;)

Konoha ninja had a pretty massive advantage in this task. They were in their most comfortable environment, so the only people that could move as fast, hide as well, or find other people hiding as effectively were other Konoha ninja. The sheer amount of easy targets from other villages meant that only people with personal vendettas would aim for the genin of the land of fire. This all meant that Naruto and Sakura found themselves mostly unmolested as they traveled. They were briefly pursued once or twice, but Naruto's henge practice meant that a few small squads of shadow clones could act as decoy teams. They had apparently broken some sort of record with how fast they made it, but Sakura was more focused on Sasuke, and Naruto wasn't inclined to care about record breaking until he was out of the time loop. A rush of explanations, freakouts around Orochimaru, and rushing Sasuke off to be cared for by Anko and Kakashi later, and Naruto and Sakura were faced with a couple of days to wait in the forest until the second task concluded. It was in this situation that Sakura tracked Naruto down, finding him in one of the rarely used bedrooms, using chakra to stick leaves onto various parts of his body.

"Hey. I know you said you'd tell me once the task was over, but we've got a lot of spare time right now. Can you tell me about all this? How you know all this stuff?"

Naruto looked up at her. Her pink hair fell around her face softly, looking like it had been washed recently. Knowing Sakura, she'd probably packed some shampoo and conditioner in her essentials. Her body was fit, as she'd thankfully outgrown the phase from her early teens of following civilian diets, instead focusing on sweating out the calories she ate during training. She stood with grace, life as a ninja, even one who didn't specialize in combat, forcing her posture and balance to be perfect. "Sure, 'Kura." He let the leaves drop from his body. "Where should I start?"

Sakura sat down next to him. "I guess as good a place as any would be: who's Kurama?"

"Kurama's the demon fox. We kinda became friends after something happened about a month ago."

Sakura's eyes went wide as saucers, and she started edging away from him. "The demon fox? The one that destroyed the village? And you're friends with it?"

"She's being rude, isn't she?"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "You did destroy the village, Kurama."

"That wasn't completely my fault."

Sakura made an odd squeaking sound. "You're talking to it!?"

"Him. Kurama's a guy. And I used his power before without him taking over. I know that, for now at least, he wouldn't try anything even if he wanted to."

"The gender of an ancient malevolent spirit is not what I'm worried about right now." Sakura hissed. "What possible situation could you get yourself into where you can guarantee he won't possess you?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Well, um, what do you know about tamp, uh, tempa, uh,"

"Temporal."

"Temporal jutsus?"

Sakura gave me a cautious look. "I've never heard of a jutsu that can manipulate time, Naruto."

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh." Naruto gave her a blank look

Kurama sighed. "Just repeat what I tell you."

"Alright!" Naruto began echoing Kurama. "Normally, time can only be manipulated through genjutsu, though that's only affecting people's perception. The exception to that is the demon fox, and some applications of the sharingan." Naruto broke from Kurama's script to get briefly annoyed at Sasuke. "Anyway, foxes are trickster spirits, so specialise in genjutsu, but Kurama is so powerful he can **** some illusions into reality!?" Naruto's voice rose in shock at the end of his statement.

"Why are you surprised by that?"

"Kurama's explaining, I'm just relaying." Sakura shifted uncomfortably. "Anyway, normally he can only do small jumps, less than a second. But if you were to, say, run headfirst into an experimental barrier that is trying to manipulate time, you might start a natural explosion of chakra."

Sakura gasped. "Which can have massively powerful consequences. Reality warping, even! Naruto, what happened?"

Naruto grinned. "I'm stuck in a time loop thing! I'm reliving the same month, resetting if I die or fail part of the chunin exams. If Kurama gets out, I die, and the month resets with him inside me again. That's why he's trustworthy, even for you and Sasuke. He doesn't have another option."

Sakura was silent for a long moment. "How long?"

"Apparently about a month."

"Not the length of the loop. How long have you been trapped?"

"About a month. This is the first time I've gone beyond the first day though."

"It took you a month to pass the first day?"

"I passed it the first time through. You kept dropping out because you were worried I wouldn't be able to become Hokage if I failed the test."

Sakura blushed. "I wouldn't have done that!"

"You did every time until I told you I was fine with it before the exam."

"I- wait, it took you a month to think of that?" Kurama started laughing.

Naruto chuckled. "Kurama thought of it. I took a month to cheat the exam properly. I told you I'd been water walking for about a month, right? That was to be able to cheat the answers."

"What? But you didn't need to cheat! You could have just asked me for the answers one reset and memorized them! And you presumably didn't answer the questions the first time through, why did you think it would be different now?"

Naruto looked down in embarrassment. "I, uh, thought you had a bloodline limit that let you sense how people were doing on tests."

Sakura stared at him for a second, then mirth bubbled up and she joined Kurama howling in laughter. She got herself under control and wiped a tear from her eye. "It's nice to know you're still you, Naruto."

"Who else would I be?"

"Fair point, I suppose." Sakura leant into him. "I suppose you won't be you forever, though. Living the same month for so long is going to do things to you, especially if you only have the demon fox for company."

"You've gone this far, kit. May as well tell her everything."

Naruto gulped. "Actually, 'kura, Kurama found a way to bring people into the loop, but it's... weird."

Her eyes narrowed. "Weird how?"

"I... havetomakesomeonefallinlovewithmeandhavesexwiththem." Naruto blurted the words out.

"What." Sakura's stare was deadpan.

"I have to find someone that I'm attracted to, make them attracted to me, and then have sex with them."

"Oh wow you really did that. I'll start working on the damage control plan, then."

"ASSHOLE!" Sakura screamed. "Is that all this is? A trick to get me to sleep with you? Just when I thought you'd matured beyond just asking me for dates!" She began to storm out.

"Sakura, wait!" Naruto yelled, panicked. "Do you really think I would do that? Do you think I could? You know I'm not the smartest guy around, I wouldn't be able to pull off a change like that!"

Sakura turned back around. "I'm not going to sleep with you Naruto."

"I'm not asking you to! The transfer isn't about just sleeping with someone, it's about inspiring feelings. Even if it wasn't, I wouldn't want to do that by lying to you. If I did, I would have henged into Sasuke years ago!"

Her lip curled in disgust. "You've thought of doing that?"

"One of the upperclassmen gave really bad dating advice." Naruto mumbled. The teachers had placed that particular student on one of the few all male squads when he graduated.

Sakura didn't say anything for a minute, then shook her head. "Bye, Naruto."

"One last thing! Once we finish this exam, there's going to be a month's training before the final test. Kakashi will take Sasuke to do some private training and teach him a new technique. Can we at least train together while they're gone? Jiraiya, one of the other Sannin, will be around and I managed to convince him to train me last time. I should be able to get you in too. Please?"

Sakura left without saying a word.