Pulling My Weight

Chapter 5 || Bonds

Sakura,

I'm taking Sasuke for a month of training outside the Village; he'll need it if he wants to face Gaara. I've organized a sensei for Naruto who'll go over the fundamentals with him and teach him chakra control so he won't waste as much. I want you to relax, go over your basics, take it easy – you've had a difficult time in the Forest and you have to let yourself recuperate.

See you in a month,

-Your darling sensei

"What."

The word was flat, blunt, and Sakura didn't know which would be the victor from the emotions warring within her; anger or desperation.

A moment later, anger won.

"What?!"

She knew Kakashi-sensei would take Sasuke-kun under his wing; that much was obvious to anyone who'd spent even five minutes in his presence or saw how he looked at the Uchiha. But for him to provide a teacher for Naruto but not for her when both of them advanced to the final round? That was not right. Sakura's fingers clenched in an attempt to quell her anger, effectively crumpling the note still held in her hand. " 'Recuperate' my ass!" she hissed, and all of a sudden the anger morphed into something cooler, more stable; "I'll show you, sensei." She promised the crumpled ball of paper in her grasp. "I'll show you the extent of my 'basics'." The anger had stabilized, cooled, and instead of a raging inferno, she felt the familiar flame of determination light up within her once again. She shoved the note into her pocket, grabbed her wallet and snuck out of the window.

After the match-ups for the next round had been announced, they were safely led out of the Forest of Death and dismissed after being given the time and location they were expected to turn up at for the finals.

That was three days ago.

On the first day, Sakura stayed home, took a long bath to thoroughly de-Forest herself and went downstairs to cook dinner for her parents. To say the atmosphere was tense during the meal would be like saying Kakashi-sensei had time-management issues: in other words, a complete understatement. Sakura's parents were civilian to a fault – her father was a retired policeman who now worked as a bureaucrat while her mother was a performer; an actress, a singer, a model – beautiful and feminine and jaded to the core the second she found out her daughter wanted to be a paid assassin.

Needless to say, neither were thoroughly accepting of her chosen career path.

Most of the time, Sakura managed to avoid them enough to dodge a direct confrontation, but sometimes, her mother's frustration that she could not make her only child follow in her footsteps won out and jabs and accusations were sharper than the edge of a knife would be thrown her way.

And Haruno Mebuki knew how to make them hurt.

At dinner, when she couldn't stand the silence anymore, Sakura carefully broached the subject of the upcoming Exams. "I... I might be up for advancement in the ranks soon, hahaue, chichiue." She announced meekly, eyes not meeting either of her parents' gazes.

"And what, pray to tell, does an advancement mean for your kind?" her mother demanded, and Sakura flinched. Her kind meant shinobi, and it had been that way since she'd graduated from the Academy – it seemed that up until she was handed her headband, Mebuki had still believed that her daughter would see things her way and fade back into civilian ranks. "I doubt it means a pay rise."

She chanced a glance at her father but he was entirely focused on the sukiyaki she'd prepared, and Sakura would've nearly believed he wasn't listening if his gaze hadn't sharpened the moment he heard 'pay rise'. She stifled a sigh.