"No...YOU shut up!"

"No! YOU shut up!"

"No! YOU shut up first!"

"Only if you shut up before me!"

"...That makes no sense!" Sakura stomped her foot on the branch angrily.

"Heh. Give up yet?" Sasuke, to the shock of everyone on the planet, who all paused to see if this was the apocolypse, smirked in an amused manner. Sakura just seemed even more annoyed. She was surprised herself, at how much more mature she was than the young man across from her. She had always thought of Sasuke as the more serious one, but here he was, arguing with her. Maybe it was a good thing she dropped her crush for him, she would hate to have actually ended up with him. She shuddered at the thought.

"Can we just get this over and done with, so I can take Naruto to Kakashi's and alert him of your appearance, so a great big battle can happen which inevitably ends with Naruto waking up just before we lose to save everyone with an impossible attack that shouldn't workbut somehow manages to have a logical excuse for happening?" She sucked in a deep breath and looked at Sasuke, who seemed to have fallen asleep.

"Sasuke!"

"I'm awake!"

Sakura growled and decided it was going to be up to her to begin the fight. She charged him head on and his smirk widened visibly, three black commas appearing before swirling around the pupil of his glowing red eyes. He activated the Sharingan with the hopes of ending the battle quickly, the game had already lasted long enough. Sakura backed him up the branch slowly, using her flurry of punches and kicks to herd him off the edge. She paused and ducked as a long, slender leg went soaring over her head in a smooth round house kick. It was followed up by a quick jab at her neck, which she had to avoid by bending backwards, her back cracking all the way until her hands hit the ground and she lifted her legs up, kicking him under the chin and sending him stumbling. She flipped backwards two times and landed back into her stance.

Sasuke felt his chin for any lasting damage and met Sakura's eyes. He was impressed and he nodded once in what was his way of approval. He launched himself into the air and sent two kunais flying in her direction, which she dodged with a little too much ease. She glanced back at the blades, buried into the branch and and saw the explosion tags tied to the ends. She swore and ran along the branch, leaping to the other side to where Naruto lay motionless. She threw him over her shoulder and jumped out of range as the entire tree exploded and sent sharp pieces of bark in every direction. The pink haired woman jerked forward when a long jagged piece of wood hit her in the calf and a few more smaller pieces hammered into Naruto's back.

"Naruto!" She carefully put him on the ground and ripped out the evil pieces of tree that wounded him. As she put her hands over his back to heal him, before Sasuke came to fight again, she was kicked roughly out of the way, by none other than Sasuke himself! Sakura decided, as she groaned and stood up, that this wasn't her day. Sasuke started to lift Naruto over his shoulder when he was spin kicked across the face three times with the girl's injured leg and the blonde was yanked from his grasp.

Sakura backed away limping, her leg now screaming at her in pain from using it, watching him warily while holding Naruto close to her in a way much like an over protective sister.

Sasuke wiped the blood from his mouth and approached his old teammate with a frustrated glint in his eye, cracking his neck from side to side. He took a kunai out from a hidden holster and spun it in his hand, speaking casually, "It would be in your best interest to put the idiot down. You probably haven't noticed, but you have a large piece of wood sticking out of your leg."

She wondered how she could have ever missed it, as it was most likely buried right into her freaking bone!

"Oh? I had no idea, thankyou for pointing out the obvious, what would I ever do without you?"

He stopped a few metres away from her and smiled in a way that made her feel uncomfortable.

"You choose death, then?" Of course, he didn't have any real intention of killing her. But scare tactics were always worth a try.

He appeared behind her in a flash and she tensed. He leaned close to her ear, and in a mock whisper said, "...Thankyou.."

Sasuke aimed a swift blow to the back of Sakura's neck, to knock her out, and his fist was deftly caught by the kunoichi's hand. She looked more furious and hurt than he thought he had ever seen her, even when they were teammates. She clenched his hand until a loud series of cracks could be heard and he tried to pull away. She spoke then, filled with hate, and squeezed his fist harder with each word, "You. Are. Annoying."

Her oposite hand came out and took hold of Sasuke's arm and she began spinning on her uninjured foot, "Have a nice flight, now, Sasuke-kun."

His eyes widened and he was sent soaring, rocketing up into the trees and into the air above. Well, at least he would have a chance to think about Sakura's significant rise in strength.

Meanwhile, down on earth, Sakura fell backwards and sat staring at her leg that was becomming more painful by the second. She knew that she should take the splintering wood out, to stop infection, but it was acting as a plug right now and if she took it out, she was sure there would be a whole lot of blood. She hastily pulled a piece of scrap paper and a pencil from her bag and scribbled a note, in case she didn't make it, to Kakashi. She was positive that his tracker dogs would find it before any one else.

Dear Kakashi, if you're reading this, I'm probably dead or something.

And if I AM dead, I am so going to haunt you. Sasuke's here, he came for Naruto but we fought.

He's heading for Orochimaru's hide out, they're after the Kyuubi.

Sakura.

She scrunched the paper up into a ball and tossed it into a nearby bush, just in time to look up and see Sasuke flying towards her, fist out, Superman style.

"AHHHHH!" she rolled backwards and he landed a bit to her left. She stood up and focused a moment, a bolt of electricty like chakra racing down her arm before she slammed her closed fist below, the earth tearing in half at the contact and the split heading towards a stunned Uchiha.

No way, He thought to himself, I have to finish this now. I shouldn't have played around this long.

He raced across one side of the split, the commas of his Sharingan spinning around his pupil like crazy. He had arrived in front of Sakura before she could even blink and she was immediately frozen to the spot, staring into his eyes. He didn't blink, and neither did she. He had taken her by surprise and so she had been unable to break out of the hypnosis in time.

She dropped to the ground, her green eyes wide and unblinking.

Sasuke looked down at her and sighed, moving around her to bend down and pick up Naruto. He was about to walk away when he heard a voice that sounded very much like Kakashi's summon dog, Pakkun.

"They're over here!"

Well, shit. He glanced back at Sakura's motionless body and sighed heavily. He couldn't leave any evidence, and Sakura would surely tell Kakashi all about what happened as soon as she woke up. He moved back and swept her up onto his other shoulder, where she hung limply.

By the time Kakashi had entered the area where Sakura and Sasuke had battled, there was no one in sight. He winced, taking in the shattered ground and the blood that had pooled where his pink haired student had laid only moments before. In the middle of the puddle was the large piece of wood that had become unlodged from her leg, causing her to bleed profusely. His eye followed the bloody trail that the enemy had obviously missed. He didn't know whether it was Sakura's blood or Naruto's, but whoever's it was, he pitied. They would need to be healed soon or they would die from blood loss or infection.

"I've found something!" Kakashi turned towards the voice and Pakkun trotted out to him with a scrunched up piece of paper in his mouth. He dropped it at the copy ninja's feet and he picked it up, trying to ignore the drool hanging from the letter in ropes, reading it over twice, just to make sure he had understood correctly.

He looked back towards the blood, that he now knew to be Sakura's and felt anger bubble inside of him, at Sasuke.

"Let's go." without another word, Kakashi took to the trail of blood and hoped that he could find his students before anything else could happen to them.

Hello, viewers! thankyou very much for all the wonderful reviews! I really appreciate them, and a couple of you have given me ideas, so thanks for that, too! XD So, yes...thought I should say thankyou. Which I've said three times. Go me!