Author Notes: It's Friday night folks. So put your feet up, sit back, relax, and above all, enjoy your hard earned rest =)
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Naruto Sempai: Chapter 6 – Hinata beats Sasuke!
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'Six' Hinata thought as she sat looking at her reflection in the water. Today was just another day, a Saturday to be exact. One Naruto had insisted she took off to allow her body to recover. She didn't argue, each one of her muscles were stiff, and uncomfortable whenever she moved. If it was training again tomorrow she would gladly take a day off. That it was ordered was just a great excuse.
So there she sat, on one of the little bridges around Konoha, under which flowed a stream. She looked at the water in thought, but also because it was calming to her, and soothing. Her feet dipped in the water, the cool flow of water feeling just wondering on her sore feet. But that wasn't where her thoughts lay. She had six questions she could ask Naruto as part of their deal. She could ask him anything, and he would give her nothing but an honest answer.
She felt a strong temptation to use them. However found herself partially unwilling. He had been keeping to himself deliberately, which told her he didn't want to talk about himself. She had to respect that. Doubly so given all he had done for her.
So instead she was playing around with questions she could ask him, deciding if she felt on became too powerful of a curiosity she would ask. The only problem was she had far more than six questions to ask.
How did you become so strong so quickly?
What was it like being so young when he became a ninja?
What are your family and friends like?
Who is your inspiration?
How can you have so much faith?
What are your ninja abilities?
Did someone train you like you're training me?
What do you really think of me, Naruto-sempai?
She considered the last question, her cheeks warming.
Lately that had been another issue she couldn't explain. For some reason she found herself strongly curious as to what his thoughts about her were. She couldn't explain exactly why. Maybe she was just concerned he might feel he was wasting his time with her? That sounded like her.
Sighing to herself she pulled her feet up, and put her sandals back on. She picked herself up and began to walk into town. The final exams were only a couple of weeks away now. She was making certain to take special measures to keep her ninja equipment in pristine condition. She entered the weapons store to purchase a polishing and sharpening set. The two employees sat relaxing in conversation behind the counter.
"Freaking cheeky brat" she heard the man say "He really had the nerve to say that?"
"Yeah, then he said 'No problem, I'll pop back later'" the girl scoffed. The man laughed. Hinata continued to appear as though she was browsing
"I'd like to see him try that when I'm here" he replied with a distinct tone of menace in his voice. Hinata frowned, wondering who they were talking about, and what they could've done to earn such strong dislike of the pair behind the counter. Spotting a suitable set she picked it up and took it to the desk, handing it to the man. He grunted taking it off her.
As she waiting for him to cash it up she looked about all the products on the counter. Most of which were useless devices, just there to add a bit of flash. She looked behind the desk at the shelves, not picking out anything of interest. However a series of colours caught her eye, attracting her attention to a board of scanned the photos starting at the bottom, wondering what they were for. She looked about for some sort of sign, finding a 'Banned' list at the top of the photos. Right under which she saw a photo of Naruto. She blinked.
She couldn't imagine him doing anything to warrant being banned from a store.
"Ex-Excuse me" she said, causing the man to glance back at her "Why is Naruto-Sempai on the list of the banned?" she asked confused. The man snorted as a response, causing Hinata to edge back in repulse.
"Because he's a no good-" he began cutting himself short, he looked up with a groan before looking down "Because he's bad news little lady." He said with a demeaning tone.
"No good? What did he do?" she pressed, not able to think of a reason he would get banned. The man looked at her sternly before replying
"None of your business, girl. Now are you going to pay for this or not?" he snapped. Hinata resisted a flinch to his words, dropped money on the desk, snatched the set from the counter and promptly left, not waiting for the change. Upon leaving she felt a hiss of white hot emotion from within her. Anger. She found herself with a tensed jaw, and heavy eye brows, holding onto her purchase much more firmly than she needed to.
As she continued to walk past several stores she grew curious, and with her anger fuelling her nerve she took the time to enter stores she didn't need anything from. Just to scan their lists of banned customers if they had one.
She found that Naruto's picture was present in over half the stores which did have lists. Whenever she inquired as to the reason of his ban, she never got an answer. As a test she began to ask about other people on the list first. Finding out typical reasons; stealing, threatening violence, or abuse of merchandise. Whenever she pointed at Naruto's photo it was suddenly none of her business. She didn't buy it. Neither did she understand either.
She soon gave up, adding this to a list of things she didn't understand about her blonde mentor. As hard as she tried she couldn't think of a reason he would be banned from so many stores around town. No one reason made sense to her. And there being multiple reasons which clashed with his entire character that she had seen so far just seemed ridiculously unlikely.
Whatever his story was, it certainly had to be unique. That was the only conclusion she was able to come to for sure.
"…Uzumaki?" she heard the word from inside a nearby store. It instantly caused her to turn her heard in the direction it had came from. She slowly crept closer.
"You mean you don't know who he is?" one asked in obvious surprise. Hinata swallowed hard, she couldn't believe her luck! Of all conversations to stumble upon
"He's the little blonde hair runt. Goes on about being Hokage"
"Hah! Oh, Him?" a female voice laughed.
"Yeah, that's Uzumaki" one said
"And he's a chuunin?" the woman asked in disbelief
"Yep. From what I hear he's a pretty good one too." Another voice came, Hinata couldn't help but notice it was a little muffled.
"Really?" the woman asked in disbelief
"Truly" the muffled voice shot back "Well that is when he's serious"
"What do you mean by that?" she asked again
"Well… Let's just say he finds complicated solutions for simple problems" the muffled man said again.
"You said it. But you have to hand it to him…" another man said
"Yeah…" the muffled voiced replied in agreement
"Hand it to him…?" the woman questioned again.
"Maybe you'll find out. By the way, who's listening in back there?" the muffled voice came. Hinata's blood turned to ice. Without even thinking she turned and bolted away.
"Good going my cycloptic friend, you scared them away" The man said in a sigh. There was a slight pause before a response came
"Shut up, your breath stinks"
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The questions in Hinata's mind were ever present during her training with Naruto the following day. She was in a constant state of wanting to ask him about it, but something held her back.
All the shops having him banned from their store.
There was definitely something more than off about that. It seemed clearly different to her other questions. Many of which were what she supposed were 'normal' questions one person might have concerning another. But this, this was something different entirely. It felt almost like a conspiracy of some kind.
If she assumed it was true, that was indeed the case, then asking about it could result in allot of trouble
If she assumed it was false, and that it was something else, whatever the reason dozens of stores would ban a single person and would not provide the reason seemed deeply snoopy into the likely exact affairs which made him such a private person anyway.
By the end of it she hadn't the nerve to ask the question, and was left to confirm to herself that it was probably for the best. Some rocks are best left unturned.
However noble her line of thought might've been however, it didn't stop her trying to work it out on her own, though she was having supreme difficulty in even imagining a reason for it that wouldn't have resulted in imprisonment, or some other severe official punishment. The only thing she was able to conclude was that there was little to no chance of it being possible to work it out with the facts present.
She looked out the window as she took her usual spot at the back of the classroom. The sky was a dull grey, a typical Monday morning. In the back of her mind it panged that Friday would be another testing day. She shifted uncomfortably. Everyone around her was looking forward to becoming a genin, while she was dreading the prospect of finding out she lacked what it took to become one.
"Good Morning!" A familiar call rung out through the class room. Naruto. As the realisation hit, the room erupted into a loud greeting for the blonde. Hinata smiled, at the immediate warmth and energy of the room, surely this was something only Naruto was capable of.
"Great!" he said, replying to as many individuals as he could whilst moving to the head of the class "I'm fantastic, why wouldn't I be? Look at me" he said, straightening up his chuunin vest, and then grinning with a wink.
"Now!" he said, his voice rising over everyone else's "Today I'm told I am to go over…" he said looking at the sheet on the desk "Genjutsu, apparently" he said looking up, to find a somewhat deflated class. Genjutsu was widely regarded the most difficult as well as boring of all the subjects. And that was including History.
"What's wrong?" he asked, easily picking up on the energy. "Genjutsu is the ultimate teaching of 'looking underneath the underneath'" he defended. There was a hesitation around the room before Kiba decided to speak up
"Genjutsu's boring" he called out. Naruto looked up in surprise
"Boring? How could it be boring, I haven't done anything yet!" he smirked "What are you guys used to doing for this?"
"There's allot of theory to it" Kiba replied "We usually have to fill in sheets of paper on how to detect it and what it does and stuff like that"
Naruto stood listening patiently, after Kiba finished his eyebrows rose, and he smiled
"Well, this is a bit different, so tell you what; I'll make you a deal" he said, leaning back and folding his arms "If you can complete this one piece of paper in under…. 45 minutes then I can say you likely don't need the practise and we can move onto something else. What do you say? Call it a deal?"
There was a general murmur of agreement amongst the class, before Naruto proceeded to hand out sheets. Hinata sighed as she looked down at the sheet. She didn't mind them as much as others did, however she had to agree that it felt limited in answering them. Surely the progress they could make via sheets was limited. She picked up her pencil and scanned the problems.
'Hmm, that's a little strange…' she thought as she scanned the problems. She couldn't help but notice the first question was labelled 'question 2'. As she scanned the page she noticed they all followed the order normally after that. But there was no question one. She frowned. Looking up at the top of the page she double checked the instructions;
'Study the sheet carefully and solve all the problems presented correctly.'
She paused after reading it. There was something curious about the way it read. She glanced around the room to discover no one else seemed bothered by the problem. She looked over at Naruto to discovered him looked at the class with a look of mild disappointment. It was barely readable, but it was there.
She looked back down to her paper in frustration, there was an itch at the back of her mind, and she couldn't shake it. Something about this sheet was just… wrong. She thought back to what Naruto had said
'This is a bit different'
She looked at the paper, excusing the mistake; this was very much like the other papers.
'Genjutsu is the ultimate teaching of 'looking underneath the underneath''
She looked over her paper again, a curious thought coming into her head. She looked around quickly before, flashing through the seals
"Byakugan"
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Naruto flicked through the tests. He had to confess he was disappointed with Iruka's students. It seemed they had a talent for absorbing information whilst not really listening to what was being said. After the test he had practised some theory with the class, using a timed smoke bomb as an answer ball. If the student who received it failed to answer in the given time, it exploded.
By the time he gave them a small recess to mark their papers more than a few of them were covered in the dark dust from the bombs, much to the humour of their fellow classmates.
"Another fail" he murmured to himself putting another paper headed with 'Inuzuka Kiba'. So far he'd been through most of the class, not one of them had passed. They needed allot of genjutsu work. Iruka had told him they were decent enough, and many were on course to passing the exams. But Naruto had a higher standard; genjutsu was the most dangerous of the 3 ninja arts in his opinion. It's danger both mental as well as the vulnerability created physically. He sighed in frustration as he put aside another fail.
Hyuuga Hinata
He smiled as he picked up the paper.
"Oh Hinata…" he said trailing off.
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The class slowly flowed back in after the minutes they were given, for the quick students to take a breather, and for the less quick to clean themselves off.
Hinata was the first to return. She was feeling quite pleased with herself for answering her questions in time, and not subjecting herself to embarrassment. She was also a curious mix between excited and nervous over the paper. It wasn't a test, she kept telling herself, but even so, that it was something Naruto would be marking seemed to make it more important. She would hate to make herself seem like a fool to him.
She fidgeted uncomfortably as everyone slowly found their places. Naruto waited at the front, looking at the papers with an unreadable expression.
After the class had quietened down he stood up, taking the papers in hand.
"Finished marking your genjutsu papers" he announced, looking around the room, with a notable absence of his usual grin.
"Yamanaka Ino, zero" he said, flicking a paper to the back. Ino looked horrified at getting a zero. Sakura turned and giggled at her rival.
"Haruno Sakura, zero" he said not looking up. Sakura snapped her head around from looking at Ino, her open agape in sheer horror.
"Eh?" she exclaimed
"Akimichi Chouji, zero" he continued. As he proceeded on, not one person got anything other than zero. Hinata could feel the room cool as everyones blood chilled at getting a zero. She felt her own already starting to cool in readiness.
"Uchiha Sasuke, zero" Naruto continued, again without looking up. This was a surprise. Even the stony Uchiha looked up in shock at the unpleasing result of his paper
"What?" he said aloud
"I said zero" Naruto repeated "Nothing, not one point, failure to solve the appropriate problems, the absence of correctly corresponding answers, or you just did a bit rubbish." He said looking back down. The Uchiha was visibly boiling at this.
"Hyuuga Hinata…" Hinata gulped "One hundred percent." He said looking up giving her a large grin. She froze, looking at him unblinking. The entire room turned to look at her at the same time. Slowly she sunk into her jacket.
"From THIS it seems to me as a whole you look like you need allot more work at Genjutsu" He said, setting the papers on the desk
"How did we fail?" Sakura asked out, in disappointment.
"Simple, you failed to look underneath the underneath" he said with crossed arms.
"What does that even mean?" another called out.
"It means in this world people are well aware you will second guess what is before you, and so, they will prepare for that, setting a second, sometimes even third trap, or layer of lies for you. I means allot more than that, but for now that's what you need to learn" he explained, "Only Hinata was able to do this it seems" There was a silence through the class briefly before Sasuke spoke up
"It was the first question" Naruto grinned
"Well done Uchiha-san" he said with a solid clap "Not as fast as miss Hyuuga, but definitely a step forward. Who else noticed the absence of question number one?" he asked aloud. Most of the class rose their hands
"Who noticed the absence of anything that told you this was a question paper?" he asked again. This time only Shikamaru rose his hand.
"Hinata" he called up "Would you be so kind as to tell your classmates how you scored one hundred percent when they scored zero" Hinata felt her cheeks flush as the whole class turned to her, listening intently
"I-It w-was a g-genjutsu" she stuttered out quietly. Silence.
"What?" someone called out from the front. Fortunately, Naruto took over
"The papers had a weak genjutsu placed upon them. The first question instructed you to ignore all instructions from the following questions. Thus if you had left your papers blank, you passed with one hundred percent." He said grinning.
The class erupted into talking amongst themselves. Sasuke slowly turned to looked at Hinata. She blinked looking back at him before diverting her gaze. He turned back around. Hinata glanced back toward him with a small smile, she had just realised.
She just beat Uchiha Sasuke at something. By ALLOT. Maybe he realised that too. Just one small victory, nay tiny to the point of insignificance, but to her, it meant the world.
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Author Notes: Okay guys, that's it for today. I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to add on today, but I'm opting instead to make an entire chapter out of it over the weekend rather than make you wait until tomorrow for just a half of it.
Uzumaki Ricky asked me to note that he doesn't want to seem impatient due to a previous review, he was just a little excited worded his review perhaps a little wrongly. Something I think we can all appreciate, and happens to the best of you from time to time.
I say the best of you because I'm one of the very worst =)
Least I know it!