AN: Sufficient Velocity and Space Battles are super far ahead, and the Pa tre on is on CH 129. You can find the link on my profile if you wanna just get there. You can even find side stories that aren't here!

"Sakura." She hears him speak well before she sees him. Her gaze is focused on a bookshelf in the distance and she naturally walks around him without even acknowledging he's there. At least for the first few seconds, all is silent.

"Iruka, fancy meeting you here." She greets him when she hears his footsteps fall behind her. She'd recognize his voice anywhere, she listened to him almost religiously for years. Sometimes he narrates her dreams, but his footsteps are rather distinctive too. He forces his steps to make noise to make those he's with comfortable. She has no doubt he is completely silent in his natural state, and was probably a stealth specialist once upon a time.

"Not really, I was trying to find you. You're predictable." Her old teacher scolds her, but she doesn't really find it a bad thing that she can be predicted in her own village. She has a schedule, and when not on a mission she likes to stick to it.

She trains with Lee and Gai in the morning, then she meets up with her team for a D rank mission or two until around noon. Gai is just a far better teacher for her, and he doesn't mind her being there so skipping Kakashi's sessions feels like the right call. Besides, she has a sparring session with one of the boys almost every day after those D ranks. Then she heads to the library to study something of interest and work on her Mental stat, which she has taken to just calling Mind. At around three-o-clock she meets up with Gai and Lee for another hour, and then she heads home for dinner or Haku will come and find her and drag her back forcefully. The first time he did that she tried to fight him and he put her on her ass and literally dragged her home, it was very embarrassing and she learned a valuable lesson. She also learned how rocks taste, that really spoiled dinner but Haku made her eat it anyway.

He's not training but Haku is still really freaking scary. On the bright side, he can make ice cream on his own so they regularly have tasty, creamy deliciousness.

The memory makes her flush a little, which seems to get an odd reaction out of Iruka. He's staring at her contemplatively, which she notes during a quick look back at the older man. He has so much on his mind, which makes sense for her old teacher.

After the Haku forced dinner, she has the rest of her day free and often spends it playing with the dog, gaming, hanging out with Ino, or practicing random skills like making the rock for Konohamaru the other day. She's ignoring Iruka, she shouldn't do that. Bad Sakura. "That's a good thing, teacher, you were able to find me because I'm predictable," she counters his criticism, "wasn't being able to be found by your allies an important rule we covered?"

"Bu-yes, I suppose." The man reaches up and scratches his scarred nose.

"What did you want to see me for?" It's a little after noon, she just got done decking Naruto and flipping Sasuke in spars, which means it's library time. The two months they had to get stronger while she studied has definitely had an impact, but in close-quarters combat Naruto just isn't very good - which is odd because it's his main skill - and Sasuke clearly focused on his jutsu during that time so her skills let her take him out pretty easily.

She doesn't think she's actually that much stronger than her teammates, if she's stronger at all, but they do very little damage with their landed blows and she's got a skill set specifically meant to deal with opponents in close range. Even with a practice weapon she dominates.

This means spars typically go one of two ways. Either she gets in close and wipes the floor with them, or they're allowed to go all out and they bat her down with superior jutsu. Naruto's infinite clones just aren't something she knows how to deal with, and her fire nature isn't nearly strong enough to overcome Sasuke's wall of fire and wire nonsense. The moment they're in the trees she's just screwed.

They appear to be designing strategies specifically to deal with her, which is the wrong way to go about it in her opinion. Yes, she's a direct target they can learn from and that means it's easier to test strategies on her than figuring out stuff to practice in the field, but they're not going to fight her outside of a spar. It has no bearing on their futures if Naruto figures out how to get past her traits and skills, other people don't have those mechanics.

So she hasn't focused her time on figuring out how to beat them, she's focused on getting better in general. They can grow and defeat her if they want, she's got an Itachi to get ready for instead. Boys and their competition…

"You've been nominated for the Chunin exam. I would like to check in on you and see how you feel about it." He explains, following her to her seat. She picks up a book on city planning on the way, happy to find it's still here and hasn't been taken out by anyone who might ruin it. She tries not to take books home anymore, as taking them home results in her spending too much time reading instead of gaming, which means she's come here to read the same books dozens of times. She finds something she missed almost every time, it's nice. She's not sure why she has a hard time catching every detail the first time, but it adds replayability - or rereadability as the case may be - which she always approves of. She once bragged about a photographic memory, but she doesn't think that's the case. She has a very good memory that's made even better by focus and passion, but only Sasuke can recall perfect images of things without actively trying to memorize it. Even that's because of the Cheatinggan.

"I already have two of the four recommendations required for advancement to Chunin, and I think the Hokage is also thinking of recommending me." She explains with a bright smile, placing the book down and seating herself swiftly. Reading and talking is as easy as breathing for her, Iruka's used to this so unlike with some people, he doesn't find it too rude when she opens it up and stares at it instead of looking at him. "If so, I only need to impress one Jonin with my display, so I'm pretty excited. I could be a Chunin in two months, why would I be anything but over the moon?"

"That's very impressive." She's not looking at him but she's pretty sure he had some body language there. Oh well, she would have poorly interpreted it anyway. "You're growing up very fast, but are you sure you want to be a Chunin this quickly?"

"Why wouldn't I?" She asks, turning a page, her eyes already having flown over the words in front of her as readily as one takes air into their lungs. It's crisp and peaceful and the letters blend into her brain one frame at a time.

"Well, your team becomes informal, and you'll lose Kakashi as a sensei," He points out with a bit of a frown in his tone, she's surprised she can hear that. He's either going out of his way to express himself, or she's getting better at this. It's probably both. "Don't you think he's valuable?"

"You are drastically overestimating Kakashi's ability to teach," She giggles at him, and the man gulps knowingly, "besides, if he actually wants to teach me something he still can. Gai trains with me every day, they are not restricted to just their students."

"Ah, does he? That explains a lot… Watch out for him, two Jonin in your life sounds like a very harrowing experience." Iruka trails awkwardly, leaving out the words 'batshit insane' before 'Jonin' with barely managed tact.

"As for breaking up the team, Naruto lives with me-" She explains the moment he stops talking. She's learned to at least wait until they stop for a few seconds before she talks. It turns out talking within two seconds of someone else is still 'interrupting' even if you're pretty sure they're done, even if her Mind stat makes those two seconds last an eternity. She's kind of worried about that, and it's probably partially why Kakashi's such a dick. If he's spending ten times a normal person's time listening to someone talk, why wouldn't he get impatient?

"He what?" Iruka audibly falls back a little.

"And Sasuke wants my help to beat his brother to death, I'm not worried about losing connection with him." She flips another page.

"I-itachi?" The man chokes on his own air.

"The only difference to becoming a Chunin for me is that I can lead teams and I get paid more. I love the idea of both of those things. I wanna buy a new mount without worrying about my ninja tools or if I'm screwing myself out of materials for smithing training." She pauses her reading for a moment to contemplate that, "Haku's setup is pretty nice already."

"Haku? You know Haku?" Iruka asks.

"Yeah, I'm his manager-are you watching his stream?" She looks up from her page to blink at the now profusely blushing man. His face is so red… He's totally a simp, that's
hilarious. She chooses not to laugh, that would embarrass the man. She respects him too much to call him out like that, let him simp.

She gets back to the thought of becoming a Chunin for a distraction to let her school her face. Leading her own teams would be so cool! Her parents said Chunin also get their own students they're paid for sometimes, so she bets she gets a whole princess trainer style system for them which would be incredible. "Besides, if I ever want to teach at the Academy, I need to be a Chunin."

"You want to teach?" Iruka asks her, the man palms her shoulder as she gets back to her book.

"Well, I love kids, they're rude and blunt but they're genuine and nowhere near as judgy; which is basically everything I like in a person. And I can't think of a better way to get better socially than to surround myself with dozens of them and do my best. I figure I could work as an assistant for a while, and then move onto real teaching once I can handle it. I could spend a couple of years at that and then get back into the field, advance to Jonin, and then kill Itachi."

"You have your whole life planned out, huh…" Her ex-teacher sighs, "and you're sure you won't get too hurt in the Chunin exams? You know they take place in the forest of death right?"

"I've been there probably a hundred times with Ino, it's really not that dangerous, and I've already lost my hand and eyes before, it's not that big of a deal."

"..."

"..."

"I need to have a discussion with Inoichi about what is and isn't okay for children to do." He decides, "good luck Sakura, I believe in you." He chooses not to ask about those two injuries, she seems to have her hand and eyes so maybe she's talking about a game. Concerning, but not his territory anymore.

"I believe in me too." She asserts, flipping the next page while the man leaves. She sends him a wave without looking, but he's probably already too gone to see it.