Chapter 5: Time for Some Obfuscating Stupidity

Chapter V: Time for Some Obfuscating Stupidity

It was seven in the morning, and Ino was pissed.

Much to the blonde's displeasure, the last week of training had not resulted in immediate, instantaneous progress in Ino's quest to become the Strongest Ninja to Ever Grace the Narutoverse (TM). This was unacceptable, so Ino had decided that the obvious course of action was to show up at Sakura's house before their designated training sessions to complain about it.

"And all he said was, 'Of course, Ino! What would you like to learn?' How am I supposed to know that? He's the teacher, not me!" Ino huffed. "And then he tried to make me meditate. Can you believe it? What is with everyone and meditation around here, anyway? I swear, the next person who tells me to do another set of deep breathing exercises is dead."

"Uh-huh..." Sakura nodded. Anxiously, she fiddled with the hem of her pajamas and took a quick glance at the clock on her wall. Ino was going to leave soon, wasn't she? Knowing her, she'd probably leave right before training... leaving Sakura with no time to get ready.

"Are you even listening to me?" Ino nearly shouted, and Sakura snapped back to attention.

"Huh?" Sakura stammered. "I mean, yes!"

"So, tell me some already."

Sakura stared at her. Okay, so maybe I wasn't listening. But I definitely can't tell Ino that... she'd kill me.

It only took a few seconds for Ino's patience to wear thin. "You do know about jutsu, right?"

"Y-yeah, of course!" Sakura said quickly. I was totally listening to you this whole time, Ino, I swear. "I know all the jutsu! Like, um..."

"Is there a jutsu that will let me blow things up?" Ino interrupted. "I want to learn how to shoot fireballs."

"Yeah! I think. Maybe," Sakura paused. "Well, Sasuke can use fire release."

"What's that?"

"Um, he does some handsigns and then blows fire out of his mouth—"

Ino instantly perked up.

"But I think that's a clan jutsu—Hey, wait, where are you going?"

Ino was already halfway out the door. "I'm going to go find Sasuke."

Oh boy. "I don't think Sasuke's going to teach you that."

"I don't care what you think," Ino glared, continuing to walk out of the room.

"W-wait! There are way cooler jutsu though, and if Sasuke can use it, it can't be that cool because.. because he's only twelve. Right! I mean, how cool can it really be if a kid like him can do it?"

Ino finally stopped walking. "I don't know..." She said, sounding skeptical as she turned back towards Sakura. "What could be cooler than blowing fireballs out of your mouth?"

"W-well... like..."

Well, crap. Ino had a point. Blowing fire out of your mouth was pretty damned cool. Any second now, Ino was going to go walk out and harass Sasuke. Who, she noted dully, was on Team Seven. And the last thing she wanted to do was have to deal with Ino and Team Seven for the rest of the day. Sakura had to think of something, and fast.

What would Ino think was cool? Water walking? No, she could already do that...

"Er... water release?"

Ino crossed her arms, looking decidedly unimpressed.

"..Wind release?" Sakura looked up at Ino tentatively. Nope, still unimpressed. Okay, so maybe for sheer destructive force, not much was going to beat out fire...

Uh... What were the other elements again? Oh!

"Mokuton!" Sakura blurted out. "Yeah! Wood release is way cooler than fire release."

"It doesn't sound very cool."

"That's just because you don't know what it can do!" Sakura insisted. "Imagine being able to shoot wood out of your arms. Or make trees sprout from the ground in an instant, or even better, being able to craft entire buildings!"

"Hmmm," Ino looked calculating. "That sounds interesting. How do I learn that?"

"Oh, er, well..." Sakura froze, realizing her mistake. "It's actually more of a bloodline limit, so you can't learn it. And um, if I remember correctly, only like two people have it, so..."

"Only two people?" Ino's eyebrows shot up. "Then it must be really powerful!"

"Maybe we should talk about something else..."

"Who knows it?" Ino pressed.

"B-besides," Sakura stuttered, "It's not that cool. Sure, you can make tree houses and buildings and stuff.. but I mean, you can make stuff with water release too. Like, um, ponds and streams. You could hold car washes—"

"I don't care if it's a bloodline limit. I'll find a way around that later."

"What about the clone technique?" Sakura interrupted. "Clones are cool, right?"

Without saying anything, Ino placed both hands together and quickly made several handsigns. After a light puff of smoke came and dissipated, two Inos stood in front of Sakura.

"Clones are boring," Ino said in explanation. "You can't fight with them. They're not even solid."

"That kind of clone isn't solid, yeah," Sakura said, "But shadow clones are."

"Shadow clones?" Ino scrunched her nose. "Why would shadow clones be solid but regular clones aren't?"

"Look, the point is—"

"Wait, I can make real, living clones of myself?" Ino said excitedly. "Like more than one?" After a moment, Ino's face lit up again as a thought struck her. "You're right, you know, I do remember Naruto doing that!"

"Right," Sakura hesitantly agreed. "Naruto can... because he has a lot of chakra, and because he learned the technique by reading it out of the scroll of secr—" Sakura abruptly cut herself off. Telling Ino about secret, forbidden scrolls was a very bad idea. As was this entire conversation, actually.

"Scroll?" Ino jumped on her last word. "What scroll?"

Sakura could just see it now: "Sakura, I need you to get me that scroll. Bring it to Team Ino's meeting tomorrow. If you don't have it with you... you'll be sorry!"

Yeah... no, that wasn't happening.

"Scroll?" Sakura repeated in a bewildered (and much practiced) tone, scrunching her eyebrows up in confusion. "Huh?"

"Don't play dumb with me," Ino narrowed her eyes and approached Sakura with slow, purposeful strides.

"Ow—no, really, I don't know what you're talking about! I got confused and I didn't—"

"Stop lying!" At this point, Ino had managed to corner Sakura and was currently grabbing her by the cuff of her pajama top. "What scroll? I've seen Asuma with mission scrolls before, so it makes sense that ninjas use scrolls for other things, too. Well, say something already!"

"I-I can't tell you!" Sakura blurted out, terrified as Ino lifted her up before slamming her back into the wall. "It's classified!"

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, because Ino responded by roughly flipping her over and twisting Sakura's arm behind her back.

"Ahhhgh, w-wait, please stop!" Sakura wailed, and Ino gave her arm another twist. "Okay, okay! There are scrolls... Ow, th-that have a bunch of techniques on them but Ino, they're really dangerous and we wouldn't have enough chakra for them and that's why they're—I mean, that's why they were all destroyed."

Ino was quiet for a full minute before she let go of Sakura's arm and stepped away. With a relieved groan, Sakura dropped to the floor and tentatively looked back at Ino. She was staring at her with cold eyes.

"I don't believe you," Ino said calmly before turning and walking away.

Sakura was almost afraid to ask, but... "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to find someone who isn't completely useless to help me find a ninja scroll," Ino said. "Basically, anyone who isn't you!" With that, Ino stepped out of Sakura's room and slammed the door behind her.

Sakura sighed to herself for the upteenth time, glumly looking down from her position on the roof. Below her, Sakura's two teammates were grumbling quietly to themselves as they worked. Their D-rank mission for the day? Re-paint an old, wooden fence for one of the locals. Sakura, of course, couldn't help them because she had pulled a muscle in her arm approximately thirty minutes after they had started painting the day before. Well, at least that's what she told Kakashi, who had nodded understandingly and let her off.

Also, paint fumes were toxic, and this was the second day they'd been assigned a painting mission. Sakura had come prepared to tell Kakashi all about the Sick building syndrome (SB) symptoms she was currently experiencing, but they were outside now and Kakashi hadn't asked, anyway.

"So, what's got you down?"

A few feet to her right, Kakashi was lounging comfortably next to her on the roof, book open and propped up on one knee.

"Oh..." Sakura sighed again. "It's nothing, Kakashi-sensei..."

"Hmm," He gave her a long, one-eyed stare. After a moment, he looked back at his book, shrugging to himself. "If you say so."

"It's just..." Sakura bit her lip, "What does it even mean for a person to be useless, anyway?"

"Well," Kakashi said, flipping a page in his book—the title of which she couldn't make out, because Kakashi had replaced the sleeve with Icha Icha Violence. "I suppose that depends on the context."

"No, it doesn't," Sakura said, her irritation seeping out. "Objects can be useless, but people? People are just people." When Kakashi didn't say anything, Sakura continued, "Okay, take a flat iron, for example. It's useful. It's got ceramic plates that heat up to over 200 Celsius, and when used properly, it makes wavy hair sleek and straight. It has a specific use and it does what it's supposed to do, which is what makes it useful."

"Mhmm," Kakashi nodded.

"But human beings don't have a purpose. At least not one that we know of. We just sort of wander around and continue on the species, I guess."

"Ah, the meaning of life. The ultimate question. Why are we here? What's our purpose?"

"Well, yeah..." Sakura mumbled. That wasn't exactly where I was going with that, but...

"Looking at it from a purely biological perspective, one could argue that our purpose is to procreate."

"Um, sure..." Could he maybe not smile while he says that, and maybe put down Icha Icha? I know it's just the cover, but it's still pretty creepy...

"You do realize that you're arguing semantics, though, Sakura?" Kakashi said.

What? "No, I'm not."

"Try changing the word 'useful' to 'helpful.' It's perfectly normal to describe a person as helpful or unhelpful depending on the situation. We generally tend to use useful to describe inanimate objects or information, and helpful to describe actions. You can say someone is being useful too and have it mean the same thing."

"Well, fine," Sakura said. "So when would you describe a person as helpful? When you're helping an old lady carry her groceries home?"

"That's a bit more literal than I was going for," Kakashi said, scratching his chin. "How about this? You have three employees. The first employee is a slacker, the second meets the job requirements, and the third goes above and beyond the call of duty. Let's say maybe he puts in more hours at work, and takes on more responsibility than he needs to."

"Okay..."

"One might say that the third employee is more helpful than the others," Kakashi finished. "One might even say that the third employee is more useful."

Kakashi took note of Sakura's quickly darkening expression—and promptly ignored it. "And on a completely different note," he continued, "If your entire argument hinges on the assertion that only objects can be deemed useful or useless, you're forgetting one very important fact."

"Oh, and what's that, Kakashi-sensei?"

"We aren't humans. We're ninjas," Kakashi stated. "And as you're well-aware, ninjas are tools of the village, therefore it is perfectly reasonable to describe them as useful or useless in terms of their contribution to the village."

Judging from her frown, this piece of knowledge did not set well with Sakura.

"Take this mission, for example," Kakashi continued, against his better judgment, "Sasuke and Naruto are down there hard at work, completing a task assigned to us by the village. I'd say it's fair to describe them as useful. You, on the other hand, are lounging about on the roof. As entertaining as our discussions tend to be and as far as the village is concerned, you, Sakura, are rather useless by comparison."

When Sakura said nothing, he added, "Technically speaking, of course."

"Sakura is not useless!" Sakura yelled out, her face flushing. "Sure, she might not have a Sharingan or a ridiculous chakra pool or be able to summon a billion shadow clones, but she had some of the best scores at the Academy and she's got amazing chakra control and you don't see Sasuke or Naruto punching people through walls, do you!? And do you think learning medical ninjutsu is easy? Because it's not!"

"Interesting," Kakashi said.

"And what about you?!" Sakura turned on him. "I don't see you doing anything useful!"

"Of course I am," Kakashi said evenly. "I'm supervising."

Sakura retort died on her lips as she stared at him, dumbfounded.

"I also taught you the meaning of the term useful," he added.

Sakura abruptly stood up. "I'm done training for the day," She said to no one in particular before stalking off of the roof.

Kakashi didn't stop her; he only watched her with a thoughtful expression until her figure disappeared.

Sakura was halfway home before she calmed down long enough to realize her mistake.

Oh god, how the hell was she supposed to explain that? Kakashi probably thought she was crazy. Cursing to herself, Sakura whirled around and started running back towards the property where Team Seven was currently stationed.

First Ino, and now Kakashi—if only there was a way to go back in time. Alternatively, Sakura would also be okay with curling up in a ball and dying. That was it: from now on, she wasn't saying anything to anyone. It was time to play dumb.

Sakura dashed down the main road in town, pausing only when she saw Asuma out of the corner of her eye. That was odd—it seemed too early for Team Ten to be done for the day.

Unless Ino made another scene? Sakura instantly deflated. Great, that was just what she needed. She should probably go talk to him...

Sakura watched as Asuma waved at someone she didn't recognize before nonchalantly entering one of the side alleyways. Sakura waited a few seconds before following him into the alley—only to discover that it wasn't an alley so much as a dead-end between buildings.

Curiously, Sakura watched as Asuma kept walking with long, purposeful strides. No one else seemed to be there. What was he doing, anyway?

"Aha, there it is," She heard Asuma say to himself.

Uncomfortable with the silence, Sakura opened her mouth to call out and announce her presence, but before she got a chance to, Asuma disappeared into thin air.