As usual, there are responses after the chapter.

Chapter Eight: Careful

Her eyes flickered open slowly, still heavy from sleep. Waking up this way was very pleasant; most of the time on missions you had to sleep with one eye open and be fully awake in an instant. There wasn't much to look at, just campfire ashes. Blinking solid white eyes, Hinata forced herself to her feet.

She didn't really remember much of the past night, probably because she had fallen asleep nearly instantly. After the brief training session, they had traveled at moderate speed for the rest of the day. Lots had fallen so that she had the first watch, and as soon as she woke Sakura she was bone tired. In fact, she had just laid down on her bedroll and gone to sleep. Most likely, each day was going to be like this.

Obviously, she had run for long distances before, but Sasuke led harder than any of the leaders she had worked under. His speed was just past comfortable, which tired them all though it significantly increased their rate of travel. Sakura and Ino had started whining midway through the day, and by the end were unable to speak at all. She had felt pretty tired herself, but decided not to say anything. As usual, Sasuke seemed completely blind, or simply uncaring, to their troubles, not lessening his pace. By the end of the day, though, he had worked up a healthy sweat as well.

Stretching, Hinata glanced around the campsite. Ino and Sakura were sound asleep and Sasuke was gone. When she stepped off her bedroll, she realized her feet were bare. Apparently she had managed to take off her sandals before collapsing, then. Not bothering to replace them, she padded out into the forest.

The sound of running water caught her attention, and she moved toward it. Cleaning up might do her some good. Pushing aside several branches, Hinata discovered a small stream peacefully making its way through the forest. Any chances of taking a bath, however, evaporated.

Sasuke was standing on the bank, clad in light grey pants and having changed into a black shirt. At the moment he was still turned away from her; she knew she should announce her presence but couldn't bring herself to speak. His hair was still wet and glistening. As she watched he pulled his cloak around himself... and then turned purposefully to glance at her.

"Yes?"

"I-I'm sorry," she immediately backed away.

"Feh." He turned away and picked up his pack, slinging it over one shoulder silently. Just before he vanished into the forest, he paused and spoke without turning. "I'm waking everyone soon. After breakfast, we'll be doing a real training session. Be ready."

She nodded at his back, then shivered.

When Sakura awoke, it was to the smell of breakfast. To her great surprise, the person cooking the food was Sasuke. Sitting calmly on a log, he was stoking the fire with a long stick. She gave a slight squeal as she sat up.

"Sasuke-kun! That's so sweet of you!"

"Mf-wha?" Ino mumbled, likewise sitting up. She gave a similar squeal.

Getting to his feet, Sasuke glanced down at them and then vanished into the forest's shadows. Just at the instant Sakura began to reach for the meat slowly cooking, Ino's hand wrapped around her wrist. They both growled at each other, and Sakura wrenched her hand away with a glower.

"Don't steal this! Sasuke-kun made it for me!"

"For you? Why would he make anything for you?"

In unison both of them made a grab at it, scorched their hands, pulled their hands back wincing and then glared at the other like it was her fault. As they settled to glaring at one another, Hinata entered the clearing on the opposite side Sasuke had exited. Ignoring the two of them, who returned the favor, Hinata carefully took the spit away from the fire and sat down.

Cutting off portions of the unidentifiable meat, Hinata ate slowly and carefully. It was fairly good, which meant it was probably made by Sasuke. Her immediate thought was to thank him for it, but she realized that he wouldn't appreciate the gesture. Best to keep silent and not annoy him, then. She glanced up at Ino and Sakura, pulling at each other's hair, and sighed. If only there was some way she could make them be happy as they were, then Sasuke would be less withdrawn and everything would be better.

By the time Ino and Sakura noticed Hinata she had eaten her fill. They grabbed the spit away from her, but by this stage their anger had dissipated to the point where they cut the remainder in half civilly enough. For a brief moment the camp was quiet and peaceful, the only sounds the dying fire and chewing.

At that point Sasuke reemerged from the forest. Wordlessly he folded his cloak beside his pack and quenched the fire with a strange movement of chakra. All eyes were on him, though for varying reasons.

"Let's go," he ordered as starkly as usual. "There isn't any civilization or chakra for a dozen kilometers. Today we're going to train to exhaustion."

"To exhaustion?" Ino echoed, jaw dropping.

"But, but, Sasuke-kun," Sakura began to whine, but she shut up as Sasuke's stormy eyes turned on her. They scrambled to get up and follow him, though Hinata just had to get up. Soon the campground was behind them and Ino and Sakura no longer seemed panicked, merely trying in vain to get tangles out of their hair.

Eventually Sasuke stopped, in the center of a medium sized clearing.

"Use taijutsu or weapons," he told them. With that, he abruptly skidded backward, among them in an instant. His sandal flashed at Hinata's face and she threw up a hand in self defense, managing to deflect it with her forearm. Immediately after, Sasuke continued his chain of attacks with two light blows that knocked Sakura and Ino back without doing real damage.

"That's not fair," Sakura complained, getting back to her feet. "I wasn't ready."

"Then hope you are more ready in actual combat." With that, Sasuke slid back to the opposite side of the clearing and dropped into a fighting position. Though the lower half of his face was visible now, it might as well have been covered, for all of his emotions that it revealed. Hinata started to back step to get into a safer position, but saw Sasuke's eyes flicker to her and harden. Taking a deep breath, she attacked.

Spitting a bit of blood out of her mouth, Ino slipped each hand into her kunai pouch. Several drops of sweat trickled down from her hair, more due to stress than effort. Of course, she was sweating profusely from that as well. But Sasuke was currently in the center of the clearing, standing alone and unchallenged. Sooner or later he'd find her, and then he'd attack. Though she never would have admitted it, when he attacked she found herself disturbed. Everyone knew the story of Sasuke and his brother, and she loved the angst, but he seemed more like Itachi at times…

With a single violent motion she hurled both kunai toward him. As expected, he deflected both of them, knocking them aside with a batting motion of his wrist. In the moment he was distracted, Sakura made her gamble and attacked from behind. He turned and deflected her attack without apparent effort.

Gasping, Sakura vaulted away from him, narrowly avoiding his slashing kick. She had learned some time ago that staying near him for long was a very bad idea. Shooting off the ground, she vanished into the leaves and found herself by Ino. Sasuke was about to attack both of them, but was forced to back away when Hinata flew from the nearby trees.

"He really isn't letting up," Ino panted softly. Sakura nodded wearily.

"He's really going after Hinata today, too. Why do you suppose that is?"

"How should I know?" Ino shrugged. "It seems like he really doesn't like her."

"Yeah, but he isn't like that. Maybe... one of the rules of the shinobi is that you should always attempt to eliminate the greatest threat first."

The two of them glanced at each other with raised eyebrows for a silent moment.

"Naaah."

"Yeah, I crack myself up." Sakura glanced between the leaves and saw the two of them still clashing in flurries of blows. "Let's get down there."

Just as both of them landed in the clearing to either side of Hinata, however, Sasuke swept back away from them. By this point he was actually breathing heavily, and his brow was lined with sweat. He raised a hand indicating them to wait a moment, which they did.

"Are we done now?" Sakura asked. Sasuke shook his head.

"Not yet." He reached down and started to pull off his black shirt. Sakura and Ino held the same breath and Hinata glanced at them strangely. But Sasuke had on a smaller white shirt (Sakura and Ino groaned), and he tossed the black shirt aside and then dropped into his fighting stance again. "Not even close."

Biting her lip, Sakura tied the last string and then stepped back hastily. This trap always made her fairly nervous, because it had such a high chance of flying off at any moment. Of course, she didn't have a choice, because Sasuke would never set off any trap simpler than this one.

She didn't really expect him to fall for it, either. It was a very deadly one, a bundle of razor sharp needles that would explode in all directions when someone got close. The only problem was that it was so hair-trigger, but she was a master of traps. Ino had been fighting Sasuke directly to buy her enough time, so-

At that moment Sakura heard a loud cry. Her head whipped up as she realized it was Ino's. The next second there was a thump, probably her hitting the ground. It was followed up by a few curses, and Sakura grinned; she would be just fine then. On the other hand, she now had to deal with Sasuke's chakra flying in her direction.

The plan was to let him charge her, then replace herself with a clone when he got near. Too near, theoretically, to avoid setting off the trap. At that point he'd probably pull some impossible stunt to avoid being injured, because he was always cool like that.

For a split second Sakura saw Sasuke charging forward, and knew he'd be on her in a moment. Surprisingly, he skidded to a halt and instead hurled a kunai toward her. Taken off guard, it was the best she could do to dodge it. He'd thrown it really slowly... was he getting tired, or had Ino managed to injure him?

Her eyes widened as she heard the snap of a spring, following instantly by the whistle of spikes burst out in a vicious shockwave. Even at full speed, it was all she could do to turn and gape in horror at the spines hurtling toward her. It seemed like they were moving in slow motion, yet she was in molasses, unable to move herself out of the way...

Sasuke flashed directly in front of her, hands flying. When the attack ended, the trees in a circle around the trap had been made into pincushions, except those behind Sakura. She had unintentionally closed her eyes at the last second and now opened them to see Sasuke drop dozens of needles he had caught between his fingers. He folded his arms and glanced at her, eyes dark and probably angry. But at least he was looking directly at her.

Ino appeared in the clearing as well, partially leaning on Hinata. It was abruptly obvious to all of them that the training session was over.

"Ino-san: you need to tighten your kicks, and don't use that jutsu," Sasuke observed. "You leave yourself open. Hinata-san: better, but you still seem afraid of your own abilities; get over it. Sakura-san..." he turned back to her with a slightly reproving look that nearly made her wither. "Remember that traps can be used against you. Don't leave that as a possibility. In real combat, you would be dead or you would have compromised the safety of all your teammates."

He turned away swiftly and was already walking away as he continued. "I'll give you all time to recover strength before we run again." With that he vanished toward the campsite. The forest was just beginning to light up with the morning light.

Sakura and Ino were talking; they might have been casually chatting, they might have been arguing, it really wasn't that different. Hinata had stopped listening. Speeding up slightly, she left them in the trees behind her. She was deeply tired and a fair amount of her chakra was drained. Her eyes ached from so much use of the Byukagen. But it was absolutely necessary for fighting Sasuke; he had startling reach and hit extremely hard. Worst of all, he was staying slightly away from her to avoid any critical inner coils strikes; he was nearly able to neutralize her attacking ability.

Reaching the campsite, Hinata found Sasuke sitting on one of the logs, a grim non-expression on his face. Trying her best not to be annoying, she slipped down into a seat of her own, some distance away. She tried not to make eye contact, but something seemed strange and she glanced back up.

Immediately she realized what was wrong. Sasuke's shoulder was bleeding somewhat, due to several needles entirely through it. He had been moving his arm stiffly, she now realized, but had hidden it very well. Even as she watched he pulled them all out in one motion that was at once clinically precise and rough. Dropping the bloody weapons to the ground, he glanced up at her wordlessly.

To avoid his gaze Hinata found her pack and began rooting through it. "I-if you don't mind, I can help you with that," she managed to make herself say. Finding a jar of ointment and some bandages, she hesitantly approached him. His expression was cold, but she knew he would have told her to stay away if he objected, so she moved forward.

All he did was wince slightly at the first application of the ointment, but then his shoulder muscles relaxed and allowed her to work. The shoulder of his shirt had been ripped away already, which made her job much easier. Hinata reached for her bandages and-

"Oh my gosh! Sasuke-kun was injured?"

Instantly Ino and Sakura were swarming about him, their own bandages and healing devices prepared. Quite abruptly Sasuke jerked to his feet, knocking Hinata back slightly and making the other two shrink away.

"It's fine," he snapped at them. "It will heal." With that he stalked into the forest and erased his presence completely.

"That's so cute," Sakura crooned. "He doesn't want to admit he's injured."

"It bears mentioning why he's injured." Ino coughed lightly into her hand.

"If I remember correctly, it wasn't just my plan!" Sakura shot back. Both of them seemed too tired to argue any further, and merely sat down heavily to rest. While Ino settled back against a tree, her eyes roved about the camp and eventually focused on Hinata.

"Why do you have bandages?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. Immediately the female shinobi winced away slightly.

"M-my hand," she managed to stammer for a moment. She held it up to reveal a darkening bruise. "It, it got injured when Sas-Sasuke-san hit it."

"Huh; okay." Ino sat back and closed her eyes. Sighing, Hinata began to wrap her palm. It really did need to be bandaged, after all, so it hadn't been a lie. But if that was true, then why did she feel so guilty?

Just a note regarding names: not everyone in this story originates from the principle shinobi countries. I thought it would be unreasonable for an entire world to have names of Japanese origin, so there is some variety (some fairly arbitrary, as the former characters, some intentional and somewhat important). If this is distracting I apologize.

I'd also like to personally thank Scented Candles for her extensive review. It does me good to read a lengthy review from a longtime reader of fanfiction that has something positive to say. I hope that the rest of the story does not disappoint. However, I also wish to ask a question regarding your review: you stated that you thought it was likely you would not enjoy the story. What led you to this? If it is personal taste the question is irrelevant, but otherwise I would appreciate your response.