Disclaimer: Naruto and all of its characters belong to Shueisha and Masashi Kishimoto. I own nothing but the original characters I create.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 65: Just Checking
"He wants the Sharingan," Naruto stated.
Since Sasuke was the only Uchiha left in the village, that seemed like the most likely motivation for Orochimaru to have.
"That man is known for his cruel experiments with human beings. Whatever he wants from Sasuke is not going to be good for him," Kakashi said.
"Sasuke…" Sakura had barely slept since that day. She could not stop worrying about that monster coming back to take Sasuke away.
"Fine, let's leave that aside for now. What else happened after that? How did we get away from him?" Naruto asked.
"A team of ANBU found your smoke signal and went to check. They were already suspicious of an infiltration after they found the real body of that Rain ninja that Orochimaru had supplanted."
"The examiner, Anko, was with them. She wanted us to give up on the exam," Sakura explained.
"But Sasuke…"
"He insisted on continuing with me unconscious?" He saw Sakura nod.
"And they call me reckless…"
"Sorry…" Sakura felt bad for that. Instead of taking him to a hospital, they dragged the unconscious body of Naruto all across the forest for three days."
"It's fine." He wasn't really upset. They could not continue without him anyway. And it's not like his life was in danger afterward. His body probably healed in a few hours.
"And?… How did the rest of the exam go? Did we pass?" he finally asked.
"We did! But barely… we were the last team to arrive," Sakura said.
"We got attacked by a team from the Sound Village on the second day… it was very scary."
"The Sound Village?" Naruto now remembered them. One of the guys who attacked Kabuto in the first exam was from that team.
"So you beat them. Well done!"
Sakura made a complicated expression.
"We received help from other teams…" She felt a bit embarrassed about it.
But that was not the only occasion they received help during the exam.
If it wasn't for that, they would never have made it all the way to the tower.
"That Rock Lee and his team helped us defeat the Sound ninjas. And Hinata's team also gave us a hand later on."
There was a loud knock on the door.
"Who can that be now?" Sakura was about to stand up when the door opened.
Ino's head peeked in.
"Can we come in?..." Her blue eyes landed on Naruto and she smiled.
"Oh, he's finally awake!"
"Really?!" The voice of Hinata could be heard coming from outside.
"Looks like you are very popular, Naruto." Kakashi stood up.
"I'll leave you then. I still have some things to do before we begin the next part of the exam."
He walked to the door.
"You may come inside," he told the two girls before leaving.
"Thank you, Kakashi Sensei." Hinata gave him a polite bow as he passed.
"Yes, thank you!" Ino walked inside with a cheerful attitude.
"Oh, what are you doing here?" She acted like she had just noticed Sakura.
"Checking on my teammate?... and what about you?" Sakura asked with suspicion. She could understand why Hinata was here but wasn't sure what Ino was thinking.
"H-Hello… Naruto. How are you… ahhh!" Hinata became startled and looked away.
"Naruto! Put some clothes on!" Ino shouted.
Naruto looked down; only his chest was naked, the rest was well covered by the pants, so he could not see how this was a big deal. But Hinata looked very bothered by it, so he decided to put some clothes on.
"By the way, where are my clothes?" he asked.
"Your clothes were completely destroyed during… you know…" Sakura didn't want to mention anything about the Kyubi in front of those two.
"So you dragged me naked for four days across the forest?"
"Of course not! Don't be ridiculous." Sakura's cheeks gained a red tint.
"One of the ANBU had some extra clothes inside a scroll… hold on."
She opened a small chest that was placed at the foot of the bed and pulled out a set of dark green pants and a shirt.
"Here, you can put these on."
Naruto chose to put the green shirt over his naked body and decided to leave the pants for after the girls left.
"All covered, you can look now," he announced.
"How are you feeling?" Hinata tried her best to avoid direct eye contact.
"I feel completely recovered. Sakura was just telling me what happened over the last few days," Naruto said.
"Oh, we can help with that." Ino walked up to the chair left by Kakashi and sat down.
"That forest was very scary…" Hinata said.
"Yes, Sakura told me that your team helped us out. Thank you for that," Naruto told Hinata.
She hid behind her hands.
"N…n… it was nothing!"
"You are also welcome!" Ino added with a grin.
"You didn't help us at all!" Sakura frowned.
"What do you mean?" Ino looked genuinely surprised.
"We were watching you for almost the full four days."
"What?!" Sakura obviously had no idea.
"Well… I wasn't watching you. Mostly, I was looking at my Sasuke, and…" She glanced at Naruto.
"Just checking on Naruto's condition."
"You were spying on us?!" Sakura raised the tone of her voice.
"C-calm down, Sakura… I'm sure that…" Hinata mumbled in a low tone.
"I was checking on you! And it's not my fault you didn't notice!" Ino shouted.
The two girls proceeded to engage in a shouting match that continued to escalate until one of the chunin overseeing the exam came to tell them to shut up.
But he also told them to go down, as they were about to begin the next part.
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