Salvation
Disclaimer; All rights to Naruto belong to Masashi Kishimoto.
Chapter Nine
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She found herself dreading Kakashi's proclamation that he had entered them into the chunin exams, the sooner he said it, the less time she would have training. She knew that it would be a little about a month away, a month full of D-rank missions, but she couldn't help the bit of fear that curled in the pit of her stomach at the thought of facing Orochimaru in the physical state she was in.
She didn't have to kill him, just wound him enough that he would leave before placing the curse mark on Sasuke. Of course she could allow Sasuke to get attacked and open way for the grass nin to kill him before he awoke, activating his curse seal.
She grimaced, No. Naruto wouldn't be able to take that.
Her hands curled into a strong fist at her side, her teeth gritting. She was aware that her disgust toward the young Uchiha was shoving a fork between the teams ties. She know she was not acting rationally or skillfully- but the burning hatred that flared in her chest at the thought of the Uchiha was too strong to ever be extinguished.
He imprisoned her in a cell for seven years, he destroyed her home, took away those most precious to her, she would never be able to look upon him without such hatred and bitterness that she harbored.
Continuing a barrage of kunai, each perfectly striking a target dead center, she was pulled from her thoughts by a familiar, gut-wrenching chakra. Slyly, she tossed a kunai to her right, it whizzed past the inky head of the Uchiha heir, but not before slicing open the ivory skin of his cheek. Though he made no indication that her assault had scared or harmed him, she knew it had cut deep enough to hurt.
"Why are you spying, Uchiha?" She spat with visible and audible disgust toward his lineage. He appeared at the bottom of the tree, his sandaled feet scuffing into the roots below as charcoal eyes met hers.
"Spar me." Was his simple demand as he took a fighting stance.
Sakura snorted, moving to retrieve her kunai and leave, "You're not worth my time."
As she reached up to wrench a kunai buried nearly hilt-deep in the practice board, a foot slammed into the small of her back and she choked in surprise, turning with blazing emerald orbs to the Uchiha who was now looking at her with a spiteful, smouldering expression. Not hiding his smug look.
Her hands shook with the need to strike and her heart beat sporadically in her chest as she released her full killing intent around the young Uchiha, it wrapped around him like a suffocating cloak of fear, but he let none of it come to sight as he continued his steely glare. "I saw the way you were looking at me, that day on the bridge." Was all he said as he threw himself forward into an ax-kick.
Before the air could even move around her Sakura had disappeared. Her anger boiling to dangerous levels as the Uchiha came at her, she was a veteran shinobi and he was a child in her eyes. The twenty-six year old appeared just before his foot touched the ground, her fingers curling around his ankle like a steel trap as she threw him like a rag-doll across the clearing and toward the forestry.
He looked shocked, but managed to twist through the air and land on the heels of his feet, skidding backwards and leaving a trail of dirt in his wake as he charged forward, not underestimating her speed this time as his hands flickered with seals, Sakura knew what he was planning before he even brought his hand to his mouth.
She made a face of sheer disgust as she appeared before him, formally acclaimed for her speed in a past life, she snatched his fist in her dainty hand. For a split second, blazing sharrigan met with burning emerald.
"I do not wish to fight you, not now, anyway." She ground out through her teeth, "I need to finish training and you've become a distraction. Get out of my sight." The last words were accompanied by the cracking of three of his fingers dislodging from their sockets under her fierce grip.
About to attack and scathing, he found himself alone.
His fingers itched at his sides to kill something, the girl who had once nearly fallen to her knees to beg him for a date, for any shred of his attention, had changed. Something was beyond off about her. Never before had she held Naruto in such high regard and himself so low.
Never would she have landed a blow on him before and not once had he ever expected her to look at him with such contempt and hatred, a hatred he could put on par with his own for his brother. What had he done to make her turn on him like a caged animal?
'Like a caged animal.'
Sakura's body screamed at her to rush back, to fight. That breaking a few of his fingers hadn't atoned for what he had done for her. Nothing had been repaid, none of his blood had been spilled. Her fists lit up in an enraged fury as she struck aimlessly at the forestry around her, her body screaming in pain, wanting release from her hours of chakra-less punching and kicking, nothing cushioning her blows but the blind fury she found herself in.
By the time she had left the forest, the sun was rising and her hands were covered in gloves of blood. All knuckles nearly shattered, her arms and shoulders burning with pain. But her heart still beating, still burning, still wanting a kill to atone for her own.
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