Thank you all for your awesome reviews! They've really made my day; I'd like to see more, if you all don't mind.
Shout out to VtrCst for your great review. It's nice to know I'm writing something original :D
Some major fuinjutsu theories are in this chapter. Just a little warning, it may interest you to read it :D
CHAPTER 6
Hard, sharp thuds could be heard in Naruto's special clearing near where team 8 usually trained, a day later.
A cool voice rang out over the noise, "One," thud, "two," thud, "three," thud, "four," thwack! "Again. One."
The thudding noises started afresh.
If one was to spy on the cause it would greatly surprise anyone watching. The reason was that it was Hinata who was causing the loud noise. She was glaring bashfully at a training dummy, seal-augmented not to break easily, her face red hot, and throwing Gentle Fist strikes at four major chakra points. This was meant to be a Hyuuga secret, but Hinata surmised that a crippled boy could not do anything with the knowledge.
She hoped.
She bent down into a sloppy stance and thrust her hands out, index and middle finger leading, to the dummy's chest, then behind it to its kidney, then to its liver and finally a sharp poke to its neck. It had been a day after talking with 'Naruto' about how to get strong and 'Naruto' was seriously hoping his Master wasn't wrong to place so much belief in the girl; her stances were sloppy, her strikes were weak, she couldn't keep a straight face, the list goes on.
The clone didn't want to train the young girl like the real Naruto had trained Daku; she would die of exhaustion, but he was seriously contemplating it. He gave up and chose to break his stoic look with a sharp frown. "Tell me, Hinata, why are we here if you clearly aren't ready to make yourself better."
Team Eight was currently on a break until after the exams, meeting only for a three-hour workout and light sparring before being dismissed.
"I do want to make myself better." She stood up straight and blushed furiously when she looked at the blonde clone.
"See what I mean? You cannot set your mind on one single activity. I'm not impressed." Those words sounded like funeral gongs in Hinata's ears. Her eyes widened and she looked at the clone, restraining herself from gasping too loudly. "You have a lot of potential, but you are too soft—"
"I can be hard…"
"Are you telling me that or are you reassuring yourself? It makes me wonder what you have been doing with your team since you joined; flexibility exercises can only take you so far. You need to toughen your strikes, you need to have a clear mind, you need to increase and improve your chakra reserves, you need proper nutrition, you need to up your speed, you need to up your strength, you need to up your confidence, you need a proper training schedule, you need to be focused—"
"I am focused!" the girl yelled, clenching her fist in anger at all the problems the boy had outlined, just after spending half a day showing him what she got. The blonde clone had exposed most of everything she had wrong with her life, and she was angry. Not at him, but at herself, and she punctuated her drive by pointing a sharp finger to the ground and barking without a sliver of a stammer, "I want this! I want to be here! I want to do this!" she stomped the ground and said in a loud voice, "I want to get better!"
Her outburst surprised the blonde clone; he leaned back a little and paused mid-speech, slack-jawed.
Though he stood his ground that she needed to be disillusioned as much as possible, these realities and her responding outburst were good. The real Naruto believed in cold, hard truth.
The girl's face was still red but not out of embarrassment.
The clearing was quiet for a minute, the only sound being the chirping of birds in the distance and Hinata's semi-enraged breathing, "…Listen," 'Naruto' sat up straight and cleaned all expression off his face. "I do not like wasting my time." The girl closed her eyes tightly and gritted her teeth, almost recoiling from hearing him deny her. "I am going to give you one more chance to impress me with your skill; the skills you have so I know where to start. Are you ready?" she opened her eyes wide but still nodded frantically. "Good. Now, let's start all over again." She swivelled around and took the basic stance of the gentle fist, glaring at the training dummy without her byakugan activated. Her face was still red but this was because she was still trying to get her heart under control. "I'm not going to count you in. Begin when you're ready."
"Yes," she responded and slowed her heart rate down, reducing the dusting of red on her cheek to something barely visible. She thrust her right hand forward at the dummy's chest, burying her fingers in its chest; then she twirled around, her hand still in its chest, and jammed her fingers at where the kidneys were roughly located in an average human's body. She released the chest jab and pelted where the liver was and at the same time released the kidney strike to bury her chakra-laced fingers halfway through the dummy's throat.
Hinata stood back to marvel at what she had done, gulping in ragged breaths through her grit teeth. The training dummy started slumping slowly, simulating the fact that it had been killed with her strikes.
'I did that?!'
She was brought out of her thoughts when she heard slow clapping from beside her. "Very good, Hinata. Much better than your first attempt. I'm very impressed by your determination." The girl refrained from ducking her head in embarrassment at the clone's praise; she had quickly learnt that this boy didn't like seeing weakness in any form. So, she stood up straight, albeit madly blushing, and bowed slightly.
"Thank you, Naruto,"
"When I'm teaching you, you call me sensei."
"Naruto-sensei," she corrected herself.
'Naruto' nodded and made his chair hover around the clearing slowly. The girl made sure to keep her posture good and her eyes staring straight at the 'dead' dummy. "Good, you're learning. We'll meet up here every day until the end of the exams. On that day, if you impress me enough, I'll continue with your training. Am I understood?"
"Yes, Naruto-sensei!"
"Now, let's work on your stamina first before we keep going," he hovered over her and, quick as a flash, tied her up with his snake rope, put weight seals on both her feet and hands, and released her. Something that happened so fast the girl was unsure it happened. "The seals I put on you are weight seals. With every pulse of chakra, I send in from here," he tapped an arm on his wheelchair, and her hands and feet felt slightly heavier, "the weight will increase." He tapped it again and her arms felt like they were about to tear out of her sockets. "Start jogging to and from your team's training ground here until I tell you to stop. We'll be doing this every day, two hours before sunrise and immediately after your team 'training' if you can call it that. Begin and remember: I have eyes everywhere."
Hinata couldn't remember the last time she had carried so much weight at once. As she ran her legs shook from the strain and her hands, which she kept up to her sides, were burning from strain.
'Naruto' was very impressed.
She was currently using the seal at level three, which meant she was lifting exactly 80 pounds, more than half her body weight without uttering a word of complaint.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
That same day
Wave Country
"You said there are suicide seals on their tongues?" the real Naruto asked the Waterfall shinobi that was behind Shibuki.
The village leaders were currently walking down a subterranean passage under the Wave Leader's tower to where the Root ninjas were being kept in a seal-induced stasis. He was hovering at the front with Samsato, walking briskly beside him with the other village leaders and their guards behind them. The passage could only fit three at a time.
"Yes. Two of them have already activated it when they woke up ahead of schedule." That was why Daku had put them into stasis, so there wouldn't be any more loss. Now they had to work with the three remaining intruders.
The village leaders all chose not to blame their bodyguards for the loss since it was very unexpected that a ninja could force himself awake after being knocked unconscious. Even still the guards had profusely apologised for failing, Daku included.
They then entered a wide stone walled room that had three hospital-style beds inside, the room was well-lit, making sure there weren't too many shadows and the room was very cool, not painfully so though.
The boy hovered over to the side of the bed at the far left of the room. The village leaders followed only to see what he was going to do.
Naruto wore a pair of plastic gloves and looked at the ROOT ninja on the bed that was stripped down to only his shirt and pants. The ninja had a softly glowing blue kanji for 'deep sleep' plastered on his forehead. The ninja was taking low, slow breaths to show he was still very much alive.
The blonde seal master stood up, Daku pulling his wheelchair back, and gently pried the intruding ninja's mouth open. He snapped his fingers and Daku came over and held the mouth open. Naruto pulled out the tongue and hummed in thought at what he saw.
Since the boy was the only resident seal master, he chose to speak to the leaders, not to keep them in the dark. "He has a very complex seal on his tongue." He used his pinkie finger to trace the seal. "No, correction, there are two seal complexes on his tongue."
"Two? I thought it was only possible to have one," Rinsuki, the Leader of Hidden Marsh wondered aloud. The other leaders nodded to show that they too were wondering the same thing.
"I thought the same thing too when I was at level five. The scroll I learned from at the time showed me that it was possible to put even up to a hundred seals together, as long as the seal master knows what he is doing." He bent down to look at the roof of the ninja's mouth, then under his tongue, finding nothing.
"I can believe that doing something like that has to have risks," Samsato said, agreeing with Naruto's lecture.
"Yes. The seal master has to combine kanji that are more compatible with the other, he has to be very careful with how he draws them or it would blow up in his face. Still, the risks are always worth the rewards. Believe me."
"Are we to assume that you have used complex seals before?" Shibuki asked.
"Numerous times; the seals that make my wheelchair move are complex, the seals that protect Wave are complex—and might I add very hard to crack—, the visitor's seals on your wrists are extremely complex, and the list goes on." The leaders watched as a kanji for 'find/detect' glowed on Naruto's palm. He moved it slowly over the unconscious ninja's body. "This seal on my hand is made up of four seals."
There were two types of complex seals; the ones that were stacked on top of each other and the ones that were tied end-to-end, similar to cursive handwriting.
The seal on his palm was stacked on top of each other, melding together after he successfully channelled his chakra in to make his seal detection seal. Complex seals were not very easy to detect by people who haven't been exposed to the finer intricacies of fuinjutsu, or anyone below level five of mastery in fuinjutsu.
"What seal complexes are on this ninja's tongue, Lord Naruto," Yumi asked, engrossed by how interesting seals could be and how deep the ninja art could go, much deeper than anything she had ever encountered.
(Note: a seal complex is a single, simple seal. A complex seal is a seal made up of more than one simple seal)
Naruto appreciated the questions; it showed that they had a healthy respect for seals and were willing to learn what they could. He would gladly oblige them since fuinjutsu wasn't a secret art.
"There are three simple seals on his tongue, combined expertly to make one complex seal. The first is the basic storage seal, tuned only to store fire chakra. Second is an archaic suicide seal, or cyanide seal; a seal I have only seen once and it was in an ancient scroll I learnt from. The last seal is a rare kind of seal called the loyalty seal; it is like an oath never to speak about something. The seals combine to form the complex kanji for 'Death by Fire'."
The boy had detected storage seals on the ninja's forearms and trap seals on the ninja's chest. He turned off the detection seal on his palm and rummaged through the pockets of his baggy pants. He then removed a thin sheet of paper and snapped his fingers. Daku promptly dropped a brush on his master's awaiting hands and held out an inkpot for the boy to dip the brush in.
"What are you doing now, Naruto?" Yumi asked, leaning in slightly to look at what the boy was drawing.
"I'm drawing a seal I created to tell me what exactly is inside a storage seal and, if I'm lucky, tell me what traps are in that seal," he pointed to the exposed chest of the unconscious ninja. "Stand back, please." The Leaders shuffled back two steps as the boy finished the seal with an expert flourish and wafted it over the storage seal twice. He then looked at the sheet of paper in his hand and pursed his lips. "Nothing threatening so far. He only has the essentials every ninja has to have on a mission: spare clothing, spare kunai and shuriken, a nodachi, a spare mask, toiletries… that seems to be about it."
He tore the paper up and drew another one on another thin sheet of paper, waving it over the trap seal once this time. Daku stood ready to intercept any problem that arose. "Just a highly powered explosive seal. It would probably detonate when I unseal it, it would probably take out a quarter of Wave." Storage seals and trap seals were eerily similar, the difference being that trap seals threw, or detonated, anything sealed inside while storage seals only dropped whatever was inside. "Fortunately for us, the person that drew these seals used outdated versions of each seal I mentioned." Naruto frowned, muttering with sarcasm dripping from his words, "I'm almost offended by how outdated they are."
Naruto waved for the Leaders to calm down, showing them non-verbally that he had no intention of blowing them up sky-high. Naruto checked the other ninja's tongues and scanned their bodies, confirming that they too had the same seals on them.
"You said these people have secrecy seals on them," Yumi began, the most interested of the village leaders. Naruto acknowledged her question with a positive hum as he looked at the seals on the first ninja's tongue again. "Is there any way to nullify it? Take apart the entire seal complex, so we can find out just who sent them?"
The young blonde seal master didn't respond for a while, only nodding slowly to himself, he then opened his mouth and said, "I can break the fire storage seal and the suicide seal, but I have only seen the loyalty seal once or twice before." The boy scratched his chin. "I'll have to break the seals according to how they are stacked." He whipped out his brush and drew a clean 'X' on the first ninja's tongue. He channelled his chakra to the seal and a small smash echoed from the broken seal. "The fire storage seal is down."
"That quick?" Samsato asked loudly.
"If I were a level five seal master, I would have needed a piece of paper or a scroll to draw out a seal to destroy the storage seal, but since I am well versed with drawing miniature seals, it isn't that hard." He could visibly see the respect they have for him increased exponentially. He turned back to the ninja and handed his brush back to Daku. He traced his pointer finger over the next seal, the suicide seal, and after doing so he made a quick slashing motion. His blue chakra is visible, shattering the seal. "Second seal is down."
The village leaders applauded quietly. The bodyguards too. Naruto smiled slightly at them and humoured them by making a flourishing bow.
For the last, and possibly the hardest and most dangerous seal to crack, Naruto had Daku widen the ninja's mouth a bit. He raised his pointer finger again and traced the seal on the tongue, and after finishing he began tracing the seal backwards, tiny drops of perspiration appeared on his forehead. When he finished, he leaned back to marvel at what he had done, his blue chakra glowing over the loyalty seal and the nefarious seal glowed a soft green.
He took in a deep breath and began flashing through a long chain of hand seals, closing his eyes to remember the chain. His eyes snapped open after the last seal and he said, "Hidden Art: Fuinjutsu: First Universal Whirlpool Seal Breaker." The air around the ninja's tongue rippled, and then the loyalty seal's ink melted into a puddle on the unconscious ninja's neck. Naruto puffed out some air in relief. "Third seal is down."
"Wonderful! Absolutely marvellous!" Kitsuen bellowed, clapping his hands boisterously. Naruto nodded.
"Now." He dabbed a handkerchief on his forehead, not yet tired enough to sit down. "Who wants to interrogate him?"
"I propose Kao interrogates him. He is well versed in interrogation techniques," Yumi piped up after a pause, indicating her second bodyguard, the one that hadn't been sent out to retrieve the intruders. She looked at her comrades for any objection and when she heard none she motioned for the Chill shinobi to come forward.
"How are we going to wake him up?" Rinsuki asked, still marvelling at the ease the boy used to break the seals. To answer her question Naruto simply reached to the intruding ninja and slapped him across the face, making the man's eyes snap open and a pained wheeze escape his mouth.
"What the—"
"He's all yours," the Wave Leader said, stepping back to where his fellow village leaders were standing.
Kao lazily slinked up to the lying ninja, who just so happened not to have any visible restraints but still could not get off the bed. The interrogator stared down blankly at the ninja, who was still futilely struggling against restraints he could not see. "What is your name?" he went straight to the point.
"I'd rather die than tell you anything," the person snarled, he clicked his tongue and his eyes widened in horror. "My seals—"
"—Have been removed, so you can speak at your own free will. I shall ask again, what is your name?"
Suppressed memories began flooding the ninja's mind, how he had been taken from the orphanage, how he had been forced to do what he didn't want, kill who he didn't want. He clenched his eyes shut in a futile attempt at summoning the till-death loyalty he had for his master but could find none.
Nothing whatsoever.
At that moment he began questioning whether or not he truly wanted to protect someone who had made him do all the heinous things he had done: assassinating royal delegations from Lightning and Earth countries in Whirlpool, making both power-hungry countries think the humble village was looking for trouble and starting an uprising for world domination, poisoning the Uzumaki water supply with slow acting chakra eating virus when he was an honoured guest there; posing as a Konoha dignitaries child. At that time, he had just graduated from the ROOT program, top of his group and it was the first mission his master had given him to prove his worth.
His eyes opened when he heard a polite cough. "Well?"
His master was a very powerful man, immensely so. He would not be surprised that after spewing out all the secrets he had on the man he would later be found dead in his cell. He wasn't even sure if his master was his master anymore…
"I don't remember my name but my…master calls me Rat." His eyes were still closed, hoping his captors believed him.
Kao nodded slowly. "Should I expect your full cooperation?"
A deep sigh escaped Rat and he looked over his life, feeling for the first time as old as he was supposed to be.
Maybe…
If he told these people what he knew and hoped for the best, he would stay alive a little while longer.
Just maybe.
He nodded his head. "Yes…. I'll cooperate."
Maybe that was why he had been given the name Rat; he would tell all he could to stay alive a little bit longer.
Naruto cracked a small smirk, barely visible to anyone besides Daku, who was very much used to seeing his expressionless master express something minutely. He snapped his fingers and Daku presented his wheelchair for him to sit down and sped down through the tunnel, returning with a scroll filled with the other village leaders' chairs.
When all were comfortable, with the bodyguards positioned at the corners of the room and behind the leaders, the blonde Leader of Wave motioned for Kao to begin the interrogation.
"Let us start from the beginning, Rat. Who sent you to infiltrate here?"
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
A day before the chunin exams finals
Konoha
Hyuuga Hiashi looked down at his daughters with a stoic expression. Both girls mirrored his expressions back to him perfectly.
"I want you two to spar."
Neither of them broke expressions.
He looked pointedly at his eldest daughter, Hinata, and visibly frowned, glaring down at her, expecting at least some perspiration to break out on her forehead. He was surprised when she stood tall under his judging gaze. Even still, he couldn't help but degrade her.
"As much as a lost cause you are Hinata, do not make a total fool of yourself."
Since Hinata was now in a team he could only train his daughters once or three times a month, and beginning from a month ago his eldest daughter had become even more reclusive than normal.
She woke up at three in the morning, as reported to him by her caretaker, and stalked out of the Hyuuga compound with astonishing stealth, bypassing chunin guards with years of experience. He had been told she wouldn't be seen or heard from again until her team met up for training two hours before midday.
He had charged Ko to keep track of her after that but whenever he saw her make a suspicious turn into a corner weird things would happen, like the last time she ducked into a blacksmith/weapon store he was immediately hit with vertigo from children rushing past him, some even pulling his hands in different directions. Another time a cart of watermelons had fallen on top of him, appearing out of nowhere.
Hiashi began seriously doubting Ko, so he sent out another Hyuuga branch member and was met with the same results. All the while Hinata would sneak back into the compound at about 8 pm; dead tired and irritable.
Goosebumps prickled his skin when he remembered what would happen if you woke up a cranky Hinata, witnessing it firsthand; he had to lay Ko off for a week from injuries to his private area. The worst part of it was that she didn't use gentle fist strikes to humble the man.
A simple kick to the crotch and he was out of commission.
'Poor Ko.' He mentally winced before he straightened up and glared down at his impassive daughter, spying from the corner of his eyes his youngest daughter, Hanabi, looking at her sister with blatant bewilderment.
He was extremely partial to the girl.
She had never been reprimanded or punished by him since the day she was born, and he would admit that she was spoiled.
Hanabi then glared at her sister, who was now boredly pursing her lips. The little girl scowled.
"Get into your stances." Both girls, as one, sharply turned away from each other and stepped back two paces before turning to look at each other. Both then, again as one, bent down into the basic stance of the Hyuuga clan taijutsu style, the Gentle Fist. "All goes. Begin!" the man barked. Both of his daughters' byakugan flared to life as they went through the required hand seals in sync.
"Byakugan!"
"Byakugan."
Hanabi frowned heavily when her all-seeing white eyes didn't detect any slight tremor her sister usually had or any increase in heart rate. It was looking at a Nara boy sleeping but at the same time looking at an Akimichi eating. A fact that confused her.
She darted forward with a chakra palm for a strike to the belly, the usual way she ended her spars with her sister but something astonishing happened. Hinata twisted away from the strike and, with almost blinding speed, blocked all the chakra points in Hanabi's striking hand. She was able to do so with her weight seals reduced to 40 pounds on each limb. It still slowed her down but she would still admit that she was significantly faster than when she hadn't even begun using weight seals.
The little girl flew past her, after having her arm turned into a useless sausage, and stared in shock at her sister. Hiashi too. Her eyes couldn't find any genjutsu on her and the only peculiar thing was the drawings on the back of her hands and at the top of her feet. Acting too slowly, Hinata reached forward and jabbed her attacking arms and shoulder, making her body sag, then jabbed her belly twice.
Hanabi wobbled on her feet, her body feeling like it was dead already with only half of her upper body blocked off.
Hinata waited for a retaliatory strike to come but the little girl was still in shock, her mouth gaping at her useless arm.
Then the strikes seemed to rain down from the sky onto the younger girl, before she knew it, she was a panting mess on the ground and Hinata was looking down at her with an empty stare. This enraged her. She began visibly straining to move her body but it was to no avail.
"Stand down, Hanabi…. She won." Hiashi, for all he was worth, never thought he'd ever say those words.
He warily eyed his eldest, and impassive, daughter. The girl bowed in respect for her opponent, who was foaming at the mouth and looked at him expectantly, which he wouldn't have caught if he wasn't an expert in reading miniature expressions. Her head tilted to him slightly and her lips quirked up a bit.
"You may leave."
"Yes, father." And she stalked out of the training ground, not even sparing her mad sister a glance.
"Get back here and face me!" She struggled bonelessly. "I wasn't ready! Get back here!"
Hiashi refrained from looking amused. "Hanabi, that's enough. We are going to increase your training. Next time you will be ready."
Meanwhile with Hinata, immediately after her clan compound was out of view, she pelted straight into training ground 8, then slipped through the trees to her blonde teacher's private place. "Sensei! Naruto-sensei!" She fell on her face, panting like a racehorse before she got herself under control and stood up straight, her face as blank as when she was with her family, albeit a slight bit red-tinged. The boy in the wheelchair, the real Naruto, looked at her with mild curiosity.
"Yes, Hinata?" he had arrived back in Konoha a week prior and was fully informed of what he had gotten himself into.
"I finally beat her," she puffed out, her chest inflating with pride. "I finally beat my sister in taijutsu."
The blonde boy casually noticed that compliments did a lot of good to the girl's confidence so he decided to oblige her, saying, "Well done, Hinata." Those few words did a world of things to the girl; she blushed heavily, she looked down, she poked a blade of grass with her foot, but she still stood up straight, remembering that her teacher preferred confidence, as little as she could give. The boy allowed her to have her moment of glory. "As a reward, you have no training for today and tomorrow. You will still have your weight seals active." On cue, she felt her body sag under the added weight; of 90 pounds. "Now take a seat, I have something to tell you."
The girl snapped out of her blush-induced daze and sat cross-legged on the ground looking up at him.
"The first thing I want to tell you is that I have been receiving troubling news from my spies." Her eyes widened, not knowing that her semi-crippled teacher had spies.
'Sensei has spies?! He's cooler than I thought!'
He gauged her reaction and when he didn't see any shift in loyalty from her pale eyes he continued, "It seems five Konoha patrol stations in the north have been taken over by Hidden Sand and a new shinobi village known as Hidden Sound." She remained composed, surprised that the normally reclusive boy had told her even this much. "I do not think this bodes well for Konoha, seeing how many shinobi there are. They are presently lying in wait until tomorrow, which I predict is when they will strike."
"An invasion…" she murmured.
"Exactly."
"What do you want me to do, sensei?"
"I want you to answer that question yourself, Hinata,"
She looked at the ground and furrowed her eyebrows in thought before she looked up and said, "I will defend Konoha since it is my responsibility as a shinobi." A ghost of a smile crossed Naruto's face and she nodded resolutely, believing she had answered correctly.
"Yes, it is your responsibility, but you have to protect Konoha because it is your home. This is where all your friends and your comrades live; if Konoha is not present then you have no home." She nodded again, taking his teachings to heart. "Listen to your superiors and make sure you lend a hand in helping out. If you survive tomorrow, then I shall reward you as well as bring you into my confidence."
Now Hinata definitely had to survive the invasion; the person she looked up to, her idol, had put enough faith in her to train her and now he was going to tell her more things, making her stronger.
"I won't let you down sensei."
"I trust that you won't. The second thing I wish to ask you is about your ambition." She tilted her head to the side in question. "What is your ambition, Hinata?"
"To-To be as strong as you, sensei."
Her response made the blonde seal master pause. "I'm flattered by your response but every teacher does not want his students—or student, in your case—to be as strong as him, he wants his students to be stronger than him. Greater than him." He allowed her some seconds to digest what he had just said. "I want you to set your target in the sky and shoot for it, maybe even overshoot it. Now, I'll ask again, what is your ambition?"
Hinata again looked down and pursed her lips in thought, something she had unknowingly learnt from Naruto and thought deeply about her ambition.
'I don't want to say my ambition is to become a jounin; Naruto-sensei said he has seals and body traps that could level a battlefield if he wanted and take out numerous jounin. I don't want to say I want to become an A-rank ninja; if Sensei were to become a ninja, he would be an A-rank ninja. Maybe higher. If I keep beating Hanabi in our spars, I will definitely become the clan head, but…even that still seems too low.' Then her eyes drifted to the side and she caught sight of the Hokage's monument. 'That's it!'
She looked at Naruto with fire in her eyes.
"I will become Hokage."
Naruto graced her with a small smile. She met it with her own, and he reached forward and ruffled her hair. "That's the sky Hinata. All you have to do is reach it."
She beamed at him, preening under his hand.
She swore to him with all the power in her being and with resolve ebbing from her pores.
"I'll make you proud, Naruto-sensei."
Authors note
Jutsu list
Hidden Art: Fuinjutsu: First Universal Whirlpool Seal Breaker: This is a jutsu created by the Second Uzukage, Yurishiki Uzumaki, to break the influence a loyalty seal has on a person. It is a hidden art passed down only to those in the Uzumaki royal family. The Second Uzukage created two 'Universal seal breakers'. The second one is made to nullify a master/slave seal completely. Kushina Uzumaki was the only known Uzumaki royal family member that had split the number of hand signs to less than half, further showing how deep her mastery of fuinjutsu was. It is said that the chakra requirement for using this jutsu is A rank as shown when the scroll holds all forbidden/hidden Uzumaki ninjutsu/genjutsu/taijutsu/fuinjutsu/etc. was read by an academy-age boy, who later passed out from strain.
More Uzumaki-exclusive jutsu will be shown in subsequent chapters.
So? What do you all think? Did I do well?
Let's face it, Kurenai coddles Hinata; she doesn't do things to toughen her up, only to cheer her up and make her feel better. Naruto had corrected what she had done by telling her exactly what was wrong with her. Hinata just got frustrated with hearing all she didn't want to admit herself and exploded. It's the hard truth, so don't bash Naruto for telling her it. And you see how easily Hinata took down her sister? Even though she could have done it in canon.
Rat is an orphan, typical Root material. But he was an unwilling member. Never fear though, you'll see a little more of him, and his comrades, in the next chapter or the subsequent chapters.
Any questions, complaints, criticism and ideas should be forwarded to my PM or review, I'm cool with either one.
Oh, and before I forget, I'm almost done typing up a new story…well…two new stories… They're Harry Potter stories, but I plan on releasing only one for now and releasing the other if I see the first has a good enough reception. Any Potterhead out there that'd like to read it be ready, I'd appreciate it if you reviewed too.
With these last words, please review.
See you on the flip side :)
Foy.