Their time to relax felt all too short for Hinata's tastes, and less than a day after passing the second stage, they were being herded into an arena to begin the third stage.
Combat. Of course it was combat. And of course Kumo would be displeased with almost a third of the participants making it through.
Sighing, Hinata tuned in to listen to the speech announcing the rules of the preliminaries, and quickly found herself paling at the sudden burst of Killing Intent that followed the Kumo official's words:
"To pass this stage and qualify for the final round, your team needs to earn thirty points." The official drawled, his unimpressed gaze sweeping over the gathered crowd. "You get three points for an outright win, two for making your opponent withdraw, one for a draw, and zero for a loss."
"What about those of us without teams?" someone called, drawing a few murmured words of support.
"Thirty. Points." The official repeated dryly, gaze finding the speaker with ease. "Guess you should warm up, Iwa-nin."
"They planned this from the beginning." Kiba muttered to her and Shino, his voice a mix of fear and awe, and Hinata found herself appreciating Kiba's newfound ability to be discreet.
"Yes." Shino agreed, his gaze not leaving the official, and Hinata thought she could detect a hint of unease in his voice. "It is far from an honourable tactic, but this once, it works in our favour."
"Yeah. I guess 10 wins between the three of us is doable." Kiba nodded, though the frown marring his brow didn't fade as he shivered. "I wouldn't even dream of trying to reach that by myself."
"If you lose or withdraw, you can fight again." The official calls, raising his voice over the chatter his announcement had inspired. "Only permanent incapacitation or death should prevent you from fighting another battle after a loss."
"What if there are no more opponents but we still don't have enough points?" someone else called, and the smile the official shot them was mean and full of teeth.
"You advance automatically."
Hinata stifled a shiver and focused on her team. "W-what's our strategy?"
"They don't seem to be interested in skill, just the result." Shino observed, voice thoughtful, drawing a snort from Kiba.
"So quick and efficient instead of flashy?" the brunet summarised, sighing dramatically. "You two are gonna own this round."
Quietly, Hinata reckoned that Kiba would be surprised at his own ability to be quick and efficient when pressed. Shino voiced her thoughts; "You've gotten better at efficiency recently."
"Did you just- did you just compliment me?" Kiba did a double-take, his shock almost comical, and Hinata raised a hand to cover her mouth to stifle her laugh. "Hinata, you heard that, right? He just praised me!"
"You're hearing things." Shino shot back, moving with the crowd to the side-lines to wait for their matches, prompting Kiba to squawk and chase after him to continue their bickering.
At least until Shino was called on to fight in the second match.
He won in three minutes, his opponent dropping to the floor, almost completely drained of chakra.
Then it was Hinata's turn.
Ao watched the only Konoha kunoichi walk over to the centre of the arena, his eyebrow flying up without conscious input at the comparison between the girl and her Hidden Stone opponent.
The Iwagakure kunoichi was kitted up in a way Ao would've expected to see were she headed to war, a sword looped through her belt, a fuuma shuriken on her back, and multiple pouches strapped to her thighs. The Konoha child, in contrast, barely seemed to have a single kunai pouch, her jacket the only protection from the elements and enemies alike.
Curiously, Ao noted that the girl's steps made no sound as she made her way to the designated starting spot, but her opponent didn't seem to notice or care.
"I'm goin' to grind ya to dust." the Iwa-nin sneered, baring her teeth and cracking her knuckles in a very poor display of intimidation tactics. The other kunoichi didn't deign the comment with a response. She could have been wearing a mask for all the emotion her face showed, her blue eyes almost unblinking as she stared at her opponent. "Oi, I'm talking to you, Leaf."
The referee called a start to the match just then, and the Iwa-nin didn't waste any time. With a grimace like she found the Leaf-nin to be worse than the scum on the sole of her shoe and a truly staggering waste of chakra that Ao felt even with his Byakugan off, she covered her hands and arms with a thick, unforgiving layer of jagged rock, apparently determined to keep her promise of reducing the Konoha-nin to dust.
And then, she made a mistake.
Whether as an opening move or as another intimidation tactic, she bent down to punch the ground, the force of the blow opening a small canyon between her and the Leaf-nin. And as she bent down, she dropped her gaze from her opponent to the ground.
Before Ao could even blink, the Konoha kunoichi was suddenly behind her opponent, having covered the twenty feet that separated her and the Iwa-nin in less than a second, needing neither hand-signs nor a technique name for the movement. While her Iwa opponent was straightening, having seemingly sensed something amiss, the Konoha-nin reached out and, viper-quick, pinched the back of the other girl's neck.
The Iwa-nin was falling forward, unconscious, before she even had a chance to fully straighten.
The Leaf-nin watched as her opponent smacked into the ground, the rock encasing her arms crumbling to pieces once the girl's grasp on her chakra slipped along with her consciousness, then turned to the referee.
"2 points to Team Eight of Konohagakure." the referee announced boredly, and the Leaf child nodded and took her leave, making her way back up the stairs to the Konoha contingent.
The whole fight hadn't even lasted a minute.
"That wasn't very sportsmanlike." Koushi-san commented when Hinata made her way to the Konoha sector, his words light but Hinata could hear the note of judgement in his voice.
She felt herself flush, not sure what to reply, suddenly questioning her decision to end the fight as quickly as she could, despite it being the strategy the three of them had agreed on. Before she could even think of what to reply, Kiba was suddenly next to her, swinging an arm around her shoulders and throwing a friendly grin at the man, though, by Hinata's standards, it had too many teeth to be genuine.
"I'm sorry, I think missed the memo where they were giving out points for outstanding moral fibre." Kiba shot back at the man, and Hinata could hear the defensiveness in his voice clear as day.
Defensiveness for her.
"Kiba." Kurenai called sharply, likely hearing the same, though she didn't move a muscle to pull Kiba away or do anything beyond shooting him a reproving glance.
Still, despite telling Kiba off, Kurenai also glared at the back of Koushi-san's head, clearly equally disapproving of the man's comment as Kiba himself was.
"Backing off, sensei." Kiba assured their teacher, pulling at Hinata until she started walking and leading them over towards where Shino stood, launching into an animated explanation of how cool he thought her fight had been.
It didn't escape Hinata's notice that Shino positioned himself between her and Koushi when they stopped beside him, nor that Kurenai shifted so she stood right behind them, watching their backs.
Suddenly, the less than friendly comment was the last thing on her mind, replaced instead with the almost overwhelming love she felt for her team.
Their next three matches were nothing out of the ordinary: Kiba won his first match, Shino drew his next one, both him and his opponent being chakra-absorbing types, and Hinata snuck another victory past a Suna-nin, copying Shikamaru's tactic from their first Chunin Exams and casting an area-effect genjutsu that made the boy run head-first into the wall.
Kiba's second match drew attention, less because of how it ended and more because of who it was against.
"You know the first thing I heard about you?" Kiba asked Kurotsuchi of Iwa, a girl Hinata vaguely recalled from the War as incredibly imposing and arrogant, though here, six years before Hinata originally met her, she was merely a girl. "Who your granddaddy is."
Kurotsuchi scowled and tried to pin Kiba once more, but he twisted out of her hold and blew more purple powder her way, forcing her to Shunshin a safe distance away and lose her opening once more. Throughout the match, Kurotsuchi had been pushing Kiba's defenses, pressing his buttons with her words and obvious targeting of Akamaru, but Kiba – much to Hinata's surprise – had yet to lose his temper.
"The problem with that, for you, is that you're already someone, because of whose granddaughter you are. And you know the problem with people who think they're somebody, even when it's not deserved?" that was surprising, too, the stream of near-constant, idle chatter that Kiba kept up, his tone not changing despite Kurotsuchi's progressively more acidic words. "They assume that everybody else is a nobody."
Three things happened in quick succession: Kiba threw something at Akamaru, then launched himself into the Human Bullet, forcing Kurotsuchi to relocate once more, though not before making the ground around Akamaru erupt in sharp Earth Spikes. Kiba landed, threw something else into Akamaru's now human hands, and threw himself into the Bullet once more, twisting in such a way that forced Kurotsuchi closer to Akamaru than she had been before, though the kunoichi kept her back turned to the transformed ninken, her attention solely on her human opponent.
Kiba landed on all fours, out of breath but with a nigh-feral grin on his face, at the same time as Akamaru snuck up behind Kurotsuchi and stabbed a syringe into her neck.
Kurotsuchi's hand flew to her neck and she struck out towards Akamaru, but she stumbled mid-motion, giving the nindog the time to create distance between them and transform back into his dog-form.
"Sweet dreams." Kiba wished cheerfully, waving mockingly as Kurotsuchi stumbled once more, then her legs folded under her and she hit the ground, unconscious.
"Three points to Team Eight of Konohagakure." The proctor drawled.
Hinata's third fight was the moment she realised her team wasn't the only one somewhat 'overqualified' for the Exams.
Her opponent – Haku of the Mist – seemed to be about as happy as she was to be forced to fight. Though he looked feminine - Hinata heard more than a few quiet jeers about her and Haku's respective appearance – his features soft, his hair long and well-kept, his outfit intended to obfuscate his gender, there was an expression in his eyes that told Hinata that Haku's perceived softness was about as indicative of his ability on the battlefield as her own shyness.
Yet, when the proctor said 'go', both of their opening attacks were senbon.
When it became clear that long-distance attacks wouldn't get them far, Hinata allowed herself to be drawn into close-combat, but instead of brute force, Haku met her modified Jyuuken with a bout of pinpoint strikes aimed at key organs and pressure points.
They clashed, and Hinata lost track of time in between trying to dodge Haku's blows and not out herself as a Jyuuken user. By the time she tired enough slowed down so much that she needed to Shunshin to get out of Haku's range, she was panting, sweat dripping down her face, her lungs burning.
It was only mildly comforting that Haku's right arm was hanging limp, Hinata having managed to tap the nerve in his shoulder to numb it, because the teen seemed unperturbed by their fight, his breathing barely elevated.
Seeing the distance Hinata had put between them, Haku made as if to cover it and press his advantage, so Hinata threw her nastiest genjutsu at the boy, needing to buy herself some time to recover.
He stilled, his face losing the little colour it had had, and Hinata tried to take deep breaths and quell the shaking in her hands.
When fighting, she had always been able to either win the element of surprise, or been so completely outclassed that the fight had only been about survival.
She had never been so evenly matched.
She felt the moment Haku broke through the last layer of her illusion, but even if she hadn't felt it, she wouldn't have been able to miss the change in his disposition.
"I'm sorry." The boy muttered, the words almost drowned out by the din of the voices of the other contestants, but Hinata heard him. A few seconds later, she understood precisely what the boy was apologising for, when a thick mist enveloped the arena, and ice mirrors emerged seemingly from within the mist, trapping her in their circle.
A moment later, Haku appeared on the surface of every mirror, his visage surrounding her, and this time, Hinata heard his murmured apology clearly.
It didn't stop her from feeling the pain of two senbon needles suddenly embedding themselves in her shoulder, but she felt somewhat comforted by the fact that she couldn't sense a shred of malicious intent from her opponent.
This was just a fight.
Hinata could forfeit, and her opponent would let her.
But she didn't want to disappoint her teammates.
She dodged two needles, but one still hit her, and she felt her left shoulder go uncomfortably numb. She flashed, one-handed, through the signs for the simplest Fire jutsu she'd picked up from Kakashi, but the heat from the fire didn't even cause the mirror to steam up, much less melt.
She ran through more seals, twisting so Haku's senbon hit her already-numb arm, determined to leave herself at least one functioning hand for jutsu usage, and sent an Earth spike at the mirror to her right.
The mirror shattered, but before she could run through the sudden gap, another was created in its place, caging her in once more.
Hinata set her jaw and went to Shunshin, but the moment she would have crossed the barrier of the mirrors, hands grabbed her bodily by the shoulders and nigh-threw her back into the centre, the sudden stop to the Shunshin-motion leaving her dizzy and disoriented.
She flared her chakra while she tried to gather herself, uncertain of how Haku was accomplishing his feat of being in all the mirrors at once, but no genjutsu broke before her eyes.
More senbon dug into her skin, a punishment for every second she spent contemplating her next steps, but the pain from them barely registered beyond the growing numbness, caused by both, the nerves Haku was managing to hit with frankly staggering accuracy, and the speed at which he must have been moving to create the illusion of being everywhere at once.
Hinata chanced a look at the mist – even she could barely see through it enough to see Haku's reflections; she was almost certain that her figure was nigh-invisible to the spectators.
But was being almost certain enough?
She took a deep breath, giving herself a moment to absorb the decision she'd reached: that it would have to be.
With the exhale, she threw caution to the wind and activated her Byakugan.
Tracking Haku now was still far from easy, his chakra signature moving from mirror to mirror fast enough that it seemed to smudge, but Hinata could be patient.
Because Haku, even moving as quickly as he was, had a visible pattern.
Hinata concentrated instead on dodging as many needles as she could, all the while dedicating most of her attention to tracking and analysing Haku's movement.
And then, when her right arm was hanging limp, more needles than she could count protruded from her body, and she was forced to keep most of her weight on her right leg, her left long since numb, she found it.
There was one technique she could use, but it would be a gamble. The Twin Lion Fists was not a technique she used lightly, had only ever used it in life-or-death situations, but she needed to end this in one hit, because that was all she had left in her. If she let Haku drag out the match any more, she would be mostly useless for any matches after this one, and she couldn't risk being the reason her team failed.
She called the chakra to her left hand, let the lion form around her fist and forearm, and flash-stepped to the next mirror Haku was heading to.
Her strike caught him mid-motion, his body half in the mirror, half out, and Hinata felt her technique connect, felt it suck most of the chakra out of Haku's coils and recycle it, felt the strength of the hit knock the breath out of Haku's lungs as he was sent flying, his body hitting the concrete with a wet thud, the momentum making him roll a few more metres before he finally stopped.
Hinata let her technique go and deactivated her dojutsu seconds before the mist began to dissipate and the ice mirrors began to melt, remembering where she was with a start.
She stepped through the gap between the dripping mirrors and slowly made her way over to Haku's sprawled form, feeling a wave of guilt wash over her at the smear of blood left on the floor from where Haku had impacted the ground.
"Do you forfeit?" she asked quietly, meeting Haku's dazed eyes evenly even though her legs were shaking, adrenaline wearing off and making her register the pain that came with still having dozens of needles in her body.
"Kill me." Haku replied instead, his voice barely a whisper, an expression of complete devastation twisting his face, and Hinata felt her heart break at the plea. "I have failed. Kill me, please."
Hinata stared at the boy, feeling beyond horrified. Then, she hung her head, feeling a rarely-felt anger rise within her, and sent a mental apology to Kiba and Shino.
"I will not." She whispered, meeting Haku's gaze briefly, her own expression resolute in the face of his pleading one, then turned to the proctor. "Declare a draw, please." She requested, ignoring the jeers and whispers that broke out in the stands. "Neither I nor my opponent are capable of continuing."
The proctor eyed her briefly, disdain curling his lip, an expression he didn't even attempt to hide, before he nodded archly. "The match between Hinata of the Leaf and Haku of the Mist ends in a draw. Both teams shall be awarded one point."
Hinata felt a tension she hadn't realised had been weighing her down finally release and she sighed, then promptly lost whatever strength remained in her legs. She would've crashed into the ground right next to Haku if Kurenai hadn't suddenly materialised beside her, catching her in a way reminiscent of Hinata's first Chunin Exams and her fight against Neji, and Hinata had a moment to be grateful for this second chance at life, even if she still was no closer to understanding how it had come to be.
Then, she let herself slump into Kurenai and be carried back to her team. She allowed Kiba to fuss over her and pluck out the remaining needles from her body, let their lecture wash over her, her brain not registering the words, focusing instead on drawing comfort from the sounds, the familiar cadence of her friends' voices, the simple fact of being cared for.
When her next match was called, almost an hour after her fight with Haku, Hinata felt a bit more awake. Not awake enough to fight, though, so she almost didn't feel guilty for burying her Suna opponent in genjutsu until Hinata could walk up to her leisurely and pinch the back of her neck, ending the fight within a minute when the girl dropped to the ground at her feet.
When she walked back up to her team, Koushi-san's offhand comment about Kurenai raising a wetworks squad almost didn't make her flinch.
Almost.
After they were dismissed from the arena, Hinata wanted nothing more than to hide away from the world for a bit after the stress of the preliminaries. On the first day of their fortnight to prepare for the final round, she stayed at the apartment, resting and catching up on lost sleep when Kiba and Shino went out to train. On the second, when the boys took their rest day, she excused herself after dinner and headed for the steep staircase she'd seen hidden in the rocky cliff, hoping to find solitude at the top.
The long climb quietened her mind, the burn in her legs during the steep, endless stairs grounding her in the moment, the stabbing pain in her lungs for once nothing to do with anxiety or injury but simple physical exertion.
Once she reached the top, the stunning view of the rocky mountains of Kumo and the setting sun glinting off of the glass and metal that the Village was built of rendered her breathless for an entirely different reason.
She sat near the edge of the tallest cliff, close to one of the few puddles that still remained after the thunderstorm of the first night, the barest hint of chakra sticking her to the rock. The puddle wasn't anything close to the river that ran through Konoha that she'd meditated by so many times, but it was enough. Extending her chakra and dipping it into the still water beside her, Hinata released the tension she'd been holding and settled into her meditation.
She didn't know how much time passed before she sensed movement nearby, a startled sound accompanying a pulse of chakra as whoever had invaded her peace steadied themselves, but Hinata didn't pause to think. She drew on the chakra she still had spread across the surface of the puddle, the water obeying her easily as she stretched it into the shape of a needle and launched it in the direction of the newcomer.
She opened her eyes only after she released the needle and was surprised to note her opponent from the preliminaries, Haku, with a palm-sized ice mirror at the height of his throat, Hinata's water needle reduced to droplets against the reflexive surface.
(she ignored the realisation that, had he been one of her teammates or Academy peers, Haku would've likely already been dead)
"My apologies." She managed, finally withdrawing her chakra from the puddle and only belatedly realising how cold it had gotten in the time she'd been meditating. "You startled me."
"It is my fault." Haku replied quietly, dropping control of his technique so it, too, turned into harmless water that splattered against the rock. "I apologise for disturbing you."
"It's alright." Hinata murmured, studying Haku and finding the boy studying her right back. "It's a public space."
"Yet one that we both seem to have sought out to be alone." Haku shot back with a small, wryly amused smile, and Hinata gave a light shrug.
"I wouldn't mind your presence, Haku-san." She offered, drawing a surprised look from the Mist-nin, before he smiled, the expression a touch warmer than before.
"Thank you, Hinata-san." And so saying, the boy walked over, telegraphing his movements all the while, and settled a few metres to Hinata's left, brown eyes sliding closed in a startling show of trust.
Not able to detect any ill-will from the teen beside her, Hinata slowly did the same, stretching her chakra over the puddle once more and falling back into her meditation.
"Hinata-san?" Haku called some time later, his voice quiet and soft, allowing Hinata to ignore its call if she so wished. Hinata blinked back to full awareness slowly, gently, finding her way back to her body with none of the alarm of earlier. "May I ask you something?"
She nodded, not seeing the harm, yet nothing could have prepared her for Haku's next words: "Why didn't you kill me?"
Hinata's heart stilled for a beat, then broke. The Mist-nin next to her sounded genuinely confused.
Taking a breath to steady herself, Hinata gave the only answer that came to mind: the truth. "The three points for the victory were not worth your life."
"I am a tool." Haku shot back, his frown only deepening. "If I can be defeated so easily, then I am of no use to my master."
Hinata took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. She tried not to think of Neji, but the comparison was almost inescapable. "Your life has value beyond your use to somebody else, Haku-san."
"In your Village, that may be so. In mine, all that I am is thanks to Zabuza-san." Haku replied, and his voice sounded tired and resigned, like he was stating a fact. "If I cannot be of use to him, then my life is of no use to the Village."
Hinata took a deep breath again, fighting against the anger that threatened to rise within her. Raging at the Village system would be an exercise in frustration, and raging at a foreign Village for weighing the value of human life in regard to its usefulness would be hypocritical, considering that Konoha was far from perfect.
Another breath.
"Are you happy?" she asked instead.
"Excuse me?" It was Haku's turn to blink, visibly startled by the question, and he looked lost to Hinata's eyes, like he wasn't certain how to reply. But when Hinata refused to take it back, he frowned, expression thoughtful. "...It's all I've ever known. Serving Zabuza-san saved me from the streets and bloodline purges. I was happy for the opportunity to live."
"Zabuza...Momochi Zabuza?" Hinata checked, recognition sparkling in the back of her mind, though she'd only ever heard of the man as a sidenote.
"Yes." Haku acknowledged, something surprisingly soft in his eyes considering who he was talking about. "The Godaime Mizukage withdrew her predecessor's kill-on-sight orders. With Gato's money, Zabuza-san got back his Village and his jounin rank."
"And you were allowed to follow him?" When Haku nodded, Hinata tried for something resembling a smile. "Then I believe that your life has more worth than you think. If you have grown up with and were of use to a jounin as notorious as Momoichi-san, I think your Village would value your skill as a shinobi, too, not just a tool."
Haku frowned then, an expression Hinata was intimately familiar with flashing through his eyes. "A shinobi who couldn't even pass the Chunin Exams is not a shinobi."
Hinata smiled sadly at the edge of self-loathing in the other boy's words, more than familiar with the feeling, but- there was something else she needed to point out. "You could've continued the preliminaries beyond our fight."
"Not if I didn't want to unequivocally out myself as a Yuki." Haku denied, and Hinata could tell there was something significant in the name he listed, but she didn't know what it was. Haku, apparently seeing her incomprehension, elaborated, that loathing turned outwards now. "Before the Purges, back during the Third War, Kumo had hunted my Clan."
Hinata felt a flash of white-hot rage pass through her at the news and decided to take a gamble.
"I am...familiar with that." She confessed, raising a hand slowly, telegraphing her movements all the while, a part of her wondering if she wasn't making a mistake.
She squashed it, not sensing any ill-will from the boy beside her, and took out her contact lens, ignoring the tremble in her hand.
Haku's startled intake of breath told her that, unlike her, he recognised the significance of what she was showing him, which was confirmed by his quiet murmur of '...Hyuuga'.
"Yes." She confirmed, carefully putting her contact lens back in and blinking at the discomfort of the action. "Kumo diplomats tried to kidnap me when I was a child. The Byakugan is...venerated here."
"That was how you located me." Haku breathed, the light of a sudden epiphany in his eyes. "During our match."
"Yes." Hinata confirmed, not seeing much point in lying. "Your mist masked your movements, but my dojutsu could see through it." She smiled wryly, reflecting back on what she'd been thinking during the match. "Our skillsets were...unfortunately matched."
Haku studied her for a beat, expression unreadable.
"You don't fight like the Hyuuga I have fought before." He observed, frowning thoughtfully now, and Hinata repressed a wince. Haku seemed to notice it anyway, because he elaborated, a tiny smile pulling at his lips. "It is not a bad thing. Your style reminds me of Silent Kill, in a way. And I think it speaks to your worth that you are formidable even without your Clan's signature technique. And far kinder."
"Thank you, Haku-san." Hinata managed, swallowing past the lump in her throat. In her experience, when people accused her of not fighting like a Hyuuga, it was rare that anything positive followed.
"You do not think it an insult." Haku mused, staring at her with wonder and no small amount of disbelief. At Hinata's confused blink, he elaborated. "That I call you kind."
Hinata sighed, wondering how to phrase her reply in a way that did justice to her complicated feelings on the matter and also didn't bare her soul to a boy who was still, despite his unexpected kindness, a stranger from another Village.
"I don't think kindness is synonymous with weakness." She explained at last, her voice coming out softer than she would've liked. "I would much rather be kind than cruel."
"We're shinobi." Haku pointed out, a weight behind the title as if he was parroting something that had been said to him.
"Yes." Hinata agreed again, because that was unlikely to change for either of them anytime soon. "But I still think cruelty is a choice."
Haku hummed then, not deigning her claim with a verbal response.
For a moment, it was silent between them, and Hinata almost thought that the conversation was over. But Haku surprised her when he spoke again, his eyes on the sprawling Village below them, his voice subdued, like a confession.
"I don't enjoy killing. I do it when Zabuza-san needs me to, and I don't complain, but...I don't like it." He whispered, and Hinata wondered whether that was the first time he allowed himself to voice these thoughts. "I was told, repeatedly, that it's a failing of mine."
Hinata felt another wave of anger wash over her, no less potent despite Haku barely qualifying as an acquaintance.
She was more than familiar with those people.
"Is that why you use senbon?" she asked instead of pressing the subject, striving to keep her anger out of her voice lest Haku think it was directed at him, and absently wondering whether this was another similarity in their fighting styles they were unearthing.
"Is that why you use them?" Haku shot back, clearly thinking along similar lines, and Hinata barely caught the huff that threatened to escape her.
"Yes. In part." She admitted, gazing out over the Village to avoid Haku's knowing gaze. "My Clan's fighting style means that I can stop a heart with a single touch and permanently destroy somebody's chakra network with another. I don't…always want to fight like that."
"If I wished to, I could freeze my enemies' blood right in their veins." Haku disclosed, and Hinata felt a shiver go down her spine at the admission, at the power it hinted at and the hollow tone it was said in. "I...rarely wish to."
They sat there like that for a few seconds, the words settling around them, their mutual admissions of what many would perceive as weakness simultaneously weighing them down and feeling like absolution.
"I don't think that's a failing." Hinata breathed after some time, ripping her eyes away from the quickly falling night to gaze at the Kiri-nin.
"Yes. I am beginning to realise that." Haku replied with a small, pleased smile, the lights of the Village reflected in his dark eyes. "I've never…been understood like this." He admitted quietly, something complicated flickering across his face. "I would like to help you. Your opponent in the finals is...vicious. She has something of a reputation, and she will not hesitate to kill you, particularly after her defeat at your teammate's hands."
Hinata frowned, shifting so she could face Haku properly, not sure what he meant.
"What are you offering?" she asked after a beat, when no further explanation seemed forthcoming from the teen.
"Help. In whatever form you'd like." He explained, no deception in his countenance, and Hinata just stared at him for a moment, processing the offer.
Koushi-san's words about her team becoming a wetworks squad were still fresh in her mind, especially the fact that the man had used her fight as his example.
She'd always lacked presence, first due to her shyness, then because it was easier to hang back and observe, to let Kiba and Shino dig and provoke reactions then come to her for a summary of what she'd managed to gleam from the interaction. She'd learned to walk soundlessly in ANBU, after the war, Tetsuya taking great care in teaching her to stifle her presence to blend in with her surroundings for guard duty and regulate her breathing to not draw attention, teasingly calling her their team's little ghost girl when she eventually learned well enough to sneak up on him.
But she'd never thought about combining all those elements into a fighting style. At least, not until Haku's offhand comment that her method reminded him of Silent Kill.
Putting all those parts together, her response seemed obvious.
"I'd like to disappear."
Kurenai rarely found herself blindsided.
As a genjutsu mistress, her specialisation required so much attention to detail that few things slipped past her notice even when off-duty. Most of her friends were also fantastic – and paranoid – shinobi, so even if she didn't catch something, someone in her close circle was bound to.
Unfortunately, this time, her friends were likely to be just as blinded to reality as her.
She had expected for her team to make it through the preliminaries, so she didn't spend much time reflecting on the manner in which they had qualified.
Instead, her first hint to something being amiss came in the final stage. It began with Shino decimating his Kiri opponent with a mix of his kikaichu and Fire-release, forcing the Hozuki to keep liquifying lest the insects drain him of his chakra. When the Kiri-nin started to show signs of fatigue, resorting to physically dodging rather than liquifying, Shino brought out his rinkaichu and closed in with the sort of ruthless taijutsu Kurenai had only ever seen Ebisu employ.
The poisonous, flesh-eating insects tore through the flesh of the Kiri-nin's left shoulder and upper arm – his sword-arm – before the Hozuki saw sense and forfeited with a curse.
Her second hint came when Kiba managed to keep pace for over ten minutes with a twenty-something Suna puppet mistress with a worrying penchant for poison. When the kunoichi finally got the drop on him, boasting of how he only had minutes before her poison took effect, Kiba sent a transformed Akamaru to keep the kunoichi busy while he crafted an antidote in the middle of the arena floor and chugged it the moment it was finished, not a shred of hesitation to his movements. Then, he'd thrown himself into the Human Bullet technique, thoroughly destroyed the kunoichi's puppet, and proceeded to forfeit, though not before throwing up all over the shredded remains of the weapon that had seen the Suna-nin coast through the preliminaries.
Despite Kiba's loss, Kurenai doubted that anyone saw the Suna kunoichi as the winner of that match.
Her third hint came when Hinata faced the Tsuchikage's granddaughter, a kunoichi rumoured to possess the venerated Lava Release and vicious enough that she'd secured a position in the Bingo Books of her own merits at thirteen years old. And Kurenai's own kunoichi student didn't flinch when Kurotsuchi taunted her, or when the earth of the whole arena split into jagged spikes and she had to take to the air, or when her opponent blew a wave of fire at her while she was still in mid-air. Instead, Kurenai watched as Hinata crafted a wall of water from the remnants of the Hozuki's jutsu that hadn't yet soaked into the stone, which, when the techniques collided, shrouded the arena in mist.
Only the mist didn't disperse when the Iwa-nin called out a Wind jutsu.
It didn't even budge.
Instead, Hinata used what must have been Hidden in the Mist, and, when she finally dropped the jutsu, Kurotsuchi lay at her feet, unconscious, three senbon in the side of her neck, leaving little doubt in the minds of the spectators that a Konoha genin had just taken out the Tsuchikage's granddaughter using Kirigakure's Silent Kill.
Her fourth hint came with the realisation that none of the genin her team had faced in the final round were weak genin. In fact, she was pretty sure all three would've already been chunin-ranked in Konoha.
Yet her kids were still, somehow, unconceivably, better.
Kurenai remembered what she'd told them before they'd left for Kumo, that they were a little 'too skilled' for genin. She'd meant it purely in respect to their technical skills, a comment on the superiority over their peers that came from training regularly with jounin and getting assigned missions that jumped a rank more often than not.
What she'd failed to consider was just which jounin she'd exposed her kids to. And what sort of side-effects the missions they'd been assigned would have on their mentality.
She'd forgotten that, while Ebisu, for all that he, much like her, had steered clear of the shadow ranks, had also grown up navigating Gai's physicality and Genma's cunning. And while she'd hoped that he would gel well with Shino when she'd introduced them, she hadn't realised how much of Ebisu's particular brand of practical ruthlessness her student would end up absorbing through that acquaintance.
Similarly, while Yugao and Genma were strong jounin, they were also ANBU. And ANBU, as Kurenai had long since found out but had forgotten when introducing her kids to her friends, came with a certain mentality that those in the shadow ranks struggled to shake off even when not donning the mask.
(As was Kakashi, but Kurenai wasn't quite ready to acknowledge whatever teaching Hinata had been receiving from her friend. Hinata's style being similar to Kakashi's was supposed to be a joke, something cute, something to maybe tease the man with. It was never supposed to be something that Kurenai would grow to worry about.)
But she couldn't deny that her kids, while undeniably hers in their sensitivity to genjutsu and preference for quick, short fights, were also reflections of her friends:
Shino not hesitating to use his rinkaichu against a peer while demonstrating a solid grounding in all gen, tai, and ninjutsu was a testament to Ebisu's influence.
Kiba's practicality on the field when crafting an antidote mid-fight, combined with his subsequent tactical retreat but only after rendering his opponent's weapon all-but useless had Genma's signature cunning all over it.
Hinata's use of mist to hide her dojutsu and win against the tournament favourite in under two minutes, all without revealing anything more about herself than a basic proficiency with Water Release and Silent Kill, reeked of Yugao's vicious practicality.
And Kurenai in the middle of it all, wondering how she'd forgotten that she'd had her kids for a year. How she'd forgotten that they weren't green graduates anymore, that it was inevitable that they'd grow. She just hadn't expected for them to grow right out of the 'bumbling genin' stage and straight into 'shinobi' within the year that she'd had them.
Looking at them now, standing shoulder to shoulder as they watched the last match of the final stage, quiet satisfaction and self-assuredness radiating from all three, Kurenai vowed to step up her own training when they got back to Konoha.
Her team's chunin promotion was inevitable at this point, and, if anything, this exam had proven was that her kids might be able to take up Team Seven's combat squad designation alongside their original tracking specialisation, but Kurenai wasn't about to let them go without a fight.
She was their sensei. They were hers, the little possessive voice in her mind hissed, the product of her blood, sweat, and tears. Hers to look after and protect until she had no strength left in her, and she wasn't going to let them go out into the world alone.
(Stifling a sigh, yet unable to fight the proud, vicious smile that quirked her lip as she walked over to stand beside Shino, she wondered whether Anko and Ibiki would be up for a repeat of bootcamp when she got home.)
Tsunade stared at the group in front of her, bemused.
She'd received the write-up of the kids' fights from the two accompanying jounin, but looking at them now, she struggled to marry the vicious practicality of the shinobi within the report with the quietly expectant children standing before her desk.
"So," she hedged, glancing between the three, studying their reactions intently, "do you think you deserve the promotion?"
Instead of the outburst she expected, or the enthusiastic retelling of their many successes that stared back at her from their files, the three genin remained silent, exchanging looks, before the Aburame spoke.
"We qualify for it." The Aburame replied, voice quiet and even and inflectionless. "But merit is…subjective. It is, ultimately, your decision, Hokage-sama."
Tsunade blinked, shooting an incredulous look at Yuhi, but the woman just smiled fondly at the back of her student's head, not seeming in the least surprised.
"That's not what I asked, kid." Tsunade shot back, earning a single, one shouldered shrug at the words from the Aburame. "What if I decided to keep you as genin, hm? How would you feel?"
"I wouldn't mind." The Inuzuka grinned, picking up from his teammate with another shrug, hands in his pockets and his nindog at his feet. "I like my team."
"And you, Hyuuga?" Tsunade pressed, turning to the thus-far silent kunoichi. "Anything to add?"
"I agree with my teammates." The girl replied, her voice even quieter than the Aburame's, but stronger, bolder. "But…regardless of merit, I think that the Village stands to benefit from our potential promotions."
Tsuande paused, momentarily stumped, then shot a sharper glance at Yuhi, but the woman met her gaze evenly, once more completely unsurprised at the sheer ballsiness of her students.
"Bold claim." Tsunade managed, making a show of pushing the reports and files around her desk as she processed the kid's observation.
Hearing about the steel trap of a political mind hiding behind the quiet mien from Jiraiya and Shikaku had been one thing. Having the girl pinpoint the reason why Tsunade was even considering promoting any of their graduating class despite her distaste of child soldiers, however, was another entirely.
"But you're not wrong." She admitted at last, and, as if she'd been waiting for the cue, Shizune disappeared to the next room for a moment and came back with three chunin vests in her arms, coming to stand by Tsunade's desk and offering Team Eight an encouraging smile.
"Team Eight, comprising Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Hinata, and Inuzuka Kiba, under the tutelage of Yuhi Kurenai." Tsunade read out, getting to her feet and planting her hands on her desk, taking in each of the brats with an assessing look.
While the Inuzuka was visibly excited, the leg his nindog was not leaning on bouncing anxiously where he stood, the other two met Tsunade's gaze, calm as could be, and waited patiently.
Snorting, Tsunade grabbed the official scroll and lobbed it at Yuhi, then gestured for Shizune to hand the kids their flak jackets. "I hereby applaud your impressive performances at the Kumogakure Exams and award each of you the rank of chunin. Congratulations, go celebrate, and get the hell out of my office."
Yuhi snorted at the last comment, her professional mask crumbling at last, and opened her arms wide, getting three hugs of varying exuberance from her students.
Then, perhaps catching the flicker of pain that shot through Tsunade at the scene, she ushered her kids out of the office with a final bow and let the door swing shut behind them.
Tsunade sighed explosively and set about gathering the recommendation papers and tucking them into the respective folders, then she held out the messy stack to Shizune who accepted them wordlessly and moved to file them away.
"Was it the right decision?" Tsunade asked quietly as she sank back into her office chair, prompting Shizune to pause, though her apprentice didn't turn around when she spoke.
"I don't think anyone can know that for sure, shishou." Shizune said quietly, resuming her task of sorting the files. "But Hyuuga-chan was right. Although they're young, their promotion benefits the Village, and that's all anyone can ask you to worry about."
Tsunade quirked a smile at the words, but even she was aware it probably landed closer to a wry grimace.
(At times like these, she found herself wishing that her team hadn't fractured, that she still had Jiraiya and Orochimaru at her side for counsel and support. Orochimaru wouldn't have hesitated or even thought twice about the promotions, wouldn't have insisted on the kids going through the Exams in the first place, would've simply promoted the genin the moment he was informed that there were shortages in the forces and Team Eight ticked the basic requirements.
Nor would his vicious practicality have allowed him to spare a single second afterwards to wondering whether he hadn't doomed the kids to the fate of cannon fodder.
She hated that she envied him.)
Hana sighed, dodging another 'subtle' attempt Atsumu made at wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
"Sorry," she repeated, pasting on a smile that felt more like a grimace, but she reckoned Atsumu was too self-absorbed to notice, "I really can't do dinner today."
"What's got you so busy, hm?" Atsumu asked in that same smarmy tone that was half the reason she refused to spend time with the man one-on-one. "You never have time for anything fun."
ANBU's got me busy, Hana wanted to say, feeling a swell of bitter frustration, guard duty. Clinic duty. Clan responsibilities, take your damn pick.
But she settled on a smile that she hoped came across as sheepish rather than sarcastic, knowing that Atsumu, career-chunin from Intelligence, would not care for the explanation of her responsibilities. "Oh, you know, medic rotas are crazy."
"But you're not on duty now, so why not?" Atsumu pressed, not getting the hint regardless of how unsubtle it had been. In fact, he stepped closer, reaching out with one hand, clearly intent on Hana's shoulder-
"Hana-sensei." A voice called quietly, and Hana half-turned, the motion moving her shoulder out of Atsumu's range, making his hand fall back to his side and a scowl twist his lips before he caught himself and wiped it away.
Hinata was suddenly there, at Hana's side, and she slipped her arm through Hana's, looking up at her with a cheerful smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Are you ready to go?"
Hana stared at Hinata, momentarily startled, but the other girl met her gaze and held, her face open but expectant, not even pretending to acknowledge Atsumu.
"Yeah." Hana managed belatedly, realising that Hinata was offering her an out. "Yeah, I was just waiting for you. Let's go train, hm?" she grinned, then turned to Atsumu, managing her fakest apologetic smile yet. "Sorry, I promised Hinata-chan we'd train after my shift. Hope you have a good rest of your day!"
Then she tugged Hinata along, not waiting for Atsumu's response, and didn't let go until they were a good two blocks away.
"Thanks for the save." She said breathlessly, letting Hinata separate their arms, the other girl's fake smile melting off her face, though her eyes remained soft, her expression friendly as she gazed at Hana.
"Has he tried that before?" Hinata asked instead, a tiny frown pulling at her brows, voice concerned.
"Unfortunately yes." Another voice replied, and Hana startled, not having sensed Tetsuya's approach. "If he'd actually touched you, I'd have intervened, Hana-chan. Hyuuga-hime, hello again."
"Tetsuya-san," Hinata returned the greeting, prompting Hana to stare between her teammate and her brother's friend with no small degree of bafflement, "hope you've been well."
"You two know each other?" Hana couldn't help but ask, raising a disbelieving eyebrow at Tetsuya.
"Our sisters are friends." Her teammate explained, but his attention was on Hinata. "I didn't think they let genin on infiltration missions."
Hana frowned, not following the sudden non-sequitur, but it seemed Hinata understood the cryptic observation because her hand flew to her face, fingers stopping just shy of her eyes. "I forgot. Thank you, Tetsuya-san."
Then she proceeded to take out her contacts, and Hana wondered how she hadn't noticed until then that Hinata hadn't been looking at her with the usual lilac of the Hyuuga's pupilless eyes. She didn't think it possible, but Hinata had somehow made the bright blue of the contacts look natural on her face, like her eyes had never been any other colour.
She glanced at her teammate, hoping for some more of an explanation on the familiarity between the two, but Tetsuya was useless. The man was hard to read on a good day, but now all Hana could glean from him was a hint of surprise and something almost pleased.
"Don't mention it." He waved the girl's thanks off, green eyes watching as she stashed her contacts in a small case and tucked it back into her pouch. "Were you actually going to train, or-?"
"-Hinata-sama!"
Hinata jumped, and she wasn't the only one, but Tetsuya's hand on her wrist prevented the girl from gouging out the other Hyuuga teen's eyes, Hinata's fingers suspended mere inches from the other boy's face.
"…Neji-nii-san?" Hinata managed, disbelief and fear tinging her voice, though she sent a nod of thanks to Tetsuya before she focused on her cousin, prompting the ANBU to release her wrist. "Are you alright?"
Because the boy was panting, Hana realised, gasping in desperate breaths, his face red, the look in his eyes panicked, though not because of Hinata's reaction.
"It's Hanabi." The boy gasped, and Hana both saw and felt Hinata freeze. "The- The Elders are trying to seal her."
There was a second of silence. Two.
Then a split-second roar of Killing Intent so potent that Hana almost couldn't believe it came from Hinata-
-then the girl was gone, her cousin cursing as he gave chase.
Slowly, Hana turned to regard Tetsuya, a wordless understanding passing between them: uh-oh.