A/N: Hello, it's been a while. Ever since the end of Naruto I've felt this need to write a Sakura-centric story where there is a more satisfying character growth. While reading Naruto I loved her character, but something about the final dozen or so chapters left me feeling so empty. Even though the pairings I shipped the entire series manifested, in the end they were awkward and forced, and I want to write something that hopefully will give me the closure I never felt I got. Pairings undecided. I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1

She can sense the presence again. It's hovering on the edge of her perception, but she knows they are there. And she thinks they're starting to figure out that she is aware, because they keep a wider perimeter every day. At first they were only around when she was training with her team. She thought maybe it was an Anbu agent watching over Naruto (she knew he was the Jinchuriki because she could feel the menacing chakra underneath his), but she felt the presence in the Land of Waves when she was reaching out with her chakra looking for Zabuza in order to protect their client. What she discovered was not only her sensei, the hunter nin, and her two teammates and the boy Haku, but also an unknown shinobi heavily cloaked in a genjutsu. Sakura can usually sense both the depth of a person's chakra pool and nature, but with the genjutsu in place she couldn't even begin to guess. Even when Kakashi-sensei is suppressing his chakra signature to his fullest ability she can still analyze it to some degree.

Ever since discovering it followed her team even out of the village, Sakura started regularly checking her surroundings. It followed them everywhere she discovered, even occasionally when she was on her own; usually when she was at the library reading about genjutsu (to figure out how they were hiding themselves from her) or when she was meditating before dawn at the practice field, waiting for her team. Meditation was when she would come closest to breaking through the genjutsu, but she has yet to puncture the impossibly dense cloak of chakra. She might as well have been punching a brick wall with her bare knuckles.

Now she is sensing the presence again, but it is much closer than usual. This makes her nervous, especially because both of her teammates are unconscious, showing no signs of waking up anytime soon. Naruto's chakra is agitated from whatever that monster of a man did to his seal. The snake also did something to Sasuke's chakra. It's almost like there's an infection in his chakra circulatory system, stemming from the black mark on his neck. Both are burning up and the only thing she can do about it is keep a cool cloth on each of their foreheads and keep watch until either they miraculously wake up or the test is over with and they fail. With each passing hour she is almost hoping for the latter. The only other alternative seems to be they are discovered and they all die because she is incapable of protecting them.

Sakura's heart drops into her stomach when she senses three chakra signatures headed straight for her. She has all three of their chakra signatures suppressed, but they are either highly trained sensory ninja above Kakashi's caliber or using some ulterior way to track them. When a team of sound nin land in the clearing twenty feet away, Sakura senses the chakra radiating in the air and realizes one of them is using sound waves as a form of echolocation.

"Well, well what do we have here." The girl says, her smirk taunting as she steps in front of the two boys. "A little girl protecting her two pathetic teammates. I almost feel bad about taking your scroll."

Sakura quickly scrambles for her backpack and pulls out the scroll. "Here, take it!" She yells desperately as she holds it out. "Just take it and leave, please. I promise we won't come after you!"

The girl cackles. "Oh, we'll make sure you don't." The shorter boy to her right cracks his knuckles and holds both hands out in front of him, palms turned toward Team 7. Sakura gasps when she sees the hollow metal pipes jutting from his skin. The scar tissue around them is grotesque and causes a shudder to run down Sakura's spine as she imagines the intolerable pain he must have suffered when his body was modified like that. Then she mentally slaps herself. She should be feeling sympathy for her enemy.

Rising from her kneeling position, Sakura discards the scroll behind her, recognizing that they have no intention of accepting her peace offering. She falls into her awkward fighting stance, a kunai clutched in both hands in front of herself, pointy end angled awkwardly forward toward her opponents. The girl and shorter boy mockingly laugh at her obvious inexperience, falling into much more practiced stances.

The girl attacks first, lazily swiping at Sakura, almost scratching her cheek. Sakura clumsily stumbles to her right, directly into the path of the short boy's wind attack. She performs a substitution jutsu in the knick of time, using the momentary confusion it causes to attack the taller boy in an attempt to take him hostage. He must be the one with the echolocation ability though, because without even looking he blocks her kunai with his metal arm. Sakura jumps back when he swipes at her and bites her lip so hard to quell her fear it bleeds. She has never had to face an enemy by herself before, let alone three all well above her in terms of skill and experience.

Before fear can overwhelm her senses, Sakura forces herself to evaluate the situation, making a mental list of all of her advantages and disadvantages. They have the advantages in taijutsu, ninjutsu, numbers, sensing, and experience. Sakura has her intelligence and chakra control. The odds are not in her favor. Nevertheless, she racks her brain for any ways to negate some of their advantages. There's nothing she can do about their taijutsu, ninjutsu, or experience, so she decides to focus on taking down the numbers and sensing abilities. While researching genjutsu and the presence that follows her team everywhere, Sakura came across several sensory jamming genjutsu. While the chakra sensing jamming genjutsu wouldn't be very effective, perhaps the one that creates the illusion of several physical presences would work. If she can confuse the sensor by convincing him that there are several presences closing in on him, she might be able to drive a kunai into his neck before he realizes what she has done.

Wasting no time, Sakura attacks the shorter boy once again. He attacks her as she predicted he would and she performs the genjutsu right before the substitution jutsu. Since she's never tried it before it's a little shaky, but the larger boy's chakra indicates he is lousy at genjutsu so it should still work…

And then the girl interferes and grabs Sakura by the hair before flinging her to the ground. Too late Sakura realizes that the girl's chakra signature is that of a genjutsu specialist. "That was a pretty pathetic illusion, brat." She spits at Sakura, glancing at her teammate. "Dosu you should be ashamed you fell for that. She fucked it up pretty badly. She's probably only ever practiced it on her pathetic teammates. How does it feel to be as weak as a twelve year old?"

The larger boy growls in a show of aggression, but before he can reply, Sakura takes advantage of their distraction and kicks at the girl's legs. The sound nin steps out of range clumsily and Sakura takes that moment to pull shuriken from her weapons pouch and launch an attack. One knicks her enemy's cheek and slices off a tendril of her dark hair, but the rest fly harmlessly past, and Sakura curses herself for not honing her basic skills before heading into these exams. Being able to properly aim under pressure would be really fucking useful right now.

Sakura's mind keeps flashing back to her team's fight with Zabuza and Haku. She was only searching for Zabuza, and that was overwhelming enough. Now she has three enemies, granted not as powerful, but still far more skilled than herself. She feels the now familiar fog of fear start to cloud her senses. On the hidden mist mission, the fear was worse than the mist. While fog takes out her sense of sight, fear inhibits her most powerful weapon; her mind.

In the split second she is unfocused, the third enemy saw the opening in her defenses and rushed from behind. Sakura's scream is a few seconds later than the sound of the kunai hitting the bone in her shoulder. The rush of adrenaline and pain cause her body to shake, but her focus is back and sharper than ever. She drives her own hand backwards and slashes with her own kunai at the artery in the boy's leg.

She expects a grunt or maybe even a yell, but the scream of agony from behind her makes her flinch. She rolls away when both of his hands leave the kunai embedded in her left shoulder. She doesn't dare pull it out, knowing she'll bleed out in minutes without anyone to help her apply pressure. She looks back to the boy and almost vomits at the sight of his mangled groin. The blood is gushing from his half severed penis and he'll be dead in minutes if his teammates don't get him out of here and help him. She feels a sense of relief when she realizes she just ended this battle. She feels no guilt, which surprises her, but she tucks this away to analyze it later. She has no time for worrying about her mental state at the moment.