"Hey, Naruto!" Sakura called- having pried herself from the grips of her parents with the promise to find them once the exam was over- and the orange blob turned with a bight smile on his face.
"SAKURA-CHAN!" He yelled. "I haven't see you or the teme in ages! Kakashi-sensei made me train with this weirdo pervert, but then he got beaten up by an even weirder pervert! So I had to train under the super pervert instead and there were all these toads!"
Sakura smiled and followed the babbling blob into the stadium, watching the casual confidence in the way he moved. It seemed they'd both gotten stronger.
Lee, Nara, the Suna monster and Hyuuga were already in the competitors area. Lee was practically bouncing off the walls in his enthusiasm whilst Nara was napping in a corner and the other two were brooding into their respective horizons. Only the Uchiha was absent, likely being held up by Hatake's poor time keeping skills.
Sakura waved at Gekkō as he strolled in, smiling as the sickly man raised a hand to wave back only to double over in a coughing fit. He'd been her kenjutsu and stealth instructor for the past month, but had made it very clear that he wouldn't show any favouritism.
(As if he ever would, just like every other instructor Morino dumped her with, he was an absolute demon underneath the sickly visage.)
"Alright, we'll have to head down, we don't have the cough time to wait for Uchiha Sasuke." He said, only for Hatake and Uchiha to appear in an overdramatic swirl of leaves.
"Sorry we're late." Hatake said, despite looking entirely unapologetic. Gekkō sighed.
"Get in line, Uchiha." He gestured to the group and the kid slotted into place as they headed for the stadium.
The fighting ground was surrounded by imposing walls, thousands of onlookers cheering and heckling them as they lined up behind Gekkō in the centre of the pit. The air was thick with chakra, the amount of people making it impossible to differentiate individual signatures in the stands. Instead, the arena was surrounded by a wall of white noise.
The fighting ground itself was a mix of elements, a series of ponds and sparse trees and boulders creating a variety of environments and obstacles whilst still leaving the area easily observed from above.
Gekkō stood tall in the centre flanked by the Uchiha and the Hyuuga. The next most outermost spots were taken up by the Uzumaki and the Suna monster, followed by the Nara and Lee. Sakura stood to the Nara's right. Awkwardly added onto the end as the uneven tagalong. The afterthought.
She didn't mind the insult. The automatic assumption that she was the weakest of the group.
Sakura knew what she looked like. Next to the group of serious-looking boys, she looked like a joke. Small for her age, clad in a baby blue sleeveless qipao and pristine white pants, her pink hair braided into a practical yet delicate-looking crown braid and nothing more than a few weapons pouches on her thighs and her unassuming chokutō strapped horizontally on her lower back. A clanless nobody that was easy to dismiss as simply getting lucky, even by the people who had seen her fights. They had been quick and dirty. Little more than a few flashy jutsus and hitting them from behind.
Sakura ignored the way the boys were all brooding melodramatically into the middle distance to smile serenely up at the crowd and wave. She knew what she looked like.
She'd worked so hard to cultivate that image, after all.
She settled in to watch the first match. Eyes glued to the figures in the bottom of the arena.
'Nara Shikamaru vs Uchiha Sasuke'
The fight was a long one. Whatever the Nara's initial plan had been clearly failed as the Uchiha showed considerably increased speed and taijutsu expertise. The Nara managed to just barely keep Uchiha at arms distance with a combination of well placed ninja wire and explosion tags, but the Sharingan made it nearly impossible for him to actually catch the Uchiha with his shadows.
Eventually he managed to bluff the Uchiha into a corner by taking a hit from his own explosion tag and capture the kid's shadow in the resulting cloud of dust, but the Nara was visibly sweating and shaky. He wouldn't be able to hold the chakra powerhouse of the Uchiha long.
"I forfeit!" The words rang over the grounds, carrying to the competitors box but likely not the stands. The seal-enhanced voice of Gekkō announced the match result.
The Nara headed to the spectators stand and the Uchiha stalked back into the competitors area (His next fight would be one of the four before the intermission, so he couldn't go to the spectators stands even if her wanted to). He ignored the Uzumaki as he passed and flopped into the seat next to Sakura.
"Good fight." She congratulated.
"Hn." He spat in response, his teeth audibly grinding. Sakura held down a snort and watched the orange ball appear on the grounds.
'Uzumaki Naruto vs Hyuuga Neji'
Sakura was desperately trying to stifle giggles. She couldn't help it.
Neji Hyuuga, was telling Uzumaki Naruto he wouldn't amount to anything because of his birth. The child of the fourth hokage and the Red Hot Habanero. The village jinchūriki.
If anyone was 'destined' to be Hokage it would be him.
"Truly, the youth of this battle is inspiring, but I am unsure what is quite so funny, Sakura-chan." Lee said, appearing next to her in a whirlwind of green spandex and enthusiasm. From his position brooding next to her, the Uchiha turned to him and glared.
"It's just something Neji said, Lee-san." She smiled ruefully. "You all don't know absolutely anything about Naruto."
"Neji is the strongest leaf genin, Naruto cannot possibly win." The poor idiot sounded genuinely confused.
Uchiha scoffed and Sakura hummed knowingly.
Corrosive chakra flooded the arena. Uzumaki's back bent and his nails lengthened. The air was acid in her lungs. A vicious smirk stretched her face.
"WINNER UZUMAKI NARUTO!"
The crowd cheered. The Hyuuga was carried off on a stretcher and Uzumaki was shepherded into the spectator's stands.
"Fight well." Uchiha said melodramatically, barely a whisper against the crowd's roars.
"Of course, Sasuke-kun!" Her voice was teasing and full of cheer, the Uchiha 'tch'ed and turned away from her, but the very tips of his ears were pink.
She headed into the arena. A green blur on her heels.
"AND NOW THE NEXT MATCH! ROCK LEE AND HARUNO SAKURA!"
They positioned at opposite sides of the arena, falling into their starting stances.
"I look forward to an invigorating match Sakura-chan!" Lee said, a patronising smile on his face and casual confidence in his frame. He was underestimating her. Her easy smile sharpened to show far too many teeth.
"Me too, Lee-kun." She purred. "I do hope you can challenge me."
Lee looked thrown, his stance loosened slightly.
"BEGIN!"
She leapt away, followed half a second later by a green blur, and she threw a volley of shuriken, darting towards the trees. He deflected them easily and continued, rapidly gaining ground on her.
She continued throwing weapons, keeping him just busy enough that he couldn't catch up to her at the pace she was going. She danced continuously out of his reach, circling through the arena as she went. After a few minutes of ducking and dodging and throwing she threw herself between two trees, turning around to focus on the green blur as it followed and throwing her hands into a seal.
Just as Lee passed between the trunks they exploded, a burst of chakra setting off the explosive tags attached to kunai and shuriken she had thrown. The strategic placement overlooked in the volley of weapons.
Thrown through the air by the force of the explosion, a mass of wood and dust spreading over the arena and leaving streaks and grazes over her bare skin, she used the moment of chaos to disguise a series of hand seals. A clone rose out of the water and almost immediately masked its chakra, settling into the transparent escape technique. She wasn't yet very good at it, could only hold the effect when perfectly stationary, but her clone didn't need to move. Her chakra stringed and coated it instinctively.
"A truly wonderful plan! I commend you, the beautiful Sakura!" Lee's voice rang out, his green form becoming clear through the dust. A pair of what looked like metal weights in his hands. He dropped them, the weight causing craters to form in the dirt and dust to rise once more. "But I will be ending this match now!"
A blur appeared behind her, she had just enough time to swing around and block the kick with her arms. She let the strength behind it rocket her through the air. Drawing her chokutō and making it crackle and glow with lighting chakra. She landed on her feet just as a fist flew towards her face. She ducked, twisting under his arm and slashing towards the delicate tendons in his elbow. He dodged it but the edge of her blade just caught the spandex. A thin line of red appeared.
He followed with a kick and she spun, throwing herself around the movement and winning another tiny scratch in the vulnerable part of his knee. He kicked and punched and she ducked and weaved. He had a slight advantage in speed and a massive one in taijutsu abilities but she had the advantage of reach from her chokutō and she knew how to milk it for everything it was worth. She took a fist to the ribs and a clip of a foot to a cheekbone but he took dozens of tiny scratches in return. All laced with lighting chakra. All subtly numbing the immediate area and slowing down his muscle movements.
It was showing. He was slowing. His movements were growing sloppy.
He left an opening and she took it, ducking under the too-wide sweep of his leg and slashing across the boy's back, pumping lightening into the wound as she did. He froze up completely and she sighed and relaxed her stance.
"It's over." She said, her voice coming out shaky and breathless with fatigue and adrenaline, glancing at the boy's face only to find him looking intently into the stands.
Apparently he got something out of it. His hands raised, body shaking violently with the strain of fighting the lighting chakra, and his forearms crossed. Then, it was like he exploded. He radiated chakra outwards like a dam overflowing. He stood tall despite the numbing effect that should have been debilitating. His eyes were filled with fire and he was grimacing. A terrible scream tore out of his throat.
He moved. The world broke. Sakura couldn't do anything but do her best to take the hits in the least damaging places possible- thankfully he seemed disinterested in actually hurting her, his hits went for momentum over damage- as she was thrown into the sky, bandages wrapping around her and Lee appearing above her like a vengeful god. His fist planted into her stomach and she was sent plummeting back to earth. The harsh, unforgiving ground rushing up to meet her.
She let her chakra catch.
She landed gently on top of the water and balanced on the surface as she caught her breath. She pushed herself to standing, one hand wrapping around her aching ribs, and made her way back to the arena's centre.
The clone's transparency jutsu had disappeared the moment they swapped. The people in the stands simply watched a girl hit the earth and melt into water. She appeared out of the trees to see Lee on his knees, staring at the place she had been.
He snapped his head around the look at her, open mouthed, and then collapsed.
"WINNER HARUNO SAKURA!"
The crowd roared. Her breath came in pants. Her heartbeat was a furious drumbeat reverberating throughout chest. Her cheeks ached from the size of her smile. She pulled a Naruto, threw up a peace sign, and headed towards the stands, momentarily disappearing into a bathroom to wrap her ribs. A medic team appeared to cart Lee away. A clean up crew would collect her weaponry before the next match.
"SAKURA-CHAN GOOD JOB!" Uzumaki screamed, barrelling into her the moment she appeared through the doorway.
"Thank you Naruto, but I would appreciate if you got off me. I think I cracked a couple of ribs." She laughed and he immediately launched himself away from her, very nearly throwing himself down a set of stairs if not for the gloved hand that caught his collar with practiced ease.
"Are you okay? Do you need to go to medical?" He asked worriedly and she shook her head.
"No medical for the participants until all the matches are finished." She said. "I've still got to beat you and Sasuke into the dirt."
"Come on, Sakura-chan." Said Hatake, setting Uzumaki down and twisting to crouch down in front of her. "I'm sure the others are excited to see you." He said and she climbed onto his back, happily enjoying the time honoured tradition of the most tired being carried home at the end of training. Hatake loped down the steps smoothly, being careful not to jostle her, and she settled so she could watch over his shoulder.
"You just want to rub us into the faces of the other jōnin sensei." She accused.
"Maa, Sakura-chan, it's perfectly normal for a sensei to be proud of their adorably ferocious students." He replied with a faux-wounded tone as they approached Team Asuma and the weapons mistress from Team Gai.
The Nara rounded on them, falling into step next to Hatake to look up at her, brows twitching angrily.
"Explain." He ground out, eyes flickering in a telltale sign of him overthinking things.
"Explain?" She asked with exaggerated innocence.
"The kawarimi." He snarled. "There was nothing, no chakra build up, no blurring, no smoke, nothing! It broke all of the basic principles of the jutsu!"
"And?" She asked, feverishly bright brown eyes locked onto her, his face halfway to hysterics.
"That's impossible."
"Not for me." She smiled angelically down at him.
"What the fu-" He started but snapped his mouth shut as Hatake leaned down until his face was a few inches from the brunette, leaking a low level of killing intent. She couldn't help but notice that he moved specifically so that her weight went onto the side without the throbbing ribs.
"Shikamaru-kun, You wouldn't happen to be bullying my cute little genin, would you?" Hatake said, his voice half a growl and his eye narrowed dangerously. The Nara gulped and shook his head desperately.
"N-no sir." He stuttered and it was like a switch was flipped. Hatake straightened, eye smiling and frame relaxed. He shifted his hold on Sakura to only be keeping her up with one hand- once again keeping her weight off her ribs- and used the other to pat the Nara twice on the head.
"Good boy!" He said brightly before loping away to where Naruto was half leaning over the railing. In a fit of childish petulance, Sakura stuck her tongue out at the Nara as he left. He scowled and hunched his way back to the Akimichi, mumbling about 'troublesome weirdos' under his breath.
An unfortunately becoming familiar blur of green appeared.
"My Eternal Rival!" Maito boomed and Sakura felt Hatake physically wilt. "Truly your students are the epitome of youth!"
When it became clear that Hatake had no intentions of doing anything but ignore the sparkling man, Sakura took things into her own hands.
"Thank you, Maito-san!" She smiled. "Lee was a very ferocious opponent, you must be proud."
The man started balling. She mostly aborted the full body flinch, but Hatake managed to radiate a sense of smug amusement despite still pretending to ignore the conversation entirely.
"He truly is such a great guy!" Maito cried. Sakura didn't think she'd ever seen someone create such a massive volume of tears before. Instead of expressing any of her growing panic, she smiled sweetly and nodded.
"I hope I can spar with him again soon." She said and, strangely enough, that caused the man to sober. Before she could figure out why, however, they were distracted by the beginning of the next match.
"SASUKE UCHIHA AND SABAKO NO GAARA! BEGIN!"
Sakura watched the Suna genin as he convulsed and clutched his head, his chakra signature fluctuating wildly, and was filled with a horrible sense of déjà vu. She sucked in a sharp, quiet breath.
Hatake's head tilted.
"Sensei…" she began before pausing, wondering whether it was actually anything or just her brain misfiring.
"Pinky?" Hatake prompted, his tone serious.
"It might be nothing, just… That's almost exactly what Naruto looked like, before he lost control in Wave."
His only response was leaning just a fraction further towards the fight.
The Uchiha was winning, but only by mimicking Lee. If that was all he had in store for the Suna-nin then the fight was going to end poorly.
"What kind of training did you do, for your genin to come this far in just a month?" Asked Maito.
"Well I trained Sasuke to use Lee-kun's Taijutsu, because he had copied it with the Sharingan and had seen Lee-kun in action before he was able to master the style, though it was a lot of work." Hatake said. Sakura raised an eyebrow, dubious that that was the entirety of the training. Likely, he was just waiting for the Uchiha to pull out something overly flashy to add to the Drama. "Naruto trained with Ebisu, and Sakura spent the month under Morino Ibiki."
"According to Naruto, the closet pervert that was training him was beaten up by a super pervert so the super pervert had to train him instead. There were toads." Sakura added helpfully. Hatake made a thoughtful humming noise.
"Really." He murmured and her interest caught. Apparently the 'super pervert' was someone important.
"You trained under Morino Ibiki?" Maito asked, looking genuinely disturbed. "What was that like?" It was asked with the revolted curiosity of someone that knew they weren't going to like the answer but felt compelled to know anyway.
"My time was planned down to the minute." Sakura said, her voice turning distant and face blank as though remembering The War. "Meals, bowel movements, sleep. I was only allowed to leave the T&I building for training purposes. My favourite lesson was called 'Torture Resistance Training'. It was nice, the simplicity of thumbscrews and mind games."
Maito had very aggressively blanched, watching her with a combination of deep concern and wariness. It was an expression she was growing used to seeing on the shinobi around her.
"Sounds like you had fun." Hatake said, eye smiling over his shoulder at her. She beamed back.
"Yep!" She said gleefully, the wariness in Maito's expression increased. She put as much childlike enthusiasm into her words as possible. "Ibiki-oji-san taught me three different ways to flay someone without killing them!"
Maito started sweating. Hatake made no audible sound, but Sakura could feel the rumbling of his laughter through his back.
"What is that?!" Uzumaki cried, derailing further conversation and drawing attention back to the fight.
The fight where Uchiha Sasuke was using what had to be the Chidori on a giant sand ball.
"A simple stab." Said Maito. "But it is the Copy-nin Kakashi's sole original technique. It is a technique specifically for assassination. The speed of the stab and the great amount of the chakra creates heightened flesh, because the chakra is concentrated in the hand and with the speed of the user you hear a sound like a thousand birds running towards you. Thus the technique is called Chidori.
"The technique relies on the stabbing speed that pushes the limits of the human body and the huge amount of chakra that is focused in one arm. That arm then becomes the blade of a sword that cuts anything." Maito sighed. "What a truly ridiculous technique."
"Like you can talk." Hatake snarked.
"What is it like, having that much chakra to just throw around?" Sakura lamented softly. "Are you constantly vibrating out of your…"
It was faint, but the air was turning poisonous. A monstrous arm was stretching towards Uchiha.
There was an enemy jinchūriki in the village.
A village wouldn't risk their prized weapon needlessly. There was only one reason they would expose them.
War.
She wasn't blind, she'd known the shinobi of the village were preparing for something to happen today, but she'd assumed it was on the lines of 'use the chūnin exams as a distraction for an attack' not 'use the chūnin exams as the centre of an attack'.
Sakura tapped Hatake's shoulder and he lowered her to the ground. She casually checked her weapons were in their correct places. Feathers flew in front of her eyes.
"Kai." She released the genjutsu, dropped her signature to nothing, henged to look like the wall behind her and drew her sword in the same moment. There were nine enemy shinobi at the front of the stands. The Uchiha and the Suna-nin were gone. The Kage's were in a box on the roof. One of the Kage's was actually Orochimaru wearing their face.
Sakura felt intimately, horribly aware that she could very well die.
She smiled.
She put her back to the wall and watched Gai and Hatake decimate the forces. They moved together with the ease of those that knew each other inside and out, their attacks moving in synch and their styles complimenting the other perfectly.
Sakura would get to that level. She would not spend another brawl backed up against a wall, too weak to do anything but get in the way. She refused.
"Sakura! Nullify the genjutsu and wake up Shikamaru and Naruto." Hatake stood tall before her, broad shoulders splattered in vivid red and radiating power. "You four have an A rank mission."
Sakura did not think this was the correct time to hit puberty. Puberty did not agree.
Fuck.