She laid flat on her roof, eyes closed. Above her, an endless field of stars and the bright pale moon hung against a dark sky. Up here, she could see everything—the whole village laid out before her. The streets had emptied a long time ago, and the vendors had all gone home. In that moment, it felt like Sakura was the only person in the village.

A light wind stirred through her hair, and it sounded like disappointment. Sakura didn't know what to think anymore.

The mission to Wave was the closest she had come to death, and it deeply unsettled her. The way two thin senbon could make it as if someone had died. The swathes of rogue criminals cut down by Zabuza with nothing but a kunai between his teeth. How no matter how powerful Haku and Zabuza had been, in the end they had still fallen like all the others. Sakura wondered if someday she would fall in the same way.

While Naruto and Sasuke had fought on, she had been frozen with fear. Useless. Weak.

She watched the sea of lights before her, watched a village she had lived in all her life, and she didn't know what to think anymore. She had never felt so lost.

Briefly, she entertained the thought of leaving, of going back to civilian life. Civilian life, where she would go into some trade like seamstress or actress or a shop clerk for her family's business. Civilian life, where someday, she was going to come across something much more powerful, like she did in Wave. And she wasn't going to be as lucky then.

She smiled wryly. Besides, the mission pay hadn't been bad. It hadn't been bad at all. Especially when the family shop hadn't been doing too well lately, and for the first time in years, her parents could breathe easy.

With the powerhouses on her team, they'd soon be taking C Ranks on the regular. But first, she had to close the gap between her and her team. She couldn't be weak anymore.

Kakashi blinked lazily. "How can I help my cute little genin?"

"I want to be on the same level as Sasuke and Naruto. Please teach me." Sakura said.

Kakashi's face took on a more alert look. He was taken aback. Out of all his genin, he never expected Sakura to say that to him. He had kind of been counting on it. Even after all these years, he would never be a good teacher. He would never be as good as Minato-sensei.

Still, Sakura was a quick learner. She would go easy on him. "Okay."

Sakura did a double take. "That's it?" She had at least expected him to try to bullshit some excuse.

"Mm. Let's start with water walking."

Sakura thought she got the hang of water walking, but she still sunk in a bit sometimes. Her pink hair hung limp in her face, half dried from the sun and dripping with sweat. It was far from glamorous, and she was incredibly glad Sasuke wasn't here to witness it.

Kakashi told her, "Keep practicing it for now. Chakra exercises are the fastest way to increase your reserves. Having extra reserves will open a lot of doors to more powerful jutsu, and you'll be able to last much longer in a fight."

He tilted his head, holding a hand up to his ear. "Ah, is someone calling my name?" He paused. Nodded decisively to himself. "Yep. There must be a kitten in a tree over there." He gestured to the distance, eye curving despite Sakura's incredulous stare.

"Later, Sakura." And in a spiral of leaves, he was gone.

Sakura sighed. It couldn't be helped. At least today was a start.

By sunset, Sakura had mastered water walking, water running, water skating, and every variation there was. Practicing it now was boring as hell. Maybe she should look up some more exercises…yeah, she should definitely do that.

The shelves were filled with scrolls for chakra control. Most of them were for basic exercises like the leaf exercise, and all of them were unlabeled. Maybe she should look elsewhere…she probably could pester some more exercises out of Kakashi. Just as she turned to leave, she caught a glimpse of an enormous scroll as big as her torso. Curious, she rolled it open.

It was filled with medium to advanced exercises. It was perfect. Sakura checked it out, clutching at it with both hands because it was also heavy as fuck. Maybe this Senju Tsunade could help her.

The first section of the scroll was filled with exercises, each one eloquently explained. For hours upon hours Sakura pored over it, absorbed in the extensive chakra theory and diagrams. Merely from reading it, Sakura could tell that Tsunade was a high caliber ninja.

And of course, she was. She was on the cover of the third volume of A History of Konoha Shinobi. She was one of a powerful trio known as the Sannin. She had revolutionized the healthcare system in Konoha. She was an alcoholic. She was a chronic gambler. She had abandoned Konoha to roam the nations in her grief.

It was she who had guided Sakura through the first of many lessons.

Exercise #4: Chakra Augmentation

Like the tree walking and water walking exercise, this one is widely applicable in combat. Many ninja come to unconsciously augment their attacks with chakra, but the power of such attacks is limited.

With fine enough chakra control and the knowledge of the specific muscles and bones to augment, one can achieve maximum attack potential. A punch to a tree may dent it, but an augmented punch could uproot it.

Ooh, Sakura couldn't wait to try this one out.

Oof. Sakura winced. She might have broken a bone there, her mom was not going to be happy...

Over the course of many weeks, Sakura broke many more bones in many more places and went on many more trips to the hospital. She even got many more ear-shattering lectures from her mom. But she also mastered augmentation.

As always, Kakashi arrived three hours late, with an innocent smile that promised pain for today. Sakura hoped it wasn't Tora.

It wasn't. Instead, it was a race through Konoha.

Three genin lined up, tense in anticipation. On either side of her, Sasuke and Naruto were having a staring contest. Sakura merely smirked.

Kakashi was perched on a roof, nose already buried in a book.

"Begin!" And Naruto and Sasuke were already far ahead.

Sakura breathed in. Breathed out. Pulled on her chakra, and she was speeding forwards. Sakura shouted in elation, legs carrying her past a blur of street vendors, past children playing in the street, past Naruto, and finally, past Sasuke. She will never forget the utterly flabbergasted look on his face as she sped past on that bright summer day.

That bright summer day, when Sakura smacked straight into a lamppost.

Another day, another D Rank mission. The sun shone down with punishing heat. The farmer grinned as he told them just what they would be doing: pulling potatoes, daikon radish, beets, and anything that would be "an absolute pain to pull out," as Naruto put it. He kind of reminded Sakura of Tazuna.

When she got to her plot of land, she crouched down, drawing chakra towards the tip of her index finger, holding it just beyond her distal phalange, and gave the ground her best flick. All the soil in a one meter radius cracked and loosened up. Sakura let out a small whoop, grabbed a potato stem, and set to work.

By the end, her pile of vegetables was bigger than Sasuke's and Naruto's combined. Kakashi gave her a thumbs up, and she gave him a proud, dirt-streaked grin. The farmer was incredibly pleased with their work, and before they left he pressed a basket of vegetables into her hands, giving her a sun-tanned smile.

That night, Sakura's father clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Good work, Sakura. Maybe you becoming a ninja isn't so bad after all."

Sakura retorted, "Being a ninja doesn't just mean free food…"

Her mother sang, "Well, that's even better!" Sakura raised her head just fast enough to catch her mother winking at her father. Sakura couldn't help but let out a laugh, and her parents soon followed.

As her team soon realized, Haruno Sakura had terrible aim. This was their first training session with weapons, and Kakashi already regretted it. With a thunk, Sasuke's shuriken hit the bullseye. Naruto's just barely missed the third ring, and Sakura—

Kakashi had to quickly bend over backwards as a shuriken whistled past. He breathed a sigh of relief. It would have shaved off the top of his hair, and Kakashi would have become the laughingstock of Konoha.

"Okay! Let's call this the end of this session!" Kakashi walked up to the training ground, where Sasuke and Naruto were slowly inching away from Sakura.

"Sasuke, widen your stance. Naruto, don't flick your wrist until the last second. Sakura…keep trying. And don't throw it while chakra enhanced. Not until you have one hundred percent accuracy."

Sakura gave him a sheepish smile. "Yes, sensei."

It would be the first of many afternoons that she stayed to practice.

And if Kakashi happened to be watching when Sakura executed her first chakra enhanced bullseye, fist pumping along with Sakura in delight, it wasn't because he was appreciating being a jounin sensei. Absolutely not.

.

A/N: This is a rewrite/redo of my other fic Precision, which has been discontinued due to various reasons such as plot issues, characterization issues, etc. I'm much happier with this version, and I hope you will enjoy it too!

Thanks for giving Chapter 1 a chance!

I promise it will get better, so please give Chapter 2 a try

Please tell me what you think! Like it/hate it/think it has some potential? Drop me a comment :D