For a brief moment there was a desire to cut loose, to destroy whatever had done this to her, to lay waste to the countryside if it meant getting the one responsible.
He checked though, and felt her presence a few miles away in another training ground. In that light mental touch he sent the equivelant of a hug and then turned his attention to the fight going on.
"Uhm, guys," said Naruto.
Sasuke flipped around, going from a legsweep to an uppercut. Kakashi dodged and flipped backwards.
"Excuse me," said Naruto.
Sasuke flipped his pouch open and drew three shuriken, throwing them in the same motion.
Kakashi blocked with his kunai.
"Yo," said Naruto.
Kakashi flickered out of the way of the explosive-tagged kunai. Sasuke leapt after him, drawing a double-handful of kunai to throw.
Naruto decided to try yelling. "I GOT THE DAMN BELLS!"
Kakashi stopped. Sasuke stopped. Sakura turned over in her sleep and mumbled something about caramel sauce and Sasuke-kun.
Sasuke stared in the direction of Sakura briefly, shook his head, and decided he didn't want to know.
Kakashi checked his belt. "Wait a minute. When I grabbed the book..."
"Yeah," said Naruto. "I mean think about it, if I could grab your book, I could have grabbed the bells then. So I just grabbed them when you took your book back. Ya want this, Sasuke?"
Kakashi blinked as the point of the bell test was never actually about the bells.
"I'll give this to Sakura, I guess," said Naruto, holding the other bell as he handed over the one to Sasuke.
"Can you just hang onto it?" asked Sasuke. "You heard what she was saying in her sleep?"
"It wasn't as concerning as that one time in class when she fell asleep and was talking about tying you up and..." Naruto stopped. "Nah, let's not even go there in rememberance."
"That's quite all right, let's not go there at all!" said Sasuke, glancing at their befuddled sensei. "Can we trade Sakura for Hinata on Team 8?"
"Speaking of which," said Naruto, jerking his thumb over where he could still see the bleeding corpse of her girlfriend. "Whatever you're doing there, can you STOP? Even if I know it's not really her, that's really upsetting."
Kakashi blinked as he realized Naruto was still stuck in the genjutsu, but somehow registering them and carrying on a conversation anyway. "Uhm, sure. How did you know?"
Naruto considered how to put this without his colleagues just dismissing him as nuts. "Hinata has, uhm, hidden depths."
Kakashi still wondered if he had somehow messed up the genjutsu. It had taken down Sakura pretty quickly and thoroughly, but Naruto was treating it like some minor disguise technique. He dispelled it anyway, wondering if there might have been something to Kurenai's 'intuition' after all. When you reached jonin rank, you DID develop a feel for situations and opponents - it was a necessary for survival.
"Well, I'll wake Sakura up and give her the remaining bell," said Naruto. "You guys can decide how to handle it beyond that."
"This isn't working out at ALL like it was supposed to," said Kakashi, feeling as if he had been the one that had been tested this time.
And he hadn't done too well.
Hinata stopped in mid-test for a moment. It felt as if - Naruto-kun had hugged her, stroked her hair, and whispered a word of encouragement into her ear.
Kurenai Yuhi noticed IMMEDIATELY. A feeling as if a genjutsu had flickered in, touched Hinata, and withdrew. She also noticed the way Hinata changed. Her stance firmed up, uncertainty fell away from her like a heavy cloak she'd tossed to the side. Those gleaming eyes narrowed in concentration.
Kurenai wasn't sure WHY or HOW but Hinata suddenly getting fierce and determined was welcome. She also noticed that Shino and Kiba had both noticed the change in attitude despite their unfamiliarity with her.
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(Posted Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:42)
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