A/N: Dedicated to its game time,
the first person in this world capable of making me love SasuSaku. This
will never be as good as our rps, honey, but I'll sure as hell try.-x-
Inspired by 30 breathtakes. -x- Additional comments: Sasuke's blooming denial is the funniest thing to write. Hands down.
Theme used: 3. the look in your eyes
part three. New World Order
The first week wasn't as bad as he'd expected. Home-arrest wasn't that evil. Nothing was evil compared to the compound in Sound. At least in Konoha they weren't making him dispose of an army of people in ten minutes or no breakfast, nor were they making him do labour work to help him grow character. Mostly, in Konoha they just left him alone.
Except for Naruto. But that idiot couldn't leave the Devil himself alone, even if he was begged to do it. (Actually, Naruto would probably try to convince the Devil to be a better person through a fight, a long overly-repeated speech about friendship, and much obnoxiousness.) No, Sasuke hadn't missed that at all. Ever.
Which was exactly why it only took two weeks for the two of them to drop back into the old routine. That's to say: Naruto being an idiot, and Sasuke trying not to kill him daily. There was no reason to kill him anymore, no whim to which to attain himself to, no purpose to seclude himself. (Not that Naruto would let him.) And if he were honest to himself, maybe he enjoyed rolling his eyes at Naruto's antics way too much. But then again, he very rarely was honest to himself.
The routine had been fairly easy to slip back into. It was as if he'd never left Leaf. Except he had been gone for almost four years, many things had changed, everyone hated or disliked him, and the girl that had been in love with him once now punched him every time she saw him.
Sakura was a different issue altogether. Treason and forgiveness and missions in life had nothing to do with it. Whenever she saw him, she was calm and collected—nothing like the blubbering young girl he used to know—for some minutes, then a vein would start to twitch around her eye, and she usually ended up punching him. Or something like that. Naruto had complained once that she was abusing Sasuke too much, and after that she'd started to abuse the trees. Of course then Tsunade called Sasuke to her office and told him to settle things back together with her student before she deforested the whole village.
It wasn't like he didn't try. Okay, he really didn't try, actually. She was just…ten times more interesting this way. In a strange "what the fuck is wrong with you" way, that made his insides stir with excitement whenever that vein started to twitch. She was definitely not the girl he used to know. She'd changed. A lot. And that was an understatement. It was as if this new temper of hers, directed at him, made her strangely…appealing. Not that he'd noticed or anything. It wasn't as if she occupied his thoughts about half the time. He had more important things to do with his time.
Like fighting Naruto. Just because he was under house-arrest didn't mean he could slack. In fact, Kakashi had explicitly told him that now that he'd returned there were many things to catch up with. And besides, Naruto and him needed to become Chuunin already. And there was another thing that irritated him. Sakura was Chuunin already. Sakura. Weak little—okay, maybe she wasn't weak anymore, but who went and changed the rules of the universe? Sakura wasn't supposed to be Chuunin already!
She also wasn't supposed to be training a few feet away from them, fighting Sai—the irritating little bastard. Sasuke and Naruto had reached that part of their spar where they were dead tired, slumped against a tree and looking at their surroundings—while trying to still be cool and look like each had won the fight, even though it had been a draw. This gave Sasuke the perfect opportunity to observe, out of pure curiosity, the way Sakura fought. He hadn't had much of a chance to see it, as she'd just broken his nose and dragged him back home in chains—and anyone could've done that if they caught him by surprise. Okay, maybe not anyone. Sasuke was still a very skilled ninja. He'd just been beaten by a supposedly weak girl.
"Oh God, Sai must've said something about her face," Naruto muttered beside him, and they both watched how Sakura punched straight through three ink clones before her fist made contact with Sai's face and embedded him in the ground, a few feet away.
"Does she always train like this?" Sasuke asked, frowning slightly. That was destructive. She'd end up deforesting the village for sure.
"Nah, just since she's started to pair with Sai at training. Kakashi-sensei says they fight like we did," Naruto answers, grinning at him with amusement. "He also says there's not as much sexual tension as the one we had, though."
"…what?" Has the moron gone completely ballistic? What did he meant about sexual tension. They'd never had such a thing! They were boys. Sasuke didn't have time for sexual tension with anyone, anyway.
"You know, sexual tension. Like when—"
"I know what it is, dead last," he growled slightly. "Just. Shut up before I punch you." Hanging around Naruto would kill him slowly, headache by headache.
"I don't think Kakashi-sensei's right, though. Man, you should've seen her fighting that Akatsuki freak with the mask. Broke his mask and made him so angry. Sakura-chan's way of fighting is so hot."
Well, yes…it was. Wait. "What Akatsuki freak?"
"That…Tobi guy. Well, actually I think he was saying something about 'Uchiha Madara can't die' before we killed him."
"…you killed Uchiha Madara?" There was no justice in the world anymore! It should've been him. He should've killed the bastard.
"Pshyeah. Took eight of us, to be honest. In the end five almost died, but Sakura-chan healed us all, and still had strength to go looking for you. She'd said something about being too close to let you go this time, and the next thing we knew, she was dragging you back with a rope. Oh man, no wonder Tsunade-baa-chan's making her take the Jounin exam this year."
"…the Jounin exam." Well. That settled. There really was no justice in the world. Or if there was, it was definitely all against Sasuke. Because why the hell would Sakura reach Jounin-level before him if the world weren't against him?
"Duh, teme. Why d'you think she trains with Sai so often? Yamato-taichou said Sai needed to get integrated in our huge-ass team now, and Sakura's some sort of teacher to him. I think she's trying to teach him emotions, but that's just an excuse for them to be at each other's neck daily. There's a bet around town about who'll end up hospitalized first."
Huh. So Sakura and Sai were…huh. He didn't care, anyway. Sakura was free to do whatever she wanted with her life. He just thought that she could've picked someone nicer than that other moron. Or stayed single. She could do that. In-team relationships ruined the dynamic of the team, and--What the hell am I thinking about? Right. Sakura could do whatever she pleased. He didn't care.
"So anyway, Kakashi-sensei said that since we were training together, Sakura and Sai could form the other pair, and they've been—"
"Yes, Naruto. I get it. Sexual tension and fighting. Whatever," he replied, trying his damn best to act like he didn't care. Because he didn't.
He had new things he needed to digest. Like Sakura's Chuunin rank, her way of fighting—though he had a feeling he'd seen just a small part of it—, her training to be Jounin, and the way that she huffed angrily at Sai's smiling face. Had he really been gone that long? When had she changed this much?
Whatever. "Come on. Let's fight," he said to Naruto, and stood up. He could deal with this. He'd dealt with a load of things before, so Sakura's sudden power boost was going to be easy to deal with. Given enough time.