Chapter 6
Chapter 6: Threads of Understanding
A week had passed since Sakura Haruno had taken the book out of its lockbox for the last time, and in that time, her world had started to shift in ways she hadn’t expected. The unrelenting exhaustion that had plagued her began to wane. Not because she was sleeping better—Sasori’s voice still lingered in her mind at night—but because they had struck an unspoken agreement.
During the day, while Sakura worked at the hospital, Sasori remained silent. No snide remarks about her techniques, no sarcastic comments about her patients. It was an uncharacteristic show of restraint from him, but she wasn’t naive enough to think it was out of kindness. Sasori had his own motives, as always, and Sakura knew it was better not to question them too closely.
But when she returned home, the book would be waiting. Like a shadow she couldn’t escape, it called to her, and she answered. She wasn’t sure when she had stopped resisting and started listening, but the line between the two had blurred more with each passing day.
Sakura shut the door to her apartment and leaned against it, her medical coat slung over one arm. She kicked off her sandals and sighed, the weight of the day falling away as she glanced toward the desk where the book rested. It seemed to pulse faintly in the dim light, though she knew that was just her imagination. Or perhaps not.
“You’re late,” Sasori’s voice greeted her, smooth and mocking as always.
“Work ran over,” she replied, setting her coat aside and moving toward the desk. “A genin got himself stuck in a summoning seal. Took longer to untangle than I expected.”
“Amateur mistakes,” Sasori said with a faint sniff. “Honestly, the standards for shinobi these days must have plummeted if such incompetence is common.”
“Not everyone was born a prodigy,” she said, pulling out her chair and sitting down. “Some of us have to work for our skills.”
“Is that supposed to be a jab?” he asked, his tone faintly amused. “You forget, I’ve seen you struggle. You’re hardly the polished kunoichi you like to imagine.”
Sakura rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress a small smirk. This was how it always began—his wit meeting her defiance in a dance she was slowly beginning to enjoy. “Are we going to start tonight with insults, or are you going to teach me something useful?”
“Impatient, aren’t we?” Sasori’s voice hummed in mock thought. “Very well. Open to page seventy-three.”
She flipped through the ancient, brittle pages until she found the one he mentioned. The text was dense, written in his precise and angular handwriting, accompanied by an intricate diagram of a human chakra network overlaid with puppet strings.
“This,” Sasori began, his voice taking on the tone of a lecturing sensei, “is a foundational concept in advanced chakra manipulation. By linking your chakra threads to the meridian points of another, you can temporarily override their movements—puppeteering them, if you will.”
Sakura’s stomach twisted, and she frowned. “You mean controlling someone like one of your puppets.”
“Precisely,” he said, unbothered by her disapproval. “It’s an elegant technique, and one that requires exceptional chakra control. Something you claim to excel at.”
“I’m not using it to control people,” she said firmly, her emerald eyes narrowing. “That’s not who I am.”
Sasori chuckled, the sound rich with condescension. “Oh, spare me the moral high ground. You’ve already used similar techniques as a medic-nin. How do you think you accelerate cellular regeneration? Manipulating another’s body is second nature to you.”
“That’s different,” she argued. “I’m helping people, not forcing them to—”
“Details,” he interrupted smoothly. “The principle is the same. The difference lies in your intent.”
Sakura’s mouth opened to retort, but she hesitated. He wasn’t entirely wrong, and she hated that she couldn’t dismiss his logic outright. Instead, she took a deep breath and focused on the diagram. “Fine. Explain how it works.”
“Gladly,” Sasori said, satisfaction lacing his tone. “Begin by creating a single thread of chakra and attaching it to the central meridian point here.”
As he spoke, Sakura followed his instructions, focusing her chakra into a thin, flexible strand. It took a few attempts to stabilize it, and Sasori’s sarcastic commentary didn’t help.
“Is this supposed to be impressive?” he drawled. “I’ve seen academy students create cleaner threads.”
“Do you ever stop criticizing?” she snapped, her concentration faltering.
“Would you prefer insincere praise?” he replied coolly. “If you can’t handle criticism, you’ll never master this.”
Sakura bit her lip and refocused, her chakra thread finally latching onto the designated point in the diagram. “There. Happy?”
“Moderately,” he said, his tone grudging. “Now, extend the thread to the secondary meridians. Slowly. You’re not weaving cloth, Haruno. Precision is key.”
She obeyed, her movements growing steadier with each pass. Despite her initial frustration, she felt a spark of satisfaction as the technique began to take shape under her control.
“Good,” Sasori said after a moment, his voice uncharacteristically approving. “You have potential. Raw, unrefined, but potential nonetheless.”
“Thanks,” she muttered, not entirely sure if it was a compliment or an insult.
Hours passed as they worked through the book’s teachings. Sasori alternated between condescension and genuine instruction, his arrogant nature never far from the surface. But as the evening wore on, Sakura began to notice subtle shifts in his tone—moments where his sharp edges softened, where his words carried a hint of something deeper.
“You’re improving,” he said as she completed a particularly complex chakra exercise. “Faster than I expected.”
Sakura glanced at the book, her brow furrowing. “You sound surprised.”
“Not surprised,” he said, almost wistfully. “Merely… reminded.”
“Reminded of what?”
“Of the days when I, too, was consumed by ambition,” he replied, his voice quieter now. “When I believed I could bend the world to my will and leave a legacy that would never fade.”
Sakura paused, her hands resting on the desk. For all his arrogance, there was a strange vulnerability in his words, a crack in the armor of his ego.
“Do you regret it?” she asked softly.
There was a long silence before he answered. “Regret is irrelevant. The choices I made shaped who I am—or who I was, at least. But sometimes, I wonder what might have been, had I chosen differently.”
His words settled heavily in the room, and Sakura found herself unable to look away from the book. “You never struck me as someone who second-guessed himself.”
“Even perfectionists are flawed,” he said, the faintest hint of a smile in his voice.
Sakura leaned back in her chair, her heart unexpectedly heavy. She had spent so long resenting his presence, yet now she couldn’t help but feel a pang of something she couldn’t quite name—sympathy, perhaps, or understanding.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked after a moment. “Teaching me, I mean. What’s in it for you?”
Sasori’s voice grew quieter, almost contemplative. “Perhaps it’s selfish. Perhaps I want to see my knowledge live on in someone worthy of it. Or perhaps…” He trailed off, and for once, his words felt uncertain. “Perhaps I simply don’t want to be forgotten.”
Sakura’s breath caught at the unexpected honesty in his voice. She stared at the book, her thoughts a whirlwind. Sasori was still arrogant, still manipulative, still insufferable—but beneath all of that, there was something else. Something she couldn’t ignore.
“I don’t think you’re the type to be forgotten,” she said softly.
For the first time, he didn’t reply with wit or sarcasm. Instead, the room fell into a rare, contemplative silence, the connection between them deepening in ways Sakura never could have anticipated.