"Okay, how about a quick spar before we get started?" proposed Sakura, grabbing her shoulder and rolling her arm to loosen up her joints. "I want to see what I'm working with."
"Who died and made you team leader?" snorted Ino derisively.
"Come on, let's not start fighting already," said Chōji, trying to smooth things over. "If Sakura can beat Shikamaru at shogi, Othello and go, then I'm sure she's smart enough to lead us just like him…"
There were still a few days before the Chūnin exams began in earnest, so Sakura had decided to take Tsunade's advice and try to improve her teamwork with Ino and Chōji at the Third Training Ground, the legendary training spot that successive iterations of Team 7 had used for generations. She already knew both of their skill sets from having watched the anime, but fists spoke louder than words— and besides, they didn't know what she could do.
"Ugh, fine," said Ino, rolling her eyes. "Okay, so who goes first?"
"Nope. You're going to be coming at me together," Sakura said, pulling a pair of silver bells from her weapons pouch and giving them a jingle, like keys dangled in front of a toddler. "Your goal is to take these from me."
Ino's eyes narrowed.
For Sakura to propose a two-on-one match so casually, she was either extremely confident in her abilities… or seriously underestimating them. Ino knew for a fact that Sakura hadn't left the village or faced any real life-or-death battles in the past two years. So, if she thought this was going to be an easy win, she had another thing coming!
"Just to clarify, I'm not looking down on you," said Sakura, shrugging. "I've already passed the Chūnin exams last time, so you're the ones who actually have to pass this time around. I'll be taking a more passive role, but I still have to make sure you don't get knocked out too early."
In other words, Sakura was less interested in their raw strength and more in observing their teamwork— positioning herself to fill the Shikamaru-shaped void in Team 10.
"I'll consider it my loss if you can force me to use my Sharingan, Genjutsu… or somehow manage to grab the bells," said Sakura sweetly, dropping said bells into her cleavage and blowing a kiss in Ino's and Chōji's direction. "Well then, shall we dance?"
"Uooooh!" shouted Chōji excitedly. "Suddenly, I'm feeling super motivated for some reason!"
START!
"Partial Multi-Size Jutsu!"
"Wait, Chōji!" cried Ino. "She's obviously trying to bait you!"
But Chōji wasn't listening.
His right hand and arm expanded to enormous sizes, and he reached for Sakura, who was still standing still on the spot. He felt his hand wrap around her soft body, and he squeezed just hard enough to keep her from escaping.
"Got her!" shouted Chōji. "Ino, it's up to you now!"
Touching a girl was one thing— it couldn't be helped in a spar— but shoving an arm down her shirt was quite another. If anyone ever found out he'd done that, he could kiss his social life goodbye… forever.
"Mind Transfer Jutsu!"
Ino made a little window with her fingers and aimed at Chōji's enormous hand. As long as she successfully managed to throw her spiritual energy at her opponent's centre of mass, she would push out their consciousness and take control of their body!
Ino's body went limp.
Chōji released his grip on Sakura's body… only to discover that he'd been holding on to a blow-up sex doll all along. Then, he felt a sharp prick on his neck, and he froze— or rather, he couldn't have moved even if he had wanted to!
"Looking for someone?" Sakura whispered sultrily in his ear. "Don't worry, the numbness will wear off shortly."
…
"Well, what did we learn?" asked Sakura patronisingly as Ino and Chōji's bodies stirred.
It had taken a few minutes for Chōji to recover from his paralysis and for Ino's spiritual body to finally manage to find its way back to its corporeal prison of flesh. Luckily for her, her spiritual attack had passed right through the blow-up doll and kept going into the void— Sakura could hardly think of a worse fate than getting her consciousness sealed inside an abandoned sex doll for the rest of her life.
"How did you do that?" groaned Chōji, rubbing his neck. "I know I caught you…"
"Partial Multi-Size Jutsu has a rather glaring flaw, don't you think?" said Sakura, shaking her head. "It makes your limbs so big you can't see what you're looking at."
Since Sakura often came to the Third Training Ground after work, she knew its layout by heart. Perverts would often follow her from the village and hide in the forest to watch her train… and one had even brought a sex doll to enjoy while he watched. This one, Sakura had personally sent to the hospital.
"Even though you have your fancy clan Jutsu, you should never forget about the basics we learned at the academy," Sakura tut-tutted them. "Ino?"
"You used the Substitution Jutsu to swap places with that disgusting thing when we lost sight of you," said Ino begrudgingly. "After that, I don't know."
After that, Sakura had used the Startling Earth Escape Jutsu to tunnel underground. It was Kakashi's plagiarised version of the Hiding in Rock Jutsu, and naturally, Sakura hadn't learned it from him directly. With her Sharingan, it didn't matter if Kakashi was stingy with his teachings, she could simply take what she wanted by copying! She had learned this technique two years ago, during their mission to the Land of Moon.
(Kakashi liked to personalise his Earth Jutsu, like his Earth-Style Walls with dog heads)
All Earth-Style techniques revolved around two core principles: erosion and agglomeration. First, chakra was sent into the ground to destabilise earth and rock into mud— or dust. Then, that softened material was reshaped into something useable with chakra. Startling Earth Escape relied only on the first principle, allowing its user to sink and move through the ground. Because of that, Sakura had picked it up fairly easily, despite her otherwise average earth affinity. After all, destruction was always easier than reconstruction.
Moving things along…
Then, while Chōji's attention was still on his hand, Sakura had popped out of the ground behind him and stuck a needle in his neck. She hadn't spent two years in ninja medical school for nothing, unlike her original timeline self, who could only heal. Like Haku, she was now well versed in the use of senbon needles in traditional Chinese medicine— er, sorry, the very scientific art of acupoint medicine!
Even though she was a medic, first, do no harm had gone straight out the window…