Chapter Four
Iruka watched in surprise as Ino, Hinata, and Tenten became closer, and as they mastered technique after technique at the Academy. It seemed to have happened in the short time he was away, and now he was unsure what to make of it.
They worked hard, he'd give them that. Their determination to win in spars and to dominate in tests had no boundaries. But they also showed a natural affinity for ninja techniques that was very impressive.
Hinata was knocking down anyone who faced her in taijutsu spars. She had become a bit of a legend among her class.
Tenten got 100 out of 100 on every kunai and shuriken throwing test he gave her. She was an expert with ninja equipment and could craft the most vicious and expert of traps.
Ino specialized in ninjutsu trickery. She would transform into random guest speakers who had only been in class for an hour, have her clone come up and make a clone instead of herself, replace with items outside and then replace herself back inside the classroom again.
And trying to fool any of them with a genjutsu, even a complex one, had become damn near impossible.
Their stamina was excellent, their control was perfect, their stances were flawless, their hand signs were quick and expert. And they seemed to be best friends with one another. Why the sudden change?
Iruka watched them dominate another test and saw Sasuke watching them out of the corner of his eye. Sasuke knew as well as Iruka did - they were threatening his place at the top of the pyramid.
In their private after-school training, Ino, Hinata, and Tenten had begun learning actual genjutsu. They were quite excited upon first hearing they were starting this, beaming and jumping from foot to foot.
"Your first task," said Kurenai, smiling, "is to master crafting an expert sensory trick genjutsu without moving around or fighting in any other way. That is what we will focus on for now."
So they practiced on each other. One person would feed a genjutsu, the other person would have to find the flaws in the genjutsu and break it. In this way, they slowly improved.
Kurenai soon began asking them to send a genjutsu to more than one person, and to fight using genjutsu with each other, layers upon layers.
The first step was quite difficult - crafting a believable genjutsu involved fine chakra control, vast intelligence, and enormous imagination. They had to create a whole new sensory world for the victim, one of false sights, sounds, even smells. Some genjutsu were vicious, others less so. The second step was hard for a different reason - it required a lot of stamina. This was a good chakra growing exercise for them, though they did pass out a couple of times.
Meanwhile, they were still learning personal skills.
Hinata mastered two things in this time. The first, and most useful, was Divine Sixty-Four Strikes, the pinnacle of Jyuuken achievement. Neji helped her master this, and in the process he got to learn it as well, so it was a win-win. Hinata's father would watch from a distance, conflicted, as they practiced faux Divine Sixty-Four Strikes on each other in the clan compound.
Hinata then showed her friends the same series of fast movements, shutting down all sixty-four tenketsu points in a matter of seconds.
Unbeknownst to Hinata, it was around this time - especially with all the political intrigue going on - that Neji realized Hinata had in fact changed. Or else that he had misjudged her wildly. This brought a lot of things into question for him.
The other thing Hinata learned at this time was chakra emanation - issuing chakra from every tenketsu point on her body at once. This, too, required building up enormous chakra strength and stamina. Hinata would shake, draining herself, glowing blue as she emanated chakra. She practiced this exercise until she could do it easily, without thinking.
That was the first step to some of the Hyuuga's highest arts.
Tenten, meanwhile, began mastering fighting with multiple weapons at once. She would practice katas with two or three different weapons at the same time, then try the same techniques in spars with clones. Having mastered each weapon individually, her next job was to multitask - to be able to juggle several weapons in a single battle. She also began practicing unsealing multiple weapons from storage scrolls in one vast, single movement.
Ino, too, was hard at work. Now that she had both mind and body control mastered, she began expanding her range, doing her Yamanaka techniques from greater distances and multiple angles - not just from one close, straight line.
This was when their battle techniques started becoming truly deadly.
Ino decided to try an experiment.
She did what Kurenai and her friends suggested. She experimented with eating a lot of healthy food, and working out on top of that. She tried thinking more positive thoughts about herself and her own body.
She was surprised by how much better she felt. Even her energy levels and general mood improved.
Ino came to three realizations:
First, that the cult of popularity was sometimes wrong. Dieting and making as many distant friends as possible was not the best route at all. She felt much more secure in a small group of close friends, and when she focused on personal health instead of dieting.
Second, that she was not fat. When she started noticing the good things about her body, she realized there was a lot to notice. Maybe Tenten and Kurenai hadn't been lying to her when they'd told her that her body was fine the way it was.
Third, that she should be kinder toward people with body image issues. She felt more sympathy for people who struggled with their body than she used to. She knew how that felt, because she'd been that way herself. She also found that vain, silly, shallow fangirls began to deeply annoy her - deeply, because she'd been one herself and now irrationally resented them. She even took to stoutly defending less popular people from such girls.
Talking to her parents about it would have felt awkward - though they had to have noticed the change in her - but she did share her new realizations with Kurenai and her friends.
"I'm proud of you, Ino," said Hinata kindly. "I knew you had it in you all along."
Ino smiled. "Thanks," she said wryly. "I can't believe I spent such a long time worrying what everyone else thought of me."
"It always surprised me how much you cared what other people think, Ino. I mean, you're the kind of person where, I'd have thought it was beneath you," Tenten admitted.
Ino's eyes widened as something clicked into place in her mind.
"It is," she said, straightening, proud, preening herself. "You're right, Tenten. Caring what other people think is totally beneath me." Then she went back to her bubbly, cheerful, flirtatious, arrogant self, strutting around the training field.
"I think we've created a monster," said Tenten dryly, watching her, and Kurenai and Hinata chuckled.
"Perhaps," said Kurenai quietly, "that is not such a bad thing."
In the aftermath, Ino realized she had formed a new goal. Everything had been put into perspective for her, and now she realized what was really important:
She had proven herself to her friends and classmates. She loved herself as well. But now she wanted to prove herself to her father as a strong and worthy Yamanaka.
Tenten asked Kurenai, Ino, and Hinata for help with the 'sponsoring.' "I need someone to sponsor me as a ninja clan originator until I'm making my own money," she admitted, wincing. "It's the only way I can escape the orphanage."
She'd expected reluctance. What she got instead was the firmest expression of friendship she could think of.
"I'll help!" said Hinata immediately, forgetting all her own problems.
"So will I!" said Ino with equal eagerness.
"I have an idea," said Kurenai with unusual warmth. "All three of us are from ninja clans. Why don't we all go back to our clan heads - or our fathers - and ask them?"
It was more than Tenten could have dreamed of.
They came back the next day, and Ino and Kurenai both confirmed they could help Tenten. "My father gives me a good deal of leeway these days," said Kurenai.
"And my parents said they'd be happy to help," said Ino, smiling.
"My father agreed to give you the full backing of the Hyuuga clan," Hinata offered, and there was a stunned silence. The Hyuuga was one of the biggest names in Konoha. Yet Hinata looked uneasy. "But he has one condition," she said, wincing. "He wants to meet with you and have you convince him first."
It would have terrified Hinata, but Tenten grew determined. "Alright," she said firmly. "I'll do it." Tenten was confident in her own passion and ability to form a ninja clan.
So she entered the Hyuuga compound with Hinata, past the branch member guards. They padded down hallways, and then knocked on a sliding shoji screen door. "Enter." The door was slid aside, and Hinata and Tenten knelt there before Hiashi.
"Father," said Hinata formally, her face expressionless and her eyes demurely lowered. "This is the friend I was telling you about. Tenten."
Hyuuga Hiashi fixed Tenten with a cold piercing stare, and even Tenten felt her courage waver once a little, very briefly. Then she held herself up. She had to do this! If she had the backing and money support of the Hyuuga, no one could turn her down!
This was her golden opportunity.
"Tenten. A name that means heaven," said Hiashi after a moment. "What do want your surname to be?"
"Hanakiri," said Tenten. She'd spent years deciding on it.
"Flower mist heaven. How poetic," said Hiashi dryly, and Tenten blushed. She'd come up with the name as a child.
"Please, sir!" she said, leaning forward, impassioned. "I am working very hard toward becoming a powerful ninja in my own right! I can stand toe to toe in a genjutsu fight with your own daughter, and I have mastered ten different kinds of weapons in different ways - all at the same time." Hiashi's eyebrows rose, impressed. "I work hours upon hours after school in the training fields, and I plan on doing great things as a ninja! Your sponsorship will not go to waste!"
She bowed low, and waited.
"That is indeed a powerful argument," said Hiashi. "Let me ask you this, Tenten. Why do you want to be a part of a ninja clan? You do not have a family, which is the usual reason."
His tone remained cold and dignified. He did not seem to care about the emotional import of what he was saying. Tenten saw Hinata's eyes widen a little, but Tenten was not offended - never one to mince words herself, she understood the question.
"Sir," she said, fiery and firm, straightening. "I have spent my entire life nameless, just another number inside just another rundown orphanage. I was never respected by anyone. I want a ninja clan name for the same reason I wanted to become a ninja - I wish to change that fate. I wish for a name, I wish for an identity, I wish for respect. I wish for independence. I don't want to be just another civilian orphan all my life. I want to be a proud and true ninja!"
Hiashi paused, and then offered a small smile. "Very well," he said. "You have your sponsorship from the Hyuuga clan. I will draw up the paperwork now and hand it to you."
Tenten wished to jump into the air and cheer in elated relief, but thought that might look badly to Hyuuga Hiashi. "Thank you, sir," she sighed in relief, bowing forward low.
She hadn't even made an ass of herself in manners, something she'd been genuinely worried about. Ino and Hinata had to give her a great deal of etiquette training before this meeting.
As they were walking out, Hinata told her, "I'm impressed, Tenten. My father never smiles about anything." Tenten smiled proudly herself.
So Tenten made the call, and took the paperwork from all three clans - Yuuhi, Yamanaka, and Hyuuga - to the head of home offices. He looked over the notes, and his eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline. "Well," he said. "How can I say no to that?"
And so Tenten got to write her new name proudly in the paperwork line: Hanakiri Tenten. It was one of the happiest moments of her life.
"I can live on my own now?" she confirmed, looking up.
The head of home offices smiled. "That you can."
Hinata had significantly grown in quiet confidence. This was the only reason why she was able to do what she did.
She arranged a series of private meetings with various clan elders and high class clan members - people she knew from carefully casual, kind conversations had not yet been swayed over to Hanabi's side. She used her weight as Hiashi's daughter to arrange to have the meetings.
There, in back rooms and personal quarters of the Hyuuga compound, she appealed to people's spirit. Not their pity, but their sense of love and care for others. She knew just what mattered to each person - she had gotten to know them all carefully - and she made a series of believable promises as to what she would do for people if they supported her. Children, nieces, and nephews elected to future prestigious positions within the clan, favors done and rules secured, more servants, larger rooms, that kind of thing.
Neji was even able to sway most of the branch members over to her side after a conversation they had one day during a break from training.
"Hinata-sama… what did I miss? You appear to have changed," Neji admitted, looking deeply confused. "That should not be possible."
Hinata thought carefully about her answer. At last, she decided to take a risk.
"Neji, I know why you think that. Your father died as a branch member because of a simple accident of being the second twin at birth." Neji froze, his face darkening as he stared straight ahead of himself, not looking at her. "And you think, because of that caged bird seal on your forehead, the same 'fate' will inevitably happen to you. This causes you great pain."
Neji turned to glare at her. "I think? Hinata-sama, it is fact. What on earth do you mean?"
Hinata waved him forward and whispered in his ear: "As a potential clan heiress, I think the branch family practices are outdated. They are a sign of weakness that other clans clearly do not need. They make the Hyuuga clan look weak. Don't you think the same, too?"
Neji moved his head back and stared at her. "You'd better be serious," he said at last.
Hinata smiled. "I am many things," she said. "But am I a teaser or a liar?"
No hint of her intentions ever reached the main family, but subtle signs of support for Hinata began to show from branch members of various ages all over the clan compound.
Hanabi never suspected her - nobody did. Hyuuga Hinata had a widespread reputation within the clan for being kind of a pushover.
But soon, Hinata began subtly, kindly, and gracefully pulling strings, ever the diplomat in asking for return favors, and signs began to show. Hinata got a larger set of rooms, even than Hanabi, from a clan elder. The branch family members began to serve her favorite meals at dinner instead of her sister's. Older clan members began deferring to Hinata in spars. Clan elders began to show favoritism toward Hinata.
And as Hinata never abused this authority - the way Hanabi might have - her popularity only grew. She thanked people, smiled at them, treated all favors with grace and gratefulness. This did not fall on deaf ears. More and more people began to sway over to her side. She now fought toe to toe with Neji in the weekly sparring sessions as well, and that was through her own merits. She impressed people.
For the first time in her life, Hyuuga Hinata began to impress people.
Finally, one day all the branch members simply put down their tools and stopped serving Hanabi. They refused to do anything for her. Hinata hid behind a wall and waited. This had been carefully planned as a display of power. When her sister began shouting, Hinata hurried out from behind the wall and ran over toward them.
Hanabi whirled out her hand to active a branch member's cursed seal - the man flinched in preparation - and then Hinata flew out her hand and shouted, "Stop!"
The pain never came. The branch man's eyes fluttered open.
Only another main family member could stop a cursed seal from being activated.
"Hanabi, these servants have a job I need them for," said Hinata calmly. "All branch members who work for me instead of you will be under my protection."
Hanabi whirled around, glaring at her. "What do you need them for?" she growled through gritted teeth, fists clenched.
"That is my business. I'm sure you can manage perfectly fine on your own. After all, I did for years," said Hinata smoothly.
And here, Hanabi was caught. If she said she really needed the servants, she would look even more inferior compared to Hinata.
Hinata walked away, calling, "Come with me." The branch servants followed gratefully and silently behind her toward her new, larger quarters.
"I can have you sealed!" Hanabi called after her, losing her temper. "I can have you sealed, sister!"
Hinata waited until they were out of earshot before murmuring, "Go alert the network." Almost all of the branch members were under her control and obedience, and they often sent messages down to the network to Hinata's allies with more political clout.
Hinata got a message from them a few hours later. Hanabi had petitioned to have her sealed in a private meeting, and more than half the clan elders had voted her down. More importantly, so did the clan head, Hinata's father.
Hanabi was falling steeply.