Doing Right By Her Parents Pt 2, The Spar

So, I've kinda wanted to do something like this for a long time. Sakura's parents have a very unique place in this story but because of how technically early in the train of events we've been I haven't been able to show it at all. Arc 9 is where their eccentricities and complex backstories were really supposed to start being shown/hinted but I ended up never having the time to swap to them, which I'll be changing in the edits.

Nothing in this is actually that important, I can't really do anything/reveal anything with a side story that I won't eventually do in the story because most people don't read them and also that's just shitty writing. Still, it was fun, and hints - well to some extent outright says - some things in the future.

Thank you for your support.

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“Alright Sakura, take this seriously.” Her father stands across from her, holding up a single Kunai - dulled of course - and tossing it a few times in the air. He’s in his official war uniform, reminding her that this man has in fact seen battle and isn’t just her clumsy dad. That’s likely his intention, the outfit looks comfortable on him, like it’s a second skin. Black and sleek, with several badges sewn into its left breast side dignifying him for having fought in several great battles. To get one of those, hundreds of people had to die there on both sides. There’s one she doesn’t recognize, it looks like a curtain? Maybe a veil? An oddity given she’s seen her father wear this outfit many times, for there to be one he doesn’t normally wear would imply some significance… Maybe she’ll ask after, there’s bound to be some cool down talk after she knocks him around and shows the difference between an active Genin aided by the system and a more retired one that hasn’t done anything serious in over ten years.

They say aging is as inevitable as it is insidious, she’ll try not to hit him too hard. She readies herself, a wooden sword held in both hands. Her combat outfit has lots of chainmail, but is largely meant to be quiet and effective while protecting herself from accidentally stabbing herself again. One only does that once before they prepare against it.

“I am taking it seriously.” She huffs, holding her ground.

“No, you’re not, draw your sword.” He scolds her, and she looks down at her waist where Hunger rests.

“Err, no?” She raises a brow at him, “it wants to kill people. I don’t even want to hurt you.”

“You won’t prove anything to me with that mentality, my daughter lacks resolve, that’s what I’m hearing right now.” He scolds her harder, a wind blows through and blows her blonde hair around a little.

“Booo!” Naruto shouts from the side, drawing her eye to the party here. Her mother, Hanabi, Neji, Konohamaru, Naruto, Haku, her mother, even Tenten and Lee are there. Gai’s looking mighty impressive just standing there and Ino’s working with her mother to make on the spot refreshments.

Kakashi is here and henged into a dog with an eye-patch that Hanabi is petting because she doesn’t know. He’s shot her a few confused looks, but Sakura’s not going to save her sensei if Hanabi’s being cute, that’s just the tax, sometimes you have to pet the dog. Sasuke will probably save him if it gets too weird, he’s here too, his Sharingan is spinning rapidly as if he’s going to take in some great show he wants to remember and not like he’s about to watch her light heartedly spar with her father. Kakashi probably arrived like that for a bit of some sort and surprisingly has just enough social acuity to understand that Hanabi can never know so his bit is dead on arrival. She’s not entirely sure why or even how this became a spectacle but she’s half expecting someone to start collecting tickets..

The grass beneath her feet feels nice, but she doesn’t let herself get distracted. “Fine, but I’m not charging him with any blood.” She says, dropping the wooden sword and picking up her ‘son’. She holds him tightly, whispering to him under her breath. “If you hurt my father I’m sharpening you wrong on purpose.” She can almost hear a whimper from deep inside her mind.

“Ready?” Her father asks, looking mildly impatient. Their arena is rather big for this as with Kakashi’s permission they’re using team seven’s normal training ground. It’s honestly the only reason he was invited, as far as she’s concerned Gai’s a much better teacher and Kakashi can eat shit… They should have used Gai’s training ground, damn-it.

“As ready as I’ll ever be to use a legendary demon sword against my out of practice, clumsy father.” She rolls her eyes - and has to dodge to the side. She’s not sure when he moved, but her Genin Dexterity picked up on absolutely nothing. One moment he was in front of her, the next she’s barely dodging a kick at her face using the entirety of Genin Agility to slam herself into the ground. Rolling away takes quite a bit of effort too, using the full power of her skill to get away from the kick as it turns downwards and destroys the ground where she just was. A crater is left there, and for the first time in her life Sakura’s sure her father intended to hurt her there.

Jumping to her feet, she looks at him with new eyes, observant ones. He’s still tossing that dull Kunai up as she gets into a more real stance. He’s giving her a fatherly smile that makes her nervous now that she knows what can happen if she takes her gaze off of him for a split second. “Good reflexes, I’m sure you didn’t see that.”

“I’m missing the Sharingan, unfortunately.” She laughs a little but it comes out cracked and a little squeaky. What the hell was that?

“Do it again.” He says, and before she even sees him move she’s once again dodging to the side with enough speed and power behind it she trips over herself and rolls through the dirt. This time it was a punch that she dodged, one that even a second later still has a lingering heat wave floating in the air. Before she’s even at her feet she has to move away from another attack, but she doesn’t have the time so she falls into a guard and watches as her father punches the blade of a demonic sword like some kind of maniac. She doesn’t see his hand get cut, and the lack of Hunger kicking up implies no blood was spilt. What she does see is wind. She sees Hunger tremble in her grip, she feels the ground underneath her feet crack and give way until she starts to fall backwards.

She won’t be made a fool of, not when her father’s respect is on the line. She uses tree climbing to stick to the falling ground and uses earth Chakra to reinforce it and settle it back into place before she can totally fall over. She holds her ground while the very ground itself tries to crumble, but it’s expensive on her reserves. This one action uses up more of her energy than she expected this entire fight. Her father’s a Genin, right? A kick comes from the side before the force from his punch is even bled off, and she’s happy to note she’s swift in her side step. With her best efforts she’s fast enough to pull her sword down and reinforce herself against his kick. This time the guard angle isn’t nearly as sturdy, being a spur of the moment deflection, and she finds herself only able to stay upright as she’s sent back skidding through the dirt and tearing up grass with her feet. Dust is blown up blocking her vision, and she jumps back to get out of it and catch her breath.

“Taijutsu specialist then,” She gasps, “like Lee?” She’d never asked, and for that she feels like an idiot. There’s no sign of whatever footwork constantly has him falling over in his civilian life, he looks sturdy, skilled, like an expert in the Taijutsu field. She thought she was gaining on that skill from her spars with Lee but apparently a fully optimized Genin can make waves in their expertise.

“You shouldn’t categorize opponents.” Her father says, holding up the Kunai like he hasn’t been using his fist. “You might start ignoring the possibility of other skills if you do.” She’s out of breath just guarding, he looks like he just got out of bed fresh and with a good hair day. “I won’t be using any offensive Jutsu against you, but I promise I know them and assuming your enemy doesn’t know something could be how you die.”

“I hadn’t planned on doing that either so… hehe…” She’s glad they agree on that rule, there’s too much chance of accidentally hurting each-other with any offensive focused Jutsu, but she does catch the caveat. There are Jutsu that aren’t offensive but can still hurt, and she needs to watch out for those. Hunger lets out a small sound as his metal adjusts to the blows, which is crazier than the fight. She understands why he told her off about the wooden sword, it’d be shattered by now. She uses her chakra to reinforce Hunger a little, she doesn’t need him getting damaged just because her father’s trained like Lee.

“Oh no, you should definitely do that.” He says, “otherwise I’ll have to come get you out of the hospital later. Your mother would be very mad at me.” With that the Kunai in his hand begins to spin, but its after images stay. Ten, twelve, twenty? She has a hard time counting them, they're showing up so fast, but she’s glad she was trying because only her accidental hyperfocus on the phantom kunai allows her to react to them flying towards her like they’re right out of a barrel. Genin Dexterity doesn’t activate here either, only real skill allows her to deflect what Genin Agility doesn’t let her dodge out of the way of, and even then a simple look shows her that her anti-pain trait is hiding several slash wounds from her. He took that time to create the second set, and she doesn’t try this time knowing that her own reaction speed isn’t fast enough to prevent nick wounds. She slams her foot into the ground and channels as much of her Chakra as she can without wasting it to create a wall in front of her. A look back shows her mother’s done the same at some point, protecting those watching. Mebuki’s practiced enough that her wall has little reinforced glass peep holes for them.

It’s good to know she doesn’t have to worry about them. She centers herself and extends the wall, before beginning to run along it. Each step requires concentration, but not being on the ground has several advantages. One of which is that when her father suddenly appears before her in a spinning kick, she can intentionally fall and roll, dodging a kick that smashes the wall behind her. She slashes her sword and turns around to meet what she’s sure is his follow-up, only to miss completely and see absolutely nothing. She felt like he was right behind her but now he’s just a ghost, where did he go? She doesn’t have time to think about it, she activates Rollout just in time to feel it take a massive smack that dents the side. It makes sense he’d have multiple specialties, he’s a lot older than her, but is this really what peak genin looks like? The difference between the top and bottom is astronomical in both directions it seems, even within one bracket. Another smash almost breaks through, and she disables the side of her Jutsu so she can jump out mid-slash, this time going up through the crumbling earth Jutsu to intercept him since she knows for a fact he’s there this time.

He catches it with a palm and pushes it aside like Kakashi might - before she’s rolling across the ground because a kick hit her chest and unlike when she guarded with Hunger she cannot stand her ground against it.

He’s just strong enough to knock the wind out of her but not strong enough to seriously hurt her. It’s convenient, but she’s glad Genin Strength won’t be playing a part in this, it could hurt him if he was weak enough for its activation. She’s not sure what his foot hitting an immovable wall would look like but she imagines her mom would be mad at her.

She looks up to see he’s standing by her rock wall and doesn’t waste time. She was an idiot for looking down on him in any form. Her blade flashes out and suddenly Hunger’s coated in her blood. She won’t use any special abilities, not on her father, but the enhanced perception and strength it allows her through its mystical bullshit is needed if she’s not going to just embarrass herself.

It’s time to go on the offensive. She darts towards him while her hands rapidly shoot through hand seals, summoning two water clones to run with her. They move in tandem with her, racing towards him while going through their own set of seals. She waits just long enough for them to almost finish before she pushes her hand into the pouch at her side and throws a metal shuriken above his head.

She allows herself to smile a little when her plan works and they send an endless onslaught of Water Shuriken Jutsu at him just in time to disguise her own. The plan is that this should put him off balance while she does her best to close the distance. He throws a kunai at her, no doubt expecting his not totally crazy daughter to pause and deflect like he’s doing with the Water Shuriken. She doesn’t do that, she runs right through it, ducking just enough to where it only cuts her cheek so she can use the pain to activate substitution and replace herself with the only real object in the barrage, the one right above his head, sticking out of the rock wall she made earlier.

Now above him and falling, she uses gravity to her advantage and spins mid air, slamming her blade down like she’s using a giant mallet. She’s now confident he can dodge or guard enough to not be seriously injured if she does manage to catch him by surprise with her death sword, so there’s no reason to hold back besides intentionally not going for his head or neck.

What she doesn’t expect is for the full force of her blood coated weapon of mass destruction to get caught in the air right above his head, both his hands clapping together over it. Despite all her strength she doesn’t see the ground move or his stance waver. She sees a wide grin on her father’s face, he’s impressed with her, but not enough to give her the win. He twists his arms fast enough she finds herself spinning rapidly in the air like a top. How he keeps up with it without losing his grip alludes her, but she does have a trick for this. She’s been training with Hunger, and he reacts well to fire, so she coats her sword in flame in an instant. The Haruno’s natural water alignment works well against fire, but for that very reason coating himself in flame resistance is likely impossible.

Just like she hopes he lets go and jumps back, allowing her the moment of freedom to turn just enough to stab downwards and catch into the dirt. Caught by her own momentum, she lets go only to land on her feet dizzy and confused a second later. Still wreathed in flame and blood, she grabs her weapon from the ground and darts forward with the full force of Genin Agility before he can properly recover from the sudden surprise of burning his hands.

Her feet dart towards him and the only thing he can do in response is throw a set of kunai at her, they fly so wide it almost feels intentional but she doesn’t have any time to think about it even as they fly over her shoulder. She has just enough presence of mind to pull her attack a little to not rip her father in half, but she needn’t worry. He’s not there anymore.

Before her attack has even followed through, she finds there’s a kunai pressed against her throat from behind. An arm wraps around her, and holds her close. “You’ve impressed me, that’s enough.”

“But I lost.” She points out, leaning against the kunai blade and smiling when he instinctively pulls it back. He’s better at this than she is. She has to blink her eyes a few times to see his face, he looks very happy with her. A little solemn too, like he’s thinking of something from long ago.

“You were never winning the spar. Your goal was to impress me, that’s it.” He laughs lightheartedly as he squeezes her, and she closes her eyes and enjoys the moment of praise and hug. It’s nice to come down from an intense fight with a reminder that you’re loved.

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Neji stands agape. His Byakugan eyes missed neither a single moment of that fight nor the absurdity of its ending. That kunai thrown behind her at the last moment isn’t a generic one you could possibly get from the store, or even one of the specialty Kunai Tenten makes for him and herself sometimes. He recognized it instantly, even if most would have missed it. The kunai has three prongs instead of one, and has a loaded base to hold a roll of seals. As far as he knows there’s only supposed to be five or six of them still in existence.

He’s only seen two of them before, his father and uncle were each given one before he was even born, they were used for the fourth Hokage to get to their side in emergencies. As far as the village goes they’re prized beyond any amount of money. Someone gave it to him and he thought it precious enough to keep close by for all these years.

He looks satisfied, like he didn’t just do something absurd. This isn’t a man who’s uncomfortable holding such a precious relic, he’s even holding it against his daughter’s neck. Even Hiashi holds his with awe and reverence but a Genin is treating it like any other kunai. The only sign he even has that he finds the blade significant is that Neji’s Byakugan eye can see protectiveness in his grip on it, he holds it with the same emotive body language he uses to hold Sakura. That might just be because he’s holding Sakura, humans often let their emotions bleed elsewhere.

While what Kizashi did was definitely just a substitution into a body flicker to get into position behind her, it happened so fast he had to take a second to make sure he didn’t just see the Hiraishin. Far more important than the technique though, is the significance of bringing out kunai for this. Maybe he was friends with the late fourth, sure, but why show it off here? It’s a signal of some sort, some kind of coded message, but he couldn’t tell who it was for. Kakashi maybe? A look down at the man shows that Kakashi does seem more serious than normal, which is hard to pull off when he’s being petted by a little girl.

Sakura’s right, her father’s someone he should respect, she’s just wrong about why. He’s always found it weird they were so willing to just accept Naruto into their household. Every Hyuuga knows about his burden, otherwise there’d be an incident anytime someone used the Byakugan around him and started screaming, so them just scooping him up the moment he graduated felt very weird for a small ninja family. That the Hokage let it happen was also pretty weird, he’d long stood in the way of any clans taking him. Theories say that the Hokage knew about Sakura’s abilities long before he released the pamphlets and he thought she would be good for him or something else dubious, the ‘why’ is where the rumors get fuzzy.

But they also let a foreign Jonin with a history of assassination make their food, which is the craziest thing he’s ever heard and until literally just this moment he thought they were all insane.

Now he understands, they’re not afraid of Haku because there’s no danger. He wouldn’t be surprised if Naruto moving in was some kind of play from the Hokage to get him into trusted hands, and Haku’s not a threat in the least. Kizashi is not a Genin, not even close. Every single movement here was held back to such a ridiculous extent it looked like the teachers intentionally exaggerating their movements around their five year old students to not spook them, and even then none of that was Genin level.

Something’s up with this family, and it’s not just Sakura. A look to the side reveals Mebuki is sweetly smiling at him, hands held together in front of her hips and a tilted head telling him everything he needs to know. It’s not just Kizashi or Sakura, she’s telling him to keep quiet and keep up the charade. He has so many questions, but he’s sure not a single one is going to be answered anytime soon. There’s no threat there, just an implicit understanding that she would appreciate it if he kept his mouth shut.

So he will. He’s not busting what’s likely an Anbu operation and he kind of likes this family so when he’s inevitably interrogated by Hiashi about his findings while staying here ‘Kizashi is a normal run of the mill eternal Genin’ will be what he says.