Chapter 9

Tazuna was still in shock. It's been at least seven hours after our little conversation with Zabuza and Haku, and here he was, staring at us like we've grown a second head. I understand that the two were trying to kill him just last week and then today they didn't even give him a glance but that doesn't explain why he was staring at us for.

Maybe it's because of the way we look so disinterested. I don't know.

We were eating dinner and Inari was talking animatedly to Naruto while Sasuke and I were eating quietly. Kakashi somehow managed to eat without us seeing his face, which I used to think was impossible. Now, I just accept the fact that we are never going to see underneath his mask. It doesn't mean that I'm not curious though, because believe me I am. Anyway, if Tazuna doesn't stop looking at us like a retard then I am so going to shannaro his ass. It's bugging me. Make him stop. Ugh.

I was about to speak up but Sasuke got there before me.

"Tazuna-san, are you just going to stare at us for the rest of the night?" Sasuke asked, his face impassive, but I swear to kami that I saw his eyes flash red. Ah, the mighty Sharingan. Tazuna should be scared shitless now.

"W-well can you blame me?! They were right there, and all you guys did was making small talk!" Tazuna cried, leaning back away from Sasuke and his colour-changing eyes. "And it ended so quickly! It's hard to take in, you know?"

"Tazuna-san." Kakashi started, giving the man an exasperated look. "I know that it happened very quickly, but it's been seven hours, I repeat, seven hours. And stop looking at us like that."

"Hmph, like I said, not my fault." Tazuna frowned, and finally stopped staring at us as he turned his head the other way. At last! I thought I was going to have to gauge his eyes out or something. Not that I was actually going to that. Cough cough.

After we cleared up the table, we bade each other goodnight and trudged to our respective rooms to get ready for bed. Naruto, Sasuke and I entered our room in silence and went to get our futons out. I dragged mine to my usual place, near the window, and unrolled it. I saw the boys do the same as I went to get my pyjamas out of my back pack.

"Guys turn around." I demanded. After they finished their eye-rolling and finally turned away, I changed into black shorts and a baggy plain red t-shirt.

When we were all in our futons and the lights were turned off, I began to think. So, we know that we were sent to the past by the scroll and everything but why? And how? Then, my mind wandered off to other things. Like my byakugou seal. Every time I look into a mirror, I would be expecting to see the diamond-shaped seal on my forehead. I miss it. It looked pretty badass on me, in my opinion anyway, plus I couldn't brag about it to Ino. Now that I don't have it, I have to spend three years sending chakra to my forehead again and that's pretty troublesome because that means I can't use all my chakra in fights. Sigh.

Oh my dear byakugou seal, I miss you so.


We left the next day, early in the morning. More or less the whole village came to see us off, though I'm not sure why because we didn't actually do anything. We could have left twenty minutes ago if we haven't been held up by a hat-wearing terror. Inari was crying and clutched onto Naruto's leg pants like a koala, not wanting to let go as Naruto tried to shake him off.

"BUT I DON'T WANT YOU TO LEAVE!" Inari howled, clutching the blond idiot even tighter. I sighed and counted from one to ten in my head. This kid was making my patience run low with all his screaming. It seems like I'm not the only one.

"Inari, men do not cry. Are you a man?" Sasuke asked, his eye twitching though his voice remained calm.

The boy immediately stopped screaming and look up at Sasuke. He nodded with wide eyes and his tears gradually stopped running down his cheeks.

"Then let him go."

Inari released his hold on Naruto in an instant and wiped his running nose while Naruto took the chance to jump away out of the little boys reach. Well that was simple; even I could have done that. Now, maybe this means that we could go home? I shifted my eyes to look at Kakashi, he was reading his book, again. He probably felt my gaze on him as his eyes flickered up from his book and gave me a questioning look. I tilted my head to the side and blinked. He blinked back. I frowned. He sighed.

"Okay come on guys let's go." Kakashi gave me a look, and I gave a thumbs up and a smile as a reply. Yay! We're going home! When I get back, I'm going to go shopping with Ino, actually, no, we're going to go train. Mhmm. And maybe Hinata would join us, if she wants to. I wouldn't mind if TenTen joined us but she wouldn't really know me. Shame. I think this training would help us a lot. We could become even stronger than before. And plus-

-we girls have to be strong in order to survive, don't we?


Our journey back to Konoha was much faster than the journey to the Land of Waves. We traveled through the trees this time, jumping from tree to tree, the wind whipping our faces. It was relatively quiet, the journey was. No one was speaking, not even Naruto-

"Hey Sakura-chan!"

-tell a lie, Naruto was the only one speaking. . . Pffft, not really.

"Yes?"

"Wanna go get ramen with me when we get back?" Naruto asked. I refused to meet his eye, knowing full well that he would put up his most hopeful, childlike face which nobody could say no to. So instead, I looked straight ahead before answering.

"I'm sorry Naruto, I have plans for the day." I could practically feel his pout at my response.

"How about another day?"

I shrugged.

"As long as you're paying."

When we arrived back to our village, it was around mid afternoon. I went straight home and was not surprised when my parents were not home; they were probably at the market again. I dropped off my bag into my room and jumped out my window out into the streets. Even though I just came back from a mission, I wasn't that tired. My twelve year old body couldn't take all the running and jumping as well as my 19 year old body though. Now I know what to work on while training.

I made my way to Yamanaka Flowers to find Ino, hopefully, she would come with me to train.

Once arriving, I opened the door to the shop, and saw Ino straight away, her hair tied up in its usual place and wearing an apron. She was leaning on the till, twiddling a tulip in her fingers, her cheek resting on her hand. Ino looked up as I entered and her face lit up when she saw me.

"Forehead! What are you doing here?"

"Hello to you too, Pig." I said rolling my eyes. "Anyway, do you want to come and train with me?"

Ino's face broke into a large grin. "Oooh I'll join you! My shift ends in five minutes, I could go earlier, my mum won't mind."

With that, she ran to the back room, threw her apron off, grabbed her ninja gear and yelled, "Mum! I'm gonna go train with Sakura!"

When we were out of the shop into the bustling street, I asked Ino about training with Hinata.

"I don't mind training with her, but don't the Hyuga's train by themselves, if you know what I mean?" Ino tapped her chin in thought before looking at me. "Well, shall we find her then?"

And so, we headed to the Hyuga compound, which everyone knows where seeing as how the compound is huge and well known. As we walked, we discussed how we were going to ask the Hyuga's to let Hinata train.

"We're going to have to be really polite and we aren't allowed to say anything wrong or else they're gonna kick us out of their compound." I said, my arms crossed and my hand holding my chin in a thoughtful manner.

"Yes, the Hyuga's can be very stern and sharp so we have to be careful with what we say." Ino said, nodding.

"But wha- hey isn't that Hinata over there?" I pointed to a girl with black-purple short hair, standing timidly near a stall, looking at something across from her, her fingers laced together at her chest. I spotted her hair first, which isn't hard to find with its' colour. I wonder what she was doing? I looked over at what she was looking at and the first thing I saw was Ichiraku Ramen's sign. Something clicked inside my head. "Hey Ino. . . I think she's stalking Naruto."

"WHAAA-" Ino screeched. I quickly slapped my hand over her mouth, shooting apologetic looks at the staring people. I gave a sigh of relief as I saw Hinata still looking into the ramen shop. She hadn't noticed us. I pulled Ino at the side of a little stall so we won't get spotted.

"Ino! Keep quiet! You don't want Hinata to spot us now do you?" I scolded her taking my hands off her mouth.

"Forehead, she has the byakugan, she can see and spot just about everything." Ino said, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, how do you know she's stalking?"

I furrowed my eyebrows.

"Well, I guess stalking is too extreme, but who goes to Ichiraku Ramen all day, everyday?" I questioned, raising my eyebrows and waiting for an answer.

"Um. . . Naruto?"

"Yes, exactly." I nodded. "And have you noticed her keep on staring at him in the Academy?"

I watched her eyes gradually getting wider, most likely in realisation.

"Oh-oh kami I never actually. . . I always brushed it off but now. . . OH MY GOD IT WAS SO-" I slapped my hand over her mouth again, giving her a glare. Dammit, we were lucky that Hinata was too engrossed at looking at Naruto or else she would have heard us!

"Ino! Keep it d-" Something wet touched my hand. I snapped my hand away and wiped it ferociously on my skirt, giving Ino a disgusted look as she stuck her tongue out at me. "Ew! Did you really just lick me? You really are a pig aren't you?"

"Oh shut up Forehead! It's just that I didn't really notice Hinata staring at Naruto in the academy and she always blushes when he's close, now that I think about it." Ino said, looking around the stall at Hinata. "She. . . Has a crush on him, doesn't she?"

I looked down and smiled. "Yeah, she does."

Hinata didn't just have a crush on the idiot, she loved him, like really loved him. I remember, when the war was over, how she looked at Naruto in admiration. Naruto had, with Sasuke's help, defeated Madara and we were all celebrating. I had healed up Naruto's side, where I sliced to manually beat his heart. However, he told me to not heal it all as he wanted it to scar. Wow I just totally went off topic there.

"Sakura?"

I jerked out of my musings and looked up to see Ino with her arms crossed, brow raised and tapping her foot in impatience.

"Eh?" Oh wow clever reply Sakura.

"I said, that we should investigate!" Ino stood up to her full height, putting her hands on her hips, tilting her head to the side. I raised my eyebrow.

"Investigate?"

"Yeah! Because I never knew someone would like Naruto, ya know?"

"Lets not investigate, we're suppose to be asking Hinata to come training with us, come on." Without waiting for a reply I stepped out of our hiding spot and headed straight for Hinata, who was still looking into Ichiraku Ramen.

"Hinata!" I greeted with a wave. The girl gave a slight jump. When she looked up at me, her face turned red.

"S-Sakura-san, Ino-san!"

"Hey Hinata! We came to ask if you would like to come and train with us, so. . . You wanna join us?" Ino asked from beside me.

"A-ano, I was going to train with my cousin in the training grounds. . ." Hinata stuttered, fidgeting her fingers.

Cousin? I'm guessing she means Neji. I inwardly smiled. Neji used to be such a bastard, especially towards Hinata, I'm glad that he's changing what he'd done in the past, no, future, wait- ugh never mind.

"Oh well maybe next t-"

"Your cousin could join in as well!" Ino chirped, interrupting me. "The more the merrier, am I right, or am I right?"

I rolled my eyes, she doesn't even know who Hinata's cousin was!

"Ino, I'm sure the two don't want to be interrupted with their training." I turned to Hinata. "Right?"

"Ummm well I'm sure Neji-niisan won't mind actually." Hinata said shyly.

"Woah did you just say Neji? We are DEFINITELY going to train with together." Turning on her heels, she began walking off. "Come on!"

Turning to the Hyuga, I gave her an apologetic look.

"I'm so sorry, Hinata. Ino was always a bit different."

She gave a small smile before we both ran to catch up with the blonde haired genin.

How did Ino even know who Neji was? He wasn't in the same year or class in the academy as us so. . . Ah yes, he's good-looking that's why.


"No."

I gave a frustrated sigh. I knew asking Neji wouldn't be a good idea but Ino kept on insisting.

"Ino, come on, lets leave them alone." I made a grab for Ino's arm but before I could do so, a shout made me stop.

"SAKURA-SAN!"

The four of us turned at the voice coming from the trees. There was a ruffling of trees and leaves before a green thing jumped out. Who turned out to be Lee. Unsurprisingly. There was another ruffle of leaves and a girl jumped out. She was wearing Chinese style clothing with two buns on top of her head. TenTen. What a coincidence. I wanted to meet TenTen as well.

"Hey Lee! Don't run off like that!" TenTen shouted. Once they reached us TenTen gave Neji a small greeting before lecturing Lee about leaving during training.

Someone gave me a nudge, knowing it was Ino, I tilted my head at her.

"Who are they?" She asked. Before I could say anything, Neji answered for me.

"The one wearing the spandex is Lee and the other is TenTen." Neji said, crossing his arms.

"We're your teammates as well!" Lee added, doing his 'nice guy' pose, blinding us all. "And don't forget, my rival!"

I inwardly groaned. All I wanted to do was to train, but now it turned into some gathering! What the hell? Ino and I need to get out of here or else we won't get anything done.

"We're just gonna go now if that's okay-"

"Why don't you join us?" TenTen said, smiling. "As you should probably know by now, I'm TenTen and I know that one of you is Sakura. . ."

"Yeah that's me." I grinned at her giving her a little wave.

"And I'm Yamanaka Ino!" My blonde friend butted, most likely not like being left out.

"Nice to meet you, now, how about you join us with training?" TenTen suggested. "It might be fun."

"The six of us?" I asked. "I don't see why not."

"Actually, Hinata-sama and I would be training somewhere else, let's go." With that Neji walked off with his cousin in tow.

"Wait! I want to fight you Neji!" Lee exclaimed, running after the two Hyuga's.

"Hey Neji! Lee! Don't- ah nevermind. . ." TenTen sighed, pouting. "I guess it's only us three then."

Ino shrugged. "So what shall we work on?"

"I don't know what your fighting styles are though. . ." The brown-haired girl paused. "How about we work on Taijutsu? We can see what our weaknesses in Taijutsu are and then we could see how we could improve. We could also use weapons."

I nodded in agreement.

"That's a good idea, how about you and Ino spar first?"

After they both agreed, I settled myself down on one of the wooden stumps and watched as they began to spar. It was a bit odd. We only just met and we're already training together, but from what I could tell, neither of us minded.

Ino started off by throwing a kunai at the brunette, who dodged easily. They fought with a series of punches and kicks, throwing weapons at each other. TenTen at one point, got out a scroll and kunai's were aimed at Ino. The blonde was mostly on defense than offense, as she had to dodge all the weapons thrown at her.

It wasn't hard to tell that TenTen's Taijutsu was a bit more advanced than Ino's. TenTen was more smooth while Ino was slower and didn't put much power into her punches and kicks.

"STOOOOP!" I yelled. They both came to a halt, looking at me in question. I flashed them a smile before carrying on. "I know what you guys need to work on."

They approached me with a look of interest on their faces.

"So?" They asked in unison.

"Ino, you need to put more power into your punches and kicks and you both may need to work on your fluidity and speed." Once I finished there was silence. Did I say something wrong? No, I'm sure I didn't, then why weren't they saying anything?

"Wow Forehead you sounded like a pro." Pig paused. "I guess I'll work on those things, however, lets see what you've got."

Ino took my place on the stump as I helped TenTen pick up her weapons and sealing them into the scrolls. That took us quit some time seeing how TenTen had so many weapons, how could she deal with this?! After every training session she would have to collect them back up; it would take so much effort I just wouldn't bother.

"Hey hey are you guys nearly done?" Ino called, looking impatient from the stump.

"Pig! You're not the one who's picking up all these weapons!" I shouted out in response. Tsk tsk that girl really need to learn how to be patient.

Once all the weapons were sealed, TenTen and I stood away and faced each other.

Now, I have to remember to go more slowly and make it look like I was out of breath after a while. Yup, that seems easy enough. I whipped out four shurikens from my weapons pouch, running towards the weapons mistress. I threw them towards her and she jumped up to dodge them. She got out a scroll and a barricade of kunai's were launched at me. Hey! Why did she use it on me so early?!

I quickly summoned K and T, calling for them inside my head; they appeared in my hands immediately. I used them block the weapons and purposely let some through so it looks like I couldn't catch up with them. I threw Katsu at TenTen once I saw an opening and guided it used a chakra string. It dodged at everything that was thrown at i, when it reached TenTen, I aimed for her chest, however it was blocked by a kunai in her hand. She pushed it away as hard as she could and I let go of the chakra strings, letting my sai to get knocked to the ground.

Summoning Katsu again, I got ready for more weapons to be thrown at me. However, before we could carry on, there was a shout from above us.

"WATCH OUT!"

We looked up to see two blobs, one blue and the other green, of what I presume were to be people, hurtling down towards us.. We lunged out of the way, not needing to be told twice. The blue and green thing crashed down onto the training field, causing a loud bang and a dust cloud to form.

Coughing, I stood up and tried to bat away the dust and saw others do the same. What the hell was that?! Two people just fell from the sky! What the actual hell? Actually, I have a feeling I know who they were. Two people, most likely to be ninja, since civilians don't go falling down from the sky, one wearing a blue outfit and the other a green one? Yeah, I have an idea of who they could be. Once the dust cloud had disappeared, I saw Ino and TenTen with their jaw slack and eyes wide. Following their line of vision, what I saw caused me to face palm.

I knew it was them! Who else could it have been?!


A/N: Sorry, I haven't update in ages, please don't kill me! Anywhooo, if you guys are Hinata fans and shit, please don't get offended by what I put with her 'stalking' Naruto, it wasn't suppose to be offensive but knowing some people in this crappy world, at least one of you would complain. So yeah, if you guys are offended by it, I'm sorry!

Please review! More reviews means faster updates!

24/4/2014- I edited this since I thought the last paragraph wasn't very clear.