A strange new life

1.6

Sensei was true to his words. My next allowance came, and I got more money than expected. It still wasn’t much, It barely covered the basics, but I wouldn’t need to pester Naruto for money just to keep the cooking routine. Let the brat have a few more coins for his ramen, he had it hard enough already.

I graduated from the Leaf Sticking exercise after a month of continuous training. Not that I was still using leaves. These days, I was copying something I remembered reading from another Naruto story. Placing heavy objects under my clothes, and keeping them there the whole day. I didn’t dare use coins. Money was hard to come by and no need to put my food security at risk.

I started in the evening with tree walking exercise, without a tree.

Another thing I, from that same story, thought made more sense. Instead of running up a tree and try to glue myself, I started just walking about. Knowing this exercise could be explosive, I did it in one of the many training grounds around the village. I expected explosions with every step. I was disappointed. Moving chakra to my feet was hard, stupidly hard. It took me hours concentrating to manage to push chakra from my feet while standing still. Add movement and things derailed.

During one of my many outings, I walked into a training field to find Naruto. The brat hadn’t seem me, and I preferred if he didn’t, but I was curious what he was doing. His training was all over the place. One minute, he would punch, kick, hit the three wood poles in the training area. In another instant, he did hand seals and shouted random jutsu names. I don’t think it was a real jutsu.

The small, always scared part of my mind I attributed to Hinata stirred, looked at the brat. Something bubbled in my chest. Oh no. No way. I turned around, fled as fast as I could. No way I was turning this into a self fulfilling prophecy. Naruto could train as much as he wanted. I wanted nothing to do with this part of the story. I didn’t even liked boys. Never had. I won’t deny I fled like a coward. I’ve read too many stories that dealt with fate. I didn’t want to tempt it. I memorized that particular training field. If I needed to search for Naruto, I could always go there. Otherwise, avoid the place like the plague it was.

It took about three weeks to master the tree walking exercise. I felt depressed. In the story, Sakura-chan did it on her first try. Naruto and Sasuke took only days. It took me weeks.

My academy days were mostly the same. Shinobi games in the morning, which I was started to lag behind even the other girls in class. The exercises were designed to stimulate chakra circulation on the kids, and I still refused to use chakra. I was slower, weaker, and tired faster. But it was all for my master plan.

In the afternoons, the kids now had painting classes, which taught them calligraphy. I already knew it. No sensei complained that I kept studying things on my own.

At night, fuinjutsu now took most of my time. I still kept with chakra training exercises, adding ever more heavy stuff to my own body and keeping them glued there with chakra. At some point, I tried adding more than one object at the same time, but that was a whole new level of hard. Right now, I needed to master the technique the old man Hokage left for me, instead of ramping the chakra control difficulty.

Three weeks in I already knew the scroll contents by heart. It was a simple seal designed to store a small object, like a kunai or a bunch of shuriken. I couldn’t recreate the seal with chakra. The scroll didn’t taught me how. Had to draw it by hand, and push chakra in the symbols. It took two more weeks before I could re-create the symbols without error.

About three and a half months of hard training and I finally managed to do it.

I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to go with this plan. Even this early, Sasuke was a jerk. But I don’t think the whole clan deserved death, and Konoha would benefit greatly by just removing Danzo before he got his hands on Shisui’s sharingan. I still had no idea how I would convince Kakashi-Sensei to help me. I hope he would.

That night, I prepared everything I needed. Made copy of the seals. Stored a pebble, a coin. Others I left empty, ready to use if the old man asked me to. I also packed my writing supplies and more ink to draw seals. I wasn’t a fast drawer, It took me a few minutes to finish the thing, but it worked. Speed would come with practice.

Next day, after the morning training — I couldn’t call it games anymore, those things were too tiring for me to call it a game — I left the academy, walked toward the Hokage tower. I never been there myself, but the place wasn’t a secret.

I walked up to the door, stopped to steel my nerves before entering it. I couldn’t see it, but a bonfire of chakra had started following me when I got closer to the entrance. Followed me inside as well. I was nervous. I looked about, checking out the place. It was my first time here. The place where the bundle of chakra was had no one. Stealth jutsu? Trippy. The tower lobby reminded me of those old hotels. Plants decorations, a kunoichi wearing a forehead protector behind a desk. Stairs on the corners leading up.

The kunoichi didn’t look up when I entered. That was fine, it gave me time. I took my board, wrote on it. I hesitated for a moment before showing it to the woman. The hidden shinobi had walked just behind me to read over my shoulder. It was fine. I could do this. I got up, knocked on the desk to get the woman—teenager’s attention. Showed her the board.

I wrote: “Hi! I’m Hinata. I have a deal with Old Man Hokage. I’ve finished my part, can you tell him, please?”

The kunoichi looked between me and the board. She closed her eyes. Fingers pinching the bridge of button nose beneath glasses. I could see the gears turning in her head. She thought this was a prank. I took the board away, erased the text. Before she could speak, I showed her the new words.

“When I was at the hospital, he promised to give me more fuinjutsu if I learned the first one.”

The kunoichi read my message, still skeptical. “Did he?” She asked. Her voice lilted at the end, almost sound like she was singing.

I nodded. Took out my bag, picked up the original fuinjutsu scroll, put on her desk. She picked it up, opened it. I took another rolled up sheet of paper, one of the seals I had drawn. I opened it, showed the woman. Her eyes widened. I placed the seal on the desk as well. Picked up my board again.

“I can activate it if you need proof. I have others if the old man asked for examples.” I showed her the board.

“I’ll be damned.” The woman muttered, looking at the ceiling. “No, you don’t need to. I’ll tell the Hokage-sama you are here. Please have a seat.”

That went surprisingly well. Operation Talk to old man Hokage is a go!

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