Chapter 4
The short figure of a bluenette had entered the Senju forest with an active Byakugan. She was actually rather thankful her clan had taken her words as a joke. Even Ko, who had been there, looked where Hinata directed to see nothing, had said so. His word was greater than a child's, despite her position. However, as it was considered a joke, had easily and openly talked of it. The Hyuuga didn't care of such a matter, and the only other clan that could search with eyes didn't quite have the capability to see such distance, nor cared for the words of another clan, and would rather openly taunt the Hyuuga instead.
The last two clans that could track, actually had. The Inuzuka clan smelled fox, but couldn't find the source. Several holes were found, indication of foxes, but not once had there been a sighting. Aburame, however, recalled any that tried. Their kikaichu said the forest was even full of more chakra now than they remembered in decades. Their collective hive-mind allowing vast recall of information long past, despite their short life-spans.
Even if not malevolent in nature, more attuned to the forest than anything, was just too much for any bugs that actually did get close to the source. The little trackers may not have died upon contact with either possible target, but they did refuse to leave once finding their target, rendering any possible conclusive information from returning to their hosts. The Aburame, considering the location, merely stated that nature's influence was just too overpowering within the area, and getting stronger. As such, the only viable information to go on, confirmed by a few Inuzuka, was that there was an actual possibility of foxes, not that ninja actually cared.
Pushing through the tall grass, something that seemed to be spreading, the Hyuuga child searched. Close and Far, High and Low, Hinata attempted to find the two children from before. Luck had been with her that night, as she had prayed the Festival Day would, giving her a sighting nearby of the two jumping around. What she had seen more incredible than she saw the first time.
Fast as she could, the two were faster, but their roundabout directions allowed her to catch up. Soon enough the two had ended their chase, and she pressed herself even further, slipping through enlarged bushes, climbing over a few felled trees, and finally coming upon the two laughing. Within range, she finally released her eyes, the drain too much for continuous usage.
Watching the smirking girl on top tickling the one underneath, begging to be released, had a smile finding her face. She wished she could play like that with her Onii-san, but he was always pushing her away, angry at life. Her little sister was still young, and Hinata didn't want to harm her either with such a game.
It was still weird to see two girls playing alone in a forest near dusk. Even more when the two had fox ears and a tail of opposing red and blonde colors. Something was strange though. Their clothing looked different. She couldn't put her finger on it, but the.. material, maybe?.. was different.
Due to the tall grass, it was hard to make out the laughing one underneath the other, but the one on top had a pink kimono blouse that ended just over her tail, leaving most of her legs bare, with a red sash tied in a butterfly knot behind her back. The other twin, as the two obviously were, had a light violet kimono with a bright yellow - blonde - obi, tied similarly. She wondered how they were made, but it seemed fitting, with their shortness designed to both allow their tails full roam while hiding their bottom and special place even bent over as the blonde-twin was, especially with their tails.
The calm, light, playful atmosphere of the two having fun gave her the courage to "H-Hello."
Two slitted pairs of eyes of pale violet and pale pink, both somehow reminding hinata of crystals, had snapped to her. The joyful atmosphere and soft natural environment had all stilled.
Hinata flinched with a squeak, and quickly slid behind a nearby tree trunk, near seamlessly fading from existence. Despite trying to hide, half her face was still visible to the twins, as she looked for their reaction. The sudden eerie quiet that surrounded two immensely shocked kitsune girls didn't seem to bode well, causing the short-haired girl to start trembling.
Both twins, seeing and smelling her fear, looked back towards one another.
How did we not notice her?! Narue practically freaked at the revelation. Another unexpected addition to their skillsets had been an enhanced sense of smell. But it wasn't only that.
I don't know! She's terrified! But I hadn't felt her either, not until we both looked at her! Vaguely, they had been able to feel people around them. It wasn't something they quite understood, but when a person had some type of intention that bordered on the negative side, said person quickly stood out among their senses. Of course it was only within a certain range, and far more prominent in closer proximity.
W-Wait, isn't that..? Taking a closer look, the figure of the intruding child was exceptionally familiar. The scent too, but differentiating others by smell wasn't something they had learned until recently. And yet, she was familiar.
Yea… I recognizer her too! But if she is, that might explain why we ignored her as a threat. What was her name again? From the first few days, since arriving, had been to stay away from others. Humans specifically, but dogs too. The cute and cuddly creatures had somehow become one of their most feared.
..Should we... run? She already closed her eyes. It would give us a chance to easily escape without notice. Looking back at each other for a moment, they shook their heads, both deciding not to run. Narua rolled off her sister to stand up, which was followed by Narue. This was the first contact with another in over a year, and the only feeling towards them at all was fear, which only happened after trying to get their attention.
Hinata, for her part, was now completely hidden from the two. As soon as they looked at her with those narrowed cat-like eyes, she had broken down in fear. Despite the obvious differences, it reminded her of the clan, always studying her, picking apart everything she did. They were different, but still similar at that moment. At hearing the sound of the two girls moving towards her, she tried to shrink in on herself and into the tree.
"Hello?" At hearing the little 'eep' from the short-haired girl, the twins looked at each other in worry. "Umm, we aren't going to hurt you, 'ttebane" Despite herself, Narue blinked at the quirk, before shrugging. Both she and Narua did it habitually, but very rarely around one another. For it to pop up so quickly, it reminded her of before the 'incident'.
"Yea, you're not in any danger. You don't even feel like you'd hurt a fly, let alone us." Narua continued on, more confused than before at the still shivering, familiar stranger. "Why would we hurt someone like that? We'd rather run." "And usually do."
Hearing the that was a bit comforting, though hearing the same voice from two different directions was a little confusing. Tentatively opening her eyes, she came to the sight of cuteness. Unlike before, the image of affection was the most apparent upon the twin faces. With whisker-like markings, beautiful cat-eyes that's more cute than fearsome, Hinata couldn't help but stare, but seeing the twitching ears moving around, the child couldn't help but toss the rest of her restraint down the metaphorical drain. "Kyaaa~!"
All of a sudden Narua's sight was surrounded by grass, pointed up at treetops with a strange comforting sensation flowing along her head, and a giggling over to the side. In the few seconds this took to register, she had already stopped caring about why that was, let alone thinking about it. The spreading pleasant sensations were far more important...
Narue was attempting, and failing spectacularly, at holding her laughter. Almost as soon as she opened her eyes, the strange girl tackled her sister in a hug, only to start petting her sister. And if she was reading the situation right, both were in a state of euphoria - not her exact words, but she knew what was happening, both visibly and through the mental link.
It took a few moments for Hinata to realize what she she was doing, mostly because she realized the second ball of cute fluff was laughing quite loudly. However, the sight of a second caused a repeat reaction. Narue quickly found herself in a similar state as her sister, on her back with small hands ministrating please the went coursing throughout her body.
Between the three, Hinata was probably getting the most though. Hearing the two fox-eared girls purring as she pet them, cuddling up between the two, had brought pleasure she hadn't felt since her mother passed. And even then, this was completely different kind.
To her utter disappointment, however, both twins sat up, stilled with wide-eyes. Hinata looked between the two, not understanding the sudden change. Even their tail fur had puffed out dramatically, which she knew was a sign of fright or anger on cats.
The twins looked at each other, fear evident for some odd reason, and she knew it wasn't her from their reactions, thankfully. "W-What's wrong? Is something wrong?" With her stutters at an all time minimum, she had managed to squeak out a question.
Shivering simultaneously, the inversely coloured kitsune looked at Hinata, slightly suspicious. Did she bring them?
...I don't think so, nee-chan. There's not a single negative feeling from her, besides the obvious fright we just caused. Narue responded, brows furrowing. We can't leave her either. We don't why they're here, but it's probably us. If they find her, there's no telling what might happen to her while looking for us. The feeling these people are giving off is…
Yea… Both girls shivered again as a few more dark spots entered their range. But we can't hide her! We don't have enough room!
..We just have to make another with a bigger entrance. They gazed at each other once more before breaking off. "People are coming. Lots of them. And they feel so dark…"
Hinata frowned, confused, and still wanting to pet the twins more, but nodded. Using a hand-seal, she activated her Byakugan, and looked around. There really were a bunch of people out in the woods! And many were actually headed their way! She stopped flooding chakra into her eyes. "W-Why are th-they here?" It was incomprehensible why 'dark' people would be coming. What did that even mean?
They glanced at each other again. "Us…" Hinata, knowing about the Kyuubi, kind of understood. But what it had to do with the twins, she didn't know. But looking like they were part fox, at least, made a little sense. "We need to hide. And fast. We don't want them to find you either." Narue finished.
"O-Okay?" Hinata was even more confused, but followed along as the twins headed towards a thick area of nearby trees and bushes. Kneeling down, she followed the leading twin underneath a thick bush, a hole in the branches that was barely obvious before kneeling down. How had they seen it?
In the middle of the thicket, Narue closed her eyes. Hinata was wondering what she was doing, but her answer came a moment later when branches and roots started flowing about in front of the red-hair girl. Dirt just seemed to slide around, roots creeping about, pushing the dirt to the side, before opening up in the middle. A hole slowly grew in the middle of the roots, large enough for the children to crawl into. However, the sound of roots shifting kept up for another minute or so before stopping.
Hinata's wide-eyed stare was ignored as the blonde twin crawled around the two and into the hole. Narue ushered the stunned bluenette into the hole, before following after her. It flowed downward for quite a bit, but at an easy slope. Once more, she stilled as the leading twin pressed her hands to the ground before what she could barely make out to be the tunnel's end, which opened up into what seemed to be a cavern, encased within roots.
Narua focused her chakra over the upper root system, encasing, freezing, and extending it. The roots turned color, colder, and started smoothing over as pink filled ice encased them. Somehow, it seemed that the area grew slightly brighter, as if the ice itself was glowing, the area lightened a shade similar to the ice.
he three crawled inside the area, which was about as big as a large family room. Narue, following hinata inside, now had enough visibility to see with the cold crystal amplifying it to finish. Pressing her hands to the root floor, she willed a bed of flowers into existence from the roots. The colours were random, but the darkness made it difficult to pinpoint specific colors. As it is, Hinata could barely tell why the hard ground had turned soft, much less see what happened, but the scents gave it away. "F-Flowers?!"
"Ah, hai, I grew flowers to make the ground soft to sleep on."
"And I made the roof to help reflect more light, letting us see, as well as keeping us cool."
"U-Um… I c-can't see?" Hinata looked up at the soft pink glow above, but could barely make out shapes.
"Huh? We can see fine… Oh Yea!", Narua glanced at her twin. "We can see better than before, can't we?"
"Uh huh." She nodded. "It's probably that. Hey, you can sleep here tonight, with us. Nobody will find us this deep. Beside, it's kind of nice to have someone else nearby that doesn't mean any harm.
"I-Is this normally h-how you live?" Hinata couldn't hide her surprise. More by the 'harm' than the rest, though all of it just as surprising as the rest.
"...For a while now, yea. It's comfortable, nobody bothers us, and we can hide from anyone." Except the girl in front of them. Somehow, she had snuck up. Even now, they can only barely feel her, but that was mostly because of the slight 'fear' she was letting out. That, and they really didn't understand what most of those feelings were, or why it was only the bad parts they could feel. It didn't help that it was so vague.
"B-But-"
"We're fine. We don't need anything, and we're safer this way." Narue cut her off, not wanting to be pitied or anything like.
"People don't react well to us, so we avoid them." Narua finished off, kind of emotionlessly. From the start, they were practically ignored all of their, her, Narue's life. Only getting attention, albeit negative attention, when playing pranks. She had more attention from Narue, or vise-versa, in the past months than her entire life before the 'change'.
Being the same person, while being a different person, was quite confusing...
Hinata didn't know how to respond to that. It was so sad, having nobody but themselves, hiding from the world. No home, no parents. They didn't have parents, right? The bluenette couldn't imagine living like that. How would she get food? She couldn't make a home like they could. The answer was simple; she couldn't.
"We should go to sleep."
"The hole isn't going to be found by the people out there."
"And it isn't safe to leave either."
Hinata looked back and forth from the disorienting twins. Hearing the same voice come from either side of her, echoing off crystal within the darkness, was quite dizzying. Nodding her assent, she laid down on the unbelievably soft 'bed' below her. Before she knew it, two soft fuzzies were curled up around her, removing any more worries.
Slightly, only just, the twins could hear the voices just outside the hole. Despite telling their new 'friend' to sleep, they couldn't.
"-felt chakra…nothing...something over the-...n idiot...around somewhere...not..nearby"
Somehow, people had come close to the entrance. They didn't know how, or why anyone knew of them, but people were searching for them. Only children had seen them so far, because they never had these feelings about them. But the people above were close. Thankfully, no adult could get into their hole easily, let alone find it. Or so they hoped.
It was going to be a long night
So I wrote five or six chapters of this yesterday… Current Count: 14
Oh! Hit 1,000 views just as I was about to post! Thanks for reading! :D
It's safe to say I'm enjoying writing this. Though I feel like I'm over explaining a story again. I tried to keep myself from doing so, keeping it to verbal character interaction as much as possible, but that's something I apparently can't help.
Well, whether that's a good or bad thing is up to the readers themselves.
Anyways, now we have three Naru's. We see some little pieces of what makes the twins special. And we have a new friend thrown into the mix. Wonder what else I can wrench into this story? Well, you'll find out soon.
And, I'll say this now, but this has only been a glimpse of what has been going on. They don't even know what they're doing, but they're doing it! Soon, all of Konoha will wilt beneath their might! Mwahahahaha~!
..Okay, maybe not quite like that XD
FANactic Writer: How does a Kyuubi spawn children? How was a Kyuubi formed? It was made by chakra, but did it require a base 'shape' prepared beforehand? If you're talking about their original Kyuubi, then they're more like the beast itself, and yet could also be considered its' spawn as well. Even I don't know how they'll be considered or treated by the Great Kyuubi no Kitsune(Not the Twins) XD
Questions, Questions, Questions~ Answers will come in due time :p
