When Sakura saw Satsuki and Haruto came to the designated training ground of Team Seven, she knew something was off. Well, not that they were acting differently or anything; Haruto was chattering loudly about something as usual and Satsuki was doing a plenty good job of ignoring him. So, on first glance, nothing was wrong, to the onlookers anyway.
Sakura, despite her fangirlish tendencies, was observant and had an analytic mind—or so Kakashi-sensei said anyway. Firstly, Sakura knew that Satsuki wouldn't be coming from the same direction as Haruto, usually the pale girl came from the east while the boy came from the southern part. But then again, they could've just used different direction but even so, did they really have to walk together with such close proximity?
Was something going on between the two clan heirs? Sakura felt a swell of disappointment and excitement the same time. She had a feeling that with the intense Uchiha and the sweet Senju, the love story would be one heck of a drama to watch. But at the same time, what about her and Haruto? She love—ehem, has a crush on him, should she just give up like that?
The intricate of love baffled even her sometimes. She'd have to ask Ino, her best friend who was an expert in this aspect.
"Good morning, Haruto-kun!" Sakura greeted, a pretty blush coloring her cheeks. Haruto grinned and returned the greeting with enthusiasm twice hers. Hesitantly, she turned her gaze to the icy Uchiha who had took to leaning against a tree, crossing her arms and doing her best to impersonate a statue. She cleared her throat awkwardly. "Good morning to you too, um, Satsuki-chan."
Said girl grunted in acknowledgement but it was enough to make Sakura beam; that was already an equivalent to a greeting. Haruto smiled fondly when he saw it too; maybe it was just a trick of the light or her overactive mind tricking her but she thought the smile was a tad too fond to be aimed at someone's rival.
Before she could say anything to the matter, their teacher suddenly poofed into existence by their side. "Yo!" he greeted, raising a hand in a slight wave, the other hand keeping a firm grip on his perverted novel. "Tired of waiting?"
"You're late!" After the initial yelling, Sakura huffed. "We came two hours later than the time you deigned to give us. We knew you'd be late."
"You're earlier than usual," Haruto grumbled, pissed that his teacher had to act so casually. He'd nearly spat fire in the man's face during their first D-rank mission. He'd never been the most patient boy on earth. "What's the occasion?"
"I'll tell you all later once we completed this D-rank mission," Kakashi said cheerfully, single visible eye crinkling up into a smile, amused at the collective groans. From A-rank to a D-rank. Hehe, he liked seeing the disappointment on their faces. The Hokage had actually offered an A-rank—the council pushed for it, they had deemed the clan scions capable of handling such high level missions and with a Hatake by their side, what could go wrong?—but Kakashi rejected it, best not to get the kids's head full of ideas and feed their egos. Hokage-sama actually looked relieved when he asked for a simple D-rank mission. But the curse of all Genins were coming back again.
Haruto sighed, moaned and griped about the mission but Sakura asked, already resigned, "What's it about?"
"You're to retrieve a cat, Tora"—At the mention of the name, Kakashi saw Satsuki pale considerably, obviously, she'd heard of the demon cat from her relatives when they were genin and were forced to chase the hell-cat down. Kakashi could sympathize, he was once cursed to, after all—"which belongs to the Damaiyo's wife, Shijimi-sama."
"How does it look it?"
"What are its attributes?"
"Orange, stripped, sneaky, will run when it sees us coming." Surprisingly, Satsuki answered for Kakashi.
The man himself smiled.
"Oh, it seems that you already have a cat-expert in your crowd. Good luck, then! Come to the Hokage tower once you're done!" He placed his fingers in the signature Shunshin jutsu handseal but stopped. "Oh, silly me, I almost forgot." His hand crept into his pouch, rummaging around before he got what he wanted and threw them in the genins direction. "Use that for communication purpose. Ta-ta!" And he was gone.
Haruto's eyebrow twitched in annoyance. "What sort of teacher is he?"
"Not a good one, that much we know," Sakura sighed heavily. And it was true, whenever they trained, Kakashi most focused on Satsuki. Only when Sakura and Haruto pestered their teacher endlessly did he teach them. Sakura had seen it happen miles away that this would happen if she were to be grouped with clan heirs. Clan kids were usually given priority than civvies so there wasn't anything unusual there. Still, some part of Sakura held hope that their teacher wouldn't be as bias. Huh, so much for hope.
"Let's just go," Satsuki grumped, already stalking off into another direction.
"How did it feel mimicking a statue, princess?" Haruto snickered, ignoring the filthy glare thrown his way. He rolled his eyes then turned his grin on Sakura, oblivious to her reddening cheeks. "Come on, let's get going!" he declared enthusiastically.
***
It was with a very drained enthusiasm and many scratches on them that Team Seven returned to the Hokage Tower with a stupid hellcat in tow. Haruto was beyond furious, evidently even being peed on by a cat could snap his patience. It took all of Sakura's willpower to not giggle at the Senju's face when the cat peed on his sandals and exposed toes.
Satsuki had even cracked a smile which complemented her face perfectly and Haruto might have appreciated it more if he wasn't too busy cleaning his feet and throwing death glares at the perfectly now contented cat in Sakura's arms.
"We're done, Sensei," Haruto spat with vehemence, throwing one last furious glare at the cat. But his mood changed to sadistic glee the moment he saw the cat being squished to death by its owner. No wonder it ran away, Haruto might've pitied it if it hadn't offended him so. The redhead appreciated his cleanliness and he preferred to be as immaculate as possible while on a mission—but he'd accepted the fact that some dirt was unavoidable.
Satsuki shared Haruto's contempt towards their sensei for saddling them with the demon-cat but instead of verbally abusing him, she settled for death glares.
"Good riddance," Sakura growled irritably, hearing Inner Sakura egging her on, when the doors slammed shut, announcing Shijimi and Tora's departure. "Pleeease, Sensei, no more next time!"
Cheerily, Kakashi said, "No promises," as he signed the mission scroll, signaling its completion and retrieving their pay. "Come on," he told his cute genins, ushering them out of the conference room and out of the Hokage Tower.
"By the way, Sensei," Haruto interrupted, wiggling away when Kakashi tried to push him out of the door. "What's the stuff you wanted to tell us this morning, before the mission? You promised you'll tell us after we completed it!"
"What do you mean?" Kakashi teased, feigning ignorance.
Haruto pouted, his big golden eyes enlarged for further effect and lips pushed out. Man, he was almost as good as Arashi-sensei when he gave those doe-eyes to Kushina-san every time the Uzumaki duo argue—stop, Kakashi, you're summoning those painful memories again, the silver-haired man chided himself. He knew talking to oneself—mentally or not—was a sign of insanity but he was a ninja, and talking to oneself is not uncommon among them though civvies do look at them oddly.
"Well," Kakashi drawled, enjoying how Sakura and Haruto practically vibrated with curiosity and impatience; Satsuki looked disinterested but he could see how her shoulders tensed in anticipation. "Hm, maybe another tim—"
"Sensei!"
Aw, how cute, they're all pouting now and looking at him imploringly. Did he mention how he loved to mess with his genins? They were his first bunch and yet they were adorable—easy to tease, bully, and he could laugh whenever they fail/tire out at a minor chore.
"Eh, well, I nominated all of you for the Chunin Exams."
Silence greeted his statement; Sakura and Satsuki were staring at him, stunned though the latter hid it well and it didn't take her long to go back to being smug and proud. "Nice," he thought he heard her mutter under her breath. His eyes narrowed, great. She must be thinking this was a step closer to getting stronger and killing her brother. He hoped it wouldn't get to her head much; the little prick—uh, the little girl (much better), was already obsessed enough.
Haruto remained that blank expression, which made Kakashi wonder whether the news had been that shocking. When he snapped his fingers in front of the boy's face, the redhead snapped out of his stupor and chuckled sheepishly. "Uh… what's the Chunin Exam?"
Sakura nearly walked into a lamppost when she heard the question. She stumbled before she regained her footing. "What!" she nearly screeched. "How can you not know something even civilians know about?!"
Haruto stuck his tongue out sheepishly, looking at Kakashi for an explanation. "That's because I live a hermit life with my family before I became a ninja here!"
Kakashi eye-smiled, ready to take a leave before the genins pester him into doing anything not worth the trouble. He handed each of them a pass. "Well, the time and place are all written there. Whether you chose to go or not is your own choice! Don't be late—"
"You have no right to say such a thing, Sensei," Haruto interjected moodily before his mood did a 180-degree turn as he looped his arms around his teacher's neck. "But that said; I love you, Sensei," he practically gushed. "Finally, an advance in rank, more challenges. Woo-hoo! Yeah!"
"Get off," the silver-haired jounin snapped, pushing the brat off him. Better get out of here before one of them decided to use him as a huggable material again again. "Bye."
"…Say, what is the Chunin Exams for again?"
"An advance in rank," Satsuki replied, irritated as she stuffed her own pass into her pocket. "Like you said."
"Hey, how about we celebrate this event?" Haruto suggested, eyes wide with excitement that did not reach his teammates. He faltered when Satsuki ignored him—nothing unusual there—and breezed past; dimly, his brain noted that she smelled off smoke (most likely another one of her failed attempts at cooking again or she was practicing her fire jutsus) that wasn't entirely unpleasant. Even Sakura seemed drained of energy which baffled the Senju.
The pink-haired girl mustered a shaky smile, a pathetic excuse to leave then turn around just to do so.
Instantly, even before their backs had faded from view, Haruto felt lonely and abandoned. He sighed gloomily, their teamwork seemed to have diminished back to the day they met again—which was, nil. Oh, how sad his life was. When was his family coming again? He missed them, maybe it was time to write a letter to them.
Rustling from behind him alerted a new presence. A ninja? Haruto ditched the idea the moment he turned and saw the box. Obviously, someone was the trying to camouflage his presence but failed terribly. A civilian kid? Not even an Academy student could suck so badly, he wouldn't assume it was one.
"Stop trying to hide," Haruto said irritably, eyebrow twitching when the kid hiding didn't give up the act. "I know you're there."
Instantly, the box was thrown upwards but Haruto couldn't make out the hiding kid because of the smoke bombs thrown at the ground. Much to his surprise, the kid didn't run away but instead, he was coughing. "Dammit," the familiar voice of a whiny brat came from behind the smokescreen as he stumbled out of the smoke. "Too much for a dramatic entrance." Then he paused and looked up at the baffled Senju.
Konohamaru grinned widely.
"Ha, as expected of Oyabun! He figured out my presence easily, no one had been able to do that before! You should be proud!" he declared, pointing a finger at Haruto and laughed.
Haruto sweatdropped. He had a feeling that it was only because they didn't want to upset the kid by revealing he sucked at stealth when he was so convinced he was that great. "Er, so, kid, what's with the name-calling and stalking?"
"I've decided, from this day onward, you are my boss!" Before Haruto can make a reply, Konohamaru had already latched onto him. "So, Oyabun, tell me, is there a jutsu I can use to defeat my gramps?" he asked excitedly, eyes gleaming.
Haruto was about to admonished him that he couldn't use a shortcut but then an idea sprang to mind. He did have a jutsu he created awhile ago but just hadn't dared to try it in front of his mother and Ero-sennin and besides, didn't Ero-sennin said something about the Old Man being a closet pervert?
Haruto felt a lewd grin crawling onto his face as he pat the shoulder of his disciple. "Well, now…"