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Finally it’s out! Author’s notes are at the end.
“No, no, no! First ox, then ram and then dragon!” Sora yelled.
“You said hare last time!” Naruto yelled.
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
“Look you little brat, I know what I am talking about as opposed to you so- “
“Ha! I know enough to know when you say one thing and then change it!”
Hinata sighed and took another sip of her tea. Over the past few weeks one of the things she had learned was to stay out of Sora and Naruto’s arguments. After the episode with Naruto and the fire wall no jutsu, she had started to try and defuse the arguments between them. Gradually, however, she had come to realize that they rather enjoyed yelling at each other. One of them would pick a fight, they would call each other names for a few minutes and then they would move on. As long as it wasn’t too serious, she had learned not to get involved.
In fact they hadn’t had a really serious fight for a few weeks now. There had been the one about how Sora was not going to go down the mountain just to get Naruto more ramen resulting in a lecture on preservatives and sodium content from Sora. Then there had been one about Sora’s early morning serenades along to the stereo which had resulted in Naruto hiding her CD’s which, in turn, made Sora put the Silence no Jutsu on him for a week. And, of course, the worst one when Sora explained that she couldn’t teach Naruto Shina-To-Be. . . “It wouldn’t work for you!”
“Yes it would!”
“No it wouldn’t. Shina- To-Be is based on a lot of aerial work and tight movements. While it may work for you know that you’re small as soon as you grow up you’re going to be too large. You’re better off going with an iron fist, hit-em-hard form.”
“So then are you going to teach me one of those?”
Sora shook her head. “I don’t really know any well enough to teach it. ”
“Then who the hell is going to teach me?!”
“Geez, calm down. You really need to get yourself under control.”
“Under control! Why you little...”
“Don’t even think about it!”
At which point, Hinata had to step in and, tugging on their sleeves, try to get them to sit at opposite ends of the kitchen table long enough to calm down. There had been a great deal of muttering, name calling and a couple of milder jutsus thrown at each other before they were once again able to talk to each other rationally. Hinata sighed. Wasn’t Onee-chan supposed to be the adult?
“Look, there are two different styles of the main Shina form: Shina-To-Be and Shina-Tsu-Hiko. The one I am going to teach Hinata is a soft style. The one that you should learn is Shina-Tsu-Hiko. It’s a hard, more forceful style. The basics exercises are the same, so I can start teaching you now.”
“Then who’s going to teach me the more advanced stuff?”
“Nori.”
“Huh?”
“Nori, Yasu’s husband. He’s one of the best Tsu-Hiko fighters I’ve ever seen and a much better teacher than me. Once you’re ready to move on to the style specific stuff, I’ll take you down the mountain and have him teach you some. Trust me, once you’ve grown up big and tall you’ll be glad you learned Tsu-Hiko.”
“How do you know I will?”
“Damn it Naruto, I just explained to you why you should learn-“
“No, no not that. How do you know I’m going to big and tall? I’m short.”
Sora got a very peculiar look in her eye. Then
she smiled ruefully and shook her head. “Just trust me kid,
you’re going to hit six feet.”
Hinata sat at the low table and breathed out slowly. She looked through the railings of the porch at the mountains beyond and forced herself to calm. If she was too nervous when she tried to do this she would end up with a crooked painting. Calmly she dipped her brush in the ink and then blotted off the excess water. Taking another breath, she set the tip of the brush lightly against the paper and began to move.
The door slammed open. “Hey, Hinata, whatcha doing?”
She started and drew a crooked black line across her paper. She stared down at it in disappointment before throwing it away.
“How are you, Naruto-kun?” she asked in a soft voice. Talking to him was getting easier and easier. She was still shy and unsure about what to talk about, but getting the actual words past her lips was not so impossible anymore.
“Good, good,” he said sitting down across from her at the table, a bowl of noodle stir fry (temporary ramen substitute) in his hand. “Nee-chan just finished teaching me the Grassfire no jutsu.”
Hinata smiled. They had been working on that one for a few days now and Naruto had been having a particularly hard time with it. Sora had been starting to worry that they weren’t going to have any grass left in the front.
“Whatcha working on?” he asked again.
“Brush painting. Onee-chan mentioned that she was going to have us start learning how to make scrolls, so I thought I would see how much I remember.”
“Eh, you paint?”
She nodded and dipped her brush back in the ink.
“When’d you learn?”
“When I was growing up. Hanabi and I both took lessons.”
He watched her paint a few cherry blossoms onto the paper. “Really? And that’s going to help you make scrolls?”
“Well it’s the type of same brush and ink so-“
“Cool, can I try?” Naruto interrupted.
Hinata smiled and passed the brush to Naruto, who tried to write his name on the rice paper. He was disappointed when the bristles started splitting, giving him two uneven lines instead of one smooth stroke. “Ehhhh?” he groaned. He tried once again, but only made a worse one.
“I think you’re pressing too hard. That’s why you’re getting two lines.”
“I’ll get it,” he grumbled. Hinata smiled at him, as he scrunched up his nose and kept trying to copy Hinata’s cherry blossoms. Somehow, in all the thinking and daydreaming she’d done about Naruto over the years, she had never imagined him trying to learn how to paint.
Quietly she took out another bush and dipped it in water. She worked started on another branch of cherry blossoms, carefully creating each petal.
Naruto looked up at her over the table. She was cool, far cooler than he had thought when they were back in Hidden Leaf. Of course she hadn’t seemed to talk much back then, so how was he supposed to know she was cool?
About two months ago he had realized something: he didn’t need to yell to get her to listen. He was so used to having to be loud to get people to pay attention to him that it had come as a shock when she realized she heard what he was saying even when he was muttering under his breath.
He had been working on a new jutsu, an entrapment technique based off of the chakra weaving from the scroll. He had not been having an easy time of it: his chakra strings kept getting tangled up into big knots.
“Dammnit!” he had muttered, looking at the large mess of chakra and paper in front of him. “Stupid things keep getting messed up.”
“Ano, Naruto-kun?” He had been surprised to hear her voice. He hadn’t been yelling or trying to get her attention. It hadn’t occurred to him, that she might notice what was going on with him without trying to make her.
She had stepped shyly forward, head tilted slightly downward. “Ano...Onee- chan said that there was a rhythm to it.”
“Huh?”
“A rhythm. If you keep a steady rhythm up of over under, they don’t get tangled up as much.” She had blushed. “I was having the same problem.”
Naruto had brightened. “Really? Show me?”
Hinata had blushed again and nodded. She started tapping her foot at a slow tempo, then brought up the strings of chakra and started weaving them in and out until she had a large square of woven chakra in front of her.
“Cool!” he had breathed, thrilled that he had found the trick.
Hinata blushed and looked at her feet. “Onee-chan says to start slow and speed up the tempo.”
Naruto had grinned at her, which only made her blush harder. “Sumimasen, Hinata-chan!”
The funny thing was it wasn’t just a one time coincidence. She almost always listened to what he was saying. Which prompted him to talk. And talk. And then the next thing he knew, he was talking to her all the time.
Hinata was more than happy to listen. He seemed to be able to talk for hours without her having to say anything, which was fine with her. She would sit quietly, listening to him talk about ramen, jutsus, complains about Sora, and others.
The more he talked, the more she liked him. She had liked him for years and admired him for as long as she could remember. And the more he talked about becoming Hokage and getting everyone to acknowledge him, the more she like him. He seemed to be everything she wasn’t.
“Neh, Hinata-chan.”
She looked up at him, her thoughts interrupted. “Hai?”
“These are sakura blossoms, right?”
“Hai.”
“All right! I’m going to paint the best sakura branch ever, and send it to Sakura-chan!”
Hinata smiled slightly as she felt a tiny crack form in her heart. The more he talked, the more she liked him. And the more she knew that she could never tell him.
Sora pulled open the door to the porch. “I’m going down into the town tomorrow. Yasu has some scrolls that she wants from the library. Do ya’ll want anything, other,” she added with a smile. “A couple of cases of ramen?”
Naruto jumped to his feet. “RAMEN!!!! I wanna come!”
Sora shook her head. “Sorry, kid. Not this time.”
“Eh?! But it’s been six months and we still haven’t been down!”
“Well, you’ll just have to wait a few more. I told you I’d take you down when you’re ready to learn the more advanced stuff.”
“But why not now! I’m sick of this stupid mountain!”
“Look, I can’t take you down right now and you’re just going to have to accept it.”
“You said you would explain things!”
Sora sighed. “OK, look. I am going to need at least one visit to convince Nori to train you. He has some...issues with the clan who taught him Shina- Tsu-Hiko. Unfortunately, that means that he has been...hesitant to teach it to anyone else.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it brings up unpleasant memories. In any case, I am going to need to convince Yasu-chan and then the two of us are going to have to convince Nori. I can’t do that with you two there.”
Naruto sat back down on the ground and sulked. “You’ll bring back ramen?”
She smiled. “A whole case, I promise.”
He snorted. “.... Fine, I guess....”
“Thank you. Now, I’ll be gone anywhere from
three to five days, depending on how long it takes me to
convince Nori. Let me give you a few things to work on while I’m
gone.” .
A ‘few things’ turned out to be a whole slew of very dense treatises to read on theories of espionage, which they were supposed to do in addition to working on techniques from the scroll, practicing taijutsu, and keeping the house clean. It seemed that Sora was operating under the assumption that the more they had to do, the less trouble they would get into.
As dense as the papers were, Naruto had to admit they were pretty interesting. At least this stuff he could figure out how he was going to use. They were all about the comparative advantages of using one jutsu over the other in different spying situations. When trying to infiltrate a large organization. When trying to infiltrate a small organization. When you didn’t exactly know how big the organization was. How to sneak up on people indoors, outdoors, through doors and when there were no doors.
It was a prankster’s dream.
He was eager to try all of this out and she was easily persuaded, so Naruto and Hinata spent the better part of a day playing spy games in the house, trying to steal kunai out of each other’s pouches without being detected.
Despite some issues at the beginning with being loud and alerting Hinata to his presences, Naruto was determined to get it and started hauling out all sorts of different jutsus he had been taught by Sora over the last few months. It didn’t take him long to find all sorts of sneaky things he could do to get the kunai. Standing in semi-darkness, she darted her eyes back and forth down the hallway. It was her turn to be the target and even if she was not going to be able to keep him from taking her weapon, she hoped to at least make it harder on him than before.
Quietly she ran through the seals for a shielding technique and placed light shield around her kunai pouch on her leg. She knew that Sora had taught him how to break this particular one, but it would at least slow him down.
She walked to the intersection of two of the hallways and stood in the middle. She had one more technique left that he hadn’t seen yet: Vertigo no jutsu. She ran through the dozen hand seals and created a bubble of genjutsu around herself, filling the intersection. The moment he came within six feet of her he would be hit with massive waves of vertigo and would have trouble standing up. It wasn’t wide enough or strong enough to really stop him, but it would buy her some time.
“Byakugan!!” she whispered. Then began to look around for him. There, down the hall to her left she could seen his chakra, with its distinctive swirl in the center. She had never been able to figure out why it did that when no one else’s did, but she never managed to work up the courage to ask him. Suddenly, she realized that there were two standing just out of her sight down the hall in front of her and another one behind. Shadow Clones.
She braced herself for an attack, adding chakra to her genjutsu and moving into fighting stance. He would know that she was aware of his presence now. Knowing Naruto, he would figure if he couldn’t get it secretly, he could still get it through battle. She waited for his attack.
However, direct attack was not his plan. Years spent as a prankster had kicked in and he was having fun remembering all of the tricks he used to use. He wasn’t, in fact, with his shadow clones on the ground. He was standing above and behind her, crouching on the exposed beams. He was in the exact angle of the blind spot, effectively hiding his presence. Now all he had to do was keep her concentrated on the shadow clones and he should be able to get a chakra string around one of the kunai and pull it out.
It was a good plan and it probably would have worked, except for the vertigo no jutsu. As Hinata good more and more nervous, she pumped more and more chakra into her genjutsu. As that happened, the sphere of influence expanded until finally it reached Naruto, who had no idea that she had used the technique in the first place.
It hit him like a ton of bricks.
Everything thing started to swirl around him. Suddenly he seemed very, very high off the ground. He stumbled forward a few feet around the main beam until her started to fall off. Startled by his sudden appearance in her vision, she turned up to look at him. At this point, the clones started to rush forward to catch him, but ended up getting hit by the genjutsu as well, sweeping Hinata up along with them, not making it to Naruto in time and, all stumbling over their own feet, landing on Naruto and Hinata in one giant pile. The clones disappeared, leaving Naruto lying on the floor with Hinata half on top of him, her cheek pressed to his chest. Suddenly her eyes went wide as she realized where she was. She was scrambling backwards off of him when a pain shot through her ankle. She let out a small gasp of pain.
“Hinata-chan, you okay?”
“Ano, umm...hai. It’s just, my ankle it...” She tried to stand up, only to find that she couldn’t. Her ankle had gotten twisted when she had gotten pushed by the clones.
“Let me see.” Naruto took off Hinata’s shoe while she sat there and blushed. It was starting to swell up. “Man it looks like you sprained it.” He snorted in frustration. Man, if Sora was here she would be able to heal it right up. After three years of training with Tsuande, she was a reasonably good healer. But, while Hinata’s healing powers were slowly growing, they were not good enough to heal her own ankle. This meant no training until Sora got back.
Hinata knew exactly what was going through Naruto’s mind. She hung her head. She was going to be useless to him until Sora came back.
Suddenly she felt herself being half swung, half tossed up into his back. Her arms automatically went around his neck as he started to run down the hall.
“Naruto-kun?” she questioned.
“We can’t train with your ankle sprained. But we can still work on the history junk, right?”
“Ha- hai.”
“So, we’ll just get so far ahead of that Sora will let us do actual real training for a few days when she gets back.” He dumped her in a chair in the library, then ran out again. “I’ll grab you some ice,” he yelled over his shoulder.
Hinata stared after him. When had he gotten so
thoughtful? .
Late that night, Naruto and Hinata sat together at the library, across from each other at one of the long tables. The piles of papers, books and scrolls Sora had left them to read surrounded them, illuminated by the two small lamps. Hinata had one leg propped up on the chair next to her with an ice pack resting against the side of her ankle.
Naruto sat cross legged in his chair. He had found an article buried in one of the books on interrogation techniques used in espionage. “There are two key ways to interrogate a subject,” the article read. “One method is to use intimidation. People in fear of their lives will often become a fountain of knowledge. However, as this often attracts attention, it is a poor method for the under cover ninja. The second is to befriend the subject. This is frequently far more productive. Never underestimate the power of the ideal information passed between friends. Pay attention to everything any contact say’s to you. Often it is these little pieces of information that help you put together the final pieces of the puzzle.”
“The best way to establish a friendship for the purpose of spying is to use the same procedure you would with any other person you want to make your friend. Begin by asking your subject simple open ended questions about their lives the same way you would a friend.”
Naruto frowned. He had never made friends easily. Most people turned their back on him as soon as their figured out what he was. He had a few precious people and even fewer friends. This was going to be hard.
Naruto looked up at Hinata. She shifted slightly in her chair and rested her head on her hand.
Well she hadn’t realized what he was yet. She was a friend, right? At least, she was as close to one as he had. They could train this while her foot was hurt!
“Neh, Hinata?”
She looked up from where she had been reading The History of the Use and Abuse of Soldier’s Pills: A comparative approach. “Hai?”
Now he had to think about what he wanted to question her about. “Ano, so...” His voice trailed off. It suddenly occurred to him how little he actually knew about her. He’d picked up on certain things over the last six months. She liked green tea, got nervous when people watched her and was always ready to help him out. She liked to get up early in the mornings and sit out on the front porch. She practiced hard, trying to learn everything Nee- chan could teach her and she always remembered to ask the questions he forgot to. But it occurred to him that in terms of actual facts, he knew very little. It made it difficult to find a starting point.
“Ano, so...how old were you when you started training?” Good opening question, he decided.
“I started as soon as I could walk,” she said quietly. Her tone was that of someone reciting bare fact, not that of someone describing her past.
“Really? You’ve had someone train you all your life? That’s so COOL!”
Hinata blushed, but there was sadness in her eyes. She didn’t consider it cool.
Naruto looked down at the book. “Ask your subject question about how they think and feel on particular subjects. It brings them closer to you and will make them open up.” Cool, he could do that. “Did you like it?”
Hinata looked up, startled. He hadn’t really asked her to talk about her personal life before. They had talked about mutual friends, life in Konoha and how hard the Chunnin exam had been, but never about anything really personal before. And her childhood training sessions with here father were personal. Very personal.
Naruto waited for Hinata to say something, but and answer didn’t seem to be forthcoming. “Hinata?” he asked.
She shook her thought from her head. “Gomen, Naruto-kun.” She looked up at him. “No, I- I didn’t like it.”
Naruto was shocked. Not like training? How could anyone not like training? “What? Why not?”
“I- I wasn’t...” Her voice trailed off. He was staring at her, clearly waiting for her answer. She took a deep breath. “I wasn’t very good at it.”
“What do you mean?” Naruto asked, puzzled.
“I was- am a... disappointment.”
Now Naruto was really confused. What did she mean a disappointment? “Disappointment to who?”
“To my clan. To my family. To my father.” She shook her head. “I’m, I’m just...not very good.”
“I don’t get it. Not good?”
“I am...not the heir my clan needs me to be. I am not smart. I am not strong.”
Now Naruto was really, REALLY confused. “Yes you are.”
Hinata looked up, eyes wide and glazed with tears. “What?”
“You’re smart and you’re strong. You remember all of this history junk and you’re good at all the taijutsu that Nee-chan has been teaching us.” He grinned. “Besides, you’re my training partner right?”
Hinata blushed slightly. “Hai.”
“And we train really hard, right?”
“Hai.”
“So when we get back to the village, we’re going to be super strong, right?”
“Ha-hai.”
“All right! I’ll prove to everyone that I’m the best Hokage and you’ll prove that you’re the best head of the Hyuuga house ever, right?” Hinata was working hard to keep the tears in her eyes and not spilling over her cheeks. “Hai,” she said her voice a little firmer than normal.
Naruto grinned. He liked interrogating Hinata. It hadn’t been as hard as the book indicated: he hadn’t even read the whole page! Once you got the hang of it, it was really a lot of fun. Maybe this was what it was like to really have a close friend. He liked finding things out about her. He would have to ask her more questions.
“Neh, Hinata?”
“Hai, Naruto kun?” She braced herself for another personal question.
“What’s your favorite color?”
That was not the type she had been expecting. “Color?”
Before Naruto could reply, they heard the sound of the door being pulled open. The light from their reading lamps did not reach all the way to the doorway, preventing the figure from being scene, save the silhouette provided by the hall light. It was a man. He was tall and his broad shoulders were hung with a long dark cape.
Whoever it was, it defiantly wasn’t Sora.
Author’s Note: School is finally over and so this chapter is out. Thanks go once again to my beta David as well as all of the wonderful people who reviewed. Thank you so much! There were a few things I was asked about with chapter eight:
Length- I’m thinking that it will end up at about 25 chapters. Maybe. There is this lovey dovey arc and then one more.
Sappiness- I don’t think it’s going to get much worse than this chapter.
Sora’s bitchiness- I don’t think of her so much as a bitch as rude, stubborn and argumentative. Plus, isn’t his ability to change people a defining characteristic of Naruto?
Hinata’s fashion- Some people seemed to be
worried that Sora’s insult to Hinata’s hair was going to mean
that I was going to transform Hinata into some sort of mini Sora
complete with fishnets and braids. I shudder at the mere
thought. There will be small changes in her and Naruto’s looks,
but not anything drastic. It will be limited to ageing the two
of them and you can ignore it if you wish.
This site is published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT info@seltzerbooks.com
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| Webseltzerbooks.com |