Chapter Text
Hitomi sat with her legs pulled against her chest. She hated today, even though it was supposed to be happy. She heard a sound at her bedroom door, and looked up to see her Aunt Hinata peering into the room. She looked back down at her feet and spoke softly.
“I’m fine, you don’t have to watch me.”
Says the girl living with her aunt despite having inherited an apartment above a weapons shop.
“I know you aren’t fine.”
“Hitomi! Happy birthday!” She saw Himawari and Boruto grinning at her from their mother’s legs. Hinata looked down and sighed at her children. She hadn’t told them not to bother Hitomi yet but she’d hoped they wouldn’t follow her. Hitomi forced a smile at the youngsters and motioned for them to come in. They dog piled on top of their (distant) cousin and grinned at their mom.\
“Come on mom!” Hitomi motioned for her Aunt to join them and she did. “Is dad coming home early for Hitomi’s birthday?”
“I don’t think so, Boruto. Your father is very busy. But Aunt Sakura and Sarada offered to come by.” Hitomi started to protest but of course her family would be having none of that.
“You don’t have to-”
“I want to. And so do they.”
“Does Sarada’s dad not want to come?”
“Sakura didn’t want to worry too much about an invite for him in case he wasn’t here, but I told them he’s welcome if he is. He may or may not come.”
“Alright.” Boruto hoped he would, Sasuke had been training him but had had to leave on a mission and Boruto wanted to show how far he’d progressed since he’d last seen his mentor. Hitomi really thought this was too much work, but she knew it was too late to talk her aunt out of it. She was honestly pretty sure this had been planned weeks ago (If a certain Sasuke Uchiha’s invite was any indication).
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Hitomi had a nearly full table for her birthday dinner. As it turned out, even Sasuke had shown up, which somewhat shocked her. She really had next to no relationship with him, just Sakura and Sarada. She had gotten to know Sarada pretty well, and Sakura was teaching her medical ninjutsu (she had inherited her father’s chakra control). But Sasuke? She barely knew him. Although, any time she saw him over the past year she noticed he would give her a… Sad look. At least until he realized she was looking at him. Then he’d put on the same fake smile that everyone else gave her. It drove the girl nuts, honestly. As Hinata had predicted, Naruto wasn’t there, but Hitomi really didn’t mind.
She didn’t need a pity attendance from the Hokage for the pity dinner hosted by his wife.
When dinner was over, Hitomi politely excused herself, and walked outside. She went decently far away before continuing, she really didn’t need anyone hearing what she was about to do. She took a deep breath and let out a loud, frustrated, yell. Because this wasn’t fair, nothing was fair! This time last year, at exactly 5:15 to be precise, her mother had died, and it just wasn’t fair. She’d just finished yelling when she heard a voice behind her and had to fight the urge to jump in surprise.
“Does it help?”
“S-Sasuke.” Sasuke Uchiha was standing there and looking at her. And she had just called him by his first name without anything else attached to it. She was already mentally berating herself for her screw up when he responded.
“That would be my name.” Not even commenting on the fact that she referred to him by his first name and had forgotten an honorific.
“I- Why are you-” She really should have taken that moment to apologize, but alas she did not. And he still wasn’t going to be bringing it up apparently, so she figured she was off the hook. She chalked it up to it being her birthday and being in mourning at the same time, he definitely knew what today was after all.
“Why am I out here?” Hitomi nodded. “Thought I’d see where the guest of honor ran off to. Pretty sure Hinata made cake.” She almost smiled at the comment, it definitely wasn’t what she was expecting from him.
“Probably chocolate.” He raised an eyebrow and just sort of looked at her, as if he wasn’t entirely sure what to say. But he eventually found something.
“Do you not like chocolate?”
“It’s my favorite.” There was silence for a minute before Sasuke got closer to her. Not uncomfortably close mind you… Just close. Enough to attempt a bit of a connection, and she had a feeling things were about to get emotional. At least… Somewhat. This was not the Sasuke Uchiha she had heard about from her mother.
“Look… I get it.”
“Hm?”
“You went to school. You know about the Uchiha Massacre.”
“Yeah.”
“So… I know what it feels like. The feeling of not having anyone left. But that’s not the case anymore. And Hinata is trying really hard to make sure you don’t feel like that.”
“I get that. She’s not failing or anything it’s just… It’s the anniversary of her death. I feel like we shouldn’t be celebrating. You know?”
“Do you think your mother would have wanted you to stop celebrating?” Hitomi thought about it for a moment before shaking her head no. “Take my advice. Celebrate.” Hitomi nodded. And after a couple of minutes (in which both she and Sasuke tried the cathartic yelling thing, it was a little weird) they went inside.
The cake was chocolate.
And it was delicious.
The next day, Hitomi was on one of Konoha’s many training grounds practicing with her Byakugan when she noticed two people behind her. She turned, deactivating the doujutsu, and faced Boruto and Sarada. She raised an eyebrow and moved towards them, confused.
“Hey, Hitomi-chan.”
“What are you two doing here?”
“Uncle Sasuke said he won’t be able to train me until later.” Boruto seemed to be hiding some slight bitterness about that fact.
“Yeah, Papa’s busy and Mitsuki’s sick, which I didn’t even think was possible, so we don’t have anything to do today. So we thought maybe we could train with you.”
“Well… I mean obviously you can but it’s not like I can teach you much.”
“What about a mock battle? Us against you?” Hitomi figured it really couldn’t hurt. She had a few years on them, it was fair enough.
“That’s not a bad idea. Let’s do it.” In only a few minutes the three shinobi were in a standard fighting formation. “And… Start.”
Right off the bat, Boruto created shadow clones, and Hitomi shook her head. She was quick to throw shurikan to dispel them. Shadow clones were useful for close range attacks, but when your opponent was trained in long range and weapons, they could be nearly useless. She wouldn’t be taking on Lord Seventh any time soon, he had way too many, but Boruto had only managed four clones.
It just wasn’t enough.
However, the two genin soon figured out a way to push her back, move them between training grounds. They countered her weapons with their own, and Sarada was quite good at shurikan jutsu. But it was only about fifteen minutes into the fight when she all of a sudden couldn’t move. She looked at Sarada and Boruto, neither of them looked like they were doing anything to cause it.
Then she felt a tugging sensation and soon she was on her hands and knees. She looked down and realized she was on a seal of some kind.
And it was taking her chakra.
She looked up at her friends, who were staring at her with concern, the mock battle having ceased. They ran towards her, and before she could stop them they were inside the seal with her. It was almost painful, having her chakra ripped out of her. But she refused to show it, she needed to see how Boruto and Sarada were doing.
And it didn’t look like they were doing well.
She could feel herself slipping into unconsciousness, and her last thought was:
Sasuke and Sakura Uchiha and Lord Seventh are going to kill me if I survive this.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Team Gai didn’t get to train together much anymore.
With all of them being chunin, it was much more difficult to arrange times to train together. As they were often all on missions, either together or separately. So when they all had a day off, and Tenten had just gotten in very early in the morning from a mission, they agreed to meet at a later than usual training time so they could see each other.
Neji and Lee were the first ones to the training ground, or at least they thought they were. The moment they arrived, they noticed three unconscious bodies in the middle of the training area. The two young men approached cautiously, not sure what to make of this yet. And they were somewhat glad they had. Because all three of the people had Konoha forehead protectors but they didn’t recognize any of them. So Neji immediately used his Byakugan on them.
“Ah-”
“What?” Lee was attempting to place the sound that had come out of his teammates mouth but couldn’t quite do it.
“They are almost entirely depleted of their chakra.” That was concerning, complete chakra depletion could kill someone if left untreated and it seemed like the three of them were hanging on by a thread.
“What should we do?”
“We should get the Hokage.” Either they couldn’t be trusted and should be taken to intelligence once they’d been seen by a medic or they could be trusted and simply needed immediate medical attention, either way Lady Tsunade should be involved. And it was likely they would still be getting medical attention regardless of their status.
“I shall get Lady Tsunade.” Neji didn’t even get to respond before Lee was off. And just after he left, he heard a voice behind him.
“Where is Lee going?”
“Lady Tsunade…”
“Why? What’s going on? And who are they?”
“No idea, we found them like this. Why don’t you help me try to identify them?” Tenten nodded, and approached the older girl while Neji approached the only male in the group of unconscious young people. The two of them checked their vitals, but were unable to identify any of them. Though the boy did look look scarily like Naruto. But there was nothing else about them to help. There was still no sign of Lee or the Hokage and Tenten looked up at Neji.
“Neji- I just… About last week-”
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“I know we don’t have to-”
“I don’t regret it.”
“I- Really? I mean… I left right after for that mission-”
“Really. Don’t worry about it.” Neji was not a… Mushy person. He cared for Tenten, in a way that he found he didn’t care for others, but there was currently no reason to put anything else on that right now. Especially not when there was a chance they were about to watch three people die. But before the conversation could continue they heard people approaching.
“This way, Lady Tsunade.” They were soon joined by the Hokage, Shizune, Sakura, and Lee. Shizune and Sakura approached the two younger people and Tsunade went to the older one. Tenten and Neji filled the medics in on what they’d observed already, and Tsunade wanted to do a few more checks before taking them to the hospital. But the moment she checked the older girl’s eyes she made a noise of shock.
“Have Hiashi Hyuga meet me at the hospital.” She was lifting the girl up as she spoke, and Neji wasn’t sure what to make of her words. “Immediately.” It took only another moment before he was heading towards the Hyuga compound, leaving Tenten and Lee behind.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Neji stood with Tenten and Lee as he waited for news on what was going to happen with the three new people. He was also, admittedly, extremely curious as to why his Uncle’s presence was necessary. So they stood outside the room of the oldest girl (all three had been placed in separate rooms in case they were a threat) and waiting to hear something. When the door opened all three shinobi’s backs straightened.
“You’ll let me know when she wakes up?”
“Of course, Hiashi-San. I assure you I will. It will be a few days, you can relax until then.” There was a silent nod from the older Hyuga and he walked away. Neji, however, did not follow his uncle.
“What’s going on, Tsunade-Sama?”
“It’s not something you need to worry about, Neji.”
“Well who are they?”
“We don’t know.”
“Why did you need my uncle?”
Neji didn’t see his uncle turn around and share a look with Lady Tsunade. He couldn’t explain his interest in the strangers, he hadn’t even spoken to them, but he was curious. But he told himself that if he didn’t get an answer to this question he’d stop asking. But the look that Hiashi gave Tsunade meant he wasn’t worried about what information he gave this group.
So Lady Tsunade started talking.
“The girl, the older one, has the Byakugan.” Neji took a step back, that didn’t make any sense. He didn’t recognize her at all. “And no seal on her forehead.” Neji had no idea what to do with that information. She wasn’t a main family member. And she wasn’t a branch family member either.
She was an anomaly.
“She won’t be waking up for a couple of days, so don’t worry about it for now. I’ll contact your uncle when she does, when they all do, he’s offered to take care of them until we can figure out what’s going on. We decided it would be safest.” The group nodded. “So for now… Why don’t you three just return to your lives as normal. The fewer people who get involved the better.”
“Yes, Tsunade-Sama.”
So the three of them returned to their planned training session. But they couldn’t help but think about the three strangers. There was just something about them…