Sakura considered progress reports invalid...
Series: Naruto
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Sakura and Shizune (sort of Shizune/Sakura, I guess, but not really)
Word count: 470
I don't think that there's much of a point to this. >_> And I'm sorry for being late.
Sakura considered progress reports invalid and never bothered with them. True progress is often preceded by decay, she was fond of saying. The one time she was called to task, she sent a report in the form of a living chrysalis. The message was: cut this open, and you won't get a half-formed butterfly. All you'll get is a dying caterpillar.
"She's a smart girl. I'm sure she'll do what's best for her patients," Tsunade said upon finding the chrysalis on her desk. (She had a hangover and therefore was beyond caring about insignificant things like disobedient students. She had more important things to worry about, like making sure the lamps were dimmed and no one talked too loud.)
But it scared the living daylights out of Shizune.
*
Shizune couldn't think of anything but that cocoon the next day, when she watched Sakura put a cast on a broken arm.
"And if it starts itching, try not to think about it," she said when she was finished, smiling. The man laughed and went on his way.
There was probably nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. Shizune still went outside and moved the first chrysalis she saw to a difficult-to-find spot.
*
To say that Shizune was not jealous of Sakura would be a lie (who wouldn't be jealous if their beloved sensei took on a new student?), but to say that she was would be a lie, too. Every time she saw the girl moving stiffly the morning after a late-night training session with the Hokage, she did not envy her. Tsunade had become more demanding with age.
Sakura's face was contorted with agony as she walked to her desk, but her handwriting was as neat and precise as ever when she filled out the paperwork.
*
Nowadays, to say that she wasn't at all envious of Sakura would be an understatement. From what she could glean from the people who went to watch Tsunade train her student, she was having difficulty getting the timing down when it came to circulating chakra into her fists.
Shizune watched the other girl's hands. Her knuckles were raw and scraped, and she had to stop every few minutes, set down the pen, and shake the cramps out of her right hand.
It wasn't as though she'd been saving that bottle of painkillers (the good ones, not the crap they gave whiny genin and menstruating teenage girls), and she certainly hadn't thought carefully about how to tell her that she understood how hard Tsunade's training could be, and how to warn her not to use them too much lest she get addicted because there's nothing worse than a shinobi junkie.
And she most definitely didn't think that the look of gratitude in Sakura's eyes was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Sakura and Shizune (sort of Shizune/Sakura, I guess, but not really)
Word count: 470
I don't think that there's much of a point to this. >_> And I'm sorry for being late.
Sakura considered progress reports invalid and never bothered with them. True progress is often preceded by decay, she was fond of saying. The one time she was called to task, she sent a report in the form of a living chrysalis. The message was: cut this open, and you won't get a half-formed butterfly. All you'll get is a dying caterpillar.
"She's a smart girl. I'm sure she'll do what's best for her patients," Tsunade said upon finding the chrysalis on her desk. (She had a hangover and therefore was beyond caring about insignificant things like disobedient students. She had more important things to worry about, like making sure the lamps were dimmed and no one talked too loud.)
But it scared the living daylights out of Shizune.
*
Shizune couldn't think of anything but that cocoon the next day, when she watched Sakura put a cast on a broken arm.
"And if it starts itching, try not to think about it," she said when she was finished, smiling. The man laughed and went on his way.
There was probably nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. Shizune still went outside and moved the first chrysalis she saw to a difficult-to-find spot.
*
To say that Shizune was not jealous of Sakura would be a lie (who wouldn't be jealous if their beloved sensei took on a new student?), but to say that she was would be a lie, too. Every time she saw the girl moving stiffly the morning after a late-night training session with the Hokage, she did not envy her. Tsunade had become more demanding with age.
Sakura's face was contorted with agony as she walked to her desk, but her handwriting was as neat and precise as ever when she filled out the paperwork.
*
Nowadays, to say that she wasn't at all envious of Sakura would be an understatement. From what she could glean from the people who went to watch Tsunade train her student, she was having difficulty getting the timing down when it came to circulating chakra into her fists.
Shizune watched the other girl's hands. Her knuckles were raw and scraped, and she had to stop every few minutes, set down the pen, and shake the cramps out of her right hand.
It wasn't as though she'd been saving that bottle of painkillers (the good ones, not the crap they gave whiny genin and menstruating teenage girls), and she certainly hadn't thought carefully about how to tell her that she understood how hard Tsunade's training could be, and how to warn her not to use them too much lest she get addicted because there's nothing worse than a shinobi junkie.
And she most definitely didn't think that the look of gratitude in Sakura's eyes was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.