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.)

31. Her Training III

A/N: I'm sorry, this is later than I hoped. I had wanted to get it out on Xmas, but that clearly didn't happen...working in retail during the holidays is rough.

"Sakura's thoughts..."

"Inner Sakura..."

Memory...

Standard Disclaimers. TW for some blood gore later in the chapter.

---

The trip back to Konoha had been relatively slow going, compared to the journey there. They all needed recovery time—not so much from anything Sasuke had done to them, but from what the nine-tails had done to Naruto and Sakura. Both were low on chakra, with their chakra networks out of whack, and Naruto's muscles and bones were still overtaxed from the nine-tails take over as well. The more Sakura scanned his body with chakra, the more she was beginning to understand the threat of the damage losing control of the nine-tails could cause to Naruto. In some ways, the physical toll was not unlike one of her chakra reactions, if the reaction was left unchecked. The muscle tears and hair line fractures to bone were easily recognizable, as she'd felt them herself after a reaction many a time. But she could see the differences between their two conditions too.

Naruto was hosting another being inside him, a being with its own massive source of chakra. When Naruto lost control, it wasn't his own chakra running rampant and killing from the inside out. It was another being fully possessing him. That meant, Naruto lost control, but the nine-tails didn't. It was in total control of how and when it used its own chakra, but Naruto wasn't conscious for it. When the Kyubi took control, it overwhelmed Naruto's body and consciousness, running the risk of overtaking Naruto completely, its chakra so powerful it burned all of Naruto's body. Sakura also speculated that this happened, because while their chakra networks may have integrated, the Kyubi still had markedly different chakra than Naruto, and while his body may have grown accustomed to containing that chakra, it didn't mean his body could handle having that much of it flowing freely—the nine tails chakra had been greater in amount and force, than Naruto's body had been able to handle, overtaking his own chakra completely. Having so much pure, unadulterated Kyubi chakra flowing through him had done as much damage as it would have if it had come from a truly foreign presence. However, the Kyubi needed Naruto to survive. Their chakra and life force now intertwined with each other. So the nine-tails was pretty quick to help Naruto's body along in it's recovery process most of the time. It didn't when it first took over, because it had just expelled its chakra, and had a taste of freedom. Being forced back into the cage that was Naruto's body, must have made it feel less than cooperative to help the healing efforts along. But once the nine-tails had resettled in Naruto's body, once again accepting its cage, it began speeding up his recovery time, just as before.

Sakura's attacks, on the other hand, came entirely from within herself. There was no additional being at the source of them. This came with its own pros and cons when compared with Naruto's jinchuriki status. Since at its core, her reactions were her own chakra, it was easier (still nearly impossible, but easier than it would be for Naruto) to train her body to handle the influx of chakra. Naruto would have a harder time because he would have to fully assimilate the nine-tails into himself, instead of keeping them as two separate entities—either that, or he'd have to figure out a way to match his own chakra output with that of the Kyubi to keep himself in control, at least by her speculation. She also never ran the risk of losing herself. Her brain might fog over from the sheer agony of it, but it wasn't like she was fighting for control over her body—it was all her, which meant even if keeping herself mentally present required a tremendous amount of effort and focus, it was still possible, and if she faded or couldn't bring herself to focus, there wasn't something else attempting to take over. It was just her. Naruto, however, ran the risk of becoming fully possessed. He had only progressed to the fourth tail to be taken over…something told her if he even made it to seven, odds were there'd be no Naruto left. The Kyubi would have full reign, and Naruto's consciousness would be destroyed. But there were some benefits—or at the very least, less bads—to his jinchuriki-ness over her family curse. From what she could tell, Naruto's condition would never physically kill him. The Kyubi shared Naruto's body, which meant they both needed it alive and surviving. Even when his body had been in bad condition just the day before, from losing control, he'd still been able to traverse the woods and an underground labyrinth only half an hour later. He needed breaks, and he was weakened, but it hadn't taken him long to recover enough to functionally move. Now a day out, he was almost perfectly fine—at least physically. His chakra network was still a little wonky, but even that was sorting itself out faster than hers was. For Sakura, if her attack passed the one-minute mark, she was going to be out for two hours at the very least, and that didn't guarantee that she'd be up for anything once she woke up. The longer the attack went on, and the more she tried to make herself do during and after it, the longer she'd be out for, and the less likely she was to be fully functional when she awoke. If she had an attack and wasn't able to wrest any sort of control over it, calm herself down, or expel a massive amount of her chakra, she would die, torn apart from the inside out. Naruto also could call on and control the Kyubi's chakra up to a certain level, giving him a boost in power in a fight. Sakura couldn't do that. She could speed up her chakra production through sheer force of will, but only when she was truly desperate—she could only pull that off two or three times, and she would crash after. Plus, it wasn't really a power up—it didn't make her attacks any stronger, it just gave her a little more chakra to use when she was already at her limit.

The only conclusion Sakura could draw from any of these observations and hypotheses, was that it royally sucked to be them. She and Naruto both had been extremely shafted by fate. Unfortunately she couldn't draw much more than that. Most of what she believed was speculative to begin with, and regardless, there was still nothing she could do to help Naruto. It left her feeling more acutely useless than usual. She figured she could at least explain her comparisons to Tsunade. Maybe some sort of chakra meditation or weights would help Naruto with getting his body used to integrating more of the nine-tails chakra, the way hers had gotten better equipped to handle high-speed chakra.

Something told her she wouldn't get the chance to bring it up, not with the glare Tsunade was leveling at her, after their mission debrief upon returning home. She'd excused everyone but Sakura.

"You have one minute to explain to me why engaging with both Kabuto and Sasuke over the course of this mission wasn't in direct violation of the four cardinal rules. And if you don't convince me, so help me god, Sakura, I will take you off mission rotation." Tsunade growled.

"Sasuke-kun was in close proximity to Sai and Naruto, who he'd just disabled. Had I immediately rushed to one of them, he could have caused greater harm to the other, and I would have been placing myself in harms way in a vulnerable position, had I attempted to jump right into healing. From what I could see of the attack and their reactions to it, it knocked them out or disabled them, but wasn't fatal. The best course of action was to try and draw Sasuke-kun's attention away from them." Sakura answered immediately.

"And to get close to Sasuke-kun for the first time in a while—we saw those abs and that chest, how could we not want a closer look?! Shannaro!"

"Shut up, this is so not the time!"

"Yamato was there. He could have handled it."

"He didn't move fast enough, and I didn't want to risk creating another patient."

"A moot point, if you yourself, as a medic, take any damage. Or did I not make that clear to you in your training. The one person, you are never to risk, is yourself."

"I wasn't going to take any damage, thanks to your training." Sakura stated boldly. Normally, Tsunade would have loved hearing her confidence—lord knew that girl needed more of it. But not when it was to justify recklessness.

"Cockiness is just as deadly as—"

"He would never hurt me." Her voice had grown softer, but it still held firm, despite the small wriggling doubt in the back of her mind.

"Are you sure about that?" Tsunade's tone had grown gentler too, in response to the sadness that was clearly overtaking her apprentice.

"I was the only one who made it out of that encounter with out taking a single bit of damage. And we were as close as Naruto and Sai were. He's faster than me, even with a complex movement pattern, he could have landed a hit. His sharingan was activated—Sensei can only barely keep up with my dancer's style because he has a sharingan, but Sasuke-kun has both and is a pureblood Uchiha. He wasn't struggling to track the movement or keep up. He could have easily attacked me. But he didn't. He was only ever on the defensive. Even when he made the switch—prepared to go on the offensive—he did it slowly. Gave me time to see, to dodge…and the amount of power in the attack was so low, it wouldn't have done anything more than temporarily stun me. He didn't want to hurt me. He was avoiding it at all costs."

Tsuande studied her for a long moment before her eyes softened. There was truth to what she said. Yamato had even written the same observation in his arguably overly thorough mission report. "Fine." She sighed. "And Kabuto?"

Sakura had hoped she'd managed to side step that line of questioning because she knew she didn't have a satisfactory answer.

"I hate him. And he was going to stop me from getting to Naruto."

She saw Tsunade's lips twitch up in amusement, but the woman reigned herself in before it could spread. "Am I supposed to be satisfied with that answer?"

"…No…I was trying to fulfill mission parameters. Capture the Akatsuki spy. At the time, that seemed like the quickest way to disable him while preventing further combat. And he was in my way. I needed to get to Naruto—"

"Naruto was in a Kyubi induced rampage at the time, correct?"

"…yes…" Sakura nearly whispered. She still hated the image of her teammate in so much rage and pain, not even himself anymore.

"And what were you planning to do when you reached him?" Tsunade questioned, stern, though her gaze was caring. Worried.

"I…don't know. I didn't have a plan. But he needed help. And…"

"That was your first time seeing him like that." It wasn't a question, and completely lacking any of the hostility she held previously.

"It was. He…M'Lady, Captain Yamato said there wasn't anything I could do to help him when he gets like that…is that true? Is there really no medical ninjutsu or sealing jutsu I could learn?"

"I don't want to keep feeling this useless! When he's like that, I need to be able to help him somehow! He's there to give me my sedative if I need it, he should be able to turn to me to help him with this!"

Tsunade considered her for a long moment before finally answering. "There's no medical jutsu. There is a sealing jutsu, the one that was used to initially seal the nine-tails into Naruto when he was a baby. But at this point, it might do more harm than good. I know you want to help him, but you don't have to do everything Sakura. Focus on what you can do."

"What I can do isn't enough!"

She pursed her lips tightly, only showing signs of her frustration by raking her hand through her soft pink hair.

Tsunade studied her for a long moment. "I'm giving you a pass, for three reasons: One, it was your first time seeing Naruto like that, and I know how you are about your friends. Two, I know you can handle yourself in combat. Three, favoritism—you're lucky I like you. But I mean it Sakura. This is your last chance. You are not to engage in combat unless you are the last one of your squad standing. I'm serious. You are a medical ninja, and until you complete your seal, you are not to even consider standing on the front lines. I know you have some strange hang up about thinking yourself useless, but it's the opposite. You are too useful. And you're also vulnerable. You're more capable in combat than most medical ninja, but your chakra is limited due to your seal, and you have to monitor your chakra reactions. You're needed by your assigned squad, the hospital, me, Kakashi, your friends, Naruto, and Sasuke. If you continue to place yourself in danger, I will restrict you to hospital duty."

"I…understand…"

"I get it…I understand, but it's so frustrating! I want to be able to help! Staying in the background, watching…it feels no different then the way I was before…"

"What do you think about Sai?" Tsunade asked, seeming to sense that Sakura couldn't continue the lecture any longer.

"Sai…should meet Ino-pig."

Tsunade's brow quirked at the unexpected answer. "That…seems like a recipe for an unmitigated disaster. Or is that why you're suggesting it?"

"I'm sure Captain Yamato probably detailed what happened with Sai in his report."

"At length."

"Sai…I believe he really does want to understand more about feelings and bonds. He's not as lost as Danzo might believe, because Sai always had his love for art as an expressive outlet. Even if he didn't think of it as love, it was a need. He draws the emotions he doesn't understand or allow himself to feel. And not having been properly socialized, and steered away from emotional understanding…all of those habits have become ingrained mentally. Ino-chan's the one with the more extensive knowledge of the human brain. So she might be able to figure out some kind of proper treatment plan or mental retraining exercises for him. I also think there might be some way to derive or understand what he's feeling from his paintings, and that his art might be a good angle to take for re-teaching him emotions."

"You'll have to do a good amount of research, because I don't know anything about that. But it's a good theory and worth trying. Ino, though…don't you think she's a bit too…impatient, to deal with Sai?"

"It might be good for both of them…" Sakura answered, a little awkwardly.

"Or it could be an unmitigated disaster, as shishou said."

"Well, I'll leave it in your hands. Since this is more about mental health, only report to me in broad strokes. Too much detail would invade his privacy. Check in on Kakashi. He should still be in for another week of bed rest, but I wouldn't be shocked if he's tried to sneak out by now."

"Yes, M'Lady."

"Dismissed." Sakura turned for the door but Tsunade's voice stopped her as she set her hand on the handle. "Are you ok? Seeing Sasuke…"

"It was confusing." Sakura admitted. "I feel like…my instincts are telling me he's not gone. Not fully, at least not yet. He wants to come back. That's what my gut's saying but…"

"Seeing him with Orochimaru hurt, didn't it?"

Sakura nodded. It hurt more than she wanted to admit, making her feel stingingly raw.

"I don't have the same faith in him that you and Naruto do. I'm a bit too jaded for that. But I do believe in you two. I haven't added him to the bingo books because you two believe in him. So long as you trust him, I trust him too, because I trust you, Sakura."

"Thank you, Shishou." Sakura murmured, the stinging mildly soothed.

"Stay here tonight. You shouldn't be alone in that apartment so soon."

"Ok…thank you." She opened the door, and headed out.

---

Sakura's first stop was the library. She quickly stopped by the medical section, easily navigating it to find a book called, "Effects of Medicinals on the Body," before heading to a section she'd never visited before: Fine Arts. She wandered through the isles of art books, trying to find anything that might help her with Sai. After several minutes her eyes caught on a book called, "Behind the Brushwork," which a skim through revealed went in depth into the emotions certain styles of brush stroke were indicative of. She also grabbed another book called "Symbols and the Subconscious," which she didn't even bother skimming. Feeling like this was at least a good start, she headed out, but stopped when she saw Sai sitting at one of the library tables.

"In order to be more quickly understood by others, one must first draw them in and warm them to you…" She heard him mutter.

Sakura joined him across the table, eyeing the title of his book—How to build Better Interpersonal Relationships.

"Studying up?" She greeted, catching his surprise at her presence by his slightly widened eyes.

"Sakura…" He greeted, looking up at her.

"As much of an advocate as I am for reading, in this case, I think the best way to learn would be by surrounding yourself with people." Sakura observed. He'd never really get it if he holed up by himself in a library, no matter how much he read.

"I don't doubt you, but reading up on social etiquette couldn't hurt, regardless." Sai's gaze caught on the books in her arms. Both of them were books about art and its connection to the mind. He knew she was getting them for him. It was a strange concept, someone doing something for him. Up until now he believed he wasn't anyone. After his brother died, no one cared enough about him to try and do anything for him. Sakura wasn't just talk either, she'd said she'd help him, and wasted no time in finding the resources she needed to do so.

"Not wrong considering he has none to begin with…he only really knows me and Naruto, so throwing himself into social situations would be a challenge."

"I'm going to go check up on Kakashi-sensei at the hospital, and I was planning on dragging Naruto along with me. Wanna come?"

Sai blinked. He'd never met Kakashi before, but he knew that the man had was and still occasionally served on ANBU, and that he'd trained Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura when they were genin. He was strangely hesitant to meet Kakashi. What if Kakashi didn't like him, and refused to have him as part of the team. "Kakashi-sensei…" He echoed, trying to figure out if what the name for his hesitancy was.

Sakura's head tilted to the side, her pink hair swaying as she regarded him. After a moment, a smile broke on her face, her eyes warming. "You are part of team Kakashi, so you ought to meet him at some point."

Sai shifted in his seat. "Maybe I can meet him when I'm a bit…better."

"You already are better Sai. You threw away your mission and turned your back on your training for the sake of bonding with your teammates. That's something he'll respect."

"Well…if you're sure."

---

Naruto was sitting on the steps a short distance from the hospital. He couldn't bring himself to go in alone and admit to his sensei how badly he'd failed. Not only had he failed to bring Sasuke back, he also lost control of the nine-tails and hurt Sakura. He couldn't get Sasuke's words to stop echoing around his head either.

So long as I get my revenge, nothing else matters.

But if I can obtain the power to defeat Itachi by giving myself to Orochimaru, I would gladly give him my life many times over.

Sakura said she didn't think Sasuke was being truthful—that he didn't want to give himself over to Orochimaru. And he'd never known Sakura to be wrong, especially not about Sasuke. She was more right about him than he had been, back then. But believing was hard, when those words had come right from Sasuke's mouth, and he hadn't so much as flinched at them.

"Naruto!" He looked up at Sakura's cheerful call. Her smile was warm and her eyes lively, just as pretty as ever. He didn't understand how she could look like that after all that happened. His eyes slid past her to Sai, who he hadn't expected to see. A part of him was annoyed. Sakura had a way with making him feel better, while Sai tended to push all the wrong buttons. And he'd been expecting it to just be him and Sakura.

"Hey! What's he doing here?"

"I ran into him at the library."

"But I thought it was just gonna be the two of us, Sakura-chan! Y'know, like a date!"

"I don't have time for dates, but if you do, you should go with Hinata-chan, dummy!" Sakura snapped.

"If you have time to go to the library, you have time for a date, Sakura-chan!" Naruto countered, before muttering under his breath. "What's Hinata got to do with this anyway?"

"It's studying Naruto, which believe it or not is a form of training you should try sometime."

"All you do is study! You're smart enough, Sakura-chan!"

"Maybe I'm doing it to compensate for your idiocy." She teased lightly.

"Sakura-chaaaannn!" Naruto whined.

Sai watched the interaction with interest. The book he'd been reading mentioned people being open and inviting towards each other by using nicknames and playful teasing.

"Naruto…Sakura…mind if I join?" Sai asked awkwardly, his pale cheeks tinting pink.

"Join? Join what? I already invited him to come meet Kakashi-sensei with us…or does he mean…join in the conversation?"

"Oh!…I mean…I read in a book how to make others feel at ease with you. It said to be casual with their names or call them by a nickname or pet name. And that will breed familiarity and quickly lead to friendship."

Naruto stared at Sai in shock for a second before he burst into a big grin. "Heh heh, Sai, I didn't know you cared."

"If it's someone brand new, it'd probably be good to ask, but you know us already Sai, so you don't have to ask! Just jump in!" Sakura encouraged, taking her promise to explain emotions and relationships to him very seriously.

"Thanks for the tip, Ugly." Sai smiled.

Unfortunately for Sai, Sakura had too much anger bottled up to let that slide. Between being unable to get Sasuke away from Orochimaru, the snake trying to push her into an attack, Kabuto's constant insinuations that she was useless and unloved, Tsunade's threats to take her off of mission duty, and all the other rage that she harbored towards life by default, her fuse was shorter than usual and Sai's innocuous insult pushed her over the edge.

"UGLY?! WHO ARE YOU CALLING UGLY!" Sakura shouted, trying to get close to Sai to inflict some manner of bodily harm, though Naruto held her back. Unfortunately getting, smacked hard in the face in the process.

"Now that was a really cheap shot, Sai!" Naruto yelled, struggling against the torrent that was Sakura.

Sakura broke free enough to punch Sai in the face, not as hard as she had when he'd insulted Sasuke, but Sakura trained with Tsunade too long for her punches to ever be considered light. Having exercised some of her excess anger with that punch, she took a deep breath.

"Social etiquette lesson number one: perceived physical adjectives don't make for good nicknames, if you're trying to endear yourself to others. You have to have a solid rapport with the person preemptively established, to be able to say things like that. Otherwise, your words could really hurt them."

"Huh? What do you mean? Do we not have that rapport established?" Sai asked, holding his cheek though he seemed overall unperturbed by the punch.

"I mean, I guess that's fair. He did lead with Hag when we first met…which wasn't a good way to meet but I can't say I'm not used to it at this point…"

"Alight, then let's set a boundary. I'm okay with you calling me Hag. I'm not okay with Ugly. If you want to nickname me based on your default impression, go with Hag."

"Is there a difference?" Sai asked.

"Yes. Hag might be your first impression, but I know it's not true. Ugly, though…"

"You're not ugly, Sakura-chan!" Naruto protested. "You might have that monster strength but—"

"Stop equating me to a monster, damnit!" Sakura snapped, punching Naruto in the arm and earning a loud "ow!"

Sai seemed to consider what she was saying, before nodding. "Very well. Hag it is."

"Gee, thanks."

"You're letting him get away with too much Sakura-chan." Naruto grumbled.

"Well what would you suggest, Dickless?"

There was a beat where they both stared at Sai, and then Naruto started shouting and Sakura was the one holding him back. Getting Sai up to functional social speed was going to be a long and arduous process.

---

When they finally made it to Kakashi's room in the hospital, he was sitting up reading his tell-tale porn. It had taken them awhile to get there, as almost as soon as Sakura had walked through the hospital doors, nurses and other medics kept coming to her with clipboards and folders, asking for her opinion on a diagnosis, prescription, dosage, treatment plan, surgical procedure, and all manner of medical jargon.

It was a bit eye-opening, for Naruto. He knew Sakura was incredibly skilled, but he hadn't realized just how much the hospital had come to rely on her. She had only been gone for a few days and the hospital staff were treating it like they'd been drowning and she was their lifeline. Sakura always had so much pressure on her growing up, between her mother and her finances, he'd hoped that pressure would have lessened a little after her mother's death, but if anything, it only seemed to have grown. You'd never know just how much weighed on her by looking either, with her calm, grounded energy. Adding in all the emotional turmoil from Sasuke, her team leaving her, her mother's death, the loneliness…it was no wonder Sakura was so quick to anger. He never had minded much when she'd hit him, as usually he deserved it for saying or doing something stupid, and she never actually did lasting damage. It was nice to know someone cared and had high enough expectations from him to be mad when he said or did something stupid. Her quick temper had never really bothered him, though he had thought on more than one occasion that it had become much quicker since training with Tsunade. Now he was beginning to reevaluate that thought. With how much people relied on her in the hospital and on the field, and with how much patience she needed to exercise as a medic, Sakura probably dealt with more than her fair share of situations ranging from annoying to infuriating. And she probably had to bottle up most of her gut reactions for the sake of professionalism. Knowing everything he knew about Sakura, he, Sai, Kakashi, Tsunade, and Ino were probably the only ones in the village Sakura felt comfortable expressing her anger too, and he and Sai were probably the ones who actually tested what little patience she had left with their continued stupidity. No, her quick temper had never truly bothered him, but when faced with the potential context for it, he found he almost respected it.

As soon as they made it into Kakashi's room, Sakura was checking on him, scanning him with her chakra to gauge his progress. She couldn't help it, even with his bland protests that he was fine. It was second nature to her, and she'd unintentionally already slipped into medic-mode the second she walked through the hospital doors.

Kakashi tried to wave her away with assurances that he was fine, but quickly realized that was a loosing battle. Worrying about peoples health had been ingrained in her from a young age, and now that she had the actual ability to check up on people's conditions, there was no stopping her. Instead he turned his focus to the two boys standing at the foot of his bed. "I see…so you're the new team member. Sai, is it? Nice to meet you." Kakashi drawled, studying the way Sai held a hand to a red cheek, while Naruto rubbed at a bruised arm.

"Yes, sir." Sai answered evenly, despite the swelling on one side of his face.

"Hey, Sakura," Kakashi questioned quietly, as she adjusted an IV bag.

"Hm?" She leaned in, as Kakashi covered his mouth and her ear with his book—an unnecessary gesture, in her opinion, given that he was still wearing a mask, rendering lip reading impossible to begin with.

"Those bruises on the boys…did they get into a fight? Knowing Naruto's temper, I can guess what happened, but…"

"Uh," Sakura began awkwardly, "That's actually my fault…we're getting along fine! We can work as a team, there's just been a few…hiccups. We're still getting used to each other." Sakura explained hurriedly. The last thing she wanted was for Kakashi to kick Sai off the team—he'd have no where else to go but back to Root, and that might make him back slide. She wasn't fully clear on Sai's treatment plan yet, but she knew keeping him away from Danzo was of the utmost importance.

"…If you say so…" Kakashi sighed. He knew Sai was Root, and he wasn't sure how well that boded for the team. He'd been briefed by Yamato on the course the mission had taken earlier, and he was sure Sakura would be the first to keep someone she perceived as deleterious away from Team 7 at all costs, so her insistence that the three were fine together counted for something. Still, he couldn't help but be a little wary.

Sai watched the interaction, feeling a strange dropping sensation in his stomach. Hatake Kakashi was even known among members of The Foundation, and he could only assume the man had looked into him as well. He was the leader of Team Kakashi. If Kakashi himself didn't approve of Sai…he could get kicked off the team. The bonds he wanted to form, the emotions he wanted to relearn and understand…they might all be ripped away if this man so chose. He felt Sakura's gaze on him and met her eyes, shocked to see what he could only presume was a concerned expression. But even if he wasn't fully sure about that, he could see the care in her eyes, and it almost gave him whiplash. Just earlier, she'd slugged him in the face (granted she'd explained why, and he could understand now that his words had hurt her), and now she was looking at him like she'd put her career on the line to keep him as part of the team. While it still confused him to no end, and he couldn't understand her bonds the way he did Naruto's, Sasuke's, or his own, he knew it was something he valued and appreciated. He didn't know if something in his face or body language changed, but Sakura seemed to sense that he was less tense than before, and in turn shifted her focus to Naruto, her eyes still concerned, though now they held more sadness.

"Naruto…"

"Yup…" He answered, seeming to understand her fully with just his name alone. "Kakashi-sensei, on our last mission, we…"

"Yamato told me everything," Kakashi cut in, not wanting to have to make either of his students say it out loud. His gaze remained down on his book, though he took in none of the words on the page. It was so unfair, the pain seeing Sasuke like that must have put them through. "He told me all about Sasuke too…"

"At this rate, he'll soon be…we're running out of time. I know you don't think he'll give himself to Orochimaru, Sakura-chan, but…I don't want to take that chance. And where I'm at now, I'm not strong enough to bring Sasuke back. He's become too strong…"

"I…I agree with you Naruto. Just because Sasuke won't give himself willingly, doesn't mean he might not be coerced or tricked into it somehow." Sakura agreed quietly, unable to look anywhere but at the blanket covering Kakashi's legs. Once upon a time, Sasuke had been comatose, covered by a blanket like that, and it had been her first real brush with loneliness. Who knew that feeling would have settled so persistently in her the day she watched him leave.

Kakashi eyed her for a second, making a mental note to question her belief in Sasuke's lack of willingness later, before settling his focus back on his book. "Well, in that case, you just need to get even stronger than that." Kakashi finally answered causally,

"As I see it, Sasuke-kun's rate of maturation isn't ordinary. Based on that atrocious snake bastard's propensity for experimentation, and Kabuto's scummy involvement, it's possible they're augmenting his training with drugs and forbidden jutsu." Her hand tightened around the medical book she'd picked up at the library, anger surging through her.

"How dare they turn knowledge of the human body and medicine into something so dark and twisted! How dare they test things on living humans!"

"How dare they experiment on Sasuke-kun! I'll kill those bastards, Shannaro!"

"I realize there are no books that can help us understand the mindset of those who perform live human experiments…" Sakura continued darkly.

"Which is why the only thing we can do is super-accelerate out own growth." Kakashi answered, still maintaining his calm facade, though he made yet another mental note to have an extensive check-in with Sakura later—he was worried about her emotional status more than he was Naruto's, and once again, he wasn't going to be the right teacher for her on a physical level, but he sure as hell wasn't about to abandon her. He might never be the right teacher when it came to training her, but he wouldn't fail the promise he made to her mother to look out for her.

"But how?" Sakura asked, frustration and dejection seeping into her tone.

"You think I've just been sleeping and doing nothing this whole time? I've been brainstorming, and that's how the idea came to me. Unfortunately, this method is more suited to Naruto, or rather, it will only work with Naruto. And if it does pan out, Naruto, you might even surpass me."

Naruto stood dumbfounded. Stronger than Kakashi? Him? How was that possible? "Surpass you, Kakashi-sensei?"

"That's right. I'll be working with you one-on-one. It'll be training like you've never done before."

"How…?"

"We'll create an ultimate ninjutsu only for you. This knew jutsu will be even more powerful than the rasengan. But in order to attain the power you'll need for it, you'll have to train with an intensity unlike any you've known before. It's not like some character in a novel. You can't get stronger in just a few days. And it won't be like a learning a pre-existing jutsu like the rasengan that we can break down into simpler stages."

"Massive amount of time? But I just told you we're almost out of time! Sasuke's almost—"

"That's why I figured out a way to do it in a short period."

"H-How….?"

"More suited to Naruto…only work with Naruto…Intense one-on-one training…I'm gonna be left behind again, aren't I?"

"I…don't suppose you have any chakra weights this time around, do you?" She asked softly.

Kakashi felt his shoulders sink. He really was the worst sensei. He'd tried to think of something for her while he would train Naruto, but nothing he could help with or direct came to mind. He had a few ideas, but none of them would be the power up he was offering Naruto. None of them would be the creation of an entirely new jutsu.

"I'm sorry, Sakura. Honestly, if I was responsible for your training, you'd still be wearing chakra weights. But if I was responsible for your training, you wouldn't have come as far as you have. My skillset is different than yours and my training you would have been a mismatch. I can continue to train your dancer's style taijutsu with you, but you've already created the usable style, and pushed it as far as I could think of going. The most I could do for you is give you practice, which wouldn't offer the power up you need. You are a genjutsu type, so I would recommend training with Kurenai to cast them, though I know you're understandably hesitant, given your experience with them, and genjutsu won't do much good against Sasuke—or Itachi."

"I knew it…I am gonna be left behind again. Until the seal is finished, I'm next to useless or helping to bring Sasuke-kun back…There's nothing I can do for Naruto, there's nothing I can do for Sasuke-kun…am I even worth being on this team? How can I contribute when I don't have the power to help either of them?"

"Don't look so down. It's still worth learning genjutsu, for other opponents. And Hokage-sama might have a direction to steer you as well, so talk to her. As far as your training and growth is concerned, she's far more equipped to handle it than me. More than any of that, Sakura. You're brilliantly inventive and skilled at self teaching. You've changed and adapted much of the medical ninjutsu Tsunade-sama has taught you to fit yourself better. You developed a method to train control of your reactions on your own, and it worked. You created a fighting style previously unheard of, that only you can execute, that can give the ocular prowess of the sharingan a tough time predicting. Sakura, if there is anyone who can create a powerful jutsu for themself, on their own, it's you. I'm sure you already have ideas that you don't even realize you have, and I will listen, guide, and help with all of them, whenever they come to you."

Sakura faltered, her cheeks glowing pink at the praise. It sucked that he didn't have training in mind for her, but when he put it the way he did, it didn't feel like she was on her own. He wasn't the right teacher for her, but he wasn't abandoning her either, and did want to help however he could. It was just that she needed to tell him how to help her, rather than him knowing how. That was fair. Their styles were different. And he made fair points about Kurenai and Tsunade. She didn't think Tsunade had more training for her, now that her seal was underway. And she was hesitant to learn how to cast genjutsu, after all the nightmares she put herself through with it. But it didn't mean it was a bad idea. Sakura's fists tightened at her sides.

"I'll at the very least talk to Shishou. Even if she doesn't have anymore techniques to teach me, she might offer some insight. Shikamaru too. I've been too impulsive lately, I could go for a strategy brush up. In that vein, he'd probably recommend pursing Kurenai-sensei as well. Whether I want to use genjutsu or not, it's putting another piece on the board…it wouldn't mean anything against Sasuke-kun or Itachi, but the Akatsuki are threats too, and genjutsu could be a viable option against some of them. Just because there's no big training for one big ultra powerful move for myself, doesn't mean I shouldn't strive to get better bit by bit, doing the things I can do."

Her insecurity was replaced by determination, allowing her to look at her team again, green fire dancing in her eyes the same way it had when she declared she'd continue being a ninja, after Kakashi first explained her cursed kekkei genkai during the chunin exams.

"Train control over your own reactions? But, you don't seem to have much emotional control, Hag?" Sai questioned, confused. Orochimaru had made a comment about her not wanting to get too emotional as well.

"Hag?" Kakashi's brow raised, looking between Sakura and Sai, half expecting her to deck him in the face…again—and he wouldn't blame her in the slightest. It was undeniable that Sakura was beautiful. Her kindness, intelligence, strength, and grace only heightened the external beauty she had in spades. The amount of looks she got from boys when they went out for team bonding dinners over the past two and some years was evidence enough. During that time, he'd intimidated more than a few of those boys into walking away when they planned on trying to ask her out, because it was evident to him that in those moments her recently broken heart was too raw to deal with the confusion and mess of other boys romantic interests. Although admittedly, it may have had less to do with her broken heart and more to do with how protective of her he felt. Sakura had become something of…not quite a daughter, and not quite a legal ward, but someone pseudo-familial. Little sister was probably the closest label, though it didn't perfectly fit either. All the same, he was protective of her. And there were about five boys he probably would have tolerated courting Sakura: Sasuke, Naruto, Shikamaru, Kiba, or Lee. Anyone else would have to earn his approval. None the less, the last word he ever expected a boy to use while describing Sakura, was 'Hag' or 'Ugly.'

"It's…a long story." Sakura explained, though Kakashi wasn't sure whether it was to him or to Sai. She turned to look at the dark haired boy, her eyes hesitant. "You're a member of team Kakashi now…so I guess you need to know, but…"

"Can I trust him? He could report this to Danzo. If Danzo knows about my curse, and that Shishou still sends me out on active duty, he could somehow use it against her…see it as an unfit choice…try and have me locked up somewhere…"

"We can trust him Sakura-chan!" Naruto cut in, smiling bracingly. He through his arm around Sai's shoulder, drawing him close in a brotherly way. "You wanna learn about bonds, right? Well a part of that's about trust, and we're about to trust you with somethin' so don't go blabbing about it to that organization of yours or I will personally rasengan your ass six feet into the ground! Believe it!" Naruto said, though his threat was downplayed by his bright smile. Sakura was volunteering to share something, to lighten the burden she carried just a little. It was something three of the four of them already knew, but still. It was so in her nature to keep everything to herself, and he understood her hesitance, but he wanted her to know they were there for her. She could talk to them. And if Sai wanted in on their bonds, then he best be ready to support Sakura too!

Sakura knew he was probably dying to further question Kakashi about his training, so shelving that to encourage her meant the world, and she couldn't help the smile from making its way to her face either.

"Thank's Naruto!"

"He is part if the team, so he has a right to know, I suppose…" Kakashi still wasn't sure if they could fully trust Sai, but this was Sakura's choice. If her judgement was to trust him with a secret that was her own, he'd simply have to back her.

"So, the thing is…the training you went through, to block all emotion…it may have actually been good for me. That sounds horrible to say, after all that preaching I did on the value of emotions. Suppressing them like that isn't good for anyones mental health or relationships. I stand by that. But for me, when I get pushed to an emotional extreme, my chakra grows so much, so rapidly, that it becomes nearly impossible for my body to contain or control. All of my clan has died because of it, usually at a very young age. Considering my line of work, it'll be a miracle if I make it past next year. It's incredibly painful when the reaction happens, and it floods the surrounding area with my chakra. On a mission, it could give away the team's location…that's how my dad's team died."

"You've had these reactions before?"

"Several times." She'd only had them organically five times, but through training with genjutsu—she'd have to consult her journal for the exact number.

"How have you survived?"

"I experimented and trained. I have ways to manage the reactions now. Getting knocked out either with a sedative or by force stops the reactions. Or, if I'm able to expend a large amount of chakra, I can keep the reactions from killing me. After having them, I usually end up passing out—or should I say I need to pass out, to allow my body to recover. The longer I push to stay conscious after one, the longer I'll be passed out for later. I can control the reactions, enough to survive them at this point…Even so they're incredibly painful, and if I slip up and lose focus during one…that's the end."

"You didn't have a reaction once during the last mission." Between Orochimaru, Naruto's kyubi rampage, and seeing Sasuke, one of those should have pushed her to an emotional extreme.

"I was close to having one several times, but my emotional control is far better than you think. Like I said, I've been training it."

"The grip Sakura has on her emotions is almost frightening." Kakashi agreed lightly, turning the page of his book. "Because of that, and the fact that she does have ways to control it, both on her own, and through relying on her team, is why I trust her on missions, despite her condition. Tsunade-sama feels the same, if not even more strongly. That was going to be your next question, was it not?"

"It was." Sai acknowledged. "So that's what you meant about my training benefitting you."

"Yes. Hypothetically, removing emotions would stop the cause of the reactions. But honestly, I'd rather have my emotions and a shorter life span, than no emotions and feeling dead for as long as I live."

He could understand that, when he thought back on his life only a week before. Time blurred together. There was no night or day. Nothing that set the days apart or marked something meaningful. There was simply existence. He felt nothing. If it weren't for the art he created, he wouldn't even know he was alive. With his brother gone, he had no one to share anything with. No one he cared about. All there had been was a cold, dry, loyalty to a cause he'd latched tightly onto without even fully caring. The cause of protecting Konoha provided him with meaning, with a reason to keep going. But he hadn't actually cared about Konoha or anyone in it. It was more like being undead than actually being alive. Until Naruto and Sakura had quite literally punched attachments into his heart, and suddenly time was divided into days and nights, his art felt important, not just as proof of life but as works that meant…something, even if he wasn't sure what. He had people he wanted to show it to, share it with. He still felt loyalty to the cause of protecting Konoha, not because it was the only thing driving him forward, but because this village was their home, and they shared that cause as well. The village was full of people. People he wanted to meet and forge bonds with, starting with Naruto and Sakura. And to be able to meet and forge bonds with those people, of course the village had to be protected. Emotions weren't the antithesis of the cause, they were the reason for it. Based on almost every lecture she'd given him, he assumed Sakura felt the same.

"Relying on your teammates…am I included in that?"

"It depends if you want to be, Sai." She answered, her tone carefully measured. "I'm telling you because you are my teammate, which means I'm already placing my trust in you. What you do with that trust is up to you, now."

"I don't want you dying, hag." Sai's tone was blank as ever, but there was a conviction and weight to his words that was undeniable.

"Well that's a far different tune than letting me fall concussed, head first off a bridge." Sakura said brightly, her tone confusing Sai, given the sentence she spoke. But Sakura was smiling warmly—not the fake one, the real one, that held warmth, care, trust, and a little sadness. "Here." She withdrew a small vial of purple liquid from her pouch. "I made this sedative myself. Put's me right to sleep. Naruto, Kakashi-sensei, and Sasuke-ku—" Sakura's lips pursed together for a moment, catching herself. Naruto and Kakashi were both looking at her with wary sadness. "All the rest of my teammates have one." Sakura continued after a second, her tone remaining bright. If he hadn't watched the moment, he wouldn't have been able to tell her brightness was now forced. She really was skilled at hiding what she was feeling—not just with smiles, but her voice as well. "I've gotten pretty good at managing reactions myself, either by sharing or releasing chakra, or self administering the sedative. But if for whatever reason I can't, force me to drink that. The sooner into the start of the reaction, the better."

Sai nodded, examining the purple vial, before slipping it carefully into his own weapons pouch. "You can trust me…I won't tell anyone." Sai looked her dead in the eye. "You can put a seal on me to ensure it if you'd like."

"Why the hell would I do that?" Sakura asked, sounding a little horrified by the idea, before sticking out a hand, her pinky extended.

Sai stared at it blankly. Was this a jutsu he didn't know about?

When Sai failed to do anything, just staring at her outstretched pinky, Sakura sighed. "Alright, I guess you don't know what this is. Social convention lesson two: when someone extends a pinky like this, you're supposed to do the same, with your opposite hand, like this." She didn't even need to ask Naruto, for him to jump excited into the demonstration.

"It's called a pinky promise, y'know!" He said, his pinky linking with Sakura's. "And it's iron clad! Believe it!"

"That…is iron clad?" Sai asked blankly. A seal preventing even accidental slips of the tongue seemed far more iron clad to him. He would know. He had one.

"It's a symbol of trust." Sakura explained. "The pinky is the weakest finger on the hand. By linking pinkies, it's saying that you trust the other person to uphold their promise with every fiber of their being, down to their weakest finger."

"Did you make the same pinky promise with Sakura?" Sai asked Naruto.

"Sakura-chan and I have a different promise." Naruto's smile was sad, but his eyes were determined. "I promised her I'd bring Sasuke back. It's the promise of a lifetime."

"Naruto…you—" Before she could tell him that she would never blame him if that promise wasn't fulfilled, Sai had stuck out his own pinky to her.

"I promise you Sakura, I will never tell anyone about your Kekkei genkai, even under orders, or torture." She could see how serious he was, and the fact that he included orders and torture in his promise told her that he wouldn't reveal this, even to Danzo. They hadn't even fully begun working on de-programming him, and he was already willing to keep something like this from his abuser…He'd come so far so quickly. That, or he'd never been as far gone as Danzo, or himself had thought. It was probably a little bit of both.

She smiled, linking her pinky with his. "You better, I'm trusting you."

"And as I'm sure you're aware, the pinky finger may be the weakest on the hand, but Sakura's could still probably break every bone in your body, so I'd be extra sure to uphold that promise." Kakashi added casually, having been watching the whole proceedings. Like Sakura, he also thought Sai's promise boded well for breaking him away from Root. He could also see why Naruto and Sakura's continued influence would be good for the boy. He didn't fully trust him yet, but this interaction hinted that his team would be just fine.

With Sai up to speed on all the complications that were Team seven, and the newly minted symbol of trust between him and Sakura, all thoughts turned back to the situation at hand. Naruto's training.

"So, Kakashi-sensei, how are we gonna create this new jutsu in such a short period?"

"Well…"

The door to the hospital room slid open with a loud clatter, revealing Team Asuma.

"How you feeling, Kakashi?" Asuma asked casually.

"Asuma-sensei, couldn't you knock first!" Ino admonished. While Choji greeted the room with an easy going, "Hiya." Shikamaru didn't say anything, just looking irritated at his team for being so loud. They all stepped into the room, but stopped short, upon seeing team seven gathered, apparently not having expected to see the rest of them.

"Hey, if it isn't Naruto and Sakura. You're back already…" He trailed off noting, the profound lack of Sasuke, but before he could try and get a read on how Naruto and Sakura were fairing, his gaze fell on the other boy in the room, recognizing him as the one who attacked him, Naruto and Choji. "You're that kid from before…" He growled.

"Oh!" Choji gasped, affirming Shikamaru's recognition.

Ino looked between the three, confused, and glancing as Sakura for help, only to see she looked equally confused.

"Hi." Sai greeted, wearing his unnerving fake smile…he still wasn't used to the real thing enough to make his fake one anymore believable.

Ino strolled up to Sakura, leaning close to her. "He's pretty cool and cute! He kinda looks a little like…" She trailed off, glancing at Sakura in concern, but Sakura finished her sentence for her.

"A little like Sasuke-kun, right?" Sakura couldn't keep the sadness from her tone, but before Ino could voice her worry, Sakura dove right ahead, whispering to Ino, covering her mouth with her hand. "I actually wanted to introduce you two and get your help with something. Sai can't read emotions—especially not his own. He doesn't understand what he's feeling, and he filters everything so much so, that most of the time, he's not feeling anything—or at least he doesn't feel like he's feeling anything."

Ino's brows furrowed, her voice dropping to match Sakura's volume. "That's extreme…how'd that happen? I've heard of some repression as a trauma response, but never that far—never to the extent that they have no clue how to interpret what they're feeling."

"It's a long story. This is why I wanted you to meet him. You understand the brain better than I do, and I think you could help with reintroducing and explaining emotions to him."

"I mean, yeah, sure, if you think I can help. Although, you're the one who's more empathetic…"

"Well it's not like I'm just gonna dump him on you! Of course I'll help. There's some angles I want to pursue anyway—I'll explain a bit more later."

"Got it." Ino turned to face Sakura fully, her hands on her shoulders to hold her still as she studied her face. "Shikamaru told me about your mission…and given…well I'm sure everyone would be talking about it if…are you ok?"

"I…don't know…"

"No. I'm not…but I don't think I have been for a long time…maybe even since before mom died…"

Ino studied Sakura's expression for a bit longer. "Do me a favor, take tomorrow off. Let's get tea or go shopping with the girls or something…just don't start overdoing it like you always do."

Sakura gave a small smile. "I don't know about taking off work because I missed a lot while I was gone, but going out with the girls tomorrow sounds lovely."

"Well that's better than nothing, I guess." Ino sighed.

The boys had been catching each other up while the girls had their powwow. Sai had explained what happed when he attacked Naruto, Choji, and Shikamaru, which Choji seemed to accept as reasonable far too easily. Shikamaru whispered to Naruto about how he heard what happened on the mission, and the next time something came up, he'd help out, especially now that the chunin exams were over.

"Why don't you all go on ahead to Yakiniku Q, Team Kakashi should join us." Asuma suggested.

Choji's answer was immediate. "Woohoo! Barbecue!"

"Nice!" Ino agreed happily. She could sit next to Sai and start trying to sus him out on her own.

"I'm buying. But in the mean-time, Kakashi and I have some business to discuss." Asuma said, in what was clearly a dismissal to Sakura.

"Hey, wait a sec! Kakashi-sensei, what about the training you were telling me about?!" Naruto demanded.

"Right. Mmmm…Well! We'll get back to that later."

"What?! Aw, man! Just when I was getting all excited!" Naruto complained loudly.

"That was really cruel, dangling it like that in front of him Sensei." Sakura muttered dryly.

"He should learn patience at some point, so why not start now." Her sensei drawled, equally dry, while turning a page of his book lazily. "I do want to talk more, but I'm sure I'll see you tomorrow on your shift."

"There you go with the dangling again."

"Where are you staying tonight?"

"Tsunade-sama's."

"Good. Dinner's on Asuma, so eat a lot."

"I will."

"Good."

Sakura nodded, before following Team Asuma to the door, grabbing a grumbling Naruto and confused Sai on the way.

---

As they made their way to Yakiniku Q, the group segmented somewhat. Naruto and Choji were debating the merits of Barbecue vs. Ramen, while Sai observed them in confusion, and Ino observed him, carefully reading his expression and body language. That left Sakura and Shikamaru trailing behind the other four.

"Are you alright?"

"This feels like a recurring question today." Sakura sighed.

"Can you blame us?"

"I guess not."

"I'll take that as a no then."

"Would you be, if the person you loved walked away from you again, to go with the person you hate the most?"

"Wouldn't know. I've never loved someone the way you love Sasuke."

"You sure about that? You sure spend a lot of time with Temari." Sakura teased lightly.

Shikamaru groaned. "Don't get me started on that Troublesome woman."

Sakura laughed, but it didn't escape Shikamaru's notice that there was something a little empty about the sound of it. She was deflecting, obviously, which meant she clearly wasn't ok.

"It's been a while since we played shogi." He said, deciding to go with a less direct approach. They always talked the most during shogi games.

"I was going to ask you about that…I want to brush up on my strategy skills."

"I have more time now that the chunin exams are over. Just come over whenever."

"Thanks."

"You're not a drag to be around."

"That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Oi! Lovebirds, hurry it up!" Naruto shouted. Shikamaru and Sakura both realizing that they'd fallen significantly behind the others.

"Should I kill him, or would you like the honors?" Sakura muttered dully.

"You do it. Killing him's too much of a drag."

"Saw that one coming." Sakura ran to catch up with her blonde teammate, punching his other arm. "Don't go shouting crap like that down the street! Someone might get the wrong idea."

Sai looked confused. "Lovebirds implies that there's a romantic connection between Hag and Shikamaru, but she doesn't look at him the way she looks at Sasuke."

Naruto visibly winced at Sai's poor choice of topic, though he supposed this was his own fault for using that brand of teasing.

"He was kidding. He didn't really mean it." Sakura dismissed quickly, not wanting to really touch on the rest of Sai's statement. It wasn't the first time Naruto or others had wondered about her and Shikamaru, and given people's proclivity for gossip, she doubted it'd be the last. But she was a bit too raw from just having seen Sasuke, to stomach teasing about boys at the moment. If Naruto's joke had been made a week or two later, she'd probably be fine with it.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Ino purse her lips tightly, and knew her best friend had some opinions on the topic of her and Shikamaru, but Ino had the social sense not to bring it up just yet, opting to change the subject instead.

"Come on, let's head in! I'm sure Forehead's starving!" She quickly latched onto Sakura, dragging her into the restaurant, as if worried she might try to escape, the boys trailing in after them. Sakura didn't even want to think about Sai's confusion at the nickname Ino employed.

The six of them settled themselves at a table, Ino placing herself next to Sai. Shikamaru sighed as he plopped down at the opposite end of the table from Sakura. "I can't stay long, I have to help my dad collect medicinal antlers."

"What?! But you always celebrate with us after mission completions." Ino protested.

"Troublesome. Why do you think I'm here? I came because it's Team Ten tradition, but I might not be able to actually eat with you guys."

"Bummer." Choji sighed. "We get it though. This is a clan responsibility. We have them too. Don't sweat it, man! I'll eat your portion if you can't stick around."

"Knew I could count on you, Choji." Shikamaru laughed dryly.

"I get it too, it's just a little sad, that's all." Ino grumbled, as a server brought over a tray of meat. Team 10 were apparently regulars, enough that they didn't need to place orders at this point.

It made Sakura miss Ikehara. It was the only shop she'd ever been a regular in, even if it wasn't as a customer, and it had been a bit since she'd last visited. She made a mental note to check in on him in the next few days.

Choji wasted no time in getting the meat on the grill, his mouth already watering.

"So it's a tradition for your team to come here after every mission?" Sai asked curiously, watching the meat placed on the grill.

"Mhm, that's right! It started when we were genin as a bribery technique Asuma-sensei used to motivate us to train or complete our missions. The incentive worked best for Choji, but it kept Shikamaru and I away from our clan responsibilities and chores longer, and even without Choji's appetite, you can still get pretty hungry during training and missions, so it worked well across the board. As we got stronger and our missions got harder, it was less of a bribe and more of a customary reward." Ino answered brightly.

Sai stared at the kunoichi next to him, the only one from this team he hadn't previously encountered. By the looks of it she was quite close with Sakura, even employing a nickname he didn't understand, and could only assume was a joke between the two of them. She was much brighter and more cheerful than Sakura, whose mind always seemed to be rapidly working through ten problems at once, while worrying about twenty others. Her hair was much longer than Sakura's, held up in a sleek pony tail, with a long bang in the front falling into her face. It was a much paler blonde than Naruto's, softer looking and less abrasive. He'd noted while they were walking over that when the sunlight hit it, some of the strands shined a pale gold, while others turned almost silver. Her eyes were also blue like Naruto's, but instead of sky hued, they were paler and softer. More like ice. They were kind, like he'd seen Sakura's look, and seemed to bore into him and really see him, in much the same way as Sakura's did. but unlike with Sakura, he didn't feel like he was being dissected and broken down into the smallest molecule. When this Kunoichi looked at him, it felt like she was looking to see, not to analyze and solve. She had good color sense, complementing the pale blonde of her hair with dark purple clothing, the style of which nicely complemented her body shape. Not like Sakura, whose shirt wasn't loose enough to be stylishly oversized, and wasn't form fitting enough to be flattering to her upper body. The blonde Kunoichi appeared to be a bit curvier than Sakura as well, although they very well could have been equally so, just Sakura didn't play to it, the way this girl did.

Choji flipped the meat on the grill, salivating at the smell, apparently ready to eat it even before it was fully finished cooking. None of which seemed to shock Ino, who calmly blocked Choji's chopsticks with her own.

"Choji, those aren't done yet! Besides, we should introduce ourselves to Sai before we start eating."

"Oh, right…"

"Thanks…" Sai said, fake smiling. His mind raced with what his text book said about social interaction. First impressions were everything so he had to come up with a nickname or pet name right away, to allow for more approachable interaction.

"Er, I'm Akimichi Choji, of the Akamichi clan. Nice to meet you, uh, Sai."

"Nice to meet you too…uh…" Sakura said visual traits could be a miss when it came to nicknames, but he couldn't use a personality trait when he'd only just met the person, and had no grasp on their personality so…

Sakura and Naruto's eyes widened, practically watching Sai's mind calculating in real time, and landing right on the forbidden word.

"Chub—"

Choji's defenses immediately started rising, but Naruto's arm shot across the table, his hand slamming across Sai's mouth before he could complete the Taboo. "Hey, Sai! Don't ever say 'chubby' to Choji! Get it?!" Naruto growled under his breath. Sai blinked in understanding, and Naruto withdrew.

"…Were you about to say something?" Choji asked sharply, his eyes narrowed on Sai.

Sakura let out a tense laugh, waving the comment off. "No, nope. Sai just…sneezed." It was a dreadful lie, but Choji decided not to push it, more out of the respect he held for Sakura, and the fact that the food on the grill was more important to him then starting a fight and potentially being kicked out of the restaurant.

Sai watched the interaction, mildly impressed with Sakura's ability to soothe tense situations, and partially just baffled. Nicknames were hard…he hoped Sakura had some more tips for him, after this. He made a mental note of his ever-growing list of questions for her on the topic of social interactions.

He shifted his attention to the other male member of team ten, who looked bored by the interaction. His eyes lazily met Sai's as he yawned. "This is a drag. Nara Shikamaru."

Sai locked onto a personality trait for him, immediately, which he thought made things easier. "Nice to meet you, Lazy."

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow skeptically, but then just shrugged and huffed a little. "Whatever."

"Wow, that's it?" Naruto muttered in annoyance at Shikamaru's lack of spirit, though he wasn't all that surprised.

Sakura smiled wryly. "Too much of a drag to take umbrage with it, huh? Plus it's not exactly wrong, it that it?"

"That's why you're the smart one." Shikamaru agreed with an equally wry smile.

Naruto never doubted Sakura's feelings for Sasuke and was fully aware that she had no interest in Shikamaru. But it was these moments between them, with their casual banter and seemingly easy understanding of each other, that he couldn't help but think the two of them would just…work if they did ever pair off. He knew it wouldn't happen. But he couldn't help the observation, nor the twinge of annoyed jealousy over it.

"You could at least show a little enthusiasm!" Ino admonished, before turning to Sai and smiling beautifully, her cheeks flushing a little. "I'm Yamanaka Ino, of the Yamanaka clan. My parents own Yamanaka Flowers. Nice to meet you!"

The only woman Sai could remember interacting with was Sakura, so she was his blueprint for interacting with females, though really she was his point person for interacting socially at all, as she was the one offering tips from the start, though Naruto had joined in as well, now. Her first social ettiquette lesson had been that perceived adjectives in regards to physical appearance didn't make for the best nicknames, as they could cause offense, but that had been in response to his perceived adjectives of her physical appearance—which were negative. He hadn't had a long enough interaction with Ino to lock onto a personality trait, or establish a rapport, which only left him with appearance to work with, just as it was with Choji. But his perception of her appearance wasn't negative, so that had to change matters, right? He could always default to just using her name, but he wanted to seem approachable and not put up too many walls or boundaries—and for some reason, he felt that need even more strongly with her, so he had to give her a nickname.

"Nice to meet you too, uh…Beautiful."

Ino's blush grew, her ice-blue eyes widening, a tiny gasp escaping her.

Naurto shuddered, watching Sakura's reaction carefully, knowing she had some sort of rivalry with Ino and scared it would turn violent.

"So she get's Beautiful and I get Hag?! What the hell?! I know Pig's bloody gorgeous but I'm not some damn swamp monster! Am I? No! No I know I'm not, but Ino-pig's so pretty and her chest is well developed and her styles on point, and her hair's so shiny and—UGH! Shut up! Ino-pig's hot! I get it! And I'm not ugly! I'm…just not Sai's…type. But Pig is. Actually, this might be a really good thing. This might mean he wouldn't be opposed to hanging out with her and letting her help him…at least, so long as she can tolerate him. But she thinks he's cool and hot, and now he's complimented her, so he's earning points in his favor…"

Taking a very deep breath, her eyes closing to quiet her annoyance born of insecurity, she centered herself and opened her eyes, leveling Sai with an amused though slightly hostile look.

"So what is it? You like her coloring?"

"Yes." Sai answered simply, making Ino blush harder, before she turned to Sakura, very flustered much to both her surprise and amusement. She'd never seen Ino flustered before. That girl could flirt, and never seemed caught off guard by boys flirting with her, but she must have been more attracted to him than she let on, or just really hadn't expected it from him. Sakura supposed that was fair. Smooth wasn't something she'd given Ino the impression Sai was.

"With how troublesome this interaction is, I'm actually glad I have to leave. See you!" Shikamaru rose, giving a lazy wave, and walking away, ignoring Choji's plea not to leave him. Though, thankfully, the meat finished cooking shortly there after, and his focus was shifted to the food.

The meal passed without too much angst after that, Sai stumbling clumsily through social interaction with Ino and Choji, though overall it stayed very surface level and no large missteps were made.

"I'll walk ya home, Sakura-chan!" Naruto said brightly, as they walked out of Yakiniku Q, but before Sakura could protest, Ino latched onto her arm.

"No way! You just went on two back to back missions with her! Stop hogging my best friend! She and I need major girl talk time!"

"What?! You had two whole years with her!"

"Much of which, I was out on missions, and she was locked up in the hospital or with Hokage-sama for!" Ino countered, stubbornly. "You can walk Sai and Choji home." Before Naruto had a chance to protest again, Ino was dragging Sakura away.

"Pig, slow down! You're not gonna get too much time for girl talk if you're dragging me the whole way."

"Sorry," Ino let up a little, once they were enough of a distance away from the boys to know they'd successfully earned their girl talk. "Ok let's get right to it, then. You and Shikamaru…I know how you feel about Sasuke, and I'm not going to try talking you out of it or anything, but…you and Shikamaru do work really well, somehow. If you ever did want to switch focus…you and him—"

"We're just friends, Pig. I know why you're saying that…there's something easy about hanging out with him, and talking about things logically and intelligently, but…I don't know, the emotions just aren't there."

"I get it. There's no romantic or sexual connection, for either of you. It's truly just platonic friendship." Ino sighed. She'd grown up with him—he was practically a brother. The love between them had always been familial, and she'd never felt anything romantic or sexual towards either him nor Choji either. She'd just thought that maybe since Sakura didn't have as much history with him, there might be some attraction, even if it was just peripherally. Apparently she'd been wrong.

"Besides, I'm pretty sure there's no better match for him than Temari. Pretty sure he's very into her."

"He does seem to take every excuse he can to complain about how much of a drag she is in specific." Ino agreed, thoughtfully. "So…I see what you mean about Sai being socially unaware."

"Hmm I'm sure. I've never seen you that flustered Ino-pig." Sakura teased lightly.

"Please, like you wouldn't be if Sasuke told you you were beautiful." Ino winced as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

Sakura…thank you…for everything…

Don't die while I'm gone, Sakura. Please.

Sakura…?

"That was dumb, I shouldn't have said that." Ino murmured quietly, watching in concern as Sakura stared ahead blankly.

"I saw him for the first time in two and some years. He left me to go train with the person I hate the most, pursuing revenge…and do you know one of the first thoughts I had when I saw him again?"

"What was it?"

"Holy fuck, Sasuke-kun's hot."

Ino snorted. "Bet I know which part of you had that thought." She'd never forgotten, or stopped being thankful for, inner Sakura, as the two had taken to calling her. She'd been the only person Sakura shared that inner self with, and in a girl talk the previous year, Sakura had informed her that her inner self had become less angry and more…horny.

"What the hell's wrong with me Pig? He made the same choice again—leaving with that sick sadist and…I defended him. I'm convinced he's not really gone, that he doesn't plan on giving his body to him, that he's gonna come back as soon as he gets his closure. I have no evidence for it, he's given me no reason to believe that, I just…do."

"Nothing's wrong with you, Forehead. Sasuke was always handsome, and now that we're older, of course he's gotten crazy hot, and your hormones are kicking in, so of course you'd notice how hot he's gotten. And you love him…I know you're a genius, Forehead, but feelings aren't rational. You might never have evidence, but your heart's gonna believe what it wants to."

"Do you think I'm crazy?"

"Not any more so than Naruto…" Ino shook her head. "You're not crazy. Sakura-chan, you love him. I know the way you love. It's selfless and all consuming—hell, when you tried to end our friendship, it was entirely because you thought it was best for my happiness. You were a medic long before your learned medical ninjutsu—at 10 years old, because of how much you loved your mom. Of course you're determined to save him and believe he'll come back to you. Sakura-chan, you're just being you. This is how you are."

"Wow. That was a damn good speech, Pig."

"Thanks, I've been gathering evidence for it since we were six…did you wanna come over tonight—if being there's too painful…"

"You know I'm not allowed to sleep over at your compound. But don't worry, I'm staying with Tsunade-sama tonight."

"Good…I'll help as best as I can with Sai. There should be some books on emotions and the mind in my clan's archives."

"Thanks."

Ino headed home, leaving Sakura alone with her emotions echoing through her. At least she wasn't crazy.

---

"M'Lady?" Sakura asked tentatively the next morning, her voice quiet so as not to spike the pounding in Tsunade's head.

When Sakura had gotten to Tsunade's the night before, her mentor insisted on playing cards to take her mind off Sasuke and the failed mission. In some ways it worked, though probably not the way Tsunade had intended. Playing cards with The Legendary Sucker, as her apprentice, was a whole problem in and of itself that required almost the entirety of Sakura's focus. She'd learned over the course of her training with Tsunade, that purposefully losing only made Tsunade want to continue her "winning" streak, get more rambunctious, and make even more outlandish bets. Her hands would somehow manage to get worse and worse, so much so that trying to lose became genuinely difficult, and none of it was helped by how Tsunade would drink at least two cups of sake for every win.

Last night, Sakura had attempted a different strategy. Instead of continuously losing, this time, she'd tried to continually win—it wasn't hard, Tsunade truly was terrible at cards. Winning was far easier than intentionally losing. But with every win Sakura wracked up, Tsunade grew more and more obstinate and belligerent, stubbornly insisting they play again and again, taking three cups of sake for every loss, and even began throwing sake bottles and breaking the table in her anger. Sakura had made the quick mental note around three in the morning, surrounded by shattered porcelain and huge splinters of wood from broken table legs, to never try this strategy again.

Tsunade, to her credit, had managed to drag herself to her desk in the office by six am, despite the late night and pounding headache.

"What?" She grunted, massaging her temples.

Sakura placed a a bowl of egg rice porridge, and a warm mug in front of her, filled with an amber liquid. A hangover cure taught to her by Tsunade, which Sakura had then improved upon, and had been making for the woman for most of her apprenticeship: Honey, banana, pear, red ginseng, ginger root, and phyllanthus amarus extract, boiled into a tea.

Tsunade eyed the porridge warily, before deciding to sip from the mug first. She'd be the first to admit that Sakura had made her tried and true hangover cure more effective, but with the boost in efficacy, there'd been a decline in taste. Still, it wasn't the worst medicinal concoction she'd ever tasted.

"Is there any training I can do to get stronger? I know I have my seal in progress, and once it's completed, I'll be a lot stronger, but…Once Kakashi-sensei is released, he and Naruto are going to start training really intensely to create a new ninjutsu, just for Naruto, and…and I don't want to be left behind."

Tsunade watched her apprentice as her green gaze dropped to the ground. She knew Sakura's hang ups about being weak and useless. Sasuke's power had grown immensely, and so had Naruto's—and it was about to grow more. Sakura's had too, although it was always harder to see when it was yourself. But more than that, she'd taken a different route. Power wouldn't look the same for her as it did for them. And the growth would be much slower—she wouldn't be able to see it clearly until she finished the seal. Tsunade could understand Sakura's frustration. There was no big, new, powerful jutsu she could teach her. Not while 80% of her chakra was on reserve. It was a miracle Sakura could even function well enough to do surgeries and go on missions. That was already something to be proud of, a sign of just how skilled and powerful she'd be once she unlocked her seal. Tsunade took a large swig of hangover cure, her thoughts coming clearer with her receding headache. There were things Sakura could do to set herself up for success in the future, though with the seal in progress, she was hesitant.

"I don't have anything to teach you, nothing that would further your power this very moment. However…there is something you can do. You're not going to see the pay off until your seal is unlocked, though."

Sakura seemed to simultaneously deflate and grow interested. "What do you mean?"

"Typically, with a standard summoning animal, you simply have to sign a contract. For some though, it works a bit differently. The toads have a syndicate, and you must become a vassal of the boss toad to be able to sign the contract and summon any of them. The snakes are every man for himself. You must sign on with a single snake in particular to earn the right to summon them. The slugs, now they have a cast system."

"A cast system?"

"There are several different types of slug. Messengers, Carriers, Offensive, Defensive, and Healers. And their queen, who can do all of it."

"Lady Katsuyu."

Tsunade nodded. "Each class of slug requires a different level of chakra and chakra control to be able to fully utilize its abilities. Because of that, you must test with each cast of slug, and pass, to be granted the right to sign the contract and summon them. You can only summon from within the casts you pass the test of. Or, you can skip all of that, and request to test with the queen herself. If you pass her test, you earn the right to sign the contract with her directly, which trickles down and grants you access to summoning from the other casts as well."

"So what is this test?"

"I can't say."

"How do I take it?"

Tsunade hesitated, but figured she'd already started, and not finishing the explanation would be unfair. "You have to go to the Shikkotsu Forest, and ask the slugs to enter a pact with you. They'll test you and if you pass, they'll present the contract for you to sign."

"And if I fail the test?"

"If you're testing with Katsuyu, you could die."

Sakura stared at Tsunade blankly. "Let me get this straight. Naruto just had to be mouthy to a Toad, Sasuke-kun just had to command respect of one snake—assuming Orochimaru has had him sign the contract with them—and I have to go to a giant fucking forest, find the slugs, have them test me, and if I fail, I might die."

Tsunade swallowed a spoonful of porridge dully. "Yeah. Life's a bitch. They are the strongest summoning animal, so I suppose testing their summoners is to be expected."

"Fair enough." Sakura sighed, looking past Tsunade, out the window, worriedly. "A potentially fatal test…can I really pass it?"

"You said I'm not gonna see the results until the seal's done though?"

"Honestly, that depends on you. If you choose to test with the lower casts, you could summon the weaker ones before your seal's complete. But if you choose to test with Katsuyu, you'll need the seal to be able to summon her—it takes a lot of chakra. But you'll be able to summon her the second you complete your seal. Signing with Katsuyu does give you access to summoning the rest of the slugs as well, so you could still call on the weaker casts. Summoning in general takes a large amount of chakra, even for a weaker class of slug, and with your seal in progress, it likely won't be worth it."

Sakura blinked. "Did you take the test while working on your seal?"

"No. I tested with Katsuyu after my seal was created. I had tested and signed contracts with the other slugs prior, so I wasn't an unknown entity to her, and she came to my aid of her own volition a few times, out of respect to my grandfather, her first summoner. I didn't officially test and sign the contract with her until after I had my seal though."

"Why not?"

"For one, I didn't have enough chakra to summon her before creating the Hundred Healings. While my seal was in progress, I was too drained to make the attempt. I wasn't an active ninja at the time, and did very little that was strenuous or taxing during that period. Sakura, you're already going far beyond me, with all that you're doing while still working on your seal. It's why I'm even mentioning this to you. This is the only thing you still have left to learn, and thus the only training I can think of for you. But let me be clear. I don't recommend doing this yet."

Sakura already lacked confidence, and hearing her Shishou say that only made it worse. All she saw was her failure to do anything when they saw Sasuke for the first time in years…her failure to do anything other than get hurt when Naruto lost control of the Kyubi.

"They're so far ahead of me…I don't know that I can pass this test and live." Sakura's fists tightened at her sides. She was useless. And she was tired of it. She didn't want to be that anymore.

"Shaannarroo! Screw it all to hell! I'm definitely taking that test and I'm gonna pass it no matter what! If it makes me stronger…if it means I can be useful—even if it's delayed success, so fucking be it! I'll pass it come hell or high water! Tests are my specialty, after all!"

"I don't know if I can pass this test and live…but there's only one way to find out! And if I fail, at least I fail trying, Shannaro!" Sakura declared, her determination overtaking her lack of self confidence.

Tsunade drained the remainder of her hangover cure, before locking her amber gaze with Sakura's. She needed to get to the core issue here, before Sakura tried something that would jeopardize not only her training but her life as well. "I don't recommend this, but I wouldn't have even brought it up to you if I didn't think you had a shot. You proved yourself to me when you completed a surgery and took the chunin exams while building your seal. You proved yourself to me by going on two back to back A bordering on S rank missions while building your seal. If there is anyone who could pass this test while working on the Hundred Healings, it's you. You can survive this. But more than any of that, you need to remember that your training isn't like Naruto's or Sasuke's. They are on an offensive track. You aren't. They have either a kekkei genkai, or a huge amassment of chakra within them that further their combat abilities greatly."

"You could make the claim that my reactions do as well." Sakura countered, knowing why the conversation had changed course and determined to meet it head on. She didn't want to make excuses for herself, or give herself outs that enabled her to sit back and do nothing while her teammates left her in the dust.

"At considerable risk to your life, and in an uncontrolled way that could create patients as well as take out enemies, if you're not extremely careful, so we'll discount it entirely, for this argument." Tsunade dismissed easily.

"She has a point. The very first time I tried channeling my reaction into an attack, not only did I nearly flay my arms, Hinata-chan and Kurenai-sensei, had some injuries as well. The only reason they didn't get more hurt was because they got some distance in time, but in a combat setting, if there's an ally down…Lady Chiyo was alright because I channeled all my energy linearly at Sasori, if she wasn't behind me…"

"Don't keep measuring yourself next to them, because their power is going to look different than yours. Your power is measured by how many people you're able to save, how quickly you're able to save them, and how grave the damage was that you saved them from. Your training will look different too. It might not feel like it, but you're training even while you sleep. Every drop of chakra you put into that seal is training. And the fact that you're still working in the hospital and on the mission roster…don't discount the work you're doing, Sakura. The results of your training won't show quickly, but when they do, it's going to be loud and undeniable."

Sakura nodded, her eyes a little unfocused. All she could see in her minds eye were Sasuke's and Naruto's backs growing farther and farther from her. She knew Tsunade was right. But it was frustrating, and she worried that the stronger they grew, even with her seal, she'd only be able to diminish some of the distance, not walk side by side with them.

"Giving myself as many options as possible, for as soon as my seal's done is my best bet to closing that gap between me and them! Bring it on, Lady Katsuyu! I've never met a test I couldn't pass, Shannaro!"

Sakura met Tsunade's eyes with a familiar look of burning determination.

"Where's the Shikkotsu Forrest?"

Tsuande sighed. So the girl was determined to go…but she supposed she knew that would be the case from the moment she brought it up. It wasn't in Sakura's nature to back down from a challenge. "The Shikkotsu Forrest is the vast unclaimed land beginning between Demons and Swamps and spanning north, bordering Swamps on all sides. It's about a week and a half continuous travel from here."

"That's far…Can I leave in two days?"

"I'm surprised you don't want to leave right now."

"There's a surgery I need to do, and I want to make sure Sai has Ino looking after him while I'm gone. Also I want to make Naruto some food pill supplements for his training, cause Kakashi-sensei said it'll be really intense."

Tsunade let out an inelegant snort, shoving some more porridge into her mouth. She should have guessed Sakura wanted the two days to take care of others, rather than herself. The girl just got back from a mission where the Kyubi damaged her chakra network, but she wasn't asking for a break, if anything, she was asking for permission to take on as much responsibility as possible within a two day window.

"No. You can have three days. And one of those days must be used solely for resting and taking care of yourself. No hospital work, no doing things for other people, just relaxing. You're going to have a long journey and a hard test, so leave in peak condition, and no unnecessary use of chakra along the way."

"Thank you M'Lady! I better get to the hospital." Sakura said, glancing at a clock before bowing and heading for the door. "Thanks again Shishou!" So long as it felt like she was doing something, she was happy, but her confidence lasted only as far as the office door clicking shut behind her.

---

"Sensei."

Kakashi looked up from his book to see an exhausted looking Sakura smiling warmly at him. "Long night?"

"More than you know." She muttered glumly, her smile dropping. "Ideally you stay another week, but I know you won't do that, so You should be good to go today, although, I wouldn't start Naruto's training until at least tomorrow. And you yourself should avoid any strenuous activity or chakra usage." She said doing a cursory chakra scan, before turning to make notes on her clip board.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Kakashi said casually opening his book and flagrantly ignoring her update on his health.

"Shishou felt like gambling all night."

"I meant the mission."

Sakura sat down on the edge of the bed, holding her silence for a long moment, her lips pursing. "He looked tired."

"Sasuke?"

Sakura nodded, before hesitating a little. "I…he looked the same."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, clearly unsure of what she meant, but unwilling to push too hard lest she decide to stop sharing.

"I…dream about him sometimes. A lot. Sometimes he's yelling at me for not taking care of myself, sometimes he's just acting like a sounding board so I can work something out…a lot of times, he's just holding me and talking…and…" Sakura shook her head a little, her eyes squeezed shut and a light flush on her cheeks. "He looked exactly like he did in my dreams. There was no difference at all—aside from the clothing style. Everything else was the same…even the way he smelled."

"You could smell him in your dreams?" Kakashi asked a little incredulously.

Sakura opened her mouth, but closed it without answering, her cheeks very red. Despite how obviously flustered and embarrassed she was sharing this, her expression looked more lost and confused than anything.

"I can't explain it. They're so vivid…it's like he's really physically there. And I thought it was just wishful thinking—a self soothing method. And my mind aged him with me because it wouldn't feel convincingly comforting otherwise. But there's no way I could have been that right all on my own. Height, weight, muscle mass, hair length and style, skin tone, voice, scent…it was all the same, sensei. At first I wasn't even fully sure I was awake…it was disorienting."

"I can imagine…"

"And that's the other thing too—the Sasuke-kun in my dreams…he's so…him. The conversations aren't out of character. His rhythm and speech pattern is the same. It's never like he openly proclaims his love for me, or apologizes for choosing revenge…He calls me annoying, he speaks more in implications than direct proclamations, he frequently talks about how dangerous thinking about me or being with me is. How he has to take care of Itachi first…" She took a shaky breath, fiddling with her hands, unable to look Kakashi in the eye. "I…I feel like he doesn't like it there, and he has no intention of giving himself to Orochimaru. I feel like he'll come back once he's done what he needs to do…but, I don't know if I'm just getting confused by my dreams or if there's some truth to them—how else could I have gotten everything exact…it's not possible."

"Sakura…" Kakashi began cautiously. "You know you can't go by what's in your dreams, right? However much you might want them to seem real—"

"They're so realistic, you don't understand. It's like he's in my head…"

"You two always had an incredibly deep understanding of each other. Uniquely so, entirely different from Sasuke and Naruto's. I don't think I ever said this to you directly, but I was convinced Sasuke returned your feelings…in his own way. He was open with you in a way he wasn't with anyone else. You are one of the most patient, empathetic, and understanding people on the planet. And you fell in love with the real Sasuke, not some childish perfect vision of him. Your memory and analytical skill is also incredibly good. Your mind could easily create a hyper realistic Sasuke."

"He's right…that is the most logical conclusion…but, I don't know. It feels like it's more than that. Wait—Kakashi-sensei was convinced Sasuke-kun loved me too?"

Sakura shook her head, not wanting to pursue that thought or voice her doubts. It wasn't worth talking about this anymore—or at least, she didn't feel like talking about this anymore. "Shishou has some…well, I guess it counts as training, for me. I'll be leaving the village for a bit."

"What's the training?"

"Signing a summoning contract."

"A summoning contract that requires you to leave the village for it?"

"Apparently slugs are like that."

"They are the most powerful summoning animal."

"That is what I've heard, yes." Sakura paused, biting at her lip. "I know the training is gonna be intense, but make sure Naruto eats properly and doesn't run himself into the ground. And when I say eats properly, I don't mean just ramen. He heals naturally fast on his own, so if he gets severely hurt, it'll be better to just bring him to the hospital and let them heal him, rather than letting him try to push through, because that'll just prolong his natural healing process. You'll need to rest too. You're able to move again, and you can use chakra, but take it easy. You're not an Uchiha, so your body isn't built to handle using the Mangekyo too much."

Kakashi let out a noise somewhere between an amused chuckle and an exasperated huff. "Sakura, you're going to sign a summoning contract, not jump off a cliff. I think we'll be able to look after ourselves a few days without you."

"I might not even be able to pass Lady Katsuyu's test…I could die—even just the trip there might kill me, if I get caught in a bad situation with limited chakra…"

Sakura decided not to reveal the thoughts and doubts dancing through her head about being tested, but in exchange for not saying that, her mouth let something else slip out unbidden.

"You're right, it's not like my presence has never been necessary before." As soon as she processed her words and bitter tone, she knew they weren't true, but she felt the gravity of the sentiment pressing down on her nonetheless. What little confidence she'd retained from Tsunade's office rapidly crumbled.

Kakashi was silent for a long moment before closing his book with a snap. The weight of his hand settled on her head, causing her to turn a little to look at him.

"Do you want to know what Yamato said about you? He said you have a startling effect on people, that you somehow refuse to see, or fully attribute to other's efforts instead of your own. He had only ever felt like a copy of the first Hokage, until you fiercely defended that he was more than that. You're the first person to ever do that. Naruto needs you. He said as much when you were genin. You're the one who's helping him mature. Sai needs you. Based on Yamato's report, he'd still be enthusiastically on board with Root if it wasn't for you. I'm not even going to go into the huge effect you had on Sasuke. And…" Kakashi swallowed hard, hesitating for a millisecond. Speaking about others was fine, but speaking about himself was far harder.

"…I may never have been or will be the right teacher for you, Sakura, but as your Jonin-sensei, I have always needed you. As a genin, I relied on you far more than I should have to reign the boys in when they got out of hand. Because of your maturity and intelligence, I frequently ended up viewing you more as a peer, someone to turn to and consult with, then as a student that needed me to guide them. When team 7 disbanded and I was put back in active rotation, the few times I found myself in tight situations…the thought that got me through was that I had to make it back for team dinner with you. I may have just accepted it and let it end there, otherwise. Your presence has always been necessary, Sakura. Even if you had never gotten stronger than you were as a genin, team 7 would still need you. Naruto, Sasuke, Sai, Yamato, me…we'd still need you."

Sakura's eyes burned with tears as she stared down at her hands in her lap. They were so small…it was hard to believe they had as much of an impact as Kakashi had said.

"I don't know why…I always feel so useless. It's never enough. I'm never doing enough…"

"You are doing and have done more than you know for everyone you come in contact with. I'll say it as many times as you need to hear it, but I'm not sure what else to do to make you see it."

Sakura fingered her mother's necklace, nodding at Kakashi's words. He could tell that she didn't believe him…it would take time, but eventually it would get through to her. He hoped.

"The slugs live pretty far away. I'll be gone for a little while. I know you'll be busy with training, but while I'm gone, would you visit mom for me?"

"And if I don't make it back, please keep visiting her…"

"Of course."

"Thank you sensei."

"Get a grip Sakura, you have patients to see! And you're meeting up with Pig and the girls later!"

With a tremendous effort she swallowed her raging insecurity, shoving it away inside herself. She couldn't let her patients see her doubt. Tsunade had drilled that into her.

Sakura got up stretching, and when she turned to face him, she was wearing a warm smile, her demeanor bright. If he didn't know better, hadn't seen her just ten seconds before, he would believe she was genuinely happy. That girl was way too good at acting. She'd never be discovered in an espionage mission, he was sure of that.

"I have more patients to check on. See ya later sensei!"

Kakashi watched Sakura dance out of the room, acting as if she hadn't been near tears seconds before. If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that she wasn't okay. But she'd talked to him, she wasn't isolating herself, and she was resilient. She wasn't okay. But he trusted that she would be…or at the very least, she'd stabilize.

---

"He's…hovering more, since the mission to Suna." TenTen whined, as the girls sat around the table of a tea house, several plates of Dango laid out in front of them, as well as warm mugs of tea.

"Yeah, cause he was jealous of the way Kankuro was flirting with you." Sakura dismissed. "No ones ever really tried before since you two always come in a pair. It was probably his first time realizing that just because you're always together, doesn't mean you're unavailable."

"Of course, his logic is flawed, since just doubling down on being near you all the time still doesn't take you off the market." Ino agreed, backing Sakura up.

TenTen let out an annoyed groan, taking an unnecessarily aggressive bite of dango.

"It's not fully Neji-niisan's fault. Hyuga clan structures are very formal…we've been raised with the understanding that entering into a courtship will lead to marriage. He probably doesn't want to put that pressure on you too soon." Hinata explained apologetically.

Ino didn't really look surprised, merely sighing, and taking a sip of tea. But TenTen and Sakura exchanged aghast looks.

"That's…so antiquated." Sakura muttered, TenTen nodding in agreement.

"Is that how it is for you too, Ino?" TenTen asked.

"The Yamanaka clan's not that old fashioned…at least, not since my dad took over. There was a similar teaching in place when my grandpa was in charge. There's still some carryover though. Any time I talk about a guy, my parents ask if it's serious and if I think he's the one. And if I were to have sex before I was at the very least engaged, I think I might get disowned."

"Thanks. The detail about the sex thing was totally unnecessary." Sakura muttered.

"What? Like you haven't had wet dreams before? I bet you've had some steamy ones TenTen."

"Ino!" TenTen shouted, looking around to make sure no one had overheard the turn this conversation had taken. Hinata's face was bright red, her hands covering her face, while Sakura stared at her blonde friend, her mouth slightly agape.

"Don't look at me like that, Forehead. You know it's perfectly normal at our stage of development. And you're a year older than us, TenTen."

"That doesn't mean to talk about it loudly in public, Pig!" Sakura growled, her cheeks glowing warmly, recalling some of her own less than innocent dreams of Sasuke.

Ino shrugged shamelessly, raising her mug of tea to her lips.

"Are you bummed out 'cause that means you can't make any moves on Sai until it's serious?" Sakura asked smugly, the vindictive part of her glowing with satisfaction when Ino choked on her tea.

"Wh-What the hell, Forehead! I-it's not like that!"

"Oh and who's Sai?" TenTen said leaning in eagerly, ready to get Ino back for her teasing.

"He was placed on team 7 for our most recent mission." Sakura answered playfully, instantly becoming aware of the tense air that had grown among the rest of the girls, at the mention of her last mission.

"Oh I can't deal with this conversation again today."

"Oh for gods sake, please don't start walking on egg shells around me. The mission failed. It…sucks. I don't want to talk about it anymore."

There was a silence for a second, and then Hinata's quiet voice brought them all back to the matter at hand. "So you like Sai-san, Ino-chan?"

"Thank the gods for Hinata-chan!"

"She thinks he's hot and cool, and he called her beautiful, within their first meeting." Sakura revealed, the playful edge creeping back into her voice.

"Wow. That escalated quick." TenTen murmured impressed. Neji had never openly commented on her beauty. Sure, she was no Ino, but she wasn't that bad—especially since she'd started using Sakura's homemade beauty products. Her hair had never been shiner and more manageable—she didn't even mind having it down on some occasions. Her skin was clearer and brighter thanks to Sakura's face wash as well. Maybe she needed to start taking fashion tips from the blonde or something.

"Forehead!" Ino growled, sending the other girls into a fit of giggles. It was so rare to see Ino worked up over a guy.

"Oh, speaking of crushes…" Sakura said, deciding to cut her best friend some slack, and turning to Hinata instead. "Naruto's gonna start some really intense training in two days. I'm gonna make some special food pills for him. Would you mind making some food for him Hinata-chan?"

Hinata immediately went bright red, her stammer making a comeback. "I, uh, I…y-yes, but why can't you make it for h-him, Sakura-chan?"

"Oh Shishou's sending me out on an errand that might take a few weeks. He tends to push himself too hard, and he probably won't eat properly…look after him, okay?"

Hinata looked down at her hands, fiddling with her fingers, before nodding. "O-Okay. I'll ch-check up on him."

"Well, that makes this easier, knowing I've left him in good hands."

She turned back to her dango, feeling satisfied that Hinata would look after Naruto, but stopped mid bite and that look Ino and TenTen were giving her.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just, you're the queen of overworking yourself." TenTen shrugged. They so rarely saw Sakura, unless they were in the hospital. Her being worried about someone else overworking themselves, while very in character, was also just plain ridiculous.

"For real. Try taking care of yourself for once." Ino muttered, before sighing. "Before you ask, yes. I'll make sure Sai gets regular social interaction."

Sakura couldn't help the warm smile making its way to her face. "Thank you, Pig."

Her smile turned mischievous fairly quick. "Oh, I bet you will."

"I will hurt you."

Sakura broke down laughing, and the sound was beautifully infectious, all four girls devolving into a fit of giggles.

---

After her hospital shift, she stopped at the Nara compound, finding Shikamaru staring at his shogi board with a strange expression.

"What, did Temari beat you?"

"She hasn't been here for nine days already."

"Are you counting?"

"Don't be a drag." Shikamaru muttered, glaring up at her lazily.

"What's with you?" Sakura asked as she settled down opposite him.

"Something's up with Asuma. He used an unusual strategy and was saying something kind of strange." Shikamaru fingered the "knight" shogi piece, before looking up at Sakura. "If a shogi set were to represent Konoha, who would be the king?"

Sakura stared at the piece in question for a second before deciding to think out loud. "Well if you're going by title and historical role, the king is the leader of a country or territory, so they would be most analogous to the Hokage…"

"That's what I thought—"

"But…" Sakura murmured, her head tilted as her eyes bounced between the other pieces on the board.

"But?"

"If as far as actual power goes in shogi, the king isn't the strongest piece, right? That would be the rook, especially if it gets promoted. The king is actually the most vulnerable piece that needs to be protected the most, so if you were to extend that to Konoha…wouldn't it be the civilians? Or Konoha itself, maybe?"

Shikamaru blinked, his brow furrowing. Was that it? Was that what Asuma had been trying to say? But why?

"That makes sense…you always better at analyzing. Glad I asked you."

"Yeah but why did you ask?"

"Cause Asuma asked me. He said he used to think the king was the Hokage too, but recently he learned the truth. He didn't tell me what 'the truth' was though."

"Maybe it's something specific to Asuma-sensei…I mean, the king is the piece you have to protect the most, so maybe it's about what Asuma-sensei specifically wants to protect."

"And what would that be?" Shikamaru drawled. One of the first things he'd learned from Sakura about women was that they had a tendency to read into and build strategies around the individual they were facing, rather than the situation at large. It was an impressive skill in and of itself—to be able to accurately get a read on another person so quickly.

"Kurenai-sensei." Sakura stated like it was the most obvious thing.

Shikamaru snorted. "You sound like Ino."

"Cause she's right. She's from a family of mental experts, is exceedingly popular and extroverted, and gorgeous—meaning guys are flirting with her constantly. I'd say she's rather good at reading people, especially in regards to their relationships with others."

"You don't need to remind me, she's been a pain in my ass since birth. I'm very aware of how loud and nosy she is." Despite his words, there was a dry fondness to his tone. Team 10 had grown up with each other like siblings. They didn't need the teamwork and bonding exercises team 7 had needed. They'd been bonding and learning teamwork from the second they were born. Team 10 loved each other unconditionally, the way one loved family. No matter how much they all ribbed each other, only they were allowed to do that. If anyone else had said that about Ino, Shikamaru may have shadow strangled them.

"And she also happens to be right." Sakura pressed on stubbornly. "Asuma-sensei is in love with Kurenai-sensei. It only makes sense he would want to protect her more than anything else."

"I'm not saying he's not in love with her—Ino's annoyingly proved that in several occasions. I'm just saying that Kurenai-sensei doesn't need protection. She's a powerful Jonin, and I don't think Asuma's the type to like a troublesome woman who can't protect herself…I think you were closer with your first guess. That's all."

"Troublesome women who can't protect themselves…" Sakura echoed, watching all the times Naruto and Sasuke stepped in front of her, all the times she was told not to engage, to stay back. "Is that…do all men hate that?"

Shikamaru studied her shrewdly, before sliding a piece forward, starting the game. "Been a while since we had that sort of talk." He closed his eyes for a second, gathering his thoughts before looking at Sakura again. "No. Some men love it. Being the girl's savior. It makes them feel more like a man. But others think that's a drag. I can't speak for others, but personally, I don't want to have some girl constantly crying to me to save them. It's troublesome."

"And which am I?" Sakura asked, sliding her own piece forward.

"I should think that's obvious." Shikamaru answered, placing his piece immediately.

All that ran through her mind was every moment she proved useless. Not doing anything in the fight against Zabuza, not being able to safely cheat on the first round of the chunin exams, not being able to do anything against Orochimaru when he first attacked Sasuke, not being able to protect her team from the sound trio on her own, not being able to save her mom, almost getting killed by Gaara, not being able to stop Itachi from hurting Sasuke, not being able to do any damage to any of their opponents during their Land of Tea mission, not being able to stop Sasuke from leaving, not being able to save Gaara on her own, not being able to save Granny Chiyo, not being able to help Naruto when he was possessed by the nine-tails, not being able to get Sasuke away from Orochimaru…

Her mind failed to take into account all the extenuating circumstances behind each and every one of those incidents. Failed to acknowledge all that she had managed to do despite her weaknesses and set-backs. Shikamaru could tell too. He may not have been as inclined to read and analyze others as Sakura and the rest of the female half of their species, but he was close enough with her to know how her mind worked.

"Obviously you're thinking the wrong answer, so even though it's a drag I'll just say it. You're not quite either…or should I say you're both." Sakura moved her next piece, and he had to hand it to her, even with whatever mopey insecurity had possessed her, she was still sharp. He could predict the strategy she was utilizing, and it was a damn good one. He could still counter it, but her emotions hadn't clouded her strategic thinking in the slightest. He made his move, knocking out her pawn.

"Both…?"

"For starters, you don't need to be protected just for the sake of it. Every time you have needed it, it's been because of extenuating factors—your curse, injury from a previous battle, not being strong enough in a way that would be a tactical disadvantage if you were to try to fight, and even when that was the case you had good reason for not being strong enough. There wasn't laziness or lack of desire behind your lack of training, you weren't strong enough because your priorities were placed on the respectable and understandable task of caring for your mother and supporting you both. Knowing all of that made having to protect you far less of a drag and more of a desire or impulse—and I am speaking for Naruto and Sasuke on that, and I'm confident I'm right." He was closer with Naruto than he'd ever been with Sasuke, but from what he'd observed of their team dynamic, there was no doubt in his mind that's how they both felt when it came to protecting Sakura. Hell, they may have even viewed it as an honor to protect her.

Sakura didn't respond, moving her rook to take his knight. "Second, even when you do need to be protected, both back then and now, you're never useless. If you're being protected, it's because you're needed as a medic to keep your team alive, and even before you knew medical ninjutsu, you used that time to analyze and create a strategy to help your team win against your opponents. That also made protecting you less troublesome, because you were never useless and annoying." Shikamaru took her rook.

Sakura moved her general so it was a threat to his king.

"And I don't know the details of what happened on your last mission to put you in this state, but I'm confident when I say you certainly don't need to be protected now. I would say you haven't since the first time we took the chunin exams, but by the second time you took them, it's not even a question. Kazekage-sama even recommended you for a double promotion along side Neji. Now if anyone's protecting you, it's because you're a medic and your well-being means their wellbeing, but even more than that, if someone's protecting you now, it is fully because they want to. Not because you need them to."

Sakura thought of Sasuke's almost blatant refusal to attack her.

If someone's protecting you now, it is fully because they want to.

"I…if that's the case, I can accept it, but really I…whether they want to protect me or not, I want to fight along side Naruto and Sasuke-kun, equally. Like teammates. And I'll train as much as it takes to make that happen, shannaro!"

Shikamaru still beat her every game, but each one was a hard fought victory.

---

The next two days, Sakura spent preparing. She got right to work making extra special food pills. She ground up and boiled down ingredients, forming them into large, nutrient packed balls. They weren't going to taste good, but she knew they'd give all the necessary nutrients and energy to help speed up muscle recovery, give an energy boost, and provide the stamina to keep going through grueling missions or training. She made a particularly large batch, saving several for Naruto, setting aside some of them for her journey, and packaging the remainder in sets of three to take to Ikehara's.

She also made some rice balls, for both herself and Naruto as well. She'd decided to leave any real cooking to Hinata when it came to Naruto's meals, but still, she wanted him to have something from her that didn't taste like dirt. Although, she may have just made so much to give herself something to do to keep her hands busy. She couldn't keep her mind off of the test the slugs would give her, and if she would survive it…even just the journey would take her a long time, with the way the seal reduced her stamina. And then once she finally reached the Shikkotsu forrest…the slug's test might kill her. Once everything was packed away, she set out for Ikehara with her specialty food pills.

He looked up when she walked in, his expression warming. "Been awhile."

"Sorry, Ikehara-san, I had some back to back missions."

Ikehara simply shrugged. "You're a ninja. And a damn good one at that." He was glad she still took the time to stop in. She had no need to now that she worked at the hospital, but she would still always come by, often bringing him incredibly high end products to sell, and occasionally bring him something just for him—a sleep aide when he'd complained about his wife being unable to sleep, a pain relief tea blend when he complained about joint pain. She really was a good kid, and incredibly skilled.

Sakura smiled brightly in thanks. "How've you been? Your arthritis acting up?"

"Only when it rains." Ikehara waved off her worry before she could even start expressing it. "What do you got for me, kid?"

Sakura pulled out the many three packs of homemade food pills, setting them on the counter. "Specialty blend homemade food pills. They taste like dirt, but they're damn good for you."

"That's a good tag line." Ikehara grunted in amusement. He took them and began placing some sort of stamp on the packages.

"What's that?" Sakura asked curiously.

Ikehara turned one of the packages toward her, to see an inked outline of a Sakura blossom inside a circle, with one of the bottom petals filled in…the same as her necklace. "That's your signature. I started stamping them after your ointment got popular. Now I do it for all your products. Helps them sell, since it's like a mark of quality."

"You don't have to do that…you buy them off me already, you can sell them as yours."

"Nope. These are your products kid. And they're good. Your signature's going on them."

Sakura smiled softly. Ikehara always respected her, even as a scrawny ten year old. Uchiha Mikoto had been the first one to give her hope that she could earn money on her own. Ikehara had been the one to give her hope that she could continue to make money on her own, and maybe even save her mom.

"If it makes you feel better about it, people have started making the connection between the stamp, and the pink haired wonder medic."

"Gods, I hope that's not my new title." Sakura winced.

"Shouldn't have been that talented then." Ikehara dismissed.

Sakura let out a small laugh. No one let out casual passing compliments like they were nothing the way Ikehara did. And she always knew he meant it, because Ikehara wasn't very close with her, and he didn't give compliments often or easily to other customers or sellers.

"You really didn't have to do that. Thank you."

"I told you, I'm rooting for you kid. And clearly you've given me good reason to."

Sakura beamed, and nodded. She'd keep giving him reason to, she'd pass whatever test Katsuyu threw at her.

---

Her next stop was the graveyard, visiting the Uchiha clan first. She cleaned their graves and set up incense and water for them, before kneeling in front of Mikoto and Fugaku's grave.

"Hello Mikoto-san, Fugaku-san. I'm sorry I haven't visited in awhile, I've had back to back missions…I saw Sasuke-kun on one of them. He's…I don't know if he's doing alright, but he's definitely gotten very strong. He's a very driven boy. I…still don't understand why you left him so willingly…but there's something I have to check…"

"I'll ask Sai when I go say bye to him…"

"I'll be away training, so it'll be awhile before I can get back here to visit. But I'll come clean as soon as I get home. I promise. So, please, I know he's far away, but please keep looking after Sasuke-kun…and please look after Naruto as well, if you can. We're both working hard to bring your son back, so if you have some guidance to spare, please give it to him as well. Thank you."

Sakura rose and made her way through the graveyard to her mother and father's graves. She cleaned them off as well, lighting incense, before kneeling in front of her father's grave.

"Hi dad. I know I haven't been the best daughter to you…I've been a bit unfair, blaming you for how hard things got for me and mom…I get why you wanted to be a ninja so badly though, even with our curse. I'm trying to do the same, and I'm about to go through some really hard training, so…even though I've been a bad daughter and don't deserve it, please look after me."

Sakura shifted to her mother's grave, leaning her back up against it, sighing and closing her eyes while wrapping her hand around her necklace.

"Mom, I know you're always with me, which is why I'm gonna need you to visit me a lot over the next few weeks…tell me you believe in me, and I can do it, and I'm strong enough. I'm doubting myself a lot, and I think the only people I could hear it from and believe it are you or Sasuke-kun, and…well, let's just say I need to hear it from you. A lot." Sakura leaned her head back, relaxing against the gravestone for a long while, reflexively falling into her chakra meditation.

She didn't hear her mother's voice or anything, but with her eyes closed, she could easily picture Mebuki smiling at her, her eyes firm and believing. For now, that image was enough.

---

She finally found Sai leaving the library, another social etiquette book in hand.

"There you are!"

"Hag…" Sai greeted blankly, confused about why she was looking for him.

"Where do you live anyway?" She demanded, deciding that was information she should know—she knew where Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi lived. She should know where Sai lived too. And Yamato.

"I'm going there now…" He glanced down at the book, his mind racing to place what was appropriate for this situation. "Did you want to come with me?"

Sakura nodded, falling into step with him. "The library again…you really are a big reader, huh?"

"Did you come to find me, simply to ask me that?" Sai asked curiously. It seemed like a lot of effort to go through for something that was more an observation than a question.

"No, but social convention lesson number three: small talk. I'm sure you've either read, or will read about this phenomena in your books, but when people greet each other, even if they have a bigger point they want to address, they'll frequently engage in small talk, as something of a warm up to get used to interacting with the other person, or build a rapport between them."

Sai's brow furrowed in thought. "Sasuke didn't employ that tactic." He recalled, thinking back on his interaction with the traitor.

"Not everyone does…Sasuke-kun doesn't like wasting time or energy on something he doesn't feel is valuable. He prefers to get right to the point…and because of that, you know what he does say holds a lot of weight."

"So he meant what he said about giving Orochimaru his body?"

"Blunt doesn't always mean honest." Sakura deflected tightly. Sai mulled that over for a second when a knew thought occurred to him.

"Why is Sasuke's lack of interest in small talk ok, while mine isn't? And if it matters to you, Hag, then how could you possibly think that a romantic coupling between you and him would work?"

"For one, with Sasuke-kun, it's intentional. He knows about small talk and actively chooses not to engage with it, and in making that choice, he's knowingly accepted that people might be turned away from wanting to make a connection with him. Your lack of engagement comes from lack of knowledge, and since you desire to form connections with those around you, it's important you know, and at least try it out. If you decide you don't see the value of it, you can actively make an informed choice about no longer practicing it, but you should at least know the social isolation that may come with that choice before making it."

Sai nodded. That all made logical sense, and Sakura was right that he was trying to connect and bond with others. If small talk was a way to do that, even if it wasn't practical for conversation, he could see the value in trying it.

"You didn't answer my other question."

"Because it's loaded and personal." Sakura fell silent, and Sai expected that to be the end of it, but then she started speaking again. "I don't know that becoming romantically involved with Sasuke-kun would be successful. There's no way to know that about any romantic pairing before hand—you have to make relationships work while you're in them. Entering into one isn't the end game, it's just the beginning, despite what romance novels would have you think. Sasuke-kun…Never really engaged in small talk with me, but that made the questions and conversations we did have all the more meaningful. Sasuke-kun didn't talk for the sake of talking. When we talked, it was because he wanted to open up to me, or wanted me to open up to him. And that, coming from someone who wasn't actively seeking to connect with others, meant a lot."

That made sense to him. Sai's bluntness, as Sakura put it, was unintentional. He wasn't trying to drive people away. Just the opposite, he wanted to connect. But for someone who was intentionally blunt, someone who intentionally closed others out and pushed people away, opening up and engaging became all the more precious. The one they opened up and engaged with became someone special, someone they'd singled out to forge a connection with.

"I'll be going away for awhile—it's…something of an errand for Lady Tsunade."

Sai paused, taken aback but the sudden declaration. "You're leaving?"

Sakura nodded. "Make sure you keep socializing while I'm gone, with team 7, or team 10. Just keep at it, okay? You're not alone anymore, so don't self isolate out of habit. Show your drawings to Naruto, or Ino-pig."

"Ino…" Sai murmured, looking over as Sakura. "Showing her my art…" He wasn't sure why he felt hesitant. Up until recently, his art hadn't meant anything in particular to him—at least nothing he was aware of. He felt no shame, embarrassment, or shyness at Sakura or Naruto seeing his art work. But the idea of Ino seeing it made his heart pick up speed.

Sakura's lips quirked into an amused half smile. "I think what you're feeling is nervousness. It tends to happen when interacting with someone you like, especially if that interaction includes showing them something personal to you."

"I can't like her." He didn't even know her properly.

"No, I suppose you can't. You know, instead of constantly stressing over nicknames, another good way to break down barriers with people, is by using honorifics. You should try calling her Ino-chan. See what happens."

"Alright, I'll try that." Sai nodded, coming to a stop. Sakura stopped next to him, confused, until he nodded at the small house they'd come to a stop in front of.

"This is where I live."

"Oh." That explained the stopping. Sakura studied the house in surprise. She supposed Root must pay pretty well if Sai could afford this by himself. It wasn't huge, but it was a two-level house, not an apartment, and one Sai clearly lived in by himself.

Sai followed her gaze up to the second story. "That's where I paint and keep my artwork. The bottom floor is for sleeping and eating."

"I didn't realize you'd have enough money for this…"

"Being a shinobi really is the only real way to make money in a village like this…If I had gone down any other path, mom and I would have been screwed…not that we weren't."

"Sai…can I look at your bingo book. The Root one, not the standard one."

Sai gave her a confused look. "Why do you want to do that?"

"I want to check who's listed in it."

"That wasn't really an answer."

Sakura shrugged. "Will you show it to me?"

Sai considered the question carefully. His seal prevented him from saying anything, but his actions weren't as closely dictated. It should be okay. He went into his house without another word, and before Sakura could even wonder if she should follow, he reemerged holding a slim black book. The same one Sakura had gotten a cursory look through on their last mission. Sai held it out to her, blankly.

Sakura took the book with a quiet mumble of thanks, and quickly leafed through it. There was Sasuke's picture. And Kisame's, Sasori's, Deidara's…but there was no picture of Itachi.

"He should be here…why isn't he?" Sakura thumbed through the whole book, paying particular attention to anywhere Itachi would fall by any standard organizational system—chronological, by age, by nationality grouping, alphabetical…he just wasn't there. His picture was nowhere to be found. Somehow, he was in the regular bingo books, but not the Root one, while Sasuke was in the Root one but not the regular one.

"So that means the Hokage recognizes him as an enemy, but Root doesn't. And Root recognizes Sasuke-kun as an enemy, but the Hokage doesn't…why? Why isn't Itachi in here? He should be, especially if Sasuke-kun is…"

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Sai asked, watching her expression carefully.

"Sai…your mission was to kill Sasuke-kun…have you or any other Root member ever been given a mission to kill Itachi?"

He hadn't, and he would have readily shared as much with her, if he were able, but he wasn't, so he just stared at her.

Sakura met his eyes unwaveringly, and after a long moment, shifted her weight and let out a frustrated sigh. "I get it, you might trust us and want to connect, but you're still a Root agent and your loyalty's still to Danzo." It would take more than just a few days and some pretty words to fully break Sai's conditioning.

Sai didn't know how to explain to her that it wasn't quite what she was thinking, not really. So he said nothing. He supposed the motivation didn't matter, as the results wouldn't change. He couldn't disclose anything about Root or his missions with them.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" He asked again, unsure of what else to say.

"More like I didn't…" She murmured, her eyes landing once more of on the pictures of Sasori and Deidara in the Root bingo book, before handing it back to Sai.

"Thanks Sai, I'll see you later." Sakura turned to head back into the center of the village.

"Sakura."

She turned to look over her shoulder at him, curiously.

"I'll follow Naruto's training closely."

Sakura gave him one of her sad smiles. "I'm trusting in you."

---

Naruto was predictable as always, given that she found him at Ichiraku, as expected. She slid onto the stool next to him, making him look up from his third bowl of ramen.

"Sakura-chan! What's up?"

"I was looking for you—though I have to say, it's not like finding you was all that hard. If you're not at the training grounds, you're here."

"You were looking for me? Why? Did you wanna go on a date?" He asked eagerly through a mouthful of ramen.

"You were calling me and Shikamaru lovebirds just the other day, and now you're soliciting me for a date? How easy do you think I am?" She glared without any real venom.

Naruto swallowed a way-too-large bite, nearly choking. "That's not what I meant Sakura-chan! I swear!" He gasped hurriedly, his hands waving in surrender.

Sakura let out a dry chuckle and shook her head. "You're starting your training soon right?"

Naruto's movements slowed to a stop, as he calmed, knowing he hadn't really angered her. He turned his attention back to his ramen, his eyes growing serious. His fists tightened on either side of his bowl. "That's right. I'm gonna give it my all, and get a lot stronger, believe it! I'm gonna get stronger, and keep my promise. I'm gonna bring Sasuke back!"

Sakura hesitated. "There he goes, pushing himself over that promise again…but if that's the motivation he chooses to use to get stronger, I really shouldn't challenge it, because he does need to get stronger. With the Akatsuki after him, Naruto getting stronger is necessary. If that promise is what's pushing him, so be it…so long as he doesn't overdo it…but Hinata-chan and Sai will keep tabs on that for me."

"Right. I believe in you." Naruto's eyes widened, hearing her say that, heat flooding his body. He knew Sakura was always one of the first ones to support him, no matter what, but it had been a long time since he heard her voice it. Recently, if anything, it felt like she'd begun to doubt him.

"Don't worry, Sakura-chan! I got this! I am gonna be the strongest Hokage after all."

"And the dumbest." Sakura supplied playfully, before growing serious herself. "Shishou's sending me off on an errand. I'll be gone for awhile—you'll be busy training anyway, but take extra care of yourself, cause I won't be able to check in on you and patch you up."

"That's such bullshit! Grandma's making you run errands now! You're her apprentice, not her servant!" Naruto cried indignantly.

"Don't insult Shishou, shannaro!" Sakura cried, equally as indignant, knocking him on the head. "She doesn't treat me like her servant—but it's an errand only I can do. Call it a mission if it makes you feel better."

"Fine, fine. So what's the mission?"

"Just working out a contract." Sakura waved off. It wasn't a total lie. But she was hesitant to call it training to her friends, when the results wouldn't be immediately visible. She didn't want to build their expectations or get their hopes up without really being able to deliver.

Naruto wrinkled his nose. "That sounds boring."

"You know, working out contracts is part of being the Hokage, right?"

Naruto grumbled a bit more before launching back into his ramen, apparently not wanting to think about it.

"I made you these to help with your training. Specialty food pills, packed with nutrients to help your stamina and recovery. Fair warning, they taste like dirt, but they'll help with your training." Sakura said, handing him a basket of them, before handing him a small bento. "And here's some real food—not as much as the food pills, just enough for one lunch break, but this way you'll know not all my cooking's bad."

"I wouldn't have thought that, Sakura-chan! You grew up cooking for you and your mom, so there's no way all your food would taste like dirt!"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Sakura chuckled.

"Why are you giving it to me now though?"

"The contract negotiation's pretty far, so I'll be leaving soon, and won't get to see you before you start training." Sakura's gaze dropped to her hands, uncertainly, her lips pursing together as another swell of doubt overtook her.

Naruto stared at her for a long moment, his eyes growing serious. "I get it." Naruto nodded in understanding, before breaking into a beaming smile, rubbing under his nose. "Well in that case, your ramen's on me, Sakura-chan! Eat up!"

She smiled, ordering a large miso ramen. Her journey would be long. It was best if she could eat as much as possible before then.

Naruto walked her to Sasuke's apartment as the sky darkened. When she reached the door, Naruto stopped her from immediately going in.

He stuck out a thumbs up, a serious smile on his face, his eyes shining with determination. "I don't fully get what this contract negotiation thing is, or why you have to be the one to do it, but you're gonna do great, Sakura-chan! You're the smartest, strongest, prettiest ninja I know, and everyone who meets you loves you! You'll easily be able to get this contract worked out! Believe it!"

Sakura stared at him, wide eyed. "Naruto…I promise you, I'm going to get stronger too! It might take awhile, but we'll stand shoulder to shoulder. True teammates! I promise!"

"Take care of yourself, Sakura-chan! I'll see ya when you get back! Believe it!"

"Right! I'll see you then." Sakura smiled back, with a determined nod, before entering the apartment. She'd need all the rest she could get.

---

The sun hadn't even broken when Sakura stood at the gate, Lady Tsunade in front of her.

"Remember the slugs work in a cast system. Show Katsuyu the proper respect as her title dictates."

"I always do, M'Lady."

"The test will be hard, Sakura. Make sure you keep focused. The trip there will be difficult too. Pace yourself. Remember the rules. It'll only be you out there, so if you pass a fight, do not engage, and if someone should attempt to engage with you directly, run. And if you are forced into battle, end it as fast as possible."

"I know, M'Lady."

"Sakura. You are my disciple. A kunoichi who will inherit the power of the Legendary Sanin, and Granddaughter of the First Hokage. And Haruno Sakura, you are also a disciple of the Fifth Hokage." The words held the same gravity as the first time Lady Tsunade had spoken them, and Sakura felt their weight settle over her. If she passed this test, and signed the contract with Katusyu, she'd be one step closer to inheriting that power.

"And Sakura…" Tsunade's hand settled on Sakura's head, her thumb stroking over the silky strands affectionately. "You're also my beloved apprentice. Come back safely, and I'll make you a feast to celebrate." Her honey eyes glinted warmly.

"I will, Shishou." Sakura smiled, her body flooding with warmth. "Bet against me, and I'll surely succeed."

"You got it, kid. I bet you 500 ryo you're going to fail."

"Deal."

The two shook on it, and Sakura was off.

---

Traveling such a great distance alone really did turn out to be as hard as she expected. Harder even. Sakura had decided not to risk adding the desert climate to her travels, and had decided to go more north, through The Land of Grass, and follow the land passage between The Land of Earth and Land of Wind. That meant she'd be going through Kusa, Ame, Ishi, Keys, Bears, Birds, Honey, Forests, and Demons to reach the Shikkotsu Forest. Three of those lands had their own hidden villages and many were bordered by Earth and Wind, which also had its own ninja. Not to mention Kusa was where Orochimaru's hideout was, and was infamously crawling with rogue ninja. She knew Lady Tsunade was wary of Ame as well.

"Hopefully I avoid trouble there, so long as I don't try to enter amegakure."

Sakura took off her Konoha headband, replacing it with the red ribbon Ino had once given her. If she was caught by rogues, she didn't want Konoha to get in trouble for it. Sakura had long ago developed the habit of keeping her chakra signature suppressed. It had been Lady Tsunade's suggestion, since her chakra signature would reveal the state of her seal. That had its advantages and disadvantages in this situation.

Sakura didn't draw any attention to herself as a ninja. Enemy eyes didn't land on her. To ninja passing by—and she came across a few, she seemed no better than a civilian. But that was also where it screwed her over.

For bandits, she seemed like a prime target, appearing to be a small, young, girl wandering alone. She attracted some weaker level rogue ninja for much the same reason. With their low expectations of her, she was able to outrun them pretty easily, and Sakura's speed was immense—she hadn't neglected it, having only gotten faster since she was a genin. The problem was that her speed was still short burst, not something she could maintain for very long. By the end of her second day of travel, her limbs felt rubbery and she knew she'd need to rest soon.

She was in Kusa, near the boarder with Ame, but there were no nearby villages that she could see, at least none that she had the energy to reach. That meant she'd have to camp out. Normally she'd have no issue with that if she was with her team. But on her own, the idea of sleeping in enemy territory felt like pinning a sign on herself, asking for death.

With her mind fogged over with exhaustion, her body heavy, she pushed herself to set up wire traps around the area, before leaping up to an obscured branch, and settling her back against it. Her eyes slid shut, and she was asleep.

---

"She's a beauty. You think he'll go for her?"

"He'd be crazy not too. But what's a beautiful girl like her doing in a tree?"

"Who cares! This way he'll stop taking our village's women."

Sakura didn't react to their words, allowing them to draw closer. She was so irritated and tired. She hadn't even gotten an hour of sleep before these idiots showed up, pulling the wire she'd connected to her finger, tugging her awake. From what she could tell, they were just civillians. But their comments caught her attention. Someone was taking the women of their village, and they were hoping to offer her up to pacify them.

She had no intention of letting that happen.

"But I can't just leave those poor women to suffer…I'm not supposed to engage, but…I can't just let them be. Naruto wouldn't. Neither would Sasuke-kun. Ok. So I'm helping, now to figure out the best way to do that, while expending as little chakra as possible, and not connecting this back to Konoha…alright, for now, let's play along."

Sakura let the rope wrap around her, and pull her down, her face a mask of fear she didn't feel, for once.

"W-Who are you people? What d-do you w-want with me?!" She asked, her voice trembling, recalling Orochimaru in the Forest of Death, to help affect her fear. Three men were looking down on her, the youngest had to only be a few years older than her. The oldest appeared to be in his thirties.

"Don't worry, we're not gonna hurt you, little one. Though I can't say the same for Himushi-sama…I do apologize for your tragic fate, but this is the only way."

"P-Please…have mercy!" Sakura cried, her eyes watering convincingly, as she imagined how terrifying this situation would be if she wasn't a kunoichi.

"You got a name, beautiful?" The youngest asked, but was promptly elbowed by the third man, who was probably somewhere in his twenties, with pitying eyes.

"Don't start flirting Daisuke. She's about to be sold off, so give the poor girl some peace." He turned his pity on her in full force. "If you promise to come with us willingly, we'll untie you."

"P-Please…I promise." Sakura nodded, a tear sliding down her cheek. She never knew she'd be able to cry on a whim, given how hard she fought to hold her tears back for so many years, but it seemed the accumulated sadness and loneliness of her life was doing her a favor just about now, it was so easy to call the sadness to the surface.

The one in his twenties leaned down and untied her. "You run, and we'll be forced to hurt you. Do you understand?"

"Just play along…save your energy for when the real enemy shows himself." Sakura gave a small nod, her eyes wide and scared.

"What's your name?"

"Oh so you get to ask?" Daisuke grumbled.

"Yes. Because I'm not harassing her."

"Interesting definition of harassment you've got, considering you're kidnapping me to sell off."

"Oops…"

Sakura was only able to offset the dryness of her statement by infusing her voice with resignation. Her fear infused with her glare.

The oldest one gave a sad chuckle. "I do hope you keep some of that fire, it might be the only way to hold onto yourself…I truly am sorry about this. Now please, Miss, do tell us your name."

"Sakura."

"Just Sakura?"

"I have no p-parents. I'm a t-traveling performer." She sniffled, still glaring up at them. The one in his twenties leaned down, offering her his hand, which she shakily took, and he pulled her to her feet.

Once upright, her limbs immediately felt heavy. She was so tired, and she hadn't gotten enough sleep to replenish her chakra. At the very least, it sold her image of being hopeless pretty well. There was more truth to the situation than she was willing to admit.

She followed them, her pace slow due to exhaustion, helping her sell her helpless civilian act, while she meditated. The focus of doing so also helping sell her act, as she continuously failed to respond to questions they asked, making them think she was too angry and scared to reply.

Once they reached the village, she was brought to a room, where a girl her age helped wash her and provided her with a beautiful kimono, all of her actions reeking of guilt.

"You're so pretty…" the girl whispered sadly, sounding more like she was saying goodbye at a funeral than giving a compliment.

Sakura looked down at herself uncomfortably, unused to wearing kimonos. They were always too expensive, felt far fancier than she deserved, and most of all they were hard to dance in. Being in a full kimono would limit her options for battle. In Kunoichi classes, they'd taught them all the ways to conceal weapons in kimonos—and there were several. She could be armed to the teeth in one of those, but they made taijutsu drastically more difficult. She subtly loosened the obi, making sure her leg had enough clearance to fully extend outward—her dancers style would be tough to pull off in this, but hopefully she could at least throw and decent kick when the time came.

"Do I have to wear this?" She asked resignedly.

"Himushi-sama orders. He's the one w-who g-gave them to us…"

"Why are you scared? I'm the one being sold." Sakura asked quietly.

"I'm…I'm so sorry." The girl burst into tears.

"Why—"

"I was supposed to be the one wearing it! He was going to take me!" The girl wailed. "My father is the head of the village…I'm sure you saw, there really isn't much to see here. Our village is subject to frequent raids, and Himushi-sama…he kept demanding more and more, threatening to burn down everything. We're starving. He takes everything from us, all our food, all our resources. Last week, he demanded me…my father protested. But he wouldn't be swayed, until my father put forward a bargain. If the village put forth a different beautiful maiden, he'd leave us alone once and for all. I'm so sorry, Miss Sakura!" The girl cried dropping to her knees in a deep bow in front of her.

"What's your name?" As

"Mayuki."

"Mayuki-san…I…understand. It'll be okay. He won't bother your village ever again." Sakura gave her a scared, sad, smile, careful not to blow her cover.

"I will forever be indebted to you, in this life and every life to follow…" Mayuki sniffled.

"Can you give me a blank scroll and a pen?"

"Of course!" She leaned out the door, calling for someone outside, and in a few moments, the items Sakura requested were sitting in front of her, and she got to work.

"Y-you can read and write?"

"I used to travel with another performer…they taught me. Said it was important." Sakura lied.

"What are you writing?"

"A contract." Sakura murmured, finishing the last line. She had told Naruto this was a mission of contract negotiation, after all. She skimmed it over one last time, before rolling up the scroll.

"Contract?"

"I'm sorry, I don't feel like talking very much. Can…Can I have some quiet to rest…before I…"

"Of course!" Mayuki retreated to a corner curling into a grieving ball, while Sakura laid down on the futon and faced the wall, slipping the contract into the folds of her kimono. Apparently they'd gone for the pity sentinel tactic, instead of just locking her in, which if she hadn't already been planning to go along with it, would have 100% worked against her.

Sakura stared at the wall for a long moment, praying her apparent skill at lying continued to hold, and Himushi wouldn't call her bluff. This was the only way she could think to keep him from further retaliation. She just hoped her gamble worked. She closed her eyes and drifted into a light, unrestful sleep, wishing that it would be enough to replenish her chakra, but not getting her hopes up.

---

Sakura was gently shaken awake by a pale and miserable looking Mayuki, who hadn't slept at all it seemed. "I'm so sorry Miss Sakura, but…it's time."

It was barely dawn, she noted, which meant she'd only gotten two and a half hours total last night, by her estimate.

"Not enough…"

If the looks on the villager's faces were any indication, not a single one of them liked this. But there was also a despondency in their eyes that told her they'd given up all hope and this was their last ditch effort.

"It's the same look the people in the Land of Waves had…alright, that's it, I'm kicking this Himushi's ass for doing this to them, shannaro! Okay, so what's my move here?"

She was lead to the village gate, watching five men on horse back growing nearer. And she could sense the one in the lead was a chakra user.

"Well that complicates things…but he should be the only one that really poses a problem. Even with only a little chakra, I should be able to handle the rest. I really can't afford a drawn out battle though…"

She didn't have to wait too long until Himushi was standing in front of her, a sick smile on his brutal face.

"Himushi-sama." The older member of her kidnapping team stepped forward grimly. Apparently he was the village chief. "I present to you, Sakura. A traveling performer."

"I see. So you did manage to find a beautiful girl to replace your daughter. I didn't think it'd be possible, Mohara, but I suppose fate favors your family after all." His attention turned on Sakura, looking her up and down in a lecherously appraising way. "I can't say as much for you, unfortunately." He chuckled darkly, reaching out to caress a strand of her hair.

"Gross! That revolting bastard, I'm gonna kill him!"

Sakura knocked his hand away, glaring up at Himushi.

"Tsk. Show some respect you wretch!" He raised his hand, about to slap her, but Sakura pivoted away, with enough grace to back up her claim of being a traveling performer.

"Ok, Sakura, end it with one shot…"

If this had been a formal battle, she would have put more distance between herself and the enemy, and employed her dancer's style taijutsu, but this was a surprise attack she hoped would be the first and last hit thrown, so she did what made the most sense, and threw one graceful, loaded kick.

Himushi went flying, skidding backwards, body bouncing over the ground before slamming into a tree. Sakura's body thrummed with exhaustion, she needed to sleep. But she needed to see this through first.

"My Lord!" His subordinates shouted in horror, but were too scared to lift a finger against the girl with the apparently monstrous kicks.

She stood above Himushi, looking down at him coldly, her voice loud and clear, for all to hear when she spoke. "I don't even need to examine you to know you have a severe concussion, several broken ribs, tibial fractures, and a broken nose. Just remember, that was all with one punch. I'd hate to think what a second would do. I'll heal you, but only if you agree to leave this village and their people alone. Never bother them or any of their neighbors again."

"I—I w-won't!"

"You see, I don't trust your word though." Sakura pulled out the contract and held it up. "Sign this contract saying as much. If you ever break it, this will burn up, notifying me, and I'll come find you. I promise you, you won't survive the second kick."

Himushi's eyes were wide with horror. Just what was this girl?! She no ordinary traveling performer—she had to have some sort of ninja training.

Sakura bit her thumb, signing one line of the scroll in her blood, before holding the contract out to Himushi. His fingers were coated with blood gushing from his nose, shaking as they signed his own name onto the paper.

"Good choice. I'll heal you now." Sakura rolled up the contract, slipping it back into the folds of her kimono before hovering her hands over him, working to repair as much damage as she could before her chakra tapped out on her.

It wasn't long before she felt herself nearing her limit, and she knew she needed to maintain the tough act, or he'd attack again. Most of the fatal damage was taken care of, and all that was left were minor injuries that were best left to heal with time anyway.

"Well you can move again." She said coolly, pulling her hands away.

Himushi didn't seem to care that he wasn't fully healed. He jumped up, got on his horse and fled, the cowering civilians he lead following after him.

"Crap I'm tired. Shishou would be so pissed…Sasuke-kun too. He always did say I was too soft. Both of them would have just killed the guy and been done with it, but I had to go offering to heal him…well, Naruto would be proud, at least."

She took a deep stabilizing breath, and rose, turning to face the villagers, whose mouths were open in shock.

"If you don't mind, I'd like my clothes back, and then I'll be on my way."

"You…why didn't you fight us when we first took you?" Daisuke asked, wide eyed.

"Well, your heart wasn't really in the kidnapping. And I couldn't just standby once I heard someone had been harassing your village." She sounded an awful lot like Kakashi to her own ears, but in this case she didn't think that was a bad thing.

"That…that contract though…" Mayuki murmured.

Sakura just smiled and winked at her, bringing her finger to her lips. The girl's eyes widened, her lips pursing to hide her smile.

Her limbs felt heavy…she needed to sleep and eat something, but one look at the village, and she felt unable to ask for what she needed. It was just like in the Land of Waves before the bridge was built. They were poor, impoverished, had been preyed on by someone with more power…they had nothing to spare, even if they would willingly give everything to her, it would be taking advantage of them. She couldn't do it.

"I'll go get your clothes!" Mayuki ran off back to the small house she'd stayed in the night before.

"Our village is indebted to you, more than you know." Mohara said, bowing to her. "You've saved the life of my daughter, and every female in the village. Actually, you've saved all are lives—they'll stop demanding our crops and livestock now too. We finally have a chance at surviving. Whatever the price for your help, we will pay it."

"Wouldn't really be much of a help if I turned around and charged you for it." Sakura shrugged.

"You'll really take nothing?" The villagers couldn't believe that someone could be so selfless and forgiving, but when Sakura simply shook her head, they were forced to accept the truth. The girl before them had to have been sent by the gods—she was too good.

Mohara nodded. "From now on this village shall be known as Sakura Root village. Today, will henceforth be a festival day. And our neighbors will know what you did for them as well."

"That's really not necessary." Sakura raised her hands placatingly, uncomfortable with so much ceremony being given in her name.

"There's no use arguing, we're gonna do it regardless, because we're all in unanimous agreement that we want to." Mayuki laughed, having returned with Sakura's clothes folded. "You can keep the kimono. It looks beautiful on you."

"No you should keep it. At the very least you could sell it."

Mayuki shook her head. "You could do the same if you want. But you don't seem like the type who would go out of the way to buy something nice for yourself, Lady Sakura, and sometime in the future, you may need a kimono, so you may as well take it."

Sakura relented, deciding it was a waste of energy to argue. "I'll just change and get going then."

Mayuki let her into one of the houses nearest the village gate for Sakura to change in. She made quick work of it, sealing the kimono away in a scroll, and then she was off, the villagers waving good bye cheerily, calling for her to visit again sometime.

---

Naruto thrust his hands into the waterfall once again, in sync with his nine shadow clones, but just like before, nothing happened. "Damn it! The water barely budges…" Naruto growled. Kakashi's training method involved using several shadow clones to increase the speed of the experience gained worked wonders, but it exhausted him to execute, given how many clones he used and how much chakra they were all expending. Trying to infuse elements into his chakra—namely wind, as he'd come to discover was his chakra nature—was immensely difficult, and it was hard to imagine someone having two or more of these types, let alone one. Still, with the help of a thousand shadow clones, he'd mastered cutting a leaf in half within a day, and now he was determined to cut the waterfall by releasing a blast of wind infused chakra at it, but so far, no success.

"Kakashi-sensei! Maybe I need more clones?!" Naruto shouted down to his teacher over the roar of the water fall.

"What you need is to transform a massive amount of chakra into wind to cut the waterfall. If you make too many clones, each one's chakra will be that much weaker. Besides, that waterfall's only wide enough for ten of you." Kakashi answered.

"Oh come on! There's gotta be some kind of trick to this!" Naruto shouted back.

"You don't store the wind chakra you create inside yourself long enough. Take more time. Be more thorough." Kakashi drawled.

"But if I take too long it won't be useful on the battlefield!"

"You're still in training. Don't worry about the battlefield yet. Once you get used to it, it'll flow faster…"

Naruto didn't look appeased.

Kakashi sighed. He really was his most challenging student. Sasuke picked up on everything so quickly, it was like ninjutsu, taijutsu, chakra changes, all came naturally to him—in some ways they did. Sasuke had been learning to chakra nature jutsu since he was seven or eight. The fire style jutsu his family favored required it. As for Sakura, all she needed was one hint or push in a direction, and she pretty much taught herself. Anything she couldn't textbook replicate, she adjusted and adapted to suite herself better. But Naruto required a lot of explanation, a lot of breaking things down step by step, and the patience of a monk to teach. Iruka deserved a medal. Jiraya too.

"Do you want to know why Sakura is able to learn so quickly?" Kakashi asked, suddenly changing tactics.

"Sakura-chan? Because she's the smartest prettiest kunoichi ever." Naruto answered easily, caught off guard by the mention of his missing teammate. He'd tried one of her food pills after the leaf cutting exercise, and true to her word, it tasted like dirt. But he'd felt more energized and alert at once, ready to get back to it. He just wished she were there—back when they'd learned tree climbing, her advice had helped him immensely.

"While that's true, and a part of it, that's not why she learns quickly. Sakura learns so fast because she fully understands the way her body moves, the way her chakra moves within it, and how those two things relate. Because of that, her chakra is almost like its own muscle to her, and she memorizes every key movement and application of it, the same way she would dance steps or fighting forms. It's all muscle memory for her." Kakashi explained, speaking his observation out loud for the first time. "Any new technique that's introduced to her, if it shares a similar chakra flow to something she already knew, she's able to recall and apply that similar chakra flow to learn and execute the new technique within a few tries."

"I know that Sakura-chan's the best, sensei! Believe it! But how does that help me?"

"The answer's in there if you're listening closely, but I'll be a little more direct. If a new technique is introduced to Sakura, with a chakra flow completely unfamiliar to anything she's ever seen or done, she focuses on the new chakra flow and takes the time she needs to memorize and acclimate her body to it, until it becomes muscle memory, like everything else. While you were away, I have seen and heard about Sakura spending whole months meditating, or repeating a single exercise or jutsu, until her body's grown used to it. No one starts battle-ready Naruto. Sakura understands when she needs to take time to get herself used to a chakra flow that's unfamiliar to her."

"That's great and all, but I don't have Sakura-chan's muscle memory or the time to he repeating the same exercise over and over for months on end!" Naruto shouted in frustration. He didn't mean to sound dismissive of Sakura. Everything Kakashi said about her was incredible. He said from the start that chakra control was the most crucial part to being a ninja, and that if you mastered chakra control, you could learn any ninjutsu. And he more or less just verified that Sakura had pretty much done that. She'd mastered chakra control, and now she could master anything with relative ease—that was astonishing. His teammate, someone he truly loved, was one of the most reliable and skilled people, probably in the whole village. He also had only ever seen things come easily to Sakura. It was surprising to hear that there were even things she struggled to learn, that she had to sink whole months into it. But he was stuck. He wasn't a genius expert in chakra control. And he didn't have months.

Kakashi stared back at him flatly. He'd hoped drawing the comparison to Sakura—someone Naruto held great admiration and love for—would both give Naruto the idea to emulate her and just focus on the feel of the chakra flow to get used to it, and would relax and have some patience with himself. But it seemed not. As much as Naruto was someone motivated by love, it wasn't a lie to say he was motivated by competition a touch more, so maybe invoking Sasuke's name might get through to him more. "Listen, change in nature skills normally take many years to hone. Even leaf-cutting usually takes at least half a year. If you consider that you cleared that in hours, you don't need to rush. You're advancing much faster than expected. Even Sasuke, when I taught him the Chidori took quite a few days to achieve lightening change of nature."

"But that's the point! Sasuke's the one I've got to catch up to!" Naruto growled.

Kakashi had miscalculated. He should have realized mentioning Sasuke's time frame for learning change of nature would only spike his competitive side more…it seemed there'd be no winning with him.

Kakashi knelt down next to Yamato—the one responsible for the creation of the waterfall Naruto was trying to cut, and the wood beam he was standing on. "Ugh, can you…"

"Very well." Yamato grimaced, pushing more chakra into his jutsu. The waterfall shuttered, growing wider and wider, as did the wood beam Naruto was standing on.

Naruto gawked at the absurdly wide waterfall in shock. He knew he asked for this, but it was insane how wide it was.

"That was tough even for you, eh?" Kakashi asked, rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Oh no…please…it was nothing…I'm fine…" Yamato gasped, on all fours, each gap in speech filled with heaving or hacking.

"How's that?" Kakashi asked, directing his gaze back to Naruto.

"Heh! Multi Shadow clone jutsu!"

…It would be a long day.

---

Sakura barely made it 10 kilometers into Ame before she hit a wall. The extreme, rapid travel, lack of sleep, kidnapping, kick, and medical ninjutsu had her running on empty. Since her interference with the village, it seemed the bandits and rogues were cropping up more and more, actively looking for her. She'd successfully evaded most of them, but there had been a few she'd had no option but to face. She ended those as quickly as possible, relying mostly on poison weapons, traps, and exploding tags, so as to spend as little energy as possible.

Sakura couldn't keep going any longer, and it seemed like the flow of enemies trying to pick a fight with her had diminished. Though, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched, for a while now, by someone she couldn't sense.

Once again, seeing no better option that sleeping in a tree, even though it hadn't went well last time, she set up her traps, and leaned against the trunk. Her eyes fell closed before she could stop them.

---

Sasuke was irritable—more so than usual. The show he'd put on with his team had apparently proved useful, as Orochimaru seemed to trust him more. He was more willing to send Sasuke on errands, which Sasuke hated the implications of, but if it meant being away from that disgusting snake, it was worth it.

Orochimaru had apparently needed an ingredient from Ame, for the next poison he was going to inflict on Sasuke, and had sent the boy to retrieve it. Sasuke thought it rather sadistic, making him fetch the ingredients for a poison that would be used against him, but it got him away for a bit, so he hadn't argued.

As Sasuke had neared the border, he passed through a festival being celebrated by a cluster of villages, where all he could hear talk of was the beautiful, selfless, pink-haired, traveling performer who had saved their villages from an evil, greedy, lord.

There was only one person on the planet, as far as he knew, that fit that description perfectly. She was a medical nin, not a traveling performer, but…

When I was really young, I went to see some traveling street performers. My dad took me. There was one dancer who was so beautiful. She moved so well. I wanted to be just like her…

The memory echoed through his mind, as if from a great distance, faint and hard to hear through the reverberations of his hatred, but still there none the less, feeding his suspicions that the local hero the villagers were celebrating, was none other than the person he hoped to return to…hearing her name confirmed it.

"And then Lady Sakura healed him, but he was so scared he ran off!" He heard one villager tell a neighboring villager excitedly.

This whole time, he'd only heard whisperings about her, no one else. Where were Naruto and Kakashi? Or that new captain and his awkwardly stiff replacement? Sakura was a medical ninja and medical ninja didn't have an emphasis placed on their combat training. Even if she could hold her own, she shouldn't have been by herself—ninja worked in squads for a reason. Teamwork was vital, that had always been the lesson from day one.

"This Sakura, was she alone?" The words flew from his mouth before he could stop them.

"Yes. She didn't have a partner, though with how graceful she was, I don't even think she needs one." A younger boy around his age sighed dreamily, much to Sasuke's growing annoyance. Of course the boy was right, no one normal would be able to match Sakura as a dance partner.

"I wonder why she was heading toward the border though? Why would a traveling performer want to go to such a rainy place. Wouldn't it make dancing harder?" That was all Sasuke needed to hear. He didn't even care what the answer to the neighboring villager's question was. All that mattered was knowing where she was headed and that she was alone. He was off before the villagers could engage with him more.

When he found her, she was surrounded by bandits. He was about to make a move, but stopped when he noticed the thin wire in front of him—Sakura had made her move first.

"So you must be Lady Sakura…he wasn't kidding, you really are a looker."

"He?"

"Himushi-sama has a bounty out on you, and some contract in your possession."

"How persistent of him." She answered dryly. "Can we just get on with it, I really don't feel like entertaining you right now."

The bandits broke out in lascivious laughter. "I'm sure you don't, but we feel like being entertained, pretty girl." The moved in closer, but Sakura shifted her foot, and wire released in a circle around her, pinning each one of them to a tree trunk.

"What?! That bitch!"

But Sakura was gone, already racing through the tree tops, Sasuke silently pursuing her. He hadn't missed the way Sakura stumbled a little when landing on a branch. Sakura didn't stumble, not unless something was wrong—she was hurt, or over exhausted from a reaction or something.

Whoever this Himushi was, he'd done a good job of rallying all the scum in the area to go after Sakura. Sasuke intercepted several more than felt reasonable, dispatching them quickly before they could even get near her.

He watched from a distance as she stopped, her body swaying and hand gripping a tree trunk for support. She was breathing heavy and sweating a little, despite the cool climate of Ame. Sakura looked around, hesitantly, biting at her lip. He watched her set up traps, her movements sluggish, before jumping back into a tree and leaning against the trunk, her eyes closing.

"Tsk." How could she let herself rest here when there were so many people after her, and she had no back up? Though it did seem like she needed it…fine. He'd just have to keep watch for her. It wasn't like he was in a rush to get back to Orochimaru anyway.

He moved closer to her, deftly avoiding her traps, keeping his presence concealed so as not to wake or alert her to his interference.

Settling himself to keep watch on a tree next to hers, he couldn't keep his eyes from sliding to her, studying her in the detail he couldn't allow himself to before, with Orochimaru's threatening presence nearby. Her silky pink hair brushed just past her shoulders. She must be growing it out again. Her skin was as clear and smooth as ever, looking almost like porcelain. Her features had sharpened a little with age, having slightly more definition, though still holding that softness that made her seem so delicate. She'd grown a little, though she was still so small…her body had developed more, her waist more defined, her chest and hips a bit curvier, though not enormously. Her muscles were more toned and defined, which he felt suited her well. She looked simultaneously strong and delicate. Something in him unknotted, relaxing a little at the sight of her, until his eyes trailed back to her face noting that she looked exhausted, the knot in him tightening once again. Her breathing was labored and her brow glistened with sweat.

Sasuke frowned. Was she sick? Did she have a fever? What was she even doing out here alone, so far from the village? She wasn't wearing her hitai-ate…had she left? But why? Konoha was her home. Her mother's grave was there. Naruto and Kakashi were there. She wouldn't leave, unless it was to join him, but even then, she hadn't tried to find him, he'd found her. So what was she doing out here anyway? It must be some sort of mission where her identity as a Konoha ninja couldn't be revealed. But why send Sakura on a dangerous mission like that completely alone? What was Tsunade thinking?!

"Don't have to d…Sasuke-kun, you…haven't been sleep…either…" His breath caught at Sakura's sleep saturated mumblings. How did she know he hadn't had a restful sleep in weeks? Was she dreaming about him?…The same way he dreamed about her?

---

Sakura was up in the tree she'd fallen asleep in, situated between Sasuke's legs, her back leaned against his chest, one of his arms securely around her waist, the other stroking through her hair. His woody scent enveloped her, making her chest feel warm and her body relax into the safety he provided.

Their eyes met, a charged silence hanging heavily around them. Sasuke broke it.

"You know I hate him."

Sakura's eyes narrowed keenly. By her estimate, there were only two people he could be referring to. "Orochimaru?" That was the only one that would possibly require clarification after their last meeting.

"Hn."

"So you won't give him your body?"

"He was nearby." Sasuke answered, as if that statement naturally followed the question she had asked. Luckily, Sakura was fluent in Sasuke.

Sakura hummed lightly her eyes closing. "That's what I thought. I must really want to hear you say it if I'm dreaming it though."

"Tch. Annoying. I'm not giving him my body. I'm just using him to get enough power, so I can settle things with Itachi."

"About that…Itachi…I've been thinking about him and something's off. His motives don't really—"

"Don't."

"What?"

"Don't think about him." His tone was curt and annoyed, making her look up at him curiously.

"I know Itachi's a minefield topic for you, but why are you annoyed that I'm thinking about him?"

"You're too nosy for your own good. You'll start trying to go directly to the source, and he'll…" Sasuke stopped talking, his jaw tense, refusing to look at her.

Sakura blinked up at him before reaching up and laying her hand on his cheek. He leaned into her touch, his eyes softening.

"Just rest, Sakura. I'll keep watch."

"You don't have to do that Sasuke-kun. You haven't been sleeping much either."

"How'd you know that?"

"You looked so tired…"

"Have you looked at yourself?" His hand slid from her hair to her forehead, grimacing. "You feel warm."

"I'm not sick, it's just my seal." She dismissed.

"Hn." He clearly didn't like the effect it was having on her. His hand went back to caressing her hair. "Rest Sakura."

Her eyes slid shut, her body relaxing fully, enjoying the safe feeling his presence provided.

---

Naruto kept at cutting the waterfall, but he wasn't making much progress, even with the increase in shadow clones. It was well into twilight was already starting to fade when he heard Kakashi's voice from behind him.

"What brings you out here, Hinata?"

Hinata? Naruto stopped slamming his hands into the waterfall, a strange tingly feeling suddenly coursing through him. He must be more tired than he realized.

"I…I heard N-Naruto was t-training out here, and thought I'd…I'd bring him some food." Her soft voice was very hard to hear over the roar of the waterfall around him.

Kakashi studied the shy Hyuga carefully. Hinata probably wouldn't have had the courage to do this without some prompting. "Sakura put you up to this, huh?" He asked quietly.

Hinata's pearly gaze dropped to the ground and she fiddled with her fingers. "She…she asked me to check in on him and m-make sure he was eating…but…I would have w-wanted too, e-even if she hadn't."

Kakashi gave her a bracing smile, not that she could really tell, given the mask covering his face. "Hey Naruto!" He called up to the blond, acutely aware of how he'd stopped trying to cut the waterfall for the first time since he started, and of his own volition. "Why don't we take a break and eat something?"

"I'm hungry!" Naruto agreed, putting up no fight at the suggestion of taking a break or slowing down, for the first time all day. For one thing, it was true, he was a bit hungry. But he probably could have, and would have kept going, if he really wanted to. Maybe he would have popped one of Sakura's food pills soon, but that would have been as much of a break as he gave himself, left to his own devices. The idea of something that didn't taste like fertilizer was immensely appealing though, and he hadn't actually had a chance to really catch up with Hinata at all since he got back. The first time he saw her, she fainted from sun stroke, and then she ran off right after she woke up, insisting she was fine and that he didn't need to walk her home. He wanted to tell her about how much stronger she'd gotten and find out how her training had been going.

Kakashi and Yamato refused the offer of her food, saying they were fine, and actually had an errand to run, before both left the field they were in, leaving Hinata and Naruto alone.

Naruto chowed down excited. Hinata's cooking was really good. Ramen only beat it out by a narrow margin. He also rapidly filled her in on his time away training, as well as the training he was working on now—that part tinged with more frustration. "What have you been up to Hinata?"

"O-Oh, well…I've been training too. Neji-niisan has been t-training me again. He'd stopped after I became a genin but…but after the chunin exams, he started again. M-My f-father's been training with him, and Hanabi-chan…he still…he still doesn't train with me…but while you were away…he started watching…when Neji-niisan and I would train together. And…more recently, he's started calling out corrections to my f-form…not often but…sometimes."

"I mean, that's good I guess…I don't get why he won't train you himself, but good thing Neji's helpin' you now!" Naruto said brightly, although he was kind of starting to hate Hinata's dad. He sounded like a total jerk! "Hey Hinata, do you know anything about this change of chakra nature stuff?"

Hinata's moon like eyes fixed on the enormous waterfall in front of them. It was easier to talk to him without stuttering when she wasn't looking at him, although she could still feel his intense blue eyes laser focused on her, which made it harder to form her sentences. "I've never tried to do it myself, although…I know mine's lighting type. Kakashi-sensei tested mine and Sakura-chan's at the same time. He tried to teach her an elemental ninjutsu too."

"He did?! I bet Sakura-Chan picked it up immediately! What type is she?"

Hinata shook her head softly. "She didn't. At first…her paper didn't even react when she focused her chakra into it. She had to try twice. She's water type…and Kakashi-sensei tried to teach her the water dragon jutsu, but…Sakura-Chan could barely get the water to ripple—apparently she's not an elemental ninjutsu type…she worked at it for hours too…"

Naruto stared at her wide eyed. "Really?! Sakura-Chan couldn't get it?! But she always gets everything immediately!"

Hinata shook her head again. "I've…I've trained with Sakura-Chan a lot. Most of the time, it takes her several tries to get something…and once she finally does, she drills it endlessly, until she can do it in her sleep…you've…you've only ever seen her doing something after she mastered it, but the only reason she seems to have flawlessly mastered something is because of how much she's drilled it…and given the way her chakra moves…she's frequently forced to take a breaks, but during that time, all she thinks about is the techniques she's learning and the chakra flow required for them, or how she can adjust it to work better for her." Hinata turned to look at him and almost fainted at how close he was and how intensely he was staring at her.

"You really have trained with Sakura-Chan a lot, to know all that!"

"W-well, y-yes. But also…I can s-see the w-way her chakra moves, is all…" Hinata stammered. She'd particularly noted the way most of Sakura's chakra pooled in her forehead, leaving her only a small portion to train with. Sakura never explained or mentioned it though, so she kept it to herself, since Sakura didn't seem to want to share about it.

"That's right! That Byakugan of yours is really amazing."

"N-no! It's not really…N-Neji-niisan's is stronger…"

"Yeah, but he doesn't use it the way you do, to help your friends train, y'know? You're a real kind person, Hinata!"

Hinata turned scarlet, her eyes wide. He'd complimented her! "W-Well…I-if you w-wanted, I…I c-could use the byakugan to t-try and h-help you with your t-training." Hinata managed to stammer out.

"You'd do that?"

Hinata nodded, unable to meet his eyes.

"You're awesome Hinata! Believe it!" Naruto shouted happily. With Hinata helping him identify where the hang up in his chakra application was, he should be able to progress much faster. And even if she couldn't see anything it was super nice of her to even offer, especially after going out of her way to bring him food. "Let's get to it as soon as we're done!" He said, digging into his meal with renewed gusto.

"N-Naruto-kun…why…why are you in such a hurry to m-master this? You're the kind of person who keeps trying…no matter what. No matter how long it takes…you keep at it…time…time's never mattered before…so long as y-you kept at it…why…why is this different?" Hinata was soft spoken by nature, but her voice was even quieter than usual. This was one of the longer conversations she had with Naruto, and she didn't want to discourage or offend him.

Naruto slowly set down his chopsticks, staring at the bento in his hands.

"Time didn't used to matter. But…Sasuke…he's getting stronger everyday. And last time…I need to keep up. There's not much time left. Because Sasuke…Orochimaru might…Sasuke doesn't have months. Time's almost up. I need to get stronger…strong enough to bring Sasuke back. I promised Sakura-Chan."

"And you never go back on your word…cause that's your ninja way." Hinata finished a small smile on her face. She knew how steadfastly Naruto stood by his word.

Naruto blinked caught off guard, as he looked up at her, before breaking into a beaming smile. "That's right! Believe it!"

Hinata couldn't help her own smile, even as her face reddened.

Naruto suddenly shoveled food into his mouth as fast as he could—he had a lot of practice from speed inhaling ramen.

"Alright! Let's get to work Hinata!"

"R-Right!"

…it was going to be a long night.

---

When Sakura's eyes opened again, she could have sworn she saw Sasuke sitting in the tree next to hers, looking at her, but then she blinked and he was gone. Writing it off as her groggy mind not fully out of her dream, Sakura rose to her feet, hand on the tree trunk, and evaluated the state of her chakra reserves. The rest had done her well. Her daily use reserve was full, not that it meant much, given how little her daily use reserve actually held, but she could work with it. She figured she'd manage three days continuous travel before needing another long rest, and if she budgeted well, she might be able to make that four and a half days with some well timed short meditation breaks.

Sakura set off again, keeping her senses on high alert, as she still had the feeling that she was being watched, though she couldn't sense anyone. Either she was paranoid, or someone was hiding their chakra signature very well. Although, despite being watched, she didn't feel like she was being threatened, just…observed. Still she wouldn't drop her guard. Based on Sasori's poison, there was a chance he'd spent a significant amount of time here. And if he had spent a significant amount of time here, it was likely that was because the Akatsuki were based somewhere here.

"This'll probably be the most dangerous part of the trip, if I can just get through Ame and Ishi alright, the rest of this should be easier."

Sasuke kept his distance, sure that she'd sense him if he got too close, even with him hiding his chakra signature. She'd caught him off guard when she first woke up—she made him too relaxed, and he hadn't reacted to her stirring quickly enough. He couldn't let her see him. It wouldn't be fair to her, playing with her emotions like that, after what he'd said about Orochimaru during their reunion. Even with his plans to return to her once everything was settled, it was better off she not get her hopes up, after all, he might not survive his encounter with Itachi, once it came. Following her, watching over her like this, was putting her at risk, from both Itachi and Orochimaru—he really shouldn't be doing it, but he couldn't just leave her. The byakugan would have been better for tailing at a distance, but his sharingan still helped. He'd already made up his mind while keeping watch last night, that he'd escort her through Ame and keep trouble away from her…she looked too exhausted and a little feverish for him to feel comfortable with leaving her on her own. He knew she'd made it this far alright, and saved a whole area of villages single handedly. She would probably be fine without him keeping watch, but this time the little voice in the back of his head screaming at him to keep her close and protect her won out. Ame was notorious for having several rogue nin, and there were even whispers that the Akatsuki were based there. He wouldn't be able to escort her further than the Ame-Ishi border, lest Orochimaru start wondering what was taking so long, but there was a chance she might run into Itachi here, and there was no way he'd let his brother anywhere near her. Those nightmares would not come to pass.

Rain had started falling in a steady pelt, making the footing a bit more treacherous, but her impeccable balance and dancer's skill negated that problem. She had put on her travel cloak when she'd slept, for warmth, and she was now happy she hadn't taken it off, as it provided a barrier against the rain. Despite constantly being on guard, watching for an attack, none came. The rest of the trip through Ame was shockingly uneventful. The rain started to taper off as she neared the border, prompting Sakura to pull her hood down. She actually enjoyed the cooler temperatures of Ame, and tended to like overcast days more than aggressively sunny ones. She wasn't a big fan of being rain-soaked though. Feeling energized by the chill, Sakura's pace picked up.

Sasuke dispatched yet another rogue without a second thought. Unlike the others, this one hadn't seemed to even be aware of Sakura yet when Sasuke intercepted him, but Sasuke decided it was better to intervene before he had the chance. Since this one hadn't actually posed a threat to Sakura yet, he was a bit gentler, merely casting a genjutsu to sway the man into heading in a different direction.

When Sakura crossed the Ame-Ishi border, Sasuke slowed to a stop, watching her form grow farther and farther away, her pink hair, slightly darkened by rain water, flowing behind her. A small whisper called for him to follow her, to catch up to her, take her hand, and go together with her wherever she was going, but the darker, louder voice, screaming that Itachi had to die before he could even entertain that idea won out. He'd been thinking of Sakura too much recently. He'd have to put all thoughts of her out of his head until Orochimaru and Itachi were neutralized. As soon as she was out of view, Sasuke turned to pick up his poison and return to Orochimaru.

---

Everything was going more smoothly now that she was out of Ame. Ishi still had its own ninja, but there were fewer rogues, and the nation wasn't as impoverished, meaning there were fewer bandits. She felt safer taking more short meditation breaks, which allowed her to travel longer without the hard crash she'd needed in Ame. But the terrain made things more challenging. Ishi was very rocky and mountainous, which made the footing generally more unstable, and required more stamina to navigate. Stamina being one of the main things Sakura lacked at the moment. The biggest struggle was when she finally took a break to fully rest, the mountainous region didn't seem to have the same coverage that trees provided. She didn't know if it was really the case, or just personal preference, but Sakura was used to sleeping in and moving through trees. They felt safer and less open to attack. The mountains didn't feel like they provided the same level of safety, at least until she found a few caves here and there, where she settled in to take a proper rest.

Just north west of Ishigakure, Sakura ran into her second big problem of the trip—she sensed two familiar, massive, chakras. Ones she hadn't sensed since she was a genin, standing in the hallway of a seedy hotel, listening to Sasuke scream, while Naruto stood in fear. She was coming right into the path of Itachi and Kisame. Quickly, Sakura ducked behind a rock, her chakra remaining hidden, as her lips pursed and she all bet held her breath. She could not afford a confrontation with them, not if she had any hopes of surviving. Kisame's voice carried as they neared her hiding spot.

"Haven't seen that brother of yours at all lately. Surprising given how badly he wanted to kill you."

"Good, it seems like they haven't noticed me…"

"My little brother isn't dumb. After how badly I beat him last time, he'll know better than to come at me without having enough power this time."

"Why does he sound like he wants that to happen…?"

"You're awfully calm about that." Kisame noted, glancing over at Itachi.

"It's a fight I want."

"Even more interesting, considering you seem to hate fighting."

"So Kisame's noticed it too, how Itachi tries to deflect fights or end them as quickly as possible. So why is he gunning for this fight with Sasuke-kun so badly? Once again, it makes no sense."

Sakura pressed herself even closer to the rock, bringing her hand up to her mouth and nose to muffle any of the smallest sounds, when they passed right in front of her.

"This fight has been years in the making…when he does finally come, don't get in my way."

"I'm not one to interfere in family matters."

They passed by and kept walking. Sakura thought she was in the clear, daring to move her hand away from her mouth and nose, but then Itachi glanced back at the rock she was hiding behind, stopping for a second.

"SHIT!" Sakura froze, not even breathing.

"What?" Kisame grunted, turning over his shoulder to glance at his partner.

Itachi didn't answer, facing forward and continuing on as if nothing was wrong. Sakura wasn't sure if he knew she was there or not, but the second they were out of sight line, she was sprinting away as fast as she could go, for as long as she could manage. Neither Kisame nor Itachi came after her.

---

The rest of the trip was uneventful. The few bandits she ran into were civilians who couldn't use chakra, which made outrunning them easy. She didn't run into any other ninja, rogues, or Akatsuki. She mostly camped outdoors, and hunted for food, although occasionally, when she came across a town, she sprung for food and lodging.

After a week and a half of travel, she finally reached the Shikkotsu forrest. Her mouth nearly dropped open at the sheer size of it. And she'd have to get to the north western sector to reach where the slugs resided.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, steeling the nerves that shot through her.

"Ok, Sakura, let's go!"

"Shannaro!" Sakura leapt into the forest. Almost immediately, she felt a huge wave of chakra surround her. Each tree was saturated with it, so much so that she could practically feel the energy vibrating in her teeth. The branches grew so thickly together, minimal light got in. She started heading north but every leap, branches shook and moved under her feet, despite there being no wind. Some shifted, completely away from her, nearly causing her to fall. It was only thanks to her quick reflexes and dexterity that she hadn't yet. She eventually gave up on the practice of jumping tree to tree, landing on the forrest floor. The branches seemed to weave even more tightly together, casting the forrest into total darkness. Sakura waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, trying to let her chakra sensing make up for her lack of sight. But she wasn't Ino—or a sensory type. There was too much chakra all around her, in every tree, that it all blurred together. She couldn't isolate the chakra to its tree.

Sakura braved stepping forward blindly, but immediately a root caught her foot and would have caused her to fall had it not been for her great balance. She stabilized herself and took a deep breath.

"Ok, now what? If I—What the hell?!"

Sakura gasped as she felt roots wrap around her ankles, anchoring her in place and starting to crawl up her calves.

"It's like the forrest doesn't want me here…to my knowledge the only known people to ever come to this forrest and leave it alive were Shishou, and the First Hokage. I don't think there's been anyone else…and this forrest is supposedly where Lord First learned wood style…he must have learned it from the trees themselves. Trees that can wield chakra…Ok…here's an idea, let's just hope it doesn't backfire."

Sakura reached out a hand, and placed it on a nearby trunk, feeling the rhythm of its chakra through the bark, and matching her rhythm to it, letting her chakra seep into the trunk in time with its own.

"I understand this place isn't for humans. You don't want me here and I respect that. I need to see the slugs. I won't cause you any harm or hunt any of the creatures in these woods. I'll leave nothing of mine here, and I'll give you my chakra to add to your energy as well, so you know you can trust me…"

The reaction was immediate, the wood tendrils unraveling from her legs. The branches overhead loosened from their interlock, allowing trace amounts of light to filter in.

"Wait…I only gave this one tree my chakra. How are they all responding…" Sakura stared at her hand against the bark in the dim light, before her eyes widened. "Wait a minute! These trees are living—all plants are living—but these trees…they have some sentience. They didn't want me in here, and now they've given me their permission…they have a chakra flow and rhythm…I might not be a sensor type, but maybe…maybe I can do a chakra scan on them."

Sakura let her chakra extend into the tree, seeing all the bio feedback from the nutrients being sucked in by the roots, to the photosynthetic nutrients gained by the leaves. It took more chakra than a typical scan because of how massive the tree was, and with the chakra she already shared, and the carry over exhaustion from the journey, it wasn't long before Sakura was breathing hard. But her scan picked up something interesting…one of the roots lead to another tree. She didn't have enough chakra to scan the tree it connected to, but the pieces began to slide together.

"I see. So you're all connected, or at least…some of you connect to others." Sakura pulled her hand away, and when none of the trees moved to go back on the offensive, or block the light again, Sakura took that as her sign to proceed. She moved through the forest, sharing small amounts of her chakra whenever she touched a tree. Even though they weren't trying to actively get in her way, the roots were still absurdly thick and tangled, making it difficult to walk.

She knew she would need to stop soon to rest, or at the very least, meditate. She wasn't sure how the forest would feel about that though. When she pushed so hard, she couldn't walk anymore, she dropped to her knees against one of the branches. Sakura hadn't needed to worry, as it turned out the forrest had decided it liked her. The branches seemed to soften beneath her, shaping to her body, and weaving themselves into a canopy above her. Sakura drifted to sleep.

---

Someone was humming. When Sakura turned, her mom was sitting next to her on the branch, humming the tune she used to hum when Sakura was five and struggling to sleep—back when she had the futon and her mom slept on the bare floor.

"Mom?"

"Who else would it be? You did ask for me to visit you more often."

"But I haven't seen you once over the last week and a half."

"Cause you've been calling someone else to your sleep." Her mom smiled mischievously, her eyes twinkling. "I should have known I'd lose my standing to that boy eventually." She sighed teasingly.

Sakura sat bolt upright, her eyes wide and face hot. "Mom! It's not like that! I just—"

"Sakura-chan," her mom chuckled. "It's alright. My presence has always meant comfort and confidence, but never stability or safety. His presence has always come with safety and stability, along with many other things. You needed him before. Now you know you're safe and the trees will look after you, you're feeling insecure and need comfort."

"You make it sound so pragmatic…I miss you mom."

Mebuki's eyes softened. "I know Sakura-chan." She looked around at the trees, a fond smile on her face. "You always liked playing in the forests. How do you like this one?"

Sakura looked up at the canopy of branches, her own lips twitching into a smile. "I didn't have many friends back then…before Ino, there was no one who wanted to play with me. There was a tree in the forrest that was hollowed out. You could go inside it. I used to go in there to hide from bullies…I don't know if I was small or the tree was big, but that was where I first started practicing dancing. No one could see me and judge me, except the tree, and I would always pretend dancing for it was my way of saying thank you for protecting me…for being my friend…" She laughed a little, as she looked around at the woods. "If it had been this forrest, the trees may have actually been my friends…we could have actually played together."

A sprout popped up next to Sakura, a leaf waving cheerfully. "These trees really seem to like you, Sakura-chan. I don't think anyone's come to the conclusion you did before, of sharing your chakra with them."

"I think you might be right…to my knowledge there's only been the First Hokage, and shishou, who've been here. I don't know what the First did, but the forest may have accepted shishou in because she's his granddaughter. She also had that necklace with his chakra in it as well, so they may have recognized it."

"My daughter's so kind and smart…I'm so proud of you Sakura-Chan. I always have been."

Sakura kicked her legs gently looking up at the canopy of branches above her.

"Mom…"

"I know you're worried about this test, given how tired you are just from navigating the forest and traveling here, but you'll be fine Sakura-Chan. I have always worried about how much pressure you put on yourself and how much you take on. I have never once worried about you failing at any of it."

Her mom took her hand looking at her with warm, forest green eyes. "You've grown so much. I always knew you'd be beautiful—you're my kid after all, but damn."

Sakura chuckled, her eyes stinging, as she leaned her head on Mebuki's shoulder. "Thanks for visiting me mom…"

"I'm always with you, whenever you need me."

"Mm."

---

Sakura awoke, staring at the canopy above her. The color of the leaves reminded her so much of her mother's eyes. She sat up and stretched, pressing her hand into the root and letting a small amount of her rejuvenated chakra flow into it as thanks.

That remained her routine for the three days it took her to reach the slugs. She kept her word and never hunted or gathered from the forest, leaving the land undisturbed, only relying on the provisions she'd brought in with her. Neither enemies nor wild animals disturbed her, and Sakura had the feeling the trees were to thank for that.

She knew the second she entered into the slug's territory of the forest, because they were everywhere. Mostly common, average sized slugs, but the deeper in she got, the bigger the slugs became.

Finally she was greeted by a slug the size of her.

"What brings you to our forest, child?" Having only heard Katsuyu speak, she was caught off guard by the slugs masculine voice.

"I've come to sign a summoning contract. I wish to test with Lady Katsuyu."

"Ah, you must be Haruno Sakura. The queen said you were coming. It's been a long time since anyone has attempted to sign a contract with us, especially directly with Katsuyu-sama." The slug's eyestalks wiggled in excitement. "Please follow me." The slug slowly turned, and crawled back the way it came. Sakura took a deep breath before following after it.

The slug lead her down a path that seemed to have been created by slugs for slugs, as it was covered in slime. As they passed other, larger slugs, they turned their eye stalks, watching them go by, before one by one crawling onto the path, forming a procession behind them.

"I am sorry for all the slime. I know humans are not accustomed to such secretions."

"Oh it's alright! I've come into your home, it would be rude of me to expect any changes to your habitat for my sake." Sakura dismissed politely. She was a doctor. She'd seen grosser than slug slime anyway. And as for the slugs themselves, her continued exposure to Katsuyu had made slugs the one exception to her creatures with no legs or too many legs fear. Still, it was a lot of eyes on her, and she couldn't help glancing back at them before looking back at Hideki. "All the others…"

"Ah, pay them no mind. They're just curious. Humans are usually too scared to attempt to make pacts with us, especially with Katsuyu-sama directly. Even if several come here to try, the trees don't usually let them reach us. The only ones who've ever succeeded were Senju Hashirama and Senju Tsunade. It's surprising to see someone not carrying Senju blood make it this far."

Sakura grasped her necklace tightly, her stomach rioting, despite being mostly empty. She didn't want to think about how unlikely or impossible her success would be, and was desperate for a topic change. "What's your name?"

"I am Hideki, chief of the messenger class, and the queen's personal herald."

"It's very nice to meet you, Hideki-San."

"It's lovely to finally meet you as well, Sakura-San. The queen speaks so highly of you already, I can't imagine you not succeeding in the test."

"Heh," Sakura grimaced, "no pressure there." Seemed like there'd be no avoiding it.

"Forgive me, Sakura-san. I didn't mean to make you nervous. I just don't think you'll have too big a problem. The trees of this forest typically kill or cast out outsiders. And they seem to like you. Something about you, either that they sensed or you showed them yourself, has impressed and endeared you to them. So it's hard to imagine you having a hard time with the test, when you could get even them on your side."

"…I feel like we're talking about two very different skillsets here."

The slug gave a light chuckle of affirmation. "That's true I suppose—oh, we're here."

They stepped into a clearing—which could have easily been its own bordered land with how large it was—and Sakura's mouth almost hit the ground. In the middle or the vast clearing was the slug the size of the entire village of Konoha.

"Holy shit! Shishou said she was big, but this…this is ridiculous!"

A section of the slug peeled off, still incredibly big, but easier to speak to the tiny Sakura with, than her main giant body.

Hideki's eye stalks bet forward in a bow. "Katsuyu-sama. Haruno Sakura, of Konohagakure seeks an audience to make a summoning pact with you."

"Sakura-chan!"

"K…Lady Katsuyu…you're so much bigger than I'm used to seeing you."

The slug queen chuckled lightly. "Tsunade-sama said the same thing when she first saw me. She'll be happy to know you've made it here. She's been summoning me daily for any updates about your journey."

Sakura smiled softly. "Ah, she's got nothing to worry about."

"Shannaro! It was really touch and go there a few times!"

"I'll be sure to let her know." Katsuyu paused and then sighed. "I'm sorry, Sakura-chan, but I'm afraid this process will have to be a bit formal. Hideki-kun said you wished to make a summoning pact, but I must hear it with your own words."

"I completely understand, Lady Katsuyu."

"What brings you to our forest?"

"Lady Katsuyu, I, Haruno Sakura, wish to sign a summoning contract directly with you, and by extension, all the slugs of Shikkotsu forest."

"To do that, you must first accept and pass a test I issue you."

"I understand."

"The amount of chakra it takes to summon me changes depending on the size of me you summon, and the task you're hoping to accomplish. The same applies to the rest of my slugs as well—though summoning me always requires more chakra than calling them. Because my summoner uses me as a relay for their chakra, my body needs to fully absorb and process their chakra to be able to use it effectively. I also need to check if you have or will have enough chakra to summon me."

"I understand. Should I share my chakra with you, Katsuyu-sama?"

"This test might not be too bad after all."

"I'm afraid that won't be enough, Sakura-chan. You see, in order to fully process your chakra so I can later relay it, I have to continuously absorb and digest it for a whole digestion cycle."

"Oh. Oh! Oh hell no!" Sakura's eyes widened as she put together what Katsuyu was saying. Continuous absorption and digestion meant a continuous release of chakra directly into Katsuyu which meant…

"You…you need to digest…me?"

"That's correct, Sakura-chan. The test is for you to survive being absorbed and digested by me."

"Lady Katsuyu…the acid you spit, that's strong enough to melt through stone—"

"It's the same as my stomach acid, yes."

Sakura's mind raced to draw up anything she'd read about slug biology. "The typical digestive cycle for a slug takes three days."

"Correct again, Sakura-chan."

Sakura took in a quiet breath. "I have to continuously release chakra into her for three days without letting myself get melted by acid, and without breaking my seal…well shit! How the hell am I gonna manage that?!"

Sakura, you're already going far beyond me, with all that you're doing while still working on your seal.

I told you, I'm rooting for you kid. And clearly you've given me good reason to.

I don't fully get what this contract negotiation thing is, or why you have to be the one to do it, but you're gonna do great, Sakura-chan!

"No, I have too many people who believe in me to doubt myself! Ikehara-san, Naruto, Shishou, sensei, mom…And…"

You got it, kid. I bet you 500 ryo you're going to fail.

"And Shishou bet against me. And that's the last thing anyone should do, cause I'm gonna prove them wrong, shannaro! Besides, Shishou doesn't make winning bets—I need to maintain her losing streak or she'll lose her standing as the legendary sucker!"

Sakura's fist tightened at her sides. "I accept your test."

"I'm so glad to hear it!" Katsuyu answered brightly, giving the impression that if slugs could beam, she would be. Touch my main body, and you'll be absorbed into me."

"Best of luck, Sakura-san!" Hideki murmured, making her remember that she had a whole audience to watch her get eaten by the queen.

"Thank you, Hideki-san. See you in three days, I hope." Sakura took a deep breath before approaching Katsuyu's massive body. She looked like an ant next to it. She jumped as high as she could, flipped, and landed lightly on Katsuyu's side, she hadn't even reached her back, that's how massive the slug was. Sakura knelt and placed her hand against the slug's side, and felt herself start to sink into it. It would have been alarming if she hadn't been prepared for it. The jelly-like skin rose up around her, encroaching on her vision, and soon the forest faded from view as everything went dark.

---

Her jump had given her enough height that she had a bit of a fall before hitting Katsuyu's stomach acid, which gave her some time to question her own sanity and try and come up with something…nothing was coming to mind, and the acrid smell was growing stronger, so she didn't have long.

"Come on, think Sakura! How are you going to not get digested while constantly emitting chakra?"

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.

"Oh! The spike exercise! Ok, acid is a liquid, so the flow should be closer to what's needed for water walking…here it comes!"

Sakura gathered her chakra into her finger, and released what she estimated to be the correct amount needed.

She was wrong, as the density of slug acid was heavier than water and required more chakra than she accounted for, but she was quick to fix her problem as the acid ate through her glove, so by the time it would have made contact with her skin, there was a barrier of chakra between her and the deadly liquid. She could feel the sting of it at her fingertip, but her chakra protected her from damage and kept her balanced above it.

Sakura let out a relieved sigh. "Ok…now I just have to hold this for three days…"

At first, it was just boring. She would shift her position every now and then, so that she was upright with her legs in a split. She'd change fingers when the weight became to much, and eventually change hands. Occasionally, she would repeat the process with her toes, to give her arms a break. But there wasn't much else to do otherwise. She would hum or sing to herself quietly, choreographing the song in her head. She'd run through medical facts, listing all the bones in the body or organs that made up different systems. All the while, she had a running clock in the back of her mind counting the hours. Mostly she meditated or pondered the issue of Itachi.

"So, even Kisame knows Itachi avoids fights. Was the massacre the thing that turned him off from them, or was he like that even before the massacre? But if so, then why would he have done it in the first place? It's so counter to his nature…and he's actively picking a fight with Sasuke-kun—he keeps antagonizing him for a full fight while pivoting away from all others that come his way. And he seems overly concerned with the people in Sasuke-kun's life, prying them for their thoughts and feelings about him. He acted so aloof when they met in that seedy hotel, but he's too curious for those to be his real feelings on the matter…and he's not in the Root bingo book, but he is in the standard ANBU…I'm not sure what to make of that…I…I'm still not sure what prompted him to commit the massacre, but…I feel like…He didn't kill Sasuke-kun because he…couldn't. They were so close once, and he still seems so concerned about him and who's in his life and how they feel about him…So, is he picking the fight out of guilt…? Ugh! Shannaro! I don't get it!"

She shelved those thoughts when she started breathing heavier, her face beading with sweat, in favor of pulling out one of her specialty dirt-tasting food pills. She'd made them to be filling, help speed up muscle recovery, and increase chakra, without the extreme crash food pills sometimes caused. They accounted for the majority of food rations she'd packed for herself, in a bid to travel light while accounting for her own survival. She'd really only started dipping into them once she'd entered the Shikkotsu forest and promised she wouldn't disturb anything. The good news about them was that they were easy to eat one handed, a necessity in her current situation.

Sakura found herself in dire straights on more than one occasion. The food pills helped, but only to a certain extent. She couldn't risk falling asleep, because while she'd trained her body to maintain her seal while she slept, and she could probably maintain the release of chakra she was using on the acid, she doubted her ability to continue physically holding herself up while she was asleep. There was no way to tell if it was day or night inside Katsuyu—it was just dark. More than once, she'd had to force her chakra production to speed up, and once she'd pushed it a third time, she knew there'd be no doing it again. Her limbs felt like rubber, any finger or toe she was using to keep herself above the acid was red and stinging, her chakra was beginning to falter.

"Shit! I'm so screwed…ok, calm down and think Sakura…if you're count's right, there's only two hours left…but my chakra will only last me twenty minutes if that! I've already pushed speeding up my chakra production as much as I can, short of having a reaction…"

Sakura's eyes squeezed shut, desperate to focus and think of an idea, but none came to mind. Her thoughts just cycled back to the same place over and over again.

"Having a reaction…it might be the only way to give myself enough chakra to survive this—but it's going to be too much, and I'll need it to last two hours, which means there won't be any expelling or calming down quickly. If that's the case, the test may not kill me, but the reaction might. So this is going to boil down to which way do I want to die: melted by slug acid, or ripped apart by my own chakra? Shannaro! Both those choices suck, damnit! Screw it, they're both gonna be painful, but I've got a 100% chance of dying with the acid, while I'd guess my chances of death from my reaction in this situation's about 89%…at least the reaction's familiar."

She'd been putting off the thought of death in favor of finding an answer, but now she really let herself consider it. She imagined the pain and physical panic she'd be feeling in about seventeen minutes. She imagined her flesh melting off her, her bones slowly liquifying. It was horrifying, yet it failed to fully set her off. Imagining the faces of her loved ones though, when she never came back…Tsunade drinking herself into a guilty drunken stupor, her head in her hands at sending her beloved apprentice off to her death. Kakashi standing in front of her headstone, grief-stricken that he'd lost yet another precious teammate. Sai unsure of what expression to make, unable to process what he was feeling, having lost the first person he'd think to ask to walk him through it. Ino sobbing, showing all of her emotions on full display, her best friend having left her with little to no explanation yet again. Hinata and TenTen, crying that they'd lost the friend they'd finally started growing close too. Patients she was responsible for, dying because she wasn't there to care for them. Gaara, having lost the person he felt love for all over again…

All of it made her breathing shallow, her throat tight, her eyes stinging with pain and desperation.

"There are people I matter too, people who rely on me, count on me to be there for them…"

But that's why if I say or do something stupid, you need to slap some sense into me. I'm not gonna learn otherwise…

I promised her I'd bring Sasuke back. It's the promise of a lifetime.

Sakura…thank you…for everything…

Don't die on while I'm gone, Sakura. Please.

The look on Naruto and Sasuke's faces if she died…imagining that was what pushed her desperation over the edge. Her chakra ripped through her, and between concentrating a consistent steady flow into her seal, and the slow release she needed to stay above the acid, she felt like she was going to explode. She wasn't releasing enough chakra. Everything was burning, her blood was boiling, turned to razors in her body. She didn't hold back her screams, since there was no one who could hear her anyway.

But, as much as it sucked, she was familiar enough with the pain of her reactions to keep her head clear through the torture.

"O-Okay…normally I expel or take a sedative within two minutes at the start of the reaction…i-if I can j-just push it to f-five…then I'll start trying to calm m-myself down."

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS HURTS!"

Her finger was torn and bloody, as were her arms, and she shakily brought her left hand to hover over it, and started healing it, clamping her mouth down tight over her scream at the pain executing medical ninjutsu during a reaction caused.

"T-Three minutes…"

She immediately brought her hand up to her arm when a vein exploded, blood fountaining from her skin.

"FUCK!"

Tears spilled from her eyes as she efficiently repaired the damage, mending the vein seconds after it exploded, before it could cause any further injury, but another one burst on her other arm.

Sakura quickly shifted her position, her limbs shaking as she balanced on her left hand finger and brought her right arm over the new blood fountain.

"It's never been like this b-before…I've n-never waited into a reaction this l-long without doing anything…I might…I might actually die here!"

I promised her I'd bring Sasuke back. It's the promise of a lifetime.

Don't die on while I'm gone, Sakura. Please.

"FUCKING HELL!"

"I c-can do this…I have to d-do this…one more minute!"

Breathing was growing more painful, every limb was shaking, goosebumps covered her bloody skin, despite how she felt like she was burning. She wanted to give in, to collapse. She wanted the pain to end.

"This…this was how dad died…dad…I'm so s-sorry I ever b-blamed you…this…this fucking sucks!"

Her vision was starting to distort. "Time's up!"

Sakura grabbed the most mild sedative she had and downed it in an instant. Her heart rate immediately began to slow, a sense of calm washing over her, through the pain and desperate situation. Sakura closed her eyes, and pictured her mother stroking her hair when she was five, singing her a lullaby. Her own hum became her mother's to her ears. Her body shook with pain but breathing was becoming easier. She brought her hand up to her hair, stroking through it and covering it with blood, but it was still soft.

Twenty minutes oh self soothing later, Sakura knew she'd survived the worst of it, she just couldn't allow herself to pass out for another hour and thirty-five minutes—assuming she hadn't miscounted the hours. Her head buzzed, body ached, and eyes stung, but she forced them to stay open. If she could stay awake long enough to guard Naruto and Sasuke in the forest of death, she could stay awake long enough for this.

Sakura had miscounted, though not terribly—she'd been off by two hours, which of course her body was less than thrilled with her about.

It started as a trembling, the stomach acid beginning to churn around her. Even her hazy mind was able to register that she needed to move, fast. She ran on her toes, trying to minimize her contact with the acid as much as possible. Behind her, a tsunami of stomach acid was mounting, and she knew she needed to get out before the wave surged and Katsuyu regurgitated. If she was caught in the tide, she was done for.

The danger of the situation helped to focus her exhausted mind. Moving sent shocks of pain through her sensitive nerves, but she pushed forward uncaring. She cleared Katsuyu's stomach, running up what roughly translated to her throat. She felt a breeze pushing against her, and knew Katsuyu was inhaling, preparing to empty her stomach. A glance behind her revealed the stomach acid chasing behind her, and rapidly gaining on her.

"Come on Sakura, just a little more…" She pumped her legs harder, reaching Katsuyu's comparatively tiny mouth and diving through the opening.

Sakura launched into the daylight, using the same technique she used while in Katsuyu to bounce off the pond of acid that served as Katsuyu's waste receptacle, and flip into the safety of the clearing, away from the acid that fountained over where she stood seconds before.

"Sakura-Chan, you did i—"

Sakura sunk into the dirt, losing consciousness before she could even hear Katsuyu's declaration.

---

A man with dusty pink hair, spiked into five distinct points around his head was sitting next to her in the same nest of roots and branches that had cradled her before her test.

"Hey kiddo."

"Dad…"

An awkward air settled around them heavily. Sakura finally broke it, her voice quiet.

"You don't usually visit me in my dreams."

"You haven't wanted to see me." He answered, lightly. "Not that I blame you—I wouldn't want to see me either, if I had left me the mess I left you. Sorry kiddo, I put ya in a real tight spot there."

"Mom caught you up?"

"She didn't need to, I was watchin' the whole time." Her dad had a light, playful way of speaking that almost reminded her a bit of Naruto, but she couldn't recall if this was what he sounded like or if she was projecting based on what her mom had told her.

"Glad to see you're still dancin'—and ya even incorporated it into your ninja-ing! I love it! Gives it a flair!"

"Nin…ninja-ing?"

"To ninja!"

"That's not…" but her weak protest was lost to Kizashi's laughter—her mom always did say he loved dumb jokes, had a goofy sense of humor, and never took anything too seriously. It was remarkable to think that she, serious Sakura, was this man's child.

"Dad…" She murmured, drawing his attention back to her, as his laughter quieted. "I'm sorry…this was the closest I came to dying from a reaction…I realized fully how bad it must have been for you—how horrible dying like that is."

Kizashi was silent for a moment staring out into space. Finally, when he finally spoke, what came out was, "Yeah, it wasn't fun," spoken in the most casual tone imaginable.

That sent Sakura over the edge. She burst out laughing, nearly slipping off the root they were seated on, holding her sides. "No shit it wasn't fun!" She finally gasped out, wiping tears from the corner of her eyes. It was such a ridiculous thing to say, and after such a serious build up too, that she couldn't help the second round of giggles that overtook her.

When she finally managed to settle down and look back up at her dad, she found him beaming down at her. "There's my smiley Sakura-chan…you probably don't remember it, but we used to laugh a lot when you were young. You were very ticklish back then. And you used to love when I tossed you in the air. You would laugh and say you were flying. I always loved it when you smiled. I used to when you smile—"

"—Spring comes early." Sakura finished, the words pulling from the deepest recesses of her memory. She couldn't recall a specific moment where he said it, but she heard his voice echoing those words from the deepest recesses of her mind.

"Hey dad…our family curse…why didn't you warn me about it?"

"You got your mom's brains kiddo. And even when you were little, you were quick to blame yourself. I wasn't about to dump a family curse on you like that. Three-year-olds aren't supposed to carry family curses."

"Yeah…I'd probably wait to tell my kid til they were older too." Sakura muttered, after giving it some consideration.

"If it makes ya feel any better, I wasn't sure if ya inherited it or not. There's no way to tell until ya turn thirteen. And you barely even got my coloring. Y'know kiddo, you don't particularly look like me or your mom. Where'd ya come from anyway?"

"You should known that better than me." Sakura answered with a huff of laughter. But it was true, visually speaking, she looked nothing like either of her parents. While her hair was pink like her dads, and her eyes green like her moms, the shades were completely different, and that was where their visual similarities ended.

"Must of skipped a generation or something." Her dad shrugged.

Another silence fell, Sakura gently swinging her legs, her face pensive. "Dad…when you had reactions, did your blood ever just…"

"Pressure geyser out of ya?"

Sakura nodded.

"Scary, huh?"

Sakura swallowed hard and nodded again. She'd been too lost to pain and the need to survive to process how deeply terrifying that attack had been in the moment. But looking back on it, it scared her—a lot. She'd been training and handling her reactions so carefully, that even though she was aware of the danger they posed, it almost hadn't hit her as real. So far, she always managed to expel enough chakra, calm herself down, or knock herself out within the first three minutes of the reaction. She'd never tried to just hold out and let the attack happen before—she hadn't even done that this time, but even waiting five minutes had nearly killed her. Since learning about it, her family curse had always felt like a problem for her to solve, but this was the first time she was actually genuinely scared of it.

Sakura's fists tightened in her lap. "I've been too unfair to you—"

"Nah, you're good."

"But—"

"Sakura-Chan, given the situation I left you and my darling beloved wife in, nothing you feel or felt about me is unfair." His seriousness lasted til the end of his sentence before his goofy smile was back. "Mebuki-Chan already gave me more than enough of a serious talkin to. We don't need to sweat the small stuff, yeah kiddo? You can tell me anythin you want, but ya don't have to apologize to me for anythin."

"I…okay."

"Atta girl." Kizashi smiled, affectionately ruffling her hair. "You just call on me whenever you need a laugh. Doubt it'll be too often, what with that Naruto kid around—he's hilarious. But still, whenever you want some cheerin up, call on your good old dad, yeah?"

"Thanks…dad."

"Anytime kiddo."

She blinked, and her dad was gone.

"Sakura." She turned to see Sasuke sitting on her opposite side, glaring at her, clearly agitated.

"Sasuke-kun! This is an even stranger tag team then you and Shishou." If there were two people she'd never thought she'd see occupying the same dream space, it was her dad and Sasuke.

"You promised me you wouldn't die."

"I didn't die though." She countered.

"You almost did."

"But I didn't."

"Damnit Sakura! Why couldn't you have waited?! Why'd you have to do this so early?!"

"I can't just let myself fall behind you two! I can't just be the weak link…I can't just be useless Sakura while you and Naruto just get stronger and stronger! Shannaro, I want us to stand with are backs together instead of me always watching you two in front of me! I want to be someone you rely on!" It was almost like the first time Sasuke forced her emotional release, back when they were just taking D-rank missions. The frustration bubbling and spilling out of her. But she was tired of it. She'd been hearing the same lecture from Taunade, Kakashi, Yamato, her friends…she knew there were some aspects of truth to what they were saying, but all she heard in the arguments were people telling her to settle for being weaker, for needing to be protected. Arguments telling her not to get involved, to stay back, that retrieving her teammate and love of her life wasn't her place, her battle. All she kept hearing were arguments that she didn't belong. A civilian ninja who should settle for amounting to nothing. She didn't care that that wasn't what they were saying—it was what she was hearing. And she was so damn tired of it. "I'm not going to settle for being the weak link, Sasuke-kun. So yes, I had to do this now."

She expected Sasuke to argue with her, but she was met with silence. Afraid he was gone already, she turned to face him, expecting the space to be empty, but he was still there, his eyes soft and warm. Her face immediately heated at the way he was looking at her.

"You're not weak, Sakura." He murmured, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "I want to rely on you. I want to stand back to back with you on the battle field. Keep training. Get stronger. Just don't die while doing it."

"You too. I want that too. So come back to me, okay?"

"Hn." He continued fiddling with her hair, his eyes trained on the movement before drifting back to her face. "You did well."

Sakura smiled, her face warming. "I should have known, you always We're the one insisting I train more…if anyone would understand wanting to get stronger, it's you and Naruto."

"Hn, let's not talk about Naruto right now." Sasuke's hand cupped her cheek as he leaned forward, his lips pressing against hers. All thoughts of anyone but him flew out of her head, as he kissed her passionately. Time didn't exist in dreams, all she knew was that it felt like generations had passed—far too quickly—when Sasuke finally pulled away.

"Sakura…thank you."

"For what?"

"Hn." Sasuke's eyes held that soft, warmth that made her melt, he wasn't smiling exactly, but the corner of his mouth had twitched up a little. "Keep getting stronger. Just don't die."

---

Sakura opened her eyes, becoming aware of two things at once: it was dark, and there was a heavy, yet strangely gummy weight pushing down on her.

Before she could fully start piecing together her surroundings herself, the gummy weight receded from her, and she was staring up at a twilit sky, being brushed at the corner of her vision by impossibly tall trees.

"Sakura-chan! You're finally awake! I was so worried…"

Sakura sat up slowly, expecting there to be resounding aches through her body, but finding none.

"Lady Katsuyu? What happened?" Sakura blinked up at a Katsuyu that was only just larger than herself, though the slug queen's main massive body was directly behind her, serving as the backdrop to their conversation. The eye stalks of Katsuyu's main body were trained on them, and with Sakura's growing awareness, she realized those weren't the only eyestalks watching them. Hideki and the audience of slugs lined the clearing, apparently having born witness to the entirety of the test.

"You collapsed, Sakura-chan. You've been unconscious for the past five days. Your body was in bad condition too. I've been helping your recovery along, but even so, you weren't waking up…"

"I'm sorry for worrying you, Lady Katsuyu. Thank you for taking care of me." Sakura said, shifting onto her knees and bowing. This had been the longest she'd been out for after an reaction, but it was also the one that had done the most damage, so that made sense. Given how bad far it had strained her body, the fact that she was only out for five days, and that she felt no pain at all now was something of a miracle, no doubt thanks to Katsuyu's care.

"Not at all, Sakura-chan! Your seal is progressing quite well, and your chakra control is even more impressive than Tsunade-sama's! Even when your chakra level grew immense and chaotic, you were still able to maintain the control of it you needed. Once your seal is complete, if your chakra were to enter into that state again, I think you might be the first person able to summon my full body."

Sakura's eyes widened at that—it was something she hadn't even fathomed—Katsuyu was so massive, it seemed impossible anyone would ever be able to summon her fully.

"Does…does that mean I passed, Katsuyu-sama?"

"Once again, I'm afraid I have to be rather formal Sakura-chan." Katsuyu said fondly, before she reared up in a way that was more imposing and official. "Haruno Sakura, you have proved your capability and worthiness to enter into a summoning pact with me and my slugs. Tatsu-kun, please bring forth the queen's contract."

A slug the size of a caravan cart, with deep blue markings crawled forward, until he was next to Sakura. He bowed his eyestalks to Katsuyu in respect before they shifted to blink at Sakura. "I'm Tatsu of the carrier class. I hold the contracts of all the slug classes, including the queens. Katsuyu-sama's contract shares a one-way link to all the other class contracts. Signing your name on her contract will also sign it on all the others, formally binding your pact with all slugs."

"I understand."

A scroll rose out from Tatsu's front, before plopping on the ground. "Haruno Sakura, take that scroll, and in the blood you'll use to call us forth in the future, sign your name." Katsuyu instructed formally.

"Yes Lady Katsuyu." Sakura answered, bowing again before taking the scroll. "Thank you, Tatsu-san." She murmured politely before unfurling it. There were only two names there. Senju Hashirama, and Senju Tsunade.

"I can't believe my name is joining two as legendary as the First and Fifth Hokages'! I'm the only non-Senju to sign with the slugs so far—I mean, that's what Shishou thought, but now it's confirmed…I've been told this the whole time—I'm the only non-Senju to make it so far into the forest, but it didn't really hit me until now."

Sakura bit her pointer finger hard enough to draw blood, before carefully signing her name on to the contract. Once finished, her blood signature shined once, before drying fully.

"The pact is complete. The slugs officially recognize you, Haruno Sakura, as a summoner." Katsuyu's formality dropped. "Congratulations Sakura-chan."

"Thank you, Lady Katsuyu."

"Tsunade-sama wants me to carry you back."

Sakura blinked in surprise. "You can do that?"

"I'm the queen because I can fill the role of any and all casts. Including carriers. If I store you inside myself while Tsunade-sama summons that portion of me, I can take you with me through the summoning."

"Wow that's cool. Slugs really are the strongest summonings!" Sakura murmured, forgetting her formality for a second. She started when she realized that, and quickly opened her mouth to apologized, but Katsuyu chuckled before she had the chance to.

"It's also why we only accept the strongest summoners." She answered in kind, making Sakura let out a breath of relief, before she broke into a smile.

"Ready to go home, Sakura-chan?"

"Just give me one minute, I need to say bye." Kastuyu blinked at her curiously, but she got her answer quickly enough.

Sakura rose and bowed to Hideki and Tatsu. "It was nice meeting you both. Thank you for your help and guidance."

"No need to thank us for that, Sakura-san. We were simply doing our jobs." Hideki responded.

"Even so, thank you." Sakura smiled before walking to the closest tree and placing her hand against the bark. She let her chakra flow into it, easily remembering the rhythm from her earlier trek through the forest. "Thank you, as well, for allowing me in and taking such good care of me."

The trees gave a unanimously loud rustle of their leaves, which made Sakura smile.

"They want you to come back and visit sometime." Hideki informed her.

"You understand them?"

"We slugs have inhabited the Shikkotsu forest for a long time. It's only right we learn to understand them. Human's don't tend to…the only one who did was Senju Hashirama, and it took him a while."

"He learned wood style from them, didn't he?"

"Yes, he learned it from meditating to become one with them."

"Hm." Sakura shared more of her chakra, turning to the trees again. "I'd love to learn as much as I can from you too, although I'm not well suited to elemental ninjutsu. I'll visit again sometime, and I'll learn from you too, but I'll do it in my own way."

The trees gave another approving rustle. "Did they like my answer, Hideki-san?"

"Yes, very much."

Sakura smiled before stepping back and bowing to the tree line. "Thank you again. Take care of yourselves." Sakura turned back to Katsuyu with a bright smile. "Thank you for waiting, Lady Katsuyu. I'm ready to go home now."

She touched the her-sized Katsuyu's side, and was absorbed into her, the same way she had been when she was digested, but instead of sinking in fully and falling into her stomach, she stayed somewhere in-between the layers of skin.

Being carried inside a slug through a space-time ninjutsu was an incredibly strange feeling—like being folded in on yourself to the smallest tightest shape you could be squeezed into. She figured it would have been incredibly painful, had it not been for the slug shielding her. She wondered if it hurt this much for summoning animals too, and made a mental note to ask Katsuyu or one of the other slugs about it later.

The uncomfortable feeling ended in less than a second, and Sakura slid out onto the floor of Tsunade's office.

Tsunade was in front of her in a millisecond, pulling her up and then holding her so firmly by the shoulders it hurt as her eyes scanned her up and down, full of worry.

"Sakura, are you alright?"

"I'm fine now, thanks to Lady Katsuyu."

"She did quite well Tsunade-sama. The other slugs all readily support her. She's the first slug summoner not to be related to the Senju. And the forest likes her as well." Katsuyu reported, making Tsunade's eyebrows rise. The trees of the Shikkotsu Forest hadn't gotten in her way, but they also hadn't particularly liked her either. "Thank you for everything, Katsuyu."

The slug bowed it's eyestalks, before turning to Sakura one last time. "You did well, Sakura-chan. I'm happy to have you as my summoner." Katsuyu puffed away, back to the forest, and Tsunade and Sakura were alone in the office.

"Your seal—"

"Still going strong."

"But the test—"

"Nearly killed me. But I made it without breaking my seal."

Tsunade's grip relaxed a little, though she didn't release her just yet. The worried look had melted into something more akin to awe. "How?"

"The spike exercise…chakra acts as a buffer for it, so your never quite directly touching the spike, if you're doing it right…I thought it might work on the acid too, and got lucky that I was right…if I hadn't been, I'm not sure what I would have done…"

"The spike exercise?! You applied that, to this?!" Tsuande gasped, wide eyed—when she'd tested, she already had her seal, and had used the Creation Rebirth-Strength of a Hundred Technique to sit in the acid while meditating and slowly releasing chakra. Looking back on it now, those three days probably took at least three whole years off of her life span, if not more…How had she not even considered the spike exercise as an option?

"Even with your secondary reserve, it shouldn't have been enough to make it a whole digestive cycle."

"It wasn't. I had to force my chakra production to speed up three separate times, ate food pills like they were candy, and even then I nearly lost it. I had to force a chakra reaction towards the end."

"You did what?!" Tsunade asked sharply. She'd been the first to consider that Sakura's chakra reactions could actually have offensive uses, should the girl learn how to control them enough. And she'd been right. But the only way to safely do that was to release a lot at once, which floating above acid while maintaining her seal wouldn't have allowed her to do.

"I triggered myself into a reaction…and then held out five minutes before taking a sedative, so that way, I maximized the duration of the hyper chakra acceleration, long enough for me to make it through the full digestive cycle."

"…Held out…"

Sakura shifted her weight, her lips pursing. "It's not something I plan on doing again, Shishou. Honestly, I think…I think one more minute and I would have died…and if I hadn't been able to perform medical ninjutsu in that state, I would have died three and a half minutes in…but…I managed to hold out."

Sakura waited for the explosion, but was suddenly crushed into a vice like hug. "Reckless, impatient girl! Do you have any idea how worried I was when Katsuyu said you were in bad condition and unconscious for five days?! I was too worried to even drink, damn you!" She wouldn't have been able to take anymore bad news.

"Sorry…" Sakura gasped out, a warm, safe, feeling flooding through her despite the risk to her bones the hug was posing. Her eyes prickled a little, mostly from gratitude, though the pain wasn't helping things. "But I was going to make it back no matter what. You bet against me."

Tsunade released her finally, pulling back, a placing a hand on her hair instead, giving it an affectionate ruffle. "If there is one mistake I will keep intentionally making in my gambling career, it's betting against Haruno Sakura…it's the only time I enjoy losing."

Tsunade pulled away, reclaiming her seat behind her desk and studying Sakura with a serious expression.

"Shishou?"

"You've surpassed me." Tsunade suddenly declared. "No one will know or see that until your seal's complete. But you've surpassed me. I know it, and you need to know it too."

Sakura nearly stopped breathing at the declaration, but when she met Tsuande's eyes, she could tell this wasn't an attempt to buff her confidence, or some overblown statement out of pride. Tsunade's amber eyes were unwaveringly serious. That look allowed no room for doubt. "You deserve a celebration, reward, or at the very least a break, but unfortunately there have been some new developments…bad developments." The door opened, and Shizune came in, pausing and when she saw Sakura and giving her a small smile, but it was a testament to how bad the situation was that there wasn't more to it then that. She placed a file on Tsuande's desk before standing behind her, ready to carry out whatever task was asked of her next.

Sakura grew serious her brow furrowing. "On my way to the Shikkotsu Forest, I was passed by Itachi and Kisame. They were wandering through Ishi towards Ame…if they were on the move, then is it safe to guess the rest of the Akatsuki is as well?"

Tsuande nodded gravely, thankful for how smart Sakura was, though she was now curious as to Sakura's encounter with Itachi and Kisame. But it could wait. "Yes. Two were seen wandering around the Land of Fire. I deployed several squads to intercept them. One squad engaged with them and Sarutobi Asuma…died in combat."

"W-what?" Sakura gasped, her eyes widening.

"Is Pig alright? And Shikamaru and Choji—no I'm sure they're physically fine or shishou would have said something but…team 10 was so close…Shikamaru was especially close with Asuma-sensei…there's no way they're ok! They were there for me when mom died, but I wasn't there for them! Damnit!"

"We've already held the funeral. Shikamaru, Ino, and Choji went after the Akatsuki. Kakashi went with them to keep an eye on them."

"Kakashi-sensei did? But what about Naruto's training?" Though she was thankful to hear Kakashi was with team ten. They needed all the support they could get.

"According to Kakashi, he seems to have finally grasped the principles of his training, and will only require a little more time to perfect it." Tsunade explained.

Sakura but at her lip, gazing at Tsunade's desk for a moment before dragging her eyes up to meet her mentor's. "If Kakashi-sensei has joined Team 10, the ideal scenario would be to have the team that can work best with them, team 7…my team, follow after them as backup."

Sakura saw Shizune open her mouth in protest, and swiftly cut her off. "Both Naruto and I have worked with Shikamaru as a teammate, and I've trained with him in tactical thinking. I've also served on a team with both Ino-pig and Choji throughout the chunin exams. Ino-pig and I have also trained with each other in several other capacities as well, and Choji and Naruto have also worked as teammates together. Sai is also more familiar with team ten than he is with anyone else, except team 7. I understand the concern of sending Naruto anywhere near the Akatsuki, but team 10 are some of Naruto's closest friends, and he won't accept just sitting back and doing nothing, especially if all of the training he's put in could be of use. This won't be like it was with Gaara-kun either. It's not going to be Naruto and Sensei alone against an Akatsuki member. Me, Sai, Captain Yamato, and Team 10 will be there as well."

"Sharp Sakura, as always." Tsunade murmured. She hadn't needed the very persuasive argument Sakura had laid out, but it certainly left her little doubt as to the answer she was leaning towards.

"However, we don't know exactly when Naruto will perfect his new jutsu. So perhaps we should send a different squad…?"

"Sakura, pass this on to Yamato. Tell him to have Naruto wrap it up in the next 24 hours! If he can't, we'll have to send a different squad as backup!"

"Yes, M'Lday!" Sakura didn't know what Naruto's training had been, but she'd coach him on chakra control and force feed him food pills for the next 24 hours if she had to. They were going to backup team 10. She wasn't about to lose Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji to the Akatsuki. There was no way in hell she'd let that happen!

"Shizune, for the worst case scenario, review the schedule and get me proposals for squads that can work well with Team 10."

"Understood."

"Well…here we go…" Tsunade muttered, leaning back in her seat. Her eyes trailed after Sakura as she bowed before running out the door. Once this situation was resolved, she was treating that girl to a feast. She just hoped it resolved well.

---

Author's note: That was long. I didn't realize how long it had gotten. The idea of the slugs working in a cast system, and needing to physically go to them and test with them has been in my head almost as long as this fan fiction has. That was one of the original story beats I had. It always pissed me off that we never really saw much of Katsuyu or how she worked. This is yet another continuation of all legendary summoning animals work a little differently from each other. Also I placed the Shikkotsu forest somewhat arbitrarily based on Lady1Venus's Naruto world map on DeviantArt. If anyone know's where the Shikkotsu forest is supposed to be, please do let me know, cause I looked and couldn't find any canon reference to it's location. I probably won't change it since a lot of this chapter is built around where Sakura has to travel through, but I am curious. Originally I was going to have this arch happen before the Pein arch, when Naruto's training Sage mode, but Sakura actually does have stuff she does during that arch in canon, so I decided to put it here instead. I know the whole point of this training arch for Naruto is that it happens fast, because of his shadow clones. But it isn't clear exactly how long it takes. It clearly takes multiple days because it shows them camping out, and Naruto passes out several times due to hittng his limit, which has to add time as well. Sakura took maybe a little more than fifteen days, so around half a month, for her to get to the Shikkotsu forest, find the slugs, test, recover, form the pact, and get home, so I'm saying that's how long Naruto's training took as well. Given the scaling of how long it takes a ninja just to change their chakra nature, Naruto creating the new nature release rasengan within half a month is still exceptionally fast, and it doesn't lengthen the time he was canonically stated to have accomplished cutting the leaf with his chakra-he still did that within hours. The lengthening is just making Naruto and Sakura's training times align.

Most of this chapter is original content, but for the changes that were made to canon, Sakura never asks about Kakashi training her in the hospital, which felt not right given that she should want to get stronger to help get Sasuke back too. I fully think Kakashi was kind of a shitty teacher in canon, given that he played favorites and completely left his other students to figure it out on their own. This Kakashi isn't a bad teacher. If he can't teach one of his students, he tries to find someone else to work with them, or gives them directives and exercises to work on without him. I've said it before and I'll say it again, he's just not the right Teacher with Sakura. In the manga/anime, it almost feels like he actively discourages her from training sometimes. That's not the case here, but their skillsets and styles aren't compatible, which is why he offers to be a sounding board, to help her train as she sees best, but ultimately encourages her to train with those who are clearly better teachers for her. I know it's used in other fan fiction as well, but I love the idea of Sakura being Sai's social convention teacher. There's something so sad and wholesome about him not knowing what a Pinky Promise is, and Sakura and Naruto teaching him. I mentioned this before, but I'm trying to use this fiction to build a stronger foundation for all the canon ships. In the manga/anime, Sai calling Ino beautiful is played for laughs, and it's actually implied he might think the opposite, but I wanted that to be real here to start building that foundation. So he does think Ino's beautiful, genuinely, and while Sakura's away, they do start interacting with each other regularly. I also added Hinata into some of Naruto's training scenes, again for the same reason of building up the ship. But I do really like the idea of Hinata using the Byakugan to coach people during their own training. Like that seems like such a useful practice to get feedback on exactly where things are going wrong and where you're getting them right. If I was a ninja who was friends with any of the Hyuga, I'd be annoying them to help me train all the damn time. I also love the idea that Naruto greatly respects Sakura, and has her up on this pedestal not just as his pretty crush, but as this really smart, strong, medical ninja who can learn anything in a heart beat, and that Hinata helps to shatter that pedestal. And for the main ship, Sasuke and Sakura. Sakura's not aware of Sasuke at any point over this journey. I think I've made this pretty obvious, but I don't think Sasuke truly loses it until after he faces Itachi. Up until that, he denies caring as a front for his (partially incorrect) notion of protecting his teammates, especially Sakura. So long as he thinks he can get away with protecting Sakura, away from the purview of Orochimaru and Itachi, he will. Because he respects and loves her, even if he won't fully allow himself to acknowledge that.

Thanks for reading this far! :)