"UP!"

"DOWN!"

"NO, UP!"

"I'M COMING DOWN!"

"You're coming FROM down, you idiot! Go up!"

Eri planted her hands down on the grass of the field. She should have been able to maneuver her body to throw a kick up, like she was being instructed to, especially since she was already in position. Instead, the moment her leg rose above level with her torso, she twisted it and pivoted her foot so that the sole of her sandal was the first thing out, transforming her kick into a subtle 'shove' to the boy's abdomen instead.

Raising his hand, the guy merely grabbed her momentum-less leg, and with a less-than-powerful twist, shoved her off-balance and onto the ground, "What was THAT?"

"Kiba!" She scolded lightly, drama leaking into her every facial feature as her lips upturned into a deep pout, "you're being too hard on me-"

"Wha? Quit joking!" he shoved his hands into his hoodie, and out from the neck hole sprout his little pup Akamaru to spectate now that the quicker paced movement was over. "I'm s'posed to be helping you train, but it's kinda hard to do when you won't hit me. You think I can't take it or somethin'?"

She pushed herself up from the ground and into a sitting position, tilting her head to the side and uttering a most 'oblivious' and 'innocent', "well of course you can. I think if anyone knows how to take a beating, it would be you…"

He was silent for a moment, staring at her incredulously. Did she just- He briskly rose his foot this time to push his sole on her shoulder and roll her back onto the ground, "SAY WHAT!?"

"I was joking! Have mercy!"

"It'd better have been a joke!"

She couldn't suppress the quiet breath of a chuckle that spilled from her lips. Despite everything, and even with things looking up between she and Ino, or the time that she got to spent with Sasuke to clarify a few of her 'silly' worries, she had been dealing with occasional lack of motivation. She couldn't place the source, but she could feel the ups and downs in her performance, and apparently it was enough that her sensei realized it too; she could remember the way he insisted on a couple days of group training this week. She could only assume that he probably thought lack of typical socialization played a role, and while she wasn't convinced, she also didn't have much else to allocate to it, so she decided to take his word for it. After all, he may have had a point somewhere; regardless of those problems and the consistent over-activity in her mind, the little moments of smiles and laughs in between helped her press on for longer.

"Would you be so kind as to let me have another round?" She questioned, though still feigning the same innocence that mocked him as she stood.

"Yeah, sure. It'd be a waste if I didn't," Kiba cocked his head to the side and raised a challenging brow. His nose wrinkled and his eyes narrowed, all the while leaning forward as if emulating a threatening stance -despite how nonthreatening he felt to her, "you listen though. If you see an opening to take a shot at me, take it this time, you got that?"

She quirked her lips to the side, biting lightly at the corner from inside her mouth. She brushed her thumb against the bottom of her lip, then peered away, seeming to think so deeply about this, "...I don't like to lie."

"Don't start!"

They were preparing once more. Kiba usually sank into a decently low stance; he was a mobile guy, and his movements were quick and flexible, so he often liked having the capability of changing his potential movement at the drop of a dime. Not only that, but he hit pretty hard too. It made him somewhat balanced in a fight.

To Eri, she had sparred him a few times in the past, so she had a general idea of how he preferred to function in battle. She had also managed to take into account that his style had definitely evolved since the academy. He was faster than before, stronger than before, and dare she say, he had gotten somewhat more watchful. Before, she could usually pull some quick-thinking or a trap out of her arsenal and even the playing field even without the use of Taijutsu, Now, she had to really wrack her brain for a more creative solution if she wanted to use that as a way out.

She lowered herself carefully, distributing her weight more onto her back foot, and keeping her front leg loose. She studied him carefully, watching the way he distributed his weight. Curse the boy for being relatively unpredictable at the start of a match. He always waited until practically mid-fight to solidify his strategy, and as reckless as it was, it was effective against her.

"Ready?" He started from across the way, leading Eri to doing another quick once-over of his person before answering with some hesitance, "yeah.."

He wasted not a second after that, rushing forward with a strong foot forward, like a power stride.

Eri carefully watched, staying in place as the distance closed between them. She shifted to the right, then left, before quickly favoring a backwards retreat to avoid the incoming punch that she knew that was coming. Rather than deflecting or matching, she took the chance to widen the distance again, and hook her fingers into the pouch at her side.

"Hey, leave those coins outta this!" he shot, striding forward again. His aim was to keep on her tail, refusing to give her the opportunity to seize enough pause to act with a tool, and it was working, unfortunately for Eri.

'Right. Left. Top, Top, ' She could hear herself in her head, keeping a steady track on the way that his body moved, how it distributed weight, and whether or not more power was twisted into the top or bottom. Several times to the top, it looked like he was going more punch heavy this go around. She determined it may be safe playing low to the ground, but not too much, it wasn't too difficult for him to shift into kicks in the least.

"Hey, who said I was fishing for a coin..!?" she retorted huffily. She was fishing for a kunai, thank you. She was thinking that if she could pinpoint the timing of his punches, and the duration of his hand's loosening from a fist, she could use the looped end of the kunai and-…

'and…'

To do anything useful with that, she would have to apply pressure. Probably fold his hand back, or twist his arm in a disarming form to throw his balance off and get him into a hold. She could do that without being too heavy-handed? If she did that too harshly and roughly she could very well run the risk of breaking his finger or hand or arm or dislocating a shoulder or-

Her body suffered a sudden chill, and her fingers immediately let go of the kunai and came out empty handed.

Suddenly she gasped sharply, her eyes growing wide as her body just barely stumbled ungracefully to the right. She peered to Kiba's fist, which had permeated her field of distance and slammed roughly into the tree that had been just behind her a moment ago. She hadn't even realized the tree was there for a moment…

"Cause you wouldn't reach for anything but a coin," Kiba shot, crooking his neck to the side whilst pulling his fist back, "keep your head in the game!"

"I'm insulted…" she murmured beneath her breath, shifting her weight to try getting her weight solid on both of her feet again.

She had used coins in their last two or three spars that day. She only had them stocked for as far as she could seal 'ninjutsu' inside of them. Using them several times already guaranteed that they were low. She hadn't the opportunity to take a look at them and their luster, but she was positive she should operate under the assumption that they could only be used sparingly.

So then… what… traps?

"I know what you're thinkin'," Kiba started up, brandishing his tightened fists, "hand to hand. Take a hit if you see an opening, I said! Don't stop already."

'I didn't start…' she thought ruefully, though she was hardly given a second to dwell on that before he was back up-close for close-quarters Taijutsu. She dropped down, then leaped backwards, watching the rough throws of punches. 'Maybe…. Maybe I…'

She continued playing distance, and it essentially boiled down to a game of chase, with Kiba keeping close and pursuing close-quarter to limit her ability to move freely. It was an overwhelming strategy that kept her more focused on him than herself.

Her eyes shifted to the tree near the edge of the clearing, then just as quickly back to Kiba. Her movements became somewhat more confident in evasion, less spur of the moment and frazzled and more solid in her methods of evasion.

Kiba recognized this too, just as Eri often recognized his own fighting styles. The Yoshida girl had always been more functional in teams, especially back in the academy. This was because where she fell flat in both direct ninjutsu, taijutsu and chakra control, she more than made up for it in strategy and planning. It was why he plotted to overwhelm her from the start; the longer she was in a fight, the more she learned. She committed strategies to memory, analyzed her opponent's movements and attack preferences, and devised solutions that were solely individual to her specific situation.

He'd even remembered having a conversation with her about it back in the academy.

"You're not too dumb after all!" Yep, that was how he started the conversation. He had just gotten finished watching one of her fights, and he was ready and set to bet against her. She was floundering like a fish out of water, and she looked like she would lose her footing and throw the spar away or forfeit at any moment. Contrarily, he remembered her movements getting faster, and in the end just used their momentum against them. It was weird to say the least, like some sort of pacifistic manner of battle, but hey, it worked that time at least.

To his 'dumb' comment, Eri's head had cocked slightly to the side. She stared at him almost blankly, as if at a loss for words. Who approached someone like that? Regardless, she slowly nodded and uttered a simple and casual, "thanks! But I'm really not that smart at all."

"What do you call it?"

"Lucky."

Kiba shoved his hands into his pockets and furrowed a brow, "you did that on purpose though, didn't you? How's that lucky?"

She gently placed her hand to the side of her own cheek as if genuinely thinking over his comment, almost as if it had never occurred to her, "well I think maybe you might have a point, actually…"

Wait! Was she actually stupid!?

"HAH?! Don't tell me you never thought of that!"

"W-well I did! I just didn't really think too much of it, you know? I-I mean I know I planned it, but that's not really important to me. It's better if I'm dumb, right?"

"That doesn't make any sense!"

He was convinced after that conversation that maybe it really was just a lucky fluke. Truth be told, she really was much calculated than that, wasn't she? He got a real answer some years later:

"It's better if I'm dumb to people. They're more likely to get careless and cocky, then I can slide in like ZOOM and surprise them with not being AS dumb as they thought!"

'Not getting me though,' he thought confidently; he'd been down this road with her a few times now, so there wasn't any way in Hell she was getting past him with that crap. He wouldn't let the fight drag on much longer, or let her get much more comfortable, he'd try to finish it now!

His next shift from punch to sudden kick was abrupt, too abrupt.

Rather than so easily dodge, Eri was forced to guard, raising her forearm to try withstanding the blunt blow. Her body twisted back and away slightly, as if shuffling backwards somewhat to still focus on the distance between them.

"Quit…" he began, summoning a massive mount of twisting momentum through his raising knee, "runnin!"

Her hand reached back behind her, stabilizing herself against the trunk of a tree so that she could lean more further back and narrowly avoid his kick. She then pushed hard on the trunk, pushing herself forward at him.

He rose his hand, readying punch, but rather than following through with her dash, she stopped at the last moment, ricocheting back into a leap. His punch hit nothing but air, giving that momentary lapse in weight-shifting to throw him just slightly off balance.

'Perfect!' She thought proudly. She felt eager as her leap ended with her feet hitting the trunk and once again spiking her forward-moving energy so that she could rush at him now from a higher vantage while he was off-balance.

Kiba rose his head with surprise. Was she finally about to throw a punch? A kick? It was hard to tell – she hardly ever came at him directly, and she hardly ever went for a damaging blow. He couldn't tell!? Did she usually punch or kick? Knee? She had yet to raise any part of her body to indicate any of that! Was she going to headbutt him?!

Abruptly, she crashed into him.

No punch. No kick. No knee. Nothing.

She just quite literally dropped into him.

Sure, while it did throw him off balance, he could still feel an inward-tuck from her abdomen, as if she were curling in on herself to avoid this even resulting in the high-speed tackle it could have been. For that reason, it felt more like she was just slightly less than gently leaping onto him, and he was able to hook his hands to her sides and stable his footing without too much more than an off-balance stumble impeding the process.

"Is that it!?" At this point he was holding her like a child, and began shaking her vigorously in response to the pitiful display, "What was that supposed to be!?"

"Stop yelling at me, I tried!" She shot with the same level of expressive nonsense.

His eyes glazed, and without much more delay, he idly dropped her onto the ground, "What were you even trying to do?"

As he haphazardly dropped her, she rolled to her back, suddenly – though lightly - , throwing her straightened arm into the back of his knees. They locked up abruptly, sending him spilling onto the ground just like her, except on his hands and knees instead.

"That!" She shot, beaming proudly with a wide smile across her face.

His brow twitched. Honestly, he should have expected that. He really should have. Regardless, he twisted so that he was propped up on his feet and hands with his back facing the ground, then hopped up to his feet, "you know that wouldn't work if somebody was actually trying to kill you, right?"

"Oh, I know," she somewhat sheepishly added. Her proud smile faltered into just a slight smile, and whilst offering only the slightest shrug, she uttered quietly, "I considered that… but I knew it'd work on you."

"Cheap shot," he huffed, holding his hand out to her like a good sport, "if you think that quick on your feet in the finals, you might actually have some sliver of a chance to win."

"Well, I'd have more space, more weapons, and full coins," she responded back, taking his hand and being helped to her feet. Hold it – that actually almost sounded somewhat confident for a moment. Maybe this little sparring session helped after all. At the very least, she was able to improvise a solution while in action. It was something she already knew how to do, but any and all practice was helpful, especially against somebody almost purely offensive like Kiba.

After a few minutes delay to clear up any of the thrown and discarded tools, and make sure they were all packed up, the two headed out from the clearing. Four rounds in one session was more than enough, and she still had some other sessions planned further in the week with her team. Ino had offered to help her out as well, so she felt herself becoming unusually excited to fight for once, since they would be able to spend time together more often with that suggestion posed. Still, regardless of how grateful she was for everyone's offering, she couldn't help but feel somewhat bad. Maybe she should have taken this training session more seriously; well, she did, but maybe she should have been more aggressive.

It felt irrational to think that. It was different from the way she usually dealt with her thoughts, and a far cry from the optimism she had become used to. It was Kiba after all, he was pretty up front; he wouldn't hold out thoughts like that. Still, she peered over to him somewhat hesitantly, "hey! I really appreciate you helping me out, and everything. I… almost thought of forfeiting, really."

Kiba's head shifted to the side, his brow quirking thoughtfully, but his confusion was supplemented with a usually playful grin, "hey, no big deal. I get it though." he forced his hand down roughly atop her head, ruffling it vigorously as one would do with a younger sibling to prod at them, "I'd probably forfeit too if I had a first match that was that embarrassing!"

"KIBA!" She practically hissed at him, swiping at his invasive gesture like a disturbed cat, "You're supposed to be boosting my confidence!"

"I'm supposed to be ACCEPTING your thanks!"

"Yeah, exactly! Stop ruining it!"

"Who's ruining what!?"

"KIBA!"

The roughly ruffling hair atop her head eased suddenly, as if he had just suddenly recognized fault with his actions. It provided a strange atmosphere, that Eri couldn't immediately describe. She poked her head up from under the weight of his heavy hand that still hung limply atop her head.

"Yo," she could hear Kiba speak up, and after finally being able to see through her frazzled bangs, she looked up to see the familiar dark haired classmate of theirs. She raised her hand idly, a pleased smile on her face, "hey, Sasuke! You're free from training again?"

His expression lined with a cryptic uncertainty, his hands jammed into his pockets like usual, but his eyes appeared to hold a sort of suspicion for a moment. Regardless, he answered simply, "yeah. I stopped by your place."

"Ah sorry about that," she casually added, "they didn't poke at you too bad there, did they?"

"Not that," he hadn't even popped in the normal way, he'd stopped to knock on the window again, then just sort of waited around a bit, so that wasn't the issue, "I didn't go in."

Eri finally shook her head vigorously to shake Kiba's hand off, though he still thumped her on the crowd of head before retrieving his arm. "Oh! Then I guess it was more so looking for me. I've been working towards the finals and stuff. Kiba helped me train today!"

Kiba wasn't really saying much. Truth be told, he and Sasuke didn't talk much, and now in this relatively two-sided conversation, he didn't see too much room to interject. When practically invited though, he merely added his own little quip, "yeah. She sucks."

Eri's cheery demeanor dropped into a dull stare back at the dog boy, but she quickly brushed it off, "I'm improving! That's what matters!"

"You're finished?" Sasuke further asked, his eyes shifting between them.

"Yeah, we just finished up," Kiba started up. He was no expert in all this, especially in matters related to the Uchiha, but even he could see the buds of an awkward conversation blossoming. He raised his hand, and thumbed back towards the village, "I gotta stop by the hospital anyway and check on some stuff."

Eri tilted her head slightly. She could see sticky conversation too, but she was doing her best to try to smooth it over and invite them both to converse. Apparently that hadn't quite worked. She did at least wonder if there was something wrong between them or something. Either way, she raised her hand properly, "I'll see you around then, okay? Tell Hana I said hi, okay?"

"Tch'yeah," he somewhat chuckled at the thought of passing the message along to his older sister. He usually used their 'telephone' as a way to start up some unnecessary miscommunications between them for fun anyways. But with a casual bidding of farewell, he saw himself out.

"Hmm…" Eri hummed so pensively to herself as she watched him go. Still, she shifted back to Sasuke and tried to offer the same pleasantness that she had given Kiba. After all, she really was happy to see him. "So'd you wanna talk about something? And how'd the situation go with being a tour guide? Was it everything you'd hoped for and more?"

Sasuke's expression immediately went bland at the assertion, and huffing out a quiet breath of lighthearted displeasure, he turned away from her stubbornly, "it was just annoying's all. She couldn't sit still for five minutes; she always wanted to run around somewhere."

Eri smiled vacantly while approaching him as the two began to walk, "I don't really see the problem. Sounds like me, and for some reason you hang out with me willingly."

"I built up a tolerance to you."

"That makes it sound so bad!"

She was set to ask about his training, or any further updates he was willing to share on how he was doing; maybe she would pause to lecture him about the importance of eating and drinking properly, or taking regular breaks and maybe a few moments to meditate and things like that. Before she was given the chance, however, she noticed the way his brow furrowed ruefully, and as if struggling, he spoke up first.

"So. You've been training," it was phrased more like a statement than a question, but the effort he was putting in was probably the most endearing yet funny part; it was like it was strenuous to him.

She fought the smile that started across her face and simply answered, "yep! I've had a few offers, and I'm really thankful. Kou-sensei recommended some squad training too, so it's been really busy." She tilted her head to peek at his expression, "and you? You've had to have been busy… you haven't even cut your hair…" she tugged lightly at his bangs that now framed his face. His hair grew pretty fast in a month's time.

He leaned his head away, seeming to become somewhat embarrassed by the comment regarding his bangs, "I was gonna just leave them."

"...Makes sense."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She suppressed her chuckle once more, "don't worry about it, it's cute! I'm not saying anything about it at all!"

"You're one to talk. When do you ever cut that stuff?"

Eri paused momentarily, lifting her hair into her hand and looking at the extra length it had grown as if this was the first time it had ever occurred to her. She looked up and answered so simply, "never. I don't cut my hair. The longer it gets, the better. You should know this."

"It just gets in the way, doesn't it?" he shot, with a risen brow, "when you fight?"

"Well, I don't fight close-quarters anyway," she replied thoughtfully, "if it ever gets to be a problem… I suppose I'll just stop being a ninja."

"You're… Not kidding…"

"I'm not sure if I'm kidding just yet."

"Unbelievable. You say that like it's an option."

She thought surprisingly deep on the statement and hummed quietly. "'Cause it's reasonably true. I don't really know what I want out of being a ninja yet. It's encouraged in my clan sure, because of my dad's history and all that, but my mom didn't come from ninja. If I didn't want to be one, I guess that would be okay. I'd probably just do… normal heiress things. Like politics and marriage and diplomacy and those things."

She remained willfully oblivious to the way he shot her an abrupt side-eye at the mention of that possibility. His eyes narrowed slightly, suspiciously. He was wondering if she was saying these things on purpose to mess with him. Was she trying to just poke at him or get a reaction out of him? That didn't make any sense -why would it even get a reaction out of him in the first place..? He couldn't put his finger on why his mind went to that so quickly, but he had been feeling quick to jump to specific thoughts and conclusions; he had been twisted up like that for a little while now, even just from the time he had come and collected her from the training grounds.

"That's a pretty sudden judgment to make though," she continued on now somewhat more to herself, "I've thought about it, but I don't know if that's what I want. Being a ninja hasn't really appealed to me a whole lot either yet. I'm just thinking maybe… there's something else for me in being a ninja. Maybe that's why I'm still in on this…"

"What else is there," He asked as if genuinely stumped, "being a ninja is the expectation. You take missions, act on behalf of the village, get stronger and rise through the ranks." It sounded fine to him, he couldn't imagine much else. It had always been so heavily rooted in his mind that he would be using the route of a ninja to secure power and get stronger to accomplish his goals, however specific. Didn't everyone have a goal rooted in this? Even the idiot, Naruto, had a reason for doing this, even if it seemed unattainable.

"I know. Doesn't that almost sound a little monotonous though..?"

He would guess that for someone that wasn't entirely invested in something, that maybe it would sound that way.

"So, what?" he went on, "you'll just… get married, have kids, and go to meetings all the time. That doesn't sound 'exciting' either."

"Well, sure you would say something like that," she lightly shot, "have you ever even thought about things like that? You don't have a romantic or domestic bone in your body…"

"Why would I think about that?!" He almost sputtered as if her sudden assumption had either offended him or caught him off guard. It was a rare opportunity to see Sasuke flustered, no matter how slight, "that's something to think about years from now. It's silly to think about that right now."

"Easy easy," she playfully teased, that familiar kitten-like smile on her lips, "I didn't know you were so passionate about the topic of a future family. You totally skipped over the diplomacy and meeting parts too." She ignored his wince and merely waggled her finger knowingly in the air, "It's crossed my mind, but that's because not everybody is a ninja, see, like I said. That sorta thing would be way more important if I stopped being one."

"Well," he ground out whilst looking away, "you're not gonna stop being one then, right?" It was a very assured and matter-of-fact tone, but somewhere lurking under the surface, his tone seemed to falter from its confident facade.

The small sliver of unwitting vulnerability beneath his tone left Eri somewhat stumped. She bat her eyes, clueless, tilting her head and staring in silence for a brief time, "I don't know yet. If I do, it's not gonna be so soon or sudden."

He maintained his silence for a moment longer, and as if forcing out the embarrassment that grabbed hold of his face, he pulled ahead, only a stiff, "hmph-" in reply.

She didn't immediately follow, her brain was too busy trying to understand exactly what happened. She thought deeply for a moment longer, none the wiser to the slight color that slipped under her radar and into her face. "I think I…" she trailed, now only to herself as he had seemingly gone on without her, "I think I want to hold off on things like that… I want to be careful. So… just a step at a time. Maybe that's what I mean to say…"

She peered up as if to see now where he had gone, but the moment she shifted her attention up, she felt him ungracefully grab her hand with the same energy as a parent exasperatedly grabbing their lagging child.

"You're falling behind," he put simply, pulling her along now.

"Where are we going though?"

Truth be told, nowhere in particular unless they decided on it later, but in his own brand of subtle embarrassment, he answered more haphazardly, "don't worry about it…"

A/N: Have Feels Entered the Chat?

This was a really fun and entertaining chapter to write! I hope you guys enjoyed it too! The final exam is upon us and it's about time to rock and roll! I'd like to thank you all for all of the support you all have given me on this fic! It's nice! I think we're... around halfway through this story. It's very quickly nearing the Shippuden Transition, we've got just a few chapters left until that. ;w;

I really appreciate you guys, though! Thanks for reading!