Killer
Chapter 3: Training
Hinata joins Naruto and Sasuke for a training session. Naruto is an asshole. Sasuke is acting weird. Hinata totally owns them. There is a lot of snickering.
This chapter is sort of dedicated to Cascade00, who wanted to read a fight scene
The pain that blossoms up Hinata's side is nothing compared to the time her father had made her run up the ten thousand step temple and she'd slipped near the top and had landed sideways on the stairs. The brief memory reminds her that she could add the temple into her training schedule, as she is actually in the Chunin exam final.
The thought makes her smile while she skids back from Naruto's kick that had hit her under the ribs. Sasuke, taking her smile as a moment of vacancy, jumps high in the air, leg ramrod straight and aimed to make an axe drop. "Don't get distracted!" he barks at her, face drawn into a frown. Hinata frowns at him from her crouch because it would have made more sense to jump into the sun's direction to blind her. It's at that moment when she glimpses Naruto lunging at her from below.
One in the air, one on the ground; it's a good tactic, but Hinata has learnt to evade possible crowding situations (Shino's bugs are nasty, but after a few brutal training stunts with him she's learnt to evade the masses of bugs) and so she makes a neat, controlled dive in the opposite direction Naruto is lunging and Sasuke is descending, and hits the floor in a tight roll. She hears Naruto groan but runs away.
It's only when Sasuke and Naruto are about to collide that they notice the burning exploding tag on the floor, with Hinata already running for the treeline.
"Holy shi-!" Naruto yells, right before the tag explodes and both boys are blasted in opposite directions.
Hinata looks at both boys flying through the air, stares at Sasuke as he stares wildly at his surroundings, Sharingan activated as he's trying to calculate the best way (or safest) to hit the ground. Hinata is going to punish him for breaking the main rules: no Sharingan and no Byakugan and no Rasengan either, but opts to look at Naruto as he comically windmills his arms through the air.
Hinata decides to run in Naruto's direction, and puts up a burst of speed so that when Naruto lands on the grass, cushioned by a now exploded clone, she can straddle him, grab him by the shoulders and aim a sharp elbow into his gut. His breath abruptly eaves his lungs in a giant 'oooph!'. She arches back to strike his solar plexus with chakra so she can run and deal with Sasuke, but Naruto is not to be underestimated (he's certainly not the weakest out of them) as he lunges at her and jams the heel of his palm into her shoulder socket. Hinata lets out a short scream at the pain but bites down on it as her ears pick up the sound of Sasuke running at them. As Naruto's hands come up to grab her by her pale hoodie she grabs his shoulders and digs her knees more tightly against his hips and uses his momentum to flip the both of them on their sides. Now, Naruto is laying on top of Hinata, looking rather confused, determined and a little pink all at once.
The moment that consists of them staring at each other, panting lightly and breathing in each other's air is short lived, however, as right as Naruto's eyes flick down somewhere (she presumes he's looking at her mouth, but he could be also looking at her shoulder to see if he dislocated it. He didn't but it still hurt) and she feels the heat radiating from him, Sasuke barrels into them, unable to stop his speed in time.
Naruto, as Hinata had predicted, bears most of Sasuke's brunt force, but in their shared little moment forgets that Naruto is also holding her clothes, and is thus dragged along in a massive heap of whatthefuck and ends up in a tumble between a lot of Naruto's clones, Sasuke's angry hissing and the cords of her hoodie slapping her in the face before managing to backflip one-handed out of the mess (it's best if she doesn't put her full weight on her shoulder yet, just in case).
Hinata surveys the scene in front of her, amusement creeping up in her chest.
Sasuke must have been using wires, possibly to trap her, but the silver cords are tied sloppily (and in some other areas rather tightly) around himself and about half a dozen of Naruto's clones. Sasuke's hair is tousled and his face is set in a frown, newly appeared Sharingan eyes staring at her in an irritated fashion. His arms are pinned to his sides, where his wires are tightly coiled around his armbands, close to his torso. A lot of Naruto's clones lie in complete disarray, limbs strewn out comically, some spread eagled, some tied up by the wire so tightly they look like a balloon about to pop. Hinata can't tell which one is the real Naruto, but there is one clone in particular that is laying on top of Sasuke who has somehow managed to cling to Sasuke's sleeve without tearing it, fingers spread out in a way Hinata can't comprehend, possibly in a gentle way, over Sasuke's bicep. There is another clone squished under Sasuke and another sticking out of the bunch with its legs up in the air.
In a way Hinata envies the way that both boys work together, that Sasuke jumps and Naruto lunges, that Naruto is targeted and Sasuke runs to save him, that when Sasuke falls Naruto makes clones to catch them both. (That Sakura heals them and then scolds them for being reckless idiots, which Hinata has to agree with).
Hinata can't help the laugh that bubbles out of her chest amidst her longing for that kind of bond too, one that she doesn't have with Shino or Kiba, can't help close her eyes as laughter racks her body, makes her lean against a tree for support and laugh louder as one by one Naruto's clones start disappearing, that Sasuke flumps to the floor after the clone he was laying on top of explodes in fluffy white smoke.
Out of the jumbled mess of Naruto's clones, the one with both its legs in the air turns out to be Naruto's real body, and as the final clone, one that was laying over his stomach and cradling his head, explodes, Naruto's face is revealed. He has a scratch above his right eyebrow that looks kind of attractive in a way Hinata is trying not to think about right now. He's smiling, a grin twitching on his cheeks, and soon he's also snickering.
Sasuke growls, gets up and starts trying to work out the clusterfuck of wires strewn everywhere. He bites off a tiny flame from his mouth when she and Naruto don't offer to help him with the wires, which has Naruto laughing even harder.
It's just about starting to get dark when Sasuke is finished with his wires, and while he's in a bit of a foul mood, the half grin, smirk is lurking just behind the curl of his lips. Naruto had joined Hinata next to the tree after he had retrieved his discarded kunai, and the both of them are intently sat watching Sasuke wrap the wires around his wrists, coiling them neatly. They're avidly discussing what Sasuke's punishment should be for using the Sharingan not only once, but twice. By the time Sasuke is done they've come to the conclusion that Sasuke should be paying their tab. They're not sure of which restaurant yet though, as Ichiraku's would be too cruel (Naruto eats everything in sight and Hinata's stomach doesn't always sit well when Naruto makes certain slurping sounds and she's sure that Sasuke's wallet does not stretch that far to accommodate Naruto's appetite when it comes to his favourite food) and the dango shop would be too easy, after all, Sasuke needs to be penalised accordingly.
An idea comes to Hinata when she sees Naruto fold a used exploding paper and shove it in his wallet. Why he would put it there, no one but him would know, but Hinata takes a wild guess anyway; it's most likely to booby trap people from stealing his wallet.
"Right, that's it." She says as soon as Sasuke has finished and has walked up to them. Naruto and Sasuke both give her a confused and surprised look. She refrains from pointing at Sasuke—the action is very Naruto-ish.
"You're buying us coupons."
Sasuke's face falls predictably as he glances with trepidation at Naruto, who roars with laughter. It's obvious that Naruto will make Sasuke buy him food coupons to use at Ichiraku's. "Since you used the Sharingan twice you'll have to buy two coupons for us both." Sasuke doesn't seem to know if he should be relieved or not.
For a moment he looks confused, eyebrows furrowed. "What sort of coupons do you want then?" he asks. (It's so obvious what coupons he's going to buy for Naruto. The blonde is smiling way too hard—soon he'll split his face in two in glee).
"Specific herbs," Hinata says, thinking of her healing balms and scent dissolvers. Maybe she could try make a disinfectant cream next time, it could come in handy.
There's something in the way that the evening light illuminates Sasuke's face as he scratches his head (Naruto had landed a deft punch earlier on during warm-up) and gives both a wry smile and chuckles. "Alright then." He says, and starts walking away.
Naruto stares after Sasuke with palpable shock written over his face.
"Sasuke did I hit you too hard during training or something because you're acting way weird right n—"
"Asshole!"
"Jesus Chri—" A kunai whizzes past Naruto's left shoulder, which completely avoids Hinata. Sasuke's got unnaturally good aim when he's pissed off.
"Sasuke you psycho!" Naruto yells, red in the face.
"Go pick it up, dumb blonde!" Sasuke grouches, still walking.
As Hinata follows and Naruto goes to fetch Sasuke's knife, she feels herself smile, because this is something she feels like she belongs to. (In return, Naruto pinches Sasuke's butt, which has interesting results. Hinata has never seen someone her age break someone's fingers with such speed and deftness).
Man, I had so many different comebacks for Sasuke to use. Since there were so many, I decided to make a little list of them all!
○ "Naruto you asshole just fucking accept your fucking food coupons and fuck off."
○ "Asshole!"
○ "Don't be such an asshole Naruto."
○ "You asswipe."
○ "Idiot!"