"You DIED, Naruto?!"

Oh, crap baskets.

Sakura was not supposed to find out about that!

I keep stammering, trying to figure out a way to salvage this situation!

Uh, I... I've got nothing.

Might as well be honest with her. Damn it, I really don't wanna remember that...

I relent, "Y-yes."

Sakura gets this pained look on her face, and she struggles to keep her eyes open as tears begin to form.

She whimpers and then punches me in the chest a bunch of times. "How?", she asked? "How could you be so reckless?"

This is so awkward.

I've never been in this kind of situation before - Sakura's never expressed so much worry for me...

"First of all," I respond, I'm gonna need you to stop punching me."

I grab her wrists and hold them in place as she opens here eyes again.

"Please?", I ask.

Sakura sniffles before wiping away her tears and crossing her arms, giving me a stern look. "Just tell me what happened, Naruto."

I sigh. I never even imagined that I'd have to tell Sakura about this...

I look straight at her. Then, I answer, "It was when I went to bring back Granny Tsunade. I had a fight with Orochimaru and Kabuto, and Kabuto used some sort of jutsu on me that stopped my heart or something."

Sakura bites her lip and looks at my chest.

Man, she's cute!

"Well," she sways a little bit, "Are you okay now?"

I laugh a little bit and smile at her.

"Truth be told," I reply, "I feel a little bit better than I did before. I did some thinking while I was on the other side, y'know, and I've got some clarity now." I pump my fist and tell her, "I'm gonna become smart, Sakura!"

She puts her hands to her sides and laughs at me.

Wait a minute, why's she laughing at me?

Why am I asking myself that question?

I frown and groan a bit, and cross my own arms. "What's so funny, Sakura?"

She stops laughing at looks at me in an unfamiliar manner... I think it's good, though, she is smiling.

She exclaims, "I just imagined the silly face you'd have if you started thinking too hard!"

I tell her, "Come onnnnn, Sakura! That's not very nice!", to which she replies "It's all in good fun!" while pinching my cheek.

She lets go of my cheek and I rub it - it hurt!

"Now," she says. She clasps her hands together and leans to the side, as if she just saw Sasuke. "I believe we were talking about how I love you?"

I sigh again. "About that," I say. "Are you sure you love me?"

Sakura takes a second to think about it (I presume), and finally responds. "Y'know, at first I thought that your crush on me was just some sort of stupid competition with Sasuke."

That kinda hurt. I'm not that shallow, am I?

She continues, "And I do still love Sasuke..."

Ugh...

Finally she says, "But he tried to kill me. And you. I can't love a guy like that the way that a girl should love a boy. I think my love for him is now just in the way that I'd love a friend. You, on the other hand? You risked your life to save me from Sasuke, and you're obviously a pretty dedicated guy, since you literally died to get Lady Tsunade back. You're also pretty cute!". That last part was a little quiet...

She asks, "How could I not love you?"

I sigh again (I seem to be doing that a lot lately... Oh God, am I becoming Shikamaru?!).

I flash Sakura a smile, "Look. Just think about it, okay? You shouldn't rush into these kinds of feelings, especially not when you felt so differently less than a week ago, y'know."

Sakura smiles sweetly at me. "That's... Pretty mature of you to say, Naruto. Should I add that to your list of virtues?"

What the Hell does that mean?

I show Sakura my confused face and ask, "What's a 'vir-choo'?"

Sakura looks down and facepalms. "Still as dumb as a bag of rocks." She looks back up at me. "It's 'virtue'. It means 'a good quality'."

I get it!

I interject, "Like if I have a good kunai, I can call it a virtue kunai!"

She laughs at me again!

"No, you idiot." She informs. "A virtue is any good quality, like honesty, maturity, et cetera. And something that has virtue is 'virtuous'."

I show her the confused face again. "Sakura you're confusing me.", I say.

Sakura gives me that sweet smile again.

How is it that she's so cute?...

"Listen, Naruto," she tells me. "If you need any help to 'become smart', don't hesitate to ask me for help... You can even come by my house!". With that, she gives me a quick peck on the cheek. I barely have time to think about it before she adds, "And I do love you.". She turns around and leaves.

I watch Sakura walk away and I rub my cheek - that was awesome!

It's bedtime! I gotta get up early so I can get a head start on these scrolls!

After brushing my teeth and taking a shower, I put on my pajamas and my sleeping cap, and hop into bed.

I was supposed to go out to eat something other than ramen!

Damn it!

Sakura's wild charisma made me forget all about that!

I will eat something other than ramen for lunch tomorrow, believe it!

But I don't know if I'll be able to go out for breakfast, because there's a jackass knocking on my door right now! It's midnight!

I grumpily roll out of bed and march to the front door. I'm gonna chew the crap out of whoever it is! Er, no wait, that's just disgusting... Get that image out of your mind!

I stand with my shoulders broad as I get ready to open the door. Whoever it is, they haven't stopped knocking since they started!

I swing the door open, ready to swing my arms at my guest, too, but I see that the jackass is Kakashi!

How fitting...I look up at Kakashi. "What do you want, Sensei?", I ask.

Kakashi pulls out a piece of paper. "This paper will tell you your chakra nature. Just focus your chakra into it and your nature will be revealed!", he informs.

I scold the man, "This would've been useful before I trained for the chunin exam finals!"

Kakashi rolls his eyes. "I didn't think you'd understand how to use it in just a month." Mean! "Just take the paper and do the thing.", he commands.

I take the paper from him and focus my chakra into it. It just tears in half.

"Neat party trick,", I remark, "but what's my chakra nature."

I take this opportunity to look at Kakashi. Aloof, as usual.

"Your paper tore in half," he says, "You have wind nature. Perfect for combat."

I'm pretty awesome!

"I'm pretty awesome!", I yell.

I hear my neighbor distantly yell back, "Shut up!"

Kakashi snickers at this as I grumble about that ass of a guy.

Kakashi then tells me, "I hope you understand that you have a hidden virtue with your wind nature, Naruto!"

There's that word again!

I call him out on it, "You're the second person to say that word to me, y'know."

Kakashi's eyebrow raises. "What, 'Naruto'?"

I tell him, "No, 'virtue'!"

Kakashi sighs. "It's not a very rare word... Anyways, do you know about how you gain your shadow clone's memories?"

That's got me taken aback. That's a thing? Is that why I feel my brain tingle a bit after I dispel my clones?

"I know now.", I tell him.

Kakashi says, "Create a clone and have it follow my clone to the end of the block."

We both create a clone each and I watch as they run to the end of the street.

Our clones whisper about something and shake hands for a few seconds.

Then, they dispel.

"Haha!", I turn to Kakashi and say, "I beat you in rock-paper-scissors! You owe me ramen for lunch tomorrow, sensei!"

"You see?", Kakashi states, "You received your clone's memories!"

That's right, my clone played rock-paper-scissors with Kakashi's clone, bet ramen for lunch tomorrow, and won!

That is pretty amazing...

Except for the fact that I wasn't supposed to have ramen for lunch tomorrow!

Whatever! I'll just have not-ramen for dinner!

Kakashi then comes down to my eye level. "My work here is done.", he states, giving me one of his eye-smiles.

He then disappears, finally letting me go to sleep.