Fox In The Leaf

Fixing up the fallen

Sakura was making her way to the training field as she and Haku had a training session planned and she didn't want to be late. She thought about the progress she made ever since Haku had joined the village. She had improved in leaps and bounds thanks to him, but the one she was most thankful to was Naruto. During the Chunin exams, she had thought about where she was before Naruto had thrown the truth into her face. "I used to be so useless to everyone back then. Why did I become a shinobi in the first place?".

'Cha, we wasted so much time chasing Sasuke-san! What were we thinking!?'

Sakura had to sigh as she knew that she had no one to blame but herself for how she had acted to everyone but Sasuke. This had brought up another thought 'why would Naruto even care about what I did? He could have just let me stay the way I am and just leave me to die on a mission. From the way I acted, he should hate me and just leave me behind. But then again, I was on his team so maybe it was more on obligation than any real care.' she was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn't even hear when someone was calling her until it was right next to her.

"Hey Forehead!"

Sakura jumped at the shout and turned her head to see that Ino was next to her. "what is it Pig?"

Ino put her hands on her hips as she sighed in exasperation "I was calling you for the last five minutes. You were so lost in thought that I was almost expecting you to run into that electric pole." she said as she pointed at the one that was a few feet behind them.

Sakura shook her head as she began to walk again "I was just thinking about some things."

Ino was now walking with Sakura on the pinkette's left "oh like what?"

"Just ….I was thinking how I did in the Chunin exams."

Ino thought about the Chunin exams as well and grimaced because of several things that happened during that time. She hated saying this but she spoke anyway "at least you were able to get a tie from your match. I couldn't even put up a fight in mine." she slumped a bit from thinking back to how terrible she did in her match against Shino.

Sakura patted Ino on the shoulder "you were just matched poorly. It's not your fault."

Ino felt a bit better, but than she remembered the other more impactful events that happened during the exams. She thought back to when she entered Naruto's mind, seeing what it was like inside and what Naruto looked like and the invasion, how during what she thought to be her last moments alive, how she and Hinata had told Naruto how they felt about him. She felt both scared about it and felt a bit of elation at seeing how important the boy was to her and Hinata. She came back to reality to continue speaking to Sakura "thanks Forehead. By the way, where are you going?"

Sakura smiled as she looked ahead "I am meeting with Haku for another training session. We agreed that we would always meet on Friday afternoon to train together."

Ino's eyes grew wide when she heard this but then gained a devilish knowing smirk. "So you and Haku-san will be all alone in a training field huh?"

Sakura looked at ino with a small bit of confusion in the way Ino was saying it

Ino continued on as she tapped her chin with her finger "just the two of you with no supervision and far away from anyone else. Sounds to me that you are planning something other than training."

Sakura blushed hard at what Ino was insinuating before she shouted in embarrassment "I-It's not like that! W-w-we are just going to practice my senbon throwing! there 's nothing going on between me and Haku!"

Ino looked at Sakura from the corner of her eye as she smiled "oh, only 'Haku' huh."

Sakura blushed as she realized that she said Haku's name without any honorific. She scrambled to think of something to counter and it came to her. She spoke out in a panicked rush to divert the embarrassment "you do the same thing with Naruto-san!"