Characters: Tsunade, Hinata
Summary: Tsunade sees in Hinata the makings of what a kunoichi needs to be.
Pairings: None
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Tsunade becomes aware of the little Hyuuga girl when she returns to Konohagakure and learns of the events of the Chunin exam that don't involve Sunagakure and Otogakure's joint invasion and the death of the Sandaime Hokage.
The Hyuuga heiress, Hyuuga Hinata, was paired against her cousin Hyuuga Neji of the Branch House during the preliminary of the exam. They fought, long and hard, and eventually Hyuuga Neji defeated her. However, Hinata kept on fighting, and goaded him into an attack that nearly killed her.
That's the gist of the official report. Tsunade soon learns what the report left out, however.
Hyuuga Hinata, a shy, timid, shrinking girl, was pitted against the cousin that always belittled, scorned and at times outright hated her.
While they fought, he broke at her walls with words and taunts and the re-bolstering of Hinata's views of herself as worthless. Or, at least Neji thought he did.
Instead, Tsunade finds herself satisfied to discover, when Neji taunted, Hinata returned in kind. And then some. And, then, she affirmed that she was not worthless, that she would not break down and cry and give in just because of a few words spat at her by her spiteful cousin.
This, Tsunade decides, is quite interesting, and very much in contrast with what she knows of the girl she met. The Hyuuga Hinata she met when making her rounds of the village was just as meek and shy and timid as Neji seemed to think her, just as introverted and quiet as a girl would be, growing up in the uneasy Hyuuga House.
Hinata, perhaps, has learned what Tsunade has always known a kunoichi needs to be.
A kunoichi needs to be a woman who will do anything to win a fight, but more importantly to survive. A kunoichi needs to be a woman who is capable of anything if it means living to fight another day.
Hinata, possibly more than the other girls Tsunade has come into contact with, has the making of becoming a steel rose.
