The rookie chuunin stood in front of a man who looked old and decrepit down even past the skin. Half his face was bandaged while the other half was wrapped in a dour expression. Near Konoha, his mysterious saviors opened up a trapdoor in the forest about a kilometer outside the walls. Underneath the ground lay a labyrinth of hallways and rooms all carved from the earth and inlaid with black bricks. Sakura was taken from his arms with promise of medical care. He alone came to stand before this enigma of a man.

"Naruto Uzumaki, do you know why you are here?" The man asked in slow, solemn tones. The chuunin shook his head. "My name is Danzo. I command an elite cadre of ninjas loyal to Konoha. That is all I am willing to tell you about my operations for now. What I can tell you is that I represent an alternative."

"Wait," Naruto interjected. "Can I ask if you've found Sasuke?"

The man was silent for a while. "I regret to inform you that my agents could not find Sasuke Uchiha. He is missing at this time; we must presume him dead." The man grimly relayed the news to Naruto.

The blonde let out a deep sigh and looked away for a second. "So what did you want to talk to me about?"

"Let me ask you a question. Did you always agree with Hiruzen Sarutobi?" The man asked smoothly.

"Nah, who agrees on everything?" Naruto admitted nonchalantly. "He once told me that I'd have a hard time as a ninja if I wore orange. That hasn't hurt me yet."

Though not quite what Danzo had in mind, he would use whatever avenue existed to achieve his aims. Tsunade's appointment to the position of Godaime was a mistake, or so Danzo felt. She was too firmly entombed within Hiruzen's philosophy. The rising, young Uzumaki might be more susceptible to his influence. "If you knew that the invasion was imminent would you go on the offensive to forestall it? Would you strike so that all the deaths that day could be avoided?"

"Well… yeah. If I could have stopped it I would definitely want to." The blonde said.

"Hiruzen knew. He let the exams continue anyways. How many needless deaths did that bring about?" The old man let the question hang in the air.

"Okay, so what's that got to do with me?" Naruto asked with some suspicion creeping into him.

"If you were to continue to gain power and prestige at your current rate, you might become Hokage one day. I am an old man who has given a lifetime of service to the village. I merely want to see for myself that you have the resolve to do what is necessary to make the Leaf strong again."

The boy gave a thumbs-up, a gesture unsuited towards the wrapped, decrepit figure. Nevertheless, Danzo took it as a good sign again. He just needed the boy to be able to mold. He needed to instill certain philosophies in the young one. "You bet I would."

"I'm glad you feel that way. Of course, you must be anxious to see your surviving teammate. She should be awake by now. Would you like to go see her?" The man asked. Danzo was a man grown used to manipulating people. Today, he showed the carrot. Tomorrow… the stick.

Naruto sat beside Sakura's hospital bed. She was lying face down on the bed, her back and shoulders in bandages; the flesh underneath was still tender to sleep on. The pair had come back into the village through the gates after Sakura received initial medical aid from Danzo's cadre. They came out of his complex through a different outside entrance in order to check in at the gate, avoiding suspicion.

The pink girl turned her head to look at Naruto. Hope shone through her eyes. Naruto, understanding the unspoken question, shook his head. "I'm sorry Sakura. They couldn't find him." He elaborated no further.

The girl nodded her head slowly and let it fall back onto her pillow. Naruto could see from a side profile of her face that she had her eyes tightly squeezed shut. Spots darkened her pillow as tears began to drip from her eyes, unseen but not unfelt. Naruto reached over and took her hand to try to comfort her. It was reassuring that someone paid homage to her pain.

"Sakura-chan, I don't mean any disrespect – especially to Sasuke – but what did you see in him? He was a good teammate, all things considered, but it didn't seem like he cared much. It sucks that he's gone, but there's gotta' be something else behind your tears." Naruto asked softly. He simply did what came naturally to him. He pried and dug. He made people acknowledge feelings in themselves they may have consciously forgotten.

"It's something you weren't there to see. I know you were registered for the academy early and only fell back to your age group because you failed three times. The rest of us registered for the academy on the same day. There were certain… standards that had to be met. For a civilian to join the academy, they had to prove that they could come to mold chakra. Those who looked like their bodies would never sustain the energies were refused. Sasuke and his brother are the reason I'm a kunoichi at all." Sakura thought in remembrance, telling Naruto about a day long past.

A young child with gentle pink hair walked hand-in-hand with her mother. A uniformed ninja greeted them in the courtyard outside the academy's entrance. The mother handed the man a slip of paper.

"Everything seems to be in order ma'am. We have just one thing to test." The man motioned for someone else to come over to him. A medic in the white tunic of an iryo-nin came to stand beside the man.

"Hold still sweetie. We just have to do a test. It won't hurt at all." The medic touched her arms and navel, prodded at her arms and feet, and performed unseen ministrations. Sadly, he shook his head. "I'm sorry ma'am. I can't, in good conscience, allow her to try to be a ninja. Her chakra system is underdeveloped and would put her in serious jeopardy. The only other way in is with a letter of recommendation from a high ranking jounin."

The girl, hearing this, began to cry into the crook of her arm. She had once heard tales about the gallantry of ninja forces. It had captured her imagination from an early age. Now, the wonders of that world were being denied to her.

"What going on there, nii-san?"A young Sasuke asked, watching the interplay between the pink haired girl and the academy official.

An older likeness of Sasuke, except for more angular features, watched the same scene as his younger brother. "That girl is being denied entry into the academy." He explained simply to his brother.

The young Uchiha felt sick inside. As an Uchiha, there was no other path he would more like to follow than that of a ninja. To be denied the privilege of becoming one seemed cruel to his young mind. He empathized with the girl. "Can we help her?" Itachi looked at his brother with a scrutinizing gaze before nodding approval.

"Come." Itachi led his brother up to the instructor.

"Ah, Itachi-sempai, are you here to enroll your brother?" The chuunin in charge asked. Both he and the medic bowed deeply. Despite only being a teenager, Itachi was already a jounin; he outranked the both of them.

"Yes I am. I couldn't help but wonder at the situation we have here." Itachi said, indicating the crying girl.

"It is unfortunate," the academy official began, "but it isn't likely she'll develop the capacity needed to mold chakra. I can't let her enroll in the academy in good conscience." The man stated with genuine remorse.

Itachi allowed him to save face and still help the girl. "If I may, I believe you are incorrect." Itachi activated his sharingan eyes. "You are correct she is well behind the development curve for a chakra user, however, my eyes indicate she is growing, albeit slowly. In time, she will have the capacity."

The iryo-nin nodded in assent. "I can only gauge her chakra as is, I can't see its growth like Itachi-sama."

"Alright then, we can process her." The man bent down and patted the pink girl's shoulder. "It's alright lass; this man here says you can be a ninja."

Sakura regained her composure enough to see the retreating form of her saviors. She took off in their direction, leaving her mother to finish talking to the instructor. Sakura tugged at a pocket on Itachi's flak vest. "Thank you so much mister!"

The older boy turned around and emotionlessly explained the truth to her. "You should thank my brother. He was sympathetic to you and asked me to intervene." As they walked off Sakura saw the younger boy smile and wave as they left. Later, she would learn his name to be Sasuke Uchiha, the gifted son of a noble ninja clan.

"No shit, he really was like that once?" Naruto was almost incredulous at the tale. He could have sworn that Sasuke was incapable of compassion.

The tear-filled story left Sakura with a slight hiccup. "I'm sorry Naruto. I know I never really appreciated you, but now you know the reason. Sasuke's in my heart for more than just his looks and name."

"You don't have to explain yourself. I've always respected Sasuke as a ninja, but thought of him as a self-entitled, callous prick. Whatever happened to him the night his clan died… it twisted him up inside, didn't it?" Sakura could only nod sadly. In the hour of loss, the Uchiha's teammates could only reflect on his life in the absolute best of terms. He was only cold because of his hurt, they'd think. At some level, he must have cared about them. Maybe it was true in some way. But it wasn't wholly truthful. This, they would learn.

A knock at the door commanded their attention. Naruto got up and opened the door to the hospital room. Without ceremony, Ino Yamanaka came in and hugged her lover. "Are you alright? I heard something happened to you guys." Ino then turned her attention to Sakura in her bed. The blond girl bent down over her friend's bed and embraced her as well.

"Ow!" Sakura yelped. Ino had brushed her raw back in the embrace.

"Sorry, what happened? What'd I do?" The well wisher asked.

Sakura waved it off as nothing. "It's just an injury I got. It's not serious, it just hurts. Just be careful piggy."

Ino took Sakura's face in her hands. "Have you been crying? What's wrong?" Sakura held back a sob that was starting to build up again.

"We lost Sasuke." The floral named girl told her friend numbly.

"I'm so sorry." At this point, Naruto decided to leave the room and let the girls talk privately. He had some vague idea that their relationship was deeper than the public rivalry that seemed to consume them. Waiting outside was one of Danzo's agents. It was the same boy that was part of the cadre sent to rescue them.

"I bring greetings from Danzo-sama. In case you didn't remember, I am Sai. I will be your principle contact with Danzo and ROOT." The boy told him.

"ROOT? Is that what you guys call yourselves?" The pasty-faced boy nodded in the affirmative. "So what exactly does the old man want with me? You guys weren't exactly clear on the fact."

"The deal is simple. Danzo-sama has volunteered to help in your training and support a future attempt at obtaining the position of Hokage. In return, he asks for certain… considerations." The boy evenly explained.

Naruto looked at the boy seriously. "What considerations, exactly?" By now, Naruto knew enough to be wary of the vague promises being exchanged.

"That is for Danzo-sama to decide. I am merely his messenger."

"I can't agree to anything until I know what he wants." Naruto sternly warned. The other boy seemed to not be bothered in the least.

"Very well; in the coming weeks and months, you will meet him again. I hope you agree at that time."

Seeing the state her friend was in, Ino decided to lay off her normal teasing. "Sakura-chan, you look a mess." Trying to be productive, the Yamanaka rifled through her friend's hair, restoring some sense of order to the pink locks. During the ministrations, the pair spoke sparsely and in whispers. The quiet activity and soothing motions eventually put the injured girl to sleep. Ino left her friend to sleep. Outside, she found Naruto still waiting.

"How is she?" He asked. His face betrayed worry to match his voice. There was a hint of something else as well – guilt.

"She's sleeping now. What about you?" The blond girl questioned her intimate friend.

"I just wished I hadn't lost Sasuke. I'm kinda' wondering if I should have tried harder to go back for him." Naruto followed up with a brief description of the chase.

Ino understood Naruto. He put the weight of the world on his shoulders by default. He was, once again, contemplating if the failure was his. "If you had tried, all three of you would be dead or missing. So don't even think it." He seemed to shrink yet stand taller at once. "Take care of her. I have a feeling she's going to need someone to be there for her."

"What about us?" Naruto asked curiously.

For Ino, their budding romance had exposed her to feelings that were new and intense. At some level, she feared a real relationship and resulting loss of freedom. She told him as much. "I definitely have a thing for you, but I don't know if I'm ready to declare 'eternal love' or some such thing. We're young, y'know. Granted, we do some dangerous things and might not live long, but I want to experience more of life before anything – serious – happens. I'm not saying you should go after Sakura, but I wouldn't be angry if something did happen. Maybe down the line, we might realize we should get together for good; but let's live a little before we go there."

Naruto listened to her feelings and didn't know what to think. His feelings were no less intense, but he agreed with her sense of uncertainty. A part of his that was a vital, burgeoning young man would lament the loss of physical intimacy. However, as a ninja, he knew it would be a mistake to let feelings take over. There was no need to rush things, and no reason not to revisit them as more mature people. "Yeah, I kinda get what you're sayin'."

Team Seven sans one Sasuke Uchiha convened a meeting at their old stomping, viz training, grounds. Kakashi was back from his own solo mission and would be checking in on them following their harrowing experience. Sakura had been healed and released in relatively short order. Her physical wounds, though painful, were not quite serious. The blemish on her heart was more lasting.

"Yo." They heard the familiar greeting. The tone was different this time. It lacked the hint of playfulness that Kakashi normally let leach into his voice. Also absent was his orange book, tucked safely away judging from the slight convexity of his front breast pocket. A far cry from his usual tardiness, he was on time. "I heard about what happened." He laid a hand on Sakura's and Naruto's shoulders. The gesture was reassuring, as if the pain could be shared and made less intense through the contact. "There's something else you guys should know. Team Seven is going to get a new member so that the team is suitable for normal mission loads. The new guy should be here shortly. Ah, here he comes."

The same boy that was to be Naruto's contact with ROOT made his way towards Team Seven. He stood still and ramrod straight with a smile that could have been molded from plastic. "Is this Team Seven?" The boy said with a false sense of warmth. He was a good actor, but Naruto could tell how forced his cordiality was.

"Yes, welcome to the team. Everybody, this is Sai. Why don't you tell us about yourself?" Kakashi introduced him. Naruto looked at him with an outwardly friendly, but pointed, gaze.

"I am, as has been said, named Sai. Until recently, I was in the reserves after having been made chuunin. I decided I'd rather be an artist, you see. I might have been wrong. Just a few months of civilian life made me want to continue my ninja career. After the invasion, I asked to rejoin the shinobi corps and was kindly re-commissioned at my former rank." The boy said in strangely even keel.

Naruto looked at him incredulously. "You quit being a ninja to become an artist. Then you decided that you'd rather be a ninja. It seems flaky to me."

The plastic smile never left his face. "You could say I got lost on the road of life." The sentiment seemed to hit a little too close to home.

"Great, there are two of them." The boy had just used one of Kakashi's favorite excuses for being late.

"Wait a minute." Sakura interjected with anger laced into her words. "Sasuke's not even confirmed dead yet and we're just going to replace him like it's nothing? How can you agree to this?" She directed her anger at Kakashi. "We should at least try to look for Sasuke first, right? Those guys in the cloaks probably took him." Sakura took off, scoffing in disgust.

"I'll handle this. Stay here and fill Sai in." Kakashi went off after her, leaving Naruto to hash out some words with his contact.

As soon as the jounin left, Naruto turned to his new teammate and began to question him. "So what are you doing on a regular team? Did the old man get tired of you?"

The harlequin smile never left his face. "You underestimate yourself, Naruto-san. Danzo considers you a prized investment. This was too good of an opportunity to place a conduit close to you for easy access to his ear."

"He still hasn't really told me what he wants." Naruto remarked disdainfully. The one-sidedly acerbic talk was at odds with the atmosphere of the lush greenery making up the training ground.

"Would you consider paying him a visit this evening?"

Naruto shrugged. "Sure. We can go as soon as Kakashi releases us."

"Hello again old man." The grin on his face belied the irreverent attitude with which Naruto so often approached meetings with influential people.

"Greetings to you, young one. Have you thought about what I said last time?" The heavily bandaged man returned.

Naruto shook his head. "To be honest: no. That being said, you didn't exactly say a whole lot. So how do I know what you really want?"

Danzo said nothing for a while before slowly nodding as if he had just reached a thoughtful decision. "Very well then, I shall be plain. The invasion during the chuunin exams has shown how soft we've allowed Konoha to become. I simply want you to continue my philosophies in keeping Konoha strong. Do not repeat the mistakes of the Third Hokage."

Naruto looked at him quizzically. "I get that you have a beef with how the old man ran things, but maybe you're not giving him enough respect. He killed Orochimaru and I heard he did much more when he was younger. How can you say he wasn't strong?"

"Hiruzen was everything a ninja should be in his prime. It is his philosophies I am more in disagreement with than his person. He was too passive, too tentative." Danzo countered.

"Okay, I like facing problems head on myself. But let's get real here. No one is right all the time. He's made mistakes, but you've probably made a few in your day too. I'll agree to help if you can prove to me it's about Konoha and not your ego." The young boy challenged back.

This took Danzo by surprise. Normally, he would be furious at this child daring to speak to him so. Some of his words rang true however. As a pragmatic man, he had to admit no one could be right all the time. Hiruzen's approach may have been inferior to his own, but there must be times when his more delicate solutions would be preferable. At the risk of second guessing himself, Danzo had to respect the blonde's opinion. "This young one is crafty, despite his simple words. I think this is a decision I can live with."

"I believe we are in agreement. Perhaps it was folly of me to presume to control a puppet figurehead Hokage in the first place. I would support you whatever your decision, as any should for his Hokage. In return, you must first prove yourself worthy of the title, in time. I only hope you would rule more forcefully than Hiruzen." Danzo had not an inkling of where his sense of faith in this untested boy came from. Something in the back of his mind simply told him that it would be preferable to be behind the boy rather than in his path.

Since the loss of Sasuke, Naruto watched helplessly as his last teammate changed for the worst. She barely spoke to anyone anymore. She was irritable all the time. Ino was deathly afraid of even coming near her. Sai became a scapegoat for her anger, though he didn't complain at all. All alone, she would train to the edge of exhaustion – throwing weapons, perfecting hand-to-hand combat, and building chakra control as well as capacity. While this endless hard work was effective for people like Naruto, Lee, and Sasuke, it was suicide for a petite girl with a less hardy constitution. When he couldn't take it anymore, he did as he had always done. He confronted the problem head on.

"Sakura, stop it." Naruto grabbed her hand at the wrist before she could grind her bloody knuckles into the training post again. "You're going to kill yourself at this rate."

"What do you care?" Sakura practically spat out. "You never even liked Sasuke!"

"You're right. I don't care about him; I care about you!" He shot back. The admission shocked his teammate into submission. "Don't you understand? You're not doing anyone any good if you run yourself into the ground."

Sakura had no choice but to acknowledge the truth of his words, painful as they were. "Like hell if I'm going to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging he's right though."She simply collapsed onto the ground with her back to the post. Her disheveled appearance and rubbery posture was pitiful and pulled at Naruto's heart. He didn't want to see the people close to him ever act this way. When he tried to comfort her, however, she simply snapped at him. "Leave me alone!"

"Sakura, just let me help you, damn it. Why are you doing this?" Naruto fumed at his teammate.

She only stared at him with the expression that suggested she wanted to begin sobbing, but was too numb to summon the emotion. "Sasuke and his clan shouldn't go unavenged." She said this nearly at a whisper. Having stopped her frenzied training, the adrenaline wore off and she felt exhaustion creep up on her. She closed her eyes to hold back the tears that she felt were coming, but all this did was to prepare her for sleep and she passed out soon after.

Naruto saw his old crush close her eyes. They did not open again as minutes went by. Understanding she had fallen asleep, he picked her up as gently as possible and took her home. Leaving her on the doorstep of her home, he placed her down and knocked on the door. "I don't need her parents getting the wrong idea if I show up with her unconscious in my arms and looking like she did. Besides, I'm too pretty for prison."

Predictably, Sakura was rendered invalid for the next couple of days. This left Naruto with an unwelcomed glut of free time. Sai was only too happy to suggest that he train at the ROOT complex. Seeing no reason not to, Naruto agreed.

The labyrinth complex that was ROOT headquarters was the obvious brainchild of a man who sought mastery of the ninja arts. He religiously detailed all types of ninjutsu, genjutsu, and every other type of chakra manipulations he or his underlings could ever lay eyes on. He had rooms for the perfection of ninjutsu, weaponry skills, and shinobi scholarship. It was impressive. This man, obviously, liked to be well prepared.

"Naruto-san, I understand you are a kyuudo practitioner of some skill, yes?" Sai asked as Naruto trailed after him, receiving a tour of the complex.

"Yeah that's true, I guess. That's why I carry this bow around." Naruto replied absentmindedly as he continued pondering the treasure trove of ninja lore he found himself in. "Why do you wanna' know?"

The other boy led Naruto to an elongated room. It was well provisioned with arrows, targets, and other implements that would be considered conducive to archery training. Sai pointed to a bulls-eye at the end of the room. "Could you demonstrate your skill on that?" Naruto answered by snapping off a quick shot that hit dead center. After fine-tuning his reactions, any clear shot was child's play to him. Sai seemed less than impressed. "I can see you need no help with accuracy. Let's try something else." He loosened a stone brick from the wall, revealing a control mechanism of some sort. Tweaking a few knobs, the bulls-eye that adorned the far wall was swapped with a gleaming silver sheet. "Try to penetrate this."

Naruto charged as much wind chakra as he could into the arrow as he loosed it. The speeding projectile clanged off the metallic target, leaving only a small divot. The arrowhead, despite being enhanced by Naruto's chakra, was smashed blunt at the tip. The bowman blinked rapidly in surprise, his whisker-like markings twitched along with facial expression. "What the hell is that?"

Sai flashed his familiar smirk, though he was inwardly amused, in truth, for once. "The metal is a high strength steel with tungsten and nickel. The forgers were all earth element users who used their skills to blend the alloy along with microscopic carbon fibers to give it incredible strength. It's layered with wood from a species of tree that the First Hokage grew with moukuton. It's a natural, three-layer composite wood that is very elastic. The sheet combines layers of the steel and wood. We've yet to develop a technique to penetrate this three inch plate of it, no matter what element we've tried. We've taken to calling it Senninite." To demonstrate, he struck the sheep with his kunai. The blade screamed as sparks shot from the contact point between knife and plate. The kunai gave first and the tip broke off, emitting a dull clink as it fell to the ground.

Naruto scratched at his head in confusion. "I have no idea what you just said, but I'm putting a hole through this thing if it's the last thing I do… might take some time though." He walked up to the plate and pawed at it, trying to glean some sort of useful information.

"You're welcomed to try. It's something of a project for the ninja here. We have everything you could need. Our library is more extensive than what is communally available and we have an in-house smithy for arrow modification." The boy had obviously spent some time here. He was a walking encyclopedia for all things pertaining to ROOT.

Naruto was suitably impressed. "Man, I'm comin' here all the time."

Ninjas were essential to the economics of the Elemental Countries despite the fact that they produced little beyond goods that had direct military applications. The reason is that most industry was centered in major cities, a few dozen in all. These cities had electricity and running water, a far cry from the rural backwaters that made up the rest of the nation's territory. Almost a quarter of the population was crowded into a twentieth of the land. Thusly, merchants transporting goods through the vast frontiers were apt to hire ninja guards. In Fire Country, the land was well policed, but the monetary windfall lost from one ravaged shipment was such that no merchant could afford not to hire security. Such missions were a steady stream of revenue to ninja villages. They were also the equivalent of a D-ranked mission for chuunin teams, even as their official rank was 'C' or even 'B' depending on the value of the cargo.

Naruto, Sakura, and Sai were in the treasury wing of the Hokage Tower to hand off the mission voucher. Upon completion of more mundane missions, the client would hand over a mission voucher bearing their signature that would allow the treasury to have the village's compensation released from whatever moneylender was keeping the client's mission payment. "You guys go ahead, there's something else I want to take care of." Sakura told them as she split off from the group.

Naruto handed the voucher over to Sai. Ever since Naruto had exchanged words with Sakura over her treatment of herself, she had been somber and reclusive. This mission was no exception, but her last jaunty comment was a sudden shift. Naruto's curiosity wouldn't let it go. "You go ahead and deliver it. I'm going to check on her." Although Sai was inexperienced in dealing with human emotion, he was a trained observer. He sensed the turmoil in Sakura just as well as Naruto, he just couldn't understand the 'why' of it.

Naruto tracked her down and followed her to the Hokage's office. "I wonder what business she's got with baa-chan." While Sakura was inside, Naruto asked Shizune, who was playing secretary, what Sakura wanted with the Hokage.

"Well, Naruto-kun, your teammate said she wanted to ask the Hokage something. Since she's really more busy in terms of paperwork than any other sort of engagement, it'd be alright. I just let her in a minute ago." Tsunade's apprentice explained. Naruto waited outside.

A few minutes later, the doors to Tsunade's office spat out a rather dejected Sakura. Earlier, it seemed like she was turning the corner. Now she resembled a deflating balloon. Her eyes had that haunted, empty look that could only happen in the absence of hope. She walked right past Naruto without even a hint of awareness.

Naruto slipped in to Tsunade's office and stood before his liege. "Hokage-sama, if I may, what did my teammate want to see you for?" Naruto favored a direct line of questioning.

Tsunade, cup of sake in hand and stacks of paperwork below, took a sip as her hands guided her stylus in an intricate dance. "She wanted to see if I would be willing to take her as an apprentice. I said no."

"I kind of figured." Naruto said in a huff. "Why won't you?" He asked out of concern for his teammate and for his own curiosity. "She'd probably be pretty good at it."

The Hokage shrugged. "I'm not in the habit of taking many apprentices."

Naruto looked at her sideways. "Is that it? It would probably save her life, you know. She's starting to make me think she might obsess over this thing with Sasuke. If nothing else, you could take her as an apprentice just to talk sense into her."

Tsunade looked thoughtful. Her face scrunched up and she bit her lip. "I didn't know it was quite that bad. But I can't. Where would I find the time? Contrary to what you might think, being the Hokage is actually a lot of work. In order to have full control over Konoha, every piece of paperwork has to go through me. There's not a lot of delegation going on."

"Do you trust me? If you could, I can help sort out the paperwork. I can at least tell the difference between bullshit forms that just need the rubber stamp and stuff that's over my head. Call it a long-term administrative job while I'm in the village." Naruto said, 'administrative' just about exhausting his vocabulary.

"I'll see what I can do. Call it a favor for you. Tell her to come by for a training schedule tomorrow morning." Tsunade said before she shooed him off.

"Thanks a lot, baa-chan!" Naruto gushed excitedly. Her face frowned at the name he called her. For his part, he still fell into childish patterns when emotional.

"Damn it, don't call me that."

Sakura Haruno felt like a mouse trapped in a maze, only there seemed no cheese at the end. She just couldn't fathom a way to achieve her hopes. She was a kunoichi that was being far outpaced by her peers and had already lost two teammates in less than a year of service. To add insult to injury, one of them was the boy who made it possible for her to become a ninja in the first place. Furthermore, the Hokage, a woman she admired professionally, wouldn't lift a finger to help her. Maybe there was a way, but she couldn't, for the life of her, begin to comprehend it.

She heard a dull thud coming from her window and ignored it, initially. Instead, she elected to stare into her bathroom mirror as if looking into her reflection would clear her thoughts. The incessant noises wouldn't stop. Perhaps it was a woodpecker that needed to be chased away? Leaving her bathroom, she twisted at the waist to click off the light. The motion nearly caused her to trip and fall when her foot caught a discarded piece of clothing on the ground. Normally she'd kept her living area immaculate, but lately her discipline slipped along with a tenuous hold on her self-esteem.

She made her way over to her window and opened it, peering outside. Instead of an avian pest, it was an annoyance of another kind. "Hiya Sakura-chan." Her teammate was stuck onto the side of her house with chakra.

"What is it, Naruto? It's late. I was about to go to sleep."

The boy acted completely oblivious to her obvious annoyance. In fact, he seemed to gain a head of steam from her unbalanced state. "Baa-chan sent me to tell you that she changed her mind. You can drop by tomorrow for a training schedule." His grin seemed to split his face in two.

For Sakura's part, the news was a ray of hope in an otherwise uniformly downward spiral that was her life. "Really?" She stuttered as if it were too good to be true. "But I pleaded with her and her face didn't even change. Why would she change her mind?"

"I asked her to as a favor, no biggie." Naruto said nonchalantly. It seemed he was unaware of how unnatural his bond with the standing Hokage was. He spoke as if he believed anyone could have swayed Tsunade.

Sakura wasn't as oblivious. She wrapped her arms around his neck as she pulled him inside. "Thank you, Naruto."

"No problem, Sakura-chan." His grin never left his face the entire time.

"If there's anything I can do for you in return…"

Naruto waves his hands, indicating he wasn't interested in any sort of reimbursement. "It's really nothing. Just do your best."

Over the next several weeks, Naruto could see the marked change in his teammate. It wasn't just her skills. The techniques she learned from Tsunade put her very spirit at ease.

Several weeks into her training, Sakura had the confidence to challenge Naruto to a practice bout during the team's free training period. She was becoming proficient at Tsunade's use of acute chakra spikes to enhance musculature. The added strength and speed actually allowed her to counter Naruto's wind manipulation, which was also growing along with his elemental mastery. They were very evenly matched and the spar only ended when Sakura became too tired to continue.

Sakura took a swig of water from a canteen as she sat, nursing her cosmetic wounds – bruises and cuts. The medical knowledge she was taught was also having great effect as she was able to treat herself back to pristine condition. Naruto knelt alongside her as she practiced her ministrations on herself.

"So it looks like baa-chan's been teachin' ya her good stuff huh?" Naruto asked, hardly winded.

"Just wait 'til next time, Naruto. Maybe I'll actually win one of these days." She made light of her own abilities nowadays instead of being overly defensive about her shortcomings. Along the way, she became accustomed to the fact that she didn't need Sasuke to validate herself as a kunoichi. She would always miss the teammate that was a part of her childhood ambitions, but she was a ninja for her own sake once again. And she knew it. "Y'know, Naruto, I never actually thanked you for persuading Tsunade-sama." She surprised him by placing a slight kiss on his cheek.

"You don't have to thank me." He stated, more serene than his normal demeanor.

"I know, but you deserve to hear it more often. I don't know why you take such good care of me. I never did anything for you." She admitted with a slight tinge of guilt.

"Sakura-chan, did you ever find out how Iruka-sensei died?" Naruto asked slowly. She shook her head. Naruto told her the story. He told her about Iruka's sacrifice and the realizations he had that day. Iruka saved the boy that carried his family's murderers. He was a ninja of Konoha who performed the ultimate act of kindness simply out of a sense of honor and compassion. From that day, Naruto had always felt a greater bond with his comrades and his village. Like Iruka, he would be willing to ease the burdens of those close to him as a matter of course. He did it just to be a good, stalwart shinobi.

By the end of the story, the two held each other in silent comfort. No tears were shed; grief was already a stage long past. It was just an embrace of understanding.

ROOT's library, or rather a catalogue of ninjutsu knowledge in the form of intelligence reports, was the most useful aspect of Naruto's involvement with the shadowy group. He would come to the labyrinth base to study it every day he was in the village. Access to the knowledge was made available to him freely, but today Sai awaited him. "Danzo-sama wishes to speak to you first." Naruto nodded and made his way to Danzo's office. The layout of ROOT's base was becoming second nature to him.

"You wanted to see me?" Naruto asked as he entered the office of his near patron.

"I hope you aren't reneging on our deal. I had hoped you would be able to look past your sense of sentimentality." ROOT's leader said robotically.

Naruto shrugged nonchalantly. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Did you or did you not persuade the Hokage to waste valuable time instructing a weak girl just because you happen to be infatuated with her?" He asked with outward calm. Naruto knew him well enough to imagine that if he were anyone else, spittle would be flying from his mouth as he spat the words.

Naruto merely laughed. "No offense, old man, but you're still caught up in the old ninja codes without thinkin' about if they're really the best way to handle stuff. Would it be better if baa-chan did or didn't pass on her knowledge?"

Danzo didn't like where this was heading but he had to allow that Naruto was right. "It would be preferable if Tsunade were to pass her knowledge onto someone strong enough to make use of it." He put out as a counterargument.

"Let me guess. You would prefer that one of your ROOT kunoichi be that one, right?" Danzo could only nod. Naruto shook his head. "I think you're the one ego-tripping here. It'd be useless because baa-chan wouldn't just teach anyone. Sakura-chan is a good apprentice for baa-chan because she can learn it and baa-chan is willing to teach her. What do you think the chances of your ROOT kunoichi ever being considered in the first place?" Danzo grit his teeth. The boy had an infuriating habit of being right more often than not.

"Very well. Your arguments have been cogent enough. I can agree with your reasoning for now." Danzo allowed and phrased in a way that enabled him to seize control over the conversation again.

The boy wouldn't leave it be without parting words. "Old man, don't get caught up in a pissing contest. We're ninja; it means we do whatever it takes to get the job done even if it isn't the badass way, right?"

For almost a year the Village Hidden in the Leaves experienced a lull. It was the eye of the storm. It was the dark hours of the wolf before the dawn of a new day.

Naruto and Sakura, brought together by necessity, entered into a relationship that never really took flight. The unspoken wall that was Sasuke always stood between them. Purpose was served as Naruto took life in stride, slowly, for once in his life. The ardent need for hallowed quests was slaked by a newfound appreciation for peace.

Underneath the village, in the labyrinth, he let loose an arrow. It struck in a flash of light, coring through what was once an immovable object. The dawn of a new day had come, harbinger of a new dangers.

A/N

Kind of a slow chapter here. It was slow in the writing too. The point of this whole thing is to demonstrate that stuff happens away from the main action that's not flashy. It was all conceived as a very mundane sort of chapter to prepare for a gauntlet of real action. The paucity of some details, especially at the end, reflects this. This was the business that needed to be handled before things heat up.