Chapter Text
”Chakra is a life force fundamental to all living creatures. Divided into spiritual and physical energy, it’s the basis of nearly all shinobi arts. We train our chakra through…”
Iruka’s sensei voice faded away as Sakura began to doodle. It's not that she wanted to be disinterested, but there were only so many times she could hear something, before her brain processed it in long-term storage, and moved on.
Sasuke wasn’t listening either, but that was no surprise. He was looking through the window, his black hair glimmering like midnight silk.
“Yang energy is used in taijutsu, while yin energy is used in genjutsu. Ninjutsu is a combination of the two. Not to forget chakra control. Can anyone tell me what chakra control is?”
“I can tell you!” Standing on his desk, with his hands on his hips, was Uzumaki Naruto. “Chakra control is boring, boring, boring, so boring, and more boring!”
“Naruto, get down from there.”
Sakura continued her doodling, and the image of a kitten took place—playing with a ball of yarn. She drew and drew until she could draw no more, and she set her pencil down, and laid her head down on her arms.
She imagined rolling in a field of hay, the sun beating gloriously upon her. All gold and ivory, safe for her hair and eyes. There would be a voice, sounding suspiciously like,
“Naruto, what do you want?” She lifted her head, looking at him with drawn brows.
“Sakura-chan,” he sang.
“Don’t call me that.”
“You’re always so mean to me, dattebayo.”
“Leave me alone.”
“No, you leave me alone.”
“Okay.”
She set her head back down, but it wasn’t long before Naruto said, “No, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I want to go to sleep, Naruto. You always bother me.”
“No, I don’t.”
He was staring at her, and she wished she knew what he wanted, with those cerulean eyes of his. “Fine.” Petulantly, “If you can prank Iruka-sensei without getting caught, then I’ll talk to you.”
“Really, Sakura-chan? But I can’t do it right now, since he’s watching.”
“You can do it during lunch, when he leaves for the bathroom.” Sakura didn't know who he was fooling. He always got caught: It was one of the indisputable truths of the world.
“What should I do then? Should I put senbon on his chair, or put paint in a bucket, or make some ramen, and leave it in the air conditioner?”
Sakura shook her head. “No, no, and no. What you should do is…” she whispered, a smirk pulling the corner of her lips.
Naruto’s mouth parted, giggles filling the space between them. “Sakura-chan, you’re so funny.”
She glanced at Iruka-sensei, saying, “Don’t be too mean.”
He nodded. “I always am.”
“If you get caught, you’re not going to tell him I helped you, right?”
“Yeah, Sakura-chan. I would never, since I really, really like you.”
“Oh.”
Iruka-sensei wouldn’t believe him anyways. Still, as she napped, she had the strangest sense of perturbation.
By the time lunch came around, Naruto was buzzing in his chair, all anticipation and sunshine blonde
hair. Sakura—bento perched in her lap, and chopsticks clasped in hand—didn’t have nearly as much fervor.
What she really wanted to do was eat.
Her classmates were heading outside. Talking with friends, and digging into their meals, few preferring to stay indoors. Quietly did Naruto scurry, grabbing the handful of pencils and thread he’d need for the prank.
Like bronze lightning, his fingers flashed, darting left and right and up and down.
He had finished when Iruka-sensei came sauntering in. “Naruto, you aren’t trying to prank me again, are you?” The string was tied around a pencil, very loosely lodged in the chair. It would have flattened had he sat on it.
He looked up, the elaborate contraption of thread, chalk, and pencil soaring high in the ceiling. “You made it easy this time. Obvious, too.” He sighed. “Detention, again. Does nothing go through that thick head of—?”
What Iruka-sensei didn’t notice was the second string, connected to the one in the chair. Unlike the others, the fabric was transparent, fisted in Naruto’s hand. He pulled.
The pencil fell.
There was no winding process, or lengthy interval. Between one moment and the next, a delightfully simple barrage of pencils came flying at him. Of course, for a Chunin like him, this was nothing more than target practice. Perfect, trivial entertainment!
He ducked beneath them, deflecting with a kunai from his holster. About five slipped past, sinking into his arm. Here, Sakura blinked.
“Iruka-sensei,” squeaked Hinata.
“Iruka-sensei, you got hurt!”
His face flushed. “I can see that very well. What happened here was an accident, and I don’t want to hear a thing about it from the other students.” He turned. “Now, I hope you’re excited. We’re going to be best friends after the month you spend here after class.”
“Month? But that means you’re giving me detention for..” Horror dawned on Naruto’s face. “One month.”
“These pranks of yours are getting out of hand. One day, you’ll have to grow up.”
He motioned to leave, but Naruto yelled, “Wait, I have something to say. I, uh, had help.”
”Help? Who helped you?”
Oh, she should’ve figured. Right then and there, Naruto’s blue met with her light green.
“Sakura.”
***
In the end, it was decided that she would have two weeks of detention. In no light terms, Iruka-sensei told her that he was very disappointed, and expected much better things from her.
She cried, “But I just wanted Naruto to leave me alone!”
Unfortunately, that had the opposite effect of what she wanted, and he only got angrier. It was the first time in her life where she was scolded by a teacher, and she wanted to breathe fire at him.
When she asked Naruto why he sold her out, he said almost shyly, “It would be fun if we could hang out with each other after class.” Sakura’s cheeks burned and she had walked away with her hands thrust at her sides.
An hour and a half after class ended, she finally headed home. Her parents were worried, and wouldn’t be happy about the conference with Iruka-sensei the next day.
Tears welled in her eyes at the thought of their disappointment, because while his was awful, theirs would be gut-wrenching. She took a left, and to her confusion, found a sign before the path she usually took home.
It read, “Under construction, use the Fujimori Road.”
But the Fujimori Road took nearly an hour longer than Hashi’s! she bemoaned. Sakura couldn’t help herself; she peeked to the left and right of the sign, and upon finding no obvious discrepancies, took a step forward.
At first, nothing happened. But a second later, her foot sank into the concrete.
“Gross!”
By dusk— feeling all sorts of negative sentiments—Sakura arrived at her last obstacle. A copse, redolent of cedar, and eerie with shadows. In the gloaming hour, strange rustling came from the thickets, perhaps some nocturnal bird?
“Help, damn it. Someone help me. Please, hurry!”
She stiffened. What was that?
“Help a fellow shinobi in need! Does anyone even hear me in this shitty forest?”
It would take at least half an hour for her to get home, much less direct aid. If he needed immediate help, she’d have to provide it. Sakura took a breath, suddenly feeling less irate.
Brambles sliced her skin, and mulch stuck to her sandals as she descended into the forest. “I hear you. I hear you. Where are you?”
She tripped, danced, sprinted, and it was only when her hair became more tangled than smooth, and her clothes more mud than fabric, did she catch blood, unfurling roses in the air.
She followed it, catching sight of a boy her age (perhaps a year of two older), laying on the ground. The first thing she noticed was his hair: It glimmered in the sunlight, just like Sasuke’s, a pure ebony black. Then, his arm.
Or what was an arm, since the mangled lump of flesh and bone only bore a passing resemblance to one. The sight was so startling she took a step back, tears blurring her vision.
It was bad. Very, very bad. He didn’t even look alive. Half of his body was in a similar state to his arm, including his face, crumpled and oozing blood.
Gingerly, she pressed two fingers to his neck. She didn’t feel a thing at first—only the wind weaving through the trees. She pressed harder, and there! came the faintest pulse. “He’s still alive, Sakura, but you have to get him help now.”
But as she rose, so did he. He blinked at her, every feature contorted in agony. She whimpered.
“Who are you?” Not a second later, he collapsed back down.
“Shinobi-san,” Sakura cried. “Shinobi-san!”
He was unmoving, and with only some indecision, she picked herself up, and started running. Had his wounds been less grievous, she would’ve done her best to bandage them, but this was beyond everything she knew.
Alas, running for help was only effective if you knew where you were going; instead, Sakura ran to get lost and generally cause herself anxiety.
Her feet pounded against the mulch as she passed by the same tree, with the same chestnut gleam and furl of leaves. She imagined his corpse basking in the sunlight, shuddering. She wished she was at home. She wasn’t a shinobi. Not yet.
Sakura tried for what felt like hours longer, even as the moon rose, and owls hooted. At the end of it, she was kneeling, her breaths coming and going in sharp gasps.
The tree with the chestnut gleam and furl of leaves mocked her.
With her mouth pressed into a line, Sakura punched it, and her hand exploded in pain.
“Ow! Ow! Kami-sama!”
Sakura didn’t know who needed the saving anymore.
Him, or her.
It was by midnight when she found a way back. She didn’t bring help, or anything other than the scabs and bruises that littered her body.
She knew she shouldn’t, but she was scared, and he was there. She wondered what her parents would think as she laid down beside him, huddling into his side.
Weren’t corpses supposed to be cold?
Tears dripped down her face.
When she next woke up, he was gone, and a man with a shock of silver hair stood before her. “You are in a lot of trouble, young miss.”