Well, tough.
“Ahem. Anyway, don’t mind us sensei, I’m sure we’ll be fine. You’re right, you need to get Sasuke powered up as fast as possible so he can beat Gaara.” I gave him an exaggerated smile, and turned to Ebisu.
“So, let me guess. We’re supposed to work really hard on our taijutsu, and I’ll build up my chakra reserves while Naruto works on his control, and if we do really well we might learn a basic utility technique like Body Flicker or Water Walking. Right?”
Ebisu nodded cautiously
“Super!” I chirped. “Let’s get started!”
Ebisu wisely refrained from commenting, while Kakashi slunk away with Sasuke in tow. Asshole. Just because I can’t do anything about it doesn’t mean I’ll pretend I don’t see it. Making us concentrate on our weaknesses instead of our strengths was the perfect way to give us the illusion of progress, without actually letting us get any stronger. Taking my taijutsu and chakra capacity from utterly pathetic to just really bad wouldn’t do me much good in a fight, which is why if they actually wanted us to win they’d concentrate on our strengths instead. But with a few years of work you can turn a weakness into a strength, and I found I rather liked the idea of becoming a taijutsu expert. There are just so many people in the world who need a good ass-kicking.
Sure enough, we spent most of the day reviewing basic moves we should have learned at the academy. But towards the end of the day Ebisu took us out to one of the small lakes that dot the training grounds and showed us the Water Walking technique.
Ok, so maybe he didn’t have anything personal against us. Kakashi does outrank him, so he probably couldn’t just blow off our jounin-sensei’s instructions on what to teach us. At least he was doing what he could.
Ebisu walked out onto the lake and gave us a short explanation of the technique, and invited us to give it a try. Naruto immediately called up enough chakra to level a mountain and tried to step out onto the lake. He actually floated for a few seconds, but then he started to wobble and fell in with a splash.
“Jeez, this water is freezing!” He complained as he climbed out.
“You have to keep the flow of chakra steady, Naruto.” Ebisu explained. “Otherwise you’ll bob up and down too much and disrupt the technique.”
I gingerly held one foot over the water and projected a little chakra, trying to feel the surface without actually touching it. There. Yes, it was easy enough to press against it with my chakra, but there were a lot of details to consider…
“Well, Sakura?” Ebisu prompted. “Are you going to give it a try, or not?”
I smiled sweetly. “Sensei, Naruto and me are different kinds of ninja. He’s got terrible control, but he’ll stay out here all night practicing until he finally learns this out of sheer stubbornness.” The interaction between my chakra and the water was odd, but not that hard to understand. I could do this.
“Well, then, what kind of ninja are you, Sakura? Not the kind that’s too timid to try, I hope.”
“No, sensei.” I said with a wide-eyed smile of fake innocence. “I’m the kind with perfect control.”
I stepped out onto the lake supported by nothing but the chakra beneath my feet, adjusting the flow minutely to compensate for the little waves that danced across its surface. I strolled out to where Ebisu stood without so much as getting my toes wet, smiling the whole way.
“Woah. Sakura, that’s awesome!” Naruto exclaimed.
I waved. “Come join me, then.”
He laughed and gave it a try, falling in almost instantly.
“Idiot!” I called. “Concentrate on your chakra, not me!”
“Not bad.” Ebisu observed. “But how long can you maintain it?”
I grimaced. “About ten minutes. Maybe fifteen in an emergency, but then I’d be down with chakra exhaustion for a week. How do I fix that?”
“Practice.” He replied.
It was a surprisingly good month. Naruto was annoyingly hyperactive, but he’s so good-natured that it’s hard to stay irritated for long. My taijutsu improved by leaps and bounds, my chakra pool expanded until I could water walk for nearly an hour at a time, and towards the end of the month he even showed us Body Flicker. That was another chakra-intensive technique, but there were lots of times in the Forest of Death when the ability to flit a hundred yards in an instant would have saved my life.
So I went into the tournament with a smile on my face, even though I knew I was going to lose. My match against Temari was as brutal as expected, but I actually managed to flicker in close and get in a couple of hits before she took me down. After all those fights with Orochimaru I was pretty pleased to come away with just a broken arm and a couple of cracked ribs.
The invasion caught me totally off guard. I managed to resist the sleep genjutsu that took down most of the crowd in the arena, but I couldn’t even do a Dispel with one arm in a sling. Kakashi ended up sending me to a shelter with the civilians, with the result that I got a nice look at the giant three-headed snake and the even bigger sand monster tearing up the city. Then we finally got into the shelter, and discovered the hard way that it was booby trapped to collapse on us.
I started awake, and found myself back in my room on the day of the written exam.
“Good god.” I muttered, running my fingers through my hair. “It was like the whole city was destroyed. No city means no grades, which means no graduations. Shit. Don’t tell me I have to stop an entire invasion to get out of this thing.”
2. Looping
Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto.
“We’ve got the rest of the day free, Sasuke. Let’s go on a date!”
“No.” He slouched away.
“Sasuke, if you’ll go on a date with me I’ll give you my first kiss.”
“Not interested.”
“Hey Sasuke, want to do some training together?”
“You’d only get in my way.”
“Oh, Sasuke-kun, check out my new jutsu. Sexy Technique!”
He stared. I ran my hands up and down my new curves and posed. “Want to help me take this body for a test drive?”
“You shouldn’t play with yourself in public, crazy girl.”
“Damn it, Sasuke, what would it take to convince you to go out with me?”
“A lobotomy.”
Apparently I’d traded one impossible task for another. I had no clue how to stop something as huge as an invasion, so I’d decided to try a different problem instead. If I could solve the Forest of Death like a puzzle, surely I could find a way to get Sasuke to go out with me. Only nothing worked. No matter what angle I tried, no matter how I asked or pleaded or teased or posed or begged, he wouldn’t have anything to do with me. After three weeks of steady rejection I was starting to get depressed again.
The memory of Naruto asking me out every single day for nearly two years didn’t help. How did he do it?
Just to cheer myself up, I actually said yes the next time Naruto asked. He was completely clueless about what to do on a date, but sitting around watching him smile at me and pig out on ramen was better than another rejection.
Lee was a slightly better date, but way too weird for my taste. Kiba was kind of hot, but he always tried to feel me up. Shikimaru and Neji weren’t interested, and even in a time loop I wasn’t going to give Shino or Choji a try. So those were my options, unless I wanted to chase older men or give girls a try.
“I just don’t get it.” I complained to Ino one night. “No matter what I do he just blows me off. Is he gay?”