❝𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑲𝒐𝒏𝒐𝒉𝒂❞

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 3: 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑮𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝑵𝒂𝒓𝒖𝒕𝒐 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒈𝒆

"Today's the day that Kakashi-sensei predicted that Zabuza will attack again." The pinkette inhaled deeply and relished the feeling of fresh air before she continued. "To be honest, I'm scared." She glanced to either side of her to see if either of her teammates had even heard her. She noticed Sasuke was deep in thought and was completely ignoring. Figures. Sakura had slowly began to see Sasuke for who he was, not who she thought he was. The god-like picture of Sasuke Uchiha had started to crumble that day at the Academy. That day, when Naruto had thoroughly beaten and humiliated the Uchiha, she seen who he was. At first the smirk on his face had almost looked like a smile but his eyes... his eyes held an unfathomable amount of hatred for the one who had just beat him. After that she began to pay closer attention to Sasuke without such a massive amount of the fangirlism she had held before. Each time Sasuke was beaten his eyes told the same story: hatred. It was such a strong hatred too.

Next her eyes landed on the Uzumaki beside her. During the same time that Sasuke began to interest her less the opposite occurred for the blonde. Recently, ever since she began to keep an open mind, Naruto had impressed her over and over again. Between the unrealistic promises he somehow keeps all the way to how kindly he treated her despite how she used to treat him. Sakura never really understood, now that she looked at it, why the adults always treated Naruto like the plague. He was such a kind hearted person. Yet somehow this selfless angel of a human that is her teammate had earned the nickname "Demon Boy" from the adults. Yet, even after he had been struck in front of her, he just picked his smiling self back up. That alone was something she could never do. If she was hit like that for no reason there was no way in hell she would be smiling. There was also no way the attacker would have remained free yet he was back in the same store the next day acting like nothing ever happened. She began to walk with Naruto alot after that incident. During that time she had seen some of the nicest people she knew do some awful things to him and yet despite seemingly everyone hating him, he still smiled.

"Hey Sakura, do you need something?" Naruto's inquisitive voice brought her out of her thoughts.

"Not really. Why do you ask?" She noticed the corners of his mouth began to twitch ever so slightly.

"Well you were staring at me for about five minutes and you were smiling the whole time so I thought that you were going to ask me something." There was that twitch again.

"What did you think I wanted to ask you?" She narrowed her eyes as she realized that Naruto had probably ignored her when she had broken the silence earlier.

"Well I don't know. A few thing come to mind like if I'm also afraid of Zabuza, if Gatoh is going to send any men, maybe a date when we get back, and something about Sasuke. That's all I could think of you asking." He felt that twitch again as Sakura was oblivious to what he mixed in with the guesses.

'Processing...processing...' Those were his thoughts as he looked at her thinking over what he just said.

"Well that seems about-" 'click' "wait WHAT?! A DATE!" Naruto finally let that twitch go and broke out onto a full blown grin. He chuckled as he ducked under the enraged kunoichi's fist. She gave it a few more good swings before she finally settled on crossing her arms and muttering under her breath while shooting glares at the still laughing blonde.

"A date, no. However I WILL go eat with you at Ichiraku when we get back." Sakura couldn't have been more pleased at his reaction. Their roles changed as she laughed while he tried to splutter out a coherent sentence. On the other hand, Naruto had no idea what to think or say. He had been kidding about the date when she suddenly agreed to it just without using the term "date" to describe it. He must have looked rediculous at that point. Here he was, Naruto Uzumaki the one who inherited the powers of the godly Rikudo Sennin, and he was there spluttering out incoherent words as the girl of his dreams laughed at his misfortune. The fun was ruined before he could retaliate by the masked Jounin that lead the team. Kakashi had enjoyed the conversation behind him but he had a question or two for Naruto.