A love to Remember

a love to remember (part three)

“As you know, we have a yearly festival in order to celebrate our alliance with the Sand. The whole village participates. There are many stalls, similar to those in Tanzaku Town, a big, formal dance, and a special attraction each year. The Hokage has the privilege to decide on the latter, and Tsunade-sama has come up with an interesting idea.”


Naruto seemed excited, but he was always like that. Sakura was lost in thought, without a doubt about her and Sasuke at the dance, and Uchiha had the same cold expression as ever. I wonder what is going through his mind right now…


‘Snap out of it Mia. Don’t allow such silly thoughts to cross your mind!’ my psyche reminded me.


“This year we are going to have a Battle Royale, clash between the jounins and genins.”


Now he even had my attention.


“It is an open tournament with an interesting prize at stake. The winner can enforce a new decree on Konoha.”


“How do we win?” Naruto was first to react.


“Hold out your hand,” Kakashi ordered as an answer. We did as we were told and he placed a single, long, blue crystal upon our outstretched palms.


“You win with those. All the genin have blue crystals, us jounin have red crystals. The blue ones are worth one point each, and the red ones are 5 points. These will be wagered in battles, and the ninja with the most points at the end of the week, wins. Simple enough?”


I nodded in reply. So did the others.


“All right! Come on Sensei! Get ready for a match! You and me, right now!” the hyper Naruto yelled.


“No, Naruto,”


“You are just afraid to lose that precious crystal of yours!” He taunted.


“I won’t lose. Compared to a big dog like me, the three of you are still only pups. Especially you. Besides, the tournament only starts in a week.”


To my own surprise, I felt myself laughing. It was a nice feeling. I laughed again to be able to remember the sensation later tonight when the nightmares return.


“So we are excused from missions this week?”


“Yes. Everyone in Konoha is busy preparing for this festival, so there are only a few D-ranked missions. A few jounin and ANBU members will take on the high ranked missions. Use this week well. It is not vacation time, I expect you to train. Now, you are four members in this team, so it will be better if I divide you into two even groups. That way you can train by sparring.”


Naruto immediately grabbed my hand. I suppose he was determined to stick with me. In a way I found it strange, didn’t he usually jump at any opportunity to spend time with Sakura?


“I already see what you are planning Naruto, and it wont work. I am not going to team you up with Mia. You’ll take advantage of it and she’ll go easy on you. You won’t be able to train. I have different pairings in mind.”


The moment he said this, I knew what he had in mind, but I hoped against hope that I was mistaken, and that Sensei would pair me up with Sakura.


But fate turned against me.


“I’ll split you up into boy-girl pairs. Sakura will train with Naruto and Mia will train with Sasuke.”


Damn Murphy’s laws…. This was the last thing I needed right now, I have other things that need my attention. Spending time with Uchiha wasn’t exactly high on my priority list.


I wanted to object, to raise my hand, anything to get out of this mess.


Kakashi saw this, and responded with a look of pity. He knew the full story.


Sasuke just stood there with the same old emotionless expression on his face.


“You don’t have to train with me Mia. I can get by on my own. I don’t need your help”


“I don’t want this any more than you do, but we have no choice. These are the orders given to us.”


“I don’t plan on following them.”


He was still as cold as ever before. Words weren’t enough to describe how much his attitude annoyed me. Before I could respond, Sensei stepped in.


“Sadly, Sasuke you have no choice. You and Mia will train together everyday. These aren’t my orders, I know you hate each other, but they come directly from Lady Tsunade. She said that team 7 can’t work together because of your arguments. Now, unless you want to upset the Fifth, you will meet everyday for the next week to spar. Got that?”


“But…” this time I wanted to make my objection known.


“No buts.” Sensei snapped. Sasuke simply disappeared. It was clear that he was just as annoyed as I am.


I turned on my heel and started heading off in the opposite direction when a strong hand pulled me back. The next moment, Kakashi’s lips were at my ear.


“Think of it this way Mia, even if the two of you don’t turn into the best of friends, at least you’ll have a chance to beat him up”


The thought made my lips twist into a smile.