Sakura Petals

The Forest of Death

Rewritten as of 24OCT19

3rd POV

Ibiki watched as all the kids up and left the room to go to training grounds 44 where the next part of the Chunin exams would be held. However before Anko could leave the room he asked her to wait.

"Something wrong Ibiki?" Anko asked after seeing his face, coming to a stop a few steps in front of him.

"Not wrong, but certainly strange. Do you remember that girl we questioned the other day, with the pink hair. Haruno Sakura?" Anko looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, what about her. Do you think somethings wrong with her?" She questioned only for him to shake his head.

"Like I said, nothing is wrong, just strange." He walked down the aisle between the desks directly to where the pink haired girl was sitting. "How smart do you think that girl is, and how strong do you think her mental strength is?" He asked as he fingered the paper that was still on her desk.

"Those are some weird questions, Ibiki. What brought this on?" Anko asked as she decided to sit on the desk that was in front of the one Ibiki was standing next to.

"Just answer the questions." Anko frowned at him before contemplating for a few seconds.

"Well, for someone to be put on a team with the son of the Hokage and the son of the Uchiha Clan leader, I'd say she'd have to be pretty damn smart. Rumor has it she bested Sasuke in terms of grades in their classes, however she's pretty weak when it came to her physical exams. Then with the exams on the clones, henges, substitution jutsu her scores there were remarkable too. I remember Iruka bragging one day about how well her chakra control was. So the girl is pretty smart, but not strong. As for her mental strength, I'm not so sure. She was pretty strong mentally after their misshape in the Land of Waves. She's got a good head on her shoulders if you ask me. But there's definitely room for improvement. Why do you ask?" Anko watched as Ibiki grabbed the girls test from the top of the dest and looked it over.

"To be honest, I'm not so sure myself. While the exam was taking place I watched as every single one of these brats panicked over the questions on the test. It was easy to tell what they were thinking just by the looks on their faces. That girl however, panicked for just a split second, then it was like a switch went off in her mind and she was able to blow through the questions, without having to cheat off of someone else's paper like the purpose of the exam was supposed to make you do. The questions given were meant to be difficult even for some Jounin, but look." he showed her the paper. "Even without cheating she was able to answer every question with extreme detail." Anko whistled as she took the test into her hands and looked it over.

"Okay, so she's smart. I still don't get where you're going with this. And you also asked about her mental strength, why?" Anko asked as she set the paper down on the desk she was sitting at.

"After she had completed the test, Yamanaka Ino tried to use their family jutsu on Sakura, more than likely to cheat, but she couldn't. I've seen Inoichi do that jutsu hundreds if not, thousands of times, Ino did everything perfectly, but she failed three times. I'm almost certain that with her fathers guidance, she shouldn't have failed, at least not three times in a row. Sakura was able to keep her out of her mind, and she knew it too. She gave Ino almost a smirk when they looked at each other after the failed attempts. So I don't know how, but she was able to go beyond my expectations in the written test and actually baffled me when she kept Ino and her jutsu at bay. Like I said before, there's nothing wrong, just strange. Keep an eye on her in this next exam for me, would you." Ibiki asked as a hundred and one thoughts ran through his mind about the pink haired brat he interrogated just a few days ago.