Hope
Rumors spread fast, as it usually does in Konoha. Some were elated, some were worried, some were amused and excited. Many wondered what would happen in their mission. Team 7 had, once the team was reunited, became known as… the overachievers. There is always something in every mission in Team 7 that when they return without convoys, it becomes an odd sight instead of the norm. An escort mission would quickly evolve into a kingdom being usurped by Team 7 after finding out that their client is actually the missing princess whom the current rulers had tried to kill in an attempt to seize the throne.
“Maybe Naruto will find an authoritarian kingdom and liberate them,” a sweet old lady wonders to her neighbors.
“No, no,” argues a child with his friends, “Uchiha- san will definitely find a bunch of legendary monsters and slay them!”
“Or,” pondered an old nurse, “maybe Sakura-chan will find an ancient deadly poison and make an antidote on the spot,” she chuckled as she started to reminisce of the young Sakura so full of dedication.
“I hope they fail,” grumbled an old man, “then we’d finally be rid of that monster brat!”
“Maybe this time,” whispered a Jonin to his comrade, “maybe the Uchiha will finally change his tune and betray us again.”
“Perhaps this time,” hoped a young chuunin boy to his friends, “perhaps this time, Uchiha-san will reject Haruno-san, and she can finally move on.”
They were reprimanded and frowned upon, naturally, but many of those people still exist in Konoha. The team learned to ignore it. After all, if they received only compliments, that means all they had were fanatics, and that would be just plain weird and alarming. Naruto does not know what it feels like to have a bunch of admirers. Naruto's fans were so silent and so dim compared to the loud and boisterous boy that shines like the sun that they admired, that they might as well have not existed to Naruto. And so, Naruto remained ignorant of the worse kind of fans.
Sasuke and Sakura were not so fortunate. Sasuke, back when he was still a boy, had a fan club. And painfully, that fan club continues to function to this day. He knows the awful feeling of being stalked and being obsessed over. He once saw the room of one of his fangirls. One of his shirts hung in a shrine surrounded by his pictures. He will forever live with that knowledge. Surprisingly, the dead last also has a fan club, and although they were meek compared to his, Naruto still has one. The first time he saw them, he felt like the world was ending. Naruto had fangirls (and fanboys), the shinobi’s standards have dropped to an all-time low. And worse, Sakura has one too. Though thankfully, they all seem respectful and watchful of their ranks. Anyone who acts like they're becoming a stalker, or worse, is quickly stopped by the members. That doesn’t stop Sasuke from putting more traps in the vicinity surrounding Sakura’s room though.
“They’re leaving the girl behind, I heard.”
“…they’re going to die.”
Hinata heard the rumors outside the Hyuuga compound before an ANBU dropped down and presented Hinata her summons. As she raced through the roofs towards the Hokage tower, Hinata's thoughts wandered to what the people outside the compound gossiped about. Team 7 is going on a mission, and she was being sent to the Hokage tower for her mission. Hinata wondered if she would be paired with Team 7 and if she would be able to go on a mission with Naruto. Hinata struggled with her emotions. On one hand, she is excited and looking forward to working with Naruto, on the other hand, Team 7 has the unintentional habit of… excluding people outside their team when they’re together. They don’t do it out of malice, of course, all of Konoha understand that the three demanded so much attention from their teammates.
Once, Team 7 had been on their way to spar, and Ino had spotted them and had conversed with Sakura. The entire time, Sakura couldn’t focus because her two teammates were steadily growing bored and impatient.
“You can go ahead to the training ground if you’re getting impatient!”
“No.”
Like petulant children, they crossed their arms and waited (Naruto pouted the entire time and tried to make a rise out of the increasingly ticked-off Uchiha). Ino had chosen to say goodbye rather than cause a three-way brawl between Team 7.
Then, there was also when Naruto was hanging out with the Konoha 12 boys and came across Sasuke and Sakura eating at Ichiraku. The blond had immediately released what can only be described as an agonized howl of betrayal as he quickly abandoned the group in favor of crying his remorse to his team.
“I can’t believe you left me behind for Sasuke, Sakura-chan! Has our…” he started counting on his fingers before exclaiming, “20 years of friendship mean nothing to you?!”
“—that’s at least five years inaccurate moron—”
“—stop clinging to her like a leech, dead last—”
“—AND SASUKE! What happened to bros before hoes?!”
Naruto’s frog wallet wept tears of blood that day. He lost a lot of his money for the repairs of Ichiraku in addition to his hospital bills.
Sasuke is worse. He can’t be left alone, paranoid that his two teammates would be plotting against him. Sasuke knows the two would never harm him, but Naruto and Sakura are not above petty pranks that can give him acute heart attacks. He still hasn’t quite recovered from waking up henged as a child. He almost fell for it when Sakura came in looking like her 12-year-old self and acting as confused as he was. The dead last gave away the prank, however, as he was unable to contain his laughter at the horrified expression on Sasuke’s face. It was a simple henge cast on the three of them, courtesy of Sakura. Since it was in the morning in Konoha, he had lowered his guard. Never again. He will never let his guard down ever again.
The promise lasted for a week before he got pranked once more.
Hinata can’t say she understands Team 7. Maybe she never will, and she has surrendered to the fact that Sasuke and Sakura will forever be the center of Naruto’s life. The two will forever be as important as his dream of becoming Hokage, and that she will… if ever, in her life, if he would ever look at her… she will come second. She has accepted it, surrendered to it really. Sometimes, she would wonder… maybe it’s because they are themselves that they are… so… Hinata doesn’t want to think it, but perhaps it is because Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto are the members of Team 7 that they are so... clingy.
Naruto had very few people to love, and Team 7 was the very first he could call his own. Sasuke had just lost his family when he was presented Team 7, where he found a family unit of sorts. And Sakura… Sakura was left to fend for herself, and for once, she understood the pain her teammates went. Not entirely, never of course, because the feeling of being willingly abandoned, though unconsciously, is different from losing everything or having none at all. Naruto and Sakura bonded over being abandoned by Sasuke, but Sakura had to cope for herself when Naruto also left her. Hinata did not want to think Naruto would ever consciously do it, but… Naruto and Sasuke had abandoned Sakura. Both had pursued power for different purposes. One for revenge and the other for the hope to retrieve a brother. Sakura had been left behind at Konoha, left behind to make the best of the situation and attempting to become strong on her own. And Hinata knows that, away from prying eyes, Sakura would try to mend a broken heart and whisper to the moon a secret wish.
"Don't tell anyone."
Hinata remembers how the girl would look whenever she saw any other team. With sadness and jealousy… and another emotion she could never tell.
"You're so lucky, Hinata, you get to eat sushi tonight!" It's not about the sushi.
Then they reunited, and it seemed that Team 7 could never bear to be apart. Hinata was sure they developed a trauma of being left alone, but she would never voice it out loud.
Hinata thought it would be wonderful to work with Naruto, but she hopes that Naruto wouldn’t forget her in the face of his teammates and accidentally leave her behind.
When she arrived at the tower, Hinata hesitated to enter, hearing screaming from within the closed doors. But when she heard glass breaking, she thought that perhaps Lady Tsunade was being attacked and she entered, her body tense and ready to attack, only to find Naruto arguing with a red-faced Tsunade. A broken bottle was pointed at Naruto, held by the drunk Hokage who slurred her words, but the jinchuriki seems uncaring of the sharp object. The table between the two was gone, in its place, a broken pile of wood and glass and papers. Sakura stood between the two loud-mouthed blondes, hands up in a placating gesture as she tried to deescalate the escalating argument. Occasionally, she would look over her shoulder at the Uchiha who had his hands stuffed in his trousers, observing uncaringly at the expanse of Konoha through the open windows.
“We’re not leaving Sakura-chan! The last time we went on a mission without her, we almost bled to death, y’know!”
“You were reckless! And Sakura is an important figure in Konoha, and she is seated in one of the most important roles in the hospital. She can’t just leave it for a year, you brat!” She threw the bottle at the wall, and Naruto ducked to avoid the bottle.
"Hey!"
Tsunade ignored the indignant Naruto and whipped her head to Sakura, who froze under her teacher’s burning glare, “You can’t leave.” Her words fell like a verdict, and Sakura hung her head in silent acceptance. Naruto seemed to lose the winds in his sail as he stuttered a, “Sa, Sakura-chan…”
Hinata hesitantly stepped into the tense room, and the attention fell on her. Her heart started to beat faster and blood rushed to her face as she stuttered a hello and gave an awkward bow to the Hokage.
“Hinata,” said the calmed the Hokage, “close the door.”
She obliged and she watched as the busty woman weaved hand signs to ensure that the outside won’t hear the words uttered within the room.
Hinata got briefed of the situation, and she remained silent and awed. There was another world, one that was once was freely traveled by shinobis. But a war broke out between the two worlds, and the pathways between them dissolved. But, now the other world is in trouble and in need of assistance. They needed talented shinobis between the ages of 11 and 17, and it would be better if they were delivered tomorrow. Hinata silently absorbed the information with surprise that was slowly disappearing in the way of logic. They live in a world of ninjas; world travel might as well happen, Hinata sighed. In fact, how is this a secret? They have the power to topple mountains with one punch, bloodline limits that can put people in dreams if they look directly in the eyes of their victims, and monsters trapped inside human vessels around their world. The idea that there are other worlds out there, other worlds that can be explored, shouldn’t be a ridiculous notion.
Tsunade showed them a scroll. In it was a design reminiscent of a seal. But it was larger, and from her very little understanding of seals, extremely intricate. Tsunade started discussing how the team would be dispatched to the other world, and how they will be sent to a school called Hogwarts.
“The travel won't be pleasant. Ideally—" Tsunade paused briefly and continued, abandoning her previous statement, “well, you should only be there for a year.”
Tsunade grabbed a bottle and sat on her chair, both surprisingly unbroken despite the carnage. “After a year has passed, I will assume you have completed your mission and reopen the portal for an hour. Be in the same place where you will be delivered, or else you will be stuck there.”
“Why can’t we open our own portal?” Sasuke asked, critical eyes roving on the scroll which held the seal design.
Tsunade remained silent.
“Yeah!” agreed Naruto, “It would be really bad if the bad guys figure out there is another world, y'know. What if they found out you would open a portal there? Wouldn’t it be better if we can, y’know, open a portal of our own?”
Tsunade looked like she was unwilling to say why, her face screwed on an expression of reluctance and irritation. It was Sakura who replied. Her voice shook with hope, “because it needs delicate chakra control…”
Tsunade looked like she swallowed a sour grape.