Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto, nor any of the characters therein. I am interested in purchasing Sakura, if someone could point me in the right direction.

Hatake Kakashi was waiting for his team.

It was a novel experience.

Normally he would show up for their meetings a few hours late, having spent time at the memorial, thinking about Obito, Rin and the Yondaime, or just from sleeping in. Every so often, however, he would arrive before the meeting time, watching as his Genin arrive one by one, and then appearing with a "Yo," at the usual time.

Today, however, it was rapidly approaching the point where even he would have considered himself late. He had moved from his hiding place to the bridge where their meetings took place, and yet there was still no sign of his students.

He rather liked their morning ritual: Get them up at the crack of dawn, make them wait a few hours, show up, "YOU'RE LATE!", excuse, "LIAR!", and, of course, a derisive snort for Sasuke. It was like coffee; he didn't feel like he'd started the day properly without it.

The sun was already high in the sky, and Kakashi noticed that he'd been drumming his fingers on the railing unconsciously for the past ten minutes. Forcing himself to stop, he chanced a look at his watch. Yep. Exactly a minute had passed since he last checked. It was nearly noon! Even he'd never… No, wait, there was that one time, so, okay, he'd nearly never been this late. Had he told his team to meet up somewhere else today?

The worry that it was he who was late was quickly discarded; as he watched the two shinobi and one kunoichi under his command slowly make their way to him. Naruto was looking more mussed than he had ever seen him, his jacket open, shirt untucked and forehead protector nearly as lop-sided as his own. Sasuke definitely looked to be the worse of the three, his clothed torn to shreds, hair in disarray and numerous scratches on him. Sakura, looking as impeccably dressed as ever, had steam coming out of her ears, a red face and a snarl that would match a Kyuubi-fied Naruto.

Deciding payback to be the best form of punishment, the Jounin leaned back against the railing, his displeasure visible in his one eye. "You're late," He remarked.

Naruto gave a small smirk at that, obviously remembering every time this had been the other way around. "Sorry sensei. I had to help an old lady cross the road…"

"Stop calling me an old hag, brat, or the next time you'll get more than one finger!" A figure that many would say only just resembled their respectable and beautiful Hokage was leaning on a second figure much shorter than herself, and was swaying enough for a dozen drunks. This made sense, when you factored in how much she'd had to drink. "'Sides, I would'na needed your help if you hadn't let that cart run over my foot."

"Of course not, Tsunade," the boy in question was quite concerned with his safety at the moment. Should he continue on and run the risk of her wrath should his tongue slip? Or should he leave her, and then hope for the best when he explained to Shizune-neechan that yes, he had found the Hokage, and yes, she was drunk, and injured, and he had left her in the middle of Konoha.

Tsunade may have been bigger and stronger, but Shizune was infinitely scarier.

"And I could heal it, too! I'm the greatest healer of all time! 'S just, every time I try, my head starts spinning."

He'd found it best to agree with everything she said while she was drunk. That way, less pain was introduced to his person. "Of course it does, baa… I mean neechan!" Despite not paying to much attention to the conversation, he knew it was currently a bad idea to call her old.

"Sniff!" That caught his attention! She was crying? "Little brother? Izzat you? I thought you left me!" Holding on to the spitting image of her little brother, she crushed him to her, never minding that his head was caught between her gargantuan globes.

"Mm mnm mfff!" A glance downward showed that she was holding someone who was not, in fact, her lost little brother, but someone else altogether, in a very provocative position.

"PERVERT!"

Naruto sighed silently as the old lady sent him flying. It was gonna be a long day.

The blonde boy grimaced, still feeling the bump on his head from the landing. He really didn't feel like sharing the experience with his team, so he'd left his explanation simple.

His normally silent teammate, Sasuke, was the next to speak. "I came across a cat stuck in a tree, and felt honour bound to help it return to safe ground."

'Is this really necessary?' the last, well, not last cause there's still his brother, but his brother's a traitor, and murderer, and all that stuff, so is he family anymore? …Anyway, the last LEAF Uchiha, Sasuke, thought to himself as he made his way to the bridge where Team 7 always met, studiously ignoring the rabid fangirls 'inconspicuously' following him. 'After all, Kakashi won't be there for hours, and I could train in that time.'

"Young man!" A high pitched voice broke through his morning musings, as a woman bore down on him. His mind quickly classified her; middle aged, losing her battle with weight gain, obviously not a kunoichi. He soon arrived at the conclusion of 'housewife'.

His courteous, polite persona, which had been beaten into him by his mother at a young age, but had disappeared in recent years, unfortunately chose this moment to raise its ugly head. "What can I help you with, ma'am?" was all he could get out before the civilian hoisted him up by his collar. He struggled for a moment, before realising that, as a ninja, he could easily escape the woman's clutches, but also that breaking her arms would be frowned upon.

Probably.

"It's terrible! My poor little Kyo-kun is stuck! He can't get down! He'll die up there all sad and alone and I'll be left alone and then…" The woman seemed inconsolable as she dropped him to the ground, and wrapped her arms around him in a bone-crushing hug, his own arms pinned to his sides.

His eyes bulged, not only from lack of air, but also from the incredible strength of the damsel-in-distress. She had to be as strong as the Godaime! "Who… is Kyo… kun?" He finished in a squeak, the last of his oxygen being forced from his lungs as the arms squeezed even tighter.

"Kyo-kun!" The lady appeared startled, as if she'd only just remembered something. "Sir, you have to help him, he's gotten stuck in that tree, he can't climb down, he's scared of heights, I don't know how he got up there in the first place, oh what am I going to do, I need him to get down, you need to get him down…" Round and round her speech went, circling itself inward to finally stop on the one fact, that this brave young shinobi must retrieve Kyo-kun.

Looking upwards, all Sasuke saw was a young cat, holding onto a tree branch for dear life, not more than ten feet off the ground. Finally breaking through to the frantic cat owner, after ten additional minutes of ranting, it was a quick jump up to the branch, a sure hand underneath the belly of the kitten, and, one torn-up arm later, a gloriously happy cat owner, really, you don't know how much this meant to her, how could she ever thank him, was walking away with a now even more terrified cat in her arms.

His ordeal finally over, he realised that his earlier musings were also solved. With his now lacerated limb, he should be cleaning and bandaging his cuts, so as not to mar his perfect skin, rather than training or waiting. Turning around to head back to the Uchiha Clan estates, he was reminded of the rabid fangirls from earlier, who had disappeared during the rescue of the cat, as they had now reappeared as wailing fangirls, tears streaming down their faces as each pointed to one cat or another that was high up in a tree, some looking like they had been thrown.

Sasuke sighed. This was going to be a long day.

Sasuke made his usual grunt, folding his arms for emphasis, and then unfolding them as he felt the numerous wounds on both arms.

Sakura, the final team-mate, was obviously grinding her teeth in frustration. Naruto looked nervous, as he was usually the vent for said frustration, but she barely even glanced at him before passing on her glare to her sensei. "I got lost on the road of life," was all she said.

Today was going to be a good day, Sakura decided as she walked through the market. She had just witnessed Naruto escorting the Hokage back to the tower, and from the state she was in, he was going to be a while. Which was perfect, as it meant she would have more alone time with Sasuke-kun!

She'd done her hair perfectly, her dress showed off her still growing figure, she'd made sure her make-up was perfect, she was getting stronger with all the training she was doing, Sasuke-kun would definitely notice soon, she…

She felt a hand. On her butt.

Chakra seemed to leak from her eyes as she turned around, red with anger and terrifying beyond words. The pervert who had decided to feel up the young lady visibly gulped as he realised the ribbon keeping her hair in place was, in fact, a ninja forehead protector.

"I, uh, I'm sorry, I-I-I didn't realize y-you… there… There was a bee! A bee, on your, on your, um, you, uh, i-i-it was all a mistake, you um, you see, cause the bee, it was about to sting you and if I hadn't…" The manic ranting of man didn't seem to affect to kunoichi's rage in any way, let alone lessen it, so he trailed off as he shuffled backwards.

"PERVERT!" The screech echoed through the hidden village, bouncing back and forth, entering the bath house where the female half immediately went on Jiraiya alert. The white haired man was more worried about the source of the scream than the fact that he couldn't complete his research that day. Several young men giggling their way through small orange books whipped their hands behind their back as they searched for the announcer of their habit.

The girl in question watched as the old man, practically a jiji, backed away slowly, turning to run as he realised that while words would not help this situation, while running would remove him from immediate danger.

"GET BACK HERE!" The pervert, ignoring the warnings his own mind was sending him, looked back to see the young girl, whose posterior he had just touched, sprinting after him, the chakra gathering at her feet making the pavement crack beneath them. Turning forwards once more, he let his own feet guide him away from what he was sure was certain death, or at least castration.

The chase ended rather unspectacularly, her fist meeting his face in a union which broke several teeth, sent his eyes spinning in different directions, and left an unfortunate mess in his trousers. The cherry-blossom haired genin panted as she looked around, unused to expelling such large amounts of chakra over a large period of time. She spared a kind thought to her blonde team-mate, who had the decency to let her hit him within the first five minutes of a chase.

Her brows rose onto her famously large forehead as she took in her unfamiliar surroundings. Despite having lived in Leaf all of her life, and being one of her ninjas, there were area's Sakura had felt too disreputable to set foot in. One of them had been the neighbourhood Naruto lived in, but she felt more at home there now, since she had helped her friend home on occasion when he passed out through overwork, usually started the day before. This place, though…

The walls of the houses were high, and seemed to expand as they went up, making them loom over her. An abandoned street with piles of junk lining the paths to each door, and tumbleweed floating across the road.

Wait, tumbleweed? This place had to be getting to her. She needed to get out of here, NOW! Leaping to the roof-tops, she tried to spy a familiar land-mark so she could work out where she was, and hopefully reach their meeting-place before she was later than her sensei.

Sakura let loose a grunt. Today was gonna be a long day.

Kakashi stared at his students for what felt like hours, but was probably closer to half a minute. Finally finding it within himself to speak, he let loose their punishment. "For turning up later than me, I want the three of you on the training grounds, running laps. First one to fall from exhaustion buys…" A quick glance at the position of the sun, "a late lunch. Now get going."

The three of the younger generation straightened to attention, the leapt into action. Watching them as they disappeared into the distance, Kakashi felt tears run from his visible eye. "My three best excuses!" he whimpered. He seemed to go into shock as he further realised, "Worse, I can't tell if their lying or not!"

End