hello, i am back from the dead! hope all of you are taking care and staying safe - here's a new chapter to hopefully make enforced isolation a little bit less dull! stay strong, everyone!

Sakura and Genma stand opposite each other, both looking relaxed and not about like they're about to spar all-out.

Then, on some unseen signal, because Genma has been a shinobi for far too long to let something like a muscle tensing betray his movement, and Sakura is shaping up to be a monster of Kakashi's proportions, they spring into action.

While Genma has often said that he's an assassin at heart, he's not limited to that skillset, and earth spikes erupt from the ground, each sharp enough to pierce through metal. But Sakura leaps up, twists in mid-air to avoid the barrage of shuriken Genma sends after her, and flashes through hand signs Kakashi only catches thanks to his Sharingan.

A literal blanket of water falls on the ground, soaking into the spikes Genma had erected and making the dirt soften and crumble. Then, with more seals, roots pierce through the now-softened soil and go after Genma like sentient vines, twining around him, clearly aiming to immobilize, while Sakura lands on the thickest root like it's a tree branch and observes.

But Genma is a shinobi of the Land of Fire, and a fireball is par the course for somebody who has been a ninja for as long as him. The fire weakens the roots enough for him to flash-step through the charred vines and land by Sakura's perch, tanto out and gleaming with liquid poison.

Sakura meets the volley of lighting-quick strikes with a kunai, but it becomes rapidly apparent that while her speed keeps up just fine, the kunai isn't helping any with her inferior reach, and she loses all the ground she's gained with her aerial attack in a matter of seconds. She seems to realise her disadvantage and ducks under Genma's next strike, twisting and landing a punishing kick to his solar plexus. As Genma staggers back and recovers, she unsheathes the twin kodachi Kakashi only just notices strapped to her thighs. She flips the grip in one fluid motion, holding the blades perpendicular to her arms instead of as an extension of them, and meets Genma's next strike with considerably more confidence, despite the odd hold.

They parry and block for a few seconds, trading blows back and forth but neither gaining anything substantial, until Genma twists his tanto and catches both of Sakura's kodachi with one hand, while the other shifts into a Rat seal. To Kakashi's surprise, Genma smirks and a second later, a bowling ball-sized fireball coalesces in front of him, mere centimetres from Sakura's face.

Kakashi thinks he hears a stifled squeak before Sakura immediately drops her kodachi and disappears.

Not a kawarimi, as nothing replaces her, so it had to be a seal-less shunshin, and Kakashi is starting to feel really glad he insisted on this sparring session because what were his subordinates thinking, hiding seal-less ninjutsu from him?

Sakura reappears with the crunch of breaking branches and a muffled curse, and Genma zeroes in on her position almost immediately, not giving her a chance to find her footing and regain her balance before he's throwing six kunai with ninja wire threaded through the loops, effectively pinning the teen to the trunk.

Sakura scowls, but doesn't struggle beyond testing the strength of the wire pinning her in place - Genma's weapons are always top-grade, and his wire is no different.

"You win." she admits, then shoots the tokujo a look that's torn between amused and grumpy. "Untie me?"

Once she's free of the wire, they reposition to the middle of the clearing and stand opposite each other again, waiting for Yugao to give the signal.

"Still good for best of three?" the kunoichi checks before starting, and when she receives twin nods in response, she grins. "Great. Go!"

Not even two seconds after the words leave her mouth, Genma gags and bends over, Sakura suddenly right in his space, and it's only thanks to Kakashi's Sharingan that he can process what happened.

Sakura used a seal-less shunshin again, only this time, what with it being controlled and in a straight line, the execution was flawless. She got into Genma's personal space so fast that there still seemed to be an afterimage of her left in her original position, and she struck out at Genma's bare throat with a knife-hand.

Even without chakra, the hit to the throat has Genma doubling over and coughing violently, and Sakura absently mimes chopping with her hand at the back of his neck and looks to where Kakashi and Yugao were standing, both more than a little dumbfounded.

"Do I win?" she asks idly, then reaches out again, hand glowing mint-green, and Genma abruptly stops coughing.

"What the hell was that?" he chokes out once he straightens, visibly discomfited. "Can that even be called a shunshin?"

Sakura shrugs, opting to remain silent, though the corner of her lip quirks up as she walks back to their starting positions and looks at Kakashi expectantly.

"Last round," Yugao calls, when she realises Kakashi can't manage words just yet. "go!"

This time, it's Sakura who produces the Great Fireball, and Kakashi is getting a headache just keeping track of her affinities.

When the fireball is about three meters in diameter and firmly between her and Genma, she slots her fingers in a familiar cross and disappears underground, just as her Shadow Clone takes her place.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Yugao shoot him a curious glance, because that move is his staple as a jounin, but he doesn't recall ever using it against the rosette.

Genma must not have noticed the switch because he dodges out of the way of the Fireball but keeps his distance, opting for a barrage of deadly-accurate senbon, visibly hesitant about engaging in close-combat after that knife-hand to the throat.

Kakashi can't sense her chakra, but he has an inkling as to how the match will end even before two small hands suddenly break through the ground just under Genma's feet, wrapping around his ankles and pulling him down until he's buried to mid-thigh. Sakura surfaces a few meters away, keeping carefully to Genma's blind-spot, aware that he's still able to use his hands, and folds her fingers in an unfamiliar seal.

Once again, vines reach out from the ground around Genma and wrap around him, trapping his arms to his sides and tightening until the tokujo winces as they reach his neck.

"I give!" he calls at last, and the vines immediately loosen and recede, and Sakura steps closer, laying a hand flat to the ground until the dirt around Genma's legs softens and he can pull himself out and onto his feet.

"That's 2-1 to you, little monster." he declares and reaches out to ruffle her hair, and there's no resentment in his voice. Caution, yes; surprise too, but Genma's far too good to resent someone for beating him, even if that someone is almost a third of his age. "Well done."

Kakashi watches, more than a little stunned, as Sakura all but preens and darts in close for a hug, though her hands glow green when they rest on the small of Genma's back, prompting the tokujo to laugh.

"Don't waste your energy on me; I'm not injured, and you've still got six rounds to go." he chastises, booping the teen on the nose and getting a raspberry blown at him in response.

Kakashi marvels at the dichotomy of the girl's personality, thinking back to the blank-faced soldier of yesterday who didn't hesitate to use Killing Intent on her brother versus this cheerful, playful child, who nevertheless just beat a tokujo twice in the space of five minutes.

"Yugao," he calls, when he feels like he can produce words instead of wordless screams of bafflement and frustration, "you're up."

Sakura's grin doesn't waver and Yugao shocked expression is nowhere to be seen - instead, the two face each other with friendly smiles and visible excitement in their eyes.

Kakashi can't help but wonder how this match will go - though Yugao is younger, she's faster than Genma, and specialises almost exclusively in kenjutsu, which Sakura has just proven to be her arguably weakest field. Sakura's only options are burying the other kunoichi in ninjutsu, which, while undeniably effective, will exhaust even her unusually-large reserves; or playing keep-away until Yugao exhausts herself.

Kakashi calls a start to the spar, and, immediately, Yugao is on the younger kunoichi, katana flashing in deadly arcs and doing her level best to make Sakura stumble.

Sakura, in turn, turns shunshin-assisted dodging into an artform, and Kakashi wonders why her movements seem so familiar. Her shunshin is never longer than two or three steps, but it puts her safely out of Yugao's reach and is unpredictable enough to keep the other on her toes even when she's on the offensive.

Then, when a full-frontal attack doesn't seem to be working, Yugao steps back, putting some distance between her and Sakura, and starts the motion for her signature Oborozukiyo technique, swinging the sword so fast that it leaves after-images behind. Sakura watches raptly, eyes flickering but clearly unable to trace the movement, and then Yugao throws the sword, sending it flying so fast that it blurs, and Sakura swears and throws herself bodily out of the way, and though the tumble she pulls off has no wasted movements nor moments of inattention, it allows Yugao the precious seconds she needs to flash-step to the rosette's side, pull her ANBU tanto out and press the tip against the back of Sakura's neck.

"I give." Sakura calls, getting to her feet when Yugao lowers the sword and shooting the other kunoichi a small smile when the other appears concerned. There's a thoughtful expression on Sakura's face, and she seems to be having a similar realisation as Kakashi had at the start of the match as she turns to him and calls out;

"All out?"

Kakashi merely nods and at his side, Genma laughs, though the expression on his face is disbelieving when he mumbles 'now she asks that?'.

They soon understand why she asked.

When Yugao moves again, this time in the pattern preceding her Dance of the Crescent Moon technique, Sakura flashes through familiar seals and presses her palm to the ground. Just as Yugao finishes the technique and it looks like there are four of her, each set to attack from different directions, a massive tiger they hadn't seen before appears in front of Sakura.

"Boshi-sama!" Sakura calls as she dodges the first attack. "You said no illusion, shapeshifting nor subterfuge would fool you, so help me see, please!"

"This is no subterfuge, cub." The giant tiger rumbles, even as he easily dispatches one Yugao 'clone' with a swipe of a giant paw. "This is speed. You need to be faster, or train your sight better where your body fails."

Kakashi feels himself blanch beneath his mask.

If those are the influences she's surrounded by – a proud, bitter, suspicious brother and a summons for whom she's still not enough, even as exceptional as she already is, it's no wonder why Sakura is the way she is. It explains a lot about her skills, goals and personality, and why, at age eleven, she is faster than many jounin Kakashi knows.

And then, instead of getting angry like Kakashi thought she might, she takes a deep breath, holds it for a few seconds, and lets it out, then, in a move most surprising of all, closes her eyes.

"Then do me the honour of being my eyes, Boshi-sama." She murmurs instead, and though she cannot see her summon's reaction, Kakashi catches the pleased look the tiger throws her without issue.

Kakashi has had his ninken for near-on a decade, but what his subordinate is doing speaks of a trust he's not sure he could claim to have with any of his summons bar perhaps Pakkun.

Then, almost as an afterthought, Sakura's right hand glows blue for the briefest of moments, and she swipes her palm over both her shins and Kakashi gets a feeling as if his ears were about to pop, like some pressure has just been released.

When Yugao and her remaining clones move again, Boshi barks a command and Sakura-

Sakura blurs.

"The fuck-!"

Genma's startled exclamation would've been echoed by Kakashi had he had an ounce less composure.

Because Sakura had been fast, but Yugao was still faster, but now the kunoichi are evenly matched.

In fact, no, that's not true, he realises a beat later, eyes still glued to the fight, Sharingan blazing.

Sakura is faster.

Yugao's two clones are eliminated in a joint effort by the rosette and her summon, and the pincer attack they switch to as soon as it's two-on-one immediately puts the kenjutsu mistress on the defensive. Sakura's eyes are still closed.

From there, it's a matter of relentlessly exploiting every opening the tiger describes, not letting up until an opportunity presents itself, be it in the form of a gap in defence or a moment of inattention, yet even as Yugao stumbles, Kakashi realises that Sakura is already slowing. She's still faultlessly following each of her summon's commands and directions, yet her speed is no longer what it was when she first dropped the seals.

Her dash into Yugao's guard – once the kunoichi finally trips – is still fast, but it's no longer faster than Yugao herself, and if Yugao had been marginally less fatigued and overwhelmed than she appears, Kakashi is sure she would've been able to dodge or at the very least divert the kick to her gut.

As it is, Yugao falls to her knees and hurls, and the acrid stench of vomit fills the air. Sakura finally opens her eyes and side-steps her teammate's lunch, wandering back to her summon's side. Kakashi doesn't catch what she says, but a few seconds later, there's a pulse of chakra and a cloud of smoke, and 'Boshi' disappears, just as Sakura drops down to a crouch, a pained grimace on her face, and sets green-glowing hands on her shins.

"What the hell was that?" Genma asks, voice coming out little louder than a whisper even though Kakashi is sure that, in his mind, it was meant to be a demand.

Still, Sakura seems to understand what he means, and smiles wryly.

"That," she says, switching to her calves, "is the product of being trained by Shunshin no Shisui." She says simply, and seems content to leave it at that.

"And the summon?" Genma presses, and Kakashi is glad he's asking the same questions he wants to know the answers to, because he's not sure Sakura would answer quite so readily if he were the one to ask.

Sakura's already wry smile turns a touch more self-deprecating, and the expression makes Kakashi feel distinctly uncomfortable because of how natural it looks on her young face.

"Unfortunately, while my body can keep up just fine, my eyes cannot. And although I can augment my sight with chakra, there comes a point where you run a greater risk of permanently damaging your optic nerve than you do improving your vision. Boshi-sama sees through illusion, subterfuge, and everything my eyes do not. It was the logical choice."

"Why are you injured?" Kakashi asks eventually, when Genma seems too busy processing to continue the impromptu interrogation. "Yugao did not land a single direct hit on you in that round."

The smile drops off Sakura's face entirely, her mouth twisting into a hard, sharp line that looks like it was painted on her face with one single stroke, only the corner of her lips twisting down in a bitter curl.

"Because there is a reason they don't teach how to augment muscles with chakra until the final year of the Academy." She bites out. "Because there's a reason only the most exceptional of geniuses are allowed to graduate early and become field-nin before their age hits double-digits. Because I am eleven, and my body cannot take the strain I put it through without sacrifices."

"Her muscles still aren't fully developed." Yugao cuts in when both Kakashi and Genma remain blank-faced, slowly getting to her feet and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "The speed I need for my techniques puts a considerable strain on my body, and I've stopped growing and have been practising my technique for over a decade. It's a wonder her muscles didn't completely tear."

Sakura's eyes flicker to Yugao's face in alarm, then back down to her hands, then to the side, and Kakashi has another blood-chilling realisation.

They did. That's what she's healing.

He has a moment to wonder what such an insane pain threshold is doing in an eleven-year-old, then banishes the thought.

"Round three?" he asks instead, and Genma shoots him an aghast look, though both kunoichi look tired, but on-board, so he ignores the brunet.

"We said all-out, but can I use a chakra pill?" Sakura checks as she faces Yugao for the third time, and Kakashi ponders her question for a second before shaking his head, no.

A tiny frown pulls on Sakura's forehead, but she doesn't otherwise react, at least outwardly.

"Go!"

He understands why she didn't grace him with a response when, no sooner than the word passes his lips do roots burst through the dirt, covering the space between Sakura and Yugao and twisting like sentient beings until they snag Yugao's ankles and wrench her off-balance, quickly immobilising her.

Sakura had no plans for another drawn-out match.

"That's hardly fair." Yugao grumbles, though she smiles immediately after when she spots the guilty frown on Sakura's face. "I just meant it's been a while since I've sparred all-out."

"I'm sorry." Sakura apologises as the roots recede, offering her senpai-figure a hand. "Summoning Boshi-sama takes a lot out of me, and I have maybe…an eighth of my usual reserves left. I couldn't afford to be drawn into another long match."

"Not if you wanted to beat our esteemed leader's ass, at least, hm?" Yugao asks good-naturedly, and Sakura shoots her a grateful smile even as she huffs out a small laugh.

"Indeed."

"That's ambitious." Kakashi comments as he finally strolls into the clearing to take Yugao's place, and he ignores the affronted look Yugao sends him, eyes on their youngest teammate.

Because Sakura isn't insulted, from what he can tell. The smile that had been playing around her lips is gone, and her eyes are narrowed as she regards him, but the expression in them isn't hurt, nor even anger.

It's spite.

And then, as Yugao makes to join Genma on the side-lines, Sakura's chakra disappears so suddenly and thoroughly that all three adults glance at her, caught off-guard.

A snide, serrated smirk has sharpened at the corners of Sakura's mouth, and her eyes, when she meets Kakashi's gaze, are full of challenge, as if daring him to comment. When he stays silent, she looks at Genma and Yugao expectantly, and a few seconds later, they obligingly call 'go!'.

She's in his space milliseconds later, and Kakashi catches the kunai aiming to disembowel him on the back plate of his glove, but the momentum off-balances him to the point he can't block the follow-up swing and has to lose more ground to avoid the chakra-coated fist heading for his ribs.

He lashes out with a kick, hoping to take advantage of his longer reach, but Sakura uses her inferior height and slides under his leg, grabbing his ankle in an one hand and the fabric covering his thigh in the other, and yanks.

Kakashi is pulled completely off-balance as Sakura swings him over her head and tries to slam him into the ground, but he kawarimis with a log at the last second. Sakura lets go the moment wood replaces flesh and turns her momentum into a forward roll, which lets her avoid the barrage of shuriken Kakashi sends at her from his new place in the treeline by a hair's breadth.

Then, Sakura's in his space again, only instead of fists, she comes at him with knife-hands that glow faintly blue, and Kakashi realises why as soon as one lightly grazes his upper thigh and he stumbles, the feeling in his thigh gone.

She's weaponised medical ninjutsu.

He loses feeling in his left forearm and right side before he realises that, just like fighting a Hyuuga, fighting Sakura in close-combat when she seems hell-bent on conserving chakra is a fool's errand.

So he blows a fireball in her face.

A full-sized one.

Because, occasionally, he is an asshole.

(just occasionally.)

Sakura launches herself into the air to avoid the jutsu, and Kakashi doesn't think as he unleashes a volley of shuriken into the air, then looks around the field, hoping to spot the girl before she tries to disembowel him again.

He only realises that he made a mistake when he smells blood and a shadow falls over him. He looks up, eyes widening when he meets furious emerald and catches sight of a body riddled with shuriken, but his attention is focused on the fist Sakura has pulled back and saturated with chakra so much that it's surrounded by a visible blue glow.

He doesn't wait and see what that much concentrated power could do to his face, he steps back, one-two, but still feels his mask split down his cheek by the power of Sakura's chakra as her fist just misses his face.

He expects her to redirect her momentum or drop the technique entirely, but she touches down and keeps going, down, down, down, until her knees bend and her fist touches the ground and-

-and the world explodes.

Kakashi loses his footing, feels dust scratch his airways even despite his mask, closes his eyes against the burn of tears, and falls.

When he regains his bearings, his eyes are still squeezed shut, his throat and nose are a burning agony, his back is flush against the ground and a large slab of something is pressing him down. He can't move, can barely breathe, can't take a deep enough breath for a Fire jutsu without coughing, can't move his hands to form seals, all he can do is wonder whether this is how Obito felt when he-!

-there's a crunch and more dust rains over him, but he feels sunlight on his closed eyelids and dares open his eyes, though he keeps his breathing shallow, his mask more of a hindrance than a help this time.

When he blinks away the dust, he finds Sakura standing over him, silhouetted against the backdrop of the morning sun, but what he can see of the expression on her face sends a shiver down his spine.

"You know," she begins, and Kakashi isn't fooled for a second by her seemingly light tone, "you could've just told me that you were going to treat this like an intel gathering mission from the beginning, instead of the 'team building' exercise you painted it as. We both know that you could wipe the floor with me if you tried – that you're in your current predicament is only testament to the fact that you never even intended to try. That's fine, though. But if you had just asked me, then we wouldn't have had to go through this whole farce of a spar; this play-pretend of a cohesive unit. I could've just told you what I can do, or fought a clone or something, and we could've continued on our merry way of ignoring the fact that you've been spying on me all this time."

When he twitches despite himself, she smiles wryly, then turns her face so her expression is completely shadowed by the glare of the sun, and Kakashi wants to move, wants to speak, but he's trapped, and she knows it.

"I won't lie and say I'm not disappointed." She tells him flatly, the earlier lightness gone. "I'd had my suspicions about the gag-order, you know. Also figured you would've probably been ordered to spy on me quite early on. But, when you didn't report the Mokuton, when you suggested this team spar, I thought you decided for once in your life to not be the Hokage's loyal guard dog; I thought we could make something out of this. I thought this was your attempt at an olive branch."

She snorts, and the sound is so bitter Kakashi's breath catches in his throat.

"But no. Of course not. You wouldn't know reciprocity if it smacked you in the face."

That stings, Kakashi realises belatedly, but Sakura's voice quivers in a way that could either be anger or tears, and that's infinitely more worrisome than his apparent hurt feelings.

"So, I'm going to make it easy for you." She announces, and Kakashi dreads. "I'm going to disappear for a week. Don't try to look for me. If you go to the Hokage within that week, I simply won't come back. If you don't, we can try this again. But, you know, actually be a team this time, all members equally invested. Until then, well." she pauses, and something warm and wet falls on Kakashi's cheek. "Goodbye."

And, between one blink and the next, she's gone.

Yugao and Genma are by his side in an instant, and he can feel Genma pumping chakra through the slab of earth pinning him down, trying to soften it enough for Kakashi to get out.

He catches sight of Yugao's expression, just a glimpse, really, no more than a second in duration, but within that split-second look, he sees just how much the kunoichi wants to leave him here, helpless, alone. It stings, again, but…

But in this moment, he doesn't blame her.

Shin startles when Sakura bursts through the door of their apartment, tear-tracks staining her face, a handful of wounds on her arms and legs still bleeding sluggishly, as if she hadn't bothered to heal them, and he tenses when her eyes zero in on him and narrow.

"Come on." She orders, rifling through the cupboards, pulling out the bottle of their highest-potency soldier pills and dry-swallowing two in one go. "It's time."

Shin doesn't move beyond laying his book carefully on the coffee table, and he feels Sakura's ire spike when he doesn't immediately obey, but he needs answers.

"Time for what?" he asks, sharply enough to pierce through whatever fog has clouded over his adopted-sister's mind, and he sees her physically shift mental tracks, sees the moment she takes a deep breath and holds until he's sure she must be dizzy, and when she lets it out, her eyes lose the edge of mania that he hadn't even realised was there until it's gone.

"Time for me to heal your lungs."

(he's out of his seat in a heartbeat.)