Rabbit Princess [Gaara] [1]

☾ 33 ☽

The following days were just as busy as the previous for Tsukiko. She had decided that even if she couldn't have a Sensei to teach her new tricks, she could still practice by herself. With Usajii's help, she devised a little schedule for herself to follow for the remaining month until they get to the Third Exam. There was no way she was losing against any one of them.

Tsukiko's mornings were spent with studying through the Wood Style Jutsus while her afternoons were spent spying on other people practicing, using her Sharingan to get used to the way it showed her the actions of those individuals. She didn't want to get overwhelmed during the match itself if she used her Sharingan. Her evenings were spent practicing with Byakugan and her nights were given to Crystal Style and Water Style.

After much bothering, Tsukiko had managed to convince the Sandaime Hokage to let her study Tobirama's Water Style Jutsus as well, guilt-tripping him that she really wanted to protect her cherished ones and for that, she needed to be a stronger person. Hiruzen had been sceptical of this drama but he did agree ultimately.

Naruto had managed to convince the Pervy Sage to help him practice for the upcoming Chunin Exams, and was apparently learning how to summon toads. Tsukiko was pretty jealous of this until Usajii scolded her that he was a good teacher too, and if she proved herself to him that she wanted to learn seriously, he could teach her how to summon rabbits.

Tsukiko didn't want to summon rabbits – she already had one of them inside of her, why would she want to ever do that? Usajii had been rather annoyed with her but managed to agree that he will help her summon water dragons (after she rejected toads, snakes, slugs, rabbits and dogs), but only if she stopped being sarcastic with him all the time. Tsukiko agreed immediately.

But something had pushed everything from Tsukiko's head when she saw something she wasn't supposed to see. She had been heading to the training grounds to spy on the other teams when she came across a murder scene that shook her to her core. It was the murder of Hayate Gekko, one of the proctors.

Of course, Tsukiko did not stick around for long. She saw the man's dead body, struck by a sword and left lying on the roof of one of the building near the Kikyo Castle. Several masked ANBUs had surrounded him and Tsukiko did not want to be caught there and thus, fled the place toward the marketplace, where she ran into Sakura.

"I'm going to go visit Sasuke-Kun at the hospital," Sakura told the white-haired girl. "Would you like to come along?" Tsukiko would've politely refused but she saw the lost look on Sakura's face and agreed. "Should we get some get-well flowers?"

"That's a good idea," Tsukiko replied quietly as the two of them neared the Yamanaka Flowers and entered the place, looking around at the flowers. Tsukiko loved nature, especially flowers but she had never visited this shop before.

"Oh, how unusual for you to come by to buy our flowers," Ino said, directing her words to Sakura. Tsukiko looked over and saw that Ino was in-charge of running the shop that day, or maybe often, Tsukiko didn't know.

"N-Not really!" Sakura stammered slightly, somewhat self-conscious. Tsukiko glanced at the pink-haired female. "Why would you care? Besides, isn't it unusual that you're minding the shop?" Sakura moved to look at the flowers.

"People don't like flowers with roots when they're in the hospital since they don't want to be 'rooted' in the hospital," Ino commented as she walked out from behind the counter and over to where the pink-haired and white-haired girls were standing. "So, cut flowers are fundamental,"

"W-What are you talking about...?" Sakura asked. Tsukiko sighed as she looked through the flowers. It was clear from Sakura's blush that she didn't want to be caught by Ino going to visit Sasuke with flowers. They were both so diseased.