Me: YAY! NEW CHAPTER! I am dedicating this chapter to my baby sister Kate Smit who turned the tender age of thirteen on Friday the third of September, 2010.
Kyuubi: HAPPY BIRTHDAY HIMES SISTER!
Me: Guess what? I own… nothing… and definitely not Naruto… otherwise I would not be writing this story for free on Fanfiction. Net.
Purple slitted fox eyes studied their surroundings as the owner of these eyes slowly stood up from her lying position on the floor. A young woman with long wavy indigo hair and purple furry fox ears and three tails looked to her right and then to her left, trying to figure out where she was and what she was doing here.
The purple eyed beauty turned in a circle, studying the dark hallway thing she was in. Where am I? She thought while looking her feet, frowning in curious annoyance. What am I doing here?
Whimpering could be heard behind the girl as she turned to face the direction the sound came from. Ears tweaking, the young woman looked at the place where the sounds of pain and suffering were coming from. Taking a step towards the pitiful sounds, the girl hesitated, what if it was something to lure her there so that she could be attacked? She had no weapons and was hesitant to go unarmed. However, a particularly loud and painful whine broke her from her hesitancy and made her move forward.
As the girl kept moving forward, she saw a deep blood red colored light in the distance of the hall way. Surprisingly, pictures started appearing on the walls framed in gold, silver or the red light from the end of the hall way. The girl looked at most of the pictures curiously, for most of them were pictures of fierce battles and giant beasts with one or more tails. One picture caught her attention and held it there.
The picture seemed as though it was reserved for royalty, judging by the red, gold, silver and blue colors on it; but that was not what caught the girls' attention, not it was what was inside the picture that made her eyes widen in surprise. In the picture was a giant blood red fox, red chakra swirling around its feet as it faced a giant toad summon. On top of the toad stood none other than the fourth Hokage, strong and proud, gazing fiercely into the eyes of the giant fox. The fox did not have one tail, it had nine. The emotions flitting on the creatures face were those of pain, anger, hate, loss and… regret.
The girl looked at the picture, feeling it pull at her soul, trying to tell her something. The girl heard whispers as she kept looking at the picture that resembled more of a memory. The girl reached her hand out to the picture, grazing her fingers against the paint of the picture.
The girl glanced down at the name plate of the picture and just stared at it for the longest time possible. On the name plate read 'The Kyuubi-no-Kitsune versus the fourth Hokage of Konohagakure, the result of the Kyuubi's broken heart for the loss of his mate and young Kit, who had not been born at the time. The Hokage suffered the fate of death at the hands of the death God, while the Kyuubi suffered a fate worse than death… sealing.'
The young woman's mind was reeling with questions as she gazed at the name plate. The Kyuubi had a… baby? How? With who? Why does nobody know about this? The whispers that she had heard before were gradually getting louder, trying to tell her something that she didn't want to hear, not yet anyway. The young woman was broken of her thoughts as she heard a long drawn out howl of emotional agony.
The young woman ran to the sound, yet she did not know why, all she knew was that her soul was howling along with that voice and she wanted nothing more that to find the person and hold him, tell him… tell him what?
As the young woman burst into the room where the howling was coming from her eyes widened even further, not believing what they were seeing. There, not two feet away, chained to the wall of a cage, lay a young man with red furry fox ears and nine fox tails. His hair was a deep blood red color and he had whisker marks on his cheeks, much like Naruto's. The young woman watched as the man opened his eyes, which were a deep red color, and looked at her with pain, fear, regret and agony. He opened his mouth and the young woman saw two small, but very sharp fangs.
He looked at her pleadingly. "Please…" He whispered in a voice that held years of suffering in every syllable. "Please, help me."
Hinata shot up in bed, screaming in pain and fear. Panting in deep breathes of air; the Hyuuga heiress quickly touched her ears and the small of her back, trying to find any tails or ears or anything that would feel out of place on her body. Hinata heaved a great sigh of relief when she noticed that nothing was out of place and looked at her alarm clock. 06:48 A.M.
I have to meet up with the guys at 07:30… but Kakashi-sensei is gonna be late anyway so I'll just take my time getting up today. Hinata thought as she made her way slowly to her bathroom, grabbing a lavender towel on her way there. As the water was warming up she started thinking of the strange dream she had, hoping to find the purpose of it.
She went through the whole dream and could not find anything of any significance to her. Maybe I was just being paranoid. Everybody knows that the Kyuubi-no-Kitsune was killed in the battle against the fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze. Hinata thought as she stepped under the shower and lathered her hair with shampoo.
When Hinata was finished with her shower, she stepped out and looked at her reflection, eyes widening slightly. When did my hair grow this long? She thought to herself as she looked at her shoulder length hair. Hinata studied herself critically, noticing other small differences like her slightly pointed ears and the darker color of her eyes. She also noticed the light lines going across her cheeks.
Hinata just stared at herself for long moments, until she felt a slight burning in the place where her birthmark was. Hinata looked down at it and her eyes got even bigger. Instead of the three tailed fox birthmark that she expected, she saw a two tailed purple fox instead. Hinata traced her fingers over the burning skin and snatched her fingers away when she felt an electric shock go through her body at the contact.
After another minute of staring at her birthmark, Hinata snorted slightly and looked back at her reflection, rolling her eyes in exasperation. "Oh, come on Hinata. Stop being so paranoid." She mumbled to herself as she left her bathroom and went to pick her clothes for the day.
Naruto leaned up against the log in training ground seven and looked at the sky, seemingly in deep thought, while waiting for Kiba, Hinata and Kakashi. They better hurry up… Naruto snorted in his head as he reflected on the past five months since the 'genin' exam.
The team had been slowly and surely bonding together and they had also been getting stronger thanks to their D-rank missions and all the training they were doing. However, Naruto wasn't satisfied with the missions that they were getting. He wanted a real mission, one that didn't include helping old grannies find their lost cats or working in some ones garden that needed weeding.
Naruto frowned slightly as he remembered their first mission. To rescue the Daimyos wife's cat Tiger. Lately they had to capture Tiger thirty times and he kept running away. Naruto had a sneaking suspicion that it was because he wanted Hinata to catch him.
Naruto smiled softly as he thought of Hinata. The little Hyuuga heiress had been slowly building her confidence thanks to her team mate's efforts. She barely stuttered around them anymore and she also won a few of her sparring matches against Naruto. Her chakra control was getting better and she had perfected her chakra trap to an extreme extent. Her Byakugan was slowly increasing in power as she concentrated on that and now she was able to see the most miniscule of details in her surroundings, no matter where she was.
Naruto then frowned as he remembered the conversation of the two Hyuuga's five months ago. I still don't get where they got the idea that Hinata was only half human. He thought. Hinata was an extremely warm person with a big heart and a strong spirit, even though she hid that well behind her shy exterior. Naruto was fascinated with Hinata's strength and was slowly but surely developing… feelings for her, feelings he only used to have for Sakura.
Naruto shrugged it off and went back to looking at the sky. He then sighed as he remembered the last few days. Lately Konohamaru, the Hokage's grandson, was… well… stalking Naruto. Seriously, the child was everywhere Naruto went, demanding that he teach him, or else. Naruto just laughed at the kid and told him to go away, but it was really starting to grate on his nerves. Naruto rubbed his temples. Maybe I should just teach him… then he'll have to leave me alone, right?
Naruto sighed and looked towards the entrance to the training grounds and shrugged. Might as well get some sleep while I'm waiting for them.
Naruto woke to hand gently shaking him out of his dream about Konohamaru clones… THOUSANDS of Konohamaru clones… were stealing ramen. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NOT THE RAMEN! YOU SHALL PAY!"
Hinata's eyes widened when she heard Naruto say that and burst out laughing. Naruto jumped and looked around the training ground trying to pin point the source of laughter. He looked beside him and saw Hinata laughing with tears in her eyes while holding onto her aching sides. Naruto looked confused and then sheepish when he realized he had said that out loud. Naruto rubbed the back of his head and chuckled, thoroughly embarrassed.
At that moment Kakashi and Kiba decided to walk into the training grounds and watched the laughing/crying Hyuuga heiress. Kakashi blinked slowly and turned to Naruto whose cheeks were flushed red and sighed, highly amused. Kiba continued staring at Hinata while listening to her bell like laughter, Akamaru barked in enjoyment at Hinata's laughter and Naruto's embarrassment.
When Hinata calmed down to soft giggles, Kakashi spoke up, still looking at Hinata. "We have another mission today team." He said, looking at Naruto and motioned for his team to follow him to the Hokage tower.
On the way to the Hokage tower, Naruto started talking to his team mates about the mission. "I hope it's a B-ranked mission, or even better an A-ranked! That would be so cool!"
"B-but Naruto-kun," Hinata said softly, still giggling slightly. "We're only genin. We'll m-most likely get a D-D-ranked or C-ranked m-missions. A-ranked and B-B-ranked are t-too dangerous." She said to prove her point.
Kiba nodded, agreeing with Hinata's point of observation. "Yeah Whisker-face! It's not like their gonna send us on a hunter Nin mission! We'd most likely die in the first minute!"
Naruto grumbled. "As long as we don't have to chase after that stupid cat again…" he said as he pouted cutely. "I still have scratch marks from last time!" He complained loudly.
His team chuckled lightly as they walked into the Hokage's office. The Hokage looked up from behind his most hated enemy, paperwork to greet the genin team in front of him. He grinned and pulled out a file. "Ohayo, Kakashi! This is the team missions for today. Lots and lots of D-ranked missions!" he said as he winked knowingly at Kakashi who grinned in response.
As expected, Naruto blew up. "WHAT? OH HELL NO! I AM NOT DOING ANOTHER D-RANKED MISSION! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF STUPID CATS THAT KEEP RUNNING AWAY FROM HOME AND OLD GRANNIES THAT CAN'T KEEP THEIR STUPID BACK YARDS CLEAN OF WEEDS! I WANNA REAL MISSION! GIVE ME ONE! DATTEBAYO!"
Every one looked at the fuming Kyuubi vessel, blinking a few times before they heard Sarutobi sigh. The old Hokage looked at the blonde genin standing in front of him with serious eyes, while he addressed Kakashi. "Well… I knew this was going to happen sooner or later so I guessed that I would need to keep a mission on the side for the day that you chose to take a C-ranked mission, so here it is. You have to escort a bridge builder to the Land of Water so that he can finish a bridge that he is building there. He paid for a C-rank mission and expects one of the best genin teams to escort him there. His name is Takashi (AN:SP?)."
Just at that moment a man in his sixties stumbled in carrying an empty Sake bottle and hiccupping loudly. He took a look at the genins and groaned slightly. "So this is what I get, huh? A freak with Whiskers, a kid with red tattoos, a puppy, a crazy idiot wearing a mask and a little girl with freaky purple eyes, great." He said sarcastically as he took another swig of his Sake and sauntered to the couch that was in the office.
Naruto's eyes darkened as he looked at his employer critically. "Oh great! We get a drunken grandpa who doesn't know how to respect Shinobi's properly and who complains too much." Naruto said just as sarcastically back at Takashi. Naruto turned to the Hokage while Takashi looked shocked at the boy with blonde hair. "When are we supposed to leave for the mission?"
Kakashi spoke up. "Naruto, we first have to ask the other two if they want to do this mission. You're not the only one on this team." Kakashi said calmly while turning to his two other students and raised his only eyebrow inquiringly.
Hinata poked her fingers together and blushed cutely while looking at every man in the room before stuttering out, "I w-w-would l-like to go o-on th-th-this m-mission, Kakashi-s-s-sensei."
Kakashi nodded and turned to Kiba expectantly. Kiba looked at Hinata and grinned. "Hell yeah! If Hinata's going, I'm going! Can't leave my girl to fend for herself, can I?" Akamaru barked in agreement and wagged his tail excitedly.
Kakashi turned back to the Hokage and shrugged. "It seems that we're going to do this mission." He stated simply and went back to his book.
The Hokage looked at the team and sighed tiredly, before smiling warmly and saying, "Be at the gate by 08:00 A.M. and do not be late."
With that said, team seven walked out of the Hokage's office and headed home to pack their stuff for their first C-rank mission, all of them thinking about the next day.
Me: HOLYO CRAPIO! LONGIO CHAPIO!
Kyuubi: *smiles and winks* Read and Review!