Summoner Nin

Page 21: Promotion

Summoner-nin

Part Three: Team Kage

Chapter Four

"What the hell did you do?"

"Anko-sensei?" Hinata thought blearily.

"I promoted her."

"Ojiisan?" How come she couldn't see them?

"Obviously that wasn't all you did!" Anko spat, hair all sharp and spiked like a territorial cat.

Groaning, Hinata rubbed her eyes and watched as the room came slowly into focus, a blur of colour and light like stained glass being repositioned into familiar figures. She realized that she was lying on her side, slightly startled to see Tsume run up to her side to check her forehead temperature and laying a placating hand on Hinata's shoulder to stop her from sitting up. She did feel a little dizzy, but unharmed nevertheless.

"What h-happened?" she asked quietly, her throat a tad dry.

"You were surprised, sweetie," Tsume consoled, brushing Hinata's hair from her face in a lulling fashion. "But that's alright now. We now know," at this, the Inkzuka matriarch sent a rather sharp look at ojiisan, "not to surprise you like that again."

The Hokage blubbered for a moment before saying, rather defensively, "It was good news."

"Indeed," Shibi agreed with a brief nod.

Hinata frowned while Tsume and Shibi had another silent glaring contest. (She was beginning to think it was the norm between her senseis now.) Tsume had said that she had fainted, and ojiisan that he had given her good news? Hinata shook her head, trying to sit up, but Tsume wouldn't let her. She was trying to remember what that "good news" was.

Finally, after noticing that Hinata was well enough to get up and looked rather determined to too, Shikaku came up beside her and subverted Tsume's authority over the child rather smoothly to help Hinata sit up from the lone couch in the Hokage's Office.

"Th-Thank you, sensei," Hinata whispered, her throat still too parched to brave a higher volume.

"Water," Shikaku said, placing a glass of said liquid near her lips.

She drank slowly, wanting to be greedy, but unable to when Kuromaru was looking up at her with such concern in his eyes. She would rather drink slowly and revive than drink fast and possibly choke. She didn't want to alarm the dog any farther.

"Thank you," she said again, her throat feeling a lot better.

By then, her senseis and the Hokage had convened around her in various stages of relief and worry. It would have been suffocating if not for the fact that she hadn't felt so loved in a long time. As such, she smiled up at them in reassurance. Again she had made a fuss of things; she fainted much too frequently in Konoha for her liking or even for her well-being.

"Do you remember what happened, Hinata?" Shikaku asked.

"Like, for example," Anko started to rant, "a certain old man wearing a demon mask and jumping out at you from around the corner?"