AN: Sufficient Velocity and Space Battles are super far ahead, and the Pa tre on is on CH 111. You can find the link on my profile if you wanna just get there.

I'ma update this more often than normal for a couple of weeks to catch it up, but you know, go elsewhere if you want the chapters now.

Opening her front door with intentions for a stroll - and not at all because she's spent the last two days binging FF14 and refusing to leave for any reason and Haku threatened to freeze her PC in a block of ice if she didn't touch grass - she's surprised to find a fist about an inch from her face. It just kind of hangs there, frozen in time, and it isn't until Sakura looks around that fist that she sees the cherry tomato holding it up. Black hair that frames her face, pretty white eyes, a demure body and enough hesitance that if they managed to harness it they could possibly tranquilize a giant monster.
Hinata Hyuga stands in front of her door, clearly having been about to knock. "Hinata? Are you here for something?"

"Yes, you." The girl squeaks, continuing to stand there as if it's the most normal thing in the world.

"You don't have to knock, it's open, um…" Sakura watches the still stunned girl for a moment, before nodding, "ah, you're caught in a malfunction. Okay, give me a second, I know how to deal with this." She steps backwards behind the frame, and closes the door.

She waits. A few seconds pass, her brow furrowing before she finally opens it back up, "uh, Hinata, you have to knock to complete the um, where'd you go?" Hinata is nowhere to be seen. Sakura's nothing if not resourceful though, she knows how to deal with this, she just has to go get a special item.

It doesn't take long to find her, she just looks around at bushes and random items around her house, using Scan until something shows up. Tracking Naruto down during training has taught her well.

[Hinata Hyuga

Very Dangerous

Kidnapped at a young age, Hinata has been ruthlessly trained to ensure she can protect herself. Heiress to the Hyuga Main Clan, it's really less a question of 'can she' kill you, and more 'will she.' The answer is no.]

Well that's informative. "Hey, uh, have the talking stick." Sakura takes a momentary chance to appreciate that this might be the last time she holds out a treasure of hers, but if this is how the key item is meant to be used then she's not going to question it. She holds out a prize from a bygone era towards the bush, and finds she's a little surprised to see Hinata actually grab it, and pull herself out of the bush with a smile. She's still flushing up a storm, but she imagines she'd be a little red if she just got called out for hiding in a bush too. Despite having her talking stick, Hinata doesn't say anything. That's not right, if the stick isn't going to be used then she'll have to get it back later, it's clearly not the key item for this situation.

"Did you want to come inside?" Sakura asks, prodding her.

"That's what she said!" She hears one of the small girly Narutos shout from inside the house, an open window revealing she can hear them, he? Is it she when Naruto's a girl? She'll have to ask Ino later.

"You don't even know what that means!" She shouts back at the window.

"That makes two of us!" Sakura can't help but admit s/he's got her there. The heiress frowns deeply, implying she gets it, but Sakura's well past asking.

"I uh, no, I don't want to go inside. That's where Business Naruto is." Hinata says with a knowing glance at where the clone was making waffles just a few minutes ago when Sakura passed him. Chances are he's probably still there.

"You know him?" Sakura asks.

"No."

"Then how do you know he's… whatever." She shakes her head and decides to not question the Hyuga.

"It's like Naruto but not Naruto." Hinata explains, "I don't like it."

"Yeah, our parents have just kind of decided that too." Sakura admits with a bit of a pout that takes over her features, "they say they have two sons now. I pushed for three but they're not budging on Haku being too adult for that." She really tried to get Haku accepted! They like him, he's just not part of the family, which is sad but also Haku's really weird about intimacy so maybe they're just respecting his choices? She's been told she needs to respect people's choices more.

"I'm here for you," The Hyuga heiress clarifies, stepping forward towards her on footing that somehow manages to look graceful despite being half in their garden, the girl's foot directly on a vegetable, "it's about Neji."

"Yeah, we should go elsewhere then." Sakura crosses her arms in thought and nods to herself, knowing just the place.

Skewers was a good choice. It's good on protein, close enough to her house that it's barely a walk but far enough that Haku can't complain and say she didn't actually leave, and it's expensive enough that Hinata'll feel bad and pick up the whole check. She's a genius. She wasn't expecting her to dig in, but hey, she brought her to a very normal restaurant, expecting the princess to have a ton of manners might actually be rude. Plus, she's a ninja. If she comes here with her team, eating normally might be a habit.

"So you said it's about Neji?" Sakura asks her, taking a gracious bite of juicy meat.

"Mmhmm," Hinata nods slowly, looking her over real quick, "he's in a lot of trouble for antagonizing you on your mission."

"I'm sorry, wut?" Hearing that Hiashi person wasn't pressing charges was one thing, hearing Neji's in trouble for her attacking him? Absurd. She has half a mind to call Hinata a liar right out, but that's probably inaccurate, Hinata's never lied to her before… has Hinata talked to her before this?

"You have become an extremely important person lately," the freaking royalty at her table says without a bit of irony, "my father is furious that he managed to damage relations with you before a meeting could be arranged. If I was to guess, and I'm not very good at that kind of thing, please forgive me…" The girl takes a shaky breath, clearly forcing herself to run through what sounds like a very rehearsed statement, "it sounds like he had intended to try and marry you to someone in the branch family when you reached marrying age. Now he believes that will be impossible."

"Ah…" Her secret is that big a deal? She thought the Hyuga was all about pure bloodedness… Well, it is just a branch family position, maybe they're open to experimentation on people they can discard on a whim. That's a sour thought.

Still, it's a little weird to have all this attention on her. She doesn't see anyone trying to marry anyone to Naruto, and he's got the Kyuubi inside of him! Okay, talking to the Hokage about this has officially jumped on her priority list to the 'immediate' category. The whole, went to another world a couple of days ago part is pretty big too now that she thinks about it.

"I am asking on behalf of my beloved cousin, that you take him into your home as a show of goodwill. I'm scared." Both hands clap on the table, and Hinata lowers her face to touch it with her nose.
Sakura's, really just not sure how to respond to that. "Uhh, does he even want that?"

"I don't know, I haven't been able to talk to him since he got back." Hinata admits, still face first into the table.
"This is so awkward…" Sakura can't help but say out loud, "I can't just do that. There's clan politics and-"

"I can make it happen, I promise." Hinata asserts, finally pushing herself up to look her right in the eyes with flaming determination the likes of which she's never seen from the girl. She seemed so shy in class, she wonders just how far the Hyuga has left her comfort zone for this. "Anything to help, Neji."

Well that's intense. "Err, my parents threatened to disown me the last time I moved a boy in randomly, even if they'd be okay with that, you'd need to talk to them not me…" Sakura can't help but scratch her cheek at the gaze so focused on her.

"Understood." Standing up from the table, Hinata's circular face lights up as if on fire once again, before she bows. She stays in that position for a little over a second, before leaving the restaurant in a zippy fashion that implies she'd rather never look at Sakura again for as long as she lives if at all possible.

"So much for getting her to pick up the check…" Sakura trails, staring at the spare seat and her lunchmate's missing form.

She needs to go talk to the Hokage, this is ridiculous. She quickly slurps up her meal, pays, and takes her leave too. Her parents can deal with that nonsense, she's pretty sure they're going to tell Hinata to go home, so, at least that means it's not her problem! That does mean she'll have to check in on Neji later and make sure it's not that bad, she'll beg her parents herself if it's that horrible but uh, she expects the noble to exaggerate to get what she wants. Now why she wants Neji gone, who knows.

"So I'm apparently really important all of the sudden," Sakura says, seated down and looking across a huge desk at a man so powerful and knowledgeable that everything she's ever learned and done would be lucky to be a footnote in his journal, "as evidenced by the fact that I didn't have to schedule this, you just pulled me in here to talk the moment I got here."

"That is correct, Sakura." Hiruzen Sarutobi affirms her suspicions, his fingers interlaid on his desk, and his gaze directly focused on her eyes. He's giving her his attention, and that makes her squirm worse than she'd care to admit. "Can I offer you something to drink, or eat?"

"No, I just ate, thank you…" Despite her claim, he makes a hand seal, and almost immediately someone comes in and plops two cups of steaming tea between them. "Um, sorry if my head's not on straight, this is a lot," Sakura palms her temple, gently rubbing it. "I have to report to interrogation in two days so that Ino can assure you I'm not treasonous, but I'm important?"

"Would you not want to ensure that something very valuable is safe?" The elder asks her, "you've gone from a run of the mill academy student graduate put on your team almost solely to give Sasuke and Naruto a foil between them - the worry was they might kill each-other -"

She has not seen any indication of that, she wonders why…

"- to someone who has the sincere recommendation for Chunin from two Jonin, not including her own sensei." That raises questions, who's the second one? She knows about Gai but she doesn't remember impressing anyone else. Is it the Hokage himself? He's technically a Jonin, she bets it's him, and he seems very impressed with her. "You've done so in only a few months. Growth like that is exclusively reserved for genius, and you are not a genius."

"I think I'm pretty smart." She frowns glumly at him.

"Academically, you might be a genius," he assuages with a wave of his palm, "but there is a very big difference between that and a ninja genius. You have not had very many advantages, you're getting stronger solely because of your own efforts and the mysterious power I've read about in reports. You have direct control over a nation - albeit a small one - and you disappeared off the face of Konoha a couple of days ago only to reappear like nothing happened."

"Shouldn't that have caused me to be detained?" She realizes with a start, more Ino time isn't a bad idea, though maybe she'd like it if Ino didn't have to see that scary monster lady.

"Should it have?" He asks her, and the way her skin crawls and her danger senses flare, she knows he's expecting her to keep her damn mouth shut.

"Let's talk about your powers, Sakura, I want to hear every detail." Maybe marching into his office wasn't a great idea. She has to start thinking things through. She expected to have time to think in the waiting room!