Author’s Notes: A few people have commented on my use of Japanese terms and so I just figured I would clarify when I use them and when I don’t. Basically, it just depends on what the dialog sounds like in my head. Therefore techniques and characteristic phrases, such as Naruto’s ‘Nani?,” are in Japanese. Because I am so accustomed to hearing nani screamed in shock, I tend to use it. Part of the challenge I am trying to fulfill had to do with keeping in the spirit of the manga and in my mind this is part of it.
Also, just as an FYI, I try to put when I hope
to post the next chapter up on my profile.
“OK, so you concentrate your chakra on your feet and then just run up the tree.”
Hinata blushed and looked confused. They were standing in the forest a few miles away from the village where they had spent the night. At Naruto’s insistence, they had woken up early and left to train. He was determined to get through this list as soon as possible. There were 100 things to learn and if they did one task per day it would take them 100 days or just a little over three months. It was still a long time to spend learning things he couldn’t use, but he had three years to learn the charka bind.
Hinata looked at the tall tree in front of her. She was determined; she could do this. She had done other exercises similar to this back in leaf with her team. Plus she had been gathering chakra to her hands since the moment she had been old enough to be put into a training uniform. This was just a matter of gathering it to her feet, she kept telling herself.
Naruto watched as Hinata ran towards the tree. Suddenly, she caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye, looking at her expectantly. She hit the tree, took ten steps up and then slid down, landing with a large thump.
Suddenly Naruto had the feeling that this was going to take longer than he had hoped.
They both stared at the tree. She could tell that he had thought she would do better. She had thought she would do better. Hinata started to feel even more nervous. What if she couldn’t do this?
Naruto frowned. Maybe she was just warming up. “Neh, it’s okay Hinata. Try again.”
Hinata bit her lip and nodded. Standing up, she walked a few paces back and concentrated her chakra. Then she started running. She made it seven steps up the tree before she overdid it and got pushed off. Quickly she slashed into the tree. She hadn’t even made it up as far as the first time. She felt pathetic.
Without waiting for him to tell her anything, she got up and ran towards the tree again. Seven steps. Again. Five steps. Seven again. Ten. Eight. Over and over again she tried. She tried to block out the fact that he was there. He was making her so nervous she couldn’t concentrate. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t forget that he was there. This was just like how she would mess up in front of her father.
No matter how many times she tried to climb the tree, she never got beyond ten steps. Panting, she sat down on the ground.
Naruto was puzzled. He had thought girls had some sort of special ability to climb trees. Sakura-chan had done it the very first time she tried.
“That’s weird, Sakura-chan didn’t have a problem...” His voice trailed off as he though it over. Hinata sat on the ground crushed. She knew that he liked Sakura. He had been chasing after her for months, trying to get her to go out on a date with him. She could see why he liked her. She was pretty and smart. Hinata couldn’t do anything right and Naruto himself had described her as dark and strange.
She could see it in his eyes; the disappointment at how poorly she was doing. She was holding him back, preventing him from moving forward. Without her along, with things going the way that the Hokage had wanted, he would have easily completed the list. With her, he might not even be able to complete it in three years.
Suddenly, it all became too much for her. He was so close and she wanted so badly to be able to prove to him that she could do this. But she just couldn’t. She wished the ground would just come and swallow her up. She was just as useless here as she was at home. She was stupid, she was useless, and unfitting to be both heir to her clan or a shinobi of the leaf. She suddenly broke down into tears.
Naruto was shocked. He tried to remember if he had ever seen a girl cry before; he couldn’t think of a time. Yes, Sakura had cried a couple of times when she had gotten hurt on a mission, but that was nothing like this. Hinata was shaking hard, her sobs coursing through her entire body. Her face was buried in her hands, but Naruto could see the tears leaking through between her fingers.
Tentatively he walked towards her, one hand extended to touch her lightly on the shoulder. She jerked back at his touch, which brought her flat up against the tree. She slid down it and buried her face in her knees.
Naruto crouched down in front of her. “Neh, Hinata...”
“I’m sorry. It’s just,” she said, choking on her tears. “It’s just that I’m, I’m holding you back. I’m here, but- but I’m useless. I c-can’t do an-anything but h-hold b-back my friends.”
Naruto didn’t know what to say. Was that really what she thought? That all she did was hold people back? Suddenly he remembered the day of the chuunin exam. The day that everything had happened. He had beaten Neji and then Gaara, controlled the demon inside him and saved Sakura. But when he had woken up that morning, he hadn’t been sure he was able to do anything. Something about talking to her had made him feel better, more confident and more like his old self again. Now all he had to do was figure out how to do the same thing for her.
“Neh, Hinata-chan?” Hinata looked up from where her face had been buried in her knees. She sniffed loudly and stared at him with wide eyes, startled by how close he was. “Remember when you kept picking yourself up off the ground when you fought with Neji?” Hinata looked confused, but nodded. “Well, that tree is easier to face down than him.” He grinned.
“B-but I failed.”
Naruto shook his head. “Nah. You kept getting up. He was the idiot who kept kicking you when you were down.”
Hinata stared at him, unable to fully take in what he was saying. She remembered him yelling at her to stand up during the chuunin exam. She remembered watching him from the very first days she had entered the academy. He had been a truly terrible student, always disrupting the class or sneaking out when he was board. They were both failures; people the got stared at for not being what they were supposed to be. But while it had crushed her, it had never seemed to dampened his spirits.
Until the day of the tournament, when suddenly she was able, for a few brief moments, to speak to him without stumbling over her words.
“Naruto-kun...” she breathed softly.
“Neh, Hinata-chan, it took me a few days to get the tree climbing thing. Maybe that’s all you need.”
Hinata looked up at him as if she was frozen in time. He wanted her to keep trying. He thought that she could do it. Did this mean that he didn’t think she was useless? Suddenly she felt like laughing, something she hadn’t done in a long, long time. She felt strangely happy. His presence no longer felt like a hindrance, but a help.
She stood up and walked a few yards away before turning and running towards the tree. She made it about twenty feet up the side of the tree before she lost control over her charka and started to slide back down. Quickly she slashed into the tree and pushed away to land neatly on her feet.
It was at least twice as far as she had gone before.
“All right!” Naruto yelled. “Now were getting somewhere. Try it again, Hinata-chan!”
She smiled. It was a start.
Sora watched the pair from the branches of a nearby tree. It was almost ten and she really should have all of the moving on their way at this point. However, she couldn’t bring herself to break them up. They were making good progress. Amazingly good progress.
She supposed that it had mainly been a barrier of confidence rather than skill which had prevented Hinata from climbing the tree. In order to utilize her blood limit she would have to have excellent charka control already. Still, the loudmouth’s encouragement seemed to have been what she needed. She would be climbing trees no problem by the end of the day.
She smiled and shook her head. Still, climbing trees was one of the easiest exercises on the scroll. It would be interesting to see how they fared with some of the more difficult ones where neither of them knew what they were doing. Heaven knows they frustrated the hell out of her when she had been forced to do them.
It seemed strange to her that her life would suddenly circle back to that time. She had always thought that she would train someone, but not under these circumstances and certainly not this pair. Now that she had the chance to watch them, she was almost eerily reminded of her fist teacher and her husband.
She sighed and leaned her head back against the tree. The light danced through the leaves over her head. Nanashi-sensei, I hope this is what you would want.
Naruto and Hinata sat facing each other on the grass underneath the tree. Hinata had figured out how to go about 50 steps up the tree before she lost control. That put her near the top of all but the very tallest of the trees. Now they were going through the list and checking out how many of them they knew. Naruto was disappointed to realize how few he knew.
“Eh? All my training and I only know three of the things on the list?”
Hinata bit her lip and looked at the ground. “I know two.”
“Well, then that leaves you 95 to go.” They looked up to see Sora leaning up against the tree. “Considering how well you two did on the first one it shouldn’t take you too long.”
Naruto regarded her suspiciously. She was being entirely too nice.
Sora walked over too them and looked down at the scroll. “Which ones do you know?” she asked.
As Naruto was still staring at her, Hinata answered. “Naruto knows the tree climbing, water walking and chakra spinning. I know how to push the chakra out from my hands and I can sort of do the level restoration.”
Sora was surprised. Level restoration was one of the harder ones on the list. It was a medical technique used to restore homeostasis in selected portions of the body. “Really? Level restoration? Do you want to be a med nin?”
Hinata blushed. “One of the med nins started to teach me. I can’t really use it, but the idea helped me make healing balm.”
“That stuff you gave me after my match with Kiba?” Naruto asked. “That stuff kicked ass!”
Sora hit him on the top of the head. “Watch your mouth, kid.” She turned back to Hinata. “Do you have any of it with you?”
Hinata reached for her pack and quickly pulled out a small jar. Sora took it and quickly unscrewed the lid. Dipping her thumb and forefinger in, she rubbed them together feeling the consistency of the ointment.
Hinata watched in fascination as Sora’s eyes suddenly went from a blue- violet to a deep purple and then suddenly became shot through with lines of sliver. She had never seen eyes like that before. Then, just as quickly as it had happened, her eyes reverted to normal.
“Naruto’s right, this is good stuff.” Not only were the ingredients obviously carefully prepared, the chakra that had been put into the balm had some of the neatest arrangements she had ever seen. She would have to get the girl to Yasu at some point during the next three year. They would get along like two peas in a pod.
Suddenly Sora’s thoughts ground to a halt. Why, all of a sudden, did training them seem more like a pleasure than a chore? She had barely had them under her care for a day. Surely she hadn’t gone that soft.
“Ano, Sora-sensei?” Hinata looked at her questioningly. All of a sudden she had just started staring off into space.
Sora shook her head to clear it. “You should call me Onee-chan, too Hinata- chan. Just too be safe.” She handed the jar back to Hinata then smiled at the two of them. “Come on kids. It’s noon and we’re not getting any closer.”
Naruto scrambled to his feet. “Any closer to where?”
Sora smiled. “Home. Where you get to train all
day, every day.”
This site is published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT
info@seltzerbooks.com
 |
|
| Webseltzerbooks.com |