empathy (rewritten 2019)

chapter nine

"So? I guess you got a good team?" Keiko asked when Sakura practically skipped out of the Academy, a pleasant smile on her face. After the final exam, the students who'd passed were now to be sorted into genin teams.

"You guessed right!" Sakura jumped. "I got Sasuke! Take that Ino!" And then Sakura looked at Keiko's expectant gaze, and continued, "Well--I know you told me about how Sasuke shouldn't be a big priority for me, but, it's just, I worked hard and trained with you to become a genin. And Sasuke's just a little prize."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Your lessons really helped; I think it's all paying off now." Sakura said as they walked on the sidewalk.

"Yeah, you can think that before the Hokage just sends you on D-rank missions that are just the same things over and over--especially those cat missions," Keiko scoffed, remembering her own team's experience. She remembered how their team learned most of their collaborative and tactical skill as a team on those cat-catching missions. "Anyways, who else is on your team?"

Sakura shrugged. "Well, there's Naruto, and then our mentor, Kakashi Hatake, I think."

Keiko raised an eyebrow. "Really? The Sharingan Kakashi? He's been a jounin for, what, two decades? I guess the Hokage demoted him to a teacher." Or maybe because of that Naruto kid. "And Naruto, you said?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Yeah, he's pretty annoying, and he's not so good at any jutsu. I can't even believe how he passed that exam."

"Hey, don't be so rude," Keiko nudged her and stared hard at Sakura's confused gaze. "You know, you don't have to bash on him all the time because everyone's parents don't like him. He's a lonely kid."

"Well I didn't like him because he always tries to ask me out and stuff," Sakura crossed her arms. "And why would I wanna be with a guy who fails every test and was held back, when I already have Sasuke?"

"Don't compare them," Keiko halted in the street, crossing her own arms to match. "He may be a dead-last in the Academy but you're a team now. You can't succeed if you're always putting him down. Give him a chance, be his friend, and you know what--he might just be a good friend."

Sakura stood, arms crossed, hesitant. Keiko continued, "Well, when you were all alone because the girls picked on you, you needed a friend too, didn't you? What's so different about him?"

And then Sakura faltered. For a second, she considered it, before sighing. "Okay, fine, I'll be nicer. But if he pulls anything, I won't hesitate."

...---...

After the stressful test Kakashi pulled on his genin, the training began. Every so often, they'd be assigned whatever D-Rank mission was available, and between those missions Kakashi would hold daily training hours early in the morning.

And then Kakashi noticed a pattern every week. Sakura had these pads wrapped around her arms, her legs and torso. He never paid any mind to it, but at the beginning of the week, Sakura ran slow and worked slow, as if something was weighing her down. By the end of the week she'd be back at her top speed, but it compelled him.

After a mission of pulling weeds, the genin were carrying bags and bags of weeds and litter cleaned from the streets. Sakura was faring well with two garbage bags, and it was then that Kakashi noticed the pads around her legs were now a bit thicker.

After dumping the weeds in the waste, he asked her, "Sakura, where'd you get those weights?"

She shrugged and dusted herself off. "Well, I've been training with a friend of mine, and she offered me these."

And in the waiting room as the team waited to deliver their report, he caught her reading the latest copy of the Bingo Book. "I assume your friend gave you that book too?"

She nodded. "Yep."

"Mind telling me her name?"

She flipped a page. "Keiko. She's new here."

After the mission report, Sakura left Kakashi wondering who the hell is Keiko? as she went to her and Keiko's training ground by the stream.

"Hey, how was your mission?" Keiko asked as she raised herself into an arm stand, with her forearms keeping her up. As she kept the pose she read a large textbook from the archive.

"Ugh, boring. I don't know why I do all this training if all we do is pick weeds!" Sakura complained.

"You might not need it now, but once the Hokage deems you guys enough for C-Rank and, well, maybe even B-Rank, you're gonna need it," Keiko said, lifting one arm to flip the page. "And the Chunin Exams are coming up. Don't you wanna be prepared, in case your sensei enrolls you in?"

"That's too early for us. We barely spent a month as a team," Sakura said, setting herself before the kunai target. "He'll probably wait for the next one."

"Trust me, he won't," Keiko said, settling on her feet. She set the book on the table and walked towards the river. "Kakashi is a lazy teacher, but he's smart. Any chance he gets, he'll send you off so he can be rid of you three quicker. I bet in three months, he'll just show up, hand you the Chunin Exam slips and tell you to sign it and say, begone little piggies!"

Sakura considered it. In the Academy she heard the Chunin Exams were lethal. It tested your sanity, patience and skills as a whole and as an individual at the same time. "Hey, you've been throwing those kunais long enough," Keiko said. "Look in my bag--there's a bag of sebon needles."

The pinkette walked over and found the bag, shrugging at the thin needles. After ten tries she missed the target entirely; the needle landing much lower than her aim. "What's the point of these things? They're so hard to throw."

"Well, on assassin missions, some shinobi coat those in a special poison or drug to incapacitate their target," Keiko said before throwing her hand in the water and jerking it out. "It's the most silent and stealthy way to apprehend someone. You'll get the hang out it, and when you do, I'll show you where to hit on a person."

Sakura hummed and kept throwing. Daintily, she flicked her wrist and gradually got the needle to land higher than the target. Keiko walked to the bench with a dead fish in hand. She flipped to another page in the book and set the fish on a cloth that was on the table.

"What're you doing now?"

Keiko set her hands above the fish, focusing hard. "I'm learning medical ninjutsu. I've been doing it for the past week," she said. "My sensei enrolled us in the Chunin Exams, so I wanna learn the basics in case my team gets hurt."

As time passed, Sakura's arms grew tired and so she plucked the needles off the target board. Walking back with the bag in hand, she noticed that the longer Keiko stood there and focused, the more times there came a flickering green surrounding her hands.

"Woah," Sakura whispered. Keiko closed her eyes, breathed hard, and eased her shoulders. The green overcame her fingers again, this time brighter, and the fish flopped to life before momentarily returning to its empty state. Keiko cursed and grabbed a rag, wiping the sweat from her face. She returned to her eased position again, and her hands flickered like fireflies, and the fish flopped once more.

Keiko gasped and laughed and, holding the fish, ran to the stream to dump it back in the water. The sun was near its brink now, so the two of them packed up and walked back.

"Man, I can't believe I did that," Keiko said, smiling hard. "Now we might actually pass."

Sakura's eyes latched on the book the older nin carried. "You learned it from that?"

"Yeah, but I'm not gonna learn all of it," Keiko said. "Being a Medical Nin is hard, you have to memorize all these terms and have the utmost control of your chakra. It's not really my style."

And then she looked at Sakura. "Might be yours, though."