AN: Note that I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any of the characters from either Anime. This work is a fanfiction written out of my love for the series and not in any attempt to make a profit.

Proofread by: Author

Apologies for the late upload of this chapter. I got a late start due to forgetting to set my alarms for this week.

A bit of a slow, talkative chapter. I predict the following ones will all be of a similar quality until the ending of this story. I'll be tying up some loose ends, and then we'll finally move onto the next story. I believe I've settled for a proper title, discarding the previous theme I had considered.

Chapter 119: Knowledge of the fair few


Increased chakra reserves from practicing the Calm Golden Path was all well and good. It kept Sakura and Heikō in high spirits, despite the incident with Kakashi barging in to ruin everything. However, their celebrations eventually came to an end, when Sakura's next attempt to actually use their new reserves resulted in them stumbling and hitting their head on a wall, having failed to account for the sudden loss of control in their chakra. After all, there was no way such a sudden increase in chakra wouldn't result in a dramatic drop in their chakra control. The realization had Kakashi hiding his emotions, as to not pale in front of his students, realizing that the Haruno sisters had been holding back, and punched him harder than they meant to, meaning they could have hit him a lot harder. He was thankful that all he had to worry about was the ache in his neck and not a trip to the hospital.

Still, Kakashi was happy for them for their accomplishment and decided to slow their pace in returning back to Konoha, allowing Sakura and Heikō some time to re-familiarize themselves with their chakra control exercises and regain their lost control on their way back. However, when they did just that, Kakashi and Sasuke couldn't help but notice that their methods were completely unfamiliar.

"Sakura, what exactly are you doing?" Kakashi inquired, seeing his pink-haired student sisters in one body, sitting in a meditative form.

"We're focusing on our chakra, exerting our control of it, dominating it to our will to better our control over it," Sakura explained, just as their chakra began to expand past their skin, enveloping them before slowly expanding outwards. "It's a lot harder to control chakra outside of the body, so it makes for an excellent control exercise to continuously manipulate it, before taking it all back inside," Sakura explained, feeling that they reached the limit of their control about two-thirds of the way before she began reabsorbing their chakra, slowly.

Kakashi stared at them wide-eyed. The amount of chakra was a considerable amount of their full capacity, enough to make it faintly visible to the naked eye, meaning he didn't even need the Sharingan to observe it. What left him speechless however was their ability to keep control of the chakra to such a degree, that they could reabsorb it. Had they lost control of the chakra while it was outside of their body, they wouldn't have been able to reclaim it. It was a powerful, high-risk, high-reward kind of exercise. Every time they performed it, they ran the risk of chakra exhaustion. If he didn't know any better, he would have chastised them for using such a reckless method, but the benefits of the technique spoke for themselves.

"Could you teach me?" Sasuke decided to ask, making Sakura open her eyes to look at him in consideration before nodding, making Kakashi frown. Seemed like he would have to convey the dangers of the exercise after all.

Kakashi cleared his throat and spoke up before Sakura could begin instructing Sasuke. "Before you begin, I would like to point out how dangerous this little exercise actually is." He told them, giving Sakura a stern look, before turning it on Sasuke. "What Sakura and Heikō just did, was only possible because of their impeccable chakra control It may have suffered, but unless you've mastered all other chakra exercises, and find them lacking, I wouldn't recommend even attempting this one. While it shows great results, it comes with heavy risks. If at any point you were to lose control of your chakra while it is still outside of your body, it will scatter, and you will find yourself unable to reclaim it. The fact that Sakura and Heikō used nearly all of their collective chakra, I suspect that, had they failed to control their chakra, or pushed it beyond their limits, they would have suffered from chakra exhaustion, if not outright died on the spot." Kakashi explained, before glaring at Sakura again, who rolled her eyes at him, despite how rude it was.

"That might be the case, but Heikō and I have been practicing like this for a while now. We're used to it, and it's easy to tell when you're about to reach your limit. One can always practice with smaller amounts first, although the real value in the exercise lies in the fact that you have to take control of all your chakra at once. It rapidly improves control and understanding of one's own chakra. It's only dangerous if you're not being careful and don't push against your own limits. If you're patient and only touch on your limits, it's enough, and it does wonders for your chakra control. Although I suppose there is another exercise, that might be less dangerous and more chakra intensive, it does more for control, and can likely be useful in certain situations. It's how Heikō and I escaped from Orochimaru." Sakura explained, making Naruto and Sasuke immediately look interested.

Kakashi sighed and shook his head. "And that would be?" He inquired, making Sakura smirk.

"It's not as noticeable as the earlier exercise, but you can work on it while on the go." She informed them, before raising an open palm for them, focusing her Physical, Mental, and Natural energy into a spot above her palm to mold Senjutsu chakra. Since the amount of chakra was rather pathetic, it never became visible, and neither was it a notable enough amount for any of them to feel it. Sakura couldn't help but chuckle as Naruto was staring intently into her palm, trying hard to see what she was doing, despite it being futile.

"Unfortunately, Naruto won't be able to do this, but I think Sasuke and Kakashi should be able to figure out what I'm doing if they use their Sharingan," Sakura told them and smirked as she saw the two of them activate and uncover their Sharingan. Seeing their surprised and awed expressions, she couldn't help but laugh, while Naruto looked between the three of them in confusion, before becoming annoyed.

"Hey, will someone tell me what's going on?" He demanded to know, and Sasuke decided to answer.

"She's creating chakra, out of nowhere," Sasuke said, astonished, which kept Sakura chuckling, clueing Kakashi in that there was something more going on. Narrowing his eyes, he tried to look underneath the underneath. Chakra didn't just come from nowhere, yet he couldn't understand where it was coming from. Sakura's and Heikō's reserves remained level and full, replenishing slowly from what little chakra she had used earlier. All he could tell was that Sakura was doing something, evident by what he was seeing, happening right in front of him, as well as picking up on signs of Sakura focusing on something, by reading her body language with the Sharingan.

"I don't believe she's creating chakra out of nowhere. She's molding it or making it mold itself outside of her body somehow. The Sharingan can see chakra, but not its individual components, like Natural energy, Physical energy, or Mental energy." Kakashi deduced, and Sakura gave him a wide smile, before nodding in confirmation.

"That's right. I'm going a bit further than merely controlling chakra. We've extended our practice to controlling energy directly. You already know how to do this to mold chakra inside of your bodies, but what about doing so outside of your bodies? While captured, I was restrained with a chakra suppression seal. I couldn't feel or use my chakra. While I could still mold it, I kept losing my grasp on it. However, since I was still able to mold it, it meant that our control over Physical, Mental, and Natural energy remained." Sakura explained, all three of her audience listening intently, as she hadn't really explained exactly what happened in detail, to any of them before.

"Since the seal was placed on our body, and we could still use our Physical, Mental, and Natural energy, we felt that we might have a chance to do something. Certainly, we could have killed our torturer, but then what? We might not be able to escape before an alarm would be raised due to Kabuto failing to report or something, so we had to bind our time and come up with a proper way to escape, to free ourselves and allow ourselves to use chakra. Thinking outside of the box, the idea to use the various energies outside of your body came to us from memory when we did something similar, healing Karin using Natural energy." Sakura revealed, reminding her teammates of it to give them an example to compare to.

"So, we began practicing using the different energies outside of our body, eventually learning to mold chakra outside the confines of our body, while remaining connected to it through the energies used to mold it, rather than any other chakra. The seal put on our body couldn't detect it, and so, we could mold and control chakra outside of our body. Unfortunately, it took a long time and a lot of practice until we could mold well enough, as well as fast enough to produce enough chakra to cut our restraints before all the chakra dissipated." Sakura explained, retelling their moment of brilliance that resulted in their daring escape.

"That's so cool!" Naruto declared, smiling widely, trying to picture it. They tried to keep you down, and you outsmarted them in the coolest way possible, by creating a new technique!" Naruto exclaimed, laughing at the oversight of their enemies. Of course, it was a bit of an oversight concerning chakra seals in general. Naruto's praise did make Sakura and Heikō feel flattered, however. They were aware of just how revolutionary their way of thinking had been to come up with such a solution.

"It's hard." Sasuke decided to add, scowling slightly in displeasure, cluing the rest of them in on the fact that he had just attempted to replicate Sakura's and Heikō's achievement. Kakashi nodded in agreement.

"It is." He agreed, suggesting that he had attempted to do so as well. "Who else knows about this?" Kakashi inquired, looking over at Sakura and Heikō.

"Tsunade and Shizune," Sakura answered, certain that no one else would know until she remembered another. "Oh, and Hinata. She saw me practicing it." Sakura added, which made Kakashi sigh.

"While I don't think Hinata would ever consider stealing such a technique from a friend, and claim it as her own, it is possible that she might tell someone and that the knowledge has already spread. This ability could turn out to be a great advantage against others as a surprise attack, as well as a chakra exercise, as you've already shown us. What did Tsunade say about it?" Kakashi inquired, hoping he had just been paranoid. He'd like to give the Hyūga heiress the benefit of the doubt, but considering her position, it might be taken out of the girl's hands entirely, if she managed to replicate it in sight of someone else, and decided to answer their inquiries honestly. Looking at his students, he could tell that none of them had caught on to how big something like this could be, as well as to what someone stealing the technique could imply. Honestly, it might have been a bad idea to have inquired about the technique, to begin with, as they were now in the know of it. As Sakura was now part of a recognized clan, making her a clan heiress, the technique could technically be considered a clan technique, both of the two she had shown, and shared with them. He would have to explain it to Sakura and Heikō before they returned, and then discuss it with the boys, Tsunade and Shizune, before going to see Hinata and inform them of how big of a secret they now held, and how important it was to keep it from others if Sakura and Heikō decided to keep it a clan secret.

Sakura frowned at Kakashi's warnings, considering Hinata, and what she had shared with her. Neither she nor Heikō were particularly bothered with sharing their methods. After all, most of their methods were only possible due to their incredible chakra control, Kekkei Genkai, and now their practice of the Calm Golden Path. If someone wanted to follow in their footsteps one day, so be it. They had nothing big to hide with their training methods.


AN: I originally intended for this chapter to begin tying loose ends, as well as discussing the reason why Sakura and Heikō have ended up focusing so much of their training and progress as a Shinobi on physical strength. I still intend to do so, so that's what you can expect in the coming chapters, but like always, new ideas and sudden bouts of inspiration will be interjected in between planned segments.

I will be happy to answer questions, listen to requests or ideas my readers may have. I am only one person, and simulating another world, no matter how fictional, isn't easy, or even possible to do perfectly for just one person. That's why I continuously search for inspiration in other fanfics and listen to the feedback of my readers.