Sakura groaned and turned over, pulling her covers further over her head as her neon pink alarm clock beeped incessantly and a beam of harsh white light streamed through obnoxiously bright pink curtains directly onto her face. Slowly she opened her eyes but immediately screwed them shut again the sun assaulted her sleep-sensitive eyes. She let out a great yawn, enjoying the warm, soft comfort of her pillowy mattress and warm blankets until suddenly the reason why she'd set her alarm clock so obnoxiously early hit her like a tonne of bricks - her report! Checking the time (late late late), Sakura leapt out of bed and scrambled to find clean clothes. Once dressed she ran down the stairs, briefly stopping in the kitchen to think about getting breakfast, but not long after realizing that she had gotten up far too late to eat breakfast and get to the missions desk on time. Sakura risked a quick look at the mirror by her front door and was horrified by her reflection - she looked like a complete mess with greasy, untidy hair and washed-out sickly skin with extremely pronounced dark purple eyebags staring back at the exhausted young girl. Oh well. There was no time to slap on some makeup and do her hair, so she'd just have to go out and deal with the consequences later.

Sakura raced through Konoha's streets and over her village's rooftops at the speed of light in an almost futile attempt to get to the mission's desk on time. In one hand, she held her precious report ready to be handed in with the rest of her team, and in the other, she attempted to wrestle the unbrushed bird's nest which lay atop her head into something slightly more professional ' maybe I need to get a trim, ' she thought to herself amongst messy clusters of panicked thoughts. The mission's desk quickly came into sight and Sakura found Naruto and Sasuke waiting outside for her, even Kakashi had reached their destination before her! Shit. She was really late.

"Oh, Sakura, we were just wondering where you'd got to. You're only just on time, so we'd better get inside to hand these in quickly!" Kakashi said mildly. The group of four hurried into the Academy to make their way to the missions desk located deep within. After a minute of hurried speed walking, the group eventually made their way to the missions desk located on the other side of the building and joined the thankfully fairly short queue where Naruto suddenly sprung to life. "What's with you being so late, Sakura? That's not like you," He asked, not unkindly. His tone was friendly, but Sakura's sleep-addled mind didn't pick up on that, taking it as an insult to her timekeeping ability. Sakura thought about gracing Naruto with an angry comment about minding his own business, but realized halfway through formulating a sentence in her mind, that she was just too tired to care, so instead, she just said "I don't know." And that was that. Naruto didn't ask her any more questions, obviously picking up on the fact that she really wasn't in the mood to make conversation with anyone today. Sakura mentally congratulated herself on her ability to deflect conversation when she really wasn't up to talking.

Before long, Team Seven made their way to the front of the line, and they handed in their reports. On the way out, with a fat wallet of cash to share out between the group, Kakashi spoke up, "So what would you like for breakfast? This is a once-in-a-lifetime treat from me, so pick something good."

Naruto suggested that they could get something from the ramen stall where he spends most of his life, but that idea was carefully put to the side when Sasuke scowled and said "No, I don't want to eat ramen today, why don't we get curry or something instead?"

"It looks like we've got a bit of a conundrum on our hands here, Sakura, what do you think? ramen or curry?"

In actuality, Sakura didn't want either. She was craving convenience store bento, but she knew that neither Naruto nor Sasuke would appreciate the simple delicacy of a five hundred yen box of plain, soft rice and golden succulent fried chicken.

'Well, Sasuke would like it if I chose curry, but I've decided that I'm going to stop sucking up to him as much because it's bad for my growth as a kunoichi. Curry is really nice to eat, though, especially when it's nice and spicy, but then that's not really very nice in the morning - especially in warm weather - because it's a very warm filling meal and I can't eat lots of food in the morning or I feel ill and then if I don't eat my whole bowl someone might think that something's wrong and I would have to have a completely mortifying talk - actually, I do need to break out of that cycle of illness in the morning, but not right now - so maybe curry isn't a very good idea so early in the morning. Actually, yeah. So then maybe ramen is the best option because it's just broth with noodles and meat and vegetables, and that's not nearly as filling as rich, thick curry. But then I only really like ramen on really specific occasions and now might not be the best time for noodles - what if I accidentally eat a whole noodle without chewing and choke on an entire noodle and then have to pull it from my oesophagus (whole!) in front of Sasuke! I'd look like a dying bird! I would actually die from embarrassment if he saw me like that. Having said that, though, my whole aim at the moment is to become more normal about Sasuke and what better way is there to get over a boy than embarrassing yourself in front of him to a completely mortifying degree that makes you just want to curl up and die in a hole by yourself with no one around you to ever see what a disgusting mess you are and then when you look back on that moment (and the boy you are obsessed with) you are hit with a completely terrible brick wall of shame that follows you 'til the day you die. Yep. I'm choosing ramen. '

"I'd like to get ramen today."

Naruto grinned in triumph while Sasuke scowled "I knew you'd come 'round and realise ramen's obviously the superior food one day, Sakura!"

"Well then, to Ichiraku Ramen we go!"

The small shop was busy when Team seven arrived, it was obvious that more than one civilian businessman had had the same idea to get ramen for breakfast as a quick,(slightly) cheaper alternative to making or buying their breakfast and lunch. But as soon as one of the women by the counter spotted Naruto, she waved the group over. "Hi, Naruto! I haven't seen you in a while. How are you?"

"Aw, I'm alright, Ayame, we've just come back from our first mission away! It was really cool!"

"That's good," Ayame smiled, "Now, what would you and your friends like?

Team seven made their orders, and Kakashi seemed to turn paler and paler with every order of ramen made. He'd obviously not thought about how much the food would add up to if they all ordered food. Sakura couldn't bring herself to feel sorry for him, though, because everyone knows that jounin have massive salaries that come with taking the most dangerous, most skilled jobs, so obviously, he had enough money to splurge on eating out, he was just being frugal. He ended up paying for the quite frankly, delicious ramen, made even more tasteful by the knowledge that it was free after only a little bit of threatening from Naruto and Sakuratokeep it that way. They had a good time talking by the table in the little ramen stall and they'd managed to convince him to let them take the next four days off as rest from their ordeal by ten in the morning. An hour later, the little group parted ways and said their goodbyes before turning in different directions and walking home alone and in complete silence.

Sakura spent the majority of those four days far, far from earth in the dream realm in her cosy pink bed wrapped in hundreds of thick, heavy blankets; she'd found that the weight of an excessive amount of blankets lying on top of her as she tried to sleep was possibly the best way of stopping Zabuza from entering her dreams and ruining her chances of a nice, peaceful night's sleep. That's not to say that he didn't still infiltrate Sakura's sleep every night, he definitely still did that, but when she had a weight on top of her, it felt slightly less overwhelmingly terrifying to sleep while the sight of blood pulsing out of his jugular onto Sakura's small, child's hands worked it's way further into the backs of her eyes.

The four days of rest came to an end quickly and the next thing Sakura knew, she was stuck back on the training field watching Naruto and Sasuke spar and argue while she picked at grass and flowers and had nothing to do. It really did make Sakura angry that she was just pushed to the side in favour of the development of her 'obviously more special' teammates who would oh so obviously just get into so much more danger than her because they were a clan member or a jinchuriki while she was just a stupid, silly little civilian girl who would just retire or join the genin corps in a few months or never get further than chuunin level and die on her first A class mission because why bother properly training cannon fodder? It didn't take long for Sakura to settle back into her routine of silently seething monotony, thinking constantly about the injustice of her different treatment, allowing her rage to slowly build up behind the mental dam against anger that she'd built up over the years. She didn't welcome it by any means, but she didn't know how to change her position without kicking off and ruining her chances of ever being taught anything. Sakura had hoped that once her team had arrived home from their mission in the land of waves, Kakashi would have noticed that actually she didn't know much at all and she was barely getting by. She'd hoped that he'd maybe pay a little more attention to her now that she'd killed someone and try to train her the same way he did the boys. But that hadn't happened. Instead, she just allowed her fury to slowly build up. She wanted to do something, but now wasn't the right time.

Weeks later, Sakura found herself still silently seething on the sidelines while her teammates gradually got stronger. She could feel the rage inside her boiling. She had had enough. She didn't care about the potential consequences anymore. Sakura stood up, she brushed grass blades off of her dress with shaking fingers, and in a calm, unaffected manner, she slowly made her way towards Kakashi. "Excuse me," she said in a falsely sweet voice, sickly poison quickly tainting her tone as Kakashi turned around, "When is it exactly, that you're going to teach me something slightly more useful than sitting on my arse doing nothing except watching my teammates? Because really, I'd love to learn how to fight instead of sitting on the sidelines looking and feeling completely fucking useless. You've said time and time again that you're going to teach me something, but I've learnt more from a fucking potato than I have from you. I don't care that you might just see me as cannon fodder, but I don't, I'm not cannon fodder. I am a person with extremely lacking skills barely getting by. I need to know at least the basics, and if you can't do even that, then I'll find someone who can. You are quite possibly the worst teacher I have ever had in my entire and if you don't get your shit together and teach your team as a team, then I'll do it for you (because yes, even though you don't treat us as such, we are a team, consisting of Naruto, Sasuke, and me, and I'm the only person moving backwards because you could not be bothered to train the expendable one)."

Kakashi just stood there, silent. If he was being completely honest, he'd forgotten about Sakura for a moment "I'm sorry you feel like that, Sakura. I'll make sure to try and include you in training in the future, but for the moment, why don't I see if I can introduce you to someone who might be able to help for now." He racked his brains, desperately trying to think of someone who owed him a favour and would be at least slightly willing to train Sakura. No one came to mind, but he could be able to convince someone. "Why don't I make some arrangements tonight, and then you come down to the training ground at 5AM to find out who I've arranged for you."

Sakura glared at him with daggers in her eyes, he was just lumping her off onto someone else! But she nodded nonetheless, it was a slightly better arrangement than before, and beggars can't be choosers, but she did wish that it was her teacher who gave enough of a shit to teach her.

Suddenly someone he could ask for help hit him! Iruka! He would know what to do because somehow the chuunin knew literally every ninja in Konoha and he owed Kakashi a favour after losing a bet on their last night out, Kakashi started plotting a plan in his head. He would find Iruka and ask if he or someone he knew who owed him a favour could help out training Sakura because Kakashi just had too much on his plate training the boys and he hadn't realised how much effort it actually was training a team. Yes. That is what he would do. He checked the time, it was only about half an hour until school hours finished. The jounin quickly cut the training session short, ignoring Naruto and Sasuke's complaints. "I'm sorry, but I've just remembered that there's something I need to do," Kakashi said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, and with that, he was off. Firstly, he made his way to his apartment to pick up Sakura's file. He hadn't really bothered to read through it yet, but while he was thinking about who might be willing to help train Sakura, he realised that it might be a good idea to see what her main strengths and weaknesses were so he could find the most suitable person to help train Sakura. He cracked open her folder, which had been gathering dust on his bookshelf for months there was a photograph and notes on her physical and mental examinations, but he pushed them aside in favour of her base file, Kakashi began his quick read:

Name: Haruno Sakura

ID Number: 4026

Strengths: Good memory, Very intelligent, Genjutsu

Weaknesses: Appears to have an extreme infatuation with Uchiha Sasuke (see 4028), Does not appear to get on with classmates easily, Taijutsu

After reading Sakura's file, Kakashi closed it and placed it back on his bookshelf before leaping out of the window and making his way to the academy, it only took him a few minutes to arrive and he found Iruka's classroom fairly quickly. The other man was seated behind his desk completing some marking, but he reluctantly pushed that aside to direct his attention towards Kakashi when he heard the silver-hared ninja begin to speak. "I hate to ask you, but do you think that you could help it out a bit as a favour? See, I hadn't realised how much effort it actually was to teach three people, so I accidentally forgot about teaching my third member, Sakura. You remember her, don't you? Anyway, so I've been directing most of my efforts towards Naruto and Sasuke and I haven't been teaching her as much as I should have, and now she's got really angry and I need to find someone who is willing to teach her what she needs to know by tomorrow morning and I don't really know what to do, so I thought that you might be able to help or that you might know someone who would be able to help, can you?"

Iruka sighed deeply through his nose. He hadn't signed up for this shit. "I don't think that I will be able to help train Sakura myself on account of the fact that I'm teaching several years of pre-genin and I have a second job on the missions desk, but someone I know is probably sane enough and owes me a big enough favour to teach Sakura what she needs to know. It probably won't take very long anyway, because she's always been a really quick learner, so she probably just needs to get stronger and refine the skills she specialises in. Oh, speaking of, do you know what she's strongest in? Because that could give me an idea of who might be able to help her."

Kakashi thought about it for a moment, "According to her file, she's strongest in genjustsu."

"So you didn't personally check this with Sakura? You just read her file?" Iruka asked incredulously, pinching the bridge of his nose, "Typical. Well, at least that gives me an idea of who might be able to help you, just give me a moment and someone will come to mind." After a few moments of silence, Iruka spoke again, "Oh, I know, why don't you go and find Kuranai and talk to her about Sakura? I'm sure she'd be happy to try and find some time to help out with Sakura if you explain your situation and tell her that Iruka sent you over her way - she owes me a fairly large favour anyway."

This was very good because Kuranai also owed Kakashi a favour, so with a bit of luck, she would be willing to train Sakura in her spare time. "Thank you very much for your help, I'll do that now. I hope you have a nice evening, Iruka." Kakashi lept away on the search for Kurenai. First, he looked at her usual training ground, but couldn't find her or her team there. Then he tried looking for her at the BBQ restaurant she frequented with her team after training sessions, but she wasn't there either. Kakashi decided that the last place he would look before going home for a short rest before heading back out again would be the jounin lounge. Kakashi himself didn't particularly enjoy spending time there usually, but it was one of Kurenai's more frequent haunts, however, she wasn't there either. ' Huh, that's a bit strange but I bet she's just in her apartment, I'll check later.' Kakashi thought to himself as he made his way back to his own apartment for a small rest.

It was almost dark when Kakashi made his way out of his apartment to look for Kuranai again. He checked all the places he'd checked in his earlier look before going to her apartment to look there. He didn't find Kuranai there, so finally, as a last resort, he made his way to the shinobi bars the woman would often go to. Luckily, she was in the first bar Kakashi looked in, which was good because he was on the brink of giving up.

"Oh, hi Kakashi, what are you doing here?"

"Do you mind if I talk to you about the kids for a moment, because I'm at the end of my tether and I don't know what to do?" Kakashi gave Kuranai the same speech he gave Iruka, "So then Iruka told me to go to you to see if you'd be able to fit some space in and maybe help if you have the time?"

"I don't think that it's very fair that you've put Sakura in a position where she's literally having to force you, her teacher to find her a new temporary teacher, but I can see where you're coming from. She's definitely not benefitting from having you as a teacher (no offence), so I suppose I will. Tell Sakura that I'll meet her for extra lessons in training ground 14 every other day of the week for an hour or two at dawn, that should be enough time."

"Thank you so much, Kurenai." Kurenai just turned back to her friends, she was here to have a good time, not talk about teaching.

By the time 5 AM rolled by, the sky had paled to a beautiful deep purplish lilac colour. Golden and red streaks illuminated multicolour clouds while bright white stars still peeked through the slightly darker sky creating an illustrated effect that Sakura wished she could burn into her memory forever, it wasn't often that she got to see the sunrise in Konoha, but when she did, it was one of the most magical experiences she knew. She shivered, wishing she'd brought a jumper with her. It was freezing though. Sakura hoped Kakashi would turn up soon. About ten more minutes passed until Kakashi turned up. Sakura stood up. "Hello."

"Hello, Sakura. I've managed to find someone who would like to help you out and give you the training you need. She's another genin instructor called Kurenai and I think you'll probably like her. She's said that you're to meet up with her in training ground 14 at dawn every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. So your first session together is tomorrow. Remember this because I won't be reminding you of it."

"Thank you, Kakashi, this is a big help. I hope I learn more from her than I am at the moment."

The rest of Sakura's day continued as per usual. She still sat on the sidelines while Naruto and Sasuke sparred, and she was still filled with indignation at being left out by her own team, but she was also buzzing with excitement - she finally had someone who was willing to help her out! Sakura hoped Kurenai would be a better teacher than Kakashi (although that wasn't a very big ask), so she spent the rest of her day buzzing with excited energy.

The next day, Sakura woke up with a huge yawn. She was very tired, but that was just because her body clock hadn't adapted to waking up before dark yet. Then it hit her. She was meeting her new teacher in about half an hour's time! She shot upright in bed. There was no time for lingering in the warmth of her warm, cosy bed when she could be actually waking up and getting ready for getting out of the house ready to meet Kurenai. Sakura flew through her morning routine before making herself a small breakfast of cereal, writing a note to her parents explaining where she was, and walking out of the door to her house to make her way to training ground 14. She'd never been to that one before, so Sakura spent her time making her way up to the grounds wondering what it would be like - maybe it was like a clearing in a forest with a lake running through it and lush green trees on either side, maybe it would be a barren wasteland with nothing but hard mud and a few weeds to make up the whole training ground, maybe it would be a desert, or maybe an ocean - the possibilities were endless.

By the time Sakura arrived at training ground 14, Kurenai was already waiting for her. The first thing Sakura noticed about Kuranai was her strangely red eyes which tracked her every move, the second, was that she was sitting on the water under a bridge like it was solid ground. "How do you do that?" Sakura blurted out, before cursing. She'd meant to be polite and say hello before jumping in with questions.

"You'll learn it in good time, don't worry. Now, my name is Kurenai Yuhi and you must be Sakura," Sakura nodded, looking slightly ashamed of the fact that she'd forgotten to even introduce herself. "Don't worry about it, anyway, I am the jounin who's agreed to partially step into Kakashi's role as a teacher due to his incompetency. I specialise in genjutsu, which I have been told that you have an affinity towards, I would like to teach you some bits and bobs about that, but first of all, I need to find out what level you're at in terms of your basics." Sakura seemed to deflate a bit, it had been a long time since she'd gone through her basics and she wasn't as solid in them as she was before. This could be difficult.

Slowly but surely, Sakura and Kurenai made their way through assessing Sakura's basic theory and practical application of said theory, until they made it to the end of the academy curriculum and the very few things that Kakashi had taught her. Kurenai checked the time, "it looks like we have about ten minutes until I need to go and meet my own team. Is there anything you'd like to talk about until the end of our time? Like is there anything that you really desperately want to learn in my time teaching you? Or are you struggling with anything?"

"Hmm, I'm not really sure, to be honest, I think that I would definitely enjoy learning genjustsu because that seems to come to me really easily, and I think that I definitely need to work on my taijutsu as well, but I'm not sure if I have anything specific I would like to work on at the moment."

"That's alright, Tell me next time if you think of something. I need to go now, but I'll meet you here again at the same time in two days."

"Alright, thank you again for helping out," Sakura said and Kurenai was off in a flash to some other training ground to meet her team. Sakura sat down on the river bank of training ground 14 for a moment, going over everything that had happened in the hour or so that she and Kurenai had been talking. That might have actually been her most productive training session in months. The pink-haired girl let out a huge yawn and checked the time herself. It was about seven o'clock, so she should, in theory, have enough time to go home and have a short hour-long nap before her eleven o'clock training session with Kakashi and the boys.

Sakura began a slow wander to her house. She was exhausted and needed a shower, so a nap and shower were what she was going to do. It didn't really even matter if she turned up to training at all. It's not like she would be missed and she really did need the sleep.

A/N: 4.5k words!?!?!?!? who do I think I am??? I'm sorry for the wait tho, ik the last few chapters have been kinda lacking in the plot department (just like naruto now I'm thinking about it lol), so I've decided that as an apology, I'll give you an extra long, plotty chapter. (i do apologise if parts of it don't make sense, though. I wrote this in one sitting like, ten minutes ago. its currently 2 in the morning and I don't really want to edit this :))

chapter title from chase the devil by max romeo