Preventing The Inevitable

Chapter 16

"You need to work on your stamina."

Sakura lifted her head, gazing up at Shisui kneeling next to her. She immediately regretted it as the sun's harsh glare hit her eyes.

"I-... know." She finally managed to huff, dimly wondering if she was supposed to stand up now after 5 minutes of lying flat on her back. But she wasn't quite getting enough air in her lungs yet.

Shisui had made her run laps around the entire perimeter of the forest for hours as 'preparation for the real training'. Her body had, as Sakura had once concluded in dismay, shitty stamina. But with enough determination and discipline, she had managed to push through the first few rounds at a relatively survivable pace..

It was after the tenth lap that Shisui decided to make her life twenty times worse and have her put on weights around her ankles. With glee in his evil, evil eyes, he had explained that they were linked to his chakra and could only be taken off by him. To her great disappointment, the previously manageable weight doubled with a simple flare of his chakra in a show of his control over the damn things.

With those added weights, Sakura would run another six laps around the forest before collapsing onto the floor.

"Maybe you should've started doing that before attempting tree-walking. Maybe you would've been in better shape by now." Shisui suggested helpfully, freeing her from ankle weights with a snap of his fingers. Sakura glared at him, feeling irritated and exhausted.

Yeah, right.

As if she'd had the chance to get in shape.

He seemed to believe Sakura had been training for a while by now, which was, to be fair, very reasonable. Even she herself wouldn't expect that to have been her first ever try at using chakra and tree-walking. Well, that was without knowing the important small-big detail that she was mentally twenty years older than physically, had been Jōnin for nine years, and Shinobi for half her life.

"Stop... mentioning that at every corner." She glared at Shisui for being an irritating punk that, on second glance, wasn't all that different from his cold-mannered clansmen—

"So you have the energy left to glare daggers at me but can't manage to run another lap? Come on, Sakura-chan, we won't ever get to the cool part without setting the foundation first. Didn't you say you wanted to learn the Shunshin from me?"

—and for looking clean and refreshed as ever, wearing that stupid grin, while she was lying on the dirt and struggling to pant out each word—

"Shut up. I shouldn't have mentioned... that to you. You're never going to teach it to me... are you?"

—and for being way too aware of all those risks Sakura was taking, because of course he has to be the nosy type of guy that knows all the rules by heart—

"Do you not trust me, Sakura-chan? We will get there, I promise. You are simply not old enough, and I haven't even taught you the basics yet. You know what my uncle always said to me? 'Only by striving to master the basics can one fully grasp the potential of advanced techniques', and I think you should also live by that principle."

—and for acting like it was his responsibility to protect her from herself when he probably hadn't been all that different at her age either.

"Your uncle... is the fucking Clan Head." Sakura wanted to throw a punch at him. "He knows the kind of techniques... that are advanced enough to live by such a troublesome rule. The Shunshin isn't one of those. Stop acting like you didn't learn it at five."

Shisui's mouth curled into a smile. "Aw. You already know so much about me. I'm honored."

"Why are you feeling honored?"