Hidden From Sunlight
Chapter Seven, I'm not Angry, Just Throwing Stones
Naruto wasn't one for studying. Not in the reading sense. Being stuck in a single spot for hours on end, trying to comprehend the instructions, memorize the sequence of seals and choreograph them in his head - only to find out in practice that it didn't work, that he screwed up somehow - yeah, that tedious back-and-forth wasn't for him.
But demonstrations, however - now those he loved.
It was cool to see a new jutsu as opposed to read about it.
Often the hand seals were performed too fast for his eye, though. Something he would have to improve on, for sure. If he could recognize the sequence of seals before they were completed, he could counter. Guess he would need to read more scrolls, after all.
So when Naruto set his sights on defeating Hanabi in a fight, he asked the only person who could help him.
The sky over the village was the color of blood orange, and the classroom was shadowy and empty.
Iruka had completed his paperwork and sat down beside Naruto in the row. These seats which were meant for children now looked all too small for the young teacher.
Iruka laced his fingers, resting his elbows atop the desk.
"So, you had a question for me?"
"Yuh-huh," Naruto laced his fingers as well, mimicking Iruka-sensei and leaned forward. Iruka blinked at how serious he looked. "What is Hanabi's fighting style called?"
Iruka blinked again. "It's called Juuken."
"Juuken."
"Yes," A small smirk popped on Iruka's face. "You wouldn't be able to learn it."
"How about countering it?"
Iruka's brows jumped straight into his forehead. A big smile slowly bloomed. "Well, there was a shinobi once who was something of a scholar of taijutsu. He observed the Hyuuga's movements in combat and developed a version that did not require the Byakugan. This version is named Hakkesho. Now with Hakkesho, just like the Juuken, there's a lot of emphasis on circular movements and a full use of momentum. So for example, you can redirect the full power of your opponent's strike, as opposed to simply trying to hit them back harder."
"So I can learn Hakkesho?" Naruto stood, excitement bubbling forth though he maintained a dead serious front. Forming fists, he lurched into Iruka's personal space causing his teacher to lean away with mild surprise. "You would recommend Hakkesho to counter the Juuken?"
There was a beat of silence. Then Iruka burst out laughing.
Naruto sank back down, his excitement now sapped away, eaten by confusion, then quickly by annoyance.
"Oh, c'mon!" He pounded a small fist on the desk.
Iruka pulled himself back together. "Sorry, sorry. Well, it could help you to predict their movements if you were to master it yourself. But to answer your original question, is there an art to counter the Juuken? No, I'm afraid there isn't."
The sun dipped down as it always did, eclipsing the village in a crisp shade. Naruto felt the shadows filling his insides. If he would liken such disappointment, it would be like every twilight he's experienced to memory. The feeling of another day gone, seemingly wasted.
"Thanks." He muttered, standing to leave.
"Naruto, there is one thing and it concerns the Byakugan."
Naruto half-turned around, waiting to hear his teacher out.
"They say the Byakugan has 360 degree vision, but that's not entirely true," Iruka turned around and tapped a specific vertebrae at the base of his neck. "Just above here is their blind spot."
Heart pounding, fire racing through his veins, Naruto crouched atop a wooden fence just a few feet from Academy grounds. In the shade of the leaves, he hid, right hand clutching rocks the size of marbles.
A head of short brown hair finally came into view as she headed home, their lessons concluded.
Breathing was hard. Not sweating was also hard.
Okay. Just above the third thoracic.
He didn't need to beat her in a fight. Yet. Just getting a hit in would be something.
Oh yeah. He was gonna impress her. He was going to impress everyone.
The first rock sailed past her ankle, cracking against the ground and Naruto felt like strangling the air.
He jumped into the foliage as she turned around, her impassive gaze now narrowed as she searched behind her with her normal sight.
Tense seconds passed and she turned slowly, deciding the threat had passed. She began to walk again.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Naruto landed on the fence, scooting along, not letting her get too far.
The second rock sailed over her shoulder. Crap! He launched again before she could turn- Too fast. It struck her clavicle.
Byakugan activated, Naruto's blood ran cold.
In seconds, the air was knocked from his lungs, and he was pinned to the ground, looking up at the most feral he'd ever seen her. Like a spooked cat with its back arched and tail all poofy.
"What's your problem?"
Naruto choked on his spit, stammering as his brain couldn't find the words.
She lifted him by the collar and shoved him down.
He winced against her venomous glare.
"I said: What is your problem?"
Naruto gulped. "I was just… practicing my aim."
The grip on his collar tightened, as if her knuckles couldn't get any whiter. Her free hand tapped at the red mark forming over her clavicle. He knew she was tough, that she's had worse scrapes before, but he felt a little sick.
Must be guilt.
Her glare lessened, immense confusion taking hold.
"What… were you aiming at?"
Naruto exhaled. Was this bad? Was this something he wasn't supposed to know? But Sensei told him anyways! "Your blind spot," Her eyes snapped open. "I was aiming for your blind spot."
Hanabi let him go. She pulled away, face darkening an ugly red, both hands covering that sacred spot on the back of her neck.
She sputtered to speak. Gave up. Then promptly ran away.
Hanabi's hand has been glued to the back of her neck for the past week. Her Byakugan has been as active as her vigilance.
It continues to put off her classmates and confuse her instructor.
When she pointedly looks in Iruka's direction, he shuffles his feet along with the lesson plan at his podium, seemingly making it a point not to meet her gaze.
She hasn't said anything about that hooligan's harassment. She thinks it'll just make her look weak in front of everyone else. She thinks it won't solve anything.
He knows.
He knows about her family's shared limitation.
He was practicing to exploit it.
Rocks are nothing. Just the tools of a common bully.
But he can throw a kunai nearly as good as anyone.
So she's been keeping watch.
She has to.
Even if it's exhausting.
When she gets home, she has a headache.
Suddenly the sun is too bright, and looking off into the distance makes her nauseous.
This sucks.
She has to train.
She can't today.
She needs to lay down.
She needs her blindfold, and a gentle hand to ground her in reality.
When she gets home, a voice like a tiny bell greets her.
Hanabi peers down at her little sister, grimacing as she does so.
Hinata tilts her head. "What's wrong?"
Hanabi figures she can't keep this in for much longer. Their father will be the second to know, anyways.
Hanabi crouches down, gazes into her worried sister's eyes. Someday she'll understand: There's danger in the most unexpected places. "A boy's been throwing stones at me for the past week. He got me once already."
Hinata's eyes slowly widened, her little brows knotting together. Out of everyone else, little Hinata is the most doe-eyed. So utterly innocent, it seems unreal. They've all been sheltering her. But even though she gets annoying from time to time, Hanabi knows she would shelter her too. For as long as she could.
"Nooo," Hinata shuffles forward, eyes glistening and arms outstretched. Hanabi accepts and reciprocates the embrace. "Hanabi-neesama, I don't want anyone to hurt you."
Hanabi lifts Hinata with ease, depositing the child on her hip, when she glowers at the lone figure hovering at the edge of the Main House.
Hinata had stopped disappearing during lunch time for the past month. Hanabi knew why. Somehow their mother's little tradition had become trained into Hinata. And what with school, there was little Hanabi could do about it.
Hanabi clutched Hinata tighter, glaring icily at the traitor in their midst.
Neji turned around, making his way back to his corner of the compound. Like a dog with its tail between its legs.
"I'm sorry, baby sis, but there's actually a lot more than one person trying to hurt me."
Hinata snuggled closer and hot tears sank into Hanabi's dark blue shirt.
Hanabi made shushing noises like she used to do before everything changed.
Shame felt like a kettlebell against the back of her head as Hanabi sat in a seiza across her father, hands balled on her lap and head bowed low.
"Why have you expended your chakra, daughter?"
"Someone's been bullying me. Throwing stones."
"And you've exhausted your eyes because..?"
"I was… paranoid." A disgusting admission, but the truth nonetheless. This was nothing new to him anyways. All those years ago, they had finally managed to stop her night terrors with the use of a special blindfold, and her mother's gentle hand to remind her she was safe and not alone.
Hiashi seemed to consider her plight before speaking.
"Daughter, as a practitioner of our secret tradition, you have an advantage like no other: The ability to do harm without being seen."
Suddenly the weight pressing her head down had lessened and Hanabi looked up into her father's face. She had expected him to look down on her, but no, he believed in her.
"Deal with this problem however you see fit."
Yes. This was just like before. All those years ago.
She can retake control.
She doesn't want to feel this way again. Not when going to academy of all things.
Everything's the same.
Half the girls are mooning over Sasuke. The other half that used to have their hair cut short, their eyes attentively appraising Hanabi as she enters the classroom.
Yes, to those girls she is seen as their idol. Having apparently changed their minds about Sasuke, they remembered why they're really here and who they're supposed to be: Proud Kunoichi of the Leaf.
Some boys are sleeping, one is eating, other boys are goofing off and only two seem to be studying.
Same as ever.
And then there was the blond getting chewed out by Haruno-san again.
Hanabi's stomach twisted.
She took a breath and smoothed herself like silk.
"Uzumaki!"
He startled before turning around, looking as apprehensive as a first time criminal.
"Y,Yeah?"
Hanabi stood nearly toe to toe with him. She then placed her left hand on his right shoulder, and his cheeks pinkened.
"You almost got me the other day. Your aim is impressive."
The pink spread to his ears.
Okay, that's enough.
Releasing him, she turned away and made her way up the stairs, to sit at her new de facto spot beside Shino.
Iruka-sensei strolled in, gently grinning as always. Until someone pissed him off enough, of course.
The hooligan awkwardly sank down in his seat, stealing a glance over his shoulder before redirecting his focus ahead.
Hanabi placed her cheek in her hand, keeping her eyes trained on the blond.
As the first lesson passed into the second, Hanabi noticed the first signs of her technique take hold.
It was indiscernible at first.
He grasped his right trapezius a couple times, rolling his neck to ease the discomfort. But it never did ease.
By the fourth lesson he started rolling his shoulder. Frequently.
Iruka paused mid-lecture.
"Naruto? What are you doing?"
He stammered at first. "Uh, sorry, I think I pulled something? Nah, actually, I musta slept on it weird. Dunno."
Sensei's face pinched as he frowned. He was pensive for a beat. "Do you want to get it looked at?"
The blond straightened up suddenly, gripping his pencil with renewed determination. "No! No, I got this."
Sensei's mouth pressed into a firm line before be continued right where he left off.
During the spar, he was nowhere to be found.
By the time the sixth lesson arrived…
Iruka stopped mid-lecture again as Naruto's pencil rolled out of his hand and onto the floor.
"Naruto. Aren't you going to get that?"
The back of his neck was glistening with sweat. Hanabi moved her hand over her mouth, lest someone catch her grinning.
Her Hornet's Sting technique worked.
His heart thudded slow yet heavily. Breathing was hard. Not sweating was downright impossible.
Naruto trudged out the academy doors, the courtyard noisy and bright with the laughter of his classmates.
Something's wrong.
He made his way toward the lone swing. It was always shady under that swing.
Something's wrong and no one's looking.
Hugging his dead right arm to his chest, Naruto tried his best to act natural, but no way he was that good of an actor… was he?
Could he be talented enough to convince himself this wasn't happening?
He plopped down. The swing flailed under his sudden weight, and he nearly fell backwards, having no hands to steady the rope.
He stared unseeingly at the ground. Somehow he didn't believe there was any ground. Not beneath his feet, no.
Every time he was pulled back into reality, back into the awareness that something was oh so wrong with him, the earth itself threatened to vanish from beneath.
He couldn't feel it.
He really couldn't feel his arm.
She finally said something nice to him.
His aim was getting better. She said so herself.
He was perfecting his transformation technique, even if they were really just for laughs.
He wanted to learn more, do more!
He's been telling the whole village that he's going to become Hokage!
It's over.
His face burned.
He peered up, glancing around the busy courtyard, at the smiles and the homemade bento lunches so clearly crafted by their loving parents.
Their parents would continue to love them more as they become genin in the coming two years.
Really… no one… was even looking at him.
Neji laid out on the engawa, soaking in the sunlight.
He didn't know what it was about this time that made him so listless.
The past month he'd been sitting, waiting, wondering: Will she show up today? And then wondering: Why is she ignoring me?
He should be practicing, but he already practices plenty. Auntie used to tell him he worked too hard. She used to tell him to sit down and relax, listen to the wind and the leaves.
That's how he picked up on meditation. He could center himself, control his breathing, quiet his thoughts… find peace when there was none to gain.
But right now, he just wanted to stare up at the clouds drifting past.
She wasn't going to show up anymore, he figured.
They finally talked the other day, but… it didn't seem satisfactory. Maybe he just wasn't satisfied with himself, lying to his gullible cousin like that.
"Hanabi-neesama was down. You were about to hurt her."
"No, I- I was simply helping Hanabi-sama."
Her head tilted. She always did that. Always tilted it a little too far to the side. Like she just needed to see the truth from another angle before believing it.
"'Helping'?"
"Yes. Because the enemy will strike when you are down. They will not be merciful even if you beg."
"So why did you get punished?"
And when did she get so perceptive?
"I did not ask Hiashi-sama in advance that I may fight without restriction."
"You need permission?"
"Yes, Hinata-sama. Hanabi-sama is to take the mantle of clan leader some day. To ensure that she is fully prepared, we mustn't go easy on her."
She had asked him to take her back to the Main House.
His chest was heavy, bitter and sweet as a grim smile overtook him.
She wouldn't show up anymore. He could make his peace with that. She saw right through him and this was how things would be from now on.
She'll learn to hate him like a proper main house clansman. No use getting too attached to the fodder. When his day comes, her heart won't break for him.
That's fine. He would hate to be responsible for her tears.
Tiny footsteps and a careful gait met his ears, and his heart sped up in apprehension.
Carefully, Neji pushed himself upright.
Her round face was puffed up around a stern frown, her little arms crossed over her chest.
"Hanabi-neesama has a school bully. We need to go."
Neji blinked at her.
Was this real?
