"Hinata, I love you," The sound of Naruto-kun's voice sent flutters through Hinata's heart, making her face red and her eyes look away. But He wouldn't let her look away, Naruto's strong, manly hand gently touched her chin and moved her head so that he was staring her in the eyes. He began to close his eyes ad move closer, and she thought her heart would explode. She closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable kiss…
But it wasn't what she expected, was he, licking her face? She opened her eyes and Akamaru was excitedly attacking her with his tongue. She jumped, surprised at the sudden excess of saliva on her face, and heard laughter from a tree across the clearing from her. "What were you dreaming about Hinata? Your face was as bright as a cherry." Kiba said through fits of laughter, only turning her a brighter shade of red.
"N-nothing Kiba-kun, I was just… it was nothing." She looked away, embarrassed, this is why she hated doing overnight missions with her team. She had mental barriers that kept her thoughts from the surface while she was asleep, but her dreams were uncontrolled by her conscious mind. She hoped she hadn't said his name, her handsome Naruto-kun's name, it was so comfortable to say, Naruto-kun, Naruto-kun.
"Hey Hinata, don't go back to sleep, Akamaru just went through all the trouble of being your alarm clock." After two barks of agreement from his warrior dog, Kiba went on, "plus we're ready to finish our mission today." That's right, the mission. Team 5 was sent on a C-rank mission to deliver some documents to a neighboring village. This village was not a ninja village, but a samurai village. They were of a dying breed, in fact most samurai became rebels and mercenaries. But this village had remained strong to the samurai's code of honor very strictly, and raised warriors of the same level as many Konoha ninja.
Konoha and this village, known as the hidden village of fire, had made treaties and had become strong allies, but there had been a few messages intercepted from Konoha ninja and most likely changed to offend the samurai village. Team 5 was simply sent to discredit these previous messages with documents signed by Tsunade-sama herself. The mission was simple, but Hinata couldn't help having a bad feeling about the situation.
"Let's get moving, the village should be an hours walking distance north from this point" Shino said from a low hanging tree branch. Kurenai simply observed her team's interaction with each other, she probably would correct Shino if he was making a mistake, but for now his unofficial leadership of the group worked out fine.
Shino jumped down and started walking, Kiba and Akamaru Quickly and energetically followed, but Hinata stayed behind a few dozen paces so she could have her own thoughts. Naruto, there was something odd about him. He got so hyped up over nothing, was always making mistakes, would usually try to show off when he didn't need to, and was so loud that any ninja could find him from a mile away. But his determination, his will to survive, his hidden strength and deep sadness were the traits Hinata saw. Only she had looked up to him since they were very young, only she could see a boy trying to be accepted where most saw an obnoxious troublemaker.
But he was beginning to grow up, he no longer had to use graffiti as an outlet, nor sleeping or eating in class, now he used his skills as a ninja to prove to the world that his destiny was to become great. And now people could see it, Kiba and Neiji both were defeated and found something deeper in their battles with him, something beyond words. Even Sasuke, though he pretended not to care, obviously held Naruto in a very high regard.
But it had been Hinata who had always been in his fan club, always cheered him on inside her head, always wanted to be with him alone. It wasn't fair that she had to be on a different team then him, but maybe they just weren't destined to be together as she always dreamed, maybe he just… her thoughts were once again interrupted, except this time by her sensei. "Hinata, you're falling behind, let me walk with you to help you keep a good pace." it was a crappy excuse, but it worked for the two males. Hinata however knew that Kurenai wanted to give her more advise, she had seemed to love her new hobby as of late.
"are you thinking about that hyper kid again?" Hinata blushed and nodded. "He is really quite something, loud and obnoxious on the outside but huge potential on the inside. I also sense a lot of loneliness underneath the skin." Kurenai looked at Hinata with very serious eyes, "He needs someone to care for him, as do you. I can see all the emotion on your face when you talk to him, I know that you want him to notice you, yet you remain invisible. You need to talk to him, and let him know how you feel, and I think that he needs to know that someone cares as much about him as you do." she sighed seeing that her advise, though making sense to her bright red student, would probably not change her shy nature "Well, I'm done confronting you, we need to catch up with the group." Hinata nodded and hurried after her teacher, absorbing everything that was said.
If only Naruto could see her, notice her, then neither of them would have to be alone. But she was invisible, she was kicked out of her family, she wasn't an exceptional ninja, and she was quiet and shy around everyone. But it was too hard to change, too embarrassing to change, so she decided to wait a while longer to see if things worked out.
She noticed she was falling behind again and began sprinting to catch up when she noticed a flash of orange in the trees beside her, was that fire? She performed the Byakugan and focused on the area that had caught her attention and it seemed a battle was taking place. However, it didn't seem like they had murderous intent, they were just sparring. But the intensity of the battle was still breathtaking.
There was a boy with long brown hair that was tied back into a ponytail, except for two red colored streaks of hair hat were aloud to freely hang parted on each side of his face. His eyes were covered by a black cloth and by the looks of how uncomfortable he was, he was probably using it for training. He wore a dark red tank top, underneath which was a mesh t-shirt, much like the one Shikamaru-sama wore. He wore baggy black hakama that seemed to tighten around his shins and on his back was a beautiful katana that intricate gold symbols all across the blunt end. He was shooting fire from his hands without using hand seals at all, it was truly an amazing sight.
His opponent wore long white robes embroidered on the edges with beautiful blue and gold cloth. His robe seemed to also have watery designs gracefully decorating the white part of the robe. His hair was short and seemed to lack any color at all, he almost looked like Kakashi senpai's brother. His eyes were uncovered, but were as white as his hair. She would have thought they were the same as her byakugan except she could tell he was blind from the way he never looked directly at his opponent. He carried a staff that seemed to be made of ice, except that it never seemed to melt or break when he used it, even when it touched the fire of his opponent. When he swung his staff, an arc of icicles appeared from within the clear-blue rod and shot at his opponent as fast and accurate as she could throw kunai.
The fight was so intense, yet so beautiful. Fire and Ice, power and grace, Yin and Yang, she must have stood there for five minutes watching each attack and counter before Kiba and Akamaru barked extremely loud into each of her ears. She was so startled that she screamed an jumped into the air, then she fell embarrassed onto the ground. Kiba thought it was hilarious and was on the ground also, except he didn't have a wounded pride, he had uncontrollable fits of laughter. Shino as always showed no emotion towards the situation at all and simply told Kiba he was a moron and they had to go, and Kurenai seemed to be trying to hold back her own laughter.
But Hinata couldn't stop thinking about that fight, even after Kiba's laughter died down and the walk to the town continued. The techniques were free of the hand seals that Ninja were so accustomed to, yet they were as powerful as any she'd ever seen. So that was why the only remaining samurai village still had enough power to spread fear into the hearts of their opponents. Kurenai, though she couldn't see the battle, did notice it. Hinata knew this because she kept sharing knowing glances with Hinata every time she started thinking about the fight in detail. She swore that her teacher was psychic.