A/N: A little more interesting this chapter. Also my first attempt at a bit of combat and Naruto and Sakura get personal.
Naruto was woken up early Sunday morning by his doorbell ring; he groggily opened his eyes, wondering if Kakashi had returned to try another therapy session.
"Not again Kakashi-sensei, at least come back when I'm awake!" He shouted.
"Naruto, it's me; please get up. I need you!" Sakura sounded out of breath.
Realizing it was Sakura was enough to get him fully alert. "Oh, Sakura, I'm coming." He called, getting out of bed.
Naruto still was drowsy when he got to the door, Sakura looked frustrated. "Sorry, are you okay?" He asked with a yawn.
Sakura was anxious. "I need your help. I've been trying to master fighting with a chakra scalpel, but I can only do so much by myself, and this technique is meant for lethal combat so I can't really ask another person." She hesitated, "I was wondering... Could you make shadow clones and spar with me?"
"Anything for my girlfriend, I just need to eat first, can't make good shadow clones on an empty stomach ya know." He waved her inside.
"You're the best, Naruto!" She said eagerly, stealing a kiss. "I'll make breakfast."
"You can cook? I didn't know that." He smiled.
"You were thinking about my earliest food pills, right? The ones that I made without any flavor." Sakura chuckled shyly. "I got carried away with the first batch I admit it ."
"They gave me the energy to keep training." He assured her.
"Yeah, but I know they didn't taste good, I eventually tried them." She said sheepishly. "Anyway, don't worry Naruto, I cook for myself at home a lot." Sakura told him with a reassuring smile.
"Your parents don't cook?" He asked.
She sighed. "Not much anymore; we were close when I was younger, but we have slowly drifted apart since I graduated from the academy."
"They don't support you being a ninja?" He asked in surprise.
Sakura continued to cook; there was mild frustration in her voice now. "Well, It's not that they don't support me, but they are very overprotective. It's gotten to the point that I don't tell them about missions because they freak out and try to push me into getting a regular job."
"What do they do?" Naruto wasn't sure what those who did not become ninjas did.
"Nothing I wanted to do," Sakura said. "Honestly, I would move out if I could afford a place, just to save our relationship." She sighed. "Anyway, here's breakfast!" She served it with a smile.
Naruto took a few quick bites. "Wow, it's amazing!" He said as he swallowed. "Ramen would make it perfect."
"Well, I'll treat you to ramen for helping me train today." Sakura said with amusement; she knew nothing he ate would ever top ramen.
"Yeah, thanks, Sakura!" He shouted.
"Is there a reason you love it so much, other than how it tastes, I mean?" She couldn't help her curiosity.
Naruto thought for a moment while he ate more breakfast. Then he looked down, subdued. "Well, as a little kid I remember always wandering aimlessly in the village trying to get food, even in the winter I was always turned away… Itchiraku was the first place in the village that was willing to give me a meal."
Sakura had slowly lost her composure and burst into tears hearing the story. Naruto was quickly nearly being smothered by Sakura.
"Naruto, I'm so sorry…" She sniffed, feeling overwhelming sympathy.
"It's not your fault." He said calmly.
Sakura had nestled herself on Naruto's lap, one around his back with her head on his shoulder. "It's just I never knew that you struggled like that." She pulled back to meet his eyes. "A small child shouldn't have to to struggle for food…" Her fingers found the whiskers on his cheeks. "You must have been so confused and hungry but scared to even ask!"
Naruto was quiet but had a smile on his face. "I didn't have to ask him, he just gave me free ramen whenever I came in for years—until the day I became a Genin and could afford it… Between all the profit he lost and the ridicule he endured for serving me, the least I can do now is make sure that I give back as much as I can."
Sakura was full of solace now. "I'm glad that at least a few people were kind to you when you needed it the most in your life…" She sighed. "I'm just sorry that back then I wasn't one of them." Sakura brushed the front of his hair with one hand. "But I need you to know now that you can always depend on me." She told him intimately.
Naruto took her hand and used his free hand to cup the back of her head. "Sakura, I keep a list of people who changed my life, including you, even back when we were kids. There are less than ten people on it."
"What do you mean?" She asked, taken aback.
He grinned. "Do you really not get it yet? You created the number 1 knucklehead ninja. You're attention back then, even though you couldn't stand me, gave me the secret to getting noticed and acknowledged. That's why I decided to start being annoying and bothersome to the whole village and not just you."
"This list of yours, how high am I?" She asked curiously.
"Second, behind Pervy Sage." He said
Sakura blushed and laughed before kissing him. "I'll take second to him..." She said softly and then got off Naruto's lap and they finished eating breakfast.
"I only started keeping a list so I would never forget." He said quietly. "Anyway, I'm glad I can talk to you, be with you."
Together they cleared their food…
Sakura smiled. "Hey Naruto, I know you had to wait for me for a long time, just know I am in love you so much and I swear that will never change," She looked deep into his eyes. "That's my promise of a lifetime. Sorry if that's sappy but I'm worried that in the back of your mind you think I'm so fickle that how I feel will change again so I wanted to make sure you know that's not going to happen." Her words were full of devotion.
"You just made it a lot easier to ask if you want to move in with me." He said abruptly. He continued nervously. "I mean I know it's small here and we just started dating but I've had enough of being alone to last the lifetime you just promised."
"I'm a difficult person to live with, Naruto." She cautioned him.
"Well, when have I ever given up if something or someone is difficult." He reminded her with a grin.
"That's true." She smiled rhetorically. "I do want to move out of my parents… Yes! I'll move in with you!"
"Awesome! I know you'll be in the hospital for a while so it can wait until your stable from getting the Hashirama Cells." He said.
"Something to look forward to!" She said softly.
"Yeah! Now… Did you still want help training?" He said earnestly.
"Yeah, I do." She said seriously.
"Right, let's go." He took her hand, and they left…
The training grounds were deserted, this was usually the case on Sundays, as many rested from the weeks missions.
"I'm shocked you got up so early." Sakura admitted in surprise.
"You need help so here I am." He said smiling, then he made one shadow clone.
"Thanks, okay…" She said, stilling herself.
Sakura weaved the necessary hand signs, and her Chakra formed small, sharp blades on both hands. With a nod, they started to spar. Their first exchange had Sakura slicing at Naruto's chest, but he anticipated and broke the momentum of her attack with a perfectly timed block.
"Damn, too obvious…" She muttered.
"If that connects on a real person, you'd slice their chest open." Naruto was impressed.
"That's the idea." She said quickly. "I can't hold back even in training.
Sakura attacked again, this time going for the shadow clone's knees, this time she succeeded but the cuts were shallow, the shadow clone vanished.
"Too imprecise, if that were the real you, you would still be able to move." Sakura said, breathing hard.
"Are you alright?" Naruto asked, concerned.
Sakura was irritated. "Yeah, it's just hard to maintain the scalpels for long, and I'm trying to cut key areas of the body, but I haven't figured out how to stay accurate without losing any strength or speed." She sighed.
"Hmm," Naruto thought for a moment. "When I'm in sage mode it's instinctual. I don't think I react… That's what you do when you're evading attacks right. Don't try to attack without reacting to your opponent's first." He suggested quietly.
"Don't think, react." Sakura slowly repeated. "Okay!"
"Here I come again." He warned.
They sparred again, and Sakura took Naruto's advice and focused on reacting to his attacks with her own. Naruto seemed to be aiming for her face every few punches, that was easy to avoid just by tilting her head away from either fist, eventually Sakura felt things slow down and she sliced his right elbow and cut the tendon cleanly, luckily it was a shadow clone, so it vanished.
"Yeah, way to go Sakura!" He said enthusiastically.
Sakura knowingly smiled. "You were repeating a pattern so I could get the hang of it and find someplace you left yourself exposed."
"It helped, right?" He asked.
"Yes, let's keep going but keep me guessing from now on… After all, that's what a real foe will do."
"If that's what you want, Sakura," Naruto said with a nod. "Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!" The atmosphere was suddenly tense.
"That's more like it!" She looked serious now. She let all three shadow clones surround her. That's right, come at me from all sides!" She thought to herself.
At the start Sakura was primarily defensive, moving her arms quickly but precisely to fend off a flurry of jabs and uppercuts from the trio of shadow clones. Soon they were regularly kicking her too, and Sakura had to duck or jump accordingly… However, Sakura did not falter. The first shadow clone she defeated by slicing clean through his foot after he missed with a horizontal kick. The second she sliced through his right hand when she rose to a full stand after ducking the punch that would have hit her square in the jaw. The last one took the longest, but she eventually wound up landing a headbutt when he thought she was captured and could not move her arms and sliced through his neck before he could recover from the pain in his head.
"Okay… I'm exhausted." Sakura admitted as she doubled over breathing hard and slowly.
"It would have been easier if you weren't aiming for specific body parts." Naruto reminded with a grin.
Sakura was finally breathing normally again, talking quite bookishly. "Thats the point of the Chakra Scalpel in combat, slicing through specific areas in the muscular and vascular systems of the body to immobilize and incapacitate the enemy. Don't you remember how dangerous Kabuto is with it?" She asked, surprised.
"Oh yeah, your right," He said slowly.
"Exactly, that's why I'm determined to master using it during combat." She said seriously.
"I get it now." He nodded in understanding.
They embraced, she gave him a wide smile. "Thanks for helping me train, Naruto."
"No problem." He kissed her forehead affectionately, making her blush.
"I'll treat you to ramen for lunch." She grinned.
He grinned at her. "You're the best, Sakura!" As they left, he threw his arm around her.
"Yeah, yeah…" She laughed. "Save the flattery for our date tonight, Naruto." But she was blushing yet again.
Sunday evening quickly arrived… Sakura had been looking forward to her first official date with Naruto for quite a while. She knew that they were doing something casual that didn't involve eating ramen, but Naruto hadn't said anything else, besides mentioning what time…
An alarm buzzed. "Six o'clock already. He'll be here soon." She said, turning her alarm off and studied herself in the bathroom mirror. "I hope this is enough... Calm down." She exhaled slowly. "It's casual, and he's Naruto." The doorbell rang… "That's him." Sakura felt butterflies of excitement as she went to her back door.
Seeing each other as the door opened, both Naruto and Sakura were momentarily speechless; they didn't see each other in anything but the clothes they wore every day.
"Wow..." They finally managed to say at the same time.
"You look incredible, Sakura!" He said quietly, trying but failing not to stare.
She blushed immediately, feeling a bit breathless. "So do you, Naruto!"
"I wasn't sure what to wear." He laughed nervously.
"I wasn't sure either; I went back and forth for a while." She confessed with a chuckle.
Naruto was wearing the same clothes he wore during the Third Hokage's funeral—simple dress clothes… He felt that he did not have anything else that looked good enough to go on a date with Sakura Haruno.
Sakura was wearing a simple light blue dress, which was good for a casual first date, and a small amount of makeup on her face and lips.
"I've never seen you with a dress on before. You're gorgeous." Naruto offered his hand after she closed the door.
"You are the sweetest, Naruto." She squeezed his hand, blushing through her cheeks. "So… what are we doing?" Sakura asked.
"We'll be on the outskirts of the village, I tried to set things up inside the village but we would have attracted a crowd and I wanted us to be alone," Naruto said. "Now here we go."
"Naruto?" .
"Where we're going is tucked away above the outskirts of the village. I assumed you don't want to climb in your pretty dress?" He explained quietly.
"Oh, okay!" She blushed as he scooped her into his arms.
"Hold on tight, cherry blossom." He said with a grin.
"You know the meaning of my name." She said affectionately, putting her arms around his neck with an amused smile.
"I can be smart when it counts." He insisted.
"I know that already." Sakura assured. "Now take me away, handsome." He nodded and was off, romantically carrying her along in his arms.
Sakura wasn't sure where they were going but it was quite high, getting closer to the moon the farther they traveled; eventually, they were moving up a massive waterfall much larger than Naruto had once trained around, making Sakura glad he was carrying her. Soon they were at the top and Naruto landed on the ground.
"This is the place." He announced, setting her down gently.
Sakura was mesmerized. "You can see the entire sea from this spot!" She turned back to him and smiled.
"Yup, but that's not the main reason we're here." He told her. "It'll start soon; keep your eyes on the sky." Naruto pointed in the direction of the pier that was a great distance away.
"How did you find this spot? It's got to be one of the tallest in all of the land of fire."
"I've been looking for a spot for our first official date for a day or two. Whenever I wasn't around, that's what I've been doing." He scratched his head nervously. "That and prepping our entertainment."
Sakura was about to ask what entertainment was when she spotted something soaring fast and high into the sky until it was above her line of sight, and then it exploded with the moon as its backdrop.
"Wait is this…" Sakura said quietly.
"Here we go." He said putting his arms around her from behind.
Sure enough, fireworks started exploding into the sky one after the other in a mix of colors; this continued as Naruto and Sakura stood still and together, watching…
Sakura eventually broke the silence as the fireworks display kept going. "I can't believe you did all this; it's incredible, Naruto." She said quietly, putting a hand on his face.
"Anything for you, cherry blossom." He said affectionately.
Sakura gave a slight hum of approval. "I've decided I love hearing you call me that." She told him, blushing hard.
"That's good because 'pinky' was the only other thing I could come up with, and that's just terrible." He admitted in relief.
Sakura laughed. "Yup you made the right choice on that." After a few more minutes, her curiosity peaked. "Hey, if we're up here, who is setting off the fireworks?"
"My shadow clones, he declared proudly.
"Your quite romance ninja, you know that." She told him, impressed.
"I can't take all the credit; at first, I was freaking out about our first date originally, not because I was nervous about being with you, but because I wasn't sure what the date would be." He said.
"Why?"
"I wanted to make sure it was memorable because I love you…." He said tenderly.
"Aw, I love you too, Naruto and I will never forget tonight." She assured, turning her head slightly and capturing him in a deep but tender kiss.
The last of the fireworks exploded in the night sky…
"I guess I'm not so bad at this romance thing then." He said, shrugging.
"I love that side of you!" Sakura told him emotionally.
"I probably should have brought food; I'll remember that next time." He quietly assured.
Sakura smiled thoughtfully. "There's still time to get something when we get back to the village, but we have to hurry back before everything closes for the night."
"Yeah, hold on to me again, okay." He said with a grin.
"You're going jump, from here. I think you should know I had post-date plans with you Naruto, plans that didn't include jumping to our doom…" She looked down, gulped and met Naruto's reassuring eyes and felt a calm completely wash over her.
"We're not going to die..." He said reassuringly. Sakura wondered what Naruto was doing as he sat down to meditate when after a brief delay, she saw his eyes change. "It's my sage mode; I jumped down from the highest peak in The Land of Toads, and I was wonderful. I mean, I had to master it first, but I did. As long as you let me carry you, you'll be safe." Naruto told her seriously. "You can always trust me, Sakura." He said, holding out his hand.
"I do trust you, Naruto." Sakura took his hand.
Sakura's inner self was immensely turned on. "Yeah, and I'm counting this as the foreplay before sex!"
Naruto smiled. "Hang on tight, Sakura." She nodded as he picked her up, jumping off the waterfall cliff moments later.
...
"Thank you, Naruto for such an amazing first date, since I'm getting Hashirama Cells tomorrow was a little nervous, and now I'm not." Sakura smiled with deep affection.
"Is that why you wanted to sleep here." He asked with concern.
"I didn't want to say goodbye to you and my parents. Well, they are a bit much." She confessed sheepishly.
"You take my bed, alright? I'll take the sofa." He said.
"I have a better idea." She said bluntly. Sakura was silently leading him into his bedroom.
Naruto's brain hadn't caught up yet. "What do you mean?" He asked blankly.
"Sharing the bed silly, oh, and I'll need to wear some of your clothes tomorrow morning." She told him casually. "But in the meantime, I know exactly what I want, and that's you, Naruto."
"That's why you insisted on staying here." He said, wearing a grin.
Sakura blushed. "My parents keep odd hours; want them catching us in bed together, let alone having sex. I just wanted privacy, but don't worry, if you are not ready, that's okay."
Naruto was looking at Sakura with barely contained excitement. "I'm ready, but I didn't think I'd ever have a girlfriend let alone have sex, not with a demon fox inside of me…." He trailed off.
"Well, I'm here to tell you you were wrong about that. I'll see you in your room in a little bit. I'm going to take off my makeup."
"I can't get condoms because the store is closed." He sighed. Are you on those pills girls take to stop pregnancy?" He asked curiously.
"I'm not on birth control, I had no reason to be sexually active, so they weren't necessary." Sakura shrugged.
"So much for the third time being the charm interrupted twice and now no protection." He sighed.
"I'm ready; you're ready… our lives could be over at any moment fighting the war. Hell my life will be over if my body rejects the Hashirama Cells." Sakura said bluntly.
"You're willing to risk getting pregnant to have sex with me? He blushed very hard. "That's flattering as hell."
Sakura shook her head in amusement. "I am in love with you dummy, getting pregnant now would be inconvenient timing with the war and everything, but a happy accident all the same." Sakura shrugged thinking realistically. "Besides, we can't do anything about protection now. The store is closed. Don't worry, Naruto I'm not going to blame you if I get pregnant, I just can't stand the idea of dying without having sex with you…"
Was it strange that she felt more ready to have a child with Naruto than fight a war… Sakura did not know. But as usual Naruto seemed to be inside her head…
"Sakura, we're not going to die…" He said calmly.
Sakura was blunt and she got emotional. "We don't know that, war is unpredictable. It's irresponsible sure, but I don't want to wait."
"We're on the same page." He assured.
Sakura sighed apologetically. "Ugh, I'm full of energy and spiraling. I guess that's what happens when jumping from the highest waterfall in the land of fire, it got me all full of adrenaline."
"Sorry, I should have asked if you're afraid of heights…" He said apologetically.
Sakura slowly found herself with the giggles. "Naruto, you apologize too much! I was having a moment, but I'm okay, honest. I'll see you in your bedroom." She entered the bathroom which was adjacent to Naruto's room.
"I swear this is too good to be true!"
Naruto had to hit his cheeks to make sure that he wasn't dreaming. It hurt, so this was real, and that made him able to, at least for now, forget about everything else because, at the moment, Sakura was all that mattered.
A/N: Another chapter finally done, the end was not easy to write for obvious reasons. I haven't decided if I will leave things to the imagination or give an actual picture of Naruto and Sakura's first time between the sheets. Still, I was always going to cliffhanger things here because it makes moving into the next chapter much easier regardless of my decision.