Naruto: Blind

As he approached the first tripwire, Sakura sat down at a base of a tree, watching his behaviour. Each footfall was placed with care, and as his leg brushed the first of the wires, he abruptly took a step backwards. That was close, she mused; the pressure on the line had bordered on setting the trap off. He kneeled and reached out carefully, his hands grasping the wire with care. He ran his fingers along the thin metal and after a moment, stood up again, taking a step over it.

'Not bad,' she smiled, but it was far from over.

The next few traps proved to be easy finds as he crawled over and under each one without difficulty, however, as he stepped out over the first pitfall she had quickly dug— using the techniques she had learned with Tsunade—Sasuke ran into a little difficulty. He had put his foot down on the earth and felt it give a little under his weight; removing his foot and putting it back on solid ground, he stood motionless for a moment, pondering the dilemma. Sakura gave a small smile, Inner Sakura smirking broadly; the pitfalls weren't deep, only a foot, but Sasuke didn't know that. Of course he could rule them out as being dangerously deep, because she hadn't spent that much time with the traps, however the unknown depth could still cause injury. Also, the goal of this exercise was to avoid setting off any of the traps, so it would be better if he didn't set it off at all.

He also faced a problem with how long and wide the hole was, and what shape it was in. For all he knew he could be standing in the middle of a horseshoe-shaped hole, where there was a pitfall on all sides except the way he had come from. It could be a foot across and he could just step over it, or it could be very narrow and he could walk around it. He took an experimental step to the left and when satisfied that the earth wouldn't give way, moved to that position.

Sakura stretched luxuriously and leaned back against the tree. It would take the rest of the afternoon at this rate. She hoped it wouldn't take too long—she wanted to get that genjutsu experiment done. Closing her eyes, she rested a little; when she had blocked his blows that morning, he had drained her chakra when she focused it in certain spots so that he wouldn't break her bones—she was tired, even though she didn't want to admit it. Sasuke would bother her about it if she let it show, saying that she shouldn't worry about him, and should get a decent night's sleep. Inner Sakura snarled at the very thought, the hell she was going to let him suffer those nightmares.

A sharp snap and a twang caused her to jump alert again as Sasuke set off one of the traps. She opened her eyes just in time to see a small bag she had filled with dirt, whack him in the back, knocking him forwards. Inner Sakura smirked as Sasuke landed on top of one of the pitfalls, promptly falling into the foot-deep hole. He had bypassed about ten of the thirty traps she put up, and had only set of two. He was doing well, she noted before closing her eyes again, ignoring Sasuke's colourful language.

"Sakura."

It took only a moment for her drowsy brain to register that she was being called. Jumping alert, she looked about wildly, trying to figure out where she was. Where were the medics? What was the situation? Was someone dying? Those were questions that automatically flitted across her mind as she was instantly awake. But the fumes of hospital disinfectants didn't meet her nose, nor were there the white painted hallways illuminated with that terrible fluorescent lighting.

Her body had become tense and ready to spring, but as she remembered where she was, she relaxed slightly, looking over at Sasuke, who was kneeling down next to her. She felt guilty; she had fallen asleep. Inner Sakura was introducing her forehead to a wall.

"You fell asleep," Sasuke told her needlessly, and Sakura blushed furiously.

"Sorry… I just…" her voice faded away, having no idea what to say.

A frown descended on his brow and she quickly stood up, trying to avoid what was coming.

"You're not getting enough sleep," he told her firmly, and she halted in her path, facing him defiantly.

"It doesn't matter," she told him, equally as firm, "Don't worry about me."

He grumbled incoherently, but otherwise made no other comment. Satisfied that using his own words against him had effectively silenced him, she turned away from him and surveyed the sight. As she had expected, a number of the last few traps had been set off, as she had made them for difficult; she noted with satisfaction that he had at least made it past half of the traps without setting them off.

"You did well," she said honestly, his silence unnerving her. When he made no response, she looked up at the sky; around four o'clock, she guessed, "How long did you let me sleep?"

"As long as it took me to find you," he replied, taking a few steps towards her, coming up beside her, his hands in his pockets.

"Then it took you an hour to get across," she stated, a small frown of displeasure crossing her face, "Much too slow. Well, forget about it for now—it's growing later in the day. I want to try that genjutsu on you."

"What did you have in mind?" he asked her, and she barely caught the tone of uncertainty in his voice.

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