Sakura listened absentmindedly as Iruka explained the aning behind the scroll that the Third Hokage had left on the wall. In essence, the ssage encouraged the exam takers to take the opportunity to shore up their weaknesses, because Chūnin needed to be well rounded in order to lead effectively.
"For instance," Iruka was saying, "if Naruto's weakest points are his brain and his knowledge, he needs to study so more. And if Sakura's weakest point is her strength…"
"Oi," said Sakura flatly. "Who are you calling a weakling?"
'You're the last person I want to hear that from, Iruka-sensei!' Inner Sakura raged, waving her fists at him.
"You get the idea," said Iruka with a little smirk. "Well, that's about all I had to say. Keep the Hokage's words in mind when you undergo the third exam, don't overdo it, and… good luck. Especially you, Naruto."
And with all of that said, Iruka took them through another set of doors, and then led them up a few flights of stairs, to the place that Team 7 would call ho for the next three days, while they waited for the other contestants to finish the second exam.
"If you leave your quarters, you'll imdiately be considered disqualified," Iruka told them, just before taking his leave. "You have the entire floor to yourselves, so I don't want to hear anything but you guys getting DQ'd before even making it to the finals, okay?
"'kayyy!" said Naruto rrily.
He was quite happy to be stuck here with his friends, instead of being forced to return to his lonely and empty house. Sasuke was less than pleased in comparison, and even though he had the option of locking himself in his room, he would still have to co out to eat and train…
Indeed, it seed that each of the tower's floors had its own anities; one dining room attached to a larger training room, as well as bathrooms and bedrooms. There was even a small library, which was really more of a bookshelf filled with dusty old scrolls, which contained basic Ninjutsu. Nothing forbidden or secret; just the kind of techniques that had already spread far and wide throughout the shinobi world.
'Great,' said Inner Sakura happily. 'Now, it won't look strange if we start using Wind-style out of nowhere!'
Sakura grabbed a few more scrolls on elental Ninjutsu for the sake of reference, and she settled herself in the dining room to read them with a few rice cakes to eat as snacks. However, after a few minutes of having Naruto either buzzing around her or calling room service to order ran, Sakura rapidly ca to the conclusion that if she wanted to study, she should have locked herself in her room like Sasuke.
"All right!" Naruto called out loudly to nobody in particular. "Ti to train!"
'You do that,' said Inner Sakura irritably. 'Preferably as far away from us as you can.'
Unfortunately for Sakura, Naruto couldn't use any of the Yamanaka clan's Mind Transmission Jutsu, so he couldn't hear her inner monologue. So instead of training at the other end of the room, he decided to drop to the floor and do press-ups, right in front of Sakura, at the intersection where the training room ended and the dining room began.
"1…2…3…"
'Is… is he trying to show off?' said Inner Sakura in astonishnt.
Minutes later….
"300… 301… 302…" Naruto grunted.
'He's still going at it,' said Inner Sakura in amazent. 'I didn't think he had it in him…'
Contrary to Sakura's expectations, Naruto did actually work out quite a bit at ho; it's not as if he had anything better to do with his ti, anyway. He had no one to talk to or play with, and he certainly wasn't going to study if he could help it!
'I wonder how many we can do,' Inner Sakura wondered. 'Ever since we ca to this world, we haven't really trained anything but moulding and controlling chakra…'
"550… 561… 562…"
"Hey, you forgot the 550s!" Sakura called out; she had completely given up on reading her Ninjutsu scrolls. "You just skipped 10, Naruto!"
At this point, Naruto's brain was doing more work than his muscles, just to keep up with the high number count. And he was still far from Rock Lee's casual training; that madman would do a thousand daily, then add more and more until his muscles gave out. And then, he'd do another type of exercise to punish himself for having failed to reach his ridiculous goal…
At any rate, after reaching an even 700, Naruto had bested his all-ti record, thanks to the encouragent of having Sakura watching over him.
The power that large breasts could exert on n was truly frightening…
Curious to know her own physical strength, Sakura walked a bit farther away from Naruto and got on all fours, placing her hands under her shoulders and straightening out her back and legs. Tightening her core muscles, Sakura began lowering herself to the ground… until she encountered an obstacle to her exercise.
Two of them, in fact; and large ones at that.
"My boobs are getting in the way," Sakura muttered to herself. "I can't lower my chest as far down to the floor as I should…"
'Obviously,' said Inner Sakura. 'Still, the added weight should make up for that...'
Together, Sakura's breasts weighed her down by an additional 1.5 kg.
As a point of reference, since milk has about the sa density as water, one could say that Sakura was carrying on her chest the equivalent of a 2 L bottle of milk three-quarters full (or a 4-pint bottle of milk, or thereabouts).
And so, Sakura began doing press-ups, but as she reached the 100s, she knew she had reached her limits. It was many tis more the maximum record she had achieved in her past life in P.E. class, but for a shinobi, even a kunoichi… she really was incredibly physically weak… as long as she didn't use chakra.
"I guess I can't escape physical training after all," Sakura groaned. "Damn it, this sucks…"
Chakra Enhanced Strength mostly depends on chakra control, making it a Nintaijutsu, rather than sothing like the pure Taijutsu that Might Guy and Rock Lee practise. In fact, those two branches of Taijutsu are direct opposites, both in the way their practitioners train and the way they use their chakra.
Chakra Enhanced Strength practitioners (which was just Tsunade, for the mont) consciously direct their chakra to multiply their striking power. Therefore, Chakra Enhanced Strength is completely incompatible with the Eight Gates Technique, since using that mode makes the practitioner's chakra flow uncontrollably, which is the opposite of control.
However, pure Taijutsu practitioners train their muscles in order to give their chakra sothing akin to muscle mory; the ability to instinctively mobilize their 'stamina chakra' without the need to consciously manipulate it. Therefore, the use of chakra to add weight behind their strikes becos almost like an automatism, allowing for the simultaneous release of the Eight Gates Technique!
Even so, a strong physique was still needed as a baseline for any kind of Taijutsu, which included Nintaijutsu such as Chakra Enhanced Strength. This had never been a problem for Tsunade, since she had been born with monstrous amounts of strength to begin with, but Sakura had no such divine physique.
And so, for the next two days, Sakura trained her body as hard as she could, and successfully unlocked the Wind-style chakra transformation by slicing up so empty scrolls with her chakra. It was a bit too late to be starting physical training at this point, but better late than never! And besides, physical training wasn't a bad thing, even if Sakura wanted to focus on Ninjutsu and Genjutsu; more stamina ant more chakra!
At so point during this period, Kakashi briefly showed up to say hi. He then proceeded to drag Sasuke out of Team 7's quarters, assuring them that Sasuke wouldn't be penalized for leaving, and then he returned with him shortly afterwards; Sakura was guessing that he had sealed away Sasuke's cursed seal.
Finally, on the next day, the last day of the five-day deadline for the second exam, Sakura allowed her body to rest, using this ti instead for breast communion, to train her Genjutsu and Wind Style moves with the ntal imprints of Kin Tsuchi and Orochimaru.
There were only a few more hours to go until the preliminaries began…
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