Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Hidden in Plain Sight ❯ Camouflage ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter 3: Camouflage

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Sakura collapsed onto her back, relishing the coolness of the tile on her bathroom floor. Exhausted, body still trembling in pain, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand to clean away any vestiges of her being sick. Again. She stared longingly at the bottle of water sitting on the edge of the sink, wishing her arms were just a little bit longer. Finally she dragged herself upright, guzzling down the entire bottle in one motion and throwing it into the growing pile of plastic on her floor. At least she'd have plenty to refill later.

Steeling herself she looked in the mirror, grimacing at the image she made. All this and she was still only half done. She resisted the urge to punch something. She glared at her reflection, as if she could blame it for her slow progress.

Tentatively she reached up to touch the edges of her hair; the right side was now down past her shoulder blade, though the ends weren't even at all, while the left side was still her normal length, hanging just above her shoulders. Pushing away from the countertop in disgust she went to the kitchen to make herself some tea, hoping to calm her stomach. Unfortunately, she couldn't help but catch sight of the clock, and at seeing how much time had passed since she'd started working on her hair she was attacked by worry again.

She was seven days into her preparations. Which meant she only had a week, one measly week, to perfect herself. Her disguise had to be flawless. Nothing else would be sufficient to get past Shizune and Tsunade’s eyes.

It was hard work, making herself look like an entirely different person without the use of genjutsu or any other type of chakra manipulation that could be detected, or disabled if she was knocked unconscious.

She couldn't do anything about her face, or even her body type. Padding could only change so much and it was usually noticeable to those in her line of work; they were paid to be observant and padding, while used for disguises on missions, didn't move the same way as muscle and fat.

So then came the tricky parts. Even from a distance most people were recognizable by their gait or posture - Kakashi-sensei, for instance, she could pick out from a crowd without even trying because of his lackadaisical slump - so she'd worked on giving herself the slightest limp in the right leg to change her walk just a bit. It seemed to be effective enough. Then she'd asked Tenzou to tell her about any quirks she had, like whether she stood a certain way or fidgeted with her hands, anything like that that could be a giveaway. He knew her habits pretty well already, but having him stare at her so intently throughout their interactions this first week - just in case he'd missed something - had been just a bit unnerving. Still, the results had been fruitful and she now knew what to watch out for.

But worst of all, of course, was her hair. As Tsunade had pointed out, she couldn't just wear a hood and expect that to work. It would be far too obvious, and if anyone was trying to pinpoint her identity they'd start by looking for people with easily identifiable hair. That or bald shinobi with head tattoos, though there were few enough of them too. She'd have to dye it, and she'd created her own by mixing powdered medicines and herbal remedies with common plants. That way she'd never run out, if she was caught too long away from Konoha. Couldn't exactly have pink roots showing. Plus, chemical dye was so harsh it'd be a bit more obvious. Not that she was too worried about that part - plenty of kunoichi dyed their hair - but she'd prefer not to bring too much attention to that particular attribute if she didn't need to.

Still, it wasn't enough.

Dye was such an obvious disguise tactic, and so commonly used, that it wouldn't be too hard to figure out. Anyone trying to find her would just have to look at everyone with shoulder-length hair and that cut down on the possible kunoichi by much more than half. This disguise had to be foolproof; Tsunade wouldn't accept anything less, and she was trying to figure out who she was. They couldn't risk anyone figuring out it was her under the mask, so she needed something more extreme. Therefore she decided she had to make her hair longer.

She'd gone through multiple possibilities and scenarios in her mind, discounting each one. If she cut her hair even shorter it would only draw more attention, as everyone in her day-to-day life would be sure to comment on it.

That meant she'd have to lengthen it. She'd tried extensions but they came out during only her third fight with Tenzou. Besides, no one normally wore them on missions - notably because of that particular reason, but also because the things were damn expensive to be risking in the first place - so if hers came out while she was in the field it would be a huge red flag.

Thus she decided she'd have to fall back on her medical skill and abilities with chakra manipulation and create her own solution. The result was one of the most painful things she'd ever experienced, but it worked.

She literally pulled her hair longer. While tugging on a small section, to the point her scalp was burning and she was traumatizing the hair follicles, she flooded the area with healing chakra, which prompted her scalp to force out healthy strands to compensate.

Rinse, lather, repeat, and a couple hours later her hair was a few inches longer.

...Or so she hoped. Today it had taken her two and a half hours just to get through this half of her head. Granted, it was progress; just a three days ago she'd only gotten through a quarter of her head in the same amount of time. Still, it wasn't enough. She wasn't progressing quickly enough for what she needed.

She'd hoped to have a couple days of breathing room, time to get used to running and fighting with long hair again, as she'd forgotten what an absolute pain it could be. She couldn't even put it up in a bun or anything so out of the way because that would negate the whole point - it needed to be obvious her hair was long. Leaving it down was just too much of a hindrance though so she'd settled on a high ponytail, but man could that thing whip her in the face.

She'd only been able to practice with the extra length at home so far, as every night when she was done with making her hair longer she carefully cut it back to its original length, lest someone come visit her in the middle of the night and catch her looking like that. Granted, Tsunade had declared her on 'vacation' for two weeks, but she'd had enough late night patients that she knew that was no guarantee of privacy.

Still, she thought that maybe tonight she'd pin her hair up to disguise it as best she could before going to bed. She might look crazy during training with Tenzou tomorrow, but it'd be partial practice. Besides, then tomorrow night she could finish her head off and maybe even get to start over, or just work on her blocking exercises more.

All she knew was it was past midnight, she was tired and shaky, and she had to be up before dawn tomorrow for her training. She collapsed onto her bed, not even bothering to change her clothes, and fell asleep as soon as her aching head hit the pillow.

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