Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, the manga or the anime.
Hmm, I owe you all an explanation.
I'M NOT DEAD! (thought I'd get that outta the way).
Just to make sure everyone knows, I do update whenever I can. Unfortunately circumstances have conspired in the last month to screw up all of my plans. And I mean all of them. I finished my second essay… a long time ago… Anyway, literally the day I finished it I got a phone call from my parents to say my uncle had passed away. I spent the next day at uni, sorting stuff out, and then I went straight home. I started this chapter a coupla weeks ago, after getting back, but I missed out on a week of revision due to… everything… and then I had three exams in four days... I now have about a week and a half until my next exam, so you all get this chapter. And hopefully another one or two. I'm sick of work. Plus, if I continue the way I'm going I'll approach a reasonable sleeping time from 'the other side' as it were. It's half seven in the morning…
Anyway, hope everyone understands.
Chapter 34: Meetings
After the initial elation at completing the second test, the three team mates had realised that they were still in a tower in the middle of the forest, and their only source of information had just left the room.
On finding the lazy Chuunin in question they had been directed to an underground passageway, leading them safely away from the test that still had a full day to run before its completion.
Of course, Naruto was still ebullient.
"Ha!"
"One more step towards Chuunin!" he enthused, grinning widely.
Next to him, Hinata smiled.
"I'm pleased too… but is he really as happy as he looks?" she asked herself worriedly, thinking of the state he had been in less than twenty four hours ago.
To be honest, she didn't know. Unfortunately, she doubted it.
On the far right of the group, Hanabi only dimly registered both the antics of the blue eyed blonde and her blushing sister. In the aftermath of the second test her thoughts had already returned to the experiences she had gained within the forest.
The brown haired girl found herself relieved as her sister's voice attracted her attention. She turned her head.
"Huh?" she asked, unable to conceal her distraction.
"Are you okay?" Hinata asked quietly, taking a moment with her sister as Naruto continued his loud contemplation over what was up next.
"Yeah" Hanabi confirmed, noting the look of worry in her kind sister's face. Hinata only nodded slowly in response as the three of them continued to travel down the dimly lit passageway.
"I shouldn't give her any more to worry about" Hanabi thought to herself, watching her sister's attention transfer back over to the blonde as he started to talk to her.
Carefully assembling a neutral expression, Hanabi focused ahead and tried to clear her mind. Focusing straight ahead, the brown haired girl spotted another stairwell leading down from the left and into the passageway. The loud blonde on the other side of her sister now completely ignored, the girl found herself focusing on the shadows that were falling across the way ahead.
"When we get back into the village, we've got to get some food!" Naruto continued, oblivious. Beside him, Hinata similarly found her concentration taken by the blue eyed gaze of the seemingly happy ninja.
"Not that those berries didn't help, but ramen is so much more-" Naruto paused mid-sentence to look at the indigo haired girl beside him.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"You're kinda walking a bit funny, are your feet okay?" he questioned.
Hinata nodded quickly.
"Mhmm, just a l-little sore" she lied, checking her step. The blonde looked unconvinced.
"You're sure?"
She gave him a reassuring smile.
"Ye-" Hinata began, her eyes fixed on Naruto's face.
"Look out!" Hanabi called out as she tugged her sister backwards by her sleeve, just barely allowing her sister to avoid the person who had stepped out in front of her.
"Watch where you're going" the figure snapped at the surprised lavender eyed girl.
"Hey! You're the one who stepped out!" Naruto protested, striding up to the frowning girl.
The newcomer was quite a bit shorter than him, Hanabi noticed. The hard green eyes were slowly moving from her sister's face and onto her new blonde target, though one of those orbs was slightly hidden behind part of her auburn hair. Despite the heat, which pervaded the underground passageway due to the torches lining the walls, she was wearing a heavy trench coat which reached her knees in addition to, the brown haired girl assumed, everything else underneath. The pants went beyond the hem of the trench coat and all the way down to her feet which themselves were covered in another sort of heavy footwear. The entire outfit was a copper colour, save for a single silver stripe that ran diagonally across both the coat and the pants. The effect was that the only parts of her body that were actually visible were the head and the hands.
And it was this girl that had now rounded on the male member of the team.
It was quite a shock then, to see the look on her face shift within seconds, first to a look of horror, and then slowly to one of incredible rage.
"You're dead…" the green eyed girl whispered slowly, her gaze exuding barely suppressed killing intent towards the blonde in front of her.
"What!?" Naruto exclaimed, a grimace appearing on his face as he stepped back slightly and raised his fists.
Beside Naruto, Hinata looked between the two opposed ninja and wondered what had set the girl off. The blue eyes of the blonde she so admired had hardened, but they were nothing compared to the coldness that the green eyed gaze returned.
"So much hatred…why?" Hinata asked herself, suddenly feeling cold despite the heat of the passageway.
Beside her sister, Hanabi had already activated her Byakugan and the white eyed girl was shocked by what she saw.
"Chakra is seeping into the walls, the ceiling…and the floor…" she realised, watching as more energy bled from the newly arrived girl and into the rock.
"Who are you? Are you threatening me?" Naruto questioned forcefully, his eyes narrowing dangerously.
But the girl seemed not to hear him, choosing only to continue her unblinking stare.
"This is one of the three Shikamaru warned us about" Hinata and Naruto thought together. Though exactly why she had reacted this way neither of them knew.
Meanwhile, Eri found herself unable to shake from her mind the similarities between her village's most hated enemy, and the boy before her.
"He's dead… he is dead…so whoisthis!?" she practically screamed within her own head, the image of a face engraved on a mountain flashing over and over within her rage filled mind.
"The chakra is flaring!" Hanabi gasped out loud at the thought.
"Eri!" a voice shouted out, and before Hanabi's eyes the chakra that had built up dissipated instantly.
The killing intent coming from the girl opposite Naruto only abated a little however, and it was not until what seemed like a carbon copy of the angry girl came to her side that her gaze shifted from the face of the blonde haired and blue eyed ninja.
"What were you doing? What were you doing?" Mihoto asked frenziedly, looking into her twin's eyes desperately.
Eri's gaze was back on Naruto, but this time it was more of a deadened, sullen look than a one of hatred. Somewhere though, all three members of the team from Konoha could all still feel something under the surface in her eyes.
Mihoto followed the line of sight of her sister.
"…!" she managed, barely stifling the gasp that had threatened to escape her mouth.
"He looks so much like…" Mihoto paused in thought and looked back at her twin.
"We can't stick around here…" she told herself, instantly realising the source of her sister's rage.
"Hey! What's going on?" a voice called from the stairwell. The question was followed a moment later by a long shadow, and then one of the tallest people Hanabi had ever seen.
"Nothing! We're just going!" Mihoto replied quickly, her voice pitched higher than usual as she took her sister by the arm and carefully, but firmly, pulled her away.
"Doesn't look like nothing-" Sho began, before his concerned gaze caught the look in the eyes of each twin as they passed.
For the third time, Naruto had a feeling of incredible pressure as now a set of brown eyes bored into his own. The split second look of surprise mirrored the first two looks he had received, but the blonde haired ninja found himself almost being scanned for something by the eyes of the newest newcomer. When his eyes finally moved away, Naruto found himself inexplicably relieved.
Looking quickly between the two other team mates, Sho then nodded politely to the three of them. And disappeared.
There was a few seconds silence as the three Konoha ninja digested the events that had just passed. Both Hinata and Hanabi breathed a small sigh of relief, while Naruto slowly lowered his fists.
"That was Shunshin no Jutsu right?" Hanabi asked herself, finally deactivating her doujutsu.
"What the hell was that about?!" Naruto shouted, the pent up tension releasing itself as he vented his frustration. Hinata only looked up the passageway.
The two girls had disappeared as well. Unfortunately, Naruto noticed this as well.
"Argh! Get back here!" he shouted, taking off at a sprint down the deserted corridor.
"Naruto-kun, wait!" Hinata called after him, taking off in pursuit. Frowning slightly, Hanabi followed silently behind.
"He really has improved" Hinata thought to herself as she watched Naruto speed ahead. Adding extra bursts of chakra to her strides, the indigo haired girl closed the distance slightly but an insistent and growing pain in her feet was, to her annoyance, slowing her down.
It was not until they reached the exit of the tunnel that the angry boy finally stopped, the bright sunshine the polar opposite of the blonde's mood.
"Gah! She got away!" he complained, scanning the area around the stairs with a frown.
"Can you believe that? Threatening me when I don't even know her?!" he turned to the slightly out of breath Hinata, who had finally caught up.
"Naruto-kun-" she tried, but she was cut off by the irate blonde.
"When I find her…" he started darkly, before actually taking in the indigo haired girl's arrival.
"Wait, Hinata… Hinata! Your feet!" he pointed behind the lavender eyed girl.
Slowly turning around, Hinata found herself looking at a number of reddish-brown marks on the stairs and the earth leading away from them. It took a moment for the surprised lavender eyed girl to realise that the footprints were in fact made by her own blood.
"Maybe I should have paid more attention to the pain in my feet…and not run" she thought, a sudden feeling of light headedness striking her.
"We need to get you to the hospital" Hinata heard Naruto say, though it sounded as if he was saying it from a long way off.
"The effects of the soldier pill wearing off? Blood loss?" she asked herself, raising a hand to her head and stepping forward.
"Whoa Hinata, I think you need some help!" Naruto exclaimed, catching the staggering girl and lifting the indigo haired girl to her feet.
Unfortunately, this didn't help her maintain what little of her consciousness was left, and the lavender eyed girl found her face heating up in the manner it always seemed to when he got this close. A higher pitched voice spoke up next to her but the words were lost as she finally fainted, the triple combination proving too much for the poor girl.
"She really can't spare the blood to her face…" Hanabi repeated a little more quietly, as Naruto hoisted the limp girl into his arms, one under the knee and the other firmly beneath her back.
XXXXXXXXXX
"What were you thinking? What were you doing?" Mihoto raged, pacing the small apartment in a frenzy of worried activity. Her sister merely scowled where she sat.
"It's amazing; at times like these you really can tell that they're twins. This is normally Eri's territory" Sho told himself.
Though he couldn't see the two girls, he could still hear them. A few minutes ago he had been told by Mihoto to leave the room until they had sorted everything out, and she had waited until he was safely out on the street before starting.
However perhaps amidst the rage, it seemed that she had forgotten that he could pass through walls.
"Technically, I'm not lying" he told himself.
"I'm in a bedroom, not that room" he reasoned, as the silence was broken again by another barrage of questions.
"You were going to attack him weren't you? You were going to kill him?" the angry twin paused for a second.
No answer.
"And why? Because the guy has a passing resemblance to him? He's dead. Gone"
"And so is our entire family" Eri spat.
"And so you would kill anyone who looks remotely like him?" Mihoto countered.
There was a few moments silence.
"I think coming here was a mistake. If you're going to act like this… You're changing… or you've changed since we got here" Mihoto's voice dropped, her anger fading away to a mixture of sadness and hurt.
"I haven't changed" Eri retorted.
Mihoto regarded her sister with a sad look.
"That's what I'm most worried about, I guess…" she admitted quietly, her eyes downcast. She took a deep breath.
"I'm sorry, I'm not going to help" she stated levelly. Eri looked up.
"You promised" she said darkly. Mihoto nodded slowly.
"I know I did. But when I think of what our parents would think of it-"
"We don't know what they would think! We don't know them, and we never will! And he's the reason why!" Eri was on her feet now, staring into her sister's dejected face.
"Yes but… I don't think they would want us to do this. We shouldn't throw away the lives we have…" Mihoto trailed off.
"He's the reason you're the way you are!" Eri shouted, before she could stop herself.
The temperature in the room dropped several degrees.
"Wait, that's not what I-" Eri started, but was cut off.
"No. You're right, he's the reason I'm the way I am" Mihoto repeated coldly, the pain visible in her eyes.
"Mi-chan-"
"Don't" Mihoto snapped, heading for the door.
"I'm going out. Don't follow me. Either of you" she stated, before the door closed behind her.
"Crap" the two remaining people in the apartment thought as one.
XXXXXXXXXX
"She'll be fine" Ino reassured the two of them.
"She's just a little tired on top of her injuries. Let her have some rest"
"I'm sure your presence didn't help either" Ino added to herself, playing through the earlier scene in her imagination.
"Thanks Ino. When she wakes up, tell her not to forget tomorrow!" said Naruto.
Ino's eyes narrowed slyly.
"What? You two going out or something?" she asked. The blue eyed boy stiffened slightly.
"No! We're friends… and team mates" he retorted. He looked down at the sleeping girl.
"Let's go" he said awkwardly to the younger Hyuuga, and both of the conscious girls thought they could see a tinge of pink on the boys face.
"She's a little young for you isn't she?" Ino quipped, unable to resist another jab at the now embarrassed spiky haired blonde.
"Shut up!" Naruto complained, storming out the door followed by a half amused and half embarrassed Hanabi.
XXXXXXXXXX
Out in the bright sunshine, the streets of Konoha were as busy as ever. The short girl and the older blonde were walking down the main road away from the hospital.
It seemed to the blonde that Hanabi was still embarrassed by Ino's joke. He smiled.
"Don't worry about Ino, I ignore a lot of what she says"
His thoughts turned back to the days of Sasuke obsession and his grin widened slightly.
"She's a crazy girl" he explained. Hanabi nodded, seemingly accepting this.
"She really is sheltered. That was obviously a joke and she took it a little too seriously" Naruto thought to himself, an idea solidifying in his mind.
"I have to go this way to get home" the small brown haired girl stated, pointing down a side street and breaking into Naruto's thoughts.
"Actually, there's a couple of people I'd like you to meet. Actually, one in particular. I'm kinda his idol" the blonde revealed proudly.
"You're his idol?"
"Yeah, cool huh?" Naruto confirmed, missing the tone of the small girls voice.
"Now just to find him" Naruto muttered as he set off down the street, Hanabi following behind.
"Though he usually-"
"Naruto-nii-san!" a voice called out.
"-finds me" the blue eyed boy finished with a smile, turning around.
"Hey Konohamaru, where's the rest of the team? You running from the closet pervert again? Oh, that reminds me!" Naruto's face lit up.
Hanabi found herself reduced to looking between the two males, waiting to be introduced. To her surprise, the newcomer did look slightly familiar.
"What?" Konohamaru questioned, growing excited at the blonde's excitement.
"The closet pervert was our first examiner! And he came up with a really evil test" he lowered his voice conspiratorially and shifted his eyes about. The younger boy did the same.
Hanabi found herself blinking owlishly at their antics.
"But I got him back" Naruto 'confided', winking. Konohamaru grinned.
"With 'that'?" he questioned eagerly.
"Yeah!"
"Naruto-nii-san, you rock!" the brown haired boy laughed.
"Is this how they always act?" Hanabi asked herself.
In an attempt to move the conversation along, Hanabi coughed, bringing the two grinning boys back down to earth. Naruto scratched the back of his head.
"Oh yeah, sorry. Konohamaru, this is Hanabi. I thought it'd be a good idea to introduce you two" he explained.
Konohamaru looked suspicious.
"Why?" he paused, then reached a conclusion. A wrong one.
"Your girlfriend? She's a bit young for you isn't she?" the bescarfed boy looked at her critically.
"Argh! People have got to stop saying that! She's my friend! Well-" he turned to the girl in question.
"If that's okay with you?" he asked. Hanabi nodded.
"Y-Yes" she managed.
"Wait, I'm talking like nee-chan!" she thought with a jolt.
"I mean: Yes, that's okay" Hanabi corrected herself. Naruto smiled.
"Great. Hanabi, this is Konohamaru" he introduced.
"I know" Hanabi stated.
Naruto raised a hand to the back of his head again.
"Yeah, I guess you heard…" he conceded. But Hanabi shook her head.
"No, I've met him before" she explained.
"You have?" the blonde turned to Konohamaru.
"I have?" the brown haired boy asked, his voice just as incredulous.
"You're the Third Hokage's grandson, right?" she asked levelly.
Konohamaru's eyes narrowed.
"So what if I am?"
"We were introduced while my father was meeting the Third. You were thrown out for trying to attack him"
There was a pause, and the Hyuuga girl looked expectantly at the boy in front of her.
"Yeah, that sounds about right" he admitted sheepishly, raising an arm behind his head mirroring the blonde next to him. Hanabi looked between them.
Both shinobi dropped their arms as soon as they realised.
"So anyway, what are you two doing together anyway?" Konohamaru wondered aloud.
"Remember the problem I had? Well, Hinata-" Naruto began, but the bescarfed boy in front of him was already connecting the dots. His eyes widened.
"Wait. She's the other member of the team who's taking the Chuunin exams?" he shouted, pointing at the small girl.
"Yes, why?" she inquired, frowning slightly at the fact she was being referred to as if she weren't there.
"She's tiny, how old is she?"
"I'm ten"
"Exactly! I'm two years older than her! I knew I should have been allowed to do it!" the brown haired boy complained to the spiky haired blonde, finger still pointing accusingly at the girl.
"How could you give my place to her? I could easily take her" the outraged boy protested.
"I doubt that" Hanabi countered.
"You wanna fight?" the irate boy asked, finally turning back to the girl in question.
"Not really"
"Scared?"
"No"
"This isn't what I had in mind…" Naruto found himself thinking awkwardly, about to step in.
But at that moment a figure in a copper coloured outfit flashed across the street ahead. And the fresh memory of a set of cold green eyes sat up again in his mind.
"You sound scared to me, don't you think Naru-" he turned.
"-to…" he finished, addressing thin air.
"He went that way" Hanabi informed him, nodding in the direction the blonde had just taken off.
The boy looked flustered for a moment, before he found his footing again and scowled.
"Don't change the subject! Are you gonna fight or not?" he demanded, pointing his fist at her.
The Hyuuga girl regarded him for a moment.
"Fine" she agreed, throwing her long brown hair behind her and activating her Byakugan as she did so.
"Heh. Takes more than that to scare me" Konohamaru grinned.
Hanabi raised her eyebrows slightly.
"Then lead the way" she stated simply.
XXXXXXXXXX
"Where did she go?" Naruto asked himself, leaping from rooftop to rooftop in an attempt to get an aerial view of the streets below.
He had lost sight of her for now, but despite the throng that accompanied the end of the day's trading Naruto knew he had a few advantages.
The first was that the person he was pursuing was wearing clothes that not only stood out from the crowd but was also a massive disadvantage in the late afternoon heat.
"There!" he exclaimed inwardly, spying the long coat slipping past a small group and down another street.
The second advantage, he told himself triumphantly, was that he knew Konoha far better than some foreign ninja.
"And I can do this" he said to himself, leaping between two buildings and considerably cutting the distance between him and his target.
"Looks like she's going in the direction of one of the training grounds" Naruto realised, slowing down slightly as they left the built up area of town. He knew it would be easier to be noticed from here on out. Plus she seemed to be slowing down too.
The next hour or two involved schlepping from building to building, and then eventually from tree to tree in pursuit until finally the girl stopped at a clearing, and then sat down at the base of a tree.
"Now what?" Naruto wondered from his position behind another tree a little way off. Should he leap out and demand an explanation for earlier, or try to approach cautiously? In truth, he had to admit he hadn't put much thought into what would happen after he caught up.
"Why did you follow me?"
"Ahh!" Naruto yelped, falling over in surprise. He quickly righted himself and pointed accusingly at the girl now looking at him.
""What the hell is with you?!" he cried out.
"You threaten me, glare at me, then disappear without a word!" he stepped forward, towards the sitting girl, his blue eyes ablaze.
He faltered slightly at the sudden warm smile.
"You've got the wrong sister" she apologised.
"Oh…" was all Naruto could manage, caught completely off balance by the physical similarity between the two girls, and their seemingly polar opposite personalities.
There was a long silence, which got more and more awkward for the blonde as it went on. Oddly enough though, it was the green eyed girl that broke it.
"You do look very similar to him though…" she said quietly, almost to herself.
"To who?" he enquired.
The auburn haired girl looked up, almost as if she had forgotten he was there.
"Huh? Oh, you don't know? His face is engraved on your mountain" she tried.
Naruto looked blankly at the girl.
"Your Fourth Hokage…?" she tried again. To her surprise the blonde's face lit up.
"Really!? That's great!" he exclaimed. The girl looked at him oddly.
"Is it?" she asked.
Now it was Naruto's turn to look at the girl oddly.
"Of course! He was an awesome ninja! When I become Hokage I want to be just like him!" he announced.
The girl seemed to consider this.
"It's the reason she threatened you" she revealed, her voice still quiet.
Naruto blinked.
"What? Why?" he asked.
The girl's hand reached towards a less worn rectangular spot on the chest area of her coat. Finding nothing she paused slightly, withdrew an arm from a sleeve and then began to rummage inside the heavy coat. Naruto looked on bemusedly.
"Here" she stated simply, giving the blonde a silver forehead protector. He examined the symbol inscribed on the metal plate.
"Rock village? So?" he handed it back.
He got another funny look from the girl.
"You're not very good at history are you?" she stated simply.
"Hey!" he complained.
"Sorry. But history isn't your strong suit right?" she guessed.
The blue eyed boy looked uncomfortable.
"I guess…" he admitted begrudgingly.
"Still, I'm surprised you don't know about the history between the Rock village and the Leaf village" she said, again seeming to talk to herself.
"Everyone in our village knows about the Fourth Hokage…" she said, her words seemingly directed towards the sky.
"Really?! An entire foreign village knows about him?! That's awesome" Naruto enthused, impressed.
The girl gave a wan smile.
"It's probably because he killed hundreds of Rock ninja, including both mine and my sister's entire family, save the two who eventually became our parents of course" she said quietly.
"Though they're gone now as well…" she continued sadly.
Her gaze dropped from the sky and into the shocked eyes of the blonde before her.
"You asked why" she stated simply, getting to her feet slowly.
"But…" Naruto managed to speak.
"He's your idol right? And you love this village?" she asked.
Naruto only nodded dumbly.
"That's fine. It was a war, and he was probably a great man in your village. But we won't ever see him, or this place, like you do. And that's one of the reasons she feels and acts the way she does, even if I don't like it"
Stood up, the girl barely came up to his chin, so she had to look up through a lock of hair to see his expression.
It wasn't until she began to walk away that Naruto finally found himself able to speak.
"Wait!" he called out.
The girl turned around.
"You don't hate us. Why?" he asked desperately. The auburn haired girl cocked her head slightly.
"Don't I?" she asked, a small smile on her lips. Her expression turned more serious again.
"No, you're right. I guess I had other problems…" she told the blonde. She seemed to think for a moment.
"Tell me, it's your dream to be Hokage right?" she enquired.
"Yeah…" Naruto answered; his mouth now a little dry. The girl smiled.
"I had a dream once…" she revealed, turning back around.
"Trust me, things look a lot different once you've reached it" she called behind her.
XXXXXXXXXX
I was considering continuing a little bit longer, but that seemed the perfect way to end it.
Y'know originally this chapter was gonna be all fluffy cos of my slight depression due to…events. But now because I'm feeling okay, it's kinda got a little angsty… Go figure. Nevermind, the fluff idea is still there, it's just a case of where to fit it in. I'm not one hundred percent sure what I'm gonna do with Hanabi and Konohamaru (I do have a general idea…) so ideas/thoughts are welcome as always.
Next chapter: We're FINALLY gonna find out what's happened to Kiba and Akamaru. Among other things.
Look forward to that.
Questions are welcome. I might even reply to all those reviews, FINALLY. (again).
If you feel you can't wait, then occupy your meantime with a recently finished fic called L:O:V:E, by the Dreamers of Dreams. I contributed to the very end (just a humory bit, the main story itself is pure untainted gold. Trust me).
Once again, I apologise for the wait. I feel awful for making people wait A WHOLE MONTH… that's shocking…
Anyway, I must sleep. It seems when I'm tired I tend to overcapitalise words. Like FINALLY.
Have a good one.
Later.