Gah it's FINALLY here! Took a bit of a while because the muse decided she'd much rather work on some other oneshots and such...having fun and doing whatever she wanted with other ItaSaku fic ideas, but I finally took away her sugar for a while and reminded her that this story HAD to be finished or I'd have angry reviewers on me like hornets on a hive-kicker. So here it is! I feel a tad unsatisfied with the middle (which is where I had the most trouble), but I did enjoy the emotional perspective of this. And I can't wait for the sixth and final chapters of this fic!
Please enjoy!
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, the characters of Naruto are not mine and so I'm not making any money off of writing this...those lovely things belong to Kishimoto, lucky man.
Chapter 5: Bafflement
Blood. The metallic tang that permeated the clearing was distinctive, and he was well acquainted with the smell.
Droplets of bright, deep crimson dotted the blades of new spring grass, turning the cool air sharp with the familiar, pungent scent. His muscles tensed without warning, a kunai readily finding its way into his hand, even as his mind assessed the lack of threat in the clearing. It was a reflex born of countless missions, and one that had kept him alive on more than one occasion.
But knowing that there was no danger did little to assuage the sudden rush of adrenaline as he stooped to swipe a finger to the viscous, scarlet liquid. It was undoubtedly blood that he slicked between his index and thumb, and a cold chill clenched his stomach.
The fresh blood wasn't his, leaving only one other option. No one else frequented this particular clearing.
'Sakura.'
But it had been almost a year since the last time he had found blood here that hadn't been his. Sakura's talents as a medic had grown in leaps and bounds. Like her mentor and teacher, the ability to heal was so deeply ingrained in her now that, even on the battle field, her body would automatically heal itself of injuries unless she was dangerously low on chakra or utilizing her powers in a way that called for complete control.
A quiet hiss escaped him, the only indicator of his frustration…and concern.
Even knowing that a shinobi's life was naturally filled with injury, it bothered him that Sakura's new training routine drew blood. The crimson drops that gleamed like dark rubies on the grass were a testament to the difficulty of whatever she wished to master, one more thing for villages across the shinobi nations to put down against the day Sakura would merit her own page in the bingo books.
Admittedly, this was not a reason to be pleased, but Itachi couldn't help the warm rush of pride he felt at every successful mission the girl completed. It was proof to him that she was skilled. Powerful. Safe.
Her strength was something that filled him with contentment whenever he saw her leaving from or returning to the village; it painted such a contrasting picture to the child she had been ten years ago.
But the blood dotting the clearing floor still rankled.
Reminding himself that practice made a shinobi stronger, he stood and focused on his own training. Kunai and shuriken flew across the clearing as he darted from one tree to the next, focusing his chakra to his feet as he shot through the air like a black clad wraith.
'What sort of technique is she practicing that draws blood?'
Sending a kunai straight into a notch already cut into the trunk of a nearby tree, Itachi frowned; his thoughts would not focus on the task at hand, drifting to the subject of Sakura's new training unbidden.
But it was a reasonable question. Sakura was a medical-nin and a chakra specialist, and neither of those called for training that involved drawing blood except possibly chakra scalpels, which she had mastered already at the age of fourteen.
The only other times that he had encountered a Sakura who was roughhoused and bleeding had been—,
The cold feeling in his gut turned instantly to a lump of heat that slid down his throat to his stomach, burning everything in its path. The last kunai thrown sliced through the tree branches to bury itself nearly a handbreadth into wood with unnecessary force.
The only times Sakura was injured in the confines of village was during spars with her former sensei and her teammates, who had returned from their training trips only six months back.
The jealousy was hot as it rushed through him, turning the already strangely dichromatic world of the activated Sharingan into a wash of red. He leapt down from the trees to collect his thrown weapons with that feeling curled around his throat like a strangling vise.
It wasn't that she sparred with her teammates; he had never once asked her to spar with him so there was no logical reason for him to feel such a sudden rush of heat that comprised of both anger and pain.
He had first met her here when, as a tiny child, she had tripped over his kunai pouch and into his private training ground. Meaning to tell her to leave, he had caught sight of her tear-streaked face and found himself instead teaching her how to properly throw shuriken. The old practice set he had gotten from his father for his fifth birthday now belonged to her. And in spite of having seen and spoken to her in a myriad of other places, this was the location that evoked the deepest feelings for her. This was where it had begun, the place that was between just the two of them, though that thought never really got articulated. Though neither of them really saw the other here, enjoying the clearing for private training rather than one with a partner, it was a space that was only known to the two of them. Theirs.
And Itachi couldn't deny the all-consuming jealousy that thrummed through his blood at the thought of Sakura sharing it.
Of sharing Sakura.
He wanted to know who it was she practiced with, just so he could convince them that it was better worth their...time to enjoy the company of other people that weren't rosy-headed top class medics.
For the first time he could remember, he couldn't concentrate enough to finish his session, hurtling through the trees at high speed to put as much distance between himself and the clearing. As if that would somehow leave the nauseous heat in his stomach behind.
…
"I'm fine."
He'd meant to just give the clearing a cursory check, to discover if any new blood had been spilled, but then her voice had come softly through the trees and he had stopped, in spite of warring instincts that said Sakura would see this as a blatant invasion of her privacy if she ever found out.
"You don't need to act so overprotective. I'm a medic; I can handle myself. And, unlike some people, I know my limits."
There was a subtle edge to her voice, he could hear it as clearly as whoever she was speaking to must have, but it was tempered with a sort of underlying warmth that indicated genuine caring. Hearing it, the words ones that might have been spoken to a friend of special merit, made his left hand tense with wanting to curl into a fist.
The answering voice was soft, subtle, and unfortunately, indistinguishable under the susurration of the leaves all around him. Leaves brushed against leaves in the wind, drowning out all hope of recognizing the voice of Sakura's companion.
"No, I'm serious. I really will be fine, Sasuke-kun."
His otouto.
He should not have been surprised, should not have felt his skin grow cold, but it took him a moment to shunt the unwanted emotion aside. He should have expected it; even he had heard of Sakura's one-time crush on his otouto during their genin years.
He had apparently been misguided into believing that her feelings had faded.
Or perhaps he had just wanted too much for it to be true to consider that it might not.
The confusion of emotions, jealousy at the fore, made the world momentarily tremble in his vision. It took him a moment to realize that Sakura entered the clearing alone.
She wasted no time in scanning the place as he had, but quickly began warming up, her body twisting from fluid dodges to harsh strikes in a kata he had never seen before. With her eyes closed, she seemed utterly concentrated on her movements, the slow motions picking up speed until her limbs were blurs encased in black leather. Over and over she performed the kata, seamlessly transitioning from the end to the beginning again. Around the fifth pass her hands began to glow.
Though he'd seen this particular technique before, it was mesmerizing to watch chakra coalesce around her palms and fingertips, knowing how deadly a single touch could be. He knew how seriously Sakura took her powers; she'd only ever turned them on another person once.
If the rumors were to be believed, Sakura had, in a moment of desperation against a missing-nin, fought tooth and nail until she had enough space to tap a knuckle against the man's forehead. And exploded his brain inside his skull.
Itachi, having heard from Sasuke how their team had been frighteningly outnumbered and Sakura was forced to make the choice between bringing the nuke-nin in dead and dying herself, couldn't feel even a hint of compassion for the man who had attacked her.
The girl kept that particular power of hers under tight wraps though; Itachi could understand that, at sixteen, it felt like too much to handle.
He turned his thoughts back to the present as he watched Sakura complete a final set of her kata and come to a stop, not even winded.
It wasn't until her lustrous, green-apple eyes slid open that Itachi realized he had been watching her for the better part of an hour. It was high time to go.
He slid out of the trees, his sandaled feet silent as he made his way down to the grass, but he caught sight of her rummaging through her kunai pouch to pull out a shuriken (one of his, he wondered, chest tightening at the thought) then performed a series of hand seals.
His eyes widened minutely as the blue glow at her fingertips connected to the shuriken, extended outward, and became chakra threads.
The Puppet Technique.
…
There was a warm thrill of delight that flooded her every time the technique managed to work without a hitch, in spite of the fact that she had mastered this one a number of weeks ago. She had been surprised at how difficult it had been to learn this new skill when it appeared quite a number of Suna shinobi were well versed in it.
Of course, they hadn't had to learn it from an incomplete description found in the journal entry of an Uchiha shinobi from the Second War.
It had taken her the better part of an afternoon with Itachi at the clan's impressive library to find the manuscript she had needed. But thoughts like that would only distract her from her training, something she couldn't afford if the already-wavering chakra threads were anything to go by, so she pushed them out of her mind for the time being.
Itachi had become…
No!
She snapped her fingers together sharply, tying off the threads that bound the shuriken so it'd still spin as it was meant to when thrown, despite the fact that it was now connected to her chakra as an extension of her body. She was here to train, not to dwell on her feelings for the Uchiha clan heir.
The chakra threads lengthened as she exhaled, and then she was flinging her shuriken, two to each hand, out with a practiced flick of her wrists.
Four bladed weapons thunked deep into the tree trunks around her as a grin of success flitted across her face. Now came the hard part. Getting those shuriken back. Deeply embedded as they were, they would be difficult to pull from the wood, and more difficult to control once she had them out. It was the reason why she'd suffered injury in the past few weeks.
Getting a puppet to do your bidding was much easier.
With a quick, shallow breath to steady herself, she flexed her fingers, and jerked her weapons free.
The bladed weaponry flew back to her, carefully controlled by the movement of her fingers. With a move she had practiced time without number, she snatched them out of the air at the last second, hissing a little in frustration as one bit into the leather of her glove and scratched the palm of her hand. It wasn't the injury, but rather the failure of her technique, that irritated her.
With a sigh, she sent them out again and again and again, recapturing them each time with varied success until her gloves were crisscrossed with tiny cuts, and her palms ached from being healed so repeatedly.
Growling in frustration, she flung her shuriken, putting more than a little of her anger behind the throw. They spiraled out far into the edges of the clearing, almost past the dead tree at the north edge.
Lightning clarity touched the shadows that had become the target of her weapons, and with a gut-wrenching sensation, Sakura realized there was someone there. A someone with dark eyes and long, dark hair pulled back into a tie at the nape of his neck.
"Itachi!"
She didn't consider that he was an ANBU rank shinobi, that he could handle himself against four shuriken (even ones backed up by the strength of her monumental irritation). As her vision tunneled, all that was left in her mind was the singular thought that she was the reason behind the weapons now hurtling straight for his face, and the utterly overwhelming desire not to be.
She didn't think as she channeled more chakra to the threads tying her to her weapons, and yanked.
Like lightning bolts of steel, they shot through the air, now away from the Uchiha and towards herself. And like lightning drawn too close to a lightning rod, there was no way to keep herself from getting hurt. Gritting her teeth, she braced herself for the hot pain that would accompany the shuriken as they bit into her flesh.
But it never came.
The throbbing heat and gentle dribble of blood down her arms that she'd expected weren't happening, and she slowly opened her eyes…
Only to start back in shock as she found herself nose to nose with Uchiha Itachi, whose eyes seemed to burn crimson with what she could only interpret as anger, her shuriken caught, unbloodied, in his hand.
A gasp lodged in her throat.
"What is this."
It wasn't even a question, just a demand for answers, and it was so unlike his usual stoic kindness that she quivered on the inside in confusion and sudden nerves. Waves of his emotions seemed to roll off him, filling the air with a sharp darkness that refused to abate.
She couldn't understand why he was so upset, other than perhaps the fact that she had made use of the information about the Puppet Technique in that Uchiha clan scroll, but he had been willing to lend it to her as reading material and hadn't questioned her motives.
"I was…using Puppetry to recall my shuriken; it's to make sure I never run out of weapons," she admitted, proud of herself for refraining from the stammer that wanted to bubble to her lips at his proximity.
"Hn."
Those blazing, crimson eyes roved across her face searchingly, so that she wished to close her eyes against the heat in them, and suddenly he was retreating, the loss of his warmth making her skin prickle. He was leaving her, turning away to slip back into the trees, and a lump of hurt rose to her throat unbidden. Unwanted. She ruthlessly shoved the feeling back as the shuriken he'd held gently clattered to the grass.
"Next time, have someone spot you when you're practicing that technique. That should lessen your rate of injury."
"W-wait!"
He froze, stilling as she called out to him even if he didn't turn around, and for an instant Sakura wished the ground would just open up and swallow her whole. She could have bitten her own tongue to stop that traitorous word from popping out. But now she was committed; she would have to say something.
"Itachi-san…if you don't mind…"
Only then did he turn.
And even from a distance she could see those crimson eyes fading to the familiar, dark obsidian she was accustomed to seeing, once more warm with that emotion she sometimes saw and yet couldn't name. The one that made her mind whirl in giddy confusion.
"If you need to practice this technique again, tell me," his words were soft as they reached her. "I will be willing to help."
She nodded, "I promise," only too relieved that he had agreed to stay.
The clearing was their place, the one shared between them. Bringing some one else, even Naruto or Sasuke, to it, would have felt too strange and invasive to allow.
But she could never tell him that, the same way she would never dare to tell him that the reason she had first considered using the Puppetry was because she didn't want to lose something he had given her as a gift.
tsuzuku
Anyway! One more chapter to go before I post the final chapter and this story is DONE! Is anyone ELSE excited?
Hopefully you enjoyed this (rather belated) chapter of With Practice! I'd also like to let you guys know that I've got a deviantART account under the name Aria-Illusine, which is where fanart for this series will be posted! I'm thinking of one per chapter, though drawings sometimes take my effort with me than stories do... Anyway, my profile has a link to my dA if you guys would like to see my artwork; there's already one picture up there.
The muse has been deprived of cookies for a bit because she wouldn't be nice and help me out with this chapter, so she's sending out a message to all of you asking for more sugar because she needs them to whip-crack and get me writing more!
Aria, out.