i. in the stars that winked out.

SAKURA HARUNO WATCHED with rueful pride as blood trickled down Sasuke Uchiha's face in immaculate rivers. She ignored the searing pain in her ribs with every deep inhale of breath she took in, pushed past the darkness clouding the edges of her vision to stare at him as he held his nose, fingers clasped firmly around the shattered bone. All around them, stunned into near silence besides a few surprised intakes of air or strangled gasps, their peers watched the Uchiha heir—fucking Sasuke Uchiha!—as he reeled at the (admittedly) lucky hit she had gotten on him. Lucky, because Sakura Haruno, devoid of any special ability, descended from a line of civilian humans, had managed to hit a Uchiha, the strongest warrior in their class. Lucky, because despite her crush on him, she reveled in taking the asshole down a peg (or several). Lucky, and yet unlucky, because when he rocked back up to his feet, eyes glowing an eerie red and hackles starting to rise, she knew she was in deep shit.

Maybe she shouldn't have taken that hit.

"You half blood bitch," he growled, his voice taking on an inhuman quality the redder his eyes turned. She watched as his skin visibly rippled with the beast beneath his skin, claws crawling out from under his nail beds and turning black as pitch. She knew, from experience with other, more skilled Purebloods, that they were impossibly sharp, and made to rip and tear flesh from bone. When he took a step forward, she stepped back, any confidence she might have had withering away into dust that went poof! in the face of the menacing eyes glaring holes into her. "I'm going to kill you."

She barely mustered up the courage to flash him a wavering smile. "I'd like to see you try."

He lunged at her without any more provocation. She smothered the scream building in her lungs and dodged past the swipe he aimed at her throat, the other hand catching in the racer back of her tank top and shredding the fabric as she pulled away from his grip. She was half aware of the shirt flopping forward to expose her bra, of the cool chill of the dewy forest they had chose their training ground to be, and heard several girls giggle and snort at her, but she didn't have any time to develop any embarrassment when Sasuke's fist slammed into her sternum, taking advantage of her momentary embarrassment. She felt the air leave her lungs in a faint whoosh as she was knocked back onto the grassy forest floor, mud streaking on her skin and scrapes opening up on her face, elbows, and knees. She could smell the acrid iron of blood as soon as her flesh parted from the force and stumbled to her feet, narrowly avoiding another well aimed swipe to her throat. Before her muddled mind could even think of something to do, claws were sinking into her throat and a fist was digging into her cheekbones, on both sides, repeatedly, savagely, violently. She could hear them crack on impact, then felt them divide into two separate pieces. A glance of hard knuckles off of her brow bone and she was seeing stars, winking in and out of existence playfully, some of them a deep, ominous red, like Sasuke's eyes.

Like Uchiha eyes.

"That's enough." The sickly, ill voice cut through the sound of flesh hitting bone like a knife. Sakura was aware that her assault had stopped, but the pain continued, rocketing through her face and down her entire body, until she was certain the light she was seeing wasn't the sun but fragments of bone floating in the air like bright white pinpricks. She blinked, trying to clear them, until the owner of the voice was shoving Sasuke off and leaning over her, snapping his fingers in front of her nose. "Haruno. Can you hear me?"

She squinted and opened her mouth, tasted blood on her tongue—and something else, rolling around in her cheek, and spit it out. She heard a quiet "Oh, that's a tooth!" from somewhere off to the side, but there were still fingers in her face, snapping, and a voice calling her name repeatedly. "Yeah, I can hear you."

"Good." Hands probed at her face, prodding bone and pushing things back into place. She didn't have the breath to scream when her jaw, as she was unaware it had even been hit, was relocated back to its socket. There was a contemplative hum, a click of a tongue. "Not even a hint of the shift… Unlike another particularly ill-tempered student. Excellent work, Haruno. Permission to heal is granted."

Sakura exhaled in relief when the violent rush of beast crowded her being. It clouded her every sense and rendered her mute under its power as it knitted bone and skin back to purity, pulled her rib bones back to where they belonged and healed the fracture in her sternum. She took a few shaky inhales, testing, and when not even a twinge of pain rocketed through her body, she sat up, rolling her jaw. Her tongue probed her teeth and found a gap where her canine used to be, a fresh tooth already poking through the gum, sharper than the previous. She tested it with her finger and winced, the tip coming away bloody.

"Class is dismissed." Citrine yellow eyes regarded her with sick curiosity, focused on her finger as she pulled it out of her mouth and clamped her lips shut. Stubbornly, she looked away, still sitting on the ground, as the rest of her peers shuffled away, all except for one. "I did not ask you to stay, Sasuke."

She watched as his shoes, ragged Nikes stained with dirt and blood, entered her field of vision to stop right beside the tasteful Birkenstock sandals of her mentor. Her own feet, bare and streaked with mud and grass, looked pitiful in comparison, so she drew them closer to her body and tucked them underneath herself. When her shirt flopped down beneath her breasts, horror flooded her system and she rapidly tucked what remained into the straps of her bra to obscure some of it, though all of her class had likely seen that Sakura Haruno did not, in fact, wear strawberry patterned undergarments, but plain black ones instead.

"What does this half blood have that I don't?" Sasuke demanded. The heat in his voice stung more than his words ever could. He hated her. "I've proved myself, Orochimaru. I've bested all of your little warriors—I deserve to be in a higher class than—than this filth."

Half blood. Filth. She had been called those names many times, sometimes worse, but she had never heard it from Sasuke Uchiha before. Not like this, at least, directed at others—but never her, and never with this kind of severity. Like he meant it. She swallowed the knot in her throat and focused on the snakeskin patterning on Orochimaru's sandals, counting each individual one and ignoring the rapidly rising tension between the two men before her.

"Do you?" Though it made her skin break out in goosebumps, Orochimaru's laugh, especially at Sasuke, filled her with some smug satisfaction. If she looked up, she imagined his face was turning as red as the tomatoes he loved so much. "I don't believe you do, Sasuke. Your temper bests you. When you overcome it, only then can you be raised to a higher class. Until then, I would take cues from Haruno—while her offense may be lacking, her control over both her temper and beast is admirable."

"But—"

"Leave us, Sasuke," he hissed, his tone more forceful, less indulgent. She watched Sasuke's foot skid back half a step. "Do not make me repeat myself."

A disbelieving scoff, and then he was turning, walking off towards the direction where she had seen the others go. Gingerly, she touched her cheek again, working past the stiffness, and felt those eyes on her again, searching, probing.

"What did you earn by egging him on?" Orochimaru asked flatly as Sakura got to her feet. Her shirt fell forward once more, unbidden, but she couldn't find the effort in her to fix it once again. The lethargy had set into her bones, the healing having taken a toll from her. "Truly."

She reached up and rubbed the claw marks on her throat. Those would take time to heal, inflicted by his claws and not the bluntness of his fists. They already ached and stung enough to make her eyes water when she touched them. "I… He deserved it. The punch, and the goading after it. He's—He's—"

"An entitled Pureblood with nothing going for him except the Uchiha beast," Orochimaru finished for her drily, though sounding somewhat amused. When she said nothing and clutched the tattered remains of her shirt in reply, he laughed, a throaty thing, and in a flourish, removed the silk kimono robe he wore and put it over her shoulders. She startled and held it in place, her eyes darting up in surprise for the first time since she'd been pummeled into the ground. His eyebrow lifted. "We wouldn't want any males getting the wrong ideas, now would we?"

Her heart sputtered in her chest. She dropped her gaze down and towards the beaten pathway back to the condominium, fingers tightening on the silk robe's hem. "No."

"Good." With an encouraging pat to her shoulder, the dark haired man walked off, not even sparing her a backwards glance. "Dinner is at six. Don't be late. And wash up before you do."

Sakura shoved the urge to cry down. It wouldn't do her any good to collapse down into the grass and bawl her heart out; she would save that for the showers, where any tears she had would be invisible against the steam and hot water.

With a faint sniffle, she began walking towards the showers, only pausing once to retrieve one of her caches of clothes hidden in the underbrush. She wasn't going to risk going back to her room and being ambushed by Sasuke or his horde of admirers. She peered inside the drawstring bag and found it was a simple set of spandex shorts, a slightly oversized shirt that didn't belong to her, and plain underwear she didn't mind getting dirty if it came to it. She tightened the strings and slung it over her shoulder, ignoring the slight waft of jasmine and sandalwood that entered her nose, floating off of the kimono. She would return it to Orochimaru as quickly as possible—she wanted nothing of his for longer than needed. The scent alone would give her nightmares for weeks.

Nightmares, and, eventually, pain.

The showers were, thankfully, unoccupied, much to her relief, when she poked her head past the swinging door to scout it out. Other than some faint indications it had been used before and earlier in the morning, it was empty, and she chose the stall farthest in the back. Though it was the only one that didn't have walls and just a flimsy curtain, it gave her enough room to relax and not feel so claustrophobic like the others did. She ignored the stains her feet left and turned on the shower, standing in the spray with her clothes on, taking pleasure in the chill until it gradually warmed up. With a grimace at her sore muscles, she began pulling them off and tossing them into a pile, vowing to ring them dry and use the shirt for bandages later. Blood and dirt spiralled down the drain as she washed her body and hair clean, the once muddy tresses now a brilliant pink in the corner of her eye.

She touched them thoughtfully, noting their growing length, and sighed. The hack job she had done was sloppy at best, but it had kept it out of her face. Now that it was growing longer, she needed to go to someone to cut it—Ino would be best, but she was still angry at her for something, and now she would be really pissed when it came out that she had socked Sasuke in the nose and 'ruined' his aquiline nasal bridge. A tiny part of her took pride in that, though, and she couldn't resist the little smile that unfurled on her face despite the way her cheek ached when she did.

But it was worth it.

Sakura turned off the water and began pulling on her dry clothes. Her hair left wet stains on the shirt, but she couldn't avoid it entirely and left it to hang free, focusing on pulling her shorts on without tripping and landing face first on the tile. She would never allow Ino to talk her into another pair again.

"Another busy class?"

The slow drawl made her spine stiffen. She paused, one leg in the shorts, her eyes darting up to focus on the decidedly not female presence in the showers. Her gaze caught on pale silver hair, dark eyes, and an imposing presence, and she relaxed, but only slightly, following his stare to the exposed skin of her thigh where the fabric of her underwear met it. She hastily tugged the fabric in place and pulled her shirt down, clearing her throat and averting her eyes to a fascinating intersection of grout.

"Kakashi," she said, when her mouth began to work once again. "What are you doing here?"

He was quiet for a few moments. Only the sound of the water from her hair dripping on the tiles and her quiet exhales were audible, until she listened to him inhale and sigh. "I'm not sure."

Sakura remained quiet, flexing her toes and looking a little harder at that grout. It was so interesting, the little lines that made up the intersections, and the way it sealed the entire building's bricking into a solid building—

"Here." She stumbled backwards as a shirt was thrown in her face, her hands flying up to pry it from her face. With a surprised splutter, she yanked it off of her head and fixed him with wide eyes, catching the slight amusement in his eyes before it faded to that same, chillingly cold blank slate. "I expect it back."

Oh. Right. Right. Sakura swallowed nervously and clutched the shirt to her chest, trying hard to resist leaning down and inhaling his scent off of the fabric. She watched him tilt his head, sigh, and then turn on one heel back towards the door. Her heart panicked, and so did her brain. "Wait!"

He paused, half inclining his head back to acknowledge her. She hesitated, stared at his bare back and the lean muscle decorating it, danced on her heels, but shoved her embarrassment away for another time and pulled her shirt over her head. She stared at it for a few moments, clenching her fist in it, and then held it out and away, turning her head and clutching his shirt to her face. She obstinately refused to look at him, glaring at the wall, holding his shirt like a lifeline. She heard him inhale sharply in surprise, but the offering was taken from her gently, the barest touch of his fingers against hers igniting a flame deep within her belly. She had to bite her cheek in order not to gasp.

"... Thank you." Without another thought, he tugged it over his head—his shirt with her scent—and, not looking back or giving any indication he had felt what she had, left the showers, leaving her standing idle in the middle of the room, shirt to her chest.

Sakura tugged the shirt on and, feeling the painful twinge in her gut, began to cry.