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Hinata didn’t really expect to run into a giant kunoichi-eating bear on the way to the tower, but, well . . . here she is, standing over a giant kunoichi-eating bear carcass. The redhead girl she’d saved is looking up at her with tears in her eyes. Hinata can probably guess why. Her team is dead. “Are you okay?” Hinata asks, stepping toward the girl. “What’s your name? You’re from Kusa, right?”
“Karin,” she answers, breathlessly. “And yeah. Kusa. What—what about you?”
“Hi—Hinata, from Konoha. Hyūga Hinata,” she responds. “Are you alright? You aren't injured?”
Karin shakes her head. “I'm okay. Can I stay with you and your team until we get to the tower? My team is kind of—” She glances over at two corpses nearby. “—dead. You can have our scroll! I can't pass now anyway, I just—um! You can say no, it was a stupid question anyway. Nobody would—I can—find the way. Um, thanks for saving me!”
Hinata blinks. “You can! I'm sure they won't mind,” she says.
Karin blinks. “Are—are you sure? Thank you so much!”
Hinata can't help the grin that breaks out. “Of course,” she says. “Although . . . you’re not concerned about your teammates?” Hinata can’t imagine Shino and Kiba dying and Hinata not being devastated. If Kiba . . . or Shino . . . no—no. She can’t even think about them dead, think about them beaten and bloody or poisoned and—and she’s thinking about it. She fights the whimper that wants to rise in her throat and clears it instead. Hinata looks toward Karin for an answer.
“I’m actually—how do I say this—my village hates me,” Karin says shortly. Hinata gives her an incredulous look and she continues. “I mean—I have this special ability, see? If you bite me, you can get a chakra boost and you’ll be healed. My mom had this ability, but they—the Kusa nin— overused it and she died. And they’re keeping me here because I can do it too.” Karin exhales sharply, seeming to prepare for something, before going to roll up her sleeves. Hinata jumps back on instinct—she doesn’t know if Karin’s friendliness was only a front and she’s actually planning to kill Hinata—but as she watches the girl’s sleeves pull back, she can’t help the horrified expression that makes its way onto her face. There are deep, ugly scars on Karin’s arms, circular in shape, and they look like teeth marks. Hinata’s initial reaction is repulsion, and then there’s a feeling she can’t name swelling up in her chest.
“Karin . . . ” she murmurs, softly, and then, steeling her resolve, she straightens up. “You’re coming back with my team. I’m not going to let that village have you. I’ll do all I can.” Hinata pauses, thinking about it. “My clan is willing to adopt you if you have any special skills. The one you have right now is really cool, but I don’t know if we can use it without doing the same thing your village did . . . ”
“I’m a sensor,” Karin says, shrugging. “Oh! For example, I can feel the tower because there are so many chūnin and jōnin in it that it’s basically a beacon.”
If Hinata had any less restraint, she’d be gaping. “That’s at least three kilometers. Karin, your range is crazy. My clan would adopt you in an instant! That’s farther than most Byakugan users can see, too.” Does Hinata feel bad about bad-mouthing her clan? Absolutely not. Does she feel bad about bad-mouthing them while planning to use them to bring someone into Konoha? A little bit. But it’s for a good cause so Hinata can ignore it. That reminds her . . . “Does your village have any special claims to you?”
Karin shakes her head. “Like I said, they hate me. My teammates said they hoped I’d die during the exam so they would have one less mouth to feed. We all live together,” she adds, almost like an afterthought. “They only tolerate me because I can heal them. I think they would’ve dumped me any chance they could.” Karin wraps her arms around herself, like a one-person hug, and when she looks back at Hinata her eyes are searching, pleading, desperate. “Does it make me a bad person if I feel like they deserved to die?”
“No,” Hinata says quickly. “Everyone dies eventually. In the shinobi world, you die sooner than everyone else. Those people . . . they treated you like you weren’t anything other than a chakra supply. Did they even train you to fight?” Karin shakes her head and Hinata’s indignation and anger only grows. “Then I think they deserve this. You said they told you they hoped you’d die. That’s not okay, not when you haven’t done a single bit of wrong to them. I think Kusa will happily release you, and Konoha will gain an asset we know how to use.”
Hinata won’t lie to Karin—she knows Karin will be expected to become a kunoichi, will be expected to use her ability to help others, either as a medic or a general support-nin—but it’s still Karin’s choice to make. She can go into any field she wants. She could be a legendary sensor or a fantastic healer. Konoha will have many uses for her. Kusa had been given a gift and they hadn’t known what to do with it—with Karin’s abilities, with Karin herself. Hinata knows Konoha isn’t like this. Hinata knows Konoha will know what to do with her new friend.
“Do you mean it?” Karin says. Hinata looks at her hopeful expression and nods.
“I’ll try my very best.”
#
“Her name is Karin, and her team is dead. We're keeping her,” Hinata says simply once she regroups with her team. Kiba blinks, but doesn't disagree. He sniffs at the air a bit, and he cringes, but he doesn't say no. In fact . . .
“Awesome. Shino found—someone—too,” he says, pointing at the Aburame. Shino nods and a massive beetle crawls out of his sleeve.
Karin gasps. “Is—oh my gods, is that bug? I love bugs! I used to catch them all the time in Kusa but they were teeny, how do bugs even get that big? And why does it have so much chakra? I can feel it even from over here! Bugs never have chakra. What do you do to them over here?”
Shino, from what Hinata can see of his face, looks a bit taken aback by all the questions. He’s probably not used to someone taking such an extreme interest in his insects. It’s a good change, though. Hinata wishes she was more interested in his insects, wishes she knew more questions to ask. Kiba thinks they’re cool, but he never really talks about them—probably because he doesn’t know how. Hinata automatically tunes the conversation out while they jump from branch to branch, heading in the direction of the tower. It’s not because she doesn’t care about the conversation—it’s just that the conversation isn’t Hinata’s to hear. She’s not a part of it, so she shouldn’t listen.
On their way to the tower, they manage to defeat one more team and take their scroll—a heaven one. They don’t really need it, but they keep it anyway, under the reasoning that if they can keep other teams from getting a scroll, they should. Karin keeps pace with them fantastically, warning them if anyone new comes within two kilometers of them, and tries to keep tabs on the closer ones. Hinata has her Byakugan activated most of the time, so she’s usually the one to spot people—Karin says she gets headaches if she concentrates on so many people at once, so the Byakugan is better for close-range work. Hinata catches herself thinking more than once that Karin would be a great addition to their team. Long-range and close-range sensors. It’s the dream of every tracking team.
Everyone feels the huge commotion in the forest when it happens. Karin warns them to stay away, says there’s so much chakra there that she thinks she’s going into sensory overload—and they have to give that area a wide berth, circling around the long way and continuing on from there. When they finally get there, Hinata’s pleased to notice that only about seven teams are there with them. There’d been about twenty at first, and they have two days left. They arrived ahead of the crowd, for the most part.
They spend their couple of days lounging around, having their scant injuries—Karin excepted—checked by the medics, and coming up with a game plan for the preliminaries, which had been announced as soon as they’d stepped through the door because Anko-sensei had complained about way too many teams passing this year.
“I want to withdraw,” Karin says. “My arm isn’t fully healed from that bear attack.” Nobody argues with her. She’s allowed to remain as a spectator, though, and Hinata resolves to ask her father to adopt Karin immediately after her fight.
She only loses because the matches were rigged. Really—her against Neji? Out of all twenty-something participants that hadn’t withdrawn? Someone had to have done this on purpose. In any case, she loses. Badly. The last thing she remembers is Neji aiming a blow at her chest, although the medics tell her she passed out some time after that, after a particularly hard hit to her head. She doesn’t care about that. She has a mission right now, and the first thing she needs to do is find her father. It doesn’t take long—the medics escort her back to the Hyūga compound when they notice she’s regained consciousness. They tell her to have one of her clansmen look over her and she nods, planning to completely ignore their advice.
It’s not like her. It’s really not like her—but she needs to do this. She has a goal in mind, a destination.
“Father?” she asks quietly, knocking on his door.
“Come in, Hinata,” he replies. She takes a deep breath, and opens the door.
#
When Hinata comes out of her father's office, it is with watery eyes and and a glare set on anything that dares to cross her line of sight. She’d known it wouldn’t have worked out. She’d known it. But having it smack her in the face like that is more painful than she thought it’d ever be. Having her father listen to her—make her actually think she’d had a chance—and then telling her to get out of his office had been one of the worst things she’s ever had to endure.
She rubs her eyes. She should probably go wash her face—it’d be bad if anyone saw her like this. Maybe she’ll go train at the usual training ground. Yes—that sounds like a good idea. Hinata heads to her room, enters the bathroom, and scrubs at her eyes and cheeks with no real vigor. Once she’s deemed her face presentable, she changes out of the torn-up rags she’s been wearing for the past few days and into some training-appropriate clothes.
She heads out to the usual training ground, takes a deep breath, activates her Byakugan, and prepares to take out her frustration on a bunch of training posts. Deep breaths in. Out. Try not to think about Karin. Think about Karin anyway. Hinata doesn’t see why they can’t adopt her—in theory, it’s a sound idea. Take away the kunoichi Kusa doesn’t want and bring her over to Konoha, where she’ll grow from a tool in the hands of crude shinobi to something akin to a chakra scalpel. So, so useful.
(She’s also pretty and funny and nice, but those are just obvious facts.)
Hinata beats the training posts into the ground. It’s well after sunset when she sees someone come up in her peripheral vision. She follows through with the kick she’d started and then drops her leg, catches her breath, and waits for whoever it is to come into the training field. When the person draws closer, Hinata is pleasantly surprised to find Karin stepping out and waving shyly at her.
Her hair is really red, Hinata notices absently.
“Um . . . hello,” Hinata offers, already feeling like she’s messed something up. Her earlier confidence is dead and gone. She feels good—energetic—from the exercise, but . . . it’s not like it was before. She notices Karin is grinning widely. “What’s—what’s up?”
Karin takes a step forward, and another one, and another and another until she’s running toward Hinata. Hinata, not really knowing what to do but feeling like she should do something, sticks her arms out in preparation for the biggest bear hug she’s ever received. Karin slams into her full-force and wraps her arms around Hinata so hard she’s scared she’ll never get free. It’s not a bad thought, but . . . it’s not a good one either. If she’s stuck hugging Karin forever, she’ll never be able to do other things with Karin! Like training together and eating dinner together and doing all sorts of other things that wouldn’t be able to happen if she’s hugging Karin.
Gods, what is Hinata even thinking?
“What’s the hug for?” she asks, choosing not to answer that question.
“You—you don’t know?” Karin responds, releasing her and taking a step back. Hinata’s hit by a sudden wave of nervousness—what did I forget what went wrong what’s going on—when Karin’s smile comes back in full force and she jumps up in the air a little bit. “Your dad just came and talked to me! He said I can move in and oh my gosh Hinata, we can have sleepovers every day—and I don’t have to go back! I don’t have to go back to Kusa!”
Hinata lets out the breath she’d been holding and allows herself to smile. “That’s . . . that’s beyond great, Karin. I’m really happy.”
Karin huffs excitedly and pushes her glasses up. Hinata fights the urge to smile even wider. “Hiashi-san says I could move into one of the empty compound houses! And he said . . . he said I could change my name, if I want. I could be a Hyūga. Instead of an Uzumaki.”
Hinata blinks. “You’re an Uzumaki?”
“I thought I told you already,” Karin says, shaking her head. “Wh—”
“I know another Uzumaki,” Hinata murmurs. Naruto has—has family. Karin is Naruto’s family. “His name is—”
“Naruto! I know! I met him!” Karin says excitedly. “He’s awesome! He has these weird marks on his face and they look so cool. I’m super jealous. Oh! Hiashi-san said we should come home now. Sorry for distracting you.”
Hinata shakes her head and laughs, although it’s closer to a giggle then it really has any right to be. Karin does all sorts of weird things to her—for example, she’s pretty sure her face is bright red right now and she’s breathing kind of heavily and she wants to smile forever.
It only worsens when Karin grabs her hand and says, “Come on! We’re gonna be late! He said we’re having dinner!”
“Of course,” Hinata says, and lets Karin drag her along. The feeling of Karin’s fingers interlaced with hers has a pleased smile sticking on her face. It feels like it’s never ever going to come off, and maybe . . . maybe Hinata likes it that way.