Chapter 2 - Ranging Rook

After the forest, Shino or Shikamaru sometimes sought her out for shared assignments, or even just to talk. It was nice to have someone she could turn to with questions she was too shy to ask Ino - about shinobi things, not girl things, obviously. Like Ino, they were from a clan, but unlike her friend they were quietly un-judging about things Sakura didn't know or have instead of the loud or shocked reactions Ino could at times give when what Sakura told her of her experiences differed from her own.

It was because of that understanding, that almost-friendship, that Sakura dared to be just a tad bolder than she otherwise would have been.

Perhaps she would have been too scared to do it even now if it was for herself, but this was for Sen.

Because Sen always helped her with everything but she could tell that there was a hint of longing to some of his stories. Over the years Sakura started to see how her ghostly friend was confined to his role as her confident, teacher and advisor without the ability to act for himself. He never said anything about needing more, about being unhappy in this role he had taken up, but she could tell that while he wasn't unhappy he was also… resigned.

Sakura couldn't really change that, couldn't give him the freedom or agency he on rare occasions seemed to long for. All she could do was listen to his advice and invest her energy in the things he found important.

In this specific case, that led her to what technically amounted to trespassing. Because the teahouse she had her eye on stood on the very edge of the Nara grounds, in their woods but outside of the gates that surrounded the clan houses.

The Nara were not the most easily offended of clans, though, and Sakura didn't have a shogi board at home. From what she'd heard from her classmate and from Sen the Nara would have plenty. Sure, she could have asked Shikamaru to borrow one, but the other boy was wont to ask questions, or even worse – to put the pieces together himself.

She didn't want a curious Nara wondering who she would be playing against, not even if said Nara was Shikamaru.

The teahouse, on the other hand, stood on the very edge of the Nara lands and from her observations wasn't subject to any visitors. Sakura suspected it would still equipped with a shogi board despite all that.

So she snuck in, wearing a henge both as a precaution and as practice, and found that yes, a dusty shogi board held a centre place in the room. Sakura smiled at the sight of it but didn't immediately approach it. Instead she did a small round of the room and checked the sightlines towards it.

"What do you think?" she asked Sen, turning to face him.

He smiled back at her. "It has been a very long time since I've played a game of shogi."

Sakura took that as an agreement and sat down in front of the board, using her sleeve to carefully wipe it clean of dust. "I've never played before, so I won't be much of an opponent," she warned him.

He seemed entirely unbothered by that, so she dug around to find the game pieces stored in a beautiful wooden case, decorated with flowers and a deer. Sakura took them out one by one, studying them each in turn and placing them on the board with Sen's guidance.

He was patient in teaching her the basics and knew exactly how to explain it to her so that she could easily grasp the rules and their implications. When she understood the basic rules, he had her set up several problems for her to solve before they finally played a practice game.

By then it was already growing dark, so Sakura carefully put the pieces back where she found them and went home. She noticed Sen looking back at the lonely board.

"Don't worry," she told him. "I'll learn. You know I enjoy puzzles and tactics. We'll play a real game soon." It was yet another thing to add to her schedule, but Sakura liked learning new things. So while she was regretful that it took time out of her studies of seals or anatomy, she also didn't mind slotting a new pastime into her week.

Sen was always willing to provide what information Sakura wanted or needed. Perhaps he didn't tell her everything, but he always focussed on helping her improve in whatever she put her mind to. But this, this one thing was not just for her, but for him.

That made it important to make time for this. So even if it took time and required her to trespass on clan grounds, it was still worth it.

She was tidying up her desk, putting away her books and notes and grabbing her lunchbox when Shikamaru walked over to her. Most of their classmates had already rushed out of the classroom to enjoy their lunch outside.

"Sakura, do you have some time after school?" Shikamaru asked her straight out, eyes half-lidded but still focussed on her.

She tilted her head at him, wondering what he wanted. Her friend was always difficult to read. This could be anything from something as casual as a homework assignment or as serious as him confronting her about sneaking onto his clan lands.

Of course he should have no idea about the second of these, but those dark, piercing eyes made her feel as if he was omniscient at times.

"Alright," she agreed readily enough, trying to hide her worry.

He nodded, did a half turn, and waited for her. She stood up, quickly joining him. Part of her wanted to ask what this was about, but if he didn't tell her there might be a reason for that. Besides, Sakura would know soon enough, she'd just have to be patient.

They walked outside together and then split up without another word exchanged between them. Shikamaru made his way over to Chouji, slumping down on the ground next to his friend and Sakura joined Ino, where the more social girl was holding court with the other girls in their class.

Compared to Shikamaru, Ino was shockingly bright and loud, but she was still her friend and Sakura liked spending time with her, though she generally preferred it when it was just the two of them. Ino amongst a group was like a sunflower at the heart of a garden, even surrounded by other flowers that only made the yellow stand out more brightly – while Sakura's tree stood at the very edge, completely unremarkable aside from when the small, pink flowers fleetingly blossomed on her branches.

But Ino smiled at her, when she joined their little group, and would never let the other girls be mean to her. That was enough to make Sakura settle at the back of the group where she quietly ate her lunch.

After school, she exited the classroom to find Shikamaru slouching against the opposite wall in the corridor. He glanced up at her and pushed off into an upright position, shoving his hands in his pockets. She fell into step with him, glancing at a face that gave nothing away. Her shoulders were tense while she let him lead her away from the Academy, not to the Nara compound at least, but to a hill she knew he frequented when cloud gazing.

He sat down on the ground, leaning back casually and tilting his head to stare up at the sky. Sakura sat down next to him, her posture straight and eyes focussed on him.

"I hope you don't mind," he finally started, not looking at her. "I've been working on those storage seals you taught us but infusing them with chakra has been… troublesome."

"Hmm," Sakura said, relaxing now that she knew what this was about. "It could be that you need to need work on infusing the seal more steadily with chakra. But it would be better to check the writing first of all. Do you have a draft of the seal?"

"Yes, I brought it with me," Shikamaru answered and sighed as if it was all far too much effort. "Those seals you had were useful during our survival exercise, so they will be even more useful when out on missions. Still, it's more tiresome than I thought."

"Chakra control comes easily to me," Sakura explained while her friend took the drawing from his back and passed it to her. "I'm not sure if I can help much with that, because it's mostly improved through exercises you can do yourself. Though improving chakra control would be a worthwhile endeavour for you either way, as it should also help control of your shadow jutsu."

"Hmm, you think so?" he asked slowly.

She nodded but didn't glance up from the paper as she answered, focussed on checking the lines and components for any flaws. "While the strength of your shadow technique is reliant on the amount of chakra you pour into it, better control would make sure you didn't waste chakra by overpowering it, or spend too little so your prey escapes. And better control will help you speed it up, making it easier to catch someone."

"You should be more careful in what you reveal, Sakura," Sen's voice came from her left, sounding amused. "Not many know the details of clan techniques. They were zealously guarded not too long ago, and even now it is only trusted allies who are aware of the details."

She startled and looked up. Thankfully, her habit of looking to the invisible being had been squashed years ago, so she looked to the Nara and not to her teacher and friend.

He stared back at her, raising a single eyebrow. "How do you know that?"

She shrugged. "If that's a secret, it's a rather obvious one. Just observations, what information was freely talked about in the village and my own knowledge of chakra control and similar techniques were enough to put that together."

Granted, the person speaking 'freely' in this case was Sen, who had been right at the centre of the alliances forged between the clans, and inter-clan cooperation. Not to mention that he was a highly skilled and intelligent chakra sensor, so he was better than most at discerning information especially concerning chakra techniques.

But while Sen couldn't be overheard by anyone, Sakura would have to take more care in the future. It was one thing to discuss clan techniques with a member of that clan, but another if someone had heard her. She couldn't afford to be so loose-lipped in her distraction.

"Sorry," she offered.

The Nara shrugged and leaned back again, which she took to mean that she was forgiven. Sakura looked back down at the seal, checking that there were no mistakes that could affect the chakra flow. "This looks good," she said with a decisive nod. "Could you show me how you write it out on chakra paper?"

With a muttered 'troublesome', as if he hadn't been the one who requested her help in the first place, he drew himself up a more upright position. He was focussed, though as he carefully wrote out the seal, infusing it with chakra on each stroke.

Both Sakura and Sen were watching carefully, and she tried to focus on the feel of his chakra the way Sen had been teaching her. The feel of it was familiar to her, but it was nearly impossible for her too tell just how much or how little he was using.

"His chakra is too uneven," Sen pointed out. "He's infusing it in burst at the start of a stroke, instead of spreading it out in the motion of it."

"Hmm," Sakura said and wondered how much she would be giving away to her friend if she repeated all that. She wasn't a sensor, so she shouldn't be able to tell. When Shikamaru was done and demonstrated the seal failing (thankfully not in the explosive way a seal could fail if it was ill-written or overpowered with chakra), she frowned down at it for a long moment before meeting his eyes.

The frown melted away at the steady look he gave her in return. There was nothing of boredom in his gaze now, but there was also no judgement. It was expectant but patiently waiting in a way that was not unlike Sen.

"Are you already practicing the Nara shadow techniques?" she asked him, instead of commenting on the seal.

"Yes," he answered simply, but his eyes were narrowed.

She nodded in acceptance, not asking him for more information on how far he'd gotten or to show her any of it. Instead she pointed out, "A technique like that will need to be powered with chakra throughout. The moment you stop feeding it chakra, it stops. A seal is similar, when it comes to writing it. You need to feed it chakra constantly while writing, but without the initial burst that you would presumably give to your shadow jutsu upon activating it."

He stared at her a moment longer before sighing and relaxing back into the grass, loose limbed and easy. "A constant flow of chakra. That will take some practice," he repeated thoughtfully, his eyes straying back to the clouds. "Troublesome," he concluded with a mutter.

She laughed softly at the characteristic phrase. "A little work here so you can be lazy later?" she offered, "Storage seals are very handy out on missions. Would make them a lot less troublesome, I imagine."

He let out a huff of a breath but didn't otherwise respond.

Instead of leaving, she leaned back into the grass as well, taking a moment to enjoy the peace of the day and their village.

After a long quiet moment, Sen started talking, telling her of the early days of this village, of the clans that each wanted their own compound, uneasy with living so close to former enemies or strangers and that's why they all had their own lands in Konoha. He spoke of the discussions and decisions that were made in setting up the Academy and how even now, genin teams still consisted of a jounin and three genin. He muttered about what a stupid idea it had been to carve the Hokages' faces into the mountain and that many of the trees in the village had been created due to Hashirama's techniques, still permanent now.

He was reminiscing instead of teaching her anything, but she didn't mind. It was nice, to hear his calming voice and to listen to these odd little anecdotes of people who lived right here in Konoha years ago and how their choices, mistakes and hopes led to things still visible in the village now. So she lay back into the grass as well, hands behind her head as she looked up at the sky and the clouds traversing it. Shikamaru was silent next to her.

She didn't say a word as time slid past slowly like the clouds, until finally, Sen fell silent. Eventually she stood and left with only a softly spoken 'bye'.

Shikamaru simply lifted one hand in what could have been a wave but didn't otherwise move. Which was more than she had expected, to be honest.

She shook her head fondly and walked home, Sen as ever by her side.

On Saturday she carefully snuck back onto the Nara lands, to the teahouse. The board and the box with pieces were just as she had left them, untouched in the days between her last visit.

She smiled and set up the board, confident enough in the basics of the game to place the pieces without second guessing. Of course, she didn't always make the best move she could have made, but this was a learning game and she was not afraid to make mistakes.

They played together for hours that day and again on Monday afternoon and Wednesday after school. As she learned and grew in her shogi, Sen seemed to start enjoying the games more and more.

Sometimes they played just once a week, other weeks they played nearly every afternoon. At some point, Sakura considered just taking the board home with her, but it was one thing to use an otherwise unused shogi board on Nara lands and quite another to actually steal from her friend's family, so sneaking in and out it was.

One day, during a game, Sen abruptly turned away from the board. "We have to go," he warned, "someone is coming."

For a second, Sakura just froze.

It was Sen's voice that quickly snapped her out if it. "Sakura!" he barked out, "Go now." He rarely ever sounded that serious and it was pure instinct to follow the urgent command in that voice and to rush out of the teahouse and leave the Nara grounds as quickly as possible.

The game of shogi they had been playing was left, half-finished, in their wake.

Sakura didn't dare come back after that, afraid that there would be someone waiting, either that or a trap set to catch any trespassers.

In school, she tried not to act too strange towards Shikamaru despite the fact that she was constantly expecting him to confront her – irrationally, because even if someone had seen her and could tell it was a henge, how would they possibly know it was her?

It was two weeks later, on a Wednesday after school, when Sen quietly asked her to play another game of shogi with her, the implication that this meant going back to the teahouse very much clear.

"They could have set traps," she pointed out. "What if they catch me? It may just be a teahouse on the very edge of the Nara lands, but they are still clan lands. I could be in big trouble."

Sen put a wispy hand on her shoulder. She couldn't feel it exactly, but she knew it was there. "You worry too much, Sakura," he informed her matter-of-factly. "The Nara won't care – not enough to turn this into an actual trespass. Especially not when it concerns a civilian-born Academy student. And that is if they bother to try and catch you in the first place."

"But they could," she emphasized, turning around to look at him. "Wouldn't it be better not to risk it?"

The ghostly man stood, tall and silent as a statue. "Risk is a part of our lives, Sakura. As a shinobi we need to weigh risks, to decide whether taking a chance is worth the gains. I suppose that, in this case, the gains are not all that important, but it is something to keep in mind."

There was nothing at all in his voice that suggested he didn't fully mean what he was saying, but Sakura had known him all her life. The fact that there wasn't any inflection to his tone, the complete lack of it made her remember the look in his eyes when he stared at the shogi board.

And she realised that this was important.

The shogi board was the one place where Sen could influence the world. Where he could build something in a way that belonged only to himself.

It was something that was important to him.

It was worth the risk, she suddenly decided with utter certainty, like a piece of a puzzle had dropped into place showing a clear, unshakable image. "No," Sakura whispered, "No. We'll go and take a look."

But just because she decided it was worth it, didn't mean she wasn't afraid. Just that some things were more important than that fear. She swallowed back her nervousness and looked at the ghost who was always at her side. She reminded herself how lazy, easy-going and ultimately kind Shikamaru was and how very unlikely it was that he, at least, would be truly bothered by her actions.

Those reminders strengthened her resolve enough that she could convince herself to make her way back to the teahouse.

Sakura stared at it for a long moment from the shelter of the trees. She tried stretching out with her senses, searching for any traces of chakra. She couldn't find anyone nearby, but she was no true sensor so it was entirely possible that there was someone with a small amount of chakra - or someone suppressing it.

"As far as I can tell, it is empty of any humans," Sen informed her, clearly having been doing the same, only more successfully. He didn't encourage her to press forward but left the decision up to her.

The girl nodded, straightened her shoulders and walked right in, hidden only by her henge.

The teahouse was empty of people, and she didn't notice any traps. The game that had been on the board last time was gone. Instead the shogi board was set in the regular starting position with one single, significant change. One piece had been moved forwards in a simple, conventional opening move.

"What?" Sakura whispered, eyes darting around for anything else out of place.

"Oh," Sen said and fell into an inscrutable silence.

"Should we leave?" the girl asked. She didn't like to prod him when he got like this, but she was nervous.

Her question shook him out of his thoughtful state. "No. No, don't worry, Sakura. I don't think anyone is watching. But this is… I would like to play them. The Nara are intelligent and while I enjoy playing against you, those are teaching games. It has been a long time since I could test myself against someone in truth."

"This is a game?" She asked and then considered it. "They're waiting for someone, whoever was here, to make the next move," she discerned. And while that was an odd response to a sort-of break-in, it was also very much like Shikamaru and quite possibly his family as well.

She wondered if it had been him.

Whoever it was, this was something Sen, her sort-of-brother wanted - for himself, instead of for her and for once it was something she could give him. "Alright," Sakura agreed.

Sen glanced at her and then sat down in front of the board with a strange feeling of ceremony. The white-haired ghost stared down at it for a long moment, far longer than such a simple move in the beginning of the game warranted. Even so, Sakura waited, not quite understanding the heavy atmosphere that filled the room but respecting it nonetheless.

Then he told her the move he wished to play.

She dutifully placed the shogi piece as he indicated. Sen stared down at the board for a moment longer before he nodded and they left, together.

The next afternoon, Sakura returned, approaching the teahouse carefully. Sen assured her that there were no chakra signatures nearby, so they went in and found that a new move had been placed on the board in the meantime.

The ghost seated himself in front of the shogi board and took his time coming up with his response. Sakura couldn't begrudge him that because he seemed to take pride and enjoyment from having something that was his. So she watched and waited, day after day as her ghostly companion and the unknown shogi player did battle on the board.

Until one afternoon they approached the teahouse and Sen warned her that there was someone inside.

She hesitated and decided to ask, because this part of her life was theirs or even just his, so while usually the decision was up to her, perhaps he should have the deciding vote in this. "What do you want to do?"

"The game is all but over," the man informed her stoically. "I would expect him to resign, so it does not matter much if we leave."

That was as good as a suggestion to leave, and yet, just from the way he worded it she knew that he'd be disappointed. Sakura had known him long enough to be able to tell that much. "But they won't be able to see through the henge, right?" she pressed.

"They will know it is a henge, and a powerful shinobi would be able to forcefully dispel it. I don't believe a Nara would do so – not for something such as this. I cannot promise this, though," her companion explained.

"I know," Sakura said and stared thoughtfully at the teahouse. "I don't want them to know it's me – mostly because it's not. It's you. But if we run, you'll have to stop playing anyway. Perhaps it's worth the risk."

She glanced at the ghostly man at her side and saw that something had softened in him, a hint of a smile playing at his lips.

"Yes," she said to herself. This was worth taking a chance. "Let's just go. If you agree?"

The tall man smiled down at her. "Agreed."

She breathed deeply to calm herself, straightened her back, wore the henge as a shield and – knocked softly on the door.

"Come in," a deep voice called out.

She opened the door to find Shikamaru's father sitting behind the shogi board, waiting patiently. Sakura recognized him from playdates at Ino's place when he dropped by to talk to her dad and from seeing him picking up Shikamaru from the Academy when he was younger. That made her less nervous than she would otherwise be when faced with a clan head.

"Nara-sama," she greeted him with a deep, respectful nod.

He nodded back at her. "So you're who I've been playing against these past months?"

"We are," she answered, despite knowing how odd the use of that plural was. She was wearing a henge anyway, so she was hiding anyway and it would feel… wrong, not to acknowledge Sen here, in front of his opponent.

The Nara was quiet for a moment, staring at her and she failed to suppress her nervousness entirely, fidgeting under his regard. Somehow, that caused him to relax and he leaned back.

"I resign," Shikaku-sama informed her deliberately. "Would you be opposed to a rematch?"

Sakura tilted her head and didn't look at the invisible man at her side. "No, not at all," she said, and she slowly approached the shogi board.

The girl sat down gingerly, just a bit more to the left of the front of the board than was usual – aware that yes, that would also be seen as decidedly odd. But she knew it was also appreciated, as that left enough room for Sen to share this space in front of the board, to sit there as a player instead of an observer.

The Nara didn't remark on it, taking her odd mannerisms in stride. Instead he took it upon himself to start the pieces toss. When the person to make the first move was decided and all of the pieces were placed on the board, three persons bowed their head in respect.

It was Sen who could claim that space between him and his opponent – on the board he left his marks and while the pieces were placed by her hands, it was his tactical mind that waged this war of generals.

It was roughly three hours in, that Sakura spoke up. "Forgive me, Nara-sama," she softly interposed in the quiet atmosphere of the high-level game, "I'm afraid I must leave you now. May we continue this at another time?"

"You have some place to be?" he asked her shrewdly, those dark, piercing eyes never leaving her face.

She looked down and nodded in agreement. Providing further excuses or details would only give him more to go on.

When she remained silent, the older man sighed. "It's troublesome, but I can return at the same time tomorrow. Would that suit you?"

"Yes, thank you Nara-sama," she answered politely, as if the other man was providing her with a favour. He was the clan head, after all, and his time was probably more precious than that of an Academy student, though with her henge she looked nothing like herself – it was based on the descriptions Sen had given her of a cousin of his but she looked different enough from the woman he'd described that the similarity didn't constantly bring up either fond or painful memories.

She stood up, bowed deeply and left on legs that were shaky not just from the long time spent seated, but also from fear of those eyes seeing straight through her. Shikamaru was smart – judging from the game she'd just watched played out before her, his father was no slouch either. If anyone could figure out her identity even without dropping her henge, it was probably him.

As Sakura left the woods and teahouse behind, though, her shoulders relaxed and her stride slowed. By the time she had found a busy store and an out of the way hidden corner to drop her henge, she was feeling giddy, as if she'd gotten away with a prank – the best kind of prank, because it was one that was also a gift to a beloved brother.

"I'm home!" she called out cheerfully when she entered her home.

"Sakura, welcome back," her mother greeted, "Did you have fun today?"

She took off her shoes, putting them away in the little cubicle and walked into the kitchen. "Uhu," she told her mother. "I went to the library and then spent some time playing shogi with a friend."

She was referring to Sen, not to the Nara clan head, and that made it just about true.

"Well, as long as you had fun," her mother said with a shrug, used to her daughter's more placid pursuits, such as her library visits or seal writing, even if those didn't quite fit the civilian's image of shinobi. Sakura had long since observed that her mother preferred hearing about those activities and not the kunai throwing or sparring, so she tended to more readily share these – even if her mother didn't quite get it.

"Can you set the table?"

"Yes!" she replied to the request with an unwarranted enthusiasm.

Sen shook his head at her fondly. "Glad to see you acting entirely inconspicuous," he commented sarcastically.

She grinned back at him. "I can't believe we did that!" she whispered to him in the relative privacy of the living room. "And we got away with it too."

The ghost shook his head. "The Nara clan head decided not to press it," he pointed out. "There's a difference. Either way, I suppose we did, indeed, do that."

He sounded dry, like an adult humouring a child, but Sakura knew he was just as happy about this as she was.

When Sakura returned to the teahouse the next afternoon, the Nara clan head was already there. They greeted each other politely and Sakura sat down in the same place she'd occupied last time.

This time, Shikaku-sama even offered her tea.

It was odd, to sit here in this teahouse with a clan head and a ghostly figure, drinking tea. And yet she was surprisingly comfortable. The Nara barely made any small talk and didn't press her when her answers to his questions were decidedly vague.

Privately, she suspected that he enjoyed trying to figure her out for himself - that just as his son, he enjoyed puzzles.

For that reason, and for Sen's sake, she kept quiet on personal matters even as this became a regular way for her to spend her late afternoons, and both shogi and the teahouse became more and more familiar to her. They didn't have a regular schedule – the Nara clan head had responsibilities and so did Sakura at times, though hers tended more towards things she'd promised to do for her parents or on occasion agreed upon sealing lessons or physical training with Shino or Shikamaru after school.

Afterwards, or sometimes even during the shogi games with Shikaku-sama, Sen took the time to explain to her why each move was made.

They didn't play together often anymore, though. And Sakura found that after everything she learned from the games she witnessed, she wanted to play her own games to test out her own theories and tactics.

One day, at the Academy, she decided that there was no harm in asking and ventured to find a Nara opponent of her own.

"Shikamaru?" she queried softly during lunchtime. He turned his head from where he was cloud gazing to meet her eyes. "I wondered if you'd want to play a game with me? Of shogi, I mean?"

He sat up entirely, looking straight at her now. "Shogi," he repeated. "I didn't know you played."

Sakura shrugged. "Not often," she admitted. "But sometimes. I don't have many people to play against, though."

"Hmm, sure," he agreed casually, "I'll play."

He always had a small shogi board with him, so they set it up easily. They didn't get very far, playing during lunch break, but it was fun to play against someone else and to get a glimpse of how his tactics compared to those of his father.

They played now or then, usually after school when his father was unavailable that afternoon – not that Shikamaru knew about that. Either way, the boy almost always accepted when she asked for a game and it was fun to be the player for once instead of the observer.

While she didn't win, she didn't think she played too badly either because Shikamaru always considered his responses to her moves quite carefully.

Playing against him also deepened her understanding of just why this was important to Sen and she felt closer to her unofficial brother with each game she played.

Time passed and before she knew it she was in her last year at the Academy. At school, Sakura was still known as the quiet, bookish one, but just because she didn't feel like showing off in class or wasn't loud or prone to providing answers when no-one asked her, didn't mean she was still as painfully shy as she had been.

Unseen by most of the outside world, Sakura had grown more confident in who she was and what she could do. Because of Sen, in large part, but it also helped that she had friends. Not just Ino, who she loved fiercely but who sometimes overshadowed her, but also Shino and Shikamaru who always took the time to actually listen to her when she talked to them.

In this last year, she spent extra time on physical training when she could, mostly endurance as it was hard to work on skill without an actual opponent. But Sen also taught her how to sharpen her chakra control even further, taught her how to walk on walls and water and to enhance parts of her body with her chakra.

And while Sakura wasn't talented as a sensor, he did his best to teach her how to identify familiar people and to try and reach out her senses for them as far as she could. They practiced using whichever chakra signatures were readily available, so mostly her classmates, teachers and the Nara clan head.

She still played shogi against Shikaku-sama roughly every other night, if only for an hour or two. Most times Sen came away as the winner to their games, which generally spanned at least two meetings. But that was certainly not always the case.

One night, in the week of graduation, Shikamaru's father informed her he could not make it for the rest of the week because he would stay home to support his son for the exams the next day and celebrate the day after when he graduated.

"That's fine," Sakura said agreeably, "I cannot make it either, for much the same reason."

"You also have a child set to graduate?"

"Hmm, something like that," she agreed without agreeing. "Next Monday then?"

The older man accepted that easily enough. "Next Monday," he agreed with a nod.

"That boy is too prideful," Sen commented, "Your other teammate is foolish, yes, but eager and willing to learn, not unlike yourself. But the Uchiha is arrogant, selfish and prideful."

"That's not true," Sakura said, defending her crush. Because yes, Sasuke could be prideful, perhaps, but it wasn't undeserved. "He was top of our class, he has a good reason to be proud of his skills."

The ghost stared back at her with a hint of that disdain that she hated to see on him.

"Pride cripples more often than it uplifts," he spoke as if it was a divine wisdom from ages past, "Be proud of achievements, of yourself and your village and your teammates, but never let pride hinder you from learning something useful. Be it a piece of information or a new skill."

Sakura wasn't willing to hear it. "But he lost his family," she said with clear emphasis, "He has to take pride in his own achievements, and his family name. It's all he has left." She tilted her chin up and stared unflinchingly into that red gaze. "It's not that strange for him to be a bit closed off. I can't imagine what that must have been like, for him."

Sen pursed his lips and was the one to look away, moving his gaze towards where she knew at some distance the wall surrounding their village lay – from where they stood, however, they couldn't see anything more interesting than trees.

Her companion was silent for a moment and Sakura was already drawing breath, ready to argue further when the ghost finally spoke up. "I can," he said with a deliberate steadiness. "I know what that feels like, and no child deserves to suffer that."

A moment of silence, undisturbed by anything but the breeze. She waited him out, knowing there was more to come.

"It's painful, and at times it may feel as if the grief can swallow you whole," the ghost's voice was duller than she'd ever heard him. "but we are shinobi, and we must go forward. Sasuke is living in the past, is living for revenge. That can never lead to a place worth going. Not if it causes him to give up on this team, on the new family he has been granted, without even trying. The Uchiha has closed himself off and refuses to see what he does have left – including you, Sakura. You're a team now, and these are the people you must be able to count on as much as they must be able to count on you."

Sakura swallowed, sensing a darkness to his words, a shadowed memory that made a shiver run through her. She breathed, in and out, and didn't say anything more.

She walked home but the shadow stayed with her, because, as always, Sen was with her every step of the way.

It was her first real mission, there'd been a frightening attack with deadly intent by a nukenin and they were in a foreign country with no-one they could truly count on but each other. Team Seven.

Kakashi-sensei was awake now, though. He led them out towards the trees near their clients' house and threw a trio of kunai at their feet.

Sakura already knew how to tree walk, of course, it was something Sen had taught her roughly two years ago now. The two boys ran off to compete with each other and for a long moment Sakura just watched them. Watched how her sensei looked at their practice for barely a minute before he dug out his garishly bright book and wandered away from them.

She felt oddly defeated when she picked up the remaining kunai and then stared up at her tree.

Kakashi-sensei's eyes had moved right past her.

"Sakura," Sen said, quite clearly. "Let us go this way," he gestured to the left, to the opposite way her team captain had gone.

"Sensei told us to practice," she whispered, the kunai gripped limply in her hands.

"So he did. And I've been meaning to start teaching you about the actual use of medical chakra. Your grounding in anatomy is solid enough to start, if carefully. I trust you not to grow overconfident in this. So come this way and let us practice," Sen's voice held a dangerous note as he pronounced that last word.

Her hand tightened around the cold weapon and she looked up to meet red, expectant eyes.

Sakura nodded.

As she walked away, she did so without a single backwards glance.