Sakura sighed as she watched her two friends being taken away from her by her own teacher who was beginning to seem more and more like an enemy to her and her brothers. She didn't want to have to fight without them. She clenched her fist against the railing as she watched the screen sort through all of the names. This was all Kakashi's fault. If she had to fight without the support of her friends she would be very angry.

Her name appeared and the first thought that came to mind was "yep, I'm going to kill Kakashi-sensei." Then Ino's name appeared as her partner and her bad mood lifted slightly. Then some name that she didn't recognize, which didn't affect her at all, and then Kiba's name came up and she was immediately thankful that Kakashi took away the only people who would stop her from getting revenge for Naruto, and, oh what revenge she would get.

She went to the ground and watched as Ino, the person she didn't recognized who wound up being Haku and Zabuza's teammate, and Kiba join her there. Kiba seemed to be smirking victoriously. Apparently he thought he was going to win this fight before they even began .

"What do you think partner? Who should we take out first?" asked Kiba. The other ninja seemed to hesitate for a moment and then just as he was about to say something Akamaru started barking. "That's right," said Kiba, "It doesn't really matter since either way we'll win."

"You shouldn't be so cocky," Sakura's grin was crooked on her face as she watched the two of them, "You never know how strong people can truly be."

Kiba's eyes widened for a moment and he fidgeted with his dog before placing the creature on the ground and saying, "You should sit this one out Akamaru. It wouldn't be fair to fight these girls with you by my side." Akamaru barked once and ran off of the floor straight through the door that Sasuke and Naruto had disappeared into.

"You're still underestimating us," hissed Sakura, "I'll show you just how strong we are." At that moment the propter told them that they could start their match and she immediately rushed towards the person she didn't recognize. She grabbed him in a choke hold and forced him to face towards Ino. It took her a moment, but Ino finally took the hint and used her mind jutsu to invade the boy's mind leaving Sakura free to fight with Kiba.

She smirked as she turned to the man who was staring wide eyed at her speed. She was definitely not as fast as Naruto and was just barely not as fast as Sasuke, but she was still fast for her age and supposed experience. She didn't even give him the chance to let this all sink in as she channeled chakra into her fist and rushed forward to punch him in the gut. There was a crack as he coughed and she knew that she had cracked one of his ribs so with her hand still against his stomach she released some chakra and allowed it to heal his wound. It didn't take long since the bone wasn't actually broken and so she attacked him again, this time with her knee, strengthened by chakra, hitting his chin and allowing her chakra to leak into his body and heal his wound. "Too bad you didn't let your dog stay," she said as she repeated the same process with a punch to his face. He coughed up some blood, but she wouldn't let him fall to the ground because as he started falling she kicked his chin and he flew into the air. She followed him up and immediately started punching him repeatedly until she gave one last strong punch which sent him rocketing towards the floor. She landed with both feet on his stomach allowing more of her chakra to leak into his body and heal him. She crouched down while still on top of him and threw a punch filled with chakra at his face but she faltered when a very familiar voice screamed her name and the punch hit just beside his head leaving a small crater in the ground. Looking at Kiba's face she noticed that he was already unconscious so she stood and looked around to find who had interrupted her.

Naruto stood at the door with Akamaru whimpering in his arms. All of a sudden she felt bad for what she had done so she walked up to the boy that Ino had control of at the moment, told her to let him go, and then knocked him out with one punch. She and Ino were declared the winners and the medics ran to Kiba's side to bring him to the nurse's office. Naruto followed them into that room with Akamaru and Sasuke, and Sakura sighed knowing that they would have to talk about this. Naruto wouldn't be mad or blame her for any of it, but knowing him he wouldn't understand her reasoning at all.

The medic nins left the room soon after coming in saying that they were surprised at how little he had been hurt when he had gotten so badly beaten up and the room was filled with an awkward silence. Sasuke was standing with Naruto and for a moment Sakura felt betrayed that he chose to stand on Naruto's side when he thought the same way she did, but then she remembered that Sasuke loved Naruto and she no longer could blame him. Akamaru was still whimpering when Naruto put it down onto Kiba's stomach to curl up. Naruto didn't say anything, but he sat down with a worried look on his face. It was a common thought between Sakura and Sasuke that he worried too much for his friends.

"Naruto," sighed Sakura, "He'll be fine. I healed him while I was beating him up." She caught Sasuke's stare a little too late. She had said too much. Naruto gave a confused look and she immediately knew he was wondering why she had been beating Kiba up. "I did it for you."

Naruto's eyes widened and he asked, "Why? Did I give you the impression that I wanted you to beat him up. I didn't mean to if I did. I guess I should say I'm sorry to him when he wakes up."

"You gave no such impression," Sakura gasped, "I did it because I was so sick and tired of everyone belittling you. If he just realized how wrong he was maybe he would stop underestimating you and putting you down."

"Thank you Sakura," sighed Naruto, but Sakura knew that he wasn't finished, "but he has never once underestimated me."

"Naruto!" said Sakura, "I don't know if you're blind, but he has been doing nothing, but underestimating you since the beginning of this test."

"Sakura," Naruto eyes narrowed into an older look that he only took when he was scolding someone, "Akamaru can sense the strength of anyone he meets. That's why he's so afraid of Gaara at first."

"So?" asked Sakura confused.

"So, have you ever known Kiba not to listen to his dog?"

"No?" said Sakura, "Naruto I don't get where you're going with this."

Naruto sighed again. "Akamaru sensed my strength the moment he met me and then he told Kiba. Kiba has known I was strong since before we even graduated, but he himself wants to be strong so he tries to make everyone else think he's stronger than me by putting me down since I let him do it."

"Naruto, I know he's underestimating us," Sakura protested, "He even sent his dog away because he thought he could beat me on his own!"

"He was protecting Akamaru," Naruto threw back at her, "He knew you were going to beat him up so he decided that he wouldn't let the same thing happen to his dog. He even asked Akamaru to come find me because he knew the dog would be safe with me. He's not a bad person Sakura. He just wants to be stronger."

"You're defending him! He's done nothing but put you down all this time. I am sick and tired of you defending all the people who hate you!"

"Sakura," Sasuke tried to warn seeing Naruto's eyes dim.

"Can't you see that they don't like you and they probably will hate you no matter what you do?"

"Sakura," Sasuke hissed.

"I am trying to protect you from them. The only thing that you're succeeding in is to hurt yourself."

"That's enough!" Sasuke said finally getting through to Sakura.

"That may be so, but if I have to hurt myself to help others than I will gladly do it even if they hate me because they are my friends and they live in the village that I love," Naruto said quietly.

"Why can't you just let us protect you?" she yelled, "We're your family! Are we not as important as those people?" Before Naruto could even answer Sakura stormed out of the room.

Sasuke debated briefly on whether he should stay and console Naruto or leave and console Sakura, but he saw that Kiba's eyes were open so he decided to leave those two to work it out while he talked to his other teammate.

Naruto put his head in his hands as he heard Sasuke follow Sakura. "I guess they both think that way," he thought to himself. It didn't surprise him though. Sasuke always took his side for some reason, but he knew that Sasuke didn't always agree with him. Whenever Sasuke agreed with him he would actually take over the argument, but when he didn't he would not speak unless it was absolutely necessary. Naruto didn't know why Sasuke always sided with him, but maybe it was because he thought that Naruto was too sensitive and would get upset.

"She shouldn't have said that," said Kiba from the bed beside him.

"It's okay," whispered Naruto, "It's my fault anyway."

"How is that your fault?" Kiba asked.

"Sakura was just trying to help me and I was fighting against her," sighed Naruto, "it's my fault."

"You were defending me," said Kiba, "and I have been doing nothing but be mean to you. I don't think it's your fault."

"I'm sorry for that too," muttered Naruto.

"Why?" asked Kiba completely confused.

"I shouldn't have let you do that either. I thought that it might encourage you to work harder to get stronger, but I think it was a stupid idea. I think the reason that Sakura was so mad at me was because she knew that I'm actually stopping you from getting any stronger."

"What do you mean?"

"Because I allow you to put me down you spend all the time trying to make me seem weaker instead of trying to get stronger to match my strength."

"So," said Kiba, "Isn't that my fault too?"

"No," gasped Naruto, "I'm not blaming you at all. I was just saying that I shouldn't have let you make me seem weaker so that you could concentrate on training."

"Do you blame yourself for everything?" asked Kiba.

"Only the things that are my fault."

"That was too far," Sasuke muttered when he met Sakura in the hallway.

"I'm sorry," she muttered without looking at him, "I just don't think that it's fair that he has to endure so much and then without even thinking he takes every fault and makes it so that it's his fault. I don't understand why he does that."

"When you're told something over and over again for long enough you'll begin to believe it yourself. Even more so when you are a small child who has yet to learn the way of the world."

"What do you mean?" she asked finally turning to look at him.

"Naruto has been told that he was the cause of all those people's deaths that Kyuubi killed. For as long as he's been alive if anything went wrong it was his fault. He's been told that he was a demon and that he does everything wrong for so long that it's made him think that it's the truth."

"That's horrible!" gasped Sakura.

"I've been trying to show him that he's wrong ever since I figured out about it, but I think that now it's a lot harder since we're back at the point where the whole village hates him again. I think he's actually been getting depressed lately because of the villagers."

"Great," Sakura slid to sit on the ground where she put her head in her hands and Sasuke crouched to join her, "that means I probably just made it worse by blaming him for doing something good."

"Yes," said Sasuke, "you probably did, but I think that if you apologize he'll forgive you without a second thought."

"I don't understand him Sasuke," she whispered, "he won't even get angry at me and when I do something wrong he just assumes that it was a simple mistake that doesn't even need an apology to fix. Sometimes he even apologizes to me for something that I've done wrong. Why does he do it?"

"I don't know," answered Sasuke, "I don't think I'll ever understand fully why he does anything that he does. The only thing that I know is that if he changes he won't be Naruto anymore."

Sakura laughed, "That's true, but sometimes I wish he would change just so he wouldn't have to endure so much pain."

"I do too," muttered Sasuke as he helped the girl up.

yay new chappie. i'm sorry this chapter is so horribly written, but i couldn't for the life of me figure out how to write this chapter. i hope you like it despite the fact that it's so horribly written