Chapter 14: Excellent

Hinata sighed tiredly as she rinsed out the wet towel in her hand. They had arrived at Tazuna's house roughly 18 hours ago. Kakashi had placed Naruto in one of the spare rooms and had tended to his neck wound. Which Hinata found, to her utter astonishment, was almost entirely healed by the time they arrived.

But still, dark blue veins were extending almost entirely throughout his neck, indicating that an extremely potent poison was coursing through his veins. From the red and black blotches that appeared beneath his skin the poison was a corrosive one and an extremely potent one at that.

That alone should have caused him to have died within just a few minutes after the kunai hit his neck, if the injury and blood loss wouldn't kill him, the poison eating away at his esophagus would have.

He had broken out into a fever a few hours after his arrival, Hinata was sure he wouldn't survive it, but she had been completely shocked after his fever had died completely after just an hour or two after they had first detected it.

Hinata had activated her byakugan after that, her curiosity getting the better of her and was shocked at what she saw.

Blue chakra sustained him, pumping through his system at a faster pace than normal, while a ferocious red chakra was concentrated around his entire neck. She looked harder then, noticing that the chakra seemed to be battling something, most likely the poison around his neck as it tried to enclose itself around the wound, its progress was slow though.

She had informed Kakashi of this, her sensei seemed somewhat relieved at the news, yet also alarmed.

After a few more hours, Kakashi decided that they would each take watch over Naruto throughout the night, so that someone would know and be able to alert the others immediately should his condition change.

He had taken first watch, staying up until some time around 10 to 11 she was to take second watch until around 3 and Sasuke would take the rest of the watch until the others woke.

So now it was her turn to care for him and she was bored! It was such a level of boredom that it made dinner at her families estate look like a festival of loud people!

She finished changing the water in the towel, she set it over his head and settled herself against the wall to wait out her 'guard duty'

It was just a few minutes into it that the silence began driving her insane. She let her eyes travel to her, now unmasked, teammate.

His angular, lean features, whisker marked cheeks and striking blond hair made a strange mix of features really. He looked stronger than any shinobi she'd ever met while somehow he also managed to seem more dignified than her father.

She giggled slightly at that thought. That was a difficult task to pull off and yet he did it in his sleep! She sighed at the thought of her father. Not wanting to take the silence, she decided she'd speak with her unconscious teammate.

"You know Naruto, they say a good family is the key for someones success. If so, then I must be one of the greatest failures in the world. My family has taken the term 'disfunctional' and practically reinvented the damn thing."

She paused for a moment before continuing. 'I mean, seriously, who the hell takes their own, brother, sister, cousins and daughters and put a seal on their head that practically makes them slaves on a leash."

She gave a disgusted, very un-lady like snort. "Heartless bastards that's who." She muttered through her teeth. Now, in the relative solitude of this room, some of her barriers could be let down, allowing her to speak freely of her opinions.

She sighed, letting some of the anger leave her. She looked back at Naruto and smiled. "You know…your really a great listener." She chuckled slightly.

This is how her hour passed, speaking simple one sided conversations with her charge.

Before she even realized it, her assigned hour had come and gone.

She yawned. "I'm tired, I wonder how much longer I have to…" Her sentence died in her throat as she looked out the window and noticed the grayish hue of light giving way to daylight.

Her eyes went wide, she shot to her feet and winced as her stiff joints creaked and cracked in protest. She went to leave but then decided to change Naruto's towel again.

As she moved to lift the wet cloth from his head a clawed hand shot forward and firmly grasped her wrist, her eyes widened in alarm and looked down to his just as they opened, revealing blood red eyes. They're wild, animal like.

She froze, a momentary fear gripping her, like an instinct, and had to soon hold back the urge to vomit as a wave of killing intent washed over. The air grew thick and heavy in her lungs.

Before she could comprehend what was going on she felt an arm wrap around her waist and she found herself outside the room, standing behind Kakashi. She sucked in an unobstructed breath finally clear of that oppressive feeling.

"Naruto." She heard the copy nin call. "Calm down. Your not in danger!" He yelled, the others of the house were emerging from their rooms each wondering what all the commotion was about.

Naruto slowly stood, his crimson eyes shifting. Looking through the whole room his eyes finally landed on Kakashi's masked face. He was mildly delirious, Kakashi noticed. A possible problem should the blond consider him to be the enemy.

His eyes shifted from the blood lusting red, to crystalline blue after a moment.

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