Hinata stood in the Hokage's office, the scent of old paper and new authority hanging heavy in the air. The mission report lay on the great desk, its ink still drying. The report was concise and professional. It detailed the neutralization of the Aberrant Beast and concluded with a single, understated line about its biomass being repurposed for a celebratory feast by the client village and the presiding Chuunin.
Tsunade, the Godaime Hokage, picked up the scroll. Her eyes, sharp and worldly, scanned the text. They paused on the final line. A single, perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched upwards, a silent testament to her weary amusement. She had seen war, betrayal, and S-rank secrets that could shatter nations. A kunoichi eating her mission target, however, was a new one.
"Repurposing its biomass," she repeated, a wry smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. She set the report down. "Efficient. Mission accomplished, Chuunin Hyuuga. Dismissed."
Hinata bowed deeply. "Hai, Hokage-sama." As she turned to leave, a thought flickered through her mind, a bright spark of warmth and worry, Naruto. Was he safe? Had his team returned? She opened her mouth to ask, then closed it. The Hokage was not a friend to be gossiped with. She was a commander with a village to run. Hinata's questions were a personal matter, a distraction from the monumental task Tsunade faced. She chastised herself for the momentary lapse in discipline and departed without another word.
Her report to her father was even more concise. Hiashi listened with his usual stoic impassivity as she detailed her solo mission, but she saw the flicker of pride, and relief, in his pale eyes when she finished. The Hyuuga clan's living weapon had returned, successful and unscathed. That was all that mattered.
After shedding her mission gear, Hinata left the quiet, orderly confines of the clan compound, stepping back into the vibrant chaos of Konoha. She found herself wandering towards a small food stand, a comfortable, developing habit. And there, sitting on a bench with a half-eaten skewer in hand, was Karin.
The red-haired girl spotted her and waved enthusiastically, her face breaking into a wide, genuine smile. "Hinata-sama! Welcome back! I heard you were on a solo mission!"
Hinata bought a skewer of her own and sat beside her, the simple act feeling natural and easy. "It was uneventful," she replied, her resonant voice a low hum. "Have you… have you heard anything from Naruto-kun's team?"
Karin's eyes lit up, the question a perfect prompt for her true talent. The girl was a natural intelligence operative, a gossip skills would have made the T&I Division proud. "Still in the Land of Tea!" she declared, leaning in conspiratorially. "Apparently, it's a total mess. The Wasabi and Wagarashi families are still at each other's throats. But get this, Naruto is actually doing a good job leading the team! Sakura wrote me with additional message when she sent a report back via messenger bird. Sasuke's being a moody jerk, as usual, but Naruto's keeping them on task."
She took a vicious bite of her dango. "Speaking of Sakura, she's really serious about becoming a medic-nin. We've been studying together from some scrolls Tsunade-sama gave us. It's… fascinating. I think I might officially apply for the program too. It just makes sense, you know?" She sighed dramatically. "I tried to get Ino to join us, but she's not interested. Says it's not for her. Wants to focus on her clan's 'deep psychic arts' or whatever. Her loss."
Hinata listened, impressed. In the short time she had been in the village, Karin had managed to build alliances, identify personal motivations, and map the intricate social terrain of their peer group with a frightening accuracy.
As Karin spoke, however, Hinata became aware of something else. It was in the way Karin's gaze lingered, not just on her face, but tracing the curve of her bicep where it strained the sleeve of her shirt, flicking down to the clasps on her Chuunin vest with a faint, almost imperceptible blush. It was a warmth that was different from simple respect, an admiration that felt more personal, more… intense.
Hinata knew that look. She had seen it in the eyes of male shinobi in the village, a mixture of awe and a more carnal curiosity. She had learned to dismiss it, to file it away as an irrelevant byproduct of her enhanced physique. She knew how Naruto looked at her, the open admiration mixed with a boyish, flustered confusion that she found endlessly, happily endearing. But this… this was new. The idea that a woman could look at her with that same… hungry spark… was a new and deeply unsettling variable. Her development was apparently drawing attention from all quarters, and the sheer complexity of it was confusing.
It is not complex, Venom's voice purred in her mind, a smooth, simple counterpoint to her tangled thoughts. The logic is rudimentary. They are drawn to perfection. It is a biological imperative. Our chassis is the pinnacle of physical form—powerful, efficient, and aesthetically dominant. All viable organisms in the vicinity recognize this. It is only natural they would desire to align with us.
The symbiote's logic was, as always, brutally simple.
However, it continued, we maintain that the orange one remains the prime candidate. His vast chakra reserves, resilient genetic stock, and proven loyalty make him the optimal choice for procreation and pack formation.
Hinata felt a familiar blush creeping up her neck.
But, Venom added, a new, thoughtful, and far more terrifying idea entering the conversation, *the red-haired female displays robust vitality and a compatible chakra signature. As an auxiliary partner… she is acceptable. For the pack. For us and the orange boy. There was a pause, filled with an unshakeable, almost smug confidence. The orange one is a simple creature. He will not object. He may even find the arrangement… stimulating.
Hinata's mind went utterly, profoundly blank. A silent, internal shriek echoed through the hollows of her consciousness. Did it just suggest… not just Naruto… but other… girls?! The thought was so mortifying, so far beyond the pale of anything she had ever considered, that her brain simply refused to process it.
"Uh, Hinata-sama? You okay? You're kind of… glowing," Karin said, pointing.
Hinata looked down. The silvery, bio-luminescent Klyntar markings on her arms were pulsing gently under her skin, a subconscious reaction to her extreme emotional distress. She quickly pulled her sleeves down. "I am fine," she managed, her voice a little too resonant. "Just… contemplating my next training regimen."
She stood abruptly, needing to escape the conversation and the cacophony of new, confusing possibilities that were now warring in her head. She and Karin parted ways with a quick farewell, and Hinata found herself walking through the bustling market district of Konoha, her mind a whirlwind.
She dismissed the thoughts of harems and pack-bonds as a product of a predatory alien consciousness that didn't understand human relationships. She pushed away the confusing warmth she'd felt from Karin's gaze. She tried to focus. She needed a goal. Something simple. Something tangible.
Her hand drifted down, her fingers brushing against the mission pouch on her hip. It was still heavy with her casino winnings. And then, Naruto's voice, filled with that wicked, scheming glee, echoed in her memory.
"They're all strong, and they all know tons of cool jutsu. And they're all desperate for cash. You can just… buy jutsus from them, Hinata."
The chaos in her mind stilled, replaced by a single, sharp, and brilliantly troublesome idea. Her mission pouch felt less like a wallet, and more like a war chest. And she was ready to go to market.
The search began for a specific kind of shinobi: one with a spending problem who would be willing to teach for the right price. Naruto's words had planted a pragmatic idea in Hinata's mind. Her mission pouch, heavy with the spoils of their gambling spree, was an asset of opportunity.
She walked the bustling market streets of Konoha with a new purpose. Her Byakugan, usually reserved for tracking threats, was now engaged in a different kind of reconnaissance, scanning the crowd for specific chakra signatures from the mental list Naruto had provided. "That guy from the Intelligence Division, the one who always smells like ink and desperation? Total sucker for rare shuriken collections. The weapon-smith has him on a payment plan." … "See that woman with the cat-ear forehead protector? Spends her entire mission pay on high-end catnip for her ninken. They're not even cats!"
Hinata dismissed them. She needed more than just a trick or a single technique. She needed a philosophy of combat, a different perspective. She needed a predator.
And then she saw her.
Slumped over a small table at her favorite dango stand, surrounded by a graveyard of empty skewers, was Mitarashi Anko. She radiated an aura of profound, world-weary misery that was so potent it almost distorted the cheerful atmosphere around her. Hinata had found her target.
The dango was sweet, the sticky sauce a poor substitute for the satisfaction Anko craved. It was a temporary fix for a much larger problem. A problem measured in stacks of ryo that had evaporated from her wallet like morning mist. Her T&I Division salary, a handsome sum by any standard, had been mercilessly executed by a firing squad of premium sake, imported grilled squid, a limited-edition snake-themed kunai set she absolutely had to have, and this—this mountain of multicolored, glutinous rice balls.
She stared into the dregs of her tea, her reflection a grim, scowling mask. She could already feel the familiar, crushing weight of the end-of-the-month panic settling in.
"Stupid budgets," she muttered to the table, poking a lone dango with a skewer. "Stupid bills. Stupid everything."
The first, most obvious solution was to borrow money. Again. The thought of facing Kurenai, of seeing that look of gentle, disappointed pity in her friend's eyes as she handed over yet another loan, made Anko's stomach clench with shame. The alternative was to take on more missions. Overtime at T&I, a few high-risk B-ranks… another month of high stress, little sleep, and wading through the village's filth just to make ends meet. It was exhausting just thinking about it.
Suddenly, a shadow fell over her, eclipsing the afternoon sun and plunging her table into a cool darkness. Anko's first reaction was a flash of pure annoyance. Who dared interrupt her ritual of self-pity and sugar consumption?
She looked up, her dark eyes sharp and hostile, and her train of thought derailed.
Standing before her was a giantess. A green-vested, lavender-haired monolith of a girl who blocked out the sky. It was Kurenai's pupil. The Hyuuga girl from the exams. The one who had broken her cousin's will with chilling grace and stared down the Sand's jinchuriki without a flicker of fear. Anko's shinobi instincts took over, her eyes performing a swift, unconscious assessment: the sheer height, the powerful line of her shoulders, the way the standard-issue Chuunin vest strained across a chest that was, frankly, a marvel. This wasn't a genin anymore. This was a walking, breathing A-rank threat.
"Mitarashi-sama," a voice like resonant bells and deep cello strings sounded above her.
Anko blinked, shaking off the assessment. "Yeah, I remember you," she grunted, gesturing dismissively with her skewer. "Hyuuga Hinata. Kurenai's quiet little prodigy. Whaddaya want?"
"May I join you?"
Anko shrugged. "It's a free country. Knock yourself out."
Hinata sat, her movements possessing a fluid, powerful grace that seemed at odds with her immense size. For a few minutes, they sat in silence, Anko moodily finishing her last dango while Hinata simply observed the street. Anko found herself watching the girl out of the corner of her eye. And as she watched, she noticed the way Hinata noticed her watching. The Hyuuga girl's gaze met hers for a moment, and there was no shyness there, no flustered panic. Just a calm, silver-lilac acknowledgment. Anko felt a flicker of surprise. Looks like Kurenai's pupil had progressed way further than when she'd seen a months ago.
The experience with Karin had sharpened Hinata's senses to a new kind of signal. She saw the way Anko's gaze wasn't just looking, but assessing. It wasn't the leering curiosity of the male villagers, it was the appraising look of a fellow predator, sizing up her muscle, her form, her power. The revelation was still new, still strange, but no longer shocking.
"Alright, kid, you're not here for the scenery," Anko said, cutting through the silence. "You're looking at me like you want to buy something. Spit it out."
Hinata leaned forward slightly, the shift in her posture commanding Anko's full attention. Her voice dropped into that unsettling, beautiful double-resonance, a sound of quiet but absolute authority.
"I am newly promoted," Hinata began. "I wish to broaden my skillset beyond what my clan and my sensei can provide. I require… personal instruction. Tips. From a shinobi with a more… direct approach to combat."
Anko let out a short, harsh laugh. "Cute. You've got a sensei for that, kid. Go bother Kurenai. I'm off the clock."
Hinata didn't flinch. Her gaze remained steady, her silver eyes seeming to pierce right through Anko's gruff exterior. "Kurenai-sensei is a master of genjutsu. An unparalleled one. But your expertise lies elsewhere. In infiltration, in tracking, in the art of the kill. I am prepared to offer compensation for your time and expertise."
A direct economic proposition, Venom purred approvingly in the back of Hinata's mind. Logical. Efficient. The subject's desperation makes her a prime candidate for acquisition.
Anko snorted, the sound dripping with derision. She waved a hand dismissively. "Kid, please. You can't afford me. Your daddy may be clan head, but I doubt he gives you the kind of allowance that would even begin to cover my rates."
Hinata didn't argue. She didn't counter. She simply reached into the mission pouch at her hip. Her hand emerged with a thick, tightly bound brick of ryo bills. It was a vulgar, beautiful stack of money, held together by a simple paper band. She placed it on the table with a soft, definitive thump.
Anko's eyes, trained to spot the slightest flicker of deception, went wide. She stared at the money, her brain doing a rapid, frantic calculation. It was… it was a fortune. It was more than her last three mission payments combined. It was enough to cover her bills, her bar tabs, her dango addiction, and her crippling weakness for novelty kunai for a month. Maybe two. It was freedom. It was salvation in a paper-wrapped brick.
Her entire demeanor changed in a heartbeat. The sullen, dismissive slump vanished, replaced by a straight-backed, wide-eyed enthusiasm. The cloud of financial misery evaporated, incinerated by the glorious, brilliant sun of cold, hard cash.
She snatched the brick of bills off the table before it could change its mind, her movements a blur of practiced speed. She stuffed it deep into her own pouch, patting it twice as if to make sure it was real.
"Well!" Anko chirped, her voice now filled with a vibrant, manic energy. She slapped the table, beaming at Hinata as if she were her oldest and dearest friend. "A personal training session! An excellent idea! Why didn't you say so?! A promising young Chuunin seeking to improve herself under the tutelage of a seasoned veteran! It's your civic duty to help! My civic duty! We should start immediately! No time to waste! C'mon!"
Before Hinata could even process the sudden shift, Anko had shot to her feet, grabbed her by the arm, and was physically hauling her away from the dango stand, leaving behind a few unpaid skewers and a very confused shop owner.
"Training Ground Three is usually empty this time of day!" Anko chattered, her grip on Hinata's arm surprisingly strong as she dragged her through the bewildered crowds. "First lesson: always exploit an opponent's weakness. Today, your opponent is ignorance, and I… am a very expensive, very effective cure! Let's see what that Hyuuga style of yours can really do when you take the safety off!"
Training Ground Three was a scarred and lonely place, a patch of earth that had endured a thousand exploding tags and a million poorly aimed shuriken. It was the perfect classroom for the lesson Anko intended to teach. The second they arrived, her manic, money-fueled energy transformed into the sharp, focused intensity of a predator.
"Alright, Princess," Anko barked, cracking her knuckles. "First rule of my class: I need to know what I'm working with. You and me. Sparring. No holding back. I wanna see the monster your cousin saw."
Hinata nodded, settling into the Hyuuga's formal fighting stance. Anko just grinned, a wild, sharp-toothed expression, and simply… melted. She became a low, coiled spring of energy, her body loose and unpredictable. She came at Hinata in a weaving, serpentine rush.
The fight was a clash of two distinct methods. Hinata was a fortress, her Gentle Fist a series of precise, powerful, and linear strikes meant to dismantle an opponent from the inside out. Her defense was a perfect wall of redirection and interception. Anko, however, was a viper. She flowed around Hinata's defense, her movements fluid and boneless. Her strikes were aimed at joints, at tendons, at weak points in Hinata's stance. She'd feint with a kick, only to drop and sweep Hinata's legs, or lash out with a hand that seemed to contort at an impossible angle.
Hinata's superior senses and raw power kept her from being overwhelmed. She blocked, she parried, she landed a few thudding, symbiote-enhanced palm strikes that made Anko hiss and recoil, but the older kunoichi was like smoke.
"Not bad, kid!" Anko panted, leaping back after a particularly vicious exchange. "You're a goddamn brick wall. But you're too rigid. Too… noble. The Hyuuga style is about honor. My style," she said, her grin turning feral, "is about winning. You don't just disable an opponent's arm, you dislocate it, wrap yourself around it, and use it to break their neck. Let me show you."
For the next hour, Anko drilled her in the fundamentals of the Snake Style. It was a brutal, pragmatic art of grappling, joint locks, and contortion. It was less about elegant strikes and more about coiling, constricting, and breaking. It was a perfect, horrifying complement to the Gentle Fist. Where Hinata's style attacked the system, Anko's attacked the structure.
Next came ninjutsu. "Show me your fire," Anko commanded. Hinata demonstrated her controlled, jet-like flame.
Anko snorted. "Cute. Practical. Now watch a real artist." She flew through a series of hand seals, her fingers a blur. "Katon: Sen'ei Tajashu!" (Fire Release: Hidden Shadow Snake Hands!) From her sleeves, a dozen writhing, hissing snakes made of pure fire erupted, swarming a training post and incinerating it in a furious, screaming conflagration.
Hinata watched, her Byakugan deconstructing the jutsu, her mind—and Venom's, cataloging the flow of chakra, the precise modulation of heat and form. Anko turned back, a smug look on her face. "Pretty neat, huh? Took me years to perfect that."
Hinata nodded politely, then formed the same hand seals, her fingers moving with a slow, deliberate grace. The same snakes but of white fire erupted from her own sleeves, even more numerous and ferociously vibrant than Anko's. They converged on another training post, reducing it to a pillar of ash in seconds.
Anko stared. Her jaw hung open. "How… how in the hell…?"
"I am a quick study," Hinata said, the understatement of the century hanging in the air.
The rest of the "serious" training passed in a similar blur. Anko, her shock giving way to a manic glee at having such a prodigious, high-paying student, taught with a feverish intensity. She brought out anatomical charts and medical dummies, pointing out nerve clusters that would induce debilitating pain, pressure points that could cause temporary paralysis or uncontrollable muscle spasms. She taught Hinata how to read the subtlest clues of a mission scene, the depth of a footprint, the scent of a specific poison on the wind, the way a lie tasted in the air.
Finally, as the sun began to dip low, painting the sky in shades of orange and bruised purple, Anko clapped her hands together. "Alright! The boring stuff is over! Now for the real lesson. The Anko Mitarashi Special Course in Advanced Psychological Warfare and Tactical Seduction!"
Hinata blinked. "Tactical… seduction?"
"You got it, kiddo!" Anko chirped, striking a pose. She jutted a hip out, placed a hand on it, and gave Hinata a look that was equal parts predatory invitation and sheer, unhinged confidence. "Look, you're a walking, talking intimidation factor already. You've got the height, the build, the scary resonant voice. You just gotta learn how to use it."
She instructed Hinata on posture. How a slight tilt of the head could convey curiosity or condescension. How a slow, deliberate stride could project absolute, unshakable dominance. How to use her voice not just to speak, but to purr, to command, to promise pleasure or pain with a single syllable. To Hinata's profound horror, she was a natural. Her own attempt at a 'persuasive' stance made Anko whistle in appreciation.
"Damn, kid. You're gonna be a menace," she cackled. "But that's just the appetizer. Now for the main course." She grabbed the long-suffering medical dummy. "Any idiot can learn to throw a punch. A real pro knows where to touch."
What followed was the most mortifying hour of Hinata's life. Anko, with the clinical detachment of a field surgeon and the lewd enthusiasm of Jiraiya himself, began pointing out every major erogenous zone on the human body.
"The neck, right here," she said, tapping the dummy. "A little nibble, a hot breath… makes most guys forget their own name. Works on girls too, by the way. The inner thigh… you get the idea. And this," she said, making a circling motion over the dummy's chest, "is not just for show. You learn how to use these babies right," she gestured vaguely at Hinata's own formidable bust, "and you could get an S-rank ninja to tell you all his secrets. You are going to absolutely melt your future boyfriend's brains, kid. He'll be putty in your hands."
Hinata's face was a shade of crimson that would have made a fire-style jutsu jealous. She felt a desperate urge to faint, to flee, to summon herself back to Klyntar, anything to escape this lesson. Was this what Anko did in her spare time? Or was she just a walking, talking encyclopedia of every conceivable form of human weakness?
Fascinating, Venom noted calmly, his own consciousness acting as a perfect, detached co-processor, flawlessly recording every scrap of data. A comprehensive catalogue of the species' primary pleasure receptors. This information will be invaluable for establishing dominance, ensuring pack loyalty, and… optimizing future mating rituals with the chosen male. The orange one will be a most willing test subject for these protocols.
The thought of using these techniques on Naruto sent a fresh wave of nuclear-level mortification through Hinata.
By the time the last rays of sun had vanished, the training was over. Anko was practically vibrating with energy, thrilled with her student's progress and the delightful weight of the money in her pouch. Hinata felt like she had run a marathon, not of the body, but of the soul. She was morally and emotionally exhausted.
"Alright, Princess, that's all the freebies you get for today's payment!" Anko chirped, patting her pouch. "Same time next day?"
Hinata could only manage a weak, strangled nod.
Anko grinned, then turned to leave. She walked away hugging the pouch to her chest like a newborn, her shoulders shaking with silent, happy laughter. Hinata could just make out her muttering under her breath as she disappeared into the twilight. "My precious… oh, yes… my beautiful, precious dango fund…"
Hinata stood alone in the darkening training ground, the silence a welcome balm on her frazzled nerves. Her investment had paid off. Perhaps too well. Some of what Anko had taught her, the pragmatic combat style, the tracking skills, could be invaluable. She could even, she realized with a strange sense of detachment, teach some of it to Naruto to make him a more versatile fighter. Not the other parts. Never the other parts.
With a deep sigh that carried the weight of a hundred newly acquired and deeply inappropriate secrets, she turned and began the long walk back to the sterile, honorable, and blessedly predictable quiet of the Hyuuga compound.
The two days following her initial session with Anko were an intense, dizzying blur of pragmatic brutality and deeply mortifying life lessons. Hinata found herself pushed to her absolute physical and mental limits, her body aching with the unfamiliar strain of Snake-style grappling, her mind reeling from lectures on psychological manipulation that made her blush so intensely she was certain steam was about to vent from her ears. Yet, through it all, she learned. She absorbed every lesson, her mind and Venom's working in perfect, terrifying tandem to deconstruct, catalogue, and master every technique thrown her way.
On the third day, as she walked through the village, feeling both stronger and more socially awkward than ever before, a familiar flash of red hair caught her eye.
"Hinata-sama!" Karin waved, jogging over with an infectious energy. She looked genuinely, radiantly happy to see her. Hinata, for her part, felt a complex and awkward warmth spread through her chest. It was good to see a friend, but the memory of Venom's casual, polygamous suggestions regarding the girl still echoed in her thoughts, making the interaction feel… fraught with a subtext only she was aware of.
"He's back!" Karin announced, not even waiting for a greeting. "Naruto's team returned from the Land of Tea this morning! The mission was a success!"
Hinata's heart gave a hopeful leap. "He is? Is he alright?"
"Totally fine!" Karin confirmed. "He wanted to come find you right away, but Tsunade-sama has him buried in mission reports. Said he's going to visit Sasuke at the hospital as soon as he's done. Sasuke got a little banged up on the mission, nothing serious, but you know how he is." Karin's expression turned sly. "Sakura's probably already hovering around the hospital, you know how she gets when those two start glaring at each other. We should probably run interference before they burn a hole in the wall with their testosterone."
The thought of seeing Naruto was a powerful magnet. The desire to share what she had learned, to see his reaction to her own growth, was a tangible ache. "Yes," Hinata agreed, her voice a low, determined hum. "Let's go."
Their path took them through the quieter backstreets, a direct route to the sprawling Konoha Hospital complex. The afternoon was peaceful, the air filled with the distant sounds of a village at work. As they rounded the final corner, the hospital looming before them, a low, distinct tremor vibrated through the pavement, felt more in the bones than heard with the ears. It was followed an instant later by a high, piercing shriek of a thousand birds.
Chidori.
Hinata's head snapped up. Karin gasped beside her. On the flat rooftop of the hospital's main wing, silhouetted against the bright blue sky, two figures were locked in a terrifying ballet of destruction. The large water tower that stood on the roof was dented and ruptured, water cascading down its side. Hinata's Byakugan flared to life, her vision punching through the distance, bringing the scene into sharp, horrifying focus.
Sasuke, his face a mask of pure, murderous fury, his Sharingan blazing, had his entire arm enveloped in the crackling, shrieking lightning of the Chidori. Across from him, Naruto, his expression a mirror of grim determination, held a single, perfect Rasengan swirling in his palm, the sphere of pure chakra grinding against the air with a hungry roar. They were not sparring. This was not training. This was killing intent, pure and simple.
With a final, enraged scream, they launched themselves at each other, two meteors of devastating power on a collision course.
The world narrowed to the space between them. For Sasuke, it was a tunnel of pure rage. Naruto's strength was an insult, his growth a constant, grating reminder of his own perceived weakness. This Rasengan, this technique that had surpassed his own, had to be extinguished. It had to be broken.
For Naruto, it was a wall of desperate frustration. Sasuke was slipping away, his eyes filled with a darkness that had nothing to do with their rivalry and everything to do with the serpent's poison in his soul. He had to stop him, to beat the madness out of him, to drag his friend back from the brink, even if it meant hurting him.
Their jutsu screamed towards each other, the shrieking birds of Chidori meeting the grinding hurricane of the Rasengan. The air itself seemed to tear apart in the space between them. Impact was a second away.
And then, a shadow fell over them.
Before either boy could process the change, two hands descended from the darkness. They were walls of absolute, unyielding force. One hand wrapped around Sasuke's wrist, the other around Naruto's. The grip was a vise of living steel.
There was no explosion. The jutsu were simply… extinguished. The thousand birds of the Chidori were snuffed out, the lightning crushed into nothingness. The raging vortex of the Rasengan was smothered, its rotation halted, its power dissipated into a harmless puff of air. They were both left holding nothing, their wrists trapped in an unbreakable grip.
Shocked, they both looked up.
Towering over them, her face a mask of cold, controlled fury, was Hinata. Her silver-lilac eyes were blazing with a light that seemed to burn, the veins around them pulsing with a visible, silvery power.
A single word fell from her lips, a doubled, resonant command that was not a request, but a physical law.
"ENOUGH."
The sound washed over them, a wave of pure, undeniable authority that cut through Naruto's frantic concern and shattered Sasuke's rage like brittle glass, leaving only a cold, shocked clarity in its wake.
Hinata held them there, her grip like stone, her breath a steady, controlled rhythm. Her Byakugan took in the entire scene in a single, sweeping glance. She saw Sakura standing near the rooftop access door, her face pale and streaked with the fresh trails of tears, her hands clasped over her mouth in horror. She saw Naruto, his initial shock already melting away, his blue eyes looking up at her not with fear, but with a dawning sense of relief. He was uninjured, his chakra merely agitated. And she saw Sasuke. He was battered, his clothes torn, a fresh bruise blooming on his cheek. His Sharingan was still active, but the killing intent was gone, replaced by a seething, humiliated fury.
Naruto, understanding the intervention for what it was, a rescue, slowly and gently worked his wrist free from her grasp. It was a sign of acquiescence, of surrender to her authority.
Sasuke was another matter entirely. With a furious snarl, he roughly jerked his hand away, ripping it free from her grip as if her touch had burned him. He glared at her, at Naruto, at the entire world, his pride a raw, gaping wound. Without a single word, he launched himself off the roof, landing silently on an adjacent building before melting away into the labyrinth of the village, a fleeing shadow of anger and shame.
Just then, Karin scrambled onto the roof, her face pale with exertion and worry. Her eyes took in the scene, the broken water tower, the tearful Sakura, the tense standoff, and she immediately rushed to Sakura's side, wrapping a comforting arm around her friend's shoulders.
The immediate crisis was over. Hinata's furious posture relaxed, the glow in her eyes dimming back to their usual soft lilac. She turned her calm, questioning gaze to the remaining boy on the roof.
"What happened, Naruto-kun?" she asked, her voice quiet, yet carrying the weight of the steel that had just crushed their ultimate attacks.
Naruto looked away, his gaze falling to the spot where Sasuke had stood. The adrenaline faded, leaving him looking tired and profoundly sad. "He challenged me," he said, his voice heavy. "I… I think I said something that set him off. But it wasn't just that. He's not right, Hinata. He's becoming… unstable."
A heavy silence, thick with the ghost of their confrontation, settled between Hinata and Naruto as they walked away from the hospital. The sounds of the village seemed distant and muffled, their own footsteps on the cobblestones the only rhythm in a grim, quiet world. Karin had managed to coax a still-shaken Sakura towards a tea shop, promising sweets and a sympathetic ear, leaving the two of them alone with the weight of unspoken words.
Finally, as they turned onto a less crowded street, Hinata broke the silence. Her voice was a low, gentle rumble, a stark contrast to the sharp command she had issued on the rooftop. "Naruto-kun… you said you were on a mission. What happened?"
Naruto was silent for a long moment, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his gaze fixed on the path ahead. He took a deep breath, and the story came tumbling out, missing his usual boisterous shouts, he spoke in a low, tired monotone that spoke of deep-seated frustration and weariness.
"The Land of Tea," he began. "We were supposed to escort a runner in a big race. The client said it was to settle a family feud. I was team leader. From the start, it was a total mess." He kicked at a loose stone. "Our runner, this guy named Idate, was a complete, infuriating asshole. Arrogant, loud, kept calling us useless kids. Hated him. First thing we do is get jumped by some low-level Rain-nin. They were a joke. I took 'em out with a few clones and a couple of wind blasts before Sasuke could even finish his brooding warm-up."
He sighed, a sound heavy with irony. "The weird thing was, after that, Idate actually started to listen to me. To me and Sakura, anyway. He saw we weren't useless. But Sasuke… the more Idate started acting like part of the team, the more Sasuke pulled away. He got colder. Quieter. It was like he couldn't stand seeing someone else get a little bit of respect."
Hinata listened, her gaze fixed on his profile. This wasn't the goofy, ramen-obsessed boy she had grown up admiring from afar. This was a commander recounting a flawed operation, a leader who had carried the weight of his team and found one of its pillars starting to crack. He was admirable.
The orange one displays the markings of a competent leader, Venom observed, a rare note of grudging approval in his mental voice. He has successfully defended his pack and neutralized a rival. His leadership potential is… adequate.
"The final leg of the race," Naruto continued, his voice dropping lower, "that's when it all went to hell. We got hit by another Rain-nin. This one was different. Jonin-level, maybe higher. A traitor from Konoha, he said. He had this… sword made of lightning. It was insane."
Naruto stopped walking, forcing Hinata to pause beside him. He wasn't looking at her, but at a memory she could see reflected in his troubled blue eyes. "Sasuke just… lost it. That guy must've known who he was, because he started mocking him. Said something about the Uchiha being a clan of pathetic failures who deserved to die. And Sasuke… he broke formation. Ignored me, ignored Sakura, ignored Idate who we were supposed to be protecting. He just charged. The traitor was toying with him, Hinata. He dodged all of Sasuke's attacks, cut him up a bit, and then just blasted him away like he was trash. He endangered all of us, for nothing."
He clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white. "I had to fight him. Me and my clones, we kept him busy. I used the Vacuum Blade like you wouldn't believe, kept him from forming hand seals. Managed to disarm him with a wind jutsu. Finally got an opening and… hit him with the Rasengan. It was over after that."
He finally looked at her, his story finished. "After the fight, Sasuke wouldn't say a word. Just followed us back like a ghost. We got Idate to the finish line, he won. Mission accomplished. But as soon as we got back here and he was patched up, he came for me. Demanded a fight to prove who was stronger."
Hinata's heart ached for him. For the burden he was carrying. Without thinking, she reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. Her touch was firm, grounding. A silent message of support that spoke louder than any words.
Naruto seemed to deflate under her touch, a long, weary sigh escaping his lips. A great deal of the tension seemed to flow out of him, as if her simple gesture had allowed him to finally let go of the steam that had been building inside him. The grim warrior faded, and a flicker of the familiar, determined Naruto returned.
"You're right," he said, echoing her words from their last conversation, a small, tired smile touching his lips. "I'll… Me and Sakura will find him tomorrow. We'll talk to him. Properly this time. No more yelling." He looked at her, a hopeful light in his eyes. "You could… you could come too, if you want. He might actually listen to you."
The invitation was a balm on her own worries. He trusted her judgment. "Of course, Naruto-kun."
He grinned, the mood finally, truly lightening. "Oh, hey, get this! That Idate guy? Turns out he's Ibiki's little brother! Can you believe it? That scary proctor has a little brother who's a total crybaby runner!"
Hinata's eyes widened in genuine surprise. The world, it seemed, was full of strange and unexpected connections.
"And there was something else," Naruto added, a thoughtful, analytical look on his face now. "That Rain traitor. When I was fighting him, I tried to pull the usual taunts, you know? Mocking his village, calling it weak. But instead of getting mad, he went crazy in a different way. He kept mentioning some… god. Said their village belonged to a god now, and that their pain would save the world. It was super creepy." He scratched his chin. "I should probably add that to my report. It feels… important."
He finished, finally looking up at her properly, ready to change the subject. "Man, that was a mess. Anyway, enough about me! What about you? Did you do anything cool while I was gone? You look…" He trailed off.
Hinata, being several inches taller than him, had been looking slightly down at him during the conversation. Now that he had turned his full attention upwards to her, his line of sight met a soft, lavender-and-green clad obstruction. His view of her face was completely, utterly blocked by the impressive, straining swell of her chest, brought into stark prominence by the tight Chuunin vest.
Naruto's brain performed a frantic, short-circuiting reboot. The flow of conversation died in his throat. His face, a moment ago filled with determination and thought, went completely blank, then flooded with a brilliant, explosive red.
Hinata, realizing the issue, felt her own wave of nuclear-level mortification. "Ah!" she squeaked. She instinctively leaned forward and down to bring her face into his line of sight, a gesture meant to help that had the immediate and catastrophic side effect of dramatically accentuating the sight that had caused the problem in the first place.
Naruto flinched back as if he'd been physically struck, taking a hasty step away to put some distance between them. He could finally see her face, which was now as red as his own. He stammered, his brain desperately trying to find the words he'd forgotten.
"I—uh—you—I mean," he finally managed, his voice cracking. With a heroic effort, he managed to get back on track, his gaze firmly fixed on a point just over her shoulder. "So, uh, what… what did you get up to?"
The awkward silence stretched for a beat too long, thick with Naruto's flustered energy and Hinata's own lingering mortification. To break it, she answered his question, her voice a calm, steady anchor in the churning sea of their mutual embarrassment.
"My mission was… straightforward," she began, her gaze leaving his and finding a comfortable focus on the path ahead as they started walking again. "I was assigned a solo C-Rank. A village to the east was being terrorized by a monster."
Naruto, grateful for the change in subject, latched onto it with his usual boundless enthusiasm. The awkwardness vanished, replaced by a wide-eyed, childlike curiosity. "A monster?! No way! What was it? Was it a giant, nine-tailed… uh, badger? Or! Or! Was it a giant talking ramen bowl that eats people and you had to defeat it by eating it first?!"
A small, amused smile touched Hinata's lips. "No, Naruto-kun. It was not a ramen bowl."
"Aha! So it was a three-headed snake, like that Orochimaru weirdo's summons, right?! And you had to fight all three heads at once!" he guessed, shadow-boxing with the air as they walked.
"It was a giant, mutated boar," she stated simply, the calm delivery puncturing his wild theories. "It was the size of a small house and could use rudimentary Earth Style jutsu." She recounted the fight with clinical brevity, the charge, the clash of force, the elemental weakness she exploited. "I defeated it."
"Whoa…" Naruto breathed, his eyes wide with genuine awe. "A house-sized, earth-jutsu-using pig… That's… actually pretty awesome." Then a thought occurred to him, his expression turning practical. "Man, what a mess. What'd you do with the body? Leaving something that big to rot must've smelled awful."
Hinata paused in her stride. She turned to face him, a faint, almost mischievous light dancing in her silver-lilac eyes. "Well," she said, her resonant voice laced with a strange sort of logic. "After I defeated it… it seemed a waste to leave such a large source of protein on the field. So… I carried it back to the village." She took a small breath. "And we ate it."
The statement landed. Naruto stared at her, his brain trying to process the information. The image of the elegant, powerful Hyuuga prodigy single-handedly butchering and then consuming a kaiju-sized pig was too much. A snort escaped him. Then a choked giggle. And then he burst out laughing, a loud, full-throated, joyous roar that echoed down the street.
"Of course you did!" he howled, clutching his stomach as he doubled over. "Of course you ate the monster! That's the most Hinata thing I've ever heard! I should've guessed that!"
His laughter was so infectious, so pure and unburdened, that Hinata felt her own composure break. A soft, melodious laugh bubbled up from her chest, joining his in the evening air. The grimness of the hospital rooftop felt a million miles away.
"Your suggestion," she said, once their laughter had subsided into contented smiles, "about compensation for training… it was a sound one. It proved… effective."
Naruto's eyes lit up with scheming pride. "No way! It worked? Who'd you get to teach you? Was it that guy with the ink? The cat lady?"
"Mitarashi Anko."
Naruto physically shuddered, a look of profound unease crossing his face. "Her? That crazy, dango-obsessed snake lady from the exams?" He eyed her warily. "What did she even teach you?"
Hinata thought back to the lessons on nerve clusters, psychological dominance, and tactical seduction. A faint blush touched her cheeks. "Her combat style is… unconventional. Very direct," she said, choosing her words with extreme care. "She taught me about exploiting an opponent's weaknesses. Physical… and psychological."
An elegant, if sanitized, summary, Venom noted with approval. You omitted the section on optimizing mating displays. Prudent. The orange one's cognitive functions might have short-circuited entirely.
"Huh. Well, as long as she didn't try to get you to eat snakes, I guess it's fine," Naruto mused. They walked on in comfortable silence for a while, their earlier camaraderie fully restored. Their conversation inevitably circled back to the problem that still lingered between them.
"About Sasuke…" Naruto began, the levity in his voice replaced once again by a somber concern. "Maybe you're right. Maybe all three of us need to talk to him. He can't just ignore all of us at once, right?"
"Perhaps," Hinata agreed. "A unified front may be more effective. He needs to understand he is part of a team, part of this village. He is not…"
Her words were cut short. A flicker of movement, a whisper of displaced air, and a figure appeared before them. The porcelain animal mask and the gray, utilitarian flak jacket were unmistakable. ANBU.
"Hyuuga Hinata," the operative's voice was flat, devoid of all emotion. "The Hokage requires your presence. Immediately. It is a matter of extreme urgency."
The casual, peaceful atmosphere of their walk shattered instantly. The world of friendly chats and ramen bowls vanished, replaced by the cold, hard reality of their profession. Hinata's posture straightened, her expression becoming a mask of calm, professional focus. She looked from the ANBU to Naruto, a silent question in her eyes. The mission was urgent, but Sasuke was fracturing.
Naruto seemed to read her thoughts. He gave her a smile, not his usual goofy grin, but a small, confident expression of pure reassurance. He looked like a leader.
"Go on, Hinata," he said, his voice steady. "Don't worry about us. Me and Sakura will handle Sasuke. We've got this."
His confidence was an anchor. He was standing on his own, assuring her that he could hold his own corner of the world together while she attended to hers. She gave him a single, sharp nod of acknowledgment and trust.
Then, she turned to the ANBU. "I am ready." With another flicker of movement, they were both gone, leaving Naruto alone on the quiet street, a new resolve hardening in his eyes.