Sakura walked down the hallways red in the face with her fist clenched. She started to breath in and out slowly and her anger started to fade, her fists unclenched and she closed her eyes for a moment. "Ok, ok I'm calm now." Sakura said quietly to herself as she walked into her teams room.

~Skip to matches~

It was the last day of the second exam, then there would be a month to prepare for the last part. As expected Orochimaru's team quit and there were all the people that had been there the first time around. Everyone was inside the room for the matches with their teams on the top level near the railing. There however were only two people missing, Sakura and Kakashi. Hayate had already explained the rules and was about to put the names on the screen.

~Dosu vs. Sakura~

Dosu jumped down off of the rail landing on the left side of the arena and started waiting for Sakura. Dosu was in no hurry to fight Sakura so he waited patiently, everyone else however was wanting to get to their matches. "Oh no this guys looks tough." Ino whispered to the uncaring Shikamaru. "I wonder how she will survive this on, foreheads gonna get wiped out." Ino said more to herself than anyone else. "You think so?" Sakura said now crouching on the railing right in front of Ino with her eyes creased. (AN: Like I said Kakashi and Sakura have a lot in common) Ino being startled slightly screamed and fell backwards on her ass. "Nice to know you were worried, pig." Sakura said and before Ino could retort Sakura disappeared in a whirl of black cherry blossoms and appeared on the right side of the arena in the same manner. "Sorry for being late, ya see there was this old lady and..." Sakura began but Hayate interrupted her "Save it Sakura, I swear you're like a second Kakashi you even stand like him and do everything like him." Hayate said motioning at her lazy posture and the wrappings around her face. Sakura had also for some reason she had no idea why, she was wearing her Hitai-ate over her left eye. Sakura gave Hayate a blank stare and then pulled out her book from her pouch. Hayate sighed and decided to just signal the match to start without asking if they were ready or not.

Immediately Sakura sidestepped just missing a gust of wind while still keeping her eyes on her book. (Which by the way was Icha Icha, she swapped books with Kakashi for a day) She then jumped up over a gust of wind with a bored expression on her face. Landing perfectly on her feet Sakura sighed and turned toward Dosu who started attacking her. Sakura dodged a couple of kunai and gusts of wind until she finally got fed up with dodging and shunshinned behind Dosu. "Now why don't you go to sleep for a little while." Sakura said and with a flash of movement to fast to see Dosu's limp body was falling to the ground. Hayate sighed and declared Sakura the winner of the match. Sakura getting bored of everything walked out of the room with her book still in her hand. Everyone inside the room excluding the Jounin, team Dosu and the sand siblings were gaping. "H-how did forehead do that?" Ino stuttered out incredulously. "Dont you know Ino-chan, Sakura-sama is the greatest." Naruto said with a fox like grin.

Kakashi was sitting on the roof of the building reading Sakura's book and he was actually finding it quite intriguing. He looked over as he heard someone flop down next to him. Sakura sat down reading his book and was about half way done with it already. "Its a good book." Sakura said not really expecting a reply. Kakashi flipped a page "so is this." Kakashi said still not looking up from the book. That sat there for awhile both only occasionally saying something to each other, most of the time they read. After about two hours Sakura yawned and stretched her arms over her head. "Well I'm going to go get some food at Kyūsai-saku, you wanna come?" Sakura asked as she put her book in her pouch. Kakashi looked up and nodded as he put his book away. With that they jumped off of the building and started jumping through trees toward town.

~Time skip~ don't you just love them?

Sakura entered the building with Kakashi to see all of the matches had ended and the preliminaries were over. She looked at the line of people who had made it and let a smile go to her face. "Perfect, everyone who had completed it last time has made it through this time, though with the addition of me of course." Naruto ran up to her with a pout on his face. "Sakura where were you? you didn't see mine or teme's matches." Naruto whined loudly. "Besides teme even tried showing off for you until her realized you weren't there, now hes back in his emo state." Naruto whispered to Sakura and nudged his elbow to her side. Sakura sighed "Who cares, its not like I'm one of his fangirls or anything so it doesn't matter." She said in an annoyed voice. "Oh I know, but you do realize thats half the reason he like you right." Naruto said with a smirk and walked away and started to act like an idiot again. Sakuras face was slightly red and she sighed and shook her head muttering 'Baka' under her breath.

The proctor interrupted everyone as they were chatting and announced the last part of the exam. "Alright so the final part of the exam will be held next month, so you have that much time to train and prepare, everyone is dismissed I guess." He said with a shrug and went to where all the other Jounin were. Everyone left the building together and started to go back with their teams and the places they were staying. Sakura had her book out and was about to leave when someone put their arm over her shoulder. "Hey Saku you should come celebrate with us." Genma said motioning toward the other Jounin. Sakura didn't look up from her book and moved Genma's arm off of her shoulders. "I'm good." Sakura said with a bored voice and started walking away until someone grabbed her arm. "Oh come on Sakura, we all wanna celebrate you making it through the preliminaries." Kurenai said with a smile. Sakura sighed and reluctantly agreed to everyone taking her out. Most of the Jounin decided to come and 'congratulate" Sakura, which basically meant they needed an excuse to get drunk. Genma and Kakashi had their arms slung over Sakura's shoulders on either side of her. Ibiki was walking in front of Sakura and Kurenai and Asuma were talking to each other and walking side by side.

Sakura sighed as Genma brought his arm to her waist and pulled her closer to him. "Troublesome." She muttered under her breath but it was drowned out by everyone's laughter and talking. They got to the bar moments later and started eating and celebrating with about five or six toasts. Sakura however sat on a bar stool and read the entire time, knowing full well that she had to take care of all of the soon to be drunk Jounin. "Damn my luck, damn it to hell." Sakura though with a sigh and put her book away. Genma then came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Sakura's face turned red "Hey Saku, why don't you have a drink huh?" He slurred out, obviously already pretty drunk. "Because I have to take care of you idiots." Sakura said sarcastically. "Aw come on Saku." Genma whined burying his face in Sakura's neck and tightening his hold around her waist. Sakura's face turned a darker shade of red as she tried to get out of Genma's arms. Kurenai looked at Sakura and started to laugh a little at Sakura's red face. Genma was suddenly pushed off of Sakura by Ibiki and she was about to thank him. "Back off, shes mine." Ibiki said and sat down next to her and pulled her onto his lap. "Seriously, why do they all have to be drunk, ugh what a drag." Sakura said with her face still red. (AN: Haha, she thinks they are only saying this because they are drunk, but they do all actually like her XD.)

Soon there was a full on fight going on between Ibiki and Genma, because they were so drunk. Sakura sighed and looked around the bar to see Asuma and Kurenai talking and laughing being the only sober ones out of the Jounin. Even Kakashi was drunk and had joined in the fight with Genma and Ibiki saying 'Since Sakura is my student I will be the one to have her." Sakura shook her head in distaste and walked over to Kurenai and Asuma. "Hey I'm going home make sure they don't kill each other and if you could take them home for me." Sakura said with a bored tone putting her hands in her pockets and slouching slightly. Kurenai looked at her and at the boys and laughed at the scene they were making. 'She would be a lot cuter pouting with that bored expression if she didn't have that mask.' Kurenai thought then nodded to Sakura and Sakura payed for the drink her and the boys had and left. She put her wallet back in her weapons pouch and put her hands back in her pockets and started walking while looking up at the night sky. Getting lost in her thoughts and absentmindedly dodging all the obstacles in her way. She let a long sigh exit her mouth and was brought out of her thoughts as she heard someone say "you going out for another walk in the forest." Sakura turned her head slightly and saw Izumo and Kotetsu the two men who guard the gates. Sakura then looked around and realized she had walked to the gates of Konoha.

She then creased her eyes "Yeah actually I just need to get for a bit, be back later." Sakura said and waved as she walked out of the gates and into the forest. "The next time I come here at night might not be so happy of an occasion." Sakura thought with a little bit of sadness. She was now about a mile from konoha, once again she had been lost in thought and hadn't realized how far she had walked. She started to scold herself for being so stupid and thinking that someone could have killed her by her being in such a daze. "Well, well whats a little girl with pink hair doing in this part of the big bad forest don't you know there are wolves or even worse demons." Sakura spun around with a kunai in her hand as she heard the deep and oddly familiar voice of someone. As she did her kunai slipped out of her hand and fell to the ground and her mouth hung slightly open as she gaped at the sight in front of her. The one thought that ran through her mind was "well shit."