Their mission went well.
Hinata was too tired to celebrate, but when the main gates of Konoha came into view twelve days to the day they left, she was not the only one who heaved a sigh of relief. They didn't have to deal with anything harder than a small group of bandits, and even that was luckily on the way back so they completed the mission itself without issue, but Hinata was tired.
They got to the gates and Hinata could tell that Kiba was baffled by the increased scrutiny of their identity cards and mission scroll.
"Chunin Exams." She mouthed, making recognition glint in Kiba's eyes as he shot her a grateful thumbs-up.
(If things were the same as before, the higher-ups would've likely learned of Orochimaru's presence in the Forest of Death by now. In light of that revelation, there was almost too little security.)
"Meet at ten at our training grounds tomorrow." Kurenai told them, earning surprised looks from the three of them, which she smiled ruefully at. "I would normally give you the day off, but I'm almost sure we're going to end up picking up the missions your peers would've otherwise taken, so I want you to be ready."
"Okay, sensei." Hinata agreed, managing a tired smile. "Rest well."
They split off, and Hinata headed home, looking forward to a bath and an opportunity to sleep in tomorrow morning.
What she wasn't expecting was to get ambushed upon stepping though the gates of the Hyuuga Compound, two Elders pinning her with expectant, subtly disdainful glances.
"We have learned that you are not participating in the Chunin Exams." one of them, Hideki, if Hinata remembered correctly, began, sizing her up. "Your Father has decided we need to test your capacity as heir once again."
"Am I to spar with Hanabi, then?" Hinata asked quietly, keeping her voice even and soft, not daring to meet the man's eyes and stifling the sigh that wanted to escape her.
"No." the other Elder replied, and the look in his eyes was mean when Hinata glanced at him. She didn't remember this one's name, but she did remember that he died in Orochimaru's siege.
(Not long left, the little mean voice whispered in her mind, but she pushed the thought away.)
"You will be sparring with your Father."
Hinata paled.
The fact that Hinata wasn't participating in the Chunin Exams wasn't surprising, Neji thought. Nor was the fact that the Elders had a problem with that, considering her unfortunate position as heiress.
The fact that Hiashi decided to spar with her himself, however, was surprising.
Neji found himself on the outskirts of the small group of onlookers that had gathered to watch Hiashi humiliate his daughter, a sick sense of satisfaction warming his gut.
The difference in his and Hinata's fates boiled down to the minutes that separated their fathers' births; Hinata had done nothing to deserve her position in the Clan, and he was glad Hiashi was finally beginning to acknowledge that fact.
"Rules?" Hinata asked quietly as she took her place opposite the man, five meters between them where they stood on the training field.
She looked worn and tired, having apparently just come back from a mission, though Neji reasoned she didn't have too long to wait till she could rest: Hiashi's defeat of his daughter was destined to be swift and brutal.
"Try to land a hit." Hiashi replied stoically, his disposition telling everyone just how little he believed in Hinata succeeding in the challenge before her.
Instead of letting herself be baited or reacting outwardly to the mockery, Hinata simply nodded, mirroring Hiashi's stance, Byakugan bulging around her temples even as Hiashi kept his off, once again clearly dismissing his daughter as a threat, and Neji couldn't help but silently agree.
He watched as Hiashi gestured for them to start, watched disinterestedly as Hinata took a steadying breath, letting it out slowly, her muscles oddly loose and relaxed-
-and then she was in Hiashi's guard before Neji even had a chance to blink, two fingers driving into the flesh of her Father's abdomen.
Neji stilled, and he felt the gathered onlookers collectively hold their breath.
As impossible as the notion seemed, there was no doubt to anyone's eyes that Hinata's strike had connected.
Neji activated his Byakugan with a thought, needing to confirm it for himself. While Hinata didn't hit Hiashi's chakra core, as she'd likely been aiming to, because Hiashi was still a jounin and had managed to twist millimeters out of the way at the last second, her jab had still connected, succeeding in blocking the tenketsu over Hiashi's liver, less than an inch from his central reserve.
Slowly, Hinata drew back, straightening from her crouch, though she tellingly didn't dismiss her Byakugan nor recall the chakra from her fingers.
It's a fluke. Neji thought, staring at the blocked tenketsu over Hiashi's liver. It has to be.
"Does-" Hinata began, clearing her throat when her voice came out weak and quiet, and when she next spoke, she sounded surer of herself, though still just as quiet. "Does that count as a 'hit', Father?"
For the first time in his life, Neji saw Hiashi lose control.
His temples bulged with the Byakugan veins, and he was suddenly in motion, chakra snapping off of him as he struck, but Hinata managed to dodge, appearing inches to the left of her previous position, somehow twisting to be just out of the way of the strike that would've probably disabled her.
Once again, the discrepancy between Hiashi, a jounin and war veteran, and Hinata, a fresh genin, made itself apparent in the speed and viciousness of their movements. With Hiashi as enraged as he seemed, it would be lucky if Hinata only ended up in hospital, Neji thought grimly, somehow not as pleased by the realisation as he should be.
Hiashi turned, striking out with a kick, but Hinata was once again centimeters out of range, far quicker than she had ever been, far quicker than she had any right to be.
Neji frowned, concentrating on his cousin as she dodged another half-dozen of Hiashi's strikes by a hair's breadth. There was something about the way Hinata dodged, here one second and gone the next, almost no wasted motion and no obvious tensing of muscles to betray movement that felt familiar.
After a few more seconds, it dawned on Neji that her movement felt familiar because it felt like he was watching himself fight Gai.
Only Gai still fought back, a taijutsu master in every sense of the word, packing a punch that made Neji feel as if his tenketsu were blocked even though he knew the jounin had never and would never master the Jyuuken.
Hinata, being Hinata, seemed content with simply dodging Hiashi's strikes, and even that she was only barely managing now, having resorted to making strategic sacrifices for where to take the hits she couldn't fully dodge.
To compare her motion to Gai's was ludicrous, Neji knew.
But it fit.
"Fight me like a Hyuuga." Hiashi gritted out after a few more seconds, when he caught Hinata's headband in a glancing blow and made the hitai-ate slide off Hinata's hair and hit the ground a few meters behind her with the force of his strike.
Neji thought he heard Hinata whisper "I am." but that would be foolish, and it wasn't like she could spare breath for conversation when she had to twist to slide left of the strike to her left shoulder then flash away again to dodge Hiashi's kick to her liver.
But when she reappeared, two feet to the left of Hiashi's outstretched leg, Hiashi was ready, knife-hand heading unerringly for Hinata's neck. Neji thought he heard a quiet, startled gasp, then Hinata was suddenly meters away, stumbling on her landing, her hitai-ate clattering to the ground where she had stood milliseconds previous.
Replacement, Neji realized with a jolt, eyes on the headband Hinata had swapped with, but sealless?
But he didn't have time to think, because Hiashi was striking out, not bothering to cover the distance between him and his daughter, just stepping forward with a palm perpendicular to the ground and releasing a wave of pure, concentrated chakra whose whiplash made Neji wince even as far back as he stood.
Hinata was off-balance though, clearly exhausted, and unable to dodge. She just about managed to raise her arms over her face before the Vacuum Palm hit, and the crack of bone that followed the whoosh of chakra was as loud in the training field as the muffled scream Hinata let out.
Neji wasn't sure which sound it was, maybe a combination of the two, but it seemed to finally snap Hiashi out of whatever trance he had fallen into.
The Hyuuga Head froze for a split-second before he slowly straightened out of his stance, his gaze trained on Hinata's now visibly broken forearm. Opposite him, Hinata did the same, slowly lowering her broken arm to her side and adamantly not meeting her Father's eyes.
Neji wasn't sure what was going to happen, and from the sudden silence in the field, nor was anyone else. But then, Hinata stepped forward and bent down, picking up her hitai-ate and stowing it in her pocket with her unbroken arm. Then, she bowed, first to Hiashi, then to the Elders gathered at the edges of the field and then-
-she turned her back on them all, and walked out of the Compound.
"Hinata!" One of the Elders barked, but Hinata continued walking.
No acknowledgement, no words, no tears, no reaction to the events of the last five minutes. Nothing beyond the split-second of rage that shone in her eyes when she'd straightened from her bow, before that, too, had been wiped clean.
Neji walked silently to his room when the group of onlookers quickly dispersed at Hiashi's quelling look, unable to purge his pathetic cousin from his mind.
He had never seen Hiashi fight like that.
He wasn't sure if he- but no.
Hinata's performance was a fluke.
It had to be.
Hinata walked alone to the hospital, her body on autopilot, her mind quiet. She sat patiently through the half-hour wait to be seen, then through the med-nin setting her arm, then through another half-hour for the cast to dry. She was vaguely aware that the medic was giving her a lecture to be careful with her cast for the next 48 hours while it set completely, but the words went in one ear and out the other, her mind empty.
Three hours since they arrived to the Village gates and two hours since her spar with her Father, Hinata walked out of the hospital, somewhat lost.
The thought of going back to her Compound made the quiet in her brain burn, a searing, white-hot pain that made her clench her eyes shut and set on a path to the opposite side of the Village, towards Team 8's training grounds, before she even consciously registered the decision.
When she arrived, she assessed the field flatly, wondering what to do. The medic had said to be careful with her arm, and she was still tired from their mission, wanting nothing more than a bath and a long nap, but she would sooner stay awake for the next few days than go back 'home'.
Still, just because she couldn't train taijutsu or do handseals didn't mean that she couldn't do anything useful, so Hinata walked to the bank of the stream on the edges of the training grounds and sat down, crossing her legs and falling into herself.
She steadied her breathing and set to visualising her reserves, concentrating on spooling and unspooling her chakra coils, taking stock of herself at the same time as she worked to expand their capacity. It was a meditation technique Neji had taught her after her second Chunin Exams, when the relationship between them became more like that of siblings than antagonists. Neji never said who had taught it to him, but Hinata had always suspected it had been his father, and she treasured the fact that Neji had trusted her enough to pass it to her, which made it a precious memory.
As she meditated, she lost her sense of time, her eyes closed and her breathing steady as she unconsciously matched her chakra flow to the stream she could hear but not see. And then-
"Hinata-chan?"
Hinata startled, losing control over her chakra and feeling it snap back into her coils uncomfortably. She blinked her eyes open, surprised to note that it was now dark, and, as if her body had been waiting for her brain to register the temperature change, she felt goosebumps break out on her uncovered arm and a shiver go down her spine.
She blinked again, wondering what had snapped her concentration, then looked around and found Hana standing some three meters from her, hand on one of the Haimaru's nose, as if physically keeping the ninken from coming any closer to her.
"...Hana-san." she greeted belatedly, her body feeling uncomfortably sluggish, her mind still quiet. Empty. "Good afternoon."
"Good evening." Hana corrected gently, frowning worriedly. "Night, even."
Hinata glanced up at the sky, but with the sun gone, she struggled to tell the exact time to either confirm or deny Hana's words.
"Hinata-chan, is everything alright?" Hana asked quietly, losing control of one of the Haimaru. The ninken seized the opportunity and trotted up to Hinata, nosing at her cheek, but she barely registered it. "What happened to your arm?"
Hinata glanced down at her arm, the white cast around it stark against the dark material of her pants, and the memories of the last few hours – particularly of the moment that had led to her predicament –threatened to overwhelm her as they came rushing back in.
"I..." she began, unsure what she was thinking or feeling, her hands steady, her mind blank. "I had a...disagreement...with my Father."
Hana's face flashed through many expressions in a matter of seconds, but what it settled on was sympathetic.
"Come on then, Hinata-chan." She urged, extending a hand to help Hinata to her feet.
Hinata took the hand with a slight delay and she didn't even feel the usual embarrassment when Hana had to steady her once she was up, her legs almost giving up on her due to being in the same position for - allegedly - multiple hours.
Hana didn't release her hand even once Hinata was able to stand by herself, merely whistled something to her ninken and started walking, the dogs shooting off ahead of them.
"W-Where are we going?" Hinata asked after a few seconds, having become alert enough to realise they were going in the opposite direction of the Hyuuga Compound.
"You're shivering, and you look like you haven't eaten in hours." Hana replied, though it wasn't really an answer. She was still holding Hinata's hand. "I'm taking you home."
"I-I couldn't possibly impose-!" Hinata began, her sense of propriety having finally returned, though not enough to motivate her to pull away from Hana's gentle hold. The other girl was warm, her hand a localised inferno to Hinata's chilled skin.
"Hinata-chan." Hana sighed, coming to a stop, and she turned fully to Hinata, laying her other hand on her shoulder and meeting her eyes. Her expression was serious, the earlier sympathy still there but overshadowed by something harder, something almost angry. "It's past three in the morning. You were alone, on the training grounds, with a broken arm and empty eyes and your chakra and scent so stifled that I wouldn't have noticed you if the Haimaru hadn't almost stumbled on you. If you think I'm leaving you alone after that, you need to think again."
It was only then that Hinata noticed what Hana was wearing - all black pants and a long-sleeved black top, grey chest armour overtop.
Her mask and the standard reinforced gloves to complete the ensemble were missing, but Hinata recognised the uniform for what it was.
Had owned her own pair of it once, even.
She hadn't known Hana had been ANBU, though.
She noticed the moment Hana realised she knew because the other girl frowned, though it was concerned again instead of angry. Before Hana could say anything though, Hinata forced her uncooperating facial muscles into something that could hopefully pass as a smile.
"Thank you, Hana-san. I'm really-" grateful, she meant to say, her sense of self slowly returning, but she found a lump in her throat when she tried to speak, and instead, what came out was a broken sob.
Then, she burst into tears.
Hana let go of her hand and Hinata made a concerned noise through her tears before she could stop herself, but then Hana was using the grip on her shoulder to pull her into her chest, wrapping both her arms around Hinata's shoulders in a tight hug.
It shouldn't have been comfortable - Hana's armour plate was pressing into Hinata's cheek, the other girl's long-sleeve reeked of sweat and iron up close, and Hinata's cast-covered arm was squished rather uncomfortably between them, but Hinata melted into the embrace regardless. She tilted her head so her cheek was less smushed, screwed her eyes shut, and reached up and around Hana, fisting her hand in the fabric above her chest armour and holding on for dear life as she cried.
And Hana just held her like that, letting her cry herself out, shushing her and making comforting noises, her chin propped on the top of Hinata's head, as if she hadn't just come back from an ANBU mission to god-knew-where and wasn't exhausted and on her way home in the middle of the night.
An indeterminable amount of time later, Hinata finally pulled away, letting go of Hana's shirt to wipe at her face with her sleeve, propriety forgotten.
"I-I'm sor-!" she began, but Hana cut her off, putting a finger to her lips and shaking her head.
"Never apologise for having emotions." The other girl ordered, smiling softly to offset the stern tone even though the look in her eyes was dead serious. "Besides, I was relieved. You were a bit too blank to be healthy when I found you, Hinata-chan."
When Hinata just stared, feeling heat rise to her face, not sure if she was embarrassed or flustered, Hana dropped the finger she still had on Hinata's lips and grabbed her hand again, her smile growing a touch. "Now come on, we both need some food and a shower, I think."
And Hinata could do little but be tugged along, feeling an answering smile, albeit much smaller than Hana's, bloom on her face.
The next morning, far too early for her tastes, Hana fell into her seat at the table, raising a green-glowing hand to her forehead to quell the headache she could feel gathering from another night of not enough sleep.
"You look rough, kiddo." Tsume greeted where she was setting the fish to broil and cutting vegetables by the stove. "Long night?"
Hana made a vaguely affirmative noise, not all too awake just yet, and almost spilled the tea her mother had set in front of her as she went to pour it, making the woman snort. They sat in companionable silence for a moment, Tsume bustling around their small kitchen while Hana worked on waking up fully, before Tsume spoke.
"I know we're affiliated with ninken, but I didn't expect you to start bringing strays home." She commented idly, and Hana forced herself into a slightly more sat-up position, frowning at her mother.
"Her father broke her arm, mom." She said quietly, staring into her teacup. "I couldn't just leave her."
In her peripheral vision, she could see that Tsume had frozen for a split-second at the news, but when her mother next spoke, her words were perfectly casual, almost idle.
"She tell you that?" she asked, and Hana felt her frown deepen.
"Not in quite so many words, but yeah."
Tsume sighed, an action so uncharacteristic Hana was instantly on-guard, watching her mother intently, tiredness forgotten.
"Hana, I know you're a bit of a bleeding heart and she's Kiba's teammate, but you better not go poking your nose into Hyuuga business." Tsume warned, and Hana blinked, completely thrown, because-
"But, mom-!" She began, but Tsume cut her off, the expression on her face concerningly serious.
"No." She said curtly. "No buts. I'm not saying this to be cruel or because I don't care about the kid, but because you're my kid." Tsume told her flatly, her gaze unrelenting. "And the Hyuuga Clan can and will bury you, Hana."
"They can try." Hana huffed, but Tsume slammed her hand against the kitchen counter and shot her a sharp glare.
"No," she snapped, "no, they can't, because they'll succeed."
In that moment, Hana understood how her mother had made jounin at sixteen and successfully ousted their previous Head barely two years later. Hana has been ANBU for three years now, but Tsume's aura was sharper and wilder than those of the ANBU trainers just then.
Hana didn't dare disagree.
"Take that bravado and shove it where the sun don't shine because I won't lose my kid to your idiocy." Tsume finished, then huffed, visibly trying to calm herself.
"You ever worked with Namiashi Raido?" She asked after a beat, the non-sequitur throwing Hana off enough to shake off her momentary fear. She nodded mutely. "Shiranui Genma?"
Hana was a bit slower to nod this time, because she had worked with Shiranui, only not as Shiranui but as Gecko. And while she didn't doubt that Tsume knew she was ANBU, they never talked about it openly, and Hana wasn't about to start now.
She simply nodded again, a bit surer.
"Do you know why they will never get higher than tokubetsu?" Tsume asked then, her voice hard, her eyes boring into Hana's and forcing her to understand, "Why they will never have their own teams, never gain the respect that 'full' jounin get despite having the skills? Even though Raido is the best damn trap specialist the Village has seen in decades, and Genma's the best poison master you can find this far north of Suna?"
Hana didn't get the time to answer before Tsume continued, seemingly on a roll now.
"Do you know why Yuuhi only just got her jounin promotion despite her genjutsu having been on par with the Uchiha even back when there were still Uchiha around to compare her to?" she asked again, crossing the distance between where she stood against the counter to where Hana sat by the table, her face hard. "Or why the fucking Hokage's son had to leave the Village for a decade?"
Hana couldn't find her voice to say 'no', just barely having enough strength to shake her head in the face of her mother's presence.
Tsume knelt in front of her then, and Hana fought the urge to flinch even though she knew, logically, that her mother would never raise a hand on her.
There was something in Tsume's face though, something that hinted at old wounds and even older heartbreak, and when Tsume next spoke, her words were quiet and flat.
"Because they made a little too much noise about Hizashi's death, and the Hyuuga Clan almost buried them." Tsume murmured, her voice all but a whisper. "And I will not have that happen to you. Are we understood?"
And Hana, despite the righteous anger that burned within her, could do little more than nod, cowed.
When Kiba came down for breakfast, he was surprisingly unbothered about finding Hinata at their kitchen table, more focused on rubbing sleep out of his eyes and eyeing the eggs on Hinata's plate with interest.
"You made any of that for me?" He asked Hana through a yawn, and Hana smacked him with a spatula when he tried to peek around her to see what she was cooking.
"No. Lazy butts who get up at noon don't get freebies!" Hana huffed, chasing Kiba away even as she grabbed a clean plate and began scooping the leftover rice onto it, grabbing a few more eggs to crack as she went.
"It's not noon. And sensei gave us the morning to sleep in." Kiba whined, falling into the chair opposite Hinata and reaching uncoordinatedly to pour himself some apple juice while he scowled at his sister's back. "Not all of us are happy waking up at the ass-crack of dawn."
"Watch your mouth." Hana warned as she slid Kiba a plate of rice, veggies, the egg omelet she'd been making, and the salmon Tsume had prepared for them earlier, getting a grumbled 'thanks' which she staunchly ignored. "And some of us have responsibilities, not that you'd know much about that."
Kiba groaned, clearly giving up trying to make words, and instead muttered a quick prayer and dug into his food with gusto.
"Hinata, hi, save me from getting nagged to death please." He requested through a mouthful of omelet, and Hinata wrinkled her nose unconsciously, then had to bite her lip to keep from giggling when Hana smacked the back of Kiba's head as she walked past.
"Chew your damn food, swallow, then talk!" Hana chastised, then glanced at the clock above the door and frowned. "I gotta go; don't do anything stupid, and wash up before you leave or I'm telling mom."
"Wait, before you go-!" Kiba called, and Hana obligingly paused, though she didn't look happy to do so. "Was there a famous shinobi who used snakes?"
Hana stilled, slanting a glance at Hinata who met her gaze with wide eyes, knowing perfectly well who Kiba was talking about.
"Maybe." Hana hedged. "Why ask?"
"I caught Naruto yesterday an' he was sayin' something about how his team fought a 'crazy snake lady who turned out to be a dude' in the Forest. Apparently it's some big famous shinobi, but it could be Naruto just making shi- stuff up." Kiba explained, catching himself on the swear even though Hinata reckoned Hana was a bit too out of it to call him out.
"The Sannin Orochimaru used snake summons." Hana said carefully, each word measured, her tone not revealing anything, but Kiba didn't seem to notice, his eyes growing wide.
"The Sannin? One of the Legendary Three?" Kiba checked, looking shocked for a second before he scoffed. "Yeah, no, Naruto was definitely bullshitting."
Kiba's back was to Hana so he didn't see the silent sigh of relief she heaved at his dismissal, but Hinata had an uncomfortable realization as to what mission Hana had likely been coming back from the day before.
Hana was primarily a vet, yes, but she was also a med-nin and a tracker, and, as Hinata had discovered yesterday, ANBU. If any teams were being sent out to look for Orochimaru or to make sure he wasn't still in-Village, Hinata was unfortunately rather certain that Hana would be on them.
Unable to help herself, she mouthed 'be careful' to Hana when Kiba turned his attention back to his plate, and Hana nodded, tried for a smile, then let herself out of the house.
"It was Orochimaru, wasn't it?" Kiba asked suddenly, a frown twisting his mouth and the look in his eyes serious as he glanced at Hinata, and she startled even as she realized that he wasn't actually asking. "I swore in front of her twice and she didn't nag me about it."
In another context, Hinata might've laughed at Kiba's makeshift lie-detector, but as it was, she frowned right back at him.
"W-we can ask Kurenai-sensei." She offered quietly, and Kiba nodded, sighed, and stood up, grabbing the dishes to begin washing up. Hinata stood too, silently moving till she could stand beside him and grabbed a dishcloth. It was awkward, trying to dry the dishes one-handed, but she managed, and Kiba seemed too deep in thought to laugh at her for the ones she struggled with.
"I'm sorry, I d-don't know any more than you do." She lied, knowing that she wouldn't be able to reasonably explain anything she did know.
"It's okay." Kiba waved her off, frowning down at the pan he was scrubbing, and when he turned to look at her, the smile he shot her was smaller than his usual fanged grins, but no less genuine. "Thanks, Hinata."
But when they got to their training grounds, Kurenai didn't give them much time to ask questions, her eyes on Hinata's cast.
"What happened?" She demanded, fully aware that Hinata didn't have the injury the last time she'd seen her, less than twenty hours previous. "Hinata?"
"I-I-!" Hinata stuttered, startled by the intensity in Kurenai's eyes. "I f-fell."
The lie slipped out without conscious input, more out of habit than intent to deceive, and Kurenai's expression, if possible, became even more unhappy. Kiba muttered something and scattered, heading over to Shino's side at a pace that was just a touch too fast to be casual.
"We'll need to work on that." Kurenai muttered in response to Hinata's lie, her words sounding more like she was talking to herself than to Hinata. Then, she crossed the distance between them and came to a stop less than a meter away from Hinata. "Now, I'll ask one more time, so please think twice before you lie to me again."
Hinata made a sound in the back of her throat, but Kurenai didn't budge, nor did her serious glare shift into the more familiar kind gaze and warm smile.
"I'm asking not as your sensei, nor even as your friend, but as your commanding officer." Kurenai told her sharply, and Hinata straightened unconsciously, unable to look away from Kurenai's eyes. "What happened, Hinata?"
Hinata had a dojutsu that saw through illusions.
She'd also been getting pelted with genjutsu left and right and center almost every day for the last two months, so she knew it was not genjutsu that was responsible for what happened next, but Kurenai's sheer aura.
Fully aware of the fact that Kiba and Shino were right there, Hinata took a deep breath and-
-told Kurenai precisely what had happened.
When she'd finished, ending vaguely on Hana finding her and taking her to the Inuzuka Compound, Kurenai's face was flat and expressionless, her chakra cold.
"Alright. Thank you, Hinata." She managed, though it looked like she had to remind herself that her voice needed inflection half-way through. "Boys, on me! Change of plans. Keep up!"
And then she shot off, away from their training ground and into the trees, and Hinata had the time to exchange a bewildered glance with Kiba and Shino before they all hastened to do just that.
By the time they came to a stop, they were on the other side of the Village, Asuma, Shikamaru, and Chouji staring at them in bafflement as they burst in on what was clearly team training.
"Asuma, hi, sorry, I need you to sit on the kids for a few hours, I've got an errand to run." Kurenai greeted distractedly, but Hinata's gaze was on her right hand, which was flashing through signs she couldn't recognize, though Asuma seemed to, because he nodded almost before she was done speaking. "Kids, behave."
And then she was gone, leaving them with Asuma and his two students.
"Well, that was sudden." Asuma mused, drawing a snort from Shino, to all of their collective surprise.
"Ya both training for the exams?" Kiba asked Chouji and Shikamaru, appearing entirely unruffled by their sensei abandoning them as he ambled over to the other boys.
Shikamaru looked thoughtful and was apparently too slow answering the question, so Kiba turned his full attention to Chouji, who shook his head.
"Only Shikamaru. We've been helping him brainstorm." The Akimichi replied quietly, then offered his beef jerky to Kiba, who took some with a grin.
Hinata startled when she blinked and Shikamaru was suddenly right in front of her, very much in her space. It took her a second more to realise that Asuma was now holding her wrist, while her working hand was wrapped tight around something thin and metallic.
A senbon.
A senbon that was aimed at Shikamaru's throat.
"Oookay, there's a lesson here." Asuma said, trying to diffuse the situation while Hinata and Shikamaru both stared at each other, one shocked, the other disbelieving.
"Hinata, you're in the Village. You could stand to relax." Asuma said kindly, and Hinata shrunk back, chastised. But when he turned to Shikamaru, Asuma's voice was harder. "And you need to stop thinking that it's okay to startle shinobi just because they're your peers. Or prepare yourself for them to retaliate. Think, Shikamaru, you're meant to be good at that."
"Yeah." Shikamaru huffed, glancing at Hinata. "Sorry."
"L-likewise." Hinata managed, finally relaxing, which prompted Asuma to let go of her wrist.
To her – somewhat guilty – amusement, neither Kiba nor Shino looked away from Chouji, not appearing in the least surprised that she almost attacked Shikamaru.
Again.
"I need a favour." Shikamaru said after a beat, drawing her attention back to him. "My opponent for the final stage is Hyuuga Neji. You're a Hyuuga. Can you fight me?"
"Her arm is broken." Shino pointed out before Hinata had a chance to reply, proving that her teammates were not ignorant to her conversation with Shikamaru, merely choosing not to engage.
Still, it took her a while to string together a coherent reply seeing as her brain was stuck on the fact that Shikamaru was now fighting Neji instead of Temari.
How could she not have thought of this? With Team Eight not even participating, it made sense that the matchups would be different. This shouldn't be this shocking to her.
And yet.
"That's fine, I don't want an actual fight. I just need to see what works against Hyuuga." Shikamaru dismissed, turning back to her, clearly waiting for her answer.
Hinata licked her lips, scrambling for a reply, trying to think of what Kurenai or Yugao might do in this situation.
"What-" she cleared her throat, making herself meet Shikamaru's eyes, "What's in it for me?"
Off to the side, Asuma let out a startled, hastily smothered laugh.
Shikamaru blinked at her, then turned to shoot his sensei a look, but Asuma waved him off, so he turned back to her and frowned. "Well, what would you want?"
It was Hinata's turn to blink, because she didn't think he'd actually oblige her, and she paused. What did she want?
Her end goal was still taking over the Hyuuga Clan from her father as soon as she could. For that, she needed jounin rank. Another step, either before or after that, was abolishing the Caged Bird seal.
To get rid of the seal, she needed some more in-depth knowledge of sealing to know what she was even working with. Knowledge the Konoha library likely either didn't have, or kept locked behind rank-access that Hinata would have no chance of getting her hands on for at least a few more years.
And the Nara Clan-
"Your Clan has a library, d-doesn't it?" She asked quietly, and in her periphery, she noticed Asuma still, his earlier mirth gone.
"Yeah." Shikamaru confirmed, scrutinizing her. "It's mostly medicinal, but it's big enough to have a bit of everything. Why?"
"I'd like access to your Clan's library." Hinata explained, aiming for a smile. "Supervised is f-fine."
"Then you'll fight me?" Shikamaru checked, and when Hinata nodded, he frowned and held his hand out. "Done."
Baffled, Hinata slowly shook his hand, then twitched when Shikamaru tugged on her arm. "Now come on, fight me."
"I think this is the first time I've seen Shikamaru excited about sparring." Asuma mused off to the side, getting a hum of agreement from Chouji.
"Kick his ass, Hinata!" Kiba cheered from Chouji's other side, while Shino busied himself with stretching, apparently deciding that he'd still get in taijutsu practice even if Kurenai wasn't there to oversee.
"I don't, um, fight like most of my Clan." Hinata confessed once they stood opposite each other, both waiting for the other to make the first move, Hiashi's disdainful 'fight me like a Hyuuga' echoing in her mind.
"You're a Hyuuga." Shikamaru repeated. "That's good enough for me."
It probably wasn't meant to be as dismissive as it sounded, but it was too close to the tone he'd used in the hospital, and something in Hinata snapped, encouraged by the mean voice in her head that cooed prove him wrong.
So, once she decided that they were both ready, she palmed a kunai in her good hand, flash-stepped to just behind Shikamaru, kicked out at the back of his leg so he fell to one knee and pressed the tip of the kunai against the back of his neck.
If he tried to straighten up, her knife would sever his vertebrae, and she felt more than saw the moment Shikamaru realized that.
She didn't say anything, and for a second, everything was still.
Then, Kiba started laughing.
"Serves you right, you arrogant so-mmpf!"
Hinata didn't turn to look at who had cut Kiba off, but her bets were on Shino, if the way the corner of Shikamaru's lips twitched meanly was any indication. He turned his head slowly, but Hinata didn't remove her knife, letting it scrape along Shikamaru's skin until the tip stopped just over his carotid artery, the threat still very apparent.
"Message received." Shikamaru drawled, as close to an apology as she was likely to get. He looked at her from the corner of his eye, his expression unexpectedly serious. "Let me up?"
Wordlessly, Hinata pocketed her knife and stepped away, letting Shikamaru slowly get to his feet. She wasn't sure she liked the thoughtful gleam in his eyes.
"Can you fight me how Neji would?" Shikamaru asked then, still with that contemplative expression on his face. "With the- you know-" he mimed jabbing two-fingered strikes into odd places in the air before him, and Hinata felt her lip twitch even as she sighed.
"Neji-nii-san knows a lot of techniques I will never master." She said quietly, glancing away from Shikamaru at the wave of shame she couldn't quite fight back, absently noting the way he tensed as he registered the honorific. "He's a genius in Jyuuken, even on the backdrop of our Clan."
"But?" Shikamaru prompted, and Hinata's tiny smile turned a little melancholy as she glanced back at him.
"But he's proud." Hinata murmured, mind flashing back to Neji's quiet recount of his fight with Kidomaru, the first moment he realized that he will meet people he will not be able to best with close-combat alone. "Long-range combat is not his forte, nor is elemental ninjutsu."
"We're genin." Shikamaru pointed out, even as he considered her with wide eyes. "We're not supposed to know elemental manipulation yet."
Hinata just met his wide-eyed gaze with her own even one, feeling…not much of anything at all.
"Even so." She sighed, then walked back to the position she'd been in at the start of their 'spar'. "I can…try to fight you like he might, if you wish."
"That's all I ask." Shikamaru replied, something…warmer? in his eyes now, an answering tiny smile curling the corner of his lips. Hinata took a moment to appreciate how much the expression softened his face, making him look far more approachable.
Then, she blurred.
"Inoichi-senpai." Kurenai greeted as she came to a stop by the man, having caught him in the lobby of Intelligence just as he was likely about to leave for his lunch break.
"Yuuhi-chan." Inoichi replied, blinking slowly at her, the place where his pupils would otherwise be oddly dilated.
Definitely coming out of T&I, Kurenai mused, absently wondering whether they'd caught any of Orochimaru's associates.
"Can I help you?" Inoichi asked, not unkindly, even as he glanced at the clock to try and figure out how much of his lunch break the question was likely to cost him.
"Yes, actually." Kurenai smiled grimly, and Inoichi was suddenly consideringly more alert, eyeing her warily. "Whatever you, Shikaku-sama, and Chouza-sama are not-doing to get Hiashi in front of the Council of Clans, I need you to not-do it faster."
Inoichi glanced at her sharply, but Kurenai was fresh out of fucks to give to care about the wordless reprimand. Instead, she concentrated on the memory of Hinata telling the story of what had happened to her arm, grabbed Inoichi's wrist, and pulled his hand to her forehead, all-but glaring at him until he got the hint.
When Inoichi pulled away some minute and a half later, his expression was grim but resigned.
"It would be unwise to do anything while the current security situation is still ongoing." He told her frankly, and Kurenai could tell he was trying to infuse his words with as much warning and authority as possible.
And yeah, Orochimaru still apparently rampaging around the Village was not great, she knew that, but-
"It would also be unwise to stall to the point where I would have no choice but to do something myself." Kurenai replied, just as quietly, her words just as weighted. "Because I won't be as clean or subtle as the three of you."
"Don't be hasty, Yuuhi-chan." Inoichi chastised, glancing around subtly to see whether anyone was paying them any attention. "Think of your student."
Kurenai laughed, short and startled.
"Oh, something tells me Hinata would be right there beside me if I ever decided to take Hiashi on." She grinned at Inoichi, and she knew it wasn't a nice expression. "She's been spitting in the face of her Clan's tradition since I got her. Asuma called her a revolutionary before he even properly met her."
Inoichi studied her then, and Kurenai wondered what he saw.
"Be that as it may, I can't help you." He told her, his tone curt and final, but at the same time as he spoke those words, Kurenai heard his voice in her head; Have her sway the Branch House to her side. Inoichi maintained eye-contact and Kurenai fought hard not to twitch as he continued the dual-communication:
"Please excuse me now, I need to see my daughter. Be well, Yuuhi-chan." It'll minimize the fallout once Hiashi is out of the picture.
"Send my regards to Ino-chan." Kurenai wished, holding Inoichi's gaze as she nodded before she let the man walk past her. "I'll see you around, senpai."
She was about to head for Anko's office for an overdue catch-up before Inoichi's voice stopped her.
"Oh, Kurenai?" turning both at the sound of her name and the concerned tone it was said it, Kurenai glanced at him and was immediately on-guard when she noted that the concern in his voice had bled onto his face. "Check on Kakashi, if you could, and soon. I'd do so myself, but I really need to see Ino."
She was nodding before he even fully finished speaking, sending a quick apology to Anko for postponing their catch-up yet again. She couldn't think of many situations that would have put that expression on Inoichi's face, so she reckoned Kakashi deserved priority in that moment.
And to think, she only ditched her kids to give the Ino-Shika-Cho an encouraging kick in the rear, and now she had to play therapist to a man who could potentially level the Village if he felt so inclined.
Lovely.
Forty-five minutes later found Kurenai in a bar, sliding into the booth opposite Kakashi, the man slumped against the table, a host of bottles around him.
"Go 'way." He muttered, twitching a finger as if to flip her off, but not moving aside from that.
"No." Kurenai shot back, borrowing some of Kakashi's own trademark cheer to inject into her voice as she stretched her legs under the table and made herself comfortable.
Kakashi didn't often get like this, but when he did…it was never a quick process to get him out.
"Do you need a friend, or do you need Psych?" she asked evenly a few seconds later, when Kakashi didn't react outwardly to her refusal to leave him to his wallowing.
"I've needed Psych since I was four." Kakashi grumbled, shooting her the stink-eye when he noticed she was still there, and Kurenai barked a laugh.
"I'm not gonna argue with that." She admitted, sending Kakashi a sharp grin and making his eye narrow on her.
He grabbed another bottle, taking an obnoxious drink through the fabric of his mask, but Kurenai just watched him, knowing that, eventually-
"Do you have nothing better to do?" Kakashi grumped, his entire being radiating 'fuck-off' louder than if he'd shouted it from the Hokage Mountain.
"Let's see." Kurenai pretended to think, stretching out her hand between them to count on her fingers. "I got back from a mission yesterday, did my Psych check-up already, was meant to have training but had an errand to run and left my kids with Asuma, should probably do grocery shopping but we'll likely be away soon anyway so…" she put a finger down for every thing she listed, then grinned at Kakashi. "Hm, no."
"Did you know?" Kakashi asked after a beat, and he suddenly seemed far less drunk than he'd been pretending to be seconds previous. When Kurenai hummed, asking him wordlessly to explain, he elaborated. "That the Chunin Exams would be such a shitshow?"
Kurenai bit back a sigh. So that's what Kakashi's mood was about. She should've figured.
"Know? No. What I knew was that my kids almost didn't come back from their C-Rank." She told him flatly, almost bluntly, but this version of Kakashi wouldn't have taken a bullshit answer too well. "Shino's Clan jutsu almost ended up killing him, Kiba got his leg crushed in an Earth jutsu, and Hinata killed four Iwa chunin without so much as flinching then almost died from a punctured lung."
She waited until Kakashi nodded before she concluded, a weary sigh escaping her; "I wasn't about to put them into another combat situation like that without letting them make an informed choice. So I told them when the Exams would be happening, asked if they felt ready for them, and they said no."
"You make it sound so easy." Kakashi sighed, sounding just as weary as her all of a sudden as he hung his head. "Orochimaru was in the Forest of Death."
Kurenai didn't say anything – she'd heard the moment she stepped into the Jounin HQ the day before.
"He went after Sasuke. He wanted the Sharingan." Kakashi continued, his voice uncomfortably inflectionless. Despite herself, Kurenai frowned, because, well, that was rather obvious, wasn't it? "But Sasuke hadn't unlocked the Sharingan yet."
…oh.
"Really?" she asked, unable to quite bite her tongue. "Not even after the Massa-?"
"He thought it was a bad dream." Kakashi cut her off, and Kurenai subsided with a quiet 'oh'. "Hyuuga Hitomi told me the chakra pathways to his eyes were all but closed."
Kakashi's face twisted with a pained grimace, the expression perfectly clear despite his mask. "When Orochimaru found out – fuck if I know how he knew – he thought Sasuke needed a- a push."
Kurenai's heart dropped, having a rather unpleasant inkling, courtesy of Anko, as to what the Snake Sannin might have deemed a sufficient push towards unlocking the Sharingan.
Kakashi took a deep breath, visibly steadied himself, then met her gaze.
"My civilian student is currently in the hospital, all her major bones shattered. Turns out Orochimaru still knows the value of team bonds, because he was successful in reactivating Sasuke's Sharingan. Sakura just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong fucking time."
Kurenai very carefully monitored her reaction to the words to make sure she did not wince.
"As for Sasuke," Kakashi continued, his tone still that eerie blankness that made ANBU sound expressive, "when he failed to live up to expectation, Orochimaru broke both of his arms and called him a waste of space and a disgrace to the Uchiha Clan. Didn't even give him the Curse Mark, just. Left."
They sat in silence for a moment, then Kakashi affected his usual cheery tone, which, contrasted with how he'd been speaking before, only highlighted how fake the voice always was.
"So yeah, Sasuke is extra traumatized, Sakura may never be a ninja again, and Orochimaru destabilized Naruto's seal before he sent his snakes to eat him, but hey, Sasuke has the Sharingan!"
The eye-smile at the end made Kurenai want to grab Kakashi by the shoulders and shake, but she held herself back.
"So they flunked out after the second stage, right?" She checked, because Kakashi's account was horrific, but it didn't seem enough for the man to still be in this state almost a week later. Kakashi was twenty years of trauma on legs, and somehow functioning regardless; few things got him down that kept him down. "Your team didn't have the three members needed to compete in the combat part, right?"
Kakashi scoffed, his veneer of good humour melting away. "Sasuke is the Last Uchiha, and Naruto is Naruto. Rules didn't matter; they had both scrolls and Sarutobi cited extenuating circumstances. Of course they were allowed to compete in the preliminaries."
Kurenai felt white-hot rage slide down her spine, not just because the exception sounded more like a death sentence to Kakashi's genin by the man's account, but also at the blatant favouritism that the Village apparently wasn't even pretending to hide anymore.
She gave Kakashi another moment of silence, not pressing, just waiting for him to decide whether he wanted to tell her more or not.
"Sasuke lost to Rock Lee." Kakashi sighed eventually, his voice regaining some life, but Kurenai wasn't sure if that was for the better right then. "Gai's mini-me. The shinobi who can't use anything other than taijutsu, and Sasuke lost to him."
A part of Kurenai wanted to remind Kakashi not to shit on the shinobi who could 'only' do techniques from a certain category, but she refrained.
For now.
"And your third student?" she asked instead, noting how the Uzumaki had been left out of Kakashi's account apart from the brief mention about his seal.
"Naruto got through to the final stage, yeah." Kakashi confirmed, eyeing her absently. "He's facing the puppeteer who put Asuma's Yamanaka in the hospital."
"Ino?" Kurenai double-checked, racking her brain for any mention of the girl's condition in the gossip around the Village. Suddenly, Inoichi's almost frantic insistence to visit his daughter made sense, as did her absence from Asuma's training field. "What happened?"
"Oldest trick in the book." Kakashi explained. "Puppet made into the puppeteer's likeness, the puppeteer swapped places with the puppet at the start of the battle, kid tried to mind-possess the puppet, missed, puppet reeled her in and snapped her spine."
Kurenai took a second to absorb the implications of that, then-
"Fuck."
"Yeah." Kakashi sighed, and he luckily refrained from affecting the fake-cheer this time. "So I've got angry civilian parents calling me Friend-Killer again, smug Gai, and pissed off Elders breathing down my neck at failing to make sure their precious last Uchiha made it through to the exhibition round."
Kurenai winced openly this time, wanting nothing more than to drag Kakashi into a hug, but she wasn't sure she wouldn't end up with a knife between her ribs for her efforts.
There was a reason she knew how to deal with Hinata's trigger-happy startle reflex, after all.
She took a deep breath, then asked the question Kakashi had been skirting around ever since she'd sat opposite him, and, likely, since the third stage had ended.
"And you? How are you, Kakashi?" she checked, meeting his eye openly, trying to infuse as much 'you don't scare me and I'm not leaving' into her gaze as she could. "You look like you haven't slept in a week."
Kakashi shook his head then, expression wry, and she could tell even without words that she'd hit the nail on the head.
"Okay, come on, we're going." She decided, ushering Kakashi out of his seat, grabbing his arm when he wobbled. When he was sufficiently vertical, she firmed her hold on his arm and transported them to the doorstep of her apartment.
"Fuck." Kakashi cursed, stumbling to hold onto the doorframe, his glare petulant even as he took deep breaths through his nose. "Have care for my stomach. You ever vomited in a mask?"
"Gross." Kurenai shot back, wrinkling her nose as she pushed the door open and pulled Kakashi inside, kicking it shut behind them. "Come on, 'kashi."
She maneuvered them to her sofa, pushing Kakashi down on it as she rifled through her gifted poisons pack, pulling out a small, innocuous looking needle.
"What's this?" Kakashi asked roughly, eyeing first the needle then her uncertainly.
"Promotion present from Genma." Kurenai explained, holding the needle up for him to examine. "It's a sedative. Will put you to sleep for a solid ten hours."
She couldn't do much for his civilian student, the Uchiha was likely in Psych already, and Kakashi had probably dumped the Uzumaki on the first jounin he could find that owed him a favour. What she could do for Kakashi was also rather limited, but she could at least do something about the bone-deep weariness threaded through his posture.
She pretended not to see how much Kakashi's shoulders relaxed at the prospect of uninterrupted sleep, but knew that he wouldn't be Kakashi if he gave in that easily. "And if my students come looking for me?"
"I'll drop a note with Psych that in the unlikely event your Uchiha is discharged in the next twelve hours, he's to come to me." Kurenai assured him, already used to dealing with Kakashi's peculiar, if seldom-seen brand of anxiety. "And I'll find your Uzumaki student and tell him myself. Maybe even turn it into a tracking exercise for my kids. It'll be fun."
She grinned at Kakashi then, holding out the needle again, and he finally nodded, pulling up his sleeve and baring his wrist. Kurenai inserted the needle carefully, not quite as deftly as she'd seen Genma do it, but the man was Konoha's resident poison specialist for a reason.
"You're my favourite." Kakashi muttered drowsily as he settled deeper into the cushions, yanking off his headband and pulling his mask down, his eyes already drooping. "I owe you."
"Yeah, I want that in writing." Kurenai snorted, pulling the threadbare blanket from the foot of the sofa over him as much as she could, unable to resist the impulse to ruffle his hair. "Sleep, idiot."
She let herself out of her own apartment, circled by Psych to make good on her promise to Kakashi, then headed back to Asuma and her kids. She'd kept them waiting long enough, and she was looking forward to letting them loose on their unsuspecting peers.
Hinata wasn't expecting Kurenai to come back four hours after she'd left them, particularly not with an unofficial tracking mission in tow. Especially not for that mission to involve tracking Naruto.
"Okay!" Kiba clapped, visibly excited, calling Hinata and Shino to him while Team Ten watched bemusedly. "What do we know about the target?"
"Garishly orange." Was Shino's input, and it drew a startled snort from Kiba and even Hinata had to stifle a giggle. "What? A blind man could spot him."
"H-He's often at Ichiraku's." Was Hinata's contribution, because she was pretty sure that that part of Naruto's habits stayed the same even in this timeline.
"Or the Akasen." Kiba added, and Hinata shot him a baffled look. "What? Man doesn't wash his clothes nearly often enough. I can tell where he's been in the Village over the last week just by his tracksuit."
"So we start at Ichiraku's, and if we don't find a trail, the Akasen. Let's go." Shino decided, and then they were moving, almost too fast to catch Asuma's quiet 'your kids are scary' comment to Kurenai. Nor her quiet 'you haven't seen anything yet' in response.
Hinata didn't think she imagined the way both Kiba and Shino puffed up in pride at that.
When Shikamaru had envisioned how his day would go, he didn't think he'd get dragged onto Team Eight's impromptu Naruto-tracking mission, Chouji and their respective sensei in tow.
He also hadn't expected to look at Team Eight, how they moved around each other, filled in for each other, walked through the Village in a loose but clearly defined formation, and feel envy.
Why them and not us? He thought as he glanced at Asuma where the man was walking beside Team Eight's sensei, their hands at their sides and flickering through signs even as their mouths engaged in idle chatter, hiding secrets in plain sight. How did they become a team before us?
Watching Team Eight successfully locate Naruto half-way across the Village, watching Kiba rush up to the blond and bowl him over while Shino approached Naruto's temporary sensei, a bespectacled man Chouji seemed to vaguely recognize, and greet him with more warmth than Shikamaru has ever seen from the Aburame and a familiarity they should not have, Shikamaru wondered whether Asuma had made the right choice putting them through these Exams.
When Team Eight's sensei redirected their group to the Yamanaka flower shop, Naruto in tow after she gave the newly-named Ebisu the afternoon off, Shikamaru was baffled.
When they headed from the flower shop to the hospital and stepped into Ino's hospital room, things made even less sense. As he watched bemusedly as Shino carefully put the flowers in the empty vase on the bedside table and arranged them with gentle hands while Hinata filled the attached get-better-soon note with picture-perfect calligraphy, Shikamaru's body switched to auto-pilot.
When they repeated the process in Sakura's room, setting the vase with the bouquet Team Eight had encouraged Naruto to pick out on the windowsill, a somber atmosphere in the room as each of the three read the clipboard attached to Sakura's bed with a grief they should not understand much less feel, Shikamaru stopped thinking.
But the choice of ignorance was stolen from him during his fifth day of sparring with Hinata, this one on his Clan's grounds, with his dad of all people watching from the side.
His chest hurt from the sixteen tenketsu Hinata had blocked, her arm still in a sling, even if the cast had been removed, but he felt pride as he managed to stretch out his shadow without seals to catch her feet in it, stilling her movements.
Withstand then counterattack, had been the advice he'd read between the lines of Hinata's demonstration of the Hyuuga fighting style. She couldn't tell him flat-out what the techniques relied on, couldn't give him a scroll neatly explaining how to counter Hyuuga Jyuuken, but Shikamaru wasn't a genius for nothing.
His chakra control would never be medic-worthy, but he figured out how to manually unblock the main tenketsu after his third day of sparring with Hinata.
But what he hadn't expected was that the analysis of strengths and weaknesses would go both ways.
Which was how he hadn't even considered the possibility of feeling a jerk in his chakra core, before his shadow released Hinata and snapped right back to him, like a rubber band stretched too tight.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shikaku sit up straight, but Shikamaru's eyes were on Hinata and the thoughtful expression on her face as she contemplated her now free feet.
"How did you do that."
It was meant to be a question, but Shikamaru missed by a mile, his eyes wide as he stared at the girl before him, barely resisting the urge to send his dad a helpless look.
Hinata startled, glancing up at him in surprise, then seemed to realise just how disturbed Shikamaru and Shikaku were at her having apparently found a way to disrupt the Shadow Possession.
"I- uhm, well-" she hedged, clearly uncomfortable, before she squared her shoulders and started again, though Shikamaru had to strain to hear. "Your shadow is a conduit, right?"
Shikamaru blinked. It is?
"Shadow itself d-doesn't have chakra. It's not an element, so your technique h-has to be Yin Release." That, at least, sounded familiar. "But my shadow i-is not a part of me, only connected to me. So y-you'd have to, uhm, use it as a conduit to connect to my chakra network instead, and that's what stops my movement."
"You are correct." Shikaku confirmed, appearing at Shikamaru's shoulder, his gaze heavy as it set on Hinata, and her shoulders hunched a little more. "But that analysis still doesn't explain how you threw it off."
"The c-c-connection goes both ways." Hinata whispered, her gaze sliding past Shikamaru and Shikaku, off to the side, and she looked like she was preparing to- to get hit.
The realization seemed to dawn on Shikaku at the same time as it did Shikamaru, because he felt his dad's intense presence lessen slightly.
"A-any shock to my chakra is f-felt by Shikamaru's. Any shock to his disrupts t-the technique." Hinata finished, her voice a little stronger than before, but still barely above a whisper.
Shikaku stilled, then relaxed with a quiet sigh.
"Kurenai's student. Of course." He muttered, and he almost seemed amused when Shikamaru glanced at him. "You used a kai on him?"
Hinata nodded, visibly forcing herself to meet Shikamaru's gaze, but he could do little but continue to stare.
"Well, it's not the first time people figured out that loophole." Shikaku mused, watching Hinata carefully. "But I'll have to ask that you do not go around sharing what you just discovered for all and sundry, Hyuuga-chan."
For the first time since his dad appeared at Shikamaru's shoulder, Hinata looked miffed, and she suddenly met Shikaku's gaze head-on.
"W-With all due respect, Nara-sama," she began, and Shikamaru almost startled, not having expected the tone from the girl, "Shikamaru-san has comparably damaging information on my Clan's techniques. As long as he does not go around sharing what he now knows about its weaknesses, I promise to do the same. Otherwise," Hinata took a deep breath, squared her shoulders again, and tilted her chin up, "o-otherwise, this is insurance."
"…Alright." Shikaku agreed after a beat, and Shikamaru barely fought the reflex to glance at him in disbelief. "Message received. Let's head to the library now, hm? And Shikamaru, you better keep your mouth shut."
"Yeah." Shikamaru promised woodenly, still staring at Hinata, mind working overtime. "As long as you tell me whether the Hyuuga Clan has anything that can block chakra externally."
When Hinata's face crumpled a little and her aura told him that she likely regretted ever agreeing to help him, Shikamaru had his answer.
Kurenai's approximation of how much in-Village time they'd have turned out to be almost too accurate. Hinata's sling came off seven days since her injury, and on the eighth, they were in the Hokage's office, Kiba's hood clutched tightly in Kurenai's hand, a grim look on her face. Hinata noted that even Iruka looked solemn as the chunin next to him handed them the scroll with the mission details, and when Kurenai unfurled it, scanning it quickly, she paled.
"Are you sure this is correctly ranked?" Kurenai asked quietly, rolling the scroll back up and pinning the chunin with a flat, disbelieving look.
"Take it up with admin if you have a problem." The chunin drawled, glancing at Hinata's team boredly. "Mission requires trackers. You're it."
"No shit." Kurenai muttered under her breath, then inclined her head and led them all out of the mission room.
She didn't stop until they were on their training grounds, at which point she finally took a deep breath and released the tension that had lined her shoulders since she'd opened the scroll.
"Sensei?" Shino checked quietly, his voice worried to those who knew him well enough to hear the undercurrent of concern. "What's the mission?"
"We're tracking two chunin defectors. Ryūgen Yatogo and Bekkō." Kurenai told them curtly, frowning at the scroll. "They were last sighted near the border of Stone and Wind."
"Chunin?" Kiba repeated, wide-eyed, glancing from Hinata to Shino then back to Kurenai. "We're tracking chunin missing-nin?"
"Are we qualified?" Shino asked, and beyond the slight absurdity of Shino actually backing Kiba up, Hinata was more concerned by the obvious doubt in Shino's voice.
"Is this because of Orochimaru?" Kiba demanded, staring at Kurenai as if hoping she'd deny it.
Kurenai looked torn, and she glanced at Hinata briefly, as if checking whether Hinata had anything to say. Hinata shook her head and tried for a reassuring smile, though she wasn't sure how convincing it was.
Kurenai sighed and ran a hand down her face. "Fuck it." She muttered, then faced the three of them properly.
"Yes, Kiba, it is likely because of Orochimaru." She agreed, making Shino twitch. "We have a good track record and are a team uniquely built around tracking. I know it's daunting, but I have faith in you."
They stood there for a few seconds, absorbing that quiet declaration, then Kiba took a deep breath and slowly let it out, reaching out and plucking Akamaru off his head to hold the puppy in his arms.
"Alright." He breathed, hugging Akamaru closer to his chest, and Hinata shifted so she could press her shoulder against Kiba's in silent support, getting a weak smile in return. "What do we know about the target?"
"Not much, unfortunately." Kurenai winced, holding out the scroll for Shino to scan. "Psych didn't have anything on them that would suggest they would ever consider defecting. Both were career chunin, Bekkō was an Academy sensei who moved to Cryptography, while Yatogo worked in Archives. It's…unlikely that they got their hands on anything sensitive, but the Village prefers to be safe rather than sort with these sorts of situations, particularly after what happened with Mizuki."
"Is it a retrieval mission?" Hinata asked quietly, having read between the lines of what Kurenai was not saying. "Or- or d-disposal?"
Kiba froze next to her where their arms were still pressed together, and even Shino seemed tense.
Kurenai, however, just sighed.
"Retrieval is preferable." She admitted, looking grim. "But if it comes down to disposal, I will handle it, so don't worry, okay?"
Hinata took a moment to let the honesty behind Kurenai's words settle in her bones, then nodded. "Okay, sensei." She confirmed, surprised at how even her voice came out. "When do we leave?"
"Immediately, if possible." Kurenai replied, shooting her the tiniest of grateful smiles before she turned to the boys. "It's going to be about a week's journey since we'll have to go around Ame this time, and we don't know where exactly on the border they were sighted. Pack for at least three weeks and meet at the gates in half an hour. Go!"
Hinata didn't really remember the run back to her Compound, nor the packing process. She remembered slipping into Hanabi's room to leave her little sister a note with an explanation of where she would be and a small doodle, then sneaking out through the back window and over the wall of the Compound, not too keen on heading down the main courtyard.
By the time she arrived at the gates with five minutes to spare, Shino and Kiba were already there, both looking a little steadier than before.
"When I was in the Academy," Kiba muttered, absently petting Akamaru who was still clutched to his chest instead of on his usual perch on the top of Kiba's head, "I thought I'd be excited for out of the Village missions. I thought they were so cool."
"That makes sense." Shino nodded, clearly surprising Kiba. "Why? It's part of the indoctrination. If every pre-genin knew they might die on their first C-Rank, there wouldn't be any genin."
"It's still freakin' weird to hear you agree with me." Kiba remarked, looking at Shino with a rather bewildered expression, before it melted into a wry grin. "But thanks."
"It's not bad to be nervous." Hinata assured quietly, trying not to let her smile grow wry as she thought back to her first run at genin and how helpful that statement would've been for her genin self. "But we do have the most C-Ranks out of the R-Rookies, and are probably ahead of them in technical skills thanks to Genma-san, Ebisu-san, and Yugao-senpai's help. We can do it."
"I didn't know you had an optimistic bone in your body, Hinata." Kiba grinned, not as brightly as usual but clearly trying. "This is almost as weird as Shino saying I'm right."
"I didn't say you were right. I said your comment made sense." Shino corrected waspishly, drawing a snort from Kiba. "Besides, sensei said she has faith in us."
"Yeah." Kiba sighed explosively and lost some of the tension in his shoulders, his grip on Akamaru growing less white-knuckled. "Yeah, she did. We got this."
"Your confidence in me is touching." Kurenai remarked as she walked up to them, a small smile playing around her lips even as her eyes remained serious. She stepped into the place in the huddle they had unconsciously left for her and met each of their gazes squarely.
"If I can promise you anything," she began quietly, and Hinata wasn't the only one who hung on her every word, "is that I will do everything in my power to make sure we all come back here in one piece. Understood?"
When they all voiced their assent, Kurenai tightened the straps of her backpack and stepped out of their circle.
"Let's move!"
Two weeks to the day before the final stage of the Chunin Exams, Hinata glanced back at the Village as she ran out of the main gates, wondering what state she'd find it in upon her return.
Then, she pushed the thought back and fell into formation, trading glances with Kiba and Shino as she squared her shoulders.
For now, they had a job to do.