Hiya, guys! Here have a tiny time-skip!
Enjoy :)
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Sakura carefully injected herself with suxamethonium, the same paralyzing toxin she'd used on her jounin exams. The four people around her shifted anxiously so she shot them each a smirk.
"Sensei…" Boar, the oldest of her students, spoke up. "Are you sure about this?"
Boar was huge, to put it lightly. His biceps were easily bigger than her head and, even though she was on the tall side for a woman, he stood at least two heads taller than her. He'd been an ANBU captain ever since before the Kyuubi's attack, one of the lucky ones who had been outside the village on a mission during that fateful night.
At first, he'd been one of the hardest to win over.
Quite a few of the operatives who came for her first workshop didn't come back. Four, exactly, almost half of them. But no matter, because in the five months that followed, Sakura had gotten ten new students on top of those original six that'd stayed.
Today, she had a full class and those who'd stuck with her were progressing wonderfully.
Boar's respect for her now ran deep as did many of the others who she had to convince to see her for who she was. And Sakura was a damn good medic and operative.
Words like genius and prodigy were spoken about her around the village but she scoffed at them. They were for people like Sasuke and Kakashi, ninja that were naturally good at pretty much everything they tried.
Sakura had worked her ass off to get to where she was. She had shed blood and sweat and more tears than she cared to admit to get to a point where she could say she was happy about her development. And she wasn't good at everything; her ninjutsu was sorely lacking, she could admit, even if she more than made up for it in other areas.
While teaching wasn't something she wanted to focus on for the rest of her career, she certainly enjoyed seeing her students progressing.
There were five that became so good at iryo-ninjutsu that Sakura was sure they could find a nice spot as medics if they did a bit of more focused studying. Four of them stood around her to try the extremely difficult technique that was poison extracting.
Sakura glanced at Fox where he stood supervising the other students on the more basic techniques.
Hyuga Keiichi had already been very proficient at basic medical ninjutsu when she started the workshops and it didn't take him long to reach a point where she had little else to teach him. Not if she didn't want to teach him complicated surgeries, that is.
There wasn't anything else she could teach about field iryo-ninjutsu but it was still nice that he came to most of her workshops either way. He helped her supervise those who had just begun or weren't really getting the hang of things. Sakura liked to joke that he was her personal assistant.
The scowl on his face when she said that was always the highlight of her day.
"I sectioned off the area around my arm with chakra so the poison won't spread everywhere," Sakura explained yet again to her concerned students. Her eyes flicked towards the false wall and she hid a smile when she realised who was behind it. "While it won't be as easy in real life, this is as close as we can get without actually hurting me."
While her teaching methods were… unconventional, at best, she could say with utmost certainty that no one was ever in danger while inside her workshops. Everything she taught how to fix, she inflicted on herself. That way, if no one managed to do the jutsu correctly, she could easily heal herself.
Yeah, some of the things hurt like a bitch, but most of the time, she numbed the nerves around whatever injuries she caused. Not that she actually told anyone about it, of course.
Let them think I'm scarier than I really am.
Now, this lesson would hurt. She'd chosen this specific toxin because it numbed the area it paralyzed but the extraction of poison was an extremely delicate procedure that she was only teaching in this workshop as a curiosity for the more advanced students. And it hurt. Badly.
"You already studied up on the theory of it." Sakura raised an eyebrow at the three men and one woman. "Who wants to go first?"
Sakura didn't let her satisfaction show on her face that Crane was the one who stepped up. She had been one of the original students who'd stuck with her and Sakura had to admit she had a soft spot for the quiet woman.
Sakura watched carefully as Crane emerged her hands on the bucket of previously mixed components and brought a small bubble of it towards her arm.
"Stop," Sakura interrupted. "Get more."
"Hai, Wolf-sensei," Crane muttered obediently and did as she was told.
She began the procedure with careful focus and seemed to be doing well enough that Sakura could afford distracting her a bit.
"On the field, there most likely won't be any time or a nicely placed laboratory for you to mix up the components," she explained, voice slightly strained from the pain. "It's definitely harder, but you can make do with water if you have to. This concoction is made of the most common components that react to the usual poisons and toxins, so it's easy to spot your target. You just have to pay more careful attention if you don't have it."
Crane was beginning to sweat through her clothes as Sakura continued her lesson.
"The first time I did this procedure was here at Konoha's General." Sakura took a deep breath to centre herself. "I had only ever studied it on paper before, never even seen anyone do it. An ANBU team had barely made it through the gates, Tsunade-shishou was busy healing the other team members and Shizune-senpai was halfway into mild to severe chakra depleature."
Sakura took her eyes off Crane's work and looked at the others.
"I had to take over." She averted her gaze and forced herself to continue. "The procedure was a success but I was too late. She was the first who died at my hands."
Crane was shaking so much, Sakura almost stopped her. She waited a few seconds to see if she'd manage to pull it together but her student's grunt made her act, just as she was beginning to lose her hold on the poison she'd managed to collect.
Sakura gasped at the pain and closed her free hand around one of Crane's wrists. With a steadying breath, she directed her own chakra through Crane's pathways and gently guided her.
"Close your eyes," she murmured to the woman. "Block everything else off. You have to be able to feel the molecules and chakra working inside the body. There will come a time when you do it so well that it will feel like you're actually seeing everything."
The four students gasped in unison when they pulled away the liquid with the toxin inside.
Sakura smiled slightly as the others clapped Crane on her back excitedly. With a slight chuckle, she put her own hand to her forearm.
"You did well, Crane, only missed a little. It's fine, though, I can use it to teach the next phase." Sakura concentrated hard on her own chakra and looked inward. She continued her lesson. "If you practice enough, you won't even need water to guide you. Especially if you were the one infected."
Sakura brought her hand back, the remains of the toxin with it. Crane, Boar and Turtle gaped at her while Dugong whispered a tiny incredulous, "No fucking way."
"Know your body. Know your chakra. It will be the difference between life or death one day." Sakura stopped to let the seriousness of the situation sink in before continuing. "This toxin, like most used during combat, is extremely fast acting. Crane had difficulty extracting this last bit because it had already permeated the muscles cells. If you know how your body and chakra work, you can easily pinpoint when and where it's not working as it should."
It took a few seconds for Sakura to realise that the silence wasn't only on the part of the room the little advanced group was standing. Everyone had stopped to watch as soon as she had started speaking and were now staring unabashedly at her.
Keiichi was the first who started clapping.
Soon, everyone was clapping and hooting, some exclaiming loudly how cool she was.
"Alright, alright." Sakura raised her voice over the noise but just enough to be heard. It didn't take long for everyone to be quiet. She shook her head slightly, a small smile on her lips. "Since you're all paying attention let me continue with the story I was telling." She looked calmly at them, willing them to understand the importance of her next few sentences.
"As a shinobi, we're used to dealing with death. It's expected. We slash a kunai on some poor bastard's throat and we know what will come of it. As a medic, things are different." Sakura forced herself to keep her gaze locked with her students'. "Fighting against death is harder than using it as a tool. I'm sure every one of you has already lost someone on the field but you should know that that will not prepare you for how it's going to be when a comrade dies at your hand while you're fighting death with everything you've got.
There will come a time when you will have all the knowledge and abilities to save your teammate when they get a sword through their gut, but not enough chakra to do so. You will have to make some hard choices and no amount of experience you've had as a shinobi will prepare you for it." Sakura smiled sadly at them. "Hopefully, these workshops will also be the reason you'll be able to avoid most of your teammate's deaths in the future."
Sakura expelled a harsh breath and clapped her hands, making some of them flinch.
"Alright, enough slacking off. Get back to work!" She shooed Keiichi playfully before turning back to her advanced students. "Who's next?
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Sakura was leaving HQ through one of the entrances that led to the training grounds, Boar next to her talking animatedly about his recent research on layered genjutsu. He was a genjutsu type like her and had recently discovered how he had improved since taking up iryo-ninjutsu.
It was funny to see how alike they were in some ways while in others they couldn't be more different.
He was all brute force and careful chakra control, like her, but while he was a captain of a melee team, Sakura was on a team that specialised in assassination. Full frontal attack versus subterfuge. While she had been chosen for Team 7, a melee team like Boar's, she had honed her abilities in Team Ro. Sakura wondered briefly how she was going to fit back into Team 7 when Naruto came back.
If Kakashi managed back then, then so can I, Inner reminded her and Sakura smiled slightly at her assuredness.
They had just walked through the hidden passageway when Boar stopped right in his tracks, halting mid-speech.
"Hatake." Boar's voice was a strange mix of reluctant respect with dislike and Sakura couldn't help the tiny amused smile that came to her lips.
Kakashi was leaning against a tree directly in front of the hidden entrance, one hand in his pocket and the other holding Icha Icha loosely. Sakura looked closer. It was Paradise. He was feeling nostalgic.
His eye slid lazily towards the other man and Sakura watched as Boar's dislike was reflected there, even though he looked bored as always to the casual observer. She had seen that look on him quite a few times when Sasuke was being particularly disrespectful.
"Kitagawa," Kakashi acknowledged him with perhaps a smidge less of respect as was earned. But then again, despite being younger, Kakashi's name was feared throughout the five nations. Sakura doubted many even knew who Boar was, let alone that his name was Kitagawa Satoru. Kakashi turned to look at her then, his expression softening into what she could only assume was a smile. "Yo, Sakura-chan."
Sakura-chan.
She didn't know if he had used it because he was feeling nostalgic of their brief months as Team 7 or if he was making a dig at Boar that while he considered her to be someone worthy of being called sensei, Kakashi saw her as his underling. She slightly narrowed her eyes at him but let it go.
"Hey, senpai." She tilted her head to the side, a silent question. When he didn't offer anything else, Sakura turned to Boar. He had been gearing up to say goodbye before they came out the passageway so she simply smiled at him. "Good job today, Boar. I'll see you around HQ, yeah?"
Boar quickly said goodbye before shunshining away and Sakura raised an eyebrow at how fast he'd left.
"He doesn't seem to like you very much," she commented, stepping closer to stand beneath the shade with Kakashi. "He respects you, kinda, but mostly he's scared of you. And kinda hates himself, and you, because of it."
Kakashi huffed a quiet laugh that she only heard because she was standing close to him and shrugged his hunched shoulders a bit.
"That's… actually a pretty good deduction," he granted.
"So," Sakura started when she realised he was getting lost in his thoughts, "did you like the lesson?"
Kakashi raised his eyebrow at her, Icha Icha still held between them like a shield. There was no denying that he had watched the workshop from behind the false wall with the Commander even if he didn't stay until the end.
"I was hiding my chakra." She was glad he didn't bother to pretend.
"Clearly not well enough." Sakura raised her scarred eyebrow, gently amused by him.
"Clearly." Kakashi smiled at her, his eye tracing the scar bisecting her eyebrow. Sakura wondered if he knew that it had come from her first mission as a chunin, that the only reason she was still alive was because of him and his team.
"You can come inside the next time you're around for one of those, you know." Sakura grinned at him. "I'm sure my students won't mind the famous Copy Ninja being there and you have more than enough control to try some new tricks I can teach."
"I don't think I'll be around long enough to learn the basics, Sakura-sensei," Kakashi said.
Sakura huffed a surprised laugh at his teasing. Someone was in a good mood. It was odd for Kakashi to be this light. She tried to respect his wishes to keep this interaction on the happy side and chose not to comment on his resignation at spending so little time inside the village that he wouldn't be able to participate in her workshops.
"It's Wolf-sensei, actually." She mockingly raised her nose at him, following along. "Or Wolf-taichou, if you prefer."
"That reminds me." Kakashi put his book back into the pouch on his back before placing his hand on her shoulder. "Congratulations, Sakura."
Sakura couldn't contain her smile if she tried. Despite having come to terms with Kakashi's role in her life as an absent teacher, it was still so good to get praise from a man that she admired so much.
"Thank you, senpai."
"Come with me," Kakashi said, starting to move through the woods.
Sakura followed him, startled by the sudden change. It seemed like he had finally come to a decision, she just wasn't sure what it was about.
"Where are we going?" She asked after following his lead and jumping to a tree branch. They moved from tree to tree for a while before he answered.
"I still owe you your graduation present." Kakashi didn't turn to look at her so Sakura sped up to run by his side.
"You know," Sakura turned her head to shoot him a slight glare, "being five months late is ridiculous, even for you."
"Maa, Sakura-chan, sorry, sorry." He scratched the back of his head in a show of sheepishness but Sakura wasn't fooled. "My last mission took longer than planned."
At that, Sakura narrowed her eyes. This was the second time he insinuated he either didn't spend time at the village or didn't expect to be around much. Even if she hadn't been worried before, she'd definitely be now.
As it was, Sakura had been worried sick ever since she looked at his file and noticed he was being pushed to his limits, quite often not even respecting the three days off rule for every mission longer than three weeks outside the village. With a quick hand, she grabbed his wrist and immediately sent some chakra into his system.
Kakashi stopped abruptly but to his credit didn't snatch his hand away. They stood still on top of a large branch as Sakura examined him.
His chakra reserves weren't as depleted as she'd been expecting so he'd probably gotten home last night at the latest. He'd definitely had some sleep. There was some bruising on his ribs that made Sakura frown.
"You didn't check-in at the hospital, you idiot," Sakura chided with her eyes closed. She didn't bother listening to his outlandish excuses as she healed the bruised ribs and a poorly healed gash on his upper chest. It was harder to do this through his wrist but she figured he wouldn't appreciate her touching him anywhere else.
"Wait, Sakura." Kakashi gently brushed her hand away from his wrist but it was okay because she was already finished. "You're going to need your chakra."
Sakura scoffed.
"I barely used any for that." She waved her hand as if dismissing the thought. "Where are we going that I'm going to need to use my chakra, anyway? And where are we?"
"We're at the Nara forest," Kakashi said simply and gestured with his chin for her to follow him. Sakura rolled her eyes at him.
"I do know the layout of my own village, senpai," she said dryly.
Kakashi chuckled when they jumped down to the forest floor. She could see a house in the distance, an old wooden porch peeking through the treeline.
"This used to be my father's house," Kakashi replied, his voice quiet.
Sakura faltered in her next step while Kakashi trudged on the overgrown path ahead. She was frozen to the spot watching his broad shoulders—so hunched, like he was always carrying such heavy weight all the time—as he reached the steps, paused for a beat and then continued on his way up.
When he reached the door, he turned his head to look at her.
"You can stay there if you want," he offered and that quickly snapped her out of it. She hurried up towards him.
In the years after she had gone looking for Kakashi's file, she had asked her shishou about his early life and his father. In his file, he was listed as an orphan during his Academy year and she had often wondered what had happened to the rest of the Hatake clan. Shishou never talked long about them, even though she had admitted once that Hatake Sakumo had been one of her closest friends back in the day. She had, however, said that Kakashi's mother had died before he completed two years and that his father was already gone by the time he graduated. At age five.
Sakura knew that when he joined ANBU, his address on his file was the ANBU living quarters like many of the faction's orphans and that later on he moved to his apartment above Shizune's, in a building that mostly housed jounin. She didn't know how long it'd been since he'd come back to his childhood house but she couldn't imagine it'd be easy for him to revisit those memories.
She had so many questions. When had he moved out? Did he have to look after himself after his father died or had someone taken him in like Tsunade had taken care of her?
Sakura made sure to step as close to him as she dared, not quite touching him but offering what kind of support she could. Kakashi expertly disabled several seals and traps before pushing the door open.
The backdoor led them to a nice, traditional kitchen. Kakashi moved quickly to open the many windows to let the musty air out but it wasn't too terrible inside. He'd definitely been there in the last year or so. Or at least someone had.
Kakashi placed a scroll on top of the kitchen table.
"Could you unseal this for me?" He didn't wait for a reply before moving towards the corridor she imagined led to the rooms. "I'll be right back."
Sakura, more confused than ever but too curious to do anything other than what she was told, unsealed the scroll.
She blinked at the contents of it when the smoke cleared. Then she tilted her head to the side, as if trying to figure a puzzle out.
Kakashi's jounin graduation present to her was… an old jounin sweater?
Sakura was still silently blinking at it when Kakashi came back with more fabric on his hands.
"Your present is…" she trailed off uncertainly before completing, "old clothes?"
"No, I—" Kakashi cleared his throat. "I'm going about this the wrong way. This is your graduation gift."
He took out another scroll, this one from his back pouch. It was moderate in size but Sakura quickly recognized it as another sealing scroll.
"This better not be more old laundry…" Sakura muttered, teasing and threatening him at the same time but Kakashi didn't answer.
When the smoke cleared out, a large dark green scroll stood on top of the kitchen table. Suddenly feeling the nervous energy Kakashi was only halfway successful at hiding, Sakura hesitated for a beat before spreading it open.
It covered the extension of the six-seats table and the pages were old and frayed at the edges. At the very top, written in blood-red, Hatake no Okami.
Hatake Wolves.
"I was very young when my mother died," Kakashi started speaking, his speech hesitant. Sakura was almost startled enough by the private topic he was broaching to look at him, but somehow she knew that if she did, he would stop. So she focused on tracing the names on the scroll with her eyes. "I've always hero-worshipped her, so as soon as I had enough chakra, I signed the contract with her pack.
The wolf pack is… was my father's summons. They used to stay in this realm and hunt in these woods when in contact with him but since his death, they went back to Oyamatsumi Mountain and the scroll has been collecting dust for a long time now, so when I heard the name they gave you at ANBU… It feels right to give this to you."
Sakura finally looked at him then. Kakashi was pointedly avoiding eye contact with her and was simply staring out one of the windows. Sakura had never seen him look so uncertain.
"You want me to have… your family's summons?" Sakura asked, probably sounding as uncertain as he looked.
"You don't have to accept it, you can—" he cleared his throat "—you can say no and I'll go buy you some new senbon."
Kakashi touched the scroll then, as if he was going to close it, and Sakura felt a sudden bout of protectiveness towards it. She put her own hand on top of it so he couldn't lift it. This time, she sought out his eyes determinedly.
"What if you have kids?" She questioned but Kakashi was already shaking his head before she was even done.
"Sakura, the Hatake line is a dying one. I'm all there's left, and I definitely won't be continuing it." He didn't look saddened by it. Not even resigned. He just looked like he had decided that for himself a long time ago. Sakura felt sad on his behalf. "Besides… The wolves never felt like mine. They were always my father's and… I think he would have wanted you to have it." Then, impossibly lower he said, "He would have liked you."
Sakura couldn't remember the last time she had wanted to cry this much. She was overwhelmed and flattered and goddamn it she was so happy to have known this impossibly sad man. She couldn't say no if she wanted, even if the idea of carrying another clan's legacy was daunting.
Sakura snorted.
"What?" Kakashi asked, looking slightly taken aback.
"It's just that you're the second person to ask me to carry on their extremely important clan's legacy." Sakura gave him a huge, genuine smile and hoped he didn't focus on the tears in her eyes. "I'm just glad to have you both in my life."
"Tsunade-sama?" Kakashi asked. He hadn't relaxed much but there was a smile crinkling the corner of his eye.
"I'm her sole heir now. The council is not happy a civilian is going to inherit the Senju legacy. I just hope I don't inherit her debts as well…" Sakura muttered, mostly joking. Then she peered curiously back at the scroll. "So, how does this work?"
"You sign your name with blood, perform the kuchiyose jutsu and wait to see if whoever comes accepts you as part of the pack." Sakura swallowed dryly. That wasn't really reassuring. "The contract depends on this scroll and the integrity of the signature so the more blood you use, the stronger the characters will be and you won't risk losing the contract if some of it flakes away."
"Do you have a brush and a small pot?" Sakura asked and Kakashi nodded.
"I'll go get it before we leave." He left her at the table to rummage through the kitchen cabinets where he found a tiny pot and set it near the scroll. Sakura busied herself with closing the summoning contract inside the sealing scroll while Kakashi made his way towards what looked to be a study.
"We're going back to the woods?" She raised her voice slightly so it carried towards the other room.
Kakashi came back with a calligraphy brush, his face paler than usual. Sakura frowned at him but chose not to say anything when he averted his gaze. He picked both jounin uniforms up and started to leave. Sakura fumbled with the scroll and pot and went after him.
"Hatake wolves are very territorial. When my grandfather settled here with my father just before the Second War, there was a pact made with the Nara's so the wolves could hunt in the woods if only they didn't hurt the deer." Kakashi explained as they locked up and made their way back down the overgrown path. "My father's pack was the first generation to be born here in Konoha. Since they have a longer lifespan than humans, you'll probably have most of my father's old pack with you."
Sakura had so many questions, she didn't even know where to begin.
"And the uniforms?" She settled for when they came to a clearing. It was really small, the treetops almost meeting but it was enough that some sunlight came through. Kakashi sat down in the middle of it and Sakura copied him.
"The pack is very territorial and they had never signed a contract with anyone that wasn't from the Hatake clan or from a Hatake's pack." Kakashi smiled at her and she knew it was a teasing one from the gleam in his eye.
It didn't take anything else for Sakura to understand. While Sakura was pretty sure Kakashi considered her pack at this point—the man was giving her his dead father's summons, nothing screamed pack just like that—she didn't exactly smell like him. Sakura forced a blush down with her chakra.
"You want me to smell like you…" she pursed her lips. "And your dad."
"Yes," Kakashi said then he paused, his body freezing. "I know it sounds a bit creepy when you say it like that…"
"Yep." Sakura nodded. "It's very creepy." She snickered. "C'mon, hand over your old, dog smelling shirt already."
Kakashi narrowed his eyes at her and for a second he looked like he would refuse, just for the principle of it, but then he gave a put upon look and handed her the clothes. Sakura, with an amused smile on her face, took off the outer part of her ANBU uniform and shrugged on the two jounin shirts. The extra layers warmed her up almost immediately and warded off the cool Autumn breeze.
The large shirts fell to her mid-thigh and awkwardly bundled over the wolf mask she had taken to clipping to her belt whenever teaching and her usual hip pouches. Sakura was surprised by her need to run a hand over her plaited hair, it was a weird time to feel self-conscious about her appearance. She cocked her head to the side instead.
"Will this be enough?" She asked.
Kakashi retrieved his well-loved copy of Paradise from his pocket and leaned both his elbows on his knees, crossing his legs.
"It's best if you work up a sweat so that our scents are properly mixed." He shrugged. "It's good that you put my father's shirt on top, though. It doesn't have much of his smell now, but they'll recognise it anyway."
Sakura immediately dropped to the floor to perform a gruelling set of push-ups. It would take a long time for her to get properly sweaty by it but by circling her chakra faster through her pathways and artificially stimulating vasodilation, she could speed up the process.
"Hotaka should still be the alpha," Kakashi said, completely surprising her. Sakura figured he'd go back to reading his book until she was ready. "He was born just a few years before my father signed the contract with the pack and he can use lightning jutsu. He and his mate used to babysit me quite often when I was a child."
Sakura had so many things to ask about that last tidbit of information, but somehow it felt wrong to voice any of those questions. Kakashi was an extremely private person and opening up this part of his life for her couldn't possibly be easy for him. She knew she wouldn't want to talk about her parents if he suddenly grew an inquisitive trait and asked.
"I didn't know summons could do nature transformation," she said instead, the beginnings of perspiration gathering at her temples.
"Some summons probably can't," Kakashi replied. "The Hatake Wolves, though, are said to be on par with the legendary Toads, Snakes and Slugs."
Sakura paused mid push-up to stare at him. She had forgotten that Hatake Sakumo was not only friends with them but also said to be on the Sannin level, back in the day. When he didn't offer anything else, she went back to her exercises, brow furrowed. Just how big a gift was this? She didn't know Kakashi had ever considered her enough to give her something like this. It felt like something he'd give Sasuke, like the Chidori, or even Naruto, but never her.
"You're flushed already." Kakashi broke her train of thought. She didn't detect any accusation on his voice but her previous thoughts made her narrow her eyes at the grass.
She changed to one-handed push-ups and quickened her pace. Lee would be proud.
"Iryo-ninja," she said more curtly than was probably needed, then felt bad about it and asked, "Is this enough?"
Kakashi paused to sniff the air and Sakura felt her cheeks burn hotter. He was clearly analysing her scent but, oh man, was he smelling her sweat? What if he could tell from that little sniff more than she wanted for him to know? She had spent the night at headquarters with an ANBU operative from another team yesterday and while she showered this morning in her own bathroom, what if he could tell?
But Kakashi didn't say anything, merely put Icha Icha back in his back pouch. Sakura stopped her movements and dropped in front of him, copying his crossed legs.
"This should be good enough." He nodded to himself before unsealing the summoning scroll and handing her the small pot. "I think me being here will make more of a difference than how you smell. But it still feels close enough to the scent someone from my pack should have."
Sakura listened nervously to him as she opened the palm of her right hand with a chakra scalpel. She let the blood drop into the pot until it was filled, then used just enough chakra to clot the wound but not completely close it.
She wanted it to scar.
Being a medic-nin meant that she had almost not a single scratch on her body. The scar on her eyebrow served as a reminder of a changing point in her life and she felt like this would be the same.
With precise strokes, Sakura signed her name next to a crookedly penned Hatake Sakumo. She didn't exactly feel any different, but if she focused enough, she could feel the chakra trapped inside the scroll. It felt powerful.
"Good." Kakashi nodded again, a smile slightly crinkling the skin of his eye. "Gather about half your reserves. The seals are Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey and Ram. You'll probably only need them for the first few times you do it, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it soon."
Sakura practised the seals without infusing chakra, mirroring Kakashi's movements. It was fairly simple, as far as jutsu went. C-Rank at best, if judged by the seal numbers. Still, she knew the tricky part would be her chakra reserves.
She had worked them up until they were above average but she still wasn't on par with the likes of Tsunade and probably would never be. It was her greatest deficiency and the reason she steered well clear of nature transformation despite having two chakra affinities. Sakura wondered just how humiliating it would be if she only managed to summon a small cub.
Inner scowled in the back of her mind and forced those insecurities back. They had no place here in this person she was becoming.
Sakura formed a fist so her wound would open again before moving through the seals. She smacked her hand on the forest floor.
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
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*mic drop*
Lol, I'm silly. I hope you liked Kakashi's gift to Sakura hehehe I did A LOT of research on wolves and japanese culture and DUDES. DUDES. There are so many coincidences, I can't wait to post the next chapter so we can talk about it xD Next chapter will follow up where this one left off and the one after that (chapter 28) will do the same and then we have some more time-skips to do! I'll keep reminding you of them and by the time we're done with them, I'll do a bit of a timeline sketch so you guys can know what happens when and keep better track of it, lol. ;)
By the way, I just have to express how incredibly resentful I am of past!J who decided it was a grand idea to name the chapters of this fic because hey! It's gonna be about 20 chapters long, right? I can totally do that... I absolutely SUCK at naming things. I hate it I hate it I hate it. Can we all just collectively pretend I never named any chapter so I can do the sane thing and just write down the chapter's number? Jk... or am I?
About the scroll and kuchiyose jutsu like hahaha I think it's so funny that in the anime they have Kakashi carrying around his summoning scroll as if that was a thing? Search for 'kakahi likes to twirl stuff' on google, it's a tumblr post by kokoro4kakashi and it'll make you laugh. Anyway, it's ridiculous. Ya don't need your scroll to summon your summons.
Let me know what you guys think of this chapter! A huge shotout to A, my baby, my Beta, who really is a huuuge help 3 Ily. Also, you guys are so so wonderful it makes me wanna cry! Let's have some convos and debates in the comment section, y'all! Also, come say hi to me on Tumblr, will ya? I'm justjstuff over there! ;)
P.S.: This is really a ps that has absolutely nothing to do with the story you can just skip ahead if you'd like. I just have this question that I want to know you guys' opinion and here is where I have the most engagement (as opposed to Tumblr). What do you guys think about associating your name with fanfiction? Like, be it as a reader or a writer, do you feel ashamed, embarrassed about it? Cause I used to a lot and it makes no sense? And I've been meaning to start a YT channel and I think I'm kinda holding back on it because I don't know what my fandom friends will think about seeing that part of me IRL and also what my RL friends will think about my fandom life? I dunno, it's stupid really, but if you guys have any opinions on this, I'd like to hear them! s2