Hey guys! Well this is my first story so sorry if it's bad... and this chapter is kinda short but hopefully I'll be able to make longer chapters in the future. But anyways enjoy and please review! And please no flames because like I said this is my first story.

"I love you."

"...Huh?" Naruto said dumbly as he stared wide eyed at his pinkette teammate. It took him by complete surprise again, it was like deja vu when a scowl slowly made it's way to his features.

"Sakura... I thought I told you-"

"I'm not lying Naruto!" Sakura interrupted. "I'm telling you from the bottom of my heart just please believe me!" Naruto's expression hadn't changed.

"Why don't you ever believe me?" She whispered, hurt clear in her voice. Naruto just looked away from her eyes. It was silent for almost a minute.

"You were partly right though." She suddenly said silently. Naruto looked at her.

"I was lying." She looked at Naruto, she couldn't identify his expression.

"It wasn't about my feelings for you though. It was about my feelings for Sasuke. I lied by saying I was over him. I would still be lying if I said that now, too." She looked down again. Trembling in fear. Fear of being rejected again. She sighed.

"I still may have small feelings for him, but I'm absolutely sure about how I feel about you, Naruto." She averted her eyes to Naruto, seeing him staring at her with that emotionless Sai-like face. She felt tears spring to her eyes.

"You know what? Just forget it." She turned around. "You deserve better than me anyways." She was about to walk away, but she suddenly felt herself being spun around and saw Naruto's face in front of her before their lips locked. Sakura responded, and brought her hands to the back of Naruto's head to push the kiss further. They both pulled back slightly out of breath.

"Naruto... I don't understand."

"I love you too, and I've waited so long to hear you say it too." He said with a sincere smile, not the toothy grin he usually used.

"Now I don't really want to go on this mission." Naruto said. Sakura laughed lightly.

"Naruto Uzumaki not wanting to go on a mission? Never thought I'd see the day." Naruto grinned and scratched the back of his head.

"I was just thinking we could finally go on a date." he said sounding slightly disappointed.

"Don't worry Naruto, when you come back I can make us a dinner date." Naruto smiled nervously.

"Er.. y-yea Sakura-chan! That sounds... great!"

"Baka! If you don't like my cooking you could just say so!" She yelled hitting him upside the head.

"Oww Sakura-chan! If I told you that you would hit me anyway!" He complained. The pink haired ninja grinned.

"Yea that's true. Well you should probably leave before you get a concussion before your mission." Naruto just stared at her sincerely, despite her joke. They shared a deep kiss again, making both of their hearts flutter. They pulled away, and Naruto left for his solo mission.

Naruto was about 2 miles away from Konoha now, having traveled for about 20 minutes. He was supposed to transfer an important scroll from the sand village to the leaf village. But the whole time he thought about Sakura, and her lips that had been pressed against his. They were so warm and soft, and he felt himself get hot whenever he thought about them. He smiled inwardly. He'd remembered what she had said to him.

"You deserve better than me anyways" He instantly began to wonder what she meant. She thought she wasn't deserving of his love? There was no such thing as a human being who didn't deserve love! Especially Sakura, Naruto thought. How could a beautiful, strong, amazing girl like that think bad about herself. It made no sense to Naruto.

'Maybe it's because she hits me?' Naruto suggested in his mind.

'I deserve those hits though, from being an idiot and pervert all the time.' Naruto got interrupted from his thoughts as he heard something from the bushes. He stopped on the tree branch he landed on, and jumped to the forest floor to check it out. He slowly walked towards the source of the sound, and a kunai suddenly came flying out of the bush. Naruto's eyes widened in shock, and he tried quickly to run out of the way, but the kunai grazed the skin on his right arm lightly. He cursed silently, as blood came flowing out slowly. He deployed a shadow clone behind him, and held his arm out, in his rasengan position.

"Who's there?" He questioned loudly. A figure slowly poked their upper body out of the bush. Naruto looked at his forehead protector, to see the fire symbol on it.

'I don't recognize him...' Naruto thought in confusion.

"Hello Naruto Uzumaki." The boy said. Naruto froze.

"How do you know my..." Naruto began to ask but stopped as the boy pointed to his Konoha symbol.

"I don't recognize you."

"That's because I'm a missing ninja. I betrayed the village with my brother when I was only five." Naruto looked at him closely, despite his shaggy black hair covering a lot of his face, he could tell they were both close in age.

"I've lived in Konoha all my life, and I've never heard of any missing ninja except Sasuke Uchiha." Naruto said, assuming the boy knew who Sasuke was. He probably did.

"How old were you? Five? Six maybe? You had no friends or family to hear the news from." Naruto narrowed his eyes at him, he hit a soft spot.

"Oh I'm sorry, you don't like talking about that do you?" He said, with a small smirk.

"No! Now why did you try to attack me?" Naruto sneered.

"Isn't it obvious?" The boy acquired, tilting his head.

"I don't know what you want if for, but you're never going to get this damn fox!" Naruto snarled, preparing a rasengan. The boy suddenly disappeared, and Naruto felt his rasengan dispersing. He looked behind him, curious, and saw the boy absorbing the swirling chakra into his hand. Naruto's eyes widened, and they boy curled his long skinny fingers into a fist before punching Naruto across the face. He rolled a couple times before stopping, and wiped the blood from his mouth with a shaking hand.

'Damn... he's strong.' Naruto mused, shuffling to his feet.

"You'll be no match without any chakra." The boy said casually. Naruto having no better comeback, screamed a simple shut up and began advancing towards him again. He swung his fist at him, only to have it caught roughly.

"Smart, using taijutsu so I can't take away your chakra." He began. Naruto grinded his teeth together, trying to get out of his hard grip.

"But even usjng taijustu is useless" Naruto felt like something was being pulled out of him.

His Chakra.

He used all his strength to get out of the mysterious boy's hold. Naruto pulled away and began to sway slightly.

"You seem exhausted." Naruto growled at his comment, and regained his balance. The blonde put his hands into a familiar hand seal.

"Ah yes" The supposed leaf ninja started. "You're most well known jutsu is your shadow clones right?" Naruto just glared. "Well with quite a bit of your chakra being sucked away, I'm afraid you won't be able to make as many as you would've expected."

"Also, I can take away your chakra through your shadow clones, as well as you."

"I don't care!" Naruto shouted. "Shadow clone jutsu!" Ten shadow clones appeared, ten less than Naruto tried to deploy. Naruto and his clones charged at the black haired ninja anyways. One shadow clone gave him a high kick, which he dodged. He grabbed the clones foot, and absorbed his chakra. The real Naruto grabbed his chest, grunting as more of his chakra went away. The clone disappeared when all of it's chakra was gone. The rest of Naruto's clone jumped away from the missing nin. They all pulled out kunai and threw them at him. The ninja jumped up, avoiding them all and landed on a tree branch.

"You're smarter than you look jinjuurikii." He said with a smirk, looking slightly impressed.

"So I've been told." the blonde replied as he jumped up into the tree branches. "So is there anything you can do besides suck chakra away?" Naruto mused. The boy smirked.

"I'm glad you asked." He began advancing towards Naruto. The kyuubi container brought his hands up in a defensive position.

"Lets see you try to avoid this!" the black haired boy screamed as oscillating green chakra spun around his arm.

'What jutsu is that?' Naruto thought, and avoided the attack- or so he thought. He felt an intense pain in his back, and instantly tasted bile and blood in his mouth. His opponent pulled his hand out of his back, and Naruto fell with a sickening thud.

"Y-you used the same jutsu as.." Naruto struggled to say.

"The fourth hokage" The boy said for him.

"Though, that jutsu I pierced your back with was my own personal creation. I call it the Shindo Suru.(AN: Japanese for oscillate) But I do have to give your old man credit for that one too, because that jutsu was kind of based off of the rasengan." Naruto's eyes widened.

"H-how do you know he's my-"

"Look I'd love to chat more, but brother said he'd smash my head in if I took to long." Naruto was about to question him, but he felt a sharp pain in his neck before his vision went dark.

"Sakura!"

"Huh?!"

"Are you even paying attention?" Tsunade asked.

"S-sorry Tsunade-sama. I was just deep in thought." The pinkette replied.

"About Naruto?" Sakura gasped.

"How did you know?"

"Oh come on Sakura, you're as easy to read as a book." Sakura smiled nervously.

"So Tsunade-sama..." Sakura started, Tsunade looked at her student. "Why did you send Naruto on a solo mission? I mean he has something some ninjas could be after, like the akatsuki. So it doesn't seem safe for him to be going by himself." The hokage smiled at her worry for the orange ninja.

"Well other than the fact he was begging on his knees for this mission, Naruto's one of the best ninjas we have, so he would probably be able to handle himself if a situation like that were to come." Sakura smiled at her master.

"Yea you're right. But he's still an idiot that could get himself into unnecessary trouble." Tsunade laughed.

"You got that right. Now I don't want to see you getting distracted again." She scolded.

"Yes ma"am!" Sakura saluted, returning to her studies.

'I hope you're okay Naruto...'

Too short? I'll try to make the next chapter longer. Thanks for reading and I'll try to post chapter 2 as soon as I can!