Uzumaki

Blundering

Satsuki walked slowly, tucking the paper into her pocket, and hesitantly, Sakura walked behind.

The silence permeated the air.

"So... Satsuki-san," Sakura said, hands fumbling behind her back. "What are you going to do?"

Satsuki walked, not sparing Sakura a glance. "Isn't it obvious?"

Sakura's stomach dropped. 'I knew it...'

"Well, uh," Sakura said, fiddling with her hair. "I... I don't really have any idea... what we're, y'know, up against.."

"It doesn't matter," Satsuki said. "We're strong enough, and there's no point doing these D-rank missions any more. I have to become stronger."

"Stronger?" Sakura repeated.

'To kill... a certain man.'

"That thing you said," the girl said, fidgeting with an awkward smile as she avoided Satsuki's gaze. "Killing, is... so..."

"We aren't children any more," Satsuki said.

"...yeah, you're right."

Sakura walked slowly behind Satsuki, searching for words, until they came to a crossroads, and wordlessly, without even a pathetic goodbye, Sakura diverged paths.

"Sakura."

She turned, and Satsuki had walked no further, turning her head to the side to look at Sakura.

"Do you want to train with me?"

Sakura's mouth opened and closed like a fish, and she blinked.

"What- uh," she stuttered, "like, now?"

Satsuki raised an eyebrow.

Sakura wondered whether she'd heard her right.

"Uh- yeah! Sure! Uh... lead the way..."

--

"Oh, so this is where you train?"

The clearing wasn't perfectly spacious, but Sakura supposed that was a more realistic scenario anyway. She disguised a stumble over a tree root as a strangely-footed spin. Satsuki walked ahead of her.

"Free from distractions," Satsuki said, walking to the middle of the grounds. Her body morphed into something snakelike in its grace, and a shiver ran up Sakura's spine.

Satsuki met her eyes.

"Come at me."

Sakura hesitated for a moment, unsure in her words and her movements, until she remembered the weakness in thoughts like that (perhaps, in that moment, she'd be dead) and she ran at Satsuki fists flying.

With a single, well-timed push, Sakura was sent flying into the ground, chin first, and her eyes stung with tears.

"Try again."

Sakura stood up, running forward, only to be elbowed in the back and sent crumpling to her knees.

The humiliation came once, twice, thrice more, until Satsuki gave her a cold look that made Sakura feel like curling up on herself and disappearing.

"This was a mistake."

Sakura felt tears threatening to spill at the edges of her eyes. "What was?"

Satsuki looked down on her, turning on the balls of her feet, but with a cold, empty look over her shoulder before she did. "Trying to train a mediocre kunoichi like you."