A/N: If you are glad to see this chapter, feel gratitude towards Leaf Babe, who used the tried and true method of fanart to guilt me into returning to this fandom after spending so long on TRuS. If you happen to notice antiquated diction, please excuse it by way of my long sojourn. And then, who should come along but UzzleCue? Check out the links on my profile. I promise that they're absolutely worth your time.

First Flower of Spring

-Chapter Sixteen-

A More Perfect Madness (Part I)

Some might argue that the katana was the most perfect weapon ever designed by the human mind, but fear was a weapon devised by the gods.

Sakura admired its artistry as she stood apart from its touch, distant and immovable behind the petals that bloomed in her heart. It would have been far more clever in this case to had done away with the genjutsu, which hadn't a hope from the beginning of trapping the most dangerous jounin, allowing the civilians in the stands to do the work on behalf of the enemy shinobi.

If it was her invasion, that was what she would have done, forcing the defending shinobi to not only defeat her smaller force, but contend with the panicked masses without injuring the noncombatants who were under their protection. She could almost picture it, the way the glutted stadium would become a seething charnel house of chaos and fear, all shinobi becoming enemies in the dull cow-eyes of the people who'd come to see blood sport without any appreciation of the irony that they were about to become intimately acquainted with it.

"Sakura," Shiho-nii said urgently.

Sakura blinked, tearing her attention from the scene below and dutifully turning it to Shiho-nii.

"Sakura, you're blooming." Only the distress clearly written on his face reminded her that this was something bad, because she no longer feared her bloodright.

Instead it seemed as if a hazy layer had been peeled from the world, all the colors writ more vividly, all the people in it edged more sharply. She hadn't been allowed to do this since she'd become heir proper, so she'd tucked away the memory of how immensely wonderful the sensation was. When her kekkei genkai was sealed away, all she could remember of it was darkness and horror, but now she could recall the way her heart had beat against her chest like it would escape, the adrenaline and dopamine flooding her system as she was pressed to the very edge of her capabilities and beyond. The incredible focus she'd been able to bring to bear, unhampered by emotional ties.

But she was not yet in the First Flower and, regardless, she had memorized Shiho-nii's expressions to use as a guide when her own morals evaporated. That might not matter to her if the petals had unfolded more fully, but for now it was enough. So Sakura took control of that odd pocket of chakra that sheltered beneath the interior curve of her skull and halted its spread before it could manifest in her eyes.

Despite Shiho-nii's disapproval, she didn't force the petals to shrivel completely. This was an advantage she couldn't cede at the moment. Or, perhaps, wouldn't. Until the Thousand Generation Flower bloomed, fear was a heady song of joy.

-\\-\\-/-/-

Shiho's physical body hardly felt warmth or chill, but he shuddered as his link with Sakura was saturated in her chakra. It eddied around him like the ocean testing the solid weight of an anchor, but he held firm against it. Jun had shaken him, shaken him badly, because the last thing he wanted Sakura to do was to think of him as nothing more than a chain. But he wanted to think-no, he knew, that the Sakura of the present still had enough humanity that she would regret giving over to Jun's gleeful monstrosity or Shiki-dono's placid amorality.

He knew that she would not remain a child forever and that, regardless of Haruno heritage, age and her lifestyle would erase the vestiges of the girl with candy-floss hair who'd clung to his knee and told him that she was frightened of her cousin. But Shiho had treasured that Sakura. He would never leave her, no matter what she would become in the future, but he wanted to be able to reconcile that child with the adult she would become.

But, as he looked out over the chaotic battlefield that the arena had become, he thought privately to himself that while he didn't want her to become a monster, he would do everything in his power to hone Sakura into something untouchable. Even if the cost...no, he wouldn't think of that.

He'd seen Shiki-dono fade like mist into the crowd, that blandly pleased smile crossing his face while his gaze was fixed on the balcony where the Kage had been seated. Shiki-dono cared only for the clan. Everything else in existence in the world was a source amusement or annoyance. If Orochimaru managed to slaughter every man, woman, and child in this village, Shiki-dono's likeliest response would be to applaud politely.

"Sakura," he said urgently, "you need to get Gaara out of the stadium." The jounin were occupied with the active threats, no matter how sinister the building power in the sand-egg was.

Sakura nodded calmly, her jade gaze cool and assessing. All it was was a problem of power and logistics. No fear made it urgent, no hesitance at the sheer rage and hate emanating from the young Suna shinobi would lose her the battle. He suppressed his instinctive shudder. Fear, rage, hate-all of them were the symptoms of being human. Without them...

Without them, one was really just a weapon capable of taking human shape. And that was what brought the clan full circle.

In an agile twist of her body, Sakura was perched on the railing for only moments before she leaned forward, almost falling but for the firm grip of her hands. She walked her feet back up the wall, adjusting the angle of her body. And then she sprang, summoning his body as she did so, stretching out and tucking it into her side until guan dao and girl were a single arrow shot straight into the sphere below.

Sleeves billowing behind him, Shiho followed her flight. The blade of a clansmen never dulled, but there was something more he could do for her that mere steel, no matter how well tempered, could not. Not unless it too possessed a soul. But Sakura was too young yet, her own chakra systems too vulnerable to bear it. For now he was helpless to do aught but guide, his chakra trapped in the between place where it slept, not fully in the weapon his body had become and not quite residing in Sakura's coils. Once, when he'd been newly dead, the chakra had fully resided in his bones, but as the bond between weapon and wielder had grown, there'd been a long, subtle shift toward Sakura. One day it would be complete and his water-dominant chakra could aid her, but now...

Now he could only watch her charge into battle, her candy-floss braid whipping in the wind like a pennant, her mouth a firm slash of determination.

Just before she reached the effective range of the poison that the Uchiha boy had used, she hurled several kunai with all her not inconsiderable might. The glass shattered easily, spilling a cloud of powder into the air and dusting the blue-veined sphere like a daifuku with a particularly unappetizing center. The Uchiha's dark eyes trained on her sharply. "We need to move him," Sakura said, but a natural arrogance imbedded in the tone made it a command.

The boy's eyes narrowed sharply, but it was a brief gesture, lost in the next moment when he nodded. "How?"

It was a very good question, for neither of their skillsets were particularly suited to the task of moving Gaara as he was. There was only one good solution. "We have to shatter his sand shield," Sakura said, voicing his thought.

Irritation flashed briefly across Sasuke's face. "How?" he repeated, more demandingly this time.

The corners of Sakura's mouth tilted upwards in a grin. "I hadn't thought you'd forgotten my favorite tactic already."

Sasuke's brows rose. "Explosives? But you only use paper explosives. There's nowhere near enough powder to create the kind of force you'd need."

The grin on Sakura's face approached feral, jade eyes gleaming. "Not normally, no. But set in the proper amplification seal..."

An answering smirk broke on the features of her teammate. Sealing jutsu and the relating sub-section of amplification seals weren't normally considered combat arts, given that they took time and preparation without the guarantee of being useful in any given battle. Most shinobi never bothered to learn more than the basic seals used for convenience, such as the ubiquitous scroll storage seal. Creating a seal in the heat of battle was possible, of course, but only a fuinjutsu master could do one of any complexity.

Neither Sakura nor Sakura were that talented, but they had one clear advantage-for the moment, their target was completely stationary. Though for how much longer remained to be seen.

-\\-\\-/-/-

Not all the trembling in Sasuke's limbs was due to adrenalin and excitement, but he'd rather bite through his own tongue than admit it. As he raced to trace the correct pattern in the sandy floor of the arena, using all his hard-won speed, he was very quietly glad for Sakura's composure, because his pride wouldn't allow him to be anything less than the equal of his teammate.

Their seal would be compromised by not being written out properly in chakra-infused ink, but he could only hope it would be enough. They had to be careful not to sweep the poison he'd meant to trap Gaara with into the air with the speed of their movements, but they were both taking care. He liked that about working with Sakura-he never felt the need to supervise her work.

Within seconds, they had the seal in place and the entirety of their combined stores of paper explosives set on the appropriate intervals. Sakura's share had earned her a disbelieving glance, but it was, as she'd said, one of her favorite gambits.

The shield had lost its perfect spherical shape by the time they'd finished, lumps beginning to protrude from the surface, and Sakura barely let them gain a safe distance before she activated the first tag.

He happened by chance to glance over at his teammate as the linked explosions fed each other in a swelling roar. The transformation from her usual somber, serious self was so startling that he had an instant's thought there was another genjutsu at work. Her eyes shimmered, their jade stark and clear, and she was for once not looking as wholly ferocious as she usually did. That Sakura was serious, dedicated, overly literal-but this Sakura looked capable of laughter, her cheeks lent color by the fight, her whole being imbued with a sense of movement. It was the first time since he'd known her that she actually looked like a child, caught up in some game.

It was unnerving, so he looked away, shielding his eyes as their engineered explosion proved itself wildly successful. Perhaps too successful, he thought with a mental wince as a distracted Konoha shinobi was thrown off balance by the concussion wave and earned himself a long gash across his ribs.

Waiting patiently for the dust to settle was painful, but Gaara was too good an opponent to risk going into battle even the slightest bit impaired.

But he smirked widely when he saw that the awkward growth had stopped, the whole structure riddled with cracks. Even as he watched, Gaara's sand fell away, leaving only a dazed young ninja half-kneeling in the arena. Before a sense of triumph even had time to steal over him, Sakura was darting forward and he found himself following her lead.

Her guan dao came down like lightning, but there was a crash like thunder as the stroke that might have split Gaara's skull open was caught on the broad arm of Temari's fan. The older girl opened her mouth as if to say something, but Sakura's grip on her weapon was already shifting. Temari had to duck low to avoid the path of Sakura's foot, but she managed to unfurl her fan enough to force the smaller girl to retreat.

Sasuke's impression that Temari hadn't been fighting Shikamaru seriously was born out by the knife-edged gust of wind that roared from the spread fan. Even though he'd retreated at the first hint of movement, not bothering to waste his kunai hurling them into a gale-force wind, it tore through the reinforced silk fibers of his shirt and left deep wounds on unprotected skin. They didn't hurt yet-chakra-honed wind was sharper than any steel edge could hope to be-but you could bleed a man to death through a thousand cuts as easily as one.

Sakura's outfit left much less skin exposed and her shirt, if not her wraps or pants, had fared far better against the wind. Given how it hung on her frame, he'd suspected it had once belonged to someone else, but this convinced him. There were better weaves available than the one in his current shirt, but they were very expensive-so much so that he hadn't seen the point in wasting money on them when he would only grow out of the clothes before he'd be highly ranked enough to be sent on the kind of missions that required that kind of armor. The shirt she wore had probably once belonged to a jounin. They were the only kind of shinobi with the need, the currency, and the connections.

But his curiosity about the shirt she'd inherited or bought-that wasn't impossible, many of the jounin who came from civilian families had their things sold after their deaths-was something in the way of a tertiary concern. His primary one was that the painted shinobi with the dumb cat-hood had swooped in and scooped Gaara's limp form up. Tossing him over his shoulder with ease, he made a swift retreat from the stadium.

Sasuke would have leaped forward and followed, but Sakura's hand caught at the high collar of his shirt and stopped his forward momentum in a very undignified way. With hardly a glance at them, Temari followed the other Suna shinobi.

Frowning ferociously and swatting her hand free, he snarled at her, "They're getting away!"

Her tone was cutting. "If you want every civilian in the stadium dead, why don't you just do it yourself?"

He blinked at her, bemused by the accusation.

An impatient breath hissed over her lips. "Gaara's fighting style-you remember his range from the preliminaries, don't you? Lee couldn't avoid it and he's the fastest shinobi not jounin rank. Civilians would be like so many cattle waiting for the slaughter. And that newest form..."

She shook her head. "Gaara wouldn't mind that much carnage, but as Konohagakure shinobi, aside from the fact that it's a tactic that would demoralize our ranks and make the civilians more likely to concede to and cooperate with the demands of the invading force if this battle goes badly for us, it's our primary duty at this moment to minimize civilian casualties. Give them a few moment's lead. We won't be limited by those considerations once they reach the forest."

Even though his past held the horrors it did, he hadn't considered the other people in the stands. Somehow this had seemed entirely a shinobi matter. No Konoha ninja would fight like that. A part of him couldn't even believe that Sakura's response wasn't one of self-righteous anger, but something that was almost approval. He was disgusted, too, at the way she'd prioritized the morale of the shinobi over the lives of all the people in the stadium.

Sasuke might admire Sakura, but there were times, like now, when he wasn't certain he liked her. At all.

But his feelings didn't make her judgment any less valid and he was a good enough ninja to separate the two.

"If we're giving them time to retreat," Sakura said, breaking him from his thoughts, "we might as well take the opportunity to do some recruitment. Gaara might be ranked a gennin, but any idiot can see that not all is well in Suna. Temari-san and Kankuro-san are old enough and skilled enough to be at least chunnin. And the Kazekage's never displayed any reservations at promoting on skill alone. Gaara is a gennin yet for a reason." She frowned, her gaze growing thoughtful. "I wonder..." she shook the thought away.

"Let's leave the situation here in the hands of the jounin-no need to distract them. Who's fresh enough to fight yet?"

"Naruto," Sasuke conceded grudgingly. There was something very wrong about the boy's chakra recovery rate. And his healing, for that matter. "Shino. And the ones who were disqualified during the preliminary."

"None of the ones eliminated during the preliminary. They're a bad match, except for Hyuuga-san. And she likely isn't fully recovered. That's a pity. I'll speak to Aburame-san, while you collect Naruto-kun. He's probably under the genjutsu."

Sasuke scowled but did as she suggested, finding Naruto snoring contentedly on the floor just outside the exit of one of the stairwells. A harder-than-strictly necessary kick to the ribs had him awake and gasping, but he overrode his complaints and explained in no uncertain terms exactly what they were going to do. And, for good measure and because he was irked by this turn of events, he intentionally stepped on the pretending Shikamaru.

Then, before anyone could naysay the plan, they slipped from the arena and fell in with Sakura and Shino. It was clear from the sober looks on all faces save Sakura's that the startling events were sinking in. They'd all been on missions before, but this, this was personal. It was their home that had been attacked. There was no room for fear, even though they'd seen their jounin, who'd been something just short of gods to the young genin, struggle and sometimes fall against the enemy. For all the competitiveness of it, the exam was a game that only had the potential to be deadly.

This was the first act of war.

-\\-\\-/-/-

When they came at last upon Gaara, much recovered and sneering at them with all the haughtiness and strange remove of a lion in his prime, Sakura gripped her weapon so tightly that her knuckles went white. There was a strange fluttering in her chest. She knew no fear, so it could only be anticipation that made her feel that way.

Because, with only Sasuke and Naruto remaining, this was one opponent that she didn't need to hold anything back from. She could bloom in all senses of the word. She hadn't realized until this moment what an everyday burden fear was in her life. Fear of displeasing Ran-oba-san, disappointing Shiho-nii, inadvertently disobeying Shiki-dono, of having made the wrong decision about Jun, and even occasionally the small, nagging fear that none of her teammates liked her.

Now there was none of that weighing on her narrow shoulders. She was, for once, free.

She almost ignored the angry dialogue between her teammates and Gaara, instead watching very closely the other shinobi's body language. Before she'd bloomed, she'd feared his desire for bloodshed because it seemed like a skewed reflection of her own potential. Now she could watch him, really watch him. She'd said before that it was undirected, all-consuming, and it was, but she'd thought that was intentional. Now she was beginning to have doubts. There was something manic about him now, like the earlier battles had worn away the veneer of silent control and left him bare to her eyes.

Gaara's hand was twitching ever so faintly and his breathing was irregular. His eyes had been red during their first meeting, but the burst blood vessels were so noticeable now that it almost looked as if his own sand had rubbed them raw.

A thought stole up on her. What if those kohl-encircled eyes weren't a fashion statement? What if they hid a more telling sign of weakness? One that could cause hallucinations, impair reasoning, and cause erratic behavior much like being drunk?

Acute total sleep deprivation? Or chronic sleep deprivation? Whichever it was, whatever its cause, Sakura examined its potential as a weakness and dismissed it. If they could get him to sleep, it would be a deep, heavy sleep, but his sand shield made method of application a daunting question even if they'd had more of the drug Sasuke'd intended to use earlier. Though her conclusion did make the fine hairs on her arm stand on end with apprehension. Sleep deprivation also slowed reflexes. She didn't even want to imagine facing a wholly healthy Gaara.

Knowing that his behavior would be erratic limited her surprise when Gaara broke off in the middle of a sentence to attack, face so twisted in a snarl he looked hardly human.

She exchanged a speaking glance with Shiho-nii, who stared at her for a long, searching moment. "Be careful," he said at last. His lips twitched into a crooked, gently smile. "I won't survive losing you."