Dutiful Eyes
By Stormlock
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Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. (I got this really cool shiny rock though.)
A/N: Sorry for taking so long for this update. Life has gotten very busy, so I haven't had the time and energy to write much of anything for quite a while. However, that doesn't mean I don't still think about the fic all the time, so now I'm just like 6 chapters ahead on my planning P. (Actually, I had some more thoughts while starting to write this chapter, and now have the rest of this fic and the start of a direct sequel plotted out.) Since this chapter is much later than I'd been planning, I decided to go ahead and make it extra long. Anyways, I know a lot of you have been looking forward to this chapter, so enjoy!
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After the first day Kakashi could no longer convince Tazuna to wait for his protection to recover fully before restarting work on the bridge. So, Kakashi came up with a schedule. He and Neji would protect Tazuna together, since neither of them were really strong enough to actively participate in any sort of training. Neji was rather upset at this until Kakashi told him they could pass the time discussing jutsu theory, and Neji decided to make use of Kakashi's knowledge to figure out the Hakke technique. Kakashi certainly seemed adept at reading his opponent's next move, so maybe he'd help Neji perfect the technique. Hinata and Naruto were told to remain with Tazuna's family (another prime target for Gatou, Neji had pointed out when he was trying to convince Kakashi to let him stay behind with Hinata) and train. When pressed by Naruto as to how they should train exactly (Specifically, he said "What kind of lame ass teacher are you anyways, that never helps us train? I don't know what to do by myself!") Kakashi recommended the tree climbing exercise, which Hinata instantly recognized and she said she could show Naruto how it worked.
With that, Tazuna headed off with Kakashi and Neji (Already badgering Kakashi about his fight with Zabuza for more details) in tow, leaving Hinata and a somewhat puzzled Naruto behind.
"So, what the hell is this 'tree climbing' exercise? I can already climb trees!"
Hinata giggled a bit at that comment. "I'm going to teach you how to climb trees using your chakra to hold on instead of your hands. It's an exercise that teaches good chakra control. Thats why I already know it, the jyuuken wouldn't work at all without this kind of control.
Hinata demonstrated her ability by walking over to and ten feet up the trunk of the nearest tree of appropriate size. After explaining the technical aspect of it (which Naruto half understood) she told him to give it a shot, only while running to get an extra boost to start up the tree.
Naruto backed up a goodly distance and took a mad dash at the tree before jumping up and planting his feet on it. He made about two steps before his initial momentum wore out and another one before his tenuous grip failed and his foot slipped. Hinata ran a few steps down the trunk and caught him by the wrist before he fell.
"Gah! This is way harder than it looks! I can barely hold on at all!"
Hinata was inwardly thinking the same thing. For someone so short, Naruto was heavy. But, climbing will be even more exhausting for him while he's just learning, so I should be able to keep this up till he gets worn out.
"Here, just try getting your feet to stick while I'm supporting you. You don't need to do it perfectly this way, just grip as best you can to help yourself climb."
Naruto nodded while trying to focus as best he could. He wanted to get good enough to do this without Hinata's help, he felt bad for making her waste her time helping him with what was probably a simply exercise. After a about fifteen minutes, Hinata told him they had to stop, as her arms and legs were getting sore from the constant deadweight. Naruto wasn't too happy about this, but didn't want to push his friend and didn't think he'd learn very quickly by simply falling down over and over again..In the short period of time they'd been trying for, Naruto's grip had improved from supporting maybe 5 kilos of his weight to about 10 kilos, but with the leverage of his whole body hanging off the trunk like that, just standing there like Hinata would mean he'd need to be able to support probably twice his body weight. When he thought about how Hinata was helping him, he realized she must have an amazing level of control to be able to support that much weight in that manner for so long.
Hinata was somewhat puzzled. She knew from Naruto's sparring with Neji that he was a pretty fast learner. Even if he didn't have as much talent for chakra control as he did for taijutsu he still should have progressed faster than this. She had expected him to be mostly supporting his own weight be now, she'd been planning on having the session last for an hour or more. However, although she still had some chakra left, physically Hinata was completely drained. Hmmmm.
"Naruto, I'm going to try something different. You try running up the tree by yourself, I'll watch you with my Byakugan to see if I can figure out what you're doing wrong. Just be careful to land safely!"
Naruto nodded, eager to get back to practicing. He began repeated attempts (and failures) to scale the tree. He was too focused on his feet to notice Hinata's furrowed brow.
What the hell? His chakra coils are all weird. I remember they looked a bit funny when I saw him sparring with Neji, but. . . it's like his chakra system doesn't belong to a human or something. Parts of it are more like the system in a dog or cat or something. I wonder why Neji never mentioned it. . .
Hinata was startled out of her thoughts by a particularly bad loss of balance from Naruto, who managed to save himself from a nasty fall by quickly grabbing the trunk with one of his hands, temporarily holding on with his two feet and a hand before letting himself fall to the ground safely. Hinata did a double take. He can barely manage to hold on with one foot at a time but using three points at once he can hold on easily? That doesn't make sense. . . it's much more difficult to control chakra from multiple tenketsu at once than focusing on a single one. Hinata was puzzled. Even just holding on to the tree with two feet at once required total proficiency with this exercise. But catching yourself from falling with three points at once? Even she'd be hard pressed to do that. It would be far easier for her to just catch herself with one foot or better yet a hand if she needed to. That's why genin were taught to do this exercise by running up the tree. While running, one never has both feet on the surface at once, so it's much simpler to focus on one foot at a time. Even if hands are easier to use chakra from than feet, using both at once should be far more difficult. Well, if it works for him . . .
"Hey Naruto, can you climb up that tree over there if you use your hands and feet together, slowly?" Hinata pointed out an especially smooth large tree nearby. He'd have basically no physical grip on it at all, so he'd have to depend on his chakra entirely for the climbing.
"Sure, I'll give that a shot!" A slightly confused Naruto ran over to the tree and attempted the climb. To his surprise, he could actually manage it. He'd thought it would be too slippery to get a grip on, but he found that he could just barely manage the ascent by staying close to the tree and using as much of his body as possible. He looked like a clumsy bug trying to climb up a vertical wall of glass, inching along while just barely supporting his weight.
Hinata was extremely impressed. She probably couldn't do a whole lot better than that using that kind of method. She didn't even want to try with her sore limbs. It also occurred to her that using three or four points at once like that would drain chakra much faster too, which was another reason to do it with only the feet. Naruto would still need to learn the proper way to climb, but it looked like she'd found a good way for him to get his feet wet, so to speak.
"Way to go Naruto!" Hinata cheered for him when he finally got to a branch fifteen feet up. A bashful Naruto flashed a big grin and waved down at her.
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After a few days Kakashi and Neji were feeling back up to par, and Naruto was climbing up trees like a spider, to the bewilderment of his comrades, who couldn't fathom using such an odd climbing style so effectively.
"Well, it's certainly impressive, but you really need to learn the normal way of doing it too Naruto." Kakashi's lukewarm response to Naruto's achievement put a damper on his mood. Still, he had progressed faster than expected, and Hinata had told him he'd need to learn the proper way as well eventually from the very begining.
"Anyways, now that me and Neji are feeling better, I think it's time he starts training with you as well. I'll keep an eye on Tazuna by myself from now on."
Neji was happy to get back to his training and be around Hinata again, but Hinata noticed a wrinkle with the plan.
"But, wouldn't it be best if either me or Neji were there to protect Tazuna-san as well? We're the only ones who won't be affected by Zabuza's mist techniques.
"Hmm, I guess you have a point. Maybe you should come with me then, I said I'd help you with that technique anyways right?"
"Alright. Neji, you can help Naruto finish his training right?" Hinata gave him a very effective puppy-dog eyes look and he immediately agreed. He was somewhat annoyed at being separated from his cousin yet again, but he at least felt much better with Kakashi there to protect her instead of Naruto.
Neji turned to Naruto after waving to Kakashi and Hinata.
"So, I can see you can climb up pretty fast that way, but how well can you climb while running up instead?"
Naruto nervously displayed his decidedly mediocre skill using the normal method. It wasn't nearly as abysmal as when he'd started, but he could still only get about 12 feet on average before losing too much momentum and beginning to fall.
Neji was somewhat annoyed. He wanted to practice some of the things he'd discussed with Kakashi concerning prediction of enemy movements. Kakashi's method was entirely different than the Hakke of course, but still had a lot of relevant information he could make use of. Neji felt he could finally pull off the technique with the things he'd learned, if he could put them to use. But he wasn't going to get much practice at all if Naruto needed this much help.
Then Neji remembered something Hinata had mentioned to him last night about Naruto's training. She had mentioned his stamina to him. Neji already knew quite well how much energy Naruto had from their sparring sessions, but Hinata hadn't quite realized how resilient the blonde was until she saw him training like that Maybe if he made use of that stamina he could speed things up.
"Hey Naruto, Hinata's been helping you climb when you climb normally right, to make it easier for you?"
"Well yeah, it made it a lot easier to figure out the basics if I could stay on the tree instead of starting and stopping constantly."
"Well, I suppose that's a good way to start training, but if you always practice with a crutch like that, it limits your potential."
"I guess you're right about that, I mean, I ended up getting really good climbing on all fours without her help. That practice was really the only reason I can climb with just two feet at all."
"Well, there's a way to take that even further you know. You've heard of weight training right? Training with weights on so you can perform even better when you take them off?"
Naruto looked excited at this topic. "Oh yeah! I always wanted to try that! But all the crappy weights I buy always end up breaking and stuff if I train very hard! Do you got some of the better ones I could use?
That's not what I meant at all. . . "Umm, no."
A downcast Naruto replied. "Oh. Then what?"
"Well, you need to train you chakra control, so I'll give you 'weights' for that instead." Naruto was clearly puzzled at this concept.
"Err, what?"
"I'll use my Jyuuken to mess with your chakra a little bit. If you can learn how to climb like that, then you'll be able to do it easily." And I won't need to put in much attention while he trains that way since a slow progress rate this way will equate to a lot of real progress once he's back to normal.
"Well, I'll give it a shot. Fire away!"
With a smirk, Neji activated his Byakugan and tapped Naruto a few times, slightly cutting off the chakra flow to his feet. He didn't want to overdo it after all.
"Okay, now try."
Naruto nodded and made a dash for the nearest tree, and, to the surprise of both of them, made it up 25 feet on his first try. After a few more attempts after readjusting to his newly limited chakra he managed to get all the way to 40 feet, nearly the top of the tree. At that point the swaying of the tree became a major issue so he couldn't really proceed, but he was good enough now that he could run up and down the tree proficiently.
"I think you screwed up. That was WAY easier than normal."
What a weirdo. He's been using too much chakra this entire time. Normally everyone uses too little. He's only screwing up because he overdoes it and can't make it steady enough for even a footstep in the long run. Well, this is an easy enough fix.
"Alright, come back over here, I'll try something different, since it seems you're actually using too much chakra and not climbing steadily enough, I'll make your system push even more chakra than normal to your feet, so you'll have to try really hard to control it."
After a few precise strikes, Neji sent Naruto off to try again. This time he didn't even make it to the tree. His gait became wobbly and he fell over on his way there, tumbling to a stop on the roots.
"What the hell! I can't even run normally now!"
"Perfect. You don't even need to use the trees then, so it won't be dangerous. Just practice running around normally. Once you can do that perfectly, I'll mess your legs up a bit more and we'll keep doing that until we need to stop, then we can check to see how well you can climb the trees normally."
After practicing for a while, Neji decided to try and incorporate his own training into his comrade's. He and Naruto played tag, with Neji obviously not giving it his all playing as 'it' and chasing around Naruto, who was struggling just to stay upright while putting on a decent chase. In fact, he'd frequently fall forward and bounce himself back up into the air from his hands and continue running without skipping a beat. Neji had seen him do things of that nature while sparring, so it wasn't too much of a surprise. Once in a while Neji would close in and 'try' to tag Naruto, while attempting to read his movements, testing various tells and responses to figure Naruto out. Of course, being able to read Naruto perfectly wouldn't mean he could use the technique, since that required being able to read anyone's movements after just a minute or two of familiarization. Still, Neji was able to practice the fundamentals somewhat, and it was certainly better than no training at all. At one point Naruto hit upon the idea of using kagebunshins to distract or obstruct Neji. This, of course, delighted Neji, who finally had something approaching a challenge in their little game.
Eventually however, the strain of making kagebunshins with a messed up chakra system was too much and Naruto conceded that he needed a break. Neji had him check his tree climbing progress after fixing him and it was markedly better once he readjusted to his normal state.
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After a few more days of training Naruto was an excellent tree climber, and Neji had become proficient enough at reading movements on Naruto to play an even match of tag even when he forced himself to move as slowly as Naruto and let himself be outnumbered three to one. Kakashi was also feeling back up to par, and reached the decision that they should focus on protecting Tazuna from that point on, since Zabuza was likely to have recovered by now as well. They were doubly alert after capturing a couple of samurai lurking around Tazuna's residence thanks to the Byakugan. Their worries were grimly confirmed when they found Tazuna's workers massacred on the bridge that morning.
". . . This is horrible. . ." Hinata's words cut through the silence around them effortlessly, even as the fog began to close in around the five of them.
"Stay close to Tazuna, don't forget protecting him is our priority." Tazuna was just about to recover enough from his shock to reply to Kakashi's statement when Zabuza's water clones closed in on them from the mist.However, both Neji and Hinata had seen them coming well in advance through the mist. Hinata too out one of them with a bullet of wind through it's face before it even saw them. Neji took out another one in a similiar manner using shuriken, and Kakashi took out the rest as they went after several very convincing Tazuna clones made courtesy of Naruto, who had made it a point to learn how to emulate Tazuna well enough for an ideal decoy during the last two days. When the water finished falling to the ground, Zabuza was standing at the end of a corridor cleared through the mist, so Naruto and Kakashi could see him. (And he could see them, in order to fight at least somewhat effectively with the water clones.)
"Well Kakashi, your students are better than I gave them credit for. But I'm not allowing retreat to be an option for me this time. Tazuna must die here today. And this time, Haku's not just going to watch any more."
"Zabuza, let me take care of his students, if that's alright. You can concentrate on Kakashi."
"Don't want them to die fighting me Haku? Well, it's all the same to me as long as our bounty is killed off. Just don't go too soft on them."
Realizing that Haku would be concentrating on the three of them, Neji and Naruto dashed towards him, hoping to keep Hinata and Tazuna out of the crossfire. Hinata realized that at least one of them needed to stay by Tazuna's side, and was left behind quickly, accompanied only by a couple of Naruto's Tazuna clones.
Neji decided his best option was to go all out to end this as quickly as possible to press their advantage in numbers against Zabuza once more. He began a furious hand to hand exchange with Neji, both of them dodging around so rapidly that Naruto couldn't throw any punches without risking hitting Neji instead of Haku. Eventually they were a good three hundred feet away from Tazuna and Kakashi, who were just barely visible in the slightly thinned mist. Zabuza was completely hidden somewhere within a particularly thick shroud near the edge of the bridge.
Neji was grinning. He'd managed to disable most of the tenketsu on Haku's left arm. Haku clearly realized something was wrong with it, but didn't seem as worried as he should be. Maybe he doesn't realize he can't perform any jutsus now with his hand like that.
Perfect. He doesn't realize I don't need that hand to perform my jutsu. Neji realized his opponent was attempting a jutsu with a single hand when his chakra quickly molded, but was a little to late in noticing the dozens of needles it had created resting on the ground, that suddenly shot upward towards Neji. Fortunately for Neji, Naruto, being further from the fight and having given up on trying to read their actual combat well enough to interfere, had noticed the strange rippling and shaping of the water before hand, and moved to tackle Neji as soon as he saw Haku's hand forming seals. Neji went with it and the two of them fell well clear of all the needles that had shot up into the air. Instead of falling though, the needles dissipated into droplets and hovered there.
"I can't risk going easy on you two. Forgive me." By the time the two of them realized they had just fallen into a trap rather than evaded one. Haku's mirrors were set up all around them. As Neji tried to make sense of the bizzare display of chakra, ice and mirrors his Byakugan was giving him, needles began to fall upon the two of them from every angle. Neji had trained especially for the purpose of defending someone smaller than himself from projectiles like this, and Naruto was making himself one hell of an impossible target, but with the two of them trapped with so little room to evade, Haku's needles were finding their marks far more often than not. Haku was concentrating most of his attacks on Naruto, since that used up Neji's energy trying to protect him as well, and it seemed impossible to get a surprise shot in on Neji anyways.
This is very bad. My techniques are worthless here. I can tell which mirror he's in and predict his attacks easily enough, but he moves way too fast for me to keep up. And our injuries are piling up. Neji was covered in grazing scratches, and although Naruto seemed oddly free of wounds like that, he was starting to look like a pin cushion, and it was obvious that every move he made was painful now, with all the needles interfering.
"It seems I was right, the two of you are like me. Weaker shinobi would have surrendered by now."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Naruto's ragged voice was eerie after the wordless cacophony of striking needles and cries of pain. Neji's thoughts had changed from trying to end this to go and help Kakashi to just stalling long enough for Kakashi to come to their aid.. Might as well get him talking if we can.
"You mean blood limits? Normally people can't use ice jutsu's, and my eyes are probably pretty obviously beyond normal at this point.."
"No, thats what Zabuza thought too when I told him. I mean the way you fight. All three of us fight to protect someone precious to us. That's why I can't just go easy on you.I know you'll do anything to beat me. That's a lot more dangerous than any blood line."
I suppose he's right about that. If only I had something to beat him with. . . The only thing I have that might even have a chance to take him out are my explosive tags. But even if he let me ignite one, I'd take out both me and Naruto in this confined space.
"Neji, let's prove him right." Neji didn't need to turn to see the fire in Naruto's eyes. He was about to give it his all. Naruto's right. I'm not going to give up and hope to be rescued. Even if it's one in a million, I'm going to give it my all for you Hinata.
Chaos exploded within the mirrored prison. A dozen or more shadow clones appeared and both Naruto and Neji made for the mirrors to try and smash them out, or at least slip by. Hinata had been watching it all from Tazuna's side with her gifted eyes, and something in her snapped when she read Haku and Naruto's lips and realized her comrades were fighting for her.
"Sorry Tazuna, I need to protect them too." Tazuna, unable to see any of the fighting going on, just nodded at her. "Do whatever you have to." With that, Hinata shifted her last scraps of attention from Kakashi and Zabuza's battle and poured every ounce of focus into the distant mirrors.
Hinata pulled out a new kind of smoke bomb she had bought in town earlier that week and launched it with a shot of wind all the way over and into the mirrors. It arced deeply enough to smash into the bridge, it's metal barbs securing it in place as inky black smoke shot out of it, fighting it's way up through the mist and the lighter smoke of all 20 of Naruto's shattered clones. For all their efforts, Naruto and Neji had been forced right back to back in the middle of the mirrors once more. Now with all the smoke, Neji and Hinata were the only ones who could see anything inside the mirrors. Which now held only one image, unable to reflect anything in the complete absence of light. Realizing the pointlessness of staying in the mirrors and waiting for the smoke to clear, Haku dropped out of the mirror he was in right next to Neji.
If not for that, he would have surely died.
Within the time between when Haku fell from the mirror and his feet touched the ground, Hinata's attack had begun and finished.
/ Two days ago. / "I see why you're having difficulty with that technique Hinata, achieving that level of control and power is extremely ambitious. Even I would take a year or two to perfect a jutsu like that probably." (Actually, it'd probably be a dozen years since Kakashi was awful at inventing jutsu's)
Hinata sighed at the discouraging words. "What do you suggest for me then?"
"Just give up on it. It's way too difficult."
"Gffstpts-" Hinata choked on the tea she'd been sipping. Luckily she didn't gulp it down like the boys usually did or she would have been badly burned.
"I can't just give up on it because it's difficult! I already invested a lot of time, I'm sure if I can just figure out-
"But that's the problem. What good is a technique that is so hard to even learn well enough for a mediocre use? Great techniques aren't made by imagining what you want to accomplish and then wrestling the chakra until it does it for you, they're made by realizing how to best use what you can already do. You shouldn't spend such an enormous amount of time trying to make this technique usable, when you can just change the technique into a version you can easily master. After all, a mastered B rank technique is far more useful than an A rank you can barely pull off with a ton of drawbacks."
/At the bridge again. /
Hinata had taken the advice to heart and altered her method considerably. And now for the first time, she put it to use. Dumping all her chakra into it, she gathered all the air and mist within a 50 foot radius, compressing it so fast that it was followed by a thunderclap as more air rushed in to equalize the pressure. Her ears hurt horribly and she couldn't hear a thing any more, and the mist around her was pretty much non existent now. But that didn't matter. Only her target mattered. The concentrated tunnel of air and chakra bored it's way towards Neji's prison in less than a second. At about 50 feet away, about half of it's mass dispersed into eight smaller shots that arced away and blasted through two mirrors each. The slower main bulk of air then wound itself ever tighter while increasing speed. Having diminished from it's original 2 inch diameter to a twisting needle as long as an arm and no thicker than a pencil, traveling 4 times faster than when it started, it tore right through Haku's left thigh and within an inch of Neji's shoulder.
To the vision of the Byakugan, silver beams could be seen hanging within the black cloud for a moment, but Neji wasn't about to admire them. He had a target. A target that could do nothing but fall right in front of him. A target that would have a wounded leg before it even reached the ground. With but one possible path to take, Haku fell right into Neji's Hakke. His legs were useless before he even had ground to push at. And without his legs, Haku's arms were sitting ducks to Neji's strikes. Neji had done 16 strikes before Haku touched ground, 32 before he finished collapsing. And the rest were done before Haku could draw the breath that had been knocked out of him from his landing. It wasn't perfect, and it had been on a pitifully easy target, but Neji had just pulled off one of the most devastating techniques ever devised by the Hyuuga. Haku was completely helpless.
Unfortunately, so was Hinata and Naruto. Within the last few seconds, both of them had performed techniques draining more chakra than most genin could use in an entire battle. Even if they had more left, the strain of having channeled so much at once left them as feeble as can be. Neji wasn't much better off. He'd been expending a lot of energy protecting Naruto from the needles the entire time, and had been filled with his fair share, especially during the mad dash for the edges at the end. Moving so much with all those needles in him to perform his finishing technique left him feeling like a leaf caught in a mortar and pestle. Everything rested on Kakashi now.