Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Hitochigae: Mistaken Identity ❯ Chapter 1

Prologue


Great. That was the thought of a young girl who was currently grinding her teeth against the dirty and rather gross tasting rag that had been tied around her head. Her eyebrows were lowered and she was glaring at the ground as it slowly came closer and moved farther away. Looking at the rather large man who had a rather tight grip around her waist, the girl tried to sneer.
The sudden lurching to a stop of The Giant, as the girl dubbed him, made his shoulder press into her stomach sharply. The girl groaned loudly, but the gag muffled it. The Giant took a quick look back at the girl, and went back to observing the area. Leaning down, he deposited her on the tree branch that was creaking under his weight.
Struggling in the tight bonds that kept her from moving much more than a funny looking wiggle, she soon gave up, only to have the gigantic man lean down to eye level, or as close as he could get.
"Do you know why I took you?" The Giant said, his voice deep and low. The girl tried to talk, but it was muffled by the gag. The man shook his head, beads of sweat flung from his hair onto the girls face, making her groan in disgust.
"Don’t try to talk. Just nod your head." The girl tried to purse her lips, but it looked ridiculous with the gag. Slowly shaking her head, she wrinkled her nose. A habit that she got from observing her mother, who was probably tearing down half the forest looking for her. Along with her father and her older brother, the girl's family made a nearly unstoppable team. Not that they often teamed up. Her father was usually too busy with work to even spend quality time with her anyway. Her mother usually accompanied her father, and her brother was too busy looking after his own family. In fact, the one she was missing the most, was her nerdy friend, Kimihiro, Hiro for short. He went to civilian school, but they had often walked home together, as the Academy was a few blocks away. He was taller than her, gangly, and had really thick glasses.
"Hey, girl. I asked you a question." The girl's eyes shone with unshed tears as she snapped back to reality. The Giant was looking angry now, and the girl was starting to get frightened of him. Even if she were free, she didn't think that she could even hurt him, he was that big. Mumbling into the gag, the Giant took a breath and said,
"I said, do you know how many are following us?" The girl shook her head. The giant sighed and without so much as a warning, threw the girl up onto his shoulder.
The constant motion of going up and down as The Giant flew across the tree tops to only Kami-sama knows where, was starting to make the girl drowsy and a little sick. Squirming, The Giant responded by pinched her thigh. The girl tired to shout, and The Giant just laughed. The girl swung her head around and winced when a few strands of her red hair hit her in the eye. Blinking and moaning seemed to make the pain go away faster, but the girl scowled when she thought she felt The Giant chuckle.
Swearing through the gag, she felt The Giant tense up. For the second time in the hour of shoulder travel, the girl was jabbed in the stomach with the large man's shoulder as he came to an abrupt halt. Looking around quickly, as if trying to see in all different directions at once. The seriousness of The Giant was making the girl worried.
Feeling about in her chakra reserves, she realized how little she had left. She was surprised that she was even still conscious. A rustle in a tree about 50 feet away from The Giant and his captive caught both of their attention. Both swung their heads in its direction, but before the girl saw anything, she felt a tremendous amount of pain and her vision went black.

"She's the one? Are you sure? She's just a little girl." A boy’s voice said. The girl's hearing came back before anything else, so she sat and listened into the conversation.
"I’m sure. She matches the description." A second voice, lower pitched, was heard. The girl heard a few steps and the rustle of fabric.
"Mmmm...She's a little short. I thought she would have been taller." The girl seethed on the inside. Despite still being groggy, she pushed her body forward as much as she could and cracked her skull against the man that, as she had thought, was kneeling in front of her.
"Aah, kuso! That frikken hurt!" The girl him heard yell. She herself was trying to hug the floor as cracking her skull against that man's not only seemed to split her brain in two, but made the wound she received on The Giant's shoulder throb. Groaning, the girl realized that she didn't have a gag anymore and sighed in relief. Not that it lasted long. While still trying to gather her wits, she vaguely heard the man who's skull she hit stand up.
"Stupid girl! That was a stupid move." The girl tried to roll over, but was intercepted by the man's foot. The girl grunted as he kicked her in the gut sharply. He kicked again, but the girl heard the other person yell at him to stop. The girl winced, waiting for the third kick to reach her, she was mildly surprised to see that it didn’t. Opening her eyes, the colours slowed down enough for her to make out a shorter figure holding out his arm and stopping the taller, darker man's foot. All the girl could see was white around the boy.
"Stop. She's important. You injure her permanently, and I kill you." The girl heard the taller man cuss angrily before scoffing and walking away. Shakily rubbing her eyes, the girl tried to calm the pounding in her head. When a hand touched her shoulder, she flinched so hard that it hurt her back.
"S-ttt-op...hhh...Who?" The girl cursed herself for letting a mere head injury impair her speaking.
"Shh. You're forehead is bleeding. Let me fix it up." The girl tried to respond, but her tongue tied up again, so she just inclined her head. Opening her eyes, it took a few seconds before she could make out anything more than swimming colours, but by the time the man had gently treated both the skull wound, and the gash from the original knockout, the girl could see nearly clear again. Looking up at her...saviour? She still wasn't too sure.
"Who...are you?" She finally got out. The person, she now identified as a boy her age, maybe a little bit older with a mop of stark white hair and shocking red eyes, turned his head. He remained silent as he was mashing something in front of him, out of the girl's view. When the girl asked again, she faltered less, and her words were louder.
The boy turned and held out a crudely made spoon that had a green paste on it. The girl took a closer look and saw that it was a paste made of leaves and other herbs. Wrinkling her nose, she turned her head and rose her arms as much as they would let her.
"It will numb the pain. It's not poison." The girl's lip twitched before she tried to snatch the spoon from the white haired boy's hands. Shoving it in her mouth, she nearly gagged at its taste, but managed to get it down.
Handing the spoon back, she murmured a small thanks and the boy smiled.
"Who are you? No avoiding the question this time." The boy took the spoon and said,
"Byakko." The girl nodded and Byakko smiled.
"I'm...Umm....ahh...wh--what did y-you doo...?" The girl tried to ask as she suddenly felt drowsy. Still smiling, Byakko said,
"Just to make you sleep. Not only will it help the pain and speed healing, but it will keep you quiet until we can take you to our boss. You have something very valuable that we want." The girl's eyes tried to widen as she saw a flash of silver around the boy's belt. It was a hiteate from Iwagakure. The girl tried to stutter out a few more words, but the herb was starting to take control. The last thing she saw was the boy and his red eyes. He said,
"Have a nice sleep, Hyuuga Chihiro." The girl felt a surge of confusion run through her chest, but sleep quickly took over.

End.


Start!

Chapter 1

Looking over her shoulder, Haneko sighed at the pitifully small pile of weeds on the ground, and looking forward, she sighed at the large amount of weeds yet to be picked.
"Stupid D missions… We’re chuunin! This is genin material!" Haneko heard muttered to her left. Glancing over, she saw her taller team mate rip random weeds out.
"Taichi-kun! You're pulling the herbs out too! Stop!" Haneko said, surprised that Taichi showed frustration. He was usually calm and calculating. The heat must be getting to him.
Taichi stood up and sighed, his chuunin vest was laying on the ground in a crumpled heap, and his bare upper half was shining with sweat. Haneko stood up as well and wiped the sweat off her forehead in an attempt to hide the small blush that graced her cheeks.
It was the middle of the summer and much too hot to be picking weeds. Looking over to her right, she saw her last team mate still avidly picking the weeds. His pile was nearly three times the size of Taichi and Haneko's combined. He had his hiteate around his forehead to keep his burgundy hair and sweat out of his eyes. Looking up at Haneko, he smiled and stopped picking weeds. Standing up, he raised his hand and gave Haneko a gigantic thumbs up, all while smiling brightly. Haneko sweat dropped and Taichi grimaced.
"Don’t give up! Let the power of youth lead you down the path of right! Hokage-sama gave us an important mission to complete in our genin-chan’s absence!" Haneko put her face in her hands.
"Ho-kun..." Taichi didn’t say anything, but bent over and started to pick weeds. Why couldn't I have been stuck on team 12? Haneko thought.
The tracking based team the year Haneko graduated year was team 12. Haneko grew up being trained for that team, but the sand girl took it all away from her. Haneko herself owned a pair of powerful eyes. She could see miles in any direction, and in all directions at once for almost 200 metres. All that sand wench could do was see in the dark, or so she had heard.
It was another drudging hour before they finished picking the weeds. The team of three were ambushed by their sensei about half way back to the Hokage Tower.
"Fei-sensei!" Ho yelled out.
"Ho!" The tall, black haired, blue eyed man yelled back."Fei-sensei! I have a query!" Ho shouted, making Haneko wince.
"Yes, my youthful student! Anything I can do to ensure that you are full of the flame of youth!" Taichi sighed.
"May we visit Lee-sensei after this mission? I have something I wish to ask him!" Fei's eyes sparkled at the mention of his Jounin Sensei. Lee was a miracle case. During the last great shinobi war, Lee was badly injured, his spine was broken in several places and his arms were fractured into practically dust, but the medical expertise of the Godaime and the Medical Sennin, Uchiha Sakura, saved him. All that was left of his heinous injury was a terrible scar that extends from his hip, all the around his back, and up to his cheek. He still limped slightly when he walked, but was a very capable fighter.
"YES HO-KUN! WE WILL VISIT LEE-SENSEI!" Fei shouted, pumping his three fingered fist into the air.
"Fei-sensei, please. We need to report to the Hokage so that we can go home. It's too hot to do another mission." Haneko said, nearly whining.
"What has happened to my student's Flame of Youth?!" Fei shouted. Ho's black eyes sparkled with unspoken glee, and Taichi strained to remain calm.
"I left it at home. It was melting from the heat. Let's just go." Haneko said in a very flat tone. Fei gave a hearty laugh and strutted the rest of the way to the tower, followed closely by a green spandex-clad student. Haneko looked at Taichi, who in turned rolled his eyes, before sighing and unzipped the rest of her lavender belly top jacket, revealing a standard cut-off fishnet tank top.

"Well, I suppose that solves our mission problem. Hokage-sama wasn't even there." Taichi said, and snorted. Haneko giggled and followed her team mate down the spiralled stairs, nearly running into a tall pink haired man. The man snorted at Haneko and ruffled her hair before jogging up the stairs.
“Ahh! Haneko-chan! If you see Sara-chan, can you tell her I’m here? Also, I saw your mother…she told me to tell you that you have to meet with your Aunt.”
"Who was that?” Taichi asked.
“Err…Kinda like my cousin, but not by blood. Our parent’s are teammates. He used to baby-sit me when Nii-san was too busy.” Taichi nodded and said,
"What kinda meeting? What for?"
"Hmm? I'm the clan heir, remember? I have to learn all this stuff from Oba-sama." Taichi grinned.
"Is it boring?" Haneko looked at Taichi.
"...Why are you so interested? Usually you don’t say more than ten words a day." Taichi grunted and looked to the side, His hand fiddling with a segmented piece of his Bo staff that was strapped to his belt.
"Hmm? Not gonna tell me, Taichi-kun?" Haneko said in a teasing voice. Taichi was about to answer, when all of a sudden he was bowled over by a rather tall girl with short black hair. Haneko let out a squeak as she helped the girl off of Taichi.
"Ahh! Sara-ne-chan!" The girl looked up; her eyes flashed red for a brief second before turning back to the emerald green Haneko was used to seeing. Sara's eyes lit up but before she could say anything, another boy with blonde hair tied in a ponytail came jogging up.
"Gaahh...Mendokuse...Sara-chan, you made me ruuunnn..." The boy whined.
"Che...you're just slow." Sara said. Haneko looked at the boy, and searched her memory for his name.
"Ah...T-Tayoumaru-san?" She said in a tone that suggested she was asking his name. The blonde nodded.
"Sorry about that, kid... I wasn't looking. Haneko-chan? Have you seen Ni-chan?" Sara said as she got off of Taichi.
"Actually yes, he's in the Hokage tower!" Sara nodded slowly.
"Is Tou-chan there?" Sara asked, brushing a renegade strand of black hair out of her eyes.
"Ah...Ano, I don’t know? I didn't see him." Sara nodded again and looked at Tayoumaru.
"You're leaving tomorrow to go stay in Suna, right?" The blonde nodded. "Let’s go find Ni-chan then, and quickly, he can tell us where that stupid scroll is." Tayoumaru sighed when Sara suddenly took off running. Giving a nod to Haneko, and the now dusty Taichi, he jogged off behind his friend.
"So, gonna answer me? Why are you so interested in my clan affairs?" Taichi just grunted and didn't say anything for the rest of the trip. When they reached the entrance to her large compound Haneko gave her goodbyes to Taichi and stepped as quickly and lightly as possible down the wooden halls.
"Haneko-sama, you have a message." Haneko squeaked as a servant popped out from nowhere. A bandage was wrapped around her forehead, a constant reminder of the past.
"H-hai...arigatou...” The servant nodded and handed Haneko a small letter. Unfolding it, it read,

Hane-chan, meet me on top of Yondaime's head at 4! I have something cool to show you!
~Kimihiro

"Hiro-kun..." Haneko smiled and tucked the letter into one of the pouches that hung around her wide belt.
"Haneko-chan? Is that you? Come in here please." The girl's face brightened up and she slid the paper door open slowly and carefully.
"Kaa-chan! How was your day?" Haneko's mother sat at the back of the room trimming a small bonsai tree.
"It was fine. How was yours? I heard you had a mission today." Haneko smiled, and said,
"Today was our third mission! But we picked weeds. It was boring. I want to get something more exciting!" Haneko's mother laughed. The girl always loved her laugh; it reminded her of all the good childhood memories.
"Kaa-chan," Haneko said, sliding down to a kneeled position, "can you tell another story of how you and Tou-chan's adventures?" Haneko's mother laughed again and raised her finger like she did every time she started a story.
"Well, your Tou-chan and I-” Her sentence was cut off by a young woman of the branch family as she threw the paper door open.
"Hinata-sama! Come quickly, It's Hanabi-sama!" Hinata stood up gracefully and ran full speed out of the small room. Haneko scrambled up behind her and tried to keep pace.
Reaching the small courtyard that the Hyuuga's often used for training, Haneko saw a small cluster of dark haired Hyuuga's. Hinata ran towards the cluster, and pushed an old man, an elder, Haneko quickly thought, out of the way. The elder held a look of disdain for the woman, but Haneko caught a small sneer, and her heart fluttered.
What would he be sneering about?
"Hanabi! Hanabi! Answer me!" Haneko heard her mother yell. Haneko quickly pushed through the group and saw that Hinata was bent over her Aunt, frantically calling her name while going through hand seals. Hinata's hands lit up in green fire and Haneko unconsciously leaned in forward. She had interest in medical ninjutsus, but had no talent herself.
Hinata's fiery hand touched Hanabi's chest, and Hanabi jerked sharply, spraying blood across Haneko and the young woman beside her's face. The woman eeped, but Haneko said nothing. Instead she looked for the wound. There, on her chest, right under Hinata's hand was a spot on her kimono where dark was spreading rapidly.
"Hanabi! Hanabi-chan, answer me!" Hinata yelled again, this time slapping her younger sister's face. Hanabi's white eyes jerked open and her mouth flapped for a few seconds before shutting tightly again.
Haneko watched with a fascinated horror as her Aunt would lay still for a few moments, before jerking and twitching, and then go back to laying still. The sweat that decorated Hinata's face was an indication to the young heir that something was seriously wrong.
"What are you all doing? Go get help! Go get Sakura-san! I don’t care if she is in a meeting, just get her!" Hinata yelled at all of the onlookers. Most of them scurried away, a few towards the gates presumably to fetch Sakura. Only Haneko and the woman who was splattered with blood remained. Haneko glanced at the woman and noted that she looked slightly faint.
"Hanabi...HANABI!!" Hinata screamed. Haneko knelt down on the other side of her aunt and observed the shallowness of her breathing.
"Is...Is Oba-sama going to be alright...? Ka-chan?" Hinata looked up and her daughter flinched at the tears that were streaming down her face.
"Haneko-chan..." Haneko's pale eyes widened and she looked down at the clan leader. Something was off, and she wasn't able to pin it down.
"H-Haneko...g-go...go get the Hokage...T-tell, H...H-Hanabi...." Haneko looked down at Hanabi again and nearly burst into tears.
She wasn't breathing.
Hinata withdrew her hands slowly, the green fire fading. Her face was a mess of tears and whatever makeup she had worn today.
"Haneko-chan...She...sh-she's dead. She w-was imp-paled... I w-will...f-fill in lat-er..." Haneko sat back, but froze up. She watched as her mother slowly wrapped Hanabi in her arms and sobbed softly.
"Go!" Hinata snapped. Haneko shook her head and stood up, not bother to wipe the unwanted tears.

Kimihiro was calmly walking towards the Hokage monument when he was seemingly ambushed by a slight girl. The girl cried out when she hit the ground, but instead of getting up, she seemed to give up running, and sat on the ground and cried.
"H-Hane-chan?" The girl stopped crying and looked at the person she had run into. Lunging forward into Hiro's arms, the girl started to cry harder.
"Hi-Hiro-k-kun!!!! Ob-ba-sama!! C-come to H-Hokage!" Haneko managed to get out. Hiro nodded and helped the poor girl up. The two started at quite a fast pace for a civilian and reached the tower in less than ten minutes. Winding their way up the twisted stairs outside the Hokage tower, Haneko rushed down the hall to the large office doors.
Without even knocking, she burst through the doors and yelled,
"Tou-chan!!!" The room was silent, and Hiro, who had just caught up, saw that Haneko had interrupted Gaara, who Hiro recognized instantly, and a tall blonde woman behind him, who he was fairly sure was Gaara's elder sister. Hiro may not have been a shinobi, but he liked to know a lot of them. Powerful friends, shinobi were.
"Haneko-chan...I'm in the middle of a meeting!" Haneko's father, a tall man with a scarred face and unruly blonde haired said, motioning at Gaara. Hiro noticed that they both wore ceremonial robes. Gaara raised his hand and said,
"Naruto, she seems very distressed, don’t mind me." Naruto clicked his tongue and said,
"If this is about finding Sakura-chan so she can help Hanabi, then Suzuki-san should be there already." Haneko just dropped to her knees and cried harder.
"Che, Naruto-kun...watch your tone! What's wrong, Hane-chan..." Haneko looked up at Temari, who was holding her shoulders and wiped away her tears. Taking a deep breath she said,
"Oba-sama...She....Uuuuu, in K-ka-chan's arms..." Temari hugged the mess of a girl tightly, and Naruto just sat down, his head in his hands.
"How?" Was all he said. Gaara looked at the girl with concern.
"K-Ka-chan...sh-she said, Imp-paled....Uuuuu...she said sh-she would f-fill....Uuuuu...you in later, Uuuuu..." Temari hugged the red haired girl and Haneko started to cry harder.
"Gaara...can we finish this later?" Gaara nodded.
"Actually, I was planning on visiting your compound tonight anyway, if there is anything I can do to help? Maybe transport the body safely?" The red haired Kazekage said quietly. Naruto rubbed the back of his head and nodded slowly.
The blonde looked at his daughter and sighed. Moving over to Temari, he bent over and picked the girl up as if she weighed nothing. The wild haired girl hugged her father around his neck tightly and continued to cry as he carried her bridal style out of the room, followed by Gaara, Temari, and finally an unnoticed Hiro.
Drawing a few stares as Naruto made his way to the Hyuuga compound at a normal pace. He didn't have to look very hard for Hinata as she was still in the middle of the courtyard crying over the body of her younger sister.
"Kimihiro-san..." Naruto said. Hiro jumped and made his way up to the Hokage. "Can you take Haneko-chan to a quiet place for a few hours? Stay there until I come find you." Hiro nodded in awe as the leader of his entire village remembered his name, and trusted him with his daughter none the less! Naruto put Haneko down, and Hiro led her by her arms towards the Hokage monument.
It took Hiro a good 40 minutes to get the still hiccupping Hyuuga to calm down, and another half hour to get her to the top of Yondaime's head. The sun had set and Haneko started to shiver. Sitting down on top of the head of Konohagakure's greatest leader, the girl frantically wished that she wore more than a tight black body suit.
"Douzo. You look cold." Haneko looked up and saw that her best friend was offering her a thick blanket from his backpack. Smiling, Haneko took the blanket and said,
"A-arigato...Hiro, you're a good friend." Hiro laughed and sat down beside her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.
"Don't worry. I know how you feel. Remember last week, when I didn't show up at our meeting spot? It was because my friend Ando-kun was killed in a fight with the Otou-nin. Haneko gasped.
"Oh no! Wasn't Ando-san the tall skinny one with orange hair? Chuunin, right?" Hiro smiled and nodded.
"I've been bringing him those mini paper lanterns we can buy at Tsuki's, and I light a new one up each morning. I see that old man, Uhn...Kakashi-san I think? He's there really early everyday. He's kinda quiet. He told me he mourns many people on the list, and he even said that Yondaime-sama was his sensei some 40 odd years ago."
"Ohh? Kakashi-sama? He was my Tou-chan's Jounin sensei, and Minato-jii-sama’s student... He's always late for everything."
“You’re dad’s sensei? That means that he was the Uchiha-sama’s teacher as well? Isn’t Sakura-sama a little young to have been their team mate?” Haneko gave Hiro a sly smile.
“Don’t tell anyone, but Sakura-oba has been slowing her age down with genjutsu…Sara-ne-chan told me that Tsunade-baa-sama did it too, which inspired Sakura-oba…I think that’s what that weird diamond on her forehead is for…”
"Woah! That's crazy!" Hiro exclaimed. The wonders of what chakra could do were beyond him. Haneko had taught him the basics of control, like he could form small suiton jutsu's, just tiny little ones, but none of any other element. He could also walk up walls if he concentrated really hard. He didn't have enough control to walk on water, but he didn't really care any way, water walking and wall climbing were for shinobi. He was hoping to take over his mother's shop one day.
A few hours had passed, when Hiro heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. Turning his head carefully, as not to disturb Haneko, who was sleeping on his shoulder, he looked back and was promptly hit in the face.

"Kimihiro-san, you're awake!" Hiro blinked slowly, his eyes adjusting to the brightness the room. His forehead was throbbing with pain. Putting his hand to his forehead, he found it wrapped with gauze.
Sitting up quickly, he nearly threw up.
"Calm down, you have a nasty concussion." Hiro looked at the cool voice coming from his left. A tall man with onyx eyes and dark pink hair was staring at him.
"You...You're U-Uchiha-san?" Osshi nodded and said, with a small, lady-killing grin,
"Osshimakuru at your service. Now, you've taken quite the hit to the head, I think that you should-""Hane-chan! What about her?!" Osshi stopped and frowned.
"Naruto-oyaji, Oba-sama, and Kouden are out looking for her, along with the Hokage’s personal ANBU squad. She was abducted after you were knocked out. You are a very lucky boy, a few centimetres to the right, and you would have been dead." Hiro's breathing quickened up as he felt a panic attack coming on.
"She-she....I couldn't do anything! Why aren't you out there?" Osshi leaned forward; his black eyes flashed red for a few seconds before he said, in a voice so cold that it didn't seem real,
"Because I'm making sure you stay alive, so that Haneko-chan doesn’t skin me alive when she gets back." Hiro shrunk back and shivered. The Uchiha’s were not something you messed around with.

End Chapter 1