Chapter 20 || Resolution

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A month passed since she became a tokubetsu jounin and during that month, Sakura had been sent on five missions. Three of which were with Genma.

She knew that it was pretty much a given that they would work well together, seeing as she was practically a tailor-made partner for him, but she'd still been shocked at just how seamlessly they moved around each other, including the other in their plans then executed them without a hitch. It seemed that all she needed to do was think something, and Genma was already there, doing it. Her illusions and his accuracy with throwing weapons made for a deadly combination attack, just like they had planned, and yet she was still in awe. And, for the first time, Sakura found herself laughing and joking around as she completed an assassination, able to think of more than just the nauseating fact that she was already in the triple-digits of successful targets.

Tsunade's face, when they got back from a mission that was meant to last a week three days early, was also a perk.

For that first month, Sakura was living on cloud nine, inwardly laughing in the face of anyone who'd told her she should've held off, should've enjoyed being a chunin and whatnot, instead of rushing to get her promotion. It was the happiest she'd felt since that mission to Suna with Shikamaru, a year back.

Shikamaru.

While she'd been in recovery from the concussion she earned from her fight with Gaku, the Nara had come and briefed her on their next mission – a three-way joint Chunin Exams between Konoha, Suna, and Kiri, just as they'd suspected.

She and Shikamaru were responsible for the Konoha part of the Exam, also like they'd suspected.

The surprise came a month before the First Stage was meant to begin.

Every time she returned to the Village, she saw more and more foreign shinobi milling about, until Tsunade called her into her office and dropped the bombshell – she now had a Hokage-enforced month off missions to design the written exam with Shikamaru.

Not implement it.

Design it.

Not for the first time, Sakura wondered about the percentage of important decisions that were made when Tsunade wasn't 100% sober.

When she found Shikamaru and told him just what Tsunade wanted from them, he glared at her. "Okay, very funny. Now what did she actually say?" he snarked, and it was only when Sakura's expression didn't change that he paled. "Don't tell me you were serious."

All Sakura could do was nod, then start laughing, because even if her reaction had been exactly the same, there was something to be said about sharing that ridiculous responsibility with someone like Shikamaru.

As they said; a burden shared is a burden halved, right?

Especially if the person she was sharing with was a certified genius.

A week later, that optimism was shot five ways to hell.

"This is ridiculous!" Sakura groaned as she balled up yet another mock question paper they'd designed and promptly dismissed. "Certified genius, top kunoichi," she said, pointing at Shikamaru and then at herself dramatically, "this shouldn't be so damn hard!"

"Troublesome." The Nara huffed, lobbing the balled-up draft he'd snatched from Sakura to the waste paper pile. "The worst is that we have to take this seriously, or Tsunade-sama will murder us."

When Sakura froze, his eyes widened slightly, "No. Whatever you're going to say, the answer is no." he shook his head, and although Sakura had indeed been about to suggest something, she closed her mouth and pouted.

"But you don't even know what it is yet!" she whined, letting herself act fourteen for once and tilting her head this way and that when Shikamaru tried to avoid eye contact.

"No, but I know you. You're gonna say we should mess with the candidates or something." He snorted, resuming his position of lounging on the sofa as they went through the drafts of the question papers they'd each sketched up over the week.

Sakura shut her mouth with a click, then poked his side. "That's creepy." Was all she said, knowing that that was exactly what she was going to suggest.

All Shikamaru did was roll his eyes and throw the next rejected test at her forehead. "' Certified genius' I believe you called me."

"Ha-ha." She retorted sarcastically, then sobered. "No, but just hear me out: you know what really grated at me after graduating? That is what we learnt in the Academy hardly ever talked about other Hidden Villages. When we went to Kiri and Suna, I had to consult other books, and other people, otherwise I'd have been stumbling in the dark in an unsafe, unstable environment and would've probably made a fool of myself in the first five minutes." She paused, seeing the moment Shikamaru caught on. "So, I was thinking, pop quiz. The exam will test what they know about the other nations."

The glint in Shikamaru's eyes was calculative, sly. "And," he continued, suddenly seeming completely on board with the idea despite his protests not five minutes back, "there's no way they can know every answer. We should make the pass percentage something ridiculous, like ninety, so that they'll have to talk to the foreigners."

Sakura stared at the brunet so long he actually started fidgeting. "What?" he asked, at last, flinching back a little when the rosette grinned, wide and toothy.

"I created a monster." She observed, but she didn't seem in the least worried or repentant. Instead, she offered her hand to him, palm perpendicular to the ground in an expectant high-five, and Shikamaru snorted, but obligingly slapped it lightly with his own. "Let's do it."

Two weeks later, on the day of the written exam, Anko and Ibiki were staring at the copy of the question paper they had designed, eyebrows raised and, in Anko's case, grinning evilly.

"And you didn't think to confirm this with anyone before the actual test day?" Ibiki demanded, so Sakura shot him her best smile while Shikamaru coughed to smother his laugh.

"Tsunade-sama didn't say anything about that, sorry." And now it was Anko's turn to smother a snort. "Is it to your satisfaction?"

Ibiki shot her a disbelieving look, one that said very clearly that he knew what she was trying to pull and was very tempted to put a stop to it. "I'll answer that if we don't have an international crisis on our hands by the end of the day." He told her dryly, and Sakura saluted, making his eyes narrow. "Am I to assume you've already put this into circulation?"

If possible, the rosette's grin only grew. "Circulation? Not quite. I have, however, laid it out on the desks where the Exam participants have been told to gather and hid it under a large-scale area-effect illusion." She paused, noting the incredulous expression on her supervisor's face, as well as Anko's almost hysterical state. "A...Along with all the invigilators?"

Ibiki took a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation, and Anko recovered enough to choke out a reasonably-serious "So what's the plan, pinky?"

"Well, they walk in, see an empty room, then Shika and I come in and explain the Exam, they do it... and at the end, I drop the illusion and the invigilators say who passed or failed?" Sakura tried to explain the plan she and Shikamaru had come up with, guessing by the glint of approval in Anko's eyes that her senpai was very much on their side.

Ibiki opened his mouth to say something, but a loud call of 'Sakura-chan!' cut him off. All four turned in the direction of the voice, but only one recognized the woman heading towards them.

"Eri-san?" Sakura asked, puzzled, taking in the civilian woman's haggard state and the fussing toddler in her arms. "Is everything alright?"

Eri stopped before the group, but her eyes were trained on the teenager. "Sakura-chan, I'm so sorry to ask this of you, but Rai was sent out yesterday, I can't find Genma anywhere and the daycare I'd normally take Kei-chan to is closed today and I've got to go have some tests done-!"

"Eri-san." Sakura cut the woman off, noticing that Kei was starting to pick up on his mother's distress. "Do you want me to take Kei-chan for the day?" she suggested, trying to confirm if she guessed right.

The woman seemed to sag with relief right before her eyes, but there was worry in her gaze. "I-I did hope that you could, yes, but it looks like you're busy so I'll just-" before she could quite finish, she found herself short of a toddler and with a bag of melonpan in her arms instead. She blinked owlishly at the rosette, but Sakura just smiled, hitching Kei up so he rested more comfortably against her shoulder.

"Go, Eri-san. Do whatever you need and try to relax, okay? I'll look after little Kei-chan for a few hours."

Eri stared at her for a few more seconds then darted forward and hugged her, mindful of her son still in her arms, then waved and hurried in the direction of the hospital, promising to pick him up in a few hours.

When Sakura turned back around, three raised eyebrows greeted her.

"Babysitting?" Anko asked at last, eyeing Kei as if she was waiting for him to explode. "Better yet, babysitting strangers' kids?"

Sakura scoffed and with a flick of her fingers, a butterfly was circling Kei's head, just like the first time she'd met the boy. "He's Namiashi Raido's son, senpai."

There was something like approval in Ibiki's eyes while Anko snorted, and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'bloody paranoid bastard'. But it was Shikamaru who drew her attention, a light hand on her elbow and a meaningful nod towards the sundial on the wall of the Academy.

"...Shit."

They were late.

Ino was unbelievably nervous as she watched the seconds tick by, scanning the crowds to try and spot the other Rookies even as she exchanged a nervous glance with Chouji by her side. Finding themselves in an Academy classroom empty of either exam papers or invigilators had been odd, but finding out that teams could sit together had thrown her considerably more, especially as she thought back to how much effort had been put in in her first Chunin Exams to separate teams. She watched as the minute hand moved to the middle between '1' and '2', officially making their proctor seven minutes late. Seven dreadful minutes, during which Ino couldn't help but picture a horrible invigilator, some twisted mix of that Mitarashi woman and Morino-san and those creepy Ame guys from the previous exam and she could feel herself growing green-

"Alright!"

The doors slammed open, hitting the walls with a crack like thunder and at least half of the chunin hopefuls jumped a foot in the air at the noise, tense as they were. And then, Ino watched two very familiar figures walk down the aisle between the desks, decked out in the standard Konoha flak jackets and mission gear, looking imposing and in control despite being decades younger than some of the other participants.

And then, Sakura and Shikamaru came to a halt at the raised platform at the front of the room, and Ino finally realised that Sakura's left arm was holding up a child.

A toddler, by the looks of it, no more than a year and a half, maybe two years old. The child seemed very comfortable in the rosette's arms and was swatting at a butterfly fluttering just outside of his reach.

"Sorry for the delay, a minor issue came up-" Shikamaru snorted at Sakura's side and the pinkette bared her teeth in a sharp grin, "but crisis has been averted. Now, we have been assigned the questionable honour of explaining this part of the Exams to you, so listen up 'cause we're only going to say this once." And Ino couldn't help but marvel at the way half the room immediately straightened up, clearly at attention.

Shikamaru stepped forward and, at some unseen sign, Sakura's fingers twitched, and suddenly, a question paper and a pencil were laid out before every candidate and a surprised murmur rose up across the room. Ino tried to catch Sakura's eyes, but apart from the tiny curl to her lip, she remained largely nonplussed, unconsciously bouncing the toddler up and down when he sneezed and started fussing quietly.

"Your jounin sensei should've informed you that, in the spirit of the alliance that now exists between Suna, Konoha and Kiri, this Exam will be split between these three countries. Konoha has been entrusted with the written section. The rules are as follows: you have an hour to answer as many questions as you can. The test is out of a 100. Each team must get 270 altogether to pass." He glanced back at Sakura, and she nodded, turning to look at the clock at the front of the room, waiting till the second hand came up to the very top before she grinned and clapped her hands.

"Begin!"

Describe the geographical position of Suna and explain how it affects its climate.

What is the name of Kirigakure's famous kenjutsu group?

Name the two founders of Konohagakure.

Who is the current Raikage?

With reference to its geographical position and recent history, explain why Amegakure has the highest percentage of immigrants in its active shinobi ranks.

What is Sunagakure's signature dish?

Ino gawked at the paper, disbelief and anger warring within her in equal parts. How on earth was anyone expected to be able to answer these questions?! She raised her head and glared at the duo at the front of the room, only for her eyes to grow wide when she took in her old teammate and once-best friend. Sakura and Shikamaru were sitting at the teacher's desk, talking in low voices and not paying any attention to the rest of the room, while the toddler Sakura had brought in was sitting in her lap, back resting against the rosette's chest so his head and torso was above desk-level, babbling quietly to himself while he attempted to finger-paint with ink on what Ino belatedly realised was Sakura's very expensive fuinjutsu paper.

But the one thing that stuck out was the fact that neither Sakura nor Shikamaru were looking at any of the chunin candidates, weren't trying to spot any cheaters or make sure no one was talk-

Hold on a minute.

Ino frowned as she recalled Shikamaru's introduction to the test, realising too late that her old teammate hadn't said anything about cheating. Hadn't mentioned the punishment nor the penalty, and, now that she thought about it, hadn't even mentioned the 'absolute silence' rule that the Academy senseis had always stressed.

And, when Ino looked at some of the questions, well. There was no way she was ever going to be able to answer most of them.

Not alone.

As surreptitiously as she could, she nudged Chouji, then pointed at the question about Suna's food. Slowly, though his hand trembled slightly, the Akimichi pulled his own test over and pointed at his answer, letting Ino copy it down. Glancing around again, Ino realised that she wasn't the only one nudging her teammates, though most people were still sitting with their heads bent down, working quietly, or running their hands through their hair in clear distress.

Throwing caution to the wind, she turned completely around in her seat and faced a young, blue haired girl from Kiri.

"Hi." Ino mouthed with her best smile. "How do you feel about helping each other? In the spirit of the alliance, of course."

The girl eyed her distrustfully, exchanged a look that seemed to carry an entire conversation with the other two kunoichi on her team (and wasn't that just unfair? An all kunoichi team!) before turning back to Ino with an adorable, gap-toothed grin.

"Deal." She mouthed, and promptly slipped Ino her paper, while Ino quickly grabbed Chouji's and pointed to all the answers about Konoha while she copied down the Kiri-specific ones.

"Do you think they're gonna figure it out?" Shikamaru asked absently, pulling the fuinjutsu paper towards him so that Kei's ink-drowned finger landed on the paper and not the table. The toddler, for all of his adorableness, had not quite grasped basic hand-eye coordination yet, and his motor functions were questionable at best.

Sakura shrugged, trying and failing to coax Kei into making shapes that at least vaguely resembled kanji or at least something recognisable instead of a big, black blob. "I dunno. You were very vague with your instructions, so at least some of them should realise it was intentional."

"And if they don't?" the Nara pressed, looking around surreptitiously and noticing that some people were staring to turn around and talk to those around them.

Sakura looked up from Kei's artwork and levelled him with an unusually serious look. "Then it will highlight a very obvious fault in our educational system, won't it?"

Shikamaru stayed silent at that, then breathed out a mix between a sigh and a laugh. "I suppose it will."

A few more minutes passed, and at a little over the half an hour mark, there was movement from the desks. Ino stood up, consciously not looking at neither Shikamaru nor Sakura, and headed towards the end of her row, crouching next to a team from Iwagakure.

And then, it was as if a spell broke, and at least one person from each team got up and wandered to whatever team they needed help from, conversing in low voices, some laughing, others only a step away from hostile, but overall, Sakura couldn't help but send a victorious smirk at Shikamaru when he turned back to her.

In response, he scowled and threw one of the balled up sealing tags at her head. "Shut up."

In the end, almost half of those who sat the exam didn't pass, and it was largely composed of those who did not come from Konoha, Suna or Kiri and were even more unwilling to work together than the former. There was – and luckily so, Sakura mused – at least one team from the other Villages that did pass, so Konoha wasn't going to be accused of fixing the results. Then there were also those who point-blank refused to ask others for help or simply never looked up from their own paper and didn't get enough points to qualify for the next stage.

On a completely unrelated note, Sakura had to admit that dropping the second layer of the disillusionment jutsu and revealing that the walls of the room were lined with grinning chunin from T&I had been one of the most satisfying moments in her career so far, and made the chakra drain that came with maintaining such a large-scale illusion for over an hour more than worth it.

Still, after everyone had dispersed and Sakura had managed to escape the T&I workers who knew and recognised her and wanted to share in their schadenfreude with her, her and Shikamaru were summoned to Tsunade's office about their, ah, performance, during the first stage. To their surprise, the woman had laughed, told them the Elders were livid, and threatened them with a mission to Frost if they ever gave her such a headache again, then promptly told them that they were going to be separated for the next stage.

When Shikamaru found out he was going to Suna alone, the expression on his face sent Sakura into a laughing fit that even Tsunade's glare couldn't calm.

"H-Have fun w-with Chiyo!" she managed to choke out in-between giggles, barely dodging the swat the Nara made at her head.

"Is there no way for Sakura to come with me, Tsunade-sama?" Shikamaru asked, and though he wasn't begging, not quite yet, there was a slight trace of a whine in his tone.

And Tsunade, the sadist, smirked. "Haruno's particular area of expertise will be needed for an infiltration mission in

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