Hyuuga Hokage
By
TheGraey1
Chapter 9
xxxxx
Hinata woke up at 3am. She was not happy about it but there are things she had to do. She ate a ration bar and drank some bland water. She walked outside and looked up at the moon with wonder and dread. For an unknown reason the Hyuuga had an instinctual mixed feelings about that giant night time object. Hinata pushed the moon out of her mind. She had more important things to worry about.
Hinata had a hour to herself and she intended to take advantage of it. She and a couple of ANBU cleared some debris to create a basic impromptu sparring area. Hinata started her daily workout with the intent to get as much in as possible. After a half hour of stretching and warming up she was ready for a good spar with someone.
"Would anyone like to spar with me?" asked Hinata.
Surprising more hands than she thought were raised. She gulped a little bit.
Hinata pointed to a random ANBU code named Salamander. A brick wall of a muscle stepped forward.
"Rules?" asked Salamander in a surprisingly soft and almost child like voice.
"Light stuff. Nothing flashy or loud. Do not want to wake up the village," said Hinata.
A third ANBU stepped forward to act as referee. "This is a friendly spar. Watch the vitals. Time limit is five minutes unless someone is knocked out or surrenders. Most of all have a fun fight and give it your all.," instructed the referee.
Hinata and Salamander complied and faced each other. Hinata slipped into her Gentle Fist stance. She activated her Byakugan. She looked at Salamander who took a stance she did not recognize. Unlike Gentle Fist there were countless Hard Fist styles. His body seemed to vibrate as a very thin layer of chakra covered his body. It was not the Gates but something else.
"Fight!" said the referee.
Hinata went forward with caution. She purposely let herself be hit in her left arm. She grunted as she jumped back keeping on the defense. She felt a burning or stinging sensation every time she blocked. Sometimes a fighter has to take the blow to see what the opponent is capable of.
'He is using chakra to cause the air around him to vibrate or heat up to the point it causes injuries on a target. Nothing extreme but over time can cause problems. Assume he is holding back. If this was a real fight the injures can be worse. The code names of most Kohona ANBU are based on an animal type characteristic they have hence Salamander and the legends about them. Time to live up to my Bingo Book title,' thought Hinata.
Salamander tried punching Hinata in the stomach. Hinata pivoted and brought her own arm around and scraped Salamander's left shoulder. He felt a flash of pain as the tendons and muscles in his shoulder tightened. It was Hianta's turn to attack with quick jabs. Her fluid movements went beyond the ninja norm in both defense and offense. With her natural dexterity and flexibility these traits made it look like there was no hesitation in her fighting style no matter which direction she moved her whole body or individual parts. This earned her the Bingo Book moniker The Dancing Ninja.
This did not make Hinata untouchable and she knew it. It was something to live up to as a ninja. If Salamander wanted to win Hinata was going to make him work for it. The two combatants traded blows. What strikes they landed hurt in their own way. Hinata with light burns and the welts that followed and Salamander receiving pulled or slightly torn muscles.
"Time! Stop!" ordered the referee.
"Good match," said Hinata bowing formally.
"Good match," repeated Salamander.
Two medical-nin healed Hinata and Salamander. As Hinata's was being healed a thought crossed her mind. Something she had not thought about for three years.
"During Naruto-san's fight against Neji-san, the wounds I got from my cousin were agitated and I passed out. According to Kiba-san, an ANBU healed my wounds. I would like to formally thank the ANBU who healed me back then," said Hinata.
The ANBU, masked and unmasked, looked at one another. The unmased ones looked concerned.
"It might have not been an ANBU," said Wolf. "During that time Kabuto killed a couple of ANBU and used their bodies as puppets."
"Kiba wasn't sure but felt that the ANBU may have knocked him out. We believe Kabuto either focused his own chakra into the corpses to heal you or did it personally," added another ANBU.
"Why was I never told?" asked Hianta.
"Tsunade-sama and your father did not want to worry you," said Wolf. "She was sure Kabuto did not do anything to you when she realized who it was that healed your wounds."
Hinata also recalled running into Kabuto as she, Naruto, and Yamato searched for Sasuke. She did not like the way Kabuto looked at her. Hinata sighed with dismay. Thinking back to her former self the truth would have caused her despair and made her wonder if Kabuto did do something to her even if everyone tried to reassure her. At least he did not give her a Cursed Seal.
'Or he could have done it in a way that Tsunade-sama could not-
Hinata stopped that line of thought and pushed it from her mind. If Kabuto had done it then it would have manifested when she tried to fight Pein. The intense emotional stress of seeing Naruto nearly captured would have done it.
"All I know about Kabuto is that he worked with Orochimaru and was perhaps a mole for a member of Akatsuki. As most of you know I ran into him a while back as I helped Team 7 try and find Sasuke-san. His body was greatly mutated because of Orochimaru's cells in his body. What else is there about him?" asked Hinata.
"He was born in Kohona. His father was a renown medical-nin. His father died during a mission. Kabuto was placed in an orphanage outside of the village," answered Wolf.
"That's unusual to place a child outside of the village when there are two or three orphanages within the village," said Hinata.
"Our investigations led us to believe he and quite a few other orphans had been moved out of the village over a long period of time," explained Wolf.
"One or two at a time. No big numbers to raise any alarms," reasoned Hinata. She thought about Lee, Naruto, and Tenten. Three friends who grew up orphans. Lee with his unquenchable drive to prove himself. Tenten being able to master a weapon the moment she touches it. Some people believe she may have an unique bloodlimit. Naruto and what he has inside him.
"We found the orphanage that raised Kabuto. It was destroyed. With Danzo's crimes we theorize he ran that orphanage so he could train ROOT members outside of the village away from prying eyes. Ikibi's recent psychological profile is disturbing. He believes Kabuto is in layman's terms a personality sponge. That is someone who does not have a core personality and instead leeches off the personality of the strongest person in the vicinity," continued Wolf.
Hinata felt a cold chill go through her. What her orphaned friends would have been turned into if Danzo took them from whatever orphanage they grew up in and moved them out of the village to go through whatever hellish training Sai did. "Since Danzo and Orochimaru have strong personalities they affected Kabuto in a terrible way."
"Ikibi also noted what Yamato reported when you ran into him during that mission. Kabuto claimed he has the same drive as Naruto. When Ikibi read that he created Kabuto's psychological profile," added Wolf.
"What's being done now?" asked Hinata.
"Tsunade-sama sent a team led by Anko to track him," someone said.
Hinata almost gave the order for a recall but stopped herself. She cannot be an overprotective Kage. If things get bad for a team then the most she can do is pray for their safety. It was another reason why she did not want this job.
"Send updated orders to Anko-san. Continue to pursue and track Kabuto. Do not engage except for self-defense. If Kabuto does anything unusual by ninja standards or behaves in a way that is out of character then report back to Kohona immediately. My reasoning is that dealing with an unstable mind is never easy and if that unstable mind is able to mold chakra the danger becomes greater," ordered Hinata.
"Also remind them to keep an eye out for traps and ambushes," added Hinata as her scouting and infiltration instincts acted up.
"Understood," said Wolf.
"Now onto current business. Anything happen since sundown?" asked Hinata.
"Got rid of a bunch of scavengers who must have been near by when Kohona was destroyed. They falsely believed that with the village destroyed they could loot the place. They were killed and buried somewhere in the forest. Two more spies, from Kiri and Ame, were caught and killed. One genin took a water spear jutsu to the stomach by the Kiri-nin. A medical-nin was close enough to save her. There's the matter of all the accidents that happened in the past few hours. Because of the darkness and uneven ground people have been tripping all over the place. Only real injuries in that is the pride. One team came back two hours ago. They finished a C-Ranked Mission," said Wolf.
"A finished mission and we do not have any money to pay them. Any news on Shikaku-san and Sai-san?" asked Hinata.
"Inoichi is doing what he calls mental simulations to try and bring Sai back to consciousness. Hyuuga medical-nin with the the help of Sakura will begin to purge the excess chakra out of Shikaku in a couple of days," said Wolf.
"I will talk to Sakura-san later about it since I have a meeting with Team 7," said Hinata. "How about our two guests?"
"They aren't happy nin but they know the score. They're behaving for the most part. Omoi keeps flirting with every female that passes by. Kauri threatens to beat him up and came close to cracking his head open with a hammer if not for the undercover ANBU keeping an eye on them," answered an ANBU.
"Too bad Anko isn't here," someone joked.
Hinata let out a small laugh as the ANBU did laugh.
"They're doing surprisingly good work. With their minds on the line its not surprising," continued the same ANBU.
"If there is nothing else we will go over the security passwords and codes for the day," said Hinata.
"But. . .there is no Jounin Commander to verify the codes," said Wolf.
"It cannot be helped and the matter will be resolved later. The choice is either to wait for a new Jounin Commander and use yesterday's codes or do the codes now in the absence of the commander," said Hinata. "Doing new codes now is the lesser of two security risks."
"What a mess," someone muttered.
"We'll endure," countered another person.
"You are both right," spoke up Hinata. "It is a mess however Kohona will endure as it always has."
Her words ended further debate. She and a couple of other ANBU spent the next hour creating passwords and phrases. It was not easy. They had to make sure past passwords and phrases were not repeated for the new day. Phrases had to be random and almost nonsensical yet not confusing or easily forgotten.
Hinata prepared to start on whatever unfinished paperwork was left before Pein destroyed the village after debriefing and reassuring the returning team that the village will be rebuilt and they will be paid the moment relief funds came in.
"I am going back to the tent and get started on the unfinished paperwork before the village was attacked," she said.
"There is none," said an ANBU.
Hinata stopped in her tracks not believing what she heard. "What?"
"We knew an attack was going to happen. We thought it was going to be along the lines of what Orochimaru and Suna did. Not total destruction," said the same ANBU. "Everything signed by the Hokage was put into the ANBU vault hours before the attack. Anything else that wasn't got buried under tons of rock."
"Then that means," said Hinata.
"No paperwork for quite awhile until the village is completely rebuilt," said the ANBU. "The weekly mission requests from outside the village will be coming tomorrow."
"That I can handle," said Hinata.
It was not the mission requests that bothered a Kage. It was what Tsunade called complete an utter nonsense(or complete and utter excrement from a male bovine) that made it a giant headache. People wanted the Hokage to fix their childish arguments or issues with some kind of decree with the wave of a pen stroke. Kages are leaders, not parents in the literal sense. What choice did they have? They could make the bureaucracy bigger to handle the little things and that leads to all sorts of trouble. The least is causing people lose confidence in their Kage and the worst making the bureaucracy the true authority in the village.
"I have free time?" asked Hinata with surprise.
"Yes," said Wolf.
There was nothing to do. She cannot do a patrol or help out in the rebuilding. It was the one thing she cannot do no matter how much she wanted to help. She could make it an order but it would look she did not have confidence in the ninjas and other people rebuilding or keeping the area safe. It can have a negative affect on morale no matter how she justified it. Nothing to do and not in the mood to train or meditate.
She went back into the Hokage's Tent. Hinata decided to take a nap. She felt childish. What else was there to do. Given what the rest of her day is going to be like she decided to get some more sleep while she can.
xxxxx
Hinata stood looking over a cliff. The ground for as far as even her eyes could see was blacker than obsidian. . .
Hinata went to activate her Byakugan when the thunder became so loud and horrible that she covered her ears. . .
The horrible landscape faded from view as a light blue glow over took Hinata. . .
This Hinata's eyes were closed with drool spit running down her chin. . .
Horror came over her as what happened to her double now started to affect her."MY EYES!" she yelled. . .
"YOU. . .FORGOT!" yelled the Voice above Hinata's screams.
xxxxx
"You forgot!" yelled Hinata waking up in a cold sweat.
Again that nightmare. Hinata went through the same motions as other times she had the nightmare. This time something was different. The mysterious Voice. First time it appeared in her dreams. Hinata, like most ninjas, are not big on coincidences. The Voice's words disturbed Hinata. Another question concerning the nightmare. What disturbed Hianta the most was to have the nightmare in two times. It took months or years plus a traumatic event in her life to trigger the nightmare.
"Hokage-sama, are you awake now?" asked one of her ANBU guards.
"Uh. . .yeah," said Hinata weakly. "How loud was I?"
"Not too bad," answered the guard. "I was coming to wake you up when you yelled. Sakura is here."
Hinata went outside. Sakura looked at the morning sun starting to rise above the treeline.
"Good morning," said Hinata.
"Morning," yawned Sakura. "You alright? I heard you yell."
"Nightmare," muttered Hinata.
"Don't worry. They go away after some time. Used to have nightmares about my first C-Rank Mission. After a couple of months they stopped," reassured Sakura.
"I will keep that in mind," said Hinata not elaborating her nightmare was not a normal one. "What brings you here this early. There is still another half hour before the meeting starts."
"Got some updates for you. By the end of the day all the non-critical injured will be healed and cleared for non-hazardous duty. I want proper healing to finish the job," said Sakura.
"Should not such things be taken care of when instantly healed?" asked Hinata.
"If we were in a middle of a battle yes. While full instantaneous healing does work its not a substitute for physical therapy and natural healing while getting the affected area back to normal. We try to limit excessive cell division because of the limitations or preventing a person from being too reliant on full chakra based healing. I've ordered the medical nin corp to not use chakra healing unless its an emergency. People will be angry but in the long run they'll be better off," explained Sakura.
"Any news on Shikaku-san and Sai-san?" asked Hinata.
"Both will be slow and steady in what needs to be done," said Sakura. "So far they're stable. Right now we're keeping them hydrated. When Ino gets back today we can use IV and a liquid vitamin and mineral mix to keep their bodies from wasting away too much. The Hyuuga and I did come up an unique idea for Shikaku. You familiar with the medical uses of leeches?"
"No."
"Long before chakra manipulation and the medical devices used today, leeches for removing blood clots close to the surface of the skin and other blood related ailments. Some poor villages still do it today. We may be able to do the same thing with the destruction bugs the Aburame use. By placing an insect over a chakra point we believe the insect can pull a clot out once its dislodged. Or it may break up the clot completely since the insect's chakra absorbing ability should be faster than the clot's ability to regenerate. The Hyuuga healers are working on pros and cons of the idea. Tomorrow I'll talk to Shino or his father about it if the Hyuuga agree,"explained Sakura.
"And Sai-san?" asked Hinata.
"Too many variables. Inoichi said the mind is not the same as the body. The body is concrete and the mind is abstract. My body's limitations with not having enough chakra or the right elemental alignment I can never do a Chidori or spam Kage Bushin. But with the abstract nature of the mind I can do such things. Consciously or through dreams what can't be done in with our concrete bodies can be done with our abstract minds," said Sakura.
"The abstract nature of the mind makes the possibilities almost infinite," said Hinata.
"And that's the problem. We still do not know what Danzo is capable of through ROOT training and Shisui's eye. Depending on how creative Danzo is with mind manipulation, any booby traps placed in Sai's mind could be simple, complex, or both," clarified Sakura. "You don't like being asked but. . . "
Hinata let out a sigh. The Byakugan's ability to give insight was sometimes overblown. The ability to read body language and other factors rarely noticed except by the most observant of ninja and profilers be as clear as words on a piece of paper. The Hyuuga did not mind helping when asked. Its when people expected them to be somehow omniscient with other people's personalities and behavior.
"The Byakugan does not make a person a mind reader," said Hinata tactfully. "The most we can do is monitor Sai-san's chakra flow and his internal organs. His conscious and unconscious mind is closed off preventing any accurate readings of his body language."
"Morning Hinata-sama, Sakura-san," said Naruto.
Sakura blinked once then twice. Did Naruto just use a proper honorific with her name. . .and does he look . . .mannerful? She was not yet awake yet. That must be it. "Um. . .morning Naruto," said Sakura while looking back and for at her teammate and current Hokage.
"I am showing Naruto-kun the ins and outs of what it means to be a leader like a Kage or clan leader," explained Sakura.
"Oh. . .oh!" said Sakura with understanding. Sakura saw a lot of leadership stuff from Tsunade. Most of the time the female Sannin was relaxed and informal except when it came to the most serious of business.
"I kind of made a mess in the aftermath of Pain's. . .Nagato's attack and Hinata-chan didn't take it well," sighed Naruto.
"I realized at that point Naruto-kun lacked a lot of knowledge and skills required to be a kage. I decided to teach Naruto-kun some of the realities of the position so he will be better prepared in the future," explained Hinata.
"Ah, how cute" smiled Sakura.
Naruto was confused and Hinata blushed hard by the implication.
"I ask that you do not tell anyone about this. Naruto-kun's status as hero will give him a lot of attention. What he does not need right now is the added attention from the political types," said Hinata.
"Got it," said Sakura.
"So what is there to do while we wait for Kakashi-sensai to finally show up?" asked Sakura.
Naruto took an unopened deck of cards he found in the rubble last night. "Anyone up for poker?"
They sat down on the ground outside the Hokage's Tent and played poker, Hearts, and a few other card games while waiting for Kakashi to show. After a hour and a half he appeared.
"Yo," said the masked ninja in his typical lazy manner.
"You're late!" automatically said Naruto and Sakura at the same time.
"I got lost," said Kakashi.
Seconds passed as everyone waited for the rest of Kakashi's excuse. When he said nothing further the three teens became confused. They look at one another. They shared the same surprising thought.
"You really got lost?" asked Naruto, his eyes widening.
"The village geography changed," grunted Kaksahi.
"All those times. . .its. . .its karma!" yelled Sakura.
Naruto and Sakura broke out in uncontrolled laughter. Hinata put a hand over her mouth while snickering.
"That's enough you three. Isn't there meeting we're supposed to be doing?" said Kakashi after a minute.
"Lets go inside the tent," said Hinata, going in first. Hinata excused the ANBU guards saying she wants privacy.
Hinata looked at her friends as the air seemed to tense. Team 7 picked up on it.
"Did something happen to Tsunade-sama, Sasuke-kun, or Sai?" asked Sakura.
"No," said Hinata.
The Hokage looked at Team 7 with sadness. The one decision she did not want to make but had no choice. She looked at Kakashi. He looked to the side with his regular eye and let out a sigh. He knew what was going to happen. Hinata then realized Kakashi did not get lost. He was being him and put a twist on his tardiness at his expense so his students would have at least one good memory. Naruto and Sakura were becoming more anxious. Hinata had to end it now instead of letting it drag out. Hinata took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
"As of this moment the Leaf team known as Team 7 is now and forever disbanded," said Hinata a heavy heart.
To be continued. . .
Author's Notes: The part about Kabuto healing Hinata during the Chunin Exams was something that bugs me to this day. Everyone knows what kind of person Kabuto is. To me this was a missed opportunity by Kishimoto. That could've been a magna canon or anime filler arc in itself which involved something being done to Hinata. Whether a new way to give a person a Cursed Seal or something else entirely. I once came up with a fanfic plot in which Kabuto somehow implanted a Cursed Seal directly onto Hinata's DNA. The Seal remained dormant until Hinata faced Pein. The emotional stress and almost being killed caused the Seal to activate for the first time to the surprise of Pein and Naruto. Unfortunately there was an issue with the idea. Shizune or Tsunade would've picked up on it at some point. I do believe either one gave Hinata(whose wounds weren't properly healed by Kohona medical-nin) a complete examination of the wounds she got from Neji just to be sure she was alright. At that point they most likely would've discovered traces or hints of a Cursed Seal or whatever. I couldn't figure out a way to get around that and dropped the idea. If anyone wants to use this plot idea go ahead. Just give me a shout out for the idea.
