Chapter 9 - A Name Like Himawari

Hana came downstairs with an exuberant energy about himself. It had been a week since his first run in with Onbara and Roba, and he was feeling good as new.

"I feel great today," he said while stretching his arms.

Sarada, who walked downstairs after him, put on his glasses, then prodded Hana's hip with their case. His entire body trembled and he crumpled to the ground hugging his side.

"You're not 'great,' you numbskull. Your body has just healed enough for you to go to school," Sarada said.

Hana whimpered. "...Sarada... you're so mean..."

"Just hurry up. You're going to make us late."

Hana did as his foster sibling said, and followed after her like a puppy who's tail had been stepped on.

"Sarada, make sure Hana doesn't overdue today," Sakura called from upstairs.

Sarada responded with a "Yes, ma'am," while putting on her sandals. Before she and Hana left, she heard a second voice from behind them.

"Sarada," Sasuke called from the stairs. His daughter looked back at him a little stiffened. "Be safe, okay?"

Sarada blinked then nodded slowly. She walked out as quickly as possible so neither Sasuke or Hana would see the flustered smile on her face.

Hana's return sparked some chatter from the other students, especially the girls. It wasn't surprising. The day that Hana transferred in, he had to take a week worth of sick days immediately after. Shino had told the other students not to prod him about it, but that didn't stop them from asking Sarada.

"Hey, Sarada. Do you know why Hana-"

"Nope."

She sat in her seat, and began preparing for class. Hana also headed for his seat.

"Looks who's back from the dead," Chocho said as Hana sat down beside her.

"It wasn't that serious. I just caught the flu," he fibbed.

"Must have been one serious flu to take a guy like you down," Shikadai said with his head on his desk. "You strike me as the type of guy who would be immune to pretty much everything."

"What do mean?"

"He's talking about that saying that says idiots can't catch colds," Inojin clarified.

Hana scratched his cheek and smiled nervously. 'I'm an idiot...? Did I leave a bad impression a week ago?'

"Well, if idiots can't catch colds, Bolt's must immune system must be insane," Chocho added.

The other three all looked at Bolt, expecting a obnoxious comeback. He just kept staring outside the window.

"Oi, Bolt. Didn't you hear what Chocho just said?" Shikadai asked him.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Thanks, Chocho," he said without looking back.

His disheveled friends all looked at him with cocked heads. This was the number one disruptive student in class, probably in the whole academy; and right now, he was acting as meek as mouse.

"What's wrong with Bolt?" Inojin asked.

"Don't know. Maybe Hana got him sick before he left," Shikadai hypothesized.

Hana made a worried face, wondering whether or not that true; seemingly having forgotten that he was never sick in the first place. Before he could ask Bolt, Shino began giving his lecture, and most of the class gave him their attention. A few exceptions being Shikadai who slept through the lecture like always, Bolt who was too preoccupied with his own thoughts and Sarada who was observing Bolt and his strange new behavior. She too had never seen him act like this.

Class concluded, and students began leaving the academy in en masse – some joining up with other friends to go hang out, others heading home early by themselves. Hana was both the former and the latter. He and Sarada were walking home together. Or at least, they were supposed to.

"Hana, go home without me," Sarada said while pushing up her glasses.

Hana raised a brow. "Do you need to go someplace else?"

"Don't worry about it. Just go. Tell Mom that I went out to play with some friends."

With that, Sarada broke away from Hana, and went down a separate road. Hana watched her leave. He started for the Uchiha household on his own, still wondering where Sarada was going. Then he remembered something "somebody" once told him:

Minding your own business is for CEOs and people with no friends. A good friend is always nosy!

Hana made a face at the sky. He wondered if Tsubame was having fun messing with him like this. He sighed and followed after Sarada. Without her noticing, of course.

Sarada knew Bolt was acting strange. Whenever something was bothering him, he would brood his way through the village, typically before enacting some hair-brained prank, bound to end horribly. It was like a tradition at this point. Today was different though.

While hiding behind street poles and corners, Sarada realized Bolt was not going his typical route. He was heading to the training grounds. Bolt never went to the training grounds. He prized himself as a genius that didn't need extra training. This, of course, led him to being the worst student in the academy (second worst, since Hana entered.)

'Have all those terrible grades finally shocked some sense into him?' Sarada wondered.

She followed him all the way into the training grounds, and hid behind a tree. Bolt scanned his surroundings. He closed his eyes and took a deep breathe.

"OK! Today I'm gonna do it!"

Bolt held out his right hand. Then he whirled his left over it like he was weaving something. After a while, Sarada realized that Bolt was weaving something: chakra. It was so condensed it became visible, swirling in Bolt's right hand. The blonde smirked at his success. Unfortunately, it was short-lived. The chakra couldn't maintain its shape, and fizzled out.

Bolt scrunched his brows. 'What happened...? Did I not use enough chakra again? OK. This time I'll give it more fuel.'

Bolt repeated the technique. He succeeded in giving it more chakra, but ended up giving too much. The technique became too powerful for him to hold. It spiraled out of his grasp, knocking him off his feet in the process. Bolt grit his teeth and hit the dirt.

"I'm gonna do it... You better believe I am!"

Bolt stood. He didn't bother dusting himself off before beginning the technique a third time.

He held out his right hand hand. He whirled his left above it. He gave it enough chakra for it to keep its form, but not too much that wouldn't be able to control it. Bolt didn't blink. He stopped moving his left hand. A blue sphere was now swirling his right. It was smaller than he would have liked, but he finally created one.

He grinned. Sarada was also giving him an impressive look from behind the tree. She had never seen a jutsu like that before.

"I did it... I finally did it!" Bolt shouted in victory. "I finally pulled off the Rasen-"

The sphere in Bolt's hand fizzled out like the first. Bolt blinked. What happened? He gave it enough chakra. He compressed it the right way. What did he forget? Was it control? Should he have used his left hand instead of his right?

Bolt fell on his rear. 'Why? Why I can't do it?! Dad wasn't that much older than I was when he did it... so why...?'

His voice sounded distant in his own head. Sarada pitied the blonde. As did Hana who had arrived in time to see Bolt fail for the third time.

He could understand Bolt's pain more than Sarada. He too was a failure. Back in the Fujikaze clan, he the runt among the potential heirs: the weakest, the slowest, the smallest, the least talented. Everyone wondered why he was even there, Tsubame included. Feeling an unpleasant memory resurfacing, Hana turned to leave. He didn't want Sarada to find out he was following her, anyway.

While leaving, Hana bumped into someone, and they both fell. Tragically for Hana, he fell on his still sore side.

"Ow!" he yelped as quietly as he could.

The other person saw Hana in pain and crawled over to him. "I'm sorry! Are you okay?"

"...I'm fine," Hana lied without looking them in the eye.

The person saw through Hana's words. They lifted up his shirt and saw his slightly swollen side. It was much better than it originally was thanks to Sakura, but burn-related injuries took much longer to heal than a bruise or cut would. The other person understood this and pulled a scroll from their pocket. Unraveling the scroll caused a small container to poof out.

"...what's that?" Hana asked still flinching a bit.

"It's ointment. A special kind made by the Hyuga clan."

The person applied said ointment to Hana's side, and the latter began feeling its effect immediately. His pain was already dissipating. After they finished applying the ointment, the person resealed it and helped Hana stand.

"Don't overdue, okay? You don't want your injury getting serious again," they said.

"Oh... uh... Thank you."

"You don't have to. Just get better, and we can call it even."

There was a joyful sincerity in this person's voice. A sincerity that Hana had never seen in another person before. He took another look at the dark blue-haired girl before him.

"Uh... uhm... eeeeeeeh," Hana struggled to find the words he was looking for. "What... Can I please know your name?"

He felt his own gut punch him. 'What a stupid way to ask a question!'

The girl looked past his awkwardness and answered "Himawari Uzumaki."

Hana blushed. 'Himawari... What a pretty name...' He paused. 'Wait... Did she just say Uzumaki? No... She and Bolt can't be-'

"Hima?"

Hana and Himawari both looked in the direction of the voice. A wavy-haired blonde was standing with his brows raised. Hana stared at Bolt then looked back at Himawari.

Wavy hair - check.

Blue eyes – check.

Leaf stem – check.

Whiskers – double check.

He still didn't want to believe it, but then Himawari put the final nail in the coffin when she said "Brother, I've been looking for you."

Hana's mouth gaped. It wasn't that he was particularly displeased at the fact Bolt and Himawari were related, it was the fact that the two being related conflicted with every universal law that kept the world together.

Or at least Hana thought so.

Bolt squinted. "Hey, momma's boy. How long are you gonna hold my sister's hand?"

Hana looked down and blushed profusely. He frantically broke away from Himawari's grasp and skid a good ten feet away. His reaction confused her and agitated her brother further. Fortunately for Hana, Himawari grabbed Bolt's attention before he could say anything.

"Brother, Aunt Hanabi wants you to go the Hyuga estate again today," she told him.

Bolt rolled his eyes and groaned so loudly, local wildlife was disturbed. "What is with her, lately? All the sudden it's nothing but training, training, training with her."

"Brother, you know why auntie's doing this. She's trying to test what everyone in the clan is worried about."

"You mean whether you and I have the Byakugan or not?" Bolt kicked some twigs at his feet. "Isn't it obvious already? Everyone in the clan can use their Byakugan from birth besides us. The answer's pretty damn clear."

"But we're not pure Hyuga like everyone else is. There could be something we're missing."

Bolt snorted. He honestly didn't care about having the Byakugan or not. From what he heard about his Dad, he became the strongest in the village without any type of dojutsu. If his father could do it, Bolt could do it too. At least, that was what Bolt kept telling recounted his horrible training session and pouted.

He kicked more twigs. "Fine, I'll go. Not like I had anything better to do anyway."

Himawari smiled at her brother's decision, reluctant as it was. As he and she were leaving, the blue-haired girl stopped.

She looked back at Hana. "Sorry, but I didn't catch your name."

Hana looked at the grass and fiddled with his fingers. "It's... Hana Fuj..."

"Hmm?"

"...it's Hana Fujikaze."

"Hana Fujikaze... That's a really cool name," Himawari said with a smile.

Hana turned red as the Uzumaki siblings left the training grounds together. Even when all he could see was Himawari's silhouette, Hana never took his eyes off of her. Then she was gone. It was weird. Hana felt like a piece of himself had left with her.

"You know, Fujikaze really is a cool name," a cold voice said from behind Hana, making his shoulders stiffen.

He looked back and saw Sarada marching towards him, the lenses of her glasses fogged with raged.

"Fujikaze... Depending on how its written, it can mean Great Wind. But change the kanji a bit... and it translates to Irremediable Influenza."

It was amazing how much Sarada could hurt Hana's feelings just by using hiragana.

"Sarada, I was just-"

"You were just following me even when I told you explicitly not to follow me?"

"Well, you didn't explicitly tell me to-"

"So now I'm a liar?"

"N-no. It's just, I saw you sneaking after Bolt and-"

"So now I'm a stalker?"

"No!"

Hana would sooner take another of Onbara's explosive tags than argue with Sarada. He recalled how relaxed Bolt and Himawari's conversation was. How envious he was of them. He saw that Sarada wasn't getting any less angry, and lowered his head.

"...I'm sorry," he apologized.

Sarada pushed up her glasses. "Apology accepted. Now, meditate on what just happened, and make sure it doesn't happen again."

Hana nodded. Then he noticed Sarada was leaving. He should have known better at that point, but he still asked where she was going.

"To the park. I'm meeting somewhere there," she said without stopping. "Follow me this time and I'll melt your feet into the ground with my Fireball Jutsu."

Hana felt no 'Aha! She's just kidding!' when Sarada spoke to him. He watched his dictator of a foster sibling leave the training grounds. He folded his arms.

'...what do I do now? Should I head home? No, the way the Uchiha household is on the way to the park. Sarada will think I'm following her again. Should I train then? It's been a while, and I might have gotten rusty.'

Hana finally settled for just walking around the training grounds. This was one of the few places Sasuke didn't give him a good tour of. He knew where it was in the village, but the specifics about the place still eluded him. The village had multiple training grounds, but this one, being the closest to the Ninja Academy, was used the most. It was strangely empty though.

'I guess ninjas in Konoha are lazy on Mondays, like everyone else is,' Hana thought.

Then, while jumping over the river. He saw a few familiar faces through the trees: Inojin, Shikadai and Chocho. Interested in what they were doing, he headed towards them.

Ino was not in a good mood. She should have been in a good mood. After all, her son Inojin had finally managed to bring along Shikadai and Chocho with him. There was just one problem: both Shikadai's and Chocho's fathers weren't there.

"Those... idiots! Finally, we get the new Ino-Shika-Cho together after so long, and the old Ino-Shika-Cho aren't together to teach the new Ino-Shika-Cho how to fight together like old Ino-Shika-Cho were be able too!"

"Uh... Mom?"

"My god! What's wrong with those two? They were always like this when we were genin, and still like this once we became chunin; but now that we're all jonin and adults and have children and responsibilities you'd think they'd shapen up a bit... But of course they wouldn't!"

"...Mom."

"And Shikamaru is the worst! How can the Hokage's head adviser not know how to be punctual?!"

"Mom!"

Ino finally stopped her rant and faced her son. He pointed.

"Shikamaru and Choji are standing right behind you."

Ino looked back. Her two old teammates were standing behind her like Inojin said they were. Shikamaru waved.

"Yo."

"Yo? Why didn't you two say anything while I was screaming my head off like a sociopath?!"

"Because you were screaming your head like a sociopath," Choji said while scratching his beard. "That's how we always handled you when you got angry – we ducked our heads down and waited for the storm to pass. Ask Inojin. He knows what I'm talking about."

Ino gave her son a look, but he avoided her eyes. He knew exactly what Choji was talking about. His mother sighed while Shikamaru and Choji joined her.

"Whatever... Anyway, today will the first Ino-Shika-Cho training session." Ino sized the kids in front of her up. "The four of you will going through some arduous training, so you better all prepare..."

Ino stopped. 'Four? That can't be right.' Ino counted again. 'Chocho, Inojin, Shikadai...' she stopped counting when she came to a short boy with silky, black hair.

"Who are you?"

"Hana Fujikaze, ma'am. I got here a few moments ago, but you didn't notice me because you busy ranting."

"...really?"

Hana nodded.

Ino folded her arms and thought to herself. Maybe she did get a little too overexcited at times. While she was busy self-reflecting, Shikamaru took an interest in Hana.

"I know you. You're the kid Sasuke brought back with him to the village."

Hana nodded. "Yes. It's nice to meet you again, Mister Shikamaru."

"Still talking polite, I see. Well, it's good to know that the only thing you and Sasuke share are looks. Not to rude, but could you beat it? These three are about to go through some serious training."

"...if you think I'm going to get in the way, then I'll go."

Hana was a bit disappointed, but he didn't want to disrupt anyone else's training.

"Dad, wait a minute. Hana doesn't have to go," Shikadai said. "As long as he keeps out of the way, he should at least be able to watch."

Shikadai squinted. "Oh? And what's got you in such a friendly mood today?"

"It's not being friendly. I just pity the guy. I mean, look at his face. He looks like a pup that got the crap kicked out of it."

Hana wasn't aware. If he really did look like that, it had nothing to do with being left out; rather it was due to Sarada's verbal lynching.

Shikamaru looked reluctant. "Come on! Let him stay, Shikamaru!" Choji chimed in. "It might be good for these three to have an audience."

"Whatever. If anything troublesome happens, it's not on me. Now, about you three's training." Everyone got focused again. "You've never trained together before. So not only do you not know how to use combination attacks, you probably don't even know how to work together competently. That's why to break you three in today, we're gonna have a sparring match right off the bat."

The three looked at each other.

"You mean we're gonna fight each other?" Chocho asked.

"No, you three are going up against someone else. I've already booked your opponent. She should have been here by now, but she's usually late."

Shikadai made a face. He already knew who it was, and on cue, a girl with shaggy black hair, a Leaf headband and a green vest flickered into the training grounds.

"Took you long enough," Shikamaru said.

The girl smiled nervously while scratching the back of her head. "Sorry, Uncle Shikamaru... Some other stuff came up again."

"I guess it can't be helped then. Go ahead and introduce yourself to kids."

She nodded and smiled at Shikadai's and others. "My name is Mirai Sarutobi, and I'll be opponent today."

Shikadai groaned. "So we're gonna have to fight big sis Mirai? This is gonna be a drag..."