Ok, this is the final chapter... Thank you to everyone who reviewed,
especially Wormkaizer who reviewed every chapter! Even though people seemed
to be in favor of Naruto and Hinata this ended up going the other way... so I
feel apologetic... I hadn't planned the ending in advance but since I am
always rooting for Hinata to stick up for herself, when I finally arrived
there this felt most natural to me.
Chapter 5 – Wherein Naruto suggests the Hyuuga-Uchiha death match and Uchiha and Hyuuga Fight (Not to the Death)
Hinata had become a medical shinobi after the time that her father changed his legal heir from herself to Hanabi, her younger sister. The change agreed with her. She enjoyed the quiet work of making medicines from herbs and minerals, and she liked being able to ease the pain of people who came to her with all kinds of illnesses and injuries. Most of all, becoming a medical-nin had given her a sense of usefulness and purpose that she had lacked when younger.
She was very surprised to find Uchiha Sasuke at the door of the clinic where she worked, since his last comment to her had been something about her being on her own. She wondered for a moment if he might be ill, but he leaned against the doorframe and waited for her as she finished her tidying-up.
"Do you know any reason?" He said, "Why Kakashi-sensei might think that we are dating?"
"No," she said. "How could he?" There really wasn't any reason to think it – the two of them hadn't spent much more time together than usual, and very little of it had been alone. Even if someone did happen to seem the two of them together, there was nothing about their behavior that would give the wrong impression.
"Huh." Sasuke grimaced. "And yet, today he made it sound like the rumor was circulating everywhere."
"Oh," Hinata said. "Um... do you think that maybe..."
He looked at her.
"Could that have been why Naruto-kun got the wrong impression?"
"Yeah," Sasuke said slowly, "maybe."
Before they had a chance to work this out they heard someone coming toward the clinic.
"Naruto!" Hinata exclaimed. The blond haired boy looked as though he had been running hard to get there. When he saw that Hinata and Sasuke were together, he drew in his breath sharply and pointed and angry finger.
"If you two are really in love!" He said, "Fight and prove it!"
"Fight?" Hinata said, in disbelief.
"Yeah. A week from today, at sunset, in the forest behind the academy. I'll be waiting." His nerves failed him and he left, slamming the door behind him.
"Was he talking to me, or you?" Hinata asked, wonderingly.
"He was talking to both of us," Sasuke said. "Whoever wins, gets Naruto. Right?" He looked at her challengingly.
"Are you going to give up?"
Hinata's hands were shaking. How could Naruto-kun do this to her? Asking her to face Sasuke in a fight was liking having to face Neji in the chuunin exams all over again, only a hundred times worse. There was no way for her to win- Naruto must know that. And yet, he was asking her to fight anyway – clearly, she thought, he loved Sasuke and wanted her to lose.
Even as her spirits fell, she thought of all the times when Naruto himself had fought against insurmountably odds. Maybe, she thought, maybe he is doing this for a reason. Maybe he wants me to show how serious I am.
"No," she said. Her voice was low but steady. "I won't give up."
Sasuke was in a good mood. Naruto could have placed him and Hinata in any kind of a contest, but a physical match was clearly in Sasuke's favor.
He wants me to win, Sasuke thought – but then, why the match at all? Something to do with Naruto's psychology, he thought. Maybe Naruto needed time to come to terms with a homosexual relationship, and maybe somehow making this a contest between Hinata and Sasuke let him do that. It really didn't matter, Sasuke was happy to oblige. The only problem was, how to defeat a five-foot one, ninety-four pound girl without looking like a completely terribly person.
"Pervert-Sennin... oi! Pervert-sennin!"
It was not the most pleasant way to be woken up in the morning –even if it was no longer morning, and you were actually being woken up from a beating-induced blackout rather than a peaceful night sleep.
In other words: Jiraya had been caught outside the woman's bath – again – and the young ladies who found him there had beaten him within an inch of his life.
Then he got to wake up to the whiskered face of Naruto, two inches in front of him.
"What... in the world... is it?" He tried to yell, but his throat was dry and it came out in a cracked whisper instead.
"Pervert-sennin.... I need you to help train me!"
"Train you? What?"
"I have a very important match."
Jiraya rubbed his head. "Against who?" He asked finally.
"Hyuuga Hinata."
"Hyuuga... Hinata?" Jiraya tried to think. The small, angry, powerful girl who had threatened to put his eyes out after she caught him... no, wait, that was the younger Hyuuga, Hanabi. Her sister Hinata was older, and Jiraya realized that he didn't know much about her."
"Is she strong?" he asked sleepily.
"No," Naruto wailed, "That's the problem."
Jiraya's back cracked as he sat up. "Why is that a problem?"
"Because Konohamaru said... so, I wasn't thinking, and I challenged her to a fight. And it's actually a really, truly, horrible idea, because even though she's a Hyuuga she's not that strong and if I fight a girl like that then I'm going to look like a horrible person and then Sasuke will never want to go out with me."
Jiraya thought he might have misheard the last part, but when Naruto repeated everything more slowly to him he realized that in fact he had got it right.
"Call off the fight," he said.
"I can't do that now. Come on, teach me some kind of... ummm... put people to sleep quickly with no pain technique."
"Maboroshi-no-jutsu."
"That a Hyuuga isn't going to be able to see through."
Jiraya paused for a moment. "That might be harder." He said, finally.
Hinata took the week off from the clinic. Her first thought was to ask Hanabi for help, but since her sister was out on a mission, she turned to Neji instead.
"You want to do what?" he asked her.
"Umm... help me defeat... Uchiha Sasuke." Her voiced tricked off to a whisper by the end.
"You're wasting my time." He said flatly.
"Yes... I know... but, cousin Neji, I have to try."
The morning of the match dawned bright and clear, but by sunset the sky had turned dark and it was threatening to rain. Nevertheless various townspeople, informed of the match mostly through Jiraya, brought blankets and umbrellas into the forest, lining up around the small clearing where Hinata and Sasuke waited, refusing to look at each other.
The sun had not quite set, and Naruto was nowhere to be seen, but the jeers of the townspeople were starting to get to both of them. Several times various classmates had come out and told them to stop being ridiculous – the last being Shikamaru – and even Sasuke was starting to look a little on edge.
"Let's just do this," he said, through gritted teeth, and Hinata agreed.
She and Neji had put all their energy into one potential attack which they thought Hinata might – might- be able to use on the Uchiha if- if – there was a lucky opening. Much against his better judgment, Neji had promised to try and provide this opening, by throwing a couple of kunai in from the sidelines. All this was really likely to do was get him in trouble with Uchiha later, but he figured that it was the least he could do for his cousin.
The rain broke with a loud clap of thunder as both rushed against each other. Hinata could tell- even as she feinted and dodged – that Sasuke wasn't really moving at more than half his usual speed, and that most of his attacks weren't even intended to really hit. Fine, she thought, so he's trying to go easy on me. At least that gave her the opening.
He threw one sudden punch at high speed that she recognized as being aimed to knock her out – by the time she noticed it she was only about to shift slightly, and it connected just below her collarbone. The crowd booed.
"What are you guys doing?" Came a shocked voice from the sidelines. They both looked up as Naruto, soaked with rain, came to stand in front of them.
"Naruto-kun?" Hinata said, a little uncertainly.
"Dobe," Sasuke said. "This is all your fault. Why are all these people here?"
Naruto looked confused. "I don't know. I didn't tell them."
"This is humiliating."
"Anyway," Naruto asked. "Why are you fighting?"
"You said," Sasuke muttered, trying to speak softly enough that the crowd could not here them, "That you would go out with whoever won."
"I said," Naruto interrupted, "That I like you, and that I'd fight Hinata to go out with you."
Hinata heard both of them with no emotion at all, as if she'd stepped outside of her own body. So it was true – Sasuke liked Naruto, and Naruto liked him back. She watched as they came together in the pouring rain, almost falling into each other's arms.
Then they both looked at her, Naruto a little apologetically. He broke away from Sasuke and extended his hands out to her.
"Hinata-chan," he said, "I'm really sorry about all this."
She felt some emotion deep in her gut. Disappointment turned to sharp anger as she thought of all the times she had simply hidden her true feelings, smiled, and let people who were supposed to be her friends walk all over her. The anger grew, quickly becoming larger and larger until all she could see at all was fiery red.
She could see Sasuke, smirking just over Naruto's shoulder. Then some noise in the crowd caught his attention, and he looked away.
Neji saw his opportunity, and threw in the kunai.
The End
To this day in Konoha people talk about the fight in which the least- regarded member of the Hyuuga family decisively defeated not only Uzumaki Naruto, the vessel of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, but also Uchiha Sasuke, the last remaining member of the genius Uchiha clan. Hyuuga Hinata was asked by her father to become the Hyuuga heir once again, but instead of doing this she told him to bugger off and then decided that she was always much happier as a medical nin anyway. Eventually she married her cousin Neji. Inbreeding is usually a bad thing, but in the case of Ninjas with special abilities it tends to enhance those abilities... in other words, Hinata and Neji had lots of children with an enhanced Byakugan (Sharingan) and managed to take over the task of repopulating the Uchiha clan for Sasuke. Which is really a good thing because Sasuke was off somewhere with Naruto and there's no mpreg in this fic. (Though mpreg is only slightly more unrealistic then Hinata and Neji ending up together. You rock, Hinata! We love you!)
Chapter 5 – Wherein Naruto suggests the Hyuuga-Uchiha death match and Uchiha and Hyuuga Fight (Not to the Death)
Hinata had become a medical shinobi after the time that her father changed his legal heir from herself to Hanabi, her younger sister. The change agreed with her. She enjoyed the quiet work of making medicines from herbs and minerals, and she liked being able to ease the pain of people who came to her with all kinds of illnesses and injuries. Most of all, becoming a medical-nin had given her a sense of usefulness and purpose that she had lacked when younger.
She was very surprised to find Uchiha Sasuke at the door of the clinic where she worked, since his last comment to her had been something about her being on her own. She wondered for a moment if he might be ill, but he leaned against the doorframe and waited for her as she finished her tidying-up.
"Do you know any reason?" He said, "Why Kakashi-sensei might think that we are dating?"
"No," she said. "How could he?" There really wasn't any reason to think it – the two of them hadn't spent much more time together than usual, and very little of it had been alone. Even if someone did happen to seem the two of them together, there was nothing about their behavior that would give the wrong impression.
"Huh." Sasuke grimaced. "And yet, today he made it sound like the rumor was circulating everywhere."
"Oh," Hinata said. "Um... do you think that maybe..."
He looked at her.
"Could that have been why Naruto-kun got the wrong impression?"
"Yeah," Sasuke said slowly, "maybe."
Before they had a chance to work this out they heard someone coming toward the clinic.
"Naruto!" Hinata exclaimed. The blond haired boy looked as though he had been running hard to get there. When he saw that Hinata and Sasuke were together, he drew in his breath sharply and pointed and angry finger.
"If you two are really in love!" He said, "Fight and prove it!"
"Fight?" Hinata said, in disbelief.
"Yeah. A week from today, at sunset, in the forest behind the academy. I'll be waiting." His nerves failed him and he left, slamming the door behind him.
"Was he talking to me, or you?" Hinata asked, wonderingly.
"He was talking to both of us," Sasuke said. "Whoever wins, gets Naruto. Right?" He looked at her challengingly.
"Are you going to give up?"
Hinata's hands were shaking. How could Naruto-kun do this to her? Asking her to face Sasuke in a fight was liking having to face Neji in the chuunin exams all over again, only a hundred times worse. There was no way for her to win- Naruto must know that. And yet, he was asking her to fight anyway – clearly, she thought, he loved Sasuke and wanted her to lose.
Even as her spirits fell, she thought of all the times when Naruto himself had fought against insurmountably odds. Maybe, she thought, maybe he is doing this for a reason. Maybe he wants me to show how serious I am.
"No," she said. Her voice was low but steady. "I won't give up."
Sasuke was in a good mood. Naruto could have placed him and Hinata in any kind of a contest, but a physical match was clearly in Sasuke's favor.
He wants me to win, Sasuke thought – but then, why the match at all? Something to do with Naruto's psychology, he thought. Maybe Naruto needed time to come to terms with a homosexual relationship, and maybe somehow making this a contest between Hinata and Sasuke let him do that. It really didn't matter, Sasuke was happy to oblige. The only problem was, how to defeat a five-foot one, ninety-four pound girl without looking like a completely terribly person.
"Pervert-Sennin... oi! Pervert-sennin!"
It was not the most pleasant way to be woken up in the morning –even if it was no longer morning, and you were actually being woken up from a beating-induced blackout rather than a peaceful night sleep.
In other words: Jiraya had been caught outside the woman's bath – again – and the young ladies who found him there had beaten him within an inch of his life.
Then he got to wake up to the whiskered face of Naruto, two inches in front of him.
"What... in the world... is it?" He tried to yell, but his throat was dry and it came out in a cracked whisper instead.
"Pervert-sennin.... I need you to help train me!"
"Train you? What?"
"I have a very important match."
Jiraya rubbed his head. "Against who?" He asked finally.
"Hyuuga Hinata."
"Hyuuga... Hinata?" Jiraya tried to think. The small, angry, powerful girl who had threatened to put his eyes out after she caught him... no, wait, that was the younger Hyuuga, Hanabi. Her sister Hinata was older, and Jiraya realized that he didn't know much about her."
"Is she strong?" he asked sleepily.
"No," Naruto wailed, "That's the problem."
Jiraya's back cracked as he sat up. "Why is that a problem?"
"Because Konohamaru said... so, I wasn't thinking, and I challenged her to a fight. And it's actually a really, truly, horrible idea, because even though she's a Hyuuga she's not that strong and if I fight a girl like that then I'm going to look like a horrible person and then Sasuke will never want to go out with me."
Jiraya thought he might have misheard the last part, but when Naruto repeated everything more slowly to him he realized that in fact he had got it right.
"Call off the fight," he said.
"I can't do that now. Come on, teach me some kind of... ummm... put people to sleep quickly with no pain technique."
"Maboroshi-no-jutsu."
"That a Hyuuga isn't going to be able to see through."
Jiraya paused for a moment. "That might be harder." He said, finally.
Hinata took the week off from the clinic. Her first thought was to ask Hanabi for help, but since her sister was out on a mission, she turned to Neji instead.
"You want to do what?" he asked her.
"Umm... help me defeat... Uchiha Sasuke." Her voiced tricked off to a whisper by the end.
"You're wasting my time." He said flatly.
"Yes... I know... but, cousin Neji, I have to try."
The morning of the match dawned bright and clear, but by sunset the sky had turned dark and it was threatening to rain. Nevertheless various townspeople, informed of the match mostly through Jiraya, brought blankets and umbrellas into the forest, lining up around the small clearing where Hinata and Sasuke waited, refusing to look at each other.
The sun had not quite set, and Naruto was nowhere to be seen, but the jeers of the townspeople were starting to get to both of them. Several times various classmates had come out and told them to stop being ridiculous – the last being Shikamaru – and even Sasuke was starting to look a little on edge.
"Let's just do this," he said, through gritted teeth, and Hinata agreed.
She and Neji had put all their energy into one potential attack which they thought Hinata might – might- be able to use on the Uchiha if- if – there was a lucky opening. Much against his better judgment, Neji had promised to try and provide this opening, by throwing a couple of kunai in from the sidelines. All this was really likely to do was get him in trouble with Uchiha later, but he figured that it was the least he could do for his cousin.
The rain broke with a loud clap of thunder as both rushed against each other. Hinata could tell- even as she feinted and dodged – that Sasuke wasn't really moving at more than half his usual speed, and that most of his attacks weren't even intended to really hit. Fine, she thought, so he's trying to go easy on me. At least that gave her the opening.
He threw one sudden punch at high speed that she recognized as being aimed to knock her out – by the time she noticed it she was only about to shift slightly, and it connected just below her collarbone. The crowd booed.
"What are you guys doing?" Came a shocked voice from the sidelines. They both looked up as Naruto, soaked with rain, came to stand in front of them.
"Naruto-kun?" Hinata said, a little uncertainly.
"Dobe," Sasuke said. "This is all your fault. Why are all these people here?"
Naruto looked confused. "I don't know. I didn't tell them."
"This is humiliating."
"Anyway," Naruto asked. "Why are you fighting?"
"You said," Sasuke muttered, trying to speak softly enough that the crowd could not here them, "That you would go out with whoever won."
"I said," Naruto interrupted, "That I like you, and that I'd fight Hinata to go out with you."
Hinata heard both of them with no emotion at all, as if she'd stepped outside of her own body. So it was true – Sasuke liked Naruto, and Naruto liked him back. She watched as they came together in the pouring rain, almost falling into each other's arms.
Then they both looked at her, Naruto a little apologetically. He broke away from Sasuke and extended his hands out to her.
"Hinata-chan," he said, "I'm really sorry about all this."
She felt some emotion deep in her gut. Disappointment turned to sharp anger as she thought of all the times she had simply hidden her true feelings, smiled, and let people who were supposed to be her friends walk all over her. The anger grew, quickly becoming larger and larger until all she could see at all was fiery red.
She could see Sasuke, smirking just over Naruto's shoulder. Then some noise in the crowd caught his attention, and he looked away.
Neji saw his opportunity, and threw in the kunai.
The End
To this day in Konoha people talk about the fight in which the least- regarded member of the Hyuuga family decisively defeated not only Uzumaki Naruto, the vessel of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, but also Uchiha Sasuke, the last remaining member of the genius Uchiha clan. Hyuuga Hinata was asked by her father to become the Hyuuga heir once again, but instead of doing this she told him to bugger off and then decided that she was always much happier as a medical nin anyway. Eventually she married her cousin Neji. Inbreeding is usually a bad thing, but in the case of Ninjas with special abilities it tends to enhance those abilities... in other words, Hinata and Neji had lots of children with an enhanced Byakugan (Sharingan) and managed to take over the task of repopulating the Uchiha clan for Sasuke. Which is really a good thing because Sasuke was off somewhere with Naruto and there's no mpreg in this fic. (Though mpreg is only slightly more unrealistic then Hinata and Neji ending up together. You rock, Hinata! We love you!)