Whoop – chapter 26!
Some of you might have seen on my profile page: classes start again soon, so I probably won't be so quick to update anymore. I have no plans to abandon this fic, but if I have to channel my creativity into my assignments there might not be much left for you – sorry:(
On the upside: I'll probably be churning out chapters like nobody's business around Christmas, and in March the semester is already over again.
kalmaegi: 'lying around':DD
You shouldn't have said that – you should not have said that.
Now I've been imagining dozens of Neji clones wandering around the Hyuuga compound, sighing and being depressed, or lying all over the floor and staring desolately into space:D
Her friends are not amused.
While the nightmares fade gradually during the next week, she's still jumpy and hyper vigilant of every noise. Hisana can't relax properly, even in the safety of her own home. Sasuke, even subconsciously, seems to have picked up on it. For the first few days they cling to each other – one afraid of being alone again, the other afraid of being alone again – until Shizuha puts a stop to it.
"This is not doing either of you any favors," she insists. "You both need to learn to deal with fear on your own."
She's right of course. Hisana's clinging to Sasuke, to team 7, as her support, forgetting that children this age are entirely unequipped to deal with a frightened, slightly traumatized older sister figure.
Disconcerted and for the first time aware of how potentially unhealthy their strange co-dependency could become, she takes the other route: In the morning she allows herself a quick hug from every team 7 member that comes her way, and for the rest of the day she either hides on the genin training grounds or sequesters herself away in the library.
She's twitchy and lonely without the children. Shiki is busy with her own team and Shizuha's continued search for an apprenticeship keeps her swooping around the village like a courier pigeon. Everyone is doing their own thing, except for her. But dragging anyone down with her is simply not an option.
It's too easy to become self-centered when you're scared, Hisana thinks. And she's self-aware enough to realize that she's prone to getting lost in her own drama on any given day.
Yet it still surprises her how, in hindsight, she's made quite so many mistakes that need to be corrected. One of the most glaring ones is a problem she's thankfully allowed to dig her fingers into with vigour.
Her own team is a work in progress. They've been together for only a few short months, so it's not like they have to be best friends forever. But Hisana can't help but feel that it's mostly her fault that they aren't.
Up until now she's accepted her own graduation and its consequences rather passively.
Yes – she's got a team!
Yes – she's a proper ninja now!
But a far too big part of her is still thinking of team 7 as her team and that's not right. They are Sasuke's team, not hers. She has no doubt that she'll forever be 'Nee-chan' to Naruto, that Sakura will always look to her for advice, and that she'll forever be the sole owner of a particularly big part of Sasuke. But they, too, would grow up one day and have their own lives and careers.
Sora and Haru are her team 7, and she owes them a little more than a cursory pat on the back every now and then. So reducing the boys – her boys – to being the backdrop for her own small scale battle with Kohaku-sensei's supposed sinister motives has been a pretty stupid, short sighted move.
And so she starts to regularly drag the boys out for food or extra training, and even shamelessly imposes on them in their free time.
Haru takes to this new development with enthusiasm; he's an only child without many friends, so his days are mostly empty and rather lonely. His family is proud of him, but they're civilians and obviously don't really understand what it is he's doing.
He reminds her a bit of herself as Sarah – a little too weird to love, and desperately clinging to the one friend that sticks around.
Sora is a little less appreciative of her sudden interest. Her suspicions were spot on; he is an older brother through and through. At home there are constantly kids hanging off his arms or on his back, climbing all over him and begging for sweets and play time. He does most of the housework, takes his siblings to school and all around compensates for the obvious lack of one important person: his mother.
His familial situation, their small house and the mess, seem to embarrass him. On one notable occasion she's caught him wearing an apron, trying to feed five hungry, jabbering mouths with vegetables; he kicked her right out again.
This whole thing – this bonding – is awkward and silly and she's known she's been acting wildly out of character even before everyone started throwing her weird looks. But it's easing her nerves, this new project, and she simply tries to see it as a challenge to wrestle older boys into compliance now instead of younger ones.
Thanks to this newfound familiarity with her team, it's also far easier to look at her teacher a little differently. She's been leery of her Sensei from the start, and Genma's little outburst only enforced the impression of an enemy in her own ranks tenfold.
But despite the exhausting, mentally draining, and often painful and humiliating training, they've never been in any actual danger around him – now that she thinks about it, what has she ever even seen of her Sensei but his public persona as a Hyuuga and just the tiniest glimpse of his true inner workings?
While it's been surprisingly easy – as well as gratifying – to force her presence upon the boys, she's at a loss about how to bond with her teacher and how to, maybe, scrape out a little more of his real personality. There's no guidance to be found in her memories of the manga – after all Kakashi wasn't actually very close to team 7 – and her own head offers nothing that wouldn't simply earn her a weird look and a polite refusal.
She carefully breaches the subject with the rest of the team, with mixed results.
"I don't understand why you would want to spend any more time with him than you have to," Sora repeats for what must be the fifth time. "Doesn't he give you the willies?"
"He scares the crap out of me," she admits easily. "But someone clever once told me, 'The only true cure for fear is familarity'."
Both boys cast her skeptic looks.
"Well," Haru says, "as long as I can get familiar with him from a distance, you have my blessings."
She's tempted to tell him that that's probably not how it works, but thinks better of it.
"He's going to be around for a pretty long time," she says instead. "Do you really want to pee your pants every time he looks at you until you're a chuunin?"
"I'll have you know I usually have very good control of my bladder," Sora remarks. "That time in the bunker doesn't count. I'm pretty sure you both peed yourselves too."
That's true, but she's not going to give him the satisfaction and admit it.
"Don't talk about it," Haru begs. "I was just scared the rats were going to … well, you know. I'm never going to be able to pull my pants down in the dark again."
"Well thank god I don't have that particular problem," Hisana remarks. Both boys freeze and turn a pale pink, as if just remembering that she's still there. "What?" she asks callously. "I've been raising my cousin for two years now; you think there's anything in your pants I haven't seen yet?"
And that kills this particular conversation.
She gives it another try a few days later. Neither boy suspects anything when she drags them out on a Monday to visit Baa-chan's teashop. Sora comments in passing on the cooled watermelon juice advertised in bold kanji outside, and she takes the chance to lure them in with the promise of a drink on her.
She almost feels a little bad for them, but naivety has to be stamped out of every genin at some point, so it might as well be her doing it. This time Baa-chan does throw her a dark look and – yep, she's not getting free things here anymore, but that's fine. Maybe a basket of those fancy plums from uptown would buy her forgiveness later.
"Ah … are the mochi any good here?" Haru asks, thoughtfully eying the menu.
"Oh you have no idea," Hisana says in amusement and taps her finger on it. "You're going to want those."
It's a nice day; the hottest part of the summer is over now and they're only left with the last warm winds and a lot of sunshine. Just enough to sweat a little, but not enough to empty the streets on midday anymore. They're amusing themselves with comparing their tans – Hisana reasonably gold-brown, Haru still chalk white with blotches of sunburn, and Sora somewhat approaching Lightning Country native – when a silhouette strikes a dramatic pose in the doorway.
"BAA-CHAN, YOUTHFUL LIGHT OF KONOHA! IT HAS BEEN TOO LONG!"
Bright red melon juice drips out of Sora's mouth and onto his white shirt. Behind them someone slaps some money onto the table and flees.
"MOCHIIIIIII …!" a voice screams in the kitchen, sending all employees into overdrive to comply. Before Hisana can consider raising her hand in greeting, Gai has already spotted them.
"Hisana-san!" he booms, making Haru jump and Sora spill even more juice. "What a delight to see you!"
He strides over to them, nimbly dancing through the bags and feet in his way.
"Oh good god," Haru breathes. "Who's that?"
"And why the hell do you know him?" Sora hisses.
"A cup of your most youthful tea!" Gai orders from the resigned looking waitress and the kitchen crew promptly slows down to their usual tempo.
"No, no, no!" Ba-chan whines and glares at Hisana. Make that two baskets of plums. The jounin flops down at their table with a grin and a thumbs up.
"You must be Hisana-san's youthful team! I am the Magnificient Green Beast of Konoha – Maito Gai!"
"That's … awesome," Sora deadpans. Mitsuharu makes a strange, strangled noise, as if the words got stuck in his throat.
"Gai-senpai," she croons, "what a lucky coincidence! May I introduce my team to you: Sone Mitsuharu and Eguchi Sora."
Gai sniffs and wipes his eyes.
"How touching to see a team spending their free time together – you must be such good friends already!"
"If this is on purpose," Sora hisses quietly at her, "then we won't be for much longer."
She pinches him, smile still fixed on her face.
"Yes … it's such a pity not all of us are here though."
It's this point at which Haru seems to realize what's going on. His face morphs into a row of expressions that tell of mixed feelings; realization, shock, anger, disbelief, resignation and then finally something like wry humor.
"Yes," he agrees carefully, "such a pity that Sensei didn't want to come." Sora looks at them in disbelief, before pinching her back. Not a second later Haru winces as well as their teammate withdraws his hand from under the table.
"Ahh," Gai says, oblivious of the pettiness going on under his nose. "Many jounin instructors find it difficult to relate to their charges at first."
"I think it's a bit more than that," Sora grouches. "If he keeps it up like this, we'll be dead before the Chuunin Exams."
"Genma-senpai also thinks we should be careful around him," she adds. At this both boys turn their startled gazes onto her. This is new information for them too. Ups. "He says," she continues, "that Kohaku-sensei can't be trusted."
Gai nods as if that explains everything.
"Hyuuga Kohaku?" he ventures. "Yes, Genma-kun is not on good terms with Hyuuga-san. They had a … youthful squabble during their own Chuunin Exam that nearly cost Genma-kun his promotion."
Oh ouch. That would explain why he's holding a grudge, but not the degree of vehemence he displayed.
"So you don't think he's dangerous?"
Gai waves his hand in a pish-posh gesture.
"No, no. I'm sure Genma-kun was merely worried Hyuuga-san might not have outgrown his youthful hot-headedness yet."
"'Hot-headedness'?" Haru repeats disbelievingly.
"Well," Gai concedes, "hot-headed for a Hyuuga."
The conversation with Gai hasn't laid her worries to rest the way she'd hoped. If the jounin doesn't think Sensei is dangerous, then she trusts his assessment, but as Genma implied: 'not dangerous' doesn't necessarily mean 'not worth watching out for'.
By now the situation among the team has calmed down a little; they're all around more comfortable with each other and they've stopped sending their teacher guarded looks all the time.
Now that they've passed Sensei's bungled up 'final test' they've also moved on from strength and stamina training to bukijutsu and taijutsu, which she rather enjoys. Much to the boys' initial delight they have also started on actual missions.
"This … is bullshit," Sora huffs. There's a rice paddy stretching out in front of them, plants growing willy-nilly. "How can someone fuck up planting rice? And how did nobody notice?"
"We're getting paid for this," Haru hums. "Don't think about it; we're getting paid."
Kohaku-sensei unfolds the mission scroll.
"I hope you're more familiar with proper rice planting than the last team," he remarks mildly. "Or do I need to explain what exactly is wrong with this picture?"
He raises an eyebrow questioningly.
"Did they get paid for this?" Hisana asks instead.
"They did," he confirms, "and today they will pay you for cleaning up their mess."
He gestures towards the old rice farmer who grins toothily at them from a few feet away.
"I'm not coughing up a ryo for this," he yells good-naturedly, "'s not my fault you ninjas have no real-life skills."
She squashes down the urge to whine like a little girl. The water is dirty of course, so she'll be scrubbing away mud and plant pieces not only from under her fingernails, but also her shoes. "You know what?" she grumps, "I don't even care."
She pulls off her shoes to throw them somewhere in the dirt, before rolling up her leggings and stomping right into the water.
A squawk claws its way out of her mouth. "It's cold!"
"Genius," Sora remarks drily before also kicking off his sandals. If she splashes him with water when walking by, it's purely by accident.
The water is really damn cold. It's the end of summer, so she would have thought that maybe it has warmed up, but apparently not.
"There's a stream right below," Sensei informs her. "That is where the water is coming from and that is why it is so cold."
In contrast to Kakashi, Kohaku-sensei does take part in D-rank missions, she observes in amusement. He looks decidedly out of place, leisurely picking and re-planting rice sprouts with them, every once in a while fishing his hair out of the cold water.
"Oh!" she blurts out, pulling the attention of her teammates like a magnet. Instead of losing the sandals and wading through the water with them, Kohaku-sensei is standing on the water, carefully navigating around the sprouts.
"Can you teach us that?" she asks. "I want to know how to do this."