By day's end and several hours into the night, Naruto lay panting, sweat soaked through his favorite blue and bright-orange jumpsuit, with a splitting headache, but he was making progress. He and his ten clones can already make it halfway up a tree before they exert too much chakra and are blown off. After dispelling his first clone, a day's worth of training nearly knocked him out, easily getting the headache started. By the fifth, for some reason, his mind felt strained, hollow-like, and chalky. After dispelling the final clone, he had a pounding headache, his bones felt hotter than the surrounding muscle, and his overtaxed chakra, for lack of a better word, felt like it was choking to move.
He needed to rest before he can make his way home. Even the way the night wind pulled at his hair hurt, but the pain cascading throughout his body was worth it—not that he expected it to last much longer. Injuries never seem to last long with him. Despite the labored breath of his comatose body, he felt happy. This was hard work. It's days like this that are the currency he needs to make his dreams of being the greatest Hokage ever come true. He just knew it. Tomorrow he would train even harder, Naru-nii will tell him more about his plan for Sakura-chan, and he'll be water-walking by next week.
SAKURA
Sakura was leaving one of the vendors her father's trade caravan is closely affiliated with carrying her prize securely in her grasp. So precious was this treasure, she couldn't risk leaving it in her bag. It will remain in her protective hands the entire walk home. Sakura was euphoric as she realizes nothing could stop her in her quest now, not with this absolute treasure. Armed with this fragrant weapon, she was sure to reach Sasuke-kun's heart now.
Sakura wasn't from a wealthy home and certainly didn't own property like many of the clans in the village, but her father came across all sorts of valuable items traveling through his trade routes, and her mother always ensured some form of commission for their family from her seat on the civilian council. Her father came across the latest silks, tools, wardrobe, and other odds and ends he finds throughout the country, and now, clutched in her strong grip, the most sought after bottle of perfume in all the elemental nations. Every kunoichi or civilian girl with a man in her pure heart has read about its amorous properties in one or all the beauty magazines. It's the nearest to a guarantee a budding girl with prospects of love in her heart could have... 'and it was all mine!'
And if Kami-sama hasn't smiled down wonders on her enough, walking towards her now is none other than her eternal rival and strongest competitor for Sasuke's affection; the only girl who doesn't seem to know when she's lost.
"Well, would you look at that," the platinum blond with pupil-less blue eyes starts mocking. "Wonders never cease. Somehow all the flies in the village managed to avoid hitting that gigantic forehead of yours," Ino hurtles. "Shooting stars happen less often than that."
Sakura was impervious today. The platinum blond's biting jab did nothing against the strength of her alluring weapon. Sakura allows a wide mischievous grin to spread her cheeks till they hurt, actually causing the beautiful blond to become cautious. Slowly, and quite deliberately, Sakura raises the incredibly distinctive, highly sought after expensive bottle of perfume with the showmanship of her delicate hand. It was a tiny thing she could easily hold between her thumb and index fingers, but the effect was as immediate as it was glorious.
Ino knew instantly what the pink-haired girl had and while Sakura is quite sure the Yamanaka clan have far more in their coffers than they need to purchase Ino a bottle, she doubted their clan head, her father, would shell out such an unreasonable amount of ryo for such a small bottle of liquid gold, especially when its only purpose is to make his daughter more attractive to boys.
Ino turns irate, before denial mars her beautiful face, then becomes angry again. Before Ino can even utter a syllable of righteous indignation, Sakura starts laughing heartily as she walks triumphantly passed her arch rival. Sakura didn't have to speak, her weapon was that strong and this battle is won. It's Sakura's victory.
"Enjoy it while it lasts!" Sakura hears the platinum blond beauty yell at her through the busy market street. "I- I'll get an even better bottle! You'll see!"
Other than having Naruto-baka on her team, absolutely everything was working out in her favor. Sakura hadn't seen Sasuke-kun since they passed Kakashi-sensei's bell test last week, so she was more than looking forward to seeing the perfection of his beautiful face and the amazement of his Kami-given ninja talent tomorrow. In her eyes, it was a foregone conclusion that he was a once-in-a-lifetime shinobi and no one could ever top him. She just had to make sure she looked perfect for him. After the tragedy he's been through, it's what he deserves after all.
Eagerly running home she couldn't wait until tomorrow. She absolutely needed to prepare and the more time she had the better the results will be. She had thought to spend some time training and honing her skills—after all, she was the top kunoichi of their class—but one look at her hair and she knew it didn't shine quite as vibrant as she knows Sasuke would like. One look at her nails, and though her profession as a kunoichi kept her from adding any color to them, she could still make sure they were perfectly manicured, not that she knew if Sasuke liked properly maintained fingernails, but she couldn't risk disappointing him if it indeed mattered. Add to all of that, her new premium fragrance in hand and there was no way he could ignore her tomorrow.
NARUTO
'D-Rank missions suck,' Naruto mentally tells Naru-nii.
Last week flew by in a hurried blur of training, strength training, eating ramen, hurting all over, sleeping, training some more, then repeat, repeat, repeat. It was the hardest week of training Naruto had ever experienced in his life, more so than his entire six years in the Academy. It wasn't to say that he didn't try as hard in his school days, but the bits of progress he was making under Naru-nii was different than the scraps he could scrounge together from hard-hearted sensei who didn't seem to care about his education in the least.
In his youth, when his school texts were stolen, they would never give him another one. When he didn't understand something, the sensei's were always too busy to help him. He was even banned from the library. If Naru-nii ever turned out to be a fake, Naruto couldn't see himself becoming terribly upset about it. Naru-nii was teaching him in earnest, even if it was for only twenty to thirty minutes a day.
The training was even tailored made for him. Every day of the past week he spent most of the morning—when he managed to wake up before noon—practicing his taijutsu against three to four clones as another four or five would be practicing chakra control. After he managed tree-walking, he had four days to master water-walking, and though it was much harder, by the end of last night's training, he and his clones were lightly jogging on the small lake in Training Ground 3. Soon after the throbbing head pain of dispelling his clones abated, he was giddy the entire trek back to his apartment.
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