Chapter 2 is done!!! I hoped to get it out a little earlier but I needed to make a few ajustments. I've been experimenting with using honorfics but I'm not sure if I'll keep them or not... I don't see why not though it's just sometimes I have a hard time deciding wheather to use them or not, b/c like in Naruto some people just wouldn't use them all the time in my opinion(I don't watch the japanese version too much cuz I started in english and sometimes I don't know what things are b/c of how the japanese word things). This story has gotten more attention than I thought and I'm very happy for that!!!! It's people like you reading it, adding it, and reviewing it that help inspire me to write more. Enough talk ENJOY!
A FEW WEEKS EARLIER
"Naruto can we go for a walk?" Sakura had asked nervously.
Naruto was very happy about this offer and responded with an over enthusiastic, "Sure let's go!"
They had started to walk in silence for a long time until Sakura broke it with her request, "Naruto do you think I'm weak?"
"What? No you're not weak Sakura," Naruto answered rather quickly, "But why are you asking me that?"
"On all our missions you and Sasuke do all the fighting while I just sit back and watch, and on more than one occasion you both even have to rescue me. So, I'm going to ask you again and tell me what you really think. Do you think I'm weak?"
Naruto sighed, "I don't think you're weak, but…" this but hit Sakura like a blunt shuriken but was the part she needed to hear the most, "…but you're not really all that strong either."
"Oh…" Sakura said depressed to hear the truth she had already known.
"N-No that's not what I meant, I mean…" Naruto said in panic from the tone of her reaction.
"No Naruto that's exactly what I wanted to hear," she said happily, "Now I have a favor to ask."
"Sure Sakura-chan anything!" he said in that over excited tone of his.
"Will…will you train me? And will you teach me the shadow clone jutsu?" asked Sakura blushing a little embarrassed.
Naruto hadn't expected to hear this come from the kunoichi's mouth but answered in a slightly unsure, "Sure I will Sakura."
"And don't go easy on me either train me as hard as I should."
Yet another thing he hadn't expected the young kunoichi to say but said, "Uh ok sure."
"One more thing…" Sakura added, "do you mind not telling Sasuke about this?"
"Don't worry about a thing as far as Sasuke knows the only person training you is Kakashi-sensei," said Naruto cheerfully. Although he wondered why she didn't ask Sasuke to train her he thought it best to leave it be.
"So I guess we should start as soon as possible," Sakura started, "how about tomorrow at dawn."
Naruto grabbed his sides and started laughing his head off. "Oh god Sakura, that was a good one, dawn, that's priceless." Naruto looked up to find Sakura with her arms crossed just staring at him.
"I wasn't joking, what's so funny?" asked Sakura.
"Sakura I don't even get up usually till about 10" answered Naruto.
Sakura sighed, "Yeah I guess dawn was a little drastic, I just really wanted to start my training. So what time should we start?"
"Hmm, meet me at the training grounds at 11:00 sharp."
Sakura was excited for some reason, I mean it was just training, she trained all the time but it just felt different this time.
That night Sakura had a hard time sleeping, inner Sakura kept scolding her for it, 'How are you supposed train tomorrow if you're gonna be up all night, cha!' She eventually fell into somewhat of a sleep, none the less she woke up the next day full of energy.
She looked over at the clock and saw it was 10:00. "I've got plenty of time," she told herself. She walked out of bed got ready and ate some breakfast. "Alright now I'm ready to go," Sakura said, but when she looked at the clock it was already 10:50. "WHAT!?! No no no NO! I can't be late on my first day of training!!" Sakura shouted grabbing her head. With that she bolted out the door. As she was running inner Sakura shouted, 'Why'd you work on your hair so long if you're just training? Get your priorities straight cha!'
When she got to the training grounds Naruto was already waiting. As she ran up to him and stopped to catch her breath, she ran all the way to the training grounds, he yelled at her, "Come on Sakura I think Kakashi-sensei is rubbing off on you, I said 11 sharp, are you gonna have some lame excuse for why you were late too?"
Sakura bowed slightly and said, "I'm sorry Sensei it won't happen again."
"Well for your sake…" Naruto stopped and blushed as he realized what she just said, 'Sensei'. "Did you just… call me… Sensei?" Naruto asked blushing a little and still shocked.
Sakura slightly blushed at the question, "Well yeah I just thought you were teaching me so it just seemed natural to call you Sensei."
Naruto put his hands behind his head looked up to the sky and said, "Sensei huh? I like the ring of that."
Sakura came up to him, grabbed his collar, and told him firmly, "This is the only place I will refer to you as that and the only place you should expect it. You try to make me do it anywhere else and you're gonna have another thing coming to ya."
"Ok ok no need to threaten me," Naruto answered nervously, and with that Sakura released him. "Now let's get to training."
"Right," Sakura answered attentively.
"Now first things first let's see what you got?" said Naruto.
"O-ok," said Sakura nervously.
"Give me all you got no holding back anything, you got it?" commanded Naruto.
"Right," and with that Sakura charged. She threw a punch but Naruto easily dodged it. She swept her leg under him to make him fall to the ground but he jumped over. So she thought she'd try a different approach, she jumped into the trees and tried to get out of Naruto's view and she threw three kunai, but Naruto dodged them all. She tried close combat again, punch after punch after kick after punch, but no matter what she did she couldn't land a single blow on the hyperactive blonde. 'What's going on why can't I hit him?' Sakura couldn't figure it out. So she tried another tactic, she got into a tree and grabbed three shuriken in each hand and threw then at Naruto, as he jumped to dodge them Sakura jumped towards him, 'Gottcha!' she hit him in the head and straight into the ground.
"That was a pretty good punch," Naruto said rubbing his head, "At least now I know what I'm working with."
Sakura walked over to where he stood, "What's next?" she asked.
"What's next what?" said Naruto holding a hand to his ear.
Sakura got irritated as she realized what he wanted, she gritted her teeth and said, "What's next… Sensei?"
"That's better," said Naruto with a grin. She merely glared at him, "Oh come on it was joke." But she still just stared. "Now you wanted to learn the shadow clone jutsu right?" he asked "Well it's better to learn by doing, so try it and summon one shadow clone for me." Sakura just sat there nervously. "Come on you've seen me do it a hundred times just make the hand sign," Naruto made the familiar hand sign, "and try it, I need to see your skills."
Sakura nodded. She made the hand sign and, "Shadow clone jutsu!" What came out was not what Sakura was hoping for. She had made a pathetic excuse for a clone, even worse than Naruto's were back at the academy. Sakura blushed and looked away embarrassed and disappointed.
Naruto attempted to comfort her, "No that was a good first try Sakura…"
But he was cut off, "No it wasn't, it was terrible…" said Sakura extremely disappointed. She was right of course but Naruto didn't want to say it.
"Just try it again Sakura I'm sure you'll get it, try gathering a lot of chakra first," said Naruto offering some advice.
"O-ok...," she focused, gathered her chakra, and, "Shadow clone jutsu!" as the smoke cleared and still on the ground lay a pathetic excuse for a shadow clone. She bowed her head in defeat.
"No that's ok, that's why I'm here to train you," said Naruto sympathetically.
"But you make it seem so easy Sensei," said Sakura with a sigh.
"A rule to live by, nothing is as easy as it looks, now I see you were expecting to just get this right away huh?" said Naruto raising an eyebrow in suspicion.
"What? No that's not it at all," said Sakura waving her hands in front of her face, she had thought it would be easier than this though. "It's just you always seem to summon wave after wave of them without breaking a sweat."
"Well you won't be able to do that, even if you train as hard as me because you don't have…" Naruto said quietly to himself while clutching his stomach.
"What?"
"Nothing… Hey we've been at this for a while let's go grab some lunch."
"But we've hardly done any training," complained Sakura, "I told you not to go easy on me! We're going to stay and train more."
"Ok then, you want training," Naruto said with a smirk, "Fine give me 20 more attempts at the shadow clone jutsu…"
"As a little warm up." Naruto added.
"Right," she said obediently. She gathered chakra once again, "Shadow clone jutsu!" yet another reject clone.
"Shadow clone jutsu!"
"Shadow clone jutsu!"
"Shadow clone jutsu!" one after another Sakura attempted the shadow clone jutsu and one after another she failed. She reached the tenth attempt and started to get dizzy.
"Come on don't stop now only 10 more to go!" said Naruto with a mixture of encouragement, demand, and a little enjoyment.
Grabbing her head she said, "O…k". So she started again "Shadow clone jutsu!" and once again she went one after another useless clone after useless clone. Once she finally finished her set she had used nearly all her chakra and barley managed to finish.
"Alright there were some good attempts in there but it doesn't seem like we're making any progress with them so we're done with the shadow clone for now." Before Sakura could ask if they were done Naruto screamed, "Look alive Sakura!" She looked up to find a punch flying right towards her face. She didn't have time to think, she managed to move away but the fist still grazed her face. Without much energy left she fell to the ground gasping for breath.
"What the HELL was that for?" shouted Sakura, but she didn't get a chance to yell at Naruto some more because a shuriken came flying right towards her, since she didn't have the reflexes or the chakra to dodge at the moment she closed her eye's and waited for the impact. But it never came. She opened her eyes to find Naruto pulling the shuriken out from the ground right in front of her. "Come on stand up!" he demanded. "If you wanna get stronger you're going to have to learn to fight even when you're this low on chakra, because once you learn to fight strong like you are now you'll have no problem doing it at full power," Naruto explained.
Sakura summoned up all her strength to get up; she wasn't sure how she'd hold up, or if she'd even be able to move. But she knew she had to do this, so she sucked up her strength and charged Naruto, because of her low chakra level she was easier to read than before, so Naruto had no problem moving out of the way. Once he moved though Sakura kept going, she fell to the ground and lost consciousness.
She slowly opened her eyes to find an orange sky above. It was already dusk, had she really been asleep that long. She lifted her head to find herself leaning on Naruto, "Finally you're awake Sakura-chan, I was getting worried," he said with a goofy grin.
"Have you been waiting here with me the whole time," Sakura asked sleepily.
As if answering her question his stomach growled and he blushed and said, "Yeah, I didn't wanna leave you all alone especially when you were out cold."
Sakura fully awake now worryingly said, "Oh no Naruto, you mean to tell me you sat here all day and didn't even get to eat lunch all because of me?"
"No it's okay I don't mind really," lied Naruto, he didn't like to miss lunch or any meal for that matter, but for the sake of Sakura he would manage through it.
Sakura stood up and her stomach growled. She blushed, grabbed her stomach, and said, "Come on let's go get some Ramen on me as thanks for the training and for missing lunch."
"Sure let's go," jumped an extremely motivated Naruto. They walked out of the training field and made their way to Ichiraku Ramen. "Ayame-neesan," shouted Naruto at the back of the girl in front of him. As she turned to see her favorite customer she smiled brightly and asked, "Hi Naruto-kun what will it be," as if she didn't already know the answer. "Pork ramen please," he said cheerfully.
"Now Naruto don't pig out on your usual fifteen bowls of ramen, remember I'm the one paying," Sakura butted in. Naruto looked slightly disappointed but smiled in acceptance. Ayame smiled at the pink-haired kunoichi that sat next to her little Naruto. "I'll have the same," Sakura said. When she delivered the food she whispered in Naruto's ear, "She's cute, but making your girlfriend pay isn't the gentlemanly thing to do…," Naruto blushed at this and quickly said, "N-no you've got it all wrong," but Ayame just giggled and walked away. Naruto buried his face in his bowl to avoid having to answer the question he knew was coming, but it seemed unavoidable.
"What did she say?" Sakura asked curiously.
"Nothing…," Naruto said trying to avoid the question.
"Come on just tell me," pleaded Sakura.
Naruto blushed slightly knowing she wouldn't leave it alone until she got an answer, "She said…it was wrong of me to make you pay for my food."
"Oh…," she replied a little disappointed at the answer. They finished up and Sakura got up to pay, when she gave Ayame the money she looked over at Naruto shook her head and giggled. Naruto blushed slightly and Sakura was still in the dark, until they started to walk away and she called after them saying playfully, "You kids play nice now, I don't wanna have to see her belly growing in a couple months Naruto-kun." Naruto and Sakura both blushed as Sakura realized why Ayame had been looking over at them and giggling the whole time they were there. She could only guess what she really whispered in Naruto's ear.
"Don't pay any attention to her, I've grown up eating there so she's kinda like a sister to me, so she likes to tease me like that," explained Naruto. The rest of the way was in silence, Naruto decided to walk Sakura home since he was afraid she still may be very weak from the training. When they reached her house she said, "Goodnight and thank you for the training," Sakura said.
"Don't thank me just yet, you'll have to go through this training everyday. The way you sound you'd think this was the only time," said Naruto. At the thought of doing this everyday Sakura just hung her head, walked inside, and went straight to bed.
Well that's chapter 2. FYI the story will continue on for a little in this in the past flashback type thing until further notice. I hope you weren't dissapointed. Writing this like squeezed the creativity out of me and totally drained me(pathetic or what?) but I got a few idea's for the next chapter.