This site is published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT info@seltzerbooks.com
 |
|
| Webseltzerbooks.com |
Thanks to David for betaing!
“Goddamn it!” Sora swung her fist into the wall, leaving a large splintered hole. That wasn’t the way she should have handled that. The boy had caught her off guard and sparked her temper. She hadn’t meant to go after him quite that badly, to cut him down so thoroughly, but how could he have been so stupid?
She sighed and sat down at her desk. She rested her temples on her hands and closed her eyes. Dear god, what had made her think that she would be able to handle this? She had jumped into it too quickly. The moment she had realized who he was she hadn’t been able to say no. But at the same time, she wasn’t ready to teach anyone. Sure she knew the material, but she didn’t have the patience or ability to teach.
She looked through her fingers to the picture of Nanashi-sensei on her desk. The woman was remarkably beautiful with dark rich hair and skin combined with wide startlingly blue eyes. They seemed to spark with an inner fire, like kindling that was always just on the verge of starting the blaze. There was so much determination and so much kindness in those eyes.
If it had been her instead of Sora who had found Naruto in the library, she would have known exactly what to do. She wouldn’t have lost her head and started screaming at him. She would have remained calm and stopped him from doing anything and then carefully explained to him why he couldn’t go off and learn dangerous jutsu unsupervised. She wouldn’t have lost her temper, hauled Naruto outside and pounded him into the ground.
Memories of her father echoed back to her, the condescending voice ringing in her ears. “I suppose it would be too much to ask for you to be number one among among your peers despite your blood. You are quickly proving yourself to be useless.” He had left her panting on the floor, frantically trying to draw breath into her lungs.
She was no better than he had been. True, her actions had been done out of fear and anger rather than cool calculation, but the results were the same. Here she was, mimicking the actions of the one man she truly hated. Tears started forming in the corners of here eyes. She had never felt so guilty in her life.
Piled on her desk were five letters from Tsunade, all asking where the hell her reports were. She had sent the first one off, but had missed the last two. She just couldn’t figure out what to say. That she sucked as a teacher? That her and Naruto were at each other’s throats?
She wanted to do right by the boy; after the life he had lead he deserved that. Still, she didn’t understand him. Why did he always have to make everything a battle? How could she train a boy who questioned everything she said?
She couldn’t help but think that it was something that Nanashi would have grasped easily. When she had picked her up and taken Sora with her on her wanderings she had known exactly what to do. She was warm and caring, encouraging her to come out of the shell she had locked herself into tightly. She was the perfect teacher and surrogate mother.
Sora couldn’t be any of those things. She wasn’t a teacher, she was a warrior. She had no experience with children except changing Miki’s diapers. Not exactly good experience to use in teaching a thirteen year old kid. She had always assumed that she would never have to really deal with children. Hell, she had worked hard to never make any commitment of the type that would lead her to having to deal with them. For all that she admired and wanted to be like Nanashi, she would never share her teacher’s passion for children. Any life that might have lead Sora to marriage, children or even just a community had died along with Nanashi.
Sora looked back at the picture. The two of them were sitting on a bench in a garden in the spring. Nanashi’s eyes sparkled with warmth and humor and a slight bit of the trickster as she smiled into the camera. A kimono clad Sora sat next to her, smiling slightly, but with haunted eyes. It had been taken just after Nanashi had taken her on as a student.
“I’m sorry Nanashi-sensei. I’m not you. I
don’t know if I can do this.” .
Hinata paused outside of Naruto’s door with a lunch tray. She knew she should just knock and go in, but something was forcing her to hesitate. They had just managed to get him back into his room and onto his futon. Standing next him, watching him struggle to breath in and out, she hadn’t know what to do.
He seemed so little like his usual self. The spark had gone out of his eyes, and he had been silent during the entire struggle to get him up the stairs. Normally, the thrill of being that close to him, with his arm over her shoulder and his side pressed against her, would have overwhelmed her. But all she could feel was worry.
So she had done what she always did and retreated.
She had hated herself for doing it. It seemed like there should be something she should say, something she should do for him. But she hadn’t been able to think of anything. No matter how many times she had been in that same position, she still had no idea what to say.
But if there was one thing that she had learned from Naruto, it was to keep on fighting. No matter what happened, he had never given up and never really let her give up either. Memories of him from their school days, the chuunin exam and the past few months training together were burned into her memory, ready to surface whenever she was facing her worst doubts.
So she had come back. Even though she still had absolutely no idea what so say to him, she was standing outside his door trying to get herself to knock.
So, very softly, she knocked. “Naruto-kun?” she called out. No answer.
She tried again, slightly louder. Still no reply. So, very quietly, she slid the door open.
Afternoon sunlight filtered through the window. It was a warm yellow light, but the room was so still that nothing could warm the room. The air wasn’t moving, causing even the dust that was reflecting the light to appear frozen.
“Naruto-kun?” she asked again, a little louder.
He was lying in exactly the same position he had been when she left, spread out on his back, unseeing eyes staring up at the ceiling. Naruto’s mind had gone numb. He was used to life knocking him down. He was used to picking himself back up. That had always been his method of operation. But now, he was suddenly wondering what he should do.
He hadn’t been strong enough. The fight had been a joke, even he could tell that. She wasn’t going to train him; she was going to just keep on giving him stupid things to learn.
Because she knew. She knew about the demon inside of him and because of that she looked down on him, just like everyone else. It was certainly nothing new. It had been happening is whole like. But it always hurt. And for some reason, this time it hurt more than usual.
Hinata moved into the room and set the lunch tray down on the floor, kneeling beside the bed.
“Naruto-kun, I brought you some lunch. Hopefully some of the chakra bind has worn off now, so you should be able to eat.” No reply. “I made you some ramen. Not the instant kind, but my own.” He didn’t move a muscle.
She couldn’t give up. She just had to keep talking. No matter how hard it was to push the words past her lips, she had to keep talking. “I learned how to make it a few years ago. Father doesn’t like for me to cook because it’s beneath a lady of my status. Plus, I always make a mess. I try to be neat but something always seems to startle me and I spill something. When I tried ramen, Hanabi startled me and I dropped the bowl on her head. Father was furious.”
Still no response.
Hinata bit her lower lip to hold back her tears. This wasn’t Naruto. The Naruto that she knew never would just lay here like this. The Nartuo she knew would be up and yelling at Sora, struggling to negate the effects of the jutsu. Was he this upset over Sora beating him? But he had always picked himself up before.
“Ano... Naruto-kun? Are you okay?”
He just continued to stare at the ceiling.
“Naruto-kun, I know this morning was rough, but please!” She bit back a chocked sob. She couldn’t stand to see him like this. “She wasn’t very nice, but I don’t think she meant it to turn out that way. She’s been so nice to me-“
“She’s been training you.”
The sudden sound of his voice startled Hinata so much that she actually jumped. It took a minute for his words to sink in. “Naruto-kun...”
“She won’t acknowledge me. Most people won’t. I don’t know why it hurts so bad this time.” He squeezed his eyes shut in pain.
Very gently, she laid her hand on top of his. “I acknowledge you. I don’t care whether you can beat her or not. To me, you’ll always be the one who does what I can’t. You’ll always be the one who never gives up.”
There was a pause. Then Hinata felt him turn is hand under hers so that they were palm to palm. She blushed as he gently squeezed her hand.
“Why wont she?” he asked.
Hinata shook her head. “I’m sorry Naruto-kun. I just don’ know. But...” She paused for a long time. When she spoke her voice was even quieter than normal. “I like her. She’s hardheaded and kind of rude, but I can’t help but feel that, in the end, she has our best interest at heart.”
He snorted and put his hands underneath his head, taking his had out of hers. “What makes you think that? She just seems like a cranky, rude woman to me,” Naruto grumbled.
Hinata blushed. “I am the heir to the Hyuung. Everyone looks at me like I’m a failure when I can’t do something. She doesn’t.”
She looked at his face and waited for his reply, but it didn’t seem like it was coming. With a small sigh, she moved the lunch tray closer to the bed. “I’ll just leave this here in case you want any.”
He closed his eyes again. “Arigato.”
She looked down at him and resisted the urge to sweep the bangs away from his forehead. “I don’t think that it’s that she won’t acknowledge you as much as she was angry. When Sora went to get you from the library, she was going to start teaching us a new taijutsu form. Maybe, if you ask her, she’ll still teach it to you.”
Naruto just turned his head away, his mood suddenly dark again. He didn’t want to have anything to do with that woman.
Hinata bit her lip. “Please, Naruto-kun. I, I don’t think that I can learn it by myself. Who would I practice with? Who would help me out? I don’t know what I will do if you don’t learn it too.”
She stood up and crossed to the door. Sliding the door open, she stood framed in the doorway with her head bowed. “Please, just think about it.” . . .
Hours after the sun had set, Naruto still couldn’t sleep. Echo’s of his conversation with Hinata ran through his head. Too much of what she had said rung true.
“She’s hardheaded and kind of rude, but I can’t help but feel that, in the end, she has our best interest at heart...I am the heir to the Hyuung. Everyone looks at me like I’m a failure when I can’t do something. She doesn’t.”
She looked at Hinata differently than those who saw her as just the Hyuung heir. And while he didn’t like the eyes that Sora looked at him with, but they weren’t the same eyes as the villagers back home.
Suddenly one other thing she had said popped into his thought. “To me, you’ll always be the one who does what I can’t. You’ll always be the one who never gives up”
And yet that was what he had been about to do, right when he was about to finally get what he wanted. She had been going up to get him to start taijutsu training. She had intended to start training him to really fight.
He was going to be Hokage. Convincing her to still teach him the taijutsu stuff would be easy.
He sat up in bet. He couldn’t sleep with all of this going through his head and now that the chakra bind had worn off he was going to get some more ramen.
Pushing his feet into a pair of slippers, he shuffled his way down the dark hallway. At the top of the stairs he saw that the light was on in the kitchen. It was almost two in the morning so who the hell could be up?
He quietly walked over and peeped in. There was Sora sitting on the counter staring out the window. In her mouth was a spoon and in her hand was a large carton of triple chocolate fudge ice cream. She was wearing drawstring pants, a tanktop and an enormous fuzzy pink robe with flowers all over it. She paused mid bite to look over at Naruto standing in the doorway.
He was dressed for bed in shorts and a t shirt but his clear eyes indicated that he probably hadn’t gone to sleep yet. She smiled. “Couldn’t sleep?”
He nodded. “Here for some ice cream?” She offered him her spoon.
“No, I wanted ramen.” He put the kettle on the stove and turned on the heat. He turned to the cabinets and opened to find a few more cups left. “Is this all the ramen left?”
“Hai. You might want to start rationing it.”
“Rationing it?”
“Its going to be a couple of months before we head down the mountain.”
“Nani! A few months?!”
“That’s why I said you should ration it!” The two of them sat in stone silence for a few minutes.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
“Why can’t we go down and get more?”
She laughed softly. “Not for that. I’m sorry about this morning.”
The kettle began to whistle. Naruto turned the stove off and stared at it. There were a few more minutes of silence. “Why did you do it?” he muttered.
She shrugged and took another bite of ice cream. “You scared me. All I could think of was you burning yourself to a crisp. I lost my temper.”
“I could have controlled it!” He pouted, pouring the hot water into the cup.
“Naruto, the last time I saw that technique performed it was by a jounin from the east. He had more than enough chakra to summon it, but not enough control. He burnt four acres of forest and killed three people.”
“Nani! But, but-“
“More powerful techniques often require more control. You’ve gained a lot through working through the scroll, but not enough. Had you started that jutsu I don’t know if I could have gotten Hinata and myself off the mountain in time. You certainly would be dead.”
“Oh.” He was taken back by this. He could have killed Hinata?
Sora shook her head. “Naruto, why do you want to become strong so badly?”
“So I can become Hokage.”
“And why on earth would you want that?”
She sounded like Tsunade. Naruto opened his mouth to give his normal reply about acknowledgement and stopped. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like it was quite the truth. So, for the first time in his life, he said something slightly different. “So that I can make sure that nothing happens to those precious to me. So that I’m not on the outside of the village anymore.”
Sora sighed. It was hard to argue with reasons like that. “Are you sure? I’ve lived on the outside my whole life. It’s not that bad.”
“Heh. I’ve lived on the outside my entire life and I’m not going back.”
“You sure you want to be Hokage? You can still have a lot of that just being a shinobi.”
“I’m going to be the best and I don’t go back on my word.” Naruto grinned. “That’s my nindo.”
Sora grinned. “And that is one thing I agree with completely.” They sat there looking at each other across the aisle. For the first time in weeks they thought this might actually work out. Then Sora’s smile dropped. “Of course, if you keep doing stupid things like you pulled this morning you are never going to make it to Hokage.
Naruto’s anger was back in an instant. “Well, I wouldn’t have done it if you had been teaching me anything.”
“I have been teaching you things! What do you think the scroll is?”
“That’s not teaching me anything! Who the hell uses jutsu to do the dishes?
“I use jutsu to do the dishes! Just because it’s not used in combat doesn’t mean that it’s useless!”
“It’s useless in terms of getting stronger! It’s useless in terms of protecting people! It’s useless in terms of becoming Hokage!”
Sora rolled her eyes and shook her spoon at him. “It is not useless to becoming Hokage! These are things necessary to becoming a good shinobi. I’ve spent a lot of time outside the world of the hidden villages. Trust me, there are a lot of strong people out there, but not a lot of them are good ninja’s.” She growled in frustration. “Goddamn it do you even listen to what I say? Do you understand what I mean when I say a good ninja versus a strong ninja?”
“There is no difference!”
“Yes there is. What does it mean to be Hokage?”
“It means that you’re the strongest in the village.”
“And?”
“And it means that you protect the village.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“And you guide the village. You determine what path it is going to take in the future. You negotiate treaties, settle disputes between clans, and decide what missions to accept. You have to know if all of your shinobi are operating at top form and how to keep it that way. You have to make sure that there are children in the village to carry on your work. Keeping alive the light of a village means more than just going into battle for it. It means making sure that the village will stand even if you fall.”
Naruto stopped and thought about it. That was what the third had done, he realized. He had kept the village strong so that, even when he fell, they had been able to live without a Hokage for the few weeks that they were looking for Tsunade.
Sora continued. “Tsunade, Jiraiya and from I can tell, Kakashi, they are all good ninjas. In fact all of the Hokages have been good ninjas, which is probably the only reason why I can stand the place at all. I have the feeling that you want to be a good ninja as well. Now, I could go through and pull out all of the most dangerous techniques I knew and teach them to you. Maybe if I was prepping you for an exam that’s what I’d do. But using the scroll and building up your skills gradually is the way that I know how to turn you into a good ninja.”
“Your way stinks.”
“I know. It’s frustrating as hell. Quite frankly, I wasn’t a big fan of it either when I had to do it.”
“Then why the hell are we doing it?!”
“Because it’s how I was trained and I know it works. I had to learn the entire scroll myself when I was a kid.” She sighed. “Still I suppose that it was for different reasons than you.”
“Huh?”
“When Nanashi gave me the scroll it was a way to give me something that wasn’t deadly. It was to prep me for higher techniques as well, but mainly I think she did it because she wanted me to do something other than fight. I was raised to be a fighter and all I had been taught was how to kill.” She scrunched up her nose. “That and a lot of boring traditional things like serving tea and fan dancing.”
“Really? You where good.”
“Eh, sort of. When I started traveling with Nanashi-sensei I was probably close to a chuunin level.”
“How old were you?”
“Seven.”
“NANI?!”
“Well it was all I had ever learned, even if I wasn’t terribly good at it. At least not compared to the others I was training with. I was, as they loved to tell me, dead last.”
Naruto looked at her in amazement. She had been dead last like him? She grinned at her. “You weren’t very good?”
She glared at him before shrugging and taking another bite of ice cream. “I didn’t really have the personality for it. I didn’t become good until much later on, even with an advanced bloodline.”
He gaped at her. “You have an advanced bloodline?”
She shot him an incredulous look. “You didn’t notice? I had to use it today in my fight against you; otherwise I would have never stopped you in time. You have good potential. The things that are holding you back are experience and training, certainly not a lack of ability. Plus you have the personality of a fighter, something I lacked when I started training.”
“What do you mean?”
Sora shrugged. “Up until I was thirteen I was more like Hinata than anyone else. Speaking of which...” She looked over in the direction of the door. “Are you going to hover there all night or come in a join us?”
Naruto looked half behind him to see Hinata standing there in a long kimono style robe. “Ano...” she said.
“Come in, join us. Ice cream? Or do you want ramen? Or maybe something else?”
She smiled shyly before using the left over hot water from Naruto’s ramen to make herself some tea.
“How much did you hear?” Sora asked, although she didn’t seem upset about her eavesdropping.
“Ano, since you were talking about being Hokage.”
“Woke you up with the yelling huh?”
Hinata shook her head. “I wasn’t sleeping.” She sat next to Naruto on the kitchen island.
“Seems like none of us were. At least we can start getting these things sorted out now. Can you two listen for five minutes?”
They nodded.
“OK, look.” Sora started. “Let me start by saying I am not a teacher. I have never taught anyone. Furthermore the more I get into this whole teaching thing, the more I feel like a righteous bitch. As I like choosing when I am going to be bitchy, I will make the two of you a deal.”
“You have to finish the scroll. The reason is it is a stepping stone towards a whole lot of other things that I could teach you. You also have to keep learning the history. However, I will also start teaching you taijutsu, tactics and combat ninjutsu. In return I would like for you to follow my training methods. They may not be what you like, but I know they work. I don’t like having you two think of me as some bitchy teacher. It makes me feel old and cranky.”
“Then what should we think of you as?”
“I don’t know. You call me Onee-chan, just sort of think of me as an older sibling who knows more than you do.”
Naruto smirked. “If we do that you won’t be a bitch.”
“Considering how much our personalities clash, probably not. Just not so much of one. So, do we have a deal?” She held her hand out at them.
Naruto grinned. “I’ll end up strong?”
“I promise you to do everything I can to make you the strongest, best hokage ever.”
He grabbed her hand in his. “Deal.” He turned to look at the girl next to him. “Hinata?”
She smiled softly and nodded her head. “Deal,” she said softly, placing her hand on top of theirs.
Sora smiled. “You know I can’t believe that you two don’t want ice cream.”
“Ha, like anyone would take ice cream over ramen!”
“Who wouldn’t take ice cream over ramen?”
“What are you talking about? Hinata, you would take ramen over ice cream, right?”
“Ano...”
“Come on, its RAMEN!”
“Hey you two!” They turned to look at Sora.
*Flash!*
Sora grinned at them over the camera. “He, he, that’s going to be cute. Ok now let me just set the timer here.” She started fiddling around with buttons on the back.
“Ano, Onee-chan, I’m in my robe.” Hinata protested.
“So am I. Come on, I don’t have any pictures of the three of us yet.” She placed the camera on top of a jar on the windowsill and then ran over to hop up onto the counter next to Hinata.
“All right everyone. Smile.”
Author’s Notes: Thus ends the first basic arc of this story. After this comes the lovey dovey romantic arc. So, be prepared for lots of fluff and sappiness over the next few chapters.
I have a few quick other things to say. One, I am planning on rewriting the Sora-Naruto fight once I have the chance. I wasn’t altogether happy with it in the first place, so I’m going to redo it. (Question: If you don’t throw a rasengan like you throw a punch, what verb describes the action of someone utilizing the rasengan?)
Two, I have my first final tomorrow so only heaven knows when I will be able to update again.
Three, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR REVIEWS!!! I really, really appreciate them. I take your suggestions very seriously and change small things or add details when I like an idea or someone has though of something I hadn’t, like when Drekko mentioned that I hadn’t brought in the reports Sora was supposed to be sending. However, I have all the major plot line of this story sorted out already.
Again, thank you all so much for your reviews!
~Wren
This site is published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT info@seltzerbooks.com
|
|
| Webseltzerbooks.com |