Hello everyone! It looks like you guys like my story, so I´ll continue. Thank you for all the nice reviews, it really encourages me to write you know? So enjoy new chapter…

Chapter three

As Naruto took the first patrol, nothing suspicious happened. Naruto only scared to death some innocent rabbit, which happened to be in wrong place at the wrong time, with kunai landing only few inches from the rabbit. Only other thing that Naruto did was taking care of the fire. After three hours he switched with Tenten and Neji. They didn´t have much work either. So they….how to say it….occupied themselves with pleasant activities. They were so much at it that they woke up Hinata and Shikamaru four hours later.

After a while Hinata decided to break the silence between her and Shikamaru. She sat next to him and asked: "Um.. Shikamaru, can you please tell me what happened today when I was captured by that water nin? You saw everything, right?"

Shikamaru looked at her, boredom evident in his dark eyes. "Geez, girls are so troublesome. That´s why I always tell Tema…,"he stopped himself right in time, "well…I´ll try. At least we will talk about something." Hinata nodded with her head. She really wanted to know how did happen to have Naruto´s face so close when she woke up and coughed some water out.

"Well as I saw it…you were fighting pretty well, before that glasses-guy captured you in that water prison. After he caught you in it, you fell unconscious. In that time Naruto defeated his enemy and saw that you were having trouble. He charged at that guy fiercely and hit him with Rasengan. After the guy was defeated, his water prison vanished. Naruto ran up to you and realized you weren´t breathing. He started to panic a lot, ya know. But then he was smart enough to do cardiac massage and mouth-to-mouth breathing…"

Hinata´s eyes widened:" What?! Naruto-kun did that? H-h-he a-actually….oh my god!" Shikamaru just raised an eyebrow at her. She looked like mad. She was mumbling incoherent words and now was walking from side to side.

-Hinata´s thoughts-

Oh my god, whatshouldidowhatshouldido? He w-was…his lips met m-mine...how should I act in front of him now? Okay I need to calm down. Calm down, Hinata, calm down. Nothing happened. He saved your life, but nothing more…but he technically kissed meee!!!"

-End of Hinata´s thoughts-

As Shikamaru watched Hinata, he could say she was having some kind of mental fight in her mind."Girls are really troublesome," he said and got up to scan the area.

Next morning everything looked normal. No enemies, no strange sounds or anything. Shikamaru called everyone:" Hey, come here, we need to think about our next steps. As you know, we defeated five guys. Three are dead, other two are now tied over there." He pointed at the small cave. There laid three ninjas. They were still unconscious and didn´t look like they were going to get up soon.

Shikamaru continued: " Hokage-sama told us there are ten people in this organization. So that means we have to take care of five other nins. I assume they already know about us and they will go after us again. The answer is: should we wait here for them or should we find them by ourselves?" Everyone was looking directly at Shikamaru, but no one said anything.

Finally Neji spoke up:" I think we have better chance here. We are familiar with this place and that will give us some advantage. Also we can set some traps here."

Shikamaru thought for a while then said: "I agree with Neji, let's go and set some traps." Everyone nodded and went to do the work.

It somehow happened that Hinata and Naruto were working on one trap together. They didn´t talk to each other, they were absolutely concentrated on their work. Naruto was the first one to speak after the trap was done.

"Fine, that was the last one. We did it, Hinata-chan." Hinata just blushed and bent her head down so he wouldn´t see it. This confused Naruto.

"Hinata-chan, are you alright? You look kind of sick, do you have fever?"he asked, worry evident in his voice.

"No, I-I´m fine, Naruto-kun. I-I just…I wanted to thank you for what you did yesterday. You saved my life. Arigato, Naruto-kun."

"I would do it again, Hinata-chan. As long as Uzumaki Naruto is here, you´ll be always protected," he said, doing Lee´s good guy pose. Hinata just lowered her head even more.

"Uh…Hinata? What´s wrong?" now Naruto really needed to know what was with her.

Hinata just sat there, her hands shaking. Finally she said: "Nothing is wrong Naruto- kun, it´s just me. I´m not strong enough to even defend myself. I´m just adding problems to everyone. I really shouldn´t be here, I´m no help at all."

Naruto didn´t believe what she had just said. Why was she thinking this anyway? He had to say something that will cheer her up. "Hinata-chan, don´t you dare say something like this ever again. To me, you´re one of the strongest kunoichi I know. That guy you fought was at least at Kakashi´s level I think. You shouldn´t think you´re no help. Maybe you´ll be the one who will help the most in the upcoming battle. Maybe this time, you´ll win. Just don´t give up, Hinata-chan. You have to try."

Hinata stared at Naruto in awe. Did he really mature that much? He wasn´t that stupid prankster anymore. Hinata smiled at him.

"Thank you, Naruto-kun, I´ll do my best."

"Yeah Hinata, I´ll too! Believe it!"he shouted.

Naruto and Hinata came together back to the camp. Shikamaru, Tenten and Neji were already there.

Tenten said:" You really took long time, what were you two doing?"she grinned. Hinata blushed(again) and Naruto´s eyes widened in fear of Neji, who was about to activate his Byakugan.

"What were you doing with my cousin?!" said Neji, glaring at Naruto with intent to kill immediately.

Naruto waved his hands in front of him:" Hey, it´s nothing like that, I didn´t do anything! We were just talking that's all!"

Hinata was smiling, Tenten was trying to calm Neji down somehow. But it looked like Tenten wasn´t successful. Neji stood up and was coming closer to Naruto.

Just when Naruto thought he was going to die, he heard Hinata say: "It´s okay, Neji-nii-san. We really didn´t do anything improper. Naruto-kun was saying the truth. Please save your energy for the battle."

Naruto was thanking Hinata for saving his life in his mind:" Thank you Hinata-chan, you´re quits with me now."

Neji finally calmed down and sat down again. Hinata looked at Naruto and smiled. He replied with a thumb up.

As Naruto was about to sit down too, some unfamiliar voice said: "Hello, I hope we´re not interrupting something. You made really nice traps everywhere, it was fun to liquidate them."

Five Konoha nins quickly turned their heads. They saw five water ninja clothed in clothes really similar to the guys´s from before.

One with long katana in his hand said: "You did pretty bad things to our comrades, you know? And we´re gonna get you for what you did. Let´s fight! "

 Please review, you don´t know how much it means to me) I´ll try to continue soon, I promise it won´t take long…

Until then, bye…

Petrushkaa