Final Training and Battle on the Great Bridge

"We're just leaving Naruto?" Sakura asked, as she nudged the unconscious Naruto's leg with her foot.

"He's pushed himself past his limits," Kakashi shrugged. "I doubt he'd even be able to get out of bed in his state."

Well, this was it; today marked their seventh day in the Land of Waves, which meant that Zabuza would surely have recovered from the near-death state that Haku had inflicted upon him. Gatō, being the impatient fellow that he was, was bound to give the order to attack as soon as he was sure that his plot would succeed; no matter how many thugs he threw at Team Kakashi, they would never be able to take down a Jōnin.

As a rule of thumb, only a Jōnin could beat another Jōnin!

As they left the house and began making their way to the bridge, Sakura began feeling a little nervous, wondering to herself if she had trained enough. Even though Kakashi had made her stop climbing trees, believing that any further training for her in that direction would be pointless, Sakura had continued training her chakra control by herself.

That's not to say that Kakashi was necessarily wrong for believing that Sakura's chakra control was already sufficiently advanced for her current Jutsu usage. After all, one Sakura's worth of chakra control was already good enough to mould chakra without stamina losses; it was also good enough to convert that chakra into Jutsu without wasting any of it…

However, that wasn't good enough for her! Chakra control was important to Sakura, since she planned on mastering both Ninjutsu and Genjutsu!

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Technically, when it comes to turning chakra into Jutsu, weaving hand signs can be considered as a crutch. Hand signs are indeed necessary for the vast majority of shinobi to help shape the flow of chakra within their bodies, but as long as one has mastered this flow through perfect chakra control, one can begin omitting the hand signs for Jutsu!

Furthermore, as opposed to techniques where Ninjutsu is generated from within the body (think: spitting water, breathing fire, or transforming), manifesting and shaping chakra outside the body is on a completely different level of difficulty, at least when it comes to chakra control; which is part of the reason why the Rasengan is considered an A-rank Jutsu.

As for Genjutsu; illusions work by making fine adjustments in the flow of chakra inside an enemy's brain through subtle cues, which obviously requires delicate chakra control…

All of this to say: chakra control is still extremely important, and must still be improved beyond 1 S!

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And so, since Kakashi had put her on bridge guarding duty, Sakura had decided to take full advantage of the water running under the bridge. Every day, over the last few days, she had produced two Shadow Clones and had them do the water surface walking practice, while she kept an eye of the bridge builders.

Her clones had varying levels of success; the water in the sea was much more agitated than that of a pond. Nevertheless, thanks to this training, Sakura had managed to increase her chakra control to 1.75 times her base academy self!

Additionally, during this period of time, Sakura had also tried puzzling out the secrets behind Chakra Enhanced Strength… with nothing to show for her efforts. Obviously, it was going to take more than a week to even figure out how it worked, which wasn't even taking into account the time it would take to master it.

All Sakura knew about Chakra Enhanced Strength was that it required extreme levels of chakra control, because the technique works by manipulating chakra in single, extremely short and well-timed bursts. Sakura was guessing she'd need to learn some Iryō Ninjutsu, or at the very least, acquire deeper knowledge on the chakra pathway system in order to use it.

Her current theory was that she needed to circulate the chakra running through her system, accelerate it to extreme speeds, and then crashing that chakra into the chakra coating her fist, using that internal momentum to fire an incredibly powerful punch… but she had no guarantee she had guessed correctly.

Unfortunately, experimentation without a proper teacher could lead to injuries, and this really wasn't the time to get hurt. Sadly, Sakura had to keep to the theoretical side of things....

Maybe she'd try a few things with Shadow Clones upon returning to the village, when she had more chakra.

Sakura sighed; so many things to learn… Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, Kenjutsu; which reminded her…

"Kakashi-sensei," Sakura began, turning to her sensei, "if we manage to—"

'Not another word!' Inner Sakura shouted. 'Don't raise any death flags, you idiot!'

Sakura had been about to ask Kakashi to train her in Kenjutsu if they survived their mission, but just as her inner self had warned her, that would have been courting death!

"You were about to say something, Sakura?" Kakashi asked her, but Sakura shook her head vigorously.

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A short walk later, and the group composed of Sakura, Sasuke, Kakashi and Tazuna finally arrived at the bridge. Normally, even this early in the morning, the area around the bridge would have been filled with the sounds of workers carrying timber and steel beams, the hammering down of nails, the crying out of orders, or what have you. But now, there was only silence— silence, and an ominous mist gradually rising up from the sea, from under the bridge…

"W-what happened to you!?"

Tazuna dropped what he was holding and ran to his coworkers, who were lying on the ground on the opposite side of the bridge. Team Kakashi followed him, and they all took a look at the bodies. From the looks of it, they weren't dead, only injured— which meant the enemy had successfully lured them out into the open…

"Tazuna-san, come back!" Sakura cried out. "It's a trap!"

"Here they come!" Kakashi yelled behind her.

Good thing Sakura had already told Kakashi about her Shadow Clone's adventures (minus a few details), so he wouldn't be too surprised when Haku and Zabuza appeared together!

"Long time no see, Kakashi…" came Zabuza's voice from somewhere farther out in the mist. "I see you're still dragging those brats everywhere you go, and just like last time, the poor boy's shaking like a leaf…"

In an instant, half a dozen Zabuza had materialized out of nowhere, completely surrounding them.

"Shaking?"

Sasuke smiled grimly.

"Shaking from excitement, more like."

Sasuke's figure flickered, and in a fraction of a second, the encirclement was reduced to mere puddles of water. Water Clones, the lot of them!

Zabuza and Haku stepped out of the mist.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, they're just Water Clones," Zabuza called out confidently. "At any rate, it seems like your brats have grown, Kakashi… especially that one."

"Oi!" Sakura cried out angrily; Zabuza had pointed at her!

"Haku, was it?" Kakashi asked casually. "I'd gather you're not actually a hunter-nin from the Hidden Mist?"

"I'll take him on," Sasuke growled. "Your stupid mind games won't work on us any more!"

"In that case, you protect Tazuna-san, Sakura," Kakashi calmly ordered her. "Pick a side and stick to it like glue!"

"Oh, goody," Sakura muttered.

It seemed like the time for talking had come to an end. Haku's figure vanished, and Sakura unsheathed her sword, ready to react to any attack coming her way. But instead of going for her, Haku flickered to Sasuke's side, before taking a swipe at him with his pointy senbon needle.

Sakura watched as Sasuke and Haku exchanged blows at a fast pace, their figures blurring and reappearing every so often. However, she didn't let her guard down; too often the original Sakura had gone slack-jawed and forgotten she was in a fight, simply because she couldn't get a chance to participate!

"Secret Jutsu: Thousand Flying Water Needles of Death!"

Influenced by Haku's chakra, water began floating up from the wet ground, separating into a myriad rapidly spinning needles aimed at Sasuke, but Sakura wasn't worried about him. She was confident that Sasuke would be able to dodge the attack; after learning to gather chakra under his feet for tree-climbing practice, Sasuke had naturally unlocked the Body Flicker skill, just like she had!

Fast forward a few seconds, and the pace of the fight was accelerating; Sasuke was gradually getting faster than Haku, and the pretty boy was now on the back foot; especially since Sakura kept throwing shuriken at him whenever his back was turned to her…

In Haku's mind, the possibility of him losing was now very real. He did not want to hurt the raven-haired boy in front of him nor the annoying pink-haired girl, but he now had to get serious…