The rest of the first day turned into testing. While the academy had been pretty thorough, Sensei wanted more.
"Now try to grab your ankles."
Sakura was bent almost in half, body curving backwards in an arch, and she tried to walk her hands slowly back towards her feet, feeling the tug as her tendons stretched under the strain the whole while until she managed to wrap her fingers around the straps of her sandals. She smiled briefly but yelped a moment later as she lost her balance, toppling to the side with a little gasp as something was wrenched.
"Hmm, not bad, but we can do better. Come here, I can fix that."
Hiroki laid a hand on her shoulder as he kept bobbing up and down, and a faint green glow surrounded his hand for a moment before the minor pain vanished. The Kunoichi rolled her shoulder slowly and was surprised at the ease with which she completed the movement, glancing up at her instructor who had an unreadable expression on his face.
"Iryo-ninjutsu is generally reserved for female ninja. While some, like the Lady Hokage, can learn to exploit it for combat, such applications are… difficult."
Sakura frowned slightly at the words. Was he encouraging her, or warning her off of it? Before she could ask, she was interrupted by Naruto.
"Hey! Why does Sakura get to learn a cool jutsu while I have to do these stupid pushups?!"
She glanced at her blond teammate where he was continuing to work while Sensei sat on his back.
"Because, Naruto, I am trying to figure out if there is a limit to your stamina. Sasuke! I don't hear running!"
The last member of Team 7 was breathing slightly heavily as he glared at them, a few beads of sweat darkening his hair.
"It's pointless. Are you actually going to teach us anything or is all of this a waste of my time?"
Sensei was abruptly right behind him, arms draped around Sasuke's neck as he leaned in close.
"Oh? Already so confident in yourself are you?"
Their instructor's tone was ice-cold and sent a chill down Sakura's back even from across the training field. Sasuke was staring wide-eyed at the spot on Naruto's back where the teen had been not a moment before.
"Hmm. Well, I do have a few small techniques we can get started on tomorrow, but maybe you're right, best to have a carrot as well as a stick, hmm?"
Walking back towards the center of the training ground he made a gesture to bring everyone in.
"Bukijutsu is not precisely a speciality of mine, but I have picked up a few things…"
Sensei began pulling weapon after weapon out of little black circles on the inside of his wrists: half a dozen different swords, a full dozen styles of dagger, a couple polearms, a glaive, a spear, a three-part-staff, one and two handed sickles, kusarigama, weighted chains, a meteor hammer, a longbow, a crossbow, cat's-claws, jitte, chakram, nunchaku, a pair of tonfa, a disturbingly massive warhammer, a few different mace styles, a large gunbai, and finally a pair of shiny tessen.
"How's this? If you can meet all of my expectations for the next two weeks, I'll start teaching you how to use one of these."
He gestured broadly at the veritable arsenal spread before them, giving them all a long moment to look over the weapons before flicking his fingers and sending all of the glittering steel back into the spot on his wrist like it had been sucked up by a vacuum.
"And, what's more, once we complete our first C-rank in a month or so, if you manage to impress me, I'll teach each of you a personalized jutsu. But first-"
The sudden shift from lightly teasing to an intense stare was very jarring, and Hiroki leaned in to glare flatly at them all with his devil-eyes glowing under his hood.
"First, you'll have to be willing to put in the effort. Am I understood?"
The Genin nodded their heads rapidly and immediately set back to the tasks they had been assigned. They didn't stop training till just after sunset, when Sensei declared he would treat them all to dinner. Figures he would be a cheapskate and just bring them to his apartment.
. . .
Sensei was a surprisingly good cook.
. . .
Sakura was still mostly awake later in the evening, and was enjoying watching the moon rise over the top of the Hokage monument. Naruto and Sasuke had passed out some time before, completely exhausted from the first day of training and stuffed with what had been a tasty, if not very fancy, meal. Egg fried rice with veggies, and some sort of glazed chicken she hadn't had before; simple, with lots of calories and protein.
In sleep Naruto and Sasuke were kind of… precious. They were usually so at each other's throats but apparently the blond had fallen unconscious while needling the raven about something, and slumped across his shoulder. They were oddly cute like this.
A faint scraping sound drew her attention away from fantasies of Sasuke falling asleep like that on her. Sensei was taking careful peelings off an odd bonsai tree sitting on the table. It was a peculiar pale white/grey color that Sakura hadn't seen before, but the leaves looked rather similar to those of the Hashirama trees scattered about the village. There were some very odd wrinkles in the trunk too, almost like knuckles… but that was silly.
Sensei collected the tiny slivers he had removed on a waxed sheet of paper and tipped them carefully into a small mortar and pestle. Grinding the bits up took only a moment before carefully rinsing the result out with boiling water into a shallow bowl. He drank all the water, and then started carefully collecting the residual dregs from the bottom. And now he was taking his shirt off again.
Sakura turned her head away with a slight blush. Well, they were ninja, being body shy was bound to be lost sooner rather than later… but she was curious.
"What is that plant, Sensei?"
"Hmm… probably nothing. I was merely curious myself when I found it growing… somewhere very odd."
Sakura glanced back over, and raised her eyebrows curiously as Hiroki continued to roll what looked like acupuncture needles in the residue and plant them very carefully in locations that seemed likely to correspond to his tenketsu, bandages from his arms carefully folded in a neat pile next to his bracers, vest, and hoodie.
"So why…"
"Do all of this? Hmm. Let me tell you a story."
Sakura sat up a little bit. Sensei seemed to know very peculiar stories.
"Long ago and far away, and ever so long ago, there was a man. He was the first human to possess chakra, and he was called the Sage of Six Paths. He was also the bearer of a Legendary Doujutsu, the strongest of the three, called the Rinnegan. This man believed, naively, that the use of chakra would be a boon to mankind, and so he taught his techniques far and wide in the hope that the mystical energy would be a force for peace. As you might expect, this did not last and the world fell to warring once the Sage passed on to the Pure World. Now, as often happens, he had two sons. His oldest inherited some of his father's doujutsu, but only a much weakened version. The Sharingan. The younger brother inherited his father's unique chakra nature, though not his other skills. The two brothers fought constantly, and eventually they went their separate ways, and in the fullness of time, had children of their own. Many years passed, and their father eventually died, and with him the legendary eyes were lost. Over the generations, the descendants of the two sons forgot much of their past, and formed several ninja clans; however, two in particular kept the bloodlines strong. The Uchiha, descended of the elder son, and the Senju, descended of the younger, along with their brother clan the Uzumaki. Though they had forgotten the reasons why, still they fought, and the two lines never mingled. But, there is a legend that if the chakra nature of the younger son was reunited with the doujutsu of the elder, the eyes of the Sage would be reborn."
Sensei paused momentarily, his own eyes half lidded and gleaming a dull red for a second as he became lost in thought, before continuing with the careful placement of the needles.
"I do not know if that story is true. But this should be a lesson for you. Life is, at its heart, a feat of balance and chance. You must weigh the cost against the reward; and the likelihood of the cost against the likelihood of the reward. I admit, the odds of this" -he shifted his arms slightly to set the needles glinting- "paying out are very small, but it costs me little, and the reward would be…"
He trailed off, staring into the middle distance, before focusing for a second with his hands in the ram seal, eliciting a dim blue glow around the needles. Sakura nodded her head slowly as she examined the problem, glancing back to her Sensei as he began to remove the needles, task complete.
"This principle applies to everything in life, anywhere you expect a beneficial outcome, not just combat applications. Your happiness is a reward for certain actions, like marrying Sasuke."
Her sensei looked up from packing away the supplies for a moment, a faint smile on his lips, as he checked to ensure she was paying attention. Sakura was still a bit drowsy, but she was following his words with interest all the same and blushed slightly at his comment.
"But it is important to note that many things can make you happy, just like many things can make you strong. The hard choice to make is how to get the most from the least, how to earn the greatest strength from the smallest time spent training, or the deepest happiness from the fewest people. Everything costs something in this world. You need to spend your effort carefully, for time is ever shortening."
The Jounin's mouth thinned into a tight line, gaze wandering far away. His next words were quiet enough Sakura could hardly hear them, and she wondered later if he had even been talking to her.
"And sometimes you'll find that the boon you paid so much for ends up being worth less than nothing."
He stood and turned to the young pinkette, face serious in the wan moonlight streaming through the window.
"Sakura, the world is not fair. In fact, I would not be exaggerating overmuch to say that it can, at times, appear deliberately irrational. We cannot control the world; we can only control ourselves. You need to think long and hard about what you want out of life, and what you are willing to do to get it. Do you understand?"
Sakura met her teacher's eyes for a moment, before letting her gaze drift back to the waxing moon hanging over the treetops, her brow furrowed in thought.
No one had ever talked to her like this before, like she was a, a person, an adult, someone who could think for herself and come to the right conclusion without being led by the hand. The academy teachers had always praised her for getting the right answers, but Sensei didn't just want correct answers, he wanted a thinking mind that could figure those answers out from first principles. What did she want? Why did she want it? How much was it worth to her to get it?
It was some minutes before she turned her head back towards the older ninja, who was apparently satisfied with his own work for the evening as he was rewinding the bandages around his arms with smooth, practiced motions. Her slight shift caught his attention though, and he paused to look back at her.
Sakura returned his gaze for a long moment as she thought, the exhaustion of the day peeling back any excuses she might have wished for.
"I want… I want to be someone that matters. Not just to Sasuke, but in general. Sasuke is important to me, very important, perhaps the most important thing. But I am not sure if he is… or should be, everything. I think, if I am strong, if I am… valuable… Sasuke will want me for me."
If she hadn't been paying very close attention, she would certainly have missed Hiroki's words, as he once again seemed lost in his own thoughts.
"Strength is life. Hmm. How… peculiar."
. . .
A/N: What do you want? What do you have? How can you use the latter to obtain the former?
If you've never had it before, apricot glazed chicken is pretty easy to make and very tasty.