A/N: Yo! New chapter... Enjoy!

Chapter 10

-TIME SKIP- 4 Months

One tentative step, a ripple on the surface; a few more steps, and gentle ripples spread on the surface of the pond. "Yes!" Uzumaki Naruto crowed in delight as he ran around in circles on the surface of the pond, while Hinata Hyuuga stood on the surface too, a grin on her face, happy for her best friend.

After months of relentless struggle, he had mastered all the basic chakra control exercises, leaf sticking, tree walking and water walking. It was a moment of triumph, a well deserved accomplishment, and while Naruto stared happily at his feet on the surface of the water where Hinata did her Suiton training, Hinata smiled and shook her head, long used to the antics of her best friend.

One shimmering rope, then two. Concentrating, she commanded more and more thin streams of water until she had at least twenty ropes at her command. She made them loop and dive, moving, spinning, dissolving at her whim. Each rope followed her command and she could feel each shimmering stream.

She closed her eyes, and she felt them, her chakra commanding the water. Pouring chakra into her ropes, she made them sharp, as any sword, liquid death if they were to be let loose. She moved her glistening knives, and then all at once, let them go, letting them dissolve, the water dropping back into the pond creating ripples on the surface. She had gained control over the Suiton element; she had enough control to start work on her Jyuuken.

She opened her eyes, a smile spreading on her face, she was ready.

'Feel the chakra? Hmm... It said to imagine two blades of chakra rubbing against each other, to feel the sharp edge of the chakra and imagining that, use it to cut the leaf... Well here goes nothing...' thought Uzumaki Naruto as he stood at their usual training, a leaf in hand, and a pile more nearby as he remembered the instructions for the first wind chakra control exercise, Hinata had already gained control over her element, and thought he felt a little envious, he knew that he too had made progress by attaining some semblance of chakra control.

He also realised that he would never have perfect chakra control, like Hinata, but decent was good enough for him, and his was not abysmal anymore, and was bordering decent.

Shaking his head to clear all thoughts away, he concentrated solely on his chakra and the leaf in his head. Doing exactly as the book had said, he tried out the exercise.

And then *dramatic pause* nothing; nada; zero- the leaf lay unblemished, as if it had just been plucked, untarnished and a healthy, leafy green. And frankly the cheery colour pissed him off to no end. He immediately began planning Operation Obliviate Leaf, known to normal people as the leaf cutting exercise.

He cackled evilly as he schemed in his head, earning a concerned glance from Hinata who was going through her stretching and warming up nearby.

"Muhhahhha" an evil cackle sounded through their training ground. 'What in the-' thought Hinata as she turned to see the source of the sound. She found Naruto glaring at the leaf in his hand, a maniac grin curling his lips. She sighed softly, shaking her head slightly. In the two years that Naruto and she had become inseparable, she had learnt early on that it was better for her sanity sometimes just to remain blissfully ignorant of the thoughts that ran through his head.

She rolled her eyes and went back to warming up, Naruto was not the only that was going to take another step forward in his training, today was when she would start combining Suiton with her modified Jyuuken. She smiled happily, she had trained hard for this day, just as Naruto had trained to gain control over his chakra.

Lost in thought, she finished warming up and made her journey to the nearby pond. She walked to the centre of the pond, and started to command the ropes, reacquainting herself with the all too familiar feeling of having streams of water at her control.

Taking in a deep breath, she slipped into her familiar modified Jyuuken stance, willing her water knives to come up, positioning herself to begin what would certainly be the long process of perfecting her own taijutsu.

Uzumaki Naruto hated the rain. He did not have an irrational fear of the rain, or the thunder but rain just filled him with an overwhelming sadness that he could not explain. It felt as if the sky was crying and everything looked grey and gloomy. It was for this reason that as he stared out of the window in his academy classroom during the last period, looking out into the pouring rain, that he sighed and tried to suppress the suffocating sadness that threatened to overtake him.

'TRRIINNG' the bell rang. He sighed again and thought 'Great, that's the last thing I need, now I'll have to go home 'cause Hina-chan and I can't even train in this downpour. Resigning himself to a miserable evening in his rackety apartment, he shoved his stuff into his bag and got up to say goodbye to Hinata before heading home. Hinata was taking to Iruka sensei about something, so he waited for her and passed his time by staring into space.

"What's wrong, Naru-kun?" his best friend's voice broke his reverie. He looked around, seeing the classroom mostly empty, light violet eyes staring at him in concern.

"Nothing much, Hina-chan... it's stupid really... I just don't like the rain..." knowing that it was no use denying his bad mood to his best friend, as she would see straight through it.

"Oh... why's that, Naru-kun?"

"No reason... I just hate it... I always feel gloomy during the rains." This coming from the boy who usually gave the energizer bunny a run for its money in terms of enthusiasm and optimism made Hinata feel concerned.

She couldn't bear to see her best friend 'and maybe more' she thought silently, so sad. Those cerulean pools should be full of mischief and laughter as they usually were, not dull and sad. She wished she could do something, when she was sad she always... 'Wait! That's it!' she thought as an imaginary light bulb flashed on top of her head.

A smile spread on her face and she tugged at Naruto's sleeve, quickly retrieving her stuff from her seat which was next to Naruto's. Naruto looked surprised and curious but obliged when she asked him to follow her and together, they walked out of the academy, the rain beating down on Hinata's umbrella relentlessly.

"My mother used to bring me here when I was little, and I would pretend that this was my secret palace and no one could find it except my mother and I. It was my mother's favourite place in the whole wide world, and I'm actually named after this place too. Even after she passed away, this place always made me feel safe, reminded me of her presence. This was her sanctuary and now it's mine. Spending time here always makes me feel better no matter what..." Hinata explained softly as she and Naruto stood in a small clearing, on the edge of the Hyuuga property.

It was grassy and heavily protected by all the wild growth around, the trees formed a canopy of leaves and gave shelter from the rain, though some of it still came through, but Naruto was finding he didn't mind, it was a beautiful place, even with the rain.

Suddenly, the full gravity of the situation dawned on him. This was her sanctuary, the only place the world that was truly hers... hers and hers alone, and a place that held treasured memories of her mother, and she was willingly sharing it with him... he was struck by just how much trust she was placing in hi. His eyes went wide, and he managed to stutter out, "H-Hina-chan..." but she just smiled at him tenderly and nodded, indicating that she knew what was going through his head.

"You showed me your sanctuary so I'm showing you mine" she whispered, effectively silencing all his outbursts. Realising this, he returned her smile with a genuine, blissful smile that made his eyes sparkle, and Hinata's legs feel like jelly and flopped down on the grass, holding out his hand so that Hinata could do the same, albeit much more gracefully.

And as Naruto lay flopped on the grass, Hinata next to him, watching the downpour gradually turn to a lazy drizzle, and the sunrays peeking through the leaves, even though he was soaked to the bone, he found that the rain didn't hate the rain anymore.

-TIME SKIP- 4 Months

Hinata and Naruto stood- Hinata on the surface of the pond and Naruto on land, to even out her advantage. They both met each other's gaze and with an unspoken signal, the spar had begun. Hinata commanding the water into incredibly sharp knives, strengthened by chakra, instinctively slipping into her Jyuuken stance, charging forward, chakra powered hands at the ready, water knives leaping forward with her.

Naruto too was ready. Wind charged knives ready in his hands; he was already in motion, avoiding her chakra charged hands, and blocked the deadly shimmering knives with his wind enhanced handheld ones. He aimed a roundabout kick at Hinata's feet while aiming a jab at her ribs with his elbow. Predicting this, she did a back flip, sending her knives at him while he was off balance, but he rolled out of the way, brandishing his wind knives, swiping with them at her while Hinata blocked with water streams.

It was like a deadly dance, ducking and jabbing, moving forwards and back, moving with fluidity well beyond their years. Hinata and Naruto both were slightly awkward with their respective weapons, and it showed, but the fluidity and beauty of their spar was undeniable.

Wrapped up in their fight, Naruto and Hinata were both oblivious to a pair of familiar eyes that were watching their every move.

The sharp brown eyes had seen enough and a slouching figure rose from his hiding place in the bushes, thinking 'I have to confront them. How powerful are they really? Why are they training so hard? When I saw them for the first time I thought that they weren't serious about it. But over the past year, they have become really strong, already high genin level' thought Shikamaru, walking towards where Naruto and Hinata were fighting.

'Duck; Jab; Dodge; Punch; Back Flip; Shika; Punch' were Uzumaki Naruto's thoughts as he fought, reciting each move in his head as he performed them. Suddenly he froze; only Hinata's quick reflexes enabling her to stop before her attack hit Naruto. "Naru-kun?" she asked, surprised, and followed Naruto's equally surprised gaze to behind her shoulder, to see a familiar figure standing there, brown eyes staring at them. "Sh-shikamaru..." she whispered, wondering why he was here.

Naruto and Hinata had gotten over their momentary shock at seeing Shikamaru, and all three were now sitting under, 'the Tree'. Hinata and Naruto looked at Shikamaru curiously, wondering why he was here. Shikamaru sighed and drawled lazily, "This is so troublesome... this clearing is near the Nara estate y'know, so once, before I met you guys at the academy. I was trying to get away from my troublesome mother, and I stumble upon you guys training, but I figured, it was nothing serious..." he said.

"... and you guys have gotten really strong, and I just can't figure out why you guys are training so hard... I think I have some idea, and I just can't stop thinking about what you said about my dream; Naruto... and I just wanna know why." He finished.

Naruto and Hinata looked surprised at what Shikamaru had said, thinking that he would be too lazy to bother with something like this, yet here he was, looking extremely curious to learn the reasons behind their training as hard as they could...

Naruto was especially surprised; he would never have thought that Shikamaru would have actually thought about what he had said. "We kinda haven't had the best of childhoods, and we met under bad circumstances and became friends. We became best friends about two years ago, and we don't really have any true family so..." Naruto trailed off... as Shikamaru stared at Hinata, obviously wondering about the Hyuuga clan.

"We decided that we're going to be each other's family and protect each other, so that neither of us has to suffer needlessly again. We decided to give each other the support that no one else would give us and to become strong, so that we can have each other's back and prove to the world that we are not failures and become true shinobi of Konoha..." Hinata finished, picking up from where Naruto had trailed off.

Shikamaru looked at them thoughtfully, pondering what they had just said. He had one more question that was nagging at him... "What are your skills exactly? I've seen you sparring and I know that Hinata is not fighting with the Jyuuken, and Naruto is fighting with some style I've never seen before."

"I realised that the Jyuuken was too stiff for me so I'm modifying it to be more flexible and adding my water chakra to it, so I fight with modified Jyuuken and water knives" Hinata replied for her own skills.

"I fight with Yōshin-ryū, an out of use Samurai taijutsu. I also use wind knives that Hina-chan here got me for my birthday. I still haven't mastered them and my wind manipulation is still weak though, unlike Hina-chan who has gained control over her water element perfectly, and is combining her modified Jyuuken with it." Naruto said, his voice laced with pride when he talked about Hinata, causing her to blush.

Shikamaru nodded, his curiosity satisfied for now. They chatted for a while longer, and soon, they said their goodbyes and walked off in their own directions.

'Those two are so troublesome... they really are something... training so hard... becoming true shinobi, huh? And they do make a valid point... sigh... I need to train too... I can't be too lazy... curse those two... making me work and making life so troublesome...' Shikamaru thought as he slouched away, toward home, resolving to train harder in typical Shikamaru fashion...

A/N: Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Review to find out. :P