A/N: Dedicated with good humor to Paulina Witoszek, who was never lax in reminding me how negligent I'd been in updating this story. I hope you enjoy the newest chapter. Please forgive any errors-I've just had my wisdom teeth removed, so while it gave me time to work on this chapter, the combination of discomfort and pain medication might have some unintentional side effects, such as creating a sudden inability to differentiate between homophones. Also, much thanks to the people who continue to send me incredible fanart for Five Kingdoms-fascalia's fascinating interpretation of Sakura deserves attention: fascalia*deviantart*com/art/ANBU-Sakura-taichou-RO OT-section-408681958. (And fascalia, many apologies for a delayed reply.) This is the first of three parts, each focused on the matches of a different member of Team 7.

The First Flower of Spring

-Chapter Fourteen-

Down Came God (Part I)

Sakura had limited curiosity concerning the training of her fellows, but she doubted they had been taken outside the village for severely practical lessons. As if entranced, she felt numbness climb from her fingers into her hands as a swift-moving brook turned the blood on her hands into an extravagant artistry of swirls and eddies. When Tsubasa-sensei's hand decided on her head, she nearly toppled into the water.

He chuckled at her surprise. Kneeling beside her, he grasped her hands and rubbed the blood from them swiftly, encouraging the circulation in her fingers. "The fascination will become easier to control," he told her encouragingly. "But the power over life and death isn't something so easily dismissed-the thrill you feel when you kill will never truly disappear."

Sakura frowned, glancing up at Shiho-nii, who was floating above the water. "It's not...I don't...why are we like this?" she asked Tsubasa-sensei in a quiet, uncertain voice. "And Jun says it will only get stronger, more intense. He says it's like..." she flushed and trailed off, but Tsubasa-sensei understood her meaning.

He encouraged her to dry her hands, then they settled on the warm grass, at odds with the coolness the breeze picked up from the water. Tsubasa-sensei sat with one leg pulled up near his chest, arm propped comfortably on his knee.

"Part of that conversation will wait until you're older. But for now, we'll just say that power appeals to us on a visceral level. It's neither good nor evil, so we can experience it even within the kekkei genkai. And the sensation of power is linked to the pleasure centers in our brain. When we kill, we've made the willful choice to end the existence of someone else. Someone loved and valued, someone who was someone else's child. We're stealing all of that when we kill and we're aware of it. And a part of us revels in it, because it makes us feel godlike." He glanced at her with hooded eyes, the breeze playing with his red-tinted hair. "I won't give you a pretty lie, Sakura. It's a feeling we share with serial killers and anger excitation rapists. We simply feel it more acutely, because our bloodline can strip us of other emotions and attachments. Some might say we experience it in a pure state-the state those evil men are seeking when they commit crimes."

"So, we'll always be monsters?" Sakura looked away from her teacher, concentrating on the environment around them, which exuded bucolic peace. From where she was sitting, she couldn't see the bodies. It did not matter that they had been thieves, murderers, and missing-nin themselves. If the order had come, they could have been bodhisattvas.

"I don't know that I'd call us monsters." There was a teasing lilt to Tsubasa-sensei's voice, as if he sensed her discomfort. "That's an ugly title. We are what we are, what our nature makes us. We can't change it, but we can control it. You if really wanted to, you could retire as a kunoichi and spend the rest of your life on a dirt farm in the middle of nowhere. Or, well, maybe not you, but a theoretical Haruno who wasn't the heir could. And they have. Sometimes they fail, but those of us who aren't Haruno Jun aren't animals. We still have the power of choice."

There was silence between them, but the hum of insects and the calls of birds erased part of the tension that Sakura felt. "Is this about killing? Or is this really about the fact you're almost guaranteed to grow up to be a sexual sadist?" Tsubasa-sensei asked dryly.

Sakura's face burned and she whipped around to face him. "Tsubasa-sensei!" she protested in embarrassment.

A crooked grin told her that was the reaction he'd been aiming for. Sakura turned a pleading glance toward Shiho-nii, but he was surveying her teacher with an aspect of benevolent long-suffering. "Shiho-nii!"

"Just ignore them, Sakura," he advised with a sigh. "They can't help their fixation with your theoretical sex life, as it appears their own is lacking."

Tsubasa-sensei snorted laughter. "It would be priceless to see you say that to Kagami-sama's face."

Shiho-nii sighed again. "Training?" he prompted.

Sakura felt a wash a gratitude toward her partner.

Tsubasa-sensei shrugged. "We're done. After this, we'll return to Konohagakure so you have a few days of rest before your exam, giving your muscles time to heal. You were more prepared for this exam the day you stepped into the Academy than most of your classmates. You just weren't physically capable of wielding Shiho yet. With a polearm, your weaknesses are amplified; easier for a half-decent opponent to exploit, even if you do have the advantage of reach. You have to have superior strength, endurance, and speed. Your weapon is heavier than just about anything in a normal shinobi's repertoire, so you have to account for that, both the good and the bad. It will allow you to bring Shiho down with crushing force, yes, but you'll need to be able to match their speed even though your weapon is exponentially heavier. And, like it or not, you're a prepubescent girl. If someone can force you to extend a confrontation, you need to be able to sustain your speed and force. Which is why I pushed you to the brink of exhaustion and made you stand up again."

Just as his gentle reminder implied, Tsubasa-sensei had subjected her to a month of extreme physical conditioning, from night hikes to forced marches burdened with bags filled with sand. All administered with good humor, but not a single ounce of sympathy. Sakura sighed and let her head rest on her knees. She only hoped that Naruto-san's and Sasuke-san's training had been as strict. And she firmly pushed away the thought that they would never need this kind of training, for they were not born to this wondrous, damnable kekkai genkai.

The day was coming when she would either have to make peace with it and herself or take some sort of action, for Sakura couldn't imagine the rest of her long, long life being lived with this constant uncertainty. But she couldn't imagine abjuring her birthright. Couldn't imagine a world in which the clan did not exist. For they were like their kekkei genkai. They were not good, but neither were they evil.

She was aware, in an abstract way, that she ought to feel something about robbed of her family, but she couldn't see it as a crime. She saw it only as soft justice, for Shiki-dono could have chosen to slaughter the participants in the uprising. An analytical part of her might have even supported it, because it would have served a reminder to the other outsiders what price would be exacted if they too found themselves inclined to dissent. Could she imagine Shiki-dono's blood smearing the length of Shiho-nii's blade? Well, she could, and the possibility that she would one day confront him existed, but Sakura did not want Shiki-dono to die.

Because Shiki-dono was something that wasn't quite human, but she still admired him. Still would feel lost without him. Jun was a monster, true, but she'd already decided he would live, simply because he was hers. And Shiho-nii. Sakura knew that in the normal course of things, they would have grown apart as they grew older, that he would have married a kunoichi in his age group, perhaps had children, might have died as an old man with only dim memories of the cousin he'd been close with during her youth. But now, she would always and forever be the first person in his heart. This thought had the potential to evolve into something darker and more possessive than it already was, but she was still a child in some ways and it was simply a child's desire to monopolize the attention of a guardian.

"Tsubasa-sensei?" she asked without raising her head.

"Yeah?"

Sakura sook her head then, shaking off her melancholy, resolving to spend less time in her own thoughts from this point forward. There was too much of life and death, good and evil, and endless philosophical questions waiting for a moment of weakness.

-[-]-[-]-[-]-[-]-[-]-[-]-[-]-

Sakura was somewhat bemused by the format of the final section of the chunin exam. Elimination tournaments were all well and good, as that was the method by which she'd established herself as heir, but she hadn't expected it to be so open. It was a fact well-acknowledged that part of the power and influence of a Hidden Village was dependent on how effective the clans were at keeping their techniques secret. After all, if an enemy village was aware of and prepared to counter a technique, or worse yet, had managed to reverse-engineer it, it was no longer an effective weapon. And even within a village, sabotage was a factor as clans competed for prestige and influence.

Yet here the exam was being held in an enormous coliseum, with hundreds of shinobi and civilian observers crowding the seating area. About to watch chunin hopefuls compete again each other, many of whom wouldn't have an ounce of discretion when it came to revealing their family's techniques.

Some of them were impossible to replicate, arising from the unique physical attributes of a clan, but still...

How could the Hokage trust all these people? Sakura thought uncomfortably as she slunk to one of the visitor's entrances to watch the screening process. All it would take was a single moment of weakness to an opposing village's offer and any of these people could be flipped, could become an asset feeding valuable intelligence on the newest chunin to an unknown factor. Besides, what business was it of civilians how the ninja performed in this exam? It wasn't a bloodsport put on for their pleasure, though by their behavior, one might think it was just that.

The whole set-up was counter-intuitive to the idea of secrecy. But she had already seen her first opponent of the day, Inuzuka Kiba, reveling in the attention. She supposed the pressure of the crowd could encourage the combatants to give a better performance, their expectations somehow heightening the tension and giving the judges some notion of how they would perform under pressure, but all it was doing for Sakura was making her leery of using any techniques beyond those on the Academy curriculum.

"Is anyone here?" Sakura murmured to Shiho-nii, who'd been watching over the stands, searching for the presence of Haruno clan members.

"Okaa-san is sitting near the Kage balcony with Shiki-dono," he informed her. "Tsubasa-san is over there, third row up," he said, indicated with his hand the former Iwa-nin's position. Sakura didn't turn her head, but she did follow the gesture with her eyes.

"And Jun?"

"If he is here, he has forced Ai into hiding again," Shiho-nii said bitterly.

Sakura worried her lip, remaining aware of her surroundings as she considered how to reply to that emotion, which wasn't one that she'd often seen from Shiho-nii. And considering how he had died quite young and would spend the next several decades as a soul linked to an inanimate object, it was a measure of how disturbing he found the abilities of the Insane Dog of the Haruno clan. "Shiho-nii, how can he..?" her question trailed off, but by Shiho-nii's deepening frown, she had no doubt that he understood what she asked.

"I wish I knew, Sakura," he said at last, looking more like a grim deity than she'd ever seen him. "But if you want to avoid killing him, you'll need to keep him tightly leashed."

Sakura nodded, accepting his uncompromising judgment.

Down in the pit, the proctor was shouting for the exam candidates to assemble. Shiho-nii's lingering negativity evaporated and the smile he turned on her was genuine. "I know you'll do well," he reassured her. "Most of your skills are jounin-class."

Sakura frowned, an expression that sat somewhat petulantly on her face. "Most of my skills aren't meant for public display," she grouched.

Shiho-nii chuckled. "At least an awareness of the presence of the crowd ought to keep you from blooming," he offered.

Sakura regarded him without amusement, because while she didn't think Kiba was powerful enough to tip over the edge of the abyss, the later matches awaiting her promised something else entirely.

But she leaped down regardless, the soft ground absorbing the impact of her landing. Sakura landed in a crouch, using the moment to sift the earth briefly through her fingers, confirming that the dark, fertile soil native to Konohagakure had indeed been replaced by a gritty, sandy mixture. This will give a significant advantage to the Suna ninja, she thought as she stood, especially to Gaara. From what was observable in the elimination rounds, he seems to be able to control massive quantities of sand-with so much to wield as a weapon, he could forgo subtlety and crush this entire stadium.

It was with that cheerless thought firmly in mind that she tonelessly returned the cheerful greeting of her blond-teammate, who seemed to have grown more affectionate when she wasn't looking, slinging his arm familiarly around her shoulders. Eyeing the appendage that was intruding on her person, she ignored his yelp of pain as she pinched the skin on the back of his hand.

"Sakura-chan!" he protested.

"Professionalism," she reminded him briskly.

Naruto looked briefly disappointed, but then he grinned. "S'okay, Sakura-chan," he said enthusiastically. "I know you comment because you care." And, wiping his unbridled happiness off his face, only to replace it with comic solemnity, he assumed the position of parade rest and stared fiercely ahead.

He maintained it only for a moment, because even though the proctor was going over the rules they had agreed to abide by, he apparently couldn't resist asking his next question. "Do ya think Kakashi-sensei forgot when he was supposed to bring Sasuke back?" he asked in a carrying whisper.

"No, Naruto-san," she replied, in what she hoped was a stifling voice.

It failed, for Naruto snorted. "Can you imagine the look on Sasuke-teme's face if he's disqualified for being late?"

She doubted Kakashi-sensei would actually allow Sasuke-san to be disqualified. This ceremony was traditional, meant to recognize the achievements of the distinguished genin who had advanced this far as well as to reinforce for them that the only real glory here was reserved for the victors. The presence of exam candidates was preferred but not required. Perhaps Kakashi-sensei had some reason he wanted to avoid exposing Sasuke-san to public scrutiny?

That was very probable, she decided a moment later. The restless crowd had already noticed his absence, being vocal enough in their discontent that thought the structure of the stadium wasn't very conductive to hearing their exact words, she could make out the occasional distinctive shout of 'Uchiha.' The attention being paid to him would have doubtless increased the latent enmity between he and the other clan children, who though they respected his loss, upon occasion displayed impatience with the special dispensations that continued to be granted to the 'Last Uchiha.' And given Sasuke's general off-putting attitude, the last thing he needed was to accrue more ill-will from people who might one day be responsible for stopping an enemy-nin from slipping a kunai in his back.

There was the additional factor of increasing his already ridiculous sense of self-importance. Sakura realized that she was self-involved to the point of being unintentionally alienating, but Sasuke-san had his moments when he was frankly obnoxious and seemed to believe that he was entitled to them.

But then the proctor was calling her match, which was first on the roster and she found herself facing the Inuzuka.

Losing this match wouldn't be his fault-the Inuzuka clan's jutsu was so invested in their canine partners that it was impossible for them to realize their potential until their partners reached physical maturity. It was a bland fact. There were jutsu that they could use to make up for Akamaru's small size, but it was immensely chakra-consuming. In two years or so, when he was no longer a puppy, the pair of them might be a challenge in open combat, but as it was, they would have been better served using their enhanced senses to establish an impressive mission record.

Ignoring his taunt-it involved her hair and her forehead-she darted forward, digging one of her feet into the loose sand, sending a wave of it toward the pair of them, her hand swiftly ghosting into her pouch.

For an enemy you can't afford to kill, disable. Ground pepper was a somewhat mundane ingredient to put in a explosive, but Kiba's shriek of pain, swiftly swallowed by cursing, told her that the capsaicin was working as intended. Akamaru whimpered, scrubbing at his nose with his paws, his training not yet embedded enough to prevent the instinctual need to rid himself of a handicap that was the equivalent of blinding a human.

Her sandaled foot met the resistance of his ribs and with a yelp he was flung backwards in the sand. "Hey!" Kiba barked despite his own discomfort. Sakura ignored him. The puppy was the weaker part of the equation and though she was peripherally aware that there was nothing to seal a reputation as a sociopath quite like kicking a puppy, she wasn't about to cede an advantage just because the crowd was less in favor of animal abuse than watching children go at each other with the intent to harm.

She spun out the way of a sloppy attack, clipping him on the back of the head as he stumbled by. A smarter opponent would have waited a few more seconds, as least clearing the sand from his eyes, but his instinct to protect his partner and his temper were going to be his downfall.

Akamaru scrabbled to get up, barely avoiding a punishing blow. Still, though she hadn't connected, she had managed to drive him further from his partner. Proximity wasn't required for their jutsu, but the separation would make it more difficult for them to communicate, as well as exerting physiological pressure on her opponent.

The whistle of kunai allowed her enough time to dodge Kiba's infuriated attack. Sakura kept her mind focused on her primary objective, not even bothering to make a feint with clones to try and distract the other genin.

"Dammit, Sakura!" Kiba bellowed. "Leave Akamaru alone!"

"Make me, Inuzuka-san," she retorted pleasantly. She plucked senbon from her pouch, knowing that the smaller projectiles probably wouldn't do irreparable harm, even though she was less familiar with canine anatomy. And with the windless environment created by the walls, it was a very good environment for use of the light-weight projectiles.

Kiba took her challenge very literally, charging her bodily, but she twisted out of the way again, deliberating staying just out of reach. He was angry enough and quick enough that she wasn't able to hit Akamaru, even though the sandy ground was soon peppered with senbon.

Finally, enraged, he commanded Akamaru to perform their signature attack. The rotation, part of what made it dangerous, whipped the sand into a cloud as Sakura avoided the dangerous but incredibly obvious attack. Sakura took advantage of the moment of recovery and the near-zero visibility to lay out the traps she'd prepared in anticipation of this match.

The ninja wire snares were near invisible in the dusty environment and Sakura knew it was only a matter of time before one of the six feet encountered one of the none-too-harmless loops. Another spray of senbon made Akamaru cockily shuffle to the side, nose finally recovering, but the dog's eyes widened until the whites were visible when she pulled the line taut, swiftly dragging the puppy within reach of her kunai. Half-kneeling on the sand, hand closed around the puppy's muzzle, the other hand pressing a kunai to his furred throat, she asked Kiba the same question that Kakashi had posed to her team all those months ago. "What are you going to do when someone takes your teammate hostage, Inuzuka-san?"

Kiba's snarl told her the answer. With ill grace, he ceded the match.