Teach Me

A Girl’s Gotta Make a Living…

Sakura yawned and rubbed her eyes as she made her way to training the next day. It was rather late in the day, really, but she’d been up all night with Ino drinking and dancing. The drinking and dancing every night of the week would definitely need to stop soon, or she’d get killed not from lack of skill, but from lack of sleep. Sakura mused disappointedly that the sex would probably have to go too, at least when she didn’t have a day off the next day. Pity that, really.

She hadn’t seen either of the men from the night before last, but she wasn’t really all that concerned about it. It’s not like any of them had made any kind of solid commitment to each other, and they had their own lives and duties to deal with. Sakura was a bit curious about what had happened after they left her place, but she’d just drag it out of Kiba next time they went out together. There would definitely be a next time too.

Sakura glanced around the training field they now met in and spotted only Sasuke, sitting under a tree reading a scroll. Sighed and shrugging, she wandered across the clearing to wait with him. “Morning,” she murmured, as he glanced up at her approach.

“Mm,” he murmured back. “You look tired. Out playing again?” he asked, letting the scroll tumble to his lap, a small smile on his lips.

“Yeah, with Ino. You wouldn’t believe the energy of that woman,” Sakura muttered, sliding to the ground and then laying back in the grass. “She can dance for hours! Drunk too!”

He snorted, “You sure that’s all that happened?”

She turned her head to look at him curiously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sasuke shrugged. “After what happened the night before last, I assumed perhaps you were becoming a bit more…liberal as far as partners went.”

Her eye twitched a little at that. Was he referring to her dancing with Ino at the club or did he know about Kakashi and Kiba? Either way he was being a little snotty about it. Of course maybe he was just a little sore that she hadn’t taken him up on his offer for more in their relationship. “You’re just jealous it wasn’t you I took home that night,” she murmured lazily.

“Perhaps,” he admitted with a shrug. “Just who was it anyway?” he asked after a few moments of silence.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said grinning at him. “And trust me, I didn’t sleep alone that night Sasuke-kun.”

Sakura turned over on her belly and hummed softly, as if musing over something important. “Could it have been Naruto?” She shook her head. “Of course not, he went home with Hinata and hopefully did bad things to her.” She glanced at him. “Ino disappeared earlier in the night, so that just left you, Kiba and…good morning Kakashi!” she called happily, just as Sasuke was starting to show a little interest in her musings.

Both nins looked up into the tree at Sasuke’s back and saw the older man grinning down at them. “Morning Sakura. Have a nice day off yesterday, you two?” he murmured, jumping down.

Sasuke grunted and shrugged. Sakura smiled and nodded. “I went shopping, with Ino, and then of course Ino took me out for drinks last night. She thought we needed a little ‘girl talk time’. You know how it is, don’t you Kakashi?”

“I’m sure she was very interested in whatever you had to catch up on,” he murmured, eyebrow rising.

“Riveted,” Sakura sighed. “So how did your day off go?” she asked, subtly prying for anything she could get out of him. She watched as he slid to the ground and, with a burst of glee, noticed at faint twitch in his visible eye. “You look a little stiff, Kakashi, and sore.”

“Vaguely,” he murmured. “The day went as planned I suppose, though was a bit more strenuous than I’d thought it would be. I think I really am getting old.”

Sakura remembered Kiba calling Kakashi ‘old man’ several times the other night, but she also remembered just what that ‘old man’ could still do. “I really doubt that Kakashi. I’ve seen you in action. There’s nothing old about you, I promise. I’d be willing to heal your aches though, if you really are feeling that stiff today. It’s no fun to spar with you when you’re not at your best.” She was being honest there at least. Kakashi was good wounded, but in top health, he was something to behold.

“Solves that issue,” Sasuke muttered, mostly to himself. “I can’t believe you actually went home with him the other night and did anything that actually made our beloved sensei sore,” he growled, looking at her as she were a stranger.

“Oh it wasn’t me,” Sakura said shaking her head. “I didn’t sleep with anyone yesterday or last night. No, it had to have been someone else, right Sensei?” she said beaming at the silver-haired man, who rolled his visible eye and sighed. “Oh, hello there Kiba,” she exclaimed suddenly.

Kiba wandered into the clearing eyeing the oddly cheerful kunoichi speculatively. “What’s got her so excited today?” he mumbled sleepily. “I heard you went out with Ino last night. How can you be so energetic after that? Ino wears me out.”

“She’s teasing Kakashi about going home with a mysterious someone yesterday,” Sasuke sighed in boredom.

“Oh yeah, that reminds me,” Kiba murmured. “I think I left my favorite mesh shirt at your place Kakashi.”

“You did. I washed it and put it in my mailbox for you to pick up whenever,” Kakashi said with a shrug, pulling out a book and sliding down next to Sasuke with a tiny wince. Sasuke blinked and then sighed, picking up his scroll and shaking his head.

“So what brings you out here?” Sakura asked Kiba, trotting up to him happily. His grin made her heart flutter slightly as she came to a stop a foot from him. “Isn’t this your day off?”

“Yep, but Tsunade grabbed me on my way out to do a little training and asked me to send you her way,” Kiba said with a shrug. “Since seeing my favorite kunoichi is no real hardship, why say no?”

“Plus you couldn’t resist seeing him, could you?” she asked flicking her gaze to the lounging copy-nin a few yards away.

“That too,” he admitted with a grin. “So anyway you are supposed to head to her office right away. She said it was important. Not like mission important, but important.”

She frowned and shrugged. “Maybe there’s a tough patient or something she wants help with. I guess I’ll head over there then. Thanks for the message Kiba.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “Tell the guys for me?” When he nodded, she smiled and then disappeared in a puff of pink petals.

***
“ANBU?” Sakura repeated in surprise. “You want me to join ANBU?”

Tsunade leaned back against the front of her desk, arm folded, nodding “Yes I do. There are precious few kunoichi in the village and those we have aren’t all up to ANBU caliber. You are and they need your skills and those you’re going to learn. I don’t want to make this an order, but I strongly suggest you accept the position.”

Sakura swallowed hard. Sure she’d applied for the elite shinobi force, but actually being accepted was something of a shock. “Well I suppose that’s that then,” she murmured. “When do I start my assignments?”

“Now,” Tsunade murmured, “By learning everything you can from these books and practical application of the techniques. I won’t lie when I say that a kunoichi’s life as an ANBU is a bit different from that of a male shinobi. Your training will have a few extras tacked on that you may not like much.”

Sakura wasn’t stupid and didn’t even need to see the titles of the books to know what Tsunade was referring too. A kunoichi used her body as a weapon, just like any man did, but she went one step further. One of Anko’s favorite quips, though always said a little bitterly, was ‘you’d be surprised what a man will tell your lips are around his cock’. Of course that only applied to very stupid, weak men, but often they were the ones that powerful men relied upon to get their dirty work done. The seduction method didn’t work on more powerful men, which is why Anko’s second favorite saying was ‘you’d be surprised what a man will tell you when your kunai is shoved up his…’.

“Sakura?” Tsunade asked quietly. “Can you do this?”

“Yeah,” she replied just as quietly. She took the stack of books and sighed at what they meant. Sadly kunoichi were sometimes little more than highly trained whores, if that’s what they got really good at. She didn’t want that for herself, but could at least take comfort in the fact that she would also be known for her immense strength and medical skills. Few rivaled her genjutsu skills, and her taijutsu and ninjutsu couldn’t be mocked. This was just one more field she knew she’d master, whether she really wanted to or not.

“I’d pick a couple of people, whom you trust implicitly, to study with,” Tsunade suggested, turning and walking to her desk. “Your first mission will be at least a month from now, if not longer. I’ll make sure your ready before I send you off. Don’t expect me to go easy on you either. You might be my student, but first and foremost you’re a weapon that must be crafted with dead precision.” She watched Sakura nod and then stare at her pile of books for a moment. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Sakura said again. “I’m okay. I knew this would come someday, especially when I applied for ANBU. It’s my duty as a kunoichi to develop all of my available weapons. I won’t fail you.”

***
Sakura sat across from Kiba in her favorite restaurant, not three hours after her meeting with Tsunade, wondering why she wasn’t a little happier about the promotion she’d just received. ANBU was huge! The pay was fantastic, the training leaps and bounds above anything else, the freedom extraordinary…yet the price was so very high. She’d never really be able to discuss her missions with other people, even when asking for advice, most of the missions would be of the unpleasant variety where someone was guaranteed to die, and the span of her life had very likely just been shortened dramatically.

To top it all off, a family wasn’t something in her foreseeable future now. No civilian would marry an ANBU. The stress was too high and they’d likely be a widow or widower within a few years. Few ninja would marry her, as both would be too busy to develop any sort of relationship. Even if their schedules were compatible, their skill levels might not be. Only a rare man would marry a woman who could kick his ass from here to eternity.

Sakura sighed and let her head fall forward, intending to hit the table, but only making it as far as the large stack of wrapped books instead. She raised her head and sneered at them. “All of this. I have to read and then practice all of this,” she growled, waving to the stack.

Kiba shrugged over his drink and smiled. “That’s no different than usual. You study all of the time; you always have. What’s the worst thing they could teach you? How to take apart a shinobi from the inside out? They’re just medical books from Tsunade anyway, right?”

“Not,” she muttered. “Here are some titles to give you a little clue. ‘Blow Him Away’, ‘The Art of Force and Surrender’, ‘Sex for Shinobi Dummies’…need I continue?” she asked after rattling off several others.

“The 5th Hokage of the Leaf gave you books on sex? Trust me, you might have been a virgin about three dates ago, but you don’t exactly suck in that area. What do you need all of that shit for?” Kiba asked poking at the pile. “Can’t you just learn as you go?”

“I need to know about everything that could arise on a mission of that sort so I’m prepared and can pull off the intended disguise,” she growled. “It’s my job and I have to keep bringing in those paychecks.”

“I never get missions like that,” he muttered. “Why don’t I get missions like that?”

“And I shouldn’t even know that you are in with that crowd. I only know because your partner got wounded and you got poisoned,” she murmured, knowing he hadn’t really meant to say anything secret out loud, at least not in a way she’d understand.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he hedged, a flush appearing at his slip.

“You have called me a goddess on two occasions Kiba and no one else ever has uttered something similar,” she sighed. Except for when Naruto called her something similar to devil’s spawn right after she’d sent him through a few trees. “I know it was you. Plus it tasted like you and felt like you. I know who your partner was too, because…well, it’s rather obvious when healing him.”

Kiba grinned. “Yeah and he told me all about it later. He didn’t say anything directly, but he hinted that if Kakashi hadn’t warned you off, my friend’s healing would have been a little more than just a healing session.”

“Have you ever felt them?” she asked, blushing a little. “It’s like a vibrator. They literally make my chakra hum…his too. I’ll bet that’s amazing during sex,” she mused, mostly to herself, though Kiba snickered anyway.

“You know,” Kiba teased. “He is kind of into you. You might not be out of line asking for his help on some of that stuff. Surely some of it goes into nins with hosting abilities and how it’ll affect their bodies. Too bad Naruto’s not on the market, because he’d definitely help you out in that department.”

Sakura hummed softly in thought and waited until the waiter had come with their food and left before really responding. “I suppose you’re right about that. I mean the bug factor could be really freaky once things get going and, certainly, there have to be equally alarming abilities that I’ll run into out in the field.” She twirled a bit of pasta onto her fork and then flicked her gaze up at him. “Does it bother you at all?”

“Me? Why would it? Shino’s a cool guy. There are a few guys I’d think you’d lost your mind going after, like Gai, but Shino is a nice person and very discrete,” Kiba said with a shrug. He started cutting his steak, shrugging a little. “It’s cool with me.”

“But…what about the thing going on with us?” she asked hesitantly. “I mean we’re not dating, but we’re on a date and we’ve been fooling around and all….”

He paused in chewing and regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. “I suppose that’s true isn’t it?” He let his fork droop for a moment, considering the idea, before shrugging and stabbing another piece of meat. “We both know it’s not serious at the moment, so let’s just keep it that way. If we were into exclusivity, Kakashi wouldn’t have happened, right?”

“Yeah I guess so,” she murmured, feeling a little relieved. Some of her worry had come from wondering whether or not Kiba would get territorial and she’d only be able to choose from a small selection of men; namely him. It wasn’t that she didn’t want a serious relationship. Her desire for a family negated that, but this was a REALLY bad time to jump into a relationship. The whole ‘read this stack of books and practice, practice, practice’ issue would have been a problem with most men.

“So speaking of Kakashi, how did that go?” she asked with a teasing grin. “He was wincing ever so slightly today.”

“Yeah, that’s my fault,” Kiba said with a sigh, not with the grin of satisfaction she’d expected.

“You seem a little put out by the fact that you went home with Kakashi and he developed a limp,” Sakura murmured in surprise.

Kiba flushed and glanced around to check for eavesdroppers. “It’s just that, everything was going well, right? We ended up at his place and we decided to shower after our night out. No offense, but the day after smell isn’t conductive to setting any kind of heated mood.” She waved off the apology, knowing very well what he meant. “Anyway, we’re in the shower and we started kissing and then groping, the usual thing. It all went south when I went down on him though,” he growled. “I mean I’m not great at it, but I do okay. He was into it enough that he didn’t quite expect me to stick my finger up…well anywhere. Next thing I know we’re sprawled on the shower floor and he has a nasty bruise from hitting the side of the tub on the way down.”

Sakura tried to put on her supportive, understanding friend face. She really did. Instead she very nearly sucked a noodle into her sinuses in her attempt to stifle the laugh that popped out. Snorting and hiccupping, she asked, “So two of the most graceful and sexually accomplished men in the village end up falling down in the shower during a mediocre blowjob…is that how it went? Oh Kiba, never tell that story to anyone ever again,” she advised, giggling at his dark look.

“Yeah, yeah. You think it’s funny, but just wait until you’re in a similar situation. Killed the whole mood,” Kiba said with a disappointed sigh.

“So nothing happened after that?” she asked.

“Not really. We tried, but the bruise wasn’t really in the best of locations considering what we had planned,” Kiba said a little mournfully. “I almost called you to come over and heal it, but we finally gave up and setting for making out for a while and jacking each other off.” The waiter, who’d come to check on them, turned around abruptly and went back the opposite direction, wishing he had better timing, while Kiba and Sakura just chuckled at each other.

“So is that it for you and Kakashi then?” she asked wiping the sauce off her plate with a chunk of bread. “I mean you could try again, right?” She eyed him curiously as she bit into the bread, hoping this is where he’d invite her to another night of fun with their silver haired friend.

“Probably,” he sighed. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s definitely a good-looking man and good at what he does, but it wasn’t as cool being with just him. Maybe I’d join in a group thing with him again though. We’ll see I guess.” He caught her hopeful look and chuckled. “Try to contain your disappointment there love. If you wanted us to come over again, you just have to ask.”

“I’d rather you ask me,” she said with a slight blush.

He laughed and stood. “Tell you what. Let me pay for lunch and then we’ll head back to my place and get cracking on one or two of those books.” She smiled and nodded, jumping up to join him. Who was going to turn down a study session offer like that?


AN: So it's been awhile on this. There's a reason for that, aside from muse on vacation. The next chapter gets into some grittier stuff, like rape, and I'm not sure that people will care for that. I'm not sure what I should do. I have the next two chapters more or less done, but I'm not entirely happy with them. My poor beta just finished Duty too, so I hate to spring more on the darling. I'd appreciate some suggestions on how to handle this delicate situation. I don't want to take it out, since it would scrap two whole chapters and leave me hanging, but I don't want to upset people either. Gah!