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The world was at a standstill.
Everything had come to a sudden stop when the paper Sakura held between her fingers began to crumble away, providing her with an answer to a question she had never bothered to ask herself before.
“Oh,” the Hound’s voice cracked with excitement that Sakura had never heard before, but even that couldn’t convince her to drag her eyes away from the spot where that tiny piece of paper had been sitting just mere seconds ago.
Earth-style.
For the first time, Sakura understood how Naruto had felt when he first found out that his chakra nature was wind. She’d been jealous when he first started talking to her about it. Upset that Rin-Sensei had taught Naruto something that she hadn’t taught Sakura yet, but now she could see why Naruto wouldn’t shut up about it to her.
It was exciting.
There was a whole world of possibilities opening up in front of her because of this one little test, and she couldn’t wait to see where it took her. What kind of Jutsu’s would she learn?
Most of all, Sakura was excited that this was something of her very own. Something she didn’t share with Sasuke or Naruto. A skill that could help her stand out among her old teammates.
Excitement coursed through her veins. There was so much she wanted to learn. Things she needed to understand, and Jutsu’s she had to perfect. When she returned to Konoha she wanted to be able to show Naruto and Rin-Sensei that she had grown as a shinobi.
“So,” she lifted her eyes away from her empty hand and smiled at the man who had agreed to be her new Sensei. “What’s the next step? Do you have a jutsu scroll or do we need to find one?” It had only been a month since she’d left Konoha to continue her training, but it didn’t take a genius to know how thighs worked in this scenario. There was a good number of scrolls that she had seen Hound-Sensei steal from Shinobi that they’d happened to cross paths with. None of them stayed with him for more than a week, just long enough for him to learn as many Jutsu’s as he wanted from the scroll, but they all served a purpose.
“A Scroll?” he stared at her with his one visible black eyes, his confusion evident in the way his eyebrows pinched downwards. Sakura couldn’t see the man’s face, but it wasn’t necessary for her to tell what emotions he was experiencing. His eyes told her everything she needed to know. “Well, I guess we could find one. There always seems to be an Iwagakure shinobi somewhere nearby.”
A statement which she found herself agreeing with. Out of the last ten shinobi they had run into, six of them had been from Iwagakure. An impressive number considering that they were still within the borders of the Land of Fire.
“Ah,” shaking his head, he closed his eyes in an expression that Sakura had come to understand as a smile. At least, it was as close to a smile as she could understand without actually seeing the face that was hidden behind his mask. “Perhaps later. There’s always more Jutsu to learn after all, and I do like borrowing scrolls when I can.”
“Stealing.” she corrected him as her eyes rolled up toward the sky.
Her Sensei shook his head. “It’s not stealing,” he argued. “I always make sure to return them when I’m done.”
“That’s because you can’t keep them,” she shot back. “If you had access to a library you’d have a whole section dedicated to stolen jutsu scrolls.” An image popped up in her head at that moment. A giant building with the words ‘Hound’s Library’ written in big letters in the front and a sign on the door that said ‘everyone welcome’. Inside there were rows of scrolls organized by Chakra nature and land of origine. There was even a section of books organized by genre, with the romance and history sections being twice as large as any other section.
It was twice the size of the tiny library in Konoha, with a much larger variety of content to choose from. Though, she wasn’t surprised by that fact. Even if it was just a figment of her imagination, Sakura knew that Hound-Sensei would make every book and scroll he could get his hands on available to everyone.
Even though she still didn’t know a lot about her new Sensei, she knew without a doubt that he valued access to knowledge. It was obvious not just because of his joy of stealing scrolls and books from passing shinobi, but in the way he handed them out as well. There was never a book that he kept to himself or a scroll that he refused to share. Just last week Sakura had watched him offer up a scroll of Fire-jutsu’s to a scared Chunin from Suna who was certain she was about to be murdered by the rogue shinobi after he’d beaten her in a quick fight.
No one expected him to do such a thing. In fact, most people would probably think he’d lost his mind, offering knowledge to someone who could be considered an enemy. When Sakura had asked him about it he had simply shrugged his shoulders and said something that she was certain she would never forget.
‘Everyone has the right to learn. Even my enemies '
“Sakura?” his voice called out to her followed by a rough tap of his fingers against the side of her head. “You still with me?”
Shoving all thoughts of scrolls and her weird but kind Sensei into the back of her mind, Sakura stared up at him with bright green eyes full of excitement. “Well, if you’re not going to give me a jutsu scroll,” the words burned on her tongue. She’d gone and gotten herself overly excited to get her hands on a jutsu scroll of her own and now she couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed knowing she would have to wait. “Then what? Do you know any Earth-style jutsu’s?”
She wanted to learn.
To improve her arsenal.
“Do I-” Hound-Sensei stared at her as if she’d just said the dumbest thing he had ever heard. His eyes squinted with confusion for a second before narrowing into a look that she had come to understand as annoyance.
A look which she had only seen him give to one person before today, and which had been completely warranted in that situation.
Now, though, she was faced with the same expression and it was downright insulting. Her question wasn’t stupid.
“You’re a lightning user,” she grumbled out a reminder. “You have your lightning clones and a variety of lighting style jutsu's that you’re always using. You even have that Chidori that Sasuke used,” though she’d never gotten confirmation that it was the Hound who’d taught the move to Sasuke, something told her that she was right. “How am I supposed to know if you know any Earth-style jutsu to teach me when all I ever see you use is lightning style?”
It was a bit of a lie. She had seen him use a select few water-style jutsu, a collection of fire-style, exactly one wind-style, and a minimum of three earth-style jutsu's. That wasn’t enough though. Sakura was smart. She knew if she applied herself she’d be able to master those three jutsu’s in no time and then she’d be stuck with nothing new to learn until her Sensei got off of his butt and stole another jutsu scroll for her.
She didn’t want to have to wait to continue training. Having the scroll on hand was much easier and would ensure that her time would be occupied with learning for a good long while.
“You-you’re joking, right?” his shoulder’s dropped. “Why did I agree to train you again? You’re rude.”
“If you didn’t train me then no one would, and then you’d feel bad,” Sakura answered without a moment’s hesitation, though she had no idea if he would actually feel bad for her. He had no obligation to her. If anything, he was extending kindness by taking her on as a student and she was repaying him with bullying.
Something that she would never apologize to him for. The man seemed like he’d never been bullied in his life and Sakura was here to fix that while he taught her a variety of skills to help her become a stronger shinobi.
Skills that would hopefully include Earth-style jutsu next.
“You’re the worst,” he sighed. “How Rin puts up with you alongside the other two is beyond me. Then of course…” His words trailed off, but Sakura could sense that there was something important he was refusing to say.
Something she was interested in hearing.
“Anyways,” he waved a hand in front of his face, dismissing his thoughts and any questions Sakura may have tried to ask him. “Let’s start with a simple mud-wall jutsu, why don’t we.”
A mud-wall jutsu. Sakura had read about those and even seen the Hound create one to protect himself from an enemy's attack once. Though, his mud-wall jutsu looked a little different than the ones she’d read about in the academy. His came with carvings of dogs on the front, facing the enemy. A sort of signature that set his jutsu apart from the basic mud-wall jutsu.
She wondered if he’d tell her about it while he was teaching it to her, or if she’d have the same carvings when she succeeded in learning the jutsu.
There was only one way to find out.
“Cha!” Closing her left hand into a fist, she slammed it against her right palm. “Let’s get started then, Sensei!”
His eyes seemed to light up behind his mask with an excitement Sakura had seen only once before, and for the first time since the chakra paper had crumbled into pieces between her fingers, she was scared. Memories of her first few training sessions with Hound-sensei flashed in her mind, and her body was already beginning to ache at the reminder of the intense pressure she’d put it under just to keep up with his training regime.
Perhaps bullying him hadn’t been the best idea.