Hey people, I'm alive. Sorry it took so long to update, but moving is a bitch. I'm now updating from Okinawa, Japan on a 16-hour time difference from my home in the deserts of Arizona. Bear with me, hopefully the next chapter won't take so long since I'm eager to get it out of the way.

Another thing, I'm sorry about the fic slowing down a bit but I'm trying to work the characters so that what happens later will make sense so that I can avoid the dreaded OOC flames. Um, this chapter and the next one are still gonna be in a pseudo-Sakura center ness since she is the character that I figured I'd start working with now. HOWEVER, the chapters after that is when I start fucking with Kiba, and I have some fun stuff planned for him since it'll bring the fic back to a drama feel instead of a action/adventure one (since I'm terrible at fight scenes).

That being said, here goes...

Chapter 7:

Sakura threw her head back, shutting her eyes and took the time to just breathe. Her hands were shaking as the situation finally seemed to hit her: She knew that Sasuke and Naruto would leave her alone until they realized she had the bell, but at that point she'd have to figure out what to do when they found her. She had honestly thought about just giving the bell to the first person that found her, it seemed like the smart thing to do, since it would mean she wouldn't have to walk into a losing battle, considering neither Sasuke nor Naruto had any real limits. The only thing that had her thinking, trying to figure out a plan, was the small box of bombs that Kakashi had snuck into her pack.

At first she hadn't realized what they were, but she slowly remembered the details off of the technique scroll for them. Each bomb was colored a different color to help the user differentiate from them since they were all virtually the same size and shape. The problem lay in the fact that she didn't think she'd have to worry about anything other than the smoke bomb for now, so she didn't bother to memorize the color system. Only a few stuck out in her mind, 3 of the 8 colors to be specific.

She reached into her pack, fingering the smoke, flash, and paralysis bombs, among the rest of the unknown spheres. She continued to try and focus, channeling chakra through her body and enjoying it's massaging feel, though it did little to relieve the stress.

She gritted her teeth, staying stationary wouldn't help anything. Even if she couldn't fight either of them, she could at least keep moving. With any luck, they would keep distracting each other, and she might actually make it through the exercise looking forward to a non-crap cleaning day.

She still wasn't sure what she'd do if they managed to find her, but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

With shaky resolve, and adingling from the bell, she leapt onto a branch from the nearest tree and took off to the west.

There was a certain beauty in jumping from branch to branch, traveling at such a speed from 15 feet in the air. Even Naruto knew that, even if he didn't show it. Right now, as he traveled, looking around for Sasuke, part of his mind was on the pattern of the the sun rays breaking through the canopy, leaving the leaf print shadows on the ground and trunks.

Living in Konoha all his life didn't diminish his love for the trees, for they were always different, always changing. The youngest ones as signs of new life, the eldest ones being an example of the sheer beauty and ancientness of the earth itself. Though this wasn't exactly the way he saw the trees, he felt somewhat similar.

He did pity those who lived in the desert though, sand and more sand as far as the eye could see, it would drive him crazy.

'Hm...I wonder if that's why Gaara is so...'

His concentration was broken by the whizzing of a kunai through the air. By pure reaction he shifted his head to the right, just far enough for the blade to sail past him without touching him. Instantly he was alert, the electricity of motion and action driving him.

He heard more coming, and he planned his counter as he landed on the next branch in his path. Hardly landing on it, he turned and jumped backwards, in the midst of his spin, he withdrew a handful of shuriken preparing to throw themin the direction of the ones he could hear. His sight caught hold of a few just beforehe threw his, and he aimed in a split second. With practiced ease, he launched his own projectiles, effectively colliding with, and stopping the kunai directed at him. The single extra shuriken sailed on in the direction he suspected his attacker came from.

The sound of clanking metal was followed by silence, as Naruto's feet touched the branch he had jumped towards. When he first felt solid matter beneath him, he jumped back, throwing his weight into a backflip, his destination being the ground.

Amidst the flip, his eyes scanned the area around him, looking for traces of black cloth or pale skin against the foliage, but he found none. What he found in instead, was a kunai emerging from a thick collection of leaves, though the target was the ground below him.

At first, Naruto dimissed it as poor aim for whatever reason, then he realized that a) Sasuke never had poor aim b) The kunai would hit the exact spot he'd land in, just a few seconds before him, and c) there was a white slip of paper attached to the blade by a string, with writing he couldn't decipher from it's speed.

His eyes didn't go wide in surprise, though he did groan in frustration as he realized the trap he had just been caught in.

"Awww...sh-"

The sound of a loud explosion muffled the sound of his curse.

Following the deafening blast, was dead silence, and as the smoke cleared, there was nothing, though Sasuke was far from surprised, and he didn't budge, unwilling to give up his location.

It was for only a short time the silence lasted, just long enough for the smoke to clear to reveal an untouched Naruto, save some dirt on his clothes and a sour expression on his face.

"Hey! What's the big deal? Kakashi said not to try and kill each other remember?"

His answer was swift, silent, and very sudden as Sasuke fell from above, descending upon Naruto without a sound. He held onto a kunai in his right hand, as as soon as the distance between them was reduced to mere inches, he pushed the blade into the side of Naruto's neck. He landed as silently as he fell, his other arm hanging limply to the side.

He withdrew the blade just as the kage bunshin before him was dispelled in a puff of smoke. He let out a long sigh as he lazily turned his gaze to the foliage to his right, his eyes bleeding over from black to the crimson of Sharingan, three commas dotting the black ring.

"If that would have been enough to kill you, fighting you wouldn't have been worth it, dobe"

Naruto calmly dropped from the tree he was hiding in, laughing to himself a little bit. He had managed to disregard the last piece of the comment as he landed amongst the scattered leaves on the ground.

"But still, I might have not been paying attention, and then that would have really hurt."

"Hn"

Sasuke's trademark reply was followed shortly by a few kunai being hurled at Naruto so fast that he hardly saw Sasuke's hand move, and with the few yards between them being the only distance, it was hard to avoid them. He didn't bother to count them, prefering to duck to the side, though the both of them knew that theprojectiles were merely a distraction, so when Sasuke charged forward, Naruto was ready.

Sasuke closed the distance between them quickly and led off with a forward punch to the jaw, and despite Naruto's slight off-balance from dodging the kunai, he managed to get an arm up in time to block. It caught him by surprise when Sasuke grabbed onto his arm at the elbow at the last moment and pulled his arm forward, making his balance even worse. Sasuke turned a bit to the side so that he was pulling Naruto's arm across his chest, revealing his whole side to an attack, and then punched him straight in the side of the face.

A bolt of pain went through Naruto's body as he felt the brick-like fist collide into his cheek. Sasuke followed through with the punch and let go of Naruto's arm, allowing the force of the attack to send him flying through the air.

Naruto mentally cursed the sharingan as he managed to recover mid-flight, and rolled his body to the side, putting his legs underneath him. When his hands and feet touched the ground and he began to skid, he looked back to see Sasuke soaring through the air, foot raised high for an axe kick. He pushed off the ground, making some distance just a moment before Sasuke's foot crashed into the ground that he had been at with a colosal thud.

He touched down again before jumping straight up and disappearing among the trees.

Sasuke stood straight up, then looked up to scan the foliage. He spotted Naruto fairly quickly between his Sharingan and orange outfit that could be seen far too clearly. He smirked a little.

"Well if it makes you feel any better, I don't care about the bells, so you can keep it. That just means that you can spend more of the day licking your wounds."

His plan was to get under Naruto's skin of course, because his experience told him that Naruto fought the best when agitated, though he kept in mind not to piss him off too much. Kiba had made that mistake,and he was not going to just go risk the wrath of the fox just yet, though he did plan to do it in the future.

The reaction however, was not as he expected, as a head full of blonde hair emerged from the lowest levels of the trees, accompanied by a very confused expression.

"I don't have the bell...don't you?"

Sasuke looked dumbfounded for a moment, and spoke before thinking for once.

"No I don't have, I thought you did."

"Well I don't..."

Naruto dropped down from the tree, touching down without making a sound. He put a hand on his chin as he looked up into no where in particular.

"Well if I don't have it, and you don't have it...then..."

"Sakura does..."

Sasuke finished the sentence for him, though it was in a far more bored tone than the blonde, since he didn't really care much at all. He sunk into a light stance, feeling ridiculously generous since Naruto had actually let his guard down completely.

He waited for the blonde to notice and get prepared as well, only for him to turn around completely.

"Hm, well then, I guess I'll have to go find Sakura-chan!"

With that, he took off into the trees, heading no where in particular.

Sasuke growled to himself and was about to chase him down when he realized that getting the bell meant he'd have the blonde's undivided attention, and it would give him the reason to actually fight back.

As quickly as it came, the anger flowed out of him, and he took off in another direction to look for their other teammate.

Sakura rubbed her forehead in frustration as she looked over the small collection of bombs before her. She had looked them over again and again, and she still could not remember the identification of the other 5 colored bombs. She sighed to herself, fingering over one of the light gray ones; the basic smoke bomb. Of all of them, she had the most of these. She dropped them into her weapons bag and turned her attention to the two white ones, the bombs were slightly bigger and unlike the rest, had a kanji character for "Flash" written on it. She bagged them two before looking to the bright gold one. The only one of them that she had, filled with a powerful paralysis powder that would render an opponent unable to move much for at least ten minutes if they breathed in enough. She bagged it as well, the only one of it's kind, and the last one that she recognized.

The rest of them, she neatly put back into the box she received them in, and put it in the base of her bag.

She looked up again, she was in a clearing, sitting at the base of a tree just inside. She scanned the trees on the opposite side and on both sides for signs of either boys before listening for any sounds behind her. She pulled herself close to the tree, tucking in as much as possible so that someone coming from behind wouldn't see her. She could list the holes in this plan, and there were many, but she would rather be partially in the open but have a clear sight of anyone coming into the clearing than to be surrounded by trees on all sides. She just hoped that neither of the boys spotted her then went around to surprise her from behind.

She shut her eyes for a moment, breathing out and breathing in. Her heart had not slowed down since she had sat down, even her plan to calm down by looking over her inventory had backfired to an extent. She wasn't exactly sure why, if worse came to worse, she wouldn't have to fight them. Sasuke didn't consider her rival enough to bother with her, and Naruto would be after the bell alone so giving it to him would free her from a humilating defeat.

Somewhere, in some small portion of her mind, she fantasied about being able to avoid them long enough to keep the bell. She had managed to outsmart Kakashi enough to almost land a hit, even though he had been paying virtually no attention to her at all. This was slightly different though, neither Sasuke nor Naruto had enough confidence in their skills to completely drop their guard, even for her.

She shut her eyes tight, trying to calm her breathing and her heart, though it didn't help. What helped even less was the sound of trees rustling behind her. Instantly she went on guard, pushing against the tree she sat at as best as she could. She held her breath as she heard the rustling grow closer, hoping that whoever was coming couldn't hear her beating heart.

Moments later, Naruto emerged from the trees behind her, jumping through the air from the branches of the she sat at. He landed with a dull thud, looking all around the clearing, but not turning around.

'He hasn't noticed me...I might be able to get away now...'

Even Inner Sakura seemed to understand the need for silence as there was no input from her inner psyche. Without a sound, she rolled to the side, managing to get her feet underneath her, the whole time her eyes stayed on Naruto. Once she had the chance, she jumped forward, planning to head into the forests for a clean escape...

Only to find herself face-to-face with a smiling Naruto.

She screamed a bit in shock as she managed to skid to a stop before running into him.

"Hey Sakura-chan!"

She turned without replying, escaping being her only thought, and she took off back into the clearing. It was only when she saw another smiling face standing in exactly the same place as before that she remembered why she had taken off into the forest in the first place.

From behind her, a voice arose that startled her.

"Why are you so jumpy?"

She turned slowly, trying to calm down. If she lied well enough, maybe she could convince him to head after Sasuke.

"No reason...just, you know...the exercise...it's hard on the nerves."

"Yeah, I know how you feel."

She heard a poof of smoke from behind her, and suddenly some of the stress fell away as she realized that was no longer surrounded. Her mind began to turn as rationality kicked in, she'd find a way to make him believe her, afterall, it was only Naruto.

Before she could begin to speak, Naruto chimed up.

"You know, I ran into Sasuke a little bit earlier."

Sakura's eyes opened a bit wide, though she caught herself in a split second. She was happy at that moment for Naruto's tendency to speak with his eyes closed.

"Oh really...so I guess that means you have the bell..."

"Actually, I don't..."

"Really? That means that Sasuke should still have it."

"Maybe..."

"You should go after him then, you don't want him to brag about how he beat you, do you?"

"No..."

Sakura began to feel more and more confident with each response she got from Naruto as the look of confusion on his face got more and more defined.

"Then go get him, if anyone can beat Sasuke, you can, Naruto-kun"

She was sure that that would be the end of it, using that title was sure to be the clincher.

"Well of course I can beat him, afterall, I'll be Hokage someday. It wouldn't make sense if I couldn't beat some random ninja like him. I'm gonna face much tougher opponents in the future, right?"

"Right"

Sakura felt her victory within grasp and coasting towards her with no interference.

"And if I'm gonna beat all those tougher opponents, then I'm gonna need to do a lot training. Right?"

"Right"

"Which means I can't be spending my time doing stuff like dog shit-duty. Right?"

"Exactly!"

"So then, since you agree, are you gonna just give me the bell?"

Sakura went cold and paled instantly.

"W-what? What do you mean?"

"Are you gonna give me the bell?"

"But...but I...I don't have it. Sasuke does...remember?"

Everything was quickly falling apart, and she knew it. Something about the smile on Naruto's face made her feel like a cornered cat being chased by the neighborhood boys. It was at that point that she caught a glimpse of orange among the trees in her peripheal vision, and she realized that she had been lead on the whole time.

"No Sasuke doesn't have it, and I don't have it either. You know what that means?"

His smile was taunting. Far too taunting, Sakura gulped before turning about, making a dead sprint to the other end of the clearing, ignoring Naruto.

She had gone no farther than two steps before she felt a calloused hand grab onto her wrist, not particularly hard, just hard enough to stop her from going on.

"Ah, come on, don't be like that Sakura-chan...just give methe bell."

She pulled back against his grip, and he let go. She tripped on her own feet and fell backwards onto her butt. When she looked up, she saw Naruto grinning with that same confident grin of one who knows they've won. His hand was outstretched to help her up.

She didn't take it, instead she looked to the ground. Here she was, 13 years old, a kunoichi who had graduated near the top of her whole class and top among the kunoichi. Supposedly she was smart, a genius in fact as far as academic knowledge went. Her chakra control was extremely advanced for someone her age, expecially considering she never practiced. She should have been better than she was, she should have been at least a decent ninja. But here she was, sitting completely defeated and outsmarted, and utterly helpless.

She felt heavy, in an instant she lost hope. Her racing heart slowed in an instant and she could only slump on the ground. Her eyes glazed a bit as she los focus, wondering just why she was trying to become a ninja at all. The whole time her goal had been to run away, to hide, and to escape, yet that wasn't what a ninja was supposed to do. She let out a high and let her shoulders slump forward.

"Sakura-chan, are you alright?"

Naruto's voice was filled with so much caring that Sakura was caught partially off-guard and responded before she could even think about her response.

"Naruto-kun...do you...do you think I'm useless?"

Even saying the word hurt her, the thought that she could do absolutely nothing had never bothered her before, but this time it struck a bit differently. She had never been able to help, yet she was here on team 7 with two of the best genin in Konoha.

Naruto was surprised at the odd question, and at first it didn't actually register.

"What?"

"Useless, do you think that I'm weak?"

She kept her eyes on the ground, looking all about uncomfortably. She came to her senses but still couldn't figure out why she was asking Naruto when she knew in her heart that it was true. After all, she couldn't count a single time where she had bravely fought a tough enemy without miserably failing; time after time she had sat back and watched either waiting to be rescued or simply trying not to get in the way.

Naruto's smile faded a little as the seriousness of Sakura's question occured to him.

"Weak...why--why would you think that?"

He added a bit of a chuckle to lighten the mood, though even he could tell that it wasn't helping.

"Seriously, you hit harder than any girl I've ever seen--well except for Baa-san."

He started rubbing his cheek in a not-so-fond memory of the many times she had belted him a long distance for doing something stupid.

"I'm serious Naruto, do you think that I'm a weak shinobi?"

She was quiet but Naruto could still hear her voice cracking a little bit and it struck a chord in his chest.

"No, No I don't think that Sakura-chan, why do you think I would?"

His smile faded completely by now and he knelt down so that he was at her level, though she refused to look him in the eyes. He could see the beginnings of tears at the corners of her eyes and he began to get concerned.

"Well..." She broke up her words with her first sniffle and drug the back of her hand across her eyes to dry them a bit. "well...it always seems that--that you and Sasuke are so great and strong. Whenever something happens, whenever we run into someone strong, you or Sasuke are always the first ones to fight...and every time you prove that your incredible shinobi...You guys--but...but every time something big happens, I'm always getting rescued...or I'm always getting in the way. And...I--I mean, it must be because...because I'm..."

Naruto cut in grabbing her chin and taking her attention. Her eyes looked into his instinctively and she saw an oddlyserious look on his face. It wasn't a look she remembered seeing often, but it seemed reminiscent of an adult talking to her while trying to convince her of something important. In his eyes alone she felt something she didn't recognize, though it caused her to start listening intently for the words he was going to say.

"Sakura-chan, listen to me."

She did.

"Do not compare yourself to me and Sasuke, and do not compare the opponenets that we have to fight to the ones that everyone else does. We are different Sakura, that's the truth. Me and Sasuke are different, we were born that way, born with incredible power from the beginning. The opponents we have had to fight are opponents that would've killed just about anybody our age. Think about it...Haku? Gaara? How many other people do you know that could've just fought them the way we did?"

He could see her eyes begin to focus again as she started to turn over what was said.

"And how many people do you think would have needed to be rescued? The point is that me and Sasuke are different enough. Sasuke has his Sharingan, and I..."

He thought for a moment about how he wanted to continue. He wasn't speaking to the fox, which meant he didn't have chakra from him. At the same time he didn't want Sakura to think that all his power came from Kyuubi. It took only a moment of looking at her eyes slowly reviving with each comforting word to let him realize that the details of his relationship with the fox were not important now.

"...I have some of Kyuubi's power. You don't have that Sakura, but it doesn't mean that you can't be a good shinobi. I mean, look at fuzzy brows. He has almost nothing, he doesn't even have the chakra control that people envy you for, yet he's good enough so that I wouldn't want to fight him--even though I could kick his ass."

He added a large toothy grin to help the mood, and was comforted by a chuckle from Sakura. His mind turned over what to say now, and seeing as how she seemed fully aware again and thinking over his words, he settled for a conclusion that seemed good to him.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is...How many people do you know that's our age and can go toe-to-toe with Neji in a Taijutsu fight, even for a little while?"

Sakura looked up at him for a moment before she understood what he meant to say.

"Just one...a little Hyuuga girl who no one believed could do a thing."

"Exactly, and do you know why?"

He stood up again and offered a hand to her to help her up to her feet. She chuckled a little as she took it.

"No, why?"

She stood straight up and started dusting off her dress.

"Because she believed she could."

He looked into her eyes, happy to see that despite the wetness at the corners, the eyes were their normal shade of bright jade and the comfortable smile on her face showed that she was feeling better.

It was then that something struck him.

"Um...I don't suppose this means your just gonna give me the bell does it?"

Sakura took in a deep breath before taking a look at Naruto. She smiled a bit and slowly shook her head.

"Darn, me and my big mouth."

He playfully fumed before turning around and taking a few steps to put some distance between them.

Sakura sunk into a light stance, a fist by her face and the other hand laid open by her leg. She turned so that her side was facing him, standing comfortably in basic stance.

Naruto grinned as he turned back towards her and fell into a similar stance.

"Naruto?"

"Yeah Sakura?"

"Thanks..."

"Don't mention it..."

He grinned. She charged.