The day before Sakura's fifth year, she sat in the middle of her family's training ground, eyes closed and spine tense as she opened her sensing gates.
During her confinement under Ren's watch, Sakura had (both as part of the torture and as part of the "breaks") been both forced and instructed on how to open her senses. By the time she left doing so was something she could finally accomplish consciously, if not comfortably. Now, though, Sakura was trying to actually use the sense. It was one thing to be capable of receiving the input; it was quite another to understand how to interpret it.
Unfortunately, just as she began to feel for the chakra paper she'd had Himari hide for her, the shuddering of a bush and a flare of chakra coming straight at her caught her attention. She glanced to the right just in time to see the Yamanaka heir, Inoichi, spring over the bushes that outlined her training ground. He was red-faced and breathing heavily, but the second he landed in a textbook roll he was back on his feet, dashing to the other side of the dirt floor.
Sakura stuck out her leg.
The four-year-old tripped.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing!" Inoichi whispered, scrambling to stand. "I'm doing absolutely nothing."
"It looks like you're running away," Sakura pointed out. "And, generally speaking, four-year-olds aren't the best at looking like they're doing anything other than what they're actually doing."
"Well, maybe I'm the exception, did you think of that?" He muttered. He glanced around, relieved when he saw no one but Sakura nearby. "Okay, fine. I might be running away."
"Why?"
"You're in the Academy, right?" He asked. He flopped onto the ground, finally allowing his lungs to fill with air.
"Fifth year," Sakura examined the boy. She knew that Inoichi, like Sakura herself, had started the Academy at three years old. It had, after all, been big news in the Ino-Shika-Cho groups: the three-year-old heir of the Yamanaka, two (and a half!) year old heir of the Nara, and four-(and a half!)-year-old heir of the Akimichi all starting the Academy had called for a city-wide party, in fact (though in terms of Konoha at large that may have been mostly because of the free samples most Akimichi restaurants had offered for the occasion.)
"Right, okay. So, tomorrow I'm about to start the second half of my second year," Inoichi said. "And it's… it's…" He sat up abruptly, turning to stare at Sakura with a look of pure misery on his face. "It's so boring!" He flopped back down. "I don't know how I can take a week more, much less four and a half years of this!"
Sakura smirked. "It does get better, you know."
"Not in the middle of the year it doesn't," Inoichi said. "Come on, you started at the same age I did! You must know how dreadful it is!"
Sakura did. "You could… distract yourself," she said.
"Oh, like Choza does with his recipe creations or Shikaku with his solo games of shogi?" Inoichi asked. "Yeah, I've tried that. Boring!" He turned and looked at her again. "I want to be a real ninja, a frontline fighter that everyone knows to respect. Instead I'm either respected because of my name or scorned because of my age. It sucks."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "I should've known you'd be whiny."
"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!"
"You've had everything handed to you, Inoichi," She said. "I mean, you still have to try, but your life—and mine, too, by the way—is really, really easy compared to others. You know those civilians in your class? The reason you're still stuck on things you already know?"
"Yeah," Inoichi groaned. "Shikaku's trying to get the stupider ones to quit."
…okay. Sure. "Well, don't you think it'd be better if you tried to help them succeed?" That was a pretty good side-eye. "It'd be harder than convincing them to fail, for one," she pointed out, "and it would gain their respect, which is apparently your goal anyway."
"I… hadn't thought of that."
"What had you thought of?"
"Not much," both students' heads turned as they heard shouting from the direction of the main house. "I should get back. Mom'll kill me if I don't. And thanks for the tip! I'm sure I would've thought of it soon anyway, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't feel proud for helping me!"
Sakura stared after him as the Yamanaka heir leapt over the bushes once more.
That was going to be her leader for what was likely going to be a significant portion of her life.
Well, he's only four, Sakura reasoned to herself, give him time.
.
The first day of fifth year began with testing.
"Physical tests in the morning—cardio first, then endurance, then everything else. We'll do the paper tests after lunch, and the chakra last," Sensei Utatane led the group—notably diminished since the last time Sakura had been a part of it—outside and set them to running.
By noon Sakura was exhausted, and her body was a limp noodle. Juro wasn't doing much better, and Shin had curled up and fallen asleep the second Sensei called an end to the morning's tests.
"How'd we do?" Sakura asked. She'd like to have said she paid attention, particularly given Ren's emphasis on that during her family training, but…
Well, to be perfectly honest, at some points there were so many black spots dancing in her vision that she found it hard to see.
Juro grunted, pulling out the Bentos his uncle had packed them. "Don't really… um, remember. Wake Shin up and ask him."
Sakura did so, pointing to the food when it looked like Shin was going to kill her for interrupting his sleep.
"That… was the hardest we've ever been worked," he muttered. "The falling chairs from the new group of first years didn't help either."
Most of the kids had been far enough along the track not to get hit when they came down, but one of the teachers threw far and almost all the front runners had had to dive out of the way of the flying object.
"That," Sakura said, taking a big bite out of her own lunch, "is not what I asked."
"We're all definitely behind the taijutsu focused students in respiratory endurance. Juro's ahead of most of them in strength, vitality, and power, and both Juro and I are ahead in stamina. We're all top of class or near that in flexibility, coordination, agility, balance, accuracy, and speed. Honestly, given our respective future career choices, we're doing pretty damn well."
"Really?" Sakura asked. She'd thought they were doing worse.
"Yeah, but keep in mind that all the things we are best at are considered almost secondary to those that we were worse at. Except Juro—he really is doing good."
Sakura whimpered as she stretched out her legs. "I want to go to bed, not keep on going through tests," she said.
Juro had already finished his meal and fallen asleep, so her whining was directed solely at the other member of chinmoku.
"I agree, but what can you do?" Shin said, stretching out his own legs. "Look on the bright side—at least this is a sign that this year will be more interesting."
"Great," Sakura muttered under her breath. "Let's see if heir Inoichi is willing to trade."
.
Two weeks later found half of the class balanced on poles on the training ground behind the school, trying not to fall while the other half threw kunai and shuriken at them.
Sakura had been unlucky enough to be positioned between two recent entries to the Academy, neither of whom had apparently balanced on anything before in their life and both of whom saw absolutely no problem using her as a crutch, despite her relatively smaller demeanor (she may have been the youngest in the class, but she was a bit tall for her age too, so it mostly balanced out.)
The school year had, as promised, started out going hard and never really stopped. As predicted, though, few students dropped out—they were reluctant to do so when they were only two years away from graduation, and when nearly everything they were being taught was now relevant for a future ninja life.
That meant there were about seventy children left and, despite the larger than usual year due to the recent introductions, Sakura guessed that graduation would go how it usually did—the bottom 10-20% or so would have to repeat the final year, the next lowest 10-20% would be immediately shafted to the genin corps, while the remaining students would be placed on a genin team and about a third of those teams would last longer than a week.
Mind you, that whole ratio was a bit misleading—after all, it wasn't as if almost all of the clan kids weren't currently good enough to make it onto a team, so it was a bit deceptive to say only 20% or so became full genin. More accurately, a number of the best students would disappear sometime in their fifth or sixth (two already had), and reappear years later as full chuunin at minimum. Most of them, she knew, were trained as infiltrators and the like. She was sure that there were other jobs too, but considering how many siblings she'd had who were clearly ready for infiltration suddenly 'quit' it was the cause she was most aware of.
Regardless, that little fact, combined with apprenticeships (which began right after the Academy) meant that the success rate was much higher than it initially seemed. Apprenticeships in particular were common among students whose career tracks were already set and didn't stress working in groups—in fact, all of chinmoku would likely have qualified if it weren't for their clan names acting as a major push to keep teamed up and in the field. All that meant that while those who passed would be immediately shunted off into teams for testing, many were literally set up to fail; their only purpose being to shove in as much 'team' dynamics in possible in the short time they did stay together.
The reason Sakura was thinking of this while balancing on a pole that was less than three centimeters thick and bending over to avoid not one but two kunai flying straight at her head while attempting to keep her pole from tipping over in reaction for her neighbor collapsing?
That would be her other neighbor.
Takashi Saito.
Takashi Saito, the same boy who had been kicked out of school on the first day of class for being a stuck-up prick, was now balancing right next to her and sneering at all the students as he did (which was really not helping with the number of weapons thrown in either of their directions, actually, so could he please stop?)
He had transferred into their class for fifth year, but according to Aiko he'd been in the other class since the Hokage had let students enter late. And even before then he'd been in one of the Academy outposts—the one nearest Suna, apparently—with private tutors to help him improve in his off hours.
He was scoring in about the 60th percentile of the class.
Takashi Saito had, in other words, absolutely no natural skill.
But he was very well-tutored, and had an ego to go with that. (Sakura desperately hoped that that wasn't how every non-clan student saw her.)
"Give—give up yet?" He gasped, leaning out of the way of another shuriken. It wasn't particularly clear who he was talking to, but Sakura decided to reply anyway.
"I figure I'll give in about when I can't breathe," she was breathing heavily, yes, but nowhere near his own pants.
"You're just a girl," He forced out, "you know females never do well as ninjas anyway. Well, as most types of ninja. Is that really what you want for yourself?"
What was it with bullies and referencing that? It wasn't as if those who did it even had a bad reputation!... Well, in ninja circles, anyway. Sakura was given to understand it was quite a bit different to civilians, but then it was not as if they could tell one specialist from another to discriminate against anyway.
"Feeling cocky?" She asked instead of answering his question.
"What?"
She grinned, bent out of the way of an incoming projectile, then jerked her leg out—straight at Takashi.
He fell immediately, screaming as he hit the dirt. Unfortunately, her actions had cost her precious balance, and while Takashi's fall lessened the onslaught it didn't stop her from falling less than a minute later—third place. Not bad, but then she'd always been good at balance.
"Watch your back," Takashi growled into her ear as the group began trooping back to their second-floor classrooms. "Accidents happen, you know."
As much as she hated doing it, Sakura took the threat seriously. The work of a ninja did not require mental stability to accomplish, and therefore one could never be quite certain that someone purportedly on your side wouldn't stab you in the back for money or revenge or just because they liked the feeling.
After class, the Forty Group—now quite well known for the training ground that served as their usual haunt—met up to study for an exam to be held the next day.
Unfortunately, their group had shrunk in the last few weeks. While Sachiko hadn't officially dropped out yet, she now couldn't be seen outside of class and was dropping increasingly blatant hints that she would be going into infiltration by the next month. Aiko wasn't there, either, but that wasn't unusual—she'd somehow convinced Sensei Utatane (not theirs, but the one that taught Year Twos) to let her apprentice under him, so she was busy grading for about the first hour after class.
Bokuso, Yasuo, and the entire chinmoku team were there, though, so there was that.
"Can someone help me with my balance?" Yasuo asked as they opened the chain link fence that enclosed the training ground. "I did not last nearly long enough today."
"Sure," Sakura said. "Give me a minute for a snack and then we can spar on top of the fence—that should provide enough of a challenge."
The orphan looked dubiously at the thin metal bars that formed the chain link's backbone, but didn't argue.
"I'm not even going to try for balance," Juro said. "I know I can balance with two feet on the ground, and that's enough."
Shin grinned. "Not going to be the first Akimichi ballerina?"
"No, probably not," Juro smiled back.
"How about a three-way spar for those of us who prefer to remain grounded?" Bokuso offered, and the agenda was set. The only change was when Aiko came, and that was only to pit her against Shin so that Juro and Bokuso could go all out against each other.
By the time the children usually began to prepare to leave, all of their clothes were soaked through with sweat and more than a few of them sported novel bruises, but all felt the day had been a productive one.
Days like this Sakura liked.
.
Sakura's days tended to follow the same general pattern from week to week. Each morning would begin with stretches and light exercise, followed by breakfast with the family, followed by taijutsu lessons at the Academy (unless it was a Friday, in which case there'd be some sort of odd test to get through), followed by classroom lessons, then lunch and her two electives, then kunoichi lessons for her and shinobi lessons for the rest of chinmoku (they were infiltration lessons, really. Sakura didn't know why they weren't just called that.) After class she'd go to training ground forty and practice there for a while before rushing home to spend time with her family, eat dinner, and work on her own projects.
Then she'd sleep.
On this particular April day, Sakura had just finished lunch and was on her way to her first elective, fuinjutsu. Shin and Juro had already split off to go to diplomacy and basic medical training, which meant she was walking alone—out of Forty Group, only Sachiko and herself were taking the course and Sachiko had dropped out the week before, with the 10th highest scorer in the class citing "difficulty of the coursework" as her reason.
Sakura's career path meant she was staying through every year of the Academy, however, so she kept walking.
Most Academy classrooms sat directly on top of one another. Entry to the building showed you two classrooms on either side and a staircase at the far end. The staircase would twist around every half of a floor, and every floor would open up to another four classrooms, all the way to the top of the building where the first years started.
This left little room for elective courses, however, so most of those were found within the actual administrative part of the building, a tall structure directly connected to the Academy that held the headquarters for most of Konoha's shinobi departments, as well as general administration besides.
Sakura entered the classroom—located past the offices of the Infrastructure and Land Use Departments for reasons she could not begin to fathom—and smiled at the codgy old special jounin who acted as the class's teacher.
"Hello, Sensei Hyuuga," she said.
He growled.
She sat.
The next boy—the Sarutobi with the cowlick who Aiko thought would be her temporary genin partner (Eiji, if you wanted his actual name)—entered. "Hello, Sensei Hyuuga."
Growl.
The process repeated itself until the classroom was full.
It was, Sakura supposed, a rather odd sort of rebellion. Sensei Hyuuga clearly, vehemently, fervently disliked children, and yet (for one reason or another—Sakura guessed a personal vendetta) was forced to teach them.
It never went well, per se, but the man did instruct them sufficiently enough that the fifth years had already begun practicing making heating tags. Heating tags, simple creations meant to make it possible to cook without fire, were the first of three tags they were expected to know by the end of sixth year, in addition to exploding tags and (most difficult of all) simple storage seals.
Sakura was doing relatively well, but it always strained her understanding of reality to acknowledge that a few (very, very carefully drawn) scribbles on a page and a small burst of chakra could lead to what basically amounted to an oven, or a bomb, or a paper-thin backpack.
At least this class was closed to those that entered after third year—the walls were literally covered in marks of insufficiently controlled burns and explosions, and that was with years of practice first.
Sensei Hyuuga stood. "Today... against my better judgment... you may begin injecting chakra into your seals. I remind you that if you die I will in no way be punished."
He sat.
Sakura grinned.
Time to add to the marks on the walls.
She had only just added the final touches to her seal when a sudden blue light from Eiji Sarutobi's table nearly blinded her. She closed her eyes, trying to get rid of the spots, then opened the one with less spots to see what had happened.
"Shit," the boy said.
"I think you will find, Sarutobi, that a significantly smaller quantity of chakra will be more than sufficient to achieve your aims. Unless, of course, your hope was to blind not only yourself but also your classmates and teacher?"
"Of—Of course not, Sensei Hyuuga," Sarutobi said. "I will be more careful in the future."
Sakura barely paid attention to their exchange, far more caught up in the dancing blue light that Sarutobi's paper gave off.
"Why is it blue?" She asked.
Sensei, clearly annoyed at having to continue to talk, nonetheless replied: "It is blue because of the sheer quantity of heat he has employed. See—already the paper it is built on is beginning to burn up, and it was specially treated not to do so. At most one should expect mild red light to emanate from their papers—preferably no light should be emitted at all."
True to his word, by the time he had finished speaking Sarutobi's paper had already destroyed itself and the stunning (and admittedly very, very hot) blue light had vanished.
Sarutobi himself had already begun working on a new paper.
Sakura turned back to her own and pushed a fairly large quantity of her own chakra into it. It warmed fast enough that she had to yank her hand back (she'd need to add some more lines to delay the reaction) but barely glowed red, and quickly faded to no light at all and plenty of heat still being pumped out.
A success, then. That was... good, she supposed.
Another flash of a blue light, and a curse to go with it, came from Sarutobi's seat.
Sakura decided to see if she could manage that.
By the time she'd managed to draw out her new heat tag Sarutobi had already turned his third into a glowing blue light (though this one, to be fair, was a different tint than those previous and seemed to last a few seconds longer too.) Hers, with her pumping everything that she could in one go into it, turned orange for about half a second.
Hmm...
Well, the standard tag she'd been working on for the past two years did what it was supposed to, but she didn't really want it to. She wanted blue.
She worked with the symbols of the heat tag, adding a few to delay the reaction and getting rid of some of the dampeners. Sarutobi's light went off again—nearly white, this time, but still far too hot. Sakura glanced through her notes from the preceding classes, trying to find a symbol or two to act as an amplifier. Nearly everyone in the class had gotten theirs to work, now, more or less, but most were still working on the minutia of how they'd wanted the tag to turn out. Sakura reworked her seal once more, Sarutobi's came out almost orange, and she tried again.
White. And it lasted nearly three seconds before winking out, leaving its damaged seal behind.
An improvement, but still not what she wanted.
.
After kunoichi lessons had finally ended Sakura came stumbling out of the Academy building towards the awaiting Juro and Shin.
"What the hell happened to you?!" Shin demanded.
She beamed. "Did you know fire glows blue if it's hot enough?"
Shin frowned. "You've begun actually using tags in Fuinjutsu class, haven't you?" She grinned.
Juro frowned. "You made your paper glow blue on purpose, didn't you?" Her grin widened.
"Blue!" She said. "Stupid Sarutobi did that every time, but I got it to be blue by the end of class!"
"I... find it hard to believe that's what Sensei Hyuuga was aiming for," Shin said.
"Sensei Hyuuga's not fun," Sakura retorted. "Blue is fun."
It was also, as she'd already figured out and she'd continue to get reminders of for the rest of the week, chakra-exhaustion inducing, but that didn't really feel as important as the blinding blue flare she'd managed to force out just three minutes before the class was due to end.
Fifth year, Sakura decided resolutely, was a blast.
But as always, all good things had to come to an end.
