"What are we gonna do, Sasuke?" Naruto asked as he crouched on the ground breathing heavily. He was still in his Six Paths Sage Technique, and Sasuke still had his fully-formed Rinnegan activated. "We're running out of time."

Madara had succeeded in obtaining his left eye from Obito, who was now lying on the ground next to Kakashi close to death but holding on to watch the end of the fight. Sakura was standing on the other side of Kakashi, ready to heal her old teammates if they needed it, but so far she was unnecessary as the only problem the two boys had so far (besides defeating Madara) was exhaustion. She was remembering what Obito had said about Madara obtaining his other eye.

"If he gets both eyes, he'll be unstoppable. No one will be able to defeat him."

Sakura shuddered. "Sasuke-kun, Naruto...what're you guys gonna do?"

"We need to take out his eyes somehow," Sasuke answered the blonde next to him. "But how?"

Naruto at first frowned at his friend's statement of the obvious, but then he got to thinking. "Take out his eyes, huh? Hmm…. Hehehehe! Well, if we can't take out his eyes, maybe we can get him to do it himself." He turned to Sasuke and held up a hand next to his face to prevent Madara from reading his lips. "Sasuke," he whispered. The raven-haired boy looked at him. "I've got a plan."

Madara cocked an eyebrow as he watched the blonde boy whisper something to Sasuke. The only reason he hadn't killed them yet was because he was still finding his fight with them amusing, but now he was starting to get bored. "Might as well let them finish making their little plan, though. It may just give me a bit more amusement before I kill them."

Suddenly, it seemed they were done plotting as Sasuke rushed toward Madara and began attacking him with renewed zeal. He made sure to keep in front of Madara so he couldn't see Naruto. Growing tired of the black-haired boy's pathetic attacks, Madara smacked Sasuke away. He never saw the smirk cross Sasuke's face; all was going according to plan.

As soon as Sasuke was out of the way, the evil old sage turned his attention back to Naruto…who wasn't there.

"Where'd he go?" Madara wondered as he looked around. Then he felt a tap on his shoulder. Spinning around while throwing a fist at whoever was behind him, Madara suddenly came face to face with a blue-eyed, whisker-faced woman with her long blonde hair tied up in pigtails. Oh, and she was naked. She had ducked under Madara's fist and now looked up at him through her lashes, pouting.

"Moh…you shouldn't hit a lady," the girl whined. Then she stepped toward the old sage, moving seductively. "Why don't you stop fighting now, huh, sweetie?" she asked in a sultry voice as she draped her arms over his shoulders and looked deep into his eyes.

Madara, to say the least, was in a bit of shock. While the whisker-marks might've been a dead giveaway, his mind still hadn't gotten past the "naked girl" part. A naked girl who was rather well-endowed and currently pressed up against him.

Before he finished processing what she'd said to him, there was another woman hanging onto his arm. This new girl had smoldering black eyes and her long hair, which she wore loose, was as dark as a moonless night. She too was naked.

"Yeah, if you stop fighting, then the three of us can have a really good time," the second woman purred as she winked at the old sage.

Madara barely registered the trickle of blood coming out of his nose as he watched the girls step back. They each blew a kiss at him and told him they wanted to show him something. He just nodded dumbly, and the two girls quickly stood up straight, making their endowments bounce. Blood trickled farther from Madara's nose…but then it happened.

The two girls suddenly turned into Might Guy and Rock Lee wearing speedos. Then they turned to each other while crying anime tears and shouted,

"LEE!"

"GUY-SENSEI!"

"LEE!"

"GUY-SENSEI!"

And then they hugged as the sunset-over-the-ocean genjutsu appeared behind them.

"AAAAAHHHH! MY EYES! MY EYES! MAKE IT STOP!" Madara screamed as he tore at his eyes.

Naruto and Sasuke dropped their transformations and took the opportunity to throw a final attack at Madara. They caught the evil old sage between Naruto's Rasengan and Sasuke's Chidori, pushing as much power as they could into their attacks. With a final scream, Madara disintegrated and thus was dead. Once and for all.

After the dust settled, Sakura, Kakashi, and now everyone else who was still able to move—including Hinata—could see Naruto and Sasuke lying on their backs on the ground. Their heads were next to each other, but their feet were pointing in opposite directions.

"Naruto-kun!" Hinata yelled as she rushed toward her blonde love, hoping he was all right. Sakura followed closely behind, filled with concern for both her teammates. Though if she was honest with herself, she'd have to admit she was slightly more concerned for Sasuke.

"Naruto-kun!" Hinata cried again as she knelt next to him. He opened his eyes slightly and gave her a tired smile.

"Hey, Hinata-chan," Naruto greeted her weakly. "Glad you're alright. Did we win?"

With tears in her eyes, Hinata nodded and replied, "Yes, Naruto-kun. You won."

"Then why are you crying?" Naruto asked as he struggled to raise his hand and began wiping away her tears.

Hinata held his hand to her face and smiled softly. "I'm just glad you're alright, Naruto-kun."

His smile broadened until he heard, "NARUTO!"

"Oh…crap," he thought as he cringed.

While Hinata had been checking on Naruto, Sakura was making sure Sasuke was okay. Sasuke was half-heartedly brushing off Sakura's ministrations, but she still managed to make sure he was all right. And from what she could see with Naruto, he was fine as well. The two boys were just both very tired. But just as her relief started to settle in, Sakura remembered what Naruto and Sasuke had done to defeat Madara.

A vein popped up in her forehead, and she shouted, "NARUTO!"

The boy in question fearfully looked over at his pink-haired teammate and asked in a shaky voice, "Yes, Sakura?"

"You're such a pervert!" she yelled.

"Hey! Sasuke did it too!" Naruto argued.

"Only because you convinced him too! He would never have done such a thing on his own!"

"Yeah, well—" Naruto was cut off by a gentle hand on his face, and he turned to its owner. "Hinata-chan?"

The blue-haired girl smiled sweetly at him and said, "Allow me, Naruto-kun." Then she stood up, stepped over him, and pulled the fuming pinkette to her feet. "Sakura-san, leave him be."

"But—"

"No," Hinata said firmly with a fierce glint in her eyes. "Do not yell at him anymore. What they did—and Sasuke-san was part of it whether you like it or not—just saved the world. That's all that matters. Now," she began as she turned back to Naruto, who was stunned by the normally shy girl's actions but also happy that she saved him from Sakura's wrath, and put his arm around her shoulder and helped him up, "these two need medical attention and rest. I suggest you help Sasuke-san."

Hinata then began moving toward the other ninjas gathered around, who started to cheer, and Sakura quickly helped Sasuke up and caught up with Hinata and Naruto. The two guys were next to each other in the middle and they cast a glance at each other.

"Naruto?"

"Yeah, Sasuke?"

"We will never speak of any of that ever again."

Naruto knew what he meant: the Sexy Jutsu (and the fact that he got Sasuke to perform it) and the Rock Lee/Guy-sensei moment. He mentally laughed at the first part and shuddered at the second before nodding to his friend. "Right."

Later, the boys were resting in a medical tent, and for the moment they were alone. While they were both extremely tired, neither of them were ready to let sleep claim them just yet. Sasuke eventually broke the silence.

"Naruto?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah?"

"What's going on between you and Hinata?"

Had he not been laying down, Naruto would've face-faulted at the out-of-nowhere question. "W-What?" Naruto stammered. "Why're you asking?"

Sasuke shrugged, although Naruto couldn't see it, and simply replied, "Just curious. When she ran up to you and didn't faint when you touched her face, I was surprised. So I was wondering if you finally stopped being an idiot and noticed her."

Now it was Naruto's turn to surprise Sasuke. Rather than shout in indignation about being called an idiot like he normally would, the blonde ninja said, "Nope."

The former missing-nin was indeed surprised and looked over at the blonde. Naruto continued, "I never noticed. In fact, I think I'd still be completely clueless had she not told me flat out how she feels about me."

"She told you?" Sasuke asked incredulously. "I never thought she'd have the guts."

"Hey, she's braver than you'd think," Naruto defended Hinata. "I mean after all, she was in the middle of trying to protect me from an enemy she knew she had no chance against when she told me."

Now Sasuke was really shocked. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, when Pain attacked Konoha and I fought him, he managed to pin me to the ground with his chakra rods," Naruto told him. "If it wasn't for Hinata, I would've been carried off, had Kurama extracted from me, and died. She saved my life, and nearly lost her own in the process."

Sasuke was silent a moment before asking, "What happened?"

The blonde ninja shrugged. "I was pinned to the ground, Hinata jumped in, told me she loves me, Pain stabbed her, and I…I nearly released the Fox." Naruto paused for a second as he mentally cringed at the memory. "I managed to suppress the Fox before he got out completely, and then I killed Pain. End of story."

Sasuke nodded, satisfied with the answer, but he was still curious about his friend and the blue-haired kunoichi. "So are you and Hinata together now?"

"What? No, we're still just friends," Naruto replied.

The black-haired ninja couldn't believe he heard that. "What? You turned her down? Why? Do you really want Sakura that bad?"

"Huh?! No, I didn't turn her down! I just…never talked to her about her confession…" Naruto trailed off, feeling ashamed now that he realized how bad that made him sound.

"Are you serious?!"

"Well, I never really had a chance to afterward!" Naruto defended himself. "I was recovering after the fight, then you became an Akatsuki member and earned a kill-on-sight status, and I rushed off to try and stop the Raikage from killing you! Then the next thing I know after that, I'm being sent off on some S-ranked mission, which I later found out was just a trick to try to keep me out of the war! I kinda had a lot on my plate!"

Sasuke just looked at Naruto, and the blonde sighed. "Look, I know I should've talked to her, but with everything else going on and the fact that I didn't know what to say…" he sighed again, "I chickened out, okay? You happy now?"

A silence fell over the two as Naruto glared at the tent ceiling and Sasuke continued to stare at Naruto. Then the silence was broken by an unusual sound. A pretty-much-never-heard-before sound. Sasuke's laughter.

It started out a quiet chuckle and soon became a hearty, genuine laugh that caused tears to prick the corners of Sasuke's eyes. Meanwhile, Naruto's scowl deepened with every second.

Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore and shouted, "WHAT'S SO FUNNY, TEME?!" He glared at the former missing-nin.

Sasuke managed to reign in his laughter enough to reply, "You really are such a dobe!" Then a new wave of amusement hit him and he was finding it hard to breathe.

"What d'ya mean?! STOP LAUGHING AT ME!"

Sasuke had to bite his hand hard to calm down, but he was still snickering as he told the blonde ninja, "All this time, you've been chasing Sakura while never noticing the one girl who was in love with you. Then when you find out about her, you run from her. It's like you want to keep yourself unhappy. You're such a dobe!"

Naruto growled at him, but couldn't argue with what he said. He turned away from Sasuke and ignored his snickering as he tried to figure some things out. "Is that really what I'm doing? Am I trying to be unhappy? Why didn't I just give Hinata a chance? I knew Sakura wouldn't happen ever since she begged me to bring Sasuke back when he first left. And honestly, it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would—to accept that she'd never feel that way about me. I mean yeah, it hurt, but nowhere near as bad as some of the other crap I've been through. Losing my best friend to the Snake-teme hurt more. So was I ever really in love with her? Or was it just a stupid crush?

"Why not give Hinata a chance? Am I really just trying to make myself unhappy? No… It's more than that. I'm also…scared. Heh. Me, Naruto Uzumaki, afraid of something. Geez. But I am afraid. Afraid that things won't work out between me and her. That I'll actually fall in love with her and then get my heart broken. Man, that makes me sound like such a loser. What if things go great between us? What if she's the one for me? She's apparently loved me this whole time, and I don't see anything about her that would be hard to love. Granted, I don't know her as well as I'd like, but I could change that—"

"Naruto-kun?"

The blonde ninja was broken out of his thoughts by a soft voice, the owner of which being the very subject of his thoughts. Naruto smiled at her.

"Hey, Hinata-chan," he greeted her quietly as he saw with a quick glance that Sasuke had laughed himself to sleep. "What're you doing here?"

"W-Well," she began, stuttering nervously, "I-I just wanted to see how y-you were doing…"

Naruto's smile softened as he watched her fidget and avoid his gaze. Deciding to take a chance, the blonde grabbed her hand and said, "Thanks for worrying about me, Hinata-chan."

The blue-haired kunoichi smiled gently at him for a brief moment, but withdrew her hand as the smile faded. Confused by this, Naruto sat up and asked, "Hinata-chan? What's wrong?"

"N-Naruto-kun, I…I heard w-what you said…to Sasuke-san," she told him.

Naruto was in a mixture of shock and shame. "H-How much d-did you hear?" his stammer matching her own.

"All of it," she said quietly.

The blonde ninja looked away. "Hinata, I'm so sorry. I—"

She once again silenced him by placing a gentle hand on his cheek, and she turned his head to look at her. "Naruto-kun, it's okay. I'm not mad. I just want to know why. What's the real reason you didn't talk to me? Are you really trying to be unhappy like Sasuke-san said? Or is it because you love Sakura?"

Naruto looked deep into her lavender eyes and grabbed her hand that was still cupping his cheek. He pulled it down and held it between both of his hands.

"Neither," he answered her, never breaking his gaze from hers. "My crush on Sakura more or less died the day she begged me to bring back the teme over there when he left, and honestly, it didn't bother me nearly as bad as the teme's leaving did. So I don't think I ever really loved her. As for me trying to be unhappy, though, well…I don't think I'm trying to be. I think it's more subconsoss—"

"Subconscious," Hinata corrected him gently with a small smile.

"Yeah, that's it. It's more a subconscious thing," he explained, smiling at her. Then his smile faded and he looked down at the blanket on his lap. "The reason I didn't talk to you about…what you said…and what you did…is because I was afraid. I didn't know it at the time, but now that I think about it, I'm sure that's what it was."

"Afraid?" Hinata asked as she tilted her head to the side in confusion. A gesture Naruto couldn't help but find cute. "Afraid of what?"

Naruto took a deep breath. "That you and I wouldn't work out. That I'd get my heart broken, or I'd end up breaking yours. Or that you'd get hurt because of me." He looked up at her again. "I couldn't bear any of those things." Hinata looked sad at that, but Naruto wasn't done yet. "But then I thought, what if everything did work out between us? What if you're the one for me?"

Hinata's breath caught in her throat, and Naruto leaned a little bit closer to her. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, while I'm still scared of the bad that could happen, the possible good makes it worth the chance." Then he chuckled lightly as he said, "And my gambles usually turn out in my favor." His face grew serious again. "But I have to know, Hinata-chan. Do you still feel the same about me? Can you forgive me for ignoring your first confession? Do you still love me in spite of that?"

Rather than answering verbally, Hinata opted for grabbing the back of Naruto's head with her free hand and pulling him to her. She pressed her lips firmly to his own, putting all her love and affection for him into the kiss. Naruto was surprised at first, but quickly recovered and wrapped his arms around Hinata and pulled her closer as he responded to her kiss.

After a minute, they parted, gasping for air. Hinata was blushing madly, but proud of herself for not fainting. Naruto, who was also blushing—though not as badly as Hinata—however, had a glazed look in his eyes as he just stared into space.

"Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked, growing concerned. The boy in question swayed a little and then fell back, his head landing on his pillow. Hinata knelt over him as she checked to make sure he was okay. She breathed a sigh of relief when she realized his exhaustion had finally gotten to him.

In a bizarre twist and for the first time ever, Naruto Uzumaki had fainted in front of Hinata Hyuuga.

Hinata giggled at that thought before laying down next to Naruto and snuggling up against his side. Life would be good from now on, and she knew it.