Kakashi and Minato had gone rigid.
"Why didn't you dispose of him when you had a chance?!" exclaimed Minato, Kakashi agreeing with him in the background.
Sakura whirled around, livid, nostrils flaring. This was harder to admit than not looking at young Kisame when she'd been surrounded by the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist.
"You think I didn't want to, Hokage-sama?! I am, first and foremost, a Konoha kunoichi! I put the mission before my own desires or beliefs because I would have compromised it if I'd killed him when I first saw him!"
She took a few deep breaths to calm herself and not snap at her Hokage again.
"Could I please have my hand? I want to reattach it to my arm as soon as possible. I'll have my report written for you tomorrow. I'll take my leave now."
She left the two ninja alone in the darkening room.
"Now what, sensei?" asked Kakashi quietly.
Minato coursed a hand through his hair, sighing heavily.
"Now, I'm going to put a price on that guy's head. I'll need you to give me as precise a description as possible. I want this guy caught alive."
"I assume you'll want me to copy his chakra by using my white chakra."
"Hai. This man must be found as soon as possible. I fear we might not have much time."
Kakashi, perplex, eyed his teacher pensively.
"What do you mean, sensei?"
"Forget it, Kakashi-kun," answered the Yondaime, waving the question aside. "Some things are better left unsaid."
Even though he did not like to stay in the dark, the teenager knew better than to question his teacher, who was also conveniently his village's leader.
Tracking down her team had been rather easy. In fact, she did not have to track them down. The three boys had their ears pressed against the Hokage's office door and quickly straightened when she came out. From the corner of her eye, she could see Minato's secretary on the floor, bound by ninja wires and gagged. The woman was glaring daggers at the trio and wiggled on the floor, trying to get out of her bonds unsuccessfully. Raising an eyebrow, Sakura looked at the top of her student's heads as they hugged her to death before, embarrassed, they let her go with darkened cheeks.
"I missed you too, guys," she said softly.
"Why exactly are we at the hospital when you said that you would give us some training?" asked Yuu skeptically.
He and his other two teammates were following Sakura as she led them in the hospital, the box containing her hand safely tucked under her arm.
"I'm looking for Rin-chan. She should be working here. I need her to stitch my hand back to my arm."
The teenagers looked at one another uncertainly.
"Errr…Sakura-sensei…Not to be rude or anything, but I don't think Rin-san is skilled enough to do that. In fact…I doubt any medic other than the legendary Tsunade-hime could do it. After all, it's been some time since it was cut off, right?"
Even to his own ears, Yuu's words sounded crude and harsh. It was not like he was out to depress his teacher, he just felt that it was unrealistic to expect Rin to be able to do anything. However, his teacher once again managed to surprise all of them.
"I know. However, I can, and although I can't use my healing chakra on myself, I can manipulate Rin's for the surgery."
She sounded smug, and they knew better than to question her abilities.
"This should interest you, I think. It has to do with chakra control, mostly, but also with chakra strings and what you could refer either as mind manipulation or hypnosis. Now, where is that girl? Hm…Ah, there! Rin-chan!"
At her call, the young girl looked up from her notepad, her face stretching into a smile.
"Sakura-san! How are you? I didn't expect to see you here! At least, not yet. I would have thought that you would have enjoyed a night with your friends at home…or at a bar."
Sakura let out a laugh.
"That's actually not a bad idea. Maybe I'll do that, once my body is complete once more. Now, as it's night, I don't think you have too much to do, am I right?"
"Er…Hai, that's right, but…"
"So can you lend me some of your time? I'm quite certain you'll find it very interesting. You might learn some tricks, too. Come, come, I think this is a lesson you won't forget anytime soon."
Everyone followed the white-haired woman into a side room and watched as she put her box on a bed before sitting on the mattress. She carefully opened the box, getting out her sand-covered hand with a small smile and closing her chakra suppressor on her upper arm.
"Sakura-sensei, is it really safe to touch that sand? According to Hokage-sama, it contained large quantities of chakra and it seemed to move independently," pointed out Kyouya.
"Don't worry, this sand could never cause me any harm," said Sakura as she put a finger to the hand and caressed it almost lovingly. Immediately, the sand retreated from the hand and crept out onto her finger, before slowly trailing on her arm and covering her body, much to the four teenagers' horror.
Sakura closed her eyes, feeling the sand cover every inch of her body to assess her injuries.
I'm fine. I'm fine, see? Don't worry, Shukaku.
However, once the sand had covered all of her body, it did not retract into the bottle on her necklace, but rather stayed on her skin like a second one. So the demon was getting more protective.
"…Er…Sakura-san, why is the sand… er… covering you?" asked Rin uncertainly.
"It's a protection. While it covers me, nothing can penetrate my skin. Now that we've established that, let's get back to business. Rin-chan, just look me in the eye and relax. I'm gonna direct your chakra and your hands. Don't fight it."
The young girl nodded and stared straight at the emerald orb.
"Ready?"
She nodded resolutely.
"Alright, here I go."
Suddenly, a foreign feeling invaded the young girl and she had to fight against her instincts in order not to push it away. She saw her hands move and pick up the severed tattooed hand resting in the older woman's lap. Blood flowed down Sakura's stub as she opened the healing wound, then her cool medical chakra flowed from her fingertips and began to slowly mend the torn flesh with precision and without wavering as she normally would have.
Yuu, Tetsuo and Kyouya looked on, fascinated, as Sakura expertly used chakra strings to manipulate Rin's body, leaving the younger woman completely at her mercy. They also knew that, somehow, she was also controlling her chakra, though they had no idea how, as she had used no hand sign. However, whatever technique she was using seemed rather effective: the young medic was easily stitching the mangled flesh together, until it looked as though it had never been separated before, leaving only the faintest scar.
As Sakura flexed her hand to test it, smiling in satisfaction, Kyouya asked her what everyone else had been wondering.
"Sensei, is there any chance of you teaching us how to do that? And how did you control Rin-san without hand signs? I don't understand."
Sakura nodded, leaning against the backboard of the hospital bed, and leaned her head against her arm in order to not bump it against the wall.
"Well, of course I could teach you, but you need certain basic skills before that. For example, I used chakra strings to control Rin-chan's body, which can also be used to set traps. Imagine you took out a guard, but that another comes by without notice. With chakra strings, you could manipulate the body to move as you wish and thus diminish the risk of the other guard finding out his companion is dead, but it is difficult to make a body move naturally, so you need a lot of practice before you attempt that. Or you could manipulate an enemy's body to attack his allies. Many people hesitate when faced with such a situation. Now, imagine you do that while the enemy is not dead. The problem is that now he could fight against your strings. All he has to do is disrupt your chakra flow and he's free. Thus, it is imperative that your chakra control is better than his. Well, that was just a few examples. You might as well tie your strings to flying weapons so that you can tug them back if the enemy sidesteps them. Anyway, in this case, Rin did not put up a fight against the chakra strings, which made my task that much easier. Is it clear that far?"
The four entranced teens nodded.
"Okay. About controlling her chakra without hand signs… Let's go back to the basics. Do you know why we use hand signs? It's quite simple, actually. It's to mould our chakra in order for it to do exactly what we want. Each hand sign has a particular significance and, when put in conjunction of others, affects them and is affected by them in a certain way. I won't bore you with the details, but know that to create a jutsu, if you don't know the theory behind hand signs, you are bound to have a hard time achieving your goal," she chuckled, thinking of Naruto and his Oroike no jutsu. "Although it is possible."
Sakura shifted on the bed, thinking of how to explain the next part.
"Well, the jutsu I used is one I invented. The main difficulty is that it requires perfect chakra control. I was inspired by the Yamanaka's interrogation techniques. They are well-known for being able to get into your head and controlling your body if they want to. Well, this is pretty much the same thing, except my consciousness doesn't leave my body, which is the main weak point of their technique. I simply modulate my chakra so that a small part of it enters the recipient's body and can then control his own chakra. You can try it without perfect chakra control, but the person's chakra would overpower yours easily. Of course, it is possible to control the person's body with this jutsu, but it requires much more important amounts of chakra to make muscles move, especially if you are not familiar with the way each muscle responds to stimuli. It is trickier, let's say, because there are more variables you have to deal with, such as muscle mass or the other person's efficiency at chakra manipulation. You're better off using chakra strings. Now, I also can use this technique to show my memories to someone, or I can view the other's memories. Once again, this is tricky. Anyway, in this case, it is mostly a question of intent, concentration and chakra control. As I am used to the jutsu and know exactly what I need my chakra to do, I don't need hand signs to use it, although it certainly would be easier to do so. But, well, I had only one hand at my disposition at the time, and one-handed hand signs aren't really as efficient as two-handed ones. And this is that. If you brats want to learn that technique, you'll have to improve your chakra control."
With that said, Sakura jumped from the bed and rolled her shoulders to ease the tension.
"Now that the boring teaching stuff is over with, how about we go celebrate my return, eh? You guys certainly need to learn how to drink!"
Oroike no jutsu: Sexy Technique
So, how was it? I know this chapter was somewhat boring, but it had to be written, 'cause there are pretty important things in there. Anyway, next chappie will be more interesting, I promise you! And you'll get to see Kyuubi soon… so review, ne?