Disclamer: I don't own Naruto. though I wish I did~

random fact I came upon: for every 7 seconds of real laughter, 1 day is added to your life.

I stared at my tree distastefully, almost as if glaring at it long enough it would give me the answers to my current problems. This training was defiantly tiring, and a brilliant way to relieve stress to say the least. Sweat was coming off me and my fellow teens in buckets, scratches and dirt covered our faces and arms from our failed attempts at reaching new heights in our work. I still couldn't hold my concentration worth anything, I always was easily distracted by a bug flying to close to my face…. or seeing a squirrel… Or Sasuke trying to get revenge on me… How many times has he 'accidentally' used his Kunai a little to roughly and 'it slipped out of his hand' towards my face? I lost count at five… maybe I pissed Sasuke off. Then again he made it sooooo easy.

I sighed, stretching out my tired muscles. I peaked a glance at the progress the two boys had made, it wasn't anything really note worthy, though there was defiantly progress made. A steady line of Kunai marks, showed the progress they had made, they were clustered together, neither boy was able to push past their limits and force their way fully up the tree.

"Hey Sakura…" I heard Naruto whisper. "Your good at this, can you give me some advice? But don't tell Sasuke."

Sasuke turned to the two whispering Ninja just as I did. He stole a glance at me and I gave him a smirk as he quickly looked back to the ninja. He probably couldn't hear them since he wasn't gifted with better hearing. I rose to my feet wearily and made my way over to where Kakashi stood watching us.

"It's going to be tough." I stated pulling him from his thoughts.

"It will." He said studying me.

"I think they're going to pull through though. Something tells me we're going to win this." I smiled at him.

He looked down at me and gave me a smile in return. "We can only hope."

Satisfied with our little talk I moved to go back with my new teammates.

"Don't think that because of all this I forgot about you. We need you for this fight but I still don't trust you. There's to many questions I need to ask you."

I froze at his voice and turned back to him slowly bringing my hand up to nervously playing with a stray piece of hair.

"Ehehe. Of course. Wouldn't be a very good ninja if you trusted every weird kid that forced their way into your group." I turned back to the younger ninjas and decided it was time to train instead of partaking in awkward conversations.

It was slow but I had improved to the point where I was satisfied. It took the course of the next two days, Sakura had gotten bored with the training after the first day and Kakashi happily assigned her to watch over Tazuna while he built the bridge (She was a little reluctant to leave Sasuke with me). The boys had made improvement but compared to the progress Sakura and I had made it was barely note worthy. I had perched myself on a particular high tree branch and had taken to watching the boys struggle. I leaned against the tree thinking of everything.

It defiantly wasn't normal going through everything I had in the past week or so. From plummeting elevators, to cow print clad ninjas to crazy best friends. Then I heard it. That soft breathing and the sound of feet hitting wood, I looked down at the boys, both where breathing heavily on the ground. I straightened up and jumped down to the forest floor. The best part of this ninja training was you slowly got over any fear of heights you may have had. Sasuke stole a glance at me, not trusting my sudden interesting in moving apparently. I caught his eyes with mine and he suddenly looked a bit apprehensive like he wanted to say something. Instead he bites his lip and took another run up his tree. I rolled my eyes at him and closed my eyes to focus on the sound of the soft breathing.

"Where are you going Sa-chan?" Naruto asked.

I blinked looking at the blonde; I hadn't even realized I started walking deeper into the woods.

"Exploring. I'm bored." I lied. Something I seemed to do a lot lately.

Naruto looked like he wanted to go but turned back to his tree a new sense of determination in his eyes. He nodded towards me and I nodded back.

"See you in a bit. And Naruto?" I asked biting my lip.

"Hm?"

"If I don't come back before dark get Kakashi and come looking for me."

"What type of exploring are your going to do that makes you need rescuing?" Sasuke asked.

"The type that involves best friend stalkers." I stated turning from them and taking off in a run.

I didn't know how long I ran, every time the breathing came close enough that I might have been able to reach him he ran away and stopped so that I may have caught up. The trees were getting thicker blocking out the sun so I couldn't tell what time of day it was or even if It was day at all. Finally after the trees got impossible thick, to the point where It was getting hard to get between them, the breathing stopped moving. I stopped a little short and walked slowly to where I knew Riku was.

He stood there in a little circle surrounded by thick trees with golden leaves. The thought of how weird it was that the leaves color was different from all the others was thrown from my mind as Riku turned to me.

"Did you read it?" he asked.

"Yeah. Left more questions then answers though." I stated coming to stand by the edge of the circle.

"It did that for me too."

I frowned." What happened to you this past week to make you do all this? I'm not getting you."

"I talked to those girls."

"What girls? You cheating on me?" I joked hoping to lighten the mode.

"The ones from the apartment…" He trailed off.

"Oh! The ones with the green and pink hair! You talked to them? Did they tell you why we're even here?" I questioned.

"The four of us are the last ones."

"The last ones what?"

"The last ones fighting this war. One of the families has to die out Saphira. Some one has to win this war."

"That was all a fairytale Riku, they probably made that whole story up so they could explain why they hated each other."

"Your wrong."

I frowned again. "Well even if I was true it has nothing to do with us. These other people, the Haka's and the Chi's, they died hundreds of years ago. Kakashi said so."

Riku shook his head smiling. "No, not Hikari and Miho."

"The girls?" I asked.

"Yeah. They're my cousins. There's three Chi's left Saphira and only one of you. You have no chance you can't beat us all. I promise that I'll be the one to do it."

"Whoa wait a second there kid. Do what?" I asked backing up a little.

"I have to kill you Saphira, the keys of Astra will be lost if I don't"

I laughed nervously. "I know you might be mad at my for that fight and all but your taking this joke a little to far. Y-you won't kill me, right?"

"No. not right now." Riku said laughing.

'The laugh of someone who lost it.' I thought darkly.

"The Chunin exams." He stated.

"huh?"

"Everything is going to be settled there. As I am now I'm to weak to do it, and so are you. Train until you collapse, fight with every thing that you have, so that when it comes down to it, when it's time for me to take your life, you have nothing to regret."

Then he was gone. A soft unnatural wind blew past the clearing, blowing some of those golden leaves across my face as they tumbled to the ground they withered turning an ugly dead brown. I bit my lip hoping for the first time since hearing those voices that I really was just going a bit crazy.

"One more time and we get Kakashi." I heard Naruto yell.

I sped up my walk a little at the sound of their feet racing up the bark of the tree. I pushed into the clearing just as the two ninja flipped away from the trees and landed hard on the ground.

"Back." I said dully.

Naruto spun to face me giving me a tired grin.

"We were just about to go find you. Anything happen?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Nothing to write home about." I sighed taking seat at the base of a tree near Sasuke.

Sasuke stole another look at me and seemed like he was torn about whether or not he wanted to talk to me again. I raised my eyebrows at him and shrugged my shoulders. He looked away and instead looked at Naruto. The brightly dressed ninja had his eyes closed and his hands in a hand sign, the normally hyperactive ninja had his eyes closed and was focused on the task at had in a calm manner. He then began to run at the tree with all he had.

"Naruto." Sasuke suddenly spoke out.

"Ah!" Naruto shouted breaking his focus and tumbling to the ground. "What the hell Sasuke! I was trying to concentrate!"

Sasuke nearly snorted but then stopped, instead he moved a little closer to the blonde trying to whisper to him so I couldn't hear. Which of course was futile.

"Hey….Naruto?" He asked quietly.

"Yeah?" Naruto replied normally.

"Shhhhh! Don't talk so loud, you idiot!." he hissed then winced. "I mean…what did Sakura tell you when you talked to her earlier. "He said after a deep breath.

Naruto looked confused for a second before a grin spread across his face.

"Like I'd tell you, ask Saphira-Chan maybe she'll be nice enough to tell you." Naruto teased loudly.

The. Look. On. His. Face. I busted out laughing as Sasuke's eyes widened and his eyebrows twitched, he made an angry noise low in his throat and looked tempted to do away with the hyperactive ninja right there.

"You should stay that way." I giggled. "Hopefully your face gets stuck like that, it's an improvement from your normal look."

Sasuke's eyes snapped to my giggling form and his face went back to his normal façade with that slight trace of annoyance. His eyes found their way back to the kunai in his hand and I could almost see the workings in his head. He looks like it took everything he had to not chuck it at my head and take another run up that god-forsaken tree.

I watched the two boys down their food in slight horror, knowing what was coming next. I looked down at my rice and bit my lip, I looked up just as they shouted out for more and flinched as they both turned away and the sound of thick undigested food hit the floor.

"Don't eat so much if your going to puke it up." Sakura shouted.

"I have to eat to get energy…" Sasuke claimed wiping his face.

"I have to eat more then him that's the only way I can possibly get stronger them him." Naruto challenged.

"True but eating like that won't do anything" Kakashi mused

"I think I have to hurl." I moaned covering my mouth as the stomach acid smell hit me.

I jumped up ready to rush out of the room if the urge hit me. The wave of nausea slowly disappeared and I collapsed at my place next to Sasuke.

"I swear to god if you two don't eat like normal people, I'm going to throw up on you." I hissed.

Sakura frowned at the lewdness of my statement and Sasuke turned to me with a smirk.

"What's wrong Sa-ph-ira?" He asked drawing out my name. "Can't handle a little puke?"

"Just stop talking about." I shivered covering my nose at the smell. "And by god you two clean this crap up!"

Sasuke moved a little closer to me his face just a few inches from mine. I leaned back slightly with a groan. "Your breath is horrid go get a mint."

"Sasuke get away from her!" Sakura huffed.

Sasuke was not perturbed and decided to childishly let out a great breath of air knowing the smell would smack me right in the face. I screwed up my face and decided to be just as childish. I knew if I wanted I could have turned my head but in my annoyed state I threw up all over Sasuke.

Thank you to all my reviewers love ya'll^^. wish me a safe trip hopefully the next time i'm typing it'll be from my hotel in LA^^ and I hope this chapter wasn't to serious for you all...