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They came in like thieves in the night. Over the wall and fanned out to avoid the patrols. They scouted the village with plans to retrieve only despite the fact that they wanted to lay waste to the village. They weren't unsuccessful. The T&I building was hit, the chūnin guards were left dead and Orochimaru was freed from his cell without anyone raising an alarm.
They had come prepared with food, water, and soldier pills. It was only when it came time to change guard shifts, that the breakout was discovered. By that time, Orochimaru and his loyal shinobi were hours gone and the trail had gone cold at the Valley of the End when a team was sent out after them.
Sakura stood between Tonbo and Iwashi at the funerals. She had gotten to know several of the deceased guards from her own time wandering the halls of T&I and she was sad that they were gone. Mostly though she was scared. Orochimaru was not someone to take lightly and she had placed herself on his radar in a fairly major way.
She also couldn't help but worry for Sasuke either. He had been the reason that the Sannin had shown up in the first place and she doubted that the reason for that had changed. She'd been pleasantly surprised when their paths had crossed before this mess occurred and he'd congratulated her on her promotion. He couldn't look her in the eye and it sounded stilted and forced, but he'd never been one to acknowledge anyone else's progress before so she took it at face value.
She wasn't surprised to return to the apartment to find Kakashi there, he'd been a regular visitor ever since he'd apologised for his behaviour and attitude while she was on Team seven. She was still uncomfortable being around him, but Yamato explained that he and Kakashi were good friends and often spent their free time together whenever they were both available.
Sakura had thought that that meant that they were maybe closer than just friends, but that theory was shot down when they had a breakfast guest one morning that was definitely not Kakashi.
"Excellent timing," Yamato said when she walked in the door. "We are going to have a joint training on tracking. Go get changed and meet us at training ground 19."
Sakura sighed and gave a perfunctory nod as she continued along to her bedroom. Her chūnin vest was hanging on the back of her bedroom door. She didn't normally wear it since it was still too big and bulky for her even after it had been tailored down. She changed into her usual outfit and made sure that all of her pouches were strapped into place and fully stocked.
She raided the kitchen for a bite to eat and sealed some additional onigiri to snack on into the leather cuff she had wrapped around her left wrist before heading out.
She arrived at the training ground only to find that Yamato was no where to be seen.
"Right now that we're all here, we are going to do some training on tracking. Yamato has gone to leave us some trails and we're going to give him a bit more of a head start before we follow so we can go over the basics. What are some of the signs that indicate a person has been through an area?"
"Broken twigs?" Naruto questioned.
"Bruised or compressed plants," Sasuke said.
"Disturbed ground. Either dislodged sticks and stones or embedded ones," Sakura added her own answer. Kakashi nodded at all of them.
"Very good. What else?"
"Footprints," Naruto stated confidently.
"Not necessarily full footprints, but an indent where a heel has dug in, or a toe has pushed off in a hurry. Maybe a scuff mark or signs of a slip?" Sakura added.
"Grass trails, when the leaves are twisted or bent in the direction of travel?" Sasuke asked, and Kakashi was nodding again.
"Yes, yes, and yes. Any more?" Sakura exchanged a shrug with the two boys.
"I don't know Kakashi-sensei," she said.
"The last one's a bit more tricky. Decay. Any vegetation that has been damaged by either being stepped on or has twigs broken has been damaged and damaged pieces often start the decay process. You can tell by how much decay, how long ago the damage happened. These are the things that you can track by sight. What are some of the other ways you can track someone?"
"Scent, you've used Pakkun and your other nin dogs to track."
"Like Kiba and Akamaru and Shino's bugs," Naruto agreed with Sasuke's answer.
"Chakra residue, and sensing."
"Correct again. Also when tracking ninja who can tree-hop, the chakra can leave smooth patches on the branches and bark as well, the more chakra control a ninja has, the smaller the smooth marks will be and can be quite difficult to spot."
By the time they'd finished the lecture portion of their training, Yamato had returned and would follow along behind them while Kakashi took the lead and explained the importance of being 'track aware' and not destroying the sign inadvertently since it may become important again, and it would also help any backup following you to be able to see the sign as well.
They each got to lead in different sections and both Yamato and Kakashi showed the difference between animal tracks and human ones. They promised that they would do another joint exercise in tracking and hunting animals to turn it into lessons in campfire cooking.
"We should also do a few exercises on how to not leave a trail, stealth, evasion, how to hide," Yamato suggested and Sakura bit her tongue on her frustration at being lumped back in with the team she'd thought she'd left.
.
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Sakura stood in the middle of the training ground with a blindfold tied tightly around her eyes. This was one training exercise that she was grateful that Yamato-sensei hadn't invited the boys of Team Seven to join. Yamato-sensei was throwing pebbles at her to increase her other senses. Who knows what else Sasuke would have thrown at her if he'd been there.
He had decided to treat her as if she were invisible unless he absolutely had to interact with her which was fine by her. But when it was his turn to partner with her during those Kami awful training sessions, he didn't hold anything back and Sakura needed this blindfolded training to give her an edge just so she could hold her own against her former teammate.
It was impressive how her other senses compensated when her eyes were taken away, and it was frustrating how much she relied on her sight almost to the detriment of all her other senses. Take away her eyes and she could smell so much but she couldn't pinpoint anything. Her ears picked up so much sound but it was almost deafening.
Give her back her sight and it was as if her other senses were muffled and that was what they were trying to undo.
She had tiny round bruises upon tiny round bruises. She was frustrated that she was having so much trouble with the exercise. That she could hardly separate the sound of a pebble rushing through the air from the breeze in the leaves, or the smell of Yamato-sensei where he was, verses where he had been.
A pebble hit her directly in the forehead and she ripped the blindfold off only to squint into the low hanging sun.
"What am I doing wrong?" she demanded.
"Nothing," he declared wandering closer with a smile on his face and a pebble in his hand from a direction she hadn't thought he was in. Maybe he'd thrown that last pebble and then moved to a different spot.
She glared at him. "Then why can't I get this?"
"There isn't a trick to this Sakura. This is about first learning how to use your other senses and then forming a habit around not relying on any one sense. It will take time, and there's really no effective way of training that. Some people pick it up really easily. Others have a devil of a time. It is something that can be learned. I'm not giving you an impossible task, even though at the moment it may seem that I am."
He watched her carefully and her shoulders slumped and she fiddled with the strip of dark cloth in her hands. "We should call it a day and try again later."
"We've been at this for weeks and I feel like I haven't improved at all," she whined. "Not even a little bit."
"You'll get there Sakura." He said sounding all warm and supportive and the tiniest bit amused. "And you are improving I promise. Just don't give up."
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Please review. They are muchly appreciated.
~G