A/N – Hello guys! First I just want to say thank you to everyone who reviewed or favorited! You really give me the inspiration I need to keep writing!
To NobodyinParticular – She got hit in the shoulder, but when a medical-nin uses Mystical Palm Technique,they usually place their hands on their stomach and use their chakra to control which part of the body they want to heal, whether it be internally or externally.
Hope you guys enjoy this next chapter!
"Well done Sasuke." Iruka sensei said, glancing down at his clipboard to announce the next name on the list.
Naruto, who was standing behind Shikamaru, stuck his head up and scoffed loudly, "Hah! What a show off! I can do that too!"
Iruka raised an eyebrow smiling. "Alright Naruto, you're next."
Naruto beamed proudly, shoved Shikamaru out of his way and ran over to where Sasuke had just been standing.
Iruka handed another set of shuriken to Naruto warily. "Don't forget to pause and think before you throw them. Visualize where you want the shuriken to hit. It's okay to hesitate for a second. This is only practice."
"Just wait until you see what I can do! I'll show you guys! I'm way better than Sasuke!" Naruto yelled with excitement, not listening to a word Iruka sensei had said.
'I'm going to do it in one throw. Then everyone will notice me and I'll have tons of friends!' Naruto thought to himself.
Taking a deep breath, he concentrated on the tree with all his might and let the shurikens fly out out of his hands, hoping for the best.
Naruto's face immediately filled with dread when he heard a loud thwack and someone's gasp of pain.
Turning around slowly, he found the class gathered in a circle around something on the ground and Iruka sensei threw his clipboard down and rushed over to assess the situation.
"Sakura! Someone go get the medical-nin! Hurry!" He heard Iruka sensei say frantically, yet his voice seemed so far away.
Naruto eyes grew wide with fear and he felt a pit in his stomach. What had he done? That scream of pain had sounded horrifying.
As Kiba and Akamaru took off sprinting towards the doors to the ninja academy, the entire class broke out in conversation, whispering to each other and turning around to glare in Naruto's direction.
His view no longer obstructed, Naruto caught sight of Sakura lying on the ground, spitting blood out of her mouth while Iruka sensei kept his grip on a shuriken that was sticking out of her left shoulder.
Nervously biting on his nails, he started forward and cried, "Sakura! Are you okay? I'm so so-"
Before he could get any further, a kid with shoulder length black hair, green headband and glasses blocked his way and shoved him roughly to the ground.
"Look what you did!" he spat, gesturing to Saukra's shoulder. "Why are you even alive? All you do is hurt people!"
"Yeah!" a boy next to him wearing a grey hat nodded vigorously in agreement. "You should just leave. No one likes you!"
"It was an accident! I would never hurt someone!" Naruto cried frantically, tugging on his goggles nervously.
"I can't believe you stabbed her!" Ino shrieked wildly, making everyone within a ten foot radius of her cover their ears at the sound of her high-pitched voice.
Naruto took a few steps backward, a look of bitter regret on his face, and ran back to the ninja academy, wiping his face with his sleeve.
Sasuke, who had been standing by himself near the doors that led back to the classroom, glanced over his shoulder as Naruto sprinted by him clumsily and entered the building. He almost felt bad for Naruto, until he remembered the way he constantly called Sasuke arrogant and tried to outdo him. Shaking his head, Sasuke looked back at Sakura, wishing Itachi was here. He always knew what to do.
"Everyone stop yelling at Naruto and get back to class, okay?" Iruka sensei told the class.
Sakura winced from the pain, clutching Iruka's hand in hers, and tried using his arm to stand up. Her seven year old body not being able to handle the pressure, she collapsed.
"Please, don't try to move, you'll only injure yourself further," Iruka said gently, trying to steady her body.
Everything was going wrong! She knew she'd be alright; the shuriken wasn't buried that deep in her skin. In fact, she could probably remove it and heal herself right now if everyone wasn't standing around her. Hearing the awful words people were saying to Naruto, she desperately wanted to yell at them and rip out the stupid shuriken to prove she was alright, but from the amount of blood she was losing, she felt so dizzy and lightheaded that it was difficult to even think straight.
"Don't worry Sakura," Shikamaru said, appearing by her side and bent down close next to her. "The medical-nin is here."
"No, I'm fine," she tried to say as a tall woman with short brown hair started tending to her wound immediately, Kiba at the her heels. He exchanged worried glances with Hinata and Choji who were standing close by, making sure Sakura was going to be alright.
"My name is Akane. Don't worry, I'll take care of this quickly," the medical-nin smiled reassuringly, extracting the shuriken from Sakura's shoulder so fast she didn't even know she had pulled it out until Akane tossed the bloody shuriken to the side.
Akane put her hands on Sakura's stomach and soon their was a plethora of green chakra illuminating from her hands. Sakura recognized this as the Mystical Palm Technique, a medical ninjutsu which allows the user to speed up the body's natural healing process by sending chakra from their hands into a wound or afflicted body part.
Soon the pressure in her head disappeared and, glancing down at her shoulder, the wound was gone. Assuming the adults might think it was weird if a seven year old were to stand up and brush the whole situation off lightly, Sakura sniffled and let a few tears roll down her cheeks as turned to Akane and cried, "Thank you so much!"
Akane smiled and nodded her head politely saying, "Don't worry it's my job. I'm glad to see that you healed quickly. Be careful around that boy. He's dangerous."
"Whoah! So you're really okay!" Kiba asked after Akane packed her medical-nin kit up and walked away, his eyes widening in shock when he noticed there wasn't even a scratch on Sakura's shoulder.
"Yes! I'm okay!" Sakura squealed happily, grabbing Kiba by the cuff of his shirt and pulling him into her arms on the spur of the moment.
"Well, I'm glad you're okay," Kiba grinned sheepishly, patting her on the back awkwardly while Shikamaru and Choji silently laughed at the pair of them behind Sakura's back.
Suddenly realizing she needed to find Naruto, Sakura let go of Kiba and turned to face Iruka sensei.
"Iruka sensei! Where's Naruto?"
"Naruto?" Iruka sensei questioned. That was the last thing he was expecting to hear come out of her mouth. "I'd assume he's back in the room with the rest of the class, but I'd advise you not to say anything-"
"I don't want to hear an apology from him," Sakura interrupted, "I don't care. I need to talk to him."
"Oh? Well okay then. You can talk to him after class if you like. Come on guys, we still have a half hour left. We'll continue the lesson with notes instead." Gesturing for them to start walking, he kept a short distance behind the five ninja in training as he thought about what to do concerning Naruto. It was only his first day as teacher and already Naruto was proving difficult to handle.
"Why do you want to talk to him?" Shikamaru asked Sakura as they walked back to class, raising an eyebrow, his hands in his pockets like usual. "He just injured you!"
"I bet he'll get scolded when we get back to class!" Choji said, smiling at the thought of Naruto getting in trouble on the first day of school.
"He said it was an accident," Hinata mumbled, unsure of whether it was her place or not to remind Sakura of this.
"One day, I'm going to really hurt that kid!" Kiba growled menacingly, clenching his fist and shaking it in the air.
Sakura bit her lip nervously, wondering how in the world she was going to change this situation.
"Actually, I was thinking of inviting Naruto to hang with us," she said, expecting them all to burst out with protests. And sure enough, they did.
"You've got to be kidding me! My mom would kill me if he came over my house."
"Sakura, have you gone crazy?"
"He's just gonna end up killing all of us if we let him near us around weapons! Besides, Akamaru doesn't like him."
"Hinata, what's your thoughts on this?" Sakura tilted her head glancing at the shy girl.
Fumbling her hands together, Hinata blushed bright red, her eyes looking nervously at everyone, unsure of who to side with.
Sakura frowned, thinking Hinata probably didn't want to come out and say it when she had three guys glaring at her waiting for an answer.
"Well, no matter what you guys say I'm inviting him anyways," Sakura said stubbornly, stopping in front of the door to the classroom. "I was going to even before he hurt me"
"But why? No one likes him!" Choji complained.
"How would you feel if you were an outcast and the whole village hated you?"
Choji went to answer her but stopped when he couldn't think of anything.
"Exactly."
Iruka didn't know what to make of the conversation he had just overheard. What Choji had said was the truth. There weren't many people in the village who openly liked the boy who carried the nine tails inside his body. But this little girl, who had just been more or less stabbed by Naruto, was willing to be friends with him. It was...interesting. And a little suspicious. He decided to keep a close eye on the girl.
When Sakura walked through the classroom doorway, she noticed Naruto had retreated to the back of the room, and sat slumped in his desk, surrounded by no one.
A few kids who were sitting a couple of seats away kept throwing random insults at him and snickering, while Naruto turned away and ignored them.
"Actually, I don't want to wait until after class," Sakura said, and walked away without listening to what anyone else had to say.
Feeling a tap on his shoulder, Naruto looked up and gaped in amazement when he saw Sakura's smiling face in front of him.
"Why-why are you here?" For once, he was at a loss of words.
"Listen, I know it was an accident so don't even worry about the shuriken. Look," she said gesturing to her shoulder, "I'm all healed!"
Naruto hung his head in shame. "I really am sorry. I just wanted to show everyone what I could do, but I guess," he paused, "I guess I slipped."
"Don't worry about it! Anyways, do you want to come over to Shikamaru's house tomorrow? We all want to hangout together!" Sakura asked brightly.
Glancing over at Shikamaru, Kiba, and Choji, Naruto rolled his eyes and muttered, "Yeah right. There's no way they want me there. No one does."
"I do," she stated firmly. "So does Hinata. And you know, speaking of Hinata, she's very shy and needs someone to give her the strength to train hard to become really strong one day. I've seen the way you never give up. You'd be a good role model for her!"
Naruto perked up and tilted his head to stare at the reserved girl. "You really think so?" A wide grin broke out across his face. "Okay, I accept!"
Waving the rest of the group over, Sakura felt her heart leap. She was on her way to changing the timeline for the better. She knew she had won Naruto over. He already looked happier than she could ever remember seeing him as a little kid. Now to befriend Sasuke.
Shikamaru took a seat next to Naruto and turned to face him "So I guess you're coming to my house too then?"
"Yeah! We should play ninja!" Naruto said, happy that he finally had some friends to play with.
"How troublesome. I don't know how my mom's going to feel about all these kids at her house," Shikamaru groaned, thinking about his uptight and bossy mother, wondering why the heck his father would marry a woman like her in the first place.
"You worry too much Shikamaru. And I'll play as long as I'm not it. I'm always it!" complained Choji.
"We need another person!" Kiba spoke up, looking around the room, sizing people up, wondering if any of them would want to play too.
'Perfect timing Kiba,' Sakura thought smiling to herself.
"How about Sasuke?" she offered.
"The Uchiha?" both Shikamaru and Kiba asked, wondering if Sakura was indeed crazy.
"Ah not that arrogant prick!" Naruto glanced at Sasuke, who was currently drawing some kind of picture in his notebook.
"Uchiha's dont get along with anyone," Choji said. "They only stick with their clan. My dad told me so it must be true!"
"Well, it doesn't hurt to ask," Sakura replied, getting up from the seat on the other side of Naruto.
Shikamaru slapped his hand to his face and grumbled, "Girls are so troublesome."
Sasuke tore his eyes away from the drawing he was making when he noticed he had a visitor.
'I hope it's not one of those annoying girls,' he thought shaking his head.
No. It was that girl with pink hair. The one who got hurt. She hadn't bothered him once yet so she must be alright. But was that really her natural hair color?
"Can I help you?" he asked politely, shoving the notebook in his bag, but not before she got a glimpse of his drawing. Him riding a dinosaur. Or maybe it was a dragon. She laughed.
Sakura's heart was beating incredibly fast. She was tempted to hug him and never let go because he wasn't an avenger, only an innocent child right now. But if she didn't make a move to stop the massacre now, he might still grow to become consumed by hatred and revenge. But how could she stop the slaughter of his clan? And how could she stop a war from breaking out if that happened?
"Me, Choji, Shikamaru, Kiba, Hinata, and Naruto are gonna train tomorrow. Well, actually, we're probably gonna end up playing a game of ninja instead, but we might get around to practicing punches or something. Do you want to come?"
Sasuke didn't know what to say. Even though he had been top of their class ever since primary school, and everyone seemed to admire his skills, no one had once invited him to play or train. He was always asking Itachi or his father to train with him but they always replied with, "I'm too busy."
"Sure!" he said, his face lighting up, not even caring that she had mentioned Naruto, the boy adults told him not to associate with. "We should definitely train though too. I want to be better than my brother one day. Training is really important!"
Wow. She didn't expect him to so readily agree like that. Sakura didn't even know what to think except that she had wished she had did this in her last life.
"Alright! It'll be even more fun if we train together. Make sure you ask your parents because we're planning on tomorrow!"
Sasuke's face fell when he realized his dad probably wouldn't approve. 'Whatever, I don't care. Father and Itachi are both always too busy. They never have time for me. I can make friends if I want to,' he thought, determined to hang out with them no matter what.