As usual, Naruto was the first to arrive for morning training. Choji’s usual morning cry came from over a small hill as they arrived. “Yo-ho!”

Hinata knew that the morning runs Choji shared with Naruto—and more recently, Team 3, sans Neji—always put him in the right spirits for the day and helped him approach the dreary D-rank run with a big smile on his face and today was no different. Her lips curved up as Naruto came into view and waved them over, joining him in warming up.

Asuma arrived towards the end, smoking his pre-breakfast cigarette.

He liked to smoke one before breakfast and after every meal—and that was just standard, ignoring the dozens he smoked out of boredom. His proficiency in the fire nature change meant he wasn’t doing much damage to his lungs but Hinata disliked the smell, even if he dispelled it right as he was finished.

Once they were finished, he stamped out its butt and smiled. “You all look to be in good spirits. Any reason for that?”

Choji stretched out his arms. “Yeah! We did all sorts of things these past few days—there was an All-Comers Taijutsu Tournament that Gai-sensei was running for an afternoon.”

“Any of you enter?”

“Naruto did,” said Hinata. “He fought Rock Lee.”

Asuma was grinning now. “So, how did you like getting your ass handed to you?”

“How do you know I lost?” Naruto asked, glaring.

“Since it’s open for civvies, I’m guessing it forbade jutsu and the use of chakra to make things fair. Your taijutsu is good, but Maito Gai is a taijutsu specialist and if what I saw of his mini-me is anything to go by, so is he.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, fine. I lost—but it was fun. In a real fight, I think I’d win but I can’t deny Lee’s taijutsu is something else.”

Hinata’s lips tugged into a frown at the hint of defeat in his voice. It frustrated her to no end that Naruto—despite his strength—was his biggest critic to the point that he blinded himself to his own capabilities.

She caught Asuma’s eye and shared a nod in understanding.

“How was your weekend, sensei?” asked Choji and after a moment, he added, “It probably wasn’t as fun as ours.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Asuma heaved his shoulders and slumped slightly. “I drank tea with an old man and played some shogi.”

“My condolences, sensei. Depending on the old man and their playstyle, it can be a particularly mind-numbing way to spend your time,” said Hinata, her voice smooth—so smooth that the amusement within almost went unnoticed.

Naruto snorted.

“Not this old man, but it doesn’t beat a tournament so you guys have that on me.” Asuma laughed. “But let’s get this started. Choji, come with me. I think you’re ready for your next earth-release jutsu.”

As the two walked away, Hinata and Naruto were left alone.

The first three days of the week were dedicated to one-on-one training—though Asuma checked in every so often to give out pointers. Today was Choji’s turn, tomorrow would be Hinata’s, and Wednesday would be Naruto’s. The final two days were mostly freestyle; sometimes they sparred with Asuma as a team or were instructed to tail one of the shinobi without them noticing.

Other times, they did joint training with the different genin teams, but after the last one, Hinata suspected that they wouldn’t be doing one for quite some time.

“Are we doing the same as usual?” Naruto asked, adjusting his forehead protector.

He was the only team member to come to training in standard battle gear, wearing a heavy-looking brown vest fashioned after the chunin flak jacket. However, there were no sigils weaved into the fabric and it seemed to be an older model since the thick collar had neck and shoulder guards.

The long-sleeve mesh shirt he wore underneath the vest extended into plated fingerless gloves. Naruto crouched over his knees, adjusting his boots and momentarily revealing the velcro weights wrapped around his ankles. “Because if we are, I’ll make sure to give you some space to use your genjutsu in live combat—but don’t think that means I’ll just let you land it for free.”

According to Choji, he and Naruto had decided to take after Team 3 in their physical training, which explained the weights Naruto was wearing.

“Since we’re sparring, we’d be extending the fight for long enough for us to learn from it otherwise it’s pointless.” Hinata shook her head, shaking her long, dark hair. “I’ve finished reading the theory on the Wavering Palm and my clan has been helping me practise it.”

“Did you land it?”

“Regrettably, no—but I was close.”

“Well, maybe today’s the day.”

She considered his words for a moment before perking up when a question came to mind. “How about you? You’ve been trying to add a cutting property to your wind jutsu, right?”

“I’ve managed to cut leaves with my chakra.” He trailed his thumb inside the palm of the other hand while he spoke. “I’m trying to infuse it into my ninjutsu but it’s like I’m back to square one again. I’ve got one hell of a habit when it comes to wind ninjutsu.”

“You’ve used those jutsu hundreds of times, so it’s not a surprise that you’re finding it hard to change your method,” she said with a smile and an incline of her head. “But maybe today’s the day.”

He stepped back and pulled out two kunai, holding the blades out to the sides. “Very funny.”

Hinata engaged as he leaned in, ready to do the same but before the weight forced him to commit to a step-in, Naruto lurched back and threw both kunai. Hinata continued to close the distance as they left his hands. He blasted them forward with Gale Palm; she stayed calm, following the blades’ trajectory with her eyes and dodging without disturbing her run.

“Goddamned dojutsu,” she heard him curse, spewing six tennis-ball-sized air bullets towards her.

Hinata didn’t have the option to dodge.

She was moving too quickly to jump over the air bullets and their sheer number stopped her from dodging in any other way, so she took up a somewhat ready stance while she ran. The hazy blue glow around her hands betrayed her plans to him—luckily, this was a spar and Naruto explicitly said he’d give her the chance to spread her wings a little.

The various air bullets froze in place inches before making contact and using her knowledge of tenketsu, she directed her moulded chakra to the palms of her hands. Her training in the Main Family’s techniques was going well—and even if she wasn’t capable of performing them to perfection, she still understood enough to make things easier.

Directing the moulded chakra, Hinata expelled it from her palms and used the momentum of her spin to defend against the air bullets. What she was doing was an inherently flawed technique; Heavenly Rotation required chakra to be expelled from all her tenketsu points but Hinata was solely using the ones in her palms.

Not only did it lack the impregnable defence of Heavenly Rotation, but it also lacked the stability that came with expelling chakra from every tenketsu point. By all means, it was a stopgap until she could master its full form—but it would work for now.

Naruto sprinted into range while she struggled to rein in her chakra. He ducked underneath a deflected air bullet, transitioning into a sliding kick, and obliterating her shaky balance. For the moment that she was motionless, Hinata saw the air bullets burst through clusters of foliage, drill through the bark, and the ones that missed eagerly dug into the earth below.

As she fell, her heart dropped at the realisation that her hands would make contact with the ground first. The world slowed down for an instant, and Hinata could see it all with perfect clarity—her left arm coming up over her and arcing below her body—the visible surge of chakra exiting her palms—and the initial clumps of soil unearthed by that same surge.

She shot into the forest, destroying bushes and splintering branches as she tried to right herself. Her back slammed into a tree trunk and she nearly choked, hastily reeling back the chakra flow so that she didn’t plummet to the ground. Hinata didn’t make a sound—and three deep breaths later, she swung herself onto a branch and waited, the beginnings of a plan forming inside her mind.

Naruto edged into the forest, sweeping the recent wreckage in search of her. Regrettably, the two of them hadn’t managed to spar as much as they used to and back then, she barely managed to spend an hour or two after school with him, Shikamaru, and Choji before one of the branch family members came looking for her.

Things had only become busier for her since graduation.

That lack of usual sparring meant their once similar fighting styles had diverged and become wildly different. These days, he favoured Asuma’s dual-wielding style, just with kunai instead of trench knives. Regular kunai weren’t exactly the most chakra-conductive material but it was possible to have one’s chakra flow through them.

It was just costly—though Hinata supposed Naruto wouldn’t find that cost a problem. He only needed to master the free use of slicing wind chakra first. For some reason, he chuckled, but the momentary distraction allowed her to descend from above and take him by surprise.

She exploded into motion, instantly wiping the smile off his face. Naruto’s style had become more passive, seeking opportunities to slip in heavy enhanced blows and create enough distance to use ninjutsu. He favoured limb traps, maneuvring both his body and her own to control the direction of the fight.

Each time he shoved her away, Hinata doubled back with renewed intensity. Otherwise, she’d find herself on the end of a jutsu. Tenketsu-blocking strikes slipped between his arms, hidden behind regular palm strikes, and while the phantom glow around her hands was a dead giveaway of chakra usage, she maintained airtight control over it.

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Taking account of all of that, Naruto’s actions, and her plan—she was slowly losing ground. Here, she was the aggressor but why did she feel like she was on the back foot? Physical differences aside, her style was generally the more aggressive one and while things were mostly going to plan, fighting Naruto was like trying to bottle a storm.

He was always looking to dart out of range using chakra repulsion and if he didn’t do that, he was looking to blast her away.

After a deep breath, Hinata kicked it up a notch and used the strongest taijutsu technique she knew, the Eight Trigrams. While she could only perform the most basic sixteen palms—a derivative of the already-simplified thirty-two palms—it was more than enough for what she wanted to achieve.

Naruto blocked the first two just in time, trying and failing to trap her limbs as she continued her onslaught, striking at and disabling his shoulder. He tried to escape but she darted after him and continued the Eight Trigrams, unleashing four more attacks. With one less arm, he only managed to intercept the initial strike, leaving him open for the next three.

It threw her off for just a moment, but she course-corrected and continued. She disabled his other arm, preventing him from escaping or making the Confrontation Seal to gather his chakra—she knew he could gather chakra without any hand seals, but he’d formed a habit of using the seal for convenience’s sake.

“Ah, fuc—” Hinata decided to strike just below his Adam’s apple on the sixth to stop the expletive. She pulled back the knife hand and frowned, though she couldn’t stop the smile from breaking through her stern expression. “No need for foul language, Naruto.”

He opened his eyes wide, using his eyebrows to communicate the extent of his outrage, and like two infuriated worms, they writhed up and down, wrinkling his brow.

Her smile faltered and she once again struck his throat. “There you go.”

“N-Next time you want to do something like that,” he let out a hacking cough, “maybe kill the actual sensation or something.”

“Not possible as of now,” Hinata replied. “I don’t trust myself enough to start deadening your nerves—because that’s what I’d be doing.”

“Yeah, that.” He nodded, not in understanding but rather in acceptance. “Why can’t you do it?”

“Deadening nerves in a controlled environment with a professional observing your every move is a lot easier than doing it in the wild.” Her lips twitched at the joke. “Besides, I haven’t tried it on people yet. Are you still eager to have me deaden your nerves?”

“A professional? You didn’t tell me you’re interning at the hospital. Since when?”

“I’m not. There tend to be quite a few Hyuuga medics, even if it’s considered second-class within the clan.”

“Mainly branch family members, then,” Naruto said grimly.

Hinata brushed past her displeasure at the reminder of inter-clan politics. “Natsu—my nanny—is in the shinobi reserve but she used to be a chunin-ranked medical ninja.”

“What, the one with green hair who makes sure she’s staring at me whenever we all hang out at your place?” he asked, rolling his eyes. “Gee, who would’ve thought.”

“Don’t be mean, Naruto.”

“Hey, she’s not here to defend herself and I’m nice enough in person when she’s not glaring at me.”

Because he wasn’t slandering Natsu, Hinata didn’t take any issue with his words—but she felt conflicted about it, which was why she took a little satisfaction in her final and seventh strike: a gentle tap to his nose using her index finger.

He puzzled over the gesture for a moment. “Hinata… why did you… boop me?”

“Boop?” she laughed. “Is that even a word?”

He was going to reply, but her plan had come to a head. Naruto lurched to the side, gasping. He spread his feet to stop himself from falling but it was only a temporary measure and his feet gave out mere moments later.

“G-Gen…jutsu?” he belched out, not waiting for her confirmation to close his eyes.

Hinata stepped back and watched, satisfied with her win as the genjutsu continued to exert its influence over her friend.

Genjutsu were self-sustaining after successful use, manipulating the target’s chakra flow to cause its effects. They relied on the target’s ignorance and used their chakra to continue working but that didn’t mean they were permanent. Most genjutsu existed as a set-up for a subsequent attack since they were almost always recognised and dispelled, either by the target or their ally.

Using her Byakugan, she could see his chakra flow slowing down, disrupting her technique. He opened his eyes with a belch, clearing his throat noisily. “...Well, that sucked.”

Hinata simply beamed and got to work unblocking his tenketsu. They stayed seated in the grass in companionable silence while he recovered before leaving the forest at a slow pace.

“Genjutsu, huh?” he muttered. “When did you do it?”

“When I dropped out of the tree,” she replied.

“Is it a touch-based genjutsu? Because before you started using the Eight Trigrams, you made a hand seal. I don’t know of any genjutsu that works with just one hand seal and there’s no way you trained it to that point in a few weeks.”

“That was the last hand seal I made, you just didn’t see the rest of them. Wavering Palm requires me to land seven hits while I get a little bit of my chakra to enter your network. The Eight Trigrams was the easiest way to do it because of its overwhelming aggression.”

“But I only counted six,” he said with a frown. “You didn’t land anything else because I either dodged or deflected them.”

She circled in front of him, walking backwards and tapping his nose again with a smirk. “And there’s seven. The last one doesn’t require me to send any more chakra into your body. It just activates the jutsu with the chakra from the other strikes.”

His face fell. “No way.”

“Yes way,” she said, flashing a small grin before returning to his side. “By the way, what does boop mean?”

“Boop? It’s what you did to me when you tapped your nose.” He demonstrated it on himself. “See? Boop.”

His voice rose in pitch towards the end of the strange word, drawing a snort from her. It sounded so ridiculous yet, somehow, it fit. After that, Naruto dragged his feet, travelling a few paces behind her and complaining about losing to a boop of all things.

Once he was over it, he caught up with her with a statement in tow. “Every day, I only become happier with my choice to be a ninjutsu specialist.”

“Wouldn’t we all be one if we could?” Hinata asked with a roll of her eyes. “Unfortunately, not everyone has humungous chakra reserves.”

“And they’re still growing,” he said in a sing-song voice, specifically to irritate her. He dodged a light shove from her, dancing out of range. “Hold on, now. Do you want to know why it makes me happy?”

“Why?”

“Because I get to keep nausea-inducing shinobi like you far away from me.”

“I…” she narrowed her eyes, “...sense an insult somewhere in that sentence.”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, not bothering to hide the mischievous glint in his blue eyes, “but nothing I said was untrue.”

Choji’s exhilarated yells interrupted her retort before they stepped foot in the clearing. He and Asuma had practically dug up a stretch of the earth, inevitably caking their trousers in dirt and dust. Choji had stripped down to a dark vest, revealing impressively thick arms that shone under the sunlight. His green haori and clan t-shirt were strewn across a tree branch alongside Asuma’s flak jacket.

“This looks like the site of a massacre,” said Naruto.

“The Stone Fist Jutsu is a nightmare when you pair it with the Partial Expansion Jutsu—and the best part is that Choji caused all of this.” Asuma chuckled and spread his arms, gesturing at the surrounding wreckage.

Naruto peered at the deep craters in the ground and let out a low whistle and Hinata couldn’t help but be impressed as well. Choji’s usually expanded blows cratered the ground on their own and couldn’t be walked away from by most genin.

“...We’re not a team for subtlety, are we?” said Hinata with a wry smile.

“Says the person who put me in a genjutsu and has all-seeing eyes,” replied Naruto. “Not a team for subtlety my ass.”

She laughed and he seemed like he was about to as well until Choji swayed on his feet. Naruto lurched forward and caught him before he could fall, almost falling on top of him in the process when he started to sag.

“Please tell me we don’t have a mission in the afternoon,” said Naruto. “Because I think Choji is flirting with chakra exhaustion right now.”

Hinata gave him a once-over with her Byakugan. “His knuckles are bearing the consequences of all of this—but a week’s rest should be enough.”

“Or a medical ninja and a day off—which I was going to get to right after this,” said Asuma. “And no, we don’t have a mission, Naruto, but we’re going to meet up again at 4.”

“Why?” Naruto asked, keeping an eye on Choji—who was doing his best to stay aware of his surroundings—so he shook his shoulders. “Stay awake.”

His eyes snapped open. “I-I’m not sleeping, dude.”

“Stay standing and I’ll leave you alone,” he replied and proceeded to pull him up by the arm.

Grinning, Choji puffed out his chest and looked at Asuma with renewed attention. “Why are we meeting up at 4, sensei?”

“Would you look at that? He’s not completely out of it,” said Asuma. “We’ve got a meeting with my old man at 4.”

Hinata straightened at the mention of the Hokage. The flagrant disrespect by her teacher had long since become routine so she focused on the information. “Is it important?”

“Very,” was Asuma’s reply; he looked strangely serious for once.

“Then we’ll be on time,” said Naruto. “But I swear, if you make it sound like it’s something interesting only to take us to Yakiniku-Q with Lord Third, I’ll fill your cigarettes with grass.”

It said a lot about the sort of man they had for a teacher. When he wanted to teach, he was exemplary, if a tad informal—and the schedule they had was evidence of that—but when he didn’t want to teach, he went to incredible lengths to ensure that he didn’t.

Every once in a while was fine but sometimes, he took it too far.

Asuma tried to stop himself from smiling but gave up in the end. “I’m being honest this time, I swear.”

“Good.” Naruto stared at him for a few seconds. “I’ll get going then—got somewhere to be today.”

“And miss team lunch?” Choji asked, sounding put down.

“Sorry, man.”

Asuma clapped his shoulder. “It’s too late—he is lost to us.”

He rolled his eyes at their theatrics and walked away.

“Naruto?” Hinata called out, catching up to him with a brisk walk. “You never miss team lunch. Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Naruto replied, tilting his head as confusion crept into his voice. “I’ve just got somewhere to be is all.”

“Is it important?” she asked again.

He snorted. “You know that’s the second time you’ve asked that, right?”

“I know.”

“It’s important—I’ve got to talk to Ino about… the incident.”

Without another word, Hinata nodded firmly, turning on her heel. Inwardly, however, her stomach was doing backflips and somersaults. The three-day break had given her a decent enough glimpse into Naruto’s state of mind.

While shaken by the encounter with the Nine-Tails, he’d come out of it with a renewed determination to not let it and his status deter him. Asuma had prevented Choji and herself from talking to Ino about Naruto or the Nine-Tails—so had Naruto and Hinata still didn’t understand the reason why.

Expanding the circle of those who knew about Naruto was a good thing, right?

Everyone except her and Choji seemed to disagree. It was why Shikamaru still didn’t know about Naruto being a Jinchuriki despite the two of them being in on the secret—and she felt the weight of that secret every time they met up—even if, again, Naruto asked them not to reveal it to him.

Had Ino not taken the news well? She’d faced the brunt of the Nine-Tails for an undefined amount of time, so if she was afraid or upset at Naruto, then Hinata could understand.

She didn’t agree with it, but she couldn’t blame her for it.

At the same time, Ino cared about Naruto in a way that no one else did—Hinata knew it because she did as well. It was why her stomach was still twisting into knots now, more than half an hour after Naruto left.

Despite the unease that admitting that to herself brought, all she could hope was that Ino didn’t confuse the boy with the monster.

Less for her sake and more for Naruto’s.