Eclipse

The Drunken Bridge Builder

Two months later had us following more or less of the same routine. We did about an hour of sparring and then a few hours of D-ranks. It got to the point where I started leading after-work training. Kakashi was an incredibly ineffective teacher. A week after we started d-ranks I started teaching the boys how to walk on water. Tree walking had taken them two days under my watch and who knows how much self practice, but water walking took them about a week to master.

After that I started researching ways to actually improve hand to hand combat and different types of taijutsu style. I accidentally veered off into chakra again, though. I wasn't sure if there was anything higher than water walking (I don't know what it would be, maybe quick sand walking or something) and ended up reading a small excerpt about chakra paper. It reminded me about the first day I was Sakura and made me wonder if I should just teach them ninjutsu.

It didn't sound like a good idea, but I did it anyway. And by 'did it' I mean I bought three sheets of chakra paper for 600 yen. Not a cheap purchase, I'm sure my wallet didn't appreciate it. It's too late though. The results were all over the board. Sasuke's strongest affinity was lightning, though his paper also turned to ash after it scrunched up, so he also had some power over fire. Naruto's cut cleanly down the middle, indicating an affinity to wind chakra. Mine got soggy before turning a bit muddy, so I can only assume I have water and earth affinities.

Naruto sulked at being the only one with one affinity. I told him to suck a lemon and be happy with his huge amount of chakra. I took them to the library with me to read up on basic jutsu for all of our affinities. Sasuke was already pretty good with fire, so he found a low grade lightning technique to work with. We, evidently, stole an E-rank jutsu from Cloud called the Flickering Light Technique that causes you to physically glow.

Naruto is starting off with Wind Levitation, another E rank. He's been practicing with cups of ramen, because of course he has. He's trying to be able to make it from a distance, but when he tried to pick up a kettle with the jutsu, it instantly fell and crashed on his forehead. He's just lucky it didn't have any water in it. The ramen cups only flew up with the jet of air he made ⅓ of the time after a solid two weeks of practice.

I debated between water and earth for a while before deciding that water was more interesting as far as techniques could go. I was starting, surprise surprise, an E rank technique simply named Water Mirror. It took us all a month to accomplish our jutsu, and by then Kakashi had started taking up almost the entire day with D-ranks.

Honestly it's like he's trying to set a record for most d-ranks by a fresh team of genin. We lasted all of three weeks before Naruto snapped.

"That's it!" He screeched, his face filling with an unholy amount of rage. "No more collecting potatoes! No more babysitting snot nosed brats! No more chasing cats! I want a real mission!"

As nice as the financial security was, I could agree to being dreadfully bored.

"Hmmm," Kakashi had stared at him from over the top of his book. He squinted his eye at Naruto, subtly inching closer and closer until he snapped his book shut and straightened back up. "Okay," he decided with a shrug.

"Wait. Just like that?" I asked in disbelief.

"Just like that," he shrugged again. "Let's go to the Hokage's office."

Sasuke walked behind me and put a hand on my shoulder before he bent down slightly.

"Don't question it," he whispered harshly. "Just go. Don't fight him, Sakura. It's not worth it."

"Hmph. Fine," I whispered back. "Now back up. I can feel your breath and it's gross."

Sasuke audibly rolled his eyes (don't ask, I can sense his sass) and took a step back. The walk to the Hokage's tower was silent, but it was a sort of hopeful silence. I threw up a genjutsu of a lamp post in front of Kakashi just for the hell of it when we were close to the tower. He walked through it and glanced at me from the corner of his eye.