"So, you're a boy."

"Yes." Following the confirmation Naruto was still hard pressed to believe the person sitting across from him, that looked amused by the whole situation, was in fact a male. Giving up on the fruitless gender determination Naruto looked up towards the sun to see how much time he had left to search out his frustrating teacher.

"Shit! I only have five more minutes to find Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto moaned glancing about feverously in a last ditch attempt to fulfill the training mission.

Haku sat just as calmly as before while he took amusement in the strange boy's behavior. "My own sensei should be coming soon."

Naruto puzzled over this new development. Should he stay? Would it compromise Kakashi and himself? Most importantly: would Kakashi be angry if he stayed? Yes, it was time for him to depart, find Kakashi, and blame his lateness on falling asleep or some such ridiculous excuse that no one would buy coming from anyone but himself.

"I'd better get going." Naruto uttered apologetically as he stood and dusted himself off.

"Will your sensei be angry at you for talking to me?" Haku asked tilting his head upwards to see the boy properly.

"He's not going to find out." Naruto laughed out. At least I hope not.

"Do you respect your sensei?" The foreign nin queried softly, a thoughtful air to his tone and expression. Without even giving it a true thought Naruto seated himself again amongst the grass.

"The pervert?" Naruto laughed softly at this before becoming sober. "Yah, he raised me. He's got my respect." Nodding his head as if to confirm the truth of his statement Naruto regarded the boy still seated on the ground.

"We are alike then." Haku responded making Naruto wonder who this boy really was and if they were truly as similar as the boy seemed to think.

"He is your special person." The mysterious boy smiled at this and Naruto marveled that one so young could look so very old when smiling.

"One of them." Sakura.

"Ah, you are lucky then." The smile was still upon his lips but the boy's eyes seemed to have faded into blankness. Silence permeated the air but Naruto found himself comforted by it and didn't mind the quiet as he usually did.

"Didn't you say you had to leave?" With a start Naruto found himself yanked from his peaceful state into cursing wildly as saw that it was now twenty minutes passed the time limit.

"Bye Haku, I'll see you again!" The demon carrier didn't think of the effects of his words, he was far more concerned with his lack of an excuse. The mysterious boy however felt the effect of the words and was touched by the simple gesture of wanting to be seen again. As he waited for his sensei Haku thought that it would be nice having two special people.

Crashing through the underbrush in his haste to find Kakashi Naruto winced as he spotted the perverted nin reading his Ichi Ichi book in the tree tops. Kakashi had no doubt heard every mistake Naruto had made and would appropriately fling them at him when he reached him. Shame faced Naruto made his way up the tree.

"One and a half hours, report." Without even looking up from his book he froze his charge to the spot.

"Well… there was this grey squirrel and I thought it was you so I chased that for a half hour, being very stealthy and…"

"You fell asleep, didn't you?" Kakashi stopped him halfway through his prepared harangue.

Chuckling and rubbing the back of his head Naruto 'admitted,' "Yah, I was just so tired. Sorry Kakshi-sensei. It won't happen again."

Kakashi grunted his acceptance. Snapping his book shut he smiled to let the abashed looking boy know that he was forgiven. "It seems that we'll just have to do more stealth training. I'd be surprised if there's a single twig left whole after you stomped through."

It had started off simply enough. Ino-chan and Sasuke-san were busy for the day. So, Sakura, being the studious girl she was, decided to train by herself. Two hours into it she had finished her reading for class, her exercises, and she had then moved onto kunai throwing. Resigning herself to the task at hand Sakura buckled on her belt of kunai. Simply put she was far from excelling in the art of knife throwing. This fact was painfully brought to her attention when in a totally unforeseeable and completely not her fault accident occurred.

She had thrown it straight into her neighbor's window and the blade had continued on into the home. Sakura had little contact with her neighbor; she had only seen him on a handful of occasions and barely knew his name; Gekkou, Hayate. When she had seen him he looked as if he was suffering from a very serious case of insomnia. Being that she knew so little about him it was only natural that she be intimidated by him and scared out of her mind as to how he would take a kunai imbedded into his sofa or wall.

Riveted to the spot Sakura stood contemplating the pros and cons of either owning up to her mistake or running into her house and hoping that in addition to being sickly her neighbor was also oblivious. That was how he found her: stock still, wide eyed, and with a belt of kunai slung around her hips, one mysteriously missing from its holster.

"This yours?" Without waiting for her to respond in the affirmative he threw the weapon at the girl. Narrowly she stopped the blade from becoming close friends with her stomach. Eyebrows furrowed in indignation she watched the strange neighbor she now knew to be a ninja to make his next move.

"Throw it." He spoke flatly in both tone and words, giving off a tired and uncaring air. Sakura hesitated at this. He was confusing her terribly, he wasn't scolding her but he did throw a kunai at her. Sakura found herself wishing she had gone inside.

"Throw it at me." The slight edge of annoyance in his tone informed Sakura that it was best not to keep the man waiting. Assuming the throwing stance she launched the knife at the man and missed by three feet. Wincing at her poor skill and the sound of the blade sinking into the side of his house she was sorely tempted to just walk away and save what little dignity she still had left.

Bashfully she looked at her neighbor hoping he wouldn't be too irate. His face was expressionless as he turned to retrieve the wayward blade. Before Sakura knew what was going on she felt him nudge her feet into a wider stance and push her right elbow upwards.

"What are you…"

"Protecting my house." The nin smiled briefly before signaling her to try again. It was better, she guessed it to be about two feet off the target and hit a tree instead of the much abused home. Smiling widely at her improvement the girl took another kunai from its holster and resuming the position he had put her in and chucked it.

Over the next hour she made incremental progress with increasingly little input from her neighbor that was no longer so intimidating. When at last she hit the bull's eye she turned and bowed to him that had helped her so.

"Thank you for teaching me." Straightening herself she beamed up at him.

"Keep practicing." With faintly upturned lips the man ambled back to his home.

Unable to restrain herself, she called out to him, "Do you think you could teach me how to use other weapons? Not now but later, maybe." Fiddling with an empty holster Sakura waited for the answer.

"Later, maybe." Smiling at her good fortune the youth continued to practice her throwing.

Well, that was a long wait, eh? It was simply gorgeous outside so I decided to write while I watched my little siblings play with the hose. An hour of writing later I finished this chapter. Talk about writing pouring out! Now that I have more time and my muse is back updates will be more frequent and the promised prize fics are being finished up so they'll be out soon. -Cloey Marie-