Chapter Eight – On the Edge

The next morning, the team woke up groggily and sore from their day of working, training, and sleeping on the grass. Sasuke felt a heat radiating from him –

What?

His arm was thrown over Rei, and the shock of having this girl so close to him made him flush…until he realized so was she. But not the same way he was – she was heating up with a fever. "Kakashi!" Sasuke shouted and immediately the jonin appeared. Naruto groaned, rubbing his eyes and Sakura was covering her yawn. "What's wrong, Sasuke?"

He ignored the other genins, watching intently as Kakashi held a hand to the girl's forehead. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her cheeks red and she was breathing through her mouth. Without waking the child up, Kakashi gently lifted Rei into his arms. She made a sound and her head flopped against his biceps. She leaned in closer to him, mumbling. Kakashi sighed. That was irresponsible…I shouldn't have let her stay so long away from a trained medic-nin.

"Alright," he said and carefully threw Rei's bag over his shoulders. "I'm going to go back to Konoha quickly. The assignment is over, and I'll meet you three at the hot springs in five hours. Understood?"

They nodded. But five hours later, Kakashi still didn't show up.

Instead, he was sitting by Rei's side, worriedly watching his weak student become sicker and sicker. Even when Yuri told him to go home or go to the Jonin Standby Station, Kakashi would just shake his head. He blamed himself for forgetting about her precarious health - and if she were to die simply because he went soft one day, he wasn't sure how he could possibly add her name to the list of people that he was yet again unable to save.

When Rei was released the next day, Kakashi was walking with his student to her home and from then on, it became routine. He put the tired girl to bed against her protest and he felt like a lifetime had passed, when really, it was just the next day. He scratched his head, and sighed. Time to call the rest of the squad.

Without Rei around...their training that day didn't go well. He didn't want to continue with their genjutsu training without her present since she was the only one out of the five of them that could be bother to help Naruto failure after failure. Sasuke and Sakura were naturally excellent, of course, and should be the one doing the mentoring. Rei wasn't as good as Sakura, but she was much better than Naruto and had the generosity not to mention the patience to put up with him.

"Today...we're going to determine your natural affinities."

"Don't you mean yesterday we were supposed to?!" Naruto retorted. Kakashi completely forgot that he made plans with his other student - with Rei and her illness preoccupying him most of his day.

"Sure," Kakashi muttered as he took three folds of the paper from his pocket. Holding it between his index and middle finger, his students watched as the paper shrivelled up. "Now some of you already know your affinities, but it's good for the rest of you to find out as well. Still, it is a long process to fully master a nature transformation, so don't be too discouraged. Ready?"

He handed out the chakra-grown tree that created the paper and watched as Sasuke's slip went up in flames - of course - and Naruto's split in half – like his father's – and Sakura's crumble into dirt.

"Good, Naruto yours is wind and Sakura's earth. We also have Sasuke's fire, my lightening and Rei's water," and ice and wind, "so we're perfectly evened out. Great. Now knowing your affinity, we can start."

And start they did, but they did not last. Sakura, his star pupil, when it came to chakra control, couldn't grasp the idea of an earth transformation jutsu…and Naruto…was Naruto. Hours passed yet he struggled with the most basic wind release technique and worse, he interfered with Sasuke's fireball.

"You idiot! Get the hell away from me!" Sasuke shouted angrily as the wind fed Sasuke's flame and almost burnt off Sakura's hair for the third time. The pink haired girl was hysterical and attacked Naruto. It wasn't that Sasuke was concerned with Sakura but rather was irritated by Naruto's interruption.

Naruto was frantically repeating apologies to Sakura but Sasuke was glaring at the boy. Then he grabbed Naruto by the collar, bringing back the attention to him as he narrowed his eyes and insulted his teammate. "All you do is get in my way," he hissed dangerously through his teeth.

Kakashi separated the two. "Sasuke, calm down."

His glaring eyes did not leave the blond boy he eventually he let him loose. "Hn." Sasuke turned away. His sensei sighed. The two really were too much alike. The Uchiha was exactly with Naruto the way Kakashi had been with Obito. The way history was repeating itself was uncanny.

But of course, Naruto went just a little bit further this time. "I'm just training trying to get better - unlike you! If you already know this stuff so well, why don't you just leave?"

That flared Sasuke's temper. "Who the hell do you think you are, telling me to leave?" Sasuke snapped, standing up close to the shorter, blond boy. It was true though - Naruto was getting stronger each day, while it was as if Sasuke had plateau - if that was even possible. Kakashi was a good sensei, but he wasn't willing to teach Sasuke everything yet that would make Sasuke the avenger he needed it to be. Naruto grabbed the Uchiha this time as he screamed, "I'm Naruto Uzumaki - believe it!"

"I believe that I'm a lot better than you!" Sasuke exclaimed, his superiority complex acting up again but it was his lack of confidence in his own progress against Naruto's that made him so easily angry at the other boy.

For probably the hundredth time since the two met, Naruto challenged Sasuke to another battle. Sasuke turned his eyes narrowing and throwing kunais at the teammate who was able to dodge them - but not Sasuke's wires that wrapped around him and dragged him to the ground. Tied up, Naruto was unable to use his infamous clone jutsu and Sasuke was -

"Stop!" Sakura cried out.

"That's enough!" Kakashi interrupted the two with a sense of authority. He really should have stepped in much earlier but he hadn't expected Sasuke to actually tie his comrade down and ready to burn him to ashes. Sasuke went too far this time...

And unsurprisingly, Rei wasn't here.

Rei was the peace keeper, as Rin was his. If she was here, things wouldn't have been this disastrous. Naruto's eyes were huge, still shaken at his fight with Sasuke. And then he was furious. As soon as Sasuke released the wires, the Uzumaki boy was ready to punch the Uchiha down but Sasuke had already left, to go talk to Rei.

Rei had been released the night before but it didn't mean that she was well again - just stable. When she heard a knock on her door, it signalled throughout the empty apartment. Unlike Naruto and Sasuke - orphans that lived in a one room apartment, Rei had kept her entire house and all its possessions. And yet she still felt alone, and anyone could sense that only one infrequent person lived there.

"Sasuke?" Rei asked as she looked up at the weary down boy, his black eyes cold and glaring at the ground. "What's wrong?" she asked, holding the door wider for him to enter. He walks right by the living room and kitchen into her room and dropped on her bed with a sigh. Sasuke had visited her before, and was comfortable in her home. "Nothing."

"Something happen in training today?" she guessed and sat down cross legged by him. He rolled over onto his stomach, head in the pillows. His answer was muffled but she heard Naruto's name and sighed, already knowing what happened. "You're both fine...right? Nothing broken or injured too bad?"

"Except his ego."

She readjusted the way she sat and fidgeted with the pillow on her lap. "C'mon, Sasuke, lighten up a bit." He looked up to glare at her but she wasn't intimidated by it. Instead she leaned in closer and flicked his headband – in a way so horrible similar to Itachi…

Sasuke shot up. "I should leave now."

She rolled around lazily in her bed and pulled the blanket closer to her, looking up through her eyelashes and smiling kindly at the dark haired boy. "Fine, run away." Why is she reminding me so much like Itachi? His emotions blazed – but it wasn't quite anger, just an overwhelming sense of feelings. He moved towards her, slamming his hand down on the bed beneath her and leaning over her dangerously. His eyes narrowed and slowly he said gruffly, "I'm not running away."

"Liar." Her eyes were wide, and she pronounced each syllable carefully and confidently but then ducked her head and did not look up as he walked away.

Thanks for reading!