Never Gonna Say Goodbye

“You’re a truly terrifying opponent, you know.” Gaara said, looking down at Hinata, who lay defeated for the upteenth time.

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.” She groaned, slowly bringing herself to a sitting position. “I’ve barely laid a finger on you.”

“Gentle fist only needs a touch. If you were a little better at the blows themselves, you may have beaten me by now.”

“Don’t flatter me. You could’ve crushed me to **** a hundred times today.”

Gaara smiled slightly. “Ten at most. And still, forcing me to resort to lethal tactics is no mean feat. Well, now that I’m sleeping regularly.”

Hinata sighed. “Somehow, the fact you have an actual estimate makes me feel far less safe.”

“My apologies. But that does bring me to my question. Your Byakugan is commendably developed. Your gentle fist is not. Why is that?”

Hinata chose to ignore her sparring partner’s bluntness. She’d gotten used to it pretty quickly. “There are a lot of books and exercises for bettering the Byakugan. The gentle fist requires a sparring partner of the same discipline.”

“Isn’t your father the current greatest user of the style? Why not ask him?” Hinata finched. Hiashi was, indeed, the current master of the gentle fist. He was the head of the clan, after all. But memories of disappointed stares, comparisons to Hanabi, and general disdain for Hinata’s existence had convinced her that going to him for help was tantamount to asking for a caged seal to be engraved into her forehead.

“He wouldn’t help. In fact, he’d probably punish me just for asking.”

Gaara stared at her. “I believe I’m making a habit of this, but I, once again, have some experience that may be of aid.”

“Oh?”

“The moment that I decided love was useless and I should instead sycophantically obey a raccoon pretending to be my mother who lived in my skull was when my uncle was sent to **** me. My father was the one who sent him, but still. The only person in the world I trusted blew himself up trying to kill me. I despise my father for giving that order. He is an irredeemably sadistic bastard, and I hope to one day **** the life out of him with my sand.” The feral grin that so often alighted Gaara’s lips before his stabilisation was back in full ****. “However, I still learn from him. His sand control is better than mine, so before I can prove my existence with him, I have to surpass him. Do you understand?”

“I don’t want to kill my father, Gaara.”

“But you do want to tear an expression off his face, correct?”

Hinata was silent, rebuttal lost as she imagined the permanent haughty look on Hiashi’s face being replaced with one of shock.

“I’ll take that as a yes. In that case, learn from him. No matter what he does, you’ll have another chance next time. Use it. And eventually? Crush him.”

Hinata regarded him for a long moment. “You really need to see a therapist, Gaara. I can refer you to the Yamanakas if you’d like. They’re quite good.”

“Next month, perhaps.”

Hinata giggled. “I’ll come find you tomorrow once he shrugs me off.”

Gaara inclined his head. The two of them turned away from each other, Hinata to confront her father, and Gaara to spend the rest of his month commiserating with his brother.

“You are expected to bow before the head of the family, Hinata. Even if you’re barely better than a branch member with your gifts, I expect you to know protocol better than this.” Hiashi’s bored, imperious tone carried a sneer of cold command worthy of Ozymandius.

Hinata, back ramrod straight, stared directly into his eyes, not daring to even blink. “Train me,” She said. There were many methods that were more likely to yield results than this. But they involved the mountains of bureaucracy that ran like blood through the veins of the Hyuga household. Or depending on who you asked, like cholesterol gumming up the age-old tradition of actually talking to your family.

“And you’ve forgotten yet more of the most basic tenets of carrying oneself as a Hyuga. You’ve managed to grow enough of a spine to stand straight, at least, but you’re quivering like an autumn leaf in a winter’s storm. Start acting appropriately, or I will be **** to place you in remedial lessons.”

“That’s what I’m asking you to do, Father. Teach me. Show me how to improve my gentle fist.” Hinata was running through every single experience she’d had with Naruto and Sakura that wouldn’t make her blush. It was the only way, short of ****, that she could muster the courage to talk to her father like this.

“The gentle fist is for students who can see clearly enough to use it. You’ve only just managed to defeat a branch member. I’m not going to waste time watching you flail around.”

“My eyes are more than sharp enough, Father. What needs training are my fists.”

Hiashi’s eyes narrowed. “You’re being rather insubordinate, Hinata.” Standing, he began slowly walking over to her, readying his hands for the trigrams beneath his sleeves. Hinata, having already activated her Byakugan, was anticipating the attack that came from him. Hiashi had expected her to see that much at least. Even a disappointment of a Hyuga should be able to see through a sleeve. He had meant to catch her by surprise, not with his own attack, but with the ones from the surrounding branch members.

As one, several of the surrounding branch members rushed at Hinata. Unwilling to turn from the major threat of her father, Hinata couldn’t turn to check her blindspot, but she had to assume there was another combatant who had slotted into that area. Hiashi was certain someone as indecisive as Hinata would be floored by the simple decision of how to dodge.

So when the heiress deftly leapt onto the ceiling, dropped into the blindspot of the head of the Hyuga guards, blasted his chakra points, and positioned herself so that her own blindspot was covered by one of the surrounding support beams, Hiashi paused in surprise. Even if his daughter had been capable enough to have seen such an attack coming before, she certainly wouldn’t have had the confidence to go for the most dangerous target first. Well, most dangerous after himself.

“You’ve been training.” He said, annoyed at the futility of her actions.

Hinata inclined her head. “Of course. What point is there in stagnation?”

Hiashi sneered. Intended or not, that was a slight against the Hyuga way. “There are not to be any more interruptions. Show me that you are worthy of being trained by me, Hinata.”

Hinata sighed. “I’m your daughter, Father. That should be reason enough.” Hiashi’s sneer turned to a snarl, the outright insult reinforcing his drive to crush his daughter to nothing. Hinata did not move from her position. She had the advantage in position, and was not fool enough to give it up against a superior opponent.

Realising that his daughter would not close the distance, Hiashi sprung forward, appearing in front of her too quickly for most to see. But Hinata had not been training her eyes for nothing, and managed to dodge away from the first flurry of blows, eyeing his chakra pathways to see if he was preparing for the trigram palms. He seemed to be content to simply corner her for now though, whirling around and hitting her squarely in the stomach. There was nothing gentle about this blow, merely an attempt to throw off her balance in order to make the following strikes fall more easily.

Hinata flickered behind a pillar, immediately rolling to dodge the attack she was sure would come as Hiashi flickered to the same place she had. Though only a few moments, the manoeuvre bought her enough time to recover from the blow. As explosively as she could manage, she rushed up at her father, attempting to disrupt even one of his chakra points. She barely managed to connect when he hit her shoulder, deadening her arm, and rolling her across the floor. She stood shakily, preparing for his next ****.

Hiashi stood still, though, scorn clear on his face. “I see why you begged to train your fist. A member of the main branch should have at least waned my expulsion point. You’re a failure, girl.”

The hurtful words of her father were a worryingly comfortable experience for Hinata. A voice in the back of her head that sounded oddly like Sakura whispered that being a failure must run in the family, given Hiashi’s abysmal parenting. It wasn’t a voice that Hinata had heard before, but she liked it. Maybe if she listened to it more she’d actually be able to carry a conversation mid-fight.

Hinata had not spent very much time fighting one-on-one combatants. Naruto, in between rearranging her guts, tended to fight with a couple of clones at the same time. Gaara had such an odd style of combat that it required the same awareness as fighting a crowd. That practice was punishing her as she flew toward Hiashi, general awareness not allowing her to focus her totality on the challenge in front of her.

She threw her dead arm in front of her father’s intercepting blow, turning to drive her other shoulder into his midsection. He took a step back, but grabbed onto her shoulder, launching her once again across the room. He sprinted after her, staring impassively into her eyes, but stopped in surprise as she somersaulted out of the way of a flurry of senbon that flew from several branch members, who had been prepped well in advance on how to test a Byakugan.

Hiashi raised his hand, stopping the duel. “I have seen enough. Your Byakugan is acceptable. For the main family.” Being able to hold it comfortably under duress was a sign that you were one with the eye, and the doctrine of the Hyuga claimed only the main family could be. “I will train you to ensure your other skills are up to scratch. We begin tomorrow.”

Hinata nodded, turned, and left the room, nursing her slowly recovering arm.

“Alright, ya toady-ass pervert, I’ve got the seal all memorised. Can I stop now?” Temari sat back from a scroll that was full of the correction seal Jiraiya had shown her and Sakura. The Toad Sage considered her work carefully, then began rummaging through his storage scrolls for something.

“That depends.” He said. “Can you draw and activate it quickly enough to avoid your brother’s defences?”

“Of course not!” Temari exclaimed. “I can’t even get through Gaara’s sand, let alone stay there long enough to draw the fucking seal.”

“You may want to work on that, then. While I’m sure a ninja as powerful, kind, prolific, and sexy as myself could help you with the first issue, for now,” he threw a pile of paper disks at the sand-nin’s feet, “we’ll work on the second.”

Temari groaned. “More writing? Really?”

“Not quite.” Jiraiya leaned in conspiratorially. “Between you and I, I never had the patience for all the rote memorisation our pink-headed friend is going through. This is far more fun.”

A gleam entered Temari’s eye. “Fun how?”

“Well.” the Toad Sage leant back, trying to appear as magnanimous as he could. “This does away with the whole writing part entirely. Instead, using a couple hand symbols, and a lot of chakra manipulation, you have to impress the seal itself onto whatever surface you wish to use. We use chakra paper to start, so we can see how accurate the inscription is. Then, you move to making whatever medium you want to use for the shape as it contacts your target.”

“So I get to hit things?”

“It’s closer to fine nature control than taijutsu.”

Temari looked confused. “Hitting things is how I practice my fine chakra control.” her fingers began inching towards her fan.

“This isn’t about using power efficiently, it’s about not overloading the target. No fan.”

“Ya sure? Maybe it could be a new discipline of sealing? We could call it fan sealing. Wait, no. Temari sealing.”

“Revolutionise the field once you know the basics. For now, stick to your palms and let me show you the hand seals you’ll need.”

Temari pouted a little, but stopped going for the fan. By the time Jiraiya had run her through the hand signs she needed to make, and overseen her first attempts, Sakura had finished up her scroll as well.

Okay, I guess that seals are kinda interesting. I still like the chains way more though!

Naruto frowned. This wasn’t the first time that the messy scrawl had mentioned chains. From the way Kushina wrote about it, he guessed that it didn’t have anything to do with seals. A technique, maybe? He lifted his hands into a cross, summoning a new batch of suicidal aspiring teleporters. One of them scampered off to get Jiraiya, while the rest crowded around the kunai to work out some new approaches, now that they knew a little more about sealing.

The clone came back, leading Jiraiya behind him. After a few days of wading through the smoke and smog, he’d gotten used to it, and strolled jovially through the morbid mist.

“Had a breakthrough?” He called out. “Or just looking for some of my incredible knowledge?”

Naruto rolled his eyes. “Oi, Pervy Sage, what are the chains that Kushina keeps talking about here?”

Jiraiya peered at the page Naruto was pointing to. “Aha! The Adamantine Chains. I suppose Kushina would mention them. You see, the Uzumaki clan had a couple trademarks. Red hair, sealing ability, longevity and chakra reserves you know.”

“Red hair? Then why am I blonde?”

Jiraiya waved his hand. “Ah, who knows. Genetics or something. Anyway, there’s a clan technique of theirs as well, known as Adamantine Sealing Chains. Essentially, they’re a mass of chakra chains that can bind and drain an opponent’s chakra. They’re powerful, as in hold back the nine-tails powerful, but so draining that you need an Uzumaki’s reserves to even think of using them.”

Naruto’s eyes lit up. Any chance to get closer to family was a chance he’d grab at the first opportunity. “Can you teach me?” He asked, puppy-dog eyes in full effect.

Jiraiya laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. “No can do, kiddo. The details are an Uzumaki secret, all I know is the end result. Maybe you’ll find someone who can teach later. Or whenever you decide to go raid the libraries of Uzushiogakure.”

“Uzu what now?”

“The Whirltide city. It was founded by the Uzumakis, destroyed in the last great war. No one’s managed to enter the city since its destruction, though. Seems the last defenders set off an array of wild chakra seals, so the surrounding area has a loose relationship with reality. It’ll kill anyone who tries to get in. Luckily, that’s not much of an issue for you.” Jiraiya waved his hand through the fog, noting that it seemed to be lightening up. “The library was never raided, so the sealing knowledge and clan techniques are waiting for whoever gets there first.”

Naruto’s eyes lit up with the zest for adventure.

A clone stopped the conversation short by tapping Jiraiya on the shoulder. “Perv? Boss? I think you’ll want to see this.”

The clone was holding the three-pronged knife. He turned and threw it, eddies in the mist chasing the odd weapon. Throwing a grin back at the two onlookers, the clone focused for a second, and disappeared in a flash.

As the clone jogged back through the mist, firmly grasping the kunai, Jiraiya glared at Naruto accusingly. “Who the hell failed you as a genin?”

Naruto just grinned.