Obito-Sensei Chapter 19
Jutsu
Eleven days before the final, Sakura had moved on from water flowers. The shapes she was making with the water were growing more and more abstract, ever more bold in their construction and defiance of physics. She'd begun trying to form full kanji, and though it was just as challenging as the flowers had been at first, Sakura knew exactly what that meant: that she would get it in time.
But no matter what she did, all it was in the end was shapes with the water. Three weeks now of the same thing, pausing for nothing but eating and sleeping. Sakura could count the real conversations she'd had for the month on one hand. She was starting to feel distant from herself, her mouth clamped shut from exhaustion, her tongue always dry. When she did speak, it was inevitably quiet and hoarse.
Sakura Haruno no longer felt like herself. It was getting harder for her to distinguish herself from the buckets of water she was working with every day, filled up with chakra when the sun rose and empty and soaked when it set. In some moments of clarity, she had wondered if this was why her sensei hadn't started them on nature manipulation earlier. This was no way to live.
But Sakura didn't want to die, so she didn't say anything. She just kept making shapes, trying to increase her complexity and control by any small degree.
Asuma and Obito were often keeping her company while she trained. Keeping watch over her, maybe. Gaara wasn't interested in her, that was obvious, but her sensei had reacted poorly to the boy from Sand approaching them.
For the last week, he and Asuma had argued, often, about every subject under the sun. It was obvious to Sakura that the only thing that they had in common was the village, and her. It didn't matter what the subject was: tactics, food, fashion, or gossip, the son of the Third Hokage and the student of the Fourth didn't seem to agree on a single thing.
Eight days before the finale, Sakura formed her name with the water. She opened her eyes and regarded it, barely recognizing the loops and curls that formed her identity. It shimmered with an inner light, the water pulsing through the construct at high speed. Sakura had figured out that was the simplest way to keep complicated shapes in one piece: the momentum of both the liquid and her chakra helped stabilize them. Not nearly enough to be freestanding, of course, but every little bit helped.
"How stupid can you… hey now, that's a pretty good one." Asuma wandered over, analyzing the name with obvious interest. "That's well done, Sakura. How long do you think you could hold it?"
"It doesn't matter how long she can hold it," Obito said a little grumpily as he walked over. "That doesn't-"
"It's good for her control," Asuma said, cutting him off. "Consistency is even more important than power, Obito."
"Funny to hear you talking about consistency," Obito shot back. Sakura kept staring at her name, wavering in the air. How long could she hold this? A minute? No, much longer than that, she was sure.
"I'm here to help you," Asuma said with a laugh. "You brought me on for my advice, and now you want to shoot me down? What do you think you're pulling?" He turned back to her, Sakura barely registering the movement in her peripheral vision. "Can you move the kanji around? That would be a good-."
"Shut up," Sakura muttered, and then clammed up immediately, unable to believe what she'd just said.
Shut up? Had she really just…?
'Shut up.'
"Shut up?" Asuma blinked. "Pardon?"
"Sakura?" Her sensei tilted his head, looking down at her with concern. Sakura realized she was starting to breathe heavily. Her name shimmered one more time and then dissolved, collapsing into the bucket.
Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up.
"Shut up," she said again, louder this time, and closed her eyes. "I'm done, so can you both please just… shut up."
"Sakura." Obito knelt down, bringing his face levels with her. "What do you mean?"
"I'm done," Sakura said, her voice shaking. She hated that, but she couldn't do anything about it. LIke this whole thing. She couldn't take it anymore. The world felt like it was spinning under her, leaving her behind. Vertigo was swimming behind her eyes. "I give up. I'm going to forfeit."
She remembered her treasonous thoughts from so long ago, when the only thing she'd been able to think about was her anger. No, that wasn't right. When her anger hadn't made her care about anything else.
'You're stupid if you think that will last forever. When the month's done, will you still be angry?'
Obito didn't say anything. He just let her drown in her own silence, the only sound her own deafening breath. Asuma watched from behind him, his arms crossed. She couldn't read either of them. Her vision was blurring. Was she crying?
"Why now?" her sensei finally asked. "You've already come so far. Why give up now?"
"Because we haven't done anything!" The words burst out of Sakura, steadily ratcheting up to a scream, and she shot to her feet, knocking down one of the buckets with her knee. "I've just been messing around with water this whole time! Making shapes and nothing else!" She kicked the other bucket over, and Asuma laughed. Sakura glared at him, and the laughter died in his throat. "And you two have just been arguing about nothing this whole time, like a bunch of idiots! And you messed up my sword!"
She sobbed, her voice cracking. "You said you were going to help me, but I haven't gotten any stronger! I don't know anything new! When I saw Gaara that day, I knew he'd be able to kill me like it was nothing! Like I was nothing! I knew! Nothing's changed! All this training has been nothing!" She screamed the last word, doubling over and pouring her whole soul out into the word, and was left hollow afterwards, staring at the wet grass and feeling tears dripping down off her cheeks.
"I'm done," she whispered, her throat painfully rough. "I don't want to die. That bastard can have my spot. I don't deserve it anyway."
Her sensei gave her a bit more silence after that. Eventually, he stood back up.
"Alright," he said, and Sakura looked up at him. "We're done, then." He glanced back at Asuma, and the other man shrugged.
"If that's how it is," he said with a sour grin.
"What?" Sakura asked, and Obito refocused back on her. He was expressionless, his eyes flat.
'Wait.'
"You said we're done, Sakura," he said, his voice like a hammer. "So, we're done."
"Sensei…" Sakura didn't know what to say. Her insides were churning. Wasn't this what she wanted?
"If you want to try again, I'll be here tomorrow." Still flat. Still no judgement, no enthusiasm, no life of any kind. Obito crossed his arms, his eyes narrowing. "But for now, go home, Sakura. Get some rest." He turned to leave. "Think about what you really want."
Sakura had nothing to say, and neither did her sensei or Asuma. They left her standing there, silent and empty.
'What did I just do?'
Eventually, at least a couple minutes later, Sakura snapped out of her fugue and realized she was just standing there, staring at nothing, barely breathing.
'Wasn't this what I wanted?'
She left the field and the buckets, her hand wrapping itself around her sword unconsciously. She squeezed the hilt rhythmically, echoing her pounding heart, as she made her way through the streets of Konoha and towards her home. The village was bright and full of life as usual, but Sakura spoke to no-one, and no-one noticed her. To the world she was just another tired ninja trudging home a shortly after noon.
Sakura didn't notice when she made it back to her home. She was just…
Disappointed.
"Sakura!" Her mother was in the entryway putting her shoes on when Sakura stepped through the door. "You're home early!" She paused, examining Sakura's face. "What happened?"
"Nothing," Sakura muttered, stepping past her and up the stairs. Her mother turned, following her.
"Not real convincing," she pointed out, and Sakura felt her heart jolt in her chest. "Are you alright? You look pale."
Sakura had never told her parents what had happened the week before with Gaara, and so far as she knew neither had anyone else. Right then, halfway up the stairs, she wondered why that was. Had she been too tired to? Or had that just been an excuse?
"I told…" she said, and then stopped, swallowing her tongue.
'Sometimes, there are fights you can't win.'
"What? What is it, honey?" Her mother stepped closer, their heads drawing level on the stairs, and Sakura turned around, tears beading in her eyes. "Oh, Sakura…"
"I told sensei I was done," she said, struggling to form the words. "I told him I'd forfeit."
"Sakura…" Her mother took another step forward, putting her arms out. Her hands settled on Sakura's shoulders, pulling her forward a little. She was staring into her eyes. "You're sure?"
Sakura's throat clenched, and she nodded, her vision blurring. "Okay." Her mother pulled her into a hug, resting her head on her shoulder. Sakura shuddered, her whole body shaking. "It's okay."
"It's not…" Sakura gasped for air. "I'm not…"
"Just shh," her mother said, the words harsh but her tone soft, and Sakura sobbed, collapsing into her.
She was scared. She didn't know how to express that. Behind all the exhaustion, the anger, the tears, Sakura was just scared. The fear was eating her up from below, dragging her down into something dark and cloying.
'I don't want to die.' That was all that Sakura had been able to think as she lay in bed gradually slipping into sleep for the last three weeks. That was the core of the anger, she was sure, that selfish fear, not the altruistic rage she'd assume it was. 'I don't want what happened to them to happen to me.'
Her mother held her there on the stairs as she cried for one minute, maybe two, before pulling back and wiping some of the tears from her eyes. She was crying too, Sakura saw. Not as much as she had been, but a little.
"C'mon," Mebuki said with a little smile. "Let's go sit down, alright?"
Sakura was led down the stairs, away from her room, and her mother sat her down at the kitchen table. She walked away and came back with a glass of ice water and an apple, setting both down in front of her daughter.
"Eat," her mother said, and Sakura listlessly devoured the apple, only now realizing how hungry she was. Mebuki sat down, watching Sakura carefully as she finished the apple and began downing the water alongside it.
"I'm really proud of you, Sakura," she said, and Sakura almost choked on her water.
"What?" Of everything she'd expected out of her mother, that hadn't even come into consideration. What could there possibly be for her to be proud about?
"No matter what, you were really brave, you know," Mebuki said, leaning forward and propping her chin up with her hand. She smiled. "Training to go up against that guy was brave… but forfeiting is too."
"That's stupid," Sakura said, taking another sip of water. She hiccuped. "What's brave about giving up?"
"Nothing," Mebuki said, shaking her head. "But telling your sensei, and doing it when you were going to have the eyes of the whole village on you… that takes a lot of courage."
"It just makes me a coward," Sakura said, and her mother frowned.
"What's cowardly about knowing your limits?" she asked, and Sakura dropped her head.
"That's not-"
"What's cowardly about not throwing your life away?" Mebuki pressed, and Sakura closed her mouth. "What's cowardly about choosing your fights?"
"This fight was chosen for me!" Sakura said, feeling some life kindle in her chest, and her mother clucked her tongue.
"By random chance. But even that's wrong!" she declared, standing up out of her chair. "That's what's been frustrating your father and me, you treating this like you've got no choice! But you've always got a choice! You're the only person who picks your fights, Sakura!"
"I wanted this fight!" Sakura said, standing up too, her fist clenching around the glass. Her mother gave it a pointed look, and she set it down carefully, not wanting to shatter it. "I wanted to make him pay for what he did to Hinata, and Shikamaru, and everyone else!"
"Then why are you forfeiting?" Mebuki asked, and Sakura snarled.
"Because I don't think I can win," she said, and her mother nodded.
"That's what keeps you from being a coward," she said, and Sakura stiffened. "If you were giving up just because you were scared… that wouldn't be a good look." She leaned down, placing her hand flat on the table. "But Sakura, even if you're scared, I can tell that's not why you're giving up."
"But I am scared!" Sakura almost shouted, and her mother laughed.
"But you just said it yourself!" she said, looking like she was enjoying herself. "You don't think you can win! You're the kinda girl who thinks with her brain, not her fear!" She laughed again, a smaller, drier chuckle. "That's always been your problem, Sakura! You're too smart for your own good. You're overthinking this! You already got to the conclusion, and now you're searching for something else!"
She leaned forward. "Look at me." Sakura's head had tilted away, towards the exit of the kitchen as she pondered escape. "You're doing the right thing. You know yourself. If you don't think you can win, you shouldn't fight."
"That's not what being a ninja is," Sakura said, wondering where the words were coming from. They didn't sound like her. They sounded like…
Haku.
"Sometimes, a ninja has to struggle, or take a fight they can't win."
"Yep," Mebuki said triumphantly. "That's true. Sometimes, you'll have no choice. But right now, you're not supposed to be a ninja. You're supposed to be a genin that'll be an example to the other villages." She grew a little more somber. "And in this case... a genin who walks away is a better example."
Sakura looked down, rolling the words around in her head as she finished off her water.
"Sensei told me to come back tomorrow," she eventually said, a little shocked at how tired she sounded. It wasn't even three in the afternoon, was it? "He told me to think about what I really want."
"You should do that." Her mother leaned forward and planted a kiss on her forehead, and Sakura almost flinched back. "Get some rest, okay? You've been running ragged this whole month. Just take an afternoon to yourself, okay?"
She nodded, and her mother stood up. "I said I'd meet up with some friends, okay? I'm going to head out, if that's alright."
"Who?" Sakura asked, feeling rooted to the table, and her mother winked.
"No one you care about," she said with a wry grin. "But if you're worried, don't be. I'm not going to spread the news around. That's not gonna be my place."
"Okay." Sakura slumped forward, resting against the cold wood of the table. "Have fun."
"I'll be back tonight," Mebuki grinned. "Your father and I will make you something nice. How's that sound?"
Sakura nodded, and her mother left. She heard the door distantly close, and stayed at the table with no idea of what to do next.
If she wanted to give up, why did doing it feel so terrible?
Sakura stood up, taking her glass to the sink and tossing her apple core in a trashcan in the corner of the room. What did she even want to do with an evening to herself? The last couple weeks had been nothing but training, eating, and sleeping. What had she even done for fun, before this?
She watched as the apple landed in the can with a thunk, and frowned. She hadn't read a book in almost a month. That was really unlike her. Sakura hated to say it out loud because it sounded dorky and antisocial, but reading had been her favorite hobby for as long as she could remember. It was easy and fun. Just like when she had trained with water, it was simple for her to fall into a fugue while turning page after page, feeling the unique texture of the paper and enjoying the creak of the spine.
"I'll go to the library," she said out loud, just to hear her own voice. She tried to make it more confident. If she didn't make a plan, she'd just sit in the kitchen for the rest of the day, and then just hate herself more. "I'll go to the library."
As far as half-baked and spur of the moment plans went, it was pretty good, so Sakura went with it.
###
Konoha had several libraries, but the central one near the Hokage's tower had always been Sakura's favorite for two reasons. The first was its atmosphere. The eastern library was nicknamed "the pinecone," because of its spiralling structure dotted with windows, and most of the others had equally bizarre construction. By contrast, the central library was like most of Konoha's residential buildings on the surface, tall and blocky, but the majority of its library was beneath the ground in a sort of den that sprawled out in several subterranean extensions.
Down there, beneath the building and away from the bustle of Konoha, things were usually quiet and peaceful. The thick walls absorbed most sound, and the rooms were large enough that even someone talking loudly wouldn't do much to disturb the peace. It was an ideal studying environment.
The second reason was its size. The central library was by far the largest, and Sakura had never failed to find a book on any sort of subject there. History, geography, advanced mathematics, chakra theory, even more niche interests like art and engineering could be found in abundance at the library. If Sakura was ever curious about something, she could always be sure to find it there.
Until today. Because today, on a whim, she had begun searching for the history of a particular village soon after arriving, and had met with little success.
Sakura shut another index, a motion that was dangerously close to a slam, and huffed. She didn't understand. Amegakure had been a Hidden Village for at least thirty years. There was no way there wasn't any material on it. She returned the book, a large omnibus titled Villages, Towns, and Cities of the Northern Nations which had been meticulously organized, overly dry, and ultimately useless, to one of the towering shelves and stalked down the aisle, heading towards a help desk.
Sakura didn't like asking for help in a library of all places, but she was left with no choice. She'd been here almost twenty minutes and hadn't been able to find a single thing.
"Oh? Is that you, Sakura?" She recognized the man at the desk when she rounded the final stack; it was an older gentleman who'd been at the library for as long as she could remember… but she couldn't remember his name. Sakura felt a flare of self-consciousness. "Haven't seen you in a while. How're you doing?"
"Good!" she lied with a smile. "I'm having trouble finding books about a certain village. Can I get some help?"
"Sure!" The older man smiled, his mustache rising with the motion, and reached down to pull out a file from beneath the desk. He pulled it open, eyes already dropping. "Which village is it?"
"The Hidden Rain," Sakura said, and the man clucked his tongue.
"Well, no wonder," he said, snapping the file shut. You're never gonna have much luck there, young lady."
"What?" Sakura asked, cocking her head as she peered over the desk. "What do you mean? Someone must surely have written about that village…"
"Of course," the man said with a grin. "But it doesn't matter how much is written about it: if the court forbids any public material about it, you're not going to find it in the stacks."
"The courts?" Sakura was only getting more confused.
"The Daimyo's Court, of course. Material on Amegakure isn't fit for public consumption, according to them." The man tapped his file. "So it's banned from being filed in the public areas."
"Well that's stupid," Sakura said.
'You'd never dream of replacing the Daimyo, I imagine.'
She paused at the flitting memory, and then continued. "If it's not in the public area…"
"Oh, I can go grab it for you," the man said. "It's available to shinobi, unless the Hokage says otherwise." He laughed. "And I doubt the Fourth has time to go around banning books like the Daimyo."
"Yeah…" Sakura smiled, feeling a little uneasy. "Could you get a couple for me? I'm just trying to learn more about its history, I guess. I ran into a team from there during the Exam, and they were really odd."
"Most foreigners are," the man said with a nod. "Especially shinobi. Other villages have all sorts of freaky customs." He leaned forward. "And that's just the stuff that's gotten out. Be glad you were born in the Leaf, young lady."
Sakura nodded and gave another smile, but it felt insincere. She wasn't feeling gratitude.
She was thinking about what Tenten had told her, about Neji being a servant to the rest of the Hyuuga because his father had been born a couple minutes after Hinata's.
The man left, disappearing into one of the back rooms that connected to one another throughout the whole library like a spider's web, and Sakura waited patiently for about three minutes. When he returned, he had an armful of books.
"Don't go reading them all in one place," he said, and Sakura forced a laugh as he set them down on the counter. She gathered them up with a word of thanks and retreated to a long desk in the corner.
Sakura would have had trouble articulating what she was doing if someone asked her, but mostly she just wanted to see if everything Haku had told her was true. In the end, it wasn't very surprising to her that it was.
The Land of Rain had been a small country since its founding. Even before the age of shinobi and their villages it had been trapped between larger competitors that exploited it for its resources. It had once had many precious metal deposits like the Land of Iron, but those had all been mined out decades ago. It had once had thick forests like the Land of Fire, but colonizers and corporations from Earth, Iron, Fire, and Wind had chopped them down long ago, and now little lumber remained. The same story repeated a dozen times. Sakura came to realize, two books in, that what Haku had told her had been sanitized and limited, either so he wouldn't sound too harsh or out of ignorance since he was not a native. In almost every respect, Rain had been stripped of everything of worth and left as a buffer territory between the larger nations: an excuse for them not to share borders and the complications that would arise from that.
Rain only had a couple meaningful exports in recent history, after the rise of the Five Villages, and to Sakura's complete lack of surprise the main one was skilled shinobi. Perhaps it was because of the constant conflict that wracked the nation, or maybe it was because most people seemed to underestimate shinobi from the minor villages and so watched any exceptional ones with extra attention, but regardless of the reason Rain had a history of singularly powerful shinobi who shaped the politics of the entire nation. There had been Hanzo, like Haku said, and before him there had been Kawakami the Ember, and before him Fukoku Konran, who had given up her family name to protect her clan from retribution.
And now, there was the Akatsuki Triumvirate. They were only in one book, The Red Sun Over Rain, which was more modern and, Sakura thought, a little silly. It painted the Akatsuki as dangerous anarchists who wanted to destroy the world because they hated the current system. Sakura already knew that was inherently ridiculous. If you were leading a village, you couldn't be an anarchist; that was self-evident. Haku and his team had been sent to the Chunin Exam to be promoted traditionally: that meant that Rain wanted to be a part of the system, not destroy it. The author claimed that Rain and the Akatsuki were focusing on stealing powerful shinobi from the other villages with mind control and more sinister methods, and it wasn't long before Sakura found herself rolling her eyes.
Eventually, she closed the book in disgust. She had wanted to find out more about the Akatsuki, but here at least there wasn't anything but propaganda. The only new thing she'd learned was that all three of the Akatsuki's leaders, Jiraiya of the Sannin's students, were masters of ninjutsu, which wasn't especially shocking, and that one of them, Nagato, was rumored to possess a mysterious dojutsu. There were no details. Was it like the Sharingan, she wondered, or the Byakugan? Red Sun wasn't interested in that question, apparently. It was more concerned with selling the Land of Rain as an existential threat to the Five Villages, with a couple less subtle passages calling for it to be crushed as soon as possible.
The whole book left a sour taste in Sakura's mouth, and she pushed it away, making a mental note to never read anything else by the author. She didn't want to get a headache.
However, the talk of Amegakure being crushed reminded her of something else. She wheeled her chair away from the desk and slid up out of it, wandering back into the stacks.
It wasn't nearly as difficult to find material on Uzushiogakure. That material was available to the public.
'What idiot in the court decided that Ame shouldn't be, anyway?'
Sakura returned to her table with another handful of books and sat down with a groan, spreading them across the wood. Someone stepped into the den, an older woman, glanced at her, and then turned and left; she'd taken up the whole table. Sakura sighed. She didn't want to be seen as rude.
Material on The Village Hidden in the Whirlpools was much more balanced than it had been for Rain. Most of the sources agreed on the main details; it had been a small village ruled by the Uzumaki clan, just as Haku had said, and it had been annihilated by its neighboring nations, Lightning and Water, with the effort led by the Hidden Villages of Mist and Cloud.
The motivation behind the destruction was a little more complicated. One book alleged it was due to an ancient grudge; the Uzumaki clan had practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism in the distant past, and its neighbors were taking revenge for their predation. Sakura thought that sounded especially silly, and was most likely propaganda. Two other books agreed on the cause, that in the age of the Hidden Villages the Tailed Beasts were important weapons, and the Uzumaki had possessed weapons or techniques that were a threat to them. Because of that, Mist and Cloud had feared their own Beasts being destroyed or captured, and had formed the alliance that had doomed Uzoshiogakure.
Sakura didn't know much about the Tailed Beasts, other than that they existed. The notion they were important weapons for the Villages pricked her interest, and so they were the next subject of her research.
Four hours later, Sakura looked up from her ever-growing stack of books and panicked when she realized it was almost eight o'clock. She rushed home without bothering to return all her books for the first time in her life, ideas and foriegn words buzzing in her head. When she threw open her door, her parents were on the other side.
"Sakura?" Her father came down the hall, out of the kitchen. "Hey! We were just going to start looking for you!" He grinned. "What happened? Get caught in a book?"
Sakura didn't want to admit that that was exactly what had happened, so she just shrugged, and her father laughed. "Well, if that's how it is," he said, gesturing. "C'mon. Your mom and I made dinner. We're gonna celebrate, okay?"
It was a huge dinner, and Sakura felt normal for the first time in a month, speaking with her parents and telling them about her training. They talked about their missions, gossip in the village, news from abroad, and Sakura fell into a comfortable haze of familiarity. She went to bed with a full belly, and fell asleep warm and feeling safe.
Why, she thought as she slipped away, did I give this up for so long? Just to win a fight? Wasn't that stupid?
But when she fell asleep, she didn't dream about her parents, or the library. She dreamed about sand, and she woke up in a cold sweat before the sun slipped over the mountains.
###
Her sensei came to fetch her in the morning, after her parents had already left. Sakura walked with him through the morning streets, and they watched Konoha wake up around them. Shops came to life, people poured into the streets. Sakura and Obito walked through it all like a waking dream, the air cold and the sky a dismal blue-grey.
"I've gotta apologize, Sakura," her sensei eventually said, after they'd been walking for a couple minutes, and Sakura dropped her head.
"I'm the one who needs to apologize, sensei," she said. "To you and Asuma-sensei too. I shouldn't have… I didn't handle yesterday well. I shouldn't have said those things."
"Probably not," Obito said with a little laugh. "But who could blame you? We got so caught up in the how we never explained to you why." Sakura glanced at him with a questioning look, and Obito gave her a sad smile. "We never explained to you the purpose of the exercises."
"You did though," Sakura said. "They were to improve my control, and my nature transformation."
"Sure, but for what?" Obito asked, and Sakura frowned. "Exactly. You never asked, and we never bothered. Even after Asuma took your sword, you didn't ask any questions, so we kept training you. You trusted us, right?"
Sakura nodded. "Well," her sensei continued. "Just cause you trusted us, doesn't mean you shouldn't ask questions. Take that as a lesson from this, maybe. We didn't realize how frustrated you were getting." He raised one of his hands. "Our fault, not yours. But something to keep in mind, okay?"
"Well… okay," Sakura said. "But then, what are we doing today, sensei?" She frowned. "I can't just keep training…"
"True," Obito said. "We both figured, Asuma and me, you were getting there anyway. Yesterday just confirmed it." He rubbed the back of his head. "So today, I figure we'll show you what that training was for. After that, you can decide if you still wanna forfeit."
They walked in silence the rest of the way as Sakura tried to suppress her shame. She still wanted to give up: she doubted anything that happened today would change that. But her sensei seemed excited even if he was a little dour, and she didn't want to shoot him down. That would be terrible.
When they arrived at the same training field she'd practically been calling home for the last several weeks, Sakura was surprised to find that it wasn't just a set of buckets and Asuma like usual. Asuma was there, and so were the buckets, but there were others. Naruto and Sasuke were there, goofing around with one another as they tried to slap the other's shoulder. They waved when they saw her, and Sasuke took the advantage to land an extremely loud SLAP on Naruto, drawing a yelp as the other boy skittered away.
Sakura laughed, hiding her smile with a closed fist. Her teammates weren't the only ones there. Asuma's team was as well: Shikamaru, Choji, and Ino, and besides them Hinata was sitting in the grass, watching Naruto and Sasuke spar with an unusual amount of focus.
Last of all, Rin Nohara was there. Sakura had only met her for real once before, when the woman had examined her in the hospital. The jonin grinned at her, and Sakura felt her stomach flip. Why were there so many people?
She wished Tenten was here, instead of the rest.
"Sensei?" she asked, and Obito frowned.
"I don't know about the others," he said. "When I left, Naruto and Sasuke were the only ones here."
"They came to watch," Asuma called as Sakura and Obito came closer. The whole group began coming together, all nine ninja forming a rough semicircle. "Wasn't my idea." Obito stepped away, quietly conversing with Rin. The older woman giggled, and he frowned.
Sakura felt her heart sink. She looked at each of her classmates in turn, her gaze lingering on Hinata's missing finger. Both she and Shikamaru were out of their casts: apparently their broken bones had fully healed. "Ino?" she asked, coming to the last of them.
"You're the one going up against that freak," Ino said with a smile that belied her word's venom. "We wanted to see how you've been doing."
She wanted to shrink down and vanish into the earth. Sakura looked down, unable to handle the admission. She hadn't done a thing. She wasn't any closer to beating Gaara today than she had been when he'd almost killed Ino's team. Her sensei stepped up beside her, and Sakura wished he'd just tell everyone to go home.
Nothing to see here.
"Sakura's been training her nature transformation for the last three weeks," was what he said instead. "Today, we're going to see that pay off. There's no guarantee it's going to be especially exciting. If that's what you're looking for, you should head out right now."
No one left. "She'll kick ass," Naruto said, and the other kids nodded. Sakura blushed, and he smiled at her. "No way she won't."
"Hmph." Asuma snorted, stepping forward and putting out his cigarette. "We'll see." He held his hand out. "Sakura, your sword."
Sakura pulled her sword from its sheath and carefully turned it around, presenting it to Asuma handle first. The Sarutobi gingerly plucked the blade from her hands, turning it over in his.
"You never asked me what I did with this," he said, and Sakura shook her head, feeling more foolish by the second. "Why the balance was off."
"I thought you'd tell me," she said quietly, and the man snorted.
"Well, I guess you were right. I'll tell you right now." A distortion in the air rippled up the blade, and Sakura watched it with fascination. It was like a heat shimmer, but a thousand times more turbulent, and it came to a stop about a foot above the end of the sword. Asuma dipped the blade down, and ran the almost invisible distortion through the grass at his feet.
Wherever the convulsing air touched, the grass and earth was snipped apart, as if the air was an unbelievably sharp blade. Asuma dragged a thin, deep cut in the earth without even touching it with the sword, and then lifted the blade back up, the distortion vanishing.
"I had my clan reforge your sword," he said as Sakura gaped. Shikamaru made a soft sound of understanding. "The Sarutobi have a good stock of chakra reactive metal, and your sensei and I thought you were a good candidate for it."
"Chakra reactive metal?" Sakura asked, and Asuma handed her sword back to her. She looked down at it, the strange weight suddenly taking on an entirely new meaning. "Like the paper?"
"Just so," Asuma said with a nod. "It's a material that soaks up chakra like a sponge, and makes it easier to direct. I can transfer my chakra through it, transform it intoWind." He plucked a curved knife from his vest, and the distortion reappeared. "My knives are constructed of the same metal."
"I see," Sakura said, not sure if she did. "Then, what…?"
"Sakura!" Naruto interrupted. "This is so cool!" He looked at all three of the adults. "Then she can do the same thing? Put her chakra through the sword, but with water instead of wind?"
"Exactly," Obito affirmed, and his teammate gave him a sly look.
"Pretty clever, Obito," Rin teased, and Sakura's sensei rubbed the back of his head with a shy grin. Sakura watched the whole thing, feeling a tickle of amusement in her chest.
"Well, it's only clever if it works," Obito said. He gestured and Sakura followed him back to one of the buckets. "So, Sakura, this will be the same principle," he said, and Sakura looked at him with a little fear. She was keenly aware of all the eyes at her back. "Before, you were channeling your chakra directly through your hands into the water. The only difference here is that you'll be using the sword as a medium."
"What's this for, sensei?" Sakura asked quietly, and Obito straightened up. "What am I trying to do?"
"An elemental blade," Obito said bluntly. "Like what Asuma did with his Wind. Water isn't the best piercing element; that's Lightning. But for cutting, it's right behind Wind, and it can be a lot more flexible." He knelt down, bringing his face level with hers. "You ever seen a water-jet cutter?" Was that a jutsu? Sakura shook her head, and her sensei shrugged. "Yeah, I doubt you would have. It's a special kind of tool for cutting material that's sensitive to heat." He frowned. "I think. I've never used one. The point is, you get water going fast enough, mix in some other stuff, and it can even cut through steel. You understand?"
Sakura didn't, but she nodded anyway, desperate to suppress the trembling that would start in her feet and work its way up through her body. She didn't want to humiliate herself in front of her teammates, Obito's, and the others. She was more scared than ever.
"Try running your chakra through the sword first," Obito suggested. She was sure he could tell exactly what she was feeling. Sakura focused, projecting her chakra out through her palm and into the sword, and was surprised at how easy it was. The sword sucked up her chakra almost eagerly, but without wasting any of it. It just filled up the blade; after a moment, it felt like it was an extension of Sakura's body, more so than any sword had before.
The weird weight was gone. Sakura realized it had been a sort of emptiness, and absence where her chakra should have been. Her arm shook, once, and she closed her eyes, focusing on the feeling.
"Pretty cool, huh?" Obito said, and Sakura opened her eyes to see him smiling. She smiled back. "My White Fang is the same way," he said, gesturing at the blade on his back. It made Sakura feel better to have something shared with her sensei. "Now, try dipping it in the water."
Sakura did, the tip of the blade vanishing below the surface. She could feel the water coursing around the blade like it was her own hand. Almost unable to believe how easy it was, she drew the liquid up around the sword. When she pulled it back, the water came with it like a liquid sheathe.
"What?" she asked, looking at it with a confused expression. She heard someone behind her cheer, probably Naruto.
"That's not supposed to be easy," Obito said, looking a little smug. "But it feels like it, right?"
Sakura moved the sword back and forth, watching the water dance over it. The liquid clung to the blade like a magnet; it was barely an effort for her. She nodded, astonished at the feeling, and her sensei grinned. "That's 'cause of your training. Like I told you at the beginning, Sakura…"
"I'm a natural," Sakura said faintly, and Obito nodded.
"Right now, it's just a bunch of water around the blade," he said, and Sakura focused, analyzing the sword and her chakra. She forgot about the people behind her. It was just her, her sensei, and the sword. "That's not going to help much with cutting power, though it might freak people out if they don't understand how water works. Try moving it a little?"
Sakura did, trying to get the water to spin around the steel like a rotary blade, and it responded to her chakra much quicker than she thought it would. She had assumed the movement would be sluggish, but the water began spinning so fast that some of it flew off, out of her control and splattered into the grass.
She frowned, and retrieved more from the bucket. Keep it close to the sword, to keep control. Use the centrifugal motion to take some of the work away from your chakra. After a couple minutes, the water around the sword was rotating around it in a constant spiral.
Like the Rasengan, she realized with a start. Like a vertical Rasengan centered around the sword. She glanced back at her teammates, and watched Naruto and Sasuke come to the same realization. Naruto grinned and gave her a thumbs up, and she smiled back shakily. The others were watching too: Ino's eyes were wide, and Hinata's Byakugan had activated.
"Good," Obito eventually said. "I think you've got the hang of it, mostly." He narrowed his eyes. "But you see the problem when it comes to Gaara, right?"
"Even if I could cut through his sand," Sakura said, backing down from the high of controlling her chakra so effortlessly and confronting reality, "it's still just a sword. I'd have to get close to him. He'd have the advantage there."
"Exactly," Obito said. "So, that's the last part of this jutsu." He lifted three fingers, and ticked them off one by one. "You control the water. Easy, for you." One finger dropped. "You rotate the water, to increase its cutting power." The second finger dropped. "The last step will be extending it, so you can attack Gaara safely."
"It's like the Rasengan," Sakura muttered, barely able to believe it. "It's just as much shape manipulation as it is nature."
"Yup," Obito nodded. "I took a little inspiration, can't lie."
"And you thought I could do it?" Sakura asked, barely able to believe it.
"Still do," Obito said, solid as a rock. Sakura was rooted to the spot, captivated by his confidence. "So, show me. Let the water extend off the sword, but don't lose control of it. Okay?"
Sakura tried, not really sure what to do. She let the water drip down off the sword like a long wet snake, careful not to lose the rotational energy. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to get it back once the water was stretched out. The water became a rope, and then a cord, stretching farther as it coiled around her feet. Five, ten, fifteen feet. Sakura was finally forced to stop, feeling her chakra's grip on the liquid grow thin. She drew some of the water back up into the sword, feeling like she was pulling on an unbelievably heavy winch, and left herself thirteen feet of liquid coiled around her.
"Are you kidding… okay." Obito rubbed the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.
"What?" Sakura asked, and her sensei laughed.
"Sakura, do you even know what you're doing?" he said, and Sakura frowned, shaking her head. "You just made a whip out of the water. It's still spinning!" He gestured at the water. "If I'd known you could do this, we woulda started last week!"
"This is… good?" Sakura asked, looking down at the coil of solid water she'd created, and Obito snorted.
"Hey!" he called over her shoulder, and Sakura flinched. "She wants to know if this is good!"
"What?" Rin called back. "Is she insane? That's amazing!"
Sakura wasn't sure if she should take offense at being called insane or blush at the compliment, so she decided on both. She lifted the sword, feeling the water follow and locking in place with her chakra, imagining it as an iron spine that ran throughout the whole whip, as Obito had called it. Solid, unbreakable, but flexible. Her will and soul extended through her sword, through the water, making it just another further extension of her arm.
"Okay, you're getting it," Obito said. "Now let's test it out, alright?" He walked back towards the group, and Sakura followed, the water trailing behind her and leaving a trail in the grass.
"Sakura," Hinata muttered as she walked past, and Sakura glanced at her, trying not to show her anxiety. Could you even hide that from the Byakugan? "Keep your chakra even across your upper body. You have too much on your right side. It's going to throw your balance off."
Sakura nodded, trying to follow the advice. She kneaded more chakra in her core and spread it out across her torso, and to her surprise the water blade grew even lighter.
What amazing eyes. She smiled at Hinata, and the girl smiled back. In front of her, Obito came to a stop.
"Alright," he said, turning to face her and jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "See that tree?"
It couldn't be missed. It was a stout, wide oak, barely twenty feet tall and with a trunk wider than even Obito could wrap his arms around. The trunk was covered in scores of scars from previous practice sessions by other shinobi.
"We want you to whack it," Obito said, and Sakura watched the tree with a bit of suspicion. She raised her sword, watching the water course of it.
"Just whack it?" she asked, and her sensei nodded.
"Use it like a whip," he suggested.
"Keep the water rotating," Asuma said, walking up behind her as Obito got out of her way. "That's a good technique. Keep that up, extend the blade, and strike with everything you've got."
Sakura glanced back at him, and then at the tree. She took a deep breath and let it out, trying to center herself, and her feet slid into a basic kata stance.
She swung the blade at the tree, not sure what she was doing, and the water blade splattered against the side, cracking some of the bark but otherwise falling limp. Sakura frowned.
"Swing," Asuma said. "It's not just a normal sword anymore. You have to feel the water." He put his hand down, touching his ring finger to the top of the water coursing over the sword, and when he pulled it away there was a tiny cut on the pad of his finger. Sakura blinked at the sudden blood. "This is your sword now. Understand?"
"Did you just cut yourself?" Ino asked in disbelief, and her sensei shrugged. Shikamaru laughed.
"C'mon," she heard Sasuke mutter. He sounded like he was anticipating something. Was he using his Sharingan? Could he see something she couldn't? "Do it."
"Sakura, just swing!" Naruto shouted from behind her. Sakura closed her eyes, taking another breath. She poured more and more of her chakra into the sword, still trying to keep her body balanced. "Fuck that tree up!"
Sakura swung with both hands.
She stepped forward into the strike, ankle to hip to arm to hand, throwing the entire weight of her body into the blow, and screamed as she swung, blowing all of her anxiety, fear, and anger out in a single breath. It wasn't a very traditional kiai, but it was all she could do.
The water blade slashed out, so fast that Sakura herself could barely follow it, and sliced through the tree. It went at a slight diagonal angle, carving clean through the trunk, and exited about a foot lower on the other side in an explosion of bark and sap.
Sakura blinked, unable to comprehend what she'd just done. The water blade fell apart and splattered across the field; she stumbled, off balance, and fell on her butt, breathing heavily and watching with wide eyes. The tree groaned, sliding sideways on its bifurcated trunk, and slowly toppled, branches cracking and snapping as it fell with a slow but inevitable gravity and slammed into the field, shaking the ground.
The field was silent for a full five seconds as the tree settled, and Sakura looked back at her teammates. They were both just as surprised as her, speechlessly staring at the toppled oak. Naruto's eyes slid down to meet hers.
"Holy shit, Sakura," he said, and broke the silent spell.
Everyone rushed forward, surrounding and congratulating her. Naruto pulled her to her feet, babbling the whole time. Sakura could barely hear them. She was staring at the fallen tree, her hands shaking.
'I did that?'
She couldn't wrap her head around it. She'd cut down a whole tree? In one swing? That wasn't possible, was it?
Sakura's hands closed into fists, something hot pricking at her eyes. She had lost her grip on her sword, and left it on the ground.
'I did that.'
"I told you!" Asuma hooted, slapping Obito on the back. "I told you!"
"Bullshit!" her sensei shouted back with a wide grin. "You didn't know that would happen!"
"Well, no!" Asuma admitted. "But I figured it would be something!"
"Boys," Rin muttered, pushing her way through the press and looking Sakura over with a critical eye. She took one of her hands in hers, and Sakura felt foriegn chakra running through her body. "You alright? You fell over."
"I'm fine," Sakura said, and it felt like an unvarnished truth. Her whole body was buzzing, as if it had been asleep until now. She didn't feel tired at all; it was like there was a live wire running under her arm, hot and electric. "I was just surprised. I didn't think…"
"No kidding," Rin said dryly. "Your pulse is crazy, but you're good besides that. Calm down a little, okay?" She pulled back, dropping Sakura's hand, and smiled. "Be proud. That's a hell of a jutsu."
Sakura sniffled and nodded, and Rin's smile shrunk. "What's wrong?"
"Sakura?" Naruto asked, his hand coming down on her shoulder. "You okay?"
"I'm okay," she said, her voice muffled. She laughed and dropped her head, the tears coming more heavily. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I just…!"
"Hey," Sasuke said, coming in from the other side. "It's okay. What're you-?"
"I'm happy, you idiots!" Sakura cried, and Naruto laughed. "I thought I was gonna die! And now-!" She gestured vaguely at the tree, the sound coming from her indistinguishable between sobbing and laughing. "That? I don't even know what to do with that!"
"Kick that freak's ass, is what!" Naruto declared, and Sakura descended into another round of laughter and tears. "Stop crying! You're freaking me out!"
"It's okay, Naruto," Obito said. "She was scared. It's natural." Behind him, Ino sniffed as well.
"Dammit Sakura," she muttered. "You're gonna make me get started too. We were really worried about you, y'know?"
Sakura nodded, still too overwhelmed to speak.
"It's a good start," Shikamaru said. He looked a little excited, his eyes narrow as he looked back and forth between the tree and Sakura. It was the first time Sakura had seen anything but boredom or amusement on his face.
"You've got the power," Choji said, trying to sound authoritative. "But you're gonna need a little more to get past that sand. You should keep training."
"She will," Hinata said quietly. "She'll get there." She stood up, and Sakura barely recognized the fierce expression on her face. "She… Sakura, you'll show Sand they made a mistake."
Sakura nodded, blowing out a rough breath and wiping away some of her tears. "Sorry," she muttered. "Sorry, you guys."
"Nothing to be sorry for," Naruto grinned, and Sakura smiled back at him.
"I was going to give up," she said after a moment, and everyone in the field stiffened. "I didn't think I could do anything against him." She frowned, her eyes narrowing as she looked back at the tree. She bent down to pick up her sword.
"And now?" Obito asked. "Did you think about what you want?"
Sakura straightened up, turning the sword over in her hand.
"I don't know if I can win, but..." she said, mostly to herself. Her sensei cocked an eyebrow and leaned in, and Sakura looked up at her, feeling her lips slide back and bare her teeth.
'I'm sick of being scared.'
"I'm definitely going to fight."