A/N: I just want to thank my readers for their support (favorites, reviews, follows). It's amazing to have a story where all the reviews are more than a sentence telling you to 'update faster.' While this story will have a regular updating schedule, I'm hesitant about committing to weekly or bi-monthly updates.

Other things my readers should probably know: Since there are a lot of holes in the Naruto world, I'm going to have to make up quite a bit. This chapter will be the first of many to touch on the infrastructure of my Konoha. The Konoha I have chosen to create is my interpretation of a Konoha where a girl like canon Sakura could have ever born from shinobi parents. Since this story is Sakura-centric, there will also be a decent amount of OCs, the most important of whom will be her aunt and guardian.

Chapter 2

There wasn't much on seals in Konoha, she was beginning to realize. Because Konoha, like most shinobi villages, didn't seem to believe in the sealing arts. There had only ever been one clan that had even specialized in seals, the Uzumaki, and they had been kicked out of their native village. She was willing to bet that this had been where Naruto's family had been from, and that was why as when she was a kid, everyone had seemed to avoid him.

Clan influence apparently worked both ways. She wasn't good at predicting its effects either-for example, she had had to ask Ino why Hyuuga Neji had been so vicious in destroying his cousin. How could she have possibly known what the main branch of the Hyuuga held over their branch members' heads? It was almost barbaric, but being a shinobi apparently meant hearing about this sort of thing on a regular basis. There were at least a hundred clans, both big and small, in Konoha, exerting their influences in all sorts of ways. Her parents hadn't belonged to a clan; they had just been a pair of nameless shinobi when they had been killed, and she had been raised as a civilian. According to her aunt, there was little point in being a shinobi unless you were clan. Especially if you were female. At best, you would be turned into fresh blood breeding stock; at worst, you died without anyone having ever heard of you, with no family memorial to commemorate your life.

Considering that she hated death, and she wasn't particularly talented enough to make it as breeding stock, her aunt was right to think her sick in the head. She had been given a free pass to skip it all, even after her vertical baby crawling, and she had rejected it because she had been unwilling to give up chakra when told that civilian school would be out of the question if she continued to use it.

At least she had made it through the Academy. She had been worried for a moment, because all of the other clanless kids had been orphans (wards of Konoha) or had been adopted by a clan sometime during their schooling, having caught the eye of someone important. By the time graduation had rolled around, she was positive that she had been the only clanless kid there that had graduated on time.

It wasn't something that she dwelled on often, but it was what kept her from feeling incredibly inadequate in instances such as these, where she couldn't even put her supposed book smarts to use.

She had originally thought that the reason for the lack of literature on seals was because of the perceived danger, but she was beginning to cross out that notion, if only because not even steps for the simplest storage scroll seal had been mentioned in the history books.

It had been over three hours, and she was still stuck with a blank sheet.

Blank sheet. Her mind repeated.

Perhaps... seals originated from their users? That would certainly explain why the greats hadn't really needed hand seals. Not if all that was needed was a manifestation of chakra. Although that did raise the question of why everyone didn't just bother doing that. But she supposed, it would be best to check anyway, by going by the shop that she usually bought her storage scrolls from.

And so she did.

"Hi," she said upon entering, even though the bell in the doorway had already announced her entrance.

"Oh, Sakura-chan!" The old man exclaimed in delighted surprise. "Haven't seen you in a while." Sakura vaguely wondered how the man had even remembered her name, but then recalled her hair, a bright beacon even among shinobi.

"It's good to see you too Urakami-san." She smiled before awkwardly lacing her hands in back of her.

"So what can I do for you? You just finished exams, right?"

Her face fell a little at the mention of the exam, and Urakami-san picked it up right away. "There's always next year, dear."

"I know," she said softly. It was rare to even be nominated for the exams as soon as they did, so she supposed in a way, it had been an honor.

"My son took three years, and look at him now," the old man said fondly. Urakami-san's son was Urakami-sensei, one of the many jōnin sensei from her year. She vaguely remembered being disappointed about not getting him before realizing that she had been placed on Sasuke-kun's team.

She smiled a little more genuinely. "Well, I'll keep trying. I came by today to ask about storage scrolls."

Urakami-san raised an eyebrow. "Something tells me this isn't going to be an easy question," he laughed heartily.

"You never know," she said with a small smirk.

"Well, let's go ahead and hear it."

"How do you create the storage scroll seal?"

"Hmm.." the old man scratched his gray beard thoughtfully before sitting back down in his chair behind the counter. After a few seconds he said, "It's a family seal, so I can't exactly tell you the details, but.." he winked. "I will tell you that it takes some imagination."

"Imagination." She repeated blankly.

"Whadya learn about seals during the Academy?" he asked her, gesturing for her to sit down on one of the barrels that lined the small shop.

She sat down, careful to cross her legs at the right place so the slit on her dress didn't ride up. "Not much," she admitted, after adjusting the red fabric a little. "They're not particularly thorough."

"Didn't expect they'd be. Have never been, even when I went there." His voice was all calming gruffness, and she began to wonder what it would have been like to have a living grandfather. She had never known anyone in her family beyond her aunt.

"Well, to begin with, seals are little more than helpful marking points to guide your chakra into specific shape for a specific purpose." He paused. "You learned about the basic elemental schools in school?"

She nodded, and he continued. "Those are the seals that some of the first shinobi decided most represented the element, or at least the state of body that best allowed that style of jutsu."

"But..." she looked up, to see if she was allowed to interrupt. Urakami-san just gently smiled. "If we don't make the hand seals right, the jutsu won't end up right."

"Have you ever tried different versions of the seals?"

"N-no," she said. Her memory had always good enough to not mess up something so simple.

"Don't tell anyone I said this," he whispered almost conspiratorially, light brown eyes almost twinkling, "but you should try it at least once. Just make sure that your mind is focused."

"But that doesn't..."

"Make sense?" He leaned back further in his chair, a monstrously large leather recliner. "Tell me, why would a jutsu fail?"

"The hand seals were wrong," she replied immediately.

"Why else?"

She paused. "Not enough chakra?"

"Given enough chakra."

She searched her brain for the information she had once regurgitated daily during the Academy."Lack of affiliation."

"That can always be overcome, my dear. Why else?"

Her shoulders slumped. "I don't know."

"Have you ever tried asking?"

She glanced over at the old man.

"Not me," he smiled again.

"I've never thought about it." And she hadn't. She had always been able to get jutsus the first time around. It was easy enough to memorize the signs and the order. Her weakness had always been the physical tests.

"Well try sometime. You may be surprised."

"Is that a code word for, 'and you'll find out the answer to the question you asked'?" Sakura couldn't help but ask dryly.

"The shinobi world is a world of secrets, my dear, and all I can do is guide you."

She was fairly sure that clan kids were given these so-called secrets on a silver platter, but she would never be able to ask any of them these sort of questions, not even Ino. What if the answer had been obvious the entire time? She would lose the one edge that everyone kept on insisting that she had: her mental ability.

Out loud she said, "Well, thank you then Urakami-san. I'll find someone to ask."

"Good luck, dear," he replied, waving as she left the shop, the ringing bell this time signaling her exit.

While Urakami-san had been kind, she wasn't sure she was in a better spot than where she started. Who could she possibly ask about failing jutsus who a) wasn't a teacher or b) wouldn't take it the wrong way? Though Sakura would always consider the most prideful clans those of the merchant persuasion, shinobi, she was beginning to realize, were a prideful bunch. Considering that she herself never spoke about her failures, it was absolute hypocrisy to expect her classmates to be open about theirs.

Which meant that she was pretty much stuck.

To begin with, the only person she knew personally that failed jutsus in public was Naruto. She stopped for a moment. Naruto would definitely be willing to talk to her, especially if his feelings were actually real. He was also least likely to make her feel embarrassed about what she was asking, considering that he embarrassed himself on a regular basis.

She stopped to look at a clock. 16:45. Visiting hours would end in fifteen minutes, which meant she probably wouldn't have enough time to visit both Sasuke-kun and Naruto. But she could slip Naruto a note to meet somewhere... he had always been good at getting away.

"So why are we here again?" Naruto asked again. The blond had gotten over his initial excitement over seeing her almost obnoxiously quickly, but she brushed the thought aside.

"I just wanted to ask you something, okay?" She said defensively, hands on her hips. Damn it, she had chosen him because she had been sure that he wouldn't make her feel like a complete idiot.

"'Kay, shoot," he said, after sitting crosslegged in the grass under the giant shady tree she had told him to meet her at. They were currently at one of the lesser-known borders of Konoha that she occasionally came to to clear her mind.

"Why did your jutsus fail?" She had settled for leaning against the tree, but she was beginning to regret it, the bark rough on her back even through the fabric of her dress.

His face scrunched up in what she knew to be confusion.

"During the Academy," she clarified.

"I'm sorry Sakura-chan... I don't quite follow," he said, scratching the back of his neck.

"You failed your graduation test three times." She was beginning to get a little impatient. "Why?"

"How should I know?" He was starting to sound defensive. Great, she thought to herself.

Sighing, Sakura sat down, careful to keep a proper distance away from him.

"Was it the hand seals?"

"I dunno."

"The chakra manipulation?"

"I dunno." His expression was now, if it hadn't earlier, bordering on sullen.

"You have no idea why your jutsu failed." She summarized flatly.

"Nope."

She sighed audibly, letting herself collapse backward into the grass. This had been a terrible idea. And she still owed him ramen afterward.

"What now?" His voice had an edge to it that she was fairly sure she had never heard before.

"I'm just disappointed."

"Oh." Now he sounded like she had kicked him. Do something, her gut told her.

"In myself," she clarified.

"Oh." He didn't sound the slightest bit happy to hear that either.

Well, she supposed he would have to find out some time. And it wasn't as if she was doing anything wrong...

"I'm working on a seal."

The scrunched confusion face was back. She took this as a positive sign.

"The guy who's kind of teaching me about it asked me to find out why jutsus fail." She paused, wondering whether she should add the next part. "Since I've never failed a jutsu myself, I asked you."

"Because I'm deadlast." Naruto said flatly. Shit, this was not where she had planned to go with that.

"No..." she sighed, not quite ready to bare her heart to Naruto of all people, "because I knew you wouldn't make me feel embarrassed about asking." Though now she was embarrassed, so that part of the plan had obviously failed.

"Oh," he said with a face that looked half relief, and half pure wonder. It wasn't unlike the face she had allowed herself to put on privately after passing the graduation exam. She turned away.

They sat for a few seconds in absolute silence before Naruto spoke up again. "Well, Ebisu-sensei said that I didn't have a good enough grip on my chakra basics."

Now she was the confused one. "But if you got all the seals right and had the chakra for it, why would it matter beyond efficiency?" She knew he had been wasting chakra-Kakashi-sensei had told them that much-but she still didn't know why that would cause the jutsu to fail if he had enough chakra to deal with the terrible conversion ratio.

"Right?" Naruto exclaimed. "That stiff bastard didn't explain anything right."

Sakura raised an eyebrow. "But now, you can do all those jutsus pretty easily right?"

"Yeah, I guess," he muttered.

"So what happened?"

He was silent for a few long moments, and Sakura pulled at the blades of grass to give her hands something to do.

"Visualization exercises?" He didn't sound at all sure about the fact.

"About what you had to create?"

"Yeah." After a second he added, "The geezer said I wasn't focusing enough."

Well, she couldn't exactly argue with that. Naruto tended to have terrible concentration, very likely to be distracted by the most random of things.

"Hmm..." she said contemplatively. So Urakami-san had been right about the manifestation thing. She still had to wonder why no one else except for the greats had managed one-handed or single seal complicated jutsus though, if it really was a test of imagination and chakra. By that description, she should have been on the legendary track as a paper genjutsu type with better than average control. She gave a small laugh. There was definitely something that she was missing.

"Was I helpful?" he broke in, startling her.

"Huh? Uh, yeah, you were." She gave him a small smile. "I think I can figure out what I was doing wrong now."

"Che-yeah!" he exclaimed. She raised her eyebrows; even after having been on his team since graduation, she still had yet to understand his rapid mood changes. "So ramen?"

"Yeah, I guess," she replied. She had suggested it herself after all.

"The usual place?" She could hear the excitement in his voice without looking at his expressive face, but she looked to confirm anyway before looking away and sighing.

"Whatever."

But her words this time didn't seem to put any sort of damper on his mood, which was now decidedly buoyant. Rolling her eyes in disbelief, she couldn't decide which Naruto she disliked more: the sullen puppy or the bouncy clown.

A/N: As you may be able to tell, I'm still working on my Naruto/Sakura interaction. Her dislike of him (or unwillingness to get along well with him) was hinted in the last chapter, and some parts of this chapter. As there is no way she was never raised in a clan dynamic, I had to come up with a better reason for why she would be so against him than 'she followed everyone else.' Because that excuse would cease to hold water after they became teammates. I will warn you though that she's never actually going to admit this reason in her thoughts-that's not in any way Sakura-esque, for all her canon duplicity/hypocrisy.

It'll take a little while before we get to the full Team 7 interactions. The next chapter will be a little faster in the coming though. :)