So here I am, coming back in to present the continuation of this story. Originally it was a short chapter but idk how it doubled its word count when I'm editing it. Anyway, Sumire was the ex class rep in the anime. Enjoy!
So that's how a secret between very few people became a secret among very few people plus twelve genins. They swore not to tell anyone about Konohamaru and Hanabi's story. All sixteen of them were circling the bonfire with the unplanned 'storytelling' session. How even the other boys like Iwabe and Shikadai got interested in listening to it, was still incomprehensible to everyone.
Both of them met when Hanabi was on her first team mission, nine years ago. The mission required a good tracker and the Jounin Council also needed to test a very capable kunoichi that never went to proper ninja education before. So, they thought, why not kill two birds with one stone? Therefore, the Hyuuga heiress was unintentionally placed into Konohamaru's team just for the sake of that mission. As a natural leader, Konohamaru welcomed her into the team, taught her the protocol and unwritten rules about Konoha's method of executing a mission.
From then, both of them knew they had an interest in each other, but they also realized it's just downright difficult, especially because of Hanabi's position. She knew Hiashi would never accept anyone outside of the clan to marry her. Nonetheless, four years after she had constant contact with him, she knew it wasn't fair to let the relationship go nowhere. Therefore, she brought Konohamaru to Hiashi, hoping that her father would give them a chance although it was unlikely. It is as unlikely as Madara coming back to life and became a Hokage. As expected, Hiashi's reaction was that of a polite rejection, little explanation about clan stuffs and gratitude that he had taken an interest to his daughter (A/N : this isn't job application rejection, dude).
Hiashi would have wanted her to marry intra-clan to preserve the main house descendants and the Byakugan. That was her first and foremost purpose of existing, in her father's eyes. However, the men inside the clan were, first and foremost, dazzled by her main house heir position and saw her as an opportunity to raise their status from branch to main. They never cared for who she was beneath the facade, or what kind of person she was.
She knew Konohamaru didn't care about her social standing. He was drawn by her cheerful personality and her resilience to withstand the main house's education, the separation from her sister and still persevere and become herself at the end of the day. He also thought she was a worthy discussion partner as she was often exposed to clan politics. Hanabi knew how to read people and assert her out-of-the box opinion here and there.
Hanabi saw him as a caring person. One of the first people who guided her and kept being patient even when she still showed her egoistical side in many cases. He understood it was because of the way she was raised; i.e being drilled that you are the most important person because you are the heir of an elite clan, forced to fight your own sister for heir position. He could point out her mistakes in a non-intimidating way and still listen to her one-sided opinion. He was sometimes clumsy, but fun person to be with as well.
At the end of the day, however they thought they were fit for each other, they had no blessing from her father. As Hyuuga is a traditional clan, there was no option for them to advance further without impairing her father's image or her position as the heiress. They decided that it was never right to make your parents suffer. However strict parents were, it was for their children's own good.
So they were in an open relationship, although backstreet. Only their closest friends knew what was going on and they acted as though they were just friends in public. She allowed Konohamaru to court another woman, if he chose so, or willingly cut off their directionless relationship for the past nine years if push comes to shove. But he just never had one. Maybe he was still waiting for her father to look past tradition and consider him. Maybe he wasn't thinking about marriage yet and just enjoying too much being a Jounin sensei.
Sometimes she was so jealous of Hinata nee-sama. Hiashi allowed her to marry an Uzumaki because she was simply not the future heir. Well, and the fact that Hiashi disowned her when she was young, so he didn't have a say about Hinata's choice of husband. This main-branch thing was making her crazy. In the future when she was inaugurated as the next clan head, the first thing she would do would be banishing all those caged bird seal practices and main-branch separation.
Of course, Hanabi didn't tell the whole detail to the kids, in fear of early prejudice. She just told them how everything started, what are their status now, and how things are sometimes didn't end with a good ending like a soap opera.
"I always thought you are into harem, Konohamaru no nii-chan!" Boruto mocked, referring to his infamous harem no jutsu. Konohamaru lunged for the blond who sat next to him in a kidding manner and the student ran to save his ass.
"Come back here, Boruto!" Everybody laughed at their interaction.
"That's about it, folks. Now, when we get back, act like nothing happens. No matchmaking, no gossiping in the village. We are ninja and love stories are not an important part of our life, 'kore."
"Now, off to sleep! We have early morning training tomorrow at six sharp." Udon, the ever discipline, stood up and disbanded the group of genins. Some of them went to brush their teeth at the lake, some used the toilets and baths. Soon, all the genins returned to their camps and the clearing was silent.
In the morning, they were grouped back to their original team with their respective senseis. The training schedule was about chakra control exercise of tree-walking and water-walking. The teams are spread in different areas around the forest and lake to avoid bumping to each other.
Sarada, who inherited her mother's perfect chakra control, could reach the top of the tree in two attempts. Konohamaru asked her to try water walking herself, instructing her to be extra careful and stay close to the riverbank. He needed to focus on Boruto and Mitsuki, or Boruto, specifically; else he would bash his head on the tree trunk in impatience.
It was pure coincidence that the part of the lake Sarada chose was near to Moegi's group.
"Ne, Sarada. How did you finish this tree-walking already?" Chouchou asked her. Sarada looked at the three genins' trees. Nobody was able to reach more than half the length yet, judging by slashes of their kunai.
"I just keep increasing the chakra on my feet until it sticks to the tree, then maintain the output the whole time." Sarada answered easily.
"That's what sensei says too." the dark-skinned girl grumbled. Inojin fell down from the tree on his butt, grumbling incoherently. Sarada smiled sheepishly and excused herself to reach the river, being careful to stay just at the edge of it. She tried to raise her feet on the water but her feet kept being submerged. After a few times of not tripping and falling, she was able to stand and walk slowly, floating on the water. The half Haruno girl grinned, it felt like walking in the air, so weird. She planned to tell Mama how she mastered chakra control so easily. Mama must be proud of her, it was the trait she inherited from Mama, after all.
Boruto's loud voice of frustration rang through the air from their spot followed by Konohamaru's more muffled response. Sarada chuckled and continued walking faster to test her ability. Then she kept increasing her pace until she could run comfortably on the water surface.
By lunchtime, they stopped the exercise and half of the genins are able to reach the top of the tree. This time, the genins also had to do the same task as yesterday; foraging and scavening. However, Moegi's team was cooking the lunch today.
"Let's vote; who wants barbecued fish and who wants fish soup?" Chouchou counted the raised hands and deduced almost everyone wanted barbecued fish.
"Hmm, everyone is soo insensitive~ I want to cook fish soup today.." she cradled her plump cheek, imagining the famed Akimichi fish soup recipe Chouji taught her. She started drolling comically out of nowhere.
"Then why the hell we vote in the first place?!" an annoyed Boruto was pointing heatedly, stomping towards her. Leave it to Chouchou to make Boruto annoyed. With Itsuki initiating the fire on a pile of woods again, they started cooking fish soup at the end, because even though everyone voted for barbeque, it was still up to the cook.
"Sarada." Itsuki called to her after lunch ended. She was slightly astonished because as far as she knew, he was avoiding her all along the training camp after the fire jutsu show yesterday. She turned to him and asked what's wrong.
Her cousin leaned awkwardly and offered in a low voice, "We have a break now before another team training at four. Do you want me to teach you the Great Fireball Technique?"
Sarada's eyes sparkled in excitement, but it soon died down, "But it was supposed to be Papa's job.." she answered regrettably, looking down.
"I can teach you the basics, but tell no one." the raven-haired boy suggested. "..when Sasuke ojii-san comes to teach you, you can control to make only small fire and act as though you just start but progress quickly." Despite his calm attitude and noble perception, he got a tricky mindset too.
Sarada looked around at her surroundings. Rather than continue gossiping with Chouchou and Wasabi, accepting Itsuki's offer was much more beneficial in the long run. With enthusiastic feeling, she nodded gratefully and let him led her to a very far, remote place on the riverbank. Here, they won't risk people noticing the suspicious flame-throwing here and there. He positioned himself to face the river, in fear of scorching the trees.
"Don't tell anyone including Okaa-san and Otou-san, please." he clarified once again. This rite of passage is a serious thing then, if he was this afraid to violate. Well, he was the son of Uchiha clanhead, he needed to keep his father's image unblemished. Sarada realized that he risked it all by teaching her.
Why did he have to do it? Was it because I looked sad at Fugaku oji-chan's house and at the training camp?
"Yes, Itsuki. I won't tell anyone." Sarada convinced her cousin. The last thing she wanted was Itsuki getting into trouble because of her. Her cousin nodded at her.
"So the handsigns are.." he performed the sequence slowly with breaks in between each of them for Sarada to see. "...then feel your chakra here." he pointed to his stomach, "...take a big breath and expel it."
This time the fire was at least five times his own body size, reflecting red silhouette on top of the pristine lake water. Sarada gaped, "So...big...So did he purposely hold back when he demonstrated in front of everyone?"
Her cousin closed off his fire and instructed calmly,"Start small. Be careful.". Sarada followed his instructions and successfully created one as big as her own head. She gasped in amazement and her cousin just smiled at the small success.
Itsuki used to suck at explanation. He couldn't even describe how he held his pencil when he was young. He just said, "This. This.". He still sucked today but Sarada could still catch the basics. She worked it out a few times with varying sizes before she started to feel her chakra dwindled inside her system. The biggest one was three times the size of her head.
"I think you had enough. We still had some training with our team later." Itsuki beckoned for her to stop. Sarada felt like she still wanted to try more because she wouldn't be able to do it in the village without someone seeing. However, her cousin's advice was sound.
"Itsuki, thank you." she gave him a bright smile, which he returned.
Sarada followed him back to the group of rag-tag genins. The girl knew she had to replace her chakra as fast as she could, so Sarada ate some more leftover and rested in her tent.
The genins were continuing their water and tree walking exercises. Sarada, who could already run on the water was now challenged to spar with her sensei on it too. Her sensei was so amazed at her quick learning and requested her to assist Boruto, who couldn't even reach more than half the tree in one occasion. Konohamaru was teaching Mitsuki.
"You're putting too much chakra on your feet. Reduce it a little" she instructed. Instead, her blonde teammate turned off the chakra emittance on his feet completely, which caused him to lose his foothold and fall on his back.
Sarada gasped and approached his fallen form. By the bruises and dirt all along his jacket, he fell down too much time already. "Boruto, you okay?"
"Aww Sarada, you sucks." he said with no move to start standing.
"What? I thought I ask you to reduce just a little, not cut it off completely. Now get up! Shannaro!"
So the practice continued on and on until the senseis called it off as it was dinnertime. After that, they had no more exercise as it was already really dark and everyone was so tired but nobody wanted to go to bed yet. Tonight was free time but everyone decided to have a mingling session again on the spot where Konohamaru and Hanabi were found last night. The stars could be clearly seen on that spot. Iwabe created a short earth wall on the edges of the cliff as a safety measure.
"Woooow, the stars are so pretty" the girls from Hanabi's team were squealing in delight. Not everyday they could see things like this.
"The stars are sparkling, just like me." Chouchou waved her hair, being her narcissistic self. Next to her, one eye-twitching Nara and one sarcastic Yamanaka watched her. "You are the moon and we are the stars, Chubs." Inojin answered sarcastically, still smiling. Of course, he referred to her size.
Basically, the students chatted with one another, enjoying the lively night. Basically, it was the last night they had in the open air. Tomorrow, they would have to go back to the village and being separated into their own teams again.
"Everyone." Boruto suddenly announced. The genins paused their chatting and turned their heads to him inquisitively. Boruto stood up in the middle of the group. "I'm so happy we can train together like this! Let's do camping together again in the future, 'ttebasa!"
"Geez, somebody just doesn't understand how little time a ninja going to have.." Shikadai muttered, being reminded that his own father also had so little time at home. Where Shikadai was being pessimistic about going again, although he enjoyed the camp so much, the other genins are downright happy with the whole camping trip. Metal Lee was being so energetic.
"Yosh! In the village, we can meet in Kaminari Burger after training too."
"Humans sure have weird taste..." Mitsuki smiled at his friends and passed through them.
"Huh? But you're human too….right?" Itsuki trailed off behind his golden-eyed friend. Mitsuki just flashed that creepy smile to him but ignored his question altogether. The other genins also cheered Boruto's proposition as they were really enjoying the whole camping idea. Behind the noisy genins stood their four teachers together, observing.
"These kids are something." Udon muttered. "..even in our generation, we dissolved right after graduation and rarely met"
"We didn't get along too well with genins outside of our team. And there is no one who can be the class nucleus like Boruto does." Konohamaru commented.
"Yeah, of course, my kawaii nephew~" Hanabi looked like she wanted to come forward and strangle Boruto in a death hug. But of course, she wouldn't want to ruin the moment.
On the evening of last day, they took a group photo before leaving the forest as they would travel separately. Moegi created a simple wood tripod from her palm for the camera to be put on. The genins took so long to order themselves that it became a mess with Boruto as the provocateur. So Sarada and the former class-rep, Sumire, had to arrange them from their heights.
"Itsuki, don't just stand there! Don't you see you're blocked by Iwabe-kun? Iwabe-kun, you're the tallest, so you need to move to the back. Boruto, what are you doing lying there at the front? Get back." Sarada instructed sternly amidst the noises of chatter and laughter of the genins.
"But-" Boruto protested and they bickered again. In the end, Boruto didn't want to give up his position and Sarada just let him be.
Where Sarada was being assertive, Sumire was being her timid but cunning self. At one moment when nobody was saying anything, the class rep ordered, "Ha-Hanabi-sensei, please go to the right with Konohamaru-sensei."
Boruto whistled, saying "Nice, Class rep!", and prompted the other genins to cheer the couple to stand side-by-side.
"What did I say? No matchmaking, 'kore" the blue-scarf Sarutobi protested although he wasn't mad. Not that he disliked standing next to Hanabi.
"You said 'no matchmaking in the village'! This is outside of the village, 'ttebasa!" the Hokage's son answered smartly. Next time, Konohamaru reminded himself, leave no crack for Boruto to exploit. He finally acquiesced to their demand.
"Okay, everyone is settled, but who is going to press the timer?" Sarada mused out loud. Everybody laughed at that one last thing they didn't realize. In the end, the Sarutobi sensei volunteered.
"ONE...TWO...THREE 'KORE" Konohamaru set the 10-seconds timer and ran to his allocated space; on the left side next to Hanabi. Boruto was laying on his side smiling happily at the front row with fingers posing for 'peace' sign like a mascot. Well, he is the group's mascot in actuality. Everyone looked worn out, but happy at the same time. The camp was a success they would like to repeat sometime in the future. Again, if they had time.
"Thank you for preparing this camp, Sensei!" was what everyone said to the four teachers before they left the clearing. The journey back home was used as a tree-hopping exercise per team. The genins only brought at hand the bare necessities like water and snacks as their big bags of clothing are being sealed into scrolls by their own respective sensei.
"Bye everyone!" Boruto was very happy with the camping trip. He ran enthusiastically back into his team and paid attention to Konohamaru's explanation about tree hopping.
Sarada, too, couldn't erase her small smile all the way back. She was glad about how things turned although she wasn't as vocal as Boruto. The girl already thought about what she was going to tell Sakura in her mind. With three quick learners in the team, they could effectively do tree-hopping at sixty percent of the whole track. They met Udon's team who arrived two minutes later at the village gate. As usual, there were two chuunins sitting at a reception desk
"Ne, ne, are we the first?" Boruto asked Izumo enthusiastically. He was ready to punch the air, but Izumo shook his head. "You're second. Hyuuga's team came first." he showed Boruto where the girls signed their name and arrival time five minutes ago.
"Geez." Boruto shrugged. But it didn't deter his exuberance. He had so much to tell Hima-chan to make her jealous of him for being a Genin. He could imagine Himawari being impatient and pleading to Kaa-chan to let her enrol to the academy earlier.
"Sarada, let's go home." Itsuki approached her team after both teachers unsealed and returned their bags. "It's sunset already, too." he added.
"Uhh..Mama's boy...Can't go home late are you, Itsuki?" Boruto teased with an animated voice at his childhood friend.
Always calm, Itsuki smiled back at him, "You too, can't go home late do you? Or your mom would go searching around the village with her Byakugan."
Boruto paled a bit at the mention of her scary-when-angry mom. She was even scarier than his father. "Uh, yeah..let's not hope it happen…..again." he scratched his whiskered cheek, remembering an old (scary) memory.
"Gee, Boruto, you should hurry back too." Sarada joined her childhood friend and cousin.
"Yes, yes. Bye Sarada, Itsuki, Mitsuki, Sensei!"
"Bye, everyone!"
She followed Itsuki down to Uchiha district, chatting lively all the way. As they were never awkward with each other, they both tell each other about their team during the walk. Suddenly, Itsuki posed a simple but difficult question.
"Sarada, Is Sakura obaa-san home? Or will you stay at my place?"
Sarada flinched at it. "Mama didn't say anything when I go. I suppose she would be home." Sarada answered him. If Mama wasn't home, then her stories would have to wait until later. Sarada looked down somberly, but it was not missed by his cousin who sensed her internal turmoil but said nothing. Instead, he distracted her by idle chat of other matters. Twenty minutes walking and there they are, in front of Sasuke's house. They could see from the window that the lights were off. It meant, Sakura wasn't home yet.
"Thank you, Itsuki. You should go back home. I know you're tired." Sarada said. Itsuki thought there was no reason why he should linger here any longer. Sarada needed rest. He needed rest. But somehow something didn't sit well with him.
Itsuki shook his head, "If Sakura obaa-san is not here, you should stay at my house." he insisted.
"I'm sure she would be home soon." Sarada fumbled her small sling bag to find her keys. She slid it on to the lock and opened the wooden front door. At the entrance, there is one bamboo shoe rack and big Uchiha crest painting on the wall in front of them, followed by hallways leading to the living room. But the house was dark. Itsuki turned up the lamp switch so they could see better.
"Tadaima." she greeted. Nothing, no sound, as expected. Sarada peered around the hallways but saw no one. She didn't dare going inside yet as she hadn't taken off her dirty sandals.
"Is Sakura obaa-san going somewhere?" Itsuki asked behind her. Sarada turned back to him and observed the shoes rack. "Itsuki..." Sarada trailed off, "Mama's working shoes are here." she pointed to one of the black polished shoes.
"Maybe she went somewhere with her sandals? Or maybe she's asleep?" but Itsuki knew it is unlikely. Sakura obaa-san always cared for Sarada, even more than necessary. If she knew Sarada was going to be back after some days out, the most logical thing she would do was stand in front of the door, waiting for her only girl to come and when she did, she would lead her to a big feast for her daughter's return. The only other reason she wouldn't do it was if she had to be at work. But she didn't. And the house was as silent as an empty den.
Sarada returned his stare with a confused look. She, too, probably thought the same thing and decided to check inside the house. Sarada efficiently removed her sandals in one swift move and went inside, leaving Itsuki still struggling with his sandal clasp. The dried mud was making it so hard to slide.
Suddenly a loud voice belonging to Sarada echoed from the living room. "MAMA!"
Itsuki's breath hitched. What happened? He quickly removed his right sandal forcefully until it was off and ran fast to the living room. And what he saw there was something he never expected happened in his peaceful life. His heart jumped and for a moment he didn't know what to do.
Dang, so here it is a cliffhanger! This chapter remarks the end of the introduction arc. Hopefully, it would give my readers clearer view of how this AU works. I'm currently having a writer's block on the later chapters. Like, I don't know what I should do with one of the minor scene...I got a little bored too somehow.
Again, it's a novice job, so hopefully I would improve more with each chapters. Your review is brightening my day and gave me a motivation to write