Stumble [Rewrite]

Ceremonious

Class was out early today so that everyone would be able to attend one of the country's most important ceremonies: the inauguration of the next Hokage: The Godaime.

Sakura stayed at the edges of the large crowd, lingering away from others and taking refuge in the shadow of the weapon's shop. The Sandaime was giving a speech about Konoha and how it was a great Hidden Village that needed a great leader to lead them forward even more so than they already were. Mito's journal was kept between her folders, bookmarked on the explanation of how she managed to seal all of the Kyuubi within herself, by herself.

Mito's work was her heaven-sent. Here, she would have a reason to regaining her Yin seal. She had already begun the process of collecting chakra in two places on her body; the center of her forehead and the base of her spine above the tailbone. That way, she'd have even more of an expansive chakra reserve to dip into. With her past experiences and her knowledge of the technique, she deduced that it would take her at least an entire year to build them up enough to where they'd start showing. Of course, this meant that she would have to not use chakra on a normal basis if she wanted to pull this off smoothly.

So stamina taijutsu training it was.

Up on the Hokage Tower, Dan stepped into view. Once he arrived at the railing, he regarded the sea of people with a wide smile. His voice boomed over the vast audience for a while before they erupted into applause and cheers.

There wasn't anything wrong with him taking up the position, it just... Sakura didn't know how to feel about it. That was Tsunade's spot he was taking and she had yet to discover how his morals were aligned. What changes would be made to Konoha's policies? How different were the genin teams going to be arranged, or, would there be anything that would change?

Too many questions swirled uncomfortably in her mind and she didn't like the state it left her in. The other changes of this timeline were doable, for they didn't necessarily sway personalities or attitudes. She knew her and Sasori would alter the course to make for a better future, but she didn't want to speculate too much on things they couldn't control—and she hated that.

She suddenly felt a prickly feeling at the back of her neck.

Sakura's eyes snapped above her to scan the ledges and rooftops for any sign of life. There would be tons of ANBU lurking, no doubt, to act as security measures for the ceremony. But that didn't give an excuse as to why one of them kept their eyes on her longer than necessary. Now feeling unsafe, she slipped from her cover beside the building to walk the alleyways towards her home.

::

Kakashi's eyes narrowed as he stood on the other side of the building from where he kept his post. His porcelain dog mask kept strapped to his face, hiding the constant inscrutable nature of his expression. But even this time he couldn't help but shift his jaw and glance back to where he once was.

The girl saw him.

That little, no-name Academy student knew he was there.

That was impossible. Should someone like her exist, he thought that all upper-ranked shinobi should've been informed of her. And from the looks of it, she didn't come from any well-known shinobi family. If she were, then he was assured he would've caught wind of her one way or another. Unless they were keeping her off the radar?

He silently flickered back to that girl's previous location after he was sure she had left. He knew that she wasn't supposed to be any of his concern, and that he was here for one reason and one reason only, but...

Kakashi looked to the Hokage Tower. The ceremony had just ended, leaving him to report back his findings to his superior.

He then looked the direction the girl left.