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The first time Moegi meets Sakura, the older girl punches Naruto across the street. So, Moegi thinks, this is the Sakura-chan Naruto always gushes on and on about. And you guys think Naruto is cool? she wants to scream. Look at her! She punched him across a whole street! Have you ever seen Naruto do anything but those stupid clones?
Moegi thinks she can feel her heart fluttering. Nope, she definitely can. It’s a nice feeling, but also extremely distracting.
Konohamaru and Udon immediately rush to Naruto’s side and start badmouthing Sakura. Moegi thinks this whole thing is stupid—the only thing that had even been worth watching was Sakura. “Sakura! That was so cool!” she gushes. “You punched him so far! How do you do that? Tell me please please please—” She cuts herself off with a wince. She just met Sakura and she’s already messing up.
“Oh!” Sakura says, laughing. She looks a little shy. Moegi wonders if anyone’s ever complimented her for something like that before. “I just train a lot! I’m sure you can do it too if you try a lot. Not—not that I want you to punch people all the time! That’s just a bad habit of mine. You should only punch enemies, ah . . . ”
“I’m Moegi!” Moegi volunteers enthusiastically. “Kazamatsuri Moegi!”
“Moegi,” Sakura finishes, smiling. Moegi thinks she could look at Sakura’s smile forever.
She can hear Konohamaru and Udon talking to Naruto in the background—probably something about how he’s going to be the greatest shinobi in the whole world. “Can Naruto punch you that far?” Moegi asks curiously.
Sakura’s face darkens. “Like I would let him lay a—oh.” Sakura blinks. “You mean in sparring . . . right?”
“Y-yeah, sparring,” Moegi says, closing her eyes. Please don’t laugh please don’t laugh please don’t laugh.
Sakura laughs, but she doesn’t sound mocking. If anything, she sounds delighted. “Don’t tell anyone else, or it might hurt his feelings, but I usually beat him in spars. He wishes he could send me flying with one punch.” Sakura looks smug. Pretty, Moegi thinks. Her heart does that weird thing where it feels like it flips over in her chest. Moegi really wishes it would stop—she just wants to keep talking to Sakura.
“Man,” Moegi says, “if he can’t even punch you into the sky how’s he gonna be Hokage? I think you’re gonna become the best ninja, not Naruto! You better not let him win!”
“Oh, is it a challenge?” Sakura asks, tapping her chin with one finger. “I’ve never lost a challenge before . . . okay, Moegi. He’s on. I’m gonna become the greatest ninja in the world, and you better cheer for me, all right? I gotta go wrangle Naruto now. See you later!”
Moegi nods enthusiastically. Sakura reaches out and ruffles her hair. Normally Moegi hates people touching her hair, but from Sakura, it doesn’t bother her as much. Moegi wants to be just like that when she becomes a genin. She watches closely as Sakura stomps over to where Konohamaru and Udon are most likely inflating Naruto’s ego. Sakura stops for a moment to scold him for letting Konohamaru imply that she’s Naruto’s girlfriend and then grabs Naruto by the collar and hauls him up.
“Sakura,” he complains loudly. “Stop manhandling me! I’m gonna choke to death one day, y’know! And it’ll be all your fault!”
Sakura rolls her eyes—green eyes, pretty green eyes—and laughs again. “Likely story. Come on, idiot. Sasuke’s waiting. You know how antsy he gets if we keep him waiting. Honestly. Boys. ”
Moegi can’t help but agree. She side-eyes Udon and Konohamaru and finds herself wishing she could be on a team with Sakura instead. But Sakura’s already Naruto and Sasuke’s teammate, so she guesses she’ll just have to wait until they’re both chūnin. Then they can become partners, right? Right. After Sakura leaves with a complaining Naruto in tow, Moegi rounds on her friends, who are talking with each other like they hadn’t seen their supposed ‘strongest ninja’ get punched silly by his own teammate. Ah. Moegi realizes that she still doesn’t know Sakura’s family name. Well—whatever. She can find out later.
“Guys!” Moegi shouts over their excited chatter.
“What?” Konohamaru grouches. “We’re talking about whether the boss or the Hokage would win in a f—”
“Don’t be stupid!” Moegi scolds them. “The Hokage would win. Naruto’s just a genin. And anyway . . . Sakura’s stronger. And pretty! Super pretty.”
Udon crosses his arms. “Hey! Don’t say that! I’m sure the boss was just going easy on her! He could take her in a fight, for sure! And being pretty’s got nothing to do with this. What, do you have a crush on her?”
Moegi goes bright red. “N-no! Of course not! Crushes are stupid. ”
Why, oh why did Udon have to bring up crushes? Gods. Moegi thinks it might actually be a crush, which is both supremely embarrassing and supremely eye-opening. So that’s that that weird heart-chest-backflip thing had been. Darn it. Moegi’s only ten! She’s too young for gross things like crushes.
Konohamaru straightens up and crosses his arms too, saving Moegi from having to think about her stupid feelings. “Like we said: Naruto was totally going easy on her. In a real fight she never would’ve been able to even put a scratch on the boss!”
“Oh yeah?” Moegi says, adopting a similar stance. She can’t tell them about Sakura beating Naruto in spars because Sakura had told her not to, but she can still argue.“Then why’d he let her drag him off? How could she punch him across the street? You can’t go easy on someone who’s punching you! What’d he do, jump back? Did you even see what happened?”
“Moegi!” Konohamaru says. His face is red with anger. Good, Moegi thinks. “You—you can’t just say things like that! I’m the team leader! You have to listen to me!”
Moegi sticks her tongue out at the both of them. She knows she’s taking the childish way out, but well . . . she’s a child. “Bleehhhh. I’m not listening to a stupid person.”
Udon and Konohamaru gasp in unison, presumably in reaction to Moegi’s unprecedented rudeness. Eh. She doesn’t think sticking her tongue out is that bad, but apparently the boys have other ideas. “Whatever,” Konohamaru mutters, turning away from her and clenching his fists. “We just gotta make Naruto and Sakura fight and see who wins!”
“They probably don’t have the time to waste on brats like us,” Moegi says. “They’d never fight just because we asked them to. If we train, maybe we can be as good as her. And then they’ll have more time for us.”
Konohamaru pouts and Udon looks between the two of them. He’s always been a sort of mediator, but more often than not he’s on Konohamaru’s side. Stupid boys. “Fine,” Konohamaru says at last. “Let’s go training. But Naruto is still the strongest! No way is he gonna get beaten by Sakura! Even if she has really strong arms.”
Moegi wants to be able to punch someone and send them flying. Right now, the extent of what she can do is bruising Konohamaru’s arm, which seems pathetic compared to the way Sakura hits. Hmph. Maybe when she gets stronger she’ll be able to be like that. For now, though, she’s happy to follow Konohamaru to the tiny dojo he uses to practice.
One day, she promises, thinking about Sakura and her nice, pretty, amazing, beautiful everything, thinking about Sakura beating Naruto in almost every spar they have, I’m going to be as strong as you. Just you wait!