Cherry Blossoms and Chakra Strings: Building a Foundation (Patreon)

~~~ Week Two: Day 14 ~~~Sakura rubbed her head in frustration as she stared down at the problem in front of her. It was lunchtime at the Academy which basically amounted to a free period for them and she was using the opportunity to put in some more work on her training. A sealing scroll was spread out in front of her while a jar of ink and a brush sat nearby, ready for use.Normally she would be on the roof or somewhere similar, eating lunch with Shino as opposed to sitting under a tree by herself, but Shino wasn’t there and Sakura wasn’t very hungry, way too focused on trying to figure out the latest roadblock in her sealing practice.Several days ago, Chiyo had decided that her brush strokes were at an acceptable level for now and had moved the girl onto the next chapter of her training, crafting a simple but functional seal using nothing but the knowledge that she would be able to acquire in the book. No references to draw from. No hand holding.Even with Sakura’s zeal for learning about the art of puppetry, it had taken the girl much longer than usual to finish the book in the first place. As she had quickly come to find out, her sense’s training didn’t just include using chakra strings to move sticks or learning how to seal. Insead, she had to deal with the physical training on top of all that. Often at the same time.Getting pelted with blunt kunai made it kind of hard to concentrate on maintaining chakra strings. Sakura could see the need for the training of course, a puppeteer who stayed in one place was often a dead one after all, but she still wished that it didn’t hurt so much. It would also have been nice if her sensei bothered to blunt the edges of the kunai as well as the tips.The pinkette scratched lightly at a thin cut on her arm as she hummed to herself, “I was sure that I did it correctly… I even cross-referenced the chakra condenser seals to make sure that I wrote them perfectly, so why isn’t it working?”She spent a long moment just staring at it as if it would reveal what exactly she had done wrong under scrutiny before groaning, “Come on! I don’t want to have to start all over again! This took me forever to make!”“Whatcha doing, Sakura?”“Gah!” Sakura yelled in shock as a voice suddenly came from directly above her head. She looked up and found a pair of curious sapphire eyes staring down at her from behind dangling locks of blond hair. Naruto was lounging in the tree she was currently sitting under, laying on his stomach and dangling his head down towards her in clear hopes of getting a better look at what she was doing.She stared at the boy for a second, wondering how in the world she hadn’t seen or even noticed him in the time that she had been working before shaking out of it. Despite his constant need to wear bright orange, Naruto could be oddly sneaky at times.Wordlessly, she motioned for him to come down and he immediately did so, hopping out of the tree to drop down next to her. As he settled in beside her, Sakura motioned to her scroll and sealing materials, “Hey, Naruto. My sensei is having me work on seals but I’m having a little trouble. I thought I did everything perfectly so I can't figure out why this one isn’t working.”The boy looked confused as he looked at all of her stuff before said confusion turned to slight panic, “Wait, did Iruka-sensei give us sealing homework?”Sakura laughed at his worry, “Not our sensei, my sensei. She’s teaching me some stuff outside of class to help me be an awesome kunoichi!”Naruto made an ‘ahh’ noise, his eyes lighting up in understanding, “Oh, so it’s like me and Kakashi-nii!”“I don’t know who that is but sure.” Sakura nodded before turning back to her seal, “I need to figure out why my seal isn’t activating or I can’t move onto the next part of my training. My sensei isn’t staying in the village for very long so I need to figure it out soon.”Naruto scratched his cheek, “Well, I don’t really get all that sealing stuff but if you need help, you can ask my Kaa-san for help. I sometimes see her working on seals around the house and stuff so she can definitely tell you what’s wrong!”Sakura froze, slowly turning her head to just stare at Naruto as her ears processed what he just said. That was right. Naruto was an Uzumaki, wasn’t he?When Chiyo had gotten her started on sealing, Sakura decided to do a little bit of research into the art and where it came from in hopes to get some more insight that would help her with training. What she found was both incredible, and extremely sad.The Uzumaki were the remnants of what had once been the people of Uzushiogakure, a ninja village that had been located off of the coast between the Land of Fire and Land of Water. Their people had been renowned for their sealing capabilities, doing things that most thought impossible with just scrolls and ink alone.With that renown had come a great deal of enemies in nearly every other hidden village across the Elemental Nations. They feared the capabilities of Uzushio as well as their alliance with Konoha, believing that together they could be a nearly unstoppable force and so they decided to do something about it.Sakura had never heard of so many villages joining together just to fight one. Every major village apart from Konoha, along with a few minor ones all had a hand in the destruction of what had once been Konoha’s greatest ally. When all was said and done, Uzushio was nothing but ruins and what was left of the village scattered across the lands, bringing their story to a horrific end.Naruto’s mother had been in Konoha when her home village had fallen and had escaped the decimation of her people. While she had not attempted to bring the Uzumaki clan back to its former glory, she still kept their name alive, owning a seat on the Council along with all of the other clan heads.She probably had all sorts of knowledge of sealing! Either in her head or in texts that she had brought with her from her home village. She would be able to help Sakura, no problem!…Was she an idiot? How had she not thought of this before!?Disregarding the thought, Sakura shot to her feet, surprising Naruto as she grabbed the boy by the collar of his jacket, lifting him towards her as she gave him an excited grin, “You’re right! She’s exactly what I need! Let’s go talk to her!”As she went to pull him off, Sakura was forced to stop as Naruto jerked her back. She looked back at him, slightly annoyed, “What is it?”Naruto was staring at her in confusion, “We can’t go right now. Iruka-sensei will yell at me!”At his words, Sakura froze as she suddenly remembered it was, in fact, the middle of the school day. If they left now, they’d be skipping, and Sakura Haruno did not skip class.She puts Naruto back down, blushing sheepishly, “Sorry, I got a little excited. Do you… wanna eat lunch with me or something? Shino isn’t here today cause his cousin’s having a reaction to his kikaichu so it’s just me today.”“You’re by yourself?” Naruto said in surprise, “That’s not cool! Nobody should eat alone if they don’t want to! You should come hang out with me and Sasuke! He’ll complain a bit but don’t worry, he does that to everyone. ”Sakura hadn’t ever eaten with anyone but Shino before, the Aburame being the only real close friend she had, so she was a little wary. The sight of Naruto staring at her with those earnest eyes and that massive grin though, swayed her decision almost immediately, “Alright.” She said as she leaned down to gather up her stuff, “Let me grab my things real quick and then you can lead the way.”“Awesome!”~~~ Konoha Shinobi Sector ~~~The house that Naruto and his mother lived in wasn’t nearly as fancy as Sakura thought it would be. When she had learned that the Uzumaki were a clan that used to hold the same prestige as the Uchiha or the Hyuga, she had been expecting some sort of opulent house complete with a separate, smaller house for servants or something similar.Instead, she was left slightly confused as Naruto led her up to the door of a modest, two-story home in the Shinobi Sector. It was nice, just as nice as Sakura’s own home in fact, but it was nowhere near what she had been suspecting.As they entered the house, taking their shoes off at the door like they had been taught to do, Sakura looked around at the decor. It was well furnished, with several nice paintings hanging on the wall and some classy furniture peeking from what she could see of the sitting room. There were also quite a few pictures of Naruto and a redhead that she assumed was his mother, smiling happily at the camera.Any sort of hint of the blonde’s father was also noticeably absent which was kind of odd. From what she knew, the unnamed man had died on the night of Naruto’s birth, murdered in front of both him and his mother. She would have thought that they’d want some sort of memento to remember him by.“Kaa-chan! Are you here!?” Naruto suddenly screamed at the top of his lungs, breaking Sakura out of her thoughts and causing her to flinch back at the noise. She gave him a slightly annoyed look. What was it with these blondes and yelling all the time?“I’m in the kitchen! And stop yelling in the house!” A voice responded back from further in the house. Sakura got a small amount of amusement at the fact that the woman was yelling just as loud as her son, making the scolding words a lot less impactful.The two of them made their way into the kitchen and were met with a woman with bright red hair and a green apron around her waist chopping something on a cutting board. Sakura sniffed and her nose caught the scent of onions undercut by some other vegetables.“Welcome home, honey. We’re having vegetable ramen for dinner tonight.” Kushina said without looking back at her son. She placed the knife aside and scooped up what she had been cutting, putting it all in a large pot that was simmering off to the side, “It should be ready in a couple hours so don’t go running over to Mikoto’s house, alright?”“Aww, I wanted miso!” Naruto groaned at his mother’s words.“I’ve already told you, Naruto, eating ramen every day is fine because it's the greatest food on the planet but that doesn’t mean that you can skip out on eating your veggies!” The woman scolded the boy.Naruto sighed, “Yeah whatever. Do we have anything left over from last night?” He asked, blatantly ignoring his mother’s words. Sakura watched with a great deal of fascination as Kushina froze, an almost visible tick mark appearing on her head as she processed his words.She suddenly whipped around, eye twitching in anger at her son’s belligerence and clutching a wooden spoon in her hand that Sakura was absolutely sure wasn’t there before. She opened her mouth, no doubt ready to yell at her son for his words, only to freeze as she caught sight of Sakura standing a few feet behind her, looking slightly uncomfortable.“Oh!” The woman broke out of her shock, “Naruto, why didn’t you tell me you brought a guest over?”“This is Sakura!” Naruto said happily, “She was having some trouble with homework or whatever and I told her you could help her!”Sakura bowed low at the waist as the woman’s curious eyes locked onto her, “It’s nice to meet you, Kushina-sama.”Kushina twitched at the formal address, “Don’t call me that. Makes me feel like one of those stuffy clan heads and I have to deal with that enough at the meetings.”Sakura was slightly surprised at that, knowing how serious clan heads were about respect, but nodded anyway, “Okay, Kushina. It’s nice to meet you.”“And you too!” Kushina smiled widely and Sakura was suddenly struck by how similar this woman was to Naruto, “I’m glad to see that my son has some female friends! I was worried that he’d scared them all off with his constant yelling and all.”Sakura just shrugged, “I’ve gotten a lot of practice dealing with loud blondes here recently. I’m training with Ino and I don’t think she’s gone a day without yelling my ear off. I used to hate it but I’ve kinda gotten used to it cause she isn’t really mean about it. At least I don’t think so.”“You’ve been training with Ino?” Naruto’s face twisted, “Ew! She’s louder than me!”“Debatable.”Kushina giggled at the friendly bickering, before leaning down to ruffle Sakura’s hair, causing several pink strands to fall out of her ponytail, “You know, with hair like this, you could be an Uzumaki! Got any relatives from Uzu, pinkie?”Sakura shook her head, removing Kushina’s hands from her scalp and stepping back, “Maybe, but I doubt it. My family travels all over and we’re not really sure where we’re originally from but my dad said we’ve had pink hair for a long time.”“So it’s possible but not very likely.” Kushina sighed, “Well that’s too bad. It’s so hard to find anyone from Uzu these days, especially with all the nonsense happening in Kiri. I bet that’s really spooking any of them who settled there wanting to be close to home and they’re going into hiding.”“Why don’t they just come here?” Sakura asked.Kushina gave her a sad look, “Most of them blame Konoha for what happened to Uzushio in the first place. We were allies for a long time so Uzu expected reinforcements and when they didn’t get them well… you know the story. They aren’t willing to settle here because they feel like the village is responsible for everything that happened even though most don’t know the full story.”“What is the full story?” Sakura asked, the scholar in her yearning to learn more about the village’s history.She was slightly disappointed as Kushina shook her head, “Maybe another time. It’s not really the kind of story that you’d understand at your age. Why don’t you tell me what you came here for. Naruto said you needed my help with something?”Even at her young age, Sakura could see the blatant subject change for what it was. Despite this, she didn’t say anything, instead reaching behind her and retrieving her scroll from her back, holding it up for Kushina to see, “I’ve been working on this seal for the past few days and it should be working but it’s not. Do you think you could help me fix it? Or maybe let me borrow a book on the subject or something?”Kushina’s eyes widened, “You’re interested in sealing?” Her voice was eager and Sakura wasn’t given a chance to reply as Kushina suddenly leaned down, grabbing Sakura by her shoulders and looking at her with an intense gleam in her eyes, “You’re so young though, I can’t believe that you’d have the patience for something like that! Do you want to become a seal master?! Do I finally have someone to pass on my arts to?!”Sakura leaned away from the woman, more than a little taken aback by her intensity, “Uhh, not right now, no. It’s for the training I’m doing to become a puppet master. Chiyo-sensei said that sealing was one of the most important parts of puppetry so I need to become good at making and using them.”Kushina’s face almost immediately dropped into a pout. She leaned away, turning her face to the ceiling as she groaned, “Ugh! Why isn’t anybody here interested in seals?! Seals are awesome but nobody cares about learning about them! Except for him…”Sakura watched as the woman devolved into angry grumbles about some white-haired pervert, before turning to Naruto in hopes of finding some semblance of normality in this situation. Instead of anything like that, she was met with the sight of the blond waist deep in the refrigerator, rummaging around as he looked for something. She couldn't make out much, but she was sure he was saying something particularly nasty about vegetables.Like mother like son, she supposed.Kushina broke out of her funk quickly, shaking her head before looking at Sakura, “Well then, go ahead bring out the seal and let me take a look at it.” She said, motioning to the kitchen table. Sakura was quick to follow her instructions, retrieving her sealing scroll from the pocket of her jacket and unfurling it, laying it across the table for the woman’s scrutiny.Kushina observed the seal with critical eyes, “Hmm… Your brush strokes are pretty good but you’re packing things too tightly. Density is good and all when you need to hide a seal and what it does but this is just a regular storage seal by the looks of it. There’s no need to condense things so much and it’ll only make it harder to figure out what’s wrong with it if something messes up.”Sakura nodded at her words, making mental notes based on what the woman had said, “So do you know what’s wrong with it?”Kushina scoffed, “Pft, I got that by a glance. Your seal is fizzling out because the first half of your chakra transfer node isn’t reversed like it should be.” She pointed at one of the seal’s outer edges, motioning for Sakura to take a closer look, “See here? It loops back into itself so the chakra doesn’t have anywhere to go. It’s creating a constant loop of chakra in the first ring that causes the whole thing to misfire when you activate it.”Sakura almost slapped herself as she realized the woman was right. In the place where there should have been a clockwise looping stroke was instead a counterclockwise one. She must have gotten confused on which side of the seal she had been working on at the time.Kushina hummed to herself as she examined the rest of the seal, “That’s the only issue I can see other than the spacing thing. It’s really good for a beginner, honestly. I remember my first seal had all sorts of issues, especially once I tried to allow it to be activated remotely while absorbing chakra at the same time. I don’t think Mito ever let me hear the end of that one till the day she died.”Sakura froze as something the woman had said stuck out in her mind. Her brain rolled the thought over continuously, working furiously with this new idea that it had been given.Without any prompting from the woman above her, Sakura pulled out a pencil, writing a note on the side of the sealing scroll to herself. Seals couldn’t be altered once the ink had dried so she would have to start all over again. That was fine though, thanks to Kushina, she had an idea that she couldn’t wait to test out.Kushina watched Sakura write with a slightly confused face. She should know that it was too late to alter her seal and pencil wouldn’t do anything to help-The Uzumaki suddenly paused as she caught sight of what the girl was doing. Her pencil rubbed against the paper furiously as she muttered to herself, drawing what looked like a conception of what a future seal was supposed to look like. It was almost exactly the same as the one that she had Kushina look over except in one key factor. One that didn’t make any sense for a beginner seal maker to know.As she watched, Sakura finally leaned back from the paper, blowing a quick burst of air across the page to get rid of any stray bits of graphite from her scribbling, “Sorry about that. I just had an idea and wanted to write it down before I forgot or something.” She apologized, looking up at the redhead hovering over her.Instead of responding, the woman just sort of… stared at her. She didn’t look angry or happy, just sort of placid. Sakura stared back, growing slightly uncomfortable at the silence between them, only broken by the sounds of Naruto still rummaging through the fridge in search of something to eat that didn’t contain any vegetables.“You said your sensei was Chiyo.” Kushina suddenly said after several moments, “I don’t suppose you mean Lady Chiyo? From Suna?”Sakura nodded, grinning brightly, “Yep! I’m gonna become a puppet master-no, the greatest puppet master in the whole world!”She wasn’t really sure where the declaration had come from but the moment it left her lips, she realized that it felt right. Sakura wasn’t one to half-ass things so why would she be any different when it came to puppetry? If she was going to use puppets, she was going to make sure that she was the very best at doing so! Nobody would be able to stand up to her in her chosen art!Completely unaware of the child’s new and lofty goal, instead giving her a curious once over before nodding slowly, seemingly making a silent decision, “I have a book on sealing that I’ll lend you but in return, why don’t you join us for dinner? You can tell me all about your training and have some of the best ramen you’ve ever had in your life!”Sakura tilted her head curiously, “Ramen? I don’t think I’ve ever had that before.”She froze as two sets of eyes turned to stare at her like she had said she didn’t believe in the deity that they had dedicated their lives to, as if the very idea of the words that had just left her mouth was sacrilegious at best and grounds for summary execution at worst.Sakura was soon swept up into the manic whirlwind that was the Uzumaki family. She bounced around mentally as she tried to keep up, completely unused to the energy that the two of them showed in every waking moment of her life. As she exited the house later that night, slowly making her way back to her own home with a full stomach and a slight headache, she had come to a single conclusion from the experience.Ramen was pretty good.~~~ Three Days Later, Training Ground 23 ~~~Kushina’s book had been exactly what Sakura needed to fill in the gaps in her knowledge. It was the perfect mix of knowledgeable, and easy to understand, allowing the child to get a grasp on what the book was trying to convey with astounding ease.Her sealing had improved massively as a result, which she was currently showing her sensei as she put the finishing touches on the storage seal she had been working on for the last several days. In front of her, Sakura finished her seal with one final stroke of her brush, closing the array and readying it for activation. She wiped at her sweaty forehead, accidentally leaving a jet black mark from her ink-stained fingers, before placing her clean hand on the sealing scroll.With a flare of chakra, the ink covering the scroll flared a bright white as it was primed for activation. Sakura felt a moment of worry that the entire array was going to collapse, knowing that it was a fair possibility for this type of seal. That worry soon turned to relief as instead of exploding or simply fizzling out, the seal stuck, the glow fading back into the scroll and leaving the seal intact.And just like that, Sakura now had a scroll that she could use to store pretty much anything that wasn’t alive, small enough to carry around with her wherever she went..Filled with elation, Sakura snatched up the scroll and turned towards her teacher who was watching her intently as always, “Chiyo-sensei! I did it!” She cheered, holding up the results of over two weeks of hard work for the woman to view.Chiyo rubbed at her chin, examining the scroll with a professional gaze, before nodding firmly, “So you did, girl. It’s a bit basic but you can work on that later. What’s most important is that it’s well constructed. Well done.”Sakura preened visibly at the praise and Chiyo gestured with a hand to her sealing equipment still sitting on the grass, “Well don’t take all day. Test it out.”Equal parts eager and wary, Sakura gathered her things and placed them on the scroll’s surface directly above the seal that she had designed. She hesitated for just a moment, worried that it might not work, but she pushed past it, channeling chakra into the seal and watching eagerly for the results.A plume of white smoke billowed from the seal with a sharp pop, consuming the equipment and blocking her vision for a long moment. Sakura watched with eager eyes as the smoke slowly faded, before a massive grin formed on her face as it disappeared completely to reveal that all of the equipment had completely disappeared. It worked!Rolling up her scroll, Sakura pumped her fist in the air, “ I did it!” She shouted in victory, elation filling her at her success.Chiyo gave her an amused look but clapped politely all the same, “Yes you did. Now you’ve got your own personal storage seal. You should be happy about that, those things can cost a pretty penny some places.”“And that’s not all!” Sakura suddenly said, causing Chiyo to raise an eyebrow.Sakura placed her scroll back on the ground once more, keeping it open as she walked several feet away from it. She held a hand out, forming her chakra strings and sending them forth to latch onto the sealing paper.There was another loud puff and Sakura’s face nearly split in half at her massive grin as her sealing equipment was once again revealed, “It worked!” She couldn’t help but shout happily as she activated the seal once more, causing her equipment to disappear.This was the idea that had been spurred by Kushina's offhand comment. If all you needed was a bit of chakra to activate a seal, then wouldn’t chakra strings work just as well? Normally there wouldn’t be enough chakra contained within the threads to actually activate a seal, but with a little bit of modification and increasing the sensitivity of the seal in just the right way, she now had a seal that could be put on her future puppets and be activated with her strings. Sort of like the seal that paper bombs used!As Sakura celebrated her success, Chiyo stared at the scroll that her student was rolling up in slight surprise. Remote activation wasn’t something that was covered in the book she had given the girl. Letting a new seal maker learn how to activate their creations remotely was just asking for trouble so that lesson was normally saved until they had gotten a hang of sealing basics and had proven to be responsible enough to use them.It seemed that Sakura had circumnavigated that purposeful handicap through a bit of creativity and intelligence though. The seal that she had created was extremely similar to the ones on the puppets of Chiyo’s older students, practically tailor made for the use of a puppeteer. This girl was frightfully intelligent.Chiyo felt a small welling of pride in her chest, “Well done. You’ve gone and surpassed my expectations with this one. I wasn’t expecting something like this, I will admit.”Sakura carefully tied the scroll to her waist with a happy grin, “Thank you sensei! That was way harder than anything you’ve had me do so far but it was worth it! Sealing is awesome and I can’t wait to make something else!”She was telling the truth too. The rush of excitement that she had felt once the modified storage seal had worked was still buzzing through her veins, filling her with energy and elation that her creation had been successful. It had been hard but worth it and Sakura couldn’t wait to see what else she could make with the power of seals!She was brought out of her thoughts as her sensei spoke once more, “Well that’s all well and good, girl, but we’re on a time crunch here. If I’m going to teach you what you need to know before I leave in a week or two we can’t spend too much time on any one subject. It’s time to move on to the next stage of your training.”As she said this, Chiyo reached into her robes and pulled out a green scroll, unfurling it in one smooth motion. With a puff of smoke similar to the one that Sakura’s had emitted, the woman was left holding a stack of books in one hand, “Here. These will be what you’ll be studying from now until I leave.” She said, literally tossing them to Sakura who just barely managed to catch them before they hit the ground.As she recovered from the imbalance that the sudden increase in weight had caused, Sakura looked down at the spines of the books she had been given. There was one about anatomy, one about the various flora that could be found throughout all of the Elemental Nations, and one on fauna of a similar type. All of them were just as thick as the book on sealing as well, practically bursting with the knowledge that Sakura would need.To anyone looking in from the outside, these books would have looked like they had been chosen at random, but to Sakura, they all pointed to one thing.“We’re going to be working on poisons next?” The pinkette asked. Chiyo grinned at her student’s astuteness, holding out a vial of dark purple liquid that shimmered in the light.“Indeed we are, girl! Like seals, a puppet master would be nothing without the deadly poisons in his or her arsenal. This one here is a paralyzing toxin made from one of the more common scorpions found near Suna.” She tossed the vial over to Sakura who just barely managed to catch it while at the same time keeping her hands on her books, “Drink it. One small sip please, I don’t have the antidote on me at the moment and I doubt you’d appreciate a visit to the hospital.”…Huh?Sakura stared at the old woman in horror, “Why would I drink it!? Aren’t we supposed to test those things on animals or something!?”Her horror only increased as Chiyo laughed out loud, apparently finding her words extremely funny, “Why in the world would we do that? I already know how it works and once you study those books, you will too. No, you’re doing this so you can build up a resistance to the toxin. Only amateurs use poisons that they aren’t at least a little resistant to.”As Sakura stared at her sensei who motioned for her to go ahead and take a sip, the pinkette was suddenly struck with a realization, one that she probably should have had days ago.This woman was actually insane.