life lessons in evasion
It was a lesson taught early to those who attended the Academy: do not get caught. It was repeated frequently enough so it wouldn’t be forgotten, but for some reason was always glossed over, as if the teachers had taken for granted that their students might actually need some instruction on how to accomplish that very important instruction.
Do not get caught.
It sounded simple enough, but Sakura knew from experience that it wasn’t quite so straightforward. A memory flashed by along with a tree that had been aimed at her head, narrowly missing her.
Kakashi-sensei, catching her in a genjutsu that left her shaken and unable to focus on the goal of snagging a bell in favor of tracking down Sasuke.
Do not get caught.
A hefty rock whistled past.
The Sound trio toying with her as she tried to protect her unconscious teammates – tried and failed, in the end.
Another boulder, this one managing to clip her shoulder as she pivoted to try and avoid it. Her illustrious new teacher scoffed, berating her loudly.
She winced sharply, both from the noise and the sudden sense-memory of Sasuke behind her, his breath on her neck, her muscles tensing before he knocked her out and left her on a stone bench for anyone to come across.
“Move it, Haruno! You can do better than that – prove you’re worth my time!”
She panted through her gritted teeth, forcing herself past the fact that her muscles burned with lactic acid, that her heart hammered in her chest from more than just anxiety, that she doubted and doubted and doubted until she had diminished herself into a vague notion of who she could become.
Time passed and shadows grew across the ground, and while they were working on a training field that was by no means near the village proper, it didn’t remove them from speculation.
Team Ten was a mile out from where the Godaime had chosen to test her apprentice-hopeful, and while Ino and Chouji went through their workouts, Shikamaru was thoroughly distracted by the debacle that was Sakura dodging boulders and dislodged tree trunks to the best of her ability, panting in desperation for air.
His brow furrowed as his eyes narrowed, watching the girl who had managed to take his entire team, really, their entire graduating class, by surprise during the Chuunin exam. He had tried to get a proper explanation out of Ino about how Sakura had wrested control back after the blonde had caught her in the mind-transfer jutsu unique to her clan. Ino had gotten quiet for a moment, which was nothing short of a miracle usually, and her eyes got a faraway look in them as she muttered something about hidden blooms and secrets. So Shikamaru watched. He was good at breaking things down through observation.
His first observation: Sakura was exhausted. This was probably more physical activity than she saw during her training with Team Seven. This was probably more running and leaping and dodging than she had gotten in during their Academy days.
The second observation: she wasn’t slowing down. This took him by surprise. He supposed it was desperation fueling her by now – that and a fair amount of adrenaline. Her cheeks and neck were flushed deeper than her hair, and her entire body seemed to glisten as she sweated her way through her new teacher’s attacks. He wondered idly what flavor of desperation pushed her to keep going beyond the point of collapse. She’d pay for it later, she had to know that. Her muscles would be torn to shreds. Her entire body would ache and she’d likely not be able to move.
His third observation had to do with what the training was already starting to do to how she held herself. He remembered the days of peace before her falling out with Ino, how gentle and soft spoken she was. A shrinking violet in the truest sense of the word, bullied and berated into taking up less and less space until there was hardly anything left of her at all. There was a fragility to her that matched her namesake, easily crushed and fleeting. But now… now he looked at how her feet planted themselves as if the ground grew from her. How she moved with a surety that she had never had before, as if there was no doubt left in her. That couldn’t possibly be true – he didn’t speak with her frequently, but no one dropped such deeply held doubt as quickly as that.
He wasn’t close to the training ground Tsunade was in the process of tearing apart, but he could see the process of Sakura’s muscles defining themselves in a way few kunoichi could claim. Tenten had her weapons training that gave her impressive upper body strength, not to mention two over-the-top teammates. That Sand kunoichi he had fought – it was hard to tell through her outfit, but those legs had told him of long desert treks to the training grounds of Suna. Sakura was shaping up to be formidable even without the excessive strength he was sure her new teacher planned to impart the secret to.
His attention left her when Ino threw a kunai at his head, screeching at him to pay attention to his own teammates.
Sakura dodged a particularly jagged looking boulder, wincing as it caught against her arm and left behind a nasty looking gash. The newly instated Hokage bellowed at her while hefting her next projectile, berating her.
“Never get hit! Never allow yourself to be caught off-guard! You’re the medic – there will be missions where your teammates will only make it back because of you, and so the enemy will try to kill you, you, especially. They will try to kill you – but first they’ll have to catch you. It is your duty to your team and to your village to never be caught! Dodge, Haruno!”
The line of Sakura’s shoulders tensed and she flung herself into the air, twisting her body into an inelegant flip over the next boulder and landing before immediately darting to the left when another was thrown right after the first.
Her body was aching and her legs trembled under her as she scrambled to keep her balance, her lungs burning for lack of air as she tried to keep her breathing as even as possible. But her eyes were as hard as jade chips, and Tsunade watched her with a growing smirk. Determination to catch up, to never be left behind again – Haruno Sakura was a force of nature when it came to her precious teammates and the new Hokage would gladly give her the tools she needed to grow in strength and skill.