Lightning Field

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When you moved you moved me
When you move you move me
Move!
"nothing comes from nothing" must mean something in the end
To justify the means,
I mean to break you,
Need to hate you,
Need to take this back,
But taking is just forgiving if you're at the other end
I won't pretend to know your feelings
I could never break the chain
I command you to move
-Hurt "Ten Ton Brick"


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Chapter 4: So Much For Underneath the Underneath

The second time Kakashi and Sakura had been together was after she had made ANBU. Kakashi wouldn't have even known had Naruto not grabbed him on the street and dragged him to the dancehall for her celebration. His avoidance of the roseate was understandable; they had committed the one atrocity and teacher and student never should, in his opinion. Therefore, when Naruto had almost passed him by, shooting a hand out at the last minute to grip his sleeve, Kakashi's muscles tensed like coils. He only prayed Naruto wouldn't go demon on the whole village in his quest to kick Kakashi's ass.

"Sakura did it!" Naruto damn near yelled in his ear. He cringed and wiggled his pinky in his ear canal, grumbling in ire. Even now, at nearly 20 years old, Naruto felt the need to yell about everything.

With a measured breath, Kakashi leveled his gaze at Naruto to keep from killing him or further exciting him. "Sakura did what?" Unfortunately, for the Copy Ninja, even his mere mentioning of his former student's name caused Naruto to bounce up and down like an excited puppy. Placing both hands together in a series of seals, too fast for the naked eye to see, Kakashi then placed a palm on the ground sucking the Kyuubi's human counterpart about waist-deep into the earth.

"Mou… Kaka-sensei! Let me out! What the hell?" Naruto's cries of indignation were beginning to attract attention. Kakashi simply did what he always did in these situations; he pulled out his book, and had a seat… on Naruto's head.

"When you can learn to quiet down, you will be released," The elite said simply.

After the initial shock wore off, and Naruto ceased flailing wildly at the Copy Ninja's legs, Kakashi finally received Naruto's news; Sakura had joined ANBU. Passed all the tests with flying colors, even. The last person to ace all the tests had been him, nearly twenty years ago. His one eye rolled up to the sky, annoyed.

'Really? I sleep with a girl, go through all the trouble of avoiding her, and now I find out she's just as smart as I am, and probably just as tricky. You make her perfect for me, except she's my former student.' He mentally shook his fist in the general direction of the sky.

"Dattebayo! We're all at the dancehall down the street having a party for her! I think," he began in a stage whisper, "she's going to get hammered tonight." Still attached to the ground at the waist, he rubbed his hands together. "Maybe I could get a kiss!" His excitement turned to pain when Kakashi's fist landed on his head, after the older ninja stood. "OW! What was that for?"

"Aren't you with the Hyuuga girl?" Kakashi asked, deadpanned. He couldn't explain why he pounded Naruto's head; his fist seemed to move of its own accord. Squatting down to be eye-level with the blond, he patted his head. "Don't worry; I'm sure her father won't castrate you for breaking her heart. He'll probably just seal you… or cut off all your chakra points… or-"

"I get it! I get it! No kisses from Sakura!" His hands covered his eyes as he envisioned the various punishments the Hyuuga leader would enact on him. Another thought came to mind, one, apparently to Kakashi, that made Naruto's eyes glint red for just a moment. "If I don't get Sakura Kisses, who will?"

With that, unnoticed to the blond man still stuck in the ground, Kakashi's eye widened, and he scratched the back of his head. "Heh, well, I might as well go and protect the poor girl." He began to walk off, leaving Naruto stuck in the middle of the walkway.

Amidst Naruto's cries of, "Kaka-sensei! BAKA! Get back here, I'll bite your kneecaps off! KAKASHI!" Kakashi realized, even with his avoidance of both the issue of sleeping with Sakura and Sakura herself, he had still been caught in a feeling of possession and protectiveness for the pink-haired now-ANBU.

He made his way to the dancehall with purpose, surprising many people on the street. As he entered the door, with a bit more gusto than necessary, his breath was taken away. As if in slow motion, Sakura turned to look at the door. She had been laughing at something the Inuzuka had been saying, and her eyes were still full of mirth. Her hair had grown in the past few months and sat in a loose plait. Tendrils had fallen free and were swinging about her neck, tickling like little fingers. His reverie was short-lived, however. When she caught sight of him, her eyes darkened, her mouth tightened, and she looked away.

'Well, shit,' he thought. Yep, she was mad at him. It had never occurred to him that she might actually be angry at his avoidance. Whether it was because he had deluded herself into becoming attached to him, or simply because she was angry at the situation itself, when Sakura was angry, the other person involved would be miserable.

Over the course of the afternoon and into the evening, she drank, laughed, and danced. Not that he'd noticed. As the night wore on, she had gotten looser limbed and pink-faced. It was about the time she had begun her fifth dance with Kiba that Kakashi had decided to cut in. "I want to give her a dance as congratulation."

"My ass," Sakura snorted underneath her breath. She nodded to Kiba and allowed Kakashi to place his hand in hers and the other around her waist. Her eyes were gazing over her shoulder, and her entire frame was tense. "I didn't know you could dance," she began after a few moments.

"I didn't know you wanted to be ANBU," he replied, equally cold and to the point. Her viridian eyes snapped to his face in a simmering glare.

"There are many things you don't know about me," she snapped back. His mind filled in a few of the blanks, such as the way she now fit nicely into his arms, and how the curve of her back led smoothly to the deliciously supple ass she now had.

"Yep, you're not that little girl anymore." She smiled faintly and nodded. He found himself wanting to get at the root of the issue. He knew why she had joined, but getting her to admit it would be like pulling teeth. He had to be smooth. "But some parts of the old Sakura still remain. Like your motivation," his dry remark made her look up at him questioningly.

"What do you mean? It wasn't a hard decision to make. The tests were a bit challenging, but I remembered the theories we had learned as genin, and the practices you had taught us, er, sort of…"

"Well, and the fact that I'm ANBU makes the whole dream. I'm really surprised you went for it though. I'm not really into clingy girls." That moment was when Kakashi realized he should have kept his trap shut. Her entire demeanor, which had relaxed over the course of their conversation, changed. Her body tensed up again, her eyes dulled as she fought her rising anger.

"Clingy girls?" she repeated.

"Well, yeah," he replied. "Isn't that a terrible reason to join the corps?" As soon as the last words left his mouth, his head snapped sideways painfully. He rubbed his jaw after popping it back in place. "Damn, Sakura that hurt!"

"You, Hatake Kakashi, are a fucking moron." He took stock of her balled fists, ready to defend him against any more angry girl attacks. With any luck, she'd forget her shinobi training and simply start slapping wildly. "You really think I'd join ANBU just to chase ass?" She shook her head, and stormed off.

Although Kakashi was considered a genius in some circles, among Sakura's friends and colleagues, he was just another idiotic guy. He spent the remainder of the next hour trying to find her signature pink hair, and finally gave up when Ino informed him he was an imbecile, and Sakura had gone home. He had to weigh his options now. Did he want Sakura to stay mad at him, or did he want to possibly reconcile a volatile relationship with his only female former student? Deciding the second option required less violence directed toward him, he too left the dancehall.


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The walk to Sakura's apartment was not only reminiscent of their first tryst, but also a bit frightening, as petite fist-shaped craters had magically appeared in the side of a few buildings. He had tried to send a bunshin to deal with her, to keep himself from experiencing any physical pain (and, let's face it, to get home and to bed), but she seemed to know it was a clone.

"If he wants to talk, tell him to grow a pair," she had said, before violently dispelling the bunshin.

So there he stood, hand hovering before her door in an awkward angle, curious as to whether he should knock. His fist never landed on the door. As it turned out, when she opened the door clad in boy shorts and a tank top, the route to reconciliation lay in copious amounts of hot, dirty sex, after which Kakashi felt both terrible and terribly awesome.

In addition, in the five months that followed, the situation only became exacerbated as Sakura and Kakashi were paired on more ANBU missions.