“So, it’s settled then. You’ll come down off of this godforsaken mountain and train at our house over the winter.” Yasu stood in the courtyard, bag full of scrolls, ready to head back home.
“I’d hardly call this house godforsaken,” Sora grumbled, leaning against the newel post at the end of the stairs.
“Whatever,” she smiled at the two gennin sitting side by side on the stairs. “So, I will see both of you in a few months. Nori will teach you taijutsu. Meanwhile, us ladies can work on genjutsu And Sora will take care of Miki.”
Sora snorted. “Leave the kid with me and I am taking her out of those kimonos she always wears and putting her in proper play clothes.”
Yasu smiled. “You’ll do nothing of the sort. She looks cute in kimonos.”
She held her arms open and, rolling her eyes, Sora went to give her old friend a hug.
“Be safe,” Yasu whispered.
“You too. Give my love to Nori and Miki,” Sora whispered back.
Yasu pulled away and started to walk across the courtyard to the gate. Turning, she waved back to Naruto and Hinata. “See you soon!” She heaved the door open and slipped through.
Sora shook her head and bent down to pick up her cup to tea. “Honestly, the woman...” she trailed off as she took a sip of her tea.
Then she was jumping up and down, gasping for breath as she waved her hand in front of her mouth. “H-h-hot,” she breathed.
Naruto was rolling on the ground laughing. Sora looked up and glared at him. “Naruto...”
“Ha Ha! I gotcha good!” He pointed at her and kept laughing. “I put chili pepper in your tea while you were hugging Yasu!” Suddenly it registered that Hinata was shaking his shoulder and calling his name.
“Huh?” he said looking up at her.
“Run!” she said.
He was so busy laughing that he didn’t see the steam coming out of Sora’s ears. Suddenly he realized that the best course of action was to run. Fast.
He scrambled up the stairs and into the house, Sora close on his heels.
“Goddamn it, Naruto! I’m going to kill you!” she screamed.
Hinata shook her head and continued to sip her tea.
The Great Prank War had begun.
Sora hated writing reports. Why did she have to do them anyway? Wasn’t it enough that she was taking care of them? Plus Obaa-chan kept complaining about the reports she was writing. They were too short. They weren’t detailed enough. They weren’t coming every month like she had promised.
Honestly, the woman complained about everything. Still it had been, what two, three months since her last report? Had she sent one since her and Naruto’s last big blowup? She didn’t think so.
Well she supposed the woman had trained her for three years. She probably owed her a few reports here and there.
Dear Obaa-chan,
You should stop complaining about the number of reports you get. I suffer from low self esteem and all of your harsh messages are slowly breaking my heart.
There, that was a nice start. She continued on.
Naruto continues to be a brat. Last month he put black dye in my shampoo so that all of my streaks are gone. I don’t even have any more dye, so I have to wait until we head into town to put them back in. I got him back by hiding all the ramen in the house for a week, but I unfortunately didn’t have the heart to throw it away completely. I think I’m going soft.
Otherwise, both the kids are doing fine, so stop worrying. They’re actually getting pretty good and thank heavens they seem to get alone. Hinata is still in love with him and can’t tell him, but there is so much positive influence I can push on her. At least their friends now, which I don’t think they really were before they came here.
My old partner Yasu came up here a few weeks ago. I think you two met a couple of times. Anyway, she and her husband Nori are going to help train the kids. We’ll be wintering over at her place. The kids are thrilled. I think they’re sick and tried of being holed up in here. We’ll probably leave in a few months, around November.
They’ve also elected to do partner training so you’ll want to keep them on the same team once they get back. Trust me, they’ll be able to kick some serious ass. Oh, they’ll always be able to work well on their own, but I’m starting to think they’ll pass Yasu and me in terms of ability.
How’s Ero-Sennin doing? You know I’ve never forgotten a certain confession you made that night you got particularly drunk on sake...
Love Sora
She looked down at what she had just written. Hmmm she really doubted that this would get intercepted, but you could never be too careful. So she probably shouldn’t put in the part about going to train with Yasu. In fact, she should probably take out the part about Yasu altogether. Along with the part about their abilities and how they were training. It was better to have anyone who was reading this think that she was just protecting them. And she would take out the part about the prank war. She really didn’t want it to get out that she had let him dye her hair black.
Crossing out the parts that didn’t pass the censors, she re-wrote the letter.
Dear Obaa-chan,
You should stop complaining about the number of reports you get. I suffer from low self esteem and all of your harsh messages are slowly breaking my heart.
Both the kids are doing fine, so stop worrying. Hinata is still in love with him and can’t tell him, but there is so much positive influence I can push on her. At least their friends now, which I don’t think they really were before they came here.
How’s Ero-Sennin doing? You know I’ve never forgotten a certain confession you made that night you got particularly drunk on sake...
Love Sora
There we go. Strait and to the point.
She signed it with a flare before sealing the letter. She opted to place a light seal on it before summoning her delivery service.
Symbols spider webbed out from her palm and there was an explosion of smoke. Sora watched as it cleared to reveal a small falcon, grasping at the edge of her desk.
It puffed up it’s chest feathers and then cocked it’s head to one side. “More deliveries?” it said.
Sora smiled. “If you would. I have one for Yasu and one for Obaa-chan.”
The bird seemed to deflate. “All the way out to her?”
“It won’t be that bad. Besides you said you liked flying out here.”
He closed his eyes and twisted his head all the way around, refusing to look at her.
“Come on. I have some rabbit here you can have,” she said in a high, coaxing voice.
He opened one eye and turned to look at her over his shoulder. “Fresh?”
“My students were practicing laying traps today. They caught it just a few hours ago. I even skinned it for you.” She placed the plate on her desk a few feet away from the falcon. He turned and eyed it before raising his hooked beak in the air. He delicately lifted one leg to take a step towards the plate.
Which Sora lifted off the table. “You’re going to deliver my messages? And wait for the replie?”
The falcon glared at her before giving one sharp nod.
Sora grinned at set the meat back on the
table. “I knew you’d come around.”
Hinata stood in one stance and the carefully moved into the next, making sure that every muscle was doing exactly what she wanted it to. This stance was similar to the basic stance of her family’s gentle fist style: one hand out in front of her, the other fisted at her side. However, where he father had taught her to keep her center of gravity low, Sora had her keep it more towards her center so that she would be ready to move.
The parries from here were also similar in both styles. In fact, with a little bit of adjustment she could probably hit the same critical chakra junctions while doing the Shina-To-Be parries as she would have with her clan’s style.
She smiled. It was the first step towards integrating the two styles like Sora had advised. Leaving what didn’t work behind and taking what did work with you. “It’s not easy,” she had said. “In fact, I suck at it; I’m an all or nothing sort of girl. But it’s unfortunately something every good fighter has to learn. Good stuff comes from everywhere, especially from your enemies.”
She couldn’t consider her family her enemy. Yes, they were a source of pain, but not because they hated her. More because she could never be what they wanted her to be. She was starting to come to terms with that idea. Leaving behind their expectations, but keeping their strength.
She moved onto the next stance which meant that she was suddenly facing Naruto. He was working on low spinning techniques, sweeping his enemy off his feet, dislocating ankles and breaking knees. He tumbled across the ground, taking out imaginary enemies.
She smiled. He was just plain fun to watch.
He stopped and halfway stood up, leaning heavily on his knees. He had more stamina than almost anyone else she knew, but he worked harder than anyone else she knew.
He looked up at her and grinned. “Hey Hina-chan.”
She blushed although she wasn’t sure if it was because he had caught her staring at him or because he kept calling her that.
“Hey I wanted to know if you would help me with the brush painting later.” She smiled at that; despite months of trying, Naruto hadn’t quite gotten the hang of the painting. He was determined to get at least a few decent ones out before he moved on. She was about to tell him sure, when he continued. “I think I’ve almost got the hang of the Sakura Blossoms and I want to be able to paint her one when we get back.”
Hinata’s heart fell like a stone. Sakura. Sometimes when they were out here, working all by themselves she forgot all about the girl he liked back home. It didn’t matter that she was in love with someone else. Naruto had been chasing after her for as long as Hinata could remember. Sakrua with her perfect grades and perfect manners. She was like one of those characters out of basic reading book, everything oh so normal and oh so perfect, down to her candy pink hair. Pink hair for heavens sake! Hinata would have given anything to have her coloring instead of her heavy black hair and strange pale eyes.
But she was a Hyuunga and there were things you inherited along with the bloodline.
“Hina-chan?”
She looked up and suddenly realized that she had never answered his question.
“Gomen, Naruto-kun! Of course I’ll look at your paintings.”
He grinned and went to put his jacket on the side against the wall before he started his next practice set. Hinata was always cool like that, willing to help him out with whatever he needed. He was happy she’d come with him. It seemed as if she had almost popped up out of nowhere to be the perfect partner.
“Naruto-kun?”
He turned around to look at her. That expression that he couldn’t read was on her face again. “Hai, Hina-chan.”
She blushed. “Why do you like Sakura-san?”
“Huh? Why wouldn’t I like Sakura-chan? She’s my teammate.”
Her blush deepened. She could feel her stutter starting to slip back into her voice, something that hadn’t happened in weeks. “I, I mean, why do you like her as...as more than a friend?”
That made him blush. “Huh? Why do I like her?” he asked puzzled.
She quickly tried to make her question less conspicuous. “I mean, as your partner, I was just wonder what, what it was that, that-“her voice dropped to a whisper. “made you like her. And not...someone else.”
He started at her, puzzled.
She suddenly felt like crying. “Gomenasai! It was a silly question!” She ran up the stairs and into the house as quickly as she could.
Naruto stared after her. That had been really, really strange. Why had she acted like that? It was almost as if she had been embarrassed to ask him. She had asked him a question and hadn’t even stayed for an answer.
But that wasn’t the strangest part. The
really, really, really strange part was that he didn’t have an
answer.
The question almost seemed to haunt Naruto. It was like a little part at the back of his brain had been rubbed raw and that even the slightest movement in its direction would send ribbons of irritation out through his whole brain.
Why did he like Sakura?
He had realized when he was twelve that all of a sudden all of the girls were pointing and giggling at some of the boys in his class, mainly Sasuke. One day while trying to hide after pulling off one of his pranks he happened to end up in a tree over a few older girls who were talking about their boyfriends.
“I just love him so much!” one of them had said. “At first when he asked me out, I wasn’t interested but he was just so sweet and persistent. He just kept asking no matter how many times I said no. Now I always want to be with him.”
The persistent part had permanently filed itself away in his brain; dating was just like everything else: you just kept trying until the other person gave in. So when he looked at Sakura across the room the next day, he had simply decided that she would work as a good girlfriend and persistently pursued her for years.
But somehow, he didn’t think that was what Hina-chan had meant. She had asked why he liked Sakura and not somebody else. And while he could list several neat thinks about Sakura, he couldn’t really say he liked her because of them.
If he liked her and didn’t like others, then there had to be something about her that made her different, right?
He groaned. There was unfortunately only one
person he could ask about this and it was not going to be fun.
Naruto sauntered into the kitchen. “Oye, Nee-chan.”
Sora slowly looked over one shoulder at him from where she was chopping vegetables, one eyebrow raised. “Yes, Naruto-kun?”
He tried to walk nonchalantly over to her and failed miserably. “I have a question for you.”
Her eyebrow inched higher. Since when did Naruto ask permission to ask questions? “Fire away,” she said suspiciously.
He shifted from foot to foot, obviously nervous. “Why do people...you know...like each other?”
Sora went pale. “Dear god, please don’t tell me you want to give you the whole birds and the bees talk!”
“Ahhhhhh! No, no, no!” Naruto’s face was red with embarrassment as he frantically waved his hands in front of him as if trying to ward her off. “I know that stuff already!” Ikrua had made him listen to it just after he had graduated. He shuddered at the memory. It was not something he wanted to repeat.
She let out a huge sigh in relief. “Thank heavens. Wait, then what do you mean why do people like each other?” She giggled. “Do you like someone, Naruto-kun?”
“THAT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!” he yelled.
She grinned from ear to ear. “Come on, tell me who it is. Are you starting to like Hinata-chan?”
“NO! STOP PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH!”
She rolled her eyes. She supposed it would have been too easy for him to be secretly liking Hinata back. Secrecy wasn’t something Naruto did well. “Allright, allright. Then what is this about?”
He sighed. He was going to have to explain the whole thing to her. “See, Hina-chan asked me why I liked Sakura-chan and-“
“HA! You just told me who you like!” She did a little dance.
“I DON’T CARE! I just don’t know how to deal with this.”
“Wait, you want advice from ME about your love life? Oh, no, honey let me tell you I am the wrong girl to be asking. Those pictures Yasu was threatening to show you?” She leaned in close to him and started to whisper. “They’re scary.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “I’m not asking you for advice. I just didn’t have an answer for her,” he said grumpily.
“About why you like Sakura?”
He nodded.
Sora shrugged. “That shouldn’t be too hard to answer. You like Hinata- chan, right?”
“Eh, not like that!”
She sighed. “I know, you already told me. Why do you like her as a friend?”
“Why do I like her as a friends?”
“Yes, what makes her different from other people who know whom you are not friends with?”
He pushed himself up to sit on the counter where she was chopping. Once he started thinking about it, the answer came surprisingly easily. “Hina- chan’s cool. She’s always willing to help me out and she’s always nice and does cool things like make me ramen when she’s having tea. She’s a good training partner too; she works hard. Oh and she’s teaching me how to brush paint.”
“Any what’s cool about Sakura?”
He looked up at the ceiling. This was a lot harder that in was for Hina- chan. “She’s pretty and she’s smart and...” He trailed off, trying to think of more. “She’s on my team.”
Sora snorted. “That’s it? She’s pretty, smart and on your team.”
“Hai.”
She gave him a skeptic look. “You sure you’re interested in her?”
Not be interested in Sakura? Well, Sasuke wasn’t interested in any girls and the only girls Kakashi was interested in seemed to be those in Come Come Paradise. In fact the only other guy he knew who really pursued girls was Ero-Sennin. He scrunched up his nose. He didn’t want to turn into him!”
Sora shook her head and started gesturing at him with the knife she was using. “Look kid, as I said my dating record is not a pretty thing and I could have this wrong. Maybe you’ll want to ask Nori some of these things once we get down there for your advice. But, even when I wonder what I was thinking after the fact, I always knew why I was interested in the guy. Maybe if you can’t come up with a reason why you like Sakura, it’s because you don’t like her.”
“Huh?”
“People grow up, people move on. Maybe you used to really like her, but if you were still in love with her, I would have expected you to have an easier time coming up with good things about her than good things about Hinata.” She smiled. “Just think about it Naruto.”
Maybe he didn’t like Sakura? Huh. Well that was something that hadn’t occurred to him before. Maybe he didn’t really like her.
Suddenly he had the strong urge to talk to Hinata. Hopping off the counter, he headed the door.
“You’re welcome, Naruto,” Sora called out over her shoulder.
He turned and looked at her from the doorway. “Hey, Nee-chan do you have copies of those pictures of your ex-boyfriends.”
“They are hidden away where you will never find them.”
He grinned. “Thank’s Nee-chan.”
He found Hinata just outside her room, dressed in a robe and holding all of her bath supplies.
“Hey, Hina-chan, I wanted to talk to you.”
She nervously pulled the collar of her robe a little tighter. “Um, well, Naruto-kun, I’m on my way to the bath.”
“That’s cool,” he said but continued to talk to her anyway. “See I was thinking about the question you had asked me earlier...” and he preceded to launch into a description of the girls under the tree and seeing Sakura in the classroom and Sora saying she had a bad dating record and about her saying that they’re needed to be reasons.
Hinata just stared at him.
“So, you see I’m starting to think that maybe I don’t like her.” He finished.
“What?” She was almost frightened to hope that he was saying what she thought he was saying.
“I don’t think I like her.” He grinned. “Weird, huh?”
She couldn’t say anything. There were too many thoughts running through her head.
So she did the only think she could think of.
She smiled.
Author’s notes: This chapter was a little short, I know, but I really just wanted to get this particular problem out of the way. I enjoyed writing it though because it gave me a change to write Naruto a little bit more grown up.
Just a brief note on Hinata’s fighting style. When I watched the animated version of the Hinata Neji fight, I noticed that both of them are basically standing in one place throwing strikes at each other. This is traditional of a lot of martial arts something my teachers have always been critical of because it is not terribly good when your opponent is larger than you (I used to help teach a self defense form based on Muey Thai and Sambo where almost all the students were women and therefore almost all the attackers were larger you). What Hinata is doing is taking the soft fist chakra strikes (which I agree is perfect for her) and integrating them into a more mobile system of movement. Then again I know just enough about fighting to realize how little I know about fighting. Plus 95% of the fights you see in TV and movies don’t make a lot of sense when you think about the physics. Suspend your disbelief.
Also Hinata’s name translates loosely as a patch of sunlight, which I absolutely love. Hina on its own is doll, which also has a special place in my heart because it is what my mother calls me.
I’m screwing my courage to the sticking place and planning to write all three stories. That doesn’t mean that this one will be any shorter, just that it will have a slightly different ending and a bit of foreshadowing. I just hope my wonderful beta David will stick with me!
I’m updating the Sora-Naruto fight in chapter 7 so you can read that as well if you wish.
Finally, I just want to say thank you from the
bottom of my heart for all your reviews! There seemed to be an
explosion of them during a particularly rough spot in my life
and they really lifted my spirits.
This site is published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT
info@seltzerbooks.com
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