I never thought that the words to get me to write would be "What is taking you so long!" Honestly. GaNiorgasoline, something like that, really sent that to me in a review, and next thing I knew I was formulating this chapter and typing it out! Wow…Though I really should be cleaning as I'm leaving my house again for my third trip this summer, only this time for a vacation, which is a FAR cry from any camp.
ON WITH THE CHAPTER!
Hinata sat, grimly cringing at the red slashes across her aptitude test.
(One day earlier)
"You just have to take a test seeing how well you'd perform on the level of your peers; we have no idea where your skills lay, Miss Hyuuga." The nice brown-headed receptionist said to Hinata from behind her prim-looking wire-frame glasses. The willowy woman then whipped up a note-pad from her desk drawer and quickly wrote a note out, which would soon be known to Hinata as a Hall Pass. With Capital letters, even.
(End flashback)
She had taken the hardest test she had ever seen yesterday, almost as bad as the Chunin written exam. How would SHE know what Co or Ti or H2O is? She hadn't learned any code even similar to that!
This new world had no ninja, this, she knew. Most everything she did know was obsolete in this, this…place. Her gentle fist technique was useless, not that she was much good anyway.
Heaving a sigh, Hinata folded her hands in her lap, and the door creaked on oiled hinges to her doom, and the school administrator walked in with a perplexed look, holding his copy of Hinata's test results. "Miss Hyuuga, your tests show that your Math and Biology skills are far above average, while your science is mediocre, and history are…well, awful. It's obvious from your math score that you need to be in a pre-calculus class. Your Biology section scores were that of a medical student, but your physics and chemistry were horrible! We'll just give you the Bio credit, but put you in an IPC class. And how can it be that you don't know any history at all?"
Hinata cringed, pulling her shoulders up, and poking her fingers together in her trademark nervous habit.
"Err, well, I suppose I had a l-limited education, but what I could learn I must have done my best in." Hinata stated, it was the only explanation she could offer that probably sounded half-believable. The man, Mr. Kopek, gave Hinata a flat look that simply said, "No, really, and was that nice?" before sighing himself, defeated.
"We'll just make a specialized schedule for you to get all your credits for graduation. Does it alter your daily schedule too much to come in early?"
Hinata thought back briefly to Maddie entering her room this morning at seven, to find Hinata awake and ready, listening to a radio, having roused from sleep at five, as usual.
"No."
"Right, well then, we'll pick up a visitor pass from Ms. Travenio for you to use the rest of today while we gather supplies for your, unique disadvantage." Mr. Kopek said, looking at Hinata's white eyes. Right, brail books, Maddie called them. Regular words were printed under the raised bumps, usually, so Hinata actually learned to read them already. A six-dot system might actually do very well on missions; she remembered thinking as she deciphered exactly how the code was used.
Mr. Kopek led Hinata out of the office and to Ms Travenio, who wrote out a visitor pass and up it onto Hinata's left breast pocket. A random male office aid was then instructed to lead Hinata to Maddie's second period class. He held Hinata's hand to do it, and she had to laugh when she saw the flush across his nose.
"W-what?" He asked.
"Oh, nothing."
(Lunchtime in the Garden.)
"Hina!" Gary gave a loud squeal to greet the dark-haired girl they'd come to know as Hina. Ripping forward from his seat in the memorial garden, the green-haired teen leapt at his new friend for a hug. Blushing, but retuning the enthusiastic hug, Hinata's head swiveled to look at the Garden she'd been brought to.
It was a simple niche in the side of the school building, the walls lined with green bushes and flowers near the red brick patio-type area sparsely decorated with benches to sit on. It was a quiet place, it seemed, and looking to the center of the garden, Hinata saw why.
Standing at the center of the garden, surrounded by more flowers, was a large rose granite rock, with only one smooth face, which itself held a poem engraved on the rock. Hinata looked down quickly, the poem speaking of the teens that had died far too soon while still attending the school she was now to go to. On the ground was a name. The brick she was looking at had a name on it and two dates.
"The bricks we're walking on have names and dates on them." Said Gary softly, realizing her attention wasn't on them.
"Really?"
"Yep, that's why this is our school's memorial Garden, it's a memorial to all the students who died while still coming here. It's a great place to eat lunch because it's much quieter than the cafeteria; the only downside is that you end up having to bring your lunch everyday! C'mon, I'll lead you over to where we are." Gary told her. Then, taking her hand he led Hinata to an area off to one side of the small garden where the group of kids she'd met at the party were sitting.
"KEVIN! GET OFF THE GENE!" screamed Maddie, not noticing the serious conversation that had started next to her. Running to the distressed brunette girl being squished by the blond blockhead, she yelled at the top of her voice again; "KEVIN!"
"Erm, pardon, but, what's happening?" Hinata asked, slightly miffed as the convenience of not answering questions about her white eyes began shifting to annoyance for having to pretend to be blind.
"Oh, Gene took Kevin's usually seat so you could have hers in the shade. He got a little mad about it and is trying to make her move again by sitting on her. Just let me say: it's not working." Smiling coyly, Gary finally brought them all the way to the foot of the fight.
Grunting and growling was coming from the tangled pair. Gene's long thin, floral skirt rumpling with Kevin's weight too unevenly spread across her lap, tipping both of them as they grappled for a better position to toss the other off the seat. Maddie stood close by, attempting with all her feeble strength to pry the heavier boy off the frail-like Gene, who was much thinner by a more-than-fair amount.
"Hinata, Do something!" cried a now panicking Maddie Dwight.
Gary looked appalled, "Hello, earth to Maddie, you realize that Hina's BLIND, right?"
"Well, yeah," Maddie said, upset, "But back when she was still in the hospital she told us she knew some martial arts!" Maddie then threw a pitiful look in Hinata's direction and began to plead for assistance.
Hinata was a little torn; she DID know the gentle fist technique, but she didn't want her new friends scared, either.
But Hinata quickly found a solution to fit that.
"Well, I actually said I was interested in Martial Arts, not that I knew them, but…" Reaching forward casually, Hinata grabbed Kevin's arms and slid her hand to about the crook of the elbow and found easily accessible pressure points to relax the hands. Then, she moved her hands again and locked his shoulders, then grabbed Kevin by the ear and led him up off Gene, now royally disheveled, and told him to sit at another bench so she could undo it all; All during Kevin's beautifully colorful squawks of indignity.
"Okay," said Gary, full agape, "Who else finds that incredibly terrifying but damn funny?" Gene and Maddie stretched their hands to the sky, and after another moment Kevin's joined them. Blushing and half ashamed, Hinata turned her face reflexively downward to inspect the brick deck-area and her shoes.
"And who agrees that overall it was DAMN COOL! HINATA YOU ROCK!" said Gene, suddenly standing and wrapping the other shy girl up in a hug. "I'll never bend to the strong society again! You HAVE to teach me!" Relief melted onto Hinata's features and she shyly returned the embrace.
"Well, it's s-simple enough, actually…" And the rest of lunch was a lesson on pressure points and what pressing them with a skilled hand could do. A few crude jokes flew around and while at first Hinata was affronted, she found herself giggling along to few all too quickly.
'This place isn't too bad at all!' thought Hinata.
Anyhow, I'm going to end the chapter there for now, as I don't really know where to continue it. Also, the timeline is going to skip around more. I think the next chapter will be set about a month from this one with Hinata all settled in and stutter probably gone, as it is too hard to deal with for long. My computer always screams at me for it. Hope you like!
ME