Third Time's A Charm
"Naruto! Watch yourself!" Sakura barked as she forcefully sent her chakra-filled fist onto the forest floor, breaking the earth apart. Naruto quickly jumped out from behind a tree and leapt into the air, a whirling blue disc circling in his palm. He aimed hastily at the Haruno, his arm extended out towards her, the cerulean color of the chakra reflecting in his eyes. Sakura swiftly brought her leg up into the air and packed it full of chakra. She swung her body around in mid-jump and, as the Rasengan lightly grazed her arm, her foot blasted Naruto back into the forest. She fell to the ground against an oak tree and lightly yelped as she hit the trunk.
"Sai," she called, searching the woods carefully as she held her green glowing medical jutsu over her left shoulder. "Help me out here!"
It was near sunrise now and they had been at this spar for almost two hours now. When Team Kakashi had all shown up to Training Ground 12 is was dark and cold and there was freshly dipped dew on each blade of grass. Now it was around six am, Sakura figured, and the August sun was quickly drying up any dew left.
Because the entire team was now fully aware of the Akatsuki moving in on Naruto, Kakashi decided to amp up their training regiment and created a bi-weekly sparring match, pinning two members of the team against the other two. Sometimes when Sai was on a mission for the ANBU Black Ops, Yamato would fill in for him. However, Sai was present this week and the teams were Sai and Sakura vs. Kakashi and Naruto. The rules of the training regiment were simple: take the other team down using full-force, which explains why Sakura ruthlessly punched the forest floor and why Naruto was so careless in using such a powerful jutsu against his best friend.
Naruto came quickly soaring above Sakura, sending a kunai flying towards her. Sai, within seconds and a quick flick of his wrist, whipped out his scroll, etched a bird and brought it to life, leaping onto the beast and grabbing Sakura onto it as well. The two soared into the brightening sky, just missing Naruto's kunai. Sai snatched it out of mid-air and ricocheted it back towards the Uzumaki, who clumsily dodged it.
"What should we do?" she asked him breathlessly. "Naruto just got back from an A-rank mission and he's all fired up. I haven't even seen Kakashi-sensei yet, thank God. We can barely get Naruto down."
Sai stayed quiet, calm, and calculating. Sakura saw this as a blow to her ego, the two of them single-handedly being beaten by Naruto. Sai saw it as a full-blown mission and refused to see it any other way. He was already far ahead of her when it came to the planning process. After a few minutes of circling the air above the forest where Naruto and Kakashi hid. Sai quickly directed the bird down, nose-diving for the ground. Sakura screeched but it was lost in the fast paced wind blowing upwards as they shot downwards. It looked as if they were going to hit the ground, but after getting within a foot of crashing, Sai piloted the bird back up into the sky. Sakura tightly clutched the painted feathers of the bird.
"Why did you do that?" she called. Either her voice had gotten lost in the wind once more or Sai was ignoring her (Sakura figured the latter). Whichever way, Sai didn't respond and instead began giving directions.
"I'll take Kakashi, you take Naruto," he suggested. "You've known Naruto longer so you probably have a better grasp on how to take him down. If you can create a shadow clone and send that one down to act as the distraction, perhaps we can sneak attack them from above." Sakura, still catching the breath she had lost out of fear, blinked a few times and nodded at the plan. She hadn't come up with a better one herself, and the past two sparring matches she had been on the loosing team with Naruto on the winning team. She was determined to win this time. She wouldn't loose to him again. Third time's a charm.
Sakura closed her eyes in focus and made the hand signs with the snap of her wrist. She sent her doppelganger soaring in the sky headed downwards into the forest. When she landed, she was ten feet away from where Naruto was hiding in the trees. Oblivious to the change of Harunos, he silently took out another kunai, promising himself he'd win this sparring match by himself. After all, it was two against one. Kakashi was feeling under the weather and after Naruto's constant silent prodding, agreed to let Naruto captain his own ship and fight this sparring match alone. However, Kakashi was close by, evaluating the three Chuunin's from an unknown location.
Naruto leapt from the tree he was perched on, aiming the kunai at the Sakura clone and threw it, landing in another bush to hide in. The Sakura clone ducked backwards and dodged the kunai. From within the bushes Naruto grit his teeth into a determined smile. He jumped up and shot another kunai out, watching it sail in the air, high above the clone.
"Whoops," Naruto gulped in thought. He wasn't intending to aim the kunai at Sai, and it was sheer dumb luck. But he'd take it.
Sai turned around in time to see the kunai shooting straight towards his painted bird; however, he had no time to maneuver the art piece around the kunai and, in a deadlock, grabbed the painted feathers and steered the bird downward. The Haruno wasn't ready for the second nosedive and pelted backwards off the bird. Sai, unable to balance the weight that had flown off the back, lost control of his bird and it crashed directly into the Sakura shadow clone. The real Sakura vigorously ascended towards Naruto, collapsing on top of him.
The August sun didn't just make the morning's dry. It was foggy; the kind of sticky, almost damp fog that usually had no purpose and rarely brought rain along with it. The kind of fog that you couldn't see through more than seven meters ahead of you.
The Sakura shadow clone burst below Sai, along with his ink animal. He slowly arose from the hard, dirt ground he had fallen on, squinting to try and find Sakura within the seven meter radius.
Sakura was unaware of where she was. She could have sworn she was still up in the air. But she wasn't. In fact, she lying on top of Naruto, their lips locked into each other. Naruto, in a disoriented fashion, opened his eyes and immediately tried to screaming out, his voice lost in translation between his throat and Sakura's lips.
Sakura finally broke the kiss. She stood up as fast as possible, and shyly brushed off her mauve skirt. Naruto stayed lying on the ground, staring up at the pink haired girl in wonder and disarray, puzzled and in shock of what just took place. Sakura quickly turned her back to him, too embarrassed to look at the boy. She raked her gloved hands through her hair, picking out any small twigs that stuck into her thick hair as she fell through the trees.
Sai gave up on trying to squint through the heavy and grayish-orange air. He whipped out his scroll and painted another bird. The animal came to life, lifted its long, large wings and flapped vigorously until the dense air cleared. Across the embankment Sai saw Sakura and levitated over to her. He jumped onto the ground and the bird poofed into disappearance.
"Are you alright?" he asked monotonously, watching her pick out the last of the twigs in her hair.
"I'm fine," she said, trying to keep her voice level and even-toned. She felt her cheeks flaring up and she could only imagine them the same color as her shirt. "You?"
He nodded in reply. "Did you see Naruto? I could have swore you fell near him," he scanned the trees around him with suspicion in his eyes. Sakura turned around to where Naruto was once laying. He was gone.
"I didn't see him when I was falling," she responded. "You must be seeing things."
Sai turned his back and hopped into the trees to cover himself. So the sparring games begin once more, continuing on as if nothing had happened. Before joining him in the trees, Sakura looked around once more. Naruto had vanished so fast, so quietly. Did he even notice what had just occurred? Did he feel the earth move like she did? Did he feel what she felt in the kiss too? The warmth that fizzled like fireworks? She put her unclenched fist over her heart.
"Naruto," she thought, "I finally won. Third time's the charm."