Obito-Sensei Chapter 44

Imminent Collision

-A Cordial Letter Penned By The Hand of Yoshinobu Ashigata, Chief Clerk of the Winter Court and Voice of Saitama Sugawara, Daimyo of the Land of Fire

-To Be Presented No More Than Five Days After the Date of Creation, April Seventh

Yearning for a warm and bountiful Spring, this letter hopes to find itself in the hands of a healthy and untroubled man before a content audience. Ah, Court of Storms, how one wishes he could be there in this meager parchment's place drinking in the beauty and clear, thin air of the Land of Lightning, bringing with it a gift of chocolate and yuzu. But alas, for now we must content ourselves with paper and dreams, and hope for a time and a place where such a visit would be entirely appropriate...

###

On the first day of April, Hinata Hyuuga was in an unfamiliar situation. She had met the Fourth Hokage before, but only in passing. He had been Naruto's father after all, and she had shared a class with him and Sasuke for several years. It would have been unusual for him to never greet her. She was the Hyuuga's heir, and the Hokage not acknowledging that in some way would have been perceived as rude.

But there had been no relationship by any means, only the expected interaction. She hadn't been close to Naruto, and so had no deeper connection to his father.

She'd never been in his office before. Even with her father at her side, or perhaps because he was there, she could hardly hide her nervous nature. The Hokage watched them from behind his wide desk, and Hinata and her father stood equally straight, waiting at attention. She'd gotten taller since turning fourteen: her father no longer towered over her, though the feeling of being small had never vanished.

"The village owes you a debt, Hinata," the Hokage eventually said, and she marginally relaxed before realizing her father was still stiff as a board. She went back to mirroring him as the Hokage smiled. He looked tired, Hinata thought. It wasn't a flattering thing to think, but the thought came regardless. The lines around his eyes were deeper, the life in them dimmer.

They had just passed the anniversary of his son defecting, Hinata thought. Of Naruto and Sakura and Sasuke defecting. Why wouldn't the Hokage look tired? She was tired, and she'd only been a friend.

"Thank you, lord Hokage," she said with a formal bow, and the man waved her off.

"You shouldn't thank me for stating the truth," he said. "The Military Police have confirmed it; those bills you found were absolutely counterfeits, though their quality couldn't be believed." He leaned forward with a slight grin. "Though they were curious how you managed to identify them, you know. Apparently the imperfection is so small that they were sure even a Sharingan would have difficulty."

Hinata was glad she'd been working on suppressing her blush. She wasn't glad she was thinking about lying to the Hokage. "It was only luck," she said. "They caught my eye when we were being paid; Kiba thought there was something strange about them too. It made us take a closer look."

Kiba had said they had smelled weird, too new, and Hinata had used that as her excuse. If it were up to her, she'd die and have her grave washed away and forgotten by time before anyone found out that when she'd been much, much younger, when she'd first taken an interest in Sasuke, she'd studied the Military Police's manuals in the hope of impressing him with something they'd had in common.

How pathetic was that? The Hokage was speaking, but Hinata was trapped in her own head. Reading about fake money when Sasuke had no interest in joining the police was like a prelude to the last year of her life. She'd been stupid to think that conversation at Sakura's birthday had meant a thing. He'd been distracted and manic; he would have said anything…

To make her happy? It couldn't have been to escape. They'd talked for hours. Hinata mulled, thrown into the past by the realization that it had really been a year now since he'd left, only for her father's sharp tone to break through the bubble she'd trapped herself in.

"That would be quite the honor, lord Hokage," he said, and Hinata blinked and returned to the present to find both adults looking at her expectantly. She felt her stomach drop out as she realized she'd missed something important. They waited for her to speak, and when she didn't immediately say anything her father frowned.

"Daughter?" he started to ask, before the Hokage raised his hand.

"I understand if you're hesitant," he said. "But I do think you'd be the best choice for this mission, Hinata. You have first-hand experience with this counterfeit currency."

Mission. Hinata replayed the time she'd heard without hearing. The Hokage had offered to make her a part of the mission. Her missing finger had burned with pain. He'd said it would be a fitting assignment to finalize her chunin promotion.

She'd wasted the time she should have spent thinking it over. Hinata inclined her head. The more time out of the village, the better.

"I would be happy to accept the assignment," she said as neutrally as possible, not wanting to give away her moment of distraction. The Hokage smiled.

"Excellent. I'm putting together a team to be led by your sensei: she will contact you later today with the full details. Most likely, you'll be leaving immediately." He stood up, and if it were possible both the Hyuuga stood even straighter. "Deception like this is a danger to all the countries of the world, not just the Land of Fire. Keep that in mind, alright? Whoever is responsible may not understand just what they're doing."

Not knowing what to say, Hinata could only bow again, and she thought for a second the Hokage might roll his eyes. "You're both dismissed," he said. The door opened behind them. "Best of luck, Hinata."

Hinata and her father left, and the ANBU at the door wordlessly bade them farewell. They descended the tower in silence, and it was only when they were out in the busy streets of the village that her father spoke.

"You were distracted," he said. Hinata ignored him, looking straight ahead as they walked the streets of Konoha. "I'm surprised you would ignore the Hokage, Hinata."

"I didn't intend to," she eventually said, and he snorted.

"And yet, you did," he replied. "He is assembling a team. That means he will be drawing from at least one other squad. Most likely one of your peers'. You've been handpicked for a mission by the Hokage himself. I was not being facetious when I said it was an honor."

"I know," Hinata said, wondering for a moment if she could outrun him. Wouldn't happen. His Byakugan's range still exceeded her own, and likely always would.

"There is no doubt you have been picked because of your eyes' improvement as well," her father continued to say. They were heading towards the Hyuuga compound, the one place Hinata dreaded more than anything in the world. "Your increase in range and precision must have impressed him."

"I wasn't aware you shared that," Hinata said. Her father cocked an eyebrow at her. "I would have assumed you would keep clan details like that secret," she hastily appended, and he shrugged.

"The Hokage is our leader," he said, his face back to stone. "When it comes to a Bloodline that can be as variable as the Byakugan, it is critical he knows the individual shinobi's capabilities. Especially the clan's heir." The facade broke; one side of his lips started to tug up into a sneer for just a second. "We are still a founding clan, after all. It is not to the village's advantage for us to keep many secrets, even if some of the others act that way."

Hinata had no doubt as to what her father was talking about, but she had nothing he would respect to say about it. She remained quiet for the rest of their trip back to the compound.

Full of thin walls and hard floors, the Hyuuga clan's living area was spread across a generous amount of land atop a hill on the northern end of the village, to the southwest of the Hokage Monument itself. From there it was possible to look out over the walls of the village, though Hinata thought that most of her clanmates were usually too busy looking at themselves to take advantage of the opportunity. The short climb gave Hinata a little more time to think, but even that didn't grant her the clarity she felt she needed to be back home.

Everywhere she went here, she was watched. Her family could see through walls and through her, and at every moment of her life she had been judged. This state of affairs would likely continue until she died, and for some time after that. She was treated with the utmost respect: members of both the main and branch clan bowed as she passed them on the way to her home, the branch members making sure to drop their heads lower than the rest.

It made her sick. Hinata was the picture of serenity, gently inclining her head and greeting every member of her clan she passed, but the silence of the compound pressed down on the back of her skull like a jackhammer. Even though she never had and never would, no matter the circumstance, used her clan's Cursed Seal, the branch members had no choice but to guide their deference with fear. You could never be sure that an animal was perfectly trained, and they could never be sure that she, the daughter of a man who had cursed his own brother, would not snap at them and burn away part of their brain.

That was simply how the Hyuuga clan worked.

By the time she reached home, Hinata was starting to get shaky. Her father had left her side at some point, leaving her blessedly alone. She wanted to find her bed and lie down, to put a pillow over her head and just wait for the headache to go away, but the clan heir could not be seen lying in her bed trying to block out the world.

The acceptable, observable way of calming herself would be to sit and drink tea, to read something, to practice a Hyuuga skill like calligraphy or the destruction of internal organs, and Hinata found herself torn between them. Eventually, she decided on tea. The house was silent and empty; her father was attending to clan business elsewhere in the compound, and her sister was still at the Academy. She would graduate soon, Hinata thought. Maybe then some of the crushing pressure on her would dissipate, though she didn't want even a fraction of it to fall on Hanabi.

The Hyuuga clan had a communal garden that some camellia grew in, but Hinata settled to retrieve some leaves that had already been fired, dried, and wrapped from a cupboard in the kitchen as she set some water to boil on the woodfired stove there. As she waited, she knelt, closing her eyes and trying to appear like an idol of patience.

However, after about a minute she heard the door to the kitchen slide open, and opened her eyes. For a moment she was sure her father had returned, but after a moment her eyes picked out the imperfections, the concealed forehead, the longer hair.

"Uncle," she said, and Hizashi Hyuuga smiled and knelt at the table with her, glancing back at the teapot. It was starting to emit faint vapors, but still wasn't close to boiling.

"Hinata," he said, and she smiled, feeling some of the headache ebb. "Making tea?"

"Would you like some, uncle?" she asked, starting to stand. "I could add some more water."

"No, I'm fine." Hizashi stayed on the floor, and after a moment Hinata joined him. "I heard that you've been given a mission by the Hokage. I came to congratulate you."

"From father?" Hinata asked, and her uncle nodded.

"It doesn't surprise me. Neji had told me you were growing more proficient in your spars. And the whole clan is abuzz about your eyes. Four kilometers, and at your age. That hasn't been seen since your father." He stroked his chin as Hinata fought the impulse to shrink down. "It's funny that your father and I and you and Neji should be the same in that regard, though I suppose it makes sense. The Byakugan does generally follow the father's line…"

"Neji is still far more precise than me," Hinata muttered, and her uncle gave her an amused look. "He sees more in three hundred meters than I see in a thousand."

"What about four thousand?" Hizashi said with a laugh. Hinata didn't have a clever response. "Your only weakness is your humility, Hinata, as usual. You need to appreciate that there is not a shinobi alive outside of Konoha that could match your sight. Right now, you're invaluable to the village."

"As…" Hinata paused, thinking better of what she'd almost said. Even if she felt she could speak freely with her uncle, that freedom was an illusion created by his branch status. He was still her ostensible subordinate.

He was still, she thought as she glanced at his concealed forehead, considered inherently disposable by her own family.

"As?" Hizashi asked in good humor, and Hinata played along.

"As the trees and air," she said with an attempt at a sardonic tone, and her uncle chuckled.

"Better," he said. "Or at least more fitting of a Hyuuga." He nodded, and just on cue there was a high pitched whistle. "Your tea's ready. Congratulations, again. I hope your mission goes well."

Hinata turned, and by the time she'd poured the boiling water into a small ceramic cup and added the leaves she'd selected her uncle was gone. She sighed, sinking back down and nursing her drink. She couldn't wait to leave, but she was also sure Kurenai would come to her when the time was ready. The Hokage had said so.

So Hinata sat and drank and waited and worried.

###

Kurenai came to fetch her an hour and a half later, a little before three'o'clock, and Hinata learned who the rest of her team was going to be.

"I'm surprised Kiba isn't coming," she told her sensei. They had descended from the compound and were heading towards the gates of Konoha: Kurenai had told her they were all going to be meeting there. The mission was apparently set to be a long one: Hinata's sensei was carrying a travel pack, and Hinata had grabbed her own, along with a cloak for rough weather. Rain wasn't uncommon at this time of year in the Land of Fire. It had even snowed once in March almost a decade ago.

"Because of his nose?" Kurenai asked, and Hinata nodded.

"He could physically track any counterfeit bills we found," she said. "Akamaru too. It would be like having a fifth member."

"Yeah, and we wouldn't be splitting my team up," Kurenai said. Hinata was surprised to hear her sensei sounding bitter. "But the Hokage feels that we have a good lead on the source of the currency already, so he is more concerned with capture and interrogation. So…"

"Shikamaru and Ino," Hinata said. Someone in the street waved to her and she waved back, not recognizing them until a moment later: it was one of her cousin's teammates, Rock Lee, apparently in some sort of competition with several children. Hinata couldn't tell what it was, but it definitely involved backflips. "I haven't worked with either of them since the Chunin Exam."

Not since their disastrous cooperation in the Forest of Death, their attempted ambush on Gaara of the Desert. Since she'd lost her finger. Even though it had been gone for more than a year, Hinata still felt it sometimes. She would still get surprised when she picked up a pen or a knife and realized her middle finger had been left with twice the work. At this point, she was wondering if that would ever go away.

"Well, you'll get plenty of experience there," Kurenai said. "The Hokage told their families the same thing he told yours: that this will be your guys' new chance to make chunin, since the Exams ended up being such a waste." She shook her head. "A bunch of nuts and two packs of traitors for the finals. It's embarrassing to think about."

"Yes," Hinata said. She didn't think her words would come out as cold as they did as she looked at her teacher and remembered a day much like this, when the two of them had met Rin Nohara in the streets. "Embarrassing."

Kurenai glanced at her, her lips pressed into a thin line, and then forged ahead, picking up the pace. Hinata matched her, and they marched towards the village gates in a dome of silence.

When they reached the gate, Ino Yamanaka was already there. The girl was wearing a trendy purple track jacket and had her hair pulled up in an enormous blond ponytail, and she waved and smiled brightly as Kurenai and Hinata approached.

"Hey!" she said, and Hinata offered a smile. "Hinata, Kurenai-sensei! This is pretty cool stuff, right?" Hinata had always admired Ino's ability to have something to say in any situation. The girl oozed confidence no matter what. "I thought for sure we'd get someone from the military police coming with us, but Hinata, I heard you found that fake stuff yourself? That's amazing! Hey, this means it's gonna be three of us girls! Shikamaru's gonna hate that, he's still scared of women, you know?"

At that, Kurenai laughed. "Well, with a mother like his, he probably had to learn from an early age." Hinata thought that was kinda mean: Yoshino Nara had never struck her as a rude person. Maybe a little overbearing at worst, but coming from the Hyuuga clan she could hardly judge that.

Ino probably had a similar thought: her face froze in its smile before she continued speaking. "Yeah, well, I wasn't told where we were headed, Kurenai-sensei. I guess the Hokage must be pretty sure if he put together a custom squad for it?"

"We're going to the Land of Waves." It wasn't Kurenai who answered; Shikamaru ambled up, his hands in his pockets and his backpack smaller than Hinata would have thought the careful Nara would have packed.

Ino ignored the answer. "You're late!" she cried, and Shikamaru waved her off with a tired smirk.

"You're early," he said, and Ino narrowed her eyes. "Besides, you weren't gonna leave without me, right?"

"That just makes it worse, Shikamaru!" As the teammates bickered, Hinata glanced at her teacher and found her pinching her nose. She couldn't help but laugh. She wasn't bothered by Shikamaru and Ino's dynamic; at least the heart of it was friendly. After a round of back and forths, Kurenai stepped forward and clapped her hands.

"Alright!" she declared, and Shikamaru paused, looking past Ino with amused curiosity. Ino spun around in a huff as Kurenai continued speaking. "Yes, as Shikamaru said, we're heading to the Land of Waves. It's a smaller country to the south: the Hokage and the Daimyo's court both believe that it is the most likely source of the counterfeit currency."

"How, though?" Ino asked, and Kurenai coughed. "I mean, money ends up everywhere."

"The script that Hinata discovered was newly printed, and its delivery point had originated in the Land of Waves before entering the Land of Fire," Kurenai said, obviously annoyed at the interruption. "Waves has become a major trade and production hub in the last few years: a place like that is the perfect base for smugglers and other criminals. We'll be traveling to-"

"The capital?" Ino asked. Kurenai twitched, and Hinata hid her smile behind a fist. She hadn't realized they wouldn't get along at all, but it was deeply funny to her. The Yamanaka wasn't even trying to be annoying.

"To Fukami City," Kurenai said, her voice clipped as she stared Ino down. The younger girl fearlessly returned the look. Behind her, Shikamaru was examining his nails, obviously listening but trying to keep out of the sudden power struggle. "It's the primary town connected to the Great Channel Bridge." She started moving towards the open gate. "And it's a day's journey from here, so we should get going now."

Hinata followed her, and that drew Shikamaru and Ino along as well. They passed under the gate, the chunin at the lookout post waving goodbye, and out into the wider world. Something about being beyond the village let Hinata relax: her headache vanished, and she took a deep breath.

"Long day?" She was surprised to hear Shikamaru ask her something like that, and she looked back at him with a neutral expression.

"Not really," she said. Kurenai pulled ahead, and they picked up the pace, moving to the hidden paths of the Land of Fire and leaping through the trees, falling into the kilometer-devouring run of ninja. Hinata felt the burn in her legs, the wind whistling past her face, and her heart slowed down yet more. Shikamaru and Ino fell in at her side as they flew through the forest, her sensei staying at the head of the group. "I was just thinking... about what day it is."

"Huh?" Shikamaru asked, but from the way Ino's face hardened Hinata knew the other girl understood.

"One year," Ino muttered. She sounded furious, and Shikamaru made a sound of comprehension. "I'm gonna get that damn knife back some day, you know?"

Hinata remembered how Sakura's eyes had lit up at the knife in its beautiful lacquered box, the reverence she'd held it with. How sincerely she'd thanked Ino. How much had that stung, she wondered, to learn Ino's friend had said that while planning to defect the very next day? Sakura's love had been sincere. There was no way she'd part with the gift willingly.

She'd been acting strange, Hinata thought. She'd noticed it and told Sasuke, and he'd put it down to the near destruction of the Hidden Waterfall. But in hindsight, it had been obvious. Sakura had been planning, to the point of forgetting her own birthday. They all must have been, and she'd been the worst actor. Or had she dragged them along with it, convinced them at the last second?

"You're doing it too, huh?" Ino asked, and Hinata shook her head. Twice in one day. That was a pretty bad sign. She must have been more shaken up than she wanted to admit to herself. "I keep wondering what I could have done different," the girl continued, muttering, her voice low and ugly. Hinata had to strain to hear. "If there was something I could have said, or something I did that I didn't understand. It's been driving me crazy." She breathed out. "And the last couple days in particular."

"It was their decision," Shikamaru said, and both the girls looked back at him incredulously. He shrugged, sticking his hands back in his pockets as he skipped off another branch. Some of them had been rubbed raw and shiny by the passage of countless shinobi in and out of the village with less spectacular chakra control. "They must have coordinated it to be able to get past Obito Uchiha. If he'd caught even one of them, grabbing the rest would have been childsplay for him. That jutsu of his is unbeatable."

Hinata didn't know where Sasuke's former sensei was, or what he was up to right now. It seemed that no one was interested in seeing him nowadays: more often than not, he was out of the village on various missions. It made no sense to blame him, and yet it seemed that was what people defaulted to. Maybe because having no target was simply too frustrating.

It would have been for her. That was why she still had dreams about giving Sasuke a piece of her mind. She didn't want to hurt him. At least, she was pretty sure she didn't want to hurt him.

But why would he have said those things, agreed to spend more time with her, if he'd known he might never see her again? It was just too cruel.

'I saw my brother. He was there…'

"Goddamn Sakura," Ino said, shaking her head and distracting Hinata as the memory flitted by. "Always so smart, but using it so stupidly." Her fists tightened around her backpacks straps. "Do you think they're happy there? In Rain?"

"Well, since Sakura apparently dueled the leader of the Hidden Waterfall and Naruto's been causing trouble in Stone? Maybe," Shikamaru said lacksidacally, and Hinata looked back again. This time, her gaze was a little more interrogative.

"Nothing about Sasuke?" she asked, and Shikamaru cocked an eyebrow.

"You're not going to ask how I know that other stuff?" he said, and Ino snorted.

"Hinata's smart enough to know your dad's the Jonin Commander," she said with a grin. "She's not gonna fall for that kinda act, Shikamaru."

"I guess that's fair," Shikamaru said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Yeah, nothing about Sasuke. Which is weird, cause, you know, he's an Uchiha. One of the only ones that's outside the village. You'd think he'd make more of a splash."

Maybe he is, Hinata thought. But Sasuke had always been quiet and competent. That was part of what had attracted her to him. Maybe he was making the biggest impact, but it was the kind that Shikamaru wouldn't see spying over his father's proverbial shoulder.

"Though you know, speaking of dad, he gave me a heads up," Shikamaru said, obviously trying to draw the conversation to another subject. Hinata let him, opening her mouth to speak before Ino interrupted her.

"What kinda heads up?" she asked suspiciously.

"Something that you guys probably already know in your gut," Shikamaru said grimly. "Printing technology is pretty advanced, but with counterfeits this perfect, there's gotta be a human touch. And if it takes a Byakugan or Sharingan to find it, it's probably a shinobi's touch. So we'll have to be careful of that."

He was right. Hinata had known that in her heart, but hadn't said it out loud. Shikamaru continued, talking as much to them as himself.

"And I guess, more troublesome than that, this is basically two teams stitched together right here," he said, trying to copy the kind of stroke of his chin that older shinobi with beards like his father could manage and failing miserably. "Which means the Hokage both wants to get a spread of shinobi promoted, and wants them to work together in more flexible teams…"

"Yeah?" Ino said, but Hinata had started understanding what Shikamaru was getting at.

"Like they would be in wartime conditions," she said quietly, and the Nara nodded.

"Eh?" Ino said, looking back and forth between them. "What? There's no war coming anytime soon. Who the heck would try?"

"It doesn't always have to come from something obvious," Shikamaru said solemnly. "Ino, imagine if one of the other countries or villages set up this counterfeit currency operation to destroy Fire's economy. The Leaf would have to respond, right? Or else it would just be proof that anyone could take a shot without provocation." He rubbed the back of his neck, a much more honest motion than before. "And if it was, say, the Land of Stone? Or Rain…"

Ino's face was blank. She looked like Hinata felt.

"Well," the Yamanaka eventually said. "Let's hope it's not that, huh? That would really suck to report back on."

"Yeah," Hinata said. Her headache was coming back, and without the mental energy to phrase her words the right way, she just copied Ino's tone.

"That would definitely suck."

###

At noon the next day, Hinata's team was crossing the Great Channel Bridge.

The bridge was packed, constantly bustling with people and caravans. Just over thirteen hundred meters long and about twenty meters wide, it was the most impressive structure Hinata had seen in her life. It stretched over the Bright Sea, connecting the Land of Waves to the mainland: a concrete artery that transported people and money instead of blood. Walking on it, Hinata felt and saw for the first time in a long time that there were incredible things in the world that had nothing to do with shinobi. Even if it sometimes felt that there was nothing else in existence, living in a hidden village, a superstructure like this reminded her that there was more to it.

The Land of Waves was an archipelago, a series of shallow and constantly flooded islands that had been kept in poverty for decades by geography and a lack of economic interest. Hinata had learned more about the country from Shikamaru and Kurenai on the way over: thankfully, Ino had been just as ignorant as her. Without a safe port, it was overlooked in favor of coastal settlements in the Lands of Fire and Water to the west and east, but the Great Channel Bridge had changed all of that.

With a passage to the continent, wealth had poured into Waves alongside favorable trade and port deals. The country's influence had exploded, and so had its population. There had already been a town at the end of the bridge, but its name was forgotten now: it had swelled to ten times its size, and was named Fukami City now in honor of the men who had constructed the bridge that had saved the country, Tazuna and Kaiza Fukami.

It was a metropolis in progress. Though a thick mist rose off the sea and blocked swathes of the city as it came into view, everywhere that Hinata could see was under construction. There were towering new buildings nearly ten stories tall set alongside shacks that had probably stood for decades. The docks were wide, a vast sea wall facing north and keeping the water out, and still in progress in many places. The bridge afforded a spectacular view of the city; Hinata knew she was looking at a place that would rival Konoha in size and wealth in a decade.

But for now, it was still in progress. Waves had clearly taken its new wealth and put it to good use. There had been a grand vision here with the bridge at the heart of it, and the sight of it manifesting took Hinata's breath away.

"Man," Shikamaru said, digging something out of his ear. He stopped and leaned out over the bridge, his narrow eyes scanning the city. "This place must have been a real dump."

"But look at it now!" Ino said, giving him a little shove and almost sending him over the railing. "Hotels, malls! I think that's a casino!" Her pupil-less eyes were shining with enthusiasm. "Kurenai-sensei, where are we staying?"

"One of the big ones," Kurenai confirmed, and Ino squealed with delight. "The Sealook Hotel. It's near the center of the city: I thought that would be best for Hinata."

Right, the reason she was here. Hinata tried to focus. Scanning a dense environment was always difficult, and so many people constantly entering and exiting the city would only make things harder. She tried to empty her mind, but they passed under the arc that separated the bridge from the city and that proved quite impossible. Even the Village Hidden in the Leaves wasn't this dense with people, pedestrians everywhere navigating between carts filled with novelties and food, street entertainers, and a patrolling militia who seemed to be on good terms with just about everyone. They passed into the shadow of the towering new structures, and Hinata wondered just how much concrete must have been poured in the last couple years to keep them standing. Waves' foundations were shifting and soggy. Buildings like this were an enormous investment.

And an equally enormous statement of confidence.

It took them over an hour to reach the center of the city, but they were walking, not moving like shinobi. By the time they were there, Hinata was starting to get hungry: some of the food carts had looked especially appetizing, and she'd kept a mental note as to their location. Fukami City had three main thoroughfares that split the city like a trio of spines, with streets sometimes uniformly and occasionally chaotically branching off from them. They were traveling up the westmost one when they reached their hotel.

It wasn't the biggest in the city, but it was certainly large, seven stories tall and wide enough to dominate half the block by itself. Well, it would be: half the building was still under construction.

"This place is open?" Ino asked, openly doubtful, and Kurenai shrugged.

"Open and cheaper for it. Getting a room on short notice was a D-Rank by itself," she said, and Hinata was glad that her sensei had rediscovered some of her sense of humor. "Come on. We'll get checked in, and then Hinata can take a look around. That will help us get started."

Getting checked in was quick. The man at the frost desk didn't ask any questions, which was sensible enough. Hinata had already seen other shinobi in the city, though she hadn't seen what village they were from. There had been some patrolling the sea wall, and another arguing with a vendor about whether he'd been given his soda or not. More money meant more shinobi: it was only natural.

It might also make their job harder. Time would tell.

The room that Kurenai led them to was on the fourth floor, and was thankfully a double. One suite and one guest bedroom: Hinata hadn't caught the cost but she wouldn't be surprised if it were in the thousands. Perhaps a hotel would actually be a good place to start looking for another lead? Ino had stolen one of the beds from the guest room immediately, carrying it into the main suite. Shikamaru had surrendered with a shrug: it seemed he was perfectly content to have his own room.

Forty minutes and a short meal later, the team was sitting around the suite with Hinata lying on the bed. It felt strange to be the center of attention, but not nearly as bad as it did when it was her own family. Kurenai leaned forward in her chair: all of the furniture in the room was huge and comfortable looking, but it had a cheap quality to it. It had probably been hastily imported by the lowest bidder.

"Comfortable?" she asked, and Hinata adjusted the pillow beneath her head for emphasis.

"I'm fine, sensei," she said, closing her eyes and gathering chakra in her core. "What should I be looking for?"

"Shinobi, naturally. If we can get a headcount within the city, that will help us form more accurate plans. I imagine they'll be too much money for you to accurately scan for any counterfeit bills from here, but obviously any industrial or printing centers will be of interest. And hey, maybe you'll get lucky."

"Shinobi and industry," Hinata muttered. She tried to relax her forehead, to let her eyes rest as the chakra from her core naturally pooled in her skull. It was a harsh tingling sensation, like a limb waking up. "Got it."

She opened her eyes, and for four kilometers around her the world folded back.

It was hard to describe the Byakugan to someone who didn't have it, though Hinata had tried many times. Most people seemed to think it was just seeing through obstacles, which was partially true, but that couldn't encompass the experience. Hinata could see it all: everything within her range became her domain. She could analyze it from any angle, pour it over like someone spinning a doll in their hands, and pierce through it without effort. It was simultaneously telescopic and macroscopic: she didn't know how someone like her father, who could see for fifteen kilometers, could perceive anything without his brain collapsing.

The more experienced you were, the faster you could process what your eyes could see. At least, that was how it worked for the Hyuuga. As her family was wont to say, the eyes were flawless; it was the person seeing through them who could be prone to error. Hinata started with a 'wide' perception first, simply looking in every direction at once without analysis to pick out anything interesting. An eight kilometer diameter was enough to cover Fukami's width, but not its length. However, it only left out a couple thousand meters on either edge, so Hinata was content with it for an initial scan.

First, chakra signatures. Shinobi could conceal themselves from this kind of scan by reducing the amount of chakra in their system, of course, but without warning only the truly paranoid would be doing that. Hinata counted over two dozen ninja inside the city itself, and another two beyond it, out in the sea. One of the closer auras pinged a sense of familiarity in her, so she investigated it first.

Binary chakra, she thought after a second as she brought the shinobi into focus. They were with three others, stationary, resting inside a hotel just like her team. Strange mirroring. Focus, don't get swept away by your senses. Binary chakra, just like-

She found herself looking into Gaara of the Desert's eyes from more than two miles away. Hinata's fist clenched. Her finger was on fire.

"Hinata?" she heard Ino ask. She was too busy analyzing to respond. Gaara of the Desert, and the same team that had accompanied him to the Chunin Exam. His siblings and their ward. They were older, taller. Gaara was leaner, his baby fat melting away, carrying the same gourd as always. But his chakra was screaming. Before, his Bijuu's chakra had only come out when his automatic defense had activated, though Hinata hadn't known exactly what she had been seeing until after the Exam.

But now, it was pouring out of him and mixing with his chakra constantly. The boy was like a wildfire ready to consume anything that got too close. His siblings kept their distance: his teacher looked terrified. They were arguing about something. Where to go to dinner, it seemed. The fact it could be something so mundane only made Hinata more frightened.

"Hinata, seriously." She drew back and watched Ino grab her arm, as if from a distance. Kurenai had stood up as well, concern plain upon her face, but Shikamaru was staying seated, hiding a worried frown behind clasped hands. "What's wrong? What are you seeing?"

"Gaara," Hinata said, watching the way her lips formed the name and the way Ino jerked back with equal detachment. "He's here, with his team. They're in a hotel on the east side of the city. They're arguing about what to get for dinner."

"Gaara of the Desert?" Kurenai asked. "What the hell could he be doing here?" She paused. "The Hokage didn't mention anything about allied villages."

That was right. Even if looking at Gaara made Hinata feel a deep, fluttering fear, he was still ostensibly an ally of their village. It only took one look at the rest of the team for Hinata to tell they were feeling the same way as her, even Kurenai.

"He could be searching for the counterfeiters as well," Shikamaru said quietly, and Hinata frowned. "Perhaps Sand is hoping to use them as leverage."

"Would you send Gaara to look for people making fake money?" Ino said with a look and tone in between fear and laughter. Shikamaru shook his head. "Yeah, no way. He's here for his own reason. Kurenai-sensei, we're just going to stay out of his way, right?"

"So long as we can," Kurenai confirmed after a moment of hesitation. "I don't have any interest in him knowing we're here."

"Was there anything else?" Shikamaru asked, and Hinata shook her head.

"I stopped when I saw him," she said, somewhat embarrassed. "I was surprised."

"Yeah…" the Nara muttered. "But there are more shinobi?"

"A lot more," Hinata confirmed. "Including us, there's at least twenty five ninja inside Fukami City right now."

The Nara whistled. "Busy."

"Yeah," Hinata confirmed as Ino settled back down, along with her sensei. "There was one pretty large group, actually. Six shinobi, all together. They're closer to us, by the bridge. I was going to check them next."

"Six?" Ino asked incredulously. "What the hell? Who's got the time to send six shinobi at once?"

Hinata couldn't answer, because Hinata couldn't breathe. She blinked, feeling her mouth dry out as the world flipped upside down.

It was Sasuke. Sasuke was there, not two miles away. He was wearing a custom cloak with a high collar and a flak jacket over it. He had Amegakure's hitai-ate wrapped around his right leg, and he was there.

It wasn't just him. Naruto and Sakura were there, laughing at something she'd missed. Hinata drank them all in, unable to believe what she was seeing. They were all taller, Sakura especially. Sasuke had gotten broader, more defined, and his chakra was unbelievably sharp and focused, so sharp it almost hurt Hinata to look at. He looked older than he was.

Naruto was still the shortest among them, but his hair was shaggy and wild and his blue eyes unbelievably bright. His whole demeanor, including his chakra, was warm and open. There was something indefinable about it, something that had changed for the better. He had a knife in his pack that caught Hinata's eyes, dark and covered in chakra-engraved jutsu shiki. It looked far more complicated than anything Hinata had seen him produce before.

Sakura's hair was long, almost to the small of her back, and she'd painted her nails bright green. She was carrying both her sword and the knife Ino had gifted her in sheathes on either side of her body, and had them concealed beneath a red jacket with pink frills. Hinata had to admit her color coordination was impressive. She looked confident and strong, even more so than she had at the Chunin Exams. She was nothing like the withdrawn girl she'd been at her birthday. Her chakra swirled in strange patterns at her spine and on her heart. Her heart had always been like that, ever since her first C-Rank, but the spine was new. Hinata didn't know what it could be.

Hinata very carefully considered her next words.

"Okay, what is it this time?" Kurenai asked, finally out of patience. Hinata took a breath, her heart resetting. She couldn't lie. More than that, she was curious. Curious and furious. She finally had a chance to let it all out, if she took the opportunity. "Is there a damn Kage or something in this city?"

"It's Team Seven," Hinata said. She was astonished at the clarity and composure of her voice. It was like the lie she lived had become true.

"What?" Kurenai and Ino asked simultaneously. Ino blinked, and repeated herself. "No. What?"

"You're serious?" Shikamaru asked, and Hinata sat up with a nod, folding her legs under her and rocking forward as she focused on the unfolded world revealed to her. "Holy shit."

"All three of them. Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto are all here." As she spoke, she watched. They were the same, but changed by the gulf of time and distance and betrayal. "There are four other ninja with them. I missed one of them before; he's withdrawn his chakra. He's a large man: big sword."

"Their leader?" Kurenai asked, and Hinata shook her head.

"No," she said, scrunching up her forehead, watching the body language, reading tone through lips. "I think Sasuke is. It's part of the team that was from Rain, at the Exam: Haku Yuki, Suigetsu Hozuki, and a girl I don't recognize. Red hair."

"Sasuke's the leader?" Ino said, sounding almost jealous, and Hinata giggled.

"He definitely is. He's ordering them around." Now that the laughter was coming out, she couldn't stop it. It was quickly moving towards manic, and she curled over, unable to contain it. "Sasuke's leading his team and four shinobi from Rain," she babbled. "They're right there."

"What do we do?" Ino asked. She blinked, shooting to her feet. "We should grab them!"

"I don't…" Hinata started to say, but her sensei was already narrowing her eyes.

"That's not why we're here," she said, but Hinata could see her begin to crumble the moment the words left her mouth. Her vision had never been clearer. "And if there's really that many of them, it would be extraordinarily dangerous. Both of those Rain shinobi from the Exam were extremely competent."

"We're the perfect team for it," Ino said, her face twisting. "The best there could be." She paused. "I could take Sasuke," she said, her tone cold and contemplative. "If he's the leader, that would throw them off. We could draw them all back to Konoha. It's only a day away."

Shikamaru's face twitched. "Or they'd run us down with superior numbers and take him right back."

"Maybe!" Ino said. "But it would be worth a shot!"

"There's too many for that," Hinata said, but her mind was racing to prove her own words wrong. "No, actually… Ino, grabbing Sasuke could work." She narrowed her eyes, and Ino gave her a grim grin. "He could be our hostage. And even if we couldn't take him all the way back... we could negotiate with them. Find out why they're here. Where they're going next." She looked over. "Sensei?"

Kurenai Yuhi was obviously torn between obedience and ambition. "Sasuke is the only one who should be able to see through my genjutsu," she said after a moment, and Hinata's heart sped up. "I'm sure the rest are competent enough… but that could be our ace in the hole."

She looked out the window, and then back at them. "But this could be dangerous. We'll need to move now, before they find out we're here. Are you ready for that? Retrieving rogue ninja like this never goes how you expect."

"We're ready," Ino declared, iron willed. Shikamaru slowly stood up.

"As I'll ever be," he said, cracking one of his fingers. "And I've got an idea, for what it's worth."

They all looked at Hinata, and she nodded. For the first time in a year, she didn't have a shred of doubt.

"Let's get them back."