A new chapter!
And now we move into the Wave Country Arc
I have a new poll for you guys:
What should happen to Zabuza in this fic?
-He dies
-He survives and flees
-He survives and goes to live in Konoha
-Other
Please let me know your opinion of this chapter with a review and once you're writing it help us decide on Zabuza's destiny!
To Fear the Mist
We were back in our house, packing up different stuff and clothes for our C-rank mission. We would escort Tazuna-san all the way to the Wave Country, a small archipelago to the west of the Fire Country. Anko-sensei had given us 15 minutes to go home, say good bye to our families, and pack up for a 2 week long trip. This was the first time I'd go outside the village for so long. I was nervous.
I informed my father of the mission and he just moved the head to let me know he had heard what I told him and for how long would I be away.
I packed up a few ninja weapons, changes of clothes, my pajamas, my toothbrush, and a comb, all inside a backpack and a bedroll on top of it.
I met Naruto-kun in the entrance; he was already waiting for me. He was wearing his usual clothes and had a backpack pretty much like mine on his back, his ninja-to resting in its scabbard beside his waist. Sora-nee-san was beside him telling him something, even if she was whispering I could hear the conversation while I crossed the front yard.
"…and no matter what you have to protect Hinata, did I make myself clear? She, as a lady, is your responsibility, as man. Don't you dare come back without her"
"Don't worry" he replied also in a whisper "I'll make sure nothing happens to her"
"That's my little brother" replied Sora-nee-san in a cheerful tone passing a hand through Naruto-kun's hair
"Is everything alright?" I asked reaching their position
"Yup, no worries" replied Naruto-kun "are you ready to go?" I replied nodding "alright then, let's go"
"NARUTO-KUN!" a loud voice came from the gates and a green mass moved between us, with a fast movement Naruto-kun pulled out his sword and used its plain side to stop the kick that the green mass threw at him
"Fuzzy Eyebrows!" grunted Naruto-kun "You're back already?" Naruto-kun was barely stopping Lee-san's kick
"YES NARUTO-KUN! WE ARE FINALLY BACK FROM OUR MISSION! LET'S HAVE A FRIENDLY SPAR TO CELEBRATE IT! THE WINNER CAN CHALLENGE NEJI!" said the older boy with a big smile as he placed both his feet on the ground and assumed a taijutsu stance
"Don't involve me in your stupid ideas" added Neji-nii-san walking pass them with his usual cold voice
Rock Lee, Neji-nii-san's teammate was a year older than Naruto-kun and me, he was extremely strong, his area of specialization was Taijutsu, and I'd never seen him use anything else whenever he spared with Naruto-kun or Neji-nii-san, but his fighting skills were good enough to make up for it.
Usually Naruto-kun and Lee-san would spar and the winner would then fight Neji-nii-san; however, Naruto-kun had never won against Lee-san, and Neji-nii-san had never lost.
"I'm sorry Eyebrows, I can't today, we are going to our own mission today" said Naruto-kun with a large confident smile while putting away his sword.
"OH!" almost yelled Lee-san "You two graduated from ninja academy! I congratulate you!" he said very seriously with a very deep bow.
"Heh, Thanks!" replied my team mate with a hand behind his head.
"So you, the weaklings, graduated uh?" asked Neji-nii-san "Don't get yourself killed out there Naruto, or I'll have no one to beat when I'm stressed" he half joked.
"SHUT UP!" replied Naruto-kun "I'll beat you when I come back from this mission, you just wait and see!"
"Safe trip, Naruto-kun!" said Lee saluting Naruto-kun military style.
"You too" playfully, with his bright azure eyes opened the blond boy copied the salute. After that he walked away, I was going behind him.
When Neji-nii-san was passing beside me I heard him say "Don't flunk it up, loser", he used a poisonous tone which I knew, but had me uncomfortable all the same.
Sora-nee-san had heard it and threw an even more poisonous look at him. I just walked away; I hadn't replied, mainly because I was hoping for that too: Not to become a dead weight they'd had to drag…
We reached the gates of the village soon after that; Anko-sensei was already waiting for us with Tazuna-san near her.
"Good, you two have arrived" she said waving at us "now we only need to wait for Midori to appear"
"Then we are ready to go" Midori-sempai's voice sounded from a nearby tree and she appeared from behind it, as silent as ever
"Well then, let's start walking, the sooner we arrive there the sooner we can return home" said happily Anko-sensei pointing the horizon
"Are you sure these kids will be able to do the mission?" asked her Tazuna-san
"Don't worry; these guys are extremely strong, I'm confident we won't need to worry about a thing" Anko-sensei assured the client
"Let's go already!" cried Naruto-kun with an excited voice, barely holding on to his backpack, he seemed ready to run all the way to the wave country, even if he had no idea where it was.
The wave country was a few days away from Konoha, but the trip wouldn't be as peaceful as I would have liked.
We had been walking a few hours when suddenly everything happened in such a quick succession that I was surprised I hadn't missed a thing.
From behind our group two men, ninja for sure, appeared and trapped Anko-sensei with a barbed and razor chain! After that in a gruesome and terrifying move they pulled the chain between them, slashing a surprised Anko-sensei in pieces!
"First one" they counted with a cold deep voice, these men were professionals, they felt nothing when killing a human being…what was even worse, they had eliminated our sensei in a single move! There wasn't a thing we, Naruto-kun, Midori-sempai, or me, could do against that!
In an instant both men were flanking me "Second" they said into my ears. I was their next victim!
A sudden rush of terror shocked me from head to toe; I could hear the metallic sounds of the fearsome chain that both men had attached to the large gauntlets they were using. Not only were they skilled, but also they were trained to fight as a team. We had just merely become a unit; our coordination would be in no level against theirs. I also understood that they were stronger than a gennin, these were real ninja, not rookies, but assassins, professionals, and they could kill a man in a split second. They had proven it.
I wanted to fight but my body was petrified, I wanted to run but my legs were shaken by the fear, I wanted to cry but I knew I would die way before a tear could appear on my eyes, I wanted to scream but no sound reached the surface, I wanted to pray but my mind was too surprised to ask for divine intervention. All I could do was resign: I would di-
"HINATA!" pulling me out of my thoughts, stopping the men before they could move and coming up to my rescue were two clones of Naruto-kun that hit the enemy ninja with a kick to their chin, as the real one gripped his sword and attacked the chain, which was sent by the hit to a nearby tree, just to be cut in half by the elemental edge of my team mate's blade
"Adaptable jutsu!" yelled Midori-sempai "Uchiha Clan! Battle Precision!" suddenly her usual aqua colored eyes became red, and she threw a large amount of shuriken, that had metal wire tied to them, the shuriken circled the tree several times with amazing precision and accuracy pinning the two guys to that tree. I took a swift breath, the battle had finished…or so I thought.
The two men exchanged a look and suddenly both parts of the broken chain returned at great speed towards each of their gauntlets, this fast movement cut the wires that held them prisoners, and once free the men resumed their attack.
One of them came at me, with fear I noticed how his gloves were clawed with metal tips, that without a doubt were fiercely sharpen. I closed my eyes and raised my hands to try to protect myself from an inevitable attack. Through my eyelids an orange light flashed brightly. I was only waiting the sound of an inevitable crash. But it never came…slowly, I opened my eyes
"It's ok, Hina-chan, it's over"
Naruto-kun's assuring voice calmed my nerves, and I finally stopped shaking and noticed that the two ninjas were restrained. Midori-sempai was just relaxing from a defending position in front of Tazuna-san, apparently the other man had rushed towards him. Both, he and my attacker were being kept by two gigantic boas, each one of them was at least 30 feet!
A few feet away from us, Anko-sansei was smiling, she was alive!
"Good job, Naruto, Midori…" she said, and then turned to me "…Hinata, I'm disappointed, I can't believe you couldn't even move" she said with a sad tone in her voice, I myself thought she was being too nice to me, I hated myself for being so weak
"Don't worry Hina-chan, everything is o-"
"Naruto!" Sensei's voice called him with a severe tone, just to sweeten a little when he stopped trying to calm me "come here, let me see that hand" with reluctance the blond approached her
"W-w-what ha-happened to Naruto-kun?" I asked Midori-sempai stuttering terribly
"He received a scratch from that man's claw when he protected you" she explained a little worried
"Tsk" half cursed Anko-sensei "the claws were poisoned"
Oh no! I thought horrified, Naruto-kun had been poisoned and it was my fault, only my fault, the least thing I could do to help is give him an antive-
But as soon as I was turning around to take out the little medicine box I carried with me Anko-sensei solved it.
"Well I'm not a medic nin, so this might be a little rough, I have to introduce my chakra and pull the poison out, you're lucky I know a thing or two about poisons, and that it was only the hand" and without delay she took Naruto-kun's hand between her own and in a few seconds she had a large black drop floating in her hand, she threw it to ground so that would never again do us any harm
There were no need for my herbalism, and even if Naruto-kun's face had showed a few times that it was somewhat painful it had been a very clean and fast treatment
"Where did those guys come from?" asked Naruto-kun
"There was a small puddle in the road, they were hidding there" explained Anko-sensei
"There has been no rain in the last days, as such there couldn't be a puddle in the road" added Midori-sempai. I hadn't even noticed said puddle. "Come here Naruto-kun, we need to close that cut in your hand fast or you won't be to use it freely next time" said Midori-sempai walking closer to him and taking out a small necklace charm from her small shirt "this is a technique I learned in these years I was away. It's not that useful on more serious wounds but with a little one like that it should work wonders" she said and closing her eyes and taking the small charm in her hand a light glow and a faint wind moved around her and in a matter of 3 seconds the cut in the blue-eyed hand had completely disappeared
"WOW! Amazing! Midori-sempai you ROCK!" cheered Naruto-kun
"Hahah, you're over reacting Naruto-kun" negated Midori-sempai "you should had seen the people that thought me this, they were really expert healers! They could even heal a person that was clinically dead back to full shape in a few minutes with absolutely no brain damage even after a few hours, they really are amazing!"
They are… I repeated in my head they were amazing, as were too Midori-sempai, Naruto-kun and Anko-sensei, but where was I? There are people that can bring clinically dead people back to life…what am I doing? My little healing balms are no match against healing jutsus or foreign techniques; once again, I'm not needed here
That thought was preserved in my head the whole day, it made me so sad, but more than everything it was frustrating me!
I finally released all my feelings hitting a tree while shaking in the night that day.
"Focus Hina-chan!" instructed me Habataku
"What's the point?!" I almost yelled "no matter neither how much I train nor how much I try I'm still weak! I couldn't do nothing this morning!"
"THAT WAS YOUR FIRST REAL COMBAT EXPERIENCE!" replied Habataku yelling completely at me, but then continuing calmly "it was only natural for you to be afraid, don't let such a thing to get that much to you!"
"But they were amazing and I suck!" I said with tears forming in my eyes "I was too scared to even cry!" I said falling to my knees and taking my face into my hands, letting the tears flow.
"That's curious" said a male voice at my back making me shoot my head up once more "I was so scared I almost shit my pants too!" said Naruto-kun
"That's…not true" I said with a little voice "you were amazing out there, if Sakura or Azumi had seen you they would have fallen in love with you just for that"
"Well, I guess that's a shame" he said taking a few steps towards me
"What? They not being here?" I asked a little hurt by my own question; I pulled up to a sitting position and raised the knees to my face as I hugged my ankles
"No, not at all, I mean, I only managed to move 'cause a fear greater than those men took the best of me" he explained to me finally reaching my side and sitting down
"A greater fear?" I asked still with a little voice, I feared that if I were to speak louder my voice would break and I would start crying in front of Naruto-kun
"Yeah…the fear to lose you" he said turning his face towards mine and smiled his classical toothy fox-like smile. Before I knew my cheeks were burning, and I was sure that even in the moonlight my face would be bright red "don't worry" he continued "I'll protect you, I owe you way too much"
'I owe you way more' I wanted to tell him that but all I could do was to stay there, dumbfounded, with my face burning because of the blood…then I noticed the atmosphere
We were both alone, in middle of a forest on the border of the fire country, sitting together under the moonlight…would this be a good moment to tell him I liked him? Even if I was useless as a ninja he had told me that he didn't want to lose me and that he would protect me. Was that proof good enough to assume what I felt for him was mutual? Or was it simply his usual friendly concern? I…I wouldn't have such a nice moment nor close atmosphere to do it, right? I had to reach and take this opportunity!
"Na…o-k…n" my voice only managed to come out low, almost unnoticeable
"Uh? You said something?" he asked watching me with even more interest, his eyes weren't making this easier.
"Naruto-kun" I released my ankles and leaned a little towards him
"Yes? What's the matter Hina-chan?"
"To tell the truth!" I tried to make my voice sound steadier but instead it came out louder, I was so ashamed because of that and I backed down a little "t-to tell the tr-truth" I repeated a little lower this time, avoiding his eyes, my own nerves making me stutter "since…a-a long time…I…w-w-well, more like…I m-mean…y-y-you…"
"Hina-chan, I'm not understanding a thing"
"Naruto-kun, I lik-"
"OI! Naruto-kun! Hinata-san!" Midori-sempai's voice came from behind us "Anko-sensei asked me to bring you guys back, she said it's dangerous to be alone right now, come, dinner's ready!"
"Dinner?!" Naruto-kun stood up with his belly growling "oh!" he then turned to me and offered me a hand to help me stand up "sorry Hina-chan, what were you saying?"
I took his hand with a smile of resignation, I apparently couldn't even confess decently. I really was such a failure "Don't worry, let's go have supper"
'Sayonara, my moonlight confession'
We reached the camp and had dinner. Anko-sensei explained to us that the ninjas that attacked us were chunnin from the Mist Village, their nickname was "The Demon Brothers" –the name couldn't fit them better in my opinion– and that apparently there shouldn't be fights against ninja in a C rank mission, that rather this would be rated as a B mission or even higher if more and/or stronger enemies were to appear.
She herself sounded rather pleased to know that this mission was both risky and challenging, but she wanted to ask our opinion
"I'm game, as long as we work together I'm confident we can win against anything they could throw at us" was Midori-sempai's input
"Naruto-kun you're my right hand what do you think?" asked Anko-sensei
"I don't really want to return with the tail between the legs saying 'it was too hard for me', I'm the man who's going to become Hokage after all, but I'll only carry this on as long as we all agree to it" I knew he was talking about me, Anko-sensei smiled at Naruto-kun's comment and then turned to see me
"What about you Hinata?"
I felt as if I didn't even have the right to cast an opinion, after all, I had done nothing in the last fight, but…I too wanted to show everyone that I was capable! I wanted to show my father that I was strong, to show Neji-nii-san I was not a loser, to make Anko-sensei proud of me, to be at least a little useful to the team, to not be considered a failure by the clan…even, only maybe, if we were to come home with a good result from an even more difficult mission, I could confess to Naruto-kun without relying on having a good atmosphere or a nice environment, if I could prove to him that I was worth of him he would look at me!
"Let's do it" I said even more motivated than I thought I was, they looked at me surprised but a second but then their surprised faces showed a smile "let's accept Tazuna-san's mission" I continued
"Thank you" said Tazuna-san with a deep voice that truly showed his gratitude "my village is small and poor, and we didn't have the money for a dangerous and expensive B rank mission, that's why I had to lie when requesting the mission, I'm really sorry"
"Ok with that settled let's go to sleep, we resume our march at first of sun's light tomorrow" commanded Anko-sensei, and we retired to our tents to rest; I had very bad dreams that night. Dreams about me being shackled in chains and tortured inside a very deep mist, never knowing the identity of my aggressor. Luckily Habataku rescued me fast from that terrible dream to continue training inside my mind.
The next morning came with a nice weather, and thankfully no more enemies. We reached the border of the continent two days later, and found ourselves in front of the sea, its bright pure blue color was beautiful, a beauty only matched by the eyes of my blond teammate.
We found a boat that would take us to Tazuna-san's isle which was a few kilometers off the coastline.
Only we were close enough the driver turned off the motor and used an oar to move the boat the rest of the way.
As we approached the isle that morning a thick mist unrolled over us and it merely brought back the memories of my nightmare. Same that repeated its apperance the last nights.
"Why are we moving so slowly?" asked Naruto-kun
"Shhh" silenced him Tazuna-san "this is because we don't want anyone to find us"
"There's something I don't quite get yet, Tazuna-san" requested Midori-sempai "why would someone hire ninja to deal with a bridge builder?"
"A man with a very very dark heart. His name is Gatou" answered our client
"You mean the rich guy? The president from Gatou industries?" questioned surprised Anko-sensei.
"Am I the only one who doesn't know the guy here?" asked the boy on my team.
"He's a very rich person Naruto-kun, one of the richest in the world" I explained
"He holds control of this area, and possesses the monopoly of several products; as such he sells them at very high prices and earns money selling medicines and basic goods to our poor people. That's why I'm building this bridge" he pointed above us and I followed the movement of his hand. The Gigantic, no, Gargantuan construction above us was visible even in this deep mist, it was without a doubt the largest bridge I had ever seen "once this bridge is finished it will connect this country with the main land and will allow us to trade freely with other countries"
"Thus, ruining Gatou's monopoly" finished Midori-sempai
"He's evil…I won't let him do as he pleases!" said Naruto-kun with determination
"Silence kid!" demanded the boat man "someone could hear us"
We reached the end of the bridge and crossed a dark stone tunnel that led us to a small village built over the water.
We left the boat, as Tazuna-san's place was merely a few minutes away in a nearby village, further into the land.
Glad to see the sun shine above us I joined my team and client to continue our escorting.
But we had merely left the village behind when I sensed a killing intent close by, in a swift movement I threw a single shuriken at it, which was soon followed by a kunai thrown by Naruto-kun and a senbon needle, by Midori-sempai
"What happened?!" asked Tazuna-san running to get behind Anko-sensei, but she didn't answer… Midori-sempai walked with her sword in hand towards the bushes that were covering the target of our attacks…
She moved the hand in and picked up a scarred white bunny from the bushes
"Just a rabbit?" asked Tazuna-san
"Not just that" said Anko-sensei
"In these areas you just find regular brown hares" explained Midori-sempai
"This is a white winter rabbit; it grew in a place without sun, that's the reason for the white fur" Anko-sensei explained further
I activated my Byakugan, the little animal was the object of a substitution jutsu. But I found more than I barged for.
"GET DOWN!" was all I managed to give as a warning before a HUGE sword passed over our heads.
Suddenly an even heavier mist fell upon us.
Okami's note: I did this while ill, so tell me if you find mistakes. By the way, I always loved the winter rabbit, it's cute hehehe. I wonder if Haku's carried it for all those years…
Tohru's note: We all wish that Okami recovers with haste! I'm sure a few reviews could make us both happy and therefore make her illness go away! So please R&R
More notes: Has someone noticed she hasn't called me a pervert lately? I'm so happy about that! n_n
The following is a spoiler from the manga so if you are not reading the manga or are not up to date just move to the bottom and click the review button (n_n):
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As a huge Hinata-fan I'm shocked by the latest events that featured the manga, and if she isn't saved I'm so going to cry! I just hope kishimoto give us all the naruxhina we (fandom) have waited for so long! My response to manga chapters 437 and 438 will be in the next chapter
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