A strange new life

2.13

I sat down on the grass, looking the boys trying to climb the tree. Sasuke had a good advantage on Naruto. Naruto looked at the tree, then at me sitting on the grass. I had climbed as well when Naruto complained I wasn’t training. It shut him right up, and lit a fire under his feet.

Naruto walked over, crouched by my side. Whispered his question. “How did you do it, Hinata-chan?”

I considered popping the brat’s bubble. Tell him it took me almost a month of daily training to get it right. I didn’t. That was petty, because I was feeling petty. I took my board, wrote on it. “Call Sasuke-kun over as well?” Naruto looked conflicted. I added a new line. “We’re a team Naruto-kun.”

He nodded, determined. “Oi, Sasuke, get your ass here. Hinata-chan wants to tell us something.”

I kinda wanted to hug Naruto? It was awesome how he could put out any perceived competition and be the better person. I didn’t think I could do it. Instead of hugging him, I did the best next thing. Popped a cupcake, presented it to him. The blinding smile he gave me back was so worth it.

Sasuke joined us, after Naruto hollered three more times. “What is it? Don’t you see I’m busy with training?”

“Shut your mouth!” Naruto yelled. “Hinata-will teach us how she did it.”

Sasuke scoffed. I couldn’t fault him. The way Naruto said was like I was better than Kakashi-sensei. I wrote on my board. “There isn’t any shortcut I can teach you guys, but I can tell you how I trained myself. It might help.”

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“What, but, Hinata-chan…” Naruto looked devastated. Sasuke, finally, looked interested.

I patted Naruto’s head. Decided to be cheesy just for a moment. I wrote another message. “There’s no shortcut to power Naruto-kun. Only focused practice and improvement.” That, I knew, was a blatant lie. Naruto had his power cheat in the from of Kyuubi. Sasuke had his Sharingan. But what mattered was the mood and conviction. Couldn’t have Naruto thinking he didn’t need to work hard.

I got up, pointed at my feet, concentrated chakra on them. Took a step, a chunk of the ground came up when I lifted my feet. I wrote on my board. “I started, instead of climbing a tree, trying to glue myself to the ground. The concepts are the same, but I didn’t need to worry about climbing and falling at the same time.”

I put the chunk of earth back on its original place. Walked to a tree, motioned the boys to follow. “I also started climbing like this. Watch.” I coated my hand with chakra. Made it visible to drive home my point. I stuck my hand to the bark, palm open to they knew I wasn’t grabbing. Pulled myself up. To this demonstration, I did placed my knee on the tree for support, released my hand, and slapped it higher. I looked at the boys. Dropped down.

“Again, the concept is the same, but pushing chakra out of your hands are easier, because you’ve been doing it for a while when practicing jutsu and hand-seals, this serves to get you used to the amount of chakra needed to keep stuck.”

Sasuke nodded. “Thank you.” He said. Then he walked away, and started running up the tree again. The fucker!

I decided I wanted to be petty. I scribbled for Naruto. “Naruto-kun, you can use your shadow clones to help you training.”

“How?” Naruto asked.

“Just trust me. Create a bunch of clones. Have some try climbing the trees the way Kakashi-sensei said, others try walking the way I showed, some others climbing the tree by sticking their hand on it.” When I was sure Naruto had read the message I erased it and wrote another, along with my secret weapon. “After 30 minutes, unsummon all your clones, then do it all over again. I’ll give you one of my special series if you do. Will and Fire.”

Naruto nodded. Eyes fierce. Out popped a bunch of clones, each went about doing their own thing. I smiled a very evil smile. I couldn’t wait to see Emosuke’s face when Naruto beat him to the tree top.

But the distraction lasted just a while. I got tired and sat down again.

“Good idea with the alternative ways of training.” Sensei said, patted me on the head. I stood quiet, wasn’t in the mood for conversation. “What’s eating you, my cute genin?” Kakashi-sensei asked, sat by my side.

I didn’t even blush at the obvious teasing. I sighed, still felt down. At least with sensei, I didn’t need to hold back. My chakra threads picked up the eraser, wiped the words on my board. Another set of threads held the pen, wrote the message. All the while, I still looked down. “I want to train. I thought I was strong. I couldn’t defeat a single clone.”

“What happened?” Sensei asked. “How did you get hurt?”

I plucked some of the grass. My threads kept their work. “I got arrogant. Felt like I could defeat the clone, then help the boys. Zabuza tricked me into leaving Tazuna alone. I had to use kawarimi no jutsu to take his place, or Zabuza would have killed him. I think I would have died had you not broken free of the prison.”

I threw away the grass I obsessively plucked. The frustration from the last years bubbled out. I couldn’t contain it anymore. “I thought I was strong. It feels like I barely improved the last few years. I don’t know how else to practice my control, my taijutsu is a mess, I don’t know any jutsu, I’m stuck at my seals. I don’t know what to do.”

Tears spilled from my eyes. I grabbed my injured shoulder. Pressed hard on it. The pain felt something I deserved, even if that was a dumb sentiment. I knew I had done my best. I wasn’t some kid genius S-rank ninja at the age of 7. I would climb through hard work. But nothing felt like hard work anymore. I only saw walls I couldn’t climb.

“You’re strong.” Kakashi-sensei said. I mute scoffed at his words. Rolled my eyes. “You’re the strongest rookie I’ve seen in a while. What you lack is experience, and that you can only learn with time.”

I threw away another handful of plucked grass leaves. Yeah, thank you very much sensei. That helped a lot.

Sensei didn’t seem to have any other words of wisdom. I got up, bowed. Turned around and returned back to Tazuna’s house. Better help Tsunami with breakfast, and the house chores. That felt like a better use of my time.

Kakashi-sensei stare followed me until the trees blocked the view.