Sakura was fuming.
She might not have been born an Uchiha, but she carried Uchiha blood… and unfortunately, Uchiha pride, which comes before Uchiha fall. Taijutsu wasn't her speciality, and eight-year-old Shisui likely had a year or so of training on her measly three, but she couldn't accept being beaten by a brat half her age!
"Begin!" Fugaku shouted.
"Shannarooo!" Sakura roared as she leapt into the air, drawing back her arm for a massive haymaker. "Take this!"
Even without revealing her Mangekyō Sharingan, Sakura's visual acuity in her eyes' base form surpassed that of the common, three‑tomoe Sharingan. Her scarlet eyes tracked Shisui's figure as he gathered chakra beneath his feet, but she quickly lost sight of him as he accelerated beyond her ability to follow his movements.
BOOM!
The ground ruptured as Sakura's fist slammed into it, a shockwave rippling outwards as a crater burst open beneath her. Motes of earth flew up in a ring, intercepting Shisui as he lunged at her seemingly unguarded back, and forcing him to retreat to safety to avoid getting pelted by rocks.
"Was that Earth Style?" one person in the peanut gallery wondered.
"No, that was sheer muscle power!" another replied. "That was Senju Tsunade's chakra controlled super strength, no nature transformation involved!"
Fugaku's eyes widened. "She's strong!"
Sakura swiftly whirled around to face Shisui, who was already weaving hand signs.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
"Fire Style: Ash Pile Burning Jutsu!"
Sakura dived behind the wall of earth her punch had thrown up just as an ear‑splitting explosion tore through the training grounds, the gunpowder dust igniting the instant it met Shisui's flames. Shisui flickered out of sight, leaving them both unscathed.
"That was the Sarutobi clan's signature Fire Style jutsu, wasn't it?" one onlooker commented. "The gunpowder smoke makes a decent smokescreen— handy if you're out of smoke bombs, or if the enemy doesn't know any Fire Style."
The whirr of spinning steel cut through the chatter as Shisui sent a handful of shuriken whistling through the air towards Sakura's last known position, hoping to flush her out of the black smoke. As he reached into his tool bag for a few more, he caught sight of a pair of hands bursting from the ground beneath him and sprang back… just as a second Sakura burst out of the smokescreen!
"A Shadow Clone!" exclaimed the same commentator as before, who clearly enjoyed exposition. "That's a B-rank technique!"
The two identical girls, one below and one in front, both seemed to grasp at the air and pull. Shisui's eyes widened as a glint of razor wire caught the sunlight. The ground split open as steel strands shot up in a crisscross pattern, a net of wires snapping taut around him.
"The one who appeared beneath me must have dragged it along underground while she tunnelled to me," Shisui muttered to himself as the wires closed in. "Then, which one's the real one…?"
"There it is!" the onlooked shouted. "Shisui the teleporter's signature Body Flicker!"
Sakura looked around wildly. Where had Shisui gone, she wondered? Had he escaped before the net closed around him?
The thought had barely crossed her mind when one of her Shadow Clone's memories came rushing in; she had been destroyed before she could react. Luckily for Sakura, Shisui had picked the wrong target… or rather, he'd had no choice but to do so, because the two Sakuras who had revealed themselves were mere clones!
Shisui looked down from the tree branch he was perched on. Unbeknownst to Sakura, he had jumped straight up into the air.
Steel wires made things tricky, he thought to himself. If he flickered without thinking, he might very well accidentally slice off his own ankles. He flicked a few shuriken at the remaining pink‑haired girl below, who promptly burst into white smoke, only for a much larger mass of black smoke to billow outwards from her form… more gunpowder dust.
The onlookers quickly backed away, recalling what had happened to the last black cloud.
"Got you!"
"Wha—"
Shisui's small body sank into two unspeakably soft pillows as Sakura's arm snaked around his throat and pressed his head against her chest, cutting off his breath, while her other hand seized his wrist, twisting hard and wrenching the shuriken from his grasp.
"How…?" Shisui choked out.
"Sorry," Sakura whispered in his ear. "I had to cheat a little to win."
The truth was that, short of cheating by using genjutsu (which wasn't permitted under the rules of this particular duel), the Mangekyō Sharingan, or any ability she wasn't supposed to have as an Uchiha, Sakura had found no quicker way to end the duel than by resorting to Sage Mode. The only alternatives were to wear him down with her greater chakra reserves or to let herself lose— yet her pride wouldn't allow her to do so, no matter how vital it was that she keep from standing out in the past.
Indeed, with the potential of Crystal Style and Wood Style to reshape the terrain, it would have been simple enough for Sakura to hinder Shisui's absurd speed. However, unwilling to expose her other Kekkei Genkai, she had instead prepared a smokescreen the Sharingan could not see through, then briefly entered Sage Mode, located Shisui in the darkness, and struck with a burst of speed he'd never imagined she possessed, using the smoke as cover… all before he could even react.
With Shisui's unconscious body slung under her arm, Sakura strode out of the smoke cloud.
"Shisui… actually lost?" said exposition-man in disbelief. "There's no way…"
"What d'you mean, there's no way?" Sakura sniffed. "I'm twice his age, of course I'd kick his little backside. I was only messing about with him earlier, and he got a lucky shot in, that's all."
Fugaku was overjoyed.
This pink-haired Uchiha half-blood was simply a heaven-sent gift; she was a raw gem, unpolished yet already so shining so brightly. He watched as she slapped Shisui awake and forced the Seal of Reconciliation upon the dazed boy.
"Good, not bad," he said, his austere features twisting as he tried his best not to smile. Were it not for the fact that he'd secretly awakened his Mangekyō Sharingan a few days ago, he would have felt more than a little intimidated by the two youngsters. "From tomorrow until we leave for the front lines in three days, you'll be training your taijutsu and shurikenjutsu with Shisui."
"Oh, goody," Sakura said glumly, resisting the urge to massage her aching chest. It really, really hurt, even now; her right breast still throbbed fiercely where Shisui's punch had landed. She needed to heal herself, even though he'd only thrown a relatively light jab at her…
...
In any case, being forced to train in taijutsu was actually a good thing for her.
In the past, Sasuke had tried countless times to initiate Sakura into the subtle art of throwing hands, tempting her with promises of free food, yet by the end of every so‑called "date," she would end up flat on her backside, nose bleeding and eyes brimming with tears of pain. It wasn't as if she could ask her opponents to spare her chest in a real fight, so he always went all out during training, intent on reminding her of her shortcomings.
As a result, Sakura had learnt to steer clear of offers that seemed too good to be true.
From then on, Sakura trained only in Leaf‑style taijutsu with Naruto, who was far too smitten with her to take their sparring seriously… or so he claimed. In truth, he was simply far too scared of her Chakra Enhanced Strength to ever trade blows with her in earnest, and although it didn't actually harm him, receiving the memories of Shadow Clones who had been punched hard enough to burst into a fine red mist (had they actually been the real Naruto) was anything but pleasant.
As for Kakashi… well, obviously, he was far too lazy to train her any longer, having decided she'd already surpassed him. He much preferred working with Naruto... his fists were a lot less scary.
In any case, Sasuke himself wasn't all that well-versed in Uchiha-style taijutsu, so he wasn't in any position to teach. He'd learnt in his youth by watching his fellow clan members practise and subsequently by studying technique scrolls, but since he hadn't awakened his Sharingan at the time, what actually came out in battle was simply what he'd picked up at the academy. He was just going through the motions of Uchiha-ness; the true essence of his movements was still basic Leaf taijutsu… mostly Rock Lee's.
Thus, there remained a rather glaring gap in Sakura's skill tree where taijutsu ought to have been, one that urgently needed filling if she were ever to round herself out as a kunoichi. After all, Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei wouldn't always be there to act as her vanguard, while she safely spammed ninjutsu and genjutsu from a distance…
…
Sakura's expression darkened the moment Fugaku turned his back to her. In the heartbeat her Sage Mode activation had lasted, she'd sensed a handful of repulsive chakra signatures scattered across the training grounds and throughout the entire Uchiha District, including one she recognised all too well… Danzō's.
No matter what, she couldn't allow him to notice her.