AN: Wow, you guys. I'm pleased to say that when I found your reviews, I was incredibly happy. Now, before I answer a few questions/comments, let me explain some things. I have this story planned out in its entirety, and also: all your questions on previous chapters will be answered by me, all questions on the future will be answered by future chapters.
The school has been organized in more American terms, because it's easier for me.
Thanks goes to –
Beta: Kim and Madi
Cyberwing: Think about this. If Naruto is extra-naïve, and someone told him they liked him, he would probably say he liked them too. This is because he tries to be an adult (hence his sexy no jutsu) but ends up more childish instead, because he doesn't really understand (hence his personality). Now think about Naruto trying to make conversation while Sakura is acting 'weird.' Notice how he says "Would I have to kiss her?" instead of "Can I kiss her?" You don't have to agree, but think about it.
bLackBodian: In medieval times, it was common for cousins to marry cousins. Although I don't really like Hinata and Neji as a couple, I can see their old-fashioned family proposing a marriage between the two – and not for love. All your questions will be answered. Eventually.
saturnova: To your second question, let me say that both events were happening simultaneously.
Xoni Newcomer: You're close. Besides, I still haven't revealed exactly what is happening yet, just bits and pieces.
I love you guys so much: Princess Krystal01, elsiey, Cyberwing, bLackBodian, Ah-choo, saturnova, Xoni Newcomer, OspreyAnimeG and Tig Jones
Sorry for the ultra-long A/N. I'll stop now.
Chapter 4 – Pulling Punches
"Hit me," he said.
It had been a long and tiresome weekend. The orphanage had been one lonely gray building filled with whispers upon her arrival, and they didn't stop even after she left. It was extremely rare for someone to take a teen into custody – babies were ever the popular item. Once finished there, Hinata and Hanako took the transcripts to the high school. This school in particular was a bastion of steel and concrete, unfriendly but utterly secure, and the minimal staff occupying its recesses paid them no mind. Hinata took an entrance exam and was done. And now Kanaye was walking her to her first day of school, mostly out of his own initiative but also out of a quiet warning from his mother to "make nice with Hinata-chan."
"What?" Hinata asked blearily.
"Hit me," he repeated amiably, looking down at her mop of reddish-brown hair.
"I can't."
"You've been acting like this for a few days now," he grumbled. "Sorano wouldn't hold a prank that long…I think."
"Do you believe me?" she inquired softly, scuffing a black mary-jane shoe along the pavement. She flinched as another car careened by, one whizzing hunk of metal just barely pasted together into an un-aerodynamic blob.
"No, don't tell me," he grimaced, rolling his eyes. "You've been doing that all morning. You don't have cars in Ninja-land?"
"We never needed them," was Hinata's reply.
"Yeah, okay," was all he said. "I don't believe you. So hit me."
The cheeky half-smile her gave her looked not a little strange on his new moon face.
"No," Hinata told him. "I won't hit you."
"If you're a ninja, you can fight like one," he said matter-of-factly.
That ended the conversation. The morning sun beat down on them through the forest of buildings as they approached the school. Then he moved in front of her, stopping her, and left no room for argument.
"Punch me. Now."
With the perfect form of long practice, Hinata caved in and lightly demonstrated the Konoha-style straight right punch on his left shoulder. Kanaye sighed. He put his hands in his pockets and seemed to retreat inward, looking but not seeing as the festering cacophony of the city echoed off the concrete all around them. Hinata's eyes were on the forlorn food wrappers and black gum glued to the sidewalk, on the shiny velvet of her new uniform shoes contrasting with the stark white of her pressed socks.
"You're not real," Kanaye said, and Hinata's blood ran cold. "Your home isn't, either. Your family is fake. Nothing you talk about exists anywhere on this Earth. You're just a fragment of Sorano's imagination that came to the surface because she's hurt. You aren't a ninja. You're worth nothing-"
He was on the ground, bleeding from his mouth with the wind knocked out of him, before he'd realized what happened. Hinata was leaning over him, tears on her cheeks, trembling with…something.
"Fuck," he coughed, tasting iron and spitting saliva and blood on the ground. "I got you pretty mad, didn't I? Nobody likes being told they're a lie. I didn't even see you move."
"You did that on purpose," she cried. They sat like that for a minute, Hinata breathing and Kanaye bleeding. Finally, Hinata grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. He leaned on her until his scattered breath fell back into a pattern. Hinata herself was shaken at how ingrained the protective reflex was – but she was more upset with how easily he'd breached her defenses. It shook her to the bone.
"What was that? You used the palm of your hand."
Blood was oozing down Kanaye's chin, and the possibility that she'd dislocated, sprained, or otherwise injured his jaw when she'd hit it was high – and Hinata knew his stomach would have a bruise where she'd slammed him right after, right below the ribs. The upward thrust hadn't just pushed the air from his lungs; it had thrown him back quite a few feet.
"Gentle Fist," she murmured. "Now let me see your jaw-"
"You call an ass-kicking move like that 'Gentle Fist'? You may as well can it 'Gentle Slap,' 'cause you're a girl!"
There was obviously nothing wrong with Kanaye's jaw.
"I didn't name it-"
"I mean, why not something cool, like 'Fist of the Divine' – or – or – hell, even something like 'Purple Moon Heart Wand Shimmer Attack' would be better than 'Gentle Slap'!"
"Gentle Fist-"
"So, have you got any other L33T N1NJ4 5K1LL5?"
Hinata gave up. Kanaye appeared to have selective hearing and selective memory, and this let him believe what he wanted to believe and safely ignore all else.
"Well, my clan has the hereditary skill of Byakugan," Hinata ventured cautiously. Kanaye stared at her, nonplussed.
"So?" he grumbled.
"Well, if my eyes were white, I could show you…it's, well, a power with the eyes…"
"You can shoot laser beams from your eyes?" Kanaye wondered, sullen mood evaporating.
"No-"
"That's so cool."
"Actually, the Byakugan allows a user to see everything."
"I like the laser beams better," was Kanaye's final remark on the topic before he moseyed off, Hinata in tow. Hinata had no idea what 'laser beams' even meant.
The school was the same fort of stone, but now students herded themselves into the gates in droves. Brick walls encompassed the school, and everything was a shade of gray, except the sky, whose freedom and brilliance contrasted the drab confinements of the edifice. Somehow, Hinata was reminded of the ancestral Hyuuga home.
Kanaye sashayed around the crowds, Hinata barely keeping pace. He did a drive-by identification of individuals as he went, giving Hinata a quick rundown of people he thought Sorano knew. Although Sorano had attended the orphanage's small school, she was apparently associated with some of the students here.
"That guy is your skater friend, she's the girl you…um…bully to do your homework, and that guy is…uh…your fuckbuddy? I think? You may not wanna talk to him."
The rest of his words escaped her. He swept the dazed Hinata into the double doors – everything seemed so different, now that life quickened in the school's veins – and snatched Hinata's schedule out of her frozen hands and glanced at it.
"Room 2-207," he read aloud. "History. That's up those stairs, to the left. Oh, and don't forget – you shouldn't go into the girls' bathroom on that floor. It's off limits."
"Why-uh-" Hinata stammered, but Kanaye was thirty feet down the hallway, moving his head and hands back and forth to the beat of his CD player. He danced around a group of seniors before disappearing from sight.
Hinata resisted the urge to burst into tears. Nothing is more fearful to mankind than the unknown, and now Kanaye had left her bathing in it like it was perfectly natural. Hinata dodged and ducked around the other students as she steadily made her way up the stairs.
-
Hinata was at the open door, silently watching the morning rain make the garden shimmer, listening to it patter on the wooden shingles in the darkness above her head. Her sleeping kimono was white against the dark whorls of cherry wood, blending into translucent skin, making short navy hair all the more visible.
"What did you get in return?" a voice asked from behind her, in the shadows.
"I can become a medic nin," Hinata told Neji, turning to face him.
"They'd never have let you marry him anyway," Neji said, tone free of inflection. Hinata's face flushed just a little at that, and she bit her lip, facing her garden again.
"I-I told Naruto-kun I liked him, right before the wedding, Neji nii-san," Hinata whispered. "It-It was enough."
"Don't call me that," was all he said. "Not anymore."
Hinata stood in the doorway, staring out at nothing, but also staring out into her future, and she could see nothing there, either.
Neji stood beside her, listening to the rain, but also listening to Hinata cry like a broken-winged bird. He did not touch her, but stayed with her for a long time.
Hinata awakened slowly as the noise of rain blended into the tapping of chalk on a board. She carefully arranged herself so she was sitting up and tried to pay attention. There were no Hokages, no Ninja World Wars, and there was no Konoha. History had skipped what Hinata knew to be true and moved on into distant lands with too many countries and not enough forests. She hid her eyes with her hair and asked the teacher if she could be excused to the bathroom.
In fact, Hinata followed Kanaye's advice. If, for whatever reason, there was something horrible going on in the second story girls' bathroom, the least she could do was avoid it. Hinata went up one more flight of stairs to the third story.
At least the bathrooms were the same. Hinata locked the door to the stall before collapsing onto the toilet seat. She sat there, feeling a little claustrophobic, and thought about how the garden smelled in the morning, just after a sun shower. She thought about the way Nariko's cheek would dimple sweetly when she smiled. She thought about Neji's solemnity and strength; she thought about Naruto's passion and promise. There was a forest in her mind's eye; and in the forest was a town, wooden with plaster, paint, and sun. It was a palette of people and dreams.
Now voices reached her ears, growing louder and louder, and Hinata pulled at the toilet paper, hastily yanking it up to wipe her eyes. A whole herd of female voices cascaded in through the door as it squeaked on its hinges, and Hinata automatically snapped her feet up onto the toilet seat where they wouldn't be seen. Hinata sat still, limbs like ice, with lead for thoughts: paranoia became reflex after so many years.
Click. Click. BANG! BANG!
"There's someone in our bathroom," someone hissed, trying the door one more time with a resounding bang. Hinata felt the stares penetrate her, even through the flimsy walls of the stall.
-
Meanwhile, Kanaye was twiddling his thumbs downstairs in English class. His black headphones easily camouflaged with his dark hair so to happily ignore the teacher and maintain his zen. Suddenly, he remembered something.
'I told her the second story bathroom was off limits, didn't I?' he thought. 'Well, that was wrong, it's the third story bathroom. Oops. Oh well.'
-
The door was kicked open, and Hinata frog-marched out by two bossy brunettes to be kicked at the feet of a slim, slender beauty with wide set grass eyes, rosebud lips, and long, blond hair that fell to her waist in a shining cascade. Her pointed features glared condescendingly down at Hinata. The rest of her clique followed suit.
"The new kid from History," she smiled sardonically. "Guess you haven't heard. This bathroom is off limits."
"It's Hinata," Hinata muttered, remembering how she'd introduced herself to the class as Toya Sorano…and then asked them to call her Hinata. Still, no one ever got her name right.
The blond didn't hear her, though, because she was rubbing at her temples with small fingers, eyes shutting and eyebrows scrunching up as she did so. Even with her eyes closed she could see, and what she saw was this:
"I'm pregnant!" Sakura announced joyfully, standing and patting her slightly rounded tummy and turning to look at all of the faces gathered around the table at the restaurant.
"You couldn't hide it for much longer anyway," Naruto muttered from his seat at her elbow. Sakura punched him, but was careful not to damage any furniture as she did so. Naruto hit the floor with a thud – they both laughed as she helped him back up. He squeezed her arm in a comforting gesture, and she sneaked a glance at his sky eyes.
"Now you can join me in the wonders of maternity…forehead girl," Ino burst out, cackling with glee and slapping her longtime friend and rival on the back. Shikamaru said nothing, but at the words "wonders of maternity" he cringed.
"I'm happy for you," Hinata said, smiling just slightly with clouded, shadowed white eyes. Neji was on an Anbu mission.
"Another round of sake in honor of Sakura's pregnancy!" Lee proposed while huge, shining tears adorning his reddened, round face. Cheers were heard all around and boisterous conversations echoed pleasingly up and down the table as all the former genins of Konoha celebrated together. Sakura grasped Naruto's hand tightly and put it against her stomach to feel the life inside.
"Akina-chan?" a concerned voice was asking. The blond, green-eyed girl came back to reality quickly, and acknowledged one of her companions with a curt nod.
"Get her the hell out of here," Akina said, and Hinata was unceremoniously kicked out of the third story girls' bathroom.