With the Final Exams coming up, Sakura decided it was time she outfitted herself properly. Rin couldn't agree more, so she made her way down to the markets.

Entering a Ninja supply store (notably assigned to genin or final year Academy students), Sakura began browsing.

She always let Rin decide her wardrobe for her, simply because he had a better fashion sense….. Sakura had a strange feeling she should take offense to that, but shrugged and listened to his advice.

'Ok, first thing is a hakama, but this time get a few pairs in dark grey camouflage.' Sakura quickly grabbed a few, stuffing them into her bags.

Spotting a full body set of armor mesh, Rin had her buy that too. Sakura sweat-dropped at the price tag, but listened to his advice.

Her shopping spree continued much like this. She also bought a large amount of kunai and ninja wire. Her mother, having been a practicing doctor for two years, had given her as big a budget for her ninja gear as possible, which Sakura was very thankful for.

After buying a large amount of paper, meaning a gigantic industrial bale of it, she also bought brushes, protractors, other geometry tools, and ink. Along with that were books on basic sealing, which were one of the rare ninja arts books available in a store.

Finally, Sakura made an order at a weapons shop for custom gauntlets along with some engraving tools and, begrudgingly, some steel toed boots. Apparently they were actually required to have some form of footwear, who knew?

Dragging all her purchases back home, Sakura smiled. It felt good to be able to buy her own things now.

It was rather easy for Sakura to pass her exams. She stopped hiding her skill slowly over the last year, so it was no surprise that she managed to get top kunoichi and ninja of the year.

She passed with flying colors on her written exams, and got a solid 7/10 for her taijutsu.

Weapons she got on average an 8/10, and her Academy three were spot on.

Sakura felt relieved, she didn't have to hide her skills anymore, who would graduate her early on the last year? Anyways, when got her Hitai-ate, she put it on her forehead for the moment (which she felt was rather pedestrian, who wears a forehead protector on their forehead?)

The next week Sakura was looking herself over in the mirror. Rin had decided to do away with her former simplistic outfit for what she'd likely wear for most of her genin through chunin ranks.

It consisted of a full body armored mesh (minus sleeves), over it was a sleeveless dark grey top that was almost skintight. It had a turtleneck, with a seam going down the middle with a zipper. It continued down under her hakama to just above her knees, so it wasn't a top, more sort of like a swim suit, but not….. moving on.

She wore a pair of dark grey camo hakama tied with a thick black leather belt, her Hitai-ate acting as a buckle, with the open sides reached down to mid thigh, allowing for access to kunai pouches attached to her legs under the hakama.

On her arms were sturdy but lightly built gauntlets, They were fully articulated plate armor, carefully designed by both herself and Rin. It offered maximum protection with removing the ability to form handsigns. They ended at the elbow with flat elbow guards, showing off the fair amount of muscle she'd made with her constant exercise.

Over her head Sakura had a black cloth hiding the hair on her scalp, tied just above her ponytail.

And now, the final piece. A pair of goggles. They were simple, black rimmed with sturdy lenses. Rin called them "steampunky", but since she didn't know what that was so she shrugged and put them on her forehead. They'd be useful at some point she was sure.

Quickly pulling out some of the hair from her sides at Rin's suggestion, Sakura braided them into thin braids to frame her face, before nodding approvingly. Rin had never let her down before on outfits. She felt strangely… punkish, with the head-cloth, but shrugged and began filling her hakama's inside pockets with kunai before jumping away with her new sealing book in hand.

She didn't know where she'd get the time to read it, sut Rin told her to grab it, so she shrugged and complied.

As usual, Sakura sat next to Hinata, who looked up from a scroll she was reading and smiled.

"Oh, Sakura-sama, you look nice." Sakura grinned at the praise.

"Thanks, who do you think will be our teammates? Unfortunately, I'm top kunoichi, so I'll probably be with Sasuke and Naruto." Sakura sighed, she didn't particularly like either boy, mostly because Naruto made a bad first impression and Sasuke….

Well, having the voice in your head rage about snotty pretty boys and emo-shits tends to wither your attraction after a while.

Iruka stepped up to the front of the class and smiled.

"First thing I would like to say is how proud I am of all of you. Making it to genin is a remarkable feat. I hope to work with you in the future. Now, team assignment. Team one..." Sakura phased him out until he got to her name.

"Team seven will be Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto, and Uchiha Sasuke." Sakura blinked.

"Called it." Hinata giggled, before turning her attention to the next list of names.

Meanwhile, Rin spoke up.

'Read Sakura, it'll take a while from here.' Sakura sighed, but diligently took out her sealing book.

The first few chapters were…. well, fascinating. It was easy to parse through the math, she'd been quite proficient in that area for a long while, her mathematics and a large amount of scientific basics were already taught to her by Rin.

After a while, Sakura took out a piece of paper and some ink out of her left pouch and began drawing one of the safest and most basic seals, it would simply release a thin trail of smoke, but had to be constantly charged to function.

Feeding it some of her chakra, Sakura grinned with glee at her first successful seal as it began releasing smoke.

'Congratulations Sakura, continue reading that book. This'll be very useful indeed.'

Sakura nodded absently, before cleaning up her mess and opening the next chapter.

During the course of her reading through the book, her classmates were called away. She waved distractedly to Hinata when she left before returning to her book.

She barely noticed the time passing by, when she did, it was to Naruto raucous laughter.

"Got you! Hahahaha!" Sakura blinked, looking to see a non-descript jonin with an eraser on his head.

"My first impression….. I hate you." Sakura groaned and head-desked.

The jonin stared at them impassively before speaking up again.

"Meet on the roof in five minutes." Then he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

It took a minute for the three of them to make it to the roof, where their new sensei was reading an orange covered book casually.

"Good of you three to finally make it. Now, I think it's time to introduce ourselves. You know, likes, dislikes, that sort of thing." Sakura tilted her head.

"Why don't you tell us a bit about yourself first." The grey haired man blinked, or winked. Hard to tell.

"My name is Hatake Kakashi, I have likes, some dislikes. My hobbies are none of your business and I have dreams. Okay, you next Blondie."

Naruto grinned widely before jumping on a soapbox that wasn't there a second ago with his arm in the air.

"My name's Uzumaki Naruto, I like Ramen, I dislike Sas-uke" Sakura started choking on her own spittle "My hobbies are pranking the living daylights out of my victi- I mean, those….. jerks…. And my dream, IS TO BE HOKAGE!"

Everyone blinked, before Kakashi casually turned to Sakura, so she scratched her cheek. While Naruto calmed down, annoyed at his exuberance being ignored.

"My name is Haruno Sakura, I like training and blowing things up." a creepy grin appeared on her face, before she shook her head,"I also like beef jerky…. a lot. My dislikes are suitors, "She flicked her eyes to Naruto, who turned white for….absolutely no reason, no reason at all…. "And shoes. My hobbies are cooking and endurance running, and my dream….. well, that's a little private."

Luckily Rin had warned her from telling Kakashi about her dream of being an S-class nin, that probably wouldn't go well.

Sasuke grunted.

"Hn, My name is Uchiha Sasuke, I don't have many likes, and a lot of dislikes, my dreams and goals are one, to kill a certain man and restore my clan."

Kakashi nodded.

"Good. Now, it's time for us to perform the real test." Everyone froze, before the silence was broken by, you guessed it...

"But we already finished the genin test!" Kakashi chuckled evilly at Naruto.

"No, that was simply to cut the wheat from the chaff. The real genin test is personally supervised by your potential jonin sensei. I'll warn you now, 2/3 of the graduating academy students fail this test, so there will only be … nine who succeed in being genin." Naruto paled, and Sasuke glared at Kakashi, trying to burn a hole through him with his eyes…..

'Rin, stop making those ominous spooky noises, you know I hate that.'

Kakashi eye-smiled at them.

"Come to training ground 7 tomorrow morning at 8 am sharp, And don't eat breakfast, you'll puke."

'Sakura, I hope you know that that is bullshit, eat your breakfast, but make sure you're on time…. With a good amount of Fuinjutsu materials. We'll use the time to practice." Sakura mentally nodded, before making her way home after Kakashi shunshined away.

In the morning, Sakura quickly ate a simple meal of noodles and rice before making sure she had all of her Kunai sharpened and packed securely in her hidden leg holsters. She wished she knew how to make explosive tags, but normal kunai would do for now.

Running at an easy pace to the training grounds so that she'd have any energy she'd need later, Sakura bemoaned having to where boots. But Rin had decided if she had to wear them, might as well go all the way.

No matter, she made it to the training ground quickly enough, then sat with her back to one of the poles and took out her fuinjutsu equipment.

Starting a practice set of seals, she began drawing out a simple chakra looping seal. It would take her chakra and loop it around. It was hard to see the result, so she'd need to also connect a weak light seal to it.

It took her ten minutes to finish inking it, and unfortunately the light didn't even light up at all no matter how much chakra she put in the seal.

Furrowing her brow, Sakura looked over her seal before groaning at the obvious mistake. Her main circle was somewhat wobbly, so she'd need to practice her calligraphy quite a bit for a while.

Sighing, She began practicing it with a small notebook, comparing her symbols and kanji, plus simple geometric shapes, to the images in her book.

It would probably take at least a week or two to get this skill down first before she could do more complex seals.

Sakura blinked when she noticed there was a feather hanging in front of her face, and followed it's length to see Naruto was holding to her face by balancing atop the pole above her.

"Yo, anyone in there?" Sakura groaned and put her supplies away.

"You should stop doing that, I'll need to take…. Drastic measures. Books, books everywhere." Naruo only paled slightly this time before plastering a confident grin on his face.'"Oh yeah? How about we spar right now, I'm stronger than any girl!" Sakura made a despondent sigh, smirking internally.

"Oh, if you can't even win against poor weak little Kiba, then how will you beat me?" She waited a few seconds, before grinning at Naruto burst out of anger.

"Damnit, come here!" Sakura dodged out of the way, sticking out her tongue.

"Too slow, your a hundred years to early to fight me." Before things could escalate further, Kakashi poofed into existence between them.

"Yo"

"YOU'RE LATE!" Naruto screamed and immediately threw a book at Kakashi.

It was caught in his hand, and Sakura realized that it was her fuinjutsu book.

"Naruto… STOP TAKING MY THINGS!" With a smack, Naruto hit a pole and collapsed.

Kakashi took in the chaos, then blinked at the utterly calm and barely noticeable Sasuke leaning against another pole.

"You're boring." He said, making Sasuke grunt.

"Hn." Turning to his students, Kakashi eye-smiled.

"Well, time for the test. Now." He held up a hand, revealing two bells dangling from his fingers.

"The objective is simple, take these bells from me by noon, you must come at me with the intent to kill, or you will not be able to touch them. Oh, and if you fail you don't get lunch, and of course you get sent back to the academy." He set down some bentos on top of the wooden posts, before walking to the center of the clearing and taking out his orange book.

"Ok-"

"Graaaah!" Naruto charged right in with a kunai in each hand, but Kakashi flickered for a second before Naruto was back on the ground.

"I didn't say go yet. Anyway." He eye-smiled again."Start."

Sasuke immediately ran into the forest to hide, while Naruto just charged and Sakura went into a ready stance.

"Oh." Kakashi looked to her. "I understand Naruto, brash as he is-" "hey!" "-but you, why aren't you stealthing it?"

Sakura huffed.

"Please, you're a jonin, no way I can hide from you. So Naruto, wanna team up? I'd say it to Sasuke too but he ran off." Naruto grinned.

"Of course Sakura-chan!" Sakura grinned and turned to Kakashi, throwing a kunai at the same time.

"Good." She formed a handsign, calling out five clones and attacking with them.

Kakashi ignored the clones to focus on her, even if he was still reading that damn book, when she reached him, she quickly made a jab for his side, before letting Naruto get in close.

Of course, it was more like he almost dislocated her arm and flipped her over before Naruto was literally kicked head over heels before flopping to the ground, wind knocked out of him, but it was the thought that counted.

Kakashi tisked.

"Good idea, but not good enough. Now, how are yu going to get these bells?" Sakura flipped away, panting and rolling her shoulder.

'You'll need to get Sasuke to help too Sakura, or he won't pass all of us."

'Fine, let's go!' Sakura ran into the forest, glaring at Naruto to get him to follow.

Quickly finding Sasuke by small signs he'd let in his wake to hide, Sakura blinked at the sight of him buried up to the neck.

"Where'd Sensei get the time to do this?" Sakura sighed, before digging a bit and looking to Naruto.

"Naruto, help me get Sasuke out, we'll need to work together to do this." Both boys scrunched their noses.

"I don't need help to defeat him."

"Why should we help him!?"

Sakura smiled kindly to Naruto.

"I know this nice bookstore Naruto." He paled and quickly began digging Sasuke out.

"Consider your price for us digging you out to be working together, alright Sasuke?"

"Hn."

After a minute of digging, they grabbed Sasuke under the arms and lifted the boy out of the ground.

Nodding at them, Sakura grinned.

"I have a plan."

Kakashi hummed to himself as he read a section of his favorite Icha Icha,

Megumi sighed wearily.

"Rochi, our battles have been hard fought, but we return successful, come, join me in the Onsen."

But Megumi!, it is not Mixed bathing!

"Silly, that doesn't matter, here, I'll even let you wash my back, i don't mind wandering hands.-

Before he could turn the page to the more juicy content, Kakashi noticed his little genin charging.

Smirking, Kakashi turned to meet Sakura and Naruto again, when suddenly he was surrounded by dozens of Narutos and Sakuras.

Blinking, Kakashi dodged the hail of shuriken from the treetops, revealing Sasuke's position.

Effortlessly dodging whilst curb stomping any clone he came across, Kakashi noticed some were illusionary.

Suddenly, Kakashi noticed a glint on the ground and smirked, but let the carefully set out web of ninja wire catch his feet.

A chakra heavy, but physically stealthy presence slipped something from his waist, and Kakashi chuckled in his mind, letting them have this little victory.

Before they could assume they'd actually beaten him, Kakashi let out a swinging kick that disbursed most of the nearby clone, while the rest dispelled by themselves.

"Ha Kakashi! We got your stupid bells!" The cyclops turned to the voice, and chuckled at the sight of Naruto holding the bells.

"Well, I guess one of you is going back to the Academy, now, who will you choose Naruto?" Naruto blinked, furrowing his brow in thought, before Sakura sighed.

"Naruto." He turned "Give one to Sasuke."

Naruto stepped back, in shock.

"W-what Sakura, why would I give that bastard a bell instead of you?" Sakura grinned.

"Well, you can't do another year of the academy or you'll fail outright right? So keep yours and give one to Sasuke. He'll serve Konoha better than me." Blink in shock, the gears in Naruto's mind turned, before huffing.

"As if, here you two." He shoved the bell into both of their hands.

"I'll become hokage another way, Dattabayo!"

Sakura gazed warily at her sensei, she trusted Rin with her life, but…. This was a life defining moment.

"Ok, you sure about your decision Naruto?" The boy nodded, a fierce look in his eye, before Kakashi started looking over him.

"You pass." Sasuke and Naruto blinked in shock, before Naruto jumped in the air.

"Hell yeah! Uh wait, I thought one of us had to go back to the academy?" Kakashi chuckled openly.

"Mah mah, this test was all about teamwork. Here is one line that you will remember if you are to be my genin team." He paused, "Breaking the rules makes you scum, but abandoning your comrades makes you worse than scum, remember that. Now, bento?"

All three students, even Sakura, nodded eagerly.

Fighting a jonin was hungry work.

AAAAAAAAAnd, done! A bit iffy towards the end there, but meh, I wanted to get the bell test over with.

Now….. D RANKS!, MYAHAHAHAHAHAHA!