Redemption |complete| (SasuSaku)

The Breaking Point

His eyes twitched what does she think? That I am not good enough to train with her? I could beat her in seconds if I wanted to. His ego being hurt he found the energy to lift his body off the ground and face her. He dried his sweat off his face with his dirty sleeve.

His hand then gravitated towards his pouch and before the pinkette realised he threw a kunai at her. She barely avoided it and turned an angry look at Sasuke. For the first time since he had came back she looked at him and finally realised what had changed in her. It was the look on her face... a dark and cold look. It was a look he knew very well because he used to have it himself. He brushed it off and simply said:

"You heard Naruto, it's just you and me now."

"Very well, I won't hold back."

"If you want to hit me at least once, you shouldn't."

Her eyes became thinner as she looked at him in disbelief and anger. He grinned: at least she was paying attention now.

Naruto mumbled something as he sat down. Sasuke knew that his friend was well able to fight Sakura even tired like they were. He had fought during the Great War for days and still managed to fight him with all the strength he had so it wasn't a small training session without using Ninjutsu that would drain him. He had no idea why Naruto decided not to participate. He was probably sick of being punched by her which was understandable. Sasuke didn't really get the opportunity to see her fight but he imagined that she couldn't be this big of a threat.

He ran his finger through his hair as Sakura walked towards him her fist ready to punch. He knew she couldn't beat him but he wasn't an idiot either and preferred to be safe than sorry.

He jumped in the air moving above her and got out his kunai with a metal string. As soon as he was about to attack, it hit him: he had tried to kill her before, he couldn't do that again. He didn't want to do that again. For some unknown reason he didn't want to physically hurt her anymore. Fighting Naruto was one thing, fighting her was another.

He put his weapon back in the pouch and landed gracefully behind her as her eyes opened widely. She turned around quickly.

"What are you doing? You could've hit me!"

"This is ridiculous, I am not going to fight you."

He could see that the sudden change confused her for a second. She jumped towards him.

"That didn't seem to be a problem when you tried to kill me!" she spat.

He jumped away avoiding her punch. Her weight made her loose her balance but she stabilised herself quickly and started at him. He understood exactly what she wanted, she wanted him to fight her, no, she needed him to fight her.

To his surprise he barely managed to escape that new punch aimed at his face. Her fist landed on the floor and the earth crumbled under it. He used the opportunity to hide behind a huge piece of dirt that fell a bit away. "What the hell was this?" he whispered to himself. "I saw her fight during the war but she never showed this much strength... a punch from her could leave me with broken bones. I need to be more careful especially since I don't want to fight her back."

"Hiding won't make you avoid that fight. You don't have a choice, fight me."

He could hear the anger in her voice. A loud noise rang in his right ear and before he had time to turn his head he saw a tree flying passed him. It landed loudly making dust flying everywhere. Suddenly the earth started trembling again and he jumped out of where he was hidden. He saw her smiling.