Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Team ❯ Team- Hinata's Reaction ( Chapter 1 )

Title: Team-Hinata's response.

Author: Persephone-sings

Date: November 27, 2004

Author's note: Well, here's part one of this three-part section of an endless number of stories involving my favorite Naruto ninja :). It is a prequel to Precious. Read it in any order you want, though. Hope you enjoy it!

Team-Hinata's response.

A timid knock on the door brought Tsunade's head blearily up from her desk. A glance at the clock told her that her visitor was promptly on time and that she had been asleep for close to two hours. She rubbed her head sheepishly and hoped Shizune wouldn't hear about it. If she did then Tsunade would never stop hearing about it.

She yawned, stretched, and called for her visitor to enter.

Hyuuga Hinata, still as pale as the day Tsunade first saw her, entered the office of the Fifth Hokage with a nervous energy that destroyed all of Tsunade's carefully sought-after relaxation. Making a mental note to work on her self-confidence, Tsunade motioned her into a chair with a broad smile.

"My, Hinata, look at you! You must have grown six inches since the last time I saw you!"

"Hokage, I haven't grown an inch since I turned fourteen, as you well know. But thank you for pretending." Tsunade blinked, surprised that such a dry tone of voice could come out of someone who, just a second ago, looked like she was about to drop to the floor in a dead faint. Well, she thought pleasantly shocked, looks like someone's been working on her undercover skills. Keeping up an expected image was an excellent way to slip into any situation.

Propping her chin on her hand, Tsunade watched the young woman expectantly. She wasn't going to feed Hinata the information. Hinata should have realized teams would change when Shikamaru, Temari, Neji, and Sasuke were promoted to Jounin level.

Hinata settled back into her seat without the sigh she wanted to make. She always dreaded coming into the Hokage's office. Whenever she did, something was bound to change. Not that she wasn't ready for a change. Kiba and Shino were wonderful teammates, but they only saw her as the shy little girl who had gotten utterly destroyed during her battle with her cousin. Overprotective and more than slightly blockheaded, the two men refused to dual with her for any longer than twenty minutes and using less than half their true strength. Frustrating? Immensely.

Hinata was by no means stupid, and she realized she hadn't changed as much as she wanted to. She was still shy around strangers and still less inclined to battle before trying to make peace than most ninja in the village. She was, however, slowly gaining more control over her powers and increasing them as quickly as possible with two teammates who refused to hurt her in the least. Finding herself through a change in personality hadn't been what she had really been expecting. If anything, instead of becoming slightly cynical and more than a little sarcastic, she had hoped to blossom like Ino and Sakura had. She had wanted to be able to stun people with her sharp intellect rather than her sharp tongue. She had wanted to be noticed as powerful and beautiful, rather than as the ex-heir of the powerful Hyuuga clan. What she had gotten, instead, was a rather bad habit of blurting out her true feelings in front of people when angry (part of the reason, she was sure, that she was no considered a former member of the Hyuuga clan) and forgetting even the most basic of information when confronted with a tense situation.

A pointedly cleared throat called her back to the present and she sent a flustered smile towards her Hokage, a little upset that she had let herself wander like that. Sending a mental note to start working harder at paying attention to her surroundings, Hinata began their meeting.

"I imagine, Hokage, that you wanted to meet with me to give me the names of my next team, right? Though I am a bit confused as to why you needed to meet face to face. Aren't we usually given the names by our latest sensei?"

Tsunade nodded, "You are correct and yes, normally your current sensei would transfer the information to you. But your situation is special. Your team is special. In fact, you are the first person in your team that I am telling because if you have an objection, I will remove you and rework the teams."

"That won't be necessary, I assure you. Whatever you have chosen is fine."

Tsunade shot Hinata a dark look, "Are you patronizing me?"

Hinata flushed and bit her lip. "I'm sorry. I'm so used to following orders in my family that I sometimes forget people are actually asking me something because they want my answer. I'll let you know if I don't think I will be able to handle it."

Laughing, Tsunade inwardly hoped Hinata wouldn't run away screaming. She would be good for her teammates.

"Well then, let me tell you you're teammates' names." She slid a folder across the table and waited until Hinata had opened it. She pointed to the first picture. "Uzumaki Naruto will be your first teammate. I believe you know him quite well?" A raised eyebrow had the color rising back into Hinata's cheeks.

She glared at her Hokage, "I think we both know how disastrously stupid I was, thank you for bringing it up. He never even knew at all, did he?" Tsunade shook her head in answer and Hinata sighed. "Too bad the rest of the village did." She laughed a little at herself, glad that she no longer felt a twinge at the thought of everyone seeing her feelings laid bare.

Tsunade flipped to the next page and watched Hinata's face carefully. "This is your second teammate. Gaara of the Sand, well, soon to be former Sand ninja. He will be taking the entrance exam to becoming a Konoha ninja three months from now."

Hinata looked at the picture in front of her. A young man with shockingly dark red hair watched her through weary green eyes. His face was haggard and her fingers ached to brush his hair out of his eyes. The tattoo on his pale skin seemed to glow with an inner fire and she wondered if it would be hot to the touch.

Hinata, feeling her Hokage's gaze on her, raised her eyes reluctantly from his picture. "Are you waiting for me to run screaming?"

Tsunade gave her a weak smile and nodded. "You bet your ass I am. Do you have any plans to run straight through the door? Should I open it for you?"

Hinata raised an eyebrow. "I'm not planning on running anywhere. Why should I?"

Glad she had been proven right, Tsunade wished she had gone through with the bet against Genma. "Well, you have seen him in action, I presume?" Hinata nodded. "Does that not scare you, Hinata? The power that he has and the willingness he has to use it?"

Shrugging her shoulders, Hinata's eyes were drawn again to the photo on the desk. She brushed a finger across his image. Her voice barely above a whisper, she made her final decision.

"He's lonely, Hokage. So lonely."