When Sasuke awoke the next day, images of the previous day flooded his mind. There was Naruto telling him, that he had the Kyuubi sealed within him for the past fifteen years. That single fact was weighing heavily on Sasuke's mind.
"If I knew he had the Kyuubi, than I never would have left. There's no way I can hope to come close to the amount of chakra Naruto must have. If the fourth couldn't kill it, than there is no way in hell that I can kill it. I'm one selfish bastard."
Sasuke's thoughts were interrupted by a check up from Tsunade and the news that he couldn't leave for a few more day, but he was allowed some visitors, although they would be limited to his former team. Surprisingly enough, the first one to show up was Naruto. The blonde had come incase Sasuke needed to talk about what he had learned. Initially, that is how the conversation began. But after half an hour of talking about the Kyuubi and Naruto, the conversation shifted towards the village.
"Say, Naruto, h-how are all of the others? I'm kinda surprised that Sakura hasn't shown up yet." Sasuke joked.
"Well, I've been out training for the past three years, and I just got back a few days ago, but from what I can tell, they're all fine. Neji is a jounin, and everyone else is a chunnin, except for me. I think the reason that Sakura-chan isn't here is because she started dating Rock Lee. She seems pretty happy." Naruto recapped his talks with the other former rookies.
"Sakura and Lee?" Asked a shocked Sasuke. "I do not want to think about what their kids would look like."
"Yeah, just imagine it. Pink-fuzzy brows!" Exclaimed Naruto.
Both teenagers found this extremely hilarious and spent the next minute or two laughing.
"Do…do you think that they'll hate me?" Sasuke asked after regaining his composure, instantly killing the light mood.
"I don't know Sasuke. I doubt that Sakura will, and I don't. I doubt that Shino will, but then again, no one can tell what he's feeling. I think that the five of us that went off after you the first time, might think you are great big idiot, but I doubt anyone will hate you. Heck, I bet Ino tries to ask you out within twenty minutes of you leaving this place."
"I hope you're right Naruto. I really do, because I'm going to gain all of their trust back." Said Sasuke.
Naruto took a look at the clock on the wall and realized that he had to meet with Tsunade in a few minutes.
"Hey, I've got to meet with Tsunade-obaa-chan in a few minutes, but after that I'll try to make it back here." As Naruto moved towards the door, he stopped and without turning around said "Sasuke, you are like the brother I never had. If you need anything while you're here or even after you get out, just find me."
With those words, Naruto left leaving Sasuke to his thoughts once again.
Naruto waited outside Tsunade's office. She was meeting with some representatives from Suna and was about to finish up. When the representatives left, Shizune motioned form Naruto to enter. Naruto walked into the room and saw that the Hokage was smiling.
"Meeting go that good?" He asked.
"Well, it went all right, but I've never been great with diplomacy. I called you here, for a bit of good news. Since you retrieved Uchiha Sasuke, I'm going to officially promote you to chunnin, and before you say anything, I would have promoted you to Jounin, based on Jiraiya's report, but since the Jounin exams are in a couple of months, I think you can gain the title then." With that, she handed Naruto a chunnin vest.
"Thanks, Baa-chan, I'll definitely enter the next jounin exam, and kick everyone's ass too!" Replied the overly exuberant boy before a fist connected with his face.
"WHAT HAVE I SAID ABOUT CALLING ME THAT!" The Hokage yelled.
Unbeknownst to Konoha and at the exact moment Naruto was being promoted, the remaining members of Akatsuki were meeting. The leader of the shadowy organization spoke first. Although this was uncharacteristic of the leader, not too many people would know it. But the members of Akatsuki did. If the leader was speaking, than something bad had happened.
"As you can see, Itachi and Kisame are not here. That is because they were killed while attempting to capture the two-tailed demon."
This caused a large amount of chatter to break out between partners.
"Also, as you nay notice, Deidara is missing. She failed in her mission to capture the one-tails and was killed by him. Sasori has already moved to replace her, but I fear that time will not allow this. With three of our members dead, and the return of the nine-tailed brat, I believe that we must abandon our earlier plans. If we do not capture him now, than he may grow too powerful and all will be lost, I want the five of you remaining to capture the Kyuubi vessel within the next month. The Jounin exams are coming, and although it would provide the perfect opportunity to take him and the two-tails, we must act swiftly, before he is out of our grasp. As he is now, only the five of you have a hope to take him alive. He has released 4 out of the nine tails, and it only took 3 to kill Kisame and Itachi."
With those instructions, the leader's shadowy figure disappeared, leaving the five remaining members to sort out their plans.
When Naruto entered Sasuke's room Sasuke was shocked to see the blonde boy sporting his newly acquired vest.
"Chunnin now, eh?" Asked the black haired boy.
"Yep, and Baa-chan said she would have made me a jounin, but since the exams are only a few months off, she wants me to take the test." Replied Naruto. "I'm sorry, but this is gonna have to be kinda short, I promised someone I'd meet them in a little bit. So is there anything you nee?"
"No, I'm fine, but I am interested, who are you meeting?" Asked Sasuke.
"Hinata and I are going to train for a while. I told her I'd help her with some stuff." Came Naruto's reply.
Sasuke just smiled as Naruto exited the hospital for the second time that day.
'Maybe you'll finally get it.' He thought
Hinata was waiting at the training field were team seven used to meet. She was waiting for Naruto, but in the mean time, she was occupied with Sakura.
"S-Sakura-san did y-y-you k-know that N-Naruto-kun's birthday is in a week?" The shy girl asked
"WHAT? IT IS?" Obviously Sakura didn't know.
"G-gomen, I thought y-you'd know, s-s-since he is your teammate."
"You don't have to apologize, Hinata, but please, quit calling me 'Sakura-san' it makes me feel old. I wonder why he never told us? Generally you want to celebrate these kinds of things."
"M-maybe it's b-because it's the same day as the festival?" Hinata said, knowing full well why he didn't tell anyone.
"We should throw a party or something, shouldn't we?" Asked Sakura
"Th-that would b-be nice." Responded Hinata. "W-why do-don't you i-invite a-all of his f-fr-friends and I'll h-help you p-pl-plan."
Just then Naruto arrived and all talk of a party vanished. The two girls both noticed Naruto's new chunnin vest and complimented him on his new rank and achievement. Sakura left, making up some excuse about taking Lee out shopping for something that wasn't green spandex.
"Ne, Hinata-chan, how has training with your demon been? I haven't heard anything; I was just hoping it was going fine." Ventured Naruto.
"Oh, i-it's fine Naruto-kun. The Nibi is teaching me a lot about medicine, especially what kinds of plants can be used for what. I've also learned some other stuff, but most of the material is medicine related." She answered.
"That's great, the baka-kitsune doesn't teach me anything, although I don't know were he would find the time, between threatening to kill me and everything I hold dear, and yelling at me." He joked.
The two trained until lunch, when Hinata had to return home, for training with her father. He had taken a new interest in her training, now that she could control the chakra of the nibi. He had lowered his standards a bit, but with the huge amount of chakra, plus a few tips from the swan demon, Hinata was shattering the new and old standards into pieces. Hiashi couldn't have been more proud of his daughter, because she was finally becoming the heiress he knew should would. After the defeat of the Council, a new council had been formed, albeit a weaker one. Now the Hiashi was in control of the destiny of the Hyuuga, and not relying on a group of old senile men. Although there were some who disapproved of the changes, they were in the minority. No one paid any attention to the remaining conservatives, because they welcomed the new Hiashi and more confidant Heiress with open arms, and there was much rejoicing.
Now the aforementioned group of conservatives, who didn't support the new way, were scheming something. Exactly what no one was sure of, and due to their secretive nature, no one even knew that they were scheming anything. But a plan was being hatched as the two demon vessels went on their divergent paths. There was only one part missing, and then they could act.
History books would later show that had the dissenters been more informed on the state of the Hyuuga or had they simply thought of this plan three years earlier, then they might have succeeded. Instead, they attempted to convince Hyuuga Neji, that it would be in his best interest to kill his younger Cousin. Needless to say, the Hyuuga genius declined their offer, and proceeded to beat the members of this group into submission. The greatest part of the fight, wasn't Neji's use of Hakkeshou: Rokujuu Yonshou, but the look on the faces of the main house members, when they tried to activate the caged bird seal placed on his forehead. Ironically, the seal had only been removed that morning as a favor to Hinata.
When Hinata entered the compound she found her father and Neji discussing the attempted coup. Training began with a warm-up spar between Hiashi and the two cousins, one at a time. He was very impressed by the two. Where Neji was very powerful he would at times be slightly off center in his strikes. Hinata wasn't as powerful, but she was far more accurate.
Day after day, Hinata would meet Naruto, and then return to train with her family, soon a week had passed, and it was October 10. Hinata and Sakura had found out that the hard part of having a birthday party on the day of a major festival, was getting everyone in one place long enough to hold a decent party. Eventually, they had gotten everyone to agree to a noon party, so that they could have lunch and the party at the same time. Now the problem was getting the birthday boy to come. The original idea had been to have Tsunade summon him under the pretense of a mission, or meeting, but she had slept in late and hadn't had time to send a note. Since Kakashi couldn't be trusted to leave and return in a timely fashion, and Sakura had to finish decorating, the job fell to Hinata.
She had made her ways through the throngs of people celebrating the defeat of the demon and reached Naruto's apartment. Knocking, she waited for the boy to answer.
"Who's there?" He called through the door
"It's me, Naruto-kun." Hinata said but the noise from the festivities drowned out her voice.
"Either you left, or you need to speak up, 'cuz I couldn't hear you." Came Naruto's reply.
"IT'S ME NARUTO-KUN, PLEASE OPEN THE DOOR." The girl yelled over the noise.
Recognizing the voice as Hinata's he cautiously opened the door, and ushered her into the house.
"It's good to see you, Hinata-chan, I don't usually go out today. What do you need?" He asked.
"Hokage-sama wanted you to meet her in her office." She lied.
"Ok, but we'll need to think of a way to get there without me being spotted. People tend to get pissy at me today. I guess they don't like being reminded that what they're celebrating just walked past them." He said rather dejectedly.
A few minutes later, Hinata and Naruto were leaping across roofs in an attempt to reach Tsunade's office. They reached the office without incident and waited to enter. Shizune told them, that Tsunade was meeting with someone, but in reality Sakura was finishing up decorating.
When they were finally allowed to enter, Naruto was met by a collective
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"
Looking around the room, all of the Rookie nine and Gai's team were there, along with Konohamaru and his friends, Moegi and Udon. The room was decorated with orange streamers, pinned to the wall with kunai, and there was a large cake with a large swirl design decorating the top. Naruto was actually struck dumb at the site. It was the best birthday party he had ever been to, although he didn't really have anything to compare it to.
Ramen was served for lunch, and it was all Hinata and Tsunade could do to stop an eating contest between Naruto and Choji from breaking out and bankrupting the town. After lunch, Naruto received his many gifts and then the large group dug into the cake. The party lasted an impressive five hours. At six everyone wished Naruto a Happy Birthday one more time before joining the festivities. Except for Naruto, Tsunade and Hinata and Sasuke. The three remaining guests and resident birthday boy cleaned up the office before heading home.
Tracing their exact route from before, Hinata and Naruto returned to the apartment and Naruto invited Hinata in for a while. He placed his mountain of gifts in his room and headed back to Hinata who was sitting in the kitchen, waiting for some water to boil for tea.
"Thank you, Hinata-chan, this was the best birthday ever!" Naruto said, grinning.
"You're welcome, Naruto-kun, it was nothing really." She replied, blushing slightly at the compliment.
'Man is she cute when she blushes.' Naruto thought, bringing a slight blush to his cheeks. 'Maybe I should tell her how I feel. I mean she did throw this party for me, and I really do like her.'
But just as he was about to confess his inner most feelings for the shy girl, the water began to boil and she went to take it off the stove. Over tea, the two talked about different things, from new jutsus to gossip. But after a couple of hours, Hinata had to leave.
"I'm sorry Hinata, I don't think I can walk you home tonight, I'm afraid that the villagers might take out their frustrations on you." Naruto said.
"No, it's okay Naruto-kun, I understand. Besides it's not that late yet, so I'll be fine."
He walked her to the door, and suddenly pulled her into a hug, thanking her for the party. The shy girl blushed a furious shade of red at the close contact and stammered a "You're welcome" back. As she left and disappeared into the night, two people thought the same thing at the same time.
'Damn it, I couldn't tell him/her how I feel.'