Sakura walked through the doors of the library. It was the nicest in all of Konoha, being four stories and well-structured. It got all of the latest books from all over the village, as well as all the other neighboring villages. It was essentially an international library. She glanced over all of the books that filled the room. There was so much to read…
Wandering, she found herself in the nonfiction section. There were plenty of books to read about all sorts of things. History of lands, of villages, of clans and more. She continued glancing about the shelves, seeing what was offered to her. People really underestimate non-fiction books. While it can surely grow to be a huge strain on the attention span, especially if the attention span's already relatively short, books that don't take place in some majestical land of the unknown but instead in the Land of Wind, such as the Village Hidden in the Sand, are much greater in comparison in plenty of ways. Non-fiction is what reminds people of the world and how it works. It's what reminds humans why the earth is beneficial to them, rather than it being the other way around. It connects the people upon the planet to its intangible life and forces them to recall the reason it's as sacred as it is now. Humans, soldier and civilian alike, have marked the planet in all types of ways, for all types of reasons. Family heritages have been destroyed so that others could feel powerful, and wars have begun because people in power didn't want to give help where it was needed most: which was amongst the poor. Villages have grown hostile to each other, not necessarily because it was needed, but instead due to the fact that not everyone was the same as them. Blood has been shed for the hell of it, and sometimes, no one came to clean up the mess. Where the land would provide, the humans would take: the earth is nothing more than a space made to serve Man, giving without return, and being broken and bent to fit the ever-changing, ever-growing, insatiable human desire for more —that which could never be accurately described; how can something that is so obscure be written or spoken so certainly?
Sakura couldn't decide what she wanted to read after all…
Well, there was a quick and easy solution to that!
Looking away, Sakura put her finger onto the spine of the nearest book and began to drag her fingertip into the shape of a circle, trailing down the row. One, two, three…
"... This is what I'll read!" Sakura snatched the book that she landed on by its spine, and spun it over in her grip, reading the title. She hummed a little and went to sit at a nearby table, the faint amber light from the setting sun brightening up Sakura's corner. She glanced over the title once more. The Flow of Energy at Its Core. It was a science book. Sighing, Sakura nonetheless flipped open to the first chapter, skipping over the lengthy introduction. The first chapter was called "Energy in All its Forms". How exciting…
Sakura then began to skim over the first chapter.
Energy is the capacity to induce or create change. Such a quantitative measure cannot be birthed nor ended, but rather, transferred and transformed. Depending on its form, the appropriate unit of measurement fluctuates. Energy is what flows through every animate and inanimate thing -
Thud!
Sakura glanced up in surprise, but then grimaced, irritation becoming evident as she groaned a little. This guy -some idiot -decided to slam his books onto the table! Sakura glared at him discreetly as he sat down. Just as she was about to go back to reading, his selection of books caught her eyes. It was an Outland comic book -Outland referring to the vast lands far from the isolated Five Great Shinobi Countries- and it was written in Katakana. ノルススタル: "North Star". On the cover was a woman -she looked foreign-and she was frozen in a pose. Her body looked smudged and was colored in with an orangey chromatic, making it look like she was flying. Her hands glowed. Huh. Sakura blankly stared at the picture for a moment. They glowed… her eyes unconsciously shifted over to her own hands, loosely clutching the science book.
They glowed, just like Sakura's hands did.
Sakura gazed back towards the boy right as he stood up again, and turned to leave. She assumed he was probably going to the bathroom or something like that… but he was leaving, regardless. More importantly, he was leaving his books unattended. He… surely he wouldn't mind if she just glanced at it, right? Sakura quickly glanced about just to be sure that the guy was gone before snatching up the book. She skimmed through it, and rather than paying any attention to the words, she paid attention to the drawings. They were all so… interesting, but more so personal to her. She stared at a couple of particular pictures. One of them was the main character from the cover, North Star, standing heroically, her hands raised and clenched, chakra -or, energy-encircling them. In the next frame, she opened her hands, and beams of light shot straight out of them. In another picture, North Star struck another heroic pose, the panels showing the energy shooting from her feet and blasting her into the air. Quietly, Sakura chuckled and took the comic book up into her hands. Holding it up, she gazed at the pictures with a dazed smile. "I wonder if I could ever look like that? So… capable, noble and… and powerful?"
"Hey!"
Sakura squeaked, dropping the book in the process. She looked up in surprise as the kid from before yanked the comic book away from her. "Listen, I don't appreciate you touching my stuff! Just because I left, it doesn't mean you could just take my things and look through them!" People who were standing around turned to peer at the dispute. See, it wasn't that Sakura and the unpleasant guy was loud, per se, but instead, the library was rather quiet. The thing with speaking at leveled voices in very quiet places is that sounds and whatnot that wouldn't have been heard otherwise tends to sound much louder. This was one of those instances. Sakura blushed a bit in embarrassment and abruptly stood. Speaking in an equally sharp tone, she replied, "Hey, I didn't mean to pry, but I just wanted to take a small glance at that comic book, is all. I didn't realize that was such a crime."
"Well, if what you wanted was to take a look, then why didn't you ask when I was here still?" The unpleasant guy put his hand on his hip. His foot pat at the ground repeatedly.
"I didn't notice that comic book then, obviously, or else, yeah, I would have asked," Sakura said. But the unpleasant guy wouldn't bother to listen to any of it. "Yeah, whatever, I'm outta here. If you're so interested in these comics, why don't you get your own copy?" Watching him walk off, Sakura huffed in annoyance. She glanced outside. It was getting pretty dark… it was certainly time to go home. Grabbing her items, she went to check them out and leave.
On the way home, Sakura mumbled her thoughts to herself.
"The chuunin exams… are tomorrow…" Distantly, she heard the sound of clashing knives and echoing cries of hard work. "And I'm nowhere near ready…" Briefly, she thought of her teammates. "Already, they came so far… so much farther than me…"
"Sasuke has amazing skills and even Naruto. Sasuke's also got that extra power from his heritage backing him up -being an Uchiha must make a ninja-lifestyle so easy… skill is practically second-nature for him, the sixth sense, even. Naruto's quickly catching up to Sasuke, too. And Sakura… "I'm being left in the dust. I just don't know what to do…" Sakura glanced up at the stars. Her eyes followed along a particular set of stars, and fell upon the one heading north…
… The North Star.
"That book was interesting, though… that superhero looked really cool." Sakura held up her hands as she thought of the poses the superhero lady struck. She stopped in front of a closed shop, its dark window perfectly reflecting her form. Looking into the substitute mirror, Sakura grinned, recalling the phrases she remembered the heroine saying.
"There will always be people who say unpleasant things to you because of who you are, or where you from. But it is not them whose words matter, it is the words of those who will not judge that matters most!" She copied another pose she remembered, saying another quote. "Only you can bring sunshine to the world, and the greatest sunshine comes from you, from deep within your heart!" Heh, these lines were so cheesy. Sakura stood in her pose, and opened her palms a bit more, and felt her pores begin fluctuating and pulsing as she pooled chakra into them. The familiar pink began to rise and color in her palms… how did North Star get the energy to shoot out of her hands like that? As if a jet stream of water was shooting from a water hose? Hm…
The pink light grew around Sakura's hands, and so she began to play around with her hand positioning a little. She held her hands out, palms up and wide. The pink glow changed, turning into a bit more of a whisp, and concentrated at her fingertips. Fascinated, Sakura tucked in one finger before moving on to the other -one at a time-watching the concentration of the pink glow switch to the next fingertip. She flipped her hands over, palms down, arching her hands. The glow reverted to this extremely vibrant light, rippling all the way down, again and again, like a blinking hologram. She flipped her hands around again and tightly gripped her fists. The pinkness flocked into a huge flickering flame, burning a faint white at the tips, and like a forest fire, the flames clawed its way up her arms and encased her entire head, her hair rising and dancing among the fire as well. She was like a flame monstress… it was…
"Cool…" Sakura said quietly, mesmerized by what she saw. Slowly, she spread her arms out wide and held up palms to the sky again, and this time, tensed but refused to close her palms completely. As she suddenly tensed up, she watched through the blackness of the window as the pink glow abruptly shot from her palms and straight into the air -bright and neon-colored. It was beautiful… Sakura tried to think of home to describe it. It was like… light, but more physical yet ethereal… like… like…
Like a laser beam.
It was so cool…
Just then, Sakura frowned deeply, her spirit sinking into her stomach as she retracted her hands and allowed her pores to close. She stared at her reflection a bit longer and heaved a long and heavy sigh. She turned away and began to continue heading home. "Yeah, those lasers are cool, but… they don't hurt. I don't know what I'm gonna have to do to pass this exam, but, to be a ninja means being willing to fight. If my attacks don't hurt, then what am I supposed to do in battle? They don't seem to have any healing properties either. If my powers don't do anything, then what are they supposed to do aside from being aesthetic?" Sakura sighed again. She looked back up at the North Star. Maybe…
She clasped her hands together, and closed her eyes, but never stopped walking. "I wish I may, I wish I might…"
What is this pink glow that I can make? And how do I use it?
Sakura went silent for a while. And then, she chuckled. And then, she laughed. She laughed hard, and loud -to be honest, she probably looked like a maniac to anyone who might've seen her when passing on the way. But, she didn't care, because she just couldn't help but laugh at how childish she was in that single moment. It was like being six all over again! "Oh, if only all of my problems could be solved by wishing it away on a star…"
Nearing the porch of her house, Sakura walked through the gates, locking them behind her, and made her way to the front door. Well, it's true that her issues can't be whisked away on the tailcoats of a star, but Sakura refused to give up on getting better! The chuunin exams were tomorrow…
... and she'd be damned if she was gonna do anything but pass.