Fic: Challenged
May. 30th, 2011 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oroburos69Title: Challenged
Beta:![[info]](https://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=3)
lady_of_scarlet
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: FRT
Pairing/Characters: Lee, Sakura, Kakashi
Summary: Lee is very upset about something. Sakura can't figure out what, but she isn't going to let that stop her from settling the matter like a ninja.
A/N: This is the next part in the Friendship by Numbers series. Picks up directly after Under the Sun
First story here
Previous
"--Defend her honour!" Sakura was jerked out of the sleepy daze she'd fallen into by the strident exclamation. She sat up slowly, ignoring the rest of Lee's ranting with the ease of long experience.
"What?" she interrupted him, half her attention on making her hair lie flat.
Lee continued as if she hadn't said anything, so Sakura looked up to find that he wasn't actually talking to her. Sakura followed his red-faced glare.
"Oh, hey Kakashi," she greeted him, surprised that he was still there. "Did you do something to make Lee mad?"
Kakashi read his book ferociously, only the faintest twitch of his shoulder acknowledging her question.
"--Fragrant Blossom of Youth!" Lee concluded, thrusting a defiant fist into the air, his eyes glinting fiercely in the light of the setting sun.
Sakura yawned, faintly irritated that her nap had been interrupted. She considered asking Kakashi if he wanted to get something to eat, but realized that she couldn't afford it. Sakura shrugged and went for second best. "You headed home?" she asked, standing and brushing off the back of her dress.
Kakashi nodded, rising to his feet, his eye glued to Icha Icha Paradise.
"No!" Lee shouted. "I--I challenge you!"
Sakura sent an incredulous look to Lee.
Lee held his stance, pointing at Kakashi as a dark chill cooled the forest surrounding him and a small string orchestra reached a stirring crescendo. For being unable to do any type of external chakra manipulation, Lee did a damn fine job of casting minor area effect genjutsu.
"Seriously...?" Sakura asked, shaking her head. Lee wasn't half-bad, but Kakashi was a fucking amazing ninja, which was a hell of a lot better than 'not half-bad.'
"For your Honour," Lee yelled at her urgently. "He has Besmirched--"
Oh Hell no.
Her fist knocked Lee across the clearing and embedded him in a tree. "Look, Lee," Sakura snarled, pissed and embarrassed because Kakashi was watching and of all the people in the world-- "I can defend my own damn honour. I am so sick of you listening to rumours and--and--Goddamn, Lee! You're the only person in Konoha who believes in rumours!"
"You don't understand," Lee jumped free of the tree, completely unaffected by her punch. Sakura hated him a tiny bit for that. When she punched someone, Sakura expected them to stay punched.
"He has--"
Suddenly Kakashi was beside her, his hand on her shoulder. It took a second before Sakura noticed that he'd stopped her in the middle of casting a truly debilitating genjutsu. "Lee?" she said, after a few calming breaths, aided by Kakashi's disappointed frown.
"Yes?" Lee paused in the midst of a weird little dance thing, dropping his attempt at a fierce look and gazing at her with such adoration that Sakura just wanted to smack him.
"If you want to commit suicide by challenging Kakashi--" Kakashi's fingers dug into her skin, just hard enough to bruise. "--not that he would kill you, but you'd still go down so hard that they'd be picking up pieces of you until New Years--" His grip relaxed, slightly. "--feel free. I hope he breaks your legs."
"Sakura..." Kakashi warned her.
"But don't you dare do it to defend my honour," Sakura finished, shifting out from under Kakashi's hand before he could break her collarbone.
Lee stared at her, his eyes brimming with tears. Sakura sincerely hoped that he wouldn't cry. She hated it when he cried. "But they're saying that you and he--"
"Lee," Kakashi interrupted, flipping his book open. Sakura caught a blurred glimpse of a complicated line drawing before he raised it above her eye level, giving her a pointed look. "Last week, I heard a rumour that you and Gai were lovers."
Sakura choked on her own spit, because, damn, that was not where she'd thought Kakashi was going with that.
"Gai would NEVER!" Lee howled, flushing a brilliant red. He lunged forward, so fast that Sakura could barely see him.
Kakashi caught both of his wrists in one hand and lifted him up, forcing Lee to dangle about a foot over the grass. "Yeah," Kakashi replied, peering at Lee over the edge of his book. "I know that. That's why I told the gossiper that he was full of shit, and reminded him that spreading rumours of that nature was a violation of Code 33-28-B." Kakashi let go of Lee's wrists.
Kakashi was her hero. Her magical, special, Anti-Lee hero. "I've told you before and I'll tell you again, I can defend myself." Sakura released a shuddering breath, and hoped that Lee would listen for once, because she was tired of hating him. Okay, more like really disliking. It sucked. "For the last time, leave me alone."
The tears in Lee's eyes tumbled down over his cheeks, and Sakura cursed herself for feeling guilty. Fuck Lee and his stupid green jumpsuit leotard thing.
"I--" Lee wiped his tears away, "Then I challenge you, Sakura!" he shouted, pointing at Sakura. "If I win, you must acknowledge me as a suitor!"
Sakura felt a rush of dread and glanced up at Kakashi. "Just a sec," she said, grabbing Kakashi's sleeve and dragging him toward the trees, hoping for a pretence of privacy. "Kakashi? Can he do that?"
Kakashi didn't look away from Lee, his eye narrowed and angry. "Maybe," he muttered.
Sakura grimaced. “Well, hell,” she muttered. "What are my options? I've never been challenged before," she said, taking a second to size Lee up. Sakura had no idea if she could beat him. She hadn't seen him fight since the Chuunin Exams, three years ago.
"He shouldn't be challenging you over this. It makes him look desperate," Kakashi replied, ignoring her question.
Sakura shrugged, not willing to admit how cruel she'd been to Lee in the past. "He probably is," she muttered. "I've been doing my best to crush his hopes."
"I hope you were kinder than you were with Naruto."
Sakura hated feeling guilty. "I'm not a fucking prize," she hissed. "They can't have me just because they want me. Lee doesn't know anything about me, and yes I know how fucking ironic it is that I'm saying that, but damnit, I learned my lesson," Sakura whispered in a single breath. She hated guilt.
Kakashi ruffled her hair. "It's your life," he said, which could mean a lot of things. "Refusing to fight will damage your reputation, badly. If you accept the fight and win, you can set his forfeit. Lose, and you must accept him as a potential suitor," Kakashi said. "Which, just for the record, is an incredibly inappropriate forfeit for him to set."
She couldn’t afford to let her reputation suffer, but that wasn’t why Sakura wanted to accept his challenge. In a dark little corner of her heart, Sakura wanted to make him bleed. She wanted to fight.
She hadn't used chakra enhanced strength when she had hit Lee, earlier. He'd been relatively undamaged, but Sakura could hit a lot harder than that. She cracked her knuckles thoughtfully. "What do you think he means by suitor?"
"Ask him. It's his forfeit,” Kakashi advised her.
Sakura squared her shoulders. "Hey, Lee!" Sakura raised her voice, and strode forward, closer to the other chuunin.
"Yes Sakura?" Lee reminded her of a puppy, one which had been hit a few too many times. He sounded afraid of what she might say.
Sakura hated guilt. "What precisely do you want from that forfeit?"
"Keep in mind, Lee, that if you try to have sex with Sakura based on a challenge by combat, I will hunt you down and castrate you," Kakashi promised, his voice echoing across the clearing. “Then I would probably kill you slowly, but fast might be good, too. It would really depend.”
Sakura barely felt the wave of killer intent Kakashi directed toward Lee, passing by her like a rolling wave of heat. She did see Lee shiver and snap into a fighting stance, his eyebrows drawn together in determination.
"I would never!" Lee denied hotly. "I merely wish--"
"To force Sakura to feel something that she doesn't. I caught that," Kakashi replied. "Win or lose, this will destroy your reputation, Lee."
"I just want the same chance that you had!" Lee protested.
Sakura looked back at Kakashi and raised her eyebrows, silently asking if he knew what Lee was talking about. He shrugged, hands half-raised in the universal expression of cluelessness. "Like...to teach me when I was a genin? Because outside of time travel--"
"You know what I mean!"
"I don't," Sakura replied.
"I want you to take me seriously, Sakura! Give me a chance!" Lee pleaded, dropping to his knees. "You won't even look at me," he concluded, his voice quiet and almost defeated.
Sakura flushed, because she'd looked away the instant that he'd dropped to his knees. Truth was an ugly thing. "Specifics, Lee. You challenged me, what do I have to do if you win?" she demanded.
"If I win, you can't mock me. And if I ask, then you should go out on dates with me," Lee said after a long pause, where he'd obviously struggled to articulate his desires.
"For how long?" Sakura asked, trying to squash that stupid feeling of guilt.
"A year?" Lee said tentatively.
"No way. A month, tops," Sakura snapped back. Guilt isn't going to force her into going out with Lee more than she has to. She remembered the one date they went on with the horrified clarity reserved for all of the worst moments in her life, and had no desire to repeat it.
"Then six months. It isn't fair, otherwise," Lee insisted.
"One month, no more. And the dates all have to be chaperoned," Sakura said sharply. From the way Kakashi had reacted to Lee’s forfeit, she was almost certain that she could keep it a single month. "By Kakashi," Sakura added in a sudden burst of inspiration.
"What?" Kakashi asked, his voice almost drown out by Lee's shout.
"Then you can't get married until the month is up!" Lee’s face contorted into a deep scowl, a darker expression than she’d ever seen on him before.
Sakura blinked. "Um. Okay." She cast an uncertain glance at Kakashi. Seriously, was that such a worry that Lee had to specify? "Then you have to convince Kakashi to chaperone." Boo Yeah! Win or lose, Sakura was never, ever going on a date with Lee. Thank the gods for Kakashi.
He looked at her like Sakura had just demanded that Lee give up green, but he nodded. "Deal," Lee said, not shouting, not posing. She felt the waves of killing intent radiating off of Lee, directed toward Kakashi, and wondered what the hell the most recent rumour had said to make Lee so unfriendly.
"Now, on to what I win," Sakura said smoothly. She was copying Tsunade’s bartering style, but she was pretty sure Lee wouldn't notice. Though, from the faint laugh behind her, Kakashi had. "I want you to leave me alone until you can answer three questions."
Lee frowned intensely. "What questions?"
"What my favourite color is, who my hero is, and what my dream is," Sakura said, certain that he could not possibly know the answers. “And every time you guess wrong, you have to leave me alone for a month before you can guess again.”
"But I already know the answers," Lee said, rocking back on his heels.
"I’m pretty sure you don't," Sakura replied, because he's never bothered to ask her. No one had ever asked. "Do you agree?"
"You like red and white, Tsunade, and you want to be a medic-nin," Lee spoke with certainty, giving her a completely unnecessary thumbs up.
Sakura smiled thinly, her eyes narrowed. "You are wrong on every count. Do you agree to my terms?"
"You have to tell someone your answers, so you can't change them," Lee sounded like he thought she was lying. It pissed Sakura off. How could Lee even like her if he thought so poorly of her?
"This is literally the longest argument over challenge forfeits I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing," Kakashi said from the sidelines, the absolute boredom in his voice calming Sakura down again.
Sakura walked back into the shadows to stand beside Kakashi, tugging his sleeve until he slouched down to her level, peering at her curiously from behind his book.
Sakura leaned forward, closing the distance between them until her lips were an inch from his ear. "My favourite color is blue. My hero is--" Sakura froze, embarrassed and completely unwilling to tell him the truth. "Actually, do you have any paper? And a pencil?"
Kakashi raised his eyebrow, but fished a crumpled receipt (for porn) from his wallet, and a badly nicked pen from his kunai pouch.
"Thanks," Sakura said, backing up quickly. She found a smooth barked tree and used it to write on the sales receipt for the Icha Icha Movie Trilogy Collector’s Pack (Holographic Edition).
My favourite colour is dark blue.
My hero is Kakashi Hatake.
I want to be a combat jounin and to work with my first team again.
Sakura folded the paper up tightly and handed it to Kakashi. "You don't have to read it unless I win," Sakura muttered, blushing. She’d never told him and had never intended to.
Kakashi tucked the receipt back into his wallet without looking at it. "I think you've managed to cover every single ambiguity in excruciating detail," he said, smiling at her. "Go fight him, Sakura."
"You have my promise that the information I wrote down is completely true, Lee. Do you accept my terms?" Sakura asked.
"Yes!"
"This is..." Kakashi sighed again and shook his head. "Lee, I'm not joking. Kunoichi will spit on you in the street for this. Gai sure as hell won't approve and I'm tempted to call you out just on principle. Are you sure you want to go through with this?"
"Win or lose, it will be worth it," Lee answered, glaring at Kakashi. Sakura’s never actually heard him sound bitter before, and it left an odd taste in her mouth. He looked at her and brightened so much that it hurt. “Sakura! I am honoured to fight you!”
Sakura wasn't certain that she could win. She was, however, damn sure that she wanted to hurt Lee. "Referee?" she asked Kakashi.
He shrugged half-heartedly, tilting his book to get a better look at something. "Sure. Lee, are you ready?"
"I am!" Lee's enthusiasm was infectious--it made Sakura want to hit him until he stopped sparkling so damn much. Did he use glitter toothpaste?
"Yeah," she replied, belatedly, to Kakashi's similar question to her.
"Fine. Ready, set, go," Kakashi wandered to the side of the clearing, thoroughly distracted by his book. Apparently, anyway. Sakura was fairly certain that Kakashi was watching them.
"I do not wish to hurt you, Sakura!" Lee declared, "But--"
Sakura ripped a birch tree from the ground and broke the crown off, tearing the green wood until only the jagged spear of the trunk and the massive ball of dirt at its base remained. "That's too bad, Lee. Because I kind of want to hurt you."
"Holy shit," Kakashi muttered from the sidelines and Sakura's heart fluttered, all irrational and stupid.
Lee tore his gaze from her new spear and met her eyes. "Very well." He bowed and darted right, curving around to attack her on the side with the tree.
Sakura chuckled, low and a bit too excited, and dropped her distraction, dodging out of his path. She finished the last seals for her genjutsu, and it slid over Lee, a multi-layered illusion that Sakura could feel ghost-touching her skin, and see dimly in the corners of her vision.
To use genjutsu was to live it in echoes, Kurenai had told Sakura, before smiling blandly and mentioning that she had grown to like it. Jounin were fucking terrifying, sometimes.
Sakura circled him, the tree clasped firmly in her hands. In the genjutsu, she attacked, shadows of her body pounding Lee into the ground, faint sensations of hitting and being hit fluttering across her skin.
He shouted, and fought her illusionary clones with grace that Sakura envied. Lee’s form was a work of art.
The fine powder on the birch bark mixed with the sweat on her palms, forming a slick paste. She didn't have the chakra to maintain the genjutsu, and attacking Lee directly would knock him out of it.
Her wavering control made the genjutsu more real for her, less ghost than poltergeist. Sakura muffled a gasp, turning it into a harsh breath. Her skin had not broken open, shredded by the jagged tip of her tree-spear, and neither had Lee's. He darted away from her genjutsu copy, hand pressed against his uninjured side where blood would be had she actually hit him.
She didn’t have enough chakra left after healing Kakashi to defeat Lee using genjutsu, and it was unlikely that she would be able to defeat Lee using taijutsu. Some part of Sakura paused contemplatively as she realized that she was probably going to lose.
Sakura grinned, and drove Lee toward her using illusions, adding a dozen cawing crows to the invisible attack. She’d trained with Tsunade for two and a half years, and she had never won a sparring match, excluding the time that Tsunade had surrendered halfway through so she could wait out her hangover in peace. Losing didn’t mean much, even with that stupid forfeit.
The birds’ screams heralded Lee stumbling into range, and Sakura swung the tree over her head, slamming the ball of roots and moist dirt into Lee, hard enough to break her tree and dent the ground beneath.
The frantic brush of bird wings across bare skin disappeared and Sakura was forced to dodge Lee's suddenly accurate attack, leaping into the trees and abandoning the shattered remains of her makeshift weapon.
Lee followed, sliding behind her and launching a combo that Sakura barely avoided. He was fast. His fist broke a sapling in half, partially ripping it free from the ground, and Sakura revised her previous thought to include the word strong as well.
She cast an earth jutsu, one so familiar that Sakura barely needed the signs, and slammed her fist into the ground, curving her body around Lee's punch, his hand missing so narrowly that it ripped part of her shirt.
A six foot spur of rock shot out of the ground, slamming into Lee's chest and knocking him into the air. Sakura leaped after Lee and slammed him into the rock pillar she’d created, stomping down on him with all her chakra enhanced weight.
The aftershocks from the earth jutsu vibrated in her bones as Sakura landed on the trampled grass. She rubbed a hand over her face, wiping away a thin layer of sweat, and jumped, flipping over Lee’s next attack. Sakura mentally added resilient to the list, and wondered if it was sad that she liked Lee better when she was fighting him.
She slid away from a roundhouse kick, silently blessing the many hours Tsunade had spent drilling her on dodging (there had been rocks—big ones). Lee followed through with a wild punch that Sakura dodged out of paranoia, barely missing the second punch he'd lined up while she was distracted by the first.
It wasn't enough to avoid his hits, Sakura decided, dropping low to evade another kick. She needed to hit him back. If she could get Lee with her full strength, he might stay down. Of course, beating him with a tree had just made him dirty, so punching him might not work either.
Sakura dodged again, lips pursed in thought. Lee’s descending heel almost crushed her shoulder, missing by the barest of margins.
Their fight paused for a second. Lee’s stare was calculating, and Sakura wondered if he’d finally figured out that she really didn’t need protecting. Maybe he’d focus his efforts on a nice civilian girl, she thought hopefully. Stranger things had happened.
Lee flickered, moving so fast that her eyes couldn’t keep up. Sakura braced herself instantly, instincts from fighting with Tsunade taking over. A blurred impression of bright green was her only warning. She shielded her hands with the flickering dregs of her chakra, grabbing Lee’s descending leg by the ankle and snapping it like brittle wood.
There was a brief second when Sakura realized that she had used both hands to break his leg, leaving the rest of her body unguarded. Lee’s right arm blurred toward her throat, and then she was choking on blood, staggering away from Lee with her arms held up defensively.
“Sakura?” Lee called, perfectly balanced on his unbroken leg. His eyes widened in concern when she spat blood, grasping her throat with both hands.
Sakura mouthed a curse. He’d collapsed her trachea. Collapsed it! ...it was so completely unfair.
“Give in?” Kakashi called from the sidelines, his book long since put away.
Sakura waved her hand in a gesture she hoped Kakashi would interpret as a yes, and dragged the last bits of her chakra into a medical jutsu. There was no way she could hold Lee off while unable to breath and choking on her own blood. Her hands glowed in preparation for realigning the snapped cartilage--
“Sakura!” Lee dragged her hands away from her throat, eyes bright with anxiety. “I am so sorry! I believed you were guarding your throat!” He stared at her neck intently. “I hope I did not cause too much damage?”
Sakura flailed, trying to jerk her hands free. She needed air!
Suddenly Lee was gone--way gone. Like, in the trees on the other side of the Hokage’s monument kind of gone.
“You can heal yourself?” Kakashi demanded, taking Lee’s place, though thankfully not grabbing her hands.
Sakura set her hands against her neck and pulled and snapped the cartilage back into place. She didn’t have the chakra needed to numb it, and it hurt worse than the initial hit, but the first ragged breath of air was completely worth it. Sakura coughed up another mouthful of blood, using the dying sparks of her chakra to heal as much of the soft tissue damage as she could.
“Sakura?” Kakashi said, sounding somewhat calmer. “Do you need me to take you to the hospital?”
The last dregs of her chakra clung to her coils with the kind of stubborn insistence that told her she was on the edge of actual chakra exhaustion. Grudgingly, Sakura nodded. She really didn’t want to go to the hospital, but was pretty certain that the swelling would make her unable to breathe again within the hour if she didn’t.
Kakashi turned around and knelt, indicating that she should get on his back. Sakura considered protesting, but didn’t on the basis that she wasn’t certain that she could actually speak (breathing was bad enough). Besides, friends probably did this kind of thing for each other all the time. That thought in mind, Sakura settled herself onto Kakashi’s back, feeling like she was made of elbows and knees.
He rose easily, with no indication that he even noticed her weight. “Do I need to hurry?” Kakashi asked her, adjusting his grip on her knees so that her legs hooked over his hips--bony hips, Sakura decided. She’d have to make sure he ate more.
Sakura shook her head and pointed at her bag insistently. It had Kakashi’s medical records in it, and it would be really awkward to have to tell Tsunade that she’d lost it already. Kakashi sighed and leaned down to grab it.
The change in angle made Sakura’s legs shift, and she wondered if she’d just brushed one of his nipples with her calf. Her face burnt bright red as soon as she’d realized what she’d thought, because holy crap, completely inappropriate thought. Even if, by the calculations Sakura couldn’t stop her brain from making, she totally had.
“Are you all right?” Kakashi asked anxiously, craning his head around to look at her. He must have felt the tension in her body or something. Awkward.
Sakura patted him on the shoulder and nodded adamantly, ignoring the angry stabbing pain in her throat. She gave him a thumbs up, and pointed in the direction of the hospital.
Kakashi slung her bag over his shoulder and started walking.
His hand reached into his belt pouch.
Sakura’s interest sparked.
Kakashi’s shoulders stiffened the tiniest bit, only noticeable because Sakura was literally pressed right against them. He slid his hand free from his belt pouch.
Sakura sighed in disappointment. Apparently Kakashi had realized that she’d be able to read over his shoulder really, really well.
“You could always get your own copies,” Kakashi suggested lightly, patting her knee in what Sakura suspected was fake sympathy.
Sakura sagged against his shoulder in a manner that she hoped would say ‘But I want yours’ and not ‘I can’t afford them.’
Birds started singing, deciding that they were safe now. The early evening sun cast thick yellow light across the spring grass, and long shadows from the trees. Kakashi ambled toward town at a comfortable pace that could have lured Sakura into sleep if her throat hadn’t been insanely painful. Stupid Lee.
“You did well,” he said abruptly.
Sakura froze in the middle of contemplating Kakashi’s hair (it was really spiky). “Mmm?” she managed to squeeze out of her damaged throat.
“You could have beaten him if you hadn’t pulled your hit with the tree,” he said. “And once it because a taijutsu match, you did very well, considering how much greater his reach is.”
Happiness wiggled in her chest like a giddy kitten. ‘Subtle!’ she reminded herself, holding in the happy squeaky noise she wanted to make. ‘Act like an adult!’
The forest opened up to the Konoha wall and the south gate. The smell of food wafted past and Sakura was suddenly very hungry (from the way Kakashi sniffed the breeze, he was too). “I am sorry that you lost?” he said, the tone of his voice turning it into a question.
‘Shit,’ Sakura thought, suddenly realizing that she might have to repeat the goldfish debacle. Though Kakashi would be there, so maybe it wouldn’t result in quite so many dead fish. Sakura still felt a bit guilty about that.
"But seriously. You did good."
Sakura beamed, licking the drying blood from the corners of her mouth. Happiness squirmed inside her.
Beta:
lady_of_scarletFandom: Naruto
Rating: FRT
Pairing/Characters: Lee, Sakura, Kakashi
Summary: Lee is very upset about something. Sakura can't figure out what, but she isn't going to let that stop her from settling the matter like a ninja.
A/N: This is the next part in the Friendship by Numbers series. Picks up directly after Under the Sun
First story here
Previous
"--Defend her honour!" Sakura was jerked out of the sleepy daze she'd fallen into by the strident exclamation. She sat up slowly, ignoring the rest of Lee's ranting with the ease of long experience.
"What?" she interrupted him, half her attention on making her hair lie flat.
Lee continued as if she hadn't said anything, so Sakura looked up to find that he wasn't actually talking to her. Sakura followed his red-faced glare.
"Oh, hey Kakashi," she greeted him, surprised that he was still there. "Did you do something to make Lee mad?"
Kakashi read his book ferociously, only the faintest twitch of his shoulder acknowledging her question.
"--Fragrant Blossom of Youth!" Lee concluded, thrusting a defiant fist into the air, his eyes glinting fiercely in the light of the setting sun.
Sakura yawned, faintly irritated that her nap had been interrupted. She considered asking Kakashi if he wanted to get something to eat, but realized that she couldn't afford it. Sakura shrugged and went for second best. "You headed home?" she asked, standing and brushing off the back of her dress.
Kakashi nodded, rising to his feet, his eye glued to Icha Icha Paradise.
"No!" Lee shouted. "I--I challenge you!"
Sakura sent an incredulous look to Lee.
Lee held his stance, pointing at Kakashi as a dark chill cooled the forest surrounding him and a small string orchestra reached a stirring crescendo. For being unable to do any type of external chakra manipulation, Lee did a damn fine job of casting minor area effect genjutsu.
"Seriously...?" Sakura asked, shaking her head. Lee wasn't half-bad, but Kakashi was a fucking amazing ninja, which was a hell of a lot better than 'not half-bad.'
"For your Honour," Lee yelled at her urgently. "He has Besmirched--"
Oh Hell no.
Her fist knocked Lee across the clearing and embedded him in a tree. "Look, Lee," Sakura snarled, pissed and embarrassed because Kakashi was watching and of all the people in the world-- "I can defend my own damn honour. I am so sick of you listening to rumours and--and--Goddamn, Lee! You're the only person in Konoha who believes in rumours!"
"You don't understand," Lee jumped free of the tree, completely unaffected by her punch. Sakura hated him a tiny bit for that. When she punched someone, Sakura expected them to stay punched.
"He has--"
Suddenly Kakashi was beside her, his hand on her shoulder. It took a second before Sakura noticed that he'd stopped her in the middle of casting a truly debilitating genjutsu. "Lee?" she said, after a few calming breaths, aided by Kakashi's disappointed frown.
"Yes?" Lee paused in the midst of a weird little dance thing, dropping his attempt at a fierce look and gazing at her with such adoration that Sakura just wanted to smack him.
"If you want to commit suicide by challenging Kakashi--" Kakashi's fingers dug into her skin, just hard enough to bruise. "--not that he would kill you, but you'd still go down so hard that they'd be picking up pieces of you until New Years--" His grip relaxed, slightly. "--feel free. I hope he breaks your legs."
"Sakura..." Kakashi warned her.
"But don't you dare do it to defend my honour," Sakura finished, shifting out from under Kakashi's hand before he could break her collarbone.
Lee stared at her, his eyes brimming with tears. Sakura sincerely hoped that he wouldn't cry. She hated it when he cried. "But they're saying that you and he--"
"Lee," Kakashi interrupted, flipping his book open. Sakura caught a blurred glimpse of a complicated line drawing before he raised it above her eye level, giving her a pointed look. "Last week, I heard a rumour that you and Gai were lovers."
Sakura choked on her own spit, because, damn, that was not where she'd thought Kakashi was going with that.
"Gai would NEVER!" Lee howled, flushing a brilliant red. He lunged forward, so fast that Sakura could barely see him.
Kakashi caught both of his wrists in one hand and lifted him up, forcing Lee to dangle about a foot over the grass. "Yeah," Kakashi replied, peering at Lee over the edge of his book. "I know that. That's why I told the gossiper that he was full of shit, and reminded him that spreading rumours of that nature was a violation of Code 33-28-B." Kakashi let go of Lee's wrists.
Kakashi was her hero. Her magical, special, Anti-Lee hero. "I've told you before and I'll tell you again, I can defend myself." Sakura released a shuddering breath, and hoped that Lee would listen for once, because she was tired of hating him. Okay, more like really disliking. It sucked. "For the last time, leave me alone."
The tears in Lee's eyes tumbled down over his cheeks, and Sakura cursed herself for feeling guilty. Fuck Lee and his stupid green jumpsuit leotard thing.
"I--" Lee wiped his tears away, "Then I challenge you, Sakura!" he shouted, pointing at Sakura. "If I win, you must acknowledge me as a suitor!"
Sakura felt a rush of dread and glanced up at Kakashi. "Just a sec," she said, grabbing Kakashi's sleeve and dragging him toward the trees, hoping for a pretence of privacy. "Kakashi? Can he do that?"
Kakashi didn't look away from Lee, his eye narrowed and angry. "Maybe," he muttered.
Sakura grimaced. “Well, hell,” she muttered. "What are my options? I've never been challenged before," she said, taking a second to size Lee up. Sakura had no idea if she could beat him. She hadn't seen him fight since the Chuunin Exams, three years ago.
"He shouldn't be challenging you over this. It makes him look desperate," Kakashi replied, ignoring her question.
Sakura shrugged, not willing to admit how cruel she'd been to Lee in the past. "He probably is," she muttered. "I've been doing my best to crush his hopes."
"I hope you were kinder than you were with Naruto."
Sakura hated feeling guilty. "I'm not a fucking prize," she hissed. "They can't have me just because they want me. Lee doesn't know anything about me, and yes I know how fucking ironic it is that I'm saying that, but damnit, I learned my lesson," Sakura whispered in a single breath. She hated guilt.
Kakashi ruffled her hair. "It's your life," he said, which could mean a lot of things. "Refusing to fight will damage your reputation, badly. If you accept the fight and win, you can set his forfeit. Lose, and you must accept him as a potential suitor," Kakashi said. "Which, just for the record, is an incredibly inappropriate forfeit for him to set."
She couldn’t afford to let her reputation suffer, but that wasn’t why Sakura wanted to accept his challenge. In a dark little corner of her heart, Sakura wanted to make him bleed. She wanted to fight.
She hadn't used chakra enhanced strength when she had hit Lee, earlier. He'd been relatively undamaged, but Sakura could hit a lot harder than that. She cracked her knuckles thoughtfully. "What do you think he means by suitor?"
"Ask him. It's his forfeit,” Kakashi advised her.
Sakura squared her shoulders. "Hey, Lee!" Sakura raised her voice, and strode forward, closer to the other chuunin.
"Yes Sakura?" Lee reminded her of a puppy, one which had been hit a few too many times. He sounded afraid of what she might say.
Sakura hated guilt. "What precisely do you want from that forfeit?"
"Keep in mind, Lee, that if you try to have sex with Sakura based on a challenge by combat, I will hunt you down and castrate you," Kakashi promised, his voice echoing across the clearing. “Then I would probably kill you slowly, but fast might be good, too. It would really depend.”
Sakura barely felt the wave of killer intent Kakashi directed toward Lee, passing by her like a rolling wave of heat. She did see Lee shiver and snap into a fighting stance, his eyebrows drawn together in determination.
"I would never!" Lee denied hotly. "I merely wish--"
"To force Sakura to feel something that she doesn't. I caught that," Kakashi replied. "Win or lose, this will destroy your reputation, Lee."
"I just want the same chance that you had!" Lee protested.
Sakura looked back at Kakashi and raised her eyebrows, silently asking if he knew what Lee was talking about. He shrugged, hands half-raised in the universal expression of cluelessness. "Like...to teach me when I was a genin? Because outside of time travel--"
"You know what I mean!"
"I don't," Sakura replied.
"I want you to take me seriously, Sakura! Give me a chance!" Lee pleaded, dropping to his knees. "You won't even look at me," he concluded, his voice quiet and almost defeated.
Sakura flushed, because she'd looked away the instant that he'd dropped to his knees. Truth was an ugly thing. "Specifics, Lee. You challenged me, what do I have to do if you win?" she demanded.
"If I win, you can't mock me. And if I ask, then you should go out on dates with me," Lee said after a long pause, where he'd obviously struggled to articulate his desires.
"For how long?" Sakura asked, trying to squash that stupid feeling of guilt.
"A year?" Lee said tentatively.
"No way. A month, tops," Sakura snapped back. Guilt isn't going to force her into going out with Lee more than she has to. She remembered the one date they went on with the horrified clarity reserved for all of the worst moments in her life, and had no desire to repeat it.
"Then six months. It isn't fair, otherwise," Lee insisted.
"One month, no more. And the dates all have to be chaperoned," Sakura said sharply. From the way Kakashi had reacted to Lee’s forfeit, she was almost certain that she could keep it a single month. "By Kakashi," Sakura added in a sudden burst of inspiration.
"What?" Kakashi asked, his voice almost drown out by Lee's shout.
"Then you can't get married until the month is up!" Lee’s face contorted into a deep scowl, a darker expression than she’d ever seen on him before.
Sakura blinked. "Um. Okay." She cast an uncertain glance at Kakashi. Seriously, was that such a worry that Lee had to specify? "Then you have to convince Kakashi to chaperone." Boo Yeah! Win or lose, Sakura was never, ever going on a date with Lee. Thank the gods for Kakashi.
He looked at her like Sakura had just demanded that Lee give up green, but he nodded. "Deal," Lee said, not shouting, not posing. She felt the waves of killing intent radiating off of Lee, directed toward Kakashi, and wondered what the hell the most recent rumour had said to make Lee so unfriendly.
"Now, on to what I win," Sakura said smoothly. She was copying Tsunade’s bartering style, but she was pretty sure Lee wouldn't notice. Though, from the faint laugh behind her, Kakashi had. "I want you to leave me alone until you can answer three questions."
Lee frowned intensely. "What questions?"
"What my favourite color is, who my hero is, and what my dream is," Sakura said, certain that he could not possibly know the answers. “And every time you guess wrong, you have to leave me alone for a month before you can guess again.”
"But I already know the answers," Lee said, rocking back on his heels.
"I’m pretty sure you don't," Sakura replied, because he's never bothered to ask her. No one had ever asked. "Do you agree?"
"You like red and white, Tsunade, and you want to be a medic-nin," Lee spoke with certainty, giving her a completely unnecessary thumbs up.
Sakura smiled thinly, her eyes narrowed. "You are wrong on every count. Do you agree to my terms?"
"You have to tell someone your answers, so you can't change them," Lee sounded like he thought she was lying. It pissed Sakura off. How could Lee even like her if he thought so poorly of her?
"This is literally the longest argument over challenge forfeits I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing," Kakashi said from the sidelines, the absolute boredom in his voice calming Sakura down again.
Sakura walked back into the shadows to stand beside Kakashi, tugging his sleeve until he slouched down to her level, peering at her curiously from behind his book.
Sakura leaned forward, closing the distance between them until her lips were an inch from his ear. "My favourite color is blue. My hero is--" Sakura froze, embarrassed and completely unwilling to tell him the truth. "Actually, do you have any paper? And a pencil?"
Kakashi raised his eyebrow, but fished a crumpled receipt (for porn) from his wallet, and a badly nicked pen from his kunai pouch.
"Thanks," Sakura said, backing up quickly. She found a smooth barked tree and used it to write on the sales receipt for the Icha Icha Movie Trilogy Collector’s Pack (Holographic Edition).
My favourite colour is dark blue.
My hero is Kakashi Hatake.
I want to be a combat jounin and to work with my first team again.
Sakura folded the paper up tightly and handed it to Kakashi. "You don't have to read it unless I win," Sakura muttered, blushing. She’d never told him and had never intended to.
Kakashi tucked the receipt back into his wallet without looking at it. "I think you've managed to cover every single ambiguity in excruciating detail," he said, smiling at her. "Go fight him, Sakura."
"You have my promise that the information I wrote down is completely true, Lee. Do you accept my terms?" Sakura asked.
"Yes!"
"This is..." Kakashi sighed again and shook his head. "Lee, I'm not joking. Kunoichi will spit on you in the street for this. Gai sure as hell won't approve and I'm tempted to call you out just on principle. Are you sure you want to go through with this?"
"Win or lose, it will be worth it," Lee answered, glaring at Kakashi. Sakura’s never actually heard him sound bitter before, and it left an odd taste in her mouth. He looked at her and brightened so much that it hurt. “Sakura! I am honoured to fight you!”
Sakura wasn't certain that she could win. She was, however, damn sure that she wanted to hurt Lee. "Referee?" she asked Kakashi.
He shrugged half-heartedly, tilting his book to get a better look at something. "Sure. Lee, are you ready?"
"I am!" Lee's enthusiasm was infectious--it made Sakura want to hit him until he stopped sparkling so damn much. Did he use glitter toothpaste?
"Yeah," she replied, belatedly, to Kakashi's similar question to her.
"Fine. Ready, set, go," Kakashi wandered to the side of the clearing, thoroughly distracted by his book. Apparently, anyway. Sakura was fairly certain that Kakashi was watching them.
"I do not wish to hurt you, Sakura!" Lee declared, "But--"
Sakura ripped a birch tree from the ground and broke the crown off, tearing the green wood until only the jagged spear of the trunk and the massive ball of dirt at its base remained. "That's too bad, Lee. Because I kind of want to hurt you."
"Holy shit," Kakashi muttered from the sidelines and Sakura's heart fluttered, all irrational and stupid.
Lee tore his gaze from her new spear and met her eyes. "Very well." He bowed and darted right, curving around to attack her on the side with the tree.
Sakura chuckled, low and a bit too excited, and dropped her distraction, dodging out of his path. She finished the last seals for her genjutsu, and it slid over Lee, a multi-layered illusion that Sakura could feel ghost-touching her skin, and see dimly in the corners of her vision.
To use genjutsu was to live it in echoes, Kurenai had told Sakura, before smiling blandly and mentioning that she had grown to like it. Jounin were fucking terrifying, sometimes.
Sakura circled him, the tree clasped firmly in her hands. In the genjutsu, she attacked, shadows of her body pounding Lee into the ground, faint sensations of hitting and being hit fluttering across her skin.
He shouted, and fought her illusionary clones with grace that Sakura envied. Lee’s form was a work of art.
The fine powder on the birch bark mixed with the sweat on her palms, forming a slick paste. She didn't have the chakra to maintain the genjutsu, and attacking Lee directly would knock him out of it.
Her wavering control made the genjutsu more real for her, less ghost than poltergeist. Sakura muffled a gasp, turning it into a harsh breath. Her skin had not broken open, shredded by the jagged tip of her tree-spear, and neither had Lee's. He darted away from her genjutsu copy, hand pressed against his uninjured side where blood would be had she actually hit him.
She didn’t have enough chakra left after healing Kakashi to defeat Lee using genjutsu, and it was unlikely that she would be able to defeat Lee using taijutsu. Some part of Sakura paused contemplatively as she realized that she was probably going to lose.
Sakura grinned, and drove Lee toward her using illusions, adding a dozen cawing crows to the invisible attack. She’d trained with Tsunade for two and a half years, and she had never won a sparring match, excluding the time that Tsunade had surrendered halfway through so she could wait out her hangover in peace. Losing didn’t mean much, even with that stupid forfeit.
The birds’ screams heralded Lee stumbling into range, and Sakura swung the tree over her head, slamming the ball of roots and moist dirt into Lee, hard enough to break her tree and dent the ground beneath.
The frantic brush of bird wings across bare skin disappeared and Sakura was forced to dodge Lee's suddenly accurate attack, leaping into the trees and abandoning the shattered remains of her makeshift weapon.
Lee followed, sliding behind her and launching a combo that Sakura barely avoided. He was fast. His fist broke a sapling in half, partially ripping it free from the ground, and Sakura revised her previous thought to include the word strong as well.
She cast an earth jutsu, one so familiar that Sakura barely needed the signs, and slammed her fist into the ground, curving her body around Lee's punch, his hand missing so narrowly that it ripped part of her shirt.
A six foot spur of rock shot out of the ground, slamming into Lee's chest and knocking him into the air. Sakura leaped after Lee and slammed him into the rock pillar she’d created, stomping down on him with all her chakra enhanced weight.
The aftershocks from the earth jutsu vibrated in her bones as Sakura landed on the trampled grass. She rubbed a hand over her face, wiping away a thin layer of sweat, and jumped, flipping over Lee’s next attack. Sakura mentally added resilient to the list, and wondered if it was sad that she liked Lee better when she was fighting him.
She slid away from a roundhouse kick, silently blessing the many hours Tsunade had spent drilling her on dodging (there had been rocks—big ones). Lee followed through with a wild punch that Sakura dodged out of paranoia, barely missing the second punch he'd lined up while she was distracted by the first.
It wasn't enough to avoid his hits, Sakura decided, dropping low to evade another kick. She needed to hit him back. If she could get Lee with her full strength, he might stay down. Of course, beating him with a tree had just made him dirty, so punching him might not work either.
Sakura dodged again, lips pursed in thought. Lee’s descending heel almost crushed her shoulder, missing by the barest of margins.
Their fight paused for a second. Lee’s stare was calculating, and Sakura wondered if he’d finally figured out that she really didn’t need protecting. Maybe he’d focus his efforts on a nice civilian girl, she thought hopefully. Stranger things had happened.
Lee flickered, moving so fast that her eyes couldn’t keep up. Sakura braced herself instantly, instincts from fighting with Tsunade taking over. A blurred impression of bright green was her only warning. She shielded her hands with the flickering dregs of her chakra, grabbing Lee’s descending leg by the ankle and snapping it like brittle wood.
There was a brief second when Sakura realized that she had used both hands to break his leg, leaving the rest of her body unguarded. Lee’s right arm blurred toward her throat, and then she was choking on blood, staggering away from Lee with her arms held up defensively.
“Sakura?” Lee called, perfectly balanced on his unbroken leg. His eyes widened in concern when she spat blood, grasping her throat with both hands.
Sakura mouthed a curse. He’d collapsed her trachea. Collapsed it! ...it was so completely unfair.
“Give in?” Kakashi called from the sidelines, his book long since put away.
Sakura waved her hand in a gesture she hoped Kakashi would interpret as a yes, and dragged the last bits of her chakra into a medical jutsu. There was no way she could hold Lee off while unable to breath and choking on her own blood. Her hands glowed in preparation for realigning the snapped cartilage--
“Sakura!” Lee dragged her hands away from her throat, eyes bright with anxiety. “I am so sorry! I believed you were guarding your throat!” He stared at her neck intently. “I hope I did not cause too much damage?”
Sakura flailed, trying to jerk her hands free. She needed air!
Suddenly Lee was gone--way gone. Like, in the trees on the other side of the Hokage’s monument kind of gone.
“You can heal yourself?” Kakashi demanded, taking Lee’s place, though thankfully not grabbing her hands.
Sakura set her hands against her neck and pulled and snapped the cartilage back into place. She didn’t have the chakra needed to numb it, and it hurt worse than the initial hit, but the first ragged breath of air was completely worth it. Sakura coughed up another mouthful of blood, using the dying sparks of her chakra to heal as much of the soft tissue damage as she could.
“Sakura?” Kakashi said, sounding somewhat calmer. “Do you need me to take you to the hospital?”
The last dregs of her chakra clung to her coils with the kind of stubborn insistence that told her she was on the edge of actual chakra exhaustion. Grudgingly, Sakura nodded. She really didn’t want to go to the hospital, but was pretty certain that the swelling would make her unable to breathe again within the hour if she didn’t.
Kakashi turned around and knelt, indicating that she should get on his back. Sakura considered protesting, but didn’t on the basis that she wasn’t certain that she could actually speak (breathing was bad enough). Besides, friends probably did this kind of thing for each other all the time. That thought in mind, Sakura settled herself onto Kakashi’s back, feeling like she was made of elbows and knees.
He rose easily, with no indication that he even noticed her weight. “Do I need to hurry?” Kakashi asked her, adjusting his grip on her knees so that her legs hooked over his hips--bony hips, Sakura decided. She’d have to make sure he ate more.
Sakura shook her head and pointed at her bag insistently. It had Kakashi’s medical records in it, and it would be really awkward to have to tell Tsunade that she’d lost it already. Kakashi sighed and leaned down to grab it.
The change in angle made Sakura’s legs shift, and she wondered if she’d just brushed one of his nipples with her calf. Her face burnt bright red as soon as she’d realized what she’d thought, because holy crap, completely inappropriate thought. Even if, by the calculations Sakura couldn’t stop her brain from making, she totally had.
“Are you all right?” Kakashi asked anxiously, craning his head around to look at her. He must have felt the tension in her body or something. Awkward.
Sakura patted him on the shoulder and nodded adamantly, ignoring the angry stabbing pain in her throat. She gave him a thumbs up, and pointed in the direction of the hospital.
Kakashi slung her bag over his shoulder and started walking.
His hand reached into his belt pouch.
Sakura’s interest sparked.
Kakashi’s shoulders stiffened the tiniest bit, only noticeable because Sakura was literally pressed right against them. He slid his hand free from his belt pouch.
Sakura sighed in disappointment. Apparently Kakashi had realized that she’d be able to read over his shoulder really, really well.
“You could always get your own copies,” Kakashi suggested lightly, patting her knee in what Sakura suspected was fake sympathy.
Sakura sagged against his shoulder in a manner that she hoped would say ‘But I want yours’ and not ‘I can’t afford them.’
Birds started singing, deciding that they were safe now. The early evening sun cast thick yellow light across the spring grass, and long shadows from the trees. Kakashi ambled toward town at a comfortable pace that could have lured Sakura into sleep if her throat hadn’t been insanely painful. Stupid Lee.
“You did well,” he said abruptly.
Sakura froze in the middle of contemplating Kakashi’s hair (it was really spiky). “Mmm?” she managed to squeeze out of her damaged throat.
“You could have beaten him if you hadn’t pulled your hit with the tree,” he said. “And once it because a taijutsu match, you did very well, considering how much greater his reach is.”
Happiness wiggled in her chest like a giddy kitten. ‘Subtle!’ she reminded herself, holding in the happy squeaky noise she wanted to make. ‘Act like an adult!’
The forest opened up to the Konoha wall and the south gate. The smell of food wafted past and Sakura was suddenly very hungry (from the way Kakashi sniffed the breeze, he was too). “I am sorry that you lost?” he said, the tone of his voice turning it into a question.
‘Shit,’ Sakura thought, suddenly realizing that she might have to repeat the goldfish debacle. Though Kakashi would be there, so maybe it wouldn’t result in quite so many dead fish. Sakura still felt a bit guilty about that.
"But seriously. You did good."
Sakura beamed, licking the drying blood from the corners of her mouth. Happiness squirmed inside her.
