Touch - Chapter 12
What do they do?
I don’t know.
You don’t? It was a novel idea that Rokudaime might not know something.
I don’t know everything, Rokudaime huffed.
But you know sealing. You were telling me about it yesterday.
I know a lot about medical fuinjutsu and summoning fuinjutsu. I was famous for knowing a lot about both. But most of Konohagakure’s other branches of fuinjutsu died with Jiraya-sama.
Sakura blinked. Unsure of what her response should be, she settled on, Oh.
Rokudaime snorted. Yes. Oh.
How do we get around it?
I don’t know. We need to find a book on sealing.
So… The library?
Maybe. Whoever put this up might have a book on sealing in their desk.
There were no books on fuinjutsu in the school library. She was in the middle of searching Kikyo-sensei’s desk when she was discovered, told off, and dragged back to Iruka-sensei’s classroom to suffer through another boring lesson on another boring thing that she already knew.
Sakura also had detention that afternoon.
At the end of the school day, Sakura rushed into Kikyo-sensei’s classroom with all of the other naughty students.
Standing at the front of the room were two teachers: Kikyo-sensei and Iruka-sensei.
Uh oh.
Iruka-sensei was watching the classroom’s entrance with hard eyes. When his eyes met hers, he crooked his first finger at her.
Sakura sighed. Her shoulders slumped. She shuffled to the front of the classroom on reluctant feet. He led her out of detention and into their empty classroom.
“Haruno.”
“Yes, Iruka-sensei?”
“I’ve tried to be patient, but you can’t keep skipping class.” He crossed his arms over his chest, took a firm stance and glared down at her. Normally it was very scary. But his hair was a mess and his eyes were tired and his shoulders were ever so slightly slumped. Iruka looked more like Kakashi than the strict teacher that yelled at her several times a week. “You’ve made it painfully clear that you have no intention of becoming a ninja but -”
“What? No! I’m gonna be the best kunoichi ever!”
Iruka actually blinked. For a moment, his face was slack with surprise.
“To be a good ninja, you’d have to come to class.”
“But class is so boring!” Sakura blurted. Her face went hot and she looked down at her shuffling feet. “Sorry, sensei.”
She imagined that she could actually feel Iruka’s glare burning the hair off of the top of her head.
“Regardless of what you think of your classes - or my teaching methods - you need to learn the information. There’s more to being a kunoichi than being able to throw kunai or do taijutsu.”
Sakura shuffled her feet and mumbled.
“Speak up!”
“I already know that stuff!” she yelped.
“Stuff? What stuff?”
Sakura dug the toes of one of her sandal into the tiled floor.
“That stuff you talk about in class. I can do that already.”
There were several tense moments of silence then Iruka sighed.
“Let’s see what you know. C’mon.”
He led her around the school, collecting papers from other teachers, and then back to their classroom.
“Do your best,” Iruka said as he put the stack in front of her.
Sakura worked on the pile of worksheets while Iruka graded the tests that they had taken that afternoon and a pop quiz from the morning that Sakura had missed.
The work was interesting and, in places, challenging but Sakura was mostly certain that she had gotten them right when she turned them into Iruka at the end of her detention.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Iruka-sensei!”
Sakura skipped school the next day. She did attend her detention, however.
Once again, her teacher was waiting for her. Once again he crooked his fingers and took her out of the dentention classroom.
“I was wondering if you knew how to use chakra,” Iruka said as soon as they were in their own classroom again.
Sakura shrugged. “Sure.”
His eyebrows jumped. “What can you do?”
“I can sneak and walk on walls and roofs and stuff and hide my chakra and fix my skin when I scrape it, even if it’s bleeding.”
Iruka’s eyes were wide but all he said was, “Can you show me?”
So Sakura showed him everything that she could do. She even fixed a half healed scrape on Iruka’s side.
“Where did you learn this?” he asked when Sakura finished.
“I learned to walk up things at Ino’s house. And I learned sneaking and hiding at school. And I practice everything at my house but in my room ‘cause ninja stuff makes my Mama sad.”
“What about Kakashi-san?” Iruka asked carefully. “He came here yesterday, you see, and I had the impression that you spend a lot of time with him.”
“Kakashi-kun?” Sakura beamed. “I can find him. I look for him until I feel his chakra and I follow that.”
“Can you usually tell chakra signatures apart? I mean, when you’re sneaking out can you tell the difference between my chakra and Kikyo-sensei’s chakra? Or between anyone else?”
Sakura shook her head. “I just know there’s chakra. Kakashi-kun’s special ‘cause I know what his chakra feels like just like I know what my chakra feels like.”
Her teacher’s eyes narrowed. “How come you know Kakashi-san’s chakra so well?”
“’Cause he does chakra in front of me all the time!”
Iruka nodded once, sharply. But his eyes were distant like he was thinking hard and not listening to Sakura at all.
“Does Kakashi-san teach you things?”
“Nope. He just glares a lot and slows down so that I can keep up.”
“So who taught you to do that stuff?”
Sakura shrugged, feeling uncomfortable for the first time. “It’s not hard.”
“Haruno Sakura.”
She went back to digging the toe of her sandal into the tile. “I practice a lot.”
“With whom?”
“With me.”
Iruka sighed. When Sakura glanced up, his eyes were closed and he was pinching the bridge of his nose. Her mama did that when she was getting a headache.
“What do you do when you skip classes?”
“Oh!” Sakura exclaimed, glad that she could say something that he would like. Probably. I mean, he’s my teacher so he’s probably worried that I’m not studying enough outside of school. Maybe he’ll be happy when he hears what I do? “Every morning I eat breakfast at my house or at the dead people rock.”
“The Memorial Stone?”
“Yeah!”
He squinted at her. “Why?”
“So I can talk to the dead people. Then I do my morning work.”
He shook his head. “What do you do for morning work?”
“I do medical jutsu and chakra control and I meditate. But some mornings are really pretty and studying’ll be too boring,” Sakura risked a quick look at her teacher’s face. He looked blank, not mad, so she kept going, “so I go talk to my first dad and then I climb a tree outside of the Hyuuga ghetto and watch the grown-up Hyuuga practice their Juken.”
“You go watch Hinata-chan’s family?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“’Cause their taijutsu is awesome!”
Her teacher was pinching his nose again. “It’s very wonderful and interesting to watch but Sakura, you can’t do it. You’d have to be a Hyuuga to do Juken.”
“I know that.” Her teacher’s shoulders relaxed and his face looked less pained. He stopped pinching his nose. “So I’m fixing it.”
Iruka-sensei is all tense again, Sakura thought. And now he’s rubbing his forehead. Maybe he’s already got a headache?
“Fixing it?”
“I’m gonna make it so medics can use it.”
He made a strangled noise. “Is that all you do when you’re absent?”
“No, that’s just in the morning. If Kakashi hasn’t visited the Memorial Stone before I finish my morning work, or if I spend the morning watching the Hyuuga grown ups practice, then I take a break and go look for Kakashi-kun.”
“By looking for his chakra?”
“Yeah. Well, first I look in the places that I know he likes to go - like the stone and the jonin clubhouse and Yondaime’s head and some special rooftops - and then I wander around looking for his chakra.”
“Does - Does he know that you can do that?”
Sakura thought about that. “I… don’t know. But he definitely knows I can walk up stuff and across stuff! We play Follow the Leader a lot.”
Poor Iruka-sensei! Maybe he’s getting sick too, Sakura thought as her teacher coughed into one hand.
“And after you visit Kakashi-san?”
“Then I have lunch. I have my bento with me but I usually come back here to eat it.”
“I know. And then what?”
“Then I go to a training ground and practice taijutsu.”
She decided not to tell him about the monstrous strength or earth jutsu or medical jutsu that she would add to her taijtusu later after she had more chakra. Rokudaime said that it was important for her body to know by rote the basic taijutsu stances and techniques for Senju Tsunade’s taijutsu style and Rokudaime’s Medic’s Juken.
“For school?”
He looked so surprised and pleased that Sakura said, “Yes, sensei.”
She really meant, Sometimes, sensei.
“That’s it?”
“And then I do more medical jutsu and then I go home.”
“You sound very busy.”
“I like learning things.”
Iruka nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Well, I can help you with that.”
Sakura straightened. “Really?”
He smiled and nodded. Sakura beamed back.
This is going way better than I thought it would!
Inner Sakura shifted, giving Sakura impression that Inner Sakura was leaning over Sakura’s shoulder to watch. There was the sense of distrust from Rokudaime but she kept her opinions to herself.
Iruka walked the length of the classroom and rifled around behind his desk before he emerged with an enormous old tome. It was scuffed, some of its corners were frayed and Inner Sakura was fairly certain that the dark smear across the cover was either blood or… well, it was probably blood.
Sakura watched him stride back up the length of the classroom. He dropped the hardback book onto the desk in front of Sakura with an ominous thud.
‘The Annotated and Explained Shinobi’s Handbook.’
“It was the only subject area that you failed.”
“But -”
“I expect you to become an expert.” He shot Sakura a stern look. “And I expect you to attend school tomorrow as well as your detention.”
“Tomorrow’s taijutsu class,” Sakura mumbled, struggling against her horror and Rokudaime’s peels of laughter. All of her lovely excitement was crushed. “I gotta come.”
Iruka huffed a sigh. “Get out and go home and don’t tell the other kids that I let you out early.”
Sakura stared at her new textbook like it was a live snake.
“Go on before I change my mind.”
That got Sakura’s attention.
“Bye Iruka-sensei!”
Sakura snatched up the book and ran out the door.
Hey, said Rokudaime when she had her laughter under control. Sakura was halfway home by then. I have an idea.
Twenty minutes later Sakura was standing outside of the genin-level library.
Previous experience (namely, being babysat by Ino’s older cousins) had left Sakura with the knowledge that she would not be able to make it past the front desk without a headband. Whenever she and Ino were dragged there by a babysitter, they always got dumped on the desk ninja until their babysitter came back with a book or scroll and claimed them.
A quick trip to the nearest window revealed the seals pasted to sides of the window frame.
Stumped, Sakura masked her chakra and scurried up to the roof for a think. Instead she found a booth with two genin manning the desk and guarding a rooftop door into the library. At the back of their little booth was a little vent that was just the right size for her. It led into the ventilation system. The vent cover was rusty and old and came off of the vent after a couple of sharp tugs from Sakura.
Inner Sakura groaned.
If we get stuck in there, I’m never going to let you live this down.
We’re not going to get stuck. We’re super sneaky.
Mmmhmm.
We’re Sakura the Magnificent! We can do anything!
You’re not supposed to believe your own PR.
Huh?
Never mind. Don’t get stuck.
Despite Inner Sakura’s dire predictions, Sakura did not get stuck in the ventilation system.
There was only one book on sealing in the entire genin library. It was massive. It was also marked as a reference book and not to be removed from the library or else.
A thorough inspection of the book turned up three tiny seals on the inside of its back cover. One seal matched the deals on the door frames while another seal matched the seals on the window frames.
Now what?
Let me.
Sakura allowed herself to be pushed aside.
Once Rokudaime was in charge of the body and its meager chakra reserves, a chakra scalpel flickered to life at the the tip of Sakura’s index finger. Rokudaime carefully sliced the binding of the book away from the book’s hard cover. She did the same to the rules book.
When she swapped texts and covers, the clump of pages on the shinobi handbook was slightly larger than the cover for the book on sealing.
Rokudaime bled her chakra into the ink on the cover page of the text on sealing. As Sakura watched, Rokudaime twisted the chakra into a jutsu. Her chakra control was so fine and precise that not an iota of chakra was overdrawn or wasted. Even after all of her practice, Sakura was not half as good at manipulating her own chakra as Rokudaime was. The letters on the covers of the text shivered and shimmered as they obligingly rearranged themselves.
‘Basics of Fuinjutsu - Seals, Their Components and Elements’ became ‘Elements, Components and Basics of Teas - Shinjutsu Fuirel.’
What kind of last name is that?
The kind you get when you mash all of the left over letters together, Rokudaime said briskly as did the same thing to the hardcover for the sealing textbook. She put the sealing text into the handbook’s hardcover and the handbook’s text into the sealing hardcover. Hopefully no one will suspect that you’re reading a sealing text pretending to be a tea text pretending to be a shinobi handbook.
Sakura was impressed. Rokudaime was so sneaky!
Where’d you learn that jutsu?
There was an impression of black hair, pale skin, a beautiful smile, long pretty fingers, and flat, empty black eyes.
I can’t do the complete version. Rokudaime admitted. He could make a blot of ink turn into lines of text in anyone’s handwriting. He could forge my signature better than I could sign it.
That’s awful!
It was wonderful. I had an awful lot of paperwork.
Sakura put the altered sealing textbook (with its shinobi handbook interior) on the furthest, dustiest shelf that she could find, scampered up the wall and into the ventilation system, and hurried home.
I have a new book to read!
I don’t know.
You don’t? It was a novel idea that Rokudaime might not know something.
I don’t know everything, Rokudaime huffed.
But you know sealing. You were telling me about it yesterday.
I know a lot about medical fuinjutsu and summoning fuinjutsu. I was famous for knowing a lot about both. But most of Konohagakure’s other branches of fuinjutsu died with Jiraya-sama.
Sakura blinked. Unsure of what her response should be, she settled on, Oh.
Rokudaime snorted. Yes. Oh.
How do we get around it?
I don’t know. We need to find a book on sealing.
So… The library?
Maybe. Whoever put this up might have a book on sealing in their desk.
There were no books on fuinjutsu in the school library. She was in the middle of searching Kikyo-sensei’s desk when she was discovered, told off, and dragged back to Iruka-sensei’s classroom to suffer through another boring lesson on another boring thing that she already knew.
Sakura also had detention that afternoon.
At the end of the school day, Sakura rushed into Kikyo-sensei’s classroom with all of the other naughty students.
Standing at the front of the room were two teachers: Kikyo-sensei and Iruka-sensei.
Uh oh.
Iruka-sensei was watching the classroom’s entrance with hard eyes. When his eyes met hers, he crooked his first finger at her.
Sakura sighed. Her shoulders slumped. She shuffled to the front of the classroom on reluctant feet. He led her out of detention and into their empty classroom.
“Haruno.”
“Yes, Iruka-sensei?”
“I’ve tried to be patient, but you can’t keep skipping class.” He crossed his arms over his chest, took a firm stance and glared down at her. Normally it was very scary. But his hair was a mess and his eyes were tired and his shoulders were ever so slightly slumped. Iruka looked more like Kakashi than the strict teacher that yelled at her several times a week. “You’ve made it painfully clear that you have no intention of becoming a ninja but -”
“What? No! I’m gonna be the best kunoichi ever!”
Iruka actually blinked. For a moment, his face was slack with surprise.
“To be a good ninja, you’d have to come to class.”
“But class is so boring!” Sakura blurted. Her face went hot and she looked down at her shuffling feet. “Sorry, sensei.”
She imagined that she could actually feel Iruka’s glare burning the hair off of the top of her head.
“Regardless of what you think of your classes - or my teaching methods - you need to learn the information. There’s more to being a kunoichi than being able to throw kunai or do taijutsu.”
Sakura shuffled her feet and mumbled.
“Speak up!”
“I already know that stuff!” she yelped.
“Stuff? What stuff?”
Sakura dug the toes of one of her sandal into the tiled floor.
“That stuff you talk about in class. I can do that already.”
There were several tense moments of silence then Iruka sighed.
“Let’s see what you know. C’mon.”
He led her around the school, collecting papers from other teachers, and then back to their classroom.
“Do your best,” Iruka said as he put the stack in front of her.
Sakura worked on the pile of worksheets while Iruka graded the tests that they had taken that afternoon and a pop quiz from the morning that Sakura had missed.
The work was interesting and, in places, challenging but Sakura was mostly certain that she had gotten them right when she turned them into Iruka at the end of her detention.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Iruka-sensei!”
Sakura skipped school the next day. She did attend her detention, however.
Once again, her teacher was waiting for her. Once again he crooked his fingers and took her out of the dentention classroom.
“I was wondering if you knew how to use chakra,” Iruka said as soon as they were in their own classroom again.
Sakura shrugged. “Sure.”
His eyebrows jumped. “What can you do?”
“I can sneak and walk on walls and roofs and stuff and hide my chakra and fix my skin when I scrape it, even if it’s bleeding.”
Iruka’s eyes were wide but all he said was, “Can you show me?”
So Sakura showed him everything that she could do. She even fixed a half healed scrape on Iruka’s side.
“Where did you learn this?” he asked when Sakura finished.
“I learned to walk up things at Ino’s house. And I learned sneaking and hiding at school. And I practice everything at my house but in my room ‘cause ninja stuff makes my Mama sad.”
“What about Kakashi-san?” Iruka asked carefully. “He came here yesterday, you see, and I had the impression that you spend a lot of time with him.”
“Kakashi-kun?” Sakura beamed. “I can find him. I look for him until I feel his chakra and I follow that.”
“Can you usually tell chakra signatures apart? I mean, when you’re sneaking out can you tell the difference between my chakra and Kikyo-sensei’s chakra? Or between anyone else?”
Sakura shook her head. “I just know there’s chakra. Kakashi-kun’s special ‘cause I know what his chakra feels like just like I know what my chakra feels like.”
Her teacher’s eyes narrowed. “How come you know Kakashi-san’s chakra so well?”
“’Cause he does chakra in front of me all the time!”
Iruka nodded once, sharply. But his eyes were distant like he was thinking hard and not listening to Sakura at all.
“Does Kakashi-san teach you things?”
“Nope. He just glares a lot and slows down so that I can keep up.”
“So who taught you to do that stuff?”
Sakura shrugged, feeling uncomfortable for the first time. “It’s not hard.”
“Haruno Sakura.”
She went back to digging the toe of her sandal into the tile. “I practice a lot.”
“With whom?”
“With me.”
Iruka sighed. When Sakura glanced up, his eyes were closed and he was pinching the bridge of his nose. Her mama did that when she was getting a headache.
“What do you do when you skip classes?”
“Oh!” Sakura exclaimed, glad that she could say something that he would like. Probably. I mean, he’s my teacher so he’s probably worried that I’m not studying enough outside of school. Maybe he’ll be happy when he hears what I do? “Every morning I eat breakfast at my house or at the dead people rock.”
“The Memorial Stone?”
“Yeah!”
He squinted at her. “Why?”
“So I can talk to the dead people. Then I do my morning work.”
He shook his head. “What do you do for morning work?”
“I do medical jutsu and chakra control and I meditate. But some mornings are really pretty and studying’ll be too boring,” Sakura risked a quick look at her teacher’s face. He looked blank, not mad, so she kept going, “so I go talk to my first dad and then I climb a tree outside of the Hyuuga ghetto and watch the grown-up Hyuuga practice their Juken.”
“You go watch Hinata-chan’s family?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“’Cause their taijutsu is awesome!”
Her teacher was pinching his nose again. “It’s very wonderful and interesting to watch but Sakura, you can’t do it. You’d have to be a Hyuuga to do Juken.”
“I know that.” Her teacher’s shoulders relaxed and his face looked less pained. He stopped pinching his nose. “So I’m fixing it.”
Iruka-sensei is all tense again, Sakura thought. And now he’s rubbing his forehead. Maybe he’s already got a headache?
“Fixing it?”
“I’m gonna make it so medics can use it.”
He made a strangled noise. “Is that all you do when you’re absent?”
“No, that’s just in the morning. If Kakashi hasn’t visited the Memorial Stone before I finish my morning work, or if I spend the morning watching the Hyuuga grown ups practice, then I take a break and go look for Kakashi-kun.”
“By looking for his chakra?”
“Yeah. Well, first I look in the places that I know he likes to go - like the stone and the jonin clubhouse and Yondaime’s head and some special rooftops - and then I wander around looking for his chakra.”
“Does - Does he know that you can do that?”
Sakura thought about that. “I… don’t know. But he definitely knows I can walk up stuff and across stuff! We play Follow the Leader a lot.”
Poor Iruka-sensei! Maybe he’s getting sick too, Sakura thought as her teacher coughed into one hand.
“And after you visit Kakashi-san?”
“Then I have lunch. I have my bento with me but I usually come back here to eat it.”
“I know. And then what?”
“Then I go to a training ground and practice taijutsu.”
She decided not to tell him about the monstrous strength or earth jutsu or medical jutsu that she would add to her taijtusu later after she had more chakra. Rokudaime said that it was important for her body to know by rote the basic taijutsu stances and techniques for Senju Tsunade’s taijutsu style and Rokudaime’s Medic’s Juken.
“For school?”
He looked so surprised and pleased that Sakura said, “Yes, sensei.”
She really meant, Sometimes, sensei.
“That’s it?”
“And then I do more medical jutsu and then I go home.”
“You sound very busy.”
“I like learning things.”
Iruka nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Well, I can help you with that.”
Sakura straightened. “Really?”
He smiled and nodded. Sakura beamed back.
This is going way better than I thought it would!
Inner Sakura shifted, giving Sakura impression that Inner Sakura was leaning over Sakura’s shoulder to watch. There was the sense of distrust from Rokudaime but she kept her opinions to herself.
Iruka walked the length of the classroom and rifled around behind his desk before he emerged with an enormous old tome. It was scuffed, some of its corners were frayed and Inner Sakura was fairly certain that the dark smear across the cover was either blood or… well, it was probably blood.
Sakura watched him stride back up the length of the classroom. He dropped the hardback book onto the desk in front of Sakura with an ominous thud.
‘The Annotated and Explained Shinobi’s Handbook.’
“It was the only subject area that you failed.”
“But -”
“I expect you to become an expert.” He shot Sakura a stern look. “And I expect you to attend school tomorrow as well as your detention.”
“Tomorrow’s taijutsu class,” Sakura mumbled, struggling against her horror and Rokudaime’s peels of laughter. All of her lovely excitement was crushed. “I gotta come.”
Iruka huffed a sigh. “Get out and go home and don’t tell the other kids that I let you out early.”
Sakura stared at her new textbook like it was a live snake.
“Go on before I change my mind.”
That got Sakura’s attention.
“Bye Iruka-sensei!”
Sakura snatched up the book and ran out the door.
Hey, said Rokudaime when she had her laughter under control. Sakura was halfway home by then. I have an idea.
Twenty minutes later Sakura was standing outside of the genin-level library.
Previous experience (namely, being babysat by Ino’s older cousins) had left Sakura with the knowledge that she would not be able to make it past the front desk without a headband. Whenever she and Ino were dragged there by a babysitter, they always got dumped on the desk ninja until their babysitter came back with a book or scroll and claimed them.
A quick trip to the nearest window revealed the seals pasted to sides of the window frame.
Stumped, Sakura masked her chakra and scurried up to the roof for a think. Instead she found a booth with two genin manning the desk and guarding a rooftop door into the library. At the back of their little booth was a little vent that was just the right size for her. It led into the ventilation system. The vent cover was rusty and old and came off of the vent after a couple of sharp tugs from Sakura.
Inner Sakura groaned.
If we get stuck in there, I’m never going to let you live this down.
We’re not going to get stuck. We’re super sneaky.
Mmmhmm.
We’re Sakura the Magnificent! We can do anything!
You’re not supposed to believe your own PR.
Huh?
Never mind. Don’t get stuck.
Despite Inner Sakura’s dire predictions, Sakura did not get stuck in the ventilation system.
There was only one book on sealing in the entire genin library. It was massive. It was also marked as a reference book and not to be removed from the library or else.
A thorough inspection of the book turned up three tiny seals on the inside of its back cover. One seal matched the deals on the door frames while another seal matched the seals on the window frames.
Now what?
Let me.
Sakura allowed herself to be pushed aside.
Once Rokudaime was in charge of the body and its meager chakra reserves, a chakra scalpel flickered to life at the the tip of Sakura’s index finger. Rokudaime carefully sliced the binding of the book away from the book’s hard cover. She did the same to the rules book.
When she swapped texts and covers, the clump of pages on the shinobi handbook was slightly larger than the cover for the book on sealing.
Rokudaime bled her chakra into the ink on the cover page of the text on sealing. As Sakura watched, Rokudaime twisted the chakra into a jutsu. Her chakra control was so fine and precise that not an iota of chakra was overdrawn or wasted. Even after all of her practice, Sakura was not half as good at manipulating her own chakra as Rokudaime was. The letters on the covers of the text shivered and shimmered as they obligingly rearranged themselves.
‘Basics of Fuinjutsu - Seals, Their Components and Elements’ became ‘Elements, Components and Basics of Teas - Shinjutsu Fuirel.’
What kind of last name is that?
The kind you get when you mash all of the left over letters together, Rokudaime said briskly as did the same thing to the hardcover for the sealing textbook. She put the sealing text into the handbook’s hardcover and the handbook’s text into the sealing hardcover. Hopefully no one will suspect that you’re reading a sealing text pretending to be a tea text pretending to be a shinobi handbook.
Sakura was impressed. Rokudaime was so sneaky!
Where’d you learn that jutsu?
There was an impression of black hair, pale skin, a beautiful smile, long pretty fingers, and flat, empty black eyes.
I can’t do the complete version. Rokudaime admitted. He could make a blot of ink turn into lines of text in anyone’s handwriting. He could forge my signature better than I could sign it.
That’s awful!
It was wonderful. I had an awful lot of paperwork.
Sakura put the altered sealing textbook (with its shinobi handbook interior) on the furthest, dustiest shelf that she could find, scampered up the wall and into the ventilation system, and hurried home.
I have a new book to read!