Confidence Acquired

A/N ha! I'm back from nanowrimo with another chapter for you all. In any case here it is.

disclaimer naruto is not mine.
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Hinata lazed in the sun, Sakura at her side on the outstretched blanket. The day indeed was nice. The sun was high but the air was only mildly warm. It wasn’t the stifling heat of the summer yet. Hinata sat up and looked around for a second. Sakura sighed brushing some grass off her shorts. “Mmm…It’s so quiet without the boys around” She mused brushing a pink lock from her face. “Hinata-Chan we should do something.”

“Like what Sakura…Chan” that formality was still foreign to the white eyed kunoichi.

Sakura dug through the picnic basket, rifling through the various sandwiches to get to the bottom. “How about a game of catch. Maybe we could get a few of those boys over there to join in” She grinned looking over to the groups of 20 somethings relaxing in the sun. She had felt a few of there eyes looking over this way. Why not take the chance to make friends?

Hinata looked at Sakura who was tossing a worn tennis ball from hand to hand. She wondered what her friend was up to but nodded unsurely. Hinata stood up and backed a few paces away. “Like this Sakura-Chan?”

“You can go a lot farther back Hinata. I can throw pretty far you know or haven’t you seen me throw kunai?” She was teasing her friend of course. Sakura tossed the ball up high and caught it in her other hands. “Ready?”

Hinata smiled nodding her head. The ball flew so fast through the air Hinata had little time to respond. She reached out and took a step back catching the tennis ball in one hand. Her arm wound up and she tossed the ball back towards her friend. Sakura yelled to her friend “let’s make this training ok? Do everything you can to make the ball impossible to catch ok Hinata-Chan?”

Sakura’s next throw was a rocket like projectile. Hinata was sure it could break her hand in two. Was Sakura using her monstrous strength? Hinata flipped backwards letting the ball hit her chest and roll into her hand. Hinata could already feel a bruise forming. She blinked looking at the ball and then towards Sakura. Hinata threw the ball then let a wave of chakra follow it.

Sakura positioned herself to catch the ball. It was arching right towards her. Suddenly an unseen force veered it off course. Sakura pumped Chakra into her feet and slipped under the quickly descending ball. “Got it!” she grinned. Chakra gathering in her muscles she wound up ready to speed this ball right past her comrade.

Hinata’s eyes widened as she watched her friend take aim. “She wouldn’t…” Hinata let out a small screech. Realizing her friend was completely serious. She took a stance looking at her friend. If Sakura was going to give it her all then Hinata decided she would too. “Byakugen” Hinata spun in the air as the ball came forward. She channelled chakra into her foot and kicked the ball back towards Sakura while still in the air.

Sakura blinked as the tennis ball whizzed past her head, and past the field for that matter, heck it would probably sail halfway around the world!

(A Canadian girl sat hunched over her laptop writing a new chapter to a Naruto fic. Suddenly she was knocked out as a projectile hit the back of her head. It bounced away leaving the poor girl unconscious and drooling on her laptop. )


Hinata blushed, her fingers coming together nervously would Sakura be mad? “S-sakura-chan…” The pink haired Kunoichi had her back turned. Hinata could see her hands balled up into fists, and her arms shaking. Hinata’s voice trembled as she spoke again “S-Sakura-chan?” Hinata closed her eyes in fright as the girl turned around. Sakura would scream now and tell her what a mess up she was. Hinata felt her knees weaken a darkness slowly creeping over her. A consuming doubt that never seemed to vanish.

“Hinata that was Amazing!” She screamed throwing both hands up in the air and then leaping at the stunned Hyuuga. “That was an aerial whirlwind kick wasn’t it? And you focused chakra into it. I was sure I was going to have to heal your ankle if you managed to land the kick but you seem just fine. “Her arms wrapped around Hinata who blushed lightly.

“Y-your not mad. About the ball?”

Sakura quirked an eyebrow and stepped back “of course not, it wasn’t new or anything nor was it expensive.”

Hinata sighed and smiled lightly. She glanced over her shoulder at the remarkably thinned crowd in the field. A few people were left staring at the two female ninja. A deer in head lights gaze adorning their faces. Hinata saw in the distance men watching them differently almost intently. Their eyes amused and greedy. Hinata watched them vanish just as quickly as they had appeared. “Missing-Nin” Hinata whispered to herself but Sakura heard her.

Sakura glanced over her shoulder un-suspiciously.

A blond topped man ran up the road waving his hand excitedly. “Hinata-Chan! Sakura-Chan!”

Kakashi and Sasuke followed. Sasuke eyed the girls a second then sat down on the picnic blanket.

“Yo” Kakashi greeted tossing a ball into Sakura’s hand. (It had been the strangest thing the ball had sailed through the air with wads of paper trailing it.)

“Oi oi! Was that you who threw the ball Sakura? It went really far it must be your monstrous strength. “Naruto grinned.

Sakura shook her head “No ‘little’ brother it was Hinata-Chan. She kicked back my throw”

“Wow Hinata-Chan did that?” Naruto looked at the kunoichi who was fiddling with her fingers and looking intently at the ground.

“Your little game scared most the people away it seems” Sasuke pulled the sandwiches from the basket setting them out. “I suppose not many will want to be ‘friends’ with us now”

Hinata frowned. It was true. She had messed up. As team leader for this mission she should have known to keep ninja powers in check. She should have known that showing ninja skills would make people less likely to trust her. She was an idiot she told herself. That dark mist that only she could feel crept across her skin and seeped inside.

Sakura turned around to help Sasuke. Throwing his comment off as a joke. She knew Sasuke was cold sounding and emotionless most of the time but she also knew how the subtle courtesy of placing the food out meant he was being nice. If he had been truly disgruntled with them he would have sat their and done nothing but stare unapprovingly.

“Sakura “Naruto looked over the food appreciatively “Did you make all this~” He reached out for a sandwich only to have the object of his interest disappear. Naruto turned around. Kakashi sat unfazed and completely relaxed with half of said desired sandwich in his hand. The movement of his jaw beneath the mask told Naruto where the other half had went.


“Oi oi! That was mine old man!”

Kakashi mentally choked on his sandwich. Physically he sent a spine numbing one eyed glare at the rambunctious blond. He was not old! Perhaps not in his prime or the ‘eternal blossoming of youth’ as Gai would have put it…but he, Kakashi, Copy Kakashi listed in the bingo book and jounin of the leaf was not old! He calmed himself and brushed off the blond’s insult. He may have been some 14 years Naruto’s senior but under no circumstance was he old.

Naruto grinned knowing full well that he had gotten a rise out of his former sensei. Instead of turning around and relishing in his small victory though he decided to go a bit farther which was his first mistake. “I bet if your hair wasn’t silver to begin with it would be completely grey by now! In fact I see some white with that grey!”

Kakashi twitched internally. A dark swirling mass of black and red swirled violently in Kakashi’s mind. ZOOM! Kakashi was up and pressing a kunai to the blond’s exposed neck. His single lazy eye looked bored and blank. He sighed. “Would an old man be able to kick your butt?”

Naruto gulped feeling the Kakashi’s jounin vest tight against his back and cool metal at his throat. A sliver of warm blood slipped from the skin beneath the point of the kunai. Somewhere in Naruto’s mind he decided that he had gone too far. Really Kakashi wasn’t all that old and that white hair? Oh it was probably a few sun bleached locks of silver. “Heheheh? Ero-sennin could. “His second mistake. Naruto laughed hearing his old teacher’s familiar sigh and feeling the cool metal retreating from his skin. The blond relaxed and turned around to give his sensei a sheepish grin. BAM! His third mistake. Naruto sailed through the air, a small trail of blood slipping from his severely abused nose.

Kakashi sighed and went back to that last delicious half of sandwich.

Hinata stared as Naruto slid along the ground rather ungracefully. She shifted to go tend to Naruto’s bloody nose but as she rose she felt two pairs of hands stop her. Sasuke and Sakura pulling her back down. Sasuke was a rougher grip but a gently guiding force as he pulled her back down while Sakura gently gripped her wrist and yanked her down unceremoniously. Hinata sighed looking over her shoulder at the blond who was dusting himself off. He must have caught her gaze because his blue eyed gaze focused right on her. He beamed at the dark haired female shinobi and seemed completely oblivious to his no doubt broken nose. Hinata felt a blush seep into her cheeks and she quickly turned her attention back to her sandwich.

Naruto’s blue gaze remained on the dark haired heiress. Her long locks of hair pulled back in a carefree low ponytail. Somewhere in the depths of his mind it registered that she had stopped staring at him and that he should stop staring at her but somehow that image of white eyes clouded with concern …There were few in this world who had ever given him that look and definitely not for a simple wound like a bloody nose. It just wouldn’t let go, the thought of one more person caring enough about him to show concern.

Somewhere in his mind it registered that his nose was bleeding as the coppery liquid dripped over his lips some seeping into his partially opened mouth. His stomach growled effectively snapping him out of his daze. He grinned ear to ear. Kakashi must have hit him harder than he thought.

With a thunk the noisy blond joined his comrades on the picnic cloth.

“Dobe” Sasuke’s voice spoke just as the blond was about to take a gregarious bite of a sandwich.

“Don’t call me that mmmfmfff!” A sandwich effectively muffled his ‘bastard’ Sasuke smirked satisfied that the idiot would be too concerned with choking to speak.

“Cousin Hinata would you mind taking care of that bloody nose before it stains Sakura’s picnic blanket?”

Sakura nodded while inner Sakura quirked an eyebrow. Since when did the cold hearted Sasuke care about …well anything. Especially something as trivial as bloodstains on a picnic blanket that had…ahem clearly seen better days. The so called picnic blanket was truly nothing more than a ground cover used when the ground was too wet to pitch a tent right over or lay a sleeping bag out on. Even if Naruto had a few gaping wounds leaking onto the brownish blanket she doubted the moisture resistant material could absorb any type of stain.

“If you get blood stains on it you’re doing laundry” Sasuke’s low voice broke her out of her reverie. Inner Sakura sighed. So that was it. Sasuke just didn’t want Naruto-baka to do laundry again. So much for the courtesy gesture.

Sasuke leaned back. He glanced covertly at the pink haired ninja beside him. She was carefully eating her sandwich. Ripping it in half, eating each slice methodically from the inside out, tasting the crust last. Sasuke’s gaze turned to Hinata, blushing as she tried to reset the baka’s nose while not meeting his gaze. Inwardly he sighed returning his gaze to the pink haired ninja enjoying a passing breeze. Why had he stopped Naruto from bleeding on the damn covering? AH that’s right the baka’s version of laundry included throwing things in the river and then on a rock to dry.

Sakura’s clean laundry always smells nice…

Sasuke backtracked. Naruto river check, Naruto rock laundry check laundry smell Sakura nice …not check. Where had that stray thought come from? Clean clothes were clean clothes no matter what method used! But Sakura did have a knack for getting shirts drenched in salty sweat, blood and who knew what else to smell fresh like the river with just a hint of …not flowers but something like the forest. The smell eluded him. Nothing eluded the genius thus the thought nagged him then the thought that the thought nagged him irritated him (and the thought that the thought of it irritated just drove him insane!). There was only one thing to do, get Sakura to do laundry.

Kakashi watched the group with mild interest. Sakura oblivious, Naruto clueless, Sasuke confused and Hinata just being Hinata. This mission already seemed (in the immortal words of Shikamaru) troublesome. He caught sight of a silvery blur at the edge of the forest. So he wasn’t the only one observing the youthful shinobi…

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A/N Word really needs a naruto themed spell checker~