6. Lengthened and might one say it, woven tighter? Edited 5 May 2020.
To Pao (Guest): Now that I read this, I feel slightly bad about dragging this out. I'm still trying to set the stage for all kinds of future development, but tentatively, Academy Arc will be under 10 chapters. As for Itachi, all the children will appear and be at least introduced in the next chapter.
Thanks to everyone who has supported this story, and please enjoy the foreshadowing.
Saturday finds her walking along Konoha's streets, trying to find a shop that sells stuff for the Academy.
Coming across an entire row of shops with the booklist pasted on their windowpane, she picks a random one and goes in.
The shop keeper is quiet, dipping his head in both respect and condolence. She nods back curtly, telling him that she wants the entire Academy curriculum.
He asks no questions, stating that a Genin team would deliver all the items to her doorstep. Shipping cost, the price of labour.
Wandering about the store, her fingers itch to buy all the other interesting books she can see. But Sakura isn't one to be wasteful, and she passed a library on the way here.
She makes her way over to the weapon and clothing section. Taking what is labelled as a Konoha Standard Set, she sets that on the counter.
The clothing racks have little variety, but Sakura isn't looking for anything fancy. When she walks through the streets, garishly clothed people are civilians or outlandish ninja.
The ones who don't stand out are civilians and those with specific feels to their chakra are ninjas.
Because of this, she cares little as to how it looks, only how she will move in it. Neither is truly a differentiating factor so much as how chakra feels, humming through those chains.
So, in the end, she picks out a couple of grey shirts and some dark blue pants, taking one size larger than the right one – she's counting on growing fast enough.
They afford her ease of movement and restrict her much less than her red dress which she changed out of.
Along with the clothes, she buys a pair of ninja sandals, open-toed with arch supports. It's interesting how some of the sandals come with padded bases, likely to quieten footsteps.
Expensive, though. Sakura guesses it's the type of fur that is imported. Konoha is too hot to encourage the forming of such a thick down.
She doesn't know the shopkeeper's name, but she doesn't ask, merely paying and concluding their business transaction.
There's the lingering thought that she is a merchant head, but so reliant on the other interwoven economies that it makes her uncomfortable.
A truly globalised economy discourages war, encourages stable governments and the like. Maybe it is not too bad. After all self-reliance under a lockdown condition requires that the village itself has space for farms and weapon production.
She doubts that there are farms, much less mines within the city borders.
It's not possible. So, war is a logistical problem.
The ninja may warmonger and fear one another, but there's bound to be a tight and linked relationship between various external villages and smaller cities to the main hubs.
A hub is a good place to grow a business from since the distribution network is there. A blessing of geography, of the luck being born again into a life of 'plenty'.
Sakura leaves the store for home, lightly scanning over the shops and street peddlers along the way.
The door clicks shut behind her, and she places all her sets of new clothing into the wash. It's a good thing none of the colours will run, she thinks, because practicality matters a lot to her.
She amuses herself by reading and re-reading all of Shikamaru's textbooks, playing about with her chains and somewhere along the way, she falls asleep.
Sakura wakes up just as someone knocks on the door. Sitting up, she clambers off the bed, feeling her hair fall into place. Oh, so fast?
Opening the door, a trio of teenagers bow at her, each carrying a huge stack of books. "Good afternoon. A delivery for Haruno Sakura-chan?"
Her head cocks to a side as she tries to read their chakra signatures, a quick count tells her that there are thirty-four books. It's difficult to separate the feels when they are there, crowded in her doorway.
Nonetheless, she smiles gratefully, allowing them in. "That would be me. Please just put them in that corner, thank you!"
From behind his glasses, with a head of grey hair, the original speaker gracefully leads his team, hands glowing blue and the chakra's adhesive effect clear on display when they slide past her without dropping any books.
She frowns because his chakra feels muted as if it were trying to hide. She frowns even more because muted as it is, it's as strong as his teammate's, their chakra brushes the edges of her chains as they move past the table where she stands and watches.
They turn back towards her, bowing again, and the frown slides smoothly off her face.
"Haruno-chan, please sign here to acknowledge that you've received all your items." His eyes are warm, but hard, his voice is kind but sharp, and it's all kinds of confusing, so she signs, smiles, and sends them on their way.
The door clicks behind them, and Sakura doesn't forget his face nor his grey hair. Those silvered spectacles of glass – revealing of the level of technological development that they do not use plastic for lenses.
After all, ninjas should be able to earn enough to afford better tools they constantly use. And his lenses are not thin. Short-sightedness, maybe astigmatism?
She works from ground up, reading more of Konoha's 'glorious' history. But certainly, something that strikes her interest is power.
Because within all those books, power, that is the main theme. The strong live, and the weak die. Within all those books, there was only a single healer.
A woman who was a healer, but strong enough to make it into such books.
Senju, Tsunade.
Either way, she also learns that the Hokage is chosen by election. In being precise, it was an election by a majority ninja council.
By nature, and thus, the Hokage was the strongest ninja in the entire village. Queer, isn't it? A democracy and autocracy?
But Sakura knows that there's absolutely nothing queer about it. Because that old man, so ready to use her, discard her, destroy her. Strength.
She wonders, what would make anyone want to protect and be accountable for so many people? She continues to muse, resolving to ask him that, given the chance.
Thinking back to Naruto-san, she recalls his introduction as an 'Uzumaki'. Thinking back to the portraits in the office, she recalls the same blue eyes and blond hair.
But this village is a mostly patriarchal society. She has her father's clan name, clan heads are generally males, and there hasn't been a single female Hokage.
This, she finds queer, really, considering how females are ninja as well. Sakura closes the history text, moving onto another book. Truly, queer.
Looks like my question will be answered. 'The Kunoichi Handbook'.
She spares a few seconds to wonder too if male ninjas have to read the same handbook since there's a 'The Shinobi Handbook' in another stack.
It's a quick read to begin with, a slim folder of about a hundred pages. Running a free hand through her hair, she sets aside the handbook.
It is true that biologically, females are weaker than males because of differing muscular mass.
To think that Senju Tsunade, albeit with the aid of her techniques, is considered a Taijutsu specialist based on brute strength alone… it's a feat to be admired.
Yet at the same time, she couldn't help but feel slightly resentful. Arguably, fighting on the frontlines was not for medics. Arguably, hand-to-hand superiority would cover a medic's main weakness.
Fighting at the front meant the increased possibility of the medic being killed, and consequently their teammates. Fighting at the front also meant a faster medical response speed, possibly increasing chances of saving a teammate.
It was a give and take scenario.
Most Kunoichi, according to the handbook, specialised in Genjutsu, Medical Ninjutsu, Infiltration as well as Assassination.
The first two were more common among females, because they had naturally lesser chakra, and thus, better chakra control. The latter two would imply the involvement of seduction and/or pretence.
In a statistic population, a pretty woman would attract far more attention than a handsome man – some kind of math must have been done.
Or perhaps, it is that the stronger ninjas who needed to be bedded and killed tended to be males with a saviour or knight complex?
Basic Spywork in the Academy would consist of Flower codes, mannerisms of women all over the land and clothing trends. Higher levels would be learning concealment of weapons, poison usage, and handler-asset relations.
Not to say that the four fields were completely separate, or that fields aside from those are gender-biased, it was simply that way. It didn't matter though, such things were simply for general knowledge, awareness of how to survive in this world.
What would get her underestimated, what would get her killed, what would be useful to her.
Sakura already knew that ninjas were not to be trifled with and that if she intended on surviving, then she would need to hurry and increase her usefulness.
Not just to the world, but to herself.
But having gone through all the school texts at least once, she makes a list of questions she has.
Setting her pencil down on that sheet of paper, she moves towards her bathroom sink, curious about something.
I twist the tap clockwise, feeling the cold water run over my fingers. And asking for my chains to come forward, they oblige.
Instead of chains, can you form other shapes? Like the spikes the other day?
The last few links of each chain turn into the sharp spikes I used as a leaf magnet when playing with Shikamaru. I direct them under the water and watch as the water flows right through both the spikes and chains.
How is it that my chains can hold onto things if water passes right through them?
As if responding to my thoughts, there's a sensation of hardening, and immediately after, that of being submerged. Despite my hands being out of the water, something felt as if it was underwater.
I felt both wet and completely dry.
Looking back at the chains in water, some looked opaquer than the others. So, I can feel what you feel.
Turning off the tap, I raise my chains to a height, and water flows off a few.
My hands grasp a chain each, one seemingly more solid than the other. But the moment my fingers wrap around them, both chains become of equal opacity.
And when I let go, they both fall, as if gravity were acting on them, only to stop a distance before the ground, fading, and then floating.
I form a fist, sending my chains against the wall. Careful not to damage the concrete wall, I hit just hard enough, enough to feel some form of pain on my knuckles.
I feel what the chains would feel, to a lesser extent. This is not a good thing if I will use them to punch people, then.
Then I send my chains through the glass shower screen and made them take the bar of soap.
Without my orders, the chains turn into a scoop-like object and take possession of the soap. It takes about four of them to encircle the bar completely.
But the most fascinating thing is that my chains return through the glass door, with the bar of soap.
The surrounding coat that my chains form, still an opaque blue-green, peels back, revealing an intact bar of soap. They moulded themselves around the bar into a single mallet-like shape, with the soap in the mallet head
I take it, my hands shaking slightly, and I search for traces of damage. There are none.
What a world of possibilities these are. Can people breath through this, then?
I'll have to buy potato chips to test that.
While experimenting, I send all manner of desk stationery through the desk, chair and bed. Perchance, while pushing a pen through a pillow, the pen drops.
And per that chance, perhaps I had wanted to drop it.
I could feel my chains moving about the fluff, but once they felt the pen, I felt them liquefy, and a force of suction appeared to help pull the pen.
So once it returned, the pen was surrounded and when I placed it back onto the table, there was not a bit of fluff.
This led me to question if the pen had fallen in the first place, and I repeated the experiment, asking the chain to bring back some fluff as well.
Despite not being able to see, I could somehow tell how much fluff was within my grip, and I close my hold around it before withdrawing.
Looking at my empty hands, I shake my head, refocusing on the fluff dusted pen that came back.
If my chains were hurt, would I be too? And if my chains were repaired, would I be too?
Going back to the table, I flip open the weapon set, taking out a kunai. It's a pretty, shiny thing, that blade.
Running my index finger across the edge, you could almost feel it bite into skin. But messy.
A knife like that, with a spike-structure, is quick. Messy. The edge is wide and only meant for slashing.
The illusion of neatness. While it could come off as a clean laceration, without a precise angle, this standard of sharpness, would always shear off skin.
But still… For now, it's shiny and will fulfil its purpose. The tip is sharp, pointed. Polished to a sheen. Shape, streamlined, begging to slip into flesh.
I drive it in between a chain link and watch a tiny bit flake off. It vanishes, dissipating into the air, a puff of blue smoke.
Coupled with a simultaneous prick of pain, the sense of loss, and the tsing of metal, sending a shiver running up my spine.
Looking back at the chain, which now has a tiny chip, I realise that it's Nara-sama's. – the name etched into the chain is his.
Looking at my right index finger, there's a tiny spot, as if one were pricked by a spindle. At least I didn't fall asleep.
Pulling open the medicine cupboard, a chain floats lazily upwards, bringing down the box of plasters. I paste one over the spot of blood and make a mental note.
Hypothesis: Damage to a chain is reflected to a lesser degree upon me.
A question like this is not one I can expect my Academy teacher to be able to reply, after all.
It sounded about right, considering her chains were her.
Gathering up all the books she loaned from Shikamaru, she sets off towards the Nara Compound.
"Shika-chan's not in?"
Nara-sama nods, "Mmhmm, he's on his weekly Ino-Shika-Cho playdate."
She hides the disappointment she feels. "Ah…I see."
From his height, he looks down at her, hands tucked into his pockets. "He'll be back within the hour. Are you staying for tea?"
Her mouth slightly opens, but there is an almost noticeable pause. "Sorry, but I'm busy today, Nara-sama. I just came by to return Shika-chan's books and to thank him."
It's a bundle of confusion, nausea within her chest, because she wants to accept, but the words refuse to come out. She wants and yet she also doesn't want to…
He nods, understanding, and does not push further. "Here, I'll take them." Her own pride, that of a child and so human.
Both their hands extend outwards, Nara-sama receiving the stack of books with ease.
Yet, as her hands withdraw, something itchy, prickly almost makes brief contact with her left index finger. In being precise, the skin covering the shaft of her proximal phalanx bone.
"Can you come by tomorrow? Hokage-sama wishes for you to be better acquainted with the clan heirs you'll be studying with."
She awkwardly folds her hands in front of her. "Won't I be intruding?" The truth unspoken now brought out to the light.
Since having friends, and powerful friends at that are always good. He smiles, "Not at all. Lunch begins at 1."
It's odd to realise that she, is herself that characteristic powerful and rich one, somehow able to have this killer bowing before her.
She smiles and accepts politely like the politician she's shaping up to be. That's the only way to survive.
Even after spending an afternoon listlessly thinking. It's only the next day that she realises so. Like he hurts her, she has hurt him too.
On different planes and worlds apart and yet, they have already collided in her action to try and sever that connection.
Joined; conjoined and connected from end to end through the infinitude of possibilities.
Chakra and re-incarnation exist. What could possibly still be impossible?
Edited to have more 'Sakura thoughts' and 'Sakura experiment ideas'. Still, more interesting images came out of my head today. If she wanted to rule the world, she really could end up doing so.
But that is not the kind of Sakura we have now. I hope her voice of pessimistic idealism carries through, always.
Leave a review if you liked it! I enjoy hearing from you all,
Kayo.
