Disclaimer – Kishimoto owns Naruto and the characters therein.

.

Memories Of Others

Chapter 38

Research Of A Genin

.

"Hey, sis! Wake up!"

Hinata was jolted out of her pleasant dreams in which she was snuggled up to Naruto in the middle of a field of flowers, awakened by the impact of her sister landing on her bed.

"…Hanabi? What are you…?"

"Hinata, you may wish to get up." Hiashi said from the doorway. "Naruto has enquired as to whether you will be able to aid him in a mission today."

"I… think so." Hinata yawned, fighting to shake off the last vestiges of sleep. "When does Naruto-kun want me?"

"All the time." Hanabi sighed. "What? Have you watched him whenever he has to say goodbye? It's like watching a kicked puppy."

Both Hiashi and Hinata stared at Hanabi, who blushed slightly under their combined attention.

"I was talking to Kiba…" She muttered. "His dog's really cute… he loves to have his belly rubbed and it's really soft… I mean Akamaru, not Kiba! Akamaru loves to have his belly rubbed…"

Hinata started giggling as her sister tried to justify herself and Hanabi stopped talking, choosing instead to stamp her foot and glare at her older sibling.

"Stop laughing at me!"

.

.

"Naruto!"

"Hinata!" Naruto grinned back. "Glad you could make it. I have a mission to Wave today and I wondered if you'd like to join in. You know, get another C-rank on your record?"

Hinata smiled. "That would be nice. I'm not studying under Ebisu-sensei today and my training with my normal team isn't until tomorrow, then I'm cheering for Kiba and Shino on the day after. What's the mission?"

"Bringing Tazuna's family over." Naruto replied. "By the way, how's everyone enjoying the new Gazebo?"

"It's become the place to find the Elders."Hinata giggled. "Tazuna-san and his men did a very good job with it."

"We did a super job." Tazuna's voice interjected and Hinata turned to face the new arrival.

"You did indeed, Tazuna-sama." She said with a bow and the old man laughed.

"Hinata-san. Naruto."

Nruto nodded back at the builder, then summoned a clone. "Alright. Hinata, Tsunami and Inari should be packed by now, so we simply jump over there, then we bring them back."

"I'm ready." Hinata stated as she reached out to take the hands of Naruto and his clone.

Tazuna watched them vanish, then leaned back against the tree to wait.

"How long will they be?"

"Aiyaiyai!" Tazuna yelped, clutching at his chest. "Dammit! I'm an old man! You trying to give me a heart attack?"

"My apologies." Inoichi replied contritely as he stepped out from behind the tree. "My wife sent me to make sure that your daughter and grandson didn't get lost."

Tazuna nodded, still breathing deeply as he recovered from the shock. "Right… okay. Just… please don't do that again."

"I'm a shinobi." Inoichi chuckled. "I can't help it."

"Ruddy shinobi." Tazuna grumbled and Inoichi's chuckles intensified, earning an irritated glare. "Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, you're not the one on the verge of heart failure."

Inoichi opened his mouth to answer when a double flash of light marked Naruto and Hinata's return, along with four clones and two very familiar people.

"Hey, gramps!" Inari shouted, ducking under Naruto's arm as he dashed across. "Hey, Uncle Inoichi! I managed to do the leaf exercise for five minutes!"

"Well done." Inoichi said with a smile. "You are making very good progress."

Inari grinned even as his mother joined him.

"Hello, Inoichi-san." She smiled. "Thank you for offering to house us for the finals."

"Ayaka would have it no other way." Inoichi shrugged, his eyes crinkled in amusement.

"Where's Ino-neesan?" Inari asked curiously. "I though she'd be here to say hello?"

"Training with her team." Inoichi replied. "But she should be finished before tea, so you can surprise her then."

"Cool." Inari laughed.

"Tazuna, Inoichi, if you will sign?" Naruto interjected as he extended a clipboard and Inoichi nodded.

"Of course. Pay attention, Inari, this is one of the differences between an elite genin like Hinata or Ino and an independent genin like Naruto. Naruto needs to get his customers to sign directly so that he can get paid whereas those on a team can leave it to their Jonin-Sensei while learning other stuff."

"In other words, in order to learn enough to get promoted fast and high, being on a team really helps." Naruto supplied. "I lucked out by finding people willing to teach me for very little money, or even free, but that rarely happens for independent genin, we generally have to rely on scroll-learning or trying to teach ourselves since hiring Chunin or Jonin to teach us can be very expensive. That's why so few of us ever get good enough to be promoted."

Inari frowned as he considered what Naruto had said.

"That doesn't seem fair…"

"But any Chunin or Jonin who started as an independent genin is generally considered to be better, since they didn't get the short-cuts that being on a team provides." Inoichi said as he handed the clipboard to Tazuna for him to sign. "In addition, should a team lose a member, the replacement is usually drawn from the ranks of the independent genin in order to ensure that the newcomer is at least trained in the basics rather than being simply fresh-from-the-Academy Kunai fodder. Heh, quite often, the newcomer is actually better trained in the basics than the team simply because they have so much more practice using them in actual missions."

"Coo-ooool..." Inari breathed. "Hey, where'd they go?"

"Ninja." Tazuna sighed, glancing at his now-empty hand. "They can't help it."

"Ruddy ninja." Inoichi agreed, earning a look from Tazuna.

.

"That was fun." Hinata smiled as she followed Naruto in sneaking away.

"Just got to cash this in, then is there anything that you want to do with me?" Naruto asked even as he sealed the clip-board into a storage seal on his belt.

Fortunately for Hinata, Naruto was concentrating on getting the clip-board into the correct seal, so he missed Hinata's brief, albeit rather intense blush.

Hinata managed to re-focus as Naruto finished his task.

"Well, perhaps we could try to go through your father's scroll again" She suggested. "Maybe we can work out exactly what we're missing when it comes to trying to make your father's technique work properly?"

"Good idea." Naruto agreed as he summoned a clone which saluted and dispelled. "Okay, my clones'll have things prepared for us by the time we get there."

"Sounds good to me." Hinata agreed, using Naruto's distraction to wrap his arm around her and lean her head on his shoulder. Naruto blinked for a moment, then tilted his head slightly so that his cheek was pressed against the crown of her head.

"Hey, lovebirds!" A voice called and both genin looked round to see Team Seven's genin smirking at them while from behind the trio Kakashi gave them an eye-smile.

"Hi…" Naruto managed. "Erm, correct me if I'm wrong, but…shouldn't two of you be… well… training? The final takes place the day after tomorrow…"

"Well, we make sure to have at least one team training session a week." Kakashi shrugged. "I like to keep track of how my cute little genin are doing."

Naruto managed not to smile at Kakashi's description, although the look of annoyance on Sasuke's face and the way Sakura rolled her eyes made it harder.

"Are you getting a mission?" Sakura asked and Hinata shook her head.

"Naruto-kun and I have just done one."

"D-ranks." Tobio grumped, rolling his eyes. "Oi."

"Well, if we don't see you before the finals, good luck." Naruto said as a clone formed behind him. "Hinata?"

"Good luck." Hinata called as she took Naruto's hand as well as the hand offered to her by Naruto's clone, then they moved, the world blinking round them and re-forming into Naruto's living area.

"Lunch is almost ready!" Called the clone in behind the kitchen counter.

"You lay the table and I'll get the scroll for after?" Naruto suggested and Hinata nodded as she walked round the end of the counter to open the cutlery drawer.

.

.

"What does this part mean?" Hinata asked as she pointed at the scroll spread on the dining table.

"Hm? Oh, that's one of the chakra-pulse dissipators for the location tags." Naruto said. "The others are here, here, here, here, here, here and here."

"They all look different." Hinata noted and Naruto nodded.

"As you can see, this one's… raiton, judging by symbol in the middle, the one you pointed to is suiton, this one's… yin? Huh. Didn't realize Yin was an element…"

"I wonder what elements your father used?" Hinata asked.

"He started as a wind-type, but branched out into using Fire and Lightning by the time he made chunin." Jiraiya replied from where he was lounging on the couch, causing both genin to jolt in shock.

"Dammit, Pervy Sage!" Naruto half-shouted. "Don't do that to us!"

Jiraiya chuckled as he rose from the sofa and strolled over to them. "Sorry, but you needed to learn never to get so absorbed in your work that you forget to keep a lookout. If it helps, I was only there for a few seconds before I replied to your query. Besides, your dad gave me permission to pop in whenever I wanted."

"From now on, please knock." Hinata requested and Jiraiya nodded.

"Okay. Anything to avoid having that Kawaii no Jutsu directed at me again." He agreed and Hinata blushed slightly. "So, let me have a look to refresh my memory…"

The genin moved to let Jiraiya examine the scroll, then he nodded.

"Yep, I thought so."

"Thought what?" Naruto asked curiously.

"Well, you know I'm a Seal Master, right?" Jiraiya askedand both genin nodded. "All I really did was start Minato off, then he blazed his own trail, although Kushina helped him with some of it. He managed to fuse the Uzumaki and the Konoha sealing styles together, creating something that even I had difficulty with. This? This was his masterwork. I only understand some of it, things like this bit still flummox me."

"That's a modified summoning seal with the dimensional axis replaced with a variable-vector linear translocation." Naruto said, then he looked up to meet Jiraiya's shocked gaze. "What? I've studied really hard to stop sounding like the idiot I was before Hinata started teaching m…mmmmmph?"

Jiraiya barely managed not to snigger as Hinata grabbed Naruto and gave him a long kiss.

"I… wow… erm… what was…?"

"I warned you about calling yourself an idiot." Hinata smiled.

"Wow…"Naruto breathed. "I have to thank Kiba."

"What?" Jiraiya asked in confusion.

.

Kiba looked around curiously.

"What is it?" Tsume asked and Kiba shrugged.

"Not sure. I just felt… amused satisfaction?"

Tsume looked at her son, then shrugged. "They're your emotions, not mine. Now, show me the Gatsuga again, you need to get the revolutions higher."

.

"Wow…" Naruto said again. "That was… I felt like I was just floating… like light… hey! That's it! Thanks, Hinata, I get it now!"

"And for those of us who weren't on the receiving end of a kiss by the Hyuuga Princess?" Jiraiya prompted, only for Naruto to ignore him as he grabbed a pen and started scribbling notes.

"Is it this annoying when I do that?" Jiraiya asked Hinata, motioning to where Naruto had flipped over one page and was writing even more notes.

"Yep." Hinata chirped as she moved closer to her fiancee.

.

.

"What caused this?" Hiruzen asked, looking at the corpse of one of Konoha's greatest Kenjutsu specialists.

"From the sharpness of the cut, we believe it to have been a Wind Blade." The medical technician reported. "From the marks on his sword, he tried to fight, but his blade got caught in some sort of armor."

Hiruzen inspected the proffered blade, noting the location of the scuffing.

"He was using the Dance of the Crescent Moon." He finally deduced. "That's the only attack that would leave marks at that particular point of the blade and at that angle. He was trying for a decapitation strike… and it was blocked. For him to have been struck down in turn… probably Orochimaru. But who was he disguised as this time? I want ANBU to interview all the Jonin and hurry. The Kazekage is arriving tomorrow and if we can find Orochimaru before then…"

Several blurs marked the departure of ANBU operatives, heading to where the non-Konoha Jonin were staying while other Shinobi raced to the private homes of Konoha's team leaders and specialists.

.

Baki slumped in relief after the ANBU vanished out of the window.

Konoha thought that the swordsman had been killed by the Snake Sannin.

Although considering that Suna had allied itself with him for the upcoming invasion, the conclusion actually wasn't all that far from the truth…