The Gift of Sight

Chapter EIGHT

Team Seven and Team Gai set a pace that may possibly be considered rapid for teams of Genin. However, it seemed to do nothing but fuel the two teams.

Sakura was feeling nervous because it was her first time outside the village since before Ibiki had found her. Despite that, between her peers, she was probably the person who had spent the most time outside the village walls.

The fact that she could see Tazuna lying through his teeth did not make her feel any better. She kept quiet, though. Ibiki had always said to observe before coming to a conclusion. However, for her, who can read one's emotions through chakra, hiding her feelings so that it was unnoticeable was an easy feat.

Naruto and Sasuke, for all their constant hovering, didn't notice anything.

However, Sakura did catch Neji glaring over in her directions a few times and the anger that had been directed her way through his chakra made her flinch.

And surprise, so did Sasuke and Naruto, who seemed to have taken it as some sort of personal threat. It was always one, or the other, or both, walking between her and the Hyuuga.

Between Lee's infatuated stares and Neji's unreadable glares, Sakura was more than willing to hide behind her teammates. Tenten kept shooting her sympathetic looks, probably because she understood the feeling of being trapped between Lee and Neji better than most.

She shook off the three sets of foreign eyes and focused on the path up ahead. Kakashi had entrusted her with keeping an eye on things.

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Sakura decided that it was her that had been the first to notice. At first, it was a simple flicker at the far end of the path, too far for normal people with normal vision to see. After a while, she confirmed the lack of movement and she could now see the dark chakra signatures plastered across the ground.

She labeled them as either creepy stalkers or enemy shinobi, though she leaned towards the latter.

After a while of traveling, she had decided that the two enemy shinobi were camouflaging themselves as a puddle, or some other water related thing. She recognized the way the chakra was flowing. Once she was sure any skilled shinobi (Like Ibiki) could sense them, she shifted her gaze from the chakra signature and towards the two Jounin, who looked as though nothing was wrong.

She would have been fooled into thinking so too, had she not seen the change in their chakra flows.

They were getting ready for a fight.

She turned back to her teammates. Naruto was in an argument with Lee, something about flowers and youth while Sasuke and Neji stood by their respective teammate, morally supporting through glares even as they outwardly berated them.

Sakura hummed thoughtfully and turned her focus back to the chakra signature laying in wait. She casually slipped her hand into her pockets and fiddled with the supplies Anko had shoved onto her the day before her departure. Three packs of explosive tags, a dozen bombs containing poison, half a dozen smoke bombs, three paint bombs and a keychain with 'Anko-sama' written on it.

'Safety measures' Anko had said.

Actually, the woman had wanted to give her a collar at first, but Ibiki had put his foot down there.

Sakura really did not understand why Ibiki had been so against it. Even she could clearly see the benefits of carrying these weapons, and she couldn't really see in the first place.

She weighed out her options. Should she blow the possible enemy shinobi into bits or should she wait for Kakashi and Gai to do whatever they were waiting to do?