Honorable Secrets

by griffindork93

Summary:

an Alanna the Lioness take on the Naruto world. In a world where only men can be shinobi, Sakura switches places with a brother to become the first Kunoichi in 1000 years. Now she only has to hide her gender for the next 8 years.

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Sakura studied her image in the mirror. Her eyes crossed as they stared at the lock of hair she held in front of her nose.

It was red.

It looked weird, wrong. It wasn’t pink. Her pink hair was unique, it defined her. Her hair was the reason she was named Sakura. She felt like a part of her was missing.

“Red suits you.”

Sakura didn’t listen to her brother. He would say it looked good on her. He had red hair. She looked at her face critically. She supposed it wasn’t too bad. It was a pretty shade of red and it still matched her green eyes.

“Now it just needs to be cut. Come, I’ll do it.”

She knelt in front of her brother. He raised a dull practice kunai to the back of her neck and chopped off her now long red hair. Sakura sat still as he continued to slice off small snippets of hair, evening out and styling it to resemble his hair.

“There, done.” Her brother gave her a gentle push. “Now take a look at yourself. You don’t look anything like you.”

Green eyes flicked to the mirror. He was right. Sakura could pass for her brother’s twin if she was but a bit taller.

“Right. I’ll go talk to Uncle now.”

“Sakura,” she paused in the doorway as her brother stood, every other step thudding as he walked, to catch her in a hug, “thank you.”

She turned to smile at her brother.

“There’s no need to thank me, Satoshi. I would do anything for you, as you would for me.” And it was true. Their father didn’t care for them. Their mother had died in childbirth, so both children were practically raised by the servants. Satoshi at least had a year to know their mother, but all he could remember was her crooning voice, glowing smile, and red hair.

Sakura didn’t begrudge her brother that time with their mother and he never blamed her for her death. They grew up being all each other had. Their father would shut himself in his office all day to run his estate. He never even visited Satoshi after his accident with carriage that lost him his leg. He actually thought it was his daughter that was crippled.

Maybe he had been informed wrong. Maybe he just didn’t care. Maybe he wanted to think that it was Sakura, so that when the time came to send Satoshi to the Shinobi Institute, he would actually have a son to present as the law demanded.

That was why they were doing this. Sakura would spend the next eight years masquerading as he brother to earn the title of Shinobi. The law said that each noble family had to send at least one male child to the Institute.

Being a shinobi was something Sakura played at as a child, racing around the gardens mock fighting bandits and assassins. But it was never more than a child’s dream. Females were not allowed to become shinobi. There hadn’t been a female shinobi, a kunoichi, in over fifty years, since Tsunade of the Legendary Sannin had more than proved that females could be stronger than males.

Sakura knew this wasn’t going to be an easy undertaking. But she was prepared to work hard, harder than the boys if she had to. She wouldn’t disappoint Satoshi or her Uncle. She wouldn’t shame her family.

While she took his place at the Institute, Satoshi would take hers at the finishing school. Lucky for him, he didn’t have to dress as a girl for eight years. The finishing school also took in boys training to be diplomats.

All they had to do was tell Father that Sakura would be lonely and wanted to attend early. He would send payment to both the Institute and finishing school as planned, and they could play off the wrong names as my father doesn’t care. He spends more time with his books than me. The name on the letter would matter so long as they were getting paid.

“Everything will be fine, Satoshi. The years will go by and soon you’ll be shaking hands with Lords and negotiating treaties and trade agreements or advising the Hokage himself.”

“And you’ll be the strongest shinobi.”

“Kunoichi,” corrected Sakura. “I’m going to be a kunoichi. And when that happens, maybe you could talk the Master into allowing females into the Institute.”

With that Sakura let herself out and went in search of her Uncle. He was the only other person aware of hers and Satoshi’s dangerous plan.

Her Uncle was in the kitchen, trying to charm the cook into giving him a few of her delicious strawberry pastries and stealing them when her back was turned. Sakura caught his eye and twitched her ear, their signal that they needed to talk. He stopped his flirting and followed her into the nearest drawing room.

“We’re ready.”

“Good. I have good news for you. Your father has agreed to let me handle any payments, correspondence, and disciplinary measures that might be needed.”

Sakura felt like her legs would give out beneath her from the relief she felt. That was better than not quite lying. He would address all letters to Satoshi Haruno, and no one would know he even had a sister. She could take his place without any flags being raised.

“That said, we’re leaving tomorrow. You need to choose a servant to go with you. Preferably a female who would be able to help you when you start to become a woman. I was thinking Karin.”

She stared at her Uncle horrified. “You can’t be serious! Karin is a gossip. She speaks to freely. I wouldn’t last a day there. She would tell the first maid she met that her young ‘master’ is actually a young ‘mistress.’ I’ll be killed on the spot!” Sakura hated Karin, and the feeling was mutual.

Her Uncle frowned. “Then who will you bring?”

“Tenten.” Sakura decided. Tenten was technically a ward of Lord Haruno. A not so recently orphaned daughter of a blacksmith rejected by the rest of her family because she refused to attend finishing school in favor of apprenticing to a blacksmith. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a blacksmith that would teach a female the tricks of their trade. It hadn’t stopped Tenten, who swore to learn it on her own.

And Sakura was certain the girl would accept. Father had agreed to increase the wages of whatever servant accompanied his son. Tenten would earn money she could use to find a master who would apprentice her, and Sakura would get a companion she didn’t have to hide around, with the added bonus of her expert knowledge of weapons.

She could see her Uncle thinking the change in plans over. In that way, he was like her father, but that was where the similarities ended. They both took the time to examine the potential consequences of any action they took or word they spoke, but her father was very dry, always serious, whereas her Uncle was more relaxed, outgoing while still refined, and lighthearted.

“Very well.” Sakura danced a mental jig at her victory. “Tell your brother. And pack your bags.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sakura sat atop her horse, looking at her house almost wistfully as four servants loaded their carefully packed luggage. She would reach the Institute a week before the year started in order to settle in. Her luggage would arrive a few days later. The trunks and bags were labeled to ensure they got sent to the right place. Sakura had packed her essentials in her brother’s bags and he in hers.

A part of her still couldn’t believe this was happening. She was off to train at the Shinobi Institute with none the wiser. With any luck their scheme wouldn’t be discovered until well after she was issued her headband.

The group of four started down the main road. Their Uncle would see her and Tenten to the Institute before continuing on with Satoshi. It would be five days journey from the Land of Fire to the neutral grounds that was home to the Institute.

Tenten was vibrating with anticipation, eager to see the unique weapons other students would bring and the Institute’s vast armory. The girl, only a year older than Sakura herself, had promised to keep her silence and Sakura trusted her. Now Tenten just needed to work on addressing her as a male.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sakura had never seen anything as beautiful as the Institute. It was a castle. An aged stone castle with sprawling lawns built in the center of a bustling town. Her head swiveled on her neck trying to take it all in.

There was an inn that sounded to be very popular. And there was the crowded market. In the distance she could see a few clan shrines. As they passed through the gates she could the older students sparring. It was a cacophony of noise. Metal clanged, techniques were shouted. Sakura spied giant fireballs, earthen walls rising at the speed of light, water dragons forming above the lake.

It was magnificent.

This was what she would be learning to do for the next eight years.

Sakura followed her Uncle to meet with the Master. He welcomed her to the Shinobi Institute, laying down the school’s strict rules, a no excuses curfew, penalties for bad behavior or failure to maintain the teachers’ standards, visits to the town were a privilege that was earned, and many more.

Her head was swimming by the time they left his office and a servant directed her and Tenten to their room. The thought at the forefront was relief that he hadn’t seen through them. Part of Sakura expected him to realize she was a girl the second she walked in the room and either call for her death or send her home in shame. Shinobi were trained to recognize deception.

She didn’t even properly unpack once at her room. Sakura threw herself on her bed, exhausted both mentally and physically. Sleep sounded like heaven.

Her drifting thoughts of signing angels were interrupted by a loud knock on the door. Biting back a groan, she rose to answer it. She had hoped to put this off until tomorrow, when she would be better prepared, but gossip of the new boy traveled fast. Not unsurprising, shinobi lived or died by how much they knew, so they made it their business to know everything they can.

She inhaled. Now she would put all her years of training to act like a boy to the test.

Sakura pulled the door open, ready for anything.

Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Green eyes flickered over many faces, taking a quick head count.

There were eleven boys, well of course they were all boys, her mind scolded, there were no girls allowed, crowded in front of her door, of vastly different shapes and sizes and looks.

“We heard a rumor that a new boy arrived. You’re awfully short, yeah. Are you sure you’re ten, kid?”

Sakura glared at the boy, whose blonde hair was styled very much like a girl’s. It was pulled back into a half pony tail with the rest hanging down and really long bangs covering his left eye, which she presumed was blue to match his right eye. She couldn’t help her height. It was perfectly normal for a nine year old girl.

She settled for ignoring him. If she tried to argue they would only think her childish. Besides, it wasn’t like she could prove her fake age. Males never came to the Institute before the age of ten. Their training was harsh and demanding so the king of the Elemental Nations made it a law that no one under the age of ten was to be accepted.

The pinkette thought it was a load of rubbish. Clans started training their firstborns as soon as they started walking. But due to an incident over a hundred years ago in which a seven year old boy died in an end of the year exam, the law had been passed. So Sakura would just be the shortest boy in their year.

“I’m Naruto Namikaze!” Another blonde with blue eyes shouted, hurriedly moving forward to shake her hand. “What’s your name?”

“Satoshi Haruno.”

If it wouldn’t have been rude, Sakura would have shut her door. Their quiet stares and calculating eyes that measured and judged her made her feel uncomfortable.

Naruto loudly introduced her to the other boys. The taller blonde that had commented on her height was Deidara from Iwagakure. Then was two red heads from Sunagakure, cousins Gaara no Sabaku and Sasori no Akasuna, and Gaara’s make up wearing brother Kankuro. Kabuto Yakushi, a bespectacled silver haired boy hailed from Otogakure.

The rest came from Konoha, just like her. Neji, from the Hyuuga clan, was eleven. The rest were all ten. Naruto was the son of the Yondaime Hokage. She could tell Kiba was an Inuzuka by the upside down red triangles on his cheeks. And the white puppy atop his head that yipped when introduced as Akamaru. Shikamaru Nara, his dark brown hair pulled up and back resembling a pineapple, gave her a lazy wave and a muttered “troublesome.” Sakura could hardly see Shino Aburame’s face behind his high collared coat and dark sunglasses. Chouji Akimichi, a rounded boy, also bore clan marking on his cheeks; red swirls.

Then Naruto pointedly grabbed a dark haired boy, whose hair stuck out in the back, forcibly dragging him forward, “And this is teme. Also known as Sasuke. And back there is teme’s brother Itachi.”

Sakura thought she was going to suffer a heart attack. Naruto was calling one of the kingdom’s princes “teme?” Then her brain caught up and realized that she was going to be in the same year as the youngest prince. She almost thought she felt a chill settle over her as she gazed at Sasuke.

Would the scrutiny for potential dangers be more this year because Sasuke was starting? Would her secret be revealed? Her panicked thoughts were interrupted by the older of the Uchiha brothers.

“Each gennin is given a mentor.” Itachi said smoothly. “A mentor shows you around the academy, makes sure that you’re settling in, and helps you with homework if necessary. The older students are here to guide you and make your life a little easier.”

Sakura’s brain, sharp as ever, realized that they were all outside her room to pick new students to mentor, and that there was one more first year than older years.

Unsurprisingly, it was Itachi that took the responsibility of two students. He took her and Sasuke on a tour of the castle, mostly for her benefit. The Shinobi Institute had its own wing of the palace in which the two boys had grown up it.

“Classes won’t begin for a week yet, so you’ll have ample time to familiarize yourself with the layout.” Itachi stated as he pointed out the hallway housing the classrooms.

Sakura only hoped she would still be here in a week. She was going to have to be vigilant. Maybe she could think of it as training. Her Uncle said ninjas often went undercover, playing a role for years. She should be able to do the same. And as long as nobody walked in on her in the baths, she should be safe.

Itachi continued to narrate as he led Sakura and Sasuke out onto the castle’s sprawling grounds. “Now, while I’ll help with academic work, physical training is your responsibility. You need to maintain your form. Halfway through the year and at the end of the year there are evaluations; academic and physical. If you’re not prepared you will be cut.”

His warning came across loud and clear. Train until you collapse, both mind and body, and get up and do it again the next day. Shinobi were a nation’s defense and they could not afford unprepared soldiers.

New students and returning ones poured into the castle as the summer season came to an end.

Sakura didn’t notice any of them. She spent her free week down on the practice grounds, observing and filing away different jutsus, muscle strengthening techniques, and various katas.

She refused to be cut.

She noticed the older students were out there nearly every day. On Thursday they all mysteriously disappeared.  Sakura wondered for a minute where they would go but quickly forgot about it when Naruto came tearing onto the grass trailed by Sasuke.

“Alright, teme! This time I’m going to beat you! I’m going to be the next Hokage you know!”

Sasuke rolled his eyes, apparently familiar with the blonde’s loud declarations, and settled into a basic taijutsu stance, his right leg forward and bent at the knee and one arm hovering over his weapons pouch. Naruto mimicked his stance.

The fight was quick and completely in the dark haired boy’s favor. It was rough and unfinished, a show of raw power, which wasn’t much. They lashed out with fists and beat each other, Sasuke landing blows way more often than Naruto.  It lacked the beauty, precision, and finesse she had seen all week.

But watching their spar made Sakura feel better. Even the children from clans were coming in with as much training as her. Maybe a little less actually. Sakura’s Uncle pushed her limits since Satoshi’s accident so that she would be able to keep up with the boys. At that moment she felt more confident in her disguise. If this was the level expected from them, there was no way she would be sent home in December.

Sakura continued to watch from the sidelines as the other four boys paired off, cataloging what little abilities she saw. All four of them were from prominent clans. The Naras were well known for their manipulation of shadows. It was said they could create shadows in shadows. The Akimichi clan could enlarge various body parts to the point where his fist could be large enough to flatten a building. The Aburame clan’s partnership with bugs kind of creeped her out. They lived inside their body. The Inuzuka’s was equally obvious, for they were never seen without their nin-hound companions.

And when she bid good night to Tenten that night, she was ready for her training to start. The next day was going to be so exciting and she simply couldn’t wait to get started.

Chapter 3: Chapter 3

After two weeks at the Shinobi Institute, Sakura knew she was in trouble.

Serious trouble.

She thought she had been prepared for the rigorous training and trials she would face once the year began. She had been fast tracked through the basics when her brother was injured over two years ago. She displayed more skills than the boys that came from civilian backgrounds, but compared to the ones from noble families . . .

The girl never imagined she’d have so much trouble keeping up.

Her shortcomings raised niggling doubts that hovered in the back of her mind. The boys’ abilities far surpassed her own. Sakura didn’t have the years of training the rest of her classmates did. They had known all their lives they would be attending the Shinobi Institute, and she only had two years to learn everything they had grown up with.

Was that why there had been no kunoichi for a thousand years? Was the female body just not designed to handle the life style of shinobi life? Was her body just too weak? Was it an impossible dream?

And it was only the physical aspect she was struggling with. Her academic senseis praised her until they were blue in the face, ecstatic to have a student that excelled in their area and didn’t brush it off as boring or unimportant.

Right now, Sakura’s high score’s in classes like Shinobi Rules, Ninja Basics, Chakra, and Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and Genjutsu, as well as Mathematics, Reading and Writing and History of the Elemental Nations and Warfare, were what kept her from being in the bottom of the class. Her desire for knowledge meant she absorbed the material like a sponge. Quizzes came back with perfect scores and homework met every expectation.

Gai Maito, who taught everything to do with Taijutsu, had a lot to say about her flames of youth and how he had never met another student who had the potential to become a taijutsu master. That was, until he saw her abysmal attempts and poor stances.

But all the information she knew couldn’t compensate for her borderline failing grades in Sparring, Stamina and Fitness, Throwing and Katas.

She just wasn’t as fit as the other children. She tired easily, her stances were sloppy, her attacks blatant and uncoordinated, etc. Her physical instructors were always finding something to critique, and the civilian boys laughed at the noble that couldn’t perform up to par.

The only assignment she hadn’t failed was causing a leaf to stick to her forehead with chakra. The red head had no problems with her chakra control.

Her failings brought her to tears of frustration.

The salty liquid seeped into her pillow, which she was using to muffle the sound of her crying.

Sakura had overestimated herself. Or maybe underestimated just how hard it would be to become a shinobi. Either way, she was woefully ill prepared for the Institute. For a moment she considered packing her bags, fleeing the Institute and running back to the Haruno compound. Surely it would be better if she admitted that she could not become a shinobi, and they explained that Satoshi could not either.  If they knew that he had a debilitating injury, they might make an exception to the law.

Then she thought of the disgrace that would befall her family if she quit. No noble son had every quit.

But wouldn’t it be worse when the mid-year exams arrived and instead of cutting a civilian child from the program, she was sent home instead? It would be humiliating.

“My la-lord? Are you alright?”

Sakura jerked upright, dragging the palms of her hands hastily across her face to hide the signs of her tears.

She winced when Tenten gently stroked her cheek with a cool cloth. “Wiping the tears away only make your face redder, my lord.” The older girl’s lips still twitched every time she called Sakura a lord.

“I’m sorry, Tenten. This is all just so . . . hard. I don’t think I can do it.”

“You won’t with that attitude.” Tenten said sharply. “You knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but this is what you wanted. You have a magnificent opportunity in front of you and you can’t just give up because it’s too hard. If that’s the case, you’ll have to work twice as hard.”

“I don’t think I know what I wanted. I’m not cut out to be a ninja.”

“Then forget what you want. Remember why you’re here.”

Sakura blinked. Remember why she was here. She was here because Satoshi couldn’t be, because the law demanded his attendance or the consequences would be severe. She didn’t actually know what the horrible consequence were, since it had been centuries since one of the noble clans refused to send their only son to the Institute, but she was not eager to have the kingdom’s wrath brought down upon her family because she quit.

That was her purpose here. She was protecting Satoshi.

“Thank you, Tenten,” she said, smiling softly.

It was too late to turn back now. Sakura had to finish the eight years of training; she had to protect her older brother.

“Right, now let’s see if I can’t fix your problems.” Tenten determinedly said.

“Fix my problems?” The other girl echoed.

“That’s what a servant does, is that not?” The bun haired female winked at Sakura as she picked up her ink brush and drew a rough target on the wall. Then she tossed Sakura her weapons pouch.

The startled red head fumbled the pouch, which hit the stone floor with a thunk and the kunais and shurikens held within scattered. Sakura blushed as he hurriedly shoved them all back into the pouch, only to have Tenten snatch it out of her hands.

“Hey!” she exclaimed.

“This won’t do at all!” bemoaned the brunette. “Just look how disorganized this is. Once we’ve fixed your aim, I’m going to show you how to seal weapons into scrolls. That way you can carry more and put them away neatly.”

“I didn’t know you knew ninja techniques.”

Tenten shrugged. “I only know what I’ve heard from shinobi that came to my father’s shop. I can teach you how to properly take care of just about any weapon they might give you and the basics of how to wield it.”

Sakura bit her lip. Tenten never really talked about her family. The only ones she had cared for were her mother, who had died when she was a small child, and her father, who died when his blacksmith and shop caught fire. She knew Tenten had admired her father very much, because she wished to follow in his footsteps, but she hadn’t known how much the other girl had already learned about the trade she was in love with.

“I’d love that, if you don’t mind.”

The change in Tenten’s demeanor was instantaneous. “No problem, my lord. Now,” she withdrew one kunai and pressed it into Sakura’s hands, showing her the proper way to grip the blade, “a kunai is a common tool, designed for thrusting and stabbing. It’s not really meant to be thrown, they’re too easy to deflect or avoid, but if you attach a paper bomb to them, they’re an excellent weapon. However, you need to be accurate when throwing because explosive tags don’t have the largest range. What you’re holding now is a basic kunai. There are other molds and variations available depending on what you need the kunai to do.”

Sakura listened intently as Tenten explained the best way to throw the kunai and then demonstrated by hitting the center of her practice target.

“Is this a good idea? I mean gouging holes in the wall.” Sakura clarified when her companion drew herself up for another lecture slash pep talk.

“Oh, that’s easy to fix. Now you try.”

Sakura practiced until lights out. She would have kept going but she was sure that her fellow ninja in training would not appreciate the constant thud of kunai all night long. As it was, she didn’t feel like she had made much progress.

Her wild throws had resulted in the first dozen kunai hitting well outside the painted target, and with Tenten’s instruction she gradually pulled them in until they were within the outer ring. But they never hit any closer to the bull’s-eye and the holes were erratic. She couldn’t hit the same place twice.

Tenten had reassured her, saying that she wasn’t expected to master the technique of throwing kunai overnight. Hitting the target was progress, and with more practice would come the speed, accuracy and consistency.

When Sakura woke early the next morning to do a simple routine of muscle building exercises her servant had recommended, the ink was scrubbed off the wall and there was no sign that she had ever thrown a hundred kunai at it. There were also three sealing scrolls lying innocently next to her completed homework, and a note saying that Tenten would show her how to use them later tonight.

Tenten was scarily efficient.

 

Chapter 4: chapter 4

Tenten was also a hard task master Sakura thought when a kunai slammed into her desk scant inches from her nose. The other girl’s fervor had reached new levels, to the point where Sakura was spending every free moment she had, which was few and far between with all the classes and assignments she had, locked in her room as the brunette tutored her precision and accuracy.

The two girls started before the sun rose and continued until well after lights out, and the extended schedule had finally taken its toll on the red headed girl.

Her head jerked off the desk as her Deportment teacher, who had been responsible for almost taking her nose off her face, cried her name. “Haruno! There is a time and place for sleeping, namely your room at lights out and not during class.” Sakura fought the furious blush that threatened to take over her face as the rest of the class began snickering. “Would you care to share with the rest of us why you felt the need to sleep in my class, Heir Haruno?”

“No, sir, Ebisu-sensei.” She mumbled.

“Chin up, boy. Look at me when you speak. You need to pronunciate. Mumbling is rude and uncouth.” Ebisu pushed his thick, round sunglasses up the bridge of his nose as he scolded her. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from muttering that throwing live weapons at sleeping kids wasn’t exactly good manners.

“I apologize, Ebisu-sensei. It won’t happen again,” apologized Sakura.

It was hard to tell behind the dark glasses, but the red head was sure he was looking down his nose at her. “Too right it won’t. You will report to the medical wing after dinner for an hour.”

Sakura gave him the expected ‘yes sir, I’ll be there.’ She had hoped that was all her punishment consisted of, but he dragged her to the front of the room and had her demonstrate the proper way to bow to differently titled people. Many she had to do over until they met his strict expectations and critical eye.

By the time her last class before lunch ended her thigh muscles and lower back muscles ached from bowing and scraping. Naruto threw an arm around her shoulder as soon as they were out of Ebisu-sensei’s eyesight saying, “Tough luck, mate. You’d have been better off taking your nap in Iruka-sensei’s class. Guy absolutely adores you. And he never cares when Shikamaru is asleep.”

“Iruka-sensei’s always assigning him extra work for not being awake.”

“And then he ends up scrubbing desks because he’s too lazy to do the extra work!” Kiba laughed, roughly shoving in between her and the blonde.

“Hey! Back off, Dog Breath! I was talking to Satoshi first!” Naruto shouted.

Sakura twisted away from the Inuzuka and Namikaze heirs as they lost themselves in bickering. For reasons she couldn’t understand, and that none of the guys would share with her, Naruto and Kiba were always fighting for her attention.  From who sat next to her at meals, who she partnered with in afternoon lessons, to whom she helped with homework and which one of them could get her to loosen up.

She might have understood their actions if she was female. Well, if they knew she was a girl, but for them to be fighting so energetically over Satoshi’s attention baffled her. Sakura did her best to acquiesce to their wanting to spend time with her, but there were days where they incited her temper and they both scrambled to be anywhere but near her.

Sakura’s temper was actually becoming quite legendary amongst the gennin. Naruto was its most common victim, for the blonde was forever opening his mouth before his brain could catch up, and she would slam a fist into the back of his head.

The first time she had knocked him flat off his feat the rest of their friends had stared at her incredulously. Except for Sasuke. He rarely showed any emotion beyond indifference. But even he had taken an interest in her after that incident.

Sakura figured it was because she was the only person besides himself who would put Naruto in his place and because she had surprised him. If there was one thing she had learned, besides that Sasuke was a very closed off person and insanely talented, it was that he hated surprises.

She had surprised herself with how well she got on with the boys. They were a really dysfunctional group, ranging from Shikamaru, Sasuke, Gaara, and Shino who rarely spoke, to Kankuro and Chouji who were quite happy to be left to their own devices, to Naruto and Kiba who rarely shut up, and to Neji who took his duty as a second year gennin seriously, always making sure the first year gennins were prepared and on time.

Shikamaru was probably the person she was closest to. They may have been polar opposites in attitude, with her already showing signs of being a workaholic and him being the laziest boy in their year, but Sakura enjoyed the highly intense debates they had and their games of shogi, when she found time for it. The Nara heir was clearly a tactical genius. He could read her game plan ten moves ahead. Sakura hadn’t won a game yet, but there had been a few close calls and games they had to end with a stalemate because curfew arrived before they finished.

The best thing about Shikamaru, however, was that he never asked about her. He didn’t want to know about her family or her apparent lack of previous training and the reason behind it, so she never had to lie to him, which was something Sakura greatly appreciated.

She could be Sakura Haruno with the pineapple haired boy. Even though they all called her by Satoshi’s name, she enjoyed the moments where she could drop the mask, where she didn’t have to worry about thinking and acting like a boy, walking and talking and punching like one. Other than Shikamaru, the only other person she could be herself with was Tenten.

“You know Ebisu-sensei’s going to hold this offense over your head forever now?”

Sakura glared half-heartedly at Shikamaru, who had silently stepped into place besides her, arms crossed behind his head and his gaze pointed upwards like he could see the clouds through the stone ceiling.

“He takes everything so personally,” she sighed. “How do you manage to get away with it? He never calls you out on falling asleep. And you do it every day!”

Shikamaru shot her a smirk. “He’s taught a lot of Naras. I think he knows it’s a lost cause to force one to pay attention.”

Sakura started to grumble about how unfair it was and that Ebisu-sensei shouldn’t get his bandana in a twist over the one time his star pupil fell asleep when Shikamaru wagged a finger at her. “You need to pronunciate. Mumbling is rude and uncouth.”

Sakura laughed as she gently shoved him. “Quote sensei again and I’ll see that you join me in the infirmary.”

They both ignored the cries of protest that came from Naruto and Kiba about how Shikamaru could make Satoshi laugh and continued to the mess hall for lunch. Sakura chose to sit at the edge of the table and forced Shikamaru to sit on her left. With him acting as a buffer she was able to eat her lunch in peace.

---

 

Thankfully, Sakura had no problems staying awake in her afternoon lessons. With the practical lessons came the need to prove herself, and that feeling was accompanied by plenty of adrenaline.

Tenten’s extra lessons were well worth falling asleep in Deportment if it meant she showed improvement in the physical side of her training.

Gai-sensei was loudly proclaiming that her speed had increased and that she need to continue to let her flames of youth burn brightly. Sakura thought he was trying to encourage her by saying she was getting better, because, sure, she could now block about half the punches Naruto threw at her, but it was still only half.

She would still leave his class with pale skin that was already purpling from the force of the blonde boy’s throws.

“Look at him,” a brown haired boy sniggered as the roles of attacker and defender switched. “Haruno punches like a little girl. My brother could hit harder than that and he’s only six. No way is he going to make it. He’ll be the first one sent home.”

Fusoku’s words rang in her ears. He’ll be the first one sent home. Over and over again, Fusoku’s irritating voice sneered those words. Sakura’s eyes narrowed dangerously. Fusoku was from a civilian family and rather self-assured for one who wasn’t trained before coming to the Shinobi Institute. He might have worked on the farms, which would go a long way to explain his broader shoulders and why he was more buff than the rest of the civilian students.

But muscles weren’t everything. Fusoku might have been good at hand to hand combat, but brute force wasn’t everything. You would be more likely to exhaust yourself if you threw wildly. It was better to aim for an area of the body that you could injure.

‘What does he know?’ she though, fist flying forward and slamming into Naruto’s left shoulder with enough force to make him take a step back to keep his balance. ‘He’s a civilian. He’s had no more training than I have.’ Her next punch landed on her partner’s ribcage. ‘It’s only been one month. There’s more than enough time before the half year exams.’ Naruto winced when he blocked her next attack. ‘By that time I’ll be at the top of the class. I’ll be the rookie of the year. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’

“Woah, Satoshi. Great job today,” Naruto exclaimed when they were dismissed, shaking out his arm. “That went a lot better than yesterday. Fuzzy brows sensei commented on your flames of youth more so than usual. Have you been getting extra practice from him?”

“Don’t call him that.” Sakura snapped. “And why would I torture myself with spending more time with Gai-sensei?”

“Because you’re the weakest one of us.”

Naruto’s blunt words hurt. It felt like somebody had thrust a kunai into her heart. Is that how all the others saw her? As the weak boy? The one they had to protect? Did they think she would be the first one cut, too?

Sakura stomped ahead, deaf to his calls of what did he do. Apparently all the gennin thought she would never last.

She didn’t let her tears fall until she was in the safety of her rooms. Hot water rolled down her back as she huddled on the floor of the shower, arms wrapped around her knees.

“My lord?” Tenten called hesitantly. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Tenten,” Sakura answered. “Honestly. I’ll be out in just a minute.”

“If you’re sure.” Tenten’s footsteps moved away from the bathroom. Sakura stood, turning off the shower before reaching for the towel the brunette had set out. Not in the mood for conversation or questioning from her supposed friends, Sakura skipped dinner, heading straight to the medical wing.

She froze in the doorway upon arriving. The medic wing was much busier than she was expecting. Over three-quarters of the beds were occupied by bleeding shinobi. Medic-nin scurried to and fro, triaging patients and attending to those in the most danger of dying from the wounds they suffered.

“You. There. Don’t just stand there.” Sakura jumped when one of the medic-nin paused to address her. “If it’s not life threatening come back in the morning. We don’t have time to attend to whatever cuts you may have gotten because you weren’t paying attention.” The woman was already trying to push Sakura back out of the infirmary doors.

“What? No. I’m not injured.”

The medic-nin interrupted her. “Then you have no need to be standing in doors gawking. Move on with you.”

“You don’t understand. Ebisu-sensei told me to report here.” She explained hurriedly. The woman’s eyes widened in acknowledgement before quickly putting the young girl to work.

Sakura spent the next several hours fetching rolls of gauze, emptying buckets of vomit, washing bloody rags, and towing around a bowl of water in which she soaked a cloth she’d press to shinobis’ foreheads to wipe away sweat.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? YOU INCOMPETENT IDIOT! THAT HIGH A DOSAGE WOULD KILL HIM! I HAVE NO PATIENCE FOR ROOKIES! GET OUT OF MY HOSPITAL!”

The red headed girl almost dropped her bowl as a blonde medic-nin chewed out another that was shaking like a leaf. She actually did let it go, uncaring of the water that soaked her feet, when the blonde turned around, revealing a face Sakura knew all to well.

It was that of Tsunade Senju.

In a world where only males could become shinobi and the closest females could get was becoming medical ninja, Tsunade Senju was a legend. The one female who could have been a kunoichi if the laws were different. There were rumors around Konoha that the woman could shatter mountains with one fist. She was the woman any aspiring medical ninja wanted to be. Tsunade was the best healer in the nation.

So it really shouldn’t have surprised Sakura that she was stationed at the castle. It was only logical to have the best the medical ninja the world has to offer on hand where the royal family lived. But Sakura never thought she would have met the one person she idolized.

She snapped out of her thoughts when another medic-nin ordered her to refill the bowl. She hastily apologized for dropping it in the first place before rushing off to do as she was told.

The rest of the night she kept half her attention on her duty, and the other half on where Tsunade was.

When the chaos subsided it was well after curfew. The woman who had first seen her standing in the doorway scribbled a note for her should one of the teachers catch her on her way back to her room. Sakura clutched it in one hand. She glanced between the piece of paper and Tsunade, whose hands glowed green as they hovered over the last patient.

She hesitated briefly before summoning up all her courage and striding over to the older woman.

“Can you teach me?”

 

Chapter 5: Chapter 5

“Can you teach me?” Sakura pressed when the older woman didn’t respond.

If she could learn the woman’s rumored monstrous strength, there was no way she would be cut in three months. Physical fitness was a large component of their assessments. Her stances and aim were coming along nicely, largely in part thanks to all the effort Tenten put in for her.

Speaking of the brown haired girl, Sakura was going to have to write to her Uncle Mamoru to increase her already increased wages. She had gone above and beyond for Sakura. Tenten scrounged up more kunai and shuriken than the standard kit given to students came with, and taught her more efficient ways to maintain them.

With her instruction, Sakura was now consistently hitting the target in Throwing class.

Tenten has also somehow gotten her hands on a tantō, which was simply a shortened katana, so she could start training with a sword, and some rather unusual weapons, like an ax that stood taller than herself with double sided blades (Sakura couldn’t even lift the monstrous weapon let alone swing it in any controlled manner. She was actually afraid of cutting off her foot if she dropped it), and a bow and a quiver of arrows, which were not typical shinobi weapons, but as Tenten said, “They have a much longer range than kunai and shuriken and can be designed to penetrate armor. Plus, due to their slim shape, arrows are harder to defend against.”

Tenten reasoned that Sakura could show her diverse knowledge and skill in weapons in the assessment’s last test. The final test, which wasn’t often given, allowed for gennin to show off budding talent in an area not covered in classes or advanced ability in one of them.

The brunette meant well, but Sakura would never be a weapons mistress. Besides, the proctors would look down on her if she showed skill with an ax or bow but couldn’t wield the standard kunai and shuriken to their satisfaction.

But, thinking on Tenten’s well-meant gestures had given the red head a brilliant idea.

She had intended on asking for Tsunade to teach her the trick to her otherworldly strength, and there had to be a trick because Sakura could attest that no woman was that strong naturally. But a medical ninja was always in high demand.

If she could learn the skills of an Iryō-nin, she was guaranteed to pass the tests in December.

---

 

Tsunade took half a second to look down at the snot nosed brat pleading for her to teach him and snorted. She already had enough duties on her hands. There was no time to teach brats that didn’t look old enough to know what chakra was let alone use it.

“Funny, boy. Now, punishment’s over. Scram before I throw you out.”

“Please.” Green eyes shined as he tried to appeal to a kind side that didn’t exist.

“I don’t have the time. Now get out.” She answered.

“I promise I’ll work hard,” the boy swore.

Tsunade didn’t bother to restrain a groan. “Look, kid, you don’t have what it takes to be a medical ninja.”

“How would you know? You haven’t given me a chance.”

“Do you know any medical jutsus?” The boy’s entire face darkened. That was answer enough for her.

“But I can learn!” He exclaimed.

Tsunade didn’t care to deal with the brat at this time. Her head was pounding, a combination of having indulged in a more than unhealthy amount of sake and having to deal with incompetent nurses in her hospital wing when so many lives were at stake.

“Come back in the morning, brat. Around the eleventh bell.”

The boy opened his mouth to protest, but the blonde cut him off. She was well aware that the boy would be in lessons at that time of day. But she didn’t give a rat’s ass.

More than just not wanting to deal with the kid at the moment, Tsunade refused to teach boys. Her one and only apprentice had been a female named Shizune. The Crown had denied her the title of kunoichi, although she had fought an entire year’s worth of graduating shinobi to prove her strength.

As retribution, she promised to only teach girls. The life of an Iryō-nin was the only path available to a female that wanted to be a ninja. Not that, admittedly, there was a line of young girls lining up to be medical ninja.

But it was the principle of the matter. The kingdom had denied her want she wanted, and she would deny them what they needed.

There wasn’t a medical ninja in the Elemental Kingdoms that could match her prowess. And since the palace needed her, they couldn’t force male trainees upon her. They knew she would rather flee and go underground than pass on her knowledge to males. And they put up with her because she was the best.

Having made her opinion clear, Tsunade commanded the brat, still staring expectantly up at her with doe like green eyes that looked out of place on a boy’s face, out of her domain. He left grudgingly.

---

 

When Sakura returned to her room, after nipping by the dining hall to catch a quick meal, she found a letter from her Uncle lying on her pillow. It read:

Dear Satoshi-kun,

I hope this letter finds you well and that you have found life as a page as wonderful as you anticipated it to be. Remember to study hard and practice harder. Only the best are granted the headband of a shinobi.

Sakura sends her well wishes. She asked that I pass along her deepest thanks for the most recent favor you have performed for her.

A word of advice, don’t ever forget your heart. They teach you that shinobi are supposed to be emotionless, but men are stronger when they fight to protect that which is precious to them.

Love,

Mamoru Haruno.

Sakura read through it twice more, committing the short letter to memory, before hiding it underneath the loose floorboard she had discovered under her bed her second week there. She had been feeling around for a stray kunai that had hit far from its mark and clattered under the bed. She wound up with splinters in her fingers and a hiding place that could be put to future use.

She had returned to her room in despair of her chances of making it through her first year at the Institute. But her uncle was giving her the same reminded Tenten had: she had to protect Satoshi.

It had strengthened her resolved. Tomorrow, Sakura would go back to Tsunade and demand that the woman take her on.

---

 

“Cover for me,” she hissed to Naruto when their Warfare class ended. She had ten minutes before the eleventh hour bell tolled, which meant she had ten minutes to race to the infirmary.

Sakura knew she would be reprimanded, and duly punished, for skipping class (and it would be a harsh punishment because her next class was Shinobi Rules, taught by Mizuki), but she would take the punishment. Whatever twisted punishment Mizuki came up with would only be temporary.

“Thanks,” she said, despite the blonde’s not having agreed to lie for her, and dashed off down the corridor. He shouted after her, but she was far enough away that it was inaudible. Naruto was good at thinking on his feet and would have no trouble coming up with a believable lie for her absence. As long as she let him in on why she was uncharacteristically cutting class, Naruto would forgive her for putting him on the spot.

She arrived at the hospital wing three minutes before eleven, and proceeded to enter the double doors and head towards Tsunade’s office on the far side of the room.

Many of the beds lining the two long walls were still occupied. Despite the heavy presence of people, the room was eerily silent and her every footstep echoed.

Sakura stared at the door, hesitantly wondering if she made the right decision, then knocked.

It seemed like ages to the girl before the door opened. Amber eyes blinked down at her blearily. After a second or two they cleared.

Tsunade stepped aside, gesturing her inside the office with one hand, eyes regarding her steadily.

“I’m here,” Sakura said, uncertainly.

“I can see that. I wasn’t expecting you to show. I’ll give you this kid, you’ve got gumption. But what makes you think I’ll give you any more of a chance now than I did last night?”

Sakura stood proudly and announced as firmly as possible, “Because I won’t let you tell me no.”

There was an unidentifiable gleam in the woman’s light eyes that put Sakura on edge. Maybe this upfront won’t take no for an answer attitude was not the right approach. “I’ll tell you what, brat. I’ll give you one week to tell me the most important skill of an Iryō-nin.” She held up a hand to forestall the answer Sakura was about to give. “If you can, I will teach you. If not, I will go to Kensouske-san and have him remove you from the Institute, permanently.”

The woman’s ultimatum gave Sakura pause. If she got the answer wrong and was sent back to the Haruno estates, the Crown would send a messenger out to find a replacement for her. If they did that, they would surely learn that the heir was crippled and couldn’t have possibly been the boy attending the Institute for a month. It would only be a matter of time before it was discovered that she had dared to impersonating a clan heir, never mind that it was her own brother, and take his place at the Institute.

“Well, what do you say, boy?” This time Tsunade’s eyes gleamed victoriously, like she had already won the challenge.

Fire burned in Sakura’s belly. “You’ve got a deal.”

---

 

“Just for the record,” Naruto said, throwing himself onto the bench next to Sakura, “you totally owe me for lying to Mizuki-sensei. That bastard hates me. Wasted the first ten minutes of class trying to trick me into telling where exactly you had gone. I told him that Iruka-sensei held you back. Iruka doesn’t really like Mizuki-teme and would totally side with me, as long as I tell him the truth.”

Sakura listened silently. She hadn’t noticed how Mizuki treated the exuberant boy, but now that he mentioned it, she could name a lot of senseis that treated him coldly and graded him harsher than the other students.

Naruto turned sideways to look at her fully. It was the most serious she had seen him. “So, why was I lying for you, Satoshi?”

In a quiet voice that was unlikely to be overheard in the racket that filled the dining hall, Sakura explained how she had to return to the infirmary at the medic’s specified time if she wanted a chance of learning medical jutsus.

“I don’t understand. Why do you need to learn medical ninjutsu?” he asked, confused.

“I’m not stupid, Naruto. I know I’m not as skilled as the rest of the clan children. You guys are all leaps and bounds ahead of me. If I don’t do something spectacular in the evaluations, I’ll be sent home.”

“Why didn’t you ask for help?”

Sakura laughed. “The senseis don’t give out extra help. Or at least not for free. Any extra help they count as assignments and factor it into your grade as if it was required. I’d be sent packing in a week if I asked them for help.”

“Not them. Us. Me,” Naruto clarified.

“You would help me?”

“Of course I would!” the whiskered boy said staunchly. “You help me with my essays all the time. I’d say I actually owe you for all the help you’ve given me.”

Sakura laid her small hand over his. “Thank you, Naruto. That means a lot to me,” she said gratefully.

He grinned foxily. “No problem, Satoshi. This weekend, I’ll introduce you to a couple of people that’ll help.”

---

 

With Naruto’s support, Sakura felt much better about being at the Institute. Despite her shortcomings, he clearly believed in her, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, she felt the need to live up to his belief in her, to not disappoint the blonde.

Still, she was nervous. The deadline Tsunade had given her was approaching (it was tomorrow) and Sakura didn’t have the answer to her question.

Her first instinct had been to say the Mystical Palm technique medical ninja used to heal people. It allowed the user to speed up the natural healing process of the patient’s body and could be used on external and internal injuries.

She had read that the technique required extremely refined chakra control to use, so Sakura thought the answer might be chakra control. But it didn’t feel right to her. Both answers were obvious, and given how eager Tsunade was to take her on as an apprentice, Sakura didn’t think the busty woman would give her a question she could answer easily.

“Pay attention, my lord!” Tenten snapped as another kunai whizzed by her ear. This time, it nicked the top of the fleshy appendage. Sakura raised her hand to wipe away the small trickle of blood. “You can’t be a ninja if you can’t avoid a kunai.”

Sakura gasped. “Tenten, you’re a genius! You definitely deserve a raise. I’ll be right back!”

For the second time that week, Sakura ignored a person calling after her as she ran to the hospital wing.

She skirted to a stop outside Tsunade’s office, huffing with exertion. “Evasion,” she gasped when the woman opened the door. “That’s a medical ninja’s most important skill. Evasion.”

Tsunade study her, eyes hard. “Are you sure this is what you want? I will not cut you any slack. This training is going to be more demanding than your normal training, and I won’t let you half ass it because you don’t have the time or energy to do both. If you step through this door, you are committing yourself. I expect you to treat this seriously.”

Sakura nodded several times. The blonde stared at her a moment longer, then said, “Very well. You’ll report here at four in the morning.”

“Four in the morning!” the red head repeated.

“Yes. If that’s going to be a problem, there’s the door.” She pointed behind Sakura with one long, slender finger.

“No, that’s not a problem. Not at all,” the young girl hurried to assure her.

It really might be. Her days were long. They started at six with breakfast, and didn’t end until eleven, at which point she had to complete all of her assigned homework. Adding in Iryō training, and she’d be up from four til eleven, which was nineteen hours. Factor in homework and she’d be lucky to get three hours of sleep.

But she needed to do this. “I’ll be there,” she promised.

Chapter 6: Chapter 6

Sakura groaned, mumbling incoherently into her pillow as a warm hand shook her awake. She had been having such a pleasant dream. She was demolishing opponent after opponent in some free for all ninja tournament where the last man standing could ask a favor of King Fugaku and Queen Mikoto. Sakura was going to kick ass in disguise, reveal her gender, and demand that Their Majesties allow kunoichi to be trained again. Then she’d be famous.

The hand on her shoulder shook her more roughly. “Come on, my lord. You must wake up. It’s half past three.”

The red head vaguely recognized the voice as belonging to Tenten, but her servant and friend was crazier than a ramen deprived Naruto if she thought she was rousing Sakura from her cozy bed in the middle of the night.

“You don’t want to be late, my lord. I’ve already started your shower, so there’s no cold water in the pipes. Hurry up and get cleaned. I’ll be right back with your breakfast,” Tenten continued with her rebuke.

Sakura cracked open one bleary emerald eye, hoping to cow the brunette into letter her sleep until a more normal hour. Kami knew Tenten’s heart was in the right place and Sakura was grateful beyond words for the older girl’s help, but she was not getting gup this early for whatever training schem she had designed.

It simply wasn’t happening.

Tenten was persistent though. “Master Tsunade will be very vexed if you’re late.”

“Master Tsunade . . .,” the drowsy girl repeated. The name bounced around in her head.

Sakura cursed violently, careful to keep the volume down and not disturb the rest of the gennin wing, and leapt out of bed.

Or tried to. She caught herself up in the blanket and half fell out of the bed. Thankfully, her hands weren’t caught up and her reflexes were improved enough to slapped them to the floor to prevent her from completely overbalancing in some embarrassing display.

Sakura quickly righted herself and dashed for the attached bathroom (and thank Kami that each gennin had private bathrooms or her secret would not have lasted long). The hot water cascaded down her body. She gave it the perfunctory scrub and worked the shampoo in her hair into a lather. The one benefit of pretending to be her brother, aside from having the chance to pursue her dream, was that her shorter hair was much easier to care for. It required less maintenance and Sakura was contemplating keeping it short even after she came out.

She pulled the short locks in front of her, examining them with a critical eye. Soon, she would have to get Tenten to reapply the red dye. The color was starting to fade.

She hurried through the rest of her morning routine and found a plate of steaming breakfast waiting on her desk, as promised. Next to it was an unlabeled scroll, a full inkpot, and a brush.

Sakura marveled at the bun haired girl’s efficiency.

She shoveled down her meal, not actually tasting it in her haste to get to the Hospital Wing and scooped up the items Tenten had laid out into a messenger bag. The halls were empty except for the staff. They squeaked in surprise when a short red blur darted past and around them, brown bag bouncing behind her erratically.

The girl cheered internally when she reached the doors to Tsunade’s domain before the bell sounded proclaiming the fourth hour. Taking a deep breath to compose herself, she entered.

Sakura was directed to the healer’s office located at the end of the large wing. Knocking tentatively on the door, she prayed that the woman was prepared for her.

Tsunade’s reputation was legendary across the Elemental Nations. Her penchant for betting and losing big was no secret and her love for sake was even more obvious. The cup was never far from hand.

What if she had gotten drunk last night and Sakura was wasting her time expecting to learn medical jutsus? Or would Tsunade sabatoge her training because she had forced the woman to take her on as a student?

The minute that Sakura had to wait for the door to open was the longest sixty seconds of her life. She could only think of all the ways Tsunade might back out of the deal.

Tsunade wrenched the open elm door. Her amber eyes flashed at the young girl anxiously shifting her weight before her. “There’s no quitting, understand me brat? No giving up because it’s too tough or too time consuming. Trust me. Your other courses won’t even begin to compare to the hell I’m about to put you through. Good medic-nin are hard to come by. Talented ones that don’t needed their hand held twenty-four seven even more so. I’m going to put you through your paces. If you can’t meet my expectations, I’ll toss you out on your ass. You keep up or you get lost.”

Sakura lifted her chin. She had already been aware that learning a whole new skill set would take effort and dedication. But she would see this through to the bitter end, whatever that may be.

Yes, it meant longer days and cut into her sleeping hours, but she would eventually adjust to the hectic timetable. And sure, Sakura was pretty certain she had just doubled her workload for the foreseeable future, but it would be well worth it if she accomplished something before the half year evaluations.

She scurried into the room that would soon become what Naruto and Kiba joked to be her second bedroom, for she would be spending so much time holed up in there that it was the first place any person looking for Satoshi Haruno would try.

The room was very functional. Sakura couldn’t see any personal touches. She didn’t count the plants growing on the window sill since she was sure they wound up in the medicine. Tsunade’s desk sat before the window, its surface a disaster of paper and files. In the one corner, on both sides of where the two walls met, was a floor to ceiling bookcase, stuffed to the point its contents were threatening to explode outwards. Filing cabinets took up the rest of the space, and they were just as disorganized as the rest of the room. She could spot several drawers where the corners of pages were caught, clearly not having been set in properly.

The young girl thought it was a miracle that Tsunade managed to find anything in the sheer chaos that was her office.

The blonde dug through one of her desk drawers, removing a solid wooden storage box, one of those boxes with decorations for people to put their wills in, and setting it down with a hard thump. Sakura found the intricate floral pattern to be beautiful. She lightly ran her fingertips over the lines.

Then she looked up to stare at Tsunade, who was studying her with an apprising gaze that made Sakura duck her head again. “What’s in it?” she asked, curiously.

“Open it.”

Hesitantly, Sakura slid the box towards her and popped up the lid. Inside were several tiny parchment wrapped packages. She lifted one out, pulling on the twine that held it closed. It held some kind of plant with bright green leaves and brilliant scarlet fruits. Puzzled, she took out another one. Tsunade watched in silence as she unwrapped a wrinkled root, a reddish bark, a green-brown flower, and were those spores?

“I don’t understand,” Sakura said, sweeping her hand at the flora before her. “What is all this?”

“That,” the renowned medic-nin tapped a red tipped finger on the box, “is your first assignment.”

Sakura bit down on her tongue. She knew that the other female would have homework for her. There was enough information in the medical field to be memorized that it easily matched what she would learn in eight years at the Institute.

But she had hoped that Tsunade would go a little easy on her on her first day.

“I want you to identify each specimen in that box. Then I want a list of its physical description, what it treats, what it’s classified as, which part of it is used, and any warning that goes with it. And I want it by Friday.”

“But it’s Wednesday! That only gives me two days,” the girl exclaimed.

“Friday.”

Sakura figuratively kissed her sleep goodbye. Tonight, she would be burning the midnight oil.

“Now, put that all back and follow me outside.”

Reluctantly, she did as she was told, carefully stowing the box within her messenger bag. She left the bag behind, as instructed. Tsunade said she could get it before breakfast started; officially.

The palace’s practice grounds were empty. It was an odd site for Sakura. Whether she passed by purposefully or happened to spot the fields out a window, there was always excitement to be found. The silence and lack of activity felt wrong.

Luckily for her, Tsunade was quick to correct that.

Her new sensei pulled back the green haori she was wearing, revealing a weapons pouch on her right hip. A pouch identical to the one Sakura wore.

Her hands flew to her side but her pouch wasn’t there. “When did you . . . how did . . . what are you going to do with my weapons?” There were a few questions she wanted to ask, but she settled for finding out just what Tsunade intended to do with the pilfered weapons.

“You already know that being able to evade attacks is the most important skill for a medic-nin. An Iryō-nin that can’t dodge is dead. And a dead Iryō-nin isn’t doing their job. So, were going to see how well you can evade a kunai.”

Tsunade was flipping said knife in her hand. Spinning it rapidly in the air and catching it without looking. Sweat beaded on Sakura’s forehead. She was joking, right? She wasn’t going to throw live kunai at a first year gennin?

Chouji had told her she was suicidal to ask for extra training from Tsunade, whom just about every in the palace was afraid of. She was starting to agree with him.

Sakura squeaked when Tsunade suddenly launched the kunai at her, aiming no doubt for her large forehead. She was infinitely glad none of the guys were there to witness that.

For a second, she stood there cross-eyed, and then she threw herself unceremoniously on the ground to avoid getting killed. She didn’t have time to react when a second one followed, thudding in the dirt dangerously close to her knee.

The rest of the young girl’s morning was spent dodging kunai to the best of her lacking capabilities. When she had cried out the first time she wasn’t quick enough and the blade sliced her upper arm, Tsunade had told her not to worry, assuring that she would heal any injuries she garnered before sending her off to class.

The sinister smile that accompanied the words did nothing to reassure her.

Small nicks and cuts became common when Tsunade progressed to shuriken, which were lighter and could be thrown much quicker and with much better accuracy. She just about kissed the ground when the older woman called an end to their game and wasted no time retrieving her bag and hightailing it back to the safety of her room.

Tenten was waiting for her. As soon as Sakura crossed the threshold the weapons guru had repossessed the weapons pouch, firmly stating that she would give them a quick sharpening while Sakura changed out of her dirt covered outfit. A clean set was laid out on her bed in anticipation.

“How do you do it?”

Brown eyes glanced up from their work. They seemed so alive whenever she held a weapon. “Do what, my lord?”

“This,” she said pointedly, waving a hand around to gesture at the immaculate room. “How do you do so many things in one day?”

“You do the same, my lord.”

“Satoshi.” Tenten blinked. “Call me Satoshi.” She nodded in agreement.

“Satoshi, then. You attend classes all day. You wake early to train and practice late into the night.”

“But you’re always the one that gets me moving in the morning and the one to call it quits. You clean up after me all the time. You always seem to know what I need before I do.” Sakura pressed.

The other girl shrugged. “It only seems miraculous because you’re only in this room at the start and end of your day. I have the time while you’re in classes to do my servantly duties. My father used to say that so long as you took the time to forge a blade right once, you would never have to repair it. The philosophy applies well here. I get it done right the first time and use the rest to help you.”

Tenten’s voice had grown softer as she talked about her father. Sakura wished there was something she could say, but she didn’t have the greatest track record in that department. Her father wished she was crippled and she always got the feeling, on the rare occasions he had called her into her office, that Lord Haruno hated her, blaming his female child for the death of his wife.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Tenten said, pointing a kunai at her. “No pity looks. I love my father. I miss him. I don’t need you to feel sorry for me. I have the opportunity of a lifetime here.”

Sakura blinked. “You do?”

“Yes,” she affirmed. “One of the best blacksmiths in the kingdom is down in town named Iō. I sneak down there whenever I can to talk.”

“I’m glad your dream’s not been put on hold.”

Tenten shook her head. “It’s quite the opposite. One of the reasons I wanted to be a blacksmith was to show that women can be just as good as men. But, just by being here helping your, I’m helping me. Because you’re going to become the best damn gennin to ever pass through this Institute. You’ll show them all that kunoichi have what it takes.”

“Thank you, Tenten. For everything.” Sakura couldn’t believe how much faith the weapons mistress had in her. “I promise I’ll make your dream come true. It’ll be easy, right? So long as I have you to support me.”

Tenten smiled brightly. “Right.” She held out one fist. Sakura raised her own to bump it.

“Now, get moving. Or you’ll be late.”

Sakura yelped and ran to get changed, Tenten’s musical laughter ringing in her ears. She had never imagined, when she picked Tenten as the person to accompany her that she would find such a friend in her.

It made her feel giddy. Tenten was her first true friend. And Sakura was so relieved to have one person that wouldn’t hate her when all this was over. She had honestly worried that Tenten might hate her for bringing her to the palace where she couldn’t make any progress on her dream to build her own blacksmith.

The next eight years didn’t seem as daunting.

“Hey, Tenten,” she called on her way out.

“Yes, my lord?”

“Can you see if you can find any books to identify plants?”

“I’ll get them for you.”

Sakura grinned and ran to the mess hall. Her comrades thought Satoshi was unusually chipper and chatty, but they all attributed that to her success at getting the Legendary Tsunade as a mentor. For once, she was able to laugh and throw bread rolls about the table without feeling guilty about lying to them.  

 

Chapter 7

As promised, Tenten had found a veritable gold mine of books she could use to identify and key out the thirty plants she had been tasked with identifying, and a dozen more that described how every plant that existed could be used in medicine. They were waiting on Sakura’s desk when she returned to her room after dinner to start on all of her homework.

Not only were the thick texts invaluable to her assignment, but Sakura found them fascinating. It was nothing short of amazing what these plants could do when ground up and made into a paste. Like the Horopito plant, or Red Leopard, which could be made into a bruise cream that cleared bruises up in two days.

Sakura found herself engrossed, reading until her eyes itched from staring at the tiny print. Viridian carefully scanned the pages that identified plants by their key characteristics, looking for those Tsunade had assigned her.

The young girl had taken the medic’s words to heart. She knew Tsunade hadn’t meant for her to put her extracurricular studies ahead of her normal ones, but Sakura could hear the desire in her voice for a competent student. A student that wanted to learn her trade.  So, while Tsunade had most likely meant for her to get it done during her free time, it simply wasn’t happening.

Free time was a misconception. A dream. It didn’t exist.

Sakura’s free time was filled with homework, the occasional detention because she was a bit of a smart mouth, extra training under Tenten’s magnificent tutelage, and now lessons in the medical field. She spent every waking hour and then some trying to better herself and pull up in the class rankings.

And if she wanted to do that, she would need the edge medical ninjutsu would give her. Which meant the red head needed to impress her newest mentor so that her lessons would quickly advance to learning jutsus. In order to reach that point, Sakura had to prove her dedication to the subject, so she would complete Tsunade’s assignments first.

Still, Sakura was relieved when she finished off the paragraph for Club Moss, also known as Wolf’s Claw, which was the spores she had originally unwrapped when first looking through the box, that were useful in improving memory and focus.

Mustering up her focus, the young girl pushed through her other assignments one by one. Once finished, she didn’t bother climbing into her bed. Instead she just laid her head down at the desk and was asleep instantly.

She regretted that choice in the morning, when she woke up with aching back and neck muscles and not feeling rested at all.

She yawned widely and blearily looked at the clock mounted on her wall, attempting to discern the time. It was difficult to do when Sakura saw three of each hand. When her vision didn’t clear she gave up. She felt confident that it was before three in the morning because Tenten was still curled in the cot provided for her and snoring lightly.

Crawling into bed was pointless, she would hardly have the time to fall asleep before she had to be up again, so Sakura peeled her arm from the book she had pillowed her head on, ran a bath because it was more quiet and she didn’t want to wake her friend, dressed, and neatly slid her assignments into her bag.

She was just debating if she would have time to find the kitchens and grab a bite to eat before running to Tsunade’s lesson when Tenten stirred in her bed sheets.

“Good morning, Tenten,” Sakura said cheerily. She still felt a tad exhausted from the lack of sleep the last two days, but Sakura was finding it hard not to be in happy spirits.

Almost a month and a half in and things were starting to look up. Her academic grades were as high as ever and slowly but surely she was improving in the physical side as well, thanks to the bun haired female. And now she would blow the examiners out of the water with Iryō Ninjutsu.

Plus, this weekend she had a promise from Naruto that he would help her train. The blond had promised to get her up to the level of the rest of the clan heirs.

So how could Sakura not be happy? Masquerading as her brother was the most insane and dangerous stunt she had ever pulled, but it was working.

Unlike Sakura, who had to drag herself out of bed some mornings, Tenten was immediately alert. “Good morning, Satoshi. I’ll be right back with breakfast and then we can use the extra time since you’re up early to practice your newest katas.”

Sakura blinked at the other girl’s frankness, suddenly wishing she had snuck out of her room before Tenten had woken.

When the brunette returned with a simple meal of porridge with raspberries, Sakura ate slowly to deter her, and when that didn’t work begged off just this once.  Tenten agreed to let her go and Sakura all but shunshinned to the medical wing despite not having learned the Body Flicker technique yet.

---

Sakura’s second day of Iryō-nin training was vastly different from the first.

Upon entering Tsunade’s office, the preteen had proudly presented her already finished assignment. The woman had taken in with an air of disbelief which quickly turned serious as she scanned the contents of the scroll that were a good three and a half feet in length.

Then she ordered Sakura to follow her and exited her office.

Sakura shadowed the world renowned medic-nin as she personally checked on the shinobi still laid up in beds from last week. With each patient Tsunade would describe the injury in detail and Sakura was expected to name as many plants as she could that would be used to heal such a wound.

She hesitantly explained her choices, but Tsunade never said if her selections were right or wrong. Just swept up to the next prone figure and had her do it again. Still, Sakura figured she was doing well because Tsunade was not one for incompetence. If she was wrong the woman would probably let her know immediately, like she had with that nurse when Sakura had received punishment duty a week ago.

Afterwards there was another round of evasion practice, which Sakura faired at as well as she had the previous day, and Tsunade sent her away at the end of the lesson with another box of thirty plants to identify.

Sakura assured herself, as she walked into her Warfare class, which about different battle tactics and when they were best used as well as a history of the wars the Elemental Nations had fought against the samurai, that she would not spend all her lessons with Tsunade researching plants and dodging kunai.

She dug through her bag when Iruka-sensei called for them to hand in their homework, only to turn up empty handed. Dismayed, Sakura realized she couldn’t even remember doing her Warfare assignment.

She wanted to bang her head against the desk for all the good it would do her. Not even one day into her new schedule before her insanely heavy workload got to her. Sakura had never not done an assignment. She couldn’t believe she had forgotten to do this one though, because she loved history.

Even worse was Iruka-sensei asking her if she was feeling alright and if she needed to visit the hospital wing. Sakura colored while he looked at her with concern, most likely taking in the purple shadows under her eyes and slightly yellow tint to her skin.

She knew she probably appeared drained and fatigued, but that was to be expected with how hard she was pushing herself. The girl in disguise only had to manage for a few more weeks. That was the point where Tenten estimated her katas and aim would be second nature and instead of spending two hours a day on them she’d suffice with just thirty minutes to keep the skills sharp.

Iruka-sensei was the nicest sensei they had. Everyone in her year agreed, aside from Fusoku and his group who thought him to be a joke. But that didn’t stop him from giving Sakura an hour’s worth of picking up stray kunai from the practice field after lunch.

Sakura understood that he couldn’t let her off for free, even though she thought her record should speak for itself and warrant one missed assignment.

She studiously ignored Naruto, who was shooting her concerned glances every time Iruka-sensei turned to write on the board. Hell, even Shikamaru, who usually couldn’t be bothered to be awake in this class, was studying her.

Sakura blocked them all out, concentrating solely on Iruka-sensei’s lecture, on how the Uchiha clan overpowered the Senju clan and established Konoha, which they graciously allowed the Senju to rule, and taking meticulous notes, as if by doing so she could prove that everything was normal.

It was a fascinating story. Having beaten the Senjus and established themselves above the clan of wood users, the Uchiha clan, led by Madara Uchiha, browbeat the other warring clans into submission. One by one, clan after clan fell to the Uchiha’s strength and joined his budding empire, settling across the lands that would become known as the Land of Fire.

Sakura knew that after the Uchiha clan had built their nation, several other clans had congregated to do the same. Sungakure. Iwagakure. Kumogakure. Kirigakure.

And as ninja were wont to do, fighting broke out between the nations and the world was ensconced in war once more. She didn’t know the specifics, but somehow Madara Uchiha had united all the nations under one banner, declaring them to be the Elemental Nations with himself as their king in the Chikara Palace and assigning one man from each land to be the Kage, responsible for managing one part of the nation for him.

Of course, once the ninja had stopped fighting amongst themselves, they fought earnestly against the samurai, whose lands border the Elemental Nations to the north. So it seemed that shinobi were always destined to be fighting.

Tensions were continuously high between the Elemental Nations and the Land of Iron, home of the samurai. Their military might was formidable.

However, the samurai weren’t the nation’s only enemy. There were several smaller countries that had cropped up after Madara had gathered the five greatest into one, like Kusagakure and Amegakure.

Sakura was forced out of her musings by the sound of the palace’s clock chiming the eleventh hour, loudly announcing that it was time for the gennin to move on to their next class. She tried to slip out behind Fusoku, who the rest of her friends hated as much as she did, only to have Sasuke block the doorway. She couldn’t demand that the young prince move or forcibly shove him out of the way, which gave Naruto the opportunity to latch a hand onto her arm and prevent her from escaping to the safety of Mizuki’s Shinobi Rules class. Sakura never imagined that she’d ever put the words Mizuki and safety in the same sentence.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Satoshi?” Naruto asked. “Iruka-sensei’s right. You look really pale. And it’s kinda hard to miss those ginormous bags under your eyes. I’ll tell Mizuki-teme that you went to the infirmary if you want.”

Angrily, Sakura brushed off the blond’s hand. She was perfectly fine. Just because she missed one assignment and it must have been because she was sick. The senseis never made a big fuss about it when other students forgot to complete one; just assigned detention or an hour of punishment labor and moved on.

Why did her mistake mean she was sick? It was nothing more than a mistake. So one homework assignment slipped her mind. It happened. The senseis set them a crazy amount anyway and it was unrealistic of them to expect the gennin to complete all of it every night.

Sakura took her set in Mizuki’s class with a huff, set on ignoring Naruto, Kiba, Shikamaru, and anyone else that was trying to insist she go up to the hospital wing. Thankfully lunch came after Shinobi Rules. Sakura practically inhaled hers before darting down to the practice fields.

She tuned out Gai-sensei as he went on about how youthful she was for fulfilling her detention so quickly. Taking the proffered wooden crate and set about picking up the scattered kunai. When it was full, she hefted it and carried it to the weapons storage shed, then returned to the field to repeat the process.

After the fourth time emptying the crate she caught the sounds of conversation and really loud laughter. Sakura poked her head outside the shed to spy a group of chuunin, which included Sasuke’s older brother amongst them, heading down the path that lead out of Chikara palace and into Baria-shi, the sprawling city that lay at the base of the palace that was famous for its marketplace.

Curious, Sakura watched them disappear, wondering why they were going down to the town on a Thursday. And without permission likely. While chuunin had more freedom, obligated only to follow the commands of their jounin master of four years, whilst they were in the palace they were supposed to obey the same rules they had since day one. That is to say, you were only allowed to visit the city when Master Kensouske said you could.

Sakura hadn’t given much thought to the older prince, who was her mentor. One the first day he had said in plain terms that his responsibility was to help the first year gennin with their academics, not be their personal trainers. She never once considered going to Itachi for help because he would only spurn her, seeing as she need help with the practical side of things.

There was no point in going to him when she what his answer was going to be.

Gai-sensei was waiting for her when she brought back yet another crate full of wildly thrown kunai to tell her the hour was nearly up and she’d best head up to the castle if she wanted to clean up before the afternoon lessons started.

Sakura declined, not seeing the point in going all the way back to her room to freshen up only to return to the grounds and get sweaty, dirty, bloody and beaten up. She regretted it immediately when the spandex wearing man started waxing poetic about her youth.

They were having actual spars that afternoon, not just mock ones to practice various strikes and blocks. The announcement had the large group of boys scanning the rest of the class, looking for the one person they wanted to beat.

Sakura tried to catch Naruto’s eye but he was already standing next to Gaara, who quite frankly intimidated her. It had something to do with the lack of eyebrows and how he seemed to hate everyone but Naruto. She turned to her second choice, Shikamaru, and found him partnered with Chouji.

Well, she supposed she deserved that for being so harsh to them that morning. They meant well and she acted like they had stolen her homework to get her into trouble.

Fusoku’s sneering face suddenly appeared before her, his nose so scrunched up he looked more like he smelled something awful than like he was looking at her condescendingly.

From the corner of her eye she caught the worried glance Naruto had shot at her, but Sakura wasn’t worried. Fusoku was all talk and hot hair. Naruto didn’t know how much extra practice she had done in the last four weeks. Hours of conditioning to adjust her stances and correct her weaknesses.

She was prepared for this. One benefit of her being a girl, and therefore smaller than all the boys was that she had the potential to be faster.  If Sakura went on the offensive first, she had a chance of beating the obnoxious bully.

Sakura faced the brown haired boy, folding her fingers into the Seal of Confrontation when it was their turn, which was made by position her right hand in the position for the ram seal. The Seal of Confrontation was the symbol of combat and a universal sign of engagement between shinobi because it was also the hand sign one made when concentrating chakra.

Her opponent mimicked her and the second he dropped his hand, fingers curling and looking to plant a fist in her gut, Sakura pivoted backward on her right foot, letting him stumble forward when he failed to hit her. She raised her elbow, her very bony elbow, and slammed it into Fusoku’s throat.

The boy dropped to all fours wheezing and gulping for air, hands flying up to massage his throat so that he could breathe properly.

Sakura followed up with a knee to the stomach once, twice, and Fusoku crumpled on his side, much like a paper bag did when it was trodden on.

The red head took a step back, looking towards Gai-sensei for a ruling. Her short spar had been met with absolute silence. The taijutsu master gave her two thumbs up, signifying that it was Sakura’s win, which had Naruto erupting into to cheers.

Sakura extending the two fingers she had used to form to Seal of Confrontation. Etiquette dictated that the two combatants lock their two fingers together to make the Seal of Reconciliation to acknowledge that the participants were still comrades. She didn’t care much for being comrades with a slime like Fusoku, who was forever taunting her about her chances of being cut, or even touching him for that matter, but she wasn’t going to upset Gai-sensei by being discourteous.

Fusoku on the other hand had no such reservations. He slapped her hand aside and spat in the dirt at her feet. “That was a dirty trick, Haruno. I’ll get you for it.”

Sakura stepped back to the enthusiastic congratulations of her friends as Gai-sensei scolded the civilian boy for his unsportsman-like behavior. Kiba pounded her on the back, nearly knocking her face first into the dirt and did his weird barking laugh.

“You can try,” she muttered just loud enough for the boy to hear, causing his face to purple with rage. Hopefully that little demonstration would keep Fusoku off her back for a bit.

Four hours later the second, and more crucial, half of the gennin’s daily training ended, and all the boys plus Sakura trooped inside to clean up for dinner.

Sakura didn’t quite understand why, when being a shinobi was such a physical career and one in which you lived or died by your ability to fight, they spent more time sitting in a classroom doing bookwork than training. For five hours, from seven in the morning until noon, they attended class. After an hour respite for lunch, they were down on the practice fields from one to five, and the hour before dinner was designated as a study hour to start on essays and the like. The two hours before lights out were theirs to do as they pleased, but all the gennins were still furiously trying to finish their workloads.

Naruto stepped into her path halfway across the field.

“I’m sorry.”

“That was so cool.”

The two had spoken at the same time.

“What did you say?”

Naruto was grinning foxily at her, the expression enhanced by the whisker marks on both cheeks. Sakura on the other hand, was looking at the blond’s feet, unwilling to meet his eyes when she had snapped at him for simply be concerned. It was uncharacteristic for her to forget to do an assignment, so it wasn’t unreasonable for her friends and even Iruka-sensei to be worried about her.

“I’m sorry, Naruto,” she repeated, finally lifting her eyes to his. “I didn’t mean to push you away like that. It’s just . . . everyone was insisting I had to be sick in order to make a mistake like the rest you guys. And I know I look like a mess right now—“ she continued before he could comment her appearance.

 “Satoshi, it’s fine. We understand. You’re allowed to crack every once and a while.” Naruto’s grin was impossibly wider. “You should do it more often because you were so cool just now. Fusoku never saw you coming. I didn’t know you were that good. I thought he was going to beat you black and blue and that it would be all my fault because I chose Gaara as my partner. And then you would hate me because it was my fault you landed in the medical wing. But you were just like pow! and Fusoku-teme was down for the count and you were just awesome.”

Sakura stared at the Hokage’s son, gaping slightly at how he managed to say all that without stopping to breathe even once.

“Forgive me?” He held up a fist between them.

Sakura didn’t hesitate. Her own fist came up to bump against him. “Only if you forgive me.”

“Done. Now let’s go eat before Chouji devours it all.”

Sakura smiled fondly at Naruto, who thought with his stomach as much as he did with his brain, as he dragged her inside in his rush to get to dinner sooner.

Chapter 8

Even after another training exercise with Tsunade that morning, Sakura was energetic. It took everything she had to not bounce on her toes while she waited for Naruto and whoever he was bringing to help her.

The young girl had quickly learned not to expect anything from her latest sensei. The woman’s lesson’s plans changed daily, the only constant being evasion first thing. Otherwise, each day’s lesson was at her fancy. They often dealt with lots of bookwork and walking through patients in the hospital wing and letting Sakura attempt to diagnose them and then list how she would treat them.

However, Tsunade had decided to shake things up that morning.

She was still working on dodging, only today, instead of throwing just kunai or just shuriken, the medic had thrown both. Any progress she had made that week had been shot to hell. With just one kind of weapon, it was reasonably easy to predict its flight path, for it was distinctive for each one. Kunai favored straight lines and shuriken were easy to curve. She walked away at the end with as many scratches as she had on day one.

Apparently, Tsunade didn’t believe in taking breakings or wasting time, because she wanted to move onto the various medical techniques. The woman probably would have held her prisoner in the hospital wing all day if the gennin hadn’t begged off, claiming another appointment.

Although Sakura was ecstatic to finally reach the point where she could start learning about medical ninjutsu, because it meant she had impressed the medic with her knowledge so far and that Tsunade believed she was ready to move onto the healing part, (and it was all thanks to Tenten, who found more books than Sakura thought existed on illnesses and medical techniques. There was even an encyclopedia of ailments which she was attempting to memorize), she really wanted to improve her physical skills. It was important that she learned the basics now, before they started on the more advance techniques.

The bells rang out the eleventh hour and right on time Naruto arrived on the grassy practice courts with a taller companion in tow.

Naruto bounced ahead of the older boy, who could only be an Uchiha based on his appearance. The uchiwa symbol wasn’t necessary since all Uchiha had the same black hair and dark eyes. With a start, Sakura recognized this Uchiha as one of the boys she had witnessed leaving the Institute two days ago.

How had Naruto convinced a chuunin to help her with her abysmal foundations?

“Satoshi, this is teme’s cousin, Shisui.” Naruto introduced sunnily, reflexively ducking the now identified Shishui’s swipe to the head. “He’s insanely talented but without the stick up his ass like teme.”

Sakura had long since given up scolding Naruto for calling one of the kingdom’s princes a bastard (because Sasuke gave as good as he got), but she slapped him anyway. Then she turned her attention to Shisui, completely ignoring Naruto’s whining.

Seeing how Naruto interacted with Shisui made Sakura realize something, because it wasn’t just Shisui that the blond jokingly insulted. Naruto was like that with all the clan children. They all had really strong friendships already. Friendships that she missed out on because her father never let them leave the Haruno estate.

For a moment, she was overwhelmed by bitterness. It wasn’t fair that she and Satoshi had been denied this. But, Sakura realized that their ruse wouldn’t have worked any other way. If her brother had formed bonds with these boys previously, there was no way she would have gotten away with impersonating Satoshi.

“Thank you for agreeing to help me.”

“Think nothing of it, duckling,” Shisui said airily. “You’ll just owe me one in the future.”

Sakura fought back a grimace. She should have expected that. Shinobi didn’t do anything for free.

“Let’s start with a spar.” The chuunin curled his fingers back to his palms multiple times. “Come at me with everything you’ve got.”

She eyed him dubiously, uncertain how completely humiliating herself would help. Shisui repeated his hand motion. Sakura supposed her strategy against Fusoku would work here as well. Shisui was probably anticipating the worst, so she might get lucky enough to land a hit if she struck first.

Sakura darted forward, striking out with a fist to his abdomen, aiming for the solar plexus. Her limited medical knowledge was a boon here. The solar plexus was a network of nerves located behind the stomach, and if she hit it with enough force, not only would it be painful, but Shisui would have difficulty breathing because his diaphragm would spasm.

Shisui smoothly blocked it with his arm, easily diverting her attack to the side. Hastily, Sakura swept out with her leg, but he read her easily and jumped over it.

She pulled back for a second, unconsciously settling into the ready position. She lashed out again, growing frustrated as the Uchiha batted away her attempts like she were an annoying fly.

After five minutes he called for a stop, and by that she meant that he tapped her on three kill spots consecutively; the liver, a rib where he could have hit her lungs or heart, and the back of her neck. By this point Sakura was panting heavily and the back of her shirt was soaked with sweat and clinging to her uncomfortably.

“Well, that was boring.” Sakura flushed bright red, from both humiliation and anger. He knew she was bad, so what was he expecting?

Naruto clapped her on the back. “Don’t take his words to heart, Satoshi. Shisui likes to joke. Gets a kick out of annoying people.”

“True,” said man nodded. “What’s life without a little laughter? In truth, you weren’t bad, little duckling. Just predictable. A shinobi’s most important weapon is the element of surprise.”

Sakura’s frown smoothed out. That was understandable. One perfect hit was all that was needed, and if you got it first than you didn’t have to worry about beating the enemy.

“Now, come at me again.”

Taking Shisui’s criticism to heart, Sakura tried to be more unpredictable. It was hard, because she tried to fight at least three moves ahead. She would follow the vision she had of the fight in her head, abort a kick because it was the natural follow up, and Shisui would knock her on her ass because she was unbalanced.

“You’re thinking too much,” he said as he lifted her upright.

Determination pooled in her gut. Before she could think about the million reasons why it was a bad idea, Sakura made to drop her hand and pinched the skin between his thumb and forefinger. Shisui yelped. She knew from experience that it was painful. Then she twisted, planting the heel of her sandal in his abdomen, delighting that he dropped to his knees wheezing.

“Not bad, little duckling,” he congratulated while Naruto whooped in the background. “We’ll make a shinobi out of you yet.”

Sakura didn’t even feel the brief stab of annoyance she usually felt when someone used shinobi instead of ninja. It was irrational to be angry anytime one of her friends or senseis claimed she’d eventually get the hang of being a shinobi since they didn’t know she was female. Although that anger might be more attributed to the fact that by saying so they were admitting they thought her horrible currently.

But, coming from the carefree Shisui, the only Uchiha she met that liked to joke and wasn’t serious all the time, Sakura took it to be a compliment.

Shisui and Sakura sparred for another hour, with the older boy subtly adjusting her punches, kicks, and stances. With a jaunty wave, he told her to meet here again next week and that she had better surprise him.

The red head grinned at the challenge, eyes lighting up with excitement.

She would show him. Show Fusoku. Show all of them. She wasn’t going to be just another good shinobi. Sakura would be the best. That way, when she finally revealed her gender, they wouldn’t be able to ignore her achievement.

She’d surprise them all and prove that kunoichi were just as capable as shinobi.

And who better to help her than the one person who could have been a kunoichi.

Sakura booked it back to the infirmary, praying that Tsunade would train with her more today and not be grouchy and surly because she prioritized her taijutsu over her Iryō-nin training.

Unfortunately, it was not so. Tsunade opened the door to her office, having forgone the cups and drinking sake straight out of the bottle, and glared down at her new apprentice with beady eyes. “What are you doing back, brat?”

Sakura was surprised by the lack of slurring. She decided a little bit of name dropping wouldn’t hurt. “Shisui-san let me go, so I figured I’d come back and—“

“You figured you’d come back did you?” Tsunade sneered, and Sakura winced, realizing how bad that sounded.

“Well,” she started lamely, but the medic-nin didn’t let her go any further.

“I told you once not to treat this as an afterthought.”

“I’m not!” Sakura burst out. “I want to learn! I just had another engagement. I couldn’t very well cancel on Shisui-san.” Never mind that she hadn’t known precisely who it was she was meeting with today. “Besides, if I flunk out of the Institute because I can’t handle myself in a fight all of your teaching would be for nothing.”

“You’re right.” Sakura let out a sigh of relief. “I shouldn’t waste my time on an uncertainty. Come back next year. If you last that long.”

No! That wasn’t what she had meant. Sakura put her foot in between the door and the frame so Tsunade couldn’t close it.

“Please,” the nine year old girl begged, taking advantage of her youthful looks to hit Tsunade with her most devastating look. It was an old trick she had mastered on the household servants. Sakura would tilt her head ever so slightly so that the light made her eyes shine and open them as wide as she could. Unleashing it on an unsuspecting person always dazed them. “Please don’t stop teaching me. I want to learn.”

The blonde woman blinked. “Right,” she said brusquely, and Sakura immediately turned off her look. “Well, come on. I don’t have all day.”

“Wait, Tsunade-sensei.” The woman arched an eyebrow at her impudence. Sakura only hoped she wasn’t pushing her limits. “I want to learn your strength.”

Tsunade snorted. “Not a chance.” She opened her mouth to complain how that wasn’t fair. “Ask me again when you master chakra control.”

Sakura subsided, mollified that it was only a ‘you can’t learn right now’ no and not an ‘I’m never going to teach you this’ no.

They hadn’t worked much with chakra yet. They had done the leaf exercise of course, but the three main jutsus gennin were taught, the Henge, Substitution Jutsu, and the Clone Jutsu, didn’t require a lot of chakra, and therefore control wasn’t necessary. They weren’t even scheduled to start those three jutsus until after the mid-year exam.

Following Tsunade as the older woman strode out into the main room of the infirmary; Sakura couldn’t help but wonder if she was insane. Reading ahead and performing the three staple jutsu of every ninja during her exam probably would have been enough to ensure she made it to the second half of the year.

As it was, she wouldn’t give up Iryō-nin training. She hadn’t lied when she said she wanted to learn this. It had started out as a necessity, learning something unusual so that Sakura wouldn’t be cut come December.  Even with less than a week of unconventional training under her belt, she found herself fascinated by every new fact she learned. The books Tenten brought her were being devoured.

So, while Sakura recognized that she hadn’t started learning for the right reasons (and that Tsunade would probably smack her around if she ever realized there was ulterior motives to apprenticing to the famous medic), there was no reason she couldn’t continue learning because she wanted to.

“By the way,” Tsunade shot over her shoulder without turning to look at her, “you’ll be spending tomorrow afternoon cleaning bedpans.”

Sakura groaned at the loss of the only true free time gennin were given; they had no lessons whatsoever on Sundays. But she didn’t argue. She knew the blonde was vicious when in a temper, and Sakura saw no need to invite that fury down upon herself.

“Yes, Tsunade-sensei.”

Chapter 9

The rest of October flew by in a blur training, bruises, punishments, and homework. Before Sakura knew it, it was the first weekend of November and Master Kensouske had deigned the gennin well behaved enough to earn a trip to the city. Like the rest of her year group, Sakura was excited for the rare day off. She tucked her money pouch into her weapons pouch.

The pinkette had three months’ worth of allowance that she had saved for this moment. She owed Naruto a really good Christmas present for convincing Shisui Uchiha to train her.

Sakura had had another two sessions with the older boy, both of which went similarly to the first. Shisui had wanted her to surprise him, so she tried to take a leaf out of Naruto’s book. The blond wasn’t anything if not unpredictable and stubborn.

However, she didn’t have his stamina, so exhausted herself well before the training session was up. Shisui had frowned at her and then set her to running laps around the field until he called for her to stop.

“Unfortunately for you, duckling, I know Naruto’s style like I know the back of my hand.” Sakura had blushed as bright as her dyed hair.

With both Shisui’s and Tenten’s help, her taijutsu had improved, securing her a rank in the top twenty for the physical portion. That, combined with her high placement in academics, always one of the top three alongside Sasuke and Shikamaru (although the placement of first, second, and third was always changing between them), provided a lot of comfort for the nine year old girl. Come time for the mid-year evaluations, Sakura was confident in her chances of making it through to the second half of the year.

As it was, she expected to pull up another few spots in the overall ranking, which she was currently fourteenth, without the bonus points she would receive for displaying her Iryō-nin skills. Not that she was going to give up her medic-nin training. It was the one part of the Shinobi Institute that Sakura was actually enjoying thus far. Her academic classes came too easy, and the lack of a challenge made them a chore, and the first half of the year for the rest of her classes only covered the basics, which were repetitive and redundant.

That was another item she had to pick up today. It had been over three months since she had first colored her hair, and Sakura was due a touch up else the pink would start showing through. The first year gennin had all split up and gone their separate ways the second they reached the city’s main street, so Sakura wouldn’t have to field any questions about why she was buying hair dye.

Sakura grabbed the dye first, as it was vital to her disguise, ignoring the inquisitive looks the stall vendor gave her. Then she methodically went through the list Tsunade had sent with her. The famous medic had seen no point in sending one of her nurses to stock the infirmary when her apprentice was already going to the city.

The list was mostly comprised of herbs; Sakura recognized many of them as fever reducers or blood thickeners, and more bandages. Acquiring the necessary supplies was easy enough. All she had to do was mention she was shopping on Tsunade’s behalf and the various shop owners ceased haggling and practically threw the plants at her.

She stepped back out onto the bustling main street, pleased to have finished Tsunade’s shopping so quickly, when she spotted Itachi. It was the first time Sakura had laid eyes on the heir to the kingdom since the day she arrived in the Chikara Palace. He was in the company of the other chuunin that had agreed to mentor the first year gennins. Sasori and Deidara, she recalled their names.

Curiosity got the better of her and she followed after her elusive mentor.

Or tried to. Not even three streets and Sakura lost sight of the three chuunin. She heaved a sigh, not actually disappointed. It wasn’t as if she expected to be able to trail them to wherever they were heading. All three of the older boys were in their third year as chuunin. If they couldn’t shake a tail at three quarters way through their training, well, they probably wouldn’t have gotten that far and wouldn’t deserve to earn a hitai-ate.

A pair of hands grabbed her, one arm across her shoulders that steered her into an alley, and the second hand settled over her mouth.

“Stalking is illegal, you know. Especially when the subject is our beloved prince,” a familiar voice said in her ear.

“Shisui-san!” she exclaimed one he had withdrawn his hand. Shisui had tried to get her to call him without the honorific, but Sakura wasn’t going to do that. The last thing she needed was extra punishment because Ebisu-sensei or Iruka-sensei caught her calling him by name. She didn’t care how relaxed he was compared to his cousins and the rest of his clan.

 “And for the record, duckling,” his dark eyes twinkled with mirth, “in the future you should flare your chakra if someone grabs you.”

What the hell was he thinking? Sakura knew he liked to joke and getting a rise out of people, but there was nothing funny about this. Shisui had practically scared her half to death. She had thought she was going to be stabbed and left in an alley to die.

She tried to convey her annoyance through a glower, but given that Shisui’s bottom lip was caught between his teeth to stifle his laughter, her face probably looked more like a scrunched up rabbit face than an angry one. That’s how her brother always described it as when she used it on him.

“Alright, I apologize, Satoshi-kun. I’ll just keep it to practice, how’s that sound?”

She borrowed Shikamaru’s most repeated phrase. “Troublesome.”

“Here, let me help you with that.” Shisui knelt down to gather up the results of her shopping, which were strewn about, having been thrown when he unceremoniously startled her. “Red hair color, eh?” he questioned lightly, and Sakura felt sweat beading on the back of her neck.

“Want to tell me the story behind this?” the brunet wiggled the box. “If you don’t, I’ll assume it’s something embarrassing.”

More like illegal. Sakura felt frantic. She needed an excuse that didn’t sound like an excuse. “It’s for me!” she blurted, to which Shisui arched a thin eyebrow. The rosette swallowed, titling her head down, lowering her eyelids a little bit, and will herself to blush, giving off the appearance that she was embarrassed. “My hair is actually pink and I didn’t want the other boys to make fun of me for having pink hair, so I colored it red.”

It was partially true. She did dye her hair red to mask her normal pink locks, just not for the reason she gave to Shisui.

The Uchiha blinked, clearly startled, not having expected that answer. Then his expression turned thoughtful. “I think pink hair would look good on you,” he announced. “It suits your face better. Your eyes are too bright for a red head.”

Sakura made sure not to look at her mentor weirdly. Was he some kind of stylist guru now? Although, she supposed ninja did have to know what facial features looked natural for infiltration missions. That didn’t mean she didn’t think he was weird though.

Shisui was the most personable Uchiha the girl had met. Sasuke, who was just a year older than her, was stiff and withdrawn from the rest of the gennin. Except for Naruto, who the younger prince fought with all the time. Sasuke was polite, barely, and wasn’t interested in making friends. His elder brother on the other hand, was courteous and approachable, but Sakura found him intimidating. She had seen Itachi spar Deidara once and he was lethal. He took his duties seriously, and it made the lines on his face more pronounced.

Their cousin was the complete opposite. Naruto’s personality in an Uchiha is how she would describe it. Shisui was gay and lively and outgoing. He was also more relaxed and carefree, not hesitating to show his emotions or speak in a manner other than monotone.

“Thanks, I think.” Sakura didn’t think there was any other response she could give in this situation.

“No need to hide yourself, Satoshi,” he said seriously. But there was. Sakura had a forehead protector to earn. It was the only way she could protect her brother, as she was too involved to back out now. The minute she suggested that she go in Satoshi’s place she had determined the direction her life would take for the next eight years. “You’ll make the strongest bonds here at the Institute. You can trust anyone one of your classmates to have your back. They’re not going to care if you have pink hair.”

“Fusoku would,” she pointed out, just to be contrary.

Shisui waved her comment away. “The opinions of an arrogant civilian don’t matter. Just beat the crap out of him if he gives you any trouble.”

“We’re not supposed to fight outside of lessons,” frowned Sakura.

“Gennins are always getting into fights with each other. Just don’t tell Master Kensouske you participated in a fist fight. The traditional excuse is to claim you injured yourself training.”

The chuunin grasped her elbow and steered her out of the alley and back onto the main market street. “I think it only right that I accompany you the rest of the day so as to protect you from the rabble that would stick a kunai between your ribs.”

Sakura shivered at his cheerful delivery as he continued. “It would be a disgrace on my part as your senpai if I let harm befall you.”

The young girl sighed, but didn’t resist. Mournfully, she couldn’t help but wonder why all of her friends and senseis were pushy, eccentric people. Shisui, Naruto, Tsunade, and even Tenten. Was nobody she knew sane?

The answer to that, as she would discover, was no. Sanity had no place in her profession. Shinobi were assassins; contract killers plain and simple. The red life blood of humans sank deep into their skin. Every person dealt with the guilt of taking another’s life differently, though they usually took the form of a couple unique personality quirks and harmless habits.

Shisui led her to an inn of all places, named the Dancing Hawk. If Sakura had felt uncomfortable approaching the building, it was nothing compared to how she felt once inside. The inn was crowded with patrons, all of adult age.

The taller teen pushed his way through, dragging an unwilling Sakura behind. He stopped at the bar, where she was shocked to see three faces she recognized. Sasori no Akasuna, Deidara of Iwagakure, and Itachi Uchiha.

Her first coherent thought was that Shisui was going to rat her out and inform the crown prince that she had tried to follow him. Sakura didn’t know what the punishment was for that, but she was sure it was horrible. Then she noticed that all three of them, and several other men seated at the bar, were wearing a red cloud patterned black cloak. She estimated them to be older than twenty, at least.

Uneasy, Sakura shifted so that she stood half hidden behind Shisui as the older boy apologized for being late.

“Who’s the fucking midget? Are we letting little fucking brats in now?”

The speaker was a man with slicked back silver hair and eyes that were the most mesmerizing shade of purple Sakura had seen. Her gaze drifted down, spotted his bare chest, because he wore his cloak open with no shirt, and shot straight back to his face. She fought down a blush as he sneered at her.

“Calm, Hidan,” a second male spoke. He, too, had distinctive hair; an orange that Naruto would be jealous of. “I’m sure Shisui has a good reason for the boy’s presence.”

“The boy is right here and can speak for himself. And the name is Satoshi,” she stressed, not at all pleased with the condescending way both men had addressed her.

There was absolute silence. Sakura caught Shisui shooting her a look that said don’t be an idiot, and she found herself wondering just where he had brought her and what she was getting into. Maybe it would have been better to not speak and let them ignore her.

Then the newly identified Hidan was laughing, pounding his fist on the wooden counter. “The boy has fucking balls.”

Sakura ignored Hidan, largely in part because the yet unnamed man was eyeing her with an appraising stare that sent chills down her spine. Apparently, she passed muster, because his personality did a complete flip and he flashed her a grin that stretched from ear to ear.

“I’m Yahiko and these,” he gestured to the other cloaked males by rolling his hand around on his wrist, “are my Akatsuki.”

The man to his right, with hair a deep red color, rolled his eyes. Sakura couldn’t help but wonder if this was some kind of Doujutsu gang. Both Shisui and Itachi had the Sharingan, curtesy of being Uchihas, the red head’s eyes were clearly indicative of a doujutsu as well, although she had no idea which one he possessed, and Hidan’s purple eyes were distinctive and unique enough that he might also have a doujutsu.

“Not your anything,” he muttered.

“I like you, kid,” said Yahiko. Sakura simply nodded, not certain how to respond to the man. “You’re welcome here anytime, and if you ever need help, just drop by. Me and Nagato are almost always here,” Yahiko indicated that the red head was Nagato with his thumb. “There’s always one Akatsuki to be found here.”

Her mouth felt dry. A man who spent all his time sitting at the bar of an inn drinking was giving her free reign to visit? Did Yahiko own the Dancing Hawk? What in the Sage’s name had Shisui unwittingly dragged her into?

---

Shisui dragged her out of the bar hours, with no resistance because Sakura was all too willing to leave, with the excuse of making sure the first years obeyed curfew. His friends—if that’s what they were—had joked about Shishui letting his jounin master tuck him into bed, and several lewd suggestions that had her ears burning. Their snide remarks followed the duo out the door.

The chuunin set a fast pace, leaving Sakura to curse his long legs.

“What was that about?”

“Just satisfying your curiosity, duckling,” he said, dismissively.

She believed that as much as she believed her nursemaid’s bedtime stories about the nine Bijuu that ate misbehaving children (Sakura had been four, but she wasn’t stupid. Massive beings made entirely of chakra didn’t exist,) but didn’t argue.

Every person she met seemed to be comparing her to an invisible measuring stick, judging her worth to them personally. Such intent scrutiny was exhausting, and she was frankly annoyed with having to pass unknown tests every time she so much as talked to a higher ranked shinobi.

She had enough issues to deal with without getting involved with Akatsuki. It wasn’t her business if Shisui and the prince chose to hang out in a shady bar once a week.

But damn if she wasn’t curious as to why.

 

Chapter 10

Itachi sat sedately at his desk, as his cousin entered precisely as expected and sprawled across the bed as if it were his own.

“Go ahead. Tell me I was wrong.”

The prince remained silent, steadily reading the dossier on Shisui’s newest toy. The elder of the two singled out one of the new recruits each year. Without fail, the boy he selected would be the first to quit. He had a knack for knowing which ones wouldn’t make the cut, and to soothe his bleeding heart, Shisui pushed until the boy broke and asked to be sent home. Shisui saw it as performing a favor, sparing the life of someone that wasn’t cut out for shinobi life.

Itachi understood. Shisui strove to be open-minded, never stubbornly believing in one ideal solely and looked for that unique nature of current situation before him. He wasn’t afraid to tell others when they were making mistakes. But he was also deeply compassionate. It was better to break a boy’s psyche while young, convincing him that leaving the Shinobi institute was for the best than to stand aside and watch them die on their first C-rank.

He was similar. Being the heir resulted in a metaphorical wall between himself and essentially every person in the kingdom, even branch members of his family. Shisui was the only one to disregard the stigmatism and truly become a friend. Itachi thrived in that distance, however, gaining insight by observing individuals and ideas without getting directly involved. His status prevented Itachi from becoming close with many people, but he turned it into an advantage.

Until Akatsuki.

Peace was something the teen longed for. His father would snap and berate his foolishness, but Itachi held fast to his belief that true peace, not the farce the Elemental Nations lived with currently, was possible.

The so-called war with the samurai nation continued only because neither side would have a purpose if they laid down arms. What would become of the warriors if the fighting ceased? Neither was willing to consider the thought and blindly, thoughtlessly, continued to send good men to their deaths.

Which was where Akatsuki came in.

Inevitably, there were innocent people caught in the crossfire, easily written off as the collateral of war and forgotten about before the ink on the mission report had finished drying.

The tiny nation of Amegakure was one such casualty. From its destruction rose Akatsuki, determined to bring lasting peace. But not with the samurai. Amegakure had been torn apart when the king ordered a squadron of ninja to crush a rising rebellion in Kusagakure.

Shisui literally stumbled into the Dancing Hawk one day and had been caught off guard to see his prince and cousin more at ease with the small group of mercenaries than he was in his own home. Then he had done his best to persuade Itachi that joining up with Akatsuki was a terrible idea. He only needed to wait until his father stepped aside and Itachi could make all the changes he ever dreamed of. But Itachi had a counter argument ready for every reason Shisui could imagine (and some that he hadn’t considered).

Itachi truly felt Akatsuki was the best option for the future he envisioned, so Shisui bullied them into accepting him as well. Someone needed to look out for him.

“You have good instincts, Shisui.”

“But not as good as yours.” Itachi inclined his head. “There’s something about that kid.”

At that, Itachi suppressed a smirk. Indeed, there was something different about Satoshi Haruno.

The prince was his mentor. Or hers, he should say. Itachi knew from the first day that Satoshi was not the boy he claimed to be.

He found himself intrigued by the girl. Enough so, to not report her. He wondered how long her masquerade would go unnoticed and thought the instructors of the Shinobi Institute deserved the heart attack that would come when the truth was revealed for allowing their skills to wither to the point an untrained girl could dupe them.

There were subtle differences in facial structure between females and males. But those slight differences were what ninja were trained to notice.

In Satoshi’s case, the differences could be attributed to young age. But her face was entirely too effeminate to be accounted for as a boy who was still yet growing. At first glance, her face was softer and rounder, particularly the jaw. The bridge of her nose was more slender and not was wide at the base. Her mouth was closer to her nose than a male’s would be. With time, her lips would be fuller, a surefire indication of her true gender. Her eyes, also, were larger and opened wider. Lastly, her eyebrows were thin and curved slightly, whereas his were thicker and straight and set closer to the eye.

Altogether, it signaled that Satoshi was actually a female. And knowing the laws, as much as the prince thought them unfair, Itachi was interested in learning her reasons for why. Why pretend to be a boy for eight years? Why had she chosen to attend the Shinobi Institute when the punishment would be death? There was no way she was foolish enough to imagine that her secret would not be discovered.

Itachi was slightly disappointed that she never had reason to approach him, for he wanted to learn more about her. He had expected her to seek him after the afternoon’s revelations, but Satoshi had returned to the palace and fell back into her routine like nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

“Satoshi could prove useful, in a couple of years.”

Shisui sighed heavily. “Yeah, yeah. I know the kid’s only ten, but he’s the most determined ten-year-old I know.”

Itachi slanted dark eyes at his cousin. Considering he knew both Sasuke, who’s only goal was to surpass his brother, and Naruto, who had managed to truly befriend his little brother, that was quite the statement.

“The boy works harder than some jounin I know. Have you ever asked about his schedule?” Shisui’s question was rhetorical, aware that before this afternoon the only time his cousin had spoken to Satoshi was the day the boy arrived. “He drills with his servant in the mornings before he attends lessons with Tsunade-sama.”

“I thought she only taught females.” Did the legendary medic know her newest pupil was actually a girl? He couldn’t imagine a medic of her caliber mistaking Satoshi’s true gender. Perhaps Tsunade was even helping her avoid detection.

“Me too, but the kid convinced her somehow. I thought Satoshi would be this year’s drop out. The kid doesn’t know how to quit, though. Every time I knock him down he crawls back up.”

“Is that why you brought him to the Hawk? One last attempt to convince him to give up?”

Shisui’s bangs swayed ruefully. “Even if it was I don’t think it would work. No, I just had a feeling that I needed to bring Satoshi along.”

“It cannot be changed now. Yahiko invited him back, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Satoshi again when next he’s allowed to visit the city.”

“Did I make a mistake, Itachi?”

Said teen had no words to offer his cousin. Whether or not he had made a mistake remained to be seen. It all depended on Satoshi’s response.

---

Three days later Shisui received the answer to his question.

A fist knocked resolutely against the door. The chakra signature, twisting anxiously, belonged to Satoshi. Both Uchiha fell silent mid-conversation. For a moment, Itachi debated the wisdom of allowing the young boy in. Whatever use he might serve in the future, this moment was probably too early.

Nevertheless, he rose and answered the door.

“Do you require assistance with your assignments, Satoshi-kun?”

A well-mannered question, perfectly in role as her assigned mentor, but also a subtle reminder that she could turn away and pretend she had never dropped by.

Satoshi blinked, confused, then her expression chilled. Itachi absentmindedly noted she would need to practice hiding and faking her emotions, but it was a little much to expect that young children conceal how they felt.

“Am I allowed to ask for help on extracurricular assignments?” the girl posed.

Itachi was surprised enough at her subterfuge to let it show in the slight widening of his eyes. Behind him he could hear his cousin snickering. The gennin had carefully worded her question so that he would know she was referring to her meeting the Akatsuki. It was mostly precautionary. No doubt, lauded as the genius he was, Itachi knew upon seeing her outside his door what she wanted to discuss. But this way, Satoshi had given him the chance to turn her away, which she would accept he if he chose to do so, while simultaneously informing him that she wouldn’t betray his secret.

Perhaps Shisui’ instincts were right, in this case.

“Normally, I wouldn’t allow it. Any additional assignments you procure are your responsibility, but it must be particularly difficult, Satoshi-kun, for you to finally bring your academic work to my attention.”

Itachi stepped aside, allowing her admittance to his rooms. He shut the door and gracefully reclaimed his seat at his writing desk, a beautiful pine piece, motioning to Shisui who was sprawled on his bed covers.

“You are already acquainted with my cousin.” Said teen chirped a gleeful greeting but didn’t move.

He studied her as she observed his room, taking in the sparse arrangement of furniture. The room held only that which he needed, a bed, desk, wardrobe, a single shelf. The kotatsu was the only indulgence.

“I trust that you will exhibit caution in regards to the weekend’s activity,” he opened with.

Shisui sat at attention suddenly, dark Uchiha eyes flashing. “Oi, duckling! Didn’t I tell you to stay out of Akatsuki’s business?”

“No,” she returned sharply, hiding her amusement at his stunned look. “You warned me there would be not walking away if I took Yahiko-san up on his offer.”

Itachi shot his cousin a curious look, surmising that he must have warned the girl off during their weekly training session.

Shisui pinked lightly, not quite believing that a ten year old boy had called him out. “That’ll teach me to be more careful with what I say. But I thought the message was pretty clear. This isn’t something you want to involve yourself with, Satoshi.”

“Why not? You said the Akatsuki’s goal was peace.”

At that, Itachi cocked a single eyebrow. He was content to watch Shisui continue to put his foot in his mouth.

“Each one of them is hardcore I-eat-little-kids-like-you-for-breakfast ninja without any loyalties!” Shisui said in effort to dissuade the red head’s questions.

“Shisui.”

Said boy blinked, taking in Satoshi’s slowly paling face, and realized he had said too much.

“If they have no loyalties,” the girl began, voice inconceivably soft, “then why do you support them?”

Shisui made to answer, most likely a denial or protest so he could guide the conversation in another direction, but Satoshi wasn’t to be distracted.

“You’re involved. Deeply. You haven’t left or turned them in to the authorities. You haven’t abandoned them because you believe in their cause, their purpose, and you want to see it realized.”

His cousin stared at her, jaw hanging open, unable to respond, to refute the girl’s powerful words, which had hit the nail on the head. He and Shisui both approved of the Akatsuki’s dream, even if the elder boy was sometimes unsettled by their methods. Itachi didn’t agree with them always, but he understood the necessity.

“You are remarkably wise for one so young, Satoshi,” the prince commented. The girl ducked her head in response, blush spreading rapidly across her face.

“Akatsuki desires peace,” Itachi explained simply.

“Do we not have that already?” she whispered.

Not wanting to expose her to the ugly truth, Itachi answered, “Peace does not last forever.”

Satoshi was pensive as she reflected on his words. He thought in unfortunate, that the young girl’s vision of the world would now warp. It wouldn’t be long before she was seeing enemies where there were none. It made his heart twist in its place. He would never let his own brother in this far. As the elder brother, it was Itachi’s responsibility to protect Sasuke from the darkness in the world. A larger, better planned civil war, waited in the wings. Yet, he was less hesitant about ripping the wool from Satoshi’s eyes.

“I think that’s all you need to know at this point.” Itachi didn’t miss how her eyes narrowed and knew that, for better or for worse, the girl would not reinsert herself back into her normal routine.

Chapter 11

Notes:

I beg you all to forgive me for not writing for more than a year. My family is still trying to reorganize our world after my dad's accident. I've also moved cross country for 3 months while I complete an internship, and it is unbelievably hard to find temporary housing in the current market. This chapter took such a long time to write because, let's be honest, I wasn't writing. I was trying to make an outline for this story, only to find out I write really detailed outlines and was essentially writing the chapter anyway. So while I'm kinda frustrated with my inability to create a general outline, I had enough to give you guys a chapter, which you definitely deserve. This one is for all of you who bothered to open the link when you realized the last time it was updated was 19 months ago.

Sakura did not frown, as she pressed an herbal remedy for the sniffles into Izuno’s hand. At least she thought it was Izuno, but it was a hard thing. Kotetsu and Izuno were always together, and everyone referred to them like their name was one, IzunoandKotetsu. So she couldn’t say for certain that Izuno was the name of the man standing before her. He at least had the excuse of guarding the gate into and out of the palace leading towards the city. But dozens of men had risked Tsunade’s wrath, which was rather spectacular, to get quick healings for their colds.

The chilly, biting air was now a permanent fixture. The snow arrived four days ago in a particularly nasty snowstorm. It was early in the season, as it was only mid-November, but that was no reason for shinobi of all ranks to lose their collective sense. The young girl mused that, as residents of Chikara Palace and shinobi, they ought to have more resistance to inclement weather. Not to say they can’t dislike it. Sakura would hate to live in Amegakure, where the rainfall never ceased. But she couldn’t help but feel it was slightly demoralizing to witness scores of battle tested chuunin and jounin looking for instant gratification for their red and runny noses.

At first, Sakura had been fascinated by the mountains of white, fluffy flakes. The Land of Fire had been aptly named for its blistering summer heats. But even the winter months were warm, temperatures never dipping low enough for snowfall.

Clearly, a foot and a half of snow was nothing outside the norm at the Institute. Neither, apparently, was training in it.

Biting back a sigh as the doors admitted another full grown man who ought to have the sense to utilize the perfectly serviceable indoor training rooms, Sakura fetched a bottle of medicine, a small stack of hankies, and draped a towel over her arm. She gave the first two items to the man, who was sporting a look of mild bemusement in his visible eye, and ushered him out the door with instructions to mix a pinch with water until it had a paste-like consistency and rub it over his sinuses twice a day and to come back if he experienced any unusual side effects.

Stepping atop the towel, Sakura quickly mopped up the worst of the water. She tossed soggy cloth atop an ever growing pile of wet towels that she had yet to run to laundry. Just another item on her list of things to do.

As the end of the first semester, and consequently winter break, drew closer, Sakura found herself with increasingly more things to do. Her workload from her instructors, which previously consisted of three hours hunched over desks digging through various texts, grew to need close to five hours on a typical day.

Tsunade was no different. Now that Sakura had a decent foundation of the various uses of plant and animal parts, the legendary healer had tasked her with ingredient preparation. So the pinkette would spend her down time in the hospital wing’s storage room, dicing, chopping, slicing, grinding, crushing, juicing, shredding, and basically breaking down ingredients into usable components. It was a tedious task, made all the more so by how cautious Sakura had to be to ensure the quality of the ingredient was no ruined.

The one bright side that she saw was the blonde woman pushing back their start time from four in the morning to five. Sakura wondered if the early morning meeting was some kind of test, one that she had passed by determinedly showing up at four in the morning for a month straight, or if Tsunade had finally realized she wouldn’t be deterred from training as a medical ninja and decided to get a little more shut eye. Though it was more likely she was nursing a hangover with how often Sakura heard the older woman mutter that she needed a drink.

Tsunade had also elected to change up her schedule. Her physical performance had improved leaps and bounds. Thanks to hours of evasion training and her smaller stature, Sakura was lasting longer in spars, simply by virtue of being hard to grab hold of. In the interest of keeping things interesting, or so she claimed, Tsunade no longer set aside a block of time in which she attempted to hit the ninja in training with artillery. Instead she’d surprise Sakura when the young girl was otherwise occupied. The first time the healer had done so when Sakura was with a patient she had panicked. Caught off guard, she hadn’t made any move to dodge the projectile. But instinct kicked in and the nine year old avoided the kunai, and thankfully so did the ninja on the cot, who plucked it out of the air and deftly slid it into his weapon’s pouch.

Sakura had turned to face her master, confused and anxious as to why Tsunade was now throwing kunai within her domain, only for that confusion to turn to anger when she spotted the disappointed gleam in the older woman’s eyes.

“What was that for?”

“You tell me,” Tsunade said bluntly, crossing her arms beneath her ample chest.

Sakura tried to come up with an explanation for the out of character attack. This was not the first time the healer had launched a surprised attack. In as much as she could, she was always expectant, not knowing when Tsunade would decide to test her avoidance skills. But she had never before done so when Sakura was involved with a patient.

“You don’t want my reflexes to slow down?” she answered, unsurely. Certainly, Gai-sensei was always proclaiming that they must never let their bodies get out of shape and continuously reminding them to practice their katas outside of class. Sakura thought only Sasuke and Neji heeded that advice.

“Don’t be thick, boy,” was Tsunade’s sharp retort. “If that was the goal you’d still be doing fifteen minutes of dodging before you stepped foot in here.”

The pinkette resisted the urge to bit the inside of her lip. She could her the echo of Ebisu-sensei’s voice about all the impolite ways the action could be misconstrued. Her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass.

“Sorry about that,” the shinobi drawled.

Irritated though she was, for Sakura had all but forgotten about the man still waiting for examination, she knelt and picked up the shards of his cup, while waving of his apology. “No problem, shinobi-san. It happens all the time. You’d be surprise how many forget the glass is there.” Personally, Sakura thought shinobi intentionally broke the water cup as an excuse to make her clean it up, because it meant they wouldn’t have an inexperienced medic-nin working on them. It was impossible for them not to be aware of the glass’s placement.

Sakura froze again, this time in realization. “Oh. Situational awareness.” She looked over her shoulder at the older woman, who arched an eyebrow as if to say ‘keep going.’

She finished her task of cleaning up the broken glass slowly, giving her time to gather her thoughts. “In a combat situation, how well and where I can dodge would depend on the environment. Like just now. I have limited space in which to move.” Sakura indicated to the empty cot to her left. There was enough space between two beds for two people to stand shoulder to shoulder. While she had stepped to her left to avoid Tsunade’s kunai, it was only a single step. When fighting an enemy, that one step probably wouldn’t have been enough to avoid the first attack, never mind a follow up. “Also, I couldn’t move backwards.” This time she waved her hand at the shinobi.

“All good points, Satoshi, but you’re missing the lesson to be learned still.”

“You won’t always be able to dodge, kid.” The man’s tone was decidedly somber.

Sakura thought she understood. “On an escort mission, right? The client has to be protected.” His lips twisted dourly as he agree with her. He didn’t speak after that, and Tsunade seemed satisfied that her message had hit home, but she couldn’t help but feel as if the two adults had been imagining a different scenario. Tsunade’s eyes had glazed over, and she had only snapped back to the present when the bell for breakfast rang.

Since that day, the blonde had stepped up her training considerably. Sakura sluggishly hefted the basket of towels, made heavy from all the water they absorbed. She briefly considered asking Tsunade for a break, just a couple of days, so she could regain her energy. For the last month and a half Sakura had been working more than any child her age should, and Tsunade’s giving her back an hour actually didn’t give her more time to sleep, for it had gone to completing her increasing number of written assignments. However, Sakura feared if she suggested taking some time off, Tsunade would forbid her from coming back, like she had tried to when she had first skived off a lesson to train with Shisui.

‘Two more weeks,’ was becoming her mantra. Knowing that she only had fourteen days until the mid-year exams, after which she would either have a month off the institute to return home or would be sent home permanently, allowed her to get up each morning and face her hectic schedule.

“You’ve grown complacent.”

Sakura jumped when a fish slapped wetly on the table next to her elbow. She tore her gaze from it, turning revulsed eyes on her mentor. “I—what?”

“You’ve lost that sickening bounce in your step. Clearly I’m not pushing you hard enough.”

The green eyed girl braced herself against the table’s edge, fighting off the blackness that threatened to overwhelm her. Had Tsunade’s old age finally caught up with her? Was delusion setting in? How could the woman possibly think that Sakura needed more things to do, especially this close the mid-year cuts?

“Revive it.”

Delusional woman say what? “You mean—“

“You’ve read about the mystical palm technique. Use it to revive this fish. You’ve got a month.”

“But-“ Sakura stammered, “I don’t know how. I mean, I’ve read about what it can do, but nothing I read mentioned what hand seals are used.”

Tsunade laid down a rather large scroll. “Everything you need to know about this technique is in here. So quit wasting time and get started.”

“Yes, sensei!” Sakura saluted cheekily, prompting an eye roll from the other woman. She hurriedly unfurled the scroll, no longer dismayed at the idea of putting one more thing on her plate. This jutsu was what she hoped to learn when she first approached the cantankerous healer for extra tutelage. Displaying aptitude of such a complex jutsu would assuredly secure her position as one of the gennin to move on to the second half of the year. The mystical palm technique required more than pumping someone full of specially molded chakra. It was vital to match the amount of chakra used to the severity of the injury. This jutsu was a medic-nin’s bread and butter, invaluable for its ability to diagnose and heal all but the most serious of injuries.

She was thrilled that Tsunade thought her ready to learn this jutsu. Contrary to the way she had presented the challenge to Sakura, the healer would not have done so if she believed her incapable of learning it.

She would show Tsunade. Show all of them. Fusoku and all those who constantly bullied her, telling her she didn’t have what it takes to become a shinobi. Sakura would prove herself beyond a shadow of a doubt by being the first to learn a justu.

It wasn’t until later, as she happily filled Tenten in, that Sakura realized the importance of the time limit Tsunade had imposed. She had been given a month to learn the mystical palm technique, even though her mid-year exams were in two weeks. Tsunade had faith that she would still be here come December.

 

Chapter 12

Notes:

So. It's been a while. Another year and a half for this story. God I am so sorry for making you guys wait. I want you to know I read every one of your reviews and appreciate all the kind words and encouragement you give me. I started out writing fanfiction just for me. Yes, I like the physical proof that someone out there enjoyed my efforts, but I could have been torn to shred by you all and would still keep writing my story. I'm so lucky that you haven't done exactly that and am truly grateful that you've been so understanding. More than I deserve. I have a million excuses I could give you. From working two jobs seven days a week for four months without a day off, and more overtime than I care to admit, moving 1700 miles across the country, and being frustrated with the writing style I had years ago.

For those of you still reading, I slightly changed the end of chapter 9, nothing big. I don't even think it's necessary to go back and reread it (unless like me you've completely forgotten what's happened in this story). But I did completely redo chapter 10. Upon rereading it I hated it. So I switched it to Itachi's point of view and hope that it doesn't feel as out of place now. Some parts you may still recognize but it is about 70% different.

Also, I've had several ask about whether I had listed this as the wrong pairing. I suppose I should add a slow burn tag somewhere. It will eventually be Sasuke/Sakura, even though she has had very little interaction with him at this point. My biggest fault with the Naruto series is that, from the get go, Sakura and Ino are way too fascinated with Sasuke. They were definitely way too young to think about love in that manner. This Sakura was raised differently. Hormones will come into play at the appropriate time, but rest assured that the end goal is Sakura/Sasuke and not Sakura/Itachi

I think that's everything, lol.

The two weeks leading up to the all important mid-year exams flew by in an unmemorable blur. Sakura wasn’t the only gennin cramming training into every spare minute. Naruto could be heard loudly shouting that he wouldn’t be cut—as if he was in danger of that happening to begin with—before he dragged the youngest prince to the training fields where the two would literally exhaust themselves to the point they staggered inside just before curfew, somehow leaning against one another for support despite looking like they were about to collapse again. The stress was even getting to Shikamaru, who made the effort to stay awake in classes as they began reviewing the semester’s material.

Sasuke had felt it the worst, she imagined, after herself. He was insanely talented, the best in their year, and they all knew he wouldn’t be dropped from the program. But he was pushing himself three times as hard to prove that he was the best. Mizuki-sensei sneered several reminders as doomsday approached that he wouldn’t get a free pass simply because he was a prince.

She supposed he could fail and still move onto the second half of the year. The institute was entirely dependent on the crown. She could see King Fugaku simply replacing every single instructor should such an event come to pass.

The rest of the boys thought her crazy, long aware of the lengths she was going to unsure she’d be one of the twenty-one boys continuing on.

To be fair, it was her medical studies that were causing her the most stress. She had the theoretical portion of the exam in the bag (names and dates of various wars memorized), was infinitely more confident about her physical performance (stances practiced until Tenten found nothing to criticize), but the exams were in three days and she had yet to resuscitate the fish. The dead fish stubbornly remained dead. She didn’t want to disappoint Tsunade but was coming to fear that she wouldn’t met the one month deadline she had been set.

Her friends tried to reassure her that her placement wasn’t as precarious as she believed, believing that her anxiety stemmed from the fact that she wouldn’t have the mystical palm technique learned enough to showcase in a couple days.

Distracted as she was, Sakura had shelved any further reflection on Akatsuki, and Shisui’s and Itachi’s involvement with them, until January rolled around. It wasn’t like she had a thought to spare for them anyways.

Until she was roughly awakened by a hand across her mouth.

Sakura thrashed. Her assailant shifted to hold her in place.

“Easy, duckling. Calm down. It’s just me.” Even over the pounding in her ears, she recognized Shisui’s voice. “If I let go, will you keep quiet?”

Sakura blinked, hoping it conveyed her agreement, seeing as she couldn’t exactly nod her head in the older teen’s vice grip. Slowly, he took his hand back, like he expected her to scream anyways. Dourly, she thought he would deserve it.

“I thought I told you to flare your chakra if you ever got attacked,” he frowned.

Sakura glared, affronted that he had the nerve to lecture her when he was the one attacking her in her bed in the middle of the night. “If this was supposed to be some kind of lesson—”

“Not intentionally, no, but it was a good opportunity. As a ninja, you should always be aware. I suppose I should apologize.”

Sakura felt her eyebrows get lost in her hairline. The older boy normally wasn’t this cagy. “For scaring me half to death? Thanks, I guess.” He hadn’t actually said he was sorry, but she didn’t care at this point. “I’d rather you explain why you felt it was necessary.”

His brows scrunched as he scowled. “I disagree that it was necessary, but I was overruled. I’m sorry for involving you. I should have never brought you to the Dancing Hawk.”

He looked so despondent that Sakura placed a hand on his knee. She was uncertain how to respond. Yes, she had tossed the idea back and forth to return to the bar the next time she was able. Her conversation with him and Itachi had only fueled her desire to know more. Why would their era of peace end? What did they know? Was it going to come from something the Akatsuki would incite? If so, why? But she had decided to wait. Her priority was her upcoming exams. She didn’t have time for distractions, no matter how often her thoughts strayed from the progression of the Warring Periods.

“What could they possibly need a ten-year old boy for?”

“I can’t explain here. You need to come with me.”

Knowing Shisui wanted this as much as she did, Sakura reluctantly agreed to accompany him. It seemed neither of them had much of a choice, and she really didn’t want to be knocked out. Thankfully, she had slept in her tunic. It was crumpled, but it meant she didn’t need to invent an excuse to kick him out so she could dress.

She tiptoed across the room, plucking her weapons pouch off its designated corner of her desk and quickly securing it on her hip. Tenten’s brown eye appeared in the crack of the door of the connected chamber. Sakura gave her a small smile to assure her, positive that Itachi and Shisui wouldn’t let anything happen to her, but mostly hoping that she wouldn’t worry. It was very out of the ordinary for Shisui to approach her like this, even more so with her limited knowledge of Akatsuki, and the last thing she wanted was for Tenten to somehow get dragged into all this.

Though, would Itachi even be at the Dancing Hawk?

The answer was yes. Sakura had question, and been forcefully hushed, as Shisui had led them deeper into the castle instead of out towards the grounds. The slender silhouette of the prince waited for them in the main dojo. Moving fluidly, he knelt, pulling up the corner of the tatami mat, revealing a trap door hidden underneath.

Shisui jumped down first, breathing a Katon jutsu to light a sconce. Itachi ushered her ahead of him. She eyed the drop nervously, calculating how she would need to fall so as to not break her ankles. The prince solved her problem by lifting her like she weighed nothing and lowering her for his cousin to grab.

“I would ask that you keep this passage a secret and not draw attention to it by sneaking out too often.”

Sakura felt safe pinning him with a rather dubious look, letting him know exactly how much she thought of his suggestion. “What makes you think I’ll be sneaking out of the castle?”

Her question earned her identical deadpans. Sakura didn’t bother to hide her outrage. She was a model student. She wasn’t the one that had signed up with an illegal resistance group.

No, you’re just hiding your gender, her inner voice unnecessarily reminded her.

“You’ll be a teenage boy in a few years,” was Shisui’s sage answer.

Rather too conveniently, in Sakura’s opinion, the passage led to the underside of the stairs inside the Dancing Hawk. With ease, the two boys lift her out, blending seamlessly with the room for the three seconds it takes to stride out from underneath the staircase and then up them, giving the impression that they are here with a purpose and belong in the tavern, despite being obviously underage in her case.

She was unwillingly impressed. Was the lack of acknowledgement from a room full of adults because they were a common enough sight that no one questioned their presence? Or were they that skilled at infiltration? Surely Itachi, the kingdom’s crown prince, should be instantly recognizable.

She’s taken up to Yahiko’s personal room. The room is much larger than she’d expect to find in a tavern. Not everyone she had met previously was present, only Yahiko and Nagato, and a blue haired woman who Sakura didn’t remember. She clinically introduced herself as Konan and then returned to the origami flowers she was folding.

Silence reigns. The other members of Akatsuki are clearly waiting for Yahiko to say his piece. The longer it drags on the stiffer she can sense Shisui, standing behind her, become. Finally, the man gestures for her to join him at the table.

On it rests a single picture of a cat.

“This is Tora,” states Yahiko.

“We need someone small and unassuming to replace Tora’s bow with this one.” Balancing on two long fingers, Nagato holds up a red bow identical to the one in the photo.

Sakura fairly radiates dissatisfaction. She’d be taking a major risk, larger than they know, if she agrees to swap the cat’s hairpiece. Which she’s in no way considering unless they explain exactly why it must be her. Any one of the men she was introduced to the last time she was here was more than talented enough to reverse pickpocket someone’s pet.

“Tora belongs to Madam Shijimi. She’s the wife of the Fire Daimyō. We suspect that he may be appropriating tax money into a personal account but have no way to confirm such rumors. This bow has a listening jutsu placed upon it.” At that Sakura eagerly leans forward to inspect the innocent looking piece of cloth. She hadn’t known jutsu like that existed. “It will allow us to hear anything spoken in its range.”

“And Madam Shijimi is never without her pet,” Nagato interjects.

Sakura supposes she understands that. No one explained why they care that the Fire Daimyō is stealing money or what they plan to do with the knowledge they uncover, but Sakura is surprisingly unbothered. Whatever action Akatsuki takes, the Fire Daimyō deserves for stealing.

She’s more concerned with, “why me?”

“Madam Shijimi has a soft spot for children. She hires them for menial tasks, like carrying her shopping while she’s in town—”

“Or holding her precious Tora,” finishes Yahiko.

“I’m supposed to make the swap right in front of her?” She would rather try breaking into her home. Dear kami why is she considering this?

“Lucky for you that won’t be necessary. Tora has supposedly fallen ill.” Nagato says it with such straight face that Sakura concludes that the cat’s illness was deliberate. “Madam Shijimi was instructed to isolate him. The window of his room is kept open just wide enough for a child to slip through.”

“Was the vet in on this farce?”

The two men remain impassive. Everyone in the room knows she is asking why they didn’t just have the vet switch out the damn accessory and bothered with escorting her here in the dead of night.

“We would be grateful for your assistance in this matter, Satoshi-kun.”

---

Grateful her ass, she thinks, as she follows Shisui, who had been volunteered by Yahiko to take her to the Fire Daimyō’s property in the city. The only reason she’s going along with this insane scheme is because that’s money her father has paid that’s being stolen.

Sakura glances at the wall before her, wondering how on earth Shisui is supposed to help her reach a third story window. Even standing on his shoulders she wouldn’t come near the height of the window.

She’s about to ask, but Shisui moves his head just enough for her to realize he’s shaking it, his eyes begging her to hold her silence.

For him, she did.

He knelt, silently directing her to climb on his back. She locked her limbs around his torso and gasped wordlessly when he walked up the side of the building like gravity wasn’t a thing.

“That is so cool,” she mouthed. His shoulders shook beneath her. “Shut up.”

Sakura wiggled inside, the gap was hardly wide enough for her to slip through, almost tumbling in when her hips were no longer supported by the windowsill. Dizzy with fear, she watched as what must be Tora, who was more akin to the size of a baby tiger than a housecat, raised his head off his paws to stare at the intruder in his space.

The pinkette froze, hair tickling at her nose as she dangled half in the room, too afraid to move until the cat lazily dismissed her, returning to his nap. Carefully, she tugged her legs through, wincing when her sandals clipped the wall.

Tora watches with one eye as she approached, and for a moment, Sakura thought it would be easy to exchange the two bows. But the second she touched him, Tora revealed himself to be a cat from hell.

She had no explanation for the beast’s viciousness. His claws gouged at her skin, leaving four deep cuts across the back of her hand. Sadly, her speed was no match for the demon. By the time she successfully secured the ribbon to his ear, she has earned several more scratches to her arms and one particularly painful one on the fleshy part of the fingers on her dominant hand.

Wanting to be far away from the demon in disguise, Sakura was less careful about getting out. She didn’t wait for Shisui to walk back up the wall to carry her down, instead free falling as soon as she was through.

The teen caught her easily, and mercifully said nothing about the scratching littering her arms aside from a warning to hide them until she can get them looked at.

“Did you make the switch?”

“That thing was not a cat. It’s a demon,” she hissed in lieu of an answer. By the twinkle in his eye she knew he was laughing at her. “It’s true. It flipped out the moment I touched it. I’m surprised no one came to see what the ruckus was.”

“Don’t question good luck kid.”

---

Itachi’s Sharigan tracked the duo across the city.

“What will you do if he passes your test?” He knew the Fire Daimyō wasn’t laundering money, as did Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan.

“I can think of several uses for such an untrained boy.”

The prince hn’ed.

Itachi watched as Satoshi was carried on piggyback to a third-floor window. He counted each second the girl was inside (seventy-three), and watched as she dangled outside the window before dropping out of sight.

“Bring him to the first meeting of the new year.”

Itachi inclined his head in acknowledgement of the order and ghosted out of the premise to meet up with Shisui and Satoshi and return to the castle.

---

Sakura was stumbling by the time they climb out of the trap door hidden in the dojo, but waves off Shisui’s offer to escort her back to her room. She can’t even think of a lie for why she’s out this late at night, never mind with the two of them. If she gets caught it’s probably better that they’re not involved. At worst she’ll get another hour of punishment work.

Tenten flew out of her room when Sakura slipped inside. The younger girl explained the best she could, choosing to say only that she owed Shisui a favor for all of his help and that she was sworn to silence, but she wasn’t in any trouble.

“Promise me it wasn’t anything dangerous.”

Sakura gave her word. The lie tasted sour on her tongue, but Tenten was relieved by her assurances, enough to let the matter go.

Alone once more, Sakura pulled the cat’s bow from her tunic. It was the one Nagato had handed her. She hadn’t been able to get Tora’s off and, frightened that someone would come investigate the noise, had hightailed it back out the window.

She couldn’t sense any chakra from it, but that wasn’t saying much to be honest. Even if she could, she wouldn’t know what she was looking for. She wrapped it in a dirty tunic and shoved it under the loose floorboard with the letters from her uncle, praying to kami that she had time to visit the library in the morning and see if there were any jutsu that could be used to eavesdrop remotely.

Chapter 13

Notes:

This chapter would have been out sooner, but it somehow doubled in length and I couldn't find a good stopping point. Then the characters hijacked my outline and took the chapter in completely different direction.

Doomsday arrives with little fanfare. For Sakura, anyways. She can’t speak for the rest of her fellow ninja-in-training.

There would be no lessons today. Exam after test after demonstration would occur until every gennin had proved how much knowledge they retained and how many hours they dedicated to their craft.

For Sakura, the day starts the same as any other from the last month. She rouses from her bedsheets during the still dark hours of the morning and uses the extra hour Tsunade gave her to drill her throwing skills with Tenten before reporting to the hospital wing.

The busty blonde offers her no words of greeting, encouragement, or reassurance for the day ahead of her. Wordlessly, she was directed to the storage room.

Sakura set to her task, preparing the familiar ingredients without truly thinking about each bundle of leaves before her. With her hands occupied, her mind wandered.

She had done a lot of self-reflection the last three days, after Shisui’s midnight kidnapping. Luckily, her friends interpreted her intense silence as concern, attributing it to the impending exams that determined whether or not they stayed.

After all, if wasn’t enough to pass.

Shikamaru, in a rare moment of initiative, had researched the previous exams pass and fail rates. He presented her with numbers showcasing that it was actually rare for a gennin to outright fail at this stage. Typically, those that reached the halfway mark were capable of continuing on into the second half of the year. Those incapable or unwilling of pursuing a ninja career usually stumbled and left within the first sixty days.

He had intended to comfort the youngest of their group, but sadly had the opposite effect.

If the exams weren’t a simple matter of pass or fail, then her continued survival depended on how well she scored.

Everyone knew that only twenty-one gennin would make it out of these exams alive, so to speak. Now, with Shikamaru’s discovery, Sakura knew she not only needed to pass, but she had to perform better than literally half her class.

This kind of pressure was exactly the kind of impetus that drove even the most assured of gennin to buckle down lest someone lower in the ranking overtook them in desperation.

Sakura was amongst that number. Officially, her class ranking was fourteen. Decent, but not outstanding, and theoretically safe with seven people between her and twenty-second place. Fourteen wasn’t safe enough.

Not when her life and the life of her brother depended on her.

But did it truly?

A traitorous thought had snaked its way into her head, as a result of her late night excursion with the Uchiha cousins, and sunk in its metaphorical teeth.

The law stated each noble family had to send one son, if they had a male heir, to the Shinobi Institute for training.

Crippled as he was, Satoshi was expected to attend. He would have been washed out within the first week, sent packing in disgrace. Her brother and her had devised this frankly insane plan to avoid that outcome. Sakura might be younger, and a female to boot, but she was at the very least capable of attending and training as instructed.

In the wake of her brother’s accident, the then eight- and nine-years old children had hatched this scheme where they would swap identities and places for eight years, somehow convincing their uncle to go along with it.

But the one thing the rosette had realized in her three days of introspection was that there was no need for their ruse to persist for all eight years.

If she happened to get cut during the mid-year evaluations, as long as she technically passed the exams themselves, there wouldn’t be any consequences for her getting sent home.

No shame for her. No disgrace for her family.

Only disappointment for the dreams she would be ruining, both her own and Tenten’s. The aspiring blacksmith had benefited from their current arrangement. She had a potential apprenticeship lined up with a blacksmith in the city, but it was dependent on Sakura making it to the second half of the year.

Aware that she had gotten in way over her head, Sakura had spent the last three days debating the consequences of either outcome regarding the exam.

Passing meant her position was secured for the next three-and-a-half years. Unless she did something to get herself thrown out or her secret was discovered, the next exam of import would be the chuunin exams that determined whether they progressed to more individualized and direct training under a jounin. Passing meant she didn’t need to abandon her dream to become the first recognized kunoichi in a thousand years.

Whereas failing meant she could stop. Stop pushing herself to learn techniques and skills she was ultimately going to be denied when the truth came to light. Stop fearing that she would somehow give her true gender away, that her friends would report her for lying to them.

Stop her pursuit of the one thing she had coveted as a child—escape from family expectations.

Tsunade, in all her prowress, had been denied. Chances were Sakura would be too, if her death was ordered outright for her deception, but she clung to the hope that, if she could just get through these eight years and earn her rank as one of the kingdom’s elite shinobi, they wouldn’t take the achievement away from her.

Naïve, yes. Foolish, undoubtedly. Unrealistic, most certainly. If they had denied Tsunade Senju with pedigree from Konohagakure’s founder and the skill to live up to her grandfather’s title as a God of Shinobi, why would the crown reward her, the daughter of a minor noble?

But Sakura wanted this dream badly enough to push herself beyond her perceived limit.

Could she bring herself to give up everything she had worked tirelessly for because she feared the future?

Could she run back to the Haruno estate to avoid the war Itachi implied was coming, knowing she’d be leaving her friends behind to face that fate without her?

Would she be able to return to her life as a nobleman’s daughter, after she had tasted her dream? Could she pretend to be just another porcelain doll, blindly obeying her uncaring father?

Three days, all these thoughts had swirled around her head, and she felt no closer to an answer. Now, time was of the essence. Their exams started right after the breakfast hour, so Sakura had just under two hours to decide which outcome she could live with and which one she wanted.

She arrived at breakfast no closer to making a decision.

Luckily, her internal strife went unnoticed, as all of her friends were distracted by last minute cramming.

“You had better pass.”

Except for one, as it turned out. Sakura hadn’t even realized she had taken a seat next to Sasuke until he spoke.

“Huh?” was her intelligent reply.

“The dobe would mope if you failed.”

A soft smile bloomed on her face. The second prince typically held himself apart from rest of them, aside from Naruto. Naruto like to joke that it was to keep his broodiness from infecting them all. Sakura simply figured his status as a prince forced him to remain aloof and impartial, with Naruto as an exception obviously because the blond boy let nothing stand in his way once he decided to do something, even when that something was befriending the prickly younger prince.

Even if it was only for Naruto’s sake, it was nice to know that Sasuke wanted her to stick around. It wasn’t quite the same as having faith in her, but Sakura would take what she could get from him. Besides, she got enough of that from the rest of her friends, regardless of how much she doubted their assurances.

Maybe all she needed was a little bit of faith. There was no way out of taking the exams, and it wasn’t like being ranked fourteenth overall guaranteed her continued attendance. All she could do was do her best and trust the examiners to determine her worth.

The warning bell rang. With the fate of one walking towards their doom, the first year gennins exited the dining hall to the cheers and taunts of the upper years.

Following their normal schedule, their academic knowledge was put to the test first.

One by one they were called in to stand before a panel of neutral proctors to recite detailed answers about their nation’s history. Sakura’s question was about the creation of the seven mystical blades wielded by the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist and how possessing those blades had allowed Kirigakure to rise in fame and acclaim as one of the five great ninja villages.

As the name suggested, there were seven unique blades with even more unique abilities that, before the Elemental Nations had been united into a single kingdom, Kirigakure had forged to turn the tide of the war they were embroiled in. Each blade, through a careful mixture of chakra, seals, blood, and choice of material, had been imbued with a special ability of devastating nature, like Samehada, the sentient living blade that could eat chakra or the giant butcher-like looking Kubikiribōchō designed with a semi-circle perfect for decapitating people. It could also absorb the blood of its victims and use the iron in it to regenerate, making it virtually indestructible.

Sakura went into great detail about each legendary sword and its capabilities, and how the first iteration had weaponized the world’s fear of such blades to set themselves apart until Madara Uchiha had convinced them to turn those blades against the samurai with words aimed to pierce the Swordsmen’s egos. Basically, he led them to believe that samurai looked down upon them as swordsmen because it was their blades that were skilled and not the men wielding them.

The Seven Swordsmen had quickly disabused them of that notion with a demonstration of their power, forcing the samurai to retreat from a fortress they had held as impregnable for two centuries.

Her panel of examiners remained straight-faced through her recitation. Even at the end, the only words they spoke were to dismiss her, leaving Sakura to stumble out of the room on trembling knees as another nervous gennin replaced her.

She felt more confident in the arithmetic portion, for it comprised of a series of situational scenarios asking for a calculation of angles, force, distance, and time. One question, imagining two villages at war asked her how she would complete a mission to retrieve vital intel for her village, without revealing which nation held her loyalty.

It laid out a specific set of parameters. It was a solo mission in which she had retrieved the desired intelligence but had be caught doing so. Bearing no physical indication of which village she belonged to, Sakura had to explain how she would avoid capture and escape her pursuers limited to four already specified jutsu that either wouldn’t reveal which village she hailed from or mislead her enemies into believing she came from somewhere else entirely.

Sakura had written a lengthy answer, adding the two basic jutsus of replacement and transformation to her available repertoire, reasoning that the prompt hadn’t forbidden them, and they could hardly count as an indicator of her nationality if they were standard techniques.

Even writing as tiny as she could without hindering legibility, Sakura filled the provided space for that prompt before she had finished her explanation and was forced to twist her paper ninety degrees and continue down the side.

She eyed it nervously once down, wondering if she should waste some of her precious time to parse down her answer so that it fit within the provided margins. Would she be docked points for writing too much?

The young girl decided to come back to that question at the end if she had time to. Better in her opinion to lose a handful of points on wordiness than turn in an incomplete exam.

Perfectionist that she was, every question that followed had been given the same care and consideration, ultimately leaving her with just a few minutes at the end to touch up any answers she felt were lacking, but not enough time to completely rewrite one.

The exams even took over their lunch.

Instead of giving them the lunch hour as a break to rest and rejuvenate, each gennin was assigned to wait upon a noble visiting for the holidays, watched on by Ebisu-sensei’s eagle eyes. Sakura swore the scratching of pen to paper never ended.

Sakura knew she earned a black mark for herself when she set down a wife’s entremets just ahead of her husbands.

It was ridiculous, but exactly the kind of behavior that Ebisu-sensei considered a grievous breach of courtesy.

Even with that deduction, she fared better than Kiba and Shino. The Inuzuka heir had smuggled in his canine partner and Akamaru had unbalanced the boy when he was serving a noble from the Hirasaka clan to chase Madam Shijimi’s Tora. The tray of soups he had carried had landed in the lord’s lap, and then Akamaru proceeded to wreck the rest of the table by bounding across it to reach Tora, held in the wife of the Fire Daimyō’s arms.

Sakura felt bad for Kiba, having just ensured his place at the bottom for this test for such a catastrophic blunder, but she couldn’t help but cheer for the nin-hound to win. After the torment that beastly demon cat had put her through, being chased by a dog was the least of what it deserved.

As for Shino, through no fault of his own, the attendees refused to be served by him. Even those from Konoha, where the Aburame hailed from, where uncomfortable receiving food from a boy that housed bugs within his body.

By the time they had reached the physical evaluations, Sakura was too exhausted mentally to care about how these tests decided her fate. She just wanted to be done with them all.

They started the physical portion with shuriken and kunai throwing, followed by a minute long spar against volunteer chuunin. Sakura only managed to land one hit, but if it had been with anything but bare hands, it would have been a lethal hit. On the plus side though, she was one of a small group that managed to avoid getting struck by the chuunin entirely.

She had Tsunade to thank for that performance. After weeks of training with her, fighting against a chuunin that was deliberately going easy on them and telegraphing their moves made putting on a show easier.

The last thing they had to do was go through every kata and fighting style they had drilled. Anybody who looked at the person standing next to them for a hint was asked to step out of line.

At the end of it, she collapsed onto the grass, trying to become one with the cool earth beneath her.

“I ache in places I didn’t know existed.”

Her exclamation was met with a chorus of agreements.

“Aren’t you celebrating a little early, Satoshi. You aren’t done yet,” pointed out Shikmaru. “Kenga-sensei called for those with something additional to demonstrate.”

Sakura went vertical so fast her head spun. She had forgotten about the extra assessment.

And yet, under the expectant eyes of Shikamaru, Chouji, Kiba, Naruto, and Sasuke, she hesitated. She didn’t actually have any medical ninjutsu to show Kenga-sensei, having not yet succeeding in her attempts to revive a fish with Mystical Palm, and she doubted he would be impressed by her reciting the medical use of common plants.

“What are you waiting for Satoshi?” Naruto practically yelled, drawing Kenga-sensei’s attention. “You’ve spent ages training with that old hag so you would have something to show off. You have to get over there.”

“Don’t call Tsunade-sensei an old hag!”

The blond boy pouted, uncaring that he was insulting the world’s greatest medic. “I call her that until she stops working you so hard. You spend so much time with her you don’t have any time for me anymore.”

Before she could protest that that wasn’t true, Kenga-sensei was standing before her, staring down his long nose at her partially reclined position. Sakura instantly sprang to her feet, resisting the self-conscious urge to pat down her clothes to knock off dirt.

“Rather small. What do you have to show me, Satoshi Haruno?”

She summoned the distinctive green healing chakra to coat her hands. “Iryō-jutsu.”

His eyebrows moved towards his hairline. “Can you heal?”

Sakura caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Not yet,” she admitted, rushing on when Kenga-sensei’s expression returned to neutral, “but Tsunade-sensei is teaching me. I just started with this two weeks ago. I’ll be able to do it soon.”

“But that is not now.” And with that cutting statement, Kenga-sensei rejoined the rest of the examiners on the far side of the training field, taking any sense of pride with him.

Had she just blown the chance she had spent months preparing for, counting on this performance to ensure her enrollment wasn’t dropped? It was an extra assessment, but would they take points away from her for not being able to display a viable medical ninjutsu?

Kiba caught her arm, dragging her to dinner with the rest of the clan kids when she wanted nothing more than to hide in her room and wallow, certain she had just ruined everything. “So you couldn’t actually show Kenga-sensei anything. It’s not the end of the world. You did way better than me during the comportment test.”

Sakura grinned weakly, the disaster still fresh in every gennin’s mind.

“It may still count for something,” drawled Shikamaru. “You are the first apprentice Tsunade has taken on in over a decade. Even if you can’t do it now, you will in the future.”

Their efforts were appreciated, though they did little to assuage her nerves. Sakura picked at her dinner plate, waiting for it to be over so they could examine the posted results.

There was a crowd of students already clamoring around the board when the first year gennin reached it. Their year was the only year that faced the mid-year cut, but the other three years still participated in ranking assessments to measure their progress and establish a pecking order for when they made chuunin and started vying for mentors.

Veridian eyes scanned the sheets, searching for her borrowed name.

“You did it, Satoshi! I told you, you would!” Naruto gave her a rib-crushing hug.

“I don’t see my name. Where is it?”

“Right here,” Naruto pointed at the appropriate spot.

Sakura followed the line of his finger. She took great glee in skipping over Fusoku’s name in eleventh. She felt she was entitled to take joy in beating out her main tormentor, even if he passed as well.

“Sixth?” she whispered, disbelieving. How had she scored so high? It must be some kind of mistake. She scanned the rest of the list, looking to see where her friends had placed.

1. Sasuke Uchiha
2. Shino Aburame
3. Gaara no Sabuko
4. Naruto Namikaze
5. Chouji Akimichi
6. Satoshi Haruno
7. Kiba Inuzuka.

Eighth, ninth, and tenth belonged to people Sakura couldn’t put a face to the name, and she already knew Fusoku was in eleventh. The shocker was the name at the bottom of the list.

21. Shikamaru Nara

The rest of the placements weren’t surprising, but Sakura knew the Nara heir was more talented than his ranking indicated. Of course, Sasuke was the top of their year. The whiskered blond could have taken second if he put more effort into his book work, but he seemed pleased with fourth. He was already making promises to beat Sasuke in the next round of exams.

The crowd thinned as the older years left and, more than content with her own ranking, Sakura stepped back to let others through.

Spotting the spiky ponytail of her friend, Sakura moved towards Shikamaru. “Aren’t you interested in seeing where you placed?”

The boy shrugged. “I know I’m in twenty-first.”

“How?”

Shikamaru lips quirked. “How did I know or how did I end up twenty-first?”

“Both.”

“I aimed for it. Did just enough to garner the last spot.”

“But why?” Sakura couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t aim for a higher placement. Of all her year mates, Shikamaru was probably the one with the most potential to beat the prince and claim the top spot.”

“Exams are troublesome. I wouldn’t be allowed to be lazy in class anymore if I scored higher,” he explained.

“Exams are troublesome?” she repeated, incredulously. She had spent four months overworking herself to ensure she would still be here come the new, only to have a crisis on whether she should continue, and Shikamaru couldn’t be bothered to perform to his true standard? “But weren’t you worried about getting cut? What if someone below you had done better? You’d be going home.”

“I knew they wouldn’t,” he said simply. “Besides, what does it matter? We both made it. You even placed in the top half of the class.”

A horrible thought came to her. “Tell me you didn’t purposefully score lower than me.”

Shikamaru barked a laugh. “I didn’t. I simply didn’t want to do more work than was necessary.”

Sakura relented, even though she was certain there was more to Shikamaru’s surprising last place finish. The Nara was lazy enough that calculating how well others were doing in comparison to him was easy and using that knowledge to skate by on the bare minimum was something he would do. He had the skills and the brains, he just lacked motivation. As a bonus, he now knew exactly how much effort to put forth in future evaluations, where the rest of their group would once more do their best to score as high as they could.

---

Shikamaru watched Satoshi leave, followed by Naruto dragging along Sasuke.

It was unsurprising that the other boy had cottoned on to the true meaning of his placement. His lie, while perfectly believable and in character, he didn’t expect to fool Satoshi. But it had. He found the exams troublesome, of course. For all that they served a purpose of pushing the gennin so they could focus on the cream of the crop, they only really mattered to those that came from a civilian background or minor ninja clan.

As a nobleman’s son, Satoshi shouldn’t have been so concerned about his ranking. He may not have been from a prominent ninja clan, but he wasn’t an average civilian like Fusoku either. His lack of basic training that he pushed himself so hard to correct was a glaring sign.

Of what, Shikamaru couldn’t guess.

Shikamaru hated unsolved puzzles, and that’s precisely what Satoshi represented. And he wouldn’t be able to find those answers if the red-head was sent home. So he ran the numbers, scoring exactly one point below the person in twentieth, leaving plenty of room for Satoshi whose unofficial ranking place him above that.

Satoshi was the only one of the clan kids, which he had fallen in with, to fret about passing. He didn’t doubt the boy would make it even without his manipulation. Even disadvantaged as he was, Satoshi possessed as much passion, drive, and determine as every clan kid that was here to represent their family’s honor. And as a nobleman’s son, where he fell short physically, he made up for in being better educated, which was more important in Shikamaru’s opinion. Taijutsu and Ninjutsu could be taught to anyone willing to dedicate hours to training, but owning a working brain set them apart.

The harsh cut was designed to psyche out civilians trying their profession out for a lark, thinking they could better their lives, not realizing how dangerous it was.

Shikamaru slouched back to his room when the excitement died down. He now had three-and-a-half years to learn what secrets Satoshi was hiding.

He enjoyed playing the long game.

Chapter 14

If Sakura had once thought that it would be smooth sailing if only she could make it through to the second half of the year, she regretted it. As evidenced by her senseis, thinking such thoughts had jinxed herself.

With the class size cut in half, her senseis now had the energy to focus on those that remained. Initially, Sakura was excited for the prospect. Targeted one-on-one training would benefit her. She didn’t have the previous training most of her remaining class had, as big name clan kids.

Instead it meant her every flaw, every mistake she made, every way in which she was subpar in her performance was being pointed out daily. Not even Naruto, with his unending optimism, was spared from the sharply barked criticisms.

It took Sakura time to come to terms with this new treatment; more like the soldiers they would be than the children they were.

She couldn’t help but think of the conversation she shared with Itachi and Shisui, the secret mission she had failed, and the cat accessory still hidden beneath her bed—she really needed to find a moment to research if eavesdropping jutsus were real.

She was in over her head before the Uchiha duo had dropped the metaphorical bomb that something big was in the works. Seven-and-a-half years loomed ahead of her, but she only had three or four before puberty kicked in, potentially ruining all of her hard work.

Sometimes, after long days of dealing with Tsunade-shishou’s bluntness, Iruka-sensei’s every increasing workload, Mizuki-sensei’s demands for more repetitions, Ebisu-sensei’s relentless criticisms, Sakura wondered if she had made the wrong decision. Exhaustion wore at her, like a kunai thrust between her ribs, and she didn’t have the energy keep up with her insane schedule.

It wasn’t enough that she had made it through the cuts. Fusoku had managed that much. No, now that Sakura was past that hurdle, she was expected to maintain, if not improve her standing.

So the senseis increased attentions, resulting in specific corrections targeted at what she was doing wrong, were chinks in her armor. Whenever their eagle-eyed gaze locked on her, Sakura felt like her ruse was crumbling, like pieces of armor methodically removed and set aside. And she couldn’t put that piece back on or adjust what remained to cover what was exposed.

She was so stupid to think that she would be safe if she survived being cut from the program.

The only upside was classes had become more interesting. Well, the physically related ones, anyways. Nothing could make her want to listen to Ebisu-sensei drone on about proper ninja comportment. Especially when a year’s worth of lessons could be summarized as be polite or keep your mouth shut.

Her chakra class had finally moved past learning the layout of the chakra system and the location of all 361 tenketsu. Neji, a Hyūga in the year above her, was absolutely no help when first year gennin turned to him for help, thinking his Byakugan would somehow help them.

Sakura hadn’t been present for that confrontation, but Kiba loved to retell how the second year gennin had verbally flayed the boys that thought they could use him as a shortcut.

Chakra natures were fascinating, especially in the various ways they could be combined to create unique natures. Some, like Hashirama Senju’s Wood Release or the Yuki clan’s Ice Release were believed to be bloodline limits, as ninja had tried and failed for generations to replicate them by combining the requisite chakra natures.

Kenga-sensei had demonstrated a special kind of paper that reacted, when exposed to chakra, to the latent element affinity. His had turned to dirt and crumbled away, indicating an earth nature. The entire class, learning forward in eager anticipation of his passing them out for them to try, had been bitterly disappointed when he had gone on to announce that they wouldn’t be testing for affinities the third year of the academy.

He then set them to the task of focusing their chakra to hold a leaf to their forehead. It was a task they had done before, but as young children they weren’t expected to have great control over their chakra. Typically, Kenga-sensei revisited this lesson once a week, wanting to build the gennins’ control while they were young, seeing as their pools would continue to grow throughout their eight years of education.

He even set them a challenge, offering minor rewards as incentive. The sudden onset of disappointment that came with have to rehash a technique they had been practicing for months had quickly shifted into a competition to see who could hold their leaf the longest.

Sakura had been pleasantly surprised by how easy it was for her. Not that she had ever struggled to begin with. Kenga-sensei would lecture, and she would take notes and at the end of class she had to be reminded to turn in her leaf because she inevitably forgot it was there. Once she stuck it to her forehead, Sakura hadn’t needed to focus on it to keep it in place.

“A moment, Satoshi-kun.” Kenga-sensei prevented her from taking her seat after having acquired her leaf for the day’s lesson.

Sakura looked at him, startled, wondering what she could have possibly done to be called out in such a manner.

“I’ve observed you closely as you completed this exercise. You claim to have training as a medical-nin?”

She clamped down on the urge to coat her hand in the tell-tale green chakra, as she had four weeks previously to him during the exams. It was a rhetorical question, but she was still expected to answer in the affirmative, so she did. “I want you to try something different, today. Make the leaf spin.”

“Make the leaf spin?” she repeated. How was that supposed to improve her chakra control?

Wordlessly, Kenga-sensei removed a leaf for himself. As soon as it touched his forehead, it was spinning in a dizzily fast twirl until it was a green blur and Sakura couldn’t make out the leaf’s edges.

The young girl settled at her desk, eager to start on her assigned task. Admittedly, she still didn’t understand its relevance to chakra control, but trusted that Kenga-sensei knew what he was doing. Besides, she was not so secretly gleeful about being the first one to move to a more advanced technique as Kenga-sensei hadn’t instructed anyone else to attempt spinning their leaves. Not that it stopped several students from trying once he had shown there was more they could be doing, but Kenga-sensei was very firm in refocusing any that tried to copy her.

Sakura tuned out Naruto’s loud complaints about he was ready for something more difficult and bring it on, and Kenga-sensei’s scolding response, and set about spinning her leaf on her forehead.

Or tried to. She couldn’t see her own forehead, so she couldn’t actually see if it was rotating. She went cross-eyed trying and earned a headache for her efforts.

She frequently glanced towards the windows, using her reflection in the glass to gauge whether or not she was successful. The first several times only showed a stationary leaf, and her frowned deepened with every failure. Her concentration, torn between figuring out where she was going wrong and paying attention to Kenga-sensei’s lecture about the first four basic jutsu they would be taught in the coming weeks—Transformation, Clone, Replacement, and Escape techniques, ultimately failed her.

By the end of the lesson, Sakura had written only a quarter of her usual notes—nothing that would help her practice on her own. She would have to hit up one of the boys for more complete notes, or better yet make a trip to the library—and managed to blow the leaf off her head a total of six times. Every time she got her chakra to rotate just under the leaf, an effort which had drawn all her focus away from Kenga-sensei’s lecture, the leaf had jumped from her forehead as if propelled by a puff of breath and fluttered onto her desk.

She was visibly frustrated by the end of the lesson, and Fusoku’s reappearance helped matters none. The other kid hip-checked her as he pushed by with a snide comment of how even one-trick ponies were more talented than she was.

And by hip-check Sakura meant forcefully flung into the door, making her loose her grip on her notes.

She stared at them forlornly, creased and dirtied from Fusoku’s posse deliberately grinding their feet into them. She had intended to borrow from Shino or Gaara so she could fill in the parts she missed, but now she would have to rewrite them entirely.

She gathered the crumpled papers and shoved them in her bag. Another hand grabbed the last sheet before she could.

“Here you are, Satoshi!” Naruto grinned brightly. “Don’t mind Fusoku. He’s just being a berk because you’re better. Do you think you could teach me that trick?”

“What trick?”

The blond rubbed the back of his head, sheepish. “The spinning leaf one you were just doing for Kenga-sensei. Even Sasuke doesn’t know how to do that yet and I wanna show him that I can get it first.”

“I don’t know if I can—”

“Please,” her friend begged. “I promise it won’t take long. And I’ll teach you something in return.”

Quid pro quo was the motto attendants of the institute lived by. Equivalent exchange of favors. Mutual scratching of backs. Sakura was interested in what Naruto had in mind to offer her, last semester he had convinced Shisui to help with the physical aspect. It had really helped her. She didn’t know what he had in mind, but Naruto had connections. He was the son of the Fourth Hokage and best friends with the youngest prince. Sakura’s mind ran wild imagining the multitude of cool techniques he must know.

She frowned dubiously. There was only one holdback. “It’s not that I don’t want to, Naruto. I don’t know if I can. I haven’t figured it out yet.”

His shoulders slumped. “Right. That’s fine.” Then his whole countenance did a complete reversal. Feet spread wide and shoulders squared, he thrust an hand out toward her with the last three fingers curled. “You’ll figure out the secret in no time, believe it. And when you do, you come to me first. Don’t listen to anything the bastard says.”

Her smile grew to match his. She never wanted the warm feeling she got when Naruto genuinely complimented her talent to go away. “You got it.”

In the end, it took three days of trial and error, in which time she managed to make the leaf spin—in the loosest sense of the word—in a jerky and stuttering start-stop motion, before an unlucky resident in Tsunade’s medical wing took pity on her and explained she was spinning it the wrong way.

Sakura, frustrated by her lack of progress and the burgeoning headache that came with funneling chakra to her forehead for three days straight, had puffed up, complaining that she was doing exactly what Kenga-sensei showed her.

The patient, Raidou, had tapped her on the nose. Understandably, Sakura was taken aback by the familiar gesture and reflexively jerked back, losing her grip on the leaf that had found itself a new home on her forehead, which he swiped and placed in his.

She glowered, unimpressed by his antics, as the tapered end slowly, but completely smoothly, moved clockwise, progressively gaining speed.

“Tell me,” he started, with that tone of voice all her teachers adopted, the one that made her feel like an idiot because they were about to point out something super obvious, “which direction is the leaf spinning? Left or right?”

“Right?” Sakura answered, uncertainly, wondering what point he was trying to make. The direction it was moving was obvious.

“From your perspective, yes. How about from mine?”

“Left, then?” she corrected. “So that’s it? That’s where I went wrong? I’m spinning it in the wrong direction.”

Raidou whistled, drawing her attention to the leaf on his forehead. She watched, stymied, as he stopped its rotation and then sent it spinning in the opposite direction.

“But you just said—”

“The chakra in your body naturally coils in one direction.  By spinning your chakra in the same direction, it will be easier for you to rotate the leaf. If you do it in the other direction, without proper control . . .”

“It’ll bounce off,” finished Sakura, glumly reminded off all her failures.

“Precisely.” He peeled the leaf off his forehead and handed it back to the gennin. “Give it a try.”

Sakura exhaled, releasing all her frustrations. She hadn’t actually been spinning her chakra at all, although it was the obvious method in hindsight. She had pictured it as if the leaf was on a tabletop, and she was using a finger to press down upon one end and drag it around in a circle.

No wonder she had failed.

She reattached the piece of foliage to her wide forehead, affixing it with her chakra. She took a moment to recall Raidou’s advice. She didn’t know which direction her chakra coiled naturally, but assumed given her string of failures, that she had been doing it in wrong direction.

She had been trying to spin it to the right, replicating Kenga-sensei, but hadn’t considered that the leaf didn’t spin in the same direction for him as it did for her.

Sakura disregarded the various eyes watching her, the rest of the bed-bound patients had tuned into the impromptu lesson as a form of entertainment, and called upon her chakra. Once she had it gathered underneath the leaf, she imagined it spinning underneath, like a plate, instead of the finger she had visualized previously.

There was a little burst of chakra when the technique failed, propelling the leaf from her person for the umpteenth time.

Sakura fumbled for it, lips curling into a displeased frown. What had she done wrong? Why wasn’t it working? She needed to master her chakra control if she had any hopes of learning how Tsunade-shishou tremendously enhanced her strength.

“Come here, kid.”

At Raidou’s urging, she stepped towards the man. Instead of a conciliatory pat on the shoulder, a hand shot out to grip her by the chin while its partner rummaged through her hairline. “Looks like your hair parts to the right.”

Sakura couldn’t even summon the words to ask how which way her hair grew was relevant.

“We’re you spinning it to the right just now?”                                                                            

“No, sir,” she confirmed with a shake of her head. “I spun left, because I had been going right previously.”

“Nothing to worry about, kid. You’ll just have to work on your visualization or how much chakra you’re using. Just spin to the right from now on. That’s the way your chakra coils.”

“How can you tell?”

Raidou raked a hand through his own hair. “The way your hair parts is the same direction your chakra coils.”

Sakura admitted to herself that that was kind of cool. She wondered if her friends knew that little secret. She hoped not. It would be nice to be able to help them learn something other than physics or history. Don’t get her wrong, she was pleased they would come to her for help with homework, but Sakura wanted to contribute more than just books smarts.

Naruto would be so amazed when she showed it off. She didn’t want to keep him waiting. If she took too long, Kenga-sensei would progress the rest of the class to her level. Once there, she was certain Sasuke would master the technique before Naruto, and if he did that, she could kiss Naruto’s offer of a trade goodbye.

But first she had to get the damn leaf spinning.

 

Chapter 15

With Raidou's advice and demonstration, it was only a matter of four hours and devouring two books on chakra control for Sakura to get the leaf spinning on her forehead. Her issue and been a combination of spinning in the wrong direction, of course, as Raidou had initially explained. Her chakra coils spun to the left, and it was several degrees easier to get it started when she was spinning it with her chakra and not against it. The second part was visualization. She was using chakra to manipulate the leaf, holding it in place on her forehead and direction it to spin, but she wasn't actually manifesting or shaping the energy. It was all about mental control, keeping her mind focused.

So, it made sense that Kenga-sensei had his classes work on it while he lectured. The lecture forced the gennins to split their focus. They had to listen well and take detailed notes in order to write any essays Kenga-sensei assigned, but they also had to keep a small but constant flow of chakra to their foreheads to affix the leaf in place. In Sakura's case, she had another layer having to spin it, which required her to spin her chakra at a steady rate.

One of the books had explained how the leaf concentration exercise (Sakura had rolled her eyes at how basic training skills got straightforward naming conventions but super strong jutsu, like the Yellow Flash's famed jutsu which earned him the infamous moniker, was called the Flying Thunder God Technique) was just the first of several stages of techniques specifically cultivated towards developing an awareness of your bodies chakra—type, strength, element, rotation, density—while simultaneously teaching them how to mold chakra, sense how much they needed to power a specific jutsu and get them to the point they could do it unconsciously in the midst of fighting so they didn't have to stop and think about it.

It was almost like honing their physical reflexes, except for chakra instead. The next few techniques seemed a lot cooler based on name, tree-walking and water-walking. The preteen girl was ready to add it to her morning routine when she read the warning at the end that a common mistake was using too much chakra and blowing up the tree bark. She might be doing better than the rest of her classmates in the chakra control department, but she didn't want to push her luck and have to explain to the dorm-sensei how she had blown a hole in her wall. Tenten was fantastic at covering up the nicks and scratches and small gouges her kunai and shuriken left, but a literal hole in the wall would be another story.

Chakra reflexes sounded pretty cool to her. And the guys would probably agree. Naruto already struggled with chakra control because he had a truly insane amount of chakra for someone his age. Way more than any of the gennins in their year group and she would guess all of the ones above too. The blonde fared much better in purely physical aspects of their classes, but he was trying really hard to master the first chakra control exercise because he kept overloading the lowest ranked ones. He was the only one amongst them who couldn't make a clone. Naruto's always emerged into existence like they had already lost the will to live and had one foot in the grave. Kenga-sensei thought Naruto was playing a practical joke and the blonde nearly wound up with a week's worth of detention until his second, third, fourth, and fifth attempts turned out just as sickly.

Now that Sakura had figured it out, she could teach Naruto and finally pay him back for the week he had Shisui drilling basic katas into her brain and muscle memory.

Tomorrow, her tired brain pleaded, still feeling the headache from three days of failure. What she needed was sleep, and maybe a cup of Tenten's peppermint tea.

---

Naruto loved both food and sleeping in, so one never knew if he would be on time for breakfast or not. Luck was on her side today, as the cheery blonde was in his usual spot next to Sasuke and only halfway through his meal. The ninja in training were spoiled for choice when it came to food. With the Shinobi institute housed in its own wing of the Chikara palace, a kitchen had been designated to cater directly to all of the students and the intense dietary needs of shinobi, which far outstripped civilians.

Sakura typically favored more traditional breakfast foods like steamed rice, grilled fish, miso soup and whatever fresh vegetables were available that day. Naruto always took some off everything, including fried eggs, sausage links, potatoes, etc.

She idly wondered if the amount of chakra a person had related to their appetite, because she had noticed that Naruto and Gaara (though he was much more subtle about it) boasted appetites to rival Chouji, who needed more calories for his clan jutsus. She filed the query away as something to ask Tsunade-shishou later and squeezed her way in between Shino and Kiba to sit across from her target.

"Morning, Satoshi!" grinned Naruto."

"Still want help with the leaf exercise?" She was too excited about her success to think about eating.

Naruto was halfway on top of the table, eyes shining less than a foot from her own. "You bet'cha, datteboyo! I knew you would figure it out!"

His praise was loud and boisterous, earning the attention of the rest of the table of first years and carrying further now that they were half their number. Most turned away, well-used to the sight of the Hokage's son making a spectacle of himself—he did have an odd habit of crouching on top of furniture to be at eye level with people.

"Show me!" he begged, tearing off a piece of braised cabbage from his plate to thrust in her direction.

The young girl recoiled and would have fallen off the bench if not for the quick reactions of Kiba and Shino on either side of her. Meanwhile, Sasuke gripped the bottom of Naruto's jacket, practically yanking the other boy down off the table and back into his seat.

"That's disgusting, dobe."

"Well, it's not like I had a leaf on hand, teme," Naruto defended, hotly.

The boys continued to bicker, ultimately taking their dispute to the training fields to determine the victor by brute force before they needed to head to class. For her part, Sakura sat dumbfounded, surprised at how quickly Naruto had forgotten about seeing her spin the leaf on her forehead in favor of fighting with Sasuke.

Kiba barked with laughter, thumping her on the back in a consoling manner. "Typical idiot. Show me instead, Satoshi. It'll serve him right for running off on you."

"Yeah, sure."

Sakura retrieved the leaf she still had from her pocket, setting it against her forehead and spinning it with an ease that belied four days of struggle. Kiba's grin was toothy as he offered congratulations. And not in a bright and wide or cheeky kind of way, but rather a little predatory.

"If you are offering tips, I also wish to be included. Why? Because one cannot improve until they master the fundamentals."

Sakura glanced between her classmates. She didn't mind helping them and felt a little robbed of her opportunity to show off now that Naruto and Sasuke had ditched them. But she had promised Naruto that she would show him first and still owed him a debt she had yet to repay. But it wasn't like she was breaking her promise if Naruto ran off because she could demonstrate.

Chouji shyly asked if he could be included as well, effectively breaking the last of her resolve, and thus Sakura spent the remainder of the breakfast hour coaching her friends through the visualization that helped her finally succeed, and Raidou's hair trick to determine which way they needed to spin their chakra.

"It's all about mental focus. I pull my chakra to the surface and imagine a whirlpool or a whirlwind. The leaf is caught in the current and is spun round and round by the force."

"Leaf concentration exercise already? Old Kenga starts earlier and earlier every year, doesn't it seem, Itachi?"

Shisui's cheerful remark broke the boys' concentration as their attention turned to him. The older students didn't often interact with the younger years beyond assigned mentorships, so it was a little unusual for the crown prince and his cousin to suddenly show up at their breakfast table.

Said teen hummed in response, which seemed to be all Shisui needed to ramble about how the ducklings were growing so fast and wasn't it just yesterday that Itachi and himself were gennin.

Kiba puffed out his chest. "Just goes to show that our generation is going to surpass yours. And I'm going to be the strongest one!"

Kiba's bold words spurred the rest of the gennin into exclamations of how they were better at various ninja arts and a heated debate quickly formed.

"You're certainly working hard at your studies, Satoshi-kun. Would you update me on how your extra curricular studies are progressing?"

Sakura almost choked on the sudden feeling of fear that overwhelmed her. The only time she had approached Itachi was after the visit to the Dancing Hawk and she hadn't had a thought to spare to the tangled web that was the Uchiha cousins' involvement with Akatsuki. Or the damnable cat accessory under her bed that she suspected had some kind of eavesdropping jutsu.

She felt herself go pale. The mid-term exams had whole encompassed her every moment and she still hadn't gotten around to researching if an eavesdropping jutsu was possible, but with her brain no longer fogged with the constant worry of being cut she realized that she had a potential listen device hidden in the sanctity of her personal space. Did Tenten always refer to her as 'my lord' or Satoshi? Had they inadvertently revealed her secret to the crown prince because Sakura was too stupid and too prideful to throw away a cat hairbow?

"My door will be open for you. You can study in my room this evening and tell me how the first half of the year treated you."

The words were pleasant and delivered encouragingly, but there was no mistaking the invitation for the directive it was. Sakura was expected at the prince's room that evening and that was it.

Shisui stood with a flourish. "Keep up the good work kiddos. Now, get going before you're late."

As if summoned by his words, the warning bell rung, informing all students they needed to wrap up their breakfast if they wanted to be to the first day's lesson on time. Sakura belatedly realized that Shisui had been a distraction so his cousin could summon his mentee for a clandestine meeting in a way that was completely obvious and in line with his image of simply fulfilling his duties as her mentor.

The rest of her classmates were energized by Shisui's attention and encouragement, even Shikamaru managed to stay awake longer during morning lectures. Sakura's attention, conversely, suffered, as she worried over why Itachi was demanding her presence. Not even Kenga-sensei acknowledging her progress and improvement, shown by setting three leaves on her desk and instructing her to spin one on the back of each hand in addition to the one her forehead, could pull her brain out of its downward spiral as it envisioned one bad scenario after another in which her deception was revealed. Her afternoon classes fared a little better, but only because other thoughts had to take a back seat while she analyzed her sparring partner's fight pattern, and she could rely on muscle memory, instinct, and her ability to dodge.

Evening arrived far too quickly. Feeling like a proverbial ax hung overhead, Sakura navigated the halls to Itachi's room. Shisui was also inside, but he was never far from his younger cousin so his presence wasn't a surprise.

Silence blanketed the room. Sakura started to feel stifled and hot under the collar.

"Well, Satoshi? You survived the cut. Are your classes less stressful now that your place and rank have been secured? I'm assuming your academic classes are still no bother?"

"Did you really bring me here to ask about homework?"

"Of course," Itachi answered smoothly. "Now that you have secured your spot for the next three and a half years, barring any extenuating circumstances that would result in immediate expulsion, I'll be checking your progress more frequently. Start by explaining the choice behind pursuing medical ninjutsu and how you convinced Lady Tsunade to take you on as an apprentice."

Sakura's shoulders tagged in relief. The extra curricular he was interested in was her Iryō-ninjutsu training, not further involvement with the Akatsuki. "I didn't take no for an answer."

"That can't be it? Otherwise, she would have taken on an apprentice before now," Shisui said.

She shrugged. Tsunade would set a task with high expectations and Sakura, knowing she couldn't afford to fail, met every challenge head-on.

"Impressive no matter the reasoning. And if you apply yourself as well to her teachings as you do the rest of your lessons, you'll surely become an invaluable asset."

Sakura shot the prince an uneasy smile. The compliment appeared genuine, but she couldn't shake the feeling that the pair was interested in more than the extra training she put herself through.

"Medics are always beneficial. Skilled medics even more so. One trained by the legendary Sannin Tsunade herself? Can you imagine the worth of such skills?"

"Stop sugar coating it and using such fancy words, man," complained Shisui.

Itachi fixed him with a look of exasperation but complied with the request. "We have a proposition for you, Satoshi, and request that you accompany us to the Dancing Hawk tonight to discuss it."

Sakura could taste the dread on her tongue as nausea threatened to overwhelm her. Sage curse her curiosity, why did she have to stick her nose ninja places it didn't belong? Why couldn't she have stuck with having to fool a castle full of Shinobi for eight years and not follow shady chuunin into shadier bars?

"Just tell me one thing, first." Itachi inclined his head. "Was there a listening jutsu on the cat bow?"

Shisui blinked, seemingly stupefied by the question, having expected something more akin to their last conversation and the war Itachi had hinted at. "Why, Satoshi," he crawled, amusement dripping from each word, "worried about is overhearing something? Breaking any more laws that we should know about? Or maybe something a little more, naughty? Getting started a little early don't you think?" he finished with a suggestive leer.

Sakura flushed as red as her red-dyed hair. "Gross! No way! Why would you think that? I'm only ten!"

Shisui looked several years younger as he laughed boisterously. "Just for that reaction, Satoshi-kun. But to answer your question, no, there was no listening jutsu or tracking jutsu. It was just a test to see if you were capable."

"Did I pass?"

"Yahiko is inviting you back, so I would say so, yeah."

"Good to know. Can we get going now? I'll still have two worksheets and a fake correspondence letter on negotiations for Ebisu-sensei to write and I'd like to get some sleep tonight."

Chapter 16

Sneaking out of the castle and into Baria-shi was a simple matter.

Sakura hadn’t noticed the first time, too caught up in her head about why she was being dragged into the lion’s den, but they hadn’t run into a single guard as they trekked towards the dojo that hid the secret passage.

Curious, she questioned the older teens about their lack of presence.

“This is the Uchiha’s personal wing, Satoshi-kun. Every child here is more capable of fending off an intruder than those barely trained swordsmen. They only patrol the gennin halls to catch midgets like you flouting curfew.”

Sakura blushed. Shisui had responded so matter-of-factly that she was embarrassed to have never noticed the sentries lack of presence beyond the gennin dormitories. Not that she made a habit of sneaking out after hours before the gangly teen led her into the Dancing Hawk inn and introduced her to seditious parties, so really, she wouldn’t have noticed anyway, but she did cross paths with them often enough in the early hours on her way to lessons with Tsunade. Honestly, she had given them no thought. They were silent observers and never questioned what she was doing or where she was going, and thus unimportant in the grand scheme of her hyper focus on the mid-term exams.

Her lack of observational skills was mortifying, in hindsight, especially since she had missed being directly led into an Uchiha clan’s personal dojo last time.

Shisui dropped her into the passage. “Remind me to teach you how to strengthen your legs with chakra so you can make that jump on your own next time.”

“Gonna teach me how to breathe fire too?” she snarked. Maybe it was presumptive, but she didn’t imagine they were lighting the brazier for mood lighting.

He wiggled his eyebrows in response. “You’d have to earn that jutsu, duckling. Can’t go giving clan jutsus to every starry-eyed gennin.”

Sakura tilted her head, considering. He hadn’t outright denied her. “Being involved with all this, isn’t enough?”

“Call it insurance. Gotta make sure you’re not gonna use it to stalk the crown prince.”

The pinkette scowled at Shisui’s back, resisting looking at said prince. She had only done that once and was still paying for that poor decision. “Hiding more insurgent groups interested in recruiting ten-year-olds?”

Laughter was her answer. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Her silence was sharp enough to cut. “No, just the one. I think it keeps us busy enough, don’t you, Itachi?”

His cousin didn’t answer verbally, merely inclining his head. Shisui’s proclivity for chatter was a well-known anomaly amongst all years and his kin. Likewise, was Itachi’s tendency for silence. But their usual dynamic was causing goosebumps to rise up the length of her arms.

Any desire for conversation seemed to wither at that point and the rest of the journey was made in silence.

Unlike her last visit, Yahiko’s room was bursting with people. Deidara and Sasori were also in attendance, heatedly arguing over what constituted true art. Sakura wondered how they managed to sneak into the city before realizing they likely had more leeway being chuunin. There were also two unfamiliar faces, who despite being leagues apart in appearance gave Sakura identical feelings of unease. The first was a silver-haired teen, who’s prominent round glasses caught a glare no matter how he moved his head, hiding his eyes from sight. Conversely, all she could make out on the second guy was his piercing green pupilless eyes and red sclera as the rest of his face was covered with a hood and mask. She marveled at the medically anomaly while vowing to stay far away from the duo.

“Ah, our final comrades have arrived. Let’s begin.”

The collection of people formed two orderly columns before Yahiko, who was leaning his backside up against a table in front of the fireplace. Tugged along by Shisui, Sakura stood as directed a step behind and to the side of Itachi, with Shisui on her left.

There was clearly some sort of structure to the way everyone had arranged themselves. Itachi’s row was headed by Nagato, followed by Deidara, Konan, the prince himself, and the silver-haired teen who’s name she still did not know. The other side had Sasori, Hidan—the man with the colorful mouth, she recalled—and the unknown man.

The pinkette wished she and Shisui’s positions were reversed. Despite being unable to see his eyes, a combination of standing behind him and his ever-present eye-glare, she felt as if he was dissecting her.

Attempting to distract herself, Sakura made an effort to determine the pattern to their odd rank and file. The two empty spots on the left must be deliberate, seeing as Shisui hadn’t directed himself or her to simply fill in on the end and they hadn’t split evenly into two rows of four. Thus, they were left empty for two members who weren’t present—nor expected to be since the meeting started without them. It also indicated that each member held some kind of priority ranking designated based on where in line each individual stood. But she couldn’t see an explanation as for why the three teens in line were scattered amongst the ranks as opposed to on the end, where logically youngest or newest recruits would stand, nor even why Itachi, Sasori and Deidara were counted amongst the rest while Shisui stood in his cousin’s shadow.

She amused herself briefly with imaging how many more weird eye conditions Yahiko could uncover, seeing as everyone Sakura had met thus far either had a doujutsu or abnormally colored eyes. Although Sasori’s mousy grey-brown eyes barely counted in her opinion. Sakura wasted a few minutes going down the list of doujutsu she was aware of only to come up blank because she only knew the big three—Sharigan, Byakugan, and Rinnegan—none of which the red-headed teen could claim.

Perhaps every member possessed a doujutsu then.

She put her musings on organizational hierarchy as Yahiko called for his Akatsuki to report on their progress, eager to learn more about the situation she had unwittingly found herself in. After all, she had already been dragged onto the boat, so to speak, so she had little option but to sail with the tide.

Unfortunately for her, no one offered details or summarized mission reports. They announced their success or failure before stepping back in line and allowing the next member to declare the same.

“Well done,” congratulated Yahiko, despite Itachi and Kabuto—the teen that made Sakura feel like he could see right through her—admitting having made no progress yet. Sakura’s curiosity would be the death of her one day, but she was itching to ask her mentor what his assignment was. “We’re still on track to begin stage one in time for summer.” He tossed a scroll each at green-eyed Kakuzu, Deidara, Hidan, Sasori, and Itachi.

And just like that, the meeting was dismissed.

Sakura begrudgingly admired the orange haired man. Aside from being a phenomenally fast meeting, a much-appreciated fact seeing as it would see the lone gennin attendant back to her dormitory before curfew, any would be spies or too inquisitive young girls would glean absolutely nothing other than stage one launching during summer.

By ones and twos, the other ninja descended to the bar level, until just Itachi remained.

And his two shadows, of course.

Shisui was a silent statue behind his cousin, but Sakura was a ball of nerves, uncertain as to why the prince had remained and whether or not she was supposed to stay or go and why she had been dragged along to this meeting.

She sidled closer to Shisui to hiss, “are we supposed to leave now?” The back of her neck was starting to prickle and the longer she went unaddressed the better in her opinion. Better to leave now before she got dragged into another pointless test.

“Not just yet, young Satoshi.” The words themselves were quite ambivalent, but Yahiko delivered them with enough strength to make it clear it was a command to wait until he finished his conversation with Itachi. “I have a question specifically for you.”

An eon passed. Or so it seemed as the pinkette waited anxiously. A question should not be nearly as anxiety inducing as breaking into the townhouse of the daimyou, but Sakura felt like she was back standing in front of the examination room, knowing that her fate laid on someone else’s decision.

In all reality, only two or three minutes had passed. “Tell me, what do you believe true peace to look like?”

True peace? As opposed to fake peace? Akatsuki desired peace, she knew from her conversation with Shisui and Itachi. But what was the difference between peace and true peace? Why make that distinction? Was Yahiko asking for her opinion on utopia? Or the idea of it anyway. Utopia was a pipe dream. Even if they weren’t at war with the samurai, nobody could get along with everyone else in the world eye the time. It was completely unrealistic.

She wasn’t advocating for senseless war by any means, but some struggles in life were to be expected. And some could even be enjoyable, she thought with a relish, remembering the first time she beat Fusoku in hand-to-hand combat and her absolute glee at her ranking higher than him in the mid-terms exams.

Sakura only had this opportunity—her dream of being a kunoichi even—because war existed, and the kingdom always needed shinobi. And, she thought a little guiltily, due to her brother’s life changing accident. Otherwise, she’d be sitting pretty in the halls of Haruno Manor, listlessly polishing boring woman skills like embroidering or poetry or other nonsense.

In a world of perfect harmony, Sakura wouldn’t be herself, and she liked her current self much better than any alternative version.

Would you know the difference? Asked a voice in the back of her head, giving her pause. It was all rather philosophical, but her hindbrain had a point, Sakura supposed. If she had been born into a utopic world, she would be a different person as a result of different life experiences and expectations.

Yahiko was still waiting for an answer, and while he seemed content to wait all evening, Sakura was not. She was at risk of breaking curfew the longer she lingered, so, despite not having a true answer, she said that true peace did not exist.

“There’s no such thing.”

It was easier to deny its existence than try to explain what true peace would look like.

“Not yet. But one day there will be. Akatsuki will see to it.”

Sakura’s instincts screamed danger. Unfortunately for her, she believed it would come from Yahiko. So she was unprepared for Itachi blinking into her line of sight. She met his eyes, bright red and spinning.

---

Itachi bore his cousin’s angry silence with grace. He knew Shisui had taken a liking to the young girl. He had brought her into Yahiko’s sphere of influence by chance. One last ditch attempt to send the boy he thought was too young, too kind for ninja life packing.

Yahiko cared not for the girl beyond whether or not he could use her. He gave her the same offer he gave anyone who caught his eye, though even Itachi could admit to being puzzled as to what he saw in the first meeting. Satoshi was a dutiful child, applying himself diligently to his coursework and training, putting in extra hours to achieve perfection and always striving for more opportunities to be better, do better.

But Akatsuki’s leader knew none of that when his cousin escorted a young red-headed boy within the Dancing Hawk. Did he discern her character and worth from Satoshi defending herself against Hidan’s insults?  Yahiko was gifted in identifying people who shared his ideals, discontent with the endless war and its toll on the individual nations.

Or perhaps, he had uncovered her true identity, and that is what held value to him.

Itachi hadn’t dug far into her identity, not caring for who the girl under the mask of Satoshi Haruno was as much as he cared about what she represented. She was a hammer poised to strike with the potential to shatter the blade once the truth was revealed.

Why choose a girl, he now asked himself. Why add a layer of deception to an already dangerous plot? He assumed the real Satoshi had no desire to kill for a living or die in a war he had no stake in and had bribed or blackmailed another child into taking his place to subvert his fate.

The prince frowned down at the child he carried. Shisui had argued to take her, but the burden was rightfully Itachi’s. He was the one to genjutsu the girl into submission. She would wake tomorrow with no memory of attending the meeting, though her tenacious curiosity would eventually driver her to seek out Yahiko of her own volition.

One final test to determine if she was worthy of being recruited.

Shisui had gone through similar tests, seeing as he was more there for Itachi and Akatsuki’s purpose of peace. Even now, he hardly agreed with Yahiko’s methods, but Shisui would die before he left Itachi to his own devices, the prince knew.

Safely ensconced within his room, Itachi set the girl upon a chair and pried one eye open, allowing him to reverse the hypnotic sleep he had placed her under and insert the suggestion that they had finished discussing her training with Tsunade.

“You may not have resuscitated successfully yet, but you will with time.”

Satoshi blinked confusedly, and then her face transformed into one of frustration. “But she only gave me a month. Will she drop me if I don’t manage it in time?”

Shisui snorted. “Lady Tsunade doesn’t train quitters. So don’t give up.”

“Now, I believe you mentioned having a negotiation correspondence letter for Ebisu-sensei and there’s twenty minutes before curfew,” prompted Itachi.

Satoshi leapt out of his seat as if he’d been electrified. “Is it that late already? Forgive me, your highness, but I need to be going.”

Said prince let a small smile form as Satoshi dashed for the door. Such enthusiasm was admirable, Hopefully, she would never lose it.

Notes:

I do not own either the Alanna the Lioness quartet or the Naruto universe