Notes:
For some reasons my chapters are getting longer and longer. Apparently they're running away with me. But anyway, please review? I've got people putting me on Alerts and Favorites without giving me a single review. Flattering yet kind of sad at the same time, don't you think?
Anyway, many thanks to those who did review, I really appreciate it. Now, without further ado, please enjoy.
Chapter Seven – Purpose
Hayate cleared his throat. "Today we will be learning Bunshin no Jutsu. Bunshin no Jutsu is one of the few foundation techniques that should be in every shinobi's arsenal. This technique creates a number of clones of the user in order to confuse their opponent. However, it has some major weaknesses. Can anyone tell me what they are?"
A young girl with dark red hair raised her hand.
"Hino Matsuri," Hayate said between coughs, "you may answer."
"The weaknesses of Bunshin no Jutsu are that the clones are not tangible and cannot make contact with physical surfaces like grass or rocks like a real person. Because of this, a ninja with a trained eye can easily figure out which clone is actually the real person."
"That is correct," Hayate said with a quick nod at the red-haired girl. "Now can someone else tell me what the hand seals are in order to perform this technique?"
Nanahara Takeshi raised his hand promptly. Hayate coughed again and nodded at Nanahara to continue.
"Tiger, Boar, Ox, Dog."
Hayate waited for his coughing fit to pass before nodding again. "Very good. Now has anyone here successfully performed this jutsu?"
Nanahara's hand shot up again, looking extremely proud of himself. "I'm able to make three clones; on some days I can make a fourth one."
"As if," sneered Mizuno Renji from four places away. "Know it all."
"Yeah! As if you've already been able to use Bunshin no Jutsu! We've barely gotten past Kawarimi no Jutsu," said the girl sitting next to Mizuno.
"Just because you're stupid doesn't mean the rest of us have to be," Nanahara said with a nonchalant shrug.
"I dare you to say that again, you little teacher's pet!"
"You are stupid," Nanahara said, deadpan.
The indignant girl launched herself at Nanahara, the two beginning to brawl - shouting, hair-pulling and kicking at whatever they could reach.
Hayate sighed, still coughing a little, thinking vaguely at the back of his head that this scenario was repeating itself entirely too often, like last week. And the week before.
Kids, he thought with some exasperation. If they were going to fight, they should at least try to fight like ninjas.
Hinata fidgeted as she half-watched the fight between the other students. The finals were looming ever closer, and she was falling behind. Far behind. Not that she wasn't always falling behind to begin with, but if she wanted to graduate with Naruto, she had to catch up. And if she was lucky enough, maybe she could be in the same Genin team as Naruto.
She knew most of the other students in her class already knew how to use Kawarimi no Jutsu and Nawanuke no Jutsu, because she failed miserably in the quiz the week before.
How could she hope to graduate like this?
The lunch bell rang, pulling Hinata out of her thoughts. The other students were making a mad rush for the door, and even the ones who were fighting took a temporary ceasefire so they could make the most of the 45-minute lunch break.
Hinata waited till everyone had left the room, and stood up to leave as well.
"Hyuuga-kun," said the teacher's raspy voice.
Hinata froze. Her brain immediately tried to remember what she had done wrong. It wouldn't be books, could it? He hadn't said anything about the absence of her textbooks ever since she'd returned to the Academy; surely he would have noticed and said something before now? Or maybe it was just a test and she'd be punished severely for not owning up to it herself?
"Hyuuga-kun."
"Hyuuga-kun," Hayate repeated himself, watching the flash of panic on the child's face.
The pale-eyed child looked ready to flee at any opportunity to do so. Hayate didn't think he was that scary, so either Mizuki had seriously traumatized the kid, or…this behavior extended much further back. Hayate coughed violently and waited for the fit to pass, not missing the child's subtle instinctive flinch.
"Hyuuga-kun, stop panicking," he said as he cleared his throat, deciding not to beat around the bush. "I need to discuss something with you."
"Once there was a man who lived in a great white house, with great white doors, and great white walls," chanted a little boy as he hopped on one foot between winding lines of faded paint.
"Once there was man who loved a woman, with snow white skin, and eyes like clouds," chanted the little girl behind him, hopping on her other foot as she followed the first little boy.
"Once the man loved the woman so much so, when the woman gave her life," said another little boy, "to their child, he threw the child to the Wolves-"
"And loved no more!" said the first two children in unison as they reached the last gap between the painted lines.
"Hikaru, Hikari, Higusa!" said a young woman from the verandah behind them. "Lunch is almost ready, so go and wash your hands."
"Okay!" said all three of them in unison and they started heading over into the direction of the washroom.
"Make sure you hurry up or the food will get cold!"
The three quickened their small steps a little, stomachs growling as if on cue.
"Aw, why does the bathroom have to be so far away?" the little girl complained.
"Well there's another bathroom we could use," said the older of the two boys, Hikaru, with a mischievous look on his face.
"What are you talking about?" asked the other boy, Higusa. "When was there another bathroom on this side of the compound?"
"The one that no one else uses, you know," Hikaru's voice dropped to a whisper, "The one that's in the 'demon's corridor'."
"Hikaru, we can't use that one! We'd get into so much trouble if they caught us," hissed Hikari. "No one's allowed to go into that corridor!"
"That's the point," said Hikaru, "no one goes there so we won't get caught! And it's not as far as the other bathroom so we'll get back heaps quicker."
"But isn't it haunted?" Higusa said with a slight shiver. "That's what Hisame-neesan said; remember when she had to go down there to clean up because she broke one of Hiashi-sama's special cups? She said she heard the demon moving around in the corridor and moaning, and she was so scared she begged not to be sent down there anymore."
"Hisame-neesan is scared of everything," said Hikaru dismissively. "It's not like anything can actually haunt this place, the adults have the Byakugan, and they see everything."
"Yes, everything," Hikari said with another hiss, "including through walls, so they could easily see us wandering around the demon's corridor."
Hikaru refused to concede it was a good point and decided to just humph in annoyance.
"Well I'm still going to go use that one, because I'm not a scaredy-cat like you two," Hikaru said, before sticking his tongue out and heading the opposite way. "By the time you come back, I'd have eaten all the meatballs, bleh!"
"Hikaru, don't be a jerk!" Hikari said indignantly, not sure whether to follow him and smack him or just leave him to his devices and hope he didn't get caught. "He's such an idiot."
"Should we go after him?" Higusa said worriedly, his hand rubbing at his bandaged forehead unconsciously. "What if he gets caught? And Hiashi-sama has been in a bad mood lately, because of the elders…"
Hikari grumbled under her breath as she tried to make a decision. "Stupid Hikaru," she muttered, "if we all get caught I'm gonna punch him in the face before we all get our brains fried to mush."
Hikari grabbed Higusa's hand. "Come on, we're gonna go with him."
Hayate led Hinata into a semi-secluded courtyard area that was rarely used by students. It was quiet enough that they could talk one-on-one but open enough that the child could feel slightly less threatened.
Hayate chose to seat himself one of the taller rocks framing the courtyard. "Please take a seat," he said with another cough, gesturing towards a bench a few feet away.
The child did so, still looking a little jumpy.
"Hyuuga-kun," he began, "what I wanted to discuss with you today is your Academy progress."
The panicked look was returning to her face again, and Hayate refrained from sighing. He really didn't like dealing with delicate children. It required patience, and interaction. For an observer like him, it was not an ideal situation.
"I'll be straightforward with you. You are falling behind. Last week everyone was able to perform the Kawarimi no Jutsu, except for you."
The child almost visibly shrunk back from his words, and lowered her head with a miserable yet resigned look on her face, as if she'd heard this many, many times before.
Hayate wondered how the Third Hokage ever thought this would be a good idea.
"Okay…let's go about this a different way," Hayate said after a moment. "Why do you want to become a ninja?"
"What do you mean; she can't hang out with us?" Naruto scowled.
"My parents will ground me for months if they caught me playing with her," said a tall girl with long dark hair tied back into a side ponytail.
"Yeah, and she's so weird, she can't even talk right," said the boy standing next to her with a blue bandana around his forehead.
"Seriously she talks like this – 'S-s-s-sorry, m-may I p-p-p-p-please b-b-b-borrow a p-p-p-pencil?' Talk about slow, man," added another boy who had spiky red hair as he mimicked Hinata's stutter.
Naruto clenched his fist.
"Whoever said the Hyuuga clan are elite need to seriously get their facts straight, I mean, I heard that she couldn't even use the Nawanuke no Jutsu properly. Like that's just beyond pathetic-"
Naruto's fist connected with Akagi's nose with a loud crack, eliciting noises of shock from the other kids.
"Don't you dare talk about her like that! You don't know shit about what she's been through!" Naruto yelled. "You and your parents making fun of her behind her back, whispering like cowards, when she hasn't given you one damn reason to dislike her!"
He grabbed Akagi by the collar. "So what if she talks funny? I can name three hundred things that could be wrong about all of you!"
A shadow loomed behind Naruto. "Alright, break it up now."
"Why do you want to become a ninja?"
The question threw her thoughts off balance.
"B-because…" she whispered before she realized she didn't have an answer.
Hinata stared at the grass under her feet.
Why was she here?
She had never thought about it. What was her reason for being here?
She thought back.
School…had always been a reason to get out of that place, that house, that room of overwhelming darkness. It wasn't though the people outside hated her any less, but it was the lesser of two evils.
But now, she was free of that place until she was an adult. Did she really want to become a ninja? She had enrolled because Naruto was enrolling, so the decision only seemed natural at the time…
"Maybe you should quit." His raspy voice was quiet but jarring in its honesty.
Hinata looked up.
"If you don't have the desire to become a ninja, there's no point struggling here. There are other career options in Konoha."
Hayate started to cough again, but he held her gaze as he stood up to leave.
"Think about it."
Hinata continued to stare at the grass under her feet for the afternoon, ignoring the bell as it rang shrilly, signaling the end of lunch.
Maybe you should quit.
If you don't have the desire to become a ninja, there's no point struggling here.
Naruto-kun…she just wanted to be beside him.
The afternoon sun warmed her back. The sun…he was like a radiant sun that breathed life into everything around him and chased away the darkness.
But did she really want to become a ninja? She lived with Naruto, a blessing she could never be thankful enough for, but she wasn't even in the same class, so it wasn't as if she would lose her time with him.
She continued to think until the sun hovered lower in the sky, and she made her way towards the swing outside the playground, where she'd always meet with Naruto after school.
Would he be disappointed in her if she quit?
The three of them were caught red-handed.
Much to their relief, it was only Neji.
"What were you three doing over there?" he said, raising an eyebrow at the guilty looks on their faces.
They thought about lying, but Neji's stern look at them eliminated that option.
"Well, we were just trying to take a shortcut," mumbled Hikaru.
"Shortcut? To where?" Neji asked.
"Well, the proper bathroom is really far away," Hikaru said, while rubbing the back of his neck, "so I wanted to use the other one, where the adults don't let us go, because it's closer."
"Hikaru," Neji sighed. Hikaru was too curious and energetic for his own good. More often than not he'd get scolded for poking his nose into something he shouldn't. But Neji couldn't bring himself to get mad at the mischievous little boy.
Hikaru had a spirit that still managed to be cheerful despite being born into the Branch family. But someday, that spirit would flicker under the weight of his destiny, and most likely, go out entirely. He was out of place among the heavy, restricted, and servile atmosphere of Branch family members.
Branch family members knew their place very well, the symbol of it branded into their foreheads forever. Neji had been present every time a Branch child returned from the Main house, foreheads wrapped in bandages, crying pitifully from the pain.
He felt it was his duty to care for every single Branch family member, as his father did. Everyone in the Branch family who knew his father had good things to say about him, and Neji clung onto every memory he still had of his parents, before they died when he was four years old.
Killed because of the Kyuubi. Killed because of Hinata.
Because the Branch was expendable. That was their purpose. Their destiny.
The bitter rage threatened to swell again, and he forced himself not to think about it.
"Hikaru, next time, just use the proper washroom, okay?" Neji said, patting Hikaru gently on the head.
For as long as they possibly could, he wanted them to avoid the attention of the Main house.
"Your hand…" Hinata said in concern when she saw the bandages wrapped around his knuckles.
"Oh, this is nothing," Naruto said with a sheepish grin. "Don't worry about it."
Iruka waited until Hinata was asleep in the next room before he asked.
"I heard from the other teachers that you were fighting with Akagi-kun today."
Naruto lay down on his back to stare at the ceiling. "Yeah, I broke his nose."
"Why?" Iruka asked.
"Akagi was making fun of Hinata. And so were his friends. I got really angry and hit him in the face and yelled at him," Naruto said with a heavy calmness, stretching his injured hand in front of him and staring at the bandages.
They were both silent for a while.
"Ne, Iruka-sensei?"
"Hm?"
"How can people be so mean to other people?" Naruto turned his head to look at Iruka, looking uncharacteristically serious and disappointed. "How can the same people, who laugh and smile at me doing stupid things and give me candy and play catch with me, be so mean to Hinata?"
Iruka paused and started staring at the ceiling too.
"What's mean to someone may not be mean to someone else. Maybe to someone else, it seems justified. Everyone sees things differently to someone else, and sometimes, people just can't see past their pain. The pain of losing people they care about can make people bitter, angry, and vengeful. They can't see past the demon fox that stole the lives of their loved ones. They can't see Hinata and her pain."
Naruto flexed his bandaged hand in front of him again, frowning a little.
"Then I'm just gonna have to be an even better Hokage than I was going to be," he said.
"Huh? I don't follow."
Naruto grinned. "I'm going to surpass all the Hokage and protect everyone so well that no one will lose the people they care about, and then no one will need to treat anyone else the way they did to Hinata."
Iruka blinked. Then he began to laugh.
"You're such a kid," said the brown-haired Chuunin, ruffling Naruto's hair fondly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Naruto pouted, and Iruka laughed all the more.
"You'll be a great Hokage. Now go to sleep so you'll be up on time for class tomorrow."
"Aww, fine," Naruto grumbled, and got up from the floor to go into the room he and Hinata shared. He stepped lightly so he wouldn't wake Hinata and pulled his blanket up over himself as he settled onto his futon.
It took him all of ten seconds to start snoring, and he hadn't noticed Hinata's fingers clenching her pillow so tightly her knuckles turned white.
The bench at the back of the class was empty the next day.
Hayate wondered if his mission would be considered a failure if the Kyuubi child decided to quit the Academy.
Oh well.
Being a ninja was much more difficult than simply memorizing some techniques, after all. If she didn't really want to become a ninja, then it was better that she quit.
He cleaned off the blackboard with one hand and coughed into the other. At least today was over.
There was a soft knock on the door.
Or maybe not.
He put the blackboard eraser back on the ledge. "Come in."
"Well, this is a surprise," Hayate said with another cough as the door slid open slowly.
He had only seen her the day before, but she looked different.
She stood a little taller and she looked him in the eye even as her hands trembled.
"Have you thought of your answer?" he asked.
"I…" Hinata began, clenching her fingers into her palms, scars pressing against scars.
"My dream is to become Hokage!"
" I want to become strong, so I can protect the people that are important to me."
"I want to become a ninja."
"…Hinata is my friend."
"I want to graduate."
"I'm going to surpass all the Hokage and protect everyone…then no one will need to treat anyone else the way they did to Hinata."
"Please tutor me."
Author's Notes:
As always, reviews are highly appreciated :) Complaints and constructive criticisms are also welcome.
