Naruto: Blind

"Sasuke and I are just getting to know each other better," came the cheerful reply as Sakura set down what sounded like tray on the table, "What? Carrot cake? No chocolate? It's like you're afraid I'm going to get hyper or something."

A light clink of glass tabletop against plate occurred in front of Sasuke, and he took his elbows from the table, politely waiting while Sakura set out the food.

"Hyperactivity is mentally-induced, Kanaye," Sakura replied sitting down on Sasuke's left, "Your pancreas uses insulin to regulate the sugar levels in your bloodstream, so no matter how much cake you eat, you won't get hyper from it."

"Then why'd you get me carrot cake?" he complained, and Sasuke was almost reminded of Naruto—almost.

"Because if I let the idea of carrot cake deter you mentally, you won't get hyper off of it," she replied lightly, before there was the tinkle of cutlery. When she spoke again, it was directed at him, "I got you a sandwich, I hope it's enough."

"Aa."

"Sakura, you were more fun to be around before you became a medic," Kanaye said with a sigh, "Carrot cake indeed!"

With Sasuke's broad hints pressing for more training, lunch passed swiftly and soon they both managed to remove themselves from Kanaye's presence, but not before he had made many more attempts to 'get to know Sasuke' and bounced a number of nicknames off the young Uchiha. Along with 'Spikey', some of said nicknames were 'emo guy', 'pyromaniac', 'hey you', and 'silent person', before he finally settled on calling him 'Emo Prince', proceeding to refer to Sasuke as 'his highness' for the rest of the lunch hour. Sakura was half-scolding Kanaye, half trying not to laugh—which didn't particularly please Sasuke, especially because he couldn't see what was so terribly funny. He was at least glad that she had the sense not to call him 'Emo Prince' as well.

After politely excusing them, Sakura had taken him back to Training Ground Three, where she was now spending the better part of the hour setting up a number of different non-lethal traps while he practiced his taijutsu on a helpless test dummy. The training dummy was oddly satisfying to beat on—at least he could land some hits, and not appear completely graceless like he did when up against Sakura. It would be untruthful to assume that he hadn't hit her at all, but most of his attacks were blocked, even if he threw in all the force that he could.

It mystified him that she could block such attacks and not end up injured, because when he had used his brute strength against Orochimaru's opponents, he often caused the bones of his enemies to shatter. How on earth did Sakura block his attacks without becoming injured? It was apparent to him that while her attack routine wasn't any better she had dramatically improved in her defense.

'How…?'he asked himself while taking another violent blow at the dummy, completely shattering part of its face.

It was something that he knew that he couldn't muster, blocking blows like that, not without injuring himself. That's why speed was such an important factor in his technique; he had to get out of dangerous situations before he got hurt. Yet Sakura could take one of his strongest blows and not become injured at all. In fact, the only time that he had hit her, she said he had bruised her, and he realized that was because she had not gotten out of the way in time, and he had underestimated her then too, not hitting her too hard.

Sakura—she was so much more mysterious about herself now than they were when they were kids. She hadn't once mentioned the depression she had suffered during his absence, nor had she spoken much about her apprenticeship with the Hokage. In fact, if that woman, Anko, hadn't mentioned that Sakura had become a chuunin, he most likely wouldn't have found out at all. Contrarily, she was outspoken and would voice her opinion often; she would talk to him about almost anything, and even reprimand him—something she wouldn't have done years ago.

"Sasuke!" Sakura called to him from a direction somewhere behind him.

Relaxing his stance, he turned to face her, letting her know that he heard her.

"I've finished setting up the traps," she told him, "I want you to try and make it over to where I am without setting many off."

He shelved all perplexing thoughts he currently had on Sakura, and focused on the task at had. He needed a good challenge; it helped keep his mind from wandering where he did not want it to go.

Sakura watched with slight interest as Sasuke began carefully walking across the open area clearing that lay between her and him. There were a number of traps, but she knew that some he would come across right away, because he would be able to feel the strings before setting them off. His senses had grown better over the month and he was starting to pick up on sounds that even she hadn't noticed right away. Additionally, he seemed to have developed a sort of reflex action to moving away from things he abruptly contacted, so coming across a trip wire would be easy for him. However the other traps, which she had buried underground—she would have to see how he would react to those.

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