"The box said it was impenetrable—" he whined.

Collective sigh.

The clink of ice cubes in an ice pack.

"Shut up, Naruto."

.

Heavy Duty

.

Sigh.

"Naruto, what areyou wearing?"

He grinned excitedly. "I'm invincible now, Sakura-chan!"

She raised an eyebrow, eyeing the bright orange helmet on his head warily. "Excuse me?"

"See, you always hit me over the head. Always.So now that I have this helmet, I have nothing to fear!"

There was a beat of silence.

Kakashi's lips, clothed under his ever-present mask, quirked up in amusement. Sasuke smirked from the base of the tree he was sitting on.

Sakura was mentally debating exactly how to react before she patted his helmet-covered head condescendingly and smiled with excessive sugar. "You just keep thinking that."

Naruto nodded firmly, and pushed on.

"SO. I HAVE DECIDED…" he paused for dramatization, "TO DO SOMETHING I HAVE WANTED TO DO MY ENTIRE LIFE."

There was a mutual sigh from everyone as the waited for the likely idiotic spiel to come forth. But instead, Naruto placed his hands on Sakura's shoulders, steering her to stand in front of Sasuke.

Sakura blinked. Sasuke looked nonplussed.

"…uh."

And then with a large grin, he shoved Sakura forward, sending her falling through the air, arms flailing about, to land on top of Sasuke. But instead of his intended effect, her head slammed onto his, leaving them both groaning in pain. With Sakura still on top of Sasuke.

If landing on top of Sasuke with her lips pressed to his would have been awkward, landing on top of him with that plan being a failure and in immense amounts of pain was surely more so.

Slowly, Sakura maneuvered herself off of him with care, being careful not to place her hands in potentially awkward places and hoisted herself up, using his shoulders as leverage. Her fingers gently probed her own impact area on her forehead, upset to find that her fingers came back slick with blood.

Abruptly, Sakura turned, glaring at Naruto. "What. The. Hell."

Naruto glanced at the blood momentarily before deducing it wasn't in any way life threatening and grinned, patting his helmet with relief.

She stalked up to him, furious, ripped the helmet off of his head, threw it on the ground and crushed it under her heel before punching him in the jaw, launching him across the field.

Naruto wailed as he landed, skidding across the grass. Gingerly, he picked himself up and frowned. Maybe next time, he'd use something more heavy duty, like steel.

.

"You know, Naruto's always followed that one motto—"

"I know, Kakashi-sensei."

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

Sigh.

"I know."

hindsight's 20/20: I don't know how much I like this. Naruto's more...I don't know. Not like this. To me, anyways. Ick, out of character. Eh. Whatever.