Sakura walked home slowly, her head clouded with thoughts. This was her shot.

Quite a long time ago, Sakura had realized something. Over the years, as she had become a fearsome fighter and respected medical nin, her ambition had been growing. She wasn't any longer satisfied with just being a great doctor. Her newfound confidence had grown beyond that. She wanted to do more.

Sakura Haruno wanted to be Hokage.

She had batted these thoughts away every time they came up. Everyone fantasizes about being Hokage at times, if only to run things their way, and, so Sakura believed, this was no different. It was only a daydream. It was Naruto who really had the drive to be Hokage. He'd been fighting for it since she'd known him at the ninja academy. He was going to be Tsunade's successor, she had said so. It was only a matter of time.

"Still..."Sakura's thoughts had wandered while she worked at the hospital. "The Hokage shouldn't just be the one who want's it the most, it should be the one most suited for the job." After that little seed had planted into her head, she couldn't help but compare herself to Naruto.

She couldn't see how she wouldn't be a better Hokage than Naruto. They both had the drive to protect the village, certainly. But did Naruto have the intelligence and tact to deal with the day to day operations, political opponents, and tough desicions? No, he didn't. But from her years as Tsunade's apprentice, she did. Sakura had witnessed Naruto's brain at work in battle, and it was always amazing. But it seemed that this side of him only came out in fierce battle. A Kage could start a war with another nation with one false move at a political meeting, did Naruto really have what it takes to deal with that?

It was true that Naruto was more powerful than her, but what of it? She was still a damn powerful kunoichi, a threat to anyone.

Slowly but surely, she had become convinced that she should be the next Hokage, not Naruto.

But how the hell would Tsunade see that? Her heart was always set on Naruto, there is no other candidate in her eyes. The Hokage was a smart woman, but she needed a little shock to wake her up to the possibility in front of her. She would have to beat Naruto in a full out fight. That would get her attention.


Ever since then, Sakura had been training her heart out. She gave away hours at the hospital, she took boring but quick missions, she put off hanging around with her friends. It had helped. But as she saw earlier, while she was closer to Naruto's skill, it wasn't close enough. That baka was always training anyway. It took all her energy to make even a small advance towards him. So she had thought of a way to make Naruto stop training for a while, so she could catch up, if only for a moment.

Sakura smirked. Now it was time to use her brain to beat Naruto, and become Hokage.