Itachi had been searching for five months and he still hadn’t been able to come up with so much as a hint as to where they were. It was baffling, a phenomenon he was not used to. Apparently this woman was excellent at keeping herself hidden. If they really were with Sora, it would seem as if they would be easy to find: a woman of her looks and reputation would attract attention.
He would probably not believed his colleague who had made the connection between the woman who had taken the two Leaf Nin and the legend from the east had it not been for the three farm workers. They had described her perfectly and she had been traveling with two children who looked like the two children. ‘
No it had to be her. There was key information
he was missing. He just had to find it.
Naruto stood up ready to challenge the figure in the doorway. The man crossed his arms and leaned up against the doorjamb.
“So,” he said. “You are Naruto and Hinata, I presume.”
Before either of them could reply, a small voice and the soft rapid pattering of feet was heard coming down the hall. “Daddy?” it called out. “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”
The man smiled and reached down to scoop up a small girl in his arms. She had long dark hair shot with white, as if she was starting to go gray. She looked at Naruto and Hinata with wide pale blue eyes.
“Miki-chan, this is Naruto and Hinata. They are your Aunt Sora’s students.”
“Aun’ Sowa?”
“That’s right.” He looked back up the two genin who were staring at him. “Naruto, Hinata this is my daughter Miki. And I am Nori.”
Naruto’s eyes went wide. “You’re the Shina expert who is going to teach me all the advanced stuff?”
Some of the sparkle went out of Nori’s eyes. “I might. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Neh, neh! What are you going to teach me?”
“You mean they’re actually in the library?” Sora appeared in the doorway, peaking around Nori’s shoulders. “I can’t believe you two are studying. Actually,” she turned to Naruto. “What I can’t believe is that you are studying.”
“Ha! I’ll show you.” He waved a hand at the pile in front of him. “This stuff is easy. I’ll know it all by the end of the week!”
“Great! I have tons more stuff to give you to read then!” Sora smiled sweetly as Naruto’s stomach dropped.
“Ano...Onee-chan?”
“Hai, Hinata-chan?”
“You’re...you’re wearing pants!”
Naruto looked around the edge of the table. Sure enough, Sora’s miniskirt and fishnets were gone, although she probably still had the boots on. From hip to heel, her legs were covered in matte black leather. They weren’t even really tight: if it wasn’t for the material they would have looked like normal pants. They were, without a doubt, the most conservative article of clothing either of them had ever seen her in, save the large fluffy bathrobe.
“Yeah, so?” Sora shifted from foot to foot. “They’re nice and soft. Very comfortable.” Comfortable was not what Sora looked like. Nori was trying to stifle a laugh behind one hand.
Hinata smiled. “They look nice, Onee-chan.”
“Thank you, Hinata-chan.” Suddenly her eyes narrowed. “Hinata-chan, why are you icing your ankle?”
Hinata and Naruto looked guilty at each other. “Ano, well, we um think I sprained it.”
With one clean swipe, Sora snatched the ice off of Hinata’s foot. “You THINK you sprained it? It’s the size of a grapefruit!”
“Eh, ha ha, guess she, um, did then, didn’t she?” Naruto said awkwardly, hand rubbing the back of his head.
Steam was starting to come out of Sora’s ears. “Naruto, why do I get the feeling that you are the one responsible for this? Damn it, can’t I leave you two alone for 48 hours without something happening?”
“It was an accident!”
Sora rolled her eyes. “I really can’t trust the two of you alone.” Walking over to Hinata, she activated a healing technique and then gently laid her hands on the ankle. Hinata breathed in sharply as Sora’s hands began to glow blue. Her ankle went cold and then warm and the swelling began to go down.
Standing up, Sora brushed her hands together. “I sped up the healing, so it should be fine by tomorrow. But you are going to have to stay completely off of it until then.” She looked over at Naruto. “That means you’re going to have to carry her. Fitting, seeing as you did it.”
Naruto jumped up from his seat. “What makes you think I did it? Why do I always get blamed for these things? It wasn’t my fault!”
Sora dismissed his comments with a wave of her hand. “Whatever. Just come down to the kitchen.”
Naruto moved around the table to offer his back to Hinata. Her cheeks went red, but she gingerly wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself up against his back. His arms slid under her legs as he adjusted her weight.
Hinata and Naruto followed the two adult and the little girl out of the library and back down the hall. Naruto turned his head to whisper into Hinata’s ear. “Even with the pants, she still looks like one of those women Jiraiya....”
And Naruto suddenly found himself stuck with
the Silence no Jutsu.
Yasu was, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman Naruto and Hinata had ever seen. She looked more like a fine porcelain doll than a living human. Her thick white hair was pulled up into a knot at the crown of her head and held in place by a few simple hairpins. Her skin was pale and perfectly smooth, without a smile line or wrinkle. She would have almost looked like an albino if it wasn’t for her large pale green eyes. The sleeves of her kimono were tied back and she was in the process of slicing vegetables.
“Okaa-san!” Miki yelled, streetching her arms out to the woman. She smiled and plucked the child out of her husband’s arms.
“So, you two must be the new apprentices.” Naruto and Hinata nodded. “And you survived living with Sora for six months?” They nodded again. Yasu shook her head. “I’m amazed. Still, neither of your clothes really fit.” She looked up at Sora. “They’re teenagers. They’re not going to fit into the same clothes for six months.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Sora said, rooting through the various bags on the counter until she found her chocolates. Tearing the plastic off the box, she eagerly removed the lid and started eating.
“You are supposed to take them down the mountain and get them new clothes. Honestly, you can be so irresponsible.”
“That’s why I’m friends with you. You’re responsible enough for both of us.” Yasu shot her a glare. “All right, all right. I think there’s some old clothes in one of the storage rooms upstairs. I’ll go looking for them.” She spun and left the kitchen.
Yasu sighed. “Still the same Sora,” she muttered. She shook her head and looked at the pair. Naruto had set Hinata down on a free span of countertop and was still standing next to her. He seemed oblivious to the blush on the girl’s cheeks. Yasu smiled. Sora was right: the girl was in love with him and he was clueless.
“So has she made you do that scroll yet?”
“You know about that?” Hinata sounded surprised.
“Of course. She never went anywhere without it, which I always thought was rather strange considering how dead set she was against training anyone. You two must be pretty special to change her mind.”
“Of course we are! Hinata’s the heir to the Hyuuga Clan and I’m going to be Hokage!”
Yasu’s eyes widened. A clan heir and a kid who wants to be Hokage? Something had to be going on here: Sora would never train these two willingly. Further questioning of Sora was definitely called for.
“So, how far have you gotten on the scroll?”
“We’ve almost finished. We just have about five more to go.”
Yasu chuckled. “And you’ve only been up here six months. Sora took over a year to learn all those skills.”
Naruto’s eyes widened in delight. “Really?”
“From what she tells me. But Sora would never tell you. She’s entirely too petty.”
“Too petty?”
“She is the queen of small irritating vices. The thing with Sora is that she has never grown up. She is the exact same stubborn, impulsive, and immature teenage brat I started traveling with eight years ago. She does nothing in particular, wanders around from place to place being moody and has the most appalling fashion sense I have ever seen.”
“Then why did you travel with her?” Hinata asked.
“Despite all of that, she is one hell of a good fighter. One of the best in the eastern lands. Plus, she’s as good a partner as they come: in the five years we traveled together she never let me down when it counted.”
“What about when it didn’t count?”
Yasu narrowed her eyes. “She was apt at playing practical jokes.”
“Practical jokes?”
“She liked to get people with genjutsu when they weren’t paying attention. Guy insults her and he was liable to end up with his voice raised an octave for a few hours. When she was really irritated she would use Henge no Jutsu and Voice Change no Jutsu on the guy to make the offender look and talk like a dog.”
It was one of the best idea’s Naruto had ever heard. He had to get Nee- chan to teach that to him. He could turn Sasuke into rabbit or something. Better yet, he could turn Nee-chan into a toad.
Hinata seemed vaguely distressed by the whole thing. “She would really do that?”
“Sometimes to entire groups of men. It was one of her favorite pastimes while we were on the road.”
“And no one realized it was her?” Naruto asked eagerly.
“Only rarely. Of course with her bloodline it was easy to-“
“Don’t tell them please; I’m making them guess.” Sora stood in the doorway, leaning up against the doorjamb with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Aww, come on!” Naruto grumbled.
“I used it front of you already, you should be able to figure it out.” She looked back at Yasu. “Are you in here going through that whole never-grew- up thing again?”
“When you dress like that, you can hardly blame me. Getting you into those pants is the biggest fashion victory I’ve had since I got you out of that goddamn dress.”
Sora rolled her eyes. “Do you always have to bring up the dress?”
“You were the one who wore the dress.”
Naruto thought this was great. Not only was he learning new things to bug Nee-chan to teach him, but he was also learning about things she was embarrassed about. Yasu would have to come over more often. “Neh, neh! What dress?”
Sora and Yasu looked at each other. “Yasu-chan...” Sora warned.
“Sweetheart,” Yasu called out with a smile. Suddenly Nori was behind Sora, holding her arms behind her back.
“What the hell-“
“I can do better than tell you about it, Naruto-kun. I can show it to you.” She reached for her bag and pulled out a small photo album.
“NO!” Sora yelled, struggling against Nori, trying to get her feet in the right position to throw him. “Why they hell did you bring those?”
“You suddenly have students after all your swearing that you would never take any on and you expect me not to try and embarrass you? Honestly, I thought you knew me better than that.” She smiled and handed the little book over to Naruto. “Here you go. Sora age 17.”
She was wearing boots very similar to the ones she wore now, but instead of a skirt she seemed to only be wearing a pair of underwear. The ‘dress’ was nothing more than three panels of black leather laced together with red ribbon which left wide stripes of skin exposed up her front and down either side. Her hair was half red half black and done in huge sausage curls. She was sitting on a barstool, toasting the camera with some sort of pink drink.
Naruto took one look at the picture and burst out laughing. Oh this was good, this was really, really good. He would be able to hound her about this to no end. Howling, he passed the photo to Hinata. She contented herself with more restrained giggles.
“Ha ha ha, go ahead and laugh.” Sora glared at them. “I’m so going to get you for this Yasu.”
“See what I mean? She’s just like a child. Now if you want to see something really funny, I have some in here of her ex-“
“Hey Yasu, remember that time we were at staying at that inn just after I introduced you to Nori?”
Yasu went deadly silent and scowled at Sora. Her scowl deepened as Sora started to smile at her. She closed the photo album with a snap. “Who would like a cup of tea?”
Nori released Sora’s arms. She smiled at Yasu. “That sounds lovely. But we should all probably be getting to bed soon. It’s awfully late,” she said in a falsely sweet voice, taking the tray from Yasu. The two of them went into the living room.
Hinata looked at Naruto and then at Nori. “What just happened?”
Nori shook his head. “They’ve been friends for so long that they know almost all of each other’s secrets. Sora just wanted to ‘share’ a story about Yasu if she didn’t put away the pictures.”
“Oh.” Hinata thought about that for a second. “Sora said she introduced you to Yasu.”
“Hai. Just after Nanashi died, Sora came to stay with my clan. My mother, who was at that time the head of the clan, had been good friends with Nanashi and took Sora under her wing. When there was a revolution in the clan and the branch family took over, I left and took Sora with me.”
“The branch family revolted? But it is duty of the branch family to protect the head family!”
“My mother was a good woman and an excellent leader, but her cousin still resented the fact that she had the power and control. In the end she killed everyone in the head family that she could, claiming that we had been changing the clan to fast and that a return to the old ways was necessary.”
“But that’s awful!”
“That’s clan life a lot of the time: strong against outside forces, but constantly battling itself. In any case, I needed to make a living and the only thing I was trained for was to be a mercenary. No matter how good she was, I didn’t want to haul a thirteen year old around with me, so I left her with Tsunade. We kept in contact, but we didn’t really see each other for six years. Then I met Yasu, we eventually settled down and Sora started wandering alone. Until she picked up you guys, that is,” he added with a quick smile.
“Why didn’t she get a new partner?”
“She’s always been wary of bringing people into her life. Nanashi died, and Sora was a wreck. She showed up at our door a disheveled mess one day and was like a ghost for weeks. Then one day she just snapped out of it, as if she had been a haunted and the ghost had left.” He shrugged. “She became the Sora we know now. I can count the people she considers friends on one hand.”
Naruto pondered this for a second. “Neh, Nori-san?”
“Hai?”
“How did Nanashi-sensei die?”
“I don’t know. There are two things that Sora
has never told anyone about, not even us. One is how she came to
be in Nanashi’s care. The other is how Nanashi died.”
Early the next morning, Sora, Yasu and Nori sat out on the front steps watching the sun rise. They all knew what they had to talk about, and they were all waiting for one of the other’s to break the silence.
Finally Sora spoke. “So, are you going to help me train them?”
Yasu looked over at her. “I still want an explanation as to why they’re with you in the first place.”
“I told you, Obaa-chan asked me to.”
“That’s not enough reason for you. Who are those two, Sora-chan?”
“They’re just Leaf nin that Tsunade asked me to look after and train.”
“They are not just Leaf nin. You have the single loudest ninja I have ever met in my life and the most timid one.”
“You should have seen them when they got here,” Sora mumbled.
Yasu continued as if Sora hadn’t interrupted. “Not only that, but from what I’ve seen and what you’ve told me, he has no family, very little natural ability and his impulsivity is off the charts while she is under her families thumb, is blessed with an extremely powerful bloodline but she is to hesitant to use.”
“They’re prefect opposites,” Nori said quietly staring into the sunrise. He turned to Sora. “You said they work well together?”
“They seem to.”
“And Naruto is good at ninjutsu where Hinata is good at genjutsu.”
“Hai, but they’re both decent at taijutsu and getting better. If you just help me train Naruto in the advanced stuff, I can do the rest.”
Nori looked at Sora and then back out at the dawn.
Yasu narrowed her eyes. “Sweetheart I don’t like that look...“
“You need to partner train them.”
“Nani?”
“Partner train them. Like what my family does. You’re teaching them complimentary styles you ought to at least train them to work together.”
“But we left before I could learn any of the partner stuff.”
“I’ll teach them the taijutsu stuff and you and Yasu worked well enough together for you to teach the other things. The partner trials were legendary in the house: even if you didn’t participate in them, you know basically what they were. It would be silly for you not to partner train them.”
“But Hinata has a crush, if not in love, on Naruto. He’s the densest person I’ve ever met, but if I put them together in partner training it’s bound to come out. That could wreck the partnership.”
“Or he could realize that he is in love with her too.”
Sora groaned. “Riiight.... Just what I need. A pair of hormonal teenagers in love.”
Yasu and Nori chuckled. “You brought it on yourself,” Yasu said.
Sora lay her face in her hands. “Fine, fine, fine. If you will teach them the taijutsu part, I will do the rest of the partner training.”
Nori smiled. “Good. You’re always a reasonable
person when forced to be.”
Naruto stumbled into the kitchen. It was later than he normally got up, but Sora’s unusual morning serenade had been curiously absent. “What happened to the music?”
Yasu look up from where she was chopping vegetables. “I don’t let her play it when I’m here.” She went back to chopping. “We have something to discuss with you and Hinata. You should probably go wake her up.”
“Ano, you mean like....umm.... go in her room?” Naruto had never been in a girl’s room before.
“Generally waking someone up would imply going into their room. Unless, of course you want to yell at her through the door.”
Relief washed over Naruto. He could just yell at her to get up from the hall: no one was louder than him.
Racing up the stairs he slid to a stop at Hinata’s door. He knocked the door with the side of his fist. “Hey Hinata-chan! It’s time to get up!”
No reply.
So he knocked harder. “Hinata-chan! Hinata-chan!”
Still not a sound.
He took a deep breath and started to yell “HINATA-CHAN!”
“Naruto what on earth are you doing?” Sora stood just outside the doorway to her room, hands on her hips glaring at him.
“Yasu said to get Hinata up.”
“Then go in there and wake her up. She obviously can’t hear you.”
Naruto looked between Sora and the door in confusion. But Hinata had always heard him, why not now??.
Tentatively he pulled the door open. He could see her curled up in her futon, sleeping peacefully. He quietly walked over to kneel down beside her, leaning down so he could look at her face. Her cheeks were faintly flushed and a few strands of hair stuck to the sides of her face. The front was the same as ever: blunt bangs and two pieces framing her face. However Sora had declared that she was unable to cut Hinata’s hair into what Sora referred to as ‘the duck butt’ and as Hinata couldn’t cut it herself, that had been left to grow. Now it stopped about an inch above her shoulder and was currently fanned out over the pillow.
Naruto smiled and had a curious urge to let her sleep. She looked so peaceful, so calm, tucked up in her blankets without a worry in the world.
Then Naruto had an even more curious urge to crawl in with her and go back to sleep himself. When he realized what he had just considered, he shot upright and scooted a few inches away from the bed. Where the hell had that thought come from!?.
Carefully, he reached out his hand to place it on her shoulder. The soft cotton of her sleeping kimono felt warm under his palm. He started to gently shake her. “Hinata-chan?”
Hinata’s face twitch slightly and she scrunched up her nose. Slowly her eyes began to open, still glazed over from sleep. There was something orange next to her bed.
“Ano, Hinata-chan?”
Hinata eyes shot open as she sat straight up in bed. Surprised, Naruto fell backwards onto his rear end and stared at her. Hinata stared back, eyes wide and bed sheet clutched to her chest.
“Naruto-kun?” she asked in a confused and slightly panicky voice.
“Hinata-chan! I, well ummm...You see you
weren’t up and ummm.... Yasu thought that I wake you... and I
yelled but you didn’t hear and then Sora came and I was supposed
to go in and then I...I...“ He turned beet red and quickly
stammered the last piece of the message.
“SoraandYasuwanttotalktousI’llseeyouinthekitchen.” And he bolted
out of the room.
Yasu looked at Sora. “What did you do?”
“I put a sound barrier around Hinata’s room so he would have to go in and wake her up.”
“The point being?”
“To embarrass the hell out of both of them.”
Yasu sighed and shook her head. “As I said
before, you’ve never grown up.” .
Yasu and Sora sat across the table from Naruto and Hinata, staring at them. The two teens shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.
“Ano...where is Nori-san?”
“My husband is the mayor of the town. He had to go back.”
“Then he’s not going to teach me?” Naruto was crushed.
Sora shook her head. “He is going to teach you. However, he wanted us to propose something to the two of you.”
“What?”
“As you may know, the west and the east work on two completely different political systems. The hidden villages work on almost a feudal system. Each clan owes allegiance to the Kage who provides leadership and protection to them. In the west, things are far more confused. Some people side with a clan, others a religious group, still others with the people they live with. The west is also far more urbanized than the east.”
“Yeah, yeah, we know all that. What’s the point?”
“The point, Naruto, is that many of the clans can be more powerful than the Kages. Some have bloodlines and others are simply political powerhouses. Nori and I were both trained by the Kaze Clan from where the Shina forms were born. We share a mutual hatred for the clan, but that doesn’t mean that the methods they used were any less effective.”
“The fact is,” Yasu said. “That the Kaze Clan gains a great deal of it’s power from the fact that it’s fighters work so well together. While they excel in medium to large groups, their real power comes from the partner training.”
“Partner training?” Naruto asked.
“Once basic training is done, all trainees are paired up. They form partnership that will last for years, sometimes over someone’s entire fighting career.”
“Sort of like your genin trainee groups, but more permanent,” Sora added.
“And usually more powerful. A well trained pairing can be twice or three times more powerful than the individual powers of the fighters combined.”
“What’s this got to do with us?” Naruto asked again.
Yasu and Sora exchanged glances. “My husband thinks that the two of you should be partner trained. While it doesn’t mean that the two of you won’t be able to work alone or with other people, but it does mean a commitment to each other.”
“Commitment?” Weren’t guys supposed to run at the word commitment?
“Basically, it mean’s that you’re going to be friends, close friends, for the rest of your lives. There are no secrets in between partners: they have to know you so well they can predict what you are going to do in any given situation. You have to be able to see their flaws and still basically like the person.” Yasu smiled. “It’s sort of like being married.”
Naruto and Hinata paled.
“Without the sex, of course,” Sora added. Well, actually it was only generally without the sex. Many partners became in fact husband and wife as well.
“But the choice has to be yours. Either you commit to partner training and we start or we keeping going the way we have. You’re choice.”
Hinata shifted in her chair. “You mean we have to commit to being partner for the rest of our lives.”
“Not necessarily. Yasu-chan got married and now we’re not really partners any more. But if you’re partner trained, when you go back to Hidden Leaf it would be silly for Obaa-chan to have you on separate teams. It would last beyond your three years here.”
Naruto and Hinata looked at each other. Not be on their teams anymore? The breaking up of their teams had seemed so far in the future....
Yasu smiled. “I know it’s overwhelming. Children from the Kaze Clan have their whole lives to come to terms with the idea, and even for them when the time comes to pick a partner, they’re unsure. Fortunately, we have an exercise to help you decide.”
Hinata and Naruto looked up, still in a daze. What kind of exercise could help them for such a delicate decision?
Sora smiled and stood up. “This way.”
They walked up the third story of the house. There, Sora opened the door to a large room and gestured the pair inside. “OK, so there are futons in the closet over there and a bathroom through that door. We’ll come back and bring you food later. You have 24 hours to talk it out. Have fun!”
“Nani!?” Naruto yelled and she slammed the
door shut. Running over he pulled on the door but it didn’t
budge. They were locked in.
Author’s Notes: These are the last origonal
characters in this story with the exception of some minor bad
guys for Naruto and Hinata to practice on. Yasu and her family
are going to play a relatively small role in the story so, don’t
worry OC’s are not taking over. Thank you so much for your
reviews.
This site is published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT
info@seltzerbooks.com
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