Chapter 4: Hiru Sensei

"Hey, are you okay?" Kiba asked as Hinata came to.

"Yes, yes...I-I fainted again, didn't I?"

"Yeah. I went ahead and got the scroll from that old guy though."

"Maybe...you should open it."

"He said it should be you. I don't know what that old man can do, but to be safe..."

"All right. But first, what did Naruto say?"

"He just said the usual: he was worried about you, didn't know what happened." ...Asked what's wrong with you... he thought to himself.

"Oh...I was doing so well, too." Hinata buried her face in her hands.

"Hey, you remember what he said at the end, right? This scroll makes a nice excuse to spend some time alone with him." Kiba felt weird playing this role, but he knew what he was doing. She blushed.

"I could never, ever do that! It wouldn't go well, I know it wouldn't!"

"All you need to do is get into your determined mindset, like when you used your palms technique in front of him. The rest is easy," Kiba explained.

"Well..."

"Now, open the scroll and let's start learning this jutsu!" And she did.

Ino flopped down on her bed, one story above the flower shop. In her left hand she had the scroll. She felt too tired to learn anything serious, but a simple hair-growing jutsu shouldn't be a problem. She held it above her head, and unrolled it.

Nothing special happened. First, came a warning to stop opening the rest if the scroll wasn't given to you by "The Peddler." Past that was a lot of blank space, then finally some words. They said:

I-owe-U:

1 hair-growing jutsu.

Sorry, come back later!

You are: - 2nd - in line.

And the rest was blank as well.

"What's this?" she asked aloud. "It's worthless!"

Meanwhile, Hinata's message was different:

I-owe-U

1 bone-hardening jutsu.

Your training is ready to begin!

Press your hand to the symbol when you're ready.

After this was what looked like a summoning jutsu. It trailed off on the side, and seemed to go on for several feet. Right at its beginning was a large symbol, the kanji for "learning." Hinata pressed her palm to this, as directed.

Instantly the seal hissed, and several ribbons of small symbols started retracting into the central one. They were sucked in faster and faster, until a cloud of white smoke erupted from the scroll. A few seconds later, Kiba stopped coughing and realized that Hinata was gone.

She appeared in a clearing: the kind of trees told her it was just outside Konoha. She slowly turned around, checking her surroundings. Hinata was about to activate her byakugan when she heard rustling above her. A few leaves fell down on her right, and when she looked there was a dark figure standing there, wrapped from head to foot in a long black cloth.

"Ah, you're here. Let's get started then." With that, he started unwrapping the cloth. A few seconds later it fell away, and she saw that it was a teenage boy about her age. He had a shock of white hair, but strips of his skin were discolored gray: from his shoulders to his elbows, to the back edges of both hands, a ring of gray on his chest with streaks going to both shoulders, both sides, and one that went straight down and disappeared under his clothing (he was shirtless but wore baggy pants) His irises were black holes in the whites of his eyes. One final detail stuck out to her: a necklace with a little dragon pendant. The reptilian form was wrapped around a crystal, as if guarding it. It hung around his neck, resting over a small gray circle inside the gray ring, like a giant eye was looking through it at her.

"Guess I should explain," he said after thinking for a second. "The peddler doesn't sell scrolls with instructions written on them, they all have a special summoning jutsu that brings you here, so I can teach you the move. Is that okay with you?"

Hinata blushed. "Umm, I guess so. But I wasn't the one..."

"Great! What's your name?"

"Hinata...Hyuuga Hinata."

He whistled. "I see, so you have the Byakugan?" She nodded. "This'll be way easier than I thought," he concluded.

The teenager introduced himself: his name was Hiru. "That's the old guy's name too, by the way. It's confusing," he'd said

Then he walked around to stand behind her, and Hinata hesitated.

"Okay, activate your Byakugan. Then hold out both of your arms in front of you," he instructed. She did, nervously, and he reached forward from behind her and put his hands on her wrists.

"Now, I'm going to put my hands here, and manipulate your chakra the way it needs to be. You'll be able to see it happen, so it should be easy to copy." He stepped back for a second, and she heard him making seals quickly. Then he sidled up behind her, and she felt his warmth along her back. She was very uncomfortable at first. Then she watched as chakra from his glowing hands slipped into her arms, carefully shifting her own chakra flow in some places.

"Now, keep your chakra like that while I pull out," he said after a while. His chakra retreated into his palms, and her own tried to shift back to its natural state. Hinata held it in place for a moment, then it occurred to her that he was still leaning on her back. Distressed, she lost focus and the chakra reverted.

"Ah, close," he commented.

"Umm, you're distr...I don't think..."

"Well, let's try again. This part takes a few tries." She shivered with a bit of cold this time when he stepped back to do the seals. Then of course he got close again, and she tried to ignore her heartbeat.

It was after the third try, when she was able to hold the chakra pattern for several minutes, that something unusual happened.

Hinata heard Hiru doing the seals, and reactivated the Byakugan eyes she'd been resting. She paid close attention as he molded her chakra into the right position.

"After this, you should be able to do it yourself. I should give you a discount for learning so quickly, Hinata."

It suddenly occurred to her. Did Kiba pay anything for that scroll? How can I get a 'discount'? As her attention wandered, so did her byakugan, shifting down at her body, then shifting around to look at Hiru as best she could. Hinata gasped: there was a thin wisp of chakra between them. Having seen it, she could tell immediately what it was. This was the same pattern as that Yoroi person who fought Sasuke in the chuunin exams! Her chakra was flowing, slowly but steadily, into the dragon pendant. She fought back a wave of panic, but Hiru still felt her tense.

"Is everything alright?" he asked.

"W-what are you doing? With that necklace?"

"Oh, you noticed that?" he stopped immediately with both his hands and the pendant. "I need to absorb some of your chakra and combine it with my own, so the molding technique works."

The byakugan said he was lying.

"Tell me the truth," she mumbled softly. Hiru was stunned.

"Uh, well, okay." she turned around to face him, and he was looking very agitated. Then he sighed.

"The old man and I...we don't take money for our jutsu. We take chakra. I need it more than most people, you see." Hinata noticed that his eyes were no longer black, but instead a dark shade of blue.

"Normally I try to take it without the customer noticing, 'cause they think it's creepy," he continued. "I'm sorry you had to find out this way, but you're not in any danger."

Hinata thought it over. According to her eyes, he was telling the truth even at the end.

"I-I'd like to stop for tonight. Can I finish learning the jutsu later?" she asked. His face brightened.

"Of course! Anytime after dark I'm available, unless I have another customer. The scroll will let you know."

"In that case, I'd like to go now." Then Hinata noticed something new coming over his face.

"Umm, before you go, can I...awkward question...can I have some more of your chakra?" He was hungry, she could see it now.

"I promise it won't hurt, won't damage your body, and will replenish itself overnight. I'll only take a little bit." Hiru held up his thumb and finger to indicate "a little bit." Hinata thought it over.

"I-I guess so." She took a step towards him, surprised at her own decision.

"Cool, thanks." He seemed to grow bigger for a second, but she was sure that was just an illusion. The teenager strode forward and hugged her, gently. Hinata squirmed uncomfortably, her hands pressed against his chest in case she needed to force him back. She could feel his heartbeat slowly accelerate, like a huge windmill hit by a sudden wind: slow at first, but faster every second. Then she gasped and it felt like she was using all of her techniques at once, the chakra flowed to his hands and chest and left her body. It was scary, but he stopped after only a few seconds.

"It will never get any worse than that," he said simply and released her. When she looked at him she saw that his eyes were bright blue, as was the dragon's crystal around his neck.

"I look forward to seeing you again, Hinata," Hiru finished as he pulled out a scroll. He held one end and threw the roll next to her. It curved in the air, circling around her again and again and smoking. A moment later she was back in her room, and the smoke was seeping into the scroll on this end. Apparently Kiba had left on his own.

Across town, Ino was startled by a loud ding. Curiously, she checked the scroll lying on her bed and saw the "Your training is ready to begin!" message. Anyone looking at her window would have seen a puff of white smoke a few seconds later.

"Let's see...hair growth is an easy jutsu to learn. Maybe I should throw in something else afterwards." Hiru thought aloud as she arrived.

Critic: I'm getting a very good idea of how this story is going to work, but I still want advice. I'm writing the chapters randomly, then coming back and touching them up before I post. I've already written up to chapter 7, but it's a bit messy. The problem is, if I get bogged down in storyline I'll stop writing. It's my greatest weakness as a writer.