Hey guys. Finally coming back to this story. Thanks for being patient, assuming you have been. If you keep up with my other story you'll know that I'm starting to take writing seriously again, so hopefully I'll be getting back into this story as well.

Anyways guys, please leave reviews, it really does help me get the motivation to keep writing.

Something that I want to say as well is thank you so much for 200+ follows and favorites! I should have something back when it happened but I was caught up in life. Thank you all for supporting me, it means everything.

Naruto flew around the village at incredible speeds, not taking even a moment to relax. Sasuke followed him around, due to the fact that people would probably try to end his life while they were looking and Naruto could stop that with just his presence, being the favorite of the village. A few minutes into looking around Naruto created just about as many clones as he possibly could and had them looking around as well. With the exception of breaking into people's houses, Naruto spared no effort.

After a few hours of jumping around, commonly encountering the others who were looking, Sasuke jumped a bit further forward and looked at Naruto's face. "We need to take a break, we've been jumping around for some time now." Sasuke said, clearly winded but hiding it well.

"If you want to take a break, I'm not stopping you." Naruto said stubbornly, creating another clone and sending it off. "That clone will be your stand in." Sasuke, huffed exasperatedly before stopping and putting his hand to Naruto's chest, knocking his still moving feet from under him and landing on his back heavily. "What the hell, Sasuke!" He screamed, rolling over and getting up.

"You need to take a break, create a stand in clone for yourself while you stop for just a minute!" Sasuke exclaimed angrily, activating his Sharingan by accident. Naruto looked at him in awe, realizing just how passionate Sasuke was about that particular sentence. Sasuke softened his glare, looking at Naruto sincerely. "I know you're worried, I understand, but killing yourself is not the right way to save her."

Naruto's eyes flicked to the ground as he let his anger wash out of him. 'It's a good thing we're friends kid, otherwise I would have had no challenge taking over your body' the familiar voice of the demon fox he had living inside of him mused to him. Naruto shook his head, going into their linked mode and sitting down to meditate, before answering Sasuke.

"Using my Kurama-link mode, as well as allocating nature chakra, I should be able to detect everybody's presence, from anywhere within the village and even places outside." Naruto said quietly, Sasuke sitting down next to him. As Naruto collected chakra, he scanned the village's presence, not noticing anybody who did not belong, and noticing that Tsunade was not within his sensory limit.

Sasuke, having withdrew his sharingan long ago, looked across the rooftops, noticing every once in a while one of the other ninjas jumping around, also trying to find their Hokage. Not looking back at Naruto, he addressed his friend. "Why don't you just kill me, get this over with." He said neutrally, looking at the blue sky.

Naruto almost lost his focus on gathering his nature chakra, but replied. "I don't want to lose any of my friends, not even you Sasuke. Do you know how much trouble I went through to bring your ass back here?" Naruto said, chuckling lightly. Sasuke shook his head, the blond ninja's words bringing a smirk to his face.

"I see. As much as I don't understand your decision, I do appreciate it anyways." Sasuke said, showing an uncharacteristic amount of emotion for the second time today. Naruto sighed, while stopping his chakra collection. Sasuke looked over at his friend, as the blue eyed shinobi rolled his shoulders around.

"Sasuke, you know I have to ask. What made you suddenly decide to start caring about girls?" Naruto asked, amusement clear in his voice. Sasuke scoffed at how wild out of left field his question was. Not that he was surprised, the guy practically existed at all times in a state of carefree so his actions earlier in the day were more surprising really.

"Hn. I couldn't really say." Sasuke said just above a mumble. "I suppose it had something to do with the comforting feeling she provided when I needed it, after visiting the compound." He continued, shaking his head lightly, his jet black hair shaking.

Naruto nodded, understanding the feeling. When Sakura had approached him about his discomfort and helped him through it, it did reenforce his feelings for her. "How serious about her are you?" The orange-clad man asked. Sasuke said quietly for a minute, looking up at the clouds in the now darkening sky.

"I think it's serious.." He muttered, before shaking his head again. "I'm serious. I can't really explain it, the- the feeling I get in my chest when she looks at me." Sasuke continued, looking down as if someone might see him acting weird. "The sort of electrical feeling I get when we touch.."

Naruto had to suppress a chuckle. Even though it would have been entirely innocent and supposed to be comforting, Sasuke opening up to him like this was rare enough, he didn't need his friend thinking that he was making fun of him. "That is a good feeling Sasuke, I know where you're coming from." Naruto said in a comforting tone.

Sasuke looked over at Naruto, who had picked a piece of grass out of the ground and was twiddling it between his fingers. "I do have one problem though, Naruto." Sasuke started, catching the blond's attention. "Hiashi is not… Accepting of the situation." He continued.

For the next few hours they talked about what Hinata and her father were talking about, as well as ways that Sasuke could try to win him over. The ideas that Naruto came up with were… Outlandish to say the least, but Sasuke at least appreciated him trying to come up with something. Sasuke's concerns were that the Hyuuga's problems with him were not wrong at all. Sasuke had deserted the village. He had killed one of the Hokage, he had tried to destroy the village that he had once called home.

"I don't understand why Hinata would even defend me, she must know how wrong she is…" Sasuke finished, shaking his head and looking at the ground sadly. Naruto put a reassuring hand on his shoulder before chuckling lightly.

"Sasuke I can assume that you've not loved someone before," Naruto started, and the Uchiha narrowed his eyes a little. "But, when you love someone, you overlook those things. You can even accept, and forgive, someone for doing something so horribly wrong. People who care a lot about people are easy to forgive people who have done even a large amount of wrong. Hinata cares about people, more than anything, and she clearly especially cares for you. I'm not surprised in the least that she would defend you, though her reasons for doing so definitely aren't what she thought they were, you have done wrong." Naruto finished.

Sasuke knew he was right, but didn't like the way he had said everything. Clearly the dark eyed ninja knew he had done wrong, he had done a lot of horrible things. But he truly did feel remorse for the things he'd done. He knew that alone shouldn't be enough for him to be forgiven, but he had hoped in the beginning that it would be.

Naruto cleared his throat before jumping to his feet. "I think everyone will kill us if they know that we've not been looking for this long." Naruto said, looking out to the village that had now fallen into night. Sasuke got to his feet as well.

"You're right, we should probably head back to the Hokage manor." Sasuke said. The ninjas gave a nod to each other, before taking a large leap toward the manor.

Okay guys, here it is, the fruit of a year's labor! Please leave reviews, and I'll read every one.