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Naruto. don'
Chapter 4:
The sun had just started to rise.
Hinata had become accustomed to pulling herself out of bed before the offending light even had the chance to wake her.
Performing her usual routine she aligned her chakra and did her usually physical exercises to work her muscles. Today would probably mark the start of many days spent with the last Uchiha.
Judging by their track record so far, she was not enthused about further interactions with the man. She had proved her physical capabilities to him, despite the fact that he chose not to acknowledge them, but she couldn't work with him as a team if he chose not to acknowledge her as his team mate. However, despite all the conditioning she received, she still retained her patience, which she had a feeling would come in handy.
As she made her way to Konoha's entrance, her pack comfortably resting on her back, she felt a bit nostalgic. It had been many years since she stood mission ready at the gate and she found that she kind of missed it. She had neglected making contact with Shino or Kiba or even her father while she was here. It was against protocol for ANBU to discuss mission information and she was sure they would wanna know where she was going when she left one day after returning.
Because of this, no one was there to bid her farewell at the gate, this however didn't seem true for Sasuke.
"Sakura, will you give it a rest with your incessant worrying?"
The Uchiha looked positively livid as the woman poked and prodded at his left arm. Hinata raised her eyebrows underneath her ANBU mask as she approached. The pink haired medic seemed to be tinkering with the mechanical arm that had replaced the Uchiha's former limb.
"Oh would you shut up, I wouldn't have to do this if you hadn't gotten into that fight yesterday, a mere WEEK after I performed a limb transplant on you. Thanks to your little stunt your chakra networks are misaligned! I told you not to direct chakra through this limb Sasuke, for any reason."
Throughout the girls rant, Sasuke seemed to be rather interested in the nails on his right hand.
Hinata was sure the medic meant well, she was just rather loud and well… annoying. She was drawn back to memories of her being very loud and bossy, beating around both Naruto and Sasuke. She had also remembered this being the woman Naruto had claimed to be in love with. Five years later, from a non biased stance, she could see that kind of fitting. Naruto was very vibrant and loud himself, this pushed the people around him into the shadows. People like Sasuke thrived in the shadows, Sakura, equally vibrant, would most likely be able to shine by his side. This solidified Hinata's theory that she would have never been able to exist, as herself, by his side.
In the interest of being on their way, Hinata approached with an activated Byakugan.
"May I?" she questioned, without waiting for a reply she quickly and expertly struck out at the man's arm. Striking three points she saw to be bundled chakra pathways she heard Sasuke exhale in relief.
"How did you?-" Sakura started as she watched the Uchiha move his arm again in fluid motion. "Are you a medic?" she asked Hinata.
The pink haired Shinobi looked a bit standoffish, which was normal when someone was in the presence of ANBU.
"Among other things," Hinata stated bluntly. Shifting her gaze to Sasuke, she tilted her head to the side to examine his ANBU mask. She snorted at the obvious metaphor. A depiction of a wolf adorned the porcelain mask. Cats and dogs, destined to never mix.
"Are you ready to depart Wolf?" She asked. Using his ANBU codename was customary among the regiment.
Sasuke looked amused and gave her a mock salute before pulling on his mask as well. "Right after you Kitten."
"Wait who are you? Sasuke I really wish you would tell me what's going on." Sakura whined.
Sasuke was about to counter, however Hinata beat him to it. Her patience was good but not that good.
"Haruno-san. To ask an ANBU to reveal themselves while on mission is against the law, I believe you know this. I hold rules and laws a little more tightly to my chest then my comrade." she stated firmly, adjusting her obscured gaze to the Uchiha one last time.
Sakura's face bled red as the blush crept in. It was odd and Hinata felt a little guilty to have made the girl so complacent. She bowed slightly in apology.
"Well if that's all it took."
Sakura glared at Sasuke. "Baka, you better not die."
Sasuke fixed her with the same blank stare he usually held then abruptly turned to face the gate, taking off at his normal long strided pace. Hinata gave one last pitting look to Sakura, she was reminded of the old adage, "With friends like these, who needs enemies."
. . . . . .
The Intel pages that Kakashi had given indicated that the first man, Shunsuke Nakamura also known as "the impassable mountain, would be located somewhere inside the Land of Earth's Hidden Stone Village, Iwagakure. Hinata had never met the Tsuchikage, or been in the Hidden Stone village, however she knew that it was a village made primarily out of the surrounding rock and stone of the settlement. It took Sasuke and Hinata four days to reach the city. In the time that past they only spoke to agree on breaks. Sasuke, who had much longer strides then her, was naturally faster at travel. Content to stay out of the poor tempered man's site, she made no additional effort to match his pace for the journey. She had instead elected to stay adjacent to him and spitting distance behind.
She had taken those moments to observe him however. The first thing she had noticed upon examination was that he was a lot more serious about the mission than she took him for. It wasn't that she had pegged Sasuke for the joking type, but she had expected a certain level of push back that she was happy to not have received. She didn't have to force him to keep watch as he always volunteered first. She didn't have to wake him up as he always woke up first. They had developed an unspoken agreement to share whatever rations they had bought, and to take turns refilling their supplies when they passed neighboring cities.
Not that she had expected much in an era of peace, she however, was surprised and cautiously enthused that they had not encountered any trouble or enemy shinobi along the way. For people like Sasuke and Hinata, their mask had dual purpose, to show that she was a high ranking and skilled shinobi, and to hide the troublesome fact that her eyes could be sold for pounds of gold on the black market.
In more harmony than she ever thought she would share with Sasuke Uchiha, they reached the gates of Iwa. The guards stationed were in shinobi clothing with the additional padded armor that comes with being a sentry.
"Konoha ANBU," they addressed Sasuke and Hinata as they approached."What business do you have here."
Sasuke, the man of many words that he was, said nothing and simply showed the Hokage seal to the man that had questioned them, below it the signature of the Tsuchikage.
"Your Kage has given us permission to enter your city to complete our mission, please allow us safe passage." Hinata sighed at the formalness of it all, but she would not look down on tradition.
The sentry shinobi eyed them wearily before saying something in a foreign tongue, most likely Iwa dialect, and stepping aside. The stone wall was massive and ascended to what Hinata could only guess was Kami himself.
The city that dwelled inside was just as described. All major structures were made completely of the surrounding stone. Iwa had not yet received the technological upgrades that Konaha had undergone and thus was a bit less….sparkly than her home.
"What do you think?" she asked Sasuke as they ventured in.
"Hn." Sasuke grunted in his usually caveman-like demeanor and Hinata smiled. She had grown quite fond of their back and forth. Neither of them really favoured talking, so in the almost weeks time they were traveling they had barely said enough words to fill a page in a widely fonted children's book. At this point they were better off learning the signed language of the deaf.
Because they had arrived toward mid day, the market was still in full effect and they walked into a very thick consumer based crowd. All of Iwa's citizens favoured the color red and wore flak jackets to stay warm as the now October cold became cooler as it froze the stone city. Other nations ANBU were not promoted to wear their ANBU masks when not in combat so she and Sasuke had removed theirs at the gate. Despite not having the animal mask, they still stuck out like sore thumbs in their seamingly matched all black mission gear.
Many citizens sent curious and somewhat ominous looks at the foriegn shinobi.
"I'll get food, you get the room," Sasuke said. Hinata nodded. Feeling there was nothing to reply she watched as Sasuke disappeared in the crowd. She took a look around, and saw that the Tsuchikage building was placed centrally just like the one in Konoha. As she looked around for an inn, she felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
Ducking behind a nearby stand to avoid being seen, she activated her Byakugan. Scanning the building skyline and the surrounding area she tried to find unusual chakra signatures. As a result of her training her bloodline was conditioned not only to last longer, but to see and identify the difference in chakra networks. However, it all felt a little useless when she couldn't find anything out of the norm, however she coulda swore she saw….
"Hyuga, what are you doing?"
She jumped. He snuck up on her, how had he snuck up on her?
"I thought…" she trailed off, looking around once more before deactivating her bloodline limit.
"Thought what? That our given mission wasn't enough, needed a couple of eye snatchers on our tail to spice things up?"
Hinata glared, "I would not have let it come to that."
"Yes, as shown by your steller situational awareness just now."
Hinata stayed silent thinking about how she missed the days where she and Sasuke traveled in silence.
"I got the food." he stated.
She eyed him wearily.
"You didn't just get tomatoes again like last time did you?"
He paused, blinking. "I got my food."
"Goddamn it Uchiha," she sighed.
He simply shrugged his shoulders. "I see that we have no place to stay, lucky for you I handled that too, the guy that sold me tomatoes says he has a room for rent." He held up a key.
"Only one room?"
"Hyuga, does anything satisfy you?"
She glared once again. It's not like she minded being in close quarters with men on missions. Long ago, when she had gone on missions with Shino and Kiba, they had all but bathed with each other they had been so close. However, if she had learned anything about the last Uchiha, it was that he was tolerable at a distance.
Sasuke tucked the keys in his pocket and started walking away without even waiting to see if Hinata would follow. She was used to it and took her normal place adjacent to him. Once they had got a good distance away from the market, after Hinata had stopped and gotten a fresh rice ball for herself, she started to see varying sizes of stone houses. Some were painted and had been combined with varying levels of wooden additions. Others were simple, and just had small flowers or potted plants.
The one Sasuke stopped at was a smaller one tucked off on its own plot of land away from everything else; it had cacti growing out front in a small garden. Putting in the key and opening the door, the Uchiha revealed a small living space. There was a huge area rug in what was to be the living room/ bedroom. The bed at least was big enough if they did end up sharing, which would not be the case if Hinata had any say. There was a small kitchen with an even small tea kettle that could maybe fit two cups if both parties liked strong tea.
" Fix your face Hyuga, this isn't our honeymoon, you sleep first we've been traveling all day, I'll take first watch."
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