She was dancing slowly. Each step was a graceful move as she danced the dance of death. The tune of sharp steel swished past her clothing and skin. Her feet touched the ground and almost just as soon left it, two metal jaws from the ground emerged snapping shut. Her body swerved midair avoiding deadly razor wire. Danger still lurked as she saw death from above. It was an iron fist in a black glove. Head to head she stood no chance. Not yet. Like before she worked her way around it, and with the most perfect timing she ever did in her entire life, she grabbed him by the wrist, yanking the arm as her legs interlocked around the shoulders of the enemy. She managed to take him down, slam him on the ground with a vicious thud. His fist loosened and with the most low cunning of intentions she grabbed four of his fingers intent on breaking them, pulling them back to cause an added amount of pain and with full force she pulled. Harder and stronger with every intention to break them. She had every intention of snapping the bone out of place and break his arm for added measure.
Anything less would be too risky. Three of his fingers broke free from her grasp, the middle one remained as she looked at it with irritation. She heard the ruffling of clothing, a shuffle of metal clinking, and she broke her hold. The kunai faintly scratched the skin of her heel leaving a thin red line. Arming herself with kunai of her own she released them. The tags attached to the hilt flared to life as they reached the target.
Explosions followed as fire and smoke filled the area and immediately she got down low, shuriken sailed past where her head and shoulders were. Crawling quickly through the confusion, she hid behind the bark of a tree. It would conceal her frame as she controlled her breathing to a tee. It was quiet now, that only meant the danger was greater than ever. A million and one thoughts invaded her head and she felt something creep up her neck.
Genjutsu! Chakra burst through her system as the illusion broke and the tree behind her shattered into glass. There he is. Her fist shot out in an arc of half a circle. Full force and furiously fast. It smashed against the assailant's cheek as she saw his head whip back from the impact. It's not over, she began once more. Punches landed where his gut, liver, kidney were and just because she wanted to, her palm violently struck his throat. He was open, wide open. She took half a step back, arm cocked, fist closed, and with a turn the straight punch shot against his nose. She expected to hear the sound of bones crunching and blood spurting out, instead she heard a familiar pop and saw a puff of smoke.
Something gripped her by the ankles, spreading her legs and ruined her balance. Two hands unearthed themselves from the ground and held her in place. Before she could act, a muscular arm snaked around her throat and another wrapped around from behind, cinching in a rear naked choke as she felt the arms beneath pull her legs forward—sweeping her. She fell on her back, he was behind her as she struggled to break free from the hold. Physically, he was too strong, and the way his own legs locked around her own, it was clear this was a move he had executed several times before. She gasped for breath, low pitch ringing filled her ears and darkness began to take over.
Sakura Haruno tapped on the vice grip of an arm around her throat and soon she found herself drawing in heavy breaths, coughing and adjusting to the sudden dizziness of being free again. This went on for over a minute as she calmed down. She found him on the ground, sat across her. Naruto Uzumaki had his eye closed, one hand resting on his cheek and the other offering her a water bottle. She took it graciously and drank it slowly.
"You made record time today," he told her. Sakura didn't feel too proud despite the words. "Twenty-seven minutes and thirty-six seconds. Make sure to break that the next time we train."
"Yes, sensei." Sakura didn't look him in the eye. She couldn't. Honestly, the pinkette had expected to do so much better. Her sensei didn't go easy on her, and she knew he was being honest. The man took honesty to a grotesque degree sometimes, but still…all that training, changing her diet, training during off hours and she still couldn't last thirty minutes against him. She was knocked out of her thoughts when she felt a painful poke on her forehead. Yelping and rubbing the spot, she looked at her sensei with a bit of irritation. "What'd you do that for?"
"You did good. So stop feeling bad about it."
"Not good enough."
"Trust me. You did much better than you think."
"I know. Doesn't mean I have to like it." Sakura got up slowly, feeling the fatigue take over. She may not have been hit that much today, but the way she was exerting chakra to keep her senses aware, to cushion the few blows that did land on her, the kunoichi of the year was once more reminded how little her chakra reserves were. It bothered her. It bothered her a lot.
"Well, at least you're motivated. That's a good thing, but don't push yourself too much. You're still a genin. Seven month fresh genin to be more precise." Naruto Uzumaki pointed out and from what memories she remembered of them as kids, he was never this calm. He stood out like a sore thumb the more she focused and going back to the Academy to dig a little bit about her sensei—curiosity had taken the better hold of her. All the teachers had the same thing to say about him: painfully average, unnecessarily loud, anything but a genius. And yet…
"Sensei, can I ask you something?"
"Shoot."
"Why'd you leave the Academy?"
"Well I guess I can tell you that." Naruto sighed scratching his eye patch and Sakura's interest peaked. "I left around the first year, if you remember me that is."
"You're pretty hard to forget."
"You didn't recognize me on orientation day."
"I needed a memory jog."
"Word. Anyway," Naruto continued, folding his arms. "You see I got into this…fight with a bunch of people. People who happened to be merchants. Merchants with deep pockets and friends in the Civilian Council. Let's just say, I wasn't exactly on the friendliest of terms with that particular lot back then. One thing lead to another and they tried to disbar me from becoming a shinobi."
"What?!" Sakura was confused, then angry. None of what he said made sense. "Why?! A fight is no reason to stop you from becoming a shinobi. Besides what problems would merchants have with a kid?"
"Something something. Anyway, well they insisted I take three years off from the Academy or get any chance of me not being a shinobi since I was still under civilian laws back then." Naruto shrugged and Sakura furrowed her brows. "The Hokage later intervened stating that I wouldn't go to the Academy, instead I'd be taking part in a program where I'd be evaluated differently."
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