A/N: An enormous thank you to the reviewers, who've been wonderful thus far.
Kill Your Heroes
-Chapter Nine-
Cynophobia
For all that farm crops wouldn't grow, there was enough undergrowth along the edge of Tazuna's yard to set her shins to stinging as she bolted into the trees.
Sakura had no particular fear of dogs, nor did she think that Kakashi-sensei would intentionally hurt her outside of training. But none of that seemed relevant beneath the sudden, crushing tide of fear. It left no room for thoughts like why, and barely enough space for her to remember she had somewhere she was running to, her mind dominated by what she was running from.
Every tall weed lashing at her leg became the first press of teeth, every breeze that rustled branches the noise of pursuit. She'd gone a half-dozen yards before she even gathered herself enough to correct her heading.
She ran like she'd run on the bridge, like she'd run on the deck, without regard to how mottled her skin might get or how much she might sweat or how she looked. She just ran.
While that might have been for the better, some of the things that her instructors at the Academy had tried fruitlessly to drill into them until they were automatic were lost as well. Her posture was loose and sloppy, her pace without concern for stamina, and because of the discomfort caused by breathing through her still-tender nose, she was soon gasping air desperately through her mouth.
When they'd done sprints in the Academy, she'd had a pretty good sense of timing, of knowing within a fairly close margin how fast she'd gone before the instructor called it. But her sense of time faded, reduced to the heavy thunder of her heartbeat. She couldn't measure how far she'd gone when he loosed the dogs.
There was no barking in the distance to warn her.
And because they'd reached heavier pine stands, where the underbrush thinned out, there wasn't even the noise of that bulldog's massive body coming through the undergrowth.
What she got instead was a hair-raising chorus of snarls that didn't sound nearly far enough away for comfort. She thought she'd already reached the limits of adrenaline-induced speed, but somehow she spurred herself faster, stumbling and half-sliding down a muddy bank as she finally reached the edge of the large main isle. Her foot caught on one of the exposed mangrove roots in her hurry and she lurched forward, managing to catch herself before she fell, but the movement pulled at her healing chest wound.
It burned, as did her still bruised knees, which she'd had less trouble with when she was strengthening them with chakra during her tree climbing and leaping exercises. That thought somehow penetrated the haze of panic that was clouding her mind and she sprinted forward with fresh, chakra-enhanced speed. It let her draw further from the dogs, their snarling turning now to open barking. It was not the full-throated baying of hounds, but it was close enough to keep sprinting forward with all her might despite the growing stitch in her side.
She was running faster than she ever had before and even if the terrain had been familiar, the speed at which she was moving would have made some things harder to track regardless. Leafy branches seemed to whip out of nowhere and she caught a faceful of spiderweb, resident intact. It seemed to burn and she clawed at it, trying to get it off, get it off and her shoulder caught the trunk of a tree.
The force of it whirled her around, her shoulder aching, but she managed to both crush her passenger and get herself turned back around without falling.
It cost her. Sakura lost all the space she'd gained between herself and the dogs, one of the smaller ones darting forward, teeth just missing the hem of her dress, her heel nearly clocking him in the jaw as she pushed her body back into motion.
She used chakra and she was slowly getting better at it, only almost pitching herself into another tree before she was running again. Her perception of the world had tightened until it contained only trees and land and dogs and a destination that always seemed so far away.
But some part of her recognized if she kept going, kept running, she would reach it. That spurred her across several more uninhabited islets even though her throat was beginning to really hurt and her side was cramping up, but as they grew smaller and some part of her began to think, I can do this, a line of kunai rocketed into the dirt near her feet.
They were so close that they kicked debris into her open-toed sandals. Sakura was run almost ragged by this point. She hadn't thought she'd have the energy to be frightened any further, but she was proven wrong as she stumbled backward, landing hard on her butt. Her eyes automatically darted up along the path of their flight, where she caught the briefest flash of movement.
Before she could decide whether it was Kakashi-sensei or not, she caught sight of another kunai. She barely managed to jerk her arm out of the way before it could be pinned to the ground. Somehow she got herself up and moving again, but now, rather than carving as straight a line as the growth would allow her, she found herself playing a treacherous kind of game that had her ducking around trees and dodging awkwardly. She couldn't just run anymore, the kunai and the fear of being struck by them forcing her to keep a wary eye above, where she could just catch flashes of movement before more kunai were sent flying her way.
Her stamina was flagging badly and she was almost stumbling forward rather than running by the time she reached her target point. As she came to a stop at the crest of the tiny islet, the first thing she did was double over and empty her stomach of everything she'd eaten for breakfast and most of what she'd had for dinner. She had somehow gotten filthy, she hurt everywhere, and there was sweat dripping into her eyes and off the tip of her nose.
She didn't even have enough energy to glare at Kakashi-sensei when he arrived looking distinctly unruffled, just enough to shamble away from the mess she'd made and then sort of collapse to the ground.
"Ah, Sakura, you'll cramp up like that. You might want to walk around a little to cool down."
As it turned out, she did have the energy to glare, even as she struggled back to her feet, but she wasn't alone in her discontent. His ninken were regarding him grumpily as well.
"This was just mean, Kakashi," the tan one said from where he sat.
"Uh-huh," the grey-furred one with the mohawk agreed. "Chasing genin is not cool at all, bossman."
The giant bulldog made a whuffling sound that Sakura interpreted as agreement.
"Now, everyone," Kakashi-sensei scolded them, eye-crinkling smile in place, "you make it sound like there wasn't a point to this exercise."
Sakura was still wheezing, so she demanded, And? by the weight of her stare.
Kakashi-sensei fished a stopwatch from his pocket. "You beat your best run time in the Academy quite handily. I needed a baseline with you giving it your all, so..."
"Couldn't you...have just...told me...?"
"Mm. I could have," he acknowledged, "but I wanted you to show me something not even you thought you could do. We're going to work until you can do at least this much without ever breaking a sweat."
Sakura's stare was incredulous now. "You—," she broke off and shook her head. "You threw kunai at me!" she accused.
"Not kunai. Just pinecones," Kakashi-sensei said, smile deepening. "That's what was in that bag. A practical application of the genjutsu you learned this week. It can make something harmless look like something dangerous. And it can make something dangerous look harmless. But," and his tone shifted more toward lecture-mode, "it's very weak. If you weren't already panicking, you might have noticed. You have to scene-set for that particular genjutsu if you don't want your opponent to realize at an awkward moment what's really happening. If you'd managed to think through your fear and tried a simple kai, you might have managed to break the first genjutsu I used. Very simple emotional manipulation. Also very common. But you'll have plenty of time to think about that.
"You and my ninken will be working together in the mornings—though I promise it won't be a hair-raising a chase as this morning. Let's see, as incentive—ah, I'll repeal the 'no muddy paws' and 'no kisses' rule for you, Sakura."
That earned the attention of his ninken, whose ears perked, tails giving a cautious wag. "So you're gonna let us run loose?" the grey-furred one demanded.
"You got it," Kakashi-sensei agreed.
Sakura frowned, not at all certain she liked this arrangement, but the fear of the chase was something that ran deep in her now. She'd suffer it if it meant being able to outrun the things that pursued her. Her breathing was easing somewhat, which gave her space to ask, "Won't summoning your ninken use up a lot of chakra? Because, they're summons, right?"
"Ah," Kakashi-sensei said as he exchanged the stopwatch for his book, "not really, no. At least not in the way you're probably thinking. Most people use summons as the catch-all term. You covered summons contracts in the Academy, right? So you know the scrolls are rare and the vast majority are in the possession of major clans. They represent ancient pacts with groups of very powerful creatures that can live dozens of human lifetimes and attain massive size. And their chakra stores aren't anything to scoff at, either. The contract isn't necessarily exclusive—just limited by the generosity of the scroll's owner, basically.
"My ninken are personal summons or contracted animals. I raised them all. The only different between them and the Inuzaka ninken is that I don't typically bring them out in the field with me. They spend a lot of time lounging in my apartment or playing around in the village, not some otherworld. They'll live about as long as I will and while they have plenty of chakra to be good ninja companions, they aren't say, in the league of any of the summons of the Legendary Three. Our contract is exclusive and non-transferrable. The only chakra I spend is what it takes to get them here. With the right preparation and some cooperation, you could do the same thing to a human."
Sakura made a thoughtful noise, risking a closer look at his dogs now that she didn't feel like she was in danger of being torn to shreds by them.
But Kakashi-sensei wasn't finished speaking. "Your dodging is sloppy," he reported conversationally. "You basically throw yourself out of the way, which takes you a lot of energy to recover from. You don't have the stamina for that. And even if you did, there's no point in not correcting bad habits since we're basically starting from scratch regardless. And your form, well, not something I would have given you good marks for in the Academy. Even if you're scared to death, you should have done it so often it's automatic. The pack knows what a proper form should look like, so I'm sure they'll give plenty of pointers."
[Kill Your Heroes]
The addition of cute, furry animals to her new running regime did not make it particularly more pleasant. Considering that it was conducted just after dawn and she wasn't allowed breakfast until afterwards, she didn't know what would.
None of them were afraid to offer criticism, which was almost harder to take coming from a dog, and they all seemed to think it was particularly fun to tackle her into puddles, rivers, and occasionally trees. Their muddy pawprints stained, their nails scratched, and she found herself the target of wet, sloppy kisses that were gross.
It did not make her run as fast as thinking they'd pull her down and eat her, but it pushed her much harder than any of her Academy practices ever had. After all, she suddenly had eight sharp-eyed dogs focused on her training, which made shirking a practical impossibility.
Pakkun, for all that he was the smallest of the eight, turned out to be the de facto leader in Kakashi-sensei's absence. He was patient, knowledgeable, and not above setting up punishment games that usually turned out in his favor. Tsunami had willingly loaned her the basin that she used to handwash clothes in, but Sakura had avoided explaining that she'd underperformed on one of Pakkun's training goals and was about to sacrifice her own shampoo and conditioner to give a dog a bath.
I hope human shampoo damages your fur, she'd thought spitefully as she lathered him up. It hadn't. Pakkun had told her sagely that her rough hair was evidence of a bad diet and lack of vital nutrients and that she should eat more balanced and plentiful meals. When he'd recommended his own supplement plan to her, she'd considered drowning him.
Her "rewards," such as they were, were usually in his favor too. Being offered the chance to touch the pad of his paw—which turned out, unfairly enough, to be softer and smoother than her own feet—didn't seem like something the Sakura who'd never seen Wave country would have felt was at all equal to the misery of several hours of intensive training.
The current Sakura who had just had a vague hope that one day it would be easier.
Though she was hardly ever alone, she felt more isolated from her team than ever. Her training started before the others woke, she breakfasted after they left, she barely saw them at shiftchange, and even in the evenings, when she would have been content to watch Kakashi-sensei coach her teammates after she'd helped Tsunami with the dishes, Kakashi-sensei left her with chakra control exercises that she usually fell asleep in the middle of.
But bridge construction continued regardless of her feelings or nagging sense of exhaustion.
And one day, when construction was almost finished, Kakashi-sensei dropped in about midway through her morning training session. The ninken greeted him eagerly and Sakura took the reprieve as a chance to lace her hands behind her head so she could breathe more freely. When Kakashi-sensei had pacified everyone with a perfunctory headpat, he turned to her. His expression was sober and Sakura felt a jolt of alarm, hands falling to her side.
He sighed and scratched at the back of his neck. "Your second enemy from the barge. The heavy-set one. He died this morning."
"What—what do you mean?" Sakura asked, instinctively taking a step back, as if his words were something that she could and should escape.
"Head wounds can be tricky. He just never woke up, that's all. He went into cardiac arrest this morning and couldn't be revived. I wanted to tell you now, because it'll be in the report when we return to the village."
Sakura stared at him, then her gaze dropped to her feet. Her muddy, aching feet, her toes a tracework of scratches. She tried to focus on that, but tears came regardless. She swiped at them with the back of her hand and told herself that she needed to stop this. It could have as easily been her, lying on that deck. Both of them had made a choice and he'd paid for his and she for hers. That was all.
It didn't stop her from crying, but it kept her from sobbing, which was better than she'd managed before. And unlike Kakashi-sensei, who just stood to one side, the ninken crowded around her, pressing warm heads against the palms of her hands and generally made a nuisance of themselves as several of them competed to comfort her.
Finally, after long minutes, the tears dried up and she could face Kakashi-sensei again. "Al-alright," she managed thickly. "And the other?" Something in her couldn't help but ask.
"He'll live. Blood loss and a collapsed lung. He's already been transferred to the mainland."
Sakura made a noise of acknowledgement. When Kakashi-sensei didn't make any move to leave, she just regarded him quietly, one hand drifting up to clutch at her upper arm. He was scrutinizing her very carefully, which made her uncomfortable. She twisted one sandaled foot against the ground.
"...the pack's told me you've gotten better at augmenting your movements with chakra. Of course, that doesn't excuse you from the regular kind of training either, because just how much you can augment depends upon what's there to being with, but you already know that you're much more advanced with your chakra control than most ninja your age. It should be just enough to show you this. Unlike the other two, when I tell you you're not ready to use it in combat, I expect you to respect my judgment. Is that understood?" he asked her gravely.
"Yes, Kakashi-sensei," she replied.
He nodded, then abruptly, in a movement so fact she didn't even see him move, he was behind her and all that was left in his place was a cloud of smoke and whirling leaves. "So far as chakra-augmented speed goes," he said as she whirled around, "the Shunsin no Jutsu is the apex of it. Movement so fast that it appears to the normal human eye to be teleportation."
Sakura's hands twitched, then clenched as he explained the theory behind it and the string of handsigns she'd need to use to help her focus her chakra. She wasn't strengthening any single muscle group, but rather her entire muscular and circulatory system, and not just in the tempered way she'd practiced.
"Now, just a step or two," Kakashi-sensei cautioned her. "To get the feel of it. You won't be able to actually use the Shunshin without practice, but this will be movement much faster than you're used to."
It took her several attempts for her speed of movement to satisfy Kakashi-sensei, but when it worked, she had a feeling more like displacement than movement, as if she'd left her heart behind when she'd stepped forward. Her hands shook a little as she unlaced her fingers from the handsign. Part of it was a sudden feeling of increased exhaustion—she'd failed her first attempts simply because she hadn't invested enough chakra in it.
"Good, good," Kakashi-sensei praised her. "Now," he said, "try to use it to follow me." He led her in an incredibly quick start-stop pattern that drained her more with every shift, until she was blindly following him. He'd increased the distance of each flicker until they stood perhaps ten feet apart.
Ten feet didn't seem like such a great distance.
Until she was moving far faster than she could see.
Kakashi-sensei stepped back and she stepped forward—and suddenly it was only the iron bar of his arm keeping her from a tree. His other hand, index and middle finger held stiffly extended, came to rest at her throat. "Now, here's the disclaimer. Your chakra control is very good. But you're not good enough yet to learn to channel chakra to your eyes. They're much more sensitive to chakra disturbance than anything else, so if you're not careful, you'll blind yourself. And if you're moving faster than you can see and understand, an enemy is just going to stand still and let you impale yourself on a kunai. I wanted you to know what you're walking towards, Sakura-chan, but you're not there yet."
[Kill Your Heroes]
The bridge was at last complete, their time in Wave over. And it would bear Naruto's name.
But that was alright. While Tazuna spoke to Naruto and Kakashi-sensei, she was waved over by Masa and a milling knot of other workers. "Here," he said, pressing something into her hand, which turned out to be a neatly wrapped package. As she unwrapped it, a new shemagh spilled into her hands, this one not nearly as plain as the first, the pattern in a red that was vivid against white. "It won't last as long as a bridge," he said with a wry smile, "but it'll serve as a reminder that we remember who was there when there wasn't anybody around to hear any speeches. Who kept us alive so that we could build the bridge at all."
Sakura's hands tightened on the fabric. "Thank you," she managed, more earnest in those two words in this moment than she'd ever been before.
Masa grinned more widely and another of the workers—Jiro, she remembered—clapped her on the shoulder. "Don't be a stranger," he said, "come back when you're old enough and we'll buy you a drink to celebrate properly."
Sakura could only nod. And feel that, somehow, all her pain hadn't been for nothing.
