Sakura stood in front of Tsunade with the fox kit in her arms. Having Tsunade's hard stare on her made the kit bury her face in Sakura's arms, desperate to hide.
"So how did you find her?" Tsunade asked.
"I heard her bark in pain after she was attacked," Sakura explained while she and the kit started playing tug of war with her gloves.
"And you treated her and became best friends?" Tsunade asked. "Foxes normally aren't so trusting like this, but she seems to have taken a liking to you."
"Ironic isn't it?" Sakura chuckled. "I've got fox chakra sealed in me, and my partner is a fox."
Tsunade sealed the room with the same seals used during their last meeting and then pulled the Inuzuka scroll out of her desk again and unsealed it. "The sooner we do this the better," she explained.
Sakura hesitated and looked down at the kit. "Will this hurt her? She's so young," Sakura started.
"I don't know if it will hurt her, but we need to do this now before the sealed chakra overrides your system. Now put the kit on the scroll," Tsunade ordered.
The kit objected to being put on the scroll in front of Tsunade who was towering over her. Tsunade pulled out a kunai and the kit tried to run, but Sakura held it in place and rubbed her hands behind the kit's ears in an attempt to calm it down.
"Shh, it's okay," Sakura soothed it.
Tsunade took the kit's right paw and drew a seal as lightly as she could with the kunai. The kit kept trying to run away, but Sakura wouldn't let her go. Once the seal was drawn, Tsunade handed the bloody kunai to Sakura and switched places with her so that Tsunade was the one who was holding the kit in place.
"What do I do now Lady?" Sakura asked while looking uneasily at the kunai.
"Take off your bandages and draw blood from the seal mark on your arm," Tsunade explained.
Sakura did as she was told and traced the kunai over the still red seal mark on her arm. The pain was intense, but somehow she managed to hold the kunai steady until she finished retracing the seal mark. Once she was done, she handed the kunai back to Tsunade.
"Now hold onto the kit's paw," Tsunade instructed.
Once Sakura took the kit's paw in her hand, Tsunade waited until their blood started to trail down till it mixed. Sakura felt a strong pulse of power when their blood started mixing. Tsunade formed a hand sign before placing one hand on both seal marks.
"Don't break the kit's paw with your strength," Tsunade warned Sakura. "This will hurt you more than it will hurt the kit."
Sakura nodded gravely and gripped the desk with her other hand and held the kit's paw as lightly as she could. Tsunade channeled the chakra from Sakura's seal into the new seal into the kit. Sakura cried out in pain and clutched the desk until it started to crack. The kit started barking and tried to pull her paw away, but Sakura held it firmly.
The seal on Sakura's arm and the kit's leg started to turn blood red and Sakura felt like her arm was on fire. Sakura had to close her eyes when the seal started getting brighter and made her eyes sting. Tsunade looked from Sakura to the kit and gave one last giant push of chakra into the two seals. Sakura screamed in pain and then everything went black.
The first thing that Sakura was aware of was the painful throbbing in her left arm. Sakura opened her eyes and noticed that she was in a hospital bed instead of Lady Tsunade's office. The walls were painfully white and the sheets on the bed were stiff.
Letting out a hiss of pain, Sakura pushed herself into a sitting position and observed that her arm was bandaged thoroughly. Her arm was the only part of her bandaged, but everything hurt.
Sakura started using her own chakra to inspect the sealing when the door opened and a small ball of red leaped onto her lap, causing Sakura to gasp in surprise.
"Sake! You're awake!" the little red ball exclaimed happily.
"Um," Sakura said stunned. Sakura noticed the familiar green eyes and the small folded wings on the back of the little red ball. "You're the fox kit I found!" Sakura gasped. "But you're so much bigger than you were when I first saw you."
The kit licked her bandaged right leg before standing up on her hind legs. "The scary lady said that whatever she did made me bigger. How are you feeling Sake?"
"Why do you keep calling me Sake?" Sakura asked the young fox.
The kit tilted her head to the side in confusion. "After they took you away, the old lady said that she was going to go find sake. Aren't you sake?"
Sakura laughed and picked up the kit and noted all the differences in the kit since she last saw her. "No, my name is Sakura. Sake is a drink that Lady Tsunade enjoys a little too much."
"Lady Tsunade is the scary lady?" the kit asked.
"Stop calling me scary lady!" a voice boomed from the doorway, causing the kit to seek refuge underneath the sheets.
"Lady Tsunade, Shizune!" Sakura greeted happily.
Tsunade and Shizune stepped into the room and closed the door behind them. Tsunade glared at the shaking mound underneath the sheets before she picked up Sakura's arm and examined the seal with her chakra. "How are you feeling?" she asked roughly.
"I feel drained," Sakura admitted. "How long have I been asleep?"
"A couple days," Tsunade answered when she finished her exam. "Now that you're awake you can watch this annoying kit. She's been running around my office ever since we sealed her and she's driving me crazy."
Sakura laughed and dragged the kit out of the sheets. "So how can you talk now? Also you're bigger than I remember."
The kit jumped onto Sakura's lap and flexed her wings, which had also grown in size. "The scary lady says that my wings are big enough now to allow me to fly. I don't know why I can talk, neither does the scary lady."
Tsunade clenched her teeth every time the kit called her "scary". "I don't know why she can talk, I wish she couldn't. All that matters now is that you two learn how to use your seals."
"Use our seals?" Sakura repeated. "I thought the whole point of these seals was to seal off the Kyuubi's chakra."
Tsunade started to remove the bandages on Sakura's arm and pointed out the seal. The seal wound all over Sakura's arm like a vine, but on the side of her arm were four lines that weren't connected to the vine. "Each one of these four lines represents a different type of chakra and the vine represents the Kyuubi's chakra. These lines are mostly your chakra, with a little bit of Kyuubi chakra mixed in with it. The Kyuubi chakra within these four lines is small enough that it won't damage your body too much." Tsunade pointed at the top line that was closest to Sakura's shoulder. "This line has the least amount of demon chakra in it, all the lines below it have more demon chakra in them than the one above."
Sakura traced the vine on her arm while she looked at the four lines. "So, simply put, these are four different seals?"
"Yes," Tsunade said, pleased that her apprentice had picked up on that. "You can generate these four seals into any type of chakra enhancement you want, like speed or strength. But, you need to choose wisely, because once you use that enhancement you can't change it again. Oh and another thing," she said as she picked up a protesting fox kit. "This annoying fur-ball has the same seal that you do, but you need to come up her chakra enhancements, she won't have the same as yours unless that's what you want. You can also combine your seals in a way to give more power to the other and other possibilities. I'm not entirely sure about the extent of this seal's potential, but that's for you to figure out."
The kit jumped out of Tsunade's arms and curled up in Sakura's lap. "When will my leg stop hurting?" she asked.
"It'll stop hurting in time," Sakura promised her. "By the way, I don't know your name."
"I don't think I have one," the kit admitted. "Will you pick one for me?"
Sakura thought about it for a minute before she picked the kit up to look her in the eye. "How about Lily?"
The kit thought about it before she broke out into a big fox grin. "I like it! From now on, I'm Lily!" Lily jumped up and down and ran up to Shizune, who had been nice to her while Tsunade had been short tempered. "Am I a ninja now, Shizune?"
Shizune laughed and stroked Lily's head. "You'll have to do a lot of training with Sakura before Lady Tsunade will pronounce you a ninja fox. But, if you work hard I'm sure it won't take too long."
Lily stood on her hind legs and beat her wings weakly. "I need to learn how to fly too," she said. Turning to Sakura she added, "When can we go training? I want to be a ninja fox."
Tsunade glared at Shizune reproachfully. "Way to go; now she won't stop bugging me till I give her a headband."
Shizune chuckled nervously before she turned back to Sakura. "You should rest here for another couple days. Training right away would be a bad idea."
"I'll take it easy for a while," Sakura promised. "Maybe I'll stop by Kiba's house and ask for some advice about ninja animals."
"That's a good idea," Tsunade said. "But, don't tell anyone that either of you have the Kyuubi's chakra in you, or that it's also in an actual fox."
"I'm a winged fox," Lily objected. "Sakura will you help me learn how to fly?"
"Of course I will," Sakura promised. "Lady Tsunade, what should I tell my team? They have a right to know."
Tsunade leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. "Feel free to tell them, but you're not going to be on the active roster for a while. You won't even be on the hospital schedule."
"But Lady Tsunade!" Sakura objected. "I can train in-between missions and my hospital shifts, I don't need to be taken off the roster."
"You will be training every day," Tsunade snapped. "Your seal is different from Naruto's or even Sasuke's. With proper training your sealed chakra won't spin out of control and hurt everyone around you."
Sakura looked at the seal on her arm for a long moment before looking Lily in the eye. "We have a lot of work to do."
A/N- Thanks for all of the reviews! Review more and I write more!
