Sakura really has nothing to complain about. She knows this. She really does. But she can't help but look back on her first and, thankfully, only Chuunin Exams with a bittersweet contemplation similar to her experience postponing her life as a field shinobi in favor of a medical career. She wouldn't give it up for the world, but, well, the experience wasn't exactly painless either.

Looking over at the ocean from her place by her shishou's side, she can tell that pain of giving things up isn't exactly over. Sasuke and Shikako are doing some playful little game tossing ribbons of water back and forth and there's been a new, almost imperceptible, tension in her interactions with her best friend and a more relaxed relief in the stance of the boy she still loved and hoped to marry one day that was not there when she'd left the village a month and a half ago. She strongly suspects there's something they want to tell her, something Shikako is worried about her reaction to.

She'd asked Iruka-sensei about her upcoming trip to the Hidden Mist, about the Exams in general, and on his lunch break he'd taken her out for ramen, which explained Naruto's obsession with the stuff. While they ate, he explained that Chuunin didn't talk to Genin about the exact set up of the exams, or their experiences until said Genin had been through them once already. It was tradition, he apologized, to let them go through the experience blind. He had happily, however, explained the terrain, the usual weather at that time of year, even the flora and fauna that were common and would probably come in handy. He had left her, with a good luck, and a single warning that it would be very unlike any set of exams she'd faced before, to not get discouraged if she didn't make the cut (it had taken him three tries), and that it would push her beyond every limit she'd set so far, mentally, physically and emotionally.

And it had. She'd killed her first, second, third and fourth person, actual human people, in the first two days of the second exam, lost someone she knew from the academy, and lost her first patient, all in the span of a week. Her hand still ached from the bone shards she'd been forced to pick out and the spray of warm ocean water still felt a little too similar to the spray on her face from obliterating a person with her now monstrous strength.

But on the opposite side, her entire team had come through uninjured and promoted. By all accounts, a miracle if her classmates' experiences were in any way approaching normal.

She was lucky, and it was merely bittersweet.

"You graduated with Naruto." A raspy, dry voice addressed her.

She turned around to answer, that yes, she had, as well as Sasuke and Shikako, and what did he do now but came face to face with blood red hair, and serious teal blue eyes at a level with her own, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. "Lord Kazekage!" She stammered. "Uh, yeah, I, uh, I did. Um, why?"

"Shikako and Sasuke are currently occupied with the Sanbi, and I have not seen or heard of my brother by circumstance in a while. It occurred to me that I have questions you might be capable of answering. Would you consider him a friend?" He asked in that odd, dry voice, like wind over barren stone.

"Yeah, I guess." What an odd question.

"What was he like, before Team Seven?"

"Loud, obnoxious, pranked anyone and anything other than me or Shikako. Obsessed with ramen and being Hokage." She answered. "Not a bad person, just, a bit much at the wrong times." She left out his mile wide crush on her. She could be absolutely vindictive occasionally, but making fun of that seemed particularly cruel. Gaara obviously thought very highly of him for whatever reason.

"Pranks?" He frowned. He sounded as though it was a new concept to him.

"Yeah, like, propping erasers up so when you walk through a door they fall on you, or temporarily dying someone's teeth blue. He spray painted 'BITCH' all over Mizuki-sensei's apartment once. Absolutely hilarious in hindsight."

Gaara didn't seem to know what to say about that. So he politely thanked her for her time and left, looking as though he had just been given a great deal to think about.

"What an odd man."

"What did he ask you?" Tsunade's voice ordered over her ear.

"He asked what Naruto was like when we were in school." She answered promptly. Something that he had said jumped out at her attention. "Shishou, he called Naruto his 'brother by circumstance.' What is that supposed to mean."

Her Hokage grimaced, annoyed. "Something that he shouldn't have said. If you really must know, the brat can tell you when he gets back. Generally, he means they were both outcasts growing up."

"My parents always told me to stay away from him, that he was nothing but trouble and wasn't an appropriate friend for a young lady. They never told me why though."

"They told you that because of faulty information and they didn't tell you why because it's classified under penalty of death." Tsunade answered bluntly, still watching the Kazekage's back as he parted the crowd like a well respected leper to rejoin his siblings.

The avoidance of the other guests didn't seem to bother him and a chill crawled up Sakura's spine at Tsunade's statement.

"So how were your Exams?" The Hokage asked.

"I lost a patient and killed four people." She blurted out. "But all my teammates are alive and promoted, and I don't know how to feel about it." Her voice wavered and she didn't know how to feel about that either. Ino had praised her emotional honesty as a strength but everything she had been taught as an Academy student had said otherwise and to be certain the first thing she had ever been taught as a medic was that medics do not panic or become frantic and Tsunade was no exception to that rule.

"And you'll lose more, and kill more as time goes on." Tsunade answered. "If you haven't heard this speech yet, here it is. There's three types of patients, the ones who are going to live no matter how bad you screw up, the ones you can save with your level of skill, and the ones who are going to die even if you do everything right."

Tsunade looked her in the eyes. "Even I lose patients. It's not often, and the number of cases I can turn around is formidable, but if someone's time is up, there's nothing we can do but make them comfortable and every medic has to learn it the hard way. I learned it, you've learned it, eventually your friend Shikako will learn it. Just don't deal with it the way I learned to deal with it. You're better than that."

Sakura nodded. "I feel guilty. Ami was, well, we weren't nice to each other in school but I never wanted that for her. And hitting the guy who did it felt really, really good, cause I was so angry at him for it and the way he just melted under my fist...I don't want to like the way that makes me feel."

"Feeling good about having protected your friend is better than considering it routine." Tsunade said quietly after a moment. "Killing a human being is intense, but no matter what you feel or don't feel, don't feel bad about the response it draws out of you. Everyone reacts differently to it, and the context behind the act is really what is most important, not the feeling of power you get from it, or whatever else your mind brings up in the heat of the moment. You did the right thing, you're a good person Sakura, the fact that you are concerned about this is proof of it." The Hokage knocked back another saucer of sake. "And don't feel bad because you survived and they didn't or you'll feel it all your life, just be grateful for it, and try to keep them alive in your memories. Don't turn out like me."

Sakura has no idea what to say to that, so she just nods her head and tries to wrap her head around what she's been told.

Fortunately, she doesn't find the burn of alcohol particularly pleasant and she's too poor and too logical to find gambling attractive.

"I'm proud of you." Tsunade reassures. "You did very well. And you were up against some stiff competition. You and your whole team."

"Thank you, shishou." She takes a breath, and lets it out. Everything is okay. She has things to be proud of. She has things to work on. This is only the beginning.

AN: I'm kinda back. Sorry for the short chapter, this one really held me up.

My intention was to write a chapter dedicated to Sakura's journey over the past two years since she graduated the academy and found her dream of being a field shinobi cut short, to now, fresh chunin and rapidly rising medic nin. This isn't just the Shikako/Sasuke story afterall.

Sakura has been through a lot over that time, and her Chunin Exams were no less deadly than her classmates initial exams. It's my opinion that if you don't walk away from the Exams without nightmares, the lesson you're supposed to learn, didn't sink in correctly. They need to be horrific.

The lesson about the three different types of patients is one I got told in Combat Medic school. Losing a patient is something that every medical personnel goes through if you're in it long enough, even they don't die in your care neccessarily and it's something that, if you actually are in it for the right reasons, you have to learn to deal with.

I hope you enjoyed it, please let me know what you think of it.