Sakura's POV

Previously;

"Sasuke, don't."

I struggled off the ground before rushing to Sasuke, accidentally tripping on the way, causing me to collide with his back and wrap my arms around him from behind so I wouldn't fall.

Sasuke snapped his head around and glared at me, almost asking me why I was trying to stop him but his anger soon died out. Instead he almost seemed to calm down.

He helped me to my feet as soon as all the marks on his skin disappeared and his Sharingan went away.

He looked like he wanted to say something but was cut off before he even got a chance to get a word out.

"What the hell happened to your guys' team!?" We both looked over and I had only just noticed that Lee was now awake and that the rest of his team was here.

When did they...?

Again, this is something we truly need to work on.

Now;

Sasuke and I looked at each other before I turned away from him. The only thing I see when I look at him is the harsh words he said just before I went off to find Naruto.

"That's none of your business Ino." I said as I slowly put Senbonzakura back in his sheath. I heard Ino gasp before growling angerly at me, I angled my head in her direction after hearing her footsteps come my way.

"What's with the attitude billboard brow!? Just because you got into one lousy fight and swung a sword around does not mean you're better than me, so you better learn to respect your superiors!" A glare soon formed on my eyebrows as I turned to face her fully, taking in a small bit of satisfaction as she took a fearful step back.

"I hope you don't mean yourself, because from where I stand we both graduated from the academy at the same time, and if I remember correctly I was above you in class ranking. So really, who's superior here?" She let out another growl before getting into a stance that made it look like she was ready to pounce on me.

"Ino don't!" Shikamaru snapped as he came forward to intervein. "You don't want to do this right now. We're in the middle of an exam where it's team against team. If you challenge Sakura you're also challenging Sasuke and Naruto." Ino seemed to consider his words before slowly backing off. And its almost as if the mention of his name had triggered something in his brain because Naruto soon started mumbling incoherently before he snapped up with his eyes wide.

"Protect the civilian born!" He shouted, causing my eye to twitch. He looked around for a few seconds, taking in the damage of the area we just battled in before he looked at the pile of hair that I had cut off and ran towards it. "Oh no! Sakura died! All that's left of her is her hair! Why!" Naruto cried out dramatically before taking the strands of hair in his hands and began crying.

"Naruto, you idiot. Sakura's right here. She's fine." Sasuke said as he too had an irritated look in his eyes. Probably from Naruto being so dramatic.

Naruto snapped his head towards our direction before running to us.

"Oh thank god, I though you die- what happened to you?" Naruto asked as he soon came to a stop in front of me and took in my appearance. I'm sure I looked like I had just went through hell and back again.

"After our battle with the snake guy we both lost consciousness, Sakura had to wait until we woke back up again to do anything but she got attacked while waiting. I woke up at the end of the battle myself, but... Sakura had it handled." I tried not to show my surprise at Sasuke's words but I couldn't help it. I never thought I'd hear him say that.

"What, you did it all by yourself Sakura?" Naruto asked, surprise clear in the way he asked.

"No she didn't, when we got here Lee was the one who was fighting them, not her." Ino said, a smug smirk on her face, acting like she had told everyone a big secret of mine.

"That is not entirely true Ino." Lee spoke up, he was leaning on his teammates for support. "While I did step in I did not really do anything. I had every intention of taking those guys on my own so that Sakura could properly guard her teammates that were being targeted, but in the end I was not able to land a single blow, and in the end I was knocked out. So really, Sakura did everything on her own. It was she who did it, while I had failed." Lee then turned to look at me. "I am truly sorry Sakura."

I sighed before I approached Lee.

"Don't apologize Lee, at least you didn't hide out in the bushes until the last minute then try and step in while I was in the middle of battle." I said, giving a pointed look to Ino who in turn flushed bright red.

"Alright, well, as much as I'd like to stick around, which I really don't, we still have another scroll to find so, we'll catch you guys at the tower soon enough." Shikamaru said as he tried again to diffuse the situation.

"Yeah, sure thing guys." Naruto said as recovered from his shock at me being able to take care of myself. We watched as team 10 took off into the trees.

"We will be taking our leave as well." Neji spoke up as he put Lee's arm over his shoulders and left without giving Lee a chance to say goodbye. Tenten gave a look my way before winking at me. "Nice sword you got there." Before she too took off to follow her teammates.

"Thanks?" I said, slightly confused before remembering that she was a weapons expert. That was probably why she mentioned it.

I sighed as an awkward silence settled over my teammates and myself. I tried not to look at either one of them and instead just grabbed the scroll that Dosu had left behind.

"Let's get going to the tower in the middle of the forest, we don't want to sit here like waiting ducks after having just gotten out of a battle. Other teams are probably on their way to see what the commotion was about. We don't need anymore fighting, what we need is rest." I said as I put the scroll in my pouch.

"Right, the tower should be East from here." Sasuke said as he looked up to the sky to see where the sun was so that we can go in the right direction. "That way." He pointed to where we needed to go before taking off in a run, Naruto following behind, and me behind him.

We reached the tower just before sunset of the second day, meaning we still had tonight and two more days before the end of the exam, it should be plenty of time for us to heal our wounds and restore our chakra.

As soon as we walked into the building we saw a piece of paper on the wall, after reading it Naruto asked what it had meant.

"I think it means we're supposed to open the scrolls now." I said as I took them from my pouch, handing one of them to Naruto. We all looked at each other before slowly opening the scrolls. "What the hell does this mean?" I asked in total confusion as I looked at the markings on the scroll.

"Drop it!" Naruto and Sasuke both yelled as Naruto threw the scroll and Sasuke took mine from my hands and threw it as well.

"What the hell?" I said as I looked at both my teammates before hearing smoke coming out from the scrolls.

"They were summoning scrolls." Sasuke said as he got into a defensive position along with Naruto.

I turned around and watched as a figure appeared through the smoke. I too got into a defensive stance and reached for Senbonzakura, only to stop when he spoke.

Don't worry Sakura, I don't sense any hostility.

I relaxed my stance a bit and lowered my arms, I grew incredibly surprised when I saw who it was once the smoke disappeared.

"It's you." Sasuke said as he and Naruto also showed surprise.

"Hey, long time no see guys." Said Iruka sensei as he grinned. "Congratulations on making it this far. Looks like you all had a bit of trouble on the way too." He said as he began walking towards us, stopping in front of me. He frowned a bit as he reached up to my cheeks and tried rubbing off some of the dried up blood. My cheeks reddened a bit as I waved his hands away, not noticing the way Sasuke and Naruto frowned.

"Don't worry about it Iruka sensei. I'll take care of it later when we get the chance to clean up. But all that aside, what are you doing here, why did you come out of the summoning scrolls?" He smiled down at us.

"Well you see, we Chunnin are supposed to come and congratulate any team that makes it through the second stage of the exam, I just happened to be lucky enough to be the one to deliver the message to you three."

"Message?" After Iruka explained what was on the wall he congratulated us on passing and sent us on our way.

The three of us walked upstairs where we met up with some medical ninja who healed our wounds and showed us where we'd be staying for the next few days until the exam was over. They told us there was a kitchen, a lounge, and a public baths all down stairs for us to use as we please, as long as we don't destroy anything.

I heaved a huge sigh as I plopped down on my bed, Sasuke and Naruto each took the beds on either side of me. The room we were in was an open compartment with four beds in it, there were a few rooms like these for other teams who had passed early as well.

A large part of me wanted nothing more than to go to sleep right away but an even bigger part of me wanted to shower first, but I was so exhausted. I looked to my pillow that looked so inviting I almost just went to sleep.

Don't you dare, move your ass to the showers.

Yeah, yeah.

I groaned as I got up off the bed and immediately felt two pairs of eyes on me. I said nothing as I walked to one of the desks in the room that had towels and mini soaps for us to use and took what I needed and left the room. A few seconds later both Naruto and Sasuke followed me, they were silently whispering to each other behind my back.

I sighed at their odd behavior, but ultimately decided that I didn't care enough to ask them and instead just kept on walking. The baths were separated so when we got there we parted ways.

I took my time in the shower, making sure to get all the dirt and grime off me before hoping in the bath to soak in hot water and just relax.

After I started to feel dizzy from the hot steam I got out of the bath and dried myself off. I changed into a pair of short, black biker shorts and a plain black shirt before I looked at myself in the mirror in the bathroom and looked at my face. It was still bruised from Zaku's attacks, but at least the swelling was gone now thanks to the medical ninja.

I made my way back to the compartment to find Naruto and Sasuke already inside, sitting on their beds, there was on left in the middle between them just for me.

I sighed as I refused to look at either one of them before making my way to the bed.

There was a fourth bed across the room, away from both of them, but as I looked closer to the other bed I noticed a rather large blood stain that no one seemed to want to clean or change.

Scrunching my nose in discuss I contemplated on wether or not I actually wanted to take the risk of sleeping in a bed that was absolutely repulsive or just sleep between Naruto and Sasuke.

Don't you dare sleep on that thing.

I sighed.

Right, right.

Still not looking at them despite feeling their piercing stares, I made it to bed and lied down under the covers.

It was quiet for about three minutes before I heard shuffling.

"Um, Sakura-chan?" I heard Naruto ask in a rather timid voice.

That's odd, I've never heard him use that tone before.

"Are you asleep yet?"

Contemplating on wether or not I wanted to dignify him with a response. I sighed knowing that if I didn't respond he would just keep pestering me.

"I've been laying down for a total of four minutes now Naruto, no I'm not asleep yet."

"Um, there's something that we both wanted to say. Right Sasuke?" Naruto said before giving the spotlight to Sasuke.

"Hn."

I sighed again.

"Whatever it is, can it wait until tomorrow?"

"No." I nearly jumped at the sound of Sasuke's voice, not expecting him to be the one to actually say something, let alone say it with such a strong tone of voice.

I cracked my eyes open and slowly sat up in my bed, the sheets that was up to my chin before now resting at me hips.

"Well, what is it?" I ask, wondering what would be so important that even Sasuke refused to wait until tomorrow.

"We want to apologize." I gasped at Sasuke who in turn was looking down at his fists and were clenched.

I didn't know if he was clenching his first so hard because he had to stoop so low as to apologize to me or because of what he was sorry about. Speaking of which.

"Apologize for what?" I asked quietly, not wanting to jump to conclusions as images of both my teammates treating me like absolute trash from nearly the time we first got assigned at a team.

Is that what their saying sorry for?

"For a lot of things actually Sakura-chan. Starting from the slight fit we both threw when Iruka told us we'd be a team." Naruto said with his eyes too down cast.

My mind went to when Iruka-Sensei was naming off the teams right after we had all graduated.

As soon as all three of our names were announced as a part of Team Seven, Sasuke made the loudest groan to ever leave an Uchiha's mouth.

Muttering about how it was possible that he got stuck with two 'dead last's'. The boy who, despite being the Hokage's son, was rather slow in the head, and the girl who although bested even him in everything academically, had zero ninja skills to boast about, just barely passing with chakra reserves smaller than a poor sick dog.

Then Naruto had complained about being with a guy who was 'such a bastard' and girl who was a 'civilian born'.

It was a time where I had never felt such humiliation in front of my whole class. I remember wanting to hide away forever as my classmates had laughed at me until Iruka-sensei had to tell everyone to calm down.

Even as we met Kakashi-sensei, both boys were brooding.

Our first mission was shit because both boys had refused to actually work with me, just each other. Hell, all of our missions were that way, all the way up till the mission in the Land of Waves.

Even during the Forest of Death just now, the both of them had said such horrible things to me.

Was this the apology that I've been waiting for for the past six months?

"Not just then either, every comment we've made about you since we've been together. Anything and everything from 'you're weak' to 'stay out of our way'." Sasuke said as he slowly looked up from this fists to my face.

"Calling you 'just a civilian born' or other things that made to feel anything less than what you really are." Naruto said and he moved from his bed to sit at the foot of my bed.

"The both of us had jumped to conclusions about you before even giving you a chance to prove yourself. Not only that but we never gave you the opportunity to." Sasuke added.

"Not to mention that if it were anyone else on the team instead of you, they probably would have left us ages ago, and gone to a different team." Naruto said with a sheepish grin.

"So what we're both trying to say is, we're sorry for everything, and we're actually really grateful to have you as our teammate." Sasuke said as he looked directly into my eyes.

I turned to Naruto who was also staring into my eyes.

Well I'll be damned.

"W-what brought this on?" I asked as I felt my throat start to tighten and my eyes begging to prickle.

"The way you looked at us with such hatred and betrayal in the forest of death, during that fight with the weird snake dude. Mostly when I called you a scaredy-cat." Naruto said, the last part coming out with regret.

"And when I told you that you didn't know anything about being a ninja and to stay out of my way." Sasuke added, with his eyes downcast, a surprising look for him honestly.

"Oh..." I said quietly, not really knowing what to say.

"Is there any way you can forgive us?" Naruto asked quietly.

Could I? After everything they've done.

You can accept their apology, but they're going to have a lot to make up for. One apology doesn't make up for six months of treating you like shit.

You're right.

I waited for a moment longer. Trying to figure out how to say what I wanted to say.

"Honestly... I don't know." I watched as both of their faces fell.

"You both put me through so much in the past six months. All it took was a near death experience for the both of you to finally apologize. But it doesn't make up for all the pain you caused my heart, mind, and soul over the past half year." The more I spoke the more down the seemed to get.

"But..." they both popped their heads up. "It's a start." I said with a small smile.

"You'll still have to make up for everything you've done to me."

"Deal!" They both smiled at the same time.

You know, things might actually turn out alright with your team. If they can keep this up that is.