A/N: Surprise, I'm not dead yet!

Have fun, kids.

Sakura dreams of Sasuke telling her she's a failure after her sensei throws her off the team. When she wakes up, she's drenched in sweat and her heart pounds in her ribcage. It's not even four in the morning but she can't find it in herself to sleep for another hour. So she slowly stands up and takes a quick shower. After that, she stumbles tiredly into the kitchen.

She, frankly, doesn't give a shit about her diet today. A spontaneous cheat day, huh? Well, Sasuke-kun isn't on her team, so she doubts the centre of her attraction would notice her stomach bulging a bit from eating breakfast.

And if Ino-pig comments on it, Sakura will either way be able to beat her in the race towards Sasuke-kun's undying love. She could also beat Ino-pig up.
Thus, she munches on some quickly boiled salted rice and drinks three cups of orange juice.

The clock tells her it's still too early to walk to the training ground where she is to meet her sensei (she shudders just thinking about the woman) and the rest of her team. In recent years, Sakura has dedicated a lot of her time on looking presentable for her crush... now it would be utterly useless to do so. Not only is Sasuke-kun not on her team, no, she also doesn't think Kurenai-sensei (another shudder) would appreciate it if she went for beauty instead of comfort and practicality in her style.

What does the jonin even want to test them on? As far as Sakura knows, there aren't any requirements past the genin curriculum to study under a jonin sensei. Is it really just a spontaneous test because of Ino's and her behaviour the day before? But why would Kurenai bring Shino into it as well, then?

Sakura huffs and takes another sip from her juice. What a mess. Just because Ino-pig couldn't keep her big ass mouth shut for once!
Ah... she sighs and flushes when she remembers how she had reacted to the blonde's taunts. She hadn't been able to hold down her anger. Inner's voice had also cheered her on to defend her honour as Sasuke-kun's future wife.

So, it escalated a tad – but it isn't as if she'd throw a punch at Ino in the middle of a mission! "Really, you wouldn't?" Inner's traitorous voice doubts.

"Would I? Would I risk the mission success because I can't regulate my mood?" she asks herself and she can't honestly say she wouldn't. God, is she really such a... a little girl? Is Kurenai-sensei right? Is she unfit for service?

Sakura bites her lip and stares down on the table, hard enough that she feels a strain behind her eyes. Long buried insecurities are coming to light. No wonder with a sensei such as Yuuhi Kurenai. She's beautiful, she's tough and she's really dangerous – everything Sakura has ever wanted to be, even before she has met Sasuke-kun for the first time.

The girl sighs deeply, inhaling the early morning's air that rushes through the house. It's still kind of dark outside but as far as she can tell, it's going to be a typically sunny day. Her fingers clutch the glass in her hand.

"Will I ever be like her?" she asks herself quietly and forlorn. Sakura doesn't think she'd be able to live with the shame of not passing and being sent back to the Academy or being disqualified from service. What would she do if it comes down to it?

Her throat is all of a sudden rather clogged up and it's hard to swallow when her mouth is layered in a bitterness she'd never before known. Automatically, the grip on her glass tightens. Honestly? "I don't know" she thinks, "I... I really don't know. I just have to pass. I can't... I can't..." Inner remains suspiciously silent.

Sakura inhales, smelling the fresh wake of the upcoming day and she wants to vomit.

She can't...

... she really can't...

"AH!" the pinkette hisses in pain after a shattering sound echoes through the kitchen. She looks at her hand in shock. Leftover orange juice drips onto the hardwood floor. Faintly, she hears her mother's scolding about not cleaning it up immediately inside her head. The spiel is too familiar not to.

She clutches her bleeding hand and slowly drags out the shards that are stuck inside her palm. God, she's such an idiot. Tears are welling up in the corners of her eyes – Such an idiot, she is so freaking dumb it literally hurts...

Sakura blindly dances around the areas where she thinks stray shards lie and hurries to the bathroom. Her parents aren't here, they're still on yet another business trip and she... she feels helpless, alright? She doesn't even know whether she has managed to pick out every glass part and shouldn't she have let water run over it? Sakura swallows down a whimper when the gauze she fishes out of the poor med-kit touches the fresh wounds. Doesn't matter, she tells herself, it's getting late.

She doesn't have much time to spend on treating her injury before she has to get dressed for the team meeting.

Ignoring the pain, the girl walks into her room and chooses one of her black training jumpsuits. Sakura doesn't want to admit it but it's much more comfortable than the form-hugging quipao-like red dress she usually wears out in public.

Shinobi sandals are being put on with her healthy hand. She fastens the kunai pouch on her hips and ties her hitai-ate... not without having to hiss in discomfort as the small gashes stretch with the action, unluckily.

Sakura heads off to the training ground, jogging through empty streets.

She can see Shino's form from afar. He acknowledges her with a curt nod and she returns the gesture.
The Aburame heir eyes the bandaged hand almost immediately and raises an eyebrow in askance.

"Was an accident" she murmurs faintly, voice still rough because of the day's earliness. He answers: "Be more careful in the future, please. Why? Because it could hinder our work." It doesn't sound as aloof as it should, in Sakura's opinion. She doesn't know what to say to that, however, so she just settles for a dispassionate shrug.

Ino appears a couple of minutes - which are spent in an utterly awkward silence between Sakura and Shino – later. She wears her usual outfit as well but seems to be half asleep. Sakura's glad for that because for once, she's not inclined to start an argument with her ex best friend.

From the corner of her eyes, the pinkette sees Shino stiffen up because Ino has decided to use the poor lad as a makeshift pillow.
Minutes go by and Sakura's head finds the boy's other shoulder when their sensei, who seemed punctual but now isn't, doesn't appear. Shino sighs so quietly she almost doesn't hear the sound.

She grows tired of napping on her male teammate soon enough. Why is she so tired, tough? She hadn't... had she been... what?

The girl yawns tiredly, automatically raising her dominant hand to her mouth and – ouch!

Wait! The drowsiness is entirely gone all of a sudden. She squints and turns around to her teammates. They're... gone? What?! Oh, what the hell? She isn't even at the location where they were supposed to meet up!

"I'm your sensei. My name is Yuuhi Kurenai and I'm a genjutsu mistress." Sakura's eyes widen in realization. Of course their test has genjutsu included with a sensei such as Kurenai. She wants to smack a palm against her forehead. She only noticed the jutsu because the pain threw her out of it.

The girl runs towards the training ground, every couple of minutes clutching her injury and, for good measurement, calling out "Kai!" nearly as often.

Are Ino and Shino in similar situations? Sakura knows Ino is actually really out of it before eight in the morning and she doesn't know whether the boy's bugs detect such a subtle genjutsu yet.
When she arrives, though, a disgruntled looking pale blonde haired girl gives her an unimpressed look.

Shino just stands next to her, not saying anything.

"Genjutsu?" Sakura asks the other two.

"Noticed it after a while. Quite a bit earlier than you, huh, Sakura-pig?" Ino arrogantly answers, not at all being like the quiet genjutsu version of herself, which is probably due to the fact that she doesn't want to look weak in front of her rival. Inner Sakura sweat-drops.

"I don't know why it took you so long. It was really simple to detect." the only boy says.

Sakura frowns. While she has spoken to literally a genjutsu before dispelling it, she knows how Shino talks and what to look out for in the Aburame.

"KAI!" she roars...

...and promptly makes a fool out of herself when Shino doesn't vanish.

Ino chuckles and makes some remark about her weirdness but Sakura doesn't listen to the other girl's taunts. Instead, she scrutinizes the boy she knows isn't her teammate.
He suddenly grins and she sees the corner of an explosive tag on his collar.

Sakura reacts impulsively by grabbing Ino and hurrying the fuck away. Ino bitches for about three seconds before an ear-splitting explosion sounds behind them. The pink haired girl can feel bits of rubble hitting her back but she doesn't care. What she needs to do is finding a safe spot for Ino and her to make a plan to find the real Shino.

"What the hell?!" Ino cries but shuts up when Sakura hushes her.

The two of them flee towards the forest which encloses the training ground. Beneath a tree, Ino signs for Sakura to stop.

She does so without asking.

"W-We need a plan." Sakura stutters out of breath. Damn it, her stamina sucks ass.

Ino bites her bottom lip, not sure yet if she should trust Sakura or not. After a couple of moments, she looks into Sakura's eyes with determination and states: "First of all, we need to have a codeword to identify ourselves if we're ever split, right?"

"Right"

"We need something only we know of..." Ino says.

The pinkette has an idea. "Why I decided to become a kunoichi." she answers with a triumphant smirk. Only Ino and her know the real reason not the "Of course because of Sasuke-kun!" version.

A short nod confirms her suggestion. Now that they have time to assess their surroundings, the two girls listen for any sign of danger. Nothing but a light rustle of leaves caused by typical Konohan wisps of wind comes to their attention. Sakura breathes out a relieved sigh, slumping against an unyielding tree trunk. Her hand throbs uncomfortably. More distracting than that, however, is just how dishevelled her whole appearance must be at the moment. A small pang of something akin to shame lets her look down at the dewy grass.

"Sakura? Plan?" Ino startles her out of it – isn't it embarrassing, the pink haired girl asks herself quietly, how natural Ino can slip into a state of professionalism when she struggles so hard with it? She swallows down her bitterness to focus on the task at hand.

"How should we look for Shino? Do you have any idea how to locate him?"

Ino slowly shakes her head. "I could try to connect minds with a bird but..."

"Too dangerous?"

"Too dangerous." she agrees.

"Alright. Eh... then we'll have to search by foot. I doubt Kurenai-sensei would hide him too far away from the training ground. So... let's split and meet in ten minutes at the training ground again?" Sakura suggests and because Ino doesn't come up with something better than that, the blonde agrees. With that done, they coordinate where they'll search – Ino covering the whole south side while her team partner heads to the north.

Then, they disperse. Sakura runs towards her designated area, always alert and looking out for potential dangers. However, there doesn't seem to be any attempts at ensnaring her in another genjutsu. The foliage isn't dense enough for her not to see through it. She doesn't sense anything out of the ordinary. Sakura just hopes they are right in their presumptions about what they have to do. It just has to be about Ino and her retrieving Shino – it has to! Otherwise, it would mean they're ultimately wasting their efforts and time and she doesn't want to think about that being the case.

So she continues searching fruitlessly. The radius isn't all too big as the forest rather abruptly ends with Konoha's village gate directly stopping her.

Even before the ten minutes are gone by, the young kunoichi has a feeling that she won't find much besides trees and animals. When the time has come to meet up with her childhood friend, Sakura tries not to be disappointed by the failed search on her end. Perhaps Ino has found Shino... she truly hopes she did.

As Sakura wanders back to the training ground, she halts in her thought process. What was it...? "I really hope Ino found Shino." She's surprised at herself – how fast she'd been able to adapt in seeing the Yamanaka as her friend rather than her foe.

Ino already waits for her at the spot, hair ruffled and slightly sweaty just as Sakura is. Promptly, Sakura asks: "What was the reason why I became a shinobi?" and Ino answers just as readily: "You wanted to protect your civilian family."

"Did you find something?" the Haruno pleads after confirming their identities.

Ino grimaces, hair whipping right and left as she shakily denies.

"Shit..." Sakura curses, "What should we do now?!"

A bell rings. Its sound comes right from above their heads. The two girls snap their heads up in shock to see their jonin sensei appearing out of thin air with Aburame Shino at her side.

Ino lets out a slight gasp and Sakura can't help but fall to her knees. All this time, they'd been so goddamn close?! She feels stupid, unbelievably dumb... of course... never did they consider just looking up... The girl clenches her teeth. Her hand throbs uncomfortably when she makes a fist to try to contain her tears. They have failed... she has failed.

"I must say, you are something else." Kurenai begins, tone impartially neutral as she lands on the ground, "I didn't think you would manage to pass."

Sakura stares at the jonin in shock and Ino as well as Shino do so too. "But -?" she tries to speak but is silenced by Kurenai's hand.

"You never found your teammate and you never found me either. That much is true." Another wave of shame floods Sakura's gut. "However, your objective never once had been to find us. I am a genjutsu mistress – do you really think I can be found so easily by genin of all people? No."

"But what was the objective then?!" the blond haired girl intervenes. Now, Kurenai actually sports a small smile. The woman says: "Why, isn't it obvious? Teamwork, of course."

For a moment, the three genin are silent before Shino sceptically asks: "Why wasn't I a part of the test then?"

"Aburame have teamwork ingrained into every part of their lives – they have to share their bodies with insects which can be tricky if they don't work with them. I didn't want you to turn the tables by communicating and hauling them into teamwork." the genjutsu mistress steadily replies, "You two girls on the other hand, have actively worked against each other. I don't need mistrust and hatred in a team. Thus, I thought to myself: If they're really not capable of working with each other and set their rivalry aside, they're lost causes. But you did manage to work together, splendidly so. I am actually impressed."

Sakura and Ino share a genuine grin when Kurenai utters the next words: "You three are now officially part of Team Eight!" and even Shino, as stoic as he usually is, smiles into the collar of his coat.

Team Eight passes.