A strange new life

3.4

In the mornings, team seven — sans sensei — always met for training. Sasuke had been holding out on us, but when it turned out he couldn’t keep up with my speed, he thought his sharingan would be the answer. I was still faster than he could react even when he used his cheat dojutsu. Sucks to be him. Dare I hope I was faster than Rock Lee? I had no idea.

Sasuke improved fast, and he also knew my own fighting style. It didn’t take much for him to start predicting my attacks, and anticipating them even when he couldn’t react to my speed. Talk about a cheat. So unfair. Years of hard work gone down the drain because of bloodline advantages. But that was fine, once I broke the fuinjutsu code, not even the sharingan would be capable of contending with the Black Flash!

With Naruto, training focused more on integrating his clones to everything. From spying, to recon, or simply as distraction. I hammered a lot about disguising himself as a weapon or something similar to trick an enemy. Naruto grumbled a bit, he wanted to fight head on, always. The dumb brat.

I also spent some time perfecting the jutsu I knew. Shushin no jutsu needed to be, for now, my answer for speed. When I started using those in my spar with the boys, I tried to be unpredictable as possible. I practiced my doton jutsu without hand seals. Like all others, it took some effort until I understood the chakra circulation, but once I figured that without using the hand seals to guide the chakra, it was easy to replicate.

The barrier, I mastered the normal application, and soon modified it to use weight seals: Weight would serve as a phenomenal way to disable someone without lethal means. I might have also, just for fun, you know, created a exploding version of the barrier trap. I mean, come on. Trap someone and explode them? That is ninjutsu 101, I mean, explosive ninjutsu 101. Whatever, I wanted to explode stuff. The barrier just made sure I wouldn’t explode the wrong stuff. Win-win, right? Don’t judge me.

I also did a bit of research on how to modify the B-rank barrier jutsu to create shield on demand. The way a see it, a on demand, almost unbreakable barrier to block stuff was just too good to pass. Once I managed to create seals out of thin air — it was just a matter of when — I could pop those shields whenever I needed them. Seemed to me a good strategy.

Our days off soon ended, and we started to complete missions again.

The missions we got were the boring type. Help with farm work, babysit, deliver letters. We got one more C-rank mission to escort a merchant to the land of river, and not even bandit attacked us. Weeks and weeks of boring walk. Naruto and Sasuke drama vanished somehow when I wasn’t looking. They still hadn’t returned to the same level of camaraderie from the Land of Waves mission, but they were cooperating, training together, and most important of all, not bickering all the time.

We walked down the streets of Konoha, Naruto with his hands behind his head. Today’s mission hadn’t been bad. A wild boar was terrorizing a small village. Hunting the animal had been fun, in a ‘I never hunted wild animals before’ way. Better than babysitting. Or taking care of Tora. Madam Shifmi had requested us to care for her pet Tora four times already. Always our team. I was starting to think it was because of the post mission client pastries. Her eyes gleamed every time the mission ended.

The village noises filled my ears: people talking, dogs barking, a hawk screaming overhead. I heard it all, but dismissed it. It was only when Kakashi-sensei looked up, that I did as well. The hawk flight path told the message: Jounin, assemble, tower, important, not emergency.

Kakashi-sensei glanced my way. “Well, that’s it. I’ve got to hand in my report on today’s mission.”

“Then I’m going home.” Sasuke said, turned around, walked away without leaving any chance for anyone say something.

Kakashi didn’t comment on that, or said anything else. He flickered away. Left me alone with Naruto.

“Hinata-chan,” Naruto yelled, “we can train together!”

I considered my options. I hadn’t finished my weight variant bracelets. It was taking more effort than I expected. I learned the two new jutsu, and deconstructing the barrier had been fun. I had ideas for new ways to apply my seals. My current focus was on a simple once sided barrier to use as impromptu shield. I guess training with Naruto wouldn’t be a waste. We usually did multiple clone training at my own request. I nodded. Naruto tried to blind me with his smile. Ugh.

We changed directions and went toward our usual training field. At some point a cardboard painted like a rock started to follow us, with three chakra candles inside. Naruto didn’t take long to noticed it too.

“Faked you out, rock!” He hollered, pointing at the cardboard. “Little hint. No rock has perfect angles and perfect corners and certainly no eye holes!”

The box was thrown away. Out from under it popped three brats, wearing the same goggles Naruto used to wear. One was a chubby kid with running nose, glasses and sleepy eyes. The other a rosy faced girl, with hair tied up like two points of a star. At the front, was Konohamaru. I was pretty sure it was Konohamaru.

“Leave it to the man I have acknowledge as being almost my equal! Your skills rival my own.” Konohamaru had his arms crossed, expression fierce.

“Oh, it’s you guys.” Naruto said, unimpressed. “What’s up with the goggles?”

“He he he, you’re our idol right? We’re copying the style you used to wear.” Konohamaru said, grinning.

I watched in amusement Naruto talking with the kids. Didn’t even got mad when Konohamaru asked Naruto if I was his girlfriend and Naruto didn’t deny immediately. Of course he did so after I had slapped the back of his head. Don’t know why the bugger doesn’t take the hint. No marrying Naruto in my future. No way, I refuse!

“But… but you promised to play ninja with us!” Konohamaru whined.

Naruto looked at me pleadingly. I shrugged, I didn’t mind, really. Worse came to worse, we could always sent a clone to keep the children company while we trained. I nodded.

“Let’s go then!” Naruto yelled, pointed down the road. “The last to arrive have to throw a hundred kunai!”

Konohamaru and the girl I still didn’t knew the name fled down the road. The chubby kid with glasses and running nose shambled after. Naruto pretended to chase the kids.

Konohamaru turned a corner. “Yipe.” Cried out.

I dashed forward. Naruto did too. Kankuro and Temari stood looking down on the fallen kid. “That’s gotta smart.” Kankuro said.

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