Except she was not as complete a failure as she had previously thought.
She'd admired him for years. He never gave up. No matter how often he failed, no matter how badly life tried to beat him down - he would keep trying.
And his eyes - his blue and expressive eyes so unlike the eyes of those of her family. Those blue depths that could sparkle with mischief or show fleeting pain and sadness only to bounce back and gleam with determination.
Hinata felt that she could lose herself in those eyes.
Her family was dark and gloomy, stoic and strong. They could be quick to anger, and when that anger was stirred it could last a long time.
Naruto-kun was not dark and gloomy, nor was he stoic. His smile was so bright she felt depression melting off of her when it was turned her way.
She wasn't a disappointment anymore, not completely anyway. She had helped Naruto to expose a threat to the village. Her father had actually almost SMILED at her.
She'd known for years that Naruto-kun had his flaws. He didn't always succeed, his mouth sometimes seemed to run ahead of his body, sometimes he was loud when quiet would serve better. There was his... prisoner. No, Naruto-kun wasn't perfect.
When his mask had fallen away, as it had on a couple of occasions over the years while she'd watched - she'd seen the loneliness. She'd seen the sadness. She'd wanted to step forward on more than one occasion but her nerve had always failed. She'd seen all the things that could have gone wrong. She had only seen the failure that was always what she had managed to accomplish.
Now though, she knew. He COULD accept her as a friend. He would NOT laugh at her. He was NOT going to be mean to her.
He might not 'love' her, but she could feel from him when they were close - that there he had a serious case of 'like' going.
Hinata felt that there were worse starting positions she could have had.
"Something up?" asked Iruka Umino as he approached the jonin at the training grounds.
"Watch Hinata," was Kurenai's reply.
"What am I watching for?" asked Iruka.
Kurenai frowned briefly as she considered how best to put this. "You were her teacher for many years. Do you see anything different?"
Iruka looked at the young girl sitting on a log as the two boys of her team practiced their taijutsu. "She's not wearing as much clothing as normal."
"She's not hiding in oversized clothing, you mean," said Kurenai. "What else?"
"She's not slouched over on herself," said Iruka as he watched, then shrugged ever so slightly. "I had a large number of students, and I didn't pay much attention to her. She did her work and was very quiet. She didn't seem to care for personal attention either."
"I'm a genjutsu expert," said Kurenai. "I've also worked as an infiltration specialist. It's handy to understand something of how people's minds work in both fields."
Iruka nodded to show he understood.
"Hinata has changed in the past week," said Kurenai. "Her association with Naruto Uzumaki seems the most likely cause. Did they interact at all in school?"
"No, though Hinata-" Iruka's voice trailed off.
"Had a crush on Naruto? That was pretty obvious," said Kurenai. "How long?"
"I noticed it when she turned in a test that had little hearts on it, about three years ago," said Iruka. "Though I think Naruto didn't know about it until just before the genin tests. Maybe a day or two."
Kurenai nodded and then let out a deep sigh. "If he IS behind the surge of confidence, then if he does anything to hurt her-"
Iruka glanced at the jonin. "I don't think he'd do anything on purpose."
"He'd better not," summed up Kurenai.
"Or you'll castrate him with a dull kunai?" asked Iruka, extrapolating from the expression on the jonin's face.
"No, I'll turn him over to Anko," said Kurenai.
Iruka managed to turn pale and shudder. Maybe I ought to have a word with Naruto.
"Though I admit I'm more worried about an UNintentional hurt. Ah, here's Sakura Haruno," said Kurenai as the girl came down the path. "It may be a couple of days before she's moving around quite so freely, but she can learn some genjutsu basics while Team 7 is rotating their training."
"I'd heard she was injured in the Kakabaka Incident," said Iruka.
"I do hope they aren't officially calling it that," said Kurenai, though a smile showed up at the thought. "She wasn't burned at least, and she was unconscious through the event and that might have prevented some injuries, but she did impact a couple of rocks."
"Hey, nice to see you without your clothes burned off," said Kiba by way of greeting.
"Eh?" asked Sakura.
The rest of Team 8 just looked at Kiba.
"Arf," said Akamaru awkwardly.
"What I mean is, last I saw you, you were in a tree with most of your dress burned off and you drooled all over my shirt," said Kiba, who then paused when he realized that hadn't come out too well either.
"Great," said Sakura, not sure how to handle comments like that.
"I mean," began Kiba.
"I think that this is one of those times silence serves better," said Shino quietly.
"Uhm, yeah," said Kiba.
"You're Hinata, right?" said Sakura, scooting to a seat next to the dark-haired girl and incidently away from the guy with the dog.
"Yes, Sakura-san, we shared the same class," said Hinata nodding and smiling at the girl.
"Ugh, don't remind me of class times," grumped Sakura. "Why did I have to get a loser like Naruto on my team?!"
Hinata's polite smile froze.
"I mean he's just pulling the entire team down," continued Sakura. "Why doesn't he give up on being a ninja?"
Hinata twitched, just a little. "A-ano-"
"He blew up a training area trying to pass a test, and before that he was just lying there like some lazy log," continued to gripe Sakura as the frustrations of the past few days came tumbling out. "What a LOSER."
"A-ano," tried Hinata again, a little louder.
Shino nudged Kiba and began moving away from the two.
"Of course, Sasuke is so awesome he can carry the team even with Naruto on it," continued Sakura. "Still, it isn't fair to Sasuke. How can he show off his skills with someone like Naruto dragging us down?"
"Sakura-san," said Hinata quite softly and politely, "could you stop right now?"
"Oh I wish I could stop Naruto," said Sakura. "You know how many years I wanted him to just shrivel up and die? But no - every day for YEARS he was asking me out. What if he gave Sasuke the wrong idea?"
Hinata rummaged around in her bag briefly.
"It's not like I would ever do anything that would mess up my chances to be with Sasuke," said Sakura, sighing in full fangirl mode.
"Sakura?" asked Hinata, hefting a large onigiri.
"Eh? WhaMRFFFGH?!"
With a mouth stuffed full of riceball, Sakura blinked at Hinata.
"Be sure to eat plenty," said Hinata. "You're still recovering from your injuries after all."
"Okay, THAT I didn't expect," admitted Iruka.
"She's a very nice girl, but she's having some problems with emotional equilibrium right now," said Kurenai, though her voice revealed some amusement.
"Well, something just happened," said Iruka when Hinata suddenly perked up and looked in a direction.
"She's not using the Byakugan," noted Kurenai. "I thought I might have seen that yesterday when it first happened."
"What?" asked Iruka just before Naruto came down the path.
"She knows he's coming without the Byakugan," pointed out Kurenai.
Iruka looked at the girl in question. In some ways it was like she'd spent all her life under a cloud, and now for the first time since he'd seen her - the sun had just come out. If this had been one of those movies, he'd have expected upsweeping music and little birds or butterflies dancing around the girl.
Kurenai spoke a bit louder so that everyone could hear. "As soon as Sasuke Uchiha arrives, I'll start today's lesson on genjutsu. Sakura, if you'll finish that riceball and come over here, I'll give you yesterday's lesson in dispelling genjutsu while we wait. Just practice it later."
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(Posted Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:26)
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