Sakura stared blankly at Katsuyu. Today the slug was only as tall as her, but nevertheless an odd sight. Katsuyu's antennae twitched before finally breaking the silence. "Today you begin medical jutsu training, Sakura-san. It requires the highest caliber of chakra control because you must monitor the mitotic process of each individual cell as it multiplies. Are you ready?"

Sakura nodded grimly. Learning how to heal someone with chakra would make her an even more important asset to the battlefield. She cleared her head and focused on the task in front of her, boring holes into her hands. They glowed a faint blue she's seen when climbing trees or standing on water. The pink-haired girl listened to Katsuyu's gentle coaxing, and the chakra turned green. Sakura blinked. That wasn't hard at all, for her.

"Good, Sakura-san!" The slug made her way closer towards her. "Now try using it on something."

Sakura focused harder, her chakra reserves wavering. Medical jutsu, it seemed, took up an exponentially larger amount of chakra compared to regular jutsu. She held a hand out to the ground, where the grass immediately grew taller, looming over her, before shriveling to a dried up stalk.

"Too much chakra will end up damaging your patients. Balance is everything, Sakura-san. Internal state of mind will affect the healing process. That is why most medics are either very compassionate, like Tsunade-sama and Shizune-san, or disconnected from their emotions, like Kabuto. The mindset of medic-nin is in fact so sensitive that those being healed would be able to tell the difference between Tsunade-sama and Kabuto's technique." Katsuyu inspected her swiftly, then suggested, "Why don't we take a small break?"

"No," Sakura stated, her hands already glowing once again with chakra. "But if you wish to take a break, you are welcome to."

Katsuyu merely nodded to herself before moving to the refuge of shade underneath the towering trees. She will get far in life with this willpower, she decided. If only Tsunade-sama had the same dedication, though. The slug puckered her mouth, darkly recalling their earlier conversation.

Shizune had been present, too, listening intently and recording the details of their meeting. Even Tonton stood out of the way, not making a sound as he stood anxiously at the base of the desk.

"Katsuyu, I fear Danzō has already made a move towards Sakura. Would you allow her to stay with you for a bit, until the Council settles some more? I'd also ask you to watch that kid from ROOT. Danzō most definitely pulled some strings to have it happen, but it's too late now..." Tsunade leaned back in her chair and massaged her temples.

"Of course," Katsuyu had immediately replied. She watched the blonde sink further into her chair. "Are you also expecting Sakura-san's control over Shokuton to increase when she's there? Is it possible Yamato-san can teach her?"

Tsunade closed her eyes, still slumped in her chair. "For her own sake, Sakura needs to be able to control it. I have a feeling this is a mental block more than anything, which Yamato can't help her in. I thought being in the Shikkotsu forest would help her; I hope it does. She's barely made progress with me, and I know Danzō is getting impatient. He's going to want to act soon."

Katsuyu did not express her worries to her. If Tsunade was this troubled about something, it meant it was big. The slug opened its eyes and scoured the scene. How long had she been thinking? Dead stalks of grass littered the field, each shriveled up and standing rather weakly. "Sakura-san?" Katsuyu slid forward, now on the edge of the little forest of grass. The dryness would irritate her skin if she came into contact, and so she did the next best thing. She circled the edge, calling out to the girl once in a while, not once receiving a response. Danzō is getting impatient, Tsunade had said. Had his operative already acted? Steeling herself, Katsuyu bulldozed through the stalks of dead grass blindly. After a moment of worryingly stampeding, she finally came upon Sakura in the clearing, who was slumped on the ground asleep. She must have been exhausted if she hadn't woken up. Katsuyu, with a little sigh of relief, lurched forward and nudged the girl onto her back, slowly making her way out of the field.

Perhaps she needed to practice some other things before diving straight into healing. That could wait for now, though.

✿ ✿ ✿

By the time Sakura had woken up, it was well into nighttime. Her stomach rumbled and her joints protested as she shifted to get up. After a wave of vertigo left, Sakura flopped back onto the covers in defeat. Her head pounded from chakra exhaustion, and despite sleeping for what she guessed to be the rest of the day, it seemed like only a minute since she had collapsed. She stared up at the ceiling blankly, and turned her head slightly. No one had brought her anything, and it was then that Sakura began to realize that she missed not just her old team, but going on missions with them. Her chest was tight and laden with pressure, and her body trembled as she got up regardless of her fatigue. No one had taken the care to slip off her muddied sandals, or wipe the grime from her face. Wordlessly, Sakura stumbled to the engawa and sat down, looking into the heart of the forest. There were no fireflies like on Konoha's hot summer nights, and so the gaping darkness outside stared back at her silently. The moon was barely visible, and its light even less. Sakura sat there for a while, feeling the emptiness of her chakra reserves. She had truly scraped the bottom of the barrel this afternoon, trying to manipulate her chakra so that it might heal instead of devastate. Dimly, the pinkette wondered if all she was capable of doing was destroying things.

After a long episode of wallowing in self-pity, Sakura slowly stood and stretched carefully. No. She would rest, and then continue tomorrow. No self respecting shinobi indulged in sympathizing with themselves, so neither would she. But the feeling of productivity riled up a restlessness that would not be smothered, and so she decided to take this time and study the scrolls she had brought with her. Sakura crept back inside, swiped a scroll or two, then sat back down on the engawa quietly. It was much cooler at night, and it seemed to be the only time that she wasn't sweating profusely from the humidity. She read, concentrated on the text in front of her. Most of it made sense in theory, but she had trouble executing it. Katsuyu had told her that chakra manipulation reflected the mind, but that made no sense to her. Before, she had been able to mold her chakra almost impeccably, but had been even more unstable then she was now. Wasn't she supposed to have gone through some life-changing experience that opened up all her possibilities? Instead, Sakura found herself even more so frustrated than before, and she leaned back on her elbows to rest her eyes for a few seconds.

Sakura must have fallen asleep for some time, because her head jerked back up as a feather-like sensation tickled the tip of her nose. She opened her eyes blearily. Floating above her was a fluorescent speck, blinking its dim light at her. She held her breath for fear of inhaling it, and instead slowly sat up. Trailing from the engawa was a thin line of the hovering speckles, leading deep into the forest. Overcome by curiosity, the pinkette sighed and stood, slipping on her sandals before walking beside the glowing specks, which, she realized with a start, were very much like the fungi spores she had summoned in the Forest of Death. She followed them warily into the forest, the buzzing of the cicadas returning. Behind her, she heard something large scamper behind her, but she continued nonetheless, still walking along the trail of spores. The ground, wet from the humidity, squished unpleasantly beneath her sandals, but after a few minutes of traveling, Sakura stopped. In front of her was a bountiful amount of the spores, all floating around her, looking like stars in the sky. But more importantly, in front of her was some sort of wooden shrine, covered by moss and more of the spores. Something deep inside her reverberated, and Sakura could not find it in herself to stop staring intently with curiosity.

[A/N]: Suspense at its finest.

ALSO: THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, SO PLEASE MAKE SURE TO READ THIS.

TL;DR: I'm taking a hiatus on Sakura Shippuden to work on college applications, Inaka, cover art, and more. I'll probably begin writing more in January.

So, uh, I've been pretty good in general with publishing chapters and stuff, but that's because I've had them sitting in my drafts, waiting to be revised and then posted. However, I've come to the point where I don't have a lot of unrevised chapters left in my drafts, and I haven't felt any major motivation to write more chapters. Right now I'm feeling the dreaded writer's block when concerning Sakura Shippuden. I WILL NOT give up on the Sakura trilogy, hell no, but I am going to go on hiatus, at least for this book. I've had a lot I've wanted to do, but felt a huge sense of responsibility to at least completing Sakura Shippuden before taking a hiatus. BUT,,, writer's block doesn't really happen like that lol. I tried writing more chapters for Sakura Shippuden, I really did. But they all lacked the quality that I would usually pride myself on.

So you're probably wondering: what does this mean for me? The only way you're going to be impacted is that you're going to have to wait a little (maybe a few months; I think I'll probably start writing more chapters by January) to read more of Sakura's story. I'm so so sorry that I have to take a break; I feel like I've really disappointed a lot of my followers. But I also know that in order to write content that my readers will enjoy, I have to be able to enjoy writing it.

But konoha_ninja, what ARE you going to do during your SS hiatus? I'm planning on working on drawing new covers for my books, because I really don't want to rely on other people's art to make my covers look good. Also, reposting is a HUGE no-no. So I'll be redrawing both Sakura Blooms and Sakura Shippuden's covers, as well as Inaka. I'll also probably spend some of my time preparing for applying to colleges— OOF. Now that I'm a senior in high school, it kinda sucks but there's actually a great deal of planning and extra work to apply. Admissions start next month, and I've only just asked my teachers to write me recommendation letters, so uh... It's probably a good thing that I'll be taking the time to do that stuff.

Konoha_ninja, what's Inaka? WELL, it's a semi-recent SasuSaku book that I've been slowly publishing. It was supposed to be secondary in priorities, but because I've hit a wall with writing Sakura Shippuden, I'm going to be focusing more of my creativity in writing with Inaka! Inaka is a modern AU that takes places in the Japanese countryside (hence the name). I'll put the description below:

When Itachi announces he is leaving the city— their home, Sasuke's world crumbles from under his feet. He is going to the inaka, the countryside, to a small town with a tiny population, on the coast of Fire Country. And, Sasuke decides, so is he. But he has a lot to learn about the odd townspeople of Konoha.

But yeah! I'm gonna be working on covers, writing Inaka, maybe planning out more books 👀, planning out Sakura Shippuden and the third Sakura trilogy installation, and more. I'll also probably take more time to do things I enjoy but haven't been able to do, like playing on my switch and drawing just for fun.

Leave comments on what you think about this down below, I'm open to hearing anything from you guys. I would also really appreciate if my silent readers would comment and interact with me more!

Bye for now, and hopefully see you elsewhere!
— @konoha_ninja 🤠💕