Naruto : Catastrophe : Chapter 100

AN : Yay chapter 100🎉

"Why don't we get a flower tunnel?" I wonder, plucking a flower off the curving wall and taking a whiff of it as I walk. Still fresh. Do they make people switch these things out?

...

I get to the end of the little tunnel and press myself flat against it, maneuvering myself into a position to take a peek inside the grounds. If whoever's in there has their Byakugan on right now I'm screwed no matter what, but if they don't and they aren't Hinata I might be able to escape this one with my tenketsu intact. So I edge forward, holding my breath and listening for some sort of sound from inside, some indication of training going on-

"You can come in, Naruto," A soft but clear voice calls from inside, and I relax. I peel off the flower wall and walk in, smiling sheepishly.

"Sorry for sneaking in again," I say, taking note of the sweat running down my former classmate's face and the veins bulging around her eyes. "Didn't want to take any chances."

Hinata smiles back, brushing a short lock of sweat-stained hair behind her ear. "It's okay. I don't mind."

"So what are you working on?" I ask, looking around the pristine training ground. Nothing seems to be out of place. The trees are all in one piece, the ground is unscarred, and even the life-sized dummies strewn around the clearing are holding up fine. Has she already perfected the Revolving Heaven? Neji's didn't make any marks on the scenery when he showed it to me, after all.

"I was working on my kata," she says.

"Oh." I grimace. "You already figured out the Revolving Heaven, then." Way to go, Uzumaki.

Hinata blinks, her Byakugan fading back into smooth flesh and pale lavender eyes. "Ah… no, not yet."

"Really?" I cock my head. "Didn't you want to impress your dad with it?"

She looks down, fiddling with her hands. "I did, but he decided I'm not ready to learn it."

"What? Why?" It's not like Neji's that much older than her, and he's got it down pat.

"He said that I was taking too long, and that I don't have the skill yet," she says quietly, and my frustration from my 'training' with Asuma comes back full force.

"Then he's got no clue who he's dealing with," I growl. Hinata looks up at me in surprise, and I nod firmly. "You can do this. I bet he's just a crappy teacher. Once you know what you're supposed to do I guarantee you'll get it."

She hesitates. "How am I going to do that? If father's advice isn't good enough…"

I jab a thumb to my chest. "I'm gonna tell you."

Now she's baffled. "What?"

"I ran into a Hyuuga a while ago who knew how to do it, and they told me how it works."

"Just… told you?"

"Yeah." I shrug. "Guess they weren't as worried about keeping it a secret. Anyway, that's not important. What's important is I know what you've gotta do so we're doing this." My old classmate looks too bewildered to ask any more questions, so I plow on, dredging up the memory of Neji's condescending lesson.

"The problem with what you were doing last time was you were relying on your rotation to form the dome, and not your chakra…" I go through Neji's whole spiel, repeating it almost word for word as far as I can remember. At the end of it I pause, wondering if I've forgotten anything and realizing that Neji's advice was actually pretty vague. Then I focus on Hinata and realize it must have been enough, if the look of contemplation on her face is any indication.

"Then, when he told me…" She murmurs, and a few seconds later her eyes widen. The veins around her eyes bulge again, and I take a quick step back. "Eight Trigrams: Revolving Heaven!"

A vibrant blue dome blooms.

The Revolving Heaven hums, kicking up dust and buffeting me with wind that I divert with an idle burst of my own, but it doesn't collapse. It spins, and even though its surface isn't still like Neji's, it's stable. A full fifteen seconds after it started, twice as long as her earlier attempts, it fades away. Hinata is swaying in the middle of it, looking at her hands in shock.

She looks up at me, and I grin. "Now do it faster."

...

"Nice!" I say for the hundredth time about an hour later, when the sun is almost gone from the sky and the hunger gnawing at my stomach has become too painful to ignore. I watch the humming chakra construct fade away into light blue wisps, revealing Hinata standing on mostly stable feet inside of it. "Looks like your dad was dead wrong. All you need to do now is work on the speed so it doesn't leak and you've got that thing down."

It's true, too. As soon as she tried it using Neji's advice it had been clear that she'd only been a step away from getting it in the first place. She must have practiced it so much before her dad told her to give up that all she needed was someone actually teaching her the technique for her to get it.

Even if that someone was Neji, who thought I was just trying to get the jutsu for myself. Oh well.

I push myself up, having sat down a while ago, and hook a thumb over my shoulder. "You want to grab some dinner? You look like you're starving." And dehydrating. And maybe teetering on the edge of chakra exhaustion? She was working that Revolving Heaven hard. I slap the dirt off my pants and turn, walking back towards the tunnel of flowers. "Come on, I know this great place right off the market district. You'll love it, I promise."

"Naruto."

I stop, turning back to Hinata. She hasn't moved from her spot in the middle of her dying jutsu, and is somehow looking timid despite her harsh panting and the sweat coating her skin. "I, ah. I…" She looks down, poking those fingers of hers together again.

I roll my eyes. "Why are my friends so shy?" I ask, crossing the distance between us and wrapping her up in a hug.

She stiffens against me, her pale lavender eyes flying open wide and her face going even redder. She must be really hot. "Seriously," I grumble, resting my chin on top of her dark blue hair. "Sakura would probably punch me in the face by accident if I tried to hug her, she's so jittery, and I don't even want to think what Sasuke would do if I touched him outside of a spar." I shake my head, and give the Hyuuga heiress a little squeeze. "You're welcome."

Two slender arms settle around my waist, and give a hesitant squeeze in return. "Thank you."

"So, dinner?" I ask, letting her go. She smiles.

"I'd like that."

Ichiraku's is mid dinner rush when we make it back into the heart of the village, only two stools left open on the far right of the ramen shack, and I hurry to take them. I nudge Hinata when she takes the seat beside me, pointing up at the menu.

"You've never been here, right?" She shakes her head. "Alright, you're going to want to get the pork, the miso, or the chicken. If you're really hungry, ask them for the Uzumaki special." I lean in close to her, whispering conspiratorially. "That's all three in one bowl."

"Naruto!" Ayame says in delight, whirling out of the back with a set of clean pots in her arms, which she passes off to her father over at the burner on the other side of the shack. "You're back!"

"Welcome home, brat," Teuchi calls, filling all three pots with water and setting them to boiling.

His daughter flashes me a sunny smile. "I heard you and your teammates made it to the finals."

"You did?" I ask in surprise. I've only been back for a day- even I haven't gotten around to telling anyone yet.

She nods, pulling her notepad from the front pocket of her apron. "Everyone's been talking about it. This is the first time everyone from Konoha has made it to the end of the Chunin Exams in over a decade."

"And with three rookies, too!" Teuchi exclaims from his spot at stoves. "Can't remember the last time a rookie made it to the finals tournament."

"Gotta be six years," Another man farther down the bar says. "That was the year Kumo and Kiri had that feud and knocked each other out at the start."

Ayame leans on the counter while the two men go back and forth over Chunin Exams trivia, turning her attention to my old classmate. "Good evening, Hyuuga-san. Can I get you anything?" Hinata's eyes flicker over to me.

"An Uzumaki special, please."

"There you go." I grin, slapping her on the back, and Ayame sighs.

"Poor girl." She scribbles the order on her notepad and whisks away to help her father at the stoves. "Two Uzumaki specials, coming up!"

"Kiba was right, then," Hinata says when the pretty waitress is gone, more to herself than me.

"Yeah, we all made it through," I confirm. "Almost got myself killed like three times, though. The other villages were rough."

"Will you be able to make it through the tournament?" She asks, alarmed.

"Well, it isn't gonna be easy," I say, grimacing. "The first match alone is going to take a lot out of me, no matter what. 'Specially since my new trainer for the break doesn't even want to teach me."

"He doesn't?" She asks, even more alarmed.

"Nah. He just gave me this chakra exercise to do and went off to play shogi until sunset. It's supposed to help me make my chakra cut, but I don't even know where to start with it." I knead my sleepy eyes with the palms of my hands, chasing all the negativity today's 'training' session has brought me with thoughts of the ramen cooking on the other side of the shack.

"I don't know. Maybe it'll be useful, but that's if I can get it down before the two weeks are up." I snort. "You want to know what the guy told me to do when I said I wasn't getting it?"

"What?" Hinata asks quietly.

"He told me to meditate."

...

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