Hello guys!
I'm finally back with a new chapter
This chapter was a pain to write not only 'cause I caught the flu but also because a dire case of writer's block, however it's finished and its almost a double long chapter too
As usual this chapter was checked by the beta Hikari no Okami, thank her ^^
OoOoOoOoO
Basic Training Completed
I turned around crouching, trying to cover myself completely with my jacket (which thank god was spared of Anko-sensei's wrath)
"Don't look!" I urged Naruto-kun, who babbled nervously and turned around swiftly.
"I wanna reach Tazuna's house tonight Hinata, please hurry to dress up" pressed me Anko-sensei with a cheeky voice, she clearly couldn't care less about my shattered dress.
"Meanie" I cursed under my breath.
"Did you say something, Bright-eyes?" she asked me with a nice smile, though I wondered how honest it was.
"Nevermind" I dismissed it "Midori-sempai, could you bring me my backpack please?"
"Um, sure" and swiftly she ran with her cheeks a little pink and brought my light luggage "here you are" She marked a quick hand seal with her eyes closed and appeared a changing room for me to use, after that she went to stand with Naruto-kun, both with their backs towards me.
"Surprisingly shy for such a great ninja" I commented to Habataku in a whisper tacking out a new dress from my backpack along with a new fishnet suit.
"Maybe she's from a more traditional family, although you're right, she's amazing, genjutsu good enough to appear a real looking changing room, this level of genjutsu is beyond most I've ever seen; in all my time I only found another person capable of creating something like this"
"Hinata-san is a very beautiful girl isn't she?" asked nervous and in a whisper Midori-sempai to Naruto-kun outside. After all, the walls were just genjutsu and sound could pass from one side to the other, I just hoped they didn't have as good ears as mine, which just seemed to caught everything lately, and pray that they hadn't hear my low talk with Habataku.
"Yes she is" replied the boy in an equally nervous tone.
"It won't be long before she has a lot of boys knocking at her door asking for a date" continued the older girl, and her partner took several seconds to reply.
"Yeah, I'm aware of that" was all he said. And after that they remained in silence making me remember what I was doing.
Taking a look at my body I noticed the multiple hit, cuts, and bruises I had, therefore I grabbed a little bottle that contained my healing balm and applied a little to my wounds and then hurried to put on my clothes, walking out of the changing room to meet my team.
"I'm ready, you can turn around now" I said with my cheeks a little hot as both the blond and the white-haired turned around and the changing room disappeared.
"Well let's go, and I hope we don't find any other 'trouble'", said Anko-sensei "right, Bright-eyes?" clearly the trouble wasn't exactly about more enemies.
"No, Anko-sensei" I said "by the way, guys?"I offered them the container of my healing balm "would you like-"
"GREAT! YOU BROUGHT SOME!" before I could finish my phrase Naruto-kun snatched and opened the bottle, using the product in his wounds.
"What's that?" asked Anko-sensei.
"Hina-chan is a master herbalist" explained Naruto-kun "she knows how to mill and mix certain plants with healing properties and makes this. It really fastens recovery! And it's a pain supressor too!" he offered the little bottle to Midori-sempai who analyzed it very interested, while whispering to herself in a very low voice "the legendary healing balm, proud of the clan…who would've thought she was able to do it while so young"
"Did you say something, Midori?" asked Anko-sensei, Naruto-kun blinked, apparently he hadn't heard.
"Eh? Ah, no, nevermind" she said and passed the container to Anko-sensei. Apparently I was the only one who had heard it clearly…but I had no idea what Midori-sempai meant.
"WOAH! This is really good stuff!" said surprised Anko-sensei.
"Told ya!" replied Naruto-kun with a wide toothy fox grin.
"Impressive Bright-eyes, most impressive, you could even send some medic-nins to the unemployed list with this stuff!" praised me Anko-sensei…I could only feel how my face grew hotter and how my eyes went to see my feet.
"…thanks" was all I could muster out of my lips, my heart felt suddenly warm, my feet light and my lips kept curving into a smile. I was useful.
We reached Tazuna's house. It was simple and was located on the outskirts of a small village: a two story square stilt house with a traditional structure. As we walked inside I noticed that the house was probably very luxurious in another time, but that it had fallen from its former grace to a terrible poberty. What had happened to this house and to the family that lived here?
"Father" a young woman came to greet us, her dark blue hair fell like a dark waterfall behind her back and long bangs fell at the sides of her face.
"Tsunami" greeted back Tazuna-san.
"Father, where have you been? And who are this people?" asked the girl.
"We are ninja!" replied Naruto-kun excited.
"Why, hello, your father came to ask for protection to the village of Konoha, we were assigned to this task" explained the friendly Anko-sensei "Mitarashi Anko, nice to meet you Tsunami."
"These people saved my life, twice actually, if it wasn't for them I would've died the very minute I hit the road" said Tazuna-san to his daughter.
"Then be welcomed to our house, we don't have much, but by all means please take whatever you may need" offered the woman.
"A roof over our heads and food in our stomachs will be enough" assured the eldest ninja.
"Well then, come in"
We had an early dinner (we had had only a small breakfast on the road and had missed lunch that day) and were installed in several rooms of the house. Naruto was going to sleep in the same room as Tazuna, Anko-sensei would sleep with Tsunami, and Midori-sempai and I were given the only spare room in the house. We put our bags on the room and organized the futons and sheets to sleep. After that, we took out our pajamas and got ready to sleep, Anko-sensei had told us we would be training very hard the next morning, but I felt the body completely exhausted, no endurance training in the academy had prepared me for such a harsh fight, or such an extenuant mission.
I was preparing to sleep in the room when Midori-sempai started to take things out of her backpack. First she put out some clothes much like the ones she used normaly, miniskirts, and light t-shirts and tops. A few years back when I asked her why she would dress such revealing outfits she said those were for mobility in combat; after that she put out several yukatas, all of them gorgeous, and she explained that those were her usual house cloths, after that she put out a little cosmetics bag, Midori-sempai had always used a little make up, even in battle, but even so I was surprised by the things she had brought with her for this mission; she then took out two pairs of civilian sandals and two more pairs of her usual cogs, and finally three fashion magazines.
"Well I don't have an inborned fashion sense like Ino or Sakura or you, so I have to study a lot about beign a girl you know? So I usually read several of these magazines per month. If it wasn't for these I could be using an I'm-here-kill-me yellow vest or something weirder, really" explained Midori-sempai with a smile.
After that, we took out toothbrushes and brushed our teeth from any dinner rests, and went to say our good nights to Anko-sensei and Naruto-kun, but we found something unexpected as we approached the room.
"Nothing is going to be ok!" it was the voice of a kid.
"What did you say?!" replied Naruto-kun. We hurried to enter the room. We found Anko-sensei and Naruto-kun with Tazuna-san and Tsunami-san, a little kid was discussing with the blond.
"You are stupid!" the little kid was wearing a white hat with blue lines on it.
"Inari that was rude!" Tsunami scolded the little kid "these ninja saved your grampa!"
"It's ok, I'm rude too" defended him Tazuna-san.
"Mom don't you see it?" questioned the little kid named Inari "they're all going to die, Gatou will find them and whipe them out!"
"WHAT DID YOU SAY BRAT?!" Naruto-kun rised a fist "listen up! You know what a super ninja is?! Well that's me only a lot better! I'm gonna be Hokage! This Gachou or Blatou or whatever he's called is no match for a real hero like me!"
"Heh there's no such thing as a hero!" Inari replied with a mean tone "you're just full of stupid ideas!"
"SAY IT AGAIN!" Naruto-kun charged at Inari but Anko-sensei grabbed him from his jacket with one hand
"Calm down Sunshine"
"If you want to stay alive you should go back to where you came from" said Inari leaving the room
"Inari where're you going?" asked Tazuna-san
"To look out at the ocean, I want to be alone" the kid replied crossing the door
"Sorry about that" apologized Tazuna-san in name of his grandson
But Naruto-kun wasn't satisfied. He managed to free himself from the one-handed grab and followed Inari towards the stairs outside of the room
"Naruto-kun were you going?!" I asked worried
"I'm going to say a thing or three to that kid! I'm gonna put him in his place right now!" he replied climbing the stairs
"Wait please! Don't do this" I said going after him.
We walked down the second floor hall when we heard some crying, we walked silently towards a slighty opened door. Inside Inari was looking out the window of his room towards the ocean; he was crying dearly and "Daddy" was all that was understandable between the sobs. I put my hand over Naruto-kun shoulder to suggest that we leave, and he accepted mumbling something like "I'll let it pass this time" after that, we went to our rooms and put out the lights.
"That really was a day" as soon as I fell sleep I found myself inside my mind, the projection of myself that Habataku assumed for my training was standing in front of me: Her dark hair short and in a duck tail cut, my mothers jacket zipped up over the traditional suit of blue pants and blue shirt that was my clan's training outfit "however, that's no reason to skip out our night training, as it proved itself useful in the last battle" said the other me.
I was really tired and wanted to recover from the stress of the battle, but I really wanted even more to be better and useful, so I threw my tiredness away into a corner of my mind and listened to Habataku
"Very well" she continued "now, today we were on the offensive, but just because our opponent was forced into defense; however, it won't always be like that, there will be times when you will be faced with a ninja master of offensive or with such a large amount of enemies that will leave you no choice but to fall back and defend. After all, some of the most powerful Jyuken techniques are defensive movements that are based on a counterattack. Therefore, these days we are going to train an attack that is both, a perfect defense, but that has the power of a rock boulder rolling down a mountain, pay close attention, I'll do it once first"
And what I saw there left me with my jaw hanging from my face, and not wasting a minute I put myself into practice.
The next morning we had breakfast and soon after that, we were in the woods with Anko-sensei, waiting for her training.
Naruto-kun was not wearing his orange jacket so the only orange in his outfit was a line that ran through the sides of his brown pants. I was wearing my normal outfit, but this time, Midori-sempai had offered herself to comb my hair and apply some make up on my face, so I was using my hair down and a little shade over my eyes and lipstick, I really liked how I looked, but it was making me feel nervous that Naruto-kun kept paying me a look every few minutes; Midori-sempai was wearing a beautiful violet yukata with her hair tied into a short braid. It was clear that we were more relaxed after yesterday's battle.
"Hey Anko-sensei!" called Naruto-kun "teach us that awesome jutsu you did yesterday! What did you do to walk on the water?!"
"I'll teach you how to do it when you guys are ready for that, don't worry. Actually, today we will take a step towards that"
"But! What was that person from yesterday, how did you called her Midori-sempai? Haku? And what's that thing you said Anko-sensei, those hunter ninjas"
"Hunter ninja, or ANBU, are the ones in charge of hunting down and killing ninja that leave their village, and they disspose of the body so that the enemy can't analyze their jutsu, or any medicine used in their bodies, any kind of secret that could be dangerous for the village"
"But…it's weird" said Midori-sempai taking a hand to her chin
"What's weird?" I asked
"Well I was kinda in shock yesterday…I haven't heard that voice in like forever…but…if my memory serves me right, I recall that Haku had something to do with a man using a Huge sword, and that they caused problems to Nar- I mean, that they were…uh…caused problems"
"Wait…You said she had something to do with…what exactly?" questioned Anko-sensei
"You already had your doubts right Anko-sensei?" questioned Midori-sempai
"What? What's the matter?" questioned Naruto-kun
"Truth is, Zabuza is still alive" declared Anko-sensei
"WHAT?!" yelled Naruto-kun
"But! Anko-sensei! You checked him and said he was dead" I said
"Think about it backwards" said Midori-sempai
"She used needles, which don't have that much of a mortal effect" explained Anko-sensei
"However, all of the ANBU are experts about anatomy and know a lot about the body" continued Midori-sempai
"So the needles in the neck were to force Zabuza into a temporary death effect. After that, that person carried the body of Zabuza instead of working it right there, the sooner the body is gone the better" finished Anko-sensei
"So…THAT MONSTER IS STILL ALIVE?!" yelled Naruto-kun
"What're we going to do?!" I asked worried
"Train your asses off!" replied Anko-sensei "so…first you're going to climb trees…without using your hands"
"Climb trees?" I asked interested
"That's too easy!" replied Naruto-kun with a smile and charged the closest tree, running vertically over it until he reached a tall branch "we used to practice this!"
"I'm sorry Anko-sensei" apologized Midori-sempai from the branch of another tree "I recommended this exercise when we were in the academy, thanks to this exercise we were able to learn the elemental jutsu these two know"
"We've been doing this since we were 7 so this exercise is natural for us" I replied from the very top of another tree, using the distraction my teammates created I was able to reach the top without anyone noticing
"Bright Eyes can reach that height?" asked Anko-sensei both surprised and excited with a smirk on her face
"Yup! Hina-chan is the best at doing this!" explained Naruto-kun
"I guess this was very basic for you guys, but…will you be able to succeed when faced with an advanced exercise?"
"Advanced?" I asked
"Later, later, well go tell Tazuna to be warry, that the enemy is still alive" explained Anko-sensei and we jumped down from the trees and the four of us walked to the house to explain the situation to Tazuna-san.
OoOoOoOoO
There you go, no cligghanger today, in the next chapter we well have the special training Anko-sensei gives them, along with new jutsus taught by Midori, all for the sake of battling Zabuza the next time. I won't write down the entire story about Inari and stuff, I'll just mention that Tazuna explains it, so if by chance some of you don't it you might want to see chapter 11 of the anime (not sure what chapter its in the manga)
I'll remind you to please tell me what would you guys like me to do with Zabuza, should he die or live and if the answer is live would it be to join Konoha, flee, or what?
Please R&R!