Naruto & Sakura: A Second Chance
By: Jho

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto-San. I also want to give a big shout out to Wikipedia for their great database. This is my biggest chapter so far. I'm amazed by people who are able to crank out 5k – 10k words a day as a writer, especially when they have real life to deal with. Amazing.
Chapter 3: Survival Training Surprises

Italics indicates a person's thoughts, flashback, or action/s
Bold Italics refers to Kyuubi/Inner Sakura talking

'Hmm…' Naruto thought as he stared at the ceiling of his room. He couldn't sleep because he was too excited for the upcoming day. Hehe, Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke are going to be really surprised. The blonde licked his lips in anticipation. He rolled to the side as his thoughts wandered to the end of their last meeting.

Kakashi-sensei smiled and said, "Later," before he popped out of existence. Sasuke didn't even bother to bid farewell to his teammates when he turned around and headed home. Sakura beckoned Naruto to come closer. Once he did, she linked her fingers behind her back and said in a soft voice, "Naruto, even though the meeting time is at 9 AM at the training grounds, let's meet by the academy first since it's on the way. We know that Kakashi-sensei's going to be late anyways. Let's use that time to prepare a little. Naruto grinned and asked, "Does this make it a date Sakura-chan?" Sakura raised her fist and bopped the blonde on the head. She smiled and said, "Don't be so immature Naruto. See ya tomorrow morning." Before Sakura walked out of view, she turned and gave Naruto a serious face. "Don't be late."

Naruto glanced over to check the time. Awesome, I got time to get some breakfast at Ichiraku first! With that the blonde hurried out of his bed with promising thoughts of delicious ramen first thing for breakfast.

As the young Uchiha prodigy stood alone proudly in the forest, a sweat drop appeared on the side of his head. Where the hell is everyone? Damn I'm hungry…
"Yo, here I am again," Kakashi said as he faced the memorial. There's a deep sadness in his eye as he looks solely on one name in the list of fallen heroes – Uchiha Obito. "Obito…" Kakashi voiced quietly as he reminisced about his past. "Would you like this new team that I've been given? At least they seem to have strong determination."

"Did I make it?" Obito asked worriedly. "No! You're late again!" a young Kakashi replied heatedly.

"Don't you know," Kakashi stated imperiously," Those ninjas who don't follow the rules and regulations are trash!"

"Kakashi…that's not all there is to it. You must also be able to adapt to cope with the situation," the Yondaime said in a serious tone as he berated his two young charges.

"The most important thing to a ninja is teamwork!"

Kakashi closed his eye in pain and regret as he remembered his words after Rin was captured. "As a ninja, sometimes it's essential to sacrifice your companions for the accomplishment of the mission.

"The most important thing to a ninja is to be a tool in order to complete the mission. Emotions are unnecessary things."

Obito widened his eyes in shock. "Are you serious? Do you really think like that?!"

"…Yes," Kakashi replied with sorrowful eyes as his thoughts strayed to his father.

Obito turned his back to his Kakashi in anger. "…Of course those in the ninja world who break the rules and regulations are called trash…but," Obito paused in the middle of his statement to look sideways and give his teammate a look of contempt. "Those who don't care about their companions are even worse trash."

"Anyway, if I'm that kind of trash, I'll break the rules! If that's not being a true ninja…then I'll crush that ninja way!"

The white haired ninja bowed his head in respect. Then he looked to the sky and whispered, "Obito…could these kids be the ones worthy of your legacy?"

When Naruto and Sakura finally came to the training grounds, Sasuke gave each of them a short greeting. "Sakura," he said calmly nodding to her. When he turned to Naruto, he folded his arms and smirked, "Dead last."

Naruto's eyes widened angrily. "You bastard!" Forming his hand into a fist, the blonde took a step towards his rival.

Sakura quickly hissed, "Stop it!" to no avail as Naruto's fist continued straight towards Sasuke's surprised face. You punk!

Before his fist could make that satisfying crunch from impact, Naruto found his hand easily restrained by his teacher.

"Yo," the jounin greeted calmly with one hand while he used the other to hold Naruto's arm back. "Getting heated so quickly, eh? Better for you guys to save it for the training."

Once Kakashi decided that his genin had enough time to cool down, he placed an alarm clock on a tree stump that showed 10:10 AM. "Ok, it's set for noon." The jounin took out two bells and dangled it before the team. "Your task is to take these from me before noon."

"Those who cannot get a bell by noon…get no lunch." At this statement, Sasuke's stomach grumbled in protest. 'Damn, that's why he said to not eat,' the raven-haired boy thought with a frown.

Kakashi continued, "You only need to get one bell. There are only two, so one of you will definitely be tied to a stump. And the person who doesn't take a bell fails. So at least one of you will be sent back to the Academy. You can even use your shurikens. You won't succeed unless you come at me intending to kill. When I give the signal, you may begin."

The jounin sized each of them up, and sensed that they were ready. He yelled, "Start!"

Kakashi brushed his hair as he checked the genins' movement. The basics of a ninja are to hide yourself well. The jounin glanced around. Both Sakura and Sasuke seem well hidden. He looked disappointingly at the lame excuse for a ninja in front of him. But what is this baka doing?

Before the jounin, the hyperactive blonde was shouting in plain view, "Fight me!" Kakashi sweat dropped as he said, "Pft, you're just a little bit off."

While Sasuke was watching the scene from a tree, he couldn't help thinking, 'What a moron,' inside his head.

Naruto jumped from his position to start an attack at the same time Kakashi pulled a book out. Naruto didn't stop to question this action as he continued on his attack. He made several simultaneous strikes to hit the jounin's head, chest, and legs; but was blocked away at each turn. At his last missed strike he was off balance as air met his form.

The Kyuubi container looked confused as he heard the words behind him. "A ninja isn't supposed to get caught from behind, idiot."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes in disbelief. The hand seal that the jounin was using hinted at a strong fire spell. He's going to use high-level ninjutsu here? Damn he's not playing around.

Naruto finally turned his head around to see what was happening. Kakashi smirked. "Too late. Hidden Leaf Ancient Taijutsu Supreme Technique, Thousand Years of Pain!"
Kakashi shouted with a sinister look in his eye, as he quickly moved his pointed hands upwards to Naruto's butt. The jounin was surprised when instead of getting a screaming young blonde flying away, his poke produced a puff of air. Kakashi was able to analyze the situation instantly. Hn? Not just Bunshin but Kage Bunshin – the skill that creates not just an illusion, but also multiple real bodies of yourselves. It was used in such a clever way too.

Naruto looked up from a bush, hidden well from the action. Hmm…looks like I'll need to train a lot more to gain my former speed; at this point I can't even make Kakashi-sensei drop his book to fight me seriously.

He looked closely at Sakura's position. Good. Sakura-chan was able to use the distraction to locate Sasuke and tell him the plan.

The pink haired girl finally was able to reach her teammate's position. She whispered, "Sasuke-kun…"

Sasuke turned to look at his side in surprise, never noticing Sakura coming near him; as his mind was fully on the short battle he just saw.

"Here," Sakura held her hand out as it showed a ninja ration bar. "You'll need it to fight with your full strength."

The Uchiha prodigy was silent as he saw the kind offer. He didn't want to accept her help, but just then his stomach made an unwanted appearance and made a pretty loud growl. Sasuke blushed, and said, "Thanks," quickly inhaling the bar as fast as he could.

Shannaro! Go and make your move, he's vulnerable right now to our womanly charms!

Sakura ignored her inner self and used the time to inform her teammate the purpose behind the test. "…That's why we need to fight as a team to get the bells."

Sasuke nodded to her as she finished her explanation. "I understand, so what's the plan?"

Sakura looked up to give hand signals to Naruto, as she knew where to look for him. She saw some signals return for confirmation. "This is how it'll happen…"

"Sakura-chan," the blonde started grinning joyfully as he placed his hands behind the back of his head, "You must have wanted to see me pretty bad to meet up this early."

Sakura went on to smack the blonde on the back of the head. "You're late baka, don't test me."

"Aww Sakura-chan, C'mon I wasn't that late," Naruto pouted with a cute fox-like expression.

She raised her eyebrow in response and held up her fist of impending doom. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry Sakura-channn!" Naruto quickly said to divert her wrath.

They started to talk about their plan today as they walked towards the training grounds. On their way they stopped by a short ninja stand that was selling some accessories. "Eh, what are we doing here?" Naruto asked dumbly. "It's for these," the pink haired girl replied as she purchased a pair of tight black leather gloves.

The Kyuubi container grinned, "Oh, are you going to show off your monstrous strength?"

You brat!

A ridiculously strong punch later, Naruto found himself lying on the ground upside down.

"Baka, what did I say about using that term?" Sakura helped the blonde come back to an upright position. "Naruto, I think we can share some things with Kakashi-sensei. He's going to be our instructor so he's bound to notice some strange things anyways. But let's not push it for now and only share if he asks." The blonde simply nodded in response, afraid that any further words would incur more pain. "And one more thing," Sakura added, "Make sure that we coordinate with Sasuke to get the bells. The point of this exercise is to work as a team and if we don't, we'll waste our time by being sent back to the academy."

"Okay Sakura-chan, let's do this!" the blonde yelled enthusiastically with a fist pumped in the air.

The white haired jounin was impressed. Diversionary tactic, eh? Where are you my cute little genin?

He started to fake giggle as he was reading the book, trying to show an opening. He sensed the genins' chakra as they started to converge on his location.

Naruto was the first to act. He made hand seals and shouted out, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Kakashi looked closely at the Bunshins' surroundings as he realized that all of them were real. After the blonde executed his jutsu, twelve Narutos circled around the jounin and yelled, "Shihōhappō Shuriken" as each of them took out several Shuriken and threw them with great precision and speed at the jounin.

Kakashi's eye opened wide at the number of Shuriken that was flying in his direction. The amount of Shuriken was too great to just simply use Kawarimi no Jutsu.

Naruto's excited battle expression faltered for a moment as the Shuriken hit home ripping Kakashi-sensei to shreds. 'Damn, did I get too serious?' the blonde mused. Then he grinned. Nah, Kakashi-sensei's not the type of ninja to get defeated that easily.

True to the blonde's words, an instant later the Kakashi that was hit puffed out, revealing that it was a Kage Bunshin. The real Kakashi sweat dropped as he put away his "Come Come Paradise" novel seeing that he needed to get somewhat serious while he was in the air.

Sasuke followed up Naruto's attack as he traced the trajectory of Kakashi's escape route. The Uchiha powered up a huge amount of chakra and shouted, "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu," as he breathed out a huge flame of fire that sped quickly towards the jounin's location.

The jounin widened his eye in shock again. My genin are full of surprises today! He quickly made hand seals for Doton: Shinjū Zanshu no Jutsu, before he vanished into the ground right before the fire reached him.

Sasuke smirked when he saw Kakashi dodge his attack with ease and hid himself.

When Kakashi came out of the ground, he pulled down what he believed to be the raven-haired boy's legs and came up out of the ground himself. Before he had a time to comment on Sasuke's incapacitated position of being stuck in the ground, Sakura came up quickly behind him and made a swipe at the bells that were dangling on the jounin's side.

But Kakashi sensed her approach and quickly used a hand seal to immerse Sakura into a genjutsu, Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu. Sakura realized immediately what the jounin was trying to do, but her curiosity got the best of her. What kind of vision will I see this time? 'Don't do it!' Inner Sakura warned fearfully.

The real Naruto frowned, as he didn't understand why Sakura suddenly stopped attacking. Genjutsu on that level can't affect Sakura-chan, what's she doing? He signaled the other Kage Bunshins forward as they tried to take on Kakashi-sensei.

Leaves started to swirl and cloud her vision, as they took Sakura into a dream world of her worst fears. As she looked up she noticed a blurred vision of someone coming into her point of view. She gasped as she saw it was Sasuke in cursed seal one form. The raven haired ninja smirked, and said, "Ku ku ku…it seems you are way too late to save Sasuke-kun," Orochimaru said wickedly while his snake tongue came out and licked a kunai.

As tears started to form in her eyes Sakura ran away from the snake Sannin as hard as she could. While running she noticed a still form before her. No…NO! Sakura's tears started to heavily pour down her face as she noticed Naruto's body in a pool of blood, and no indication that he was alive. She looked around and saw the various uniforms of the organization Akatsuki. Itachi looked straight at her and said, "Sakura-san, I'm sorry to inform you that this Jinchūriki is dead.

'He's dead, he's dead, he's dead,' was the phrase that Sakura kept hearing over and over in her mind. Inner Sakura made an appearance and smacked Sakura on the face. Wake up! With the last bit of strength she had left after that mental torture, Sakura tearfully whispered, "Kai," as she broke out of the illusion.

After coming to her senses she noticed that all of Naruto's Kage Bunshins were gone and the real Naruto seemed to be breathing heavily. From her position on the floor, she looked to her left and saw that Sasuke was still stuck beneath the ground. The situation looked really bleak.

Kakashi looked around at his exhausted genin and smiled inwardly, appreciative of their great teamwork and effort. I guess this is their current limit, eh? Still, for genins they have amazing coordination as a team working together for the first time.

Just then the alarm clock started ringing, indicating it was noon. Kakashi took a glance at Sasuke's stuck form, and joked, "A ninja must be able to read what's underneath the underneath, eh Sasuke-kun?"

'Sasuke' smirked back at the jounin and replied, "Right back at you Kakashi-sensei," as he puffed out of existence. Kakashi's eye opened wide as he detected chakra signatures approaching behind him. He turned around and saw eight Kage Bunshins approaching him quickly. "You can't last much longer Naruto," the jounin called out. "I know you guys are at your limit." When he felt a form attach to him from behind, he gasped as he realized that another Kage Bunshin was able to sneak up behind him.

The Naruto replication grinned and said, "A ninja isn't supposed to get caught from behind, right Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi smiled inwardly at the blonde's statement. 'Hoho, very clever. You can't stop me with this though,' the jounin thought as he prepared to use Kawarimi no Jutsu.

But before all the Narutos reached his position, they made seals with their hands and shouted, "Henge!" transforming into beautiful naked blonde girls.

The white-haired open-closet pervert thought, 'What?!' as he felt a girl hugging him from behind. Blood seemed to creep out of his mask from the contact as all the Naruto girls reached him.

Sasuke smirked as he held up the two bells he stole easily from a confused Kakashi's grasp. Sakura was furious as she started to beat the blonde up. Why did I even worry about you! You pervert, die! The Kage Bunshins all puffed out of existence from the pink-haired girl's wrath on the real Naruto's body. A broken-bodied Naruto looked up to his sensei from the ground, as he tried to grin. The blonde gave a peace sign as he coughed out a little blood. "I call it Harem no Jutsu, Kakashi-sensei. It's an undefeated combo!"

Kakashi genuinely smiled as he saw Sakura continue to berate Naruto for his pervert technique. He even saw Sasuke try to look away and hide a blush, as the raven-haired boy must have been recalling in his mind the jutsu that Naruto just used. Hahaha, what an interesting team I got this year.

Finding no reason to continue onwards, Kakashi cleared his voice with a loud cough, and gave the group a thumbs up, "You all pass!"

End Chapter 3

Author Notes: Wow, that was the hardest chapter to write so far. I just had a wave of inspiration this morning and I hope it came out pretty well. Things are starting to pick up steam in real life so it's going to be harder and harder to update, I hope I can still update at least once a week, so please bear with me. I wanted to give credit to my real life friend Jin, as he noted in chapter 2 in shock that there wasn't enough hitting on Naruto done by Sakura. I scratched my head, and said you're right! What kind of writer am I if I'm writing a serious story and there's no Sakura hitting Naruto; that would be really strange. Hopefully I'm inserting those moments at the proper time and not making the story off balance. Thanks again for the awesome reviews, I can't believe I jumped from 1k – 2k hits in one chapter. I'm really excited to write about the wave arc, look forward to it!

Jutsus:

Thousand Years of Pain - Also known as Sennen Goroshi - Thousand Years of Death - E-Rank

Kawarimi no Jutsu - Body Replacement Technique - E-Rank

Henge no Jutsu - Transformation Technique - E-Rank

Bunshin no Jutsu - Clone Technique - E-Rank

Hāremu no Jutsu - Harem Technique - A-Rank (Naruto only)

Kage Bunshin no Jutsu - Shadow Clone Technique - B-Rank

Shihōhappō Shuriken - Shuriken From All Directions - A-Rank

Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu - Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique - C-Rank

Doton: Shinjū Zanshu no Jutsu - Earth Release: Inner Decapitation Technique - D-Rank

Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu - Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique - D-Rank

I think that's all of them. If I'm leaving any jutsus out that you don't know, please ask and I'll answer as soon as I can.

Started: 1-29-07
Finished: 2-1-07

Next: Chapter 4: The Drunken Client