What'sup everyone, thesaiyanjedi here once again!

Well, NaruSaku Day is almost upon us, and to that end, I present you all with latest chapter of "Heaven and Earth Together At Last."

Okay, I realize that I have been getting some criticism about how angsty this story has been so far and I'm not going to say that I don't deserve it. But this is all stuff that I had set up in my other work, primarily "Shinachiku's First Adventure," and I really do feel that if Naruto and Sakura were going to finally get together after the series, then, sadly, there would be a few issues that they'd need to work out first.

Don't worry though, the next chapter will, ultimately, be what we all came here for. And even this chapter has an ending revelation that I hope many of you will enjoy.

Also, I should say right up front that there is a scene near the end that is a direct adaptation of somebody else's fan work, which I intend totally out of respect and tribute to the original artist, hence why I will credit them at the end of this chapter.

With all of that said, let's get to reading!

Chapter 4: Reflections Of...

"Hey Sakura!"

The pinkette turned her head at the sound a familiar voice. "Oh, hey Ino."

The platinum blonde kunoichi ran up to her best friend in an even more bubbly mood than usual, and Sakura already knew exactly why. "So, I'm guessing your date with Sai went well huh?"

"Oh yeah!" Ino exclaimed. "He was such a gentleman! Almost always knowing the right things to say too!"

To say Sakura was dumbstruck would be an understatement. "Wait, Sai knew the right things to say?!"

"I know, I couldn't believe it either. But he really tried last night. I-I can't explain it but...Sakura..."

"...Yeah?"

"I think I'm falling in love."

Once again Sakura's eyes widened, "Really?! Wow! That's amazing! Y'know I figured I'd do you a favor and set you two up when you admitted to me that you had a crush on him. But I never imagined this!"

"I know..." Ino put her hand over her heart and let out a deep sigh, "I don't think I've ever felt this happy before, certainly not since dad died." She then gave her best friend a massive hug, "Thank you so much Sakura!"

Sakura eagerly returned the hug, "Don't mention it pig. We've both wasted a lot of years chasing after the same guy, I figured it was time for things to change."

Ino broke the hug, "Well, at the very least you don't have to worry about my competition for Sasuke anymore."

Sakura couldn't help but frown at hearing the boy's name. "Yeah, right."

Ino noticed this sudden change in demeanor. "Hey forehead, are you okay?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, I'm fine."

The blonde merely scoffed, "You never were a very good liar."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me! You can't lie to a woman who can read minds!" She saw a outdoor cafe with an available table and two chairs. "Come! Sit!"

She dragged Sakura by the arm, under the pinkette's protest, and sat her down at the table. Ino then signaled to the waitress, "Tea please?"

The waitress nodded and went to get their tea, while Ino just stared holes into Sakura's skull. "Okay, spill! What's going on?!"

"Nothing's going on! Mind your own business for once pig!"

"Na-uh! You went out of your way to hook me up with a great guy, so if you're having problems with you're man than I'm here for you."

"Sasuke's not my man!"

Sakura instantly cupped her hands over her mouth at what she just said.

"Wait—What?! But you're obsessed with Sasuke!"

"I know, I know! But...I'm not...I'm not sure...Agh! I don't even know anymore!"

The Slug Sannin's apprentice put her head in her hand and leaned over the table.

Ino had no idea what to say or what suddenly could have happened to make Sakura so conflicted. All she knew was that this was her best friend and she needed to do something.

She reached out and put her hands on Sakura's shoulders. "Hey, easy girl. It's okay. We can talk this thing out, just the two of us."

Sakura looked up at the blonde-haired florist, tears just developing in her eyes, as she managed a nod, then dried her eyes again and sat back up in her chair.

By now the waitress had come back with their tea. They both thanked her and gave her an early tip, then after she left both girls got to talking.

"So," Ino started, "have you heard the rumor going around that Sasuke's coming back tomorrow?"

"...Yeah, I heard. Kakashi-sensei told me himself."

"I guess it's appropriate that you and Naruto would be the first of us to know."

Sakura set down her tea cup, "Actually...Naruto wasn't there. Kakashi-sensei asked me to find him and tell him myself."

"Oh! And how'd he take it?"

Sakura shifted her eyes to herself, "I wouldn't know."

Now Ino had to set down her tea cup, "What do you mean?"

"I mean...I didn't tell him."

"What?! Why not?"

"I don't know! I just couldn't bring myself to tell him, okay?! It was too...awkward."

Ino arched an eyebrow at Sakura's choice of words. "Awkward?"

Sakura looked at her best friend with one of her signature looks of annoyance. "You're not going to let this go until I've told you everything, are you?"

"Of course I'm not, you know me better than that by now."

"Don't you have to get back to the flower shop?"

"Oh don't worry about that, my mom can cover my shift today...Oh darn it! They need you back at the hospital today, don't they?"

Sakura wanted to jump for joy. Ino herself had just provided her with a perfect way out of this...But wouldn't you know it, her damned conscious got the better of her!

"No, Lady Tsunade gave me only a half-shift today and I just got off."

"Great, then its just the two of us!"

"Yeah...great..."

Several minutes and a few refills of tea later and Sakura had pretty much outlined her entire situation to Ino, who could only sit there and take it all in awe.

"Wow...No wonder you're such a mess!"

"Hey!"

"Sorry, but people with unresolved guild complexes like yours are often prone to doing some pretty extreme things, including—"

"I'm a doctor Ino! I know all about that!"

Ino sighed and folded her arms, "So what are you going to do about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. When are you going to talk to Naruto?"

Sakura looked in confusion, "Talk to him?"

Ino smacked her own forehead, "Jeez! Forehead you really are hopeless! I mean when are you going to go talk to Naruto about how you really feel about him?"

Sakura blushed red as a tomato. "WHAT?!"

"Yeah! You heard me! You don't get to sit here and outline your whole dilemma, going on and on about how awesome and wonderful Naruto is and how guilty you are about how you've treated him in the past, and then tell me you don't have feelings for him!"

"Of course I have feelings for him...! As a friend! My best friend...! Best guy friend!"

"Now you're just embarrassing yourself."

Sakura slouched in her chair, "I know." She sighed. "I just...Naruto deserves so much better than me...Hinata! She's loved him since they were little kids, we all know it! She'd deserves him far more than I do!"

"Yeah, she definitely does, but then again, isn't that supposed to be his decision?" Ino stated.

After waiting about ten seconds in silence, Sakura finally spoke again, "Ino, can I tell you something?"

"Sure thing Sakura. What is it?"

Sakura straightened up again and began speaking, "When I was still a Genin I used to hate Naruto's guts; I thought he was just an annoying pest who lived to bother me and stand in the way of my future with Sasuke. I used to wonder how much better my life would be if Naruto wasn't there. Well, last night I had a dream, and I dreamed about exactly that. I saw a future where Sasuke was there, you were there, all of our friends were there, but Naruto wasn't there. We'd totally fallen apart and our lives went totally different paths. He became Hokage like he always wanted, and I was married to Sasuke like I always wanted."

"And I'm guessing that made you happy?"

"No, it didn't! I HATED that life! What I saw was me, at home, forced to raise a family all by myself while Sasuke was constantly leaving the village again and again. I didn't even see myself as a medial ninja anymore, I had to quit my job and turn my back on everything Lady Tsunade ever taught me just to be a stay-at-home mom!"

"Wow...that must have sucked. But isn't that how you always imagined your future with Sasuke being?"

"No, it isn't! It isn't at all what I thought it would be! I wanted us to be together and to raise a family, sure! But I wanted him at home, with me, with the kids! Not wandering the world alone just to redeem himself for past sins! But that wasn't even the worst part!"

"Oh? What was the worst part?"

"The worst part was how unhappy all of us seemed. I was unhappy because I was alone. My kids were unhappy because their father was never home. Nobody smiled, especially not since..." Sakura couldn't finish her sentence, but she didn't need to, Ino had figured it out for her.

"Because he wasn't there to make you smile anymore."

The pink-haired kunoichi nodded sadly, "Yeah."

Ino slammed her hands down on the table loudly, "Well, that settles it then! You need to find Naruto next time you see him and have a nice, long talk with him! You can't keep living like this!"

Something came over Sakura then. Her eyes narrowed and her fits clenched, "You know what pig...you're right! Naruto and I have been through too much for me to just throw that all away now!

"Atta girl!" Ino proclaimed, "Go tell the blonde doofus how you really feel!"

With that, Sakura stood up from the table, "Well, thank you for that talk Ino, I actually feel better now."

"Anytime forehead!" The two young women gave each other one more hug before parting ways.

"Hey!" Sakura said before heading the other way, "let me know how things go between you and Sai! I want to hear all about it! And I'm so happy for you two!"

With that, the two women waved goodbye and headed their separate ways, but Ino could not help the smirk that graced her face.

'Way to go Sakura! It's about time you woke up and realized how perfect you two are for each other!'

Sakura was making her way back home when she decided to do a little bit of shopping, just her usual medical and ninja supplies. But as he left the store, she came across a very familiar face.

"Lady Tsunade!" she waved to her former master.

The elderly (though you'd never know it with the jutsu she uses to de-age herself) former Hokage and Sannin looked over to the source of the voice and smiled at the sight of her star pupil.

"Well hello there Sakura! How are you today?"

"I'm feeling better than I was before, thank you very much m'lady!"

"What, was there something wrong?"

"Oh, umm...well, I've just had things on my mind recently is all. But I'm feeling better now and I know what I need to do about it!"

"I see, so you're finally going to come clean with Naruto are you?"

"SENSEI?!" Sakura yelled in shock.

"Oh come off it Sakura! You may not have realized it yet, but I've learned to read you two like a book! I've seen the way you two get along. You're so much like me and Jiraiya that it's almost scary."

"Umm...I'm not sure I know what you—"

"Sakura, I know how much you mean to Naruto."

"Yes, but—"

"And I know that you feel the same way!"

"What?! But—"

"When Sasuke left the village, who gave you their word that they'd bring him home?"

"Naruto."

"And whenever your life was in danger and you still weren't advanced enough to help yourself, who was always there to save you?"

"Naruto."

"When you were down, who was always able to make you smile?"

"Naruto."

"Who always supported you through think and thin, no matter what trials you faced?"

"Naruto."

"And when you first asked to become my apprentice, when you tried taking it upon yourself to stop Saskue's decent into evil, when you wanted so desperately to get stronger and learn anything you could to stop being a burden, you did it to bring back Sasuke, yes, but what else did you do it for?"

Naruto smiled warmly, "To help and protect Naruto. To help him reach his dream. To never be a burden to him ever again."

Tsunade offered her own warm smile as she looked her pupil square in the eyes. "Sakura, I've made plenty of mistakes in my life and I've lost a lot of people I loved. One person in particular I now miss every day, all because I realized something far, far too late. The last thing I want is to see you make the same mistake. Go find Naruto and tell him how you really feel. And know that whatever happens, I couldn't be prouder of you two. You kids are like the daughter and son that I never had."

"Sensei..." Sakura was touch by her master's words, nee, she was rendered speechless. She couldn't help herself and embraced the old woman in a warm hug, which Tsunade returned.

After she broke up the hug, Sakura bowed to the buxom woman. "Arigato Lady Tsunade!"

"You're welcome. Now you go ahead and run home a think about what I've said. Meanwhile...I've got a briefcase full of cash and I'm looking for a way to enjoy my retirement!"

By the time Sakura made it back to her family's home, she found that her mother was the only person there.

"Hey mom, where's dad?"

"He had a couple of errands of his own to run in the village today, so he said he'd be home late," Mebuki explained. "So where have you been all day sweetie?"

"Oh, just doing some of my own shopping and running into Ino and Lady Tsunade. They really helped me out today."

"How so?"

Sakura paused for a moment before she looked at her mother with determination. "Mom, there's someone I need to speak to tomorrow. Someone I should have spoken to for a long time now."

"Oh! Is it Naruto dear? I always did like that boy!"

Sakura face faulted, "W-What? How did you know...? Wait a minute! Then why didn't you want me talking to him while we were still little kids?"

Mebuki frowned, hard. "Well...at first it was because I was afraid. I was a new mother and I didn't want anyone going after you the way they always treated him...and I always regretted that too. But I always knew that one day that boy would turn into something special, and look where he is now!"

The older woman laughed, "You know, when you first came home and told me that you'd been assigned to the same team as both Naruto and Sasuke, I was happy that you were going to get to spend more time with your crush. Both I also really wanted you to get close to Naruto, remember me telling you that dear?" Sakura nodded her head. "But you wouldn't listen to me then because of how dead-set on Sasuke you were."

Sakura really didn't need any more guilt trips about this today, especially not from her own mother.

But then, the woman got up from where she was sitting and pulled a book from the shelf. "Here, let me show you something."

Sakura sat down at the dinner table and opened the book that her mother had given her. It was a photo album, one that included pictures of both of her parents during their youth, but there was one photo in particular that caught Sakura's attention.

It was a photo of two young Genin, kunoichi fresh out of the Academy. One of them was clearly Mebuki back when she was a girl, but the other one...

"Wait! You knew Naruto's mom?! How come you never told me?!"

"You never asked."

Sakura examined the photo in fascination. "Amazing, both of you were so young and pretty. I bet yours was a beautiful friendship."

Mebuki laughed at that idea. "Actually...we both hated each other."

"Huh?!"

"Well, during my Academy days, I was a Yankee. At that time I wanted to show everyone that I could fight alone, that's why I always picked fights with others, even though they didn't consider me strong enough. That's why I decided that in order to gain respect I needed to beat her...the girl from another village that the kids at school all called "The Red Hot-Blooded Habenaro."

"You picked a fight with Naruto's mom?"

"Yeah, I did, and for a while we were like that. I was tough, but ol' tomato face was that much tougher. But that changed one day when a bunch of bullies tried ganging up on us. Something came over us both, I don't know what, but we both decided in that instant to work together to beat the crap out of all of them...and we did! The stragglers ran away scarred to their parents and knew to never mess with either of us again!"

Sakura was suddenly getting uncomfortable, 'Kiba and Shikamaru were right, mothers are scary.'

"Anyway, after it was over we both shared a huge laugh. It was fun, and we found that we had a lot of things in common. And from that day, our rivalry blossomed into a beautiful friendship."

Sakura took all of this in, "Wow...I had no idea! Who would have thought that from rivals you two would become such good friends."

Mebuki smiled "We still fought though, I didn't want to loose to her, no matter what!"

"I'm so curious! Please tell me more!"

"Well, Kushina, Mikoto and I, we were all good friends, and when we each got married we all stayed in touch. We also all knew that we had kids on the way...Who knew that the three of you would all end up teammates one day...! When Kushina died, and Mikoto later, I was heartbroken, and I regret not being there for her's and Minato's son like I should have been...But I am so proud of what you two have become now Sakura!"

Sakura thought about this for a second before she left for her room. "Thanks for telling me that mom. And you're right, it is Naruto that I need to talk to, before I loose him forever!"

"Go get 'em Sakura!" Mebuki pumped her fist in the air in support. As her daughter disappeared into her room, she looked back at the picture of her and Kushina and thought back to when the two of them were young wives, one of them already a mother, with the other expecting a child very soon...

"Hey Mebuki, I was thinking," Kushina said

"What is it? Mebuki asked.

"Wouldn't it be great if our children ended up getting married someday? We would become some kick ass mother-in-laws, y'know!"

"Pfft! Honestly you! Your child hasn't even been born yet and you're already making plans. Besides, who tells you that it's going to be a boy?"

"He will! I'm 100% sure about it! I can feel it, y'know!"

Kushina then turned her attention to an adorable bundle of joy cradled in Mebuki's arms, one with bright pink hair, wide emerald eyes, fat, puffy cheeks, and a wide forehead.

"And you agree with me, right Sakura?"

Kushina tickled the baby's cheeks, causing her to laugh adorably, "Aw! See! See! She agrees with me!"

"You're tickling her! That's cheating!"

"So cute! My baby is going to be all yours...unless Mikoto's girl will be prettier that is."

"Mikoto's having a baby boy, you idiot!"

"I'm joking, I'm joking! It's just...I can't wait to see our future."

Mubuki smiled fondly at the memory, and at how much that future was becoming a reality now.

'Kushina, you always did talk too much. But this time...it won't take long.'

There you have it! Four chapters down in only two days! One more day and I'll meet my goal!

Okay, two references that I need to address this chapter. First is the tile, "Reflections Of..." is in reference to the song "Reflections" by Diana Ross and the Supremes. I didn't actually use the song this time but that lyric sounded like a great title to me, especially for the final bit.

In speaking of which, the whole sequence of Mebuki revealing her past friendship with Kushina to Sakura was directly adapted from an unfinished doujinshi by the amazingly talented LadyGT. Seriously, if you have never seen her work, go check out her tumblr page. Her work is so amazing that if you didn't know any better you'd mistake it for something Kishimoto would have drawn himself! So, LadyGT, if by some miracle you are reading this, please don't be too upset because I meant this as a tribute to you, not a condemnation.

Well, that's all I've got this time! I hope you all enjoyed, and I'll see you all at the finale!