The Way of the Wind

Trouble Comes in Threes

Chapter 6: Trouble comes in threes

2 and 1/2 Years Ago
Konoha Training Grounds

Sakura studied the form sprawled out on the training ground. There were signs of his temper - scorched trees, several bent shuriken - but anyone who didn't know him would have thought he was simply relaxing after a difficult bout of training. Sakura knew differently. Sasuke was sulking.

Rubbing her hands on the sides of her skirt, she considered him. She had shown up to tell him the good news. Naruto was coming home soon, but there was something about the way he was deliberately refusing to acknowledge her that told her it wouldn't be taken as well as she hoped. Ever since she had splintered that tree in front of his nose, he had never let her walk up on him. He always made a point to let her know he knew she was there.

Today he was flat out ignoring her. Pressing her lips together, she considered going back to the tower to finish those scrolls she had abounded and then decided against it. She refused to be intimidated by a sulking Uchiha. Stepping around several unsheathed blades, she settled next to him, starring at his face.

"What's wrong?"

He cracked one eye open and it was sharingan red. "Go away, Sakura."

She snorted and nudged his hip with her foot. "That might work with other people, Uchiha Sasuke, but it won't work with me. What's wrong?"

He shut his eye. He was silent for several moments and when she nudged him again he sighed at her. "My father is going to formally petition the Hokage that I be placed on a chunin ready team now, so that I may take the exam in six months."

"What?" Sakura shot to her feet and stared down at him.

He opened both his eyes and they were black, but she could still see the sharingan smoldering behind his eyes. "By the time my brother was our age, Sakura-chan; he was jounin and had been ANBU for years."

She clenched her fists. If it hadn't been for sharingan - it always came out when he was the most emotionally unstable - she would have thought he didn't care. Well, she hadn't spent the last three years busting her ass with Tsunade and everyone else who had trained her just so Sasuke could abandon them.

"You're not Itachi!" She snapped it at him, uncaring at how hard her voice sounded to her own ears. "You're Sasuke!"

Something shifted in his expression. Something minute that she couldn't put her finger on. It gave her hope.

"They don't care."

"Well I do. And so does Naruto." She swallowed. "I swear I'll beat you bloody if you ever think we don't."

He closed his eyes again, shutting her out. "The clan doesn't care, Sakura."

"What can you possibly gain by being a chunin without a team?" She let herself sink down into a sitting position. She was willing to conserve her strength. It would give her more to work with when she tried to kick his ribs in.

"ANBU."

She snorted. "Do you want to be ANBU?"

Sasuke was silent again and this time she jabbed him in the shoulder with the slightest bit of chakra.

"No."

"Then don't." She ordered. "We haven't spent the past three years training to quit now! I just got a letter from Naruto today and he is going to be home sometime next month. That gives us five months to learn how to work together again for the Chunin exams. Stay with us."

Sasuke sighed, sitting up. "The clan..."

"I don't care about the clan!" She wanted to hit him. "Do you think Tsunade does either?"