To Be Strong.

A Naruto fanfiction

Chapter 3 - Translation.

"N-no..." Hinata trembled as her instructor yelled, she didn't think she'd done anything bad... Maybe the scroll was something forbidden? She hoped not, she didn't want to have it taken away after having been, as far as she could tell, given it in thanks for helping a creature.

Yuuhi, fortunately, saw that she was frightening Hinata and took a deep, calming, breath. "Hinata, this scroll... This scroll is written in the old script, something that no scroll has been written in since the time of the first Hokage." The jounin instructor looked at Hinata and frowned. "Hinata... I want you to tell me why you, of all people, have a scroll that dates from before the first Hokage - or if it isn't that old, where you found someone who knows enough to write a scroll in this script."

"O-okay..." Hinata gulped once before reciting the events leading up to the scroll appearing before her. Her voice trembled, and many were the times that she had to top and take a few deep breaths before continuing.

It was odd, Yuuhi mused, that this girl who had, apparently, just neatly bound up a rather serious wound on a creature that could have easily seriously injured her was more afraid of being in trouble than she had been afraid of the creature. Just another little oddity in Hinata's personality she guessed.

"So... Are you sure it was from a mole?" She asked once Hinata had finished her tale. Hinata's nod disturbed Yuuhi slightly, the tale seemed odd, especially the mole. To her it sounded much like a summoned creature, but the only ninja she'd ever heard of that had been able to summon moles was dead. Come to think of it, that ninja had been one of the Hyuuga clan also, one of the earlier members - possibly the child of the clans founders.

Now, whilst Yuuhi recognised the old script when she saw it, she hadn't been particularly proficient in translating it. That was, really, more of Asuma's talent than hers.

"K-Kurenai-sensei?" Hinata asked as Yuuhi thought, "I... I'm not going to... to be in trouble am I?"

"Hm?" Yuuhi smiled reassuringly at the pale-eyed girl. "No, no trouble at all." Not yet at any rate. "I think it would be best if you left the scroll he-"

"No." Hinata was surprised at how strong the tone of her voice was when she cut off her sensei's remark. Likewise, Yuuhi was also surprised at how strong Hinata's voice was. Then again, she was much more surprised at the fact that Hinata had actually said 'no' in the first place.

"No? Why do you say no?" The question was simple, asked more out of surprise than any real irritation at being defied. Hinata looked down at her feet and poked her two index fingers together, a sure sign that she was nervous. Or embarrassed. Or scared. It was quite hard to tell how Hinata was feeling sometimes...

"It... It's my scroll." Hinata whispered, her voice barely audible, "It was given to me... I, I want to know what's on it..."

Normally, if she had to face someone who was acting against her like this, Yuuhi would be annoyed. If it were Kiba doing this, she'd have sent him out on some crazy punishment already. Hinata though... before the chuunin exam Hinata had never shown any backbone, and had always failed her team when it counted in the missions they had done.

Since the exam however, a lot had changed in the timid Hyuuga girl. For one thing she trained a lot more and a lot harder during their team training sessions. Heck, last session she'd actually hit Kiba! Hinata was slowly growing herself some courage, and Yuuhi really didn't have the heart to let this tiny act of courage be crushed for no real reason. Besides, it wasn't as if there were any rules against letting Hinata keep the scroll. In fact...

"Go see Asuma, I mean Sarutobi-sensei, about it, he was a specialist in other languages when he was younger." She blurted out, the girl deserved to have her reward for doing some good. Besides, following up on this would be a mission of her own, a little proving ground as it were.

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Hinata clutched the oversized scroll to her chest as she threaded her way through the afternoon crowds. All around here were people buying and selling, most of the people were ninja, but there were a fair amount of non- ninja around too. Though, the non-ninja were mostly those who operated the stalls and shops that people always seemed to need - like the tailors for instance.

Fortunately Hinata knew where she was headed, a small tea-room that had fitted itself in between two larger buildings some years ago. The place was a common haunt of old men who liked to play Go or Shogi and talk about how things were not as good as they were in the old days.

Of course, it was also the favourite place of entertainment for team ten's Shikamaru, who was often found playing - and beating - the other patrons in pretty much any game they called upon him to play.

The movement of the opening door caused the wind chimes mounted upon the ceiling of the room the sway and play silvery notes as Hinata entered. Glancing around she looked over and past the old men playing Go, past the two youngsters who were obviously trying to replicate the older men's game and past the man behind the counter. Finally she caught sight of Shikamaru and Asuma, sitting facing each other over a shogi board.

Hinata didn't have much knowledge of the game really, but she knew enough to tell that Shikamaru was easily winning the match. Sitting herself beside the board she smiled when both players glanced at her, she nodded towards the game - an indication that she would wait until they were finished.

The game was unfolding at a rapid pace as Shikamaru, quite lazily, surrounded Asuma's force and brought him to a point of surrender. Asuma had, it must be said, pulled off a few moves which had surprised Shikamaru and made him re-think his strategy but, for the most part, it was a horribly one-sided game.

Once the game had been decided, Asuma called up to have some tea brought to where they were seated. Oddly enough he even ordered a cup to Hinata as well.

"Th-thankyou..." Hinata mumbled as she accepted her tea and took a small sip. The taste was quite good, not perfect but still something that excited her sense of taste somewhat.

"Well," Began Asuma, "Why does young Hinata join us? Surely it couldn't be to watch me lose to Shikamaru yet again." He grinned at his own private little joke. In all truth he had been losing to Shikamaru all day so far, and he was glad of the chance to do something other than keep losing.

"Uhm..." Hinata stared at the floor and pushed her scroll forwards, "Ku- Kurenai-sensei said... she said you could translate this..." Shikamaru raised a questioning eyebrow at Hinata's reason. The scroll seemed very large, and he knew that normal jutsu techniques and information were rarely held on big scrolls such as this one. In fact, the bigger scrolls tended to be first-generation techniques, which were then copied onto smaller scrolls in order to be taught with more ease.

Asuma stared at the scroll for a moment, then pulled his cigarette out of his mouth with on hand and extinguished it in a little ash-tray next to the Shogi board. "May I?" he asked, then picking up the scroll when Hinata nodded.

"So..." Asked Shikamaru after a short while, having decided that Asuma would be looking at the scroll for some time. "Do you play?" He asked, gesturing towards the board. As Hinata shook her head to say no, he sighed and glanced around the room. Everyone, bar himself, was playing. Well, there was one thing he could do to relieve his boredom somewhat. "Want to learn?" He asked finally.

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Hinata really thought she was doing well. Granted, she was losing to Shikamaru, but then she had hardly played before and he was an expert. He had said, though, that she was doing exceptionally well for a beginner and had even offered to continue teacher her if she still wanted to learn.

Mostly Shikamaru had offered because, to be honest, he was finding all his usual opponents to be to easy and boring. The stimulation in teaching someone the game was better, and whilst it did require a little work on his part he thought it was a fair trade off in order to not have to listen to the whining of some of the older players when they lost.

Occasionally Asuma would look up from the scroll and point out a possible move for her to make, then he went back to reading and making little notes on a smaller scroll. Hinata had just managed to use one of her rook pieces to capture Shikamaru's silver general piece when Asuma proudly announced that he knew what the scroll was for.

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Authors notes - I'm evil I am Really evil =P making you wait for the next chapter before you find out what is on the scroll ^_^ hehehe...

*dances the 'I am so evil' dance*

Aaaanyway. Next chapter, I'll finally reveal what the scroll is for! I promise!

And to all those who reviewed this ficcie ^-^ ... THANKYOU!

- Lackey H, dreaming of Sakura in the spring.