It was a measure of how frequently this happened over the past week that neither of her companions so much as raised an eyebrow at it.
"You're showing signs of improvement, Sakura," said Naruto as he stretched out.
Sakura grunted from her sprawl across the picnic table.
"No, really," said Naruto, apparently interpreting the grunt. "First few days you couldn't go nearly that far, and you were unconscious when you finally collapsed."
Sakura slowly lifted her head up to glare at Naruto before giving it up as a lost cause.
Sasuke looked up from where he was squatting and sipping at a water bottle. "You aren't helping, you know."
"Hey, I do the same workout as you two, PLUS I've got to do magical research," said Naruto.
"It's just that you're so damn CHEERFUL when you're doing it that's the problem," said Sasuke.
Sakura grunted, possibly in agreement.
"So what kind of research?" asked Sasuke.
"Oh, a transdimensional conduit to a superspatial pocket," said Naruto.
Slowly Sakura raised her head so she could glare at Naruto again.
"A what?" asked Sasuke.
"Uhm," said Naruto, scratching his head. "How to put this. I understand the concepts but I can't follow the math myself."
Yugao looked over from where she was doing sword kata. "Sometimes showing is better than saying."
"Oh, I suppose that's right," said Naruto. "My problem has been making a permanent doorway. Here's a temp."
Naruto got a scroll out of his pack, unfurled it, and then used a quick drop of blood to activate it. A door shimmered into place over the scroll.
Naruto opened the door, waving his instructor and Sasuke in, then gathering up Sakura to carry her inside.
"A swimming pool?" asked Sasuke, thinking that sounded REALLY good at the moment. While he wasn't in as bad a shape as Sakura - he was wearing a layer of sweat and grime he would prefer to get rid of.
"Yeah, jacuzzi is over there - but it needs cleaning," said Naruto, pointing. "Showers are over there. Some of the rooms are kinda junked right now. Haven't had a chance to do much with it."
"Where did you get this?" asked Yugao, thinking of various uses for this.
"Mitternacht found someone had ejected all these rooms into subspace, so we just collected them together and put this into a stable pocket," said Naruto. "The trick is getting the doorway to manifest. I can get maybe four uses out of a scroll before it starts tearing the paper apart."
Yugao blinked as she thought about that. "Have you considered embroidery?"
"I'm not that good with sewing," said Naruto, but he thought about it. "Might work though."
"Shower?" asked Sakura, her voice indicating a starving man being offered a hunk of bread or something similar.
"Yeah, hot water too, that took awhile to work out," said Naruto. "Mitternacht said the script looked Gallifreyan but she doesn't speak that language so everything's being figured out as we go."
"You need to get more sleep as soon as that's done," said Yugao. "I noticed you're beginning to wear out."
"So much to do, not enough hours," said Naruto.
"I know the feeling, but as your sensei, I'm telling you - get more sleep," said Yugao.
"Shower," Sakura insisted. "Or bath."
"I don't have any clothes for you to wear," protested Naruto.
"Ungh," managed Sakura as she slumped down again.
"Byakugan!"
Ah, there he was.
When she'd awoken, she had immediately wondered about Naruto having an older brother.
When she'd learned that this WAS Naruto, and that because of her fainting - he'd gone through four years of hell just so he could take care of her? Oh, guilty didn't even begin to cover how she'd felt.
She'd worried about him then. Checking up on him when she had the chance to observe from a distance.
He was older, harder, quieter. The absence of that constant smile had nearly broken her heart when she'd noticed that detail.
He'd always had a tough wiry musculature, but at age 16 under the conditions he'd been in - he'd filled out some and didn't have much in the way of 'soft' about him anymore.
His eyes though - they were same clear-sky blue. They still had that friendliness and warmth in them. Unlike her family, his eyes really were "windows to the soul" that she'd heard about in poems. Eyes that she could lose herself in.
He and the rest of his team were standing around an odd door that was hanging in midair. Her eyes flicked over the familiar forms of Sakura and Sasuke, the less familiar look of the ANBU who'd been known as Cat and was now their jonin-sensei. Back to Naruto.
Naruto laughed at something and gave that confident grin she was familiar with, and Hinata could swear her heart stopped and then raced ahead double-speed on seeing it. That was the same smile on that older face, the smile she'd fallen in love with.
Hinata gulped, having admitted that to herself. She wasn't worthy of loving anyone. She was the weak disgrace on the main family. Useless... except that her father had engaged her to Naruto and then volunteered her to keep an eye on Naruto when they'd known SOMETHING was going to happen.
Except she'd failed that TOO by fainting during the whole thing.
Now there was one of those odd pulses from that staff/not-staff that Naruto had. Naruto was looking in her direction as if he could see her and SMILING?!
Hinata gulped and waved, but apparently Naruto couldn't see her in return. Her Byakugan pulsed in her embarassment and she saw...
Naruto's clothes turn transparent.
"Hinata just passed out with a nosebleed," said Kiba, looking down at his team-mate.
"Troubling," said Shino.
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:46)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.