Naruto : Path of Wind

For a long while she fidgets with her brush, an almost pained look on her face. I'm just about to tell her that it's fine, I'll figure it out, when she shudders and looks me straight in the eye. With a start, I realize that in my concern over her exhausted features I'd skipped over the fact that her eyes...

It might have been the light, but they looked almost gray.

"It's a containment seal," Sakura confides, her voice low and pained.

...

Anticipation strikes me like a bolt of chakra lightning. I set aside the coloration of her eyes and the seal itself for the moment, and turn all my attention on her. "A containment seal for what?"

"For me."

My eyes flit down to the massive, still incomplete seal, and the half dozen spirit and body restriction subseals. I swallow. "What do you mean?" This time she doesn't answer me, instead pointing at the space inside the shape she'd traced. I look back at it, and this time I don't glance over it as simply another piece of this demented puzzle. I really look at it.

It doesn't make any sense.

"That- Those aren't even subseals," I say, baffled. Normally, such a statement would have to be taken with a grain of salt considering that it's impossible to know all of the subseals that are used in Fuinjutsu, but this is different. The graceful, sweeping brushstrokes that permeate the art are absent, replaced by shaky curves and turns and randomly placed wavy lines. It looks like something a child would draw.

I squint at a particular set of scribblings (because what else could they be?), noticing that they seem a shade lighter than the other bits. Carefully, I run a finger along one and scrape some off onto my finger. I rub the residue between my fingers, and it crumbles further, becoming a fine red powder.

"Is this blood?" I ask incredulously, turning on my pink-haired teammate. She nods mutely. "Sakura, what do you think you're doing creating a blood seal? Do you know how dangerous these things can be?"

"Yes."

"You- You..." I flounder, but I never get a chance to find the reprimand I'm desperately searching for as she abruptly shoves the brush in her pocket, still wet with ink, and begins packing her scroll away.

"I'm sorry, I need to go," she apologizes, pressing a glowing blue thumb to the rolled up scroll and sealing it shut. "The sun is almost gone. I can't-" She cuts herself off there, and before I can say a word she's gathered up the scroll and taken off at a dead sprint out of the training ground.

And then there was one.

"I swear, this team is going to be the death of me," I grumble, pushing off the ground. I briefly survey the deserted lot, going over my choices for the night in my head. On the one hand, if I go straight home I can heat up some of that beef that Sasuke snagged from his place yesterday, and then I can spend the rest of the night seeing if I can't make some headway with the Heavenly Chainsnow that I have the exercise I need.

On the other hand, Ichiraku's is still open and I'm fucking stressed.

I hit the dusty trail back to Konoha at an easy walk, taking the rare opportunity of a silent training district to calm my nerves, reflect on a few things, and work on another balloon. The results of the latter aren't any better than they were an hour ago, but I'm comfortable with blaming that on my jostling making it more difficult. The various different landscapes come and go at a crawl, until I've exited the genin lots and moved into the grounds reserved for the shinobi clans of Konoha.

It's as I'm passing by the entrance to the Hyuuga grounds that I hear a familiar voice crying out from amidst the trees.

"Eight Trigrams: Revolving Heaven!" For a moment I'm stopped in my tracks simply by virtue of the fact that I've never heard Hinata say anything that loud, and then I continue to stand there while I process the name of the jutsu she just called out. A few seconds later, the same shout erupts. I consider the little wooden sign in the ground next to the obscured path warning off anyone that isn't a Hyuuga, wondering how fast I could escape if there's another Hyuuga in there besides Hinata.

Ah, what the hell.

I duck into the path, marvelling at the length of the thing and how completely the line of trees on either side shelter it from the training ground within. The Hyuuga are nothing if not paranoid, I suppose. The same shout pierces the canopy of leaves above me for a third time. I finally reach the end of the ridiculous path, exiting out into the rapidly fading orange shine of the sun.

I breath a sigh of relief when I see that Hinata is the only one here, a lone figure amongst a sea of training dummies. Even from this far away I can tell she's completely wiped, literally wobbling on her feet, but that doesn't stop her from falling into the Gentle Fist anyway. Suddenly, she throws her arms to the side and spins, once, twice, around and around until her features are a blur.

"Eight Trigrams: Revolving Heaven!"

I inhale sharply as her body suddenly explodes with chakra, becoming enshrouded by a spinning dome of faint blue light. A low thrum drifts through the air as the jutsu and Hinata spin faster and faster, tearing up entire patches of grass and earth and sending them flying. Then the dome's shape wavers. My eyes widen in horror as the jutsu begins wobbling dangerously, and duck back into the sheltered path just in time for a crack to rend the air and a shockwave of chakra to go rocketing down the path, through the space I'd just been.

I peek cautiously back into the training ground, and see Hinata on her hands and knees, panting. I creep forward, idly wondering how in the world the girl with the Byakugan hasn't spotted me yet.

Said girl pushes herself unsteadily up onto her

knees after gaining control of her breathing, then to her feet, and falls into the Gentle Fist stance again. I immediately dive behind a nearby training dummy, and wait until the next shockwave of chakra has passed before chancing another look at my former classmate.

She's only fallen to her knees this time, and her face is buried in her hands. Her shoulders are shaking.

"Hinata?" I call, concerned. "You okay?"

She jerks her head up as if she'd been burned, staring at me in shock. "Naruto?"

I wave. "Hey."

"What are you doing here?" She asks, bewildered. I reach up and scratch the back of my neck, smiling sheepishly.

"I kind of heard you practising your jutsu and got curious." I tilt my head. "So what's that thing supposed to do, anyway? It looked pretty cool before it fell apart."

She fiddles with her fingers, casting her eyes down. "It's supposed to act as a defensive technique. By spinning my chakra at high velocities, I can deflect almost any attack that tries to come through my barrier." She sighs in frustration. "I still can't maintain it long enough for it to be useful though, and I can't dispel it without falling down and becoming disoriented."

"How long have you been working on it?" I ask, taking the last few steps and offering her a hand, which she takes after a moment's hesitation. "Your face is all red- you look exhausted."

"I've been practising since I got out of team training," she admits. "A little less than an hour, I think."

"Yeah, you definitely need a break," I say decisively, grabbing her hand and walking back towards the Konoha path. "Here, I know this awesome place off district four that's open until midnight. They make the best ramen you ever-"

"I can't," she says, pulling her hand from mine. I frown at her, furrowing my brow.

"Why not?"

"I need to learn this. I can't afford to take breaks," Shy, quiet Hinata refuses me firmly. While my mind scrambles to make sense of this fact, the determined look slips away and she lowers her head. "I'm sorry."

"Why's it so important for you to learn?" I ask curiously, ignoring the unnecessary apology. "Do you need it for a mission or something?"

She shakes her head, a sad frown pulling at her lips. "It's for my father. The Revolving Heavenis one of our clan's most prized techniques, and he just recently began to teach me it. It's a great honor, and I want... I want to impress him, by learning it faster than he expects me to."

I make a small noise of realization. "I see."

And I do.

I may be an orphan, but there have been dozens of times that I've wanted to impress the old man with some breakthrough in my studies or another. Whether it be proving my skills in stealth by infiltrating this building, or proving my prowess in Taijutsu by beating that upperclassman into the ground, I've always wanted to prove to the old man that I can be even more than hethinks I can be. Hell, my entire tenure in the Academy was pretty much an attempt to impress him, what with our bet and all.

I can definitely understand what she means. And because I know how painful it is to try to impress your old man and fail, I can also do this.

"In that case, you want some help?"

She looks sharply at me, her pale lavender eyes a sharp contrast to Sakura's gray green ones, and her mouth works soundlessly for a second. "I don't think that-"

"Ah, c'mon," I say, grinning. "You said you wanted to impress your dad, right? And two heads are better than one."

"It's a secret technique," she protests feebly. "I can't even talk to some Hyuuga about it, let alone an outsider."

Oh no you don't. "Please. I saw you try it out, Hinata. I couldn't even copy it if I wanted to." I hold a palm out, channeling some chakra to rustle her hair. "Remember?"

She purses her lips. "Still..."

"Besides, Kakashi hasn't been letting me train since we got back from our first mission. If I don't do something soon I'm going to go insane," I say dramatically, prompting a giggle out of her. "It's a win win. I get some training in, and you impress your father. What do you say?"

Her fingers set to poking again, but this time there's a little smile on her face, and she nods. "Okay. Yes."

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