Naruto: A Different Beginning
By Smithjohn2020
Chapter 4: I'm Your Romeo
A/N: Hi. A new chapter a week later, as promised, though a day late. Readers and reviewers … thank you. Unbeta'ed
Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the words below and the original ideas they convey.
…o.0.O.0.o…
(A year ago, Hyuuga compound)
A blue-haired eleven-year-old girl made her way back to her room.
She was running.
She ran faster than she had ever done so in her life – faster than when she was trying to escape from the Kumo kidnappers a few years ago.
She had to.
After seeing the shock on her relatives' faces and the agonizing voices of those who had their hidden unmentionables openly exposed for all to see, she could think of nothing else more urgent than for her to get back to her room as fast as her short, but toned legs could carry her.
As she waltzed by, Hiashi followed her movement with his stoic expression. Once she left his viewing range, he turned his attention to his younger daughter who stood next to him. In his mind, however, he was very much surprised by the assertiveness that his older daughter had just displayed.
At last, the sprinting girl reached her room. She entered quickly, kicked off her sandals, and slid the screen door shut behind her. She was hoping that she had made it there before anyone, especially before the Branch members her father had sent to assess the damages.
Seeing how everything was just as she had left it brought a sigh of relief out from her.
Looks like I had hidden it better than I thought.
Leaning her back against the screens, she waited the temporary surge of adrenaline rush dissipated. Her legs slowly gave way to exhaustion, and she slid down into a crouching position.
"Hinata-sama!"
She jumped, clearly startled by the Branch member who had called out her name. Her thoughts were still on her diary, which she wanted to remove from its hidden compartment and examine for signs of disturbance.
Hinata would rather not be bothered. But she knew that if a reply was not supplied, then those damage assessors would barge in to survey the room.
"Ano … D-don't need to c-come in. Nothing is missing. Just few things that need to be rearranged."
"Do you need our help?"
"No …" just leave! "… I'll be fine. Thank you."
"Very well."
The two Hyuugas outside her door looked at each other and shrugged. They would have gladly stayed to help the only Main House member who had been consistently kind to them and the rest of the Branch Members, but they were glad that they did not have to delay carrying out their assignment and reporting back to Hiashi.
After she was sure that they were gone, she removed the floor panel and took out a worn out leather-covered notebook where she kept her private thoughts in.
Briefly she imagined the embarrassment she would be suffering if her diary got out into the open where the clan members – the worst of whom, her father – had access to her most private thoughts and feelings, especially of those about a certain blond classmate of hers.
Shaking that horrid thought off her mind, she sat down, hugged the notebook close to her chest and took a deep breath, content that all was good in her world.
It was … until she opened it up to the page of her last entry ….
On it she found a smiley face with an "S" scribbled next to it.
Her eyes shot wide open while she blushed deep crimson at the knowledge that someone had read her most intimate and private thoughts about her Naruto-kun. Her mind shut down, and the notebook fell out from her hands onto her lap.
She fainted.
(Present Time)
Today would be the day, I swear it. I'm going to walk up to him and say "Hi," and I won't stutter. He's going to smile at me like he always does, and I won't faint.
Hinata concealed her presence behind a building next to the Namikaze residence. She mumbled to herself while reaching her head around the corner to see if her favorite blond had shown up.
She had been searching all day for Naruto, looking in all of his favorite places – Ichiraku, the Sandaime's head at the Hokage Monument, and training ground 7 – for a chance to tell him how she felt.
It was not her first time making such a mental vow, but her previous efforts had been thwarted by one excuse after another.
The underlying reason remained the same: She was scared that he would not feel the same.
However, she felt especially confident today, at least that was what she tried to convince herself.
Today would be different, I swear it.
Taking another peek, her determination waivered slightly when she saw the door to the Namikaze compound opening.
Quickly retreating behind the building walls, she remained hidden while activating her bloodline.
…o.0.O.0.o…
A rather handsome boy with a light tan and jet black hair stepped out of the Namikaze compound dressed in a navy blue ANBU style jumpsuit and a crimson hooded overcoat. His outfit accentuated his well-toned body. The color of his eyes rivaled that of Naruto's, the purest cerulean blue that had the depth of mystery when one looked into them. In place of the usual leaf symbol on his hitai-ate was a scarlet letter "S."
He perked up his ears and took a whiff of the air and was not surprised by whom he detected.
So she's here, huh? I wonder if I can have some fun with this henge.
Using his ears to hone in on the location of her heartbeat, he turned toward the building behind which she was hiding and with his x-ray vision stared right through the walls, into what would be her face, seeing her eyes, the bulging veins surrounding them, and the disappointment that she had not spotted Naruto yet.
For a few seconds, Naruto kept looking her way, knowing full well that her Byakugan could tell that he was locking eyes with her. Soon, his super hearing picked up a faintly whispered "Eeep." His eyes saw the disbelief on her face that she had been detected. Cautiously she inched away from the building that was supposed to hide her.
Sensing no one else nearby, he decided to pay his one and only fan-girl an in-your-face visit.
He also wanted to test to see if his disguise could fool even Hinata, who was a self-proclaimed "expert of Naruto," at least that was what he had remembered reading from her diary.
Dear Diary,
Today was another day that I had followed Naruto. I wanted to tell him how much strength I had drawn from his nindo to Never Give Up, how much brighter my day felt whenever he smiled at me, or how my fingers tingle when he got near me.
But, like yesterday, I didn't have the guts to walk up to him and just say it. So I wrote on a piece of paper, "I am your Juliet. Would you be my Romeo?" But I ended up misplacing it somehow, and I couldn't find it anywhere. Maybe I didn't write it after all. Maybe I had imagined the whole thing. I'm so confused.
At this rate, I could end up writing an unofficial guide on Naruto, having already watched him for so long.
Naruto could still recall the shock he was in when he read that entry and many more similar to it. He remembered that it had almost jeopardized him getting caught red-handed pranking on the Hyuugas.
The following few weeks he felt uncomfortable around her and paranoid when alone, always pretending to bend down to dust his sandals so he could check if Hinata or some other was following him.
Having read her diary also allowed him to understand her and thus, made him pay attention to her more. All the little things and personality quirks that he had never noticed before meant something to him then.
Days gone by, and his feelings for her grew without his knowledge. Then, one day, when he could not detect her stalking him, he worried and felt as if a part of him was missing. He remembered how distraught he was. Using his supersonic speed, he zoomed to her room. His heart rejoiced when he found her asleep peacefully. He knew then that he had developed feelings for her.
None of that mattered now. He realized that he had no choice but to accept the burden of bearing the scarlet letter. In his mind he replayed his father's warning to him.
If your enemies couldn't hurt you directly, they'll go through other means to hurt you. Do you want that?
Mentally shaking away his thoughts, he focused on the task at hand and supersped behind her. His right hand covered her mouth to silence her screams. His left arm wrapped around her waist and enveloped her in a hug. He then realized how warm and comfortable holding her felt and how her soft curves fitted nicely against his firm body.
From her behind, Naruto's x-ray vision could see the shock on her face.
Then, her shock turned into righteous female fury, and she fought his grip as if her life depended on it. Actually, she really thought it did, especially when the Academy had warned them about what ninjas do to kunoichis under their capture.
Naruto, acting out of instinct, he did what he saw his father doing many times to calm his mother down when she was mad at him.
Leaning in, he whispered calmly into her left ear, unknowingly sending tingles up and down her spine.
"Shhh. Quiet, Hinata-chan. I know you don't know me." – and her Byakugan could not tell that it was Naruto in henge – "I'm not here to hurt you. I only want to pass on a message from Naruto. I'm going to let go my hand. Don't yell, okay?"
Message from Naruto-kun?
She did not trust herself to answer and only nodded dumbly to whatever he had said. She did not quite trust this strange boy, but she was willing to keep silent as long as no harm befell her and that she got to hear Naruto's message.
Her Byakugan tried to see if this was someone she knew, but saw none of the telltale signs of henge no jutsu.
She wanted to ask questions, like how did he get behind her without the Byakugan's detection and what was his connection with Naruto. But she could not. The strange boy's invasion into the personal space of a budding female with pre-teen hormones was giving her sensations she had never felt with anyone else.
With Naruto, her feelings were nothing more than a crush … perhaps more … perhaps she really did love him. Whatever her feelings were for Naruto, they were only one sided, at least that was what she kept saying to herself. With this strange boy, however, she felt herself responding in a physical way. Those sensations felt nice and magical and were what she had always wanted to feel with her Naruto-kun.
Plus, this being her first time being hugged by a boy was confusing as hell.
He's hugging me, and his lips are so close to my face! BUT I'm saving myself for Naruto-kun! I'm saving myself for Naruto-kun!
The Henged-Naruto slowly uncovered her mouth, let go his arm, and turned her around to face him. Instead of an angry or a shocked expression, he found a beet red face and a timid smile.
He wanted to let go of her and step back, but found his hands unwilling to part her shoulders and his legs unwilling to help.
What the hell? C'mon Naruto, snap out of this! Remember what Dad said about bad guys using people you care about to get back at you. C'mon, if you really care about this girl, make her hate you!
Hinata could tell that the boy before her was conflicting with himself about something, but her mind was too occupied to care as she too was struggling with her own feelings.
Hinata! Why are you still letting this stranger hold you? You're not that type of girl! It's Naruto-kun you love!
She closed her eyes and violently shook her head from left to right, freeing herself from his enchanting eyes and the influence her own hormones had her under.
When she opened them again, she was no longer the timid, helpless little girl under the spell of a boy. She was now a strong, determined kunoichi.
The Henged-Naruto was just about to give her a mean message from 'Naruto' – something that would make her hate him – but he could not find any strength in him to do what was right by her, especially not after seeing how beautiful her determination made her.
Is this the Hinata-chan I know? She is way much cuter like this!
He was about to say something to disrupt the awkward silence between them, but his instincts told him to let go and step back.
He barely dodged a disabling Jyuuken strike to his heart.
"Whoa, Hinata-chan, what the hell?!"
Again, his instincts told him to dodge. And again, the blow missed, but came a little too close for comfort.
He could have used his superior speed and bind Hinata again – his hormones urged him to – but that would only get him back to where he'd started, which was nowhere. He said the next few words in between breaths while dodging her nonstop attacks.
"Hinata-chan, stop! I don't want to fight you."
The Hyuuga heir was getting quite frustrated with how much quicker the boy who had violated her – in her mind she felt violated – was.
"Hold still, whoever you are. Who are you anyway?"
Her lack of stuttering did not go unnoticed by Naruto.
"My name is …."
He left his sentence unfinished as he needed a few seconds to think. Several names came to mind, but none he really liked.
While he was thinking, he continued to avoid her attacks. He jumped over her sweeping leg kick. Upon landing, he dropped to his knees and rolled to the left, avoiding a palm strike aiming at what would have been the tenketsu on his right shoulder.
Then, his inner voice sounded off a name which he repeated.
"… Kal-El."
Those alien syllables did not quite roll off his tongue, but somehow it felt right.
Even after twenty unconnecting attacks, Hinata was still not letting up.
Normally, she would have just quit, resigned to her own weakness, and mentally replayed her father's disappointed belittlement over and over again until she no longer had any self worth. However, this boy, like her beloved Naruto-kun, seemed to bring out an unfamiliar tenacity in her, albeit, in the worst way possible.
Hinata could see that the boy moved at a speed at another level than she AND even worse, she knew he was holding back. After making two more halfhearted attempts, she stopped as she realized the futility of her efforts.
"How did you know my name? And what's Naruto-kun's message?"
Though the henge seal could alter his appearance and chakra signature, it could do little to alter Naruto's prankster nature. He decided to let it out to play just so he could get a reaction from her.
"It's my business to know all the names of the cute girls of the villages I visited."
That definitely got a reaction.
"K-cute?"
No longer was she the confident kunoichi. Her blushing and stuttering returned. This time, she even pressed her index fingers together.
His prankster side pressed forward. With some urging from his hormones, he flash stepped to a spot behind her and whispered seductively into her right ear.
"Yep. And I bet you'll grow up to be a real hottie, too."
He returned to his previous position with a face split in a wide grin, seeing her blush deepened even more.
"Please, d-don't t-tease me anymore. I'm s-saving m-myself for N-naruto-kun."
Naruto did not understand the strange turmoil he was going through in his heart; his eyebrows furrowed, and his face soured.
This is silly! Why am I getting jealous? She said "Naruto-kun," and I'm Naruto-kun.
He shook his head, trying to shake away that feeling, but couldn't. His next words came out a little harsher then he'd intended them to be.
"Why? What's Naruto got that I … Why do you like Naruto so much, huh? That baka is infatuated with his pink-haired teammate" – never mind that his infatuation was only an act, a part of the idiot persona that he was trying to project – "and probably doesn't even know you exist anyway!"
That came out wrong.
It hurt like hell.
In the depth of her heart, she had always believed it to be true – that Sakura was way prettier than she was and that Naruto would never find her attractive.
Hinata buried her face into her hands and gave way to tears.
The boy-in-henge cursed at himself and felt regret for saying those words to her. He had originally wanted to break her heart so that she would give up on searching him out, but he could not go through with it. His own stupid jealousy getting in the way now, resulting in her heartbreak, was completely unexpected.
Then his regret turned into anger. He clutched his fists so hard that if he was able to wound himself, his nails would have drawn blood. A certain entry from Hinata's diary replayed in his mind.
Dear Diary,
10 December. Today is my birthday. I don't think Father noticed. Again I had to celebrate it with the members of the Branch Family. Father was correcting my Jyuuken form again. He was very disappointed in my lack of improvement. I did try … but, still not good enough. He said that Hanabi would be a stronger clan leader. I think he's right … I am weak and worthless.
Mom, I missed you.
Still with his fists clutched, Naruto made a silent promise to pay Hiashi a visit after he came back from his mission.
He returned his thoughts back to the brokenhearted girl in front of him and walked toward her so he could embrace and comfort her.
Hinata saw him approaching her. With her head still cowering over and tears streaming down from her eyes, she could not have seen the regret on the stranger's face. All she saw was the boy that had caused her so much pain getting closer to her.
She waited.
When he was within her reach, she straightened herself into a Jyuuken stance and whispered.
"You are within the field of my divination."
She struck. This time, they landed. All of them.
Naruto was too close to have dodged her strikes, or perhaps he did not bother trying. Perhaps he wanted to allow her to vent all her anger on him. Perhaps he wanted to be punished for the hurt he had caused her.
He did not shield himself with his super abilities. He stood there and felt every blow to his tenketsu points sealing away his chakra.
Before executing the last palm strike, this one to the heart, she shouted with righteous fervor and held nothing back.
"No one touches me but my Naruto-kun!"
The palm strike landed squarely on dark-haired boy's chest and blasted him into the air, landing 10 meters away, kicking up a cloud of dust as his body rolled to a stop. If Hiashi had been there to see her Jyuuken form, he would have been proud, though he would never commend her for it.
The boy lay there motionless.
When the dust settled, instead of seeing an injured dark-haired boy clothed in the flamboyant red and blue outfit with a foreign "S" symbol on his hitai-ate, Hinata saw a familiar spiky-haired blond in orange jumpsuit. She could not identify the boy's hitai-ate since his face was buried in the ground, but she did not need to because she knew who this was.
After confirming with her Byakugan that the scene before her was not a genjutsu, Hinata ran to her beloved Naruto-kun, hoping against all odds that he would still be alive.
When she got there, she turned him over and panicked as she plopped herself onto her knees.
How? Why? What do I do now? C'mon, Hinata, think!
Her mind did not work well under stress. She could have used her bloodline to see if his heart was still beating. She could have tried to do what her father had only shown her once, which was unsealing the tenketsus. She could have given him a mouth-to-mouth CPR, something she would never have done anyway. Or she could have run to the Namikaze compound to get help.
But she did none of that.
With quickened breaths, shaky hands, and enough adrenaline flooding her brain to drown a cat, she leaned down and hugged him, wiping her tears on his chest while she pounded and cursed at him in between her wails.
"Naruto-kun, don't you dare die on me, you bastard!"
The said boy remained motionless with dirt all over his body and clothing. He was not really injured as he was not wounded anywhere; however, he felt pain when his tenketsus were being closed and when she gave him that tremendous blow to his heart.
Naruto slowly opened his eyes and waited until his vision cleared and his thoughts caught up to his brain. Gently, he returned her hug and stroked her hair.
"I'm okay, Hinata-chan."
She looked up and saw his weak but reassuring smile. She was happy, then sad, and finally outright hysterical.
"You bastard! You'd better be alive, or I'll kill you!"
Seeing her changing facial expressions and hearing her incoherent thoughts, he laughed and then winced in pain.
With a great deal of struggle and a lot of assistance from her, he propped himself up.
"Thanks, Hinata-chan. You know, you're much cuter when you're more confident in yourself like you are now."
That reminded her of who she was supposed to be – someone weak, unworthy of love. Subconsciously she reverted back to her supershy self. Just as she was turning her head away and pressing her fingers together, she heard his request and felt his hands touching hers reassuringly.
"Forget what your dad had said. You're not weak. You're not worthless. And your mom would have been proud of what a fine young lady you've become."
Hinata braved a smile at her crush's kind words, then her eyes widened in shock once she processed everything he'd said. Her words sounded off her confusion and the feeling of being betrayed.
"It was you," – both of them knew she was referring to the mystery intruder of the Hyuuga compound – "and you've read my diary!"
Naruto did not deny it; he certainly left enough clues for her to draw that conclusion. His right hand reached behind his head. He gave her a big guilty grin, knowing that he had to say something nice or else risk being the receiving end of her Jyuuken again.
"And you're as smart as you're beautiful."
Right now, Hinata could not deal with this and everything else that had happened so far. She needed some time by herself to think. There was a lot for her to process.
First she had to deal with a flirty black-haired boy who insulted her and her crush. Then she found out that the boy was actually her Naruto-kun, whom she'd thought almost killed. Finally, her crush turned out to be the one person she had hated the most, the intruder who had violated her privacy by reading her diary, no doubt already aware of her feelings for him.
Feeling angry and a desperate need to get away, she stood up abruptly, only to faint and be caught in an embrace by the person from whom she was trying to escape.
Naruto had seen this before and knew what had to be done to revive her. And he needed to. He still had not told her what he originally had wanted to say.
Using a medical jutsu his mother had taught him, he flashed through some hand seals and placed his right hand on her to infuse chakra into her coils. Gradually, the jutsu was having an effect on her.
Consequently, the only place Kushina had shown him to place his hand was the tenketsu right in the middle of her sternum, which was slightly above her developing breasts.
Hinata woke up in her crush's embrace. Her blush deepened once she realized her surroundings and where he was touching her, yet unlike before when she was trying to get away, she did not feel threatened or violated; she felt warm, safe, and loved for the first time since her mother passed away.
Part of the reason was because she had a weight lifted off of her – finally, she had made known her feelings to him, though not in the way she had imagined it. It was very liberating.
Seeing his classmate's new shade of red made Naruto realize how intimately he was touching her. He too sported a shade of red that rivaled hers. He then saw her lowering her head slightly, taking occasional peaks at him while stuttering through her question.
"Uh, N-naruto-k-kun, what w-was it th-that Kal-El w-want t-to talk to me ab-bout?"
Raising his glaze from looking where he was placing his hand on her chest, he struggled not to blush while trying to answer her question. His reply came out unprocessed.
"Oh yeah, I …."
… the original plan was for him to hurt her so that she would stop wasting her time going after love that could not and had no intention of being returned … but he could not go through with it … he realized right then and there that if he was to ever lose her, he would forever be incomplete … because she completed him …
"… I just wanted to know what your goals are."
The blue-haired girl's timid smile changed into a puzzled expression as she searched his face for answers.
"G-goals? You're not s-serious, are you? All this, j-just to ask m-me for my g-goals?"
She could easily tell that he was lying. Her Hyuuga training had taught her how to read people like books, but in this case, Naruto's signs were so obvious that anyone could have called him on it.
He hugged her, leaning in and resting his head on her shoulders, smelling the lilac scent in her hair, treasuring what he thought he would have lost had he gone through with his original plan. So he just have to run with this question he had popped out thinking.
"I'm sorry Hinata-chan. I … um … just humor me … what are your goals?"
His whisper caused her to quiver slightly, which only made him hug her more snuggly.
"I don't have any goals."
She used to when her mother was alive. Since her death, however, a part of Hinata went with her. She was never the same. Of course, having a father that subconsciously blamed her for his wife's death did not help matters any.
"You have to have goals. Everyone has goals!"
Naruto turned her right shoulders into his chest so that she could see the seriousness on his face.
"As long as I can remember, I wanted to go out there" – he was pointing to the sky – "to see the stars … to see if there are anyone else like us. I guess a part of me still does. And as I grow older, I have other goals, some mundane, like eating one more bowl of ramen than I did the day before. And others serious, like receiving my dad's robe when he's ready to retire."
His eyes returned to her face. He looked into her lavender pupil-less eyes.
"If you want to be with me, you must have goals. I'm complicated in more ways than one. I need someone to be my anchor, a safe haven for me to return to, and you can't be one if you don't know where you are and where you're heading. You can't be with me if don't have goals."
Hinata looked away, but his hand was there to guide her chin so that her eyes found their way back to his.
"I'm not saying you're weak, because today you've shown us both how strong you really are. I'm just saying that I want you to remember how special you are, and once you do, you'll start to live … dream … and plan."
"But what if I don't feel special about myself?"
"Well, sometimes I feel that way about myself too. Like right now, I'm wondering how a beautiful and kind person like you fall in love with an idiot class clown like me."
Hinata reached out to hold his face. She leaned her forehead against his, tears rolling down her cheek. Those words were the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her. She whispered something reassuring.
"But you are special to me."
No stuttering.
She was not sure where she found the courage to touch his face, sitting so intimately close to him, their noses almost touching and their lips only teasingly apart.
Naruto could only stare at the Hyuuga heiress, mesmerized by her beauty and slightly intimidated by her forwardness. He then remembered that his mother had told him that a sudden boost in strength and boldness would occasionally happen to recipients of the chakra infusion.
And, deep down, he knew that had circumstances been different in her childhood, she would be every bit the strong person he knew she could be.
The ensuing few seconds of silence communicated a promise filled with a lifetime of bliss.
He wanted to reciprocate her feelings, to reassure her that he would do anything to be worthy of her affection. He wanted to say something … anything … but he couldn't.
She was kissing him.
He kissed her back.
…o.0.O.0.o…
A/N: Writing about twelve-year-olds going through their emotional and hormonally charged ups and downs was really difficult for me. Adding to the mix was having to put a romantic spin on it.
This chapter's name is derived from William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," but you already know that.
This is the first romantic scene I've written in any of my stories. PLEASE, let me know what you think! Just click the review button below. I humbly thank you in advance.
