It was a dance.
An odd dance, yes, and Haruno Sakura would be the first to agree to that, but a dance nonetheless. A dance to the music of shuriken speeding past, of the metallic clash of steel on steel as kunais slid against each other, to the sound of grunts and dull thuds as fists and feet met forearms, a dance to the sound of the satisfying crack of contact. It was a dance whose rythym was marked by the panting breaths they took, the shuffles of their feet on the ground and taps of the same body part on the trees, to the beat of the blood pumping furiously in their veins. It was a dance that drew the thin line between quick thinking and stupidity, between pride and insanity.
And Sakura was realizing that she must have been both extremely prideful and extremely stupid to accept Sai's challenge.
It had started out normally, the two walking with Naruto after an easy B-rank mission to Ichiraku for a bowl of ramen. Naruto had commented rather rudely about Sakura's monstrous strength, resulting in the inevitable eye-twitch and fist-clench, and then had followed this (obviously, he felt like living dangerously) with a remark about how cute she looked when she was angry. Laughing, he'd run away frantically as Sakura chased him, roaring that she'd tell Hinata and pound him into a bloody pulp for good measure. After giving him a sound thrashing, she appeared with him in tow, dragging him along by the ear. Sai had clucked and shaken his head and sighed.
"You know," he'd said as they sat down, "the dickless wonder is incredibly stupid."
"See?" Sakura exclaimed, happy to have found someone to agree with. "Even Sai agrees with me, Naruto. I mean-"
"You're really not pretty at all, happy or mad," Sai had finished, eating tidily.
Sakura had frozen dangerously. "Nani?" she asked, turning around, narrowing her jade-green eyes. "What was that, Sai?"
Naruto had been shaking his head frantically from behind her, moving his hands in a horizontal motion to tell Sai to shut up while he could still use his mouth.
The artist-nin had smiled emotionlessly at his pink-haired teammate. "You need a hearing aid, Ugly? I said you could never be pretty."
"That's what I thought you said," Sakura had snarled, cracking her knuckles.
He eyed her with the dull disinterest that made her want to throttle him. "You think you can beat me, Hag?"
"I know I can, Sai."
He had smirked in a manner not unlike Sasuke, eerily enough, and had finished his noodles in a last gulp, standing and putting money on the counter. "Well, then, Ugly, let's meet tomorrow at seven at the northeast clearing. We'll see about that then."
Slightly taken aback, her mouth had fallen open slightly, and she was staring at him. Recovering quickly, she had shaken her fist at him huffily. "Fine! I'll be there, Sai, and I'll beat you worse than Naruto!"
Needless to say, her beat-Sai-into-nothing-but-a-hitai-ate-and-set-of-clothing was being delayed, mostly because of the artist himself.
He just wouldn't stand still.
"Sai, come on! Get back here and take it like a man!" She cried into the trees, exasperated.
"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you, Ugly?" he taunted, jumping from tree to tree.
Growling, she withdrew a handful of shuriken and threw, the projectiles missing him by a mile.
"Wow, so you're ugly and have bad aim," he murmured, just loud enough for her to hear, tilting his head in a fake smile.
She smirked and moved her hands back, as if pulling something. The shuriken that had gone past him came back and twisted around him, tying him to a tree.
