Chapter 7: Ad Meliora [Towards Better Things]
"The rules are simple, the first to surrender or be knocked unconscious is the loser. If Hoshigaki-kun manages to defeat Cho-chan, then she will advance to the next round. If it is reversed, then we will convene to discuss her rankings amongst our systems. Try not to kill each other, okay?"
Why the Mizukage was overseeing her and Chojuro's fight, she'll never know. By the look on Ao's face, it was probably an excuse to skive off from her duties for a while longer. Sakura should've felt more honored that such a high figure in her village was watching her fight, but instead, she was shaking in her boots.
Chojuro had years of proper education and tutoring under his belt, combined with shinobi arts she'd only scratched the surface of. While she'd improved in leaps and bounds in the week compared to six months under Kakashi, it wouldn't be enough to defeat him. It wouldn't mean that she wouldn't give him one hell of a fight.
Sakura knew her strengths; her intelligence and planning overshadowed Chojuro's. If she could catch him off guard right off the bat, she would have a higher chance of beating him than if she waited for him to come to her. She was no Nara, but this was her best bet.
She didn't have to win, she just had to prove herself capable of being a Mist shinobi and hopefully standing by Chojuro's side.
Thankfully her audience was small; Ao came because Mei was interested in the fight. There was the same proctor from her written exam, along with a small smattering of shinobi that she'd met when Chojuro dragged her around the village under the pretense of doing errands. The most irritating face, one that she'd hoped to avoid, was Hideo. It'd been almost a month since their brief meeting, but the same level of acid distaste still coated the back of her tongue when she looked at him.
It would've been too much to hope that their paths wouldn't cross it seemed.
She scrunched her nose when she noticed the man looking at her, but she turned her focus back to Chojuro, who seemed to flip a switch in personality now that the battle was about to begin.
When Mei's hand dropped back down to her side, signaling the fight had begun, Sakura didn't let Chojuro have the chance to take a second breath.
Throwing a flash bomb towards him, he batted the kunai out of the way, not realizing the difference in tags. Closing her eyes, Sakura ducked towards the left and detonated the tag, letting the piercing light disarm him temporarily.
Throwing several more kunai in quick succession, she didn't hesitate in overwhelming Chojuro with as much as she could throw at him. He was a Chuunin for a reason, and she wouldn't let their friendship get in the way of her succeeding.
"Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu," she whispered, hands flashing through familiar signs with practiced ease. It was one of the few jutsu she had a handle over, and she hoped it would be enough to trick him into her trap.
Chojuro batted her kunai away with a flick of his katana, the metal spreading out behind him with a soft clink. Sakura focused on the one that ended by his feet and swallowed her anxiety with a grimace.
Inner in her mind is like a rapid dog, calling for blood now that her heart is pumping so loud she can hear it echo in her ears.
Chojuro lashes towards her but is distracted as the genjutsu takes hold. His pupils blow wide as his fear is projected in front of him, but she doesn't stop to gloat as she switches places with the kunai next to his feet and deals him a swift uppercut to the jaw.
The punch snaps him out of the genjutsu but sends him sailing backward across the training ground. She follows and pounces on his prone body, fishing for a kunai out of her pouch.
"Nice shot, Hoshigaki-chan!" Hideo calls out, interrupting the steady silence that had been building.
Sakura clenched her teeth and is momentarily distracted which Chojuro used to launch her off of him. Grabbing his katana again, they begin a dance with her on the defense. Each swipe of his blade shaved off hairs or fibers of her clothes, each one a closer call than the last.
He was barely breathing heavily, while the sweat started to pool around her temples and her brow. While it was still sickly cold outside, the heat of her skin was trapped underneath her clothes, suffocating her with anxiety and adrenaline.
When the slice of the tip of his katana stabbed through the shoulder of her jacket, she didn't hesitate to rip it off, using the fibers to trap the blade and yank it out of his grasp. Throwing the sword to the side, she launched herself at him, using as many grappling techniques as she could remember.
Chojuro was taken off guard with her brutal display, something taken right out of Naruto's book. Wrestling him to the ground, he matched her in brutality and immediately countered her chokehold, falling to the floor alongside her.
She tucked her legs underneath his body and kicked him off of her, his thin frame launching over her head and she quickly turned over and launched herself at him again.
Her physical strength and stamina wasn't much, but this was the best she could come up with. She was able to distance the sword from the master, which was as big as a feat as any. Becoming a Chuunin was far from her reach, but she would still try and prove herself as best she could.
Despite being a close-ranged fighter, Chojuro was a bit lost without his sword. His muscles were developed for a different type of strength, so she hoped it was enough.
Keeping him on his back, she straddled his prone form and kept one of his arms tucked to his chest while the other blindly grabbed at her. Raising her fist, she punched at him in quick succession, the first being blocked by his hand and the second managing to hit him in the nose. There was a quick snap as the bone was broken and she winced in sympathy.
Chojuro smiled like a shark, mouth full of sharpened teeth as his gaze turned deadly. Off-hand, Sakura wondered what she had to do in order to get her teeth like that. It seemed more common in Mist than anywhere else, and she wanted to match her brethren all the same. She also realized Chojuro might have been playing with his food as he ripped his hand from her grasp and popped his nose back into place. Sakura sat on his body frozen in fear with even Inner gulping in the deep recesses of her mind.
"Sorry, Chojuro-kun," she murmured, hoping to placate the beast.
"Not as sorry as you're gonna be," he grinned.
Yelping, she crawled off of his body, trying to move away as fast as possible. Chojuro grabbed her ankle and pulled her back towards him, caging her body with his own.
His right arm snaked around her neck, putting pressure on her trachea and slowly suffocating her between his body and the cold, hard ground.
Despite running out of oxygen and options, she pouted at how easily she was defeated. A last chance effort, she tried to buck him off of her but was proven unsuccessful. Finally, she double-tapped his shoulder, relenting to the spar and accepting defeat.
Immediately his hold was released and she gasped as air filled her depleted lungs. Coughing, she caressed her bruised throat, the skin of it sensitive to the touch. Her gaze was more of a pouty kitten than a ferocious tiger, but she glared at him as best she could.
He grinned sheepishly back at her but extended his hand to help her off the floor. Grabbing it, she allowed her dead weight to pull him back onto the ground, getting the already dusty clothes to get even dirtier.
Their audience was less than amused, but Sakura couldn't help but smile at Mei who was holding back her own fits of giggles.
"Alright, alright. It was my mistake to pair you two together, but I've seen enough. Get cleaned up and meet me back at my office for your debriefing."
Sakura and Chojuro nodded their heads and silently agreed to make a quick stop at a tea shop now that the chill had seeped through their torn clothes as the adrenaline wore off.
X-X-X-X-X
Back in the Mizukage's office, Sakura welcomed the warmth given by the roaring fireplace next to Mei's desk. The windows allowed most of the chill to seep into the room, but it was a much better environment than being outside with the elements.
Burrowing more into the plush chair, Sakura pulled her knees to her chest as she waited for Mei to begin. The woman had re-pulled her file, this time significantly thicker than what it once had been.
Despite the privacy of the meeting, Chojuro stayed put beside her, a welcoming beacon since her arrival to Mist. His presence was more grounding than anyone in Konoha's had been, and time and time again Sakura wondered why it took her so long to venture this far East towards her mother's homeland. Briefly, she wondered what her life would've been like had she stayed in Konoha, or even worse, ventured to Iron to be with her father's family.
Shivering, she was grateful for the pull towards Water country. Despite the harshness of the civilians or the cool indifference of the shinobi, she felt better than she had in years.
"Why don't you tell me a bit about your time in Konoha. By our estimates, you've been out of the academy for six months, correct?"
Sakura nodded, "Yes. A little over six months I think now, almost seven. Our academy required three jutsu to be mastered, like the Bunshin. I didn't learn tree walking until a few months after we graduated. I only recently taught myself water walking. Under Kakashi-sensei, I didn't learn much. However, he said I had an aptitude for genjutsu and my chakra control was in the ninety-fifth percentile. Almost the ninety-seventh."
Mei hummed along, making notes in the file the more Sakura spoke.
Unfortunately, unlike her previous teammates, she didn't have much to speak about or bolster, so she kept to her strengths as best she could. "I also have a photographic memory, which helped during infiltration and cipher lessons. I thought about joining T&I or the Intelligence corps once I ranked high enough, but I wasn't able to do a shadow or question much about it."
"And your Jounin, Hatake Kakashi, the man with a thousand jutsu under his disposal. He really taught you nothing? You don't have much besides your academy three, a few C-rank genjutsu isn't enough to get by. What did he teach you?"
This was her shortest answer, "Tree walking."
"Tree walking?" Chojuro echoed, speaking for the first time.
"Our training days focused on the boys. Before the Chuunin Exams, we would do D-ranks like weeding lawns or walking dogs. If he cared enough we'd go to a field where he'd watch them take their energy out on each other, neither wanted to spar with me, so I mostly read next to him or went to the library. He only taught us tree walking when he was bedridden during our mission to the Land of Waves. Other than that, he honestly wasn't that good of a teacher."
"For being the top Shinobi village in the nation, Leaf has a poor education system," Mei replied.
Sakura agreed and shrugged, "There was a reason I fled here rather than stay in a village that didn't care or want me. I was set up for failure. Naruto is a powerhouse in his own right and Kakashi-sensei had his hands full with Sasuke, so I was left in the dust more often than not."
Chojuro scowled next to her, matching her in attitude as she thought back on her team.
"Again, he flagged me as a genjutsu type, but never really followed up on it. It wasn't fair. Team Eight's leader was a genjutsu type, a great one from what I've seen since she made it to Jounin. If they had considered our strengths, maybe I would've been switched with Hinata."
Mei shook her head and adjusted herself in her seat. "From what it seems, you were built as a berserker or frontlines team. Genjutsu is more for infiltration or information gathering. While Hatake wasn't that great of a teacher, he's a legend on the battlefield and a mastermind off of it. A great shinobi doesn't always equate to a great teacher. If we were allied with Konoha, I'd request your file and see what your sensei's at the academy had to say, but for now, I'll tell you what I've picked up between your tests."
Sakura swallowed and waited, still unused to being addressed so casually by such high of a figure in the village. Apart from Naruto, the Hokage didn't associate himself with the genin of the village. She had no clue how the new Hokage would handle things or how personal they'd be when inaugurated.
"You're highly intelligent, more so than most of Chuunin and even some Jounin despite your young age. You aced your written test, which had enough theory to make some of my ANBU cry. Your proctor noted how easily you answered the questions too. Physically, you lack more strength than I would expect from your clan and at your age. You're on the shorter side too. With your assigned sensei you'll be put on a strict diet and regime to bulk up. Your Uncle is well over seven feet, as was most of your family. Mebuki was the runt and you've inherited this. None of which is a bad thing," she added once she noticed Sakura's forlorn look.
"Does that mean I passed?" Sakura couldn't help but ask.
Mei gave her a placating look but relented after a few moments, unable to resist shaking her head. "Some good news and bad news. You're not Chuunin level yet, especially by Mist standards. We don't coddle our shinobi with fancy promotions and titles, you earn everything with blood, sweat, and tears just like the rest of us. I would never put my shinobi in harm's way if I didn't know they could handle it. But, you have proven yourself worthy of being a shinobi of Mist, so you'll keep your genin status since I am not heartless enough to send you back to the academy."
Chojuro clapped Sakura on the back as she breathed a sigh of relief. "I told you, you had nothing to worry about," he said.
"I'm allowed to worry all I want when it comes to my career," she countered.
"While we pride ourselves on teamwork, our Genin are given a more personal introduction into the shinobi arts. Chojuro here was assigned to Ao when he graduated a year or so ago. Since we have an even amount of shinobi and enough to support this teaching style, Jounin are assigned one, sometimes two genin to instruct. For the first six months, you brush up on basics and physical training, since our academy heavily focuses on theory and mental stamina. While our graduation requirement doesn't include slaughtering each other anymore, we still host an outright melee to pair potential genin with their sensei's and a good chance to blow off steam before becoming an adult with consequences."
"That's genius. Why doesn't everyone do it this way?" Sakura asked.
Mei shrugged and gestured vaguely towards the horizon. "Not many high ranked ninja want to babysit a child until they're good enough to run off on their own, as is the case with Sand and Iron. Kumo has something similar, but that's because they're so closed off from the rest of us. Konoha began the typical style and it just caught on with the rest of the world. We decided our approach was a bit easier to manage, and it made sure that everyone that passed through our ranks were worthy of their titles."
"Where does that leave me? Is Ao going to be my sensei like Chojuro?"
Mei laughed when Ao grumbled negatively from her side and Sakura couldn't help but blush at his immediate reluctance.
Chojuro tried to jump to her defense, but Sakura then had to soothe the nervous teen when Ao glared his way.
"Ao is going to be my assistant as I finish my ascension as Mizukage before returning to being Chojuro's partner for missions. While it's been nice to have them both in the village, their expertise is needed elsewhere. Your sensei has already bid himself amongst the possible candidates, and I'm sure you'll get along just great."
She cocked her head to the side in question and turned when the door opened almost as if on cue. A tall, slender but still muscular man slithered through the opening, his hands in his pockets and a cocky smile stretching the scarred skin on his face.
Sakura scowled, "You." Her nails dug into the meat of her thighs as her teeth gnashed together in her mouth.
"Me," Hideo grinned, not at all taken aback by her hostile nature. "Just as feisty as I remember, kitten. Imagine my surprise when you turn up at my home, boasting the Hoshigaki name, too. If I'd known that, I would've given you a personal escort to Mei myself. A Hoshigaki is a sight to behold, despite how tiny you are compared to the others."
"Enough," Mei interrupted when Sakura had gotten out of her chair with a kunai in hand.
She couldn't stand her weaknesses being pointed out so easily, especially her small stature multiple times in such a short timespan. Hideo had crossed the line when they met and seemed all too happy to dance over her emotions and insecurities.
"Don't tell me this pervert is going to be my sensei?" she asked, hoping that it was maybe a coincidence he was in the office.
"Pervert," Chojuro echoed, pulling Sakura closer to his side. She assumed the teen had never met the man since there was no greeting when he entered the room. Even Ao looked put off by the Jounin and Sakura wondered if there was any bad blood between the two. Despite his callous nature, it wouldn't surprise her if this man didn't get along with everyone in the village.
"Hideo is a highly capable sensei, he's trained plenty of Genin that have risen through the ranks faster than any of my other Jounin. I promise that you'll do well underneath him."
"And it's Karatachi-sensei to you Pinky. We're going to have a fun six months ahead of us if you want to see the outside of this village for missions. I promised Mei and I have a bet amongst the other Jounin that you're going to demolish the rest of your age group under my wing, and I promise to deliver."
Sakura bit back her insults when she saw what was in his outstretched hand, almost like a peace offering. A brand-new Mist headband was folded neatly in his palm, the glinting metal standing strong against the dark purple fabric.
"It's me or the civilian trenches, Pinky. Pick your poison," Hideo, now Karatachi-sensei said.
She scowled once more and swiped the headband from his grasp, securing it firmly and properly on her forehead. "It's Sakura to you, Karatachi-sensei," she bit out.
Notes:
Hello!
I did not anticipate taking that long of a break away from writing, but thank you all to those who have left reviews and have been reading my stories! I have so much planned for this year and I hope you enjoyed this new chapter!
Sakura has finally found her place in Mist and the training montages begin! We see more of Hideo and how Sakura will become the powerhouse she's meant to be in the future. If you have any questions or requests for fics, please let me know!
Thank you!
