-AN: I don't own Naruto!

Previously: "Sakura, you ok?" Neji asked, seeing her turn a little red.

"Um…Uh..N-neji, could you get off-" but before she could finish her sentence, the two heard the bushes in front of them starting to rustle.

"Ummm, what are you guys doing?" Sai asked a little confused. He stood there with his pack and supplies, while staring at the two with a raised eyebrow.

"Kami, just take me now!" Sakura thought.

Chapter 9 – Preparations!

Immediately Sakura pushed Neji off of her and stood up brushing of some dirt and leaves off her shirt. Neji landed about three feet away from her . "Ow, what the hell!" he thought as he removed the pinecone, that he landed on, toward a nearby bush. He stood up, wiping off the dirt that clung onto him as well.

"Nothing. Neji just saved me from a kunai." Sakura explained quickly, trying to hide the blush that was left on her cheeks. She pointed at the tree trunk that had the projectile sticking out of it, but this still didn't satisfy Sai's observation.

Sai just gave one of his fake smiles. "I read in some books about attractions between the two opposites sexes, but I'd never thought you two would-" but before Sai could finish, he was already flying back ten feet in the air.

"It's not like that!" Sakura called out as Sai landed on his feet a couple of meters away with a, now forming, black eye. "Asshole!"

Sai just held onto his eye for a moment before saying, "Damn, do you have PMS or something, you ugly hag."

As soon as Neji heard that, he was sure that Sai wouldn't be able to speak again, let alone walk. Sakura was fuming.

"What did you say!" She yelled out cracking her knuckles, walking towards him.

But then from the bushes behind the three came the rest of their teammates.

"Oi." Kakashi said, behind the entire team, closing his book and placing it in the pocket of his vest. Everyone just stared at the jounin. "Any problems?"

"When did you get here!" Everyone exclaimed. He just pointed to a branch above them, and then pointed to his book. Everyone nodded in understanding. "So, what seems the problem here?" "I can't read my freaken Come Come paradise if these kids don't shut it." He thought.

"No, nothing Kakashi-san. I just came back and found these two in the middle of-" but once again, Sakura shut the guy up.

"Umm…Sakura-chan? I know he's a jerk, but you don't have to make him look like a raccoon." Naruto said trying to calm his friend down. Sai now did resemble a raccoon, but the thing that made him confused was how he got the first black eye.

"Please c-calm down Sakura-chan." Hinata asked the pissed off kunoichi.

"You two were in the middle of what?" Kakashi asked a little suspiciously, with a raised brow.

"He just saved me." Sakura began, but she got a little nervous from all the attention she was receiving from everyone.

"Yes, from being alone." Sai said right after the kunoichi. "What the hell is your problem!" Sakura yelled.

"I'm just following and observing other ways to interact with other people. It's what I read in books."

"What the hell are you reading that makes you such an asshole!"

"Some books Kakashi-san lent me." Everyone grew quiet as they stared at the jounin who was backing off a little. "I don't understand most of the actions between the characters, but from what I read, it seemed like a habit to somewhat insult you kunoichies."

Sakura felt all of her anger whither away and form into pity at the thought of Sai's mind being trashed by the crap he was given. But at the same time she got pissed at a certain former teacher of hers.

"Kakashi-san…" Both Naruto and Sakura said dangerously. "Why can't these people just let things go?" Sasuke thought in irritation.

"I just pushed her out of the way. That's all. Why must you people make this such a big deal out of nothing?" Neji said, bring the attention of his teammates to him.

"So that's gives somewhat a reason why you ran away from our fight." Sasuke said, folding his arms over his chest. "I thought you backed off because you gave up." He said with a smirk.

"Hmph. Like I would let myself lose to a jackass like you." Neji said.

Sasuke replied with a death glare, as he activated his sharingan. Neji just glared back.

"Hey, hey, hey calm down you guys." Naruto said trying to prevent the two from burning holes into each other, but the two insisted on trying to break the other.

"Neji-san, please lets just go back to training. You can train with Sakura-chan." Hinata suggested, but with no luck.

Naruto looked toward his former sensei, but found that he was on a tree branch above them reading his book. "Yay, we have two reliable jounins." Naruto thought sarcastically, but then was struck with an idea, not a good one, but he wanted to go back to training fast. "Geez, I know you guys are both losers, but you two don't have to keep saying who's weaker when you know I can kick both your asses!" Naruto exclaimed while pointing to himself with his thumb.

"What!" Sasuke and Neji said in unison, as they looked straight at the idiot.

Hinata and Sakura sweat dropped. "Naruto-kun…" Hinata thought as she let out a sigh. "Baka" Sakura thought as she was stepping in to save her teammate.

"Kiba, watch it!" Ino called out. Akamaru pushed him away from the barrage of bugs that collided against the ground with some force. Kiba rode on Akamaru to a safe distance away from his sparing partner.

"What's wrong Kiba?" Shino asked.

"Nothing." He replied getting of his companion, scratching his head in thanks.

"Just tell us, we knew something was up since the teams split up." Ino said.

Kiba sighed in defeat. He faced both his teammates and said, "How come Naruto's team gets the special treatment, all the freaken time!" Both Shino and Ino looked at him with a confused expression.

"What do you mean?" Shino asked.

"Come on! They're the ones who are going into sound, they know a hell lot more classified information than us, and they always get special privileges!"

"Well you have to admit that Naruto's team isn't normal." Ino said. Kiba just stared at her. "Oh, please. Kakashi-san is one of the strongest jounin here, Sakura is a medic prodigy, Naruto has the nine-tailed fox in him, and Sasuke….He's another story on his own." She explained.

"Well hokage-sama could of at least sent more people to sound. Orochimaru's most likely there! They're all going to be ripped to shreds. There's no way Naruto and the rest can take on that whole damn country! Is she nuts? There's no way Hinata can face them, even with Neji's help! Her father wanted her to be safe right? The what the-"

"Kiba!" Shino said cutting his teammate off. "Calm down." Akamaru liked his hand as he whimpered at his friend's sudden outburst.

"Kiba, they're not stupid enough to set off the whole damn country. Tsunade-sama said not to take any risks remember? They won't do anything that stupid. The main objective is just to know his location, then regroup and get that snake bastard. It's that simple." Ino reasoned.

"Hmph, you've never been on a mission with Naruto before." With that Kiba jumped onto Akamaru's back. "I'll get some lunch." he said as the two went somewhere through the woods.

"What's wrong with him?" Ino asked Shino.

"He's always like this on big missions." "Plus he's worried about Hinata-chan." Shino thought, but decided to keep it away from the blond. Ino just shook her head, a hand placed over her right eye along with the right side of her temple. "I wonder what Shikamaru's doing?"

"Shikamaru! Pay attention!" Tenten called out as some kunai aimed straight for the cloud watching jounin. He deflected a kunai with one of his own and dodged the other ones.

"Can't we take a brake now?" He asked laying on the ground.

"What!" Lee called out.

"We had a brake an hour ago." Tenten said shaking her head.

"I need to get some more chips anyway." Choji said.

"We can't take a brake now! At least do two hundred push-ups!" Lee said.

"What?" Shikamaru said lazily.

"Like this!" Lee then began his unneeded exercise.

"Lee…" Tenten began.

"What about the mission tomorrow?" Tenten called out.

"Missions are too troublesome." Shikamaru said as he watched the clouds.

Tenten just found herself with a teammate committing a pointless demonstration, a teammate looking at the clouds, and another teammate out looking for lunch. "Dear kami, Ino, how can you stand these guys?"

Kakashi had long since left the team alone to their training. Neji was now sparing with Hinata, while Naruto and Sai went to get some lunch for the rest of them. Sakura practiced molding her chakra while in the shade of a nearby oak tree, and Sasuke was sharpening his sword a few meters away from the kunoichi. After what seemed a half and hour, Sakura decided to take a short brake and walked toward the nearest tree to sit in its shade. As she sat down, she wiped some sweat from her forehead. "When's Naruto and Sai going to be back?" she thought, and then noticed Sasuke was laying against another tree near hers and had his eyes closed. "Is he asleep?" She wondered.

She then paid some attention to her old teammate. He had indeed changed in physical appearance. He was just as tall as Naruto, his hair was just slightly longer than she remembered, but was still kept in the same style, nonetheless he still looked great. Then came his clothes. He was still wearing sound's attire, but they would probably get some new clothes for him, as well as replace his headband. Sakura then felt a strange feeling. It felt forgotten and it was a long time since she felt like this. She was confused, sad, glad, and scared at the same time. She remembered the attempts to get back Sasuke as well as the night he knocked her out on the bench. Could they really trust him so easily? "Wait! I shouldn't doubt Sasuke like that!…But last time I trusted his judgment, I woke up on a stone bench crying my ass off." She stared at Sasuke with a confused, yet sad expression. "But that battle with Itachi. We fought like a team again, and even though both me and Naruto weren't conscious, he still stayed with us…On his own free will…Or it could just be that he had no energy left and fainted…." Sakura shook her head trying to clear it.

"AHHHH! Shannaro! Why am I having these thoughts now." Sakura let out a sigh as she relaxed against the tree and laid her hand over her closed eyes. "What does Naruto and Kakashi-san think about this?"

"What's wrong?" Someone asked, bringing the kunoichi out of her thoughts.

"Sasuke-kun?" she said staring up at the tall figure next to her.

"I asked what was wrong."

"N-nothing." She answered staring at the dark emotionless eyes.

"Sakura, where's Naruto and the Sai?"

"They went to get lunch about a half hour ago."

"Hn." It grew silent between them. "What the hell? He's having an actual conversation with me, and he started it no less." she thought. Sasuke felt a little uncomfortable and decided to go back to his former resting spot, but before he could take his first step Sakura asked, "Sasuke-kun…You want to spar?"

He turned around and looked straight at her. She stood up and brushed herself off.

"What?"

"Um, spar…You don't have to if you don't wan-" but Sasuke already threw two shiriken at her, which she dodged easily. He then vanished in a blink of an eye. Sakura stayed in place getting into a battle stance. "Not above, not to the left, right, or behind. Then he must be." Sakura punched the floor below her and made several fissures as she split the ground open. As the earth rippled and shattered a cloud of smoke was seen in the crater that she formed. "Shit! A clone." A flash of grey zoomed straight at her. Sakura held a kunai in hand defensively as it clashed against Sasuke's kunai. He jumped back as he threw the kunai at her, along with three others. Sakura blocked them as each one landed around her, sticking out from the ground. Sasuke then formed some hand seals, Sakura couldn't tell what he was doing, but decided that waiting to see wasn't the brightest thing to do. So she tried to get out of attack range, but found herself stuck in place. "Fucken A!" Sakura found that each of the kunais that were around her had some kind of tag on them. She had never seen the symbols on them before, and couldn't understand how they worked. "Is this like Shikamaru's jutsu? Or is it just chakra concentrated in the tags that restrict my movements in a certain amount of space?" She couldn't tell but didn't have time two as Sasuke once again formed hand seals, but unlike the first, these seals were very familiar. "Shit! NO! I won't lose within the first five minutes of the battle!"

"Katon!" Sasuke silently muttered as her breathed out a huge flaming fireball straight at the trapped kunoichi. The fireball seemed the make contact as a huge explosion took place. He found Sakura lying on the floor a little burnt up.

"Crap! Did I-" but before Sasuke could finish his thoughts the ground beneath him started to crack. "What the-" he thought as Sakura's fist came in contact with his chin, sending the stunned Uchiha into the air. Sakura got rid of her clone as she jumped after him. Sasuke immediately got out of his shock when he sensed her presence. Sakura was about to land a chakra filled kick on his back, but he blocked it with a kick of his own. Instead of sending him to the ground, Sakura came face to face with a smirking Uchiha. A surprised look came upon her face as she had some idea what was to come next.

Sasuke spun her 180 degrees as he landed a punch to her side. He placed another punch on her back, which caused her to cough out some blood. When she finally neared the ground, Sakura caught the final kick that would have completed his lion combo, but from the impact Sakura was forced into the ground, forming a small crater around her and Sasuke. Sakura quickly jumped out of the crater and distanced herself from her opponent. She then healed the various wounds she received from Sasuke. Panting slightly, Sakura watched her opponent as he faced her direction and got into a battle stance. "She's a hell lot stronger than before, and it's going to be a problem since she's a medic nin. Plus that freakish strength she has." Sasuke smirked. "She might actually be a challenge."

"Damn! I'm already panting and I didn't even give him a freaken scratch!" Sakura thought. She reached into her kunai pouch and took out her black glove. She wore it on her right hand and then looked at the smirking Sasuke. "I'm fighting Sasuke….For the first time, I feel like an equal." Sakura smiled at the thought as she charged straight at him.

"Umm Naruto. Are you sure this is a short cut to Ichiraku's?" Sai asked the blond while walking through the woods.

"Of course!…Heh heh." Naruto said looking around scratching his head. After a minute or two of walking Naruto asked, "Hey…Uhhh…Where are we?". Sai sweat dropped.

In a small cabin near the woods, two Akatsuki members were discussing amongst each other.

"Itachi, the Konoha brats are in Sound…" Kisame said.

"No, they'll be there in about two to three days." Itachi said, taking a sip of his tea.

"Your younger brother is with the kyuubi kid, are you planning anything."

"We have to take care of some annoyances tomorrow first, use today to rest." With that Itachi went out of the cabin and vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Next time: "To sound it is!"…"Kakashi, they're here."…"Ku ku ku, Kabuto, our Sasuke-kun's coming and he's bringing friends."

AN: Yes it's short I know, but I'll make the next chapter longer and better. Thank you so much for reading!