🌸The Journey🌸

Day 6

The next day, late in the evening, the couple arrived in the Hidden Sound Village a lot more cautious than their last experience in the Hot Water Village.

"Stay on alert." Sasuke moved his hand over the scar on his side, "damn, she hit me in the same spot as my first scar..."

"It'll be okay, Sasuke." Sakura clenched her fist and grinned, "I can take 'em."

"Yeah, don't be too over-confident. That's a weakness." He smirked as he carefully scanned the faces of the people passing them, "we should take a break."

"Sure. There's a teahouse over here." Sakura pointed nearby to a small tea house, "I don't think we should stay in the village overnight. There are too many unidentifiable people here..."

"Uh-huh. We can't even sleep with both eyes closed anymore... What a pain."

The two of them sat down at a table in the small teahouse and placed their orders.

"So you know where the Akatsuki's hideout is?"

"Mhm." Sasuke pulled out a weathered sheet of paper, "I snatched this from Orochimaru's desk. He's probably just now noticing that it's disappeared."

"You're pretty slick, Sasuke."

He only rose a brow and smirked, "I haven't changed that much in a year or two."

"Oh trust me, you have. And so have I." She countered.

"Is that a challenge, Ms. Haruno?"

Sakura stood up with a scoff, "that's Mrs. Uchiha, to you. And maybe it is. You really wanna find out?"

Sasuke smiled a suggestive smile, "Maybe?"

______________

"It really has been a while. Come to think of it, we've never really sparred like this, have we?" Sakura pulled on the edges of her gloves about an hour later as she stood across from her husband in an open field, not too far out of the Hidden Sound Village.

"No, I guess we haven't." Sasuke tapped his chin and thought for a moment, "but that only makes this more thrilling for you, doesn't it?"

"Eh. I'm not that same obsessed fangirl I was in the Academy." Sakura smirked.

"Heh. You obviously aren't." Sasuke sighed mockingly, "I guess flirting and wooing isn't going to get me out of this one, will it?"

She only laughed in response, "It'll just make you look like a vulnerable fool, so go ahead."

"My pleasure."

Within a second, Sasuke had disappeared then reappeared right behind her. He grabbed her waist and held her up to his body.

"Hey! Let me go!" Sakura yelled as she tried to release his firm grip on her.

His voice got low and husky as he whispered in her ear, "You gotta beg."

She annoyingly rolled her eyes, "You are such a perv." She grabbed for a kunai, and the sudden quickness in her actions surprised him and loosened his grip, allowing for her release, "so that's one thing that's definitely changed about you. I never thought you could be so interested in that stuff."

"Well, I'll have you know that that marriage guidebook isn't the only book Kakashi lent to me." Sasuke smirked suggestively.

Kakashi-Sensei, that son of a... Sakura swore under her breath as she wiped some sweat from her forehead, "perv. You're all pervs now, I swear."

"Hn." Sasuke withdrew his katana, "I'm not to Kakashi's or Naruto's levels yet, don't worry."

The two fought for what felt like hours until Sakura sent an earthquake underneath her to get Sasuke out from underground, performing the same trick Kakashi had once used on him. He reappeared laying on the ground more dusty and exhausted not too far from her, and she took advantage of his worn out state to jump on top of him with one leg on each side of him and hold her chakra-charged fingertips at his throat, "you're cornered."