Chapter 23: Enhanced Strength, One Hundred Percent
"Whoaaa, this fish is HUGE!"
"Thanks to Sakura! I never would've reeled it in by myself!"
In a small clearing in the woods, Naruto stared down at the fish currently roasting on a spit over their campfire — a fish that was, no exaggeration, bigger than he was, currently staring back at the world with a pair of glassy white eyes — and started to actively drool.
"Uh. Heh. Yeah..."
Sakura sat off to one side, propping her cheek on one hand, looking at the giant fish with absolutely no expression.
She'd fished all afternoon. All. Afternoon. And caught zero fish.
Naruto, on the other hand, had dropped a hook in the water and instantly hooked a monster. If Sakura hadn't punched the thing unconscious on principle, the fish probably would've dragged Naruto into the lake instead of the other way around.
And then, like the universe was trolling her personally, fish after fish had come lining up to chomp on Naruto's hook. Her line was right there next to his. They were both using the same earthworms as bait.
What the hell was she, the patron saint of empty buckets?!
In the end, the first fish was so absurdly big that even the two of them combined couldn't possibly eat it all, so Naruto had thrown the rest back.
The sky was darkening into evening. The only real light now came from the flickering tongues of the campfire.
"Hehe, Sakura, looks like it's ready!"
Naruto these days actually had a half-decent eye for cooking, and could tell at a glance when meat was done. He carved off a clean chunk, skewered it on a freshly washed twig, and held it out to her with the eagerness of a puppy presenting its owner with a stick.
"Thanks."
Sakura didn't bother with formalities. She thanked him and took it.
Not much flavor. Just a faint saltiness and the smell of cooked fish.
But compared to that Tenrafu horror show from before? This was a quantum leap.
"Not bad. Your cooking's improving fast."
She tossed Naruto a compliment.
"Heh heh heh — of course it is! I've been studying that recipe book Sakura gave me REALLY hard, y'know!"
Naruto sprang to his feet, hands on his hips, beaming with pride.
"Mm-hmm. Naruto's the best."
Sakura chewed her piece of fish, complimenting him on autopilot.
"Right?? RIGHT??"
"I'm super amazing too, you know! And not just at cooking — one of these days I'm gonna beat that smug bastard Sasuke into the ground!"
That single offhand "best" had hit Naruto like a shot of pure adrenaline. He was suddenly vibrating with energy.
"Naruto, if you don't eat soon, the fish is gonna burn~"
Word that Sakura Haruno had been taken on as Hiruzen's final disciple spread through Konoha like wildfire.
Her name surged into the awareness of every shinobi in the village.
Sakura Haruno. Eight years old. Entered the academy at six. Graduated at eight. Taken on as the closing-gate disciple of the Third Hokage on the very day she graduated.
The same Third Hokage who had once trained the legendary Sannin had taken on a new apprentice — for the first time in decades.
A perfectly ordinary little girl from a civilian family. A girl who had somehow caught the eye of the Hokage himself.
Plenty of people in the village suddenly had a lot of new thoughts running through their heads.
"BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
"I told you! I TOLD YOU my Sakura was the greatest!!!"
"Becoming Lord Hokage's actual disciple! This is just—!"
It was lunchtime. Kizashi Haruno, for once, was actually home in the middle of the day, and the family of three was eating together.
"It's like the ancestors set our family graveyard on fire to bless us, that's what this is."
Mebuki rapped her husband on the head, cutting off the increasingly unhinged laughter. Then she turned to her quietly eating daughter and her tone softened.
"Sakura. Work hard. Don't disappoint Lord Hokage."
"Mm-hmm, Mebuki's right! Although, I mean — this is Sakura we're talking about! She's gonna shock the hell out of every single person in this village!"
Kizashi nodded along enthusiastically, his starfish-shaped hair bouncing with him.
"I'm full." Sakura set down her bowl and chopsticks and gave her parents a small wave as she got ready to leave. "Oh — Dad. Try to keep a low profile at work, okay?"
Watching their daughter walk out the door, Kizashi and Mebuki exchanged a look.
"I dunno, honey... Sakura doesn't really seem all that happy about it, does she?"
"You think everyone's like you? Acting like an idiot from sunup to sundown? I genuinely have no idea what I saw in you back then."
"Huh? Wasn't you the one who chased me?"
"Shut up!"
Mebuki, blushing furiously, clamped her hand over her husband's mouth.
Hokage's Office
"Hiruzen. Why didn't you discuss this with us first?"
"Yes, Hiruzen. Koharu's right. At your age, taking on a new disciple? Are you even going to have the time?"
"If you ask me, if you really thought the girl had potential, you could've just had Kakashi train her."
"Exactly, Hiruzen. Koharu's making perfect sense."
"And another thing—"
Sakura, who had been about to push the door open, paused outside as the muttering of two old voices drifted out into the hallway.
"That's Sakura, isn't it? Come in."
Hiruzen's voice cut clean through the conversation, and the unpleasant chatter inside abruptly died.
"Master."
Sakura glanced at the two eyesores in the office without giving them so much as a flicker of concern.
She just chirped that one word — Master — and watched their faces tighten.
"Good girl. Come on. Let's the two of us take a walk, and I'll quiz you on your studies along the way."
Hiruzen looked down with deep satisfaction at the doll-still little girl in front of him, chuckled softly, reached over to pat her head, and walked her right out of the office under the noses of his two old colleagues.
As master and disciple disappeared down the hallway, Koharu Utatane turned to her colleague.
"Hiruzen, taking on a disciple at his age. You don't suppose he's trying to build himself a new power base, do you?"
Homura Mitokado let out a long, weary sigh.
"I keep telling you. Hiruzen is not Danzō."
He paused.
"And next time you want to do something like this, you go in there yourself. I'm too old to embarrass myself like this again."
He swept out of the office with a flick of his sleeve.
"Hey?! You said you'd back me up! You old—!"
Konoha Training Ground Three
"Sakura. Are you feeling the pressure?"
Hiruzen looked down at the small girl in front of him, his voice gentle.
"Not at all. Other people's mouths are attached to other people's faces. It's not like I can just sew them shut for them, can I?"
The words were perfectly reasonable.
The look on Sakura's face, however, gave Hiruzen the very distinct impression that she would, in fact, do exactly that if given the chance.
"Ah. Heh. Just a joke, of course. Nothing to take seriously."
He smoothed it over and moved on.
Now that he had taken this child as his disciple, Hiruzen had no intention of wasting time. He would carve the hours out of his already impossible schedule if that was what it took to teach her properly.
"Sakura. Show me how far you've come with your Enhanced Strength."
His tone was warm and genuinely curious. He was looking forward to this.
Sakura glanced around the training ground. Empty. Nothing in particular she could hit. She turned back to Hiruzen, hesitating slightly.
"...At full power?"
"Full power."
His answer was immediate.
That was all the permission she needed. Sakura's gaze sharpened, and even her soft eyebrows took on a faintly dangerous slant.
She clenched her small pink fist. The look in her eyes made something in the back of Hiruzen's mind go very still.
Wait. She wouldn't actually—
Serious Punch — Enhanced Strength: One Hundred Percent!
Target: the master she had taken on yesterday.