A/N: Wow, I didn't expect so many reviews so soon! 10 reviews on the first day! That's more than I've gotten for any other story, period! Well I guess I'll continue writing, thanks for the support. Just a few little things...
Hitokiri Jotham - Just an appreciative shoutout to the very first reviewer. Sometime when I've got time for anything more than writing I'll repay the favor .
Madnarutofan - Yes, if you watch carefully throughout the Naruto series, she never once notices, too obsessed with Sasuke to even see him in a proper light. Anything she does manage to see always seems to be mistaken for something else. There's a pretty good example in this fic.
Everyone else - Thank you so much for reviewing! I'll keep pumping out chapters as fast as I can, thanks for believing in me too, not ONE person agreed that the first chapter was lame... maybe the mistakes were difficult to catch? Either way, I still appreciate that.
Now then, with the introductory chapter gone and being thoroughly inspired to actually go through with the next chapter... oh! I almost forgot... though this chapter may not suggest it, don't fret! This is a NaruSaku fic! Just be a little patient!
Promise of a Lifetime
Chapter 2: The One Who Dumped Naruto
Haruno Sakura walked down the streets of Konoha, looking exasperated and above all, exhuasted. The pink-haired girl closed her eyes and let out a tired sigh, she had been all over town, asking if Naruto had met any girls that morning and, in fact, every morning for the past two weeks. People were starting to wonder if Sakura had changed her mind about Sasuke and was instead trying to nab Naruto. She was getting severely annoyed, not only were people snickering at her and making cracks about how she was 'scoping the competition,' but she hadn't found one clue that Naruto had been close to any girl in the Hidden Village on the day he went to hunt after Sasuke.
"It... couldn't be me could it?" she asked herself mentally, stopping for a moment as she considered this. Was she actually the root of his pain?
From what she had heard from pretty much everyone in the village, Naruto had only met with Shikamaru, Chouji, Kiba, Neji, Lee, and her that day. Out of that group, she was the only girl. Unless... Naruto was...
Sakura shook her head violently, "There's no way that he's gay! We're talking about the guy who created the Sexy no Jutsu here!" she screamed mentally.
For once she had actually chosen the exact words that her inner self would have used.
"No... he's not gay and it couldn't have been me..." she thought as she walked on, "We're not together, he would have no reason to be sad about losing me because he never had me in the first place."
Somehow this mental statement caused a tiny pang of guilt, followed by an odd sort of feeling she had felt only once before. She remembered it clearly, the day that Naruto grew from a mere 'bibiri-kun' to an actual ninja.
Flashback
He was thrown away effortlessly, skidding to the feet of Tazuna, Sakura, and Sasuke, one arm buried under him. A jolt of fear ran through the very core of Sakura's being... he was... ready to throw his life away for the promise he had made to himself... that he would no longer be a burden... and would no longer run away. She began to tremble, staring at him, wide-eyed.
"What are you thinking, charging in like that on your own!" She yelled, not able to hide her concern for him... he may have been annoying, but still... she didn't want him to... die.
"Even Sasuke-kun isn't a match for him! Genins like ourselves have no way of defeating him no matter what we try!" She yelled, trying to talk some sense into the blonde, and she let out a small gasp as Naruto began to push himself to his feet... the Konoha headband that had been under the Jounin's foot now gripped tightly in his hand.
"He went for the forehead protector...?" she thought, amazed.
Shock was apparent in everyone on the scene. Suddenly the Jounin didn't seem so invincible. Naruto had attacked him and, in the end, got what he was after... the fact that he had tried something against the Jounin... and that it had worked... sent renewed hope through all of them. No longer was Zabuza an impregnable fortress of ninja strength... he could be fought just like any other ninja.
"Hey... the no brow there..." said Naruto, referring to the Jounin he had just bested, "Put this in your bingo book... the man who will become Hokage of the Hidden Village of Konoha one day..."
He stood up straight, tall and proud, taking in a deep breath as he lifted his precious headband to his forehead.
"The Konoha style ninja..." he began, tightening the forehead protector, "Uzumaki Naruto!"
The way he said it... the way he showed absolutely no fear was... inspiring. Zabuza glared at the boy, shaking with anger.
"Sasuke! Lend me your ear for a second" he said, for once actually looking and sounding like a strong, effective leader.
"What do you want?" Came the mildly irritated reply from the Uchiha shinobi.
"I have a plan." Naruto said shortly.
"I can't believe you want to work as a team." remarked Sasuke, a bemused look crossing his features. Naruto smirked, Sasuke would cooperate with him for the time being.
"What... what is this feeling...?" thought Sakura, her eyes wide and her cheeks flushed, "Was Naruto this..."
"Well then..." Naruto said, wiping the blood from his chin, "Let's go wild now!"
End Flashback
Back then... she had felt this same feeling. At first she had thought it was respect and awe... she thought it was just inspiration. What was there to be inspired about now, though? No... it wasn't just a feeling of inspiration from the boy's demonstration of leadership. It was something else... what was it? It was something that she had only ever felt twice in her life. Sakura again shook her head violently.
"I don't have time to think about this... I made a promise and I'm going to keep it!" the kunoichi told herself mentally.
Naruto was worried. Sakura was taking this whole thing a little too far. He had learned from Shikamaru that Sakura was actively searching for girls that he had been with on that day, and it immediately clicked as to what she was doing. She was trying to find the person who had caused him pain. Why else would she have asked him about the girl who had hurt him two weeks ago? Of all the times he would have been proud and flattered that Sakura-chan would want to help him... this was the one time he was afraid of her trying to help him. He didn't want to put another burden onto Sakura's shoulders... she had enough to deal with with Sasuke disappearing.
"Maybe I should just tell her..." he thought, "If she keeps going like this she'll find out eventually... and the longer it takes, the more of a burden I'll be. She would say something like 'it was like that all this time...?' and break down into tears..."
If there was any one thing that superceded everything to him... his dream of becoming Hokage... keeping his promises... and never going back on his word... Sakura's happiness that took the highest priority. He couldn't remember when exactly he decided to dedicate such a large portion of his life to her. Maybe it was back before they graduated the academy... maybe it was sometime during their many missions, or perhaps the Chuunin exams while fighting Sabaku no Gaara, or maybe it was just on their most recent mission. All he really did know was that Sakura meant the world to him, and even if it meant going against his life-long dream of being Hokage, he would be there for her.
His thoughts were snapped back to the present as he caught a glint of steel in his peripheral vision, several glints at that, coming from both directions. Naruto immediately molded chakra into his legs and jumped straight up, the shuriken clanging uselessly underneath him. His eyes searched the edges of the forest clearing he was in, hoping to find some sign of his opponent, but it was all in vain. He twisted his body so that he was hanging upside-down in the air. In a blur he pulled eight of his own projectiles, kunai.
The world seemed to slow down for the young ninja. All of a sudden the shurikens, moving fast enough to blur, slowed to a mere crawl. He counted the shurikens coming in a split second... nine. He didn't have time to grab an extra kunai, so he did the first thing he could think of, something that he had seen Sasuke did in their battle of battles... in the Valley of the End.
In an instant all eight kunai were flying through the air, whistling towards their targets. Seven of the shurikens were caught by kunai, the tip penetrating through the holes in the middle. He heard seven thuds of steel sinking into wood, and simultaneously a small, resounding clang as his last kunai hit the 8th shuriken, throwing it off course and crashing into it's neighbor in such an angle that it bounced back in almost the exact direction it had come from.
The boy landed with a soft crunch on the soft grass of the clearing, immediately kicking off the ground and up into the branches of the tall trees that surrounded him. Again he flipped, tucking himself as he spun through the air until his feet were parallel to the surface of the tree he was aiming for. He uncurled himself and focused his chakra into his feet once more as he landed, crouching sideways on the trunk of the tree. His eyes darted around, trying to find the source of the shurkens. Through the corner of his eye he caught a small glimpse of white.
Using his legs as something of a spring, Naruto again molded chakra into his feet, though this time repelling instead of attracting. This, combined with the spring motion from his legs, proved to be too much for the poor tree. Splinters and bits of wood scattered all over the place with the force of impact, the tree actually bending and springing back like a springboard, shaking loose the various animals hidden in the tree, who all ran for their lives.
Naruto had barely calculated correctly, he flew through the leaves towards his target, a huge grin on his face.
"Ero-sennin!" he yelled as he forced chakra into his wound fist, "GOTCHA!"
The blonde ninja's fist crashed into the side of Jiraiya's face, sending him flying back a few feet into a tree trunk, splintering and shattering it. The legendary Sannin had burst into smoke, pieces of shattered wood in his place. He felt a fist pound into his back... he grinned as he disappeared in a puff of smoke.
The real Jiraiya's eyes opened wide, "When did he...?" his thought began, but was quickly cut off as he felt a hard pressure on the side of his face. This time it was the real him that was sent into a tree, head first. The wood splintered and shattered, it was too close range, all he had time to do was push out chkara to soften the impact... but even then a dull pain was sent coursing through his body as he went through the tree... bouncing on the forest ground, skidding a few feet before finally pushing his hand on the ground and flipping to his feet, throwing yet another shuriken at the boy.
Naruto grinned as the Shuriken hit his chest square... he disappeared in another puff of smoke.
"Dammit! How many did he create!" he wondered.
The old self-proclaimed super pervert heard the wooshing chakra before the yells.
"RASENGAN!" he heard the voice echo. There were two of them, and they were close... too close...
"When did he get that close? Or was he already there to begin with?" thought the Sannin as he instantly prepared two of his own Rasengan... thrusting his arms outward to block both of the other Rasengan's... he was a clockwise type while Jiraiya was a counterclockwise type... both sphere's cancelled each other out, "Too--"
The man was cut off, however, as he felt swirling energy collide with his back... sending him flying into another tree... and this time he was so suprised that he didn't even have enough time to raise a proper defense.
"RASENGAN!" the boy yelled before he was sent crashing through two trees, skidding to a halt, flat on his stomach. The two clones disappeared... they were only distractions after all. Naruto skidded to a halt from his running Rasengan, grinning happily at the downed Sannin, who had, after a moment, gotten to his feet and dusted himself off.
"Heh! Take that!" said Naruto, tucking his hands behind his head. The boy suspected that Jiraiya had held back, but it was the first time he had ever been able to defeat his own sensei, under any condition.
Jiraiya smirked at the young boy, who was now jumping around and doing cartwheels and flips in joy, "He's getting stronger..." thought the Sannin. He would have been able to avoid all of Naruto's attacks, had he not underestimated the boy so greatly. He knew that he would inevitably use the Kage Bunshin... but never in his wildest dreams did he ever think that Naruto would be able to pull off the technique so quickly that wouldn't notice it... he really was the number one ninja at suprising people.
"Very good Naruto, I couldn't even see when you made the Kage Bunshins..." he admitted. He would have to be cautious about this... if Naruto knew that Jiraiya was trying... it would have boosted his confidence to the point of arrogance.
Naruto stopped his little dance of happiness as Jiraiya walked up to him, "I know, I did it when I was flying at you through the leaves. I had the leaves as cover, and you were focused on running, expecting an attack, so I made the Kage Bunshin yell as it attacked, that way you would create a Kawarimi and counter."
Flashback
Naruto was flying through the foilage towards Jiraiya, he formed the unique seal to the Kage Bunshin and swiftly jumped straight up. As expected, Jiraiya had used the Kawarimi no Jutsu to switch places with a piece of wood, and the real Jiraiya appeared to deliver a counter attack.
"While I was in the air I used the Kage Bunshin again to make six more clones..." he continued his explanation.
Naruto made the forbidden seal of the kinjutsu once more, six clones appearing...
"And split them up... four of them where you would land after the first one hit you... while I hid myself and the last clone to watch where you would turn..."
The clone delivered it's blow, sending Jiraiya flying. The four other clones were already charging the Rasengan, as was the real Naruto and the clone that had followed him.
"After watching you jump to you're feat... I figured that you would try to cancel out both the Rasengan with your own two... I remember you once showing me that you could hold one in each hand... but this would force your back to be towards one direction... since your arms would be stretched out in either direction, you would be wide open as well... From how you landed, I guessed that you wouldn't turn around because it was a waste of movement, so I moved to wher eyour back would be facing, dismissing my clone and using the Kage Bunshin's battle cries as cover for the movement... and from there... well..."
"RASENGAN!" both of the clones yelled as Naruto dropped to the ground, not 10 feet away from the Sannin as he cancelled out both attacks... he jumped forth, his own charged Rasengan slamming into his teacher's back, sending the perverted hermit flying.
End Flashback
To say Jiraiya was suprised would be an understatement... it was such an airtight plan that only someone with a doujutsu like Sharingan or Byaakugan could have hoped to actually see through it... but someone like him, who lacked any type of bloodline limit much less a powerful doujutsu, wouldn't have seen it coming, even if he was trying his hardest to win the fight. Naruto had outsmarted him.
"Naruto's growing much faster than usual... in just two weeks he's already outsmarting me..." thought the Sannin, "It won't be long before he can beat me with brute force at this rate... it must be the desire to bring back Sasuke for Sakura..."
"Impressive... let's call it a day... we've been training every day for the past two weeks." he suggested, "I haven't been able to get any research done at all!"
Naruto glared. He highly disapproved of Ero-sennin's... research... but he knew that if Jiraiya didn't get to his peeping, he would become irritable, and take it out on him. Naruto gave a short nod and, with his hands shoved in his pockets, wandered back into the village of Konoha... they weren't very far from the gates.
During the walk home, he had more time to ponder Sakura's strange behaviour. What was he going to do? It wouldn't be long before he was approached by the pink-haired girl... and he was running out of options. He had noticed that Sakura had been trying to corner him as of late... and on several days he even had to go without ramen because she was standing outside of Ichiraku, obviously waiting for him to drop by as he usually did.
The boy let out an exasperated sigh... sooner or later he would have to tell her that she was the one who had caused him that pain... just not today.
The Hyuuga household was the very last place she went to. It wasn't because she disliked the Hyuuga's or anything, it was just that Sakura couldn't possibly suspect Hinata of all people to be the one that left Naruto, she was just too kind an innocent and thoroughly fond of the boy to have caused him any pain beyond an accidental head-butt when he had made her faint by being so close. Still... she was running out of options. She had been as desperate as to go to each girl's house in the village that Naruto knew, asking them if they had been with Naruto on that day. None of them had lied, even after she slipped them a veritaserum she had Tsunade-sama make for her.
"Speaking of which... I don't have a whole lot of time for this... Tsunade-sama wanted me over for more training.." she mused internally.
After she had gotten home, she decided to train with the Sannin. Sakura was sick of being a hindrance, sick of being someone who couldn't properly take care of herself. Above all, however, she no longer wanted to be a danger to Naruto... or anyone else in the village that was willing to protect her.
"I need to make this quick..." the pink-haired kunoichi decided as she wandered into the Hyuuga compound.
Luckily enough, Hinata was outside today, practicing her fabled Jyuuken. She moved gracefully as she practiced against an invisble opponent, her open-handed thrusts extremely powerful, making sweat fly off of her arm with each viscious attack. She wasn't wearing her usual outfit today... well... at least not all of it. She had removed her baggy pink hoodie, leaving her in a dark blue, form-fitting tank top that matched perfectly with her capris. Sakura suspected it was what she wore underneath that pink sweater-jacket she always wore. Now that she looked at Hinata, she wondered why the girl bothered to wear such a thing... she looked far prettier without it. Sakura noted that Hinata was currently using the Byaakugan and shuddered. Those eyes really creeped her out, much more than the Sharingan did.
"Hinata-chan!" called Sakura in greeting as she neared the girl, "Can I talk with you?"
The indigo-haired girl stopped mid-blow, her hands coming down to her sides as she turned to Sakura, "Hello Sakura-san..." she said a bit skittishly... she was never really a people-person. Sakura had noticed that her eyes had returned to their normal milky white, much to her delight, "Sure..."
Sakura nodded, "Well... it's about Naruto..." she said
"N-Naruto...?" asked the girl. Although she had become a lot more open towards people after the Chuunin exam, even the mention of Uzumaki Naruto made her blush profusely and stumble all over herself.
Sakura nodded, "Yeah... before he left to..." she paused, not wanting to remember that day at the moment, "go on a recovery mission... he said something that I've been wondering about for a while now..."
"W-what was it..?" asked the Hyuuga girl... her mind reeling over with fantasies about Naruto admitting his lover for her... but she quickly fished herself out of these, knowing that it wouldn't make sense to say something like that before a mission.
Her mind, however, remained stubborn, "What if Sakura-san said that she loved Naruto for what she was doing, and said he loved me!" she thought, making her blush, "Sakura-san... has been asking around about Naruto a lot lately... and there have been rumors that she's chasing after him... so... maybe..."
"He said... that he knew what it was like to lose someone important... or at least that's what he implied" she added mentally at the end of her sentence, "I've been trying these past two weeks to find that person... so that I can bring her back to Naruto... like he's trying to do for Sasuke and I..."
Sakura didn't feel that there was any need to hide this from Hinata. She had to be one of the most trustworthy people she knew, albeit a little shy. That, and she was a girl... girls shared secrets with each other when they needed to let something out, and right now... she had been keeping in that secret for two weeks, much longer than she had intended.
Hinata frowned... so it wasn't that Naruto loved her after all. She kicked herself mentally for even thinking that. However... Sakura was saying that she would set that girl up with Naruto. It was a chance for her. It wasn't because she was greedy and wanted Naruto all to herself... but rather she wanted to know if she actually stood a chance with him at all... he always seemed so devoted to the girl that was right before her... while the girl that was standing in front of her was devoted to someone else entirely. She wanted to know how far she could get exactly... so before she could stop herself...
"It was me... I was the one who left Naruto..."
A/N: Well, what do you think? I apologize for the long fight scene with Jiraiya and Naruto... but this is part action/adventure. It's there to emphasize just how badly he wants to keep his promise. I apologize also that it's excessively longer than the last chapter... I just started and couldn't stop. Thanks again for all your support! I'm going to finish up this story for sure!
