But the girl standing in front of him wasn't the Hinata Hyuuga, the loving yet timid and shy dark blue hair girl who poured all her heart into supporting Naruto from behind he remembered.
At the first glance, Naruto could tell that she was the same Hinata he loved with dark blue hair, fair skin, and gentle facial features - traits that he heard she inherited from her mother and later passed down to their daughter Himawari. Her hair was in the traditional levelled hime-cut style just above her forehead.
However much like her older-self in his original timeline, her hair was no longer short but grown down to reach her lower back and the bangs framing her face was grown to shoulder-length.
Her attire was also different than the original; Hinata was wearing a light lavender, sleeveless kimono-style blouse with vertical lines, tied with a dark purple obi around her waist. She wore a pair of short dark navy shorts with thigh-high stockings, revealing parts of her upper thighs, and has changed her regular black ninja sandals.
And did he mention that she looked a little older than him? Hinata was even taller than him by nearly a head, something that never happened before in the original timeline. Even when he was considered short for his age during childhood, he was still taller that Hinata.
But something that Naruto could notice right away, was that Hinata was standing in front of him with the lack of her usual shyness.
The way she was carrying herself, the way her beautiful lavender eyes was looking around, reminded Naruto greatly of the ways of the royal princesses.
"Oh yeah, this girl is little Namikaze's crush" Kurahime said, making Naruto widened his eyes "Hopefully you won't fall into his step. Even though you're the Hokage's son, that girl is way out of your league."
"Guess things are much different than we thought" Kurama grumbled. The changes was getting to his nerve and he didn't like it one bit and either was Naruto.
There were two branch members of Hyuuga Clan standing behind Hinata and it didn't take him long to realize they were her bodyguards.
Since when did Hinata need bodyguards?
"Hinata..." Naruto muttered softly, but then realized her bodyguards were glaring at him. It seemed they got problem with the way he was addressing her.
"Naruto-san" he almost flinched in surprise when Hinata greeted him so formally like that "How do you do? I heard about the accident with Mizuki-sensei, I hope you're alright now."
"Uh...yeah, I'm good now" Naruto chuckled while scratching the back of his head. If the Alien Oji-san was here, he would have to punch him in the face for saying Hinata was the samw. As far as he could see, she was anything but a shy, lack confident young girl.
"I'm glad" Hinata nodded her head, yet she didn't smile or show any positive emotion other than a complete blank face "I hope you will pass your upcoming exam, Naruto-san. Konoha needs talent shinobi like you." He heard Anko and Hana snorted next to him but paid no mind.
Hinata, however, wasn't...
"Do you have any problem with that?" she asked emotionlessly.
"Of course not Hime-sama" Kurenai stepped up before Anko could open her mouth and shook her head.
"Then I will take my leave. See you later, Naruto-san" Hinata said before turning around and walk away.
"What was that?" Naruto asked himself, his eyes still staying on Hinata.
"Damn...this is the who know how many times she got in our way." Anko said, crossing her arms together "Hyuuga and their holier than those attitude..." She then turned around to look at Naruto "Now, let's...where did he go?" But the blond already wisely retreated, disappeared before Anko could start her favorite bullying little Naruto.
Meanwhile, Naruto was heading to the third training ground and finally arrived at the place in just a few minutes. He didn't know why but this body while physically weaker than his original could run quite fast, faster than Naruto could do when he was around this age.
Okay, time to learn about myself" Naruto muttered and reached his back pocket and pulled out a small, yellow book.
It was his doppelganger's journal. Naruto was quite surprise when he found Naruto Namikaze's diary this morning while changing his room paperwalls. It was hidden very carefully underneath his clothes inside the wardrobe.
Naruto never needed a journal to begin with, but with this book, he would come to learn about his counterpart, as well as his life better and soon be able to blend in this new world without getting unwanted attention and questions.
Naruto opened the book and flipped over a few pages. It seemed Naruto Namikaze got to write this journal from a very young age, maybe as soon as he learnt how to write. He could see that the poor boy poured all of his saddened heart into writing this. Naruto saw some pages with shaking, unreadable words as if his hand was shaking while writing them, no doubt crying about the lack of attention from his own family.
Aside from that, Naruto learnt a lot of things about his family. Like the history book said, Minami and Naruko started their training at a very young age, under their parent's guidance and soon earned Itachi and Shisui's second comings with their genius level intelligent and Kunoichi skills. They was also taught in using Kurahime's chakra by Minato and Jiraiya and in his doppelganger's words, scary looking red cloaks of chakra with tails...meaning that they didn't go through the same trials at him to get rid of Kurahime's hatred, something that he saw the golden vixen shared with Kurama. This could be a bad thing because if they reached the fourth tails, those two could go into berserk state and hurt anyone around them, which he would need to keep an eye on that matter as well.
On the second note, like Kurahime's words, the four infamous ice queens of Konoha were indeed Minami's best friends. They formed their little group with each other at the age of four in the Academy and became great friends with each other since then. Like his sister, they soon got use to bully Minami's little brother. Surprisingly, Kurenai was the one who tried to be nice to him, but the raven haired girl always tried the scarier Genjutsu on him, he was like a like a test subjects or something like that. Anko was the one he scared the most, as she always scared him with those snakes of hers before laughing her ass off. Yugao most of the time ignored him but when she was in the mood, she geared him up with thick body armors and started to train with a wooden sword, with him at her training dummy. Lastly, Hana made him take care of her triplet ningen and surprisingly, Naruto befriended them and the three dogs were really nice to the young boy.
To make in simple and easy to understand, those four were four bitches. Naruto couldn't help but smirk when he thought about just how many good pranks he could pull on them.
Naruto then flipped to the next page and this one took his interest, it was the first encounter between him and Hinata when he was seven years old (A/N: I am to refer between Naruto Uzumaki and Naruto Namikaze, so I will let Naruto refers the other at himself for now)
I met Hinata-hime for the first time today...She is just like the rumors said, so beautiful. I mean, of course she is beautiful; Hinata-hime is the princess of Konoha right...I mean one of the two princesses of Konoha, Minami onee-sama is the other one but oh well, my sister got nothing on Hime-sama
Naruto couldn't help but chuckle at this. True, while Minami was very beautiful, she got nothing on his girl.
I heard that she was tutored at home so she couldn't come to the academy, until now that is. There was this...high-class aura around her that kept commoners away, kind of scary to say the least. She was so smart, Hinata-hime could answer all the question Iruka-sensei gave to her, incredible strong too...she beat her training partner in a single move, I didn't know how but I wish I can be just like hime-sama.
But she wasn't scary like I thought. Hinata-hime is very kind to me. I was bullied again by Onee-sama's troop today, but before Kurenai could cast a Genjutsu on me again, Hime-sama appeared and saved me.
We talked, can you believe it? I talked with the Hyuuga princess of Konoha and told her most of my life. She sat next to me and patiently listened to my story, I guess kind of like a leader listen to their people's words but that was something very special to me. When I said I couldn't become a good ninja like my sisters or even my parents, she said she wanted me to try harder and encouraged me to become stronger.
I didn't know if I could do it
But she said she had faith in me, she believe that someday I will become a great ninja just like my dad and my mom...Hinata-hime was the first person who said those kinds words to me and it meant a lot to someone like me.
Something in me changed today. I won't disappoint her, I will try harder to become the great Shinobi like she wanted me to become.
Naruto read on and read on, flipping through pages and could see that from that day Hinata was the main interest of his journal, as if their positions had been switched in this world, with him being the stalker and the one who running behind Hinata. Hinata was the one who constantly saved him from Minami and her troop, stopping them from bullying him any further.
He failed his first exam, when no one was there for him, Hinata was the one who came to his side and encouraged him to try harder. But it only made him sadder because Hinata came to him with the headband tied around her neck.
He then failed his second exam, Hinata once again encouraged him. She even gave him useful tips to become stronger, told him things he needed to pay attention to if he wanted to pass the text.
He failed the third time and yet Hinata still told him that the faith she put in him would never change or be shaken.
Naruto closed the book and let out a long sigh.
Hinata never stopped loving him, even if he didn't pay any interest to her for nearly 19 years of his life.
Hinata never stopped believing in him, even when he showed himself to be the worst ninja in the history, who failed the final exam three times.
When no one was there for him, she silently supported him.
"You're right Oji-san" Naruto said with a small smile, leaning his back against the wooden log he used to be tied to "She is the same Hinata I love" he stood up and pulled out a long black cloth from the inside of his pocket and tied it around his forehead "Let's start training!" He said determinedly and went to work.
He got school today but...meh, who cared about that when you already knew everything like the back of your hands.
Line Break
"MOM! I'm home!" Naruto flicked his shoes away from his feet. Giving the servants who were walking the front door a warm welcome before running inside, heading to the dining room where no doubt his mother was at "Mo..." But he stopped when he saw the one standing beside the kitchen wasn't his mother, but his older sister Minami Namikaze "Hey...Nee-sama" he said, unsure of how to act around this girl. Sure he was supposed to act a little nervous around Minami but it felt wrong, somehow.
"N-Naruto?!" Minami almost dropped the knife she was using to cut the meat when she saw her brother "hey" she grabbed the falling knife and smiled nervously at him.
"Where is mom?" he asked, looking around.
"She is out of the village for a mission...so...so I will be the one cooking for you and dad tonight." she stuttered and quickly turned around to continue her work, a little faster than before.
"Oh...I see" Naruto nodded his head and sat down on the dining table "I didn't know that you can cook" he said. The journal was rather detailed about his life and Minami's cooking wasn't mentioned.
"Mom taught me the basic" Minami replied, heating up the pan after pouring the oil into it "I can cook a simple meal but that is all."
"Uh huh" Naruto nodded his head but didn't say anything more than that. An unfamiliar feeling suddenly appeared within Naruto and that was the feeling of disliking. The other half of his soul was reacting again and this time it was showing negative emotions toward Minami.
Personally he got no problem with her but he doubted that the one who fused with him didn't.
The two remained silent for a long moment before Minami decided to speak up.
"Naruto...I..."
"Save it" He instantly replied, already knew what she wanted to say.
"You're mad at me, aren't you?" she asked with a sad voice.
"I'm not mad...I'm only disappointed" most of the reason why this family fell apart was because of Minami and her spoiled personality.
"I...understand" Minami lowered her head, saddened by this.
Naruto then got the journal out of his porch and tore a paper, got a pen and wrote down a few words before folding it into a plane and throw it toward Minami.
The paper plane got the blonde attention and she caught it out of curiosity, her eyes widened in shock and almost tear up when she saw the words wrote neatly on one of its wing
If you want to fix your mistakes, start from now. I believe in second chance...but the question is do you?
Naruto smiled in satisfaction and leaned back against his chair.
Yep, he believed in second chance more than anyone.
To be continued.....