Despite having just arrive Kakashi told her to do her stretches and basic work out to get ready then she could wait for him to return. After preparing her body she relaxed into meditation and only opened her eyes when she heard Kakashi greet someone. She saw a darkly dressed ninja wearing sunglasses standing in front of her and she quickly placed him, "Ah, you're Konohamaru's sensei." She'd only seen him in passing, but Naruto had also mentioned him in the past.

"Yes, I am Ebisu," he answered pushing his glasses up, "it's nice to meet you." He was slightly awkward possibly because he could tell Sakura immediately wasn't a fan of him, Naruto had essentially implied the man didn't like him and was a pervert.

"Right, it's nice to meet you as well. I guess you already know my teammate Naruto?" She asked and by the slight turndown of his lips she knew for sure she was correct the man didn't like Naruto, which meant she didn't like him. Rather than talk anymore she immediately turned to Kakashi who for his part had been watching ignoring the tension and asked, "So what are we doing, exactly?" He said they might have other teachers, she really hoped this wasn't one of hers.

"I just want you to spar with him so he can give me an opinion on you," Kakashi said, "like I said he's an elite trainer. I don't need him to train you, but I happened to see he was free and thought he'd make a good sparring partner."

"I wasn't exactly free-" Ebisu started to speak, but stopped when Kakashi glanced at him. He began speaking again, "Right, don't worry about injuring me I want to see your full capabilities, I'll operate both defensively and offensively, but Kakashi-san will step in if anything goes wrong so don't be concerned. Kakashi-san is correct I am quite excellent at my job so you should make the best of this opportunity." She didn't love how smug he sounded and it just added to her dislike.

Sakura cracked her knuckles, "Oh, I'm ready." She was certainly going to make the best of this opportunity to let loose on him. Of course, she was aware that if Kakashi was acknowledging him as an elite trainer than he must be skilled, but Sakura's initial guess was that he didn't heavily specialize in any area. If he did Kakashi might have said he was a ninjutsu trainer or genjutsu teacher. So Sakura wanted to feel him out a bit.

Kakashi leapt back giving the two space and Ebisu moved back creating distance, he then nodded and said, "You can begin whenever you please."

Sakura didn't want to get in close with an opponent that was likely more skilled than her so she'd start by trying to pin him down. With a quick jutsu she launched water senbon from multiple places in the river at Ebisu.

Rather than try to dodge he flashed through a few signs and slammed his hands down. A ring of fire surrounded him and flames rose from it. Although Sakura could still see him the flickering flames were tall enough to reach his head, which should have been overly hot, but the jutsu likely directed heat outward. If that was the case it likely explained why all her senbon were turning to steam before they could reach him.

If he wanted to play that game then Sakura was happy to fight fire with fire. First, she threw a kunai with an explosive tag near the ring and set it off checking to see how the fire reacted to the explosion. It flared up in that section and she saw Ebisu move away from it.

Before he could make a move she sent oil over his flames lighting up the area increasing it and she could tell it wasn't fully under Ebisu's control by the fact that he jump out and cancelled the jutsu. The oil stayed lit so the area continued to burn. Ebisu wasn't overly hurt because the oil hadn't landed directly on him, but the fire had damaged his clothing.

"Very clever," Ebisu complimented her, "but that's not nearly enough."

Sakura didn't respond instead she cast a genjutsu hoping to shut him up. She watched as he froze in place and was pleased it worked, she called a mist up in case he broke up, but threw a handful of shuriken in a straight line at him so she couldn't miss even without being able to see. It didn't take long for her to recognize something was wrong and she managed to identify that she couldn't unsummon her mist. She forced chakra through her body and snapped out of the genjutsu he had placed over her, she released the mist because she wanted to keep an eye on him now that she couldn't trust genjutsu.

She only had a moment after the mist cleared to see the remains of the fire shoot at her from her left side, she jumped out of the way managing to dodge it, but Ebisu appeared in front of her launching the Dragon Fire Bullet jutsu sending bolts of fire at her.

Rather than dodge she ran straight at Ebisu allowing the fire to seemingly swallow her. When the fire passed her it revealed only a burnt log and Sakura was still moving towards Ebisu who was forced to fight with taijutsu.

She was going to hope this was a weak spot for him, or at least she'd find an opening to use something else. She quickly realized that compared to her usual sparring partners taijutsu was her best bet, he was certainly slower than Sasuke, didn't seem physically stronger than Naruto, and though his taijutsu skill itself was good it didn't compare to Kakashi when they watched him go all out.

Admittedly she wasn't winning, but she was looking for an opportunity and even though she was taking the majority of the hits she did manage to land a few of her own. She sent a straight kick and when he jumped back, she sent a jutsu right beneath his feet causing him to land in a sticky liquid. It crept up to his knees and hardened locking him in place. She gave him a solid punch to the gut, making sure to put some chakra behind it, before drawing her kunai, she was about to put it to his throat when two shadow clones appeared beside her with kunai placed on either side of her own neck.

"I think there's a clear winner," Ebisu said sounding slightly smug though there was a bit of a wheeze because Sakura did manage to sock him in the gut before he had the clones appear.

She was happy that she got to punch him and she was aware that he was going to win in the end so she wasn't going to complain about the result especially since she was feeling pretty ready to call the fight to an end anyway.

"Ebisu, you weren't fighting to win anything, she's a genin. You weren't taking this too seriously, right?" Kakashi asked managing to make fun of the man without making it obvious.

"Of course not I just meant the spar was over and I was very impressed, but it was nothing serious." Ebisu responded.

"Perfect," Kakashi nodded, "now I have a plan for her that I want to put in action for the Chunin exams and I'd appreciate you looking over it and giving me your thoughts based on what you experienced today. Sakura run through some stretches and your basic physical training then rest for the day, tomorrow training starts for real."

"Yes, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura responded nodding watching him heard Ebisu off who almost seemed to protest before sighing and agreeing. "Wait," she called out and the two men paused, "why don't you like Naruto?" She directed her words at Ebisu, "Don't bother lying you haven't done the best job hiding your feelings and I barely mentioned him earlier."

"Sakura, you are an intelligent girl, but you are young. You don't understand that Naruto isn't like us, he is a container and beyond that instead of living quietly he chose to involve himself with my student, I don't appreciate it. It's as simple as that, I don't need any more reason," Ebisu responded

"What are you talking about?" Sakura asked, but the conversation was quickly cut off by Kakashi who seemed furious even with only one eye visible.

"Ebisu, you're talking about my student so I suggest you shut your mouth before I show you everything I'm capable of," Kakashi's voice sounded like it was full of barely restrained anger and Sakura shivered.

Ebisu's expression shifted from disgust at Naruto to fear and he quickly apologized making an excuse to leave.

"Sakura, please forget his words," Kakashi said to her his voice dipping to something far more comforting before he followed Ebisu.

Kakashi went to the field was pleased and unsurprised to find Sakura early, and running through her stretches and workouts. He didn't have a chance to sleep, after berating Ebisu and holding himself back from physically hurting the man he did actually speak with him and see if he had any advice. Thankfully, he seemed to think Kakashi's ideas were perfectly fine though he seemed to be confused by the jutsu Kakashi had essentially come up with on the spot while talking with Sakura. He spent all night working on it and was now happy with the result, although anyone who lived near where he was practicing all night was far less happy.

"Alright Sakura, are you ready to learn?" He asked her with a smile beneath his mask.

"Always," she responded confidently and the day began.

What?" Sakura asked when Kakashi revealed the first step in her training program.

"Yes, you heard correctly, my dogs and I came up with a new jutsu and we'll be teaching it to you. The Forever Howling Hounds jutsu, it's actually a genjutsu I thought of it when I saw the female sound ninja utilize bells. I felt it'd be easier to cut out a step and just use your voice to disrupt your opponent's sensitive hearing," Kakashi explained and it all sounded quite logical.

"Okay, my only question is why your dogs are involved and why does the name involve howling?" Sakura felt she had to ask.

"Excellent questions, I'll have some helpers join us," Kakashi used the summoning jutsu and suddenly his collection of ninken was standing in front of her. "I'm teaching her about the technique we designed, can someone display the first part for me please?" He asked the small group who had approached Sakura and were happily observing her.

"Sure boss," the one with the sunglasses said, Akino she believed was his name. He stepped to the side of her and looked at the trees he seemed to inhale, pause, and then release a howl that must have been chakra enhanced because it was booming and knocked the leaves off of trees.

Kakashi stepped forward, "Now that was chakra being applied to the voice increasing its strength, but my ninken never learned genjutsu so what we decided to do was combine techniques. I lay a genjutsu that utilizes the sound produced by that chakra enhanced howl, so the target hears repeated howling. Therefore, they do the howling hound ninjutsu and I enhanced it to the forever howling hound genjutsu."

Kakashi continued, "If I don't summon my ninken I can do the technique on my own, but it'll be less effective I can combine my own chakra enhanced yell with a sound based genjutsu. Still my ninkens' howls can't be beat. Since you can't summon my ninken you'll have to do it on your own."

"Okay, I get the point. He's sensitive to sound so we manipulate a jutsu to essentially produce large amounts of sound, but could I do something other than howl, its kind of embarrassing." Sakura admitted. She wanted to be committed to doing anything and worst come to worst she'd howl her heart out, but she knew people would be watching her and she didn't really want to be acting like a dog. She wasn't Kiba, not that there was anything wrong with his clan, but they actually trained and had skills she'd just be running around barking.

She could see Kakashi smiling under his mask when he said, "I kind of figured you'd ask something like that. Sure as long as you're able to infuse your voice with chakra and place a genjutsu over it I don't care what you do. Against most opponents you could just learn a genjutsu and be done, but we don't know how skilled he is at breaking them, especially considering his genjutsu type teammate. So worst come to worst you have a back up where you can launch a loud chakra infused sound at him to injure his ears."

"Alright, so that's what we'll be taking care of first?" Sakura asked, "What's after that, I want to figure things out now." Sakura wanted to mentally draw up a plan, she planned to work late into the night and get up early in the morning if she had to.

Kakashi responded, "There's two water techniques I definitely want to teach you, one standard technique I think will serve you well and some other work we need to do on you. If you do manage to move at a quick pace then yes, I'll make sure to let you decide what we do with the remainder of our time."

He seemed to read her mind as she opened her mouth to speak, he cut her off, "I'm not telling you any more until we get started with what I've already told you. I'll tell you more over time, but let's get a start on this jutsu before we worry about anything else."

He looked at Sakura and she nodded.

"Good, now I don't want to worry about actually using the genjutsu today I just want to try focusing on directing chakra through soundwaves. The reason it was easier to do the technique with my ninken was because they have a natural skill at utilizing their vocal cords and chakra and I'm very attuned to their chakra so casting a genjutsu over it was simple. It becomes more difficult when I needed to do it on my own because I was producing chakra infused noise which isn't natural to me, but obviously I'm attuned to my own chakra so casting the genjutsu over it was easier than over a random noise."

Sakura nodded along.

"I know you can cast normal genjutsu that trick the mind into believing they hear a noise, but this is a manipulation of an existing noise and its more effective against someone whose skillset is so sound based. So, I'll let the ninken walk you through the first part."

He watched his dogs walk over to his puppy and each one offering their best bark as an example for her. By the time they were done showing off some of the trees had fallen down and Kakashi had taken to putting his fingers in his ears. He had sensitive hearing, sue him. Sakura for her part looked a little dizzy from all the noise, but she powered through it.

For the most part he tried to meditate and maintain his chakra which was split in three and carefully listen to what was happening, he only interjected where he felt necessary.

It didn't take long for her to give up on any embarrassment and soon she was trying to howl with the pack. She'd take a breath in gather some chakra and release a loud very feminine howl. It wasn't tree shaking, but she was on the right track.

"Alright, I'm going to ask you to stop there before you hurt your throat," Kakashi stepped in stopping the training, "excellent job so far. You've already gotten the basic down, the strength isn't quite where I want it yet, but it's enough for us to practice the genjutsu portion at the same time."

"So, what should we do instead?" Sakura asked looking hungry for more.

"I promised to teach you two water jutsu so we'll start with the first, but I won't mention the other until you complete this one so you don't need to ask," Kakashi spoke.

Sakura was always happy to learn new techniques so she didn't complain and waited for Kakashi to continue, "The first is nothing too complex, but it is a technique that can serve as a basis for multiple higher level jutsu so it's certainly worth learning. The water whirl jutsu, you'll control a certain amount of water at close range which will be rotating at a high speed. The amount of chakra used affects the amount of water being manipulated, but for our purposes we'll just operate with what feels natural for you. Trying to force more chakra into it won't produce a better result at this stage."

Sakura nodded at his explanation and he allowed her a few moments to think knowing she was the type to consider the usefulness of a jutsu and its applications.

They'd spent plenty of time practicing with water so it was simply about learning the technique not necessarily any new basics behind it. He was confident this was something she'd be able to pick up quickly.

He was somewhat correct, she was able to get the structure of the jutsu right and bring the water up, but was clearly having trouble maintaining the rotation. It needed to be second nature and totally natural before she could cast the jutsu without thought.

"Alright your main trouble is controlling the rotation of the water, correct? You're more comfortable moving it around," Kakashi didn't quite ask because he already knew the answer. He led her over to a nearby river and they both sat down. "Alright I'm going to create a whirlpool." He easily created a small whirlpool in front of him and used his chakra to keep it flowing in the correct direction.

He gestured for her to try and although the water bubbled and moved it wasn't the kind of whirlpool he was looking for. He took her hands and moved them in circles above the water and watched as she focused on the movement. A slow spin started and as he let go and stepped back she continued to move allowing it to further speed up.

"Maintain that spinning water for three minutes I'll keep count," he watched as she focused deeply on her task. "Alright that's three, now I want you to do it for five," she just shook out her arms as if to loosen them up and started again. After five minutes he called it, "Good, you made five minute."

She sighed clearly relieved and rubbed her arms which were obviously uncomfortable from the repeated motion. "Now I want you to do it without moving your hands around just hold them out, you'll be doing three minutes again." Kakashi stated. Sakura clearly was able to already apply what she had just been doing because she was able to get the water rotating even without moving her hands, albeit more slowly. "Great, now I want five minutes," he ordered and the moment she completed it successfully he ordered her to do it for ten minutes straight.

Sakura stood up for a moment it seemed to stretch and Kakashi decided to capitalize on the moment, "Perfect, you already know the next step you'll be starting and maintaining a whirlpool while standing, start for three minutes." Then she was forced to repeat to 5 and while she was doing it for ten minutes he made a second request, "Don't stop the whirlpool, but start to lift the water up."

Slowly, but surely, she had a spinning stream of water coming straight up from the stream. "Launch it away," Kakashi commanded and Sakura sent it flying towards a small nearby tree which it started to drill into before breaking the tree down thanks to the force.

"Incredible," Sakura said clearly pleased with what she was able to achieve and Kakashi was extremely impressed as well. She had a great basis to work off of, but still he was always impressed by how quickly she picked things up.

"That's essentially the water whirl jutsu, so keep what you were doing in mind while you next use the jutsu and see how it turns out. I want you to attempt it three times, and no matter how good or bad that'll be the end of our training with that jutsu for today.

Kakashi was pleased to note all three were quite good attempts and by the time they were done training everything they'd have cleaned up this jutsu until it was perfect.

"Okay, we can do a bit more with ninjutsu tomorrow, I want to set you up with a new physical conditioning plan. It's blatantly obvious if it came down to physical fighting, you're the weak link, Naruto has endless stamina and Sasuke is leagues ahead of the both of you in speed and training, plus he has the sharingan."

His Ninken who had been watching this entire thing defended her, "Lighten up on the pup.", "Yeah, did you hear how well she was doing her barking?"

Sakura wanted to argue or agree with the Ninken, but she wasn't dumb enough to try so she simply asked, "It's okay, I know its true, so what's my best option to close the gap?"

"You can't fully close that gap in a month," he explained "but I'm giving you a tough plan I want you to do to build up your strength and speed. We can also put aside a small piece of time each day for taijutsu training."

"Got it," Sakura easily agreed.

"We both know you shouldn't get close range with Dosu so only do the physical conditioning at the end of the day based on how you feel after training. Don't make this your focus, but don't forget to condition yourself."

Sakura nodded because he wasn't wrong thankfully, she considered herself more of a ninjutsu or genjutsu type ninja, but she couldn't afford to hold her team back. "I'll go through the basics of the plan and have you run through it and that'll end our day. If you want to do anything else afterwards that's your own choice as always."

By the end of his basic version of the new physical workout plan she was exhausted, so she knew it was better to rest and make sure she was in top shape tomorrow for training. Once she got used to it, she could spend extra energy doing further training.

Something she could do that wasn't related to training was check on Hinata, the poor girl was still in the hospital when Sasuke was released. She walked along still disturbed by the container comment from Ebisu and wasn't paying attention to her surroundings as she approached the flower shops to pick some up for Hinata. "Hey, Forehead pay attention," a voice shook her out of her musing and she saw Ino in front of the store. She didn't really want to fight so she didn't bother getting upset and simply asked, "Can I have a bouquet, the kind you'd give a patient?" She knew Ino was knowledge about flowers and Sakura knew nothing.

"Are you visiting Sasuke?" Ino asked, "I'll come along." She invited herself along.

"No, Sasuke left the hospital I was there when he did, I want to check on Hinata," Sakura informed her and she could see that Ino felt sympathy for Hinata by her expression. There were very few people among the leaf genin who felt nothing watching that fight.

"Do you mind, if I come? I've honestly thought about checking on her, but I wasn't sure if I was close enough to her." Ino asked and Sakura felt it was actually genuine.

"Sure," Sakura said feeling slightly happy to be beside Ino when they weren't fighting, "but you have to buy the bouquet."

"Fine," Ino said with a smile.

The hospital felt uncomfortably familiar and although Hinata wasn't awake she was happy to have had a chance to come and leave the flowers behind. Hinata's sensei informed her that she was going to be fine in the long run, but she'd need to stay in the hospital for another few weeks. She'd be out in time to see the second fights and Kurenai-sensei would make sure to let her know to root for Sakura.

A/N

So, yes I have returned. People have continued to comment and give kudos to this story so I couldn't give up on it. I don't know exactly how it turned out, but I decided this was what I wanted to do.

You may notice I didn't really give Sakura a second teacher aside from her practicing with Ebisu, that was partially because she didn't need another ninjutsu teacher because Kakashi is an expert (I almost brought in Tenzo). Naruto only has Jiraiya because Kakashi doesn't know wind style and Sasuke is working with Anko because of the curse mark which I thought was a fun take especially because I like Anko.

The main genjutsu specialist is Kurenia and since she has a student still in the exams she would never help the "enemy". Plus Kakashi is more than proficient enough at genjutsu to help a genin and I wanted to invite his ninken.

I brought Ebisu in specifically because he's known as a trainer so Kakashi would have someone to confirm his game plan, but I also wanted someone to speak vaguely about the nine-tails and also show that Sakura is closer to Naruto and sees him as a true friend.

Also I wanted her to spend some time with Ino and create a friendship with Hinata because none of these genin spend time together outside of missions, I want to build trust.

Please let me know what you think of everything.