Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Tag, You're Dead ❯ 03-Not ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

 

Summary: The Sound is coming. Get ready to play. [A series of 6 - Ino, Naruto, Hinata, Sakura, Sasuke, Tenten]

 

Tag, You're Dead

Chapter Three: Not

 

 

In Hyuuga, Hinata is a failure. She is the Heir, the one who should be the strongest, the most fit to lead. Instead, she was found to be unskilled in combat, shy, and quiet. Her skills in diplomacy were overshadowed by her unwilling to speak. She was not what people had expected of the first child of Hyuuga Hiashi, and she, in their eyes, never improved enough to matter.

 

It didn't matter, to them, that although she wasn't born a genius, she trained with her team every day. It didn't matter, to them, that she tried. It didn't matter, to them, that she eventually got everything she as taught, that she wasn't stupid or slow, just intelligent and not a genius. It didn't matter, not to them.

 

And then she met Naruto, who didn't care. He was free, she thought, and she envied him and watched him and discovered that she liked him, which was a strange feeling for her. But she tried it out anyways, and found that loving him was different then she had thought it would be, that it was joy and pain and sweetness and conflicting emotions. She wanted to be close to him, but was afraid of him at the same time. She wanted to see him, but didn't know what to say. It was frightening and glorious and terrible and beautiful all at the same time, and it made her deliriously happy.

 

He's standing next to her now, and they're outside, in the cool air that dominates false dawn. She doesn't have the katana at her hip out, but her Byakugan is activated. Naruto, standing beside her, is gripping the katana on his back, his whisker markings dark. She takes his free hand in hers, and as he grips her hand reassuringly, he turns to her and smiles that big, white smile, his blue eyes crinkling in the corners, “Hey, Hinata-chan, wanna go get ramen after this?”

 

And she smiles, a tremulous smile at first, but quickly gaining strength. It is hard to be strong here, harder than on the wall, but she has years of hidden strength in her, years of endurance, from watching as her father loved her sister and not herself. And she has her love, standing beside her.

 

She loves him, and she opens her mouth to say what she has never dared utter before, but he lays his palm down over her mouth. “Not now,” he says, “later. I have something to tell you, too. And I have a present for you. But after.” He's serious, she can see it, so when he removes his hand she just nods.

 

But, still, she fears, “What if… what if…”

 

He lays his hand over her mouth to stop her, and looks deep into her eyes. “You can `what if' yourself to death, Hinata-chan. We'll make it through today. Today, and the day after, and the day after that, and every day, for as long as it takes.” She looks up at him, and she truly wants to believe him, she does. But she is so used to doubt and failure and disappointment that she does not, cannot believe him.

 

Still, she nods, and he smiles, becoming that same little boy that she fell in love with so long ago, and not the teenager forced to be a man far too early. “Believe it,” he adds, excitedly, and she knows he's looking forward to this battle. And then the alarm calls, the bells tolling and she sees, in the inverted black and white of Byakugan, the approaching army. They're fast, but she's thinking of chess, now. The pawns attack first. And its true and she knows it, because around her there are still children, children who, by the end of this day, will have seen and done what no child should ever have to do.

 

But they are shinobi. She knows it, they know it. This is a war - the shinobi's feelings do not count. (They never do.) Quickly, she prepares a jutsu, even as Naruto, besides her, and the rest of the shinobi form hand signs, some faster than others. They hold the attacks, hands freezing in the instant before the last sign, for half a second. Enough time for the first wave of enemies to crash into them.

 

Hinata forms the last hand sign, and a stream of water crashes into that first rank of arriving chuunin. She almost feels sorry for the poor chuunin who are swept off their feet and into trees. They should have been able to avoid that. Surely, not even the Sound…! But it is true. As she sees bursts of fire erupt from beside her, and even thunder come crackling from the skies, she sees that it is true.

 

The Sound had placed their pawns exactly. Quickly, even as the ground shattered beneath the enemy's feet, she messaged Command through the com of a nearby shinobi, simply grabbing it from his belt. “The front ranks are barely chuunin-level,” she says into the com unit, clearly and distinctly despite the roaring flames around her, as she has been trained A silence at the other end, and the message comes crackling back as Naruto places himself as a shield in front of her, “Epsilon.”

 

Almost immediately, the shinobi move forward. Hinata sees that Rock Lee is charging into the flanks, his teacher beside him. Tenten and Neji-nii-san go in together, and she sees what they are planning to do as clearly as if she had been the one to plan it out. They are a team, and they are working as one, planning to pick out a group - a large group - and herd it off somewhere they could quietly dispose of them. It was a good strategy, considering that they were fighting genin, and they were all jounin and Neji and Tenten were ANBU. They are a good team, she thinks, and Hinata wishes that her own team were here, but they are somewhere else, behind Konoha, with Jiraiya-sama and Kurenai-sama. Hinata is, of course, a little bit jealous that they would be able to watch the famous Sannin at work, but then, she thinks, as she sweeps her glistening katana through the abdomen of a man - really, though, he was no more than a boy - before her, she is fighting beside Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, the Sannin's apprentices, against Orochimaru, who is a Sannin himself.

 

And that is the last thought she has before falling into the peculiar dance of death, for though the enemy are weak, they are many, and it is easier to fight and kill once she starts the dance. Naruto is still beside her; rather, a Naruto was beside her. It was really rather early on for him to start using Kage Bunshin, she thinks, but she supposes he thinks it great fun. He is that kind of warrior, that kind of monster.

 

Hinata smiles as she reverses her blade to slice through the chuunin's neck in one quick blow, the pulls a kunai with her other hand to throw at another. Sakura-chan would be calling Naruto a lazy bum after this. And best of all, she would be healing him at the same time, because she would always heal `her boys' no matter what scrapes they got into or how mad she was at them.

 

A shinobi engages her, and, though he is not better than the others, she thinks he is the leader, because he is fast and smart. He must be, for he has a strategy - as she finds out when her katana flies out of her hand. There is barely a second's pause before she begins a Hyuuga routine. Sliding impossibly fast, she closes his chakra points, blowing his system apart, and rhythmically continues this. It is a different kind of dance, silk instead of steel, but she fights toward her katana. It is a good weapon, and she likes it.

 

Her eyes harden to chips of crystal, and she grins.

 

She will not fail.

 

Not this time.

 

This time, she will make her family proud.