Her Experience

by Tiny.Dncer

Sakura has been taking care of her sick civilian mother alone since she was 8. But now a full fledged ninja placed on team 7, she must learn how to stop holding herself back and let her team in, although, that proves challenging when her teammates are the wild and childish Naruto Uzumaki and her cold closed off long time crush, Sasuke Uchiha. (Better explanation inside.)

11. Her Training I

A/N: Quick thing cause I saw a couple comments about this. This fic is about Sakura and making her an actual lead instead of a supporting character paired with two leads. Neither Sasuke nor Naruto will be getting any additional non-canon power ups. The only thing different about them will be their responses and aditudes towards Sakura. Maybe they might mature a bit faster, but that's really it. If that's not for you, totally fine. I just don't want to waste your time waiting to see something that's not going to happen.

Other quick thing. I changed all the "cha's" to "shannaro's." Both are sort of weird and hard for me to write but Shannaro feels a bit better.

"Inner Sakura..."

"Sakura's thoughts..."

Memory...

writing...

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

---

Sakura was relieved to see Sasuke sitting up in his hospital bed. He looked better than when she last saw him, and he didn't seem to be wincing every four seconds—so she definitely took that to be an improvement.

"Oh good. There you are." Kakashi drawled, closing his book. The conversation they were about to have was too serious for him to be reading Icha Icha Paradise during.

Sasuke turned to them when they entered the room. His eyes focused on Naruto, who was smiling, his hands behind his head, posture relaxed. Clearly he'd won his match. He'd only woken up ten minutes prior and Kakashi hadn't told him anything yet. His eyes then slid to Sakura. It was harder to read what her status was, because she seemed more occupied with checking up on him, not that that was particularly surprising. That emotion he couldn't place was in her vibrant green eyes, and it made him feel…warm.

"I won my battle, Bastard! So if you really wanna fight me you better not lose to Gaara!"

…So clearly they'd made the pairings for the finals…and he'd been paired with Gaara. Perfect. He couldn't have hoped for a better opponent.

"Guess I'd better clarify…"

"The finals will be a classic tournament, one month from now. Naruto and Sasuke-kun are in the first bracket facing Neji and Gaara, and I'm in the second facing Dosu, the sound ninja."

Sasuke tensed. So Sakura had won her match…but Dosu was one of the three who'd beaten her pretty badly before, and that didn't sit well with him.

Kakashi nodded. He wasn't particularly thrilled about any of those pairings…Neji and Gaara were definitely the two strongest Genin there. And Dosu far outmatched Sakura, plus his ties to Orochimaru…well, hopefully that would be a battle he wouldn't have to worry about. There was a lot he needed to address with them, almost all of it bad. He wasn't even quite sure where to start with everything. What to tackle first…probably the most recent event.

"Well now that you're all here…Sakura, you were right about Kabuto. He was a spy for Orochimaru and made an earlier attempt to abduct Sasuke."

All three Genin stared at him.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Sasuke growled. He'd been sitting next to Kakashi for the past ten minutes and the man hadn't said a thing.

"You thought Kabuto was working with that snake weirdo, Sakura-chan?" Naruto questioned. Thinking back on it, her behavior towards the silver haired boy had been similar to the way she acted with that Ami girl, or the woman who said horrible things to her in front of the Hokage tower that one time—polite, but guarded and distant. But she hadn't said anything to him about it!

"I didn't trust him since we met him…but I didn't think he was related to Orochimaru until later during the matches…"

"Why didn't you say anything?!"

"I did…to Kakashi-sensei."

"You only told me about it when I confronted you." Sasuke furthered.

"So you knew, too?" Naruto asked, annoyed his teammates had kept it from him.

"Only cause I noticed how she acted towards him. She didn't volunteer anything until I asked her directly." Sasuke didn't know quite where the sudden urge to defend her came from—it wasn't like this was a battle or anything. It was probably because Sakura spent so much time and energy worrying about their feelings, and he knew upsetting Naruto would eat at her.

"I'm sorry, Naruto. It wasn't like it was a secret or something I wanted to actively keep from you. I didn't think we'd actually run into him after that first exam anyways. I didn't want to raise your suspicions without having any real proof—which I didn't. And as far as the test went, you trusting him turned out to be a good thing, cause it got us our second scroll…"

Naruto processed this, still glaring at his pink haired teammate. It tracked with what he knew about her…and in hindsight he could acknowledge that she had treated Kabuto with distance. But she should have told him! They were teammates!

"Sakura-chan…would you have ever told us about your mom if we hadn't seen her the other day?" The question may have seemed random and unrelated, but in Naruto's mind, it wasn't. She had said she didn't want to tell him without proof…that could have been a lie. But Sakura always tried to carry everything herself. She didn't say things without thinking or rush in impulsively the way he and occasionally Sasuke did. She had said she hadn't told them about her situation because it was embarrassing and didn't want to complain about having a family in front of them. But had she ever planned to tell them? Or was that also something she'd planned to carry until the situation got better—or worse…

"What does…?" Sakura's brow furrowed.

"Why would he ask that, now? Still…I owe him an honest answer…"

"…I wanted to tell you two once I could get her a diagnosis…I didn't want you to find out while there still wasn't a clear way to handle it. I wanted to be able to actually have answers for you when I told you…"

So what she'd said earlier wasn't a lie then. She would have told him, if she had a definitive answer. He could kind of get it…He knew what it was like to be questioned and not have the answer—it had been his entire academy experience. And for Sakura, even though she was so smart, she woke up every day without the answer to her mom's illness. For him, not knowing an answer, or getting it wrong meant a slap on the wrist, or being laughed at…but for Sakura, not knowing the answer, or having the wrong answer, could mean the end for her mom. Her caution around not knowing or being wrong made sense. For her, it was a matter of life and death.

"Ok. Fine. But Sakura-chan, you might not always get an answer before things get bad—so just tell me from now on. We'll figure it out together as a team, believe it!"

"That…was a surprisingly mature response…he hasn't just gotten stronger…Naruto's grown a lot…"

Kakashi thought so as well. He'd half been expecting Naruto to throw a temper tantrum about having been left in the dark. Turned out the boy had matured quite a bit.

"You're right. I'm sorry Naruto. I'll try and share more with you guys, even if I'm not positive about something…" It was easier said than done, and she was sure she'd drop the ball a few times, but she'd still try nevertheless.

Naruto gave her a serious nod, before turning to Kakashi.

"So, Kakashi-sensei, who is this Orochimaru guy anyways?"

"And what's he want with Sasuke-kun?" Sakura added.

Sasuke glared at him expectantly. He wanted to know who was after him as well.

"Orochimaru is a former Konoha ninja—one of the three legendary Sanin, ninja of great renown. Orochimaru defected from Konoha and has expressed interest in destroying the village on more than one occasion. It's unclear why exactly he wants you Sasuke, although he does want you alive. He's tried twice now to take you rather than kill you. His interest in you is because you are of Uchiha blood, so it's likely he wants your Sharingan, which nothing good can come of. Because of that, I've gotten clearance to train you for the final round outside of the village."

Sasuke nodded. It wasn't all that surprising…he remembered hearing his dad talk about abduction threats made against him and Itatchi behind closed doors…he hadn't understood much of it at the time, and it seemed the threats were always taken care of, since nothing ever happened to him, but it must have been about the clan's kekkei genkai.

"Wait a minute! You're not just taking Sasuke, are you?! What about us?!" Naruto shouted. He'd come here to ask Kakashi to train him, not to be left behind!

"I've found someone to oversee your training, Naruto."

"…Only Naruto?"

"What about us?!"

"Huh?! I want you to train me, Kakashi-sensei!"

"Between training Sasuke, and making sure Orochimaru doesn't get to him, I won't be able to give you my full attention. I found you an even better teacher than me. I'll introduce you in a bit."

Kakashi turned his attention to his pink haired student…now for the really hard part.

"Sakura. In the second test, did anything…abnormal happen to you?"

"He knows!…Well…I had meant to talk to him about this anyway…"

She looked up and immediately locked eyes with Sasuke. She couldn't read quite what was in them, but she was sure she saw concern.

"That's right! Sakura-chan! I completely forgot! When I got out of that giant snake, I was able to find you guys and that snake weirdo cause of your chakra! I've never sensed it so strong before! What happened?"

"I'm not really sure…when Orochimaru attacked us…" The death genjutsu was still horrifying and the thought of it completely wiped her of her articulation.

"He first attacked us with a genjutsu. It showed us dying—him killing us. The power of it was so strong it felt real…it was paralyzing." Sasuke picked up, when she faltered. He could fill in that much, but the rest was on her.

Kakashi frowned. He knew exactly what they were talking about. The Sanin had used it on him when he attempted to take Sasuke during the preliminaries. He'd hoped his students, Sakura especially, wouldn't have experienced it, but it seemed that was too much to hope for.

"Right. Except after he cast it…my chakra reacted. It suddenly went wild…and there was more of it then I'd ever had. It felt like it was too much for my body and I couldn't contain it. It hurt. A lot. It felt like I was being ripped apart…"

Kakashi closed his eye. It was as he feared.

"Your mother made me promise not to tell you this until the exam was over. But the circumstances have changed and I have no choice. Sakura, you are of the Haruno clan…and as such, you've inherited their Kekkei Genkai. Though, in your family, it's considered to be something more of a curse. When a member of your clan experiences extreme emotions, it triggers their chakra to increase rapidly to an amount that's too much for their body to handle. It doesn't activate until the clan member turns thirteen."

This is all your husbands fault! It's his fault Itsuki-kun's dead! If he couldn't control his chakra, he should have never been in the field!

"…This…this is how dad died…" Sakura realized, her voice quiet. Her knuckles were steadily fisting in her lap as she stared at her sensei, wide eyed. She felt like a weight was pushing against her chest, slowly suffocating her.

"…Yes. Whoever ambushed them must have pushed your father to an emotional extreme. His chakra reacted. And it gave away where the rest of the team had been hiding…"

"Too much for the body to handle…does that mean…they die?" Sasuke asked lowly, having difficulty shaking the thought. But he couldn't get Orochimaru's words out of his head. She's doomed anyway, destined to die screaming.

"…Not always. But usually, yes. It eventually kills them." Kakashi answered grimly. "The average life expectancy for a Haruno was 30 years maximum…if they were a shinobi, 16 years max. Your father tried to work around that by remaining a genin, thus lowering his risk factor for missions. He made sure not to train and get strong enough to be promoted against his will or sent on more dangerous missions either…He only made it to 23…"

Sasuke's eyes widened while Naruto's jaw dropped. 16 years?! A ninja's life expectancy was lower than the average civilians, but it wasn't that low! There were plenty who made it into their 40s and 50s! The third Hokage was 69!

"Was?" Sasuke choked out.

"Because of their deadly curse…the clan pretty much died off. Sakura is the the last member related by blood, at least to Mebuki's knowledge…"

Sakura's head buzzed with all the knew information her sensei had dropped on her, but she couldn't form a conscious thought…

Walking Jinx…

Cursed Raggedy Doll…

Responsible for your teammate's deaths on the field…

All the horrible names her bullies had called her, the things they said about her, echoed through her mind too loudly.

"You mean all the shit those brats said about me growing up was true?!"

The room had gone unnervingly silent, and when Sakura pulled her eyes from her lap, she was met with the surprised, wide eyed gaze of all of team 7. She hadn't realized she'd voiced the thought out loud.

"Sakura-chan…" Naruto murmured softly, his eyes sad and worried for his teammate who meant so much to him. Hearing all this was almost unbearable for him…how bad must it be for her?

Sasuke's gaze softened. He hadn't registered how long she'd been bullied for, just that 'Walking Jinx' was the common nickname. But he had heard what Ami had said to her before the exam…and unfortunately, a lot of it did seem like it was true…He knew Sakura had never allowed their disses to sink in—it showed from the way she carried herself and how well she was able to pull polite indifference in their presence. But clearly, now, she was letting the words sink in, and it was painful…

Sakura's viridian eyes dropped to her lap again. Words fell from her mouth before she processed them—her inner voice temporarily taking over.

"That's so unfair! Sasuke-kun gets awesome magic eyes, Naruto gets never ending stamina and heals from everything within a goddamned day, and I get to most likely die within the next three years?! What the hell kind of ability is that?!" Sakura lapsed into silence again, studying her tightly clenched fists. The room was very quiet for several minutes.

Sasuke blinked. He hadn't been there for her fight with Ino. The closest he'd ever heard Sakura sound to this was when he'd angered her enough to get her to explode—which he definitely wouldn't be doing anymore because it might kill her…speaking of which…

"You knew this might happen and you let her take the test?" Sasuke demanded, rounding on Kakashi.

"Her mother begged me not to stop her…it was against my better judgement, but I wanted to honor her wish. At the time, I thought it would be ok…your opponents would just be genin, and Sakura's very level headed. There was no way to know if Sakura had actually inherited it or not. I never imagined Orochimaru would infiltrate the test, or that the genin participating would be so powerful and ruthless…but as things are…I'm sorry Sakura, but I can't allow you to continue with this. Any of it. You need to quit being a shinobi."

Sakura's eyes widened, though she didn't lift her head up.

For one moment, the silence was deafening. And then Naruto exploded.

"What?! Why does Sakura-chan have to quit being a ninja?!" Naruto shouted.

"Weren't you listening at all?! She could die!" Sasuke snapped back.

"But she said being a Ninja was her dream since she was 2! How's she supposed to just give all that up?! What's she supposed to do?!" He'd already been told Bushy Brows wouldn't be able to be a ninja anymore, he couldn't deal with Sakura having it taken away from her too.

"I don't know, Moron! If it keeps her alive longer—"

"You're really ok with Sakura-chan leaving the team, you heartless bastard?!"

"Of course not! But if it's that or her life, the choice is obvious!"

Their argument continued, but Sakura didn't process any of it.

"…Quit? Should I really…"

I wanna be a Ninja, like Daddy!

Why Sakura-chan?

So I can help lots of people in big ways!

"I finally started to do right by that…how can I just walk away now?…But…"

The average life expectancy for a Haruno was 30 years maximum…if they were a shinobi, 16 years max.

She's doomed anyway, destined to die screaming.

"It already almost happened once…and I could have gotten Sasuke-kun and Naruto killed…"

This is all your husbands fault! It's his fault Itsuki-kun's dead! If he couldn't control his chakra, he should have never been in the field!

It'll be the same thing all over again…watch your backs with this one or you'll end up dead in the field!

"I…Maybe it really will be best for them if I quit…"

"The hell it will!"

God knows those two could use some family.

"We can't just abandon them!"

"I'd rather that then let my team get killed!"

"So we'll just let mom die instead then?!"

Sakura's mind came screeching to a halt. How could she have forgotten this was her job? Her only source of income…her only way to have a prayer of earning enough to get her mother real medical attention.

Kakashi watched as a blank faced Sakura rose and walked past him, looking out the window.

She couldn't even see her apartment building from here. She wasn't anyone important, so far from the bustle of life in the central Konoha streets. If she turned away now, it would stay that way forever.

"I'm a nobody, from a civilian and a Genin cursed to die…Mom knew that. But when I, a two year old nobody, announced that I wanted to be a ninja so I could help lots of people…she went all in to make it happen. She knew what I was. What Dad was. What was likely to happen…and she still thought it was worth sacrificing her health for my dream. She thinks I could really achieve it, despite what I am. She didn't want Kakashi-sensei to stop me from taking the test. She thinks I can beat this…"

"We don't back down from a challenge! Not now, not ever!"

"I'm sorry…"

Naruto and Sasuke's argument ceased at the sound of her voice, both turning to her. What was she sorry for? Was she really gonna quit?

She turned her back on the window and looked Kakashi dead in the eye.

"Sensei, I can't obey your order."

"Sakura, this is your life we're talking about." Kakashi said firmly, but he could see it in her eyes that he was fighting a losing battle. They burned with the fiery determination he often saw dancing through Naruto's.

"My life isn't just my own. I have to look after my mom, and I don't have any other options. I put all my eggs in this basket. I'll see it through no matter what."

"Sakura…I could see the chakra through your skin…you…" Sasuke was at a loss. All he knew was that he never wanted to see her in that state again. And that he definitely didn't want her to die. His entire being was viscerally rejecting the idea that she might.

"I know you're tough, but this thing is unbeatable." Kakashi pressed seriously.

"Why didn't I die that first time?"

"We toughed it out, calmed ourselves, and gave some of our chakra to Sasuke-kun."

"…That's it!"

"It's not unbeatable."

"I think your deceased ancestors would beg to differ." Kakashi muttered irritatedly. Why couldn't she see how much danger she was in?

"I know it's not, sensei. Because I managed to get some control over it."

That stopped Kakashi short.

"I was able to calm down and share some of my chakra with Sasuke-kun."

"…you shared your chakra…" Kakashi stated blankly.

Sakura nodded. Kakashi glanced at Sasuke, who nodded as well.

"Show me." He said, lifting his hitai-ate to watch with his Sharingan.

Sakura took Sasuke's hand, ignored the flush that spread across her face, and closed her eyes. She focused on the way Sasuke's chakra rushed through his hand, and just like before, matched the movement with her own, letting it flow in with his. It was easier this time without the debilitating pain and minimal level of control. She didn't share much, just enough to prove she could.

Kakashi's eyes narrowed in thought. She'd really been able to wrest that much control, even with the chaotic state of her chakra at the time? More than that, she'd actually managed something as delicate as chakra sharing—which to his knowledge, she'd never learned—in that condition?

"Where'd you learn that?"

"I didn't. It was kind of an accident…I was just trying to give myself a grounding, focus activity at the time and it ended up happening…"

"Can you only do it with Sasuke?"

"I don't know…He was with me at the time, so I just did it."

"Oooh! Try with me Sakura-chan!" Naruto wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but if it convinced Kakashi to let Sakura keep being a ninja and stay on the team, he was so there for it! Team 7 wouldn't be complete without any one of them.

Sakura took Naruto's hand and focused. She sensed his whirling, rushing chakra through his hand—just as chaotic and spazzy as him—and worked to match hers to his pattern, but when she tried to share it, she felt her hand begin to burn, causing her to pull away. Apparently he'd felt it too because Naruto had also snatched his hand away.

Kakashi's brow furrowed. The nine tails had rebuffed Sakura's chakra. It seemed that when there was already two immense sources of chakra present—both Naruto's and the Nine Tails—a third wasn't welcome. But the fault hadn't been in Sakura's procedure, it had been a quirk of Naruto's anatomy.

"Try with me." He ordered.

Sakura grasped her sensei's hand, but couldn't sense anything. "I can't feel your chakra…"

"Maybe it has to be bare skin." Sasuke observed. Neither he nor Naruto wore gloves and it seemed like she'd been able to make something happen with them.

Kakashi pulled off his glove and Sakura clasped his hand and focused. Just like with Sasuke, Sakura felt the even, steady, thrumming of Kakshi's chakra and was able to match hers to his and let it flow into his hand.

Kakashi blinked in disbelief when he felt the tingling of her chakra joining his. It was hard to imagine a genin with no training executing such a feat flawlessly by accident. But she'd proved that she had. If her chakra triggered, she'd be able to share it with whoever was around, so long as they weren't a host for another being, like Naruto was. But…if she could manage enough control to do that, then there was a chance she could get to a place where she'd be able to control the influx of chakra completely. She'd said she'd shared her chakra by accident while trying to find a grounding activity…If she inherently had something that required her to focus her chakra…

"I can't quit sensei." She insisted, resolutely staring Kakashi down.

"No, I suppose you can't." Kakashi sighed. He really had been too hard on Gai earlier, about teaching Lee the Hidden Lotus. After all, how was allowing her to continue any different, really?

"…is that…is that okay with you, Naruto? Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked quietly, turning to her two other teammates. She really was putting them at risk. She could turn out just like her dad…

"I understand if it's not…I could get you two killed."

"Oh course it's alright!" Naruto shouted. He wouldn't dream of kicking her off the team. He had a demon inside him—he was just as much a danger to his team as she was. Who was he to judge?

"Hn." Sasuke assented. If she was going to put herself at risk by continuing to be a ninja, it was better she stayed close, where he and Naruto could keep her out of danger. Besides, it wasn't like he wanted her to leave the team.

"Well for better or worse, that settles that. We should let Sasuke get some rest. We'll be leaving first thing tomorrow morning when you're officially discharged. Sakura, you should go check on your mom. Naruto, come with me, I'll introduce you to your new teacher."

Naruto grumbled but followed him out. He still wanted Kakashi to train him. It wasn't like he didn't get it, what with that creep being after Sasuke, but still.

Sasuke studied Sakura carefully. "Are you sure about this?"

"I'll figure it out…"

"Hn." All he knew was that he didn't want her to die…but if anyone could figure it out, it'd be Sakura.

---

Mebuki wasn't sure whether Kakashi would heed her wish to not tell Sakura until after the chunin exams were complete. She figured either he had, in which case when her daughter walked in, she'd be excited at her passing, or saddened by her failure. Or he hadn't, in which case her daughter would probably walk in furious at her mother having kept this from her. So when Sakura walked in, her face blank and…calm, Mebuki wasn't sure what to think.

"I'm home…"

"Welcome home, Sakura-chan. How'd the test go?"

"I made it to the finals. They're in a month."

Mebuki beamed with pride. "Well obviously you did! You are my daughter, after all."

Sakura's throat tightened a bit. She suddenly knelt next to her mother and pulled her into a hug.

"Thank you for believing in me, mom."

"S…Sakura-chan…" Her mother didn't hesitate to hug her back, but she was confused. Sakura didn't usually hug her. She didn't often thank her either—not that her daughter had very much to be thankful to her for.

"Kakashi-sensei told me about dad…" Sakura said, her voice tight, though she didn't remove her arms from her mother, her face still buried in her mother's boney shoulder. Mebuki tensed. "You knew the whole time…but you…why didn't you stop me?"

"Sakura-chan…you might not remember this, but when your dad died, you cried alone for two hours, and wouldn't let me near you. You had your own room back then, to lock yourself in. When you came out, you weren't crying anymore. You smiled at me. I asked if you were alright, and you said, 'No. But Daddy says he likes when I smile, so that's what he wants me to do. When I'm happy I'll smile bigger for him, but for now I'll do this much.' That was the strongest thing I'd ever heard anyone say—and you were only four at the time. And then we started having money problems and had to find somewhere else to live. We barely had anything—definitely not enough for something like shampoo. And you showed up with this goop you'd mixed yourself because of a comment and some library books, and it actually worked. Better than anything we'd been using before. So you weren't just strong, you were brilliant as well…how could I not believe someone like that could beat their chakra condition? All you ever wanted to do was be a Ninja and help people—whether it was me or anyone else…how could I deprive the world of someone like that? Your father tried to avoid things that would trigger it, and of course that didn't work, because there's always something that'll trigger extreme emotions, no matter what life style you lead. But Sakura-chan…I think you'll find a better way."

Sakura held on to her mother tighter, burying her head deeper into her shoulder. Her eyes misted, but she didn't want to cry. Not now. Not after her mother just told her how strong she thought she was.

"I'll figure it out mom." She muttered into her mother's pale, boney skin.

"I know you will…I didn't get a chance to say it to you before, but happy birthday."

Sakura gave a small laugh. Hugging tighter for one second longer before pulling away.

"How have you been feeling?"

"Never mind that!" Mebuki said with a dismissive wave. "Tell me everything!" Her eyes glittered with excitement and liveliness, as if she wasn't so sick that she couldn't leave the house.

Sakura smiled and recounted everything that happened, from Rock Lee asking her out and challenging Sasuke, to the first exam, asking Kotetsu for a favor, Anko and the Forest of Death, Orochimaru, the sound ninja, Kabuto, the preliminaries, and making up with Ino. She left out nothing. There was no need to hide anything. Her mother had faith that no matter how much danger she'd face, she'd be able to overcome it. It was obvious in the pride that glittered in her eyes as Sakura recounted her adventures.

"I'm sorry mom, but I'm gonna use that money from Kakashi-sensei to cover us for a little bit, while I train for the final."

"If you didn't I'd smack you." Mebuki answered dryly, although secretly deeply grateful that Sakura had reached that conclusion herself, without another argument. "By the way, your sensei wanted me to give this to you as a birthday present." She said, pulling out a small package of beautiful squares of origami paper and handing it to Sakura.

Sakura was surprised, both that Kakashi had actually bothered to get her anything, and that he'd noticed the small box of cranes stashed in the closet.

"Thank you!" Sakura was the kind of person who liked to keep her hands moving, and on the rare occasion late at night when she had nothing to do and her mind was too hyper with anxieties, origami was actually soothing. She'd always wanted to try folding real paper instead of peeled off food wrappers.

"You'll have to thank him. He came by a lot while you were taking your test—mostly to talk about your Kekkei Genkai."

"About that…I didn't even know the Harunos were a formalized clan. They're not mentioned in the clan scroll I read."

"Because of their kekkei genkai, they weren't really wanted anywhere and became somewhat nomadic. Your father said they originated in Konoha way back before it even was Konoha, but ended up leaving because they were deemed 'bad luck'. Your father made it sound like they never particularly settled anywhere. He always wanted to be a ninja and ended up coming to the Village with his older brother when he was five. He joined the Academy and the two lived together."

"What happened to dad's brother?"

"He died from the kekkei genkai long before I even met your father. Kizashi said that it happened when he was thirteen so his brother must have been twenty. He never said what triggered him. He didn't talk about his brother in detail very much."

"Did he have any books or scrolls about the curse? Any Haruno clan information about it? Like what actually happens?"

Mebuki shook her head sadly. "They never kept anything by way of written record. Everything was word of mouth. You have to understand Sakura-chan, they thought of themselves as cursed as much as everyone else did. Not many lived long enough to make any sort of careful record, and extensive study would mean triggering someone repeatedly, which is dangerous and cruel, as well as having access to equipment and resources, which they didn't since they didn't closely belong to any village."

Sakura leaned back on her hands, chewing on her lip in thought.

"That makes this harder…I don't really have anything to work off of, other than my own experience…I'll go to the library tomorrow and see if I can learn more about what constitutes an extreme emotion and what happens in the body during it…Oh, and Sasuke-kun and Kakashi-sensei are leaving tomorrow morning…I hope Sasuke-kun will be okay…I'd like to see him before he goes…A whole month out of the village without us…I know he'll have Kakashi-sensei but…what if he gets lonely. Will he miss us?"

Her gaze fell to the decorative folding paper on her lap.

"…Maybe later. I should take inventory of our food and herb situation first."

Sakura got up and began cataloging what was left in the kitchen, and looking over what medicinal herbs she had left. She started working on another batch of ointment, since she was out, and selling some to Ikehara for a bit of extra cash wouldn't hurt. Tomorrow would be about restocking, researching and planning. She'd proceed with training from there.

---

"Sasuke-kun! Wait!"

Sasuke turned at the sound of Sakura's voice. It was early morning and he and Kakashi were the only ones out. True to his word for once, the second Sasuke had been discharged, Kakashi was there waiting for him with a packed bag, and waisted no time in ushering him out. It didn't bother Sasuke. He wanted to get training as soon as possible. He needed to get stronger. Naruto had already started with his new teacher, Ebisu, and Sasuke didn't want to fall behind.

Sakura skidded to a stop in front of them, relived that she'd managed to catch up with them before they'd walked out of the main gate.

"Here." She said, thrusting out her lightly fisted hand to him.

Sasuke wasn't sure what she was doing, and just blinked in confusion. Honestly, he was kind of surprised she was even there in the first place.

When he hadn't moved for over three seconds, Sakura took his hand and gently deposited a small, midnight blue, paper crane, decorated with smatterings of delicate pink cherry blossoms, into his palm.

"I hope your training goes well." She murmured softly. The night before, after she'd made note of everything she needed to refill, cooked dinner, made up some more ointment, showered and stretched, she'd found the familiar problem of her mind racing, preventing her from sleep. So, she'd made use of Kakashi's gift to her and started folding. When she'd come to that particular small square of paper, the blue of it reminded her of Sasuke, for some reason, and she'd somehow talked herself into giving it to him as a parting gift.

Sasuke stared down at the paper bird, feeling a weird stirring of emotions in his chest…his mother had always liked paper cranes…but why was Sakura giving this to him?

"…Don't you need this more?" He asked quietly.

"I'm so far from a thousand, giving one to you won't make much difference. Maybe it'll bring you…" Sakura hesitated.

"Bring him, what? Good luck?"

"Coming from us that's more likely to jinx him. Besides Sasuke-kun doesn't need luck!"

"No…I guess not. What does he need? So much bad has already happened to him…"

"Maybe it'll bring you something good." She finished lamely, her face flushing. She quickly looked away from his intense gaze, too embarrassed to maintain eye contact any longer.

"How on earth did I convince myself this was a good idea?"

Sasuke wasn't sure what to do with this situation. Had she really come all this way, this early, just to give him this? She was definitely blushing…That's what girls did when they liked you, right? But he'd seen Naruto blush sometimes—and known that he himself had as well, and that was all embarrassment. So which was this?

And she'd given him a gift. That alone was sending waves of confused emotions through him. It was…annoying. Sakura didn't have anything. No money. No resources. Where had she gotten the paper from? She would have never wasted the money for it. Maybe it was a gift…although the only friendly connections she seemed to have were team 7, her mother, and Ikehara. He knew it wasn't from him or Naruto. It couldn't have been from her mother, unless she'd asked Kakashi to get some. That left either Kakashi or Ikehara…That wasn't the point! She shouldn't be giving anything she had, no matter how small or useless it might seem, away. She was so smart—so why was she doing something so stupid? Why was she disregarding her own needs yet again for his?

But also…he hadn't received a gift since he was eight. Not one that meant anything. Not one from someone who actually sort of knew him. Sure, fangirls attempted to give him gifts on his birthday or on romantic festivals he never paid attention to. But he never accepted them. They were always too loud, and too public, declaring their love for him when they didn't even know him, stopping him on the streets, or cornering him in the hallway. And they were always things he hated. Chocolate, sweets, roses, or some useless accessory like a knit scarf. He never accepted those gifts and they never held any real weight…this was the first. Sakura would have no way of knowing they were his mother's favored decoration. But for Sakura to even give something material was a lot.

And then there were the words she'd said. Maybe it'll bring you something good. Not luck, not happiness, not serenity. Just something good. It was a testament to how well she actually knew him. It wasn't some overly optimistic big wish that he himself didn't even have hope for. But instead she wished him something realistic. 'Something good,' was small, simple, attainable. A small lifeline when he was surrounded by bad. And if he ever had the bandwidth for hope, 'something good' could become much larger. It was an adaptable sentiment that he didn't want to dismiss.

All and all, despite how annoying and confusing it was, he found he didn't want to reject this gift.

"…Hn…" He murmured, his fingers closing around the paper bird gently, before carefully tucking it into a small pocket of his pack. "Be careful, Sakura." After all she should really be worrying about herself and her condition, not about his life's misfortunes—she had plenty of her own.

Sakura's eyes widened at his acceptance of the crane, and his concerned warning. But she didn't fight the smile tugging at her lips, or the flush persistently spreading across her cheeks.

"Orochimaru was wrong…there's no way this Sasuke-kun would seek him out for power."

Sasuke felt an uncomfortable warmth spreading through him at the smile Sakura was wearing, and was silently grateful when Kakashi, who'd stepped away from them when she first came over, his nose buried in that dumb book, redirected her attention.

"I'm glad you caught us Sakura. I'm sorry I didn't find someone to train you…I was hoping it wouldn't be necessary."

"I understand…" Sakura muttered, shifting her weight a little. It was uncomfortable to think that her sensei still didn't want her to continue being a ninja.

"I don't suppose you'll at least drop out of the finals?"

"Dosu and I have some unfinished business."

"That mummified creep needs to learn that we don't take kindly to people threatening our teammates."

While he'd expected her to refuse, he hadn't expected that. It sounded more like something Naruto or Sasuke would say…he never would have pegged Sakura to have a vindictive side.

"Very well…but during this time, you're to prioritize training for survival over training to win. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sensei."

"Good. In that vein, I have something for you." He said handing her a white box.

Sakura took the box, and at his nod, opened it to see four metal bracelets and a music player.

"Those are chakra weights. They're a training tool for chakra control. Each requires a certain amount of the wearer's maximum chakra capacity focused into them in order for the wearer to move that limb. They'll also physically feel that percentage of the wearer's body weight. These ones are set to five percent."

"So…they'll each require five percent of my chakra concentrated into them if I want to move?"

"Yes. And they'll each feel like five percent of your body weight." Kakashi confirmed. "I've left another three sets with Asuma. fifteen percent, twenty-five percent, and fifty percent. Once you're able to dance smoothly while wearing them, with a change in contact points, on a tree and on water, you can move on to the next set. The first two won't be too hard for you, but the second two will probably be a bit of a challenge. Aside from when you're changing sets, I forbid you from removing them. You're to wear them at all times."

"But Sakura's chakra control is already good. Why use these?" Sasuke cut in, staring at the bracelets. They seemed more like something he or Naruto should be using.

Sakura was glad he asked because she had been wondering the same.

"A couple of reasons." Kakashi said, addressing the rest of his answer to Sakura. "They will help build your normal chakra levels in the same way leg weights build muscle. Secondly, in the event of an…episode, they'll give you a specific place and amount to focus your chakra to."

"A grounding activity…" Sakura realized.

"Yes. If you're chakra activates and you don't have an ally around, you won't be able to count on chakra sharing to save you. Part of why chakra sharing works is because it reduces the amount of chakra, but calming down and wresting some control of your chakra will also help lesson the damage. Third, they'll help you train and get used to moving your chakra around fast. The more accustomed and equipped your body is to handling chakra moving at high speeds, the easier it'll be for your body to handle your activated chakra movements. I suspect chakra control will be the key to surviving your curse. Luckily, you're quite gifted at it. Your chakra control is very good, but it needs to be better than perfect if you want to keep going."

"I understand, Sensei." She was glad for the direction, so she wouldn't be left to figure all her training out alone. "…but why not have Sasuke-kun or Naruto wear these as well?"

Sasuke had been thinking exactly that.

"Hm…well how should I put this…Sasuke, your chakra control is good enough for your purposes, and you'll need to focus more on training your ninjutsu and taijutsu, as well as effectively pairing them with your sharingan. Naruto does need to work more on his chakra control, but he benefits more from exercises that have a clear reachable end goal. A training tool based on sustaining and endurance wouldn't work well for him. And neither Sasuke nor Naruto needs to work on increasing their base levels of chakra. The fact is chakra weights are a rarely used training tool because they require a level of focus that most don't have, including Sasuke and Naruto. You, Sakura, have the ability for that level of focus, but even if you didn't, your survival hinges on your focus and chakra control. There are plenty of other ways to teach control that will be more effective for your teammates, but this way will be the best for you both in training, and as a precaution."

She slipped the metal bracelets on to her wrists and ankles. They were too big, and she didn't feel any sort of resistance or weight.

"Are they broken?"

"No, not broken. They just haven't been activated yet." Kakashi touched two fingers to one of the bracelets on her wrist, and held two fingers up in front of his face, in half a ram sign.

The bracelets constricted around her wrists and ankles, tightening until they were snug against her skin. She felt a minor weight added to the extremities—five percent of her body weight, so it was only 1.75 Kilograms. Nothing unmanageable. Her homemade weights and been heavier than that. But even so, when she attempted to raise her wrist for closer examination, she found it unresponsive.

"Five percent of my total chakra each…since there's four of them, that means I have to set aside twenty percent of my chakra for the weights, just to ensure I can still move. Five percent to each won't be hard to manage, but what am I gonna do when I get to twenty-five and fifty each?"

Closing her eyes, she focused on segmenting twenty percent of her chakra from her total, and then splitting it into four and sending it out into the four weights attached to her extremities. The bracelets warmed slightly, and she was able to move her wrist closer to her face to study the metal band around it.

"Kakashi-sensei? These weights don't expend the chakra, right? They just require it to be focused to them?"

"That's right. You're not using the chakra, just channeling it. If you were to call it away, you could still use it for other purposes, although maybe not, because it would reduce your mobility."

"Then twenty-five percent and fifty percent are really gonna be a problem…it'll be a choice between Having chakra available to fight with, and moving…"

"I suspect you'll clear the first two levels in a week or less…you may even clear the first level by tomorrow. But the last two will prove much harder." Kakashi said, voicing her own thoughts. "Remember. You are not to take the weights off. Ever."

Sakura gave a firm nod, setting Kakashi at ease. She wasn't one to disobey orders, and clearly she understood the importance of them.

"Well, good. We should be going now." Kakashi said, turning his attention back to Sasuke.

"Ah, right! I'm sorry to have kept you." She said with a flustered bow. "Oh and thanks for the gift, sensei!"

"Don't give them all away," Kakashi laid his hand on her head and ruffled her soft pink hair, "Although, I suppose this is a special case." He said, giving her a wink. After all, Kakashi, knew what she was doing, he'd been there during her battle with Ino and he'd heard her declaration loud and clear.

Sakura turned bright red, trying to stammer out some kind of protest. Kakashi may have been there, but Sasuke hadn't, and if he had been there, she wasn't sure she would have been so bold as to confess her feelings like that.

"Damnit Kakashi-sensei!"

Sasuke's brow furrowed. Obviously this was in reference to the paper crane. Special case? Was that because it was him? Or was there some tradition he hadn't been aware of? Was giving a crane when someone was leaving some sort of common superstition or ritual? He tried to think back if he ever saw his mother do something like this, but he couldn't conjure up any distinct memory of it. This was one of the ways he was similar and related closely to Naruto. He'd only been eight when his family died, so there were many pieces of etiquette and custom that he had never learned. Mebuki, on the other hand, had drilled etiquette into her daughter, partly for survival. Having no manners or sense of etiquette as well as being poor would surely give people one more reason to look down on Sakura. For all Sasuke knew, this could be a common place custom. But Sakura was definitely blushing and seemed nervous. Why would that be the case if this was just a common custom?

Kakashi turned around with a small chuckle and walked towards the gate, his nose already buried in his orange book.

"Goodbye, Sasuke-kun." Her voice was smaller than she liked and her face felt hot.

"…Hn." He turned abruptly following their sensei. He'd meant to say it back to her…but for some reason, he found he couldn't. Not when she was looking at him with that look. The words just died in his mouth. He felt an odd pang of as he walked through the village gates, trailing behind Kakashi. What was it? Homesickness? Whatever it was, he didn't dwell on it, easily pushing the feeling aside. Training and getting stronger was more important, and the thrill at the prospect was larger than whatever depression he felt walking away from the village.

Sakura stood, watching their backs until they disappeared over the horizon. She hated watching Sasuke leave.

"It doesn't matter. He's safer this way, and he's with Kakashi-sensei. I have to trust them both, and trust Naruto with his training and worry about myself for now. I've got work to do."

It was too early to stop by Ikehara's or go shopping, the library wouldn't be open for another hour.

"Right. I'll start working on tree dancing with these weights, and then head for the library once it opens. I'll take care of shopping and everything later."

With that thought, Sakura set off for the woods.

---

Sakura learned very quickly that even though she was able to move with this level of chakra and physical weight just fine, navigating them when it came to tree climbing and dancing was far more difficult.

"Kakashi-sensei wasn't kidding when he said this took a lot of focus…"

She'd fallen twice now, which was twice more than she'd ever fallen when simply tree climbing. She hadn't even started dancing yet!

"The problem is…in the moment I keep forgetting to separate the five percent for the cuffs from the chakra I'm using to keep my self attached to the tree. I'm doing fine maintaining the percentage to my wrists but since I'm using my feet, the chakra I'm sending keeps taking the five percent in my ankles with it."

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, focusing her chakra, five percent to both ankles. She focused the chakra necessary to tree climb into her feet and took three steps up the tree before stopping.

"Ok. Keep yourself in place. Keep five percent in your ankles."

When she didn't fall immediately, and was still able to roll her ankle around, she knew she'd succeeded. On to phase two. Walking. She took several slow tentative steps up the tree, her brows furrowing as she concentrated hard on moving the chakra to her feet without disrupting the chakra humming around her ankles. She paid careful attention to the way she had to move her chakra around, trying to imprint the feel of her chakra bypassing itself, how portions of it stayed in one place while others raced through it. There was something soothing about it, and she became so focused on maintaining the motion and imprinting the feel of the movement, that she fell into something of a trance, and didn't even notice that she'd reached the top of the tree until she almost stepped off it. She settled herself of the tip of the tree, balancing on the pad of her right foot as she looked down.

"That was no good, if I have to focus that hard just to climb…I almost walked right off the tree! I can't be so focused on my chakra that I forget what's going on around me, not only is that poor shinobi skills, it's completely dangerous!"

"Oh come on! Give us the win! We made it up the tree with the stupid weights on and it hasn't even been a full hour since we got them! We're friggin awesome! Shannaro!"

"I need to master these first two as quickly as possible…the longer I have to get used to the last two percentage settings, the better off I'll be. I only have one month, which isn't that long, to take my skills from pretty much nothing to enough to hold up to Dosu…I need to clear these weights by the end of today, if I can!"

"Shannaro! Knew we were gonna train to win, no matter what Kakashi-sensei said!"

"I'm gonna do both, cause I am not dying at sixteen—I refuse. But I have no intention of losing to Dosu. I don't care after that, but I won't lose to him…I wonder if that walk up was enough for my body to memorize that chakra movement. If it was, then I can start working on dancing…although I had to focus so hard…"

Sakura let out a sigh of frustration. She knew the smart thing to do was to just keep working on walking until the necessary chakra movement was second nature. That was the right way to do this. But that would take too long.

"Screw it! I'll just start dancing now. Hopefully it'll force me to get used to the chakra flow faster."

"Trial by fire! Hell yeah!"

Sakura withdrew the music player Kakashi had given her and hit play, listening closely as the song warbled out of the device. She tucked the music player back into her weapons pouch, focused her chakra, and began dancing.

She lasted through her complicated sequence of steps, alternating feet, balancing on one foot, holding strange positions and going on her toes, but disaster struck when she attempted a spin. The rapid spin caused her to lose focus on the five percent of her chakra in her working leg, causing it to lock up, throwing her weight off and making her fall.

Sakura quickly grabbed onto the rough bark, focusing her chakra to her hands to catch herself. Her palms dragged across the bark, tearing at the skin, but she finally managed to stop her momentum.

"Whew."

"What the hell was that?!"

"Well…losing focus is a big no…ok. I made it about a quarter of the way down before that…mishap. I didn't lose focus during those footwork sequences, and actually holding poses was even better than usual because having to focus on the chakra maintenance actually seemed to be helpful for my sense of balance. Footwork sequences must be close enough to walking to not have thrown off my focus. But spinning is a very different motion."

"Then let's drill it til we get used to it!"

"Right."

Sakura straightened, focused carefully on her chakra, and once it matched with the timing of the music, pushed herself into a spin. She made sure to keep focused on her chakra, but in the process her body leaned too far over her working leg, making her step out of the spin messily.

"Can I even land a single turn correctly?"

Sakura's frustration was mounting. Dance and chakra control were the two things she was good at and but with the weights on, it was like she'd lost her skills in even those.

"I'm not giving up yet…if I scale back my power on my spins and work my way up slowly, I'll get the hang of it…"

For the next ten minutes, Sakura worked only on making single rotation spins, switching legs once she'd finally gotten the hang of it. Then she attempted double rotation spins, and when she was able to maintain focus through them, she decided to go for broke.

"Let's see how long I can maintain focus and keep myself spinning, when I can't anymore, I'll break off and go back to dancing my way down." She took a deep breath. "Remember Sakura, the movement of the chakra doesn't change. Just maintain it."

Sakura pushed herself up into a spin, her eyes fixated on a single leaf as she snapped her head around over and over, using her dancing leg and arms to renew her force to keep spinning whenever she began to slow.

"Two, three, four…"

Sakura's position didn't waver.

"Seven, eight, nine…"

Her head snapped around again and again, her eyes holding a single point of focus until the last possible second, before refinding it again.

"Eleven, twelve, thirteen…"

A wind came, blowing the leaf she'd been using as her point of focus, and throwing off her concentration. She quickly broke the spin as dizziness began to set in, straining to maintain her chakra control. She quickly danced a few steps, before going into a cartwheel. Her eyes widened a second before her hands made contact with the bark, but it was too late. As her hands planted themselves on the tree trunk, she came unglued from the tree's surface and fell to the ground, barely making it into a shoulder role in time for the landing.

"What the hell?!"

Sakura lay on the ground for a moment, waiting for the world to stop spinning, breathing hard and sweating from exertion.

"I didn't have enough chakra to make it to my hands…"

"Shannaro! We weren't even doing this for that long!"

Sakura shook her head.

"But 20% of my chakra isn't available because of the weights. The chakra I sent to my feet was the exact amount needed to hold me to the tree for so long, but I didn't have the amount needed left to send to my hands. I'd have had to send what I was already using for my feet to my hands, and I can't do it fast enough…"

"Damnit! How are we supposed to do this when the chakra at our disposal's even lower than usual! How are we gonna master this in a day?!"

"Kakashi-sensei said that they're like leg weights—they will help me build more chakra but that'll take some time. And at least 20% of it will have to be set aside for the weights…But, I think there's still hope for at least mastering tree dancing today…If I hadn't had to walk up the tree to get used to the chakra movement first, I think I would have had enough to dance and successfully change contact points. Plus I burned through a lot of chakra just drilling spins…but I managed thirteen rotations without losing control within 15 minutes of drilling them."

"And if it hadn't been for the wind messing up our spot we totally could have kept going!"

"Right. So with a little bit of rest, I should be able to fully dance on the tree. And I'm not completely drained, so I should be good to try again in a few hours. Then I can move on to water."

She sighed and pushed herself up. It hadn't been a full hour, but the library was pretty far from here…If she started now, with how tired she was, she should get there as it opened.

---

Sakura sat at one of the library tables, surrounded by every book and scroll she could find on chakra behavior, and the nature of emotions. Unfortunately there weren't many. Human understanding of both chakras and emotions were limited. There were also so many theories, all with a fair amount of supporting evidence, that it was impossible to say which was right.

One theory stated that there were only six universal emotions that all humans experienced regardless of cultures: Happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, fear, and surprise. These were considered basic emotions, and combinations of the six resulted in other 'secondary' emotions, and combinations of those resulted in tertiary emotions.

Then there were all the biological theories pertaining to emotion. They were grouped into three major categories: physiological, neurological, and cognitive.

A physiological theory suggested that external stimulus lead to a physiological reaction, and the emotional reaction was dependent on how the person interpreted that physiological response. For instance, if Sakura was walking through the woods alone, and stumbled upon a band of powerful rogue ninja, her body might begin to tremble and her heart rate increase. She would conclude she is frightened. She wouldn't be trembling because she felt frightened, instead, she'd be frightened because she was trembling.

But another theory pitched that they happened simultaneously, that one didn't cause the other. Sakura encountered a band of rogue ninja alone in the woods, and she'd feel frightened at the same time as she started trembling.

Another theory proposed that a stimulus lead to a physiological response that is then cognitively interpreted and labeled, resulting in an emotion. This theory allowed for the fact that similar physiological responses could produce varying emotions. For example, Sakura's palms sweat and her heart raced both when she was around Sasuke, and when her mother spiked a fever. But because of the different circumstances, one was interpreted as attraction while the other was interpreted as anxiety.

Then there was the cognitive theory which stated that thought came first. The sequence of events first involved a stimulus, followed by a thought, which would lead to the simultaneous experience of an emotional and physical response. So if Sakura were walking alone in the woods and stumbled upon a band of powerful rogue ninja, she would begin to think that she was in danger, which would then lead to her experiencing the physical and emotional reactions of fear.

All in all, there were too many theories for Sakura to lock on to one as what was undeniably happening.

"But if I assume my chakra is part of a physiological reaction, and take into account that different emotions can be tied to similar physiological responses, then maybe there are other physiological reactions I can tie my chakra reaction to."

"Didn't we already know that?"

"Not exactly. Fear and anger for example. Both involve an increase in heart rate, so maybe the chakra spike comes with a spike in heart rate."

"Exercise also spikes heart rate. We didn't go super nova while dancing earlier, or fighting, or running during the chunin exams."

"No. Because those actions aren't extricably tied with an emotion. It would only trigger with the heart rate increase because of an emotion."

"But we felt fear, anxiety, and anger during the preliminaries and our chakra didn't react."

"Maybe it wasn't extreme enough. Kakashi-sensei said it triggers with an extreme emotional response. So if we look at those six base emotions, and factor out the ones that don't induce accelerated heart rate…we can narrow it down to the extremes and variations on happiness, anger, fear, and surprise."

"That only eliminated two…"

"Got any better ideas?!" She internally snapped at herself. "For all I know, this isn't even remotely the right direction, but I've got nothing else to go on."

Sakura let out a frustrated groan, burying her head in her arms for a second.

"How in depth should I go with this? Should I look into the neurochemicals responsible? Obviously adrenaline's involved—ugh! Of all the things to be wrong with my body it just had to be in the area I know the least about…"

Sakura had never done any extensive research into brain chemistry or behavior. She'd read up on genetics, anatomy, the various systems of the body, cells, viruses, bacteria…but never neurochemistry. It had never seemed to be part of the issue with her mother.

"…Even harder is that I have no way to prove I'm right…"

"Knew I'd find you here, Forehead!" A bubbly voice shouted.

"We're in a library, Pig! Keep it down!" Sakura hissed. The last thing she needed was to be band from her only resource.

"You're taking a break." Ino ordered, at a more library acceptable volume.

"I can't right now, Ino-chan, this is important." Sakura answered, her eyes dropping back to the page of her book.

Ino scanned the various scrolls and books on the table, noting that most of them were about the brain and human mind. That happened to be her area of specialty, and she'd be damned if she didn't help her best friend with whatever she was struggling with this time.

"You're going to take a break and tell me why you're studying up on brain biology, and you're going to eat something while you're at it." Ino said, yanking Sakura up and dragging her out of the building, her protests falling on deaf ears.

---

Ino stared Sakura down silently. She'd dragged her to a small food place and ordered for her, countering Sakura's habit of ordering a single helping of the cheapest thing on the menu.

Sakura shifted nervously under her best friend's stare. She'd told Ino everything about her Kekkei genkai, and she feared Ino's judgement on the matter. It wasn't natural for Ino to stay silent for so long and it was making her restless.

"So…It happens when you experience extreme emotions."

"Yeah."

"That's why you were looking up the brain."

"Yeah."

"And you're gonna stay a ninja even though ninja in your family usually only live til 16."

"Yeah."

"And you're not gonna drop out of the chunin exams."

"Hell no."

"Good." A proud smile spread across her face. "Well lucky for you, Forehead, your amazing best friend happens to be a mind expert."

"Pig…" Sakura couldn't begin to put into words what Ino's confidence and willingness to help meant to her. So Sakura did something she'd never done before—something her entire being rejected. "Thank you, because I need help."

Ino's eyes shot to Sakura, wide with shock. Sakura had never ever asked her for help. She thought of every responsibility she took on as her own burden to bear alone.

"You got it, Forehead, always." She said, her eyes softening. But then her expression turned serious as she leaned across the table. "Ok, so I overheard my dad talking about this way to help people get over fears by exposing the person to them, so what if we try the same thing with you?"

"Try to make me fearless?"

"What? No! That wouldn't work anyways! I mean, what if we try pushing you to emotional extremes. You don't know exactly which emotions it applies to, so we can try them all and see what actually sets you off. And then from there you can work on controlling your emotional reactions in those scenarios."

Sakura's eyes widened. "Oh my god! Ino-chan that's brilliant! No one ever did any studies on it—so I'll just have to be the study!"

"I can help record and monitor what's going on with your chakra—I'm supposed to be training my chakra sensing anyways, so I can practice getting more detailed perceptions. The only question is how to trigger you without putting you in greater danger, and how to stop your chakra reaction."

Sakura chewed on her lip, mulling it over. It wasn't like they could just push her off a cliff and get a good set of data or training in…

"No, I need a way to simulate an emotionally heightened experience without actually being in it for real…like…"

"We could try genjutsu. It was actually a genjutsu that set it off the first time—although that situation was genuinely dangerous. But Kakashi-sensei also pulled a pretty scary genjutsu on me when he was testing us, so it might work…"

"I don't think I can do a genjutsu strong enough to push you over the edge—your stress tolerance and emotional control is already pretty high. It'll take something pretty strong to set you off…"

"What about one of the other Jonin sensei?"

Ino's eyes brightened. "Actually, yeah! Kurenai-sensei is really good at genjutsu! Asuma-sensei has mentioned it more than once—he's totally in love with her, you know? And I think Shino's training with his dad, so she should be pretty free at the moment."

"That's perfect! Let's go ask her!"

"We're finishing eating first." Ino said, giving her a stern look.

"No, duh! Like hell am I gonna waste food." As soon as the words left her mouth, her cheeks colored with embarrassment, her head dropping to quickly shove food in her mouth.

Ino smiled. It was still a little strange hearing Sakura talk like that, but it was good. Better. That part of her sounded stronger and more confident. Less willing to accept all the shit people threw at her. And Ino liked that. She preferred her friend fiery to passively polite. Most of all, Sakura sounded more like a kid and less like a twenty-six year old in a thirteen year old's body.

"So that's a start for handling your kekkei genkai. How are you gonna beat Dosu?"

Sakura swallowed a rather large bite of food, before tangling a hand in the back of her hair and letting out an awkward laugh.

"I haven't really figured that part out yet…I was gonna read up on sound waves…I'm kinda at a loss for how to actually beat sound."

"Well, how about the way you beat me?"

"Brawling? I kinda doubt that'll be enough…besides Lee-san's a taijutsu master, and Dosu still got the better of him—there's no way I'll even get close to Lee-san's level in a month—"

"You didn't beat me with Taijutsu at all Sakura-chan!" Ino cut in. "In fact, you won because what you pulled at the end wasn't any kind of taijutsu at all. We're ninjas, so when someone engages us in physical combat, that's what we expect. No matter what style or technique our opponent is using, it still comes down to punching and kicking. But that's not what you did."

"I mean…I still kicked…"

"Yeah, but because you danced. You didn't aim a kick at me, it was just part of your spin. I had no idea how to counter what you were doing cause it was so unexpected. You weren't using a known fighting style. It was something entirely different."

"So you think I can beat him by dancing?"

"Well, not only. But I think you've got something to work with there."

"She's right. I moved like that at the time because dancing is the most natural kind of movement to my body, so it required less chakra—but shinobi aren't taught dance, so it really does come with an element of surprise…and more than that, I'm gonna need to make sure I'm eating through as little chakra as possible, because by then I'll either be at 25% or 50% weight levels and I won't have the chakra to spare…"

"You're right, Ino-chan."

"Of course I am!" Ino said with a proud toss of her head.

"So the question is, how do I turn my dancing into a full combat move…?" Sakura murmured, her voice trailing off, as she was struck with the memory of both Sasuke's and Naruto's preliminary battles.

Lion's barrage!…

U…Zu…Ma…Ki…Naruto barrage!…

"That's it! A barrage sequence…I'll need someone to train it with…"

"Ino-chan, let's hurry up! We've got a lot of people to visit!"

Sakura quickly but carefully finished off the rest of her food, before running out of the restaurant, Ino stuffing the remainder of her meal into her face before taking off after her.

---

They found Kurenai at the hospital, coming out of Hinata's room.

"Kurenai-sensei!" Sakura called, happy to have found her. "How's Hinata-chan?"

"Sakura, Ino." Kurenai greeted in confusion. Were they visiting Hinata? She'd never thought the three had been particularly close… "She's doing much better now. They say she'll be fully recovered in the next two days."

"Really! That's great!" Ino said, relief in her voice. She and Hinata may not have been especially close, but Ino always liked her, especially post her break up with Sakura, since Hinata was one of the only girls to never give Sakura a hard time.

"Thank goodness they made it on time! That procedure has a high success and recovery rate, but the window is limited. I was worried they might not make it in time." Sakura said with a sigh of relief.

"You know a lot about medical practices, Sakura." Kurenai observed, not for the first time.

"Ah…I read a lot." Sakura said, tugging lightly on the ends of her hair. "Actually, about that. Would you help me with an experiment, Kurenai-sensei?"

"Experiment?"

"Yeah…it's sort of training as well and it's kinda a long story but you see I sorta…" Sakura stopped when she became aware that she was babbling.

"This is hard…it's one thing to tell Ino-chan, she's my best friend…but I barely know Kurenai-sensei…she's a jonin! Obviously I can trust her but…"

She was too used to doing things on her own. It was one thing to ask Ino, her team, or her own sensei for help, or reveal something as personal and horrifying to them as her kekkei genkai. They were all people very close to her. But strangers…

"Kurenai-sensei, could we talk to you somewhere private?" Ino cut in, when she saw Sakura struggling.

"Um…sure." Kurenai answered, her brow furrowing in confusion. Kurenai lead them to the hospital roof, and turned to face the girls, her arms crossed over her chest. "What's this about?"

"Well…I kind of have this ability—problem—where…" again Sakura's voice failed her.

"Ugh…how do I reveal this kind of vulnerability to a stranger?!"

Ino glanced at her friend. She understood. Sakura wasn't an open person when it came to her personal life. She'd faced too many enemies who were supposed to have been trusted peers. She was working on it, getting better. She'd shared with Ino her condition voluntarily, even asked for her help. And if Kurenai offered, she'd accept for sure, but Sakura still wasn't at a place where she could just ask someone she didn't know for assistance. Ino understood. Her best friend had made a lot of progress, but things wouldn't change overnight.

"Sakura-chan has a kekkei genkai, which is all life threatening with no perks." Ino explained. "When she experiences extreme emotions her chakra grows so much that it could literally kill her. Her family has only made it to 30 max and if they're shinobi, only half that."

Kurenai's eyes widened. She'd never heard of anything like that.

"No one wrote anything about it or took any notes…" Sakura murmured, tugging lightly at the back of her hair.

"We want to try exposure to emotionally extreme situations to help train her control and take notes on what happens, and we were thinking of using genjutsu to simulate those situations, and Asuma-sensei says you're the best at it." Ino finished.

"…I see." Kurenai answered finally, studying as Sakura shifted nervously. "And if my genjutsu triggers your chakra, how do you plan on not having it kill you right then."

"Uhh…" Ino faltered. They hadn't talked about that.

Sakura took a deep breath and looked directly at Kurenai, green eyes locking with red.

"I have a couple of theories about that. But I won't know if they work if I can't test them."

"Not good enough. If I agree to this, I need to know that there is a course of action to ensure you won't die. I won't be held responsible for killing a genin during training."

"If the condition triggers in response to my emotional state, then knocking me out right at the beginning of the reaction, either by force or with a sedative, should put an end to the reaction."

"You're sure of that?"

"Not perfectly. But if you or Ino-chan is there, I could share my chakra, which will help reduce the amount of damage. That's how I survived the first time."

"Share your…" Kurenai blinked. Sakura continued to stare her down, her eyes dead serious. Kurenai felt the corner of her lips twitch, she liked the fire in this girl's eyes. "If I refuse, what will you do?"

"Find someone else. I'm not giving up on this. I'll learn to control it someway, with or without you."

"Fine. We'll start tomorrow. 6am, training ground 8. We'll be doing this every other day. You'll need some time for your body to recover, and to analyze your data." Kurenai, consented, her eyes closing. She liked Sakura's strong will and determination, despite her initially awkward first impression. "You're dismissed."

"Thank you, Kurenai-sensei." Sakura and Ino bowed. Kurenai vanished in a swirl of leaves and the two girls went back into the hospital.

---

Ino had to depart for training with her dad, but she promised to meet up with Sakura later. Sakura slid open the door to Hinata's room, and for once, she was lucky. Hinata was awake and Kiba and Akamaru were visiting her.

"Hey, Hinata-chan, Kiba!"

"S-Sakura-san!" Hinata's whispery voice murmured in surprise.

"What are you doing here?" Kiba asked. He wasn't trying to be rude exactly, it was just unexpected. Akamaru barked twice, his tail wagging…he seemed to like her well enough.

"I wanted to see how Hinata-chan was doing. You were really badly injured, and Naruto was really worried about you."

"H-He was? N…Naruto-kun was w-worried about me?" Hinata's face was bright red, her pale eyes wide.

"Yeah. And proud. He thought you were amazing Hinata-chan."

"H-He…N-N-Naruto-kun, h-he…." She thought she might pass out.

"He'll be fighting Neji in the first round of the finals. He'll win. He'd rather die than go back on his promise and let you down." Sakura took one look at the pale girls wide eyed face and decided she should probably stop talking.

"Maybe that was a bit too much at once…I thought she had the right to know but it can't be good for someone recovering from a heart surgery to be that red…"

"It'll also help soften her up and agree to help us, although it'll be a waste if she passes out, damnit."

"Eh, Hinata, you should drink some water…" Kiba said thrusting a glass into her hands while side eyeing Sakura. "You want something, don't you?" Akamaru gave a light growl.

"I do actually have something to as you both, although everything I said was true. If you don't want to believe me, you can ask anyone else. They all heard him."

"So, what do you want to ask us?" Kiba was never sure what to make of Sakura. She was a quiet nerd. Not shy like Hinata, just quiet and not really there. She always smelled like fresh flowers, herbs, and stress. She seemed nice enough but all the girls would pick on her. She never did much to defend herself, although she never seemed particularly bothered. She won her fight with Ino, barely, and she'd claimed to be in love with Sasuke. That was about all he knew about her. He really just never paid her much attention.

"Please help me train!" Sakura said, bowing deeply. "Both of you—when you're better of course, Hinata-chan."

They both stared at her, wide eyed. Akamaru cocked his head. That really had been unexpected.

"Why?" Kiba finally asked.

"Because I'm…" Again, she lost her voice for a second. Admitting weakness out loud to anyone but herself was a struggle for her. It was hard not to view it as laying out more ammunition for Ami and all the other bullies to use against her.

"Not everyone is like Ami…just because they're my peers doesn't mean they'll act like her."

"And if they do, screw them! Who needs 'em?!"

"…I'm not strong. I'm not good at fighting. I probably had the poorest showing of everyone that preliminary. I had no skills or special ability to show off…I'm not a good fighter and I need to change that."

"Well, yeah, I know that, but why us?" Kiba said. Being brutally honest was part of his charm, he liked to think.

"Because the way Hinata-chan fights is most compatible with me, and the speed and ferocity you fight with is going to be what I need to learn to counter in my opponent."

"I-I th-think you're mistaken, Sakura-san. I'm n-not a skilled fighter. All my attacks against N-Neji-niisan were u-useless from the beginning. It would be a m-mistake to have m-me as your training partner."

Sakura softened a little. She'd expected that kind of reaction from Hinata. And she knew that feeling of uselessness all too well. She carefully moved closer, taking a seat on the end of Hinata's bed.

"I don't see it like that. He may have won, and I don't know anything about the Byakugan…maybe his is stronger than yours. But that whole fight, I was more interested in watching you than him. Your moves flowed better, every movement connected to the last, like it was natural for your body. No matter how he countered you, you used that momentum for your next hit or block. All of your movements were so graceful and connected, but without ever sacrificing your speed."

Again, Kiba and Hinata stared at her wide eyed, shocked that she'd paid such close attention. Akamaru cocked his head and whined. Hinata blushed a little, unused to such praise.

"I'm not good at taijutsu and my chakra levels are kinda…well, I don't have the chakra to waste on movements that aren't natural to me. But I've been dancing since I was two…those kinds of movements…"

"That's how you knocked out Ino." Kiba recalled, placing the pieces together.

"One last minute lucky hit won't be enough…It was the right direction for me, but I need to actually train and weaponize my dancing. Since watching you fight was like watching someone dance, I thought you might be able to help me Hinata-chan. And I need to practice against someone who hits fast and hard. Smart enough to see every counter and fierce enough to do it. No going easy on me. That was the vibe I got from you Kiba. That's why I wanted to train with you two…"

"Fine by me." Kiba sniffed. She seemed sincere and he didn't have any beef with her. So why not? If she actually managed to pull it off and weaponize her dance, it could be really useful practice for him. If not, it wasn't like he lost anything. And if he refused and she lost her battle badly, it'd feel like his failing, for abandoning a fellow Leaf shinobi. Also, he cared a lot about his teammates, and was especially protective of Hinata. This girl had just bolstered her ability in a way no one ever had before. He felt he owed her for stoking Hinata's confidence the way she just had.

"I totally get—wait really?! You'll help me?" She asked, staring at Kiba with her striking green eyes wide in disbelief.

"Yeah." Had she really not expected him to agree at all? She looked so shocked.

"Thank you! Thank you so much! I swear I'll work hard and I won't let you down—I gotta pay you back somehow…I know! I'll make the best dog treats for Akamaru! I read a book about animal nutrition once, I promise you'll love them!" She said, directing her end statement to the white puppy, who barked happily, his tail wagging.

"I'll…I'll help too, Sakura-san. I-If you think it will be u-useful…"

"You will? Really? Thank you! Oh! But your health comes first, always! So we won't start until you're discharged! And tell me right away if you're tired or in any pain or anything. I'll bring you some supplements that are good for the heart, and shouldn't interfere with any medication they might prescribe you."

"And obviously we'll set you up with Naruto!"

"Eh…Well, I'll try…but he's oblivious and she can barely manage three words in front of him…and I don't know that I'm the best matchmaker, I can't even set myself up."

"No—we totally got this! We'll be the best wing woman ever!"

That was how Kiba and Hinata learned that Sakura hated owing people—even for things they would never considered being owed for.

---

It was mid morning when Sakura stepped out of the hospital. She was grateful she'd had such an early start, there was still a lot left that she had to do, today.

"I've got 28 days to master her chakra weights, gain some level of control over my curse, figure out some sort of way to beat Dosu, and get my physical skill up to par…plus making sure that mom's still doing alright. 14 of those days will be training my control over my curse. Assuming my theory about knocking me out works, my body will probably only be able to handle three, maybe four genjutsu simulations a day, and I will need time to rest after. That means I really only have fourteen days to work out an attack with Kiba and Hinata-chan. That won't work. fourteen days won't be enough…"

Sakura had almost gotten enough chakra to get back to mastering the chakra weights, and was thinking about her time constraints as she wandered through town, heading for the forest.

"Sakura." A lazy voice drawled in greeting as she passed by him.

"Shikamaru." Sakura greeted back absently, before stopping in her tracks, her brow furrowing. "Hey, Shikamaru? You're a really brilliant tactician."

"Huh?" He was a little caught off guard by the compliment. He really only knew her from Ino, who used to praise her incessantly until one day she grew stony and angry whenever she so much as heard the girl's name. Ino always said she was super smart and nice, but the pink haired girl had never gone out her way to talk to him, so he never bothered.

"Your preliminary battle. You're a really brilliant tactician." She repeated.

"Oh…yeah, thanks."

"How'd you get so good?"

"How'd you beat Ino's jutsu?" Ok, he actually had given that a lot of thought. Ino wouldn't give him an answer. He'd even asked his dad if he or Ino's dad knew anything of how the mind transfer could fail like that, and apparently it was unheard of to both of them as well.

Sakura cocked her head to the side, studying him with mildly narrowed eyes.

"Shikamaru's not that strong…I don't think he was actually stronger than Kin. But he didn't need to be stronger to win…he just had to outthink her…I'm smart but I don't think like he does—if he could teach me how to think more like him…ugh I really don't want to explain this—it's so embarrassing and sounds insane…but he's too smart. I'm potentially going to be his opponent. He's not gonna volunteer information about himself that might be used against him without getting anything in return. This is a transaction."

"If I tell you, will you answer me?"

"Sure."

"Hm…let's call it a psychological quirk…? I'm a lot angrier than I let on."

"You expect me to be able to do anything with a vague answer like that? Troublesome girl."

"There are a lot of thoughts and feelings I don't—can't express. In almost every single situation I've ever been in, more than just biting my tongue or tamping down some emotions…Just because I can't afford to express them doesn't mean they stop existing. They took their own form…you heard her…"

Shikamaru's brows shot up in surprise. "That's what Ino meant by you having to spirits in you…?"

Sakura didn't say anything, just stared him down, her jade eyes serious and honest. Shikamaru stared back. Well…he wouldn't have to worry about Ino's jutsu being unreliable. She wasn't lying when she called it a psychological quirk. Most people didn't repress things to such an extreme extent that they manifested a whole other personality. What situation could possibly push a person that far? Whatever it was, it sounded like a drag.

"Shogi."

"…Shogi?" There were many games Sakura had missed out on throughout the course of her childhood. They'd never had enough money for things like Shogi or Go. And she'd never had the time. The only game she ever had in the house was one, old, worn out, hanafuda deck that Mebuki had gotten from her mother back when she was a little girl.

Shikamaru had already started walking away from her when her voice made him stop and face her again.

"Can you teach me?"

"You want me to teach you to play Shogi?" He clarified in disbelief. Why on earth would she want that?

"I want you to teach me to think tactically. If that means learning to play Shogi, then yeah."

"You were top of the class. Ino always said you were smart. What do you need me to teach you to think for?"

"I'm scholastically smart. I think analytically. That's very different than thinking tactically. You know that."

"And why should I?" He drawled. It wasn't the worst thing anyone asked him to do…it wasn't like she'd asked him to spar or train. He liked playing Shogi. But he'd seen how smart she was. She might end up his opponent and this could end up revealing his strategies to her.

"That wasn't a no!"

"He's looking for a persuasive argument…ok, Sakura, let's logic this out."

"From what I've gathered from Ino, your primary shogi opponents are your father, and sensei. I don't know who wins those, but either way it's gotta be getting repetitive. You see their strategies more and more so you play to counter and beat them with your own. But you're only utilizing the strategies necessary to beat them. With a new opponent, you get to test run and refine new strategies, as well as playing against someone who has a very different mind set than you're used to playing against. If we end up opponents in the actual exam, you'll be well versed in the way I think and the strategies I employ, which will give you an advantage."

"Conversely, you'll also know my strategies and how I think." Shikamaru countered.

"Yes. But you spend more time playing with other opponents, giving you time to learn new tactics to counter me without my knowledge, whereas, you're my only opponent and the only time I'm playing is with you. On top of that, you have your clan ninjutsu training, and are better at planning strategies and tactics for unknown situations." Sakura sighed. "I'll be honest with you. My only goal is to beat my first opponent. I have no expectation that I'll pass the second round, be it you or Temari. I'd bet that by the end of my first battle, I'll be too low on chakra to do much of anything in the second. Even if you help me now, I doubt I'll be able to outthink you in a battle setting. But I don't want to lose my first battle and I'm not confident I'll be able to beat him with strength alone after only 14 days of training."

Shikamaru blinked, caught off guard by the admission. Why only 14 days? They had 28…and she really didn't care about passing after the second round? Well…that he could relate to. He didn't really care about passing at all. This whole thing was a drag.

"This is a grudge match for you, isn't it?"

"Yeah…thank you for that, by the way…jumping in to help us…I don't know if I ever properly thanked you."

"Whatever. Come by sometime in the afternoon tomorrow. I'll teach you how to play. It was getting boring always beating Asuma-sensei anyways."

Sakura's eyes widened in shock.

"He actually…agreed to help me? Hinata-chan, Kiba, and Kurenai-sensei too…I can't believe they're all so willing to help me…they don't even know me…but they're actually willing to spend their time training me…"

"Shannaro! Why shouldn't they?! We're nice, and cute! And we asked politely! Why shouldn't they help us? In fact, they're lucky they get to even spend time with someone as awesome as us!"

She just never expected it. She wasn't used to people agreeing to help her, agreeing to go out of their way for her, especially not people her own age.

"Is this what Naruto sees when he looks at people? The potential for kindness?"

"Just because not everyone completely sucks doesn't mean there aren't some who do."

"Thank you so much, Shikamaru!" Sakura said with a radiating smile. "I need to get back to training, but I'll see you tomorrow!"

She turned, running off for the forest.

"This is perfect. This way, the rest of the day after working with Kurenai-sensei won't be wasted—I'll be training my tactical thinking. Those'll also be research days, analyzing the data I get from the experiment, and researching sound waves."

She was painfully aware that she didn't have enough time. She knew she needed to work in recovery time, but she'd have to find some way to add more physical conditioning and fight training time, but for now, at least she had a working outline of what the month would look like.

---

She was able to master tree dancing with the weights by mid afternoon, and decided to waste no time in attempting water dancing. going to the same river she practiced on the first time, Sakura took one step onto the surface of the water and immediately fell in. The adjusting and steady release of chakra water required was much harder to maintain while keeping five percent of it focused in her ankles.

She pushed herself onto the river bank gasping, and turned to face the water.

"The percentage focused in my ankles and wrists never changes, no matter what I'm doing. If I ignore it and treat it as normal—as just the natural way my chakra congregates, then it won't actually require any additional focus…it'll just be normal water walking or dancing."

Sakura tried to walk on the waters surface again, but only managed three steps before slipping under the surface. She popped up, spluttering and shivering.

"Shannaro! We can't just treat five percent of our chakra focused into our ankles and wrists as normal! It's not damnit! We're not used to it!"

"Then I have to get used to it, fast."

Sakura went through another ten failed attempts, barely making any progress. She threw herself onto the bank, chest heaving and shivering in the early spring cold of the water. It was getting late. The sun would set soon and temperatures were dropping as the sun sank lower.

Sakura let out a frustrated sigh. She still had to do her errands and she was starting to run low on usable chakra just from her failed attempts.

"I don't have time…I have to master this as soon as possible…I need as much time as possible to deal with the higher percentages…"

You're too tense…you're body knows what to do, so trust it and just let it happen…

"But our body doesn't know what to do. We're not used to it, damnit!"

"That's not entirely true…we were able to dance on the tree…we've been able to move around all day…it took conscious effort at first but not as the day progressed…so we should be able to get this…"

"This is more complicated than just moving around or keeping ourselves on the tree!"

"I know but…maybe I am too tense. I might be thinking too hard…It's not a totally natural reflex for me yet…but I can maintain it without too much effort. Maybe I just need to fall into a rhythm…relax myself."

Sakura stood, turned on the music player that Kakashi had given her, and began to move. She let herself get lost in the music, following her body's impulses. She let herself spin, step, prance, and leap around the riverbank. She'd forgotten how much she loved this. A smile made its way to her face as her short hair bounced against her neck and shoulders. She'd been focusing on dancing for training, she'd forgotten how freeing she found it. She lost her self in a spin and slowly began stepping in a sequence that brought her towards the water. She leapt onto it, her legs splitting in a perfect one eighty in midair. She landed successfully and bounced across the water, not focused too hard on the change of surface, but rather continuing the dance. She spun and then let herself drop into a backbend, her legs kicking up and to the side, straightened, cartwheeled, spun, and brought herself to a stop with the end of the song.

Sakura's eyes widened. She only now realized that she had just danced on the water, and the second she realized where she was standing, her chakra flow faltered and she slipped under the surface.

She broke the surface, coughing up water and laughing. The activity of dancing had allowed her to focus the chakra she needed separately without overthinking and pushing. She pushed herself up onto the bank, heaving. Her chakra was low.

"Alright…I did it!" She was laughing again. "I should take a break for now. Do my errands, make sure mom eats dinner, change my clothes…I'll come back here after and make sure I can do it one more time. If I can, and it's not too late, I'll go see Asuma-sensei and get the next set."

"Hell yeah! We mastered these in under 24 hours! We're so friggin awesome!"

"Only if we can do it again later…"

"Killjoy."

Sakura just laughed again, pushing herself up. She needed to take care of her errands before shops started closing.

---

Ikehara had been happy to see her…at least in his own gruff way. He'd gladly bought her ointment off her. When she'd told him about the success of her bloodroot cough syrup, he'd smirked, went to the back of the store, and emerged with the bundle of the bloodroot she and her team had collected.

"Thought you'd figure it out, kid. Make more. I'll buy it off you. Hmm, rare and tricky ingredient…I'll pay you triple what I pay for the ointment."

"Triple?" Sakura's mouth dropped open. "Why so much?"

"It's a bad business practice to question when someone's willing to pay you a lot, kid."

"But…this is the bloodroot you asked us to bring you…why didn't you use it already?"

"Heh. Wanted to outsource it. So what do you say, kid? Up for some contract work?"

She knew she was limited on time, on a tight schedule for training. But she couldn't turn down an opportunity like this…she could do it on days where she trained with Kurenai, when she had to let her body recover.

"Deal."

She took the bloodroot and left, heading home to make dinner.

"Forehead!"

"Ino-pig! What are you doing?"

"I said I'd find you later. We never did get to go shopping, and with how busy you're gonna be training I—why are you soaking wet?"

"Oh! Uhh…training…"

Ino raised an eyebrow. "This is actually perfect then. I know you don't have many clothes. Missed birthday gift number one: new outfit." Ino tossed a package to Sakura, who clumsily caught it despite her full arms. "Don't worry, nothing too different. Almost the exact same style actually. Lighter weight, sleeveless, the skirts a bit shorter, leggings are shorter too. Perfect for the warmer seasons. There are three sets in there. I know you don't have a lot of space, but with how hard you'll be training, I figured you needed at least one more than your two outfit rotation."

"Ino-pig…thank you."

"Yeah I know, I'm the best ever and you're stupid for ever having pushed me away."

"…I apologized for that…" Sakura muttered.

Ino laughed. "Yeah yeah, not important anymore. Don't worry about getting a notebook or anything. I'll bring one tomorrow—I got a bunch of empty ones at home. I probably won't be able to always be there though, so you can hold on to it."

"You really are the best, Pig."

"Oh I know, and don't you forget it!" Ino took a glance at the herbs and groceries Sakura was carrying. "Well, I better let you get back to it! Say hi to your mom for me." She skipped off.

---

It took Sakura another six attempts to be able to start dancing on the water instead of building up to it on land first, but she'd officially mastered the fiver percent set of weights, and since it wasn't too late in the evening, she decided to find Asuma to get the next set…even if it had been too late, she'd have gone anyway.

One of the things she needed to test with Kurenai was if the weights really did help her control her curse, and she hypothesized she'd need a higher weight class for it to make much of a difference.

She tracked down Asuma's address and knocked on his door. It didn't take long for the door to swing wide open revealing not only Asuma, but Kurenai standing in the hall a little ways behind him.

"EEEEKKK! Did Ino-pig say they were together?! She'll totally freak when we tell her, Shannaro!"

"They could just be talking about missions or—"

"Please. We know that's not what a woman and a man are doing together at the man's apartment at night!"

"When did you get to be such a pervert?!" Her own thoughts caused her to flush with embarrassment.

"S-Sakura! What do you want?" Asuma's cheeks tinted pink as he pulled the door a little more closed to obscure Kurenai from view. It was too late though. He already knew she'd seen her.

"Uh..s-sorry. I'm not interrupting…something, am I?"

"Ugh! Why am I calling attention to it! This is so awkward!"

"We should 100% call more attention to it!" Her inner voice laughed mischievously.

"SHUT UP!"

Asuma cleared his throat uncomfortably. Just his luck getting caught by his gossip loving kunoichi student's best friend. "Not at all."

"Right…uh, ok. Well…Kakshi-sensei said he left some chakra weights with you…I'm here to get the next set."

Asuma's eyes widened. Her random visit made much more sense now. Honestly, he hadn't expected her to show up so fast. Kakashi had said her chakra control was good, but chakra weights, no matter how 'light,' were notoriously difficult to work with, even for those with excellent control.

"Already? That was fast." When Sakura only smiled at him, he sighed and glanced behind him at Kurenai, who was listening closely. He couldn't exactly let Sakura in at the moment… "Wait here."

He disappeared behind the door, reappearing a couple minutes later, stepping out and pulling the door closed behind him. He handed the pink haired genin the set of bracelets and waited.

Sakura attempted to pull her current weights off, but to no avail.

"Is there a trick to this? Kakashi-sensei said to never take them off…he didn't even tell me how to do it!"

"Conniving little—"

Asuma watched the girl struggle in her attempt to remove the weights.

"He didn't tell you how to remove them?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. What kind of training was Kakashi trying to pull? He really wanted her to keep the weights on 24/7? That was like cruel and unusual punishment. And she had to be doing some kind of other training as well if she had any hope of winning her match…poor kid.

Sakura shook her head, biting her lip in frustration. Getting the weights off wasn't supposed to be this much of an ordeal. She'd wanted to get the new ones so she could at least start working on tree dancing.

"Focus double the percentage requirement into the weight and it'll loosen."

Asuma was surprised when less than five seconds after he'd given the directive, all four of the cuffs loosened at once, falling around her hands and feet. Normally, that was a one at a time, slow going process. This kids chakra control was really good—why even bother with the weights? Well…she wasn't his student. Her training was up to Kakashi, and if this was his instruction, so be it.

Sakura removed the now loose fitting bangles and traded them with the set Asuma held. She slipped the inactive weights on, studying them carefully.

"Does someone else need to activate them? Or can I do it on my own?"

"Someone other than the wearer needs to. Otherwise, he probably just would have left them all with you in the first place. Ready?"

Sakura nodded, holding her wrist out to him. Asuma touched two fingers to the metal, two others in front of his face, as Kakashi had earlier, and the cuffs activated, shrinking to fit tightly against Sakura's skin. She blinked as she felt 5.25 kg added to each of her limbs. She estimated that this was only a little less than her homemade weights. With a deep breath, she gathered sixty percent of her chakra, and divided it between her four limbs, lowering her arm.

"Thank you, Asuma-sensei." She said with a polite bow. "Good night."

Asuma nodded in dismissal, stepping inside and closing the door.

"Damn…I should have forty percent of my chakra left to start training with, but I used most of it up when I was mastering water dancing with the first set…I don't know if I have enough to start training tonight…"

"Shannaro! These stupid weights are using all our chakra!"

"Yeah. And I already don't have much at my disposal…Even if I was at max capacity, with this level, I'd only have forty percent to work with…what do I even do when I get to the fifty percent set?"

"One problem at a time, damnit! Do we call it a night?"

"…not yet…even if we don't have enough to dance for long, we should still try. Or at the very least, climb the tree to get used to the feel…"

She sighed as she headed for the woods. This would probably be the first of many long nights like this.

---

Sakura sat leaning against a tree on training ground eight. She was early for maybe the second time in her life, giving her time to meditate and collect her thoughts. It had been a late night, but she was immensely pleased with her efforts.

She'd been happy to discover that despite the higher percentage requirement, the actual feel of the chakra flow hadn't changed. Her body remembered how keeping an amount of her chakra into her limbs while allowing the rest to move as needed felt. And though she'd been low on her available chakra when she'd started, she was able to dance a quarter of the way up the tree almost immediately. After a few hours rest, she'd been able to dance up and down the tree completely. By that point it had been too late to work on water dancing, but that was fine. If she could master water dancing tonight after her body had some time to rest, then she'd be able to move on to the next, more problematic weight class. The longer she had to work with the twenty five and fifty percent weights, the better, and the fact that she was already half way to mastering fifteen percent, only twenty four hours after starting the chakra weight training was very very good news.

Kurenai landed in front of her. She shouldn't have been surprised, but she was so used to Kakashi being hours late that it was weird to her that a teacher was actually true to her word and on time—early actually. Ino arrived a few minutes later, carrying a large leather bound journal.

"Morning!" She chirped.

"Good morning. Alright Sakura," Kurenai said, immediately getting down to business, "This is your experiment, so it's your responsibility. What are you testing first, and what is your plan for controlling it once your chakra activates?"

Sakura fished some items out of her pouch, laying them on the ground in front of her. An old watch that used to belong to her father, a list she'd made of emotions, and five vials of a purple liquid, each a varying shade.

"Ok so, it's supposed to trigger in response to extreme emotions. I have a theory that it doesn't account for all emotions though, so I think that's what we should test first—what emotions actually trigger the curse."

"What emotions do you think it accounts for?" Ino asked, wasting no time in recording everything Sakura said. She'd seen enough of her families psychological studies and notes to know how to lay out and record the proceedings.

"Hm…I don't know if there's a proper term, but I've been thinking of them as 'upper' emotions. Excitatory ones, not depressive ones. So I think we should try putting me into extreme emotional downer situations to see if it triggers anything. So grief, misery, depression, extreme calm, entrancement, and elation."

"You forgot love." Kurenai said.

"I wasn't sure about it…most of these trigger serotonin and dopamine, or an extreme lack there of, which calm you down or put you in a depressive state, but love also released chemicals that would excite so…"

"Add it to your test list. Love is calming. You're thinking of arousal, which isn't, but those are separate emotions, often felt together but not the same. So test them separately."

"Speaking from experience, Kurenai-sensei?" Ino teased with a sing song voice.

"I am 11 years older than you. I certainly hope I'd have some experience by now, unlike you two, who obviously don't know the first thing about it." Kurenai countered, her arms folded over her chest, though she blushed a little.

"Right—so we'll add love also. I don't think any of those, or variants of them, will trigger it. But we should check and make sure. If they don't, from there we can move on to 'upper' emotions, which I think will…Either way, Ino-chan," she handed her the old watch, "I want you to keep an eye on my pulse rate. Especially if the curse gets triggered. No matter what, make sure you take my pulse. Make special note of if my pulse starts to pick up in conjunction with my chakra…it'll be having to focus on two very different things at once, can you do it?"

"This is training for me too, you know. If I can't, I'll make it work!" She and Ino were the same in this regard. They were both the trial by fire types.

"And if your chakra does react, what will you do?" Kurenai asked. She'd said it before, but she'd meant it. She did not want to be responsible for the death of a genin during training.

"That's the second part of my theory. If the curse is triggered by extreme 'upper' emotions, but not 'downers,' then calming me down should stop the reaction…the first time it happened, I calmed down with the focus activity of sharing my chakra. I felt it work—the chakra flow became less severe and pounding. But it's unclear if that's because I calmed down, or because I off loaded my chakra. So if my chakra reacts, the first test is calming me down." She pointed to the five vials on the ground. "I made these last night. These are all sedatives of varying strength. The darkest one is the strongest. Each vial has two doses. Start with the strongest one, and pour one dose into my mouth. You may have to force me to swallow it. A dose that size should knock me out for about forty five minutes. Give it to me immediately if my chakra reacts and record the results."

Ino nodded while Kurenai eyed the deep purple liquid.

"And you're sure this sedative will work?" The theory made sense, but she was a bit skeptical of some genin made medicinal concoction…if it had been from the hospital, maybe…

"Oh don't worry about that! Sakura-chan's got a huge forehead for a reason. That big brain of hers can boil up anything from medicine to beauty products with a bit of research and the right ingredients." Ino answered, with a proud smirk on her friends behalf.

"Pig!" Sakura flushed, reassured by Ino's confidence in her.

"Alright then." Kurenai sighed, closing her eyes. She didn't really know why she was trusting two genin on this, but she heard from Asuma that Ino was the hyper critical type—especially when it came to beauty products. If Sakura's beauty concoctions got Ino's seal of approval, that meant something. And the liquid she'd given to Hayate had stopped his cough. That had to mean she was skilled.

"A quick lesson, since this is training. Genjutsu are illusions caused by controlling the chakra flow of a target's cerebral nervous system, thereby affecting their five senses. This is used to create false images and/or trick the body into believing it's experienced physical pain. It can be used for manipulation or interrogation, and there are several ways to cast it—even through pills. It isn't frequently used because it requires very precise chakra control and a high level of intelligence to make a convincing illusion, two prerequisites that many lack in combination. You two should know this."

"Yeah. That's what they taught us about it in the academy." Ino recalled.

"Yes. Since it's level of complexity, they don't teach you how to cast it though. There are different kinds of genjutsu. Those that take images and memories from the targets own mind and turn it against them, and those that the caster implants themselves. For this, I'll start with using what's in your own head Sakura, but they are based and built around and off of memories and images you've already seen. Since you've seen them before, and know the outcome of those events and images, they might not have the same emotional impact they did at the time, or you could reason your way out of it. At some point, you will have to tell me your deepest fears and loves, or I will have to use genjutsu to look into you and see it for myself, so I can create illusions that will truly trigger your emotions to the fullest. Do you understand?"

Sakura shifted uncomfortably, but nodded. The idea of opening up that fully, or having anyone look into her that deeply, was highly uncomfortable.

"If that's what it takes to live past sixteen, then so be it…"

"Good. I'm not going to tell you which emotion I'm triggering, or you might mentally prepare yourself and won't let yourself be truly effected."

"That's a good call."

"Then how am I supposed to know what response I'm noting?" Ino asked.

"I'll tell you while she's under." Kurenai answered. "Ready?"

Ino took the watch and the strongest sedative, and settled next to Sakura, taking a base line pulse reading. When she finished recoding, Sakura took a deep breath. The two friends looked at each other and nodded.

"Ready."

Kurenai nodded, her hands flying through hand signs.

Sakura closed her eyes.

---

She felt a familiar, barely noticeable tickle on the base of her neck. She now knew what that meant…she was under Kurenai's genjutsu. But this time she wouldn't try to fight it. Opening her eyes, she saw she wasn't in the field of training ground eight anymore. She was lying in a different field, one full of flowers. Lavender, chamomile, jasmine, aloe, chrysanthemum, and hyacinth. Sakura trees were in bloom around the edge of the field. It felt cooler than it had been, like the cool of very early spring when the winter cold was only just starting to warm. There was a pleasant, constant breeze sweeping through her hair. It was night time now. A clear night, littered with more stars than she'd ever seen, and a gloriously bright moon. The air had a gentle smell. Her mom was sitting next to her stroking her hair and singing a lullaby, the way she did whenever Sakura had a nightmare. It was so pleasant, and relaxing. She felt more at ease than she ever remembered being in her life. Normally there was too much on her mind, too much to worry about, but at the moment she felt none of it. She was so relaxed, she didn't want to do anything to break it.

"It's not real…it's just a genjutsu, but I don't want it to end."

"Five more minutes…"

"I wish…I don't have time for that. I think I've already been in this for at least seven minutes."

She hadn't ever learned how to break a genjutsu. Not properly anyway. They told them what to do in the academy, but they'd never demonstrated how to do it.

---

She didn't have time to figure it out though, before she was blinking into the rising sun, Kurenai's red eyes staring down at her.

"Extreme calm. Pulse a little slower than base line. No response." Ino murmured, as she made notes.

"Kakashi hasn't taught you to break a genjutsu yet?" Kurenai asked, a delicate eyebrow raised.

"No…"

"What's he even been doing all this time?" Kurenai muttered in exasperation. "Since genjutsu relies on the target's chakra flow to work, and disruption to the chakra flow, internal or external, will break it. The stronger the genjutsu, or the more layers added, the harder it will be to break. Focus your chakra into a tiger hand sign and say 'release.' It'll dispel the jutsu."

"That's why Orochimaru's genjutsu broke…My curse activating was a disruption to my chakra network."

"Yes. Based on your description, I assume any time your chakra activates, my genjutsu will automatically break. But if it doesn't, it's on you to dispel it. I won't get you out again. My genjutsu's strong, so it won't be easy to do. But there's not way you're doing any kind of training with me, and not learning how to get yourself out of a genjutsu, or I wouldn't be able to call myself a sensei and genjutsu specialist."

"Right. Thank you, Kurenai-sensei."

"We should move on. We've got a lot to get through."

"Yes. I'm ready."

Kurenai looked over at Ino, who nodded

Once again Kurenai's hands were a blur.

---

Sakura was standing in the village square watching a street performer.

"She's a beautiful dancer, don't you think, Sakura-chan?"

She turned, her eyes widening when she saw her dad smiling down at her.

"Dad?" She blinked and he was gone. All around her, she heard whispers about how her dad had gotten his team killed. How he was no hero. How he was responsible for the deaths of his comrades. She closed her eyes trying to tune it out—she wanted to run away but she knew it was no good, she was in a genjutsu and running wouldn't do anything except make her look stupid in reality. When she opened her eyes, she was standing at his grave, watching her mother getting slapped by Ayeka. The scene played out exactly as it did in her memory. Then Ayeka was gone, as was her mother, but she heard her mom crying as she stared at her father's grave.

"Why did you have to leave me, Kizashi? I can't do this alone! I can't raise Sakura alone! Why'd you leave me? Why'd you leave me behind? I miss you! I need you!" Her mother's voice sobbed. Sakura's own eyes stung.

"It's like spring time comes early whenever you smile Sakura-chan." Her dad was standing next to her again. She remembered now…he'd said that to her before. Once when she'd been crying, he'd said it to cheer her up. He always liked when she smiled…

"I don't feel like smiling…a lot of the time, I don't feel like smiling…" She choked out. Turning towards him, she saw her dad walking away. "Where are you going?" He didn't turn back. "Why are you leaving again?" He kept walking, growing further and further away. "Even in my own head you don't stay…"

"Why would I?" His voice was distant. "You're managing fine."

"How can you say that? Have you seen how mom and I are living? She needs you! I need you."

"Sakura-chan, you're a beautiful dancer." His voice had almost entirely faded.

"Please don't go…"

He was gone.

She was standing in their old apartment, her mom at the door. "I'm sorry Mebuki, Kizashi's dead."

The wave of grief hit harder than she remembered feeling the first time…or maybe she just never really processed it back then. Now she felt like she was drowning in it. Tears flooded from her eyes as a sob escaped her mouth. Her heart constricted in her chest painfully.

She had to focus to pull her logical mind from the haze of emotion clouding it.

"Grief…The emotion hit and nothing happened. My chakra's not reacting. I'm not staying any longer."

She brought her fingers into a tiger sign and concentrated hard on her chakra.

"Release!"

---

Her vision swam, but she was back in training field eight. Ino was looking at her with concern, while Kurenai looked down on her, her face grim but her eyes revealed her worry.

Ino wrapped her arms around her friend. She knew Sakura wasn't the most physically affectionate person, but she didn't care. She needed comfort right now. She didn't know the details of what Sakura had seen—neither did Kurenai, since it was the kind of genjutsu that the targets mind built. But she knew Kurenai was triggering grief, she knew Sakura had plenty in her life to grieve, and she'd heard everything Sakura had said while in the genjutsu. How she didn't feel like smiling often, begging someone not to leave her and her mother. It wasn't hard to guess whatever she'd seen had been about her dad. She'd barely ever talked about him with her.

Sakura wiped at her eyes and took a couple deep breaths.

"You broke out of it yourself. Good work." Kurenai said. She was impressed honestly. Her genjutsu was strong and she didn't pull her punches. She'd cast a powerful genjutsu on Sakura. She had to, to draw out the emotions the girl needed for her test. But Sakura had broken in on her first attempt. And she was wearing chakra weights…her chakra control was really something—she was well suited for genjutsu.

"You told me to, after all." Sakura answered. Her voice even now that she'd had a second to recompose herself.

Ino sighed, knowing she was probably just pushing it all down again. "Grief. Pulse slightly elevated, no chakra response." She reported.

Sakura nodded and looked up at Kurenai. "I'm ready. Next."

Kurenai had to hand it to her, Sakura was tough, to be ready to keep going after such an onslaught of grief like that.

They kept going through Sakura's list of 'downer' emotions, never once getting a response.

"We should leave testing love for another day, when you're not here, Ino. I know you both have your sights set on the same guy, and I don't want Sakura trying to repress a reaction to spare your feelings, or you to be unnecessarily hurt by however she reacts or whatever she says while under the genjutsu." Kurenai said.

The two girls glanced at each other. Their promise still stood. They wouldn't get in the way of each other and would likely end up flirting with him in front of each other at some point. Both would respect the outcome however it turned out. But there was no need to go through the emotional mine field that entailed over an illusion.

"That's a good idea." Ino agreed. "So onto the scary stuff then. You sure about this?"

"Getting cold feet, Pig?" Sakura challenged. The fiery determination in her eyes was enough to put Ino at ease. She'd figure it out no matter what—she was too strong and too stubborn not to.

"Never. Let's do this Forehead!"

Kurenai smirked at their determined spirits and competitive natures, but the half smile quickly fell from her face. Based on what Sakura had described of her kekkei genkai, what they were about to do would be very dangerous and painful.

"I'm going to trigger rage, surprise, arousal, stress/anxiety, and most of all fear. Fear is the most power emotion—so it might not need to be in an extreme form to be triggered. We'll test various levels of it."

Sakura nodded.

"Ino, keep your hand on her pulse, and focus carefully. Let me know if you can feel her chakra starting to build. Ino has your sedative, and one of us will give it to you as you instructed. If it doesn't work within seven seconds, start sharing your chakra."

Both girls nodded.

"Ready."

"Yes!" Their voices chorused.

Kurenai's hands blurred.

---

Sakura was standing in the middle of the hospital hallway, her mother's arm wrapped around her shoulders while her body slumped heavily against her. She could see her mom was struggling for breath, each inhale wet and rasping.

"Mom? Mom!"

Her mother didn't respond. She was barely conscious. Mebuki began to cough suddenly, blood spewing from her mouth, splattering onto the tiles of the floor.

"C-coughing up blood? Hemorrhage?"

"Mom! Hold on!" She looked around. There were doctors and nurses milling calmly about the hallway.

"Hey! Help her!" She gasped as a medic brushed right past her. "Hey!" He glanced back at her, but didn't stop.

"Move. You're in my way." A doctor told her firmly.

Her mom gave another cough, more blood exploding from her mouth.

"Please! You have to help her!"

"Did you pay?" Sakura felt panic rising up in her.

"Wha—not yet! I'll pay later. Please—"

"Can't help then. Not until you pay."

"She's dying!" Sakura shouted. She knew this was a genjutsu, but she didn't care. This was too real. Too likely. She felt sick. The calm, unbothered demeanor of the other medics around made her stomach turn. Her mother's condition had her frantic and growing more panicked by the second, and the doctor's attitude made her burn with anger.

"Tough luck." He said, completely unfazed. "Now, move. You're in my way."

"How can you walk away from someone you have the power to help!" She shouted. "You took an oath!"

"Means nothing if you don't pay up." The man shoved past her, tired of waiting for her to move.

Her mother coughed harder then ever before, blood exploding from her mouth, and then she went still and limp, her weight sagging against Sakura so heavily that the girl stumbled and dropped her. A few of the medics looked over, but then went back to what they were doing. Sakura stared in horror as her mother lay motionless in a pool of her own blood in the middle of a hospital where no one lifted a finger to help. The image shattered and she was screaming.

---

She could hear Kurenai and Ino's frantic voices around her, but had no concept of what they were saying. The sound of her own pained screams muffled their voices too much and her pain soaked brain couldn't process much else.

Stay calm…

Chakra weights…

Those two phrases floated up to her from a far in her sensei's familiar, soothing, voice.

"…Weights…"

Her high velocity chakra shot through her, making her blood boil and every organ ache. She focused on the weights against her skin. The metal bands tight around her wrists and ankles. Not cutting into them, or chaffing, but not sliding around either. In twenty four hours, she'd built up the habit of concentrating chakra to them. She tried to fall back on the habit she'd created, focusing fifteen percent of the chaotic mass of chakra coursing through her into them. It didn't work. She tried again. Nothing happened. She couldn't concentrate with all the pain, with the way it felt like she was being sliced from the inside out.

Her screaming never ceased, but suddenly her head was tilted back and a liquid dumped into her open mouth. She almost spit it out, but a hand clamped her jaw shut and pressed tightly over her mouth, the other plugging her nose. Left with no other choice, her body was forced to swallow.

The sedative was fast acting, despite the pain pulsing though her, her mind hazed over and her heart rate slowed. Her vision began to blur around the edges. She wasn't sure if the pain had stopped, or if she had just stopped processing, but before she could try and parse it out, everything went black and she dropped into unconsciousness.

---

Her head buzzed when her eyes finally forced their way open. The first thing she saw was Ino's very pale and worried face hovering over her, her eyes wet.

"You're awake! Oh thank god! That was so scary!" Ino breathed. Sakura had told her about her kekkei genkai, but experiencing it was a whole other thing.

Sakura slowly pushed herself up. "How long have I been out?"

"An hour." Kurenai answered, kneeling next to her and helping her lean back against a tree.

"An hour? The sedative was strong enough to knock someone out for forty five minutes…But I expected to be out way longer than that. Two or maybe three hours at least…the first time I was out for two whole days…But the attack went on for longer then, and I never passed out during it and I forced myself to keep awake after…maybe that's why?"

"What happened?" Sakura asked. She was beginning to formulate a theory, but she needed to know what their side of the experience was. Time was hard for her to judge while undergoing the attack, pain elongating everything in the worst ways, so she wasn't sure how long it had actually been before she was given the sedative.

"I know you told us what would happen, but it's way scarier in real life. Your chakra doesn't just erupt through you—there was an actual shockwave when it happened." Ino explained.

"Neither of us were prepared for it, or how much pain you'd be in. We were caught off guard and were a bit slow to react."

"Well I was, Kurenai-sensei was great. But I…I've never seen you in that much pain Sakura-chan…I've never seen anyone in that much pain and I…I froze up and dropped the vial. It wasn't hard to find, but we lost a couple seconds scrambling around for it. And then Kurenai-sensei yelled at me to make sure I recorded what happened before we gave you the sedative, so we lost another couple of seconds while I grabbed the notebook."

"So how long after it started did you give me the sedative?"

"About a minute and forty five seconds after." Kurenai answered.

"What happened after?"

"You stopped screaming when the sedative started taking effect. You still looked like you were in pain, though. Your muscles were still twitching and your skin felt hot. From what I could sense, your chakra started to calm a little though it didn't lessen. When you fell unconscious, it was much more noticeable. Your chakra began to slow and you stopped producing more."

"It didn't take too long either." Ino said. "Within twenty minutes, your chakra had completely calmed."

"That makes sense, actually. I read that that's how long it takes the body to come down from an adrenaline rush."

Sakura stretched her arm out and was surprised to find that there was hardly any ache.

"It doesn't hurt when I move. The first time it happened, everything hurt when I so much as breathed." She observed.

Ino made a quick note of it.

"What else is different between the first time and this time?" Kurenai asked.

"The first time it lasted much longer. I don't have much of a concept of time while it happens…but the first time lasted through most of our confrontation with Orochimaru. Everything hurt afterwards. Like aftershocks. I felt really drained. I had my full chakra, but it felt so small and pathetic. When I did pass out, I was out for two whole days."

"The first time was before you faced the sound ninja in the forest of death, right? That's when we came across you guys…"

"Yeah…The sound ninja attacked the morning after I had the first attack. I forced myself to stay conscious because Naruto and Sasuke-kun weren't. But I could hardly do anything, I was in so much pain."

"I knew there was something wrong! You didn't look good at all and you were slower and stiffer than when you normally move. So you didn't pass out at all before that? You were conscious through the whole attack until after we left you guys?"

Sakura nodded.

"And there's no pain now?"

"There's a little, but it doesn't feel like anything more than normal muscle soreness—the kind that goes away when you stretch."

Ino made note of everything, her pencil scribbling furiously. "Would you say the attack was more or less painful than the first time?"

"I think it was the same. But after pain is much less. If the attacks are tens, the first time, the after pain was a seven. This time it's a two or three at most…I think I have a theory, but we'll need more data to make anything conclusive."

"Well? What's your theory?" Kurenai prompted.

"The amount of damage is based on the length of the attack. Attacks are weakened, shortened, or stopped by calming down or knocking the body out. A rest or break is needed for the body after an attack, but the shorter or weaker the attack, the shorter the recovery time needed."

"Then that's it Forehead! You just have to have someone knock you out at the start of your attacks and you'll be fine! Although you'd think you'd just pass out from that level of pain."

"Not necessarily." Kurenai said. "Pain tolerance comes down to the individual, but shinobi are trained to have high thresholds to begin with. The more of the attacks she has, the less likely the pain of them will knock her out, since her body will start to remember the pain. On top of that, the body always resists passing out from pain as much as possible. And as far as knocking her out, most of the situations that would trigger her chakra to activate would be too dangerous to be unconscious during. Facing Orochimaru, for instance. If she went unconscious during that confrontation, she would have been taken or killed. If her chakra triggers in a situation where she's without an ally, based on what we just saw, she wouldn't be able to knock herself out."

"So how do we make sure you can survive the duration of the attacks?"

"We still don't know if I'm right, yet. But assuming I am, there's a few things we need to look at. We need to confirm if knocking the body out without a sedative is an option, and we need to go through the sedatives and check the minimum strength required for it to work. The weakest two doses won't knock me out at all, but we need to see if their calming effect is strong enough to end the attack without putting me under."

"We're not testing knocking you out without the sedative today. It can't be good for your body or chakra to be triggered several times in rapid succession. I'll allow two more. It's also probably as much as I can take. The genjutsu I'm using on you are very powerful and require a lot of chakra. Two more is probably the most I can manage. The rest of today's tests should focus on the sedatives." Kurenai instructed.

"Right. We'll try medium strength next. They're all fast acting, but it'll still probably take a few seconds longer than the first did to start having an effect. It should knock me out, though that'll probably take a bit longer, and it won't keep me under as long…probably around thirty minutes."

"But that doesn't account for the time your kekkei genkai will add. I'll make sure to time it carefully to compare with the first test."

"Thanks Pig." Sakura straightened, preparing herself. "I'm ready."

Ino settled next to her, journal open in front of her, two fingers on Sakura's pulse, eyes trained on the old watch. She gave Kurenai a grim nod. The jonin nodded back, her hands weaving signs.

---

She was in the same clearing she'd fought the sound ninja in. Naruto was on the ground, bloody and unconscious, a foot pressing down on his chest. A foot belonging to a bespectacled boy with silver hair in a low pony tail…Kabuto. He was holding Sasuke, whose hands were tied behind his back and was barely conscious, a kunai poised against his neck. Dosu stood a little to Kabuto's side, ready to attack should Sasuke somehow manage to try something.

Sakura wanted to run to them, but she was being held in place by Zaku, one arm pinning both hers behind her back, while the other hand tangled mockingly in her hair. Kin stood to his side, senbon ready to kill her once given the word.

Kabuto chuckled darkly. "Really, Sakura-chan. You didn't trust me and you still let them follow me? You're supposed to be the smart one…your team really is doomed."

She just glared in response.

"You really must hate yourself. It is all your fault they're in this mess. Your curse made it impossible for them to escape Orochimaru-sama. You let them follow me, giving me so many openings…Ami-chan was right, you really will get your team killed, walking jinx. You really are bad luck, just attracting trouble wherever you go. Your sick mother overworked herself because of you, slaved over the cost of sending her useless, doomed daughter to the academy—not caring for herself in the process, giving up her chance at medical treatment just for a pathetic disappointment like you."

"Shut up…" Sakura hissed.

"You get placed on team 7, and on your first real mission, you come under the cross fire of two deadly assassins, who nearly kill your precious Sasuke-kun. You're like a magnet for trouble. And then you get to the chunin exams, and your chakra leads Orochimaru-sama right to Sasuke-kun. You're nothing but a parasite to your team. A true curse."

"Shut. Up." She growled, her teeth clenching hard. Anger bubbled in her gut.

"And you really thought your pathetic attempts to shield his sharingan from me did anything? What an incredibly stupid notion. You have nothing going for you. You're just a worthless waste of space who will undoubtedly be responsible for her teammate's deaths."

Sakura's fist clenched so hard they shook, her anger intensifying.

Kabuto pressed down harder on Naruto's chest, causing the blond to cough, a few drops of blood spraying from his mouth. Kabuto laughed.

"How dare he…"

"As for your Sasuke-kun…well, he's not really your Sasuke anymore. He belongs to Orochimaru-sama now." The black marks started spreading across Sasuke's body. "He'll definitely come seek Orochimaru-sama out on his quest for power."

"Shut up! You don't know anything about—"

"It's cute you think someone as weak and worthless as you could ever understand your teammates. Naruto's quite entertaining. His power is formidable—he's destined to become something great. And Sasuke-kun? With his unbelievable talent and skill, and his sharingan…well there's a reason he attracted Orochimaru-sama's attention. But you? You're destined to die screaming."

She was actually shaking with anger.

"Well. This has been fun. But I must be going. Sasuke-kun has an important meeting with Orochimaru-sama I must be getting him to. And Naruto, as entertaining as he is, I can't have him growing into his power and getting in the way, so…" Kabuto's arm tightened around Sasuke, while his other raised a Kunai high in the air, ready to drive it into Naruto's throat.

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY TEAMMATES!"

The illusion shattered.

---

The pain ripped through her again, but this time it wasn't all she processed. The rage triggered from the vision hadn't taken a backseat to the agony, and her muscles twitched with the need to attack. She needed to move. To drive her fist into something. Something to release some of the kinetic energy the rage had triggered.

She didn't even think about channeling fifteen percent of her chakra into her wrists, she just did it. She pulled her fist back, uncaring for the extreme pain ripping through her, and slammed her fist into the ground, the excess of chakra making the hit much stronger than it normally would have been—her fist actually buried itself in the not at all soft earth. Before she could yank her hand out of the hole, she was forced to swallow a liquid. She wrenched her hand from the earth her muscles screaming in both pain, and desire to punch the ground again, but as she wound up, she began to calm. The rage numbed to anger, which dulled into annoyed frustration. The unbearable pain lessoned significantly. Her mind was hazing over.

She looked up at Kurenai and Ino, watching her closely though with great concern. The fog clouding her mind grew thicker to the degree that she almost failed to recall the names of the two people before her. Her body ached, and she opened her mouth in an attempt to communicate that, but her vision darkened and she slumped forward, unconscious.

---

She blinked into the late morning sun. Her body didn't hurt much, aside from minor soreness and a throbbing in her hand. She pushed herself up, staring down at the small hole in the ground her fist had made.

"That was different."

"For us too." Ino agreed.

"The first two times, I didn't really register anything other than pain—not even the original emotion that triggered the attack. This time, I processed the emotion. I was angry and I needed to do something—I couldn't keep still. It wasn't before like where I was just writhing or twitching in pain. I needed to hit something."

"Maybe you inherently have more control over anger than you do fear or anxiety." Kurenai suggested.

"There are certain emotions a person might have more control over than others…my dad one time said that fear is the body's stop signal while anger is a go signal." Ino said, making careful note of Sakura's reported reaction.

"I was actually able to move…the first test, I wasn't able to grab enough control to focus my chakra into my weights. This time, I didn't even have to try, I just did it instinctively…I think needing to punch something—it didn't have to do with the pain or my chakra or anything. It was an impulse that—I don't know. It sort of made me more focused on doing it then anything else…" It had been like having to start dancing when she was learning how to water dance with the weights…the movement or need for movement relaxed her enough to let her chakra flow where it was needed—even in its wild and chaotic state.

"It was a distraction." Ino supplied.

"Yeah."

"I feel minor soreness and my hand hurts…"

"Yeah that was some punch. Glad you aimed down and not to the side—you punch plenty hard already and that one would have seriously hurt." Ino observed the hole in the ground with some wonder.

"That insane amount of chakra reinforced your fist and added more power to your punch. Similar to how much stronger Lee's muscles got when he opened the inner gates." Kurenai explained.

Sakura nodded, having drawn parallels between her condition and the eight gates before.

"What was it like for you guys? You also said it was different."

"We were more prepared for what it would be like when your chakra reacted, so we were able to move faster this time—within a minute. The delay was because you started moving, we weren't sure if you were controlling it or not. It became clear within thirty seconds that you weren't so I gave you the sedative, but that took maybe a little less than thirty seconds to do, so you received the sedative roughly within the first minute of your attack."

"Like before, when it started to kick in, you stopped screaming though you still looked like you were in pain, and your chakra noticeably started to calm. When you passed out, it calmed even more and stopped producing more. After twenty minutes, your chakra patterns were back to normal. The difference was that your chakra, while incredibly wild, seemed more controlled than before, like if you had the focus and capacity, you may have actually been able to mold it for a jutsu. The first test, your chakra was moving so wildly it felt unusable." Ino reported.

"Hmm…I was able to process more too…is it because I'm getting more used to the feel of an attack?"

"What was my pulse during the attack?"

"Your base pulse rate was around 40 bpm. During the first test, your pulse spiked to almost 150 bpm. This time, your pulse during the attack was around 120 bpm."

"Thirty beats slower than the first attack…maybe my chakra was calmer because the attack wasn't as strong? Is it because the emotion wasn't as strong, or because I gained more control?…How long was I out for?"

"Fifty minutes."

"Hm…This last one shouldn't knock me out at all."

"If that's the case, you need to ensure that you're doing your best to help the sedative along in calming down. How does your chakra sharing work?" Kurenai asked.

"I just need to hold someone's bare hand—their can't be fabric in the way or I won't be able to feel your chakra."

"But we're trying to figure out a way that you can calm the reaction without sharing your chakra, incase you don't have an ally with you." Ino stated.

"That's correct. Only share with one of us as a last resort. You said you needed a focus or grounding activity. The first time it happened, what did you do?"

"Other than sharing with Sasuke-kun, I tried to focus on the feel of everything around me—where I was touching the bark, the wind in my hair…stuff like that."

"You touch your hair when your nervous or uncomfortable, right?" Kurenai asked. She'd noticed the girl tugging at her hair when she had asked for her help.

"Yeah. It sorta clears my head and helps me think. Actually, now that I think about it, the first attack I also ran my fingers through my hair to help me calm down…it was longer then."

"Did it work?"

"I guess so…I mean the attack eventually stopped."

"Ok so this time around, when your kekkei genkai activates, focus on the feel of your environment, and run your fingers through your hair. We'll administer the sedative as soon as possible, but just focus on the feel of what's around you, and your hair."

Sakura nodded.

"Last one for today." Sakura took a deep breath.

Ino placed her finger's over Sakura's wrist, counting her pulse. Kurenai's hands flew through seals.

---

Sakura was in the forest of death, under the roots she'd sheltered her teammates in. Sasuke and Naruto were both unconscious. Her mind and kurenai's genjutsu had brought her to right after Orochimaru's attack.

A rustle in the bushes nearby made her tense. She looked over expecting to see the sound ninja, but her eyes shot wide when instead she saw Orochimaru, still with the cracked melted face of the female grass ninja, the skin peeled off around his eye to reveal white skin and a narrowed, yellow snake like eye.

"Prey must always stay tense and flee desperately from the predator." His neck launched towards them, his entire being replaced with the of a giant snake, growing nearer and nearer.

She couldn't move them both in her condition…she tried to scream to wake them up, but no sound came out. Her voice was completely gone. She tried to move but she couldn't. She couldn't do anything and the Orochimaru-snake rose up above Sasuke and Naruto, it's jaws opening. She tried to scream again, but there was nothing. The snake dove, it's mouth closing around both her teammates in one go, blood exploding from where the fangs pierced their skin.

Sakura was finally able to scream, as the genjutsu shattered and she was enveloped by pain.

---

Sakura knew there was something she was supposed to be doing, but she couldn't think of what it was, her mind was clouded with too much agony. There was too much pressure pushing down on her from both the inside and outside, her own chakra converging against her.

"Your hair, Forehead! Touch your hair!" She registered Ino's voice from far away.

"Hair…? Right…that's what…"

Her mind cleared just enough to formulate the directive.

"Touch your hair."

Her muscles twitched to obey. She shakily managed to raise her hand to her hair, her fingers jerking through it.

"…soft…"

Her actions became just a little smoother, less jerky, as she stroked through her hair.

"There was something else…what's around me?"

She began to take careful note of how her left forearm was supporting her whole weight against the earth, along with her calves. Her thighs were buried against her heaving chest, every muscle in her body twitched. There was grass between her steadily fisting fingers, long dry from the sun burning off the morning dew.

A liquid was forced into her mouth, which she eventually managed to swallow. She took careful note of the flavor for the first time. Floral up front with a bitter aftertaste. Her mind started to numb a little.

"Focus on what's immediately around you…"

Her fingers continued to stroke through her hair, the movement becoming more fluid, as the pain became less overwhelming.

"It's warm today…there's a pebble next to my pointer finger…the earth is cool…the grass is dry…this grass is the same shade as those tree leaves…my hair is soft…there are no tangles…"

With every plain observation, and stroke of her hair, the pain seemed to lesson more and more. She was able to push her self up a little, processed that her chest was moving.

"I'm breathing…there's air coming into my lungs…now it's releasing…the air smells like grass."

"Sakura. Can you talk?"

"That's Kurenai-sensei's voice…" She didn't sound far away. In fact, she sounded very close, cause she was. Kurenai was kneeling just a little in front of her, observing her carefully.

She opened her mouth in an attempt to answer the Jonin, but stopped abruptly when the vibration of her vocal cords sent more pain through her.

"My throat feels like I swallowed glass." Instinctively she knew that was a counter productive thought to calming herself down. "I'm breathing in…my hair is soft…I'm breathing out."

As the pain's intensity faded, she became more aware of what had triggered it in the first place. Her chakra whirled through her, too much and too intense.

"My hair is soft…I'm breathing in…there are no tangles…I'm breathing out."

She slowly began trying to move fifteen percent of her chakra into her wrists and ankles. It hurt. A lot. She had to keep reminding herself to breathe, and keep her focus on the feeling of her hair between her fingers and the air coming in and out of her lungs, but she managed to focus her chakra into her weights, and push herself up slowly onto all fours, and then back so she was leaning against the tree behind her, her knees folding into her chest.

She focused on where her back made contact with the rough bark, and how it pushed further into the tree with each inhale.

"What else calms me down?" She closed her eyes, breathing deeply, and imagined a tune her mother used to hum to her when she had trouble sleeping—back before she got sick. She still would hum it on occasion, although more frequently it was Sakura humming it for her. But it was a tune that brought her comfort, and reminded her of how much her mother loved her. Sakura began humming it for herself, ignoring how her throat protested at first, though it eventually seemed to loosen and stop straining. With her eyes closed, her fingers stroking through her hair, and her mother's lullaby humming through her, Sakura felt herself truly start to calm. Her chakra started slowing, the pain becoming less and less intense until it was just an ache. Finally her chakra stopped increasing entirely, and slowed to her normal flow, no longer ripping through her.

Her eyes fluttered open. She was exhausted and ache. Her chakra suddenly felt so pitifully small compared to before. She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and go to sleep.

"I'm tired." She finally muttered.

Ino immediately made note in the journal. "Stay awake just a bit longer, Forehead, you're doing great!" Ino encouraged. "What else?"

"Everything hurts."

"How?"

"Achey."

"How bad. 1-10? 10 being the worst."

"…7."

"Can you tell us what happened from your point of view?" Kurenai asked gently. Sakura's eyes drifted tiredly to the Jonin's red ones.

"It triggered…I knew I was supposed to focus on something…or try something. But I couldn't remember what. Then I heard Ino-pig say something about hair. So I tried stroking mine. It hurt. I remembered I was supposed to be focusing on my environment. Grounding myself. So I did. Someone gave me the sedative. The pain lessened a bit and I was able to focus on more. I kept making basic observations. Where I was making contact with the dirt. What color the grass was. The temperature. I kept coming back to my hair being soft. The pain lessened a bit more and I started to process that I was breathing so I focused on that. Kurenai-sensei tried to talk to me and I tried to answer but it hurt too much. So I went back to my hair being soft and that I was breathing. The pain lessened enough for me to actually try focusing on my chakra. I managed some control over it. It hurt. Moving hurt but I sat up against the tree. I focused on where my back touched the tree and that I was breathing and my hair was soft. I could feel myself calming down. And my chakra calming too, but it was still too fast and intense. There was this thing my mom used to hum when I had trouble sleeping. It always settled me. So I tried humming it. At first it hurt. But then I guess it stopped or I stopped noticing. Eventually my chakra stopped over producing. I feel drained—like I'm completely out of chakra, and everything hurts. I want to pass out." She finished summarizing, and leaned her head back tiredly against the tree. "How long did it take?"

"Twenty minutes."

Sakura's eyes shot wide.

"That whole thing was only twenty minutes?!"

"Shannaro! That felt like hours!"

"The way you report it makes it sound like we let you struggle for a while. But Ino told you to touch your hair almost immediately after your chakra activated. And I gave you the sedative twenty seconds later, at most."

"So…all that happened in twenty minutes?"

"You went under the genjutsu at 11:23. Your chakra reaction started at 11:27. It's 11:49 now."

Sakura blinked. "It felt so much longer than that."

"Pain slows down time." Kurenai allowed.

"Seriously…"

"Alright. If you have nothing else to add, you should get some rest Sakura. We'll meet again two days from now, same time."

"I won't be able to be here next time." Ino chimed.

"So we'll check love and arousal during that session. Dismissed."

Ino and Kurenai both stood, but Sakura didn't move.

"Forehead?"

Sakura was already asleep.

---

Sakura awoke in a room, which wasn't where she fell asleep. She sat up and was glad to find that the ache had passed. Her soreness was minimal.

"Where am I?"

Her question was answered almost immediately when Kurenai walked into the room.

"You're up. Are you still in pain?"

Sakura shook her head. "I'm alright. Is this your apartment?"

"Yes. You've been out for approximately an hour and ten minutes. Your journal's on that table. You should make a note."

Sakura reached for the leather bound journal, donated to her cause by Ino. She skimmed over Ino's neat, organized, notes, adding the newest rest time post activation.

"Thank you for helping me with this, Kurenai-sensei. And for bringing me here to rest."

"I wouldn't be able to call myself a sensei if I just left you passed out in one of the furthest training grounds from the village."

"I feel like Kakashi-sensei wouldn't have cared…"

"Shannaro! Men are stupid."

"There are definitely things I feel like they don't think through…"

"Sakura. It's not easy to break a strong genjutsu, you broke out of several of mine on the first attempt. You are well suited to perform genjutsu."

"Every time I've been under one, I feel this slight tickle on the back of my neck…"

"Every time?"

"Yeah…the stronger the genjutsu, the harder it is to feel, but yeah. Every time."

"If you weren't purposely staying in my genjutsu, you could probably break out immediately. If your awareness of it is that strong, you'd be very good at casting it. If you ever want to learn, I'll teach you."

Sakura's eyes widened.

"That's another route I could go…I'll need to think about it. It's definitely not something to discount…" She wasn't sure how she felt about it though. She knew it was necessary, but she was putting herself through emotional hell thanks to genjutsu, and she wasn't sure she had it in herself to inflict anything like that on another person. Not even Ami…

"Thank you, Kurenai-sensei."

"Get some rest. I'll see you the day after tomorrow."

Sakura nodded and bowed, leaving Kurenai's apartment with the journal under her arm.

---

"So you really did show up?" Shikamaru drawled.

"Your mom let me in and told me where to find you."

"Thank god she had or I'd be totally lost. The Nara estate is huge…it's even bigger than the Yamanaka's…and they have a huge forest too…"

Shikamaru made no move to get up from his spot lying in the yard, staring up at the clouds. Sakura shifted a little, unsure.

"Do I rush him? If I push too much he might change his mind and not help me…aside from making blood root cough syrup and analyzing my data, I don't have much to do today. I'll work on water dancing tonight but I can't start on it yet. I need to give my body more of a rest…"

"We may as well relax! How often do we get to sit and do nothing?"

"…Never."

Shikamaru was a bit surprised when he felt the grass near him shift. Part of him hoped if he ignored her she'd go away. Not that he was against teaching her shogi, he just didn't feel like moving. His dad had pushed him pretty hard with training that morning and would probably be back at it later. He just wanted to relax and watch the clouds.

Sakura leaned back on her hands looking up at the sky. She lasted maybe a minute before her fingers began drumming against the ground.

"Alright. I'm over it."

"How do you do this?"

"Do what?"

"Nothing."

"Most find it the easiest thing to do."

"Well they're wrong."

"The vast majority of people are wrong to find doing nothing easy?"

"Yes."

"Anyone ever tell you you're kinda pigheaded?"

"I prefer stubborn."

Shikamaru grunted.

"Shogi?"

"You in some kind of hurry?"

Sakura shot him a withering look.

"Shouldn't you be training?"

"What is it with women and nagging?"

"What is it with men and actively ignoring what's in their best interest?" Sakura shot back, annoyed.

Shikamaru glanced at her from the side. There was something different about her. Visually she was always hard to miss. Out of everyone in their class, she had the most abnormal and catching coloring. But as a presence she was so flighty and absent minded it was easy to over look her. She kept to herself. She didn't really talk back much when the girls gave her a hard time. Even if she caught someone's eye, she didn't catch their attention. She could have come and sat down next to him while he cloud watched and he wouldn't even register her as being there. But now, her presence was much stronger. He'd noticed her the second she'd stepped into the clearing. She'd actually initiated conversation instead of just living in her head.

"You're different."

Sakura cocked her head to the side, confused. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Troublesome." Shikamaru muttered under his breath before standing up. "Come on."

He walked back towards his house to go set up the board. Sakura followed without hesitation. She wanted something to do.

---

Shikamaru explained how each piece moved, the objective of the game, the board lay out, and rules, before diving right in. He beat her within four turns.

Sakura blinked at the game, processing his sequence of moves as he reset the board. They played six rounds, all of which Sakura lost very quickly. Shikamaru was beginning to wonder if this had been a waste of his time. She wasn't even remotely a challenging opponent. He wouldn't really get to test any new strategies against her if she kept losing so easily.

That sentiment changed in their seventh round. Sakura began moving her pieces differently than she had been. It took him a second, but he came to realize that she was making the same moves he'd made in the past six rounds. Except she was mixing them. Cherry picking one tactic and crossing it with another. The look in her eyes had changed too. There wasn't confusion in them anymore, just calculation. He still beat her, but it did take him a bit longer to do. And he'd acknowledge it was a good try on her part. Maybe she wasn't a lost cause of an opponent after all.

They were on their eighth round when Sakura finally spoke.

"I can obviously see how shogi is a strategy game and how it could apply to commanding armies, but how does this help with tactical thinking for a one on one match?"

"It's just a matter of identification."

"Meaning?"

"In an escort mission, the parallels are obvious. The king is the client."

"The mission leader is the general and the other squad members are lower rank generals or pawns depending on their skill."

"Right." He drawled. She was quick, he'd give it to her. It had taken much longer when he'd attempted to make the same explanation to Choji and Ino. "But let's say it's a one on one match. You become the king."

"…okay…"

"I'm not following…"

"Why's he drawing out his explanation! Lazy ass!"

Shikamaru sighed. Explaining things was a drag. "If you're the king in a one on one match, then what are the other pieces?"

Sakura stared back at him blankly.

"What a drag." He sighed again. "The other pieces become the skills you have at your disposal. Your ninja tools, your jutsu, your combat skills, your chakra. Anything in the environment that you can weaponize. Those become your pieces. The board becomes your environment for you to utilize, like promotion zones."

"So in your match with Kin. The pieces you had at your disposal were your kunai, your shadow possession technique, and your reflexes."

"Yeah. When she added her string to the environment, that became another piece to use to my advantage."

"Hiding your shadow." Sakura recalled, watching as Shikamaru removed one of her pieces.

"So he looks at all of his battles as a maneuvering of abilities…"

"But how do you account for your opponents choices?"

"That's what makes it difficult. And interesting. But if you're doing it right, the moves you make are going to force or manipulate your opponent into making the choices you want them to make." Shikamaru said, removing her king and winning yet another round.

"It's a good thing I'm your new shogi partner then." Sakura laughed.

"Why's that?"

"Because you don't know the first thing about women. So if you want to have any chance of beating Temari, you better start paying attention to how the intelligent women around you think. And that includes Ino-pig, by the way."

"What a drag." Shikamaru muttered, although he didn't dispute her point. He'd be the first to admit he didn't understand women at all. In his experiences with the girls from their class, they'd all just been loud, obnoxious, and obsessed with Sasuke. "Fine. Since I answered your questions about shogi, answer mine about women."

"Deal."

"Are you and Ino cool now?"

"Yes. She's my best friend."

"Even though you're both supposedly in love with the same guy?"

"It's not supposedly. I am in love with him, and yes. Rivals can still be close friends."

"Like Naruto and Sasuke-kun."

"Why's every girl so in to Sasuke?"

"Why's that important?"

"You said I need to learn how women think. What they're attracted to is part of that."

"Wait…Your strategy for winning isn't to seduce Temari, is it?"

"What?!" Shikamrau nearly choked on his saliva. "Absolutely not! How—"

Sakura burst out laughing. She'd never thought he'd get so flustered by her joke.

"Good, cause I don't think she's the type who'd fall for that kind of thing. As to why so many girls are into Sasuke-kun…I can really only speak for myself. It helps that he's physically attractive and talented. But for me the first thing I noticed about him was how intense he was. He was so serious and driven all through the academy, and seemed so…mature, I guess. That's why I liked him."

"You said you're in love with him during your match." He pointed out, noticing the discrepancy in her wording.

Sakura blushed and looked away. "That's a question for another day. Anything else?"

Shikamaru studied her. She was weird. Ino would have screamed her declaration of love confidently in a heart beat. Sakura played her feelings and reasons closer to the vest. Maybe it was because of that, he found he believed them more. "When you were fighting off the sound ninja, what were you thinking?"

Sakura tugged lightly at the hair on the back of her head. "It wasn't exactly a good plan—more of a desperation move, really…their goal was to kill Sasuke-kun, but Zaku was hot headed, quick tempered and impatient. Kin was vindictive and catty…so I figured if I got them angry enough, they'd focus on me and forget about Sasuke-kun…I mean, it sorta worked."

"So you formulated a plan based around what your gleaned of their characters…You did that with Ino too. Provoked her so she wouldn't go easy on you."

"The more angry she was, the more reckless she'd be, the easier to win."

"Temari didn't fight like that though…she was more like how I think…"

"Well not all girls are the same. So yeah. But I don't know. Maybe it was less direct. Or maybe she doesn't rely on it as a strategy, but just to mess with her opponents head…"

"Actually…yeah. Temari toyed with her a lot. Taunted her too. So women employ psychological warfare."

"So do men. What Neji did to Hinata-chan was almost entirely psychological warfare. But women are usually more perceptive than men. Reading body language was one of our Kunoichi classes. We were told the quicker we were to deduce someone's character, the more effective we'd be as a spy. Since it's something so drilled into us, it makes sense that we incorporate it into how we fight…Temari is a Sand kunoichi though, so maybe their training is different than ours…"

Shikamaru mulled that over, studying the reset shogi board.

"This'll be my last round, and then I have to go."

"I assume you'll be back."

"Every other day. Unless you want a different schedule."

"Whatever."

That round lasted slightly longer, but once again, Shikamaru won.

---

Water dancing with the heavier weight set turned out to be easier than it had been the first time around. Like with tree climbing, her body remembered the chakra movements necessary. Although she had less chakra available to use, she still managed it fairly quickly. Still, she danced until she was out of her available chakra, just to be sure she truly had it mastered.

"Perfect. I've mastered the first two weight classes in two days. That leaves me 26 days for the other two."

So once again she stood in front of Asuma's apartment, knocking on his door. He was a bit more prepared this time, opening the door just wide enough to reveal himself.

When he saw the pink haired kunoichi, his eye brows rose. "Already?"

"It's not that different from the first set, as far as chakra movement goes. It was a lot easier to figure out after the five percent weights."

He closed the door, reappearing a few minutes later with the next set. "What's the percentage this time around?"

"Kakashi-sensei didn't tell you?"

"Nah. He just gave me them and told me which order I should give them to you in."

He watched as Sakura released her weights two at a time, the wrist cuffs loosening followed shortly after by the ankles. She slipped them off, trading with him for the next set.

"These ones are twenty five percent." She answered putting them on.

Asuma's eyes widened. "Twenty five percent?!" Kakashi really must have been a sadist. Most people only used ten percent at most if they used them at all.

"That's why I wanted to get through the other two as fast as possible. These next two will take me longer to figure out. It'll probably be at least a week before you see me again."

"It'll definitely take you longer than that." Asuma was a realist.

Sakura twitched, though it was unnoticed by the jonin, who was still musing over Kakashi's intense level of training.

"Shannaro! We'll show him! We'll master this so quick it'll blow his mind!"

"Be realistic."

"Screw that! It's bull shit how people keep underestimating us! We're gonna make em eat their own words! Shannaro! We'll master this easy! We're pros at chakra control."

"This one won't be easy. It's not just figuring out how to dance on water and trees—I need to make sure I can fight effectively. These are also 25% or my physical weight, which is heavier than the weights I used to wear. Moving smoothly is gonna be tougher on every front."

She held up her wrist for Asuma to activate the weights, which he did, throwing her a pitying look. As the metal tightened around her wrists, she felt 8.75 kg pulling at each of her limbs.

"8.75 kg on both arms and legs…that doubles my body weight…"

For the first time she ran into problems almost immediately. Before coming to get the new set, she'd used up her available chakra water dancing. She'd put the weights on with only 60% of her total chakra. Each weight required 25%, so she could only concentrate her chakra into two at once.

"Well this'll be a problem…"

She focused twenty five percent of her chakra into her wrist, allowing it to drop—less controlled than her usual movement due to the added weight.

"I'm not going to be able to focus my chakra into all four limbs at once right now…I'll have to just focus on my ankles…it'll look weird but I need my legs to move more than my arms, for now."

Her foot falls were heavier and slower than they'd ever been as she walked away. The frustration built in her with every step. Sakura prided herself on how graceful and quick her movements were, and that had been entirely erased with this new level of chakra weight.

"This is such a pain! Damnit Kakashi-sensei! Couldn't we have stopped at fifteen percent?!"

"And Hinata-chan's being released tomorrow…if she's up for it, I'm have to start working with them…I don't think it's possible. Even at full capacity, 25% to each chakra cuff makes leaves me with nothing left to fight with. I'm not allowed to remove them under Kakashi-sensei's orders, and I understand why but I'm gonna be even more useless then before. There's no way I'm gonna beat Dosu if I'm saddled with these weights. It's a lost cause…"

"What the hell is that?! We're not giving up yet! He threatened our teammates, damnit! We can't let him or anyone else mess with our team! Those genjutsu nightmares CANNOT be allowed to happen!"

Sakura froze as she reached the street.

"That's right…Those illusions will never become real. Never again. I won't let them!"

"Shannaro!" She shouted, surprising herself and a few passersby. As frequently as her inner self gave the battle cry, she'd never actually verbalized it while she was in conscious control. But the swell of determination was too great to not be shouted.

"Alright. I'm just gonna have to practice regular dancing. Once I get enough control over the weights to dance effectively, I'll have the bare bones of what I'll need to work with Hinata-chan and Kiba. The point was to create an attack that utilized dance, so if I can't dance effectively, I'm already dead in the water. I'll go home for now to cook dinner, make that bloodroot cough syrup for Ikehara-san and go over the data we collected. Once I've gotten back enough chakra, I'll go work on dancing."

With her game plan in place, she set off for home.

---

Sakura sat on the kitchen floor in a split, her experiment journal open in front of her, her cough syrup boiling away on the stove behind her. Much to her frustration everything had been done at half the speed since she only had enough chakra to move two limbs at once.

"You're not hurt, are you Sakura-chan?"

She turned to see her mother leaning against the opening to the kitchen.

"Nah I'm fine. Why?"

"You're not moving normally. You didn't really think you'd be able to get that by me, did you?"

"I was hoping it wouldn't be a thing in the first place." Sakura sighed.

"I should have waited until I was at full capacity before going to see Asuma-sensei."

"Won't be making that mistake again."

"It won't matter. Next time, I'll only be able to move two limbs at once no matter what."

"Don't worry mom. I'm not hurt or anything. Kakashi-sensei has me wearing chakra weights to help perfect my control. It's part of my training."

"How is your training? What are you doing for it?" Mebuki's dark green eyes danced with excitement. The ninja life had never been for her, but she'd loved hearing her husbands tales of his missions and training. And she especially loved whenever Sakura talked about her shinobi career. Her daughter's face would light up, her eye's sparkle with an excited liveliness and cheer they usually lacked. Anything that made her daughter act more her age was something Mebuki loved on principal. It was why she loved Sasuke and Naruto. How simultaneously amused and annoyed Sakura would get with Naruto's antics, how flustered she'd get by so much as brushing shoulders with Sasuke. It was easy to see how much fun her daughter had with her team, and fun was something Sakura had been deprived of for a long long time.

Sakura bit her lip as she looked at her mother. She hadn't told her about the experiment she was doing for fear of worrying her. But she had a right to know and now that she'd asked directly it felt wrong to keep it from her.

"Well…today I started an experiment. Ino-chan and Kurenai-sensei are helping me with it. We're triggering the curse using genjutsu, and testing different things—once we figure out the best ways to stop the reaction, I'll start working on techniques to keep control in those situations in the first place…"

Sakura watched Mebuki's blank face with anxiety. She didn't want to give her mother another stressor.

"Whose idea was this?"

"…mine."

Mebuki's expression softened, a small smile tugging at her lips. "Then there's nothing I have to worry about. I already told you, you're the strongest and smartest person I've ever met. And you're my daughter. I trust you. If this is your plan, then it'll work."

Sakura blinked. She wasn't sure what she expected, but that wasn't it. A confident smile found its way to her face, despite how her eyes misted. "Thanks mom."

"So? How'd it go? What'd you find out?" The lively excitement was back in Mebuki's eyes. It hadn't exactly been the conversation she planned to have, but Sakura's demeanor when talking about research and new things she'd learned was the same as when she spoke of her ninja life. And she also had a keen and vested interest in the topic. There were no studies or records of the Haruno clan's Kekkei genkai. And Sakura's discoveries could make a huge difference in her chances of survival.

As Mebuki had expected, Sakura's face lit up as she summarized her hypothesis, the experiment and the rough results. "So based on what Ino-pig noted, my standard pulse rate is around 40 bpm, which is normal for anyone with an active life style, like shinobi have. But when I was experiencing an attack, each time my pulse rate was over 100 bpm." She flipped through Ino's notes, carefully looking over the data. "150 bpm, 120 bpm, and 140 bpm…so maybe there's a cut off point…"

"Cut off point?"

"Like a limit. If my pulse exceeds a certain rate in conjunction with an extreme emotion, it triggers the attack…"

"So if you're right, the key to preventing the kekkei genkai from activating would be keeping your pulse below the limit."

"Right! I don't have enough data yet though…not enough to say whether that's a valid conclusion or know where the limit is…" She muttered, scribbling the new hypothesis in anyway, her brow furrowed in thought.

"Even if you are right, and find the limit, it's better to train for the worst case scenario. How to survive the attack over how to prevent it." Her daughter looked up at her, a confused look on her face. Mebuki smiled softly. "It's great if you can prevent it, but there will always be something that will shake you too much. You won't always be able to check your emotions and keep your body calm. I'd rather know that you have a trick to survive the attacks rather than one to prevent them. Doing both is ideal, but if you have to prioritize, learn to live through them first."

"She's right…I need to know I can survive ten out of ten attacks before I work on preventing them. Cause that'll only work eight or nine times out of ten. And if I don't have a guaranteed way of handling it, those one or two times are gonna end up killing me."

"You're right. Don't worry, mom. I'll figure it out." She told her with a brave smile.

Mebuki regarded her daughter carefully, as she turned her attention back to the journal, adding her own notes, theories and conclusions, cross examining the data with other medical texts and encyclopedias.

"How are you feeling?"

"Isn't that what I normally ask you?" Sakura laughed. "I'm fine. A little sore, but nothing too bad."

"That's not what I meant Sakura." Mebuki said, her tone serious. "In order to trigger the Kekkei genkai you need to be placed into an emotional extreme. And you had to test a lot of extreme emotions before you even got to the ones that did trigger you. There's no way you can walk away from a test like that completely unscathed. I'm your mother. You can hide these things from your friends, but not from me. How are you feeling?"

The smile slipped from Sakura's face as she stared down at the journal.

"Tired…exhausted. It's easy to push through or ignore them during the tests cause there's more to get through. And I can keep going like that so long as there's another piece of training to do…but the second there's any sort of break, they all just kind of…hit. The feelings. I saw dad today…in my head. It was part of the genjutsu. I don't remember a lot about him…there were some things he said in the illusion that I'm sure were directly from a memory—that I heard his voice say to me before. But it was so mixed with the illusion that I'm not positive which parts of it were actually real…the ones that are lingering, emotionally I mean. It's not the fears or anxieties. I sort of live with those to some degree every day. The situations…their terrifying while I'm in them, it's why they set me off…but it kind of gets swallowed by the pain of the curse, and when I wake up, it's not so bad. Just tiring. But the one that's lingering the most is the grief."

She felt her mothers arms wrap around her and pull her close. Despite her mother's frailty, Sakura felt warmth, safety and security shoot through her.

"So much happened after Kizashi died. Too much was dropped on you too quickly…I always wondered if you ever really had time to process what actually happened. You push too hard and have a tendency to overwork yourself. You get that from me."

"It's ok, mom. I'm ok. In a way it's good. I didn't have many memories of him. For the longest time, he was just someone who wasn't there when we needed him most. Whether it's real or fake, it's actually given me some memories of him. Some other things he said or did for me to hang onto…I…it makes it hurt more. But I like it more than blaming him."

Mebuki hugged her daughter tighter. "You really are the strongest person I've ever met."

"But you've met Naruto and Sasuke-kun, mom. Both of them are way stronger than me, in almost every way."

Sakura decided not to voice that though.

"Thanks mom…speaking of being strong, I'm gonna have to go out again soon. To train. Will you be alright? Do you need anything?"

"I'm fine, Sakura-chan. You just do what you need to. And you don't have to stress about cooking me dinner or anything. I'm not a total invalid. If we have the ingredients, I'll cook. You don't need to try and do everything right now. Just focus on yourself."

"…Ok."

---

She met Kiba and Hinata at training ground four in the mid morning. Apparently, that was where team 8 usually met. Once she'd gotten her chakra back, she'd spent much of the night just dancing and getting her body used to the excess of weight. Her speed and the height of her jumps had taken a blow, but she'd managed to get acclimated enough to regain her graceful control.

"Kiba! Hinata-chan! How are you feeling? Are you ok?"

"I-I'm fine, Sakura-san…"

"Eh, you don't have to be that formal, since we're training partners now!"

"R-right…sorry, S-Sakura-chan."

Sakura beamed at her.

"So Sakura, how do you wanna do this?"

"Umm…" She hadn't really planned out exactly how she intended these training sessions to go.

"So you've got no idea what you're doing. Cool."

"You said you wanted to make a c-combat style around y-your dancing, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well there's the starting point. Let's see you dance."

"Huh?!" Sakura flushed. She'd never really danced in front of people who knew her. Not with out a disguise.

"Dance. Let's see what you've got. We gotta know what exactly we're working with here." Kiba stated matter of factly. "We gotta see how you move if we're gonna help you reshape it for combat."

"Yeah. Right. That makes sense."

"Wow…why is this making me so nervous?"

"We've got nothing to be nervous about! We're the best dancer around! Shannaro!"

She handed Kiba the music player Kakashi had given her and stepped away from the two of them.

"Ready?"

"…Yeah." She answered, taking a deep breath.

The music started. Sakura closed her eyes, found the count, and let her body respond. She did what was natural to her and the music, stepping in time, kicking, posing, leaping, twirling, rolling on the ground, flipping, whatever felt right. She almost forgot that she even had an audience. Her movements were slower than she would have liked, but she made sure to factor that into the counts, never falling behind. When the song stopped, Sakura blinked out of her dance induced trance, and turned toward Kiba and Hinata. Both were staring at her.

Surprisingly, it was Hinata who spoke first.

"That was beautiful." She said, so awed she forgot to stutter.

"Yeah…" Kiba murmured before clearing his throat awkwardly. "Definitely something to work with."

Hinata nodded her agreement.

"Ideally I'd have enough time to turn it into a full fighting style. But since we're on a time limit I was thinking I'd just try and turn it into a sort of taijutsu barrage attack."

"Now I get what you mean about Hinata's style being compatible with yours."

"S-Sakura-chan, why d-don't you try s-sparing with me. I'll u-use the movements of the g-gentle fist, so you can understand the f-flow better."

"Sure."

"Only use dance as your form of taijutsu. You may not have it worked out yet, so you may as well start now." Kiba instructed.

"Right."

Hinata and Sakura squared off, Hinata falling into the gentle fist stance, Sakura a dance position. Hinata didn't activate her byakugan. There was no need for it, this spar was purely about the actual taijutsu.

"Begin!" Kiba ordered when he saw both were ready to go.

Sakura skipped her way over to Hinata, her feet skimming over the ground in a complex sequence of steps. Hinata stepped forward to strike her with her palm, but Sakura stepped back and pivoted to the side. Hinata used her forward momentum of her incomplete strike to move her weight onto her front leg and sweep her back leg to the side, twisting her body and aiming another strike at Sakura in one continuous movement. This time she hit, making Sakura stagger. Hinata swept her leg under Sakura's, tripping her, although she failed to knock her over completely. Sakura's balance was too good for that.

"Come on Sakura!" Kiba barked. "You have to try actually attacking her."

"Easier said than done, damnit!"

"Alright, come on. Think. Ino-chan said she couldn't counter because it was unpredictable…so I need to be unpredictable again. Like Naruto."

When Sakura approached Hinata again, she went about it in a very different way. This time she cartwheeled to close the distance, her legs about to fall on Hinata from her handstand. But when Hinata thrust her palm at Sakura's hips, she twisted, dropping gracefully into a lunge under Hinata's out stretched arm.

"Uhh…now what. The predictable thing from this position would be to try sweeping her legs out from under her so…"

Sakura reached up and grabbed Hinata's out stretched arm, holding it like a bar as she pulled herself up and high kicked Hinata's face. The pale eyed girl gasped in surprise, but recovered quickly, thrusting her other hand across her body and into Sakura's stomach, sending her reeling back.

"Well. That was different." Kiba said, trying to figure out what his eyes just processed.

"You did land a hit. I d-don't think I could have predicted it."

"But one hit's not gonna be enough. You're lacking in raw strength, which means you gotta make up for it by landing multiple rapid hits." Akamaru barked in agreement.

"But…it's interesting Sakura-chan. I-It's so different from your d-dancing earlier. Everything connected and flowed b-beautifully before. N-now…now it's like…you're th-thinking too hard."

"She's right…When I'm dancing, it's one of the only time my mind actually shuts up…it's the only time I don't think. But I can't afford to do that in a battle."

"Hey Hinata-chan, do you think you could show me just a little bit of the gentle fist style—not like the full technique or anything, I know it's your clan's style and I don't want to get you in trouble…just how the movements connect."

"Well…that's…I g-guess that's alright."

For the next two hours Hinata went over some of the basic movements of the gentle fist and the way she connected the movements.

"I-It's about using the momentum…th-that way, even if the attack is b-blocked, you can still attack c-continuously."

But despite their best efforts, when the two again faced off, the results were much the same.

"Why am I struggling so much with this? Continuous movement shouldn't be so hard for me…"

"Maybe you two should take a break." Kiba said, watching Sakura fall to the ground for the 9th time.

"Al-alright." Hinata was grateful for the respite, she'd been feeling tired.

"You take a break, Hinata-chan. I'll keep at this a little longer."

"A-are you sure?"

"Yeah. You need to rest…You shouldn't be overworking yourself too much while you're still recovering."

Kiba and Hinata watched as Sakura kept running through the movements of the gentle fist.

"Hey Sakura! Why don't you try against me for now. Maybe it's not working because Hinata's style is so similar to what you're trying to do. Try against me for now. I fight different."

"A-and I'll be able to watch more closely." Hinata added helpfully.

"Sure!"

Kiba took a very different approach to the exercise than Hinata had. He made the first move, charging at her, Akamaru at his side. Sakura barely jumped out of the way of his claws in time, and he was at her the second she landed.

"Come on! Dance Sakura!"

She ducked a swipe, and just as she did with Hinata, used his arm like a bar to swing on. Except this time, instead of just high kicking, she actually swung her whole body up and rotated her hips so her knees were on his shoulders, straightening and balancing there.

"Get off!" Kiba growled, reaching up to grab her. Sakura let herself fall backwards off of him, pushing against his hips to both knock him over and flip herself. She succeeded on both counts, Kiba letting out a grunt as he collided with the ground. But then Akamaru bit her causing her to gasp in surprise.

"Damn. I forgot about Akamaruk!"

"Well, you're a bit better at using dance as an attack when you're on the defensive." Kiba stated, as Akamaru released her arm and ran towards him.

"Thanks for the heads up…"

"Thought it'd stop you from being too in your head. And I was right." Kiba declared.

"S-Sakura-chan, can I try something?"

"Of course! What is it Hinata-chan?"

Hinata whispered something in Kiba's ear, who nodded, and whispered something back. Hinata cleared the space, and then hit play on Kakashi's music player.

"What are you—"

"J-Just dance, Sakura-chan."

"Okay."

"What's she up to?"

"Whatever. Let's just do it."

Sakura found the count and began dancing. Just as she started to lose herself in the music, Kiba charged at her, Akamaru at his heels.

Sakura danced out of their way, and was about to stop when she heard Hinata shout, "Don't stop dancing! K-Keep going!"

It was surprising cause she didn't even know Hinata could shout. But she let herself listen, and continued her fluid motions in time with the music.

"Don't just dance there! Attack!" Kiba ordered as he slashed at her. Sakura flipped over him, landed and spun, kicking him hard in the process, but the music didn't let her stop there. She rolled backwards, kicking Kiba twice more as her legs landed down in a pigeon pose. She straightened into a split and pushed herself off the ground so she was hovering. She pivoted her split, knocking Kiba's knees out from under him. He slashed at her but she rolled away, went into a bridge, and kicked her legs up and over in a back walkover landing on Kiba. She axel jumped on his back, forcing a firm grunt out of him. Kiba pounced at her, but she rolled under him and kicked up, kicking the dog trainer hard in the stomach, he landed hard on the ground, coughing, while Sakura continued her dance, her legs waving in an intricate graceful pattern, their momentum helping bring her body to a standing position as the song came to an end.

"What just happened?"

"We just kicked Kiba's ass is what happened! Shannaro!"

She heard Hinata giggle and looked over at her. Kiba sat up, smirking too.

"You definitely got something to work with when you keep it going like that."

"How…"

"You were overthinking S-Sakura-chan. I th-thought maybe the music might help you just dance."

"And if I kept coming at you, you'd adjust naturally to make it more of an attack."

"Wow…I can't believe that actually worked…You're a genius Hinata-chan!"

Hinata blushed.

"Don't get too excited yet. Even with all that, your hits are still on the weaker side, and you're too slow. relying on quick reflexes won't be enough. The speed of your attacks has to be faster."

"Lee-san was the fastest genin in the exam. But I think Kiba comes in second…if anyone can help me get my speed up, he's not a bad person to ask…"

"Ok. What's the best way to get my speed faster?"

"Hm…" Kiba glanced around before picking up a stick. "Play fetch."

"Excuse me?"

"You'll be racing against Akamaru. Try getting it and bringing it back before he does."

"Shannaro! What the hell does he think he's saying! We're not a dog, damnit!"

"No but…if I can get to a place where I can even keep up with an animal with four legs, that's pretty good for my speed."

"Fetch!" Kiba yelled tossing the stick. Both Sakura and Akamaru took off after it.

"This is so embarrassing!"

"Stop complaining! If it helps then I'm doing it. No arguments."

Even so, she couldn't help feeling a little demeaned by the course her training had taken, even more so with the fact that the little white dog was clearly well ahead of her. Needless to say, Akamaru beat her with ease. They kept playing until Sakura collapsed, breathing hard. In the several rounds of fetch they'd played, she never came close to over taking Akamaru. The best she'd managed was decreasing the distance between them.

"The added weight on my legs made this much harder…How did Lee-san do this?"

"Let's ask him!"

"…I should visit him anyways, so I may as well…And I'll add running to a morning routine…I doubt I'll get fast enough to pass Akamaru with how short a time frame I have, but if I can at least keep up with him, that should still be pretty fast."

Kiba and Hinata both stood over her, looking down at her to see if she was ok.

"You should take a break…" Kiba said. They'd been at this weird training session for a while and she hadn't stopped once since they started that morning.

"I-It is getting p-pretty late…m-maybe we should just s-stop for now…"

"Yeah. You're not gonna get better in a day."

"They're right. This isn't like chakra control. This is something I'm weak at. It's gonna take a while…Besides, I need to figure out tree dancing with these weights."

"Ok. Let's call it here." She said, taking Kiba's out stretched hand and pulling herself up. "Let's start with this next time and then go back to working on turning dancing into a combat move."

"Sure thing. So same time tomorrow?"

"Oh…no there's some other training I need to do. Can we do every other day?"

"Works for me. That's not a lot of time though."

"You're telling us!"

"I know…So go hard on me ok. I need to at least figure something out by the time the finals start."

"D-Don't worry, Sakura-chan! W-We'll help you as b-best we can!" Hinata declared. She was more bold when she wasn't nervous.

"Thank you both."

Kiba gave her a big grin before taking off. Hinata smiled and bowed, taking her leave as well. Sakura turned her attention to a nearby tree. She had work to do.

---

Sakura crashed to the ground for the thirty fifth time. She couldn't even take a single step up the tree. No matter what she tried, she didn't have the chakra available to move up the tree without pulling it from a different limb, rendering it immobile.

"Damnit!"

"Even if I had Naruto's chakra levels, with the weights on, it wouldn't make a difference. To move with the weights, each limb needs 25% focused on it. No matter how much chakra I have, it's always going to take all of it just to move…"

Sakura blinked up at the darkening sky and let out a sigh of frustration. "I'm not getting anywhere…I'll just head home for now. There's some books about sound waves I need to study, and I should make some stuff for Kiba and Hinata to thank them…"

Sakura pushed herself up and tiredly headed home.

---

Sakura woke up early to give herself time to stretch and go running before she met with Kurenai. She decided it would be best if she ran laps around the perimeter of the training ground to make sure she didn't lose track of time and end up late. Twenty laps and a tired Sakura later, Kurenai dropped into the field and got right to business.

"Since Ino won't be joining us today, I plan on testing love to see if it triggers you."

Sakura shifted awkwardly and nodded.

"It might not work if you're expecting it though, so I'll throw it in randomly during the tests."

"Alright. We know the sedatives work and I have two doses of each of the three strengths, but I want to see if knocking me out with out the help of a sedative works."

"How do you propose to do that? A genjutsu won't work when you're chakra's in that state."

"…Blunt force?"

"You're kidding me, right?"

"Nope. No matter what, losing consciousness should slow or stop the curse. Ideally we figure out a way for me to control it without that, but we need to make sure there's a backup plan in place incase we don't. Right now, that's the sedative, but if I or my comrade loses the sedative, over the course of a mission—"

"There needs to be another way. But blunt force…You really want to risk a potential injury like that?"

"If done right, there are ways to knock someone out with blunt force that won't leave a lasting injury…"

"I know. But that calls for precision that might not be possible in a real triggering scenario."

"Yeah…but…"

"If it's that or dying because of your kekkei genkai, you choose that. I get it."

"Yeah…so we need to know it'll work. I don't think we'll have to test it many times. Two at most. If you knock me out and the reaction stops within twenty minutes, the way it did with the sedative, then that should be enough to know."

"Alright. What else are you hoping to test today?"

"I want to see if I can get myself to calm down on my own…If it's taking longer than twenty minutes, knock me out with a sedative."

"Okay. Sakura, there are some things I'm going to need more details about for the genjutsu to be as effective as possible."

Sakura nodded.

"The first time we triggered you, you were begging someone to help someone."

"Doctors. I was begging doctors to save my mom. They were ignoring me…"

"What's wrong with your mom? Your mind wouldn't have created a scenario like that if it didn't happen or wasn't a distinct possibility."

"…She's sick. I don't know with what. She's a civilian and we can't afford the medical costs."

Kurenai was surprised though she didn't show it. That explained a lot about why the girl was the way she was.

"So you're scared of losing her."

Sakura nodded. Kurenai decided to move on. Now that she understood the situation, she didn't need more detail on that front.

"The third time I triggered you was also fear. What was it about?"

"Meeting Orochimaru in the chunin exams. He…turned into a giant snake and…ate Sasuke-kun and Naruto in front of me and I…I couldn't move or scream or anything…I couldn't do anything to try and warn them…no matter how hard I tried I couldn't do anything and…"

Kurenai studied her carefully. From the sound of it, what had scared her more than Orochimaru was being helpless while her teammates were hurt and in danger…her team mattered a lot to her, clearly, given how when she triggered her with rage, the thing she'd screamed about was for someone to stay away from her teammates.

"What's your team to you?"

Your father always said that his team was a part of his family…

"I get what he meant now…"

"Naruto, Sasuke-kun, Kakashi-sensei…they're a part of my family."

"Just like it was for you, dad…"

"All of them?"

Sakura just smiled and nodded.

"Even Naruto?"

"That kid…he's so frustrating. Immature. Reckless. Impulsive. But he's also carefree…"

I'm gonna be the greatest Hokage!

"And determined. Strong. Courageous…during the first exam, we were asked whether we wanted to take the tenth question—if we chose not to, we failed the exam but could try again. If we took it and got it wrong, we'd be genin for life. Our choice would effect our whole team…I almost cost us the exam. I almost opted not to take it. Naruto wouldn't put his hand up, and I didn't want to see his dream taken away from him. I didn't want him to be stuck a genin for life…I couldn't bear the thought of what that might do to him…as annoying as he is, I really want him to succeed."

Kurenai blinked in surprise. She really hadn't expected her to have such strong feelings about Naruto, but apparently she'd been ready to throw away her ninja career for his sake. And she viewed it as costing her team the exam—this girl was incredibly selfless.

"Why are you in love with Sasuke?" This was what she really needed some answers to. Based on what she'd seen of Sasuke, there wouldn't be enough for Sakura's mind to latch onto to create a believable illusion.

"It feels like I'm answering this a lot lately…this time it's actually necessary though. This time, the study necessitates it…" Sakura sighed, her cheeks flushing.

"S-Sasuke-kun…he's very…he was the first person to make me say what I really felt. He noticed and acknowledged me in ways no one ever had before…He was the first person to ask if my mom would be ok while I was away—the first person other than me to openly worry about her wellbeing. It might not seem like a lot to anyone else. Or even to him. But…at that point, Ino-pig and I weren't talking, and there was no one else who'd do anything like that for me…care, or worry, or even notice…I had a crush on him in the academy cause he was so intense and focused—he just seemed so much more mature than everyone else, but when I got to actually know him, those feelings just…grew."

"Any other fears I should know about?" Kurenai asked. She was shocked both by the stoic cold boy's alleged care and by the depth of emotions Sakura had for him—it was far deeper than she would have thought a thirteen year old capable of. But she decided once again to move on rather than comment on it, not wanting to exacerbate the girl's discomfort any more than necessary.

"Uh…I don't like bugs very much…"

"Bugs?" This time she let her surprise show.

"Well not all of them…but ones with no legs or six legs…maybe it applies to all animals, cause snakes creep me out too—and that was even before Orochimaru…"

Kurenai did her best not to laugh. The fear was valid, not uncommon. But it was just so unexpected from this very adult child saddled with real world worries and responsibilities. The thought that she could have a fear that actually fit her stereo typed image was almost funny.

"Thank you for telling me. I think I have enough to work with for now. Are you ready?"

Sakura took a deep breath and nodded, handing Kurenai the journal, watch, and sedatives. "Ready."

"We'll start with getting blunt force trauma out of the way."

"Okay."

Kurenai's hands flew through signs, and Sakura went under.

---

She was in the same training field, but Kurenai was nowhere to be seen. She heard a scratching behind her, turned and froze. There, on the tree behind her, was the giant centipede she'd seen from the Forest of Death. Except this time, it wasn't dead. It turned to her, and Sakura took a step back. It kept coming closer and closer, and Sakura continued taking steps away. Her hand reached for a kunai, but there was nothing there. The centipede charged at her, wrapping around her body. Sakura twitched, utterly creeped out, but determined not to break the genjutsu until she was pushed over the edge. She felt something along her skin and looked down. Hundreds of normal sized centipedes were crawling up her body. Sakura's eyes widened, her breathing picking up.

"I can't remember…are centipedes venomous?"

"Don't know, don't care! They're creepy and gross and crawling on us!"

More and more started crawling up her while the giant one wrapped tighter and tighter around her. The higher up her body the ones on her body started to get the more she felt herself panicking. When the reached her face, she lost it.

---

The bugs were gone and she was on all fours, screaming. The pain raced through her, along with her rampant chakra. Everything hurt so much that she didn't even notice the added pinch at the back of her head. Her vision grew dark and she passed out.

There was a throbbing in her head when she awoke.

"You can add it to your list…it works, but I wouldn't recommend it."

"How long was I out?"

"An hour and twenty-three minutes. It took twenty minutes for the reaction to stop after I knocked you out. I knocked you out within twenty-five seconds of when your chakra began to react."

"…My head hurts…"

The look Kurenai gave her clearly communicated she thought her stupid. "When your chakra reacts, it's so intense there's something a shockwave release around you. Coupled with how much you twitch and writhe around, it makes it almost impossible to get a precise hit."

"So…you wouldn't recommend it…" Sakura finished.

She gently touched the back of her head and winced. There was no blood thankfully, but there was definitely a growing bump.

"Can you keep going?"

"Yeah. I don't think I have a concussion or anything. If I do it's minor. It should be fine. Let's keep at it. I want to start working on ways to get the attack under control without knocking myself out."

"With or without a sedative?"

"I need to get to a place where I can do it without a sedative, but let's start with. The weakest one."

Kurenai nodded. Her hands blurred.

---

Sakura was dancing on the river, but stopped when she saw Sasuke watching her while she was mid-spin. Immediately her face colored.

"S-Sasuke-kun?" She moved back to the river bank to confirm what she was seeing, despite knowing it was an illusion in the first place.

"I'm on training ground eight and Sasuke-kun is training with Kakashi-sensei." She allowed the illusion to proceed none the less. It was her training after all.

She stopped along the river bank. Sasuke didn't move from where he was leaning against a tree, just continued staring at her with an intense look in his eyes that made her stomach flip nervously. She took slow steps towards him until she was only an arms reach away. He cocked his head to the side, the intense look still in his eyes.

"Sasuke-kun? Are you ok?"

"Hn…" He held out a canteen to her. She stepped closer to take it, but as soon as her fingers wrapped around it, Sasuke used it to pull her closer to him, flipping her so she was pinned against the tree.

"Uh…" Her eyes were wide with shock, her face horribly red. "S-S-Sasu—"

He leaned in closer, his breath tickling her ear. "The way you move is beautiful, Sakura."

She couldn't do much else than squeak, the color of her face resembling a tomato. His intense gaze dropped to her lips and he smirked. Sakura felt her heart hammer wildly. And then his mouth forcefully pressed into hers, and the illusion shattered.

---

Sakura found herself racked once again with the intense and unfortunately familiar pain of her chakra tearing her apart. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to throw her focus onto something else. It didn't work. The only thing she seemed to be able to draw up other than her current pain was the image of Sasuke crashing his lips against hers, which was most decidedly not helping her current situation. A liquid was thrust into her mouth, and she felt the her nerves and excitement begin to lesson.

"Your hair, Sakura!" She heard Kurenai shout at her.

"…Hair…?" She was too dazed to process the meaning right away, but it did draw her attention to how the petal pink strands of her hair tickled against her shoulders. She tilted her head to the side achingly, feeling how the locks shifted with the change of position, how a gentle breeze played with the strands. Finally the thought connected that she should touch her hair. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to seize control of twenty five percent of her chaotic chakra to allow her to move her hand. It wasn't working.

"Ch-chakra cuffs…can't m-move…" She gasped out, her chakra making her feel simultaneously like she was freezing and burning.

"Don't focus on the chakra, focus on the weight." She heard Kurenai urge, commanding yet gentle.

Sakura shifted the direction of her focus—still to her wrist, but now on the 8.75 kg weighing it down, instead of the wild chakra running through it. She became attentive to how the weight was evenly dispersed around her wrist, how much heavier it made her feel. She had the startling impulse to resist the weight, pull against it and lift her arm, regardless of the additional twenty five percent of her body weight fighting against her. Her chakra seemed to follow the impulse, despite how it pounded through her, bending to her body's instinct and natural control. Her arm rose shakily up, brining her hand to stroke gently through her hair. The other followed shortly there after, both her hands tangling in the relaxing texture. Her breathing became more eased and she felt her chakra begin to become more controllable, slowing a bit.

The process was gradual but twenty minutes later, her chakra slowed and lessened back to normal. She huffed a deep aching breath.

"Pain scale—7. I'm going to sleep now." Her voice was low and scratchy. She curled up and passed out.

---

When Sakura awoke, she immediately bolted up, glaring at Kurenai the second her eyes found her. "What the hell was that?!"

"Puberty." Kurenai said with a smirk. Sakura continued to glare, an indignant flush painting her cheeks. Kurenai began chuckling. "We needed to test arousal, remember? And now we know that's an upper emotion you're definitely going to need to work on controlling, since he's your teammate."

"…She's right…even though this is wildly embarrassing…"

"We can't have our chakra exploding whenever Sasuke-kun kisses us!"

"You make it sound like some common occurrence. Odds are it won't even happen…"

"We should still be prepared, shannaro!"

"Well…you won't have to worry too much about that…Sasuke-kun would never…"

"Didn't you say you weren't going to give up to Ino? You never know, he might at some point. Besides, even if it's not Sasuke, there will eventually be someone you're attracted to who will be into you as well. And when that happens, arousal will start to stir and be acted on. You need to know what's going to trigger you, even if it's something you won't be feeling until much later."

"I know…it's just embarrassing."

"There's nothing wrong with it. It's perfectly normal for a girl your age. And being on a team with your crush and a sensei who reads trashy 'romance' in public has probably made it stronger."

Sakura buried her face in her arms until her mortification passed. "You kept tabs on my pulse?"

"Made note of any changes and their timing in regards to the genjutsu."

Sakura nodded, her face still hidden.

"I gave you the sedative about a minute and a half after the reaction started. I wanted to let you try calming yourself down a bit."

Sakura bit at her lip in thought. Kurenai's eyes narrowed.

"Whatever it is you're thinking, just say it out loud. It's better we're fully on the same page."

Sakura looked up at her, eyes widening, before nodding. She wasn't used to sharing her thoughts while she was still in the process of working them out.

"Naruto wanted me to do that too. So we could start working things out together…it's weird, but I may as well get in the practice now."

"It's a bit different every time, but when the reaction starts, it's like my mind fogs over…it hurts so much I can't call up what it is I'm trying to do…I usually remember that I'm supposed to calm down, but it's like I can't call up how to start doing it. Not without hearing it—you or Ino saying something, like telling me what or where I need to focus."

"That might just be a matter of practice. The more you associate calm with stroking your hair, taking deep breaths, and focusing on your surroundings, the more you might just naturally begin to do them when you think of the word calm."

"I read some sort of study about that…training association and action. Every time this guy rang a bell, he'd give his dogs a treat. He did that for a month and then one time he rang the bell and the dogs came running already salivating because they associated the sound with getting a treat."

Kurenai nodded in thought. "The human brain is more complex than a dogs, of course—don't let Kiba know I said that—but, in theory the same could work for humans as well. Add this to your training regime. Anytime you overhear anyone say the word, 'calm,' stroke your hair. Whether they say it to you, or you hear it in passing. That goes for anytime you think it to yourself too."

Sakura nodded. "I'll add it as a side experiment starting today, and track it along with these sessions."

"You said it's a bit different every time though?"

"Yeah…I think it depends on what triggers the attack. So far, whenever it's been fear or a related emotion, like anxiety or panic, there's nothing that carries over when the attack starts. I don't think about what just happened or what I just saw. The pain overtakes everything. And in a way, it makes it easier to remember to calm down. But when the curse was triggered with rage, the emotion carried over. I had slightly more control—my mind was clearer. But I couldn't focus on calming down. I needed to hit something…it hurt a lot but I almost didn't process it because of how angry I was. And this time…arousal…" Sakura's face colored again. "…this time, my mind kept replaying what happened. I couldn't even think about calming down, because any time I tried to think, all I saw was Sasuke-kun—" She stopped abruptly, dropping her head back into her arms with a groan.

Kurenai chuckled before her tone returned to serious. "In a way, that might not be a bad thing. You're most likely to be triggered by variants of fear or rage out on the field. If you can calm down from fear quicker than others, that's good. And if you're actually able to harness rage, even better." Kurenai studied her, before sighing. "I said 'calm' and I didn't see you stroke your hair."

Sakura blinked blankly. "Aw crap!"

"Damnit! I really have to remember that!"

"Shannaro! This is gonna be so annoying!"

"I'm only going to trigger you once more. Ready?"

"Yeah."

---

Sakura blinked. Again, she was alone in the training ground. She turned when she heard footsteps coming from her left. Sasuke was walking towards her.

"Oh not again! Remember, Sakura, it's not real. Sasuke-kun isn't even in the village right now…"

Sasuke stopped when he reached her, kneeling to sit beside her. He gently reached over, taking her hand is his.

Despite knowing it was just an illusion, Sakura's face flushed. "S-Sasuke-kun, what are you doing?"

He turned her hand over, revealing her cut up palms.

"Tch. How did this happen?" He asked, his fingers tracing lightly over the various scrapes marring the skin of her hand.

"While tree dancing…I sort of fell."

"Hn." His eyes narrowed. "You didn't treat them."

"I kinda forgot…I've been a bit distracted."

"When aren't you? You never take care of yourself." Sasuke sighed in annoyance.

"He sounds annoyed about that—he totally cares! Shannaro!"

"I-It's not real." But even so Sakura blushed.

"I'm t-trying to—I even made time for training, like you're always telling me I should…"

"Hn…Good." Sakura's eyes widened as he began gently bandaging her hands.

"No one's done this for me before…" She felt a warm tingling feeling run through her.

The feeling only strengthened when after he finished, instead of dropping her hand, he gently wound his fingers through hers.

"S-Sasuke-kun…What are—"

"Your mom…is she okay?"

Sakura blinked, her gaze softening. "Y-yeah…She's alright…nothing's changed with her health, but she actually seems pretty happy lately."

"And you? How are you doing?"

"Me? I'm…" She wasn't even sure how to answer that… "I miss you…I'm managing, but I miss you and Kakashi-sensei. Naruto too. I haven't seen him once since he started training. But…You're the one I miss the most, Sasuke-kun."

"I guess I can really only say these kinds of things when Sasuke-kun isn't really here."

"Sakura…" Everything in her fluttered at the way he said her name…it sounded so…intimate. When she looked up at him, she forgot how to breathe. The way he was looking at her was so soft and gentle and…loving. She'd never once seen him look at anything like that. "It was annoying…but I missed you too."

"Y-you did?"

"Aa…" He reached over, gently tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, his fingers repeatedly brushing over the pink locks before finally pulling his hand away, the soft look never leaving his face. "I need to go back to training…but just for now, I want to stay like this…just for a little longer…with you."

Sakura felt moisture fog her eyes. For once, someone was caring about her physical wellbeing, instead of the other way around. For once, someone else cared enough about her mother to ask how she was. For once, someone missed her, someone wanted to stay with her, instead of the ever growing list of people who had or were in the process of leaving her behind.

"I want to stay here like this. With him…but this isn't real…and I've wasted a lot of time already."

"Just five more minutes? We totally deserve this!"

It was hard. She'd never wanted to shirk her responsibility more than in that moment. She'd never wanted to shut the logical part of her off and live in a fantasy more.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head on his shoulder. Sasuke made no move to push her away. He didn't tense at all at her closeness. In fact, he seemed to welcome it, leaning his head against her own.

"I want that too…to just stay with you like this…but it's time I got back to my own training. I'll see you in 24 days Sasuke-kun." She closed her eyes and focused her chakra. "Release!"

Sasuke vanished.

---

Kurenai sat before her, watching her intently.

"I thought you were going to try triggering me."

"I told you I wanted to test Love today. I was right. There was no reaction. If anything, your pulse slowed a little."

"Thank goodness. If my chakra reacted every time I felt strong love for Sasuke-kun, I may as well just walk straight into the ocean and get it over with…"

"I was thinking, do you need to be triggered again today? We already know the sedatives and knocking you out works. Now we're working on you calming (Sakura consciously stroked her hair) yourself down. But until stroking your hair becomes an unconscious reflex, will doing more really be worth it? It might just be an unnecessary risk."

Sakura chewed on her lip in consideration. "Ok…We should still meet next time. To check on my progress if nothing else. But let's call it here for now."

Kurenai nodded. "How are you feeling? Can you make it back on your own?"

"Yes, sensei."

"Good. I'll be off then. I'll see you in two days. Same time and place."

Kurenai whooshed away, leaving Sakura alone in the training ground.

---

As the days past, Sakura was making slow but steady progress on all facets of her training. She still needed the sedative, but she was getting much quicker at starting the process of calming herself down on her own. She was getting much faster, actually managing to almost keep up with Akamaru when they played fetch, and it reflected in her agility during spars. She still needed music to help her attack in continuous suggestion, but she was getting better at turning her moves into attacks, and thanks to Hinata's help her fluidity and ability to rebound had grown much stronger. She had yet to beat Shikamaru in shogi, but their games were taking longer and longer.

She'd also grown much closer to her various training partners. It was like she and Ino had never stopped being friends, as they easily reintegrated into each others lives, well and truly best friends who told each other everything. Ino had even come over a few times to Sakura's apartment, to introduce herself to her mother, every time bringing flowers, anmitsu, cookies, and soup. Ino and Mebuki got along very well, sharing stories that Sakura had neglected to tell.

Akamaru loved the treats she made for him so much so that Kiba joked he'd have to start buying them off her. She learned how much Kiba looked up to his sister and mom, even though he was scared of the latter, and that he'd had Akamaru since he was two. He'd even pilfered some soldier pills for her.

Hinata completely opened up to her. The two girls talked at length about dancing, the gentle fist, flower pressing, making medicines, and Naruto. It turned out that Hinata stuttered far less when she wasn't nervous and was comfortable with the person she was talking to.

Interestingly, the person she grew closest to, aside from Ino, was Shikamaru. Throughout the course of their several shogi games, they'd come to truly respect each other's wit and intelligence. There was a strange level of candor throughout all conversations they had, ranging from strategy, to women, to men, to clans, to medicine, to clouds. He confided in her how much he struggled with Ino's personality despite how much he cared for her, and she expressed her similar sentiments about Naruto. It turned out the Nara clan was very involved with the village medical system, having detailed books on necessary health care for each clan in the village, as well as growing much of the medical resources in their own forest. When she'd told him about her mother's illness, he actually offered to walk her through the forest to gather medicinal herbs if she wanted, an offer she'd readily accepted. They'd truly come to know each other as very good friends.

The only part of her training Sakura had yet to make any headway in, was her chakra weights. It had been ten days since she'd received the 25% weights, and she had yet to manage more than two steps up the tree. For the seventy-fifth time that day, Sakura crashed to the ground.

"We're supposed to be smart, damnit! Why do we keep trying the same thing over and over when we know it's not gonna work!"

"I'm open to any suggestions!"

Sakura groaned and threw an arm over her face. "I only have sixteen days left…I need to have mastered these three days ago…" She spoke into the empty training ground. She closed her eyes in frustration, her mind drifting to Sasuke.

"Stop it! Focus on training!"

But it didn't stop her from recalling the last time she'd seen him as he and Kakashi were leaving the village. She wondered how his training was going, if he ever felt homesick, if looking at the crane made him feel better, if he even remembered he still had the crane—he may have forgotten or thrown it out…if he ever thought of her the way she was thinking of him.

Her mind replayed the memory of giving him the crane. He'd seemed so relieved when Kakashi had stepped in…that was when he'd given her the chakra weights.

Third, they'll help you train and get used to moving your chakra around fast. The more accustomed and equipped your body is to handling chakra moving at high speeds, the easier it'll be for your body to handle your activated chakra movements.

Sakura's eyes shot open. "Moving my chakra around fast…That's how to do it! Kakashi-sensei practically told me the answer right there! Shannaro, how'd I forget that?!"

Sakura sat up, releasing the chakra from the weights on her wrists and focusing it into her feet. She walked five steps up the tree and succeeded in holding herself there for ten seconds, before pushing herself off the tree and landing lightly on the ground.

"Alright, good! So I know that works, but how do I manage this while dancing…"

Hinata's voice whispered through her mind, tidbits of things she said over the course of their training.

I-It's about using the momentum…

N-Not every move r-requires your full weight or f-focus…

G-Gravity will do some of the work for you…

"If I only focus my chakra in to the weight to start the move, I can let gravity take over and finish it…so long as I keep my balance and weight distributed correctly, my standing leg won't need any chakra in the weight. Neither leg needs chakra if I'm holding a pose, and during a step sequence, after I've set my arms, they don't need to move…If I keep fifty percent of my chakra set aside to move between two weights, than I have half my chakra to work with…" Sakura bit her lip her concentration. "Gods that's difficult. The level of focus and bodily awareness…"

"So?! We're not giving up just cause it's hard, shannaro!"

"No way in hell am I giving up—not before I even try."

While she managed to dance and spin up the tree, she failed repeatedly in her attempts to change contact points. For the first time ever, Sakura actually misapplied her chakra causing her to be pushed off the tree, leaving a small foot sized crater in the bark. In her rush to get her chakra back in place, she'd used too much of it on the tree. It took her well into the night to succeed and move her chakra fast enough. Her chest heaved as she lay on the ground staring up at the darkened sky.

"Once I master this, 50% won't be as hard—it'll take more. I'll have to be able to switch my focus quickly cause I'll only have the one portion of chakra instead of two, but the theory will be the same. That's why 15% wasn't hard to master after figuring out 5%. If I can fully master this by tomorrow, I'll have fifteen days to master 50%…it's not as much as I would have liked, but it is workable…"

Sakura popped one of the soldier pills Kiba had given her into her mouth. She had no time to waste, she had to get this down completely.

---

The next night, she knocked on Asuma's door, dripping wet, but having succeeded in moving her chakra fast enough to smoothly dance both on the tree and on water.

"I wondered if you were ever gonna come back." Asuma said when the door opened. In all honesty, he really hadn't expected her to master them until long after the chunin exams finished. He wasn't even sure what 'mastering' them truly meant. Kakashi had never told him what he expected the girl to be able to do while wearing them, just that if she showed up, he was supposed to give her the next set.

"This level gave me some problems…but I figured it out."

"Congratulations. Here's a new headache." He handed her the next set as she released her self from her weights two at a time. But she hesitated at handing her old weights back to him.

"Asuma-sensei…can I hang on to these?"

"That way, incase I can't manage to get myself into fighting shape in time, I can drop down the weight class…"

"Sure." He didn't know why she would want to, but it's not like he needed them.

She tucked the 25% weights into her weapons pouch, slipped on the new ones and held out her wrist for Asuma to activate them.

"So, fifty percent," he commented casually, "you gonna be stuck outside my door all night?"

The metal bands shrank to her skin snuggly. Even worse than the chakra needed to move them was the sudden weight she felt. She was now carrying the additional weight of two of her self total. 17.7 kg on each limb.

"Well, I'll definitely be getting gravities help moving…"

"Don't worry Asuma-sensei. I won't be loitering."

He didn't buy it, but she said it so confidently it made him curious. "Alright, well, get going then." He said, hanging by the door to watch her progress as she walked away.

Sakura concentrated her chakra into one of her ankles. The second her foot was off the ground, she called her chakra to the other one, letting gravity do the rest. In that way she bounced fifty percent of her chakra rapidly between her two feet, moving at a normal bordering on slow walking speed. But it was far more than Asuma had expected. He stared in shock at the girls retreating back, unclear on how she was moving so well so quickly. She clearly hadn't been at full chakra when she'd knocked on his door. Kakashi's students really were something else—that, or he was a surprisingly good teacher. He wasn't sure he wanted to give his friend that much credit though. Closing his door with an impressed shake of his head, he left Sakura to her training.

---

Sakura didn't go home after receiving her new set of weights, instead going right to training. Instead of trying tree dancing straight away, she decided first to work on normal dancing. She had training with Kiba and Hinata the next day and she didn't want to be unable to do anything. So instead she worked on familiarizing herself with the mechanics of her movements. When and how each part of her body needed to move, in how quick succession of each other, where was the point she could pull her chakra away but still have her momentum and gravity continue the movement. She shifted her dance style slightly to favor being on one leg or arm, relying on gravity and momentum to move her other two limbs. Learned carefully how the ways she moved her torso changed affected her arms and legs. She worked until she knew every single mechanism of her body and movements, down to her smallest shifts of weight. It also helped her adjust to the added weight. She was unquestionably slower. There was no way that would go unnoticed the next day.

---

It didn't. She'd lost to Akamaru by almost as much as she had the first day.

"What gives, Sakura? Why are you so slow all of the sudden?" Kiba asked, as the three leaned back against a tree for a short break.

Sakura debated on her answer as she took a swig of water. She hadn't told Kiba or Hinata about the weights. The only ones who knew about it were Kurenai and Ino. She didn't want Kiba or Hinata to start pulling their punches in training because they thought it was too much for her. She didn't want them to know she was training against a handicap.

"I must be tired I guess…"

"A-Are you sure you want to k-keep going, Sakura-chan? We could take a break today."

"I'm sure. After all, you know Naruto's not taking a break. We can't let ourselves fall further behind now, can we?" She joked with a light wink to the shy girl. Instantly Hinata's face flushed.

"O-Of course n-not!"

"You are getting better at using dance in place of taijutsu, but not fully enough to call it a fighting style, and you don't have the time to turn it into that. You said you wanted to make this a barrage move…got any ideas for how to do that?"

Sakura looked down pensively. "I've been thinking a lot about this, and I'm not sure…"

"I'm not as fast as Lee-san or Sasuke-kun, so I can't pull off something like the Lotus. And I don't have as much chakra as Naruto, so I can't do what he did with his Uzumaki barrage by quadrupling myself…the only thing I'm good at is chakra control…"

She thought back on how her foot had made a small creator in the tree when she'd applied too much chakra to it. Sakura's eyes widened.

"Wait…do you think ninja can climb bodies like trees?"

Hinata and Kiba stared at her in confusion.

"W-What do you mean, Sakura-chan?"

"Like tree climbing…walking straight up a tree with no hands…do you think it's possible to walk up a body that way?"

"…I don't see why it wouldn't be, but why would you want to?" Kiba asked.

"It might n-not be possible…since a body has it's own chakra flow, it might re-repell whoever's trying…" Hinata answered, also confused.

"Ok, well…maybe it's more like water then. Like an ever changing release…Let's just try…Kiba do you mind?"

"Knock yourself out…" He murmured, perplexed.

He stood up and Sakura placed a foot on his stomach, focusing carefully to find the perfect release of chakra to anchor herself to him. When she felt herself stick, she lifted her other foot, placing it on his chest and gluing herself to him with her chakra. It only lasted two seconds before his chakra began pushing her off. She didn't fight it, removing one foot and setting it on the ground, and then another. She'd seen what she needed and her eyes glittered in excitement.

"It works! The persons chakra does start to fight back, but if I shift my chakra output accordingly, I should still stick!"

"That's great and all, but why? What's that gonna do?"

"Ok! So! When you apply too much chakra when climbing a tree, you get pushed off right?"

"Yeah. It damages the tree too."

"Exactly—so what if I dance on the person—use them as my floor, and then purposely misapply my chakra to cause damage!"

"Th-That…that would work!" Hinata murmured, her eyes widening. "It's a little like the gentle first…releasing chakra directly into the opponents body to cause damage!"

"Yeah but…you do realize you're talking about realtime constant scaling of your chakra, while dancing and strategically misapplying it—and that's in a perfect world where they aren't trying to counter you in any way. That's so much focus…is that even possible?"

"I can do it! I'll make it work…the countering thing is a problem though…"

"In Lee-kun, Sasuke-kun, and N-Naruto-kun's barrage attacks, they always hit their opponent into the air…"

"It's harder to counter or have any control while airborne." Kiba acknowledged, having been on the receiving end himself. "But you don't have the physical strength to kick someone into the air."

"But if I misapply my chakra on an upward strike, it might be enough to get them into the air, and if I keep misapplying my chakra in one limb but hanging on with the other, it might be enough to keep both of us airborne and allow me to get more hits it."

"…Can you…can you even do that?" Kiba muttered in shock. What she was saying sounded impossible. He couldn't even imagine the chakra control necessary to pull this off.

"Let's find out!" Sakura said excitedly.

"Test on a wood target dummy first. Make sure you can alternate the way you're using your chakra first before trying it on me."

"Good call."

For the next twenty minutes, Kiba and Hinata watched as Sakura flipped and spun herself around a wood dummy, until finally, using carefully applied chakra, she was able to both knock it higher and higher into the air, while keeping herself attached enough to continue the onslaught. She didn't keep at it long. Once she managed to do it twice, so as not to waste chakra, she called it quits.

She landed on the ground, the dummy crashing down next to her, two foot sized craters in the wood where she misapplied her chakra. She looked over at Kiba and Hinata as they joined her.

"Th-That was amazing!"

"I can't believe you actually did it!"

"Now to see if I can manage it on a human."

"Ugh this might get me sent to the hospital…" Kiba muttered dryly.

"You might have a p-problem though…You threw the dummy before attacking. K-Kiba-kun will be harder to get airborne."

"And you're gonna have to keep changing your chakra too." Kiba said.

"Let's get to it then!" Sakura answered, a cocky smile playing on her lips.

"I'm not giving up now! Not when I finally have a direction to head in, shannaro!"

The next four hour were spent practicing climbing and dancing on Kiba, working on shifting her chakra to keep herself attached to him for long periods of time. She managed to dance a full song, using an upright Kiba as her dance floor, before she felt herself start to run low on her available chakra.

"I'm starting to run low on chakra…"

"Already? Damn Sakura, you've got like, no stamina today. Why is your chakra so low?"

"Cause I've only got half my chakra to work with, damnit!"

Sakura gave a careless shrug. "Just really tired I guess."

"So, you want to call it a day?"

"No…but can we take a two hour break?"

"Fine with me. I was getting a bit hungry anyways."

"I'm o-okay with that too Sakura-chan."

"Thanks guys!"

---

Sakura wandered through the village idly.

"Fourteen days left. Half the time's used up already…Overall I've made good progress…I'm on the highest weight class, and it's rough but I can move. I've got a taijutsu barrage move in the works—and it'll need a lot of work, I can't try and use something only half baked. But if I was able to climb and dance on Kiba, than I should be just fine with tree and water dancing with these weights…as for my curse…I've got ways to survive an attack but never without any ally. So that still needs needs work. The question is will it be enough to survive and beat Dosu…"

She stopped short. She'd asked for a two hour break to regain some of her chakra, but she hadn't had a plan for what to do in that break. And she'd learned from repeated attempts with Shikamaru that she was very bad at doing nothing.

"I haven't visited Lee-san yet…that's what I'll do!"

She headed for the hospital, stopping in someone's garden to steal a daffodil for him along the way.

---

She headed for Lee's room but stopped short when she saw him through an open window in a courtyard doing one armed push ups.

"Stop! What do you think you're doing?" A nurse shouted at him.

"…Lee-san…"

"Lee! Please…stop! You're in no condition—"

"Please be quiet and leave me alone!" Lee snapped. He wasn't finished yet. No matter what they said, his ninja career wasn't over yet. Gai-sensei told him he had to believe in himself! Never…he would not ever give up!

"…199…" His shoulder gave out and he collapsed.

"Lee-san!" Sakura leapt through the window, running to Lee's unconscious form. She unclipped her weapons pouch and turned it over sliding it under his head.

"Go get a stretcher, I'll watch over him!" She commanded the nurse, who was at first taken aback, but decided to listen anyways since it was the best course of action.

Sakura sighed as she carefully scanned over Lee's injuries. "You always push yourself too hard…don't you? Just like those two…" She said wistfully, thinking of her teammates.

The nurse returned with one other medic and a stretcher, and Sakura followed them as they carried Lee to his room and placed him on his bed. She dropped her daffodil into an empty vase on his nightstand, before studying him briefly, chewing on her lip in thought.

She wasn't a doctor or medic and didn't want to contradict anything they told him. But she also understood Lee, and knew that he wouldn't accept bed rest as a prescription. Making up her mind she rifled through her pouch and pulled out a small jar of a pasty substance.

She opened up the night stand drawer and found a pad of paper and a pencil and quickly began writing down her instructions. She didn't sign her name, incase his doctor saw it and got mad at her, but she also wanted him to know that she was the one who gave him these orders so he might be more inclined to follow them, so she opted for a quick doodle by way of a signature.

When Lee awoke, he was alone in his room, but he blinked in confusion at the daffodil and jar on his nightstand. He leaned in for a closer look and saw a note:

'Lee-san,

Rub this paste over your muscles and then wrap them in a warm cloth. It includes lavender, eucalyptus, and epsom salt, and will help your muscles to relax which will speed up their healing process. Do no more than 75 one armed push ups (or whatever other conditioning you do for your arms and legs) a day. If you need to do more, do sit ups, but no more than 150. You'll only do more damage to your body if you over work it. You need to let it rest if you want to have any hope of recovery.'

There was no name, but there was a small cherry blossom drawn at the bottom.

---

It took her a while, but Sakura finally managed to track down TenTen on training ground 5 with Neji. Neji had been in the middle of working on something, TenTen across from him with an open summoning scroll, but stopped when he saw her approach.

"What do you want?" He asked, his tone cold.

"Rude cold handed bastard! Thank god we never asked him for help, shannaro!"

"You're hospitalized teammate is overworking himself, putting his body at greater risk." She answered, not bothering with her usual polite, detached smile or tone. He pissed her off, and for once, she decided to take a page out of Ino and her teammate's books and let him know it. She turned her attention to Tenten warming a little, her tone becoming more polite and friendly. "Please make sure he actually follows the instructions I left him. You seem pretty good at reigning him in."

"It does seem to be my biggest responsibility." TenTen agreed, her tone friendly. She wasn't gonna bother lying, Sakura had grown on her, her initial impression of the girl completely shifting. Sakura cared about Lee's wellbeing, and as his teammate, that was all TenTen needed to be alright with someone. If they wanted the best for her team—her two closest friends, then in her book, they unquestionably earned friendship status. "How's your training going?"

"Pretty well! I'm making progress!" Sakura answered with a beaming smile.

"That's awesome! Are you training with Naruto and Sasuke?"

"No. Kakashi-sensei is training Sasuke-kun out of the village, and he found some other teacher to train Naruto."

"Oh," TenTen faltered, "Then who are you training with?"

"Kiba and Hinata-chan!" Sakura declared brightly, noticing immediately how tense Neji got.

He audibly scoffed. "How unfortunate. You're going to lose, then." He said coldly, his eyes narrowed.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that. She's much more capable than you think she is…but no matter. I'm sure Naruto will beat some sense into you." Her own tone matched his, before she turned back to TenTen again, all warmth and sunshine. "Anyways, I just wanted to draft your help with Lee-san. Good luck with your training!" Sakura said waving as she walked away.

"Right back at you, Sakura! Thanks for your help with Lee!" TenTen called before giving Neji a cautious glance. "What was that about?"

Neji didn't answer.

---

It was another five hours of training before Sakura managed a kick that got Kiba airborne. She carefully kept herself attached to him, managing to take herself up with him. She flipped and wove herself around him, but didn't misapply her chakra soon enough and they both crashed back to the ground.

Kiba grunted.

"Damnit! My chakra got caught on my foot!" A sentiment that wouldn't make sense to anyone other than those who had the misfortune of wearing chakra weights.

"Well, it worked, you got me off the ground."

Hinata hurried over to them. "That was better, Sakura-chan…b-but if you want it to be an effective barrage, you need to keep him in the air longer."

"She's right. And right now, your moves are too slow. You need to be faster. If I wasn't letting you try and work it out, at the rate you were going, I could have easily countered, even while in the air."

"Hmm…Kiba, did glueing myself on to you hurt you at all?"

"Well…" Kiba said scratching his head in thought, "kinda. But it was more like a slow burning…kinda easy to ignore in the heat of the moment."

"A s-slow burn?" Hinata's eyes widened. "Byakugan!" veins bulged around her pale lavender eyes as she studied Kiba's chakra network.

"What is it Hinata?"

"Your chakra flow is disrupted…it's only a little, but Sakura-chan's chakra seems to be interfering with yours."

"Oh!" Sakura straightened, thinking back to when she'd tried to share her chakra with Naruto. They'd both felt their hands begin to burn. "I wasn't trying to sink up my chakra with yours, which means my chakra just flowed into you as is—of course it would disrupt your chakra flow!"

"The g-gentle fist does something similar, but it relies on quick h-hard released bursts of chakra. B-because of the speed and force used on the s-strike, it does direct damage to the network itself, but doesn't linger in the opponents body."

"But what I'm doing is a gentle slow release. It's not doing direct damage, but it is saturating their chakra network with my chakra, which inherently throws their system out of whack!"

"Until you m-misapply your chakra, then it's more damaging."

"…I feel like I'm missing something." Kiba said, looking between the two girls in confusion.

"Try using a jutsu."

Kiba started to form the hand signs for a simple transformation jutsu—a jutsu he could do in his sleep…but he was having trouble gathering his chakra. He had to squeeze his eyes shut in concentration, finally managing the jutsu, which took him twice as long as it normally would to cast. Once he had transformed—Iruka-sensei had been the first person who came to mind—it took him much more energy to actually maintain it then it normally would have taken him. When he dropped the transformation, his breathing was actually a little labored.

"So what you're saying is, your chakra messed my chakra up."

"Nailed it."

"D-Don't worry—it'll wear off soon, Kiba-kun. It wasn't that much."

"But, if you keep the barrage going longer, more of your chakra will get into your opponents system, right? You could really screw up your opponent for the duration of the battle."

"It's not j-just that…d-depending on where and how your chakra is introduced into the opponents chakra networks, the d-damage could be far more immediate and painful."

"You mean if I happen to hit their chakra points, right?"

"W-Well, yes…but e-even without that…if you're spinning…"

"The chakra would be released into them, spinning as well!" Sakura realized. "It'd be like being drilled into!"

Hinata nodded.

"Aw crap! Why do I have a feeling training with you just got a lot more painful for me?" Kiba moaned, making Sakura laugh.

"It'll only be painful if I can pull it off."

"You'll figure it out." Kiba answered with a dry look. "But, let's give me a chance to recover before we completely screw up my system, yeah?"

"I-It is getting pretty late…"

"We can call it a day for now! We'll work more on this next time."

"Sounds good. Get some rest Sakura—none of this'll work if you're too tired to move quick enough."

"Don't worry, I'll speed up." Sakura waved them good bye, watching as their backs retreated, before turning to hunt for the nearest body of water. She figured if she was able to dance on a human, she'd be able to dance on water already, and decided it was worth skipping tree dancing to find out.

---

There were ten days left before the finals. Sakura had been proven correct in her assumption that she'd be able to dance on water if she could dance on a human, which meant she didn't have to waste time and energy on those exercises, instead focusing on getting used to the weight increase, moving her chakra around fast, and practicing her barrage on logs and wood dummies when she wasn't with Kiba and Hinata.

But for now, her focus was on the heated shogi match she and Shikamaru were having. She felt immensely proud of herself. For the first time every, she seemed to have really stumped him.

Shikamaru studied the board before closing his eyes, his hands coming together to form an open circle. Sakura cocked her head to the side, watching him curiously. She'd never driven him to have to think this hard before.

"Did I actually manage to back him into a corner? Did I actually manage to win?!"

"Shannaro! Outsmarted the smarty pants!"

Finally Shikamaru opened his eyes and made his move—having completely abandoned his old strategy and formed a new one. Within three moves, the game was over. Shikamaru had won. Again.

Sakura blinked in bewilderment at the shogi board.

"How did you do that?"

"I utilized the pawn to—"

"I saw what you did. I mean how did you dump an entire strategy and come up with a new one within five minutes?"

"You know what they say about plans…always have a back up."

"But that wasn't a back up—you switched to your back up nine turns back and I blew it on my second to last turn. How'd you come up with something entirely new that quickly while you were backed into a corner?"

"Troublesome…I guess I just worked backwards."

"Worked backwards?"

"If you know what you want your end goal to be, sometimes it's easier to reverse the steps from there. It helps your mind see each move you have to make more clearly."

"Is that what you did with Kin?"

"Didn't need to."

"Have you ever needed to?"

"In shogi yes. In battle, no."

"You know, in battle, you might not get the time to formulate an entirely new plan."

"Then I'll have to make time." Shikamaru drawled. "Lucky for me my clan jutsu is a stall maneuver."

"A stall maneuver that only lasts five minutes at most. The more quick repeated uses, the shorter the amount of time it lasts. And that's in a perfect world where your opponent isn't strong enough to resist it. Plus you have a limited range on it too."

Shikamaru studied her, eyes narrowed. "Where did you learn so much about clan techniques?"

"Read about it. If they didn't want outsiders to know, the clans shouldn't have put that information in a scroll available to the public at the library."

"Heh. So, you only do reckon on your own village or did you study up on anything useful about your opponent?"

"Please. I read that scroll long before the chunin exams. And yes, I've read every book and scroll in the library about sound, sound waves, audio frequencies, the ear, the lymbic system, and what little information was available about Otogakure."

"And?"

"The only potentially useful thing I found was about destructive interference—sending a counter frequency to that of the sound wave's to cancel it out. Also referred to as noise cancellation. But that presupposes a lot of things—knowing or being able to read the exact frequency of the sound wave, and knowing how to generate the continual inverse of the wave to cancel it out. And at the moment, it's only theoretical. No one's had the ability to test it out yet…or if they have, they haven't made their research public."

"Sounds like a drag…ever think you might be overcomplicating this?"

"I've been hearing that a lot lately…how so?"

"Dosu told Lee that the device on his arm amplifies the sound of his arm coming into contact with anything. That's the basis for his attack…"

"So if I remove or disable the device, I disable his whole jutsu."

"In theory. He might have more tricks up his sleeve. But that is the one he's continuously relied on so far."

"The problem is, how do I get close enough to remove it without getting hit by his sound waves first…"

Despite how long the rounds went for, Shikamaru won the next five games they played.

---

It was the night before the exam. Sakura had worked relentlessly in all facets of her training. Her mastery over the 50% weights had grown considerably, able to bounce her chakra around her body very quickly at an incredibly fast rate. She'd managed to get her physical speed back to where it had been—almost keeping up with Akamaru. True to Kakashi's hope, it seemed having to move her chakra at high speeds had actually helped a little with managing her activated chakra, making it slightly easier to control. It allowed her to actually do various grounding activities, like stroking her hair (now successfully an unconscious response to the word 'calm'), drawing patterns on the ground, or grabbing an allies hand to share chakra. She'd gotten better at calming herself down faster. She still usually needed the sedative, but she'd gotten to a place where she could administer it to herself within the first five minutes of an attack.

She'd worked the hardest on her barrage attack. After a lot of effort and carefully applied chakra, the attack was deemed combat ready by both Kiba and Hinata. The only two problems were that Sakura still couldn't maintain the flow of the attack without music, and that depending on the song, her dancing changed, meaning the barrage never had the same set of moves. The first point was rendered a non issue by Hinata, who pointed out that with Sakura's excellent memory, all she had to do was play the song out in her head. The second wasn't so much of a problem as it was something to be aware of. Depending on the song Sakura chose, the speed and power of the barrage would change. She'd just have to recall a song that made the barrage more ferocious and powerful.

Now, Sakura had nothing left to do. She'd done all the training she could, but her anxiety was growing by the second. She wandered around her tiny apartment trying to do everything she could think of to distract herself. She fussed over her mom, she cooked their dinner, cleaned the kitchen and bathroom, started making more medicine, budgeted out their money, and inventoried the fridge. Her mother watched in a mix of amusement and concern as Sakura unpacked and repacked her weapons pouch for the fourth time that night.

"Kunai…shuriken…paper bombs…food pills—I only have three left…ointment…bandages…" She stopped staring down at the extra set of chakra weights, debating.

"I've gotten pretty smooth with these 50% weights, but maybe…"

"I can practically hear you thinking, Sakura-chan. When in doubt, just take them."

Sakura blinked up at her mother before nodding, and stuffing the bangles in her pouch.

"You're really nervous about this aren't you?"

"…Yeah…it's weird. I told myself I don't even care about advancing to the next round, and I don't…but I want to win my first battle so bad…and I'm scared I won't…"

"You will."

"You don't know that."

"I do. Because no one knows how hard you work better than I do. And you've worked hard."

"But what if it's not enough? He's a strong opponent and—"

"And you're stronger. No matter how many punches are thrown at you, you still keep getting up and fighting back harder and harder. You said you fought him before, right?"

"Yeah, sorta…he's seen me fight twice."

"But that was before you worked your butt off training."

"So he'll be underestimating me."

"Exactly! Use it! He's going to give you so many unintentional openings because he doesn't know that he should be scared—take advantage of every single one."

Sakura cracked a weak smile. "You're pretty scary, mom. People would definitely fear you if you were a ninja…"

"And you're my daughter. You've inherited all my scary, so don't be afraid to use it."

Sakura actually did manage a real laugh at that. "You got it, mom." Her smile fell as her eyes dropped to her lap. "I wish you could be there, mom…"

"Sakura-chan, come here." Sakura knelt next to her mother.

Mebuki reached around her neck, unclasping a silver chain. Sakura's eyes widened.

"Mom what are you…but you never take that necklace off."

"Your father gave me this as a gift when we found out you were due in the spring time." She said fondly, holding up the soft pink cherry blossom pendent with one magenta petal. The older woman reached over and clasped the necklace around her daughters neck. "I won't be able to be there, but I'm always with you, Sakura-chan, remember that. No matter what happens, I'm rooting for you always…I'm sure your dad is too. If you ever forget that, then just take a look at this and you'll know." She said, lightly fingering the pendent, now hanging from Sakura's neck.

Sakura's eyes misted as she stared down at the necklace. Her throat tightened.

"I shouldn't be doubting myself…not when there's someone who believes in my this much…"

Sakura threw her arms around her mother.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome dear. Now get some sleep. I mean it. I will use one of your sedatives against you if I have to."

Sakura laughed. "You really are scary."

Sakura did manage to fall asleep, curled up next to her mother, holding her hand.

---

Author's note: Wow that was long. I hope that wasn't too boring, while writing it was hard to tell how much time should be spent with each of her training partners. To be clear, Dosu doesn't try to attack Sasuke early in this (thus getting himself killed) because he actually wants to fight Sakura. The idea of chakra weights was completely ripped off from Yu Yu Hakasho's spirit cuffs.

Quite a few SasuSaku moments in this...I don't think Sasuke's dumb or oblivious, I just think he genuinly doesn't know what romantic love looks like, and this isn't a Sakura that's openly declared her love for him to his face. I don't think he knows how to place it on his own, and the closest thing he's experienced to it aside from his family are fangirls-which is very different. but clearly he recognizes enough to entertain the idea that she feels something for him.

I really like the idea of Sakura crowed sourcing her training. I'm also really into the idea of women supporting women and the girls actually being really close and trying to help each other out. All the females of Naruto are underutilized, so I wanted to give them more to do.

I don't ship Shikamaru and Sakura, however, I do think that a more mature Sakura and a less mysoginistic Shikamaru would actually be a really good pair. I imagine them to be the kind of close friends that everyone thinks should get together but they're just not into it.

Next up is the finals. I will do my best to not have it be as disjointed as the preliminaries were.

Thank you all so so much for all the favs/follows and especially the reviews! Please keep leaving them, they make my day and keep me writing!

Thank you for reading this far :)