"BREAK" = scene change.
Six year old Sakura walked down the street, her hand held tightly by her mother. They were returning from a day shopping and Sakura was looking forwards to a piece of candy when they got home for being good, when a shout from down the street caught their attention.
A blond hair boy was sprinting down the street while being chased by a group of shopkeepers with brooms, mops, and other blunt objects. The boy seemed to be holding his own as he skidded past the pair and darted up an alley to the left of them.
Sakura blinked as some of the shopkeepers rushed by her as well. What had the boy done to make so many people mad at him, she looked up to her mother, hopeing that she would clairify things for her but her mother had her cellphone out and Sakura know better then to interupt her call if she wanted that reward that was promised on their return home, so she just keep quiet and waited for her mother to finish her call.
Nami let the memory slip through her mental fingers as she thought about what she had just seen. She had seen alot of the memories Naruto had of the time before he become a gennin, few of them good, and had always wondered how he'd always managed to find help so fast, well now she know.
Tightening her grip on the memory aguin, Nami watched as Sakura happily receaved the promised sweets when she got home and started munching on them as her mother began putting the food away.
"Sakura dear?"
"Yes mommy"
"Do you remember the boy we saw in the market?" Sakura indicated that she did, "good, listen to me Sakura, I want you to avoid him whenever I'm not around ok." Nami was so steamed by what she just heard that she missed it when Sakura asked why.
"Cause I don't wont you to get caught in the crossfire" Nami's head snapped up when she heard that and focused on Sakura's mother, the woman's face was adorn with a sad grimace as she looked at her daughter. Sakura found the look completely confusing but then aguin she was a six year old at the time, Nami on the other hand know that look very well.
It was the look one wore when you had to tell your child to do something that your felt was wrong but still had to do to protect them.
Nami's rage lessened when she understood that Sakura's mother was only trying to protect her from thoughs villagers that would paint Sakura with the same brush they did Naruto and she could respect that, though she didn't like it.
Up until she entered the academy Sakura had no trouble following her Mother's intructions, she rarely saw Naruto anyway and he never made an attempted to approach her. However when she entered the academy Sakura was surrounded by kids her own age as well as saw Naruto a lot more often.
Now lets face it, kids have a mob mentallity AND can be even more vicious then adults when it comes to discrimination of thoses different in any way.
Most of the new students at the ninja academy came from civilian families which know little or nothing about ninja things like jutsus, weapons or seals. these families tend to base their opinions on what they hear from others and not from and long and well maintained knowedge base, so if some high ranking ninja (or former ninja) start spreading rumors that a certain seal gave a demon a human form and that said demon was even now planning its vengance, well its amazing what humans will do to one another because of fear. And if adults are bad then children are just plain scary.
Now Sakura's family had an advantage over most cause her mother was a former ninja and could straighten out most of then rumors that her husband and Sakura pick up, but there were limits to her knowledge cause she had never been more the a Chunnin and an administrator on top of that, so all of her answers came with a 'to the best of my knowedge'.
But when Sakura entered the academy she left the protected enviorment of home and her mother's wise council, and entered a place dominated by the less knowedgable civilian children and biased intructors who were quite literally out to get Naruto.
For the first year Sakura was to preoccupied trying to fit in to notice anything other then what immeadiatly affected her, though she did start up a friendship with Ino Yamanaka that would last her for awhile. She saw Naruto almost everyday at first but then he started to skip class alot, not that she really minded sence these were the days that the teachers choose to start on something new and Naruto could be really loud and liked to act out alot.
When Sakura turned nine several things happened that change the balance of the classroom. One, Iruka Imino became their teacher and actually started to teach whether Naruto was there or not. Two, cause of the Uchiha massacure many of the girls started to feel sorry for Sasuke and tried to be his friend, with verying levels of failiar for their trouble, but they keep at it and it soon transformed into the Sasuke fanclub that would plague the class for the rest of their stay. And finally Naruto began to show the trouble with chakra control that would plague him for life.
His difficulty with the chakra excersizes, combined with his unque personality and the brainwashing that most of his classmates had undergone proved to be Naruto's downfall.
Whenever Naruto failed to do a jutsus properly the class would start picking on him, not that bad on the surface but some of the teachers took advantage of it by constantly calling on him. After awhile most everyone just began to assume that he would fail and started to ostrasize him as a nobody.
Sakura saw this and would have liked to have helped him but anyone who hung out with Naruto tended to be treated the same way he did. Not that she didn't try to be nice to him but this backfired when Naruto latched onto the idea that she was the best thing scence instant ramen and wouldn't leave her alone, much to her annoyance. After a few months of constantly being bugged by the blond Sakura finally snapped and tried to get him to backoff but he just wouldn't.
In the end she had to resort to some pretty violent methods to make Naruto back off and it only worked for a little while. Sakura had long sence forgotten what her mother had told her and had been brainwashed to hate him like the rest of the class. However her hatred for Naruto was limited to his constant requests for dates and his habit of being loud and distruptive in class.
When they were assigned to the same team Sakura didn't know what to do. On one hand she was on the same team as her crush, yet she was also on the same team as the village idiot. She desided to maintain a neutral position with Naruto after Sasuke ripe her a new one for insulting orphans.
For the first few months Sakura and Naruto slowly got aquainted and developed a working relashionship. They'd yell at their sensei when he was late and complain when they got multiple D-ranked mission a day. Naruto still asked her out at least twice a day, though he had learned to accepted a simple no insteaded of Sakura having to resort to the no plus concussion.....Most of the time.
It wasn't till the Chunin exams that Sakura really started to see Naruto as someone important to her, when he charged head first into a fight with Orochimaru to protect his team, a fight that left him unresponsive and Sasuke sporting a curse mark on his neck. Sakura spent the rest of the exam cheering Naruto on while worrying over what the curse mark was doing to Sasuke's mind.
Sakura didn't remember much of the sand/sound invasion cause she spent most of it out cold while being crushed by a pile of sand. But when Sasuke told her that it was Naruto that saved her from Gaara's sand she only need a few seconds of though to believe it, he would do anything for his friends and Sakura was starting to really appriciate being counted as one of them.
When Naruto and Jiriaya left to find Tsunade and bring her back to the village Sakura was left looking like a lost puppy, what with one teammate gone and the other and her sensei in comas from a run in with Itachi. She desided to stick close to Sasuke and be there for him. Lot of good that did her as the fight with Itachi had messed with Sasuke's already unbalanced mind, driving him to abandon the village infavor of training from the traitorous snake sannin.
Sakura was so appalled at the damage her friends took as a result of Sasuke's actions that she stomped into Tsunade's office and demanded proper training in the ninja arts, something Kakashi hadn't really givin her when he had been training Team seven.
While Naruto was running around with Jiriaya, Sakura was training up a storm, learning both medical jutsus and increased strengh from Tsunade. While this training was going on Sakura stumbled accrossed Naruto's medical file, what she learned from it changed her whole outlook on the blond boy and the way he was treated. Sakura started bashing people who spoke badly of Naruto for no reason, an woe betide you if she caught you planning to hurt him in some way.
It was sometime while Naruto was gone that Sakura started secretly crushing on the blond. So secretly that even Sakura herself didn't realize it, thou that might be attributed to Inner Sakura hiding it from her outer until she could find a way to make the dominate personality realize what was going on. That seemed to have happened with this whole body swapping hulibaloo with Sakura doing her best to help her friends out while wishing that it had been her, which really surprised and kind of scared the pink haired girl.
Nami sat for a while after the memories had stopped trying to figure out what to do about Sakura. While she'd not been her best around Naruto it was obvious that she really did care and so did her mother. Nami finally just shelved the problem for later and moved on to Hinata.
It didn't take Nami very long to come to some conculsions about Hinata. One, she really liked this girl and would help her get her ninja. Two, she was going to train Hinata up while she was on the islands so that no own would be able to call her weak ever aguin. And three, she was going to publicaly blind the Hyuuga clan elders and leader with rusty sporks.
The priestess slowly walked through the corridors of Naruto/Hinata's mind as she formulated plan after plan for the time that she had to work with. She was so distracted that she walked right passed the fragment of Naruto's mind that was still in this body.
"Nami-sama?" Nami's head snapped up as she searched for her addresser.
"Ah? Who?, oh Naruto-chan I forgot that a part of you was still here."
"Thats understandable Nami-sama but I was wondering if you had made any discussions on what you've seen here?" Inner Naruto asked.
"Yes I have I was just going to hold a little council with Kazuma-teme before we started".
"Shell I accompany you then Nami-sama?".
"Yes please that would be good" Nami said as she started to continue down the hall but stopped for a moment.
"Oh and Naruto you don't have to call me Sama, you know that right?".
"Yes I do Nami-sama but he gets plenty mad when we don't and I for one would rather not anger Kazuma-teme, unlike my outer!" said Inner Naruto with a laugh as they countinued down the hull.
BREAK.
Sakura and Hinata both let off a sigh as Nami left their minds and took her hands off their heads. However Sakura soon found that her nerves made waiting for Nami to anounce her finding unbearible and spoke up.
"Um? excuse my interuption Nami-sama but did you make any discissions about um, well me?" Nami looked up from her metitive pose and locked her eyes on the pink haired girl.
"You? no but I don't see a rusty spork in YOUR future" Sakura was so relieved that she didn't catch the emphises.
"However I have made a few plans for the both of you, plans that could lead the both you into a rather interesting relastionship in the future, but before these plans can come into play we need to get back to camp and meet with the others."
"Why not tell us now Nami-sama?" asked Sakura as they all stood.
"Cause we need the Yamanaka's help to make them work and there will be a test to see if you will except it or not, understand Sakura" Sakura nodded her head as fast as possible and followed after the other.
CHAPTER END.
Sorry about the delay but this was a difficult chapter for me to write. Not from a plot point of view but from a boredom one. Also I've been kind of distracted lately and could keep up my focus. (beating head on ground in appaligee)
Until next time. review please and enjoy.