Chapter 6- Some rather nasty people
I’m skipping over the whole Land of Waves mission because I hate having to rewrite it so much to fit Hikari in. So, this starts about half way on their way back to Konoha in Hikari’s point of view. Enjoy
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I sighed as Uchiha and Naruto stared arguing again. I wasn’t bothered enough to find out what it was before I roundhouse kicked both of them. They flew across the road and crashed into some trees. I flinched at how much force I used. Where was all this strength and skill coming from? In the academy, I knew that I was highly skilled, second in the class in fact, but now I seemed to easily surpass Uchiha as time went on.
“Hikari, why did you do that?!” Sakura shouted as she ran over to the boys. She checked on Uchiha first, naturally, but saw that I’d hit Naruto harder and started cleaning him up. I smirked at Uchiha’s expression. The emotionless Uchiha was staring at Naruto and Sakura in amazement. Naruto was trying to shoo Sakura away, but she stayed, and he looked at her in shock too.
“Sakura-chan-“
“Shut up, Naruto. I’m trying to stop the bleeding.” He closed his mouth and I heard her mutter to him something about being really important to me, and that’s why she was doing it. Naruto fixed his gaze on me, and although I couldn’t read it, my face heated up and I was sure it matched my hair. I turned away and saw Kakashi laughing behind his book. My eyes narrowed and I ripped it out of his hands before he could react. He tried to get it back, but I was too fast. I laughed as his face fell when he realized his mistake in refining my speed. I’d seen Gai-san bragging about Lee, and knew that Kakashi wanted a student to compete with Lee, even if he wouldn’t admit it to anyone. I’d seen it in his eye and felt it in his aura.
“Hikari-chan, give Kakashi-sensei his book back so we can go home!” I heard Naruto shout. I then realized that Kakashi was chasing me through the trees by the road. I did a few quick hand signs and a clone appeared next to me. I was far enough away from Kakashi to give the clone the real book while it gave me a fake. We laughed and the clone went off to join Squad 7. I waited for Kakashi to catch up, which actually didn’t take that long. He stood on a branch, panting, and I giggled as the wind blew my scarf and hair around. My bangs fell in my eyes, and I quickly brushed them away, but he was already gone. I stiffened and closed my eyes. I searched and sifted through everything I felt around me and then I found him. My eyes snapped open while I threw some senbon needles towards him. He just barely dodged them, his mask getting a small cut in it. I heard him growl and he ran straight at me. I got in a low stance, but not for the obvious frontal attack. Just as I’d predicted, he flash behind me, and I struck out to punch his gut. He grabbed my fist and I used my momentum to propel myself over him, and landing a kick in his back. I felt his spine and ribs protest, and I suddenly stopped. I just hung there, frozen in midair. A total physics breaker right there. Kakashi let my hand go and he turned to look at me, wide eyed.
“Hikari-san?” His voice wavered and my eyes widened and I turned my head to look at him. There was Kakashi Hatake, one of the greatest jonin in the village, shaking at the sight of me. I closed my eyes and went to take a deep breath, but my chest suddenly constricted. I tried to cough, but my body just heaved. I was still floating in the air. I opened my eyes and looked at my body, and a strangled scream managed to escape my collapsing lungs. My entire body was encased in sand. I felt Kasai, my demon, roar in anger and power surged through my body. A blast of chakra broke my prison, and I fell to the ground. I coughed and gasped for air as I heard something in the distance scream like a strangled animal.
“Hikari!” I turned and saw Sakura right next to me, but she’d sounded so far away. Maybe the animal wasn’t either, and I became scared. I tried to push myself up, but my entire body shook. Everything around me started spinning and the colors burred together. Red and orange mixed with blue and green as I gripped my head. I squeezed my eyes shut as I felt someone pick me up. I could feel strong arms through thick material. My head fell against a chest, and I inhaled a strong scent of ramen mixed with blood. What a weird combination…
“Hikari-chan, open your eyes.” My eyes slowly opened and I saw Naruto’s face very close to mine. Everything around him was blurred and before I knew what I was doing, my arms were around his neck and my face was buried in his chest. I started shaking and tried to hold back the tears. I felt a hand awkwardly rubbing my back. I heard muffled talking, and then I felt Naruto’s arms tighten around me. I heard him say something about not taking me to the hospital and that I’d be just fine.
“How do you know she’ll be fine?!” That was Uchiha. They were arguing again, but about me this time. Oh, they might’ve been arguing over me earlier too… Maybe about how strong I’d gotten and a harmless Naruto tease went too far.
“Because she will be!”
“That’s not a reason!”
“Shut up.” Everything froze at my voice, or what I thought was my voice. It was much more threatening than usual. I pulled away from Naruto and he set me on the ground. I got slightly dizzy, but I didn’t let anyone see it. I stood up tall, just barely beating Naruto’s short height. I trained a glare on Sasuke, and I saw his eyes contort in fear.
“Told you,” Naruto muttered. I grabbed Naruto’s hand and walked ahead of them all. I sensed Kakashi looking at me with worry, but obviously he knew better than to try and talk to me at the moment. I walked with Naruto for a long time before he said something.
“Hikari-chan, they can’t see us anymore.” My grip on his hand tightened slightly, and then it fell. I took a deep shaky breath, and then yelled and punched the road. It sent a huge shockwave through the ground, breaking and cracking it for a long ways. Trees fell and animals ran.
“Ooo someone has anger issues!” a voice cheerfully shouted. I turned towards it and saw a guy with spiky brown hair. He wore an orange swirly mask that reminded me of a pumpkin along with a long black robe with red clouds. A warning went off in my head and I felt Kasai quake in my gut. Then she got angry, really angry. I doubled over as it felt like my insides were boiling. I coughed spit something black out. It fell on the ground and I saw that it was flames; black flames. I looked at it with a mix of fascination and horror. My head snapped up when the guy laughed like a little kid. Naruto was just standing there, frozen in fear.
“Go away,” Kasai growled using my mouth. I coughed up more of the fire.
“Ooo Itachi will be interested in you!” I froze. Itachi was Uchiha’s brother. I remembered the incident like it was yesterday. I used to live in an apartment near the Uchiha compound, and I’d been sitting on the roof when it started. That was my first time witnessing death, but I never to talked Sasuke about it. Sasuke… That was his name. His given name. The name his parents gave him. His parents that his brother Itachi had killed.
“Don’t you dare say his name in my presence,” I growled. The man giggled again and then he disappeared.
“What happened here?!” Me and Naruto turned and saw our team walking into or sight. Wait, our team? Could I really think about them like that? I stepped on the flames and they went out with a hiss. Then Naruto wrapped his arms around my waist from behind and pulled me to him.
“Hikari-chan,” he whispered. There was a shake to his voice, but when his warm breath hit my neck, I shivered. I turned in his arms and hugged him tightly around the neck. I felt a tear run down my face and my breath hitched. He held me tighter and I laid my head on his shoulder. His jacket was really thick. How the hell was he not sweating in that thing?! The wind blew and we both shivered, as if that answered my question. We stood like that until I heard them walk up. Naruto held me tighter still, and I knew that Uchiha- no Sasuke- was looking at us.
"I wanna go home," I whispered in Naruto's ear. He nodded and turned and picked me up onto his back.
"Then let's go home."
~~~~~
I yawned as I waited for Naruto to get out of the Hokage's office. He'd told me to wait by a ramen stand nearby, but I was getting bored. I started to walk towards my house when I heard two familiar voices laughing.
"Naruto-nii-chan that's awesome!" I turned to see Kono-kun and Naruto running towards me. I stopped at turned to face them. Kono-kun got a really serious look on his face. "From now on, we're rivals!" Naruto just laughed and stopped just short of running into me. Kono-kun ran into me and I giggled as he got up and apologized a lot.
"It's ok, Kono-kun," I said with a smile as I patted his head, which no longer had a helmet.
"Hikari, do you want to come hang out with me and Ino?!" I turned to see Sakura walking towards us from another direction. I waved her over and she jogged to our little group.
"Hey Sakura. I'd love to, but apparently Naruto and Kono-kun have plans." I gave them a sneaky look and they both turned pink and turned away.
“Naruto, you’re despicable!” She was too fast for me to react. Naruto was suddenly on the ground, clutching his head. I knelt next to him while Kono-kun yelled at Sakura. Naruto was whining too. I stood up and turned to explain what I’d meant, when Kono-kun said the wrong thing.
“No wonder Nii-san likes Hikari more! You have a huge forehead too!” I froze, wide eyed, and Naruto jumped to his feet. Kono-kun’s goggles, which matched Naruto’s old ones, fell over his eyes as he stepped back in fear. Sakura’s eyes screamed rage. I quickly grabbed Kono-kun’s new scarf and ran. Naruto was close behind me. She was running after us, a murderous aura around her. A burning pain erupted in my chest and I closed my eyes momentarily. In that moment, I ran into someone.
“Hey punk!” I felt someone grab my scarf and lift me up. I dropped Kono-kun and slightly opened an eye. There was a guy in black with purple make up in my face. I gritted my teeth as the pain slowly spread. I glanced at the girl behind him, who was smirking. She had a Suna headband around her neck. I returned my gaze to the guy, with both eyes open, and saw a puppet on his back. My eyes narrowed.
“Put. Me. Down,” I growled. His eyes narrowed and his grip tightened. The pain was now in my entire torso.
“What did you say?” he growled back. I looked back at the girl. I looked in between the two, studying them. Two Suna shinobi, with the same eyes and hair line. They were siblings, so their other squad member was probably their sibling too. The girl was obviously the older of the two, so they weren’t triplets. Normal squads didn’t have siblings on them, because of the distractions they posed, so they had to be a special squad; probably the kids of the Kazekage.
“I don’t care if you’re the Kazekage’s kids.” I gripped his wrist in my hands. “No one treats me like this!” I caught the rock Sasuke had thrown from a tree to my right and kicked the guy in the stomach. He grunted and let me go. I dropped into a low defensive stance as the two Suna shinobi glared at me. The guy dropped his puppet off his back, causing my eyes to narrow again and my muscles to tighten.
“You’re going to get in trouble if you use that,” the girl said. My eyes widened a fraction. Either the other sibling was the oldest, or-
“Kunkuro, stop.” I froze and then turned to the tree. Another Suna shinobi around my age was standing upside down on a tree branch near Sasuke. He had red hair just like me, but his eyes were sea foam green. He had the kanji for love written on his forehead in blood red.
“G-Gaara, they started it!”
“Shut up, or I’ll kill you.” My stomach dropped and the pain slowly spread down to my legs. I clenched a fist and stood up, no longer sensing a threat. The red head disappeared in a swirl of sand, and then reappeared right in front of me. I didn’t even flinch and we locked eyes.
“Tell your siblings to back off,” I said calmly, even though on the inside I was shaking. His raccoon eyes widened just a little bit, but then he nodded.
“I’m sorry for any trouble they caused.” I straightened my scarf and glared at the puppeteer. The red head had called him Kunkuro.
“Nothing we couldn’t have handled, I assure you.” I locked eyes with the red head again. Sea foam against red. “What is your name?”
“Gaara of the desert. Who are you?”
“Yami Hikari.” I noticed the girl’s eyes widened a good bit, but I had to ignore it for now.
“And you, what’s your name?” Gaara directed at Sasuke. I looked at him with a bored expression.
“Uchiha Sasuke,” he finally said. I closed my eyes as pain shot up to my head.
“Hikari-chan, are you ok?” I opened my eyes and looked down at Kono-kun. I smiled and nodded. He smiled and hugged me.
“Kono-kun, what’s wrong?” I whispered. I faintly heard Sakura questioning the Suna kids. I heard something about the Chunin exams. Oh, that was here already?
“They’re scary, Nee-chan.” I felt my heart flutter at his words. I hugged him really tight.
“Kono-kun, don’t worry.” I made eye contact with Gaara. “I’ll protect you.” Then they were gone in a cloud of sand.
‘Be careful. He has Shukaku sealed in him,’ Kasai warned. The burning sensation finally spread to my arms and fingers. I fell to my knees and slumped on Kono-kun. I heard someone calling me. I tried to lift my head, but I felt so heavy. My eyes fluttered shut and suddenly my hearing was working too well.
“Hikari-chan are you ok?!” I heard Naruto shout.
“Naruto-kun,” I mumbled.
“Naruto, does she look ok?!”
“Baka, why even ask that?”
“Teme, Sakura, shush,” I mumbled. I felt familiar arms pick me up and start running. I laid my head on Naruto’s chest and breathed in his scent of ramen and lemon soap. Lemon? He didn’t look like someone who used lemon soap.
~~~~~
I sat straight up, gasping for air. My hand flew to my head and I felt sweat. I took a deep breath and tried to calm my breathing and rapid heart. I heard someone call my name and shuffling. I looked around where I was, and saw that I was in a messy bedroom. I looked at the bedside table and saw three pictures. One was of Squad 7, another was of me and Kakashi, and the last one was of Naruto and me. A small smile formed on my lips as Naruto walked in his room; my nightmare forgotten.
“Hikari-chan, how are you doing? You fainted after we met that Gaara dude.” I tried to think back, but I remembered nothing about a guy named Gaara.
“How long have I been out?” Best to avoid forgetting something for now. Naruto looked at the floor.
“A few days. I took you to the hospital, and after a few tests, they told me to take you home. The only problem with that is that I don’t know where you live.” I blinked in confusion. A few days? What was going on with me? I looked down at my hands. They were the same pale and callused hands I’d always had. Yet, they looked sickly now.
“Naruto, I need to go see Kakashi-san.”
“Oh, well, ya see…” I looked up at him again.
“I’ve been here for a while.” I jumped and turned to see Kakashi standing in a dark corner. "We need to talk about the Chunin exams."