Hinata looked at the ground, up at Naruto and down at the ground again. She wanted to say something to him. It wasn’t that she had anything specific in mind, but she wanted to be able to hold a pleasant conversation for a few minutes. It was more than she had ever been able to do before and it would mean so much to her if only...
“Neh, Hinata?” Hinata jerked her head up. She hadn’t thought out yet what she would do if he talked to her. Oh no, what was she supposed to say?
She swallowed. “Hai, Naruto-kun?”
He leaned over close to her, causing her heart to speed up. “Does Sora- sensei seem a little...strange to you?” he whispered.
“Umm, ano, she, she seems nice, but, but...”
“Strange,” he finished for her. “She doesn’t seem like any kind of ninja to me.”
Hinata had no idea what to say. “Ano, well, Hokage-sama seems to think that-“ Hinata broke off when she realized that Naruto was no longer next to her. He had run ahead and was now walking next to Sora.
Sora looked down out of corner of her eye. The blond kid was staring up at her suspiciously. “Can I help you?”
They had been walking along in silence for nearly an hour. Sora was perfectly happy about this. It was a beautiful afternoon, the birds were singing, and every step she took was taking her father away from Leaf Village. She had already decided that when she three years were up, she was sending them back on their own and not stepping another foot inside a hidden anything village. Three years was what she had been given and three years was what she was giving. No more and no less. And absolutely no agreement to return as a shinobi. Things looked pretty good at the moment. But apparently her new apprentices didn’t share that opinion.
“Are you really any good?”
Sora shrugged. “Yeah.”
Naruto’s eyes narrowed some more. “Better than Kakashi-sensei?”
“Kakashi?” Why did that name sound so familiar? “Who’s he?”
Naruto’s eyes went wide. “You don’t know about Kakashi-sensei? Copy-ninja Kakashi? Tsa, I knew you couldn’t be any good!”
Sora ignored him and kept rolling his name over and over in her head. Kakashi, Kakashi, it was such a familiar name and she couldn’t help but feel like it meant something to her... Suddenly, she hit on it. She turned to Naruto. “Wait, Kakashi. Gray hair, gray eyes, always wears a mask over his mouth.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s him. He’s my team leader and everyone knows he’s a genius.”
Sora let out a short burst of laughter and kept walking. Naruto waited for her to explain, but it didn’t look like she was going to. Sora could hardly believe it. Kakashi-kun, gods she hadn’t thought about him in years.
“Oi, you didn’t answer my question!”
“Hmm, what? Oh, about Kakashi.” She shrugged again. “I think we’d probably be pretty evenly matched. I just recently started hanging around this part of the world again, so it’s been a while since I’ve seen him fight.” Naruto still looked very suspicious.
“Ano, Sora-sensei?”
Sora smiled down at the girl who had come to walk on her opposite side. “Hai, Hinata-chan.”
“Umm, where are we going?”
“To my house. It’s on the border, way up in the mountains. I’ve got a great view.”
“And we’re going to train there?” she managed to get out.
“Yeah for the most part. I might take you out exploring for a while. Haven’t really decided yet.”
“Oh.” They continued walking in silence, Hinata fiddling with her fingers, Nartuo looking very disgruntled and Sora walking along with a slight bounce in her step as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Finally Hinata looked up at her again. “Ano, Sora-sensei?”
“Yes, Hinata-chan?”
“Umm, ano, why was the Hokage-sama complaining about your clothes?”
Sora blinked and looked down at herself. She let out a short laugh. “Sorry, forgot I still looked like this.” And she released the Jutsu and kept on walking. About five steps later she realized that he two companions were no longer next to her. She turned around to find them stopped in the road, staring at her. “What?”
Shinobi were sometimes on the...fringes of fashion, but Sora left them all behind. Neither Naruto nor Hinata had ever seen anything quite like her. She was tall, probably just a little shorter then Kakashi-sensei with black hair that reached down her back. The thing was, it had all done up into hundreds of small beaded braids, many of which were dyed red or purple. She was wearing a long black coat with large silver clasps, boots, fishnets, a short back skirt and a fitted red top which came up high around the back of her neck and plunged low in the front. The only thing she wore that indicated that she was a ninja was her fingerless gloves with metal plates sewn on the back. She didn’t seem to have any forehead protector anywhere. There was a stud in her nose and several odd twists of metal working their way up the outside of her ear. Paired with her oval face and classic features, she made an odd picture.
“What?” she repeated.
“Ano, is- is that what you really look like, Sora-sensei?” Hinata asked hesitantly.
Sora looked down at herself and then back at the pair. “Generally. It tends to attract a lot of attention, so most of the time I transform when I’m away from home. Makes life easier”
“Hey, hey what do we have here?”
Sora rolled here eyes and gave her students a ‘See what I mean’ look. She plastered a fake grin on her face and turned around to face the men.
There were three of them standing about 15 feet away from her and smirking. They were muscular and clearly used to getting their way, if they way they leered at her were any indication. She continued to smile while inwardly she groaned. She hated assholes like this, leering at her. She continued to smile brightly. “Can I help you, gentlemen?”
Their smirks increased. “Actually, we were wondering if there was anything we could do to help you.” They were coming closer and fanning out slightly around her. One of them, a rather bearish looking man with ruddy hair, came up close to her. She refused to step back. “A lone woman and two kids traveling without an escort can be in danger on these roads.” He laid a clammy hand on her shoulder.
She quickly lifted it off. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure, sweetcakes? We would be happy to escort you wherever you’re going.” Another one who looked rather serpentine came up behind her and put his hand on her, grabbing and digging his fingers in. “Lovely young lady out here by herself dressed up like that is asking for trouble.”
“What are you doing out her all by yourself anyway?” The third one asked.
Quickly she removed the man’s hand from her hip and ducked out from within their circle. “Oh well, I’m just on my way home.”
“And the kids?”
She was still hoping to get to get out of the situation without a fight. Saying they were her apprentices wouldn’t work. They would decide to test their ability against her, thinking they could win easily and brag about how they had gotten an uppity little ninja girl from the leaf. She still had hopes for defusing the situation, but it had to happen fast. “My little brother and his girlfriend.”
Naruto and Hinata paled. What was she saying? She seemed to be almost trying to dance her way out of the conflict. Naruto scowled. She couldn’t be that powerful then. If she was she would have just fought them. He would have to protect them.
The third man finally took a good look at the two apprentices. “Hey look, the kids have Leaf forehead protectors. They ninjas?” Sora groaned inwardly. Damn it, she had forgotten to have the kids take those off.
There was no way to work around it. They might have been quiet when she called Naruto her brother, but he wasn’t going to stand for her saying he wasn’t a ninja. “Yes.”
The man slowly started approaching Naruto and Hinata. “We’ll then; maybe we ought to see what the kids can do. Give them a little real world training.”
Naruto glared at him. “Bring it on! I can take all of you.”
“Naruto-kun...” Hinata said as he stepped in front of her to keep her separate from the approaching man.
Sora held her hand up as if trying to placate them. “Gentlemen please. It’s hardly nice to attack two partially trained young ninjas.”
“Worried about your little brother?” The bearish man sneered.
“Say, if you’re his big sister, then you must be a ninja too right?”
“Naw, little punk like her couldn’t be in ninja.” Said the man hovering over Naruto and Hinata.
“Yeah yeah, you’re right. Probably can’t keep a thought in her head long enough to even pull off a decent jutsu, can you sweetcakes?”
Sora’s eyes narrowed, but her smile stayed the same. Insult her clothes, insult her virtue and she would brush you off. Insult her ability and threaten her charges? You wouldn’t know what hit you.
She brought her hands together and ran quickly though a series of seals. Finally she stopped on ram and sing-songed “Chakra bind no jutsu.” Light blue light with just a hint of purple started pulsing from her hands. With almost blinding speed, she rammed the palm of her hand into each of their chests. It was over in almost half an instant. The men simply dropped around her feet.
She smiled down at them pleasantly and nudged one of them in the side with her boot. “All of you out? Good.”
With a small sigh, she transformed into a woman a few years older than Naruto and Hinata, with a plane kimono and an even planer face. “Come on you two. We have a lot of ground to cover before nightfall.”
Naruto and Hinata were still standing there stunned. Actually taking a man, even a weak man, out with one blow was hard and to do it three times in a row...the Hyungs were able to do it because of their ability to stop to flow of charka, but this woman was no Hyuuga. In fact, to Hinata’s eyes what she had done looked very similar to her byakugan. But how had she...
“Hey, are you two going to stand there all day?” Sora called out over her shoulder.
“Neh, neh, sensei...”
“You probably shouldn’t call me that. I prefer not to attract attention on the road and two ninjas following me around calling me sensei is going to do just that. Call me Onee-chan instead; we’ll keep pretending that you’re my brother.”
Hinata stared at her. Did this mean that she was going to keep referring to her as Naruto’s girlfriend? She started blushing. How would she be able to handle that?
“NANI? Why to I have to be related to you?”
“It’s the best ploy to avoid conflicts. And take those head protectors off.”
Naruto looked truly shocked. How could she expect him to do that? This was his symbol of his existence as a ninja. He had worked too hard to get it to simply stop wearing it.
“NO!” He yelled. Hinata cringed. She hated it when people yelled. She always felt so helpless. She wanted to be able to defuse the argument, to simply step in-between Naruto and Sora, but she realized that it wouldn’t do any good. People tended to forget she was there even when there wasn’t an argument going on. If there was an argument, she simply had no hope of being noticed.
Sora rolled her eyes, but kept the light humor in her voice. “You just have to take it off until we get home. I am simply trying to avoid having to fight more people than I have to.”
Didn’t the woman understand? He needed to bet stronger and fighting was the only way to do it. Otherwise how was he going to get people to acknowledge him? How was he going to get Sakura to see him as more than an idiot? How was he going to become Hokage? He only had two things that he needed to do: train and fight. Those two things were what he needed to do in order to reach his dreams. “But I wanna fight!”
She scowled at him. She stopped walking and turned to face him, her tone suddenly taking on a serious quality for the first time. “First of all, if the Leaf Ninja Academy is not teaching you that fighting should be avoided rather than sought then I am going to have to have a word with Obaachan. If you think that fighting random guys who harass us on the road will make you a better ninja than you are too stupid for me to train. Taking those men out would have proven nothing.”
“But you took them out!”
“Only because I had to or they were going to attack you.”
“I could have handled it! Those idiots were no match for me.”
Sora felt like she was going to scream. “Look, kid, I have fought more people in my lifetime then most of the Shinobis back at that village of yours. If I say it’s not going to do any good, it’s not going to do any good. Don’t just attack anyone. Save yourself for the enemies that count. That’s the first thing. Second, as long as you are studying under me you will follow my rules, my guidelines and my orders. That includes avoiding conflict and calling me Onee-chan in order to do so. Clear?”
Naruto just snorted and turned away. She stared at him for a few minutes. Then he reached up and took off his forehead protector, stuffing it into his bag. Sora decided to accept that as a yes.
They stopped in a village with one small inn where they rented a room for the night. The room was plain, but clean with dark wood walls and a single large window that looked out onto the forest. Sitting in their room eating the last of their dinner, Hinata decided to try her courage at asking Sora a few questions. In order to bring her back, they probably needed to know why she didn’t have a village.
“Ano, Sora-sensei?”
Sora sighed. She was beginning to see a pattern in Hinata’s speech. “Hai, Hinata.”
Hinata tried to think of an innocent sounding question. “Umm, where are you from?”
And so the questioning begins, Sora thought. She had to be careful here. She didn’t want to lie to them as she didn’t want to give them reason’s not to trust her. But there were things that they would never be able to know. “No where in particular. I’ve traveled a lot.”
“Ano, so then, who, who trained you? I mean, I, I know that Hokage-sama...” She just sort of trailed off.
Sora smiled and wondered how she was going to be able to boost the girl’s confidence. “I had one teacher before Obaachan and after I finished training with them, I traveled around with a partner for a while.”
“Where is he?”
Sora let out of short snort. “She’s married. About three years ago she met a man, fell in love and they ended up married and farming of all things. I still can’t believe it.” She smiled. “They have the sweetest little girl on the face of the earth.”
“Really?” Hinata asked with interest. Naruto just sat there and kept eating his ramen. This was an extremely boring conversation.
There was a far away look in her eyes. “Two years old and cute as a button. They’re my family and they offered to let me stay with them, but I wasn’t about to become a farmer.” Her voice suddenly got very quiet. “Too many things left undone. ”
Hinata looked confused. “What do you mean, Sora-sensei?”
Sora smiled. “Everyone has things they want to get done. I have a few more things left on mine to get done before I settle down.” Hinata was relieved.
She looked back at Hinata and smiled, immediately brightening. “How about you, Hinata-chan? What’s on your to do list?”
“Huh?”
“What do you want to with your life?”
“Ano, well...I, I guess I want to...” Hinata stopped and looked up at Sora with wide eyes. “I don’t know. I guess I want to be a good clan leader.”
“You’re the heir?”
“Hai, but...I, I’m not...”
“I see. You don’t think your good enough.”
Hinata nodded and continued to stare at the floor. “I’m ju-just too...” She looked over longingly at Naruto who continued to eat, not paying attention to either of them.
Shit. She was in love with them. Sora must have been blind to not notice it before. She groaned inwardly. This was going to make everything so much more complicated. Shit shit shit. Why hadn’t anybody warned her? She was going to have to figure out a way to get this out of the girls system and fast. Otherwise they were going to be untrainable.
“What about you, Naruto?”
“Huh?” he said, looking back at them over his shoulder.
“Naruto pay attention. Your teammate over here started quizzing me on where I was from in a move I am sure had to do with making me a leaf shinobi. While you two are not going to succeed in that, you are still leaving to work of trying up to her, which isn’t very nice. We then started talking about things we wanted to do with out lives. It helps me to know your goals when I train you, so out with it. What do you want to do?”
Naruto grinned broadly. “I am going to be Hokage!”
Sora stared at him. She had managed to get the overly shy and unconfident heir to one of the most powerful bloodlines in the world who was in love with a loudmouth kid with a demon fox sealed in his navel and delusions of becoming Hokage. And they were hers for the next three years. She was going to kill Obaachan when she got the chance.
Naruto finally decided that learning how to do that thing Sora had done to the men on the road would be worth the embarrassment of having to ask a girl.
“Neh, neh. Teach me how to do that thing you did.”
“The charka bind?” She chucked down at him from were she sat perched in the room’s only chair. “You’ve got a long way to go before you can do that.”
“Ha! That was what Jiriaya said about teaching me rasengan. But I got it!”
Sora arched her eyebrows. “You can do rasengan?” Naruto nodded his head vigorously. Sora was impressed, but she wasn’t about to let it show. “Did you learn it all at once, or did you take it in steps?”
Naruto scowled. “Well, steps, but I did them really quickly.”
“Good, then you should be able get though the list.” She reached for her pack and started rummaging through it. She always carried the list with her, although it wasn’t particularly useful. She hadn’t opened it in years, but just knowing that it was a reminder of who she was. Who she had made herself to be.
She hadn’t initially planned on using it with them. It was heavy duty training which built the foundation for far more advanced things. Still, she was hoping it would do three things: calm Naruto down, build up Hinata’s confidence and force them to work out any personal stuff before she started really working with them. If working side by side trying to figure things out together didn’t cement their relationship into some form, nothing would.
She tossed the scroll in the air once before catching it and handing it to Naruto. “Hinata-chan, you should look at this too,” indicating that the girl should move closer to the boy. Hinata hesitantly scooted across the floor to where he was sitting cross legged. Hesitantly, she looked over his shoulder.
The boy turned the scroll over in his hands, peering at it. “What is it?”
“A list of 100 things every ninja should be able to do,” Sora said with a grin. “My first teacher gave it to me to learn. Now you get to.”
“Huh?” Naruto said, and opened the scroll while Hinata looked over his shoulder. Across the top was written “100 basic skills” and it was followed by a list of 100 different techniques. Some of them were charka control techniques: climbing trees and walking on water were both there. Some were actual Justus, but none of them were anything he had ever learned or even ever heard of. What the hell was ‘Dishes no Jutsu?” As they read down the list, something suddenly occurred to Naruto.
“Neh, neh, Sora!”
“I told you to call me Onee-chan for a reason-“
“Yeah yeah, but...there is nothing you can use in a fight in this.”
“No, of course not.”
Naruto jumped to his feet. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'OF COURSE NOT!?'”
“It’s a skill set. These are 100 things you need to be able to do in order for me to teach you anything.” She shrugged, something that was really starting to irritate Naruto. “Until you learn those, there is nothing I can really do.”
“NANI? But some of these things don’t make any sense!”
“Oh, if you have questions, I’ll be glad to help you. But I’d like for you two to work through it on your own.”
“So once we’re mastered it, we can start combat training?”
She seemed to consider this for a second. “Yes.”
“All right! I’ll get through this list in no time!”
She smirked and learned back in the chair. “Don’t you mean ‘we’?”
“Huh? Nani?”
“You both have to get through the list before I’ll teach either of ya’ll anything.”
“NANI?!”
“Well I certainly don’t want to have to teach the same thing twice. Makes more sense for me to just wait and teach you both at the same time.”
“But I already know how to do some of this stuff.”
“Then teach Hinata.” She waved her hand at them in a dismissing gesture. “You two sort it out between yourselves. I’m going to bath and go to bed.” She got up from the chair and left the room, presumably headed for the bath house.
Hinata and Naruto looked at each other and then at the scroll he held in his hand.
“Neh, Hinata. Do you know how to climb trees?”
This chapter is, unfortunately, mainly set-up for Naruto and Hinata’s training and focuses almost entirely on Sora. As this is probably boring for most of you, I apologize, but it is necessary for the rest of the story.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of those who reviewed! It really makes my day and encourages me to keep going.
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This site is published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT
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