As soon as I enter the training center my eyes close in on the one station that I have yet to go to: the healing station. Although every fiber of my being is drawn to it, I know I have to save it for later. I confidently cross to the weapons station, hands balled into fists.

Laughter erupts from the raised stands around the gymnasium that hold the game makers and sponsors. I look up, confused as to what they're laughing at. To add to my confusion, they're not laughing at some joke one of the game makers said or even mocking a poor Avox; they're looking at me.

What are they laughing at? My face burns and I stop, looking down at myself. Did I forget pants? As soon as I stop someone crashes into me from behind.

"It seems as though you've forgotten your lack of chakra," one of the game makers shouts from his cushy seat and everyone chuckles. I turn around and hold my hands out in a defensive position, not processing the older man's words. Instead of the blank mask of an ANBU, I come face to face with a trembling, pale Avox holding a remote. My tense stance melts in relief, but I look at the boy in confusion. He sheepishly points to the remote and everything clicks.

"Shiori-san," a deep voice cuts through the snorting laughter, "it's easy to forget such a thing when the person who's trying to restore your chakra has had their tongue cut out." The laughter ceases and I look up at the source of the voice. I'm surprised to see it came from the head game maker, Itachi Uchiha. He nods for the Avox to continue and then makes eye contact with me.

My stomach is doing flips as a high pitched ringing fills the room, similar to the sound of when I first received the chakra controller. If my stomach is flipping from the anticipation of having all of my chakra back or from the intense gaze staring right into my eyes, I don't know.

I try not to break eye contact or show my fear, instead I bow in thanks and say, "Thank you for your patience. I was unaware he was there." As an afterthought I smile and say "I was just so excited to show you all what I could do."

A few of them smile and nod appreciatively, except for the Uchiha, who continues to study me with his coal black eyes. His intense gaze reminds me of someone else and I shiver, finally looking away.

The ringing stops abruptly and a real smiles takes over my lips. I feel my chakra flowing through my veins; it bursts from my center like a dam breaking. I resist the urge to smash my chakra enhanced fist into the wall and scream "HELL YEAH!"

I force myself to concentrate on the task at hand. First I bow to the Avox and smile a thank you, who looks stunned at such a gesture. As he scurries away, I center in on the weapons and select an assortment of kunai and throwing stars. I put them in the pouch they gave me with the uniform. I can feel all of their eyes on me and I know that I have to keep them here if I want to get a good score.

I line myself up in front of the human-like targets and close my eyes, breathing deeply. It's been a while since I've had to do this. If I try hard enough, I can imagine that I'm back at the academy, just taking another test.

Breathing out, I snap open my eyes and launch the first kunai at a hanging target and it lands with a satisfying thump. Dozens of thumps continue as I send the stars and kunai flying toward their targets. I make almost every single one of them in the heart or the head, but the odd star whizzes past its target on a miscalculation. I try not to let them get to me, after all, I'm not a weapon's specialist. I'm not crazy good like Tenten.

My pouch is empty and my chest heaving when I look up at the gamemakers, who are nodding at me in approval, a few are muttering silently to themselves. But of course, almost every Shinobi is expected to be able to do that, so I'm sure they'll see a lot of accurate target practice.

So now I need something to set me apart from the others.

My heart soars as I leave the weapons station behind and walk to the healing station, which is one of the only station flanked with instructors. Yes, finally, I think to myself, I can show them what I can really do.

When I arrive there an elderly woman looks at me expectantly. My eyebrows furrow and I look around, not seeing anyone to heal. How does this station even work?

"Hello," she says and I look up and meet her gaze, "are you going to be healing someone this afternoon?"

Um, no, I'm just standing here to be observed by a bunch of milky-eyed medics while I'm supposed to be kicking ass and getting a good score. "Yes, please."

She nods and motions to an Avox in front of a control panel, who presses a couple of buttons and a door on the far side of the gymnasium opens, revealing another Avox pushing a long table with a blanket over it.

When it gets closer I see that it's a human form beneath the white sheet and it looks like it's writhing in pain. My excitement disappears and dread fills my stomach. The closer they get the more blood I see and more pain filled groaning I hear. The closer they get the less I want to be here.

I try to smile at the Avox as she wheels the operating table in front of me.

"We're here to oversee your healing and determine your ranking as a medical-nin," one of the younger men says, "since gamemakers often don't know what to look for in terms of medics."

"Okay," I say steadily and swallow, lifting back the sheet with a hand that I'm sure would be shaking if my ANBU switch wasn't on. I pull the sheet all the way down the man's torso and fold it over his legs and my lungs go cold, I've never seen a human being in such terrible shape: deep gashes interrupt the dirt-caked skin over his chest, they ooze blood and pus, they're obviously infected. His hair is caked in blood and dirt and I can't even tell what color it is. His eyes are swollen and purple and his lips are blue, like he's not receiving enough oxygen. An inflamed rash takes over the left half of his body, and I wonder if he's been dipped in poison ivy.

These are not natural wounds, these wounds were inflicted. I do a quick scan of his vital organs and bones and notice that several of his ribs are cracked or broken. Thankfully his legs and lower regions are unscathed, but fury still floods through me and only one thought crosses through my mind: they did this to him.

I lean down to whisper in his ear, away from the prying eyes of the sponsors and the capitol medics. "My name is Sakura and I'm here to help you. Please trust that you will feel better momentarily." My heart squeezes when the man turns his head towards me, trying to see me through his swollen shut eyes. He nods and a wordless sob escapes his throat. I lean back as a new realization hits me: he's had his tongue cut out.

He's a servant to the Capitol and this is what they do to him. An angry resolve settles through me: I will make him well again. I will make him more than well. I tie my hair up and forget all about scores and good impressions and sponsors and raven haired boys.

I breathe deeply, focus my chakra to my hands, and get to work. The green glow of my healing comforts my furious state of mind and I easily fall back into the rhythm of flushing wounds clean and stitching the muscles and skin back together with only my chakra. I seep into one of his deeper wounds and he hisses in pain.

"I'm sorry, I know it hurts, but please keep still," I whisper to him and delve deeper into his wound. I'm shocked to find poison lurking within this one. Oh, no. If it gets into his bloodstream...

I look around the station with a new sense of urgency and find a cabinet full of supplies. I rummage around for a sterile looking bowl and fill it up in a sink. By infusing the water with my own chakra, I think to myself as I stick my glowing hand glowing hand into the bowl, I will be able to manipulate the shape of the water and how it acts, I carry the bowl over to my patient, and successfully remove the poisons from his wounds. It should work in theory, but I've never done it myself. I only watched Shizune-sensei perform this cleansing jutsu on one of our troops, who had run into some nasty rebels who knew a thing or two about human bodies and how to destroy them from the inside out.

I helped, of course, but doing it myself is different. And alone is a whole other scenario. Shizune had three or four students helping her. There's only me here. I don't think I'll ever concentrate my chakra so hard ever again in my life as I place my palm on the surface of the water and focus on the tension that keeps the molecules together. It's just like walking on water, I reassure myself and lift my hand, carrying an orb of water with it. I smile triumphantly and thank the gods for my unconventionally superb chakra control.

"This is going to hurt," I whisper to him, "but you have a nasty poison that I need to extract. Please be as still as you can." He nods through gritted teeth and I try to gently weave the water into the lesion. Almost immediately a wordless cry explodes from his mouth and he thrashes on the table. I try to hold him down and I look toward the other medics for help. The younger man just looks at me sadly and shakes his head. Oh, so they're not allowed to help or interfere. Lovely.

I enhance my muscles with chakra and hold him down, "Please! You must be still!" He breathes heavily and cries, but manages to nod.

With my left arm across his torso, restraining him, and my right hand pushes the water into his wound. He struggles, but my extreme strength manages to keep him down.

I close my eyes and focus on the water probing inside of his injury. Finding the black cloud trying to seep into his lungs, I manipulate the water, drawing the poison from the cells and absorbing the offensive liquid. After reinforcing my steel strong hold on my patient, I slowly pull the liquid out through his wound, along with the black mass of poison. Another guttural cry rips through the gymnasium and I hear the sponsors mutter in distaste. Oh I'm sorry for interrupting your evening, which is disguised to be for the tributes, but instead is obviously for eating roast pig until you drop and slapping each other on the backs for another year of being old, fat, and corrupt.

I release the liquid into the sink and go back to the sweating, whimpering man. "I'm sorry this is happening to you, but please let me check your other vital organs for the poison."

Thankfully, the rest of his vital organs are clear. That seemed to be the only trace of poison anywhere.

"The hardest part is over," I whisper in his ear. "Please hold on for a bit longer." I quickly heal the rest of the cuts across his chest and mend his broken ribs. I move to the rash on the side of his body and under closer inspection, I find that my initial assumption was correct; it's just a simple poison ivy rash.

I remembering seeing herbs and a healthy amount of plants in the back of the cupboard underneath a warming light. I inform him that I'll be right back and I quickly get to work making a remedy. As I ground up stems from an aloe plant and the leaves from a jewelweed, I remember a trick Shizune-sensei had taught me. Infusing the final gel with my chakra will help soothe the pain more effectively and quicken the healing process.

"This should help with the itchiness and the burning," I say and delicately apply the appropriate amounts of the gel to all spots where the inflammation lurks. He sighs in relief and a small smile tugs up my lips. He's only going to get better from here.

As I close up the smaller wounds and wash away the blood with a washcloth I notice that he's starting to look more like a normal human being. I move onto his face now, mending his nose that I hadn't realized was broken. I grit my teeth in anger, why couldn't they spare him at least something? I heal the cut on his lip and move onto his black eyes, which are trickier, since the nerves around the eyes are much more delicate. Thankfully, the swelling has decreased and he's able to open his eyes. As he watches me work on his face, his green eyes give me more thanks than any words could. I work on giving the skin around his eyelids a more healthy coloring and patching up anything I missed, wiping up any caked on blood and rolling him gently onto his back to close up what I can only suspect are whiplash marks.

When he's back on his back, sighing in relief, I remember my promise: I will make him more than well.

I know I will have to do this quickly and without alarming the medics, so I pretend to do one final check up. I have him open his mouth with an "ahhh," he reluctantly does so and I try not to wince at what I see. The sight of a singed off tongue is enough to make a normal human puke, but I'm Sakura Haruno, first in my class for Medical Ninjutsu, and dammit I will be professional!

"Okay," I say loudly enough that those around can hear, "No infections or missing teeth." I say nonchalantly, like I'm going through a mental check list. "Leave your mouth open," I whisper, barely audible to even myself. He does as I say, a confused look in his eye. I pretend to check his vitals and open his eyes with my left hand, while my right hand stays partially covering the side of his mouth. "Eyes look good, reactions are normal." As I'm doing this, a sliver of chakra is slipping into his mouth and weaving through the slit of tongue he has left, studying the overall muscle structure and each individual tendon.

When I said I would never focus my chakra so hard in my life again, I was lying. This is the most I will ever focus my chakra. I guide his forehead down to "inspect" any abrasions on his scalp, giving my palm more access to his slightly cracked mouth. If any of the medics think my hand placement is suspicious, I can't tell in their body language or eyes. More chakra floods in and I try to make it seem as though as I'm honestly looking for cuts on his head, but in reality I'm memorizing the pattern of his tongue, down to each taste bud.

Rebuilding muscle is nothing new with medical ninjutsu, in fact, it's the most basic form of healing, how else would we close wounds without seaming it together with new muscle that had originally been lost? The tongue is essentially one big muscle, so all I have to do is solve the puzzle by making the missing puzzle pieces. What strand of muscle goes where, and which nerves connect to them?

I try to refabricate some, but I don't have enough chakra and my attempt falls flat. He grunts in surprise. He probably feels a light, tingling pinch. I wonder if he knows what I'm attempting. I pretend to check his lymph nodes after his scalp is all clear, massaging the area below his jaw. I've worked in some strange conditions, but I have never performed a surgical procedure through skin and bone. My chakra trickles through his cells and into his mouth and I'm relieved to find that with both hands on the project, even with a wall of flesh separating me from the subject, it should be much easier.

Now my hands are cupping his face and my eyes are boring into his. I'm sure he knows what I'm doing, they're wide with panic and disbelief.

I get to work solving the puzzle of his tongue, building the new cells and weaving them together to form tendons and fleshing everything out. Halfway through the procedure, part of me wants to throttle myself for trying this, even Shizune-sensei herself would have trouble with this task. Maybe I am in over my head, but it's too late to back down now. I can't just leave this teenage boy with a half-fabricated tongue, it'd probably fall out.

"Everything seems to be in order," I mutter like a busy, professional medic-nin and my eyes sweep over his face, apparently taking one last study, but in reality I'm carefully and rapidly connecting nerves and strands of muscle, narrowing the shape to a smooth nub. Once I check his tongue as a whole with my chakra, he moves it for the first time, rolling it and rubbing it against his teeth. I pull away from him, hands disconnecting from my place on his jaws and he looks torn between being elated and being afraid.

As a last thought, I wring out a new, clean washcloth I wash the blood and grime from his hair. Hopefully comforting him. I'm surprised to see his hair is orange, like the color of carrots. It's basically as rare as my hair color. I run a hand through it and whisper, "Thank you for letting me heal you, you don't need to thank me." Or in other words: don't speak.

Tears fill his forest green eyes and he's carted away. I wave weakly and the good feeling that comes with successfully healing a patient evaporates. Where are they taking him? What will be done with him? And more importantly would giving him a tongue just get him in more trouble? The medics trail after him, walking surely and quickly. The walk of professionals. No one will check for his tongue, will they? They'll probably survey how well I did now and give me a score. Yes. That's all they'll do. Exhaustion settles over me and I can physically feel my loss of chakra. Healing someone that messed up wouldn't leave me without repercussions and especially giving someone a new tongue would drain me mentally and physically.

I send a silent prayer up to whomever is listening that they won't find his newly revamped muscle. Now that I stop and think I can't tell if I've saved him or doomed him. What have I done? I don't know the conditions of how he lives. I might have just killed him, or subjected him to more brutal torture. I try to help someone and this is what happens. I resist the urge to run after him, crying and screaming "I'm so sorry! Just don't open your mouth! Ever!"

I'm losing control and I can tell, a quick glance up the glowing numbers above the game makers tells me that I still have four minutes left. Well, I can still seal the deal for good sponsors in four minutes, right?

I turn back to the raised stands and know immediately that I'm in trouble. Healing him only took me about 10 minutes, but that was way too long for their attention spans. Most of their backs are turned towards me as they laugh and drink. The view of their expansive, purple clad backs makes my angry energy come back.

I had taken into account their boredom, but I didn't plan for them to forget my existence completely! Letting my long, blossom colored hair down and shaking it out, I make my way over to the sparring station. Two elites stand, one with a scar down the side of his face and the other with the tattoo of a dragon on his bald hand, hands clasped behind their backs. They look pretty tough. Perfect. Four minutes will be plenty of time.

"Fight me," is all I say, and they look at eachother. I wonder what they're thinking. A little, pink haired girl wants to get beaten up. "Fight me!" I shout again and they seem to converse through eye contact. I'm busy wondering what they're going to say when they launch themselves at me, a mass of flying feet and fists. They're fast, I think as I dodge punch after punch.

Luckily, dodging is something I can do without even putting much thought into it, after all, as a medic-nin, I was taught that I'm useless if I get hurt. My job is to stay safe, stay healthy and stay out of harm's way so that I can help those who get into the thick of things. But now it's just me, and now I'm going to be on the offensive!

The elite with a tattoo on his head throws a punch that I dodge just in the nick of time, I grab his arm, and with chakra enhanced strength, throw him away from me. He flies through the air and smashes into the concrete wall, caught off guard by my impressive strength. The other man is relentless with his attacks; he's so consistent and fast that I can't find an opening. The only way to fight a shinobi like him is to outlast them. Make them tired and sluggish and when they get sloppy and leave an opening, go in for the kill. Well metaphorical kill in this case... but that won't be the case soon.

I sense someone behind me and I duck to the ground, successfully avoiding a high powered kick that collides into Scar Face's face. He's knocked away and I grin mischievously at Tattoo, "Thanks for that."

He doesn't reciprocate my attempts at witty mid-battle banter, he just charges me again and I handspring backward. Tattoo gets to a standing position, nose bleeding and eye beginning to swell shut. He charges also and they pelt me with half-powered punches and by the time I realize what they're doing it's too late: they're cornering me. The ox-like men have successfully herded me into a concrete corner of the gymnasium and I look desperately for an escape. There's nothing to grab onto and they're too close together, making an intimidating wall of elite.

"Surrender now," the one with the scar grumbles, nose dripping with blood and looking absolutely pathetic.

"We don't want to hurt you," Tattoo agrees. I back into my corner and look towards the sponsors and gamemakers and I'm surprised to find them all watching eagerly. "Just put your hand up to signify your surrender and we can end this without anyone getting hurt."

"Why are you being so merciful?" I ask in suspicion, not trusting their tone. I have to make my next decision carefully, I have the attention of every single person in the gymnasium, and what I do now can mean life or death out in the arena.

"We don't like to hurt girls," Scar says and Tattoo nods in agreement. "It's not right to pick on the weaker gender."

My blood boils but I try to keep my head cool. It looks like I'm stuck, I think to myself. Not seeing any other option, I grit my teeth and raise my hand in the air.

"Thatta girl," one of them chuckles right before my raised hand forms into a fist and is brought down, slamming into the concrete ground. The floor crumples beneath them and they shout in surprise as they're immersed in a tidal wave of debris. After the dust and chunks of concrete settle I climb smoothly over the extent of my damage, kicking smaller chunks of flooring into the trapped elites' faces. I smile as Scar-Face coughs and tries to blink the dust out of his eyes.

"What were you saying about a 'weaker gender'?"

They just gape at me as I climb over the rest of the rubble. The gym is completely silent as I bow in front of the sponsors. "Thank you for your consideration."

The loud beating of my heart and the high pitched ringing of my chakra being taken away is the only thing I hear as I make my way to the exit.

A/n: Whoo! I really enjoyed writing this, let me tell you. I love badass Sakura so much. A lot of you are like "I JUST WANT THE FIGHTING BRING ON THE FIGHTING LETS GOOOO" and man I want the fighting too! But there are things that I need to write before the games actually start, but think of it this way: one more day and then she's in the games! BOOM.

Also I know this is an early update, I just want to let you know that in 28 days I'll be going to Italy for three weeks, so I'm hoping that I'll get in one more chapter before I go... Of BOTH fics. But if that doesn't happen please be patient. I'm not dead or anything.

Although I have to say that at this point I'm really excited for this story and I want to see how it unravels... the thing is is that I want to read it man I don't want to WRITE it. U feel me? But there's no story like this really. And the way I see it if you want something done right you have to do it yourself. ….However frustrating your lack of knowledge of fight scenes are.

So I hoped you enjoyed this chapter! I hope you thought the fight scene was okay (FIRST ONE WOOO). I love you guys! Please review!

Question Time!

"Naruto: IF, and only IF, Sakura died and ask you a favor not to kill Sasuke will you? But then you and Sasuke are the only one left, and you have to make a choice." -Voice of Distant Thoughts

"Oh... That bastard- I... Um... I would... CRAP! I don't kno- WAIT! I do know. I'll just keep Sakura alive! That is my promise!" -Naruto

"To Gaara: What do you think about the games?" -MintyBunny

"They're pitiful, drawn out, and needlessly complicated." -Gaara

"Naruto do you think you can take Sasuke in a 1v1 fight?" -Zatheko

"Eh?! What kind of a question is that?! Of course I can take him one on one! That asshole is all bark and no bite!" - Naruto

Also last thing. this story is NARUSAKU. NARUSAKU! NARRRUUUUSAKKUUUUU U ! there's a reason for everything I write. Please trust me as an author and a Narusaku shipper.