Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ All In Time ❯ Chapter 10: It�s Just An Inkling ( Chapter 10 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Author's Notes:

My brain is swirling. In fact, my eyes are proof of that….they are swirling too, if you must know. But this doesn't concern you, so let me just get on with my life (yes, you may get on with yours as well). This is all that I wanted to say today.

DISCLAIMER:

Let me make this easy for me and for you, I do not own Naruto. By the way, I added the name Naruto on word so that the damn spellchecker would not keep telling me it's wrong. It's right I tell you, it's right! Anyways…

Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.
-Alice Mackenzie Swaim …

All In Time

By Boyarina

Chapter 10: It's Just An Inkling

Sakura resisted from joining the fray when she saw Sasuke-kun shot out and up into the air from the hole he created. Biting her lip, she held her ground—a mere 10 meters away from the battle zone.

Not too near, not too far, if in case the guys would need her immediate help.

Sakura watched as she saw Sasuke twirled in the air, landing on the ground gracefully. He had his head bowed down, and from the rise and fall of his shoulders, she could sense him breathing heavily.

“Sakura-chan!”

Sasuke's head snapped up to the direction Naruto's voice is coming from. Although equally surprised by the arrival of their blond teammate (a.k.a. her beloved blond baka)—that is surprised both by his arrival plus the fact that he casually placed a hand on one of her hips as though it's the most natural thing in the world to do—Sakura took her sweet time granting Naruto her full attention.

In fact, regardless of the fact that she is harboring a most disturbing affection for him that is bordering beyond sisterly and wanting him to reciprocate in the same way, no one could really blame her if her face is twitching with annoyance at his boldness when she did came face to face with him, feeling completely unnerved.

“Na. Ru. To.” She said warningly. Sure enough, her blond baka took the hint. Smiling at her quite sheepishly, he—with great care, mind you—extricated his hand from her hips and innocently used the same appendage to scratch on a spot on his cheek.

Sakura raised one eyebrow—an act that hopefully would dispel the flush that she is quite sure is matching the faint pink color that spans from one of Naruto's cheek to the other.

“I was going to vacate you. It might get too dangerous here,” he said, his grin fading and his blush out a little bit.

Unsettled by his expression, an expression that she considers too serious, given that they are already in a situation far graver than what she would have liked, Sakura's chibi self reared up and decided to sassy on him.

“And how do you plan to do that?” she asked cheekily.

Her plan was unfortunately foiled when Sasuke jogged up to them. From the distracted look on Naruto's face, there's no doubt that he hadn't (not even in the slightest) gotten a whiff of what she just asked him.

“Sasuke, I have a plan.” Naruto said, getting all the more somber.

Sakura sighed. Well, there goes HER plan.

When Sasuke gave out his customary `Aa' as an acknowledgement of the Naruto's words, Sakura grumbled silently and was just about to start moping for having been cut off the picture, had not the unexpected happened. Before she even had the time to blink and process what Naruto did to accomplish it, he had swooped her into his arms—her back supported by his left arm and her legs dangling over his right arm.

“Hey!” she protested, but only half-heartedly. In her mind, she is doing this little victory dance amidst free falling confetti…

POINT, SHOOT and SCORE! Her Inner Self yelled.

Naruto winked at her OUTER nonplussed self roguishly. “I'll just cart Sakura-chan to some place safer.”

Sasuke snorted—and if she had not been mistaken—snorted as though he is thinking that Naruto is meaning to do more than what he just said.

Something just isn't right with the world today, for aside from her inexplicable attraction to Naruto, Sasuke's atypical behavior, Naruto's advances, she had added herself once again to the list by suddenly blasting a glare to the Uchiha's direction.

PERV! Her inner self shouted.

“Make it fast.” Sasuke said with a smirk, ignoring her death-served-through-the-eyeballs tactic.

Unable to do anything else, Sakura growled under her breath, then crossed her arms in haughty I-so-do-not-like-what-you-two-is-doing-now stance. Glaring at the both of them, she puffed her cheeks out in exasperation. Despite this though, deep within the recess of her mind, she couldn't help but feel a little relieved at the thought that at least that is the worst that Sasuke could deliver with his teasing.

Until…..

“It'll just be a quickie,” Naruto quipped from somewhere above her head.

Sakura couldn't believe her maidenly ears. She bowed her head and shook it (not in defeat, mind you), gathering all her distaste to everything that is green and hentaish.

“Would you two get your heads out of the gutter?!” she groused, giving her teammates another dose of her dark scowl that promised hell if they tried to do so otherwise. In fact, had her teammates been any close to each other, she would have reached out and smacked their heads together for emphasis.

Deprived of anything tangible she could vent her frustration on, she resorted to silent mutterings, which mainly consisted of what she would lecture Kakashi-sensei, the source of all that is perverted, so he could start being a model example of what a gentleman is once they get back to Konoha.

“Sakura,” Naruto said, his voice once again solemn.

At the sound of her name, Sakura jerked her head back to the kitsune carrying her, granting him her full attention. Considering that she had spaced out earlier (scheming her diabolical plot to cuckold their teacher to become a gentleman), she just now realized that Naruto is already moving, finally onto the task he had set about to do, apparently.

“Nan da?”

Naruto's hold tightened around her, and for a second there, indecision flashed through his eyes. He opened his moth to speak, but as though thinking better about saying whatever he intended to say, he shut it. He did this a couple of times, his expression interchanging from a pained look to that of irked expression every other second.

If not for the moving blur of forest which had Sakura mesmerized during the first four times Naruto was imitating a fish that suddenly found itself swept on dry land, Sakura would have snapped at Naruto even before he got to his second pained expression.

But four times in a row with the same thing cycling over and over again is simply too much for her to take and, as far as Sakura's patience is concerned, that is its limit.

“Spit it out,” she finally barked out when Naruto dared, yet again, to hesitate for the…oh Kami! She lost count already!

Naruto sighed resignedly when they reached their destination. He released her legs and carefully set her back on the ground. The right arm he freed came to rest on her left shoulder, mirroring the position of his left arm on her right shoulder.

“Promise me that you will stay here. Right here, okay?” he murmured in that deep voice he rarely uses, making a frown of worry to surface on Sakura's face.

“What for?” She asked in a tone full of dread. Wither due to paranoia or to the instincts she have acquired by being a ninja, warning bells went off in Sakura's head.

“Promise me, Sakura-chan….”Naruto pleaded, reverting to the childhood nickname he had christened her with. The one thing that is different now is instead of using the girly tenor that he usually prefer in saying her name, he is using that same baritone—the same `please-don't-argue-with-me-now' voice that is for some reason is tugging on Sakura's will urging her to consent.

How can she resist…..?

Sakura squeezed her eyes shut, realizing that looking in the direction of her object of desire's eyes is definitely NOT the way to go if the whole point is to strengthen her dissipating resolve to deny him of what he requests.

“Yada!” she ground out, head bowed down and shoulder slumped forward. A very childish reaction, she knows, but the sense of foreboding tells her that being stubborn about the whole thing would most likely save her beloved blond's ass.

He tends to be too reckless at times….

“What are you planning to do?” she bit out in a harsh whisper for he is making her worry. And this worry is sending pin-prickling sensation on her chest, and is twisting her gut in such a way that makes her want to hurl.

Sakura felt herself being pushed backward. Limp doll that she is, she offered no resistance. She didn't even realize that air is no longer passing through her nostrils when a moment had passed and yet Naruto made no further moves.

Curiosity getting the better of her, Sakura lifted her head and came face to face with Naruto's blank one—eyes glazed over, completely devoid of expression.

What is this?

The pin-prick sensations on Sakura's chest intensified. Illogical as it may seem, Sakura leaned forward, pushing her shoulders against Naruto's grip, seeking something in his presence that would relive her of this disconcerting feeling.

Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone—the blank expression had slipped out of Naruto's features and she could feel once again the steady rhythm of her heart. In place of that zombie-like expression is this gentle visage with that not-quite-there smile.

Because of this, somewhere inside her mind, a loud crack resounded as the wall of her resolve to stay where Naruto wanted her to wait split into halves. When Naruto rested his forehead against her own, the rest of her remaining resolve disintegrated into flecks of dust and dirt.

Exposing her.

“Ne, Sakura-chan? Stay here for a bit, k? I'll be back soon.” Naruto said a bit too cheerfully. If it had been his intention to mask the doom that was about to come, it is already far, far too late for that. Sakura have already sensed it, felt it deep within her bones.

“You know,” she said, unable to keep anger tainting her voice, “if you are planning g to get yourself killed, let me do those guardians a favor and do you in, right now.”

Just for the sheer hell of it, Sakura stomped her left foot down onto Naruto's right one.

“Itaii!! Sakura-chan!” Naruto cried out, stumbling back and hopping on his uninjured foot while holding on dearly to his abused one, “What in the world is that for?!”

A triumphant smirk on her face, Sakura placed her hand on her hip and turned her nose up on him snottily.

“That's a going away present,” she huffed, “to remind you that the only you could come back to me is intact and in one piece.”

A sidelong glance at Naruto's direction showed Sakura that he no longer is jumping around as though a pogo stick got stuck on his leg and is actually looking at her quite intently. She would have tackled him right then and there if he hadn't suddenly switched moods and beamed her a toothy grin.

“In what state do you think I'll be in?” He gave his nose a brief rub, then sniffed. “I'll be fine Saku-chan.”

His words are innocently said enough and are, technically, supposed to appease her, but they made her all the more discomfited. This is ridiculous at best. Naruto could not exist in any other form, but in the one he is in now. This paranoia that Naruto would be in a state far different from what is normal could simply be a by-product of her worry for the upcoming battle, which, much to her dismay, Naruto would tackle like it is the last thing he had to do.

“Do you have any proof of that?” she demanded, trying to hide her anxiety for the nagging sensation that something big is going to happen had not vanished despite the explanations she plied herself with. Why else does he have to distance her from all the fighting if he does not know that it's going to be a tremendous battle?

Exasperation became evident on Naruto's face as soon as she blurted those words out.

“Do you not trust me?” he asked.

Sakura crossed her arms and began tapping her foot, fully intending to brush aside his question.

“You could say that,” she answered airily. “So, what do you have for me?”

He gaped at her, completely stumped by her request (more like order, really).

“I-I don't….” his voice trailed off as he searched every inch of his person for that something she is asking for. His face lit up when his hand went to his breast plate and clutched at an unseen object there. Pulling it out of his shirt, Sakura saw a prism like pendant which reflected back a myriad of color everytime a beam of sunlight truck it.

She recognized this crystal pendant and the history behind it all too well. That is the pendant Tsunade-sama had to remind her of the two person she loved the most and lost.

“I will not have that.”

It is too terrifying and too ironic for her to have that pendant.

A pained expression washed over Naruto's face as he wailed out, “Why not?”

Sakura was prepared to give him another one of her airy replies, but Naruto did not even bestow her a chance to form the first letter of her sentence when he zoomed to the spot right behind her. Without further ado, he wrapped the necklace holding the pendant around her neck and click the clasp close with a triumphant “There!”

Panic surged through her as she stared down at the crystal, which at the moment was happily shimmering back at her. She should have torn it away from her and hurled it as far as she could, but she was frozen in place, gaping wide-eyes at the accursed jewelry.

“I'll leave it to your care,” Naruto said, winking at her. “Ja ne.”

In a flash, he was gone. Sakura, still the perfect imitation of a block of ice, had watched him leave, unmoving and screaming all her objections inside.

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It may be that those who do most, dream most.

-Stephen Leacock