Heya,
I took two weeks off writing for my vacation, but now I'm back on that grind. Hopefully y'all weren't waiting too terribly for this.
Anyways, I'll save the rest of my yapping for the end.
Enjoy:
Neji let his words linger for no longer than a second before he was on her; blades of grass cut the air around them as his palm passed just over her head, redirected by her own swift imposition at his wrist. Twin sets of pupilless mirrors reflected one another, and Hinata's narrowed as Neji's other arm swept in, palm tensed with intent to take her head; her other guarding palm snapped out to intercept him at the bicep, completely halting his approach. Then, fingers twisted against his attacking libs, and Neji let out a squawk of surprise as he was spun and flipped out of his control.
"Wha-" He aborted his empty exclamation, forced to respond while upside-down as Hinata lashed out in turn; her right leg retreated, a bracing foot stomping heavily before snapping forth to collide center-masse with Neji's guard. A short spark of chakra exploded from the point of impact, and Neji absorbed the blow with a grunt, its impact sending him rolling at Hinata's feet. He recovered quickly, lunging after her with a laser focus, but blanched when his foe merely tilted back and drove her heel into him. Neji's eyes bugged out as her chakra punched deeply into his chakra barrier, abusing the flesh beneath and driving him into a backwards skid. Dirt and grass flew; the taste of vomit shored up and touched his tongue, his knees wobbling as he fought to keep his dragging feet beneath him.
But then that battle was lost. Neji staggered, then fell, his knees and palms slapping against the earth with a disbelieving gasp.
Had she really been holding back so much against him? Neji could only vaguely follow her approach; his mouth felt dry as he beheld her dispassionate gaze. Then something in his body yielded as her shin collided squarely with his unprepared side.
"Gah!" He went rolling, fingers staining with grass and mud as he tried to arrest his trajectory; he rolled twice, flipping over his shoulder and onto powerless knees, and blanched as he realized that Hinata was already well into his guard.
Fast too!
Hinata's palm slammed into his forearm, and Neji grimaced as her chakra crashed over his own, yet again puncturing his barrier and deadening the limb. She tilted back just enough to evade his retaliating swipe, then twisted until her hips and torso were near parallel to the ground; Neji's thrusted fingertips passed right over her shoulder, and Hinata capitalized, her own arm winding around and hooking at his bicep. With his only working arm arrested, Neji paid for it as her palm bored into his gut; he doubled over her outstretched arm, eyes bugging and bloodied lips trembling. His pain-filled expression twisted again with his yell as he blew away from her, rolling to a spasming stop, just a few meters off.
There was some odd rotational force to her gentle fist strikes; they drilled right through his defending chakra pulses, lodging deeply into his chakra points and arresting their output.
What's more, he could still sense that she was taking him lightly. Her chakra had yet to fluctuate at all since their fight had started…
What horrors had she gone through, to have evolved so much in such a short time- that she could manhandle him while half-assing things this much? Neji suspected they were tired directly to his cousin's stalwart apathy, as of late.
"Are we done?" Hinata asked him, and though her tone seemed earnest enough, that didn't make her words sting any less. Unwilling to suffer that humiliation, Neji dug deep; he dragged himself to his knees, weathering the sandpaper shaving away at his innards and finally fighting to his feet. A deep breath, and he began trying to burrow through the walls of chakra that Hinata had injected into his paralyzed body parts.
"S-so I wa- was right then," He slurred, a morbid chuckle on his blood-tinted lips. "You have been throwing our matches."
Hinata looked away, cheeks splashing pink at the accusation. "You've been holding back too…"
"Heh… In a sense, I suppose." Neji rose to his feet, brushing himself off. He unzipped his jacket and hooked the hem of his pants, letting them both collapse at his feet with a heavy 'thump'. Underneath, a skintight, short-sleeved bodysuit protected his modesty. "But if it's like this, we should be able to cut loose without Hiashi-sama's oversight. Please do not insult me by taking it easy any longer."
Then he took a new stance, legs spread wider and both arms near-crossed ahead of him.
Hinata raised an eyebrow. Was he planning to open the gates against her? Surely, her cousin wasn't so foolish.
"I've learned better," Neji answered her unspoken question. "During the exams, I arrogantly presumed that I could master the Eight Gates technique in a month. 'If a loser like Lee can manage it, then surely I can'; that's what I thought, back then." He chuckled bitterly, his own disappointment in himself laid plain. "My fight with Naruto Uzumaki humbled me in more ways than one. More than that though, it taught me to appreciate the strengths of my comrades, and through that, also provided for me a fresh avenue for growth. Because of that, I was able to-"
"Um- excuse me-" Hinata hesitantly cut in. Neji's eye twitched a bit at being interrupted. "I'd rather you just show me."
"Right… Right."
Why did no one ever let him finish his sentences?
Neji's chakra spiked, surging and bleeding through his flesh in a bluish cloud that scattered and fried the grass at their feet. The swell of his chakra unraveled itself around him, expanding further and more vigorously with every swell, until its waves assailed even Hinata over their distance. "Gate of Opening: Flare."
The wind picked up, lashing out from its epicenter and whipping at Hinata's hair and face. Through squinted eyes, she could see exactly what he had done. Instead of blowing the gate wide open like he had done during his fight with Naruto, he had instead only pried it slightly ajar, using threads of his own chakra to wedge the gate open and sustain that state.
Like a faucet controlling the flow of water.
So efficiency was the name of the game, then; he was meaning to compensate for the rush of chakra and subsequent burn out by regulating that increased chakra flow through a tighter funnel, trading the explosive increase for mileage, instead…
It was only seconds before the lightshow was done; his chakra flow shifted, his expelled energy plastering itself to his body in a layer so thick that Hinata's own byakugan could only see a hazy impression beyond it.
This seemed to be an evolution of that chakra armor of his, made to challenge the armor-piercing rotational force behind her attacks that she had improvised for him. Instead of economically distributing his more limited reserves in response to incoming attacks, he had instead plastered the bulk of that fresh yield of chakra over himself as a steady, flexible protection. The remnant flow spread out from the brain, where the initial gate resided, subtly bolstering the chakra pathways leading to the eyes and down the spine to enhance his own perception and reflexes.
As always, Neji truly was a genius; in just the month since they'd last seen each other, he'd gone and found a solution to the weaknesses that had lost him his fight against Naruto.
"Here I come." Then he was on her again, only this time, he was different. Neji's speed had hardly increased, but she understood just from his approach alone that the Hyuga genius had become a whole different animal. His rush was not the predictable, linear kind like he had relied so heavily on when he faced Naruto. In its place, his feet were carried swiftly by a sequence of precise chakra bursts; harsh clouds of chakra loosed themselves from his soles and ankles like a smokescreen, rising up his form and hazing his approach against her byakugan's depth perception
Hinata responded promptly, throwing her arms up to protect her vitals; however, Neji rushed right past her, stopping on a dime and whipping around with a full rotation. His leg swung out, the heel of his foot threatening to crash right into her head. An arc of chakra followed the motion with deadly force, threatening to split her skull right open. Responding quickly, Hinata ducked slightly to avoid the initial attack, then reared back fully to steer clear of the following side-kick.
But she had gotten predictable.
His leg raised, and Hinata had to brace herself in preparation, crossing her arms to absorb the axe-kick that crashed into her guard. Then she stole a page out of his own book, flaring her chakra through the points in her forearms and wrists like firecrackers to dull his impact; at the same time, she twisted her body, letting the weight of his impact slight right off her. Neji stumbled as his heel crashed into the earth, and she lashed out to capitalize, the tips of her fingers jabbing twice into his inner knee. Twin shrieks tore through the air as her chakra cut against his own, not unlike metal scraping on metal.
Neji seemed unphased, merely hopping back slightly as the rising debris of her impact crumbled down around her.
No damage done with her gentle fist strike, even when aimed at a soft spot. Which meant their family's taijutsu would be a no-go, unless she wanted to try just battering him until that armor of his fell.
… It wasn't a terrible option. The chakra expense of his armor had shot up briefly to compensate for her retaliation; based on that, she was already hazarding a weakness or two to his technique. The drain from that armor of his would surely become a problem if he let the fight drag on for too long, even with his reserves and output bolstered by the loosened inhibitions resulting from the first gate's opening.
So her best option then was to challenge his stamina with hit and run tactics…
Her thoughts were interrupted, Neji seeming remiss to give her any further time to strategize; he was already on her again.
This time, Neji came low, zigzagging into reach of her and lashing out with a blinding flurry of attacks aimed at her legs. Twin trails of chakra followed his movements, their secondary impacts were an ever-present threat that discouraged her from striking back. She backpedaled quickly, hands working to deflect what she could not evade.
"You've always been far too passive," Neji remarked, almost accusingly as he continued to press her. "I'm coming at you with everything I've got; the least you could do is not half-ass it!"
Hinata winced as one of his strikes breached her defense, a thin trail of chakra slicing right over the bridge of her nose. A short hop carried her into a backwards slide along the grass' surface; she pivoted on her heel, letting Neji slide past her.
But his intuition was razor sharp, the boy stopping on a dime to press her further. His fingers snapped out, clipping her ear. Then they stiffened into a chop that sliced into her brow; Hinata clenched her eye shut as a thin trickle of blood oozed from the wound.
"What exactly are you waiting for?" Neji hissed. A barrage of palm strikes hammered into her straining guard, his shoring chakra threatening to puncture her own defenses. "I know you're still holding back; what's it going to take to get you to take me seriously!?"
"I am taking you seriously-" Hinata tried, but Neji wasn't having it.
"You're treating me like I'm some damn chore!" Neji swept low, then twisted in place. His chakra tore away from him, lashing out and slicing strays from her hair. As she tried to find her footing, he tore after her, diving right through his own barrier and colliding painfully with her bruising forearm. "You've been treating everything like a chore! Like you're detached from it all. Where's your passion! Don't you want to win!?"
Hinata's frown continued to stretch, chipping her disdain across her face with every blow like a chisel on ice. "What's your point?"
"My point is-" Neji spiraled off from her, planting his feet and rushing in yet again. Inches from their next collision, he stopped in place, rearing up a chop with a heavy delay; the feint left her stumbling to defend, and Neji capitalized by aborting the attack in favor of a full-body tackle. His shoulder drove into her sternum and wrung the breath from her lungs as he pinned her beneath him. "You won't ever move forward if you keep standing still! You can't expect things to get better for yourself if you won't fight for it with all you have! That's what Naruto Uzumaki taught me; that's what you taught me! So why can't you take your own advice?" His snarl was visceral as he drew closer, their noses inches from one another. Hinata was struck dumb by the sheer emotion behind his eyes. "All this time I thought you were just weak or talentless- in reality you're a damn sandbag!"
Ouch.
Neji raged on. "You have no concern or agency where your own wellbeing is concerned; you're just a puppet! You'll fight tooth and nail for others' sake- to protect Hanabi-sama or to impress that boy! But it's pulling teeth to get you to fight for yourself!"
Hinata stopped struggling, at that. Her eyes peeled away from the body over her own, cast instead for the night sky beyond.
The moon stared back at her, a full, unblinking reflection of her father's glare.
"So what do you want me to say then?" She whispered, dully. "What reason do I have to fight for myself?"
It occurred to her in that instant that Hinata held no real ambitions of her own.
In her youth, she had trained to become strong for her father's sake- to give him an heiress who would succeed him and lead the clan in his stead.
She'd failed. Her heart was too fragile to play the part that Hiashi had given her; to raise her hand against her sister- condemn Hanabi to be her lesser, and win father's approval…
Maybe she was just naive. But even then, thinking about her uncle- her father's brother, and the resentment that had festered between the two- just the thought of sparking that same bitterness in her sister's heart had been a curse she simply could not bear. She'd have rathered just take the caged bird seal right then and there.
From there, it had only been a downward slope.
"If you can't even best a mere child with a fraction of your experience, then what good are you to me?"
Her father's ridicule crept on her suddenly, and she had little retort. If she lacked the will to fight, then what hope did she have of leading the clan in Hiashi's stead, someday? Better to have Hanabi lead in her stead…
Her father's strictness twisted into disdain, and every day that passed only seemed to lengthen the gash that had cut between them until at some point, she had given up on him just as much as he had, her; for a time, she had nothing.
She still remembered the bitter nights, curled up in her bed and stewing over that man's disdain. Littered in scrapes and bruises from training that felt too harsh to be kind- his words always weighed far heavier on her than her wounds.
But then she had fallen for Naruto. Nowadays, she knew why too; he had in spades what she lacked:
Passion.
Drive.
Thrill.
Whether he was winning or losing at life, Naruto always seemed to tackle it all with a smile- even when the world itself seemed intent on punching down at him. He always found a way to laugh.
She wanted that…
She wanted him, because he was everything she wasn't- everything she wanted to be. Someone who would spit right back at the world in a heartbeat, win or lose. On some level, she realized that she had trained solely to live up to his example. Now, more than ever, she worked herself to the bone, on some level, to be worthy of the love he had given her.
But what came beyond that? What did she want, solely for herself?
"I don't know…" Her admission came almost guiltily. "I don't think I've ever known."
And maybe that was exactly why it was so hard for her to cope with all that had happened- why it was so hard to just let herself be a little selfish and ask for help. And yet at the same time, it seemed harder than ever to just pretend to be strong.
"I don't really have a lot going on up here, to tell you the truth." The admission came bleeding with a cut of shame. "I guess in a lot of places, I'm just going through the motions…"
Neji's fury crumbled, sadness forging in its place. "And you're fine with that?" He shook her, his grip rattling her skull painfully with his intensity. "Tell me you aren't fine with that!" She shrugged, and his rage returned with a vengeance. "You're more than that! You have to be more than that! If you can't even be moved to give a damn about yourself, then where do you get off trying to save other people, huh!?" Neji shook her again, fighting to hold her elusive gaze. "Answer me!"
"I don't know…"
"Bullshit!" Neji shouted in her face, and Hinata's composure finally crumbled.
"I don't know!" She hissed, surging upward against his weight. Her palm lashed out, crashing against his chest with all of her might; Neji tumbled onto his back, and Hinata petulantly kicked at him as she staggered to her feet.
Who did he think he was!? Him, of all people, to lecture her?
Fire scalded in her belly.
"I don't know what I am! I don't know what I want! I don't know what you want either! Stop pretending like you care!"
"I-I can't not care!" Neji snarled right back. "Because you cared! Even though I was awful to you; even though I looked down on you; and I demeaned you! And I-" Neji hiccupped, his rage dying in place of this overwhelming shame. "And I-I hurt you."
Oh…
A heavy silence pervaded the grounds at that admission. Neji clutched at his chest, yet another hiccup filling his lungs. Neji's jaw trembled, and Hinata shifted with some discomfort at the realization that she had never seen Neji cry before until this very moment.
"I nearly killed you, even though you cared! And you- you were kind to me, even though I didn't deserve it! Even though you should have wished me dead, you and Uzumaki- you guys changed me!" He bowed his head, fingers clawing painfully at his locks as his tears hastened their fall. "I was drowning! I had such wonderful people in my life, but I was so, so lonely, because I was too stupid and bitter to let them in… It's because I lost that I was able to hear my father's last words from Hiashi-sama; it's because I lost that I could enjoy a meal with my team and smile with them for the first time- that I could have Gai-sensei praise me and feel joy about it! You and Uzumaki- you gave that to me! Whether you realize it or not, you saved me!" Neji shook his head furiously. "I can't accept that someone as incredible as you can't find a single reason to fight for themselves!"
"Oh…"
Hinata gnawed her upper lip, unable to even look at her cousin after that admission.
A savior? She hadn't even done anything; it had been Naruto who had beaten him. She wasn't seeing what Neji was seeing…
But- but it felt nice to hear Neji of all people speak so highly of her. It felt gratifying, if a bit confusing, to that- to have one of the people whose approval she had yearned for most, in her youth, validate her.
Even if she felt too broken to see what he was seeing…
But even still, "Alright…" Hinata muttered, her shaky breaths caressing the air. "I hear you."
Because what else was she supposed to do, with him speaking so earnestly? In a way, she supposed nothing had changed at all. In the end, this was more for Neji than it was, herself- maybe so that he could feel like he was making a difference…
Or maybe it was because he truly had been exactly where she was, that she could be moved to indulge him.
Hinata shifted her posture, her body naturally aligning to take a new stance. It was freshly improvised; she didn't even really know what she was doing, but she knew it felt right.
She leaned forward, her left leg leading and her foot twisted diagonally to brace her weight. Her retreating leg bent slightly forward at the knee, her torso following through in a forward tilt. Both shoulders raised, her arms positioned before her- one, in a half-guard that ended in a claw to protect her jaw; the other extended fully, her index and middle fingers pointing at her target- the rest curled inward, taking a shape reminiscent of the point of an arrow.
Her lungs filled as she inhaled deeply and deeper still until her chest felt heavy.
Then, she let go.
She couldn't exactly put words to the sensation. Kiba might have had some crude description that weirdly fit. But nevertheless, her chakra soared, uncoiling from her gut and filling her body like water in a balloon; it rushed through her like a torrent, filling space that she hadn't even known existed until she felt almost swollen. The veins of her byakugan swelled further, irises expanding to take Neji's readied shape solely into her sights.
Her eyes itched, the subtle burn of strain creeping on the edges of her vision as her perception heightened; the light of her stare punched right past the barrier her cousin had donned, fixing her gaze relentlessly to the ajar chakra point in his dome.
"Locked on," Hinata breathed, a deathly serenity taking hold of her.
If he wanted her best, he could have it.
Hinata's adjustment didn't bring with it any further spectacle. She didn't transform or dig deep; she didn't drop any weights or remove a seal or evolve in any way that Neji could put a finger on.
But he knew the difference intimately. She was looking at him. Not near him or around him; it was like she was really seeing him, and Neji understood with a start that he could not remember the last time she had looked at him like that.
The air between them faintly crackled, then it split in an instant as they rushed each other. Neji's palm surged after her, aiming for center mass.
Hinata's index and middle fingers joined, then pressed at his forearm; a twist, and his limb wrenched painfully as his attack was redirected, flying way off target and exposing his tilting torso. He tried to plant his feet against the ground to retain his footing, but regretted it instantly as Hinata merely slid far into his space until their noses were merely inches apart. Neji caught the elbow that fired off towards his sternum, then hissed as her forehead crudely smashed into his nose. Chakra shrieked again as hers attacked his own, and though his guard held, he could feel the chip in its form.
"Tch! Barbaric!" Neji stumbled back, fighting against his cousin's effort to remove her elbow from his grip. She aborted the effort entirely, instead yanking him closer yet again via her trapped limb. Her free arm came in, fingers primed like the head of an axe and slamming down over his brow; were his guard not still in place, he did not doubt that she'd have split his skull right open.
It seemed she was aiming for the initial gate; that was twice now that she had gone for it.
So she really was serious, then… "Good!"
Neji's defense splintered again, spiderweb cracks splitting across the bluish layer he wore over his flesh. Before he could even process the damages though, she yanked him again, this time ripping him right off his feet as he staggered and hurling him onto his back.
Neji recovered quickly, rolling to his feet nigh-instantly, and moving to guard. That proved to be the wrong move as Hinata lurched forward, rolling right over his shoulder. He tried to turn to meet her, but squawked with surprise as her fingers closed around his free locks; a yank, and Neji's squawk became a yelp as she hurled him along, ripping the boy off his feet by his hair and sending him tumbling before her. Neji had no time to even gather his bearings before her closed fist crashed into his nose, sending him rolling with another shriek of crumbling chakra.
But she wasn't done.
Hinata rushed right after him, her other leg swinging in to bounce Neji off the ground with yet another volleying kick. He didn't get far at all before she was ahead of his trajectory, an open palm bullying his side and sending him crashing down.
Now, spiderweb cracks began to fill the body of his defense, spreading until they met with the splinters at his head; they continued to erupt at every point she hit and spread further with every blow she piled on further.
Neji tried to scramble to his feet, but was forced to immediately drop back down onto his back to avoid the arc of her leg; Hinata landed and pivoted, carrying her kick into a full rotation, this time angling into her foe's hasty guard as he once again tried to rise. She followed through immediately, a second kick snapping up to clip Neji's brow again. Shards of hardened chakra cracked away and clattered to his feet, where they scattered into mere motes. He hardly noticed, hurling himself forward in a barrage of strikes; she met his challenge with equal ferocity, their hands and fingers dancing across the space between them; sparks of chakra fired into the air as they clashed, capturing the stray motes to bridge their next collisions.
Twice.
Four times.
Eight, sixteen, thirty two.
"Eight Trigrams: Sixty Four Palms!" Neji snarled, the shooting ache of lactic acid burning in his muscles as he pushed himself to match her pace. The sparks continued to clash at a greater pace, but even that reaction paled to the flurry of their limbs against one another. Neji's gritted teeth stood in sharp contrast with Hinata's laser focus; not so much as a twitch of her face as she battled right back, even as she seemed to lose ground to his ferocity.
For the briefest of moments, he let himself believe that he was taking the lead. Neji wove around a chop, hurtling into her guard.
Then pain spilled into his mouth as her foot shot directly up, invading the minimal space between them to smash into his jaw and bore right through his armor. The taste of copper was joined by the sight of stars, filling his senses and making him stagger back, blindly. The pain in his mouth was matched in his brow yet again by a second, invisible strike. Then another, slamming into his leg and taking him down to a knee. He pounded the feeling back into his shaking leg, and shot forward again, arms crossing with his target's and pushing against her.
The cracks in his armor had reached their breaking point, causing shards to fall apart en masse, faster than he could repair them. He dug deeper for his chakra, and paled as he understood:
She had forced the initial gate closed, and his wellspring had succinctly dried up.
With his chakra supply gutted, his protections wouldn't hold.
"Your chakra armor works by sustaining those chakra pulses throughout your body at an even output. But it has a pretty glaring weakness," Hinata observed, almost distantly. She swept in with her leg, hooking around the pit of his knee and pulling; Neji squawked with surprise as his core was destabilized, right before her palm once again slammed into his gut and sent him skidding back, coughing and spitting. "The point where those pulses overlap- they're the densest, but also the least stable- like trying to stack a tower of plates. The initial gate is where the overlaps are at their most frequent… If I hammer that same point with my chakra, you burn yourself out trying to compensate."
"You saw through my technique already?" Neji suddenly felt naked, before her gaze. He had been wrong before. She wasn't looking at him, but into him, dissecting past the surface and taking hold of the weaknesses that lay beyond.
Hinata did not answer, instead dropping low. Her legs spread out wide, bracing her weight as she took her stance. "Eight Trigrams: Sixty Four Palms."
She wanted to do this again? "Fine-" Mirroring her stance, Neji's gaze hardened. He aborted the barrier completely, salvaging the last remnants of his chakra for one final clash. "Eight Trigrams: Sixty Four Palms."
There was a moment where everything seemed unreal- dreamlike, almost. Not even the rush of wind registered on his senses. Neji's byakugan sputtered forth one final effort; they swelled until his eyes itched and burned, zeroing onto his target's position.
A drop of sweat spilled over his nose, plopping almost soundlessly against the grass below.
Neji responded first; he hurled himself forward, intent to take the lead just like their previous clash. Hinata was only a split moment later, sliding in to match his rush, but Neji's first attack was already en route to her.
Inches from his impact with her, his failing eyes saw his mistake.
She had not missed his failing perception. No, she had engineered it, rightly anticipating that her repeated attacks against the gate of opening would also disrupt his chakra output near the ocular region.
Which meant her challenge here-
"Oh you slimy, underhanded little-" His indignant shout was lost in the shriek of chakra as Hinata pivoted, and her chakra twisted in turn.
"Eight Trigrams: Heavenly Rotation."
"Oi, I've got a question." Tayuya's request came out of the blue for Naruto. The two had settled into an uneasy pseudo-quiet, since the boy's declaration, earlier. Said boy had dragged her off to the temporary housing she and her team had been offered, ordering her to pack her meager belongings while he explained the situation to her teammates.
"I'm abducting your teammate. She's mine now; I'm putting her in my pocket."
… Okay, 'explained' wasn't exactly accurate, and were she not wary of breaking any more knuckles, she'd have definitely slugged him upside the head for that laughably uninformative declaration.
"You don't gotta ask for permission, ya know. Just ask what you wanna ask."
Kidomaru had warily accepted the situation, only stopping long enough to eye her for confirmation before he helped her pack her things without any further words; she had made sure to promise to check in with him before long though…
Sakon and Ukon though-
Tayuya grimaced.
The assholes had barely even acknowledged the situation, and that stung.
"I ain't asking for permission; I'm just preparing you, is all."
Naruto snickered. "Alright. My body is ready. Ask away."
"You say we're- uh… That we're related. Let's say I believe you-"
Naruto rolled his eyes. "You do. You wouldn't be humoring the idea if you didn't believe it, ya know."
"... Let's say I do," Tayuya insisted. "What the fuck does that mean for us, huh?" Naruto eyed her curiously, and she frowned. "I mean- you've been showing me around and shit- treating me to meals, and tolerating my lame ass."
"Lame is right."
"Fuck off, man; you ain't supposed to agree with me." Tayuya sighed. "I figured it was just 'cuz Tits was making you babysit us. But you knew the whole time that we were blood, didn't you?"
And wasn't that weird to say. Tayuya could even remember a single thing about her own parents.
What they looked like.
Where they'd lived.
Hell, she couldn't remember if they'd had a bond, or if they'd died, or if Orochimaru had bought her off their hands for a bag of rice and a crisp high-five… The thought of having a kind of connection to another person- having that connection matter… What the hell did it even mean?
"I suspected." Naruto shrugged. "Enough to look into it, but mostly it was just a gut feeling; not enough for me to feel comfortable just springing on you. At least, not without some confirmation of sorts, I guess."
"So if Tits never said anything- what, were you just gonna sit on that shit forever?"
"Probably." Her eye twitched, and Naruto's grin really wasn't helping her annoyance. Did the bastard have to look so amused, while she was struggling not to punch or curse him? "No point in bugging you about it if I didn't have anything solid to go on."
Tayuya's frown deepened. "But why go through all that trouble on a hunch? What if you turned out to be wrong, and I was just some nameless bitch who rocketed out from some third-rate, commoner cooch in the back alley of a massage parlor?
"Er- oddly specific?"
"I mean- it just sounds like it'd have been a big waste of your time if you ask me."
"Good thing I'm not asking you." Naruto snorted, heedless of her indignant scowl. "Even if we weren't kin- I promised to help with your seal. I ain't the sort who goes back on his promises, believe it."
"Right, right…" Tayuya shrugged a bit lamely. "Well just give a girl a warning if you decide you're bored with me, I guess…"
She really did plan it as a joke, but she winced immediately when Naruto suddenly paused. His smile twisted into a frown, his eyes hardening just a touch. "Oi, don't compare me to Orochimaru."
Whoops.
"W-wait, I wasn't trying to-" Tayuya stammered, arms flailing. "Look, I don't know what you tree huggers are about! Until the other day I thought you guys were a bunch of blood-harvesting devils who wore tiki masks and threw virgins into volcanoes or some shit!"
"Never too late to start," Naruto groused, his hand snapping up to pinch her cheek.
"O-oi! Let go, asshole!"
Listen well, you little shit-" Naruto pulled the whining Tayuya closer until their noses were nearly touching. "At this point, I don't give a damn if Auntie teleports behind us both and tells us 'it was just a prank, teehee!'" A lone chip of amethyst found her set of brown; they narrowed slightly, arresting her breath and pinning her still. There was something- some peculiar amalgamate of stern kindness that bullied any retort she could have planned, right off her tongue. "You'd better believe that this ain't a debate. You're going to live in my house, eat my food, drink and use my clean water, and you're going to like it. From here on out, you're stuck with me, and that's final. Got it?"
Huh… Did her heart just skip a beat?
Tayuya blushed, halfheartedly slapping his hand away. "Whatever…"
She hated how hopeful that made her feel, if only because she was wary to just accept it as easily as he'd said it.
"Good. Now get your stubby-ass legs into gear. I want you to meet somebody."
"Fuck you, my legs ain't even stubby!"
She rushed to chase after his long strides, jabbering relentlessly with some complaint or another that he hardly even heard.
"-And it's getting dark as shit outside. I'm hungry and tired, ya know! Who the hell is this schmuck you want me to meet anyways?"
"Watch your tongue. He's the schmuck; the bestest schmuck. The legendary super schmuck! And we're here," Naruto- well, half-answered? He led their approach to a rather sizable district. Freshly trimmed grass paved a way forward; Tayuya's eyes followed the trail, marveling at the rich, brown complex up ahead. Myriad windows lay closed, but even from a distance, she could freely peer inwards, observing orderly rows of tables and chairs alike. It was a far cry from any of Orochimaru's bases, always so secretive and clinical.
This whole place seemed old- aged, but not unwell. Well-kempt, in spite of it all. Without words needing to be said, she understood well that the place had some great history. Not grand; it seemed far too humble to be grand. But great seemed fine.
Their steps forward took them under a large, faintly dulled sign, and Tayuya craned her neck to read it as they went.
Konoha Academy
"You're taking me to a school?" Tayuya glared at him. "You'd better not be calling me dumb."
"If I wanted to call you dumb, I'd be a little more upfront about it, dumbass."
"You can kiss my ass, ya painted sissy." Tayuya matched his grin with one of her own, letting her guide gently push her along into a building.
"I'm introducing you to my- My old sensei… He's really important to me." A thought. "Also, there's a genuine tossup that he might just kick my ass for taking so long to come see him." Naruto shrugged, as if unconcerned by the idea.
"A chance to see you sweat, huh?" Tayuya's grin was ear-to-ear as she followed close by.
"Maybe… I gotta keep up appearances with you, after all." Naruto came to a stop in a dimly lit hallway, leaning an ear to listen to whatever was on the other side. The soft scratch of pencil on pages and muffled muttering made him smile.
Of course the guy would still be here, this late in the evening… That man's dedication to his work was almost humbling.
"Yeah, he's here."
Then, without warning, Naruto kicked the door down.
"WHAT'S UP, FUCKER!?"
Tayuya yelped as the structure blew off its hinges, careening onward with a sharp bounce and implanting itself on the other side of the room. She heard a sharp curse inside the room as her escort waltzed his way in without fear; Tayuya poked her head in through the gaping space where the door had resided, just in time to see a rather plain-looking man jump to his feet. He was tan-skinned, adorned in the village's standard shinobi-wear of a denim-blue bodysuit; a green flak jacket lay neatly folded, just within reach at his table. There wasn't much interesting going on with his appearance, where Tayuya was concerned; her eyes did note the rather wide, horizontal scar over his nose, though. That, and the disheveled high ponytail his brown hair was done up in.
"Have you lost your damn mind!?" The man shouted, rounding the table with fire in his eyes. Tayuya had to do a double take, for his head seemed almost comically large for a split second while he shouted after the still casually-walking Naruto. "Who in the hell do you think you… Are…" He paused, his fury cooling down to a simmer as he took in his visitor. "Naruto?"
"Heya…" Naruto shifted awkwardly for a moment. Then he shot forward, dragging the taller man into a hug. "It's good to see you, Iruka-sensei."
Iruka froze, at the intimate gesture. He could count on one hand and have four fingers left the amount of times Naruto had hugged him. Well, three, now… To his memory, his old student avoided physical contact like the plague, much as he seemed to enjoy other peoples' attention.
It was only the briefest pause before Iruka hugged the boy back. Then the reprieve was broken as the man's fist cracked down on the boy's skull.
Tayuya snickered as Naruto flinched a bit late, awkwardly rubbing his head with a faux moan of pain.
"Ouchies."
"You had me worried sick, you know that!?" He howled in his face, shaking off his aching hand. "Do you know how worried I was?"
"Er- very worried?"
"Oh just you wait, you little bastard; I've gone and prepared a whole bloody presentation so I can impress upon you exactly how worried I was!"
"Does it have puppets? Pictures? I'll take spoken word poetry." Naruto feigned another wince as Iruka smacked him yet again. "Come on, man. That hurts."
"Don't bullshit me," Iruka growled, rubbing his bruising knuckles. "Your head feels like a wad of bricks."
"Can we just skip to the part where we hug again and pretend like I'm not in trouble?" Naruto and Iruka shared a chuckle as his sensei obliged, gathering the boy into his arms once more.
He supposed he could let the kid off the hook, just this once.
"It's good to see you…" Then he eyed the ruins of the door that his old student had kicked in from over his head and sighed. "Why did you break my door?" He asked into the blonde's hair. "I liked that door."
"I'll fix it on my way out," Naruto laughed. "Sorry it took me so long to come see you."
"I should punch you again, but I doubt you'd even feel it," Iruka groused, palming the boy's shoulders to hold him at arm's length. "You've gotten taller." He blinked. "And- er, prettier… Is that makeup?"
Naruto only laughed, waving his kimono sleeves around in an empty gesture. "I've been told I rock it damn well, believe it!"
"Sure…" Then Iruka looked past him, eyeing the warily looking redhead behind the remains of his late door. "Er- hello?"
Tayuya eyed him right back. "'Sup?" Her eyes flicked between the man and the still smoking pile of debris that Naruto had launched across the room. "I'm- uh, I'm not with him."
"She's the one that kicked it," Naruto accused the girl with a shrug.
"I didn't kick shit! I'll kick you if you don't get your story straight!"
"This is Tayuya. She helped me punch a giant snake-monster." Naruto paused, thinking for a long moment. Then, looking to Iruka, he added- "Er- she's also a- well, a relative."
Iruka took a moment to register the meaning behind that admission. But then his eyes flicked rapidly between the two, growing progressively wider with each cycle.
"That's- wow…" Iruka looked between them again. "How did that- is that- er, are you sure?"
Naruto only shrugged. "Sure as can be. Get in here and introduce yourself- what are you acting so shy for all of a sudden?"
Tayuya got indignant. "You kicked the fucking door in and tried to blame it on me!" Nonetheless, she fully rounded the corner, stepping into the room; she glanced around, taking in the sights with curious eyes. "So this is a school, huh? Where kids learn math and shit?"
"Um- yes…" Iruka stepped around Naruto, approaching Tayuya. She might have tensed up at being approached so suddenly by a stranger, but even in spite of his earlier rage with Naruto, the guy just seemed a special kind of harmless.
Wait, did that mean he was extra dangerous?
He'd taught Naruto and Hinata, hadn't he? Maybe he was some kind of legendary super ninja who merely masqueraded as some plain-looking schmuck. She bet he could turn people inside out and wear their still-twitching corpses like fresh, chic, flesh-parkas.
Best to tread carefully, then.
"I'm Iruka Umino; I was Naruto's sensei when he attended school here," Iruka offered, gently.
Sensing the prompt to reciprocate, Tayuya kicked the ground, awkwardly. "Tayuya… This asshole abducted me during a zombie apocalypse."
Naruto nodded. "Adopted, more like. She's basically some stray raccoon Hinata found rummaging about in a garbage bin."
"Fuck you! Your gorilla girlfriend kicked me into that dumpster like some roided up schoolyard bully. My back still fucking hurts, man!
Naruto ignored her. "She's a bit feral, but I've been keeping her docile with a steady supply of morphine and kibble."
Iruka pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, yeah… I see the resemblance."
Tayuya nodded, but said nothing else for a moment. Again, she cast her gaze around the room, searching for something else to say. "So uh- is that all you dragged me along for? To meet this guy?"
She hoped that wasn't overly rude. Or that he wasn't in the market for a new parka…
"I needed to see him anyways. But since we're stuck with each other now, I figured I may as well let you meet him." Naruto looked back to Iruka, who now seemed curious. "Sorry to say, I'm here at least partly on business."
Iruka only nodded. "However I can help, just tell me what you need."
The blonde nodded right back. His grin melted, his features hardening into something so severe that it gave the man pause. "Long story short, Tayuya's got a seal on her neck that I'm trying to remove." He ran a hand through his hair, giving his old sensei a brief peek of his other eye. "Sasuke got a similar mark during the exams; he got his neck nibbled on by the snake cuck, Orochimaru."
Tayuya snickered.
"Sasuke was targeted by that man?" Iruka's concern was the purest thing Tayuya had ever seen.
"Man is subjective," Tayuya interjected.
"Is he okay!?"
"Not even a little." There wasn't any point in mincing words with the man. Naruto gestured for Tayuya to come closer, brushing her hair away and exposing the mark to Iruka's eyes.
"Oh, go ahead and strip me while you're at it. Shall I spread my ass too for your glorious majesties?"
Naruto ignored her. "Aun- Tsunade told me that the proctor-lady from the second exam also has one of these. They're all from the same guy."
Iruka didn't bother asking why Tayuya had one; if Naruto and seemingly Lady Tsunade trusted her, those questions could wait. "Er- I'd love to be of help, but I'm more an expert in barriers than I am, seals, Naruto. I don't know that there's a ton of input I can offer."
Naruto shook his head. He and Kushina had it covered.
"Hi, I'm Kushina. I cover things."
"I don't need your help figuring out the seal," Naruto tried to assure Iruka.
Oh… "Then wha-"
"You're the most well-studied person I know, Iruka-sensei." Ebisu could eat his heart out. Iruka had forgotten more about ninjutsu studies than that hack actually knew. "I need you to help me find any academic records of adjacent seals that we might have in our historical records. My hunch is telling me Orochimaru didn't spawn this shit out of the blue."
Their initial impressions were what had convinced him otherwise.
"The mark is cobbled up from a whole bunch of different sealing styles. If I can find examples of those styles, I can try finding a common thread and decrypting the base." Naruto let off a short huff. "But it ain't a good call to try fiddling with it much until I've got a good angle on it; if I come at it wrong, it'll probably give me ninja cancer or something."
"It's like regular cancer, but sneakier." Kushina chortled. She scowled at the sight of Kumiko, who pointedly rose to her eight, oversized legs and began to walk away from her. "Oh come on! I'm funny!"
Tayuya and Iruka both blanched. "You're joking," the latter tried.
"I wish… Orochimaru is a real piece of work."
Tayuya shakily chortled. "Yeah. Y'know, I hear he melts babies and drinks them from a sippy cup like friendly little flesh smoothies."
"Er- let's stay on topic!" Iruka insisted. Even more questions had sprouted, like why Lady Tsunade had Naruto of all people working on such a difficult task. But he forced himself to remain focused. "What exactly should I be looking for?"
What, indeed? Naruto frowned, thinking about it for a moment. "Er- anything relating to bonds or bindings," he tried. Iruka rushed to his work desk, flipping wildly to a fresh page; his pencil was already gliding over the page. "Stuff related to the soul- even just figuratively; maybe anything related to rebirth or reincarnation?"
Iruka only seemed to grow paler with every suggestion.
"I have a hunch," Kushina piped up. Naruto's silent invitation was all she needed.
"And nature?" Naruto half-asked, seeming unsure, himself, at Kushina's suggestion. But as her thoughts unfurled to him, he-too paled a little. "Nature, natural energy…"
"The way that Jirobo boy changed was unnatural. I remember Minato talking about something similar when he was trying to become a sage- how unfiltered nature energy can cause the body to change or mutate wildly."
He knew nothing about the topic, and Kushina didn't seem to have a ton of input on the topic either- nor did the seal… Mito's memories told him that Hashirama had been able to tap into it, but the man had guarded that knowledge even from those within his closest circles.
"Minato was learning it from the toads. If we want information about it, we might have to look in that direction."
Perhaps that was something to ask Katsuyu about, then. If the toads knew, then it likely had to do with the summoning realms. No doubt, someone as old and knowledgeable as she was might have some wisdom to drop, there.
"And storage," Naruto finally added, merely shaking his head. "Anything- I don't care if you find it written in snot on a stale tissue-paper; I need every source I can find, and I need them fast."
Iruka only nodded.
"As for you-" Naruto gave Tayuya a look, and she perked up a little at the attention. "I'm tired, and we're going home. Tomorrow, I'm drawing a diagram of that mark of yours.
Then, he was hunting down that proctor-woman that Tsunade had mentioned.
"What do you want for dinner?"
"Ramen," Tayuya supplied almost immediately. "Make me ramen and my life is yours."
"That's the spirit!" Naruto stepped forward to hug Iruka again. "I promise to come see you again soon, Iruka-sensei… Preferably for leisure, next time."
Iruka only smiled, warmly. "I'll look forward to it."
The doctor's diagnosis may as well have been white noise in Hiashi's ears. The entire time that the man spoke, he had eyes only for his daughter.
Hinata was deathly pale, her eyes flicking from the doctor in question to the door he stood ahead of, where Neji had been interned. Her dirtied fingers clenched and unclenched against the grass-stained hem of her shirt.
"Sum it up," Hiashi's low growl cut into the other man's explanation. There was an unspoken threat behind that demand that sliced right through all of the man's medical jargon.
"Er- right… His condition is no longer critical. A lot of broken bones, and some surface-level lacerations. We'll keep him over the weekend, and he'll need a brace for his neck and maybe a cane or crutch for the next week or so, but we're confident that he will make a full recovery with the right attention."
Hiashi only nodded. "Leave me with my daughter."
The doctor spared Hinata almost pitying eyes, uncomfortably shifting around the pair so as to not recollect the Hyuga patriarch's attention. Then, a brisk walk took him around the corner, leaving them alone.
Hinata's silence spoke volumes; she refused to meet his eyes, even as his glare demanded she do so.
He had tried to tolerate his daughter's recent attitude. Her words against him the day she had returned had bolstered that tolerance by necessity. So he had overlooked her rather distant behavior; he had ignored her almost disrespectful apathy- had tolerated even her dragging Hanabi away from the compound, with or without his consent.
He had shown patience. But Hiashi Hyuga was not a patient man. He wore its facade well- as was befitting of a man of his station. But at his core- well…
"Explain yourself," He finally bit out, his narrowed glare belying his fury. "Explain yourself, and you'd better make it good."
Hinata shifted, uncomfortably. Her byakugan unconsciously searched for her cousin. In the other room, Neji's prone body shuddered in his hospital bed; a wispy groan choked from his slightly parted lips. Desperate for something to say, she mere threw out the first words that crossed her mind. "I won?"
Oh god, of all the times to sound like Naruto…
Hiashi's jaw clenched. "I'm very happy for you," He bit out, sarcastically. "I'm sure you feel awfully proud, dragging your cousin to the emergency room in the dead of night. Tell me, why is it that I had to find out from a bystander, instead of you, that you tried to kill your cousin!?"
"I didn't try to kill him." Hinata fought the urge to roll her eyes, because regardless of her guilt, that accusation truly was just ridiculous. "I pulled back in the end."
"Pulled back, hmm?" Hiashi began to pace, his tone becoming almost educational. "Do you know why the learning of the rotation is so restricted, among our clan?" Hiashi stopped on a dime, turning her way once more; he leaned forward, bearing down on his daughter. "What do you think happens to a person when they crash into a rapid, grinding force?"
Learning the rasengan had taught her exactly what such a thing would do.
"That was not a trick question, girl." The vein that throbbed in her father's temple seemed to swell to nearly twice its size. His face colored puce as his fury finally spilled over. "Answer me!"
Hinata flinched. "T-they get ground-"
"Yes! They get ground into paste! Exactly!" Hiashi quelled the urge to strike the foolish girl. "What in blazes did you think would happen, using such a technique on him!? Are you out of your bloody mind!?"
Maybe a little. In hindsight, Hinata herself wasn't so sure what she'd been thinking. Memories of her incomplete rotation amputating Kabuto's arm stung her- a reminder of just how devastating her family's ultimate defense could be.
"I sustained it for less than a second; I knew better than to-"
"You knew better!?" Hiashi roared. He hunched down to meet her eyes in a rage, his hand snapping down to snatch her collar. "You daft, stupid little girl! Your cousin is in a full body cast exactly because you did not know better!"
Hinata leaned away from him, but he only yanked her closer. "Let go…"
Kisame's grip on her neck, his massive fingers twitching with violence. She couldn't breathe.
"'I knew better-' What kind of stupid explanation- Look at me when I'm talking to you!" He ordered her.
He was strangling the life out of her- crushing her body against the wall. She did not know which would yield first, its surface, or her bones.
She was dying-
"I said let go!" Hinata could fight the urge no longer; she swatted his arm aside with all of her might; Hiashi staggered back, eyes wide with more shock than hurt, as his daughter staggered back with a gasp. Tears welled up in her eyes. "I didn't even want to fight! He asked me to go all out; he begged me to fight him seriously! I couldn't just reject him, okay!?" Hinata dragged her arm across her face, smearing tears as she did so. "If you're going to hit me again, just hurry up and do it already, but stop lecturing me like you're any better! You aren't any better!"
"I'm not…?" Hiashi mouthed her words, seemingly in a daze. His skin had gone so pale that he seemed a ghost.
"D-do you think I don't feel guilty? Do you think I wanted him to get hurt like that- oh god, of course you did! Because you don't understand a damn thing about me!" Hinata yelled at him. Her tears spilled over entirely, and again she tried to wipe her face, staining her bare arm with tears and snot. "You didn't seem even half as concerned when he stopped my heart! You weren't as concerned when Tanzaku got turned into a smoking crater and I came home hurt; the only thing you could be moved to give a damn about was that I'd risked your precious eyes!" She wobbled, feeling almost dizzy with emotion. Hiashi's lips moved, but no sound came, and she still wasn't done. Now that the floodgates had opened- "It's your fault that this happened! It's your fault that I'm like this! If you want to be angry at somebody, then be angry at yourself!"
She didn't care anymore. She didn't care if she was wrong, or if she was just making excuses.
She didn't care if she hurt him- hell, in that moment, she really just wished it so; that he might hurt as much as she did, if only to prove once and for all that he gave a damn about something, other than himself. Hinata's chest heaved with grief as she raged with such vitriol that its haze clouded even her own words from her mind. In the face of it all, Hiashi's earlier well of anger had dried up. He seemed almost paralyzed by her uncharacteristic outburst.
It couldn't have been more than a minute, but as she came down from her fury, she found only horror in its place. A sharp sob wracked Hinata; her head was light, but her body felt so, so heavy.
Was the room spinning?
She staggered back, palming her head and tripping over her feet. "I- I…"
Hiashi finally seemed to find his voice. "Hinata?"
She jumped to her feet without another word, fleeing her father as fast as her legs could take her.
"Hinata!"
"I need some air!"
Katsuyu had come with a message from Tsunade.
"Tsunade-sama will be working late tonight."
That was fine. "You can take the bed, then," Naruto nudged Tayuya. "Make sure you wash your ass before you get in my bed."
"I'mma piss in your sheets," Tayuya snarked back immediately. She yelped as a towel impacted her face.
"You piss on my stuff, I'm gonna piss on you."
"I'm going, I'm going…"
"You two seem to be getting along quite well," Katsuyu observed. Her eye-stalks raised in a gesture of what he assumed was joy. "You seem happy."
Naruto shrugged. "Well I could do without breaking my back on this musty-ass couch every night, but I'll live." He threw himself onto said couch, letting the tiny slug wiggle up to his chest and staring up at the ceiling. "We're running out of space though…"
The apartment had been tight enough as it was, with just him living in it. Now with Tsunade mooching, and Tayuya under his wing- "I might need to start saving up to upgrade."
"Or make Tsunade-sama pay for it," Katsuyu advised.
Naruto snorted. "Please, getting that crusty old bat to willingly pay for anything is a pipe dream."
He was honestly better off just stealing her wallet again or charging a loan in her name somehow.
"Well if you're in need of funds, I know a guy. Do you have a driver's license?"
"Drivers- what- like, for carriages?"
Her eyestalks drooped with disappointment for a moment, but then she was all slug-smiles again. "Don't worry; I know a guy for that too."
A knock hit the door. It was gentle- barely audible; but then it picked up until it seemed almost desperate.
The two couch dwellers shared a look. Then Katsuyu leapt off him.
"Sorry, I'd get that, but I don't have any arms."
Her whiskered companion followed suit, crossing the room in a long stride and prying the door open. He was expecting many things, but seeing Hinata as she was, sucked every thought out of his head.
She looked terrible. Fresh scabs littered her face, crusting over her ear, nose and brow. Her eyes were wet and swollen- tears spilling over so rapidly that he could hear their rapid trickle as they impacted the floor. Sweat and mucus painted her face like ugly strokes on his favorite canvas. Her clothes were dirtied, and dried chips of blood and muck clung to her knuckles and under her fingernails as she continually wiped at her face.
"H-Hinata?" Naruto swung the door fully open without another thought, both arms curling around her to pull her in. "Oh, darling- what happened?"
"I-I was-" She stuffed her face into his shoulder, her whole body heaving with emotion. Before he even knew to reach for it, her chakra wailed against his own, this horrible pit of desperation so chasm-like that he had to fight, not to be swallowed in it as he held her. "I'm so-sor-ry. I'm s-sorry!" She whined. Another shudder wracked her as a new round of sobs hit her. "I just- can I stay with you tonight?"
He did not answer her with words; Hinata was all but dragged into his home, her boyfriend escorting her inside with no further questions.
"I'll run you a bath." Louder then- "Tayuya! Hurry the fuck up! I ain't joking!"
"What happened!?" Her voice called, and he snapped.
"Hurry the fuck up!"
Hinata didn't take long enough for him to even consider sending a clone out to buy her clothes, and though Tayuya had offered, it wasn't like she had much to spare, given her own circumstances.
So Naruto had gotten a bit creative, fashioning the girl some plain sleep-wear out of his chains- at least until he could do something better.
Thus, it wasn't long at all before he had her in his arms again, sitting atop the couch with a damp towel over her hair. Tayuya stood somewhat awkwardly by the doorway, seeming a bit out of place with the sudden development.
"So- uh…" Her eyes flicked between Hinata and Naruto before settling on the latter, a bit questioningly. "Who are we killing?"
Naruto nodded. "Tell me their name. They'll never find the body."
"I disagree," Katsuyu interjected. "They'll never stop finding the body."
Hinata choked out a half laugh, cramming her face into the nook of his arm. "It's my fault," She whimpered. Naruto only held her tighter. "N-Neji- he challenged me to a duel."
"And you beat his ass?" Naruto had absolute faith that she had.
"Erm- he's in the emergency room."
Tayuya grinned. "Nice."
"No!" Hinata wailed, and all smiles were wiped away. "He didn't deserve that; he was trying to help me!"
Her explanation came out in messy chunks, splashed with tear streaks that Naruto silently brushed away.
Neji's words.
Their duel...
Baiting him into her rotation.
Hauling his broken body to the emergency room.
How she'd waited, pacing to and fro with her heart in her throat as they began operating on her cousin.
Her father's arrival…
She wished she were calmer. Every time she had to repeat herself just seemed to raise her stress even further.
"I swear! I didn't mean to hurt him like that! I just- I was trying to do my best, and I- and I-" Her jaw snapped shut all of a sudden, and she shuddered once again. "I don't know…" Hollowly, she whispered again- "I don't know what I was thinking."
Naruto only nodded. Looking to Tayuya- "Get me the blanket from the bedroom."
Tayuya only nodded, sensing that he would not be open to banter, this time around. She was gone only a moment, tearing the thing away and draping them over the smaller girl. "Okay… What's next?"
Naruto only took a long breath, inhaling the scent of his shampoo on his girlfriend's hair. She seemed remiss to speak any further, and he was remiss to separate from her. But- "I gotta make dinner; I promised you ramen."
"Fuck the ramen, man." Tayuya shifted, discomfort bleeding through every inch of her. "I ain't gonna have you cook for me while she's like this."
"She needs to eat too." Naruto adjusted the blankets around the girl in his arms, leaning until their noses were touching. "Is chicken fine?"
She nodded, letting him rise to his feet. Katsuyu leapt from her summoner's shoulder, growing larger until she seemed the size of a small dog.
"Not to worry, I'm actually a licensed, emotional support slug." The slug matriarch bullied her way into the covers, into Hinata's embrace as the girl took his place on the couch, leaning against the arm rest and tugging the blankets tighter around them both. Her boyfriend gave her another lingering look, then he stepped away, snagging Tayuya's wrist and dragging her with him along the way.
"Motherfucker, can you quit manhandling me?" She whined, half-hoping to bring some levity with her usual antics.
"My bad…" Naruto walked her to his kitchenette, rolling up his sleeves; his limbs moved about the space with practiced swiftness. "I ain't making it from scratch today. You'll have to deal."
"I already told you, man. It's fine…"
God, now she just felt guilty.
Naruto only nodded, dragging a worn down pot from a sparse pile in a cabinet below. A moment passed, then he snorted. "Her dad's a jackass."
"Er- y-yeah… I gathered that."
Naruto nodded again. "I met him once… He was surprisingly alright to me, so I forget that sometimes- that he's a jackass, I mean..." His fingers tightened around the pot handle, and Tayuya flinched when the thing snapped away. "Shit… Throw this out for me." He handed her the broken handle, and went back to his work. "I wanna go talk to him."
"Er- maybe don't do that without talking with her first." Tayuya gestured with her head, and Naruto followed it. Hinata was still motionless, but he could sense in her chakra that she was attentive.
"Right, right… I'll get her permission first; then I'll go catch an assault charge." He chuckled, but he wasn't really feeling the mirth, this time around.
"Er- sorry to say, darling. But he'll whoop your butt."
Yeah, but he'd make him bleed for it, at least…
"So- uh… What can I do?" Tayuya asked him, after a moment of extended quiet. He gave her an odd look, and she huffed. "Look, it's weird as hell to just watch shit go down and not be able to do anything."
She shouldn't really care. It wasn't really her problem at all… But that didn't feel quite right; she'd never really felt fine just doing nothing.
"Just tell me how I can make myself useful." She shrugged. "Do you need the bed back? Can I help cook? Hell-" Tayuya clutched at her bicep, her discomfort with the ambience eating at her. "Give me a list and I'll run some errands or something."
"At two in the damn morning?" Naruto shook his head. "You don't have to prove anything, ya know. You're here because I want you here… That's all there is to it."
"Motherfucker, just tell me what you need."
God, she was stubborn. Naruto was ready to turn her down again, but Kushina's words gave him pause.
"It's not about what you think, darling. She feels like she's in the way. Give her something to do."
He sighed. "Fine. You're a good musician, right? Go serenade my girlfriend with some bitchin' flute music."
That, she could do. Tayuya grinned. "She's gonna be my girlfriend by the time you're done, Twinkie."
"Hold still,"
"I am still!" Tayuya growled at Naruto for what felt like the umpteenth time. "I ain't moving an inch, man."
"Then hold stiller," Naruto snapped right back. His brush remained steady on his pad, even as the twitch in his eye seemed to get more and more pronounced. "If I want to remove this thing, I first need to build a counter seal that can disrupt its defenses; so I need to know your seal inside and out. If I'm off by so much as a nut hair, that thing could liquify your insides."
Tayuya began to sweat. "Stiller huh? I can do stiller," She locked up, tensing her whole body until it ached. "Er- but don't you have some kind of seal or whatever to automate this shit?"
Naruto shook his head. "Plenty exist, but they're easy to disrupt; Orochimaru probably laid a ton of protections in place to punish doing exactly that."
Honestly, cutting corners was the most likely way they were going to get killed, mucking about with the curse mark. It was tedious, but both of them would have to deal.
"I'm done." He stepped away from her, letting the pad air dry on the countertop by Katsuyu. She let off an impressed hum as she overlooked the multiple-page-wide diagram he'd tried to create of it.
There were several layers, each one seemingly more complex than the last.
"That's the best I can make of it without the protections snapping at me," Naruto explained in a huff. To Tayuya, he added- "I'm gonna need to do that every day for the foreseeable future, just so you know."
"What the fuck? Why?"
"If there's even the slightest chance I managed to fuck it up, doing a redraw or twenty should flush it out. Plus-" Naruto bit his lip, slumping down into a run-down chair opposite the counter and clutching his temples. "There's always the very slim possibility that that thing changes over time."
Katsuyu nodded. "Indeed. Self-updating seals aren't exactly common, but there really is no harm in being extra, super duper sure."
"That's like 'super duper sure', but 'extra'." The blonde chuckled; it died off abruptly as his senses warned him of Hinata's awakening.
She had been out, on-and-off for about fifteen hours, waking only to eat or drink in the middle of the night. He had tried making her breakfast, but the poor girl had hardly done more than nibble on it before he'd just let Tayuya finish it off.
"You'll need to get in touch with her sensei," Kushina advised.
He agreed. Lest the woman come knocking his door down in the next few hours.
Then there was still Hiashi.
"Stay away from him for now." His mother's warning was firm. "You don't want to kick the hornet's nest and end up making things even worse for her."
Right… At least not until he understood more.
Naruto sighed. "I've gotta head out for a bit." To Tayuya- "Stay here with Hinata." Leaning down, he kissed Hinata's forehead and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I'll bring you back a snack."
"Mhm…" Hinata's halfhearted agreement saw the blonde off, the latter scooping the dog-sized Katsuyu up and onto his shoulder before departing. A click of the door, and Hinata and Tayuya were left by their lonesome, this vast emptiness filling the void that Naruto had left in his absence.
"So…" Tayuya half-regretted opening her mouth, the moment she had. Hinata shifted just enough to eye the girl, some hesitance peeking through the layers she had bundled herself with. Pushing through, she continued. "Er- your dad's a dick, huh?"
She couldn't see the girl's face in full, but she could tell from her posture that Hinata was unhappy.
"I don't remember my parents," Tayuya volunteered with a half-shrug. "I don't remember what they looked like…" Or if they existed at all, really… "Maybe I was just some accident that Orochimaru pissed into a test tube or something."
Hinata finally pried herself free of her cocoon, allowing Tayuya to laugh at the disgust, wrinkled in her nose. Emboldened though, Tayuya continued.
"I was raised and trained by Snake-man… So as dumb as it probably sounds, he's pretty much the closest thing I had to a dad- and he tortured me and turned my friend into mutant snake food."
Wow, in hindsight, Orochimaru really sucked.
"So I guess I kinda get it, if you squint really hard and turn your brain off for a sec."
Hinata suddenly looked a bit guilty. "I'm sorry…"
"O-oi! Don't apologize- I wasn't trying to-" She pinched her brow. "I'm trying to relate to ya, dumbass."
"Oh…" Hinata only shrugged. "Thank you?"
Both of them fell again into an uneasy quiet, Tayuya starting to regret letting herself get left alone with the girl as she was. But then Hinata spoke again; her voice was barely above a whisper.
"He used to be better…" Hinata shrugged again. "Before my mother died- he used to smile more."
Hiashi had always been a strict man, but she still remembered a time where a kindness seemed to lay behind that act; she remembered a time where his sternness was guided by love. She missed the man who would spend hours teaching her… Playing with her too. The man who would tuck her in and kiss her brow, and who would freely tell her that he was proud of her.
She shook her head.
No use dwelling over the past.
"I'm okay," Hinata tried; Tayuya's unimpressed look made her feel like a liar, so she doubled down. "I'm going to be okay." She stood, throwing the sheets away from herself and rising atop unsteady legs. Her hair was a mess.
"I need to go see Neji."
Tayuya frowned. Naruto had told her to keep Hinata company, and seeing as he was working hard to get Orochimaru's blight off her neck, she really didn't want him pissed at her. "Just let me get dressed."
"Ah- you don't need to-"
Tayuya cut her off with swiftness. "This is not about to be the reason your twink double bags me in bubble wrap and express ships me to the bottom of the ocean."
That asshole could be damn scary when he was pissed…
"I'm coming with you."
Hinata seemed unsure, but not unhappy, as she nodded. "Al-alright…"
"Anko Mitarashi is the first person we ever have on any kind of record, to have received Orochimaru's curse mark," Tsunade's debriefing the day prior fueled his thoughts. "I've met her once or twice since I got inaugurated. She's a bit of a hard ass, but I think you'll get along."
Naruto remembered her slicing his cheek during the opening for the second round of the Chūnin Exams.
"Take care, kiddo. Mouthy brats like you tend to die the quickest!"
"Heh…" He snickered a bit. "Well my mouthy ass has made it this far, so I'mma keep doing what I'm doing."
Kushina prodded at his face, her own amusement swollen in her cheeks. "Well we've had some close calls, but nothing a bit of luck can't handle."
His clones had spent the morning tracking the woman down; she was quite elusive for someone as bombastic as he remembered her being. But his research had taken him to a somewhat aged dango stop, near the outskirts of the village.
It was a regular tourist's spot; a perfect place for somebody to blend in, within plain sight. But even still, Anko Mitarashi was every bit as eye-catching as he remembered her being.
She was seated cross-legged atop a vaguely chipped, wooden table. She wore a mesh bodysuit, with an orange skirt and a thick, brown trench coat which she had removed and folded in her lap. Atop that, a family-sized tray of dango that she already seemed two-thirds of the way through.
So, how to approach her?
"Oh, I recommend the shoulder touch!" Katsuyu advised with some pep. "You put your hand on her shoulder and tell her-" Katsuyu deepened her voice to a near-comical level. "Hey…"
"I'm trying to befriend her, not fuck her," Naruto shook his head a bit.
"Well then perhaps try challenging her to a children's card game?"
"Er- I don't have cards?"
Katsuyu's good mood was stalwart. "You can borrow one of my decks! I used Labyrinth to climb to Master's last season. I could teach you how to play!"
"I love her," Kushina suddenly said. "I love her so much."
'Well she's single, or so I've heard.'
"Do you think she's into dead chicks?"
Shaking himself back to the present- "I'd love to learn- er, but let's put a pin in that one; we'll definitely come back to it," Naruto insisted.
Screw it, he was just gonna walk up to her.
"Oi-" His approach was cut off mere feet away as a thin shard of wood nearly blitzed him; he ducked it, listening with a cold sweat as it punched right through the bark of a tree behind him. "Okay, but why though?"
"Hey! You've gotten better!" Anko Mitarashi seemed almost happy to see him as she waved in his direction. "It's been a while huh, kiddo?"
Okay, this, he hadn't expected… "Er- you remember me?"
Anko's smile was wide and friendly as she nodded almost gleefully. "Of course I do!" Then there was some edge that hadn't been there just moments prior. "You're the mouthy little twerp that tried to ruin my briefing."
Oh boy…
Her chakra was cold.
"Careful, son… I'm no expert, but I think she holds grudges."
Kushina really wasn't helping.
"Try complimenting her! Ladies love compliments!"
"In my defense, I was struck dumb by your radiant beauty and acting out for your attention?"
Thinking back though, 'twerp' was right; he supposed he had this coming.
Anko was still all smiles. "Flattery will get you everywhere, but I'm afraid you're fighting an uphill battle, kid."
"I'm sure I am." Naruto stood tall and brushed himself off. "But don't throw any more shit at me."
"No promises!" She sang.
God, this woman really was all over the place, huh?
Her demeanor was peppy, but chakra didn't lie. There this overwhelming bundle of bitterness coiled in her. It wasn't quite hateful, but he could tell that the woman before him was just waiting for a reason to snap.
"What brings you to my humble little haunt, huh?" Anko stuffed another stick of dango into her mouth, near-inhaling its treats all at once. "You know, I don't really like to be pestered, so I hope it's worth my time."
Well, he'd never been very good at subtle.
"I need to see your curse mark."
Another freshly relieved stick of dango hurtled toward his head, and this time he swatted the thing away. He twisted in place, lashing out to intercept the hand coming for his face at its wrist.
"Hey! You really have gotten better!" A surge of Anko's chakra, and Naruto's eyes narrowed in response.
"I will flash fry that little bastard," He warned, just as a brown-scaled snake began to peek from within Anko's redonned trench coat. For special emphasis, he let his own chakra flare, his body heat skyrocketing on the spot, and the thing retreated on the spot with a faint puff of smoke.
"A-ah! Hot, hot hot!" Anko winced, snatching her arm back and comically blowing on her wrist. "Warn a lady before you get all hot and sweaty with her, man!"
"Snrk." Kushina's muted giggles made him sigh a little.
"Can we skip the bullshit and just talk like adults?"
"Aren't you- what, like twelve?"
"Thirteen, but same thing. Tsunade sent me here."
"To perv on my tramp stamp? Riiight." Anko's cheery attitude seemed to dull just a bit. Her eyes narrowed a touch, trying to pin Naruto with what she seemed to hope was 'stern' but instead bordered on murderous. "What's the deal here, and get it right this time, 'fore I hurt you."
Bitter was right…
Naruto only shook his head, trying to play the situation cool. "If you really have doubts about me, you can go talk to her, yourself. But I was given clear instructions to have Orochimaru's mark removed from all people currently marked within this village. That includes you."
Anko dropped her facade completely, her eyes darkening into something almost hateful. "And what makes her think you are gonna be the one to do it, huh? Better men than you have tried to remove it, I'll have you know."
"Better? Eh-" Naruto rolled his eyes and waved her words away. "As it is, I'm currently the best seal master in the village."
Technically, his mother was; but she didn't need to know that.
"Bullshit."
"We're not debating this," Naruto cut in so sharply that Anko's jaw snapped shut. "You can go to Tsunade for direct confirmation. But once she does- and she will, you're to report to me so I can map that thing out. And if you throw any more shit at me, I'm gonna chew your fucking fingers off, got it?"
Anko only glared at him for a moment. He glared right back, refusing to let the woman have even an inch with him. The tension that swelled between them was such that even the conspicuous onlookers surrounding the stop began to sweat.
Kushina hummed. "We might have to beat her up."
God, he hoped so!
But then she was all smiles again. Anko stuck her tongue out and pressed her knuckles to each of her cheeks with a laugh "I like you!" She stepped forward, offering her hand in a clear show of peace. "Happy to work with ya, bud!"
Her expression was kindly, but her chakra was every bit the coiled serpent. "This chick is transparent as hell," Kushina remarked with a roll of her eyes.
Humoring her, Naruto reciprocated, taking her hand. Sure enough, Anko yanked him in, her smiling face inches from his own placid one. Her other hand snaked in, leveling a strangling grip on his obi. The sound of snakes hissing beneath her clothes would have been terrifying, had he not seen the gesture coming.
"If you're lying to me, I'm going to skin you alive and drape your hide over my couch, 'kay?" She sang.
Oh screw it. He was done being the mature one. Naruto's lips curled back, revealing rows of vicious-looking teeth. Thick, purplish smoke began to free itself from his mouth as his lone eye widened, four pupils swelling to take her into their sights. Anko flinched backward just a bit, and he took advantage to shove her away. "Then I'll skin you back, and we'll both be sad and skinless."
Anko stumbled dumbly for a moment, blinking twice and rubbing at her chest. Her knees wobbled for just a moment at the impact he'd left her with; it felt like somebody had taken a sledge hammer to her chest.
Playing it off, she made a show of brushing herself off. "Oh, you are such a cutie!" Then she was gone in a whirl of leaves.
Naruto only sighed. "Well that went well." He reached into his obi, plucking away the tiny green snake she had slipped onto his person. Dangling the diminutive thing right before him, he sighed. "Beat it." Then he flicked the thing into the river, letting it swim away with haste. To Katsuyu, he smiled again. "So, you still wanna teach me that card game?"
"Oh, I'd love to!"
Alrighty, that's where I'm stopping for now. The chapter was getting a bit long, and I was beginning to feel guilty for taking so long to update.
As you can see, this chapter is doing a lot to close up some of the last couple of gaps while I start moving things along.
At some point, I'll want to write down all of my thoughts regarding this chapter, but I've been sick for a few days, and I really just want to sleep right now. So forgive me if I drop off a bit abruptly while I try and get myself together again.
I had an announcement I wanted to make with this chapter, but I'm not quite at a point where I'm ready to talk about it, I think. So that'll just have to wait until next time.
Okay, leave me plenty of reviews; tell me what you thought… Bubaii.