Betrothal
A Naruto fanfiction.
Chapter 6 - Day.
Shino knelt down in front of Hinata and placed one hand on her shoulder. "Hinata?" His voice was quiet, barely heard above the rain and the sounds of Kiba's feet splashing through the puddles on the ground as he approached them at a run. "Why do you cry?" At the question Hinata looked up. Shino almost backed away in shock and fear when he saw the hopeless depression within those two pale white orbs that were Hinata's gift - or rather curse, at least as she saw it anyway.
Tears and rainwater swirled together, mixed and ran down her cheeks in a flood as Hinata shook her head slightly, trying to find out if this was - no, hoping this was a nightmare. "N-Naruto-kun..." She whispered, too low for Shino to hear over the rain, but her lips moved just enough for him to read them, albeit with some difficulty. "Why Naruto-kun?" murmured the Hyuuga girl, "I-it's n-not fair..."
Shino had heard, or at least lip-read, enough. As Kiba arrived and stood next to him, Shino pulled himself upwards and whispered into the Inuzuka boy's ear. Kiba frowned slightly. "Did she say what happened?" He asked, his voice a hoarse murmur that only Shino could hear. "Or at least what Naruto did?" Shino shook his head in the negative, then looked sadly at Hinata.
It was no secret that the boys were somewhat fond of Hinata. Sure, she was a screw-up in the missions, and she often broke into tears or cowered away when someone berated her but still...
She was Hyuuga Hinata.
She was just Hinata.
Their friend.
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Temari dug through the various boxes that still held quite a selection of her belongings. Every so often she would pull a rather nondescript scroll out, open it slightly to check it's contents, then place it into one of three piles beside her.
Naruto, his natural curiosity having dragged him into the room, stared at the three piles with interest. The first pile contained four scrolls, somewhat thicker than the other scrolls, but otherwise there wasn't much difference between the scrolls in that pile and those in the other piles. "So..." He began, slightly unsure of what to say. "Are these...?" The question was left hanging, unfinished, in the air.
"Technique scrolls, yes." Temari's voice was much more clipped and imperious than it had been for the past few days - a sure sign that she was beginning to get over her fate a little. "The pile on the left is Taijutsu, the one on the right is Genjutsu - the rest are plain Ninjutsu."
"Oh..." Naruto picked one of the Taijutsu scrolls up and opened it slightly, peeking at the - rather bad handwriting - that described the technique. "So, you're going to train yourself in some of these? Which ones?"
Temari paused and glanced at Naruto before shrugging. "I don't know yet, my only real special Taijutsu technique isn't all that good, and my Kamitaichi technique is better suited for defence - like when I used it to blow away all of that girls weapons in the preliminaries. If I make it big enough to cause serious damage to people it drains a lot of my Chakra."
Naruto nodded in thought. "How about this one?" he asked, holding up the scroll he had been peeking at. "It's a Taijutsu attack, a distance one I think."
Peering at the scroll, Temari nodded to herself. "Looks good, I've tried that one before - but I could never get enough spin on my fan for it to work properly. Then again, I'm better now than I was when I last tried it."
At that moment, the door to the room swished open to reveal the jounin Kakashi. "Yo." He stated, "You said you had some questions?" he asked, looking at Temari. The blonde-haired girl nodded a few times as the jounin instructor stepped into the room and sat down, making sure not to step or sit on any of the scrolls on the floor.
"Kakashi... sensei..." Temari bit her lip, it felt so strange to call this man her sensei. In a way it felt like she was somehow betraying Baki, her instructor from when she had lived in the Hidden Sand village. "Do you... Do you know what Henge technique Naruto uses?"
Kakashi's one visible eyebrow raised slightly. "Didn't he tell you?" he asked, glancing at Naruto - who just looked around in confusion.
"He said he uses the normal Henge, but that can't be right can it? I've seen him turn into a solid body." Temari looked at Naruto. "I know a normal Henge only gives the illusion of transformation, but Naruto really does transform."
"Really now?" Kakashi looked faintly puzzled and stared at Naruto. "You say he doesn't know how he does it?" at Temari's nod he frowned slightly. "There is a technique which does that, it's related to the Kage Bunshin no jutsu but... Well, I didn't know Naruto was unaware that he was using a high-level transformation technique. I thought he'd just learnt it from the same scroll he learnt the Kage Bunshin from."
Naruto frowned in deep thought. "There was Henge style jutsu in that scroll, it was the second technique... I tried it but I wasn't able to do it so I gave up." He looked at Kakashi with a questioning expression. "I thought I'd only managed to learn one technique..."
"Well," Murmured the jounin, "That explains it... Back then Naruto slacked off so much he probably didn't even know the limitations of the normal Henge no jutsu. It that were true then he probably didn't even realise he'd performed the higher-level version of the technique. I mean, I've never paid all that much attention to him when he transformed, since I know both levels of the Henge technique already."
"Ah... I see." Stated Naruto, even though it was completely obvious that he did not.
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"Are you sure you want to do that?" Asked Kiba, "It's not like you to think up something like this Shino..."
"You don't agree?" Asked the Aburame boy, most of his face hidden by the collar of his jacket. "I would have expected you'd love this plan."
"Well, yeah, I do..." Conceded Kiba, "But you were the one who suggested it, you're normally the most level headed of the team."
"And?" Asked Shino as the two, carrying Hinata between them, arrived at the classroom building. "You saw how bad Hinata was. He deserves it."
Kiba nodded in agreement. "Yeah. He does. C'mon, lets put Hinata in the classroom and let Yuuhi see to her while we go get dried off." The Inuzuka boy grumbled slightly, "Wet dog fur smells after a while you know."
"And then," Began Shino, but was cut off by Kiba.
"nonono," He muttered, glancing around quickly, "We don't want to risk anyone hearing about this and trying to stop us. Believe me, I know, people always try and stop these sorts of plans if they hear them."
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It had been decided, quite hastily, that all four of the young ninja would sleep at Naruto's home that night.
'To promote team spirit, and let you get to know your new team member better.' Kakashi had claimed, though the four privately thought he had decided this just to annoy them all rather than any sense of 'team spirit'.
They were probably right too.
Either way, it meant that Naruto and Sasuke were left sleeping downstairs, whilst Sakura and Temari were sleeping in what was now Temari's room.
Sakura eyed the ex-Sand-nin warily. Granted she was technically no longer a Hidden Sand ninja - heck, by all rights she currently wasn't a ninja at all, not until she was recognised by the village as being a Leaf ninja at least. Of course, returning to the sand and being re-recognised as a ninja there would work too.
'No, I'm just being a bit paranoid.' Thought the pink-haired girl, 'She wouldn't be able to beat me now anyway, not with my secret technique...' Sakura winced slightly as she thought about the technique she'd paid for in pain. Right now she could feel her back, along with most of her arms, throbbing slightly with a dull ache - the cool atmosphere had probably dulled the pain slightly. Still, it was useable - just about - though she hadn't really practised in it's use, all she'd done was learn the theory from her mother and grandmother.
Still, it was nice to feel the reassuring warmth of her chakra as she guided it to gently flow around the many swirls and seals that had been tattooed onto her back.
"-ra? That is your name, isn't it?" Sakura blinked at the half heard statement. Temari, obviously noticing that Sakura hadn't really heard what she had said, sighed and repeated her statement. "What do you think of this, Sakura? That is your name, isn't it?"
'This' was a rather fetching dark green dress which, whilst the important areas - such as the chest, abdomen and groin - were solid, the rest was a fine netting. The dress was one of the finer outfits that Temari owned. Although she had to admit that it would be somewhat cold to wear, especially since this part of the world had such a different climate to what she was used to - Temari thought it would be rather nice to be able to wear it without having other Sand-nin girls make some stupid, and often slightly insulting, comment about it.
After all, whilst it was quite out of fashion in the Wind country, it was - or so she had guessed from what she had seen in some shops around the village during her exploration with Naruto - quite a new fashion here in the Fire country. This was mostly because of the fact that, due to tenuous relationships between the Wind and the Fire countries, it was difficult to trade directly between the two places. Due to this most trade was routed through one or more of the other major countries which, of course, meant that goods took much, much longer to arrive.
Temari heard Sakura suck in a breath. She saw, with some amusement, that the pink-haired nin-girl was wearing a look of jealousy at the fact that Temari had such a 'fashionable' dress. Well, fashionable in this country anyway.
Sakura pointed at the dress, "T-that's..." She stuttered, "How can any Genin have enough money to afford something like that! It's the newest fashion around!"
"Really?" Temari feigned ignorance. "This old thing? It's one of the least fashionable outfits in the Wind country you know." She smirked slightly as Sakura's face flashed through a series of expressions ranging from shock to confusion and back to jealousy. Eventually, however, the pink-haired ninja hung her head and sighed.
"Yet another person who's prettier than I am." Sakura muttered, feeling somewhat awkward. Granted, she knew that Temari was engaged to Naruto and so couldn't pursue Sasuke - like so many other girls in the village - but what if she caught Sasuke's eye and drew it away from her!? That would be bad. Unlikely, but still bad.
Inner Sakura was screaming in frustration, mostly about how outer Sakura was being a stick-in-the-mud worrier. Finally though, Inner Sakura smirked and, being evil as was her wont, sent several images of a rather attractive - and topless - Sasuke into outer Sakura's consciousness.
Needless to say, Sakura's face went as pink as her hair as she blushed at the mental image.
Temari raised an eyebrow slightly, assuming that the blush was Sakura just being depressive over her looks. Not that Temari knew how to react, she'd never really had any problem with her looks. Pretty, ugly, average... it didn't matter in the end really. Since she believed that if a boy liked a girl, he'd like that girl no matter how she looked.
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"You." Began Sasuke, "And Her." It was incredibly obvious that Sasuke didn't approve of such a match.
Not that Naruto cared after all, anything that Sasuke didn't like was a good thing as far as he was concerned. "Yeah," he replied, taking a slash at a training dummy with his kunai.
The two boys were in Naruto's 'training room', taking turns to practise basic taijutsu techniques on the dummies. Whilst Naruto believed that he could easily look better at it than Sasuke if he tried he knew there was no point in doing so. After all, one can only show off if there happens to be someone to watch.
Not that Naruto could beat Sasuke of course, he just believed he could. The concept of 'realistically possible' had never really managed to enter into Naruto's streams of thought. Then again, neither had the concept of 'Self preservation', which said a lot for how robust - if simple - Naruto's thoughts could be.
"She isn't too bad I guess." Murmured the blonde-haired boy as he stepped back for Sasuke to launch into the 'flight of the tiger' taijutsu sequence. "She's pretty," He grinned, a little trail of drool appearing at the corner of his mouth. "Very pretty."
Sasuke glanced over towards Naruto as he performed a series of side- thrusting kicks at the dummies chest area. Fortunately for Naruto he didn't connect Naruto's slightly lecherous look with the injuries Naruto had earlier. F he had linked the two things, he would probably have guessed what Naruto had done to earn those injuries. "And? She's Sand. You know what they did." The Uchiha boy didn't specify what the Sand had done, since he was sure Naruto would realise which event he was talking about.
"She didn't do that." Naruto stated, his eyes flat and glaring. "So it wasn't her fault." He folded his arms in front of him and glared at one corner of the room - purposely avoiding eye contact with Sasuke.
The black-haired boy stopped, a few moves short of finishing the taijutsu sequence and stared at Naruto. "You believe that, don't you?" He muttered. "Her village attacked ours, and you believe it wasn't her fault so she's innocent."
Naruto nodded, turning to look at Sasuke. "She was only following orders, so it's the fault of those who gave those orders. Not hers." This was, in any ways, a prime example of Naruto brand logic. The Uzumaki boy had a rather simplified view of the world, something that Sasuke just couldn't comprehend. It was as if Naruto started with the premise 'everyone is basically good' and then worked down from that, determining who was evil as he went along.
"Besides..." Naruto murmured. "She's lonely."
That comment stopped Sasuke just as he was about to go into a mini lecture. Loneliness was something he understood all to well, as did Naruto. "Lonely?" He asked, not quite believing Naruto's statement.
"Last night..." Began Naruto, "I heard her crying."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Gah!" Naruto was finding it hard to get comfortable in his chosen sleeping spot. Since he'd been kicked out of what had been his room by his - slightly unwelcome - guest, the boy had been trying to sleep on a variety of things ranging from the floor to the table.
Sitting upright on the table-top he had been trying, Naruto swung his legs off the table and, grabbing his pillow and blanket, shambled off to find a different place to sleep.
Suddenly he stopped. "Huh?" He was sure he had heard something. Listening hard, Naruto could barely make out the sound of sobbing. From the sound if it the noise was coming from upstairs, where Temari slept. Glancing around out of habit he crept over to the staircase, as he drew nearer the sounds grew slightly louder.
By the time he was halfway up the staircase Naruto was able to hear faint words. Temari's voice as she muttered things in her room.
"It's not fair." Naruto paused when he heard Temari's voice, slightly clearer than before. For a moment he wondered if he should go up there, maybe say something.
But then, what could he say?
"I want to go home." Muttered Temari, her voice punctuated by slight sobbing sounds. Naruto stood on the staircase and lowered his head.
So, she was homesick. Lonely too no doubt.
Although it was slightly embarrassing to admit, Naruto was worried about the Ex-Sand girl. Here, in this place, this village, she was alone. As the events of the day had shown she was also disliked - even hated.
Just like he had been.
Sighing to himself the blonde-haired ninja turned and crept back down the stairs. Right now, at this time, there was nothing he could do or say that would make it any easier.
"I'm sorry." He whispered, half to himself and half to the girl upstairs who could not hear him.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"She's homesick." Continued Naruto. "And..." He paused. Whilst normally he would never ask for help, Naruto was beginning to think that just this once he could use some advice. Unfortunately, after thinking his way through the problem Naruto had realised that most people he could ask wouldn't give very good advice.
"And yesterday she was attacked by some Chuunin... we only just got away without getting hurt." Naruto paled slightly and looked away from Sasuke, his teeth clenched in barely-repressed anger. "They tried to kill her!"
Sasuke blinked. As a ninja, he understood that death was something that could happen to anyone, anytime, anyplace. Although... for an attack to occur within village boundaries well, that was just wrong. In fact, for such a thing to happen was, in all technicality, a terrible blow to the villages honour. The Sand had not been the only village to lose out in the attack upon the Leaf. Several ninja from other villages, along with more than a few nobles, had been killed - showing to the world that the Leaf could not protect itself.
Granted, once the rest of the world had been informed of the circumstances behind the fracas, the pressure against the Leaf had lessened and had instead been piled upon the Sand.
"Who were they?" Asked Sasuke, his voice low and menacing. "Did you recognise them? Did they seem like they may try again?" He blinked as he received no response. "Naruto, are you listening-" A snore cut him off. To one side of Sasuke, Naruto had quite happily slid to the floor and was sleeping - albeit rather uncomfortably - on the training room floor.
Sasuke raised one eyebrow in slight amusement. "How the hell do you manage that?" He murmured. Whilst the Uchiha boy was mostly a rather anti-social person to be around, prolonged contact with Naruto and Sakura had slowly chipped away at the barriers he had erected around his personality. Although he was still quite the lone wolf, Sasuke now at least accepted that maybe being put into a team had been a good thing to happen to him.
"... Sleep well Naruto." He murmured, then smiled an evil little smile. "But don't complain to me when you wake up with cramps and pains from sleeping like that."
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Knock.
"Uwah?" Naruto sat up slowly, rubbing sleep from his eyes with one hand. As he moved various parts of his body - mostly his back and legs - protested quite loudly about their overnight treatment. Shooting pains shot along his nervous system as he forced cramped limbs to pick him up off the ground and, hopefully, hold him in a standing position.
Knock.
Naruto turned his head slightly in the general direction of the knocking sound. Ah yes. That was why he'd woken up, wasn't it? Well. Standing around here wouldn't achieve much in the way of finding out what the knock was for. Mentally straining against the barriers of both pain and his usual sleepy morning haze, Naruto first willed on leg to move and then the other. Left, right, left, right. A nice constant rhythm of movement.
Knock. Knock.
"I'm coming..." Murmured the blonde-haired boy, mentally noting that he was wearing the same things he had worn yesterday. Well, it wasn't like they were dirty or anything - so they would do until he had dealt with whomever was knocking on his home's front door.
Left, right, left, right. His feet moved sluggishly at first, finally beginning to pick up speed as his sleepiness wore off. By the time he reached the stairs he was no longer dragging his feet and when he reached the bottom of the stairs they were moving up and down in little bouncy steps.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
The knocking was louder now, coming quickly and impatiently. Obviously someone was in a real hurry to get Naruto to open the door, and open it he would - after all, it was bad manners for a guest to open the door of their host's home to what could be complete strangers.
"Gah... Keep it down..." Naruto moaned, as he heard one of the doors upstairs - the one to Temari's room most likely - open with a low creak. "You'll wake everyone up... if you haven't already." The boy took a deep breath, put on what he hoped was a fairly normal looking expression, and opened the door.
His expression brightened slightly when he saw who it was and he grinned. "Oh! Hey th-"
Crunch!
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Temari, clad in a loose dressing gown and whatever she wore underneath, peered down the stairs from the door to her room. Unlike Naruto, she was more fully alert to her surroundings and, due to this, was much less shocked when Naruto flew backwards away from the door than most other people would have been.
Judging from the angle and speed at which Naruto had been sent, it was pretty obvious that someone had just punched him in the face. Also she reasoned that, due to the way he had begun to greet his attacker, it must have been someone that Naruto knew who was on the other side of the door.
Slipping back into her room, Temari shook Sakura until the pink-haired girl was awake, then dressed with speed that had come from many, many hours of practice. After all, having to dress quickly could save a ninja's life - or the lives of other people - if an attack came whilst they were asleep. This was, of course, because a ninja's clothing often contained a vast amount of weapons, scrolls and medicines secreted around them, all items which could be vital to a ninja's fighting style or specialist skills. Such as, for instance, medical ninja and their vast arrays of medicines.
The body netting she ignored, it had it's uses but right now it would just take too long to get on. Instead she grabbed her jacket-dress, pulled it on and peeked out the window that looked out onto the space in front of Naruto's house.
Evidently the fight had moved outside, for Naruto was frantically dodging and ducking attacks from two other boys whilst making his own retaliatory attempts whenever he got the chance. Eventually though, Naruto was caught in the terrible position of having an opponent on either side of him.
Temari could have left him to fend for himself. After all, the two boy's weren't attacking to kill - she could see that easily - instead they were attacking to injure. Whatever the reason for the attack, it was probably something Naruto deserved.
But then...
If she had been down there, she had no doubt that Naruto would have jumped in without any thought whatsoever.
Temari smirked slightly, her course of action decided.
Grabbing her fan, Temari slammed open the window and leapt out - instinctively pushing her Chakra through her arm and into the giant wood and paper construct that was her weapon.
A weapon that she had just opened up.
"NINPOU... KAMAITACHI!"
Chapter 6 - end.
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Authors notes:
Hachacha... been a busy few weeks x.x finishing off art projects and setting up my end of year exhibition. Which explains why this one took a while ^^;;
Anyway, like usual, not stopped other ficcie blah blah blah. I think I'm gonna have to say this every time o.o;; as I do get the off e-mail asking if I'm continuing 'to be strong' x.x
Speaking of e-mails, I have a great big rant-thing for those people who seem to enjoy sending offensive e-mail flames at me. -.- but that can wait until the end of this yes.
Sooo... Sasuke has a bit of humour. Albeit the sort that revolves around other people's pain and/or dumbness. o.o;; (I'm surprised dumbness is an actual word... weird, huh?)
So. Some random questions and answers (or at least evasions o.o;) : Q: What can Temari do? A: besides her Kamaitachi? Well, she's smart - though not as smart as Shikamaru, she's obviously smarter than a big chunk of the cast. I personally think she's a bit smarter than Sasuke and Sakura (re: much smarter than Naruto . ) I think, in terms of IQ, I'd rate her about 130- 140, - assuming Sakura / Sasuke are in the area of 120 and Naruto is about 90-100. (and Shikamaru, of course, at over 200 x.x )
Q: Are you going to make Temari a one-trick pony? A: well, pay close attention. Most ninja are one trick ponies. For my examples I state Shikamaru (kagemane no jutsu), Choji (multi-size no jutsu) and Ino (Shintenshin no jutsu). Other than that, no comment o.o
Q: Will you be the mother of my child? A: o.o;; not unless I have a sex change.
Q: When does the next part come out? A: Considering that this question was asked before I finished chapter six... this *is* the next part =P (note the cheap evasion of the question there ^^; )
Q: Do the titles actually mean anything? A: yes and no. When some highly plot-important thing occurs, the title will usually have some relevance. Otherwise it can be anything. Beware the day I title a chapter whilst I'm on a sugar rush... hehehehe...
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And for now o.o I'll promise that i'll try my best to keep everything interesting. ^.^
- Lackey H, meditating on an Intoxicated Ino. (H: Mmmm. soft ^.^ Ino: Oi! Getoff! You're heavy! . )
And now, unfortunately, for that rant I mentioned. This rant has seen light already in 'To be strong', but it's here for those people who don't read that. -.-
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This is being added in response to several nasty, rather insulting, e-mails I've received from a variety of people.
If you want to criticise me, go ahead, as long as it's constructive I don't mind. In fact, I like having people give advice on those little things that help me improve my work. (Especially one kind person who pointed out a little grammar error I kept making. ^^;; One I hope to avoid making in the future now that I know about it.)
If you want to try flaming me then go get a coin and buy yourself a clue. I'm really getting sick of people who send insulting flames about things which they don't know
Firstly, the plot of my writing - I'm the author, I know what happens next, these flamers don't so they have no right to flame me on what hasn't happened yet.
You can flame me on what *has* happened if you so wish, but not on what you think I will write.
Secondly, the facts of the Naruto world. I, like all people, have my own take on some things. (such as the specifics of the Henge - transformation - no jutsu and Kuchiyose - summoning - no jutsu) I don't mind people having their own views on how a technique works. At present neither technique has been thoroughly explained in Canon so we're free to come up with our own theories.
What I don't like is when people ream me because they don't like my theory.
Asking if I'm sure of what I wrote is fair enough, pointing out instances of things that could disprove my theory is fine but when people insult, swear and deride me. Well. They can get stuffed.
Finally, if you have a complaint with something that is a Canon fact - please don't moan at me unless you can prove you're right. I'm getting kinda sick of having to repeatedly point out instances in the Manga which prove my side and ruin the other side of the argument.
I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just getting tired of being insulted for no good reason by people who are too lazy to wait for an explanation, too dumb to check the facts or too close-minded to accept any other theory.
I'm sorry this rant had to go here and I hope another will never be needed.
- Lackey H, sorry this rant had to be written.
A Naruto fanfiction.
Chapter 6 - Day.
Shino knelt down in front of Hinata and placed one hand on her shoulder. "Hinata?" His voice was quiet, barely heard above the rain and the sounds of Kiba's feet splashing through the puddles on the ground as he approached them at a run. "Why do you cry?" At the question Hinata looked up. Shino almost backed away in shock and fear when he saw the hopeless depression within those two pale white orbs that were Hinata's gift - or rather curse, at least as she saw it anyway.
Tears and rainwater swirled together, mixed and ran down her cheeks in a flood as Hinata shook her head slightly, trying to find out if this was - no, hoping this was a nightmare. "N-Naruto-kun..." She whispered, too low for Shino to hear over the rain, but her lips moved just enough for him to read them, albeit with some difficulty. "Why Naruto-kun?" murmured the Hyuuga girl, "I-it's n-not fair..."
Shino had heard, or at least lip-read, enough. As Kiba arrived and stood next to him, Shino pulled himself upwards and whispered into the Inuzuka boy's ear. Kiba frowned slightly. "Did she say what happened?" He asked, his voice a hoarse murmur that only Shino could hear. "Or at least what Naruto did?" Shino shook his head in the negative, then looked sadly at Hinata.
It was no secret that the boys were somewhat fond of Hinata. Sure, she was a screw-up in the missions, and she often broke into tears or cowered away when someone berated her but still...
She was Hyuuga Hinata.
She was just Hinata.
Their friend.
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Temari dug through the various boxes that still held quite a selection of her belongings. Every so often she would pull a rather nondescript scroll out, open it slightly to check it's contents, then place it into one of three piles beside her.
Naruto, his natural curiosity having dragged him into the room, stared at the three piles with interest. The first pile contained four scrolls, somewhat thicker than the other scrolls, but otherwise there wasn't much difference between the scrolls in that pile and those in the other piles. "So..." He began, slightly unsure of what to say. "Are these...?" The question was left hanging, unfinished, in the air.
"Technique scrolls, yes." Temari's voice was much more clipped and imperious than it had been for the past few days - a sure sign that she was beginning to get over her fate a little. "The pile on the left is Taijutsu, the one on the right is Genjutsu - the rest are plain Ninjutsu."
"Oh..." Naruto picked one of the Taijutsu scrolls up and opened it slightly, peeking at the - rather bad handwriting - that described the technique. "So, you're going to train yourself in some of these? Which ones?"
Temari paused and glanced at Naruto before shrugging. "I don't know yet, my only real special Taijutsu technique isn't all that good, and my Kamitaichi technique is better suited for defence - like when I used it to blow away all of that girls weapons in the preliminaries. If I make it big enough to cause serious damage to people it drains a lot of my Chakra."
Naruto nodded in thought. "How about this one?" he asked, holding up the scroll he had been peeking at. "It's a Taijutsu attack, a distance one I think."
Peering at the scroll, Temari nodded to herself. "Looks good, I've tried that one before - but I could never get enough spin on my fan for it to work properly. Then again, I'm better now than I was when I last tried it."
At that moment, the door to the room swished open to reveal the jounin Kakashi. "Yo." He stated, "You said you had some questions?" he asked, looking at Temari. The blonde-haired girl nodded a few times as the jounin instructor stepped into the room and sat down, making sure not to step or sit on any of the scrolls on the floor.
"Kakashi... sensei..." Temari bit her lip, it felt so strange to call this man her sensei. In a way it felt like she was somehow betraying Baki, her instructor from when she had lived in the Hidden Sand village. "Do you... Do you know what Henge technique Naruto uses?"
Kakashi's one visible eyebrow raised slightly. "Didn't he tell you?" he asked, glancing at Naruto - who just looked around in confusion.
"He said he uses the normal Henge, but that can't be right can it? I've seen him turn into a solid body." Temari looked at Naruto. "I know a normal Henge only gives the illusion of transformation, but Naruto really does transform."
"Really now?" Kakashi looked faintly puzzled and stared at Naruto. "You say he doesn't know how he does it?" at Temari's nod he frowned slightly. "There is a technique which does that, it's related to the Kage Bunshin no jutsu but... Well, I didn't know Naruto was unaware that he was using a high-level transformation technique. I thought he'd just learnt it from the same scroll he learnt the Kage Bunshin from."
Naruto frowned in deep thought. "There was Henge style jutsu in that scroll, it was the second technique... I tried it but I wasn't able to do it so I gave up." He looked at Kakashi with a questioning expression. "I thought I'd only managed to learn one technique..."
"Well," Murmured the jounin, "That explains it... Back then Naruto slacked off so much he probably didn't even know the limitations of the normal Henge no jutsu. It that were true then he probably didn't even realise he'd performed the higher-level version of the technique. I mean, I've never paid all that much attention to him when he transformed, since I know both levels of the Henge technique already."
"Ah... I see." Stated Naruto, even though it was completely obvious that he did not.
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"Are you sure you want to do that?" Asked Kiba, "It's not like you to think up something like this Shino..."
"You don't agree?" Asked the Aburame boy, most of his face hidden by the collar of his jacket. "I would have expected you'd love this plan."
"Well, yeah, I do..." Conceded Kiba, "But you were the one who suggested it, you're normally the most level headed of the team."
"And?" Asked Shino as the two, carrying Hinata between them, arrived at the classroom building. "You saw how bad Hinata was. He deserves it."
Kiba nodded in agreement. "Yeah. He does. C'mon, lets put Hinata in the classroom and let Yuuhi see to her while we go get dried off." The Inuzuka boy grumbled slightly, "Wet dog fur smells after a while you know."
"And then," Began Shino, but was cut off by Kiba.
"nonono," He muttered, glancing around quickly, "We don't want to risk anyone hearing about this and trying to stop us. Believe me, I know, people always try and stop these sorts of plans if they hear them."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It had been decided, quite hastily, that all four of the young ninja would sleep at Naruto's home that night.
'To promote team spirit, and let you get to know your new team member better.' Kakashi had claimed, though the four privately thought he had decided this just to annoy them all rather than any sense of 'team spirit'.
They were probably right too.
Either way, it meant that Naruto and Sasuke were left sleeping downstairs, whilst Sakura and Temari were sleeping in what was now Temari's room.
Sakura eyed the ex-Sand-nin warily. Granted she was technically no longer a Hidden Sand ninja - heck, by all rights she currently wasn't a ninja at all, not until she was recognised by the village as being a Leaf ninja at least. Of course, returning to the sand and being re-recognised as a ninja there would work too.
'No, I'm just being a bit paranoid.' Thought the pink-haired girl, 'She wouldn't be able to beat me now anyway, not with my secret technique...' Sakura winced slightly as she thought about the technique she'd paid for in pain. Right now she could feel her back, along with most of her arms, throbbing slightly with a dull ache - the cool atmosphere had probably dulled the pain slightly. Still, it was useable - just about - though she hadn't really practised in it's use, all she'd done was learn the theory from her mother and grandmother.
Still, it was nice to feel the reassuring warmth of her chakra as she guided it to gently flow around the many swirls and seals that had been tattooed onto her back.
"-ra? That is your name, isn't it?" Sakura blinked at the half heard statement. Temari, obviously noticing that Sakura hadn't really heard what she had said, sighed and repeated her statement. "What do you think of this, Sakura? That is your name, isn't it?"
'This' was a rather fetching dark green dress which, whilst the important areas - such as the chest, abdomen and groin - were solid, the rest was a fine netting. The dress was one of the finer outfits that Temari owned. Although she had to admit that it would be somewhat cold to wear, especially since this part of the world had such a different climate to what she was used to - Temari thought it would be rather nice to be able to wear it without having other Sand-nin girls make some stupid, and often slightly insulting, comment about it.
After all, whilst it was quite out of fashion in the Wind country, it was - or so she had guessed from what she had seen in some shops around the village during her exploration with Naruto - quite a new fashion here in the Fire country. This was mostly because of the fact that, due to tenuous relationships between the Wind and the Fire countries, it was difficult to trade directly between the two places. Due to this most trade was routed through one or more of the other major countries which, of course, meant that goods took much, much longer to arrive.
Temari heard Sakura suck in a breath. She saw, with some amusement, that the pink-haired nin-girl was wearing a look of jealousy at the fact that Temari had such a 'fashionable' dress. Well, fashionable in this country anyway.
Sakura pointed at the dress, "T-that's..." She stuttered, "How can any Genin have enough money to afford something like that! It's the newest fashion around!"
"Really?" Temari feigned ignorance. "This old thing? It's one of the least fashionable outfits in the Wind country you know." She smirked slightly as Sakura's face flashed through a series of expressions ranging from shock to confusion and back to jealousy. Eventually, however, the pink-haired ninja hung her head and sighed.
"Yet another person who's prettier than I am." Sakura muttered, feeling somewhat awkward. Granted, she knew that Temari was engaged to Naruto and so couldn't pursue Sasuke - like so many other girls in the village - but what if she caught Sasuke's eye and drew it away from her!? That would be bad. Unlikely, but still bad.
Inner Sakura was screaming in frustration, mostly about how outer Sakura was being a stick-in-the-mud worrier. Finally though, Inner Sakura smirked and, being evil as was her wont, sent several images of a rather attractive - and topless - Sasuke into outer Sakura's consciousness.
Needless to say, Sakura's face went as pink as her hair as she blushed at the mental image.
Temari raised an eyebrow slightly, assuming that the blush was Sakura just being depressive over her looks. Not that Temari knew how to react, she'd never really had any problem with her looks. Pretty, ugly, average... it didn't matter in the end really. Since she believed that if a boy liked a girl, he'd like that girl no matter how she looked.
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"You." Began Sasuke, "And Her." It was incredibly obvious that Sasuke didn't approve of such a match.
Not that Naruto cared after all, anything that Sasuke didn't like was a good thing as far as he was concerned. "Yeah," he replied, taking a slash at a training dummy with his kunai.
The two boys were in Naruto's 'training room', taking turns to practise basic taijutsu techniques on the dummies. Whilst Naruto believed that he could easily look better at it than Sasuke if he tried he knew there was no point in doing so. After all, one can only show off if there happens to be someone to watch.
Not that Naruto could beat Sasuke of course, he just believed he could. The concept of 'realistically possible' had never really managed to enter into Naruto's streams of thought. Then again, neither had the concept of 'Self preservation', which said a lot for how robust - if simple - Naruto's thoughts could be.
"She isn't too bad I guess." Murmured the blonde-haired boy as he stepped back for Sasuke to launch into the 'flight of the tiger' taijutsu sequence. "She's pretty," He grinned, a little trail of drool appearing at the corner of his mouth. "Very pretty."
Sasuke glanced over towards Naruto as he performed a series of side- thrusting kicks at the dummies chest area. Fortunately for Naruto he didn't connect Naruto's slightly lecherous look with the injuries Naruto had earlier. F he had linked the two things, he would probably have guessed what Naruto had done to earn those injuries. "And? She's Sand. You know what they did." The Uchiha boy didn't specify what the Sand had done, since he was sure Naruto would realise which event he was talking about.
"She didn't do that." Naruto stated, his eyes flat and glaring. "So it wasn't her fault." He folded his arms in front of him and glared at one corner of the room - purposely avoiding eye contact with Sasuke.
The black-haired boy stopped, a few moves short of finishing the taijutsu sequence and stared at Naruto. "You believe that, don't you?" He muttered. "Her village attacked ours, and you believe it wasn't her fault so she's innocent."
Naruto nodded, turning to look at Sasuke. "She was only following orders, so it's the fault of those who gave those orders. Not hers." This was, in any ways, a prime example of Naruto brand logic. The Uzumaki boy had a rather simplified view of the world, something that Sasuke just couldn't comprehend. It was as if Naruto started with the premise 'everyone is basically good' and then worked down from that, determining who was evil as he went along.
"Besides..." Naruto murmured. "She's lonely."
That comment stopped Sasuke just as he was about to go into a mini lecture. Loneliness was something he understood all to well, as did Naruto. "Lonely?" He asked, not quite believing Naruto's statement.
"Last night..." Began Naruto, "I heard her crying."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Gah!" Naruto was finding it hard to get comfortable in his chosen sleeping spot. Since he'd been kicked out of what had been his room by his - slightly unwelcome - guest, the boy had been trying to sleep on a variety of things ranging from the floor to the table.
Sitting upright on the table-top he had been trying, Naruto swung his legs off the table and, grabbing his pillow and blanket, shambled off to find a different place to sleep.
Suddenly he stopped. "Huh?" He was sure he had heard something. Listening hard, Naruto could barely make out the sound of sobbing. From the sound if it the noise was coming from upstairs, where Temari slept. Glancing around out of habit he crept over to the staircase, as he drew nearer the sounds grew slightly louder.
By the time he was halfway up the staircase Naruto was able to hear faint words. Temari's voice as she muttered things in her room.
"It's not fair." Naruto paused when he heard Temari's voice, slightly clearer than before. For a moment he wondered if he should go up there, maybe say something.
But then, what could he say?
"I want to go home." Muttered Temari, her voice punctuated by slight sobbing sounds. Naruto stood on the staircase and lowered his head.
So, she was homesick. Lonely too no doubt.
Although it was slightly embarrassing to admit, Naruto was worried about the Ex-Sand girl. Here, in this place, this village, she was alone. As the events of the day had shown she was also disliked - even hated.
Just like he had been.
Sighing to himself the blonde-haired ninja turned and crept back down the stairs. Right now, at this time, there was nothing he could do or say that would make it any easier.
"I'm sorry." He whispered, half to himself and half to the girl upstairs who could not hear him.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"She's homesick." Continued Naruto. "And..." He paused. Whilst normally he would never ask for help, Naruto was beginning to think that just this once he could use some advice. Unfortunately, after thinking his way through the problem Naruto had realised that most people he could ask wouldn't give very good advice.
"And yesterday she was attacked by some Chuunin... we only just got away without getting hurt." Naruto paled slightly and looked away from Sasuke, his teeth clenched in barely-repressed anger. "They tried to kill her!"
Sasuke blinked. As a ninja, he understood that death was something that could happen to anyone, anytime, anyplace. Although... for an attack to occur within village boundaries well, that was just wrong. In fact, for such a thing to happen was, in all technicality, a terrible blow to the villages honour. The Sand had not been the only village to lose out in the attack upon the Leaf. Several ninja from other villages, along with more than a few nobles, had been killed - showing to the world that the Leaf could not protect itself.
Granted, once the rest of the world had been informed of the circumstances behind the fracas, the pressure against the Leaf had lessened and had instead been piled upon the Sand.
"Who were they?" Asked Sasuke, his voice low and menacing. "Did you recognise them? Did they seem like they may try again?" He blinked as he received no response. "Naruto, are you listening-" A snore cut him off. To one side of Sasuke, Naruto had quite happily slid to the floor and was sleeping - albeit rather uncomfortably - on the training room floor.
Sasuke raised one eyebrow in slight amusement. "How the hell do you manage that?" He murmured. Whilst the Uchiha boy was mostly a rather anti-social person to be around, prolonged contact with Naruto and Sakura had slowly chipped away at the barriers he had erected around his personality. Although he was still quite the lone wolf, Sasuke now at least accepted that maybe being put into a team had been a good thing to happen to him.
"... Sleep well Naruto." He murmured, then smiled an evil little smile. "But don't complain to me when you wake up with cramps and pains from sleeping like that."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Knock.
"Uwah?" Naruto sat up slowly, rubbing sleep from his eyes with one hand. As he moved various parts of his body - mostly his back and legs - protested quite loudly about their overnight treatment. Shooting pains shot along his nervous system as he forced cramped limbs to pick him up off the ground and, hopefully, hold him in a standing position.
Knock.
Naruto turned his head slightly in the general direction of the knocking sound. Ah yes. That was why he'd woken up, wasn't it? Well. Standing around here wouldn't achieve much in the way of finding out what the knock was for. Mentally straining against the barriers of both pain and his usual sleepy morning haze, Naruto first willed on leg to move and then the other. Left, right, left, right. A nice constant rhythm of movement.
Knock. Knock.
"I'm coming..." Murmured the blonde-haired boy, mentally noting that he was wearing the same things he had worn yesterday. Well, it wasn't like they were dirty or anything - so they would do until he had dealt with whomever was knocking on his home's front door.
Left, right, left, right. His feet moved sluggishly at first, finally beginning to pick up speed as his sleepiness wore off. By the time he reached the stairs he was no longer dragging his feet and when he reached the bottom of the stairs they were moving up and down in little bouncy steps.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
The knocking was louder now, coming quickly and impatiently. Obviously someone was in a real hurry to get Naruto to open the door, and open it he would - after all, it was bad manners for a guest to open the door of their host's home to what could be complete strangers.
"Gah... Keep it down..." Naruto moaned, as he heard one of the doors upstairs - the one to Temari's room most likely - open with a low creak. "You'll wake everyone up... if you haven't already." The boy took a deep breath, put on what he hoped was a fairly normal looking expression, and opened the door.
His expression brightened slightly when he saw who it was and he grinned. "Oh! Hey th-"
Crunch!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Temari, clad in a loose dressing gown and whatever she wore underneath, peered down the stairs from the door to her room. Unlike Naruto, she was more fully alert to her surroundings and, due to this, was much less shocked when Naruto flew backwards away from the door than most other people would have been.
Judging from the angle and speed at which Naruto had been sent, it was pretty obvious that someone had just punched him in the face. Also she reasoned that, due to the way he had begun to greet his attacker, it must have been someone that Naruto knew who was on the other side of the door.
Slipping back into her room, Temari shook Sakura until the pink-haired girl was awake, then dressed with speed that had come from many, many hours of practice. After all, having to dress quickly could save a ninja's life - or the lives of other people - if an attack came whilst they were asleep. This was, of course, because a ninja's clothing often contained a vast amount of weapons, scrolls and medicines secreted around them, all items which could be vital to a ninja's fighting style or specialist skills. Such as, for instance, medical ninja and their vast arrays of medicines.
The body netting she ignored, it had it's uses but right now it would just take too long to get on. Instead she grabbed her jacket-dress, pulled it on and peeked out the window that looked out onto the space in front of Naruto's house.
Evidently the fight had moved outside, for Naruto was frantically dodging and ducking attacks from two other boys whilst making his own retaliatory attempts whenever he got the chance. Eventually though, Naruto was caught in the terrible position of having an opponent on either side of him.
Temari could have left him to fend for himself. After all, the two boy's weren't attacking to kill - she could see that easily - instead they were attacking to injure. Whatever the reason for the attack, it was probably something Naruto deserved.
But then...
If she had been down there, she had no doubt that Naruto would have jumped in without any thought whatsoever.
Temari smirked slightly, her course of action decided.
Grabbing her fan, Temari slammed open the window and leapt out - instinctively pushing her Chakra through her arm and into the giant wood and paper construct that was her weapon.
A weapon that she had just opened up.
"NINPOU... KAMAITACHI!"
Chapter 6 - end.
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Authors notes:
Hachacha... been a busy few weeks x.x finishing off art projects and setting up my end of year exhibition. Which explains why this one took a while ^^;;
Anyway, like usual, not stopped other ficcie blah blah blah. I think I'm gonna have to say this every time o.o;; as I do get the off e-mail asking if I'm continuing 'to be strong' x.x
Speaking of e-mails, I have a great big rant-thing for those people who seem to enjoy sending offensive e-mail flames at me. -.- but that can wait until the end of this yes.
Sooo... Sasuke has a bit of humour. Albeit the sort that revolves around other people's pain and/or dumbness. o.o;; (I'm surprised dumbness is an actual word... weird, huh?)
So. Some random questions and answers (or at least evasions o.o;) : Q: What can Temari do? A: besides her Kamaitachi? Well, she's smart - though not as smart as Shikamaru, she's obviously smarter than a big chunk of the cast. I personally think she's a bit smarter than Sasuke and Sakura (re: much smarter than Naruto . ) I think, in terms of IQ, I'd rate her about 130- 140, - assuming Sakura / Sasuke are in the area of 120 and Naruto is about 90-100. (and Shikamaru, of course, at over 200 x.x )
Q: Are you going to make Temari a one-trick pony? A: well, pay close attention. Most ninja are one trick ponies. For my examples I state Shikamaru (kagemane no jutsu), Choji (multi-size no jutsu) and Ino (Shintenshin no jutsu). Other than that, no comment o.o
Q: Will you be the mother of my child? A: o.o;; not unless I have a sex change.
Q: When does the next part come out? A: Considering that this question was asked before I finished chapter six... this *is* the next part =P (note the cheap evasion of the question there ^^; )
Q: Do the titles actually mean anything? A: yes and no. When some highly plot-important thing occurs, the title will usually have some relevance. Otherwise it can be anything. Beware the day I title a chapter whilst I'm on a sugar rush... hehehehe...
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And for now o.o I'll promise that i'll try my best to keep everything interesting. ^.^
- Lackey H, meditating on an Intoxicated Ino. (H: Mmmm. soft ^.^ Ino: Oi! Getoff! You're heavy! . )
And now, unfortunately, for that rant I mentioned. This rant has seen light already in 'To be strong', but it's here for those people who don't read that. -.-
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This is being added in response to several nasty, rather insulting, e-mails I've received from a variety of people.
If you want to criticise me, go ahead, as long as it's constructive I don't mind. In fact, I like having people give advice on those little things that help me improve my work. (Especially one kind person who pointed out a little grammar error I kept making. ^^;; One I hope to avoid making in the future now that I know about it.)
If you want to try flaming me then go get a coin and buy yourself a clue. I'm really getting sick of people who send insulting flames about things which they don't know
Firstly, the plot of my writing - I'm the author, I know what happens next, these flamers don't so they have no right to flame me on what hasn't happened yet.
You can flame me on what *has* happened if you so wish, but not on what you think I will write.
Secondly, the facts of the Naruto world. I, like all people, have my own take on some things. (such as the specifics of the Henge - transformation - no jutsu and Kuchiyose - summoning - no jutsu) I don't mind people having their own views on how a technique works. At present neither technique has been thoroughly explained in Canon so we're free to come up with our own theories.
What I don't like is when people ream me because they don't like my theory.
Asking if I'm sure of what I wrote is fair enough, pointing out instances of things that could disprove my theory is fine but when people insult, swear and deride me. Well. They can get stuffed.
Finally, if you have a complaint with something that is a Canon fact - please don't moan at me unless you can prove you're right. I'm getting kinda sick of having to repeatedly point out instances in the Manga which prove my side and ruin the other side of the argument.
I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just getting tired of being insulted for no good reason by people who are too lazy to wait for an explanation, too dumb to check the facts or too close-minded to accept any other theory.
I'm sorry this rant had to go here and I hope another will never be needed.
- Lackey H, sorry this rant had to be written.