sunshineverse | (no subject)

Who: Sakura & OPEN
When: April 15th
Where: Konoha training fields
Notes: Sakura gets some training in before her mission. Also genjutsu training with Shisui before his upcoming mission.

She'd had a headache off and on this week, and it was either from a lack of sleep or thinking about the part where she fell into a different country in front of that country's self-proclaimed god. On the chance that it was the latter, Sakura had decided to throw herself into training and work for a while until her anxiety over her future as a shinobi quelled.

Despite what it may look like to some villagers, her training did not exclusively involve jumping across rooftops. She was a Chuunin, not a fresh graduate. She spent quite a bit of time also training jutsu, refining technique, and...catching up. She still felt like she was catching up to all the others who were raised with family and clan techniques and practiced favored jutsus while they learned to read.

Shisui had told her to meet him here for genjutsu practice (wide open fields were apparently great for secret genjutsu training), but she'd decided to practice earth jutsu as well before then. It kept her mind clear of worries, warmed her up, and gave her an excuse to be out on the field.

She flourished the blade in her hand and stabbed it into the ground, sending a surge of chakra through it and into the grass. The ground cracked and then peeled away in a jagged line leading away from her. Three, four...five feet long, three wide. The depth varied somewhat depending on the substance of the earth, but...she squinted down at it. Seven? About seven feet.

She could do better. That technique needed work.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Wasn't he one of the clan heirs? Shino and Kiba usually kept busy more than she did, and that had to do with their clans and positions in them. With a clan like the Uchiha, there should have been much more.

She watched him with that same bland expression as he walked, keeping her thoughts carefully concealed. It wouldn't be the first time that she'd trained with an Uchiha...and assuming it didn't get her into more trouble, it would help conceal her training with Shisui if she did. Still...training with Sasuke Uchiha...didn't seem like her place. She was only a regular Chuunin, after all.

Yet, an Uchiha would presumably be one of the best training partners for dealing with chakra manipulation of this nature, and she wasn't likely to get an offer from any other Uchiha. Shisui himself was too busy to split their training time into anything but what they already had.

She settled a hand on her hip. "It doesn't matter to me. If you think it's worth your time, then we can practice it together. It'll take less time that way."

Edited 2014-07-05 13:49 (UTC)

... was that a yes or a no? Sasuke gave her a hard stare, trying to work out if this was something where he was supposed to start applying the rules of clan politics and assume all answers came with several layers of hidden meanings. Unfortunately, there were no context clues from what he knew of Sakura to provide a suggestion as to what might be her actual intent, and a total lack of either Itachi or Mikoto to whom to deflect anything truly confusing.

After a long frown, he finally spoke again, deciding it was on her own head if she couldn't give a straight no to a simple request and wound up wasting her time.

"Very well. What time do you usually train?"

Why did it have to be a yes or a no? She agreed, didn't she? Expecting more than agreement out of her was a little strange to do, wasn't it?

To his frown though, all he got was a patient, blank look, waiting for his response. Whether he was trying to decide if it actually was worth his time, or whether she was supposed to find a way to back out of it and she just didn't understand the language of Uchiha (who weren't Shisui), she couldn't actually tell.

In the end, it probably didn't matter. It wasn't like they knew each other well enough for it to mean very much if she offended him, given he wasn't known for being particularly vindictive (she certainly had heard nothing of that nature). If he didn't want to train with her, he could just not show up. Which she expected would be the case anyway, even if he was feeling generous enough with his time to offer sincerely at the moment.

The answer to his question was some shade of 'most of the time', but...really, she didn't need a partner for most of her training (she didn't need a partner for any of it short of genjutsu, actually, but...that wasn't the point). "I can be here early afternoon most days."

Sasuke was genuinely trying to work out whether Sakura was being polite to a fault or merely passive-aggressive. He'd been interested in her jutsu -- was still interested in it, and its potential applications if she could perfect it -- but he had neither patience nor training to deal with trying to decipher hidden layers of meaning in simple sentences. That had always been Itachi's fate and not his.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then," he said finally, unknowingly drawing the same conclusion she had: if Sakura didn't actually mean to train with him, she would probably just not turn up at the appointed time. That would at least be a clear enough answer, however inefficient it might be.

If he was trying to dig several layers under her simple sentences, she couldn't help that. She wasn't raised in a big clan with all of its politics and double-dealing, so how could she know if she were giving off indications that in an Uchiha would mean something else? That was unreasonable of him to apply to her.

She gave him a short nod. "Very well then." She'd probably just train whether he was there or not, given 'early afternoon' was a wide enough term that even if he did choose to arrive, she'd have no idea when he'd choose to arrive for it. And training anyway would prevent her from wasting time if he didn't.