With only a week to go until the second round of the Jounin Exam, Sakura's jitters have never been higher. Despite the lectures she'd received about how unhealthy it is, her mind is constantly running through scenario after scenario of how the exam, both second and third round, can go very, very wrong.

At least the first round is already done—a month before the others, because it is primarily composed of open-ended essays intended to assess the candidate's critical thinking, and those take a while to work through.

Despite the approximately fifty percent rejection of first-time applicants in round one, Sakura hadn't been worried about that; tests of her thinking had never been a problem.

And then there was the issue that this was Sakura's first exam since graduating.

Both her chuunin and special jounin promotions had been field promotions, immediate increases in rank based on the assessment of her actions by a high-enough ranked superior (the Hokage, in both cases—War Generals and the actual War and Security head were allowed to promote too, but they mostly did so for outstanding actions in the battlefield.)

Sakura, in other words, was out of practice.

With any kind of exam.

She'd be going against battle-hardened comrades, too, the kind that…

Well, the kind that hadn't spent most of their working life at a desk.

She didn't have to do exceptionally, she just needed to show that she could protect the information she already had access to.

That was it.

Nothing more.

It still filled her with a hundred tiny gnats, ping-ponging through her torso with no care of how that felt.

She'd just started to run through another scenario—this one of a misfiring fuinjutsu seal in the middle of the final—when she heard soft giggling from under the table.

Yamanaka Kaede, Sakura's two-year-old nephew and Kamui's only son, was her charge for the day, and he didn't care a bit about anything that Sakura was thinking about—he cared that Sakura's slippers were fuzzy, and was now trying to extract them from her feet.

Sakura smiled, scooping her charge up—daycare was canceled for the week to help prevent the further spread of the latest wave of hand, foot, and mouth disease—and throwing him in the air.

"Are those your slippers? Yes? No?"

Kaede flailed, laughing hysterically every time he began to fall. He was a good kid, just a little bit too curious for his own good (he'd figured out how to push the chair over to the door to reach the latch last week, and that had given Kamui quite the scare.)

He was also just the tiniest bit sheltered.

Sakura couldn't blame Kamui, really; he'd never tolerated the life of a shinobi, and they lived in a shinobi village, so he was now in a battle against the inexorable push of indoctrination to his very young, very vulnerable son.

Sakura rather doubted he'd succeed—Konohagakure's propaganda had a very good success rate—but that hadn't stopped him from trying.

Finally putting Kaede down—the boy had just spotted the wooden toys she'd set out before he arrived—Sakura glanced to the work she'd been busy with before her thoughts had distracted her.

With the frequency of droughts in the past years, the seven separate agricultural innovation projects being run were all high priority, but the latest updates had only three of them showing true evidence of long-term success.

Even those three would wait, however—the shinobi managing the projects were more than experienced enough to handle the setbacks discussed in the reports without aid—so Sakura swept the whole mass into a pile and then re-sealed it for tomorrow's work day.

It was about time to start dinner anyway.

Sakura had finally finished with the vegetables—she'd decided to go for ramen, because it was straightforward and she'd never been a particularly good cook—when Ibiki stumbled in, Kurenai, Genma, and Asuma following closely behind.

"Hey, is it okay if my friends stay for dinner? Asuma's parents are in the Capital and Kurenai' and Genma's just left for missions."

Class had ended hours ago.

Why Ibiki hadn't asked her earlier—

Oh well, it wouldn't be too much of a struggle.

"Sure. Make sure to set out the table for Uncle Ren and his family, too." Sakura went to grab more vegetables.

"Are Uncle Kamui and Aunt Yumi coming too?"

"No; they'll be gone until late." Gone wasn't entirely accurate, they were just down the street, but it was best to keep the reason why as secret as possible—Sakura only knew because Juro'd been asked to attend too. Actually, on that note—"Juro'll be working tonight, too. So… ten settings."

"Okay."

"Thank you!" Kurenai rushed out—evidently she'd been trying to since Sakura had originally okayed her staying.

"Thank you!" The other boys echoed, Genma a second after Asuma—he had to pull out the grass whistle he'd been mouthing at.

"You're welcome. Get washed up, okay?"

"Okay!"

"Mama and toto not coming now?" Kaede asked. He was still in the living room, the pile of toys surrounding him—he'd dragged pillows into the mess, too, was playing royalty or something based on what she could overhear.

"Not tonight." And then, in the instant before Kaede could begin screaming, "Ramen for dinner."

"Ramen?"

"Ramen."

Kaede huffed, clearly divided between happiness and misery.

Genma—already back, and Sakura wouldn't be surprised if he'd just splashed water on his hands and called it a day—went to the rescue.

"Ramen?! I love ramen! What's your favorite kind, Kaede?"

"All of it!" Kaede said. "It tastes yummy!"

"It does! Hey, what are you playing? Can I play?"

"Okay!"

After dinner, with Kaede tucked into a spare bed—he'd been thrilled to be on an adult mattress—and the kids either sent off or upstairs to get ready for bed (Asuma was the only one who was staying; his siblings were away, too, apparently, and Ibiki—with permission this time—invited him for a sleepover) Sakura prepared tea.

The meeting would no doubt be done soon, and all three of the imminently arriving adults would no doubt have enough of a headache for the mere idea of willow bark tea to be a relief.

Based on Kamui's (muffled) groan as he entered, she was right.

"Tea?"

"Please." Kamui groaned. Yumi nodded in agreement, and Juro had somehow already made it to the table and was now holding out his cup invitingly.

"That bad?"

"No…" Yumi said. It was clear she didn't believe a word she was saying.

Really, it wasn't like there was a solution. Yumi's sister (also Sakura, though her nickname was 'freckles', because it really was a painfully common name) had gone and fallen in love with an Uchiha, and now she was pregnant, and—well—

There was a reason almost no one with a bloodline ever married anyone with a different kekkei genkai.

Over the past centuries it had become very, very clear that some bloodlines… didn't mix. Some did; the Yamanaka were actually many individual kekkei genkai which had regularly intermarried until homogeny was achieved (mostly; Yamanaka politics still recognized 'branches' of the family, with each predispositioned for one particular strain of their bloodline. The only exception, actually, was the Head's family, who went out of their way to blend equally with each line.) For those clans that hadn't mixed, that was generally because it wasn't a good idea.

For the Ino-Shika-Cho, the problem was simple; the child would almost definitely not inherent any kekkei genkai. It wasn't that strong a deterrent—there were plenty of Ino-Shika-Cho marriages—but it was enough of one that despite their famously long alliance they were still considered three separate families.

And then there were the unluckier blends.

By far the unluckiest that Sakura knew of was the Hyuuga/Uchiha mix—the pregnancies tended to last to term, unlike a lot of other multiple bloodline situations, but the child, every single time there was record of, had inevitably died within one year.

For Yamanaka/Uchiha, the results were more… mixed.

Miscarriages.

Stillbirths.

Severe disability.

Never, ever either bloodline.

Most commonly, blindness.

Often—for reasons that no one had yet been able to put a hypothesis to—deafness as well.

It wasn't guaranteed to be bad, but it was…

Taboo.

Not illegal, not exactly, just.

Not something to be done.

Not with the risks.

But, of course, it happened anyway—a half-dozen times a year, minimum, there would be a pregnancy between two clans whose genetics did not mesh.

Often, the clans ostracized the ones that made the 'mistake.'

The Yamanaka never had—Sakura was sure the history of intentionally testing genetic compatibility with every other bloodline possible helped there—but the Uchiha were rather famous for it; if it was an Uchiha woman, and her child survived, then they usually required the woman to have an eye transplant then expelled her from the clan.

It had been some time, though, since the last time that had happened… publicly, at least.

"What did the Uchiha say?"

"They're not expelling Hibiki—he's a man, anyway, because that apparently makes a difference—and they were… more amenable, then they were last time this happened." Juro said, referring to the historical record the Clan Elders had dug up in preparation for the meeting. "I think Rento's to thank for that—they really want the seal he's working on."

"They're not exactly thrilled, though." Kamui said, sighing as the willow bark (or, at least, the placebo effect) began to kick in. "They consider it very shameful for Sakura-with-freckles and Hibiki to have had relations. Equivalent to incest, really."

"But," Yumi said, "there's not against the idea of allowing Hibiki to move here, so long as the both of them agree to never have biological children with each other again."

"And how did the couple feel?"

"Oh, that's the best part!" Juro said. "There's not a couple—one night stand, or something. Both are blaming the other, but everyone at the party that night—them included—said it was definitely mutual, so…"

"And then my sister spent so many months in denial that now every decision has to be made, well, now."

"So she got pregnant a while ago?"

Yumi hummed. "February, apparently. Juro checked—the fetus is healthy, all things considered, but looks to only have one arm."

"Otherwise very healthy, actually." Juro said. "Besides the arm—looks exactly like it should. That made Sakura-with-freckles happy—she's already come up with names for a boy or a girl. Hibiki hates both."

"Anyway," Yumi said, "as it stands the pregnancy isn't putting Sakura's life in danger, and she and Hibiki both want to raise the child, so, again, the meeting didn't go badly. It was just…"

"Uncomfortable." Juro supplied.

"Painful." Kamui suggested.

"Tense." Yumi settled.

Sakura frowned, then shrugged. These things happened, and if the pregnancy was going well and neither parent was about to be ostracized—well, she had other things to worry about.

(What if she forgot all her weapons?)

(Why would she forget all her weapons? She really wished her intrusive thoughts were more realistic.)

"Kaede's good. Wasn't thrilled about going to bed without you, but Ibiki's friend Genma told him a story about a family of fashionable wolves and that settled him."

"Fashionable wolves?"

"No idea; Genma seemed to just pull the idea from the top of his head. Good story, though."

"That's good." Yumi sighed. "I wish the meeting had finished earlier, though—this is only the second time Kaede's ever gone to bed without one of us."

"Can we go up and check on him?"

"Yeah; I put him in your old room."

As the parents ascended, Juro drained the rest of his tea. "I'm going to bed too. Are you?"

That, Sakura knew, was less a question, and more a… pointed suggestion.

"Yes, yes." She said. "In a minute—I need to go over my battle seals again."

"They haven't changed from yesterday."

"Even still."

.

The day of the second round of the jounin test dawned without a dawn; the sky was far too overcast to let those under it know when night ended.

Sakura stood, alone, in the middle of a room.

The content of the second round was jealously guarded, and so she spent every minute tense, trying and failing to be ready for anything.

The door opened.

A shinobi—non-descript body, wearing a deep hood—entered, handed her a scroll, left.

The scroll said to open it at noon.

She'd entered the building at four in the morning.

There was a window—not the sort you could see through, but the opaque kind most often used for bathing rooms.

But it was overcast, with deep dark clouds that would no doubt begin pouring in mere minutes; there would be no guarantee that she'd be able to recognize when it was even near noon.

Sakura swallowed, looked at the scroll.

Nothing but the instruction was written on the outside.

It seemed… unlikely, for a variety of reasons, that the test weighed heavily on your ability to tell when eight hours had passed.

Sakura decided she'd prefer the remainder of that time, and opened the scroll.

Step 1:

It started.

Make it to Uzushiogakure.

Well… that was fun.

One final check, then double check, to make sure she had all she wanted with her, and Sakura eyed the door once more.

It made the most sense, she decided, for them to try to stop her in some way, perhaps even capture her to see how she held up to T&I's specialty.

Sakura frowned, glancing around at the nothing in her room, and then slipped out a seal.

She couldn't sense anyone, but that wasn't a guarantee.

Actually, it was almost definitely proof that her suspicions were correct—based on when they started the second round, and the number of applicants this year, they had to get through about eight or nine applicants a day, and it wouldn't make sense for them to have emptied out such a large space for each applicant, or even just for those who had some ability to sense their surroundings.

So, the seal.

It took barely a second to activate, and the choking smoke billowed out. She dropped it, grabbed another to be ready, and opened the door using her whip (her newest design was much, much more precise.

The smoke billowed into the hallway, covering Sakura's movement and choking out anyone who wasn't wearing a gas mask as it did.

She'd just tossed the second seal as the first began to thin out—almost at the door already—when a cut-off sound, a choke, came from her left.

Sakura shunshined to the door, blasting it apart with yet another seal as she narrowly missed the senbon aimed at her neck and disrupted the genjutsu put on her simultaneously.

And then it was a race.

Her pursuer started slower than she'd expected and solo, but Sakura had no reason to believe that would last.

She veered, adjusting her path even as she kept using every technique to put on as much speed as possible, and—there!

The horse was still where Research's human research team had left it, hopefully fully recovered from the tests on how its muscles worked in action.

Sakura leapt on its back, and the horse—well trained, known for its speed, a gift from some noble who wanted to curry favor—leapt into action.

Ninja could run faster, but horses, or at least this one, could run further—no chakra reserve was infinite, and this horse had been trained for the equivalent of marathons.

Plus, this meant she wasn't using any more of her chakra on speed.

Which gave her… options.

The first, the easiest, she'd set up before even mounting the horse—a genjutsu, wiping her and the horse from her surroundings. The second (concealing her chakra as much as possible) was almost as intuitive.

Sakura pulled out another seal, charged it, and let it fly—dozens of projectiles shut off in every direction, but because she was expecting it Sakura could genjutsu her horse not to and put up a quick earth shield too.

The closest of her followers—the one who'd only appeared after she'd come to the horse—was hit.

The other two weren't.

Three, now.

Four.

Shit.

Another seal, activate, throw—

Disrupt the genjutsu they were trying to put on her—

Keep the one she had on the horse up—

Another seal—

Duck the senbon—

Another—

Genjutsu—

Senbon—

Seal—

Arrow—

Arrow—

Senbon—

Seal—

Pursuer—

And then suddenly she collapsed.

"Shadow trap: successful." A voice said, from a Nara she hadn't even gotten a glimmer of, and then everything went dark.