Wow, he was really ready for this at lunch, but now he's worried he'll be way worse than them, and it'll mess up their training!

"Let's do it, then! Do you two wanna go first?"

There! Maybe not the best strategy, but at least it'll give him longer to psych himself up.

Um. She does not.

But Naruto-sama asked, and it would help soothe his nerves, and that's fine? She guesses?

"U-um. Okay."

She sighs in exhasperation at her friends.

"Okay, I'm good to go first with either of you, but one of you does have to go first."

Oh no, is Hinata scared to go first too? He didn't notice when she responded to him, but now that Sakura has mentioned it, she totally is!

Damn, ok, there's no way he's gonna make someone as reserved as Hinata go first just so he can psych himself up a little longer.

Naruto puts on a bit more self-assuredness than he's feeling, and waves away his friends' words.

"No, no! I'll go first with Sakura-chan— you sit this one out, Hinata."

The tiniest of squeaks escapes Hinata. 

Naruto-sama and Sakura care about her feelings? Hers? That... is extremely bewildering.

She blushes and nods and sits down, watching carefully to make sure she can provide useful insight since she's been given the relief of not going first.

Wow, normally she'd be annoyed at Naruto for suddenly using an overfamiliar honorific on her like that, but he was clearly uncomfortable going first, and suddenly changing his tune so Hinata doesn't have to is really sweet, actually!

"Alright then, let's do this!"

Sakura walks to the far side of the patch of beaten ground marking the bounds of the training-ground, and waits for her friend to join her on the opposite side.

{Yeah, Blondie's pretty sweet. A bit derpy at times, but I've been a ditz countless times over too, so that's hardly an uncommon fault. Clearly cares a bunch.}

Also Sable's excited to see how this goes. A proper spar between two ninja trainees. Cool.

Naruto moves to stand opposite his friend, and prepares for the fight to start.

"Can you count us off, Hinata?"

Symble's going to stay out of this one, just pay attention to how her host fights and evaluate things.

"O-oh!"

She nods and raises her hand.

"On g-go. Three, two, one, go." And she drops her hand in the same moment she says go.

The moment her friend says "go," Sakura is retreiving and throwing a volley of practice kunai at Naruto.

She doesn't expect to hit him with this set, but if she can just slow him down, it'll help her get into a better position.

Naruto sees the attack coming and jolts to the side, chakra coursing through his muscles and pushing him faster than even the strongest civilian could ever hope to move.

He dodges around the kunai and jumps into melee range of Sakura, hoping to take her down with his well-trained taijutsu abilities.

Sakura sees her opponent coming and jumps back, momentarily boosting her own strength enough to turn the loose ground of the training-field beneath her into an obscuring cloud of dust.

Naruto lunges through the dust, shielding his eyes with an arm in a maneuver which can also block any potential opportunistic strikes aimed at his head.

As he clears the dust-cloud, he sees Sakura dodging away to his right, and lunges after her, his increased speed letting him catch her in a direct strike to the chest—

—Which goes straight through the illusory body of her clone, leaving him off-balance as her second volley of kunai hurtles into him from behind.

Naruto tumbles to the ground and rolls once before standing.

"Damn, you got me good! That clone technique really threw me!"

{Good job, Sakura. You got lucky with Blondie going for the clone, not sure you had a solid way to deal if that diversion didn't work, but other than that very good job.}

{Yeah, I honestly wasn't really expecting it to work, but I was so proud when it did!}

"Just barely! If you hadn't gone for the clone, I'd've been done for!"

She walks over to her friend and gives him a celebratory high-five.

Hinata nods. "U-um. Y-you both did w-well. Haruno-san, you n-need to work on your t-taijutsu and st-strength. G-good use of p-projectiles, though. Was that u-um... aided?"

"I don't think so. Other than the strength I'm getting from just being bonded to her, that was all me."