She was on Training Ground Seventeen, a patch of trees, grass and a tiny pond surrpunded by wild flowers all there was to it.
Sat on the surface of said pond, Sakura was reading up on the properties of gelsemine-based poisons, which in its natural state already proved capable of paralysis, asphyxia and convulsions. It was an interesting and educating read, truly. Her book time of the day was interrupted by a hail of senbon impacting the water, ruining the natural surface tension of the pond and forcing Sakura to rapidly adapt lest she let the library-issued book fall in.
After the water settled again, she snapped the book shut and bounded over to solid ground, watching in interest as the water was slowly contaminated by whatever had been on the tip of those senbon. Idly, she ripped out a flower from a nearby flower patch - daisies, she noted absently - and dipped it stem-first into the water, watching as the fibres discoloured faintly.
Impressive, but still not as impressive as the effects of Batrachotoxin. (Through no fault of the poison user's own, Sakura just had a, truthfully, kind of weird fixation.)
She was, however, a little flummoxed. She hadn't sensed anyone near (though maybe that had more to do with her subpar sensing abilities?) and despite that, the senbon had honed in on her, and quite unerringly at that. She dismissed the stray thought of misfired projectiles as soon as it cropped up; a poison-user with access to (what seemed to be) medium-level poisons from Research and Development, or even the hospital, wouldn't want their licenses revoked so the potential for friendly fire was always carefully kept to a minimum. So... how, then? And who?
Then the shinobi - the unnamed, strange, doubtful tokujō - from the week before jumped down from the treeline, tucking a small box with remedies back into his vest, no doubt a deliberate bid to let her see that he wasn't really, truly trying to poison her, however mild it may have ended up being.
It seemed even a tokujō feared the amount of paperwork involved in an official complaint. Or, just those in charge of filing them. (From what little she had seen of them, Sakura knew that the nin in charge of the mission reports hunted down errant shinobi with extreme prejudice.)
"Shiranui Genma," he said, strolling up to her crouched form.
Sakura straightened dutifully. "Haruno Sakura." She had no doubt he knew that already.
He grinned, senbon bobbing up and down with the motion. "Can I help you, Sir?", she asked, painfully aware of her genin corps courier uniform.
He acknowledged both that and her question only peripherally, however, as he blinked once, twice, to clear his confusion. The obvious power imbalance was that trivial to him? She resisted the urge to swallow, suddenly very uncomfortable in her skin.
"I'm on medical leave for two months." His expression was twisted as if he'd bitten on a particularly sour and bitter lemon, senbon shifting to the other side.
"Sir?", she asked tentaitively. What was that meant to tell her? That he would be manning the library desk for the entire duration and that she should prepare herself to stop reading for a while?
"Right. Let's educate you on poison etiquette, Haruno-chan." Completely blindsided, she stared at him. Opened her mouth, closed it, opened it. Squeaked.
"But-? Shiranui-san! Surely you have better things to do? And- why? I don't understand!"
"I don't particularly consider preventing potential mass-poisoning in the genin corps as something of lesser value." He gave her a thoroughly amused look when she sputtered unintellegibly for a moment.
"Mass-poisoning?! I'd never!", she exclaimed indignantly.
Now, Shiranui-san let out a proper laugh. The senbon, however, stayed glued to his lips.