A/N: Due to popular demand I've decided to continue with this little experiment, though it's taking a little longer for me to write than either Naruto: the White Fox Chronicles and Naruto: Konoha, Crushed (Another little thing I'm working on). I'm not convinced there's enough meat on the proverbial bones of this concept to retain a longer story… but we'll see.
Anyway, here's the next chapter. The theme song for the last chapter was AC/DC's Back in Black. For this chapter the theme is Within Temptation's Sinéad. And without further ado –
Begin!
Chapter Two: Explosion! Ineffectual Love! Hinata's Secret!
"So" came the question posed by one blonde to another as they rose from the rubble that had once been the top floor of the Hokage's office, Tsunade staring daggers at her adoptive daughter. "Kekkei Genkai, huh?"
"Yepp" she grinned a little sheepishly in response as she too stood, brushing dust off her clothes and noticing, to her great frustration that she had a large piece of debris caught in her hair. "It's not really under control yet, per see, but it's getting there-attebayo!"
"I really, really hope so" Tsunade grumbled as she waved to clear the air in front of her face, the dust settling from coursing through the air and rendering Shizune and Sakura in long fits of ragged coughing. The entire far wall of the office had been obliterated, large chunks of dry wall laying everywhere, a thin layer of settling grey dust covering everything. "Oh, Scunthorpe" she cursed as she looked to the smashed hallway. "Hinata's under there!"
"Did Naruko murder Hunky-kun?" Sakura wondered with a dazed expression as she stood with Shizune's help, Kakashi-sensei picking himself off the floor while Jiraiya stood lazily leaning against the side of the Hokage's desk, shaking his head as if he had been expecting all of this.
"Oh, I'm going to have one hell of a stimulating fucking conversation with Hiashi-temae about this" Tsunade grumbled as she stomped over to the piles of debris as ANBU seemed to flash into existence from left and right, rushing to attend their mistress in this hours of supposed need. Anyone near the blast had caught but a glimpse of a bright crimson light before an entire wall, and most of the top-floor of the Hokage tower, seemed to be blasted out of existence. Luckily for everyone, the only one who got hurt was Hinata.
"Is he alright?" Naruko wondered as Tsunade pulled the prone form of the Hyūga former heir from our of the dusty wreckage and slung him over her shoulder like a bag of spuds, promptly marching over to her desk and thumping him down on it with little ceremony. "He's not d-?"
"Of course he's not dead" Tsunade rolled her eyes at Naruko and bent over the black-haired soldier along with Shizune and an interested Jiraiya. "See?" she indicated his eye, unresponsive but sliding shut of its own accord, as she lifted his eyelid with her thumb. "He's fine other than a concussion. Sakura gets worse beatings than this when she tumbles down the stairs".
"Only when you push me, shishou" Sakura muttered.
"What was that?" the Hokage wondered at her, and the girl squeaked and fell silent, indicating that her lips were zipped shut and locked thus with a gesture. "I thought so. Looks like someone gets to clean out the faecal matter lab tonight".
"I can't say I remember this one from the last batch" Jiraiya scratched his chin as he looked over the muscled but unconscious form of Hinata-kun, his sword lost somewhere in the explosion. "I mean, he stands out, yeah? Looks a bit like a Sarutobi, when you think of it".
"He's Hyūga through and through" Tsunade pointed out in a lower tone as Sakura and Naruko also gathered around the desk. "Though of a kind you rarely see these days. Oh" she acted as if she had just noticed the two score guards that had rushed to her side "you lot are here. Well, there's no danger or anything so… shoo. Scat! Go do whatever it is you lot do when you're not fussing over me like you're trying to be my mother".
"Hokage-sama" they saluted sombrely and winked out of existence, going back to standing guard, sharpening their knives, intimidating passers-by who flocked at the base of the Hokage tower to see what all the fuss was about, and in one person's case, went back to the balcony where she had been sitting to resume playing Fruit Ninja on her phone.
"He's sort of handsome, isn't he?" Jiraiya's hands went to a pouch at his hip, reaching for pen and notebook to model a new protagonist for his next big hit. He would call it 'Icha Icha Ichizoku' – brilliant! – and the story would star a young man called… Shishi! Shishi and his adventures throughout the land along with his scrappy sidekick Saboten, the flirty maid, and his perverted talking dog, Naru-chan. Fantastic! This thing would sell like buckets of water at an arson appreciation convention!
"I don't get it" Tsunade noted while Shizune, Sakura and even Naruko sighed in agreement with the sage, which he didn't notice as he was busy drawing up plans for another bestseller. "The whole 'tall, dark and buzzcut'-thing, that's what I don't get".
"Oh, shush your mouth, Tsunade-sama" Shizune admonished half-heartedly, reaching for young man's midriff to feel the muscles there. She just wanted to know if it was genuine, that's all. And if they were-
"No!" Tsunade slapped her apprentice's hand away sternly. "Bad Shizune! Bad! Naughty! Where's my atomiser bottle when I need it?" she muttered further when Shizune whined at her like an unfed puppy. "He's sixteen! Paedophilia, much?!"
"There's nothing wrong with looking" Shizune protested.
"Oh, isn't there? That fact that he's about twenty years younger than you doesn't make it wrong? The fact that he's jailbait doesn't make it wrong? The fact that you reduce him to nothing but an object based on his physical attractiveness doesn't make it wrong?"
"Well, when you say it like that" the mistress of poisons grudgingly begun to admit before a thought occurred to her. "Hey! Sakura-chan and Naruko-chan are also drooling over him, but they don't get scolded!" Sakura was, very much correctly, drooling and slightly damp as she idly drummed her fingers at the desk, while Naruko was having fun poking the probably brain-damaged boy in the cheek with the tip of her finger, snickering softly to herself.
"They're sixteen – they wouldn't know what to do with a man if they so were given an instruction manual and a map of his erogenous zones" she looked for the longest time at the last Uzumaki heiress, who lifted her head at her and cocked it to the side in bewilderment at the attention. "You obviously have some… stuff going on. Is it some sort of badly worded PMS or hysteria metaphor, or…?"
"Ero-sennin had the idea of doing this 'nature release' training to improve the Rasengan or something, and he handed me a paper, said it was supposed to be cut or crumble or-" she began readily to explain the whole situation.
"Chakra sensitive paper; yeah, we get it" Tsunade waved her on. "What happened then?"
"Well, I channelled chakra into it like he told me to but for the longest time it didn't do anything. Then, all of the sudden, woosh!" she threw her arms wide, knocking the notepad out of the hands of her perverted teacher, who grumbled and dived after it without as much as a pause for breath as if he was used to that happening by now. "It's goes up in a flash of light and smoke! My entire face got plastered with soot! Turns out it got Raiton and Dōton all at the same time. I've got 'hashtag that power', ya know?"
"'#DatPower'?" Tsunade wondered, to which Naruko exclaimed in triumph.
"Hah! I made you say it! #SlyFox, #Rokudaime, #NarukoFTW!"
"Huh?" Tsunade wondered at her assistant, who rolled her eyes promptly.
"It's a social media thing. You know, the reason why young people have phones? You should really get a profile on LeafNet – Naruko-chan is quite the avid and prolific user!"
"You gotta start building your powerbase somewhere, right?" Naruko added gleefully. "Anyway, so that's how we discovered that I had this 'Bakuton' thing-attebayo. Ero-sennin didn't know what the hell to do at first, ya know? He was looking up and down my family tree, went around all over the country, did these deep examinations of my chakra-"
"Which means I put a couple of seals on her and examined how her chakra reacted to them" said sage cleared his throat pointedly from aside, looking briefly up from his notebook. "It was nothing dirty, you all should know. No matter how glibly the brat phrases it".
"Maybe the heroine has a dark past" Naruko suggested out of the blue, to which the author's eyes shot open, his mouth began to salivate in earnest and his pen almost began to glow so fast he was noting things down in his little pad. "That should keep him busy for about another hour or so. As I was about to say, he found jack dosh. Nada. Shilch. So he came up with the idea of teaching me some sage stuff in order to stabilise my chakra, because whenever I use it" she made an exaggerated explosion motion. "That didn't work either. By now I can basically point at a direction and make something explode… but usually not the thing I meant to explode. It's either too weak or too strong or too general or too narrow or doesn't work at all – and that's after almost a year of training!"
"What's the problem?" Tsunade wondered as the girl paused to catch her breath.
"It's just too… unstable, if that makes any sense? As soon as I try to shape it or move it – kaboom!" Her serious tone was undercut by Kakashi, who was standing to the side and had begun to softly giggle. "What's up, Kakashi-sensei?"
"You're literally a blonde bombshell!" he tittered like a school girl who had just said a dirty word for the first time.
"Hah!" Jiraiya remarked absently. "Good one!"
"Ha ha, very funny, sensei" Naruko rolled her eyes at her former teacher. "It's not like that's the most obvious bloody joke in the history of anything!"
"Since when did you become so sarcastic?" Sakura asked of her friend and teammate, to wit she got only a shrug in reply. "Oh" she looked down as Hinata began to stir. "He's waking up!" And true to her word it was so, for the Hyūga heir blinked awake, his head feeling like he had been stuck inside the main bass drum during a rock concert. Slowly he drifted awake, his vision swimming and a thousand clocks ringing in his ears as he blinked to find a plated ceiling above him.
"Wha?" he wondered, dazed and cofused, and moved his head to the right – to find his vision filled by a most spectacular bosom clad in a black crop-top leaning towards him. The black fabric, rough and harshly cut as if modified from some larger garment, was framed with perfectly tan skin both above and below, even though below it seemed to be disturbed by some covering steel-mesh net under armour. It was, in fact, as that bosom gently swayed with her breathing and the two heavy breasts moved within the top just slightly out of sync with each other, one of the most spectacular sights he had ever seen. He wondered if that blast from before had actually killed him and he had been sent to paradise.
"With the way your body has been changing this was inevitable" Tsunade spoke with pity and laid an arm around Naruko's shoulder, who was staring down at the Hyūga boy with an indignant blush as Hinata in turn had fixed his eyes on her chest, a small trickle of drool running down his lips. "Believe me, I've been there with you. Now, there are a few things you could do – though I prefer to just make them stop their leering with surgically applied violence".
"No, he's hurt enough" Naruko replied with a hitch in her voice as Hinata drooled further over the sight of her chest. "Maybe" her uncomfortable blush was suddenly replaced with a trickster grin "maybe…" And then she sprung into action.
"Wha?!" Hinata exclaimed in protest as that heavenly bosom seemed to move, and was about to curse the no doubt nearby god who had taken it away, before he felt like his head, dizzy and full of cotton and pain as it felt, was lifted up to be laid against something soft and yet sort of springy. It yielded beneath his head, soothing and warm and oh so pleasurable, and he sighed in contentment and looked upwards to find a hand laid upon his brow and a pair of sparkling blue eyes beyond. Wait, Naruko-chan? Then his head was resting on her – on her – on-! Must not faint, must not faint, must not faint!
"Daishobu, Hinata-kun?" she wondered in a voice sugar sweet while her hand stroked his dust-streaked brow until it was clear and as pale as always in a soothing motion. "My technique got sort of out of hand-attebayo. I really did not mean to hurt you". Her voice dropped several octaves as she spoke quietly at his ear only for him. "I'd do anything to make it up to you".
Was she – was she suggesting -?! Must not faint, must not faint, must not faint! But – ah! No! Yes! Oh, Gods yes! Ahh! Must not faint, must not faint, must not faint! Nope – no chance, lights out.
"And he fainted" Kakashi noted from aside, edging away from his former student to the side of the perverted sage. "Is she learning to weaponize her sexuality?"
"Ancestors help us all" Jiraiya spoke balefully, his face paling as he saw the boy slump unconscious to the table top while Naruko looked on a little mischievously as she removed herself from the boy.
"That'll teach him" she muttered with a nod to herself.
"Will it, really?" Tsunade shook her head disapprovingly. "Sex-positive actions only serve to reinforce to notion of yourself as overtly sexualised. If you want to empower yourself, a swift boff across the bonce is a much better way".
"Are you two saying that violence and sex are the only ways a woman can be empowered?" Sakura wondered, drawing the attention of both the blondes. "That's more than just a little disturbing on its own, not to mention quite fucked up".
"We can debate feminism later in the chapter- I mean later today" Tsunade hastily corrected herself and looked around. "I will need to get some carpenters and masons in here – or alternatively that Mokuton fellow with the stupid faceguard – and Naruko-chan-"
"Yes, mommy?" the blonde girl drawled, electing a blush from the older woman.
"Y-you, ehm, should get reacquainted with the village while I try to figure out what the hell to do with you. Meet me at Training Ground 15 around six o'clock – and I expect all of y'all to be there!" she looked sternly around the table, to which the young girl that was the primary recipient of her little speech nodded eagerly. "Kakashi… I'll put some healing on this lad, but then you take him back to his apartment, alright? Put him in his bed and tuck him in nice and tight because he needs plenty of bed rest after this".
"Yes, ma'am" he nodded and stopped just short of saluting while Tsunade laid a hand glowing with chakra at the young fainted man's brow, electing a few unconscious twitches of his body before she was done. Once set Kakashi hoisted Hinata over his shoulder like a bag of spuds, just like Tsunade had done before, before he vanished in a flash as he leapt out the window.
There was little talking from that point on as Tsunade summoned her guards and set about barking order like a drill sargent that had been morphed into a Saint Bernard's against their will, leaving Shizune to converse with the perverted sage as he kept drawing up designs for character outfits and Naruko and Sakura to do whatever they wanted to for another three hours.
So naturally, they went to say hi to their friends – but not before Naruko noticed something shining of brass in the rubble of the hallway beyond the Hokage's office. So she picked it up and brushed the dust off it, marvelling at the craftsmanship of it.
Hm, she thought as she slung the sword and scabbard dropped by Hinata over her shoulder, this thing is kind of cool.
"So then I said to him-" Ino made exaggerated motions with her hands to emphasise what she was saying to the others as they were walking down the streets of Konoha, drawing few looks even considering how strangely they were dressed. Young shinobi, and kunoichi in particular, had a penchant for dressing in strange ways, so the spot of red-white Ten-Ten next to red-dressed Sakura, purple garbed Ino and black-orange Naruko wasn't all that odd. When you lived in a shinobi village you quickly grew acclimatised to almost anything.
"Please tell me you let him down easy" Sakura pleaded with her friend, an easy smile on her lips. It was good being friends with Ino again, after the whole Sasuke-craze had blown over.
"Hah!" the Yamanaka replied in a scoff. "No, duh! I told his civilian self to go stick a marrow up his butt. I didn't even know him and he was trying to grab my behind like some sort of caveman. Ugh, disgusting".
"He did say that he loved you while he did it" Ten-Ten pointed out in an almost careful manner.
"Guys like him are bottom feeders and will do or say anything to get into a woman's trousers" Naruko informed her girlfriends as they went. "Believe me – I trained with the champion of their kind".
"Jiraiya-sama didn't do anything weird to you, right?" Sakura wondered as they turned a corner and headed for the training grounds at the edge of town. "I mean, he's pretty perverted, so to speak-"
"I got the feeling he considers me more of a granddaughter than a woman" Naruko mused on that for a little while whilst the other girls wondered why she had Hinata's sword on her back. "Which is great, because otherwise it would have been… weird, not to mention extremely uncomfortable. But other than using me as a reason to follow along into the women's baths at the onsen and have a peep-eroo, nothing perverted, no".
"Did he ever mention if he and Tsunade-sama ever-?" Ino began to ask.
"Ino-pig! What the hell?! Don't ask things like that about the Hokage!" Sakura protested that question loudly.
"What? I'm just asking. We've all been wondering if he used to stick it to her or not-"
"Do you have to be so uncouth about it?" Sakura complained further. "At least say 'make love'-"
"No, I think 'sticking it' it precisely what Jiraiya-sama does" she said, but despite her bold words she too was blushing. None of them had any experience of the carnal ways, especially when it came to the opposite sex and so their empty tittering was just that – empty.
"I don't think so" Naruko thought long and hard on the matter. "But… I don't think it matters. Maybe she's the only one who's ever turned him down – but regarding how many times he gets powerbombed on a daily basis I doubt it's something as cliché as that. Maybe she's the only woman he's ever loved for real, or maybe it's just games and he sees her like a sister".
"It that's what he does to his sisters, then ehw" Ten-Ten added from aside, to which the other young women concurred. "Could we please talk about something else that's less… disturbing?"
"So there's Naruko-chan, Hokage-sama and myself" Ino began counting on her fingers. "Komachi-san – an ANBU I think works in the demolition's unit – and Futaba-chan in Konohamaru-kun's class. That traitor Hakui who left the village five years ago-"
"Are you seriously listing all the blondes in Konoha?" Sakura wondered at her childhood friend.
"Well, yeah" came the immediate response. "And there's that chick with the glasses who works in the archives, and Namikaze Shida… you know, the one that works for the astronomy division, the one with the heart-shaped hairdo?"
"Not to mention your father and Sakura's mom" Ten-Ten provided from the side, helping Ino with adding another two to the count.
"Aren't you forgetting the big one?" Sakura wondered, to which the others stared blankly at her. "Look!" she stretched out her arm and pointed to the face carved into the rock of the distant Hokage Mountain between her master's and the Sandaime's. "Yondaime was blonde too, right?"
"I nearly forgot" Ino slapped herself over the forehead. "It's so hard to remember that Yondaime was an actual person sometimes, you know? He did all of that crazy stuff and then died so young. I can't picture him drinking sake or buying groceries or having a wife and kids. I just can't I try to imagine it but no" she waved in front of her eyes as if to simulate cluelessness "my mind's blank". ¨
"He was probably one of those career-type people, like Kakashi-sensei" Naruko suggested. "I mean, the guy's totally my idol, but he didn't have time for a family, I think. Probably too focused on his awesome job to even consider dating". None of them knew, of course, how tragic that pronouncement actually was. "Speaking of dating-"
"I thought you said you didn't need a boyfried" Sakura wondered immediately.
"I don't" Naruko blushed. "It's not like that, okay? I'm just curious and all" she defended almost frantically "so… does Hinata-kun have a girlfriend?" By thinking of the way he had been leering at her earlier she wondered if she was supposed to tell someone or if he was going back on his promise of fidelity to some poor girl. It was fun teasing him and all, but…
"What? Not you too!" Ten-Ten protested. "Don't tell me you've got the hots for him!"
"Well, he's kind of cute" she admitted reluctantly. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to go on a shopping spree at Meishō's Secret and find the sluttiest knickers-brassiere combo they have in orange" she pointed out. "Just because I-"
"You know, I thought you were batting for the other team for the longest while" Ino remarked and interrupted her friend.
"'Batting for the other team'?" Naruko wondered, often refusing to follow metaphors. "Whaddya mean?"
"You know" Ino wiggled her eyebrows suggestively "you being an 'agent of imperialism'".
"Interested in wheelbarrows" Ten-Ten provided glibly.
"You always were a tomboy, so we did suspect you were a skirt-lifter as well" Sakura seemed to clarify.
"A West End Thesbian Warm Sister who drives a three wheeled bike" Ino provided with a grin.
"A vaginator that's on the other buss, as it were" Ten-Ten suggested further.
"Wait!" Naruko looked at each of them in turn. "I understand Sakura thinking I was gay – because that's what you're all saying, right? – but all of you?! I mean, what the hell, guys?!"
"Not that there would've been anything wrong with you if you were" Ten-Ten hurried to say. "Just… you were always asking Sakura-chan on dates and didn't seem even the slightest interest in Sasuke-kun-"
"Even though you were his first kiss!" Ino pushed her way into the conversation once again, to which Naruko went softly green in the face. "What?"
"I'd rather not be reminded of that, thank you very much" she muttered darkly and tried to get back to the original subject matter before her good mood was ruined. "For the last time: I'm not gay! So: does Hinata-kun have a girlfriend?"
"Don't even go there" Ten-Ten pouted glumly as they approached training ground 15, an open earthen field lined with stone fences and rocks of varying size that was usually set aside for practice with explosive kunai. "He's a dick".
"She's just bitter because he turned her down after she confessed to him" Ino provided cheekily grinning while Sakura waved to the small gathering of Tsunade, Jiraiya, Kakashi and Shizune who were waiting in the middle of the field. "And if anyone's gay, it's him".
"He's sixteen and has never even showed interest in a girl" Sakura clarified from aside. "And no guy ever pays that much attention to his appearance-"
"Could you kids stop talking about damn boyzone for one bloody second?!" The roar went that interrupted their talking, finding them face to face with an annoyed Hokage. "And you're supposed to be kunoichi?!"
"Isn't this supposed to be a more feminist piece of FanFiction?" Shizune turned to Jiraiya, who was happily but idly sketching on his next bestseller to the side and not looking like he gave much worry about anything. "All they've done so far is talk about boys. This certainly wouldn't pass the Bechtel-test".
"Well, maybe it needs to hit its stride before it starts preaching" the frog hermit shrugged and replied in the same low tone as the Hokage's aide. "And besides, they're young and pretty new at this. Teenagers aren't generally bastions of progressiveness, are they?"
"Fair point" Shizune nodded in soft agreement as the Hokage inquired in a loud voice what all the "hangers on" were doing there with Naruko.
"Come on, ma" she whined and threw her arms over Ten-Ten's and Ino's shoulders, pouting playfully. "They're my girls! I gotta be allowed to bring my girls, right?"
"It's their own fault if they get themselves blown up" the Hokage grumbled back and gestured rudely for Naruko to sepperate from the group and take position in the exact centre of the field, facing away from the group as if to show her what she had. "Now: do your techniques!"
"Jutsu?" Naruko wondered with a cocked head, and Tsunade looked with ever growing annoyance at the now sighing Jiraiya.
"We haven't actually gotten far enough for actual techniques, Tsunade-chan" he supplied carefully, knowing that he was treading on thin ice around his old teammate. "All she has to do to make things blow up is barely think about reaching for that chakra, and then…" he shook his head, put away is notebook and looked to his apprentice. "Show them, wouldn't ya, Naruko-chan?"
"Yosh!" she nodded before she turned towards the north, away from the group now safely behind her, and stretched out her hands before her. Within seconds small popping sounds were emitting from her fingertips as smoke sizzled and drifted up from them in fine strands smelling of sulphur that were soon dispersed by the fresh spring wind that moved the air. It came in sputters, hisses and snaps, and then a series of loud bangs followed until Jiraiya told her to stop.
"We've tried everything I could think of" he told Tsunade and her now frowning face, her expression equal parts pensiveness and worry. "But as soon as she tries to move it or mould it her chakra explodes. Training her to separate lightning chakra from earth chakra leads nowhere since, ya know, kaboom, and it reacts… poorly to seals as well. As ashamed as I am to admit it, I've got no clue as what to do next".
"Kakashi-san" Tsunade turned to the white-haired pervert who was standing quietly busy reading the latest entry to the Icha Icha series. "You've any ideas as what to do with this? You are our resident Ninjutsu expert, after all".
Kakashi nodded seriously, snapped his book shut, turned to his old student and got to work. For hours he had her go through exercises, motions and moves that seemed to be of no semblance of logical use in any respect, and every time she took a stance or practiced a small technique he would ask her how she felt as well as observe her every change no matter how slight. As he worked and stood as spectator at every angle his good eye was narrowed in the light of the day, his headband at times pulled up to reveal a crimson Sharingan swirling furiously around in his other, seldom seen eye as he observed her chakra flows in greater detail. Jiraiya, who was watching absently from the proverbial stands, was a little impressed by the way Minato-kun's sole surviving student got down to the essentials of Ninjutsu practice, and since he himself had no idea as what to further do another set of eyes on the matter could not hurt, could it.
And so the hours wore on until the sky was darkening on the distant horizon with the onset of dusk and Kakashi finally nodded and let a now sweaty and severely frustrated Naruko let up with the seemingly pointless motions and exercises. "Report" his Hokage told him, and like a good little soldier he proceeded to do just that.
"Her chakra is, for lack of a better term, unstable, Hokage-sama. Explosive and highly reactive, like glyceryl trinitrate – Nitroglycerine. And so I suspect she must learn to use her chakra not through conventional techniques but through less subtle manners of directing it".
"Hmph" Jiraiya grumbled quietly. "Didn't even consider that. Stupid sexy Kakashi".
"'Fresh eyes' and everything, pervert" Tsunade admonished as if automatically before she turned back to Kakashi. "So you suggest…?"
"That she goes about it another way; her own way, since no one in this village has any idea of how to teach her" he supplied. "Other than that perhaps it is better to treat her chakra just like Nitroglycerine. It might become more stable if you allow it to soak into a grounding stabilizer of an element. Perhaps a sulphuric clay or alkalescent liquid or even a reactionary gas or silicate-potassium dust".
"Your point is that we need either material or lots of time, and both require more training?" Tsunade clarified as she rubbed her eyes in frustration and then pinched the bridge of her nose. "You know this is pretty disappointing. I thought with the technique from before I would get to see stuff blown up-"
"Well, I'm still trying out techniques and stuff" Naruko scratched the back of her head with an almost sheepish grin gracing her face, a blossom of slight red in her whiskered cheeks making her look absolutely adorable in the eyes of the adult onlookers. "Sorry if I fooled y'all. Gomene. But in my defence, Shakkahō sounds pretty damn awesome".
"Then save it for an actual technique later on, baby girl" Tsunade told her in an almost motherly tone of voice as she held out a hand for the young woman to take. "Come now. Let's go home".
"Can that wait a while?" Naruko inquired as she reached up to finger the hilt of the sword that was slung over her shoulders. "I kinda got something I need to get back to someone-attebayo".
There was a ringing in his ears when Hinata woke up.
There were two kinds of it: one was a constant tune, a high pitch ringing dully in his inner ears, something that faded into the background noise of the world when he wasn't focused on it but rushed to the forefront whenever he thought of it and then just would not go away until his concentration fell elsewhere. The other kind of ringing came at irregular intervals in a melodious sequence, almost like someone was ringing his –
He shot up in his bed, clutching his hurting head and wondering where his clothes had gone and how he had gotten home from the exploded Hokage's office. That ringing… it was his doorbell, not the sound of his brains recovering from being turned to mush. Wearing nothing but his pants he staggered, bleary-eyed and out of focus and nearly without a single coherent thought in his head he staggered his way through his apartment and took a firm handle on the soon unlocked entrance.
He flung wide the door – and his worst horrors came to life.
"Good morning, stud-muffin-kun" she beamed at him with a smile before her eyes shot wide as she saw him stand before her in nothing but his pants. "If you greet everyone at the door like this" she noted gleefully "you're gonna get a reputation, mate".
"N-Naruko-chan!" he managed to stammer out even as he prayed to the ancestor spirits to make him melt through the floor right then and there. "H-h-hi!" He shot a look down towards his all but bare body and, in a hurried panic, clutched his hands before his boxer-clad crotch, wondering what the hell had overcome him. He had obviously not been thinking before when he went to answer the door in nothing but his underwear, and now he had to pay the piper.
"Well, that's answers the question of boxers or briefs somewhat drastically, I would say" she went on, grinning as he blushed so hard he was nearly actually navy blue in the face. Despite her apparent tendency towards schadenfreude when it came to him he still thought she looked like an angel out of heaven, even considering the fact that she was a little sweaty, rebellious strands of blonde hair plastered against her brow, and that the swiftly falling darkness outside did nothing to enhance her complexion. "May I come in?"
Ah?! She, inside his apartment?! He had to be dreaming, because such a reality was both too good and too horrible to even contemplate. "S-sure" he managed to stammer out through that accursed blockage of a brick in his mouth that was called a tongue as he stepped to the side, showing her in without a gesture of any sort. His place was clean enough, for he liked to keep things neat, tidy and organised carefully, and so as soon as he closed the door after her he hurried towards his dresser. "Mind if I g-get dressed?"
"Go right on ahead" she shrugged while taking a long look at his posterior as he was turned away. "I had to ask a whole bunch of people for directions before I actually found out you lived here. Ya know" she then went as she looked around the room "my old flat is in this building too. One floor up, three doors down and exactly mirror-inverted so it was. I wonder who lives there now".
"Some guy who owns a cabbage stand" Hinata said as he pulled on a pair of grey sweatpants and a huge black hoodie with the Konoha swirl on the back in red that hung so loose on his body that he didn't even bother zipping it up more than half-way in his customary fashion when he was just bumbling around the flat. "H-he says he's from Kaze no Kuni, says that he quite enjoys the weather here".
"Right" she shrugged a little morosely before she remembered what she had come there for. "Yeah! Kakashi-sensei didn't remember to bring your sword or whatever after the whole explosion thing, so I brought it" she unslung the sword from around her shoulders, baldric and all, and handed it to the young man who accepted it with a bow and a formal gesture of gratitude. "No need to be so formal-attebayo. I mean, it looks pretty fancy, so I thought you might want it back".
"T-thank you never the less, Naruko-chan" he bowed again as swallowed hard. "Would you like a c-cup of tea? Can I offer you anything?"
"I could go for a cuppa" she smiled back to him, and he blushed in return for a moment before he turned towards the kitchenette at the rear of the flat and set the kettle on the boil while Naruko looked around the flat. "So… where'dya get the sword?" she looked over the book shelves that stood assembled next to the bed of the bedroom area of the studio flat, many being books on acupuncture, swordwork, fencing and even poetry and flower pressing.
"A-Asuma-sensei and Shikamaru-san got it for me" Hinata had his back turned to the young woman and thus did not see her inspection of his belongings. "Asuma-sensei h-has quite a few weapons like these laying around" he adjusted the hilt of the blade that was now slung over his shoulder in a manner he found most comforting. "He says he likes to keep the weapons of the powerful people he's beaten-"
"Like Lee-kun and the martial arts school signs he got plastered all over his walls?" Naruko wondered as she let her eyes flow down from the bookshelves to find something a little out of place at the foot of it – a corner of a magazine, barely seen, jutting out from under it. "What kind of sword is it, anyway?"
"A yanmadao, a goose-quill sabre" Hinata said as he rummaged around in his cupboards looking for the chocolate biscuits he knew he had bought just the other day. "It's a weapon that more common further west, in the lands beyond Tsuchi and Kaze no Kuni. It's like a dao, a heavy sabre, but more slender and less bulky making it more suited for thrusting and piercing blows like a straight sword. Since the jian, the slender straight sword from the same region, is the customary weapon of the Hyūga main family, and the dao is better suited to the Gōken, I got a hybrid of the two – just like my new fighting style". He arranged a few cups on a tray and laid the biscuits out on a plate along with them as he babbled and began to pour up tea until he stopped. Naruko wasn't saying anything at all, not making any attempts to interrupt him or change to topic to something more fun as he was geeking out about swords. He turned, worried that he was boring her, only to find his heart gripped by panic and his soul going cold when he saw what was in Naruko's hands.
The magazines Naruko had discovered, for there were several, no doubt hidden under the frame of the bookshelf in an attempt to make sure no one saw them, were manga of a most… explicitly pornographic nature. All of them, to a one, seemed frequently read by the weathered stapling holding them together, and all of them featured gyaru women – tan and blonde and often forward and crass, a type that had grown more popular amongst the youths of the nation over the last decade. Beyond that, she noted absently, her mind seemingly not working as it should have as she flipped through the pages, it was pretty standard for a guy his age. No netorare-fetish like the one Ero-sennin went on and on about, no weird animal stuff beyond the odd girl sometimes wearing a cat-ear headband, no raping or gang-bang stuff – just plain old vanilla sex, with anal included at times and-. She stopped at the final pages of one of the magazines and saw one of the women, after a bout of sex that was no doubt impossible in reality, laying prone on the floor with a blissful smile on a sweaty face, a single side-panel showing a stylised depiction of sperm burrowing their way into an ovulated egg in the act of conception.
Naruko shut that magazine with a heavy blush and swallowed hard. How… how was one supposed to react to the fact that one was alone in a flat with a boy who had lecherous material depicting women just like you getting impregnated? She was feeling very, very uncomfortable and was internally debating whether or not to jump out the window when Hinata decided the matter for her.
"Kya!" he uttered a wordless and almost inhuman cry of shame and panicked embarrassment as he flashed through his flat, ripping the erotic manga out of her hands, clutching them to his chest as dashed towards and then out the door of his flat before he hurled them off the overpass, scattering them into the air before he hurried back inside and slammed the door shut behind him before any of the magazines had even touched the ground. Panting he was leaning his back against the door, his heart hammering harder than it ever had before, eyes closed and praying that it was all a nightmare. He slumped down, sliding down the door until he was sitting clear against the floor, his face hidden from her in his hands. He had never felt so humiliated in his life.
"So" she stated in a voice that was filled with equal parts amusement, shock and confusion "I take it you're not gay, no matter what the girls say". He groaned into his hands and wanted to cry. "Uhm… well, this is awkward".
"P-please leave" he was almost sobbing, feeling like a wrung out rag, like a plastic bag, like all he was worth was a thin shell around a whole lot of wasted space. "Just-" damn it all, he didn't want her to see him like that. Anyone but her.
"Hey" a hand gripped his wrist and baring his eyes to the light of her tender smile. Not knowing what to do she did what she always did – adopted a both encouraging and humorous countenance as she ensured him everything was going to be alright. "It's alright. Settle down. No reason to panic about a couple of porno-mags, okay?"
"I-it's so e-embarrassing" he hid his face again until her insistences made him think better of it.
"Everyone jerks it" she admonished with tender smile turning wry. "I mean, it doesn't mean anything, does it? You just feel the urge and then you either ignore it or you don't, right? Everyone gets frustrated. Me too". And now he was on the verge of fainting as that particular mental image nearly overpowered his already fragile mental state and brought his sanity to an end.
"So, em…" she went only slowly "maybe I shouldn't have been the one to find your boner-kindling, but hey, it's my fault for poking around in the first place. Not my place to judge. Everyone's got their preferences, and one man's kink is another man's vanilla". Of course, it wasn't nearly as simple or easy for her to say as she made it seem, as she was merely falling back on stock phrases uttered by Ero-sennin from time to time while inside she didn't know up from down. How was one supposed to react in such a situation? "So… no worries, right?" His eyes were still misted over and his cheeks still doing their best red chilli-pepper impression, and somehow it was she who was feeling bad. "Please don't cry just because you threw away your porn".
"I-I'm sorry for being such a p-pervert" he apologised and bent his head at her in a sitting bow, causing her to wave her hands earnestly from side to side.
"Nonsense! I trained with the worst of them! You don't prance about like a ponce with a pair of used panties on your head like the world's worst power ranger, right?" He shook his head hurriedly. "And you don't peep on actual women in the bath or the onsen, right?" Again he shook his head, a little more forcefully this time. "See, none's the worry! And there wasn't any weird stuff in there, was there?" Except for, like, the fact that every single one of the women in the stories looked like her. That, in and of itself, was fucked up. Note to self, she said even as she tried to cheer the young man up, keep a look out for stalkers. Because an obsession like that was nothing short of unhealthy.
"I'm sorry, N-Naruko-chan" he replied to all of that and took her hand when she offered to help him stand back up. In the end they drank tea together and Naruko tried to make small-talk, but after such an incident as earlier things were, understandably, awkward beyond recovery.
And so she left him half an hour later with a blushing wave and a wish of a good night's sleep to be had, not knowing that as soon she had left he started to softly bang his head against the wall beside his bed.
Naruko, in the meantime, made her way to her new home.
The Senju compound was far bigger than it feasibly needed to be, as the clan now mostly consisted of Tsunade and some few and very distantly related kin who lived in separate wings of the complex. So the Hokage, not wanting to waste space, had repurposed most of the compound into a gambling den and bar – for the sake of village morale, of course – and had moved her living area to the old guest house that was connected to the west-wing by a long walkway covered by trees on all sides. The guest house in and off itself had once been one of many built by the Shodaime in the span of a few minutes using his now legendary Kekkei Genkai. As Naruko snuck around back the gambling parlour and made her way to the front of the Senju house, a three story building of traditional stile based around a single grand room just past the entrance hall in which a konara tree grew in eternal and perpetual bloom despite weather and hardship, she considered her legacy.
It would change things, wouldn't it? Not many people in the world possessed a bloodline ability like that and it would make a world of difference around her. Not that her teachers seemed to mind it – in fact, they were strangely cool with the whole thing as far as she could tell. It was odd, really. Well, if they hadn't been, what could have happened?
Tsunade have a breakdown under the pressure of handling the fall back caused by such a new and powerful addition to not merely the fighting prowess of the village but also in the change of the political structure? Kakashi defending Naruko and her place in the village to redeem himself in his own eyes after what he perceived as a lifetime of failures and regrets? Hinata pushed into a game of power too soon as the village, under the shock of Naruko's new power emerging as a wild factor in the game of clans, tore itself apart in civil war?
Naruko snorted as she pulled off her sandals in the entry and walked towards that central rotunda room. For anything of that to happen would just have been stupid.
"I'm home!" she called out, the central chamber intersecting all the three floors of the building with stairs going circular from floor to floor in an upwards pointing spiral, all the other rooms of the building arranged around that central chamber. "Where is everyone?!"
"Yo hoo!" a call was heard as one of the sliding doors on the second floor opened and Shizune stepped out on that balcony, leaning over the oaken rail to wave down at Naruko. "Come up, will you, Naruko-chan? All your friends are here!"
"What?" Naruko asked after she had leapt up onto the balcony, ignoring the stairs like a true kunoichi, and followed Shizune into the adjoining room, a sitting room dominated by a large, unnecessarily so, television and a whole cavalcade of mismatched loveseats, armchair and one particularly distressingly green sofa on which the Hokage was sitting sloughed as three young women seemed to be bickering all around her. "You guys!" the blonde exclaimed happily.
"We thought it was alright if we came over to say 'hi' and 'welcome home'" Sakura smiled over the brim of her cup of tea from a pink and white checker-patterned armchair, Ino and Ten-Ten waving from other seats while Shizune went into an linked kitchen, bringing out with her a kettle of hot water and an entire basket full of instant ramen cups. "But you weren't here, so…"
"Sorry" Naruko apologised as she began to set about making her food with a rumbling stomach, salivating profusely as she filled up one cup of chicken-flavoured divine goodness. "I went to see Iruka-sensei first, and then I swung by Ichiraku Ramen, and then I went by Hinata-kun's place to drop off the sword Kakashi-sensei forgot earlier today. Things sort of got in the way".
"That's alright-" Ten-Ten began to say before the young woman materialised a pair of orange plastic chopsticks seemingly out of nowhere and began to hungrily gulp down noodles and broth with gusto, making sounds reminiscent of an industrial vacuum packer being swallowed by a rhinoceros.
"You're not getting any more out of her now, Ten-Ten-chan" Sakura went with a slight sigh, and so they went back to what they had been talking about before the blonde bombshell had arrived.
"As I was saying" Ino began to protest as the continuation of some argument that had been going on before "why do I and Ten-Ten have to be the support and medics in our squad? I can be just as violent as Chouji and as good on the defensive as Shikamaru, you know".
"Yeah" Ten-Ten pressed indignantly. "Why can Neji be the medic in my team? He's the one with any good chakra control since I fight with weapons and Lee's... Well, Lee. He doesn't do subtle".
"Your abilities are better on the distance, Ino-Chan" Tsunade went readily. "Broody and Chubby in your team have to be on the middle distance and mêlée-range respectively for the whole flower card trick-thing to work".
"Yeah, but think on it. Everytime there's a medic or support specialist on the teams it's unfailingly a girl, right? Sakura, me, Ten-Ten, Hinata-"
"Hinata's not a girl" Sakura protested.
"Yeah? He's the most feminine member of his team. I bet you money – actual money, Ten-Ten, I'm not letting you fool me into taking Monopoly cash again – that if Naruko-chan was a boy then Hinata-kun would've been a girl just for the sake of cosmic balance".
"Huh?" Naruko, who hadn't been listening as she was busy gorging herself on her fourth cup of instant ramen and spreading broth all over her whiskered cheeks, lifted her head and blinked.
"That relegation is because of your skills, not because of your gender-" Tsunade retorted swiftly. "That's not being sexist and saying women should get out of the fighting and into the kitchen: it's just allocating the right people to the right jobs".
"Then why is aren't we the right people for frontline fighting?" Ten-Ten pushed further. "I mean, Sakura is the most physically strong member of her team, yet she's relegated to the rear because she's not as good at fighting? We're all Shinobi. Well, Kunoichi, but same shit, different anus, right? We went through the same sort of schooling, the same sort of training as all the boys, but are we allowed to fight the same ways? No!"
"Did the teachers have any reason to teach us flower arranging in the academy?" Ino went on, thinking back on those days long ago. "Or did they just didn't bother to teach us to fight as good as the boys? And, you know… women do get paid less on average than men".
"There are fewer Kunoichi in the active military than men" Sakura suggested from the side. "I mean, maybe it's because it's a number's game? Women in the workforce haven't gotten as much exposure to the public eye as men-"
"Come on, Pinky-chan" Ten-Ten urged her friend. "It's not the Sengoku Jidai anymore. It's a new world, and just as many female cadets join the academy as male ones. A woman's Hokage, for crying out loud – and a woman's Mizukage too! This is an era of peace… well, sort of… and communication and things thought impossible before! We could have true and utter equality for everyone! It just doesn't make sense; a person shouldn't be treated differently just because they got tits".
"Or in Forehead's case, don't got any" Ino provided from aside, and from there they got swiftly off topic and things… escalated.
In the end, when Naruko had downed her eight cup of instant ramen, the conversation was dying down and the looks went no to Naruko once more as the clock struck much too late for all of their liking.
"We were thinking of having a girls' night out" Ino suggested as they stood from the cushions of the sofa and the loveseat and the armchair, looking at Naruko. "You wanna come with? We could go celebrate your homecoming with a cake and rum or something".
"Nah" the other blonde shook her head in return, electing surprise from the others. "I'm kinda sleepy-attebayo. It's been a really long day, ya know?"
"You girls go out and have fun" Tsunade looked to Shizune, silently ordering her to go along and make sure that none of them caused any trouble. "I'll stay in with Naruko, help her get unpacked and sorted. None of you stay out past… oh, who gives a tosh? Just have fun and keep yourselves unhurt, yeah?"
"Sure thing!" Ten-Ten flashed a smile and the peace symbol by making a V-gesture with her left hand. "You guys get on that, then!" Ino added with a grin and led the way out of the sitting room.
"Thank you, shishou" Sakura bowed and went along with her friends, followed by a sighing but appreciative Shizune. And after tidying up in the room a little Tsunade showed the girl around the house.
It was huge, or at least it seemed so in Naruko's eyes. It had been a guest house built as a part of a compound that had finished construction before the boundaries of the village had even been firmly established, and so no reservation had been made on space. Compared to her studio flat and the tents and hotel rooms she had used to sleep in during her apprenticeship with the perverted sage it was nothing short of enormous, with three rooms, a bathroom and lavatory as well as a small kitchen on every floor, rooms most of which had been put aside for either research or business by the ever pragmatic Hokage. One chamber, one of the smaller ones, had been readied for Naruko, though, at the very top floor, a room dominated by a large bed, a book-shelf, a space next to the room's oshīre that looked like a small walk-in closet but was actually a profunctuary armoury and a dresser for her clothes. While Tsunade settled down on the plush and alarmingly orange covers of the bed Naruko went about unsealing her travelling gear from the scrolls in the pouch on her hip.
"Kaa-san" Naruko wondered as she was unpacking her socks into one of the drawers of the dresser, her voice a little lower in pitch than usual. "Why was Hinata-kun at the office today?"
"He was doing what he does every single month" the older blonde sighed irritably as she was leaning back on the bed, staring at the ceiling of the bedroom and wondering who of her old relatives had used to live there. "He moonlights at the hospital – did you know that? Outside of his teammates and a couple of others in your old class he has basically no social life. Spends all his time training or working. And once a month he comes into my office, signs a transfer form and requests to be assigned to the ANBU. Every single time I deny it".
"Him? In the ANBU?" She wondered at that. He seemed strong enough, she supposed, but appearances could be deceiving. "Why do you keep turning him down? Isn't he good for the job?"
"Him? He's one of the most versatile Shinobi we have now that the Uchiha dick is no longer with us. No. The problem's something else entirely". Naruko turned away from her unpacking and gave her adopted mother a long look, to which the Hokage rolled her eyes. "What? You think I'm so dumb that I would send out a Hyūga of the main family into the field without any precautions? If he gets captured or killed and his Byakugan harvested by our enemies we would find ourselves deep in the shite. So no, I'm not letting him join the ANBU".
"Then just place some seals on-" Naruko began suggesting.
"You know, I asked the same thing of Hiashi" Tsunade interrupted. "He said that he wouldn't sully his son and heir's power with seals that could potentially stymie his development. He said that the lad had to be at least eighteen years of age before he could allow anything of the sort. Ugh. You know, that's a bit I hate about this job. When it's not paperwork or the old farts on the council breathing down my neck it's the clans making my supposedly awesome job a chore". As Naruko went back to unpacking the last of the great Senju regarded the young woman with differing eyes. "Why do you keep asking about him? Did something happen between you two?"
And so Naruko decided to break the implied confidentiality of the moment and reveal everything that had happened between the two to Tsunade. The older woman, not surprisingly, burst out laughing.
"What's so funny?" the younger woman pouted and sank down on her bed opposite her adopted mother. "It's weird, if nothing else! He's acting like a bit of a creep-"
"Oh, my dear baby girl!" the Hokage chuckled and took one whiskered cheek in each and, pinching them as she grinned Naruko right in the eye. "You've really no idea, have you? He's always been head-over-heels in love with you!"
"What?!" Naruko questioned in an astonished exclamation.
"It's true! The other girls are probably just trying to will reality into a different direction, but they know it too – as does everyone else who's ever seen the boy look at you. He doesn't creep on you – well, maybe he does that too – but he adores you. You're the reason why he keeps pushing himself so hard. The only reason he wants to join the ANBU is so that he came become all strong and famous so that you will notice him".
"Well, that's" Naruko muttered, not knowing what to say. It was like she had been feeling for the rest of the village all along – the desperate need for attention, to be seen – but this time she was on the receiving end of that need and she didn't know quite what to feel about it. "What should I do? I mean, I don't like him like that – not yet, anyway. He's cute and all, but-"
"You've hardly ever noticed him before he took off his frumpy sweater and showed that he had a bod you could bounce marbles off?" Tsunade questioned. "For now, there's nothing you can do about it. Now you know he likes you – loves you even – and for some people that's enough. The only thing some people want in a partner is that they love them… but not you, I suspect, and you have other things that are more important on your mind".
"What should I do, then? Act like everything is normal?" Naruko questioned.
"Trust me, the last thing he wants is for you to shun him now. He's probably all hurt, ashamed and confused right now, so acting just like before would be the best. Tease him, flirt with him – just don't try to step on his feelings, okay? He's a nice boy and wouldn't hurt a fly. And if he ever acts… inappropriate, and punching doesn't word" she laid an arm around her new daughter's shoulders as they both settled down on the bed, unpacking finished at last "you just come to me, alright? Kaa-san will take care of it".
And so Tsunade gently stroked her baby girl's hair until Naruko fell asleep, after which she got up, laid the blankets over her and left her to a dream world that was much more simple and yet infinitely more complex than the waking world.
Meanwhile, across town, Hinata was still busy banging his head against a hard surface, only now it was the wooden disk of a bar as most of his mates sat around him instead of the wall of his lonely flat.
"She made her throw out your porn?!" Kiba questioned, outraged at the very notion. "Now that was uncalled for!" He and Shino were sitting to one said of Hinata at the bar, the other flanked by Neji, Shikamaru and Chōji, Lee being the only one of the "boys" absent due to him being banned for life from all bars in Konoha due to circumstances one would best not mention in polite company.
"He obviously did it of his own accord, you troublesome prick" Shikamaru grumbled and refilled Hinata's cup of sake. Despite none of them being of legitimate legal age to consume alcohol without the express consent of their parents or in public they were Shinobi, and thus adults in the eyes of the law within the city limits of Konoha. "Don't put words in his mouth. You know how he is with words".
"This is the worst day of my life!" Hinata landed his forehead on the oaken surface of the bar with a thud, laying his arms over his head. "She hates me now! She hates me!"
"Don't take it so hard, brother" Neji said and laid an arm over his cousin's shoulders, speaking in reassuring tones. "She isn't one to hold a grudge".
"Have you met her?" Chōji wondered rethorically. "She holds grudges worse than that Uchiha prick! Doesn't she always say that-"
"You're not helping" Neji growled at the boy through bare teeth, and the Akimichi heir promptly shut his mouth and said nothing further. "See, this might be a good thing. Now she has got to understand that you at least have feelings towards her-" by the loud groan of mental anguish emitted by the young man in question the cousin figured that maybe that wasn't quite the right approach. "Shino!" he hissed, begging for help.
"If you had been emitting the right pheromones then she would've been yours already" Shino spoke levelly. "Mating is very much a response to attraction, and judging by her actions she is not attracted to you other than superficially – something I am sure she has gotten over by now".
"Ah!" Hinata cried again and banged his head against the bar once more, Neji staring daggers at the Aburame heir.
"You guys really suck at this, don't you?" wondered the bartender who was keeping the bar and odd customers who were sitting in the booths in the other parts of the little pub refreshed. Shikamaru gave the man, as he was busy wiping down and polishing a glass, a long and dirty look. "Well, I'll just take my advice where it is wanted".
"Civilian prick" Kiba muttered after the old man moved away from them and out of earshot over the lull of the music and the dull conversations around them. "Well, there's plenty of fish in the sea, as they say, mate. Maybe you should just move on-"
A black stare fixed him in his seat as Hinata turned his eyes towards him, glaring daggers from out of his pale and now emotionally deadened eyes, making an icy hand grip Kiba's heart in killing intent. "Blasphemy" the Hyūga heir said at his friend before he turned to the drink Shikamaru had poured him and downing it in one shot.
"Yup" Chōji shook his head in exaggerated pity. "He's got it for her. He's got it bad".
"What else is new?" Shikamaru wondered dully before lifting his head as a couple of new shapes made their way into the bar – a gathering of three men, two of them with hair of pale white grey and one tan man with his hair set up in a ponytail. "Looks like it's the annual gathering of the 'Naruko's Teachers' Self-congratulation Union'" he muttered and looked to his cup, finding it empty and giving a sigh. "Troublesome".
"Look!" shouted an excitable voice and Hinata suddenly found his shoulders clasped by a pair of strong, eager and terribly callused hands. "See these shoulders here! Perfect protagonist material! He's made to be on the cover of novels, mark my words!"
"J-Jiraiya-sama!" Hinata protested as he was pulled to his feet by the perverted sage to have him twirl around like a living mannequin to demonstrate things to his fellow teachers of Uzumaki Naruko. "W-what's going on?!"
"Truly, you are correct, Jiraiya-sama!" Iruka-sensei, his words slurred slightly in his own inebriation, remarked as he gestured meaningfully to the boy while talking to the other two older men. "A mark of considerable prowess – I am very proud to have taught this boy! The other boys in his class were crap!"
"Hey!" Kiba and the others protested as one – except for Shino, who himself just sunk into a silent depression.
"Well, it's true!" the Urmino teacher went on as he took the seat Hinata had been forcefully vacated from. "Shino-kun lacks personality, and Neji also needs an urgent personality infusion, like, yesterday! And the rest of you were poor students! Hinata-kun was this close" he showed an inch between his index and middle fingers which otherwise would be pinched together "this close! – to becoming rookie of the year! Great technical skills, theory: brilliant! If only he was more outward-going and sure of himself… then perhaps he wouldn't have died and this Asuma-lookalike taken his place".
"Sensei is such a mean drunk" Shikamaru drawled with a shake of the head and beckoned the bartender towards him to order another drink.
"Come on, sensei!" Kiba protested gruffly as reached for his own cup of sake. "What the hell?! I mean, I get that you dislike the Uchiha traitor, but hey! You got to admit we've grown awesome over the years! You might even say that we're Kibalicious!"
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard" Jiraiya complained as Kakashi, exasperated over the escapades over the manchildren now in his care, approached and moved to speak to the now side-lined Hinata. "Say, Hinata-kun" Kakashi went as he took the lad aside and away from the two men he was effectively babysitting "I've a proposition for you".
"Kakashi-sensei" the young man swallowed hard and stammered back "I-I don't, ehm, do that, ehm sort of thing... No matter what you've heard from Sakura-chan".
"Not that kind of proposition, you idjit" the Sharingan genius rolled his eyes in turn at that, finding the innocence of virgin boys nothing but tedious. "So, with Naruko-chan back in the village the team is reforming, as you've no doubt guessed. We need one additional member, one with diverse skills. Naruko-chan is very much a heavy hitter, frontline, tank, face-to-foot and nuts-to-fist sort of fighter. Sakura-chan is more suited for a supporting role - which means I find myself in need of a shinobi with a particular set of skills".
"I-I-I'm sorry, Kakashi-sensei" the lad stammered back even as his cheeks went red with the implications of what was being said. "I'm already on a team with Kiba and Shino, and I've been on it for years. And with as many times I've requested transfer already but have it denied-"
"Look on your shoulder, kid" Kakashi urged and unshrugged Hinata's jacket, showing him a small swirl of a design, much like the whirlpool symbol that was on everyone's uniforms, in black against his pale skin. Slowly, as Hinata looked on, the seal faded from view, sinking into his skin until it was completely hidden from the eyes of the world. "I had a few ideas of how to draw it up, but the seal-master over there" he gestured at the man by the bar who was busy doing a silly little dance with a lampshade on his head "took one look and went righty-o. An author and an artist - he is the true genius around here".
Hinata touched his shoulder with trembling fingers, wondering if it was actually real. Was this… was this it? After all the time he had been pushing for it, had it really been that simple?
"It's quite the complicated seal that uses your own chakra to cast a small Genjutsu mirage over itself, concealing it from most forms of normal scrutiny" Kakashi explained as the man he had called a genius was making hip-thrusts while singing a song full of suggestive references to bobsledding to the applause of the entire bar. "It's a little more hard-core than the Hyūga cursed seal, though. Instead of your eyes becoming regular ones or whatever happens your eyes, along with most of your head, will literally explode if you die. So… uhm" he patted Hinata on the back. "Try not to get killed?"
"Why is that a question?" Hinata complained in a mumbled whine, slightly terrified but exhilarated all at once. "Kakashi-sensei… were you honest about your offer?"
"Do I need to spell it out for you?" the son of the White Fang smirked unseen beneath his mask. "Let's make it official, then. Hinata-kun: would you like to join Team Kakashi?"
End! Slut! Fin!
A/N: As you've all no doubt noticed I tend to use British mannerisms while writing. Thus: the word "pants" is short for "Pantaloons", "Panties", "Underpants" or other such terms and is nearly interchangeable with "Knickers", though knickers more commonly refer to women's underwear of the slightly more… bold and forward sort, as it were. So when Hinata answers the door in his pants he's not wearing any trousers, if you get my meaning ;-)
Also: me, as myself, I've no idea what's this obsession Americans seem to have with their sexual partners being over eighteen years old. Then again age of consent in this country is fifteen, and even that's got a provision – if both parties are under fifteen and consenting, then the law's got no problem with it. Scandinavia, huh? Such a fantastic region in the world.
Anyway, one trope that is common in pornography, and especially so in hentai, is that when a person of the opposite gender finds a person's stash of erotica the result is almost always sex in form or another; as if uncovering such a thing makes you obligated – obligated, no less! – to compensate that person with a game of "Hide the Salami". This is dumb. Really, really dumb and very much against what actually happens in such situations: awkwardness.
Just me trying to double down on some things I find distressing in the world, ya know?
So, cheeio for now! Read and review, and DFTBA!
