A/N: The time setting is after the managa chapter 352. I'm not entirely sure what time of the year it is, so for the sake of my plot, it is early October and approaching Naruto's sixtenth birthday. Akatsuki is not a major issue in this story though... not yet.

Disclaimer: I think this is where I'm supposed to tell you something important... what was it...? Oh yeah. I do not own Naruto but at least I seem to have your attention. Other than that, the only thing that is mine is the continuing plot and any OC's that may appear in the story. Of course I do not take credit for anything taken from the actual series.

"Thinking or Inner converstation / Dreams"

"Kyuubi speaking"

"Normal speech"

(Author's Note)

Line breaks shown as 'XxX' represents a change in scene and/or location while line breaks shown as 'OoO' represent a change in character POV while staying in the current scene, if needed.

Um... I think that's it.

Part One

Troubled Decisions, Tears of Joy

Prologue

Walking home after several hours of training and even more bowls of Ichiraku's ramen, Naruto found himself thinking deeply. And since Naruto never really 'thinks' but daydreams instead, he must be 'thinking' about Sakura, right?

"Maaan," the golden haired boy thought to himself, "She knows I like her, doesn't she? So how come she wont give me at least one chance?"

Naruto stopped walking for a moment to better concentrate on his thoughts. Distracted by the blazing yellow-gold horizon, he couldn't help but think of Sakura's stunning pink hair.

"Maybe I'm trying too hard... Maybe if I give her some space... maybe if I back off alittle, she will miss my company. Then she'll come to me," he added enthusiastically, giving himself a glimmer of hope after putting some real thought into it. With a sigh, he continued, "...but she doesn't even like me," he added sadly, not realizing it was said aloud.

WHAM!

Naruto was hit in the back of his head leaving one of those big commical lumps where a fist had made contact.

"You got that right, baka!!" Yelled Sakura overenthusiastically. "As if I could ever like you..." She said the last word a little slower than the rest, showing a hint of self doubt in her own words. Naruto, of course, was oblivious to this.

"Why do I care what he thinks? It's not like I 'like' him or anything... or do I? No... No, of course not. I can't. I like Sasuke. But... why was I following him from Ichiraku's? H-He's my teamate. I was just gonna talk to him. There's nothing wrong with that... So why am I so nervous all of a sudden? Why am I even thinking about it?" Sakura seemed to be having a struggle with the inner workings of her own mind.

Suddenly, she felt bad for hitting Naruto but she didn't know why. She hit him all the time and it never phased her.

"Owwww... Sakura-chaaan, that hurt," Naruto whined, rubbing the back of his head. "Where'd you come from anyways... Wait-" Naruto, for some reason, became wide-eyed and nervous, "Y-You heard me?" He asked with a slight blush before she could even answer his first question.

Sakura opened her mouth to answer his obvious question, but not before she noticed something in her peripheral vision. Someone's presence. Her eye's darted to their perspective corners as she tried to, inconspicuously, spot their watcher. Seeing how she couldn't see well enough that way and the action was starting to put a slight strain on her eyes, she slowly turned her head to look into the now dark but empty side street. She saw nothing... at first. But a second, closer look showed her what she thought she might have seen the first time. A shadow. But it was retreating away from the scene.

"Uh... I-I should be... going..." Sakura said slowly, clearly distracted and not even looking at Naruto.

"Huh? Wa-Wait!" Naruto called out to her, but she was already gone.

"Ugh, can't I get any respect around here?" Naruto said to himself, picking himself up off the ground and brushing himself off. "Things seemed to have gone completely back to normal, though. You would think she'd be a little nicer to me after all that time I was gone..." He continued on his way home, muttering something to himself incoherently.

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"I was sure I saw it over here somewhere..." The pink haired kunoichi said to herself.

Deciding not to give up so easily, she rushed to the end of the street hoping to catch up to whoever it was spying on her and Naruto only a few moments ago.

As she got to the end of the street, to Sakura's dismay, it broke into two separate streets. Of course she knew it would. She lived here after all. Not yet ready to give up, she first looked to the left only to, once again, find nothing, so she then looked to her right, expecting to find the same result, but to her surprise, she saw it again. The shadow quickly disappeared around another street corner.

Hopes rising, she pumped more chakra into her feet to give herself a jump start, though she couldn't help but get a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something was off...

Upon reaching the street corner down which the shadow had disappeard, she was, once again, surprised to see the figure in the distance.

Something certainly felt odd to her. Not wasting any time, she raced down the street.

"If this person was a shinobi, surely they'd have made their escape by now," she thought reassuringly to herslf.

She was finally close enough to the target to make out some of its features, but being even darker than it was before, it was difficult to know anything for sure. The figure definately had long dark hair, so it could be a women... unless it was henge, but if that were the case, then it would definately be a shinobi she'd be confronting. Being in Konoha, this mysterious and possible 'ninja' should be an ally, hopefully, so all should be safe. She continued running down the darkening streets, past closed shops and quiet homes.

Now close enough to physically touch the person, she drew her hand out to turn the person around by the shoulder.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

"I can tell she's getting too close. It's now or never, or I'll be caught..."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Almost trembling, nervous to find out who this person was, she had barely placed her hand on their shoulder before there was no longer a solid grip to hold onto.

POOF!

The startled kunoichi jumped back in surprise, half expecting someone to attack at any moment, but when nothing else happened, she let out a sigh of relief.

"Damn it," she cursed herself for being fooled so easily. "A clone... but whose?" She wondered aloud. She realized the clone, obviously a distraction, was used so the original could probably go the opposite direction. With this in mind, Sakura started thinking of canidates.

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"Phew...that was close," The pale-eyed indigo haired girl said to herself as her clones memories came back to her. She closed the shoji door behind her, slipped off her sandles and pushed them into the closet with her foot before retreating upstairs to her room, trying not to wake anyone along the way.

"Naruto-kun..." Hinata sighed with dreamy eyes.

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Walking down the hallway with his hands behind his head and lost in thought, Naruto made his way to his apartment without his usual carefree grin, but almost a frown instead. Having come to his door, he unlocked it, not that having it locked would do him any good in a shinobi village anyways. He turned the knob and while he pushed the door open, he lazily listened to the boring squeek it usually gave upon it's swing. He then strode through the doorway.

His barely frowning face soon turned into a complete frown as he looked around the almost empty room. Once again, he was alone. There was never anyone here to greet him when he got home save for the occasional masked Jounin or white spikey haired Sannin that popped by occasionally to gloat about his new book or something else entirely unimportant. But stuff like that happens to you when you're an orphan.

Kicking the door closed behind him, Naruto went to his room and dropped his keys on his bed side table, next to the Team Seven picture frame and alarm clock and lazily plopped himself onto his bed.

Thinking about the incident with Sakura earlier, he wondered what he should do... or at least he would have if he had not immediately fallen asleep. A dream clouded his mind.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

"Hey Sakura-chan!"

A beautiful young kunoichi half turned as she looked to see the where the voice was coming from. With the sun above her, the light shone brilliantly off of her pink hair and made her skin even more radiant. She beemed a smile in Naruto's direction.

"Hey, Naruto-kun," she happily replied to his cry.

"You wanna come get some ramen with me?" He asked hopefully.

"I would love to..." Still beaming her smile at him, showing no signs of reluctance, she agreed.

The scene abruptly ended before it was finished. Darkness was now the only thing he could register until he started hearing voices in the distance, but he couldn't see from where or who was talking.

"Hey, how was your first day as Captain?" Asked a female voice. "Did your new ANBU team give you a rough time, captain?"

"Same as usual... except for on my way up here. There was this one guy in the lobby... It was kinda hard to tell from behind his dark sunglasses but I think he was staring at me. He asked if I was somebody else, but I think that was just an excuse for his stares," replied the blond.

"Maybe he was checking you out," she replied sarcastically. "Who was he?"

"How should I know? He was just some ninja... but not from our village."

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Sakura stepped into her room, clearly frustrated, yet a little worried, at that night's events.

Soon her thoughts started to wander off that particular topic.

"Oh!" She gasped as she remembered how she left Naruto so abruptly in the street... on his ass. She frowned at herself when she realized she hadn't even bothered to help him up. She felt bad about it and wondered if she should buy him an apologetic bowl of ramen tomarrow to make up for it. Thoughts vaguely ushered her as to why she even remotely cared, but she brushed them away. He was her teammate, she should care.

"Ramen is the cure to everything with him," she amusedly thought out loud.

"Wait a minute..." Sakura paused. "Could he considered that a date?" She asked herself.

She started thinking about how this 'date' would go and when she found herself unintentionally smiling at the idea, she snapped back to reality.

"I was not just fantasizing about going on a date with Naruto," She told herself adamently, but once again, she found herself thinking that it didn't really sound like such a bad idea. "That's not right... but I supoose I could give him just one chance... Just to see how things might work out. It'll just be another day, not a date," she convinced herself.

"But what about..." Her mind started to stray off topic again to a certain raven haired boy before finally bringing herself back to the matter at hand. "No. He had his chance..."

"I'll ask him tomarrow, but I have to be nonchalant about it... I can't let him think it's a date or he'll never let me live it down," she said aloud to herself. She started thinking about how she would approach him.

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"That's it!" She exclaimed, not meaning to say it out loud but unable to contain her excitement. She continued, more quietly, "Maybe, if all goes well afterwards... just maybe I can finally confess my true feelings for him!" Her voice was unintentionally steadily growing louder once more, "He's always happiest there, so that's where I'll tell him... maybe after lunch," She blushed, self doubt always creeping behind everything she did or said.

At that moment, the shogi door to her room slid open, revealing a groggy pale-eyed Hanabi. "Keep it down, some people are actually trying to sleep you know," she said wearily with a yawn.

"Ah... S-Sorry!" Replied Hinata, with a slight shade of pink showing even brighter on her smooth tender cheeks. She was slightly worried that her sister might've heard too much, unaware that almost everybody knew about her puppy love.

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"Hmph, I found you," said a yet unknown voice with an evil sneer forming on the man's lips. "It won't be long now before-"

"Hey! What are you doing there?! State your name and business at once!" A patrol ninja demanded.

The figure slowly turned on the spot, looking more annoyed than worried. The man started to speak, sounding somewhat bored.

"My name... is not important," he started, with very little interest. "My business, however..." In an instant, the mysterious ninja had diasappeared and reappeared behind the patrol ninja. His head lowered over the the guard's left shoulder, his mouth right by his ear, he whispered, "...is to remove anyone who gets in my way." With a hard chakra induced jab to his spine, the patrol ninja was apparently dead before he even hit the ground, as he was unable to provide any resistance to break his own fall. Unfortunately, his presence was alerted to others.

"Along with anybody else who wishes to stop me," he finished. He watched as more ninja showed up to investigate the commotion. He then stepped over the motionless body and proceeded to walk towards the other ninja.

A/N: Oooh, alittle bit of a mystery on our hands. I hope this has kept your attention. Sorry for all the scene splits. I needed to get everything in the open.

Until Next Time...