Eclipse

Working With The Enemy is Only Mildly Treasonous

I went to bed early that night. Eight pm early. Kakashi woke us up at four. The sun was far from out and I was inches away from bailing on the mission to sleep.

"Honestly, Sakura," Kakashi chided. "You're starting to make me think you're a long lost Nara."

"Why am I getting picked on?" I complained. "Naruto's as dead on his feet as I am."

Naruto grunted in response to hearing his names, his eyes glassy. Kakashi redirected him before he could walk straight into a tree. Case in point! I pursed my lips as Kakashi's other hand did the same for me.

"Naruto snaps back in twenty minutes. You're tired all the time," Sasuke points out, inorandarily put together.

Damn him and his tendency to be an early riser. I stuck my tongue out at him. No one trustworthy is a morning person. Kakashi lead us to the same clearing we'd been going to for the last two days.

"Naruto, send some clones and hide them around. Sasuke, Sakura, show me your progress."

I groaned. Fish. I'm never eating it again after this. At least not for a while. I waded into the water, cringing at the cold shock my feet and calves picked up. At least it served to wake me up. Sasuke smartly chose to use chakra to walk over the water. I mentally groaned. I'm so stupid.

I used chakra to kick a fish up and caught it once it launched up from the water. I'm never going to get used to the slick texture of fresh fish. Sasuke glared at me for splashing water around. I rolled my eyes at him and walked back to the clearing, tossing the fish onto the floor.

"That's rude," Kakashi hummed, flipping a page in his book. 

Hasn't he read that thing seven times over by now?

"Your face is-"

"Yes yes, I think we all know what you think our faces are," Kakashi sighed.

And I'm the rude one? This guy's worse than the interruption cow. Oh God, I just made a joke my older brother would have. How far have I fallen? I flinched back as a kunai was embedded into the middle of my fish. I turned sharply, a flat glare falling onto Sasuke. He shrugged, shoving a shuriken into his own fish.

"It's faster this way."

"Fish killer," I muttered, crouching down to gently pull out the knife.

Poor little guy. He had a very low survival rate before Sasuke decided to just.... Impale him. Now it's down to single digits.

"Well, if either of you want to even pretend to care about succeeding this time, you should get to it before long. Not even chakra can cure death."

I grouched and grimaced at the streaks of blood on my hands, calling up my chakra in the familiar pattern Kakashi had forced us to learn. I held my hand over the fish and felt my jaw slack as it actually started to heal. The skin of the fish slowly knitted itself back together and it took struggling gasps. The gasps died out soon, though. I had healed the outside of the fish, but the insides were still just as steamed as they'd been for the last two days.

I clicked my tongue and frowned. I was getting closer at least. Kakashi patted my head and nodded at me. He crouched down to examine Sasuke's unhealed and very grilled fish, seemingly at a loss for words.

"You'll get there, champ," he settled for uncertainly.

God, I've never seen someone as bad with children as Kakashi. Sasuke shot him a scathing look, one he soon redirected at my healed (but equally dead) fish. He growled at his and returned to the river.

"Alright," Kakashi said with furrowed brows. "I'll just... go see where Naruto's hiding."

"You do that, bud," I deadpanned.