Hey everyone

Sorry i didn't post last week, I ran out of Space in my Doc Manager, so I decided to take a week off to get more Room

Here's the next one, kind of a filler

Enjoy

I don't own Naruto

Chapter 18

Coughing, Naruto started hitting his chest with his fist.

"Hey, are you alright?" Sakura asks.

"Yeah, just what you asked took me by surprise is all, hehe" Naruto started to rub his head in embarrassment.

"Sorry" Sakura said with a nervous laugh.

Naruto just waves it off, "no worries, but what do you mean how's things going with her, did something happen?"

Sakura blinks and stares for a moment, then smacks her forehead with her palm. She begins to mumble, something along the lines of "shouldn't listen to Konohamaru" or "of course he doesn't get it."

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto was starting to get confused and wondered if he did something wrong.

"Sorry Naruto, just something Konohamaru said made me ask that. Nothing's wrong with her, he just told me that you guys were hanging out together" and acting weird "so I wondered how you two were doing."

"Oh, were good. She's been helping me figure out a way to disturb genjustu when caught in it. She said she would ask kurenai-sensei if she could teach me some, but until then were just practicing on the distribution of it. Hinata has a new attack she created herself. It's so cool Sakura-chan, last week when I was with team 8 on that mission, she defeated three Jonin's with her new technique" Naruto said excitedly.

Now that brought Sakura in for a surprise; shy, sweet, Hinata, defeating three Jonins at once; must be a really strong technique.

"What's the move called Naruto?" Sakura asked curiously.

"I can't remember, it's too long, but it's a move I think only her clan would be capable of learning. It's like another version of Neji's move he used on me during the chunin exam" Naruto says, scratching his head.

Sakura guessed as much that Naruto wouldn't remember. She was about to ask another question, when a familiar voice broke through, "Sakura, I thought I would see you at the tower, but I saw you here instead. Oh hi Naruto."

"Hi Ino, how are you?" Naruto asked.

"Bored, there aren't any new missions, so I'm spending most of my time at the flower shop" Ino complained.

"That does sound boring, what about trying to learn a new technique?" Naruto asked.

"I've been trying to learn the new move daddy taught me, but it's so frustrating. I thought I would try something different" Ino says frustrating.

"Oh?" Naruto askes.

"She is going to try some medical ninjustu; before I bumped into you, I was going to meet Ino at the Hokage tower" Sakura butt in. Both Naruto and Ino can be so much alike that if she doesn't get in between the conversion, it can possibly go on for hours. Ino loves gossip, and Naruto likes hearing anything new.

"Which is why I'm here now, unless you're still eating Sakura?" Ino asks.

"No, I have finished. I'm sure Tsunade-sama won't mind if we come in a bit early. This was fun Naruto, I hope your training with Hinata helps you out" Sakura says, giving him a genuine smile.

"Thanks Sakura-chan. Once Bushy brows is healed, we should do a spar to help him get back into shape" Naruto responds back.

"Sure thing, come on Ino" Sakura starts to pull Ino by the arm.

"Hey, no need to pull. Bye Naruto" Ino waves at him.

'Well that was both fun and weird' Naruto thought. It was nice where the two of them could just talk naturally, and not get hit. It was weird though because of the comment Sakura said.

'I wonder what Konohamaru said that got Sakura-chan to say that. I was worried something had happened with Hinata' Naruto finished his tea, paid the bill, and began to head to a location where water was. He decided to practice what Hinata had told him about dispersing genjustu.

'If it's anything the way water walking was, I better take my clothe off'

"Finally" Hanabi yells from the top of the tree, her voice sounding horse from exhaustion.

Both Neji and Hinata pause in their attack, and look up to where Hanabi yelled out.

"Good job Hanabi-chan" Hinata says.

"I'm impressed Hanabi" Neji compliments.

"Thanks" Hanabi yells out as she starts to run down, panting in the process.

"Perhaps we should head back and wash up; your meet up is at 12 and it's almost 10" Neji says to Hanabi.

"Sounds like a good idea" and Hanabi quickly runs back to the compound.

"So, when did they start meeting up? Konohamaru-kun and Hanabi-chan?" Hinata asks Neji as the two slowly walk back.

"I believe this may be the third time I know of them meeting. I don't in particular know how they met or when this took place, but I've only helped her once and the first time she was on her own" Neji answers.

"On her own; unless someone went with her out of the campus, the only time she would have been out was when she went with me that one time to train" Hinata states.

"It may have been that time, I don't recall her leaving apart from when I escorted her" Neji says.

Hinata ponders at this; so Hanabi's been quiet up till now, and it hasn't been long. It would help with explaining to tou-san why it took a while to tell him about Konohamaru.

"It should be fine then when Hanabi-chan explains to tou-san about Konohamaru; it hasn't even been a month since they met" Hinata nods her head.

"Indeed. So Hinata-sama, what are your plans for today?" Neji asks.

"First clean up, and then see kurenai-sensei. I don't know what things will be like during the day, but if we could do some evening training, one-on-one, I would like that" Hinata says, poking her fingers together.

"I would be delighted at that; I wish to not have too many breaks in between the training of our clan's taijustu; your flexibility is becoming a great asset to you" Neji says.

This surprises Hinata; she's heard a few whispers about how she used the clan's justu differently than most, but she always thought about it negatively. It was humbling to know that someone in the clan thought her way was an asset.

"Arigato Neji-ni-san. How about after we clean up, I make us some tea before we take Hanabi out" Hinata says.

"Sounds good" Neji nods.

Splash, Naruto dropped into the water after dispersing his Chakra. When he floated up, he tried to overpower his chakra everywhere, causing high waves to raise him up. It didn't last long though; as soon as he looked around, he dropped back into the water. This had been happening for the past hour, and no matter how much he tried to concentrate, his attention wasn't all there.

'This is harder than I thought, especially when I don't have anyone telling me if I'm doing this right or not', Naruto rose up, coughing, before getting out of the water and lying down. He had stripped off his clothing, only leaving himself in his boxers, and looked up. It was only past 10 in the morning, but already the heat was a little strong.

He decided to organize his thoughts for a while before trying to train again. His first thought was the Kyuubi. While the two didn't get along (the Kyuubi practically hated him), he never inflicted so much hatred as he had during the match with Sasuke. Even when Naruto had lost it during his fight with Haku, it was his hate that he felt. The fight with Sasukes was anger, but as the Kyuubi's chakra continued to leak, hate had slowly boiled up in him, and he realized that it wasn't his hatred, but the Kyuubi's.

'I need to talk with him as soon as possible; I don't want to confront Sasuke again with the chance of this hatred leaking out, if I hadn't pulled at the last second, I might have shredded Sasukes heart instead of directing it towards his Chidori' Naruto really didn't want that happening.

His other thought was what Sakura had said this morning; something about Konohamaru saying something about him and Hinata. Naruto was worried that something might have happened when Sakura had worded it the way she did, and he felt his heart jump for a minute before Sakura clarified it. Naruto figures he should talk with Konohamaru about Hinata before he says something that might give misinformation; the last thing shy Hinata needs is to be embarrassed by some rumor.

The final thing he wants to organize in his mind is Hinata herself. At first he thought she was dark, timid, shy, and weird. When Neji had said all those things about her, he felt both angry and sympathetic; angry that anyone would bring down their own family like that and sympathetic because just like himself, she was trying to change and be acknowledged. It was probably why he felt safe in telling her his fears before the chunin exams part 3 had started. It was both of a surprise and feeling of such gratitude to feel respect by someone before he even had made a name for himself. Hinata had, from what Sakura said, been watching him. If that's the case, then she saw all of his failures. But instead of making fun of him, she had acknowledged his strength to keep on trying no matter how many mistakes he did.

And now she had gone from struggling against her cousin, to defeating three jonin from Iwa; it both awed him, and impressed him. She still seemed shy, and would faint every now and then, but she would be someone he could trust in battle. It was why he was willing to ask for her help even if it was only for disrupting a genjustu; hopefully she can help with kurenai-sensei.

'I wonder what she's up to today, maybe later on I'll visit kurenai-sensei and ask about it; maybe Hinata will be there as well' lately, apart from everything else, he found his thoughts drifting towards Hinata at least once a day. He figured it was from them spending a lot of time with each other lately.

Closing his eyes, he just listened to the wind, birds, and footsteps. The wind felt great on his skin from the heat of the sun. The birds sounded like they were singing, making beautiful music. The footsteps sounded casual, getting closer, and feeling a shadow loom over-wait, hang on!

Opening his eyes, he saw Shikamaru and Choji standing over him. Shikamaru had his casual lazy look, while Choji was eating a bag of chips.

"Hey there Naruto, whatcha doing?" Choji asked, putting more chips into his mouth.

"Oh, hey guys. I'm just taking a break and drying off" Naruto said.

"Taking a break? Well, that sounds good to me, let me join you" and as Shikamaru said that, he layed down on his back, and brought his eyes upwards.

"Nothing like cloud watching" Shikamaru said.

"Ne, Shikamaru, aren't you supposed to be doing a lot of missions or something since you're a chunin?" Naruto asks as Choji sits on his other side.

"Just got back from one yesterday; I'm on standby until further notice" Shikamaru responds lazily.

"And with Asuma-sensei on missions constantly, team 10 can't really go on missions unless Shikamaru leads them, which is rare since he's usually also out on higher missions" Choji explains.

"Troublesome" Shikamaru mutters.

Naruto sighed at that; he didn't really expect anything less from Shikamaru since he knew how lazy he was. It was still annoying how someone who didn't want the promotion was able to achieve it, even if he understood how.

"Enough about missions, let's look at the clouds for a while" Shikamaru says.

Naruto figured while he was relaxing he might as well cloud watch.

"So Naruto, Kiba says the last mission was somewhat of a bust" Choji says.

"Yeah it was; we found the bug, and even prevented it from being captured, just for it to pick up the wrong scent. It was a real shame too since Hinata was captured, then she defeated the jonins who attacked us. She got so tired that during our travel back, she fainted" Naruto says sourly.

"Hinata defeated jonins?" Shikamaru pipes up.

"Yeah, it was really amazing; she created this new technique from her clan, something similar to the one Neji used on me back in the chunin exams, and it repelled and destroyed the summoned bees that were attacking us, thus defeating the jonins" Naruto says.

"Wow, Hinata's sure gotten better. If don't keep up Shikamaru we'll be left behind" Choji says, nudging Shikamaru.

"Troublesome. I'm already Chunin and that's more than enough troublesome work for me" Shikamaru mumbles.

Naruto was about to respond to that, until he decided it wouldn't make a difference. Closing his eyes again, he continued to listen to the wind and birds from before.

There we are

So trying to get More Naruto and Hinata love there, hopefully it's Not too cheesy.

I added Shikamaru and Choji for the first time

Hope you guys liked it.

Cheers