Chapter 57

"Friend?!" Kyūbi laughs. "A detestable human will never be friends with the strongest of the tailed beasts! You will tell me who told you!"

Naruto smiles, confidently, throwing off the fierce intimidation of the demon fox. "I'll tell you... as long as we come to an understanding."

The Kyūbi grumbles for a stretch before finally saying, "…Speak."

"You let me use as much of your chakra as I want, whenever I want, and I'll tell you."

"A deal with a demon… you have the guts of a doomed fool," the Nine-Tailed Beasts declares. "While my teeth may long to make a bloody mess of you, I accept."

Feeling more courageous, Naruto asks, "ne, can you tell me your name?"

"Are you so foolish you would lie to me?" the Nine-Tails challenges. "You claimed to already know it!"

"No, no, I do. I know it," Naruto reassures the grand chakra beast. "I just want you to tell me like friends do. Come on, you can call me Naruto if you want."

"Tell me what I wish to know and I'll consider it," the large fox responds.

Nodding, Naruto tells the large fox everything Naru-nii told him thus far. Naru-nii said it was okay and mentioned how they became partners, and Naruto wanted that as well, so he left nothing out; the group Akatsuki, Tobi, who is an Uchiha working for Madara, taking the other bijū, the Ten-Tails, The God Tree, and Infinite Tsukuyomi. Naruto finished by explaining what Naru-nii did to speak with his past self and by the end, the largest mass of dark chakra was silent... very silent… silent enough that Naruto missed the creepy fear up his spine from earlier. Kurama didn't even purr angrily. He held his silence so long, in fact, Naruto starts to fidget and quickly asks, "ne, are you alright?"

"I need time with this," Kurama conveys. "Return in two days."

When Naruto awoke he smiled to himself. His body resists movement but he gets up and stretches nonetheless. He can't say exactly how long he'd been sitting, but he can feel that it must've been for a few hours. Turning around, he's completely floored by the pink haired girl sitting in the shade against a tree, reading.

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto curiously calls. The girl's shoulders deflate but she looks at him. The resigned expression on her face makes him wonder if she's sad, but his excitement begs the question, "what are you doing here?" She had the hardest time looking at him. It would've reminded him of Hinata-chan if it weren't for the constant scowling.

"I... I came to train... with- with you," she begrudgingly explains.

Eyes wide and light as air, he hops over to her with eager happiness. "Really! Really, really! You really want to train together?"

"It's just training okay!" She throws back, allowing her anger to look directly at him without wavering. "Nothing else! We're just teammates training, nothing more, nothing less, got it?!"

"Yeah, sure," Naruto eagerly responds, absolutely thrilled Sakura-chan actually wants to train with him. 'Maybe the day isn't a total bust,' he thought as he was already making plans to ask Naru-nii for any training tips for Sakura-chan. "What do you want to do first?!"

"I'm the team's medic so I have a lot of reading to do," she states and he seemed to deflate. "But, Kakashi-sensei said if I'm ever in the field, I need to be able to protect myself just as much as I need to heal others, so, I should also work on getting stronger."

Naruto quickly agrees, and they start with the physical training taught by the academy and the regiment Kakashi-sensei had taught them. They had planned to spar for the rest of the afternoon but Sakura was so physically drained that she lost focus easily and would get tagged by the simplest attacks. Laying sprawled on the grass, limbs spread and panting heavily, Sakura-chan can't help but ask, "how… are you... not tired?"

Naruto simply gave her a non-commutable mumble of, "I don't know," whilst shrugging his shoulders. He proceeded to make four clones to fight against while she rested. Eventually, she joined in, raising the odds to five against one.

Like a general, Sakura took demanding control of the clones. With her superior analytical intelligence, Naruto quickly learns her unexpected strategies continuously take him down. The pinkette uses timing to easily make his clones open Naruto's blind-spots for perfectly synchronized attacks, forcing him to really pay attention to his weaksides. From the memories he receives later, Sakura-chan is so enthusiastic about beating him to a pulp, she actually yelled at any clone who utters a word concern for their boss.

By evening, Naruto called the training to a halt, much to her extreme gratitude. Though the clones did most of the work, after every round she only grew more and more tired. If Sakura-chan's exhausted body hadn't practically ran home, he would've felt weird ending such rare quality time with Sakura-chan just so he can see Kurenai-nee. It was an odd feeling, loving one girl who didn't love him and trying to get the attention of another who may like him.

Standing by Hokage tower, he was rubbing his temple to sooth the headache from dispelling his clones. Unfortunately, mastery of Rasengan still evades him. After an hour and a half, he assumes she's not coming, and after another hour, he's certain of it. Rather than letting his disappointment drag him down, he helps himself to several extra large bowls of his favorite dish in the world, then returns to the forest for a late night training session.

The following day was a great surprise. Instead of following Sasuke-teme after being dismissed, Sakura-chan came up to him and asked when he was going to train. Though she was strict and standoffish, he was happy she wanted to train with him.

"How about now," Naruto replies.

"Now?!" she bellows. 'We just finished team duties for the day and he immediately wants to train afterward,' her inner self yells.