Let's try and fix that a little

Naruto woke earlier than he had at the start of any other resets. He was shook awake by a warm, wonderfully familiar feeling around his cock. Cracking his eyes open, he looked down to see Sakura's head bobbing up and down on his dick, slowly teasing around the head with her tongue. Lazily, Naruto reached down and began playing with one of her soft pink locks. She lifted her head up to look at him.

"Rise and shine, Naruto." Her smile was radiant. "We've got an exam to get to."

"Sure we don't have time to finish off?"

"I never said that now, did I?" She kissed the head of his cock, lowering her head back down to finish what she started. Before long Naruto came into her mouth, her tender ministrations proving too much. The two of them got up, and looked around the apartment for something to eat. Naruto was more than happy to eat instant ramen, but Sakura decided to scavenge around for something else. Luckily, Naruto had a little bacon and bread laying around that she could cook up.

Fed and satisfied, the two of them began walking towards the exam center. Sakura turned to Naruto as they walked. "So, what's your plan now?"

"Whaddya mean?"

"Now that we're back to the start of the loop, what do you want to do?"

"Uhhh, well, I guess I was trying to prank the town before I started getting you into the loop. I might try that again now that it doesn't keep making you cry."

Sakura let out an exasperated snort. "The opportunity to become the most powerful ninja to ever live, and you're thinking about pranking."

"What's wrong with pranking?"

"In this situation? Nothing really, you've got functionally infinite time. But." She pecked him on the cheek. "We need some more things to do together. Why not train a little? We could start working through all the D-rank techniques!"

"You know I hate reading, Sakura..."

She hit his shoulder softly. "I'll help, dummy. Besides, imagine the pranking potential once you get some genjutsu under your belt."

Naruto grinned. "Now that sounds fun. Let's go by the library once we ace this test."

"I never thought I'd hear you say that, you know."

"I never thought I'd say it." The exam center came into view. Sasuke was happily brooding in front of it, waiting for the couple. When they walked up to him, his eyes flicked back and forth between them a couple of times. He seemed to notice Sakura's change in attitude, but didn't say anything, probably afraid of jinxing it and getting exposed to her fangirl side again.

Sakura noticed a searching look from Hinata. The dark haired girl's face shifted to an expression of deep sadness, and she slouched a little as she turned back to her team. Sakura couldn't shake the look on Hinata's face from her mind. Even in the library, normally a place of calm for her, the crushing sadness on Hinata's face could not be forgotten.

The forest of **** wasn't very difficult this time around. Naruto slipped off to ambush the ninja carrying the scroll, his 'hiding like a mole' technique making the ambush trivially easy. The snakes attacked again, but this time Sakura managed to take care of one, sending a swarm of scalpels down its gullet to shred its throat and drown it in its own blood. Orochimaru seemed much more impressed by her reaction this time, though he still incinerated a large portion of the forest. Naruto and Sakura trekked back to pick up Sasuke's comatose body, and they once again took it to the building in the center. They spent the remaining days learning D-rank techniques.

Sakura was faster than Naruto at picking up techniques, unless he used shadow clones. To keep them learning at the same rate, Naruto only used a few instead of the hundreds he normally threw out when supercharging his training. D-ranks were neither particularly complex nor draining, so they could get them down in half a day or so. To commit them to muscle memory would take longer, but for now the pair were more interested in broadening their options, both already having a strong go-to strategy. Versatility was one of the most important weapons in a ninja's arsenal, after all. The teams trickled in as the week went on, to various levels of shock at Naruto and Sakura already being there. The couple were concerned when Kiba and Shino showed up though, Hinata nowhere in sight. They approached the pair. Shino looked normal, but Kiba's eyes were bloodshot, and Akamaru's ears had drooped in sadness.

"Where's Hinata gone?" Sakura asked, falsely chipper. Kiba stared blankly ahead. Shino turned his head to regard her.

"Dead." His normally flat tone shook a little. "We came up against some sound ninja, and Hinata couldn't seem to focus on the battle. The one with the gauntlet, he-" Shino swallowed. "Well, I don't really want to relive that. Just, be careful of them. Losing one friend was bad enough."

Naruto and Sakura were speechless. The remaining members of team 8 moved on to warn the other Konoha ninja, and Sakura grabbed Naruto by the hand, dragging him away from the rest of the people there. They came to a stop outside the hall, and Sakura turned to Naruto, tears streaming down her face, and pulled him into a hug.

"This was our fault, Naruto." She mumbled into his shoulder.

"What? How? What did we do?" His response was panicked.

Sakura took some deep breaths. "When we showed up to the exam hall, Hinata realised we were together. She looked crushed. Shino said she was distracted, right? What else could have changed between loops to distract her like that?"

Naruto's face was ashen by the time she finished speaking. "But why? Why would she be so distracted by that?"

She swallowed. "I guess she never got over that crush she used to have in the academy."

"She had a crush on me?"

Sakura chuckled a little, though it ended in a sob. "You might be the only person in our group who didn't realise that." The two of them sat in silence.

Finally, Naruto spoke up. "This is going to happen every loop, isn't it? Unless we can work on our acting to the point of hiding this from her, this is going to happen every time."

The couple glanced at each other, then spoke in unison.

"We need to bring Hinata into the loop."