This was the funnest thing to write--even if I'm horrible at fight scenes and smut (if you can even call this smut. Don't worry, all you delicate people out there, it's very light.) So...notes. It's SasuSaku, in a very strange way, along with mentions of NaruHina. It's vague on how Sasuke killed Itachi and returned to Konoha, and I don't feel the need to specify. That's not the focus of this story. The battledance is (I don't really know where the title came from, it just did.) And let it begin.

---

“Sakura-chan, you want to prove to him how amazing you are, right?” Sakura smiles. It’s such a Naruto question: blunt, vague, and a little dumb. But her smile fades, because she knows exactly what he means. And it’s a question she’s been agonizing over for the past few days. Now, though, she has an answer.

“Before he left, I wasn’t worth anything, just someone to protect. But…” Her eyes are narrow, wavering, but she doesn’t cry. She won’t cry. “But now, because he left, I’m stronger. Maybe now, because he left, I’m worth something. Because now he’s back.” Naruto’s smile flashes from gaudy to sincere in an instant.

“Sakura (she knows he’s serious; he left off the “chan”), we brought him back. Together.” Before she realizes what’s happening, he’s thrown his arm across her shoulder and whispers in her ear. “You’re gonna kick his ass.” Then, with speed Naruto only reaches when he thinks Sakura might hit him, he runs away. He calls back over his shoulder. “I’ll be watching! I can’t wait to see it!” Sakura’s first reaction is to be angry.

“NARUTO!” Wait…don’t hit him this time. You never would have gotten this far without him. And besides, he doesn’t love you like that anymore. So she just smiles and calls after him, “I’ll look for you there!” She couldn’t have gotten this far without either of those boys. One of them knows it. She’s going to have to shove it into the other one’s face. Better hurry up…I want to get there before him. And she runs off towards the training area.

She arrives panting, but satisfied. Naruto is the only one there. He waves her over to sit next to him, and she smiles. As she walks over, he asks her, “So, got a plan?”

“Not even close. That’d be no fun.”

“Exactly. I never have a plan when I fight him either. Just try not to kill him.”

“I won’t.” They fall into companiable silence, waiting for the other two members of their team. Suddenly, a flash of silver and blue appears in front of them.

“Yo.” Sakura and Naruto nearly fall backwards onto the ground.

“Kakashi-sensei??!?!?” The both shout.

“You’re never on time!”

“Yeah, what’s the deal?” Kakashi smiles behind his mask. It takes a lot to shock his students these days.

“Every now and then I like to surprise people.”

“Surprise? You almost gave me a heart attack!” Sakura shouts, but she’s laughing. So is Naruto. Pretty soon, Kakashi joins in, and Sasuke arrives to see all three of them nearly rolling around on the floor.

“Ohayo, teme…hahahah…Kakashi-sensei…beat you today…hahhaha.” Sasuke looks at all of them like they’re crazy.

“Coming from you, I’d expect nothing less, idiot. But…what happened?” Sakura stops laughing. Her eyes widen. This is the first time she’s seen him conscious since he was trying to kill them. He notices, and smirks. She sneers at him in response. Kakashi stops laughing, and waves a hand in Sasuke’s direction.

“Nothing important. So…training?” Naruto and Sakura smile. Sasuke nods.

“Sasuke with Naruto, Sakura with me. Any questions?” He turns away. This is routine.

“I have a question, Kakashi-sensei.” Sakura says calmly. Kakashi turns around, surprised.

“Yes?”

“I’d like to sparr with Sasuke today.” Kakashi looks even more surprised, but understanding flashes through his eyes.

“That’s fine. Any objections?” Naruto grins broadly.

“None here! But I won’t go easy on you, sensei!” Kakashi ignores Naruto and turns to Sasuke. He stares at Sakura intently. Unafraid, she meets his gaze. His eyes widen only slightly.

“Try to make this interesting,” he tells her.

“Don’t worry. I will.”

And they take their stances.

From a few yards away, Kakashi and Naruto look at each other. “Are you going to begin, Naruto?”

“Not today. I want to watch this.” So many surprises, Kakashi muses. But I can’t say I blame him. I want to see this myself.

“Sakura, why do you do this to yourself?” His words are soft, but his smirk is as cruel as it always has been. “Everytime you hold out your hand, I slap it away. It’s never going to change. And this fight…” He starts making hand signs “…is already over.” He takes a deep breath. Sakura’s eyes widen. “Katon! Housenka!” Sakura dodges a flower-shaped fireball just in time. It hits the top of the tree behind her. She grabs the flaming tree and swings it at him.

What?! How the hell did she… He dodges the branch, but the flames lick his arm. Sakura twists her mouth into an angry smile.

“Words like that don’t scare me anymore, Sasuke,” she says, the “kun” conspicuouly absent. “And I thought it was the Uchiha clan that could control fire.” Now maybe he’ll fight seriously now.

Sasuke stopped. He gave her the iciest glare he could manage. “Sakura, if you weren’t a teammate, that would be your death sentence.” She shudders.

“Fight me seriously, Uchiha, and we’ll see if that’s an empty threat.” She was determined to push him too far.

“I thought you knew me, Sakura-chan. I don’t makeempty threats.”

And they abandon strategy and run at each other, kunais in hands. They clash. Sasuke throws a kick, Sakura throws a punch. They both run backwards. Neither uses ninjutsu, but are determined to show how their physical strength has changed.

It is a bizarre dance. Sasuke grabs Sakura’s wrist, and tries to throw her backwards, but she twists out of his grasp. He grabs her again, and pulls her to him, then starts to flip her over his shoulder. She holds onto his waist and refuses to move, lifting him off the ground with ease. Both of them are smiling, smiles that are both savage and gentle.

Ninja are strange creatures. Battle is their dance; jutsus are how they flirt. And that’s what this is. Savage, harsh, violent, dancing. Sasuke grabs Sakura’s hair, she reaches up and grabs his hand, holding it for a moment before swinging a deadly fist at him. He dodges without breaking his grip on her hair. She lashes out at him with her foot without letting go of his hand. There is a scent in the air that is heady, intoxicating.

As the two brush against each other once more, both feel each other’s hearts nearly beating out of their chests. Sakura is gasping for breath. Their heartbeats thrum harmony, the song providing backup to their harshly physical dance that is both war and embrace.

They move to the rapid beat, legs pumping, arms reaching, hands seizing, green and red eyes sweeping, sanity and calm lost to those violent touches. Now Sasuke is a little bit of Sakura and Sakura is a little bit of Sasuke and neither of them are themselves, but some other halves of people because the real Sasuke and Sakura would never feel, never touch like this. Their movements are rough, meant to scratch and bruise, but there is a certain grace to this strange fight.

He grabs her hip, and she thrusts her head into his stomach. His lips meet her hair as he bends over. She feels it, and pulls her head away. He hits the ground, and she roughly pulls him up.

She does not think. It seems her heart has beaten its way into her brain, eclipsing thought and simply making her act. So act she does, shoving him with a foot and grabbing his shoulders so that he flies into a tree. A single spot of his blood lands on her forehead and run down her nose and into her mouth. She does not lick it away, but runs at him, fist outstretched. Her chakra is low, but she has enough to hurt him.

The pain of impact his heart back down into his chest. He opens his eyes to see Sakura running at him with a fist. His reason hasn’t returned, but by instinct, he activates Chidori across his entire body. It is not very strong: his chakra is weak, but she flies backwards, rolling through the fire and landing with her back flat against a tree a few yards away from her. He runs to her. A stream of her blood lands on his pale forehead, and runs across his nose, mouth, neck, and down his shirt. He feels the warm trickle right over his fast-beating heart. Savoring the feeling of winning this dance of battle, he slowly draws a kunai out of his holster and flashes it across her her skin at the start of the trickle of his blood, so her blood is added to that river. He returns the kunai to his pouch.

“I won.” He is gasping for breath, his heart is still unsteady, and that is all he can manage to say. He coughs slightly, his mouth finally working after so long of speaking with his body.

He watches her lie there limply, pink hair flopping into her bloody, dirty, bruised face, one green eye diluting the blood with a solitary tear as it closes. This is a moment that will stay captured in his memory along with the day he killed Itachi and the day he returned to Konoha. This is the moment when Sasuke found beauty.

No, Sakura, don’t you dare go unconscious. You can not lose this fight. So as Sasuke is about to turn away, Sakura forces her eyes open and brings her bloody head up, crashing her lips into his. It is an accident, but they both freeze for a moment, bodies touching in a collision of a kiss that is awkward and beautiful and tastes of blood.

Sasuke didn’t think his shock could increase, but when she punched him, it did.

She watches him fly, dark hair swinging around his face, red eyes closing, pale face screwed into an expression of pain. This is a moment that will stay captured in her memory along with the day she cut her hair and the day he returned to Konoha. This is the moment when Sakura found beauty.

Damn…She’s strong.

He hits a tree for the second time. A black flower of pain erupts in his head, and the last thing he sees before black is that image of Sakura.

---

Kakashi looks at Naruto to see his reaction. The blonde made his feeling pretty transparent. But Naruto is smiling.

"About time the idiot admitted his feelings. If I were Sakura-chan, I would have given up already." Kakashi smiles too.

"No, Naruto. You never gave up on Sasuke either!" Naruto ponders this for a second.

"Ewww, sensei, you perv! I don't like Sasuke like that; I'm going out with Hinata!" Kakashi's eyes widen. More and more suprises.

"Naruto, that's not what I meant..."

"Shhhh! I want to see what happens next!"

---

Sakura runs to him. She has almost no chakra left, but giving up everything for him has almost become habit. She presses her hands to his stomach, a channel of green energy gently illuminating their faces, hers in concentration, his in a rare expression of peace. Come on, you didn’t hurt him that badly, even you should be able to heal this. She smiles

Sasuke, half-conscious, feels the flower curl up and wither. He opens his eyes a tiny bit, and sees Sakura’s hands on his chest, green chakra flowing into him, her eyes shut in concentration, and her mouth set in a grim line of focus, an expression that doesn’t suit her. He hears her voice, soft, gentle, but confident.

“A ninja never, ever underestimates his enemy.”

So this time it is intentional—when Sakura’s arms fall to the side, and she looks about to collpase, Sasuke bring his mouth to hers and snakes his arms around her. Because she waited for him, and because she beat him, and because he’s already killed Itachi and needs something to live for. Because he loves her.

Sakura is half-conscious, but Sasuke’s lips carry an electric current passes through both of their bodies, making them a circuit of connected mouths and limbs. Oh yes, that woke her up. As Sasuke pulls her closer, his mouth opens on hers. Without breaking the kiss, he tells her one last thing before their heartbeats take over and they lose reason again.

“Then it’s a good thing we’re not enemies, Sakura.”