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Chapter Text

The Fourth Great Ninja War is declared because of Naruto Uzumaki.

Sakura's getting out of school, her brand new, shiny hitai-ate secured on her forehead when she spots him on the swing. She feels a pang of pity. It's his third time passing the exams - twice done preemptively - and he still hasn't succeeded. She doesn't stop. 

Her mom must've cooked her katsudon. Maybe her dad even got her the pricy ninja set she was saving for... She's giddy. The air is crisp, life is perfect, a slight summer breeze ruffles her long hair. 

She hears hushed voices. Sakura looks back and notices Mizuki crouching in front of Naruto. The boy looks uneasy.
He catches Sakura's gaze.

She looks away.

There is a twenty five minutes leisure walk to her home. 

She never makes it there.

There's a thunderous roar, a blood curdling chakra blast that pushes her to the ground, debris flying everywhere. 

Next morning she's shipped off to war.

Chapter Text

"Kid, you're making everyone uncomfortable"

Sakura nods, chin trembling, stifles her sobs. Tears keep silently streaming. He sighs.

"Look at me"

She stubbornly keeps looking at the desk.

"Look at me", he insists.

She does. There's nothing comforting here, no warmth nor pity. She's twelve, she's got a headband thus she's his equal. 

He grabs her hand - not unkindly, though his gesture isn't gentle either - and guides it to a small, empty rectangle drawn on the paper. He pushes her hand until she manages to do it on her own, habit taking over through tears blurring her vision. 

She signs away ten years of her life to Konoha. 

He stamps a bold red leaf symbol on her signature and the collision of the seal with the paper sounds like a death sentence. 

The one behind her shoves aside as he moves forward to get his own assignment. The clerk sends her a pointed look and she leaves. 

It's not that they're doing it on purpose, it's just that they've got a war on their hands and no time for feeble children.

An experienced genin - three heads taller than her and definitely older - raises his hand and grabs everyone's attention :

"Those of you who've signed their contract, follow me : we'll get you your uniforms"

A large crowd gathers and follows him outside. Most of them look grave - a couple are laughing. One raise his hand, walking backward, and the others cheer :

"And for the second time in twelve years, guess whose house the Kyubi crushed ?"

Kyubi.

Young, fresh shinobis flinch. Olders don't even turn to look. Sakura's eyes dry. Those around the teen clap and laugh as he spins like a praised artist, basking in the attention. 

"You're one lucky fucker, you know that ?"

"Get hit twice but never home"

The teen's smile broaden.

"Luckiest man in Konoha", he says. "My pops may have not survived the last war, but I sure as hell did and will keep doing !"

They're deep in the shinobis district, on the outskirts of the city. Close to nothing had been damaged here.

They wait outside barracks she's never seen until the previous group finish. Everyone's scattered in groups or alone. Sakura stands aside and keeps looking up at the bright, burning sun to keep the tears from falling again. There are a couple others crying. The children - shinobis - sob quietly. They're young, like her. She recognizes most of them from school, but none of them are from her class. She shrinks on herself, twig like arms wrapped around bony shoulders to keep her warm. 

They trickle inside and get the standard leaf shinobi uniform, dark green and full of pockets. She's tall for her age but small for shinobi standards. She prays they won't have anything her size and send her home. Tears well up in her eyes.

The man in charge of her - temporarily - moves piles of uniform asides before he find hers. They even have infant ones.

She's sent on her merry way with three change of clothes and a pack full of leaf standard shinobi gear : 12 kunais, 6 shurikens, one block of eight meters wire, bandages, whetstone, foil blanket, sleeping bag, metal bowl, cutlery, an empty water jug. 

She sees her life in that small, small box, and the early grave it leads to. 

Suddenly her legs are wobbly : she crouches, holding the pack close to her chest, long hair a curtain around her face. Genin behind curse as they nearly trip on her. 

Sakura can't hear them. There's a buzz in her ear like a thundering wind, a pounding in her chest that makes it hard to feel anything else. Her green eyes are wide open, blood vessels burst here and there, her teeth barred as though she's an animal showing teeth. 

She has a growing realization that should she pass Konoha's gates, she'll die out here. 

Chapter Text

Sakura’s backpack is heavy with her food rations.

Older people – the experience genins – don’t look as if they’re gonna fall over like her. She doesn’t have enough money for a seal – any kind of seal – that would lighten the weight she’s carrying.

The only things she owns are the seven ryo left from lunch yesterday and the clothes she’d been wearing.

Yesterday. It feels like another life entirely.

She threw her qipao half an hour ago because she didn’t have enough space to take it.

She stands at the Genin Corpse barracks with a bunch of other lost looking genins. She saw a couple of civilians on her way and couldn’t handle looking at them more than for a second.

“Genins assigned to Iwa, come forward”

They clumsily assemble in front of a rough looking man. His frown deepen, and with it the scar at the corner of his lip.

“Make five columns. Not four, dumbass, I said five. You, move to the left. Tall girl with the stupid look on her face, yes you, move two steps forward… I said five fucking columns” They shuffle. “Took you long enough. What the hell do they even teach you if you can’t make proper rows ? Tallest at the front”

They clumsily move back and forth and manage a square.

Sakura is at the front, the only girl in a line of boys, and she shrinks on herself when the Chuunin stops in front of her.

"What do you think you are ? An ostrich ? Stand straight"

She does. The back of her neck is burning. She sends him a nasty glare when she's sure he can't see her.

He walks past her, scowling as though it's his default expression.

"Did you dress yourself with your eyes closed ?"

"What the hell are those shoes ? Has anybody told you you're going to war ?"

"Where the fuck is your backpack ?"

She hears the barked orders to others and scramble to make herself more presentable. She adds another hair tie to her ponytaul, make sure her shoes are properly laced and that everything on her is the standard uniform and nothing personnal. 

The chuunin is fuming as he finishes his third walk among their ranks. 

He's towering over them, hands clasped behind his back, as straight as a bow.

"You're one shitty batch of soldiers"

The insult stings but because it's not directed at heralone, Sakura takes it easily. She's only been an official shinobi for a couple of hours, but already she feels the discrepancy between the Academy and the Military ranks. It feels like she's been playing at being a shinobi for six years and that now she's been thrown without warning in the cold, unforgiving waters of real life.

If she doesn't swim, she'll drown.

"If it were up to me I'd break you all one by one until you're all good Konoha soldiers, only 'yes sir' and 'I will do better sir'. But as it is, we're at war". He smiles, and there's something omnious in the way his lips stretch over yellow teeth. A couple are missing. "Stand in line, don't move until you're called and then - only then - you can come in my office to get your assignment"

The sun's burning on her neck. Sweat rolls behind her left ear, and she fights the urge to scratch. Her legs are shaking. Her backpack seems full of stones. She doesn't dare putting it down. She looks at her fellow Genins. She still hasn't seen anybody she's used to see on a daily basis. Automatically her history classes kick in and she's considering the last three shinobis wars, how they started and on how many fronts and what it could mean for her. They're at war with Iwa, but an open war with another shinobi village means the other three will grow restless and try to take advantage of the situation : for all she knows, Konoha shinobis could soon be deployed against Suna or Kumo. Maybe that's where Sasuke and Ino will be sent. Maybe that's where they already are. 

She imagines them standing next to her, grave and focused, but it doesn't bring her any comfort. 

Ino and her hadn't been friends in years. Sasuke considers her a nuisance. She's too exhausted to feel sorry about her lack of friends, too nervous to give them much of a thought.

She's going to war, the kind of places where legends of the Shinobi world are forged. 

The fifth Hokage made a name for himself there, as did the fourth and third before him. As nations crumbles and thousands die, beacons of hope rise under which people rally.

Sakura know the cold, hard facts about the wars, the 35,732 killed, the 41,129 maimed, the 9,346 MIA among Konoha Shinobis not even a decade and a half ago. She knows that 76,79% of these numbers are Genins. She's read the history books, read the rare ninjas testimonies and the frightening civilians ones. She knows what happens in wars.

She know what shinobis are capable of. 

They terrify her, and that's why she had to become one of them.

"Haruno Sakura"

Her muscles go stiff. The Chunin barks at her and she runs, blood pulsing in her ears. 

He's reading her school report and gestures for her to come in. She does so quietly, though she's slightly preening. Her school report is flawless : after all, she's kunoichi of her year. 

The chuunin's face is carefully blank as he sets her file down. 

"Any specialty ?"

"Specialty ?"

" 'Yes sir', 'No sir' ", he corrects her

"Sir, I don't know what these are"

He huffs impatiently. 

"Genjutsu, Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, you get the idea"

She frowns. She finished the academy yesterday. Isn't that what a Jonin sensei should teach her ? 

"No"

" 'No sir' "

He looks more and more pissed. 

"No sir", she repeats

"Any special ability ?"

Does he means kekkei genkai ? She's a civilian. It's written on her file. At the same time, she wonders if it means something else but doesn't dare asking. She's suddenly aware of a discrepancy between her theoric knowledge - the fact that she knows more than any other genin what war entails - and her lack of practical skills. 

There's a bulge in her throat, something that makes it hard to breathe. 

"No sir"

"Anything that you're better at than your peers ?"

"I'm very good at geopgraphy"

He pauses. She rushes to add : 

"And history. I remember most things just after hearing them once"

The Chuunin's face carefully blank.

"Geography", he repeats slowly

"Yes sir"

A bird chirp happily outside. She hears the quiet murmur of conversation among the Genin in position outside. She shuffles on her feet, wants to look away but doesn't. 

"Why did you want to become a shinobi ? Did your parents force you ?"

Her fists clench. Something flares in her chest. She doesn't like the way he said it, as though her parents are power hungry civilians who'd do anything to get an in in the shinobi world.

"My parents are- were farmers. They didn't want me to..."

She swallows. 

"They didn't want you to what ?"

"I don't have siblings. I would've become a farmer. I can't"

She looks him straight in the eye. 

There's a slight tremor to her hands that she doesn't try to hide. He's a shinobi, he'll notice anyway. 

"It is a shallow reason to become a shinobi"

"Is it ?", she rebukes. "You're a shinobi, sir. You better than I know what your kind is capable of"

He looks at her for a while.

"You're scared of shinobis"

She's terrified of being a farmer in a world of shinobis. 

"Yes sir"

He stays quiet for a moment then stamps a paper he hands her.

"Here's your assignment"

She grabs it but he doesn't let it go.

"I hope for you your fear will prove enough to keep you alive, Genin, and that you won't get crushed by it"

One hour and forty six minutes later, Sakura and the division she's been assigned to leave Konoha. 

Chapter Text

"Yesterday evening at exactly 5:49, Iwagakure declared war on us by attacking our Jinchuuriki. Thankfully our Lord Hokage managed to stop the situation before it escalated. Except for the initial destructive blast, most of the village is intact"

Pictures of the emergency zones full of screaming people flash before Sakura's eyelids.

"A significant amount of our army is already at the border performing drills. There have been skirmishes and clashes between our and the ennemy's special units but the war is yet to start. Five other squads such as yours have already left and will keep on leaving for the front throughout the day"

They're seventeen shinobis, four of which are Genins, and the reality of what's happening is like a slap. Throughout all morning there's been a build up in her chest, a dreadful anticipation of what is inevitably coming, and now she really, truly can't go back. Even if she wanted to, there's nobody for her to go back to.

And even if she did, she'd be executed for deserting.

"Our job is simple : we'll work as a unit and get to the border as quickly as possible. Once there, we'll be reassigned to divisions according to our specialties. All fresh Genins will be assigned to logistics for the time being"

Sakura's knees are shaking but it's hidden under her large pants.

"For those of you that won't come back..."

The Chuunin's gaze sweep over them, seemingly boring on Sakura a moment longer than anybody else.

"... know that your sacrifices won't be in vain"

What kind of sacrifice would she make, her whose foot is already in a grave ?

*
She's expendable.

She knows it because she's a shinobi and they make her catch game, cook the food and dig two large holes for the sanitaries. There are three other genins tasked with the exact same job and she's not even the best. They clean the dirty dishes in a river and her back hurts from bending. Her hands are red and raw. She used to wear gloves at home whenever she cleaned. She hates the way dirty food sinks beneath her nails, and she hates that she's so conscious about it.

The Genins barely talk to each other for the first week, and even then it's only related to their jobs. All of their lives have been flipped upside down : the bright prospects they had are smoke scattered in the wind. There's no Jonin sensei, no teammates that'll be like their second family, nobody to take them under their wings and make sure they don't die on their first mission outside of Konoha.

She looks around, slightly wide eyed, like a deer catching your gaze right before you slit his throat. Before today, she'd never seen so many Chuunins gathered at the same place at the same time. She has never even seen a Jonin.

The Chuunins don't acknowledge them. They make jokes at their dumb faces, yes, and they say thank you for the food, but it doesn't go further. Most of them are old enough to have experienced the last war. They laugh and it seems like nothing bad's going to happen. Maybe it won't, for them, because they have the skills to protect themselves.

Sakura is witnessing history, a conflict that could break their nation. She's not even a stain at the bottom of the page.

She slurps her broth as quietly as she can.

"I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty scared when I learned I was drafted to war", Ikumo, one of the Genins, chuckles nervously. "But if this is war for us..."

He gestures in a way that encompasses the whole camp.

"Then it's not too bad"

Sakura pauses. The other Genins agree quietly. Tension leave their shoulders. They exchange looks, connected in a way that Sakura can't take part in.

None of them have read the history books, memorized unwillingly the excruciating, gruesome, unsavoury details about what happened in the last shinobi war. They haven't had nightmares about the kind shinobi who offered them a flower and imagined him murdering her one day with the same smile on his lips. They're not aware of the shinobis who snap and murder civilians in broad day light.

They don't understand.

They're gonna get killed for their ignorance.

"Oh it is bad"

Sakura startles and looks up from her bowl. A shinobi just slipped besides Ikumo on the log, his arm carelessly thrown around the boy's shoulders. He smiles. The light catches on his forehead protector, making it look like a gleaming piece of metal with no insignia. There's a moon crescent scar at the corner of his eye. Sakura doesn't remember seeing him among the other Chuunins.

"See", he says. "Little shinobis like you don't realize that they're just one bad encounter away from death"

The Chuunin's fingers gently brush Ikumo's hair, and he looks at the sky as he snaps the boy's neck.

Chapter Text

Sakura's eyes widen.

Ikumo's body crumple to the floor.

She let go off her bowl. The ennemy shinobi, in a lazy display of grace, kicks a genin away. 

The boy bend in two, air pushed out of his lungs, spittle flying from his mouth, a deflated balloon that soar and dies, chest caved in, before he even hits a tree.

Her broth splatters her ankles. 

The Chuunin's apathetic eyes bore into her.

Her ass hits the floor as she falls off her log.

He takes a step forward, casually grab a third genin's collar, hurls her away dissmissively. The genin is a blur as she flies through the camp.

Sakura's knees knock against each other. She crawls away, nails digging the rough soil, gaze never leaving the stalking shinobi's. Her heart throb so hard she feels it in her throat. Her weapons are in her backpack. All of her kunais and shurikens and ninja wire are in her backpack. 

Suddenly, a Konoha shinobi drops from the trees right between her and the enemy. 

There's clash of steel on steel on flesh. Sakura scampers off, nearly falling as she rises, and run as far as she can.

Everywhere is chaos. 

People are fighting on the ground, above their heads, on trees trunk. Kunais fly everywhere. One graze her shoulder as she ducks, trying to make a smaller target out of herself. A shinobi uses the camp's fire as a fuel for a fire blast that take everyone around him down. People scream. The smell hit her nose and she can taste burned flesh on her tongue. She doesn't know if he's ennemy or not. She can't stop to check.

Sakura skids on her knees as she arrives at the spot where she left her backpack, right next to her unrolled sleeping bag. The soft fabric wraps around her ankles and she kicks it away, shaking hands scrambling three times with the zip before she manages to open it. She's frantically searching, shoving clothes and rations aside, hands shaking so much she can barely hold the bag in place.

Branches crack. Weapons swoosh around her. Footsteps echo like drums.

Sakura is acutely aware of her inadequacy, how inconsequential she is, how exposed is back and how easy it would be to stab her at the base of her skull.

She finds her pouch, pause in relief, then scrambles to pull out a kunai

On the blade's shiny reflection, right above her head, she spots a growing figure. 

Sakura throws herself aside, barely evading the blade that slashes the air behind her. Cut grass flies like a snow storm around her. Blood spurts from her paper thin cut on her ankle. Sakura flinches and looks over her shoulder, mouth dry, stomach cramping as though she's gonna throw up. 

A bull of a woman is towering over her, frothing at the mouth. 

Sakura freezes. 

Next blink she's shielding behind her backpack as the woman's blade swoosh towards her. It cleaves through her backpack like razor through butter. She's forced to let it go lest she loses an arm ; Sakura pushes the nearly halved backpack in the woman's face, hoping to win a couple of seconds, and ducks behind a tree. 

She yelps as a loose fire bullet explodes above her head. Blasted splinters fly everywhere. She slaps her head in case she's on fire, eyes behind in case the shinobi-

She trips on a root and falls. The sword cut cleanly through where she was a second prior. 

Sakura's brain is on overdrive : it records and categorizes and analyzes her surroundings at breakneck speed. The shinobi has overextended, had planned to finish Sakura in one clean blow, and now she's off balance, leans too far in the wrong direction. 

Sakura's still holding her kunai. 

Their eyes lock for a split second.

Blood pounding in her ears, sloppy training kicking in, Sakura lunges forward as the woman makes a risky 180° turn, screaming all the while. 

Sakura's slices her Achilles tendon right as the sword buries itself in her shoulder . 

Chapter Text

Sakura blacks out. 

One moment her shoulder blade shatters, the next she's on the ground, getting kicked in the mouth. Blood fills her throat. Something falls behind her tongue. The world is a swirl of black then white, colors fading then suddenly popping agressively like a throbbing heart. She curls on herself, head hidden behind her arms. 

She jolts awake when her left hand - the one covering the exposed part of her face - breaks under the shinobi's stomping shoe. The woman use her face as a prop up and tear off her sword, cruelly twisting it in the process. 

Sakura screams.

The woman raise her sword. She's towering over Sakura, her large face hiding the sun. 

She's already moving the blade down when her eyes widen.

Sakura jerks as the sword buries itself in her throat and hit the ground beneath.

Above, the ennemy shinobi's frozen. 

Her fingers creep to her throat. Her eyes are bulging, so prominent it looks like they're gonna pop and roll to the floor. A scarlet line appear on the skin beneath her fingers. The shinobi's cut head falls off right next to Sakura's. Sakura blinks as she's showered in blood, mouth parted from the end of her shout letting it mix with her own.

The headless body collapses right on top of her, a heavy weight that forces the air out of her lungs. 

Blood's hammering in Sakura's ears. Veins are pulsing so hard on her forehead they look about to burst. She's a beat off as she follows the body's fall, and she can't past a certain point because of the sword in her throat. Increasing panic turned hysteria rise in her as she tries to look down, deepening the wound her wound. 

The only thing that matters is the weight on her chest

Sakura's eyes roll to the back of her skull and she collapses. 

Chapter Text

Among the 20 shinobis in Sakura’s division, three died.

All of them were Genins.

One was gravely injured.

Again, only a Genin. 

When Sakura woke up, she was still fighting. She jerked and screamed and hit even though her vision was blurry and her mind foggy. They’d been forced to sedate her. Next time she came back to her senses, they’d cuffed her to the bed.

“I heard your division suffered some losses, albeit acceptable”, smiled the nurse who’d freed her. “You’re lucky you survived considering your injuries”

One word in five letters that means nothing. 

It wasn’t luck. She’d sat first right where Ikumo had been before she felt the urge to pee. Once she’d came back, the other Genins had already started eating. She’d resented them for not waiting. It was not polite. 

Sakura waits until the nurse leaves her to bury her head in her pillow and scream her throat raw. She hears a couple other bed ridden shinobis jerk in surprise at the sound, though she can’t see them behind the curtains. None of them come to ask what’s the matter.

That night, she cries herself to sleep.

Or at least she tries.

Unsurprisingly, she fails.

*

She’s been out of it for a week. 

They gave her sleeping pills for the night and the nurse taught her how to change her bandages before sending her on her merry way. War doesn’t stop, especially not for a Genin who’s been stabbed in the throat.

She lost two teeth, in the back. She comfort herself with the fact that at least nobody will notice that. 

She looks pitiful : dark yellow bruises on the face, split lip, swollen eye, hunched shoulders to avoid putting strain on her painful shoulder, a thick, blotch like scar on her throat, a hand in a cast. 

They’ve been generous enough, though. Sakura still has a job to accomplish, and nothing short of death will take her off her shinobi duties.

She knocks at 8 sharp on her supervisor’s door the eight day.

“Come in”

The man stays seated when she has trouble opening the door and manoeuvring herself inside. 

“Genin Haruno Sakura, sir. I was injured and couldn’t come earlier to get my assignment”, she croaks.

Her throat hurts. She resists the urge to massage it.  

He browses through his files.

“Ah yes”, he says. “You’re the lucky Genin who survived the ambush”

Lucky. She swallows, and it hurts more.

“You’ve been out of it for too long. We’ve already distributed the measly jobs to the batch that came before and after you”

Sakura straightens.

“There must be something left for me”, she rasps quickly. “A job in the kitchens or cleaning- or-”

Not war. She’s not ready. Please not war. 

The man’s eyes narrow.

“You do realize”, he says, deadly calm. “That your injuries are of your own doing”

“Sir, I only graduated-”

He makes a sharp gesture and Sakura shuts up. 

“The squad who attacked you was barely made of high Genins. The Chuunins in your division breezed through them” The man with the crescent scar on his cheekbone flash through Sakura’s mind. “Had you been able to last more than ten seconds, you wouldn’t be in this condition today”

Sakura takes it like a punch to the gut, without a sound or a gesture. The civilian part of her wants to scream it’s not fair. The shinobi, though, survived a sword in the throat. 

“Yes sir”

The man scrutinizes her for a few more seconds, lips pursed. 

He goes back to the files on his desk.

“There’s still a cleaning job available. Bathrooms and the likes, daily, done for eight. You’ll get to the kitchens at 12 sharp each day and offer your help if needs be. Don’t even consider not going, because I’ll know, and trust me, you don’t what will happen then”

“Yes sir”

He swipes across the desk the document Sakura needs to sign with all of her duties dutifully written. There’s a sum written at the bottom left corner, and she suddenly remembered that being a shinobi is a well paid job - though not when you’re a cleaner. 

“I would suggest, Genin Haruno, that you use your free time wisely if you wish to survive this war”

Chapter Text

She’s a coward. 

Before her first sparring match in the Academy, Sakura threw up in the bathroom. The collar of her shirt was still hemmed with puke when she got beaten in front of all of her classmates. Her knees were shaking so much she could barely stand.

When she got home that night, she didn’t tell her parents how badly she’d done. If she had, she knew how much they would have worried and considered taking her out of the shinobi program. 

Sakura is scared of fighting, but she’s more scared of not being able to fight back. 

That’s why she still went to the Academy the following day, and the day after, and the weeks after, and for the entirety of school Sakura never missed a spar though she always, always got beaten. 

It’s because she’s a coward that she’s a shinobi. 

Tonight, the barracks are filled to the brim with snoring Genins. 

When she arrived, a couple had gathered around her and asked her what happened. 

She’d tried to smile and found out she couldn’t.

There’d been a lot of boys. In the back of her mind, she felt she should’ve been bothered about looking so ugly in the presence of the opposite sex but didn’t have the strength to care.

At least there hadn’t been Sasuke-kun. 

Sasuke-kun, she’d mused. She hadn’t thought of him in days. She wondered how he was faring in this war. Knowing him, he was probably already making a name for himself. 

“We were ambushed”, she’d croaked pitifully.

She hated herself for how weak she sounded.

There’d been a collective ‘ah’ among the Genins. 

“So you’re the one who survived. You must’ve put up one hell of a fight considering only the Chuunins managed to fight back”

She felt uneasy at the implication that she had put up a fight, any kind of fight, and the way they looked at her - with sympathy and respect - made her avert her gaze.

They have her a nice bed at the back of the room, far from the door and in the quietest place possible - at least as quiet as possible in a twenty people room. 

There’d been somebody there who had been ready to fight for his spot but, after one look at her injuries, had decided to drop it, and had even patted her sympathetically on the shoulder. 

She’d winced and hid it by bending forward and scratching her knee, refusing to loose face. 

The Genins, despite leaving her alone, still brought her food when it should’ve been time for her to go to the mess hall. She still didn’t know the city’s layout. 

There’d been a nice fluttering in her chest at their gesture, and she’d forced herself to eat to appease them. Once they’d turned their back, she’d pushed the tray away. 

At 9 sharp, the lights turned off.

Sakura has been turning in her bed for hours. She waits a couple of seconds then turns again, hoping not to catch anybody’s attention - but whose would she catch ? Everyone’s sleeping soundly. 

Through the windows, she watches the moon rise high then lower. 

She turns again. 

Her eyelids are cold, but she can’t find it in her to sleep. She’s restless. 

Sakura tries to conjure images of Konoha, nice memories with her parents, how it was like when Ino and her were friends, her greatest fantasies about Sasuke-kun - but she’s too bitter for it.

Tonight she only remembers sourly that Sasuke-kun has only told her one word in six years, ‘Move’, and it had been when she’d been standing on his way to the training grounds. Tonight she only remembers how, when Ino and her had fought, all of her friends had left her too and how hurt she’d been when she realized they’d only been here because of Ino. Tonight she only remembers Naruto on his swing, how his gaze had caught her moments prior to the blood curdling roar. 

Sakura rises and grab her backpack - or what’s left of it -  surely dropped by the Chuunin who carried her to their camp - and goes out.

She sits at the barracks entrance, winces at the pain that jolts from her bruised ass to her injured shoulder. Yet she stays on the cold stairs, grabs all of her kunais and shurikens and sharpens them slowly and methodically.

The moonlight shines brightly on her. Echoes of distant laughter reach her. 

She pauses for a brief second when she gets to the only kunai with a bloodied edge. 

Then she gets back to work.

*

Sakura finishes cleaning the bathrooms at dawn. 

She wipes her brow with the back of her arm and looks behind her at the sprawling city. Red and burning orange shine over it. It’s a small place, full of shinobis and way less civilians. She knows better than to think the city’s asleep.

Her gaze slid to the far east, and she considers dropping by the hospital and begging for sleeping pills. It was good for her to have some when they were handing it, but apparently they don’t trust her to not get addicted.

She could steal them.

Sakura pauses. The layout of the hospital - or what she saw of it - appears in her mind as clear as if she were there. She’s got a fair idea of where they could be - the nurse in training always went in the same room right before she came with everybody’s pills on a tray for the night.

Bedridden shinobis - cleverer, more powerful - hidden behind white curtains spring to her mind.

Sakura bends to grab the thrash and goes to the mess hall, throwing it on the way. 

The mess just opened and, though there aren’t a lot of people, more and more trickle in. 

Tray in hand, Sakura freezes in front of the large display of tables. Flashes of her first day of school lit her mind. Ino had found her and laughed when she’d noticed how embarrassed Sakura had been before she’d dragged her to her table.

Today, though, there’s nobody to drag her anywhere.

It’s just Sakura. 

She sits in a corner, back to a wall, and eats her yogurt and fruits quickly, forcing herself to finish everything. Her eyes jump from shinobi to shinobi as they arrive from the food stalls. Each time she looks at them for too long, their gazes snap to her. 

Tension lit their frames for a split second before they flash to her headband and relax. Some don’t and give her the eye and she looks away quickly.

Once she’s done, she puts her tray atop the other dirty ones and gets out.

*

The city’s layout is fairly easy to memorize : hospital, mess hall, barracks - dormitories divided between fresh Genins and experienced ones - districts for Chuunins and Jonins, administrative headquarters, command center, assembly area, emergency zones, armory, training grounds and a couple other buildings full of shinobis, guarded by others and with no clear function displayed which means she doesn’t have enough clearance to know what they are.

Academy’s lessons drilled in her mind make her spend the morning strolling through the place, looking at every backstreet and the like until she knows it by heart. In her mind there’s a 3D map that she twists and expands with every new nook and cranny she discovers. She doesn’t need to go back : once is enough for the girl with the close to perfect memory.

“You’d do great in the Intelligence division”, Iruka-sensei used to say. 

She’s pretty sure Intelligence’s soldiers can fight. 

At eleven she’s at the mess hall again and eats well even though she’s sick of food. At twelve, she drops by the kitchen and offer help - she’s put to cleaning duties. 

At two, she’s free. 

She considers going back to the barracks and try to sleep. 

Her eyelids are heavy, now, but not enough for her to drop dead as soon as her head hit her pillow. She needs to run herself dry.

Thus, Sakura goes to the only place she observed from afar.

Dread pools in her gut as she gets to the training grounds. 

They’re not as large or as private as Konoha’s, but they do the job. Good thing is, none are private thus she doesn’t have to book any.

Sakura awkwardly walks in. Gazes snap to her, and she can’t help but hide her head in her shoulders. She feels inadequate. She doesn’t know what she’s doing here, and she feels like everybody knows it too. 

She swallows heavily and it hurts.

The perspective of not doing anything is worse than failing. 

She hides at the edge of the grounds and contemplates for a second what she should do. Her gaze darts from shinobi to shinobi, quick enough that none pick up on it. 

Some are conditioning, other practicing katas or - from what she can see hidden behind trees and bushes - trying to learn a Jutsu. 

Sakura starts with light stretches. 

Everything in her body hurts. 

She knows she’s not cleared for training - the nurse had repeated it enough - but she knows that if she stays put, she’s gonna explode. She figures that as long as she’s careful and doesn’t put any emphasis on her wounds, she can do as much as she wants. 

Once she’s done, Sakura goes through every set of katas she knows. 

It’s done far quicker than she’d like.

She pauses, looks around. What can she do ? She doesn’t like the idea of her bed in an empty room. 

Sakura does the katas a second time. A third. A fourth. 

Each time she goes slower, making the movements painstakingly harder. 

Fifth. Sixth.

At the end, Sakura’s panting, red and drenched in sweat. Her mind’s light and fuzzy. Her legs are shaking. Each step feels like her last.

It’s six, and the mess hall has barely opened.

She eats, showers.

This night, she drops on her bed like a corpse in a grave.

Chapter Text

Sakura knows how to cope. 

She listened to the same lectures as her classmates, read the same excerpts from shrink’s reports, knows how to compartmentalize and make sure none of it bleeds on her everyday life. 

Sakura can do that. In theory. 

In practice, Sakura can’t shrug off survivor’s guilt. 

She can’t sleep if she doesn’t run herself to the bone, so she grinds day after day after day until she blacks out before her head even reaches her pillow. 

She runs and trains and practices before dawn and after work and in between work and before sleeping and rises to sharpen and clean her weapons and always always has a pouch and wire a breath away from her fingers and rinse and repeat repeat repeat.  

She’s doing more harm to herself than good, but she can’t stop. 

Her brush with death ignited a spark of franticness she's not sure she can stop or wants to stop. 

When she sits at the mess hall, she focuses on her food and mentally goes over each ingredient and how beneficial they’ll be for her growth and how more her muscles will develop. 

She didn’t even know them, doesn’t remember anybody’s name except Ikumo’s, can’t shake the feeling that it should’ve been her with the chest caved in and out of breath soaring and soaring and collapsing like a rag doll. 

It should have been here, but it wasn’t. 

She needs to work harder.

The bathrooms are spotless, her superior in the kitchens - an old man who lost a hand in battle - congratulates her on her hard work.

She can do the katas backwards, start from the middle and flow through the movements seamlessly in whichever order she wishes to. 

She’s not thinking, doesn’t bother to, never stops to think, just moves and moves and-

Nobody care about her. 

“By the way, the Chuunin who brought you here took your sword with him. Said if you didn’t want it, he’d take it as a reward”

Sakura blinks.

Confusion pierce through the dullness in her eyes. 

She frowns at the nurse who finishes the check up. 

“My sword ?”

“The one that got stuck in your throat”, she mumbles absently. “Have you been training ? I told you not too, the stitches are gonna open if you keep going at it”

“Do you know where he went ? The Chuunin ?”

*

“You’re here for the sword, right ? ”

The teen has red blood hair and piercing blue eyes. He’s the boy who laughed, back in Konoha, about his crushed house. Had he gotten a promotion before they left the city ?

He clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes. 

“Here”

Sakura doesn’t take it.

It’s not a fine work - there are probably thousands exactly like this one - but it looks sturdy, good for practice. 

She bows, fists clenched on her knees.

“Thank you for saving my life, Arashi-san”

Arashi pulls back the sword. He doesn’t even look at her. 

"She stabbed you in the throat, kid" He shrugs. "I wasn't there on time. Whatever the reason you're still alive, I got nothing to do with it"

The scene's replaying with crisp alacrity in Sakura's mind.

Raised blade. Pierced throat. Falling head. 

He could've intercepted the sword. 

He didn't. 

The shinobi was too much of a threat. Sakura was deemed an acceptable loss. 

She would've ended up on the MIA stone back home. Nobody to mourn her. 

Not even a grave with her name. 

"Train me"

The teen looks startled, mouth opening in surprise. An incredulous laugh breaks through his lips. 

"No"

Sakura rises. She doesn't back down. Whatever dignity she has died back in that forest. 

"Train me", she insists

"And why would I ?"

She opens her mouth, close it.

"Because you're a Konoha shinobi, like me. We're supposed to help each other"

That's why Konoha shinobis function in squads. They're a family, all of them from the Leaf village. 

"Listen kid" He leans forward. "The only reason I would train you is if I can get something out of it. Do you have parents important enough that I could get favors from them somewhere down the line ?"

Sakura doesn't answer. 

"Seeing your face, you don't. Probably even an orphan. Do you have money ? No. Do you have anything that screams I have the potential to become somebody important, somebody whose influence would be for, say, a Jonin promotion ? No"

Sakura's teeth are clenched so hard veins pop up on her throat. 

"So because I'm a nobody you won't train me ?", she asks, voice deadly quiet

He snorts.

"Of course"

And in this very instant, all of Sakura's beliefs shatter. 

She's top kunoichi of her year. She was supposed to get a Jonin sensei. Her parents should've been able to embrace her once she got her hitai ate. She shouldn't be in a war. The Genins shouldn't have died. There was no reason for her to survive. 

Naruto on the swing. 

War. 

"It's not fair"

"Huh ? Repeat that one ?"

Sakura's vibrant eyes snap to Arashi's.

"I said it isn't fair"

He looks at her weirdly. 

"Of course it's not. We're shinobis"

Shinobis. 

She's one of them now. 

"Listen kid, and don't you dare start crying. We're at war. Time that I would spend training you is time I'd rather improve myself. Contrary to you, I don't plan on dying here"

Arashi stands up. 

"You should be thankful", he says. "Any other shinobi would've beat the shit out of you if you came to them and demanded their knowledge like that"

He looks at the setting sun beyond her, and his face softens. 

"Every little bit of knowledge, every little jutsu I have I had to scrap and fight for it. You're not entitled to what I build on my blood" His eyes bore through Sakura's. "Nobody's coming to save you, kid."

He leaves her alone in the training field. 

Sakura blinks. 

She knows he's doing it on purpose, the loud footsteps. She waits until she can't hear him anymore and collapses on the ground, tearing at her hair so hard her scalp hurts. 

She's got one foot in the grave. One push and she's done for.

For a brief moment, Sakura considers jumping ahead of what feels inevitable. It would be so, so easy. So much easier than living.

That's when she realizes how scared she is of living. 

Suddenly Sakura hates Arashi, hates Konoha, hates the Hokage, hates this fucking world where she has to fight for her life tooth and nail and isn’t even guaranteed to see tomorrow.

She hates herself more, because she knows that she’d rather die trying than not try at all. 

Shinobis are liars, cheaters, egoist bastards. 

On that day, she swears she’s gonna become the best of them all. 

Chapter Text

On the first day of the Academy, shinobis in training are teached a lesson they should never forget : 

Shinobis do not fight fair. 

Any romantic idea of honorables fights or dignified missions is brutally beaten out of them. They’re encouraged to cheat, lie, and twist the rules to suit them. The sparring zone is where they can go all out : spit in your comrade’s eye or throw sand, press on their bruises and injuries, fake weakness to overwhelm them suddenly. 

Sakura has pridefully believed herself above such practices. 

She never had to cheat in class. She always felt like being ‘cunning’ in a fight would be tantamount to saying she doesn’t have the skill to stand with the best.

After all, Sasuke-kun never had to lower himself to such demonstrations, so why should she ? Truth is, Sasuke-kun has always been so far above everyone he never needed to fight dirty, never needed to fight like a true shinobi. 

Sasuke never got stabbed in the throat.

Leniency is for the powerful. Sakura is weak. 

She knows, as she wakes up today, that she’ll pave her way through dirt and blood, lies and cheating, and that Konoha will be proud of her for it.

Because she’s a shinobi now, isn’t she ?

She’s fresh out of breakfast when she gets to the training grounds.

It’s dawn and she started the day with cleaning duties, thus she’s free until lunch. Except for a couple of early birds, nobody’s there.

Sakura finds the most secluded spot, the one behind a row of trees and bushes, and crouches. She grabs a stick and makes two circles in the sand. On the left she writes what she’s good at : mathematics, history, chakra control, memorization. She ponders for a second and circles memorization.

Sakura’s memory has always been uncanny : she can remember whole books after reading them once, doesn’t need to write down what the teacher says to never forget it, only did so because she liked having pretty notes taken with glitter pens. 

Chakra control is good for justu and being able to gauge how much chakra you have left, which can be the difference between life and death in a fight. One of her sensei said most sensor shinobis have great chakra control.

She underlines it.

On the right, Sakura writes her weaknesses : 

• Physical abilities (endurance, agility, speed, dexterity)
• Taijutsu
• Shurikenjutsu

She hesitates before adding the last one.

• No jutsus but Academy three

Most genins don’t know any jutsus, but clan kids do. She knows - from hearing him boast to Naruto once - that Sasuke knows fire jutsus. Ino, Shikamaru, Choji have clan jutsus. Hinata has taijutsu and a dojutsu. Shino has his clan’s insects and, she guesses, jutsus that go with it.

Iruka sensei used to say that jutsus aren’t something they should worry about at their level because, if genins know jutsus, they’re usually one trick ponies. 

Sakura doesn’t have the abilities nor the mission points needed to get her hands on any. Moreover, jutsus are secured in one of Konoha’s hardest to access buildings : she definitely won’t find any here, and it’s not as if shinobis go around with scrolls in their pouch - or the will to teach anyone but themselves.

Sakura wants to erase that line, but she can’t help the urge she has to circle it. 

Once she’s sent to fight, she’ll mostly face genins : and how should she best them if not with well timed, perfectly practiced jutsus ? 

A fireball or, or, a water wall or whatever could be the difference between life and death. She’ll need at least one jutsu before she gets on the battlefield. 

Sakura underlines it. She’ll find a way to get one. 

What she needs to focus on are her basics, which means taijutsu and physical abilities. The ability to last in a fight means that she can wear down an opponent before finishing them. A well practiced punch in the throat could shatter somebody’s windpipe and kill them on the spot. She circles both.

Sakura ponders quietly over what little she has, eyes going back and forth between both circles. 

A dangerous idea buds in her mind. Sakura’s breathless for a second. Yet she can’t discard it.

Living in a camp full of shinobis who practice day and night, there is only one thing she can do : copy the hell out of everybody. 

Sweat gathers on Sakura’s brow. Her calves are shaking because of the uncomfortable position.

If she gets caught, she could get beaten to an inch of her life or, considering who she copies, get executed. 

But it's the tiny possibility that she'd get prosecuted and lose her shinobi status that terrifies her. Being a civilian once more is-

She closes her eyes briefly as her destroyed house flashes behind her eyelids.

Sakura counts to ten then breathes out. 

She can’t afford to get caught. To assure this, Sakura scribbles down one rule she’ll live by : she won’t ever fully copy anybody she spies on. 

There won’t be any full taijutsu stealing, nor any secret move copying. Sakura has to be smarter than the average copy nin : she’ll be inconspicuous and add the best of everyone until, one day, she’s too strong for anybody to stop her.

Sakura looks at the rising sun. Orange and red bleed on each other.

She may not be an Uchiha but she’ll do her damn best to put their name to shame. 

Chapter Text

Wars, she knows, always get worse.

She doesn’t know how long she has until she gets on the frontlines and they get civilians to do her job. 

Sakura’s acutely aware of the fact that when Konoha was hard pressed in the third World War, they lowered the age of graduation and cut off parts of the curriculum. Depending how long she has to stay here, Sakura could well be replaced by fresh genins and sent as fodder on the battlefield. 

If she’s optimistic, she’d say she has six months.

Konoha is strong, its shinobis fresh, and there is - for now - only one front. 

Though things could turn sour pretty quickly. 

If she’s pessimistic, she’d give herself two months. 

The Fifth is known for his stellar organization and great cunning, not his sentimentalism. He won’t shy at sending kids, freshly graduated or not, where they’re needed. 

Sixty days. 

She’s been here for twelve days, so only forty eight. 

A rush of hysteria threatens to overwhelm her but she shoves it down. 

Forty eight days, alright. She can manage. No, better than that, she can turn the tables. Forty eight days of gruesome training, early rise and harsh training, forty eight days to make sure that should she get back to Konoha and fight her old classmates, she’d win. 

Winning doesn’t equal being the strongest - winning, in a shinobi fight, is not about having the best jutsu or the best technique. It’s about being lethal. 

Sakura needs to be brutally efficient. She can’t afford to be lenient. She’ll give more than her best and nothing else.

Thus, Sakura rises from her crouched position and starts right away. 

She casually strolls through the training grounds, her eyes briefly flickering from shinobi to shinobi. She never looks more than a second ; she’s learned this lesson. 

She focuses on those she’s seen most often : she studies their build and their exercises, deduces what they want to achieve or the goal they seek to reach.

Sakura stretches as she does so, looking, for all intent and purpose, focused on her own training. 

If there’s one absolute goal Sakura needs to achieve before she’s sent to fight, it’s increasing her speed. Being fast means avoiding more hits that would kill lesser Genins. Being fast means she can get in strikes no matter how sloppy her hits. Being fast is what she needs to be if she doesn’t want another sword in the throat. 

Sakura compartmentalizes each and every exercise she sees. She won’t write anything down ; any proof of what she’s attempting is tantamount to tempting fate - or paranoid shinobis.  The exercise in itself proves a difficult one as she never before used her brain as a blank slate on which to write. 

It requires all of her focus which is shared between stretching and analyzing. Sakura feels a burn on her forehead, right where she’s used to having headaches, but she pushes the pain away. She can do it. It’s just thinking. Nobody’s better than her at thinking. 

She records the studied shinobis rough age, rank, peculiarities that could be relevant, how they hold themselves and to which precise degree they bend or twist. She takes into account the angle she’s watching them from and adjusts the numbers with it. 

She gets to lunch with a throbbing pain behind the eyes. At two, she goes to the barracks - generally empty at that time, most Genins not having as many unsavory jobs as her - and practices what she’s seen. 

She goes slowly over each exercise and considers those she’ll discard and those she’ll copy. Speed is on her mind, flexibility a close second. 

At the end of the first day, her mind is ablaze. 

She has trouble falling asleep but she’s so exhausted mentally she thankfully can’t think. 

Next morning, Sakura starts with laps. 

She runs around the training grounds until she’s exhausted and dutifully notes how many laps she can run - six. Considering the fact that she’s 1m60 and the average stride of an individual is 40 to 45% of their height, she’d say she ran three kilometers and half. 

She spits down and curses. That’s barely average. Naruto could’ve done that without breaking a sweat. 

Next, Sakura stretches. It’s a mix of stolen exercises and those she already did. Good thing is, stretching isn’t so varied and despite ‘borrowing’ somebody’s exercises, nobody can scream that you stole something from them. Sakura doesn’t rush that part. She forces herself to go that tiny bit further each time, breathe exactly the way she was told in the Academy. 

Then, Sakura starts with the katas. She’s slow, mindful. She gets one hour of training before she needs to get to her job.

Sakura stands in front of the bathroom with a mop and a full bucket of water. 

Tiredness makes her hunch, but she forces herself to straighten. She makes cleaning a challenge, forces herself to not walk on any lines between the tiles. 

She slips often because of the water, once even catches herself awkwardly with a foot on the wall. Still, she forces herself to be clean and fast and not touch the lines. She tiptoes around. Her feet hurt once she’s finally done.

She’s not the first at breakfast and she doesn’t like it. She vows she’ll be faster tomorrow. 

She eats a variety of everything and makes sure to chew correctly. Her mind’s already on the next part of her morning.

She gets out, goes back to the training grounds. 

This time, she practices katas against a wood dummy. Her hands are red and hurt, her legs are throbbing where she hits. Sakura has always thought people who trained that way fools despite teachers at the Academy regularly trying to enforce the method upon students. 

Punch, kick. Punch, kick. Punch, kick.

She grinds her teeth and forces herself to hit harder and faster. She knows she’s gonna get bruises. She hopes she’s not gonna break anything. She longs for a hot bath. 

Faster. Faster. Faster.

Sakura grinds her teeth and keep going. 

She needs a timer so she can count how many hits she can make per minute. It’d be useful for running, too, and make sure she beats her own record every day. 

She takes breaks when she loses balance and can’t hit well anymore, then she gets back at it. She finishes her training and drops by her dorm. Her knuckles are raw and bloody. She forces herself not to wince when she pours alcohol on it before she wraps everything in nice, clean bandages. 

She gets lunch at eleven, and at eleven forty five she’s in the kitchen for her job. 

She’s already cleaning dishes when old man Junishiro, who was walking past her, stops abruptly.

“What are you doing here ?”

“Cleaning, sir”

She doesn’t look up from her station. She’s made a challenge out of finishing the dishes faster than usual. She knows she looks dumb, but it makes it more exciting than just cleaning. 

Old man Junishiro groans.

“I can see that, Genin. What I’m asking is why you’re here early”

“I had time and I wanted to get started so I could finish earlier, sir”

She looks up for a split second.

His eyes are on her hands. He gives her an appraisal and leaves her alone. 

Sakura finishes the dishes twenty minutes before two. 

Once done, she gives herself half an hour to stroll through the city. She sees civilians - though in lesser number than shinobis - and wonder, for a moment, how it’s going for them and what it feels to have their city taken over like that. She doesn’t give them much thought, though. She’s not charitable enough to think of anyone but herself these days.

Sakura walks past the armoury and various weapons shops still open. She spots a timer small enough that she could carry in her pocket, mentally notes its price for when she’ll get her wages. 

She checks a bookstore but doesn’t dare get inside, lest she’s tempted by one and steals it. She walks back to the armoury and check the pieces they have left.

She’ll need arm and legguards, maybe one paper bomb if she can afford it. She doesn’t even look at the weapons on display. She’s not dumb enough to fantasize about a katana or something equally crazy and think that wielding it - with no actual idea how to wield it - will bring her anything but a very brief death. 

She knows how to wield kunai to tear flesh as well as pierce it, as do all other genins ; she’ll need to brush up on her skills and make sure she’s quick enough with it, but it’ll do at her level.

Sakura gets out of the store and spots a couple of shinobis by the city’s entrance. She stops for a second, appraising. They’re carrying large backpacks and chat happily amongst each other. The big door open and their mouths snap shut. They straighten and get out in formation.

Sakura hums and drops by her dorm. Her backpack’s still in tatters, and she’ll need to drop by the supply depot to get a new one. She empties the one of the boy sleeping next to her and takes it with her. Seeing how it was pushed under his bed and left in a dark corner, she’s sure he won’t even notice.

Sakura gets back to the training grounds. She loads the backpack with as many rocks as she thinks won’t make it break, then she puts it on her back and starts running. She nearly topples over with the first step.

She runs and makes a point to do one more lap than she could this morning even though she ends her last lap like a snail. Then she gets back to hitting the dummy. She does a couple of moves with the backpack still on but it destabilizes her so much she has to put it down. The idea seems good, though. She’ll have to think of a way to adapt it to taijutsu. 

The afternoon goes by in a flash and painfully slowly at the same time. 

At the end, Sakura feels like she’s gonna puke her guts out.

She has to sit for a moment until the world stops spinning. She stretches and her feet take her to the mess hall, backpack still on. 

Shinobis glance at her, and the fact that they’re obvious about it make her aware that she must look absolutely disheveled. 

Sakura makes it another challenge to ignore the stares.

Shinobis are cheaters, liars, egoist bastards. It’s time she stops thinking of anyone but herself. 

She eats, showers a second time. When she’s in her bed, Sakura longs for a book, her mind filled with those she saw this morning. She closes her eyes and makes her chakra go from her head to all the way down  to her feet through all the tenketsus points in her body, just like she’s been taught at school. 

The exercise’s supposed to be gradual : you map out your head, then you take a break, then the neck, break, and this way all the way down. It’s supposed to give you a better feel for your chakra, which will make casting jutsus easier. 

It’s hard and she has to start again three times before she gets her throat right. She never makes it to the feet, though, doesn’t even go past her elbow before she falls asleep. She snores, to the dismay of her bunkmate and everyone around. 

Chapter Text

"Sir, you were a shinobi, weren't you ?"

Junishiro wipes his sweaty forehead with the back of his hairy hand. There's an apron on his shoulder, and he dry his hands on it. He doesn't even look at her as he cleans his pan.

"What makes you think I'm one ?"

Sakura shrugs, looks away. 

It took her all of her courage to talk to him. She can’t back down now.

"They wouldn't put a civilian in charge of the mess hall. It'd be too easy to, I don't know, replace them or make them poison the food thanks to a Genjutsu" If she'd considered it then certainly smarter people would've had too. "And, I mean, sometimes when you move, you’re all stiff"

She'd noticed it back in the Academy.

Some of the Chuunins instructors used to walk as though they’d had sticks in their asses. It’d taken her a while and being taught ‘shinobis-are-always-prepared’ to understand what it was about : they were carrying weapons. Blades strapped to their arms, on their thighs, on their shins, wire and paper bombs dissimulated here and there. Some carried more than others, judging by how taunt their every move looked. 

Others - like the oldest teachers - were all fluid movement and graceful gestures. These, she deduced, were too experimented to show they carried weapons - but they did carry them. As to be Genins, they were taught that kunais would be their best friend, that they should never, never leave their house without their gear on.

When Sakura looks back, Junishiro's analyzing her. His eyes narrow, and Sakura tenses. Then he grunts and shakes his hand dismissively, focusing on the dirty dishes, and the tension in Sakura's shoulders ease. 

"On with your question"

Sakura’s flabbergasted. It’s... It’s that easy ? She’d expected him to rebuke her, and for her to say she’d work extra hours (for free) if only he could answer some or her questions but-

Excitement bursts in her chest. She mentally jumps, fist high.

‘Thank you thank you thank you !’, she screams in her mind.

Next on her list to ask advice from was one of the Chuunins she saw regularly training but never interacted with, except to exchange a nod. In third position was this Arashi guy.  She'd been so scared any of her three options would beat the crap out of her.

"I wanted to try something for training", she explains quickly, trying to keep her excitement to a reasonnable level. Junishiro quirks a brow. 

She'd waited until the very end of the lunch schedule so she could talk to him without anyone else listening in, even though it's half an hour past the time she should've left. She doesn't want other Genins to think she's sucking up to their superior. She's fed up with the teacher's pet reputation. 

"I was thinking about using weighted gear to train my speed but I'm not sure which weight I should start with" She pauses, fidgets briefly. "I don't have a vest or anything, so for now I'm only doing it with my backpack, but it hurts and I'm not sure if it's because I'm not running the right way or I'm putting too much weight"

She knows her posture is important but she can’t help it ; she keeps hunching when she runs. 

"That’s it ?”, Junishiro scoffs. “That’s your question ?” He shakes his head, clicks his tongue. “The weight's badly allocated. Putting everything on your back will do you more damage than good. In general people go for 50% of the weight split equally between their torso and back. What's left is split equally between arms and legs. Though it's not your run-off-the-mill kind of training, y’a know ? It’s not easy. There’s a reason you don’t see every shinobi you meet with weighted gear. If you start with it, you'll need to go all the way to see improvements. That will take years. And that's without considering that you'll need to channel your chakra constantly, with or without weight, to make the most out of it and rebuild stronger muscles. If you start, there’s no going back"

There’s already no going back for Sakura. It’s either survive the war or die trying.

"What weight should I start with ?", she asks quickly, afraid he’ll lose interest in the conversation. "Is there anything you recommend ?"

Junishiro grumbles something. 

"Get something that'll feel slightly above what you can do but not too much that you can't even complete a lap. Too much too soon will have negative impact on your growth" 

"I don't have any weighted gear", she says. "Do you know where I could-"

"Do I look like a fucking tour guide ?", he snaps. "I answered your question, now whoosh !"

Sakura scrambles off. She's glad enough he answered. Outside, the sun's burning bright.  She pauses outside the kitchen, a hand sheltering her eyes, her left fist clenched.

“I can do it”, she says under her breath. “I can do it”

No matter what it takes.

* 

“Yeah we got scrap fabrics, but we’re using them to make beddings and stuff. We don’t really throw stuff away, sorry”

Sayuri looks apologetic.

Sakura frowns. She’s a good head taller than the girl though they’re the same age.

“But I saw Yuri with a new dress last week”, she says. “She said she made it from what’s left of spare fabric you guys can’t use”

Sayuri turns defensive, crosses her arms, stomps her foot.

“Yeah, well, we’re not supposed to do that”

She angles herself in a way that should’ve hid her half-open backpack from Sakura’s line of sight but Sakura catches a colorful glimpse above her shoulder. It’s spare fabric, just rags with browned or worn out edges, stuff that couldn’t be sold even by the best merchand. 

Sayuri - and Yuri, as well as a bunch of others Genins like Sakura - are supply personnel. They work in uniforms, repairing them or distributing new ones to their fellow soldiers. Because of that, they have privileges : they can get scrap fabrics and sewing kits for free that are valuable when you need to repair your own set of standardized clothes. 

New uniforms mean you need to go ask your direct officer’s permission to get a new one and even then, there’s a limit to what you can get depending on rank and affectation. 

Genins like Sakura are limited to one change every three months which, considering their daily use of a small amount of uniforms, is clearly not enough. 

Sakura needs scrap fabric, though. She can’t let Sayuri go so easily.

“Well, I need to go…” mutters Sayuri as she tries to side-step Sakura

Sakura fluidly slides forward, blocking her path. Sayuri frowns. 

“Listen”, she says. “I’m sure we can arrange something that’ll satisfy us both”

“And how-”

“You must know that I work in the kitchens, right ?”

Sayuri shuts up, intrigued, and Sakura smiles but hides it quickly. Bingo. 

“Which means I’ve got access to a lot of food… I’ve heard your job makes you work a lot of odd hours” She’s heard Yuri complain a lot about it. “And the mess is not always open when you need it to be…” 

She lets Sayuri simmer for a bit even though she knows she caught up to what she means. 

“I could, say, get you a bit of food here and there in exchange for a couple of useless fabric nobody has any need for” 

Sakura looks at her nails. She’s pulling every trick in the book to act disinterested. Her eyes briefly flash to Sayuri, who’s biting her lip.

She acts as if she ponders, but there’s not even a question to be asked.

“It’ll need to stay between us”, she says, eyes darting left and right as if somebody could be listening to this highly important discussion. “If my chief learns what I’m doing…”

Sakura nods.

“Of course”, she says. “We can say this is our little secret”

Sayuri moves to leave, but Sakura stops her again.

“I’ll need a bit of an incentive, though” She nods towards the bag. “That is if you want lunch tomorrow”

Sayuri’s mouth is a thin line. She still bends and grabs a bunch of grey and green fabric and shoves it in Sakura’s hands.

“There”, she says. “When do you finish your shift ? I’ll try to catch you then”

“Two”, Sakura says. “But I’d rather you come meet me at the training grounds in the afternoon once you’re done”

“Alright”, Sayuri mutters, fidgety. “I’ll be there around four or five, depending when I’m done”

“Don’t forget my new supplies”, Sakura calls to her as she leaves.

Sayuri tenses and turns around, making shushing gestures. 

Sakura sighs as she leaves, fingers going through her hair. 

Great, now she’s a food dealer.

Chapter Text

"You're probably the ugliest Genin I've seen"

Sakura doesn't pay Yuri any mind as she twirls on herself, cheching her weighted gear. It's a patchwork of different fabric and colors, something ugly that, had she been back home, she wouldn't have been caught dead in. There's a suspicious brown blotch on her leg gear that looks like blood. 

"It looks solid", she muses.

Her mom taught her how to sew, so Sakura made a job of assembling the fabrics brought to her by Sayuri over the last few days. She made double layers for both chest and back area, as they'll carry the most weight, and she doesn't want the tissue to be torn apart.

She weighted the rocks beforehand (tried to use the kitchen's scale and got yelled at by Junishiro) and approximated the same weight for front and back then put a fourth in each of the arm and leg gears. She knows the weight's approximate, but it's the best she can do considering the circumstances. She considered buying a scale but it would be a waste of money as she would barely use it.

Yuri waves at her, popsicle in hand as Sakura runs to the training grounds. The weighted gear feels weird. She gets looks because when she runs, the rocks rattle against each other. The fact that they let her notice their reaction makes it all the more embarassing. She reddens and pushes through. 

She's already out of breath when she arrives. She stretches then does her usual conditionning. That's when she realizes she forgot to channel her chakra. 

"Shit"

It's hard to run with additionnal weight and keep in mind that she has to channel chakra all the goddamn time. She has a couple of explosives exercies, made to improve her speed : she runs as fast as she can between two set trees, mentally counts how long it takes her. If she does worse, she needs to do the exercice twice more. If she does better, she gets to do push ups. 

Shinobis in training barely look at her as she strolls by. They must've seen worse. Sakura sprints, performs katas, sprints again and again and again until she feels like she's going to throw up. She keeps an eye on her fellow shinobis. There's a duo nearby, stretching. 

She puts herself against a wooden dummy and hits it as hard as she can, as fast as she can. The weighted gear makes it so that she's off balance, and she nearly falls over. It takes her a couple of repitition to adjust. She's slower than usual, and the rocks rolling inside the tissue when she hits the dummy is distracting, but she pushes through.

In the middle of the afternoon, she takes a break. 

Sakura chugs down water like she would air, cheeks a bright red. She doesn't sit down even though she really, really wants to, and keeps walking, one hand on her hip, looking at her feet. 

Then she gets back to fighting the wood dummy but this time, she uses her kunai. Sakura slashes and stabs and does everything taught in the book.

"Your kunai is your best friend", Iruka-sensei used to say. She used to think it was a bit lame, and that maybe he needed more friends. Now she knows that in a fight, she'd rather stab someone than try to overwhelm them with her inexistant strength.

Once she's done for the day, Sakura's shaking. She's a sweaty mess, her hair tangled and her ponytail half the way down. But she feels good. 

She showers, eats, and barely has enough strength to crawl to her bed. Only then does she take the weighted gear off. She tries mapping her chakra pathways further than what she did last time, but she falls asleep way before then.

*

The next days are a blur of training, eating, training, showering, training, training, training. Sakura can now channel her chakra nearly unconsciously, but she still needs to keep a tight leash on it so it doesn't disperse when she trains.

One day, as she washes dishes, Junishiro, walking by, snaps. 

"Goddamn it kid, put some tissue inside your gear so you don't ring like a bell each time you walk !"

The genin dropping her dirty dishes snicker. Sakura sends him a dirty look, and he acts innocent.

"Sorry", Sakura murmurs. 

She gets more from Sayuri and stuffs her weighted gear the same evening.

*

"That's a pitiful amount of money"

Sakura shoves the ryos in her pockets, cheeks flushed.

"Well, I got here later, so obviously I don't get as much as you" And because she came later, she didn't get any of the 'good' jobs with the long shifts, thus why she has as much free time for training. 

In some way it's better because she has time to train but in another it's worse because she definitely won't have the funds any time soon to buy new gear. She'd wanted to get a couple more kunais, as she doesn't have many, and maybe even an explosive tag, one day. Iruka sensei used to say they were extremely dangerous but also invaluable. She'd feel better if she got something in her pouch that could blow somebody's face off.

Still, that's far less than she expected.

Yuri pouts as she looks at Sayuri's. 

"And how come you have more than me ? We work at the same place"

"Yeah but remember, I'm your supervisor"

Sakura nibbles on her cheek as she walks out with the girls. So much of her training depended on new gear : she looses too much time picking up her kunais and shurikens after throwing them once. Maybe she could scavenge a couple left at the training grounds ? Back home, she heard a couple of kids used to do that and even sell the very bad ones to blacksmiths. She's half certain shinobis here always pick up their weapons - ressources are precious, after all, especially at war. 

They drop by the shops. 

Sakura buys her timer, as she'd promised herself. It'll be useful. Yuri get a couple of new shurikens, and Sayuri a book she'd been wanting for a while. Sakura's envious, and Sayuri notices her gaze.

"I can lend it to you after, if you want", she says gently.

Sakura looks away.

"I was just wondering what got you so excited" She shrugs. "I don't even like reading"

Soon after, the girls and Sakura split. Their shift start soon. 

Sakura goes back to training. She's diligent, but her mind's focused on her future. How can she improve ? She needs to improve, but she doesn't have the necessary ressources. Still, she managed to work around her weighted gear problem and made something good with the cards she'd been dealt. Even if the odds are stacked against her, she can improve. She just needs to be clever. 

She joins the table of a couple of Genins she knows a bit for dinner. They chat a lot about their job - they all work in the armory - and Sakura gets some 'Shiro' is hated by everyone else. 

She's half lost in her thoughts, getting back towards the dorms when a bright laugh catches her attention. She looks up, half expecting to see Ino. Instead, she sees a boy - a teen - twirling kunais between his fingers as if it was water. She stops dead in her track, mouth hanging open, as she watches him perform. The blade glides like water between his fingers : it twirls in his hand, spins on the tip of his forefinger, before he throws it up and catches it by the ring of his kunai, spinning it, fisting, then swiftly throwing it right in a gap in his little group. 

The blade swooshes and hits a leaf falling from a tree dead in the center before embedding itself to the hilt in rough bark.

Around, those she assume are his friends whistles. Some roll their eyes, still smiling. 

The genin bends like an actor receiving praise at the end of the show.

"Thank you, thank you", he smiles.

Sakura's already pushing through the group, getting surprised glances from the people around. 

"Can you do that again ?", she asks. "It was awesome"

She didn't see properly how his fingers moved because of how quick he was. Maybe by buttering him, she'll get to see it again.

The boy scoffs, but he smiles smugly.

"A magician can't reveal his trick"

The others laugh good heartedly. Sakura's one-thousand-watts smile's dims.

"Please ?"

Now he looks a bit annoyed.

"Magicians only work for money. If you pay me, I'll-"

She puts one crips bill in his head. The Genin blinks, frozen, as though he didn't expect it. 

"Huh ?"

The others look at her with eyes wide as saucers.

"Show me again"

The boy rubs his head, looks at the bill, shrugs and pocket it. He repeats the motion as fast as the first time. Sakura's eyes are locked on his fingers.

"Again", she says, giving him a new bill. "Slower this time"

Because he wants to show off - or maybe not bore his friends by performing the same trick - the boy add a couple of stabbing slashing motion in front of Sakura's face before he gets another faraway leaf.

"Again", she says.

The genin sighs.

"Last time", she says.

He performs one last time. Sakura thanks him and leaves, a perfect picture of the way his fingers moved and how his wrist twisted when he threw the kunai seared in her mind.

She now realizes she has another bargaining tool : money.

Chapter Text

Sakura holds her breath as the kunai twirls in her hands like water, spinning and-

It falls on the ground with a clatter. 

She picks it up and faces the mirror. She breathes out to calm herself. Again. 

The kunai twirls in her fingers, spin on the tip of her forefinger, blade flashing as her index slips in the little hole at the end and yes, yes, excitement makes her heart flutter as she fists it and stab and slash quickly, barely conscious now of her weighted gear slowing her down, then, with a flick of her wrist, sends it to the farthest wall in the bathroom.

It embeds itself in the wall with a clack, cracking tiles as she jumps up and down, unable to contain her happiness. 

She did it goddamnit ! She may not have gotten the leaf falling from a tree but she managed to perform the finger trick which means she's not worse than anyone else and her dextirity is not abyssimal and if she trains more-

And suddenly it dawns on her. 

She made a hole in the bathroom's wall. Shit.

*

She spends the day praying no officer come to ask her why the hell there is an obviously kunai-made dent in common bathroom C. Surely they all have better things to do than care about a little hole, right ? Maybe they'll take money out of her next pay-check to pay for the next reparations. Or maybe they'll make her repair it. Can she repair it ? If it was cement, she could, but it's tiles. She'd need to find the proper tile with the proper color and cut it in the exact way necessary to hide what she's done. 

She could lie, too. Says she has no idea what happened to it.

The idea of lying to a shinobi is as much frightening as it is thrilling. Could she get away with it ? 

Adrenaline washes through her veins as she holds onto the sink, clean dishes on the left rack, waiting for the next wave. Some part of her wishes they would, just so she could gauge her lying abilities. If it were a Jonin, she'd be caught in less than a second, but it wouldn't be - she's never even seen a Jonin's ear even though she lives 24/7 in the base.

Chuunin, though... 

As she waits for the next wave of dirty dishes, Sakura grabs a kunai and twirls it between her hands. It jumps from left hand to right elegantly though not as quickly as the boy from last time.

A fellow genin loudly putting a rack on her sink makes her jump out of her skin. He rolls his eyes and she quickly puts her weapon back in her pouch, smiling sheephisly. All of the Genins in the kitchens are used to her antics, now. Playing with kunais on duty is not even the worst thing she could do.

Sakura gets back to work, the rocks in her gear making a muffled sound as she moves.

She doesn't notice how, at the far back of the room, Junishiro's watching her.

*

Days go by and Sakura lives for training and training only. 

Now that she has a timer she times herself when she runs, and she forces herself to improve her speed everyday, if only by half a second. She counts how many times she can kick a dummy per minute, make an average, compare it to all of her previous sessions. Everything is etched in her mind : how many push-ups, sits-ups, crunches she can do, what's her best and worse time for stamina exercices or speed related ones, how often she hits the practice target and how accurate she is. 

And all the while, she channels her chakra. 

It makes practice both easier and harder.

Easier because she feels refreshes each time she channels her chakra through her entire body. Harder because, to physically exhausted, she now adds mentally drained every evening. She doesn't map out her chakra before bed, like she used to, because she always falls asleep. Instead, she does that first thing first in the morning. Iruka sensei would be so proud of her. 

The last portion of her evening is kept for kunai practicing. She vows to make the tiny blade an extension of herself, one she's so familiar with she'll trust as much as any of her limb. She's right handed, but she trains her left hand as much as her right. Jonin, she knows, are all ambidextrous. Maybe it's preposterous of her to train a Jonin skill, but even if it's hard, there's a reason Jonins learn it, and she needs to get every little advantage she can. 

If she starts falling asleep, the kunai's pointy tip biting in her skin is enough to jolt her awake. She now has dozens of little bloody holes in both palms, so much so that when she looks at it, she feels like her hands are dotted with stars. She's always liked sappy poetry. 

Sometimes, when she walks to the mess hall or training grounds, she spots wounded shinobis transported to the hospital, and any false sense of security she may have had vanishes instantly. 

There's not a second to loose. 

She eats more at the mess hall, adds rocks to her gear, pushes herself harder. A second doesn't go by when she's not training. 

No matter if Sakura's walking, eating, or brushing her teeth, there'll always be a kunai in her hand, twirling between her fingers. She used to drop it a lot, but now the pain in her fingers from overexertion seems to have let place to some new-found dexterity. 

She feels like she's gaining muscles, but judging from Yuri's lack of comments, maybe it's in her head.

Still, Sakura feels better than she used to in the Academy. She trains harder now than all of her civilians counterparts, Naruto included. A question remains : does she train as hard as the Clan kids ? Sasuke ? 

She feels like deep in her heart, despite everything, it's not enough. She needs to work harder. 

Sakura tries to find the boy with the kunais once more. Having nothing to go by but his face, it proves difficult. Still, she asks a couple of friends to keep an eye out in case they ever spot him.

She knows she's developing a bit of a 'reputation' among her fellow fresh Genins, but she finds that she kind of like it. She's a 'training freak'. Her. She could not contain her wide grin when Yuri told her.

"My god you're totally insane", had said the girl while seeing Sakura's ecstatic expression.

Still, if Sakura can't f tindhe guy with the kunais, she knows she'll need to work out plan B, i.e. find sparring partners. She's confident enough in her abilities to know she won't humiliate herself because of a lack of stamina or strength, if not skills. But it's alright. She's here to learn. They can all wipe the floor with her as long as she gets something out of it.

Before she can starts working on it, though, half of the fresh Genins of Camp Tsuchikiba are summoned on the parade grounds Sunday afternoon.

The guy facing them is an old Genin with wrinkled hands and a kind face. Sakura's not fooled, though. Despite his smile, his hands must've shed killed more people than she has ever met. 

"Today", he says. "You'll learn an invaluable skill that all shinobis know : tree walking"

There's a hushed murmur going through the ranks. Sakura perks up. They used to teach it in the Academy, years ago, but at some point it got cut from the program because most kids didn't have the stamina or control to learn it. She'd expected to learn it from her Jonin sensei, like everyone else who doesn't end up in the Genin Corps. 

She's slightly bitter when she realizes that them being teached this technique means they definitely won't get any Jonin sensei. The war is there, coming for them.

"Follow me"

*

Sakura blinks. Slowly. 

From her perch high above the ground, she looks at all of her fellow Genins. That's... it ?

They all look weird, their faces flat and scrunched up, their neck craned to look at her. 

Their instructor's brows are all shot up.

The recruits clap and scream their approval. Sakura's a bit taken aback. Back home, she would've been told by her classmates that she was trying 'too hard'. Excellence in practical exercices are for clan kids, not civilians like her. She can be the best at theory because theory is lame, but nothing else. She can't get ahead of herself. Here they cheer for her. They encourage her. Her hard work is appreciated.

Sakura flush, but it's not from nervousness. She likes it, being praised. She always loved it when the teachers smiled at her fondly. Now she wants more. 

Yuri shakes her head and sighing in a way that means 'that's Sakura for you' and they all get back to training, collectively deciding to ignore what the hell just happened. 

Sakura slowly walks back down, but she doesn't even have to focus on her steps. She took her weighted gear off as she expected the exercice to be hard : the instructor had said it would take them two weeks of daily practice to learn how to walk vertically on surfaces.

She doesn't attempt any flip to flourish her descent. There's no need to show-off. 

"Now what ?", she asks

"Have you ever practiced tree walking before ?"

"I'm a civilian", she says, and it's an answer in itself.

He gestures at her to follow, and he barks at the other Genins they better train even if he's not here if they don't want to be punished. 

They stop at a pond where he walks on water. Huh. Sakura didn't know that one.

He gestures at her to do the same, arms crossed, though he doesn't expect her to manage. 

She doesn't expect herself to manage either. Maybe first time was a fluke. Yeah, Sakura's not of the 'unfairly talented' category. She won't manage it the first time.

Which makes it all the more surprising when she does. 

Good thing is, she looks as flabbergasted as her instructor.

Chapter Text

Sakura's leg is jerking as though it has a life of its own.

She holds her knee to stop the nervous tremors.

Suddenly, the door to her left open. 

Sakura jumps up, standing at attention, facing her Genin instructor - Shironasa - as he gestures for her to follow him. 

Inside, Nakatasuji's office is dark. The curtains are drawn and the tip of his cigar glows like an ember when he takes another puff. Smoke billows around Sakura, tingles her throat, and she tries to hold back a cough but can't. 

"Sorry", she mutters when she's done.

Nakatsuji keeps smoking, his dark red eyes strained on her. He's unnerving. 

"You're the one who managed both tree walking and water walking on your first try"

It's not a question, but Sakura feels he wants her to confirm. Arms clasped against her side, ramrod straight, she looks at the wall right behind his left shoulder.

"Yes-" She coughs. "Yes sir"

He hums. 

"Had you ever practiced any of the two before today ?"

"No sir"

She's red from trying to hold the coughs in.

"Has anybody taught you the intracacies behind any of the exercices ?"

"The Academy only taught us how to channel chakra to our feet in preparation for tree walking but nothing else sir"

There's a pause. Sakura's not sure how to interpret it. Even though she doesn't know Shironasa, the old Genin's presence is reassuring. 

She knows she hasn't done anything wrong - in fact, she's done the opposite - but she can't help worrying. What if it's not about the exercices but rather the hole in the bathroom ? 

"Do you know what sensor ninjas are ?"

Sakura perks up.

"Yes sir"

Sensor ninjas are people so attuned with chakra they can detect those of others in ranges that vary. The Nidaime was reputed the best sensor nin in history as he could feel people half of a country away.

Most of sensor nins are born that way : more sensitive to chakra, more attuned to their own energy. Sakura has never been any of those two categories. She just, well, she just tells her chakra to do stuff and it does it. Nothing to write home about. 

"Would you like to train to be one ?"

Sakura can't hide how wide her eyes go. Her ? A sensor nin ? Special training ?

"Yes sir !"

"Granted", Nakatsuji says, appraising her "All ninjas at a certain level are sensors one way or another. What differentiate a sensor nin from others is his range. You will train, but if you're found subpar, you'll be dropped from the course"

Sakura nods and cough. Her heart leaps in her throat as much as adrenaline courses through her veins. She's been recognized. People are taking a chance on her. She can't let them down. 

"Genin Shironasa will approach you with the details regarding this special training. The Lead if investing ressources in you, Genin Sakura" He leans forward, and suddenly she remembers he's not her friend. She schools her face to one or professionalism. "Do not disappoint us"

Chapter Text

It happens by mistake.

That morning, Sakura's skipping to the training grounds.

She just finished cleaning the bathrooms while walking on walls to make it more entertaining. Her abs are hurting - wall walking truly is not for the weak - and she's shaking her arms to make the blood flow properly. She's grinning from ear to ear, kunai twirling from left hand to right, proud of her little application of chakra skills to every day life. 

It's a Sunday, and the base's mostly quiet, the training grounds emptier than usual. She hears the sound of clashing kunais before she spots them. 

Mock fighting in the largest expanse of training grounds are two shinobis. A third one's cheering from the sidelines, sitting casually on the ground, arms crossed. Sakura glances at them then does a double take, her eyes ogling their Chuunins vests. 

She freezes. 

There's a tree half-hiding her from view, and the sitting shinobi's back to her. The two others are too focused to pay her any mind.

Before she can fully resgister what she's doing, she takes a couple of steps back. Bent branches and thick leaves shadow her from their view. She takes a sharp breath, eyes jumping from one shinobi to the next as she follows their gestures. They're quick - way too quick for her to see properly what's going on.

Yet she focuses all of her attention on them, drinking in their moves like a thirsty drunk. 

Most hits Sakura can't see properly because one fighter's back is hiding the other's moves ; she steps a bit sideways to see better. Her eyes are gleaming. Everything is happening too fast, but her heart's pouding in her chest. Chuunins. She's never seen Chuunins fight. 

And the, one of them loses balance. 

Sakura doesn't see why : maybe it was because of a jutsu or a thrown kunai or a wire or a trap. She only see one boy stumbling and the other closing in fast, sharp edge of his palm flashing towards his friend's throat. Sakura notices the way his arm snap up like a whip uncoiling and striking in one smooth gesture. She sees the firm way he holds his palm, pictures how his muscles strain under his clothes at the sudden gesture.

The falling shinobi parries his friend's attack and Sakura breathes out, only for the striker's leg to smoothly glide between his friend's and send him to the ground.

Sakura inhales sharply. 

A decoy. 

The striker got both his friend and her by surprise even though she was watching and not taking any part in the fight. 

Unconsciously Sakura mimicks his position, repeating the way he jabbed at his friend's throat and how his leg moved... No, his leg and hand had been moving simultaneously. Or was it a second after ?

Sakura closes her, visualizing the scene once more. She recalls it crisply. 

First, he'd moved his hand. Sakura replicates the jab, palm slowly twisting to the side, barely starting its course towards her opponent's throat. And then, when the falling shinobi had focused on the hand, the leg had come ; one strike hiding another. 

Sakura's right leg snap forward, the top of her foot curling around an opponent's imaginary ankle, sliding a bit more sideways to reach the second leg as if she were spooning them both from behind before sharply pulling towards herself.

She opens her eyes, standing in a half-crouched position, immobile. 

Her eyes go to the three shinobis and her heart jumps a bit. 

They're laughing loudly and smiling at each other. The loser smacks the winner playfully on the shoulder. 

Nobody has noticed her, hidden as she is. Or maybe they have but those are training grounds ; of course people are there. 

Sakura feigns calm as she gets to her usual training spot.

The sun's coloring the trees top a pretty pink. Birds are chirping happily around her. 

The shinobis spar again but this time she forces herself not to look even though she really wants too. She inadvertently catches a couple of moves, her churning brain analysing the way they hold themselves or orient their bodies while fighting. She doesn't try to steal any more kata, though. 

She already got one - an amazing combo - and she's giddy to try it.

*

"Can you stop twirling that kunai ?", Yuri says, taking a step back. "You're making me nervous"

"Sorry"

Sakura doesn't stop twirling the kunai, though. She just makes sure not to make stabbing gestures that time. 

The blade flipping between her left fingers, Sakura wipes her sweaty brow with the back of her arm. She just came back from a full hour of replicating the new move she saw today in the bathrooms : she took off a mirror from the wall and practiced in a shower stall. 

She figured that if they didn't come to her for a hole in the wall, they definitely won't for for a missing mirror when there are three others.

"Geez, you're so obsessive", Yuri mumbles. "Anyway, got a message from Shironasa for you because you weren't there. He wants you to report in front of the instructors' office at five sharp today"

The kunai stops twirling. 

"Did he say anything else ?"

Should she bring weapons ? Buy supplies ? How does one even go with training sensors shinobis, anyway ?

Yuri shakes her head. 

"Do you have any idea why he's asked for you ?"

Sakura hesitates for a split second. 

Extra attention from teachers is not something you should boast about, the Academy at least taught her that. She doesn't want to seem like a boot licker, or like she's trying too hard. But at the same time, Yuri has only been kind to her - as have been most of the other Genins at the Camp. They cheered when she finished tree walking first, for God's sake.

"He said he wanted me to try sensor training. Nothing definitive, though, and they'll probably drop me off when I'm not good enough. They just wanted to see"

Yuri whistles, brows raised. 

"Sensor training ? You've got a golden ticket right here, Sakura. Do you even know how much are paid sensor nins ?"

Sakura perks up, kunai subconsciously twirling in her hands.

"Do you ?"

"No, but that must be a lot. A few years back we had a kid from my city back then who was labeled a potential sensor by the teacher. They had someone come all the way from Konoha to make sure it was true and then he got shipped off right away for special training. He comes back when  he's not on a mission and he always brings loads of food for everyone at home. Gosh, you should've seen his sister's wedding. He paid everything. It was lavish"

Sakura muses.

She knows sensor shinobis are invaluable : all shinobis Camps are said to have at least one present at all times to ensure security. If she becomes a sensor, could she get a cushion job like that ? Hidden behind the lines ?

She feels uneasy about it, her cowardiness resurfacing, and at the same time, she likes having the option of being safe.

She wants to be stronger, and if she became a sensor nin she'd have more time to train behind the lines ; wouldn't that be great ? She'd get money, ressources and, above all, more time. 

"Anyway", Yuri says. "Gotta go, my shift's starting soon. Oh and by the way, we're making a small party tonight, the instructors agreed. You'll drop by, right ? It's right after your extra training"

Sakura nods.

She's never been to any parties, and the idea seems nice.

"Great !" Yuri claps her hands then run away. "See you later, 'Kura !"

Sakura's face morphs to a frown as the dorm's door clicks shut behind Yuri.

Is sensor training the golden ticket she's been praying for against reason ?

Chapter Text

Sakura's nearly gnawing her nails but forces herself to push her hand down.

Shinobis are in control of themselves, always ; they definitely don't do something as childish as biting nails.

Smoothening imaginary folds on her uniform, she gets up. Pacing back and forth in the room, kunai twirling from one hand to the next, she reviews arythmancy formulas and then she gets to problem solving like they've been told.

She visualizes herself perched on a tree trunk and an imaginary ennemy circling around : she has seven kunais and no smoke bomb nor paper tag. She's injured, and she needs to get her ennemy down once and for all. She keeps one kunai to defend herself with and can spare the six others in the hope they'll be enough. The ennemy dash from a bush, running up a tree, trying to get on the same level as her : a kunai flickers to Sakura's hand, she bends her wrist, and a sharp gust of wind blows her hair all around her face. 

Considering her position, the ennemy's speed, his trajectory and the wind, how much force is necessary for her to throw her kunai to and at which precise degree should she bend her wr-

The door slams open and Sakura stills. 

She doesn't realize she has fistened her kunai until the incoming kunoichi's eyes narrow on it. 

"Bad manners to threaten your superior officer, Genin"

Sakura flush and quickly slide it in her pouch.

"Sorry"

The woman pushes her ponytail behind her back, dark violet locks flying all around her face. She's drenched.

Outside, lightning splits the sky. Crude light flash across Sakura's face, lighting her diagonally. 

"Heard you got water walking down on your first time ?"

She takes off her flat jacket and throws it aside. Her eyes snap to Sakura.

"Y-yes Ma'am"

Inside, she's equal parts excited and worried.

They got a Chuunin to teach her ? 

The Chuunins humms.

"Mam ?", Sakura asks as the Chuunin's taking off her thicker top, leaving her only in a grey, skin tight undershirt. "Is anybody else going to join us ?"

"No. Most sensor nins get detected before they can leave the Academy and get appropriate training in Konoha. Has your teacher explained nothing to you ?"

"Well, I mean, we talked a bit about sensor but as nobody got labeled as a potential one in class..."

"That's still an oversight", she says, cocking her head to the side, accentuating how square her shoulders are. She looks like she could crack Sakura in two with a flick of her wrist but still, Sakura doesn't like the way she's talking about Iruka-sensei. He was one of the nice teachers, one of those who didn't hold her status against her.

"I'm a civilian", she blurts.

There's an awkward, choked silence.

"Ah" The Chuunin looks Sakura from head to toe. "Should've figured"

Sakura's lips are a thin line. She clenches her fists. 

"I'm proud of being a civilian"

The Chuunin waves her off. 

"Nice, now why don't you go and sit there ?"

She points a spot that could've been anywhere at the far end of the room. 

Sakura obeys quietly, though she's internally seething. 

Why are Shinobis always so dismissive of civilians ? As if they're worth less - as if they don't matter. 

Each time she hears that kind of thing Sakura doesn't heed her mother's lesson about being better than her peers, about not rising to petty challenges ; she wants to be so, so much worse. 

"Here's a totem infused with chakra", the Chuunin says while wiping away rain rolling down her nose. "Try to feel it. Get your chakra to extend out of your body and, uh, feel it or whatever"

She seems at lost about how to explain and suddenly, she seems painfully young. 

"Extend ?", Sakura asks. "How am I supposed to that ?"

She shrugs. 

"It's different from one sensor to another. It's easy for me, I've always been able to feel it. Only had to work on my range. Mashima told me it's like a rubber band on your skin you need to push out. Can kind of hurt if you suddenly retracts it all, though"

And on those enlightening words, she leaves Sakura to her own devices and goes to sit at the other end of the room, pulling out a pile of paper from her backpack. 

"Don't bother me unless it's necessary", she says. 

And with that starts Sakura's delightful training. 

Sakura spends the first three minutes glaring at the Chuunin. 

Then, realizing she's not gonna get any more help, she sighs quietly and sits in a meditative position.

What did she expect ? Shinobis don't give up their secrets easily, even when they're supposed to train you.

This road is a solitary one, she reminds herself. Nothing's fair in the shinobi world. If she wants knowledge, she'll have to fight tooth and nails for it. 

Rolling her neck, Sakura closes her eyes and tries to focus. Shouldn't be too hard, right ? 

She tries to feel the totem, try to push her chakra outwards but can't get it to leave her skin. 

It rebells against her, refuses to leave the confines of her pathways, fights her all the while.

Sakura pushes, cheeks puffed and breath held, until she can't hold it anymore and she gasps. Her chakra churns angrily in her veins - as though she did something sacrilegous. 

She's never experienced that : usually, when she tells her chakra to do something, it does it. There has never been any struggle for her to learn any jutsu. She never really undesrtood why others at the Academy had trouble with it. Is it what Naruto has been fighting against all the while while trying to learn ?

Yet she doesn't despair ; she shoves her disapointment down and tries again, picturing her chakra like a bubble she wants to expand. She's not a genius and she needs to  forgets any arrogant thought she may have secretly nurtured about being one.

She's just Sakura, and she's been offered an opportunity she can't afford to screw. 

Sakura breathes in slowly to calm her nerves. Then slowly, she exhales, and she tries again.

She pictures everything : her chakra as a thick coat on her skin she expands like a whip, a shield, and then her chakra as a pool in her chest that nourish her veins and that can flow from her pathways right after. 

She even glances quickly at the Chuunin then gets a feel of the totem like she would any object for a substition to get a feel for it. When she gets a good enough feeling for how it feels, she snaps the link and starts once more.

Time goes by and Sakura's confidence crumbles with each passing moment. She can't feel either the totem or even the other shinobi with way larger reserves sitting next to it. 

When she opens her eyes one hour later Sakura's drenched in sweat, and the violet haired Chuunin's standing in front of her, arms crossed, with Shironasa next to her. They're looking down on her, arms crossed.

"You sure she got water walking right on her first time ?"

Shironasa nods.

"Categorical"

Pity flashes across the woman's face.

"Guess it was a fluke"

Chapter Text

"Hey, Sakura !"

Yuri waves at her as she enters the common room. 

Sakura can't even find in her the energy to plaster a smile for all her fellow Genins smiling at her. 

They're sitting in a circle of couches and chairs brought together to make a loose 'U'. There is not only a dozen people or so - less than she expected.

"Just wanted to say goodnight", she says from the door, one shoulder against it. "Don't feel like chatting much"

Sayuri, drinking from a greenish bottle, perks up at that. Yuri frowns and, swaying from side to side between the table and sitting people, makes her way to Sakura. 

"Something happened ?", she asks, lowering her voice. "Did your training not go well ?"

Sakura studies her face for a moment then shrugs, looks away.

She doesn't like the way Yuri's looking at her. That's how kind, pretty, clan heir Ino used to look at her. Condescension hidden under warmth - as if Sakura was her little pet project. Ino is so cool, isn't she ? She could be best friends with anyone but she chooses poor, plain, civilian Sakura. Such a good heart. An angel.

How much Sakura fucking resented her. 

"I'm tired" she says, scratching her neck. She winces a bit, tries to hide it because she's a shinobi. The wound's not fully healed - the scar's painful. 

Yuri's hands wrap around Sakura's foreharm - the one she's using to now rub her chest. 

"Come on", she says. "Let's change your mind, alright ? Just think about something else for a bit"

Sakura rubs her eyes with her left hand, pinches the bridge of her nose.

"Yuri, I'm not-" She huffs, exhales. Her voice go from hysterical-high-pitched to normal shinobi. "I'm tired"  She's not sensor material. She has messed up a golden opportunity. What is she going to do ? Is she gonna die in a ditch ? "I'll see you tomorrow, alright ?"

Sakura spins around and Yuri's hand claps on her shoulder. 

"I don't know what happened-"

Sakura snorts.

"-but I'm sure more than anyone else you need to catch a break. Each time I see you're always thinking hard and, and training your ass off, or running around wearing rocks as if you got the hounds of hell on your shoes"

And when does she not have the hounds of hell on her shoes ? 

She's fucking hundred of miles from home washing fucking toilets every day training her fucking ass to-

"Five minutes", Yuri insists. "Just take five minutes of break, alright ? You can even put on your timer, I know it's never leaving your pocket. Just take five minutes for yourself when you're not a shinobi at war. Five minutes when you're just Sakura"

Sakura shuffles.Yuri moves her head, tries to catch her gaze. Sakura's quite taller.

"Won't change a thing for me if you stay or not, y'know ? I'm gonna enjoy myself anyway. This break's for you. You can afford five minutes, can't you ?"

She lets go off Sakura. 

Sakura looks outside, the outside beyond the corridor leading to the Genin's Common Room where it's still raining. She doesn't feel like talking to people and she feels even less like going back to her dorm now because she knows she'll bite her nails raw and cry herself to sleep.

"Fine", she says. Her voice's croaked. She clears her throat. "Five minutes only"

Yuri shoots her a bright smile, an assymetrical grin that doesn't look at all like Ino's perfect dentition and Sakura feels better.

As Yuri brings her to get a sit on the longest couch, she hopes that her former classmates are struggling as much as she is to adjust. That's certainly not true, she knows, but it makes her feel better to imagine she's not the only one sometimes feeling like she's losing her mind. 

She gets handed alcohol, and though the civilian part of her's outraged, the shinobi side drowns it. 

The good thing is, nobody makes her feel awkward. They don't ask her questions, they don't insist to get her in the conversation ; Sakura's just happy to sit there, enjoy the good energy and soak in the laughs. 

She doesn't wonder if they know about the survival rates of Genins on the battlefield, doesn't try to guess who'll die first and who will be among the few lucky survivors, who'll get traumatized and will become paper ninjas or who'll find it impossible to kill another human being and get their entire team murdered because of their incompetence.

She sits down and drinks and smiles, her cheeks warming and her heart fluttering. 

Halfway through her head lolls to the side and rests on Yuri's shoulder, who doesn't mind. 

She turns off her timer a second before it dings, pocketing it back in the same gesture. 

It takes her a moment to realize the room's ambience has changed. 

She feels Yuri stiffen, grasps bits of conversation behind the fog of her mind.

"He's here"

"Who even invited him ?"

Seemingly appearing out of nowhere, a boy worms his way between Sakura and Yuri. Pushing the first aside, he sits awkwardly, hands flat on his knees, a stupid grin on his face. Sakura's never seen him before.

She blinks languidly once, twice, watching him talk with an increasingly flustered Yuri. 

Yuri laughs nervously, looks around, and surely, people are laughing. 

Sakura can't hear anything behind the buzz in her ears. The alcohol's warm hug is turning to a cold embrace, and all of her bitterness, all of her anger, all of her rage at not having a Jonin sensei, not having parents, not having anyone who cares resurface like a tsunami, engulfing her in a devastating wave. 

She hears the boy's name but it slips her mind as soon as it gets in. He's the one Yuri doesn't like.

And when Yuri suddenly jumps to her feet, and the boy grabs her hand, visibly forcefully trying to get her to sit down, Sakura's vision goes red. 

Even when her fingers close around a cold, empty beer bottle, Sakura knows she's not doing it for Yuri. It'll still be the excuse she'll use after, though. 

She smahes it in the boy's head. 

Chapter Text

He doesn't go down. 

Sakura doesn't expect him to. 

They're shinobis, after all. 

The boy spins on his heels and awkwardly lash back ; Sakura ducks easily, avoiding his fist. 

Somewhere far beyond her foggy brain she hears gasps. She knows that, had she been lucid at this instant, she'd be mortified. She doesn't like fighting. She's weak Sakura, the girl who shuts her eyes before a blow lands on her. She's not a fighter, has never been.

Tonight, though, she's a raw mess and she wants somebody else to hurt.

Sakura retreats as he keeps swinging at her. The back of her legs brush the coffee table. She waits a breath longer, risks a jab in the hand. His knuckles graze her jaw. Her green eyes swipe over his body as she analyzes his form, scans him from head to toe in a split second like she does training shinobis she wishes to copy. He's overxtended. 

Sakura jumps on the coffee table with only one leg : her heel hit glasses and bottles who crash around her. Her extended leg slides under the boy's still extended arm, sneakily gliding under his forearm, her feet crashing onto his chin. The boy's widened eyes meet hers. There's alcohol streaming down his face and glass gleaming in his hair. 

His head shoots up. He bites his tongue as his teeth snap shut forcefully. Blood stains the corner of his lips. 

Sakura doesn't feel an ounce of remorse. 

Thus, when he grabs her extended foot and brutally drags her down, she can't find it in her to hold him accountable. Or she does, but at least she doesn't try to rip his throat with her teeth like an animal. Yet. 

She falls across the table : it's too short for her not to hang from both sides like a too long table cloth. Her hip and shoulder take the brunt of the hit. Her spine throbs, and for a moment, she can't breathe. 

Yet she pushes through the pain, rolls on the side, scratches her cheekbone, grabs a handful of broken glass and hurls them at the boy.

He has to duck behind the sofa.

A distant part of Sakura's pleased as her gaze lingers on where she got the sofa. Had it been him, he would've been skewered. 

She pauses a moment, eyes going left and right, wondering where he'll jump from. 

He doesn't jump from anywhere. 

Rather, he hurls the sofa at her.

Sakura's eyes widen. 

She ducks and reaches for her chakra in the same beat, blood pounding in her ears. She rolls on the table as much as she reaches for the chair-

She kawarimi in time to see the brown sofa fly over the table and crash onto the wall. Tremors go through the walls. Genins yelp in surprise and one's dragged away in time by a friend. 

Sakura's eyes widen. She meets the boy's gaze who looks as surprised as her.

They're both shinobis : if they don't stop, it'll end in blood. 

She swallows heavily. The boy gulps. They seize each other. He's holding a kunai. Sakura's right hand is hovering over her pouch, the left brushing her weighted gear to unclasp it a moment's notice. Blood's puddling in the crook of her shirt. 

Suddenly she has the urge to bring her kunai out and fight him head on. She wonders how she'll fare, how good she is with a blade, what insight he'll-

The door bursts open like a bomb, hitting the side wall with so much violence all the Genins except Sakura and her opponent jump up in fright. What drags her attention is the two shinobis bursting through the window one after the other in a coordinated manoeuver. 

Sakura's heart leaps in her throat as she stumbles black. The blade on her throat makes her still. The boy's held in a chokehold, hands flat on his head to snap it a moment's notice. She hears shouts but can't, for the life of her, turn to look at what's happening on her right. 

She can barely hear the snappy voices over the sound of her own heavy breathing. Dark spots flash in her vision. She grabs the arm holding the kunai to her throat, and the shinobi freezes, instinctively pushing the blade down. A rivulet of blood runs down her pale white skin. 

How many are there ? Five ? Ten ? Twenty ?

Still fresh of her training, Sakura reaches out. She pushes the chakra on her skin out like a rubber band she tries to snap. It bursts like a wave, doesn't even get as far as the couch, limits itself to five pitiful meters before it jumps back to her with the might of a thunderclap. 

She falls back against the tall shinobi's chest ; he withdraws his blade. Her fingers dig in his forearm as her mind's filled with the speed and viscosity of his chakra and- 

He swats the back of her head. 

"Listen", he growls

She blinks.

In less than a second the four very tall shinobis turn to four very pissed leaf shinobis.

"What the hell are you Genins doing ?", snaps a Chunin. "Starting fights inside is just-"

"Who threw this-"

"- glass every-"

They all talk over each other and grumble and glares at them.

The one previously holding her walks past her and leans over the windowsill. 

"All clear", the man grins. "Only Genins being Genins, you can go back to what you were doing"

Sakura walks a bit to see who he's talking to. 

Standing on the walls surrounding are close to half a dozen pretty riled up shinobis.

Shit. 

Chapter Text

How does one go from promising Genin to most stupid of the company in the span of forty-eight hours ? 

Two days ago Nakatsuji was appraising her, maybe even thinking she was worth a Chuunin’s time ; now she’s just the dumb girl who started a fight in the common room, scared the hell out of two dozens paranoid shinobis nearby who could’ve slit her and her fellow Genins’ throats in less than a second, and can’t sense shit for the life of her. 

Well, she can. Kind of. 

Her range seems to be the most pitiful thing ever, though. 

So small she’s afraid it’s barely average. 

Could Violet Chuunin help her make something out of it ? She’d probably laugh at her. 

“Now fuck off”, Nakatsuji growls. 

Sakura and the boy are both standing straight at attention. 

“Yes sir !”, they say simultaneously. 

As she makes her way for the door, Nakatsuji waves her back in. 

“Not you, Haruno. We need to talk”

She swallows nervously. She doesn’t miss the nasty glare the boy sends her. His head’s wrapped in so many bandages he looks like a mummy. 

Sakura stiffly turns to face the Genin Commander. The disapproving gleam in his eyes makes her stand straighter, chin higher. 

His chin moves imperceptibly, as though he appreciates her courage - or maybe she’s imagining it. 

The door shuts close behind her, the wind making small strands of hair falling from her ponytail fly all around her face.

What is he gonna give her ? More work on top of the cleaning punishment she already got herself saddled with ? And that’s without putting back in shape the common room…

“Sir ?”

“I heard about your sensor training, Haruno”

It feels like the building’s crumbling on her head. 

“Yes sir”

“And your less than stellar performance”

“I feel like I wasn’t… understanding properly the first time how it was being done” Sakura says. She feels like it’d be a very bad idea to badmouth Violet Chuunin to her Commander. “But I’m pretty sure I understood it. I’m confident I can pull it off at the next session”

Nakatsuji’s eyes are cold. He taps on his desk, leaning back in his chair. 

“Is that so ?”, he humms. 

“Yes sir”

Her voice is smooth like silk, but she’s lying through her teeth. 

She wonders how bad she looks from his perspective, with her disheveled hair and the bandages on her cheek and throat. Certainly like she got out of a cat fight, and not one with a shinobi. 

“Regardless of your claims”, he says. “You have a set of three sessions allocated to you before Chuunin Makihito makes her report and assess whether or not you should be trained as a sensor”

“Yes sir”

“She needs to report to duty soon thus your sessions will be much closer in time than what was first intended. You’ll get one right after our little chat, and another tomorrow afternoon”

Two days. 

Sakura’s got two days to prove she’s worth something. 

She licks her dry lips. 

“It’s…”

Naktasuji quirks a brow. 

“Yes Genin ?”

She swallows. 

“It’s perfect”, Sakura breathes out. “Thank you, sir”

“Good. Dismissed”

She’s got a day and a half to prove she’s worth something. 

She’ll rise to the challenge.

*

“You know, Sakura, it’s really nice of you but… uh… I’m not really into it”

Sakura blinks, a hand hovering over Yuri’s arm.

“Huh ?”

The girl scratches her neck, cheeks flushes. 

“I mean, I liked you defending my honor and all yesterday but like… I mean, there wasn’t much to defend anyway, he wasn’t… You did not have to… Girls are nice but I don’t like them, y’know”

Sakura curls her fingers back.

“You don’t what ?”

Her mind’s swimming with chakra theory from Academy and what she felt yesterday and the stress of failing after acting so confident in front of her Genin Commander and the fucking gibberish that Yuri is spewing -

“Well, you’ve got nice hair, sure, but I’m just- you’re cool as a friend, you know ?”

“... yeah ?”

She beams. 

“So, you’re not angry ?”

Sakura frowns. 

“Yuri, I asked you help for training. Are you gonna help me or not ?”

“Oh, yes, of course, what should we do ?”

Sakura grabs her arm. 

“I need to train my-”

Yuri tries to gently let her go.

“Sakura, I’m not sure that’s the way you should train-”

What the hell is she-

“I know better how I should-”

“-into girls ?”

Sakura blinks. Twice.

“What ?”

“I’m not into girls”, Yuri says, apolegetically. 

Sakura blinks again. 

“Well, that’s nice”

What is one supposed to say when their friend is doing an un-coming out ?

“You’re not taking it bad ?”

“Why would I ?”

They look at each other owlishly. 

“... I’m not either”, Sakura ends up saying because she feels like she has to. 

Yuri looks dubiously at her.

“Really ?”

Sakura’s so outraged she flares up in anger but pushes it all down. 

“I know who I’m into and who I’m not”, she snaps

Yuri raises her hands placatingly. 

“Okay, sure… but why did you hit Hiro ?”

“Well…” Because I was angry feels like something stupid a boy would say, and girls are better than boys, aren’t they ? “He was being mean to you” She squeaks. 

“Mean ?” Yuri asks, flabbergasted. “To me ?”

Sakura flushes. 

“Didn’t you say he was always annoying you at your job ? And that nobody invited him at the party…”

“Sakura, he asked me on a date”

Sakura freezes. 

“He- he what ?”

“He asked me on a date”, Yuri repeats. “And then, you hit him”

“I did not”, Sakura groans, mortified, hiding her face in her palms. “Please, tell me I did not”

“I don’t really like him”, Yuri adds. “But, I mean, that was very courageous of him to ask in front of everyone, and he’s not that bad looking, so-”

Sakura grabs Yuri by the shoulders. 

“Please, Yuri, tell me not everyone thinks I’m into you and, and I got jealous and that’s why I hit him”

Yuri looks away. 

“Well-”

“Yuri !”

“Hiro said he wanted to fight you, ‘Kura. In two days time, just until his head gets better. And the winner…”

She turns beet red. 

Sakura shakes her. 

“The winner what ?”

“The winner gets to keep me”

Chapter Text

“Different ? Different how ?”

Sakura licks her chapped lips, tries to find the correct words to describe what she’d felt. 

“It’s like… I could feel everything inside of her. Her bones, her organs, the beat of her heart…” Violet Chuunin snorts. Sakura pinches her lips and closes her eyes to recall the sensation. “I could feel her chakra flowing through their pathways”

There’s a long moment of silence. 

Then, slowly, Sakura opens her eyes.

Violet Chuunin is not mocking her, as she expects ; she’s assessing her, arms crossed and lips quirked down.

“Are you sure you truly felt your friend’s chakra ?”

“Yes” Sakura nods frantically because she’s one hundred percent she felt Yuri’s chakra and at the same time, what if she’d convinced herself she felt something just to not feel like a failure ?

“You’re certain ?”, insists Violet Chuunin.

Sakura nods even though she doubts. Her fears are hers alone to keep ; she can’t share them with her peers, otherwise they’ll think her weak and snatch away any promise of success she managed to gnaw for herself. 

Violet Chuunin doesn’t look like she notices anything. 

Good, Sakura thinks. I’m getting better at lying. 

Her mom would've hated that. 

Sakura congratulates herself. 

“Hmm” Violet Chuunin beckons Sakura forward with a gesture : she obliges quickly. “Try it on me”

Sakura expected something like that, which is why she trained on close to half a dozen other Genins yesterday and this morning until their goodwill - and her money - ran out. 

They couldn’t stop babbling on the incoming ‘spar’ with Hiro. 

At least the Chuunin doesn’t talk, which makes it easier to focus.

“Are you done ?”

Sakura nods, frowning, eyes closed. 

Violet Chuunin’s is like a stream of cool water that flows through her veins without a hitch. It bumps on a couple of areas here and there, seems to flow with more difficulty around her hands, but otherwise it is similar to Yuri’s and the other Genin’s.

Although, Sakura notices. There’s more of it…

“What can you tell me about it ?”

“It’s thicker than my fellow Genin’s”, she says. “More… viscous. But it flows faster, too. I can’t say how fast, but I just know it is” Can you quantify the speed of the wind from feeling it on your skin ? Put numbers on a breeze then a gust, and accurately determine how more powerful is the second compared to the first ? “There are… somewhere in your hands it looks like there’s a hitch. It slows a bit, and most of it can’t get through…”

Violet Chuunin sharply takes her hands back.

Sakura blinks, momentarily surprised to see daylight, as though she’s been underwater for hours and just broke through the shimmering surface. 

She flexes her hands, still feeling remnants of Violet Chuunin’s chakra flowing under the thick of her fingers. 

“So you can see chakra”, she muses. “Interesting. For what we knows, only the Uchiha can do so”

Sasuke , her mind whispers traitorously. Embers of what was once a hot fire flicker in her chest. 

She doesn’t like the way Violet Chuunin compares her to him - as if she were close in any way to the lowest Uchiha genius. 

It’s unfair to them both but especially to her because it gives her false hope she can be a tiny bit as good as them. 

“I can’t see it”, Sakura corrects, her eyes going back to Violet Chuunin’s gloved pinky. “But after I touch you, the sensation lingers…”

The Chuunin humms. 

“And if I step back ?” She moves once. The feeling of her chakra turns tenuous, and if Sakura doesn’t focus properly on it, she can’t hear the low buzz of the blue energy anymore. 

“It’s faint”, she says, brow lowered, focusing as hard as she can on the Chuunin. 

The Chuunin takes two quick steps back. 

“And now ?”

The connection snaps like a thread cut clean. 

Sakura exhales a disappointed sigh. 

“Nothing”

“Listen”, the Chuunin says. “I have no idea what kind of sensing you’re doing, or how it is that you can hear people’s heartbeat when you focus enough, but your ability - whatever the hell it is - is not standard for a sensor” Her words cut through Sakura like a blade slicing her neck. She doesn't wince, because shinobis don’t wince and don’t show weakness and are strong always . “I’ll try to ask a bit around to see if anybody has any idea what we can do with you-” Sakura perks up. “-but don’t get your hopes up. To follow sensor training you need to have at least ten meters of range naturally. You’re far from the bare minimum, and we’re already done for today”

Sakura stands up abruptly.

“Already ?”

Violet Chuunin looks up from her watch. 

“Tomorrow’s the last session, Genin Haruno. Better try to make the most out of the time before then”

She gathers her paperwork under one arm and Sakura has to suppress the urge to run after her and cry in her legs, beg her to stay, explain one more time, just one more, because doesn’t she get it ? She’ll die out here, the battlefield is an open grave-

“A shame we’re at war”, Violet Chunin says, one hand on the doorknob. “Had you had a Jonin sensei, maybe you could’ve figured out what that weird quirk of yours is…”

The door slams shut on Sakura.

Chapter Text

Sakura’s on edge and, as her kunai twirls flawlessly from hand to hand, she’s considering forfeiting the fight. 

Her eyes are bloodshot and deep violet bags make the green of her eyes sharply stand up, and as she reviews everything she knows about chakra sensing, which is not much-

‘Kura ?’, yawns Yuri, rubbing her sleepy eye with a fist. 

Sakura’s head snaps up. Her kunai doesn’t falter and she’s too exhausted to show any kind of surprise at the girl sneaking up on her. 

“Yuri”

Did she even sneak up ? 

She just looks like she may have been walking and Sakura was too caught up in the mess of her mind to notice her. Ha, one hell of a shitty sensor she’d make. 

Her bad mood sours further. 

“It’s dawn”, Yuri says, looking at the sun peeking through the window. She throws a glance at the made bed Sakura’s sitting on. “Did you just get up ? I didn’t hear you come back yesterday evening”

“I just came back”, Sakura answers, frowning, leaning ever so slightly forward, blade absently flicking between her fingers as she pays attention to Yuri’s chakra. There, if she really focus, she can feel Yuri’s chakra flow in her body…

“You were outside all night long !”, she half-screams. “What were you even doing ?”

“Training”, she mumbles absently. Trying to feel that stupid totem for hours on end, refusing to back down. ‘That’s a shame we’re at war’, the Chuunin had said. ‘Had you had a Jonin sensei…’. 

Fuck her, Sakura snarls. Fuck them all and their stupid war. It’s not her fault she didn’t have one ; it certainly won’t be the nail on her coffin. She’ll master sensing, Jonin sensei or not. Sakura can feel something - it’s better than most people, right ? She got tree walking- hell, she even got water walking down on her first try.

She won’t fucking back down.

“Kura…”

Yuri’s fingers brush Sakura’s shoulders and she jumps up as though she’s been burned. 

“I have to train”, she growls, storming out, her eyes going to the Genins who send dirty looks her way. She dares them to get up and mess with her. Yuri’s the one screaming ; they better take it out with her. 

At the same time, though, she wishes they would take it on her just so she’d have a reason to punch someone. 

“Wait, Sakura !” Yuri tries to catch up to her. “Don’t forget the fight’s at-”

The door slams shut on Yuri’s voice, and Sakura feels much better. 

*

First she considers the mess hall. 

But then, seeing as she doesn’t want to try sensing on Chuunins - or Kami forbids, Jonins - she changes her plan of action.

She’d try the training grounds if only she could get close enough to any kind of shinobi without looking suspicious as hell. 

The solution’s easy : she’ll hide in the bathroom. 

Stalls separate different showers among the Genins’ section. 

Sakura grabs clean clothes, a towel, puts on black pyjama shorts and a white shirt. She locks herself on the middle one to be close to everyone, no matter which stall they choose. 

She takes off her clothes and stand under the hot water, eyes closed, waiting for somebody to come. 

It doesn’t take long : most shinobis enjoy training in the morning, and Genins are no exception. 

She focuses on the boy’s footsteps : he’s humming under his breath. He chooses the stall farthest from the door. Sakura tries to reach for him like she did with Violet Chuunin or Yuri after getting a close-up feel of their chakra. 

She extends her senses, try to get a feel of the blue energy coursing through his veins. After a couple of minutes, something tingles at the edge of his senses. He’s closer to her than the ten meters required but she never felt anything like that for the totem, not even when she was standing right in front of it ; maybe that’s the problem ? She got a knack for living beings, and inanimate objects are-

The boy briskly gets out, happy to be cleaned.

Sakura blinks awake, suddenly aware of her surroundings. She clicks her tongue. It was too fast. She needs more time.

It takes twenty minutes of her chewing on her lip and reminiscing on the feeling for someone else to enter the bathroom. No, two people. They’re chatting. 

Sakura listens intently as take the stalls on her left. 

She’s so close to one she nearly jumps up in excitement. 

She closes her eyes, focusing on the feeling of the Genin next to her and soon enough she can feel something faint about him…

It’s not as good as if she were touching him, she knows, but it’s not as if in battle she can ask enemy nins if she can hold their hands. She can’t afford to slowly up the stakes : today’s her last session with Violet Chuunin. She’s gotta try harder than she ever has before. She’ll sense chakra by the end of the day or she’ll be damned trying. 

The usual low buzz fills her ears with excitement. 

Her brows are knitted-close as she focus on it ; she can’t map the individual’s pathways like she can when touching them, but this close, she gets a good enough feel of him. 

Again, the boy finishes showering too soon. 

When he leaves Sakura’s range - a pitiful three meters - she clicks her tongue in frustration. 

She exhales shakily, passing a hand on her face as water runs down her cheeks. 

It’s alright, she tells herself. It’s good practice for when she’ll be on the battlefield. She need to get used to people going in and out of her range. 

She tries holding on them even though her connection’s snapping, hoping to extend her range that way. 

Truth is, Sakura has no idea what she’s doing. 

Her methods could be bullshit, for all she knows, but it’s not as if she has a lot of choice, does it ? She’d doing her best with the cards she's been dealt. She can’t be angry at herself for her lack of progress. 

And yet, she does exactly that. 

Practical skills asides, Sakura is extremely confident in her theoretical knowledge. She’s smart - smarter than Sasuke - and one day Iruka sensei even compared her to Shikamaru - a Nara . 

If there’s one person her age who can pull sensing off, it’s her. 

Not clan heir Ino, not skilled Hinata, not stamina freak Naruto, her, Sakura Haruno, the brightest Genin of her age. 

And it may be a lie, and she may be delusional, but it feels good to, for once, almost believe totally in herself. 

Not as if anyone will do it for her, anyway. 

The bathroom’s door opens once more, and her eyes snap shut.

*

“You look like you’ve spent the day in an onsen”

Sakura shrugs under Sayuri’s once-over. 

She eats with the speed of one who’s spent the last sixteen hour training and hasn’t slept a wink. 

Back in the bathroom, towards the end, she felt like she got close to a break-through but was too dizzy to stay a moment longer under the hot water or in the humid place.  

Fainting and being found naked by her fellow Genins didn’t seem appealing, no matter how much more she needed to train. She already has the reputation of a training freak who distributes her money around like candy - this would’ve been impossible to recover from. 

Sayuri slides her glasses up her nose. 

They don’t find themselves often in the presence of each other, as both girls are more friends with Yuri than they are with each other. Still, Sayuri made an effort to come and grab lunch with Sakura before her shift, so she feels like she has to be a bit agreeable. 

“You know”, Sayuri says, “I think you should definitely take Hiro on his offer”

Sakura snorts.

“And get pummeled in front of everyone ? No, thank you”

She already got humiliated enough in the Academy. 

“Well”, Sayuri says. “I thought you of all people would be happy of the opportunity”

Sakura’s eyes flash as she glares at Sayuri.

“I’m not into Yuri”

Sayuri rolls her eyes and scoffs.

“Wow, you’re sure ? Couldn’t have guessed that” She shakes her head. “Listen, Sakura. You’re training day and night and we all know how you love getting at it every day on the wooden dummies. Now you’ve got a true opportunity to try your abilities on someone who wants to skin you and you won’t take the chance ?” She clicks her tongue. “I thought you were smarter than that”

Sakura’s eyes widen. 

She slaps her hand on her forehead. 

How come she didn’t notice the golden opportunity under her eyes ? 

She spent nearly every day of the week worrying sick about her sensing training so much so that she didn’t notice that she got a fucking spar for fucking free . 

She didn’t even have to bribe Hiro. 

He came at her willingly. 

Sayuri, noticing the realization lighting up Sakura’s face, stands up with her empty trail.

“Didn’t think I’d have to spell it out for you but glad I did” She smiles.

Sakura frowns. 

“Why did you tell me ?”

She could’ve let Sakura stew in her own misery until, days later, she realized what she’d nearly missed. 

“Out of the goodness of my heart”

Sakura’s frown shows she doesn’t buy it for a second. 

They’re shinobis, after all. Hired mercenaries and the rest. Nothing’s free in their world.

“Alright, alright” Sayuri says. “I want you to kick his ass. Yuri may start liking him or whatever, I still can’t stand him. He’s just a smug little prick. I’d like to see him taken down a couple notches”

Far from being angry at being used by Sayuri, Sakura grins. She understands that language. 

“I’ll do my best. You can count on me”

Sayuri gives her a thumbs up.

“Wouldn’t expect less from our resident training freak”

Chapter Text

There’s a small crowd. 

Not enough people to wrongfully make her assume her fight is of any importance, but enough to make her nervous. 

Sakura recognizes most Genins. She nods at Sayuri, who lazily waves back, as she jogs to a spot a bit further to stretch. She’s sore, and the skin under her eyes is cold. She’s not in optimal condition to fight, but will she ever be ? Shinobis’ lives are full of ambushes, surprise attacks, missions that go wrong and slashed throats. Maybe sleepless but aware of the incoming fight is the best deal she’ll ever get.

As she bends over her stretched out leg, Sakura catches Sayuri exchanging a couple of ryos with a boy, smiling all the while. 

Well, at least some people are having fun.

She closes her eyes, breathing in and out to slow the rabbit beats of her heart. 

She has extended her senses so much during the last three days it’s near instinctive now. 

Sakura pushes on the thin chakra layer covering her skin in one fell smooth. 

The dome-like energy spreads quickly enough from her body - though Jonins would do it twenty times faster, she’s sure of it - and graze her fellow Genins sprawled on the grass and laughing. 

Her head leans minutely to the side as she follows one’s chakra from his heart down his arm until his finger where he’s holding someone’s shoulder, jumping from a fingertip down the second’s chest until his chakra pool, right in the stomach, where it twirls like a vortex. 

She scans a couple Genins, doesn’t follow after those that go in and out of her pitiful range. Here and now’s not the time. 

“Sakura, you ready ?”

She rises quietly from the ground, a resilient willow bent by the wind yet snapping back up to show it hasn’t been uprooted. 

When she opens her eyes, she meets Hiro’s gaze. 

He’s as tall as her, tanned, black haired, green eyed, muscled and unfortunately uninjured. 

When Sakura wipes her clammy hands on her pants, her gestures are slow, lazy, like a wealthy woman smoothing imaginary creases on her skirts. She doesn’t rub the scar on her throat. She doesn’t shake, except in the legs, but the standard pants are large enough to hide it. 

Their hands meet for the seal of confrontation. 

Sakura’s eyes narrow for a split second on Hiro’s left fingers.

Feud or not, they’re still Konoha shinobis. 

“No maiming or killing”, Sayuri says, acting as the referee. 

There are snorts at the last word. Sakura doesn’t blame them. She used to do the same, back at the Academy, when she was struggling between playing vain civilian and terrified, powerless farmers’ daughter. 

Without looking away from each other, both Sakura and Hiro move a step back. The boy’s eyes stray a bit on the right - Sakura’s left - towards the crowd, and a small blush reddens his cheeks. 

Sakura swallows. 

Her throat is as dry as sandpaper. Sweat is gathering on her temple.

Hiro looks back at her, gaze hardening. 

It scares her, this shinobi who wants to hurt her. 

But at the same time, Sakura’s the one who put herself in that position. 

She chose to train after she nearly got gutted like a pig. She chose to fight even though the clan kids received finer instruction she could ever dream to have. She chose to enroll in the Academy when a perfect little insignificant life had already been set aside for her.

Her fingers brush her weapons pouch.

Hiro’s eyes narrow.

No matter what happens, Sakura will always keep moving forward. 

“Go !”

It’s instinctive, the kunai that slip in her palm, the forward dash followed by a slash she repeated hundreds of times on the wooden dummy. 

Hiro parries in time, sparks flying from the contact point, his wrist bent slightly back. 

Their gazes meet for a split second. 

Then, Sakura’s blade glides over his as she attempts to slash his raised forearm. Simultaneously, Hiro’s kunai, following its previous momentum, goes for her eyes. 

She ducks right as it flies above her head, the edge slicing the tip of her ponytail swooshing behind her. 

Sakura, without missing a beat, twirls her kunai expertly and grabs it in a stabbing way, pointy tip towards the ground and handle in her fist. 

She slashes at Hiro’s chest whereas he moves back, parrying each and every of her attacks in a burst of sparks. He can only hold on so long before the discrepancy between their skills start to show. 

Slight, the discrepancy. Sakura has only started taking herself seriously.

Yet she’s already a beat faster, a tiny bit more vicious. 

Quick joy fills her heart at realizing she can not only hold her ground but push him back- and Hiro kicks her over-extended knee.

Sakura stumbles, destabilized, momentum cut off, and Hiro sees the opportunity for what it is. 

His kunai goes for her throat ; Sakura meets her own gaze in the blade’s shiny steel, notices the minute widening of her eyes. 

She twists sideways in an impressive show of flexibility, back completely parallel to the ground, and Hiro, though his slash’s mostly committed, tries to follow her in her new twist.

Cold steel grazes her throat. A small bead of blood rolls from a superficial cut down the side of her neck. 

Sakura willingly abandons her kunai to take hold of the ground.

She’s in a bridge position, navel to the sky, hand and feet flat on the soil. 

Hiro’s on the side of her head. 

Like her, he has overextended. 

Sakura rolls back in a half crouched cart wheel, half guessing where on Hiro her feet will land, not caring as long as they do land. 

The boy gasps in pain as Sakura’s left foot slams against his stomach.

Cartwheel done, Sakura slams poorly on her stomach, knees first. Pain jolts from her bones up her waist. The pain momentarily stuns her.

When she looks over her shoulder, the only thing she sees is the curved, top part of a shoe. 

Nose .

She’s not fast enough to dodge.

Chapter Text

His foot crushes her nose so hard it feels like it flattens against her skull. Pain burst like a wildfire all the way up her sinuses. 

Sakura rolls with the hit, crashes on a tree behind. 

Blood spurts like a fountain from her nose. From behind watery eyes, she spots Hiro, a hand on his crotch, holding a kunai. 

Groaning, a hand on her face, Sakura rises on shaky legs. She sways. Holds a hand towards Sayuri who, she can see from the corner of her eye, looks like she wants to step in. 

Hiro’s glaring at her. 

Sakura’s wheezing. Blood’s slipping in her mouth through half parted lips. She spits a glob of blood, wipes her lips with the back of her hand. 

The hem of her shirt is soaked with blood. Drops are falling on her left weighted gear. 

Hiro straightens, lets go off his crotch. 

He kicks the grass and suddenly, Sakura’s left behind kunai flies up and he catches it confidently. 

He twirls it in his hand, index in the ring, and sends it back to her. 

Sakura moves her head aside, and the kunai embeds itself in the bark behind. 

He glances at the crowd, eyes seemingly focused on one person only, before looking back to Sakura. 

Cocky. Certain of his victory. 

Sakura appraises him. Rubs her shoulder, focuses on the hem of her weighted hear.

“Good move”

Hiro’s startled by the sudden praise. 

“Thanks… I guess ?”

And though she really liked that move, Sakura’s never felt the need to shove somebody’s face in shit as much as she does his - well, except Ino’s. 

She exhales slowly, settling her thoughts, and then she runs. 

Hiro’s eyebrows twitch, because they’re far from each other and she’s anything but subtle - everything a shinobi shouldn’t be.

Her hands are down, and because Hiro seems weirdly disturbed by the amount of blood dripping from her nose, Sakura grins and let it stains her teeth so he’s too focused on the top to see what goes on at the bottom. 

Mudras flash in her hands. 

In less than two seconds, Sakura’s left a clone behind and kawarimi’d behind Hiro. 

Gasps fall from the crowd. Some are stupid enough to point at her, hidden in the cover of trees, right as Hiro’s charging at her clone. Because he’s so focused on Yuri, Hiro catches their gestures and grinds to a half stop, looking over his shoulder.

Bushes bristle.  

In front, Clone Sakura, fully stained in blood, jumps up with a high pitched scream and a kunai that catches the sunlight like a real one.

Hiro hesitates, looks back at the Clone, parries her kunai and stabs her leg - it goes right through it. 

His hands move quickly enough through the mudras for a kawarimi - but Sakura’s anticipated. 

Grinding her teeth, holding a part of her weighted gear with both hands like she would a Christmas sock filled with rocks, Sakura swings it with all of her strength towards Hiro. 

He flinches, anticipates the hit, head ducking in his shoulders.

And although Sakura’s petty, she’s not going for his face. 

The rocks crash with a sickening sound on his hands. 

He screams and falls to the ground, clutching his hands close to his chest, and less than a moment later Sakura’s straddling him, breathing heavily, a kunai on his throat. 

“Yield”

Drops of her blood are falling on his cheek, some on his lips. Her long pink hair is dangling over her shoulder. She sniffles, and it sends a jolt of pain up to her brain. 

She can taste victory, is nearly giddy with the excitement of a win against a strong shinobi.

When he opens his eyes, Hiro’s glaring at her with sheer hatred. 

He spits in her eyes a mixture of saliva and her blood. 

Sakura’s nose scrunches up in disgust and she mistakenly raises a hand to wipe it away. 

With a swing of his hips, Hiro sends her aside, exchanging their positions. 

Sakura, feeling the loss of control, goes with the motion and pushes further so they tumble down a slight slope and she ends up on top once more. 

Yet Hiro anticipated her move and they end up tumbling away, a mess of limbs, far from the dignified figures of shinobis they were moments prior. 

Sakura, kunai in fist, slashes at Hiro’s hand to make him let go when he starts to strangle her with his valid hand. He groans and grabs her wrist to make her let go, thumb and index pushing expertly on the pressure points whereas Sakura thrashes against him. 

She’s moving so much that Hiro has to momentarily rise a bit more on his knee to hold her wrist properly, and Sakura takes the opportunity to knee his crotch with delight. 

The pained exhale that leaves his mouth has him nearly crushing her under his weight. 

Sakura pushes him aside, kunai well in hand, and switches their positions. 

This time, she presses the kunai on his throat hard enough for blood to ooze from the tip.

“ Yield ”

Hiro’s gaze is hazy. He’s shaking uncontrollably. 

His saliva is still on the bridge of her nose, and though she knows being a shinobi means playing dirty, it’s disgusting. 

Her fingers dig deeper in his shoulder - and though she hears his heart beating, feels his lungs expanding then retracting, sees his chakra churning quickly in his pathways, she only focuses on his face and on the win.

“Yield, or else-”

She’s half of the mind of stabbing his shoulder to force him to give up when a crooked grin blooms on his face. 

It’s not the tiger seal he brings to his lips that ticks her off ; it’s not the lazy, too late ‘katon’ that flows from his tongue that makes her stumble to her feet. 

It’s the heat in his veins, the buzzing chakra under his skins that turns hot, hot, hot, and that she feels taking shape in his stomach, following the hand signs he’s quickly, one handedly performing, fingers against her thigh, that make Sakura turn ash white, that make Sakura jump to her feet, that make Sakura’s hands fly through the kawarimi-

Again, she’s not fast enough. 

Chapter Text

She feels the heat on her face before the first flickering flame, a shuddered exhale from Hiro that has her skin turning red, sweaty, dry like crinkling paper. 

At this very moment, Sakura’s more attuned to chakra than she has ever been in her entire existence. 

Mudras flash in her hands but her chakra - the pool between her chest and her lower stomach - flicker a fraction faster than her fingers, flow through her pathways with the practised ease of someone who’s done this jutsu a hundred times and who knows it by heart. 

And as she rises and stumbles to her feet and try to get away, Sakura’s acutely aware of Hiro’s chakra, too, between his chest and his lower stomach, contracting and expanding, and she sees the Tiger mudra, blue and vivid, inside of him as he locks in the jutsu-

A hand grab her by the scruff of her collar and Sakura, for a brief moment, feels somebody else’s chakra pulsing to a rhythm she’s never heard, and her skull splits open as she’s now aware of three people with three different pathways executing three jutsu simultaneously-

She’s yanked back so hard she chokes on her collar.

The world blurs and her mind blows up.

Green blurs settle to grass and suddenly Sakura’s kneeling, heaving, a puddle of puke in front of her and the acidic smell clinging to her nostrils. 

Her ears are ringing. Colors are pulsing like the world’s a heartbeat away of exploding in her face. 

A shinobi’s crouching in front of her and screaming, vein bulging on his forehead, repeatedly hitting his temple with his finger. Red hair and blue eyes. Arashi.

Sakura wipes her mouth and looks at Hiro who, meters away, flat on his back, is still spitting it out fire. 

Trees top’ are burned, charred leaves snowing all around him. 

She can feel the heat from here. 

Then, the fire turns to a coughing fit, black smoke bursts from his lips, and the shinobi next to him grabs him by the collar of his shirt and yanks him up. 

It takes Sakura a moment longer to notice the flack jacket on his back.

Chuunin.

Shit. 

*

Nakatsuji’s fingers drum quickly against his desk as Hiro and Sakura, both bandaged, look straight ahead to the wall above his head.

“You said sparring ?”

“Yes sir”, Hiro replies. 

Although they didn’t speak since the abrupt end of their friendly fight, Hiro and Sakura only had to share a glance to agree to what they would say. 

And wasn’t that a sight ? 

They nearly tried to kill each other less than an hour before and now they both stand, united, in front of their officer, refusing to tell the truth even though it could cost them dearly - not as dearly as a near murder of a fellow Konoha shinobi would, anyway. 

Oh God, she’s really fucked. 

Nakatsuji’s palm smacks the desk.

“You’re lying”

Both Genins flinch. None of them speak a word. A moment goes by. Nakatsuji’s dark eyes sparkle maliciously. 

“If you tell me the truth”, Nakatsuji says “I can guarantee that none of you will face any consequences for your mistakes” 

A pause. 

Sweat trickles down behind Sakura’s ear. She prays Hiro won’t say a word. If he does, it’ll be on their files, and it could fuck up any future prospect they have of getting out of the Genin Corps and getting up in the command chain. Better to get labeled as a troublesome Genin rather than one with violent tendencies. 

Nakatsuji change tactics 

“Or let’s say I can guarantee one of you not to get it permanently marked on his file. You don’t really like each other, do you ? Wouldn’t it be nice to have the other one punished and to get out of it scoff free ?”

His black, bottomless, shiny eyes settle on Sakura. 

She doesn’t meet his gaze, but she feels the weight of it all the same.

“A payback and a one-up. How nice”

He waits. 

Sakura doesn’t budge an inch. 

The wheezing when she breathes in and out mostly hides her shaking. She’ll have to wait a bit more until it’s fully healed, as the medics couldn’t spare wasting chakra on her beyond the basic minimum when there were other, truly injured shinobis with more pressing needs. 

Same for Hiro’s crushed fingers. 

He walked funnily since they left the infirmary, and Sakura wondered if he felt too shy to tell the doctors about his crotch pain. 

The corners of her lips tugs up. 

Nakatsuji’s eyes narrow. 

He opens his mouth but suddenly, Hiro bristles. 

“Yes ?”

Nakatsuji leans forward. 

Sakura tenses.

“Sir, can I go to the bathroom ?”

Nakatsuji’s face turns hardens. 

“If you want to play smartasses, be it. It’ll go in both your files” Sakura and Hiro’s mouths snap open simultaneously, but Nakatsuji makes a tutting sound. “And I’ll think of an appropriate punishment. Scram”

*

Even though she’s run through the whole camp, Sakura makes it ten minutes late to her last session with Chuunin Makihito.

The woman rises from her seated position, violet ponytail swooshing around her.

“You’re late. You won’t get extra time”

“I-”

“Don’t care” She’s next to the switch. “Sit. I’ll turn the lights off and move the totem around every couple of minutes. If, when I ask, you get its position accurately at least five times, consider yourself good. If not..”

Sakura swallows hard. 

Her head’s pounding, and she doesn’t know if it’s from the lack of sleep or Hiro’s foot slamming in her skull.

She sits.

Alright, she trained all day for the last twenty hour - surely she can pull it off, right ? 

Relaxing is made harder because of the pachyderm sound she makes when breathing. Sitting still is more difficult for she’s stiff, her muscles coiled, and she feels ready to strike.

She rolls her neck, clamps her knees, forces her fists to uncurl. 

Behind her eyelids she’s not visualizing the totem but Hiro’s face, their fights, how she let him get away two times when she should’ve pressed for victory-

“Lights out”

Sakura opens her eyes and is momentarily surprised to see that it’s pitch black. Makihito even covered the windows with thick curtains. 

“Where ?”

Her voice seems like it’s coming from everywhere, and Sakura wonders if it’s a shinobi trick or just the room’s echo.

Sakura tries to focus. 

Brows knitted, she licks her dry lips, chakra reaching out in an attempt to find the totem. 

“Left. Three meters.”

Makihito doesn’t say a word - there’s no sound.

“Where ?”

And isn’t that good ? That she doesn't berate her ? 

Hope flickers in her chest.

She’s feeling it, isn’t it ? The energy, right at the edge of her senses ? It’s pulling, glowing, and Sakura can even smell-

“Right. five meters”

“Where ?”

And it goes on and on until the whole hour goes by, and suddenly Makihito turns on the lights.

Sakura blinks, dilated pupils quickly shrinking.

Makihito’s looming over, face closed, totem in her hands.

“You failed”

Chapter Text

Delusional.

She is delusional. 

Not in the infatuated-with-a-boy-and-think-he-loves-me-back kind of way, but rather in the over-estimated-my-abilities-which-can-get-me-killed-in-the-field. 

Because that’s what she did with Makihito, isn’t it ? She thought she felt something. She convinced herself she did.

But truth is, she didn’t.

And if she didn’t, what else did she lie to herself about ? Is her training even bearing fruit ? Is she even sensing shit at all ? 

She’s just poor, plain, clanless Haruno Sakura. Of course she wouldn’t get the special training, the one-on-one attention. 

She’s not that privileged kind of girl, like Sasuke, or lucky Clan Heir like Ino, or unnaturally smart like Shikamaru. Good things don’t happen to people like her. Of course she should have known. Luck can only get her so far. If she were back in the forest, back with her fellow Genins, back with the swordswoman, surely she-

“Sakura ?”

Sweat rolls on the bridge of Sakura’s nose down to the pointy tip. She exhales slowly, cheeks red, and it falls on the grass, mixing with early morning dew. 

“What are you doing ?”

Can’t she see ? 

Sakura wants to snarl at her, all wild anger pulsing in her blood making her head throb, but it’d mean wasting too much energy and saliva that she’d rather spend on working the delusion out of her bloodstream. 

“Training”

Sayuri watches her for a while.

“I’ve never seen anyone do that many handstands push-ups in a row”

Sakura doesn’t answer, fully focused on her reps. Her arms are shaking, and it feels like her insides are being torn apart. Good. Pain means she’s improving. If it’s easy, it’s not working. This lesson’s seared in her soul.

Once she’s done, Sakura rolls forward and ends up flat on her back.

She doesn’t give herself a moment of respite before starting her crunches. 

“We got letters”, Sayuri says. “The usual pack. Yuri insists you get yours this time even though I told her you were probably angry training somewhere”

Sakura doesn’t stop to answer.

“I’m not…” She falls back down, hands flat against her chest, arms crossed “...angry training”

She’s purging her body of its inefficiency one exercise at a time. 

Sayuri snorts. 

“Sure”

She shoots a pebble. 

“Anyway”, she says. “She still thinks you got yours stolen last time. Better check”

Sakura meets her gaze pointedly as she does another crunch. 

“Busy”

Sayuri shrugs, pushing back up her sunglasses. 

“Alright, see you” 

She waves at her and turns away. 

Twenty minutes later, when Sakura’s done with that part and she stretches for her morning run, she muses about Sayuri. That’s what she likes most about her ; how she doesn’t ask questions.

A small wind gets her ponytail swooshing. Baby hair is falling on her sticky face. 

She runs, weighted gear on, and the bone deep tiredness she feels at the end is enough to make her cry. 

When her chest rises and the first sob shakes her shoulder, Sakura keeps her mouth pressed shut, refusing to give in. Yet water’s trickling from the faucet, and now her eyes burn. It feels like the shaky house of cards she tried to build after leaving Konoha is threatening to crash down on her. 

Everything had been going so well. 

It felt as if, for the first time in her life, she’d found what she was good and could actively work on it to improve as a shinobi-

No, she’s not doing that. Not again a pity party. 

She didn’t feel shit with Makihito, yes, and maybe she’s not a sensor nin, and she’s needs to make peace with the fact that she’s not gonna be the reincarnation of the Second Hokage, but before that, before the fall, she was good, wasn’t she ? 

She tied with a boy that would’ve made Naruto run for his money - and Naruto’s a stamina freak - a boy who, two months prior, would’ve crushed her. She mastered water walking as soon as she stepped on the pond and was the fucking first to get tree walking down so much so that her instructors asked if she cheated. 

Her memory is so fucking prodigious that she remembers handsigns to a Jutsu she’s seen once and still feels the way it moved in its caster’s pathways as if she tasted it. 

And when Hiro pulled his Fireball out of his ass, she felt it in his bloodstream before his hands flickered for the first handsign. 

She’s Sakura fucking Haruno.

She may not be a genius, but her memory’s perfect. She may not be the most creative person, but she’s the goddamn best when it comes to memorizing entire books word for word. 

What’s even the difference between paper and real life ? Nothing. 

Maybe she can’t sense people, but she fucking can sense something . 

And this something, in the hands of someone as desperate as her, is the spark that’ll ignite everything. 

Shinobis are cheaters, liars, thiefs. 

She got a good start on the first two. 

Time to get to the third. 

Chapter Text

What does it cost to prove to yourself you’re not delusional ? To prove that the grueling hours you spent toiling in the mud or freezing under the rain weren’t for naught ? That if you work hard enough, you can change your fate ? That you can survive this war ? 

Easy : master a jutsu you’ve only seen once before.

If she can do it, it means she wasn’t lying to herself. It means she’s got the necessary tools to survive. It means she’ll go on the field and come back, whole and mostly sane. 

It’s everything she’s ever dreamed of. 

“Alright”, Sakura muses quietly. “Alright”

She witnessed three jutsus. 

Three jutsus performed simultaneously, in the heat of a fight, three jutsus whose speed and potency nearly split her skull in half. 

First, Hiro’s jutsu. The fireball. 

But she can’t perform that one. 

Not because she’s afraid of someone asking where she learned it - isn’t it a common one among fire users ? Sasuke knew it already back in the Academy - but because she saw most of the handsigns. 

It wouldn’t prove her point - that she can feel people’s chakra. It’d just mean that she can learn jutsus from handsigns, like any run of the mill shinoby. 

To prove her abilities, Sakura needs a challenge. Something only a shitty sensor like her would feel and be able to replicate. 

She knows nothing about the second jutsu, not even what it’s supposed to do ; it was used on Hiro. 

The third, she felt twice : once back in the Genins’ Common Room and another time when Arashi yanked her out of Hiro’s fire range. Mulling on it, there’s a strange aftertaste of kawarimi, a subtle flavor she knows by heart wrapped in something vastly different. 

From the feeling - and the circumstances - it could be an upgraded version of the kawarimi, something that breaks the need for a substitute to exchange places with. 

And, contrary to the fireball, it’s a Chuunin’s jutsu. 

Adrenaline courses through her veins. The hair on the back of her neck stands up. If she manages to learn it-

No, no, she can’t get ahead of herself. She didn’t even break it down - yet.

But if she could, then the implications would be tremendous. She could become the next-

No. No. Breathe.

Sakura forces herself to inhale then exhale slowly.

Last time she got ahead of herself, she believed her own lies. She’s learned that lesson. Shinobis are cool. Shinobis are calm. Shinobis are in control of themselves. 

Sakura brings to the forefront of her mind the first time she’s felt the Upgraded Kawarimi. Her memories of it are hazy ; she only felt the after-effect, the woosh of air and, and, the displacement of space, like a loose cord being abruptly yanked and the one at the end of it coming to her. 

The second time she also only felt its aftereffects, how Arashi’s organism hummed with the cast Jutsu like a chorus’ echo bouncing from the mountain down the valley. 

Her brow furrows as she focuses on her experiences. Soon they start overlapping, and the low buzz turns to a faint melody. 

She repeats the sequence mentally until she’s one hundred percent certain she got the tone right. 

Then, slowly, her hands move through handsigns. 

In the Academy, they’re taught 12 handsigns. 

Most of them are not needed for the Academy Three. They’re often forgotten by the students and more sloppily executed, which was the bane of Iruka sensei’s existence. 

Sakura never paid any mind to the faint sounds they made.

When one knows how to look, they realize that their chakra, although no Jutsu is executed, flickers slightly in accordance. 

When handsigns are executed in the correct order at the right speed, they make a Jutsu - an harmony. 

Sakura has the Upgraded Kawarimi’s harmony. 

What she needs is to break it down, piece by piece, until she’s got the handsigns. She needs to work backward : listen to the song then find the correct notes. 

Her hands flicker carefully through the twelve handsigns once, twice, thrice. She exhales. 

If it were easy, everyone would do it. 

She gets back to work.

*

“You’re really good at bootlicking, Haruno” 

Sakura turns beet red as Nakatsuji dismissively puts her written excuses down. 

“Better than nothing considering you got your ass kicked by a non Konoha nin”

She turns a shade redder but Hiro flushes too, obviously pissed at the back-handed compliment. 

“How has community work been ?”

“Awful”, mumbles Hiro

If Sakura thought bathroom cleaning was the bottom of the barrel, it was because she never tried cleaning chow hall with a toothbrush. 

Worse is not the cleaning, but that they’re just losing their time. It’s driving her mad to know she could be training more during that time. 

“I didn’t hear that one, Genin”, Nakatsuji’s eyes narrow on Hiro. “Care to repeat that one ?”

They both straighten at the subtle air shift.

“No sir !”

“To compensate for the reparations in the Common Room”, he says, “Three fourth of your wages for the foreseeable future will be cut off”

A moan of protest leaves Sakura right as Hiro says :

“Sir-”

“Get out before I make it a full payment”

The door snap shut behind them. 

Hiro glares at the door, huffing, hands in his pockets. Sakura tries to shrug off her anger knowing it will only be a disservice to her training. Great, she only had peanuts, and now she’ll not even have enough to buy new socks.

Hers were getting pretty ragged, too. 

Maybe she could get second-hand thread if she managed to negotiate with Yuri ? If she took pity on her… Sayuri’s price would be too high. 

“All of that is your fault”

Sakura pauses, one foot above the ground. 

She swirls around.

“My fault ?”

Her voice is dangerously low. 

“Yeah, your fault”, Hiro snarls, poisonous green eyes gleaming evilly. “You’re the one who fucking attacked me in the Common Room-”

Sakura glances at the door then grabs his wrist to drag him away. 

Once they’re far enough, he tears his hand from her grip.

“You were pissing Yuri off-”

He snorts.

“I was ? And how would you know that ?”

“She told me hersel-”

“Just say you like-”

“For the love of God, I said I don’t like girls-”

“Fucking tried to-”

Their voices rise higher and higher and, before they know it,the first fist fly.

Chapter Text

There’s something quite irritating about Hiro that makes Sakura absolutely lose her shit every time he opens his mouth. 

It’s not that she’s a violent person - because she’s not - but he triggers her most baseless instinct. She gets worked up in less than a blink.

When she fights him, she’s not a shinobi : she’s just a girl who wants to tear a boy apart. And he has no such qualm about responding in consequence.

Only civilians would say that boys can’t hit girls. 

Sakura’s proving all of them right. 

Their catfight has them rolling on the dusty ground, clawing at each other’s face, eyes blazing with anger. Yellowish puffy clouds rise in their wake, and they cough on it, but they’re too pissed to care.

It’s only when they start getting cheered on that they realize they’ve got an audience.

“You go Pinkie !”, screams an old Genin, fist raised

“Grab her hair boy !”

A small crowd is gathered around them.

Slowly Hiro, holding a towering Sakura by the scruff of her shirt, notices too. They exchange a glare then move away from each other.

The crowd deflates.

“Come on !”, whines one of them. “We’d even started betting !”

Sakura pointedly dusts her shirt as Hiro looks at the scratches on his forearm. He gives her a nasty glare that she pointedly ignores. 

Moments later they’re left alone by the shinobis. 

Sakura jumps to her feet, slapping her ponytail to get the dust off. 

“You made me bleed”, Hiro reproaches.

Sakura is unimpressed at the barely there drops. She sniffles pointedly.

“And you broke my nose”

“And you broke my fingers”

“And you nearly burned me to death with your dumbass fire jut-”

“Ah ?”, he snarls, jumping to his feet, index reproachfully tapping Sakura’s sternum. “ You nearly gutted me and you choked me-”

“Listen !”, she snaps, nostrils flaring. “Listen. We can’t fight each time we see each other-” 

Hiro scoffs.

“Of course we can”

“-because I don’t know about you, but I have better stuff to do than clean the Camp all day long” He shuts up briefly, opens his mouth, and she raises a hand. “Or have most of my money siphoned. Or get made fun off by other shinobis”

Kami, will they remember her ? She hopes not, but she’s got fucking pink hair and she’s been cursing a damn lot lately.

“Alright” Hiro finally agrees. “What do you suggest ? And do say be friends or something stupid like that because I’ll hit you again”

Sakura’s fingers twitch towards her pouch. She forces herself to calm down. 

“A truce”, she says. “We clean what we have to when we need to and except during these moments, we never see eye or hair of the other one”

“I’m not gonna stop talking to Yuri just because of you”

“I never said you had to stop talking to-”

“Then you will, because I’m not giving her up”

Sakura’s brows shoot up.

“I won’t stop talking to her either. She’s my friend ”

The word tastes weird on Sakura’s tongue. 

She’s not called someone like that since Ino took everyone she thought herself close with when she left her.

Hiro tsk.

“I am not into girls”, Sakura repeats slowly. How long was this story going to follow her around ? “Really”, she adds, noticing his irritating face. “I’ve got a boyfriend back home”

Hiro’s smug face crumbles.

“Seriously ?”, he asks, genuinely surprised.

“Yeah. An Uchiha”

She mentally curses herself as much as she self-congratulates. Hiro would never be able to know if she’s lying or not.

“Who-”

“He’s older”, she says. “No one our age would know him”

Doubt creeps onto his face.

“How convenient”

Sakura shrugs, holds his gaze then looks away.

“Believe whatever you want. I don’t care. But”, she adds, looking back at him. “Let’s stop with the constant fighting, all right ?”

Hiro seems to consider the idea for a moment. 

“Alright” A grin slowly stretches his lips. “But if you pisses me off, I’ll finish it”

Sakura rolls her eyes.

“Likewise”

But she’s smiling, too, because he’s such a dumbass she wouldn’t mind kicking his ass once or twice more.

*

Outside of her new cleaning punishment, Sakura’s training is mostly the same - only she ups the intensity. 

She adds rocks to her weighted gear and eyes with envy some she notices in the weapon shops. They’re so pricey she’ll either need a hundred months of current pay to get them, or become a Chuunin. 

Hah. Fat chance. 

To her Jutsu breaking training, Sakura adds the basic three’s practice. Had the shinobi not grabbed her before Hiro’s fireball hit, she would’ve been done for. She needs to get faster with the kawarimi - so good she’ll do it in a split second, instinctively, as if it were second nature. 

And what if she could layer a henge on top of the log she’d switch places with ? She could gain a precious second, maybe two, against a more skilled opponent.

It feels like she’s getting better at doing handsigns quickly and flawlessly. Even her aim has improved. 

She’d like to say she’s satisfied with her training, but the truth is, she’s extremely anxious. It’s been close to two months since war started, and she has not made any significant progress. 

She knows she shouldn’t but she can’t help piling up all of her hopes on that Upgraded Kawarimi. 

It’s not only that she has to get it because it’d means she can sense something, if not the usual, but that she can be good at something. That she can improve if she works hard enough. That she’s not totally hopeless.  

And so, even though she has less time to train than before, she makes up for it with sheer intensity and focus. 

“I heard you got into a couple of fights recently”

Sakura looks up from the dirty dishes at Junishiro. 

Grease is staining his white apron, and he’s got a dirty towel thrown over the shoulder.

Annoyance flashes in Sakura’s eyes but she tries to hide it by cleaning harder. It even reached Junishiro the old hawk ? Shinobis hoard precious information like dragons, but when it comes to non-state-threatening secrets, they truly are gossip.

“It’s been settled. I won’t start again”

“I didn’t ask if it’s been settled, I asked if you fought. Look at me when I’m talking to you”

“Yes sir”, Sakura grumbles, turning to face him. She doesn’t hide her irritation. Some Genins passing by glance curiously at them - probably wondering why she’s obeying a ‘civilian’. “I indeed fought”

“Why ?”

She nearly shrugs, retracting on herself like she did with Nakatsuji, but then again Junishiro won’t tell on her, will he ? It’s just a squabble between Genins. He wouldn’t care about that sort of stuff.

“I don’t know. I guess I was just annoyed with… everything lately, and I needed to take it out” Junishiro hums, noncommittal. “And then I guess… I guess I just thought it’d be a good opportunity to spar against someone. Haven’t got a lot of candidates to help me out”

A wry smile stretches her lips when she thinks about the teen she paid to showcase his knife skills and her subsequent spar with Hiro, but suddenly she realizes how pitiful she sounded, and she quickly adds : 

“Well, I mean, not like I haven’t got friends or anything, but-”

“Wait for me tonight after we’re done. Rather, come and do the dishes, the other boy who usually does them is sick. Then I’ll take you somewhere”

And it’s on these words that he leaves her.

Sakura’s not sure if she should be curious about what he wants to show her or irked at working more - as if she didn’t have enough these days.