Whatever had happened in the forest, Kakashi decided, he might almost prefer not knowing it. Sasuke had refused to seek treatment for his seal until his fight, Naruto hadn't had much useful information at all, and now he had to talk to by far the most stressful genin he'd ever had the displeasure of knowing.

The medics had had her for most of the current match between Hyuuga Neji and the sand kunoichi, which was going longer than he'd have expected. The kunoichi was a ranged specialist, and they'd been very carefully avoiding one another's attacks for nearly ten minutes when the pink-haired kunoichi made her way back to the watching genin, her leg wrapped far more carefully now.

"How is it?" Kakashi asked, thinking that would at least open the conversation.

"Mm? Oh, not too bad." Sakura said, seeming distracted as she watched the fight. Kakashi waited for her to continue, but the pink-haired girl didn't even spare him a glance.

"That was an impressive counter against the Inuzuka. You hadn't shown anything like that in training, though." Kakashi tried, before turning back to the match. Talking to the genin wasn't worth it, not even if he probably needed to find out how she'd learned such a thing. He'd talk to the medics for more to confront her with, first, and in any case Sasuke's seal was a more immediate concern than Sakura's seemingly suicidal training practices. Wherever she'd come up with the kind of strength to do a strike enhanced by that much, she wasn't really that important in the end, not next to the other two and particularly Sasuke. Something just bothered him about her.

Sakura winced a bit, he noticed, as Neji finally caught up to the kunoichi, taking her down in a ruthless series of strikes. The blond didn't look horribly injured, for such a long fight with a Hyuuga, at least.

Sasuke was called down for the next match, in fact, one with the Aburame clan heir. Kakashi drifted over to warn Sasuke against letting the seal loose, turning his attention away from the distraction of Sakura to the student who really did need it most.

"Hmph. Sakura took your teammate out in one hit; I hope you can at least be a little more entertaining?" Sasuke taunted, as he watched the other genin closely. Kakashi'd warned him against using too much chakra, so he'd have to just strike with taijutsu. He didn't remember Shino being anything above competent at it, anyway.

"You should give up, or you'll regret this missed opportunity to avoid the pain." Shino replied, prompting a furious assault from Sasuke. Furious and foolish, of course.

A wave of bugs rolled out from Shino's body as Sasuke pressured him, settling on the black-haired genin and beginning to devour his chakra. Sasuke charged through them, and Shino was forced to block the attack, making his way steadily back along the arena, trying to drag things out while his bugs worked on the genin's chakra supply.

"You will be passing out... now." Shino said, finally, as he landed from a backwards jump.

"Damn you!" Sasuke screamed, as, to Shino's alarm, black lines grew across his face, and new chakra flooded his body. Sasuke struck again, and Shino was forced to block it, a sickening crack as the bug user's arm was broken...

...And then Kakashi was there, Sasuke held back by the white haired man. "Sasuke forfeits." Kakashi said, ignoring Sasuke's scream of protest, manhandling the genin into following him out of the arena.

Shino stared in what might have been shock, before shaking his head and moving back to rejoin his team.

Sakura was left alone after Sasuke's match; Kakashi and Sasuke vanished, and Naruto was called down for a battle with one of Kabuto's teammates. Her thoughts, much as she wanted them to be, were not on Naruto's match.

No, they were much more stressful than that. She could almost feel her mind straining under the weight of it.

"Naruto.. What should I do? You were supposed to be with me, and I definitely wasn't supposed to be considered insane, or be completely out of control half the time." She hadn't allowed herself to miss him, because he was right there... But it wasn't him, wasn't the Naruto she'd shared experiences with, or loved, and she didn't know how to make things better. She'd been all about details, precision, control... and he'd been the one with big dreams and big plans.

She hadn't managed to change things nearly enough. Hell, if anything, it was in a worse situation than she remembered - Sasuke wasn't in the Finals, Asuma was dead, Orochimaru had still sealed Sasuke. Shikamaru, who'd been promoted to chuunin the last time, wasn't even in the exam. She was going to have to take drastic action, one that made her want to throw up even thinking about it even though she'd tried to do it before.

Still, there was a huge difference between trying to kill Sasuke then, when he'd committed all those horrors and had been much stronger than her to boot, versus murdering him now to prevent what he WOULD do. A large part of her at the time had expected killing him to be a suicide mission, even if it hadn't worked out quite that way; doing it now would be like stealing candy from a baby. Which was why she needed to do it now, before he had Orochimaru guarding him.

She looked up, and the child Naruto was struggling against an opponent Sakura couldn't even really remember, sad as that was. A flicker of rage at the unfairness of it all sparked in her mind, and she found herself on her feet and screaming before she could help it.

"Naruto, don't you dare lose to that fucking nobody! I'll kick your ass for the next week if you lose to somebody like that!"

The other genin and Naruto both looked at her - in fact, quite a few people were staring at her. She growled a little, sitting back down and watching Naruto, who seemed to be at least a little inspired by her, judging by his rallying with a fierce taijutsu combo and knocking the much older genin out. Sakura grinned and cheered loudly for him, ignoring the odd looks she was getting.

Screw it, she could be happy and obnoxious for her friend. Even if he didn't know that was what he was, she did, and she knew how much he needed it.

Naruto made his way back up to join her, and she grinned at him even as Kankuro and Lee were called out for the next match. That drew her attention away momentarily, mostly in worry about who would be facing Gaara, but she forced her attention off of it to congratulate him a little more quietly.

"Naruto, congratulations. You were great."

"Aah.. Thank you, Sakura-chan." He laughed, rubbing his hand on the back of his head.

A cry of surprise and pain drew her attention back to the match; Lee had shattered Kankuro's head. Well, the puppet that had taken Kankuro's place's head, at any rate.. And it looked like splinters had been driven through into the actual Kankuro. Lee rather mercilessly followed through, knocking Kankuro into the wall.

"Wow, he's quick." Naruto said, and Sakura realized Naruto hadn't seen Lee in action this timeline.

"Yeah." She agreed. "Konoha's doing pretty well so far! Of course, only one foreign team even made it here... Only two matches left in the round, too."

Unfortunately, the next match was going to be a disaster, it seemed - Tenten had drawn Gaara.

Sakura didn't even try to talk the other kunoichi into yielding. Tenten had never been a particularly close friend - not that Sakura had had many close friends - but Sakura had respected the weapons master and her will, and knew that the other kunoichi would never give up.

Sakura didn't even need to see the match to know how it would go, but she couldn't bring herself to look away. Naruto was cheering for Tenten, but the thrown weapons weren't even coming close to penetrating Gaara's defenses...

There was a shriek as Gaara's sand caught up to and crushed Tenten as Gai and the referee tried to step in. It wasn't as thorough as it would have been without interferance, but.. Sakura felt ill, leaning closer as the screaming for medics went through the arena.

Tenten was still moving, not completely dead yet, but... Sakura recognized the medics that were coming in. She'd passed all of them within a year of study; they were, in the end, not all that good. Nowhere near the level of Shizune or what she'd been at as a chuunin, much less Tsunade or Sakura's own peak. And Tenten looked like she was in worse shape than Lee had been, at least in terms of living.

"Hey, Sakura-chan, is she going to be okay?" Naruto asked, pleadingly.

An echo sounded, in her mind; HER Naruto, promising as she'd cried that they could fix everything. She couldn't let him fail that, not when he'd relied on her. But she couldn't just go down and heal Tenten, not without giving herself away. The mednins had her on a stretcher and were hurrying away with her...

"Naruto. Do you trust me?" Sakura asked, looking at the tunnel they'd vanished down.

"What..? Of course I do, Sakura-chan."

"Then.. I need you to do something. I'll explain later, but.. Can you make a clone and cover as though I'm here for a while?"

Naruto looked confused for a moment, but nodded; Sakura slipped out of another exit, transforming herself into a plain-looking brunette in a nurse's uniform. It wouldn't stand up to a very close inspection by a Hyuuga or by a sharingan, but it was better than nothing.

Sakura made her way to the medical facilities quickly, finding the room where three medics were desperately working on Tenten. And failing; the kunoichi's lifesigns were dropping, and she had to be losing blood quickly...

Sakura didn't have her own medical supplies or poisons anymore - they'd draw too much attention. However, it was an operating room, and even if they hadn't risked full anesthesia... There it was.

"Who.." began one of the medics, as Sakura moved, grabbing three vials from the shelf and smashing them on the ground, the chemicals mixing and reacting in a violent puft of purplish smoke. If they were good enough to counteract the effects on the fly, they'd have been good enough to help Tenten, Sakura decided, counteracting the poison's effects on herself.

The three medics collapsed, two unconcious and one moving to curl up in the corner, giggling madly. Sakura ignored her, knowing that was a common reaction. They would be fine, anyway, if with a bit of a horrible headache.

Tenten, on the other hand... Sakura frowned as she concentrated on the girl. There was no one wound to focus on, more a hundred little problems; bone fragments, and bruising, and internal bleeding. She was a mess, of course. Sakura took a deep breath in and set to work on the blood loss, the most immediate danger.

She had no idea of the time she'd spent on Tenten, really, but when she got the wounds below anything life-threatening, Sakura stopped. Her chakra was damn near bone dry, and she could hardly afford to pass out here. Besides, it wouldn't be long until...

"What is going on here?" Gai bellowed, stunning Sakura for a moment as she turned away. How had he approached without her sensing him? Was her chakra THAT low?

"Uh.." Sakura started, before smiling. "Your student is going to be just fine." She hadn't let the henge drop, thankfully; he wouldn't recognize her. Hopefully.

"And those three?" Gai said, gesturing to the other medics.

"Well..." Sakura started, not at all certain how to explain. There really wasn't any way to do so... Sakura thought about the layout of the building. She then reached her hand out, pulling a shelf off the wall at Gai, before turning and punching a hole through the wall, running through it. That was almost a signature, of course, but she could hope that noone would put it together with her attack on Kiba.

Sakura turned down the hallway, ducked into a supply closet, and climbed into an alcove in the top of that closet she'd known about - there were extra bandages and uniforms and the like stored there. She let the henge go out, conserving that last bit of chakra that was keeping her concious, shutting her eyes for just a moment and trying to think out the rest of her plan. She needed to rejoin everyone soon; if Gai had come down, the final match between Hinata and the other of Kabuto's teammates had to be over. They'd be drawing matches, and then everyone would leave.. That was it. She'd trust Naruto to cover for her this long, and meet him outside the building.

But it was even easier than that... Sakura smiled, dropping back down to the closet floor, listening carefully at the door for a couple of minutes. When she was certain noone was at the other side of the door, she stepped through, and then walked back towards the medical area. She saw several ANBU there, along with Gai. They looked over at her. "Uh, I'm trying to find Sasuke. Is he here?" She asked.

"He's under observation. I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave." The ANBU captain said, gestured to one of the ANBU by his side. Sakura avoided smirking as, as she'd hoped, she was not only let out of the building but escorted out.

She managed to catch up to Naruto before they reached the village proper, landing next to a clone disguised as her. "Hey, Naruto. Thanks."

Naruto looked interested, dismissing the clone. "Sakura-chan! Did you manage to find out anything?"

"She's going to be okay, it looks like." Sakura said. "Thankfully. Sorry it took me so long to get back, did everything go okay?"

"Um, yeah. There's a tournament in a month for the third part."

"I know." Sakura said, "Who did you draw?" She asked, sincerely curious. After all, the people remaining were totally different - there were only seven, for one thing.

Naruto actually frowned. "I've got Shino. I guess I should talk to Sasuke about him sometime... But Sakura-chan..."

Sakura tilted her head. "What?"

"You've got that Gaara person. Lee's fighting this guy who drains chakra that beat Hinata after you left, and Neji doesn't have to fight in the first round. "

Sakura stopped walking in shock. "I've got Gaara?"

Naruto nodded. "If we both win, we're fighting each other, too."

Sakura shut her eyes for a moment, letting herself feel the strain. "I think," she announced, "I'm going to go sleep and try to forget about that."

AN: Profile time again! This one's on our good friendly medic Sakura:

Name: Haruno Sakura

Classification: Jounin, Medic.

Background to current manga canon. (Chapter 469 or so, for reference.) Sakura's effort to kill Sasuke ended in something of a draw, as both of them got away okay. Sakura continued improving both her fighting style and her medical knowledge, eventually surpassing her master in both, but she wasn't able to turn the tides of war. Eventually, she and Naruto were the only ones left. At some point after her hunt for Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto became lovers; however, owing to circumstances, they were never able to marry or be a family. He attempted a jutsu to send both of them back in time to alter the fortunes of Konoha and their friends; while he managed to send Sakura back, instead of himself an alternate version of Sakura was drawn back to inhabit her body as well.

Sakura's temper has been calmed somewhat over the years, but the mental strain of dealing with her current situation is gradually growing worse, particularly as bad events that had not happened before happen. In particular, the death of Asuma gnaws on the mednin, as she knows that she's done something that's prevented Asuma and Kurenai's child from ever even being born.

While Sakura is far less eager to display her power compared to her alternate self, she has the world's most skilled medical mind locked up behind the 'bars' of not having sufficient chakra to use large chunks of her knowledge on a regular basis. Her enhanced strength and a deceptively dangerous taijutsu form are her best weapons for now, along with a truly impressive knowledge of poisons.