CHAPTER FOUR

- When Things Got Out Of Hand -

When boys start fighting, it's really scary. They both push each other with words until one of them lashes out – and that's when things get ugly. Itachi and Gai-sensei stood at either end of the mats, preparing to stop the match if things got out of hand… and by their grim looks, it seemed that something was bound to go wrong.

"Sasuke, Naruto, are you ready?" Gai-sensei said, his eyes flickering from one to the other, and then to Itachi. The boys didn't say a word; instead they just stared at each other. "Alright then," Gai-sensei stepped back and nodded to Itachi, who also stepped back slightly, "Begin!" He roared.

There was an almost dead silence. The two glared at each other before Naruto bent down low into a fighting stance. Sasuke simply stood there, waiting.

"Go for it Naruto!" A few of the boys shouted, whilst most of the girls in the room were almost biting their nails.

"Who's gonna win?"

"I don't know! Last time was pretty bad…"

"I mean, both of them are evenly matched."

"Naruto's bigger than Sasuke."

"What's your point? Sasuke's Itachi's little brother."

"True…"

There were lots of different conversations going on around me, I tried not to pay attention to them, but I was curious as to who was the stronger of the two. I from the front of the room, I heard a loud scratching sound. Someone had moved. I squeezed past a few taller males ("Excuse me, short person coming through…") and gasped at the sight before me.

Sasuke and Naruto were moving so fast! It couldn't have been a natural speed. Throwing punches and kicks at absurd angles, catching and ducking and rolling and dodging. Flipping and jumping and spinning and grabbing. Naruto's fists moved so quickly I would have thought that there were about sixteen of him in the room. But Sasuke dodged them all easily and managed to trip Naruto with a sweep of his leg. However, once Naruto was down, he grabbed a hold of Sasuke's ankle and twisted it into what looked like an excruciatingly painful position. Sasuke's face screwed up and he went down into a sort of hand stand, and promptly kicked Naruto in the face.

Naruto flew backwards with a grunt, but immediately got back up, rubbing his nose.

"Daooww…" He mumbled before flashing past and grinding his fist into Sasuke's stomach. I gasped as Sasuke coughed loudly and stepped back clutching his abdomen. Naruto smirked. "That all you've got?"

"Far from it." Came Sasuke's reply, I saw the way he caught Itachi's eye before sprinting around the mat. Naruto stood, arms folded and waited patiently until the raven haired teen slipped from the side of the mat and aimed to land a kick to the back of the blonde's leg.

It would have shattered a bone if Naruto hadn't back flipped over Sasuke's head. There were gasps of wonderment as he landed gracefully and stood up straight again. Sasuke growled and for a moment, the two of them just stared at each other before dashing towards one another, fists raised.

There was a sickening thud as tanned skin connected with a pale jaw, and an ivory fist smacked into a perfect, freckled nose. I gasped and closed my eyes. I heard both of the boys groan and opened my eyes to see them staggering away from each other, both mumbling curses.

"Sasuke, COME ON!" Karin shrieked, suddenly standing next to me, a girl on the other side with long, long, long midnight blue hair glanced at Karin before raising a fist and pumping it in the air.

"Go on, Naruto!" She shouted. Only, she wasn't as loud as Karin. I focussed my attention back on the two teens in front of me. They were probably having a psychic argument with each other with the way that they were both getting so wound up just looking at each other.

"SASUKE!" Naruto finally roared, "I'm not gonna let you beat me!"

"Keep telling yourself that, loser." Sasuke muttered, rubbing his jaw before they both ran at each other with that same unnatural speed. I noticed a few of the girls around me squeak and the boys look at each other worriedly. Karin nudged me.

"Shit's about to go down."

"What do you mean?"

"Itachi and Gai-sensei are gonna have to step in."

"Why—?"

My question was cut off by another loud scratch of feet on the mats – I twirled around so fast my neck probably snapped – and, once again, the boys were in motion. Only this time, not dodging a single attack but reverting to plain blocks. I noticed Sasuke trap Naruto with his ankle and toss him over. Naruto sat up and rolled backwards onto his feet. However, before he could fully re-gain his balance, Sasuke caught a hold of the blond and slammed him back onto the ground. I couldn't see what was happening, but heard choking sounds and ferocious punching.

Where the heck had that come from? Sasuke: the calm, unemotional, never phased, confident, god-like being – was pummelling the sunny, loud, warm looking person into the floor. And no-one even knew why.

"Sasuke! Stop it." Itachi said loudly, his deep, well spoken voice resounding around the hall. Everyone's conversations stopped, but the steady thudding and groaning and choking didn't cease. I was almost completely horrified. I watched as Itachi and Gai-sensei leaped over the mats and made their way to where Sasuke was continually smashing the now probably bleeding blonde teen into the ground. Itachi swiftly caged his arms underneath Sasuke's armpits and dragged him backwards with a harsh yank. This caused a growl to escape from Sasuke. Eventually, Itachi managed to get him to flop down into a chair and spoke to him with sharp features.

"I'm not kidding, Sasuke. You've got to watch what you do here, these are our school fighters, and it's not like how it is in the competitions. You're not supposed to totally deck your classmates. Especially with such a force, understand?" Itachi was referring to the whole choking thing

"Yeah… but… I know. Whoa, fuck." Was all I caught from the (slightly shaky) pale Uchiha boy. Karin tugged at my gym shirt sleeve.

"Let's go see him." She said before completely dragging us over to Itachi and Sasuke. Karin beamed at Itachi who was probably about the same height as Sasuke. It was almost scary how alike they looked, except for Itachi's tanned skin and long hair – they could have been twins. Now that I was so much closer to the eldest of the two I could see a few more differences. Itachi had lines of stress etching out from under his smouldering onyx eyes. He nodded to Karin and then to me before sitting down next to Sasuke and offering him a drink.

Karin and Sasuke started a quiet conversation as Gai-sensei and Naruto limped off of the green mats. Naruto hugged the girl I'd seen earlier – the one with the long, long, long hair. She kissed his (now swollen) cheek and rubbed a hand soothingly on his back. He too, took a seat.

"Sasuke, what happened just then?" Karin finally asked. The younger of the Uchiha brothers ran a hand through his (very soft looking) darker than midnight hair, making its already messy style even messier. I resisted the urge to go 'aww' and tell him how cute he looked. Because he was a tired angry looking male, who had just beat the crap out of his floored opponent. Meanie.

"I'm not sure. He's gotten stronger. I just wanted to whack the shit outta him before he could do anymore damage to me. Kari, it's your turn." He said suddenly and looked up from his chair, nodding to me. I looked from my silver toe-nails and stared at him, long and hard. I tried to tell him with my eyes that I was about to freaking annihilate that girl with the pink hair and the green eyes who he once dated but broke up with because of some media shit. The only girl in the school with the sports honours tie – I was going to beat her.

Sakura and I met in the centre of the floor of mats. My bare feet were almost sticking to them as I approached the pinkette. I sized her up. She had to be at least five inches taller than me, and she looked very feisty. But judging by the information Karin had given me, Sakura was only trained in Konoha's fight skills. I had a whole array of different skills and talents that I had picked up from years of travelling and the likes. I'd stayed with many families famed for their skill levels in the body arts. And I had been in Baki's favourite fight team. I smirked at her. She raised her pink eyebrows and placed a hand on her hip. Queue the bitch glares. We stared at each other whilst Itachi carefully explained his rules to us with a stern face.

"…And if we have a repeat of what Sasuke and Naruto just performed, Gai-sensei and I are going to have to intervene. So don't try to kill yourselves okay?"

"Yes." Sakura and I replied, not taking our eyes off one another.

"Okay then… begin!" He said loudly (Itachi rarely shouted).

To say that Sakura was strong was an understatement. She was crazy! I barely managed to dodge the numerous punches she threw at me. I could literally feel the air around her balled fists shatter as she stumbled forward from not being able to let her fists connect properly. I was shaken at first, until I managed to find a safe footing. I leant in my stance, rolling my body and sweeping backwards in an almost limbo-like movement, safe from yet another bone smashing hit.

"What are you DOING?" Sakura growled at me, before launching, once again, towards me. Her shout distracted me and I felt her knuckles slam against my forearm. I gasped at the numb feeling slithering up my arm. Around us there was a low 'ooohh…' sound.

"She's screwed." Someone said loudly, I saw Sakura smirk. I realised something. She swung blindly – that was why she missed so many times. And she didn't kick either, all she seemed to do was fight with her fists. If I could just get enough height in a jump, and land it on one of her shoulders…

Yeah. That was what I'd do. I followed Sasuke's technique and sprinted around the mats. Faster and faster until I couldn't read the pinkette's facial features. Not that I wanted to. She was probably smirking. Bitch.

Then I suddenly pivoted on my toes, don't ask me how but I managed to be standing right behind her before grabbing each of her arms and pulling them up backwards – this is immensely painful, as you will know if you have an older brother who just happens to be the biggest sadist in the world. Sakura threw me a dirty look over her shoulder. I knew she was bigger than me and could have flipped me over her back in one second. But for some reason she didn't. Instead she caught my ankle with her foot. In shock, I let go. Tried to escape. If she caught me in another one of her fist firing rounds, I was completely screwed. Pathetically I whined.

"Let me go… that wasn't supposed to happen…" Sakura grabbed the front of my polo shirt, pulled me forward gently, and then roughly shoved me backwards. The force almost sent me toppling backwards. Almost.

I managed to land my hands and toes on the ground, going into what's called 'The Crab' …or something… Then, I applied pressure onto my hands and threw my body backwards. I tucked my knees in before back flipping and landing just less than a meter away from her, breathing deeply. How the hell was I supposed to beat this girl? She was psychotic! I mean… sheesh…

I mean… SERIOUSLY!

"Come on, Kari!" I heard Karin yell. Of course Karin would be the one yelling. But shortly afterward I heard a few more encouraging calls from a deep voice (Juugo) and a determined, pissed off, strained voice (Suigetsu). Why pissed off? Was the fight getting boring?

Well then, I guess I'll just have to liven things up a bit.

I lowered myself into one more stance, pushing out my hands until I felt the muscles underneath the golden tanned skin on my arms strain with effort. Sakura thundered towards me. I danced around her in a circle. This was going well. I managed to stab her in the stomach with my fist – even though I knew that was dangerous to us girls.

"No more dirty moves, Kari!" I heard Gai-sensei yell out from where he was sitting with Naruto. I rolled my eyes and stabbed her with the tips of my fingers. Shoulders; arms; back; legs… everywhere. Someone was going to wake up with quite a few bruises tomorrow. I felt proud of my work when her face scrunched up into pain. She took one step back. I relaxed slightly. Thought I'd let her get her breath back. I'm a decent person, see.

Sadly, Sakura wasn't. She took the advantage of my lowered guard and swiftly punched me in the side of the face. I stared at her for a few seconds before blacking out completely.

Voices. That's what I could hear. Why were they all so loud? Stupid loud voices.

"Midge? Midge, wake up!" Oh hey, I knew that voice. That was Karin: the one with red hair and red eyes and librarian glasses. Why was she telling me to wake up again? Oh yeah. That Sakura bitch knocked me out. Fuck… that means I lost. Damn.

What was that smell? That lovely cinnamon and new cotton and slightly sweaty smell. It was surrounding me.

"Should I take her to the med room?" I liked that silky voice too. Whose was it again? It belonged to someone pretty.

"No, she'll come round in a sec." That voice was pretty too. That voice was soothing.

I leant into the cinnamon and new cottony smelling person and felt a pair of strong arms wrap around my abdomen and pull me upwards so that I was sitting. Well, leaning against something warm and hard and soft all at the same time. Wow, my cheek hurt. I was totally gonna beat the shit out of that girl. I groaned loudly when pressure was applied to the injured cheek.

"You waking up, huh?" Silky, perfect voice. Right by my ear.

OH SHIT.

I'm not gonna lie, I hate this chapter. I can't do action scenes. Seriously. So, Sasuke took care of Kari? What the fuck! I can't write emo; it's not my thing. Sorry if he seems too OOC. Uhm, yeah if you have any tips for that, I'd be saooooo grateful.

Wow, I need bed. Now.

I will be updating more frequently from now on; since next Friday school finishes up for the summer and I'll have more time to kill. I probably wont be able to update at all next week though, going camping :s…

So; thank you, kind person, for taking the time to read, and please leave a review. It will make me literally squeak with happiness.

Next time: Kari and Sasuke have an awkward moment. Karin and Sakura will have a "little chat" and Suigetsu's house. Maybe. I haven't thought about that part yet. Hmph, whatever.

Cha, cha cha…

-YourChemicalRomancex