if they’re taking a stroll through the park and he’s offering her a choice of ice cream or dango. And of course he has not only one but two excuses as to why he keeps throwing those rocks, both perfectly reasonable from a training perspective.
I hate him , she thinks angrily. Why did she agree to this again?
She must have been mad, is why. That’s clearly the only explanation.
They near the quarter mark. Just three quarters of wall left, before they’ve completed a full lap around the village.
Just three quarters.
Just.
Three.
More.
Between the continuous effort of keeping herself upright and continuing running, her muscles quickly start to feel as if they’ve caught on fire. And chakra is soothing water, which she’s pushing away from the fire.
“Why are we doing this?” she gasps, trying to distract herself.
“For two reasons. For one, it’s an exercise in chakra control.”
Kakashi-sensei sounds annoyingly relaxed, even as he flicks another pebble at her. Sakura bites down on a growl and takes control over her chakra again.
“For the second, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, it’s also quite an effective muscle workout.”
“You don’t say?”
“Being able to circulate your chakra is a good way to keep you going past your natural endurance, but doing so continuously can actually keep you from improving your actual stamina. So, we’re working out without the use of chakra, in order to build muscles, and then chakra will be able to keep us running for even longer.”
In other words, her habit of circulating chakra in order to strengthen herself has become a bad habit.
Great.
“Chakra!”
She winces as Kakashi-sensei throws another pebble at her but dutifully forces the chakra down again.
When had her chakra circulation become a crutch to her? Because she’s quickly realising that Kakashi-sensei is right. She’s no stronger physically now than she was when she graduated from the Academy - which was over six months ago!
Iruka-sensei would be disappointed.
She shakes her head at the thought, trying to shake off the feeling of someone else's disappointment. She’s made a mistake. She’s rectifying it. Whether she wants to or not, apparently.
Kakashi-sensei throws another pebble at her and she once more forces her chakra down.
Suddenly, she has a whole new appreciation for Hajime and Tomomi. They wouldn’t dream of throwing rocks at her, or forcing her through this torture that is running horizontal on the wall. They’re nice ! Like, honest-to-god, nice people!
Unlike Kakashi-sensei, who’s clearly a sadistic bastard.
A sadistic, porn-reading bastard.
A sadistic, porn-reading bastard with super ugly hair!
A sadistic, porn-reading bastard with super ugly hair and-
“Gooood moooorning, dear Rival of Mine! Out for a nice morning run, I see?”
The vaguely familiar voice draws the words out in an overly positive and friendly manner. Glancing backwards she spots a man in a green jumpsuit. Gai-sensei, she remembers. Running behind him are two smaller figures, a boy and a girl, the girl looking about as pleased as her to be running on the wall like this. The other one - Lee, she recalls - looks determined and excited. Almost as if he plans on overtaking her. Nervously, Sakura checks again, but for now at least he’s keeping his pace behind his sensei, who is now running next to Kakashi-sensei.
“Good morning, Gai,” Kakashi-sensei replies, his voice still about as lazy and unaffected as if they’re in a park.
Without so much as glancing at her he flicks another pebble at her, and she squeals as she hurriedly forces her chakra down again. Humiliated by having others see her struggle like this she keeps her eyes focusing forwards, struggling not to feel their judging eyes burning into her back.
“Is this your latest protégé then? Out for a youthful sprint, are you?”
“Yes Gai. I believe you’ve met Sakura-chan before.”
They’re not looking, she tells herself. They’ve got better things to do. Like … making sure that they don’t fall off the wall. Or … They’re definitely looking, aren’t they? Anything must be better than looking at someone wearing that body suit.
She stumbles a little, having pushed her chakra too far down, and hurriedly corrects her chakra output.
“Care to join me for a youthful challenge? First to run around the village? Loser has to run 100 laps!”
Her eyes budge at the thought of running 100 laps like this. He can’t be serious, can he?! They’re nearing the halfway mark now and she’s already so very done with this exercise.
“I’d love to Gai, except as you can see, I’m busy. Perhaps another time.”
“So I see. We’re going to training ground 14 later for some invigorating sparring, if you’d like to join us?”
“Sure, that sounds fun.”
She still hasn’t processed the idea of running 100 laps around the village when Gai and his entourage pass by her, passing by her by simply running further up along the wall.
It is embarrassing how quickly they continue, until they are out of sight.
“Don’t slack off,” Kakashi-sensei cautions.
Of course the reprimand is followed by another pebble to her back and she hurriedly quickens her steps, chancing a glare over her shoulder. He just smiles jovially at her.
She fantasises about flicking her own pebbles at Kakashi-sensei while forcing him to do exhausting and ridiculous things. Like running the damn wall on his hands. Whilst wearing a tutu. And juggling with his feet. And occasionally she’ll exchange the pebble for an exploding tag, just to keep him attentive.
It’s a nice fantasy.
Whenever she feels like giving up she just adds another element of difficulty or humiliation.
And somehow she makes it the rest of the way around the village without falling off the wall, without actually killing her sensei and without dying from protesting muscles.
“Finally!” she sighs as she jumps off the wall to land on the roofs again, momentarily struggling as the blood flows to her head and she dizzily tries to find her footing.
Between exhaustion and her spinning head she falls to her knees, gasping for breath. Her fingers dig into the familiar, comforting sturdiness of the roof beneath her and her aching sides feel like she might just spontaneously break in half.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Kakashi-sensei says, landing beside her. “We’re only halfway done.”
She gives him a look of mixed horror and disbelief then because he can’t possibly be serious?! The look he levels her with makes it seem as if he’s just asking her to take off her shoes inside. Perfectly reasonable.
“No,” she groans, pressing her hot and sweaty forehead down against the cool roof tiles.
“Yes. We’ve only engaged half your body yet. Can’t have you training unevenly, can we?”
Can too! she wants to snarl back at him but it seems like too much of an effort. Better then to stay rolled up as she is right now, just focusing on breathing.
“Come on, Sakura-chan. Back the way we came.”
Slowly, her whole body protesting, she stands up to face the wall again. Just the look of it makes her feel sick to her stomach, much less the thought of climbing it and running another lap. I can’t do this. I can’t. I’m not strong enough. Maybe Naruto or Sasuke could, but I’m not like them. I can’t do this. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t ...
Maybe she shouldn’t have eaten breakfast anyway.
But she did choose this. When she chose to become a shinobi; when she chose to become Kakashi’s apprentice. Whether she knew it or not, this is what she signed up for.
She thinks of Gai and his students. They are a year older than her. Not that much. Yet they had overtaken her easily, running far faster than her. Over and over and over again.
She thinks of Naruto, who would face down the world to prove himself.
Briefly she thinks of Sasuke, but quickly shakes her head, chasing the thought away.
She thinks of her mother, who fought for her to be able to make this choice.
She thinks of her aunt and uncle, desperately trying to get her to agree to become a lady and marry some noble. She must have been stupid not to want that. Who throws comfort and luxury away for this?
Slowly, because she isn’t entirely sure that she possesses the ability to move at all right now, she climbs the wall again. The climb is slow but her chakra obeys her, feet sticking steadily to the wall. Despite her exhaustion it is not her chakra that is tired. It’s just every other part of her: both her muscles and her mind.
“The longer you dawdle the harder it’ll be.”
Kakashi’s voice is calm, just patiently stating a fact that should motivate her. It reminds her of Iruka-sensei, back when they started building stamina in the Academy. He had said something similar then. Except back then they’d been running laps at the running track of the Academy. Just those 400 metres or so. Round and round, over and over again until they gave up.
Sakura had given up pretty quickly back then, she remembers. Instead, she had come to stand at the sidelines, watching the boys, and Sasuke especially, continue to run.
Not this time.
“Yes, Sensei.”
Forcing herself to set one foot in front of the other she begins her second lap around the village.
The wall is just another kind of running track, she comforts herself.
And Kakashi-sensei is just another kind of teacher, she remembers as he flings another pebble at her. She reigns in her chakra again and thinks of Iruka-sensei’s calm acceptance of her limitations. Even as he set new goals for them he had never required of her to push past her boundaries like this. As long as she tried he was happy, and she had quickly figured out how much she had to try to make him happy. Because he was just a perfectly reasonable sensei like that.
Those were the days.
Because Kakashi-sensei clearly doesn’t even know the word reasonable, much less the definition.
The second lap is worse than the first.
Her whole body is protesting the continued running, screaming out loud in protest and making every step an exercise in agony. It is a bloody reflex at that point to use her chakra to soothe the ache, and the greater her pain becomes the harder it is to resist said reflex and the more mistakes she makes.
It doesn’t seem like Kakashi-sensei will ever run out of pebbles. He must have his pockets full of them or something. Her body will be covered with little bruises come evening. If she survives that long.
She’s not entirely sure that she will.
About halfway through her second lap her stomach finally decides that she has had enough. She’s been nauseous since she started this lap, or even before that to be honest. A sudden burn at the back of her throat is the only warning she gets as her stomach expels the remains of breakfast. She scrambles for some sort of steady ground and winds up falling to her knees, still somehow keeping herself up on the wall as she barfs down the wall.
Her throat burns, her body is in agony and the taste in her mouth is horrible. Wearily she stares down at the wall, where her puke is now dribbling down the wall into someone’s backyard. Should she apologise?
A bottle of water appears before her. She gives Kakashi a quick glance, wondering what he’s thinking of her weakness, and accepts the bottle. The first few swigs she uses to rinse out her mouth. Once her mouth has lost the worst of the taste she greedily drinks, dismayed when he takes the bottle back far too soon.
“Hey, give it back! I’m not done with that!”
“If you drink too much now you’ll be sick again.”
He’s right and she knows it, but she hates him for it. Her glare doesn’t seem to affect him at all.
“Half a lap to go.”
“Sadist.”
If he hears her muttered word he doesn’t seem concerned.
Strangely enough she does feel somewhat better for the last part. Her muscles are still in agony and her lungs are burning but the nausea is gone. It makes it easier to think, to focus through the pain and as such her chakra control is marginally better than before.
Or maybe she’s just getting used to the damn pebbles.
When she is at last - FINALLY - back to the roof that marks the starting point she allows herself to fall flat on her back, breathing heavily. The cool surface feels nice against her warm and clammy skin, her clothes clinging to her with sweat.
“Good job,” Kakashi-sensei says, appearing in her line of sight. “I believe we’re sufficiently warmed up.”
“You can’t possibly expect me to do more?!”
“Sitting up will be enough for now.”
Wearily, because her muscles are unhappy with even that much, she does so. Kakashi-sensei sits down opposite of her, taking a position as if he’s about to meditate. Automatically she mirrors him, placing her hands on her trembling thighs.
“I take it you know meditation?” he begins.
“A little. Just the stuff we learned in the Academy.”
“Show me.”
Still struggling to breathe normally she obediently closes her eyes and tries to relax, forcing herself to take slower, deeper breaths. Slowly her heart rhythm returns to something nearing normal.
“Shouldn’t we stretch?” she asks quietly.
Iruka-sensei always made them stretch before and after a big workout, she remembers. Once she had learned all the movements it had been pretty nice. Plenty of opportunity to watch Sasuke, whenever she managed to snag herself a spot near enough.
“We will. This will help prevent muscle soreness too.”
At this point she’s pretty sure there is nothing at all that will save her from sore muscles and she’s not sure that she manages to keep her scepticism from her face.
“Focus on your breathing,” Kakashi instructs.
His voice is softer now. Calmer. Almost hypnotic.
“Relax your shoulders. Straighten your back.”
She shifts, adjusting her seat to sit more comfortably. Breathes in. And out. Again. And again.
Her hands are still trembling against her knees, and so she drops them into her lap, forming a small bowl out of them.
“Now, circulate your chakra through your body.”
Surprised, she cracks an eye open to give him an incredulous look. Really?! He’s been throwing rocks at her the whole morning for circulating her chakra and now he suddenly wants her to do it?
Kakashi meets her eye calmly, expectantly, and she quickly closes it, focusing on her breathing again. In, and out.
Slowly at first she begins to circulate her chakra. Through her aching legs first, where her chakra acts like a balm quickly taking away the edge of her pain. Bolder with her success she increases the circulation, spreading it up her torso, to encompass her shoulders and arms too. Even her head and her still lightly burning throat.
“Don’t go too quickly. Keep it slow, or the effect won’t be as good.”
Frowning in concentration she slows down the circulation. Slowing down automatically decreases the amount of chakra she’s circulating, which makes some of the pain return again with vengeance. It takes her a moment to figure out how to slow down without decreasing the amount of chakra she circulates. She experiments with the amounts, finding that too little chakra makes the pain return and too much makes her feel almost stuffed.
There is a balance required. The perfect speed and amount to take away the most of the pain. Careful balancing that isn’t so easily managed. Somewhat like water walking, when the ebb and flow of the water forces her to adapt her output. Except there is no output as such here. Just the balance.
“Just like that.”
Kakashi’s voice is low and sounds almost distant. She listens but doesn’t pay him too much attention, still focused on finding the balance. It’s there. What she’s doing is pretty good, she can tell, but it’s not perfect. Like when she was still learning the transformation jutsu and the transformation was just a little bit off. Perfectly passable but not quite right.
She cocks her head a little, relaxing her face. There. Like suddenly seeing the bull’s eye during target practice, finding that motion where everything just feels right.
Perfect.
She smiles a little, happy with herself. The chakra continues to circulate, soothing her aching muscles.
Now that she’s found the rhythm, the balance, it flows perfectly. It feels perfectly natural, except it still takes most of her attention to keep her chakra flowing just so.
“Good. Very good.”
Kakashi-sensei’s words make her feel warm and almost giddy inside, but she remains focused on her chakra.
“While we’re at it, there’s something I’d like to try,” Kakashi-sensei says, his voice still just as calm and soothing. “Let me know if you can feel it.”
She’s too focused on her chakra to spare the attention needed to ask what she’s supposed to be feeling.
The question answers itself a moment later, anyway. There is a sensation running over her, almost like the softest of winds or a tendril of water when she is already submerged. It’s not so much physical as just there , touching something deeper within her.
“Again?” she speaks, annoyed at having to split her attention yet eager to figure out this new sensation.
Whatever Kakashi-sensei is doing, he does it again, and this time she can almost grasp it. Chakra, she realises. Not her own. Kakashi’s.
She doesn’t have to ask him to do it again.
Curious, wanting to explore, she reaches out, only to frown in annoyance as it is her arm that reaches out. That won’t do. This isn’t physical. It is her chakra she’ll need to reach out with.
She imagines reaching out with her chakra but it is fumbling in darkness, she can tell. It doesn’t feel right, doesn’t feel natural .
Her fingers twitch against her thigh as she tries again. This deep into meditation she is acutely though distantly aware of it.
It is as if her hand has just touched the surface of a pond.
Suddenly it’s not just her and her chakra; there’s so much more. Like rings on water, suddenly breaking the perfectly smooth surface revealing a whole new element to her senses.
One moment it’s there, perfectly clear, and then it’s gone again.
A gasp escapes her, wordless and probably not very elegant. She doesn’t care. Instead she reaches out again, and this time she is met by Kakashi-sensei’s chakra. Though her eyes are still closed she can feel him sitting there. Almost like she’s a boat on the pond and he’s another one, floating just nearby.
A bigger boat, she realises after a moment. And fairly much bigger at that.
“Is that … chakra?” she asks, even as she knows she must be right.
“It is.”
The two of them stand out clearly against the “water” of the pond but that is not the end of it. There is chakra everywhere around her, in much smaller concentration. Movement at the edge of her periphery catches her attention and she reaches out, curious to learn more.
“Sakura-chan …”
Whatever it is disappears out of her reach. Biting her lip she reaches out further, determined to find out what it was.
Kakashi-sensei does something, sending out another wave of chakra. A series of waves even, creating ripples on the water until she can’t make sense of anything.
“Hey ..!” she protests.
“Sorry Sakura-chan. Time to finish this experiment.”
Suddenly she becomes aware of something much larger appearing nearby, quickly heading towards them.
Her eyes fly open, concentration broken. Two men are approaching, flying over the rooftops heading straight for them. Kakashi-sensei stands, blocking her view of them.
“Everything alright, Kakashi?” one of them asks as they land.
Both of them eye him wearily.
“Yes, yes,” Kakashi says, waving lightly with his hand. “Just a small experiment with chakra control going a bit better than planned.”
They don’t look entirely pleased. One of them, chewing a senbon in his mouth, looks from Kakashi to her and back.
“You the one who reached out?” he asks at last.
“I was just showing Sakura-chan here some chakra sensing tricks. I wasn’t expecting things to go so well, so I haven’t gone through proper protocols with her.”
“She did that?”
Both of them eye her sceptically.
“How old is she anyway? Doesn’t look a day over thirteen.”
Sakura frowns, but elects not to tell them that she’s not even that old. She’ll be thirteen in March.
“Is she your new student?” the second one asks.
“She is, and I promise I’ll teach her better the next time. Sorry to worry you both.”
There is the same sensation before, almost like gentle waves across a blank lake. She feels it, even though it’s not as clear as before. A rhythm of three quick waves and then three slow ones. Coming from Kakashi-sensei.
Cocking her head a little she can’t help but stare. He looks perfectly normal, smiling awkwardly at the other two jounin and scratching his head. They look mildly mollified.
“Is it some sort of friend-code?” she guesses, speaking out loud before she can come up with any argument against asking.
The two jounin look strangely at her again and Kakashi turns towards her, gently turning her around with a gentle grip on her shoulder and starting to steer her away.
“Something like that, Sakura-chan. And when you reached out into the village like that, these nice guards read it as a cry for help, which is why they came running.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks flush hotly in shame. “I’m sorry,” she says over her shoulder.
“Yes, yes, sensei will teach you better next time. Sorry, sorry. Now let’s get going.”
The two men give her sensei exasperated looks but don't object to their leaving, so Sakura allows herself to be steered away over the rooftops. When she glances back the guards are gone.
It’s insane, Kakashi thinks as he steers his student towards training ground 14.
Clearly, he’s losing his mind.
Obviously.
Because there is no way - no fucking way! - that his little apprentice, cute as she might be when she looks at him with those puppy-eyes, just did that.
Just … no way.
He’d known he was more than unreasonable already when he set her to running on the wall without using chakra to stabilise herself. It’s a great exercise, don’t get him wrong. He himself does it on the regular, to keep in shape. It’s just as he said, a good exercise in both chakra control and a good way to make an ordinary jog into a full-body workout.
That said, it’s also a completely bullshit exercise. Like, copied straight out of Gai’s repertoire kind of bullshit. Kakashi knows of exactly two people who do it - him and Gai. Gai doesn’t even make his own students do it, because it’s just that complex!
There are jounin who cannot do what she did. Plenty of jounin, actually. Yeah, they’d be able to keep up in the beginning, sure, no problem. But as they get more and more tired and exhausted, their muscles burning with pain with every step? That’s when chakra control inevitably slips.
And though Sakura had slipped, she’d always wrangled her chakra back under control. Over and over and over again. Like she was just bathing an unruly cat, and not, you know, pushing her chakra down. She might as well have been holding her breath throughout it all, only taking a handful of breaths over the last hour or so.
And then? As if that wasn’t enough of a feat, she’d finished the morning off by figuring out chakra meditation in like half an hour.
So, clearly, he’s going insane.
They reach the training ground, and Kakashi notices that there’s still signs of team 7’s last meeting there. The signed trees from Sasuke’s fire jutsu, the tree with a hole in its trunk after Sasuke’s chidori and the uneven stump left after Naruto’s rasengan.
Shaking his head lightly, Kakashi turns away from the view to focus instead on the one student that still remains in the village. He finds her looking the same way he was, her eyes distant as she no doubt recalls the same memories.
“Kakashi-sensei?” she asks at last, pulling out of her reverie. “What… what happened, back there?”
She’s not talking about the trees.
Taking a deep breath Kakashi tries to gather his thoughts, because he’s not entirely sure himself what happened. He’ll have to write an incident report for accidentally triggering the internal village security network, but that’s secondary. Or tertiary.
Unimportant, at any rate.
What is important is how a genin, not even a full year out of the Academy, somehow mastered the basics of not only chakra meditation but also chakra sensing in something like 30 minutes.
“Ah, nothing important,” he answers her question. “We just managed to trigger an internal security network. Anyway, are you sure you haven’t meditated before?”
She pales.
“We triggered the security network? How?”
Kakashi sighs. Kids. Unable to follow even the simplest of conversations.
“When you reached out,” he clarifies.
She continues to look confused so in the interest of being a good sensei - he will have to teach her this stuff eventually anyway, and now is probably a good time before something like this happens again - he decides to elaborate.
“Before that we were simply playing around a little with chakra meditation and sensing. But when you reached out it was far enough to trigger the sensor network that the guards monitor. I tried to send the no danger signal, but they were already en route I suppose and decided to investigate anyway.”
Her eyes grow larger, the green ridiculously intense between her pink eyelashes.
“But chakra meditation and chakra sensing are difficult, dangerous skills!” she objects. “All the books advise against practising it on your own!”
“So?” he asks, not entirely sure what her point is. She wasn't doing it on her own after all.
“So! That wasn’t … That wasn’t that, was it?”
Her voice is exasperated and confused and she waves her hand vaguely, as if that will somehow clarify what that is supposed to mean.
“That wasn’t what? Difficult?”
She shakes her head. “Not the way the book says it should be.”
He resists the temptation to sigh again, because of course she’s read extensively about such a boring and complex subject as chakra control. Why not? Any literature there is on the subject is only about as dry as sand, after all.
“Admittedly it was only the basics,” he says, studying her reaction as he speaks. “But the chakra meditation went well above expectation, and I just wanted to see if you were able to feel when I reached out to you with my chakra. I wasn’t expecting you to be able to reach out on your own.”
“But that’s … that’s impossible!”
And she looks just about as flustered and confused as Kakashi himself feels, though he admittedly does a better job of hiding it. Because it should be impossible for anyone to master even just chakra meditation that quickly. That she has gotten the control that she has of circulating her chakra is a small wonder of chakra control in and of itself. To find the golden balance of rhythm and chakra density on her first try consciously meditating with it is basically unheard of.
Actually, Kakashi is pretty certain that he has never heard of it before.
Then again, he shouldn’t be surprised of what either of his students are capable of. Naruto’s stamina and shadow clones and Sasuke’s sheer skill and potential is proof of that.
Shrugging, he decides to deal with that issue later.
“So, back to my question: are you sure you haven’t meditated before?”
She shakes her head, still looking disbelieving.
“The Academy covered it briefly, but I haven’t really been practising or anything.”
Kakashi sighs, wanting to question the truth in her words. However, the earnest way in which she meets his eyes and the tone of her voice speaks only of truth. And he’s pretty sure he’s supposed to have learned some kind of lesson when it comes to questioning her abilities and accusing her of lying.
“Regardless,” he says, shaking his head a little, “we’ve better finish what we started before you wind up getting in trouble when I’m not here to help you out. Let’s get back to meditating, shall we?”
They sit down on the soft forest floor, like before facing each other. Kakashi watches as she takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and slowly starts to fall into meditation again. What he sees further convinces him that she’s not lying about just having learned meditation. Her original position is the basic Academy taught one, but she squirms and adjusts. She drops her hands onto her lap, rolls her shoulders and frowns as she tries to focus on the task.
“Just breathe,” he instructs her. “Relax your face, drop your shoulders.”
Slowly she relaxes, falling into meditation with only the occasional twitch to show that she’s still struggling with it. He can tell when she starts to circulate her chakra. Her face, though still relaxed, gets a certain focus and a small smile graces her lips. Allowing himself to fall into a meditative state, he can feel the slow flow of her chakra.
“Now, without reaching too far, see if you can sense me.”
At first there is no reaction except for the light frown on her face. Then her hand twitches, just a little, her index finger lightly tapping against the back of her other hand, and he can feel her extend her awareness, extending out and around her in a circle until it reaches him. He replies by doing the same, his own awareness extending until she registers like a blip on a radar.
“This is the Konoha general sign for no danger,” he explains, gently sending out three quick pulses followed by three slower ones. “If you ever do trigger the internal security again, that is the signal to give to any responding shinobi. Try it.”
Almost immediately her index finger taps three times against her hand as she sends out three, quick little pulses. If she were older, or further along in her studies, he might ask her not to move. The action of tapping is a crutch that she doesn’t ultimately need.
“Good, and now three slower ones.”
More hesitantly, likely because she hasn’t quite figured out how to pace her pulses yet - Kakashi himself took more than a day to do that, even with Minato-sensei guiding him. Again her finger twitches, and this time the taps are slower. And indeed, the pulses are too.
Fucking.
Insane.
“Again.”
Obediently she taps her finger, three quick ones and three slower ones, and the corresponding pulses of chakra gently lap against his own. She smiles, and almost as if she’s teasing the speechless part of him she does it again. And again, and again, and again and-
“Good. Once should be enough if you ever trigger the security though.”
She settles down again, smiling widely before she asks;
“How did I trigger the security?”
Her voice is slow, lower than normal. As if it’s taking more effort to speak than she’s used to. Which is of course perfectly natural. There are more experienced meditators than her who can’t speak and maintain their relaxed state.
“Remember how you reached out? That’s a general, internal SOS code for whenever. If you’re ever in need of assistance, just send out a single pulse and the nearest guard on duty will come to your aid.”
“But I did the same with you just now.” She frowns, confused.
“You reached out much further then. As long as you keep your pulses close to you, and/or you keep your training to actual training areas, there should be no danger of triggering any security.”
“Ah.”
They sit in silence for a while as she experiments with her chakra control, sending little pulses of varying speed in his direction. Kakashi quietly marvels at how quickly she picks it up and can’t help but compare her to her teammates. He’s not sure what he’d expected, but this … yeah, this is probably not it.
A small chuckle escapes him as he thinks of the composition of the team; Naruto with his unparallelled stamina, Sasuke with his astonishing skill and now Sakura with her prodigious chakra control. An extraordinary team, through and through.
Then he frowns, because there is no team 7 anymore. Only him, and Sakura.
Master and apprentice.
And the things he’s learning about her already! Her file from the Academy had spoken about good grades in the academic subject, decent practical skills and above average chakra control. A typical genjutsu-type, in other words. Overall rare, but not particularly remarkable in and of itself.
Sakura, however … Naruto’s file had been filled with his many shortcomings, but also spoken about stamina only limited by his motivation. Similarly, Sasuke’s file had been that of a well-rounded shinobi but ultimately failed to fully capture his skill and potential. How come that someone with Sakura’s chakra control did not have the words Chakra Genius! stamped in big, bold letters across her file?
He detects the presence of Gai and his students, as they make their way towards Sakura and him. They must have finished with their warm up exercises then.
“I think we’re finished with chakra-control exercises for today,” he comments.
He waits until he feels her draw her own chakra back in until he does the same, watching as her eyes slowly flutter open.
“Can I ask something?” she asks after a few moments.
He nods his approval, and she continues.
“What was that thing I was trying to reach for before?”
“A cat.”
More precisely it had been Tora, the cat of the Daimyo’s wife. Which in turn explains why the guards were so near. With Madam Shijimi back in town, security must be heightened.
“Oh. I suppose that explains why it felt so … small,” Sakura comments with a somewhat stumped expression on her face.
“An animal will indeed feel much smaller than a human, just like most civilians will feel much smaller than a shinobi once you learn to tell the difference.”
She looks like she wants to ask more but right then Gai and his students appear through the forest. Given her surprised expression Kakashi deduces that she didn’t sense them coming.
“Finished your run at last then?” Kakashi greets them.
Gai immediately rises to the implied insult, conveniently forgetting that he and his students have run many more laps than Kakashi and Sakura.
“Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura asks, interrupting as Kakashi goads Gai into a fit of youthful energies and challenges.
“Hm?” He gives her a distracted look.
“What are we doing here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He gives her a jovial smile that immediately has her looking weary. She’s learning, then. “You are going to spar against Gai’s students.”