Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Chapter 4: A chance

Sakura had woken up the next day at 5 in the morning just to be sure she wasn't late. She had taken a shower, dressed up in her ninja gear and eaten some leftovers from last night as breakfast. She had left a note on the table for early training session. Her training with team 7 was at 10 and Kakashi mostly showed up 2 hours later which means she had till 12. Needless to say it was a lot of time.

The walk was short and soon she was standing in a pretty much abandoned empty training ground 3. She was sure it was 5 minutes before 6 but she couldn't see anyone on the field. Thinking for a second that woman stood up to her, she wiped that thought pretty quickly. She had to be optimistic about it, lost in thought looking around in the ground. She heard a voice say from a some trees in the corner of the ground.

"You didn't even bother checking if there was a foreign chakra on the field did you pinkie? We have loads of work to do."

Alarmed she turned to the sound of the voice and saw that woman was right in front of her. She fell on her butt from the surprise of her speed.

"Clumsy aren't we? Not a morning person, well if you wish to train. Get used to it. Now where's my manners. Let's see, my name is Amelia and I am from the village hidden in the mist. Turns out I am stuck here in leaf for a couple of weeks because of a mission so take advantage of it while you can because you need all the help you can get. That's all you need to know"

The word mist rang bells of alarm in Sakura's mind and she was immediately tempted to ask about her mother from Amelia. Her mother was a famous kunoichi right? She would know about it surely, at least something about it but before she could open her mouth, she heard a voice inside her.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?' Startled at first, she steadied herself after a moment.

'Inner is that you, I haven't seen you in a while. Where have you been?

'Let's just say that I was gone for a vacation while you sulked about your mother, anyways are you stupid enough to ask her about your mother. Don't you remember what the hokage said, she could be a spy for all we know'.

Now that she thought about it, her inner who had mysteriously disappeared and suddenly appeared was somehow right. Crushing her thoughts about her mother, she went back to a simple introduction.

'Hmm, maybe your right. Where were you anyways, it's like you disappeared for a time.

'Never mind, you don't wanna keep your teacher waiting. See ya'

'You're in my mind, where do you think you can go?

'Things have changed slightly, you will see'

And just like that her inner vanished into the dark corners of her mind and there was silence in her head one again. Even more creeped out then before, what the hell did that even mean and how could her inner mind just vanish, it was like she had gone and Sakura and totally forgotten about her, Shaking her head she looked at the newly named Amelia getting off the ground.

"I am Sakura haruno and I want to become stronger for a personal goal of mine and to never feel dependent on someone again. I became a genin a month ago," A simple introduction was enough which showed she was serious. Amelia raised her eyebrow on the first part then continued:

"Well, I told you I would train you cause you remind me of myself at your age. Well I was prettier but pretty much as helpless. Your determined, I will give you that but if you don't stand up to my standards, just know you will be dropped off as my student just as easily as you were picked . I got some free time as I am stuck here for a while, your lucky stars in shape kid." Amelia said with a smirk as a angry look quickly passed on Sakura's face.

"I will. Sakura said enthusiastically. Spy or not, she was training her and that was all that matters, knowing whether she was one or not was not a genin's work anyway. Her goal was to find her mother and that wouldn't happen if she was a handicap to herself and her team.

"Very well Haruno, let's start right now with your bony little physique. 70 laps around the village and 700 pushups." Sakura was surprised and appalled and knew it was impossible to even do that on the first day, her body was not qualified for this kind of stress. "What are you waiting for pinkie, do you want to train or not?" she heard Amelia's commanding voice.

Getting up and getting into a jog, Sakura regretted for a moment of what she had gotten herself into thinking of the hard work but quickly brushed the thought away after thinking of the fruitful results it would bring. With that she went off for her training in hell!

Approximately three weeks had passed since she had started her training with Amelia. She had a hard time at first coping with Amelia's hard learned lessons and then showing up at team practice but now she had gotten used to it more or less.

In the first week she had shown up back at her house drained of chakra and so tired that she had fallen asleep on the dining table. Her father was growing more worried about her but she didn't exactly tell him the whole truth. She had started to avoid her father but now they were getting back their relationship piece by piece.

Osha never really gave her a reason to hate her and she continued taking care of her. Sakura didn't rely on her as much as she used to and Osha didn't like speaking in-between Sakura and her father ever since the truth came out. Sakura didn't mind but she was having a hard time not knowing the opinion of the woman who she once called a mother.

Her training had taken leaps since she started training with Amelia. Sakura looked in th e mirror as she got ready in the early morning. Her body looked more ninja like, there was actually muscle on her bones now.

Well she had promised Amelia to make her hairstyle more practical. Looking at her hair sadly thinking of the time she had grown it out to be with Sasuke forever. Osha came upstairs with a pair of scissors, she had asked her to cut them with a excuse that she didn't like long hair anymore and they were too much of a hassle.

Osha smiled at her sadly and began the work on her hair. Sakura had a sad expression as soon the room was covered in silky cherry colored hair falling of her head like it was a spring morning.

Sakura started walking to training ground seven. Today Amelia had some work around the village and she had said she won't be available to train her. Sakura had gotten some rest but she had still woke up at 5:30 due to her body being used to her routine. She had cleaned her room, talked to her father for a change and did some random work around the house to pass the time.

Amelia had tested her chakra nature in the second week of training which turned out to be water. From taking jogs around the village to doing pushups under a enormous rock literally. Her taijutsu style had improved drastically and her speed was great. It was not as great as Sasuke and she didn't have Naruto's huge chakra reserves but she had improved and even kakashi seemed surprised in training when she had beaten Naruto in spar because he was taking her lightly. Amelia had taught her a unique style called dance of the mist which she had yet to test.

But her greatest devolvement was in the ninjutsu department. After finding out her chakra nature was water, Amelia had no problem teaching her a array of jutsus because luckily Amelia's nature consisted of water and earth. Because of advanced rank, she could command three to four nature chakras but the strongest of them were of her original natures water and earth.

Starting out for with basic water jutsus, she had even taught Sakura some B ranked jutsu which were mostly performed by chunins. It had taken some time because of her low chakra reserves which had increased slightly. Her stamina however was very good due to those laps around the village which had left her with such cramps in the start that she couldn't sleep. But due to her almost perfect chakra control, which even Amelia had complimented. It wasn't so hard to learn the jutsus after some practice but some of them still needed some practice so they don't fail in a battle.

Amelia had remarked that she should be able to master genjutsu rather easily due of her chakra control but she had taught Sakura none of it.

Before she knew it Sakura reached the training ground and was surprised to see Kakashi present with Sasuke and Naruto. He usually showed up two hours late.

"Ah, Sakura we were waiting for you, now that everyone's here I would like to announce something. Today we won't be doing the usual D ranked missions." Naruto looked excited as ever and could barely hold it in, even Sasuke looked interested.

"Really, datte bayo. Finally someone sees my talent".

"Dobe" sasuke said.

"Shutup teme, don't tell me you aren't bored of these stupid cat catching missions. I am sick of them".

"Hn, whatever" Sasuke replied with a smirk obviously happy.

"Don't overdo it guys. It's a simple C rank mission of escorting a client. We are to leave right now, pack up. You got a hour, meet me the gate."

"Wait, where are we escorting the client? Sakura asked while Naruto and sasuke halted.

"Nowhere too far, just the village of mist" Kakashi replied.

Sakura froze for a second and kakashi noticed this with a raised eyebrow. But she quickly turned away without a word and left for her house while leaving her team with puzzled expressions.

"What's wrong with Sakura chan? Said Naruto to no one in particular.

Kakashi watched her go and wondered just the same.

Such a early update, I know. I had some free time. Please guys review it so at least I know how I am doing cause it's my first time. I need the motivation to continue cause I take out a lot of time just to write this story even when my preps are coming up. I don't wanna leave it hanging. I want to wrap up the pre chunin moments as quick as I can cause they are boring to write and the future is much more interesting. Plus I am sure no one wants to know again and again what happened in the past, so don't forget to rate, review and favourite.