Chapter 92: Epilogue of the Volume
The final result was 5:2, with Sasuke winning, proving that the three-tomoe Sharingan was stronger than Ice Style.
Leisurely days always pass quickly.
After a few days of lazing around, things changed.
First, the Third Hokage finally awoke. Although his condition was still not good, his spirit was acceptable.
The first thing the Third did after waking up was to preside over the inauguration ceremony for the Fifth Hokage.
Below the stage, looking at her radiant and triumphant master, Princess Tsunade, and beside her, the haggard old man Sarutobi Hiruzen with his empty right sleeve, Sakura was filled with a great deal of emotion.
In any case, since Tsunade had taken over as the Fifth Hokage, Sakura's status as Tsunade's disciple had also risen, making her a direct successor in the Hokage's line.
Hmm, as for the effect, it was probably just that people looked at her a little more kindly.
And the occasional paranoid delusion of "Will Danzo capture me and brainwash me into Root," a sort of "there are always treacherous subjects who want to harm me" persecution complex, finally disappeared without a trace.
A bigger change probably came from herself: with her outstanding performance in the Chunin Exams, she and Shikamaru had become the only two ninja among this year's Konoha candidates to be promoted to Chunin.
After receiving the ugly-as-hell vest that symbolized her Chunin status, which she still had to wear, Sakura treated everyone from Team Kakashi to a meal at a yakiniku restaurant.
The two boys, who were still angry about not being promoted, turned their grief and indignation into appetite and ate Sakura into bankruptcy—the young girl was heartbroken for a long time after returning home to her empty piggy bank.
While eating, the two boys also made excuses for not being promoted. Sakura summarized them for them into three sentences:
The audience this year was no good.
The judges this year were no good.
The opponents this year were no good.
When she summarized the last sentence, Naruto received a bonk on the head from Sakura. "Are you saying I was no good? I should have gone easy and let you win, right?"
However, before Sakura had a chance to enjoy the life of a Chunin bullying a Genin, her master Tsunade, who had officially become Hokage, finally remembered that she still had a disciple, and then announced the end of her happy life.
After the formal discipleship ceremony, Tsunade officially began her instruction of Sakura.
Specifically, it was like this:
She took out a few stacks of books that were taller than Sakura, handed them to her, and then said, "Finish reading them. I'll find time to test you. If you have any questions, find Shizune."
What Tsunade meant was that a genius should be taught with a genius's teaching method. If one wants to learn medical ninjutsu, then one should start with human anatomy.
Of course, whether this completely free-range teaching method was because Sakura was a genius, or because Tsunade had no time to teach and was busy with her new official duties, was still up for debate.
In short, Tsunade was indeed very busy.
Unlike the original story, here, because of her great contributions during the Chunin Exams invasion incident and with the Third Hokage backing her, Tsunade had gathered most of the power and popular support in a short period of time, and was not a figurehead as in the original story.
This also meant that Tsunade had to make decisions on a thousand different things. Controlling a village was a very difficult matter, especially for a novice. Even with the Third Hokage as an advisor and Jiraiya's help, she was so busy that she had no time to teach her disciple.
So she simply assigned a long-term task and let her study on her own first.
Sakura suddenly felt that she had been tricked.
Fortunately, Shizune was very conscious of her role as a senior sister. Seeing that Tsunade was busy, she took over the task of initial tutoring.
I mean, she took over the task of highlighting the key points for Sakura and then testing her.
So during this period, Team 7's arrangement was as follows: Kakashi guided Sasuke's training, Jiraiya guided Naruto's training, and Shizune guided Sakura's... reading.
Do you know what the most terrifying nightmare Sakura has had in this life and her previous one combined is?
Encountering a ghost? Sorry, there are no ghosts in this world. It must be a genjutsu. Break!
Being chased by a monster? A T-Rex, an Alien, a Great White Shark? Sorry, I think if these creatures were to face Sakura, they should be the ones who are scared...
No, no, no, none of these were anything. Ever since Sakura had become an adult in her previous life, these dreams had already stopped scaring her.
There was only one dream, from her previous life to this one, that could wake her up in a cold sweat every time.
And that was—
Dreaming that she was back in her final year of high school and had to retake the college entrance exams.
Every time, it made her little heart pound like a frightened deer! Her whole being was in a bad state.
So when the nightmare came true, when she found that she had to chew through a mountain-high pile of books and still be tested, the expression on Sakura's face could be described as brilliant.
Her little face was deathly pale, her almond eyes were wide and round, her delicate brows were raised high, and her hand, as if she had Parkinson's, took the pile of books...
As if she were taking a lit bomb.
No, this really was a bomb. Sakura mourned for herself with a long face. It has completely blown up my beautiful life!
"Do ninja have to read this many books too?" she asked cautiously. Tsunade nodded as if it were a matter of course.
Although she was considered a pretty good student in her previous life and didn't find reading difficult, the tedious and boring process with no visible progress was indeed painful. This was different from her usual training. Firstly, the training of ninjutsu and chakra, which she had been doing for ten years, had long been integrated into her life and had become as natural as eating and breathing, so she didn't find it tedious or boring. Secondly, with her talent, she could see progress with just a little practice, unlike knowledge, where you only see progress and returns after putting in great effort. Learning to a half-baked level is more harmful than beneficial.
That being said, Sakura had long thought that she had passed the stage of gaining knowledge from books and had reached the realm of acquiring truth from practice. But things like medicine and biology... she hadn't studied medicine or biology in her previous life, so she had to start from scratch.
Thinking about it carefully, learning medical ninjutsu and medicine from Tsunade was beneficial to her and had no harm. The new ninjutsu she wanted to develop seemed to require this knowledge as a supplement.
So she had to force herself to study hard.
I don't think I'll ever see the sun tomorrow again, Sakura thought as she sat at her desk, forcing herself to chew through these big tomes.
Whether she would see the sun tomorrow was another matter, but she certainly couldn't see the sun now: the books she had borrowed from the library were piled so high that they had long since blocked the light from the window.
Although the books Tsunade had given her were thick, most of the content was examples and illustrations. Taking into account that most ninja's culture class scores were not very high, they were written in a very easy-to-understand way—which is to say, they were long-winded, not in-depth, and the only benefit was that even an illiterate person could learn medical ninjutsu by following the examples. Actually, Tsunade's original intention was just to let Sakura learn medical ninjutsu first, not to make her a great medical scientist first.
The ethos of the ninja world had always been like this, from ancient times to the present. It overemphasized practice and neglected theory, having skill but no principle. Most ninja only needed to know how to use a ninjutsu, and then they would develop the skill of using that ninjutsu to its peak, without paying attention to why the ninjutsu was like that. Only those who hoped to create their own ninjutsu would want to deeply understand the principles behind it, such as Orochimaru and Haruno Sakura. And these people were often considered heretics.
This way of thinking was not without reason. The one who researches how to build guns can't beat the one who researches how to use guns. The ninja world had been in chaos for so many years. The ones who researched how to build guns left behind their guns, but they themselves were killed by those who were skilled at using them. In this atmosphere, everyone of course recognized that the people who researched how to build guns were idiots.
As a transmigrator, Sakura was truly an anomaly: she was born knowing that both "skill" and "principle" were indispensable.
Since her development in the next few years would require this knowledge, for the sake of her own future and her life, it was better to study a little more.
So the girl went to the library and the archives (the latter of which was open to her because she had become the Hokage's disciple), borrowed as many related and unrelated books as she could—from anatomy: from systems to regions to "German Orthopedics"—and used the superpower she had awakened during her university years, the ability to master a course in ten days, to go through all these books as much as possible under Shizune's guidance.
Of course, this did not mean that she had completely mastered this knowledge. It was just that after going through it once, she knew some of the basic things, had established an overall framework, had concentrated on studying the main parts, and then knew where to find the answers in which book when she encountered problems in the future, and knew how to study in depth from then on.
The test was unexpectedly simple, so simple that it was a bit of an insult to the effort the girl had put in during this period.
Perhaps Shizune had only decided on the amount of knowledge Sakura needed to master based on the level of a genius ninja. After all, most ninja were "not very good at" reading, and a genius ninja was only "not very good at" reading. As for Sakura, in her previous life, in that country that mainly tested reading ability, her talent was considered top-tier...
The following days were not very eventful. After getting through the difficult beginning, Sakura's learning journey was on the right track. Most of the books she had borrowed were returned after she finished reading them or found them useless, leaving only a small portion for her to continue studying.
Happily, because the number of books on her desk had finally become much smaller, Sakura was able to see the light of day again.
Perhaps she had gained some insights from her recent reading. One evening at dinner, Sakura suddenly suggested to her mother of this life: How about you give me another little sister!
Ms. Mebuki Haruno (this was the name of Sakura's mother designated in the databooks; Sakura's father's name was Kizashi Haruno) was stunned for a moment, then smiled and shook her head: You're already so big! She rejected Sakura's proposal. Sakura didn't say anything more.
The next day, Sakura silently returned another useless book to the library.
While the girl was studying, Konoha was also quietly changing.
The wounds gradually healed, and with a new Hokage, Konoha recovered from the turmoil and became even more vibrant.
After closing the village for a few weeks, the accumulated missions had piled up like a mountain. Konoha also reopened its mission system and got back on track.
Team 7, Team Kakashi, also reassembled from their respective training and began a new cycle of missions—and training (studying).
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