Naruto 1. Mistake

**-Edited 5/28 -**

Unspoken Bonds _by _Sandi

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Chapter 1: _Mistake_

The worn, tattered scroll dropped from pale, shaking hands, making a slight noise as it collided with the stone floor. Emerald eyes widened in disbelief, and the girl gathered up the confidence to look at the scroll once more.

_Shinobi: Uchiha Itachi_

_Age: 13_

_Mission Rank: Unranked_

_Mission Statement: Eliminate the Uchihas. Details provided by client after acceptance._

She blinked.

Doubtful, she stared at the kanji again, as if daring it to change its strokes before her eyes. Her eyes perused the rest of that particular section.

_Client: The Elder Council_

_Mission Status: Unsuccessful._

_Additional Details: Uchiha Sasuke is still alive._

She ignored the rest of the scroll, re-reading the particular section over and over again to help allow it to sink in.

When it finally did, she slumped to the floor, her pink hair falling in clumps about her face, her mind muddled with so many questions that she could not answer. She gripped the scroll so tightly that she was afraid it might rip, but refused to loosen her grip for fear of not being able to prevent her hands from shaking.

A few minutes passed before she began to wish that she had never seen the paper.

Sasuke's revenge would have a decent motive, and she could go on being loyal to Konoha.

_Stop_, she told herself, _why deny the truth? _This was the rational side of her speaking.

Her other side was too committed to what she had always known, sewn so irreparably to her past. It tried to suffocate her inquisitive mind.

The two sides of her mind battled it out before she consciously came to an agreeable conclusion.

A mistake.

That was what it was.

She should have never seen the paper. It was not her business, nor was her chuunin status high enough to make her privy to such information.

Tsunade had simply asked her to retrieve a genin team's mission statement, nothing else. She grabbed the needed scroll, and resolved to act like nothing had changed.

In reality, nothing had.

At sixteen, she was still considered weak, emotional, and too attached to Sasuke, even though she had long gotten over him. Her position as a hospital medic and Tsunade's apprentice had given her a name, but she had never felt big enough to fill it.

Or perhaps, she didn't _want_ to fill it.

What if she didn't _want _to be a hospital medic?

What if she wished to become a field medic?

They would laugh, that much she was sure of. They would all jest, not knowing how much their words hurt her.

And time and time again, she forced herself to accept her place. She was loyal to Konoha, and would do what was expected of her.

That was what she had thought until now.

Now?

She was indecisive, her mind lightly touching upon all the different methods of action. Rolling up Itachi's scroll, she hid it within her chuunin jacket, telling herself that she would read all of it later.

_That is a lie, _Inner Sakura pointed out smugly. The girl outwardly frowned; she would do it.

Eventually.

As she left the room, her hands tightened around the scroll she had been ordered to retrieve. Minutes later, she stood in front of the Hokage's desk, a smile spread across her face.

However, for some reason, it hurt to smile. It felt faker by the second, and any time now, Inner Sakura would call her out on it.

She extended her hand over the cluttered desk, murmuring a description before stepping back, waiting to be dismissed.

In front of her stood a relatively new genin team, their faces genuinely bright with hope and excitement. It reminded her of herself four years ago.

As she waited in silence, her mentor filled out some of the blanks before handing their team leader a mission statement.

Tsunade began to speak.

Sakura felt that these next five minutes were the longest five minutes she had ever spent, her patience being slowly drained.

The syllables became lost to her, and Sakura gazed into nothingness, willing her mind to think about what was for dinner.

As soon as it had become clear that Tsunade was wrapping up, she forced herself to focus on the words being said.

"Be careful Futeha-san, you might run into rogue-nin on your way there," the blonde warned.

The jounin leader nodded sharply and, after a courteous bow, walked out of the Hokage's office. His genin scampered after him, eager for their first real mission.

"Sakura."

"Hai, Tsunade-sama," replied Sakura formally. She tried to hide her uneasiness at the Hokage's tone.

"Your team... is going on a month long B-rank mission near the Village of Sand."

"Do you wish me tell them?" Sakura asked, her hope rising.

"They already know."

Sakura worded her herself carefully, "Why are you telling me this?"

"They have already chosen a different medic to accompany them... a jounin-medic."

The pink-haired girl was silent, her mentor watching her carefully for a reaction. Her voice was hollow when she responded, "I understand."

Tsunade breathed out, obviously relieved about not having to console her student. "If that is all, you are dismissed."

The girl did not move.

Her delicate lips opened, and her question rolled out more easily than she had anticipated.

"Will I ever become strong enough for them?"

Hazel eyes locked with her own, and silence penetrated the room.

When it became clear she would not receive a straight answer, she excused herself calmly and headed home.

The silence was clear enough.

It was true though, at her current training level, she was no where near as adept a shinobi as the other three.

She had to accept that and move on.

_If only I could_, she thought, as salty tears streamed down her cheeks in the privacy of her dark room after supper, _if only I could._

Not allowing herself to wipe the tears, she simply waited for her tear duct to wear out.

It was sad.

She had become so used to bottling up her emotions during the day, and letting them out at night, that her emotional state had become less and less important to her.

It was in this moment of despair that she took out Itachi's record, and after unrolling about a foot of paper, began reading silently.

_Shinobi: Uchiha Itachi_

_Age: 5_

_Mission Rank: C_

_Mission Statement: Retrieve stolen merchandise from the Gue family._

_Client: The Husai family_

_Mission Status: Successful._

_Addition Details: -_

_Shinobi: Uchiha Itachi_

_Age: 5_

_Mission Rank: C_

_Mission Statement: Steal a necklace from Noda Takumi._

_Client: Yusei Chira_

_Mission Status: Successful_

_Additional Details: -_

There was more and more, and by the time she drifted off to sleep, reading the scroll felt more natural than ever.

Weeks had gone by, and the rest of Team 7 was currently on a mission in Sand while she continued her daily shifts at the hospital.

In an intense attempt to become stronger, she had begun to train an additional two hours everyday. Her stamina, speed, accuracy, and even chakra pool size slowly began to improve.

She had learned that before, she had only been able to use a certain percentage of chakra before she felt like she ran out, making her chakra pool feel extremely limited. However, recently, in some old scrolls she had been looking through, she found a way to practice increasing the number, slowly, but surely.

Upon this discovery, she began to feel that the sky was the limit. She was no longer trapped in a cage.

She could have _potential._

Genuine smiles began to work their way back on her sweet face whenever she managed to reach a particular goal.

It was difficult to train by herself, but when her team returned, she would ask them to spar with her.

She learned more and more jutsus by the day, becoming more confident each time she mastered one.

Her natural element was fire, the element of passion and desire.

Upon learning this, she threw herself into her studies, learning as much she could about that particular element of destruction. After a few days, she realized something.

If she only learned fire-based jutsus, she could easily be defeated by a water-jutsu user of the same level.

And so, she became an avid reader, not for the examination scores, but for information on old techniques she could learn to use or defend herself from.

During the night, it became habit to read over Itachi's file. For some weird reason, she felt a connection with the boy, now a man.

She felt a connection with a man she had never met, only seen.

Her innocence allowed her to keep this feeling, but her cynical side thought about _why_ this was true.

Itachi had been loyal to Konoha.

He had been loyal enough to murder his entire family except Sasuke. Some day she would find out why he was given such an order.

His loyalty had been repaid by banishment and hatred directed toward his every movement.

Sakura _was_ loyal to Konoha.

She never argued with what the council believed was right, and tried the best she could. She took in her friends' handful of hurtful comments in an attempt to fuel her desire to become stronger.

Her loyalty had never been repaid.

The pink-haired girl shivered, thin shoulders vibrating back and forth.

Was she afraid of becoming like Itachi?

She shook her head; she was not yet at that caliber. It was simply impossible for such a thing to happen to her. For some reason though, she felt oddly disappointed.

Then what she was searching for, recognition?

Did that mean that she relied on others' opinions too much?

_No, _she calmed herself, _I was deserving of most of those comments back then._

_Then what about now? _Inner Sakura asked.

It was a good question.

What _about_ now?

Was she satisfied? She could answer that question: No. She _did _wish to have her abilities be acknowledged.

Sakura searched for words to describe herself.

Innocent? No, not anymore.

Smart? Shikamaru had her beat. Plus, during a mission, being book-smart was not all that useful.

Unique? Her pink hair and green eyes set her apart, she admitted. But on the inside, she was just as insecure as anyone else, and she knew her skill level was not yet extraordinary. So the term was thus undeserving.

She stumbled upon another word.

_Lost_.

It fit. She no longer was truly a part of Team 7, and Tsunade had finished with most of her medical training, allowing her go loose.

Her friends served no purpose except to ground her. She understood that her character was still somewhat naive, and that a bit of this would always exist within her. They reminded her of her place in Konoha, a place she was supposed to belong.

She didn't.

She didn't belong and she didn't know what she even wanted.

As she looked bitterly on Itachi's scroll, she realized that all of this self-analysis was because of a mistake.

_A mistake._


	2. Reunion

A/N: Major edits done on this chapter. The plot will remain essentially the same, but I've implemented more (and I like to think, better) characterization so that it feels a little more... realistic. I wanted to give a better snapshot about who Sakura is as a person during the pre-Katsukui time period and how she fit into Konoha.

For new readers, enjoy.

**Edited 1/12/13 - Yes, I know. But hey, I did finally get off my ass and post this. The rest of it will come out on a regular basis. All my competitions are done, and I've been admitted to college. This chapter is also 2 or 3 times longer than the original. Some chapters have lost some words, while others have gained. Overall, I think this makes the story more coherent.**

Extra Note: I decided to post this after receiving a PM from **akaikarasu**. I commend you for making me feel guilty enough to re-post (and seriously thank you for it). But the moral of the story is yes, I read PM's and reviews, and yes, they provide inspiration, provided they actually have content.

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Unspoken Bonds _by _Sandi

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Chapter 2: _Reunion_

Today was the day her team was due to return. Her heart clenched and unclenched, and surprisingly, she was looking forward to see her teammates again.

She missed them.

They had so casually hurt her, though unknowingly, yet she still missed them. The years they had been together had attached her so sharply to them, that she was no longer able to distance herself from them. It was no longer being a moth drawn to flame, rather, it was more similar to being a prisoner or a slave.

Muffled sounds made their way to Sakura's ears. Sometime during her practice, her natural senses had heightened without any extra effort. Perhaps she would never be able to sniff out her enemies like Naruto, but she had more than adequate tracking skills.

"I get to see Sakura-chan again!" she could hear Naruto cry rather loudly. Her lips cautiously stretched themselves to a light smile, as the blond could be quite endearing at times.

She would not be so foolish as the last time they had left her, crying at their arrival. Her training had been universal.

In no way did she believe a shinobi needed to be heartless, but she did think that they required a certain measure of emotional control.

And so, after a month, she was ready to face them as a reformed Sakura, eager to weld herself to their ranks again.

She stood next to the Hokage's desk, facing the direction of the door, which, if she was honest with herself, looked larger and more ominous than usual. Her mind took on a cycle of nervousness and calm, testing her patience by a considerable margin.

Seconds later, Naruto burst into the room, looking as bubbly as he was before he left. His white smile widened further upon seeing her, and he attempted to give her a bear hug, his arms just engulfing around her shoulders as Sasuke, Kakashi-sensei, and their jounin-medic walked in.

Kakashi-sensei was aloof as usual, and Sasuke barely said a word.

Some relief flowed through her upon seeing the apparent lack of change within them. It may have been selfish, but it meant that she could catch up.

She could _belong_ with the team again.

When Naruto had released her, she greeted them with practiced ease. The girl noticed surprise briefly flicker on all the boys' faces, and she tried her hardest not to feel bitter.

As no one said anything more, silence dominated the room. Her green eyes stared at them steadily, and she didn't quite know why they were silent.

She herself refused to speak. It was true, her acting skills had improved, but she did not want her traitorous mouth to reveal her feelings about the situation, whether positive or not.

Subtly, she would show them that she had changed, that she had become stronger in the months of their detachment as a team.

Naruto seemed to glance around nervously, his expressive cerulean eyes easily giving away his feelings. He opened his mouth to speak, and Sakura braced herself for what he might say.

"So... what did you do while we were gone?"

Sakura winced, a tiny crinkle in her emotional mask. His words, while she knew they were not intentionally patronizing, snipped through her previously-torn pride.

Her response was cautious, tentative even. "Training."

"Oh, that's great!" Naruto cried, exchanging looks with his fellow males. Sakura noticed that jounin medic had separated from the threesome, and was watching from afar.

"Yeah umm..." Sakura mentally berated herself for sounding hesitant yet again, "Do you think one of you could spar with me?"

Naruto, who had already begun to open his mouth, let his hang open, his pure blue eyes wide and incredulous. His reaction was the most extreme, as Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei just seemed to give her what she interpreted as looks of vague disbelief.

Disregarding for a moment a tiny prickling at her back, she wondered when she had last sparred with them. A year ago?

Two years ago? Three years even? She was beginning to get an inkling of how time had flown, leaving her in the dust and now, scrambling to catch up.

Regardless, she thought as she mentally dusted herself off, she was determined to fight _someone_ now, to test how she had grown. Training rooms were helpful, but nowhere near so as having an actual sparring partner.

Seconds passed without an answer before she asked, "Guys?"

Surprisingly, Kakashi-sensei spoke first. "Sakura, you don't have to force yourself-"

Her mind froze.

"Stop that," she interrupted him flatly, though her inner voice was pleading. "Just... stop."

"Sakura..." her teacher began.

She met his eyes, and she knew her own eyes were pleading. "I only wanted to spar." Her words were a clean break from the usual, neither sad nor falsely exuberant.

"I'll spar with you Sakura-chan!" Naruto broke the awkward silence excitedly. Inwardly, she smiled. No matter what she did or said, Naruto would always accept her, and she appreciated that, despite not always doing so in a way that pleased her.

"Don't, Dobe."

"Why not?" Naruto asked.

Sakura, already realizing that she would not get the answer that she wished, emotionally braced herself as best she could.

She would stand strong, regardless of whether she agreed with them.

"I don't think she's ready yet Naruto," Kakashi-sensei broke in with an irritating aloofness, his revealed eye gazing upon his only female student.

Before, she could have twisted her sensei's words to be an indirect compliment to Naruto.

Now, she realized with alarming clarity, it was clear that she could not.

No matter how thick she built her defenses, she still felt insulted. Insignificant. Worthless.

The room was thick with tension by the time she responded, and she was barely able to meet their eyes. "It's okay," she said in a rush, words tumbling out faster than she would have liked, "there'll be other times." She said this with as genuine a smile she could muster, and based on the relieved expressions on her teammate's faces, her effort had been rewarded.

While a part of her insisted that this was a wasted effort, the more logical part insisted that there were steps. It was all part of a plan, she told her herself. A plan, she repeated in her mind, forcing upon herself the calm she only applied toward strategy.

And the next part?

Sneaking a glance at the other's faces, she realized that she realized that the atmosphere had grown heavy, and even if their expressions were not that of tiredness, their eyes were. It was not the right time, it occurred to her. They were not ready yet.

Keeping this thought at the front of her mind, she worked to lighten up the situation before the Hokage entered the room, looking for Team 7's mission summary. By the time Tsunade had entered, she was chatting amiably with them, as if nothing strange had even happened.

To them, nothing had.

To Sakura, a realization came. Was it really that they were not ready? Somehow, she sensed it was the other way around. Her team _had_ gone through lengths to accept her, yet they never gave her the satisfaction of being treated as an equal. To them, she was still inferior in skill, and in their minds, she realized slowly. . . this would probably never change.

_Never_ change. The words pricked at her continuously, kept alive by her thoughts. The urge to go run away, curl up into a ball, and bawl her eyes out grew until it engulfed her in a sort of a despair she hadn't thought herself capable of.

The next few minutes crawled by as she winced underneath her mask of a smile, so often practiced she must have forgotten that it was not real. Resisting the urge to touch her mouth, she instead asked to be excused.

They had glanced up, a casual flick of the eyes before returning to their conversation without her. Kakashi's gaze seemed to last slightly loner, but even he withdrew his attention, leaving Tsunade to answer in the affirmative.

After excusing herself, she returned home to read Itachi's mission statements, as they had, in the past, always helped to calm and placate her.

Rolling back in forth in a tiny cocoon, she lay on her bed, her pink hair flopping about, whispering aloud to herself descriptions of the missions that he had taken, little wisps of sound barely audible. But it was not the sound of her own voice that drew her in. It never had been. It was his writing, flawless kanji characters reminiscent of the calligraphy she had learned in her classes before she had even known she was a shinobi.

It was almost a disease, the way her urge to know more about this person consumed her thoughts and desires. But it was a disease that kept her alive.

A shiver ran through her suddenly, and she sat up quickly, back ramrod straight as if someone was watching. She stared through the glass window at the sunset for a moment before leaving the spot in a wisp of charcoal smoke. Seconds later, she stood inside the same storage room in which she had found Itachi's mission file, small feet feeling heavy against the stone floor.

She was foolish, she knew, to think that the former great Uchiha heir would keep a journal or diary of some sort. But that did not stop her.

Scanning the shelves on her tiptoes, her focused green eyes traveled from left to right, searching for the Uchiha insignia. An hour later she stood in the same room, still looking, her delicate features marred in determination.

Another hour after that, she sat down cross-legged on the floor, her head bowed and lengthy pink hair hanging in her face. Having finished scouring the entire room more than once, she was ready to admit defeat.

This discovery, or rather, lack of discovery, only reinforced the fact that she had found Itachi's file by _mistake_. So why did she want to know more about the Uchiha so badly?

Silence greeted her question, even within her own mind.

Finally, after a few minutes, the feeling sharpened to deliver her words. "Closer," she whispered into her knees. _I just want to be closer to him._

She wanted to _feel _closer to him, a man she always heard about but never met. A man shaped by experiences she could only safely read about.

But what good had living safely done her?

_It made you a medic,_ her Inner reminded her.

It had also made her a coward.

What had she done wrong? Why was she unable to confront anyone about it?

The answer slammed into her only seconds later, carving itself into her in a way that could only be described as painful.

She did not find herself deserving of anyone's attentions.

She could feel the water dripping down her face, slow steady drops as she contemplated her perception of her own self-worth. Of course, she thought blankly, green eyes glassy. The one thing that stood in her way was the one thing that remained from her childhood: shame.

Her shoulders were heavy with it, and her mind was trapped in it. Her breathing hastened, and soon she could hear her quick breaths through the fog of her thoughts. Ashamed. She was ashamed. Of who she was, who she had been... And she could not erase the past, she realized in a daze. She could not erase the past. The past was always there. What she had done as a child would stain her for...

She passed out.

* * *

"Sakura?"

She felt a strange pressure on her back. A warm one.

A small shake.

"Sakura?" she heard again.

Her eyelids lifted just enough for her to catch sight of a shock of black hair. She opened her eyes, a quick, almost spastic motion.

Barely able to meet her senpai's eyes, she squashed the tiny bud of disappointment. "Yes?" she responded softly, looking at the area between the woman's eyes.

"You fell asleep here," Shizune said kindly.

The older woman's eyes were soft... with compassion? Sympathy? She halted her mind, reigning back her imagination before she grew bitter. Still, she could not resist a final glance.

Concern, she realized, feeling a bit foolish. It was a look of concern.

She glanced down at herself, dusty from the unswept floor. Her loose nightshirt pooled harmlessly in her lap, fabric spilling over the tops of her equally loose pants. She didn't know what her face looked like, but she would have bet a good amount of ryo that the tear tracks were fairly visible, even in the terrible lighting.

"Need some help?"

She glanced back up at her young mentor before blushing. "Uhh... it's okay," she said. "I can handle it," she added with a nervous quirk of the mouth that could have passed for a smile. Demonstrating her resolve, she placed her soft palms against the rough stone floor, pushing herself up enough for her legs to take over the burden of her weight and extend herself back to full height.

Her knees felt a bit weak, but they were still more than strong enough to hold herself up.

Once she was back on her feet, she turned her full attention back to Shizune, who had yet to leave. She was about to ask permission to leave when Shizune spoke again.

"Sakura..."

Her pink head turned sharply at her tone.

"I don't mean to demean your status, but..."

Sakura finished her sentence for her. "I shouldn't be sleeping here."

Shizune smiled. "Exactly."

Managing to catch the humor in the situation, she returned the facial gesture without forcing herself.

"I guess I'll be leaving now then," she said sheepishly as she dusted herself off.

Shizune nodded her consent, and Sakura left the room, feeling lighter than she had in months.

Perhaps she had not solved her problem, but she had at least identified it. And that, she reminded herself, always had to be the first step of any plan.

She yawned.

Besides, she thought foggily as she stretched her limbs, steps meant progress. Steps meant, she inhaled the night air deeply with closed eyes, she was doing something about it.

And there was nothing negative about that.

* * *

As she lay in her bed, the cold air nipped at her, bleeding in through the cracks between the window panes which she had yet to fix. Her blankets, wrapped tightly around herself, did nothing to stop the shivers that coursed down her spine. Her feet hung awkwardly away from her body, her thickest socks doing little to mitigate the deadweight feeling that had been exacerbated from the cold. Even her own hair tickled the back of her neck, making her rub her pale skin in irritation.

After a few minutes of failed rest, she decided that sleep, at least tonight, would not come.

She trained her green eyes on the ceiling, painted wood made darker by the shadows cast by the moonlight that shone from her windows. Hugging her blanketed knees to her chest, she wondered how far people really meant when they said that the sky was the limit.

It always seemed like her world was full of ceilings, and even worse, illusions of ceilings that were truly mutated cages. Sure, she had experimentally disproved her limitations regarding chakra pool size for the time being, but the idea that she could reach her limit so easily scared her.

Why bother reaching your full potential when even that wasn't good enough?

The shame crept up again, threatening to coat her in self-loathing. No, she thought defiantly, it didn't really matter. There was no way to know her limits, and it was ridiculous to decide them without any actual proof. That was what Naruto had always done, anyway, steamrolling his way through techniques based on effort and effort alone, even as his chakra control continued to lag behind. She had been shocked when she had learned of the existence of the fox sealed within him, yet somehow proud. He had fought to get to where he was, and despite how ashamed she might have been of her own past (especially regarding her team), she would have to fight too.

With renewed energy, she sat up.

Thinking only went so far, she decided as she headed to the training rooms. Actions were what mattered. Actions were what people cared about.

As she walked, she practiced circulating her chakra throughout her body with small twitches of her hands. A few minutes passed before she wondered whether she would be able to do the same thing without moving her hands, and she let her hands drop to her sides.

"Sakura?"

She spun around, and immediately regretted it. When had she stopped checking others' presences before making herself vulnerable?

"Hey," she managed a smile for the blonde.

"Are you free?" Ino asked, though in a manner that Sakura knew from experience was not so much questioning as rhetorical.

Without waiting for an answer, the blonde continued, her voice raising slightly in volume. "Of course you're free. I don't know why I still ask you that." She laughed a little to herself before adding, "The gang's heading to the place the street over from Ichiraku's."

It was either now or never, Sakura thought as the blonde began to walk away, presumably with an expectation that she would follow.

"Ino... I'm busy."

The blonde whipped her head back around. Her ice-blue eyes were clearly disbelieving. "With what?"

Wincing inwardly, Sakura answered as calmly as she could. "Training."

There was a pause as the other girl seemed to take in her outfit-casual, old training wear (stained irreparably after a rowdy outing with Team 7 years ago) she never wore to gang outings. Both girls had yet to abandon their feminine side despite their less than delicate professions, and had long ago sworn together not to go out in training gear as the boys did.

"Plus," she added quickly upon seeing an unfamiliar expression on the blonde's face, "these clothes are ruined. I wanted to get one last run in them before I went shopping again."

Whatever had clouded her friend's eyes disappeared. "Whatever, Forehead," the blonde laughed, in a way that Sakura found over the years to be good-natured.

"Weren't we going to leave the nicknames behind Ino-pig?" she deadpanned, though she knew her eyes betrayed her mirth.

Flipping her long blonde hair over her shoulder, the blonde grinned, bright white against the tan of her face. "As if, Forehead. That's never gonna change."

Sakura struggled to return the smile. That was exactly what she was afraid of.

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By the time she reached the training center, she had made thirty-five full circulations of chakra around her body without using her hands. She had never been more appreciative of the little time her mentor had to teach her, as that little time included some of the most helpful things. Without even exercising her muscles, she felt warmer and almost strangely limber, her limbs loose and even somewhat graceful.

Or perhaps, it was her self-confidence speaking. Chakra-control was something she was good at. It was something she had always been good at, if not the best, and it was comforting to know that some things didn't change.

She looked up at the sign-in board, momentarily pausing her chakra exercise. Her eyebrows raised as she contemplated the unexpected.

Someone was in her room.

Well, she supposed it wasn't _her_ room exactly, but in her experience, she had never seen anyone go into it. It was a room that focused on the very basics, avoiding attacks and returning them with accuracy and speed. If it didn't injure her pride every time she thought about it, she would think the room was genin level, though being satisfactorily boring to ward off most genin looking to practice.

Most, she reminded herself. Not all. And if the occupant happened to be a genin, he or she would probably lose patience after a short while, which, judging by the papers on the board, was soon.

About ten minutes passed without anyone emerging from the room however, and she decided that she would have to change rooms if she was going to get in any practice before her medical training session tomorrow. Silently running a finger over the text of her options, she decided to choose randomly-it wasn't as if she had anything specificically planned anyway.

Within another few minutes, she stood in front of her randomly selected room, pausing before deciding to enter. A single bronze plaque decorated the door, inscribed with the number four. She took one step forward, hand outstretched, before clenching it and stepping back. Repeating this motion once more, she settled for pacing along the stretch of hallway.

Why was this so difficult?

She couldn't understand her hesitation, her own fear, but she knew it was preventing her from doing something with herself. It was irritating, to say the least. She glared at the door, hoping that if her gaze was strong enough, it would burn down.

"Haruno-san."

His tone, though distinctly neutral compared to what she was used to, held some sort of note she couldn't recognize. Or perhaps several years of Kakashi and Sasuke had made her so determined to see something underneath a calm facade. She supposed she would never know.

Sakura turned to greet the Hyuuga. "Hyuuga-san."

Upon seeing an inquisitive look in his light eyes, she answered what she supposed was his unspoken question. "I was going to train," she said, keeping her voice light though her perfunctory smile was conspicuously weaker.

He now looked somewhat confused, and she couldn't blame him. She had never been the type to willing go out and train, at least not for an unspecified reason.

While recently, she had been making regular visits to the training grounds and rooms, she supposed she hadn't seen the Hyuuga around. He didn't hang out with the gang much anymore, not since he was promoted to jounin a few months ago. The last thing she had heard about him was that Hinata was considering helping promote him to a co-heir position, or at least elevate him from the side branch.

Sometimes she wondered how he did it, put his entire heart and soul into becoming the best he could be. His hard work was never put aside as useless, as far as she knew, and it had always been treated with the highest respect, at least amongst her peers.

"No one goes in that room alone."

She snapped her attention back to him. "What do you mean?" She asked, undeniably affronted. The Hyuuga she had known had always been unfailingly polite, refusing to participate and even often times acknowledge the antics of their peers.

His pale gaze, however, was less than supercilious, with only the bits of clan pride that always managed to pierce through his calm exterior. "That room requires a spotter for every user; that has been the case since an unfortunate accident involving a jounin several years ago."

Though she knew his intentions were kind, she could not help but look for some other motive nestled in the practiced complacence with which he held himself. In what she perceived as an uncharacteristic move, he was not looking her in the eye, instead placing the weight of his gaze on the plaque she had just been glaring at. His diversion of attention allowed her to scope every corner of his body, until she found an indication of what he was feeling.

She then took in his clothes, ironed and pressed, and certainly pre-work out.

Then it hit her.

He was offering to come with her, but unwilling to bring up the topic himself for whatever reason.

"Would you like to train with me then?" Her smile was full and genuine, and though he answered in a characteristically stoic fashion, she could sense that he was pleased to some degree that he had gotten his point across.

"That would be satisfactory, yes," he agreed to her proposal with an expression somewhere between a smile and a smirk.

Once they had entered the room, she took in her surroundings. Several chakra points lined the room, presumably to touch off the room challenge. One had only to attach a chakra web to one of the points to activate the onslaught. There were several crevices she knew the weapons would emerge from, and she felt as if the floor could give at any time, suggesting the possibility of some jutsu usage against her.

"Is this for medic training?" he asked casually as she prepared herself, checking the various pockets for possible weapons.

"What do you mean?" she asked again, though this time a lot less indignantly.

"You do not appear to have equipped yourself properly for an offensive," he replied, with some hesitation. His brutal honesty, she felt, she would somehow learn to appreciate, especially when coupled with his unfailing politeness. But she preferred this fight for her pride far more than Kakashi's indirectness, Sasuke's silence, or Naruto's white lies.

"I'll manage.. somehow." She winced. Even to her, those words sounded disgustingly weak.

He, fortunately for her pride, only raised an eyebrow.

"If I feel uncomfortable, I'll switch to the defensive," she amended her words.

He nodded his acceptance and moved to set off the room.

"Wait."

He stopped and shot her a questioning look over his shoulder.

"I want to carry my own weight..." she began. Her words became stronger. "So please don't protect me."

At this, he appeared to smirk at her, but upon seeing the look on her face, said, "I have no intentions of defending you. That would be unwise for my own safety."

His words made her feel almost giddily warm inside, though she struggled to smash down the combination of guilt and disappointment that bubbled up upon hearing them.

"Good."

And so they began.

* * *

If before she had only vaguely respected the Hyuuga, she now found him the third most admirable person she knew, the first two being Tsunade and Itachi.

While her basic training exercises inside the village streets had improved her stamina, her strong pants revealed that that improvement was not enough. Hyuuga-san, by contrast, had manage to assimilate into the room with practiced ease, though he had previously revealed to her that he had never been inside due to lack of a suitable partner.

She wasn't quite sure how suitable of a partner she made, but she had managed to block her own fair share of blows, between her chakra enhanced feet and arm guards. As soon as the ground had opened up, much as she had suspected, she had given it a less than gentle slam with her fist, rendering the mechanism useless. She had been a bit worried about using any sort of enhanced strength in such a confined area, but had decided to simply temper down the usual magnitude of the attack.

Though she had prevented herself from glancing over at the Hyuuga to see his reaction, she had, out of the corner of her eye, managed to catch a moment of awe. A rush of pride flooded her, despite the fact that she was far more winded than he, and her tiredness showed.

His movements were still graceful while she lagged the conspicuously behind, having abandoned any semblance of grace at least a half hour ago.

A series of kunai suddenly attacked her from the front as senbon were reaching her from the back. She moved to leap up, before realizing that the Hyuuga was in her way. At the last second, she used a substitution jutsu, cursing the fact that she hadn't paid more attention to his presence, which was, by all standards, a powerful one, with or without his attempts to hide his chakra.

The Hyuuga had taken the opportunity to utilize a long round-house kick, deflecting each weapon at an angle so precise, she wondered how long he had practiced the move. His body was still a foot off the ground at least by the time he had finished the revolution, leg outstretched.

However, she had the strange feeling that the room was not quite done yet.

Four giant shuriken blades, each at least two feet in diameter, emerged from the corner of the room. To her dismay, she found that they were directly connected to the chakra user of the room, and therefore would follow Hyuuga san no matter where he went.

She watched him go through several substitution jutsus and a single teleportation jutsu before asking him what was the matter.

"These blades," he ducked to avoid an incoming spike, "are chakra-resistant."

And, she deduced, they probably would not cease until they bit his blood, a sight which she didn't particularly wish to see. This must have been how the lone jounin had died, she realized, made tired by a single obstacle until it ended him. But why hadn't he detached himself from the room?

She echoed this thought aloud as she flipped away from three exploding tags and drew up a simple earth jutsu to block a series of incoming smaller shuriken directed toward her small of her back.

His reply was notably more stilted, and she could hear the tiredness clearly from his panted, yet clear words. "Can't."

"Can't or won't?" she muttered softly as she mentally ran through possible ways she could save him. Frankly, she didn't know a lot of offensive jutsu-most of that learning had ceased upon her becoming a medic. She had, to her current dismay, been therefore left with a repertoire of mostly genin level basic jutsu. Granted, they consisted of almost all the elements, but they were still weak enough to do about nothing in this situation.

The only thing she could think of was distorting the chakra that kept the room active, and she didn't quite know how to do that. She had sensed the room's chakra input had come from two crevices, both located near the floor, on either side of the room.

She headed toward one of them, and found herself barraged with weapons on all sides, and of all shapes and sizes, to the point where she could barely see the wood walls of the room. Strange, she thought, as she backed away. The barrage ceased.

Her eyes narrowed. There was something suspicious about this room, and it had little to do with the fact that it happened to be number four.

She made a quick decision upon seeing the one of the shuriken slice through the flesh of the Hyuuga and not cease, or even slow down. Gathering her chakra into her legs, she sped as quickly as she could toward the crevice, wincing as a few of the blades managed to slice her own flesh or even worse, embed themselves into her skin. In a new technique she wasn't quite sure what it was, she drew a good amount of chakra into her arms and hands and formed glowing green chakra skin around the front of her body. Breathing a quick sigh of relief upon managing to draw the raw chakra from her body despite the aching pain, she twisted her body around and smashed her fists into that particular section of the wall, not quite caring if she made the entire facility come down. It was either this or see her... friend die.

After seeing the strange chakra presence combust into flames, she sucked in another breath and sped to the other side of the room. She hastened her speed even further upon hearing the muffled scream of the Hyuuga. Before another set of blades could impale her, she sunk her fists into the other side of the wall, grinning in satisfaction upon seeing the smoke curl up from the fiery red.

"Try disconnecting now!" she yelled toward the Hyuuga, heading toward him despite reading his obvious signs not to.

"I told you, it doesn't-"

"Try it, Neji-san!" she swore she was screaming like a lunatic now, but her use of his first name seemed to affirm her seriousness.

She felt his threads disconnect, and breathed a small sigh of relief.

Her sigh of relief died as soon as she saw all four giant shuriken had at him from all four corners, somehow larger. Hadn't they only been a few feet in diameter before? Now they took up almost the entire room, and were very close to impaling the both of them.

At least, she thought while trying not to panic, they no longer had the Hyuuga's chakra signature embedded within them. Instead, there was only a vague trace, which would greatly cut their accuracy. Regardless of this improvement, however, she instinctually knew that some outside force was controlling the room. The thought was disconcerting.

The rooms were given a set usage of chakra by some group of ninja-she guessed a section of ANBU-and were replenished every week. Such a strange occurrence shouldn't have happened, and according to everything she'd ever heard from Tsunade, couldn't have happened.

The creepiest part about the entire thing was that the weapons were supposedly immune to chakra. What kind of training room prevented usage of chakra to defend oneself, even as a last resort?

She felt herself begin to panic, her breaths pick up speed, and her mind go hazy before she calmed herself. She was a medic, she told herself. No medic behaved like this under pressure. A medic's duty was to protect the team.

For once, she had actually been allowed the duty, and she had no idea what to do. She thought for only a millisecond as a strange thought occurred to her. Why didn't they just beat the room at its game, whatever dangerous game it was? They could both use taijutsu well, though she probably better than him, and she wondered why she had never considered this.

Slamming the weapon at the correct angle no matter how giant it was, ought to affect its course, and hopefully in a permanent manner. "Don't use chakra against them," she told her him, her voice kind again.

His reply was wry. "Then how do you suggest getting out of here alive?" The subtext of, and not killing someone outside with a giant shuriken that was supposedly aimed at you was implied.

"Aren't you good at taijutsu?"

"Actually," he heaved a breath here as he disappeared and reappeared at a different corner in the room, "I'm the worst at it on my team."

"I really don't think that's the case."

"You're probably right," he managed between pants, which somehow managed to be somewhat graceful, despite the situation.

Then what was the problem?

Suddenly, she saw. The Hyuuga had apparently been somewhat injured, probably before even entering the room, she suspected, and the wound, which looked to be a deep cut into the side of his chest, barely missing his heart, looked to prevent him from moving at maximum speed. A circumstance, she realized somewhat foolishly, that explained his abominably high output of chakra.

Something in her snapped then. Perhaps it was the weight of responsibility she had just now been given the opportunity to hold. Or perhaps, she thought, it was the bitterness she felt upon not receiving the responsibility earlier.

"Move," she demanded as she made her way toward him.

The Hyuuga was trapped yet again in a strange four way circle, but this time with some added kunai. She would need to copy his move almost exactly, she realized, and she drew the memory to the front of her mind. It was the first time she would use this memory of hers in the field, and not a useless test.

Taking in a sharp breath, she launched herself in the middle of the blades and drew all the chakra she could to her legs and feet, such that her limbs glowed a supernatural green.

Then she fought back.

The weight of the blade was fortunately, weaker than she anticipated when drawing all of her strength to her lower limbs. The first shuriken she slammed into was a blur, careening into a side wall wrapped in a light green haze before remaining there. The second moved to slice off an arm, and she quick rotated her body in an all-around kick, slamming the enormous metallic disc in the ground. The third managed to actually peel off the skin on her right arm, leaving her with bloody red flesh, before she sent it into the far wall. Again, she had somehow wrapped them in her chakra, the light green outline remaining even after being embedded into a target. The fourth would have completely sliced off a leg had the chakra she had wrapped on the outside not slowed its approach, allowing her to temporarily sidestep the onslaught. Irritated, she transferred her leftover chakra to her fists and met the blade head on, the protective chakra slowing its speed and forcing the object to an angle, from which she slammed her fists into the side. Once she heard the last crash to the ground, she about collapsed to her knees next to the Hyuuga, who had an indiscernible look in his eyes.

"Never," she heaved a painful breath, biting back tears, "want to," she panted, "do that again."

She let herself collapse fully on her back and extended her legs, beginning a quick self-analysis. As she turned to the Hyuuga, she had already began to heal herself automatically, though her blood had not clotted quick enough not to leave her in a pool of her own blood.

"Vitals?" she bit out as she pulled some of the smaller weapons from her abdomen.

"Fine." The harshness in his tone, she hoped, had more to do with the fact that he was probably in pain-and most likely, more pain than she was.

Feeling guilty again, she pulled out the last blade and moved closer to the Hyuuga. She pressed down on a few choice spots, and seeing his wince, told him, "You're probably going to be sore for a while, even if this doesn't leave a scar."

His emotion, either incredulousness of surprise, was muted, but still very visible to her. "What?"

He didn't say anything, though he still refused to relax into her touch as most of her patients did. Only when she began to clean out the debris and sew up the inner layers of his wound did he cease twitching, resigning himself to the pain of surgery without anesthesia.

Thirty long minutes passed as she kneeled next to him, sealing his various wounds even as her own blood barely clotted. Though she was no longer dripping blood, she caught the tiny flicker of concern in his pale eyes, which she imagined was reflected in her own. "'m fine," she muttered as she wove together a particularly tough section. He was definitely, she observed, not the type to ever visit the hospital judging from his wounds and scars, and she couldn't say she blamed him.

She herself had often wished to be outside the hospital, doing missions. Not that there wasn't merit in healing people-there was. She wouldn't have become a medic if she didn't believe in that. But she also believed that there was something more she could possibly get out of life. Though she hardly pictured herself as an adventurer, as her suffocation grew, her desire to explore grew even more.

He grunted then, seeming to sense that her thoughts had gone off track. "You're fine," she told him. "I could do this in my sleep."

Muted alarm showed on his face all too clearly, and she didn't try to stifle her giggle. "Not that I would. I'm just saying I'm very familiar with the task."

She was, she assured herself, even as she came across a strange wound. Curious, she probed the area a bit with her chakra strands. Nothing.

But she could have sworn that there was something else about this wound...

She brought herself closer to him, and stuck her finger inside the flesh after properly anesthetizing him with her chakra. Poison, maybe? She doubted it.

Granted, she had yet to receive hands on practice with poison removal, but she had at least done her book research. There was nothing about the blood in the wound that indicated that it had been affected by poison. She closed her eyes and focused the intensity of her chakra at her hands and placed a palm over the wound, probing more fully.

A full minute passed, perhaps enough to convince the Hyuuga of the possible gratuitous nature of the action, and he moved to get her off.

"Stop." She hissed the word at him, eyes still closed, frustrated that she couldn't feel anything.

This was her _strength_, damn it. And it was nearly impossible for her not to catch something strange. He seemed to sense her frustration and left her alone to her thoughts.

She checked the chakra pattern in his body, and finally found the disturbance, seeming to come from a nick in his neck. Brushing his long brown hair away from his next, she placed a hand there, trying to draw the substance out using a method she had only read about. Her chakra strands invaded his stream momentarily, gathered themselves around the strange substance and brought the discolored blood to the surface. Pleased, she tore off a pant leg and used it to soak up the strange blood as she purified the wound.

Once she had finished, she gave an audible sigh of relief.

She finished healing the rest of his body as best she could before she began working on her own, blood still threatening to burst from some of the wounds. She felt him watch her as she knitted together her own skin without moving her limbs, unable to move her arm properly after having her right arm de-skinned. She would rather put a newfound ability to use than waste precious seconds fumbling around with her left arm until she felt comfortable.

Her chest ached as she sewed up her deepest wound, a blow to the lower right side of her abdomen. She clenched her teeth as she pulled out some extraneous smaller kunai that had embedded themselves after an initial breaking of skin. The red muscle was sewed, slow, precise strokes of her chakra threads, before the pink of the lowest layer of skin was begun, a disgustingly translucent layer of flesh that she didn't think constituted skin. Eight more layers after that, when the reddish pink became an actual pink, she deemed herself satisfied, and focused her attention back on the Hyuuga who had yet to leave.

"Thank you for the service."

The words were so trite, yet coming from him, she felt that they meant something. There was something genuine about the Hyuuga that she appreciated after being blindsided by members of the gang, either intentionally or not.

She smiled. "You're welcome, Hyuuga-san."

She heard a sound come from him, and though his face looked positively uncomfortable, he got out the words. "Neji is fine."

"A near death experience enough to disregard formalities?" she teased him goodnaturedly.

Unlike Sasuke, his eyes didn't flash with annoyance. Instead, he appeared to look somewhat complacent, or perhaps defeated.

"Thanks for the privilege, Neji-san," she managed to only sound slightly sarcastic. "Sakura is fine as well."

"Sakura."

She blushed, despite herself. Besides her mother and father she didn't believe that anyone had actually referred to her without a suffix. Upon seeing her expression, the Hyuuga colored as well.

"Sakura-san," he amended, "we have not spoken in a while."

She raised an eyebrow. "We weren't exactly friends?"

He seemed to ignore this bit in favor of another question. "Will you be going for jounin this year?"

She was slightly taken aback. She didn't think she had ever considered becoming jounin, which she supposed was pathetic in itself considering that she wanted to become stronger. She supposed she had never connected to the two, not after so many people had been rejected in the first round of chuunin exams.

Her silence must have goaded him to speak, for when he did, he looked even more uncomfortable.

"It would be good to consider," he said, an unreadable expression on his face.

"I'll consider it," she replied, though privately, she wondered who would nominate her to take the test. Tsunade had not spent enough time teaching to consider nominating her, and she knew Kakashi would most likely skip her over for similar reasons.

The thought lingered long enough such that, by the time she got up and left the room, she was left feeling bittersweet, the euphoria of success tempered by a reminder of her own restrictions.

* * *

She ended up going to the gang meeting the next week, as she had expected. She still didn't know how she felt about this group of people, who she knew never took her seriously and suspected never would, but they were still her friends, to some degree.

"A drink, Forehead?" She glanced warily at the blonde, whose left hand held a large pitcher of alcohol. She called it alcohol because she had no idea who had mixed the stuff, or what was in it, and frankly, she really didn't want to find out.

"I'm not in the business of being wasted, Ino," she responded, knowing that she was being a killjoy. She could have just accepted the drink and taken a few sips.

But really, Ino should have known that she wasn't the type to get drunk. She hated losing control of her faculties, and though her tolerance had improved due to techniques learned from her semi-alcoholic teacher, she really didn't want to test herself.

"Killjoy," the blonde muttered, though Sakura knew the girl was already tipsy.

The blonde offered alcohol to the person next to her, Sasuke, and to her surprise, he accepted. Ino turned to her triumphantly, but before she could say anything that would potentially embarrass either of them, Sakura interrupted.

"I've been mixing my own drinks since we were legally allowed, Pig," she grinned for the table's benefit. "No mystery drink is going to trump my own."

"You make drinks?" She recognized the voice immediately, and cursed herself for momentarily freezing in her seat.

"Yeah," she replied hesitantly. After a moment, she added, "Didn't think you would come this week," just as she turned around. _Or ever_, she added in her mind.

"My team wished to attend the gathering." The Hyuuga's stiffness was audible in his voice, to the extent that even Tenten gave him a strange look before going over to talk to Hinata.

Sensing the end of the conversation, she turned around, muttering, "And people think _I _need a drink."

"You talk to him?"

She almost groaned out loud. Since when did people actually talk to her at these gatherings (besides Ino)?

It was so unlike Sasuke to be interested in her personal life, though, that she chalked it up to wondering whether she knew anything about his techniques. From what she remember, her teammate had been particularly bitter that Neji had managed to get jounin, grumbling for weeks something about Hyuuga bastards.

She reigned in the impulse to roll her eyes. "Not on a regular basis." She met the Uchiha's eyes so he could check the truthfulness of her statement. Not that he was particularly good at distinguishing her feelings, but her candor in this case, she liked to think, was written all over her face.

"Why?"

Suddenly inexplicably angry, she lashed out at him. "Why do you hang out with Naruto?!" At the raised pitch of her voice, the boy in question glanced over in her direction. "Sakura-cha-" he began.

She cut him off. "I'm fine."

Their side of the table submerged into silence, with Sakura refusing to rekindle the conversation. As far as she was concerned, the silence was welcome. She had yet to figure out why her friends seemed to care about her at the most inopportune times.

"Sakura-san?"

She glanced up at him in surprise.

"Will you be available next week?" Her eyebrows raised; he couldn't have been dense enough to ask that in front of a silent table. Peering into the paleness of his eyes, she found a glimmer of amusement.

"Sure," she agreed, helping him with his little scheme.

Naruto, who had quietly watched on, broke his silence, his shock written all over his face. "You're _dating _him?"

After exchanging looks with Neji one last time, she broke into giggles. "You don't have to sound so appalled."

Even Sasuke turned at her comment, lathering her with more attention in a single night than she'd gotten in almost two years, if she counted the off-hand glances. "I'm inclined to agree," he made out gruffly, and it occurred to her that he was probably slightly buzzed.

"I am present," Neji reminded both of them.

"As if that's ever stopped them," she muttered under her breath, deciding whether to be flattered or annoyed that her teammates were making a fuss. The rest of the table had already begun to talk again, probably deciding that it was another case of overprotective brother syndrome.

But it had been a long time since she had felt willingly protected, and she wished they would see that.


	3. Image

A/N: **Edited 5/29/12**

**A/N: Edited 1/27/13**

**NOTE: This chapter is actually very different from the original, but still contains some of the same scenes. There are important parts that have been added, as far as where I want to take the story now.**

**You'll also note that this was edited (it seems like) forever ago. I tried to finish the story before posting this time.**

Unspoken Bonds _by _Sandi

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...

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Chapter 3: _Image_

She had not slept well last night.

Somehow, she couldn't, not while knowing how much work she had to do. She stretched silently, her gaze trained on the discolored wood of her room ceiling. For the first time, she noticed that the planks were considerably uneven, leaving thin dark slits here and there.

She lay there for what must have been a full minute, simply observing the view of her room on her back from the bed, her arms comfortably tucked beneath her head. It was a new perspective to look at that she had never noticed before, and it was relieving to know that she could find something new in the most mundane.

Yes, that was the perspective she needed.

She glanced over toward one of her side walls, deciding that she ought to practice this morning, even if she had no plans of going to the training rooms because of her lesson with Tsunade-sama.

She got up and, placing one bare foot gently against the wall, focused her chakra toward the soles of her feet and felt her toes warm with the extra chakra. Tentatively, she lifted her other foot off the ground, allowing her weight to be sustained by her chakra-enhanced feet alone, her arms loosely at her sides, and her body merely a foot off the ground.

Her long pink locks shifted backwards, and some of the hairs made their way into her mouth, making her briefly consider cutting them as she spit them out. She hadn't cut her hair since she was... twelve? Thirteen? She could not remember.

She walked slowly up the wall, careful not to apply too much pressure. Sure, she had had experience with climbing up trees and balancing on water with Team 7, and good experiences at that.

However, the wall was a slightly different story. The strength of the dead wood had faded in some areas, creating gaps of instability. Because the composition of the wood was not the same throughout, it was harder to walk on, especially when considering the fact that she had to change the amount of chakra she condensed in her feet at every step.

And, unlike the trees Kakashi had originally trained them on, the wood of the wall was much thinner, making the gaps in the pressure greater than they were in a living trunk.

She also had to take into account the fact that her mother would not be happy if holes or dents suddenly made their way on to her walls.

As she steadily made her way to the ceiling, one foot in front of the other, she glanced around her room with interest. The view from up here was quite different from that of the ground, she realized. While it was obviously upside down, there was a certain dizzying aspect to it, along with a startling clarity she hadn't believed she had possessed.

"Sakura!" her mother called, and she broke away from her thoughts, suddenly realizing that the clarity was most likely due to the increased chakra circulation to her head, and the chakra spike from the perceived danger of being in an unfamiliar position.

She flipped off the wall with a careful bend of the knees, managing to land with her feet together. However embarrassing it was, she had never been able to land properly after flipping, with her feet awkwardly positioned or too wide apart to transition smoothly into another motion. If it was one thing she did not possess, it was natural athletic ability.

On her way downstairs, she absent-mindedly wondered what her teammates were doing. It was now about six in the morning, so they were either sleeping, eating or training. _Most likely sleeping,_ Sakura mused as she proceeded to plan out her day.

After breakfast, she would work on her endurance, which she decided would include running laps around Konoha until she about fainted. _If you can even finish a lap_, Inner Sakura commented.

_Shut up, _Sakura countered defensively, as she reflected on her previous endurance training. Now that she thought about it, she had had none.

Kakashi had never focused much on that, as the majority of her team had excellent natural endurance. Tsunade had focused mainly on medical jutsu along with super strength. Moderately useful, but not particularly helpful in making her a good field medic.

They were required to be agile enough to avoid attacks, and strong enough to take on enemy shinobi on their own, preferably with enough chakra left over to heal their team.

It was a taxing job, but it was indeed Sakura's dream.

She sat down at their family's wooden table across from her mother. Her father was on a business trip in the Village of Snow, so for the next couple months or so, it was only the two of them.

Her mother began to chat with her pleasantly, and Sakura spoke enough to be considered somewhat attentive, though her thoughts were elsewhere.

"So honey, what are you doing today?"

Sakura recognized the question easily, as it was a daily occurrence. However, today, she had a different answer.

"Training," she replied quietly, before stuffing her chopsticks in her mouth to deliver another bite of rice.

A gentle smile crossed her mother's face, "I see."

That was one thing she loved about her mother. She was so accepting and kind, yet subtly encouraging. The pride that she held in her kunoichi daughter was evident within her tell-tale green eyes, and Sakura felt the need to truly fulfill her mother's hopes.

Sure, she was on a very famous and well-respected team. However, she was the odd one out. She was not extraordinary in any way, except for maybe her chakra control, but considering the fact that she had hardly noticed this until Kakashi had informed her of it, she felt that it was hardly a deciding factor within battle.

Also, she might have learned from the famous Tsunade herself, but that did not do much for areas outside super strength and medical jutsus, leaving most of her skills subpar.

Even the training that she had put herself to for the last month or so had only resulted in the learning of about three or four jutsus, as she had put more effort in maintaining her strengths. It was time, she supposed, to confront her weaknesses, the great many of them that there were.

Her chopsticks stuck out of her mouth as pondered this, her chewing coming to a standstill.

Her mother coughed lightly.

Sakura flushed, and re-focused her gaze on her mother as she continued to eat.

She was about to apologize until she made eye contact with her mother. Her mother's eyes were dancing in amusement, an act that calmed her considerably, her tense shoulders relaxing before she began to speak again.

Purposefully avoiding the topic of her training, Sakura finished her breakfast rather quickly, eager to begin what she had planned for herself.

One day, she would be able to tell her mother how she truly felt about being on Team 7, being a kunoichi, or even about her dream to become a medic-nin. One day.

But today was not that day.

After breakfast, Sakura dressed in her usual red dress, sandals, and headband, stopping in front of the mirror to observe herself on her way out.

It suddenly occurred to her how ridiculous it was to wear a dress while training, or even having long hair. When was the last time she thought that being feminine was her highest priority? Was it even on her list of priorities?

She was comparatively vain; she would acknowledge that. But she had never really been consumed with her appearance, she realized. She never had the desire to be immaculately dressed all of the time. It was just that... dressing nicely gave her confidence that she didn't have, let her more easily blend and bond with girls like Ino. She had _friends_ because she embraced her girly side.

But she didn't need friends anymore, not friends like that. She loved Ino in her own way, but Ino was not one of those who would attempt at jounin, this year... or any year. And she knew from experience that she was someone easily affected by the people who surrounded her.

And yet, it had never occurred to her that she needed to find her own path, that she was stunted because she didn't learn the same way as any of her teammates or friends. At the very least, she thought, as she entered one of the many clothing stores lining the street, she needed to redefine herself. And according to her clock, she had about three hours to do it.

* * *

The store was warm.

Even so, she liked standing near the heater toward the back-it filled her like nothing ever could. She looked at the mannequins from her spot at the back, which she supposed limited her scope, but she couldn't really see herself wearing any of the outfits that were displayed near the front, right next to the floor to floor window facing the street outside.

"Miss?"

Sakura turned to face a tiny woman with long, dark hair and large honey-brown eyes that engulfed her heart-shaped face. "Can I help you?" The tiny woman's voice surprised her, a rough, calm tone that did not match the pixie-like appearance.

"I'm looking for something that..." she trailed off hesitantly. Tight or loose? Short or long? Color? She had never really thought about it before. The red dress she wore now was simply the same design in a larger size than what she had worn when she was younger.

The woman's eyebrows raised as she waited for Sakura to continue.

"I just want to be taken seriously as a shinobi." The words were slow in the coming, but she could taste the truth in them.

"I see," the lady said. "I'll bring back a few styles you can start with?"

Sakura nodded, her pale face more than flushed. "That would be appreciated."

Within minutes, the woman was back, with at least five outfits draped over her thin arm. The pink-haired girl took a moment to admire the lady's strength, the cloth easily engulfing the line of flesh and bone.

The lady took the first of the outfits from her arm, laying the rest on a nearby rack.

Sakura took a moment to scrutinize it, a basic black ensemble, loose pants and shirt, with a matching long-sleeved jacket, in which a shinobi would put his or her things.

She liked the simplicity, she would give it that. She liked being ordinary most of the time, after all-attracting attention from the public had never been a goal of hers.

She took the outfit from the woman's outstretched hand to try it on later.

The next outfit was a far more feminine ensemble, a flowing pink skirt attached to a tight pair of short shorts. Over the skirt was a tight, white, almost rubber-looking short-sleeved top. Again came the jacket, a gray variation of the previous outfit's jacket.

She shook her head, and the woman put the outfit away.

The only thing she liked about the next two outfits were the flowing sleeves, large enough to hide multiple weapons, if she so wished.

Upon realizing that she did have a preference, she told the lady, and began to pick out two ensembles. The first included a dark green turtle-neck top with a fitted bodice but sleeves that billowed outward, and hung over her fingertips when she wore it. The second had a slight variation on the first one, the bodice white and loose, making the top looking like an over-sized long sleeved shirt with extremely wide sleeves. She ended buying two pairs of pants, one that clung to her tightly and cropped at the knees, and the pair from the first ensemble. The outfits had the same jacket, a black, standard shinobi vest whose bottom hem rested right below her hips.

She ended up changing into one of the pieces of clothing immediately, the loose pants, pleased that finally, she at least looked the age she was, a shinobi in her own right.

She headed for the training rooms then, to test out her new outfit.

* * *

She looked at the same board again, searching for her basics room and finding it empty. However, she continued scanning in hopes of... she didn't know what. Maybe, she thought, maybe she was ready for the next level.

She did a few laps around the training room building, partly to warm up and partly to think.

If she was going in steps, what exactly was her next step? She had too many weaknesses to confront, too many things she hated about herself. It just wasn't realistic to fix everything that she felt was wrong... she needed a more-

"Sakura?"

Though the kunoichi's chakra presence had registered in the back of her mind minutes ago, she hadn't thought that Shizune would want to talk to her. They were not quite friends, nor did they have a mentor-mentee relationship, necessarily. Though Shizune actually did as much teaching as Tsunade did, there was always the feeling of a gap that Sakura always felt around her. Shizune was Tsunade's student, through and through. But Sakura? She had a teacher, nominally. She just wasn't sure who it was really.

Her smile was automatic. "Hello Shizune-senpai."

She received a once-over before the older woman spoke again. "Tsunade has some official Hokage paperwork to catch up on, so she told me to tell you that your lesson..."

"Is canceled," Sakura finished for her.

"Is that okay?"

"Are you replacing her?"

The medic looked over her shoulder, toward her sparring partner, who looked to be Shiranui Genma. "I... no, I won't."

"Okay," the pink-haired girl said. "Is that all?"

The look she received was that of muted surprise, and for a moment, Sakura wondered whether she could have sounded less succinct. But really, Tsunade's being busy had become less and less of a surprise over the years, and Sakura had come to integrate it into her schedule.

"No, that's it."

"Okay then. Nice seeing you Shizune-senpai," Sakura offered as her good-bye, adding a cheerful wave for good measure as she continued running down the aisles.

* * *

The shape of the training facility was actually what a Westerner would call u-shaped, though in Sakura's opinion, it was quite deformed. The many repairs done to it over the years, while they did not necessarily show on the outside, were reflected in the thin, winded hallways and irregularly shaped rooms. Also, the ends of the "u," had, this past year, been modified such that there was a pathway from each corner, making the facility a closed shape capable of being run around.

About thirty minutes later, she finished her fifth lap, and paused to catch her breath, her back arched over backwards to allow her the most air.

Once she finished stretching, she looked at the room across from her, room 6. It was vacant, as was its neighboring room, room 4. She wondered whether any fatalities had occurred in that room before entering room 6.

The first thing she noticed in the room was the pool, which took up about two thirds of the room, which at least 15 meters by 15 meters, if not larger. Flicking her hand experimentally in the water, she found that it was distilled, chakra free and chlorine free. It was also probably refilled this morning, as distilled pools needed constant refilling to avoid bacteria buildup. Before she began, she closed her eyes and sought out any chakra presences in the area.

A faint glow registered in her mind near her back, and she turned to it, eyes still closed. As she turned, she found that there were more and more of the tiny glows, chakra residue left by whoever did the maintenance on the room. In a new chakra trick, she took a thick strand of her own chakra, split it into hundreds of pieces, and emulated a broom-like motion, sweeping and nullifying the faint chakra presences. She would not take any chances going solo.

As she did so, she must have brushed against the activator for the room, because just as she finished cleaning the last of the residue, a weapon fired at her, a single kunai diagonally from the ceiling. She moved out of the way, a quick side-stepping motion, and admired the way her pants ruffled in her wake.

Nothing happened then, and she figured that the room was meant to train one's chakra control as she fought, by standing on the pool of water. It was a strange concept though, she thought, as the absence of ions and other materials in the distilled water made the task of balancing her weight even easier than it normally was. It was hardly a good way to emulate the ocean or a river.

She stepped onto the water's surface, a slow motion, and wondered whether it would be better to balance as she landed after each jump, or simply cover the entire surface with her chakra web. Seeing that she couldn't quite do the latter in a real-life setting, she opted for the former, flipping out of the way of an exploding tag and sending her own kunai toward a target board that had appeared at the top left corner of the room.

The exploding tag caused a surge in the water, making large waves, though the motion did not faze the girl. She rocked with the water, allowing herself to loosen up and lose her normal rigidity.

The next wave of weapons were senbon, and came from all different directions. Deciding that a substitution jutsu would be the safest move, she brought her hands to her chest and did the signs, a little slower than she would like, but managed to disappear moments before being struck, in her place a log.

Weapons started coming faster and faster though, and she barely managed to move faster than they could, shifting this way and that over the water, sometimes with the sheer force of her hips as her feet sought to keep up. She earned herself a few cuts this way, most of them on an exposed arm, but nothing as bad as last time, her skin only nicked and not peeled.

A giant, swinging pendulum, a 1 meter by 1 meter steel block on a thick chain, revealed itself in the far wall as she was beginning to become tired, though her chakra had yet to be depleted, revealed itself in the far wall, and the quick inhale of breath wrecked her breathing pattern. She tried to remember what had been in this room, but failed to recall, her mind drawing a complete blank.

Regardless, the pendulum would need to be destroyed. She didn't have the physique to keep outrunning it, the way she imagined Neji and Sasuke and Naruto would. She made a note that improving her speed and endurance would be her utmost priority.

She gripped her fingers into a fist, sending the chakra down in less than a second, and watched as the glow began to form. She remembered when she had first earned the glow, the greenish hue that signified strength that was multiples and multiples upon her base, rather than just an improvement. It was one of those positive memories, Tsunade slapping on her back, hard enough to knock the wind out of her, but following it up with a hug that made it all better.

She wasn't good enough to concentrate all her chakra into a finger point, like Tsunade, but she supposed that she had never tried, and she wasn't about to now.

As the pendulum came at her, she stood still, remembering that charging would leave her vulnerable. When it breached her personal range, she prepared her fist and slammed it into the object, as close to the center as she could manage.

The steel immediately cracked like a brittle stone, but did not budge. Adding more chakra to her fist, she sent her chakra strands deep into the object, in an attempt to weaken the already weakened joints, before slamming a second chakra-enhanced fist into the object.

This time, it burst in at least a million pieces, the metal shards slicing her face before she could bring her arms up in a protective x. Her abdomen also received a few strikes, all shallow, while her legs remained untouched, outside the majority of blast range.

Somehow, though, she had miscalculated, and seconds too late, she felt the onslaught of weapons head for her back, and tried to move out of the way, though more than a few managed to embed themselves in her flesh, protruding out of her in formation.

A sharp inhale rocked her as the pain surged through her body, and she debated whether to numb her nerve endings. Realizing that then, she would be entirely reliant upon her chakra senses, she opted not to, but wondered if her basic senses even measured up to her chakra ones.

She swung her arm up and back, launching a series of kunai of her own at the targets she knew had appeared where the weapons had come from, hitting a two of them, but missing the large majority. Hissing, half in annoyance and half in pain, she made a move to pull one of the weapons from her back.

Suddenly though, a large shuriken made its way for her neck, and she made herself move forward, though she didn't feel that she still had the strength in her legs, not after removing the chakra enhancements. The horizontal blade missed her neck barely, and she realized, almost absent-mindedly, that itq 2 had probably succeeded in hacking off the majority of her hair. It was an ironic repeat of her fight for Sasuke when she was younger, and she clenched her teeth in memory of it before detaching herself from the room.

She had suffered enough damage today.

Fortunately, unlike the other room, it de-activated itself properly, preventing her from having to leave by busting down a door. She made a move to collapse upon her back, before realizing that the weapons still protruded from her back. Even if the water was more than capable of washing away the blood, she really didn't want to leave a blood bath behind.

She walked slowly over to the floor, her knees almost giving out on her with the pressure. Kneeling gingerly on the tiled floor, she moved to pull each weapon from its flesh socket, each time focusing on reducing her wince. Pain tolerance, she thought as she pulled out the third blade, pain tolerance. By the sixth blade, she managed to keep her face from distorting itself in any way, a calm facade despite the searing pain that followed in the wake of the blood that pooled down her back.

Immediately, she began to clot the blood, taking off her shirt to remove some of the blood that had already dripped down to her lower back. Some of the blood had actually managed to soak the waistband of her pants, but she, after soaking as much of the blood in her training shirt as she could, decided that she would just wear them until she could wash them. Yes, she would reek of blood, but there weren't many shinobi who didn't, at some point in a week, or month.

In total, she removed 16 blades from her person, the gleaming metal (she had wiped the blood off of them) testament to her lack of fighting ability.

Almost humiliatingly, she felt a tear make it down her cheek before she could wipe it. There weren't many words to describe how pathetic she was. She knew she wanted to improve, knew that she was working to improve, but there wasn't really a "fast" way of making up for three years of idle mistakes.

She began knitting the muscle and skin of her back together again, and about twenty minutes later, new, pinkish skin covered all of her former back wounds. For her arms, she repeated the same process, though the wounds were not nearly as deep. The newly healed skin there blended so well with her normal skin color that it looked like it had never been wounded at all.

After healing all her injured spots, she adjusted her sports bra and made a movement to get up, ignoring the scream of protest from her newly healed back. What made the pain worse was the fact that she did not have enough chakra to numb it, a fact that burned itself upon her mind. She had forgotten to withdraw her chakra strands from the pendulum, effectively making it a complicated jutsu's chakra expense, in addition to her constant expenditure to keep up on the water.

Weak and foolish, she thought, disappointed. She made a movement to brush her hair back from her face before suddenly realizing that half of it was gone.

Crawling over to the pool, slowly as to not aggravate her back, she peered at the supposed damage in her reflection and found that it wasn't that bad at all. The shortest length of her hair now brushed her shoulders, whereas the longest still hit the small of her back. Taking a kunai of her own, she cut off the lengthy parts, aiming for a mostly shoulder length cut. After that, she used a rubber band she had in her pocket and tied her hair up, leaned over, and trimmed a little more of the excess strands.

Upon taking the tie out, she then had an acceptably layered cut, whose shortest length hit her chin and longest brushed her shoulders. With this, she thought, she wouldn't have to bother going to an actual hairdresser.

* * *

"What the _hell_ did you do to your hair?!" Ino screeched at her as they walked to this week's group hangout.

Sakura winced; she hadn't thought it looked _that_ bad. Just kind of rough. Weren't those styles coming back into fashion?

"Cut it."

"On purpose?!"

"Could you lower it down?" Sakura hissed quietly as she caught the brunt of the villager's stares.

"You just ruined your hair for no reason! How can I calm down?!" To emphasize her statement, Ino flung her long, light blonde hair at her, barely missing Sakura's face.

Realizing that this was just a strange display of concern for her mental well-being, Sakura sighed under her breath. She didn't even know she had managed to understand that, let alone deal with it.

"I didn't _ruin_ it Pig, I just needed a change." Her annoyance began to bleed through her voice, but in her hysterics, the blonde must have missed it.

"Couldn't you have gone for a change _after_ consulting me?" Ino looked almost hurt now, and Sakura felt a pang of guilt.

"It was a spur of the moment thing," Sakura offered, with a sigh, "if it really looks so terrible, you can drag me to the hairdresser tomorrow."

With that, the blonde's eyes began to sparkle, and Sakura looked at her warily, not quite in the mood to muster up a matching smile. "Within reason, Ino."

"It's totally within reason!" the girl whined, confirming Sakura's suspicion that she had already picked out the style she wanted to see on her pink-haired friend.

Sakura felt a strange mix of dread and excitement, and she couldn't decide which held more power. At least, she thought logically, the blonde still probably had better taste than her.

As they continued to walk toward their destination, Ino updated her on Konoha gossip while Sakura half-listened, distracted by thoughts of training.

Thankfully, her teammates had nothing to say about her hair beyond the standard, "You cut it," which she appreciated. The benefits of having male teammates that cared very little about appearances were often underestimated.

Upon Ino's beckoning, she ended up sitting next to some guy she didn't know, and Sasuke. She couldn't help but think this was some sort of strange match-making ploy, but she humoured the blonde anyway, striking up a conversation with the random stranger. Upon receiving a look of disappointment from Ino, she shot her a glare-she was _not_ about to attempt an actual conversation with her stone of a teammate, especially a potentially humiliating one.

"You're a chuunin?" The brown-haired stranger asked her, his green eyes focused on her politely.

Stirring her drink (yet another concession to the blonde), she replied, "Yes. You?"

"Jounin," he said, and she appreciated the fact that he managed to not sound supercilious as he did so.

"How old are you?"

"Now, how should I take that question?" he asked, a teasing glint in his eyes.

She smiled. "As one with an informative answer."

"20."

"When did you become jounin?"

"18... I think."

"You think?" Sakura raised her eyebrows.

"My birthday was between the exam and official promotion, so I don't know what really counts."

"I see," she said, sipping her drink. It tasted like a mixture of sake and soda that was frankly, quite disgusting. Her features though, were carefully still as she took in the sense data.

"Thinking about jounin?" he asked kindly.

Suddenly very aware of Sasuke's presence at her side, she said, "I guess?" She took another sip of the horrid drink in an attempt to wash away the lie. "It seems like a really big step."

"It is," the man assured her. "But it's one I don't think I'll ever regret."

She gave him as large of a genuine smile she could muster. "Thanks."

Understanding what she meant, he simply replied, "It was my pleasure."

She got up to leave then, having fulfilled her "outing" quota for the week. "By the way..."

"Yeah?"

"I wouldn't drink that stuff."

He laughed, a strong throaty one, the laugh of a man, an adult. "Wasn't planning on it. The smell was enough to warn me."

With that, she left, stepping into the coldness of the night air. Almost automatically, she began circling the chakra around her body to warm herself, before speeding up to a jog to loosen her aching joints.

She jogged around Konoha for almost two hours before returning home, sweating profusely, but pleased with her improved endurance. Perhaps there was hope for her after all.

The sun almost blinded her the next morning as she opened her eyes, and she almost shut them again before dragging herself off her bed and onto the floor, her feet still sore from the previous training. Improvement was nice, but it seemed only to come with a greater deal of pain. It was an uncomfortable exchange to make, but she resolved to make it anyway.

The wall-climbing exercise, she decided, would become a regular thing, and could be applied to almost anything, be it a thin metal pole, a tree, or an expanse of rolling sand. While it was technically practicing her strengths, it also could be used to make improvements, all the while making her feel better about changing herself.

She wasn't a negative person at heart, and she wasn't about to become one now.

* * *

By the time breakfast came about, she conversed amiably with her mother, discussing various topics while avoiding those that brought her uneasiness. Her mother, though, sensed her desire to train anyway, and suggested a trip to the Great Library, a growing collection of scrolls from Konoha and its former and current allies. The library held a vast amount of hidden jutsus from many different villages, allowing shinobi, if they took the time to search through the all the shelves of paper, chances to learn foreign jutsus unrelated to their native village or clan.

Sakura, who was adamant about learning jutsus correlating to her natural element, decided to give the library a visit, though she knew it would most likely become many visits, considering the vast number of scrolls within it. Though she respected and admired the power of the earth and wind jutsus native to her village, she couldn't help but yearn to learn a powerful elemental jutsu of her own, much like Sasuke and his Chidori and Naruto with his Rasengan.

And so, with these thoughts, she set out to the Great Library, which was located at a crossing point between the Villages of Konoha, Sand, and Mist. Though relations with the latter two villages were shaky, the original library had only consisted of copies of scrolls from those three alone, having added other villages' jutsus later.

She had informed Tsunade-sama that she would be missing her early afternoon shift at the hospital because of some outside traveling, omitting any details. Her mentor must have guessed however, at her purpose, for she had said, "Be careful at the library, Sakura." At times, the blonde's omniscient tendencies bothered her even more than the woman's drinking tendencies, and she had simply kept a smile pasted on her face. After all, she technically did need the women's permission to leave Konoha.

Currently, she was about halfway there, and she was very thankful that she had undergone training yesterday. Yes, her limbs ached, but the pain she was currently feeling paled in comparison to what she had felt yesterday. She supposed that, in the whole scheme of things, neither really was a very good comparison to the actual pain experienced on a high level mission, but she liked to believe that by doing such things, her tolerance to more trivial pains would increase, causing her chances of faltering due to excessive pain to diminish.

Another hour or so of uninterrupted travel passed before she found herself looking up at the tall building, the scrolls visible through the multitude of glass windows. Noticing the absence of guards, she mused that it was probably because everyone deemed the library of some use, so no one would actually destroy it. After all, it was literally impossible, unless one spent their entire lifetime doing it, to read every single scroll in the library and rank them in terms of usefulness.

Walking inside, she was immediately met by the strong scent of paper, temporarily blocking out most of her senses. Sakura craned her neck to look at some of the signs to try attempt to narrow down her search. It would not do to search randomly and have nothing come of it.

Her face brightening upon seeing the sign she was looking for, she hurried off toward that direction, eager to begin her search.

Seconds later, she faced rows upon rows of scrolls, unsure of where to begin. She randomly pulled about ten scrolls off the wall she faced and headed over to the closest seating, which happened to be a simple square wooden table with matching wooden chairs.

Sitting down, she opened the first scroll and found that it was a fundamental fireball jutsu, one which she had already learned, or at least something similar to it. A nice basic, but not exactly what she was looking for. She set it off to the side, in a pile of things she would put back later.

Opening the next scroll delivered a similar result, and she put it in the same pile as the first one. The third was a string of katas of a higher difficulty than what she currently practiced. She studied the figures and their kanji descriptions thoughtfully before putting in a separate pile that she would copy for future reference. Ninja were not permitted to take any of the scrolls from the library; it was a policy that everyone followed out of mutual respect, though she suspected that a least a few had taken scrolls of their liking.

The fourth scroll had the description and hand signs of a fire genjutsu. Surprised to see an elemental genjutsu, Sakura read over it, mumbling to herself while subconsciously memorizing the hand signs.

The other six were not particularly useful, and she got up out of her seat to return the less useful ones and pick up more scrolls.

As she made the brief journey to the shelves, she saw a shinobi by another section, designated for water jutsu. His, at least she assumed he was male, attire was entirely dark and somewhat foreign to her, so she squinted to a get a better look. Finding that it hardly helped, she tried concentrating more of her chakra within her eyes and found that it made it much clearer.

Sakura made a mental note about the new "technique" before studying the ninja further. There was something about him that drew her in, but she felt something was amiss. She probed around a bit, sending out thin, spider-like strands of chakra to check for a genjutsu.

Upon reaching about a meter from his person, they hit something, shirking back before she dissipated them, having confirmed her theory. She managed to whisper shakily, "Kai," before the man turned around.

His cold eyes froze her momentarily, and she felt trapped within an ice cave, frozen in with no way out. Once she had recovered, his dark onyx orbs immediately made her flinch and take a small step back, and she felt the intensity of the area rise significantly. Her skin rose with goosebumps as she struggled to keep her eyes open despite her instinctual urge to shut them in response to her fear. Instead, she stared at his sandal-clad feet.

She felt something vibrate, and realized that her hands shaking at her sides. A blush intensified in her cheeks, even as the rest of her face grew pale. She grasped onto her shirt, crinkling the fabric into fists in an attempt to stop the shivering. Even then, her entire body shook, the tension doing nothing to stop the motion.

She gathered enough courage to look from the floor to his person after a few seconds, training her eyes on everything but his eyes. His hair was long and the exact shade of ebony, draping on his person in a way that she knew only to occur on naturally beautiful people. And beautiful this man was- his face and body were well-proportioned and flawless in all visible aspects. She could feel more color coming to her face... until she noticed something.

Ebony hair, onyx eyes, almost disturbingly good looks... she took another quick glance at his eyes. She wasn't wrong. His face was eerily familiar, and as the seconds passed by, more and more of his features she recognized from the face of another.

_He looks like Itachi_, Inner Sakura commented as her alter-ego began muttering things to herself. "It can't be Itachi... " she mumbled incoherently.

She began to back away, and was about to turn around, before a calm tenor stopped her in her tracks, "I am Itachi."

The man had spoken.

And the voice brought back a long stream of memories. Though she had never interacted much with the Uchiha clan heir, his voice had always been something she recognized as distinctly... Itachi.

Sakura blinked a couple of times before her emerald green eyes widened. She watched as he looked at her in what looked like... amusement. Suddenly, it occurred to her that she should say something in response.

"Uchiha-san," she managed to say without stuttering, while simultaneously trying to neutralize her expression.

"And what is a Konoha-nin doing here?" he asked pleasantly, but Sakura still felt fear running through her veins, screaming out at her to step away. His tone may have been pleasant, but the intentions hidden within it hardly felt so.

Normally, Konoha shinobi were not to answer such questions, but as her Inner pointed out, she was not on a mission, and if Uchiha-san wished to know something, he could mostly definitely force it out of her.

"Re-e-se-ar-rch," she stuttered, before mentally scolding herself for showing weakness while subconsciously wondering why he would be here.

"Oh?"

She kept silent. His comment didn't seem to warrant an answer, and she wished no further humiliation upon herself upon an attempt to. Itachi's gaze rested on her for another couple seconds, before he turned his head elsewhere.

He was beginning to walk away when Sakura heard herself plead quietly, "Wait..."

"Yes?" His smooth, calm voice still unnerved her, and she vaguely wondered if it was possible to build up an immunity to such a thing. Sasuke may have been related to him, but their voices were hardly comparable.

"How would I go about..." she paused, "never mind." She felt ridiculous. What was she thinking?

He raised his eyebrows slightly before gracefully turning on his heel, black cape swishing in his wake. But just as he turned to walk in the other direction, she heard him say something.

"Row 18, second shelf, 18, 21, and 24. Practice carefully."

When she turned around to confirm, he was gone.

Realizing that he had given her the numbers of specific scrolls to practice, she made her way over to Row 18, which was within a section she had never seen before. The number of times she had been here was far from numerous though, so perhaps this was not the best way to describe it.

All the scrolls on the second shelf were more fancily decorated compared to the plainer scrolls she had been looking at. She supposed it was because of their rarity, if not difficulty.

Scanning the second shelf, she looked for the numbers 18, 21, 24 unsuccessfully. There must have been fifty or so scrolls on that shelf alone. Then, after a moment of blank staring, common sense hit her, and she decided to look for the scrolls in their numerical positions.

She pulled off numbers 18, 21, and 24, and was gathering them under her arm to go back to her table when the curiosity overwhelmed her.

Sliding one scroll out from underneath her arm, she brushed the dust of it and opened it carefully, yet still, dust spewed out, causing her eyes to water, and her face to turn away for a few fleeting moments.

Once her vision was clear again, she returned her attention to the scroll, which was number 21, and found that it contained some figures she had never seen before, older characters that perhaps stood for certain positions and hand signs. All she was able to make out was a human figure whose waist was surrounded by a relatively thick circle. When she tried to send chunks of chakra to her eyes to enhance her vision again, she found that it only made it blurrier, suggesting to her that this eye jutsu would also take practice.

Giving up reading it for the moment, she rolled it gently back up and headed back to the table with all three scrolls tucked under her arm.

Upon sitting down, she rolled out the other two scrolls and found that the characters and signs within were very similar to scroll 21. Though this disappointed her slightly, it did not stop her in the slightest from looking up copying jutsu to copy and save the characters onto blank scrolls to look up later.

An hour later, a slightly sweaty Sakura stood before four newly filled scrolls, ready to return back to Konoha. The last two scrolls had taken quite a bit of effort, and consequently, chakra, to duplicate the figures on the blank scrolls the library provided. In short, she was exhausted.

Her chakra pool had increased by a slight margin since the beginning of her training, and she felt it was safe to think that even her Naruto would be _slightly_ tired after doing what she had just accomplished. Even with her superb chakra control, it had taken her about eighty percent of her current useable chakra output to copy the characters with the copying jutsu.

She had no idea what they stood for, but because of the difficulty of duplicating them, she assumed that they were special in some particular way.

Taking her four scrolls with her, she returned the original scrolls back to their rightful places before turning to her leave, her feet feeling heavier than usual even with the chakra boost. Her movements felt sluggish, her limbs dead weight.

The journey back was tiring, and within twenty minutes of her leaving the library, she came across a low level enemy shinobi, whose eyes gleamed upon seeing an apparent easy target. Her body cautiously slowed to a stop, and her tone turned icy. "Move."

The chocolate-colored hair of the shinobi swayed as he shook his head, "No," adding a slightly malicious grin for good measure.

The kunoichi's emerald eyes narrowed, darkening, as she took a battle stance. He did the same, and within seconds, they engaged in battle.

Fortunately for Sakura, his level was not beyond her, most likely chuunin, giving her a modest chance of victory from the outset. He was moderately fast, but nothing she couldn't handle, even in her weary state, due to the epinephrin running through her veins.

_Thank Kami for natural human reaction_, Sakura thought to herself as she sidestepped his kunai attacks with relative ease, her booted feet moving swiftly over the sandy grasses.

After a couple of minutes of avoiding attacks, she realized if nothing, half of his skill lay in his persistence and endurance, so she began to plan out an attack in her mind.

Just in case, she had always carried around a paralyzing poison solution Tsunade had given her for emergencies. She also had the antidote, in case something went wrong, but it was hardly necessary in this case. The poison vial, stained yellow-green by its occupant, was hidden, in her current outfit, in a cloth compartment invisible to the naked eye.

In order to give herself some time to prepare poison-dipped weapons, as her practice in doing such had not been great, she closed the distance between them, her fists glowing a fluorescent green with the slightest bit of chakra, careful not to waste any unnecessarily.

She saw his brown eyes widen visibly as she managed to land a hit, sending him flying into a tree with little extra effort. As he began to recover the impact, she took the time to dip her senbon needles and the tips of two of her kunai quickly into the liquid in succession, heedful of the amount to lessen the dripping, and consequently, the chances of the shinobi realizing her plan.

As soon as she had finished prepping her weapons, she battled more actively with more confidence, though she was wary of common mistakes caused by overconfidence. She would never overestimate herself again, not after confronting her own track record. Her energy instead went into on analyzing his actions.

His form was rather sloppy, and his landings would have been detrimental to his knees had they not been on such soft ground. Taijutsu was obviously not his strong point, the kunoichi observed. Neither was genjutsu it appeared to be, as he had used none.

That left ninjutsu, and Sakura studied his hands intensely as they made the different signs, trying to figure out whether any of them had any resemblance to the characters on the scrolls she had copied, almost being caught by one in her concentration.

Sand had twirled into a miniature tornado, which enough strength that, if she had been trapped within it, it could have done a substantial amount of damage, if she counted the sand particles would have done to her lungs.

She sighed in relief before realizing that her body could only take so much more; normally she would have already keeled over from exhaustion. In a different situation, she would have been elated at such an extension of the duration of battling time she was able to endure, but this fight, if she lost, could have fatal consequences.

She had to end it, and quickly.

Upon focusing her gaze on the enemy-nin's body, she found that he was breathing harder, and his movements were slowing.

_Good_, Sakura thought, _less of a chance that I'll miss him_.

She laced the poison-dipped senbon through her fingers before firing them in succession, twisting her body to avoid some of his long-range strikes as she did so. Two or three senbon hit their mark, but he showed few signs of slowing down.

Sakura grimaced. His physique was fairly muscular and lengthy, which meant that the poison would take even more time to kick in.

She would not be foolish enough to let down her guard, like the last time she had used the poison. Wincing imperceptibly, she thought about it for a moment, before arming her two hands with the two kunai she had dipped.

Like a dagger-wielding assailant, she managed to hold her own in close-hand combat, to avoid the possible dangerous ninjutsu he could call on, trying to wait out the duration of the time it took for the poison to circulate throughout his body.

His movements were becoming slower and slower, and after about a minute, stopped altogether. He still managed to glare and yell profanities at her, his body expelling waves of hatred, as his muscles refused to move according to his commands. When it became clear the poison hardly affected the mouth, Sakura positioned her palms on the sides of his head, and slowed his chakra flow to almost a stop with a simple pulse of chakra, effectively knocking him out. This process took about a minute or so at her current level, which limited its use in battle, but she had taken a liking to the technique upon her many days at the hospital for the more troublesome patients.

This specific jutsu had a close partner that she wished to learn. Tsunade had not had the time to teach her recently, with the upcoming chuunin exams. The sister jutsu also involved a pulse of chakra, but instead of slowing the chakra flow, it bunched it up into irregularities, giving the victim a headache, its severity depending on the duration of time the palms were held to the head. If the duration was long enough, the victim was immediately knocked out.

She added learning that jutsu to her list of things to do resuming her journey back home. Her list was getting longer by the hour. Looking up, the pink-haired teen realized that it was past sunset, and unless she had been a on a mission, there was little excuse for her to come back to Konoha later than ten.

As she made her way back, a little smirk made its way onto her face. She had beaten someone of decent skill, and with a low amount of chakra all on her own. Her practice had paid off. This minor success erased any doubts the kunoichi had about the merits of her training.

Now, it was not only about appearances, but what lay behind it. She _would_ be skilled and strong. And eventually, hopefully, she would catch up to Itachi.

_Itachi._ The name, for reasons she couldn't understand, sent a rush of warm tingles through her. Perhaps it was the fact that the name now had a image associated with it.

She would master everything that came her way, slowly but surely.

Time and practice was the key.

* * *

A/N:

For the readers that are worried about the Itachi appearance thing; he will not become a teacher figure that randomly pops into places to help her. The chances of that happening are literally zilch. I just felt that he deserved to appear in the first arc, and that seemed like an opportune place to slide him in. Hehe.

Edit: Since I received a review on this from a new reader: **This a Sakura development story first, and an ItaSaku story second, though their relationship will become a major part of the story. **

~ Sandi


	4. Burn

Unspoken Bonds _by _Sandi

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Chapter 4: _Burn_

The first question she had been asked when she got back was, "What happened to you?"

Granted, the comment was from Naruto, the boy who never thought before he spoke, but she felt her body stiffen. Attempting not to feel insulted, Sakura felt a lie slip easily through her lips in response, "Errand for Tsunade-shishou." Then, feeling somewhat self-conscious, she glanced down at her current attire.

There were multiple dirt and grass stains, some sand lingering on her old gray training pants, her tan t-shirt rumpled and cut in some places, but she did not feel like she looked terrible. In fact, considering the day she had had today, she felt that she looked quite good.

_Probably because they're so used to seeing you neat and prissy. _This was one of those times where her Inner was helpful, but not well... supportive of her emotions. It never failed to remind her of what her team and almost everyone else thought of her.

She looked up, met Sasuke's eyes steadily, and wondered whether she should tell them about the day's adventure. But as soon as she opened her mouth to do so, memories of being left in the corner during mission debriefs flitted to the front of her mind, prompting her to snap her mouth closed before quickly excusing herself without giving an explanation.

It was her life, after all.

It was funny, she thought, that she did not feel a sense of accomplishment from yesterday's outing to the library and the fight on the way back.

Instead, she felt stripped.

Bare.

Sakura lay there on her bed, freshly showered and deeply unsatisfied. She would have liked to think that Sasuke and his non-reactions had stolen this feeling of satisfaction from her, but really, she was not sure. Blaming her team for her own problems was tempting, but not within her hard-working nature.

Rolling from side to side, she tried to go back to sleep unsuccessfully. Instead, she took her scrolls with her to the library, to look up more recent kanji explanation for the foreign characters.

Within minutes, she sat in front of a pile of kanji, character, and figure books, including dictionaries, chakra charts, and simply informative material. Surprisingly though, rather than feeling daunted by such a task, she felt very ready and eager to learn the old characters. She felt ready to learn anything that could make her stronger.

About four hours later, she had determined the meanings of almost all of the characters in scroll 21, and then had used those kanji translations to help her with the other scrolls. As a result of her work, she now had three more usable scrolls, though she was still a little unsure of what exactly they held.

And so, she went off to practice in a secluded part of the public training grounds, in order to avoid running with any of her fellow team members. She had chosen a spot dominated by trees and their smell, and was quick to mask her chakra from outsiders.

Warming up with a few repetitions of a simple string of katas, Sakura soon found herself holding scroll 21 out in front of her, trying to decipher the kanji she had written while simultaneously performing whatever it dictated. This method was not quite successful, and after five minutes of confusion, she decided to read the scroll first and use the memory she had retained to help her form the hand signs.

After reading the entire scroll over, she stood still for a moment, preparing to make the required hand signs. Her hands automatically moved up, closer toward her chest, to begin. She closed her eyes to keep her head clear.

_Air._

_Energy._

_Growth._

_Power._

_Renewal._

_Birth._

_Youth._

_Ember._

_Flame._

_Circle._

_Flow._

_Warmth._

_River._

_Age._

_Strength._

_Fire._

_Dragon._

_Sky._

_Burning._

Each of these ancient characters had several hand signs to accompany them, described by a series of more ancient characters that required interpretation. She tried her best to form the signs accurately as possible, her body tightening in concentration.

She focused on gently coursing her chakra through her body and out to her moving hands. Despite the amount of effort and consequently, chakra she used, it was completely unsuccessful. Nothing appeared to encourage her, but Sakura took less than a minute to begin again, forcing herself to breathe steadily in order to calm herself.

On her second try, a sliver of some sort of fire appeared in front of her, but she honestly felt it was too pathetic to be considered a real attempt. And so, she tried again, closely monitoring her chakra usage; she had no idea how many attempts it would take to do it successfully.

On her third try, a slightly larger flame appeared.

However, Sakura found that the next five attempts delivered no better results; the fire had not become larger in the slightest. Sitting down to meditate, a sense of exasperation and anger overcame her. As her chakra recovered, she could almost feel the emotion rising, not quite sure whether it was a good thing that she could _feel_ her emotions again. Most of what she did feel tended to rip her heart apart within seconds, but took weeks or even months to heal, each time leaving some sort of emotional scar.

She took a shaky breath before standing up and trying again. As she made the hand signs, it almost felt like her chakra flowed... thicker. It was as if her emotion had bundled up her chakra into bunches that traveled throughout her body.

Irritated, she tried to smooth it out, while continually performing hand signs. Upon finishing the succession, nothing happened; at first.

A split second later, a burst of fire surrounded her in a circle of crimson flames, threatening to consume her. All she could see now was red, and it blinded her. She felt another emotion now: _fear_.

Her fear and anger combined in her in a moment, and it was then that she felt the fire engulf her. Refusing to scream, she tried to breathe unsuccessfully in panic, choking on a thick smoke, her dry lips millimeters away from the flames while her abdomen was literally touching them.

It took only another couple of moments for her panic to fade, before her reasoning could kick in. If she thought rationally, the fire could not grow any larger, as her own chakra was responsible. However, now that she thought about it, more chakra than she had ever felt in her previous ninja training now coursed through her, surprising her even more than the effect of the jutsu.

It was as if a dam holding back her chakra had broken down, and now all the chakra had flooded her body. She ignored the fact that this new chakra felt slightly different and unfamiliar than her usual. _Is this how Sasuke and Naruto feel?_ she subconsciously wondered before asking herself whether jutsu she had actually performed matched that of the scroll's.

Another couple seconds passed before panic sunk in again. She could not stop her flow of chakra without some sort of hand movement as she had never learned how.

She was trapped, and she had no idea how long her new supply of chakra would last. Her inner also reminded her that a state of complete chakra exhaustion would not be ideal either-that was practically death to a shinobi, especially one who excelled at chakra manipulation. Closing her eyes, she tried to close off her chakra release unsuccessfully. It only took another ten seconds of the oxygen-depleted environment for her to decide to stick her hands into the flames.

To prevent herself from screaming as she shut off her chakra flow, she bit down on her chapped lips, drawing blood which spilled into a small puddle within her mouth, slowly mixing with her saliva. She swallowed.

What felt like hours of torture faded in seconds, and she fell to her knees, her arms supporting herself as she tried her hardest to breathe in air again. Her breathing was rough and ragged, and within in a few minutes, she had vomited her breakfast on the ground.

Wiping her mouth with the undamaged part of one partially burned shoulder, she forced herself to examine her body.

As she sat with her legs out in front of her, she realized that the flames had not burned her legs; it had only left slight scorch marks from the embers that had spurred off of it. She would heal her legs later.

Rubbing her head, she found that her face and hair were also unaffected; even her ends weren't burnt in the slightest. The irony of the situation gave her a chuckle that she quickly stifled the movement immediately causing a burning sensation in her abdomen, her rib cage digging into the thoroughly damaged skin above it. Expecting the worst on the basis on pain intensity, she turned her attention to her torso.

The formerly pale flesh burned a rather angry reddish-pink color in some areas, and when she touched it, it hurt more than she could have ever imagined. The majority of her skin had suffered a higher level burn than she had anticipated, and the top layers had been completely peeled and burned, leaving disgustingly bloody skin that was early in creation mixed with burned cloth behind, along with the sting that came with her charred training shirt's bodily contact. Berating herself for not bringing any major medical supplies, she tore off the pant legs of her training outfit with her teeth, as her fingers hardly felt nimble enough to move.

It was then that she noticed her hands and arms. The skin on her hands in particular had gotten dangerously close to melting, and the peeling was even worse than that of her abdomen. Her fingers, which were by far in the worse condition, were a mix of red from ruptured veins and black from charred skin. Blood and damaged skin peeled off her like decaying pieces of paper. She refrained from shivering in disgust.

_What did you expect after doing that? _Inner Sakura asked. Sakura admitted that she had hoped for some sort of miracle to occur, that some special, distinct trait of hers would miraculously appear. She then went on to scold herself for believing that she was truly any different from anyone else. What would distinguish her, she had to convince to herself, would be hard work and determination.

Unable to move her fingers, or her hands, for that matter, she lay back down on the ground for a couple of minutes, trying to regain enough chakra to heal some of the lower skin layers on her hands. When she finally felt enough of the warming sensation that was her chakra, she focused her chakra in her hands, knitting together first her muscles and veins, and then, bit by bit, each layer of skin, her chakra threads running throughout.

By the time she had finished with one hand, she was drenched in sweat, her hitai-ate doing nothing to keep the liquid from running down her face. First inspecting her newly healed, pink skin, she slid off her headband with her fingers and, with some additional effort, managed to get herself in a position to meditate.

Fixing up patients' minor injuries in a hospital was nothing compared to the work that went into practically reconstructing one's hand. Sakura sighed as she realized how much farther she would really have to go, and began to stare off into space, her light green eyes distant.

Thirty minutes later, she had accumulated enough chakra to finish healing her hands and then, using her newly healed hands, the major parts of her torso. She thought about what Itachi had said to her.

_'Practice carefully,'_ he had said. The girl managed to let out a quiet, dark laugh, the sound hoarse from her dry throat. He had been right.

But, as she thought about it, she had had no choice but to perform the jutsu herself in order to learn. She had no available teacher to help her, so trial and error was the best and only method by which she could learn new jutsus.

For this particular jutsu, she would just have to perform it multiple times a day without fail, hopefully becoming better at controlling it each time. _Practice does make perfect_, her Inner supplied, being optimistic for the first time in quite a while. But her Inner was right. If, by any chance, she were to master this jutsu, which she _would_, it would be through practice.

The mention of practice reminded her that she still had the left side of her torso to heal. Closing her eyes, she tried to concentrate her chakra to her hands, but found that it refused to do so. Horrified by her lack of control, she squeezed her eyes shut harder, before a bright glow penetrated her thin eyelids.

Her torso was glowing green.

She felt her lips turn up into a slight smile, bleeding slightly with the effort. For the second time, she had healed a part of her body without using her hands, just like Tsunade-shishou could do.

_A second time doesn't mean much. How many times did it take you to learn all your medical skills, even if you got it on the "first try?"_ Inner Sakura asked. Sakura frowned, but tested herself again anyway.

She concentrated her chakra in her lightly injured back, and to her delight, she soon heard the faint humming of medical chakra.

However, then her cynical Inner then decided to mention the fact that doing something three times was worth hardly anything. And so Sakura decided that, whenever she trained in the reaction-time room, she would not use her hands to heal herself, only her chakra.

The goal was rightly founded though, because when she attempted to do more healing work on her upper chest area, she found that her chakra refused to adhere to her demands. Upon further examination of herself, it appeared and felt as if the new chakra had not blended with her usual, creating two sources of chakra energy within her body. For the first time in her life, she felt extremely divided.

Slightly worried, she hoped that the feeling would pass, and she gingerly picked herself up to begin walking home. She took the long way, to avoid the eyes of anyone she might have known, and bandaged herself as she walked, her feet so familiar with the road that she need not look ahead of herself.

When she had arrived at her room and its bed, she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, her exhaustion having piled up throughout the day. The turmoil of the two chakra patterns within her body resulted in a hollow ache, and a quite divisive feeling, but it was nothing she could not sleep through with exhaustion.

* * *

"Sakura?"

The pink-haired teen groaned, her body having shifted to better respond to her mother. "Hai?" she managed to reply hoarsely through clenched teeth, her body still tense with pain. Her chakra was still refusing to comply, leaving her in a state of excruciating pain.

"Hokage-sama was wondering why you didn't show up for today's morning shift," her mother explained. "Is everything all right?"

Sakura replied the affirmative, and began preparing herself for a gruesome 3-hour afternoon shift at the hospital. Every time she moved, her body screamed at her, skin threatening to split back open, and she would bit her lip in pain, drawing more blood. At this rate, she would be in worse shape than the patients she would be treating.

After she slowly got on some clean clothes and re-wrapped her torso and shoulders with new bandages, she made the hand signs of a teleportation jutsu.

Upon arriving at the hospital, she was quickly met by Tsunade-shisou herself, to whom she made a sincere apology. Tsunade-shishou assured her that it was okay, and commented that Sakura was not looking quite like herself.

"I've been having some... problems," she admitted, seeing no point in trying to lie through Tsunade-shishou's scrutinizing eye.

"What is it?" the Hokage looked genuinely concerned, her hazel eyes softening just a bit.

Sakura was silent. She did not quite how to word it. What _was_ it that she was feeling? Was there even a word to describe everything?

When her sensei extended an arm toward her, Sakura immediately flinched back, a natural reflex adopted when she was injured. She saw Tsunade-shisou's eyes widen marginally with concern before sighing.

"Go home and get some rest then."

The girl made no movement to protest. It had been an order, though meant in her best interest. Bowing her head low, she turned around to leave.

Once she was outside the building, she found that her chakra was still being stubborn so she walked back home rather slowly, as to not aggravate her burns.

* * *

The next morning when she woke up, her body hurt much less, and she resumed her daily training, completely ignoring the additional pain. She figured that her body would heal entirely within a week or two, so though she was careful not to overdo it, she also was cautious of the amount of training she would need to improve.

Deciding against the possibility of burning herself again, Sakura, after napping a couple hours, headed to the training rooms to practice reaction-time. She was well-aware, that in her current condition, her ability to dodge would be poor, but she strongly believed that if she were to be able to develop better natural reflexes while injured, her speed while uninjured would rise by a good margin.

Ignoring her body's complaints, Sakura managed an hour or so in room 23, the room she tended to favor for improving reaction-time. After her one-hour session, she sat down to meditate and assess the damages done to her body.

There were less cuts and scratches and no deep gashes, so she left the room in higher spirits, with the knowledge that she was slowly improving. The fact that she was still recovering from a bad burn only added to her feeling of elation.

In fact, the confidence that she had gained from her room training was enough to push her to try scroll 21's jutsu again. While this early in practicing, she knew, the execution would be far from perfect, but the girl still felt the burning desire to learn something special to make her stronger.

This jutsu, by just the damage it caused to her own person, had convinced her that, if she were to master this jutsu and the other scrolls of the same level, she would be considered powerful enough for others to accept her.

_Is that all you're looking for? _Inner Sakura asked, almost , Sakura came to a sudden halt in the middle of the dirt road.

_Was_ that all she was looking for? If that was the case, then how had she really changed?

Her mind soon confused by questions she could not yet answer, Sakura made the signs for a transportation jutsu and soon found herself in her favorite field.

As she made the hand signs from memory, she thought about what her Inner had said. She admitted that she did strive to gain the approval from others. But that was not her only motivation.

Perhaps, she supposed, that _that_ was what separated who she was from who she had been. No longer was she completely reliant on others and their opinions; she was slowly growing to become her own person.

Upon this realization, Sakura felt her body warm up a little bit inside. Before she could further analyze the cause, she had completed the succession of hand signs, and the fire burst into a thick ring around her. Unlike her previous, disastrous attempt, this fire was well under her control.

She found that, by moving her hands in certain ways she was able to control where the fire moved and how far from her body it was, among other things. This discovery brightened her day further, and she began to seek out a method to stop the fire besides closing off her chakra with a silly smile adorning her formerly stoic face.

She tried closing her fists and turning them in various directions, but found that such a method was unsuccessful. Then, she tried attaching her chakra strings to the fire and found better success. Not only did her distance of control improve, but she was also able to, in a sense, extinguish the fire by suffocating it with a thin layer of chakra.

This method used more chakra than she wished, but it was a start, she supposed. Summoning the fire jutsu again, she tried a succession of somewhat random hand movements to try and manipulate the fire into other shapes.

She found that by turning her flattened palms to face the back of her and then turning them back to face forward, the fire shot around her to create a semi-circle shield in front of her, a blur of light red and some other colors. Now that she thought about it, the fire was quite a peculiar color compared its natural mix of orange and red.

Disregarding the color, Sakura focused her attention on ways the jutsu could be used in battle. From the amount of manipulation involved, she figured it would be a useful offense or defense, depending on the hand signs.

Sakura tried out other patterns of hand signs, but found that the semi-circle shield was the strongest out of them, being that out of all her tries, that particular manipulation was the most successful. The offensive strikes by comparison were extremely difficult for her, and Sakura endured some minor burns while trying to force the fire around the field. Thinning out, thickening, or splitting the fire into several pieces felt almost impossible as the only things she had been able to perform consistently were the shield and some simple shape manipulation.

The pink-haired kunoichi practiced the jutsu over and over until she ran out of chakra. Upon her running out, she worked on basic taijutsu while waiting for enough chakra to heal some of the minor injuries she had attained.

Her overall movements, she noticed, were relatively slow and were becoming sloppier as the exhaustion settled in. Her high kicks were lower, and her feet tended to drag across the dirt rather than glide gracefully. One time she even tripped over her own foot.

She stopped.

Practicing the combinations of kicks and punches was useless unless it was performed at a higher caliber. Quantity, she was beginning to realize, was not as important as doing the kata correctly.

Sitting down, Sakura examined her body, peeling off a layer of bandages to better assess her rate of healing. The think pink layer she had been able to create on her torso was barely holding up against the pulsing of blood within her body. Sighing, she used some of her recovered chakra to knit another skin layer over the all the pink and red, focusing on using her chakra threads to weave together and spur on her skin cells to create another complete layer of skin.

Ten minutes later, Sakura was satisfied with her work, as well as the speed she had been able to heal herself at. Her continual days of practice at the hospital had given rise to a higher level of healing, along with a glimmer of self-appreciation. She did not believe that she was as talented as her Tsunade-sama and Shizune believed her to be, knowing that she had much left to learn, but she was well-aware that her medical prowess was growing steadily with every day.

After meditating for a couple of minutes, Sakura went home, elated at the amount of progress she had been able to make and eager to make more. As she walked, she noticed that the hollow feeling had gone away, and the two chakra patterns she had noticed before were slowly blending into a new, different one. It was scary that her own chakra seemed unfamiliar, but so far it had done little harm.

* * *

She ended up going to the hairdresser with Ino after all.

The blonde had dragged her there after missing three consecutive group gatherings. She had protested only feebly, knowing that her new chakra pattern and training had taken a far higher priority than her social life.

And so, she now sat in plush leather chair, staring down her reflection which, according to Ino, was beginning to scream "frigid bitch." One that needed help, apparently, if the loudly whispered conversation between the blonde and the hairdresser was any indication.

Sakura sighed. She was actually sure she looked fine. Neji and Lee had even complimented her on getting rid of the length of hair, applauding her for embracing practicality over femininity.

She had pointed this out to Ino, but had only received a disbelieving look followed by a glare in return. After that, she had promptly shut up, choosing to relax in an attempt to make the visit at least somewhat enjoyable. It wasn't even that hard, really, just sitting there and experimenting with her chakra while the two talked about her as if she wasn't alive.

After a few more minutes had passed, she felt the hairdresser suddenly move his scissors, and instinctually flung a bare hand over his own, stopping his motion halfway in the air.

"... Yes?" He shot her a confused look, mixed with some emotion that she couldn't quite decipher. She kept her green eyes trained on his for a few seconds before letting go, her hand falling to her side.

"Sorry," she murmured, loud enough for the man to hear, "just a bit surprised."

Ino, catching this entire exchange, shot her a disbelieving glare, ice blue eyes glinting under the fluorescent lights.

Sakura ignored her, focusing instead on the hair dryers lined up on the far side of the room. She had technically done nothing wrong, she told herself, she had only protected herself. She had done nothing wrong.

So why did she feel like she had?

Just then, she felt strands of her hair drop to her neck before a quick apology was made, felt a towel put around her neck and shoulders. Stopping herself from turning to check the length chopped, she turned into herself, submerging herself into the feeling of her own chakra.

Her eyes slowly glazed over as she fully submerged herself in the feeling, and instead of the world, she felt the colors of her own chakra, unable to see any vivid distinctions, even within her imagination. Whatever color her chakra was, it was a welcome warmth, and when she practiced willing it to move throughout her body, she felt the heat wash over her in a pleasant shower.

With her mind alone, she guided the chakra into different areas of her body, pressing and probing sections that refused to comply with the new pattern.

She was just beginning to feel at home in her own body when she received a tap on her shoulder.

"Yes?" she asked without turning.

She felt the man put up a mirror in front of her, and she stared at it, as if in a trance. Ino's squealing, however, broke her out of whatever state she had been in, cold water clambering down the channels of her back.

"It looks... nice," she said, uncertain how she should feel. The length was far shorter, yes, but she didn't care much about that anymore. It was layered, and expertly so, the layers of hair each feathery light, the longest of them brushing the bottom of her neck. Her bangs were long again, and swept to the side, just draping over her eyebrows. She whipped her head to the side experimentally. It was... she didn't quite know what to call it.

"Nice? _Nice?_" Ino broke in, her blonde hair down and loose, the straight tendrils seeming to fly everywhere. The blonde turned to the man. "It looks _fabulous_. Thanks _so _much," she told the man with a wink and a smile. He returned the gesture with ease, and Sakura realized that the two were probably friends of some sort.

Within seconds, though, Ino had grabbed Sakura by the arm and began to drag her down the village street, presumably aiming to show off her friend's new cut. After what must have been the tenth gasp, Sakura felt herself losing patience, grabbing her arm back. "Ino, I have to go," she got out as she walked briskly in the other direction, attempting to escape the curious stares that seems to be everywhere.

"Why?" Her question quickly dissolved into a quiet wail. "Come back!" She hissed, her tone sharp, sharper than Sakura had ever heard from her.

Sakura stopped and turned. "What?" she asked, her voice cool. She was losing precious time she could be using to train.

"Why don't you get it?" The question turned almost desperate, but Sakura stopped herself from feeling confused. She didn't need to feel anything right now.

"Get what?" a third voice cheerily asked. Sakura could have recognized the voice from miles away, and waited for the spiky blond hair to come into view. A fourth chakra presence trailed behind him, as obvious as ever. Sasuke.

"Nothing." Ino cut herself off sharply. Sakura raised an eyebrow but didn't question it. She wasn't sure she understood Ino anymore.

There was a pause as the blond took in her new look, and Sakura glanced up to catch her reaction. It occurred to her that Sasuke was... well staring, in what could have been surprise. She hadn't seen her team members in at least a few days-she saw Neji more often-so she supposed the expression was warranted. Though she could have sworn that she had seen Sasuke just the previous day, coming out of a training room...

She brushed her bangs to the side, uncomfortable with the scrutiny.

"It's..." the blond searched for a word. "Short?"

Touched by his effort despite herself, Sakura laughed. "Yes, it's short." She touched the back of her neck gingerly. "I don't think this length looks bad on me though," she said.

"No, it doesn't," the blond assured her, glaring at his dark-haired best friend. She smiled. The day Sasuke would comment on her new hairstyle would be the day the world they knew it would end. Or maybe when she got jounin. In a way, the events seemed to coincide.

She too wanted to hear Sasuke's voice, but no longer because she was in love with it. He had never been her friend as he had been Naruto's, but that had been her fault. Now, she supposed, she wanted to be his friend, even if he did not seem to reciprocate. That way, they could take the test together as a team, even if they were apart.

As she had expected however, the boy said nothing.

For a moment, she wondered whether she should say anything... whether she could say anything. Naruto was saying something, but she couldn't seem to hear him, the words whisking by her, quieter than any wind.

"Yes," she heard herself respond, just as she noted Sasuke turning on his heel. She felt herself dart forward, in spite of her herself.

"What do you think?"

The boy turned, and Sakura froze. Their similarities had never been startling to her, having lived in Konoha all her life, but she began to imagine the elder brother's lines in the younger's face, began to imagine aged eyes that only one person she knew possessed. She had never felt so attracted, yet so horrified at the same time, wondering when the image of Itachi's face had burned itself into her mind, haunting and indelible.

"Hn," he grunted, but Sakura could not interpret the word. Panic rose in her for some indistinguishable reason, and her eyes widened slightly.

Naruto caught her silence. "What wrong, Sakura-chan?"

"N-nothing," she said slowly, watching the younger Uchiha's back as he walked away. She looked away, toward the ground again. "Nothing."

She waited for Naruto to give her a skeptical look-the one he had adopted after his training with Jiraiya-but felt silence. "Teme!" she heard moments later, before the stamping of sandals on the ground, sure, firm steps that could only belong to one person.

She heard the onyx-haired boy turned around, the gravel gritting over itself, heard his _voice_...

"Forehead?"

She turned to her blonde friend. "Yes?"

"I have work tonight so I won't be there with everyone." She gave a guilty smile, though Sakura didn't bother interpreting it. "Tell them for me?"

"Okay," she replied, though she wondered if that was still the case.

* * *

"Here alone?"

She didn't turn to see the question's asker, instead focusing on stirring her beverage, which she knew she wouldn't drink. It was a terrible come-on, and an even worse conversation-starter.

A different person slid into the stool on the other side of her, a strong chakra presence that made her the slightest bit uneasy. Neji.

The asker of the question darted off almost immediately into the night crowd, footsteps lost in the music and chatters. "Very responsive," she then heard the Hyuuga say, almost under his breath.

She paused, wondering if he had meant for her to hear it, before allowing herself a response, leaning forward on the bar as she did so. "Would you have preferred my listening him out?"

"That would have been unnecessary." She felt him smile. Was that even possible?

Then again, her chakra senses were picking up all sorts of strange tracks tonight, the least of which was physical. But at the very least, no one had batted an eye when she had relayed Ino's message and vacated the area. She looked up from her glass up at the bar menu, before turning her head to face him.

"Then what would you have supposed I did?" She had meant for that to be teasing, she told herself, she really had. It was hardly her fault that her voice had run flat, her normal clearness roughened by a natural roughness that she had taught herself to avoid. She made a move to clear her throat, change her register.

"Don't."

"Pardon?"

"You sound fine. I apologize if I insulted you." His apologies were always sincere, she had to admit, though that was probably because he gave out so few of them.

She smiled into her cup, her reflection hazy in the clear glass. "Mmmhmm."

After a pause, he spoke to her again. "You cut your hair again."

"I did," she affirmed, leaning back on the backless stool so that she sat tall, the lines of her back bony and vertical.

He looked at her, she felt that much. She turned to him and faced his eyes head on, paleness and paleness against the cover of the darkened room. Somehow she knew that he couldn't see through her, even with those eyes of his. She felt it.

She smirked, a foreign twitch of the lip. "You like what you see?"

He looked alarmed, though his body did not budge. "I only meant to say that the new cut looks nice."

"I believe you."

"Surely-"

She let out a short, gruff laugh, startling the Hyuuga, who was shocked into a sort of chakra irregularity. "I believe you, really."

She kept his gaze steadily to assure him that it was the case. She caught the uncertainty there, and wondered whether he had always been so readable.

"And I appreciate the compliment," she told him firmly.

He seemed satisfied with that answer, and they fell into a bout of silence only moments later. Another few minutes afterward, after delicately stirring her drink a final time, she stood up from her seat, offered her companion a good night and walked out.

* * *

"You know, Sakura, you'll be finished with medical training in less than a year," Tsunade-sama told her the next day, thumbing through yet another stack of papers. Once she found what she was looking for, she handed it to one of her aides, who stood by the door, and gestured toward her pupil to sit down.

When Sakura hesitated, Tsunade-sama spoke again. "_Sakura."_

"Yes, Shisou," the pink-haired girl said with lowered eyes, her bangs hiding her face.

"Hmm?"

"No," she looked up into her teacher's face, "I didn't know that."

Seemingly taken back for a moment, the older women allowed herself a short pause. "Well, that _is_ the case." She laced her fingers in front of her and unlaced them. "Assuming your progress level remains the same."

"Understood." She thought about her improvements, and realized that becoming a medic had never been something she had put a lot of active effort into doing. She had never bothered to spend hours each day practicing each technique, had never asked for more hospital shifts...

"We will be starting some of our most rigorous curriculum soon, and I have noticed that you have been... under the weather lately."

The girl blushed a bright pink. "If it's about whether I can handle it, I'm sure I'll be fine," she pushed her words out in a rush, and was relieved when they had managed to string themselves together into a coherent sentence.

"I'm sure you will be. Just don't stress yourself out too much."

"I'm not stressing myself," she retorted calmly.

"If you're sure." Tsunade-sama returned her gaze to the stack of paperwork on her desk.

"I'm not!" the emotion, though long-schooled out of her resurfaced with heat. Her pale cheeks were tinted pink, and she took tiny breaths to calm herself down.

The older lady hummed.

"I'm fine," she said quietly, almost to herself. The pink of her cheeks remained, even as her other features automatically schooled themselves to blankness.

The older lady sighed. "You may leave, Sakura."

Bowing respectfully, the girl backed out of the room.

As she left Hokage Tower, she thought about what her sensei had said. _Under the weather_, the woman had said. Considering that Tsunade-sama normally used a large amount of tact when dealing with her, she assumed that meant that her performance had been, as of late, unsatisfactory.

Her hand balled into a fist of its own accord.

She _was_ stronger. She had learned, mastered super strength. She practiced over one hundred katas everyday, for hours on end. Her chakra pool was almost satisfactory, larger than she had ever imagined it could be, and growing with each additional push with the scrolls. No longer did she pass out from exhaustion after a four-hour hospital shift, but head to the training rooms, where she practiced intensely for an additional hour or two.

So why didn't it show? Why didn't she _look_ stronger?

Considering that her apprenticeship would essentially be over in less than a year, she had about half a year to convince others that she could handle the field-medic exam. And "under the weather" were not the words that recalled the image of a full-fledged medic, let alone a field medic.

Her other hand moved up to bunch up a section of her hair in frustration. Between practicing for the exam and learning the scrolls, she didn't have time to fit in something else to enhance her image. Scroll 21 was still as trying as it was when she had first learned, no, executed it. Letting go of the majority of the locks, she twisted a thin piece of hair around her finger. The scroll made her happy beyond words when she was successful, but more often it succeeded in crushing some of her spirit and leaving behind mocking burn marks. She had been surprised to find that she had only obtained one true scar, blackened skin in the shape of a small flame about a centimeter in diameter, on the left side of her abdomen near her hips.

After going through a mental record on her progress on the scroll, she had begun to realize the effect her emotions had on the jutsu. The less calm she was, the stronger-and less steady-the flame was. She was never quite the calmest when dealing with the scroll, at least not for the fourth or fifth time around on the same exact task. Patience, she had. Unlimited time, she did not. She sat down on a patch of grass near the main road, the meeting place Kakashi-sensei had designated for the week, knowing full well that she was at least an hour early.

Regardless, she had learned to channel her frustrations into other jutsus, which she picked up more easily than she had ever imagined she could have. Or perhaps, the relative difficulty was simply lower when compared to that of Scroll 21. She didn't dwell too much on it, but it was comfortable to have a wider pool of jutsus to choose from during training. She would even go as far as to say-

She looked up, toward the approaching presence. "Hey," she said, with a little wave of her gloved hand.

"Good afternoon, Sakura-san," Neji replied.

"What brings you to this section of the road today?" A corner of her mouth quirked into a half-grin.

His eyes flickered over to the grassy side before shifting their focus back on her. "I was walking."

"Just walking?" She leaned back on her hands into the grass, looking up into his face.

He smiled, the faint semblance of a grin. "Just walking." Looking over his shoulder once more, he added, "Though I suppose I am technically meeting my new team today."

"It's official?"

"I suppose."

She collapsed back onto the grass with a sigh. "That seems nice."

"Hardly. Having to adjust to-"

"I'm sure the big, bad Hyuuga heir can deal with it," she said good-naturedly, as if she hadn't cut off his complaint.

He still looked hesitant. "I suppose."

"Change is good every once in a while, is it not?" She thought of her own progress then, and smiled. Nothing made her feel better nowadays than forward progress, positive change.

"I suppose," he said again.

She didn't respond, but looked up into the sky, wondering how unsynchronized her team's clocks had become. How many minutes, hours was she off now? She couldn't remember.

"Any reason you're here at this section of the road today?" he asked, slipping into an informality that had become less awkward to her. He leaned against one of the trees that lined the road, though not before moving all his hair to lie on one shoulder.

"Team meeting this afternoon."

"Early?"

"I suppose," she said, borrowing one of his phrases. "I can't tell who's early or late anymore though."

"Kakashi-san is always late?" He asked, in that flat tone somwhere between a question and a statement.

"Always." She looked back toward her conversation partner. "Has been for every single meeting for the last four years."

"It is not often that the rumors are so true."

"Kakashi is a special case," she replied, her own voice flat. She hadn't seen much of Kakashi at all, actually. Naruto and Sasuke she seemed to see by virtue of their being close in age, but ever since her apprenticeship, the sight of the Copy-nin had become more and more of a rarity.

Neji raised an eyebrow. "Indeed."

"I suppose you're also early?" She closed her eyes now, mentally going through her katas, consciously shifting her chakra to and from the various areas of her body.

"Correct."

"Always punctual..." she trailed off. "Feels a bit impossible."

"You're here early, aren't you?"

"I am now," she smiled toward the sky. She opened her eyes to look at him. "Not always, though."

He shifted a bit. The friction of his jacket on the bark grated on her ears, and her right eye twitched, even as she stilled her features. "I see them now," he said.

"I'm sure you'll fit in."

"That is the least of my concerns."

She rolled her eyes. "It's a platitude, Neji-san. Would you prefer, 'I am sure they will offer more than enough support for your future endeavors?'"

He blushed, a brief soft pink over his harsh paleness that disappeared as quickly as it had come.

"Thanks for the support," he said dryly.

"I'm sure you won't need it, but you have it."

"I'm glad to see you're making friends, Sakura," a voice broke into their conversation.

"Kakashi-san," Neji greeted, nodding toward the man's presence. She didn't say anything, but leaned back on the grass with her eyes shut, such that her shoulder blades lay flat on the ground.

A shadow loomed over her face.

She cracked one eye open. "Are you actually on time, or are Naruto and Sasuke-kun late?"

"Neither, I believe." He gestured with his thumb. "They're over there."

She closed her eyes again, and placed a hand over them. "Oh."

Had her memory been that bad? She began mentally scrolling through the list of things that she had to remember during her last hospital shift, looking for something that could have caused Tsunade-sama to think less of her.

"If you don't hurry, you'll be late."

No, she couldn't remember anything that she might have forgotten. She didn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. Perhaps she had not been accommodating enough? Efficient enough?

She then opened her eyes and got up, using a quick jerk of her hand to activate a teleportation jutsu. "I'm not late," she muttered under her breath, just loud enough for Kakashi to hear.

"Good job, Sakura-chan." Her eyebrow twitched slightly.

"First time we're all on time," Naruto noted, "even our old sensei here!"

"I'm not that-" Kakashi began to protest.

"Are we going to do something today or what?" the Uchiha cut in, arms crossed over his chest, expression dark. Darker than normal, Sakura felt, rather than observed.

"Jounin exams are coming up soon," Kakashi began, and Sakura felt herself stiffen the slightest bit. There was a recommendation aspect to the application for jounin, and she, if her recent experiences were any indication, no longer had someone willing to genuinely write that part.

"And we will adjust our training to accommodate that into our schedule. For chuunin," he paused, "I allowed you to get by on your strengths and talent, but you will not be able do the same for the jounin exam. You must become more well-rounded in order to pass this exam." He gave them another glance. "At least a little."

At this, Sakura smiled. It was always like him to throw in little compliments toward the team, even if they were rarely directed at her.

"Hn."

"Sounds like a plan," Naruto said, giving a grin of his own.

"We'll start now then?" Their teacher then disappeared without allowing them the chance to answer.

Warily, Sakura extended her chakra threads and prepared a basic jutsu for protection. Her boots shifted over the earth soundlessly as she looked for his presence.

She had to admit, as she observed her teammates go about finding him in their own way, he was quite good at hiding his signature. Good enough for them to give up finding his chakra presence altogether and go about it physically. Perhaps a month ago she would have done the same thing, but now she was more confident in her chakra abilities. It was her only true talent, after all.

She took a small breath, quieting all the extraneous noise and creating a blank white canvas in her mind. She felt the world move around her, felt each and every little movement, even the inconspicuous hooking of a squirrel's claw into the bark of a nearby tree. Exhaling, she looked around for chakra presences, careful not to make herself too obvious, hoping that her luck would kick in and she would be able to see through any illusion jutsu he threw at them.

Taking out a few kunai and sticking them between her fingers, she bent down in a ready position, and waited.

Then she felt it.

Felt him.

This time too serious to even let her smile show, she darted as quickly as she could toward him, flinging her few kunai to buy her time for a larger jutsu. Naruto looked over at her, shooting her a look of confusion which she ignored. She leapt into the air as soon as Kakashi retaliated, a small wind gust that re-directed her weapons, grabbed her kunai out of the air with a gloved hand and moved chakra to her legs, darting backwards quickly, boots light on the ground.

"There!" She heard herself whisper sharply, and the blond took her cue and launched his own attack, Sasuke moving on support.

She then retreated into the background, cautious again.

She didn't know whether Kakashi had realized what she did, but she refused to take any chances. The older man's body was moving, and quickly at that. The tension that she felt from the spar spread throughout her body, and with tension came the desire to rely on instinct. She felt herself make several motions to summon her newly learned fire jutsu more the twice, cutting it off each time.

This was not the time or place for practice of new skills.

Kakashi came up behind her now, disguised and with a kunai, if her senses were accurate. Instead of turning around, she ran a few steps forward, flipped up and behind him and sent a fair amount of senbon flying his way.

As she began her descent to the ground, she moved her hands quickly enough to summon an earth wall to slow him from continuing on in her direction. When he immediately appeared behind her, hand out and millimeters from her sleeve, she swung her left foot around in a kick to give her enough momentum to slam her fist into the ground. Hard.

The ground rumbled for a few seconds, before giving into her strength. The earth wall she had made only seconds earlier crumbled back down in a cloud of dust that overtook the field "Oi!" she heard Naruto yell.

"Sorry," she muttered under her breath, guarding her mouth from the dirt as she armed herself with a few kunai for some leverage.

If she hadn't been sure that Kakashi had been targeting her earlier, she was almost certain now. His moments were fast, but not overly so, courtesy of his handicap for their sakes. But why would he do that?

Hadn't he already given up on her? The thought had always made her sad, but it was true, she realized, as she blocked a few of his kicks with an arm guard before jumping backward with chakra-enhanced legs.

Or, she spun around him narrowly, earning a slight bruise to the abdomen, did he still have hope for her? She couldn't help the levity that her heart recovered at that moment, and she felt a bit like flying as high as her chakra would let her. He wasn't letting her go on the defensive, that much was obvious. She narrowly dodged a kunai strike, twisting around him in a move she had learned from Neji.

Using her right foot as an anchor, she launched into a series of katas, linked in a wave of flesh from hours upon hours of flesh. Her hands and feet glowed a bright green as she did so, and every time she brushed him slightly, his body was slammed back by the force of her chakra. It was a pretty good feeling, she had to admit, being on the offensive.

She was about summon one of her fire jutsu, when a fireball interrupted her, nearly singeing her hair off. She didn't bother looking back to see who it was. She had been surprised that Sasuke had chosen the defensive in the beginning, but she hadn't expected his camaraderie to last, especially when it came to her. With a tiny, rueful shake of the head, she moved back to the defensive, instead switching to a long range fire projectile.

She turned to the side to meet Naruto's gaze, a quick flash of connection. She nodded at him, silently allowing him to take the spot as Sasuke's right hand attacker, and shifted herself to fill the gaps they were sure to leave.

In a moment of spite, she almost let one of her projectiles go while Sasuke was in range, but thought better of it. He had always been like this. Instead, she directed them to different sections of the field that Kakashi had chosen. Small fires burned out a section of land, marking distinct lines.

With a quick breath and twitch of a hand, the fires disappeared, and she summoned a large plate of rock. With two chakra enhanced fingers, she knelt closer to the plate and flicked off chunks of rock in Kakashi's direction. Though the move was actually no less dangerous than releasing fire projectiles (possibly even more so, because she had active control over fire), she needed to do _something_ besides just stand there.

Her first few hit their target, and their teacher reigned in a wince, a quick quirk of the face she wouldn't have caught had she been not looking so closely. She almost lost focus after her small victory, an uncontrollable smile slowly spreading over her face, a rock nearly missing Sasuke's arm.

Her mouth quirked downward from her mistake, and being even more cautious, she attempted to coat each chunk of rock in a thin layer of her own chakra, a visible almost reddish color that dissipated as soon as the rock touched another object. Much more of a chakra expenditure, but, as she watched more of the rocks hit their target, very much worth it. She almost didn't notice the extra drain because of her muted excitement.

The moment of panic she had had initially after launching each projectile abated as she watched her teammates. Their actions were relatively easy to predict, even their reckless ones, which made it even easier to control the path of the rocks. Nothing like the control she had over fire, but enough control to prevent accidental injury.

Occasionally, she would pause from her barrage to just watch her teammates. Naruto was pretty good on support, she realized. She wondered when he had become so good at it, learning to relax and not obsess over the glory given to the main combatant. His actions, though still hardly sharp and chakra-efficient, were much more refined than she remembered, though the last memory she had of seeing him in a spar must have been at least a year ago. The edge of sloppiness had almost disappeared, and his movements had a smoothness that she would have never believed he could achieve had she not seen it herself.

Sasuke's motions were initially less messy and chakra-wasting, but his actions held a hard edge of frustration that Naruto's languid movements didn't. As he became more frustrated, his strokes grew more powerful, but far less clean, and Kakashi slowly backed away, giving the impression that the younger boy had gained the advantage.

She wondered absentmindedly, as she flicked another rock Kakashi's way and flitted her eyes over to Naruto to see if he needed any medical help, if this was how their lessons always went. Sasuke hadn't changed much at all, though it took her more mature eye to see it. He had grown more powerful, for sure, but the real growth had been in Naruto.

Suddenly she could understand his frustration, because she knew that he was not so clueless as to have not noticed the improvements in his friend. Naruto had learned to calm down his natural excitement on the field, learning to channel more of his energy into his jutsu instead of pointless screaming. His yelling at her earlier had actually been warranted, and now she felt bad that she had not apologized more audibly.

Sasuke's anger, on the other hand, had only grown with years of impatience, and it was beginning to show.

She anticipated Kakashi's movement before it came, somehow. Her chakra enhanced fingers scratched across the ground, forming a divide between herself and the others. Then, as he was finishing his last few signs, she closed her eyes and made a single sign, channeling her chakra to make the other motions.

She opened her eyes to see the leaves. She had made it on a tree branch safely. She peered down cautiously, looking for Kakashi in the midst of the rubble he had caused.

As soon as she saw his spiked head, she swung a few chakra-enhanced senbon in his direction and teleported immediately with a single sign, as she had done earlier.

However, she didn't anticipate that he would wait for her to reappear, a tiny puff of chakra that revealed where she was for less than a split second. He stood in back of her, grabbing her hands and placing a kunai at her throat.

Her eyes flashed with irritation. "Let _go _of me."

His response was almost teasing. "Not until your team admits their defeat."

They both looked toward the rest of the rubble, where both boys appeared to have taken a more than rough hit. Blood trickled down their bodies, even as Naruto's body began to rapidly heal as it had the strange tendency to do. Sasuke's eyes flashed with something as he got up, and she couldn't stop the involuntary shiver.

"Well, boys?" He smiled, she could feel it. "Ready to admit defeat?"

Naruto looked almost relieved, and only slightly disappointed at having lost. "Yeah." He brightened. "Food after?"

"Hell no," the Uchiha spat darkly.

"Your teammate has been captured, Sasuke."

"We don't need her." He said it curtly.

She barely managed to contain the simultaneous jolt of sadness and anger that intertwined in her stomach. And what had _he_ done during their fight? Expended useless amounts of chakra? Her frustration balled up up, intensifying the more she thought about it. Why could she never-

"Sasuke." Naruto's cerulean eyes were kind.

He challenged his friend with a dark, unforgiving stare. "Dobe."

"Sasuke. You would fail a team mission in making this decision," Kakashi reminded him.

"It's not like she would go with us." He muttered the words under his breath, but her ears were good, had always been good, even without any chakra magnification. She felt her face freeze up entirely, and her mind, despite her best attempts, turned the futility of the jounin exams for her. He was right, in a sick, honest, so very _Sasuke_ way. She probably wouldn't make jounin this year with them. She couldn't see Tsunade, on account of not being able to hold back the two boys, allowing her student take a promotion exam when she was "under the weather."

Instead of tears, which had dried up in her months and months of training, she felt her hand clench, felt each vein in her forearm pulse with her emotion. At times, she was beginning to think, the times she felt angry and mistreated, were the few times she felt fully human, the blood rushing through her veins in their own crimson panic without her approval.

"_I heard that," _she wanted to say. But she couldn't. She knew him just well enough to anticipate his answer, and she didn't want to test herself.

It seemed that everyone had heard his words, though. The kunai in Kakashi's hand froze less than a millimeter from her throat, and she could almost feel the emotions bubbling underneath his eternal calm using her chakra senses. Chakra, for most responded how it liked with regard to emotions. He was good at hiding it, but she was better. That much she knew from this mock battle alone. But she also knew that he had years of training in control. He would not speak up now, not risk himself.

The tension hummed quietly, just loud enough to buzz incessantly in Sakura's ears. It was enough to threaten her into panic.

She looked over at Naruto.

She immediately regretted it.

His innocent face was open. She saw the initial confusion, the slight bit of anger... the smidgen of guilt. Her mind worked double speed. She saw his chakra, the thick blue strands weaving in and out, everywhere, expanding. It laughed at her. At that moment, she hated him. He couldn't defend her from Sasuke's attack. And his expression told her clearly that he never would. If her mind could chant...

Her mind didn't chant. There were no inner catcalls, no mental fall of surprise. Just blankness.

She was aware and unaware of the next moments, the tiny bit of exhausted chakra used to break herself free, the automatic green glow along the line of her neck, the reinforcement of her calves against the stumble, the strong strokes into the open. She didn't raise a hand, but simply disappeared in spray of ashes, only the wind left to sweep it back into their faces.

At that moment, she hated herself.

* * *

She palmed a fire in her hand, careful not to burn herself again.

More and more often, she was beginning to feel like the flame she held. Wavering and fragile. Emotional. Perhaps that was why her progress had been so great, she thought. The hand signs were quick, and she already beginning to shortcut them, cutting the summoning time to only a few seconds.

She stared into the fire, for the first time noticing the way the threads of her chakra ran through it. Or perhaps, it wasn't her chakra at all. She couldn't remember what her chakra looked anymore, if she was honest with herself. Somewhere, her perception of it had gotten lost, and she was more content to see the reddish hues that pulsed in her element.

Mastering fire was what she had needed after that team practice, she reflected. It was the first time she had ever felt like she had lost complete control, and she hated herself for it. Even as a child, she had been distinctly aware of when she used her tears, when she wanted to use her tears and complaints.

She watched the fire thread itself through her fingers like a snake under her control, the gentle hand of a mother. The trick to mastering fire, she had discovered, was becoming one with it. There was no forcing, or else it lashed back out at you, happy to cause a learning shinobi burns in its efforts to teach him or her a lesson. She understood why it was Sasuke's preferred element, and why he was terrible at controlling it.

She closed her eyes and expanded the size of the fire to form a thick ring around her. The heat comforted her, and somehow, she had learned how to breathe it in.

Fire was life. Life was chakra. She was a woman of chakra.

She would be a woman of fire.

* * *

A/N: Over 10,500 words. I think I might have overdone it. Haha.

**Finished editing 5/4/13**


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