AN: This is a formatting sentence.
Naruto and Sakura watched the furious confrontation in awe, mouths hanging open very slightly. "Wow," Naruto said quietly. "She's terrifying now." He turned his gaze to Sakura. "I'm gonna be honest, when you said you were planning on fighting me and Sasuke with just Hinata, I thought you were bluffing."
"So did I," Sakura admitted. "I was planning on having to fight you both myself. Turns out Hinata's good enough that I don't have to worry about that."
Naruto chuckled. "Look, Sakura, I get that you've been training hard and all, but do you really think you're strong enough to fight me AND Sasuke at the same time?"
Sakura shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know. I'd love to find out, though."
Naruto smiled. "Sure, I get it. Let's try it then."
Without any further warning, the boy swung his fans, still clutched in either hand, towards the girl as fast as he was able. Sakura saw it coming, realizing immediately that she was far too close to the boy to dodge the attack. The girl brought her hands together in a simple seal, she had to be fast.
"Transform!"
The rush of oncoming wind struck the emerging steel ball full force, shoving it backwards a few feet, it fell to the ground with a thump. Naruto shook his head in disappointment, didn't Sakura know that he'd just blast her again the moment she transformed back? The boy readied his fans and stood, waiting.
All was still for several seconds, the boy staring at the orb in an odd kind of stalemate, before finally, with a puff of smoke, the ball vanished. Naruto instantly let off another blast, the gust of compressed air shooting towards Sakura with ravaging force. When the girl moved, it was so quick that the boy barely caught it. Sakura lunged to the side, to her credit, almost fast enough to dodge the attack, but not quite. The edge of the gust caught Sakura and sent her sprawling for less than a second before the girl righted herself, unfazed. Naruto was impressed, more than a little. It was then that, for the first time, he noticed the small orange markings around Sakura's eyes.
Seven months ago, Sakura:
"What do you mean I can't learn Sage mode?" Sakura asked angrily. "If this is about me not being the chosen one again, I swear to-"
"No, young one," Fukusaku replied quietly. "It has nothing to do with that. We agreed to teach you as best we could, and so we shall. The problem is, Sage mode requires a truly tremendous reserve of chakra to perform. You just don't have enough of it."
Sakura's heart sank. "B-but… all my training…"
"I know, child." Fukusaku closed his eyes, sighing quietly. "The problem, young one, is that in order to enter the sage mode, one must gather the natural energy around them and convert it into chakra, a process requiring the individual to regulate it with their own chakra supply." The old toad took a puff from his smoking pipe, before continuing. "What this means, is that in order to gather enough sage chakra to truly make a difference in a fight, you would need an ungodly amount of it to begin with. Take Jiraiya for example, he has enough chakra in his body to sustain a sage transformation for around five minutes." For some reason, Fukusaku gave an aggrevated sigh. "If he ever actually mastered it, that is. But your chakra levels, even after having trained here with us for five months, are still comparatively low. At your power, you might be able to make the transformation last… perhaps forty seconds, a minute at most."
Sakura's head jerked up at that, a determined look on her features once more. "So it is possible then?" She asked.
Fukusaku hesitated. "…Technically, yes. But only in a weakened capacity, and doing so would be far riskier for you. All that for only a minute of increased power. Is it worth it?"
"You can do a lot in a minute," Sakura replied.
"True enough," Fukusaku agreed. "But every jutsu you performed in that form would shorten the time span. Once gone, the power takes several seconds to replenish, during which, you must remain stationary so as to gather energy."
"I want to learn," Sakura said quietly. "Teach me."
The old toad sighed. "I will if you wish, but why? Why take such a risk to yourself? And for such a small reward?"
Sakura smiled tightly. "Because that's what heroes do and damsels don't."
Sakura put her hands together, repeating the now familiar hand signs.
"Sage art: Multi shadow clone jutsu!"
All around Sakura, over a dozen more of herself sprang into being in a puff of smoke. Even that single jutsu, Sakura knew, was enough to almost completely deplete her sage chakra reserves. That was okay, her clones, reinforced by sage chakra, would be strong enough to hold Naruto off while she gathered more. Sakura pressed her hands together, pulling natural energy into herself. The shadow Sakurai (her personally invented plural for herself) charged forward, roaring battlecries.
Naruto was more than just mildly impressed now, he was intrigued. The boy had known his teammate was skilled before their separation, but had assumed that she would have fallen behind him and Sasuke, not due to any fault on her part, but because of his and his brother's genuinely unnatural advantages. It seemed he had been mistaken.
Naruto didn't like doing this, revealing the changes to his eyes, even partially, was not a choice he relished, but the girl was leaving him little choice, and it was this or rinnegan. The boy dropped his fans to the floor, lacking the time to sheathe them properly, and drew his sword, the second that Kimimaro had made for him. Chanelling his chakra, Naruto activated his sharingan, allowing time to slow as he strode confidently towards the oncoming storm of angry shadow clones.
Sakura's eyes widened. That had not gone as planned. Sakura had hoped her shadow clones might weaken the boy, perhaps even injure him slightly while she recharged her chakra. The reality, as it happened, was less than kind. Naruto's ivory blade sliced through the shadow clones with consumate ease, none of them even coming close to landing a blow on the boy.
The engagement lasted less than three seconds. Sakura grinned, plenty of time. The girl drew her tanto, a chakra metal forged gift from the toads of Miyoboku, stepping forwards as Naruto advanced, his own blade held at the ready.
Fukusaku had been wrong. Sakura realized as she clashed with the boy, their blades meeting in the gloom of the forest. The old toad had said sage mode took a long time to recharge, far too long for combat situations. Perhaps that was true enough for people like Jiraiya, the girl considered; but for her, it was different. Sakura had one advantage that no other sage in history had, she was weaker. The girl grinned as she pushed the blonde boy backwards, her enhanced strength and speed allowing her a noticeable edge in the fight. It was true that her sage chakra lasted less than a minute; but the upside to having less than a fifth of the energy, was that it took less than a fifth of the time for her to recharge.
Sakura forced the boy backwards, glancing across at his face with a grin, only to stop dead in her tracks, stunned. "What the- Are those SHARINGAN!?"
Naruto sighed. "Yes and shush. I don't want the whole world to know."
Sakura groaned. "God damn it! This is why I hate competing with chosen ones, you two get all kinds of perks!"
Naruto gave a helpless little shrug. "Not my fault. Besides, we're not the only ones. What's going on with your eyes, huh?"
Sakura grunted. "That's different," she muttered, pointing at her orange rimmed eyes, the pupils a strange square shape. "Anyone can get these with the right training. But you having sharingan? That should be physically impossible!"
Naruto didn't bother correcting her. While it wasn't true that having sharingan should be impossible, it was certainly true that having rinnegan should be. Sakura had more of a point than she realized. "Sorry," he grumbled after a moment. "I know it's not fair."
Sakura stared at the boy for a long moment, surreptitiously recharging her sage chakra. "Don't you dare apologise for that ever again," the girl said flatly, before leaping high into the air, making yet another hand-sign.
"Sage art earth style: Improved Rock Gun Technique, Rock Gatling!"
Channeling nearly all of her full supply of sage chakra, Sakura fired a spray of tiny rocks from her mouth, each flying towards the unfortunate boy below. As they travelled the intervening space, the tiny rocks swelled, each to the size of a boulder, hurtling towards Naruto with ungodly speed. The boy yelped, flinching backwards and instinctively falling back on his best defence. Naruto's eyes shifted, going from glowing red to deep purple in an instant, the boy held his palms out towards the onrushing calamity of stones and, with harsh grinding noise, the barrage halted in mid air. One or two of the boulders split from the force of their sudden stop, before the whole lot of them fell to the floor, harmless.
Sakura landed atop a boulder, staring directly into Naruto's eyes as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, so… about those unfair advantages…" the boy muttered quietly.
"For god's sake!" Sakura screamed, directing her fury not at Naruto, but at the skies themselves. "Are you even gonna pretend you're making this fair!?"
Naruto remained silent, he was pretty sure he didn't want to get involved with whatever conflict Sakura was having with the universe right now.
After a moment, Sakura regained some sense of herself, looking back towards Naruto. "You knoe what? Screw it! I'm going all in!" Once more, Sakura replenished her sage chakra, before biting her thumb and slamming her palm to the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu: Boss Toad, Gamabunta!" She yelled.
To call it a puff of smoke would be underselling the situation vastly. The plume of white covered the entire section of the forest, even causing Sasuke and Hinata to turn and stare, ceasing their furious engagement.
The toad was massive, easily the size of the entire Hokage building. Sakura stood atop its head, a fact about which Gamabunta was not pleased.
"What makes you think you can-" he started, eyeing the girl fiercely.
"Shut up," Sakura cut him off. "I don't have time, Bunta. There's a boy down there who needs to be taught a lesson about fate. You're going to help with that."
Gamabunta gazed long and hard at the girl. She gazed back, harder. Eventually, Gamabunta averted his eyes, more than a little ashamed. "Yes boss. What's the lesson?"
Sakura smiled. "The lesson is, screw fate, get him!"
Naruto, very wisely, decided to run, Sasuke was not far behind him. Naruto used still only partially regenerated flight to speed his exit, while Sasuke ran with the very force of lightning at his back. They fled.
Looking at Sasuke as they ran, Naruto shouted a terrified proclamation. "We are never fighting them again!" Sasuke, too busy running to give an answer, only nodded.
AN: Hey guys, for once I actually have things to say here.
Most of you won't know this, but I'm working on a web serial at the moment that I'm looking at starting publication on soon and I'm looking for some beta readers to give narrative feedback. Please PM me if interested. Thanks guys.
