Sakura was leaving one of the vendors her father's trade caravan is closely affiliated with carrying her prize securely in her grasp. So precious was this treasure, she couldn't risk leaving it in her bag. It will remain in her protective hands the entire walk home. Sakura was euphoric as she realizes nothing could stop her in her quest now, not with this absolute treasure. Armed with this fragrant weapon, she was sure to reach Sasuke-kun's heart now.
Sakura wasn't from a wealthy home and certainly didn't own property like many of the clans in the village, but her father came across all sorts of valuable items traveling through his trade routes, and her mother always ensured some form of commission for their family from her seat on the civilian council. Her father came across the latest silks, tools, wardrobe, and other odds and ends he finds throughout the country, and now, clutched in her strong grip, the most sought after bottle of perfume in all the elemental nations. Every kunoichi or civilian girl with a man in her pure heart has read about its amorous properties in one or all the beauty magazines. It's the nearest to a guarantee a budding girl with prospects of love in her heart could have... 'and it was all mine!'
And if Kami-sama hasn't smiled down wonders on her enough, walking towards her now is none other than her eternal rival and strongest competitor for Sasuke's affection; the only girl who doesn't seem to know when she's lost.
"Well, would you look at that," the platinum blond with pupil-less blue eyes starts mocking. "Wonders never cease. Somehow all the flies in the village managed to avoid hitting that gigantic forehead of yours," Ino hurtles. "Shooting stars happen less often than that."
Sakura was impervious today. The platinum blond's biting jab did nothing against the strength of her alluring weapon. Sakura allows a wide mischievous grin to spread her cheeks till they hurt, actually causing the beautiful blond to become cautious. Slowly, and quite deliberately, Sakura raises the incredibly distinctive, highly sought after expensive bottle of perfume with the showmanship of her delicate hand. It was a tiny thing she could easily hold between her thumb and index fingers, but the effect was as immediate as it was glorious.
Ino knew instantly what the pink-haired girl had and while Sakura is quite sure the Yamanaka clan have far more in their coffers than they need to purchase Ino a bottle, she doubted their clan head, her father, would shell out such an unreasonable amount of ryo for such a small bottle of liquid gold, especially when its only purpose is to make his daughter more attractive to boys.
Ino turns irate, before denial mars her beautiful face, then becomes angry again. Before Ino can even utter a syllable of righteous indignation, Sakura starts laughing heartily as she walks triumphantly passed her arch rival. Sakura didn't have to speak, her weapon was that strong and this battle is won. It's Sakura's victory.
"Enjoy it while it lasts!" Sakura hears the platinum blond beauty yell at her through the busy market street. "I- I'll get an even better bottle! You'll see!"
Other than having Naruto-baka on her team, absolutely everything was working out in her favor. Sakura hadn't seen Sasuke-kun since they passed Kakashi-sensei's bell test last week, so she was more than looking forward to seeing the perfection of his beautiful face and the amazement of his Kami-given ninja talent tomorrow. In her eyes, it was a foregone conclusion that he was a once-in-a-lifetime shinobi and no one could ever top him. She just had to make sure she looked perfect for him. After the tragedy he's been through, it's what he deserves after all.
Eagerly running home she couldn't wait until tomorrow. She absolutely needed to prepare and the more time she had the better the results will be. She had thought to spend some time training and honing her skills—after all, she was the top kunoichi of their class—but one look at her hair and she knew it didn't shine quite as vibrant as she knows Sasuke would like. One look at her nails, and though her profession as a kunoichi kept her from adding any color to them, she could still make sure they were perfectly manicured, not that she knew if Sasuke liked properly maintained fingernails, but she couldn't risk disappointing him if it indeed mattered. Add to all of that, her new premium fragrance in hand and there was no way he could ignore her tomorrow.
'Rank missions suck,' Naruto mentally tells Naru-nii.
Last week flew by in a hurried blur of training, strength training, eating ramen, hurting all over, sleeping, training some more, then repeat, repeat, repeat. It was the hardest week of training Naruto had ever experienced in his life, more so than his entire six years in the Academy. It wasn't to say that he didn't try as hard in his school days, but the bits of progress he was making under Naru-nii was different than the scraps he could scrounge together from hard-hearted sensei who didn't seem to care about his education in the least.
In his youth, when his school texts were stolen, they would never give him another one. When he didn't understand something, the sensei's were always too busy to help him. He was even banned from the library. If Naru-nii ever turned out to be a fake, Naruto couldn't see himself becoming terribly upset about it. Naru-nii was teaching him in earnest, even if it was for only twenty to thirty minutes a day.
The training was even tailored made for him. Every day of the past week he spent most of the morning—when he managed to wake up before noon—practicing his taijutsu against three to four clones as another four or five would be practicing chakra control. After he managed tree-walking, he had four days to master water-walking, and though it was much harder, by the end of last night's training, he and his clones were lightly jogging on the small lake in Training Ground 3. Soon after the throbbing head pain of dispelling his clones abated, he was giddy the entire trek back to his apartment.
Naru-nii pushed him, not cruelly but because he cared, and it was worth it. Even when Naru-nii was resting from using the prayer beads and couldn't coach him, Naruto gave it his all. He may not have experienced the things his older counterpart had, but thinking about Iruka-sensei, it wasn't hard to imagine. By the end of the week, Naruto definitely believed Naru-nii. He believed that this was his future-self talking to him, training him, as well as the story he told. It also meant that something stronger than even his future-self would be coming in a few years, and he absolutely needed to be the one to stop it.
It wasn't all doom, however. Naru-nii would tell him other interesting things; how he has really high chakra reserves, tenketsu points that were larger than normal, followed promptly by what tenketsus points are, his elemental affinity type and how it's used. As a physical learner, Naruto has yet to fully grasp most of the information explained to him, but Naru-nii doesn't seem to have a problem repeating something or trying to make it easier to understand.
'Yeah, I wasn't a fan, at all.' Naru-nii responded.
'How long are we suppose to do D-Ranks for?' Naruto mentally asks him as he and the rest of Team 7 exit the Hokage Tower.
'A heck of a lot longer than you'll like,' the older version answers. 'Have you been dismissed yet?'
Tilting his head to look at his Jōnin-sensei reading his little orange book, Naruto mentally answers, 'nearly.'
'Don't forget the plan,' Naru-nii maintains.
'I won't,' Naruto sternly declares. 'If it involves tricking people, I'm pretty good at that. Though, usually it's to get back at someone or make myself laugh.'
'Now we use that talent for a little bit of good,' Naru-nii happily asserts.
'Yeah, yeah,' Naruto groans, unhappily about the plan, and physically shrugging. 'Hey, how come you didn't tell me Kakashi-sensei was going to be three hours late!'
'Hahaha,' Naruto heard Naru-nii laugh.
"That's not cool man!" Naruto yells at him, looking and pointing upward.
"Na, Naruto?" Kakashi calls curiously. "What's not cool? And who are you talking to?"
Naruto whirled around in panic before quickly trying to school his features, failing miserably at it. "Aha... well, uh, I only meant, if we're done for the day, that- that stupid cat scratched us up pretty good, right?" Sasuke and Naruto did most of the engagement, while Kakashi coordinated, and Sakura provided support. But since Sasuke doesn't heal as fast as Naruto, Sasuke was the only one with plenty of red claw marks on his arms and face.
"I'm going to shave that stupid cat's hair off and skin him alive," Sakura angrily announces. "No one does that to Sasuke-kun and gets away with it!"
"Na, na, I was scratched too Sakura-chan," Naruto weakly offers.
"So," she hurls back at the blond before moving to Sasuke's side.
"I think we're done for the day," Kakashi tells his team. "You all did fine work. We'll meet tomorrow by the bridge, seven am. Don't be late."
"That goes double for you!" Naruto yells at his sensei but Kakashi had already shinshin'ed away. 'Don't worry, I got something you can do while you wait,' Naru-nii tells his younger self. 'And it's totally going blow his mind when he sees.'
'Cool,' Naruto responds, almost missing Sakura ask Sasuke if he wanted to train, or eat, or take a stroll, or shop together, all of which he ignored with a barely concealed scowl as he started walking toward his home. Sakura stood deflated sniffing her wrists, asking herself, "maybe I didn't use enough?"
Besides smelling really nice, and admiring her long pretty pink hair, Naruto didn't know what to make of her efforts in relation to what he was prepared to do for her. It's not every day you give up the girl of your dreams so she can grow strong and in exchange for your sacrifice, she likely ends up with another man. It's a lopsided sinking feeling that drags his feet and slumps his shoulder, but, he wanted—more than anything—for her to be happy and strong, and Naru-nii did tell him they'd be really good friends in the future and even better teammates, so that was a positive in his book.
"Ne, Sakura-chan-" Naruto starts but is quickly interrupted by an ill-tempered Sakura.
"If you even think of asking me out on a date, I'll hit you so hard you'll land on the other side of the village!" Sakura's murderous green eyes and lethal tone made Naruto take a cautious step back, putting his palms up to show he's not a threat.
She spins around to head home when Naru-nii tells him, 'I know it's hard but, remember, you're doing this for her—for the girl we both love.' Taking a moment to gather up some courage, he runs after her, calling out, "Sakura-chan!" She hadn't gotten very far but as she turned to the call of her name, she's already raising a fist to carry through on her threat. "Wait! Wait! I'm not trying to ask you out!"
Her fist still up and clearly in a bad mood, she hollers back, "than what?!"
Splitting his attention between her clenched fist and her beautiful green eyes, he nervously answers, "I- …I want to help you."
She stares suspiciously for several long seconds before finally lowering her fist and irately asking, "how?"
Taking in a quick breath, and relaxing some of the tension in his shoulder, he clarifies for her precisely how he and Naru-nii had planned it the last two days. "I thought of a good idea to h-help you... get closer to... Sasuke." That was far harder to say than Naruto was expecting—he spent many grueling hours obsessing over it—and somehow the stomach churning and choking chest feels worse than he imagined. Worse still, his knees felt weak, and his eyes started to grow hot with prickly moisture.
This was the love of his life he was helping set up with not just another boy, but his eternal rival. The aching strain in his chest was partially ignored in favor of answering her question.
"What? What do you mean? How?" She took a step forward, forgetting her earlier agitation for the possibility this could mean for the future she imagined with her love. She was fully expecting to be a snarky brat for the day and drive her parents crazy after the perfume seemed to fail, but maybe there was hope of turning her day around... even if Naruto-baka was the reason for it.
"Okay, first," Naruto started, rushing to get this day over with. He's already planning on a full contact brawl fest against as many clones as he can make. He even makes a mental note to give them clear instructions to beat him to a bloody pulp, certain that no matter how badly he was beaten or broken, it wouldn't hurt as much as this. "Do you know what Chakra Control is?"
"Of course, you idiot," she tells him, using her near eidetic memory to recount to him, "it's the ability to sufficiently control and conserve your chakra. They taught us that in the Academy."
"Really," Naruto genuinely asks. "I don't remember that."
"That's because you're an idiot who can barely remember what side of the kunai is sharp," she hurtles back.
"Ha, ha, you didn't have to say all that," he weakly tells her, covering the sting of her verbal jab with a weak smile, though she doesn't seem to care. Eager to move on, he continues, "yeah, well, I know you're the top kunoichi of our year so you must have really good chakra control. In fact, I bet it's perfect!"
Sakura eyes him wearily, never one to particularly like his compliments or advances but she couldn't really say otherwise. "Maybe," she simply states. "I've been told I have good control over my chakra, but aside from the leaf concentration training we hardly use any jutsu in the academy, so I can't be sure. Why? And what does this have to do with Sasuke-kun?"
"Everything," he says with a strained smile, doing everything he can to appear happy to help her even though he was dying inside. "I got the perfect way for you to put your hands all over him, and the best part is, he'll be happy you did!"
Sakura was visibly vibrating with excitement, thinking, 'if what he's saying is true, than I'll be able to touch my Sasuke-kun whenever I want, and then he'll be happy I did, and then we could probably start dating, and then we could maybe even possibly... kiss.' Sakura's entire body swoons at the thought, turning beet red, her half-lidded eyes were dilated, and her heart and stomach were swapping from warm to fluttery.
This could be a big win for her. Even though she used an entire life's supply of luck to be on Sasuke's team, that wouldn't stop Ino form trying to gain his attention. Hell, Ino might not even stop if Sasuke and herself started dating. With Ino's admittedly mature beauty and charm as her enemy, it wasn't enough that Sakura and Sasuke were on the same team. Sakura couldn't get complacent. She needed to do anything and everything possible to be with Sasuke because she's certain there isn't another Kunoichi alive who would treat him right. Whatever Naruto thought of—if his claim panned out—would be for the amazing future she planned to have with Sasuke-kun.
"Sakura... Saaaakura," Naruto kept calling for three minutes before she finally regained her senses.
"Tell me!" she demanded, rushing him a little with clenched fists. He startled, taking a step back as she insists on knowing, "what's the idea?"
Smiling somewhat happily to see her enthusiastic reaction, though still hurting by the reason why, he tells her, "you become an Iryō-nin!"
"Huh?" Sakura asks, face dropping with disappointment.
"Think about it," Naruto starts. "Sasuke is a mid-to-close range fighter, so every time he gets hurt—even a little scratch on his cheek—you would be the one to heal him, which means you have to touch him. If you knew Iryō-ninjutsu right, you could've healed all his scratches and he would've been super thrilled you did. Plus, it would round out the team, right? Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke and I are the fighters, so we'd need someone to patch us up if something happens."
Sakura continued to peer suspiciously throughout his entire explanation, though the reason changed from, 'how idiotic his idea sounded,' to, 'Naruto, you thought all of that after their first official meeting together?'
"Besides think of all the cool things they can do, like healing people who are hurt and saving lives. With your control, you could be, like the best healer in all of Konoha. Plus, I'm sure they have some really famous Iryō-nin too," Naruto explains. Naru-nii was very adamant about how he said, 'some really famous Iryō-nin too,' because he was pretty sure Sakura-chan would automatically think of the village's most famous Iryō-nin, since a lot of kunoichi look up to her.
Both Narutos keenly understand that in any good prank, the more the person getting pranked thinks on their own to agree with you, the better the result will be. And looking at the realization dawn on her face at the mention of 'famous Iryō-nin,' he was pretty sure she remembered the one Naru-nii briefly talked about.
After a few seconds of deep thought—if her pondering expression is anything to go by—she finally speaks up, "I- there's no way... I- I couldn't-"
"You could!" Naruto passionately interrupts her. "And I can prove it!"