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.)

20. Her Training II pt 1

A/N: Sorry this took a while. This is the first half of Sakura's training arch over the time skip. I hope it's good and not boring.

"Inner Sakura..."

"Sakura's thoughts..."

Memory...

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

---

She'd barely gotten any sleep the previous night, but Sakura stood at Tsunade's desk at 5am, red eyed, face pale, reports in hand. She'd made up her mind. She wasn't going to cry or fly off the handle anymore. She had to be strong, for Naruto. She had to work hard and be responsible about her training. Being an over emotional, unprofessional, mess would do her no good.

Tsunade was asleep at her desk, passed out on a pile of paper work.

"Um…Hokage-sama?" Sakura asked quietly. When Tsunade made no move, Sakura decided on a more aggressive approach. She slammed her reports down on the desk, causing the Hokage to bolt upright.

"Hm?! What's going on?!" The Hokage looked around bewildered, before her eyes landed on Sakura and her mind calmed. "Oh. It's just you. Well, you got here on time. Reports?"

Sakura handed her new master her work with a bow. She watched with anxiety as Tsunade skimmed over the first page of Neji's report before flipping through the other ones. She stopped when she reached Gaara's, reading over that report with a critical eye. Shizune had told her about the scene at the hospital the previous night, and she couldn't help the feeling of pride she already had in her new apprentice. She hadn't even begun training her and the girl was already proving to be a fine medic. But that also meant that Sakura, who didn't even know medical jutsu yet, was the only one looking into Gaara's health, and if something went wrong, it could lead to an international incident. After all, hated jinchuriki of not, Gaara was a prince in Suna. She'd already made up her mind to let Sakura be Gaara's attending medic, but she'd be monitoring the treatment plan and situation very carefully. If Gaara couldn't get any sleep, it would take much longer for him to recover fully. Sakura had made an interesting suggestion, trying to find a way to suppress Shukaku's influence on Gaara's sleep to speed up the recovery process. She'd let the girl do all the research into it that she wanted, although Tsunade already knew that if such a thing existed, it was far outside the realm of Sakura's current capabilities. After all, she doubted even she, the legendary Sanin, could manage such a feat, without completely sealing Shukaku away.

"Hm. I heard you made friends fast. Threatening to fire a fully qualified medic on your first day?"

Sakura's face colored a little as she shifted her weight and dropped her gaze. "…Sorry." She muttered, missing the way Tsunade's eyes narrowed. She had absolutely no regrets about what she said to that asshole, and she'd back up her threat no matter what…although, she'd try to avoid exploding like that again. It wasn't professional and all she may have succeeded in doing was convincing the hospital staff she wasn't emotionally stable enough to take care of patients.

"Better put your money where your mouth is. Follow me." She rose, and walked out of the room, Sakura following close behind her.

Tsunade lead her to what appeared to be a conference room with a big table, empty except for Shizune who stood at the front of the table holding a thick packet.

"You two have already met in passing, but Sakura, this is my former apprentice and current assistant, Shizune. Shizune, this is Haruno Sakura, my new apprentice. Shizune will be helping to train you, if I'm busy, and you'll be shadowing her at the hospital if I'm unavailable."

"If there's anything you need, don't hesitate to ask, Sakura-chan!" Shizune beamed. She already liked the girl, just from the scene she'd witnessed at the hospital.

"Thank you, Shizune-san." Sakura smiled, bowing politely.

"Take a seat." Tsunade ordered.

Sakura sat down at the table and Shizune immediately placed the thick packet she'd been holding face down in front of her. "This will be an exam to test how much you already know about the human body, medicine, illness, injury, and healing procedures. You will have three hours. This is just to test what you know, so skip or even make note of anything you don't. There's no penalty or anything, it's just so I know what you still need to learn. If you think you know something but aren't absolutely certain, skip it, or try and answer but make a note that you weren't confident. There's no room for uncertainty in healing. If you aren't 100% sure of what you're doing, you'll only end up killing your patient faster. Is that clear?"

"Yes Ma'am!" Sakura answered seriously, a churning in her gut. It had always been one of her biggest anxieties about her time treating her mother. Not knowing if what she was doing was actually helping of hurting…she never wanted to feel that way about a patient again.

"Good. It's 5:20 now. You'll start at 5:30. So any bathroom, water, or food that you need, take now. Shizune will be your proctor. Your time will end at 8:30. You'll get half an hour break and then return to my office, and we'll start your training."

Sakura nodded, her attention turning to her test as Tsunade left the room.

"This is it. My training starts today. Hold on, Naruto, Sasuke-kun. I'll work hard and become a capable healer. Next time, I'll make sure I'm useful. I'll help you both!"

She got her water, went to the bathroom, and returned to her seat at 5:27. She was ready. Three minutes later, Shizune called, "Begin!"

She flipped the packet over, and got to work.

---

Sakura made her way back to Tsunade's office, eager to start training. The test had been…difficult. There'd been nothing left out. From genetics and cellular biology to anatomy to biochemistry to neurobiology to medicine and procedures. She'd had to label in depth diagrams, describe organ and system functions, fill in a never ending list of medicinal or toxic properties held in plants and minerals, fill out full ratio tables for antidotes, and describe in depth step by step procedures. She'd been shocked by how much she had to skip, but she still had been confidently able to fill in answers for three hours straight…honestly, as shocked as she was by how much she didn't know, she was almost equally shocked by how much she did.

She knocked on Tsunade's door, a bubbling feeling in her stomach.

"Enter!"

"Hokage-sama." She greeted with a bow, stepping into the office.

"If I'm gonna be spending hours a day with you around, I don't want any of this Hokage-sama pandering crap. It's annoying. Your options are Tsunade-sama, Shishou, or M'lady. Got it?"

"Oh uh…Yes M'lady!"

"This is awesome! We're on a first name basis with the Legend herself! Shannaro!"

"Not the most formal person, is she? Although, I kinda like that more. She's kind of like a cross between Ikehara-san, Kakashi-sensei, and mom."

"Good. Now follow me."

Sakura followed Tsunade out on to a large fenced off training ground behind the Hokage Tower. She lead her to a set of very pointy spikes in the ground, stopping in front of them.

"I had these brought out here earlier, specially for this exercise. Medical ninjutsu requires a different application of chakra from standard jutsu. This isn't just in the delicate and precise chakra control required, but also in the movement, speed, and release of the chakra. How is chakra utilized in a regular jutsu?"

"If it's done right, on a standard ninjutu, the necessary amount of chakra needed is concentrated in the body's core as the user weaves hand signs, and then is released upon the completion of the hand signs to activate the jutsu. Certain jutsu require the chakra to be focused in to different locations on the body, like that rasengan jutsu Naruto does—he has to focus his chakra specifically into the palm of his hand. Or Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke-kun's sharingan—they focus the chakra into their eyes."

"Correct. For most standard jutsu, chakra is gathered and released at an equal median pace. For elemental infused jutsu, the chakra gathering time is longer than the release time because in addition to the gathering process, the body must also convert the chakra into a natural element, though depending on the jutsu, the release still happens at a medium to fast pace. But medical ninjutsu is different. Medical ninjutsu is used to stimulate billions of cells in the human body, of all different kinds and thus requiring the chakra to be applied differently to each of them. Chakra for medical ninjutsu has to be built up and concentrated incredibly fast, and released in a very slow, precisely controlled, and consistent manner."

"That's what I did wrong on that bunny all those years ago. I treated it like normal ninjutsu and built up and released my chakra at an equal mid-level pace."

Tsunade placed one finger on the tip of the spike and kicked her legs up into a single fingered handstand. Sakura could see the tip of her finger glowing with a small concentrated ball of chakra.

"This exercise mimics the feel of medical chakra application. These spikes have been set to only tolerate a certain speed of chakra flow. If you release your chakra too fast, the spike will shatter and you'll fall. If you release it too slow, you're going to impale your finger. If your consistency fluctuates, you're going to crack the spike and impale your finger. If you don't build your chakra up fast enough, you impale your finger."

"It seems like I'm almost guaranteed to impale my finger…"

"As far as build up goes, you shouldn't really have much difficulty since you wear those chakra weights. The hard part for you will be in the release, because it's different than anything you're used to."

Tsunade kicked her legs down, settling back on her feet and straightening up. "Well," She said, looking at Sakura expectantly, "off you go."

"Hai!" Sakura stepped toward the spike, letting her chakra build in her right hand before placing her pointer finger lightly on top of the spike.

"Release my chakra slowly from the tip of my finger…" She felt her pointer finger warm and kicked up into a handstand. Almost immediately a sharp pain erupted through her finger, her concentration on her chakra broke, and she fell to the ground with a cry. The tip of the spike was shining red with her blood. There was a deep puncture wound in her finger, which throbbed with pain and was coated in blood.

"OW! Shit!"

Tsunade stood over her, arms folded. "Well? Is that it?"

"Is that it?! We just split our finger open! And fingers have a high concentration of nerve endings, damnit! It fucking hurts! She's a doctor and she's not even gonna try to heal us?!"

"Shannaro!" Sakura stood up and tried again using her middle finger, releasing her chakra just a bit faster this time. Once again, it wasn't fast enough and pain throbbed through her middle finger as she fell. She tried again on her ring finger with a similar lack of success.

"Maybe you need added incentive not to fall." Tsunade mused. She moved more of the spikes into a tight circle around the one Sakura was attempting to balance on, only leaving enough room for Sakura to stand next to the spike in preparation. "It'll hurt a hell of a lot more if you fall now, so keep that in mind when you try again."

"Sadistic bit—"

"Actually, she's got a point. The added pressure might force the situation so it clicks faster. I do work best under pressure, after all."

Sakura tried again using her thumb. And fell.

"Ow!" She took a deep breath as she looked over her now deeply punctured arm and calf, a large gash in her leg and side, some bruises forming on her tricep, and her hand twitching in pain. Her focus shifted to study the spike.

"I've consistently been releasing my chakra too slow. I keep trying to ratchet it up little by little, but maybe it'll be faster to try narrowing the frame work. If I purposefully release my chakra at just a little slower than medium speed, I can narrow down the range of speed to possibly release my chakra. I know it's faster than what I just did, so if I can put a rule on it…faster than X but slower than Y, I should be able to find Z more quickly."

"You giving up?" Tsunade asked, blond brow raised. The girl had been staring at the spike motionless, holding her twitching hand for a while now.

"No way…I still have six more chances before I have to call it quits, and I'm using every last one of them, shannaro!" Sakura answered, gathering her chakra, placing her pinky on the spike and kicking up, missing the way Tsunade's lips twitched up at the corners. There was a loud snap of bone breaking. "Shit!" The spike shattered, causing her to drop straight down and thud into the ground, curling to avoid as many spikes as possible but still getting stabbed in her ankles and cut at her knee. She bit her lip hard, tears forming in her eyes as she painfully reset her broken pinky bone and splinted it with two senbon and a bandage.

Tsunade moved a new spike into the center of the circle to replace the old one, and Sakura wasted no time, balancing on the thumb of her left hand, and almost immediately shattering the spike. This process was repeated twice more, until Sakura was balanced on the spike, her left ring finger glowing brightly with energy.

Tsunade smirked. "Good. Now, I've got work to do. So hold that for six hours until I come back."

"Wh-What?! I have to hold this for six hours?!"

"Sometimes surgeries are twice that long. You want to really get the feel for medical ninjutsu? You balance on that spike for six hours. A medic who has to tap out ten minutes into a procedure is of no use to anyone. Nor is one who has to take as long as you did to find the right rhythm. You don't get the chance for trial and error when a patient has minutes to live. Your chakra application has to be perfect the second you lay your hands on them. So yes. You're going to hold that for six hours, so your body remembers the correct speed. No getting down or taking a break until I come back."

"B-But…this isn't even my dominant hand…"

"Good. You should start trying to close the gap between your dominant and weak side anyways. Summoning jutsu!" There was a puff of smoke as a slug the size of a small cat appeared.

"What the hell is wrong with that slug?! It's huge! Why are there so many goddamned giant creatures with no legs or a fucking thousand legs! Why can't it just be giant things with a fucking sane amount of legs?!" Her inner voice freaked. But she only pursed her lips tightly and focused on her chakra and the spike, keeping her breathing deliberately even.

"Tsunade-sama!" The slug greeted brightly.

"Lady Katsuyu, meet my new apprentice, Haruno Sakura. Sakura, this is Lady Katsuyu."

"It's lovely to meet you Sakura-chan! You've really taken a new apprentice Tsunade-sama?"

"You'll understand quickly." Tsunade answered with a smirk.

Sakura flushed. "Does…Does Tsunade-sama really have that much faith in my abilities?"

"Lady Katsuyu, I need you to keep an eye on Sakura and make sure she doesn't get off that spike until I return. Inform me if she does."

"Of course!" Katsuyu agreed, splitting into two, one of the halves crawling up onto Tsunade's shoulder. The Sanin's gaze shifted back to Sakura.

"No getting down until I come back…you'll regret it if you do. I'll heal your hand when I return."

"Y-Yes M'lady!" Sakura grunted.

Tsunade couldn't fight the smile on her face once she turned her back on Sakura and headed inside the tower.

---

Sakura grit her teeth hard, her whole body shaking with effort. Her finger felt like it was burning from how much chakra was concentrated into it. Her left arm felt like jelly, and she almost forgot about the throbbing pain in her right hand, as it had been so consistent she'd grown accustomed to it. She was drenched in sweat and breathing hard. Long ago she'd passed using 50% of her chakra. She only had approximately 25% of her chakra left, which meant by the time this exercise was over, she wouldn't even have enough chakra to move. She'd been balancing on the spike for nine hours now and Tsunade had yet to return.

The first three hours had been fine. Physically challenging, but manageable. Her opinion of slugs even changed, as she and Katsuyu engaged is small talk…and when the hours continued to drag on and Sakura began having a tougher time, the slug had switched to one sided encouragement and support, rather than expecting conversation. And it had slowly grown on Sakura, she now found the white and turquoise slug…Nice? The eye stalks were kind of cute…But as the hours continued to drag, she couldn't even really process Katsuyu's encouragements anymore…all her energy went into keeping her chakra flow at the consistent speed and not falling off the spike.

At eleven hours, with only 10% of her chakra left, Tsunade finally returned.

"You look tired."

Sakura took a careful breath. "You said six hours, Hokage-sama." She bit out, trying to keep calm and check her anger, desperately reminding herself that flying off the handle would accomplish nothing. She was only able to shift her weight enough to get her standing on the ground in front of the spike. She didn't have enough chakra to move her limbs past that.

Tsunade's eyes narrowed. "Are you angry at me?" She asked dangerously.

"No, Hokage-sama." Sakura answered sharply, her eyes shifting to the side.

"Stay calm. Be professional. Show her you're emotionally stable."

"Even if we wanna punch her in her lying face!"

Tsunade's palm suddenly slammed into her stomach sending her flying backwards into a tree, her body cratering the bark on impact. She fell face forward onto the ground, coughing and unable to move her limbs to catch herself.

"I didn't agree to train some petty child! I agreed to train the girl who marched up to my desk uninvited and demanded I send her friends backup! I don't want any passive aggressive wimpy ass bullshit! If you're angry at me, you yell it to my face and we go from there!"

When we did introductions, you punched the dead last for saying something unbelievably stupid—that was a person I could respect! But since then, you don't say anything…You've had plenty of moments and reasons to get angry, but you don't! You just take it!

"Just like what Sasuke-kun said all those months ago…he respected me when I acted on my emotions…Tsunade-sama's the same…But I…ahh screw it! To hell with emotional stability! Who care's if it's unprofessional! Naruto's not here right now and he's gonna be leaving Konoha as soon as he gets out of the hospital, so who the fuck am I trying to be strong and hold it all in for anyways?! I got over that months ago—I'm not gonna back slide now just because Sasuke-kun's gone! Shannaro!"

"Yeah I'm angry! You were supposed to be back five hours ago! You said to hold it for six hours damnit! What the hell happened?! Did you forget?! Get busy?! Then why the hell couldn't you have just told your half of Lady Katsuyu that I could get down?! I can't even move anymore! That's how much chakra I used up! And I'm supposed to visit Naruto and check on Gaara-kun and how the hell am I supposed to do that if I'm like this?! For all I know, that shitty fucking medic might have smothered Gaara-kun in his weakened state by now!"

Tsunade smirked. "That's better. I'm already struggling with all this Hokage crap and so figuring out how to fit in training you is going to be an adjustment. Be patient with me. But I intend to push you this hard—harder even, every time. So if you can't deal with this, quit now. It's only after you hit your limit that true progress can be made."

"Quitting isn't an option." Sakura growled.

Tsunade watched the girl on the ground, her limbs twitching with continued attempts to move, despite her weights preventing her from doing so. Naruto, Lee, Sakura…the village had some incredible Genin…strong ones who had most definitely inherited the Will of Fire.

"Good. Now, as my apprentice, I expect you to respect me. And by respect, I mean that I expect you to be honest with me. If you're angry at me you better as hell say it. Nor do I want you to apologize for your thoughts. If you thought that medic was a dick yesterday, don't apologize to me for telling him off. Sounds like he deserved it."

"He did!" Sakura agreed immediately, still desperately trying to make her limbs move to no avail. "You should have heard the bullshit he was spouting! Medics are supposed to save lives! Who cares if Gaara-kun was ordered to attack us once?! He just helped save Lee-san for gods sake! Suna is our ally now and he's fucking risking that by not treating their shinobi with any care!" Her frustration with Tsunade forgotten in light of the horrible medic from the day before.

Tsunade's expression softened. She was impressed with Sakura already. Balancing on the spike was not a commonly used training method, as the consequences of failure were painful and damaging. The amount of attempts it had taken her to get herself onto the spike was about average, for the few who used this training method. But she'd held it a long time, even if she had come close to losing her control on a few occasions, as Katsuyu had reported. This exercise had been about more than that, for Tsunade though. This had been about seeing how hard Sakura could be pushed, and where her breaking point was. She hadn't stopped after her first failure. When she continued to fail, she still didn't stop, viewing it instead by how many chances she had left. Once she'd gotten herself up, she didn't give up, no matter how long Tsunade had stalled. Despite it being her weaker arm, on a weaker finger, for far longer than the girl had been told, she didn't call it quits, even when she had to cut into the last half of her chakra. Sakura was willing to push hard, even if it meant pain and exhaustion. And that meant Tsunade could teach her all of her techniques, not just medical, but offensive as well. Things she hadn't been able to teach Shizune because she hadn't been able to push her first apprentice as hard as necessary to learn them.

Tsunade knelt next to Sakura, helping sit her up and lean her against the back of the tree. She took out a food pill and broke it in half, pushing a half into Sakura's mouth.

"Here. The problem with food pills is that for all the boost they give you, they have a hard come down. That's my own special recipe though, and with only half, it should give you enough chakra to move without such a hard crash after. My training will be hard and will require you to use most of your chakra daily, so until you can take those weights off, after every session, I'll give you half a food pill. Make sure you eat a decent meal afterwards as well. Food helps replenish chakra. There's a reason the Akimichi clan jutsu relies on heavy caloric intake."

"Yes M'Lady." Sakura answered, glad to feel enough of her chakra return that she could lift her right arm and study her messed up fingers. Tsunade immediately took Sakura's hand and began healing it.

"I thought I was gonna have to tell you to keep going but you just did it yourself. You're a tough one, Sakura." The older woman said, smiling warmly and making Sakura flush with pride, all previous anger at the woman gone, now that she somewhat understood her mentors actions.

"Tsunade-sama complimented us! EEeeeeeekkkk!"

"Hell yeah! Shannaro!"

"It's always going to be like this. I'll heal you after, but while we're working I expect you to push through any and all injuries. Enemies won't give you time to recover, and patients won't always be able to wait for you to take care of yourself first."

"Understood." Sakura nodded seriously.

Tsunade's hand passed over Sakura's other cuts and bruises, wiping them away as if they never existed at all.

"There." She pulled out two books and Gaara's health report. "You're to read those by tomorrow, and meet me at the fish market at 6am. I'm returning this health report to you with some notes, seeing as you're his attending physician, I figured you'd need it back. Any procedure or medication you want to try has to be cleared with me first, but I've approved your suggestion of teaching him meditation and relaxation exercises. You're dismissed. Good work today." Tsunade said, giving her a warm smile that made Sakura feel safe.

"Thank you, Shishou."

---

Sakura went to the hospital, determined to pop in and say hi to Naruto first. She was having a hard time, knowing that he would be leaving, and her instinct was to start distancing herself to prepare for his departure…but she knew that would be wrong. She was his teammate just as much as he was hers. Leaving wouldn't be easy for him, so she had to make sure he knew she was there for him no matter what, even if that meant it would hurt more when it was time for him to go. But when she got there, Naruto wasn't in his room…he was in Gaara's.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouted excitedly as she slid open the door. "You're here! Gaara was just telling me about Suna!"

"Oh? What's it like?"

Gaara's aquamarine gaze settled on her, considering her warm smile and tired but sparkling eyes. "During sunset, the whole desert looks as red as the sun, and you can see the various colors in the sky clearly, like it's a painting. And at night there are more stars visible…more than here at least. Very clear and bright."

"What?! When I asked all you said was hot, beige, and sandy." Naruto huffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

Gaara shifted his gaze away from her awkwardly, his cheeks tinting slightly pink. For some reason, he'd felt compelled to only inform Sakura of the beauty the desert had to offer, instead of the ugliness.

"Well maybe he just doesn't want your loudmouth visiting and bothering him while he's resting." Sakura giggled, her focus on Naruto causing her to miss Gaara's blushing.

"No way, Sakura-chan! Gaara's my friend! I'm gonna visit and bother him whether he likes it or not! Believe it!"

Gaara's gaze again shifted to Naruto, as a strong surge of gratitude rushed through him. He didn't mind Naruto "bothering" him. No one had ever cared enough to bother him before…well…there were bullies who called him a monster, but that wasn't so much bothering as it was a way to keep distance. In the short period of time between the chunin exams and now, he'd begun to grow closer with his siblings, and slowly started earning their trust. Part of it had been their father's fault. He'd kept Temari and Kankuro away from Gaara, reinforcing the idea that their baby brother was dangerous whenever he could. Now that their father was gone, the three siblings had started gravitating towards each other more. But there was still a bit of lingering fear and mistrust in them, which was fair. They wouldn't just move on from everything over night. But Naruto and Sakura both…the way they held no fear towards him at all, proudly proclaiming that he wasn't a monster, that he could be trusted. That he was their friend, that they wanted to take care of, look after, and visit. That meant more to him than they'd probably ever know.

"You…both of you…you can visit whenever you want. Suna will welcome you."

"Right back at ya, Gaara! You're always welcome here in Konoha! Believe it!" Naruto beamed.

Sakura shook her head with a soft smile. "Listen to you both. It's really only the Hokage or the Kazekage that could extend an offer like that."

"Well then there's nothing to worry about! Cause I'm gonna be the greatest Hokage!"

Only the Kazekage could extend an offer like that? Gaara couldn't imagine his father ever doing such a thing…certainly not to Naruto and Sakura, who had befriended his hated monster of a son. But his father was dead. The mantle of Kazekage was inherited differently than the Hokageship of Konoha. The position of Kazekage was passed through bloodline to the one who inherited the ability to freely manipulate particles of earth…that meant the seat was to be his…if the people ever accepted him. He hadn't ever wanted the position before, but now…if it meant being able to freely welcome Naruto, Sakura, Lee…his friends, into Suna, there was merit in having the role. But he'd have to become someone worthy of it. Someone the people…his people, could respect. He felt something shift in him. He had a purpose beyond killing now. He had something to achieve. To live for. And it was mostly thanks to these two.

"Yeah, yeah, I heard it enough already." Sakura answered carelessly, though her teasing smile showed she clearly wasn't annoyed. "What are you doing in here anyways, Naruto? You should be in your room."

"It's boring." Naruto whined. "And no one's come to visit me since you left yesterday." He added, his voice losing its childish whine replaced by genuine sadness.

Sakura felt her heart squeeze. "I'm sorry…I meant to come sooner…"

"Damnit Shishou!"

"Huh? Nah! Don't worry about it! You started training today right? That comes first! Besides, that just meant more time to talk with Gaara!" Naruto said brightly. "Did you know they eat grilled lizards in Suna?! Like on a stick?!"

"You should really try reading sometime Naruto, you'd be fascinated by what you'd find out about other nations." Sakura muttered dryly.

"You look tired, Sakura." Gaara cut in softly.

"So do you, Gaara-kun. Did you get any sleep?"

Gaara shook his head, which Sakura made a note of on his medical chart.

"Naruto, I need to give Gaara an examination. I need to ask you to leave. You can come back in as soon as I'm done if you want, and I'll stop by your room later."

"No worries, Sakura-chan! I'll just go visit Bushy Brows! Later Gaara!" Naruto shuffled out of the room, Sakura's concerned gaze following him out.

"Why didn't Hinata-chan visit him? This is a golden opportunity for her! I'll have to find her once I'm done here…"

"Sorry I interrupted. Sounds like you two were bonding."

"It's fine." He liked her word choice. The idea that he and Naruto were bonding made him feel happy, and that wasn't a feeling he felt very much in the past.

"I'm sorry to ask you the same exact questions again, but until I learn how to check your condition with chakra, I'm gonna have to do it the old fashioned way."

"I don't mind." It meant she talked to him longer.

Sakura ran through her list of check up question, making note of each of Gaara's answers, which were much the same as yesterday. He hadn't been able to replenish much chakra since he didn't get any rest.

"Have you ever tried meditation, Gaara-kun?"

"Not really."

"Okay. I'm gonna try and teach you some exercises that will hopefully help speed up the recovery process."

Gaara nodded. Meditation exercises might be helpful in general. He'd gotten better control over Shukaku after his fight with Naruto, but he still felt occasional flair ups of blood lust, usually when someone was mouthing off to him. Maybe meditation would help calm those urges when they arose.

"Great. We'll just start with some breathing exercises for today. This technique I read about is called 4-7-8 breathing. This should work as a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system and help relax you more. It's pretty simple. Inhale for four counts, hold your breath for seven, and exhale for eight. We'll do it together four times. Ready?"

"Yes."

Sakura felt herself begin to relax as they ran through the exercise repeatedly…she really was tired.

"Hopefully that means it's working for Gaara-kun too."

When they finished the fourth cycle, Gaara looked at her.

"How do you feel?"

"Like loose sand…"

"Loose sand?"

"Loose sand lets itself get carried away by the wind." Gaara explained…not very well, but Sakura understood what he was trying to get at. Sasuke had never been good with words either and she'd gotten pretty skilled at deciphering meaning from seemingly innocuous phrases.

She flashed him a pretty smile, that made feel a little dazed.

"That's good then! That means you aren't holding yourself too tense…you're more relaxed. Try repeating this exercise once every hour. You can add up to seven reps if you want but don't do less than four."

"Very well."

"Okay! I'll check in on you again tomorrow after my training. We'll try this for a few days and see if there's any accelerated progress. And I'll look up more exercises to try in the meantime while I look into a way to get you to sleep soundly. But for now, just try relaxing like this."

"You don't have to try so hard for me, Sakura. It's just chakra exhaustion. I'll recover on my own with time. You…look like you're having a rough time…I don't want to add to your stress."

"Gaara-kun…" His eyes widened at her serious, admonishing tone. "I took you on as my patient and there's no way in hell I'm gonna neglect you just because it's hard or tiring. It's my job to take care of you and make you better, so I'm gonna do everything in my power—no matter how limited—to make sure you're recovering in the safest, quickest, way possible. Besides," her tone softened, "You…haven't had anyone look after you for a long while, right? It even hurts just to imagine," she murmured, her hand wrapping around her cherry blossom pendent. "For as long as you're in Konoha, I'm gonna look after you. It's the least I can do. Anyways, the last thing I want right now is to be alone with my own head. Distractions and tasks are actually really helpful, so don't worry too much about me and just relax, yeah?"

It was really incomprehensible to Gaara how Uchiha Sasuke could have ever left a girl like this behind. He was no stranger to darkness, loneliness, blood-thirst, and the hunger for power…but if there had been someone offering the love, care, and solace to him that she did, there wasn't a single power on the planet that would have been able to sway him from her side. Then again, it was those drowning in darkness, loneliness, blood thirst, and power hunger that needed love the most. He'd never try and talk her out of her feelings for Sasuke…but he did want to understand where they came from, though now wasn't the time for that. It was too soon. Instead, he settled on the only thing he ever seemed able to say to her.

"Thank you Sakura."

Sakura…Thank you…for everything.

"Again? Every time?! I really need to not think about that—just for a bit damnit!"

"Please stop thanking me, Gaara-kun. This is what friends do. I'll see you tomorrow." She gave him a sad smile before leaving to go check on Naruto.

---

"Hinata-chan!" After her visit with Naruto, she'd been hunting for her shy friend everywhere, and finally found her walking through the shopping district…with Ino. Sakura came to a stop, looking down sadly, unable to bring herself to see her best friend's expression. Ino had really liked Sasuke too…

"Will she blame me? For not being able to stop him? I…I don't want to lose her too…not again…"

"P-Pig, I—"

She was brought into a crushing hug, Ino's arms wrapped tightly around her.

"Whatever stupid thing you're about to apologize for, just stop! It's not your fault. I l-loved S-Sasuke-kun, but so did you, s-so it's not like it's hurting you any less than it is m-me! And even without that, you were his teammate, so you're probably h-hurting way more, Forehead!" Ino sobbed into Sakura's shoulder. "If anything, it means we should stick c-closer together, since we get how each other feels, so don't feel g-guilty and try distancing yourself from me!" Ino didn't understand that the depth of her attraction to Sasuke was completely different from the level of Sakura's. But as part of the Ino-Shika-Cho legacy, raised with her teammates like they were her own brothers, she intrinsically understood how close teams could be. Team 10 was the second closest team of the Konoha 12, second only to Team 7. Crushes aside, she couldn't fathom the pain of losing one of her teammates, and she knew Sakura had to have that compiling onto whatever pain she was experiencing from her romantic feelings. Her best friend had already lost so much. She wasn't going to blame her and push her away for something that she'd clearly had no control over. They'd agreed to respect Sasuke's choice when it came to choosing a romantic partner between the two of them. Ino was under no illusions that this was any different. Sasuke had made the choice to leave. There was no way in hell she'd blame Sakura for that.

"Thank gods…thank you gods she's not angry with me…I don't think I'd be able to cope if she was."

Sakura hugged her back tightly, feeling her eyes glaze over as she buried her face in Ino's shoulder. The two girls just stood there for a minute hugging while Hinata watched on sadly…until Sakura's stomach gave a loud growl.

"Ah…I'm starving." Sakura muttered, pulling away a little embarrassed. Ino let out a watery chuckle, a smile made its way to Hinata's lips.

"L-Let's all get d-dinner! My treat!" Hinata offered.

"I'm in! It feels like forever since we all ate together!" Ino agreed thickly, dabbing up the remaining tears in her eyes.

Sakura nodded eagerly. She'd been hoping to eat with at least Hinata anyways. With both of them, it would be even better.

---

"Of course you're training with Hokage-sama! I know she hasn't taken an apprentice in forever but she'd be a complete idiot not to take you! It's like you were made to be a medical ninja, and with what happened with your mom…you were already half way there anyways." Ino stated, her pride in her best friend slowly fading to sadness the more she spoke. The three girls sat silently in their booth at Yakiniku-Q, waiting for their meat to cook. Ino broke the uncomfortable quiet she'd brought upon them, quick to change the subject. "Well, I've been training more of my clan's ninjutsu with my dad, and I feel like my head's gonna explode! He says I have the potential to be the strongest member of our clan, and of course he's right, but gods is it hard!"

"I-I'm sure you'll get it, Ino-chan!…At least your f-f-father b-believes in you…" Hinata murmured somewhat sadly. Ino softened a little.

"Thanks Hinata-chan, but you do know your dad's wrong about you, right? We've talked about this before. You're more capable than you think!"

"She's right!" Sakura promptly agreed. "Although, Hinata-chan, why haven't you gone to visit Naruto?"

Hinata turned bright red. "W-Well I, uh…I didn't want to bother him and…I d-don't think I could stand seeing him so i-i-injured…" Hinata murmured the last part quietly, her gaze trained on her lap and her fingers fidgeting.

Ino sighed. "I don't know if you noticed, but Naruto's sorta oblivious. He's not gonna notice you unless you boldly put yourself in his face Hinata-chan."

"B-But…doesn't N-N-Naruto-kun l-l-like you, Sakura-chan?" She asked timidly, her eyes sad.

Sakura's lips pursed as she studied Hinata's flushed face and sad eyes.

"Honestly, I'm not sure what exactly it is he feels for me…I know we're deeply bonded as teammates. I love him, but in a totally platonic way and he…he compliments me a lot and tells me I'm pretty or cute, he's asked me on dates before, and I don't think he's being totally disingenuous but…when it comes down to it, the way he acts with me…it's not flirty like Idate was, or…Intimate and intense like it always felt with Sasuke-kun. He says and does things in front of me that no guy would ever do in front of a crush—like attempting to pee in front of me during the chunin exams, or using that perverted sexy jutsu of his…although that might just be because he never had a mother figure to tell him what was and wasn't appropriate but…I honestly can't tell if he really has a crush on me or if he only thinks he does."

"I don't know, Hinata-chan. We're teammates, and good friends. We'd die for each other, I know that much. But I couldn't tell you exactly what it is he feels for me passed that. Does it matter though? If he does have a crush on me, or love me romantically, I don't feel the same way. My heart's already elsewhere, and I…"

Sakura…Thank you…for everything…

"I don't think I'll be getting it back anytime soon." She murmured sadly. She didn't think she'd ever get her heart back from Sasuke. It belonged with him. Taking a deep breath, she continued. "And if it's the case that Naruto does like me that way, I'm not able to reciprocate. If I ever tried, it wouldn't be fair to him because I wouldn't be able to do it fully. But I'm his teammate and we work closely together, so he'll never get over me if there isn't someone else making him look at them. And you should make sure that's you now, while you have the chance."

Ino laughed. "What do you mean 'now while you have the chance?' That loud mouth idiot doesn't exactly have a fan club or anything! She doesn't have the same competition you and I had, with Sasuke-kun!"

"Th-That's not it, Ino-chan! N-Naruto-kun might not be p-p-popular now, but he's so strong! One day, he's going to d-do something amazing, and everyone will see how s-strong and capable he really is!" Hinata countered, flushing when she realized how heated she'd gotten.

"Exactly why you need to strike while the iron's hot, Hinata-chan!" Sakura agreed, bringing the girl back to the discussion at hand. "Besides…he's lonely. He doesn't get too many visitors, and I can only go after training when I'm all exhausted." At the mention of Naruto's loneliness, Hinata's expression shifted from mildly indignant to greatly concerned. Seeing that she only needed a bit more of a push, Sakura added, "And he'll be leaving the village soon to train with Jiraya-sama…for three years. So you should take every opportunity you can to see him now."

"He'll…N-Naruto-kun will be leaving?" Hinata murmured, her pearly eyes widening. That did it! She had to visit him! No matter how nervous she got! He was lonely and then he'd be leaving for three years, away from the village and the rest of his friends—he'd get even lonelier! She couldn't let him hurt like that! Besides, she'd had conversations with Naruto before…sure they were awkwardly stuttered out on her part, but she could do it! She was trying to change herself after all, and Naruto had been her catalyst and inspiration…so even if it made her unspeakably nervous, even if it made her so lightheaded she'd want to pass out, she couldn't run away! Not anymore.

Sakura felt a swirl of relief when she saw the resolve in Hinata's eyes. There was no doubt Hinata would visit him from now on, and that meant her dear teammate wouldn't be so alone…and it gave him a chance to get to know Hinata better and hopefully fall for her.

"Two birds with one stone, shannaro!"

"He's leaving for three years?!" Ino nearly slammed her hand down on the table, her eyes brimming with concern.

Sakura and Hinata jolted in surprise at Ino's outburst, unsure of why she was so upset. Sakura gave an unsure nod as she watched her best friend carefully, trying to figure out what was wrong.

Ino only continued to stare in disbelief at Sakura. Team 7 was her world, it was no secret. Everyone could see how close that team was, how deeply bonded they were…and first Sasuke left, taking Sakura's heart with him, and now Naruto, leaving her all alone?! That was too much! It wasn't fair to her! Why did Sakura always have to lose everything she cared about?! Their classmates used to bully, degrade, and even fear her with those "walking jinx," "cursed doll," insults. What was it Ami said?

She's cursed. Anyone close to her ends up getting killed.

That wasn't the case, although it did seem like she was cursed, since everyone she held dear kept leaving her—hell, even Ino herself had left Sakura at one point…not entirely her fault for doing so, since Sakura was the one to push her away, but still…she'd let her. And couldn't anyone see that if that truly was Sakura's curse, then she was the one hurt the most by it?

"He's just gonna up and leave you alone?! Right after Sasuke-kun?!"

Sakura suddenly found their cooking meat incredibly fascinating, busying herself with flipping the slices.

"It's fine, Pig. I'll be too busy with my training anyways." She muttered, not meeting her best friend's piercing ice blue eyes. "Besides he needs to go and train too. It'd be selfish to ask him to stay or anything, especially when I'll be too busy to even hang out…"

"Tsunade-sama already told me she'd work me really hard, plus I'm supposed to intern and shadow her and Shizune-san at the hospital. On top of that, I need to start working on controlling my Kekkei Genkai again, and turning the dancer's barrage into something more usable—maybe finding a way to incorporate weapons the way TenTen suggested…that's a full plate. And I want to try and find out more about Orochimaru and the Akatsuki, if I can…I won't have much free time to spend with Naruto if he did stay…even if I really don't want him to go."

Ino sighed sadly, settling back into her seat. "…If you say so, Forehead…but don't you think you've been selfless enough?"

"You are c-constantly worrying more for others, Sakura-chan…" Hinata murmured, feeling a little guilty that she hadn't spared a thought to Sakura's feelings at the news of Naruto's imminent departure.

"I don't know…this case in particular isn't really something I can be selfish about. If Naruto wants to train with Jiraya-sama outside Konoha, that's not something I can or should stop him from choosing."

"You're right, just…are you gonna be ok?"

"I'll be fine! I'll have too much going on to be lonely." Sakura smiled.

"We had plenty going on when mom was sick and it didn't stop us from feeling lonely when she was asleep or we were at school…"

"Not helping."

"Well, you better not have too much on your plate to keep you from hanging out with us!"

"Actually, about that…You're both gonna be seeing me plenty cause I need your help."

Ino and Hinata straightened, listening intently.

"I need to start training to control my kekkei genkai again. And I'd really like your input too Hinata-chan…you'll be able to see what's actually going on with my chakra with your byakugan."

"O-of course, Sakura-chan! I'm happy to help…would you mind h-helping me with something as well? There's…I-I want to c-create a j-jutsu of my own…and I think your style is compatible with mine."

"You bet I'll help!" Hinata smiled warmly in thanks.

"Well, you know I'm in…at least when my dad's not keeping me close for training, or if I'm on a mission or something."

"Thank you both!" Sakura smiled warmly, before digging into her food…she really was hungry.

---

"This is the most basic skill, and also the most necessary, for all medic nin. Chakra scanning. You need to understand your patient's condition in as much detail as possible, as quickly as possible. There are different levels. First is injury. Scanning for injury is the simplest form of chakra scanning, requiring the least delicate precision and control—which isn't to say that the procedure is neither delicate nor precise. This level entails using your chakra to scan along the patient's skin, muscle, bone, and organs." Tsunade explained.

It was a little after 6 in the morning and the two sat in an upper room of the fish market that Sakura hadn't even been aware existed. Apparently it was a room for the purpose of training medical nin. There were thick medical tomes lining the walls, a table was set up with a tank of fish sitting next to it, all for medical trainees to practice on.

"What are the other levels?"

"The second is scanning for illness and infection. Since viruses and foreign bacteria attack the body on a cellular level, or, as more likely the case with shinobi illnesses, since clan's frequently marry internally, there's a genetic defect, it requires more precision. Third is any scan pertaining to the brain and nervous system, since it's such a delicate and complicated organ, that controls all anatomical functions, the chakra application required to check it for abnormalities must be extremely delicate. Can you guess what the final level is?"

"Since you already covered most regular anatomical functions and abnormalities, it would have to be the chakra network, right?"

"Correct." Tsunade acknowledged with a nod. "Chakra acts as an internal defense for the body, as well as a harnessable offense. Shinobi and those who have the ability to harness and manipulate chakra have slightly more durable bodies and are less prone to externally caused illnesses. They're not immune. Ninja still suffer from infections and viruses when foreign pathogens are introduced, but not as frequently as those who can't use chakra."

"I've only ever had a cold twice in my life, once when I was five and the other when I was seven, before I could really harness any chakra." Sakura recalled.

"At that point any chakra you did have would have been at such a low level, you wouldn't have succeeded at warding off sickness as you may have been more able to do throughout your progression at the academy." Tsunade agreed. "Similarly, a body will rebuff foreign chakra when it's introduced to their system, and when foreign chakra does manage to seep in, it messes with the body's chakra network completely. You already discovered this and weaponized it with your dancer's barrage."

"But my chakra transfer works…" Sakura murmured, trying to fit together the pieces of this new information.

"Chakra transfer is actually a fairly advanced medical skill, a B-rank jutsu, and the fact that you stumbled into it by accident is a little astounding. By matching your chakra to the flow, rhythm, and heat of another's, you can trick their chakra network into thinking your chakra is their's, allowing their body to accept it and essentially make it their own."

"Oh! That's the reason it doesn't work well with Naruto and Gaara-kun! Even if I trick their body into recognizing my chakra as their own, Shukaku and the nine tails still know it isn't and they reject it for Naruto and Gaara-kun! I sorta wondered if that might be why but…"

"You're definitely a quick study." Tsunade murmured appreciatively. "We're off topic though. You're at level one. Did you read those books I gave you?"

"Yes Ma'am…they were veterinary books though…animal anatomy."

"Cause that's what you're starting with. The fish in that tank are all injured or physically defective…rejects that can't be sold. They've each been tagged. You're going to scan them with your chakra one by one and tell me what's wrong with them. There are a few main points to keep in mind with chakra scanning. Like with balancing on the spike, you'll need to build up a lot of chakra, but release it slowly and evenly. Unlike with the spike, you're not releasing into a small, targeted point. Instead you want to extend your chakra out to cover as much surface area of your patient as possible. It's hard because you'll need to control your chakra even after you've externalized it from your body, and maintain its connection to the chakra you've built up."

"Control it even after it's externalized…?! But isn't that how all jutsu works?"

"Not all. Naruto's shadow clones for example. They aren't illusions made out of his chakra. He literally spilts his chakra and shares it with them, making them extensions of himself with their own usable portion of energy. The Uchiha fireball jutsu, after the fire leaves their mouth, they have no control over the flames, they burn like gas fire—once their fuel source is used up, they stop, unless they've caught on something else. The user has no say over where the flames go after the initial direction, what they might catch on, or how long they might burn. The clone jutsu you used against Ino and Dosu…those were images born of your chakra, and you were still able to control them after they were externalized from your body, but in that case, the ninjutsu itself acted as a conduit. You could continue to control your chakra because they were your images. This is different. This is releasing your chakra—raw, without a ninjutsu buffer, and continuously controlling it once out of your body."

"That's…that's possible?"

"Possible? Yes. Easy? Hell no. There's a reason there are fewer medical ninja than there are combat shinobi."

"…Okay…" Sakura murmured trying to process what she was being instructed to do. "So…control my raw externalized chakra while maintaining it's connection with the chakra I've built up…"

"Yes. The connection between the two serves as the communication bridge, informing you what's wrong with the patient."

"Like bats."

"Bats?"

"They see with echolocation. The sonic bounce back tells them where objects are."

"You really made good use of that veterinary book."

"Was I not supposed to read the whole thing?"

Tsunade tilted her head a little. She probably should have told her she only needed to read the chapters on fish, frogs, turtles, birds, and rodents…but oh well. The more you know, right?

"Yes. Exactly like bats." Tsunade diverted quickly…

"So I didn't need to read the whole thing."

…and apparently unsuccessfully.

"No you didn't, but I was unclear about that in my instructions, and you did. And it was helpful cause now you know about bats and echolocation, and will probably be able to heal Akamaru or Tonton later in your training should the need arise. So moving on, go scan a fish."

Sakura moved to the tank and picked up a fish with a blue tag. She laid it on the table, and hovered her hands over it, gathering and releasing her chakra.

"Wait…this isn't right. I'm doing exactly what I did with the spike, but that's not the correct movement. I'm supposed to extend my chakra out to match the surface area of the fish…"

Sakura tried to extend her chakra out wider, but it was too late. She'd taken too long and the fish had died. Plus there was a discolored spot, right under where her hands had been hovering that hadn't been there before.

"You injured your patient. And let him die." Tsunade said, studying the fish. "Do it again."

"Yes shishou."

Sakura cleared the old fish into a discard bucket and picked up a new one with a yellow tag. This time, she spread her chakra out further, expanding it over half the fish, but the farther she spread it, the less control she had over the externalized chakra. The fish grew very discolored around the areas where the control over her chakra faltered, and promptly died.

"Again." Tsunade ordered sternly.

"Maybe it's like changing my contact points with tree dancing…At first, I had to work my way up to my hands…"

Sakura pulled out the green tagged fish, this time not trying to spread her chakra as far when she attempted the scan, in the hopes that she'd at least maintain control of it. She did, and she could feel her chakra painting that area of the fish in her mind. She saw the section of stomach, kidney, dorsal aorta, pancreas, and swim bladder that her chakra covered, but there wasn't anything wrong with those areas, and by the time she shifted her hands to a new area, she not only lost control of her externalized chakra with the movement, but once again, the fish died.

"Again."

Sakura let out a frustrated sigh as she approached the tank, but stopped, watching as one of the fish popped its head above the water before swimming back down. The water rippled around as a result, gently lapping at the side of the tank.

"Like the tide of the ocean…"

"I said again!" Tsunade barked impatiently.

"R-Right!" Sakura said quickly, grabbing another fish.

Sakura went through the whole tank, never once getting a successful scan of the fish that would allow for a diagnosis. Sakura had already used up a quarter of her chakra on failed scans.

"We need more fish!" Tsunade barked down the steps.

The owner of the shop quickly came up carrying a new tank of tagged fish. Sakura watched the water slosh around as he set the tank down, her eyes remaining on the water's movement while he handed Tsunade a sheet listing the fish defects. The image of the tide had yet to leave her head.

"What if…what if I'm going about this the wrong way…Tsunade-sama taught me a chakra control meditation technique…syncing my chakra movement with my breath…exhale push out, inhale draw it back in, like the ocean tide. What if this is just that?"

"That was all internal."

"Right. But what if I try to externalize it…spread my chakra out with a slow release, but then quickly draw it back in…"

"Eh…Why the hell not? It's not like anything else we're trying is working."

"Get on with it!" Tsunade snapped. Patience never was a strong suit of hers.

Sakura grabbed a red tagged fish, placed it on the table and laid her hands over it.

"Deep breath, chakra slowly releases with the exhale, and…"

Sakura carefully pulled her chakra back in from the fish, and slowly pushed it out again with her next exhale, spreading it farther, allowing her to see more: the ovary, small intestine, liver, heart, and spinal chord, in addition to what she'd seen before. She still had yet to identify what was wrong with the fish though, and when she brought her chakra in and was about to send it out on the next exhale, it was too much time, and the fish died.

"Damnit!"

"That was better though. I saw more…I was using deep breaths, because that's what's required of the meditation exercise, but what it I sync it to my normal breathing? That won't take as much time."

"Again." Tsunade ordered, with a little less snap. Her eyes had lost their impatience, replaced by interest, as she leaned forward. What Sakura was attempting right now was not the way medics were taught to preform chakra scans…it was better. With this new method, Sakura was pulsing the same portion of chakra in and out of the fish, which was ultimately using less chakra. By this point, the girl had used up a little over a quarter of her chakra on her failed attempts, but now, with this new method she was trying, externalizing and re-internalizing the same portion of chakra, even if she went through this whole tank without a successful scan, she'd still only have used a little over a quarter of her chakra. Plus the reading she'd get would be more detailed since the actual chakra responsible for the scan wasn't just relaying information, but actually carrying it back and rejoining her chakra network. On top of that, she'd never seen anyone apply that meditation exercise to an actual procedure. If she pulled it off, this was an entirely new, more chakra efficient way to perform scans.

Sakura placed another fish on the table, this time not changing her breathing pattern, attempting to get her chakra synced up to her normal breath rate. She failed. The fish died before she could even get her timing right.

"Maybe it's like that time I tried water dancing with weights. I had to work my way up to it, start on the ground and then move on to the water. So if I start with syncing my breath and chakra, like the meditation exercise, and then get the fish out and scan it, it should be fast enough…and it'll help get my body used to the rhythm so I don't have to go through this process every time."

Sakura stood in front of the fish tank, carefully matching her chakra to her breath, slowing her breathing just a little so her chakra fell into rhythm before carefully picking up the speed to her normal breath rate. She felt her chakra pulse through her internally matching the movement of her lungs. Carefully maintaining it, she pulled out a purple tagged fish and set it on the table, hovering her hands over it.

Her chakra spread out into the fish slowly and carefully with her exhale, before pulling back in with her inhale, painting a full picture of the fish's internal anatomy in her head. Her chakra pulsed through it once more with her breath, allowing her to spot the problem.

"Purple tag has a broken rib spinal bone puncturing its muscle and causing internal bleeding." Sakura said, quickly cutting off her scan and dropping the fish back in the tank.

A smile tugged at Tsunade's lips. "Correct. Again."

Sakura went through every remaining fish in the tank, correctly spotting and diagnosing their injuries. Tsuande had another tank brought up, this time of squids, but the change in animal didn't throw Sakura off. The squids were bigger, the tentacles requiring more chakra control to navigate, but Sakura still correctly diagnosed each of them before they were out of the water for too long.

Tsunade then moved on to birds and rodents, having Sakura diagnose their physical ailments, and when her apprentice proved able to do that easily, she decided to cut right to the chase…time to see if Sakura could get the same results on a human.

"Follow me."

She lead Sakura back to the same training grounds they'd used for the spike exercise behind the Hokage tower. Tsunade took out a kunai and stabbed her self in the leg.

"What are you doing?!"

"Diagnose me. In detail. What muscle, how deep, how much nerve damage. Give me a full detailed report." Tsunade ordered. She knew the answers to all of those already, and could heal this injury with ease. This was to see if Sakura could manage.

The girl looked uncertain, but her actions were sure as she knelt and held her hand over her master's leg wound. Her chakra pulsed through Tsunade's leg with so much control and precision that the older woman doubted she would have even felt it had she not been paying very close attention.

"The damage is only muscle deep. You've pierced through the boarder of your Vastus Lateralis and Rectus Femoris muscles and made a small cut in your IT band. You didn't sever any nerves, though you did come close."

Tsunade nodded in approval, her green chakra coated hand hovering over her injury and wiping it away.

"Good. But never look unsure in front of your patient. You need their trust if you want to heal them, and the body is something people don't trust just anyone with. You need to make it very clear from the get go that you know what you're doing and they can trust you." She suddenly punched Sakura hard, sending her flying painfully into a rock.

"Ahugh!" She coughed up a little blood.

"Scan yourself."

Sakura brought a shaky hand to her stomach but couldn't effectively sync her chakra with her winded, painful breaths.

"Can't…"

"I won't heal you until you diagnose yourself." She said sternly, standing over Sakura with her arms crossed.

She tried again but the sharp pain in her chest and her uneven breathing rhythm made it impossible to correctly sync her chakra.

"My…lungs…" She let out another cough, thankfully bloodless this time, but still wet sounding.

"You think you'll always be able to breathe in battle conditions? You could take damage to your chest, and have to perform a scan on yourself or a patient like right now. They could spray the area with poison, and breathing isn't safe. You and a patient could be thrown under water. You can't always trust your breath to carry your control. Figure it out! It's your chakra! Do the fucking scan and diagnose yourself or I won't heal you!" Tsunade barked, her amber eyes bearing down intensely on her Genin apprentice.

"Wait a minute, she's right. It's my chakra. I don't need to externalize it and have a whole feedback relay. Not when it's my body. It doesn't change that in order to scan, I need the pulse synced to my breath though…"

"Why? We're a dancer shannaro! Rhythm's our thing! Can't we just remember it?"

"That's…a good point…think Sakura. Remember the rhythm."

Sakura thought back on the pulsating rhythm she'd been sending her chakra into animals with all throughout the morning. Closing her eyes she let her chakra push and recede through her in the same remembered tempo she'd been utilizing earlier. Her hand dropped away from her stomach as she watched her anatomy form in her minds eye.

"Right ribs…4 and 5 broken…left ribs 6, 7,…9, 11, and…12 broken. Small puncture…right lung…bruised left lung and kidney…right…fractured fibula and…humerus."

Tsunade knelt down, her hands enveloped in a green glow as she corrected the various injuries she caused, erasing a few of the minor skin deep bruises that Sakura neglected to report as well.

"What the hell Shishou?! You couldn't have given me a little warning?"

"Enemies don't give warnings, kid. Besides, I told you it'd be like this yesterday. That was your warning."

"…damn…" Sakura grunted. Tsunade was right after all.

"Well, I did sign up for this."

"Still hurts like a bitch though!"

Tsunade smiled. "You know, technically, your technique is wrong."

"What?!"

"Your method for chakra scanning isn't how I've seen any other medical ninja do it. Normally, medics just train the same exercise until they get control over their externalized chakra and can spread it farther. They have to work harder too with their regulation of it, because they have to keep their chakra thin and weak enough to dissipate right after they've completed their scan, so it doesn't do any harm to their patient."

"Oh…why didn't you stop and correct me earlier?"

"Because your method is better. More chakra efficient and less risky to the patient." Tsunade said, giving her a warm smile that made Sakura flush with pride. Tsunade pulled out a scroll and scribbled some quick instructions.

"Here. Give this to Shizune. You're to shadow her for the rest of today through the in-patient clinic and ER, and perform any diagnostic scan for physical injuries. Use your chakra to check over Naruto's progress. You're not at the scan level needed to effectively check Gaara with chakra, but he's your patient, so conduct your routine check up on him as well. Remain shadowing Shizune until she sees fit to release you. Be at the fish market by 6am tomorrow and we'll work on the next level of chakra scanning. Once you've mastered all the levels, we'll start on actual healing jutsu."

"Hai!" Sakura chirped excitedly, her eyes glimmering. "Oh—Tsunade-sama, can I have one day off of training a week, to work on controlling my Kekkei genkai?"

"Fridays." Tsunade answered immediately.

"I—oh. That was easy. Um…do you have something to do on Fridays, shishou?"

"Happy hour sake deals. They're always the best on Fridays."

"Wait…seriously?! Oh gods, Tsunade-sama, are you an alcoholic?"

Tsunade raised a delicate brow while glaring down at her. "Do we have a problem?"

"Of course not!" Sakura answered quickly.

"Go."

"Drinking's bad for your liver!" Sakura called in a rush as she fled.

Tsunade watched Sakura run off in amusement. She really had picked her apprentice well. The girl was quite talented. And adorable.

---

A month and a half later, Sakura stood at the gates of Konoha to bid her teammate farewell. In true Naruto fashion, he'd healed up far faster than expected, and was released three weeks after he was admitted. He'd been excited to leave immediately right then, but Jiraya was apparently away doing "research," so he didn't end up leaving immediately, and was instead sent out on small missions with other members of the Konoha 11. He'd joined squad 8 to hunt for a rare beetle that would be able to track Sasuke, Team Gai on a mission to help some people from a mining town that'd been taken over by a gang, and he'd been sent out with Kiba, Akamaru, and Hinata, to find some treasure buried in the mountains. Whenever he was back in the village, he and Sakura got Ichiraku's together while he filled her in on all his missions…and on how strong Hinata was. Sakura already knew the last part of course, she'd been helping Hinata sharpen her reflexes and flexibility after her own training sessions with Tsunade, which in turn helped Hinata to create her Protecting eight trigrams sixty-four palms, an ultimate defensive technique. All the same, she felt a bit proud and smug hearing Naruto's frequent shifting of the conversation towards Hinata and how impressive she was. Although, it seemed he still hadn't put it together yet…oh well.

Sakura wasn't sent out on missions, all focus going into her training. It had taken her a full month to get through all four levels of chakra scanning, and she had just begun learning the Mystical Palm technique…which was proving immensely difficult. Training her to control her kekkei genkai was making slow progress as well. She was now able to more consistently self administer the sedative, and her first reflexive thought during an attack was now always 'calm down.' Between her interning at the hospital, her training with Tsunade, Kurenai, and Hinata, and her research into how to help Gaara, she didn't have a lot of time for much else. What little free time she did have went to hanging out with Naruto or Ino if they were around, playing shogi with Shikamaru, or making things for Ikehara or the beauty boutique…literally anything she could do to keep her mind and hands busy so she wouldn't think too much about Sasuke.

Kakashi had been out of missions for much of the time, and she hadn't seen much of her sensei aside from the one or two occasions he joined her and Naruto at Ichiraku's. But he'd made sure to finish all of his missions in time to see Naruto off, as he stood next to her at the gates.

"Here," Sakura said, thrusting a box of ointment jars into Naruto's hands. "I couldn't make enough for three years worth, but that should hopefully get you through a few months. Remember, bandage cuts, not bruises, and clean it before putting the ointment on. And make sure you eat something healthy and not just ramen all the time. Vegetables and healthy grains like rice, and lots of protein, knowing how hard you're gonna be working. And when you do have ramen, make sure you increase your water intake to counteract the sodium level. And—"

"Don't worry so much Sakura-chan! I'll take care of myself, believe it!" Naruto smiled, touched by her concern. Sakura was the only one who'd ever worried about him like that, and it felt nice, knowing that she cared for him so much. "Make sure you don't overwork yourself too much, Sakura-chan. You've been looking really tired recently…more than normal."

He wasn't wrong. Sakura was getting very few hours of sleep a night, and the hours she did get were hardly restful, filled with reliving the day her she and her mother found out her father died, the day she found her mom dead, the night Sasuke left, or nightmares about what might be happening to him. It was partially why she was working so hard, in an attempt to exhaust herself fully enough to just pass out dreamlessly. Unfortunately, Sakura had a high threshold for total exhaustion, so her attempts proved futile.

"I'll be fine. But seriously, you need to take care of yourself and get really strong—"

"You don't have to worry! I'm gonna train hard and get strong enough to bring Sasuke back and keep my promise to you! And once I do that, I'm gonna become Hokage! Believe it!"

"No that's not what I—" a hand came down, resting on top of her head, making her look up at her sensei.

"What Sakura means is that you need to get strong for yourself Naruto. Take this training seriously, because the Akatsuki is no laughing matter. Listen closely to Master Jiraya and stay on your guard. We wouldn't want anything happening to our number one knuckle head now, would we?" Despite his severe warning, he ended his statement with an evident smile under his mask.

"The kid'll be fine! Don't get your boxers in a bunch, Kakashi, I'll look out for him." Jiraya said easily. "Besides, if my intel is to be trusted, we have three years before the Akatsuki tries to make a move against him again. He'll be fine."

"Yeah, Kakashi-sensei! I'd be more worried about this mega-perv corrupting me, than anything as bad as that! But then again, you do like those dirty books, so maybe I wouldn't be any better off with you either."

Kakashi twitched. "Always such a charmer, you are."

Sakura giggled, making Kakashi glance her way. Interesting. Normally, she would have reprimanded Naruto about his lack of respect for authority.

Sakura caught Kakashi's glance and shook her head. "He's got a point, sensei. Naruto and Master Jiraya were in a red light district the first time the Akatsuki attacked and you walk around reading porn in public." Her attention turned back to Jiraya. "You better not sneak him into anymore shady towns of anything!"

"You should be lookin' out for your own skin, Sakura-chan. You don't wanna pick Tsunade's drinking habits. Or her inability to gamble."

"—Oh please, pervy-sage, Sakura-chan would never gamble!"

"—I'd never risk money like that!"

Naruto and Sakura simultaneously defended. Jiraya blinked in confusion at the kids' sudden indignation.

"Well, if you say so. Come on, kid, we better be on our way."

Naruto gave Sakura one last smile, flashing her a thumbs up, receiving Sakura's smile in return before he turned his back and began walking away.

The second he looked away from her Sakura's smile dropped, replaced by a blank expression, as sadness and loneliness began to eat at her.

"He's really leaving…this is really it. My whole team is gone…"

"Wait!"

Naruto and Jiraya, stopped turning to face the new comer, along with Sakura and Kakashi.

"Hinata?" Naruto asked, surprised to see her there.

"Um…N-N-Naruto-kun!" Hinata turned bright red, shifting her weight. "Um…W-Well, I just…wanted to say…g-good luck on your t-training, N-N-Naruto-kun! I…I'll work hard to get s-stronger too, so…please come back safely!"

Naruto's smile turned beaming. "You'll definitely get stronger Hinata! And I will too, believe it! I'll see you when I get back!"

Naruto turned away again before he could see Hinata's face turn scarlet. Sakura bumped shoulders with her gently.

"Nice one, Hinata-chan!" She encouraged as they watched the bright orange of Naruto's jacket grow further and further away.

"N-Naruto-kun said he'd see m-me when he gets back…" Hinata whispered, her head spinning.

Seeing that her friend was lost in a daze, and probably would be for some time, she turned her gaze back to the receding image of her last teammate left.

"He really is gone this time. I know he'll be back but…three years…that's such a long time without either of them…"

"Sakura, I need to speak with you. If you'd excuse us, Hinata."

"O-oh, of course. See you later Sakura-chan!"

Sakura waved Hinata good bye as she followed Kakashi. He lead her up across the roofs of buildings until they came to one that had benches built into it, where he took a seat. Sakura followed unsurely.

"What is it, Kakashi-sensei?"

"As I'm sure you've noticed, I've been put back on mission rotation, now that there isn't a team 7 anymore. Given how short handed we are at the moment, and my rank and skill level, I will likely be sent on S-rank, longer term missions."

"Oh…That makes sense. I understand."

"So Kakashi-sensei won't be here either. Not that I thought he would be…it's not like I've seen much of him these past six weeks but…Still, I guess I just thought he'd be around and I'd see him. I guess…I really will be all alone…"

Kakashi eyed his pink-haired student carefully. He was greatly concerned about what Naruto's leaving would do to Sakura after everything. The girl lost her mom, the boy she loved, and her dear teammate, who he could tell she cared for like family. His team had taken the lesson of teamwork very seriously, but none more so than Sakura. All of her actions had been motivated by what she thought was best for the team. And now that they were gone, and her mom was gone…Kakashi was worried about her. It was already evident how much she was overworking herself. He doubted anything he'd say would change that—it wasn't like he didn't understand. Something had to fill the hole her team had left…hadn't that been why he joined Anbu all those years ago? But he wouldn't let the girl that reminded him so much of his best friend, so much of Rin, go down the same path as him. When Mebuki died, he'd sworn to her grave that as Sakura's sensei, he'd look out for her. And he'd sworn the same to Rin as well, that he wouldn't let the girl who so resembled her, suffer by herself.

"After I report to the Hokage, you will be the first person I find to check in with, and I'll let you know before I leave for a mission. Anytime I am in the village, we're to have team bonding dinner at least twice a week. I will also help you train your dancers barrage whenever I'm here, so you can make it a more feasible, battle ready attack. And I'll join your Kekkei Genkai training sessions with Kurenai whenever I'm able, to stay in the loop with any new developments. If I happen to be here while she isn't, I'll take over. I may not be as good at genjutsu as her, but I still know my way around some strong ones."

"You…really, sensei?"

"We're still team 7 after all, whether it's official or not. I'm sure you remember the first lesson I taught you?"

"Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum."

"You are one of my trusted comrades, Sakura. You were my student on my team, and thus my responsibility. Because of my failure as a sensei, our team fell apart. I'm sorry for that. But I won't abandon what's left of it."

"Thank you, Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura cried, suddenly throwing her arms around him.

Kakashi went rigid, uncomfortable with the close physical contact. She immediately let go, quickly bringing the heel of her hand up to wipe away some tears from her eyes.

"Sorry about that…but seriously thank you sensei." Hearing him say that he wasn't giving up on her, on their team, made her feel like there was hope. She and Naruto may have been determined to bring Sasuke back, but that was her and Naruto. They were kids, twelve and thirteen year-olds. What did they know? But Kakashi, an adult, wasn't giving up on team 7 either. And that filled her with hope.

"Do you…do you think he'll come back? Do you think we'll ever be a full team 7 again, sensei?"

Kakashi wasn't sure, honestly. He didn't think Sasuke would have been able to walk away from Naruto and Sakura in the first place. Especially after Sakura confessed to him. Now that he had, Kakashi didn't have high hopes for him returning. Not on his own at least. But maybe if Naruto and Sakura kept after him…maybe they could bring him around. After all, there was no denying Sasuke and Naruto's bond. And Sasuke and Sakura…he was sure Sasuke returned her feelings. The amount of times that boy stared at the crane she'd given him…if Sasuke didn't have feelings for Sakura, then Kakashi should just quit being a ninja, since he would have so badly misread the situation. No, he didn't misread situations that badly.

"If you two keep after him, I'm sure you'll wear him down eventually…it may take a while though…and it probably won't happen until after he kills Itachi, assuming he lives through it…revenge is a road that never ends well."

Sakura stared out at the horizon for a long moment.

We all worked together for a while. I tried to tell myself our paths all lead to the same place. That it was alright if I walked the same road as you guys…but I couldn't do it. I can't forget my goal. I choose revenge. That's all I've lived for. I can never be like you or Naruto.

"If Sasuke-kun never left, would he have been able to be happy while staying?"

"We'd make him happy!"

"I don't think I would…even if he returned my feelings, Itachi would always linger at the back of his mind…how could anyone be expected to just walk away from something like that?…There's no way he'd be able to just move on, especially not if he recently saw his brother alive and stronger than ever. And Itachi's after Naruto, who's someone precious to him…He couldn't be happy staying here. Not without closure. Not without knowing the people he cares about are safe."

"Revenge…it may not end well, but did Sasuke-kun really have another option?"

"What?" Kakashi asked, startled. He never expected her to say something like that.

"If he gave up his revenge…Itachi's still out there. And he just issued a huge threat to Naruto. How could Sasuke-kun sit still at that? Even if he somehow was able to just forget the past, Itachi's still a threat to the precious people he has currently. And after what he went through, how could he not believe Itachi would take everyone away again, just like he did the first time?"

"Are you suggesting Sasuke didn't leave for revenge?"

"No. He did. He said as much. I just don't think that Sasuke-kun thought he had and other choice…Like he wasn't rejecting one path for another, he didn't see another option. He proceeded because he genuinely felt like it was all he could do."

"You don't need to make excuses for him Sakura."

"I'm not trying to! He's wrong! He's so so wrong!" She erupted, tears spilling over from her eyes in a messy mix of sadness, anger, and frustration. "He's being a blind idiot! And I have all the rights in the world to blame him for being an absolute dumb ass! But can I blame him for being blind when it was someone else who blinded him years ago and no one even tried to start undoing the damage back then?!"

"Sakura…" Kakashi breathed in bewilderment. He had no idea how to handle a breakdown of this nature, and besides that…she wasn't exactly wrong…it was always shocking just how empathetic, mature, and clear sighted Sakura could be when she was only thirteen. She was the last person he expected to have this sort of mindset at the moment, but here she was doing what she always did, defying expectations. Sakura continued her rant, her voice choked with tears.

"I think he would have left no matter what, curse mark or no curse mark. Because what other choice did he have! Sasuke-kun would never have closure so long as he knew Itachi was alive. Maybe if the Anbu or hunter-nin did their damned job and killed Itachi—a god damn missing ninja who massacred an entire clan and is now targeting Naruto, an active Konoha shinobi—maybe then, if he was dead, Sasuke-kun would have stayed. But how could he have when Itachi's still alive?! But why'd he have to go to that creepy snake man?! Sasuke-kun's supposed to be smart! How could he turn himself over to Orochimaru like that! How could he go to him?! That demon attacked Konoha! He killed my mom! He plan's to take over Sasuke-kun! How could Sasuke-kun—"

"Sakura!" Kakashi broke in firmly, resting two hands on her shaking shoulders as the young girl buried her face in her hands. "No one is expecting you to try and understand him and his choices, especially not so soon after he left. Least of all me. You're allowed to be angry and hurt without trying to rationalize his actions. As it is, you already understand so much about him and his motivation…Naruto and Sasuke were very fortunate that someone so deeply empathetic was the third member of their cell. You put it very well, I don't think Sasuke saw any option other than revenge. My mistake was trying to tell him there was another path without realizing that knowing and seeing are two different things. To continue your metaphor, I told a blind man there was another path available without taking his hand and walking him to the edge of it. And you're right, unfortunately, anything you and I, or Naruto, could have done was too little too late, when it came to turning him away from revenge. We were putting a bandaid on a deep stab wound. But none of that makes his choice or the pain it caused you and Naruto acceptable. Just because you understand why he made the choice he did, doesn't mean you aren't allowed to be upset by it or the circumstances that lead up to it."

"I don't understand revenge…" Sakura murmured quietly, her frantic sobbing having calmed over the course of Kakashi's comforting.

"Why should you?"

"My dad died because some rouge shinobi triggered his curse, but I've barely ever thought about them, and never wanted to kill them for what happened to dad…Mom was killed in Orochimaru's attack against Konoha. He even threatened and hurt my teammates. And I hate him. So so much. But I've never wanted to kill him for it! What's wrong with me?! Why don't I want to get revenge too?! Naruto avenged Hinata-chan's loss to Neji! Sasuke-kun's lived his life for revenge, so why not me? Do I not care enough?!"

"There's nothing wrong with you Sakura. It's not a bad thing to not want revenge." Kakashi answered calmly. "Your circumstances haven't allowed you to dwell on the past, which is how revenge is born. Sasuke's lived his life dwelling on the past because of the massacre. Naruto's lived his life dwelling on the future because his dream is all he had. Sakura, you've lived your life in the present, because there was always an immediate problem requiring your attention. Your father's death, your finances, your mother's health, your missions, your training, your curse, your teammate's health. You've lived your life surviving one day at a time. Circumstances and a mindset like that don't allow for things like revenge or dreams." Kakashi sighed, thinking back on Sakura's introduction she'd given. "Even the dream you gave in your introduction, wasn't so much of an actual dream as it was an answer to the problem you had at that moment. With the way you've grown up, you'll never understand the all consuming need for revenge because you live your life day by day. That's not a bad thing."

"…But Naruto—"

"He vowed to beat Neji for Hinata, but that was also for himself, and protecting his own honor and dream. Everything Neji was saying to Hinata at the time was something Naruto heard directly or in sentiment, and it made him empathize strongly with her. That battle with Neji was as much about himself as it was Hinata."

"So it wasn't revenge exactly…But…he always did understand Sasuke-kun in a way I couldn't…do you think he gets it?"

"Revenge? No. Not at the moment. But he could. Potentially. He lives for a dream, but he's also never had a family, so losing anyone he's formed a strong bond with might bring about the desire for it…or it might not. It's hard to say with Naruto, he's a bit of a wild card."

"I hope Naruto never has to feel the need for revenge…I hope he never gets overwhelmed by darkness."

"Then you'll just have to continue being there for him."

"Always."

"Good. Now, I think the both of us have to go see the Hokage."

"You have a mission?"

"Most likely. And you have training to do. Let's get going."

---

"Alright Kakashi, you're dismissed."

Kakashi bowed, gave Sakura one last friendly pat on the shoulder and headed off to leave for his S-rank mission, leaving Sakura alone with the Hokage.

"Naruto left today."

"Yes M'Lady."

"Are you ok?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"We've been over this. You're to respect me by being honest with me."

"I'm…I don't know…I'd never have stopped Naruto from leaving but that doesn't mean I wish he didn't have to. He's still my teammate after all."

Tsunade considered her young apprentice for a long moment before sighing and closing her eyes.

"I hate to bring this up right now but the council's breathing down my neck. Since Uchiha Sasuke has officially defected from the village with no indication of plans to return, Konoha is no longer responsible for providing him with a living space."

"…I see."

"This isn't fair! Why does shit like this always happen to us?!"

"What will happen to Sasuke-kun's apartment?"

"His belongings will be cleared out and the apartment will be put on sale."

"That can't happen!" The words flew from her mouth before she could even think about them. For as much time as she had lived there with Sasuke, she'd gathered that he didn't care very much about his belongings…it was why he had so few personal items. But what he did have…the pictures of his family, his books, his clothing…if he ever did come back, she didn't want those to be gone. She wanted him to have something to come back to. If that all disappeared, what would keep him there?

"Why do you think I'm talking to you about it? You've been staying there for a while now, right?"

"Y-yeah."

Tsunade sighed. "It wouldn't look good to have the Hokage's apprentice living out on the street. Appearances aside, I would never let my apprentice be homeless. So, you have a few options. You can come live in the Hokage residence with me. Or, since you are an orphan, and hold a certain standing as my apprentice, I can try and make the case to have the same courtesy extended to the dependents of chunin rank or higher, extended to you…in other words reassign that apartment to you under the same deal Sasuke had."

"That…you'd really do that for me?"

"What kind of master do you take me for, brat? You really think I'd just dump you on the street and leave you to fend for yourself?" As tough as she was, Tsunade had never been that heartless, and besides…Sakura was more than just her apprentice, just like Shizune. She'd accepted Shizune like she was her own niece, since that's what she was to Dan…But Sakura…she hadn't taken Sakura on just because of a sense of responsibility to her late lover, as a way to keep him close, nor simply because of the raw talent she displayed. With Sakura…she saw so much of herself in the girl, it was like looking in mirror a lot of the time. And Sakura was so smart, capable, kind, funny, tough, determined, cute…it was hard not to grow attached to her. In the short time she'd been training her, Sakura already felt like something of a daughter to her. And that was a first for Tsunade.

"Thank you Shishou."

"So what'll it be? Live with me or stay there?"

"I'd…I want to stay at Sasuke-kun's…but not if it's only because I'm being made an exception for…unless the law changes and guarantees housing for all orphaned dependents of ninja."

"Of course you wanna be noble about it." She sighed again. "You know I wish I could, but what you're suggesting is a huge reform that we definitely don't have the budget for, and that's assuming I'd be able to convince the Council members, who you haven't met yet but count your blessings, cause they're worse than a hangover."

"I don't want to leave Sasuke-kun's…"

"Is that really healthy? Trying to hold on to him like this? Constantly living with the reminder of him?"

"Is that why you drink Shishou? To forget?" Sakura challenged, meeting Tsunade's eyes boldly.

Tsunade leaned back in her chair. If Sakura were anyone else, she'd have probably sent them flying kilometers out of Konoha for that. But Sakura was different, because she understood. Their situations weren't the exact same, but they were similar enough. No one could truly understand her as well as Sakura, not even Shizune. Conversely, no one would be able to understand Sakura the way Tsunade did. She understood why Sakura was such a workaholic, with how hard she threw herself into her training. That was Sakura's way of not drowning in her own thoughts. And she was determined to get strong enough to be of use to her teammates, keep them safe, and help repair what was shattered. Tsunade understood why she was clinging to any remnants of Sasuke so desperately, in the hopes of somehow keeping him close, even if it was only an illusion…after all, she herself had trained and traveled with Dan's niece for years. If that wasn't constantly living with a reminder, she didn't know what was…and Sakura wasn't exactly wrong. All of the loss was more tolerable when she was drunk.

"Maybe I just haven't lived long enough yet…but I don't want to forget." Sakura spoke quietly.

"Doing this will only make you feel more lonely."

"…I know but…" Sakura floundered, unable to put her feelings into words. All she knew was that abandoning Sasuke's apartment would feel like abandoning Sasuke. And she could never bring herself to do that.

"All right then. Since you don't want any exceptions being made for you, and given the amount of work you're doing as a hospital intern, your monthly stipend will now cover your housing and your housing only. You'll have to cover the rest of your living expenses yourself. You'll also be required to spend more time at the hospital to make up for it. And no slacking off, or you'll lose your stipend."

Sakura straightened, her eyes shooting to Tsunade's. She felt an overwhelming surge of gratitude towards the woman, who understood her so perfectly. Not only had she respected Sakura's wish to stay at Sasuke's, she found the perfect way to allow her. One that wasn't making her an exception or showing extreme favoritism. It wasn't unheard of for a work place to cover housing, and she'd made it clear that would be the entirety of her stipend, and the rest was on her, which was fair, since Sasuke's place was probably more expensive than a normal intern's stipend.

"Thank you so much Shishou!"

"There's a condition. If ever I feel like you aren't emotionally or mentally stable enough to be alone, you will come stay with me, no complaints, until I deem you stable enough to resume living on your own. Is that understood?"

"Yes M'Lady…you don't really think I'll need that, do you?"

"Generally no. But on certain days you probably will. Sasuke's birthday, Naruto's birthday, your mother's birthday, the anniversary of her death, the anniversary of Sasuke's defection…maybe not all of them, but I imagine those days will be hard for you to be alone on."

"That's…a good call."

"Tsuande-sama's the best!"

"Is this what it would be like to have an aunt?"

"I'm Hokage for a reason, kid. Now that that's settled," Tsunade reached under her desk and pulled out four thick text books with slips of paper sticking out of various places. "Read the flagged sections and get to work practicing the mystical palm. Shizune will oversee your training today. And I want a single page self report on your progress afterwards. Make it quick too, cause your hospital shift starts in five hours. You'll be doing all the diagnoses for the clinic, check up for inpatients, and monitoring patient status during any and all surgeries. Pay close attention to how the surgeon's medical chakra interacts with each layer of the body. I want a five pages of observation notes in my hand by 23:59 tomorrow. You're skilled enough with chakra scanning now that I can allow you to check on Gaara's progress without fear of sparking an international incident. Now that you've mastered all levels of chakra scanning, you should be able to give him a more accurate prognosis."

Sakura's eyes widened at the immense work load Tsunade handed her.

"So…much…"

"Well? Get going!" Tsunade barked.

Sakura grabbed the text books and fled the room, determined to accomplish every task she'd been handed.

---

Several hours later, an exhausted Sakura collapsed onto the stool at Gaara's bed side. Gaara eyed her with concern.

"Are you alright, Sakura?"

"I'm fine, Shishou's just a bit of a sadist. I'm exhausted." Sakura answered with a smile. She was tired but, all and all, this was preferable to doing nothing, thinking about her teammates' absence. She'd been running around the hospital all afternoon and evening, so much so that several of the doctors even told her that if she needed a break, they'd keep it a secret from Tsunade. But she hadn't stopped once, determined to grow her skill and understanding. She was even more motivated to do so from her repeated failure at getting the mystical palm technique earlier. Shizune, who was much more verbally encouraging than Tsunade, insisted that she was doing well, that the mystical palm technique was something few medical nin could even use, and for the ones who could it typically took at least 6 months. Some took years. She'd blown through more than 75% of her chakra earlier in her attempts. It was only thanks to Tsunade's prescribed half a food pill that she'd been able to make it through her shift. She shook her head a little to bring herself back into the present.

"I'm sorry, that was wildly unprofessional."

"You don't need to be professional with me…I'd prefer you weren't." He knew she was doing her best to become a full fledged medical ninja as fast as possible, and part of that included professional interaction with patients. But he preferred it when she spoke to him like a friend. It was a level of interaction that was so new to him, he craved it constantly. Naruto usually gave it to him in spades, but he'd left to train. And it always felt a little different to him when it came to Sakura anyways. "Naruto left today…are you doing alright?"

"Did you get a chance to say bye? You two probably won't see each other for a while." Sakura asked, side stepping his question entirely.

"Yes. He visited to say goodbye yesterday night. Did you see him off?"

"Yeah, this morning. Hinata-chan came too. I think that made him really happy. Not that he can tell why, knowing him."

Gaara gave her a blank look but she could read the curiosity in his eyes.

"That's right. Love and relationships are new to Gaara too."

"Hinata-chan's liked Naruto forever, and I think Naruto might be starting to like her too, but he doesn't know it yet."

"Naruto likes you though." Gaara stated blandly. It had been one of the topics of conversation during one of Naruto's many visits. At the time, he'd simply listened more than talked, as Naruto went off about how pretty, smart, kind, hardworking, and tough Sakura was. Internally he'd agreed with every point Naruto made, even adding some of his own, but he wasn't sure if he was supposed to let Naruto know that or not…conversations like that were new territory for him. But he remembered Yashamaru once telling him that people got possessive of things they liked, and he figured it was probably the same for people they liked as well. He didn't want to turn his first friend into a rival over a girl who didn't feel the same for either of them.

"Naruto likes me, but I think it might just be more as a really close friend. Hinata-chan would be way better for him than me. And he'd be good for her too. Besides, even if he does have a crush on me, feelings can change."

"Will yours?" Gaara asked quietly. Watching Sakura's face crumble made him regret asking, but a part of him was dying to know the answer…

"I'd be surprised if they did…"

She looked so tired and sad, and he felt something inside him ache a bit, seeing her like that.

"Do…do you want to rest in here for a bit? I can wake you up…you look tired."

Sakura shook her head quickly a look of excitement replacing her sadness. "Thank you Gaara-kun, but I'm ok! That really would be unprofessional, but that's not important. Tsunade-sama cleared me to do a full chakra scan on you, so I can actually see why it's taking so long for you to recharge! No more annoying questions!"

Gaara didn't mind the so called annoying questions, but hearing her enthusiasm in her voice made him feel lighter. And when Sakura approached him and laid her hands on his chest, he felt the temperature around him rise. A soft green glow, almost the same color as her eyes, coated her hands, as her chakra pulsed into his body. It wasn't like when she shared her chakra with him. That time he'd felt an almost needle like tingle through him. This time, he barely felt anything at all, other than noting some of the tension in his muscles releasing.

"Oh that makes a lot of senes." Sakura murmured, withdrawing her hands and quickly taking notes on a clipboard. "It's more or less what we thought, but now I just have a more complete picture. My chakra did damage your network…your network is a bit different than an average shinobi because of Shukaku, which keeps out foreign invaders to your system, whether they be illness or chakra. The average shinobi body only has natural defenses to keep out someone else's chakra, and that can easily be overpowered and tricked. Because Shukaku is a large amassment of chakra, completely intertwined with your chakra and chakra network, he can't be tricked the way your body can, and immediately repels foreign chakra. When you accepted my chakra, Shukaku actively worked against it even as it transferred into your system. Normally I wouldn't have been able to transfer it in the first place; You must have somehow mentally overpowered Shukaku to allow the transfer to start. But that didn't stop his response to the foreign invader. There was essentially a battle between my chakra and Shukaku's taking place in your network while you were using it, which damaged several of your chakra points…essentially knocking out at least half your chakra network. Or more. That's most likely why you've only gained back about a sixteenth of your chakra."

"Can it be fixed?" If he couldn't use his chakra, he'd never be respectable enough to become Kazekage.

"It's already in the process. Shukaku wouldn't let your network just shut down like that. But it messed with a lot of the chakra points and it's a slow healing process…you're already well on your way, but I might have an idea of how to speed things up."

"Which is?"

Sakura pursed her lips in thought. "Hypothetically, the Hyuga's gentle fist does something similar…it can shut down or restart a chakra point. But I need to talk with Tsunade-sama about it…it makes sense in theory, but I don't know if having Shukaku inside you changes things or not, and the skill required of the Byakugan user would be immense. Also, if I'm wrong, it would cause more trauma to your network and really screw you over…so I definitely have to talk with Tsunade-sama first and do more research first."

"I trust you, Sakura."

"Thank you…although, I'm not sure if you should…I still haven't figured out how to let you get a real goodnights sleep yet…"

"You warned me it may not be possible from the beginning. Nor did I expect there to be a way. You've done nothing to let me down."

Sakura gave him a warm smile, and he felt more of his tension ease. She didn't even need medical jutsu…Tsunade couldn't have picked a better person to become a medic.

"Alright! I'll talk to Tsunade-sama about it! I won't let you down, I promise."

"I know you won't."

---

Sakura stood in front of Tsunade's desk two days later, awaiting her master's decision.

"That's…an interesting suggestion Sakura. But it's risky." Tsunade said, her eyes repeatedly scanning the full and very comprehensive report. She had to admit it had merits. Gaara would heal on his own, but at the current rate he was recovering, it would take something like six months, and Sakura's suggestion cut down that time by more than half. But Tsunade wasn't sure if the gentle fist had ever been utilized like this—to open chakra points instead of close them. She was broken from her musings by a knock at the door.

"Enter!" She barked.

Team Gai (sans Gai) walked in, ready to report on their last mission. This luckily included Neji, the gentle fist prodigy.

"We've completed our mission efficiently, Hokage-sama! And we wanted to hand in our youthful report." Said Lee enthusiastically, before noticing Sakura was standing there, and turning bright red. "S-S-Sakura-san! I apologize I failed to recognize your angelic presence!"

"Hey Sakura!" Said TenTen brightly.

"Hi! You guys alright? No injuries?"

"We are un-injured fair Sakura!"

"Hyuga! Glad you're here. Go get your uncle and cousin, and come back here, as fast as you can. I have a matter to discuss with you both."

Neji was surprised by the abrupt order, but made no show of it, instead bowing and leaving her office to do what was asked of him.

"You two can leave your report and go." Tsunade said brusquely, dismissing TenTen and Lee.

"Yes Ma'am! I will work even harder so our next mission goes even more smoothly!" Lee gave an enthusiastic salute, before rushing out of the room.

"Hey TenTen, can we train together sometime soon?" Sakura asked quickly, before TenTen could go. She wanted to work on incorporating weapons into the dancer's barrage—it was still the only offensive skill she had at the moment, and as Shikamaru had clearly pointed out, it was still inadequate.

"Yeah sure!" TenTen grinned, before leaving the office.

It wasn't long after that Neji, Hinata, and Hiyashi arrived in the Hokage's office.

"You called for us, Hokage-sama?" Hiyashi spoke importantly.

"Subaku no Gaara is currently in our hospital. Were you aware?"

"I was informed of Suna's aid in the Uchiha retrieval mission." Sakura's eyes found her feet at those words, missing Hinata's concerned glance. "It was Gaara who saved your teammate, isn't that right, Neji?" Hinata's gaze turned sad. There was a warmth in her father's voice that wasn't present when he spoke to her.

"Yes, Uncle."

"Well, he's got severe damage to his chakra network. Most of his chakra points have been blocked and it's preventing him from being able to recharge his chakra effectively. He will make a full recovery with time, but left on his own, it would take at least six months if not more. So his medic has put forth a suggestion. Can the gentle fist be used to reopen his chakra points?"

There was a long silence as the three Hyuga processed her words.

"Who's his attending medic?"

"I am." Sakura said, speaking for the first time since the three entered the office. Hiyashi studied her with a thoroughly unimpressed look.

"You're a clanless shinobi. You don't understand how using a clan technique in this manner puts the clan at risk." He spoke dismissively. Hinata's head was bent, so no one saw how her eyes narrowed in anger at her father's dismissive attitude toward Sakura.

"Puts the clan at risk? I wasn't expecting to have to deal with clan politics when I pitched this!"

Already, Sakura felt her temper surging, but she did her best to keep her voice neutral when she asked, "What risk does a procedure like this pose to the Hyuga clan?"

"When we use our techniques on non-konoha shinobi, it is with the intent to kill. Jutsu and chakra can leave lingering effects and traces on those they are used on, and if these lingering effects and traces are studied, it could result in the derivation of our techniques. Using it to heal a non-Konoha shinobi could lead to the revelation of Hyuga secrets to Suna. Of course, a clanless shinobi such as yourself wouldn't understand this threat."

What little control she'd been placing on her temper was swiftly abandoned.

"You're damned right I don't! This is someone's health we're talking about! Their life! And you won't lift a finger to help?!" Unbidden into her mind came the image of her sick mother. This was not at all an analogous situation, but it still only furthered Sakura's temper. "Suna is our ally, damnit! They aren't going to try and derive Hyuga secrets! How can you just stand by and let—"

"They're only our allies for now. Allegiances change. And I'm not foolish enough to naively trust that Suna will always remain our friends. I have the safety of my clan to think about and—"

"So you won't lift a finger to—"

"Enough!" Tsunade's voice thundered. "Hiyashi, I didn't ask whether you would do it, I asked if it was possible."

"…Yes, Hokage-sama, it is possible."

"And the skill level?"

"Only Neji or myself would be able to manage it."

Hinata's shoulders rose and she bit her lip hard. Her father hadn't once acknowledged her presence since they'd been summoned into the Hokage's office. And she'd been working so hard…training with Neji…and she still wasn't enough for him.

"But you won't agree to help?"

"No. If you ordered it Hokage-sama, I'd of course carry it out, but it would be begrudgingly."

"Would you agree to train Sakura or myself in the basics of the needed technique?"

"Aside from the large amount of time it would take, I can't permit outsiders to the clan to learn our clan techniques. Only if the person in question agreed to marry into the clan. And I don't know that I would want a clanless shinobi to do so."

"Like I'd ever willingly join a clan like yours!" Sakura hissed.

"Sakura." Though her eyes were fixated piercingly on Hiyashi, the warning in Tsunade's tone was hard to miss. Sakura was coming very close to crossing the line, and while Tsunade wanted her to voice her thoughts and feelings without restraint, there were times when diplomacy dictated she keep a lid on it.

The Hokage's eyes briefly flitted to Neji, who stood silently, though the way he was looking away from his uncle betrayed him. He wouldn't say anything, but he didn't agree with his uncle's choice. Why would he? Gaara had saved his teammate after all, he likely wanted to repay the debt. Hiyashi's repeated jabs at Sakura being a clanless shinobi probably didn't sit well with him either, given that both of his teammates were clanless and the boy definitely had a soft spot for TenTen. Tsunade's eyes slid over to Hinata. The girl was pale and shaking, but her fists were clenched tightly…it seemed she was more angry than scared…

"Hinata, what are your thoughts on this?" Tsunade asked, her tone losing some of its bite.

"M-M-My th-thoughts?" Hinata jumped, startled at being asked to voice her opinion.

"Hinata's thoughts are of no concern to this matter. Her say means nothing. She's no longer the heir to the Hyuga clan, nor is she skilled enough to carry out the procedure in question. Inviting her here was a waste of your office space." Hiyashi dismissed.

Sakura was seething, but kept her lips tightly sealed, lest she receive a much more severe warning from Tsunade.

"I'll decide what's a waste of my office space, as well as whose thoughts I find relevant." Tsunade answered coolly, before turning back to Hinata and nodding at her to continue.

"W-Well…I think…" Hinata glanced nervously at her father, and felt her heart pound with anxiety. "I-I think…I…"

You don't just get to decide these things about other people you fool! Show him, Hinata!…

Come on Hinata! Are you just gonna take that? At least talk back to him!…

You'll definitely get stronger Hinata! And I will too, believe it! I'll see you when I get back!

Hinata's fists tightened resolutely. "I think th-that as K-Konoha n-ninja, the H-Hyuga c-clan's first responsibility i-is to the v-villiage…and i-if that means using the g-gentle f-fist to help the recovery of one of K-Konoha's allies…then th-that's our r-responsibility as w-well!" She couldn't bring herself to look at her father…couldn't bring herself to look at anyone at all, but she felt his gaze piercing her none the less.

"Way to go Hinata-chan! You tell 'em! Shannaro!" Sakura was beaming with pride for her quiet friend.

"Well said." Tsunade smirked. "Hiyashi, I respect your position as clan head, so I won't ask you to hold any part in this. But I will ask that Hinata show Sakura the basics of the chakra burst required in the gentle fist style. She will not teach Sakura any of the movement style or form of the gentle fist, only the chakra burst. I also ask that she be present to watch over the procedure with her Byakugan, she will have no part in it other than to confirm chakra flow or lack there of. Are those terms acceptable?"

Hiyashi was still staring down at his daughter with an unreadable expression, but internally he felt a bit of…hope for Hinata. His daughter was not as spineless and unfit to be a shinobi as he thought. Honestly, he was rather proud…

"Very well. I accept this offer, Hokage-sama." Hiyashi stated, his tone remarkably calmer than Hinata had expected. Her curiosity got the better of her fear as she finally looked up at her father, meeting his moon-like eyes. "Show your friend only the control technique for releasing bursts of chakra, so that we may do our duty as Hyuga to the village."

Hinata's eyes widened. She wasn't imagining it—at least, she didn't think she was! There was pride in her father's tone.

"Y-Yes father, I…I will!"

"Thank you, Hiyashi. You and Neji may go. Hinata, Sakura. Get to work! I want Gaara healed up as fast as possible, before Suna thinks we've kidnapped their royal family."

"Hai!" The two girls chorused, before fleeing the office.

---

"I-It isn't so much the amount of chakra as it is the velocity. A b-burst of any size has to be pushed out fast enough to shoot into the t-targets body and out again. That's the biggest difference between your dance's barrage and the g-gentle fist. W-We don't let our chakra linger in the t-targets network." Hinata explained. They'd been at it for three days, and Sakura had already used up half of her chakra, and was still releasing too slowly.

"And it doesn't matter how big the burst is?" Sakura asked, studying the torn up bark of the tree she'd been repeatedly palm striking.

"…W-Well, for the gentle fist it would, depending on how much d-damage you're trying to do, but for what you're trying, probably the smaller the better." Hinata observed. "When we want to open, loosen, or activate a chakra point, we're t-told to think of our chakra like a small s-spark…"

"Oh! Like heart defibrillation…" Sakura bit her lip.

"I haven't learned the chakra-defibrillation procedure yet. I haven't even mastered the mystical palm, and until I learn that, something like chakra defibrillation, which comes with an elemental component…But if the velocity's enough, the pressure jolt should make up for any lack of elemental mix the chakra burst might have…so if I rapidly send all of my chakra into the tip of my finger, and let the pressure build, the way it does when I'm having an attack, if I release only a small bit of it at once, it should be fast enough…"

"Hinata-chan, I've got half of one of Tsunade-sama's food pills in my weapons pouch. I'm gonna try something, and I'm gonna need you to feed me that after."

"R-Right!" It wasn't the first time Sakura had given her that instruction. Since starting her apprenticeship with Tsunade, Sakura seemed to disregard her chakra weight limits, tapping into the last half of her chakra where as before, she'd always make sure to stop when she was half way empty. Sometimes, she even had Hinata give her the half of a chakra pill only to continue working until she was running too low on chakra again.

Sakura closed her eyes and sent all her remaining chakra racing into her middle and pointer fingers. She let the pressure of her chakra build until it became painful, before jabbing hard at the tree and releasing a small amount of her chakra. She curled her fingers into her fist to reveal a small hole in the tree bark. Hinata stepped closer, examining the hole.

"I think you did it, Sakura-chan!"

"All thanks to you! Let's make sure I can do it at least twice more before we call it, though." Sakura answered. She couldn't lower her arm or change her stance, having tapped into the last half of her chakra, not leaving any for her weights, but she could still move her fingers. She readjusted her fingers, aiming a bit lower, and again concentrated all of her chakra painfully into her two fingers, giving another hard poke to the tree, just under the previous small hole she made. After succeeding once more, Hinata slipped the food pill half into Sakura's mouth, allowing the pink haired girl to relax her position.

"It was really amazing when you stood up to you dad, Hinata-chan. It must have been hard, but I'm really proud of you!"

Hinata smiled shyly. "Thank you, Sakura-chan…I imagined what N-Naruto-kun would say to me if he'd been there and I just…"

"Well he definitely wasn't wrong when he said you'd get stronger for sure!"

Hinata smiled. "Actually, I think it may have changed f-father's opinion of me a little…h-he asked about the procedure's progress the other day, and said h-he wanted to observe my next training session with N-Neji-niisan…"

"That's amazing Hinata-chan! He's taking an interest! Just—when he does come to watch, don't freak out. Focus on Neji and imagine Naruto's cheering for you, like you did before."

Hinata flushed brightly, before shaking her head and focusing back on her friend. "Are you okay though, Sakura-chan? D-Don't you think you might be working too hard…having to take food pills after every training session seems a bit…" Hinata wasn't sure what word she was looking for. Intense? Rough? Overboard? And she rarely ever saw Sakura anymore unless they were doing some form of training. She looked tired…exhausted actually. It was worrying. She wondered what Ino's thoughts were on the matter.

"Well you just know Naruto's gonna come back super strong with some crazy new techniques or whatever, so I've gotta make sure I can keep up!"

"We've gotta make sure we can bring Sasuke-kun back…"

"Shh…I don't want to get into that part right now."

Sakura cleared her throat. "We should give Tsunade-sama a progress report."

"…Right." Hinata could tell she was trying to change the subject, and never one to force anyone into something that made them uncomfortable, Hinata decided to let the subject drop.

---

"I can do the chakra burst effectively, M'Lady, but how are we going to locate the chakra points accurately?" Sakura asked, as she and Hinata trailed behind the Hokage through the hospital corridors.

"My chakra scan's a lot sharper than yours."

Sakura's jaw dropped. "You can sense them?!"

"Keep practicing and maybe you'll get there." Tsunade smirked. It wasn't really a maybe. There was no doubt in her mind that Sakura's medical ability would far surpass her own in time. And she doubted it would take all that much time…five years, maybe? Tsunade's face became serious. It was time for business. "Sakura, you're sure you have the exact technique for the burst down?"

"Yes M'Lady!"

"Hinata, is your stamina good enough to keep your byakugan active throughout the procedure? I can't give you a time estimate, as this has never been done before."

"I-I think so…I'll be fine H-Hokage-sama."

"Alright. Good. Both of you rest and eat well tonight. Report to the hospital by 6am, and don't do any training before hand. You both need to be at your best. This is an experimental and delicate procedure, and if it goes wrong, it could mean war with Suna. Mistakes are not on option." She spoke the last part directly to Sakura, who immediately felt her nerves violently react. "I'll go inform Gaara of the procedure and what it entails. You're dismissed."

---

Sakura did not go back to Sasuke's apartment right away. Instead, she went to her mother's grave, and leaned her back against the headstone, fingering her necklace.

"I'm…I'm doing my first medical procedure tomorrow, mom…I told you how I was training to become a medical nin, right? I still don't have the mystical palm technique mastered, so I'm not much of a healer yet…it feels a little…like I should have learned this properly ages ago so I could actually heal you like I kept promising but…I'm scared. If I mess up, something bad could happen to Gaara-kun. He's a friend of mine. We met during the chunin exams, and he was a bit…psychotic back then, but Naruto changed him. Now we're friends and I'm worried I'm gonna mess up and hurt him."

"That means you'll be all the more careful when the time comes."

Sakura jumped and turned to see her silver haired sensei standing on the other side of the head stone, his hands in his pockets.

"Kakashi-sensei! You're back from your mission already?"

"It wasn't hard."

"It was S-ranked." Sakura retorted flatly. Kakashi merely shrugged. "Are you injured at all?"

"I'm fine." He answered calmly. "Have you eaten yet?"

"Not yet."

"Then I believe we have a deal to uphold."

Sakura gave a sad smile. "Team dinner?"

"That was the deal. I hope you don't mind if it's not ramen."

"I'm not Naruto." Sakura answered, her smile growing a bit more playful. "And I'm not all that picky either." She stood up, dusting off her dress and followed him out of the graveyard, after saying a quick goodbye to her mother's headstone.

"I'd noticed." Kakashi said lightly, as they wandered down the street. "So what's this about a medical procedure?"

Sakura explained the situation in full to him over a dinner of gyoza, tempura, tamagoyaki and yakitori.

"Everything will be fine." Kakashi said casually after hearing Sakura rant about everything that could go wrong for about thirty minutes straight. "Sakura, this procedure sounds like it almost entirely comes down to chakra control. And if there's one thing you do better than any of your teammates and peers, it's chakra control. You'll be fine, as will Gaara. And when it's over, he'll probably thank you for speeding up his recovery and getting him out of the hospital quicker."

"But I haven't even mastered the mystical palm yet!"

"It's a good thing this procedure doesn't require the mystical palm then."

"But I shouldn't be—"

"Do you trust Tsunade-sama?"

"Of course!"

"Do you trust Gaara?"

"Yes but—"

"Do you trust Ino and Hinata?"

"Yeah but—"

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course sensei, but what has that got to do with—"

"Do you trust Naruto and Sas—" He stopped short. He was so used to thinking of them, referring to them, as a unit. And with Naruto away as well, it was so easy to pretend that Sasuke had just left the village for a three year training stint too. That he'd be back along with Naruto.

"Yes." Sakura said quietly. "Yes. I trust all of them." She hadn't discounted that Sasuke might come back after he did what he needed to do, nor had she given up hope on him.

Sakura…thank you…for everything…

"If you trust all of us, and we all have full faith in you, then can't you believe in yourself, even just a little?"

Sakura didn't answer. When it was put like that, it seemed ridiculous that she did not have full confidence in herself. But it was so much easier said than done.

"I'll try." She said finally, cause that was really the best she could offer.

"Good. Besides, you're the type to rise to the occasion when there's a challenge. I wouldn't worry so much about the success of this procedure."

"How long are you back for?" Sakura asked, changing the subject.

"Not sure. We were short handed before, and now that team 7 is no longer part of the mission roster, active shinobi are working double time."

"Ino-pig was complaining about that the last time I saw her." Which now that she thought about, was over two weeks ago. She missed her best friend.

"With how much you're around Tsunade-sama, I'm sure you've picked up on at least some politics by now. The village was destabilized in Orochimaru's attack months ago, and we need pose as if the attack had no effect on us. We need the money from the missions to help stabilize and turning down any missions will show weakness."

"Yeah…"

"If I get sent on a mission, and an enemy attacks, I'm just as useless now in a fight as I was in the Land of Tea…"

"Sensei, I want to try and make my Dancer's barrage into a whole fighting style."

"You mean the idea of generally mixing dance and fighting?"

"Yeah. It's the most chakra and movement efficient way of fighting for me, and with weights, I need to prioritize efficiency in my fighting. Both with Ino and Dosu, that was an issue I had—when it came down to regular brawling that's where my performance started decreasing."

Kakashi mulled over her suggestion for a little while before speaking. "There are advantages to that. It's unpredictable and will be good for agility and evasion, but by approaching fights that way, you're decreasing your power output…which wasn't all that high to begin with."

"I know, but that's why it's my best bet. Even if I were to fight in straight up and down combat, I don't have enough power and strength for it to make much of a difference. Why not play to my strengths instead of hoping I'm able to buff my weaknesses enough to not lose within the first minute of combat?"

Kakshi stared down at her. It was so easy to forget he was talking to a thirteen-year-old and not a twenty six year-old. It felt like having a peer…if he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend he was talking to Rin. There were differences though. Unignorable ones. Rin at thirteen, while maybe miles ahead of his and Obito's maturity, had not been nearly as mature as Sakura. Nor had she been as self aware, self critical, or self teaching.

"Makes sense. I'll be honest, it's not a method or style I'm familiar with training, so I'm not sure how best to go about it. But I'll see what I can do."

"I'm planning to get some tips from TenTen on adding weapons and weapon handling to the Dancer's barrage, so maybe I'll be able to come up with something from there…a basis for extending it to a full combat style."

"You do know medical ninja aren't supposed to fight in front line combat, right?"

Sakura said nothing.

"I…actually hadn't thought about that…medical ninja are there for support and healing. That's what's important."

"But we should still know how to kick ass, Shannaro!"

"…Yeah…we should…but still, as far as training goes, the things we should probably put the most focus on are healing and controlling our curse…"

"I'm not saying it to discourage you from trying. It's important for any ninja to be able to fight effectively. It's just that you have a lot on your plate, between learning medical jutsu, gaining control over your kekkei genkai, and perfecting your dancer's barrage." Kakashi said, voicing much of her own thoughts. "Work on turning dance into a combat style, and I'll help you as much as I can with it, but when it comes to my priorities as your sensei, it's making sure you don't die from your chakra every time you're in a tense situation."

"…Yeah…that sounds reasonable." After all, he made a good point.

---

"Am I correct in assuming putting you to sleep will do more harm than good?" Tsunade asked Gaara, as he lay on the operating table, Hinata and a very nervous looking Sakura standing nearby at the ready.

"It wouldn't be a good idea. Shukaku would have more control." Gaara said quietly. His eyes were trained on Sakura. He didn't want her to be nervous…not when she was doing something so delicate that could permanently damage his chakra network. More than that though, he didn't like seeing her in distress.

"And you're sure this is gonna work…and you know, not kill him?" Temari asked. The other two Sand Siblings had been staying in an inn, spending time training and getting to know the Konoha ninja, as well as corresponding with Suna and keeping them appraised of the situation. They visited Gaara daily and as his relatives, had been informed about the procedure. Kankuro was all for anything that got Gaara back to fully functional faster. He'd warmed up to his little brother since Gaara had his change of heart, and was wildly aware that he was in a minority. Most of the population of Suna still feared him, and the council would likely attempt more assassinations. The sooner Gaara was able to defend himself, the better.

Temari, was not as keen on taking the risk. She'd always felt bad for her little brother, though their father had successfully instilled enough fear in her to keep herself distant. Now that Gaara had turned over a new leaf, and their father was gone, she'd been quick to start working through and getting over her fear of him. And a protectiveness and care had been steadily filling its place. This procedure was new, untested, and risky, being executed by a novice who was still in training. She was of the opinion that both of her brothers' impatience had blinded them and that this was a completely foolish decision. An opinion that had been reinforced the day before, when she ranted about it to Shikamaru (let's face it, no matter how much of a lazy crybaby he was, he was damned intelligent) during a game of shogi, who seemed to share a similar mindset. If Gaara would heal on his own, regardless of the time frame, why take a risk like this?

"It'll work." Tsunade answered with an air of finality that left no room for question. Even if she forgone answering the bit about killing Gaara. "We're going to put you on partial anesthetic then, which should be enough to numb the pain without putting you to sleep. This is going to hurt, and we'll need you to keep very still. Do you consent to being strapped down?"

"Do what you must." Gaara sounded so calm and unbothered, it was hard to believe he was a patient about to undergo a painful procedure.

Tsunade turned to glare at Sakura, whose hands were visibly shaking, before gesturing with her head towards the straps by the bed.

Sakura heard the silent message loud and clear: get your act together and strap him down.

But never look unsure in front of your patient. You need their trust if you want to heal them, and the body is something people don't trust just anyone with. You need to make it very clear from the get go that you know what you're doing and they can trust you.

Sakura took a deep breath and forced her hands to stop shaking.

"That's right. I need Gaara-kun to feel safe and trust me. I've got Shishou and Hinata-chan, here. I can do the necessary chakra burst. There's no reason to freak out. If I'm freaked, he's freaked and that won't help matters at all…"

She took another deep breath, exhaling her nerves. She could panic later. Right now, there was a patient in front of her who needed help.

Sakura stepped forward, looking much more at ease, and carefully began strapping Gaara to the table, while Shizune got him set up with an anesthetic. Satisfied that Gaara wouldn't be able to move during the procedure, Tsunade stepped forward, addressing Sakura.

"Remove your chakra weights for this. We're going to start from his core and move outward, through his upper body. Once the chakra points in his torso and arms are completely open, we'll do half of the chakra points on his lower body. Shukaku will likely be able to repair the rest fairly quickly from there."

"Understood." Sakura's weights loosened, and she slipped them off and stowed them in her weapons pouch, before sanitizing her hands and returning to the bedside.

"Kankuro, Temari, please wait outside. Hinata will come get you when we're done."

Kankuro nodded and left immediately. Temari was a bit more hesitant, but seeing as it was her brother's body, and thus his decision, she sighed and left as well.

Tsunade nodded at Hinata, who stepped forward, while she hovered her hands over Gaara's stomach. Sakura concentrated all her chakra into two fingers, feeling the painful pressure build.

"Ready?"

Both girls nodded. Hinata's byakugan activated when green chakra engulfed Tsunade's hands. And the procedure begun.

---

Seven hours later, Sakura collapsed onto a nearby stool while Hinata went out to inform Temari and Kankuro that the procedure was successful. Tsunade was giving orders to nurses about moving Gaara back to his room before going out as well to answer any questions the sand siblings may have had, and discuss with them about what they would be communicating to Suna.

Sakura's limbs felt rubbery. She had to switch hands half way through because the pressure of so much chakra concentrated into two fingers had become too much…both hands now ached tremendously as a result. She'd used up 90% of her chakra. The burst was small, but there were a lot of chakra points along the chakra network, especially in the upper body, and she'd had to unblock all of them.

"Thank god I managed to make it through."

Gaara watched her hazily. The anesthetic they administered had dulled much of the pain. He'd still felt it a little bit, and few times he'd twitched enough to strain against the straps, but overall, it hadn't been anything too terrible. He'd just kept his focus on Sakura the whole time and it was fine. She was very different while she was working, her entire demeanor switched. She went from being nervous and unsure to suddenly seeming very focused and in control. There wasn't a single hesitation in her movements at all. The one time she seemed unclear about where Tsunade was telling her to aim, she didn't panic in the slightest, she simply clarified, completely unfazed. It was like someone had flipped a switch. It was fascinating to watch, though he'd rather it not have been from the perspective of a patient. Watching her now, it was again like someone had flipped a switch. Her elbows were on her knees, her head dropped, her fingers twitching slightly.

"…Sakura?"

Her head shot up immediately, staring at him for a second, before rising and coming to the bed, a soothing smile on her lips.

"I'm sorry you had to be awake through such a long procedure. Are you in any pain at all, Gaara-kun?"

"…Not really." It seemed to be taking him several seconds longer to process her words and formulate a response though. "…I feel slow…like when it's midday summer in Suna…" In Suna everyone knew not to be out at midday during the summer. Usually a wave of draginess known to Suna citizenry as heat-chains, hit hard during the summer seasons…that's what he felt like right now. Like he was suffering from heat-chains.

"That would be the anesthetic. It should wear off in a few hours. Your body will probably feel really achy, but that'll be nothing to worry about and should pass after a few days."

"…So…will my chakra come back now?"

"Yes. Your body still needs to reopen the chakra points along your waist and legs, but there are fewer of those and with your upper chakra points open, it should be easier for you to self heal now. You'll probably be clear for release after a month, and clear for travel two weeks after that."

"…And if I hadn't done this?"

"It's hard to say, but at the rate you were going, it may have taken you half a year just to reopen your chakra network."

Gaara stared up at the ceiling for a long moment. "…I'm lucky I had a gifted medic."

"Tsunade-sama is the best!" Sakura agreed brightly. She was so relieved her Shishou had been there, overseeing it all. She didn't know what she would have done without her mentors immense skill and steadying presence.

Gaara wasn't sure if he should correct her or not. He hadn't been talking about Tsunade, he'd been talking about her. But she looked so happy at the moment, and he had a feeling if he explained what he meant, she'd start protesting that she wasn't a true medic yet, and that she wasn't all that gifted either. And his mind was moving too slowly to point out to her how wrong she was, in that hypothetical situation. So he let the topic drop.

"Thank you for trusting me, Gaara-kun!"

He looked up at her again, seeing her blossoming smile that made his chest heat. Since the chunin exams, there were four people he'd grown to trust unequivocally: Kankuro, Temari, Naruto, and Sakura. Rock Lee was creeping into that list as well, as he'd been visiting Gaara almost as frequently as Naruto had, but he wasn't quite there yet…

"…You make it easy to do so…" Because really, trusting Naruto and Sakura felt instinctive.

Shizune came into the room, followed by Tsunade.

"I'm gonna bring you back to your room now, Gaara." The dark haired woman said, before wheeling Gaara out of the OR.

Tsunade took one look at Sakura before gently pushing her back down onto the stool she vacated earlier.

"It wasn't exactly a surgery, but that was a big medical procedure. How do you feel?"

"Tired. My limbs feel like they're gonna give out and my fingers hurt a shit ton," Sakura said honestly, but she couldn't fight the smile making its way to her face.

Tsunade smirked. Despite the young girl's clearly honest report and evident exhaustion, the air around her was lighter. Her relief that everything had gone well and Gaara would now recover in a timely manner was palpable. As was her feeling of accomplishment. She had all rights to be proud of herself. This procedure had been nothing but chakra control, and there were several medics Tsunade knew would not have been able to pull this off, at the very least not for seven hours straight. And Tsunade saw it as promising…if Sakura could manage this task, then she could definitely learn the technique behind the Hokage's strength. But that would come later. She needed to master at least the mystical palm first.

"Here." Tsunade handed her half a chakra pill. "Take this and put on your weights. You can have the rest of the day off today. But I expect a one page self report on any areas you may have struggled, why, and how you're going to make sure you don't have the same problem again. I'll be giving you my evaluation of your performance tomorrow as well, and don't expect me to go easy on you just because it was your first procedure! Then you're to get back to working on the mystical palm before your shift."

"Hai!" Sakura said, swallowing the pill half and slipping on her weights, which Tsunade immediately activated.

"You did well." Tsunade smiled, ruffling her soft pink hair. Sakura flushed and beamed with pride. "Off you go, then."

Despite her exhaustion, and having twice her body weight added back on to her, Sakura headed back to Sasuke's apartment feeling incredibly light.

---

A month and a half later, Gaara was fully recuperated and cleared for travel, and the three Sand Siblings headed back home to Suna. Sakura didn't get to see Gaara off, as they left while she was training with Tsunade, but she'd said her goodbyes the day before when she gave Gaara one last check up and a clean bill of health. Interestingly, Shikamaru had gone to see them off though. He'd spent a lot of time with Temari, playing shogi and arguing, in the three months it had taken for Gaara to recover. He'd never admit out loud…not to her anyway, but deep down Shikamaru felt he owed Temari. Not just for saving his life against Tayuya, but for saving his career as well. He may have actually quit being a shinobi if it wasn't for her and what she said to him after that failure of a mission…even if it had been a provocation.

Sakura, meanwhile, was in the upper room of the Mohawk Fish Market, attempting to resuscitate a large fish with the mystical palm, just as she had been daily since learning how to chakra scan. She'd been working tirelessly to master the mystical palm, but it was difficult. Just like with chakra scanning, the user had to know the anatomy of the subject down to the cellular level. But different then chakra scanning, her chakra had to actually correctly interact with the targets body, which meant tweaking the application of her chakra cell to cell. It required so much concentration and control that she was sweating, her brows furrowed. Every previous attempt had been a failure, but she had to get this. Tsunade had said if she could master the mystical palm, most other medical ninjutsu would come fairly easily.

"Hyah!" The green glow encasing her hands and the fish grew brighter. Tsunade's eyes narrowed a little when the fish's fin twitched. A few seconds later, the fish began jumping and flopping on the table, successfully revived. Sakura pulled her hands away quickly, her eyes wide.

"Oh!" She stared at the fish in awe.

"I did it! I actually did it! Shannaro!"

She turned to Tsunade, sweaty and huffing, but smiling widely. Tsunade couldn't help smiling back. To progress this far in only three months of training…this girl…she may have been a talent unseen since Shizune…and if she was able to handle the next part of her training, her talent would definitely surpass her former apprentice's.

"I think we're done for the morning."

"Uh…yes, Ma'am!" Sakura was surprised. It was rare for Tsunade to let her off so easily.

"Don't get too excited, you'll be drilling this every day this week, at least 7 hours a day. You need to get faster and more efficient. If you took that long on a patient, they wouldn't make it. And if it costs you that much energy to heal one fish, you're never going to be able to heal more than small injuries, or perform surgeries."

"Right!" This was what she was familiar with.

"You've got about three hours of freedom before your shift at the hospital starts. Have fun. Be back here at 6am tomorrow, ready to work. Once you've gotten more efficient, you'll start aiding myself, Shizune, and senior medical staff in surgeries."

"Yes M'Lady."

Tsunade's smile warmed. "Good job."

Sakura's smile widened. "I had a good teacher."

"Damn straight you did! Get going, you're wasting down time."

---

Sakura did not go back to the apartment, but instead went to track down TenTen. She wanted to go visit Ino, but team 10 was out on a mission, so instead, she decided to use the time to start adapting her dancing into a combat style. TenTen was at a teashop with Neji when Sakura found her, and she was hesitant to interrupt…it sorta seemed like they might be on a date.

"—you tried encouraging her?"

"Yes, but she still seems to lose her nerve."

"Ok, but are you actually encouraging her, or do you only think you are?"

"What do you mean?"

TenTen giggled. "Come on, Neji, you have really high standards and can be pretty strict. And dismissive. You might be giving her a compliment, but if it doesn't reach your tone or face, she's probably not gonna interpret it that way."

"…you don't have a problem with it."

"I did at first. But I also spend most of my time with you, so I can decode your meanings."

"She's family…she should be able to as well." Neji muttered stubbornly. Although he was pleased that he and TenTen spent most of their time together. He already knew they did, but hearing her say it out loud made him feel an odd sense of pride.

"But you two had a falling out. And she spends most of her time with her team, or chasing after Naruto—before he left at least."

"And Sakura and Yamanaka. She's recently grown rather close with them."

"Good. She could use more positive female influences. Sakura and Ino would be really good for her."

"She has seemed to grow more at ease with others since befriending them…"

"You're such a helicopter-cousin. Seriously if your relationship with her is bothering you, just talk to her about it. The direct approach is always best with these sorts of things."

Sakura cleared her throat making her presence known. Both Neji and TenTen, who'd been completely oblivious to the world around them, started and looked up at her.

"Hey, Sakura! We were just talking about you." TenTen greeted with a friendly smile.

"Yeah, I caught a bit of it…you know, Neji, I hope I'm not overstepping, but if the direct approach doesn't work with Hinata-chan, just try getting her to talk about something she likes first, to make her comfortable and ease her into it."

"Oh, that's a good idea! Ask her what it is she likes so much about Naruto! I bet she could go off on that topic for awhile!" TenTen agreed enthusiastically.

Neji sighed. "I'll take it under advisement." He took a sip of tea, before looking up at Sakura again. "Did the Hokage want something?"

"Oh, no. I'm sorry to interrupt you both, but I was actually looking for TenTen."

"Right! You wanted to train together! But do you have time now? Tsunade-sama keeps you really busy…"

"I know, but I have a break for a couple hours and I want to make the most of it."

"Well then, we better get to it!" TenTen hopped up excitedly, grabbing Sakura's wrist and pulling her towards the training grounds. "I'll see you in a bit, Neji!" She called over her shoulder, at her calm but mildly annoyed teammate.

"Sorry…I didn't mean to interrupt your date or anything…" Sakura murmured, embarrassed and semi-regretful of her decision.

TenTen flushed brightly. "A d-date? Is that what it looked like? I mean, I wouldn't mind if it was but Neji doesn't see me that way, we're just…training partners." The last part of her statement came out a little dejected.

Sakura shook her head a little.

"They were totally in their own little world back there! And during the Chunin exams, Neji was really focused on TenTen's match, and he looked concerned about her injury after she lost…and he was actually talking to her about something personal that bothered him, and I read him as the stoic, silent type. No, he definitely likes her, I'm sure of it!"

"You know, he was pretty worried about you during the preliminaries."

"Neji? He was?" Thinking back on it, she'd woken up in the infirmary with him sitting next to her…and Lee had been in much worse shape than she had, as she'd come to find out later. Maybe there was some truth to what Sakura was saying…or it was just because it was always her and him, Lee and Gai. That was just the team dynamic. They suffered together as the two sane members of the team. So it could have just been in solidarity…

"Yeah. Well, date or not, you two clearly like spending time together, so…sorry I cut that short."

"Oh don't worry about it!" TenTen laughed. "We'll see each other again in a few hours for Gai-sensei's mandatory team training regiment anyways. So, what exactly did you want to work on? Since you sought me out, I assume it's adding weapons to the dancer's barrage?"

"Right! I wanted to test it out, but I'm not gonna lie, my weapons handling isn't the best and I don't have very many kunai to begin with so—"

"How many do you have?"

"Huh?"

"Kunai and shuriken?"

"Oh. Fifteen."

"Each?"

"Total."

"Total?!" TenTen shouted in alarm, before abruptly turning left and pulling Sakura in an entirely different direction.

"Yeah, well…I don't have very much money and I have to allocate it carefully to pay for my living expenses and weapons are pretty pricey, so I just reuse the same set…but you know, through the years I lost a bunch in battles and training and stuff, so now I'm down to fifteen." Sakura cringed as she explained it. She did what she had to do to survive, but saying it out loud sounded pretty pathetic.

TenTen didn't pry into the details. She didn't need to know. What it came down to was that Sakura was poor—something she could have probably guessed from the state of the girl's clothes when she first met her. But she could not allow the affront of being a ninja with only fifteen kunai and shuriken total to pass. It was an insult to her sensibilities. Not that fifteen each was much better…

"We're just gonna have to change that! No self-respecting ninja is going to have only fifteen ninja tools, not on my watch at least!" TenTen dragged Sakura to a building about twelve minutes from the center of the village, not releasing her until they were inside her apartment.

"Tenshi? What are you doing home? I thought you were with Neji today?" A male voice called from the kitchen.

"Hey dad, I'm just stopping by before training. Me and my friend needed to pick up some gear—"

There was the sound of shattering as he must have dropped something. "Tenshin Tenshi! Did you say friend?! But you only ever hang out with Neji and Lee!" A few seconds later a tall man with light brown hair and eyes appeared in the entry way gawking at the two girls comically. "Oh my gods, it's true! And it's a girl! Tenshi I'm so proud of you, you finally have a female friend! I was so worried that you'd only ever be surrounded by unruly men—well, I suppose Neji's ok, but Lee's a bit hyperactive—"

"Dad, please…"

"So what's your name? You're so cute! Maybe you can give Tenshi some hair tips, her mother's not very good with things like hair, nor am I unfortunately, it's why she only ever has it up in buns…doesn't know how to do much else with it I'm afraid. Just like her mother. But our Tenshi's one fine ninja. She took after us well, as I'm sure you know—"

"Dad. Enough. Please."

"Um…it's nice to meet you sir, my name is Haruno Sakura." Sakura greeted bowing politely as her mother had drilled into her.

"Nice to meet you Sakura! I'm Tenshin Shingo, Tenshi's father. Haruno…that's not a sir name I'm familiar with. You must not come from a clan either. I'm so happy you and Tenshi are friends, clanless ninja need to have each other's backs out there."

"Dad. Sakura and I are kinda on a time limit."

"Right, off you two go then! Oh Tenshi, I have a mission this afternoon. Should take about two weeks, but your mother should be back from her mission by tonight."

"Got it. Be safe, dad!"

"You too, Tenshi!" He headed back for that kitchen, allowing TenTen to quickly drag Sakura to her room and shut the door.

"Sorry about that." She muttered, embarrassed.

"Don't worry about it."

"Would my dad have been like that too, if he'd ever gotten to meet Ino-pig, Naruto, or Sasuke-kun? Would he have been friendly and talkative?…Mom always said he tried not to take anything too seriously unless the situation really called for it, that he liked to make a lot of puns, and that he was a doting father…but I really don't remember too much about him, other than him taking me to see the dancer…"

It hit her as something of a dull ache; a loss that she never really knew him. It hurt so much more when her mother died because she knew her so well. But those memories were deeply precious to her. As comforting as they were painful. And she really didn't have much of that when it came to her father.

Looking for something to pull her away from the sudden empty pit she felt herself approaching, Sakura looked around TenTen's room. It was smaller than Sasuke's, but still quite large. She had a queen size bed and there was still plenty of open floor space. The bed was pushed up against a long credenza, with a bookshelf stacked on top, filled with books and scrolls. Shelving built into a recessed wall held photographs of TenTen and her teammates and family, along with keepsake boxes and plants. Below it was another small shelving unit with more books, some CDs, and a beautiful fan displayed on top. Not far was a large urn full of what appeared to be spears. A curved, ridged sword was mounted on a set of drawers, with a low square wood table pushed up against it. She had calligraphy and poetry hanging on the walls. Not far from her bed was a glass sliding door which opened out onto a small balcony—much smaller than Sasuke's.

"You can sit on the bed if you want, this'll just take me a sec to find." TenTen said, searching the shelves for something.

Sakura plopped down, still examining the room. "So TenTen's a nickname?"

TenTen had her back turned, so Sakura missed her cringing a little. "I don't know what made mom and dad think naming their daughter Tenshin Tenshi was a good idea. I way prefer TenTen." She said, lifting a scroll, opening it, only to furl it back up again. "It was actually Neji who said it to me first back in the academy. When they taught us to throw kunai and shuriken? I was always a good marksman even before I really threw myself into mastering ninja tools and weaponry. Some girls were teasing me—I don't even remember what about. Probably my name or hairstyle. I didn't care. It didn't bother me much and I was hardly paying them any attention."

Sakura could tell from her tone that she was telling the truth. It wasn't the practiced and forced nonchalance that Sakura used when speaking to or about her bullies. This was genuine disinterest.

"But Neji was nearby and apparently it bothered him. He told them that he wouldn't be making fun of me while I had a kunai in my hand if he were them, because I hit the mark ten out of ten times. He said it right as I'd thrown my kunai, which hit a bullseye, proving his point. They never bothered me again after that. We hadn't ever spoken before that, but I introduced myself to him as TenTen right then and there, and it stuck. I even put it down as my name when I registered as a ninja—ah! Here it is!" She'd finally found the scroll she was looking for.

TenTen unfurled the scroll a little, and put her fingers into a seal. There was a puff of smoke, and a large dark wood box appeared. "Here you go." She said handing the box to Sakura. "1 basic ninja tools set. 100 Kunai, 100 shuriken, 100 senbon, 100 paper bombs, and 50 spools of wire."

Sakura's eyes shot wide. "TenTen, I can't take this! It's too much—"

"Please, I have at least fifty of those. Plus tons of other more advanced weapons. This is nothing. And shinobi lacking in proper arms hurts my soul."

I'm only doing this because badly executed first aid apparently hurts my soul…

Her own words to Lee echoed back to her, making her smile. TenTen wasn't so much doing this out of charity as she was frustration. The same reason Sakura had helped Lee back then. But still…

"Fine. Then how about a trade?" Sakura said, reaching into her pouch and pulling out some ointment, muscle cream, a set of generalized antidotes—each labeled with their corresponding region, an immune booster tonic, bloodroot cough syrup, and a set of shampoo, conditioner, and face wash. She was planning to stop by Ikehara's and the beauty boutique to sell them later, so she was carrying a lot on her anyways. Losing one set wouldn't be a huge loss.

"One basic first aid pack, and one basic beauty pack. All are my own special recipe and I promise they work really well!"

TenTen examined the jars and bottles carefully. "This is that muscle cream you left for Lee! He's been raving about this stuff! You made all this yourself?!"

"Yup."

"But you left that for him even before you started training with Tsunade-sama!"

"Yeah well…I've sorta been making this type of stuff for years, so…"

"Damn, you really were meant to be a medical ninja!…You make your own shampoo?" She questioned, now moving on to examine the "basic beauty pack."

"I've never had much money and over the counter stuff's expensive…Ino-pig and Hinata-chan have started using it too." She added, seeing TenTen's skeptical expression as she studied the bottle.

TenTen abruptly reached out and ran her fingers through Sakura's vibrant, silky hair. "Wow! Your hair is soft soft. This stuff really does work, huh? Damn, you're good!"

Sakura giggled a little, tugging gently at her hair and blushing softly. "I don't think it's quite a fair trade, but I feel bad just taking your ninja tools without giving you anything in return."

"Psh! Don't worry about it! Besides you have no idea how useful this ointment and muscle cream are, with Gai-sensei as your teacher. A set of antidotes for common regional poisons would be pretty expensive to buy, and my shampoo and conditioner suck, so as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty fair! We've still got some time left, what do you say we start training?"

"Sounds good!" Sakura smiled.

---

Sakura had not been lying when she'd said her weapons handling was mediocre at best, and all their time was spent getting Sakura's dexterity, aim, and general handling of kunai and shuriken up to par. As they were packing up and collecting the weapons that littered the field, Sakura sighed.

"I still don't know how I'm going to incorporate ninja tools into the dancer's barrage though…I need my hands for it."

"Well I was thinking about that, actually. Your attack's built on chakra control, right?"

"Yeah, I modeled it off of tree climbing."

"Right. Sticking yourself onto an inanimate—or I guess in this case, animate—object with chakra. So, why not just stick the object to you, using the same technique? That way, you don't have to use your hands."

Sakura froze, processing this suggestion. She'd never tried anything like that before, but in theory…there was no reason why she couldn't…the focus it would require though, to monitor and shift the chakra output necessary to keep herself attached to a person, as well as keeping enough chakra concentrated to whichever random area she had a weapon attached, all while accounting for her chakra weights, during a real time battle…that was a lot. But was it any different than concentrating on effecting several different types of cells with her chakra all at once for the mystical palm?

"That's…I'm going to try that. That's a lot of chakra management but…if I can do it, that'll probably be the only way to pull it off…"

"Even if it doesn't work for the Dancer's barrage itself, it might be the start of a way to turn my dancing into a full combat style…If I have kunai positioned around strategic parts of my body, it would greatly increase the damage I could do while dancing, as well as serve as some level of defense from projectile attacks…"

"Well," TenTen shrugged, "I know there's no way in hell I could pull something like that off. I don't have anywhere near the level of chakra control needed. But I figure if you can even manage an attack like that to begin with, especially with your charka weights on, you can probably figure it out."

"You definitely hit the mark with that idea, it's brilliant!"

"I'm not called TenTen for nothin'!" She winked.

---

The next three weeks consisted of Tsunade drilling Sakura on the mystical palm. She was only just starting to meet bare minimum satisfactory efficiency with it, for Tsunade's standards, and that still wasn't fast enough. But it was enough for her Shishou to permit her to treat basic injuries in the clinic. Sakura had been very nervous when it came to treating her very first patient (second if you count Gaara, but this was the first she was actually using medical ninjutsu on), even though they only had a minor slash across their thigh. It wasn't a vital area nor was it concerningly deep, but she still felt worried—Tsunade had stressed it to her on multiple occasions, one mistake with medical ninjutsu, and a non-fatal injury could become lethal. One mistake, and the patient could die. But she'd also been chewed about by Tsunade for showing how nervous she was when she had to treat Gaara, so she'd let herself panic for five minutes outside the room before walking in with a calm and professional facade. An act she was sure only Sasuke, Tsunade, Ino, Kakashi and maybe Naruto would be able to see through. In a way, it felt like a bit of a regression. She'd constantly worried about whether she'd been helping or harming her mother with all her concoctions, but had constantly acted with surety so as to not make her mother feel doubtful or hopeless. Between Sasuke, Ino, and Tsunade, Sakura had stopped trying to hide her doubts and insecurities, and in doing so, she'd felt lighter. But acting for patients now, was very reminiscent of that earlier time in her life, fronting for her mother, classmates, and team. Shizune assured her that it wouldn't be an act for long, that as her skill grew, her confidence would too.

It wasn't all an act either. She was now the goto person when it came to diagnosis, her chakra scan and supplementary knowledge of body symptoms being third to Shizune and Tsunade. Even without chakra scanning, as Tsunade had stressed to her that scans could be fooled and didn't always catch things like poisons, diagnosis from symptoms and bodily response alone had been drilled into her by her master. She was confident in her ability to correctly spot what was wrong, and there was never any trace of nerves when she had to do so. Shizune was right—with time and practice, she was sure she'd feel no qualms at all when it came to treating someone with the mystical palm, she just wasn't quite there yet.

Sakura didn't get a chance to actually try upgrading her dancer's barrage with weapons for a while. She was kept busy with her various other kinds of training and shifts at the hospital. But she did work on just attempting to keep kunai and shuriken attached to her. Turned out it was actually pretty easy and didn't require all the much chakra. Well, keeping them lying flat was easy. The problem was, a kunai lying flat against the skin of her arm wouldn't add any offensive aid whatsoever, nor all that much by way of defense either. She hadn't yet figured out how to get them to stick to her vertically. She didn't have much time to think about it at the moment.

It was a rare Friday where Kurenai, Kakashi, and Hinata were all in the village and available to train. Ino, unfortunately had Yamanaka clan training, and couldn't be there, which was really a shame because they'd seen so little of each other in the past four months, but Sakura couldn't dwell on it, because Kurenai was just about to cast her genjutsu simulation.

"Remember, you're trying to calm down this time without sedation. I'll give you seven minutes to start the process on your own before I intervene and give you the sedative." Kakashi instructed, noting how when he said the word "calm," Sakura's hand reflexively ran through her hair. It was getting long again, reaching her shoulder blades now. Maybe that would somehow make it easier for her.

"I know, Kakashi-sensei." Sakura sighed. She didn't want to be rude or dismissive. She just really wasn't looking forward to this. Who would look forward to their worst fears, anxieties, frustrations, and upsets being heightened and forced upon them repeatedly?

Kurenai and Kakashi both softened a little. They understood Sakura's attitude perfectly. As far as Kurenai went, she would have never continued after the first time if she hadn't seen the absolute necessity for it. Kakashi never wanted Sakura to have to experience any more trauma ever again, his team had plenty as it was. But he also wanted Sakura to be able to have a long life and continue developing and working toward her real dreams, so here they were.

"Ready?" Kurenai asked. Everyone nodded, and Kurenai's hands were a blur.

---

It was dark. She couldn't see anything, had no concept of where this illusion was set. There was nothing around except herself. Then she started to hear hissing all around her, circling her in a ghostly chorus. She couldn't see them, but she knew she was surrounded by snakes. Instantly her heart rate picked up. With multi/no legged bugs, her fear was mixed with revulsion, and since her repeated exposure to Katsuyu, while her dislike was still there, it wasn't as strong as it once had been. But snakes…the fear and hatred she had towards them had only grown. Sakura took a deep breath, her hand gliding through her hair. As much as this was to see if she could calm down on her own while triggered, this was also to see how long she could keep herself calm in an emotionally reactive situation. The hissing grew louder.

"My snakes are hungry. Killing your mother wasn't enough for them, they need to truly feed." That voice haunted her nightmares and made her burn with rage. Orochimaru.

"How dare he talk mom in the same breath as his disgusting snakes! How dare he talk about her mom at all!"

Oddly she was somewhat grateful for his appearance in this nightmare. As much as he scared her, he enraged her more, and she had an easier time controlling rage. Her hands curled tightly into fists, her insides burned, and her heart pounded, but there was a certain level of calm clarity that came with it that kept her from being pushed over the edge. So far so good.

But then Sasuke stepped out of the shadows, and Sakura thought her heart stopped.

"S…Sasuke-kun…"

Sasuke gave her a soft smile and walked towards her. Sakura remained where she was watching him draw closer, her heart aching. She was waiting for the shoe to drop. This scenario was supposed to trigger her and seeing Sasuke made her sad, but more than that, she felt such a strong surge of love…neither of those were triggering emotions. Just the opposite actually. So…

Sasuke stopped in front of her, reached out and took her face in his hands. Her body warmed at his touch…was Kurenai aiming for arousal then? But why the snakes and Orochimaru's voice? And did she have to do that with Kakashi there? Gods that was embarrassing.

Sasuke looked down at her with a soft smile…he was taller in this illusion then he was the last time she'd seen him. But that actually made it feel more real. Sasuke was thirteen now, and that was usually the age boys started growing rapidly.

"Sasuke-kun…" She breathed out, staring into his onyx eyes. Sasuke's smile suddenly changed, growing into a dark and vicious smirk, the look in his eyes becoming hard, cold, and evilly amused.

"Sakura-chan, love won't happen for you. You're destined to die screaming."

Sakura's blood ran cold, her eyes widening in horror at hearing Orochimaru's voice coming from Sasuke. She shoved away from him, stumbling back a little, her breathing growing ragged, and her heart thundering.

"You!"

"Do you like my new body? I find this new form very appealing. So beautiful. So powerful. Don't you agree?" The hissing grew louder as Sasuke's sharingan swirled to life, his neck elongating and stretching towards her, the way Orochimaru's had in the forest of death.

It was too much. Seeing him like that—Orochimaru possessing Sasuke—was too terrifying. Sakura screamed, and the image shattered.

---

She was on her knees, shaking, the pain ripping through her. Her eyes were burning and blurry with tears. She honestly couldn't say what hurt more, the genjutsu simulation, or the chakra reaction. Independently of the pain, she felt nauseous.

"Calm…I need to calm down." She brought her shaking hand to her hair and focused on the wind brushing against her feverous skin. They were well into autumn, which temperature-wise was Sakura's favorite season. She did the same breathing meditation she'd taught to Gaara, feeling her body start to relax a little as a result, despite the onslaught of physical pain. She kept pulling her mind onto inane and unimportant topics in an attempt to distract herself, like if TenTen liked her new shampoo, or the bet she had with Ino about whether Hinata would be able to ask Naruto out for ramen or faint when she first saw him back, or whether Shikamaru and Temari were displaying signs of attraction to each other or if it was just respect. She couldn't keep her mind on any one topic long before it jumped back to focusing on either the physical pain or emotional pain she was currently feeling. She could hear Hinata's voice seemingly from a far though she wasn't processing anything that was being said. She didn't really think Hinata was talking to her anyway. She didn't catch her name at all.

Sadness was a downer emotion. And she definitely felt sad. Since she was so unable to pull herself completely out of her emotions and the simulation that triggered them, she decided it was best to dive headlong into them. She focused only on the sadness and sorrow she felt, pulling those emotions to the forefront of her awareness, the terror and rage she'd been feeling receding completely in their wake. The physical pain was becoming less overwhelming, her body gradually calming, and with the terror gone and physical pain taking up less awareness, she realized she was full out sobbing. She couldn't remember a genjutsu simulation causing her to cry like this before. She pulled her knees up to her chest, curling into a tight ball, the movement causing spikes of pain that she really couldn't have cared less about.

"—chakra is s-slowing…"

She heard Hinata's report clearly now. She voice sounded scared and worried, and a bit hesitant. Like she was fighting herself not to run over and comfort her friend. Sakura didn't know it, but it was a feeling mirrored on Kakashi and Kurenai's faces.

They all numbly stood around Sakura, curled in a ball crying, ashen faced and wrestling with themselves not to interfere as they monitored her chakra until it finally seemed to calm to its normal state. Then there was immediate movement.

Hinata threw her arms around Sakura's shoulders as Kakashi knelt down in front of her.

"Sakura?" He asked gently. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to handle this situation…Kurenai and Hinata were probably far better suited when it came to comforting her, but then again, Kurenai was the one who put her in this state to begin with. And whether he knew what he was doing or not, it didn't stop the mounting concern at seeing his student look so broken.

"Ow." It was all Sakura could think to say. It hurt. It hurt so much. Hearing Sasuke speak with that snake bastard's voice, seeing his neck extend so grotesquely, the way he'd looked at her… "That…really hurt." She whispered.

None of them were stupid enough to think she was referring to the attack.

"What the hell did you show her?" Kakashi growled glaring at Kurenai, who looked incredibly guilty. She shook her head sadly.

"It's actually been getting much harder to trigger her. I don't know if she's built up a tolerance just because she knows she's in genjutsu, or if she's becoming desensitized to what she's seeing, or just much better at remaining calm and keeping the emotions in check. I'd made them as intense as I could while still knowing what was happening in the simulation, but it wasn't enough anymore. I had to let her own head come up with it…I don't know what she saw, I just know that it was a powerful genjutsu aiming to trigger an intense and complex mix of emotions: discomfort, fear, rage, love, arousal, terror, sadness…"

Kurenai knelt on the other side of Sakura, and began playing with her hair gently, as she continued to speak to her this time. "I'm so sorry that I put you through that. Do you want to talk about what you saw?"

Sakura had been listening to Kurenai's explanation the whole time, as she'd continued to sob into her arms. Her mind replayed the simulation, matching each moment to the emotions Kurenai listed. It made sense. Emotions didn't happen cleanly. She probably wouldn't feel one without another accompanying it in someway. And it was her own mind that conjured up that horrible scene.

"It's not like I can get mad about it. Aside from being the one to ask for this training, and the fact that it's necessary…It wasn't even Kurenai who made the details of that illusion, it was all me…"

"Fucking curse! Making us go through this shit!"

"I saw…Sasuke-kun." She murmured quietly. "Only it wasn't Sasuke-kun. O-Orochimaru had already taken him over."

Kakashi tensed. No wonder she was crying…and she'd only painted the scene in the broadest strokes possible. To get Sakura to respond this way, the finer details of it must have been so much worse.

"We have time Sakura. Three years. We won't let to happen to him." Kakashi said gently.

"…That's right. There's time. And I need to be ready. I need to get control over this so I can actually be of help bringing him back."

Steely resolve numbed the pain, as her sobs quieted and shaking stilled. The emotional pain became less prevalent in her mind, allowing her to take stock of her body's aching condition.

She unburied her face from her arms and leaned back a little, wincing. Kurenai helped to ease her against a tree.

"What happened?"

"Well, you were able to start calming down on your own. I never had to administer a sedative or knock you out." Kakashi answered, looking towards Hinata.

"Y-Your chakra started the process of slowing down about three minutes after it started. There were a couple times where it looked like it may have s-stopped slowing, and was just h-holding at the same level, but then it continued to calm." Hinata had gotten much better at not stuttering when she was with people she was comfortable with. Her team, Neji, Sakura, and Ino, were all people she felt at ease with now, and only ever stuttered around them anymore if the topics strayed to Naruto or her father. Kakashi however, was someone she didn't have a lot of exposure too, and thus brought out the stutter Sakura rarely heard from her anymore.

"How was it for you? What were you doing to calm yourself so quickly?" Kakashi asked.

"I don't think what I did is a feasible strategy in a real situation…" Sakura muttered tiredly, before explaining how she'd concentrated particularly on the downer emotions the genjutsu had elicited. "It worked to calm down the reaction, but being crippled by sadness won't do me much good."

"No. But if you can pull up a memory strong enough to elicit a different downer emotion while you're in that state, one you can function through, that might be workable…" Kurenai suggested.

"Sensei? Why not just teach Sakura-chan a chakra-consuming ninjutsu…if she gets rid of enough of the excess chakra, she'll be fine, right?" Hinata was pretty sure she'd pitched this idea before, or at least thought it, but had been rejected at the time. She still saw it as the most logical solution though, and now that she'd actually seen the reaction throughout all phases of it with her byakugan, maybe the idea would be taken more seriously.

Kakashi mulled this suggestion over. It certainly would be beneficial if Sakura was in dangerous circumstances…but would she be able to wrestle enough control over her chakra to pull it off?

"The only jutsu I can think of that would use up enough chakra are element release ninjutsu. Sakura, you don't know what kind of chakra nature you have, do you?"

"No, is there a way to tell?"

"Yes. It's quite simple actually." Kakashi answered, smiling behind his mask as he pulled out a few slips of paper. "Chakra paper reacts to even the slightest hint of an element carried in your chakra…" Kakashi eyed Sakura's exhausted form. "Sleep first, then we'll try this."

Sakura nodded, her eyes closing automatically at the word "sleep," she lost consciousness mere seconds later.

---

Sakura awoke an hour and fifteen minutes later to the sounds of a murmured debate between Kakashi and Kurenai. Her eyes opened to reveal the two sensei in low but seemingly heated discussion, Hinata shifting uncomfortably between them.

"—then why wouldn't have anyone done it before?!"

"Because they didn't have the chakra control necessary!" Kakashi argued.

"You've seen the reactions! No one has the control necessary to manipulate chakra during that!"

"She does! You've seen her control! It's insanely good—better than anyone I've ever seen!"

"I'm well aware of how good her chakra control is! She'd be well suited to genjutsu and only those with incredibly precise chakra control can say that! I would know!" Kurenai hissed.

"I know what she's suited for, Kurenai, she's my student."

"Who you didn't even teach how to break out of a genjutsu!"

"If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But it's still worth trying!" Kakashi diverted, not wanting to think about how badly he'd failed at being a sensei for any of Team 7.

"Kakashi-sensei's right." Sakura cut in, drawing both of the surprised adults attention, as well as a relieved Hinata's. "You're right that it most likely won't work, Kurenai-sensei, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try it. This is all an experiment anyways to see what works and how best someone like me can survive, incase there are any other Haruno clan out there, or I live long enough to have kids or something."

"However unlikely that is. Setting aside living long enough, who would I have kids with? The only one I could ever think of having a family with is…gone."

"But Sasuke-kun will come back! And we'll get married and have a whole bunch of Uchiha kids, which will obviously mean we do IT a lot—"

"Oh my gods, shut up you pervert! Absolutely not!" Sakura gave her head a quick shake to clear out any inappropriate images that were forming, surprised any part of her mind had even taken such a turn.

"We should still try it, even if it seems impossible. Just to know." She continued resolutely, trying to ignore the way her face had heated and praying to every god she knew that the turn her thoughts had taken hadn't been obvious to her sensei.

Kurenai sighed. "I've said it before. It's your experiment and your body, so it's your choice. You know where I stand on this, but if you want to try it, then we'll try it."

"Well, now that that's taken care of. On with the test. You're welcome to try too, Hinata." Kakashi offered.

The two girls each took a slip of paper Kakashi held out to them. "Now, focus your chakra on the paper." He instructed.

Hinata's paper immediately started burning. Slightly startled, the girl dropped the paper. "That means you're naturally fire nature, Hinata." Kurenai explained. "You can learn more than one, but that's the element your chakra gravitates towards most easily."

"O-Oh. I see."

Sakura's paper, interestingly, had yet to respond. "Am I doing something wrong?"

"Hmm…It might be because you don't have a strong elemental affinity…try focusing more chakra into your paper, and while you do, think about these five elements: Fire, Wind, Lightening, Earth, and Water." Kakashi answered, his sharp gaze locked on Sakura's paper.

Sakura closed her eyes focusing more chakra into the paper, thinking about each element Kakashi named. Of them, her favorite was no doubt wind. It soothed her and made her feel free. But then her mind focused on earth. She owed the earth a lot…it was thanks to herbs and plant concoctions that she'd kept her mother alive so long. But did plants count as earth? They needed water just as much as soil…sometimes more. She owed water a lot too. When it came down to training, the first thing she'd ever really trained and taught herself was how to walk and dance on water. It was the image of the ocean tide pushing and pulling that had allowed her to crack the code on chakra scanning—even improve upon it, according to Tsunade. It was the same thing with chakra sharing too—when she felt other's chakra rhythms, what came to mind was often streams, rivers, rapids, or storms. The way she visualized her chakra was much like water…

Her eyes shot open when the paper she'd held upright in her fingers was suddenly drenched and plastered to her hand.

"Water affinity." Kakashi pronounced. He couldn't help feeling like it made perfect sense. Medical ninjutsu aside, Sakura was a healer by nature, a trait commonly ascribed to water. Sasuke was naturally fire affinity and Sakura had always been able to calm, sooth, and open him up in a way nothing else could. She would be water. Of course, Sasuke was a special case though, given that he, as a genin, had a second elemental affinity in lightening, and that his sharingan gave him access to using and mastering the rest as well, with relative ease compared to the average shinobi. "I'm sure you've read about elemental ninjutsu, so I don't need to break down the steps for you."

Sakura nodded.

"I'll try to teach you the jutsu I used in my battle with Zabuza."

"The Water dragon jutsu."

"That's right. It'll only work if you're near a source of water, until you really master it, and can create the water purely from your chakra. Not even I can do that, though water isn't my natural preference." Kakashi explained, leading her towards a pond not far from the training ground they were using—the same one where they'd begun their bell test on all those months ago.

Kakashi showed her the hand signs and walked her through what to do with her chakra, but after four hours of trying, she hadn't even gotten the water to so much as ripple. Fifty percent of her chakra was gone.

"This isn't working." Kurenai stated bluntly.

"She's right. Why can't I get it…there's not even a sign of what I'm doing wrong…it's just, nothing. And I feel like I'm using up so much chakra to get that nothing—I've gotten so used to medical ninjutsu, moving and manipulating my chakra directly that casting it out like this feels…wrong…"

"Maybe you're just not an elemental ninjutsu type." Kakashi murmured, scratching the back of his head. He wasn't quite sure what to do with that, since ninjutsu, especially elemental ninjutsu was his specialty. Sasuke's too. And Naruto also leaned towards ninjutsu as well. Kakashi wasn't sure what to do with a ninja who wasn't a ninjutsu type. He really was a terrible teacher…or at the very least, he wasn't the right teacher for Sakura. It was a good thing she had asked Tsunade to teach her, and that the Sanin had readily agreed, because he really didn't think he'd be able to do much for her.

"We'll need to figure out a different way for you to burn a lot of chakra." Kakashi sighed.

Sakura let out a frustrated huff.

"Does this mean I'm always going to be useless in combat? If I can't learn ninjutsu like this…what good am I going to be to Naruto? If it comes down to force to bring Sasuke-kun back, I won't be able to help out at all…No wonder he didn't want my help going after Itachi either. I'm only ever gonna get in their way!"

"Yeah and when they're bleeding to death, who'll they come crying too? Us! We're not useless, shannaro! We just have something different to offer!"

"Does that mean I'll never be able to use elemental ninjutsu?"

"No. Not at all. It just means it'll take you longer to learn, or require a different approach to it. As they were a few months ago, someone like Sasuke can learn an elemental ninjutsu in a month, someone like Naruto could learn elemental ninjutsu in maybe six months. For you…it would take longer. A year maybe. That isn't to say you'll never be able to learn it or pick it up quickly. It'll just take more time for you to develop into your chakra, to be able to manipulate it like that." Kakashi explained.

"It's not uncommon for civilian born or clanless shinobi to have problems with that sort of jutsu either." Kurenai added. "Rock Lee and TenTen for example. Both of them are clanless shinobi as well. Lee can't manipulate his chakra into jutsu at all, relying only on using it to enhance his tai jutsu, and TenTen's skill lies almost exclusively with spacial manipulation and summoning jutsu. Even within clans, shinobi have types. Sensory, ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, medical, spacial, sealer…being one type doesn't necessarily mean you can't use other kinds of jutsu, just that it'll be harder to learn." She explained, gently, having foreseen the route Sakura's mind might go. "I've said it before and I'll say it again, you're a genjutsu type, Sakura."

Sakura mulled that over, staring down at the water's smooth surface, that she hadn't been able to so much as cause a ripple in.

"I've been in so many horrible genjutsu now that I really don't want to ever cast them. Not to mention, genjutsu requires more control and precision than ninjutsu, so I doubt I'll be able to use a chakra consuming genjutsu while undergoing the attack…"

"We'll have to revisit this method then…we should still try once more on me getting myself to calm down." Sakura decided, swallowing down her feeling of uselessness.

"Are you sure Sakura? The earlier one seemed…taxing." Kurenai asked in concern.

"Yeah. And this one probably will be too. I'm going to try as hard as I can to not have a reaction at all…I figure if I can keep calm in a stressful situation for fifteen minutes, nothing past that will be able to push me over the edge, so that's my aim. How long did it take me to react in the last one?"

"Six minutes and forty three seconds. But I'd rather you know how to handle them when they happen, then stop them from happening." Kakashi cut in.

"I know calming down stops them. I know my sedatives work, and I can self administer consistently now. And I've succeeded in calming down without them once…I also know chakra sharing works…that's a few different ways to handle the reactions, so why not try stopping them from happening?"

"…As Kurenai said, it's your body." Kakashi allowed. Logically, she'd made good points, even if he'd still rather her concentrate on her managing reactions as opposed to not having them.

"Ready." Sakura stated, determination in her eyes. She didn't want to be useless or a liability, and this was the number one thing that would render her as such.

Kurenai nodded and cast the genjutsu.

---

Sakura was sitting on the couch in Sasuke's apartment, Sasuke next to her. Almost immediately Sakura wanted to break the genjutsu to yell at Kurenai. He was sitting too close to her, and this was too comfortable a place, for this scenario to elicit anything other than love, arousal, or embarrassment. And given that they were trying to trigger her, she didn't think love was on the cards.

"Damnit! I'm gonna have to sit through Sasuke-kun seducing me, not just controlling myself from my kekei genkai, but also just from reacting at all! Or else Kakashi-sensei's gonna say something weird about it and it'll be so embarrassing!"

Her heart rate was picking up, and she tried to take deep breaths to slow it, but every inhale seemed to only bring Sasuke's familiar woody scent to her nose. She was already getting flustered and nothing had happened yet!

"Sakura…" Sasuke was looking at her with an intense look in his charcoal eyes. Just like the last genjutsu, he was believably taller than her now. "Why did you never tell Idate to back off?"

"Wh—huh?" She was so caught off guard by the question, and the situation on the whole, that she briefly forgot who Idate even was.

"He talked about you two running away together and marrying you. Was that offer appealing?" Sasuke asked leaning closer to her, close enough that she could make out the differing shades of black between his irises and pupils.

"N-No! Of course not! The only person I could ever see myself with is…" Sakura trailed off, remembering that this was a genjutsu and Kurenai, Hinata, and most mortifyingly, Kakashi, could hear everything she said.

"…Me?" Sasuke asked quietly, with a minute tilt of his head. His face gave nothing away, but his tone held hints of…hope? Or was it desire?

It was like a nest of butterflies exploded in her stomach, her heart rate picking up at the mere thought of Sasuke wanting to marry her.

"Damnit Kurenai-sensei! Ok, come on Sakura, keep it together!"

"Sasuke-kun wants to marry us!"

"No he doesn't! It's a genjutsu, stop getting carried away!"

Latching on to the anger at her inner self, she was able to clear away some of her fluster and arousal.

"You know, Sakura. We never did discuss it."

"Discuss what?" Sakura asked, glad her voice was steadier now.

"You kissed me."

So much for clarity. Sakura had not been aware that it was possible to feel colors, but wow did she feel herself go red.

"N-No I—When—oh, n-no…th-that was j-just—" Everything around her felt unreasonably warm. Her stomach flopped uncomfortably. She was simultaneously hyper aware of the genjutsu, as well as having forgot she was in one.

"I'm not ok with it."

Mortification slammed into her hard. "Oh my gods! I never asked at all! Something like that—kissing crosses so many lines! You're not supposed to do that without knowing the other person's ok with it! Holy shit! What was I thinking? I know it was for a chakra transfer but—What if Sasuke-kun was really uncomfortable with it?! What if he felt unsafe with me staying at his place?! I never checked I—"

"We had a lot going on, Shannaro! Chill! This isn't even real!"

"But what if he really thought that?!"

"I-I'm so sorr—"

"I wasn't prepared."

"Wha—"

"I am now."

"Hu—" Sakura's eyes shot wide in confusion as Sasuke's lips covered hers, her face resembling a tomato.

She let out a flustered squeak. Her heart drummed rapidly against her chest, when she felt his tongue slip into her mouth. When Sasuke's arm went around her waist, pulling her onto his lap, Sakura's simultaneous excitement, arousal, and utter mortification hit a new high, and the illusion shattered around her.

---

She was wildly aware that she was having a reaction and needed to calm down, but interestingly, even more than the pain, she felt incredibly hot. There was also a furious need to hide from the eyes of her sensei and team captain. And those two facts paired into the all consuming need to jump into the water, which she was conveniently on the bank of.

She didn't even glance at her senseis and Hinata as she pounced into the river, the cold autumn water a shock against her overheating skin.

Submerged, away from prying eyes, and no longer feeling like a living furnace, Sakura's head cleared, allowing her to process and think things through. She became more aware of the shocks of ridiculous pain, as well as a problem she'd caused herself by diving into the water. Deep breathing, which had been an essential part of her self calming practice, was not possible under water. However, her mind was clearer and thinking faster than it ever had during an attack.

"I can't inhale, so breathing's out. But the movement of my hair in the water feels really nice, and my hair feels silkier than usual now that it's wet, so focusing on that—fuck this hurts!—I don't know if it's the cold shock, or the water, or just the abrupt change in environment, but I'm actually processing at normal speed—ow—which is oddly calming in it's own way…it's normal and normal is soothing—ow shit,—watching my hair's behavior in the water is really calming as well."

Sakura continued to run a hand through her silky hair, watching the movement of it as it floated and gently twisted and danced around her. The pain of her chakra began to slowly lessen, and Sakura knew she needed air. She waited just a bit longer before kicking up and breaking the surface, doing her best to keep her inhale even and calm instead of spluttering and gulping. She remained in the water, doing a back float staring up at the sky and taking deep calming breaths, counting in her head as the pain began to truly lessen and fade.

"Chakra stabilized." She heard HInata's soft report about fifteen minutes later.

Sakura squeezed her eyes shut, steeling her nerves before straightening in the water, turning to face the other three.

"What the hell, Kurenai-sensei?!" She didn't feel as tired as she normally did post attack, though she wasn't sure if that was the cold or the water.

"You didn't specify what emotion to trigger you with, and I figured you had enough terror, rage, and sadness for one day. Besides, if you're trying not to have an attack at all, what you just experienced are the emotions you're going to need to learn to manage the most, since they're the most likely emotions you're going to be feeling day to day." Especially at her age.

She saw Kurenai's point but still… "Did you have to do it while he was here though…" She grumbled, sinking a little lower into the water. She still couldn't bring herself to look at Kakashi.

"I don't know what you're so embarrassed about. It's completely natural at your age." Kakashi drawled, having gathered the gist of the genjutsu by Sakura's reactions to it. He'd never seen her so red before. "You're still a too young for them, but when you're older, you're more than welcome to borrow my so called 'trashy romance novels.' And of course you can go to Hokage-sama, Shizune, Kurenai, or myself, if you have any questions or concerns. Though I'm sure the other three are far more qualified to give guidance." While he was teasing her, he also meant it. Puberty was puberty and he was sure if Sasuke and Naruto had been there, they'd end up coming to him with questions, as the closest adult figure they had (actually thinking on it now, Sakura was probably the most likely to come out of this formative time somewhat safely—Naruto was going through it with a porn author, and Sasuke with a power obsessed pervert). He was also aware that while he maybe wasn't the closest, he was a close adult figure for Sakura as well, and he didn't want her to feel like she couldn't come to him simply because she was a girl. Even if there were others far more qualified to provide advice and clarity on certain matters (and he seriously hoped she went to them first), he still wanted her to know that if, for whatever reason, she wanted to confide in him, she could.

Kurenai nodded at Kakashi's words, both agreeing that Sakura could come to her, but also to show her approval of Kakashi's stance on this. She was glad he wasn't trying to abandon or dump Sakura off on others simply because he didn't know how to handle "girl problems." She was actually quite proud of him for extending the offer in the first place, despite knowing he'd have no idea what to do if Sakura actually did come to him for advise or guidance.

Hinata seemed to be the only one sympathizing with Sakura's mortification, almost as flushed as her friend, and unable to make eye contact with either of the adults. But seeing how low Sakura had sunk into the water, she felt it her duty to try and throw her friend a lifeline.

"Y-You made it eleven minutes and forty-three seconds before r-reacting. A-And you calmed d-down about three minutes quicker than usual." Hinata reported, her stutter making an appearance at having to draw attention to herself during this awkward conversation.

"Thank you gods for Hinata-chan!"

"I noticed my head clear much quicker in the water, although I'm not sure if it was from the temperature change, or the environment change. We'll have to test that again."

"Not today." Kurenai said, her demeanor serious again. "Although, you've been able to calm yourself on your own without a sedative twice now, so that's definitely a good start."

"A very good start." Kakashi agreed. "At least functional enough for a B-rank mission."

Sakura pushed herself out of the water and shivered, the cool air freezing her damp skin.

At least functional enough for a B-rank mission.

As far as she was concerned, that was a ringing endorsement from Kakashi, who had initially wanted her to quit entirely. She really liked Hinata's idea.

"If only I could put all that excess chakra into an attack, then I wouldn't be a liability at all, and I'd be able to handle any mission rank. This curse could actually become something beneficial." But for the life of her, she couldn't figure out how to put that into practice just yet.

---

Sakura stood in front of a dying fish.

"Don't get too confident just because of a steady success rate. You have to become faster and more efficient. No one waits for treatment on the battlefield." Tsunade instructed from the couch.

"Hai!" Sakura's hands glowed green with the mystical palm technique, and seven seconds later the fish was flopping up and down, completely healthy again. She hadn't even wasted very much energy.

Tsunade sat upright in surprise, before a smirk graced her lips. Seems she didn't have to worry about Sakura not being fast enough anymore. With efficiency like that, there was no reason not to have Sakura aiding in surgeries. Between the girl's diagnostic skill and her speed and efficiency with the mystical palm, she could probably handle minor surgeries on her own at this point. Though, Tsunade wouldn't do that to her yet, not until she was more confident with her healing. She doubted it would take very long though.

"Good. You now have clearance to aid any of the senior medical staff in surgeries. I expect you to help in any carried out by Shizune or myself."

"Yes M'Lady!" Sakura beamed, thrilled with her own progress.

"That means Tsunade-sama thinks I've mastered this jutsu! And she said if I mastered this, the other medical jutsu will come easily!"

"Shannaro!" Sakura openly cheered. Tsunade smiled in amusement.

"I doubt you'll be so excited once you're in the OR."

"Probably not, but even so, this means I'm closer to being a full-fledged medic!" Sakura said happily.

"It means I'll actually start being useful on missions!"

"It means we'll never have a repeat situation of what happened to mom…"

Tsunade suddenly stiffened, whipping around. "Who's there!"

Ino stepped out from the doorway, locking eyes with Sakura. It felt like ages since the two had so much as seen each other, forever since they'd hung out. It was so good to see her pink haired best friend again…that was partially why she was here—partially.

"Hokage-sama! Please make me your apprentice!"

"Huh? But doesn't Pig have clan jutsu to work on?"

"This is our thing! That boar better not dream of surpassing us!"

"As if I'd let her, shannaro!…But if Tsunade-sama says yes, then I'll get to see Pig more regularly again!" Sakura loved Ino, but she had no intention of sinking back into her pretty, popular, skilled best friend's shadow again. She'd left that behind when they'd faced each other in the preliminaries.

"You belong to the Yamanaka clan…" Tsunade muttered, considering. Her knee jerk response was no. But she remembered Sakura and Ino's preliminary fight recording. As close friends as they were, the two had a fair bit of rivalry and competitiveness when it came to each other. Sakura was progressing well, and worked harder than Tsunade in some cases, but maybe a having a rival would help push her further. Besides, it certainly couldn't hurt with Yamanaka clan training…mind connection techniques like theirs required some very delicate chakra control. Tsunade glanced back to Sakura, who was staring at Ino with a mix of happiness, confusion, and mild annoyance. "Sakura was able to revive that in three months." She said, nodding toward the fish. "I'll test you…and see how far you get in three months."

Ino looked at the fish, jumping behind Sakura, before looking back to her friend, challenge in her eyes. She still owed Sakura some payback for beating her in the chunin exams—she'd definitely win this time! She'd for sure bring that fish back in three months—or less even! And that also meant three months of seeing her best friend daily…Ino couldn't see a down side. Besides, Chouji had been right about what he said at dinner the other night. She couldn't get left behind by Chouji and Shikamaru! She had to get stronger, and doing it with her clan jutsu would take too long. She didn't have "several years," as her father had said, if she was hoping to keep up with them now.

"I understand. Please let me try."

Tsunade had no intention of going easy on her. Yamanaka mind connection required the delicate control of connecting multiple minds with chakra. Ino's test had to give her the soft skills necessary to achieve that. And she had the perfect test in mind. Clearing the table of Sakura's fish and jutsu formula, she laid out a new one a placed an octopus on it.

Ino stared at the octopus in disgust. "I have to heal…this thing?"

"Usually the way to resuscitate a creature that has asphyxiated is to simultaneously stimulate the heart and brain with chakra. Octopi generally have one systemic heart and two brachial hearts. And separate from the brain, they have eight nervous systems in their arms." Tsunade explained, her arms crossed as she observed the young blond's demeanor. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Sakura glance at her and cock her head, her eyes narrowed. This was a more difficult target to heal than she'd given Sakura, and the girl had picked up on that. "It has many organs vital to resuscitation," she continued. "In other words, it has a lot of parts that need to be taken care of."

"Oh." Ino seemed to deflate, looking back to the Octopus.

"Why would Tsunade-sama give her a test like this? This is really difficult—harder than anything she had me do! Does she think Ino-pig is better suited to be a medical ninja than me? That can't be it, can it?"

"Shannaro! We don't want to lose to her and sink back into her shadow again!"

"No, I can't let that happen!" Sakura hadn't felt very competitive as of late, towards anyone, but all her competitive and combative spirit towards Ino that she'd felt in the chunin exams re-awoke, in the face of potentially falling behind her best friend yet again. Confusingly mixed in with the competition and desire to win, was also the desire to see her best friend succeed.

"But, I won't really win or surpass her unless she does her best now! I can't let her give up! Besides…I miss her." Sakura took in her friend's deflated state.

"Giving up so quickly, Pig? Well, I guess we can't all be talented medical ninja." Sakura taunted, with the very clear aim of spurring Ino to try.

"Who said anything about giving up?! Anything you can do, I totally can too, Forehead!" Ino growled. There was no way she was losing without even trying—that would be totally lame! She turned back to the Octopus, a fire in her ice blue eyes.

"I wouldn't get too cocky." Tsunade told Sakura, a smirk on her lips. "You know the basics, but not nearly enough to be considered a talented medical ninja. So get reading."

"Reading what M'Lady?"

Tsunade nodded and the wall-to-wall shelves of books spanning the whole room, filled with tomes generally on the larger side.

Sakura's eyes widened. "A-All of them?! I have to learn all of this?!" She'd never been one to turn away from a book or learning new information, and studying had always been her strongest skill…but this was overwhelming. She didn't think this much knowledge would fit in her head.

"Giving up so quickly, Billboard brow?" Ino threw her taunt back at her, hoping the name calling would remind Sakura of just how smart she was.

"As if!"

"If this is what it takes to be a talented medical ninja, then bring it on! Shannaro! There's never been a book I haven't been able to learn, I totally got this!"

Sakura immediately ran to the end of on bookshelf, taking down a green covered toxicology text book at the end, and promptly sitting down on the floor to read.

Tsunade watched with satisfaction before turning to Ino to walk her through how to do medical ninjutsu.

---

The two girls worked tirelessly, Ino going through octopi and jutsu formula nonstop, while Sakura sat amidst ever growing towers of finished books. For the most part the only sounds were the hum of Ino's chakra, the tearing of jutsu formulas, the turning of pages, and the occasional encouragement posing as a taunt to each other.

When the jutsu formula shredded itself yet again under Ino's healing attempt, Tsunade got fed up. She was used to Sakura's self correcting, but Ino kept making the same types of mistakes.

"That keeps happening because your chakra control is too rough." Tsunade growled. "You have to fine tune your method, or the octopus will be ripped apart. Control your chakra more delicately!"

"R-Right!" Ino answered, grabbing a new jutsu formula to try again.

Sakura watched from the corner of her eye.

"She's having a rough time, but in such a short period, she's already gotten the hang of the correct release speed, without having to go through the spike exercise."

She bit at the corner of her lip, torn between wanting to help her struggling friend, and being frustrated by Ino's rate of progress. She felt like she'd barely made a dent in the books she had to read, and she kept having to stop and give herself short tests to make sure the information actually sunk in. With a short exhale she turned her attention back to the text in her lap, about the chemical structure of proteins and the ways they were broken down.

The two girls practically lived in the upper room of the mohawk fish market, only taking very brief breaks for food or short rests, usually at the other's insistence.

At one point, when Tsunade wasn't there, Ino let out a frustrated cry, collapsing to the floor in exhaustion. No wonder she'd barely seen Sakura in the past three months. If this was how hard Tsunade had been pushing her best friend, it was amazing she even got out into the sunlight at all. She knew the times Sakura was gone for hours on end, she was at the hospital for work, and she usually took one of the books with her to read while walking or during any break she caught during her shift. Then she was right back to the upper floor of the fish market. She'd only ever gone back to her apartment to grab a seven minute shower. Ino had no clue how Sakura did it…She herself felt like she was getting nowhere.

When she opened her eyes she saw Sakura leaning over her with a kind smile, holding out a thermos.

"What's this?"

"Tea. Specially blended to help your energy." Sakura answered kindly. When she'd seen Ino near collapse, she hadn't been able to simply ignore her. It had been so long since she and Ino had hung out and talked at all, and while simply getting a chance to see her daily was nice, and the taunts kept up her motivation, it wasn't the same.

"Thanks!" Ino beamed back her her, taking the thermos. "Gods, I have no idea how you do this!"

"Do what? The mystical palm?"

"Well, yeah, that too, but I was actually referring to training like this."

Sakura sat next to her, leaning her back against the table in thought as she stretched out her legs.

"I'm not sure. I mean, in a way I'm kind of used to it, I guess. Even if it wasn't training, taking care of mom was usually a lot of long hours of work and study. So as far as staying up late and working without a break, I guess I'm just used to it." Ino was the only person, other than her team and maybe Tsunade, Sakura felt she could talk openly about that time in her life with. Ino knew her then, knew the whole situation before anyone. And with the exception of Sasuke, was the most likely person to understand any and all feelings that may come with it.

"That makes sense. You really shouldn't have had to go through that." Ino sighed, sipping the tea Sakura had handed her. "You know, my dad said that learning to do our clan jutsu correctly would take several years. I don't have several years if I want to keep up with my teammates. Shikamaru, Choji and I, we've grown up together. How am I supposed to do my part if it's going to take several years to use my clan's jutsu?"

"But you guys are the Ino-Shika-Cho trio. It's a legacy thing. I'm sure your dad must have gone through this as well."

"Maybe…every time I train, it feels like my head's boiling. If I mess up, I could die. And my dad's instructions aren't all that helpful. Neither are Tsunade-sama's…" Ino took another long sip of tea, feeling aggravated.

"Try again." Sakura suddenly ordered.

"Huh?"

Sakura stood up, grabbing Ino's arms and pulling her up as well, before grabbing a new jutsu formula, laying it out, and setting an octopus on it.

"Try again, Pig." Sakura ordered.

Ino, who'd never seen her best friend this confident and commanding before, decided to obey, largely just to see what this new side to Sakura was.

There was a hum of chakra as a green glow surround Ino's hands and the octopus, Ino's icy blue eyes staring at the creature with intense focus as she forced her chakra out, knowing any minute the jutsu formula would tear, just as it had every time before.

"Breathe, Pig. You're holding your breath. You can't help something breathe again if you're not going to breathe yourself."

Ino hadn't even realized she was holding her breath, but once Sakura pointed it out, it seemed so obvious. She exhaled deeply.

Sakura watched a minor tear start to form on the paper of the jutsu formula. "You're pushing your chakra out too hard. You don't need to force it. Let it flow out."

"How?" Ino demanded through clenched teeth, all of her focus on the octopus.

"For me, it helped to visualize dancing and following a rhythm. Visualizing water also helped—imagining my chakra was like a river."

Ino let out a growl of concentration, the jutsu formula shredding…but it had taken longer to do so this time.

"I said river, not rapids." Sakura quipped.

"Don't you have reading to do?"

Sakura shrugged and returned to her nest of books next to the shelf, missing Ino's grateful smile as she turned away.

---

Ino was starting to progress a bit more thanks to Sakura's advice, and even though she'd failed to stimulate the brains, and two of the hearts, she took it as a sign of great progress when one heart finally responded to her chakra. She turned to Sakura to share her excitement when she noticed her best friend asleep, sitting up in a butterfly stretch, large open book in front of her.

Ino approached very quietly, knowing what a light sleeper Sakura was, getting a better look at Sakura and her alcove of books. She'd been so focused on resuscitating the octopus that she hadn't paid much attention to Sakura, not that she thought there'd be much to see. But there wasn't only a stack of books around Sakura. Next to her on her right was a large stack of papers, covered in Sakura's neat but quick handwriting…at least one paper for every book she'd read. There was a smaller but far more heavily notated set of papers on Sakura's other side as well. Three colored pens, and two different colored highlighters sat on the right side stack, and a pencil was held loosely in her hand. In her lap was a smaller open book.

Ino tilted her head to the side, reading over a passage of the book in front of Sakura. Her brows began to crease as she reread the passage again. And again. And again. But no matter how many times she read it, she didn't have a clue what it was saying. Ino very quietly lifted one of the papers from the stack on Sakura's right. On the front side, there were fifteen questions Sakura had written herself, that Ino couldn't understand a single word of…it was like looking at the chunin exam questions all over again…worse actually. She'd been able to understand the gist of at least what two of those questions were asking, even if she couldn't answer them without cheating off of Sakura. These, she didn't understand at all. She turned the paper over to see that Sakura had answered all of her questions—which she understood even less of. Ino couldn't fathom anyone being smart enough to get all this—maybe Shikamaru could, but he'd always been more tactically smart than scholastically—but of course Sakura and her incredible billboard brow did. She carefully returned the paper to the stack, before looking at the more heavily notated stack to her left. Maybe these were the things Sakura didn't get, maybe her best friend was human. But sneaking a few papers from that stack, Ino realized it was way more heart breaking than that.

This page was covered in notes about Mebuki's symptoms, timelines of her illness progression, graphs of her average pulse and temperature over time, every medicinal concoction Sakura ever gave her with notes on possible internal side effects she might not have been able to catch at the time. Several possible illnesses and causes were listed along with hand drawn germ or DNA diagrams, areas and causes for contraction, infectivity rates, mortality rates, and specific defining characteristics of each, complete with citations from where in which book she got her information from. Next to a few of the illnesses of causes were X marks in red pen along with notes and citations on why that illness wasn't what her mother had.

Ino swallowed hard. She hadn't seen Sakura for a while, and so much had happened since Mebuki's death, she naïvely thought Sakura had moved on. Or that wasn't it. She knew Sakura had moved on, but she hadn't realized that while her best friend had made her peace with her mother no longer being around, she hadn't realized that Mebuki's unknown illness still weighed so heavily on her. She shuffled to the next page, expecting to see more notes on Mebuki, but found that these covered a new topic entirely.

This page was covered in notes about the eye, doujutsu, and chakra movement through the ocular system. There was a hand drawn diagram of a regular eye next to an eye labeled "sharingan," with notes on the differences down to the estimated rod and cone count for the sharingan picture. The page was covered in equations Ino couldn't follow, several notes on eye and doujutsu transplantation along with a circled note: "Kakashi-senesei?" On the other side were three hand drawn diagrams, the first the same as the "sharingan" from the front side, and next to it, a similar looking eye, with three of the little tomoe shapes instead of two. Next to that, a the third eye, with a black wavy triangle in the middle slightly resembling a three pointed shuriken. The first one was labeled "Sasuke-kun," the second "Kakashi-sensei," and the third "that abusive shit bag." Under each was a list of known abilities, not much different between the first two though the third had "enhanced genjutsu" and "that fucking nightmare hell-scape" under it as well. She had notes on her posits of what might cause the differences, including age, chakra level, body count, and result of jutsu, each with a question mark after each new suggestion, and any evidence that might support it. Under that were notes on how to heal eyes, both normal and those possessing doujutsu. Sakura wrote specific notes to herself here: "Impossible to cure damage caused by Kekkei genkai, though careful treatment can slow or contain damage (Kekkei Genkai and their Bodily Risks, "Doujutsu" page 457)—Sakura, this didn't include specific notes on the sharingan, as not enough information is known about it, ask Kakashi-sensei if he'll allow you to examine his eye to try gathering more data." Another note said: "Excessive use of powerful doujutsu can cause strain on ocular nerve and in worse cases degradation—Sakura, if you have to heal Sasuke-kun's eyes, medical chakra has to be sent directly to the optical nerve as delicately as possible through the eye directly. Cover eyes to heal. Placing hands on temples will require stronger chakra traveling longer route through brain, risking greater chance of failure or additional damage."

Ino quietly put the pages back, feeling an overwhelming mix of sorrow, pride, and astonishment at her best friend's circumstances, kindness, and intelligence. Sakura had not only been plowing through these huge books that may as well have been another language to her, and understanding them, she'd taken her own time—slowed herself down to make notes on how to help Sasuke, and figure out the illness that robbed Mebuki of her chance to live. She glanced at the clock and noted that Sakura usually headed for her hospital shift around this time.

"Forehead?" She said gently. It didn't take more than that. Sakura was a light sleeper. It was a testament to how tired she was that she hadn't woken up yet. Her jade eyes blinked open, her lap coming into view. She looked up, surprised to see Ino in front of her.

"I fell asleep?"

Ino nodded.

"Crap! I'm so far behind!" Sakura muttered, leaning forward to skim over the page of the book in front of her. "And I need to self check…" She glanced at the clock, and her eyes shot wide. "Shit! I'm gonna be late!" She leapt up, the book in her lap tumbling to the floor—Ino saw that it was a book entitled Occipital Lobe and Ocular Processing. "And I still need to self check—"

Ino scooped up the large stack of papers to Sakura's right. "How many mLs of what compound(s) is/are necessary to break down a heavy metal toxin introduced directly into the circulatory system? What would happen to each of the systems should the necessary compounds not be delivered within an acceptable time frame?"

"Pig?"

"I'll walk you to the hospital. Come on. You don't want to be late. I'll quiz you on the way."

Sakura gave her a tired smile. "Thank you, Pig."

The two girls left the upper level of Mohawk Fish Market and headed for the hospital, Ino quizzing her along the way, correcting Sakura on the very rare occasion she missed something, all the way until Sakura had officially clocked in and walked into the clinic to see the first patient.

---

Sakura had just finished reading the last book in the Mohawk Fish Market collection on the day of Ino's three month test.

"It's three months today. Try it Ino." Tsunade instructed, her arms crossed staring down at Ino intimidatingly.

"Hai!" Ino nodded. She hadn't succeeded yet, but was close, and she'd be damned if she failed today. She laid the octopus onto the jutsu formula and quickly focused her chakra. A green glow enveloped her hands and the octopus.

Ino didn't hold her breath, she kept breathing evenly, her focus on the octopus, letting her chakra flow out like a river and into each heart and brain she had to stimulate. Once she felt her chakra reach the eighth brain, she pushed it out just a little harder, with a focused cry.

Sakura's fists tightened as she watched.

A minute later, the tentacles of the octopus began to curl and wiggle. Ino gasped, cutting off her chakra. Did she really—

"You did it!" Sakura screamed victoriously, running to her friend, hugging her, and taking her hands to dance her around in a circle.

"S-Sakura!" Ino stammered, unused to seeing Sakura so freely happy and playful. But it made her happy, seeing Sakura this happy and lively. It wasn't long before Ino began laughing a little as well. "You should be cheering for yourself, y'know? I can't believe you got through all those books—no sane human could do that, they're like a thousand pages each!"

Tsunade smiled. "You pass!" She declared. While they both managed to learn the mystical palm within three months, Sakura had been much faster, more efficient, and more innovative with both the process and execution. It was evident that she was far more suited to medical ninjutsu than Ino, and her motivations and drive were in the right place. But then, this wasn't really about turning Ino into a full fledged medic. She would teach her midlevel medical ninjutsu—she'd said she'd do that much, and the girl proved she'd be able to learn it with time. But this had been for Ino to gain the control necessary for her clan jutsu. And to motivate Sakura to get all the necessary medical studying done so she could move on the the next piece of her training—the part she hadn't been able to teach Shizune.

"Now for your test Sakura." Tsunade held up a thick packet, resembling the test she'd given Sakura at the start of her training, and dropping it onto the floor in front of Sakura—over their time together she'd learned Sakura preferred working on the floor instead of at desks or tables—before summoning Katsuyu. "Ino, follow me to the hospital. Sakura, you have three hours. Katsuyu-sama will be your proctor. Katsuyu, if she cheats, spray her with acid."

"Sh-Shishou, come on, that's not necessary! You know I don't cheat!"

"Well then, you won't have anything to worry about."

…True to form, without a hint of cheating, Sakura passed the exam with an 100%.

---

"Where the hell are we pervy sage?" Naruto whined. They'd been traveling for forever and it looked to him like they were in the middle of mountain-side nowhere.

Jiraya's training methods were a bit weird. He'd made a rule when they started traveling that Naruto was only allowed to attack, dodge, block or counter with his shadow clone jutsu, forbidding Naruto from using any other technique until he said so. Then he'd proceeded to attack Naruto at sudden, random intervals while traveling, keeping Naruto on his toes. Whenever they stopped to make camp, or stay in a village, he always gave Naruto weird tasks and errands to do with up to five clones only. Jiraya never gave Naruto much of an explanation, but insisted it was training whenever the boy complained about it, and told him if he didn't like it, they could always return to Konoha and put Naruto under Anbu guard, which usually shut him up.

"In a place where you can let loose."

"Let loose? You mean you're finally gonna teach me a new super powerful jutsu?!" The blond asked, excitement dancing in his eyes.

"No. You're going to get better at an old jutsu first." Jiraya answered, crossing his arms sternly. "Do you have any idea why I've only let you use the shadow clone jutsu these past months?"

"Cause you're a perv who wanted to use my clones to peep on women for your 'research'?"

Jiraya twitched. "That was like twice kid, get over it!"

"Five times!"

"The reason," Jiraya growled through clenched teeth, "was to force you to get better with your timing and use of the shadow clone jutsu. By allowing you only a maximum of five clones, you had to be smarter about how you used them, be it in small tasks or combat. By allowing you only access to that jutsu, it forced you to time your attacks with your clones more wisely, and get creative in how you utilized them, whether it was offensive or defensive. By attacking you at random, I forced you to be more observant and aware of your opponent and surroundings."

"Oh, no shit!" Naruto murmured wondrously, thinking back on all the errands and random attacks Jiraya had sprung on him.

"The most recent time, you passed the test. When I attacked you, it turned out to be a clone. You read my intent and reacted before I could, timing it all so well, that I wasn't even aware I was attacking a shadow clone until it disappeared."

"Yeah, y'know that was pretty great!" Naruto cheered excitedly, rubbing at his nose with a large grin.

"Yes it was." Jiraya agreed. "Which is why we can start the next step. Working on your rasengan."

Naruto grew serious at hearing this. His rasengan was his strongest attack. And if he lost to Sasuke before with it, he definitely needed to get it stronger if he was to have any hope of beating Sasuke and bringing him home.

"The fact that you were able to learn and use both the shadow clone jutsu and the rasengan is impressive already, given how dense you are."

"Hey!"

"But up until now, you haven't been using either to their full potential. You're finally getting there with your shadow clones. Now it's time to step up your rasengan. You need to get faster at summoning it, make it bigger, and increase how many you can use in a day."

Naruto nodded seriously. He was on board with all of that, and very ready to work hard to make it happen.

"So, aside from the shadow clone you need to focus your chakra, from now on, you're only allowed to use your rasengan. And you're going to use it as many times as you can in a day every day, until the amount of times you can use it starts to increase…let's aim for ten a day—you probably won't get there, not anytime soon, anyways. But it'll be a good aim to work towards."

"T-Ten?!" The rasengan was exhausting! As it was he could only throw four at most! But if he could use ten rasengan a day, and Sasuke could only pull out three chidori… "Alright. Yeah. Ten. I can do that, believe it!"

"Doing it repeatedly will also help you get faster at forming it. The final goal would be for you to form the rasengan without needing a clone at all, but for now, let's just get you faster at doing it. The more you get used to forming, holding and using your rasengan, the bigger you should be able to make it, as well."

"Right! So how does this work? We fighting or—"

"Oh nope. You're just gonna keep using it on the boulders around. You know the force will be getting stronger the more cleanly demolished it is."

"But that's boring! Besides, in a real fight, the enemy's not just gonna be sitting there waiting for it, y'know!"

"Basics first, kid. Get good at forming strong rasengan quickly, and then you'll get moving, thinking targets."

"Fine."

---

Sakura and Tsunade stood in the training grounds behind the hokage tower. Sakura had started dreading when Tsunade called her there, because it usually meant she was about to be in a lot of pain…but also, this was where she tended to get most of her breakthroughs and improvements, so there was also a grim sort of excitement stirring through her.

"Listen up, Sakura. For medical ninja, attack ability is of secondary importance. Do you know why?"

"Yes! Medical ninja play a supporting role in the unit. Supporting and healing our comrades in battle is more important, so our medical ability comes first!" Sakura recited.

"Wrong!" Tsunade barked, making Sakura flinch. "The most important thing for you to master is evasion!"

"Just dodging, Ma'am?" That certainly hadn't been what she was expecting Tsunade to say.

"A medical ninja must never be hit by an enemy attack." The older woman said firmly, her hands on her hips.

"…Why's that?" Sakura for the first time in her life, felt incredibly stupid. Obviously, you didn't want to be hit by an enemy attack, but she couldn't see why dodging was such a be-all-end-all skill for medical ninja specifically. And she had a feeling the answer was going to be something incredibly obvious…the long sigh Tsunade let out only intensified her feeling of stupidity.

"Who'll heal the team if the medical ninja dies?" Her tone was grave and severe.

Sakura's eyes widened. "That…makes a lot of sense. Of course. No wonder evasion's such a necessary skill for medics…especially field medics. It's impossible to always know the power an opponent has—even an attack that seems small could actually be incredibly damaging if it connects. A medic can't afford a risk like that."

"Now I'm going to come at you hard. Your job is to avoid whatever attack I throw at you. This is for real. You ready?"

"Yes M'Lady!" Sakura answered, shifting her stance.

"Evasion has always been something I was decent at anyways. I'm flexible and have quick reflexes and good balance from dance. I'm pretty fast too, so I should be able to dodge her!"

Tsunade was in the air in the blink of an eye, her leg raised, dropping down on Sakura, who immediately jumped backwards out of the way. But Sakura hadn't accounted for Tsunade's seismic strength. The earth exploded under the Sanin's heel, sending dirt and debris everywhere.

"Ugh!" Sakura had been forced to bring her arms up to block her face, closing her eyes reflexively.

"H-How the hell did she do that?! Where'd that power come from?! She wasn't kidding—I can't get hit, or she might actually kill me."

"Do not close your eyes!" Tsunade yelled, her palm slamming into Sakura's stomach and sending her smashing into a tree…the tree broke in half, toppling to the ground next to Sakura, who was twitching in pain, attempting to push herself up onto her knees. A brief pulse of her chakra revealed that while by some incredible blessing, nothing had broken, there was severe impact damage and bruising everywhere.

"Why would you close your eyes in the face of an enemy?!" Tsunade shouted, thoroughly unimpressed with the display, watching her student struggle into a kneeling position. "You must watch there every move, before their attack, during their attack, and after it! You mustn't let the slightest minutia escape you!"

"How am I supposed to do that?! I'm not like Sasuke-kun or Hinata-chan! I don't have a kekkei genkai that enhances my eye sight and perceptive abilities!" Sakura looked up at her teacher, a burning mix of pain, frustration, and determination in her eyes.

"If you're any kind of shinobi, then you probably learned this already. Every person has a dominant hand and leg, as well as underlying habits. In that movement, patterns are revealed."

You're wearing your shuriken on your left thigh. Naruto's right handed.

"That's right. Sasuke-kun used hand dominance to spot an imposter. That's not the same as using that information to better evade attacks, but clearly it's an important thing to start paying more attention to—and this whole theory is also part of the reason my dancer's barrage works in the first place. Because it's so random and unpredictable, the target can't catch on to the pattern, making it harder to counter or dodge."

"At Chunin or Jonin level though, a shinobi has worked to reduce these habits to better hide their intention from the enemy's eyes. But it's never eliminated completely. There are still moments where one can find out the enemy's weak spot."

"The enemy's weak spot…" Sakura murmured, her eyes now tracing over every aspect of Tsunade's body language…She'd performed the drop kick with her left leg…

"You must discover these flaws as quickly as possible. It will improve your ability to dodge their attacks."

The Sanin didn't wait and gave no warning, she suddenly charged at Sakura, her right leg winding back for a kick. Sakura's eyes widened, Tsunade came at her so fast, and it was only thanks to her reflexes that she rolled to the left at the last moment, feeling the air pressure around the kick whizz past the side of her face. Tsunade suddenly pivoted, her right leg swinging back around, deliver a low kick to Sakura's chest, sending the girl bouncing several times across the ground before she finally smashed into the base of a large tree more than 50 meters away. This time, she'd definitely broken a rib…or three. Sakura looked up just in time to see Tsunade bearing down on her, right fist raised. Sakura just barely escaped the direct hit, diving just past Tsunade to the left, but it was too late for her to avoid the explosive results of the punch, the rocky shrapnel doing a fair amount of damage in its own right. She crawled out from the pile of dirt and rock that buried her, coughing out dust.

"Damnit Sakura! Dodge! Don't just rely on your reflexes!" Tsunade shouted, lunging towards her.

Sakura tried to quickly process her Master's movements, but she was too distracted by the pain radiating through her with every breath, and once again, her reflexes saved her from the main attack, but failed to help her much for the aftermath.

"I-I can't! My…ribs are…broken!"

Tsunade had no sympathy. "Are you a medical ninja? Either heal them while you dodge, or suck it up! An enemy won't wait politely for you to fix yourself!" She shouted once again leaping up to drop down on Sakura with a kick.

"I don't trust myself to be able to focus enough to pull off healing like that yet—left foot again," She noted, as Tsunade eclipsed the sun. "Which means what? How does that help me dodge?!"

"Better think fast, shannaro!"

Sakura leapt backwards to the right, frustrated when her hair, nearly as long as it had been when she first became a ninja, flew around her face, obscuring her vision.

The Sanin watched her student once again barely escape a kick that could have very nearly killed her. Better, but not good enough. "You better step up, because we're doing this until you manage to evade me for five minutes straight." She informed the quivering, gasping for breath, girl.

After eight hours and several more painful injuries, Sakura managed to evade Tsunade for a full five minutes, albeit clumsily, bringing the torturous exercise to a close.

"Gotta think faster kid, cause we're going to be doing this daily until you do." Tsunade said while wiping away any trace of injury Sakura sustained. Her tone was far more gentle now. That's how Tsunade was with her, incredibly hard and strict during training, incredibly gentle and caring after.

"How'd you learn to do this, Shishou?"

"The hard way, through years of painful experiences…Do you know my four cardinal rules for medical ninja?"

"Four cardinal rules?"

Tsunade considered her seriously for a long moment. "Well. For now, only worry about the first three. (1.) No medic ninja shall ever stop medical treatment until the lives of their party members have come to an end. (2.) No medic ninja shall ever stand on the front lines. (3.) No medic ninja shall ever die until they are the last of their platoon. Burn those rules into your heart."

"And the fourth?"

"You'll learn the fourth when you're ready." Tsunade paused, her expression growing grim. "Anyways. I made rules like that because I saw what happened when there were no rules in place. The death tolls were unnecessarily high. I can't stress this enough, Sakura, you must learn evasion, first and foremost."

Looking at Tsunade's face, Sakura felt much the same way as she had when Kakashi had revealed that the names of all his loved ones were engraved on the memorial stone. Her heart went out to the older woman, and she didn't dare disbelieve her.

"I understand, M'Lady."

---

Over the next two months, Sakura's skills in evasion increased drastically. Some of the biggest help on that front came from TenTen and Kakashi, who were helping Sakura turn her dance into an actual combat style. She'd finally figured out how to keep ninja tools attached to her in an upright position. Having to quickly analyze where a weapon or attack was coming from and position herself accordingly to block, was very good practice for quick time analysis. While her kicks and punches still weren't exceptionally powerful, the momentum of her swinging legs and arms, and sharp objects around her body did do a good amount of damage. Most importantly, it was very tough to dodge or hit her, as she was in almost constant motion, and while it was easy to establish the rhythm she moved in, discerning any particular pattern was immensely difficult. Even for Kakashi's sharingan—it was possible, but difficult.

Tsunade hadn't been lying when she said they'd work on evasion daily. She set new benchmarks of time daily, that Sakura had to successfully evade her for. If a single hit, be it from Tsunade directly or from shrapnel connected, the clock would start over. On top of that, Tsunade made sure to switch her fighting style every time, constantly forcing Sakura to reanalyze and readapt. When Sakura had successfully evaded Tsunade for eight hours straight, the Sanin decided it was time she learned some combat skills.

"Your movements are getting better!" Tsunade praised. "Do you remember what I taught you? Why I'm pushing you so hard on this?"

"Of course." Sakura answered, elated from the very hard earned praise. "Medical ninja must never get themselves killed. Thus they must never force their way forward."

Tsunade closed her eyes and nodded. "That is true…however, that doesn't mean that you don't have to learn jutsu necessary to fight on the frontline."

Sakura blinked in confusion. She had no objections. She wanted to be able to hold her own in a fight, instead of being useless and in the way…but Tsunade had told her to take the four—though she only knew three—cardinal rules of medical ninja very seriously. And it was right there in rule number two that as a medical ninja, she should never stand on the frontlines.

"First and foremost, you are my disciple. A Kunoichi who will inherit the power of the Legendary Sannin. And…Haruno Sakura…you are also a disciple of the Fifth Hokage!" She'd already made her determination. Sakura could do it. She had the skill and the willpower to learn all of Tsunade's jutsu. And she would teach her everything she had in her arsenal.

Sakura stood speechless, staring wide eyed and jaw dropped at her Master. Tsunade had never given her such a resounding vote of confidence before. She had never claimed her so fully, and never, ever, had she stressed all of the titles and renown she held. It had never fully hit Sakura who she was learning from until that moment. The world class medical ninja. The granddaughter of the founder of Konoha. The legendary Sannin. The Fifth Hokage. Senju Tsunade. The woman before her radiated a power and legacy that seemed so at odds with how Sakura frequently saw her—drunk off her ass, shirking paperwork onto Shizune, and losing every bet she made.

"M-M'Lady…You're…" Sakura couldn't even find the words to convey how much she looked up to the woman, how much being her apprentice meant to her…how much Tsunade felt like family.

Tsunade smirked. "Don't get too excited. I'm still a gambling drunk with a short temper."

Sakura smiled. "Don't worry, I'll make sure I don't learn everything from you."

"Probably for the best. Now. It's long past time your punches started doing some damage."

Those words immediately refocused Sakura, her attitude shifting back into her serious and focused student persona.

Seeing Sakura grow serious, Tsunade continued, "this should actually be fairly easy for you, between your chakra weights and being a dancer. And you already did something similar with the chakra burst you used to treat Gaara. By storing chakra in your hands or feet and releasing it with pinpoint timing, you can enhance your strength to monstrous levels." Tsunade nodded at a nearby boulder, her arms crossed expectantly.

Sakura let her chakra pool into her hand, feeling her skin begin to heat and tingle with the sudden influx of energy. She pulled her fist back, releasing her energy as she sent her arm forward with full force.

"Shit!" Her hand had broken, and the boulder didn't even have a crack in it.

"Do you know what you did wrong?"

"Not enough power?" Sakura guessed, her teeth clenched in pain.

"Wrong. It's about your timing."

"…Too early?"

Tsunade nodded. "When I said pinpoint timing, I meant it. You have to release your chakra very quickly the exact moment you make contact. Not a millisecond before, not a millisecond after."

"She wasn't kidding about exact timing…but it's really hard to go from stasis to precise release…the chakra burst didn't depend on such finite timing. I could release my chakra whenever, it didn't have to be precisely timed with when I made contact with the target."

Sakura tried again with her other hand, this time releasing too late, her left fist bruising considerably. She tried again and again until her left hand broke, and then continued to try with her feet…but she couldn't seem to get the timing right. She had no problem with the storage part, but the release…

"No wonder there aren't more people who use this technique…the timing required is ridiculous…not only does the build up require immense chakra control, but the release speed and timing…the physics works against it…a body in motion stays in motion a body at rest stays at rest—the same rules apply for energy…so what if the energy stays in motion?"

Tsunade recognized now that whenever Sakura stopped and stared at something with singular focus for a long time, it usually meant she was working something out, and usually came right before a breakthrough. Her eyes narrowed with interest when Sakura finally took a step back, shifting her stance for another try.

Sakura took a deep breath and back kicked the boulder, leaving a large crater on impact. It wasn't shattered, as Tsunade knew she could have done, but it was more than she had expected of Sakura's first successful hit. She had simply expected large cracks.

"What changed?" Tsunade asked, smiling with pride.

"I couldn't get the timing of the release right when I had my chakra pooled in my hand or foot, but I'm really good at moving my chakra fast and in conjunction with my body, so I adapted the technique a little…I switched the location of where I was pooling my chakra to somewhere higher up—my hip, and moved that chakra as a unit in time with my kick so it released precisely on impact."

Tsunade studied the large crater…no wonder. Doing it that way also added velocity to the chakra release, increasing the damage dealt.

"Your way wouldn't work for me." Tsunade told her. "By moving your chakra like that, you run the risk of loosing some of what you pooled, making your attack weaker."

"…Oh." Sakura murmured glumly…

"Guess there'll be a lot more broken hands until I master the timing then…"

"But," Tsunade continued, putting a supporting hand on Sakura's head, "you make up for it by increasing the velocity the chakra's released at. So long as you practice not loosing any of your pool, or take that into account while pooling your chakra, your strikes will be incredibly powerful."

Sakura beamed. "So it's ok?"

"Mhm. Do it your way."

"Shannaro!" Sakura jumped excitedly.

"Oi! Get over over here so I can fix you." Tsunade called Sakura's attention back to her, healing her hands. Hands were the hardest thing to heal on your own body, especially if both were injured.

Sakura watched the green glow ease away the pain in her hands, her mind still on the enhanced kick she'd just thrown.

Why not just teach Sakura-chan a chakra-consuming ninjutsu…if she gets rid of enough of the excess chakra, she'll be fine, right?

Maybe you're just not an elemental ninjutsu type…We'll need to figure out a different way for you to burn a lot of chakra.

"If I can…"

"Shishou! Can I be dismissed?" Sakura asked hurriedly.

Tsunade's brow furrowed. Sakura never asked to be dismissed early. The girl had the work ethic of a mule. "Why?"

"There's something I need to test! I'll make up the time I promise I just really need to check something!" Sakura's words were coming out in a rush, keeping pace with her excited, racing, mind.

Tsunade blinked in confusion, but shrugged. She knew Sakura wasn't the type to shirk or ditch training, and if they ended early, she had more time to sneak in a drink without Shizune's knowledge.

"Yeah. Go ahead."

"Thank you so much, Shishou! I'll make up the time, I promise!" Sakura called, having started sprinting off the moment Tsunade said yes.

---

Kakashi was away on a mission, as was Ino, but thankfully Kurenai and Hinata weren't, and it wasn't long until Sakura had gathered the two very confused females in a forest clearing far outside the village.

"What's this about, Sakura?" Kurenai asked.

"I need you to trigger me. I think I have a way to release a lot of chakra at once!"

"You learned an elemental ninjutsu?"

Sakura shook her head. "No, not really a jutsu—it's a technique of Tsunade-sama's—"

Kurenai's eyes widened. "You mean…her super human strength?"

"Yes! I think I'll be able to expel a lot of chakra this way—please just let me try it!"

"Yeah, alright…" Kurenai murmured, shocked to see Sakura so eager to work on her kekkei genkai.

"You'll monitor, Hinata-chan?"

"Of course, Sakura-chan."

"Ok! Great! If this works, you two are going to need to find cover fast…"

"I bet…" Kureani muttered, while Hinata looked confused and a little worried, but nodded none the less.

"I'm ready!" Sakura said resolutely.

Kurenai cast the genjutsu.

---

She was tied to a chair, Orochimaru standing in front of her, a grotesque smile on his white face.

"I've never gotten to research one of your clan before. The Haruno's…what a useless bunch. You're certainly upholding the tradition nicely."

Sakura didn't respond, but felt a familiar icy dread settle heavily in her stomach, while burning rage clawed up her throat.

"But…maybe you aren't so useless…all the things I could do with all that chakra…" He hissed softly, taking her chin in his long, cold fingers and turning her face right and left, as if studying it.

Intense revulsion hit her when his skin made contact with hers.

"Well, aren't you a pretty one…Such lovely hair…" He purred, twirling a lock of her recently shortened hair, around his long pale fingers. "I suppose you do have some other uses, besides your kekkei genkai." He said with an evil smile, the look in his eyes turning…hungry. He leaned forward, drawing nearer to her, tilting her face up towards him.

"OH HELL NO!" Panic, rage, revulsion, and terror slammed into her like a tsunami, and the illusion shattered.

---

She was on her knees shrieking, as her chakra ripped through her, her left hand reflexively stroking through her hair to help her calm herself…But she wasn't trying to calm down this time.

"Get rid of your chakra!"

She was used to concentrating chakra into her weights at this point, even during reactions, so pooling her chakra into her right shoulder was not as difficult as it could have been…but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. The more of her raging chakra she collected, the more it felt like her shoulder was going to explode. The pain in it was far more intense than anywhere else in her body at the moment, but she continued to focus chakra into her shoulder until she could no longer stand it.

"Fuck I hope this works!"

Feeling like her right arm had been set on fire, she pulled her fist back, and launched it at the ground, her chakra tearing down her arm and out her fist the millisecond her knuckles slammed into the earth. "SHANNARO!"

---

It was like a bomb went off. The whole forest shook. Everything in a 100 meter radius was leveled. It was a disaster zone of uprooted trees, chunks of broken earth, splintered wood, and clouds of dust. Sakura was now kneeling in the bottom of a shallow but very large crater.

She was breathing hard, sweating profusely. The reaction hadn't completely stopped, but she'd successfully gotten rid of enough of the excess chakra for her mind and body to be functional. Her chakra was still rushing through her painfully fast, there was still a large amount more than she normally had, but she could manage it. She heard a soft thud and looked up. Kurenai and Hinata had dropped down in front of her, wide eyed and covered in dust.

"You two…ok?" She huffed.

"S-Sakura-chan…your arm…" Hinata murmured pointing shakily at Sakura's right arm, which was drenched from shoulder to hand in blood.

Concentrating hard, she managed enough control of her chakra to scan her arm. Her chakra had cut through her skin on its way down to her fist, leaving deep gashes up the length of the limb. Her shoulder bone was fractured in multiple places, as were her wrist and knuckles, she was bleeding a lot, and ran the risk of bleeding out if she or someone else didn't take care of her arm soon…still, she felt it could have been worse.

"It hurts like hell, but…it can be healed…are you guys alright?"

"We weren't exactly planning on going through a seismic event today, but we found cover, thanks to Hinata. She saw how your chakra was building in your arm and thought it best we find somewhere safe."

"Good…how's my chakra looking, Hinata-chan?"

"It's still exceeding your average level and rate, but it's significantly less than what it was."

"Everything hurts…but I feel pretty stable…like I could use my chakra if I really needed it…I managed a chakra scan just now, so that's a good sign."

"The reaction does seem to be calming." Hinata reported.

"Offloading…definitely helps." Sakura agreed tiredly.

"We need to get you to Hokage-sama, so she can fix your arm." Kurenai said. "Besides," she said glancing around at the mass destruction, "I'd say this warrants an update."

---

Tsunade bolted up, slamming on her desk when Kurenai walked in, followed by Hinata who was supporting a stumbling Sakura, her right arm dangling at her side soaked in blood.

"What the hell happened?! Damnit Sakura! How much blood have you lost?!" She was at her students side in under a second, her hands glowing with healing energy. "Talk!" She barked at Kurenai, who winced and began explaining everything.

"So that's what you wanted to test…That explains the tremors earlier…" Tsunade muttered, her eyes focused on her Sakura's right arm.

"I'm alright, Shishou. And this means I have a way to handle my kekkei genkai in a fight. You can send me out on missions." Sakura smiled tiredly. Her reaction had fully settled by now, and she was feeling tired and achey. But she'd learned what she needed to. If she was in a fight, and had a reaction, she could attack and manage her condition at the same time.

"If it's gonna do this to your arm, I wouldn't call that handled." Tsunade snapped.

Sakura shook her head. "No, but I charged up as much as I could this time. Next time if pool less chakra but throw more punches, it should still burn through enough while doing less damage to me."

Tsunade just grunted…but she had to admit she was impressed. Chakra enhanced strength was something that required significant chakra control and timing…Sakura had only learned it today and she was already able to do it, even when her chakra want haywire. It wasn't surprising given the girl's ability to function with such high level chakra weights, but it boded well for the future techniques Tsunade would impart on her. And in the face of a very powerful enemy, Sakura's curse had just become an advantage.

---

Sasuke stood in a field that was vaguely familiar, though he couldn't place why. At least, he couldn't until he saw a girl with pink hair picking some wildflowers in the distance. Then it clicked. This was the field where Team 7 had picked those flowers for the apothecary.

He watched Sakura from a distance, debating. He shouldn't be having dreams like this. Her, team 7, he couldn't afford those bonds right now. He had broken them to get the power he needed. But this was so much more preferable to the constant nightmares he usually had, of worlds of red and black, and blood, and dead family, and hissing snakes, and his brother's cold voice. In the eight and some months that he'd been training with Orochimaru, he'd only ever had dreams like this twice. He always awoke from them feeling guilty and angry at himself for having them in the first place…but he always felt more rested after them, then he did after his nightmares.

He watched Sakura straighten, a collection of colored, probably medicinal blossoms in her hands. Her hair was longer than it had been the night he left, but not as long as it was back during the bell test. The ends just barely past her shoulders. She seemed serene, which in turn made his feel more relaxed as well…until a familiar voice he couldn't place called out to her. She turned, looking over her shoulder before turning away, moving away from the direction of the voice.

A boy came into view, running right up to her and grabbing her shoulders, forcibly turning her to face him. Sasuke's eyes narrowed. This was different. The two other times he'd had dreams like this, it was just Sakura doing some activity a distance away from him—reading or dancing. Occasionally Naruto would make a very brief appearance, but never anyone else. This boy wasn't Naruto, and by Sakura's body language, she wasn't thrilled about his hands holding her in place.

"Come on, Sakura-chan. Don't you think it's time you stop pretending to be a ninja and come away with me." Now Sasuke remembered this guy. Morino Idate. The runner team 7 had to escort that had flirted incessantly with Sakura.

"Please let go of me." She was using the detached polite tone…always an indication of how she felt about the person she was talking to.

Idate only seemed to hold tighter. "Not until you agree to marry me."

"Let go." She was struggling against his hold, but he had firmly pinned her arms to her sides. All politeness had dropped from her voice.

Idate stepped closer, towering over her. "Never. Once we're together, you'll see how dumb this whole ninja nonsense is. And how much better I am for you than him."

Sasuke couldn't take it anymore. His policy when he had these sorts of dreams was to merely watch from a distance. He didn't have enough control over his sleep to put an end to them, nor did he have the willpower to bring himself out of them by waking himself up. He simply wouldn't engage…just watched Sakura dance or study from a distance, allowing himself the moments of weakness to wonder about her and her wellbeing, until he woke up and put her out of his mind completely to focus on his goal of killing Itachi. He was also aware that the night he walked away from her, he lost all rights to be mad if she fell in love with someone else. But that wasn't what was happening here, and Sasuke didn't have the strength or indifference to keep himself from getting involved.

He was behind Idate in an instant, the sword Orochimaru had been training him to wield drawn to the boy's neck.

"Let her go." His voice was deadly quiet and laced with venom.

"S-Sasuke-kun?!" Sakura breathed in surprise, her gem-like eyes wide.

"Tch. This is none of your business Uchiha."

Sasuke said nothing. It wasn't his business…it couldn't be. Not yet. But Sakura didn't want this. Her tone and body language made that clear.

"This is your last warning. If you don't let go of her now, I'll kill you." He pressed the blade more firmly against Idate's throat.

Idate snorted, his hands only tightening around Sakura's arms.

Sasuke wasn't Orochimaru. He didn't like killing. The only person he wanted to kill was Itachi. But Idate was hurting Sakura, talking about forcing her into a coupling she didn't want. And he couldn't let that stand. Besides, this was just a dream. No real harm would be done.

"Close your eyes, Sakura." Sasuke's tone was far gentler then when he spoke to Idate, though he still didn't look directly at her.

She however, hadn't taken her eyes off Sasuke's face since he made his appearance, and he could feel her scrutinizing him curiously, until finally he saw her lashes flutter shut in his peripheral vision.

His sword slid across Idate's throat, and the boy crumbled. If there had been any doubt he was in a dream, it was dispelled by the fact that Idate's body seemed to simply disappear, and there was no blood splatter.

Sakura's eyes opened, and Sasuke finally looked at her…and he couldn't get himself to look away. Not when she was looking at him with so much hurt, confusion, warmth and…love. Still.

"Why'd you tell me to close my eyes? I'm a ninja. I can take it."

He knew that. But…

"I didn't want you to see…" Like always, she managed to correctly interpret his statement.

"I've known about your darkness for a while now, Sasuke-kun. I was the first to see it. It hasn't stopped me from loving you."

"Still?" He knew her answer wouldn't count. This was only a dream. She was only going to tell him what he wanted to hear. And it infuriated him, but he still longed to hear it, real or not.

"Yes. I still love you so much I can't even stand it." She said softly, her eyes never leaving his as she stepped forward, rising slightly onto her toes, bringing her face closer to his. They'd both grown taller, but him more so.

He didn't mean to, but his body was moving on its own as he closed the distance, bringing their lips together.

Kissing was nothing like chakra transfers or CPR. It felt better, warmer, sending sparks of electricity through his veins. He wondered if kissing actually felt like this or if it only felt this good because it was a dream. He had no interest in finding out with anyone but Sakura, and that chance was in such a distant future that might never come to pass, so he figured he should just be satisfied with this for now. But as wonderful as it felt, holding her, her arms around his neck, mouths moving together, there was a continuously growing shadow of anxiety. He shouldn't be doing this. He shouldn't be kissing her. He shouldn't have gotten near her. He shouldn't have even dreamed of her in the first place.

There was a knocking sound in the distance, and Sasuke's eyes snapped open.

---

The field and Sakura were gone, replaced by the dark walls of his room and the sound of his door opening. Immediately Sasuke turned over and released a giant fireball jutsu at the intruder, his fury fueling more intense flames than usual.

Sasuke sat up glaring at the silver haired young man, who had managed to avoid injury, though the sleeve of his shirt was singed.

"Why the fuck did you wake me up?!" Sasuke growled darkly, equally as furious that the best dream he ever had had been interrupted, as he was at himself for having dreamed it in the first place. He couldn't afford to feel that way about her. Not yet. It wasn't safe. He'd been doing so well, barely sparing team 7 and her a thought. And then this dream had to come along and send his emotions into a storming mess.

"Do you always wake up in such a bad mood?" Kabuto replied, examining his burnt sleeve. All evidence pointed to yes, when he remembered an underling's report of having several kunai launched at them when they'd woken Sasuke up. Though, he seemed to have caught Sasuke in a far worse temper today.

"Tell me what you bothered me for, or get the fuck out!"

"Orochimaru-sama wishes to see you. You'll be signing the summoning contract today."

"Fine. Leave." Sasuke ordered coldly.

Kabuto complied, noting on his way out, that they'd have to replace the door Sasuke's fireball had disintegrated.

---

When Sasuke left his room and headed for Orochimaru's training grounds, his apathy was back in place. He'd had a momentary relapse earlier, that was all. He would not let his emotions overrun him, and allow himself to dream of her again. If, on the off chance he did, he would keep his distance and not engage until he woke up. He didn't love her and he wouldn't love her until Itachi was dead by his hand. There'd be no love for him until the one that murdered his whole family was gone. With his heart sufficiently hardened, and his mind sufficiently refocused, he was ready to train. He needed more power.

When he reached the clearing, it was full of giant snakes, Orochimaru standing at the center.

"What is this?" It would be very like the Sanin to have all the snakes attack him at once and see how he faired.

"You're going to select a summons Sasuke-kun. Naruto has signed a contract with the toads, so I'm told. With toads, one simply needs to sign the contract, and then however much chakra they put forth dictates which toad appears."

Sasuke recalled in Naruto's battle against Gaara, the blond had summoned two small, weak toads, before he finally managed to call forth the giant, katana-wielding one.

"Snakes, however, are different. You sign the contract with one snake, and they in particular will be your summons. You must select the snake you're to sign with, and they must agree to be your summons."

As he eyed the snakes, unbidden into his mind came the memory of Sakura dancing in the training field after her mother died. One of these beasts had been responsible for killing Mebuki…even if he didn't and wouldn't love her yet, he couldn't disrespect her and Mebuki by signing a contract with the snake that may have been at fault.

Stepping forward with the impressively commanding air of a general, Sasuke addressed the snakes at large.

"Who among you participated in the attack on Konoha some months back?"

There was a loud chorus of hisses in response, some even going so far as to slither forward.

"You can go." Sasuke told the group, making Orochimaru quirk an eyebrow behind him.

There was another loud chorus of hisses, this time venomous and angry, before there several loud pops and the clearing filled with smoke.

When the smoke cleared only three snakes remained, two of which were significantly smaller and weaker looking than the rest had been. Sasuke addressed the largest one.

"Why didn't you participate?"

"I seek challenges. A village with most of its military strength asleep, and its citizens defenseless is hardly a challenge." The snake answered, its pale yellow eyes locked on Sasuke. "Why is this matter of importance to you?"

"Yes, why indeed, Sasuke-kun. Feeling sentimental? Homesick?" There was a dangerous edge the the Sanin's voice.

Sasuke glared at him from the corner of his eye. He supposed his motivation could be viewed as sentimental: respect for a broken bond's murdered family member. But there was no way he'd be admitting that to Orochimaru.

"Destroying Konoha is your passion project, not mine." He answered coldly before turning his attention back to the large snake. "I have no interest in attacking the weak and defenseless. And no summons of mine should expect the opportunity to do so."

The snake nodded. Weak targets were unappealing, and this boy seemed to share that belief. He was also bold, commanding, and confident, which hinted at great strength and ability. The boy had his respect.

"I am Uchiha Sasuke. You are?"

"Aoda."

"Aoda, I wish to make a pact with you."

"I accept, Uchiha Sasuke-sama. Sign the contract."

Sasuke did. Aoda's desire for challenges implied great strength and power. And that meant he just gained a powerful ally…who had no part in Haruno Mebuki's death.

---

Author's note: So thoughts...I really hope this was interesting. It was to me at least while writing it. This was hard to balance out timing-wise. I didn't want things to come too easily for Sakura, so it was hard to tell how long it should be taking her to learn things. But also, between her and Naruto, she's the one who learns the most over the time skip, because she not only becomes the third best medic in Konoha, but also learns Tsunade's enhanced strength, a crap ton about poisons from Shizune, evasion, and the strength of 100 seal, plus doing her own independent research on Itachi and Orochimaru, and that's all canon. This Sakura additionally has to get better management of her kekkei genkai, and has this focus on dancing. There's also a period of time where she goes through the chunin exams and gets promoted in rank, in which case that's at least a few weeks to a month that she's not training at all. So that's a lot on the agenda and she does need to learn fast. I don't think things came too easily, but if you feel it did, there's the reason why, and if you want justification, this Sakura already has a lot of the basics needed for medical ninjutsu down. I think the only major canonical change I made is that Naruto leaves Konoha earlier. In the manga he doesn't leave for three months, and I couldn't reconcile that in my head with how quickly he heals. The anime gives a lot of filler that I straight up didn't feel like dealing with, so I chose a few, mentioned them briefly and sent him off earlier. I also feel like because Gaara is a jinchuriki, he should heal pretty quickly too, so I didn't understand why the Sand Siblings would still be there three months later. Thus I made the damage Sakura's chakra share did, worse, to justify the time. The spike exercise was entirely ripped off from YuYu Hakasho, but it felt like something Tsunade would do.

As much as this is primarily about Sakura, I want to build out and give more attention to all the Kunoichi, because they're particularly neglected in the main story, and since Hinata's going to end up with Naruto, I felt it was important to see how she especially starts growing more and coming into her own. To be clear, Sakura didn't learn the gentle fist or anything of the sort. Hinata was just showing her how the Hyuga release bursts of chakra, and the reason it's different than Tsunade's enhanced strength is because of the amount and timing. Building out the Kunoichi more was also why I wanted Sakura to work with TenTen so badly. The world needs more TenTen. Since reading Gai's comment about TenTen hitting her mark 10/10 times, I've become convinced that TenTen is a nickname, and I loved giving backstory for that little piece of head cannon. As for Sakura not being an elemental ninjutsu type, the way I see this, is that Sakura is very kinesthetically smart and oriented, as is the way she uses her chakra. She's very skilled at manipulating it directly in conjunction with some part of her body (usually hands or feet), but when it's cast outside/far away from her body she can't do it (at least for now). Hypothetically, if she had the nature release and chakra levels for it, she could do something like the chidori or rasengan because they both involve externalizing chakra around a specific part of the body (she can't and won't use either, not having the energy levels, chakra natures, or fighting style/inclination), where as an elemental jutsu like the water dragon one or Gaara's sand bullets or something more like those don't really work for her. I also wanted to show a snippet of Naruto's training as well as where Sasuke's at mentally because...its Team 7. I hope it's clear that Kakashi isn't abandoning Sakura so much as he's just not the right teacher for her. I think he very much has a guardian/older brother/uncle/father-esq relationship to Sakura, and he very much supports her on a mental/emotional front. He's just not the right person to train her. He does his best though.

Yeah so, Sasuke and Sakura...they're thirteen, hormonal, and going through puberty. Their thoughts are starting to shift in the way they feel and think about each other. Sakura's been there a bit longer because I feel like her circumstances lead to all aspects of her mental maturation timeline moving up, but also this is what she starts repressing. Now that she's more inclined to express her emotions and thoughts, particularly her anger, her inner self not only makes less and less of an appearance, but the nature of her inner self changes. She becomes less angry and more...perverted. And that's canon. As for Sasuke, with the way the Uchiha love and everything, he can't just turn it off even if he tries. He's already fallen in love with Sakura, but it isn't his priority and he's lived with the need for revenge and hatred of Itachi, longer than he has his love for Sakura. So he is able to repress it and keep his mind away from it...except occasionally when he sleeps. And now that he's getting older and is hitting puberty, those very rare dreams he has of her-and they are rare, 98% of the time, it's just nightmares or nothing-are starting to shift in tone. And aside from his subconscious, love or not, I don't think Sasuke would have selected one of the snakes that attacked Konoha as his summons. He doesn't like needless death and unnecessary violence. He says it in canon that the only person he wants to kill is Itachi and Orochimaru tells him he's too soft. He never had anything against Konoha until later when he finds out the truth about Itachi.

Thank you for reading this essay of an author's note. And thank you for reading this ridiculously long chapter. I hope it you liked it!

Thanks for reading this far! :)