~ Take me

Chapter 2- 'Rapport'

I did emergency surgery on myself
I gouged a hole in my stomach
A Cesarean section to remove all the dead butterflies
But all that leaks out is acid
That eats its way through my body
Ruining every part of me that it touches
And leaving behind a pain worse than the one it was supposed to alleviate

Just like him.

Things get worse before they get better.

She sees him on Monday, just a day after their fight in the rain. Sakura pays attention just enough to notice that Sasuke seems surprised she is there. As if she would try and avoid him, rearrange her life around him. She clenches her fists. Those days are in the past now; she is not the one who deserted her place here, and she sure as hell is not going to just be edged out of the confining little niche she has worked so hard to scrape out for herself. Not by him.

Kakashi and Naruto are there as well; they are all gathered in the shinobi center outside of the Hokage's office, waiting for an assignment. A reunion mission has been hinted at being in the works for Team Seven for a few weeks now already. Naruto was the first to arrive, and Kakashi the last - as usual. Sakura listens to the blond spew happy chatter at Sasuke for a good fifteen minutes before their old sensei can show up, his visible eye crinkling up in a smile as he catches sight of Sasuke scowling at an over-eager Naruto. He places one hand on each of the boys' shoulders and sighs happily.

This annoys Sakura, but she doesn't show it. Why do they accept him so quickly and so easily? Any mission that does not strictly require a medic nin and Naruto and Kakashi are needling at her to consider staying behind at the hospital. No, Sakura. It's dangerous. We have it covered. No shit it's dangerous; that's why she's kind of trained to be a ninja for most of her life. Same as them. She stifles her sigh of frustration.

Tsunade calls them in, and sure enough she has found a mission for the lot of them. It's a long one too, taking up at least a week once they are in position. It will take them days just to get there. It's a mission to take down a group of Mist criminals, and it is A-ranked.

Sakura feels Kakashi's gaze wander over to her for the first time at the revelation that it is practically an assassination mission they are going on. If he suggests that she sit this one out - the goddamned reunion mission - as if she is not a part of this group, she thinks she will probably scream. On the other hand she can tell he must be absolutely dying to team up with not just Naruto but Sasuke. It was no secret he was probably their sensei's favorite old student; got tutoring for the Chunin exams and everything. Sakura thinks Kakashi likes working with Naruto nearly as much – he's an interesting partner with his bag of maverick tricks and unlimited chakra – but it's not like she can be certain. Not when she's only ever even been along on one serious fight, and then he had them split up from each other. Separating the women from the men. Her triumph over Sasori, what was supposed to bring validation to her skills not as just a healer but as someone who could be dangerous, and they all miss it. Maybe don't even believe in it.

Tsunade seems to see past Sakura's careful façade down to her stricken expression underneath. She chooses her next words very purposefully. "I have picked each of you very specifically for the unique skills you all will contribute to this mission; you are not here to have a little 'reunion' on Village time! This is your job and you all will focus!" She growls at them gruffly, pretending to be completely serious. Sakura sends her teacher a silent thank you.

Team Seven scatters to their respective homes. They leave in the morning.

They are headed for a small coastal town in the east, a journey of about three days from Konoha and mostly over land that is still within their nation. It's a peaceful walk.

When they get far enough away from the Village and the sun is shining straight overhead, signaling a white, burning noon, Kakashi has them stop in the shade of the thinning forests of east Fire Country. He pulls out a stashed basket full of food, grinning behind his mask as the three of them throw down their bags and sit in the grass. To the reunion.

"To Team Seven, finally back together again!"

There are sweet rolls with syrup for Sakura, plain onigiri and seaweed for Sasuke, and ramen in a thermos for Naruto of course. All their favorites. Kakashi opens up a container of miso soup for himself. Their old teacher stops them before they dig in by clearing his throat. The three younger shinobi look up at him.

"From now on, I want us all to communicate better as a team. We need to be able to tell each other when something is wrong or if we have a problem. We need to be able to rely on each other."

After a split second to let the words sink in, Naruto nods vigorously in favor. Sasuke, sensing that since this addendum was primarily concocted because of his behavior and therefore his usual noncommittal "hn" would probably not suffice, gives a shallow nod. Sakura doesn't say anything or make any gesture of acquiescence; in fact, her throat has gone dry and her face suddenly feels hot. But they boys dig into their food, taking her agreement as a given. She lets it go, pops a sugary dumpling into her mouth. It feels sour in her stomach. She feels instinctively that this amendment will not fix anything for her anyway.

They fall into light conversation, Naruto chattering happily while Kakashi sneaks peeks at a battered novel and Sakura focuses on smiling and laughing in all the right places. She wonders if she is truly the only one so uncomfortable with this. And she contemplates why.

Sasuke hardly speaks or reacts to anything, yet Naruto and Kakashi act more vibrantly and happily than they ever did when it was just her and the two of them. Why do they seem to so automatically have such a strong connection? She hears how selfish it sounds in her head, but she can't help it. Why is she never enough? What is she doing wrong?

She looks down at her bento box and she has only managed to swallow a few of the dumplings. She suddenly feels sick to her stomach though, and she recognizes the sharp, twisting pain, knows it's not the food. She slides the lid shut over her picked-at meal, pushes herself up off the ground and stretches the pins and needles out of her legs, trying to look offhand about it.

Kakashi looks up at her; she realizes it's one of the first times he's broken his attention from either Sasuke or Naruto.

"What is it, Sakura?"

She waves her hand nonchalantly, "I just promised Lady Tsunade I would give her daily updates on our position, so I should do it now since we'll probably be walking late tonight to make up for this time," she smiles, "I won't include the picnic, of course."

"Thanks, Sakura-chan!" Naruto grins around a mouthful of ramen, and Kakashi nods at her. She keeps her eyes away from Sasuke.

She walks a good distance back into the trees until they thicken around her, and she cannot hear Naruto's laugh any longer. Sakura bites her thumb, summons a small slug, and sends coordinates and the name of the town they will stop in for the night to her teacher. It's a quick chore, but she lingers – she has to.

She needs to catch her breath. The pain inside of her won't stay away, no matter how many times she or even Tsunade pokes at it with a glowing green finger. It takes hold of her now. Gasping, she lowers herself carefully into the shade of two thick elm trees, pushes her legs up to her chest and hugs them tight. It helps the ache a little, but not much. She doesn't know how it's only managed to get worse than it ever was before, now that he is back, but it has. It makes her crazy, that she can still long for him so acutely, so painstakingly. If only they had psychiatric medical ninjutsu, because something surely must be wrong with her head...

"What are you doing?" The four simple words, uttered in a nearly inflectionless baritone, send all the blood rushing out of her face. It makes her stumble clumsily from the loss of oxygen to her brain as she pulls herself immediately to her feet. Sasuke stands a couple of meters away, leaning against a tree and watching her with a curious expression.

"Sending the report to Lady Tsunade." Her tone is clipped.

"I meant on the ground. Is something wrong with you?"

Sakura rolls her eyes at him, ignores the way the prickling in her stomach turns from agonizing to a kind of pleasant, burning pain when she has his eyes on her. "I'm the apprentice of the greatest medical nin who ever lived; don't you think I would heal myself if something was wrong with me?" She wishes. "And what are you doing over here?"

"If you're going to walk out this far alone you're supposed to have back-up, just in case."

"I can take care of myself now," she scowls. He smirks.

"Team protocol, if I recall."

"We could easily have changed it, in the four years you were running around doing God knows what," she snaps. The way his body tenses, she knows he wasn't expecting her to so suddenly bring that up, to speak the words with a bitter, venomous edge to them, as if they are a weapon she is wielding against him. Sharp things coated in poison do seem to be her preferred approach with him; he recalls that day very clearly. It's still fresh in his mind from their fight outside of the restaurant.

"I think there's something wrong here, and we're supposed to discuss it," Sasuke says stiffly, remembering the almost desperate fervor in Kakashi's words as he made them promise. Sakura's expression doesn't change; she doesn't even open her mouth. "But then you didn't promise him, did you?"

He was watching her, she realizes. He saw how she didn't give her acceptance, and how it didn't seem to be noticed or even required. Sakura forgot just how observant Sasuke Uchiha is. It's ironic, that of all people he is the one who has finally paid attention to her. Against her will, a flood of memories suddenly inundates her.

She gives him a strange smile, and it's odd, because she's just dismissed him as nothing more than a stranger to her, yet he senses that the next words she speaks to him are words confided, words that have never made it to Naruto or Kakashi's ears.

"Not like it's really meant to apply to me anyway, seeing as I've always been more of an 'honorary' member of the team." Her tone is mocking.

His dark eyes narrow. "What it that supposed to mean, Sakura?"

She gives a short, harsh chuckle as she brushes the dirt from her backside and starts making her way back through the trees to the rest of their picnicking team.

"You'll figure it out."

Sasuke ignores her through the rest of their lunch, all the way up until they are checked into their rooms at a tiny inn nestled between the tall trees and barely visible from the road. Another perk of the unofficial official reunion mission; they could have just slept outside. Sakura sends warmer smiles to the stranger lady innkeeper and the boy who shows them their doors than she does to her stranger teammate.

It doesn't bother him; in fact it's strange, but he thinks Sakura of all people is being the most sensible about his return. He's been gone for four years; he has changed, has become a stranger to them. Yet for the past month Naruto has been chattering on about things he doesn't have the faintest inkling about - Village gossip and techniques and what so and so is doing. He acts like he still knows everything about him. Every time Sasuke grits his teeth and prays for patience, because if he snaps there are only so many chances to fuck up before they execute you.

The fact that Sakura has changed so much too is proof, proof that time has indeed gone by and that fact must be faced. Kakashi may reread all his old novels until the pages crumble into dust, Naruto may still wear jumpsuits and eat ramen twice a day – but they can only go on for so long pretending. Problems aren't meant to be smoothed over until they're hopefully just rendered unnoticeable.

They are in a suite with four very small bedrooms for each of them to sleep in that connect to a little living/kitchenette area; if they all open their doors they can see each other. Naruto hollers goodnight out his open door, grinning in his frog pajamas as if it is a sleepover party instead of an assassination mission to a foreign country. Kakashi pokes his head out with a casual " 'night, guys" and a salute; he leaves his door ajar. Sakura walks between the rooms toward her door, with a glass of water from the sink clasped in her hands. She says her soft goodnight, smiling at the lot of them as if they are all still her boys, but Sasuke happens to be looking out of his door and sees the way it doesn't quite touch her eyes. She looks right back at him as she slips through the door to her own room and lets it close behind her. He hears the quiet but firm click as she locks it. As he gets up and heads for his bed, he does the same.

That's right. Strangers aren't supposed to be trusted.

For once he and Sakura Haruno are on the same page.

They make it into the town where they are supposed to be looking for their targets a day ahead of schedule. Sakura sends another message to Tsunade. She receives the reply that the Mist shinobi they are focusing on are at least a day or two behind schedule. They will simply have to stay put.

It is Kakashi's idea that they use the extra time to train together, to get familiar again with each others' skills and styles. And so the four of them go out into the scraggly fringe of trees a few miles outside of the little town on the coast, bright and early in the morning.

It's only a warm up, but they start out with chakra control exercises by climbing up trees with the soles of their feet... and they all feel the déjà vu. The reborn Team 7's first A-rank mission is echoing the first ever A-rank mission three genin were accidentally saddled with five years ago. Down to being in Mist Country and everything. Sasuke has tried hard to repress memories like this over the past few years; it startles him when that mission manages to bubble up despite his efforts.

Just like when they were children, Naruto, skilled ninja that he is by now, loses his focus and lands smack on the ground, while Sakura with her superhuman control darts to the top faster than any of them. She goes up a second time before she quits the exercise and moves ahead of them, her short hair ruffled by her speed and her cheeks pink with exhilaration. She makes a few teasing remarks to the rest of them about needing practice, and she sounds just like the younger, happier version of herself. Beating them seems to put her in a better mood. Seeing her so light and young also starts to tug up the memory of thirteen-year-old Sakura that Sasuke has kept carefully buried in the recesses of his mind that he no longer visits. He struggles to repress it; it's a little disconcerting to see the difference between them, to see how serious and unhappy she seems to have become.

They go into town for dinner once it gets dark and the red, blue, and gold paper lanterns in the streets are lit. Naruto drags them to an outdoor noodle stand of course, claiming he wants to see how different Mist ramen is from Leaf ramen. Kakashi sighs and pulls out a book while they wait for their food, while Sakura scolds Naruto about never making healthy eating choices. Sasuke finds himself not brooding at his stool so much as quietly falling into his old role between the three of them. It's hard not to, when things like this seem to be so well preserved he could swear they're still thirteen right now. They remember which side he likes to sit on and how he gets green tea instead of oolong and everything.

There's a couple on a date, sitting at the other side of the noodle stand. The man feeds the girl noodles clumsily, and she blushes, scooting close enough to rest against his shoulder. Since Sasuke has been back Naruto has been focusing a lot on making up for lost time with his best friend, but this is one of the moments where he returns to his banter with Sakura.

The blond makes sure he's wiped any stray noodles off of his face, and then he drags his stool so that it's right up against Sakura's.

"The lanterns in this town are really pretty, huh, Sakura-chan? More colors than in Konoha. It's kinda romantic, right?" he grins at her.

"They are really nice; I like the blue ones," she responds as she picks at her udon; she seems to have missed the 'romantic' part.

Kakashi ignores them, more focused on the lovers in his novel than the young shinobi he's with. He knows by now that there's no getting his hopes up regarding watching anything interesting happen in his students' love lives. Sasuke listens to the banter, and it starts to stir up more memories.

"So... how about after training tomorrow just you and I get some food together? Like a date?" Naruto grins slyly. Kakashi sighs as if he has heard this before a thousand times, flicks a page boredly, and the withering look Sakura shoots the blond seems practiced. But it's news to Sasuke, and for some reason it catches his attention. Makes him annoyed that he's missed so much.

Even though now Sakura is chewing him out about how he should know better than to keep asking, it annoys Sasuke that Naruto has been asking Sakura out. He's not delusional; he knows damn well that he's the one who cut them off, tried to erase his spot in their lives, and they should be free to carry on without him. But for some reason this little reversal of their routines irritates him. Sasuke sighs heavily at his bowl, but his teammates are too busy arguing to hear.

It seems he isn't as disconnected from his old teammates as he had preferred to think. He may have been a stranger, but they already seem to be reclaiming him. He doesn't know yet if this is a good thing or not.

Naruto shouts his cheery goodnight. Light spills out past Kakashi's slightly open door as he stays up to read into the night. Sasuke hears the click of the lock on Sakura's door again. For some reason he can picture her very clearly, turning the lock and then falling onto her bed, curled up around her stomach with her arms struggling to hold herself in one piece – the way he found her in the woods. Despite her clipped interactions with him, he is still wondering about that.

Tonight he doesn't follow her example. Sasuke leaves the door between him and his teammates closed, but unlocked. He's not advertising it, but he'll let them in if they try.

After at least a tentative month together hanging around in Konoha, and three days into being together constantly on the mission, Kakashi decides that they should be comfortable enough sparring with each other. He and Naruto may be eager for the team to heal good as new, but this is a tough step even for them. It was only a year ago that they were all enemies throwing attacks at each other and aiming to kill. They have found a clear, open grassy space to practice on without worrying about destroying the trees and angering any locals. They all stand there now, in a tense little circle.

"There are four of us; we can have two fights going at a time," Naruto suggests. Despite the nervousness in his blue eyes, the excitement and eagerness just beneath is evident. His fingers twitch with his pent-up energy.

Kakashi purses his lips beneath his mask, "I think for now we'll go slow. One battle while the other two observe. It'll give us a better opportunity to objectively analyze the way the others move." 'And keep an eye on how far things go, so you don't kill each other' seems to hang in the air, and it's no longer quite just a joking phrase between them.

"Okay!" Naruto's spirit is not easily dampened, "I call first fight!" He immediately jogs into the center of the clearing.

"I second that," Sakura speaks up after a moment of tense silence between the three of them. She sensed Kakashi's thoughts in the moment, weighing the risks: a) let Naruto and Sasuke fight and risk them trying to kill each other, or b) fight Naruto himself but leave Sakura alone with Sasuke. She chooses the third option that she knows her sensei will never remember to consider. She is itching to show him...

Their old teacher blinks at the petite girl, already pulling on her gloves with a sort of grim air of anticipation, in surprise.

"Sakura, you don't have to fight; you're our medic. I know Lady Tsunade trained you in defense too, but I promise we'll be capable of covering you," he puts a hand on her shoulder. She fights the urge to lose her temper. Again, she is aware of Sasuke paying close attention to this. She feels an unexpected flare of embarrassment heat her skin.

"With all due respect, Kakashi-sensei, Tsunade-shishou said everyone was picked very specifically for their unique skill sets; you don't know if I'll be most useful as a fighter or a healer. She knows my skills, and she knows exactly what's required for this mission." Her green eyes implore him; for once he seems to dig a little deeper, see the desperation in her face, the desire to prove herself to them. The man's jaw locks – it goes against his first instinct to send the pupil he has always tried to protect into a fight with quite literally a demon – but he nods at her. She runs eagerly out to the middle of the field where Naruto is waiting, one hand raised for a high-five. The blond hesitates when he sees that he will be trying to pummel sweet, pink Sakura, but he slaps her hand back a beat late.

The two sharingan users back a good distance away to observe. Kakashi has his activated, but Sasuke gets the feeling that it's to keep watch over their safety rather than copy anyone's technique. Surely he would know his own students' moves. Sasuke settles back lazily to watch. He's never outright fought Sakura the way he has Naruto; he's curious what she has up her sleeves besides medical ninjutsu. The way Kakashi seems to be worrying himself, he wonders if all she knows is medical ninjutsu.

Naruto and Sakura stand a few meters apart from each other in the grass; they look like they could be just having a conversation. Then Naruto kicks a leg out. Sakura's hands clasp together as if she is praying, and she disappears. Sasuke waits for the 'poof' of a substitution jutsu, but it never comes. Confused, he scans the field with his dark eyes. Then he hears Kakashi gasp under his breath. His one sharingan eye spins frantically with what it sees. In a blink Sasuke has activated his too.

Naruto is punching and kicking, making clones and using non-lethally aimed rasengans in quick succession. The Sakura he fights is crazy-skilled. She's faster than Kakashi, and stronger even than the horror stories Naruto's whispered to Sasuke about her breaking the ground apart. She can even use earth jutsu to counter his wind. Every move she makes is tinged an odd green though. In fact, the whole field seems slightly off-color to his sharingan eyes. And there are odd, displaced looking areas whenever Naruto makes an attack. It looks like two transparent worlds laid on top of each other. And then he catches a flash of pink, lurking off to the side in the edges of the trees' reach. Two flashes of pink rather, because at the moment Sakura also appears to be delivering a beautifully done roundhouse kick across the field.

Sasuke deactivates his sharingan just to be sure, lets the fiery eyes of his bloodline extinguish to coal. Sure enough, the real Naruto is frozen in place, his limbs occasionally twitching as he imagines he is attacking. Sakura looks like she is snickering as she holds her hand sign and waits for the right moment to break the jutsu and finish him off.

Genjutsu always was a big weakness of Naruto's. 'Too trusting', Sasuke used to scoff of his grinning friend. And genjutsu Sakura has used on Naruto. Very, very advanced genjutsu.

Her focus over her chakra is so great that she's able to move around as she holds the illusion. She saunters over to Naruto, hesitates a few moments, and Sasuke flicks back on the sharingan to see what vision she has for him now.

She plays on another of his weaknesses. The Sakura in the genjutsu is suddenly unable to dodge one of his rasengan attacks. It gets closer than the blond must have meant it to, because it hits her full in the stomach and sends her crashing to the ground. Naruto falls out of attack mode instantly and goes running for her body.

"Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan!" he hovers over her, his voice going thick with gathering tears. Sakura chooses that moment to dispel the genjutsu; the exact instant she drops it she reaches forward from where she has crept up behind Naruto and knocks him out cold. It's over. She's won.

Sasuke drops the sharingan as well, turns to Kakashi expecting the man to say something about the way she fought. He hadn't known what to expect at all – he knew Naruto had strength while Sakura had brains – but Kakashi should have some sort of verdict. To his surprise, the older man still hasn't covered his sharingan eye, but is continuing to stare at the practice field with it, dazed.

"Kakashi?"

"Did you see that, Sasuke?"

"What, the genjutsu? Of course," the Uchiha scoffs impatiently. Why is he reacting to strangely?

"Holy shit, Sakura..." the silver-haired man murmurs under his breath, his face white with shock. As if he has been completely surprised, blown away to know Sakura is capable of such things. And then it hits Sasuke.

"You didn't know she could do that," he guesses. How could he not know that?

"No," Kakashi confirms, still in a daze as the two of them watch Sakura head back to where they are standing, dragging Naruto along with her.

"I didn't know she left too. Who did she go train under?" Sasuke asks. He had always assumed Sakura had stayed behind in Konoha, always the good girl, while he played the traitor and Naruto went off with Jiraya (he had already talked Sasuke's ear off about all of his (often perverted) adventures). Perhaps he has found the reasoning behind such a different Sakura. She is so much stronger and serious and well-disciplined; he realizes it made perfect sense that she leave too. And that could be why Kakashi is so protective of the group now; he was left all alone.

Kakashi finally turns to Sasuke. Tucks up the sharingan safe and sound. "Sakura? No, she has never left the Village. She learned her medical skills training with Lady Tsunade."

"And you?" The dark-haired boy finds himself pressing, even though he has guessed the man's answer with an uncharacteristically cold feeling accompanying him in his chest at the realization.

"No, I never trained with her."

He is right. Their teacher, who had tutored him so diligently, so happily for the stupid Chunin Exams, given him his chidori and with it the basis for every lightning attack Sasuke had ever developed... He had just ignored Sakura for two, three years. Ignored her.

Sasuke's inner feelings of shock – for he is as composed as ever on the surface – are interrupted by Sakura reaching them. Her hair twists messily around her head, and her brow is slick with sweat at all the effort, but her face is radiant at the victory. There is a new light in her eyes that reminds Sasuke precisely of the color of sunlight shining through bright, green tree leaves. It's the first time he notices how much prettier she has actually gotten over the time they've been apart, when she isn't busy giving him the cold shoulder anyway. It surprises him.

"Who's next?" she grins elatedly as she carefully deposits a slowly awakening Naruto at Kakashi's feet. A pained look flies into the older man's eye.

"Okay, Sakura, that's enough. You're good for today; you just rest."

Always observant, Sasuke watches her face slowly fall. Suddenly he is so irritated with the man. Would it kill him to just tell her she had done well? It is so obviously what Sakura is craving; he, Sasuke, the unemotional traitor with the worst people skills in the Village can even see it. He sees Sakura vying for the man's approval, and he thinks it is exactly the way it had been between him and his own father. The Uchiha is bad with emotions, but he's definitely familiar with all of the bad ones – he remembers the pain of constantly failing to be recognized.

For the first time in a very long time, Sasuke Uchiha empathizes with someone. And Sakura Haruno, of all people. He opens his mouth.

"No, I want to fight her."

"...Sasuke?"

Sakura and Kakashi both gape, but then she recovers. A hard look comes into her eyes. She suddenly can't pull her mind away from that day. If she closed her eyes she feels certain she could see her shaking hand holding a knife dripping with poison, aimed straight at the fan printed on the fabric stretched over his noble back...

He's a stranger he's a stranger he's a stranger he's a stranger... she repeats over and over in her head, as if the words are a spell that will give her the strength she needs as she follows Sasuke out onto the practice field. Stares down that familiar Uchiha back again. By now Naruto has woken up; he and Kakashi stand at the edge of the battlefield, too shocked to even shout at them to stop. Sakura takes deep, focusing breaths, repeats her mantra, hardens her gaze against his as he turns to meet her eyes. Ignores the lurch in her heart that is equal parts nervousness and longing for this poker faced boy standing before her.

Sasuke doesn't hesitate as long as Naruto did; Sakura guesses it's because unlike the blond he has no qualms over hurting her. Because they have agreed they are strangers now.

And it's not like he hasn't hurt her countless times in the past as it is...

He kicks and punches; she dodges. He pulls out his sword to swipe at her, and the ground sinks out beneath him in a shockwave of skittering rubble. It's the first time he's seen this rumored superstrength, and he's impressed for a moment.

Sasuke feels a tugging at the edges of his vision. Genjutsu. It's so powerful that it pulls him under for a few moments before he can dispel it. Fleetingly, he is surrounded by cherry trees in full spring bloom. Petals swirl on a wind that he can really feel, and the smell is overwhelming. It's so pleasant he almost can't believe it's supposed to be an attack, and he lingers a split-second. But he remembers the way she can move while she casts, knows the girl's probably sneaking up on him this second.

He breaks the illusion but she manages to land a punch in his stomach anyway. The dark-haired boy recovers quickly, but she is right on him. He realizes, as she dances lithely and incessantly around him, that with her superstrength her favored style would be very close combat. So long as she's not worried about being the only medic and getting taken out at the expense of her team anyway. She could quite literally kill him with her pinky finger. But then so could he. The blue sparks of chidori erupt from the fingertips of his right arm almost unconsciously.

Sakura flinches violently, her green eyes wide and her body suddenly stiffening in its complex dance. Then he remembers in the restaurant, the way she ran away just from being alone with him. What must this be like for her, him facing her down with the exact same attack? He understands, lets the sparks die against his skin and mentally kicks himself for thoughtlessly using the move in front of her.

What Sasuke does not understand at all is her ensuing reaction. The reflection of the chidori's lightning leaves her eyes as the sparks fade from his hand, but those eyes are suddenly blazing with an angry green electricity generated completely on their own.

"What are you doing?" she hisses at him. They have stopped striking each other at this point; now they are merely standing so close that if they were lovers they could have kissed.

He doesn't know how to answer her.

"You're trying to go easy on me," a look of mortified horror twists her face; it morphs seamlessly into pure anger. "As if I need it so badly! Get your head out of your ass, Sasuke. You're not as great as you think." She grips the fabric of his shirt as if she is about to throw him across the field. He realizes she probably could.

"You were wrong before," he finally admits, trying hard for the most diplomatic words. This only makes her shake with her fury.

"Stop telling me what I do and do not know. As if you have any idea, or any right," she hisses, pushing him away from her.

"You were wrong in that we're not totally strangers, Sakura." He realizes he means it as he speaks the words and they ring back true in his ears. He doesn't remember exactly where along the road he realized it, through all the déjà vu, or maybe when he saw her radiant face and felt the strangest surge of pride for her, but he is sure of his words. They are not strangers. He is Sasuke, she is Sakura, and try as they may they cannot ignore the fact that they have a long, painful history inked out between them.

"I don't want to hurt you."

With these words, he thinks he sees something flash in those clear, wide eyes of hers. So much more full of expression that his. Then the pools of soft green harden into stony emeralds.

"You already have." Her voice is as hard and cold and raw as her eyes.

They both stand there silently, static, accepting her words. He knows they're true, but he doesn't know what to do. He's only just moments ago decided that he does not want to be a stranger in this life that has been so carefully and lovingly preserved for him. He has only just seen Sakura cast in this new light. He doesn't know how he wants to process it all yet. For once, his Uchiha eyes are slow and uncertain.

But Sakura thinks she has decided what she sees. She sees a boy who has hurt her and who now thinks it's okay to patronize her as she struggles so hard for her reputation. She sees a boy her head tells her to keep a stranger, while her heart tells her to wrap her arms around him and never let go. She's gotten into enough trouble following her heart, Sakura thinks. She gave away all those old romance novels to Ino long ago. They did nothing but aggravate the gaping hole he tore out of her stomach when he left anyway.

The pink-haired girl takes the few steps that separate them in three strong, purposeful strides. He holds his ground. Her body says she's confident, a righteous and angry goddess ready to strike down a mere mortal. Her eyes say she's terrified.

"You are a stranger," she tells him. Her voice shakes. She raises her hand.

No. He's right. Sasuke Uchiha is always right, and confident, and steady. They are not strangers. She'll hesitate, as she did that day. There is no way Sakura, caring and devoted Sakura who professed her love once upon a time and still rejects Naruto, can just shut him out...

He is killing her. He doesn't even need a bolt of chidori and he is killing her, Sakura thinks. She knows she has never wanted anything more than to believe him, to accept that he has not lost that sense of regard he had for her over these last hard years. That he cares, to some extent.
Being a stranger to the man she (still) loves is the absolute last thing that she wants.

But it is what she thinks she needs.

She can't been naïve forever, she tells herself. She can't just forget anything ever happened, the way Kakashi and Naruto seem to be intent to. She has learned to have more respect for herself than that, goddamnit.

Her pale hand lashes out, slaps him full across the face, and Sasuke stumbles backward.

He tumbles to the ground, hears ringing in his ears. Two or three of Sakura's face swim across his vision, and he almost feels like he's experiencing vertigo. He clenches his teeth together, fights to stand up without swaying. When he recovers enough to look down into her eyes, Sasuke thinks he sees them softened in regret. He sees an infinite sadness behind them that she has trouble masking. The girl reaches a soft, slender hand out toward him; it glows green and warm. Over her shoulder, Sasuke sees Kakashi and Naruto running over to see what has happened.

He stops her hand before it can reach his face; the posture of him holding her back as she tries to help him dredges up another memory of them together in the old days, during the chunin exam. How had he managed to block all of these? he wonders. She's fucking everywhere.

"Sasuke, I can-"

"You can't always just heal everything up and let people pretend it was never there, Sakura. Maybe some people need to fester in the results of the mistakes they have made." He shrugs away from her hand and disappears before Kakashi and Naruto can make it over, leaving her still half-reaching for him. Desperately backtracking.

The lot of them are just forever desperately backtracking.