"I have failed every single student that has taken the bell test under me." Kakashi admits while staring them down. The moon is high in the sky, the hospital trip taking an awkwardly large amount of their day. They tried to blame Naruto until she explained it was Kakashi that did it, at which point they stopped asking questions entirely. It turns out Kakashi could just go around decking students and everyone would assume he had a good reason and ignore it. To have that kind of respect from even random hospital staff is so absurd it boggled her mind.
"Then it's not meant to be passed?" Naruto asks, raising a hand as if he'd been called on. "It's a trick question or something?"
"It is." Kakashi is very honest as he glares at Sakura, before looking back at Naruto. "The bell test is a trick question, to pass you have to put your teammates above yourself even in a situation where you should be doomed by doing so. It's designed to pin you against each-other, then require self sacrifice. Sakura had no idea this was the case, and just decided she didn't really need to pass anyway."
"I figured either it was rigged in our favor and you were lying, or Sasuke was who Copy Cat Kakashi wanted." Sakura shrugs. Her nose feels great now, thanks for asking. "In either situation, Sasuke's the fastest and most agile of the three of us. Having him run away while we stopped you just made sense."
"Right." Kakashi actually has to visibly resist palming his forehead, he can already tell this team is going to test his patience. "That doesn't explain why Sasuke got both bells, and Naruto didn't grab one."
"I forgot." Naruto admits.
"... I hate you." Kakashi looks up into the sky. "I hate you both. Sasuke's been brutally traumatized since a young age, left with no adult supervision with more money than god, and told he can do anything, and he's the only one I like."
"That really says more about you than me." Sakura quips.
"Oww!"
And finds that yes, Kakashi can just deck her without moving from a rather significant distance. How? Who knows, hopefully she'll learn it someday. She rubs her nose and admires the work the staff put in to make sure it wouldn't have cosmetic damage.
"With that settled, Team seven has officially passed the bell test. You will be reporting to this training ground every morning at exactly seven sharp."
"So we get here at nine." Sakura nods- "Ow, fuck!"
"Seven sharp." Kakashi says sharply. "I will not be here. You will be physically training until around eleven, when we'll take a D rank mission and get you familiar with mission structures and the way ninja are paid. If I find out any of you were not here on time, and training, I will hit you."
"Because that'd be so dif-fuck, why!"
"Sakura, maybe you should be quiet." Naruto tries to help.
"No shit, Naruto, I couldn't have guessed that!" Sakura groans from her place in the dirt.
Naruto flinches away, and pouts rather heavily, causing her to instantly regret her words. Why couldn't Kakashi have hit her before she said that? She'll find a way to apologize once her head doesn't throb.
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Bell test complete, she can't help but ask her parents.
"Hey…" She asks, spinning her fork at dinner. It's not much, but she's actively trying to find new ways to train her dexterity. She wasn't given a level up system, so her stats have to level up based on training. Her Mental and Control are incredibly high, which means they'll be difficult to raise. This means that the main focus, at least for now, should be constitution so that being hit won't hurt so much, dexterity as it'll help her deflect hits, agility as it'll help her avoid hits. and charm as it'll stop her from getting hit in the first place. "Is it normal to get hit by your jounin sensei? A lot?"
"Nope." Her mother pretty instantly responds, but despite her response, she doesn't look very concerned. "Most students don't get sensei, they're thrown right into the genin program and given temporary chunin sponsors who take a cut of their mission pay for teaching them a thing or two every other week."
"Okay.. But like, say you did get a jounin sensei. How normal is it to get hit?" Sakura stresses. "This feels like child abuse."
"Sakura, you're not a child anymore, it's regular abuse." Her father explains, softly, gently. He's always understood her feelings, so it's a little weird to have her correct her like that. "And I imagine it's fairly common to get physical with your trainees if there's something direct you need to teach them."
She's not satisfied with her parents telling her it's okay. They never hit her. She took plenty of hits growing up, the academy is filled with them. Spars are very physical, and you can't even train substitution without someone willing to deck you. Most people find being your training partner pretty fun, and in retrospect the amount of people who really wanted to punch her should have probably tipped her off that she wasn't very charming. Most people got a few yesses, people lined up to help her train. She just thought they were being helpful…
But her parents?
Never.
"I guess you're right." She sighs, "I just don't get what he's trying to teach me, and it hurts. I was excited this morning and now, tomorrow is scary." She allows her gaze to soften, to show them her fears.
It's a little nerve wracking, seeing no sympathy.
"You should ask." Her father says, tempering his breaths carefully. "You should definitely ask why one of the most talented ninjas of all time is doing something you find odd. You should ask all the time, every day, every minute. If you find the man is breathing oddly, you should ask. This is a man who can probably teach you more about breathing, than I can the entire ninja field."
"So I should just shrug it off?" Sakura asks, visibly a little uneasy with that idea. "That sounds like enabling."
"No, you should ask." Her father stresses. "Kakashi Hatake is one of the most talented ninja of all time. There is nothing he does without a reason, because if randomness was in his skillset, he'd have died by now."
"I… Yeah." Sakura finishes her food, unsatisfied with both her parents and the hospital just accepting this. Even if Kakashi isn't doing anything wrong, even if she is learning some lesson, even if he's being a great teacher and she's just missing it because she has a charm of six which implies a massive social deficit which'd include social understandings and comprehension of social situations.
It still means ninja like Kakashi could totally just get away with doing it unprompted just to be a dick, and everyone would blame her. It makes her stomach flop. She always knew that jounin were valuable, but that's, well, her worldview is expanding rapidly.
It's not a good feeling.
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She couldn't sleep.
Seven O-clock sharp - maybe add on a few minutes - she's at the wrecked training ground, watching Naruto do push ups and Sasuke practice Kata expertly without a single extra thought running through her brain.
She'd been so nervous about today, she'd stayed up all night playing the Resident Evil 4 remake. It'd uh, calmed her nerves a bit, then she'd totally forgotten to sleep.
Here she is, bags under her eyes, reality a little fuzzy, and feeling chipper.
First thing's first.
"I'm sorry." It's hard for her to say.
It's hard for her to grasp the words, and she spent a good portion of her playtime racking her brain on how to make things up to Naruto.
Standing above him while he does push-ups, a foot rubbing against her ankle, a finger twirling her hair nervously, and the thickest blush she can't deny is the best she can do.
"For what?" Naruto asks, not even looking up at her. The sweat dripping down his brow, he's likely been at this for more than the few minutes she was late. She really hopes Kakashi doesn't find out about that, her heart is already pumping thinking about it. At least it helps her stay awake.
"For um, yelling at you yesterday. I'm really sorry, you were just trying to help and…" She can't continue, she doesn't have it in her.
[For willing up the courage to try and make amends, and recognizing your social fuck up, Charm has increased to 7.]
Well that's nice." She can't help the smile that works its way onto her face for that.
"It's okay." He says, his usual chipper smile has a crack in it, and she hates that she can see it.
Because it's not a new crack, his smile has always looked that way.
It only took a charm of 7 to see it.
She was socially disabled. What's everyone else's excuse?
"No, it's not." She shakes her head quite forcefully. "I mean it, I'm sorry. I'll try to be more considerate next time."
"You think you're gonna yell at me while laying in the dirt after Kakashi used a jutsu to punch you from a distance, again?" He asks.
"No-well yes, maybe?" She grits her teeth, why is this so hard?! "I more mean, the next time you make me angry, I'll be less… mean."
"You mean you'll stop hitting me?" He asks.
And that makes her crack a little inside.
Could that be it? Has Kakashi watched them interact before?
Has he seen one of the many times she's rejected him quite brutally? Could this be… No, that's paranoia, she's doing something to piss him off.
Naruto has never taken serious injury from her, he's a stamina monster and she's not even a genin in strength. It's not like it really hurts him, is it?
She can't take that risk.
"Never again." She swears.
"What if-"
"Never." She kicks the dirt, sternly. "Except for spars, I imagine Kakashi would get really mad at me if I refused to hit you in a spar."
"So does that mean we can do that date?" He asks.
"No, Naruto, it does not." Unlike Kakashi, she does facepalm, hard.
Hitting herself is better than hitting him, she decides.
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When Kakashi arrives, she's exhausted. Hours of working alongside Naruto have brought her to her limit multiple times. Luckily, as a ninja, those limits are high and her stamina regeneration is fast.
Unluckily, that means she has pretty much emptied her tank for the day when Kakashi shows up, and she feels like an idiot.
On the bright side, her constitution managed to jump to 25 already.
It seems training her stats is a lot easier now. Sure she's never taken it this seriously before, but she's also never progressed a solid twenty fourth in one of her abilities in one day before. At least, she's pretty sure she hasn't.
It's with wobbly feet and a tired mind that she wanders over to him the moment he arrives.
He doesn't even get to greet them before she's bombarding him with her question, egged on by her father. At least, that's what she tries to do.
In reality, from everyone else's perspective, she gets up from a crunch.
Walks over to their sensei at a dead trudge, wobbling and staggering back and forth.
And then immediately collapses into his arms without saying a word. "Snnrrrgg-chest hard."
"... Is she okay?" Kakashi asks, while her mind whirls and she takes solace in a place to rest her face that's not the hard ground after a failure to complete the next set of whatever exercise Naruto pushed her on. "Did one of you do something?"
"Nope." Is all Sasuke has to say.
"I might have pushed her too hard." Naruto admits sheepishly. "It was fun, I got carried away."
"Ah…" Kakashi looks down at the pinkette firmly passed out in his grip, shakes her a little, and then hands her off to a Naruto clone that spawns out of thin air. Naruto's instinctive with those things, it's scary. "You carry her while we go get our mission. We'll be doing this hundreds of times, so it's not like it really matters if she catches it this one time."
"No problem!" Naruto seems very happy to get to carry his crush.
Sakura dreams of shooting ganados in the damn face with the red-9.
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"Bang, bang, suck it loser! Double kill!"
It's with those words that Sakura's eyes snap open to find she's staring directly into the raised eyebrows of the third Hokage. "Uhhhh-"
"Moving on." Kakashi says, cutting her off. He can just do that.
Everyone in the room actually moves on. She's never seen the third defer to anyone before, but he really does choose not to question her.
"As Team seven destroyed the training ground during their genin test, and that is official village property, we have two options." The Hokage continues from wherever he was before, holding up a scroll. "This is the D-rank mission to repair your training ground. You can take it unpaid, or you can pay for someone else to take it. It matters very little to me, just that it gets done."
Naruto really looks uncomfortable with that, Sakura can tell that much, which means everyone in a wide radius can. He says nothing, apparently even he understands that there can only be one crazy outburst within one Hokage statement before it's a crime.
"It was my idea, Hokage-sama." Sakura speaks up. "They should get to take a real mission while I clean it up."
"No." Kakashi bonks her! He actually smacks her in front of the damned Hokage. At least this time is incredibly light, it feels more like a rub than a smack. "Bad Sakura."
While she is trying to figure out what the hell that was for, they accept their mission directly from the Hokage - apparently he likes to do all of the first few missions for teams, makes him feel youthful - and leave as quickly as possible.
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"Kakashi." She grumbles, rubbing her eyes.
"Yes, Sakura?" Kakashi asks right back, not a care in the world.
"Why are you carrying me?" She asks, looking down at her body in his arms. It's a little awkward, really awkward actually. She'd really rather he not!
"Because when you tried to walk out of the Hokage's office you fell on your face." He explains patiently.
"Yeah, I got that, I mean, why are you carrying me? Why not Naruto or Sasuke?" At least he's skilled enough that he's sturdy, and she can close her eyes without being jostled around.
"Would you rather they do it?" He asks.
"No…" And that's that.
She really can't continue that train much longer.
So, she asks a different question. "Why do you keep hitting me?"
"..." He answers back easily.
It's not the answer she expected.
Doesn't really make her feel better.
When it becomes obvious he doesn't intend to actually explain, she opens her mouth-
And he actually starts. "Do you really not know?"
He has the decency to look sheepish.
He genuinely does, she views it out of a lidded gaze and can't help but be a little flabbergasted.
"The old proverb, I do believe, is "talk shit, get hit," you shouldn't intentionally antagonize someone you can't defend against." He explains. "That could get you killed, especially with the kind of ninja you'll likely be interacting with as my students. If a few smacks breaks a dangerous habit and saves your life, I'm not going to apologize. If it doesn't break the habit, you'll at least get very good at taking a hit and that might save your life too."
She doesn't like that answer.
It doesn't sit well at all.
But it is an answer, one she'll have to take note of.
She can't think of any time she's been especially rude, but maybe that's the point. She can remember getting hit. Maybe if she looks back on those times she can clue in to her mistakes and learn a lesson.
Or maybe he's just an asshole covering for it.
He doesn't feel like an asshole carrying her like this though. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" He asks.
"I dunno yet." She mumbles sleepily. "I think I'm gonna fall asleep again."
"Sakura… did you sleep last night?" It's a striking question, one she's very much not happy to hear. "Because I'm getting the impression you don't sleep."
"I'll work on it." She groans. "I was distracted - hey, why are we going a different way?" She eyes Sasuke and Naruto heading off to the training ground, while he goes… towards her house? "Sensei?"
"You're officially barred from team activities until you can get your sleep under control." He says incredibly sternly. "No training, no missions, no lectures. Anything I could possibly teach you will be worthless if you're half dead all the time."
"But, the mission…"
"Naruto and his hundred clones dug the hole, they can undig the hole." Kakashi quips. "You're going to bed. You'll report to the training ground when you're fresh and awake, or you won't at all."
It's not the move she expected from a dude she spent all night terrified of.
It's not exactly great either. Missing out on the first D rank mission means she'll be behind.
What if this takes more than a few days and she ends up really behind?
What if she ends up left behind entirely?
She finds herself tearing up at the thought.
"I'm not abandoning you, Sakura." His voice cuts through her half delirious thoughts.
"I just can't teach you if you're so tired you don't even realize you're being a liability."
It's not a line she likes, but it makes sense.
That seems to be the theme of her life at the moment.