A strange new life

3.12

I woke up to the sounds of battle, with several blazes of chakra around me. I didn’t even have time to curse my bad luck, or even process what happened in the past how many hours or days. I sprang up, tossing away the cloth covering me. I was inside some sort of improvised tent. My hands went to my pouches. They weren’t at my waist. I steeled myself, ran out.

Outside was chaos.

Ino-Shika-Cho stood together guarding the entrance to the improvised shelter. On the other side of the clearing, a group of shinobi from Amegakure fought Sasuke. Or better yet, were being toyed with by Sasuke. Sasuke’s chakra had grown exponentially. He moved faster, his attacks sharper and crueler. That was bad. I couldn’t let Sasuke use the cursed seal for long.

I burst from behind team ten, much to their surprise. Had my nightmare included Ino at the end because she was nearby? I tossed that question out of my mind. Not the time. I didn’t have kunai, Sasuke was too close for my exploding shuriken. My weight seals were already disabled. I flickered forward. Faster than anyone could react I punched, kicked and broke bones. In the blink of an eye, only me and Sasuke were left standing. I faced him, didn’t lower my guard.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Sasuke growled. His eyes reminded me of Orochimaru. “They were trying to attack you and Naruto.” Sasuke’s sharingan kept track of every single of my movements. The cursed seal covered most of his face already and I could see it already creeping toward his right hand.

I didn’t take my eyes off him. I slapped my foot to the ground. One of our coded messages. Enemy disabled, stop, safe.

Sasuke’s eyes flickered to my feet. He growled. “No.” The boy attacked, not me, I noticed. He was fast, faster than anything he could have done before. I flooded my body with chakra again. Time seemed to slow down. Sasuke was fast, but so was I.

Sasuke tried to push past me, I grabbed his arm. Emosuke hadn’t expected it. I turned around, threw him down, twisted his arm, my knee pushing against the center of his back. Sasuke struggled. I was running out of options other than to hurt him. “Stop.” I croaked out. My throat stung, felt like something tearing. I tasted iron.

The sound surprised me. Surprised Sasuke. The Uchiha heir stopped struggling. After a moment of silence he asked. “Hinata?” I got up, released him. Looked around, bewildered. The cursed seal receded, and Sasuke’s eyes turned back to normal. He held his left arm. Looked more lost than I. “What happened to me?”

I scratched my head. I could ask the same. Where are we? It looked nothing like the maze of roots and tall trees we fought Orochimaru in. I cast my gaze about. Ino-Shika-Cho still regarded us with guarded eyes. I waved at them. Naruto was asleep just behind team ten. I popped my board. Took a step toward them, Choji and Shikamaru retreated. I stopped. Wrote. “Hi guys. Where are we? What happened?”

Ino’s eyes widened, “You… don’t remember?”

I thought about the last things I remembered. Orochimaru attacked, we got defeated, he put me on a genjutsu. I shook my head. “We fought someone strong. He defeated us, put me inside a genjutsu. That’s the last I remember.”

The trio looked at each other. Ino nodded. Stepped forward, smiled. It looked just a bit forced. “We found you guys passed out,” She looked at her team again, “We decided to help you out and carried you with us.” She pointed at the moaning shinobi behind us. “We stopped to rest when they attacked. Sasuke woke up first, he didn’t say anything before attacking those guy. You woke up soon after and ended the fight.”

That made sense. And now we owed them a big one. Could I pay with the efforts of my labor? I turned around, walked to the Amegakure team. Searched the unconscious shinobi. They had a heaven scroll. I considered for a moment, better start repaying that debt now. I held the scroll up, showed it to team ten. “Do you guys need it?”

It was Shikamaru who answered. “We got a pair already.”

I nodded. Walked over to Sasuke, handed him the scroll. Wrote just for his eyes. “How are you holding up?”

He looked away, brooding. “I don’t know.”

“Want to talk about it later?” I wrote. The boy hesitated, shook his head. Sasuke walked away, brooding even more. He did need someone to talk to, just didn’t want to admit it. I wasn’t sure if I was the best person to deal with this. For now, I just watched him walk away. That left me to deal with Naruto. I approached team ten. I could see they were afraid of me for some reason. I knew how to solve that. I took one of my emergency seals from the skirt waistband. Popped out a full spread of pastries. This one was the ‘I’m sorry and please enjoy’ series.

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. Muttered. “Troublesome.”

Choji cheered. Rushed over to sample some. Ino gave me a smile, one that wasn’t tinged with fear. I gave her a thumbs up.

Ino approached. “Which scroll do you need?”

“We already have a pair.” I wrote for her, much to the girl’s surprise. I stopped in front of Naruto. He wasn’t unconscious anymore, just sleeping. The mumbling and drool confirmed it. I did remember this part in the original show, Choji hit Naruto’s head to wake him up. I wasn’t going to be mean to the sunshine brat just because he was annoying. I knelt by his side. Shook his shoulder until he woke up.

Naruto’s eyes glued to me for a second. He looked around, fast, panicky. He jumped up, hollered. “Everybody get down! No telling where she is!” Naruto threw himself to the ground again, after just getting up.

I sighed. Naruto was still Naruto. “Battle is over Naruto-kun, you were awesome.”

That calmed him down and cheered him up at the same time. He had that dumb, bright smile on his face.

“You still have the scroll?” I wrote.

Naruto searched his pockets. Took out the heaven scroll. I nodded. Took it from him. Now we just needed to reach the tower at the center.

I turned to Ino, she looked back questioningly. I shook my head. “You know which direction the tower is?” I wrote back.

It turned out, we weren’t that far. Ino-Shika-Cho had dragged our unconscious behind close, but they didn’t enter the tower because of us. I owed them a big one. We didn’t delay. After tying up the enemy shinobi, we rushed the last stretch. The big metal door was closed when we arrived.

Naruto pushed it open, the six of us entered. There was no one inside. On the wall opposite to us, a poem painted by the old man Third.

“The scrolls.” Shikamaru said after reading the poem. “How troublesome.”

“What do you mean?” Naruto asked, scratching his head.

“We need to open the scrolls.” Sasuke said, to the rest’s agreement. After an exchange of nods I took both scrolls. Handed it over to Sasuke and Naruto. On the other side, Shikamaru and Ino held theirs.

At the same time, we opened it. It contained a seal. Smoke puffed out of the two seals. Naruto and Sasuke threw it away. Out of the smoke popped Iruka-sensei.

On the other side, pretty, glorious, awesome Yuhi Kurenai popped out to greet her team. Damn, even now lazy man Kakashi let me down. Even if his indifference was cool.

“Hey kids, it’s been a while.” Iruka-sensei greeted us. “You three look like you’ve been through the wringer.”

On the other side, I heard Kurenai’s cheerful voice. “You made it!”