"…now the southern part…fire, with jade to diminish, connected to the east…" Sakura mumbled to herself as she drew out lines and characters in a sand tray with a sharp-pointed metal rod. She had been studying fuuinjutsu with the Hokage for just over four months, but she still found herself surprised anew with every lesson at the sheer complexity of the work. Combining everything from compass directions to colors, parts of the body, and two different sets of elements, the theory behind how seals were created and used was far and away the most difficult—and most interesting—thing she had ever studied.

"And…there!" she exclaimed, resisting the urge to finish off the final character with a flourish. The first thing the Hokage had impressed upon her in their lessons was the importance of precision and accuracy in sealing, and as he had done so by deliberately botching a seal that resulted in the momentary eruption of a ten foot high pillar of white-hot flame from the surface on which he had drawn it, she had taken the warning very seriously.

Standing off to the side where he could observe her without getting in her way, the Hokage nodded. "Not bad, Sakura," he said. "You improved your time by nearly a full minute, and the lines are clean and well-formed. You need to be more careful, though, when drawing the central section."

He walked over to the sand tray and pointed at two of the characters forming the middle of the seal. "Do you see how these are too close together? It isn't critical for seals following this pattern, but some patterns require precise spacing between all characters, particularly those that define the center."

Sakura nodded. "Yes, Sarutobi-shishou," she said, unable to repress a slight feeling of disappointment. Even with the time the Hokage was spending with her—time she was sure he found difficult to spare from his usual duties—sometimes it still seemed like she was progressing at an agonizingly slow pace. The fact that he acted so different from his normal self during the lessons had confused her at first, also, and occasionally she still found the stern, demanding teacher who treated her as his apprentice rather than his granddaughter rather disconcerting.

This was what she had asked for, though, and while she might sometimes wonder if she was good enough to be worth the Hokage's attention, in the end it just made her want to work even harder—particularly after she had found out she was the first student he had taught in decades. He was taking a significant chance with her, especially given who she was, and she was determined to show him how much she appreciated it. Of course, that was sometimes hard to keep in mind when he set especially challenging tasks for her.

"I think we have spent enough time on theory for now," he told her as he brushed the sand in the tray smooth again, leaving no trace of the seal Sakura had drawn there. "Your progress in that area is admirable. Unfortunately, your chakra reserves are still insufficient to activate anything beyond a basic three-character seal, so I want you to take the rest of our lesson today to work on your visualization exercises."

Chakra again, Sakura sighed to herself, though she had to admit she needed as much practice in that area as she could get. Settling herself on the ground, she tried to clear her mind as the Hokage had instructed, but was frustrated when memories of her friends refused to leave her alone.

They had been acting strangely ever since a few weeks after classes started again, and she wished she knew what was going on with them, especially since she had a distinct feeling that she was somehow responsible for whatever was making them act so oddly. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she was able to banish the idle thoughts from her mind and proceed with what she was supposed to be doing.

Picture your body, she remembered the Hokage saying, and the channels through which your chakra flows. From the heart and liver to the mind, from your center to your limbs, envision the circulation of your chakra through the coils which constrain it. Relax those constraints, and allow your chakra to expand to fill your entire body. Let it grow beyond its previous bounds.

She understood what the point of the exercise was, of course. While she was unable to see or directly affect her chakra coils in reality, they were still influenced by her unconscious mind. Theoretically, if she performed the exercises regularly enough and with enough concentration, any changes she made to her own visualization of herself would eventually be reflected to some extent on her real self. The concept was somewhat similar to the meditations she had learned in class, yet still quite different, but it seemed to be working about as well as those did—not very.

After over an hour of visualization exercises, Sakura felt like her brain was turning to mush, and she was relieved when the Hokage finally told her she was done for the day. It really shouldn't be so hard just to sit and think, she thought, then giggled to herself as she wondered how Naruto would react if she told him she was exhausted from thinking too hard. Somehow, she had a feeling he would say he understood completely, and that thought touched off another round of giggles. Before she realized it, she had arrived back at her apartment, where she promptly fell asleep on the sofa without even removing her coat.

- - -

Sakura glanced nervously out of the window. The sun was beginning to set, and she felt a stab of fear at the knowledge that she was away from her apartment. When the Hokage had rescued her from the orphanage nearly five years ago, he had warned her always to stay inside on the night of her birthday, and up until today, she had always obeyed him—at first simply because she trusted him, then later because she understood his reasoning.

In addition to being her birthday, this was the day the Nine-Tails had attacked the Village of Hidden Leaf itself and the Fourth Hokage had died stopping it. She had always wanted to go to the memorial service for those who had fallen in the village's defense, but she was terrified at the thought of what people might do to her if they saw her there; even her ninja guards might not be enough to deter them on this day, when everyone saw her as a living reminder of all they had lost. Perhaps her guards wouldn't even try to stop any attackers, for no doubt they had lost family or friends eleven years ago as well.

"Helloooo, Sakura-chan!"

Ino's cheerful voice cut through Sakura's musings, and she shook her head in an attempt to clear her mind, focusing on her friend, who was looking at her curiously. "Are you okay?" the blonde girl asked. "You were acting kind of spaced-out there for a minute."

"I'm fine, Ino-chan," Sakura replied, smiling briefly. "Just…thinking about some things." Instantly she knew that was the wrong thing to say, as she could almost literally see her far-too-curious friend's ears perk up.

Much to her surprise, though, Ino simply nodded, visibly forcing her inquisitive nature back under control. "Okay," she said, as she took Sakura's hand and gently tugged her away from the window. "It must be hard, having your birthday be today. Naruto doesn't really like it either, but we try our best to make it happy for him, and now you too."

Sakura still wasn't sure how Ino had found out when her birthday was; she knew she had never told her, or any of her other friends, either. When they had learned of it, though, they had all—even Shikamaru—insisted that she join them for a joint party for both her and Naruto. While she had tried to refuse at first, they had eventually worn her down, and so it was that, against her better judgment, she now found herself at Ino's house rather than safely in her apartment.

"It's almost time to get ready for the memorial ceremony," Ino said, continuing the one-sided conversation. "Naruto and Hinata left a few minutes ago, since they have to meet their parents first. Chouji and Shikamaru and I were going to go over together, and—"

"I can't go," Sakura interrupted, knowing what her friend was going to ask. Please, she silently begged, don't ask why. I can't tell you, and I don't want to lie to you. She had already had to do too much of that this year, especially where her training with the Hokage was concerned, and she hated it. They were her friends, the first she had ever had, and even though she knew she had no choice in the matter, it almost physically hurt her to lie to them.

Ino studied her intently for a moment, then shrugged—almost too casually, Sakura thought. "Sorry," she said. "I just wanted to…well…"

"It's okay," Sakura said, giving her friend's hand a brief squeeze before releasing it. "I appreciate the invitation, but I just…can't."

The two girls had stepped into the foyer of Ino's house, and Ino opened the door for Sakura. "See you tomorrow, then," she said, "even if I'm not sure I should forgive you for leaving me alone with Chouji and Shikamaru."

"Sorry," Sakura said in as apologetic a voice as she could manage, then promptly ruined the effect by sticking her tongue out. "And thanks for the party. It really…today was the best birthday I've ever had." Giving her friend another smile, she waved goodbye and turned to leave. It wasn't quite dark yet, and she hoped to get home before the sun had completely set.

Several blocks away from her apartment, she was forced to turn onto a narrow side street in order to avoid a large group of people, all wearing formal kimonos and smelling of sake. She thought she recognized some of her neighbors, a thought which was confirmed a moment later when they drew close enough for her to hear them talking.

"So she wasn't in her apartment?" one man, appearing less drunk than the rest, asked another. "You don't think she'd try going to the memorial, do you?"

The other man laughed, a short, ugly sound that sent a shiver up Sakura's spine. "Nah," he said, "demons aren't stupid. She knows what we'd do to her if we found her there. I bet she's off hiding somewhere, maybe even crying over her parents. Like they'd have cared about something like her."

Sakura's attention was instantly riveted to the conversation. Aside from a few vague, offhand mentions of them, she knew essentially nothing of her mother or father. When she was younger, she had occasionally wondered what had happened to them, but ever since she found out about the Nine-Tails sealed within her, she had decided she might be better off not knowing their fates. Now, though, she found herself unable to ignore the two men as they spoke, and she swore softly as the group moved out of earshot.

Quickly running through a short series of hand seals, she whispered, "Henge." Though she would only be able to maintain the illusion for a few minutes, it should allow her to follow them without being recognized. After glancing at her reflection in a shop window, she nodded once, satisfied at the change; her distinctive pink hair was now a dull brown, and her face and body looked subtly older and more mature. Resolutely ignoring the uneasy feeling in the back of her mind, she set out to follow the group, making sure to stay just within hearing range.

"…still ended up better than his wife," she heard the second man say to his companion, a sneer evident in his voice. "At least he died fighting, not sitting in the bath with his wrists slit."

The first man grunted something that might have been an acknowledgement. "Not like she was a ninja, though," he said. "Still, she could've done us all a favor and drowned her brat first."

Both men laughed. "Ain't that the truth," the second one said. "I guess you have to feel kind of sorry for her. Knowing your kid got turned into the monster that killed your husband…that's got to be enough to drive anyone crazy."

Sakura felt like someone had kicked her in the stomach, and for an agonizing few moments, she literally found herself unable to breathe as her vision blurred before her. As if from a great distance, she felt her henge slip away from her, but she could only lean against the cold wall of the nearest building and fight for breath. The men she had been following were some distance away now, along with the rest of the people they were with—too far away for her to hear anything, but she had heard enough. More than enough.

Perhaps it was simply because she had never known either of her parents, but after her initial distress wore off, she found she was possessed of a certain crystalline clarity of mind. In one of her classes a few months ago, a medic-nin had talked about the psychological effects of shock, and one of the things he had said was that the most common reaction to a traumatic event was numbness, an inability for the mind to process information. As she made her way back to her apartment, she wished desperately for that numbness.

At least now I know why nobody ever told me about what happened to them, she thought. Part of her wanted to blame the Hokage for keeping this information from her, as otherwise she wouldn't have had to find out by eavesdropping on two drunks, but she could understand why he had never told her. It certainly wasn't something she wanted to know, and she cursed the insatiable desire for knowledge that had led her to follow the men. Unlike her research into her seal, she failed to see how anything good could come from learning what she had that night.

"My mother hated me so much that she killed herself rather than live with me," Sakura whispered, slumping against the front door of her apartment. Saying it aloud seemed to shatter some kind of barrier within her, and she barely made it inside before falling to her knees and burying her face in her hands. She felt too drained even to cry, though, and within moments she was stretched out full-length on the floor in restless slumber.

- - -

"I miss her."

Naruto looked over at Hinata. He didn't have to ask who she was talking about, and he nodded. "Me too," he said, watching the subject of their conversation walk away from them, her head down and her eyes fixed on some point on the ground in front of her.

"It's not fair," Hinata muttered. "Why won't she even talk to us? She's been like this ever since the day after the party we had for you two, and she won't tell us what's wrong. Did we do something to her?"

Naruto shrugged. He was as clueless as his friend—as all of his friends, really. More than three months had passed since Sakura stopped talking to them, or to anyone else. She wouldn't even answer questions in class, and Naruto had once overheard Iruka-sensei yelling at her about how she was failing to complete her assignments as well. In practical lessons, she didn't even try; before, her henge had been the best in the class technically, even if she couldn't hold it for as long as anyone else, but now she outright refused to perform the technique.

"I'm worried, Naruto-kun," Hinata said, voicing his unspoken thoughts. "She…she reminds me of how I was at the end of our first year, when Father tried to keep me away from all of you, and I…hurt her."

Taking Hinata by the elbow, Naruto pulled her into the ramen stall they were walking past. The two of them had come to this one several times before, and the owner looked up from his bubbling pot and loudly greeted them. Hinata looked confused for a moment when Naruto ordered two large bowls of ramen, as it was only mid-afternoon, then laughed. It was a short, somewhat sad laugh, but in his mind, anything was better than the depressed look which had been on her face since they started talking.

"You know me," he said, grinning at her, "can't do any serious thinking without some ramen for energy." The happy expression slid off his face, though, when she failed to respond; normally, she would have teased him about his fondness for the decidedly unhealthy noodles, but today she simply nodded and took a seat beside him.

Great, definitely a very depressed Hinata today, he thought, suppressing a sigh, and he wondered what had happened in the Hyuuga household to cause her to act like this. While he was happy for his friend that she had started standing up for herself against her father at times, he could always tell when she had been involved in a particularly nasty argument with the elder Hyuuga.

"It'll be all right, Hinata-chan," he said softly. "Remember after first year? You told me you were sure Sakura wouldn't want to be your friend any more—well, once you started talking to me again, at least—but she forgave you right away. I was worried about you, then, but Mother said I just had to give you time. Maybe that's what we need to do for her now."

Hinata blinked, then openly stared at Naruto, her expression one of astonishment. "It's too bad we can't take our tests here, huh?" she teased, a hesitant smile appearing on her face. "I guess ramen really does make you think better, because I know you couldn't have come up with that otherwise."

"Hey!" Naruto exclaimed, feigning outrage even while he inwardly cheered at the change, however slight, in her mood—though he couldn't help but feel a bit indignant. "I may not be smart like Sakura or Shikamaru, but I can figure things out too."

"Speaking of Shikamaru, has he found what he was looking for yet?" Hinata asked. "I remember he said he might have figured something out about Sakura's parents, but he didn't actually say what he was trying to find."

Naruto, caught by surprise at the change of subject, scratched his head as he tried to remember what exactly the spiky-haired boy had said during the last meeting of what he had privately taken to calling the Stalking Sakura Club. True, the whole thing had initially been his idea, but Ino had taken it to an undreamed-of level over the past year—with the surprising support of the laziest ninja trainee in the village, who had apparently decided to take it as a personal affront that he was unable to learn anything more than the most basic details regarding their pink-haired friend.

"Oh, yeah, I remember. He said…um…well, her father died when the Nine-Tails attacked. He was in ANBU, I think." Both of them were silent for a moment. Even after eleven years, the village had yet to recover from the loss of so many experienced ninja when the demon had attacked.

For Naruto, the loss was both more and less personal—more, because his father had died that day only hours after he had been born, but less because in many ways, he found himself unable to separate the stories of the man his father had been from the legends that had sprung up about the Fourth Hokage. Even his mother had admitted once that she sometimes had trouble remembering her husband, rather than the savior of the village. It was the only time in his life that he had ever seen her cry.

"So he didn't say anything about her mother?" Hinata's question startled him, and he almost upset the bowl of ramen in front of him. She was looking at him, concern evident in her eyes, and he knew she had realized what he was thinking of.

Taking a moment to be thankful that he had a friend like her, Naruto shook his head. "No, but he said something about how that was really strange, because he couldn't even find basic records on her. I think he found a marriage certificate, but that's it."

Granted, the other boy had made liberal use of phrases like "waste of effort" and "troublesome lack of information," but Naruto had gotten the basic idea. He himself was starting to think that maybe their efforts were in vain; while his curiosity was still as strong as it ever had been—more so, really, since it definitely appeared that there was some sort of concerted official effort being made to cover up Sakura's past—so far they had found virtually nothing, and they were running out of places to look.

Some of this must have shown on his face, as Hinata gave him an encouraging smile. "Don't worry," she said. "We'll figure out whatever is bothering Sakura, and everything will be fine again."

"I thought I was supposed to be the one cheering you up," Naruto joked weakly, returning her smile. He swallowed the last bit of broth from his second bowl of ramen and set down some coins to pay for the meal, then stood up to leave. It was only as he was halfway outside the stall that he noticed Hinata had not joined him.

"Go ahead," she told him, her smile of a moment earlier having almost completely vanished. "I think I'm hungry after all, but I don't want to make you wait." He would have pressed her for more information, but it was clear from her tone that she did not want to talk about her reasons for lingering at the ramen stall rather than heading home.

Naruto was not someone who easily or quickly grew to hate others, but at that moment he was certain he hated Hyuuga Hiashi. Trying as hard as he could to hide his emotions from his friend, who still looked up to her father despite everything he had done and continued to do to her in his relentless attempts to turn her into his perfect heir, he waved goodbye and left.

- - -

"Next!" Iruka called out, giving a brief nod to Nara Shikamaru, who headed back to his seat. The boy's performance had been adequate—certainly sufficient to pass—but nothing spectacular. Iruka had a feeling he was rather more talented than he ever demonstrated in class, but all attempts to force him to reveal that hidden ability had failed, defeated by Shikamaru's own pervasive apathy. Still, being underestimated was far from the worst thing that could happen to a ninja, so part of him had to admire the boy for concealing himself so well—assuming it was done on purpose, of course, which he sometimes found himself doubting.

"Henge, my body," he told the next student who walked up to his desk, not bothering to look up from his grade records. With the graduation exams now only a semester away, reviews were in full swing, and he was determined to have all of his students capable of performing at least the three most basic ninjutsu taught at the academy.

"Yes, Iruka-sensei," came the quiet response, and he took a moment to glance over at her and smile encouragingly. After spending the past three and a half years teaching her, it was impossible for him to think of Haruno Sakura as any sort of demon, and he occasionally wished he had taken it upon himself to get to know her outside of class. The shy, studious girl was a far cry from how he himself had been at that age, but at times he thought he could see a familiar loneliness in her eyes.

Sakura expertly moved her fingers through the short sequence of hand seals for the technique, then murmured "Henge," almost inaudibly. Her body seemed to blur and stretch for a moment, and then Iruka could have sworn he was looking into a mirror. Every stray hair and crease in his duplicate's clothing was correct, and he nodded approvingly.

He had been slightly worried at first, when he saw to whom he had given the henge assignment, as something had happened a little over a year ago to cause Sakura to dislike the technique. For almost a full semester, she had refused to perform it at all, but thankfully she had changed her mind at some point. Henge was, despite its simplicity, a very important tool in the arsenal of any ninja assigned to espionage or counter-espionage duties, and Iruka had not been looking forward to failing her if she had continued in her refusal.

Aside from that incident, she consistently proved to be above-average overall; though her taijutsu skills were barely good enough to pass her classes and her chakra reserves were still quite small—albeit larger than he had projected her achieving while at the academy—Sakura made up for those weaknesses with her academic brilliance and a seemingly instinctive level of chakra control, as though manipulating chakra was more something she could do as naturally as breathing than something on which she had to consciously focus. He would miss the girl when she graduated, he realized suddenly, and marveled at how his opinion of her had changed from that first day when he saw her in his classroom.

"Sensei?" he heard her ask, interrupting his thoughts, and he looked over to see her still standing next to his desk in her henge form. Taking a closer look, he could see telltale signs of strain on "her" face, and he winced in sympathy when he realized he hadn't told her she could release the technique. No doubt she was nearing the limits of her chakra reserves, as this was the last class of the day and the students had been practicing other techniques earlier.

"Very good," he told her. "You can stop now and go sit down."

With a relieved look on her face, Sakura formed the releasing seal, her borderline exhaustion even more evident when she returned to her true form—though, Iruka was pleased to note, she showed none of it as she walked back to her seat. Learning to hide one's weaknesses was yet another important lesson for a ninja. As he looked over at the number of students still lined up waiting to be tested, he sighed. The last class of the day always seemed to drag on the longest.

"Next!"

- - -

Sakura was finding her self-control sorely tested by the wait for her name to be called. So far, the graduation exams had ranged from absurdly simple to almost impossible, but she had managed to pass them all, and now it was the last day. If she passed this one last test, she would officially be a ninja of the Hidden Leaf, and she was barely able to maintain an appropriate veneer of indifference as she sat and waited. Next to her, Ino was having even less success, as Sakura could tell that she was about ready to start pounding on poor Chouji, who had been the first one called by Iruka-sensei and now refused to share any details of what he had had to do.

"Come on…just a little hint?" her blonde friend whined, poking Chouji in the shoulder. "I'm the last one to go in the entire class, and it's driving me crazy!"

The large brown-haired boy rolled his eyes and sighed. "No, it's driving me crazy. Iruka-sensei said not to tell anyone, especially you. Wasn't hard, though," he added grudgingly.

As Ino spluttered in indignation at the thought that she had been singled out by their teacher, Sakura snickered. She doubted very much that Iruka-sensei had said anything of the sort, but she had to admit, it was a good way to make Ino stop talking for at least a few minutes. Chouji had a way of handling their excitable friend that left Sakura in awe at times.

Looking around the room, she spotted her other friends in various stages of nervousness, and she couldn't help but smile. Shikamaru, not surprisingly, had his head down on his desk and appeared to be sound asleep, while Naruto had just been called to the other room. As he walked confidently over to the door, he turned to grin back at everyone, and Sakura's smile widened. He would do fine, she knew; the last test was on ninjutsu, and he was tied with Uchiha Sasuke for top of the class at that.

Hinata, who had been sitting next to him, would have looked calm to a casual observer, but Sakura could tell it was mostly an act. She could see hints of dark circles under her friend's pale eyes, and she wondered how much time Hinata had put into training for the exams—particularly the taijutsu portion, where she had surprised everyone by defeating Mizuki-sensei, the examiner, with almost humiliating ease. That had been more than sufficient to secure her place as best in the class at that discipline, but Sakura had not missed how she seemed more relieved than excited afterwards.

Not for the first time, she wondered whether it was better to be an orphan, or to have a father like Hinata's. That had been what finally succeeded in pulling her out of her months-long depression over what she had discovered about how her parents had died. Nearly a year ago, she had been walking in the park when she came across Hinata sitting hunched-over on a bench, tears trickling from the corners of her eyes even as she was obviously trying to keep herself from crying.

Though Sakura had not spoken with her for months, she had been unable to walk away from the sight of one of her best friends in such obvious distress. When she sat down next to Hinata, the smaller girl had at first simply stared at her, flushing scarlet in humiliation at having been seen, but then had begun to talk—slowly at first, then faster, as though the words had been bottled up inside her for so long that she was unable to hold them back any more. Sakura had learned of the mounting pressure upon Hinata as the end of her time at the academy approached, especially after her cousin Neji graduated at the top of his class, and in return she shared what she could of what she had learned regarding her mother's suicide. The two girls had continued to talk until long after the sun had set, and by the end, Sakura felt ready to face her friends again, and Hinata her father and cousin.

"Haruno Sakura!" Iruka-sensei's voice, sounding decidedly irritable, snapped her out of her wandering thoughts, and she became aware of Ino frantically shaking her shoulder.

"Sakura," the blonde girl hissed, "wake up! It's your turn. Honestly, you're as bad as Shikamaru sometimes." The words were spoken with a broad grin, though, and Sakura could tell she was barely able to contain her excitement for her friend. Squeaking in surprise, Sakura scrambled to her feet and made her way over to the door into the testing room at a pace only a little under a run.

"Here, Iruka-sensei," she said, trying to keep from blushing as she closed the door behind her. To her chagrin, she saw that he was not the only teacher in the room, and she felt her face redden—though in anger rather than embarrassment—when she noticed Mizuki-sensei. With a vicious sense of satisfaction, she noted that his left ankle and wrist were still bandaged from the sprains Hinata had inflicted during their match.

"Good," Iruka-sensei replied, apparently not noticing the glaring match between his student and colleague. "For your final test, I want you to demonstrate the bunshin technique for us. You will be graded on the number of clones you produce, with a minimum of one needed in order to pass, as well on as the physical accuracy of each clone."

That's it? Sakura couldn't help but think. Even she could create up to two clones at a time, and accuracy was hardly a problem for her either. She shrugged; if that was all it took, she was hardly going to complain.

"Bunshin no jutsu," she said confidently, forming the hand seals with practiced ease. As she completed the last seal, two identical copies of her body formed, one on either side of her, and they mirrored her expectant grin as she looked over at Iruka-sensei.

Mizuki-sensei snorted. "Only two?" he asked, frowning. "One may be the bare minimum, but all real ninja can create at least three."

"Producing two perfectly flawless clones is quite sufficient," Iruka-sensei said mildly. He marked something on his grade sheet and nodded at Sakura. "Very good, Haruno-kun. You may release the technique and go back to the classroom—and please remember not to talk about the test until everyone has finished it."

Sakura dispelled her clones and bowed to Iruka-sensei, then, glaring over her shoulder at Mizuki-sensei one last time, opened the door and all but skipped back to her seat. Even the scowls directed at her by a few of her classmates were insufficient to dampen her mood.

I really did it! she thought, unable to keep from pinching herself to see if she was sleeping. It was literally a dream come true for her, especially when she saw all of her friends' faces smiling back at her.

- - -

Author's Notes: Well, this chapter took somewhat longer than expected, but I've been rather busy at work recently. Thank you all very much for the reviews for last chapter; I love reading them, and I appreciate the time you all take in writing them. Hopefully this chapter didn't disappoint anyone, but please feel free to let me know if it did (or, of course, if you enjoyed it). Also, many thanks for the comments regarding chapter size. Based on those, I'll plan to keep chapters around the same size they've been up until now.

I doubt I'll be less busy any time soon, so unfortunately I don't expect to be able to go back to my previous update pace. I would rather not rush chapters out before I'm convinced they're ready, though. Next chapter will deal with the first meeting of Sakura's genin team, among other things. As always, thank you all for reading this, and I hope you enjoyed it!