Eden

A NaruHina Fanfic

Chapter 3: The Will of Fire

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Haha I know, pretty generic chapter name. Some pointless fluff at the start of the chapter, then a hearty Hinata moment. Yay! It's pretty short but if I put the next bit of the story in it would be ridiculously long and it suited cutting this chapter where I did. Ok I'm trying to cut down on my authors notes so I'll stop here.

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When they got back to the gates of Konoha, it seemed the entire village was there to cheer in their new protectors. The thirteen nin quickly discovered the Hokage had prepared a feast for them to welcome them into their new appointment to go on top of the standing ovation.

Poor Mamuro was whisked away the instant someone of authority caught sight of him. He didn't put up any resistance, he had drawn more and more into himself the further they went from his village. Hinata could only pray for his mental wellbeing as she watched him trod away behind several ANBU.

When the feast came around, Hinata felt like someone surely had to be watching out for her. After months of not seeing him after her confession, to her blushing gratitude she was seated right beside the loud blonde. Their respective teams lounged on either side of them so it wasn't too suspicious, but Hinata heard many rumors that night that Lady Tsunade had organized the seating plan. She wasn't a girl to go on rumors, but even if they were true she would give nothing but thanks to her Hokage.

As the fest got underway, Hinata found herself mesmerized by watching Naruto gobble down bowl after bowl of ramen, while she absently mindedly blew on her own to cool it before she attacked it at her own 'normal-person' pace.

When the desert came around, and Hinata hesitantly asked for her favorite dish, cinnamon rolls, she was once again surprised by her favorite orange-clad ninja when he just asked for more ramen. Finding some rare courage, the first words passed between them during the feast.

"N-Naruto-kun" Hinata stammered as he looked up from his bowl. "W-would you like to, umm, maybe try a c-cinnamon roll? Th-they're my favorite, they're really nice so I was, well, um, maybe wondering if you would like them?"

Hinata's stammering sentence that seemed like a whole speech was immediately shot down by Naruto's thoughtless comment of "Nah I only like ramen!"

Sakura saw the shy girl wilt and begin to draw into herself, sinking into her seat after her heartfelt comment was so brutally dismissed. "Narutoooo" she growled, punching him in the head. "At least try it!" Hinata brightened up a bit; she knew Naruto would do anything for Sakura. She put the reason for that in the back of her mind for the moment. "H-here, I have some if you want it Naruto-kun" she said, passing him a roll.

Grumbling, Naruto took it, biting down immediately to get it over with. Hinata watched in glee as his expression changed to one of adoration. "Wow, these are really good Hinata!" he exclaimed. "Hey waiter, if I'm not allowed any more ramen, get me twenty of these things!" he called, waving about the roll.

Hinata's small voice correcting him with a "Cinnamon Roll" was lost in the mull of the room and her blushing beaming. She quickly found herself again staring in awe as he now gobbled down pastry after pastry, coating his jacket in the flakes. She somehow felt a little closer to him, that he liked her favorite food. She knew it was childish, but it was something.

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As the last course of the feast came to a close, Naruto was shocked to see Hinata's empty bowls and plates rivaled his own. "That was a nice meal" was all she said to his hanging jaw.

Sakura looked over to see what the fuss was, and narrowed her eyes. 'All that food must go straight to her breasts' she huffed in jealousy.

Tsunade stood at the front of the table. "Now, you twelve will begin training immediately, your specialist trainer has arrived from the capital this morning, who will be assigned to you right now. He has been living in the capital of the Land of Fire especially for this year, when it is our turn for the beast to attack."

She opened an arm in invitation to someone standing in the background, and an elderly man stepped forward. Scars riddled his face and neck, which were the only parts of his skin showing, but when he turned side on to take to the podium as Tsunade stepped down, the gathering ninjas' keen eyes spied flawless; if wrinkled, skin towards the back of his neck. It showed them he was not a man to turn away from a fight. That instantly gained him respect in Naruto's eyes.

His rough veteran appearance matched his speech. "I am Hajime, and I will be your instructor. We start tomorrow." Then he was stepping down and walking back to the shadows from whence he came. 'That…' Naruto thought. 'Was worse than Shino.'

Tsunade's fallen, twitching figure gave it away to all, he had been supposed to make a bigger speech. To save her the work of course. 'Well I'll show him!' she thought, an invisible eyebrow scrunched violently. She retook center stage, and quoted the legends of the Leaf. "The Will of Fire burns strongly in each and every one of you, let it lead you to victory and the protection and peace of this village!" she roared.

"Yea!" several overenthusiastic ninja shouted, namely Lee and Naruto, before the gathered shinobi piled out of the feast hall.

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They all chattered constantly about the adventure they were about to undertake within their own village, until the crowd whittled down to just Naruto, Neji, and Hinata. It turned out that since Naruto's apartment block was on the outskirts of town, it was the nearest to the Hyuuga compound of the Konoha 12. As they were approaching Naruto's building Hinata tried to stammer out something, anything coherent.

"H-have a good rest N-Naruto-kun" she managed. As she saw him turn away without a word, her heart leapt. 'What did I do! Please don't be ignoring me Naruto-kun!' she screamed at herself internally. To determine if he was or not, she summoned up what was left of her courage levels for that day and continued. "W-we will have some hard training tomorrow…" she trailed off in a whisper, but he surprised her by looking over his shoulder as he walked through the doors to the building.

She should have realized he was just delaying goodbyes, as he always did. "Thanks Hinata, and yea! I can't wait for tomorrow, maybe I'll even get to face you, I've been dying for a spar with you ever since Pain!"

If he felt awkward about bringing that up again, he didn't express it. Neji narrowed his eyes. "While I think Hinata is more than capable of beating you up Naruto, I'll be there to, and I'm still keen for a rematch, so before you can get at Hinata, you're going to have to beat me!"

Naruto laughed. "Haha! I'll look forward to smashing that soft chin of yours again Neji!" he shouted cheekily and ran through the door.

"Hey, I've conditioned my chin a lot since then!" Neji shouted out in his defense, but the cheeky blonde was already gone. Grumbling to himself about how his chin was now as solid as the rock of the Hokage monument, he turned and headed back to the Hyuuga state. Suddenly, he heard a soft peal behind him. He turned at the sound of Hinata's giggle, seeing her eyes squeezed shut in mirth as she tried to hold it in, but a few small sounds still bubbled out of her. He couldn't help but grin, it wasn't often he saw his cousin like this. Naruto really did have an amazing effect on her. He just couldn't hold a grudge against that boy, no-one could.

The two Hyuuga's turned and headed back to their own home, now both with smiles on their faces. Hinata looked over her shoulder once more before they rounded the bend in the road to see the lights on in Naruto's apartment. "Good night, Naruto-kun" she whispered to herself.

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When Hinata arrived home to see her father again, his mood had definitely changed since their departure. Since then, he had heard of the exact mission details, and the significance of it. Neji was no-where to be seen when she was summoned to his office, and she couldn't help but feel nervous when he put a sound barrier on the door after she was through. "F-father?" she stuttered out under his intense gaze. He came closer to her. When she smelled the reek of alcohol on his breath, she quailed in fear. He had been thinking about her mother again, which always inadvertently led to him taking out his grief and anger on her.

"This mission is too important for you to screw up Hinata Hyuuga" he hissed. "And you will not shame the Hyuuga anymore, so I will say this only once. The next mission you screw up, if it has anything to do with this one, you will be branded."

Hinata choked on her gasp, ending up in a coughing fit as her own saliva caught in her throat. "Are you listening!" he yelled all too loudly in the confines of the room. Hinata now knew what that sound barrier had been for, she was just lucky it wasn't for the reason it was used with branch members.

"If you fail, I will officially disown you as my daughter and the heir to the clan; you will be banished from the main house and be branded with the caged bird seal, and will serve your sister until you die!"

Hinata was so horrified she couldn't even speak. She backed up helplessly, her shaking hand struggling feebly to grasp the latch of the door out. Her uncontrollable shaking eventually ended up ripping the frail paper in the door, so she just tore out a big chunk, stepping through without opening the frame. She was to intent on getting out of that burning glare to worry about the cleaners new job.

Without even realizing it, she had made it to her bed, the tears pooling around her pillow. She felt like she had been cut by an extra sharp kunai, the tears just wouldn't stop coming. Except this cut hurt, hurt her to the bone. It was her second worst nightmare, having something, anything, on her forehead. As a main house member of the Hyuuga clan, covering your forehead was a terror, and the caged bird seal… was worse than hell.

That this was Hinata's second worst fear said wonders for the feeling she felt for a certain blonde. This terror scraped across Hinata's mind for hours, until her heavy sobs finally settled and she was dragged down into waking nightmares where her fear became true, and her world was known as pain.

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Neji walked into Hinata's room in the morning to collect her for their first training session with Hajime-sensei. Seeing her still asleep, eyes red and puffy, the all too obvious tear stains on her face, he felt sorrow for her. He didn't know exactly what had gone on in that room with her father, but it wasn't hard to guess. It would have been something to do with her disputed heiress role. Though he used to despise his cousin for being born into the main house even though she was so weak, herself and Naruto had helped him see how wrong he was. He intimately knew the pain of wearing the caged bird seal and what it could do; he definitely didn't want his sister figure to go through that ordeal on top of all the hurt and degradation she had already suffered in her life.

Out of respect he left the room and knocked louder this time. He smiled to himself when he heard Hinata's muffled gasp when she opened her eyes to see the sun streaming through the slats in her blinds. He knew she was usually the first up; she would always help the servants with breakfast even when they tried to refuse her. He enjoyed when she did argue herself into service of them though as Hinata was an excellent cook, unlike some of his other friends. He shuddered involuntarily at the thought of Sakura's cooking and the assorted un-pleasantries she came up with that she also labeled 'food'.

Hinata would then usually get an early start on training for the day, he knew she worked a lot harder than he did, which was saying something. On top of this, he was also aware of her frequent nighttime activities where she would leave the estate for the majority of the darkest hours to improve on what she had already learned that day. He had discovered all this because every time he attempted extra training on top of his, on the occasional infrequent visit to a ground at night time or early morning, Hinata would be there.

He came out of his reverie when a blurry eyed Hinata burst through the door, stopping short when she realized her collision course. Lucky she was a ninja. She was even still zipping up her lavender jacket, blushing profusely in embarrassment. "S-sorry for keeping you waiting Neji-sama" she said.

He deflated. Despair was still laced through her voice and she hadn't used that formal term for months with him. Her father had really got her down. Again. He just wished he could do something about it.

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To Hinata's bright red embarrassment, because of her 'sleep in' the Hyuugas were the last to arrive for training. Everyone had been waiting, and Hinata, not too comfortable with a lot of attention, was now immensely embarrassed to feel everybody's eyes on her, the source of the hold up. Hajime-sensei said nothing about it, which made her feel about an inch better.

"Well then, we'll begin" he said after everyone had gathered.

Suddenly, Hajime performed a rapid few hand seals and twelve house sized boulder poofed into existence in a line along one side of the field. "This is a preliminary test for you so I can see your individual strengths and weaknesses" he explained. "You are each to move the boulder across the clearing. Begin!"

"Easy!" Naruto shouted, creating an over the top amount of shadow clones who piled around the boulder, lifted it up, and proceeded on crossing the clearing. While Naruto used a lot of chakra replacing exhausted clones along the way, he wasn't even sweating when the boulder was on the other side.

"Fang over Fang!" Kiba shouted. He and his huge dog ripped into their boulder, sending it rolling across the clearing with each attack. Hajime watched the Inuzuka successfully move the boulder. In fact most of the guys got the boulder over with little effort, Lee simply punching it and watching it fly, Neji 128 palming it, Choji throwing it, using their varying over the top combos to send the boulders flying. Only Shikamaru had some trouble. He connected his shadow to the giant boulders and attempted to step forward to force the boulder follow. Unfortunately, it was almost like pushing the weight himself, so he ended up leaning against it lazily and watching the others.

Meanwhile, it seemed the girls has slightly more trouble. Tenten and Ino sat stumped by their respective boulders. Hajime's attention was drawn to the other two girls, who were only now winding up. Even as he watched, Sakura punched her boulder and grinned in smug satisfaction as it rained over the boys on the other side of the clearing in fragments. He nodded his head approvingly to himself, that kind of strength was certainly admirable. His attention was drawn to the last girl in the line when he saw her begin to move.

"Eight trigrams, 64 palms!" Hinata's shrill voice shouted out. With each strike and weight of chakra, the boulder moved a meter or so, but even after the full repertoire, it was only at halfway. Hinata puffed. She had not trained day and night constantly for the last few months to fail her first task! And on top of that, a helpless fear propelled her. "Protective eight trigrams, 64 palms!" she shouted, this time using the blunted version of her chakra threads to hit the boulder further. It was like swinging a rope at a house, it had little effect.

Hinata despaired. Her chakra reserves had never been huge, and she had only grown them a small amount, having concentrated more on her technique; the art of taijutsu and Hyuuga jutsus.

However, she did have one more ace up her sleeve. "Twin Lion Head Fist!" she whispered after a minute's concentration, thrusting both hands into the rock even as the chakra formations took shape. It exploded outward, the solid stone disintegrating in a wave before her. But to her further hopelessness, unlike Sakura's none of it landed near the boys.

She looked uncertainly to her new sensei. His face was unreadable, but he came forward to where the closest piece to the start had landed. "You start again from here" he said, not unkindly, and suddenly another huge boulder had popped into existence.

She was out of chakra, everyone was watching her, and she had no aces left. All she had was her own body. Her shoulder sagged in despair. She couldn't do this. She should just give up like it looked Shikamaru, Ino, and Tenten had. She slumped to the ground, her back against the rock, her shoulders heaving as she fought back tears.

But if anyone knew Hinata, they would know that she never gave up. If she did that now it would be like spitting on her nindo, spitting on Naruto! She was not going to give up! Hinata was punching and kicking the rock before she even knew she had moved, grinding the huge weight forward inch by inch. She would do this! Even if it broke every bone in her body, she would get that dam rock over the line!

When she heard Naruto's encouraging shout, quickly picked up by the others, she only tore into the rock harder. She didn't care that her knuckles began to split and bloody. She wore a ferocious grin on her face; which was thankfully hidden beneath her bangs, as she struck over and over. When she felt her knuckle bones grinding on the rock with each hit, she changed to palm hits, the agony lacing through her body only pushing her on harder.

The gathered shinobi stood in silent testament to her strength as her repeated shouts of "Ha!" melodized the dull strikes of flesh on rock. She alternated between punches, slaps and kicks until the afternoon wore into night.

Despite what they had promised themselves, with many a sympathetic parting glance, teammates drifted off with varying excuses. When Ino tried to make her give up out of concern for the girl's health, the reply scared her away. "No! I never give up, that is my nindo, and if I go back on that I don't deserve to be in this team and I don't deserve to be a ninja of Konoha!" Hinata had shouted back viciously. While Ino slunk away, Naruto's face split into a full blown grin. "Even if it takes all night!" Hinata shouted as much to herself as those remaining, which was actually just Naruto and Hajime-sensei.

Naruto had been about to say something before Ino had to put the poor girl out of her misery, but as soon as she mentioned that all important word, he knew why she was doing this to herself, and would not stand in the way. "Yea, that's right Hinata, you show em!" he shouted encouragement instead, and Hinata's pace immediately picked up.

When she noticed it was all but Naruto remaining, she hardened herself against the sense of desertion. 'That's alright; this is my challenge, not there's. They have nothing to do with it' she told herself. 'And, this challenge is for Naruto.'

This thought, along with seeing him remain throughout the night with her, spurned her on to new extremes. Why was she doing this? To prove herself to herself, to Naruto, to her family, to the ninja world. This was to earn the respect of her father, so he wouldn't put the cursed seal on her forehead. This was to earn the respect of Konoha, so they wouldn't look down on her as weak. And most importantly, this was to earn the respect of Naruto, the one and only man she would ever love in the entire world. 'He is still here, finally watching me' she thought. 'And I won't let him down!'

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Hajime took it all in, the girl's severe determination, her constant near breakdowns, her constant revivals. He could see every time she doubted herself she would look at the blonde and gain resolve.

Then, he took in her agonizing victory late in the night, when the rock reached him at the line. He also took in the boy next to him, how he had stood there and supported his comrade with his words of encouragement and just his presence, watching her all night long ,and how he caught her when she dropped unconscious at the end and carried her to the hospital.

He took all this in as he walked past the blood splattered rock, a testament to the day's battle. He had never expected such a degree of commitment from today's training session. One thought formed in his mind then as he watched the silhouette of the boy with the girl in his arms disappear through the trees.

'The Will of Fire burns strong in these two.'

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Yay for NaruHina moments. Sorry I guess I kind of rushed this one even though it took me ages, so let me know if you spot any flaws or mistakes. Next time they go on their first mission and we get a nice big rumble! Thanks for reading