Author's Note

You know it is. I give the disclaimer that we all know (the one where I claim none of this is mine originally but the plot and some changes to the characters is).

So yeah, I don't own crap. Sorry, I officially do not own Naruto or Pokemon.

Also, on another note, I am really, really bad with starting stories that I don't finish. At least chapter stories. In fact, on another site, I promised a chapter story to be finished by 2020... yet I still have at least three chapters to write and here I am writing a whole new story. Yeah, I got a problem.

'This is Sakura's thoughts.'

'This is Noir's speaking to Sakura.'

The next day, everyone showed up around the same time of eleven, instead of the original nine o'clock. They all silently acknowledged that was the way to go.

"So, I believe it is time I take to a very important place." Kakashi-sensei stated solemnly. The three genin immediately calmed down 'not that Prince of Ice was ever not calm'. They followed through the trees and through the training grounds, each steps causing Sakura to feel something, a strong spiritual presence. At one point, her eyes closed, paying attention to the whispers of the dead as they tell stories of what was once known.

A breeze whipped around her, her senses at an all-time high. Eventually, she felt Kakashi-sensei slow down. She opened her eyes, knowing that they were probably looking more unnatural than normal. 'The stone has so many spirits attached to it.'

"This is the Memorial Stone." Kakashi-sensei started off slowly, knowing his three genin were hanging onto his every word. "Does anyone know exactly what that means?"

After a few moments of silence, Sakura spoke upon, unknowing of her voice becoming something more, "This is where we acknowledge everyone who fought for Konoha and died in action."

Kakashi-sensei did not miss her voice changing but decided not to think about it right now. He traced a name on the Memorial Stone. Both of the boys watched on with something akin to solemn and confusion.

"My best friend is on this stone."

Sakura couldn't help the loud inhale she did. She couldn't even pay attention to it, her mind already thinking of her best friends ending up on that stone.

"Before he died, he gave me the most important lesson of my life. Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum."

Sakura could only nod her head in agreement, her eyes painting names on the stone that weren't there. 'I won't let that happen.' Her eyes started glowing (however no one but Kakashi noticed). 'I won't let that happen to them.'

Naruto suddenly spoke up, echoing her thoughts, "I will become strong enough to protect everyone." Sasuke did not say anything, his eyes still tracing names she knew were Uchiha.

"Maa, maa, enough of this serious talk, let's go get our first mission!"

Naruto immediately started to cheer, and Sasuke gave a satisfied smirk. Sakura, however, was not that innocent. 'D-Rank missions. Babysitting, painting fences, walking dogs... Tora.' She shuddered in horror, noting Kakashi-sensei smiling at her. She knew she should be more mature, considering everything, but she still pouted in response.

A few minutes later, they were in front of the Hokage, with a great amount of older ninja in the room. Sakura eyed them in confusion, noting the gleeful expressions on their faces and wondered what that was about. Then she noticed how they were mainly paying attention to Naruto. Her face lit up with realization, her face slowly rivalling theirs. One of the other ninja noticed her recognition and winked at her, she playfully waving in response. 'They are here to watch the disappointment Naruto will have of D-Ranks, for all the pranks he has done over the years.'

The older ninja slided over to her, "So you know what's going on here, do ya?"

Sakura quickly analyzed the man in front of her. She noted that his shoulder-length brown hair was well kept, which meant either he was really good or recently showered. His brown eyes were only eyeing Naruto with amusement, not a trace of hate in them, so he was already okay in her book. He wore a jounin jacket, so she imagined he was a skilled shinobi. This only happened in a few seconds, yet she could somehow tell he recognized her analyzation of his person. 'Which I really shouldn't expect any less. He is a jounin for goodness sake.'

"Vindictiveness." Sakura simply responded, daring him to challenge that statement.

"Ah, a self-aware green genin, how refreshing. I'm Genma."

"Sakura."

They stopped talking once they heard the Hokage ask if Team Seven was here for a mission.

"YES! What are we going to do? Save a princess?! Retrieve something important for Konoha?! Track a missing nin?!"

Sasuke didn't speak, but Sakura could tell he expected each of those to be a possible mission. She started to chuckle as quietly as she could. Genma did not hold the same reservation, but that probably can be attributed to the fact they had moved over to the rest on the other ninja who also started to laugh 'a little bit of evilly as well'. Kakashi-sensei noticed her being away but left it alone, probably already figuring she knew what was about to happen.

Iruka-sensei handed over a list to the Hokage, his grin edging a bit too close to resembling Shikamaru when he is about to beat her in Shogi. So in other words, it was very unsettling. The Hokage even started to get the same grin, as his eyes skimmed the scroll.

"Let's see, Tora recently escaped again, but I don't know if you guys can handle-"

It was like watching two ninjas running at each other without any realization that the other was there, only to note at the last second that the other is there, but it was already to late because they had crashed and landed on each other. As soon as Naruto opened his mouth, she knew she would not be able to stop him. She could only watch. 'I will do something extremely creative to that boy for this. There will be retribution.'

"We'll take it!"

Genma looked at her with pity and patted her head, "Sorry, kiddo."

She looked up with crocodile tears.

"Well, I guess if you believe you are ready-"

Naruto huffed, "Of course, we are, old man!"

"Then, you can go retrieve Tora. Kakashi, I am sure you can tell your team all about Tora."

Kakashi-sensei eye-smiled ominously in response, as he led her team away.

"Kakashi-sensei... aren't senseis supposed to teach their students something?"

"Maa, maa... I am."

"Teamwork only works if everyone participates." Sakura stated blankly, eyeing the Uchiha. 'I knew this wasn't going to be a good training experience, but this is pushing my standards lower and lower.' She finally gave up. After two weeks of this, Sakura realized nothing was going to change, at least in this team. She knew Kakashi-san was not trying to derail their fighting abilities, but this emphasize on teamwork and d-rank missions was killing her. She was immensely lucky that her friends still had training sessions every day.

Once the team session was over, Sakura walked back to her home slowly, considering the possible ways she could train more. Skull told her some concerning news last time he came back. She did not want to caught off-guard, especially considering she had two highly desirable teammates and a highly popular sensei. Sakura looked on at the villagers as they walked through the streets. She was on the ground, so she only saw villagers with the occasional academy student and green genin. No self-respecting ninja stuck to the ground unless required. She knew if she looked up she would see ninja flying about, and while she could join them, she wanted time to think through her training plans.

'I could always study even more material, but studying can only get me so far... which is why I was looking forward to having a jounin sensei.' She thought the last part, some bitter showing up in her thoughts. Sakura shook her head slightly. 'That doesn't matter anymore. I need a sensei, or at least someone I could ask stuff about. Maybe I should ask one of the other Rookie Nine senseis. I'm sure Shika and Cho could get Sarutobi-san to help and Kiba would annoy Yuhi-san to the ends for me... But I don't want to mess with their sessions, and they probably have other stuff to do. I wonder if there is any free jounin.' Sakura paused and huffed as she realized how stupid that last thought was. 'Nevermind. Maybe chuunin? They wouldn't be too busy, right?'

Soon, she reached the part of the village where she might actually see ninja on the ground, the street market. 'I will think about this later. I still need to find that one fruit.' As she was walking through, she heard her name be called out. Sakura turned and saw Genma strolling up to her, a grocery bag on one arm.

"Hey there, kiddo."

Sakura eyed him curiously before deducting what he was here for, "You wanna know how my first mission went."

Genma paused in his steps, looking at her with interest. For a second, she thought she saw approval in his eyes, but it was gone as soon as it appeared. He then drawled out, "Yes actually."

Sakura chuckled in response, paying attention to both him and their surrounding.

"Naruto was not pleased when the word cat left Kakashi-san's mouth. He first thought Kakashi-san was pulling his leg, but after a few minutes of," she paused before saying the next, amusement clearly in her tone, "reassurance from Kakashi-san, Naruto fell to the ground in despair... But I am sure you saw that from where you were watching us."

Once again, Sakura noticed approval in his eyes, in which honestly made her feel proud of herself.

"How do you know that I was watching you guys?"

Sakura gave a non-committed hum, attention on the item she has been looking for. She eyed the price and finally decided it was worth it. After buying the bananas, Sakura turned her attention back to her companion, who was staring at her with amusement.

"You guys were all there to watch Naruto realize what genin missions entail. You guys would have followed after us, so you could have seen how he responded." She answered casually before muttering under her breath, "Troublesome."

Sakura watched as his face changed to something close to understanding.

"You a Nara?"

Sakura looked at him as if he was stupid, her hand motioning to her bright hair color. Genma responded with a chuckle, "It could always be dyed."

"No, I am not a Nara." She decided against mentioning her eye color.

A voice drawled out from her, "She is only best friends with one." Sakura immediately knew who it was, especially when he wrapped himself around her so he could rest against her, his head on her shoulder. She could practically see his facial expression.

"Hello, Shika. What are you doing out and about? It is your nap time."

Shikamaru only relaxed further onto her.

Genma eyed them and shook his head, as if thinking that it explained so much about her. He grabbed some paper out of his pocket and wrote something down on it.

"Congratulations, kiddo, you peaked my interest." He handed the slip of paper to her and then disappeared into leaves.

Training Ground 40.

Sakura's eyes widened.

"Naruto, you need to calm down."

Naruto only huffed at Shikamaru, "How can I be calm when I finally will get to see the world?"

As the two of them started to argue with Kiba joining in, Chouji laid next to her, against the tree. He stared at her, worry practically written on his face. Sakura looked at him, trying to resist the look.

"What's wrong, Sakura?"

Sakura gave in, "I have a bad feeling about this mission."

Chouji hummed in response, but she knew he was trying to comfort her. 'How can I say that I know that the bridge builder is a liar, that Gato is after him, and that Gato hired one of the Seven Swordsmen of Mist to kill the liar?' Sakura closed her eyes, trying to reassure herself. She would have mentioned her suspicions earlier with her team, but again she doesn't know how to prove she knows what she is talking about. 'Oh yes, I could just tell the truth and say I got a spy network of dreams, but I feel like that would be counterproductive.'

Sakura shook herself out of it. 'Genma-sensei had been teaching me for a few weeks, and I can definitely tell that I am better than before... These training sessions we do as a group help as well... And if worse comes to worst, then I can always use those abilities.'

Sakura got up from her spot and stopped the weird fight that the other boys were doing. She clapped loudly, trying not to laugh at the position they froze in. Naruto had one of Kiba's arms in his mouth, Shikamaru was about to kick Kiba, and Kiba was on top of Shikamaru.

"If you boys want to fight so much... then we can have a free-for-all."

All at once the boys shuddered, remembering that taijutsu was one of Sakura's specialities.

She cracked her knuckles, cackled at their facial expressions before diving in. Chouji stared at them for a few seconds then decided to join by jumping onto Naruto. Naruto in response bit down on Kiba's arm, who howled in pain.

Obviously, it went downhill from there.

After the training session was over 'and I am using that term lightly', Sakura once again was on her roof, staring at the stars. Shikamaru might have wanted her to love cloud-watching 'and she did', but she loved stargazing more. There was something peaceful in realizing that no matter what happens the stars will always be there. Sure, depending upon where she was, they changed where they were in the sky, but there was always stars.

'Zabuza plans on letting the Mist Brothers attack first.'

'Well, at least we get the easier ones first... I can also use that to get the others to realize that Tazuna lied to us about the mission.'

'Indeed, mistress.'

For a second, Sakura could pretend that Noir was next to her, in all her mystic beauty. A mostly white creature, fairy and psychic type pokemon all round, who never abandons her, even when she mysterially wakes up in a four-year-old body... yes, Sakura was very gratefully for all her Pokemon sticking with her.

She could pretend for a second that she was on top of her house back in Unova, resting after a day of defending her title as Champion.

That her Pokemon were always with her, and not out there in danger for her sake. Tears started to appear in the corners of her eyes. 'Even Zoro was away from her now. Because Kakashi-san couldn't accept a cat nin since he had dog summons.'

She could pretend that she didn't have only two pokemon with her physically, that one of them had to be a tattoo she covered on her left wrist.

'Mistress, don't cry. Eventually, we will all be together again.'

Not to mention Noir never got to leave the place where they originally wore before she remembered her past life... her soul.

'This all is a mess.'

After a while, she calmed down and headed to bed, knowing she would need it for tomorrow.

A wild Author has appeared.

So I figured it would probably be wise to include Sakura's Profile in the notes. I will update it anytime something new is mention, which means most likely every chapter.

Sakura Haruno
Stats
Ninjutsu: 1
Taijutsu: 3
Genjutsu: 1
Intelligence: 3.5
Strength: 2.5
Speed: 3
Stamina: 2
Hand Seals: 1

Total: 17 / 40

She also has some hidden abilities that have been hinted at, but hey... I don't want to spoil anything.

Have a great day~