if you can't hold on, hold on
Chapter 10
Last Time: Sasuke and Sakura resolved their argument and Team 7's household is as piece once more. Kakashi did some parenting. Sakura began training with Tsunade.
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Sasuke hasn't needed an alarm clock to wake him up in weeks. Every night he falls asleep to Naruto's soft snores and the anxieties of his day as told by the voice in his head. When sleep finally drags him under, ankles first, he has the same dream.
He's in the Forest of Death, but instead of the canopy of trees, the trunks just stretch up and up into darkness. He is completely alone. He walks at a leisurely pace for a while; the scenery doesn't change. Eventually he looks down, only to realize that ahead of him are a set of footprints. He glances behind him and finds that he has left his own track of prints, they curve behind him and into the trees. He realizes that the set in front of him are his own. He's been going in circles.
Beneath him, the earth splits. He hovers above the chasm. The chasm blinks. A golden snake eye glares up at him. A hissing noise rises like the roar of a river.
"Sasuke," Sakura whispers in his ear, but when he turns, she's 50 feet away and her fist touches the ground. She is the source of the chasm.
"Try to keep up, bastard," says Naruto, only he is right by his side. "Or we'll leave you behind."
Suddenly, Sasuke is falling into the eye. Naruto grabs his hand and stops him from falling. "Naruto," Sasuke orders, "pull me up, quick!"
"You can do it yourself, can't you?" He wrenches his hand away and Sasuke is falling falling falling again into the eye. Consumed.
Relying on them is foolish. They will leave you. A voice hisses from all around him. He's still falling. You can't trust anyone but yourself. They're not worth your time anyway. You've tried to pull them up to your level. But at what cost? They've dragged you down to theirs. You're better than this Sasuke Uchiha. I can offer you-
And it is often here, that he startles himself awake. But today. Today the nightmare continues.
He stops falling. Heart in his throat, he floats in the inky blackness of the snake eye pupil. "I can offer you power. You languish in this village, thwarting your true potential. Look at what Uzumaki Naruto has achieved with the help of a sannin. he is weak but he almost beat you. Why? And Sakura Haruno. Pathetic, sobbing Sakura Haruno. She will learn to bring men back from the dead. What can you do? You need me. Come to me. I will give you power the likes of which you've never-
"Sasuke!"
He gasps and emerges from the nightmare. His heart races under the fist he's clutched to his chest. His neck burns. Sakura stands over him, hands on his shoulders. He slaps them away.
"What!?" he demands.
Sakura deftly takes a step back, like dodging a fist. "Fine. I'll train on my own today…" her tone is sullen until she takes a good look at him. "Are you sick?" Approaching with the slow unstartling gait of a snake charmer she lays a hand on his sweaty forehead. "Oh no, I'm sorry. I should have let you sleep."
"…It's fine."
"I'll pick up some soup on my way back from my lesson with Tsunade," she promises. He's glad she hasn't offered to make any herself. Salty, spicy and oily broth might make him feel worse than he already does. Then again, the longer he's in her presence the worse he feels—the more he thinks about the voice from his dreams.
He nods, tense and shivering and goose-pimpled like he's just come out of a freezing lake.
Sakura shoots him one last look from the doorway, hesitant to leave.
"Would you go already?!"
Her mouth presses into a firm line and the door snaps closed.
Once she's gone and he's left to fixate, Sasuke spirals lower. He can't be around anyone, but he doesn't want to be alone. He's furious. He's scared. He desperately wants to go back to sleep but knows what's waiting for him if he does.
So Sasuke makes a liar of himself and prepares for some solo training.
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Sasuke is being so weird and Sakura is torn between genuine worry and anger. He could be such a hypocrite sometimes. She slept in once an he left without her. She was kind enough to wake him and he was nothing but cranky! He looked terrible though; red rimmed eyes, gaunt and seeming a little lost.
What a stupid, self-centered jerk! …Who patiently waited for her most mornings and helped her catch up to him and Naruto with extra training…
Sakura quickly grows bored of training by herself, having been ditched by her old friend. Her new friend. Her former crush and former enemy. Sometimes it's hard to keep Sasuke straight. Living with him and dealing with his henpecking ways makes it hard for her heart to pound every time he talks to her. It would become a medical condition. But does that mean she doesn't love him anymore?
She does… she thinks. She's just figuring out how.
With Naruto, it's so easy. He wheedled himself into her heart slowly; with jokes, support and attention. It feels as if they've always been together. He has never once confused her.
After they came to live with Sasuke she didn't have the emotional bandwidth to worry or question the way the boys treated her. There was no room for surprise at the delicacy with which they both handled her. In retrospect It's not shocking at all that Naruto filled her cracks and held her together, but it is surprising that Sasuke did too. He found it somewhere within himself to give her a home, acceptance and empathy. Even though there was no conceivable means for him to have acquired it. Sakura doesn't have her parents anymore, but she does have a family. They must love her very much.
She turns on her heal and stomps away from the training ground toward the market.
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She's early for training with Tsunade, but the Hokage is already there. The training ground is a rocky clearing that peaks just below the treeline. Konoha is in the middle of a draught and the air is dusty. A small stream runs through the middle when it rains; sometimes Tsunade plucks a small fish from it with her bare hands and makes Sakura keep it alive for as long as she can.
"Good morning Shisou."
"Morning Cutie." That tells Sakura that she's in for a rough morning.
It doesn't matter that they're both half an hour early, they get started right away.
"What am I-" Sakura chokes on the sentence because a rock the size of her head is flying right at her. She dodges. "What the hell?!"
"Strength training, block, don't dodge."
"NO!" Sakura shrieks as a rock twice the size of her head flies overhead.
Tsunade picks up a boulder. "They're just going to keep getting bigger!"
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When Sasuke wakes up again, he's cranky. It's why he doesn't often sleep in or nap. He always wakes up worse off than he started. The bitter taste of his tongue travels to his heart and his belly with each aching breath of wakefulness.
He glances at Naruto's bed. Gone, training with Jiraiya. They're set to go on an expedition soon. He says the Sannin's going to teach him a new technique.
Sasuke scowls. They haven't fought in months, not since the Chunin exams, but Naruto bested him when they fought Gaara and that counts. Meanwhile, Sasuke has stagnated. Kakashi's one-on-one training is centered on control and expanding his chakra reserves. It's a long, painstaking process and he isn't getting stronger fast enough. Itachi is so far ahead. By his age, Itachi was already in ANBU. Meanwhile Sasuke couldn't even make Chunin on his first try.
He's never failed at anything before and it hits harder than he cares to admit. The prospect of retaking a test is maddening—the kind of thing reserved for dead last losers in the academy, like Naruto.
"At least we'll get to do it again as a team!" Naruto had proclaimed, sunnily. To him, the greater tragedy would have been one of them passing without the others.
Sasuke would have been perfectly fine leaving them behind. He sees them every day at home anyway.
A creature of habit, Sasuke drifts to the kitchen for breakfast.
On the fridge the magnetic dry erase notepad reads 'check the microwave' in Sakura's handwriting.
In the microwave is a takeout container of chicken broth.
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That night, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura fall asleep under the chunky red blanket on the couch in front of the TV.
In the morning, Sasuke wakes up first and waits a few minutes before jiggling his shoulder free of Naruto's head and shaking Sakura awake. Together they go to morning training as usual.
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Naruto can't help but think that Kakashi's getting a little lax in the sensei department. Team training's been pretty lackadaisical lately (a word he heard Sakura call their training sessions, that he liked the sound of). It's usually just exercises. Or style specific sparring; Taijutsu only, no chakra, kunai only, substitution only etc. He hasn't given them a team building exercise in forever. And while that was Team 7's least favourite kind of exercise, they were really really good at it. Especially lately. With Sasuke being more of a grouch than usual, it'd be nice to be on the same side for once.
"Today we're doing round robin spars," Kakashi tells them, "All out, no holds barred."
"YES!" Naruto screams. Screw being on the same side, he wants to beat Sasuke into the ground at full power.
"Great, you can go first."
"I wanna fight Sasuke!"
"Of course you do," Sakura rolls her eyes and drags her feet on her way you a tree. She settles in the roots and her peevish expression makes him feel a little bad. It's just that… He loves fighting Sasuke, with Sakura he doesn't feel like he can go all out.
"Hm," Sasuke rolls his shoulders. "Let's go then."
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The spar lasts a while. Sasuke is down to his last Chidori. Naruto's crowd of clones has thinned, there's only two left.
He knows that Naruto needs at least one to shape his Rasengan, so all he needs to do it get rid of them both, or keep his eye on the pair that are together. One Naruto holds out his hand to the other, getting ready for the assist. Sasuke won't give them the chance. He makes the safe bet that the one assisting is the clone and charges his last Chidori. He needs much less runway for his attack. He lunges for the pair of Narutos, ready to aim his leg for the clone, and Chidori set on Naruto's gut.
Suddenly, he's flying through the air, hits a tree and crumples to the ground.
What just happened? Naruto… he used the Rasengan without the help of a clone. How did he do that? When did he learn to do that?
Sasuke doesn't get up—not because he's hurt. The attack was only at 20% of its power, otherwise he'd have been killed. He just… can't understand what just happened.
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Naruto hasn't seen Sasuke since the end of their spar yesterday. He stormed off right after and was asleep before Naruto and Sakura came home. In the morning he was gone, but when they arrive at the training grounds for day two of the round robin spars, he's already there.
"You look like you're chomping at a bit," Kakashi remarks when he finally gets there an hour after their meeting time. "Sakura, you wanna take him on when he's like this?"
Sakura quirks an eyebrow and switches her considering gaze between Sasuke and Kakashi. Naruto just knows she's weighing whether or not she's going to be insulted. "Yeah," is all she says.
From her pouch she puts on these sick black leather gloves and cracks her knuckles.
Sasuke's expression doesn't change, but at least he takes a stance. He's taking her seriously.
Naruto isn't really sure what goes on at their extra training sessions. He's had absolutely no desire to join them because honestly? He needs every extra bit of sleep he can get and they take everything so seriously. The one time Sakura made him tag along, they did three hours of Katas. Snooze.
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Sasuke streaks across the field going right for Sakura. There are two approaches to beating Sakura: speed or stamina. He's faster but he can also outlast her. They've been working on building up her stamina and chakra reserves.
With Sakura, he doesn't have to worry that she's going to have any big finishing moves. He's got to watch his back for a sneaky kunai and use his head to figure out what elaborate strategy she'll use on him.
He engages her in a taijutsu bout to test her reflexes and warm up. Maybe he won't finish her off right away. It would be mean and embarrassing for her. They'll play a bit. Just long enough to see what she comes up with. Sakura's a fun sparring partner because it's also a little like playing Go.
Close combat's the way to go, if he loses track of her, she'll take advantage and substitute herself until he makes a mistake. He dodges a punch and blocks a kick with his right arm only to hear a crack.
What?
She sweeps her legs again, determination blazing in her eyes and Sasuke jumps over them, nervous for her to connect again. Pushed by yesterday's wounded pride, he changes his mind. He wants to end this swiftly. He charges his left hand with a Chidori. It's just at 1/5 power, so it won't hurt her too bad.
His range is good, she won't have enough time to get far enough for a dodge. He thrusts his arm out.
Sakura ducks—no, she strikes the ground with her gloved fist. With a spine tingling crunch the ground opens up beneath their feet.
(It's just like his dream.)
He's weightless, falling, his arm still reaching out to strike Sakura. Their eyes hold, all widening in alarm. He sees it all in slow motion, Sakura reaches for him even as he drops into a chasm of her own making-
(How did she do it?)
-She takes his hand, grounding the circuit. Sakura spasms, but holds on. Tears gather in the corners of her eyes and she cries out. Holding on is making it worse, but if she lets go, he'll fall.
"Sakura," he says, gentle and shell-shocked, processing what's happening in sluggish disbelief.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHH!" She shrieks, not in pain but determination. She hauls him up and over the lip of the crevice. He tumbles on top of her. With his head against her stomach he can feel the rhythm of her ragged breaths. Sasuke rolls off of her and pants. He's barely exerted himself but his heart is racing.
Sakura has gotten so strong. He sits up and turns to the side so he can look at her. Her eyes are closed, her hands curled loosely at her sides.
"Uuuh, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto considers from a short distance away, "Who do you think won?"
Sasuke is the only one left standing, but he doesn't feel like it was him.
A/N: Little do they know… living together was a team-building exercise ALL ALONG!