Confrontation - 3

Kakashi looked up from his book with a lazy eye. His team's raucous during their training was distracting him from his reading, "Keep it down you guys, you're getting a bit rowdy…"

They didn't hear him.

Kiba lunged in unison with Akamaru with claws outstretched. Sasuke disappeared a moment before they could strike. His rapidly increasing speed put his teammates to shame, so Kakashi had them gang up on him to try their luck. Even if they were noisy as hell, he was surprised at how fervently both Sakura and Kiba had kept up with the Uchiha.

Sakura was on him once he reappeared, flinging kunai at him with a cry. Kakashi chuckled to himself at the sight of her; she had a spark in her recently that was definitely going to keep her male counterparts on their toes.

"I'm out!" Kiba groaned, Akamaru whimpering beside him, "We haven't even breaked for lunch yet, so I'm getting something to eat!"

He and his dog limped to the side of the field where Kakashi was spread out and helped themselves to a bento. Sakura and Sasuke, however, were not as tired.

Sakura dove away from the Uchiha's fierce strikes, surprisingly nimble, and predicted his next course of action faultlessly. She mimicked his hand seals, countering his Grand Fireball Jutsu with one of her own and then leapt away again.

"Well isn't that something?" Kakashi spoke sidelong to the Inuzuka boy, "Sakura certainly is a bit livelier than you today, Kiba-kun. Perhaps you're losing your edge?"

"Feh! No way sensei!" Kiba grinned, still chewing, and Akamaru bayed from atop his head in agreement, "They just don't know when to take it easy."

"Maybe you're right…" Kakashi muttered, going back to his reading. Kiba did make a good point. While it was productive to train like this, it was taxing. Their health would surely be much poorer than Kiba's at this rate.

Again, the two remaining genin of Team Seven attacked each other in unison, "Katon: Hosenka no Jutsu!"

Fireballs rained down, one of which sailed dangerously fast towards Kakashi, who leapt out of the way just a fraction before he may have been scorched. Kiba yowled at Sasuke for his poor aim. Kakashi settled behind him, wiping the sweat off his brow, "That…was a bit too close. I didn't know Sasuke has been teaching Sakura so many fire jutsu."

"Yeah, well, she knows just about all of them now," Kiba grunted, annoyed, "You'd think he'd find something else to do with his spare time."

"Well, since she learns them so quickly I see no real harm in it." Kakashi opened his naughty book again, "Not yet, at least."

Kiba snorted and went back to his lunch. It was unusual how close the egotistical prodigy actually was to Sakura, Kiba noted, not understanding it. If anything, he'd be less inclined to train with a girl, but as Kakashi had said, she had a certain charisma these days that was more than noticeable.

The Inuzuka boy could easily see the liking Sasuke had taken to her and he was troubled by it. Sasuke was consistently unpredictable and had a habit of causing problems for his team. It may have seemed a harmless thing at the time, but Kiba felt the future could turn things sour if the affections persisted.

Sakura jumped up onto a high branch, her brain scrambling, 'I'm nearly out of chakra and he's only getting faster…if I can just-!'

She leapt a fraction too soon, startled when Sasuke appeared in front of her. She lost her footing and tumbled down, crashing through leaves and twigs as he soared up above, still fighting-fit.

Sakura glued herself to the tree trunk with some chakra before she had nearly slammed into the ground. Of course, Sasuke had already been there, prepared to grab her if she failed to catch herself.

Although, her relief did wilt after she noted the kunai a few inches from her neck. Sakura scowled at Sasuke's amused face, one slip-up and he could make a mockery of her.

"I win." He said playfully, holding the knife out to her, "This is yours, actually."

"Yeah, I dropped it somewhere near your head!" She recalled as she took it from him, still miffed by her defeat.

It only widened his smirk and eventually she gave in, grinning broadly, "Whatever…I got pretty good though, right? Almost as good as any Uchiha when it comes to fire jutsu!"

He stared at her for a long moment, thinking, and then said, "Better than most I've seen. That's enough now, let's eat."

She followed after him, gently rubbing her hands that had been scraped by the rough tree bark during her fall, 'Better than most he's seen? Well then, he hasn't seen much…' Sakura frowned inwardly at the thought, 'He was little when his clan was murdered, I shouldn't be thinking like that…besides, he's proud of me! I'm getting better.'

Sakura looked over to Kakashi who was laughing quietly to himself. She had a feeling it had something to do with her, but decided to disregard it. She was hungry and Kakashi could keep his humor to himself.

*

"Lady, I dropped off two rolls of film and these pictures are of some kid's birthday party!" Sato was fed up with the incompetent pharmacist he had been trusting his prized photos to, "It's under Hatake! Can't you do anything right you lousy hag?"

The wrinkled woman had a very dull look on her face, as if she hadn't even heard his blatant insult. She accepted the pictures back from him and trudged back into the storeroom without a word.

"Jeez, I should just develop my own stuff…I can't believe I'm paying for this shit!" Sato still couldn't stop his ranting as he paced in front of the counter.

He had things to do. He had to train so he wouldn't die in his upcoming match. He had to get the hell away from this stupid woman!

The silver haired nin hushed abruptly after noticing someone approach. He turned about to see Haku giving him a concerned look.

Sato sighed in relief, "Oh, it's just you. I thought you were Shino for a second!"

"Why would you be afraid of Shino?" Haku asked, blinking, "He's your friend isn't he?"

"Sure he is," Sato shrugged, "Even if I take into account that we've been training non-stop for weeks on end, and I've never been beaten so badly in my entire life!"

Haku offered him a sympathetic look, but he hadn't exactly come here with the intentions of shouldering Sato's woes, so he got straight to the point, "I came here to ask you if you could help me track down a specific water-jutsu scroll that you may have come across."

"Eh?" Sato, who had been leaning on a shelf of various allergy-relief products, gave him an inquisitive look; "You could just ask Naruto or Gaara to help you with that, Haku-kun."

"It's better that they don't know about this." Haku said quietly after a long moment, lowering his dark eyes.

Sato regarded him for a moment silently. Something was up. Haku always chose Naruto and Gaara to aid him in his expeditions. If suddenly there was something interfering with that unmitigated postulate-of-life, then it was better, he supposed, if he didn't ask.

"You're right about one thing: there's a storeroom in the archives of the Hokage's tower that has some nice scrolls like that," Sato admitted, looking smug, "The security was low enough for a no-good thief like me to get past when I…" He paused, frowning, "Yeah, well…that's none of your business is it?"

Haku smiled wearily in response.

"So what's in it for me?" Sato asked, wanting some sort of collateral before risking his neck again in the name of new jutsu that were not-so-legally acquired.

"You have a promise of a dozen boxes of pocky, if all goes well…" Haku told him. It sounded strange when he had said it. Pocky wasn't much of a payment at all, but he knew it would be enough for the sweet-toothed Hatake.

Sato agreed instantly, "We better go quick if we're gonna steal anything by noon."

He lost his train of thought when the incompetent employee returned with a new set of developed pictures, which Sato immediately scrutinized and was yet again dissatisfied.

"Goddamn it!" Sato threw the pictures back behind the counter at the woman and started off on another rant that even Haku would be unable to interrupt.