Behind the Waterfall

#44 Back Home

"Sit down Hinata. I heard you are hurt." Hiruzen Sarutobi stated, his eyes looking over her bloody clothes. Luckily it was mostly Shino's blood.

"I'm alright, it looks worse than it is." The purple haired girl replied.

"That is good to hear. What happened? Speak freely." For anyone outside of the shinobi world it would have seemed uncaring for the man to jump straight into the debriefing without giving her a few moments, but it was critical for the Hokage to know what happened, especially if a mission was a failure when a former Anbu captain and three higher ranking shinobi had taken part in it.

"It was over before we really started. We tracked the target..." She paused, registering that he had told her to speak freely, so she didn't need to conceal Naruto and Fuu's names.

"We tracked Naruto and Fuu since they left Takigakure. They managed to trick us, making us believe they were going to Iwa when they went through the land of earth. Actually they went to Janpugakure. They had a group of rogues that apparently knew them there. When they met up, we also had them under surveillance already. The Anbu team that we were told would be there to back us up, didn't even bother to make contact with us, they immediately went and confronted Naruto and Fuu. We weren't ready for that. In the end, Anbu took on Naruto while we fought with Fuu. Yamato managed to neutralize her, although somehow Naruto knew and came to her rescue. He broke her out of the wooden cage and then it was over pretty fast. They electrocuted the ground and everyone that wasn't fast enough got burned pretty badly. As far as I know, Anko is the only one that managed to keep standing after taking the attack. Then Naruto and Fuu left us there." Hinata summarized, the Hokage taking notes of anything that he found important.

"What Anbu team? I don't think I sent a team to assist you." He asked, earning a confused look from the chunin.

"We were told there would be a team of Anbu shadowing Naruto and Fuu. They were supposed to contact us to make a joint plan, since this was supposed to be a long term mission with me making contact with Naruto." Hinata relayed what Yamato had told her before the mission had even started.

"Hm, no I don't recall sending a squad of Anbu to assist you. Who gave you that information?" The Hokage looked puzzled as well.

"Yamato told us, before we left the village. I don't know who told him." The teen stated, growing more confused by the minute.

"You called?" The sudden new voice made Hinata jump. Next to her an Anbu had appeared, kneeling.

"Was a team out on mission near Janpugakure?" The grey haired Hokage asked.

"No sir." The answer came almost immediately.

"Dismissed." Hiruzen said and the man vanished again. It always surprised Hinata to see the Hokage interact with his Anbu, it was so different from the way he was around the chunin and jonin.

"But if it wasn't your Anbu, then whose shinobi were they?" She asked the question that stood in the room.

"What did they wear?" He asked, quickly taking out a set of scrolls.

"Standard Anbu attire, the only thing odd were their masks, they were just plain white." Hinata recalled, earning a nod from the Hokage.

"Well, our Anbu also have plain masks, for special missions. I will look into that. Let's hope Yamato can shed some light on this when he wakes up." He said.

"Your mission is done, your solo mission is still ongoing, if you see an opportunity take it. Report back to me in three days." With that Hinata stood, bowed and quickly went out of the office.

Walking through the village, the teen felt her tiredness again. She had taken off her jacket to avoid the looks she got from everyone since her usual purple clothes were drenched red with blood.

Entering the Hyuuga compound, her hopes of getting to her room undetected were dashed immediately, when Hanabi walked through the garden when she came in.

"Hinata!" She whisper shouted, a huge smile forming on her lips. The two teens embraced, with the older sighing slightly, the last bit of tension falling from her shoulder.

"How was the mission?" Hanabi asked, as they walked into their house.

"Not good. I'll tell you tomorrow. I really need to sleep." Hinata deflected, knowing her sister would understand since she herself was already chunin. The younger girl smiled, her lips still a bit crooked from the broken jaw that Hinata had given her in the chunin exams.

"Alright, I won't tell anyone you are back." She stated, winking at her. If the elders found out that she was back, they would immediately call for her to give them her report.

"Thanks." Hinata replied, smiling tiredly before finally making her way to her room.

Hiya Dragons,

What did you think about the chapter?

It is a bit shorter than usual, since I had a lot of stuff to do for work. And actually scrapped the whole thing to rewrite it when I was almost done, cause it didnt seem right.

Big Announcement time: A while ago, I was asked by Rayane Trunky if he could post my story "Starting Over" on Youtube, with an AI reading it. I agreed, and the whole book is now out on his channel for you to listen to. Go to https://www.youtube.com/@Rayanetrunky if you want to listen to the story. I am excited to see the response of you guys in the comments of the videos.

Dedication this time around to @AnimeLegends18 for answering the last chapter's question. Also thanks to @Botenwolf20 for the same thing and for showing up to the Q&A round. 

For this chapter I dont have a question, but I am still looking forwards to your comments.

On another note: I have a discord ( https://discord.gg/8FxcsJZfaT ), where I will do Q&A rounds for you guys all about my books, my person(as long as it is not too personal) or anything you wanna talk about. They start at 8pm Berlin time(that is 6pm UTC and 11am PST).

Peace,

Gleam-eyes