"In private." she adds, as a last-second afterthought.

"Oh, hi Sakura!"

Crap, did he mess something up? Is she cancelling their sparring session? He really hopes that's not what this is.

"Yeah, sure! Where should we go?"

"Here, follow me."

Sakura pulls Naruto along with her to a disused classroom, and sneaks in with him, keeping watch for anyone who might be watching.

"Ok, so."

"This is a bit complicated, and I need you to promise that you won't say anything about it to anyone else."

She tries her best to convey how serious this is in her tone.

Ok, so at least it doesn't seem like she's upset with him.

"…Ok. I promise."

He really hopes he can keep that promise.

She's nervous. She can't help it. She keeps the nerves down to a quiet simmer, though, trying to keep out of her host's way here, and gives a warm pulse of encouragement. Sakura's doing fine.

The encouragement helps center her a bit, and she takes a deep breath before beginning.

"…Last night, before I talked to you, I was out in the woods.

I caught a weird chakra beast, and it… turned out to not be a chakra beast."

"When I touched it, it… bonded with me?

We both blacked out, and when I woke up, it started talking to me in my head, and we could hear eachothers' thoughts.

It—her name is Sable. She was a human before she got turned into whatever she is now, and she came from a really different world than ours: It didn't have ninja or chakra, but it had massive cities, half as big as the land of fire!"

She's rambling a bit, now: time to get back on track.

Sakura collects her thoughts, and continues.

"I trust Sable, and we can help eachother, but we can't trust the village: if they find out about her, there's no way Anbu don't think she's some kind of infiltrator.

That's why we need to talk to Hinata: The Hyuuga can probably detect Sable, so we need her help to keep it hidden from them."

Oh, so that's why Sakura decided to talk to him. Figures: She wouldn't actually wanna spend time together.

Picking up on Naruto's all-too-easy-to-read expression, Sakura quickly continues.

"Well, that's not the only reason: The training offer was real."

"I…"

Damn. Why is this so hard? She knows what to say, and she knows why she has to say it, so why can't she?

Because she's been hiding her vulnerability for years, because it's hard to open up, because she's not used to trusting people, and because kids her age are sometimes little monsters that bully each other for sport and to prop up their own egos.

It's going to be okay, though. Naruto isn't like that, she gets good vibes from him.

She thrums a warm burst of love and care and encouragement into Sakura.

…

…

"I know neither of you really has any friends, and…"

…

…

Goddammit, fine.

"…and I don't really have any, either."

There: I fucking said it.

Was that—?

Possibly, but now's not the time.

Sakura's doing great, it's very proud of her, and it doesn't want to distract her.

Good girl.

Oh. Wow.

That was not what he was expecting.

He'd always sort of… assumed girls like her didn't get lonely? Like, Hinata probably was, but she never talked to anybody. Sakura is…

"Wow, umm… I'm…"

No wait, he can do better than that! This is what he's good at!

Naruto grins.

"I'm so glad you wanna be friends, then!"

Oh thank god, he didn't make a big deal out of it.

Sakura sighs in relief.