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!)

12. Chapter 12 - Dilemma Unsolved

Hey guys! Wassup!

Before we begin... I just wanted to clear something up. DryBonesKing, the person behind the amazing story "True Potential", recently left a review for this story and... while it made me very happy to have another author I admire reading my little fic, it made me realize a few readers might have misunderstood one aspect of this story.

Way back in chapter one, Kakashi, Kurenai, and Hiruzen talked about "deposing" the Mizukage... I meant for that to be an, er, indirect deposition. To them, getting rid of Gatou practically ensures Yagura would be subsequently defeated by Mei's rebels since he can't sustain his army as well.

I apologize for this mistake on my part... Chapter 1 was fixed so that no new readers can possibly be confused about it, at least. There will be no direct involvement of Konoha in the Kirigakure civil war. I don't want to rip off True Potential, and I also lack the skill to pull off that kind of arc.

Another misleading thing I must apologize for: I apparently changed my profile's updating schedule from bi-weekly to monthly at one point but forgot to save that change... now it has been fixed. My apologies, for those that read that tidbit before reaching these last few chapters and seeing the change to monthly in my A/Ns instead of the profile... I'm pretty sure I "made" that specific change on January, so there's gotta be a fair lot of people I owe an apology to.

...Anyways, my response to two guest reviewers:

The one asking for more Sasusaku: There's a relatively big moment in this chapter! But... this pairing will only get moments sporadically. They ARE secondary to Naruhina, after all. I also accidentally deleted your "review" while trying to delete some flames. (Yeah, I got flames. One was from a guest that went by "KingKakashi", and another who completely failed to grasp the point of fanfiction and simple timeline concepts, lol). Sorry bout that.

The one that liked my story: Glad you liked it! I too enjoy stories that follow more the normal path of canon series (both in terms of events and the personalities of everyone involved), but unless it goes way too OOC/AU, I don't mind them. I didn't mind that you reviewed C1 instead of the latest... but I deleted the original review since you posted another.

Between all of those deletes, I deprived myself of my 150th review. Let's see it happening for this chapter, then! Grab a sandwich and read on! This one is the biggest yet! (But no bridge yet. I'm deeply sorry.)

---

Land of Waves Arc

Chapter 12: Dilemma Unsolved (Current Version: 1.1)

---

After leaving Tazuna's home, Sasuke merely walked around the wooden platform the house was suspended on, calmly turning around the corners until his feet were able to touch the grassy ground again.

Given Naruto's reckless nature, perhaps he should have ran in pursuit of his teammate to ensure the blond's impulsivity didn't end up bringing his end by chakra exhaustion of all things... but he was in no hurry.

Firstly, Sasuke's legs weren't in the best condition ever. Running would only backfire on him, so he kept going at a moderately slow pace. Besides, the Uchiha knew that there was no need to run in order to catch up to Naruto.

It only took a minute of walking for him to smirk satisfactorily. His guess had been spot-on.

"You never know when to quit, do you?" Sasuke asked rhetorically, still walking.

His question was initially answered with a loud groan of annoyance as Naruto rose from the ground, a groan that wasn't just because of the newfound company, but because the blond had tripped over thin air again. "What are you doing here? Don't tell me you came to train too..."

"And if I did?" Sasuke challenged as Naruto turned around. "You were sprawled on the ground, it's not like you can stop me."

"Heh... I have a lot more chakra than you," the blonde spat back with pride. It was the only aspect he knew he one-upped his teammate on. "There's no way you will last more than a couple minutes climbing trees, but I can go on for the entire night!"

"Did you know that each time you fall you have to spend chakra to try again?" Sasuke frowned. "Your control is horrible. Even though your reserves are bigger than mine, you waste a lot more chakra doing it. You are an idiot if you think you can climb for more time than me."

A familiar flare of anger shone in Naruto's eyes, making Sasuke scold himself. 'Dammit, this is not what I came here for...'

"So this is what you came here for, huh?! Alright, I'll take you on!" The Uzumaki pointed at him, voice becoming louder and louder by the second. "I won't lose!"

Sasuke cringed at the volume. "Shut up, idiot."

"Oh, scared, aren't you?!" Naruto smirked triumphantly as he marched towards his teammate until they were inches away from each other. "You know you can't win."

"What I know, is that we'll both pass out and maybe die out there if we go on with this stupid competition that you came up with," the Uchiha countered, pushing Naruto away slightly as the blond breached his personal space.

Naruto backed off, stopping a couple feet apart from Sasuke, confused. Had he misunderstood things again? "...Then what the hell are you doing here?"

"You remember that the others were learning how to manipulate elements, right?"

"...Yeah. So what?!" As if Sasuke's vagueness wasn't annoying enough to Naruto, the Uchiha just had to rub salt in the open wound.

"They didn't spend all day training like that. In order to not burn all of their chakra at once, they frequently stopped and just sparred with each other. Do you get it now?" Sasuke questioned impatiently, as evidenced both by his tone and the arms crossed in front of his chest as the blond processed everything.

"...So, you came here to fight? With me?" Naruto pointed at himself incredulously. This was the only logical conclusion he arrived at, but knowing their relationship and how their fights generally went, it simply didn't make sense. Sasuke had never had any trouble in winning their duels in less than 10 seconds; he would get nothing worthwhile out of fighting him.

And yet, Sasuke nodded, confirming Naruto's theory.

"I don't get it. Why me and not Kiba, or I dunno, Shino?" the whiskered boy couldn't help but ask.

"Because neither of them were stupid enough to try training late at night while low on chakra," came the simple reply. It made Naruto's eyebrow twitch, especially when his teammate suddenly smirked at him.

"Besides... this will be different from our other spars. I'm going to give you the chance to win." Naruto barred his teeth dangerously at the boy opposite him. "I won't go on the offensive this time. I don't have the energy to waste by throwing punches at you anyways."

"You...! Is this your idea of a joke, bastard?! There's no way I'm going to fight someone that won't fight back!"

"...Hn." Sasuke conceded. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes for a moment. "Let me rephrase it: I won't let you go out there to climb trees unless you can land a solid hit on me using only taijutsu."

"Hmph. And what if don't accept?" Naruto asked defiantly.

"I'll just come after you, kick your ass and bring you back home." Sasuke slipped into a fighting stance. "You are slower than me, both in running and in attacking. I can catch up to you, and I can dodge your attacks all day long."

Even though that was true on a normal day, this time Sasuke wasn't feeling super confident on his speed being enough to match Naruto's superior stamina, not after a full day of training. The chase might even leave him tired enough for Naruto to fight him and win afterwards, and that wasn't something Sasuke was willing to risk.

"Oh yeah...? You just said you didn't have the energy to throw out a punch," Naruto pointed out with a confident grin. "You can't catch up to me."

"Tsk." Sasuke frowned as Naruto called his bluff. He hadn't truly planned for this moment when he went after Naruto; his hope had been that the prospect of a fight would have sufficed to make the blond spar with him, but he had underestimated how petty the Uzumaki could be. He simply didn't want to give Sasuke what he wanted.

But Sasuke still had one more card to play.

"I guess you will never become Hokage after all."

"What did you say?!"

"Who'd want to follow a coward like you?" This time, it was the Uchiha who had a confident grin as he prepared for the finishing blow.

"...Chicken."

"Oh, that's it!" Sasuke knew he had won when Naruto assumed what could only be a parody of a fighting stance. "You're on, Sasuke! I'll make you pay for that! ...And for kicking me awake the other day, too!"

Having said that, Naruto advanced towards his foe, winding up for a punch as he ran. Sasuke merely waited for the blond to approach, eyes narrowed as he watched Naruto's every movement.

'Left hook, right hook,' Sasuke thought, focusing only on avoiding the slow blows. 'Left hook again, jab, knee—there!'

Seeing an opening when Naruto tried to knee him, Sasuke hooked one of his legs behind the only one Naruto had to support himself and swept him, making the blond fall to the floor once again.

"You left yourself open with that attack," he remarked, jumping away to put more distance between then. "And you do realize I only kicked you because you ignored me when I went to call you, don't you?"

"Hey, you said you weren't going to attack!" Naruto yelled, ignoring the Uchiha's point. He honestly didn't remember anything prior to the kick, so there was no possible way to refute Sasuke's claim.

"I only said I wasn't going on the offensive," Sasuke reiterated as the blond got up. "Now, are you going to keep whining like a kid or are you going to fight?"

"Shut up!"

And with that the two re-engaged, unaware of the watchful eyes that eventually began to spy on them. Though at first there was only a single eye, after a few minutes another person appeared, bringing the eye count to three.

"I'm a little disappointed in the approach he took," Kurenai said, watching the two genin from the wooden platform that supported Tazuna's house.

"I didn't expect them to start fighting like that, but I think Sasuke has a plan," Kakashi theorized.

"What makes you think that?"

"He actually pointed out Naruto's mistake and he is staying on the "defensive". He's trying to make Naruto think a little more on how he fights instead of throwing blows blindly," Kakashi explained, eye still trained on his students. "Usually, Sasuke considers sparring with Naruto a waste of time and just wants to finish him off as fast as he can to do something else instead, but this is new."

Absorbing the new information, Kurenai went back to watch the two boys just in time to see Naruto being tossed to the ground after overcommitting to a jab.

"I said you only need to hit me once," Sasuke repeated with a frown. "If you are trying to put so much strength into your punches, you will never be fast enough to land that hit."

Naruto snorted in response, as if dismissing the tip. In his mind, however, he conceded a change of plans was in order. 'Damn, Sasuke is tired but he can still dodge just as well as any other day. Or... maybe I am slower than usual? Bah, whatever. I need to find a way to get to him but... oh, that could work! I don't use those often, so yeah, I could mess up... but he won't be expecting it either!'

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. 'He is planning something,' he realized with a bit of dread. Naruto was smirking once again, but no insult followed. Instead, the blond immediately went on the attack, winding up his right arm for a punch as he ran.

'Nope, he hasn't learned a thing...' the Uchiha corrected his previous thought while he preparing to dodge the obvious overhead Naruto was charging up. Sasuke didn't even need to spend time to think of an answer to the move; a vertical haymaker was simple to avoid with a small jump to the side.

And that was exactly how the next moments played out: Naruto's predictable move didn't take any effort from Sasuke's part to dodge... but Naruto continued running after the swing, only briefly turning to the side the Uchiha jumped to while positioning his elbow to slam right into Sasuke's stomach before the boy could land.

'Dammit!' The raven-haired boy cursed, throwing himself to the ground as best as he could to avoid the unexpected blow. Unintentionally, Sasuke's legs were still right in front of Naruto's charge, tripping the blond and sending him to the ground once again.

Sasuke didn't waste any time in getting up to put more distance between himself and his fallen teammate before the Uzumaki could pursue him.

"Argh, you still dodged that?" Naruto muttered as he got up from the ground.

"...You almost had me there," Sasuke admitted after a moment of hesitation. He didn't like that he almost lost, but remembering Hinata's words, he decided to not present himself as a rival, but as someone that was trying to help Naruto to improve.

"Wait, really?!" Naruto took a moment to wonder if he developed some sort of hearing or mental problem, but...

"Yes. I didn't expect a feint from you, but you're gonna have to try harder to win." The Uchiha smirked, an action that his opponent soon mirrored.

"Heh, don't worry. I definitively won't lose to you!"

And as such the fighting resumed, and Kakashi couldn't help the proud smile that formed under his mask. "There was this aura of enmity between the two before, or at least when Sasuke didn't dismiss Naruto outright. I'm glad to see they seem to be coming to terms with each other."

Kurenai merely nodded in response, focusing on the little duel happening in front of her. She, too, was satisfied with how the two boys were improving. 'At least I didn't go wrong with those two...'

Remembering her hasty, stress-induced decisions during the time she spent with Team 7 made the kunoichi sigh. That only one of the three students didn't end up badly affected by what she had done was incredibly lucky, in hindsight.

The almost inaudible sigh caught Kakashi's attention. "Worried about how things are going with your own team?"

"...Yeah." Though her friend had misinterpreted, Kurenai couldn't deny that what happened with Hinata was weighing on her as well. "I wanted to be there to help, but this is something I think they need to do by themselves... especially Hinata."

"You made the right choice," the Copy Ninja assured, glancing at the woman beside him. "If you are there for them every step of the way, they won't know how to walk by themselves later. That's what happens when you coddle someone too much, and in our line of work that would just get them killed."

"...Indeed."

Reflecting about Kakashi's views for a moment, she wondered how Team 7 would be faring if she had respected his approach to teaching them. 'Maybe if I had allowed them to interact and grow on their own instead of having a few directions pointed out to them, they would be better off in the end...'

"Well, I'm going to stay here to make sure those two will at least take a bath before going to bed," Kakashi joked. "You have a long day tomorrow, so let me handle them and go rest."

Nodding, Kurenai decided to follow the man's suggestion and stopped dwelling on "what ifs" for the day. Once inside the house, she was tempted to sneak over to the guest room to see how her students were fairing, but ultimately decided against it.

'Let's save that for another time...'

---

Hinata couldn't help the giggle that escaped her mouth.

"Fancy trick, drying stuff with chakra like that..." Kiba muttered over her shoulder as he left his plate and mug beside the sink. "Starting your training early, huh?"

"I suppose," she answered with a small smile. Perhaps using Water chakra to dry plates wasn't the most efficient way of doing the job, but it brought great amusement to the young Hyuuga. She had yet to complete the training exercise Kakashi had given to her, but working with a half-filled cup of water was much easier than with a bowl.

"Ah, now you're just showing off!" Kiba scolded her with a smirk as he watched the little stream of water spiraling from the cup the girl was washing to the one he had just used. "I guess your training is going well, then? It's been a couple days since you and the others started playing with elements."

"N-no... I need to work with a lot more water during training," she explained, now with a more neutral expression. "With just this much, it's not hard to make it all move the way I want but..."

"Don't worry, you will get it eventually," he assured her with a pat on the shoulder, bringing that smile back to her face alongside a faint blush.

It still felt unreal to Hinata that her teammates and Sakura acted so supportively of her after she told them a little more about her past. That, despite them knowing how she was a weakling that frequently was beaten by her younger sister, they still accepted them for who she was and didn't push her away or agree with her clan's assessment of her abilities.

'I'm so lucky to have found them...'

"Mornin'..." someone greeted from the doorway, yawning at the end.

Hinata glanced backwards to see who it was. "Good morning Sakura-san,"

"Hey, pinky!" Kiba waved at her.

"Don't call me that! It's hard enough to swallow when Tazuna-san does it, especially now that we are training on the bridge instead of the forest," pinky complained as the two members of Team 8 laughed a bit at her. In the meantime, she went about preparing her breakfast and glanced around the kitchen. "So... where's everyone?"

"Shino and the adults went to buy some groceries," Kiba explained with a shrug. "I guess the other two are sleeping."

"Sasuke-kun and Naruto will be late." Sakura sipped her tea. "Shouldn't you wake them up?"

"I'm here," Sasuke announced his presence. "Naruto won't be coming."

"Naruto rejecting free food? That's a first," the Inuzuka commented.

"That's not it. He... landed a hit on me last night." Sasuke confessed, not with the shame he imagined the thought would bring, but rather, with a bit of pride. Naruto had earned his "victory", and Sasuke knew his unruly teammate was now a little better at taijutsu than before.

It took a few seconds for the other three to process that information. They already knew about the little after-dinner competition that Sasuke had roped Naruto into participating... and the silence was broken when Sakura groaned and let ample forehead strike an empty area of the table.

"Sasuke-kun... please don't tell me you actually let him go out there to climb trees in the dark..."

"Y-you didn't notice he was missing?" Hinata questioned her teammate, who held his hands up defensively.

"Hey, I don't keep tabs on him all the time. Do I look like Hinata Hyuuga to you?" he countered with a knowing smirk. As predicted, Hinata merely blushed as hard as she could and immediately turned around, hoping to get the embarrassment out of her system by finishing her chore.

"...Kakashi was watching us and he said it was fine," Sasuke ultimately answered. Possible reluctance to harm him aside... and even considering that they wouldn't be near each other for most of the day, Sasuke had a feeling that that day would be a bad day to have Sakura pissed at him, and not just because he had made the now-questionable decision of sitting across her. Thus, shifting the blame to someone else was the best Sasuke could do. 'It's not like I'm lying, either.'

"Sheesh... that guy's way too carefree for a jonin. What if something happens out there?" Kiba wondered, his mind returning to Zabuza for a moment. Perhaps Kurenai's methods were rubbing off on him, but he didn't agree with Kakashi in this matter.

"Um... a-actually, I think it's fine," Hinata piped in. "Naruto-kun is used to train f-for long periods of time... y-you just need to have a little more faith on him."

"Naruto is a full-fledged ninja, even if doesn't look like it." The genin turned around to see the adults, as well as Shino, entering the room with recently bought groceries. "Like Hinata said," Kakashi continued, "he will be fine."

"As far as my bugs can tell, there is still nothing wrong with him," Shino helpfully supplied.

Hinata blinked. '... Still?'

One look at the women's displeased expressions, however, was enough to answer the question for her. 'Ah, perhaps they had this discussion earlier this morning,' she realized, remembering that all the adults had already been gathered by the time she went down. Though she almost always woke up at five in the morning, the Water elemental training coupled with the spars with Shino and Sakura took their toll on Hinata enough for her to sleep in some more.

"Still, even if he is alright as you said," Tsunami began, placing the groceries she held on a corner of the room, "he will miss breakfast."

"He could pass out from hunger," Hinata muttered, now feeling worried.

"I guess someone will have to bring it to him, then," Kiba shrugged. It didn't take a genius to come up with a solution... and it didn't take a genius to know that the devious smirk blossoming on Sakura's face was a prelude to a something troublesome, as a certain Nara he knew might have put it.

Unaware of that, Sasuke, feeling a little guilty for allowing Naruto to train overnight even if he had just been following Kakashi's instructions, decided to volunteer. "Since I will have to go out there any—hnngh!"

"I-I just had an idea," Sakura cut him off, stuttering and blushing as the Uchiha curled up and groaned in pain. She had meant to kick at Sasuke's leg to shut him up before he ruined everything, but... judging from how soft her target felt on her toes, she hadn't struck something with a bone structure... "Um... Hinata, why don't you go and bring Naruto's breakfast to him?"

Hinata blushed slightly, entertaining the possibility for the briefest of seconds before realizing, with some relief, that it simply wasn't an option. "We will be training at t-the bridge today, Sakura-san" she explained while going towards the refrigerator.

"Actually, there's no need for us to go this early to the bridge today," Tazuna butted in. "I guess you were a little too focused on playing with those bowls of water yesterday, but we will be waiting for a mechanic to fix a machine that broke before we can continue working."

Hinata blinked. Could she really have been that unaware?

"The damn machine apparently thought it was alright to break down just cuz it was about time to wrap it up for the day," the old man grumbled.

"We have a couple hours of rest thanks to that, though," Kurenai added, watching idly as Hinata poured some milk into a bowl and then mixed it with a little of sugar. "We could all use the break, I suppose."

"You can say that again," Kiba muttered, also watching his female teammate as she grabbed a box of cereal from the kitchen counter. "My legs are still sore from climbing trees nonstop."

"Then I suppose you aren't up for bringing Naruto's breakfast to him, right?" Sakura asked with a sweet tone and smile that were, in fact, anything but.

The pinkette's comment made Hinata stop just as she was about to bring Naruto's breakfast to the Inuzuka, her head turning towards Sakura for a moment before she faced Kiba once again.

'Help me! I'm not ready for this!' her gaze said, lavender eyes wide accompanying an expression that Kiba knew very well: the puppy dog face.

He almost gave in to his greatest weakness, but a glance at Sakura's eyes made him rethink his decision.

'Don't you dare, Inuzuka!' the emerald-like orbs communicated, with a clear edge of 'or else...!' burning deep within the girl's irises. It brought a shiver down the boy's spine.

"Why..." his acute senses picked up Sasuke's pained whisper; the Uchiha was still too lost in pain to follow the conversation.

"Eh... sorry. I-I'll stay here," Kiba finally decided, guiltily scratching the back of his head while avoiding Hinata's betrayed gaze.

"And you know, I was thinking," Sakura smirked victoriously. "Kurenai-sensei, how about we have Sasuke-kun and Hinata switch places for the day? Maybe you can teach us some more on genjutsu, and Hinata's Byakugan might help Kiba and Naruto to get where they are going wrong with the trees, right?"

The genjutsu mistress narrowed her eyes. She didn't like how forceful Sakura was being, but then again, she had no right to be complaining about that after the events on Training Ground 5. 'And... I suppose the Sandaime did want me to keep working on genjutsu,' she remembered with a sigh.

"Alright... I suppose I can continue my lessons for today."

"S-sensei!"

"Cut your losses and do it already," Kiba recommended, watching as the other adults continued to deal with the grocery bags. "Sides, it can't be that bad, right? And look, you even prepared the bowl for him already," he pointed at the cereal bowl the girl held, which even had a spoon.

"Y-yes, but—!"

"Naruto is probably hungry by now... make sure you won't drop the food!"

Shooting a dirty look at Sakura, who had placed her dishes on the sink and subsequently started washing them, cutting off Hinata's escape route. The bluenette's shoulders sagged and she decided to stop fighting.

"Fine, I'm going..." the girl gave up, only stopping briefly to grab a small bunch of cinnamon and apple cookies from a nearby pot before leaving with Naruto's bowl of cereal.

'I don't know if I should be impressed or ashamed by what she just did,' Kakashi mused, looking at his female student as Kiba approached her. 'That was an incredibly shameless way of manipulating the situation, but it somehow worked out...'

"This is just a guess," the Inuzuka nudged the pinkette, "but I think you actually managed to piss her off. That's the first time I've seen that look on her face."

"Bah, it's for her own good," Sakura waved her wet hand dismissively, and Kiba shrugged in response. "She'll be thanking me later." After all, the girl thought, that was one of the things her old best friend had done to her to help break through her developed shyness, and Sakura knew she only came stronger out of the experience despite how stressing it had been.

Kiba, however, was still unsure. Ever since Naruto had come to him wondering about Hinata's behavior after their win over the Demon Brothers, he had been trying to incentivize the two of them to spend more time with each other when he could.

Unlike Sakura, who had been merely trying to play matchmaker from where he was standing, Kiba knew that the two would be good influences on each other. Naruto would have to tread more carefully around the seemingly frail Hinata to not scare her away, while exposing the Hyuuga to her crush would likely help her become a little more outgoing and confident just like the boy she looked up to.

'Still, I'm not too sure this was the right way of going about that...'

---

Outside the house, on her way to the clearing where Kakashi had the group practicing, Hinata found herself regretting a bit her earlier thoughts about the new bonds she had forged during the past few days. Of course, those were spur of the moment thoughts, but the usually shy Hyuuga couldn't help the annoyance and the little bit of anger bubbling up inside her.

Perhaps she wasn't totally justified in feeling like that, but the fact that Hinata had basically no choice on the matter was the cause of those feelings. Especially because she knew that Sakura had once been a shy person and would've known better than practically forcing Hinata to go so far from her comfort zone.

Saying "No" would've been a simple way of resolving the issue, but Hinata knew she would have felt awful leaving Naruto hungry... and she had never been good at refusing people anyways.

Nonetheless, she still sulked.

'Sure, I DID prepare Naruto-kun's breakfast, but someone would have to do it anyways! It's not like I was planning to bring it to him... this isn't fair,' she whined, walking with heavier steps than usual and with a rare frown plastered across her face as she munched on one of the cookies she had grabbed before leaving. 'At least you will never betray me, right cookie?'

The blue-haired girl even forgot about using her dojutsu to check up on Naruto as she moved around the forest, and once she did remember, she felt a little too lazy to set Naruto's breakfast on the ground just to go through the Byakugan's hand seals.

Ultimately she didn't really need it, as she still remembered the way perfectly. But, perhaps, she might have noticed someone approaching the area where the Uzumaki currently was... someone who had way too much chakra to be a mere civilian...

But after a few minutes of walking, the girl calmed herself down. 'Sakura-san was just trying to help,' she told herself, trying repressing her feelings. 'And I suppose this might be for the best... I do still need to properly apologize to him,' she thought, remembering the little incident where she accidentally mocked Naruto on the kitchen a few days prior.

It didn't take long for the shy Hyuuga to arrive at where Naruto was, and setting her sights on the blond, the girl's heart skipped one full heartbeat before resuming much faster than before as panic took hold of her.

"Naruto-kun!"

The fairly dirty boy was sprawled on the ground near a badly scratched tree, loosely holding a kunai while a few birds decided that his orange tracksuit was comfortable enough for a small moment of rest.

Paying no mind to the small birds she scared away or the few drops of milk that she spilled on her way, Hinata ran as fast as she could towards the fallen blond, fearing the worst.

It had been a little hard to hear, what with the noisy wing flaps around her and the sound of her beating heart loud on her ears, but as soon as she knelt beside Naruto she started hearing his mildly soft snores.

'Oh god... he's alive,' she constated with a smile, before quickly shoving the rest of her cookies inside her mouth, knowing that nothing else but more sweets would calm her down after such a scare.

"More... ramen," the boy mumbled in his sleep, earning a muffled giggle for the girl beside him.

'You must really be hungry,' she thought, munching on her precious cookies, losing herself to the sweet goodness on her mouth for a second. 'I really should have grabbed more of those—'

Hinata shook her head, perhaps a little too violently. 'Focus! Naruto-kun is hungry,' she repeated to herself to get her brain in gear. 'But... how do I wake him up?' she wondering, swallowing her little snack.

"Maybe I can rouse him with a stick...? Hmm..." It was a really simple thing that she needed to do, but considering how the boy had been complaining about Sasuke kicking him awake, she feared that being too forceful would upset him.

As an idea failed to come to mind, the girl couldn't help but become distracted once again, now by Naruto's sleeping form. 'Usually he's jumping around as if his energy is never-ending, but this is so unusual. Even though I watched him for so long, I've never seen him like this. He looks so peaceful, its almost like a different person...'

The boy tossed and turned for a bit, scratching his belly idly as he mumbled unintelligibly in his sleep. It brought another smile to Hinata's face. 'Almost,' she thought, and she came to a decision at that moment.

Setting the bowl on the grass at a safe distance, she poked his shoulder with her pointer finger a few times.

"Naruto-kun."

No answer.

"Naruto-kun, please wake up," she spoke a little louder, now shaking him slightly. "I've brought breakfast..."

"Hrnnnm... wuzzit?" he slurred, opening his eyes slightly and closing them right away. "Argh... t'much light," he complained as he tried to sit up.

The little Hyuuga merely stood back and knelt on the grass, eyes watching as the blond rubbed his eyes, slowly accustoming himself to the light and his surroundings.

Naruto lazily looked around. "Hmm... this isn't Ichiraku Ramen."

Hinata couldn't resist laughing at that. "No, it's not," she agreed with a smile. Remembering her manners, she added: "Good morning, Naruto-kun,"

"Morning... Hinata?" he frowned in confusion. "Whatcha doing here?" he asked, groggily. 'I don't know why I'm here either,' he thought to himself, still not fully awake.

"You didn't return home yesterday, s-so..."

Naruto's eyes snapped wide open. "I guess I fell asleep here after one too many falls," he mumbled sheepishly, scratching his messy yellow mop of hair. "Heh, sorry about that... I made you guys worry."

"Being out in the dark by yourself is a bit dangerous," Hinata agreed, surprised by how easy the words came to her. "But I knew you'd be fine."

Naruto didn't know how to process that, so he just stared dumbly at her. He could barely understand Hinata on a normal day, but doing so after he just woke up seemed completely impossible.

The girl, on her part, started to become a little more uncomfortable, wondering if she had said too much. "W-well... it's not ramen, but," she picked up the nearly forgotten bowl by her side. "I brought t-this."

The boy's stomach rumbled, and he smiled widely once his nose and eyes recognized what the girl held. "Heh, can't argue with that, right? Itadakimasu!"

It took less than a pair of minutes for Naruto's bowl to become empty, with Hinata watching him devour the bowl as the birds that she had scared away slowly reassembled beside the pair.

"Sweet, sweet cereal..." he droned on, patting his belly satisfactorily. "Thanks for bringing this to me, you know? I barely had the time to feel hungry!" Waking up with food close at hand was definitively a nice feeling.

"I-I'm glad you liked it," she replied with a bashful smile. She hadn't done much more than mixing the ingredients, but she still felt that familiar pang of pride at having her cooking complimented.

Naruto stared at her for a couple seconds and became confused. "Hmm... hey, why didja come out here? Shouldn't you be at the bridge by now?" he asked, raising his head to look at the sky. He had no idea of how to accurately judge time by using the sun's position, but he guessed that the girl, if not already late, would need to be in a hurry to return to Tazuna's house before Kurenai got on her case.

His confusion wavered once he saw an expression he had yet to see on the girl's face: a frown, aimed at the grass. "...Sakura-san p-pulled some strings to swap me and Sasuke-san around for the day by convincing Kurenai-sensei to teach them more about genjutsu," she explained, allowing Naruto to discover how her voice sounded when she was annoyed.

Naruto was taken aback for a second, not having an idea of why Hinata would be annoyed... before becoming annoyed himself. "Hmph. I'm not surprised. I guess she still is after Sasuke..."

Hinata blinked for a moment. "You... could be right," she agreed, now wondering if Sakura had intentionally just shot down two birds with one stone, or if she had focused just on one and got lucky.

The blond arched an eyebrow at her, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Why else would she do that?" Spending a little more brainpower on the question, he discovered something quite convenient for him. "You know, this ain't so bad..."

"...W-why so?" she asked, feeling a bit of hope welling up inside her. 'Maybe Naruto-kun—'

"See those trees?" he pointed at two seemingly random trees. "Sasuke's still got a huge lead over me, and... I'm barely catching up to Kiba," he confessed with some embarrassment. "But! If the bastard misses out on a day of training, we can maybe get ahead of him!"

"Oh." Hinata looked down for a moment, dismayed. 'Of course...'

"But you know," Naruto continued, "you're way better company than him, so there's that too!"

The girl felt a familiar heat coursing over her cheeks. "R-really...!?"

Somehow, Naruto caught the happiness mixed with shock in her voice and, still not knowing what to make of it all, he simply waved it off mentally and nodded. "Yeah, you're nice, even though you're also all quiet and weird."

Hinata felt as if someone had just dropped a huge, heavy anvil on her head, one that had been emblazoned with the word "weird" in big, capital letters... the impact made her brain completely forget Naruto had just said she was nice, too.

Oblivious to that, Naruto continued speaking. "And you actually know how to wake someone up, unlike that bastard. Though... he's not that bad."

The boy's comment made Hinata feel hopeful again, but for a different reason. "Oh, I... I've heard you a-actually managed to strike him yesterday. C-congratulations!"

"That's right! Thanks!" Naruto nodded thrice, clearly excited. "It felt so good, sucker-punching him like that! Bastard had it coming for a long time, you know?"

The repeated use of the word "bastard" began to bother Hinata, and not just because she disliked such crude language. "W-well... but hasn't he been trying to change lately, Naruto-kun?"

Hinata's question made Naruto think for a moment. "Yeah... he's been trying to be more, uh, friendly? Something like that... I mean, before he insulted me every time we ever talked to each other and that's when he didn't ignore me outright, but nowadays he only does those it if I do something really stupid or if we are fighting."

"I see. Um, I'm glad you two are getting along better," she smiled, happy for both of them. 'It looks like I was a bit wrong... Sasuke-san has been playing on their rivalry to become friends with Naruto-kun, it seems.'

"Yeah... well, he's still cold and all, but I guess he just doesn't know how to socialize very well," Naruto commented. It reminded Hinata that the Uzumaki could be deceptively observant at times, and not as dense as people were led to believe.

"R-remember what I told you about Shino-kun that day?" Naruto glanced at her confusedly. "W-when you brought my lunch to m-me?"

"Ah, sure! About having patience when dealing with him, right?" The blond adopted a thoughtful pose. "So then the same goes for Sasuke?"

"Yes. J-just keep that in mind, okay?"

"I'll try," Naruto mumbled. "But... you know, it's gonna be hard."

The girl tilted her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"You see, when I'm near Sasuke, I feel... something really weird deep inside, you know?" Hinata paled considerably. "It's almost as if I'm drawn to him somehow, like if there was a something invisible connecting us. Each time we're around each other, I just feel this need to—"

Internally, Hinata started to panic as the rather traumatizing memory of seeing Sasuke and Naruto kissing unwillingly popped up in her mind.

"—beat the crap out of him. Like as if something in my head was driving me to defeat him, I dunno," he finished with a shrug, tilting his head when he noticed Hinata's unsubtle sigh of relief and how she visibly relaxed—or rather, how she had been tense for some reason.

"Hmm... oh, here!" Naruto exclaimed, returning the bowl he held to the girl. "Funny, it's like it always comes back to food with the two of us," he commented.

"...It does, doesn't it?" Hinata agreed after a moment of pause. She was reminded of how Sakura had incentivized her to try using something beyond food and fights/training to get closer to Naruto, but given their lifestyles, Hinata wondered if she couldn't just go with the flow and stick with the tried and proven. That, and the thought of it being Sakura's suggestion made the girl want to go against it out of pure childish spite, at least for a single moment before she banished that from her mind.

"That's not a bad thing, though," Naruto blurted out quickly after he saw the uncertainty across the girl's face. "But... sorry that you had to come all the way here just to bring me food,"

"Oh, p-please, I don't mind," she assured him with a smile that was both fake and sincere at the same time. 'As long as I have a choice on the matter, that is.'

"Still, I kinda worried everyone, didn't I?" he rubbed the back of his head guiltily, which amused Hinata.

"A bit, b-besides Shino-kun, Kakashi-sensei and maybe Tazuna-san."

Naruto nodded. He knew Shino was basically keeping tabs on via a bug hidden somewhere in his personage—he shuddered—and Kakashi probably knew about his training habits prior to their first meeting... and Tazuna was just an asshole, but besides the unspoken addition of Inari to that list of people that weren't worried, he knew someone else was missing from it.

"You weren't either," he pointed out, deciding to try his luck. Naruto knew he probably wouldn't be getting anywhere, and seeing Hinata swallowing nervously all but confirmed it to him.

"I uh... w-well," she mumbled meaninglessly, trying to find a way out. It was useless, though; she was supposed to be helping Naruto during his training so there wasn't a way to flee from this situation. On the other hand, the girl couldn't simply say "I used to spend hours watching you training, so I knew you would be okay" without making the situation even more awkward that it already was.

In the end, Hinata remained completely silent, refusing to meet the blond's azure eyes. It was a bad, bad third option, but it also was the safest. 'He already thinks I'm a weirdo. It can't get much worse than this.'

Hinata began to consider how to change the topic, hoping that Naruto was using the awkward silence to do the same.

"That's it!"

Unfortunately, Naruto's patience with her had finally run out.

"What the hell is your problem!?" he demanded, all but forcing Hinata to look at him as she cowered away, realizing her mistake.

She answered without thinking, panic clouding her mind. "I-I-I don't know what you're talking about!"

"This! I'm talking about what you're doing right now!" Naruto motioned towards her. The shy Hyuuga's fearful demeanor made him feel bad for doing this to her, but Naruto could no longer hold himself back. "You... I dunno! You act so nicely to me in one moment and then the next you lock up and refuse to say anything! I don't get it!"

Watching as Naruto's own nervous habit of passing his hands through his hair haphazardly kicked in, Hinata could only regret what she had thought to be "successful" interactions with the blond. All of them had been only leading up to this moment, and now that things blew up, she had no idea of how to possibly answer him. Not that the girl could find her voice, at any rate.

"Look... Did I do something to you?" Naruto continued, in a more subdued tone than before. "You're usually a bit jumpy and nervous, but almost every time we speak there's always a point where you suddenly get really scared and silent and... I don't know what I am doing wrong. You don't do this around anyone else! Not even Sasuke!"

The only time Naruto could remember having an actual conversation with Hinata without any "inconveniences" was when she briefly helped him get the hang off tree climbing, likely because both had something to focus on outside of talking. On the flip side, there was also only a single instance where he had seen the girl clamming up around other people, when Kiba and Shino had confronted her about her actions during Team 8's training with Kakashi, right after they had first met Tazuna. And the context of said conversation had been very serious, and it didn't help that both of the girl's teammates kept pressing her for answers

'Was I pressuring her somehow, all this time? But... why?' he couldn't help but wonder, remembering that conversation he had listened to and failing to see the missing link. Hinata seemed nice enough, but, once again, he didn't know whether or not what they had could be called friendship... or if it would ever get to that point, given how things were going so far.

Meanwhile, Hinata felt the strong urge to create a shadow clone, solely for it to slap her for her foolishness. 'He's blaming himself for it... he thinks it's his fault! How could I've let things get to this point!?'

In a way, she knew Naruto wasn't completely wrong. There were a lot of things about him that made the prospect of a conversation scary to Hinata, because the boy meant a lot to her. The fear of upsetting, disappointing or even saddening the person that had helped her so much throughout her short life—even if he never knew just how much he had done for her—always seemed to hold her back.

But her shy nature never helped matters, either. It made her unable to find the right words, and do the right things when talking to others, and the fact that it was Naruto of all people... it intimidated her to a level that only her father managed to bring out in her. Of course, with her father it was always much worse, because with Naruto messing up was just a possibility that she had to deal with, rather than something she knew would happen inevitably.

And now, that possibility finally became a reality, and she could do nothing more than stand there, withering under Naruto's eyes as if he were one Hiashi Hyuuga.

Much like the head of the Hyuuga Clan, Naruto only became more frustrated as Hinata refused to answer him. He couldn't understand why she would remain silent like that; it would be so simple to just tell him where he was messing up so that he couldn't scare her again...

'Wait.' His eyes widened. Could it be that Hinata wasn't saying anything because she couldn't say it?

...That memory surfaced in his mind, as vivid and detailed it had been when it had happened almost a month ago.

Suddenly, day had turned to night. He could feel the weight of the forbidden scroll strapped to his back, hear a wounded Iruka begging him to run away, see the smug smirk on Mizuki's face as he unveiled the mystery that had plagued him for his entire life—

"Oh my... I didn't expect to find anyone here at this hour," a new voice said, surprising both of the genin, and ending Naruto's thoughts before they became a full-blown flashback.

"Huh?" Naruto muttered, glancing warily at Hinata one last time before paying attention to the newcomer, who seemingly had been behind a tree about a dozen meters away from them. "Who are you, lady?"

"My name is Haru," the girl introduced herself, smiling at them as she approached. Both Naruto and Hinata were taking aback by girl's looks once they got a better look at her, especially the Uzumaki, given her clothing and how she appeared to be a couple years older than them.

'She's prettier than Sakura!' Naruto thought in awe, finding the girl's face and hair to be beautiful. Brown eyes and black, long hair were kind of bland in his opinion, and he hated bland things. But Haru managed to change his mind on that matter.

'What a beautiful kimono... and a bit daring, too,' Hinata mused. The garment exposed almost all of her arms, and the v-neck cut was just low enough that an inch of cleavage could be seen. Hinata's own kimonos were all much more conservative, and she wondered if one day she would have the guts to freely walk around with such a kimono.

'So I was right...' Haru, thought, noticing the headbands that the genin wore as well as the symbol emblazoned upon the metal plate. 'These two are part of the group that fought Zabuza-sama.'

Hinata was the first to snap out of her thoughts. "Hello, Haru-san. I'm Hinata Hyuuga," she introduced herself, with the usual small bow that accompanied the practiced words

"And I am Naruto Uzumaki, future Hokage!" Naruto boasted, subconsciously feeling the need to show off in front of the pretty girl, who held back a giggle at his boisterous introduction.

"I take you two are ninja, then?" the girl pointed at Naruto's forehead and then Hinata's neck, the latter nodding. "So you two are from the Land of Fire's hidden village... that's a long way from where we are," she remarked. "I'm here gathering herbs, but what could you two be doing here so early?"

"Heh, I'm training," Naruto explained, and then motioning towards the treetops. "I need to run up one of those until I reach the very top without using my hands!"

"Wow... is that even possible?" the brunette feigned ignorance, since the tree climbing technique wasn't supposed to be common knowledge among civilians.

"Of course it is! Just watch me!"

Following that declaration, the blond got up and gathered chakra, running towards one of the trees soon afterward. It didn't take more than a minute for him to drop down, seeing as he had yet to reach the halfway mark.

"Y-you've improved..." Hinata's tentative compliment was met with a neutral look from Naruto, making the heiress wilt. She understood the unspoken message that he wasn't going to forget their earlier discussion as easily as that.

"Though it seems you have a long way to go before you can reach the top," Haru offered her two cents quickly. "Still, that was rather impressive!"

Much to Hinata's horror, Naruto blushed at the compliment. "Y-yeah, but I'm still not done with this," he said meekly.

The kimono-clad girl turned her head towards the other female. "What about you? You don't look like you've been training," she commented, observing that Hinata's clothes were perfectly clean whereas Naruto's looked battered and dirty.

"W-well, I already can get to the top," she mumbled weakly, not wanting to upset Naruto somehow.

"So what were you doing here?"

"She just came to bring my breakfast, and later help me and another guy with our training," Naruto said neutrally.

"...You look too dirty to have been training just for a couple hours," Haru pointed out, coldly. "Don't tell me that you spent the whole night out here..."

"Er... I did?" The boy's answer brought out a scowl from the older girl.

"That's dangerous! For starters, you could've caught a cold sleeping out in the open like this!"

Naruto was caught a bit off-guard by the scolding, but responded carefreely nonetheless. "Oh yeah? I wanna see a cold that can actually catch me, haha!"

"Naruto-kun is almost never ill," Hinata supplied, making a still laughing Naruto wonder how she knew that. The explanation was enough to cool down Haru's temper, so he didn't dwell on it... for the moment.

"I see... well, since you two are ninja, do you mind taking on a mission for me?"

"Lady, we're already on a mission... we—"

"Are t-training right now, but w-we sadly can't accept another one," Hinata cut Naruto off, knowing that her crush would have spilled out details about their mission, which was something they weren't allowed to do unless strictly necessary for said mission's success. "I'm sorry..."

The older girl merely giggled. "Actually, it's more like a favor... like I said, I am looking for some herbs, so I was wondering if you two could help me out to search for them."

"Herbs?" Naruto sat down again, feeling stupid right afterwards because he realized he'd have to get up within a minute or two. "...Why'd you walk around so early in the morning just for something like that?"

Haru waggled her finger at him. "Herbs can be very useful. You can make teas, ointments, oils, or use them as you find them to help heal wounds, illnesses and even treat things such as poisons."

"T-there are also many other things we can find in forests that can be used as natural remedies," Hinata added. "Flowers, mushrooms, roots, leaves, fruits, seeds..."

"Oh... and hey," Naruto shoved his hand into his weapons pouch, bringing Hinata's ointment on the way back. "So you used those things to make this ointment?"

Hinata nodded. "T-there are herbs and flowers that help to heal the skin mixed in, yes."

"Wow, did you make this?" Haru questioned in wonder, and both Naruto and Hinata noted how different she had sounded from when she was "awed" by the tree climbing technique.

Still, the Hyuuga nodded again.

"Say... does this ointment work for deep wounds, like stab wounds?"

"Stab wounds?" Naruto questioned with worry. "Did someone stab you?!"

"Ah, no, no!" Haru denied in a rush. "My... my adoptive father got stabbed multiple times a couple days ago. You know how dangerous this country is nowadays, don't you?"

"I, uh... t-to be honest, I am not sure if it could help mending this type of wound," Hinata confessed, mentally going over the medicinal properties of her ointment's ingredients. "This is mostly for lighter wounds... i-it accelerates the healing of the skin, but it might not work as well for muscle or the fatty tissue a knife wound would damage... I never tested. I-I'm not even sure if it's a good idea to apply them to a wound like that."

"...Still, I believe it could be worth a shot," Haru said, frowning slightly. "I know that he will be trying to move around even if the wound hasn't fully healed, so I guess that at least the skin being restored is better than nothing. Do you have more of this?"

"I-I'm sorry, I only brought one with me and... I don't have all the materials to make another," the girl apologized, feeling awful about not being able to help.

"Why don't you give this one to her?" Naruto questioned, waving the little container in front of the girl's face. It seemed simple, from his perspective.

"B-but, what about you?"

The boy frowned at the girl's worried face. "I can live with a few scratches, y'know? Haru's father needs this way more than any of us!"

"Um... o-okay," the Hyuuga mumbled, ashamed, and Naruto passed the Hinata's little container to the long-haired girl.

"Thank you very much!" Haru bowed slightly to them, sporting a happy smile. She then patted her hips and shoved her hand inside one of her kimono's pockets, bringing out a moderate amount of money and shoving it into the bluenette's hands.

"P-please, I can't! I-it's too much!" the younger girl blurted out after seeing that it was almost thrice the price the ointment would have been sold for, if it had ever been for sale in the first place.

"I won't take no for an answer," Haru affirmed, and Hinata quickly gave up. "But, not wanting to impose more than I already did... I still need some of those herbs. My adoptive father's body is pretty weak right now, so I'm looking for ingredients to make a tea to help him recover his strength. Consider part of the money as advanced payment, ok?"

"Hmm... do you have some of them already?" Naruto asked with some trepidation. He knew a thing or three about caring for potted plants, but not nearly enough to identify random wild herbs by name. "Knowing what we're looking for would help."

"Of course," the brunette smiled. "Here are the ones I need..."

And for roughly the next fifteen minutes, the trio spent some time silently collecting the herbs Haru required; the two Konoha ninja blissfully unaware that they were betraying their own village by helping the other girl mend Zabuza's wounds.

Finally, as Naruto gave his last batch of plucked herbs to the older girl, Haru smiled. "Well, I believe that's about all I will need!" she announced happily. 'They are such good kids... pity they will have to die so soon.'

"Mission accomplished!" Naruto grinned widely, eyeing Hinata's smiling face with his peripheral vision. "Nothing we Konoha ninja couldn't handle, hehe."

"I really must thank both of you for your help," Haru said sweetly before looking away, embarrassed. "And I guess I should say sorry too... I did get in the way of your training after all."

"Hah, no worries! It was for a good cause," Naruto waved her off.

'A good cause...' Haru wondered, just when she was about to get up and excuse herself. However, she decided to stay with the two genin for just a little while longer, as a burning question formed on her mind. "Say, Naruto-san, Hinata-san... why do you train so hard for?"

The question caught both of them off-guard, and the duo shared a glance for but a moment before a flushed Hinata broke eye contact.

'Cute,' the brunette smiled, 'but I guess she made him angry with those reactions.' At least, it was what Naruto's scowl suggested to her.

The blond's expression softened into a determined grin as he faced Haru again. "I train hard to become the strongest ninja in our village: the Hokage! If I'm the strongest, then everyone will have to acknowledge me!"

"...I wanted to become a strong leader for my clan, to change our ways and unite the clan," Hinata muttered sorrowfully, staring at the ground with a troubled expression.

This time it was with Haru that Naruto shared an uncertain glance, but as the older girl rose without pressing for further information, Naruto let the issue alone. Still, the blond couldn't help but wonder why did she say those words in the past tense.

"Well, I believe I must be going," the Yuki got up. "Thank you once again, Naruto-san and Hinata-san."

"...Heh, it was nothing! Naruto said, noting that his current companion had yet to raise her head.

"It wasn't nothing," the brunette insisted. "I'm sure my adoptive father will be healed in a flash, and it's all because of you two! If we get lucky, there won't even be a scar after I apply this little beauty," she said, examining the ointment's container as she began to walk away with the straw basket in her other hand.

That last sentence brought Hinata back to reality. "W-wait, Haru-san!"

Hearing her name, the Yuki turned around "What is it?"

"Um... I, uh, mentioned before that I n-never tested the ointment on deep wounds, r-right? So... I-I'm not sure how effective it will be in getting rid of the scar from something as invasive as a stab wound."

Haru's shoulders visibly sagged, as anger built up inside her at the prospect of her master walking around with ugly scars littering his "perfect" body.

"B-but," Hinata proceeded, "I know of something that will help you for sure! J-just wait a moment!"

With those words, the shy Hyuuga dashed off in the direction she had come from, leaving Naruto and Haru alone for the moment.

Though she believed it to be useless to the boy in the long run, Haru couldn't help herself from continuing their last conversation. "You said you wanted to be the Hokage, didn't you, Naruto-san?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah," he mumbled distractedly, eyes previously locked on to Hinata's back.

She smiled. "If you don't mind me saying, I think you are going about it the wrong way."

The boy blinked innocently, his blank expression all but screaming "I don't get it."

"Listen... from what you said, you are trying to become the Hokage only for your own sake. But as someone that is going to lead the village, don't you think you should have another goal?"

Naruto frowned. "What do you mean, miss?"

Haru's smile turned sad as she remembered a conversation she had with her brother on the day after their lives changed forever. "My father... my true father, he wasn't a ninja, but he knew how to fight. He... died, protecting me and my brother from bandits." The girl's eyes started to moisten, but she carried on. "I'd like to believe that at that moment, he was at his strongest. Stronger than he had ever been before."

"But... he lost, didn't he?"

"He did... but he died to protect his precious children. My point is... when you have someone that you hold dear to your heart, only them you can achieve true strength. The will to protect those dear to him is what made my father stand up and fight as we fled during that cold afternoon... and it was because he absolutely had to protect us that he managed to defeat every single one of the bandits before succumbing to his injuries. He had found true strength during that day."

Naruto's mind started to replay some of his own memories as Haru spoke. Memories of Hiruzen Sarutobi talking about the will of fire... memories of when Iruka had protected him from Mizuki's fuuma shuriken, risking his own life to ensure the survival of his favorite student... memories of the determined expressions Kakashi and Kurenai had in the few times he managed to look at the two as Zabuza attacked them in the woods... memories of reading the tale about the Fourth Hokage's sacrifice to protect the village...

"So... what I want to ask of you," the girl continued, "is that you give up on fighting this battle for your own sake, and find those people that you are willing to lay down your life for in order to protect. I believe that only then you will truly have a chance at achieving your dream, and especially if you discover those that are the most important people in your life."

"The... most important?"

There were only a few people that came to Naruto's mind at that moment. The old Sandaime Hokage, his former academy teacher and the two people that together worked at the Ichiraku Ramen stand. But... for some reason, he felt as if none of them were exactly what Haru was talking about, almost as if he had come close enough to still be right, but missed the ultimate point of it all.

"Again, you spoke about becoming Hokage—about becoming the strongest—to have people recognizing you. But... what if there were people that acknowledged you for being just yourself? That accepted you just because you are Naruto? People that you didn't have to prove yourself to in order to be loved? These... these are people that you should truly be searching for."

The girl then felt sadness as she watched Naruto processing that her words. She could see it in his eyes that nobody immediately came to mind... and she knew for sure from just that dull blue glint that the young ninja standing before her was an orphan. 'No mother, no father... and, apparently, no real caretaker either... how horrible.'

"Do you have anyone like that?" The boy raised his head to question her, and though he didn't mean to, everything from his tone to his body language expressed that it wasn't mere curiosity about Haru's life that led him to ask that. Naruto was looking for guidance.

Though the answer was clear to her, Haru still hesitated in answering. "...I do. Two, in fact"

Haku, her brother, had never needed any reason to love her, but did so out of his own will. Her master, Zabuza, didn't believe in such emotions... but from living with the man for so long, she understood from his mannerisms and small actions done over the years that he truly cared towards her and Haku both. Not as tools to be used and thrown away once they had no other purpose—despite his cold words, he couldn't fool her.

Before she could elaborate, though, Hinata came back, panting slightly.

"S-sorry for the wait...!"

Naruto noticed the bundle of flowers she had in her hands. "Those are lavender flowers, aren't they?"

"Yes... I, uh, saw them on the way here," the Hyuuga explained quickly, before facing Haru. "You can make an oil out of those flowers, and it can really help the skin to heal even from a stab wound or severe burns."

The older girl clapped her hands in front of herself, smiling. "Oh my... this will certainly be useful!"

"I hope it will," Hinata offered, watching as Haru placed the flowers on her basket.

"You know," Haru began, looking at Hinata again. "Going out of your way like that for a stranger... you're a pretty friendly person, aren't you?"

"Oh! Um... t-thank you!" Hinata managed, embarrassed by the compliment. Some of her nervous habits all kicked in at once, leaving the girl fiddling with her pointer fingers as she looked away. Still, turning her head didn't do much to hide her pink flush or her smile.

"I should be the one saying thank you," Haru giggled. She then noticed that she made the bluenette happy but uncomfortable as well, so she switched gears. "Anyways, about those flowers..."

Naruto then watched as Hinata and Haru started discussing the flower's healing properties and then how to produce an oil from them. His fellow genin was completely at ease talking about something she clearly understood a lot about.

Between Haru's comment and Hinata's odd reaction to it, he arrived at a conclusion and latched on to the idea that was forming in his head.

The pieces were falling into place and finally, he believed, the puzzle had been solved.

'She... for some reason, she wants to be my friend!'

It hit him like a ton of bricks. It made sense—most of their interactions had her helping him somehow even though she had no reason to, and she had yet to truly insult him in any way even after defeating him—but... it also didn't make sense. But he knew he was on to something.

Naruto never imagined he would one day be thinking something like that. Why would anyone want his friendship without him having to earn it? He knew that his current bonds of "friendship" didn't come for free. He had to defeat Kiba in battle before the Inuzuka mellowed out, and both Sasuke and Sakura were only making an effort because they now understood how the bonds between squadmates could be important... not because of who he was.

Hinata wasn't part of his team. Hinata had defeated him in combat. Hinata... wanted to be his friend. Why?

And his confusion aside, all of it only made Naruto angrier. 'The why doesn't matter... she knows about the Kyuubi. There' nothing else that could explain why she acts like that! She is too scared to really... or, maybe her family doesn't want her to get close to someone like me?' He had never interacted that much with any Hyuuga before meeting Hinata, but he could recognize a clan of stick-in-the-muds when he saw one. 'Hinata is their heiress, isn't she?'

Perhaps if he had been alone he might have allowed a small, bitter laugh to escape his lips, but he had a better grip on his emotions than that. 'A clan heiress hanging out with a demon... what a bad joke.'

He couldn't, however, stop the anger that was blossoming inside him at the thought that the Kyuubi was once again messing with his life... and he was lost so deeply in his thoughts—in his emotions—that he almost failed to catch Haru saying goodbye.

"—and thanks again, both of you!"

The older girl waved, and Hinata mirrored the action, though with more restraint. "Farewell, Haru-san."

As Haru stepped away from the two genin, she couldn't help the unease that turning her back on them brought. Not because she really wanted to continue talking to them, but because she could feel the smallest of hints of killing intent leaking out of Naruto.

'I wonder... what is up with those two kids?'

Haru had initially only approached them to confirm if they were or not the enemy and possibly gather some intel while at it. She had been spying on them ever since Hinata had arrived, and actually found the situation amusing up until the moment where Naruto's frustration became pronounced. For some reason she couldn't explain, she felt the instinctual need to step between the two to give them a chance to collect their bearings after she saw the situation wouldn't go anywhere.

She knew those two kids would likely be nothing more than corpses in just a few days, but still... if they could be happy while they still had the time, why not? It was a small mercy, she believed. Unlike the jonin that would be fighting her master, she knew the six genin had just been dealt a bad hand and really were no big threat to the mission as a whole, at least not now that Zabuza knew about Team 8's tracking abilities.

But given the aura she faintly felt coming from the blond, she understood her actions regarding that didn't mean much in the end. Still, she didn't come out of that clearing empty-handed—roping the two into helping her had been a spur of the moment decision—and the fact that she managed to guide the young Naruto into another path, just in case he survived, also made her happy.

Looking at the bundle of lavender flowers that were inside her basket and barely registering that someone was passing her by, Haru let herself wonder if she had bought Hinata enough time to recompose herself...

If you asked the Hyuuga, she'd easily say "No."

Watching the kimono-clad girl disappearing amidst the trees, Hinata knew that she had nowhere to run... and Naruto didn't have a very friendly expression, either. It made Hinata anxious, nervous, because she had no idea of how to deal with that situation. For all of the time she had spent observing her crush, she had never seen him like that, but the glint in his eyes scared her a little. Was Naruto planning on continuing their conversation? Perhaps he would give her and himself some space?

...Was a friendship between them nothing more than a naive hope, in the end? And was it just Hinata, or was the blue tone of Naruto's eyes darker than she remembered?

"I'm going to train some more," the Uzumaki eventually said, breaking their silence with a voice that lacked the usual warmth it carried as he turned away from the girl to face a random tree.

"W-wait, I could use my By—"

"Don't worry, I can handle this myself," Naruto retorted without even looking back. He was sure that he'd feel even angrier, and even guilty, if he saw the hurt he knew he would find in Hinata's face.

But it was going to be for the best. If a bond between them was impossible... then cutting ties with her right then would be better for both, he decided. Though the question of why she had even tried to reach out to him was intriguing... if nothing could come out of it, then he figured it was better to not waste any time thinking about it.

Trying to calm himself down, Naruto sent his chakra to the soles of his feet, aiming for the exact amount Hinata had taught him to use. With that done, he began to run as fast as he could towards his tree of choice—which hadn't even been the one he had been using ever since he destroyed his first one.

But he couldn't get his mind to clear itself fully. As his world tilted so that he was walking towards the sky, his mind wandered.

Hinata was a nice person, that much he now knew for sure. So far, she had only been kind to him... and he would have liked to have her as a friend. But he couldn't... and he knew exactly who was to blame for that. It was not his fault, like he had thought once or twice while trying to figure out the shy Hyuuga.

'It's all YOUR fault... you damn fox!'

Cracking noises filled the blond's ears, and before he could understand what was going on, he was already flying through the air, only stopping when his back collided violently against another tree's trunk, forcefully emptying his lungs.

With his concentration lost and body weakened by the impact, Naruto couldn't focus enough chakra around his torso and especially on his head to save himself from a bad fall, if not a lethal one. Still, his ears were working fine, and he not only heard a feminine-sounding gasp, but the voice of someone he hadn't been expecting to show up just yet.

"Naruto!"

'Huh? Kiba!?'

The blond was barely able to see a gray blur bouncing off of a tree to catch him in midair, landing safely on the ground.

"Y'know," Kiba deactivated the Four Legs Technique, "I was trying to save the princess carry for when I get a girl for myself," the Inuzuka commented cheekily, trying to lighten the mood for everyone. He saw that Hinata looked pretty out of it even before Naruto was sent flying, and he himself almost had a heart attack when he saw how close the Uzumaki came to being impaled by a tree branch only a few inches higher than where he struck the tree.

"Put... me down!" Naruto gasped as he tried to pump some oxygen into his system, and Kiba complied. "Thanks..."

"You need to be more careful, dude. Look at how much you scared Hinata," the Inuzuka said with a teasing smile. It was dropped fast, as Naruto and Hinata looked at each other's eyes for a moment before both broke away, leaving Kiba to wonder why there was such a palpably heavy tension between them. Hinata looked guilty, and Naruto had an expression that would be more fitting on Sasuke's face. 'Oh boy... something went wrong here.'

Naruto walked away without saying anything, searching for the tree he had used up until this last botched attempt. 'Alright... I gotta remember what Sakura-chan said. Calm down... and try again.'

Unable to contain himself, Kiba moved closer to Hinata whispered to his crestfallen teammate: "What the hell happened? Did he do something to you?"

"He... nothing happened," the girl muttered, looking partially through her bangs at Kiba. "He didn't do anything. I-It was my fault."

Those last words made the Inuzuka frown. Past experiences with Hinata made him unable to trust the girl's judgment over her own actions, given her pessimistic opinion of herself.

Hinata didn't maintain eye contact for long, but when her gaze dropped she saw a familiar-looking scroll in her teammate's hands and perked up. "Ah, you brought it to me!"

"Huh? Oh yeah, you forgot it." He passed the scroll with the elemental training equipment to the girl. "I thought you would want to train while we are here... at this point you can't—I mean, me and Naruto just need to figure out how to maintain the right chakra levels, so you can do something productive instead of being stuck with us."

The girl nodded, mumbling something even he struggled to interpret as a "thank you", and walked away to sit by a random tree's roots.

Kiba heard a whine from the puppy that clung to his jacket's collar and shook his head. "No, boy... it's better if we don't do anything for now. She needs some space," he muttered with a mix of annoyance and worry. 'Dammit. But I know someone that will try to ask her about it anyways. I'll hear it all then,' the Inuzuka decided, sparing another glance to Hinata before starting out his training.

Just as he turned around, though, he remembered that there was one thing he could try. "Y'know... go for it. But don't bother her too much, okay?" he said, placing Akamaru on the ground. The little dog barked, as if saying "leave it to me!" and ran towards Hinata.

Kiba could only hope that the famed ability that dogs have of lifting people's spirits would work one more time...

---

While in almost every other day of her life Sakura would have been ecstatic at the chance of some alone time with her crush, the only female member of Team 7 could just wonder how she did not even register the fact that the moment had arrived until they were about to enter Tazuna's door again.

Their other companions had remained behind, as Shino wanted to check on the condition of the bugs he had left behind days ago, exchanging them for others if they happened to be too tired. Tazuna merely tagged along as a test dummy, to ensure that Kurenai's genjutsu was still working as it should and if there wasn't a need to cast it again. Though the old man had been immune to the illusion due to being inside the affected area at first, it was simple (for Kurenai anyways) to change the still-working genjutsu to affect and latter NOT affect the bridge builder.

As they had no such duties, Sasuke and Sakura just walked along quietly, in a surprisingly comfortable silence... for Sakura. Sasuke couldn't help but feel wary around the pinkette after the trauma he suffered at her hands—or rather, at her foot—earlier that morning. He masked it well, though.

'Well, nothing I can do about that now,' she shrugged mentally, opening the door while another part of her was pseudo-silently fuming over the lost opportunity. Sure, it had been only a couple minutes that they had spent together... but a lot of things could have happened in those two minutes. Marriage proposals didn't necessarily need more than two minutes to happen, for example...

"Oh, you're here," Kakashi muttered from the living room's couch, not even looking up from his book. "Was today productive?"

"Hn. Where are the others?"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow as he looked up at Sasuke. "Naruto is taking a nap in the guest room, and Kiba is in the kitchen with Hinata. Tsunami-san is taking a bath right now, so Hinata offered to handle dinner until she returns... but that's not what you want to know, is it?"

Sasuke's eyes narrowed slightly as Sakura turned to him.

"What is he talking about, Sasuke-kun?"

"What Sasuke wants to know," Kakashi said with some amusement, "is how far Kiba and Naruto managed to climb today. I'll just say that they are pretty close to you by now..."

The Uchiha remained silent as a weird kind of anger started to well up inside him. He knew that feeling well; it was completely different from how he felt when other people pissed him off. It was... like only a small part of him was angry, but it was much angrier than the situation would have allowed for. As if the feeling was somehow dulled, something he could only compare to how the pain of loneliness became more bearable as time passed, and that was still way too different.

But he had always felt that way around Naruto, somehow...

"...Huh? Sasuke-kun, where are you going?" Sakura asked upon seeing her teammate backtracking.

"I will be training some more," he answered simply, closing the door on the pinkette's face before she could retort.

A vein throbbed on Sakura's forehead, but she knew that Sasuke wasn't in danger this time; genjutsu training had not been very taxing this time, so chakra exhaustion wouldn't be likely.

Kakashi merely hid a smile that was both amused and melancholic beneath his mask. 'I suppose he is my counterpart in this new Team 7, but when he gets competitive like that it almost looks like there are two Obitos in the team... I wonder if it's in the blood?'

Sakura sighed. "Gonna see how Hinata and Kiba are holding up, then." It was not like she could take a bath now; there were two bathrooms with showers in the house, but she had left her things, such as shampoo, on Tsunami-san's.

Opening the door to the kitchen, she saw Kiba leaning against a wall beside the sink, whereas Hinata was in front of the stove, stirring a pot's contents with a wooden spoon.

"Hey guys."

"Hey," Kiba greeted her back with a half-hearted wave. Akamaru was just as happy as always to bark a "Hi", though.

"So... how did today go?" the pinkette asked openly. Kiba, however, knew his opinion wasn't what Sakura cared about.

"Welp, guess that's my cue to get out," the boy shrugged, moving to leave the room. "Shino's outside with Kurenai-sensei, right?"

With a nod from the slightly confused Sakura, the Inuzuka left the two girls alone, his partner eagerly following him. "Just remember what I said to you!" he called out before closing the door

Sakura shrugged, as the words obviously weren't meant for her, and went to grab a cup of water. She savored the drink in silence. "So?" the girl asked once she was done.

"...I made a breakthrough regarding elemental training, but I suppose that's not what you want to talk about," Hinata answered without turning back.

"Of course not," Sakura rolled her eyes, though she became slightly suspicious. "Did you get anywhere with the knucklehead?"

"Naruto-kun and I... had a disagreement."

Sakura then understood then why Hinata seemed off. "Did he do anything to you? I mean, Naruto's impulsive at times but don't take what he says too seri—"

Sakura's words died in her throat when Hinata began to laugh quietly. It had been for only a moment, but it still made the pinkette unable to continue.

"It doesn't matter... he was completely in the right. T-this... this was going to happen at one point anyways."

Sakura gulped. She knew she wouldn't like the answer, but she still felt the need to ask "What... what happened, Hinata?"

The Hyuuga didn't answer right away, instead closing the lid of the pot she had been watching over and then glancing at a nearby wall clock. '15 minutes...'

With the time memorized, Hinata left the wooden spoon on a nearby plate and sat at the table, prompting Sakura to do the same before starting to recount the day's events.

...Sakura wasn't surprised to see that she had been right. "Damn... and you were doing so well up until now, too..."

Hinata shook her head. "No... you don't understand. Every time I spoke with him so far, i-it was all leading up to this." She almost wanted to call it fate, or destiny, but those particular words brought her memories that she would rather not remember at that time.

It all made Sakura scowl and rise from her chair. "That Naruto... I'm gonna talk to—!"

"P-please, don't go and wake him up," Hinata interrupted calmly. "He had a tiring day... and, and it w-wouldn't change anything."

"But Hinata, he just doesn't get that talking to other people is difficult," Sakura pleaded. "Look, I won't hit him or anything, I just want to help explain it to him!"

After hearing Hinata's confession about her childhood, Sakura knew she was in a good enough position to make Naruto understand her friend's social struggles better; perhaps it wasn't her place, but she couldn't sit idly and let things end like that.

"He... he pointed out that I don't have as much difficulty talking to others. I'm not the most outgoing girl, yes, but... with Naruto-kun it is much worse." Hinata lowered her head. "I was so scared of making him see me like my clan sees me, that I brought it upon myself without realizing it."

It was funny, Hinata thought. It hurt a lot to be rejected by Naruto, and this was something she has already expected... but having him, the person that unknowingly helped her so much just by giving her an example to follow, turn his back to her and walk away... didn't hurt as much as she had imagined. Perhaps this was because Akamaru and later Kiba made efforts to cheer her up. Or maybe because deep down she had always doubted that anything would ever come out of trying to talk to him.

It was nothing in comparison to the pain she felt when her father did the same right after her mother succumbed to illness, and she survived that. This was very well within her abilities to endure. To endure and move forward, as Naruto had taught her to do.

The hollowness she felt was new, though, and that had yet to go away entirely.

"Wow. For someone that spent so much time... observing him, you managed to miss something incredibly obvious," Sakura pointed out flatly as Hinata looked up to her again. "Naruto would never have that kind of opinion about anyone."

The pinkette then bit her tongue, stopping herself from pointing out that being a failure would likely only make it easier to become closer to Naruto because he could sympathize with her plight; the comment would be incredibly insensitive of her. 'If anything, being a genius would only get in the way... even though Sasuke-kun still found a way to bond with him regardless.'

Humorlessly, Hinata laughed a bit. "I suppose you're right... but there's nothing I can do about it now."

That remark made Sakura sigh. The one thing she knew Hinata hadn't shared with her and Team 8 that night—and that perhaps even Kurenai was in the dark about—was how much Naruto inspired and influenced her. But Sakura had paid enough attention to the girl's wording to know the Uzumaki had an effect on her. 'There's no way she can explain herself without practically confessing... and since she's apparently in a weird sort of denial about liking him, that's not a workable plan even if Hinata could go through that conversation.'

And that knowledge meant the pinkette knew exactly what would be the best button to push in this case. Out of every single one of her hyperactive teammate's boastings, she knew which one had impacted Hinata the most; it was simply too obvious.

"So... in other words, you are giving up."

As expected, Hinata faltered... but still held. "Is it truly giving up when you already lost?"

Sakura's palms struck the table before she even knew what was going on. "It is giving up when you can try again!" She huffed, giving herself a couple seconds to calm down before she startled Hinata too much. "Like I already said... once Naruto can understand you, he won't be angry. You said he thought he was doing something wrong, but from his reaction, I get he thinks that he is the wrong. That your problem isn't with something he did, but with himself. That idiot just needs someone to enlighten him."

There was a mix of emotions on Hinata's face as Sakura explained her reasoning, and as the bluenette sank into her chair, the hints of relief, regret and hope were more prevalent than sadness."...P-perhaps. I... may try to approach him again one day, j-just not anytime soon."

"But Hinata—!"

"L-look, I have an idea," Hinata held her hand. "If... if I can't express myself when talking, I c-could write a letter to him. Or something. I just need time to put my thoughts into words, m-maybe when we aren't on such a dangerous mission..."

With some reluctance, Sakura eventually nodded. "Maybe that could work," she muttered, displeased. "We do have more pressing issues to focus on, I guess..."

"Right," Hinata agreed with a weak smile, relieved that her friend had stopped pressing the issue. The bluenette then got up and began to walk towards the refrigerator, inwardly building up some courage to make use of what Kiba had overheard a few minutes ago.

Meanwhile, Sakura started to fidget, playing with her hair nervously. "...Still, isn't there something I can do to help?"

"H-help with w-what?" Hinata stuttered, unused to lying so shamelessly like that.

"Um, I... well, I guess if I had just eaten my breakfast in silence earlier this morning, none of this would have happened. I know you said Naruto would eventually start to ask questions anyways," she said quickly before Hinata could interrupt, "but maybe things would have turned out differently if I hadn't been so... pushy."

In truth, Sakura was mostly wanting to get rid of the guilt she began to feel as Hinata told her exactly how wrong things had gone with Naruto, and struggled to accept that this time she had to stay put lest she made things even worse.

Grabbing a pot that she knew Tsunami had left the previous day's leftovers in, Hinata quickly closed the refrigerator and went about reheating its contents.

"If you don't make it clear to her that you disliked what she did, trust me: it will happen again," she remembered Kiba's words, and what he had suggested afterwards. Hinata wasn't sure if she could—or should—pull off something like that, but decided to trust in her friend's words and at least try to.

Making use of the fact she had her back to Sakura, Hinata took a deep breath and steeled herself.

"I think you've helped me enough for a day."

The frigid tone of the Hyuuga's voice made Sakura wince, realizing that Kiba had been correct.

"...I'm sorry," Sakura eventually gathered the courage to speak. "When... I never imagined things would go off-rails like this. Now you're mad at me, aren't you?"

"...No. Not anymore, at least," Hinata confessed. Though she felt annoyed with her friend when on her way to find Naruto, she knew the only guilty party regarding the events that followed was herself, as it was her hesitation that became her downfall. Still, she understood that Sakura didn't believe as much and was looking for a way to "repent," and Hinata had just the right task for the pinkette.

"But, there is something you can do to make us even."

Silence issued, but Sakura was too curious to let it linger for too long. "What is it?!"

"Sasuke-san has gone to the forest to train some more, hasn't he?"

"Yeah... so what?"

"He will miss dinner..."

Sakura, perhaps due to being a little tired after a day of mostly theoretical lessons, took a fair bit of time to understand where the conversation was headed. By the time the food Hinata had just taken from the refrigerator became hot once again, Sakura figured out the answer on her own and began to pale.

"Y-you can't be serious! I mean, I can't—"

The pinkette's never finished that phrase, as the shy Hyuuga turned around, wearing her best imitation of her father's glare. It was enough to silence Sakura instantly.

"I will not be the only one that has to go through that."

---

'Ugh, I guess I deserved it...' Sakura thought, walking through the now dark woods while holding the pot of food Hinata had re-heated. On her kunai pouch was a scroll with cooking utensils sealed: cutlery and two bowls, one for Sasuke and another for herself.

'But there was no need to rub it in my face like that,' she remembered with some annoyance how Kiba had shot a knowing smirk at her as she left Tazuna's house, leaving the "I told you so" all but unsaid.

Given that the dynamics between herself and Sasuke were drastically different from Naruto and Hinata's, she knew the chances of her burning that bridge were incredibly low. In hindsight, she wondered if Hinata was aware of that and was just trying to help, or just pushed her to go through the same experience in hopes of seeing her crash and burn. 'Nah, Hinata's not like that... but I know that mutt had a hand in this. There's no way Hinata would come up with something like this on her own... heck, she isn't the type to hold grudges, either.'

Once again, Kiba's smirk flashed on her mind. The Inuzuka didn't show any sort of surprise at knowing where she was headed and why, unlike Shino and Kurenai. That he was involved somehow was clear to Sakura. Nonetheless, she owned it to Hinata to try and make some use of her situation. In the end, her problem in going near Sasuke lately was similar to Hinata's own struggles to even speak with Naruto, so it could benefit everyone involved if she were to be successful.

'And I do need to follow my own advices. I pushed Hinata to conquer her fears even though I was just running away.' Thinking back, Sakura realized that even what she had spoken about Naruto to Hinata in the kitchen moments ago could reflect her own situation with her crush. Deep down, she was aware that Sasuke likely didn't hold her failure to help when Zabuza attacked against her, so why let that hold her back? 'Maybe I'll have better luck than Hinata did...'

Kurenai's speech back on Training Ground 5 had stayed her hand so far, but while it made Sasuke more open to her presence... it hadn't been enough to make him take the initiative to interact with herself as he had done with Naruto. "It's up to me to go on the offensive... and that's exactly what I'm going to do!"

Determined, Sakura kept walking, until she reached the same clearing where she knew Sasuke would have been at. Or should've been at, given that there was nobody there.

"...Where is he?"

The pinkette walked around the area aimlessly looking everywhere, but there wasn't even a hint of someone else's presence. She began to feel worried, wondering if perhaps something had happened to her Uchiha teammate... and just before the thought passed across her head, she heard a loud thud behind her and instantly turned around.

"What are you—"

Sakura shrieked, leaving Sasuke's question unfinished, and his ears hurting. It could have been worse; if the girl hadn't been holding their food she might have punched him or even used a weapon on instinct.

"Holy shit!" Sakura shouted, rightfully angry. "Did you have to land behind me like that?! You scared me!"

"...It's dark. I didn't recognize you right away," he said, looking away at the last moment in slight embarrassment.

Sakura realized that was the closest thing to an apology that she would be getting. "...No, it's fine," she shook her head, wondering when her heart would stop pounding from the scare. "That was a good move on your part, I guess. If I were an enemy."

"...You didn't answer my question."

"I... came to bring dinner."

Given that her entire body language screamed of discomfort, Sasuke knew Sakura hadn't been the one to come up with this idea. The alternative made a small smirk appear on his face. "Heh... Hyuuga made you do this, didn't she?" Sakura looked shocked for a moment, before nodding once.

Sasuke could only wonder if Sakura had made the mistake of pressing Hinata while the girl was in the kitchen of all places...

"I-I suppose it's only fair... and training with your stomach empty wouldn't have done you any good." The girl's brow furred, forcefully switching gears to avoid the topic. "I bet you aren't getting very far with tree climbing this night, right?"

"That's..." Sasuke sighed. "Yeah. How did you know?"

Disappointed, Sakura shook her head. "Did you forget about what I said about the composition of chakra? You need physical energy to mold it properly, Sasuke-kun. If you are hungry then things won't work out," she scolded him, with a lot more calm than she would have if dealing with Naruto, Sasuke noted.

"Then let's eat before it gets too dark," Sasuke said, moving towards a part of the wooded area that was brighter, due to the lack of trees and branches to stop the last bits of sunlight from getting in.

As Sakura went about unsealing what was supposed to be Hinata's cooking scroll, Sasuke couldn't help but thank Kurenai for the events that happened on Training Ground 5. Despite still not liking that she had messed with such sensitive memories and even his fears, he knew that Sakura would have been hyper at the private dinner they were having if not for Kurenai's stunt with the Itachi genjutsu.

Even though he was quite sure that camping in the dark with reheated food was far from whatever romantic scenario the girl fantasized about.

But Sakura was very subdued around him, and Sasuke couldn't figure out the reason why. From his part, he understood that the awkwardness came from his crippled social life. Itachi dominated his existence too intensely for other people to have mattered... but Sakura had friends before. At first, he considered that perhaps it was shame for how obsessive she acted towards himself, but she had shown no such behavior when interacting with Naruto.

"So," Sakura began after a few instants of quietude, "how did you like today's lesson?"

"It was fine," the Uchiha shrugged. "I didn't think I'd get too much out of genjutsu lessons, but this was one worth not training for a day."

Allowing Kiba and especially Naruto to catch up to him was unacceptable, but he didn't regret going along with Sakura's machinations.

That day, Kurenai had taught about genjutsu that relied on the user's imagination to work, rather than having specific predetermined effects. It was a complex lesson that covered the bases the illusions needed to work without interference, how to create "points" where the illusion could shift based on the victim's choices, how to dull the senses that could give the illusion away... and, of course, such knowledge was put to use with more D-ranked genjutsu. Shino was the ideal target, who knew exactly when and how an illusion had been placed on him thanks to his bugs, and could judge whether the techniques were convincing.

"Oh, she did say something about the Sharingan's genjutsu working that way, right?" Sakura asked, to which Sasuke nodded as he ate.

"She probably asked Kakashi-sensei for help on that one," he theorized, remembering how the Genjutsu Mistress admitted to being unfamiliar with his future dojutsu during their first meeting.

"You got lucky that she did. I'm not too sure that Kakashi would give such a lesson to help you out, even though that is probably the biggest reason he became our sensei," Sakura commented. Given the jonin's apparent dislike of mince-meating information and overall laziness, Sakura was actually rather surprised he had given such a throughout lecture on the elements the other day. 'He can actually be a decent teacher when he gets bothered to try...'

"Hn," Sasuke agreed. "And what about you? Was the lesson you wanted so much worth kicking me, in the end?"

"Eheheheh... I didn't actually say sorry for that one yet, right...?" After a quick apology, which Sasuke did not react to outwardly much to the girl's annoyance, Sakura answered his question. "You know... I'm not that happy with the lesson. Not that it wasn't interesting—it was! But I dunno, I guess I was expecting something more substantial. Though... it's not like it would matter. I'd be useless during the rest of our mission anyways, stuck defending Tazuna-san with Shino..." she muttered, taking a bite out of her food.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "You do know only the jonin would be fighting, don't you?"

While her mouth was full, Sakura made sure to give Sasuke the flattest look she could manage. "...Really, Sasuke-kun? Have you forgotten about that fake hunter-nin guy? There's no way that our sensei will split up, especially not with that mist. At least a few of us will end up fighting him, and that's while hoping he is Zabuza's only backup."

Sasuke shrugged off her remark. "I was unconscious at the time; did you really expect me to remember that?" The girl flinched for a moment, and he chose backtrack a little. "You are right, however. Fighting on that mist will be difficult..."

It had been an amazing stroke of luck that Zabuza had chosen to toy with them and to give them a minimal chance of fighting back. If it wasn't for his careless actions, Kakashi and Kurenai would have never arrived on time, Sasuke believed. He didn't know for sure because he only got a second-hand account from Naruto while climbing trees the previous mornings, but it was a fair guess that the mist would have doomed them all if it had been in play.

"..."

Sasuke watched warily as his companion refused to say anything in response and went back to her food. She had a weird expression on her face and he couldn't gauge what exactly could be passing through her head at that moment. The pinkette seemed conflicted about something... and eventually, once both were basically done with their meals, the girl began to speak. "I... Sasuke-kun, I need to say something to you."

Sakura correctly assumed that the raven's raised brow was a silent "go on" and averted her gaze to the grass for a brief moment.

"I'm sorry for letting you down before..."

That Sasuke couldn't understand what the pinkette meant already told him that she was probably overthinking something. "What are you talking about?"

"Back there with Zabuza... you trusted me to give you an opening, but I didn't understand right away what you were trying to do! Because... because of that your Great Fireball missed and, and then you got atta—!"

"Sakura!"

"Uh, w-what...?" the girl asked, dazed.

"Breathe."

"A... alright."

Sakura took a moment to recompose herself while Sasuke watched her warily. While she had been talking her voice had started to get louder and that distressed expression he had seen on her face before the Demon Brothers attack returned. He simply couldn't stand there idly while the girl freaked out like that.

On the back of his mind, he realized at that moment that he had begun to actually care at one point...

"Sorry about that..." the girl apologized uneasily and went back into silence. Sakura knew that Sasuke deserved to know why she almost had a panic attack at that moment, given that she had apparently worried him... but knowing that he had much bigger ghosts haunting him made her unable to open up. She had no right to bother him with her much smaller problems...

"No... you don't understand." Hinata's words suddenly echoed in her mind. "Every time I spoke with him so far, i-it was all leading up to this."

'Am... am I doing the same mistake?' she wondered. Her situation was different from Hinata's, but the thought refused to leave her...

And while Sakura debated with herself, Sasuke frowned. The girl's silence was becoming irritant, and he found himself almost missing the pink-haired chatterbox that she had been for the better part of his life. This was something he never imagined he would think... ever.

"I don't blame you," he spoke. "And even if I did, part of it is on me. You figured out that what I wanted even though we had never talked about using this kind of strategy... and besides, we were fighting a jonin. I didn't even expect to hit him."

In truth, while part of him had dared to hope, he hadn't been optimistic enough to believe a man that apparently was good enough to slay both Kakashi and Kurenai could have been defeated so easily... but the instinct to survive still lead him to try.

Though Sakura still felt conflicted, a small smile of relief blossomed on her face. "Thank you... I was being silly, wasn't I?"

After the incident at breakfast, Sasuke held himself back from answering that. Nodding noncommittally and with a little hesitation—perfectly hidden by his usual stoic expression—he decided to steer the conversation to a more sensitive topic. "It's just like what happened with my brother during that genjutsu."

As he had expected, the girl's smile fell immediately, but he didn't falter. "I didn't really expect any of us to actually come even close to hurting them."

"I suppose you didn't expect any of us to be completely useless either," she shot back without missing a beat.

Done with his food, Sasuke lowered the bowl to the grass. "Kurenai-sensei went to talk with you the day after she arrived..." he trailed off, leaving his question unspoken and giving Sakura the chance to brush it off if she didn't want to talk about it.

She didn't, but refused his offer. "Y-yeah... she wanted to apologize to me again about the genjutsu and for not thoroughly thinking about the impacts it could have on us. It was kinda awkward, though."

The Uchiha frowned. Now, after watching both jonin-sensei for a while, he was sure the two had been aware that their current mission was much more than a simple C-rank from the very beginning. There were other hints, but the incident with the World of Nightmares illusion and the lecture that followed were simply too extreme for a jonin to use without really needing to; there were better ways of giving the same lesson to Team 7, but he knew none of them would work as well in the short-term,

Sakura merely though the boy was somewhat angered by the older kunoichi's "carelessness", and continued. "Then she went to say some stuff about how "failing today cannot stop you from trying to succeed tomorrow" and similar stuff. She also asked for more details on why I passed out and I told her."

"You passed out?" Internally, Sasuke cursed himself, and then cursed Naruto. He should have taken the time to get Hinata's account of the battle rather than settling just with the Uzumaki's. He thought that Sakura had been knocked out somehow, but he never actually broached that subject with the blond.

"I... Zabuza... when he kicked you into that tree, what happened in that genjutsu came up again in my mind even though I didn't want to think about it. I think that and the killer intent overwhelmed me..." she muttered with some shame, but unlike a certain Hyuuga she knew, Sakura refused to simply assume what Sasuke was thinking. Even though the darkening sky made his black orbs harder to see, her gaze was firmly trained on them.

There was no repulsion, no disappointment and not even anger.

"After I said that I asked her about how the battle ended up and... well, one thing led to another and we kind got off-topic when she explained what that hunter-nin did," the pinkette explained, more relaxed than before. "Kurenai-sensei also said a few things about therapy to help me... and even some form of therapy involving genjutsu."

Sasuke noted the skepticism in her voice. "I think this could help you."

"But... look, it was just an illusion, right? N-nothing really happened, so... I dunno. Isn't it a little excessive to have therapy just for that?"

"If it's affecting you enough, then it isn't such a small issue. Didn't you think you were over what happened before we faced Zabuza?" Sakura opened her mouth to retort but quickly realized Sasuke was telling the truth. Could she risk such an event happening again?

"And... I know this wasn't exactly Kurenai's intention, but that genjutsu ended up helping me. You shouldn't dismiss her input just because of one bad experience."

The girl's eyes widened as her mouth almost hit the floor. Luckily, she had been done with her meal a while ago. "That helped you? But how?!"

The boy took a few moments to gather his thoughts before speaking.

"It's true that it was a violent illusion; Itachi was just as ruthless as the real deal would have been. But... I lost to him." Sasuke raised his head, and to his luck, he caught a glimpse of the crescent moon on the purple-orange sky. "In that moment, some part of me made peace with the fact that I had failed. Between that and the fight, I had a way of releasing some of this... this fury that was inside me. It was... cathartic."

"But... you still want your revenge, don't you?"

"Of course," he answered instantly, now looking at her again, almost as if piercing the girl's soul with his gaze. "That release wasn't enough to keep the nightmares away or erasing the past. Itachi will die and it will be by my hands, just as my parents and clan's deaths were by his."

Sakura shuddered at the intensity of her teammate's voice; at the blazing fire she could see in his eyes. Black and all-consuming...

"But now I feel much better than before. It's like I can see things more clearly, almost as if these feelings—this burden—were slowly consuming me." Sasuke paused. 'No, not almost... they were. Perhaps still are,' he conceded. Only after killing Itachi he would be able to correctly judge that.

"I... see." Sakura had never expected that Sasuke would open up to her like that. She had seen glimpses of it before: Sasuke's introduction to Kakashi and the ferocity he had displayed when confronting Itachi both verbally and physically being the biggest. The first one she had just plainly ignored as she swooned over how her crush was so cool and manly despite a small part of her acknowledging how messed up his ambition was... and, of course, she had been far too scared to actually let all the implications of Kurenai's illusion to sink in right away.

But his words allowed her to step back, look at the big picture, and understand just how much that quest for vengeance ruled over Sasuke's mind. ''His only reason for living is this revenge. How horrible...'

And while Sakura was processing all of that, Sasuke began to feel silly. Even though he had ignored trivial things such as making friendships and small talk with others, he was sure that he had killed the conversation right there. Just what kind of meaningful answer could she give after hearing what he had said?

'I really suck at this,' he thought. 'I guess I'll just get up and go back to training then.'

It seemed like the best plan to end the conversation as it obviously wasn't going to go anywhere, but Sakura had other plans.

"Sasuke-kun. You know, I was serious about what I said the day before we left." The boy's blank stare forced her to elaborate. "About helping you against your brother one day... I meant it. I'm weak right now, but one day I will be someone you can count on watching your back no matter who stands in our way!"

Just as her words implied, Sasuke could see that the girl's green eyes held no hints of deceit. Instead, there was only determination in there... and it made no sense at all to him. It hadn't before, but he had been so overwhelmed by the promise his teammates had made that he hadn't dwelt on it.

And yet, later that night he had. Though Naruto wasn't with them, Sasuke could answer some of his questions right there, right then.

"But why? Why would you say something like that? This... isn't your problem."

"Because I want to help you be free. Of this hate, of these nightmares... of those ghosts. It's killing you from inside out, Sasuke-kun." Sasuke's eyes widened as he watched a slight blush crept up on Sakura's features, leaving her cheeks resembling the shade of her hair. Her sorrowful expression still held, however. "A-and I'm doing this for myself as well. Not to mention Naruto promised to help you too, and you two need someone to make sure Itachi doesn't win the fight without even doing anything because you killed each other," she said in a hurry, trying to lighten the mood

Slowly, a small, amused smile crept up on his face. "I guess if there is anyone obnoxious enough to distract me like that even during such a fight, it would be him."

"Right?" Sakura answered with a smile of her own, though her face was still slightly rosed. It fell slightly when Sasuke's did, as he got up to loom over her.

"But I'm not in this just for revenge anymore."

"You're... not?"

He shook his head. "When he was about to kill me, on that genjutsu... I asked him why."

The girl's features hardened. She knew that whatever his question had been, a figment of his own imagination corrupted by another person couldn't have given him the real answer.

"At the time I didn't have the strength to say anything but that word, but once I knew that I couldn't avenge anyone anymore, I just felt like knowing the truth. Why he killed our clan. Why he killed our parents. Why he just attacked me instead of killing me too... why he changed so much from the kind brother I grew up with..."

For the first time in many years, Sasuke let himself remember the gentle person that he came to know as his brother. Sakura could see in his eyes just how vulnerable he was at that moment and looked away, feeling as if she was intruding on something she had no right to. Not only because of his words in particular, but because of what lay beneath them.

'Was he even aware of what he said...?'

"I never once stopped to ask myself his reasons to betray everyone and everything," he continued.

"And now that you have questions, you want answers, don't you?" Sakura asked, looking up to him again just in time to see him nodding before turning back.

"And I'm not resting until I have them."

He did not wait for an answer after that. Focusing his chakra, he soon took off towards a specific tree in the woods, drawing a kunai as he ran.

The girl watched him, torn on the inside as she remembered one sentence in particular that had stood out to her.

"Why he just attacked me instead of killing me too..."

Sakura refused to acknowledge how his tone had changed at that moment, and what his wording implied... but just the same, from those words she had just found a new reason to be there for him when the time came to face Itachi.

Feeling determination welling up inside herself once more, Sakura quickly sealed the bowls and pot, pocketing the scroll before heading towards a random tree away from Sasuke's path. The girl sat down and prepared herself to continue her elemental training.

There was still a long road to walk before confronting Itachi "once again", and Sakura knew those were just the first steps. Sasuke, who had been still running over a tree, was also aware of that fact.

Perhaps now that he chose to understand his brother instead of just killing him, his path became harder to walk.

Now, however, it no longer was a path he had to walk alone.

---

A/N:

Hey!

A fair bit long, huh? That's what my break from college did to me! Pity that it will be over soon but eh...

I recently got some news about a change in my work hours. My shift moved from 9:00-16:00 to 11:30-17:30 and that gives me more time to work both on my studies and in college. And that's without a salary change! (in terms. They no longer pay for our food, which is about 380 Reais per month or 19 per day.)

So, hopefully, nothing like last chapter's delay will happen again...

Anyways, regarding this chapter. Though I didn't exactly plan for it, the chapter's theme kinda became whether or not forcing (or just heavily incentivizing) people to grow works better than letting things flow naturally, at their own pace.

Kakashi and Kurenai have conflicting views, but both concede that the other's approach can work better at times, even if it can backfire partially like what you saw with this fic's Sakura... or heavily, like canon's Sasuke. There is no right answer to this, hence the title (also reflects a bit on how Naruto thinks he figured out the "enigmatic" Hinata). Even Kakashi's approach had some good on it, because Team 7 would have bonded naturally if it had not been for Orochimaru's intervention and later Itachi being a dumbass.

...I'm also aware that I said this chapter would likely finish when the big battle was about to begin, but not only this chapter became too big, but I also chose to not screw future me's life by making the entirety of chapter 13 action-based. There are better chances of me ending chapter 13 at the point I want to end it with this setup. But I am sure that it won't be a full extra month.

Again on that point, I might delay the next chapter due to increased length solely because of the plan I spoke of above. Keep an eye out on the total word count changes on my profile by the end of August, alright?

And, well, this chapter was pretty eventful. I'd like to hear what you guys thought about it, ok! See ya, and look forward to action when Chapter 13 arrives! Whenever that is...

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Changelog:

1.0 to 1.1 (11/12/2016)

After noticing a small segment of the chapter was missing, thanks to Kartikey, I went back to the part where Naruto "solves the puzzle" to place what should've been there to begin with and polish a couple parts.