I don't own She-Ra or Naruto. Still, I must do what I do.
Wisdom of a Dark Sage...Within a Hyuga's Heart!
"Try it again. This time don't flatten your feet so much."
An Adora that was barely six years old charged the training dummy yet again. And tripped on her approach leading her face to become intimate with the floor.
Hinata scratched her face in sympathetic embarrassment. "How about we take a little snack break?"
"Kay…" the tyke replied as she got up sulkily.
"Your making good progress," the Hyuga commended as she finished buttering a roll for Adora and handed it to her. "In light of some setbacks, I see myChief lieutenant wasn't embellishing."
"I guess," Adora muttered into her roll. The droop of her shoulder's said that she feel so smart right now.
Hinata frowned,"It's either the truth or it's not. There's no guesswork involved."
"Yummy," the youngling replied, as though she hadn't heard her. "Taste like honey!"
She was referring to the butter, no doubt. You should have seen what Hordak thought passed as food. She had to make it explicitly clear to Shadow Weaver and every member of the staff it concerned than whatever the brick of mush was, it wasn't food and barely counted as nutrients. Setting up the proper greenhouse systems and finding sources of protein was a monumental hurdle in and of itself.
Anyway…
"Adora, if you want to be all you can be, there's no room for doubt. Even you have to be met with resistance every now and then. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you, it just means the situation calls for a different approach."
If she didn't think Adora wasn't special in some way she wouldn't have insisted with one-on-one lessons to begin with. Sure, none of these people, cadets or elites, were going to master Ninjustu or Genjustu anytime soon. At least not without years of training that just wouldn't be practical at the moment. Their general disbursement of Chakra (or mana as they called it here) was just too clumsy. They'd grown accustomed to using that power in a different way.
While Justu had the user summon power from the depths of their own spirit and make it collide with the energy of the physical body, magic pulled power from outer forces, channeled it with their inner selves and then release their network had attuned to the method of pull-mix-release instead of push-mix release.
Still, Tai Jutsu would require least complicated workarounds. And general fighting styles were easier to teach still. So she decided she'd fill out Adora's repertoire a bit, and teach different ways to navigate hand to hand combat. She could teach one person little by little better than if she tried to teach everyone at once.
The small blonde looked down at her feet that were dangling off her set, suddenly ashamed. "Yes ma'am. Sorry ma'am."
"No sorry," Hinata rebuked as she stood up and stretched. "I probably should have tried teaching you different tactics as soon as I saw that these ones weren't working." She looked at the still-pouting child with a giggle. "Plus I think I understand what type of fighter you are now. So how would you like to learn to fight like a man-beast?"
Young blue eyes grew three sizes that day, "Would I!?" Adora nearly screamed.
...
"Ma'am?"
Catra's confused expression said that Hinata had been staring at the training dummy longer than she thought.
"...Just reminiscing. Let's get started."
...
If Adora's Punching bag could talk, it would be begging for mercy. She wasn't mad at it; it was a good bag that Glimmer had been generous enough to donate to her. Adora was definitely fond of the Pinked haired Princess, but she had her rough edges. Adora had cut herself on one a couple days ago.
She'd made some off-color comment about the Hyuga's leader.
"Don't talk about Lady Hinata like that!"
"You saw what the Hyuga were trying to do to Plumeria! How can you still stand up for their leader?"
"You don't know her. I'll believe that Shadow Weaver knowingly manipulated us in a heartbeat. But you don't know Hinata. From what I know, she's never went on missions because she was doing things to keep the compound running, so Shadow Weaver could have told her anything. She couldn't have known what's really going on. She wants what's best for all people."
"...For your sake, I want you to be right Adora. But I just can't ignore what I've seen up until now. When this is over they're gonna have to pay one way or another."
Adora's flash-step forward elbow sent the bag flying into the wall where it made a nice, fat web of cracks in the masonry.
Great that was just what the blonde needed. For things to fall apart even more.
She let herself fall back against her bed. Catra...Hinata…
How was she gonna convince the Rebellion not to execute them if and when they were captured? They weren't bad people. Wires had gotten crossed somewhere along the way. It was far too late to prevent what things had come to. Yet there still had to be a way to fix this. There was always a way to fix anything.
Adora looked to the damage she'd accidently caused. It was hard to deny how huge that crater in the wall was.
"Shit…"
...
She breathed in, she breathed out.
She breathed in, she breathed out.
She sneezed a tiny sneeze and used her tail to wipe her nose.
She scratched her ass a little bit.
Hinata cracked open a single eye, "-This isn't working for you is it?"
"Nah," Catra groused as she completely gave up on the lotus position.
"I already told you, but I'll explain it one more time. In order to teach you the technique I have in mind for you, you need control over how your energy flows. The best way to go about it is to find a means of concentration. But I guess we scratch conventional meditation of the list." Hinata pushed lifted herself up from the floor and Catra followed suit, expecting to be lectured because what else was new.
The Head Hyuga exhaled. They'd been at this for the better part of a week and were getting nowhere. "As much as I hate to ask," Hinata frowned vehemently, "What does Shadow Weaver do to push you past a particular difficult area of training?"
Catra couldn't help that tail lashed or that her fist clenched, it just happened. Oddly enough, Shadow Weaver had been the furthest thing from her mind this entire time. The demi-shadow being had been seeing to instructing her personally this whole time. "She reminds me of what happens to useless soldiers on the battlefield."
"Does she, now?" Hinata's eyes narrowed. That was certainly news to her. And to think she trusted the witch to oversee the training of the cadets while she undertook her own trials. Her Byakugan was threatening to trigger on its own again. Her eyes closed fully for a moment while she inhaled. When they opened again, they were packed full of intrigue. "Let me ask you this: what's the one thing that manages to drown out any doubts you might have?"
The Magicat felt her own ears droop and she hated it, "Adora. Until recently." She couldn't help but jump in her own skin when a warm hand gently gripped her own.
"This war has complicated things and for that I'm sorry. But your history with her doesn't mean nothing. Try to remember how she made you feel before her betrayal. Try to focusing on bringing that Adora back." The blonde's name hadn't actually come up in this entire duration and it was likely both of them contributed to that. But they wouldn't get anywhere by not facing the present reality.
Mismatched eyes couldn't help but notice the woman's face. For all its twisted deformity, it had a genuinely overwhelming softness to it. "Is that what you do?" Her voice was barely audible
Hinata's smile was so painfully real."I couldn't help it if I tried."
Catra closed her eyes and envisioned a tiny blonde girl with a missing front tooth. And a stupid, happy go lucky smile under that one dumb tuff of hair with a single lock out of place. Most of all, she imagined one moment she didn't think she could forget as long as she lived.
"We're all Hyuga. I'll always remember that at the end of the day when nobody else does. Especially when it comes to you. Even if that were to change I would still have your back no matter what. We'll always belong at each other's side."
When the catgirl opened her eyes again, she felt something moving differently inside her. As if something were being set free after years of lying dormant. It was a nice floating feeling that tingled in all parts of her body. "I think I'm ready to try that meditation thing again…"
"Great, but first go to the infirmary so you can be checked for worms."
"It was one itch!"
"It was seven itches and that's just counting today! I heard all of them."
"Aawww…"
