Because I Love You - Chasing After You

by The Flare Blade

Hiruzen knew that Tazuna's request was much more dangerous and important than it first appeared to be. He needed experienced ninja for the mission, but his hands were tied because of politics... until he sees a loophole. Using an educational project as cover, he will send two teams to Wave! A Naruto retelling with Hinata as a main character but with canon teams. (Ch1-5 revised!)

10. Chapter 10 - Healing in the Aftermath

Hey everyone!

I'm happy that you guys seemed to have liked the previous chapter! And I'm even happier that this story now has over 100 reviews, over 250 follows, and 200 favorites! (well, 197 favorites as of when I posted this, but counting those that favorited me instead of the fic itself...)

Now, this is the fourth chapter of the Land of Waves arc, but unlike the previous three, this one and the next will be mostly peaceful. Combat will take a backseat for now so that the genin can train for the bridge battle, and strengthen the bonds they have formed with each other while they are at it.

This is the halfway mark of the arc, and I'm planning to put out a total of seven/eight chapters for it (and thankfully, the battle on the bridge chapters will be in the months where college will be a non-issue), so... bear with me for a while longer. I know that most dislike the "C-rank" arcs in Naruto fanfiction, especially when they stick to canon... but the Wave arc is important from a character development standpoint (even more this time around that Sakura won't stay stagnant and that Hinata is here), and I don't want to rush it needlessly.

All in all, I think I will be spending just a little less time on it than the anime (mostly because the fight scenes don't take 5+ chapters to be dealt with), but whatever... though if you actually analyze the content, Chapters 9 and 8 are actually three separate chapters with 10k words or so each. Which is why I don't feel guilty about the delay. There's even a few extra words to compensate for the second week of delay! This chapter actually got past 20k words with 42% more content than initially planned! How cool is that?

(Seriously, get something to eat if you plan to read this in one go. Or at least some water.)

I left my excuse for this delay and the next chapter's in my profile, but "college" is all you really need to know. Anyways, this chapter is more along the lines of Chapter 2 and 6 in terms of content.

Hope you will enjoy it!

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Land of Waves Arc

Chapter 10: Healing in the Aftermath (Current Version: 1.0)

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It was only a little after 5 A.M when Hinata awakened in the morning following the encounter with the Demon of the Hidden Mist, Zabuza Momochi. She was used to waking up at that time, and despite the possibility of getting a couple extra hours of sleep, she knew that going back to bed once she awoke would be a futile endeavor.

'Besides, I've wasted enough time on this bed as it is,' she reminded herself, still feeling bitter about how she became a burden to her team practically every day ever since her training session with Kakashi. Before, Team 8 had only done D-rank missions, so even if she messed up a lot, it wasn't that harmful.

But now there would be no room for errors. The situation didn't give her that leeway anymore.

Still, Naruto had been right when he told her that she would need to work hard to make up for the lost time, and that was exactly what Hinata intended to do that day.

Getting up but not leaving Tsunami's bed just yet, she noted that Tazuna's daughter and Kurenai both were already gone from the dark bedroom, if the two vacant futons were any indication. The third futon, however, still had someone sleeping on it, and even though Hinata had forgotten which person slept where, there was no way she would not recognize the wild pink mess popping out from under the covers.

It made Hinata cringe. Even though it was probably the smallest of Sakura's problems, Hinata knew that her friend would need to spend quite a while with a brush in hand, wrestling the knots out of her hair. 'I guess that's one of the advantages of keeping my hair short,' she thought, passing a hand through her own blue hair. Despite how easy it was to make it look presentable, she personally wished to have a hairstyle closer to Sakura's, but her father never allowed her to grow it out, even though he seemingly had no problems with her sister doing the same.

'Hanabi-chan...'

Sighing, she decided that it was best to forget her family existed for the time being. Thinking of the Hyuuga clan in general would only remind her of what was to come after her return, and that was not something she wanted to waste brainpower on until there was no way around the problem anymore.

'Maybe I should take a bath to clear my head,' Hinata thought as she finally got up from the bed. Similarly to when she had passed out after Kakashi's teamwork test, the shy Hyuuga experimentally moved her legs around to test them, and much to her satisfaction, she felt no pain. Taking care to not disturb Sakura's sleep, Hinata quietly found her bag in a corner of the room, grabbed a new change of clothes and moved towards the bathroom.

Opening the door as silently as she could, she looked back at Sakura's sleeping form, to constate that the girl was indeed still asleep. Instead of entering, though, Hinata remained still, gazing sadly at her friend.

Hinata remembered that Sakura had awoken not too long after her interaction with Naruto, and went upstairs as soon as she ate her lunch. As much as Hinata wanted to update her friend on how she had successfully interacted with Naruto earlier, Sakura was in no mood to talk, and ended up sulking practically all day long on her bed. Not knowing how to deal with that situation thanks to her own social ineptitude, the shy Hyuuga reluctantly decided to give her friend some space and focused on her book.

The other members of Team 7 didn't fare much better when they eventually came upstairs to see their teammate. Sakura treated both Sasuke and Naruto in a curt, borderline rude manner, speaking the only bare minimum necessary to answer their questions. Though she never said it outright, it was clear to the boys that she was in no mood to deal with them, making both reluctantly back off and leave her alone.

Kurenai, from what Hinata could tell of her sensei's mannerisms, seemed to want to talk with the pinkette in private, but since she couldn't convince Sakura to leave and Hinata herself was unable to move, that conversation ended up being delayed, leaving Hinata to wonder what her sensei wanted to say. The older woman probably had an idea of what was troubling Sakura, but Hinata wasn't too sure about what it could be.

Roughly half an hour later, she exited Tsunami's room and made her way to the kitchen, feeling fresh and ready to face a new day.

Opening the door carefully, she wasn't surprised to see her two missing roommates there. Kurenai was on the table, drinking a cup of tea, whereas Tsunami was busy preparing two bentos. One, she guessed was for Tazuna, but the girl didn't know what to make of its twin. "Good morning Tsunami-san, Kurenai-sensei," she greeted the older women with a slight bow.

"Good morning indeed!" Tsunami exclaimed, smiling broadly at the girl. "I'm glad that you are walking again, uh—"

"Hinata," Kurenai whispered subtly from behind a cup of tea.

"—Hinata-chan! I take it there's no pain when you move?"

The girl shook her head. "Not at all. And, um, b-because I'm better, you can have your bed back now..."

"Don't worry about that, dear," Tsunami said dismissively as she poured some coffee in a thermos and then left the coffee pot on the table. "But I'm sure that you are hungry, so let me serve you breakfast!"

"Ah, no! P-please don't worry about me! I can prepare my own food, s-so... y-you don't need to stop for my sake," the girl insisted, receiving a nod from Tazuna's daughter when the woman decided to humor her.

Soon, the bluenette sat next to her teacher, holding a plate with a simple sandwich and a cup of tea. "Hinata, is Sakura awake yet? I need to talk with her about... yesterday."

"As far as I know she's still asleep, sensei... I'm sorry." Despite her apology, Hinata knew that she could have spied on her friend with the Byakugan to give a clear answer, but like all Hyuuga, she was taught from a young age to not invade other people's privacy and refrained from using her dojutsu when not in a mission or spar.

"If you don't mind me asking, what happened to her?" Tsunami inquired. "She was the only one that wasn't wounded, so it left me wondering..."

When Tsunami trailed off, a curious Hinata shifted her gaze to Kurenai and caught the woman's mask faltering for a second before her expression once again became neutral. "During training, I... made a mistake with Sakura, and it impacted her performance negatively yesterday. If... if you excuse me, I will go to the bedroom and wait for her to wake up."

Having said that, the Genjutsu Mistress got up from her seat to place the dishes in the sink and left the kitchen, leaving her confused student and host behind. The two exchanged a look and, not knowing what to make of Kurenai's attitude, quietly went back to what they were doing.

The silence between them remained, until the moment when Hinata heard Tsunami turning on the faucet.

"Tsunami-san? I... If it's not a bother, c-could I wash the dishes in your s-stead...?" the girl asked, her voice lowering in volume as the older woman turned around and frowned at her. By the end of the sentence, Hinata's nervous habit of playing with her pointer fingers had already kicked in and she barely had Tsunami in her field of view.

"What...? Nonsense! You are my guest; I can't let you have that kind of work on top of training and protecting my father, dear."

Undaunted despite her meekness, Hinata tried to persuade her. "B-But with ten people... there is much more work to do, right?" Tsunami considered that for a moment. She had been caught completely off-guard when her father had shown up with an extra team, and with five wounded ninja on top of it, so her workload had increased far more than she had expected. "And helping you... is the least I could do, c-considering the trouble I caused yesterday..."

Tsunami sighed, watching as Hinata lowered her head in shame. 'So that is what this is all about,' she realized. Not having the heart to deny the Hinata's request after seeing the expression the girl took, Tsunami relented, passing a white apron to the girl. However, since Hinata didn't know what was in each of the kitchen's cabinets, Tsunami herself had to place the plates Hinata dried in their respective places.

The two were just about to finish the chore when two more people showed up: Shino and Sasuke

"Good morning Tsunami-san, Hinata." The Aburame greeted them politely, whereas Sasuke only nodded their general direction and said nothing as he sat down near the table.

It was then that Hinata remembered something important. "Sasuke-san, your scroll...!"

The Uchiha's eyes narrowed as he tried to process her words, until he put together her question with what she was doing at the moment. "The one with everything we used two days ago? You're gonna wash those things right now?"

"Y-yes..."

Though slightly annoyed, Sasuke got up and left the room. A couple minutes later, the raven-haired boy returned, with a cranky-looking Kiba following right behind him. Unlike the other genin, the ninken-user was still clad in his pajamas, which were a simple light gray shirt and pants.

"Kiba? I believed you were asleep," Shino stated somewhat unnecessarily, noting with interest that Akamaru hadn't followed his master.

"Yeah, I was... except Sasuke here dropped a kunai right on my ear and woke me up." The Inuzuka then yawned and stretched. "And with Naruto snoring like a pig, there was no way I was going back to sleep," he grumbled, glaring at Sasuke.

"Stop being so dramatic," Sasuke scoffed, rolling his eyes. "The idiot wasn't even snoring."

Kiba pointed at his own ears. "Sharp senses, remember?"

Refusing to concede the point or admit his guilt, Sasuke ignored the Inuzuka and passed the scroll to Hinata, while Tsunami served Kiba.

"By the way, Hinata," Kiba spoke up, "you should have seen Naruto back there. He tossed and turned in his sleep, and you know what I saw...?"

Hinata heard the teasing tone of her teammate's voice, but against her better judgment, she turned her head slightly to look at him, and caught Kiba smirking. "Wh...what is it?"

"The sexiest frog-themed boxers you could have imagined, with a bit of butt crack too!"

The Inuzuka's smile broadened as he struggled to not laugh when he saw how red Hinata's face became.

"Don't forget the "manly" sleeping cap," Sasuke added, smirking at the memories of how defensive the blonde had gotten about his precious cap on the previous night.

"Oh, yeah! There was that too!" Kiba finally stopped resisting and burst out laughing, his bad mood long forgotten. "That looked so stupid!"

Tsunami, however, was not amused. "You two shouldn't insult your friend—especially when he's not here to defend himself!" Withering under the woman's glare, Kiba meekly became quiet and focused on his food. "And to think he was worried about you two..." she added, intent on making the duo feel bad.

"Naruto was indeed preoccupied," Shino innocently twisted the knife further, "though I believe the one that worried him the most was Sakura."

"...I'll apologize to him later," Sasuke said as he poured more coffee into his mug. Tsunami hadn't known of his distaste for sweet things and added far too much sugar to his liking.

As the black liquid fell into the mug, Kiba's jaw also was heavily affected by the gravity and almost hit the floor. "Who the hell are you and what did you do to Sasuke Uchiha?"

"Shut up, Inuzuka," Sasuke muttered, but there was a hint of embarrassment on his usually stoic tone.

Hinata turned back to the sink and stifled a giggle at the exchange. 'If it had been only a week ago, I doubt that idea would have ever crossed his mind. I just hope Naruto-kun doesn't misunderstand his intentions,' Hinata thought, remembering that despite their different personalities, both herself and the Uchiha had problems with making friendships and expressing themselves. That, in addition to the boy's pride, could make bonding with Naruto problematic if he approaches it in the wrong way, much like she believed to have done at times.

"But hey, that reminds me," Kiba tried to change the subject after a brief moment of silence, "How is Sakura? She was looking pretty out of it yesterday..."

"Your sensei went upstairs to have a talk with her," Tsunami answered, not knowing what to think of the situation. "She said something about a training accident."

"An accident...?" Shino's curiosity was piqued. "Sasuke, do you—"

"No. This has nothing to do with you," the Uchiha interrupted harshly, silencing the bug-user and subsequently getting up to bring the plate and cup he had used to Hinata.

The girl accepted both items, and Sasuke was able to see the worry reflected in her lavender eyes as she faced his scowl head-on. "Sasuke-san... we are just trying to help."

"Yeah, man," Kiba agreed, trying not to glare at the black-haired boy. "No need to be such a jerk about it. If you know something, you should share it with us," he argued, hoping that Sasuke would understand that withholding information from the rest of the "pack" wasn't helping anyone.

Silently, Sasuke moved to exit the room. But just as the members of Team 8 started to think he was going to leave without even giving them an answer, he stopped right in front of the door and started talking.

"There are times where even if you know exactly what happened, you still can't do anything to help someone."

With that said, Sasuke left the room, closing the door on the way out.

"...Saying this stuff and leaving just like that; who does he think he is!?" Kiba grumbled, angrily tearing part of the bread that was on his plate and shoving it in his mouth. "That cool attitude pisses me off."

"I don't believe Sasuke was trying to look cool. That's just how he normally is," Shino stated, and the Inuzuka raised an eyebrow at him.

"What, are you saying he is just naturally cool? Didn't know you were part of his fan club, man," the pajama-clad boy said, smirking at Shino's twitching eyebrow. "I guess this is the universe's way of compensating for our team not having one of his fangirls, huh?"

As the two males of Team 8 started to banter, Hinata realized that Tsunami was no longer helping her. Curious, she glanced at the woman and saw her staring at a photo on the wall.

Mimicking the woman's actions, Hinata stopped working and analyzed the photo. 'That's Tazuna-san and Tsunami-san... and that boy must be the grandson Tazuna-san talked about yesterday, but... who is that person that was ripped out?' she wondered, noticing that only part of an unknown man's torso could be seen. It was disturbing by itself, but the fact that the other three were smiling made the photo even creepier in Hinata's opinion.

As the girl started to debate with herself, unsure of whether to ask the questions that formed in her mind or if maybe it would be better to silently go back to work, Tazuna opened the door that Sasuke had closed and entered the kitchen.

"What was up with that kid...?" the old man asked, looking annoyed. They had passed each other on the living room, and Tazuna couldn't help but note the deep scowl the boy wore as he entered the guest room he shared with the other male genin. The bridge builder's features became more serious when he noticed where his daughter was looking.

"Hell if I know," Kiba shrugged. "He's always been moody like this, though."

Tazuna didn't even pay attention to the answer, and instead crossed the room and enveloped his daughter in a gentle, strong hug.

"Good morning, daughter."

Snapping out of her thoughts by the comforting warmth of her father's embrace, a small smile blossomed on her face as the old man planted a kiss on her forehead. "Hey, dad. Did you sleep well?"

As father and daughter started talking with each other, Hinata made her decision and turned around, hoping that focusing on the dishes would help her forget the scene she had just witnessed.

Tuning out their conversation, the young Hyuuga dutifully continued her work, now with the additional task of sealing the various plates, pots, and utensils that had been on Sasuke's cooking scroll. Quite a few actually belonged to her scroll, but she decided to sort them out at a later date.

She was so engrossed in her work that she didn't notice her teammates approaching until Kiba tapped her shoulder.

"Eek!"

Startled, the girl dropped the cup she had been washing, allowing it to fall in the water-filled sink and splashing water on her apron.

"Oops!" Kiba took a step back. "Wow. Sorry Hinata... didn't mean to startle you."

Instead of looking upset like many would in such a situation, Hinata only smiled understandingly at the Inuzuka. "D-don't worry, Kiba-kun. Nothing broke, so... it's alright." She then motioned towards the sink and took a step back, giving space for the boys to leave their plates and cups there.

After doing so, Shino addressed her. "You had a troubled expression beforehand, Hinata. Are you feeling unwell? Have your legs not recovered completely just yet?"

"Shino-kun, I'm fine," she answered, giving him a smile that was slightly different from the one she had given to Kiba. "M-my legs are fine too. I... I just spaced out for a bit."

Sharing a meaningful look with each other, the two male genin of Team 8 came to the unspoken agreement that Hinata wasn't being straight with them. However, neither one of them were able to press the issue further, as Tazuna's conversation with his daughter became louder and caught their interest.

"So, Inari is supposed to return today, isn't he? I can't wait to see him!"

Though the old man was smiling brightly at the prospect of meeting his grandson again, Tsunami's expression was very much the opposite. "Yes. He was... sad that you left. More than usual, I mean."

Tazuna's smile faltered and he sighed, wearily. "I just hope he managed to have some fun. A kid of his age should be smiling, playing with friends... but Inari... it breaks my heart to see what he's become."

"...You know, he was making a birthday present for you before he left. He should be arriving anytime now, so if you wait a few more minutes—"

"Eh?" Interjected a new voice. "It was your birthday, old man? When?"

"Naruto?" Kiba raised an eyebrow upon seeing the orange-clad ninja on the doorway. "Did Sasuke wake you up, too?"

"Yeah, the bastard kicked me. Said the old man was up already and that I needed to wake up," the blond answered, positively displeased.

His tone made Tazuna scowl. "Of course you needed to wake up, you lazy brat! There's a lot to do before the bridge is finished and I need to be guarded. And to answer your question, my birthday was three days ago. Still not as old as your Hokage, but I'm getting there!"

"Ah, so that's why you were hammered back then," Naruto commented idly, mostly to himself. Still he had been more than loud enough for everyone to hear him... making Tazuna shudder as he felt his daughter's burning glare directed towards him.

"Father! You promised!"

"I-i-it was just one bottle, I swear! ...Please don't hurt me! I-I'm old and frail, remember?"

"You stunk of someone that had at least three different kinds of sake AND one whiskey," Kiba added fuel to the fire, finding the sight of the old cowering from his daughter to be hilarious.

"I don't even know how our sensei managed to escort you to the hotel. You couldn't even walk straight!" Naruto exclaimed as he sat on the chair that Shino previously occupied. He was exaggerating a bit, but the blond actually noticed what was going on and he hadn't forgotten the "orange diapers" incident... however...

"Oh no!" Tsunami gasped and faced Naruto. "I forgot to check on your sensei."

The woman then quickly left the room, but not before giving her father one last glare. "We will continue this later," she hissed before slamming the door on her way out.

Tazuna did not waste a single second and hurriedly went about preparing his own breakfast. "Shit, I gotta do this before she gets back..."

Meanwhile, Naruto looked over the table and frowned. If the fact that he unintentionally helped Tazuna escape his punishment wasn't bad enough, he could also see that the only things available to eat at the moment didn't include his favorite breakfast. "Hey, do you have any cereal here?"

"Yup, I bought a couple boxes yesterday," Tazuna admitted. "But I'm not telling you where to find them, you disrespectful brat!"

Intending to eat his food where he could hide behind a locked door, Tazuna quickly grabbed his slice of bread and a cup of coffee before fleeing to his room, leaving a furious, perplexed Naruto behind him.

"Argh, stupid old man! What the hell?"

Kiba couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Dude, you ratted him out to Tsunami-san, of course he wasn't going to help you."

The boy's comment only made the Uzumaki more annoyed. "Well, I don't need help anyways! Hmph!"

As Naruto stomped towards one of the cabinets in his pursuit of cereal, Kiba started nudging a distracted Hinata. "So, I guess I'll go upstairs to get changed, ok?"

The girl nodded as she watched her crush open the doors of the lower cabinets, and Kiba continued talking. "Shino, let's go."

"Do you require my assistance to get changed?" The Aburame asked with genuine curiosity, and an undetected hint of worry. Kiba's injuries weren't grave, but most of his torso had been damaged in one way or another. Outside of that, he saw no other logical reason for following his teammate.

"Uh... no, but... ah, yeah! Of course," Kiba nodded to himself, having found an acceptable lame excuse to use. "I forgot where you left my bags yesterday and... I don't want to open the wrong bag by accident and find more frog boxers."

In response to that, Hinata blushed, Shino raised an eyebrow and Naruto scowled. "They are toads, you dumb mutt! And I only have one of them!"

"Bah, who cares man," Kiba snorted dismissively before beckoning Shino with his hand. "Let's go already. I gotta get that lazy fleabag to wake up, too. He's been sleeping for way too long already."

"Don't be a hypocrite, Kiba. Additionally, I don't believe you need my—"

"Argh, just shut up and listen to me for once!" The Inuzuka interrupted his teammate, not only verbally but physically, pushing the Aburame out of the kitchen and stopping only to give a thumbs up to Hinata before disappearing into the living room and closing the door, leaving the girl alone with her crush.

She wasn't sure if that was a good thing, though.

'...Now what? Should I go back to work or... maybe I could try to talk to him again?' Glancing briefly at the whiskered boy, she saw him rummaging through the lower cabinets of Tsunami's kitchen... but if his angered grumbles were any indication, the cereal box he wanted to find wasn't there.

'No... I probably shouldn't bother him right now,' she decided, though she wasn't very pleased with her own decision. Before she could form a better plan, though, a loud creaking sound resounded through the kitchen and almost made Hinata jump.

"Good news!" Tsunami announced as she barged into the kitchen. "Your sensei is awake already!"

"Huh?" Naruto turned around, confused for all but one second. "You mean Kakashi-sensei is up again!? Awesome!"

"Well, up is not exactly the word I'd use but... uh, what are you looking for, dear?" the woman questioned, wondering why the boy was sitting in front of the food cabinets instead of eating his own breakfast on the table.

"Cereal!" The boy announced with an excited grin. "There's no better way to start the day, you know?"

"Ah, I see... well, father brought a couple boxes yesterday, but I don't know where he placed them. Do you need any help?" she asked, remembering that it had been a decent while since she had left the room, which meant that Naruto had been struggling some time already.

"Nah, it's okay," he said dismissively, going back to his search. "And I think Kakashi-sensei needs your help more than I do."

Ignoring the blunt comment, Tsunami shrugged. "Well, if you wish, you can also grab some cookies. There's a pot with cinnamon and apple cookies to your upper left, and there's some orange juice in the refrigerator."

'!'

"Don't worry about me, I can handle this!" Naruto boasted confidently, despite how fruitless his search was turning up.

As he had his back towards her, he completely missed Tsunami frowning in response 'This again?' she thought, glancing at Hinata, who had refused her assistance earlier with a similar statement.

To the woman's surprise, the bluenette was looking at Naruto's direction, with a strange, almost predatory glint in her eyes. She, somehow, reminded Tsunami of a hunter that was stalking its prey, waiting for just the right time to pounce on it.

Tsunami had a feeling that the girl wasn't looking at the blond, but before she could follow the Hyuuga's gaze, the girl seemingly snapped out of it, mumbling something suspiciously similar to "Not now, Hinata." and turning back to focus once again on her self-imposed chore.

Confused, Tsunami shrugged, deciding to ignore what she saw to move on with her own duties. She prepared a reinforced breakfast for Kakashi as fast as she could and left the two genin by themselves once again.

Eventually, Naruto let out a growl born out of frustration. "Where is it...!? There's way too much stuff in here! Did that old geezer lie to me?" Naruto ranted, closing the cabinet he had been examining with more force than necessary. The loud noise made it hard to hear his whining, but if one had been paying attention to what he was doing to begin with, they wouldn't have trouble understanding his words.

Luckily for Naruto, that was exactly what Hinata had been doing, despite appearing to be concentrated in the cup she was scrubbing down. Finding the answer to her earlier dilemma, the girl finished cleaning that cup and performed the hand signs needed to activate her dojutsu.

'Byakugan!'

It had taken barely a minute for the girl to find the cereal box Naruto so desperately was in need of.

She would have found it within five seconds or so, but confirming the cookie pot's location and contents had been a much higher priority... not to mention the girl had to make an effort to control the degree of insight of her dojutsu so that she didn't end up "accidentally" finding out whether they were frogs or toads... but more to the point, Hinata discovered the cereal box hidden in the upper cabinets.

But then came the question of how to put that knowledge to good use.

'Should I just stop beating around the bush and point it out to Naruto-kun? Hmm... he didn't seem to want any help, though. Maybe he will be annoyed if I find it for him or... he could get mad because I didn't say anything sooner,' she realized. 'What to do... ah, I got it!'

Quickly, but not in a manner to draw attention to herself, Hinata dried her hands on a nearby hand towel and walked towards the table... or more specifically, one of the chairs that surrounded it. Before she could do anything with it, though, she saw an open carton of milk on the table. Her eyes briefly widened as she got an idea to make her little plan more elaborate, and she pivoted back to her temporary workplace.

Once there, Hinata picked one of the plastic bowls that she had left to dry naturally beside the sink and used a towel to speed up the process. Briefly inspecting it, the girl found the bowl to be satisfactorily cleaned and deemed it ready to be used. Grabbing a spoon from a nearby drawer, she walked to the table and placed both items in front of Naruto's seat.

Once again glancing at Naruto, she noted with relief that he was still searching for the cereal on the lower cabinets, giving her the opportunity to continue moving undetected. 'I do feel bad for him, though,' she remarked to herself, knowing that the boy's efforts would be for naught. Meanwhile, she filled the bowl with milk and then added a small bit of sugar to the creamy white liquid, and used the spoon to mix it.

Content with how her plan was progressing thus far, the girl nodded twice to herself. 'Right! Now, the final step!'

Finally, the girl once again grabbed one of the kitchen's chairs and pushed it towards Naruto. This time, she purposefully didn't try to avoid making noises, and the boy instantly turned his head to look at her.

"Hinata!?" he blurted out, surprised by shy Hyuuga's presence. He had honestly failed to notice that she was in the kitchen, and struggled to remember if he had heard the door opening after Tsunami left. "What's up?"

"Oh, um, I... thought that maybe t-the cereal... I mean, i-it might be on upper cabinets if you... w-want to, maybe."

Cursing herself for messing up at the last possible moment, the girl averted her gaze and missed Naruto's expression of shock.

"Upper Cabinets...!?" Looking towards the ceiling, he saw that Hinata wasn't lying to him. "Geez, you're right! Heh, maybe I've been searching in the wrong place all along, hehe..."

Taking the chair from Hinata after thanking her, Naruto pushed it closer to the cabinets and climbed it, allowing him to reach the upper cabinets that he had completely failed to notice prior to that moment. Though he shrugged it off with a smile, on the inside he couldn't help but berate himself for that mistake.

'Gah, I can't believe I missed something this big! No wonder everyone calls me an idiot,' he thought, frowning openly now that he had his back turned to Hinata.

"I-I don't think you are an idiot..."

Naruto then heard a muffled gasp and the sounds of hurried footsteps. Glancing over his shoulder, he spotted Hinata just as she reached the sink once again.

'Hmm... suspicious,' he frowned as he opened the doors of the upper cabinets. There was quite a bit of food in there, alongside some of the more rarely used kitchen utensils, such as a blender and a cake pan. The arrangement didn't make much sense to Naruto, but then he realized that Tsunami probably didn't have enough space for everything that had been bought yesterday, given that her family was small.

After grabbing his soon-to-be breakfast, Naruto got down from the chair and pushed the makeshift ladder back to its usual place by the table. But instead of sitting down and listening to his grumbling stomach, he instead stared at Hinata's back, wondering if he had heard her correctly.

Almost everyone he knew called him an idiot or at least sometimes implied as such when explaining his mistakes to him. Even if they meant well, like Iruka, the Sandaime, or Kakashi, he could still feel that they didn't think much of his intelligence even though they were aware of his potential... which meant that it was more likely that Hinata had actually insulted him behind his back, instead of disagreeing with him.

Not that he would have been bothered by yet another person calling him an idiot—or so he told himself—but seeing as he wasn't even sure of what Hinata had said, he decided to stop thinking about it. As he sat on his chair, the only thing on Naruto's mind was a slight disappointment at himself for voicing his thoughts aloud in a moment of distraction... which was, unknowingly to him, exactly what the only other person in the kitchen was thinking at the time.

But unlike the Hyuuga, Naruto stopped dwelling on those thoughts mere seconds later, when he got distracted by what was supposed to be the other half of his breakfast: a bowl of milk.

'Wait... when did this get here!?'

Naruto definitely didn't remember filling his bowl, and in fact, he knew for sure that it wasn't his doing because he always put the cereal before the milk... but who could have done it for him? Tsunami was out of the picture because he hadn't told her what he was looking for... and that left him with only one suspect.

Before he could question the only other person in the room, he could feel a familiar, unpleasant pressure on his belly, which reminded him that he really should be eating instead of trying and probably failing at making sense of the bluenette's actions. 'Besides, she looks like she's pretty busy there,' he noted, seeing that the girl was working remarkably fast.

His confusion was completely forgotten once he started eating his breakfast, shoving spoonful after spoonful of cereal into his mouth with hardly any pauses, focused fully on getting rid of his hunger.

'Ah... that hit the spot!' he thought, happily licking his lips to catch a few errant strands of the sugary milk. With his stomach full and his bowl emptied, he got up and walked towards Hinata, with a small smile still on his face.

"Here," he offered the bowl to the girl, who was currently drying the dishes and either leaving them in a corner of the sink or sealing them into a scroll, depending on what it was.

"T-thanks," Hinata answered, taking the object from him, being careful to not touch his hand in the process. It made her feel more than a little silly, but she wasn't going to take a chance and end up dropping the bowl to the floor.

What she had said, however, managed to remind Naruto of one thing he still needed to do. "Hey... it was you who placed the bowl on the table, right?"

The only answer Naruto heard was the sharp sound of the plastic bowl hitting the floor, followed by Hinata gasping as she followed the bowl's trajectory with her eyes.

"I-I'm s-sorry, Naruto-kun! I d-didn't mean to drop it o-or to f-f-fill it without your permission!" she squeaked out apologetically as she crouched to grab the fallen bowl. Hinata kept her head lowered when she got up, not daring to look up at Naruto and discover how disappointed he probably was with her. Going back to her work would be a nice way of ending their interaction right there, but previous experiences with her clansmen made the girl stay rooted to that spot, subconsciously expecting to be scolded for her mistake.

"...You're kinda clumsy, aren't you?" Naruto spoke, not the tone of disappointment that she had expected, but with a mix of light humor and sympathy.

Surprised, Hinata looked up into the boy's cerulean eyes and gave the most eloquent answer she could manage at the moment.

"Huh?"

The blond's thin smile widened a bit, something easily noticeable to Hinata because of how his whiskers turned to a sharper angle. As confusing as he considered her to be, Naruto was starting to find the girl's awkwardness to be a bit amusing.

Though it was much better than being berated, the small smile only made the girl feel even more foolish.

She'd never confess this to anyone, but Hinata hadn't even considered that Naruto would have noticed the bowl, despite how improbable it would have been for him to miss it. It made her want to facepalm, but she didn't go through with it, despite how it would neatly justify the blush on her face if she slapped herself hard enough.

"Uh, s-so... y-you're not angry?"

"No?" He frowned in confusion. "It was nice of you to help me and, you know, even I mess up from time to time," he said, remembering how he had similarly dropped his bowl of cereal only a few days ago, causing a mess on his apartment and starting a chain of events that eventually ended with him brawling with Kiba over a lost sandwich. "Besides, if I got angry at you for that, I'd be a hippo critic."

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

In a few instants of silence, the occasional hesitant glance Hinata kept giving him transformed into a completely blank stare, leaving the Uzumaki feeling uneasy as her pale lavender eye focused on him.

"You'd be… a hippo critic?"

"Yeah!" Naruto exclaimed, now realizing that Hinata's reaction came merely from ignorance. "You know, like... when you complain about someone being late by just a few minutes one time even though you are usually late to everything by two hours at best? That kind of thing."

That uneasy feeling returned when Naruto saw Hinata's lip quivering, and by the time she was futilely trying to cover her giggles with her hand, he was fully aware that he had managed to mess up once again.

This left him there, standing awkwardly as Hinata giggled at him for a few seconds, only stopping when she let out a rather unladylike snort. It was just enough to get her to try to regain her composure a little, in respect to a fellow klutz.

"I think... heehee, I think you meant to say "hypocrite", right?" Though the giggles stopped, there was still a silly smile on her face and a spark of amusement in her eyes as she looked up at Naruto.

"Sure, of course! We can go with that instead," he answered carefreely, trying to downplay his mistake. His attempt, of course, was accompanied by a smile that hardly reflected how he felt about the situation.

Hinata's own smile vanished immediately. "S-sorry, I just thought... um, the mental image was funny... I d-didn't mean to offend you," she explained, wishing that she could scrub away his fake smile just as easily as she could do the same to dirt in the plates and cups she had been cleaning. On that mental note, the bluenette decided to do something actually useful with the bowl she was holding, and turned to the sink to wash it, which also allowed her to avoid facing her crush.

'Wonderful, now Naruto-kun is upset with me,' she thought, suppressing a frustrated groan. It had been a stroke of luck that he hadn't been angry with her before, but after she repaid his kindness by laughing at him? Hinata had no doubts that there was an angry scowl behind that unnaturally wide grin; she had seen him doing that before at times where a normal person might have reacted angrily. That was the smile he used when he got the answers wrong during class, or when Sakura turned him down for dates. There were other situations, too, but to those she could attribute the feeling of "sadness" instead of "anger".

It is amazing how much you can find out about someone else just by observing them for long periods of time; how even the smallest of actions can betray the most well-hidden thoughts... and yet, despite how revealing words or movements might be, a person's own bias can still stand in the way of correctly interpreting another's body language.

When Hinata faced away from him, Naruto let his mask drop. Behind that forced flash of teeth, however, there was only a conflicted mix of curiosity and confusion.

What the observant Hyuuga failed to comprehend was that when Naruto's smile masked anger, it was more often than not directed at himself. Each time he laughed with his classmates after failing to perform a simple Clone Jutsu, he was angry at his own ineptitude. Each time Sakura turned him down, violently or not, what caused his blood to boil was not how unfair the pinkette might have been, but how unworthy he was of her affection when compared to someone like the Uchiha scion.

This time it was no different. He made a fool out of himself and that knowledge vexed him, but Naruto was used to being mocked for his mistakes. He was prepared for that outcome... however, Hinata was not finding amusement from the fact that he was dumb, and on top of it, she apologized for laughing at him. And even though the girl refused to face him, he could still make out traces of guilt in her expression, partially hidden by one of her twin longer strands of hair.

'She... actually feels bad about it? But...'

Hinata's behavior was so alien to him that his brain simply failed to process that thought, leaving him confused and with a headache. Again. That one actually ended up making him frown.

Distracted by his thoughts, he didn't notice Hinata biting her lower lip as she dried her hands. Naruto's bowl had been pretty much the last thing she needed to wash, and it ended up spotless in just a few seconds.

The Hyuuga imagined her crush would have gotten bored and would have gone away, or at least that he would have awkwardly tried to change the subject... but contrary to her expectations, Naruto just stood there, silently, and worst of all, looking at her. Despite her anxiety, she didn't dare to even glance at him, but as things stood, she would have little choice but to interact with him before hightailing out of the room.

No option would get her out of the situation without making her look bad, she realized. 'Is this divine retribution for all the time I spent st—er, watching him? It must be...'

But before the shy girl could once again curse her inability to properly talk to people in general, or before the impatient blond groaned in frustration from trying to figure out a puzzle despite not understanding all the hints given to him, the door to the kitchen opened once again.

"Hello...?"

For more reasons than one, Hinata let out a sigh of relief.

"Sakura-chan? Is that you!?"

"Hey, morning," the aforementioned pink-haired girl said, giving her a small smile to her two friends. She was noticeably less perky than usual, but it was a big improvement over how morose she was being in the previous day.

"G-good morning, Sakura-san." In response, Sakura glanced at Hinata, then at Naruto, and finally at Hinata again. The Hyuuga looked a bit conflicted, but seeing as Naruto had his back to her, she shook her head freely. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm... better," Sakura said evasively. It wasn't a lie, but it didn't actually answer the Hyuuga's question either.

"Uh, okay... and if you don't mind me asking," Naruto began cautiously, "Sakura-chan, why did you change your hairstyle?"

"Oh, this?" The pinkette brought her hand behind her neck and brushed her fingers over the thick braid that began from there. "I forgot to bind my hair before sleeping, so it was more than a little messy... we didn't have much of a choice, really."

"Ah..." Naruto nodded. He could imagine how much of a trouble a girl with as much hair as Sakura would have to take care of it, but even so, he was surprised she went for a hairstyle that made her forehead look bigger than usual—never mind that it wasn't a particularly good looking style in his opinion. The way she usually wore it was much prettier, but the practicality of it certainly resonated with him.

'If I was a girl, I'd want to have long hair... but I think I'd braid it out of pure laziness.' Some things were simply not worth the trouble, he figured.

Hinata, for her part, was hung up how Sakura used "we" in the sentence she had just spoken. "Did... did Kurenai-sensei help you braid it?" Between the serious vibe her teacher had before going upstairs, and the rough behavior the pinkette displayed around the woman the few times Hinata saw them interacting, all of it seemed rather odd to the Hyuuga.

"Yeah, she did it while we were... discussing some things," she answered, playing with the tip of her braid uneasily.

"Girl stuff?" Naruto attempted.

"Uh, more or less..." Sakura coughed and looked away, but she shook her head right afterwards. "But never mind that! Look, I have bad news—scratch that, really bad news."

"Is Kakashi-sensei's condition that bad?" Naruto's question was met with a confused stare from his teammate.

"Naruto, what are you talking about? Wait, he's awake already?"

Hinata nodded. "Tsunami-san is watching over him... he woke up a few minutes ago, I think."

"Well, I didn't check on him, but I hope he gets better really fast." Sakura hesitated, but decided to drop the bomb right away. "Guys... Zabuza might still alive."

"Oh, okay—wait, what the hell did you say!?" Naruto's loud yell completely muffled Hinata's gasp, and made both girls flinch a bit from the sheer volume. "No way! Sakura-chan, that's impossible! Those needles got him right through the neck! I saw it!"

"M-me too! A-and Kakashi-sensei took his pulse; there was n-nothing! His heart wasn't beating at all!" Hinata blurted out, clearly distressed.

Sakura raised her palms to force the duo to slow down and listen to her. "Look, I know you two don't believe me, but there are a few reasons me and Kurenai-sensei think that happened. Just let me eat my breakfast real quick and we will discuss that with Kakashi-sensei, ok?"

A minuscule nod and a drawn out groan were what the pinkette got as an answer. "You have gotta be kidding me...! That bastard is still kicking!? How!? And why can't you just spill it already!?"

Naruto scowled deeply, and Sakura mirrored his expression with little difficulty.

"Because this isn't just about you!" Though exasperated, Sakura bit back the insult that almost escaped her throat and settled just for a hard stare. "Look, calm down get the others to Kakashi-sensei and let me eat in peace, alright?"

Knowing that Naruto would just argue back and forth if given the chance, the pinkette poured a glass of milk for herself and prepared a light sandwich for her breakfast, leaving the frustrated Uzumaki with no way to vent his newfound anger.

Yet. The prospect of bumping into the black-haired jerk that dared to literally kick him out of dreamland and potentially getting into a fight, however, was very much appealing to him, so he left without saying another word.

Though still somewhat annoyed, Sakura watched him leave with a cautiously analytical expression. "Huh. I didn't expect him to be that mad about it..."

"Zabuza-san said many... nasty things to him yesterday," Hinata explained, making her friend raise an eyebrow at the use of the honorific for their enemy. "Naruto-kun is still angry, I think."

"I see... well, not really. I wasn't awake for that part."

Though the pinkette tried to keep her voice even, some bitterness still seeped through her tone. Hinata noticed it, but instead of calling her out on it, simply pulled a chair and sat beside Sakura.

"...What is it?" Sakura asked, after making sure to swallow before opening her mouth. She was not an uncivilized ogre after all.

"I'm waiting," the Hyuuga answered, flickering her eyes to the sink.

"...I see. So you were in charge of the dishes..."

It took Sakura a few moments, but she soon understood what was underneath the underneath, and smiled sincerely. "Thank you."

Mirroring the expression, Hinata bobbed her didn't know when Sakura would want to talk about what was bothering her, or if at all... but when the time came, Hinata would do her best to help her friend.

'I might be a disaster when it comes to talking to others... but listening? I think I can do that much.'

---

Not for the first time since the conversation started, Kakashi held back a weary sigh.

The pleasure of waking up to the feeling of someone trying to drill through his eye and brain was something he fully expected, even if it was a fair bit worse than the other times he had been forced to use his Sharingan extensively. Just the same, he wasn't caught off-guard by his body protesting against him getting up, forcing him to stay lying down. What actually surprised the Copy Ninja was the apprehension he felt ever since his right eye opened again.

Now, he knew from where that sensation came from.

"So... let's go through this again," he said, taking note of the confused expressions of the people gathered around him. Of all the people currently inside Tazuna's house, Sakura and Kurenai were the only ones that didn't look confused, and he needed to have everyone on the same page if what those two were saying was the truth.

And if he were to be honest, considering the horrible pain he was in, Kakashi knew he himself could benefit from hearing the information a second time.

"What you two mean to say, is that the hunter-nin that we encountered yesterday likely was partnered with Zabuza... and that instead of killing him, he actually saved him? Is that correct?"

Kurenai and Sakura barely had the time to nod before Naruto butted in, angry and frustrated. "But how is he even alive!? I still don't get it!"

"The first clue," Kurenai started calmly, "is the hunter-nin's weapon of choice—senbon. Senbon are thin needles that have enough piercing power to pierce the skin, pressure points and even do some potentially lethal damage to internal organs, but bones and muscles are much harder to damage with needles, which make them impractical for killing, but useful when you just want to disable foes or poison them."

"Though the person would eventually choke on their own blood," Sakura spoke, "being hit in the neck wouldn't kill them right away. Not to mention that actually landing such an attack on a downed opponent like Zabuza would be much harder than hitting the heart or lungs"

"And it's pretty weird for a hunter-nin to be carrying that kind of weapon," Kiba added. "Their job is to kill missing-nin and they are always specialized in tracking AND assassination, so unless he is a massive show-off, it doesn't make sense for him to even carry a weapon with so little killing power." The Inuzuka noticed the weird looks his fellow genin aimed at him, but ignored them. Sure, he frequently skipped classes, but the most talented Inuzuka outside of the clan heads tended to be part of the hunter-nin branch of the ANBU, so obviously, he had made his research. That was his endgame plan, after all.

"That's absolutely correct," Kurenai said, smiling proudly. "Also, hunter-nins are meant to dispose of the enemy's body right away, to ensure that none of the corpse's secrets are leaked. This one actually fled with Zabuza's body, and I doubt he did it just because there were kids watching."

"Um, why would they get rid of the body?" Naruto frowned. Just when one thing gets cleared up, another turns up to make him confused. "I mean, the guy is dead, so it's not like he can say anything anymore."

This time, it was Kakashi who answered. "There are many secrets that a ninja's body can hold, even in death. Medicine you were exposed to, special kinds of jutsu or chakra, kekkei genkai, body alterations... for example, if someone were to kill me, they could take my Sharingan with them, and use that knowledge against the Leaf."

At that point, he caught Sasuke glaring at him, and the man held his gaze evenly.

'Not now.'

The Uchiha got the message, huffed, and turned away.

"So," Tazuna began, "this means that demon will still be going after my head, huh'?

"Yes and no," Kakashi said. "I checked Zabuza's pulse after he got struck, and I couldn't find a heartbeat. If he is truly alive, then those needles put him in a temporary death state, and although he kept his life, it will take a while before he's able to move once again."

"But... Gatou can still send other assassins after my father, can't him?" Tsunami questioned with a shaky voice. To her surprise, Kurenai shook her head.

"I find this highly improbable. Zabuza and Gatou have a contract, and assigning the target to someone else would break that contract... which would turn Gatou into Zabuza's next target. And his partner is still there to protect him, so Gatou can't kill him to save himself."

"I'd wager it will take around a week for him to be in a fighting condition again," Kakashi added, "which is also about the same time I will need to fully recover."

"Whew... that's some good news, for once," Tazuna said, with his shoulders slumped. "I think I'll be able to make a good progress on the bridge during this week."

"About that," the silver-haired jonin started, "For today and tomorrow, I believe it will be better for Kurenai to guard you by herself."

"Fine by me," Tazuna shrugged, turning to face Kurenai "And you?"

"I was already planning for that," the woman replied sharply, making her blue-haired student realize why Tsunami had made two boxed lunches early in the morning.

"And what about us?" Naruto demanded impatiently, motioning towards his fellow genin. "Are you actually taking us out of the mission? Seriously!?"

"Stop interrupting him, dope."

Before Naruto could snarl an answer to the Uchiha, Kakashi started his explanation. "You six will be with me. I am supposed to be teaching you a few things about ninjutsu during this mission after all."

"B-but Kakashi-sensei, y-you're barely able to move!" Hinata argued, hoping that the man would see how irrational he was being.

To her great vexing, the jonin just chuckled. The only thing he saw was the girl's own hypocrisy and it amused him. "I assure you that I can still train you. I just need a pair of crutches and I'll be able to move around just fine. Getting out of the bed will be the worst part, actually... but nothing I can't handle."

At that point, Tsunami quietly left the room, going upstairs to hunt for the crutches that Kakashi required. Thanks to an accident a few years ago, Tazuna had broken a leg and needed the crutches to move around. 'It's a pity I didn't remember about them yesterday... that blue-haired girl could have made use of them.'

The search only lasted a couple minutes, but when she returned to the guest room that Kakashi currently occupied, she was very surprised to see her young son, Inari, wrapped in the strong arms of his grandfather. From where she was, only the boy's blue-stripped hat and a few dark locks of hair could be seen, but she had no doubt he still was wearing his usual clothing that consisted of green overalls and white shirts.

The scene warmed her heart, but before she could join the two, she noticed the odd looks some of the ninja kids were giving them. The blond one, in particular, seemed quite angry.

"Care to repeat that, ya brat!?"

"I told you." The boy let go of Tazuna and turned to glare at Naruto. "This training won't do you any good—Gatou's men will come and kill all of you!"

"Inari!"

"Mom?" The small boy turned around and found his mother looking at him with disapproval in her eyes.

"That was very rude! You cannot disrespect our guests like that, especially after all the trouble they had to bring your grandpa safely from Konoha to here. Most of them got hurt while trying to protect him, so apologize to them right now!"

Though he usually knew when to back down, this time Inari just turned back to the group of shinobi and glared defiantly at the eight foreigners. Could a bunch of kids, a weak-looking woman and a sickly, partially blind guy survive against the tyrant of the Land of Waves?

No... not a chance. Not when stronger men had tried and got killed for that.

"Listen up!" Naruto got up and pointed at the younger boy, not being able to stand his disbelief any longer. "This Gatou guy is no match for us! Not even one of the Land of Water's strongest ninja wasn't able to kill us, so we will definitely win! Believe it!"

Inari just snorted and rolled his eyes. "You all got beat up and, from what I heard just now, didn't even get to kill that guy. A little last minute training won't change anything! You're still going to die!"

Naruto felt his blood boil inside his veins.

"It doesn't matter how many of you come at me. Two, five, a dozen, a hundred—I'll kill them all, because you are weak."

"You little punk—ngh!"

He was just about to advance on Inari when he felt himself being grabbed by two different people from behind.

"Argh, let me go!"

"Naruto, calm down!" his female teammate pleaded, struggling to hold the blond back.

"Yeah man, he's just a kid! He doesn't know any better," Kiba argued, wincing as the Uzumaki accidentally elbowed his belly in his attempt to break free.

Inari just found the whole thing to be pathetic and turned tail.

"Inari, where are you going?"

The boy turned his head to look at his grandpa one last time before leaving the room. "I'm going to see the ocean."

Tazuna sighed, and in that moment, he could feel all the weight of his sixty years of life. "Sorry about this, everyone..."

Hoping that he wouldn't do anything foolish, Kiba and Sakura released Naruto. Though the Uzumaki was very clearly pissed off, he still kept himself in check and didn't chase after Tsunami's son. Not that Kurenai would have allowed him to, at any rate.

Still sulking, the boy barely registered the next few moments, in which Tazuna and Kurenai carefully helped Kakashi stand until he could support his own weight with the crutches Tsunami had bought him, before leaving to the bridge right afterwards.

"Well, I suppose that I'm in charge now," Kakashi stated, after walking experimentally with his new wooden supports. "Tazuna told me yesterday... or I guess it was the day before," he shrugged as best as he could, "that there was a nice place for us to use just a couple minutes from here. So if everyone is ready, let's move out, ok?"

With a chorus of positive answers, from a couple excited barks to a barely audible "hn", the Leaf jonin and the genin of Teams 7 and 8 left the house.

---

Thanks to Kakashi's condition, it took more than just a "couple" minutes for the group to arrive in the woods outside of Tazuna's neighborhood, let alone find a suitable spot for them to practice. None of the genin understood what exactly made that part of the woodlands better than the others, but eventually Kakashi stopped walking and turned to face his six students.

"Alright, I guess this will do. First, let's start with a review of chakra, the ninja's primary source of power. Having a good understanding of chakra is quintessential for any self-respecting ninja."

"Aww... come on, why waste time with that? We use chakra in jutsu all the time, isn't that right Akamaru?" Kiba complained, and his partner (who was now sitting on the ground beside his master) barked as if saying something like "Even I can use chakra, you know?"

"The mutt is right, surprisingly," Sasuke agreed, ignoring the growling Inuzuka right beside him. "There is no need for that when the academy has already taught the concept to us for these past few years."

"Yeah! It's not like using chakra is hard or anything." Naruto said, grinning at his ability to seemingly make great use of chakra. 'After all, none of these chumps can do Shadow Clones, let alone use them like I do. Man, I am so awesome...!'

"Oh yeah, Naruto? I bet you will be changing your tune soon enough." Kakashi promised. "Now, Sakura, do you mind explaining about chakra to them?"

The pinkette shot a pointed look at her sensei, making him aware that she disapproved of his laziness, but she took a step forward and faced her fellow genin just the same.

"Alright. I'll keep it simple for you guys, ok? Chakra is the life energy we ninja use to make jutsu, and is composed of two different kinds of energy. The first one is physical energy, which is the basic form of energy that we get from eating food and staying healthy and physically fit. It's used to sustain our body, but a small part of the excess energy becomes concentrated into our chakra reserves when we are idle, in particular during sleep."

"And the other variation of energy is spiritual energy, correct?" Shino asked, to which Sakura nodded with a smile.

"Exactly. Spiritual energy is a bit more of an unknown to us, even today. The myth of the Sage of Six Paths never directly addressed what spiritual energy is but... what is important to know is that spiritual energy is closely related to our willpower and current state of mind, because feelings like fear, anger and hesitation have been proven to have an effect on our chakra control. Anyways, about chakra and jutsu..."

Each jutsu requires different concentrations of those energies to come out, hence why balancing the output of physical and spiritual energies is key. Hand signs are the last part of the process, and they are used to mold the chakra into the shape we want it, and where we want it... and depending on the jutsu, you can even mix a nature element into the mix!"

Seeing as the girl was about to go a little bit further than he needed, Kakashi cut her off. "Excellent lecture, Sakura. I'm sure Iruka would be proud of you."

"I'm sure he would," she answered uncertainly, but her voice was drowned out by an exasperated groan.

"Whatever! What's the point of all these complicated explanations? Just give us a jutsu to learn already!" Of course, such impatient demands could have only come from Naruto. "We already know how to use chakra!"

Kakashi glared at him. "But you haven't mastered it, and that's why I can't and won't teach you any jutsu right now. Your control of chakra is unrefined, and you end wasting far too much chakra than your techniques require."

"Um... sensei?" Hinata hesitantly raised her hand, and Kakashi nodded at her. "Kurenai-sensei s-said that the Shadow Clone Jutsu works with p-proportions, so..."

"Well, that's correct," he agreed. "That jutsu is one of the few that always takes a certain percentage of the user's chakra, however, in the specific case of the Shadow Clone Jutsu and similar techniques, the clones consume their own chakra as their sole source of energy. Refining the user's chakra control would make the clones need less energy to work, and in turn, they would live for longer, take more damage before being destroyed, and could even perform ninjutsu without just disappearing before the technique is completed. Of course, this also results in more chakra returning to the user when the clones are destroyed by someone else."

Hearing that, the blond calmed down slightly. Even though he could make numerous clones, their durability was one of the big problems that held him back during the fight with Zabuza.

"But for some techniques, like Sasuke's Great Fireball Jutsu or Kiba's Passing Fang, there's a minimum and maximum amount of chakra needed for the technique to work. Others, like genjutsu or medical ninjutsu, require extremely precise chakra output"

The Inuzuka perked up at that. "So that's why I could barely manage a spin the first times I tried that jutsu, right?"

"Exactly." The older man then looked at Sasuke. "Similarly, I'm sure that during your training with the Great Fireball Jutsu you sometimes ended up with flames as big and strong as a lighter's... or choking on your own smoke, right?"

The annoyed and somewhat ashamed expression on Sasuke's face as he grunted and looked away said it all. "As you can imagine, this is not a situation we want to risk happening in the middle of a fight. Failing to execute a jutsu in the middle of a battle is practically the same as digging your own grave, but we also want to avoid having you six use more chakra than the jutsu you already know need to work."

"But I thought that the more chakra you use in a technique, the stronger it gets," Sakura mentioned.

"It's true that many ninjutsu can be made stronger than normal that way," Kakashi agreed, "but you need to have a good control to make that extra chakra actually affect the technique's power instead of being wasted as you mold the chakra. This is especially true for elemental jutsu, but it can affect jutsu as simple as the henge. I could talk about this topic all day, but that wouldn't make you any stronger so... let's begin the exercise."

Before that, Shino had another question. "Is this the training you threatened us with prior to our engagement with the Demon Brothers?"

"Oh, that? Well... that was just an incentive for you guys to take the fight seriously. After all, both Kurenai and myself were there to help you if the fight took a turn for the worse, so you were never in any danger... but we still needed to see how well you six would fight against a real enemy. Sorry if it came out as a threat," he said unapologetically.

"So what will you have us do, then?" Sasuke asked, impatiently.

"I just need you all to climb a tree... without using your hands," the jonin answered. While Kakashi's smile was subtle and could only be seen partially in his eyes, Naruto's huge grin was much more obvious.

"You mean the tree climbing technique, don't you!?" A small nod from Kakashi made the blond jump from joy. "Yeah! Now that's I'm talking about! I always wanted to learn how to do that, but Iruka-sensei refused to teach it to me for some reason."

At this, Hinata tried to hide a smile. She could perfectly imagine Naruto pestering the poor academy teacher, but likely Iruka didn't want to give the village's biggest troublemaker another tool to be used in his mischievous pranks, even though the boy was actually his favorite student.

"The trick to tree climbing with chakra," the jonin began, "is focusing a small, precise amount chakra on the soles of the feet. If you can keep that same concentration of physical and spiritual energies, you can climb to the top of trees as high as the ones around us. Let me show you how it's done so that you can begin."

Kakashi began to turn around to face one of the trees surrounding him when Shino intervened. "Kakashi-sensei, as an Aburame it was required of me to learn this specific chakra control exercise at an early age, because of the intricate control necessary for my clan's techniques. If you don't have any objections, could I demonstrate it in your stead?"

"Oh, you can do it already? That's pretty impressive. Young children struggle a lot to get the hang of chakra control." And Kakashi spoke from personal experience. Young prodigy or not, he had to work hard to get to where he was today. "Feel free to show it to them."

"Very well. I recommend watching me carefully." Shino closed his eyes (not that anyone saw it) and did a hand sign, which was followed by a small wave of dust and earth being cleared around his feet thanks to the chakra that was being focused on the soles. With the first step completed successfully, Shino calmly walked towards the tree that was closest to him. The boy defied gravity itself when his feet touched the tree's trunk and supported his weight, allowing him to travel vertically as if it were nothing special.

As the Aburame felt no need to show-off, he stopped once he reached one of the bigger branches of the tree, about fifteen meters above ground level.

"Well done, Shino," Kakashi said, before turning to face the other five. "This exercise is tough even for an experienced ninja. If you can keep climbing until you get to the top, you should be able to master any jutsu... well, in theory," he added, remembering his failure to continue his sensei's legacy and create the Raiton: Rasengan. He still wasn't sure if that technique was even possible, to tell the truth.

'This makes sense,' Hinata thought, mentally visualizing how the human body looked like when her Byakugan was active. 'The distance between the soles of the feet and the center of the chakra circulatory system is bigger than anywhere else in the human body after all.'

"Heh, that doesn't sound that hard," the blond Uzumaki commented. "I'll get it done in no time at all, believe it!"

Unseen beneath his mask, Kakashi's grin widened at Naruto's comment. The other boys looked pretty confident as well, but Kakashi knew they wouldn't be very happy a few minutes from then... especially Naruto. He was sure that the blond would be throwing a temper tantrum within the next half hour, at the latest.

"It should be said that you won't be able to travel very far by walking until you are very well-acquainted with the technique, so I recommend focusing your chakra a good distance away from the tree and then running to add some momentum," he suggested, throwing five kunai a mere feet in front of each of the remaining genin.

'Even crippled, he's still not to be underestimated,' Sasuke mused. He had not noticed the jonin grabbing any kunai from the pouch on his leg or his vest pocket, let alone seen the actual daggers until they were already on the ground.

"What are these for?" Kiba wondered as Akamaru happily picked up one of the kunai and brought it to him. There was a little bit of drool on it, but Kiba was very far from the point where he actually paid any mind to that.

"You won't get to the top of the trees on your first try, believe it." At that point, Naruto was the only one scowling instead of grinning or giggling (or not reacting at all, in Shino's case). "So I want you to use that kunai to slash at the trees, to mark the highest point you were able to reach. Then the next time, your goal is to surpass that mark by climbing higher and higher, until you complete the exercise."

Finally, the man awkwardly opened his breast pocket to grab a copy of Icha Icha Paradise that he kept with him at all times, and started to catch up to his fifteenth re-read of the third volume. "You can begin whenever you are ready."

'Alright,' Naruto nodded to himself. 'I just have to focus some chakra on my feet and climb the tree. Easy stuff; I can do this!'

Holding a basic, generic hand sign to help themselves concentrate, four of the five genin started sending chakra to the lowest part of their bodies and kept that process for a few seconds. One of them, however, did the exact opposite, by making a sequence of signs and sending chakra to the highest part of her body: the eyes.

'Byakugan!'

As the world around her expanded in a sea of black and white, Hinata immediately noticed an eighth chakra signature somewhere a few feet to her left, hiding behind a tree. Tensing, the girl reflexively intensified the flow of chakra to her eyes so that she could take a look at the person's face... but as it turned out, the newcomer's chakra circulatory system was underdeveloped, which actually allowed her to see their features even without zooming in on their direction to get past the bright blue glow of chakra.

'That's... Inari-kun? What is he doing here? ...Oh, well, that doesn't really matter,' she ultimately concluded. The boy was far from a threat to anything except Naruto's temper, and she doubted he was there just to insult her crush, so she left him be.

Focusing back on her fellow genin and cursing herself a bit for not thinking of it when Shino first demonstrated the technique, she decided to watch how her friends would fare on their first try and how they controlled their chakra during the exercise. All of them had focused different concentrations of chakra in their feet, which would give Hinata various results to get her started. As such, she made sure to remember the rough level of chakra each one had on their feet before they moved.

"Alright," Naruto yelled once he was ready, "let's do this!"

Rallied by their friend and his subsequent war cry, Sasuke, Kiba and Sakura all ran alongside the Uzumaki, aiming for the trees directly in front of them, while Shino carefully made his way down from the tree he had climbed.

Later, Hinata would reflect that it was a good coincidence for her that Naruto was the slowest among the four genin and the he ended up choosing a tree that was a little bit farther than the ones his friends had chosen. Otherwise, even with her Byakugan, she wouldn't have been able to glean any information from the other three genin...

Sakura and Sasuke had very similar concentrations of chakra in their feet, with the Uchiha having slightly more of it—and much bigger reserves, Hinata noted. Both of them were quite fast and started climbing their trees in just a few seconds, and both climbed a good twenty feet or so before Hinata noticed a fluctuation in Sasuke's chakra.

Soon, the Uchiha started to lose his grip on the tree, and accidentally sent more chakra to his lower limbs to try to regain equilibrium. Sadly, the attempt ended up being too much for the poor tree, whose trunk started to crumble around Sasuke's feet. The most external layer of wood gave away, and Sasuke found himself repelled by the tree. His reaction time was good enough to make him note that and backflip away at the last second, but as he fell to the ground, Sakura continued to climb higher and higher.

Just a little before Sasuke started slipping, Kiba made contact with his own tree. Sadly for the Inuzuka, he hadn't focused enough chakra, and his feet completely failed to stick to the trunk. His skull, though, didn't have any problems connecting with the ground right afterwards.

Seeing as his master fell, Akamaru quickly ran towards Kiba, but a scream and the loud sound of something impacting violently against the ground made the dog stop before he could even reach the Inuzuka, narrowly allowing him to avoid the orange missile that blasted through where he was about to put his cute little paws on.

As always, loud noises could be traced back to a certain Naruto Uzumaki.

Hinata wasn't particularly surprised about the fact that Naruto also got repelled by his tree, given what she learned from watching Sasuke fall. She also had been expecting, though a bit sadly, that her crush wouldn't be able to get a grip on the tree at all, much like her teammate though for the exact opposite reason.

What caught her off-guard was the massive crater that was left on the tree trunk once Naruto touched it with his feet. Whereas Sasuke's hadn't been much bigger than his feat, the damage Naruto did to the tree was large enough to match the diameter of a Passing Fang attack, albeit significantly shallower.

Likewise, the blond's excessive use of chakra provoked a much more volatile reaction from his tree of choice, sending him rocketing backwards at an impressive speed. Hinata barely had the time to squeak and jump away as her crush violently crashed on the ground just a few feet to her left, and she was able to watch as he bounced a few feet off the ground with just enough force to flip him in midair before he landed again, skidding face-first into the grass until he ended just a mere feet away from Kakashi.

Somehow, the jonin managed to erase any hint of surprise from his face and voice as he addressed the orange-clad boy. "It didn't seem like you had much difficulty doing that, but I think you went the wrong way."

"I... hate you," he croaked, struggling to get more air into his recently emptied lungs.

"Hey!" The group heard a high-pitched yell from above. "Are you alright down there, Naruto!?"

Naruto raised his head from the grass towards one of the trees, where he could see a pink/red blur sitting on one of the branches high up. Still disoriented, he managed to raise his left hand and do a thumbs-up to answer the question.

"We think he's fine!" Kiba shouted back as he and the other genin approached their fallen comrade.

Groaning, Sakura decided that "we think" wasn't good enough for her, and focused a good amount of chakra on her legs, which would protect her from harm once she landed on the ground

"That was... remarkable," Shino commented as he watched the blond shakily tried to get up from the floor.

"And for all the wrong reasons," Sasuke added as he walked forward and offered a hand to his teammate.

"Ugh... what a crappy day," the blond whined, before accepting the Uchiha's offer. Grabbing the raven-haired boy's hand, Naruto tried to support himself to stand up, but a sharp, burning pain in his dominant limb made him fall once again.

This time, Kakashi allowed himself to look worried. "Naruto, did you break your arm?"

"H-he didn't... t-t-the bones a-aren't cracked at all," Hinata confirmed after scanning the boy's skeleton. The Byakugan gave her what was essentially an X-ray visor if used with enough chakra, but while it saw many things the naked eye didn't, certain details could easily pass unnoticed with the dojutsu activated.

"That smell," Kiba sniffed the air and frowned. "Could it be—"

"Blood?" Sasuke displayed the hand he had offered to Naruto. The palm was stained with red liquid near the wrist, but there were no visible cuts. "That's exactly what it is."

'Blood!?' With a shocked gasp, Hinata immediately deactivated her dojutsu and took another look at the scene around her... and in the process, missed Inari leaving the scene.

'What a bunch of jokers,' the boy thought, shaking his head. 'These weaklings will die, and they will take grandpa with them too... dammit! Why can't they go away already!?'

Tazuna's grandson believed that without shinobi bodyguards, the bridge builder would give up on his biggest project and would no longer be a threat to Gatou, which would allow him to keep his life. But with those ninja "protecting" him? Then the situation changed, and Inari simply couldn't bear the thought any longer.

Crying openly, but silently, the young boy left the area as fast as his little legs could take him.

Meanwhile, Hinata was inspecting the area where Naruto had crashed. It wasn't very easy to spot the blood on the grass, but the evidence on the kunai Naruto dropped on the ground nearby was unmistakable.

When she turned back, Sasuke had already managed to help Naruto get up.

"Alright, let me see your hand," Kakashi commanded gently, and with an embarrassed smirk, the genin complied.

"Heheheh... I guess I cut myself after that happened."

"Hmm... well, the good news is that the cut isn't deep, even though it's pretty long," the jonin said, still examining the wound. It began near the wrist and was just a couple inches away from reaching the elbow.

"And the bad news?" Shino inquired.

"This jacket is going straight to the trash can when we return," Kakashi concluded with an eye-smile. "The right sleeve is ruined, after all."

Kakashi meant that comment just as a light joke and, in a roundabout way, it was how he told his students that Naruto wasn't in any actual danger, but he didn't expect that his wounded student would look so shaken after what he said.

"W-what? Y-you're... you're gonna throw this away!?" Naruto stuttered, his voice cracking.

"Hey, he's right," Sakura concurred, making the blond face her. "It's not like you don't have plenty of orange monstrosities that look just like it, so there's no problem, right?"

"No problem...? Of course there's a problem!" The blond growled, pointing to himself incredulously. "This is the original one!"

"Regrettable," Kakashi commented with a tone that made it clear to everyone that he didn't give a damn. "But it's unusable like this. And you will be just as unusable if you don't get that cut patched up. Or do you want to bleed to death?"

Shaking his head after a groan, both as an answer and as a small way to vent, the blond approached his teacher.

"Shino, since you already know this exercise, help me out for a bit." The Aburame nodded to Kakashi, who was still being stared at by the other genin. "As for you four, go back to your training. We can take care of this."

Sharing some worried, confused glances among themselves, Sasuke, Kiba, and Sakura did as told and moved back towards their trees, ready to try climbing higher than before—or at all, in Kiba's case.

Soon, with the help of a water bottle and some tissue, most of the blood seeping out of Naruto's wound had been washed over. Also, his torn jacket had been removed, leaving him in a simple black T-shirt.

"Alright, there should be some bandages in this scroll," The jonin mentioned to Shino as he grabbed a white scroll with the symbol of Konoha's hospital from one of his pockets and handed it over to the Aburame. The boy nodded, and at that time, Kakashi noticed that one of the kids was still there.

"Hinata, do you need something?" he asked after seeing the girl nervously fumbling with a small, circular brown container.

"I... um, I have t-this ointment here and, and I-I thought it could maybe... help," she mumbled, from a safe distance.

"An Ointment? Why would I need that?" Naruto questioned her bluntly, gripping his wounded arm to slow down the bleeding. "I don't have a rash."

"I-It's not for that! W-well, you can use for that too but—I mean, it helps!" She affirmed in a rush, and tried to calm herself afterwards. 'Come on, Hinata! You talked to him before, and you actually are sure of what needs to be said this time! Just do it already!'

Momentarily emboldened, she took a few steps forward and offered the ointment to the blond. "It will help to p-prevent infections, and... and it will help your body heal the wound, too."

"Oh... ok then! I'll take it," he said, grabbing the little container from the bluenette's hands before she could see it coming, or even process how he touched her hand. Naruto had already had an infection once or twice, and he really had no desire to go through that again.

After rinsing his hand and arm once more, Naruto applied the ointment on the wound.

"I believe I found the bandages," Shino mentioned, looking up just in time to see Naruto's wound closing almost completely.

"Hey, this thing's really good! Where did you buy it, Hinata?" Naruto said with amazement, but to his confusion, both Kakashi and Hinata were looking at his arm in shock.

'This isn't natural... and an ointment would have never sped up the process to this degree,' Kakashi thought. 'This must be an effect of the Kyuubi's chakra.'

"I made it myself," she commented without thinking, lavender eyes still trained on the Uzumaki's arm. "B-but it wasn't supposed to work this fast!"

Kakashi's eye narrowed for a split second. "Well, maybe your ointment is stronger than you thought, which is great for us," he said, eye-smiling at the girl. "Thanks for helping my student, but don't you have some training of your own to do? I haven't seen you climbing anything so far."

"Oh... y-yes, of course. Sorry..."

Sharing a look with Shino, she noticed that he was frowning slightly as he made his way to Naruto and bandaged his arm. Hinata understood that sign as her teammate being suspicious, which meant she wasn't imagining things. 'Something is wrong here...'

While the Hyuuga once again activated her dojutsu, Kakashi awkwardly patted Naruto on the back. "Now, try to not destroy any trees on your next try, alright?"

"Hmph! I know that already," the blond scowled, shoving Hinata's ointment somewhere inside the weapons pouch on his leg and grabbing one of his own kunai on the way back. "And thanks for patching me up, I guess..."

After muttering that apology, Naruto walked away until he was facing another tree. Taking a cursory glance around himself, he noted that Kiba had started to climb a small height already but kept slipping down. Sakura was just a red-ish blur high above the treetops, and most importantly, Sasuke was also starting to make some decent progress and no longer broke the trunk of his tree while climbing.

'Heh... looks like I'm the dead last, again,' he thought bitterly. 'Then again, it's not like I wasn't expecting to be beaten but... just not that badly. Or that Sakura would actually be in the lead,' he added, only now processing the fact that Sasuke wasn't the best of their team, for once.

Masking a sigh, he walked towards a tree that wasn't anywhere close to the one had previously bombed, and with his target chosen, the Uzumaki started focusing his chakra, allowing it to pass freely down his legs. Soon, once he gathered an amount that was a decent bit smaller than his previous try, he cut off the flow. 'Alright, this time for sure!'

Determined to do much better than his disastrous first try, Naruto ran as fast as he could towards his tree of choice... but he was only able to walk a few steps before being interrupted by a soft voice.

"Naruto-kun, w-wait a moment!'

Stumbling, the boy slowed down to a halt and turned around. Behind him, he could see Hinata with her arm outstretched towards him, but the girl quickly brought it back to her side.

"What is it?" he asked, trying to keep the annoyance from seeping into his voice.

Hinata winced a bit from the tone, however. 'He's still angry with me... but he needs to know what I saw!'

Steeling herself, she pressed forward. "I... well, I was w-watching everyone and... I, uh, know where y-you went wrong. You used too much ch-chakra."

"I guessed as much," he crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I was going to use less chakra this time, you know?"

"M-maybe so, b-but it was still way too much!" Truth to be told, Hinata didn't see any difference in his chakra levels, but Naruto didn't need to know that. "Y-you'd need much less than half of what you used, Naruto-kun. Or else you... will just be repelled again."

Naruto stared at her as he considered her words. 'Less than half? I wasn't even using that much chakra to begin with! But... oh well.' He wasn't the one that had the Byakugan after all, so he decided to trust the shy Hyuuga's words for the time being.

Hinata, for her part, felt more than a little uncomfortable by the brief stare, but held her ground. As ugly as she knew her dojutsu made her look like, she knew her enhanced eyesight would be very necessary during the exercise, or at least at first.

"Alright then," Naruto began. "So, I know you still have your own training but... well, I guess I always had a lot of chakra, so I don't know very well when I'm using a lot of it. Do you mind helping me out a bit?"

"Um... n-not at all, but I... uh, don't know if I can," Hinata replied, turning her head a bit to face Kakashi.

The jonin merely did a "shoo" motion with one of his hands. "Just this once," he said.

Normally, Kakashi wouldn't have allowed this kind of arrangement, but after hearing about Naruto's trouble in dispelling genjutsu, he knew that the boy could use the help. 'Controlling the chakra output mid-run is the hardest part, though. He will be on his own for that, but I'm glad he's actually swallowing his pride and looking for help.'

While Naruto and Hinata tried to find a reasonable amount of chakra for the blond to work with, Kakashi felt Shino approach him.

"Sensei, since I have already proved my mastery over this exercise, what would you have me doing instead?"

Kakashi sighed. He was looking forward to the next scene on his book, but it seemed that it would have to wait.

"Well, Hokage-sama wanted for another jonin-sensei to teach about tactics," he said, remembering one Asuma Sarutobi, "but I suppose that discussing strategies is the best we can do for now. But once one of your friends gets to the top you will be sparring with that person for a while, and after another one does the same, I'll continue with my ninjutsu lesson."

"Understood."

"Now then, let's go over the strategy you came up with for the bell test..."

---

Kakashi's instructions regarding the kunai's purpose were clear: you do not use it cut yourself, but instead, you cut the tree in order to mark your progress. This was to allow the genin to see how far they climbed and incentive them to do better on their next run.

Sakura had obediently listened to her sensei and slashed at the wooden trunk each time she felt her feet slipping throughout the three or so hours the genin spent in the woods, practicing how to climb trees using chakra.

This time, however, she didn't cut anything; there was no need to track how high she had climbed any longer. She had gotten to the very top of the tree, and stood on the highest branch that she had found. It had been taunting her mercilessly for the past half hour or so, but she finally made it.

Panting heavily from the exertion, the girl stopped hearing her own erratic heartbeat and instead focused on the view presented around her.

"Wow...! This... this is awesome," she muttered as she looked around herself. She could see the various patches of forests and houses around the island she was on, birds flying in the infinite, cloudless blue sky... and if she forced her vision a bit, she could see glimpses of a few of the other islands that composed the Land of Waves. Ultimately, however, what held her gaze was the bridge where Tazuna and Kurenai undoubtedly were. Or rather, the ocean that expanded beyond the unfinished concrete structure.

The borders of the Land of Fire were impossible to perceive from that distance, but still, the girl couldn't help but stare in that direction. Would she ever be making her way back to her family? Would it be by walking down the bridge once it was finished... or would she be traveling by boat after failing to protect Tazuna, perhaps even with her own lifeless body sealed in a black scroll so that she could be properly buried later?

"No... forget about this!" she issued the order, shaking her head forcefully and not caring at all that she was actually speaking to herself. This was not a moment to be shackled by her fears.

Because, even though the strong winds often sent stray annoying strands of hair or leaves into her face or eyes... even though the strong sunlight and the exercise left her skin wet with beads of sweat and pushed her body past her limits... and even though her butt was hurting quite a bit from a botched landing when a bird flew right into her face, she still felt herself smiling.

It was a moment to bask in her success.

She sat down on the branch to rest for a bit and catch her breath before climbing down, but as she did so, she remembered her conversation with Kurenai.

"She was right. This feeling of uselessness... if I can channel that into energy instead of feeling depressed about being weak, only then I can actually take a step forward and become stronger. Fear won't solve anything."

With that reminder, Sakura rose to two feet and made her way down, jumping from branch to branch until she landed on the grassy ground... and slumped against a nearby tree, letting her back to slide against the trunk until she was basically sprawled on the ground.

'That was so tiring... but in the end, I did it!'

The girl's silly smile faltered a bit when she saw how the other genin were faring. She barely caught a glimpse of Hinata dashing back to her own tree, and looked just in time to see Kiba falling down. The boy had a predatory smile on his face as he looked over the scratched trunk he had been climbing, apparently satisfied with his progress even if he was far from getting to the top. Sasuke had been no more than a blue blur that she had passed by on her way down. But Naruto...

"This is so stupid!" he shouted, angrily running his hand through his messy blond mane and accidentally untangling a leaf or two that had been stuck in there.

'Poor guy... he's not doing so well,' Sakura remarked to herself. She could see that he had barely managed to climb three meters. Compared to Kiba, who was the second worst at tree climbing, Naruto would need to almost quadruplicate his record in order to not be the very last among the genin, assuming Kiba didn't advance at all.

Naruto kept staring daggers at the tree, almost as if wanting to make the object bow to his will and allow itself to be climbed without making things difficult for him. Needless to say, he didn't get very far by glaring at the plant, so much like Sakura herself, he did a quick scan to see how the others were doing, and his nasty scowl deepened quite a bit when he realized how far behind he was from Kiba... and most importantly, Sasuke.

'Oh?' Sakura raised an eyebrow, noting that Naruto then moved to stare thoughtfully at the cream-colored blur that was undoubtedly Hinata. The boy then shook his head, as if deciding against something, and ignoring both Shino and Kakashi (who were still discussing tactics), settled his gaze on Sakura.

"Hey, Sakura-chan!"

"What is it?" she asked as he dashed towards her.

"Say, how far did you climb? You are the one that takes the longest to get back down, so..."

Sakura found it was a little sad that he was in a position to actually notice that. "I just came back from the top, actually."

The boy's blue eyes widened in wonder. "Wow, already!? Way to go, Sakura-chan! Amazing!"

"The view up there is the real amazing thing," she corrected. "But... why do you ask?"

"Well, you see," he began, scratching his head again, this time in discomfort. "I kinda didn't get the hang of this thing just yet. So, I was wondering if you could give me any tips since you got it right pretty quickly. Hinata helped me find the right amount of chakra, but I keep slipping or breaking the tree and I already bothered her once, so..."

"Hmm..." Sakura didn't let her surprise show. She was sure that Naruto would be giving up after that small temper tantrum, but she had forgotten how persistent the prankster could be... and he had let slip up a very interesting bit of information at the end, too, but that was beside the point.

"Do you remember what I said about spiritual energy earlier?" Naruto opened his mouth to answer, but Sakura cut him off. "Wait, forget that. Stupid question. Anyways, spiritual energy is closely related to our willpower and current state of mind," she parroted. "In other words, when you are angry or upset, you end up mixing the wrong amounts of that energy into your chakra, which makes you subconsciously add chakra or take chakra from the mix you are using to climb the tree."

"... So what you're saying is that if I'm angry, then I'll just keep messing up?"

"Basically," she nodded, and to his surprise, smiled a bit at him. "Look, Naruto, everyone has their own pace. You don't need to feel bad about not keeping up with genin that had special clan training from a young age," Sakura said, making a mental note to follow her own advice sometime soon.

"But... you're not from a clan either," he argued, tilting his head in confusion.

"Right," she conceded, "but this is an area I personally excel in. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, Naruto. If this exercise was about stamina or chakra capacity, you'd get it right in a flash."

Naruto considered that for a moment, but looked unconvinced.

"And besides," Sakura continued, "there's nothing wrong about not getting it done by today." As she finished saying that, the girl pointed at somewhere behind Naruto, and when he turned to look, he saw Hinata landing after slipping up halfway through the tree. The girl had deactivated her dojutsu a few hours earlier, as she found out that the cost maintaining the Byakugan was more significant than the information she got from her enhanced vision once she got the hang of climbing.

"I think Hinata has a decent chance of getting it done by today," the pinkette continued, "but Sasuke and Kiba are having a lot more trouble in maintaining the right amount of chakra. If you want to beat them so much then you will have about a full week to try. I really doubt they will get it done before that."

"Hmm... well, I guess you are right," he shrugged and then shot her a wide smile. "I'll just keep trying, then! Thanks for the tip!"

"You're welcome," she called out to him as he ran off. Naruto was just about to focus some chakra and challenge his tree once more when Kakashi decided to speak up.

"Alright kids, that's good enough for now. Let's go back to Tazuna's to get lunch, and then we can come back here to train some more, okay?"

Sakura giggled a bit to herself when she saw the pout her blond teammate made at being interrupted, but her expression fell when someone landed right beside her, the unexpected soft thud of the landing scaring her.

"Wha—Sasuke-kun!?"

"Need some help?" the Uchiha asked bluntly, offering her his hand. As always, the stoic boy skipped pleasantries and was as direct as he could.

"...Sure," she answered, after taking a second to process what happened. Her still sweaty palms gripped Sasuke's icy cold hand and, with a slight pull from his part, she managed to get up. Part of Sakura was actually glad Sasuke came when he did, because she hadn't been too sure of her ability to get up on her own.

But... it was still hard to face him after she failed him so badly in the fight against Zabuza. He had trusted her to give him an opening, and she couldn't even do that. The shame made her unable to even look at her on the day of the fight... but this time, even though she wasn't sure for how long she could keep it up, Sakura held his gaze.

"I see that you managed to get to the top," Sasuke kicked off the conversation. He considered asking her if she was feeling well, but seeing how it lead to nowhere yesterday, he decided against it.

"Yeah... it was easier than I imagined, but I'm glad I managed it when I did. I'm not sure I could climb again even if I wanted," she confessed, laughing a bit. "My legs still feel like jelly."

"Hn. Lunch came at the right time, then," he replied, wondering if maybe Sakura had been the reason Kakashi had called for this break. The jonin seemed to not care, but Sasuke knew he was always watching.

"I... guess so," she offered lamely, emerald eyes darting around the woods trying to find a way out of the conversation. As it turned out, Hinata chose that exact moment to land on the grass, giving Sakura the opportunity she was looking for.

"Um, if you'll excuse me, I need to talk with Hinata. Girl stuff," she added, knowing that this detail would make sure Sasuke wouldn't try to overhear their conversation.

"Right," he nodded. "I'll be going on ahead, then."

Mirroring him, Sakura also nodded and started to walk as calmly as she could toward the only other female of their group, but Sasuke's voice made her stop cold in her tracks.

"Keep up the good work."

When she turned her head around, he and the other boys were already walking away. None of them saw her mouth hanging open in shock, or her subsequent sigh of relief as she looked forward once again. She could see Hinata approaching her, and waved towards the girl.

"Hey, Hinata!"

"H-hello, Sakura-san," the Hyuuga greeted back with a small smile. "Congratulations for reaching the top."

"Thanks! So, how far did you manage to go?" Sakura asked, motioning for her friend to come with her as they followed the rest of the group, purposefully hanging back as to not be overheard. And this time, Sakura made it a point to track down Shino to guarantee it.

"I got past what I believe to be the halfway mark just a few minutes ago." Hinata's reply was punctuated with a small giggle. "I never imagined I'd be able to do so well..."

"You just have to put your mind to it," she shrugged, smiling as well. "And talking about doing well, I heard an interesting bit of information from Naruto just now..."

"R-really?" Hinata leaned forward, clearly interested.

"Yup! But before that, tell me... any progress with your quest for friendship? How are things going on your end? You've been walking around unsupervised for a while now..." Sakura chose to not say anything about how she didn't buy the Hyuuga's previously mentioned change of plans.

"Well... y-you see..."

And thus, for the next ten minutes or so Hinata went through her successes and failures with Naruto, mostly focused on the two bigger interactions they had with no one else nearby, but also explaining a bit more about what happened when Naruto injured himself.

"—but the wound healed right away, and I know my ointment isn't that strong. It was so... so unnatural," Hinata frowned, ending her report.

"Hmm... now that you mentioned it, I don't remember seeing his cut when we last talked, either." Sakura tried to check if Naruto's wound was still there, but the blond was a bit too far away for her to be sure. Shrugging, she gave up and continued the conversation. "Anyways, I'm glad things are going well on your end. I'm sure you will be able to talk normally with him in no time!"

"I r-really hope so," Hinata agreed, smiling awkwardly. "And it's thanks to you supporting me that I've managed to get this far with Naruto-kun, but..."

"But...?" Sakura arched her an eyebrow at the Hyuuga, who now looked quite a bit uncertain of herself and started to play with her fingers.

"Um, Sakura-san, can I ask you s-something?" After a nod, Hinata continued. "Why... why are you helping me like this? I, I mean... we studied together for years, but... y-you never talked to me outside of a few times we ended up on the same group... I don't really understand why you would approach me."

"...You're right," Sakura admitted. "I barely ever said anything to you when we studied together. You were kinda in the background for most of that time and, well, you clearly weren't after Sasuke, so I saw no reason to talk to you. But can I be really honest with you, Hinata?"

"Er, s-sure?" The bluenette mumbled, being anything but "sure" at that moment.

"Kurenai-sensei gave my team a massive scolding before we met up with Kakashi-sensei and your team, and part of what she said was about how I and Naruto kept badgering Sasuke-kun and myself, respectively," Sakura explained, cringing at the last bit. She still couldn't comprehend how blind she had been, tormenting Sasuke with her pushy ways while Naruto annoyed her to no end by doing the exact same thing.

"I thought that after that, he'd leave me alone for a while and... and when I saw you, I thought that helping you bond with him would have been what I needed to keep him away from me, in that sense, for good. You seemed like a nice girl, and you actually had... interest in him, so I went for it."

"I... I see. Do... you hate Naruto-kun that much?" Hinata questioned, refusing to look at Sakura for the moment.

"...Heh, it looks that way, doesn't it? But... that's not it," the pinkette denied. "Kurenai-sensei also told me that my behavior towards Naruto was wrong."

Hinata bit her lip and did her best to resist the urge to react to that last statement. Even so, she couldn't stop her fist from clenching or her brow from tightening.

"She also told us he had a few problems... remember that stuff you talked about with Sasuke? About the demon? Well, I had no idea about what was up with him—I still don't, actually—but I didn't think I'd be able to form any kind of bond with him if he kept begging for dates all the time. Kurenai-sensei told me that my role in Team 7 was to support him and Sasuke-kun, both in and out of the field, but Naruto would totally misunderstand the situation if I tried to get closer to him."

Sakura's initial plan was to merely try to approach Naruto while making it clear to him that she was still after Sasuke... but once her anger over Kurenai subsided, Sakura found that she had trouble approaching the aloof Uchiha, which invalidated that strategy.

"So... y-you actually just wanted to help him?" Hinata asked, to which Sakura nodded.

"Though I can't deny that getting him off my tail would be great, but yeah," the pinkette confirmed, glancing at her friend to gauge how she was taking it. 'She seems a bit more relaxed now,' Sakura noted to herself, having previously spotted the signs of anger the usually calm Hyuuga had failed to mask.

"But Naruto-kun is such a wonderful person..." Hinata muttered. The idea of not wanting to spend time with him was completely incomprehensible to her.

"Maybe," Sakura conceded. An "annoying but nice guy" was as far as she was willing to take it, personally. "But the way he was always after me was so annoying! I know I really have no right to complain, but... well, the first few times I felt flattered and put him down nicely, but he just kept coming back over and over again!"

"He never gives up," Hinata commented with a crooked smile, to which Sakura giggled.

"Yeah, indeed. But eventually, I noticed that almost always he would only make a move when Sasuke-kun was around. I went as far as staying one full week away from Sasuke-kun just to test it, and Naruto only asked me out on the first day."

"Really!?"

"Yeah, can you believe it? That's when I figured out that he didn't really want to ask me out because of who I am. I was just another way for him to compete and lose against Sasuke-kun. That made me lose all the patience I had with him." Perhaps coincidentally, that's around the time Sakura decided to make her answers more obvious by punching Naruto when he wasn't welcome.

"S-so you think Naruto-kun doesn't like you at all?" Hinata questioned, all while going over some of her memories of Naruto to see if she couldn't reach that same conclusion.

"I'm not sure, maybe he does feel something. When I still gave him enough room to do it, he always complimented me a lot. It... was kind nice, actually," Sakura admitted. Even today, she didn't have a lot of confidence in her looks, so the boost to her self-esteem was certainly welcome. After all, her forehead had gotten even bigger as the years passed, but to her absolute terror, her chest still refused to get the memo and do the same.

A subtle glance at her companion told Sakura that even though the Hyuuga was almost a full head smaller than her, even Hinata was far ahead of her in that race. The girl's coat helped hide it, but the fact that they were visible at all made Sakura feel... inadequate.

'Though... is it just me, or her chest seems bigger than before?! Aw, you have gotta be kidding me! Why...?!'

"I see..." Hinata spoke in a neutral tone, oblivious to the train of thought she had just interrupted. "Thank you for being honest with me, Sakura-san."

"Hey, I didn't say I was done yet. You asked me why I approached you, but I didn't actually say that much about you in particular, right?" Confused, Hinata managed a nod.

"I didn't try to be your friend or help you just because of Naruto, believe it," Sakura said, shamelessly stealing her teammate's catchphrase and earning a muffled laugh from Hinata for her copyright infringement. It made Sakura herself smile cheekily, but that changed in a few seconds.

"I doubt you remember, but... I was very meek and shy when I was younger. Many of the kids bullied me because of my stupidly big forehead, because I was a civilian, because I didn't understand what chakra was very well... I used to hide from others, stay silent as much as I could and I never fought back when others insulted me. I always kept my head down and... I used to cry a lot back then, too."

Even now, reminiscing about those days... the insults, the mocking laughter... sometimes left her crying just like before. This time, though, she held strong and refused to let those tears fall from her eyes, even as they became moist... and even as she remembered the young heiress of the Yamanaka clan.

"But one day, someone came to my defense. This person... she helped me to hide my forehead, she talked back to the bullies until nobody tried to call me names anymore a-and even taught me how to throw a punch at those idiots. I wasn't originally that much of a shy girl, but the academy made me like that. And that person... she helped me come out of that shell I made for myself." she remarked with a small laugh and a sad smile, remembering that great friendship she threw away without a second thought, all because of a childish love rivalry.

Even today, she still regretted that decision.

"Sakura-san... I... I never knew..." Hinata mumbled, lowering her head. "I'm sorry for doubting you..."

"Hey, don't worry about that," Sakura laughed a bit, and her friend now raised her head to look at her. "But do you get it now, Hinata? When I looked at you, and actually paid attention to who was in front of me, I saw that young pink-haired girl that didn't know how to find her way through the people around her. You being able to help my situation with Naruto was certainly something I considered, but the real reason I even tried was because I wanted to help you too."

"M-me?"

"Yeah! I can see that there's a whole lot more to your shyness than what I went through, but... I can relate to you a bit. I know how awful it can feel when you want to talk to people and make friends but you simply can't speak or make a mess out of it, so I couldn't help myself." The girl's smile then lost it's gentle curve, trading it for a teasing, amused edge, "That, and I think your attempts to talk to Naruto were super cute."

"T-there's nothing cute about that!" Hinata protested weakly, blushing fiercely as Sakura broke into a fit of giggles at her reddish pout. Once the pinkette settled down, though, Hinata tugged at her sleeve, making Sakura stop.

"What is it?" Sakura asked in confusion, until Hinata took a step back and bowed to her.

"Thank you very much for helping me, Sakura-san. This... really means a lot to me!"

"H-hey, there's no need to go that far!" Sakura insisted, awkwardly. "Come on, you don't need to be that polite around friends..."

"Um, sorry."

"Look, you shouldn't apologize for every single thing either! It's fine, really."

"Ah, of course. S-Sorry..."

"Hinata..."

With a small squeak, the girl covered her mouth. "...Oops?"

Sakura sighed. "Well, looks like we have a long road ahead of us... and on that note, we should keep going before the boys get out of sight," she said, feeling a bit silly afterwards once she remembered her companion was a Hyuuga.

Eventually, the pinkette spoke again, with a small hint of frustration in her voice. "Heh, though I think the hardest part will be yours, actually."

Hinata hesitated. "...What do you mean?"

"I mean that you offered to teach me how to cook, remember?"

"Oh... yes, w-well, but onigiri really isn't that hard. I-I'm sure you will get it in no time!" Hinata offered supportively, but Sakura just pouted and looked away, with her arms crossed over her chest.

"They said the same thing about fried eggs, too... mother never allowed me to go near the stove after that happened."

As a violent chill ran down Hinata's spine, she wondered if, perhaps, agreeing to teach Sakura hadn't been a mistake...

'Just what did I get myself into...!?'

---

A/N:

And we are done here. Finally, huh?

I hope you guys liked this one and that it was worth the wait, though. It had no action at all, but while I've been getting praises for my fight scenes, I guess they are not the big reason you all are sticking around, eh?

I wanted to add a scene with the villains too, but as you just saw, the chapter became a little too big for that. The first scene kinda became a monster all on its own, just as it happened in Chapter 8, in but I suppose it works out in the end. Chapter 11 wasn't going to have anything concerning them.

And speaking of Chapter 11... well, May is going to be incredibly busy for me. This chapter's delay paid off for me, regarding college, but I didn't do well enough on my tests to take it easy for the rest of the semester, so... yeah. This is it for this month, but June and July will give me much more free time to work with. Still, I am not sure of how big Chapter 11 will be...

Depending on how lucky I get with the subjects I did worse on this first batch of tests, I could end up posting Chapter 11 on June 11th... but considering those two subjects are the kind to have four huge exercises with thousands of ways to mess up each and no room for error at all... you get the picture, right? The 18th is a much safer guess, but a lack of word count could bring the chapter earlier nonetheless.

Ah, who am I kidding here? Each time I think I will end up posting small chapters, I end up beating my word count record...

Well. In case anyone is wondering, Naruto missing the upper cabinets was, indeed, a dumb thing. But as ridiculous as it sounds, it is possible... my mom managed to do that when we moved into our newest house a year ago. She was like "well, it's a pity the kitchen doesn't have much space for our things" I thought it was sarcasm, because there was a lot of space, but it was not. She genuinely didn't see the huge cabinets that took up the entirety of two walls...

Anyways, special thanks this time go to Zorback32 and SilentSambo88 for leaving a nice double recommendation to my fic on their own, which I spoke off in the last chapter (and in the case of the former, extra thanks for the posted review, too), and Perentie Fan for prompting me to elaborate on the threat Kakashi made back in Chapter 7. And of course, SimplePotato for beta'ing this chapter, too! Thanks, mate!

If have any issues, ideas, doubts, questions, or words of encouragement, feel free to drop a review! Well... even if you don't, just reading this far already makes me happy, too, but I'd still like to hear from you guys. I didn't believe it at first, but reader reviews are what pays a fanfic writer's bills!

I'm sorry, that was horrible. I'll see myself out...

(PS: There was a minor plot point in this chapter that was "forgotten" partway through, but actually was addressed in a very subtle way. Can you discover what it is? You will need to deduce some stuff to find the answer, but be sure to test your luck if you drop a review!)