Author's Note: Anyone still remember Inner Sakura? XD
*****
Sakura woke up suddenly and, for a glorious second, she remembered nothing. She only felt the softness of her own pillow and the warmth of the morning sun coming through her window, feeling rested. More than rested, she felt... vibrant, as her body, thanks to the power Naruto had given her, was full of a clean energy that hummed beneath her skin.
And then, she remembered everything.
SHANNARO!
The mental scream was so loud she almost fell out of bed.
What is wrong with me? I couldn't sleep last night because I spent the whole time thinking about him! About the idiot! The one who smells like burnt ramen and is always yelling! I'm supposed to like Sasuke-kun! Right? Yes, of course I do, because Sasuke-kun is cool, mysterious, and strong! And he's in the hospital!
She jumped to her feet, as if the mere thought were armor against her own confusing emotions.
Exactly! Sasuke-kun is hurt and I'm his teammate, so it's my duty to go see him and take care of him! That's what a good teammate would do! It has nothing to do with the fact that Naruto is probably there, and that when he smiled at me last night my heart did that stupid thing... NO! Sasuke-kun! I'm going to focus on Sasuke-kun!
She got dressed with record speed, skipping breakfast, as she had to get out of her house before her thoughts became even more treacherous. She ran through the streets of Konoha, feeling guilty for the energy she had, for it was Naruto's energy and it felt wrong to be so full of life while Sasuke was fighting in a hospital bed.
See! You're worried about Sasuke-kun, so everything is fine! You're not crazy! Naruto is just... Naruto!
She arrived at the hospital with her confidence renewed, greeted the nurse at the front desk with an overly cheerful "Good morning!" and ran down the white hallways to the intensive care wing.
"I'm going to see how Sasuke-kun is doing," she told the nurse on duty, trying to sound professional. "I'm his teammate, Sakura Haruno."
"He's still unconscious, dear," the nurse said kindly. "But you can..."
Sakura didn't hear her and turned the corner toward Sasuke's room, where she stopped dead.
There he was: Naruto.
He was fast asleep, sitting in an incredibly uncomfortable plastic chair next to the door of Sasuke's room. His head was lolled back against the wall, his mouth slightly open, and a thin line of drool was running down his chin. He was standing guard on his time off.
He... he's here, protecting him.
Sakura watched him: the loudmouthed idiot, the class clown, the boy who had just found out he was a "lucky leech"... was watching over his rival teammate, like a loyal, exhausted watchdog.
He's a complete idiot, she thought, and she felt a strange warmth spread through her chest, a sensation that infuriated her. He was just sitting there, exposed. He's going to catch a cold. And he looks...
Her eyes fixed on his relaxed face.
He looks... calm, almost... kind... when he's not yelling about ramen.
NO! STOP! STOP IT RIGHT NOW, BRAIN! IT'S NARUTO, THE IDIOT! THE ONE WHO KISSED YOU! Well, you kissed him! Oh, God, I kissed him and he knows it! And now he's here sleeping like it's nothing! And he looks ADORABLE! NO! HE'S NOT ADORABLE! HE'S IRRITATING!
Panic seized her. She couldn't handle this new emotion, as it was unfamiliar, confusing, and made her feel weak. She returned to what she knew. She returned to anger.
"NARUTO!"
Her shout was sharp and cutting, echoing in the silent hallway.
"WHAT?! FIRE?! ENEMIES?!" Naruto shot awake, falling out of the chair in a chaotic clatter of limbs and plastic. He leaped to his feet, kunai in hand, looking wildly around. "I'm not sleeping! I was... watching! The duty of the Family leader!"
Sakura glared at him, her face red with embarrassment and an emotion she couldn't name. "This isn't a campground, you idiot! You're in a hospital and you're going to scare the patients! What do you think you're doing sleeping in the hallway?"
Naruto blinked, the fog of sleep clearing as he looked at her. He rubbed the back of his neck, his defensive posture deflating.
"Sakura-chan? This early?" He grinned, a sleepy, goofy smile. "You here to see Sasuke too? Awesome! He hasn't woken up yet. But Tsunade said he would!"
"Of course not!" she snapped, too quickly. "I... I had to come see Tsunade-sama! She summoned me for training! Not all of us can afford to sleep in the hallways!"
Naruto's grin widened. "Oh, the training! That's awesome, Sakura-chan! You're gonna be super strong! You're gonna punch things and they're gonna explode!"
His genuine support only made her feel worse.
"Shut up!" she said, blushing and furious about her blush. "Just... just go home and take a shower! You stink like... like a hospital hallway! And stop drooling!"
She spun around and stomped down the hall toward Tsunade's office, not looking back.
Naruto watched her go, completely baffled.
"But... I wasn't drooling... was I?" He wiped his chin with his sleeve. "It was dry."
He shook his head. "Sakura-chan is so weird today. She's angrier than usual. Did I say something wrong?"
He looked at Sasuke's door, then down the hall where Sakura had disappeared. He shrugged.
"Well, I guess I'll take off. RAMEN!"
*****
Sakura found Tsunade in a place she didn't expect. It wasn't a training field or an operating room. It was a library. An old, underground, dusty library in the depths of the hospital.
Tsunade was standing in front of a bookshelf, sipping tea from a cup and looking refreshed and fully recovered, while Shizune was beside her, organizing a stack of scrolls.
"Ah, the pink-haired girl," Tsunade said without turning. "You're early. Good. I hate lateness."
Sakura gave a quick bow, trying to calm her racing heart from the run and the confrontation with Naruto. "I'm ready, Tsunade-sama! What are we going to do? Where's the training field? Am I going to punch rocks? Trees? Maybe a casino building?"
Tsunade finally turned. There was zero amusement in her eyes.
"Punch rocks?" she repeated, and her voice was flat. "Do you think this is a game, brat? You think I'm going to teach you vandalism? Do you think you're your idiot teammate?"
Sakura took a step back. "No... I... I thought..."
"You thought wrong," Tsunade cut her off. "You have that power, but you don't have the slightest idea how to hold it."
She stepped closer, her imposing presence filling the small library. "Power without control is useless, Haruno, and it's a danger to you, to your team, and to my patient."
"But... but I can control it," Sakura protested, though her voice sounded weak even to her own ears.
"No, you can't," Tsunade said. "You don't even know what it is and you aren't punching anything until you do."
She pointed to a nearby table, where there was a pile of ancient-looking books, stacked so high they almost hid Shizune.
"Your training begins here."
Sakura approached and read the titles. Her blood ran cold.
"'Advanced Anatomy of the Chakra System.' 'Pathologies of Reversed Flow.' 'The Shinobi Coroner's Manual: Identifying Ninjutsu-Based Tissue Damage.'"
"But... this is theory!" Sakura exclaimed. "I already know this! I was top of my class in the Academy and I have a photographic memory!"
Tsunade laughed, a short, joyless sound. "Congratulations. Then you'll have no problem." She leaned in, her face inches from Sakura's, and her voice dropped to a growl.
"You know nothing. You think a body is a map and that 'healing' is just passing green chakra over a wound and hoping it closes. I am going to teach you the one thousand, two hundred and thirty-seven ways a shinobi body can break, so you are going to memorize every nerve, every tendon, and every failure point. You are going to learn why people die, Haruno, because until you perfectly understand how something breaks, you will never know how to fix it."
Sakura swallowed, but she held her gaze. Fear mingled with a strange fascination. "Understood."
"Good," Tsunade said, straightening up. "Shizune will watch you. You have until noon. I want a full report on the first three chapters of the circulatory system and the effects of lightning-based poison on the nervous system."
She turned. "After that, the practical lesson begins."
The next few hours were an academic hell. Sakura read until her eyes ached. Shizune asked her questions that weren't in the book, questions about practical applications, about impossible scenarios, and Sakura answered. Her brain, put to the test, absorbed the information like a sponge.
At noon, Tsunade returned, and Shizune looked at her and nodded, impressed.
"She's brilliant, Tsunade-sama. She has memorized everything and is already making connections that took me a year to see."
Tsunade simply nodded. "Good. Theory is done, so let's go."
"To the training field now?" Sakura asked, standing up, her legs numb.
"No," Tsunade said, with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "To the morgue."
The color drained from Sakura's face. "The... morgue?"
The Konoha hospital morgue was a place most shinobi avoided, located in the basement.
On a metal table in the center of the room, there was a shape covered by a white sheet.
"This man," Tsunade began, her voice echoing off the tiles, "was a Kiri shinobi. He died years ago in a border skirmish and his body was never claimed. Today, you are going to perform a full autopsy."
Sakura felt her breakfast rise in her throat.
"I... I can't," she whispered. "This... I..."
"What's wrong?" Tsunade asked, her voice turning to dangerous silk. "The heroine of the Land of Waves, the one who awakened a miraculous power, is afraid of a corpse?"
"It's not fear! It's... it's disrespectful!"
"It's necessary!" Tsunade shouted, and the sound was so sudden Sakura flinched. "This is death, Sakura! Look at it and smell it! It's what almost happened to your precious Uchiha on that bridge and it's what will happen to you if you fail!"
She grabbed Sakura's chin with a grip so strong it made her whimper in pain, forcing her to look at the covered body.
"You want to heal? You want to use that power of yours to 'fix' people? Then you can't be afraid to see what they look like when they're broken. A medical ninja who hesitates or who gags... is a medical ninja who is killing their patient. If you're going to puke, do it now and get out, because I don't have time for weak brats playing doctor."
Sakura was trembling. The world was swaying. She saw Sasuke's face in her mind, covered in needles, and she saw the determination in Naruto's eyes when he said, "I'll do it!"
I will not be weak.
She clenched her jaw so hard it ached. She took a deep breath through her mouth, fighting back the nausea, and pulled free from Tsunade's grip.
"I'm not going to puke," she said, her voice trembling but firm. "Pass me the scalpel."
Tsunade watched her for a long, silent moment. The fury in her eyes faded, replaced by a flash of genuine respect.
She smiled, and it was a real smile this time.
"Good," she said. "Let's begin."
******
"Again, Hinata!" Kurenai's voice was clear and encouraging. "I want you to beat that mark! Focus!"
Hinata was in a starting stance on an obstacle course designed to test agility, which included balance posts, slacklines, and moving targets.
"Yes, Kurenai-sensei!"
Hinata took a deep breath.
"Now!"
Hinata moved.
She moved with incredible speed. Her feet barely touched the balance posts; she crossed the slackline with ease; she dodged the training kunai Kurenai threw at her with a flexibility that defied physics, her body bending at difficult angles before landing softly on the final post.
Kurenai lowered her stopwatch, her red eyes wide.
"Four point seven seconds," she said, her voice full of awe. "You broke your previous record by three whole seconds. Hinata... that reaction speed is... it's high Chūnin level, easily."
Hinata panted, a bright smile on her sweaty face. "I can... I can do it again, sensei. I think I can be faster on turn three."
Kurenai laughed, a laugh of pure joy. "I know. Your [Lion's Heart] is an incredible enhancer for moments of crisis, but this..." She motioned to the course. "This is your new baseline, and your Agility is astonishing. Keep it up."
Two hundred meters away, hidden in the foliage of an adjacent park, a man dressed in the simple uniform of a municipal gardener was trimming a hedge, or pretending to.
His empty, emotionless eyes were fixed on the training ground, where he had been observing the subject for an hour.
Report for Lord Danzō, the Root agent thought, his hands never ceasing their movement with the hedge clippers. Target: Hyūga Hinata. Visual confirmation and start of speed test.
He watched Hinata move.
Movement analysis is inconsistent with standard genin training, and the chakra fluency is... too perfect, with no waste.
He watched Kurenai congratulate her.
Anomaly confirmed, the agent concluded. Speed, agility, and chakra response exceed all recorded parameters for the subject. The improvement since the mission in the Land ofWaves is drastic and cannot be explained by conventional training. The source remains unknown. The information must be delivered immediately.
With a final, clean snip of a branch, the gardener collected his tools and walked away silently, blending in with the other park workers.
******
Danzō's underground office was as cold and silent as ever. The Root agent was kneeling.
"The report is complete, Lord Danzō. The Hyūga anomaly is confirmed."
Danzō had his back turned, studying a map. "Details."
"Her speed and agility have increased by an estimated factor of three, perhaps four, and her Jūken, according to Kurenai's reports to Hiruzen, is more potent and precise. The change is drastic and undeniable since her return."
"And the Haruno?" Danzō asked.
"The Haruno subject has been formally assigned as Tsunade's personal apprentice and is cloistered in the hospital's medical library and morgue. There is no field evidence of her ability, but the Sannin has taken her under her wing with unusual urgency."
Danzō turned slowly, his single visible eye narrowing.
"Of course she has," he hissed. "Hiruzen thinks he has gained an ally and a new medical prodigy, but he has only brought another sentimental fool into the equation, one who now protects one of the anomalies."
Two kunoichi, both enhanced and directly connected to the Jinchūriki. One is now protected by Kurenai and the other by Tsunade.
They are getting strong too quickly. It is a power I do not control and one that Hiruzen doesn't even know exists.
Danzō looked at the kneeling agent.
"Hiruzen is playing with a power he doesn't understand and he thinks he can control this... phenomenon... He is a fool. We cannot allow this power to flourish without understanding it and without possessing it."
**
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