Author's notes: Yosh! Next chapter! dances randomly okay I'm done grins. I seriously love you guys, we've already hit the 20th chapter man...the TWENTIETH! Currently I am up to chapter twentyfour in the plot and it is going so well. I just feel like shouting out what happens next, but that's mean so I won't. What I will shout out is that I have reached over 75000 words, twentyfour chapters and over 160 pages. This is a personal new record for me; this story will probably be the best and perhaps the longest story yet. But enoug bragging, here we have it, chapter 20, hope you enjoy it, and reviews please afterwards. Thanks
CHAPTER TWENTY: ONE OF THOSE DAYS
"You're quiet this morning," said a rather alert Kakashi, tilting his head to the side to glance at the quite down looking Sakura.
"I'm fine, just been pondering over a few things," she smiled desperately and felt Kitsune's fluffy brown tail brush against her neck.
The morning had drifted by slowly and the mist was steadily lifting into the atmosphere and allowed the sunlight to heat up the early day. Kakashi was bored and sighed for the nth time this morning; he had nothing to do. He didn't want to be a pest and read his Icha Icha novels, nor did he want to do anything in particular.
Sakura looked about the same as Kakashi, only with a true feeling swimming around since she woke up from her nightmare that night. She glanced over to Kakashi, who was staring lazily at the ground in front of him and kicked a wayward stone that so happened to be in the way of his stepping.
Sakura was getting annoyed with the constant silence and wanted to do something about the endless boredom. She finally picked up the courage to say it, "I am extremely bored, but I mentally suggested something that we could do to pass the time, but if it's something between us than it will most likely last the whole day," Kakashi raised an eyebrow at the complaint and the thoughts of what Sakura's suggestion could possibly be.
"And what is this suggestion that could possibly kill the boredom?" he asked thoughtfully while quirking a brow.
"It may be out of my life to actually come up with this to say it but I'm basically desperate," Sakura glanced up at the sky before finally eyeing the Jounin on her right with a smirk.
"Well, out with it," Kakashi was already getting impatient.
Sakura grinned suggestively at him before saying, "how about a spar?" the two stopped on their traces and Kakashi stared as if deep in thought before finally coming up with an answer.
"Okay," he shrugged with a slight grin playing on his masked lips.
Instantly the two Shinobi dashed down the road and found themselves a large field to fight in. The trees were spaced almost evenly and the grassy fields reminded them of home.
Kakashi stood in his aloof manner, keeping an eye out that Sakura wasn't the little Gennin he used to teach seven years ago. Sakura grinned mischievously as she got into her fighting stance, eyeing the older Jounin carefully to make sure she'd stay alert.
Why wasn't Kakashi doing anything? Sakura questioned herself momentarily before finally realising it was a trap. Sakura felt a light breeze behind her and sensed the strong amounts of chakra closing, "stay alert Sakura-chan," warned a rather cocky Kakashi from behind. Sakura could see him from the corner of her eye and reacted immediately by flipping forward and out of Kakashi's reach. She glared at the other Jounin. Kakashi was holding a kunai, ready to strike. Sakura had to tell herself many times over that when it comes to sparring with the famous Copy Nin, Kakashi didn't play around; he was focused and completely serious to nearly demolish his opponent.
Again, Kakashi leapt towards the pink haired medic with the kunai in hand and his other hand reaching back into his pouch. Sakura focused her chakra to her hands and readied herself for a beating.
Kakashi created two shadow clones, each carrying a kunai and simultaneously they all threw the kunai in hand, along with the shurikan that were hidden in their back pouches. The weapons aimed straight for Sakura's helpless looking body and a direct hit. Sakura groaned as she flew back from the force of the kunai and shurikan when penetrated her.
Kakashi had to see this coming. Sakura's body transformed into a heap of cherry blossom petals and softly landed on the grass after the metal clinking to the ground below. Up, down, left and right, Kakashi couldn't sense the medic anywhere. Knowing Sakura, she must've camouflaged her chakra to conceal her whereabouts long enough to make her attack.
"Behind you, sensei," announced the medic finally, aiming her chakra laden fists at the Jounin before her.
Kakashi whirled his head over his shoulder and saw the glowing blue fists heading right for him. He swiftly disappeared into a cloud of smoke the second Sakura was in contact with him. Sakura landed and instantly Kakashi reappeared with several clones behind him.
Sakura swung her leg around and knocked away the first clone, followed by another. They were coming at her like the plague and Sakura was determined to win. Each clone she hit vanished but more would appear.
'This is surely wasting Kakashi's chakra,' Sakura thought to herself, punching a Kakashi clone in the face before it disappeared in a puff of smoke.
As Sakura was fending off the mass amounts of Kakashi clones, she was slowly letting her guard slip, not to mention the amount of energy Sakura was using up to fight off the clones. Suddenly, Sakura heard rustling behind her in the nearby trees, throwing her off guard and allowing one of the clones to finally get a chance to hit her.
The fist aimed right toward Sakura's face and she was too slow to see it coming until the fist had already connected with her jaw, causing her to fall back from the hit. Rubbing her jaw sorely, she had actually forgotten about the potential death cause heading straight for her. Rising to her feet and destroying the last few clones, Sakura jumped out of the way of the kunai knives and located Kakashi's position in the trees.
Kakashi narrowed his glare from the branches whilst summoning more masses of weapons from a small scroll he obtained on an earlier mission a while ago, "Multi Kunai Strike Jutsu!" announced the silver haired Copy Nin summoning another scroll from his back pouch.
'More kunais? Aw man,' Sakura said inwardly, watching as the large collection of knives shot their way to Sakura, but they were set to hit more of a range and Sakura didn't have enough time nor the speed to run from the jutsu, thus she dodged each knife swiftly as they pierced the ground at her feet.
One above her head, one past her arm and one by the ankle, Sakura was so close to getting hit; those clones must've been there to wear her out long enough for Kakashi to think up the perfect capture plan. It was obvious Kakashi didn't want to kill Sakura, otherwise he would've done it long ago. Sakura glared at where the knives were coming from and had to act fast; that jutsu could last as long as the user wanted it to with the chakra he/she could possess, and in this case, Kakashi was sure to stop soon.
Sakura felt her body drain the last third of her chakra reserves; she was saving it in case she got injured and needed to heal herself, but now she just wanted to beat the crap out of Kakashi to prove she had definitely gotten stronger over the years they've known each other.
One kunai struck her hair, cutting a lock or two but not completely noticeable by Sakura. Another kunai hit her shin, causing the medic to wince at the stinging sensation. After countless amounts of dodging and thoughts, Sakura didn't see that one last blow of kunai knives heading her way. Crap. Sakura felt a sudden wince and something hit her; she felt so pissed off right now.
After seeing the expression on her face, Kakashi stopped the jutsu, not to mention the blood that started too. Sakura stared at the cut she got and could finally sense Kakashi's exact location. Now it was pay back.
Kakashi leapt from his current position and headed straight for another crowd of trees; he had to stop doing this. Sakura chased after him until Kakashi finally showed his appearance on the ground.
Sakura fumed at the older Jounin, not caring that there was blood staining her lovely blue tank top. Kakashi chuckled sheepishly before rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly and saying, "sorry, I didn't know it'd hit you there," Sakura glared evilly at him, eye twitching and pouting angrily.
"You'll pay for that," Sakura retorted gallingly as she fisted her hands until her knuckles turned pale.
Sakura sped towards the chuckling Copy Nin with chakra laden fists and grunted loudly as she threw her arm forward to hit the man, but alas her punch failed due to the missing Kakashi on the terrain.
A sigh escaped her lips before Kakashi reappeared before her with the Sharingan activated, startling the medic. Holding the tiger sign, Kakashi stood up straight as he carefully eyed his former female student. Sakura was completely entranced by the spinning tomoe, watching the comma-like marks spin continuously and allowing Kakashi free access to her mind.
Sakura gazed at the red eye, unable to pull her mind from the spellbinding jutsu, until her vision blurred and her body failed to move her muscles and passed out. Kakashi caught Sakura before she could hit the ground and stared at the motionless body of Sakura.
Unexpectedly, Sakura's body exploded into cherry blossom petals again and floated away in the wind. Kakashi, as calm as he normally would, watched as the petals danced in the light breeze until his ear twitched in his natural reaction.
Sakura ran up from behind the silver haired man at full speed with a kunai in hand. Kakashi immediately faced the medic with a kunai knife in his hand and blocked Sakura from hitting him. The sounds of metal clinking and the shuffling sounds of both fighting Shinobi seemed almost endless to both of them. Sakura felt Kakashi strain to push Sakura back as he formed another tiger sign with his free hand; she knew what was going to happen. Again, the black marks in Kakashi's Sharingan began to spin quickly, trying to hypnotise the pink haired medic.
The medic looked away from Kakashi's gaze and down at his feet; she learnt from Gai that the best way to fight someone with the Sharingan is to watch their feet, even though it may seem useless, it usually worked if the one staring at feet knew how his opponent's timing performed. Kakashi quickly stopped the trance before it drained too much of his chakra to cause him to nearly faint from exhaustion.
"I see you've learned from a specific rival of mine," Kakashi started, straining again before jumping backwards and away from Sakura.
"I see someone's been busy over these years to perfect jutsus," Sakura said back in a slight mock.
Before Sakura could have time to react or even think about the next move, a clone came in from the side, kicking her in the head and causing her to fly to the side. The clone then came speeding to Sakura, who was currently trying to work her muscles again from the sudden attack and struck a pair of shurikan and senbon at the clone, triggering it to vanish in a cloud of smoke.
Instantly Sakura found her self hit in the gut by the real Kakashi and she was pinned to the ground, gasping for air. She struggled to get out of Kakashi's grip, but Kakashi had her hands gripped tight so she couldn't make any hand signs and his other free arm pressed against her chest to prevent further movement.
Sakura couldn't move her legs due to the amount of weight set down on them and tried to move her head, which was basically the only thing she could move at the time, but didn't serve the medic any advantages in which she could escape her former sensei's grip.
Kakashi felt Sakura's muscles relax only momentarily before he started his jutsu again; Sakura was getting annoyed with this. She looked anywhere but in Kakashi's Sharingan eye, but Kakashi drew closer. Sakura couldn't help but feel the older Jounin's hot breath on her neck, sending slight chills down her spine. She decided to glance at the Copy Nin, feeling a little concerned at where his eyes may be prying at and was suddenly caught by his red gaze.
Sakura's moving ceased when she fully eyed the Jounin, watching the black tomoes spin rapidly until she felt the world around her spin and faze. Her eyelids were getting heavy and she couldn't move a single muscle. Sakura really hated this, but right now, she couldn't protest against the Sharingan's ability to hypnotise as well as the user himself and allowed her body to relax completely until she passed out.
All that could be heard was "I win," curse that man.
Sakura soon awoke with a dizzy feeling in her head, causing her to be fully alert again. Her muscles were tired and she felt most of her chakra had been used up during the fight, 'damn that man,' Sakura cursed inwardly as she yawned loudly and sat up to find Kitsune sitting on her lap with a side grin on her furry face.
"Hey Kitsune," she forced a smile before remembering the embarrassing injury on her chest.
Feeling very annoyed with herself, Sakura got up, trying to force her muscles into moving and allowing her to walk finally. She made her way onto the field, only just realising she was sleeping under a tree. Shrugging, Sakura slowly shuffled her way to the field; it was cleaned out. How long was she out for? The entire field had been cleared of its masses of kunai knives and shurikans.
She finally spotted Kakashi sitting on a tree branch not far from where she was, reading the light blue covered porn book. Typical Kakashi; always reading those books when no one's looking. Sakura rolled her eyes and walked on until she confronted the tree.
"You're finally awake," said Kakashi simply, flipping a page of his little dirty book.
Sakura weighed down on one leg, crossing her arms across her chest before cringing at the sensations she was feeling. Kakashi frowned deeply and put the book away in his back pouch and hopped down from the branch.
He made his way towards Sakura and noticed her small cut was still bleeding a bit, "sorry, again," he stated apologetically, though trying not to look so hard at the injury that seemed to be placed in the most inconvenient places, even for his standards.
Sakura pouted in frustration and placed her hands on her hips, "well you should've known better; you cut me on my frigging boob," she spat, placing her hand on the top of her breast to cover the cut that still seemed to be bleeding.
Kakashi found this situation rather amusing to see Sakura get upset about something like this, but he had to contain his mirth or he would've earned himself a good beating from the fuming medic if he were to do so, "hey, I didn't mean to hit you there, it was an accident," Kakashi protested, hoping he wouldn't laugh out loud at the young Shinobi for something like that.
"I know that…" Sakura held a serious face regarding Kakashi before continuing, "I just love taking the mickey out of you,"
Sakura began to laugh loudly and pointed at the surprised silver haired man, who - not too sure why himself - began to join her in the amusement. The two laughed hysterically until Sakura nearly began to cry out of joy, "I can't believe you'd think I'd be that upset about something as a small cut," she began, giggling uncontrollably.
"Well I guess I'm just worrying too much over my little former student," Kakashi replied austerely and placed a hand - not on the head this time, but on her shoulder and grinned widely.
Although Sakura couldn't see the man's face because of the mask, she could always tell whether Kakashi was smiling or not just by looking at his dark eye. Sakura, who still had her hand on the cut, focused some of her remaining chakra into her hand and began to heal the wound slowly.
Once she healed herself, she made her way happily to where she was snoozing and found Kitsune and Kuro napping soundly. Kakashi lazily followed her before he felt something strange tinging in his left eye.
Sakura turned around to show Kakashi what the two foxes were doing but was caught off track when she saw the older Jounin covering his left eye with his hand and wincing painfully, "Kakashi, are you alright?" Sakura asked worryingly and stood before him at an instant.
"Yeah, I'm fine, just a little headache is all," Kakashi looked off to his blind spot side whilst feeling the pain burning in his left temple.
"Liar!" Sakura retorted a little harshly and placed her hand on the man's cheek.
Sakura removed Kakashi's hand from his face and examined his Sharingan eye, noticing that Kakashi was squinting in that eye and trying to look at the medic, "dang, what did you do?" the medic asked, frowning in sympathy for the Copy Nin.
Kakashi sighed, "I guess I just overused my Sharingan again," he winced again when he felt the pain strike through his temple and through his left eye.
"Come on, I'll help you," Sakura grabbed Kakashi by the arm and pulled him along under the tree and made him sit down.
Kakashi silently watched as Sakura went through her backpack in search of her water bottle. Once she found said bottle, she chugged it down quickly and sighed, "just gaining a little bit of energy to sooth the pain in your eye," she assured and put her bag away.
Sakura huffed as she shuffled her way in front of Kakashi and glanced at his left eye, "I think what I need you to do is lie down so I can work with the situation easier," Sakura sounded like she was working in the hospital again, only this time they were in the middle of nowhere and Sakura wasn't working; she was doing it voluntarily.
Raising an eyebrow, Kakashi slowly lay down on his back, sighing deeply as he got into a comfortable position. Sakura leaned to her side and against Kakashi's waist and leaned forward. Quickly she reached over and pulled Kakashi's headband off, placing it neatly aside so she could get to work.
"What I am going to do is send some chakra through your Sharingan eye and sooth the pain in your nerves," she explained seriously.
Again, Sakura sounded like the uptight nurses at the hospital, but Kakashi knew Sakura wasn't one to be uptight; she loved her job, "do whatever you need to do," Kakashi's mismatched eyes crinkled up to a smile and Sakura gladly returned it with a quick one.
Sakura shuffled closer to Kakashi's face and placed two fingers by his temple. Slowly, the medic focused her chakra through her hand and into Kakashi's central nerves. Kakashi was feeling better already. Sakura closed her eyes and concentrated deeply to work out what was exactly wrong with Kakashi's eye. The silver haired Jounin just watched Sakura work on him and waited for her to say something.
Sakura removed her hands from the silver haired man's face and opened her eyes. Briefly thinking, Sakura places three fingers around Kakashi's left eye. She felt him flinch a little at the touch and wondered what she was going to do next.
Before being able to say anything, Sakura cut him off, "just…relax," she ordered calmly and Kakashi complied. He just stared at her and waited for the chakra forced magic to happen. Slowly, Sakura sent her chakra through her fingers and into Kakashi's eye.
Kakashi felt the chakra sooth the pains in his eye and felt completely relaxed and calm. He couldn't help but notice the bare patch of skin when he accidentally threw the kunai there; Sakura healed the small cut but the torn part of her top remained the same. Kakashi felt the chakra stop and Sakura's fingers move a bit.
"Kakashi…" Sakura started so calmly, "I can see whatever you're seeing through your Sharingan and I advise you not to look there. Remember, I am sending chakra through your system and could easily do something wrong,"
Immediately Kakashi's gaze switched to Sakura's eyes, grinning as he said, "sorry," he chuckled sheepishly. Sakura rolled her eyes and continued on with sending chakra into the Copy Nin's eye.
Another ten minutes had passed and Sakura was still at it, but sending smaller amounts each time due to the amount of chakra she had left. Not only that, but she was staring into Kakashi's Sharingan for the past five minutes and was feeling rather dizzy, just by watching the three black tomoe spin slowly before her. Kakashi sensed the quantity of Sakura's chakra and was getting quite worried.
Not long after, Sakura was actually straining to get chakra into the other Jounin's left eye and didn't really know how long it'd take before she'd faint and collapse on her former sensei. Sakura felt sweat run down the side of her face but tried to keep her cool and tried to pulse the last amount of chakra into his eye, but before she could continue this selfless torture, Sakura felt a hand grip tight on her wrist.
"Sakura that's enough, if you keep going like this you're going to faint...on me," Kakashi stated firmly as he pulled Sakura's hand from his left eye.
'But thats the whole point!' screeched Inner Sakura whilst punching the air with hardened fists, "but if you don't get enough chakra in that eye of yours it's going to cause serious problems later," she replied with a slight worry in her tone.
Kakashi didn't really seem convinced before Sakura continued, "in the human eye, there is a specific and exact amount of chakra needed to suppress things such as pains and aches," Sakura cleared her throat, "in this case, your Sharingan needs an enormous amount of chakra to suppress the pain you've been dealing with since most likely a long time, and at the moment, I need a lot of chakra to complete the task," Sakura frowned deeply; Kakashi wasn't really going to like what she was going to say next.
"Unfortunately, I don't have enough chakra to finish and if I don't gain enough chakra in time, you will start to experience a lot of pain within the next half hour," Sakura's frown deepened when she noticed the shock in the man's mismatched eyes.
Kakashi stared in awe, wondering what he could do to fix the situation before an idea hit him, "what if I gave you some of my chakra; would that work?" he asked curiously. Sakura was desperate to make sure she wouldn't go in the direction of pain for her former sensei and thought about it.
"I think it will work," she replied in hope.
Sakura looked around in use of a better position to sit and glanced at the tall tree next to the sleeping Kuro and Kitsune, "over here," she pointed out and shuffled her way to the tree.
Kakashi sat up quickly and followed the medic's orders and made cosy under the tree. The silver haired Jounin watched as Sakura looked a bit puzzled, "you okay?" he asked in slight concern.
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine, just thinking over a few things," Sakura replied and smiled brightly.
"Okay…" Sakura almost whispered and grabbed Kakashi's right arm, "I need you to send your chakra through your arm and into mine; can you do that?" she asked, Kakashi nodded and allowed the medic to place her fingers around his eye again.
Slowly, Sakura began pouring her remaining chakra through and into his eye. She had her left hand gripped around Kakashi's wrist and his right hand around her wrist so it was positioned in a lock. The moment Sakura ran out of chakra, her grip around Kakashi's wrist loosened unwillingly and felt her body weaken, making Kakashi worry.
Author's notes: sigh the chapter is done...I really got bored near the end of this chapter and I also didn't really know what to write out for the consequences for the lack of chakra in Kakashi's Sharingan to heal it so yeah. I'm really excited to get the next chapter up...just as soon as I get more reviews and thoughts from you guys that would be really helpful and they mean a lot...seriously they do. Anyway, yeah, I liked this chapter, although I'm not so good with fights and stuff so bare with me. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, the next one will be out as soon as possible.
Preview: Up next: What will happen to Sakura after healing Kakashi? Coming up soon: Chapter Twentyone: Time Of Uncertainty