Hinata Hyuuga stood outside the oaken door to the Hokage's office. She smiled to herself, securing her ANBU mask in place so her face was hidden by that of a purple cat. Flowers, orchids specifically, interlaced with the indigo designs marking her identity within the ranks. Smirking under the molding she knocked somewhat confidently on the door. A formal "enter" sounded behind it signaling her right to enter. Turning the knob and pushing it open she expected to be greeted by her usual team consisting of Inzuka Kiba, his four-legged partner, Akamaru, and Aburame Shino. Instead there was a single other ANBU who was already present and facing the Hokage. Regardless, she knew right away who her partner would be; the shock of unruly blonde hair assured her of that. It was the love of her life, Uzumaki Naruto.
"Ah, you're here Cat-san, so glad you could join us."
"Gomen, Hokage-sama. It will not happen again," she bowed to her leader respectfully.
"Ne, Hinata? You're going to be my partner? I thought I was going with Sakura-chan."
Hinata had to fight to keep from physically wincing at the tone of disappointment lingering in his voice. Suddenly she was extremely grateful that all ANBU were required to wear masks, so she wouldn't have to hide her heartbroken expression. The blonde Hokage, an expert at reading her shinobi, saw the immediate change in the shy girl's demeanor and decided to resolve the situation as soon as possible.
"Yes, Gaki. She is your partner," she shot an angry glare at the clueless blonde.
"What about Sakura-chan? Won't we need a medic on this mission?" he argued.
"You should know, Naruto," she stressed his name in irritation, "that Hinata has been trained in various medical arts by myself, and you will find that this skill along with her taijutsu and byakugan will make her of more use on this mission Sakura."
Tsunade glanced over at Hinata to gauge her reaction to the unexpected praise. Even with the mask the shy kunoichi was like an open book. She could tell from the young woman's posture that she was probably blushing from the appraisal of her skills, but still sad from Naruto's continual insistence for Sakura.
"Ano, Hokage-sama? What exactly is our mission?" she asked, obviously eager to change the subject from partners.
"Well, I'm glad one of you had the sense to ask. Your mission is estimated to take two weeks to complete, give or take a few days with the possibility of complications. The details are in this folder," she offered them a rather large sealed folder with an outstretched hand, "in a nutshell you are to escort the brother of the daimyo, his daughter, and small party of servants from an ambassadorial trip to the land of Wind. Now, I trust Suna completely, but it's the other nations I'm worried about. They may see this as an opportunity to stir up trouble, so I'm counting on my best ninja. You shouldn't encounter too much danger and you'll be accepting more than decent pay. If you accept your mission, Naruto will be the mission leader; so this is a chance to prove yourself. Any questions?"
Both shinobi glanced at each other before turning back to Tsunade.
"We have no questions, Hokage-sama," Naruto answered seriously.
"Do you, Hyuuga Hinata, codename Cat, and Uzumaki Naruto, codename Kitsune accept this mission?"
"Hai!" they answered in unison.
"Good. Then you have one day to pack and prepare. At sunrise tomorrow you will leave from the main gate for a seven-day journey to the Wind Fire border. From there you carry out your mission. You are dismissed."
"Hai!"
In a flash the cat and the fox were gone.
'Good luck...Hinata…Naruto-gaki…' she thought as sun danced on the face of the Hokage monument, her eyes drifting to one face in particular.
0
'Just wonderful!' Hinata though bitterly, striking the training dummy in front of her viciously. 'A mission with Naruto-kun and he doesn't even want to be with me!'
She screamed in frustration as she sent forth a particularly hate-filled burst of chakra, shattering the log in front of her.
"Damn," she cursed, examining a large piece of wood lodged in her hand.
Tears welled in her eyes as she roughly yanked it free. As soon as the obstruction was removed blood flowed freely from the wound. She placed a second chakra-infused hand over it tenderly. Unfortunately the spring refused to seal itself.
"Stop, dammit! Stop, stop, stop!" she yelled in frustration, the uncontrolled chakra bursts causing the sticky red tide to flow in greater amounts. Finally, Hinata collapsed, sobbing on the ground and clutching her hand to her chest and staining her jacket with the crimson flow.
"W-why?" she sobbed, doubling over so her long indigo hair covered her teary lavender eyes.
"Oi! Hinata!" a painfully familiar voice called to her.
'Why did you have to come here now Naruto-kun?' she thought bitterly, 'Come to switch partners again?'
Forcing a shy smile to her face she hid the bleeding hand behind her back before standing to face him.
0
0
Naruto nearly froze in his tracks as he witnessed the expression now formed onto Hinata's pale features. To anyone else she would have looked perfectly normal, but being, as he was, a Captain rank ANBU and one of her oldest friends he could flawlessly pick out the disturbances in the situation. Her eyes looked infinitely sad, while the hollow smile and tear-stained cheeks nearly shattered his heart.
'Who did this to you Hinata?' he thought angrily.
She must have sensed his shift in mood, however, as moments later she decided to break the uneasy silence.
"A-ano, shouldn't you be practicing Naruto-kun?" she asked, trying to hide the aching pain in her voice.
"What's wrong Hinata?" he asked, ignoring her question.
"A-ano, what do you mean, Naruto-kun?" she asked, her voice quavering slightly as she unconsciously took a tentative step back at the intense look in his deep blue eyes.
"Hinata, please don't lie to me. What's wrong? Who did this to you?"
"Nobody did anything Naruto-kun," she protested, raising her arms slightly out of reflex.
"Hinata, why can't you tell me?" he asked his voice rising slightly as he grabbed her hand to keep her from running and communicate his concern.
Hinata let out a hiss of pain at the contact and retrieved her hand from his grip.
'What the…' was all that could form in Naruto's mind as he watched her cradle the hand to her chest. His eyes widened as he caught sight of a trickle of red liquid making its way sluggishly over her pale skin.
"Hinata, your hand…it's bleeding…" he whispered half to himself, "Hinata, who did this; what happened?" his voice was verging on frantic as he grabbed her hand somewhat tenderly to examine it.
Blood seeped out in dark red streams, staining his own fingers as he observed the wound closely. It wasn't kunai made; it was too jagged, and it wasn't from chakra, so…silently he glanced around the clearing. Mentally noting the devastated training area it didn't take long for him to arrive at a plausible conclusion. His eyes softened sadly as they finally made their way to her face, bowed to look downward as he continued his scrutiny of her hand.
"Hinata," he practically whispered, not gaining any reaction from her, "what did you do to yourself?"
"Naruto-kun, why are you here?" she asked, turning her eyes to face him.
Naruto nearly flinched as he saw the immense anger and hurt lingering in her eyes as she waited expectantly for an answer. Naruto was still in a slight shock when she finally spoke again.
"No, it's okay you don't have to explain anything. You made it very clear how you feel about working with me in Tsunade's office."
The last part was like a slap in the face for Naruto.
"Look," she sighed, turning away from him, "I'm sorry you didn't get to work with your precious Sakura-chan, so I'll do my best not to get in your way, and when the mission is over everything can go back to the way it was."
He finally regained his senses as he felt her snatch back her hand and the dull thrum of her footsteps as she splashed through the rain. At last his voice formed into the words he should have said before.
"I'm sorry, Hinata…"
'I never wanted to hurt you…'
With that he stood in place, gazing up into the rain-filled sky as the distant rumble of thunder sounded in the distance.
0
Naruto turned over in his bed groggily, one hand waving about in the air as he attempted to locate and shut off the alarm currently glaring on his lamp stand. Forcefully he slammed with his palm, effectively jamming the snooze button into position.
"Shit," he mumbled as he turned it over to examine it in his hand. Suddenly he stopped cold as he recognized the blood still smeared across his palm from the other day.
'Hinata…' he thought sadly as he recalled the events.
Shortly after their argument, well he wouldn't call it that but he did for lack of a better word, he hadn't been able to shake a feeling of melancholic sorrow at her rejection of him.
'Why?' that question had been running through him all night as he tried to shrug it off.
For some reason though, he just couldn't. His heart ached painfully whenever he remembered that angry tearstained face. She'd never been angry with him like that before. Sure she'd been annoyed at him once or twice, and that was only when he really screwed up, but usually she could shrug off whatever mistakes he made, simply giggling and blushing before pointing out the positive in a situation, even when there looked to be no positive at all. Now, though her rejection hurt more than anything he had ever experienced. He had to make things right. He wasn't going to lose one of his best friends all because he'd been acting like an ass. He was Naruto Uzumaki for Kami's sake!
'Yet why am I so nervous?'
Shaking off the feeling he grabbed his standard ANBU uniform. It consisted of a tight-fitting sleeveless turtleneck, exposing the ANBU tattoo decorating his right shoulder blade. Half-way up his arms extended orange gloves that cut off around his palms, before covering his hand with black metal-plated fingerless gloves and strapping on his metal forearm-guards. Next were his black shinobi pants, one thigh tightly bound by his shuriken holster. He also attached his ninja equipment pouches. Over the black turtleneck was a uniquely ANBU article of clothing, because even though it felt and appeared like regular light-weight cloth it was actually thousands upon thousands of metal wirings interlaced to form nearly impenetrable armor. His was a dark gray in color with two shoulder straps that were lined with pads for extra protection. Similar padding also lined around his torso, the only part of him it effectively covered. In addition to this he wrapped a crimson scarf around his neck before he finally he strapped two sheaths to his back before placing his Kitsune mask over his face. It had red markings covering it and flames danced on its surface.
Out of habit his swords were in his hands the next second, adjusting the black wrapped hilts in his grip. On the but of each gold plated hilt were two kanji. A red stripe ran down the center of one and its black blade flashed somewhat sinisterly in the dark of the early morning hours. This sword was named oujou, or "death" as the kanji on its hilt symbolized. Its twin sword had reversal in colors, the blade being an eerie crimson while a more intricate black stripe ran down the center; vines seemed to swim over the blade like shadows. This one was known as makai or "hell". These swords were among his prized possessions, the only other valuable he owned being the First's necklace that he already wore, as they were heirlooms from his father. Supposedly these swords had sisters named itonami and tentou or "life" and "heaven", once wielded by a powerful demon kunoichi named hahaoya oni or "mother demon". He had yet to come across such blades of course. There were of course other secrets to be unlocked once all four demon blades were reunited, but he had no particular interests in seeking them out.
With all his preparations from the previous night completed and all his provisions sealed away in scrolls currently resting in his back pouches he was ready to begin his mission. Carefully and skillfully he re-sheathed his swords before disappearing from sight.
So here's the first chapter. I hope you enjoyed it and let me know what you think by sending in reviews! I can't wait to hear from you!
-moonlight's goddess21