Brief A/N (more at the bottom, but I don't want to be in the way if A/N's are none of your interest): I'm so sorry about the wait, and I'm sorry this isn't chapter six! Life kind of happened and is happening, but I promise chapter six will be up tomorrow. I've also edited chapters two-five, more on that at the bottom. For now, please enjoy this extra! Its sort of a more detailed look at the Kakashi v Sakura spar - think of it as version 2! Enjoy!
Sakura immediately goes on the offensive - she executes a shunshin, materializing directly in front of Kakashi, leg raised and poised for an axe-kick. Her eyes are a burning jade as she rips her leg down through the air at blinding speeds; unfortunately for her, Kakashi had already glimpsed her taijutsu affinity in their last fight, and thus was immediately prepared to leap back, easily matching her speed. The corner of Sakura's mouth twitches upwards as her eyes flash in the sunlight and her leg makes contact with the ground - the fight has begun.
Kakashi's eyes widen minutely at the scale of destruction before him. Having seen Tsunade in action, he's seen some massive impact craters, but never before has he seen the earth rip apart in what was easily a half-mile radius. And that was her opening attack. Eyes briefly regarding his student with pride, he yet again shuts down his thoughts on the matter and throws himself into the trees, eager to push her limits. Thinking quickly, his hands are a blur as he readies himself for the most basic Katon jutsu, pushing into the fireball enough chakra to make it an inferno.
Sakura eyes the blaze cutting through the treeline, pushing her hand into the solid ground and ripping up a defensive wall. She can feel the force as the attack hits; the slab of earth begins to hiss and crack as she produces a perfect clone image of herself, sliding into the ground and beginning a modified Headhunter jutsu, hurriedly seeking out Kakashi's chakra.
There, she thinks, her senses zoning into a spot up in a tree approximately forty-five degrees to her right. Masking her chakra, she rises from the earth in a predatory crouch before suddenly standing and gripping the tree, ripping it from the earth and launching it into the clearing with a fierce roar.
Kakashi finds himself surprised for the first time in many years as the tree he sheltered in was tossed like a toy across an entire field. That wasn't the surprising part, however; it was the fact that until she literally yelled he had no idea she was even there, right underneath him. Back in the present, he deftly maneuvers from the tree, tossing himself to the side; chancing a look behind him as he falls, he sees a mass of pink getting suspiciously bigger at speeds Kakashi isn't sure he's comfortable with. Summoning a shadow clone, he pulls himself out of the way, leaving the clone to engage in combat to buy himself time.
He knows he can't risk sinking into the ground - what with her ridiculous earth shattering strength he'd end up trapped - so he creates another clone as he pulls out a string of kunai and sharp wire, yet again retreating to the treeline.
Sakura, on her end, is fiercely layering genjutsu over genjutsu, ensuring her appearance is just further to the right, slightly back - just slightly 'not-there' enough to secure her safety among the countless projectiles being thrown her way. Kakashi's clones, for their part, notice her deception quickly, experimenting with their aim to discover Sakura's true positioning.
Sakura, however, did not fail to notice the real Kakashi shifting about the trees to her right; likely laying a tricky trap that she wants absolutely no part of. Deciding to take the fight to him, she tosses two kunai in the air, gluing them to her feet with chakra as she braces her weight upon the ground with her hands, swinging her legs in a wide arc and launching the sharp knives to either clone with enough force to pass through a boulder.
Before the soft 'whoosh' of the dispelling shadow clones can reach her ears, she takes to the treeline, ferociously lashing out with her limbs as she fells tree after tree.
Kakashi, having foreseen that his clones wouldn't last long in any type of non-ninjutsu engagement, is ready for her. Carefully taking aim, he releases his lashed-together kunai in a quick and true horizontal line. Manipulating the wire with his chakra, he forces the kunai to circle her, quickly flicking his wrists forward to entrap her in a bloody net. Expecting a substitution on her part, Kakashi quickly drops to the ground, grabbing one end of his wire to set ablaze the line of kunai laced throughout the trees. He is quite alarmed, however, when instead of the thud of kunai on wood, he smells the sharp tang of blood and hears a muffled grunt of pain. His eyes widen as he takes in the clear image of his student pierced with many of his kunai and covered in blood, his grip on his own wire loosening. He makes to help her, his sharingan immediately perceiving the image as real; which would explain his utter shock when he is suddenly launched sideways into a tree so viciously that he hears his ribs crack with the strain. Eyes widening yet again, his head turns just in time to visibly note the kunai flying at him, his battle-honed reflexes kicking in just soon enough for him to not be either permanently blinded or dead as Sakura continues to charge at him, her fingers flickering to life with blue chakra. Chakra scalpels, his mind supplies hazily, still recovering from the brief shock of a genjutsu that could trick even his sharingan. Before he could think beyond his surprise to form a strategy outside of get out of close range right now!, she is upon him, the fight now boiling down to basic, instinctual Taijutsu.
Sakura grins between their flurry of blows, ignoring her rapidly approaching exhaustion (I must not be fully recovered, she realizes), deflecting kicks, taking punches, and dishing out attacks of her own in a deadly dance between teacher and student. She always loved sparring with Kakashi the best; their styles have always been a good match - hers being direct and precise enough to keep up, yet sheerly brutal and head-on enough to catch him unaware; his being fluid like water, forcing her to think on her feet and adapt. They've always been a good pair, and she's positively giddy at the simple fact that he's alive to spar with her. She is quickly gaining the upper hand - taijutsu is her specialty, after all - yet her mind is drifting elsewhere, her body acting only on instinct; therefore she doesn't quite fully register the sound of a thousand birds coming from the treetops until it's too late.
Kakashi had begun to notice many things about his student's mentality and style throughout this spar. As for her style, he notes that she'll make an excellent sparring partner; it's been a long time since someone in the village has been able to keep up with him, and they'll likely complement each other quite well both on and off the field.
However, he has also noticed by this time that her mind isn't quite with the fight anymore, seemingly lost in her thoughts as her instincts clearly take over, her encroaching exhaustion likely meaning the end of the spar is near. Therefore, it isn't all that hard for him to sneak a shadow clone in his place and fall back to the trees yet again, summoning his prized original jutsu. Taking aim, he steps out from the trees and dashes towards her at an impossible speed, breath steady and his body primed for her inevitable counterattack. When he notices that she's stopped moving altogether and is staring at him with wide eyes that don't seem to be focused here nor there, he realizes with a mental start that he's moving too fast to stop and she isn't moving. When his hand slides through her abdominal cavity like a knife through butter, he immediately cancels the jutsu and can only stare, half expecting another genjutsu and mind racing through how fast they can get a medical ninja when a surprise attack doesn't come. Shit.
Sakura hears it and freezes. Her eyes flash with fear as she registers the shrill shriek of Chidori, her mind instantly shutting down logical thought and plunging her into a memory. When she turns and looks, the Chidori isn't wielded by her trusted sensei, but by a raven-haired madman. Sakura can only internally screech he's going to kill you, get out of the way get out of the way get out - ! before his ice cold hands plunge into her body, tearing through flesh, muscle, and internal organs, barely missing her spine, and bursting through her back like a skewer. She grabs the arm lodged inside of her, meeting the burning, blood-red (concerned, charcoal grey) eyes of her former teammate (sensei).
"Sasuke!" She all but hissed through her teeth as she applied enough force to the arm to crush bone, the hand inside of her flickering to life with yet more lightning chakra as she screamed and it burned through her body like fire, blood splattering beneath her.
"-s me," she hears in the distance between the haze, Sasuke's arm making like a blade and slicing through her right side.
"It's me!" the voice called again, Sasuke's form retreating with cackling laughter.
"Sakura! It's me!"
Kakashi? What…? And then, it comes back. Shit. Looking up from her surprisingly not-nearly-severed body, she meets the frantic eyes of Kakashi as she registers the chakra of the Sandaime rapidly approaching them from her right side. Still wrapped up in the shock of her memories, she looks down yet again, taking Kakashi's arm and ripping it out of her abdominal region, shoving him back ungracefully. She can apologize later, right now she needs to stop herself from bleeding out rather unceremoniously. A dramatic death is great in fiction, but Sakura still has things to do and she is not going to let 'Spar' be written down as her cause of death.
Staggering backwards, she manifests her Seal for the first time since coming back, not trusting her control amidst her exhaustion and shaken emotional state. Using the excess of chakra, she begins to stitch her internal organs back together before lacing together her muscles and reattaching skin, finally directing that chakra back to her forehead to reforge the seal. Absently she realizes she probably could've done with sending some medical chakra to her head for the absolute killer headache she was expecting any minute now, but she's had worse. Much worse.
Kakashi watches in a stunned silence, his cracked right arm throbbing painfully as he processes what just happened.
Sasuke. One word, gritted out between clenched teeth, spiked with fear and braided with betrayal. Sakura wasn't in the present, but just where the hell was she? He grimaces as he remembers the strength with which she gripped his arm, nearly crushing it - yet what surprised him further was her scream when he didn't do anything. What the hell was going on in her mind? He called out to her for several seconds, trying to bring her back to the present before she destroyed his arm. He realized the exact moment she was herself again, jade eyes flickering up to meet his briefly, flashing in recognition yet hard with the pain of… whatever it was that just happened. She shoved him back rather painfully, forcing his arm out and thus breaking the dam and ultimately splattering blood everywhere, but what surprised him even further was when a deep blue seal appeared on her forehead as her body started to stitch itself back together.
As she finishes healing, her seal fading yet again into nonexistence, she meets his eyes with an apology, and Kakashi can only ask one thing.
"What the fuck just happened?"
A/N Continuation: Like I said, I'm so, so sorry about the wait. Again, chapter six will be up tomorrow - I have the outline written, I just need to finalize it - and chapters 2-5 are edited. I corrected the issue of tense (I've decided this story will be in present tense, aside from the first chapter - its a bit of a prologue of sorts so I felt it made sense), or at least tried to, and fixed some grammar and some basic errors (LIKE THE FACT THAT I FORGOT? I CHANGED HER HAIR COLOR? WTF).
Honestly, I think I like this version of the fight better? I just wasn't sure which one fit the story the best. If you all like it enough, maybe I'll replace it in the actual story, and put the current canonical version here, lol
Please let me know what you think! And please anticipate chapter six of Kyoukasuigetsu! Thank you to all my lovely readers, reviewers, followers, etcetera. It really feels special to know that someone enjoys what you're putting out - and in the end, that's all I want! I hope at the very least you're entertained by the story, even if its delivered a bit clumsily. As always, love you lovelies 3
- xAya