Chapter Text
“Team 8 will be Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, and Hyuuga Hinata. Team 10…”
Sakura tries to keep a grimace off her face. Just because Sakura’s the top of the class doesn’t mean she deserves to be saddled with Uchiha Sasuke. She glances at Ino, who winces when she couldn’t. “Bad luck, Forehead. But you never know, maybe Sasuke’s secretly… very secretly… a normal person under all the FIGHT ME RARGH. And the demon thing. And the, you know.”
“Even if she were the most normal person on earth, I think the Hokage’s Eye might be on my team now.”
Ino blanches. “You’re right. I’ll bring a beautiful bouquet to your funeral.”
“She’s not gonna kill me. Unless I talk to Sasuke. Or look at Sasuke. Or breathe near Sasuke.”
“That’s gonna be kind of hard to manage, if you’re on a team together.” Ino pokes Sakura in the forehead. “Don’t get killed or I’m gonna kick your butt, got it?”
“Like you could. Anyway, if anyone can survive being on a team with Sasuke and her creepy bodyguard it’s me.”
“Look out for Hinata-chan, then. I’d hate to see something bad happen to her just ‘cause she’s got terrible luck like you.” It’s about that point when Sakura realizes Sasuke is sitting not that far away and can probably hear them. She nudges Ino to shut up and waits for her new sensei in silence.
It doesn’t take him that long to come… but Sakura’s first impression is he’s a total creep. He has these giant weird eyes, kind of like a frog or something, and he doesn’t make any sound when he moves. “Team 8, with me,” he says in a quiet voice. They get up and follow him: Sakura and Hinata kind of huddled together and Sasuke walking in the front. Sakura glances over her shoulder as they leave the room—Sasuke’s shadow is still standing silently in the corner with her red eyes shining out of her mask. Sakura shudders and closes the door behind her. When she turns back ahead Sasuke is scowling at her. Sakura looks away. It’s not worth it to pick a fight with the best taijutsu user in the class.
“I have your files, but I want to hear a little about you from your own mouths. I’m Tenzou. In my free time sometimes I garden. My ambition is to protect the people of Konoha. Hinata-kun?”
Hinata flinches way more than she usually does when someone talks to her. But Tenzou-sensei is scary. “U-u-u-um… I… like to…” The rest of her sentence is so quiet that Sakura can’t understand her.
“Speak up, please.”
“I like to press flowers? I… um… my ambition…” But Tenzou-sensei isn’t letting her off the hook. Creepy and mean. “I want my clan to acknowledge me…”
Tenzou-sensei nods and turns to Sakura. “Sakura-kun?” Hinata sighs in relief that his attention is off her. Poor thing.
“I really like to read and study,” says Sakura. Normally she’d talk about what she likes to read, but Tenzou-sensei doesn’t deserve more than he asks for. “My ambition is to become a strong kunoichi and surpass a certain person.”
“And Sasuke-kun?”
“Don’t call me that,” snaps Sasuke. “I don’t care if you call everyone -kun. Don’t.” Tenzou-sensei raises his eyebrows, and nods. “What I like to do is none of your business. My ambition is none of your business.”
“Thank you, Sasuke. That’s very informative. Now, officially you aren’t genin yet. You’ve passed a pretest, but the Academy graduation exam doesn’t test your combat ability, only your technical skill. Not to mention your teamwork, which as I’m sure you’ve been told countless times is the cornerstone of Konoha’s operations. So. First you’ll have to make it to the battlefield. I hope you can keep up.”
Right, like anyone is really going to tell the child of the Hokage she can’t be a genin. Sakura is willing to bet no-one has ever told Sasuke no in her—Tenzou-sensei just leaped onto the roof! How are they supposed to follow him? Sakura stumbles into a run, craning her neck to try and see where he went.
“This way,” says Hinata. Bless her, Sakura forgot about her byakugan.
“Can’t you run any faster,” says Sasuke. Hinata kind of cringes away from her and tries to go faster, but obviously she can’t really. Tenzou-sensei is really fast, and by the time they make it to training ground 10 Sakura and Hinata are gasping for breath.
“Now,” says Tenzou-sensei, “why don’t you try to land a hit on me?”
“Do we fail if we don’t?” pants Sakura, who has seen more than enough trick questions to be suspicious of something like this.
“That would be telling. Start.”
And… he just stands there.
Sasuke charges at him, even though she still hasn’t caught her breath yet. Sakura and Hinata watch as Sasuke throws a flight of shuriken, dodges to the side, and tries a kick to the back of Tenzou-sensei’s knee, which he dodges with contemptuous ease.
Sakura keeps one eye on the fight while she turns to Hinata—at least she can learn a little bit about how Tenzou-sensei fights. “So, Hinata-chan, if we’re supposed to use teamwork, do you have any ideas?”
“Um… well, shinobi normally work in three- and four-person teams… so shouldn’t we work with Sasuke-chan?”
Sakura watches while Sasuke gets thrown into a tree for the second time. “Do you really want to?”
“I think… it’s the only way we’ll pass the test.”
Sasuke isn’t even trying to use teamwork, so she really shouldn’t pass. But since she’s going to anyway, like hell Sakura’s going to be worse than her! “Fine. I guess we have to get her out of trouble. Time to make a distraction?”
Hinata nods, and they jump forward. Hinata knows more advanced taijutsu since she’s a Hyuuga… but Sakura pretty much sucks at fighting, and her aim is nothing special either. But she’s pretty good at ninjutsu, so that’s what she does: she makes two clones and weaves in with them so Tenzou-sensei won’t be able to tell—
Within three seconds he’s destroyed both of the clones and sent her flying. She lands in a heap with Hinata, and unfortunately Sasuke lands on top of them. Sasuke’s on her feet in the next second, so Sakura has to hiss, “We’re being assessed on teamwork, get back here!”
Sasuke glares at her again but she does stand still, keeping one eye on Tenzou-sensei (who’s just standing there, watching them). “Teamwork isn’t going to allow three genin to beat a jounin,” she says.
“We don’t have to beat Tenzou-sensei, we just have to hit him. Don’t we just need a distraction?”
Sasuke grunts irritably, which apparently she thinks is a reply.
They huddle up close, keeping an eye out for Tenzou-sensei. “I can get over him, throw a kunai at his feet and then substitute with it to attack from below while his attention is above him. Hinata, you can try and get him from behind. Sasuke, since it seems to be your specialty, how about you attack him head-on?”
Sasuke scowls. “Don’t tell me what to do,” she says, but doesn’t seem to have a better idea, so Sakura assumes she’ll play along.
“Noted,” says Sakura, rolling her eyes. “Okay, break!”
The other two move into position and Sakura pushes herself up off the ground, just as Tenzou-sensei is moving out of the way of Sasuke’s kick. Sakura spins in the air, thrusting a kunai into the grass as Tenzou-sensei sidesteps just out of the way. Hinata moves in just as he glances up at her she substitutes with the knife… Sakura aims a sweeping kick at Tenzou-sensei’s feet... one of them will have to hit him with this trick…
Tenzou-sensei vanishes into thin air and Sakura’s kick tangles in Sasuke’s feet as she goes in for another strike, throwing her headlong into Hinata, who falls forward on top of Sakura. In the space of a second they’re in a squirming pile, Hinata apologizing profusely while Sasuke berates the other two for getting in her way.
When Sakura manages to get herself free, Tenzou-sensei is standing a little ways away, twirling her kunai around his finger. He is going DOWN. But… “How are we supposed to hit him if he can teleport?” she mutters.
“Maybe we can set traps?” says Hinata softly.
“With what materials?” Sakura starts, but Sasuke is already pulling ninja wire out of her weapons pouch. Why does she listen to Hinata without being a brat about it?
“I… you both know more about traps than me, I think… so I could distract Tenzou-sensei while you make them?”
Sasuke nods. Great, now Sakura is stuck making traps with her.
It takes maybe ten minutes of tensely sneaking looks over at Hinata getting her butt kicked over and over, and Sakura starts to feel really bad for her. “Pay attention, we’re almost done,” says Sasuke. Sakura looks back down and corrects the knot Sasuke is about to mess up, and then they’re pretty much done. Now they just have to lure Tenzou-sensei into the trap…
They don’t lure Tenzou-sensei into the trap. They lure him near the trap and around the trap and then, once Sakura has been caught in it, under the trap. And then away… and then, very eventually, Hinata comes back to free Sakura and they think of a different plan.
In summary, they just cannot touch Tenzou-sensei. Sakura gets fed up quickly and wants to stop, but her pride won’t let her stop while Hinata and Sasuke keep going.
It’s maybe around 5pm when Sakura irritably declares a rest break, since Tenzou-sensei will keep. Even Sasuke doesn’t protest, she just sits down with her back against the trunk of a tree and tips her head back. Sakura flops down belly-up and stares into the branches of the tree above her. Tenzou-sensei grows out of one of the branches like a horrible wood-slime-thing and perches on it like a gargoyle looking down at them, and Sakura still has enough energy to shriek in surprise. “You pass,” he says. Sakura takes a long breath in and then sighs in relief. “You actually passed a few hours ago, but I wanted to see what else you’d try. You would earn extra points for persistence, but as I said you already passed, and there’s no extra credit in fighting for your life. Which is to say you’ve done well. Meet me here tomorrow at dawn.”
Sakura doesn’t have the energy to sit up even, so she just screams at him in her head for letting them waste all that effort. Sasuke, across the clearing, growls. Hinata squeaks out a completely earnest “thank you.” She’s too cute.
Hinata and Sakura start toward home together, and Sasuke kind of trails behind them like a weirdo. Sakura refuses to feel bad for leaving her out; her clan owns the village and she can have whatever she wants. Sorry, you’re sad? Go cry to the HOKAGE about it.
Training ground 10 isn’t that far from the Uchiha district, so luckily they aren’t stuck with Sasuke for too long. Sakura tenses at the blatant increase in Military Police presence as they walk toward the gate marked with that omnipresent fan symbol. Sasuke doesn’t say anything to acknowledge the guards or her teammates when she splits off towards her house. A “see you later” wouldn’t hurt after fighting alongside each other all day! Sakura starts to complain to Hinata, but starts at the sudden appearance of the Hokage’s Eye right behind Sasuke, walking through the gate casually as though she had been strolling alongside them. Sakura had almost forgotten that Sasuke is being constantly shadowed by the scariest person in the village, and now she has that skin-crawly feeling all over again.
At least now that jerk is gone she can try to break the awkward silence that’s been hanging over them for almost ten minutes. She shoots a smile at Hinata, who retreats a little into her hoodie collar but manages a tentative smile back. “So, Hinata-chan! Nice to finally be alone, huh?” Hinata’s eyes widen and she turns pink, and Sakura waves her hands around frantically as though to clear the air of misunderstanding. “Ah, what I meant to say was, it’s nice to not have to deal with Sasuke! Until tomorrow, at least…”
“Um,” mumbles Hinata. Sakura has to lean in a little to hear her clearly. “I, I don’t know… Sasuke-chan is intimidating, but I would like to get to know her better…”
“Ehh, really?” says Sakura. Sasuke-chan? There’s no way even her own mother calls her that.
“I j-just… I know she’s been through a lot, so, I don’t want to judge her too harshly without getting to know her…”
“That’s… really sweet of you, Hinata-chan,” Sakura says fondly, “but we’ve been in classes with her for years. I feel like she’s had plenty of opportunity to show herself as anything other than a stuck-up brat! If she wants people to think better of her she could at least try to be pleasant once in a while. Plus, her sister being around all the time is just too creepy, I can’t relax while I’m around her without thinking about that freaky mask.”
Hinata nods uncertainly, and Sakura drops the topic. The rest of their walk to the Hyuuga compound is mostly back to the awkward silence, interspersed with Sakura’s attempts to strike up small talk being met with short, faint replies. Sakura likes Hinata—she’s cute, and kind—but Sakura is going to have to work on getting through that wall of shyness.
The sun is completely down by the time Sakura gets home, her whole body aching dully. “I’m home,” she announces wearily, kicking off her sandals. She’s barely all the way through the doorway when her parents are crowding around her.
“There’s our amazing top-class new genin!” her dad announces, drawing an embarrassed groan from her.
“We were wondering when you would be home!” says her mom, chiding but happy. “I made your favorite, it’s gotten a little cold but we can heat it up right away.”
“Tell us about your sensei! And your teammates!” says her dad, as she pushes past him towards the dinner table and collapses in a chair. “What was your first day like?”
“Tiring,” says Sakura. “Our jounin sensei apparently thought it would be fun to not tell us when we’d passed his test and see what we’d do. For an extra three hours. He’s weird, but not in a bad way I think? He seems earnest.” She nods in thanks as her mother sets a cup of tea in front of her, and turns the cup a little on the table. “Umm, my teammates are, also weird. Well, one of them is nice, she’s just kind of shy. It’s Hyuuga Hinata, I think I’ve told you about her? She’s cute but quiet. And she’s really determined in a fight, it turns out. Oh and my other teammate is Uchiha Sasuke.” She says the last part in a quiet mumble, like it’s not important, but both her parents freeze.
“That’s really something!” says her dad. “Uchiha… Sasuke, huh?”
“Please be careful,” says her mom quietly. It sucks all the air out of the room, and even her dad can’t pretend to be cheerful. He sits down on the other side of the table and starts fiddling with his napkin.
“I’ll be careful,” says Sakura. She’s not going to mention that the Hokage’s Eye was probably watching them all day from the shadows of the trees, and she can’t very well tell them Sasuke is kind of a brat who needs to have her butt kicked. Mom would have a heart attack at the thought of Sakura trying to fight the demon fox.
It just means Sakura needs to get stronger if she wants to kick Sasuke’s butt.
Despite how long that first day ended up, Tenzou-sensei still has them back on the training ground bright and early the next morning. Sakura was out like a light right after dinner, so she slept pretty well, but she’s still kind of sore as they line up in front of Tenzou-sensei.
“Yesterday was very informative with regard to your skills, physical and mental abilities, and temperaments,” he says. “The most important thing you can do to improve is to practice. I’ve put together a regimen for you as a team and as individuals, addressing each of your strengths and weaknesses.
“Hinata, your technical training is good, but you seem to use it most effectively when you don’t believe you’ll be able to hurt anyone. You will hurt many people as a shinobi. You will kill many people. It’s time to stop flinching from it.” Hinata flinches from the advice, retreating into herself, but she still nods. “Sakura.” She feels weirdly disappointed by losing the -kun off her name. It was… new. She kind of liked it. “You’re clever and proactive, but you badly need physical conditioning. You haven’t thought much about your specialization, have you?” Sakura shakes her head, feeling foolish. “You have a much smaller pool of chakra than your teammates. You already use it effectively, but it will affect which techniques you learn. And Sasuke. You don’t need to prove yourself today, or this very moment. In the long run patience will get you the best results.”
Sasuke scowls her most murderous scowl, which despite the fact that she’s a living weapon capable of destroying an entire village is maybe a 5/10 murderous.
Tenzou-sensei smiles at her. It makes his face look a lot less frightening. “You passed my test much more quickly than I was expecting, and I don’t think it will take you long at all to make a formidable team. But for now we’re going to be doing conditioning until you’re up to my standards.”
Tenzou-sensei’s standards are really high. Sasuke still meets them, physically, because apparently she’s just the perfect shinobi. Sakura and Hinata end up gasping on the ground at the end of the training day while Sasuke sits against a tree with her back straight and one arm propped on her knee. She looks… untouchable. Perfect. Sakura hates her and envies her equally. It’s kind of frustrating that Hinata won’t hate her with Sakura. It’s like she doesn’t even want to be friends.
“Here,” says Tenzou-sensei. A protein bar drops into Sakura’s lap. “Bring a water bottle next time, and something to eat. Every day after training we’ll be doing two D-rank missions.”
No.
Nooooooooo.
She thought it was over. She thought she could go home and sleep.
Even worse? One of the D-ranks is in the Uchiha district. It’s not like there are more Military Police in the Uchiha district, because they still need to intimidate everyone else, but they’re still there and it makes Sakura nervous to be in their territory. But in some ways it’s just a really nice neighborhood that has spotless streets because they pay genin teams to clean them.
The weird thing is that Sasuke doesn’t look more at home here. Instead she’s tenser than ever: she holds her shoulders stiff and glares straight ahead. She probably doesn’t want anyone to look at her because she’s too good for collecting garbage. Sakura likes watching Sasuke collect garbage. It makes her feel a little better about the fact that she has to collect garbage too. Maybe the most surprising thing is that Tenzou-sensei actually helps. It’s weirdly humble for a jounin sensei to be picking up garbage next to his genin, and even though he’s a monster who worked Sakura so hard she could barely stand, it makes her like him a little more.
The second D-rank, which starts in early evening, is catching someone’s stupid cat. Tenzou-sensei runs it as a mock mission and they get to use mini radios with him as mission coordinator. It’s… kind of fun? Except all the scratches.
(Turns out Tenzou-sensei carries disinfectant with him at all times. Her opinion of him just keeps rising.)
And then, when Sakura is sure that this time she really does get to go home… Tenzou-sensei says it’s time to go back to training ground 10 and meditate.
Apparently it increases chakra capacity, but Sakura has never been able to meditate and it seems like B.S. to her. Her thoughts are too loud to be shut out. She sneaks a glimpse at Hinata, who looks serene and peaceful and pretty. It makes sense that she’d be good at meditating. And then at Sasuke, who also looks surprisingly peaceful even though she’s frowning a tiny bit. They’re both doing fine.
Tenzou-sensei suddenly appears in front of her and she stifles a shriek. Can he make noise, ever?! “You seem to be having trouble,” he says softly.
“I don’t get how you’re supposed to clear your mind.”
“Are you trying to think about nothing?” She nods. “Instead, meditate on something. A physical sensation is often a good choice, but if looking at something helps you it’s fine to meditate with your eyes open. Instead of trying to get rid of thoughts, redirect them to the thing you’re meditating on.” She nods and he stands up and disappears from her line of sight. Okay, meditating on… her heartbeat. She can feel it in the balls of her feet, and in her hands where they’re resting on her knees. It speeds up when she breathes in and slows down when she breathes out. And the heart is where the components of chakra are produced. She tries to feel them pumping out of her heart with her blood. She sinks into her heartbeat.
Someone taps her on the shoulder and she opens her eyes. It’s… really dark.
“It seems like you’ve gotten the hang of meditating,” says Tenzou-sensei. She can hear that he’s smiling; she lets him help her up and watches him hold out a lantern toward Sasuke. “Would you do the honor?” Sakura can’t make out what hand seals Sasuke is using in the dark, but she recognizes the technique: it’s a scaled-down version of the great fireball, a miniature fireball that flies into the lantern to light it. Tenzou-sensei puts it down on the ground in the middle of the little circle and then starts stretching. Sakura catches on quickly and copies him. It’s really weird silently doing exercises around a lantern, in the quiet night with only insect sounds and the occasional owl. It’s like there’s no-one in the world but them…
That just reminds Sakura that somewhere outside the circle of lanternlight the Hokage’s Eye is watching them. She suppresses a shudder.
It’s like that every day until their free day: come at dawn, condition their butts off, two D-ranks, and meditation until it’s dark. Sakura’s parents are kind of worried about how hard she’s working (and honestly Sakura doesn’t love it either) but she can tell she’s getting stronger already. Still, she’s really glad Tenzou-sensei is even giving them a free day, which she halfway wouldn’t expect. She hoards the idea of a free day all week, trying to think of the perfect way to spend her time—but as usual it turns out to be Ino who decides.
There’s a tapping on her window somewhat after sunrise, when she’s already done showering because she literally can’t sleep in any more. When she looks, a pigeon is on her windowsill, holding a folded piece of paper in its beak.
Sakura opens the window and it hops in just enough to offer her the paper. “Hi, Ino,” she says as she takes it. “You have a free day too, huh?” She takes the paper and the pigeon hops back out, cocks its head, and flies away. The note says:
Hey, Forehead! Kurenai-sensei says all the jounin-sensei for our year coordinated our free days (apparently it was her idea, go Kurenai-sensei!) so we can hang out. Come by the flower shop before lunch and we’ll go out. Love from your best and prettiest friend in the world.
So she does, with boxed lunches because she got bored and restless from not having to work out in the morning (stupid Tenzou-sensei!). Ino’s behind the counter selling flowers like she always is when she doesn’t have anything else to be doing, so Sakura sits on the wobbly stool next to it to keep her company for the rest of her shift.
“How is it being on a team with Shikamaru and Chouji?” Sakura asks. She’s tying ribbons onto flower arrangements because Ino says she might as well be useful while she’s here.
“Sucks.” Ino pouts, and Sakura laughs at her. “It’s like being on a team with my brothers, except if I had brothers for real they’d be way less dumb. They never want to work, even though it’s important. Kurenai-sensei keeps saying she’s trying to teach us how to keep ourselves alive, which you’d think would get through their thick heads! She’s SO cool though, Forehead. She’s like, cool and mysterious and pretty and kickass! She does genjutsu and she says I’d be good at it since I’m a Yamanaka. Don’t tell me, I bet your jounin-sensei sucks.”
“He’s pretty cool!” Sakura defends. “He knows a lot of stuff and he brings us protein bars sometimes. He even helps out with our D-ranks.”
“Ehh? You don’t think he’s creepy with those frog eyes?”
“Kinda. But don’t talk about him when you don’t know about him. I bet he could kick Kurenai-sensei’s butt.”
“Not if she got him with her genjutsu!”
“He wouldn’t even be there when she tried! He can teleport!”
“Kurenai-sensei would have predicted that, so she’d have him caught in a trap already.”
Sakura huffs. This isn’t a hypothetical fight she’s going to win. “Whatever. It’s not like I even know what he can do. Tenzou-sensei is really mysterious. I don’t even know if he has a family name. Or anything he can do. He told me I should come up with a specialization, but what’s his?”
“Never mind that, what’s it like being on a team with demon boy?”
“Girl,” Sakura corrects her.
“What? It’s not like he can hear us.”
“Sasuke’s a girl! Just drop it, okay?”
“Fiiiine,” says Ino. She looks at Sakura like she’s being weird, and the tips of Sakura’s ears burn. “So what’s it like being on a team with her?”
“Frustrating.” says Sakura. “It’s like she has to be so perfect all the time, but also act like she’s this cool rebel, like anyone buys that. She’ll listen to instructions but then act like she’s totally above doing what anyone tells her. And she can be so pissy for just no good reason. I don’t see why Hinata-chan feels the need to be nice to her, but I guess she’s nice to everybody.”
“She really is. Someone needs to teach that girl to be mean. If you’re nice people will walk all over you.”
Probably true. Sakura doesn’t have to like it, though. It would be… nice if Hinata didn’t have to learn to be mean. Having two mean people on the same genin team seems kind of depressing. “Well, anyway, Hinata’s a really good teammate. She’s always trying to help, even if she’s not good at hurting anyone. Tenzou-sensei’s always getting on her case about it. He gave her this really scary speech like ‘you’re going to kill a lot of people and that’s just the way it is.’”
“That is just the way it is,” says Ino.
“I know! But…”
“Another person disappeared this week,” says Ino. Sakura wishes this counted as changing the subject, but Ino’s just making a point. “Dad couldn’t find out what he did, but he got taken off the mission roster three days ago and no-one’s seen him since. Pretty much textbook MPs there. So Sakura? Please get it into your head what being a shinobi is about.”
“Can’t we do something fun,” says Sakura. “Instead of having another lecture on how to not get kidnapped by the Military Police? I know, okay? I just want to—trick myself into thinking it’s okay to be nice sometimes.”
Ino sighs theatrically. “Sometimes I forget you’re still that shy little forehead girl who hid behind her hair. Of course you want to be nice.”
“Is your shift over yet,” says Sakura, scowling at her. “I made us lunches, so we can go eat in the park.”
The rest of the day is more pleasant after Sakura makes Ino promise no more lectures. Ino praises her lunches. They meet up with one of Ino’s other friends for about half an hour while they’re all window shopping in the bazaar, and she laments that she didn’t pass the secret second genin test, but she for sure will next year.
Sakura ends up buying a compact little first aid kit like Tenzou-sensei has, and then they go hang out at Sakura’s house for the rest of the day, and Ino even stays for dinner.
…But soon it’s back to the grind. After a couple months, Sakura even starts to get used to it, although she’d be lying if she said she loves every second of it. Still, some days are really satisfying, even a little fun. It feels good to see tangible proof that she’s getting stronger, that she can run longer and react quicker and throw farther.
Today isn’t one of those days. It’s the height of summer now. Today’s even hotter than normal, but that doesn’t seem to have influenced Tenzou-sensei, who has only been giving them harder drills to do. It’s incredibly frustrating to keep getting a point where things are almost easy, and then having the bar raised. They’ve been training for hours and Sakura is exhausted, covered in dirt and sweat, with still another hour to go before they even start their D-ranks.
So when one of her shuriken slips and flies into a tree instead of the target, and Sasuke sneers behind her and says “You’d better not throw like that on missions, loser,” Sakura snaps. She turns on her heel directly into the most satisfying punch of her life: perfect positioning as her knuckles hit right above Sasuke’s cheekbone, perfect followthrough that carries her all the way around, and perfect adrenaline thumping through her blood as she watches Sasuke knocked back two feet to land on her back in the dust.
“Shut up,” says Sakura, feeling on top of the world.
But she only has a moment to be satisfied, because Sasuke springs to her feet and returns the blow. Sakura narrowly dodges it but can’t dodge the kick that follows. It drives all the wind out of her and makes her stagger backward. She can see the next strike coming but she knows she won’t be able to avoid it so she braces herself and turns the momentum into a roll.
“You do realize I’m the superior fighter,” says Sasuke.
“Does it look like I care?” Sakura snarls. She charges and misses Sasuke by half a meter when she dodges, and then takes a chop to the back of her neck and collapses, trying to get back her breath without inhaling too much dust. She coughs and gets up and almost immediately Sasuke kicks her into a tree.
“Sasuke-chan!” Hinata calls from somewhere. They both ignore her. Sakura in favor of struggling to her feet and Sasuke so she can grip Sakura’s wrist and snap it. Sakura screams through her teeth and knees Sasuke in the stomach, stumbling back into the tree again as Sasuke doubles over. But when she goes to press her advantage Sasuke punches her in the throat and then knocks her to the ground.
“Stay down,” Sasuke says, breathing heavily. Sakura gets one foot under her out of sheer spite before Sasuke kicks her over. “Stay down!”
The next time Sakura doesn’t stay down Sasuke pins her to the ground by the neck. Sasuke’s face is tense and angry and cold above her, her black eyes wide and hair hanging around her face. Sakura clutches at Sasuke’s wrist with both hands, even the injured one. Tries weakly to kick her, but she’s kneeling on Sakura’s chest. She’s going to die she’s going to die she’s going to die
The weight lifts off her. She gasps for breath and flails with her legs, kicks Sasuke away.
“I hate you!” Sakura shouts, and punches Sasuke again. This time Sasuke doesn’t resist. Good. Sakura will take her chance while she has it. “Just shut!” Another punch, with her injured hand because she doesn’t care. “Up!” Another. “About how much better you are than everyone else!” Sakura’s having a hard time making herself punch Sasuke again, because Sasuke’s just lying there under her, her head turned to the side dribbling blood into the dirt. “We get it,” Sakura says viciously, with her good hand fisted in the neck of Sasuke’s shirt. “You’re untouchable. Your precious clan won’t let anyone near you. Maybe your bodyguard will kill me for this, but you know what? Worth it.” That’s not true at all, she knows as she says it. She doesn’t want to die. She doesn’t want to die.
Dread makes her look up, and in a tree a few yards away a red-eyed shadow is crouched, watching. Her numb fingers release Sasuke’s collar; Sasuke’s head tilts back to see what she’s looking at, and Sasuke scowls. “Don’t touch her, Itachi. This has nothing to do with you or the clan.”
Sakura just sits there numbly until a hand picks her up by the back of her dress and sets her on her wobbly feet. Tenzou-sensei walks around her and helps Sasuke to her feet too. Why didn’t he stop them?
“We’re moving practice to the hospital,” he says. Nods to the Hokage’s Eye and puts a guiding hand on Sakura and Sasuke’s backs to push them gently forward.
No-one really wants to meditate in the hospital waiting room so they sit in silence: Sakura and Sasuke next to each other in uncomfortable chairs and Tenzou-sensei next to Sakura. She has to constantly stop herself from putting a hand up to her neck where she can still feel Sasuke’s fingers.
But something has changed. Maybe it’s that Sasuke told her bodyguard not to kill Sakura. Maybe it’s that she stopped herself. Maybe it’s that Sakura stopped herself, or maybe it’s all those things. She… she doesn’t think she hates Sasuke any more.
Sasuke’s still an awful brat, though.