A Wave of Petals

Sakura walks to training ground thirty-two in the early hours of the morning. Her sore muscles ache with every step. She munches on a protein bar to regain some of the energy she'd used in completing her morning self-made training regimen, including chakra control exercises, laps around her neighborhood and some basic stretches and morning katas. She yawns, despite having already been awake for a few hours. Sakura meets Kotetsu and Izumo at exactly eight o' clock. 

Immediately upon seeing her, Kotetsu bounds over, making a swipe for her head. Sakura dodges what was sure to be several moments of captivity and head ruffles, courtesy of the nose bandaged chunin. Not unexpectedly, Kotetsu makes a dramatic show of how "Pinky-chan is so mean! And didn't you see that, Izumo?!" The man in question shakes his head at his partner's antics. 

Sakura finishes her cereal bar in one bite. Sparing the fully grown adults her incredulous look, she stuffs the wrapper into her pocket. 

"Weren't you two going to test my skills? Or should I find an actual fully functioning adult to train me?" Sakura curses her short temper as soon as the words are out of her mouth. Desperately, she hopes that they don't just tell her to scram over the disrespect of her last comment. 

The duo only share an affronted look. There's an apology on her lips when they burst into laughter at the sheer gutsy spunk of Sakura. Seeing this, she discreetly breathes a sigh of relief. When they compose themselves and turn to look at her, Sakura thinks, eyeing their grins, that Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.  She brushes the thought off. No, I need to get stronger Cha! 

Kotetsu speaks after a moment, "First up, Pinky." She does wish that he'd drop the nickname, though; she's a shinobi not a child! "Seeing how well you can dodge," Izumo finishes twirling a kuni around his finger. 

The sharp object of metal sails at her without warning. Sakura dodges, leaping back as more projectiles hit the spot where she just stood. Those aren't dulled kuni, I need to get out of the open and come up…- she yelps as a red line appears on her cheek from a dodge just a second too slow. No time to plan. Sakura takes off into the forest; it's not smart to turn her back on her enemy because that's what they are at the moment, foe not friend. Escape is the prime objective. She runs into the forest, chakra powering every step to improve speed and minimize injury. 

Thunk 

Thunk 

Thunk 

Kuni embed into the trees with every narrow dodge. Lines of red appear on her body every time she moves a little too slow or notices the weapon a little too late. Her feet ache and her legs are screaming. Sakura feels her lungs burn narrowly over the thudding of her heart and adrenaline pumping through her veins. She runs and runs and runs. Bruises are scattered on her shins and arms from where she bangs them in her escape. Vaguely she hears the voices of Izumo and Kotetsu above her. They're going easy on her, but it's still too much. 

Sakura is unsure of how much time has passed when she falls, tripping over a tree root as she dodges a wave of senbon. Remembering her training at the academy, she turns to land on the more meaty side of her body and rolls, cushioning herself with chakra. Blood is roaring in her ears. She feels her legs go weak as she tries to stand. Sakura pulls senbon from her arm, biting her lips so she doesn't scream in pain. Sweat drips into her eyes and she rubs at them blinking. When her vision returns a moment later, Izumo and Kotetsu stand before her, unreadable looks on their faces. Sakura swallows. This is when they tell her she's not good enough, say that civilians can’t become shinobi. This is the part when they tell her how awful she was and throw her out. Sakura feels tears well in her eyes. 

"I've got to say, Pinky-chan. You're pretty roughed up."

I know that cha! Sakura bites back the remark. Inner stirs furiously within her, at her own weakness or the forward remark, Sakura is unsure. 

"How?" It takes effort not to wince at the sound of her voice, dry and hoarse between her panting breaths. 

Izumo wordlessly tosses a bottle of water to her. Sakura takes greedy gulps, uncaring of how some of the water spills down her chin to wet her shirt. 

"You might not have the best endurance of physical skills," Kotetsu picks up where Izumo had left off, "But," he says with an encouraging smile that makes hope blossom in her chest, "You've got determination, and that's a quality we can work with!" Izumo cheers crouching down to ruffle her pink locks. 

"HEY THAT WAS MY LINE!" Kotetsu squeaks indignantly, pointing an accusing finger in the direction of his partner. 

Sakura’s sweat drops from where she leans against a tree as Izumo turns around to stick his tongue out at the other man. 

After a thirty minute break from what Sakura finds out was a nearly hour-long endurance/physical standing test, they set her down in one of Training Ground Twelve’s clearings. They're in the shade close to the treeline, hiding from the warming late morning sun. The next test is one Sakura aces. They ask her question after question. Each time she gives a decisive, clear and correct answer. The impromptu interrogation continues on for about fifteen minutes, when Izumo lays back from his seating position with a groan. 

He places his hands on his face with an exaggerated groan, "Half of these aren't even things most low level chunin know!" 

Sakura blushes faintly at the indirect praise. Inner gives a triumphant CHA! She has always been a paper ninja; knowledge is her power.

Kotetsu lightly punches Izumo on the shoulder from where he sits beside him, "Get up, I'm supposed to be the dramatic one!"

Sakura snorts lightly. Like a wilted flower coming back to life, Izumo re-joins their little seated triangle formation. 

"Alright then, now that both your physical aptitude and theory have been tested, next we'll check your chakra control. Have you learned any jutsu outside the Academy Three?" Izumo questions. 

She nods, "Yeah, Kakashi-sensei showed us how to tree climb with chakra during the wave mission."  

Izumo guestres loosely to the trees surrounding them, "Show us."

The chunin watch as she selects a tree, then, rather than take a running start as most gennin need to do even after learning how to stick with chakra, she calmly walks up then back down without breaking so much as a sweat. It's the kind of walk you'd use when going through the market rather than when one slip up can lead to a nasty fall. Kotetsu hops up to inspect the tree. There's not a single mark to indicate too much chakra was used at one point. It can be inferred from her lack of missteps that she didn't use too little at any one point. Most gennin, with a very, very few exceptions, take a while to get a natural grasp on tree climbing, sometimes even months. Sakura looks as though she's had it down for a while. The wave mission wasn't that long ago, Kotetsu recalls. 

"How many tries did it take you to get to the top of the tree when you first learned?" Kotetsu questions.

Sakura looks up from where she was staring at her feet to meet his eyes, her voice nearly wavering but she steadies it, "One."

Izumo's spits out the sip of water he'd been drinking on the ground a few feet away. He hacks a cough, roughly pounding his chest. 

"One!" Kotetsu squeaks disbelievingly. 

Sakura averts her eyes, unsure of what to do with the attention. Kakashi-sensei hadn't acted like it was such a big deal. 

"That Bastard!" Kotetsu exclamis and Sakura realizes that she must have said that aloud. 

"Sakura," Izumo walks over and grips her shoulder reassuringly. The use of her real name startles her. "That's incredible. It's practically unheard of to have such masterful chakra control."

Kotesu thinks back to their endurance test, to the sudden lack of chakra that they'd sensed from Sakura. The pair had brushed it off, Gennin can't mask their chakra signatures. But with this level of control...? She could have even been doing it unconsciously. 

"Really?" The girl asks meekly, eyes once again on the duo. 

"Yeah," Kotetsu says, kind of breathless with the weight of his discovery, "Hey Pinky-chan, could you try and change the flow of your chakra, mask it maybe?"

Mask her chakra? She vaguely remembers reading something about that at the library. She'd tried it, thinking it would be similar to a chakra game she’d played as a child, but the ninja on duty had immediately rushed over, face drained of blood when he saw her. The ninja had told her to never do that again. Sakura remembered trying not to cry. She'd checked the book out in order to try and perfect her masking since she'd clearly done something wrong. She'd neve figured it out, but she'd learned how to do something else. Perfected that little game of hers.

Sakura nods, taking a deep breath then sits down in a lotus position, hands loosely resting against her knees and closes her eyes. She feels for that energy inside her. As a kid when she'd found it, meditating by her mothers recommendation to control her temper, Sakura had played with it, learning how to speed up or slow down the flow. It'd been fun. Falling back into that mindset she softly nudges that energy, guiding it to do as she willed. She began to cycle her chakra faster and faster opening the gates inside her body wider to let more chakra in faster. 

Izumo's breath catches in his throat as he senses Sakura's chakra begin to cycle faster and faster, then rapidly slow down. Kotestu is having a similar reaction to the mind boggling feat. Who is this kid? 

Sakura recalls something she used to do inorder to make great gales of wind that'd shake the leaves right off the trees in her backyard. She'd been banned from doing it near the house when she accidently shattered a large decorative stone in the garden from one such gale when she was older. 

Izumo is flooded with disbelief, he's in shock, Kotetsu no better. They think when Sakura slows her chakra again that the worst must be over. Nothing else could happen... right? Then her chakra stops.

Her.

Chakra.

Stops. 

STOPS!

Kakashi is going to murder them for killing his little gennin. He's no Hyuga, but the sudden lack of signature, not even an indication of suppression... There's just no chakra. Anywhere. The chunin pair leap for her, ready to rush the girl to the hospital. Then like a dam has been broken, Chakra floods her body, even going out until waves of chakra like scythes of wind blast the clearing in a circle outwards from her. Izumo and Kotesu hit the trees behind them with twin cracks.

What.

The. 

Kami.

This is above anything possible. No ninja can completely hold all the chakra from their system, even for a moment, and live. Much less release it in a blast from the body. It's just not possible. And to say that in a world of shinobi, is a big thing. What the heck are civilians feeding their kids?

"I suppose it's a good thing that Kakashi's hair is already gray because if this keeps up she's going to give us all gray hair," Izumo croaks, rubbing at his bruised back. 

Kotetsu nods soundlessly, scanning the clearing, taking in the damage. There're broken branches and leaves scattered everywhere. Dust is settling in the air and more than one tree has fallen in the surrounding area. 

Sakura opens her eyes, blinking owlishly as she takes in the clearing. Or, what's left of it. Sakura scratches the back of her head sheepishly as the duo walk over. There's a tenseness to their steps that has her worried. 

"Sakura," Kotetsu's voice is questioning, unsure. "Is there- " he shakes his head, "How long have you been able to do this? Did someone teach you?" 

Sakura tilts her head as though she doesn't quite understand what he's implying, "Since I was five, no, I taught myself to do it."

For a tense moment the two just stare at her. Then, Izumo tilts his chin to the sky and laughs brokenly. 

"Five," Kotetsu repeats, as if he can't believe it. Her chakra coils shouldn’t have been developed enough to mold that amount of chakra back then.So, how?

Sakura doesn't understand. Why? Why are they acting like this? Why can't they tell her what she did? What's wrong with her? She's about ready to burst into tears while inner furiously rages on the inside. Kotetsu glances at her, immediately noting the tears now rolling down her cheeks.  

"Hey," He crouches down to eye level, "Sakura, Sakura look at me. Hey, you're doing great kiddo, you're awesome."

Sakura tilts her head, "Swear?"

"Swear."

Izumo sits beside her and lays a hand on her shoulder in silent support and comfort. Kotetsu hands her a handkerchief, why he carries one, she doesn't know. She blots at her teary eyes and wipes the teartracks from her cheeks. When she takes a deep breath her mind registers that Izumo had asked her a question. 

"Could you please repeat that?"

"I asked if you had any other hidden talents or skills," He says in a light tone. 

Sakura smiles. 

"Well my mother has said that I'm skilled with a needle," She replies, knowing well that's not what the question was asking about. 

The duo laugh, making Sakura burst into a fit of giggles. After torturing their abdomens with laughter for a few minutes, Sakura answers the question, "I can walk on water."

"Huh, well I suppose it's not a stretch that Kakashi taught you while the boys worked on their tree climbing."

Sakura shakes her head, "No. He just flaunted my progress in front of the boys to urge them on, then let me be." 

For a moment KI floods the area, Sakura is briefly reminded of Tsunami and how she'd lectured Kakashi. 

"He what?" Kotetsu growls, then shakes his head upon registering the other half of that sentence. Of course she'd learned on her own. He'd better stock up on hair dye because he's going to go gray long before his time, with this kid around. 

"So, how'd you figure it out?" Izumo questions. 

Sakura blushes as if the memory brings up something embarrassing. Curious. Sakura tells them about every little detail of that disaster C-rank and her new skill. 

Yeah, Kotetsu's going to need that hair dye sooner than expected. Izumo can't decide if he (a Chunnin) wants to sock Kakashi (A very high level Jounin) or hug Sakura (Chakra prodigy?! Gennin) for her genius more. He decides on the later because she's right there. Not because Kakashi wouldn't ever allow him to land that punch. He'd find a way.