"I know most of you are feeling a bit sore after your last mission, but that doesn't mean you get out of training." Kakashi gazed at his three subordinates over the top of his novel. He, Naruto and Sai had recently returned from a rather long and painful mission in the Hidden Mist. Konoha hospital couldn't spare Sakura's medic skills that long, so she had been forced to stay behind (much to her indignation).

"So I guess we'll just do a fox hunt for today," Kakashi continued, stretching his arms. A fox hunt was an exercise with three people (or 'foxes') against one rabbit. Sakura smiled to herself. Usually one of the men got picked to be the rabbit. They needed to be quick on their feet and last a while before finally being caught. But currently Sakura was in the best physical condition of the four of them. She would get to be the rabbit for sure.

"So..." The silver-haired jounin paused to consider before finally asking, "Naruto- do you want to be the rabbit for today?"

"Sure thing," Naruto said, cracking his knuckles as Kakashi tucked the book into his back pocket.

Sakura coughed. "Um, Kakashi Sensei, couldn't I be the rabbit today? I wasn't on the last mission and I've been looking forward to a chance to stretch my legs a little."

"Well..." he was stalling, and she knew it. "…Naruto, is that okay with you?"

"Fine," he grinned. "I make a better fox anyway."

"Then I guess it's okay," he finally conceded. "But you have to keep us back for as long as possible," he warned.

"This isn't my first hunt, Kakashi," Sakura said with forced calm. Her old teacher shrugged. He made to get his Icha Icha book out again, but stopped when he saw the look on her face.

As she pulled on her gloves (with a little more force than necessary) the kunoichi asked, "Should I fight you like a friend or an enemy?"

There was a pause for a moment, as all three stared at her. She simply stared politely back at them.

Then Naruto laughed. "Are you serious?" Even Sai was smiling in amusement.

"Sakura, you can fight us like we're friends if you want," Kakashi told her, exasperated, "But you should understand that we won't hold back on you."

"Yeah, we're not gonna go easy!" Naruto agreed.

Sakura smiled at him. "I don't expect you to."

They began on Kakashi's signal. Sakura took off like a rocket through the woods, the others hot on her heels. Dodging one tree she leapt high into another with a burst of chakra. She knew at this stage her job was just to run as fast as she could. But she also knew she'd have trouble losing them completely. Naruto had shadow clones, Sai could attack from the air, and Kakashi was, well, Kakashi. So she kept her movements as random and hard to follow as possible for a while. She leapt to one branch only to find one of Naruto's clones had beaten her to it. It was grinning triumphantly, but not for long. Sakura smashed through it and dropped down to the forest floor.

Naruto and two more clones were coming from the left, yelling at the top of their lungs and forming a spinning blue rasengan. Sakura would be a fool to go that way. Sai flanked her on the right, waiting. Her forward option was removed when she met with the base of a particularly large tree. Kakashi, who had taken the rear and hidden himself from view, was hardly surprised Sakura had been stopped so quickly. This was why he rarely made her the rabbit; it wasn't much of a challenge to the others. She was facing the tree as though willing it to move aside.

Stupid; never show the enemy your back like that, Kakashi thought. When she turned around once more, he took a handful of kunai and threw it at her. She'd be forced to move to the right, where Sai would be waiting for her.

The kunai sailed from Kakashi's position in the branches. He watched them head toward her as though in slow motion. Sakura had plenty of time to dodge. But she was still standing there, as though trying to think of another alternative. Naruto continued running toward her, Sai continued waiting, and Sakura continued standing; until with a flash of red the kunai all hit their mark. Kakashi's eye widened in shock. Why hadn't she moved? The pink-haired girl lurched forward and coughed, a trickle of blood running down her chin. It couldn't be real, could it? But as far as he knew she couldn't make shadow clones, and even if she could it would have been destroyed by now. But she was still there, spluttering and bleeding.

The Narutos stopped in their tracks, rasengan dissipating.

"Sakura?" he asked in disbelief.

The kunoichi merely clutched her wounded chest and collapsed to her knees with a thump. Then she keeled over, face-down in a pool of blood.

This wasn't meant to happen. Kakashi was frozen in place, sweat running down his neck. She was meant to move! She could have moved easily! People didn't… die in training exercises.

Then suddenly there was a cold blade at his throat and a knee digging into his back.

"It's over," somebody murmured in his ear before kicking him forward off the branch.

He landed in front of Naruto and the tree with a semi-graceful thud, straightening immediately. Then his attacker landed beside him, making Naruto gasp. There was Sakura, bleeding to death on the ground, and there was Sakura, standing beside them with a kunai.

"It's over," she repeated, tucking the blade into her pouch as Sai came over to join them.

"Sa- Sakura-" Naruto began, before she cut him off.

"You underestimated me," she told them, pointing at Kakashi, "Especially you. You were over-confident, giving away your position just now." Behind her, the dead Sakura disappeared in a shower of cherry blossoms. "That's why I was able to use that genjutsu Kurenai Sensei taught me."

"Kurenai Sensei taught you a genjutsu? When?" Naruto asked, more relieved that Sakura was alright than affected by her coldness.

"While you were all away. Her baby had an ear infection so I saw a lot of her. We were both sick of feeling useless so we helped each other out," Sakura explained. Kakashi noted the bitter edge to her voice and mentally winced. He should have been the one to help her.

"I'm sorry, Sakura," he said, meaning it. "You're right; we should have taken you more seriously."

"You're damn right! I half expected you to start reading your stupid book again. You let me make the seals and get behind you like that because you were taking my skills for granted." She blinked back the angry tears that she knew were forming. "I did fight you like a friend today. I played on your emotions by showing you a fallen comrade. You were wrong-footed; you froze up and became easy targets. If you had treated a real enemy the way you did today -if you hadn't come at them like you meant to kill them- you would be dead."

And without another word Sakura turned and stalked away, leaving the three shinobi to stand in guilty silence.