Behind the Waterfall

#20 I Love You

It was raining as they crossed the border into the land of fire. They had camped in the land of grass, waiting for the morning to go further.
"So much for the beauty of it." Naruto had joked as they saw almost nothing due to the pouring rain.
They walked further ahead, following the road towards a small border town.
"Think we should drop the masks?" Fuu asked as they followed a sign saying that it was only an hour until they would arrive at the town.
"Why would we do that?" The red haired boy asked. They stopped at the roadside both taking some food out of their pockets.
"Well, it would be less suspicious to wear a henge, since masks will be reported by the civilians while a henge can only be identified by a shinobi." The girl explained.
She had a point and Naruto acknowledged that, taking off his mask with a nod.
"Well, we probably should get a cover story then." He said, fixing his now blonde hair.
"Yeah, I was thinking about that. I think it would be good to go as a couple, it would be the most believable and wouldn't Raise a lot of questions." Fuu suggested, her own green hair reappearing as she took off her mask.
"Hm, yeah, you are probably right. Where do we come from?" Naruto asked, as they both went through a few hand signs and their appearance changed again.
"I was thinking Taki, although we should say that we are travelling for a long time already, maybe a few weeks or even a month or two, that way we or rather I could give enough background information for it to be believable." Fuu explained further. Her reasoning was sound, so Naruto only nodded as he thought about the cover story for the two of them.
"We should not change too much about our story, it'd be hard to keep track of the lies. Keep the story of our meeting, only move it up a year." He said, earning an approving hum from the girl as she took out some food pills.
"I'll go with Kazuto Kirigaya as a name." Naruto announced, after a bit of thinking.
"Sounds good, I was thinking about Asuna Yuuki. I've used it before, but I don't think anyone remembers the name." Fuu replied. They smiled at each other, talking some more about their story, before they stood back up and went the final miles towards Konoha.

"Hinata!" She sighed. She knew the voice too well. Still it was her training and status in her family that made her smile as she turned around.
"Kiba, hi." The boy smiled, as his wolf sprang towards her, his muzzle on her outstretched hand.
"What are you doing?" He asked, the sun reflecting on the red lines under his eyes.
"I'm on my way to the market. How about you?"
"We are just walking around. Actually I picked up a smell that was familiar, but I couldn't remember who it was, so we followed it. But between all of the food we lost it again." Kiba explained, looking around at the different food stalls in the street.
He was right, the stalls were all full, since it was just past noon, even with her ordinary nose, Hinata was almost overwhelmed with the smell of food.
"What do you need at the market?" The boy asked, as the trio moved to the edge of the street to not block the other people.
"Some vegetables, nothing much." The lavender haired girl replied.
"Well then, let's go!" Kiba explained, causing Hinata to smile. It was moments like these where he reminded her of a boy she had known in the academy.

The trees took away much of her sight as she sat on the branches. Her byakugan made it possible for her to still make out what the boy she was following did, however. She had no particular reason why she would follow the blonde boy, in the academy he was asleep most of the time and whenever she met him on the streets he was on the run from some chunin or jonin because he had pranked them. When her father had questioned her about her activities she had lied at first, but Hiashi had seen right through her and eventually she told him what she did after class. She couldn't explain why she was drawn to this boy. Her father surprisingly didn't forbid her from following him around, he only had one demand; that she use the time to train her skills and to not be detected.
When they graduated, Naruto was one of the few that didn't pass. At first she was confused, whenever she had spied on him at the different training grounds he had shown more skill than even Sasuke Uchiha and she was sure that even then he was still not using all of his talent. She had confided in her father and he had suggested that he was failing deliberately, maybe because he wanted to be in a team with some kids a year under them.
All of their speculations were turned on their heads when they heard about the theft of the scroll of sealing. Mitsuki, the main traitor behind it, was sentenced to prison for life. Naruto however was banished.
The day the council had announced he was supposed to go, Hinata stood at the gates from sunrise to sunset, hoping to see him one last time. Sadly he didn't show up. It took almost half a year for Hinata to get back to her usual self, although everyone noticed that she was not as happy as she had been. Her new genin team consisting of Kiba and another boy named Shino along with their sensei Kurenai did their best to cheer her up, but they only managed to lift her mood temporarily.