Hinata woke up to the smell of ramen. Bright sunlight was streaming in through a sliver of exposed canvas. She groggily raised her head.

"Good morning, Hinata!" Naruto said.

She slowly crawled out of her sleeping bag. It seemed like no one had stopped Naruto from packing instant noodles on a mission. Again.

Yet something was very strange. Naruto was smiling at her almost bashfully with spots of pink on his cheeks. He was totally ignoring the noodles that were sure to have been boiling for well over three minutes on the portable stove that Sakura had brought along.

"Naruto-kun? Why didn't you use Boil Release?" she asked, finally fully awake.

"Boil Release?" he repeated, still smiling.

"Yes, like you did when we were on that mission with Kiba-kun and Shino-kun."

"Oh...oh, right!" He laughed sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head. "I, um...I was going to, but then I thought that the noodles might get cold by the time you woke up, so I thought heating it would be better and – "

The pot began smoking and a charred smell hung in the air.

Naruto had accidentally overcooked the ramen. He hastily turned off the stove.

"I'm so sorry, Hinata! I was just waiting for you to wake up and I totally forgot about the noodles."

He stared ruefully at the ramen. Hinata assessed the soupy, slightly burnt contents.

"Naruto-kun, it's only slightly burnt. Most of it is still edible," she reassured.

"Oh...okay," he said. He sighed in relief.

Naruto tried to ladle out some of the ramen for her, but his hands were shaking so badly that he spilled some all over his prosthetic hand.

What was happening? She knew that Naruto was clumsy sometimes, but he was never this way when it came to ramen.

She reached over and took the pot and ladle from him. As her fingers brushed against his bandaged hand, the two tiny pink spots on his cheeks blossomed into large pools of rosy red.

"Naruto-kun, are you all right?" she asked.

"I...I'm fine," he said shyly, averting his eyes and smiling.

She put her hand on his forehead and almost baked under the heat of his blush.

"Naruto-kun, you're burning up. Why didn't you tell me that you're sick?" she asked.

"I'm...I'm not sick," Naruto squeaked cutely. She ignored him. Hanabi would say the same thing when she wasn't feeling well either. She knew how to deal with their type.

"I'll get Sakura-san. Just hold on," she said, leaving the tent.

She returned within moments with a very sleep-deprived Sakura in tow.

The medic-nin took a seat. "All right, Naruto, what's this about a fever?" she asked briskly.

"I'm fine, Sakura-chan!" Naruto protested as she too placed her hand on his forehead.

"No, you have a slight cold," said Sakura. She glanced at the overcooked ramen. "I guess, for once, you did carry the best food for a time like this. Drink something hot every few hours to clear up any congestion and you'll be fine. I'm leaving now. Someone needs to discuss strategy with Shikamaru..."

"Thank you, Sakura-san," Hinata called out to her retreating form before turning back to Naruto. "Naruto-kun, you take half and I'll take half, okay?"

"Okay..." Naruto began to unwind the soaked bandages wrapped around his prosthetic arm. Hinata couldn't help but stare.

The arm did look like a human arm; but it was as white as the bark of a poplar tree, a stark contrast to the rest of his suntanned skin.

He noticed her looking and smiled gently.

"I haven't shown you my new arm before, right?" He extended his arm towards her in an invitation to touch it.

His hand was just as big and warm as usual.

Some things just didn't change.

Naruto wasn't wearing the scarf. The thought gave Hinata some pause before she turned her attention on the landscape below.

Time was running out. She swept the landscape with her Byakugan, zeroing in on any trace or inkling of Hanabi or the enemy.

As they journeyed far and wide, Hinata's thoughts went on overdrive.

Whenever she stared at the back of Naruto's exposed neck, for some reason, the image of his beautiful mother came to mind.

She had a sneaking suspicion that everything she saw in those visions was real. She smiled to herself as she remembered kaa-chan's face and her "weird way of speaking."

So Naruto had his father's hair but his mother's face? She wondered what his future children might look like. Would they have his face or only his hair? She amused herself by imagining one of them inheriting his weird way of speaking.

The team stopped to check out an abandoned shinobi village.

Hinata wandered a little ways from Naruto to search an expansive room. Mildewed cracks lined the ancient walls and –

She yelped as she carelessly walked right into some cobwebs.

"Hinata! What's wrong?" Footsteps thudded down the corridor.

"It's just a spiderweb," she said, pulling them out of her hair.

"You can see so far with your Byakugan, but you walked right into some spiderwebs?" Naruto's eyes sparkled with humor and...something she couldn't put her finger on. "You're so silly."

He gently combed through her hair, pulling out all the cobwebs she'd missed. Heat pooled in her cheeks as she realized that the scenario was oddly similar to her genjutsu dream.

She closed her eyes as he untangled her hair. Surprisingly, his touch didn't hurt her sensitive scalp at all.

He finished off and tucked a few strands of hair behind her ears, his hand lingering a few seconds longer.

They went on and on, searching the vast village. Naruto's cold didn't seem to be letting up. He kept sneezing and rubbing his eyes blearily, occasionally wrapping his arms around his torso in a futile effort to keep warm. If that was the case, then why wasn't he wearing his scarf?

They stopped at a water fountain to take a break.

"Naruto-kun?"

"What's up?" he said, cupping some water in his palms.

"What happened to your scarf?"

"Oh, um...it's really warm here underground, so I took it off," he brazenly lied.

It was as frosty as an autumn night.

He offered her some water out of his hands.

"Really?" she asked after taking a sip. "I think it's really cold."

"Of course you'd be cold, wearing something like that." He shyly peered at her exposed arms.

"Well, this is my mission gear." Then she shyly covered her arms as they set off again.

"If you can handle this cold, then I can too, Hinata!" Naruto said competitively, then sneezed again.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, ya know?"

Naruto looked like a pouting kid with his arms crossed behind his head. Hinata tried to stifle her laugh.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

"What is it?" he pressed.

His silly persistence drew another laugh out of her.

"It's nothing!"

"You can tell me!"

Night fell and they decided to take a break in an abandoned building.

Naruto insisted on making dinner.

This time, at least, his hands were steady and he didn't burn the ramen. It seemed as though his morning clumsiness had vanished.

Hinata should have known that he would trip and fall down the stairs instead. Because he walked into a spiderweb.

Who was silly now?

"You gave me ointment during the Chuunin Exams, didn't you?" he asked when she handed him a tub of cream.

"You still remember that?"

"I only just remembered..."

His skin was still baking in a fever as she rubbed some of the ointment on his back.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

She smiled.

This feeling…

She couldn't describe it in words.

Then Hanabi's kunai fell out of her bag.

That was right. They couldn't get sidetracked.

There was a long silence.

"We need to hurry up and rescue Hanabi," Naruto said.

"Naruto-kun," started Hinata. "I need to tell you something."

"What is it?"

"It's about what Toneri's puppet said when he appeared to us at the passageway..."

"Toneri?"

"Oh, you guys are here!" said Sai's voice from the window. "Hinata-san, you need to see this."

A/N: Enjoy cute, flustered Naruto and oblivious Hinata!

Thanks for the reviews, Jove21, Iwik, ms chocoholic19, and El Publicano! I'm glad you liked the InoSai and other things I added. :)

To flamelily274: Thanks for the review. To address your point, while I don't personally hate any characters, people are free to like or dislike whoever they wish. That's not what I was talking about though. I was merely saying that I wasn't trying to portray her as a "bitch", but only as she appears in the anime/manga. But I disagree with some of the things you're saying. Just like every other character, Sakura has flaws (such as being hot-tempered and impatient with Naruto), but there's no evidence that she stalked anyone or has only surface level knowledge of Naruto, and she grew out of her "fangirl" phase very early into the story.

As for Kakashi, we do in fact see him training Team 7 on basic chakra control exercises like walking on trees, he teaches Sasuke the Chidori, and helps Naruto create Rasen-Shuriken. It's true that we don't see him giving specialized training to Sakura in Part 2/Shippuden, but that's probably because she already has Tsunade to teach her in her chosen field of medical ninjutsu, and Kakashi, as far as we know, has no special knowledge on that subject.

And...I wouldn't describe Sasuke as "depressed" when he was with Team 7. Aloof, maybe, but not depressed.

Anyway, I don't want to clog the author's notes with this anymore...

The next chapter will be Naruto's confession, and then I hope to wrap up the Last movie part of the storyline fast, so you'll get to see the aftermath of the movie! Stay tuned! :)