Important A/N! I won't be able to update for a long time starting really soon. I will be leaving the country and doing some traveling for work, even with COVID-19 going around. It may be close to a year before I get back and won't have time to really write, but I will try to make something work, maybe. Until then enjoy this chapter and possibly one more before I leave! Stay healthy everyone!

The very next day after having met Lady Tsunade, I had returned to the training ground to work on fighting with Senbonzakura to strengthen our bond.

When I reached the grounds though there was a pleasant surprise waiting for me.

"Ibiki-sensei!" I yelled happily.

the man in turn looked at me with a stoic face. not that I expected him to burst out in joy or anything like that, but a smile at least would have been nice.

"Hey there brat. How has your training been going? Figure out which chakra nature suits you best?" I nodded my head in confirmation.

"Yes. Water was one that flowed the easiest for me. Wind would have to be the second, it was quite easy to make things float around with the levitation jutsu. It's a shame I can't use it on people though, it would have been fun seeing the look on Naruto's face if I had been able to pick him up off the ground mid insult." This time Ibiki let out a grin.

"Yes, it is a shame. What about Earth Style jutsu?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I can perform the jutsu's but they aren't as strong as I'd like them to be. I don't think I have enough chakra in my system to make them strong enough." Ibiki nodded at my deductions, fully agreeing with me.

"Don't worry too much about what you can't do right now, it will only hold you back. For now, you said water and wind worked out well for you, that's more than enough. But that's not what your schedule for training looks like today. If I'm not mistaken, today is your second day of working on whatever Senbonzakura wants to teach you."

I nodded my head enthusiastically.

"Yes! You should have been here yesterday to see what he taught me. But today, I'm going to be working on my swordsmanship, so that way I can strengthen my bond with him."

Ibiki nodded his head. "That makes sense I suppose. Well then, shall we get started?"

I nodded my head excitedly and drew my sword. Senbonzakura was giving off small vibrations in his eagerness to teach me something new.

I took my stance that I learned at the beginning of my training. I trained with Ibiki for hours, perfecting my stance, my swing, and my aim.

Believe it or not, it was a little difficult.

Ibiki had gone to the store and bought hundreds of rubber balls and threw them at me for target practice.

I had to slice them directly down the middle in order for him to be satisfied, but using something as thin as a sword proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated. So needless to say, I had failed to slice the rubber balls exactly in half.

As a matter of fact, it was hard just to get a good slice through it. Sometimes I was able to cut the top off, other times it was maybe a quarter I managed to slice off. But most times, I had missed.

We finished the day off with Ibiki reminding me I had the next day off to recuperate. Normally I would protest, with it being so close to the exam finals, but I had no choice. Especially with Senbonzakura breathing down my neck about taking a break as well.

He said just because we were taking a day off doesn't mean we had to spend it doing nothing productive.

So on my day off of training I went through the notes I took on wind and water based jutsu and memorized the hand signs and how the jutsu was supposed to work.

We discussed more Hado and Kido spells and their incantations, and what they were supposed to do.

Senbonzakura told me about how I would soon be able to use him and his powers in a different form. The things he could teach me seemed almost endless.

And I was excited.

I was ready.

For the next sever weeks I continued my training with Ibiki. My physical strength had significantly improved. As the days went by I started using weights on my ankles and my wrists, slowly increasing the weight. But not by much. Too much too soon would have done me more damage than good.

But now I was able to carry more than just my own weight. I could do push ups without struggling after the first set. My sit up count was almost doubled. My run time across the village was getting lower, meaning my speed had improved as well.

I would perform almost every academy level wind and water jutsu, and I could pull a significant amount of water from the moisture in the air. My chakra levels had grown also, where as before I had the chakra reserves equivalent to that of a small dog, now I was up to a normal genin, or even a low ranked chunin.

The amount of reishi particles in my body had also increased. I could walk on air as easily as breathing now, the same with flash stepping. I could flash step from farther distances now, but I still had to see where I was going.

I tried flash stepping by just imagining where I wanted to go, but I soon regretted that attempt as I had found myself in the backyard of a strangers home while they were busy gardening. I don't think I've ever seen a grown man looked so embarrassed to have been caught in a gardening apron with a pot of petunias in his hands in my entire life.

I tried telling him that it was nothing to be embarrassed about, I know plenty of grown men who like to plant flowers.

As a matter of fact, Ino's father was one such man.

So was The kind old man that lived a few blocks down from me.

He was very proud of the new rose bud that blossomed very recently.

It took me a while to calm the man down enough to let me leave without pressing charges for breaking nd entering.

So I told him that if he were to inform anyone about it he would have to face other people about his little secret.

Needless to say he let me go. As long as I promised not to say a word to a single soul.

But I couldn't help but feel as though I had seen him before somewhere. The bandana around his head the senbon that hung out of his mouth looked familiar. But I just couldn't place it.

But besides all of that, everything about me that before was weak, was now average. At least for my given rank.

Ibiki told me that he was impressed with how much I had improved in my abilities so far. He said that if I were to keep training as hard as I was now, It would be no time at all before I would be on par with my powerhouse teammates, and then, I would be able to be stronger than them.

He promised that after the exams were over, he would keep training me whenever he could. Granted, as a man who was head interrogator of the Torture and Interrogation department, I wouldn't get to train with him often.

But I understood that.

It was a wonder that he was able to help me at all these last few weeks, and when I asked him how he was able to train me instead of fulfilling his duties, he said he had bribed Anko with a years worth of dango, and promising not to take her off the mission roster for the next six months no matter how much she pissed him off or how much she probably would deserve it.

It was something I had never expected him to do, but in the end, he said it was worth making a useless brat like me into someone who wasn't so useless anymore.

I had no idea how to take the back handed compliment, so I just let it go.

"Well kid, are you ready?" Ibiki asked me as we stood in front of the gates leading up to the arena.

I slowly nodded my head as we made our way through the building and into the ground floor where the rest of the contestants were waiting.

My eyes drifted from Neji to Dosu, the first match. Then to Temari and Shikamaru who were the second match to fight. Shino and Kankuro who were third. Then my eyes fell upon Gaara who was far away from anyone else. Not that I blamed anyone really, after all, he tried to kill Lee during the preliminaries.

But the thing that stood out to me right now was my team mates who were no where to be found just yet.

I looked to Ibiki who was standing behind me with his face set in a deep frown. He quickly looked to his watch before clicking his tongue in annoyance.

"Your team mates have thirteen minutes before they're late. And more times than not, those who are late get disqualified. If they both happen to not be here by the time the thirteen minutes are up, chances are you'll be fighting Gaara instead."

My blood immediately ran cold at the idea of facing the redhead that almost killed a fellow Konoha shinobi.

"Then again, that might not be the case." Said a new voice from behind us both. I looked behind me and gave a tired smile.

"Kakashi-sensei." His eyes crinkled, letting me know that he was smiling beneath that mask of his. But then a look of confusion crossed over my features. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, Naruto's father is the Hokage. He could easily over rule the orders to disqualify his own son, and no one would blame him. Naruto is someone a lot of people from the village want to see fight. Sasuke is the same way. They believe that Sasuke will win against Gaara, and Naruto will win against you. The crowd is hoping for a final battle between the two of them as some sort of victory round, I guess you could say." The small smile that was previously on my face was wiped away and replaced with probably one of the biggest frown I probably ever had.

"And what are your thoughts on this fight Kakashi-sensei? Do you think Naruto will win against me? The civilian born?" Kakashi flinched at my words, causing me to ponder what that kind of reaction was for.

"I see the rumors were true then." He said, trying to dodge the question. But by some sort of miracle, it worked.

"Rumors?" I asked, causing him to nod his head at me, almost sadly.

"Yes, about how Naruto and Sasuke have been treating you for a while now." I stood there, flabbergasted at how ridiculous this sounded to my ears.

"You mean to tell me, that you never once picked up on the things either one of them was saying to me the entire time you've been our sensei? Are you sure you used to be in ANBU? Because you lack of awareness on the things going on around you are startling." Ibiki tried to cover up his laugh with a cough, Senbonzakura on the other hand was laughing his ass off in the deep recesses of my mind, telling me to let him have it.

And boy was I going to.

"Yes, Kakashi, they've never acted like a real teammate to me. Not once since we've been put on the same team together. Most of the negative things they've said to me was when you were around. The only time I'm typically around them is during team training, which can't exactly be done until you decide to finally grace us with your presence after being three hours late for training everyday. But even when you are there, you do nothing about it." Ibiki was looking at me something along the lines of pride, but I was too occupied to really notice it.

"I'm going to ask you again, Kakashi. Who do you think is going to win in this battle?" He flinched again after using his name the second time with out calling him 'sensei'.

"Sakura-chan, that's a little unfair isn't it?" He looked very uncomfortable, causing Senbonzakura to laugh even more.

"Do you even think I could have a fighting chance?" He remained silent. Which was enough of an answer for me.

"And do you know whose fault that is Kakashi?" Still, silence.

"It's yours." Finally, a reaction. But all he did was look away.

"You've never cared about my training. You've only cared about Naruto and Sasuke and how they were improving. You've only ever included me in the small bits, like walking on trees. In the three hours you were late everyday you could have taught me something. Anything. You could never teach me the next step to anything because you never bothered to tell me the first, or even point me in any direction to learn something on my own." I was in the zone now for letting him have it, there was no stopping me. Not that anyone was trying really. I was being so quiet in my rage that only Kakashi and Ibiki could hear me in the arena.

"In the last month I was taught the next step of walking up trees, which I'm sure you know is walking on water. It took me one try to walk up a tree before I mastered it, it took Naruto and Sasuke days to figure it out, but after that one time I out did them both, you just told me to wait inside the house until they had learned it, you could have told me about walking on water right after that. It was the same concept but you never bothered. I learned to walk on water in the span of one day. Then I was pointed in the direction of the library to find books on elemental jutsu for affinities that I didn't even know I had, because you never cared to teach me about that either. But I did. I learned simple elemental jutsu all on my own, because someone pointed me in the right direction, and it wasn't you." I had to take a deep breath to keep on going.

"So when you think that I don't even have a fighting chance, just know that was because of your lack of trying. But I know that I have more than a fighting chance. And when I kick Naruto's ass, because I will, just remember that it was no thanks to you, because you weren't there." I watched as his shoulders fell dramatically.

"How's that for not fair." I said, finally finishing my rant.

Ibiki put his hand on my shoulder.

"You should go on ahead kid, you've been at it for ten minutes now, you only have three left until the Hokage begins his speech." I nodded my head as I left the main doors to the arena and made my way over to the center, standing off to the far right side, close to the walls.

"That was quite the little speech you gave there kid, you really let the guy have it." I snapped my head over to the stands and saw non other than Lady Tsunade and Shizune, who were both standing right above me.

"You heard all that?" I squeaked out, feeling slightly embarrassed as my face began to heat up.

"Yeah kid, we heard it all. Listen, why don't you find me after the exams are over, there's something I'd like to run by you, if you're up for it."

"What is it?"

"You'll just have to wait and find out."