Chapter Two

Naruto was often a study in opposites. Though he could be dense at times, he was also capable of feats of amazing brilliance. The chief difference was the amount of encouragement he got.

At the ninja academy his teachers had outright sabotaged his progress. The village shops sold him the worst quality gear for premium prices, and in all other ways did their level best to hinder his progress. On the other hand...

The one time he'd felt a teacher was going out of his way to help him, Naruto had performed the mission he'd asked of him flawlessly, and learned a jonin level jutsu in a matter of hours. When he'd thought his team was counting on him, he'd participated substantially in the defeat of an A-rank missing ninja. He'd learned water walking in spite of having Orochimaru's extra seal messing up his already pathetic chakra control, and...

It was like magic. When people believed in him, he performed. It was that simple. He'd learn at rates the legendary Sannin couldn't believe, if only someone would give him a chance and a little bit of direction.

And right now he was bored, sitting through the written test portion of the chunin exam. The head examiner was trying to pour on the pressure, but Naruto already knew the secret of this test: Anyone who agreed to take the final question won. So why bother stressing about the other answers?

On the other hand, Hinata, the girl who sat to his right, was fretting visibly over his complete lack of concern for doing any work on the problems on the paper. Having already finished herself, her bloodline having gotten all of the answers for her, once again she whispered, "Naruto-kun, you can copy mine." and slid her paper discretely over to help him read her answers.

The blond in question blinked at the ordinarily shy girl, stuttering out her offer to let him cheat, using her exam as an answer key. He relaxed as it struck him this was the second time she'd made that offer. He'd only turned down the first because he could sense one of the test proctors had noticed.

Taking his feet off of the desk, where he'd been kicking back, loafing around, waiting for the test to be over, the boy leaned forward and whispered back. "Eh, er..." he glanced down at her paper and read off her name, "Hinata-chan, why would you do something like that?"

The girl blushed, cringing slightly away from him as she answered his question. "Na... Naruto-kun..." she stammered, "...the test... it is important that you pass it..."

"Team 7 - fail! Team 8 - fail!" one of the proctors called off, and to his surprise Naruto found himself once more ushered out of the building, this time with his angry team accompanied by Hinata and hers, as well, although the latter seemed more confused about how they had been caught than angry. They were experts at information gathering, and had that whole test in the bag, every one of them.

That was, Kiba and Shino, Hinata's teammates, were confused until Sakura started to yell at Naruto for whispering to Hinata during a monitored test and getting them all thrown out. That was worth some angry grumbling from Kiba and a very stiff stance from Shino, while Hinata blushed and rubbed her fingers together in the shame of it all.

Naruto felt bad for the girl, so after Sasuke's attempts to plaster him were broken up by Kakashi, he went off to find her, but Hinata and her team had disappeared somewhere.

Nothing left to do, Naruto went for another visit to the old man, and got another letter to Ebisu, where the special jonin gave him a few more tips on the leaf floating exercise, and a comment about how he wasn't as lackluster as the teacher had suspected, given what he'd already heard of him.

Another full day training on chakra control, and it was off to bed for Naruto.

I I 

Two more repeats of that day had Hinata offering to help him each time. It was driving Naruto to distraction, as he'd finally noticed how much it upset the girl to see him not filling in those blanks.

The thing was, she actually seemed to care about him passing the test!

One of those contrasts about Naruto was that, while he could be a surprising blockhead and amazingly unobservant at times, at others he could also switch that around and notice things that no one else did - like his pointing out that Lee had bandages over his hands not as a fashion statement, but because his knuckles were split and sore from constant training, something that neither of his teammates had picked up on at the time.

Now, stuck in this time loop, it was easy to focus in on small things. Heck! He could hardly HELP but do so! Since his efforts to get Sakura to divulge the secret as to why she thought Sasuke was so awesome were turning up nothing useful, he was beginning to notice other things.

In the stress of his first time through this test, he'd not paid too much attention to Hinata's offer of help, and afterward he'd almost forgotten about it completely in the flush of success at passing. However, out of her repeated attempts to help, and his total lack of stress, knowing he did not need it to pass, caused him to become fully aware of something.

She genuinely seemed to want to help.

There were maybe, MAYBE three others who'd ever just wanted to help him for the sake of helping him. and what's more he could see the girl suffering as she did so - this mattered to her.

Why, he had no idea, but this was the third time in a row now, and he figured it was not some trifling detail. Actually, his eyes teared up as her genuine offer of help finally penetrated as a real attempt to help him. This was not some random Konoha ninja assisting another in need, she wanted to help him, HIM! The dead last of the academy, the hated Uzumaki, the demon container of the nine tailed demon fox, HIM!

He actually wept out loud and got them all thrown out again.

I I 

The next day Naruto skipped out on greeting Sakura, giving her a brief wave as he sought for the shy girl who kept giving up her own chance at success to help him.

Not finding her at once, he decided to throw caution to the wind and blitzed the whole area with Shadow Clones, hundreds of copies of himself going all over until they spotted the distinctive shy girl, who'd already gone past him and into the building.

Sprinting to catch up to her so he could speak to her before the test and tell her not to worry, his clones got caught up in among the other genin and lost her. That led to a scuffle that nearly got him thrown out before the test, and Sakura only dragged him in at the last minute by his ear, ending up out of the place he'd always used in the line to receive seat numbers, and he wasn't even next to Hinata that time.

Thinking he had it made, the orange clad genin kicked back, put his feet up, and waited out the test... only to have Sakura opt out when Ibiki called for those who didn't want to take the tenth question!

Naruto slapped himself in the face, having forgotten how stressed they'd all been that first time. He'd forgotten all about how Sakura had nearly dropped them all out so she could save his dream of being Hokage!

Sasuke was coldly furious with the girl, saying some very hard and harsh things that probably ruined her dreams forever, except that she would recall none of it tomorrow.

Naruto felt terrible about it all.

Sighing, he left to go see the Hokage, got his letter, and went to meet Ebisu, no longer having to look around for him, going right to where the man was.

After five days of studying that leaf floating thing with Ebisu, the special jonin had actually unknowingly passed him off on that, concluding that of the three basic chakra control exercises, leaf floating, tree climbing and water walking, his tree walking was the worst and giving him some hints as to how to do it better, he'd left him to practice those all day, because the outcast youth needed better chakra control more than anyone.

Ebisu was still haranguing Naruto that his basics were all out of whack. Of course, the special jonin had no idea that he'd been giving him that speech day after day for most of a week now. So he also had no idea how much improvement the blond genin had been making during that period.

Of course, that was in chakra control alone, but that was still his worst area. But, when he had actual instruction instead of being ignored or ridiculed, the boy shone, accelerating at an amazing pace, so those extra tips were making a big difference, even though they seemed small to Ebisu.

The next day Naruto made a careful note to give to Hinata before he even left his apartment. In it, he explained that he didn't need to write anything down to pass the test, so not to worry. Spamming the world with Naruto clones, the lad was able to spot Hinata before she entered the building, and the real one ran up to her and shouting, "Here!" shoved the note into her hands.

He stood there grinning, sure this would solve everything, until his expression faltered. His grin slipped as he watched Hinata, holding the envelope with her name on it and staring at him, have all of the blood drain out of her face, tremble, then fall over backward in a faint.

Kiba, her teammate, caught her.

"What! what? What happened to her!" Naruto pointed, already panicking as Kiba scowled up at him.

"Stupid!" Sakura hit him on the back of his head. "She fainted! You go right up to a shy girl that's got a crush on you and give her a love note in front of everybody, and that's what happens!"

"Love note? Crush?" Naruto tried anxiously to process those words as he rubbed his head. Then he broke out into a wide grin. "You mean she likes me? Like a boyfriend?"

"Duh!" Sakura hit him again, annoyed at this display of stupidity. "Don't play dumb on me! Why else would you give a love note to her? It's not like anyone else would do anything but laugh at you. She's got to be the only girl on this PLANET that would go out with you! She's had a crush on you since we were all in the academy together! Don't tell me you never noticed."

Kiba, by now, had looked away, hiding his anger at Sakura's words. But Naruto was glowing like the sun with a big, toothy grin. That was, until Hinata stirred a second later, whereupon she opened the note with a shy look of eager joy on her face, only to be crushed moments later when she read it.

Naruto himself felt like the worst sort of heel imaginable as he saw her disappointment upon realizing that it wasn't a love note after all. Kiba helped her up, and the glare he gave Naruto as he helped the broken girl past spoke of his anger at Uzumaki for causing all this.

Things then got worse as Hinata started to cry, sparing the boy she loved in vain one last pain-filled glance before rushing off to find privacy, the non-love note still clutched in a crumpled ball to her chest as she ran off.

Naruto was left feeling like all of those villagers' glares of hatred had been right all along. He stood there, shoulders slumped, feeling like the worst sort of scum in the universe, all of his previous good feelings coming to crash down and burn on top of him.

Sakura stood with him for a time, actually feeling some empathy, until Sasuke came to drag them all in. Hinata's team didn't come in to take the test, and Naruto almost didn't care when Sakura gave up on the tenth question again.

Ebisu had him practice some refinements to his water walking this time.

I I 

Hinata had offered to help him, a thing few people had EVER offered to do! He could count those who had on one hand and still have fingers left over. That alone put her in a very special category.

She was a precious person automatically because of that attempt. He'd very carelessly ignored it before, but stuck in his face day after day it was no longer something he could avoid paying attention to, even by accident.

Now Sakura was saying that Hinata loved him, or at least liked him in a boy and girl kind of a way. Naruto had no idea how to respond to that. He had no idea how to start, even. He supposed he could write her an actual love note the next time, to make up for the hurt of this one, but... here the boy had to admit to himself that he had no idea what one of those would actually say!

He'd never seen one before.

Of course, he was Naruto "Tact, what is tact?" Uzumaki. So he did what no one else was likely to do, and approached her directly the next day, before the test, and declared, "Oy! Hinata-chan! I was going to write you a love note, but have no idea what they should say. Any idea what I should put in it?"

The poor Hyuga maid collapsed in an instant, blushing faint, and the crowds of collected genin broke out laughing.

"BAKA!" Naruto went down to twin thumps on the head from Sakura and Ino, who, after scolding him for being so tactless, dragged him off and gave him some basic 'how to' tips on the proper way to approach girls.

It was the first time he'd had any information on courtship whatsoever, and it surprised him no end how very detailed was the subject. "Hey! That's more complex than our academy lessons!" he objected, once they'd fully overloaded him with suggestions in their enthusiasm to correct his crudity.

"Just do it!" the two girls shouted, shoving him forward toward the Hyuga heiress, who by now had woken up and was being helped to her feet by Kiba.

"Uh, Hinata-chan," Naruto stuttered, coming to a stop before her and rubbing the back of his head, not looking directly at her. "Would you like to go eat with me, after the test?"

Softly glowing a rosy pearl color, Hinata blushed and nodded, not trusting her voice, rubbing her fingers together all the while. Kiba just snorted at this display.

This time the two genin teams walked together to the exam room, and Lee never made his attack on Sasuke. Slightly puzzled about that, Naruto got a new idea just as Kabuto was showing those ninja information cards of his, and asked, "Hey! What do those cards say about Hinata-chan?"

The silver haired genin gave him a sly look, and a glance over to Hinata, who was blushing up a storm, but the shinobi easily found their cards with the appropriate info. "Hmm, this is interesting. It looks like our little Hinata is heiress to the Hyuga clan, the most prestigious in Konoha after the Uchiha Massacre. And what is this? She was the subject of a kidnapping attempt when she was only six years old. The hidden village of Cloud tried to abduct her for her bloodline. Decent skill at the Gentle Fist style, and a surprising number of successful missions for a newly minted genin of her age."

Naruto's eyes were round as he looked over at the girl he'd always dismissed before, who was currently shrinking in on herself over all of the attention.

This time they passed the test beautifully. Hinata was so embarrassed by the attention and the way her Naruto-kun was looking at her, that she did not press it when he turned down her offer of help. Then, Naruto was feeling confident enough to shout down the instructor, as he'd done the first time, so Sakura-chan did not disqualify their team.

It was after that part of the test was over, Anko had come and gone and Hinata had left with her team, promising to meet him in an hour for lunch, that Naruto had an idea.

Hinata worried so much about him that they'd failed time and time again from her offering to help him. So he ought to do something about that, and there, right beside him, was her completed test answer sheet.

So, sliding it over, he began to copy it onto his.

The test was already over, and they'd all passed anyway. He didn't care about score or anything. No, this was his sneaky plan: by memorizing her answers, he could have something to write down the next day! That way she would not be so concerned about him passing!

He chuckled darkly until it was time for him to leave to go out to meet her for lunch.

I I 

Naruto generally had one goal in mind when food was placed before him and that was to satisfy his hunger. Consuming mass quantities was the goal, and doing so as quickly as possible - a habit he had picked up in his youth because of older kids who routinely stole his food. So he ate what he could get, as fast as he could get it, as a reflexive measure against that happening.

But it was more than a little horrifying to kunoichi with refined and delicate table manners.

Even Sakura, who had tagged along with Ino and a few other curious kunoichi to see this first date, and who could be called refined and delicate only in comparison to a gorilla, found herself appalled by the way Naruto ate. And she was NOT seeing it up close for the first time!

Hinata, on the other hand, was, and although she'd been looking forward to this date for as long as she could remember, was a bit pained and winced at the animalistic manner in which Naruto consumed his lunch.

Fortunately, he raised his food-covered muzzle to ask Hinata why she wasn't eating and caught her look of horrified chagrin. She tried to hide it, smiling weakly and picking up a morsel of her own meal, but her dismay was plain.

That was when Ino and Sakura decided to intervene, and both together leapt in and dragged him away for a quick, yet thorough, scolding about proper table manners, ending with, "... the way you eat reflects on how you feel about those around you! If you eat like an animal, you're saying that no one around you is worth being nice to! So eat like a gentleman, or else she'll think that she isn't important to you!"

Shoving him back at the table, Naruto tried to remember the information surge and pluck out the bits he needed to finish his meal. Hinata was nice about it, and plainly grateful that he cared enough to try and be better for the remainder of their meal together, but just as plainly he'd already ruined her dream date for her.

She left the table with polite thanks but unhappy looks, leaving Naruto alone to once again feel like a positive schmuck for upsetting her, especially as he was trying to be nice and make her feel better over an incident she could no longer recall, where he'd first screwed up with that note thing.

Now his resolve only crystallized and grew stronger. He WOULD make it up to Hinata! Both for the note misunderstanding, and for ruining this date!

I I 

The rest of that day passed rather unproductively. The old man wouldn't give him a letter to Ebisu, because he hadn't failed the chunin exam yet and so didn't need to be cheered up. When he sought out Ebisu on his own, the special jonin wouldn't teach him anything. So, frustrated, he went back to the Hokage and asked how you learned to eat so you didn't hurt a kunoichi's feelings.

Sarutobi was so surprised by the question he actually laughed out loud. Then he had to have a full explanation, of course. At the end of which, merrily smoking his pipe, the Hokage had suggested that if he wanted to learn how to impress a kunoichi, one of the best instructors for that they had was Kurenai, Hinata's jonin instructor.

He even wrote Naruto another letter of introduction.

The boy bounced merrily away to go find the jonin, which took a long time, but when he did she was a little unhappy with him, making him suspect she knew about his badly failed date with Hinata-chan. Still, she agreed to teach him all the same, but while the blond did his best to absorb what she said, the lecture Kurenai gave him was all way above his head, relying on him already understanding basic stuff he'd never heard of, and sounding about as complex as rocket science. It made the jonin-level Shadow Clone technique seem about as complicated as a line drawn in the sand.

What did it matter what clothes he wore? Or how he smelled? He smelled just fine, thank you, having already bathed today. Breath mints? Flowers? What did those matter?

Still, she said it was important, and the Hokage said she knew this subject better than anyone he had to teach him. It all seemed rather odd to him, though.

But the worst part was she'd loaded him with so many specifics when he had no idea of even the most simple basics. Stuff like how to smile and 'comport' himself. He had no idea how to smile, he just DID!

And all the stuff about fancy restaurants? He'd never been inside of a fancy restaurant in his life! They'd never let him in! He'd taken Hinata out to eat ramen at his favorite stand, just like he ate all of the time!

No, the talk with Kurenai only multiplied his confusion, and Naruto went to bed a very unhappy boy.

The next day found him up and already at the testing center before he realized that he was the only one there, none of the other chunin hopefuls had shown up at all, which blew his mind as he'd grown to expect it.

He waited for an hour before a hot-headed Sakura came back to scream and shout at him for not having been at the Forest of Death on time for their team to enter, and losing them their place in that test. Sasuke was even angrier with him than before, and Kakashi gave him that same "I'm disappointed, you should never have been allowed to graduate" lecture.

Confused and miserable, Naruto made his way over to talk to the Hokage, got a note to see Ebisu, and spent the rest of that day practicing chakra control.

The next day, he was up and all packed and ready to go to the Forest of Death, only to have Sakura seek him out a couple of hours later to shriek at him about missing their chance to take the written test, Sasuke came to try and beat him up later, and Kakashi gave the same speech over again. Then it was back to chakra control with Ebisu.

The next day, early in the morning, Naruto spammed clones all over Konoha to find out where everyone was gathering, and met them all at the exam center for the written test once again, same as always.

So why had that one morning been at the Forest of Death?