There are probably so many spelling mistakes in this. Also this chapter and the next are kinda information dense, so I split them into two.

As always, lemme know what you think.

~Line break~

Even in a universe with super cool magic healing, recovering from an encounter with an A rank missing nin took more then a week in the hospital. I wasn't bed ridden at release, but I was downgraded to non strenuous activity for the next three days. After which I would be able to lightly resume activity.

For the first time in my life, I was less than interested in a nap. Frankly, I was sick of sleeping. So I decided to take a walk through the village and see what I could find.

Even though most of my friends had visited and I had received cards from the ones I hadn't been awake to receive, I decided to try and check in on some of them. I didn't bother with Ino or Choji, knowing that they would be over my house at the end of the week for a typical family dinner. I could visit Sasuke, but most of my common ground with him involved training and ninja stuff that I wasn't allowed to do right now.

Naruto was similarly out. I couldn't handle the pure energy that he exuded. He had struggled to sit still in the hospital. He was too naturally excitable to be the calming presence I required.

I ended up ambling towards Sakura's house. I had only been here a couple times before because I usually met with Sakura outside the academy grounds, but occasionally she'd invited me over to study.

It took me a little while longer then it normally would have taken and I was distantly light headed at the minor exercise but I ignored the feeling and knocked on the bright red door. A quick shout and then a moments pause before the door was yanked open.

"Ah, hello Haruno-san." Sakura's mother was a study in contrasts to her daughter. Sakura had pink hair and bright green eyes, while her mother has straw colored hair and pale blue eyes giving her a washed out appearance. She was diminutive to Sasuke's tentative growth spurt. She was dressed in somber grays aghast Sakura's preference of reds and pinks. But she had a kind smile that she flashed at me in greeting and the kind voice was similar enough to her daughter to show the resemblance.

"Sakura is still out training but she should be home later this evening! Did you need anything from her, Kage-chan?"

I shook my head politely no, declined the offer of staying and waiting for her over tea, and left the residential neighborhood, making my way towards Sakura's preferred training ground.

She had mentioned her team to me a couple times over the past few weeks, but the only thing that really stuck out was the number. I couldn't even recall her teammates names, although I really should; they'd dropped off a get well card for me. I guiltily realized I couldn't even tell them apart when I strolled into the grounds and saw her two teammates tumbling in an all out brawl on the dusty floor.

The annoyed jonin sensei was standing to the side, Sakura at his side looking equally exasperated.

I guilty recalled that Sakura had literally informed me days ago that her team was struggling with their teamwork. Showing up unannounced was incredibly rude. Too late too leave however because the jonin turned his gaze to glare at me.

"Message?" He barked at me, holding out a hand in impatience.

"What?" I raised and eyebrow in question and held up both my hands in the universal 'I'm not hiding anything' gesture.

Sakura jumped forward, saving me from the irritable ninja. "Harui sensei, this is Kage-chan, my study partner! She's not—" Sakura burned red in second hand embarrassment, lowering her voice "— she's not from the genin corps." I frowned, both offended at being mistaken for genin corp as well as feeling offended at the general disapproval of the corp in the first place.

The older ninja blinked, then sighed.

In a much more resigned tone, he told his student: "Haruno-san, you're excused to work on your study materials with this genin. You're teammates…" He raised his voice to catch the attention of the now sheepish genin getting up from the ground. "…have more then enough work to catch up with you." Sakura preened at the compliment while the other two ninja's burned even redder then they already were.

I said nothing but gave a slight bow in thanks and let myself be dragged off by an over eager Sakura.

I gently guided her in the general direction of the clan compound deciding that I had run around enough today. She chattered on the way and I nodded my head and hmm'd in the all the right spots.

I finally interjected when she had paused to breathe in the middle of a story about Ino and her fighting at the market.

"Ma, Sakura, is that what your team practices are always like?"

She let out a small huff and puffed out her cheeks in exasperation. "Not every meeting…but most of them! Those two are useless. They always fight and never respect sensei and it's super frustrating. But sensei knows I pay attention and he's been working on finding me genjutsu to learn."

She preened again at the reminder of her sensei's attention. I smiled happy for my friend, but I was worried. "How did you guys end up a team if it's so dysfunctional?" I couldn't hide the amazement in my tone.

Getting a jonin sensei was a big deal, especially for a civilian born like Sakura. With the knowledge of my past life, I knew that Sakura had managed it, but that was in part to her teammates. You couldn't leave foxy boy and lone avenger in the genin corps.

She held up her hands, clueless. "I honestly have no idea. I mean I'm really grateful!" She rushed to reassure me. She lowered her voice and looked around us, but the no one in the street was paying attention to us.

"I deal with the genin corps a lot because of sensei. He works in intelligence and all day long, he's getting messages. And it's the genin that deliver them. I mean I hate the Tora mission as much as the next kunoichi…but can you imagine just running messages all day? Everyday? Your chance of being a chunin so far off… and if you get it, it just means being lead around by another chunin, one on the jonin track who needs leadership experience…Sounds …" She trailed off not finishing her thought.

"Well yea" I shrugged. "That's why clans are so helpful, after all." I explained for her benefit, keeping my voice as low as hers had been. I kept the cheerful tone, even though it didn't match with the subject.

She flinched at the reminder of her lack of a clan but I ignored it, nodding to the guard relaxing in front of the gate the compound.

"Clans exist for a reason. Not every person in the village can be a jonin, yea?" Sakura nodded slowly. "Not even every ninja on the jonin track can be a jonin…a lot of them—us" I corrected "will not succeed. But the majority of the village forces are the genin and chunin corp.

"But…a clan provides security for ninja. For one thing, it helps provide promotional growth. Almost any Nara in the genin corp will be recruited to the T and I department. If they want to go somewhere else, they're more then welcome, but the clan really only has pull in that direction. So if you go that route, you can eventually expect a nomination for chunin from the department which is better then the average genin corp member can expect. Meanwhile certain families, especially those that show promise, have the opportunity to push for their child to be on a jonin sensei- team."

Sakura still looked confused. "Some teams were never going to fail." I explained dryly. "My brothers team has three clan heirs on it. All of them have at least one parent that made it to jonin and show promise in their family jutsu. There was no way their team could fail the trial. I'm not even sure Shika tried to pass."

Sakura looked aghast. "That's wrong though! What if you don't have a clan! Most of the ninja in the academy are civilian born!"

I chuckled at her despair. It was the same reaction I had had upon learning all of this."It makes sense to prioritize families that have consistently produced ninja. But there are exceptions where a civilian or two show promise. And those that show promise manage to pass the jonin test and are allowed to continue on the jonin track. You for example." I stressed the last part.

She looked at me wide eyed. "How did you even find this stuff out? I didn't even know there was another test after we graduated…"

"Neither did I." I admitted. "Afterwards, I asked dad about it and he explained more. There's always other opportunities of course, but for the main family, its expected to reach the jonin track. Maybe not to actually become a jonin, but at least attempt it."

Sakura still looked star struck as I let her into my house. Calling out to my mom, wherever she was in the house, I led Sakura upstairs to my bedroom where we sat down to study.

Instead gossiping commenced.

After a few minutes of nonsensical chatter about nothing in particular between the two of us, Sakura nonchalantly asked me, "Did you really…you know….confess to Sasuke-kun?"

I blinked at her. "I was on heavy painkillers. I am not interested in him in the slightest. And I want to move on from this particular embarrassment in my life and never think about it again." I finished, sitting up perfectly straight, obviously uncomfortable.

She looked at me wide eyed. "Did he…turn you down gently?"

For all that I was her 'rival in love' she was being awfully kind to me.

"NO! Dear god no, I swear Sakura," I grabbed her hands in earnest, "I am not interested in Sasuke. And he's not in me. You should've seen his face when he heard I wasn't serious. I've never seen him smile like that before. It was almost a little offensive, if I didn't feel the same way."

Sakura giggled pulling her hands back and focusing on her medical text; she'd jumped units ahead of me while I was in the hospital. She absorbed the information at an astounding rate and it was prodigal how well she understood the material.

"Ino is mad at you, you know?" Sakura said casually, not dropping the subject. "She thinks you cheated by being on his team. And for not even telling her you were interested in the first place."

I groaned and through myself backwards on the floor, splaying myself over my books. Never again would I use a confession to cover up a covert meeting. Lesson learned.

The ribbing continued along with more gossip from Sakura. She knew a little bit about what was going on in the tournament preparations from her rivalry (and regular sparring) with Ino.

"Bright green jumpsuit?"

She nodded solemnly. "It really wasn't something I ever needed to see. Ino pointed him out when we were grabbing tea the other day. And then his sensei showed up. Exact same suit. I swear to god Kage, I thought it was just you who had a sensei complex, but you seem down right normal compared to this guy."

I ignored the comment—sensei was awesome and I didn't even copy him that much. The day I pulled out a porno was the day I required an intervention and not a second sooner as far as I was concerned.

"But bright green? It was so hard to get Naruto to dump his orange jacket. I mean I guess green is more likely to be in nature but come on."

Sakura looked at me askance. "Kage, there was nothing natural about these outfits, color or otherwise."

I let out a short laugh. " What about the other person you saw? The one we graduated with? Aburame? I barely remember him from class…"

Sakura launched into a detailed recounting of her and Ino spying on Kurenai's team training.

I sat back grinning. I was never going to get around to studying when Sakura had such interested stories to catch me up on.

~linebreak~

Sakura had been over for a few hours. I was glad I had decided to bug the kunoichi. She had helped me kill hours of time. Not that we had managed to get much studying done. We had sat and talked like old biddies for the entire day. Mom had run upstairs with some tea and snacks for us and we spent the day lazing about.

Sakura, I had discovered, knew next to nothing about what had landed me in the hospital. She thought I had gotten hurt during the second stage. Eliminated because of an opponents trick. She was dead terrified for when her sensei enrolled her teams in the exams, although she explained again how he was training them to specialize. Sakura in particular was going to be the genjutsu/healer on the team.

It didn't quite fit with the image I had of her. A genjutsu user usually didn't physically get involved in the fight. In fact, one way to know you were facing a team with a genjutsu user was to notice that there was one less person then expected in front of you; they usually hid out of sight and didn't engage the enemy. As a last resort, they were the ones to slip away and report the mission failure to the village. They were support ninja.

And it just didn't seem like Sakura to fill that role. No enemy engagement? At all? Sure she had the chakra control for it, but the mental control? No Sakura was a pretty angry person who tended to lose her temper rather quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if her fighting teammates didn't cross her just because they were scared of riling her temper.

And this train of thought is probably what caused me to shove her on a different path. I swear it wasn't spite! You know, even though the gift was from Shisui, it wasn't the annoyance I felt at him that prompted the action. I was mentally confused at the moment, I'll admit, but it still made sense.

It was just…I couldn't imagine Sakura as a genjutsu utilizer. In the memories of my past life, she'd been a monster with strength unparalleled. She'd been able to fuck you up six ways to Sunday and then heal you so that you didn't have a scratch on you.

And I wasn't trying to play god here; of course things could change. And Sakura was a dedicated ninja, all the way back to when I first met her in the academy years ago. If she made her primary focus genjutsu, I had no doubts that she would succeed—eventually. And this would only help her on her way. And she even said her sensei was looking around for techniques that suited her. She was going to have a dedicated teacher, something she still didn't have for medical ninjutsu but was managing anyway. She would be able to do whatever she put her mind too, I was sure.

But damn. It would be such a waste of pure awesomeness. The pink haired strong woman wouldn't exist, instead hiding behind genjutsu. And I would be the only one to know what the world was missing. And this would let her remain more in the field, less segregated from battle; help her transition into the fighting sooner once she got her monster strength.

So when there was a lull in conversation, my eyes causally glanced around my room. And when I saw the box sitting there under my bed, I almost reflexively turned away from the packet of senbon, annoyance at Shisui flickering through me— but then I paused and picked them up.

"Ya know, my friend gave me these senbon. You had decent aim in the academy. Better then me, for sure. Do you want um?" I tried for casual.

Sakura raised her eyebrows at me. "Senbon? We hardly touched on those in the academy. No thank you." She crossed her arms in an X. "I'm having enough work studying all the medical ninjutsu. Not that I don't find it interesting!" She quickly back traced. "It's just so time consuming. Between learning how to throw them, increasing accuracy, and knowing exactly where to aim them: there's a lot to learn."

Undeterred, I reached for the book underneath my bed, untouched since the mission in Wave. "Ne, Sakura, the point of Senbon is incapacitation, death, pain, healing. They're pretty versatile. And they require an extensive knowledge of the body—you can think of studying this stuff as a review of your medical notes."

I shoved the book at her too and she rolled her eyes, grabbing it from me. She flicked it open to one of the bookmarked pages.

"Acupuncture? Thats not even real Kage!" I rolled my eyes back at her and tapped on the page.

"Look here! I'm not saying you can shove a needle in someone and fix a broken bone. But it says you can stimulate nerve clusters—-use it to help someone heal faster. Or to close tenketsu so that you can focus treatments and redirect chakra to other parts of the body. Or to drop someone into a death trance." I winced. "Trust me, I've seen that one and its pretty realistic."

Sakura had stopped listening to me and was flipping through the book more curiously. I grinned.

"You don't have to use them. But you can take the book and the pack. I haven't touched them in a while. If I change my mind, I'm just being stingy."

Sakura laughed at my drawled remark and folded up the book in her lap, glancing at it unable to hide her curiosity.

I sighed. "Let's get back to studying. I need to memorize this before I can do any kind of work on this area of the body." I gestured to the diagram on the book in front of me sighing again. I had this particular book open for a few hours now and it felt like none of the information was sinking in. My knowledge of my past life was failing me; on a large scale level, it was all the same. On a smaller more detailed level? Every cell in the body was affected by chakra. I would never be able to do more then heal scratches and speed up bone breaks if I didn't get the details down. I had spent months on this, but I felt like I'd hit a plateau. I was struggling to grasp all the details.

Sakura giggled but settled down as we began studying again.

Sakura left right before dinner, opting not to join us. After a quiet but not unhappy meal, Dad dragged Shikamaru outside for more training. He'd been busy the whole day, but between his sensei and dad, the training was relentless.

Because he had made the finals, for the next month, Shika had one on one training to prepare for it, focused on using the Nara family techniques. He was progressing quickly through the family jutsu, showing near mastery of shadow capture and excellent control of shadow mimicry, I'd heard he'd used it successfully in the pre lim match he'd fought. When I used it, I struggled for the correct amount of chakra and wasted too much energy.

Shikamaru no longer had that problem it seemed. While visiting in the hospital, my brother had told me that dad was forcing him to master shadow mimicry before he showed him any of the higher tiered jutsu. It was a lot to ask, but as the heir, Shika was also expected to know my branch of the techniques inside and out, as I would one day be expected of dad and Shika's preferred jutsu's. A downside to being part of the main family. Shika was feeling the strain right now.

It was, in a word, exhausting.

Not to mention the physical training he was receiving from his sensei. Which had to be counterbalanced by dad, with more time studying, like he was forcing Shika to do now after dinner.

Using shadows was a focus of yin chakra. Controlling shadows with any measure of success meant using put yin chakra. Shika and I had both been young when we'd first managed it, but it made sense. Shika was a prodigious genius and I was also hailed as one, although in my case, the excess spirt energy most likely came from having a more developed mind—reincarnation bullshit that managed to help me for once.

Technically—not that we would ever let this information get around—we didn't use a bloodline limit because our techniques weren't something that only we could do. Like I said, it was usage of pure yin chakra. Anyone who could isolate it could have limited control. I'd been told plenty of Uchiha had tried back when the clan still existed. Their success was limited however; the isolation was difficult, only exasperated by the fact that you could only use half of your typical store of chakra. The yang half was left to languish.

However—barring Uchiha who could copy our hand signs and could see the flow of chakra—it was unlikely that anyone else would use the techniques wth any real success. The excess of yin chakra required when forming the correct buildup, the correct amount to control the shadows without blowing them up, unless till you managed to reform a shape, was difficult to master. Shikamaru was undoubtably a genius with this. I had managed lower level techniques in Wave after years of dedicated focus on my Okaa-san's techniques. Shikamaru had relearned my style successfully in a week while I was in the hospital.

Shikamaru was the cumulation of years of careful matchmaking and child rearing. Like I said; technically it wasn't a bloodline limit. Anyone could eventually among some success at the technique. But it required a certain balance of ninja.

And the Nara had over the years had breeded ourselves into the perfect yin chakra machines. Since the warring clan era, we had focused on genetic quirks of our ancestors that had a slight increase of yin chakra over their yang. We patented child rearing skills that involved a bastardized version of the socratic method. Children were given puzzles and strategy games on birthdays and holidays. Everything we did was an opportunity to question, learn, expand out mind; to help increase our mental agility.

It left something to be desired in our physical abilities. We were never really encouraged to play ninja tag or physically train. While laziness was accepted, it wasn't really anything it was more just a symptom of the condition the clan had developed. Over all it helped increase our survival ability as ninja, able to use quick wits and work around problems.

But almost as important: it helped increase our stores of yin chakra.

And that left you with this: a clan of ninja with an abundance of yin chakra, resulting in quick wits but slow and lazy personalities. Not that it was entirely the chakra to blame for the laziness, but I had to give it some credit.

But I'm digressing; the reason why building up yin chakra was so annoying was that it required mental exhaustion. You needed to build up your brains, your knowledge, your pattern recognition, your instincts.

If you didn't build these up and only focused the physical aspects of being a ninja, your yang chakra would grow in, balancing out the imbalance of yin chakra. Which was a nightmare possibility. Which meant that Shika had to spend hours training in the morning with dad on jutsu seals and physical stamina. And then join his jonin sensei for a small bit of team training. And then later spend twice as long talking strategy, being given different scenarios and various tests. Being emotionally worn out by our father, not allowing his physical growth —his yang chakra—to exceed his intelligence growth—his yin chakra.

So many shogi games that I think Shika was starting to hate the game.

The lack of sleep was making Shika twitchy and I eyed him in sympathy as he dragged himself out to the front porch, following dad.

Mom tutted but didn't say anything as she cleared away the dishes from dinner. I stayed quiet too, not because I had nothing to say, but because I didn't want her to notice me slipping out of the room without helping dry the dishes.