One
Ino can’t say she enjoyed going to the academy, but it was better than staying home and reading all the textbooks her father gave her. Not that that wasn’t fun, but it got old after a while. She much preferred talking with Anko and Ibiki about their work, rather than reading about it in dry dusty texts. Unfortunately, her father didn’t like her doing that. Something about corruption at too young an age. She thought that was ironic when Iruka was the one always talking about the good of the village and sacrifice.
Regardless, they’d be done with the academy soon enough. Just a couple more months now and she’d be on her team instead. She wasn’t sure how she felt about being lumped in with Shikamaru and Chouji based off their names, but she did love them. Missions would be better than classes, anyhow.
Then again, recently they’d started sparring classes. Not just kunai throwing and shuriken wielding, but actual fighting. It was exhilarating. She didn’t like pain at all, but she coveted that feeling of strain that overcame the body when she put her all into something. The way her muscles shook and strained to keep up with her mind. She felt so very alive and untethered in the best way. Shikamaru said she was crazy and Chouji never liked fighting, but she couldn’t seem to convince them it wasn’t the spar itself that interested her. It was the movement. Like a dance. Unstoppable and free.
“Too much work,” Shikamaru would say.
Ino shook her head and tried to focus on her current fight, not that her wavering attention would cost her. Hinata wouldn’t attack her, she would only defend. What was worse, she was good at it. Ino had yet to land a blow at all. She straightened her hair and studied the other girl closely. Her chubby hands were held up in front of her chest, palms out, and her eyes were staring straight ahead, though Ino couldn’t pinpoint where exactly they were resting. The byakugan had always creeped Ino out, mostly because she didn’t understand it. What was it exactly that they could see?
Ino charged forward and swung her left fist toward Hinata’s side, careful to keep her weight to the side along with her strike but then pivot at the last moment and swing a kick around for the girl’s other side instead. Hinata didn’t even flinch for the fake blow though, she merely used her open hand to knock Ino’s foot to the side and then ducked under the leg. “What good are you in a fight, if all you do is block?” Ino griped as she spun to catch her balance.
“I don’t want to fight,” Hinata said. Or rather whispered. Did she ever speak above that low decibel or would Ino always have to strain to understand her? It pissed her off.
“You’re a shinobi, you’re meant to fight, you idiot.”
Hinata didn’t answer and for some reason that was more infuriating than if she’d insulted her clan loudly and brazenly. At least that would have meant something. What did silence mean? What did her meek behavior get her?
Ino let loose a flurry of blows and kicks, but Hinata moved fluidly around each one, blocking when she had to, but mostly staying out of the way. “Stop moving!”
Hinata ducked her head down and Ino took the opportunity to kick out. Even then Hinata blocked with one hand. Ino’s leg shook at the power of it and she stumbled to regain her footing. She stopped to consider. The strength needed to block that kick had been well beyond what she thought Hinata was capable of. Was…was Hinata holding back?
Fury roiled through her and she nearly screamed as she pulled at her own hair. Who was this girl to hold back? What did that mean? Was she mocking Ino? Or did she just lack confidence? Was she told not to fight? What would she look like worked up and putting her all into it? The last thought made her chest ache, she wanted to see it.
But more than anything, she just wanted to know.
Before she could think better of it, her hands were in front of her chest, and she was compressing her life energies in her chest. She thought she heard Iruka-sensei yell something, but she was already shoving her soul and chakra through the frame and into Hinata’s body.
Cold was the first thing she felt.
Overwhelming cold, like she was stuck in the center of a raging river. She opened her eyes and saw her own body on the ground before her, Iruka-sensei closing in on her, his face flushed with anger. Oops, no jutsu in class. Oh well.
She flexed her fingers into fists, the digits were so short and stocky. The fists were small and looked weird for a Hyuuga. She extended them out and it felt more right. The cold stayed with her though and pulled her attention to the side where someone was standing next to her. She blinked and blinked as she stared into the face of someone she recognized from textbooks. But how?
“Fascinating,” the man said, his voice hoarse and strained, yet she got the feeling it would normally be deep and silky. It sounded like he hadn’t talked in a long time. Or it could have something to do with the gaping wound in his neck that bled sluggishly into his furred hood.
“What?” she said with Hinata’s voice, breathy and strained.
“You can see me, child.”
Ino nearly screamed. She lost the grip on Hinata’s body and her soul ricocheted back into her own. She opened her eyes, staring up at the sky and distantly heard Iruka-sensei’s voice screaming at her. But all she could think of was those milky dead eyes that had just been staring at her.
She scrambled to her feet and looked wildly around but the dead man was gone. Only Hinata remained, watching her with those big unreadable eyes.
“Who was that?” Ino demanded, ignoring everyone else.
Hinata didn’t answer, just stared. Then, almost too quick to see, her lavender eyes flicked to the side. To empty air. To where the man had been standing.
Ino turned around and walked away. She ignored how hard she was shaking.
Later, after her detention with Iruka and dressing down from her father, she made her way to the hokage monument. The rock carvings were crude, but she’d seen drawings of the man as well. White hair, dark eyes, red stripes on his skin.
What was Tobirama Senju doing haunting Hinata Hyuuga?