Chapter 127

Sakura's chakra signature leapt suddenly upwards as her father's signature lunged towards her, giving a shout of alarm at the sudden offensive attack. The fight had Sasuke momentarily distracted as he felt Sakura's chakra signature slip and move—warping. She must have focused the chakra in her feet in order to launch herself high in the air so suddenly. The curiosity over, Sasuke turned his attention back to his thoughts; the thought of Itachi's room being part of the house again was disquieting for him because it brought part of his brother back to the household itself. He didn't want that presence there; it could only bode ill for him. It was because of that mental barrier, the fear of Itachi's presence in the household, that his alarm increased rapidly when he had detected Sakura in that room. The dream had made both the threat and the presence very real.

She shouldn't have scared him like that, he thought fiercely in his mind—he truly thought for a while that she actually could have been dead. He wasn't going to deny it, he had been sincerely afraid for her life; she didn't understand the extent to which he had been worried for her. What frustrated him was that she couldn't understand—she couldn't begin to grasp what he had seen.

The spar in the yard suddenly caught his attention as he felt Sakura's father focusing his chakra and melding it. Her father was a jounin, wasn't he? Sasuke frowned outwardly—the power to which that chakra was being focused, it was dangerous. Listening carefully, he tried to gain some idea to how Sakura was doing in the fight. Heavy breathing met his ears—she was exhausted, he realized; what if she couldn't avoid her father's attack? She could be seriously hurt.

It was as her father was launching his attack that he almost got up to intervene, but at the last possible second, Sakura's chakra did something else that was strange. It had warped again, focusing in a different part of her body; he could sense that it was focused in her arms from the rough form it had taken, and she was holding it up in front of her. Her father's attack shoved her back a little, but otherwise did nothing. Sasuke relaxed in surprised, he hadn't been expecting Sakura to be able to hold her own against an ANBU.

At least he didn't have to intervene, he noted grimly; he had had no idea what he was going to do if he had jumped up to get in the way, but it had been a reflexive thing. Vaguely he was remembered of his late-night pledge when he stumbled in to find her sleeping. That protective nature—it was something he had always possessed, especially since there was the risk that everything could all be taken away again.

There was a loud shout from Sakura as her father apparently landed a perfect hit on his daughter. Sakura's chakra signature soared backwards a good distance, and landed on the lawn with a painful-sounding thud. Alarm struck him as he detected her chakra signature wavering, fading slightly, bordering on unconscious. Hold her own against an ANBU?! Sasuke demanded angrily to himself, as he found himself leaping to his feet. She was just a chuunin, how could he have been so stupid to assume that?!

Dashing over to where she lay, he cursed himself for getting the least bit distracted. He should have been paying more attention to the fight, he should have realized that there was something off about the proposition to spar with Sakura, what it was, he didn't know, he didn't care.

He knelt down next to her, his anger growing by the minute, but it was not aimed at Sakura, but at her father. "Sakura, are you alright?" he asked her hurriedly, feeling around in the grass for her hand.

His fingers met hers as she reached out weakly towards him; she sounded somewhat dazed when she replied. "Dumb question," she told him, "But I will be, even if I'm not now."

About to whirl on Sakura's father to demand what the hell he was doing, he found himself interrupted before he even began to speak.

"Sakura, I have to say I'm a little disappointed," her father said with what sounded like a disapproving tone, "You've fallen in skill, my dear. Haven't you been practicing?"

"She hasn't had time to practice," Sasuke found himself spitting out angrily at her father, before he could stop himself from speaking.

"That's what I was afraid of," was the cool reply, and Sasuke found his suspicions rising, "You've become weaker Sakura. You've been spent too much time waiting hand and foot on this boy when you should be spending time on your own studies."

So that's what it was—a test; this was no spar, it was so that her father could find a way to test her abilities discreetly without any reservations. About to lash back a very obscenity-laced, less than polite retort, Sasuke stopped short when Sakura squeezed his hand, and sat up. A frown crossed his face as she laid a hand on her stomach, most likely where she had been hit; the only way he could tell was because her chakra was now being focused discreetly in that hand, the same kind of chakra she used to heal wounds—he knew it well. Her father had hurt her rather badly, yet she was trying to mask it to make it appear like the attack hadn't hurt her at all.

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