Spoiler Warning: This chapter still takes place during the
intermission
between the second and third stages of the Chuunin Exam. It was a
whole
month long, ya know...

Oh, I know.  You have no idea how tempted I was to come up with some
reason to cut that down when I was first planning One Hundred Days...

It worked well for me; though i glossed over much of it, there's now way
Sakura could have improved as much as she had in Suiren without a lot of
time to tinker with her genjutsu and train with Gai...

A groan of dread escaped Sakura's lips as she gazed forlornly out
into
gray light of early morning. The raging downpour that had swirled out
of
nowhere last night hadn't stopped yet. *The roads must be like brown
rivers by now.* What were the odds that Gai would cancel practice on
account of the village washing away? *And deny me the chance to twist
both ankles and eat four gallons of mud? Not bloody likely!* Sighing,
the pink-haired kunoichi prepared to once again sacrifice her body to
the bushy-browed demon of hard work.

...bad mental images.  Bad, bad, bad mental images.

Eeeeeexcelent ^_^...

Locking the door behind her, Sakura took a moment to consider the
rainy
street. She would have alter her routine a bit if she didn't want to
be
spotted looking even stupider than usual on the way to the training
field where she'd be meeting Gai. First, she gathered some chakra
into
her feet so that she could run over the puddles without disturbing
them.

While it is definitely something she should pick up easily (perhaps
even
on her own), canonically I don't believe Sakura has learned to walk on
water at this point.  Naruto is/has just learning/ed it, and he would
have commented if he'd seen Sakura perform it, I'd think, so it would
have to be something she learned recently.

Indeed; in Suiren, this is something that Sakura figured out on her own.

Perhaps add a side comment of Sakura feeling proud that she'd figured
out that trick on her own, even though it was simpler than her
self-taught genjutsu, or something like that?

I'll see if there's any place where it might be appropriate to mention
it; the main thing i did with Sakura was made her motivated to improve
_herself_, since nobody else seemed inclined to help her. Since Sakura
is smart, and her chakra control is good enough that she can make her
body and chakra do what she wants them to do almost always within the
first few tries, she's a good candiate for self-study...

Aside from being a guilty thrill, it forced her to push her skills
daily. She thought she was getting pretty good at sneaking around,
even
if she felt no closer to finding a true counter to the Shintenshin.
It
also served as a good exercise in spotting and avoiding potential
threats, since there were a lot of ninja in the village as well. She
hadn't been caught yet, as far as she knew, but she wasn't _really_
doing anything wrong- right? As long as she didn't run into any
psycho
foreign nins (and she was _extra_ careful to watch out for them)
where
was the harm?

Too bad she isn't looking out for psycho _domestic_ nins... :)

An unfortunate oversight indeed -_-;...

Captor and captive alike directed their attention to the rear door,
where Yamanaka Inoshi was standing, wearing overalls muddied to the
knees and carrying a planter tray of somewhat soggy-looking
seedlings.

Should be Yamanaka Inoichi.

Is it? I shall look that up. I'm still sore about Kurenai's name; in
canon, she's Yuuhi Kurenai, but that just sounds like its the wrong way
around to me -_-;. Kishimoto used names with meanings for all of his
characters, and in terms of meaning, that would be "Setting Sun
Crimson," while Kurenai Yuuhi would be "Crimson Setting Sun." Here we
have something that sounds like a crayola crayon color, versus something
very symbolic and japanese... Ah well, I know which one _i_ think sounds
cooler :P...

"Ino said something strange happened that time, like she was ambushed
by
another Sakura inside Sakura's mind," the handsome ninja agreed. Then
his expression changed to one of disbelief. "Are you suggesting that
she's not our Sakura-chan?"

*YOU TOLD HIM ABOUT THAT?*

*OF COURSE I TOLD HIM! IT WAS FREAKY AND WEIRD!*

Hee.

It's really surprising that Sakura herself never considered it freaky
and weird, since she actually acknowledged to Ino that it happened when
they were fighting at the exam...

~Eimii


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