A Loving Heart, A Body of Steel

by renegadeofficer89

Love is the only cure to hatred. A person with a heart so big that he can accept anyone in his life, either human or not will be the saviour of the world. With a body of steel, he will rise above the hatred of the world, and be the catalyst to bring peace. Bloodline/Strong/Naruto, NaruxFemKyuuxHina pairing.

16. Chapter 14: Sakura

I've had it.

I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THESE MOTHERFUCKING DOCS IN MY MOTHERFUCKING DRIVES!

My readers, these are the unbetaed, unpolished, unchecked and as of yet unreleased chapters of this story. They've been sitting so long in my drives ever since I finished writing them over a year ago that it's an eyesore to me. Thus, I am publishing all of this just to let you see how this story could actually proceed if I decided to continue it.

This DOES NOT mean I am continuing it. It's just that it's... there, and after so long, I believe that holding them back from you would be a sin to me. Or a "good riddance!" moment to haters, but that happens.

So enjoy these last burst of docs to ever come from me for this story. Those wanting to adopt it can hit me with a PM.

Without further ado, please enjoy the chapters.

CHAPTER 12: SAKURA

-CHAPTER START-

It's a very nice day in Konoha. The winds are blowing gently, caressing everyone's body with its calming embrace. The sun was shining brightly, making the people of Konoha walk around with smiles on their faces as they chatted happily with their neighbours about the current gossip and situation of their neighbourhood. The birds are chirping, the people are happy, and Kurumi was fucking bored.

Right now, the council of Konoha was having their weekly meeting at the council chambers at the Hokage Tower, and every member of the shinobi council was bored out of their skulls, though only Kurumi and Shikaku, the head of the Nara clan showed it, one yawning with a loud voice while the other went directly to sleep on the table the instant the meeting starts. But then again, a Nara was always sleepy no matter what and how.

"And so, we of the Merchant Guild would propose the unification of all the businesses in Konoha under one management-"

"Denied," Said Sarutobi, denying the request from the leader of the Merchant Guild. A very stupid proposition too, if you ask him. But they would want that, made it easier for them to control everything in Konoha. And if he were to let that measure pass, he'd be a fucking idiot.

Meanwhile, Kurumi once again yawned loudly, showing her extreme boredom towards the rest of the council members, earning her some nasty glares from the members of the civilian council, especially those who still hated her, not that she cared about it. And a nasty idea popped into her head a moment later. A nasty, evil yet extremely, extremely entertaining at the same time. Hiding her evil grin underneath her looks of boredom, she started her plan.

Everybody thought nothing as Kurumi straightened her body as she stretched her arms, removing the kinks and creaks in her muscles and bones as the council convened. Everybody wanted to do the same thing anyway, and only Kurumi had the balls to do that in front of everyone. And wisely, all of then decided not to call her on it. No one paid any attention as Inuzuka Tsume, the head of the Inuzuka Clan did the same thing, following her example, together with her nin-dog, Kuromaru. And in a small puff of smoke, Kurumi unsealed a manicure set from a seal on her wrist.

It's a tendency for the Uzumaki-Namikazes to be over prepared, after all. It was said that they sealed an entire house's contents within a seal on them, together with the house! After all, when you can seal anything within a sealing matrix, a couple of adjustments should make it capable for someone to seal an entire house, right? No one knew the truth, though her actions had pretty much confirmed the rumors.

Ignoring the bewildered look of the council members, she took out the nail file from the manicure set and started filing the tips of her nails slowly. And to everyone's shock, the same immaculate nails that she was filing suddenly grew and extended themselves, breaking skin without blood and turning into extremely sharp and deadly black coloured one inch long claws that she was still filing slowly even as some of the council member paled at this. The entire room became silent at this blatant display of her demonic traits. A couple of seconds later, realising that the room became silent, Kurumi moved her attention from her claws towards the council members and stared into each of their eyes before saying "What? I have something on my face?"

This snapped everyone from their shock (except for the Nara, still sleeping) and the current speaker of the council, a skinny guy with long, expensive robes, continued what he was saying. "As I was saying before..."

Kurumi ignored this as she internally snickered at everyone's response at her actions. That's just her claws though. But the coup de grace wasn't here yet. That's up next. A while later, she finished her nail filing (or more like claws in her case) and the claws retracted back into her fingers, leaving her immaculate nails instead of claws, much to the shock of everyone there.

Still ignoring the council's staring eyes, she unsealed another item into her hand: a hair comb. Amidst the bewildered look of the council members, she started stroking her back-length, blood red hair before combing them slowly and gently while being stared at by the council members with some of the female members having looks of envy at her long, silky smooth hair.

Watching her antiques, the Sandaime just sighed before discreetly facepalming and saying "Councilwomen Uzumaki-Namikaze Kurumi, may I ask what are you doing?"

Once again snickering internally, she answered, "Why, Hokage-sama, I am combing my hair."

"We can all see that." Sarutobi answered deadpan, getting snickers from Tsume while the head of the Yamanaka Clan, Yamanaka Inoichi was trying his best not to laugh at this exchange together with his teammate and longtime friend, Akimichi Choza, the head of the Akimichi clan.

One civilian councilmember immediately stood while levelling a pointing finger at Kurumi. "Stop disrespecting Hokage-sama you demon!" she shouted out.

The mood of the shinobi council abruptly soured at this. True that she is a demon. Heck, she admitted it herself! In front of everyone, no less! But getting it pointed out that way still made some people uneasy, especially considering the fact that they are now, beyond all doubt, Konoha's strongest military asset bar none. And you really, REALLY don't want to antagonize a person who could morph into a massive mountain destroying beast with powers of epic proportion that can destroy your entire village in minutes.

And to everyone's (except Sarutobi's) surprise, Kurumi just giggled, a sound that was extremely enticing and lovable but at the same time carries a certain sharp edge that promises death and doom to anyone opposing her. "I'm sorry honourable councilmember. I will try not to joke with Hokage-sama again." She said, though she haven't stopped combing her hair, straightening them and removing nonexistent tangles from them. Most of the shinobi council, except for Hyuuga Hiashi was choking on their laughter at this time.

Fuming, the councilmember almost shrieked out his outrage, but Sarutobi's voice cut through the dome of tension within the chambers. "Councilmember Kazuki, we all know that each and every one of us had better things to do than stay within this stuffy chamber for hours. And as such, I would like it if you could continue with your weekly report instead of doing something wasteful."

Shocked at the Hokage's apparent dismissal, he then gritted his teeth before saying, "Of course, Hokage-sama. Now, this week, Konoha had..."

As the fuming councilmember spoke his report on Konoha's influx of traders, his eyes kept wandering from the paper he's holding in his hand towards Kurumi who was still combing her hair. Kurumi notices this and inwardly smirked. It seemed that her plan was working successfully. Time for the next stage.

The councilmember was still giving his report when his eyes went from his paper to Kurumi, who was still combing her ears. Wait, ears? The councilmember's head snapped immediately to Kurumi, and much to his horror, a pair of blood red, three inches long foxlike ears was on top of her head and she combed the ears as well. With a shaky hand, the councilmember pointed his trembling finger to Kurumi. "Y-y-you.. w-w-wh-"

"Hm?" Kurumi said, still combing her ears. "Oh. These?" she said while pulling her ears to reach the rest of it. "These are my ears. Don't worry about me. Keep going." She said with a tone of dismissal in her words. No one said anything though.

Recovering from his shock, the councilmember decided to ignore Kurumi and continue his report when he looked back towards Kurumi, and much to his shock, Kurumi was sitting on her chair with her nine blood red, white tipped tails flowing behind her, with one of them being held in her hand as she used the same brush to comb her furs.

Already expecting, no, wanting this effect, she looked towards the council, where the civilians had their blood left their faces, making them lethally pale at the sight of Kurumi with her nine tails splayed out in the open. The shinobi council meanwhile, was tense and ready to strike at any moment, watching this display from her. Even Kuromaru was tense and growling at Kurumi.

Kurumi stopped her combing, remained still and stared into each of the councilmember's eyes, drinking in their faces. The pale as all fuck civilian side, the tense and alert shinobi side and the exasperated look of Sarutobi. She kept staring into his eyes before his eyes changed from 'what-the-fuck-are-you-doing' look to 'do-whatever-you-want' kind of look, making her lips turn upwards into a grin.

Looking at every council member again, she had a staring contest with everyone, even as each of the civilian council flinched when her slitted, violet eyes met theirs. Then, she turned to the shinobi council again, once again doing the same thing, except this time, she admired their eyes which had a look of determination and strength. Except for Hiashi who had a look of hate in his, but that's a given. She then opened her mouth slowly, causing everyone to tense up as she started to speak.

"What?"

This took everyone by surprise, not expecting this from her. But before they could speak their minds out, Kurumi continued. "You know, a lady needs to care for her hair. And I have some extras here," she said, lifting her tail. "Some loads of extras, so pardon me if my tails surprised you. Besides, you all didn't even have one." She said with a partially mocking tone at the end.

The same councilmember, Kazuki suddenly had an unexplained yet for most people, deadly urge to run his mouth and bitch out against the hundreds of year old extremely powerful demon turned human. "I will not want such a tail you demon! It just shows that you're nothing but a filthy demon!" and he then decides to add. "What good are those tails anyway?!"

And once again, to everyone but Sarutobi's shock, Kurumi replied in stride, still brushing her tails, and was on her third with the rest of them still waving around behind her. "I never said I was a human, did I? And even now, I am at best, a half demon. Though I am immortal by age anyway, and I will see your death, your children's, their children's and their children's death far, far before I die of battle wounds." She finished combing her fourth tail as she continued amidst the silence of the council. "Oh, and what's good about them? Well, in battle, I can use them as extra limbs, striking many people up close in one time. It can even use jutsus, you know." She said before lifting the uncombed tails, all five of them before creating a Rasengan at the tips of each, earning the awe of the shinobi council.

Dispelling the Rasengans, she continued. "When not in battle, they're helpful for housework. I can sweep with my hands while lifting up furniture with them, performing multiple tasks while cooking, for some. Let me ask: can you stir soup while frying fish and cutting up some vegetables at the same time? I think not. Makes cooking faster, you know."

Still combing her tails, she suddenly had a perverted look on her face. "But my favourite use of them is when I'm getting... intimate with my mate. Hehehe..." she finished with an extremely perverted giggle. "His tails, they touched me at places you cannot even imagine. At the same time! Those soft tails of his, groomed daily, entangled themselves with mine, as he played me like a violin, before they roamed all over my body, touching me, feeling me, hitting all my sweet spots..." she then froze entirely, her hands turning still, her tails no longer flowing as she looked upwards with a very perverted look on her face and blood dripping from her nostrils.

As she was in her erotic trance, the rest of the council member was shocked and felt weirded out at the same time. Who knew her tails could be used in such a way? The multiple Rasengans from the tails can utterly destroy someone if they hit one person, and can also be used to engage multiple targets at a time! And the use of them in housework is definitely something great. Not many can say that they did all those things at once without rushing like a madman, and she could just stand at one spot while handling multiple things at the same time! But what weirded them out was how she openly talked about her sex experience right in front of the council. They surely didn't want to know that, and most surely will not say it to anyone. Yet here sat a former bijuu in a trance for remembering her sexual experience with her mate!

Watching this, Sarutobi just sighed, before saying. "Kurumi-san, everyone didn't need to know what you did with Naruto-kun during the night. Keep them to yourself." He said deadpan.

This snapped Kurumi out of her trance, where she smoothly replied, "But we didn't just do it during the night! We did it during the day, the evening, the afternoon, sometimes when I was doing breakfast, Naruto just hugged me suddenly, and we did the horizontal tango right in the kitchen! Oh, and we did it everywhere! On the couch, on the floor, in the bath, on the training field..."

Even he was holding back his nosebleed when he heard Kurumi talking like that. But then, he's not the Hokage for nothing, and held back his nosebleed by sheer force of will before saying, "Kurumi-san, the council is still in session. As such, I hope that you can stop playing around and be more serious in here."

She immediately replied, like she was expecting him to say that. "Oh, pooh. You guys can't even let me have some fun. *sighs* Alright, I guess. Well, better let the reports finish fast. I got better things to do. Chop,chop!" Kurumi said while signalling to hurry, prompting the bloodless face of civilian councilmember Kazuki to continue speaking in a shaky voice at her display of power and horniness, a sentiment shared by every member of the civilian council, if their pale faces are to be believed.

Meanwhile, Kurumi ignored them and kept on combing her magnificent, smooth tails, much to the fear of the civilian council. Even some of the shinobi council were unabashedly giggling at the looks of fear that the civilian council was showing. Their eyes kept darting from the shinobi council, to the Hokage, to Kurumi and back, following some random patterns but towards the same targets. After a while, she finished combing her tails and she just lets them flicking around together with her ears.

"...A-a-and that is a-all my r-r-report for the d-d-d-day, H-h-hokage-sama." Kazuki spoke, before he sat down, his eyes still nervously staring at Kurumi who now had two inch long fangs protruding from her mouth. If possible, the civilian council got even paler at watching her extremely sharp fangs glinting with the light of the council chambers reflected off of its surface.

"So, any other things to report?" Sarutobi asked. Seeing as the civilian council all shook their heads as fast as they possibly can with the shinobi council all just shook their heads, though each of them had a hint of mirth on their faces, Sarutobi then ends the meeting. "Alright then. Thus ends today's Konoha's council meeting. Meeting adjourned."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the civilians all disappeared from the room like they had Hiraishin, leaving nothing in their wake. Even the loudest among them didn't bother staying, instead taking leave as fast as they can in order to avoid the wrath of the Kyuubi. As the dust of the civilian council's escape settled down, what remains was the shinobi council except for the Hyuuga who left together with the civilian council, but with a more sedate pace worthy of a Hyuuga.

A while later, Kurumi burst out laughing so hard that her stomach ached, causing her to bend over and holding her stomach. Unable to bear it any longer, even Inoichi broke into fits of laughter. Watching this, Sarutobi who had a serious look on his face at the start broke into a smile before even he started laughing slowly.

"Oh god!" Kurumi wheezed out between fits of laughter. "Did you see them all leave?! That was hilarious!" she said even as her tails are waving wildly at their owner's joy at managing to prank the council.

"Indeed." Sarutobi said amidst his own laughter. "But Kurumi-san, what made you do that?"

"Well, they're kinda stuck up and all, and I'm pretty much fucking bored of listening of them prattling about their business and their attempt at more power, so I thought, 'let's show them some nice practical joke', so that's why I did that."

"You're a nice lady, Kurumi! And that joke's great! Though you smell of foxes." Tsume said.

Kurumi shrugged. "Well, I AM part fox demon, so I cannot do anything about that. And playing tricks are what kitsunes are good at, right?"

"Damn right!" Tsume said while laughing all the way as she and her partner, Kuromaru walked and left the council chambers. Kurumi then looked at the Sandaime before she bowed a little and said, "Well, I'm taking my leave as well. See you later." Before she stood up and left as well, the rest of the council following shortly.

"Jiraiya?" Hiruzen said to no one in particular. Suddenly, beside his chair, a patch of light shimmered, before showing the lying down figure of Jiraiya in a pool of his own blood, a spurt of it a bit ahead, showing just how hard his nosebleed was.

"M-my godson... Y-you are a t-true man..." he shakily said as he raised a shaking hand, making a thumbs-up gesture towards the air before his hand fell in a plop in his own pool of blood, himself completely knocked out cold from the nosebleed Kurumi's words induced in him.

Sarutobi just sighed. "Why are all my students act extremely strangely...?"

-IN FRONT OF KONOHA'S GATES-

The zephyr that blew past them combined with the not-so-bright sunlight shining down on the Eternal Chuunin, Hagane Kotetsu and Kamizuki Izumo within the guard booth of Konoha's gates made them comfortable. And once one gets comfortable, one gets sleepy.

"Kotetsu, we shouldn't sleep right now. I know that this wind is extremely gentle and nice, but we shouldn't sleep now, and it's better for us to remain vigilant during these times." He said to Kotetsu, but more in an attempt to motivate himself to keep him awake. "Kotetsu?" he said when he noticed that Kotetsu failed to answer, and he looked towards where Kotetsu was originally sitting.

Much to his ire, Kotetsu was already lying face down on the booth's counter, asleep with drool flowing from his mouth, pooling beneath his face. A vein popped in his head before he lifted his hand and smacked the back of Kotetsu's head with a loud thwack, shaking the entire booth.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?!" Kotetsu who immediately woke up after that smack asked Izumo who was looking at him with fury in his eyes.

"What the fuck are you doing?! You shouldn't sleep while you're on duty!" Izumo said, clearly enraged at Kotetsu's action.

"But no one passes here anyway! Can't I get some nap here?" Kotetsu asked, wiping the drool on his face on the sleeve of his shirt.

"No! We must remain vigilant! We are the first line of defence of the village! We cannot just sleep on the job just because it's a little breezy and calm!" Izumo countered.

"But nobody passes here today and the wind's too good not to sleep!"

As the two eternal chuunin bantered, a flash of yellow on the roads about a hundred metres away from them heralded the arrival of Team 7 and Team 11, where all the members of both team were holding on to various parts of Naruto's huge body as they all flashed from Wave straight to Konoha. Unfortunately, some of them are newbies at this time-space travelling system, especially Team 7's members.

Upon arrival, Kakashi immediately let go of Naruto's arms and started swaying heavily, trying to get back his balance from the seal-assisted journey through the Immaterium. Being the student of the Yondaime, he was once used to that feeling of utter strangeness and confusion as one travelled through the Immaterium, but since his sensei's death, he never had any chance of feeling that experience again. And now, as his sensei's son performed the same technique again transporting him, he found himself utterly challenged and nearly threw up his meals throughout the day.

His team was not so lucky.

Immediately upon touching solid ground, Sakura, Sasuke and Sai immediately had their face turn green as a leaf before they kneeled and puked all the contents of their stomach onto the ground before they all trembled and shook at that weird feeling that anyone will feel when they entered the Immaterium's space. Their senses all went haywire, feeling nothing yet everything at the same time, not mentioning the sight of the Immaterium's space, the warped colours that made its dimension a maddening sight to look at even when they are only in it for a fraction of a second, the sight was permanently burned into their juvenile minds, even Sai.

Once Sasuke finished puking everything and the only thing that came from his mouth was stomach acids, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve before asking to no one. "What the hell was that?!" Then, he heard a laugh before he saw that Naruto was clutching his stomach hard from how hard he was laughing.

"HAHAHAHAHA! Damn! Haven't seen newbies being transported via Hiraishin's reaction for a damn long time! That was fucking hilarious! GUAHAHAHAHA!" Naruto laughed again until he was kneeling on the ground wheezing due to lack of air, his daughter following in the same footsteps of her father.

Hinata immediately stepped forward towards the kneeling Naruto before smacking him on the top of his head, which was about neck level to her even when he was kneeling. "Naru-koi, Don't laugh at them. Everybody went through that, except for Kushina."

Wiping his teary eyes, Naruto replied, "Okay, okay. I guess so. Well, time to explain some things to them." And afterwards, Naruto stood and answered Sasuke's question. "The answer for your question Sasuke, is the Hiraishin, the fastest, farthest, most accurate transport method ever in the history of the Elemental Nations. Using a battery of seals, the user can detect a Hiraishin sealing tag from anywhere before triggering them remotely. The seals will then open a rip in space-time, before pulling the user and anyone holding on to him towards where the seal was, or somewhere in the general area of the seal through that rip, though the more people the user carried, the higher the chakra consumption was. The teleportation was instantaneous and can be triggered from anywhere. This enables the user to bring reinforcements anywhere the seal was or use it the same way my father did: flashing somewhere before hitting a target with extreme speed and flashing away to either safety or another target before the enemy could even take a lock, much less look at him."

Sakura, who by now had recovered to the point where she stopped puking, though still had bile flowing from the corner of her lips and still shaking, asked with a shaky voice. "B-but w-what t-the hell was that... that... weird s-space?"

Naruto just shrugged. "Well, it can't be avoided that you'll see that even if it's for just a split second. That weird dimension you saw was what my father dubbed the Immaterium, the space between dimensions. The speed of the Hiraishin actually came from the fact that within that temporary rip in space time the seals made, the laws of physics can, and will go askew, allowing impossibilities to occur, such as FTL, or faster-than-light travel, although only in relatively close distances so far. The rip in space-time was immediately closed by the seals again afterwards, preventing anything from leaking out or going in without the user knowing."

By this point in Naruto's explanation, even the normally knowledgeable Sakura was stumped at what Naruto was saying. What the hell did FTL supposed to mean? And what's the Immaterium actually? And a rip in space-time? Can you even tear space-time in the first place? And impossibilities? Like what? But before she could ask, Naruto waved his hand before saying, "The thing is, most of what my father learned about the Hiraishin was nothing but conjecture and theories, though he still made full use of them and made the Hiraishin according to those theories and thoughts. But one thing's for sure," Naruto paused for dramatics before he continued. "I won't tell any more unless you're my apprentice and have mastered sealing to a level necessary to discuss space-time theories with me." He said with a grin.

Sasuke asked next, already pretty much recovered from his ordeal of enduring his first Hiraishin trip. "But if it's that bad, how did you and your father survive multiple rounds of that? Even once felt murderous."

"Simple." Naruto answered. "We're used to it. We've used it so much that we have no problem with teleporting around with it without the entire backlash. I've used it since I'm 6, so I'm already fine with it. But for Kushina, the first person who inherited my bloodline from me, her body was already toughened from the start, and she was even much less affected of it than even I am when she first used it. She was just a little queasy after her first Hiraishin and was already fine from that point on."

This made Sasuke and Sakura's jaw drop. He used Hiraishin since he's six?! And just by being used to the feeling, he could flash around town like nobody's business? As his genin was still shocked beyond words at these revelations, Kakashi went forward before saying, "Well, can't say that I've been within that thing often ever since your father died. But I guess this is how you can finish your missions fast, eh Naruto?"

"Yup!" He answered cheerfully. "We take a mission, perform it as fast as possible, then Hiraishin ourselves back to Konoha to finish it, bypassing everything in between. We also placed markers wherever we went so that whenever we have another mission to the same area or close, we can teleport there immediately, performing the mission from that location. Then, we mark our mission's location and teleport away. Bam! Mission accomplished in less than a day!"

At this, Kakashi was impressed at the sheer speed that they are able to accomplish a mission with a system like that. It allows them to finish a mission quickly and give reports near instantaneously once they're done. No wonder why they're the backup Hokage-sama gave them. Their sheer speed at sending reinforcements and performing missions will make them the definite choice when backups are needed. Or just sheer overwhelming power. "How many missions have you performed? You've just been genins for what? 2 months now? The chuunin exam's coming up in 3."

"About right. I think we've done 1,743 D-ranks, 142 C-ranks and with this one, 1 A-rank. And we're definitely entering. And have no doubts, we'll be kicking ass all over the place." Naruto replied.

Kakashi just nodded. He knew that no matter how, no team can win against them, no matter how much they trained. One was Kage-level, another was close to Kage-level while another was capable of blowing limbs off with a punch or a kick. Train as they might, there is no way for any genin to be able to go up against that in 3 months. And those mission numbers are impressive. More impressive than anything he's known ever from a team barely 2 months out of the academy. Scratch that, more impressive than anything, ever!

"Well, I'll just wish the teams that met yours a lot of good luck and hoped that you won't be too brutal on them." Kakashi said.

With an evil grin on his face, Naruto said. "Oh, we won't guarantee that. But against a fellow Konoha team, we might just hold back. We'll win, but we'll be sure to avoid breaking too many bones."

Kakashi sighed. "Guess that's the best I can get from you guys."

"Damn right. Now, let's enter Konoha proper and report this mission's completion. I got other shit to do, by the way."

Kakashi just nodded before he walked to where his genin was and smacking each of them out of their stupor. "Alright, my cute little genins! We're going to report to the guards and head straight to the mission hall! Then we can enjoy some nice breaks!"

They all mutely nodded before going to the still bickering Kotetsu and Izumo who didn't realise that someone's coming, Team 11 walking right behind them.

"You know, if I were an enemy nin, you guys would be dead by now." Kakashi said as he neared them both. The two jumped from their seat and was suddenly face-to-face with the figure of Kakashi with a snickering Anko behind him.

"Oh! Kakashi and the Demon Team! Finished your C-ranks?" Kotetsu said while performing a noogie on a struggling Izumo's head.

"Well, we finished our C-rank, and Anko's team finished her A-rank, if that's what you're asking." Kakashi replied with an eye-smile.

"What? Really?" Izumo asked while Kotetsu was stunned still at this. Immediately Izumo released himself from Kotetsu's gr[ip. "Well then, fill in this log book. It's all procedure." He said.

Wordlessly Kakashi and Anko showed them both their completed mission scrolls while filing the logbook with the necessary details followed by their respective genins, though Naruto and Kushina needs special pens to fill in the logbook thanks to their huge hands.

As they left the guard post, the two guards are still shocked at the fact that a genin team gets an A-rank. "We... shouldn't expect anything less than that from the Yondaime's son and grandson eh?"

"Yeah... but still..."

"Yeah, yeah... now let's guard the gate back." Izumo said, his face still in a look of shock, together with Kotetsu as they looked out towards the main road, their minds wandering towards the Demon Team.

-WITH TEAM 7 & 11-

"Alright guys. We're going to meet Hokage-sama now that our mission's complete. So, let's go!" kakashi said cheerfully. But as he was walking through the grand gates of Konoha, Naruto stopped him.

"Wait." He said as he held Kakashi's shoulder. "I have a faster method." He said with a grin.

Immediately Kakashi and his team understood, and instantly his team paled when they remembered their first experience of being transported within the Hiraishin and was about to refuse when Kakashi said, "So you can Hiraishin us there? Excellent!" he then turned towards his fleeing genin and said, "You all should be honoured. Not many can claim to even be able to be transported with it, much less use it. And maybe one day, you'll need to run away from a mission gone wrong and your only hope was Team 11 who flashed to your location immediately, grabbed you before taking off instantly. In that situation, it's better if you're used to it than not."

His genins' shoulders slumped at this. What he said was right anyway. But before they can resign themselves to their fate (which they're still recovering from, by the way), Naruto stopped them.

"Hey, you guys are definitely some nice, awesome bunch. So here's a gift." He then unsealed some Hiraishin kunais from his arm seals before handing each of them two of the kunais, even Kakashi. "Well, in any trouble, or if you just want to chat with me or whatever, you can just throw this anywhere. Me or my clan member will definitely be able to help all of you, even if it's just for a quick transport. In fact, I'll make a suggestion to the Hokage for mission transport tasks, retrieval and rescue missions. With that, Konoha can perform missions faster than ever!"

Even as the three genins looked at the seal-tagged kunais in awe, Kakashi, who immediately pocketed his kunais away, having known the functions and uses, asked, "Won't that drain your chakra reserves, Naruto? Konoha performed hundreds of missions every day, and there are only two of you who could use it."

"Nonsense! Kuru-hime can use it as well as I can! She taught it to me after all!" Naruto countered. "Look, I'll discuss it with the Old Man later, and we'll see how he likes my idea. Or not."

Kakashi shrugged. "Suits me. As long as Hokage-sama approves, it's all fine with me. Now, I think it's better if we are to go." He said afterwards.

"Right." Naruto said nodding, and all of them immediately attached themselves to Naruto, Team 7's members minus Kakashi already resigned themselves to their fate. And in a flash of yellow, they're gone from the gates.

-WITH THE SANDAIME-

The venerable Sandaime was smoking his pipe with Kurumi in front of him in his office on the other side of the table, just having a little chat after the fiasco that was the council meeting that she caused. He got a good laugh out of it though, so everything was forgiven.

"So, maybe you'd want the Uzumaki-Namikaze Seals Shop to be opened? I'm sure a lot of the ninjas will find it helpful." Kurumi said, talking about her plan to open a shop that dealt specially on seals. It's going to be a boon for Konoha and her allies if there is a shop that can specialise on seals, especially considering that seals are now a pretty obscure art.

Blowing a cloud of scented smoke from his mouth, Sarutobi tapped the ashes of the pipe out in his ashtray before replying. "Yes, it is a good idea. Though it would be hard at first to start with since most didn't know the extent of what seals can do, so a thorough re-education might be needed." He said.

Kurumi just sighed. "Yes, I know. Though some might know, it will be hard to attract civilians to the shop. Though with them, if they were to find the seals interesting, they might just use it, though as you said, it's going to be hard to break through their minds, especially when they found out that we're the ones opening shop, literally."

Their discussion was interrupted when a massive flash of yellow appeared behind Kurumi. Already knowing who performed the skill, he was a bit shocked when he saw that Naruto not just carried his team, but also Kakashi's, who was wobbling around unsteadily, the aftereffects of the Hiraishin still felt by him while his genins immediately floored before they fainted directly, the effect of two Hiraishins too much for them to handle.

Naruto immediately noticed Kurumi and shot towards her. "Kuru-hime!" he said out loud before jumping towards her location and giving her a long kiss before they separated and he said, "I missed you, Kuru-hime." "Me too," She replied before they kissed again with Kushina giggling, Anko making wolf whistles and Hinata facepalming at this sight.

Watching this chaotic display of unprofessionalism by everyone in front of him, he just sighed even as the hidden ANBUs within his office all snickered at this, he said, "To anyone of you still straight and sane, please report."

Hinata immediately snapped to attention, being the straightest and sanest among all of them and started her report. "Hokage-sama, Team 11 carried Team 7 back from our respective missions, both of which was completed successfully, though Team 11's member, Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto had something extra to report to you sir. Here's the signed mission scroll, together with an IOU statement by the client on the mission's payment." She said before handing Sandaime the mission scrolls that she somehow managed to snatch from both the jounin senseis.

Ignoring the sounds of outrage that came from Anko and Kakashi in front of him, he read the mission reports and noted the sign of the client, signifying a proper mission completion. Once again completely ignoring the chaos in front of him, Sarutobi said, "All right. The mission's complete. Here's your mission payment slips for both teams." He said before handing a still dizzy Kakashi and Anko their genins' mission payment slips. "Now, you said that Naruto-kun here had a special additional report for me. Naruto, care to tell?"

Immediately everyone (except for Team 7's genins, still knocked out on the floor) straightened up as well as they can, though Kakashi still wobbled slightly. Naruto stepped forward and gave out his report. "Hokage-sama, we made contact with a Kirigakure missing nin and his daughter during the mission."

"Momochi Zabuza. Yes, I read the report." Sarutobi said.

"Right. As we all know, Kiri is in a huge civil war right now, called the bloodline purges due to the current Mizukage, Yagura's orders. And Zabuza, as what the bingo book noted, became a missing nin when he started and failed a coup attempt to both gain the title of Mizukage and to end the purges, signalling that he was someone who wanted to stop the purges and end the unnecessary destruction of his own country, and this opinion was further strengthened when we met him during the mission.

During that meet, we proposed to him a plan. We'll take Gato out and gave him part of the money that we can... recover from Gato's mansion. All we ask from him is that he is to set up shop with the Kiri rebels."

"Why do you want him to be in good terms with the rebels?" Sarutobi asked with mock confusion. He could already see where this is going, but decided to feign ignorance.

"So that he could summon us and help the rebels. I also gave him a couple Hiraishin kunais to help him in summoning me." Naruto said.

Kakashi was understandably freaked out at this. "Naruto! Are you crazy?! You may be strong, but you alone cannot win a war!"

Sarutobi took another deep breath from his pipe, letting the nicotine from the tobacco be absorbed into his body, allowing its calming influence flow within him. "Naruto, why did you do that?" He asked.

"Well," Naruto started. "As one who had a bloodline myself, I know the feeling if one were to be hunted to their extinction. Trust me, I do." He said, a feeling of sadness emanating from him at this words, affecting both Sarutobi and Kakashi. "As such, I was hoping that by ending the war, the people of Water Country can live in relative peace and will not be hunted by their own ilk. Also, peace at Kiri will equal a higher stability within the entire Nations, and it's a start towards global peace. Also, an alliance between Kiri and Konoha will be extremely helpful for both sides, what with Kiri's constant export of high quality weapons and marine life and their stealthy ninjas can help us, not to mention their control over the waters."

Kakashi was about to oppose this course of action when Sarutobi tapped his pipe into his ashtray again and said, "I approve. Naruto, you made a smart choice."

Kakashi was shocked beyond measure at this and turned towards the Hokage. "Hokage-sama! How can you approve of this?!"

Sarutobi calmly replied. "Kakashi, do you know how strong Naruto was?"

Kakashi replied, still showing his disapproval of Naruto's plan. "Yes. He's kage-level at least from what I can see from how he toyed with Zabuza during the mission. But being strong alone will not help much! And even you cannot claim to win an entire war singlehandedly!"

"True," Sarutobi said, agreeing. "I sure cannot. But Kakashi, have you ever seen how powerful Naruto and his family actually is?"

Immediately Kakashi's memory jumped backwards to the time when Naruto was toying around with Zabuza and how Hinata, the one without partial immortality and an insanely powerful bloodline, who also was practically the weakest member of the clan destroyed hundreds of bandits brutally and terrifyingly, blowing limbs and bodies out with a single punches, even turning them into minced meat. He suddenly had shivers erupt from his body at this memory.

"I did, Hokage-sama." Kakashi replied. "But that-" Whatever Kakashi was about to say was interrupted by a hand gesture from the Hokage.

"Kakashi," He started. "Whatever you saw, that was nowhere near Naruto's true potential. In fact, I know better. I sparred with him on a weekly basis. And let's just say that we destroyed the training fields every time. If not for the myriad of seals around the area, even the mansion would be turned to dust from their training."

Kakashi was about to say something again when Sarutobi continued. "And against mass numbers, Naruto's arsenal of jutsus are definitely more than capable of destroying an entire army at its own. And when the condition gets worse, there's his bijuu form. It's not just for show, he gained the power of a bijuu in that form. His ten-tailed bijuudama can wipe out Konoha in its entirety in one shot, and I'd be the first to admit that I will not be able to do anything about it. The only thing he lacked was experience, and I'm sure that this war can help him gain that experience."

Kakashi's shoulders slumped at the apparent dismissal by the Sandaime before he said slowly, "All right, Hokage-sama. It's your decision."

As Kakashi's mood soured, Naruto patted his shoulders before saying. "Kakashi, don't worry. If I'm in a critical situation, remember that I can use Hiraishin, and disengaging from combat is a trivial matter for me with it. I will not die that easily, Kakashi. Trust me." He said with a smile.

Kakashi just sighed. "Alright, Naruto. I cannot do anything about it though. Hokage-sama had already accepted the deal." He then stared into Naruto's eyes, his lone eye shone with hardness. "Is it wrong for me to worry about my sensei's last blood?"

"You're forgetting about me." Kushina said from behind him, irritated that he forgot about her. She's also the Yondaime's descendant! His grandchild, in fact!

"Oh, right." Kakashi said sheepishly. "And Kushina." He then turned back towards Naruto before he was cut off once again, this time by Naruto himself. "Kakashi, don't worry. I can handle this. I won't make the deal if I'm not strong enough."

Kakashi said nothing afterwards and looked towards Sarutobi. "If that's all, Hokage-sama, then, me and my team will be taking our leave right now." He said bowing before he pushed his still wobbling team outside.

"Then, I would like to take my leave as well." Anko said before leaving in a Shunshin, leaving Naruto and his family inside the office. "Then we're leaving as well I guess. That was all, I guess." Naruto said before grabbing all his family members and Hiraishined back to their house.

On their leave, Sarutobi leaned back on his chair, hoping that what Kakashi thought will not be for real and that his surrogate grandson can survive the ordeal that he might encounter in Kiri later. But for now, he'll need to enter the Chuunin Exams first, and then maybe he'll actually let him go. Besides, even for someone as good as Zabuza, he'll still take a while to be able to get in contact with the rebels, so they'll still have time for anything.

"Jiraiya, do you think I've made the right choice?" Sarutobi said to no one. And at the corner of his room, close to a bookshelf, the air shimmered before revealing the tall figure of Jiraiya with his usual clothes who was hiding in his Chameleon Jutsu.

"Well, I'd say that it was not quite a good choice, but it's pretty much the only easy way for the kid to obtain more real life experience, and there's no substitute for actual war for them to gain experience. Though to be honest, no matter how strong they are, I still think it's too early for them to enter a war." Jiraiya said his piece to Sarutobi.

Sarutobi said nothing, agreeing. He then stood before turning his face towards the window, looking at his beloved Konoha as it was bathed by the light of the sun, creating a beautiful scenery, one that will be remembered by him forever. "Konoha," he said to himself. "Your children will all grow strong and healthy, no matter what may come their way. They will ensure that the next generation will exceed the previous, and grow underneath the bountiful Tree of Konoha. Such will be their unspoken oath, one that I will help them with, even to my dying breath." He said as he watched the sheer beauty of Konoha, memorising it within his mind with Jiraiya slowly walking until he's beside him, watching the same scenery with his mentor.

-WITH SAKURA, THE NEXT MORNING-

It is 6 in the morning within the Haruno household, and a pink-haired figure just got up from her sleep. The figure, one Haruno Sakura, still tired from her last C-rank mission was supposed to sleep like a log thanks to the two-day break that their sensei gave them due to their under ranked mission, and a very, VERY good pay too if she were to be honest, but she already promised herself that she will visit the Uzumaki-Namikaze household, and would ask Kushina to train her. Not that Kakashi didn't train them well, oh no, but she knew better. She was the weakest link in their team, and for the love of the Sage of Six Paths, she won't have that! Not anymore! And even she could tell that Kushina's very strong, so having Kushina train her might seem like a good choice.

With fire in her eyes, she immediately rose from her bed, revealing the pink with white frills and Sakura patterns pyjamas that she was wearing that night as she slept before going to her family house's bathroom to take a shower, afterwards which she immediately changed into her regular clothing, her maroon coloured short sleeved qipao dress and a tight green shorts with her kunai pouch located at her back.

Wanting to avoid her family's questions about her early disappearance considering that they're civilians, Sakura went back to her room, located on their house's second floor and used her chakra control to grip the walls before jumping down towards the ground and taking off without too much noise immediately towards the Uzumaki-Namikaze compound.

Immediately she stopped, before her face turned into a look of horror. She never asked where their clan compound was! But the more she thought about it, the more she was sure that she knew where their compound was. They must've been where the old Yondaime's compound was, considering that she's his granddaughter! Mind made up, she immediately walked towards where the Namikaze compound was, somewhere at the higher class district.

Along the way, she saw that the people are already up and about, performing their business and daily tasks, chatting with their friends, and buying groceries for their days. Some even greeted her, knowing of her mother's position as a civilian council member, one of them who were cowered by Kurumi's display yesterday. Politely replying them, she still walked as fast as she was able towards the Uzumaki-Namikaze compound.

A while later, she managed to reach the compound. And much to her shock, the compound's walls look very tall and strong, and somehow, the gates, that had their clan symbol on it, seemed to attract her to it. As she walked towards the gates, her hand outstretched to touch the gate's clan logo, a certain spark of chakra went from her outstretched fingertips towards the seal.

And as suddenly as she felt her chakra being drained, the gates of the compound swung open inwardly, where she was met with the figure of Kurumi. "Oh, hey. You're... Sakura-san, daughter of Haruno Mebuki of the civilian council, right?" she asked.

"Uh... yeah." Sakura answered. "Is Kushina in?"

"Of course!" Kurumi answered in a chipper tone, happy that her daughter had managed to make a friend with another team's member. "Though she was waiting for you and haven't started her morning training yet. Now, go in and meet her first. I'm going to buy some groceries for us. The training grounds behind the main house." She said before pushing Sakura inside the compound and left the compound, the doors closing behind Sakura and her afterwards.

Assuming that the main house was the largest, she walked beside the house and went straight to the training ground, though she still admired the gardens that the compound had in front of the main house. "For a Hokage, the Yondaime's quite a frugal guy." She thought.

"Damn straight! There's nothing much around here!" Her inner voice answered. Sakura just nodded at this. She then walked straight ahead towards the training ground, that from what Kurumi said, the training ground's at the back of the house, and cannot be missed. She then reached a massive clearing with a pond at one side and noting but huge tracts of barren lands. She then saw that Kushina was standing cross armed over the left side of the grounds. Immediately she jogged straight towards her, ready to take on her deal on training with her.

Suddenly, she felt something wet and sticky splattering on her face, cheeks and shoulders as something crashed with a loud thud in front of her. She was a little bit confused about this and decided to look closely at the thing that fell. Much to her surprise, the thing was actually an arm! A gigantic arm! The palm alone was as big as her head, and the severed arm alone was bigger than her thighs! The severed part looked like it was blown up, the pieces of flesh was clearly seen together with a strangely metallic bone stump on it. With a trembling hand, she placed her fingers on the liquid on her face before bringing her fingers in front of her face. As her trembling hand retreated towards her face, what she saw made her face pale. On her fingers, the liquid was dark red, thick with a certain metallic tang in it. She knew immediately what she was seeing: blood. Instantly she paled even more before her eyes rolled up and she fell to the ground in a heap, knocked out.

Sakura woke up as she felt a weird tingling feeling on her face. As she opened her eyes, she was met by Hinata's glowing palm, a sign she was performing a medical jutsu on her with some dark item floating in the middle of her palm. She was also arguing with Naruto who had one arm gone. She shot straight up while pointing a finger towards Naruto. "YOUR ARM!"

"Hm?" Naruto's intelligent reply came before he looked at the stump of his arm. "Oh. No worries." He then walked to where his arm was and took it from the ground before jamming it into the stump of his arm. Immediately, an ethereal golden flame covered the entire arm before, to Sakura's amazement, the arm healed itself back to perfection. She saw as muscles regrew, nerves looking like tiny strings grew before latching to their respective partners, the strangely metallic, glinting bones grew like trees in fast forward before reattaching itself to the severed arm, skin rebuilds itself and coated the place where the arm was cut and all the components attached themselves. In a minute, the arm was healed, the flames are gone and Naruto's already testing his grip. "Yep. Good as ever." He said to no one in particular.

"You... That..." Sakura shakily said.

"Yeah, that's one of our advantages. I can regrow any lost body parts near instantly, allowing us to fight indefinitely as long as we can hold the enemy. Just now, I was just making a show too you, and let it regenerate slower. Makes for an awesome sight, no?" He said, flexing his newly recovered arm in Sakura's still shocked face.

"But... But..."

"Oh. You want to ask why did my hand blew apart in the first place? Hina-hime's practicing her Gentle Crush and she blew my hand away, literally." Naruto answered, nonchalant about the fact that he just got his arm blown off. He then looked back towards Sakura's shocked-beyond-words face before continuing. "If you want to ask about something else, let me guess. The bones are metallic because they are made by my body's special organ that can make a very tough calcium-steel alloy as our bones, making them near unbreakable. Those ethereal flames are our bijuu powers while Hina-hime was taking extra care to heal you was because our blood are one of, if not the most poisonous material on, below, above and within the surface of the Nations. Anything that I missed?"

Sakura's mind was running miles a second to process the information that Naruto just gave her as she gaped like a fish starved of air at Naruto's calm voice, like he didn't just get his arm blown, almost poisoning her to death and about her own arrival. A while later, her brain practically rebooted from this overload of insanity before her shoulders slumped, already resigned to accepting anything that this crazy family happened to do. Looking towards a grinning Naruto's face, Sakura said "Thank you for allowing me to enter your compound. I am here to accept Kushina's deal on training with her. Where is she now?"

Sighing inwardly at his failed attempt at shocking Sakura, Naruto pointed a finger over his huge shoulders and said, "Over there, right behind me."

Looking behind Naruto, Sakura saw that her potential trainer was standing cross armed, wearing their family's usual training gear, a set of black tracksuit filled to the brim with seals that can help to maintain the condition of the clothes. Ignoring a Hinata who was glaring towards Naruto, Sakura immediately jogged towards Kushina. Upon closing in towards Kushina, she immediately waved her.

"Hey there, Sakura-san. I saw what happened just now." Kushina said.

"I'll just ignore whatever happened just now. Are your family usually that crazy?"

"No." Kushina replied. Sakura was about to give out a sigh of relief when she continued. "Crazier. And I'd have to say that ignoring them was the best choice. Though I'm not one to say, since I'm usually worse."

"Yeah. So," Sakura said, going straight to the point after pushing whatever crazy shit that she saw just now to the back of her mind, deep into the 'forget this shit' territory. "I want to ask you a favour. I would like you to train me, if it isn't too hard for you."

"Okay, I guess. I have no problem with that. I have nothing better to do anyway, other than training my ass out again and again, so what better to do than train someone else? Kicking my own ass?" Kushina replied, though her tone was filled with mirth that Sakura immediately caught on and chuckled together with Kushina. Suddenly, Kushina's looks became serious, causing Sakura to go silent before hardening herself and looked straight into Kushina's eyes, though she needed to raise her head due to their height difference.

"Sakura-san," Kushina began. "This training that I will give you is dangerous. Very much so. Might also be lethal and deadly. I will force you to go beyond your limits, breaking you to pieces before rebuilding yourself back from the shards and forcing you to break the next limit, and next, and the next. I will pressure you, place you in conditions you never even imagined before and you WILL do what I told you to do. I expect you to follow absolutely everything I told you to your utter best, or beyond. If I told you to jump, you jump as high as you can. If I told you to dig, you dig as deep as you can. If I told you to kill, kill as many, or as brutally as you can. Understand?"

Sakura's face paled at the threats that Kushina just gave her within her warnings. She was about to back away when she remembered the sheer helplessness that she felt during the Wave mission and how her teammates are hundreds of miles better than her. Holding the fear of uselessness that she felt at that time in her mind, she toughened her resolve before saying, "I understand."

"Good." Kushina then unsealed a regular brown coloured scroll that had the kanji for 'Deal' on it with lines of what may be seals on it. She then opened it before showing the contents to Sakura. She then realised that the scroll was actually a contract stating that she'll be trained by Kushina for an indefinite period and will follow each and every order that Kushina gave as long as it was about training. She was about to sign the scroll when Kushina closed it with a snap right in her face. She was about to shout at Kushina when she said, "This scroll is special. This is a Scroll of Deals, in which it binds your own self and the contractor to the statements within the scroll, the breaking of which was near impossible. This makes you completely and utterly forced to follow whatever I told you to do, and I mean whatever. Signing this means that you accepted this deal and will be forced by your own body to follow everything I told you to do, no matter how hard, how difficult or how impossible and whatever you say will be ignored by your own body. Are you sure?"

Without hesitation Sakura nodded, making Kushina impressed at her dedication. "Heh. We'll see how long that lasts." She thought. Opening the scroll once again, she gave her the scroll so that she can read it completely. Once she did and agreed with the terms, she pricked her finger before placing a fingerprint of blood and a writing of her name with blood as well on the scroll, a process that was followed by Kushina, though she needed more than a few pricks of her tough skin due to her rapid healing. As she closed the contract scroll, the scroll and both Kushina and Sakura glowed for a while before the scroll disappeared and the glow covering their bodies subsided.

"Alright." Kushina started. "Now, the first thing that I'll have you do is that you should strip."

"What?" Sakura intelligently answered at this ridiculous order from Kushina.

"Strip. For faster training, I'll need to write on you some seals that will help you in your training. The seals alone will help train your speed, strength, chakra quantities and passive chakra augmentation just by being there. Now, strip." Kushina said as she unsealed her seal brush and a mat for Sakura to lie on. "Don't worry," She added with a grin. "We're both girls. There's nothing wrong with that, especially for one to grow stronger."

Blushing but understanding, Sakura started stripping, leaving herself in her bra and panty before placing her clothes on the mat and was about to lie down on her front when Kushina said again, "Everything. Even the bra and panty must go." Blushing harder, she removed her underwear as well, leaving her in her birthday suit alone, showing her white skin and A-cup breasts to Kushina and her thin body that had some budding muscles but nowhere near enough for a proper ninja.

"Damn." Kushina whistled as she analyzed Sakura's naked body while Sakura tried covering her modesty with her hands. "We've got a lot of work to do now. You're too thin to be a proper ninja, those muscles are nowhere near enough and you don't much chakra too, though I bet your control will be extremely good. Now, lie down on your front."

Immediately she lied down on the mat, her head placed on her hands. "This might feel ticklish, but hold it." Kushina said, before she immediately placed the brush, already with cold ink on it to her back, causing her to yelp and jump in shock.

"Relax. That was just to help you get used to it. Now's the real thing." Pressing Sakura back onto the mat with one hand on her back, Kushina started to paint the seals all over her back with her getting calmer and calmer as the procedure continued, Kushina painting the seals on her body with speeds of an expert sealmaster. They are not only painted on her back, but also on her arms, legs, even her neck was not spared. She was basically bathing ink right now.

After a few minutes, Kushina finished drawing the seals and flowed some chakra through it to make it stick, though she didn't activate it yet. "Now, roll over. The seals also need to be applied to the front of your body, not just the back side."

Reluctant but understanding, Sakura turned around, and lets her hand drop to her sides. Being a professional, Kushina didn't even pay attention to Sakura's shame and starts crafting the training seal matrix required on her body and limbs with smooth, fast writing. And not surprisingly, Sakura's entire body twitched as she held back the ticklish feeling Kushina's brush strokes did towards her body. Not to mention the strangeness as she looked up at someone from a lying position as she painted a whole bunch of strange, runic markings on her body. After a moment, the seal drawings are complete, and once more Kushina flowed chakra into the seals to make them remain permanently on her body.

"Alright. It's complete. Now, you can stand up and wear your clothes back." Like a lightning bolt, Sakura stood and immediately wore her clothes back on her body in an effort to cover her modesty, though she still blushed heavily at remembering how Kushina just looked at her body without much interest, her face red as all her blood rushed to her face.

Watching this, Kushina sighed. "Oh, relax." She said. "You have nothing to be ashamed of. We're both girls, no problem." This nearly made Sakura sigh in relief if not for what Kushina said next. "Besides, Hina-mama's more beautiful and sexier than you are when she's naked. Her large D-cup boobs, her shapely body, her long, dark blue hair and especially her kindness and inner strength, all of those made her more beautiful than you are even when not naked, no offense."

But she did take offense to that. Now this made Sakura pissed off. You can point her weakness, insult her capabilities and beat her to a pulp. She'll take those. But insulting her body, especially her small chest, and one's in for a world of hurt! "Beat her up! SHANNAROOOO!" Her inner self screamed.

Immediately she balled her fist before sending a power-packed punch straight towards Kushina's stomach, which strangely, Kushina didn't even look concerned about. And upon her fists impact with Kushina's stomach with a loud thwack, she understood why.

Immediately she retreated her aching hand, flopping it around to reduce the pain of punching Kushina. Punching her felt like punching a solid wall of steel! Her hand was now sore and hurt, the knuckles red. As she was blowing air them to reduce the pain from that hit, she heard Kushina speak. "Your punches sure are strong when done with your whole strength. That strength belied your thin arms. But it is also an example of a textbook academy attack. If I were to be serious, I can kill you in many different ways as you're attacking. You may be lacking in speed, since your attack was so telegraphed that a good genin can tear you apart in seconds."

At this, Sakura's mood soured, especially because she knew it to be true. And she could tell that Kushina was strong, stronger than anything or anyone she ever encountered just from that one punch. But before she could say anything, Kushina said, "But then again, that's why you're here, right? To grow stronger. Stronger and better. Well, that punch pretty much told me your current level. Now, let's begin your training." Crossing her arms before putting her game face on, she said slowly, "Seals, activate."

Sakura could see that the ink that Kushina tattooed on her body suddenly glowed before they all writhed and wriggled before the ink moved like a bunch of black worms on her body before converging straight towards a point, which was her heart, making a kanji for 'Train' with a circular line around it together with four long lines spreading from the seal's circle before going to her four limbs, making thick, black lines on her four limbs before the glow disappeared. And unsurprisingly, that freaked her out. She never knew that ink could move like that! All of a sudden, she felt like she was crushed by an immense pressure from everywhere that enveloped her entirely, causing her to crash down on all fours to the ground, her body not being able to move an inch from whatever that happened to her. Her entire body felt like she weighed ten times heavier, her muscles are straining just to move and she was sweating and panting heavily just from the activation of the seals.

"That was the special training seals." Kushina explained. "They made you feel like you're walking in mud while being weighted with huge weights. Designed to restrain your movement, this seal allows you to train even while just walking around. The resistance that it gave out will make you faster and stronger. The reason why you immediately fell on the ground was that I wanted a faster effect. This WILL, beyond a doubt, hurt you badly, but this is the fastest way for you to improve yourself. Now, run ten kilometres with me within the compound. Now get to it." Kushina said, not yet in her Drill Sergeant Nasty mode.

Sakura was still slumped on the ground though she tried to stand up, but whatever the seals did towards her made it impossible for her to even move a single muscle! "This is insane!" She screamed in her mind. "How can someone train like this?! I can't even move!" unable to voice that out, she just strained her entire body to move even when she was unable to.

Kushina immediately sighed at this before smacking her forehead. "Sakura-san, I've trained with those seals from when I was born. So I understand if it's hard for you. Let me teach you a trick. Channel chakra to your muscles. That will increase their strength by three to five-fold, making it possible for you to move even with the seals. But it will also drain your chakra like nobody's business especially with your amount of chakra. This will improve both chakra amount and chakra control. Now, I'll make sure that by the time you're going back home today, you'll be either half dead, or wishing that you ARE dead. Now, get up." Kushina said forcefully at the end.

With sweat pouring down from her whole body, even from places that she never thought could produce sweat, she mustered what chakra she had before channelling them to her strained muscles. Slowly but surely, she was able to straighten out her body before slowly rising from her current position, stumbling all the while. Finally, after five minutes of struggling, she managed to stand up on extremely wobbly legs, her clothes already dripping with sweat.

With Kushina watching, she took a step forwards slowly, before another step, and another, and she walked, instead of jogging, but Kushina nodded approval nonetheless, knowing just how hard those seals are torturing her right now. She watched as Sakura wobbled straight ahead, her steps slow and heavy. But in just 5 minutes of controlled wobbling, Sakura's sight immediately blurred as she sweats a whole lot and her entire body was trembling uncontrollably; early signs of chakra exhaustion. She made another 5 steps before she fell on the ground, panting and sweating heavily as her entire body shivered from lack of chakra.

Sakura was completely out of chakra, breath and energy by this point. "What... training... is this...?" She thought tiredly. She cannot even think straight by this point. Her entire body was aching and tired, her muscles felt like they ripped themselves to shreds, her lungs felt like they're on fire, and she almost threw up everything that she had in her stomach. She didn't even have enough energy to speak right now.

Suddenly, Kushina neared her prone location before kneeling right beside her. Her hands then erupted into golden flames with strange markings on them that she can barely see due to the fact that she was nearly delirious from the training that Kushina gave her. She could barely felt Kushina's hot hands place themselves on her belly button, the chakra centre of a regular human body. But she immediately felt it as what felt to her like hot lava flowed into her chakra system, creating a burning feeling within her entire body, making it felt as if she was being filled by an unknown substance that felt like liquid fire. Instantly she felt energized, her entire body feeling strong and tough, and she felt as if she could take on the world!

Immediately standing up despite the influence of the seals, she immediately faced Kushina, who without prompting immediately shot into another explanation. "That was me healing you with my life force chakra, or my purified demonic chakra that somehow became a gigantic ball of lifeforce within me. With it, I can heal someone, restore their chakra, among others. It is also the reason why we could heal ourselves extremely fast and my father could regrow his arm just now. Those golden flames you saw, that was it. Now, enough explanations, go and run again!" Kushina said, raising her voice a little at the end.

Not requiring any further explanations, Sakura started running again, Kushina hot on her heels. In five minutes, as the euphoria from being filled with pure lifeforce disappeared, she became weak again, and her pace once more turned into a wobble, before in another five minutes, she slumped immediately on the ground. And unknowingly to her, this is what Kushina wanted. This is how her father trained both her and Hina-mama, and look where that got them. And thus, once more she restored her chakra and healed her tired body.

Again and again and again this occurred, Sakura ran until she fell, Kushina healed her, she ran again and so on for two hours. For two hours, Sakura discovered that although she was now capable of running pretty far with only chakra enhancement and the seals activated, the seals are auto adjusting, meaning that she'll never be able to feel the same as the seals are on, since the seals will make sure that she'll need to reinforce herself with chakra all the time, even when sleeping.

Kushina then called her to where she was standing, and she jogged to her location, her muscles are already sore and tired from all that running. "Now," Kushina started to say. "That will be your morning routine every day until you can run the entire 10 kilometres. Each and every day no matter what you're going to do that day. Now, we'll get to train your fighting style. The academy style was nothing but the basics in fighting style, but no one's to say that the basic are not useful, especially if done right. We will train so much so that the style will be fully ingrained into your body, and you'll be able to use it without even thinking. If you're wondering, we're going to focus on your physical attributes and chakra capacity first. I have actually injected your system with more lifeforce chakra than what you can handle to enlarge your chakra coils forcefully. That is what made that euphoric feeling that you felt. It will help you improve your chakra quantity faster, which will help you even more later on. If you realised it, you're able to run faster and further the more times you fell and the more times I healed you. That was the reason why. Now we'll train your fighting style until lunch, have lunch before you'll spar with someone. Understand?"

"Yes, Kushina-sensei!" Sakura answered enthusiastically despite her soreness and pain, already knowing that this will help massively in her life as a ninja. Kushina just smiled as she heard the honorific that Sakura gave her even when she's older than she was.

"Right. Now, I want you to enter the starting stance of the academy style and perform all the katas. Perform all of them from the start to the end until your body can perform them even in your sleep. I will watch beside you and make sure to heal you if something happened. Now, start." Kushina said.

Entering the academy style's basic stance, performing the katas that she learned within the academy, while Kushina stood by her side, giving instructions and correcting any mistakes that she made. Meanwhile, her mind was thinking. What she learned (or thought she learned) about the life of a ninja during the academy and from what the eye-opener of a C-rank mission that she went through was very, very different. She saw how the gentle, kind Hinata massacred 300 bandits in a very short timespan without mercy and with extreme brutality. She saw how the strong and usually laughter-filled Naruto toyed around with Zabuza and nearly finishing him off. Everything that she learned was better off considered null and void.

And in just ten minutes of repeatedly practicing her katas, she's already felt like she ran through an entire marathon, immediately cutting her previous line of thought into 'I-am-seriously-tired' mode. And yet again, Kushina came to her rescue, flowing what she called the lifeforce chakra straight into her chakra coils, rejuvenating her and recovering her strength. Wordlessly, she continued her practice again, intent on getting each and every one of her moves perfect. And after another ten minutes of practicing 'aided' with the resistance seals, she nearly passed out again. Even her clothes had lines of dried sweat all over them at this point.

Then, after another recovery from Kushina, Naruto and Hinata who just finished their training came to see Sakura's training. Naruto, watching this, said "So, training with Kushina eh? Good for you."

Sakura was starting to pant heavily at this point, so she turned around in an attempt to steal a break and faced Naruto. "Yeah. I need to become stronger. I cannot be the weak link within the team, as you said. And a team is only as strong as its weakest link. And I think training with all of you are going to be the best training I can ever perform."

Hinata went to face Sakura who had fires in her eyes, her desire to grow stronger apparent in her eyes. She patted her shoulder and gave her a smile, showing her gentle side. "Good." She said. "Make sure that you can support and fight beside your friends. They will become your greatest asset in the world, no doubt."

"Thanks." Sakura said with a tired smile as she took a breather from Kushina's insane training. She then remembered Hinata's massacre of the bandits on the bridge, and decided to ask. "Hinata-san, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure. I'll be glad to answer it if I think it's fine." Hinata said.

"Thanks." Sakura said before she gets to the meat of her question. "Hinata-san, what do you feel as you... killed all those bandits on the bridge?"

Immediately Hinata's face dropped, her mood fell when she remembered the massacre that she performed. Sakura, realising this, was about to retract her question back when Hinata answered. "I... I... During that, I felt fear, terror, among others. I feel as if I've done something irredeemable, both to myself and to them. I ended their lives brutally, without any shred of mercy. I almost felt every hit that I did to them. I crushed them without mercy. I was extremely sad and angry at the same time." Hinata said, her voice wavering as she spoke, lifting her hands. "Even now, I had nightmares on what I did."

Sakura was about to apologize and told her to stop when she saw that Hinata's eyes gained a hard edge to them before she spoke. "But I also know that only by doing that will the people of Wave be safe, and can rest easy. No matter the nightmares that may come to me, if killing people will help others live in peace and security, I will do so, and will not stop doing so. Remember, kill a hundred, save a thousand. Most of the time, we ninjas will be forced to perform atrocities to the people and the world, killing being some of them. But always remember that if by doing it we can help others live in peace, then do it, though we must also remember to think about what we're told to do. Following orders are one thing, but wrong orders can only make lives worse. Always remember that." Hinata said.

Sakura inwardly breathed a sigh of relief at this. She was afraid that she'll be blown to pieces just from asking her question. "Thank you, Hinata-san. I will keep those words of advice in my heart."

Hinata just smiled before she said, "No problem." And leaving with Naruto back to their house. But before she walked too far away, she turned around and loudly said, "By the way, Kushi-chan asked me to spar with you this afternoon. Make sure you're ready, because I won't be holding back!" before walking back towards the house.

Hearing this, Sakura immediately paled, fearing for her life as she thought back about how Hinata utterly destroyed the bandits on the bridge, causing the entire bridge to be drenched in blood, guts, flesh and body parts strewn every which way. She was about to bolt away from this insane excuse of training when Kushina grabbed her shoulder and squeezed. "Don't worry. Hina-mama won't use her Gentle Crush at you. I told her already to only use the academy style. She may not look like it, but she's proficient in multiple styles and will have no problem training you in the academy style."

"The Gentle Crush?" Sakura asked.

"One weird name to place together."

"Yeah."

"Yup. That's the style that she used on the bridge to destroy them bandits." Kushina answered.

At this answer, Sakura's eyes immediately widened itself to astronomical proportions. "That was called the Gentle Crush!? There's nothing gentle about it!" she shouted out. The irony of the name was not lost on anyone, even themselves.

Kushina chuckled at this. "Yup. We even asked why she named it that, not something like 'The Fist of Death' or 'Destruction Punch'. Her answer? She wanted to honour her ancestral style, since the techniques were derived from the Gentle Fist, and thus she named it so. Or something like that."

Once again, this made Sakura's opinion of the Uzumaki-Namikazes remains the same: they're a bunch of powerfully crazy family. They're both powerful and crazy at the same time. But as she was pondering this, she saw Kushina chuckle knowingly. "What?" she asked irritably.

"Nothing." Kushina said. "It's just that you're thinking what others are thinking as well, that the family is a bunch of crazies. No need to deny it." She said as she saw Sakura was about to disprove of what she said. "Everyone said the same thing and besides, there's this one idiom that you should know. 'Only the insane have power. Only the ones with power can judge what is sane.' Remember that. Now, enough rest. Keep practicing, and you'll spar with Hina-mama this afternoon after lunch."

Just nodding tiredly, Sakura went back to her original training plan, practicing all the katas under the influence of the training seals, hoping to get as best as she possibly can before her imminent spar with Hinata.

-AFTER LUNCH BREAK-

After her lunch break with the family, where she was chastised for her small amount of food consumption and was forced to eat three times her regular lunch, she was now facing Hinata in a spar under the bright sunlight of the afternoon, though she was understandably scared of her. She already knew from previous experiences that Hinata's speed was terrifying. She was capable of disappearing from her spot and appearing right in one's face, dealing multiple blows before her opponent could even realise what happened. But still, she remembered her promise and steeled her heart, knowing that in the future, she might be forced to fight against enemies much, much stronger than her, as in the case during her previous mission.

Immediately she dashed forwards, cocking her hand back in a textbook straight punch. Seeing this, Hinata immediately rushed forward as well, and in Sakura's terrified surprise, she launched her fist early, the telegraphed move was dodged quickly by Hinata who sent a one-two palm strike on her chest with lowered strength, causing Sakura to stagger backwards panting.

"Don't make your moves too obvious, unless you're planning a counter or a feint." Hinata advised.

Recovering from the strikes, Sakura went back into the beginning stance of the academy style when Hinata rushed her, her body revealing none of her intentions. As soon as she entered close quarters range with Sakura, she sent a series of short jabs towards Sakura, all of which she failed to counter or block, causing her face to be hit a couple of times, busting her lip.

As Hinata retreated, she spoke again. "Learn to block, counter or dodge blows. You can quickly backpedal to avoid entering melee range or to prepare yourself against a better enemy."

Sakura just nodded while wiping the blood from her stinging split lips. Well, she knew this was going to hurt. Better get it done quickly, she thought. And so, after she recovered from Hinata's onslaught, she dashed in again, prepared to get herself beaten to the ground again even as Hinata watched her every movement.

-2 HOURS LATER-

Never knew the ground felt so good, Sakura thought as she laid on the ground face down, her face practically resembling a huge bruise. Her lips are bleeding and swollen, courtesy of a couple of direct punches to her face from Hinata. Her left eye was squinted shut as a huge, blue bruise was on it, practically removing her capability to see from that eye thanks to a powerful left hook from Hinata that she failed to read. Her shins felt like they're going to snap from the sheer number and strength Hinata's kicks did to them. Her body was bruised and hurt with her suspecting that some of her ribs are cracked, her shoulder dislocated from a throw, and her back was killing her or telling her to kill herself from a merciless stomp that Hinata did on her downed figure after that same toss. All this was further compounded by the fact that she still hadn't mastered muscular chakra enhancements, causing every move to feel ten times heavier, making her sluggish and slow. At the very least, she was still breathing and hadn't died yet.

But even when she was pummelled to the ground every minute, Hinata also corrected her stances while teaching her what to do in what situation, her mistakes, praising her correct actions, among some. Her injuries, a lot as they were, came not without its benefits. For every injury, Hinata taught her how she could prevent it from happening again. For every bruise, Hinata pushed her to her limit in taijutsu. For every drop of blood that fell, Hinata taught her how to counter, block or dodge such hits. And as she said, "We do not mean to torture nor hurt you, but know that true training is tough and will be extremely painful. But the only way for you, or anyone, to move ahead and advance was to endure through such pain, and grow stronger. Remember this. Endure, and in enduring grow strong."

Hinata just sighed before she ran through some handsigns and her hand started to glow green, the sign that she was activating her Mystical Palm medical jutsu before she pressed her palm on Sakura's back, both numbing and healing her back at the same time. She then proceeds to heal Sakura entirely, and in 10 minutes, Sakura's already sitting on the ground, completely healed.

"Kushi-chan, she's all yours." Hinata said towards a cross-armed Kushina behind her mother as her mother stood up and went to the house, her task for the day finished. Looking at Sakura's sitting figure, Kushina said, "So, we'll begin the next part."

Sakura was absolutely horrified at this! Next part?! There's another part?! She's still hurting from the beatdown Hinata gave her! How can she even suggest a next part?! She was about to tell Kushina where she could shove it when her arm jerked to the ground before pushing herself up, her entire body jerking and spasming to stand up to perform what Kushina was about to order her to do. Her face immediately turned horrified as she asked, her voice showing her fear. "What's happening?! My body's moving on its own!"

Unconcerned, Kushina said, "That was the reaction that you trying to go against the deal you signed in the scroll does. It forces your chakra to forcefully move every limb and muscle in your body according to what I order you to do. This is the consequence of the deal if you break it. In fact, you can be unconscious and nearly dead, but as long as I told you to do something related to training, you'll still move as you did, broken bones or not. Obviously, this will aggravate any injuries that you received, but the seals won't care. Only when you stop producing chakra, in other words, if you died, will your body stop the forceful move, jerky as it is. This is what you signed on to. This is the cost that you'll have to pay. And there is no turning back." She said with an ominous tone at the end.

Like a marionette controlled by an inexperienced puppeteer, her entire body went against her wishes as it jerked and spasmed to get into a standing position, sending ripples of pain throughout her entire body. "How do I get it to stop?!" Sakura shouted out.

"Simple. Just think 'I'll do it' and actually doing whatever I told you to." Kushina replied.

"But you haven't told me to do anything yet!" Sakura cried out as her body still jerked and moved uncontrollably.

"Oh right!" Kushina said, snapping her fingers in realisation. "Okay. Stand there." Kushina said again, pointing to where Sakura was standing right now. Immediately her entire body relaxed and she can no longer felt that strange, otherworldly feeling as her body did not follow the master's orders.

Sighing in relief, she looked into Kushina's eyes, throwing her a look of hate and anger, causing Kushina to reply. "Don't blame me for this. You signed the deal, and the only thing you can accuse me of doing is that I haven't trained you hard enough yet." This caused Sakura to pale, the mere thought of there being a harder training schedule than what she went through almost made her throw fits. Immediately she nodded her head quickly, not wanting to experience an even higher version of the horror that they called training.

"Good." Kushina said, nodding at Sakura's horrified yet resigned face. "The next part is simpler. It is where you'll train the use of the 'Academy 3' to its best, until you need no hand signs for them."

Sakura's face turned from horrified to confused. "Academy 3? No handsigns?"

"Yup." Kushina answered, entering her lecture mode. "The Academy 3, the 3 jutsus that you learned at the academy; the Transformation, the Substitution and the Clone. These 3 jutsus are some of the most important jutsus that you'll ever know in the Shinobi world, and proper, sealless usage of these jutsus can be the difference between life and death for most."

"How so?" Sakura asked.

"Nowadays, the ninjas of the world are those who use mostly flashy and deadly jutsus to get the job done, when a simple kunai to the throat gets the same job done with much less flair, energy usage and chances of discovery. Remember, we're ninjas, masters of stealth and assassination, not mass destruction. I'll show you an example of how the Academy 3 can save lives, especially the Substitution when done sealless. Now, throw kunais and shurikens at me, your entire arsenal if need be." At Sakura's horrified face, Kushina sighed hard before saying, "Don't worry about me. My skin's tough enough that a regular kunai throw won't be able to pierce it, and some jutsus won't work against me. Now, throw them."

Reluctantly, Sakura reached into her weapons pouch behind her ragged clothes, snatched some shurikens and threw a salvo of them at Kushina. The brace of shurikens singed through the air straight towards where Kushina was standing, but to Sakura's shock, they just flew past her without even harming her before poofing in a tiny cloud of chakra smoke.

"A Clone!" Sakura thought, but before she could do anything, she felt a strong arm in a chokehold around her, but not cutting off blood circulation with a kunai at the end of another arm pointing straight towards her throat.

"H-how?" Sakura asked. "I didn't even see her act! When did she..."

Letting Sakura go, she said. "Look closely towards where you threw those shurikens."

Following her teacher's orders, she looked at where the Clone once was, and what she saw was pieces of dried leaf, cut in pieces from the shuriken hitting it.

"A dried leaf...?"

"Yes." Kushina said. "This is how I got behind you. As you threw the shurikens, I waited until they nearly hit me before seallessly Substituting myself with a dried leaf behind you after creating a basic Clone seallessly where I was at the same pose I was. I then waited for that split second when you're shocked to put you in a chokehold. See?"

Letting Sakura go, she walked in front of her again before saying. "Proper usage of Substitution and Clone technique, no matter what clone, can save your tired ass ten times out of ten, and even allows you to be in a proper position to perform a counterattack towards your target, or in the case just now, offing him instantly."

"I... I never knew..." Sakura shakily said. The sheer difference of levels between her and Kushina was just terrifying!

"Well, now you knew. Now, go ahead and perform the Substitution jutsu. Here." Kushina said before her hand hovered over a seal on her wrist. In a poof of chakra smoke, a log the size of Sakura's thighs appeared within her hand before she placed it on the ground where she was, about ten metres from where Sakura was.

"This is a Substitution training log, the same one used at the academy. Logs like these are usually set up by ninjas before they fought, making a quick substitution possible. But the more skilled you are with it, you can substitute with anything, just like I did. Also, the farther the distance between you and the object you're substituting with, the more chakra it uses. In fact, the chakra usage increase exponentially the further the object needs to travel to your position. As such, to both increase your chakra reserve and to make you used to the jutsu, this log will remain here while you'll remain there. You'll repeatedly Substitute yourself with the log again and again until you ran out of chakra. I'll restore your chakra and you'll repeat it over and over. Rinse and repeat. Now, any questions?" Kushina said.

Raising her hand, Sakura asked. "Sensei, why did most people use Substitution with logs? As you said earlier, logs are even set up before a battle started, but why logs? Are there no other items that can be used?"

Kushina stood still as she rubbed her chin to think of how to explain this unsurprisingly smart question from Sakura. A poorly skilled kunoichi she may be, but her book smarts were undeniable. Clearing her throat, she finally answered. "That is something not known. Maybe because a log is tougher than most scrap around while being easy to find? Those two answers raise more questions of their own. But just know that it saves lives and that with enough skill, you can substitute with anything, though it takes much more chakra to substitute with a living being, substituting with another ninja being the hardest."

"How hard does it take to substitute with another ninja?" Sakura asked.

"This." Kushina said.

One moment, Sakura was looking at her sensei who was standing still beside the log, the next, she felt her world turned and tumbled in less than a blink of an eye before she was standing right beside the same log her sensei was standing beside, though her sensei now had a drip of sweat down her forehead. Just one, but sweat nonetheless.

"That hard." Kushina said. "Chakra are naturally repellent from one person to another. To substitute with another person, you'll need an insane amount of chakra just to counter this effect. Many thanks to my bijuu-level chakras. By properly pushing chakra into one's chakra system, you can infect them with chakra poisoning, where the body rejects the foreign chakra using one's own, causing his chakra to attack his own system, causing pain, chakra disruption and may even stop him from moulding chakra for a while. This is actually how the Hyuugas are able to disrupt chakra flow, by injecting their chakra straight into an enemy's chakra points, blocking their chakra flow."

Sakura gained a thoughtful look at this before she suddenly become horrified, much to Kushina's confusion. She then asked again. "But if so, how did you transfer your chakra into my system?! I should've died from chakra poisoning by now!"

Hearing her concern, Kushina's confusion slowly turned into realisation before she answered. "There's actually a medical technique called Chakra Transfer technique that can properly transfer chakra from another person to someone who needs it. The problem with it was that just to transfer the chakra, a lot of the chakra are wasted just to counter this effect via various means, resulting in an efficiency of only about 30%. Once again, if not for my bijuu-level chakra and perfect chakra control, I'll never be able to do it repeatedly."

Sakura gained a thoughtful look at this. She said that the skill needed for chakra transfer was a medical technique and that it requires perfect chakra control, or at least as near perfect as it can be. "Kushina-sensei, think you can teach me medical jutsu?" She asked straight after the idea came into her mind.

"No." Kushina answered. Rather quickly too.

"What? Why?!" Sakura asked, pissed off at her new sensei's quick dismissal. She was more than capable of performing them! Doesn't that mean that she's capable of teaching them to someone else?! Why the hell did she reject her?!

"There are a couple of reasons." Kushina started. She then lifted an open palm, before ticking one finger off. "One, it's because your chakra quantity is too crappy to do much. Sure this training will help, but it won't help fast enough for you to be able to use it during the Chuunin Exams, if Kakashi entered all of you. Control helps with chakra usage, but only so much."

Ticking off another finger, she continued. "Two, how you are now, learning medical techniques will only cause you to push your combat training further back, making your already shitty skills shittier, while also being supported only by a less-than-mediocre level of medical ninjutsu, which pretty much means that you'll suck balls in all aspects. Improve your combat capabilities, thus improving your battlefield survival capability. After all, a dead medic is a useless medic, and enemies will most likely target you first in combat as one, no matter how shitty your medic skills are."

Once again, another finger was ticked off, leaving only the pinky and the thumb standing. "Three, it's because I'm primarily a combat specialist. Tell me to enter a war and kill the entire enemy army with my bijuu form and I'll be glad to do so. Tell me to infiltrate a building and steal from my target without detection, fine. I'll do it happily. But tell me to enter a camp with injured and dying all over and tell me to heal them all? Not that I can't, thanks to the extremely potent ball of lifeforce that me, my father and my mother contain, but I will feel as if my skills are wasted. I'm much more geared to death and destruction than saving lives, though in a way, dealing death and destruction saves lives, but let's not go there now."

"And finally, reason four." She said as she ticked off her pinky, leaving only her thumb. "I'm too lazy to teach you medical techniques. They're very hard, time consuming and too tedious to teach. Begin your own reading if you want, but don't ask me to teach it to you. Get all that?" Kushina finally asked.

Sakura was shocked at first, before that feeling turned into realisation by the second reason. And by the third reason, she was already feeling down at the third reason. But at that forth reason, Sakura found her legendary temper explode. How dare she said that! She didn't want to teach her just because she's too fucking lazy to do so! But still, the day taught her not to get too angry at her sensei, nor does she can afford to. They basically rebuilt her skills without charging a single ryo! And pissing off a 7' tall titan of destructive power in human form who could kill you with a quick Substitution is definitely a wrong idea.

And so, Sakura buried her anger and her inner self's ranting of rage and just made a sad face before looking at her legs, saying "I understand, sensei," with a very sad tone as she did so, hopefully being able to change her mind.

Unfortunately for her, it failed to even made a dent on Kushina's psyche. She was more than used to such a trick. She then spoke. "Alright, now start the substitution training. I'll watch your every time. Today, and probably for the entire week, our only aim with the Substitution jutsu is to get you proficient enough with it that you can perform it quickly, that's all. It'll take months, if not years of training to be able to perform substitution without handseals. But with enough proficiency and with handseals, you can substitute with nearly anything you are able to see or feel around you. Now, start."

Wordlessly Sakura nodded before running through the handseals for the Substitution jutsu while concentrating on the log, now mysteriously back to Kushina's side without her even realising when she retrieved the log. And in a tiny poof of chakra smoke, Sakura successfully switched with said log, and is now right beside Kushina who nodded at her success. "Good. That was practically academy level Substitution speed. No problem. We can improve that. Now, do it again and again."

Nodding her agreement, Sakura sped through handseals again and substituted again. Upon reaching the ground, she did it again. And again. And again, and again. After just five minutes of nonstop Substitution practice, Sakura was already on the ground, panting hard due to her minuscule chakra reserves already being completely depleted, hovering just a needle above dangerous levels.

Sighing at her student's truly small amounts of chakra, she sighed before her hands once again glowed with their clan's trademarked ethereal flames before she once again restored her chakra while also restoring her energy. While she observed Sakura's badly panting state, she said to her. "Damn. Your chakra reserves are definitely very small. But then again, not even chuunins train their Substitution to such a level. I will make sure that you're proficient enough to perform it blindfolded later on." Feeling that Sakura had recovered, she continued, "Now, continue. We'll do this until it's almost nightfall."

And so Sakura repeated her actions from before, practicing her Substitution repeatedly under the watchful gaze of Kushina who continuously healed her, removing her fatigue and restoring her chakra levels over her maximum each time she was drained.

-COUPLE HOURS LATER-

It's been a couple hours since Sakura started her Substitution training, and right now, the sun just barely disappeared from the horizon, the light that it shined upon the world gone with it together with the day's heat. As the temperature cooled down, so does Sakura, whose training for the day was considered done by Kushina. She was performing cool down exercises as she asked, "Kushina-sensei, can you deactivate the seals? My training for today is over right?"

Smiling at her student's question, she cheerfully replied, "Nope!" As she was gleefully enjoying the horrified look that Sakura had as her entire body froze at her current exercise. She then continued. "You see Sakura, the training seals are called that for a reason you know. They allow you to train continuously, even during your sleep. Might hurt a bit, but that is the only way for you to be sure that you'll train, and train hard wherever and whenever. Understand?"

"I... I understand." Sakura said reluctantly. She never expected such a training regime from them! And from what she knew, she was given a watered down version of it! No way she'd survive the full force of their training session!

"Good!" Kushina said cheerfully. "Now finish your cooling down stretches. Dad wants to meet you."

This perked Sakura's interest. Why did her dad wanted to meet her? She doubted it's to chase her out. He would've done that much, much earlier if so. Then what? Will he be the one to train her next? Her face suddenly turned pale with terror as she thought that he will put her through the ringer for the thousandth time today after seeing the poor state of her ninja education. And from what she knew of him, it might not be too far a stretch. And he'll easily trash her hands down.

Already knowing of Sakura's fear from her innate emotion sensing ability, she bit down a smirk from appearing on her face, especially since he knew why she reacted like that. and so, she walked ahead, Sakura following behind her still in fear of further training or a training at an even higher intensity, completely forgetting the fact that the resistance seals on her already handled that.

A while later, the two reached the side of the home where Naruto was waiting on a square shaped wooden hut with no walls and a pointy roof in his black training clothes while sitting in the classical meditation lotus pose with the palm of his left hand within his right and his thumbs meeting together with his eyes closed.

Sakura gets even more nervous right now. Her anxiety was at an all-time high. She never thought that her fellow academy student in front of her was a demon before. But ever since the Great Reveal, everyone knew of them and what they are capable of. And now, face to face with her, was the ten-tailed half-demon of Konoha, and she had no bloody idea why he wanted to meet her.

"Hello Sakura." Naruto said, still not opening his eyes.

"H-hello..." Sakura said. Although she tried her best to sound brave, she cannot prevent that stutter from coming out within her reply just from being in his presence.

Not taking any offense but still had his eyes closed, Naruto said. "Don't worry. I'm not going to do anything to you. Relax. Here, sit beside me," he said.

Reluctantly obeying, Sakura walked onto the wall-less hut and sat beside Naruto. Watching this, Kushina said, "Okay dad. I'm going back to the house. Don't bully her too much. Hehehe..." She finished with an evil cackle at the end before disappearing with a flash of yellow.

Naruto just sighed. His daughter was sometimes too playful for her own good. "Ignore her. She likes doing that." Naruto said towards Sakura who sat in a seiza position beside him.

"So," Naruto started. "How's your training today?"

"It's going fine." Sakura replied, still unsure of why Naruto wanted to meet her.

"Good, good." Naruto said while nodding. "From what I can tell, you didn't seem to have much of a grasp on both ninja life and ninja techniques. Is that right?"

Blushing due to her own weakness being pointed out so succinctly, she can only nod her agreement at Naruto's statement. But much to her surprise, instead of insults or words urging her to quit being a ninja, she found Naruto's huge palm patting her shoulder.

"Don't worry." He said. "Everyone starts slow, even the Hokages. You cannot go dashing straight away when you don't know how to run properly. So go ahead and do your best. Train with us, and we'll be sure to train you to your absolute best, no worries. The only thing I ask of you is that you'll be a great ninja and will do everything you can, both for the village and for the people within it. Is that fine?" He said, looking straight towards Sakura's eyes with his piercing, slitted blue eyes.

Sakura had absolutely no idea how to respond to this. On one hand, they really didn't ask for payment and trained her as best as they can, kicking her ass ten ways to Sunday just so she could improve herself. On the other hand, the second one was easier. That's what she was planning to do after all. Bowing her head to the father of her newest teacher, she said. "Of course, Naruto-sama. I shall perform those two tasks to the best of my abilities." Well, demon or not, he is a clan head and the member of the Shinobi Council, so it just felt appropriate calling him that, especially with the way he spoke just now.

"Make sure you do," Naruto said. "Oh, and you don't have to be so formal with me. We're from the same class in the academy after all. And I don't really like people calling me that." Naruto said again, his face shining with mirth at that last sentence.

Sakura just nodded at his last statement. Just like his father, the Yondaime, Naruto wasn't one who cared too much about ranks and will have no problem entering battle like a good rank-and-file soldier even when he's a clan head and the member of the Shinobi Council. Suddenly, Sakura remembered something important. Something VERY important. "Uh... Naruto-san?"

"Yeah?"

"Uh... How am I going to continue my training after two days?" Sakura asked.

"Hm..." Naruto already knew of the two-day break Kakashi gave his cute little genins, and he more than understood Sakura's worries about it. But of course, he had a solution. And just as always, his solution was... "Use Shadow Clones, of course."

"What?" Considering that it's a forbidden jutsu, it's no wonder that she never heard of it.

And so Naruto decides to explain. "Shadow Clones are a type of clones that uses your chakra to create solid copies of yourself. This copy can perform jutsus, knows all the knowledge you know and transfers any memory that it gained during its life back to you when it dispels for whatever reason. Basically, a Shadow Clone is an exact copy of the user except that it dispels in one solid hit from anyone or anything."

"How is that going to solve the problem?"

"Simple. Not many knew this, but Shadow Clones are capable of performing exactly like a human, wounds included if it had a lot of chakra. By using a special seal that will be placed on the clone, it can take chakra from you, replenishing its own stocks and allowing it to last indefinitely, though a major injury will take more chakra. But thanks to my daughter's own bijuu-level chakra restoring yours, she'll have no problem with that. And it will help in your chakra level training too. Combining with the fact that you'll gain all the memory of the clone, and it'll feel as if you're never gone. We'll teach you how to perform the jutsu, of course." Naruto said.

Sakura was absolutely touched. Here was a guy, a clan head, whom she never interacted with much before (considering that he's part-demon and is a gigantic, immensely powerful clan head made sure of that) helping her with so many things like she's his student really touched her heart. "Why are you helping me like this?" She asked.

"Is it wrong to help a fellow ninja?" Naruto replied with another question.

"No, but I wasn't the best of person to you. Even from the academy, I didn't talk much to you three, didn't help with anything yet you're being so helpful to me right now! I am... confused, I guess." Sakura answered.

"Understandable." Naruto said as he nodded his agreement to what Sakura said. "Sakura, you need to know something. One of my goals, my ultimate goal, is to find peace in this world of turmoil."

"Peace?"

"Peace. And as the tens of years of war shows us, it isn't an easy task to do so. But I believe that it is possible to gain peace through understanding between everyone. And not being, in the simplest way to say it, a bastard is one small step that I can begin with. It won't get me anywhere if I were to be a bastard about everything. You remember what I said during the Great Reveal don't you?"

"Of course." Sakura replied. No one can forget that. The reveal shook the hearts and minds of the people of Konoha greatly that day for many reasons. "You said that you forgave everyone who wronged you."

"Yes I did. And what kind of peace-seeker would I be if I were to kill every person who so much as looked sideways at me just because I can and powerful enough to do so?" Naruto asked. Not waiting for an answer, he continued. "Then I am nothing more but a murderous asshole. Nothing more. Me forgiving them is one of the first steps. A tiny step, in fact when all things are considered, but a step nonetheless. And sometimes, in order to find peace, some deaths are necessary. That is why I train hard and expect my children to train even harder. So that we are strong enough to find peace, but also maintain it. You get that?"

"Yes." Sakura said, nodding. "But I still fail to see the relation between world peace and me growing stronger." She said afterwards.

"Ah. For that, you'll need to think about it. But for now, you'll need to train hard so that you are strong." Naruto said.

Sakura just nodded at what he said. Peace? From what she knew, peace was nearly impossible to come. But for some reason, Sakura cannot help but believe in Naruto's words, and she swore that she'll perform to her utmost limit to support his ambitions.

"Alright. I don't think I have anything else for me to speak to you. Just remember today's training and everything that you did. Come again tomorrow, and Kushina will be sure to train you again." Naruto said, dismissing her. But just as Sakura was about to get up from her position, Naruto added to what he spoke just now. "Oh, by the way, you should know that I train hard, harder than everyone in fact. As such, if you come again and again for future training, you might be able to see some... awe-inspiring sight. Just keep on staying and I'll make sure that you won't leave afterwards. Now shoo. Go back home. Your parents must've been worried. It's late already." He added before he stood up and disappeared in a flash of yellow, presumably back into their mansion.

Sakura stood and was about to left when she met the figure of Hinata right in front of the wall-less hut in a white shirt and black pants, a smile on her face. "Hello, Hinata-san." Sakura said.

"Hello Sakura-san. I'm here to escort you outside the compound." Hinata said before she turned around and walked away, a silent urging to Sakura to follow her. And like a good child, Sakura just followed her path to the outer gates.

As they were walking, Hinata suddenly spoke. "Sorry, Sakura-san. I did not meant to hit you too hard just now during training."

Sakura was immediately flustered when put directly on the spot like that. "No! No! You did nothing wrong! It's for the sake of training!" she said, before taking a deep breath and saying, "Hinata-san, if not for those hits of yours, I will never know how good I am actually at my taijutsu! Your attacks show that I am still below par compared to most, and especially compared to you! Compared to you on the bridge, it made me feel... inadequate."

Hinata's smiling face suddenly gained a heavy aura to it, and she immediately lost her smile. "You still remember that?"

"Of course!" Sakura enthusiastically replied, not realising the change of air around Hinata nor her shift in tone. "You look like an angel of death! Beautiful, flowing and deadly, dealing insane damages with every hit! You blew them up with a single hit, a single punch! Extremely powerful doesn't even begin to describe that! Sure it made me look at you in fear, but today made my opinion on you and your family change."

Hinata's small downward curve of her lips changed into a small smile before she turned around and patted Sakura's shoulders. "Sakura-san, thank you. But you should know that I regret doing that. I had nightmares last night from what I did."

"Nightmares?" Sakura said, confusion in her face. "But you destroyed Naruto's arm easily! And from what I know, it seems like it happened often!"

"You should understand, Sakura-san." Hinata said. "Naruto's like that for two reasons. One, it's because he held back. Two, is because I know that he and Kushina's the only two person for now that can have an arm, two hearts, a leg and two lungs destroyed yet was more than capable of recovering from that in 2 minutes. Other people? Not so much. Especially normal people. And killing isn't something that you can do all the time. Kushina may act nonchalant about it at times, but even she understood the value of a human life. And as a ninja , like it or not, you will kill in the future. And at that time, you'll understand. ." She said before turning around and guiding Sakura towards the exit, leaving Sakura pretty confused, though she understood what Hinata said. And as soon as she passed the gates of the Uzumaki-Namikaze compound and gave a bow to Hinata which she replied in kind, she immediately began her chakra-powered walk home, her heavy training for the day ended together with the sun's light at the horizon.

-SAKURA'S HOME, ABOUT 30 MINUTES LATER-

After a 30 minute walk that felt like 3 hours to her seal-restricted body, she managed to reach her house. It is quite a large house, located at the wealthy district thanks to her parents' job as Konoha's council member for her mother and a civilian trader for her father respectively. Their house was a Western-style two storey house with a small lawn in front of it that had a small garden in said lawn with a wooden lawn table with an umbrella at the middle of the garden. A cobblestone path split the lawn in two, heading from the gate at the fence straight towards the white door of the white coloured house.

Now sweaty and tired, Sakura reached her home, eager to change into her casual clothing and to repair her torn and damaged clothes. Not to mention entering her hot, comforting bath. "I'll need to use proper combat-worthy clothes next time. Maybe Kushina-sensei can show me where to find some of those clothes." She thought.

"Mom! Dad! I'm home!" she yelled out to her mother who was in the house while she opened the door and entered her house's beige coloured hallway. She then removed her ninja sandals before placing it on the nearly full shoe rack right beside the house's main door before walking straight towards the living room.

Just a regular living room with a 3+2+1 sofa set facing a TV with a coffee table in the middle, the living room was connected to the kitchen via a doorway located at the right rear end of the living room which had a dinner table with 6 chairs, probably for times when relatives arrive. And poking her head from the kitchen wearing a pink apron with white shirt and black knee-high shorts was Haruno Mebuki, the mother of Sakura. With long hair with a colour just like her daughter's but with round, brown eyes instead, she looked like a pretty gentle mother and person, all in all.

"Welcome ho- What happened to you?!" she said out loud as she saw Sakura's torn, dirty clothing, her messy hair and her exhausted face. Luckily she was not injured, not a bit thanks to Kushina's medical capabilities. Immediately she ran towards her daughter before fussing over her extremely worn appearance. Pulling her daughter around to check her entire body in case something happened, she was shocked when Sakura pushed her away.

"Sorry mom. I'm dead tired right now, and I'm not sure whether I can or want to have dinner or not. Sorry." She said as she pushed her mother away and started heading straight towards her room located upstairs of the house. But just as she was about to climb the stairs, her mother called out to her.

"Sakura, dear, just tell me what happened. You look... terrible." She said, her tone worried. Well, what kind of good parents will you be if you totally ignored your child coming back home looking like she just entered a scuffle? Except for the Uzumaki-Namikazes, but they're different.

"Don't worry mom. I'm just tired from the training I did today. The tears on the clothes are also from those training as well. No worries." She immediately climbed upstairs, leaving her worried mother downstairs. Reaching her room, she entered it before slamming the door close and fell straight on her bed, completely exhausted. "I am so damn tired today. Kushina-sensei's training was really brutal. And I'll need to go through the same thing tomorrow! I almost regretted my decision." She thought. "Guess I'll take a short nap." She thought before immediately succumbing to the temptation of sleep, her torn, sweat-filled clothing did nothing to deter her sleep.

After what felt like five seconds to her, she felt her body being shook awake. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was her mother's face, now calmer but still with an underlining of worry in it. "Honey, the bath's ready. Go take a bath first, then we'll have dinner together. Dad's home, so the three of us can have dinner together today." Being a travelling trader, her dad wasn't home quite often, always on the move for places to sell his wares. But that's what made their family quite wealthy. And considering her father's importance on Konoha's economy, he was chosen to represent the civilians on Konoha's council, but due to his constant absence from Konoha, he relegated that task to his wife who was more than happy to take that position. And since none of the other council members opposed his actions, it falls to her wife to act well in his stead during council meetings.

Groggy, tired, heavy and grumpy, Sakura woke up, grabbed some regular clothes before going straight to the family bathroom downstairs still half asleep. Reaching the modestly sized bathroom, she took off her clothes before entering the steaming bath. Right upon entering her family's bath, she could just feel all the muscle aches that she gained today disappearing together with her fatigue as she submerged herself completely within the bath. The blissful feeling almost made her wish she could just sleep within the pool of hot water. But even she, with all her tiredness knew that this was an extremely bad idea.

As she was washing herself, her eyes moved towards the seal on her heart, the kanji for 'train' still there, surrounded by the circle. According to what little she knew about seal theories from classes at the academy, not that they taught much of it considering the difficulty of the subject, the circle and the kanji are actually extremely compressed form of the seals that was painted around her body this morning. No one but a master in seals are capable of decompressing a seal and studying it, especially a huge seal like hers (not that she knew better, jinchuuriki seals are much, much bigger) into a readable form. And sometimes, even decompressing it won't help one from being able to study it completely sometimes.

She continued analyzing the seal as she washed herself. The seal's kanji of 'train' was made in a beautiful calligraphy, flowing and soft yet holding strong on her at the same time. "Seals are really a difficult but amazing art," she thought. And as she was wiping soap on her arms, her eyes fixated towards the thick line on them, she found out that she was getting tired even from such a simple action. She puzzled on it for a second before she remembered the training seals resistance and the fact that Kushina-sensei said that the seals will help her train all the time, even when performing her regular routines. But then, she wondered. How was she capable of even moving with the seal's resistance on her? Analyzing her chakra flow for a while, she came to a surprising conclusion: her body was actually channeling chakra to her muscles, reinforcing them and making them stronger, even without conscious thought! "Kushina-sensei was right! Even in just a day, my body already learned reinforcement instinctually! But then again, without it, I cannot even move. Maybe that's why."

"Cha! That training was very good! Kushina-sensei was very, very strong and very skilled! But it's really, really hard too..." Her inner self said. That's another mysterious part about her. She had an inner voice that was her but at the same time not, being more violent and impulsive for some reason, but it never took over her or anything weird like that. And it also gave her a friend when she's lonely or in need of advice (though the advice mostly involves some form of violence or other...) so it's all good.

"Yeah, but it sure paid off if we look at it right now." She thought as she wiped the suds off her arm even as she felt the weight around her; not crushing, but telling her of the resistance level that was placed on her. "And Kushina-sensei said that it self-adjusts, which means I will keep feeling the same level of resistance no matter how much I train."

"Yeah, but that means that once you deactivate it, you'll be faster and stronger!"

"Yup. That's the purpose." She said, and continued with her bath, her body unconsciously reinforcing her muscles with chakra all the while. Soaking herself within the hot water of the tub up to nose level, she remained there for a while, letting the heat of the water soothe her tired, sore body and helping recover some chakra of hers. She didn't have Kushina beside her to restore her chakra this time anyway.

A while later, she finished her bath and dried her body with the towel her mother already provided within the bathroom before changing into a plain white T-shirt and long pants, ready to have dinner with her family. Upon reaching her family's dinner table, she immediately smiled upon seeing her father's familiar face. A man standing at 5'8", Haruno Kizashi was a bit of a tall guy among the civilians of Konoha with spiky black hair and jade green eyes, where Sakura got hers from. He had a square shaped face, much at contrast to Sakura's more oval shaped face and was quite a tough guy, his job as a travelling merchant made sure of that.

"Hi dad. Haven't seen you for a while." Sakura said before going straight to her father and giving him a quick kiss on his cheek before settling down at the dinner table.

"So are you, honey. Sorry I missed your graduation." Her father replied. "I was on a trip to the northern parts of Earth Country. You know how hard the terrain was at that area, not to mention Earth Country hates us. Securing travel rights were pretty hard there."

"I know. No problem, dad." Sakura said, smiling. Her father's a hardworking man, always on the lookout for new business opportunities. She knows it well and never blamed him for it. After all, he's a family man, and family man needs to work to support his family. Suddenly, a thought popped into her mind, and she decides to voice it. "Dad, since you missed my graduation, that means you must've missed the Great Reveal right?"

"The Great Reveal?" her father asked in confusion.

Suddenly, she felt the temperature within the house plummeted so much that she would've thought that it's freezing if not for the lack of snow and ice particles within the house. Immediately Sakura and her father turned towards the source of the cold, and much to both of their surprise, it came from Mebuki, who was gripping the rice scoop she was holding so tightly her knuckles turned white.

"Mom/Dear?" Sakura and her father said, calling out to her mother and his wife respectively as they watched the loving mother and wife that they knew about turn colder than ice when the topic was reminded about. Both of them are further shocked when she turned towards them and saw that her eyes are colder than ice as they stared into the two pair of eyes watching her actions.

After a second that felt like an eternity for the both of them, Mebuki slowly said. "So you haven't known about the Great Reveal, dear? Well, let me explain it to you." And so, she explained everything about it, from how the Sandaime revealed the existence of the Yondaime's son, his appearance, the fact that he's the 'Demon Child', how he morphed into his demon form, how he scared the people and what he did during that time. All this time, Sakura realises that her mother's view of the 'Demon Family' was nothing short of extremely biased and one sided, showing her mother's hatred of them. And much to her surprise, as she looked to her father's face, she saw that even his face was in a look of pure, unbridled hatred as their names were mentioned.

"Mom! Dad! Why did you hate them so much?" she asked, confused.

Immediately their face softened as both of them looked at her. "Honey, we never managed to tell you this, but your grandparents were killed during that demon's attack on Konoha." She said with scorn.

"W-what?" this took Sakura by surprise. She never met her grandparents. In fact, she never even knew them or any member of her parents' family!

"Yes, honey. In fact, me and your mother lost a lot of our family members during that event." Her father said next, also with burning hatred in his eyes. "I still remember it like it's yesterday. That evil feeling, that sheer pressure it's mere presence made, not to mention how it rampaged through Konoha's sector, the same area where your grandparents lived. Its tails thrashed into my parents' house. We cannot even find anything left from the rubble. The demonic presence even killed your mother's mother due to a heart attack. She never recovered." Her father said.

"My mother's face was stuck in fear. Fear so powerful that even during her death, her face never changed looks, still stuck in that fear even past death." Her mother said next. "And my father, he never had the time to flee. The house was crushed beneath its paw, destroying everything. We only found his crushed body beneath the rubble. My mother, your grandmother, she was trapped in the kitchen. A huge piece of rubble was the only thing blocking the huge leg from crushing her. That's how we found her, frozen to her death in fear." She said, tears already flowing from her eyes. Immediately she went to her husband, who hugged her and pats her back, trying to calm her from remembering the terrible nightmarish memories Kurumi's attack did on Konoha.

Still hugging her wife, Kizashi said, "That's how it was, honey. We're both single children, so after we married, we lived in another sector of Konoha, the sector least affected from the attack. You're born a couple of months before the attack. And the only thing that saved us was probably the Yondaime's attempt to save us, which he succeeded at. But finding out that the same demon who killed our parents are now a human, even partly, and nowadays lived in Konoha as its citizen and even gained council seats is something else. It really, really made me angry and pissed off. No wonder why people said that the Sandaime was an idiot for trusting them."

"B-but Kurumi-san said she was controlled! And Naruto was the Yondaime's son! He won't harm us! He even proved that during our mission!" Sakura cried out. She was with them during the academy and even on a mission, and not once did they do anything to harm her. The only ones harmed (and brutally too, she may add) was the enemy, and they did nothing to anyone, even taught her some things!

Sakura was shocked beyond measure when her father turned and sent a death glare towards her direction as he said, "How can we truly know she was controlled? Uchiha Madara, as everyone knew, was dead. There was no way anyone could control her again. Unless if you're saying that he's still alive?" Oh, how he'll eat his own words later. "And being a hanyou who's the Yondaime's son does not make him a full human! And since the fucking Kyuubi is his mate, he'll defend her from anything! Can we trust someone who allowed himself to be turned into a demon even if he's Yondaime's son? He should be killed! Just like he should be years ago when he's a child!" he said as he gained a frenzy in his eye, screaming out the last parts of his rage.

"Dad!" Sakura shouted out, hoping that her father would stop that, stopping his anger-filled rant. Besides, she knew just how powerful the entire family was, and she knew that any attack on them will fail terribly. They're insanely powerful, and she's one of the few who knew first hand. Naruto, Kushina, heck, even little (relatively) Hinata could crush his dad with barely an effort.

"Sakura, why are you so protective of them?" her mother, who somehow managed to recover from her grief spoke slowly, muffled by Kizashi's shoulder. "We knew you never knew nor saw your grandparents, but that isn't a reason to protect them! They're demons!" she then tore herself loose from Kizashi's calming hug and shouted straight into Sakura's face. "They're mass murderers! An entire family of demons who would like nothing else than to tear the people entirely and destroy Konoha! They're just biding time for it!" Her mother shouted out.

"No! You're wrong!" Sakura said, quickly shaking her head in denial even as tears fell from her eyes. "They're all good person! The entire family is! They never did anything bad! They even trained me!" She said, countering her mother's words.

Immediately all eyes fell on her. "You've been associating yourself with them?" Her father asked.

"Yes!" Sakura cried out. "They are good person, all of them! They taught me so much, and never said anything about me! They never did anything bad! It's true that they're hanyous, but they never attacked anyone! Everyone else attacked them! They never took the first move!"

"And how do you know that for sure?!" her mother shouted out. "It might just be a trick! Just to let you lower your guard before they kill you in cold blood! They never hid the fact that they're demons! They're even proud of it! Why are you still protecting them?! Why are you still close to them?!" she said again. Tears already flowing from her eyes nonstop at the thought that her beloved daughter will be killed by the damn demons living within Konoha's walls.

Sakura found her throat constricted by a mysterious force at this point as tempers flared within her house. She wracked her brain for a reason why she trusted them so much, and the only reason that came to her mind was... "It's because they're honest! They're honest in the fact that they're demons! They never covered the fact that they killed! Kurumi-san never said that she didn't kill people! Even if she was controlled, she still took the blame about it, not letting anyone else take it! They... They're my comrades! My fellow ninjas! And one of them's my teacher!" she said as tears fell from her eyes as well. Her parents never acted this way! They're loving and kind! Not some sort of xenophobic assholes! "What happened happened, mom! They're hoping to atone for it by protecting everyone by becoming ninjas of Konoha! Please, listen!"

"Sakura!" Her dad shouted, making Sakura flinch. A trained, novice genin she may be, but no matter how good she was, hearing her father raise his voice like that still shook her entire body. "Why are you not listening to us?! We just want you to be safe! Stop meeting with those demons! They're evil!"

"You're wrong, dad! You're wrong! You're both wrong!" she said as she backed away from both her parents, all three of them now crying freely, though her mother and Sakura herself was the worst off. Immediately she turned before running straight upstairs, ignoring her father's shouts of her name, calling her back.

Going straight towards her room, she snatched a duffel bag she had on top of the closet in her room after locking the door before stuffing all the clothing that she could reach her hand on. At the same time, she could hear the thump-thump-thump of her father's footsteps going upstairs, causing her to hurry up her already frantic packing.

Within seconds, her father already reached her door and was banging it nonstop. "Sakura! Open this door!" he screamed out. Sakura even heard a second set of footsteps from behind, meaning her mother's following her father. As she was stuffing every item she had into her bag, a loud bang was heard on her door, a sign that her father was trying to smash the door open.

As she finished packing and was about to make a run through the window in her room, her father managed to smash through her door with a shoulder charge. After her mother entered, a loud gasp was heard from Mebuki's lips as she caught sight of her beloved daughter about to run away through the window. "Sakura, honey! Please, rethink this! We just care about you! We don't want you to befriend those demons for good reasons!"

"No mom!" She shouted back even as her tears fell again. "They're demons, but they're good ones! I'll show you!"

"SAKURA!" her father shouted again. "THERE ARE NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD DEMON! THE ONLY GOOD DEMON IS A DEAD DEMON! NOW GET BACK HERE!" he bellowed, trying to get Sakura to back away from her decision.

Slowly, Sakura responded as her entire body felt the cold night air blowing inwards through the window of which she already had a hand on and a leg out of. "No, dad. No. I will show you. Both of you! They are to be trusted! Not to be hated! They are nice and kind, and I'll show you!" immediately she pulled her body out the window before jumping outside and running away from her house, cutting through the night's chill with nothing but her plain white shirt and long pants on, running towards the Uzumaki-Namikazes, completely ignoring the hysterical crying voice of her mother calling her back.

"I'll prove it to you mom! They're not the demons that you think they are!" was practically the only thought running through her head as she ran, not looking back, straight towards the Uzumaki-Namikaze clan compound, tears flowing from her eyes as she exerted every last bit of her chakra to reinforce her already tired body. But unfortunately for her, no amount of chakra can reinforce or heal a wounded heart...

-UZUMAKI-NAMIKAZE CLAN COMPOUND, MINUTES LATER-

Kurumi had just finished washing the dishes after their massive dinner when she heard thunder rumbling in the sky and the temperature around her dropped, the sure sign of a heavy rain. The rain won't deter Naruto and Kushina from their training though, not that it'll do much to the two. She was just about to head to their room when the first droplet of rain was heard, followed by another, and another before the droplets turned into a very heavy rain. And somehow, she had a strange feeling welling up in her heart at the sight of such a sudden rain.

Even Hinata who was walking beside her noticed this. "I think not too long ago, the sky was pretty clear." She said.

"Yeah." Kurumi replied absentmindedly as she looked skywards, her thoughts contemplating the strange feeling that she had right after she washed the dishes.

"Kurumi-chan?" Hinata asked, feeling confused about Kurumi's sudden silence about the rain. It's just a heavy rain, why was she so worried about it?

Amidst the sound of heavy rain droplets pattering the mansion's roof and the loud roar of thunder crashing in the sky, Kurumi had a strange feeling. She cannot describe it aptly, but she could just feel it in her heart that something's changing, though she still didn't know what. Turning to face Hinata, she said, "Hinata-chan, I-" her words were cut short as both of them felt a tug at the back of their minds, the sign that the detection seals of the house was triggered, though the visitor wasn't someone who was unknown to the security array around the house.

"I'll get that." Kurumi said, the feeling getting stronger and stronger as the rain fell around the mansion heavily; looking like it won't stop soon. "You get upstairs to the room, Naru-koi would like some heat after this heavy rain." She said with a glint in her eyes towards Hinata. But even Hinata realised that the glint was more... subdued, somehow compared to the times when the same glint appeared in her eyes.

Deciding not to call her on it, she just replied, "Okay. See you there later." As she climbed the stairs towards the master bedroom. Smiling at the disappearing sight of Hinata's back, she opened the front door before wearing her sandals and heads for the compound's walls, not intending to use the Hiraishin for reasons unknown to her. She had a feeling that using the Hiraishin won't be a good idea, somehow.

Immediately activating a slower Spinning Wall jutsu to prevent the water from touching her, she walked straight towards the gate, her feet splashing the on the muddy path as the raindrops are all deflected from around her in a spinning dome of chakra, making for a surreal sight as she thought about that strange feeling running within her heart even as all the raindrops around her got flung to distances unknown and she herself walked the dimly lit path towards the gate, not that she cannot see well in such a darkness.

Upon reaching the gate, a heavy knock was heard. Or more like someone's banging on the gates themselves for a while. Wondering what someone would want from them at this hour in this unrelenting rain, she opened the gate, and the sight that greeted her was unlike anything in her wildest imagination. There, in front of the gate, amidst the rain falling all around her was Sakura, her clothes so drenched it made her look like she just took a dunk in a river fully clothed. Even her duffel bag was soaked, and probably does the clothes in them as well. She was looking downwards with an extremely downcast air around her, and Kurumi didn't need her innate emotion sensor to know that she was crying her eyes out even as she stood there, as rigid as a statue within the ungodly rain.

"Sakura?" Kurumi called out to her, hoping to snap her out of whatever she was feeling right now, but much to her surprise, she just ran at her and hugged her hard before crying wildly on her now-drenched shoulder. Confused but understanding, she just rubbed her back and stroked her short hair, whispering sweet words into her ears, hoping that she'll calm down and thus being able to speak more clearly. "Shh, shh. It's alright, Sakura. I'm here, and I won't let anything nor anyone harm you here. It's alright." She whispered into her ears, never once stopping her back rub, never once letting Sakura's relatively strong hug around her falter, never once letting the rain fall on them with her Spinning Wall as she comforted her.

A while later, her sobs turned to sniffles, before it turned into silence after a while, signifying the fact that she cried herself to sleep. Not wanting to stay for too long in the middle of the rain, chakra shield around her or not, Kurumi lifted Sakura bridal style and began her trek back towards the main mansion. Upon entering the mansion, she was greeted by the sight of Naruto, Kushina and Hinata all standing and looking at her Sakura carrying figure in confusion, to which she could only reply "I don't know." She then carried her to the bathroom, Kushina and Hinata following, intending to change her soaking wet clothes and changing her into a much drier clothing. On her mother's orders, Kushina went and took her soaking wet duffel bag before emptying its contents and placing them into the drier.

Hey, she may be a powerful hanyou, but that doesn't mean that her mother didn't teach her to perform housework!

Sakura jolted awake, her body immediately straightening itself into a sitting position where she's sleeping, which was on a couch in Naruto's mansion, the sound of rain hammering on the mansion's walls, windows and roof was still heard loudly around the house. At first, she was confused on where she was and what she's doing there, but a while later, the realisation hit her hard as she remembered what she did just now, running away from her parents' house before going straight towards the Uzumaki-Namikaze compound before crying on the shoulder of whoever who opened the gates for her. Immediately she starts crying again, not realising the situation she was in.

As she was sobbing, she felt a pair of warm arms envelop her in a hug, before a soft, velvety voice entered her ears. "Hush. Stop crying. Whatever happened just now, you're safe here with us." After crying a bit more on the figure's shoulder, she stopped crying before wiping her eyes on her sleeve and looked at the person who comforted her just now. And much to her surprise, the face of Kurumi entered her vision, the figures of Naruto, Kushina and Hinata who somehow had a look of anger on them behind her.

Immediately blushing, she covered her face before turning away and spoke slowly. "Please forget what happened."

To her chagrin, Kurumi shook her head before facing her and looking her straight into her eyes, her piercing sight more than capable of intimidating even some of the best ninjas around. "No." She said with steel in her voice laced by a concrete determination. "We won't forget. Or rather, we can't. And we will not rest until we found out what happened to you that made you cry like that and come to our house in the middle of the night like this. That I promise you, they. Will. Pay." Kurumi said, the three behind her just nodding, supporting her decision.

Sniffling, she slowly said, "Why are you so kind to me? We are not even close before. I only come here to have Kushina train me. *sniff*"

Placing a warm, comforting hand on Sakura's shoulders, Kurumi said, "Sakura-san, we may not know each other too closely, but I will not push away someone who needed help from our gates, no matter who they are. I have absolutely no problem helping anyone who deserves it, and will do my utmost best to help them," she said with a smile.

This display of kindness was the last straw on the camel's back for Sakura's weakened psyche, and she broke down crying on the sofa, Kurumi rushing to help her once again. Amidst her cries and the sobs that her crying did, she told Kurumi everything that happened that night, with the never-ending sound of falling rain as her background music, she told Kurumi everything. Her father being back from his travel, her telling about the Great Reveal, thinking that it's a nice piece of gossip for him, her mother's hatred-filled telling of the Great Reveal's events to her father, their hatred of the Uzumaki-Namikazes and their reasons, her impulsive reaction to run away, and her subsequent arrival to their house. All the time, her sobs slowed down until she nearly stopped crying entirely, only sniffles was heard from her while the three behind Kurumi said nothing at all, still standing there with their arms crossed.

"I'm sorry," Sakura started. "I must've looked *sniff* like a weak girl now, crying like-*hic*-like a little baby." She said as she wiped her tears and snot on a white hanky that Kurumi passed to her a while ago during her story.

"Not at all," Kurumi said smiling, a smile which somehow brightened Sakura's mood instantly, albeit a massive cloud of despair still hung over her head. "Crying doesn't mean you're weak. In fact, for us, crying means you're strong. Strong enough to feel sadness. Weak are those who didn't acknowledge their feelings and hid them beneath a veil of expressionlessness. Feelings give us power, Sakura. They're what made a great man greater, and a strong man stronger. Never forget that."

Once again wiping her tears and snot, Sakura asked her again. "Kurumi-san, you're not mad at my parents? They practically said that you're a liar!"

Kurumi looked at her in mock confusion. "Why would I be? They have a right to do so. Even if I'm controlled at the time, it's still me who killed your grandparents and no amount of begging or vengeance will return them from the Pure World." She then smiled for a bit before looking straight at Sakura before asking. "Now, the main question is, what should we do with you?"

"What? What do you mean by that?" Sakura said.

"Of course, your parents will be worried. We could do this the easy way, which is you going back to your house right now or even tomorrow, especially because of this rain." Kurumi said as a loud bang of thunder was heard after the lightning flashed from outside the house. "Another option is that you go back to your house after tomorrow's training, and if need be, I can personally go and have a little chat with your parents. Your mom's been looking at me funny every council meeting and at least I now know why, so I would like to apologize, or anything." Looking at Sakura's utterly horrified face, she sighed. "Or maybe not." She then continued. "Another option is that you can stay here for a month or two, let them stew over your disappearance for a while. Which would you prefer?"

Sakura pondered it for a while, weighing all the consequences and effects that her choice would cause to both herself and her family. After some time, she spoke amidst the silence of the family and the noise of the rain falling around the house echoing within the house itself. "I think I'll take the last option. I'll still be able to go to team meetings and missions using your Shadow Clone trick, and I think that letting my parents stew a bit will be fine. Besides, I'm no longer a child. Being independent and living away from my parents is a good thing, right?" no one answered.

"Sakura," Hinata said. "I have a better suggestion. What if after training tomorrow, you go straight to your house and told your mother that you're going to be away for a while? At least then she won't say that you're going to be killed or something worse to everyone. What about that?"

"I think that's a good idea too." Sakura said, smiling. "Maybe that's a better choice. And I think it's better if I were to go by myself."

"Yup. That's a damn good idea, if I may say so." Naruto interjected. "Now, for tonight, you'll sleep at one of the guest rooms here. Anko's already taken that one," Naruto said, pointing to a room that has Anko's name on it. "And she's pretty much a permanent addition to the house already. She hung around here more often than she did at hers. So choose other rooms. There are lots of rooms here, and we're lacking the people o fill them up. With you in, it'll be a great addition, even if it's only temporary."

"Thank you, all of you." She said, before she stood up and turned towards the entire family before bowing down straight from her waist. "You've been so much help, and now I'll be imposing on you for a while in addition to training me. Sorry for bothering all of you." She said as tears threatened to fall from her eyes again. "They... They're so kind... I'll do my best to change my parents' mindset about them!"

"Cha! We'll make sure they do or die trying!" Her inner self responded.

"Maybe not until we die, but we'll definitely try our best." She responded.

After some more bowing and a near-cry session, Sakura went to choose a room for herself for her stay there. She then decided to choose a room close to the stairs. The room was nothing special, with a single queen-sized bed close to the wall at the corner of the room with a personal bathroom and toilet at the back with a closet and a vanity desk set beside the closet with white-coloured paint all over.

Immediately she unloaded everything within her duffel bag which was somehow high and dry despite the torrential rain the bag was caught in with her. Speaking of which, the rain was still falling heavily without any signs of stopping. A sudden realisation came towards her when she realised that her chakra was restored somehow when she nearly fainted from chakra exhaustion just as she reached the gates just now. "They must've recovered my chakra when I'm asleep."

Finishing her unpacking, she immediately jumped upon the bed which was springy and soft, just what she needs after an extremely emotional and turbulent evening, not to mention the heavy training that she went through the entire day. Immediately remembering that she'll have to endure the same training tomorrow if not worse, she immediately grabbed a pillow from the three available, hugged it before immediately attempting to sleep, which she succeeded near instantly amidst the chill of the rain and the rumble of thunder surrounding Konoha.

-NEXT EVENING-

It is the evening, and once again Sakura was beyond tired by this point. She was run straight to the ground and back up again and again by Kushina without remorse. But today's even worse. She learned the Shadow Clone, and by using a special medical technique, an offshoot of the Chakra Transfer technique that allows a person to drain chakra from someone else to perform a jutsu, but at a much higher cost than usual. By pulling chakra from Kushina, she managed to make ten Shadow Clones, all of which was immediately painted with the remote chakra transfer seal before Kushina put them as well through the ringer on chakra exercises and the Academy 3. When asked why, this is Kushina's answer.

"A Shadow Clone's memory will return back towards its owner, together with whatever remaining chakra that they have, making them the ultimate tool for speed training if you can make lots of them. Any jutsu that they perform well, the information will then return back to you, making you skilled with them as well. And this will also improve your chakra capacity. Once they dispel, the chakra that they contain will return back to you. Since you'll have your chakra repeatedly filled by me and they'll repeatedly pull chakra from you, this will cause your chakra capacity to immediately and forcefully double, putting you in excruciating pain unlike anything else. Probably felt as if you're being torn apart from the inside or something like that."

And excruciating it was. She felt more like someone wanted to rip off every blood vessel of hers brutally from her body with a rusty, dull kunai. She even screamed to the heavens so hard that her throat was torn and she passed out from the pain. And that's just from one clone popping! She almost dreaded what'll happen when the other nine pops. But thankfully, Kushina's a great medic, healing her in a minute. She's also a great teacher, teaching one of her clone the Substitution while she herself was running around the training ground while having her clones teach Sakura's other clones various important basic skills: a proper Henge, quick Substitution, and even had them train taijutsu and kunai and shuriken tossing and had the rest perform chakra exercises while she pushed her ass on physical training.

And she was met with a sight that she will never forget, not ever: the sight of two bijuus duking it off. At first, when she saw Kurumi and Naruto walking into the training grounds, she thought that they're just performing their regular training, which from how she saw Kushina did hers, would kill anyone else attempting the same routine as theirs. While she was performing her exercises, two sudden, incredibly MASSIVE burst of chakra appeared from where Kurumi and Naruto was standing at, which was far, FAR away from where she was ("How did they have such a large area anyway? It wasn't as big from the outside..." Sakura wondered). The chakra burst was so massive that it practically 'shorted' out her basic chakra sensing capability, causing even her physical body to be overwhelmed from the sheer amount of chakra saturating the air around her.

And that's when she saw it.

From where Naruto and Kurumi was standing, two gigantic figure shot out from the ground, one a huge, golden blonde coloured fox with ten tails flicking around wildly while the other was a similarly massive but blood-red coloured fox with nine tails. Each step shook the ground like a miniature earthquake, each huff of their breath felt like a storm and the chakra that they emitted was just inhuman, causing even her clones to stop and some of them to pop.

And as Naruto began his training with Kurumi in his demon form, she understood completely why bijuus are immensely feared in the world, but everyone wanted one for their own. Each step, each move, was more than capable of destroying a small town. A roar was capable of destroying entire swathes of forest and blow eardrums. A single punch from Naruto's strangely humanlike forelegs was capable of smashing small hills. The aura that they exude was more than capable of killing off weaker people, just like what happens to her grandmother from what her mother said. And their bijuudamas... even small ones are more than enough to inspire both unbridled fear and unsurpassed awe in her. The devastation that it caused was more than enough for her to show their power. And according to Kushina, they're still holding back! But she wondered, how did she not be dead yet when two bijuus are fighting each other close to where she was?

Kushina had this as the answer. "The area where they train was an area of the training ground that was made to allow up to four bijuus to spar with each other. The area was lined with so many seals the line was a foot thick and is visible from air. The seals are meant to keep the destruction and their power leaks just within the perimeter and preventing the entire village from thinking that another Kyuubi attack was happening." She said before entering into some weird technobabble about the seals used and how they function, most of which just flew over her head.

But now, she understood. She understood why they're called the ultimate weapon of a village, how powerful they are, how they are hated yet wanted, and how they are, no matter how insanely powerful they may be, not much different to other people. Sure they could morph into a gigantic engine of pure, unbridled destruction and death, but at the same time, they are a loving and kind family, one that would do anything to help another who's in need without asking for anything in return. Sure, she was partially terrified of them at first ever since she knew about them, their demonic nature and how the ever-kind Hinata could massacre hundreds brutally. Well, anybody would, really. But now that she stayed with them, even if it's just for a while, she understood them better. And one of the main things that she understood was the fact that people misunderstood them. And she was even more determined than before to change her parents' opinion on them.

And now, here she was, heading towards her home after an entire day of extremely heavy, eye opening training. Once again, if not for Kushina and Hinata healing her sorry ass, she would've been dead a couple hundred times over because of their training. Torture would've been a better word, but even she understood that the only way for her to grow in skills was to endure the insane training schedule that they made for her.

As she was lost in her thoughts, she didn't realise that she already reached her house until she snapped from her thoughts due to her crashing into the fence. Surprised yet happy, she immediately opened the gate before going to the door and opening it with her key. Unlike yesterday, she didn't say a word as she entered the house, going straight to the stairs towards her room.

But unfortunately for her, her mother once again poked her head inside, this time from the back of the house. And when she saw the silhouette of her daughter, she immediately rushed towards her, and enveloped her in a bone crushing hug even as tears fell from her face.

"Oh, honey! We're really, really sorry about yesterday! We didn't mean to shout at you!"

Smiling, she returned her mother's hug before saying, "Don't worry mom. I understand. I'm sorry for running away too."

"Oh, honey..." Mebuki said. "Please, understand that what we want is only for your own good. We don't want you to associate yourself with them because they're demons." She said as she let her daughter go before looking at her straight in the eyes.

"Mom..." Sakura started. It's going to be tough to change their perception of the family, but she won't back down from that task she set herself. "They're all good person. They even apologized to me, and said that they're not angry at you for blaming them. Please, mom. They're not as bad as you think they are."

"Sakura..." Her mother said, her tone suspicious. "What manner of evil demon magic did they put you in? How can you be so trusting of them?"

"Mom..."

"No, Sakura! You've been poisoned by them! They're demons! They're inhuman! They're all murderers and killers! How could you justify staying with them?!" Her mother screamed into her face.

"It's because it's what we are!" Sakura countered loudly. "We're ninjas! We are meant to be murderers! Killers! Assassins! It's what we are! It's practically the job description!"

"Honey," Her mother slowly said, trying to change Sakura's mind about the Demon Family. "Please, just... don't be close to them. It's for your own good." Her mother said, her tone pleading at the end. However, Sakura was having none of that.

"I'm sorry mom, but I think it'll take more than that to change your mind." She then looked straight into her mother's eyes with a determined look, something that worried her. "Mom, I'm going to stay with them for a while. I won't be back during that time. Don't wait for me."

Immediately Mebuki had a horrified look on her face as she replied to her in unconcealed horror. "What?! Sakura, you're crazy!"

"Mom, please." Sakura said, her tone pleading this time. "They're trying to train me to be the best I can be. And also, I wanted to change your mind regarding them. They're all good people, mom. I hope you can see that. Don't worry. I'm sure that they'll have no problem allowing you to visit me, but know that I won't be back until some time, maybe a couple of months. If you really missed me, just come to their clan compound. I'm sure you know where that is, right?" Sakura spoke again, hoping to quench her mother's worries.

"Sakura! Please! Why can't you choose some other place else to train? We'll gladly sponsor you if need be!" her mother said, on the verge of tears due to her daughter's stubbornness.

Sakura shook her head and replied. "No, mom. You don't understand. They pushed me to my limits and beyond with no regards to who or what I am. That is the only way for me to improve. You don't know the feeling of uselessness that came on me as all of my friends protected me, as everyone else was under attack by enemies. I will NOT let that happen again. And as such, this is the only way for me to improve." She finished before she went upstairs to pack her stuff, leaving her mother kneeling on the floor in tears at her daughter's stubbornness.

A while later, Sakura came back downstairs, her stuff all packed within storage scrolls the family provided her, making it look like she's not packing anything when she actually had everything within those small scrolls stored within her weapons pouch. Seeing that her mother was still in the same kneeling position where she left her, she kneeled in front of her before hugging her. "Don't worry mom. I'll be fine. I'm just going to disappear for a couple of months, not even a year."

Snapped out of her catatonic state by her daughter's hug, she immediately returned the hug as tight as she can. "You're so stubborn." She said, still in tears. "Can't I change your mind?"

Smiling, Sakura whispered. "No, mom." Standing up, she said again. "Don't worry mom. I'll be fine. You can come visit me anytime, no problem. They'll gladly allow you in if I were to know them."

"But they're evil!" her mom said in protest.

"Don't start this again, mom. And as I said, try visiting their mansion once in a while and you'll understand. They're but humans, like us." Sakura said before she stood and went straight to the door. "Alright, mom. I'm leaving now. Take care. Give my regards to dad. I'll see you later. If you want to." She said before she left her house, leaving her mother on the floor, still crying about the fate of her daughter.

No one saw the tears that fell from Sakura's eyes as she left her house, already missing her family.

A quick fast forward later, we are back at the Uzumaki-Namikaze's mansion, where Sakura was standing in front of the four members of the clan. "I'm staying here for a while," She said. "Looking forward to living with you guys."

Stepping forward with a huge grin on his face, Naruto shook Sakura's relatively tiny palm in his huge grip before saying, "Glad to have you." As he went back to the clan member's line, Kushina said. "You'll be pushed hard in this time. Remember that."

"I will." Sakura said. And thus began a new chapter in Sakura's life as her training with the Uzumaki-Namikazes began in all honesty...

-THE NEXT DAY, TEAM 7'S MEETING SPOT-

Kakashi was pretending to be late again as usual as he observed the members of his team from his perch on a tree quite far away from where his team was, out of Sakura's small range of chakra detection, his little orange book in his hand as usual. Looking at them, he realised that Sakura was somewhat subdued compared to her usual exuberance. She still had that crush on Sasuke, but it didn't look as bad as it usually does. In fact, he thought that she seemed to be more alert and ready compared to how she usually does. "Guess that eye-opener of a mission really shook her worse than what I thought initially. Oh well. At least it won't be something bad for her." Kakashi thought.

Appearing in a Leaf Shunshin behind his team, he spoke with a cheery voice. "Hello there my cute little genins! Sorry I'm, late. An old woman needs my help crossing the road before I needed to carry her all the way to her house slowly. That's why I'm late." He said with his usual eye-smile.

Much to his chagrin, his team, with the exception of Sai, just rolled their eyes at his antiques and faced him like a good team, saying nothing. Sighing, he said, "Alright, alright." He then turned cheerful back again instantly. "Now! After the insane fiasco that was our C turned A rank mission, I'm sure most of you would just like some slower-paced mission for the day! So let's go to the mission office and do some D-ranks!" before he jumped away, ignoring the irritated sigh of his team at performing the stupid chores that was the D-ranks.

And so they did their first mission of the day: chopping firewood for an old couple at the outskirts of Konoha. As his team performed the mission, Kakashi realised that something's changed within the team. Sasuke was as antisocial as usual, Sai was as emotionless and creepy as ever, but Sakura...

Kakashi kept an eye on Sakura. She felt... off, to say the least. And as she took the axe from Sasuke when he got tired while Sai was off carrying the firewood to the lumber shed, he saw something that he thought was impossible from Sakura. Sakura placed the log on the cutting stump, as what you should do. But during the split second when she lifted her axe and smashed it on the lumber, he saw that she had no problem performing the heavy task that she wasn't even supposed to perform, and performed it well too.

After watching Sakura chop off lumber at a rate faster than that of Sasuke as he recovered himself, Kakashi went to Sakura before saying. "You're doing well, it seems."

"Kakashi-sensei." Sakura said as she wiped the sweat of off her head.

"How actually could you chop the wood that fast? The axe isn't too sharp, so I find it weird." Kakashi asked, forgoing subtlety and went straight to the point.

"Well," Sakura began. "I channelled chakra to my muscles, making them stronger and tougher. Because of that, I can chop these logs easily." She spoke.

Kakashi was impressed. Somehow, in just two days, his genin managed to find the method to reinforce her own muscles to perform something that she wasn't able to do. His thoughts were cut short as she herad Sakura add. "I will not let myself be a burden again, like during the Wave mission. I will not be the weak link in Team 7 no more, Kakashi-sensei. This is one of the first steps that I can perform to stop myself from being a burden to Team 7."

"Good!" Kakashi said, praising her determination. "Though you might need to find a better motivation than that. It isn't too strong, you know. A stronger determination can push you even further." Kakashi said, causing her to blush a little at her so-called weak motivation. "But Sakura," Kakashi asked. "Doesn't that take a lot of chakra? I mean, you didn't have so much to begin with." Kakashi said. True, her muscular reinforcements was impressive, but a major problem with it was that it'll take a boatload of chakra, something that kunoichi in general didn't have, and her even more so.

"Don't worry about that." Sakura replied, dismissing Kakashi's concern about her. "It's a form of training too."

Meanwhile, at the Uzumaki-Namikaze training grounds, Sakura's chakra was being refilled for the umpteenth time for the day. "My damn clone uses too much chakra," She said to Kushina while lying down, panting hard all the time.

After the mission, Kakashi took another D-rank mission, picking up trash in Konoha's parks before having his team spar against each other as their training for the day. And much to his shock, Sakura, with her newfound skill in muscular enhancement was able to fight on par with Sasuke and Sai, and her punches, one which nearly tore a tree in half, much to his team's horror, was something that they found was to be avoided at all costs.

"I wonder how she improved so fast." Kakashi thought. "I guess I'll train them harder starting tomorrow. The Chuunin Exam's in two months some, and if the rate at which they improve remained steady or increasing, I'll be sure to have them enter the exams. It'll be a great experience for them, and if they got promoted, even better."

Watching as Sakura blew apart another of Sai's ink beasts with her fearsome punches, he continued his line of thought. "Sasuke had Itachi to train him but Sai and Sakura didn't have anyone. I'll put them through the ringer starting tomorrow. Maybe even teach both of them some jutsus to get them ready for the exams."

And so he continued to observe his team as they sparred against each other, trying to improve both their teamwork and their individual combat skills. As the sun sets, Kakashi ended their meeting for the day, letting his team to go back to their respective homes, not realising that the Sakura he was watching the entire day pop into chakra smoke somewhere hidden, letting her master gain all its knowledge and chakra, once again causing Sakura to scream out in pain, though she could handle it better now.

-TIMESKIP 2 MONTHS-

It's been two months since Sakura started staying with the Uzumaki-Namikazes, and her improvements are nothing short of stellar. Within those two months, she trained everything and anything that she could, improving her skill levels by a huge level. Her taijutsu, although she uses only academy-style, had been improved so much that she was capable of using them at its full capacity, which when combined with the improvement that the training seals gave her, allows her to weave and duck any attack before smashing her opponent's face with an extremely strong, chakra reinforced punch. Sasuke and Sai, even Kakashi learned that the hard way.

Another aspect of hers that was improved was her speed. At first, due to her own lack of training and her diet, she didn't have the speed necessary to do anything worthwhile against an enemy. But with the self adjusting training seals that she used, combined with the feast that Kurumi and Hinata usually made every day gave her enough nutrients to improve her body that she now was faster than most chuunins with her seals off. The first time she disabled the seals, which was done every weekend, she literally flew as her entire body's coordination went out the proverbial window due to the massive increase of speed that she gained from the resistance training the seals provide. It took her some time to regain her hard-earned body coordination back, but once she did, even Hinata was forced to take her a bit more seriously, though she was still nowhere near Hinata's real level.

Another side effect of the seals, the heavy training and her pretty much nonexistent diet in the Uzumaki-Namikazes was that even her basic, non-chakra enhanced stats have improved massively. The woodcutting mission, when they retook it, didn't even need her chakra enhancement, though the seals on her still limit her capabilities, which means that she cannot show her full capabilities in front of her teammates, though they still felt the increase in her skills.

One of their training methods that worked wonders but was very hard on her was the creation of Shadow Clones and a no-holds barred deathmatch between her and her own army of clones. Since her clones are practically herself, doing so would enable her to identify her own weakness and strengths and counter them quickly, also allowing her to counter one's attempt to counter her attacks. It works, but the massive chakra requirement and the backlash from them when Kushina filled hers and her clone's chakra to the brim really made her scream out in pain at first. But once she was used to it, it was nothing but an annoyance at best.

With her increase in taijutsu skills, she was capable of keeping up with Sasuke and Sai, even without chakra reinforcement and even hit them once in a while. Her rapid improvement even impressed Anko who appeared a multitude of times to just chill down and decided to help her in training. As usual, it wasn't a pleasant memory to train with Anko, but it sure did improve her skills by a lot. She even gave some pointers for her taijutsu skills.

All that training and the making of Shadow Clones and chakra expenditure had another effect on her: a totally massive increase of chakra level, but it came at an extremely hefty cost, which was an insane amount of pain every time. The pain was so intense that for an entire week, she ended up nearly destroying her voice box from the sheer volume of her screams if not for the entire clan's capability to heal her back to full capacity easily. But by two weeks, she was more than capable of gritting her teeth and enduring the pain during the chakra return process. Further two weeks in and she was able to move even with the pain, and in another two weeks, she was so inured to the intense pain that she could even continue fighting even when she was stabbed by kunais by Anko, saying that "It stings," as she went against her in a kunai duel. She lost, obviously, but being able to fight well even with two kunais stabbed into your abdomen as blood poured out from the wounds was something that even Anko had to admit was totally badass.

Her chakra was practically at what the Uzumaki-Namikazes call a 'decent' level, which was pretty much the level of chakra a recently promoted jounin would have. And this coming from a clan whose members have at least Kage level chakra while new members were practically born with jounin level chakra, really meant that she improved a whole friggin' lot. With this increase of chakra also came an increase in chakra control exercises. And thanks to the increase of chakra and her Shadow Clones, she was able to train her control so that they reached a point where it was almost as good as they were before her training, and considering the amount of chakra she had now, that's pretty damn good.

In jutsus, that's where Kakashi's unheard promise that he'll train his team better came in. The Uzumaki-Namikazes didn't teach her jutsus, saying that "The basics are more important. No use mastering an instakill mass murdering jutsu if someone could just Shunshin behind you and stab you before you could do anything." Kakashi, however, didn't follow the same philosophy, and taught not just Sakura, but also Sai some jutsus according to their elemental types. Much to no one's surprise, Sakura's element was earth while to everyone's surprise, Sai's was fire, something that shocked everyone. And so, Kakashi taught her two offensive jutsus and one defensive, the Doton: Mud Wall while teaching Sai the Katon: Grand Fireball jutsu. Notifying Kushina of this, her training regiment was increased, in that she'll need to train the jutsus that she learned from Kakashi to perfection, stating that "Better a handful of completely mastered jutsus than a ton of unmastered jutsu."

Thanks to the Uzumaki-Namikazes practice on concentrating more on basics, she nearly mastered all of the Academy 3, with her Clone technique being her best, probably due to its focus on chakra control and due to her experience with the Shadow Clones. She had also improved immensely on her Substitution, being able to perform it with just one hand sign one handed, or one two handed handsign with less chakra usage, though nowadays she won't have so much problem with chakra considering the training that she was put through. Her Transformation was also pretty good, being able to identify key points for a new look in seconds and changing into said look in seconds as well.

Also, Kakashi started to take more and more C-ranks for them, though most of them are quite easy with no chance of any powerful ninjas attacking. And much unlike their disastrous C-rank, all of them managed to show their full capabilities during the missions, considering that there are no attacking rogue ninjas during their missions. She went through her share of combat, though most of them are only against weak bandits and highwaymen. They are no match against well-trained ninjas, though they still haven't had their first kills yet. Most of the C ranks are fairly simple: scroll delivery, merchant escort, item fetching or just the same as a D rank but performed much further, taking days at a time. Of course, the missions are all performed by a Shadow Clone, but no one needs to know that.

And to her pleasant surprise, all that training and her proper diet had an extra side effect: it made her look good. In fact, she looked good and felt better than she ever did before! She found out that her hips are fuller and her butt looks fitter now. She even grew an inch or two and no longer looked too scrawny while also not looking like an anorexic idiot. Not just that, her arms, looking more like branches before according to Kushina, now looks tougher and fitter, yet at the same time it increases their beauty while not looking too muscular for some reason. Kushina said that it's because of the way her muscles grew, but all that crap she said just flew over her head as usual. Now, she looked like a true kunoichi, beautiful and graceful, yet with an undercurrent of extreme violence lying just underneath that fair skin of hers. She even gained a cup size on her bra! Training was awesome!

Also, within those two months, she learned a lot about the Uzumaki-Namikazes and their associates. Much to her surprise, one of their main visitors was Mitarashi Anko, one of the, if not downright the most sadistic bitch this side of the Elemental Nations and the second bearer of the Snake Contract and also the second-in-command of the Torture & Interrogation Department or TI for short. She learned that the Uzumaki-Namikazes helped remove her Cursed Seal of Heaven, which she explained after threatening to sic her snakes on Sakura if she ever breathed her secret to someone else. And she also learned that the seal was changed into something else, what she called the Blessed Seal, containing the purified youki of Kurumi within it. She also learned some of the strange habits of the family, the most prominent being Naruto's habit of having sex anywhere in the house. A strange habit for sure, but after a month of coming face-to-face with Naruto while he's boning either of his wives, she understood why Kushina could be so nonchalant about both the act and the sight. No one actually knew why he did that, not even himself. The entire family speculates that it's because of his demonic nature, though no one knows for sure. It's just that he's fine with it being anywhere in the house and if it's within sight of someone that they consider themselves in good terms with. It also taught her more than she needs to know about sex and the hows. To be frank though, she REALLY didn't need a live demonstration of the act. Really.

The entire family was just whacked-out crazy sometimes.

Also, another of their most common visitor was the Sandaime Hokage himself, Sarutobi Hiruzen. At first, she was shocked and humbled when she saw that the Hokage himself came there, but after she heard the rundown of Naruto's history and the fact that he came there often to train makes her felt more confident with herself. And she once saw Naruto sparring against the old man. And what she saw sent her jaw on a straight route to the ground, rocketing with an invisible blast of wind. The Hokage was capable of fighting on par with Naruto, even with all his bloodline's capability and the Hokage's advanced age! He threw tightly controlled, high powered jutsus at exactly where it was needed at the right time, his elemental combos are extremely deadly and his movements made Sakura look like a drunken idiot! Needless to say, Sakura grew to respect the Hokage even more so after that single training session.

Another prominent visitor was one of the members of the Sannin, the self-proclaimed Super Pervert, Jiraiya. Being Naruto's godfather (of which his lack of presence still kinda pissed Naruto off), he was given access to the estate, though Naruto's quite perverted nature immediately disappeared in his presence. When she enquired about it, Naruto replied, "I don't want me nor my wives be his inspiration for his books." He said nothing else, which left Sakura confused. Nevertheless, the Toad Sage was a great guy to talk with, constantly speaking about his journeys and his writing, though he rarely trained with Naruto, saying that there was nothing else that he could teach him and his family. His tone was quite sad as he spoke those words for some reason.

But not everything went as well as she'd hoped. Along the two months she was staying at the Uzumaki-Namikazes, not even once did her parents came to visit her. In fact, she never even saw them once every time her clone went out to team meetings. Either they did their best to avoid her, or worse, she was disowned from her family, a thought that she wouldn't even entertain. Her parents will never be that bad! Her parents still didn't accept the Uzumaki-Namikazes, nor do they made any attempt on making peace with them, if the death glares that her mother kept shooting at Kurumi and Naruto as they met her during the council meetings are to be believed. And she did believe them. There's no reason not to, especially since she already saw what effect just saying their names did to her parents. But she won't give up. She knew that she could change her parents' mind on the Uzumaki-Namikazes, and it's something that she won't stop trying. But for now, she's here, and she'll train her ass out first. Her family could come later, once she finished her training with them.

Today, the members of Team 7 were waiting at their usual spot, the bridge close to TG 7 to wait for the arrival of Kakashi who's extremely late, as usual. They leaned on the railing of the bridge, not saying a word. This is a common sight for the team, since Sasuke's quite antisocial, no matter what anyone said. And Sai... every time he opens his mouth, an insult or two hundred came flying out without restraint, so the entire team urged him to just close his mouth. Nevertheless, they're a great team with great teamwork, and each teammate was more than skilled enough to go up against anything they meet.

In a swirl of leafs, Kakashi appeared in front of his team, his eye-smile showing as always. "Good morning my cute little genins! Sorry I'm late, I-"

"Can it Kakashi-sensei." Sakura spoke. She was actually chosen as the unofficial spokesperson of the team in an unvocalised election using nothing but eye-contact, such is their teamwork. "We're all here now, and you're late enough as it is, and it's no longer morning. It's afternoon already. So what's our activity for today?" She said again.

The next thing the entire team saw was that Kakashi was kneeling on the bridge, using his finger to trace circles on the bridge even as a raincloud of despair appeared on his head, a rain of despair pouring all over him. "I just want to have some fun... My cute little genins are not so cute now..." he said, depression written all over his masked face and in his lone visible eye.

The next instant, he was back to his usual cheerful disposition with a huge, arching eye-smile on his face. "Alright! Enough of that!" he said, more to himself than to his genins, all of which was rolling their eyes at this scene, even Sai. "Now," he said, taking out a bunch of papers from a pocket on his flak jacket. "All of you have trained hard during the two months after the Wave fiasco. All of you have improved by leaps and bounds, an improvement level unlike anything I've ever seen. Especially Sakura. And so, in all of my capability as your jounin sensei, I have judged all of you to be capable of entering the Chuunin Exams which will be held in Konoha this time. These," he said, handing the three their forms, "Are your respective forms for the entrance of the exams. They start the next week, so please be present at the academy, room 303. It's your choice whether to go or not to go." Preparing to leave, he turned towards his team before continuing. "Today's a rest day for all of you. Go back home, think about it and make sure that you make the right decision. I'm sure you all will make me proud." He said, pride apparent in his tone before he disappeared in a leaf Shunshin again.

Gripping her paper tight, Sakura said to the rest of her team member. "Guys, I think we should enter the exam. Kakashi-sensei had been training us hard for this, and I'm sure we're more than ready to enter this exam, no matter what we may encounter."

Hearing this, Sasuke scoffed. "Of course."

With his creepy smile (though it's getting better nowadays), Sai responded. "We'll definitely enter, Sakura-san." He was pummelled to the ground the last couple of time he called her Pinky or Washboard, though now she's not much of a washboard anymore, so he learned his lesson. And the main lesson was: Sakura's fist hurt harder than any jutsu!

"Yeah! We'll enter, and we'll definitely win this! We'll all get promoted together!" She shouted out, pumping her fist into the air. "At least, until we need to fight the Uzumaki-Namikazes..." the thought of going up against Kushina, Naruto or Hinata really blew her spirit apart, but she won't let that be a deterrent to her!

And so, that day, the members of Team 7 went their separate ways, all fired up to enter the Chuunin Exams on the next week, not knowing just what awaits them there...

-CHAPTER END-