Hinata smiled.
She ignored the shouts around her, ignored the burning pain blooming in her chest, ignored the numbness quickly spreading down her arms.
She'd done her job; she'd protected her Hokage.
The assassins that had burst into Kakashi-sama's office when her team had come to report would not succeed – she'd made sure of that.
Her vision had grown fuzzy when she wasn't paying attention and she could no longer feel her arms or legs and- oh. She didn't remember sitting down, why was she suddenly on the floor? And what was that dark stain on the floor below her?
She blinked, trying to clear the stubborn black dots from the corners of her eyes and lifted her head – why was it so heavy? – to look around the room. Kakashi-sama looked quietly horrified, and she had no idea why – had she done something? Or was he upset at her for falling over in his office?
Then, two grey blurs blocked her vision of her Hokage and she lifted her gaze to a familiar face, but- why was Kiba crying? Kiba never cried. She could vaguely see his mouth move but she couldn't hear any words; her ears were ringing and her head felt like she'd drunk too much. Was that why she'd fallen down? Had they been-?
She lost her train of thought.
Then, the second grey blur next to her shifted and she caught sight of what must've been Kakashi-sama behind them, though at this point he was little more than a silver smudge to her eyes save for the two points of red on his face where his eyes had been. Suddenly, an oppressive force filled the room and Hinata saw a black – orb? spiral? everything was a blur at this point – form, obscuring her view of the man once again.
Her hearing came back just as suddenly as it had disappeared, but she suddenly wished it hadn't.
"-can't die, not like t-this, NOT LIKE THIS!"
Is that what was happening?
That made sense, somewhat.
Would she see Neji again? That would be nice. She could apologise to him, properly this time. For everything.
The thought made her want to smile, but she'd long since lost control of her muscles. She thought she managed to close her eyes, or maybe her vision had finally faded, but she felt oddly calm when the oppressive darkness swallowed her down.
When she opened her eyes, there was a hand coming towards her, far too fast to do anything other than hurt, and Hinata reacted.
She'd never been the fastest, but being on a team with Kiba and Akamaru and then the war had honed her speed to somewhat above-average. It was that speed she used now to slip under the palm-strike, fingers of her right hand snapping up to jab the tenketsu in the attacker's wrist to numb it, while in her left hand she gathered the chakra for the Vacuum Palm and let her hand fly forward, releasing her chakra as her elbow straightened and ignoring the unexpected burn in her coils.
Her attacker staggered back, putting distance between them, but he was not blown off his feet like she'd intended and Hinata frowned, bending her knees to dart forward again, and then-
"-Hinata!"
The commanding tone snapped her out of her battle-calm and she froze, finally gathering herself enough to look around and realising that a near-suffocating silence had fallen around the training grounds she was in.
Wait.
Training grounds?
Fully snapping to awareness, she took the time to actually look around. The man who'd shouted was-
-her grandfather?
(familiar lilac eyes, for once not shadowed by deep frown lines, peered up at her from a pile of rubble, the sharp, stern gaze blank and unseeing after Pein's Assault, dead, dead, dead-!)
Her eyes tracked the rest of the people gathered at the edges of the sparring field – her trainer (killed in Orochimaru's invasion), one of the Clan's Elders (killed in the war), her sister's trainer, Hanabi, and-!
Neji.
Her cousin was alive, young and beautiful and frowning and alive, his eyes wide and trained not on her, but on her opponent, what looked an awful lot like fear etched on his face. When Hinata finally made herself follow Neji's gaze and look at her attacker, she didn't see Zetsu, or Obito, or an enemy-nin, but her Father.
Hiashi was looking at her rather than through her for the first time in years, and while the expression on his face was unreadable, he couldn't quite control the way his eyes had widened in surprise. Hinata's gaze trailed down, to where her Father's hand was splayed over his chest, where the brunt of her Vacuum Palm had likely struck him, and she had a horrified moment where she wondered whether she'd broken any of his ribs.
The thought was quickly dismissed in favour of another realisation:
She'd tried to kill her Father.
Oh, god.
She couldn't deal with this – she could feel her breaths begin to quicken, could feel her head beginning to swim, the dread and fear of retribution settling like a stone in her stomach, and she- she had to get out.
Not pausing to so much as bow, Hinata turned tail and ran.
Her feet took her to Team Eight's old training ground without much conscious input from her brain, her frazzled mind drawing comfort from the memories of her genin days and the proximity to the Inuzuka Compound. She remembered days when gruelling training sessions with Kurenai would end with them all piling into Kiba's house for dinner, then ending up more dog than human with all the dog hair that stuck to their muddied clothes, yet Hinata always felt like she'd never laughed as hard as she had when she was with her team, in Tsume-obasan's home.
She stumbled at the memory of Kiba's grief when the woman had been lost to them after a Tailed Beast Ball had taken out her encampment, and Hinata let herself collapse against one of the trees on the bank of the river Akamaru had often jumped into after their training sessions, her whole body shaking.
She was drenched in sweat, her lungs and legs burning, as if unused to such exertion, and her breaths were more pants than anything else, though whether from the run or the panic still coursing through her veins, she wasn't sure.
The fear she'd felt at almost killing her Father had been pushed aside in favour of a much more pressing worry – Neji had been alive.
What had previously been elation at the thought turned to dread; she'd watched him die. He shouldn't be alive, no matter how much she may have wished for that to be the case.
He'd looked young, too. Much younger than he had when he'd- when he'd died, and he was still wearing his beige shirt, which she hadn't seen him wear in years. And Hanabi, for all that she'd barely glimpsed her sister, had seemed tiny. Far smaller than the teenage chunin from Hinata's memories.
Morbidly curious and more than a little scared, Hinata stretched out her own hand.
Small.
Very few scars. Small, short fingers. Even her callouses weren't as pronounced as she remembered, for all that she rarely wielded the standard weapons the way most shinobi did. Hesitating only slightly, Hinata took a deep, shuddering breath, and brought that same hand to the back of her neck and slowly slid up.
Instead of the heavy curtain of hair she'd expected, she found short-shorn hair at her nape, then the edges of the choppy bowl-cut she favoured in her pre-genin years. Shaking fingers danced from the back of her head to her temple and curled around one of the twin longer strands that hid her ears and framed her face.
She tugged sharply.
The pain did nothing.
Holding her breath, Hinata brought herself to her hands and knees and slowly crawled to the edge of the river, then peered down into the water.
The face that stared back at her was undeniably younger than the face she remembered.
Perhaps, even more tellingly, there was no hitai-ate around her neck.
Hoping against hope, Hinata brought her shaking hands into the seal Kurenai had drilled into them almost religiously, once upon a time.
"Kai." She murmured, cutting off then rerouting her chakra nigh-instinctively.
Nothing changed.
Shifting her fingers slightly, Hinata tried a different seal.
"Byakugan!"
The vibrant greens and muted browns of the forest around her faded in favour of the bright blue glow of chakra, and though her range seemed far reduced to what she last remembered, probably less than thirty metres in radius, it was still enough to determine that the scene before her hadn't changed in the slightest.
This, whatever this was, was real.
Cancelling her Byakugan, Hinata let herself tip over from where she was still haphazardly leaning over the riverbank until she was lying on the grass and could turn onto her back and stare at the pink-and-orange sky in wonder.
Judging by the size and state of her body and rather telling lack of headband, she was about to finish the Academy. That would make her about a decade older mentally than her current body.
She lifted a hand again, marvelling at the unblemished skin of her knuckles, the lack of scars on the insides of her wrists, and the ring that marked her as the heiress to the Hyuuga on her middle finger.
A ring which, if her time estimate was correct, would pass to Hanabi in a matter of days.
As much as she loved her sister, she couldn't allow that to happen again. Her willingness to lose that duel the first time had stemmed less from the desire not to hurt her sister and more from the desire for their Father to shift his vicious, unrelenting focus away from her, she could admit that now. She'd been pre-Kurenai's love, pre-Kiba's self-assurance, pre-Shino's quiet confidence, and most importantly, pre-realisation that the world was so much bigger than her Father's approval.
This time was different.
If this world was really real, if she had truly gotten the chance at a do-over, if this wasn't merely another hyper-realistic Tsukiyomi, she would do better.
She remembered a war.
She remembered dying.
Her Father's disapproval, no matter how all-consuming, couldn't compare to the horror of witnessing half of the shinobi population get destroyed. To witnessing her peers fight a goddess. To watching her cousin die for her.
She owed Neji, her Neji, to get rid of the Caged Bird seal.
Hanabi, for all that she loved her sister, would never do it. She had absorbed too much of their grandfather's teachings once, never really lost the Main Branch mentality.
Hinata let her hand drop to her face, covering her eyes, and took a deep breath. She let it out slowly, steadying herself at the same time, and thinking over just what her decision meant.
She'd have to become Head of the Hyuuga Clan.
"Uh, are you alright?"
Hinata stifled a shriek, pulling her hand away from her eyes and scrambling into a sitting position, then looking around at who had spoken, only to find three very large dogs very close to her face.
Three very familiar very large dogs.
She tried to calm her wildly beating heart and looked beyond the Haimaru brothers, at Inuzuka Hana, and couldn't help the instinctive tiny smile that tugged at her lips with all the memories seeing the older girl brought forth.
"Not really, Inuzuka-san." She said, the words escaping her before her brain quite caught up with her mouth, but Hana and Tsume-obasan had always stressed honesty above all else, and Hinata had taken that lesson to heart. "But thank you for asking."
Hana barked a laugh, visibly startled, and grinned at her, crouching a few metres away.
"Love the honesty, kid." She commented, and Hinata felt her face heat up in embarrassment at the same time as warmth bloomed in her chest. "Anything I can help with?"
Hinata considered the other girl, smiling to herself at that easy kindness, the complete lack of hesitation to help someone, even a complete stranger.
"What do you think about tradition, Inuzuka-san?" she asked quietly, hand falling to the ring around her middle finger. Once again, the words slipped out of her without her conscious input, but Hana had been someone she'd admired, whose opinion, despite how rarely it was offered, she'd valued.
Hana blinked, surprised.
"Depends on the tradition." She admitted, studying Hinata with unabashed curiosity. "But my family isn't generally big on them."
Hinata nodded, having learned as much over the years. Then, something cold was pressing against her shin, and she startled, having forgotten about the Haimaru brothers. She held out her hand so it was more easily accessible for all three dogs, letting them sniff her if they wanted.
"Hello." She greeted politely, having learned that even if the Inuzuka ninken couldn't speak human language, they still understood. "My name is Hinata. It's nice to meet you."
"Ah, sorry, you've guessed the surname, but I'm Hana." Hana introduced herself, somewhat sheepish, and Hinata offered the other girl a small smile, feeling it grow when one of the dogs sniffed then licked the palm of her hand.
"It's no problem, you-"
"-Hinata."
Hinata felt herself freeze, the smile fading from her face, and immediately, all three brothers' hackles rose, but Hinata knew that voice.
"O-Otou-sama." She greeted, shocked not just because someone had come looking for her, but because it was her Father who had come.
Hiashi emerged from the treeline, ever-present frown between his brows, and he took in the scene with a displeased look in his eyes.
"Hyuuga-sama!" Hana called, startled, dipping into a quick bow, apparently not having connected 'Hyuuga girl' to 'Hyuuga heir'. Then, to the still-growling triplets, she hissed, "Cut it out!"
Her Father's gaze swept over Hana, barely brushing her ninken; "Inuzuka-san." He returned briefly, then his eyes fell to Hinata, clearly dismissing Hana as a threat, and his gaze hardened. "Come."
Hinata scrambled to her feet, nearly stepping on one of the Haimaru brothers' paws in the process. She froze at the ninken's startled whine, then dropped straight back down to make sure he was okay, her heart in her throat at the thought of hurting one of Hana's dogs, even accidentally.
When she was sure she hadn't trodden on any paws, she straightened back up and turned towards her Father, dropping her gaze as she headed over to his side, missing the surprised but appreciative glance Hana shot at her back.
Her Father turned on his heel and started walking, and she hastened to follow, half a step behind him out of habit more than anything else. They walked in silence for a few minutes, and Hinata was fully expecting that to continue, but the man surprised her.
"The technique you used today." he began, his voice quiet and inflectionless. "I wasn't aware you knew it."
"I have been training, Otou-sama." She replied after a slight pause to gather herself, comparably quiet, still not able to look her Father in the eyes, despite everything.
Hiashi didn't reply, not even a hum of acknowledgement, but after another few minutes of silence, he suddenly stopped, and she almost crashed into him with how suddenly he stopped walking.
"The Elders have been arguing in favour of making your sister the Clan heir." He said evenly, his gaze boring into her with such intensity she could feel it. "Before today, I was going to allow it."
Hinata swallowed, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Then, she summoned all the courage within her and raised her eyes to meet her Father's.
For the first time in years, something akin to approval passed through the man's steely eyes.
"Hanabi has always been your superior in confidence and ability, despite her inferior age." Her Father stated, and it was just that to him – a fact. "But she has never used Killing Intent."
Hinata froze, having a sinking feeling that she might know what the man was going to say.
"Before tonight, I didn't think you capable of it." He admitted, and there was curiosity in his gaze now, albeit well-hidden. "But for the first time in your life, you fought me like a shinobi would."
Hinata didn't say anything – she hadn't been aware she had used Killing Intent, but she chose to keep silent and wait her Father out. If he wanted to know something, he would demand it. Right now, it seemed like he was…testing her.
Apparently sensing that she wasn't going to explain herself or otherwise react to his observation, Hiashi's gaze grew cold once more.
"You have your Graduation tomorrow." He informed her, and Hinata blinked. "Failure is not an option."
Hinata shivered, both at the tone her Father used and at the minimal expectations of her, if he felt like that was a reminder she needed. When he merely watched her, she nodded to show she understood.
"Afterwards, you will fight Hanabi." He announced. "The fight will decide which of you will be heir."
Oh.
Hinata didn't say anything, not sure what to say. She had made her mind up already about how that spar would go this time around, and while many things around her seemed to have changed, her nindo had not: I will never go back on my word.
She nodded again, and her Father frowned, but didn't comment. Then, he turned and resumed walking in the direction of the Compound, and Hinata resumed her place at his side, half a step behind, content to spend the rest of the journey in silence.
The gate guards seemed surprised when they approached the gates to the Compound but allowed them entry without any comment, and Hinata took the familiar path to her old room after bidding her Father a quiet goodnight. She waited until the door to her bedroom closed behind her, granting her relative privacy, then sighed and slid down it, hanging her head between her bent knees.
For all intents and purposes, she was twelve years old again, not twenty-two. Not even a genin yet.
She…wasn't sure how to feel about that.
(later, she told herself, we'll deal with this later.)
Still, she heaved herself to her feet and set to washing up; it would not do to be late to her own Graduation ceremony, after all.
When Hinata awoke, it was with a stifled gasp and the sudden snap to full awareness honed over months spent on the battlefield. Byakugan sprang to her eyes with nary a thought, though the unexpectedly painful tug at her chakra coils snapped her out of the sudden battle-readiness. She froze, Byakugan focusing on the source of the noise that had woken her up.
A bird.
A simple robin chirping on her windowsill, occasionally tapping its beak against the glass.
Not Zetsu, not an assassin, not an ANBU with another secret mission.
Just...a bird.
Hinata fell back on her futon, shaking off the last traces of her battle-focus, and let the Byakugan fade, trying to calm her wildly beating heart. The memories of the previous day came flooding back, as did the dream she'd had of her death, and the phantom pain of having a wind-edged katana rip through her chest wasn't a pleasant experience.
She got up after another few seconds, aware that falling back asleep was going to be impossible with how wide-awake she currently felt. She sighed, heading over to her dresser and getting dressed almost mechanically: chest bindings, mesh undershirt, cotton t-shirt, then her old cream jacket of her genin days, the thick material still just as comforting as it had been the first time around, a steady barrier between her and the world.
She'd have to see if she could find a similar one in a darker colour – she remembered having spent far too many hours scrubbing blood and grass stains out of the light material.
She slipped out of her room, careful of waking Hanabi who was just across the hall, and padded to the kitchen, moving through the sleeping house like a ghost. While being awake before the dawn wasn't anything unusual for shinobi, Hinata as a child had loved to sleep, and was notorious for getting up far later than was proper.
If anybody did ask, she could definitely blame it on nerves. At least nobody would question that from her.
She made herself a modest breakfast, ate without tasting much, and washed the dishes, putting them back in their place after she'd dried them.
Then, she paused.
The clock on the wall in the kitchen claimed it was barely past five in the morning. Another four hours before she'd need to be at the Academy, and since sleep was out of the question, Hinata wasn't sure what she should do with herself.
The tugging she'd felt at her coils when she'd used Byakugan without seals, or when she'd performed the Vacuum Palm the day before, worried her. Having grown up learning how to inflict trauma on another's chakra coils, or where to strike to be debilitating, or how to overload someone's network to disable them for life, the thought that she could unconsciously damage her own coils because she didn't know her own body's limits terrified her.
It would be wise, she decided, to test that out before her spar with Hanabi this afternoon.
She arrived to the Academy a little tired, but with a much better grasp of her chakra control and the size of her coils. What she had forgotten, due to the events of the previous afternoon and her early start this morning, was what being back at the Academy entailed.
She was woefully unprepared for the sight of the old Rookie 9.
They were so young.
Young, and free of stress and grief and pain. Ino and Sakura were squabbling over something, the volume far louder than necessary, their tones shrill and arrogant in the way grieving, post-war Ino had rarely managed. The sight of Shikamaru without a cigarette in his mouth and sans the permanent frown between his brows sent a lance of pain through her, as did seeing of Sasuke sitting by himself by the window, studiously ignoring everything and everyone else.
Seeing Kiba and Shino – on opposite ends of the classroom, but there nonetheless, boys who had managed to become closer than family and helped her build herself into someone who could stand alongside them rather than cower uselessly behind – simultaneously broke and mended her heart back together.
And Naruto.
Oh, Naruto.
He was there, unmissable not just because of his orange ensemble, but because she would have been able to pick him out of the crowd even if he was wearing shinobi-appropriate colours. To her relief, beyond the brief stab of pain at the memory of her Naruto, and his clumsy, cautious attempts at trying to talk to her and navigating the almost-dating-but-not-quite stage of their relationship, the crush she remembered from her Academy days was little more than a vaguely melancholy impression in the back of her mind.
For all that she'd loved Naruto, she'd also idolised him. And while the boy she was now seeing would grow to become a hero, at this point, he was…just a boy.
Just a young, lonely boy, starved for love and recognition.
Taking a deep breath, Hinata tried to get herself together enough to make her feet start moving again. She bypassed her old seat, a row behind Naruto's, in favour of heading for the back of the class, slipping quietly into the seat three to the left of Shikamaru's.
(while her reaction could've been worse, it would be wise to avoid having to look at her old comrades' faces as much as possible)
Content, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the pebble she'd picked up from the riverbank on Team Eight's old training grounds this morning. Settling her hands on her lap beneath the desk, she set to trying to move the pebble around her wrist with her chakra as she waited for Iruka-sensei to show up, having learnt this morning that her control over her chakra, while comfortably above-average on the backdrop of her Academy class, was far from that of her old self.
If she wasn't careful, that discrepancy could prove fatal.
"Got tired of watching the back of Naruto's head?"
It took her a few seconds to realise that somebody had spoken to her, and a couple of seconds more to process the content of the question. When she did, however, she lost control over her chakra and turned to her right, her eyes wide with surprise when she met Shikamaru's gaze, finding the Nara boy already looking at her.
Hinata didn't have anything against Shikamaru personally; he was a genius, that much was without a doubt, and he was from a respected Clan. Kiba and Shino, though, had disliked him; Kiba, forever blunt and saying what he thought and felt, hated the Naras penchant for never being straightforward with their thoughts, and he'd been clear in his opinion that Shikamaru was arrogant. Shino, while usually perfectly easy-going, had never quite forgiven Shikamaru for forgetting about him during the Sasuke Retrieval mission. Hinata had been surprised to find that Shino could nurse a grudge for years, but by that point, she'd bore it with fondness more than anything else.
Unfortunately for Shikamaru, as much as she may have wanted to remain objective in her dealings with the Nara, some of that bias might have rubbed off on her over the years.
(it was the only explanation she had for what came out of her mouth next)
"Got tired of pretending not to pay attention?" she asked quietly, her tone polite, but Shikamaru's eyes widened nonetheless.
It seemed like she'd given an answer he hadn't expected, and a part of Hinata relished being able to surprise the genius strategist.
She let the eye-contact drop in favour of focusing her attention on the pebble in her lap, wrapping her chakra around it again. She could feel Shikamaru's eyes on her person for the next few minutes, though he kept his mouth shut.
"Hyuuga Hinata!"
Hinata startled sometime later, having fallen into what she realised was an almost meditative doze, her chakra still wrapped around the pebble and moving it almost lazily around her wrist.
"Good luck, Shikamaru-san." She murmured to the boy, who'd returned his head to its usual position, pillowed on his folded arms, and she thought she heard a grunt in response, though she didn't stay long enough to confirm.
Pushing to her feet, she smiled at Iruka-sensei and followed him into the test room.
Ten minutes later, she walked out of the Academy building with her headband tied around her neck, tighter than she'd originally worn it, the metal plating snug against her throat. Predictably, nobody was waiting for her outside, but Hinata didn't mind.
She was a genin now, the first step on her path to holding up her promise to Neji.
She didn't really want to head back to the compound, because it would mean putting into motion the second step, and she knew her victory would reflect badly on Hanabi. Perhaps put even more distance between them than existed Hinata's first life.
She set off in the direction of her favourite bakery, deciding that she could afford to treat herself before she made the first future-altering decision of this life.
Hiashi watched his daughters face off against one another, feeling somewhat conflicted.
Hinata had always been too soft for a Hyuuga, took too much after her late mother in that sense. Too kind, too forgiving, too emotional. Hanabi was much more like him, colder and sharper than her sister, even at her tender age.
(neither of them had anything on Neji, but his brother's son was Hiashi's greatest shame)
It was why Hiashi didn't fight the Clan Elders when they suggested naming Hanabi his heir.
But his spar with his eldest the previous day had planted a seed of doubt that refused to die. Because Hinata had looked at him like he was an enemy in that moment, the set to her mouth firm and unforgiving, and she'd moved with far more speed than he'd thought her capable of.
(He hadn't expected the Vacuum Palm, and the Clan's medic had looked at him with poorly hidden surprise when he'd walked in after the fight with badly bruised ribs.)
Watching them now, circling each other, he wondered what would prevail: Hinata's softness and reluctance to hurt her sister, or the unexpected flash of viciousness he'd witnessed yesterday. It was she who would be most affected by this spar should she lose; she'd be disinherited, meanwhile Hanabi would merely remain as the second in line to the Clan Head position, at least until Hinata had children of her own.
At Hatsuo's impatient grunt, his daughters sprang at each other, Byakugan bulging and fingers tinged blue with chakra. It became immediately apparent that Hinata wasn't fighting to lose – more importantly, she was actually fighting. In the years since Hanabi had become a capable enough child to pose a challenge for her sister, Hinata had merely dodged, doing the least harm to the younger she could without risking punishment from the trainers or Hiashi himself.
Hinata still wasn't going for the most obvious attack spots, still visibly unwilling to hurt Hanabi, but also unwilling to just stand still and let Hanabi hit her.
And then, about three minutes into the bout, Hiashi caught that same look from yesterday in Hinata's eyes. He watched as she pretended that Hanabi's palm strike to her chin connected and followed the movement, throwing her hands over her head and dropping into a backwards handspring, but as she swung her legs over and landed in a crouch, she didn't straighten back up.
Instead, she mouthed 'forgive me' and-
-blurred.
Hiashi leaned forward slightly because that was undoubtedly a shunshin.
Over a pathetically short distance, and he felt the protest Hinata's chakra coils gave at the lack of seals, but he couldn't deny the effectiveness as Hinata reappeared behind Hanabi, hands already flying for the back of her sister's neck.
Hanabi fell, and there was still undeniable gentleness in the way Hinata caught her and lowered her the rest of the way to the ground, but when Hinata straightened, she looked straight at him.
That, too, was new.
"It seems," he said after another few seconds, where father and daughter stared at each other dispassionately, not a hint of love or sentiment in either of their eyes, "that you shall maintain your place as my heir."
For now, he added mentally, because he had no doubt that the Elders would renew their campaign to have Hanabi take over as soon as enough time elapsed for such a move to not seem as if it was questioning his authority.
Hinata nodded once, an acknowledgement, then bowed her head respectfully, though she did not bow fully.
Still, she waited, and Hiashi almost sighed.
"Dismissed." He ordered, and only then did Hinata allow the tension to bleed from her shoulders. "And take your sister to the infirmary as you go."
"Yes, Father."
And Hinata walked away.
"Team Eight: Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Hinata, and Inuzuka Kiba. Your sensei is Yuhi Kurenai."
Though she'd expected them, the words were what she needed to lose the last of the tension that had clung to her since landing in this new time.
She didn't verbally acknowledge the assignment, unlike Kiba, but allowed herself to sit more comfortably in her seat in the back row.
"You seem relieved."
The fact that Shikamaru was willingly talking to her was still odd to her, especially as she hadn't had much in the way of interaction with the boy since after Orochimaru's invasion in her first life. Still-
"You seem resigned, Shikamaru-san." She replied, careful not to move her mouth too much when she spoke because Iruka-sensei had the eyes of a hawk and for all that she'd faced down Pein and a literal goddess, her sensei's disapproval still registered as scary.
She made sure to turn just enough to shoot Shikamaru a small smile when she was sure Iruka wasn't looking.
"I've known who'd be on my team since I joined the Academy." Shikamaru shot back, and Hinata allowed him the point, at least until he added, not quite snidely, but definitely not kindly: "Is parroting my syntax the only way you can speak without a stutter?"
A feeling not unlike having a bucket of freezing water dumped over her head came over her at the Nara's words, and Hinata felt her facial muscles respond in kind, any traces of the smile she'd given him vanishing.
Shikamaru didn't look away throughout, and she noticed that he was more careful about controlling his expression this time, but Hinata was done.
Maybe Kiba had been onto something.
Hinata controlled whatever was on her face in the way she'd been taught since she was a toddler – a shinobi must never show emotion, and a Hyuuga must never falter – and kept her chakra tightly coiled beneath her skin, then turned her attention back to Iruka-sensei, studiously ignoring Shikamaru.
Her hand sought out the pebble she'd been manipulating the previous day, and her chakra latched onto it almost without conscious input.
"Team Eight?" a familiar, though not here, not yet, voice called out, an unquantifiable amount of time later, and Hinata snapped back to alertness, eyes almost filling with tears upon falling on Kurenai's familiar figure.
She stood, and the woman's eyes landed on her, softening as they did, a small smile lighting her face.
"Come with me, please."
Hinata did.