Shortly before the start of the June training exercise Sakura and the rest of the Yamanaka had gathered to celebrate the birthday of their current leader.

Dancing and food had been involved, as well as significant drinking for those old enough to partake, and Sakura had ended up sick in bed for the rest of the weekend because she'd eaten too much and too quickly and gave herself a headache to boot.

The experience had, of course, not been the worst thing Sakura had ever gone through—not by a long shot—but it had been uniquely terrible in that the food inside her wanted to come out, and it didn't particularly care which side it came out of—even most of the poisons she'd been dosed with had a preference.

Two days into the training exercise, Sakura now had the dubious honor of having not only experienced those symptoms, but having also seen them occur to someone else and helped them through it.

In other words, while she'd managed to avoid any poisons she wasn't immune or resistant to, and Shimura had somehow managed to do the same, Sarutobi wasn't as lucky.

"Kill me. Kill me now," Sarutobi muttered as he curled into himself once more.

Sakura grimaced, watching his puke flow downstream. "I really hope no one is above us on the river."

"Too late now if they are," Shimura said. They had, in the midst of taking care of their sick teammate, managed to finish their camp setup (complete with a plethora of trapping defenses), so now Sakura's fearless leader was mostly focused on sharpening his knives and keeping watch when it wasn't his turn to take care of Sarutobi.

"Didn't you hear me? I said kill me!" The lump next to the river whined.

"He'll be fine, right?"

"Yes, he'll be fine. I already told you that he'll be fine," Sakura said. "In fact, I'm fairly sure I've told you he'll be fine every single time you've asked."

"Just double checking," Shimura smirked. Then he frowned, looking at Sarutobi. Sakura did too. She was quite sure that he'd be fully recovered within a day or two—none of his symptoms were severe enough for her to worry, and as long as they made sure he was as hydrated as he could be he'd make it through fine—but they didn't know when the next task would come and having a downed teammate would never be a good thing. "You should go collect some more plants. I'll take my shift with him now."

Sakura agreed easily enough and dashed off to grab some of the plants she'd noted as particularly useful some distance from their camp.

She had only just managed to grab some bark that, when made into a tea or paste, would reduce fever when a Chuunin appeared in front of her and she was knocked unconscious.

(Honestly, this whole kidnapping thing was getting annoying. She'd have to figure out how better to avoid it.)

She awoke in the middle of someone else's camp—more specifically, in Teru Inuzaka's.

He was muttering to himself, using words that she wasn't technically allowed to say as he paced around the edge of his campsite.

"What... happened?" She muttered, sitting up.

"It's the second exercise," Teru said. "One member is kidnapped and put in another camp, and the other two of us have to keep the enemy placed in our camp—that's you—from escaping or being rescued and rescue our own member at the same time.

Should I have told you that?"

"Why not?" She said, wanting to keep him talking. "Wait—why didn't you seek?"

"What a great, fantastic question!" He snapped. "If only I had thought of that! But no, I'm stupid, so let's ignore that I out of anyone would know where they stuffed Honda! No—I'm an idiot, so of course I can't do that. Satoshi will do the seeking—he's really smart, after all, and I'm not. But I have my ninken, so I can guard, because there's two of us and that's all I'm useful for! Because that makes sense! It's not like first branch Inuzaka are known for tracking! That's be insane! No—"

It quickly became clear that Teru wasn't about to shut up, and Sakura had already gotten the information she needed from him anyway, so instead she took stock of her situation.

She was tied up, was the first thing. On top of that, the spot Teru's team had picked wasn't a bad one, but it'd be hard to escape from—they were on a pile of rock several feet tall which, while it didn't even near the top of the trees in the area, still allowed good vision for the entire surrounding area.

So that was the bad news.

The good news was that Teru really would have been much better at seeking. She had no idea what Satoshi was thinking, really. First branch Inuzuka needed to move, to be active, or else they felt pent up and began trying to distract themselves in whatever way possible. On top of that, while she had clearly been searched (her plants and kunai were gone) they'd not thought to check her boots—she could still feel her spare miniature blade digging its flat end into the side of her foot. Oh—Teru was winding down.

"—it's just... it's stupid."

"Satoshi sounds like an ass of a teammate."

"He is! Do you—do you know what he said when we arrived? He said that I should just keep my mouth closed and follow his orders! And then, when I called him—well, it's not important—but then he said if I acted like a mutt he was going to treat me like one! I attacked him after that, of course, and we got a couple good hits off, but then Honda had to go and—"

Teru distracted again, Sakura began searching out his ninken Yasai. She couldn't find him, which was worrying, but at the very least she'd be able to get out of her binding.

It took nearly fifteen minutes of carefully wiggling the blade free, while all the while looking like she was attentively listening and keeping an eye out for the small but increasingly powerful Yasai, before she managed to free her hands, knees, and feet.

And then, at a loss of what better to do and with Yasai still not visible, she ran.

Teru Inuzaka may not have had the temperament to be guard, but Satoshi's arguments held some grains of truth—having a partner was extraordinarily helpful. It took Sakura all of fifteen seconds to find out where Yasai had been hiding: the ninken had been lapping the area just out of sight, and the second she moved he had shot straight at her.

Thank the kami he was still so young—his teeth dug into her leg, tearing strips off her skin, but that was all he could do.

She gasped in pain, but kept running—Yasai may be painful, but Teru was faster than her and could actually recapture her, and if she didn't do something fast that was exactly what would happen.

Of course, Sakura knew that, and already had several plans in mind. Plans 1-11 required specific circumstances to occur, but she could already do plan 12.

Sakura lunged for the nearest tree branch, grabbing it and yanking herself up as Yasai dragged on her hamstring and Teru threw a kunai disturbingly close to her stomach. She swung, thrusting herself from the first tree and into the second, before beginning to drag herself up after Yasai let go in the air. Teru, as she had hoped she would, began scrambling after her, leaving his poor partner on the floor. She scanned the surrounding area but nowhere looked familiar, so instead she decided to aim for the river—theoretically her own camp should lie somewhere on the bank.

She jumped. And jumped. And jumped.

Teru jumped. And jumped. And jumped.

Yasai ran, yapping, after them.

The river ran at a steady enough rate that, unless you held on to something or actively fought against the current, you would be pulled downstream. It also wasn't necessarily the most ecologically diverse—the speed of the water seemed to deter most fish and the flat rocky bottom kept the plant life to a minimum. It was relatively shallow, too; for all that it seemed fairly fast the river near Sakura's camp was about three meters deep and the river nearest to her now seemed shallower than that.

Its clear water and fast movement meant she couldn't easily hide in it using any Academy-taught technique (not to mention Teru currently being literally centimeters behind her) and its lack of depth meant she couldn't very well dive in it and move with the current either.

Even then, the river was still helpful. Teru's camp, she'd have bet anything, was in the minority—a majority of the other camps would doubtless have camped out just like her own: directly against the river.

And if she could get one of them to go after her and Teru...

Well, then suddenly Teru's job was divided between capture and evasion, and hers hadn't changed at all.

She grinned, and jumped to another branch. Across the river.

Teru followed loyally after her but Yasai barked, trapped on the other side.

"Damn it!" Teru shouted. "Yasai, follow from the other side!"

Perfect.

Teru may have been older and more physically adept then she was, but Sakura could still work her small size to her advantage: without hesitation she began leaping up the riverbank once more, in each jump choosing the most entangled of the trees to throw herself on to and scramble up. Teru had no problem jumping after her, but when it came to catching on a branch strong enough to support his weight and fighting his way through the mass of branches to get to the next tree he had significantly more trouble, and before long she had put nearly a full tree between them. Unfortunately, it wasn't to last—she was tiring quicker than he—but by the luck of the kami it did last long enough for the rest of her plan to suddenly become much, much more relevant.

"Wait—who's that?!" A voice called out from below; another campsite barely blurred into vision before Sakura was already jumping away, leaving Teru the clear and obvious target.

.

It took another half an hour for Sakura to get far enough away from Teru that she was absolutely certain she had a few minutes to spare (running through the first camp didn't deter him, but did apparently stop his ninken, while the second and third definitely put a damper on his speed.) Once she was sure she was at least temporarily in the clear, and had lost enough chakra that she couldn't exactly keep tree jumping anyway, she rolled around in some mud (gross) and then darted up the trees again, moving carefully along the river for any sign of her own camp.

It took another two hours to find it.

"Hey."

"Holy—How?!" Hisai Sakura, apparently their team's hostage, yelped when Sakura appeared right beside her.

"I escaped. I am back," she said.

She looked around—Sarutobi still looked like hell but at least he'd managed to pass out, while Shimura was keeping watch. "Noticed you added a couple more traps."

"Can't be too careful," Shimura muttered. Then, "good job. Getting back safe, I mean."

"Well, with Sarutobi's condition I knew rescue was out of the question," Sakura said. She moved to check him over—best make sure he really hadn't taken a turn for the worst in her absence.

"Exactly. Should we be keeping an eye out for pursuers?"

"I'm pretty sure I lost him, but Teru's an Inuzuka, so who knows?"

"I don't know if I can take another nineteen days of this," Sarutobi muttered.

"You're awake!" Sakura said. "That's good. Probably. But you should go back to sleep anyway, because you're still way too sick-looking."

"Is that a clinical diagnosis?" Shimura murmured acerbically. Before she could reply, however, everyone's head snapped towards a noise just on the edge of their hearing, and too far away to be seen through the brush.

Sakura's jaw snapped shut, and Sarutobi's was quick to follow. Hisai, to Sakura's surprise, didn't call out—she wondered if Shimura had threatened her or something.

Shimura's hands flashed, rapid-fire, telling Sakura to get ready—he'd set up a lot of traps in that direction, so they weren't going to pursue.

Everyone held their breath.

Then—a yelp.

Sakura loved traps.

Fifteen minutes later, they had two victims—the latter of which was gagged, because Shin (sorry Shin!), unlike Hisai, was far less easily threatened.

Several hours later, when night fell, Sakura realized that Teru had never mentioned when the exercise was supposed to end.

She asked Shimura.

"They didn't actually give an end," he sighed. "So fuck if I know. Hope its soon, though—keeping watch is going to be hell tonight."

.

The kidnapping exercise lasted forty-eight hours. The next one, which required that each team come together in a single clearing and complete an obscenely difficult obstacle course, lasted a full day. The following exercise—covertly sending messages through 'enemy' territory to another camp—went for three days in total, and the one after that (a physical fitness competition) ended up going for exactly 38 hours, the end of which was determined by the time it took the second to last person to collapse.

On and on the days went, with pseudo-missions and competitions and absolute information black-outs and exhaustion, and by the end of the three weeks Sakura was fairly sure no one in her class would willingly test out to genin early.

Fourteen tried.

Four were back in their class within the week.