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There is darkness in his two team-mates that Sasuke cannot truly comprehend.
It's not something he routinely thought about, or was even aware of, until the tail end of their mission to Wave, but now that they're battered and worn and glad to be home, now that their days are so dull, he's unable to forget. (What he forgets, in its place, is how he once found this almost fulfilling, almost enough to sate his ambition and leave him satisfied with his life.) He'll be exchanging words and blows with Naruto, and think of claws and a haze of red that made the air crackle and boom like fire. Or he'll be training with Sakura, a taijutsu spar that she demanded, and suddenly recall the darkness in her gaze as a fireball roared from her fingers, a flicker of madness before her eyes rolled back and she fainted. And because it's easier to imagine Sakura's anger than... whatever it was with Naruto, it distracts during the match, and Sakura has him out on the dirt.
"What was that?" she finally demands as she looms over him for the fifth or sixth time, her already slim patience at its end.
"Nothing," he says quickly. "Want to keep sparring?"
Sakura shakes her head. She crosses their clearing and snatches her blue jacket from its place, draped on one of the neat line of logs used for target practise. Before being sorted onto her team, Sasuke would have thought it an innocuous gesture, but the fact that she's turning down training is certainly not normal. Sakura trains. A lot. (And the rest of the time, she is studying out of heavy scrolls.) Once again, he's left floundering, attempting to neatly categorise her chameleon-like traits and wondering if he's still only scratching the surface.
But before she actually leaves, Sakura turns around again.
"See you tomorrow," she says quietly, and suddenly Sasuke can frame her against the Sakura he first met years ago, and find something similar about them. He spins a kunai mindlessly around his finger as he watches her go, wondering if he can convince her to teach him that jutsu she used on the ice boy.
Ah, if only she still had a crush on him.
- : -
Maybe he could even have stayed long enough to have breakfast with his parents. Sasuke's mouth waters at the thought. His mother's an excellent cook, and her brother makes the best dango in the village, and after a mission's worth of rations like sawdust, every mouthful would have been a bite of heaven. (All right, so he does not actually like the sweetness of dango, but the rest of his argument stands.) But no. His stupid punctuality wouldn't let him. Or maybe it's just his stupidity, he berates himself. Even Sakura, who's about the most uptight person he knows when following routine, is half an hour late by the time she shows up, her hair a bit singed.
"Been training?" he says, catching the smell of smoke drifting from her clothes.
She nods curtly. But as though she cannot bear to treat him the way she does her former classmates (bar Ino), which is so distantly that disinterest fills every second, she still says, "Yes."
Side by side, they wait, Sasuke tossing his kunai and absentmindedly imagining what his wires would look like, if he could--
Oh, right, that reminds him. And he really doesn't want to ask, has difficulty forcing the words out from where they're clinging to his tonsils, because he shouldn't need to ask, you know? But still...
"That fireball you used against the ice mirrors," he begins.
Sakura scowls. Sasuke ignores it.
"What was it?" he prods anyway.
She frowns at him. "Something I'm not supposed to teach anyone else, so don't even think about it."
"Where did you learn it from?" he asks, because Sasuke didn't graduate at the top of his class by learning only what the teachers discussed and forgetting everything they mentioned only half-heartedly. His rank comes from pressing them at every opportunity to explain a bit more.
She stares at him a bit longer. He stares back.
Finally, she bites out, "My father."
He has nothing to say to that, and they go back to waiting in silence. Sasuke doesn't expect her to treat him differently from their classmates this time (though maybe she has, simply by virtue of actually answering the question), and she doesn't disappoint. Her gaze is distant; she is (and this is an idea he had to get used to, once he began spending time with her) brooding. It's maybe a knife edge away from changing to something else, something darker, and Sasuke is alternately curious and wary about asking.
It's almost a relief when Naruto's arrival -- a bit of dirt on his nose, a sleepy droop of his shoulders -- splinters the frigid silence like glass.
- : -
Naruto is enthusiastic.
Sakura is... he's not quite sure. There was a flash of competitive eagerness in her face, and then, uncertainty.
"Sakura," Kakashi says, when everything else has been said. "I need to talk to you."
Sasuke doesn't stay to listen. His mind is filled with the training he'll need to do, and the crowd's approval when he enters. He's pretty sure there'll be a crowd.
- : -
It's even worse when she calls an early halt, once again. Maybe it's because of what he said that morning? He almost wants to apologise, but he's not entirely sure how to, and is left watching the sweep of her shoulder-length pink hair as she walks away from the training grounds.
Just before she's out of sight, Sasuke finds his tongue, and the motivation to actually speak. "I'll see you outside the Academy?"
There's something about her smile, when she turns back and nods, that briefly entrances him. It's later that day, after Iruka has been soundly deflected and he's heading home, that Sasuke decides that he's figured out why: the smile was happy. And if she's happy that he called after her (he assumes) maybe she still has a hint of a crush from when they were seven, and he has a hope of asking her...
For the jutsu, he tells himself firmly.
- : -
- : -
They're stopped on the wrong floor by kids who turn out to be chunin weeding out the weak.
("I TOTALLY noticed too!" Naruto objects, glaring at him. "I'm perfectly fine at genjutsu."
"You're still the weakest on this team," Sasuke says.)
They're stopped by one of the other genin teams, two thirds of which immediately focus on Sakura, and one third focuses on him.
("Top ranked rookie," the white-eyed one murmurs, after his previous staring match with Sakura has been interrupted by Lee.
"A beautiful flower," the most noticeable one exclaims, fist over his heart and sparkle in his teeth.
"Lee," their kunoichi groans, slapping her forehead and watching Sakura anyway for her reaction.
Sakura watches expressionlessly, cool distance warring with something else, if the twitch of her fingers is any indication. Naruto sulks, though whether it's at the prospect of a competitor for Sakura's affection, or being passed over once again, Sasuke isn't completely certain.)
And then they're ushered into a classroom.
Sakura says almost nothing to the other Konoha entrants, and receives nothing but courteous nods of acknowledgement back, but drifts off with Yamanaka Ino, the only person not on Team Seven that Sasuke knows she speaks with on a regular basis. He doesn't pay attention to their conversation -- he's too busy being overcome with gratitude that Ino isn't flinging herself onto his back. (Although Sakura's quiet voice, then, pierces, and he cannot help but listen all the same.) Nevertheless, Sasuke's eyes keep drifting to the two of them, by virtue of wariness about Ino, or because half the eyes on the room seem fixed, for some reason, on his female team mate.
She notices, too. Her back straightens until it is rigid, and though Sasuke cannot see her face, he is certain that her green-eyed glare sweeps over that half of the room. But then Ino's lips move, and as Sakura turns back to her friend, Sasuke's theory is confirmed: Sakura is scowling, and in that scowl is the banked fury that, just like the darkness, has depths he cannot understand.
- : -
By the time he has finished writing one answer, the proctor has called a halt, and Naruto takes care of everything else.
- : -
"Besides," Naruto says, "it's not like you can learn it fast enough to actually use it."
"We have five days," Sasuke retorts.
Naruto folds his hand behind his head. "I'm not dragging you for five days because you wasted all your chakra trying to learn it, dumb-ass."
"I'm not showing him," snaps Sakura, glaring at each of them in turn. "So you can both shut up."
"Sakura," Naruto murmurs quietly in dismay, as Sakura stalks off. She's the only one able to block his endless flow of words, whether she's speaking expressionlessly, or emotions drip off every word.
The latter has become more common, lately. Sasuke, in turn, is realising that it's not that Sakura is emotionally cool or restrained, merely that the distance between Sakura and their classmates keeps most from noticing her quick-triggered anger, the fireball of emotions threatening to explode. Maybe one day he'll even learn its source.
- : -
- : -
He remembers the trio from Grass, with their half-hidden faces and sly grins, as slippery as the snakes that populate their wilderness. He remembers the ambush from above, the shadow across the ground alerting him just in time, as the three landed nearly soundlessly. He remembers adrenaline pumping through his veins, blood rushing to his head as he prepared to fight. He remembers:
A rain of knife-like leaves pounding down, leaving destruction in their wake. Hurtling under cover, hissing as twigs slap the nicks and cuts across his limbs. Peering cautiously out, eyes darting quickly around, and realising that he's been separated from his team-mates.
A crash sounds in the distance -- more like a boom or an explosion, making the trees crack and sway. Naruto's shouting soon follows; it relaxes him, minutely, while at the same time throwing Sakura's absence, and the unconscious body of one of the Grass genin in the clearing, into sharp relief.
He follows movement in the corner of his eye, and the sound of metal clashing against metal, ignoring the possibility that it could have been an impostor. (He has never seen Sakura moving so quickly before.) His journey takes him past the unmoving body, fingers tight around his weapons, and darting up giant tree trunks, sandals slapping against ancient bark.
The forest lights up, briefly, with a vivid flash of fire, silhouetting tree branches and leaves, heralding a wave of heat that slaps against his face; he runs faster.
He arrives in time to see another body spread-eagled, and Sakura and the final Grass genin fighting.
He knows that, during the fight, every single detail was clear-cut into sharp relief, but he remembers none of that. His mind is filled instead by snapshots: his eyes meeting Sakura's red ones for a brief moment, as she fights. Fire bursting from between her lips and fingers, lighting up the trees and leaving the ground and trees utterly scorched, but the ninja, who is clearly no genin, completely unaffected. Weapons, hers and his both, whistling past the genin, hitting either thin air, or a body-switched log.
Dashing at the ninja, attempting to engage him, and the agony in his stomach as he is repelled. Getting up again anyway, in time to see Sakura's fire prompting the ninja's face to melt, the horror of it overwhelming; horror being replaced by disgust as the ninja reaches up, peeling off flaps of skin to reveal a different face beneath the living mask. Sakura's terrified expression as she catches sight of the attacker's real identity, her voice choking as she shouts at him to flee.
Ignoring her, attacking again and again, and sheer desperation being the only reason his limbs do not freeze every time the ninja's eyes pierce him: Sakura is still struggling behind him, and he's not about to let whoever it is through. Not on his life. Even if it shakes him to the core that his most competent classmate is floundering.
Naruto's arrival is the one point he'll remember with clarity: his shouting and loud proclamations. (Something about a giant snake?) Relief and fear flood him in equal measures, for himself, for Naruto.
They fight and fight and fight, and he lands as many blows as Sakura, despite the tomoe in her red eyes; as many blows as Naruto, despite the wavering reason in his equally red, slit-like eyes.
And it comes to nothing.
They're spent: their scroll is lodged somewhere in the ninja's stomach, Naruto's unconscious, and Sakura is leaning, not standing, against the tree beside her, peppered with cuts, a fine tremor in her limbs.
The ninja -- Orochimaru -- is fine, and he is talking to Sakura. He says that he knows what she wants; what she has wanted since she was eight. He taunts her with her lack of power.
"It would have been better if he," Orochimaru says, nodding at Sasuke, "had been the Uchiha instead. He could put those eyes to better use than you, slow, frail little girl." He shakes his head mockingly, twisting at an unnatural angle. "The last of your clan, with eyes fabled in legend, and you're still no stronger than your team-mates."
"Shut up," Sakura hisses, knuckles bone-white against the tree's bark.
"What's your name?" Orochimaru asks Sasuke, ignoring Sakura, and looking nothing short of amused. The completely unexpected thought that Orochimaru could probably tease out Sakura's fire jutsu hits him suddenly; he is not sure what to make of it.
"That's none of your business," Sasuke drawls, watching Sakura, as she twitches, unconscious movements that are cut off before they can truly begin.
Orochimaru seems much less tolerant of his mouth than hers. Before Sasuke realises that the ninja has moved, Orochimaru materialises behind him, crushing power making it difficult to breathe. He gasps and chokes as a hand clamps around his neck, lifting him as though he were a rag doll, easily flicking away the kunai Sasuke tries to stab into the pale wrist.
Even in his panic, Sasuke catches Sakura's sharp gasp, the flicker of movement in the corner of his eye.
"What's his name?" Orochimaru asks Sakura.
Sasuke kicks his feet, gasping for breath. Through the ringing in his ears, Sakura says, "Haruno Sasuke."
"Haruno?" Orochimaru repeats coolly. "Pity. No bloodline to speak of."
"Let him go!" Sakura shouts, and there's definitely movement from her now. Sasuke wants to yell at her to run, to take Naruto and leave them, but he knows in the pit of his stomach that, even if he could get the words out, she would heed them as much as he did earlier: not at all.
Orochimaru forms lightning-fast seals, and above the ambient sounds of the forest, Sasuke somehow hears her gasp. Stop.
A few seconds pass.
His vision of the clearing streaks, then settles, as Orochimaru swings him around to face his conscious team-mate. Red has bled into her irises, leaving the three tomoe, and the delicate circle than connects them, very apparent as they begin to spin. Sakura's muscles, which had been rigid, change back into a more natural posture.
Orochimaru looks satisfied.
Sasuke crashes into the ground as Orochimaru lets him go.
Gasping, he sits up in time to be hit with horror, all over again: Orochimaru's neck extending like it's made out of rubber, crossing the clearing in an instant.
Sakura's shriek rings in his ears before Sasuke can even comprehend what has actually happened, and by the time he does, Orochimaru is back to normal.
"A present," Orochimaru tells them before he takes his leave.
Sakura collapses. Sasuke isn't fast enough to catch her.
- : -
'I can't imagine finishing the Exam without you, either of you. I can't imagine being part of a team without your fast anger or his eerily accurate shouting. I can't imagine not speaking to either of you again.'
Naruto, who is so adept at keeping their atmosphere light, at drawing Sakura's ire, at sharp comments that cut so deeply it's like he is clairvoyant. Who goes flat-out against him, throwing out jutsu after jutsu when they compete. Who has surprised Sasuke at every turn, since they were put on the same team, who has to, absolutely has to surprise him again this time by pulling through.
Sakura, who is the most competent kunoichi he knows. Who trains with him in the afternoon until they're both exhausted. Whom he can make smile, a smile that is just his, set against the cool distance or exasperation she gives everyone else. Who he wants to know more about, peeling away her layers of distance until he can find the name transcribed into her tight ball of anger. Who still needs to show him her fire jutsu.
Whose smile he wants to see again because, although it is slight, and the sheer joy behind it has faded, it still manages to entrance him.
He says none of it. Either way, it's not like Naruto or Sakura can hear him.
- : -
It takes Sakura three hours to wake up.
It takes them three hours and one minute, before Sasuke has a chance to talk to her properly, to get attacked again.
Obviously, Sasuke is skilled enough to take them on himself, but for the first time he can recall, Sakura, suddenly three times as fast, outpaces him.
If the previous fight was a blur, the details of this one are branded in his mind with crystal clarity: the three Sound ninja stand no chance.
Sasuke has no idea how far it might have gone, if he hadn't made a sound, hadn't made Sakura's pinwheel eyes flick to him; he does know that he hates himself for the surge of awe he feels, seeing madness and darkness in the way she smiles. For the fact that despite the cold sweat that breaks out on his brow, his overwhelming impression of Sakura in that instant, wreathed by a halo of cold power, just finished executing a technique she saw Orochimaru use, is something of entrancing beauty.
He despises the part of him that feels no terror at all at the blood on her hands, mingling with the bold pattern that flourishes across her pale skin: the part that thinks of Orochimaru, master manipulator, compares it to his failure to learn from her a single jutsu, and wishes he were more like the other ninja.
- : -
It does not mean he doesn't have his own.
- : -
She appears calm to strangers, but there's so much anger ready to explode in her.
She has an amazing fondness for book-learning and yet trains more than he does.
She will freeze others with a withering glance, but cannot leave their spars without a smile and a goodbye.
She has broken the Sound ninja's arms without a second thought, and yet collapses the next moment, tears streaking down her face.
- : -
She doesn't resist his arms around her, and that makes him a bit uncomfortable. They've trained together, but he's never touched her like this.
"Thanks," she mutters, brushing away her tears with furious swipes, and pushing her pink locks out of her eyes. She smiles, a little wanly, her eyes returned to their natural fathomless green; Sasuke still cannot look away.
Watching her, their hands an inch away from touching, Sasuke is more disgusted than ever at contemplating those illicit ways of gaining power, when applied to her. He will not let that unexpected lust for power touch her.
For a moment, Sasuke understands that flare of darkness in her eyes as she stared at the Sound ninja, and why she pushed it back when she caught sight of him. Or enough, at least, to smile tiredly back. Their fingers touch.
- : -
Sakura is broken enough to search for distance and whole enough to hold onto her friendships.
She is ambitious enough to do almost anything to get stronger and moral enough to avoid that last inch.
She is weak enough to admit that she loves him despite the circumstances and strong enough to mean it.
She is blind enough to miss that he's beginning to feel the same and perceptive enough not to wait and hear him say it.