The More Things Change

Chapter Seven

Sakura Haruno sat on the bridge, enthralled as she watched the builders work. She'd never seen anyone construct something so massive. It was really cool how they managed it all with no Jutsu. In her opinion, a team of shinobi could have gotten it all done quicker by combining Earth and Water Jutsu, but this was pretty neat, too. Kakashi-sensei was still recovering, but had finally woken up the previous evening. The Jonin had eaten like a wild animal and promptly fell back asleep, but at least it was progress. She'd been tempted to take the opportunity to finally see what he had hiding beneath his mask, but had ultimately decided against it. She wasn't sure how he'd react to such an invasion of his privacy, but it couldn't be good.

Naruto and Satsuki had used Kakashi's condition to sneak off and make out. A lot. Sakura had caught them in the kitchen of Tazuna's house one morning as she went down for breakfast. The blonde had Satsuki sitting on the counter with her legs wrapped around his waist and his tongue down her throat. They weren't doing anything too inappropriate, but how was a girl supposed to eat after such a display? Besides, they were on a mission. It was irresponsible and reckless to try to suck each other's faces off while on a mission. Never mind that she'd hope to be in that exact same position with Kiba when they got back to Konoha.

Honestly, Sakura hated Satsuki. Almost from the moment they had met, Sakura and the princess had never gotten along. Satsuki was, to be frank, a bitch. She automatically assumed that everyone was beneath her because she came from some dead clan. Big deal.

To make things worse, the ebony haired girl always beat Sakura at everything. All the boys wanted to be with her. She outperformed everyone at classwork, even though that was usually Sakura's area to shine. The rosette's memory and talent for soaking up knowledge had always been her best feature, apart from her long, cherry blossom hair. However, Satsuki had constantly received better marks on the written tests, blown her out of the water in Taijutsu spars, and mastered all of the Academy Jutsu long before Sakura did. She beat all the boys, too.

Her thoughts drifted to Kiba. The Inuzaka was a little rough around the edges, but he was cute and confident. He always showered her with affection, which made her feel pretty. Sure, he was kinda pushy to get her in the sack, but all boys were at his age. So Kiba was a bit of a dog. She could deal with that. Sakura giggled at her own joke. Speaking of giggling...

A few feet away her teammates broke out into laughter. Satsuki had Naruto's head in her lap while he told her some story about some stupid prank he'd pulled during his time in the Academy. Satsuki was listening to the blonde's story with a stupid smile on her face, laughing in all the appropriate places. Sighing, Sakura knew the relationship was destined to fail. She'd already told Satsuki, but apparently the raven haired Genin was adamant about breaking her friend's heart. It may not be tomorrow, or even a year from now, but she could already see where they were headed.

Recently, Sakura had taken a good, hard look at herself and decided she didn't like who she was becoming. She'd obsessed over her relationship with Kiba and stopped training. All of her free time was spent with the boy, and while she enjoyed her time with him, she couldn't help but notice how weak she was when compared to her teammates.

She had vowed to train harder, and she did. However, unlike her giggling teammates, she had friends and a family. She couldn't train every day until nightfall, she just wasn't built that way. She needed human interaction. That's why she hated this stupid team so much. Kakashi doted on his two prized students, but whenever Sakura tried to get extra training, he'd tell her there wasn't anything he could do until she improved her physical conditioning. He'd recommended running, push ups, and beating on the training posts. The Jonin had even set her up with another Jonin who specialized in Taijutsu and peak condition. Sakura wasn't making that mistake again. Might Guy was crazy, and his youthful student was even crazier. Rock Lee had spent the entire morning begging her for dates, ignoring her protests that she had a boyfriend.