Chapter 39!

Title:'Pangs and Plans'

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

Note: I apologize once again for the loooong hiatus… and for the shortness of this chapter.

Things at school were getting really difficult, as well as the play I was helping out with (which required me to stay at school till around 10:00 every night for rehearsals and such). I was Costumes Crew Head (which meant I was responsible for all of the costumes/costume-changes throughout the duration of the show). Well, the play (the comedy 'Leading Ladies') closed yesterday, and now that I finally have time, I'm back with another update. Hopefully none of you lost interest during the long wait!

Sorry again! ^-^;

But I should be updating on a regular basis again from now on… so no worries… :D

Please enjoy!

"Sakura? What are you doing?" His voice was an echo in the back of my mind as I started to pace away from him and towards the raven-haired woman who still had that damn condescending glint in her eye, my feet hit the ground a little too roughly.

Something told me I should listen to him…. But right now there was a bigger and louder voice telling me to do something I really, really, wanted to do.

Chakra flooded into my fist as I lifted it from my side.

I could hear my footfalls grow even louder and faster as I was suddenly running.

And that was when I took off. With one push from the ground I was in the air, pulling back my fist, anticipating the feeling of her annoying face against my knuckles.

But instead of that, all I felt was the ground crumbling, breaking, and shifting underneath me as my wasted chakra coursed through the ground.

When I looked up from the newly formed crater I was in, she was at least twenty feet away.

She might not have been as fast as Kakashi, but she definitely wasn't slow.

I ran at her, both of my fists aimed at her, each with their own fatal amount of energy.

Swing after swing she only ducked or jumped farther out of the way.

I felt my irritation grow with every missed punched.

"Wow… You've picked a firecracker, Hatake." She called that annoying sentence to the man who I thought was several feet behind me.

I really didn't like the way she talked about me like I wasn't a person… like I meant nothing… that I wasn't an obstacle... like I was simply a toy he bought on a whim and could be broken or thrown away without much of a second thought.

When I started running in her direction again I felt a familiar hand close around my arm tightly, stopping me from walking any further.

"Sakura." His voice said my name right in my ear.

He was more than an echo now, but that inner-voice of mine wasn't completely silenced yet.

"Let me go." I ordered him a little seriously as I struggled, still feeling the need to pummel this-

"No." He said shortly. His tone interrupted my thoughts, as well as my struggling. "Stop."

… The way he said it.

It wasn't an order from a captain, or from a teacher… it was something else…

I really couldn't ignore the expression on his face.

He really didn't want me to get involved…

But I can't just stay on the side-lines! I argued to myself.

After only a moment of this internal battle between doing what felt I needed to do, and doing what he wanted me to do, I took a step back, letting my arms fall to my sides…. But I still kept that chakra focused on my fists.

…

I wasn't going to give up so easily.

…

His hand loosened on my arm.

"Come on, Hatake. Don't ruin the fun before it starts." Her sickening voice called his name a little too playfully, testing what wavering amount of patience I had built in the last few moments.

He must've seen me inch forward again, his arm suddenly extended out in front of me as he faced her defensively. I couldn't tell if he was shielding me from her, or her from me.

"Leave her out of this." He repeated the words from this afternoon towards the raven-haired woman, but his voice wasn't full of the same aggression or anger from before. He seemed strangely… calm…

During any other situation, that would've comforted me, but it was different now.

It was scarier.

...

"… Fine." She finally responded to his too-calm request with an equally smooth tone. She almost sounded compliant. "But under one condition." Her attitude finally made sense when she added that negotation.

… Something about this didn't seem right…

She was planning something.

I inched towards Kakashi, my hand falling on his arm, "Don-"

"What is it?" He ignored my unvoiced plea, asking for her condition as if this was a business arrangement.

"We fight it out."She stated simply, turning her body towards him, her jacket swaying a little. "… now." She added with emphasis.

My hand tightened on his arm.

"Alright." His business-like tone didn't waver in the slightest. But as his arm lowered from in front of me, I noticed his muscles seemed tense … Something about all this was really strange. I felt like I wasn't being told something only these two knew.

"Not here, of course. We don't need your little patroller snooping into our business… Follow me." She ordered all at once, I wasn't really paying attention as I was debating whether to call out to him or not… My worry won out when he suddenly started to walk away from me without warning.

"Kakashi-sensei." I called to him just before he was out of reach, hoping to get his attention and break him out of the composed cocoon he was in.

He wasn't cold anymore, or distant… but… there was something about this that bothered me more than his previous coldness.

He turned to me, his face and his expression efficiently hidden behind that mask we both knew he didn't really need to wear right now.

He quickly smiled after a moment… his normal, public smile again.

"Just Kakashi, remember?" He said softly, leaning down to me only a little.

His hand took mine, holding it only long enough to pick it off of his arm gently.

He turned around. Away from me. And walked away, towards the forest, silently…

I couldn't explain how his words hit me.

They shouldn't have… but they did… something in the way he spoke them. A kind of gentle sadness.

Why did it feel like he was… apologizing?…

Apologizing for having to leave me out of this?

Apologizing for putting himself in danger?

Apologizing just in case he gets hurt because of this? Gets killed because of this?

…. Or maybe it was something else…

I stood there, staring after him for only a moment before I felt my fists tightened with determination.

… I really couldn't just stay out of this. He wasn't going to have to deal with everything by himself… even if he wanted to…

The forest was eerily quiet.

The wildlife had gone quiet. Not a cricket, a bird, a fox was disturbing the unnatural silence. Only the spare rustling of leaves in the wind added to the sound of their light footfalls.

Kakashi checked over his shoulder for any unexpected guests as he followed his old captain further into the silent trees.

No one.

They were actually alone.

She wasn't planning an ambush, she hadn't planted extra help.

His suspicions didn't subside…. It was always her style to use trickery and low-handed strategies to get the best of her targets.

"She really took my words to heart, didn't she, Hatake-kun?" His eyes found the back of her jacket again as she said those words. He tried to ignore the sudden wave of nostalgia when she used that suffix on his name.

She would always call him that when they 'trained'.

"This isn't about her anymore." He spoke up with a slightly defiant tone, trying to maintain his earlier composure. Every time Sato talked about Sakura, it always made his skin crawl a few centimeters.

"I wish it wasn't, but there's no use pretending you aren't thinking about her right now… wanting to get back to her…or just plain wanting her." Her voice wrapped those words around him obnoxiously. He felt his brows furrow.

"Sato." He snapped her name loudly.

She continued despite his reaction.

"Wanting her in ways that a full grown man like you shouldn't even be thinking about." Her voice added, her tone curling upward in a playful spiral.

She went too far with that.

But he stopped himself from saying anything. The more he reacted the more she'd want to make him react.

His jaw clenched with effort after she started talking again, his grimace deepened.

"You know I'm right, that's why you couldn't help that guilt-stricken look in your eyes just now." She peeked over her shoulder at him, her red-lipped smile creeping wider after their eyes met. "Really, Hatake-kun, how the years have changed you…" She looked away from him, and back to the route ahead of them. "… I always taught you not to be ashamed of what you wanted." She added with a reminiscent tone, her voice dripping with implication.

"I've forgotten what you've 'taught' me a long time ago." Kakashi responded immediately, trying to push her words away from him… even if he had to lie.

… He wished he had forgotten.

…

"Is that an invitation for re-education?" She quickly turned back to him, smiling just as suggestively as before, the same mischevious glint in her eye that he had loved when he was younger. He was almost too distracted by his previous thoughts to notice her hands land on his chest harshly.

They felt really too familiar despite the years that had passed.

I watched every step as I crept into the dark thicket.

I tried to stay out of what scarce moonlight managed to reach the forest floor.

I definitely couldn't afford to be seen or heard right now.

I'm just going to go and see…

If he needs my help then I'll do something.

I shouldn't interfere if i don't have to....

These thoughts were really familiar to me.

I remembered thinking like this a rather long time ago… when we were on a mission, it was raining, and Kakashi was fighting a particularly troublesome assassin… but things were worse this time.

I shook my head of those memories.

I didn't have time to think about the past.

I have to keep my distance…. Watch….

I can't just go barging into a fight between these two. I'd only slow him down, get hurt, or get him hurt…

But if it looks like he's having too much trouble… then I have to do something.

I repeated my plan in my mind, trying to stay convicted to the thought of merely watching.

There was a giant part of me that really wanted to simply jump into the fight and kick her ass… but… that's not realistic.

I'm not at a level where I can do that...

I took a deep breath, trying to calm down, to get rid of all this aggression…

"And the curious, pink-haired girlfriend disobediently investigates right on cue."

Realism went out the window when I heard that sickening voice from the trees up ahead.

I immediately felt aware of the chakra that had been buzzing in my knuckles for the past few minutes

Forgetting the fear and worry from before, feeling only this overwhelming amount of anger and agitation, I let my fist hit the bark of the tree that I knew wasn't too far off from the owner of that voice.

Splinters flew in all directions.

"What monstrous strength." I heard her voice grade from the shadows behind me.

I whipped my head around to try and find her… but she found me first.

The cold, sharp side of a blade pressed against my throat.

"But those attacks are useless against me… Speed always defeats brute strength."

I barely heard any of her words. I was mostly distracted by the insane need to punch her, to indulge in some sort of savage need to hurt her. But that savagery didn't cloud all of my logic. I knew not to move around when there was a kunai at my throat.

"I'm surprised you didn't know better… with 'Kakashi-sensei' as your teacher." His named rolled out of her mouth distgustingly. Her tone hit that suffix mockingly.

I almost felt my patience, my logic, snap when she said his name like that.

"That's IT!"

My elbow flew back with as much force as I could gather, hoping to hit her right in the stomach.

But she was already gone, like a breeze.

DAMN!

It was getting so incredibly annoying. I hadn't hit her once, not once!

"You're not a fast learner are you?" She shouted towards me, her voice sounded like she was on the verge of laughing.

I was glad I couldn't see her smiling face right now, or my desire to kick it would drive me crazy.

Before I could think past those violent thoughts and create any sort of response I was interrupted by something.

I was being pushed backwards, winds rushing against my back, my sandals scraping across the grass.

It felt like a metal chord had wrapped around the front of my stomach, bending around me, pushing me back.

My shoulder blades hit the bark of the freshly-demolished tree with a deep thud, forcing some of the air out of my lungs.

Leaves fell from the branches above me, they fluttered down in front of me.

I only needed a moment before I immediately tried to free myself from whatever this was, but when I looked down.

Nothing was there.

I felt like I was tied to the tree, but nothing was tying me to it.

And before the first leaf had landed on the ground, she was right in front of me, arms crossed, jacket swaying, red lips and violet eyes smiling down at me like I was a little kid caught doing something childish and was now being punished for it.

"It's Kaze Zairu." She spoke down at me, pointing lightly towards the invisible force that was holding me to this tree.

Wind Rope?

"It's a jutsu I made for situations quite like this one." She continued, walking away from me after a minute, her voice still high-pitched and condescending.

She really kept talking to me like I was a little kid. I knew I shouldn't have cared about it, but… it really bothered me that she only thought of me as an insignificant child. Like I really didn't matter in this situation, like she could simply overlook me… and get to Kakashi.

My mind was caught by that thought… where is he?

Wasn't she supposed to be with him?

"You don't talk much, do you?" She called over her shoulder as she took out an especially long kunai from her belt. I didn't feel any sort of the fear that I would've felt before she started talking again.

It was hard to be afraid when you were pissed.

"I don't see a point in talking to someone like you." I growled with a mumble, hating the fact that I was talking to her in the first place, but I needed her attention… Whatever was going on with her and Kakashi-sensei, I wasn't going to find out unless I talked to her.

I heard the metal of her blade hit against something with a crack. A branch?

I couldn't see what she was doing, her back was facing me, and the moonlight had grown dimmer behind clouds.

"You really sound like him…" Her voice rang out with an irritating tone. At least she didn't call 'him' by his name… I wouldn't have been able to stand it. "I guess that's to be expected since you grew up around him." She peeked over her shoulder at me, no doubt catching the glare I was giving her.

I didn't grow up around him!

I was already pretty much grown when I met him!

I could tell she was waiting for that sort of reaction from me… she was probably just trying to get me angry… for some reason…

I tried to compact my anger into a single sentence.

"Don't act like you know anything about us." My voice let out all of the resentment that my words didn't get across.
Her laugh of annoyingly high-pitched bells rang out. I immediately fought against the invisible rope around me, feeling the need to punch her in the face mid-guffaw … but then she asked me a question that I knew was going somewhere I didn't want it to.

"Listen sweetie, how old are you?"

She walked away from the tree that she had been sharpening her blade on, walking up to me. She seemed just as fazed by the glare I was giving her as I was about that newly-sharpened blade… not at all.

She only looked down at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

I knew better than to answer such a general and risky question.

She gave an impatient sigh, flicked her hair out of her pretty face and started talking again.

"You don't look 17…" She graded my face skeptically. "…And I think Hatake would have done a better job of controlling himself if you were only 15." I couldn't really react to the many things wrong with that sentence before her next question.

"So you must be 16… am I right?"

… I simply looked away from her.

"It's so funny that I'm actually more than twice your age…" She sounded like she wasn't really talking to me, or herself… more like she was sharing a joke with the universe...

But before I could figure out exactly what her tone meant, she straightened her posture formally and picked up her playful tone again, her eyes watching the kunai's blade shine in the brightening moonlight.

"Well, as your elder, I feel there's something that I think you should know…" She must've loved the sound of her toxic voice. I hated that I couldn't do anything to stop her from opening that big mouth of hers.

I didn't want to know anything she thought I 'needed' to know…

"From woman to… girl…" She purposefully switched up an old saying, with a smile, to spite me. "You might not want to have cute, little Hatake-kun as your first lover." She said in an inside-joke voice.

I didn't feel like I would be laughing anytime soon.

I hated the way she talked about him more than I hated how she talked to me.

"I don't care what you say about him, it won't change anything." I spoke up, trying to keep my words as simple as possible so she couldn't mess with them. She looked up from her shimmering blade to me… it was obvious she had been waiting for me to say something like that. I immediately wished I had just kept shut up.

"It would be wise to take my advice, little girl…"Her voice alone was enough to make my blood boil… but if she calls me 'little girl' one more time…
I squirmed my arms around in the little space I had between the invisible force and the splintering tree, feeling for any weaknesses in the steady stream of pressurized air holding me against the bark…. I wasn't ready for her next sentence.
"... I taught that man everything he knows about carnal desires…" My attention was snapped away from everything else. "I don't know exactly what's happened between you two, but I do know… too well… that he isn't the type that can be satisfied easily."

…

A pang of jealousy, anxiety, shock all hit me at once… I couldn't figure out why….

....The idea of her… and him…

I knew that they had been… I knew they were… but hearing this… I…

"He's different now…" Was the best I could manage.

I had to look away from the woman's violet eyes, towards the ground…

"Sure, he might've grown a bit, gotten some more experience… but he's still a man. A grown man. One with desires and thoughts you wouldn't be able to share or understand at your age…. Of course, it's not your fault that you're so young and inexperienced, but do you really think you can give him what he wants, what he needs?... He needs a woman who can keep up with him."

Her high-pitched voice seemed to blur together with each word… I knew what she was saying, but the way she wouldn't stop, the way her voice wouldn't get out of my ears… Her voice was the ringing in my ears after the shell-shock of her words.

"The more you give him, the more he'll want to take from you." She finished, her face brightened with a smug smile.

I finally found my voice.

"Just shut u-!" I was cut off from my half-hearted shouting.

"If you don't believe me… You can see for yourself." She moved out of the way too eagerly, her red-lipped smile, brighter than before, was the last thing I saw of her… I couldn't see where she went, I couldn't even work up the motivation to turn my head to follow her movements because I was immediately frozen by what was behind her.

She hadn't been sharpening her kunai before.

She had been clearing a view.

Not too far, but just far enough I could see two moonlit silhouettes…

She was with him…

… He was standing there, her hands running up and along his chest.

… He wasn't stopping her…

… and here I was … watching them… just as I had planned.

…

But this definitely wasn't what I had wanted to see.

…

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The next chapter should be out on time! So, no worries! ^-^