Chapter 16

 

It was a slightly disconcerting feeling to be unable to see visually, while being absolutely unhindered by the lack of the sense. I sat opposite Hinata as we lobbed a featureless plushy ball back and forth.

We were both blindfolded, with the intent of using only our secondary—were they primary, at this point?— senses. The lack of sight didn't matter at all for us as we randomly changed both the speed and direction at which we threw.

"We turned it into a game, really," her tone was placid, but I could feel her spike of mischief before she threw the ball with added flair. The ball curved in the air, "We kept releasing the cat, just to hunt her again and again," I absentmindedly placed a hand into the projected path, and the ball sunk into my hand before being returned with an overhead throw, "In the end, she ran back to the Madame on her own."

"Poor cat," I couldn't help but laugh; The cat had such a bad matchup against both the Byakugan and the senses of an Inuzuka. She must have realized the futility in running and just gave up.

But not before being harried constantly.

After I got my laughter under control, I began regaling her with the riveting tale of the previous week's D-Rank mission, "Hmm, this week was kind of boring for me," we continued to pass the ball back and forth, with the occasional small trick applied to it, "We went to a forge, and learned proper tool maintenance," I'm sure it'd have been more interesting if I were able to actually stay awake, and I grimaced at that thought, "Or I guess… my team did. I really struggled to keep my eyes open, I hadn't been sleeping well at all at that point."

I couldn't see her eyes, but I didn't need to see them to know that she had me affixed with a deadpan stare, "What? It wasn't my fault," it absolutely was, and she seemed to know that somehow. With a huff, I threw the ball, and right before she caught it, I smirked and nudged it to the side. The ball deftly avoided her hand, and flew right into her nose with a satisfying pomf.

That's what you get for not believing me unconditionally, hmph.

The blindfold that rested in front of her eyes scrunched up as she pouted, "That's cheating," which eased into an airy giggle that joined mine, "Cheater."

"Hey, if you're not cheating—"

"—You're doing it wrong. I've heard," I chuckled and caught the ball that raced through the air to my face, "How's your practice coming along with that anyway?"

"Alright. It's hard to do with things that are too big though," after tossing the ball back, I levitated a few of the balls that littered the field around us with a simple gesture, "But I'm getting better at it."

She hummed in amazement, and threw the ball in her hand which collided with one I'd set to levitate; I stopped it in its tracks a mere fingertip away from my face, and left it to hover mid-air. Now it was my time to pout as I felt both her amusement and disappointment wash over me.

As time went on, Hinata got more comfortable in my company, and would occasionally show a more playful side of her that I doubted anyone else had ever seen. At first, these moments were always followed by shy apologies, but even those stopped with time.

Well, time and exasperated assurances from my end.

Still, even though I found her playful side both highly amusing and endearing, I wouldn't take such a brazen unprovoked attack lying down. I smirked as all of the balls that I'd had floating shot towards her, and she let out a high pitched squeal that stoked my flames as she dodged and slapped the soft projectiles aside.

Her pout returned, and what once was a simple game quickly devolved into a full blown war.

Which I'd won, of course. Anyone who said otherwise was a lying liar.

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Our blindfolds both fell off during the scuffle, and eventually I returned to retelling what happened during the mission, but she ended up stopping me before I got too far into the tale.

She blinked slowly, "Can you repeat that please?"

I paused and thought back to what I'd said prior, "Umm, Chouji had a crush on—"

"—No, no. Before that," She quickly interrupted me, and I went back even further with a sense of vague confusion.

"Oh umm… I became Chouji for a bit? I don't know how to describe it really," I paused for a moment before smirking, "If we added Shikamaru to the pile, we would've become InoShikaCho in reality."

The snicker died on my lips as my awful attempt at humour went completely ignored, "Yes, that," and she closed her eyes. Her hand went to her bracelet as she lit up in… envy. What? "You can't just… just brush past that like it's nothing Ino."

It wasn't nothing, I just didn't really know how to describe the experience. Still, I tried, "Oh, umm. Well, I remember feeling really hungry, but it was weird. I'd never felt that ravenous before, and I kinda plastered myself all over Chouji in an attempt to steal some food," as I spoke, her envy grew inexplicably, so I spoke more hurriedly in response, "Which I definitely did, I think. And then the girl walked in, and I felt like I was really into her? It was weird and jarring enough to kind of just snap me out of it," I snapped my fingers at the end to punctuate my point, which somehow seemed to make her mood even worse.

"And that was when I realized Chouji had a crush on that girl. You should meet her by the way, she's pretty cool," It seemed that today was the day that I'd put multiple feet in my mouth, as everything I said seemed to do the opposite of what I'd intended.

Needless to say, she stewed.

Before I could figure out how I'd gotten here, and how to get myself out, she said something completely unexpected, "Try it on me." Her fists bunched together which mirrored the growing tide of determination that welled within her and surged past her envy.

I stared at her in confusion for a moment, thinking I'd misheard, "Come again?"

Her deadpan stare sent an inexplicable shiver down my spine, "Try the thing with me, please."

I think I misunderstood something fundamental here.

At first I thought she was jealous of Tenten for some reason, it made some amount of sense. It was very clear that Hinata held a lot of… affection for me. But perhaps that was… short sighted of me. I gulped, and the room fell into silence for a short moment before I broke it with a simple question.

"Why?"

She stared at me without a word, the only indication that she hadn't turned into a statue was the growing tinge of red that tinted her normally pale skin. She looked away, but I had an inkling of an idea, "Wait…" It didn't really make sense to me, but I'd learned to trust in my intuition, "Are you jealous of Chouji?"

The only sound that could be heard was the rustling of leaves as she all but reeled back in shock. Eventually, she gave a slow resigned nod, filled with a concoction of unfortunate emotions.

I wasn't sure why she was jealous, but I'd respect her feelings nonetheless; Even if I thought there was nothing to feel jealous over. It was also something I'd wanted to experiment with anyway, and if it gave her peace of mind then that'd be even better.

"Are you sure?"

I really didn't need to ask as the answer was very clear to me. I could literally feel her determination as it cycled through her. She wouldn't even fathom taking no for an answer like this, so I wasn't surprised at all when she returned a stiff nod.

"Umm, okay," I didn't really know how I'd done what I did with Chouji. I was half asleep and I just kind of… slipped into it. It just kind of happened. Perhaps we were on the same page mentally? We were both hungry, after all—but something felt off about that thought.

I reached out and enveloped Hinata's mind with my incorporeal senses, and she shuddered as I felt her with a familiar clarity. At this point, picking her out of a crowd was exceedingly simple for me, as she radiated a demure softness that was almost alien within the village.

I waited, and waited, and while it was… pleasant, nothing special happened.

Maybe distance mattered?

A gentle breeze tickled the back of my neck as I shimmied closer to her across the grass, and the only thing that changed as I closed the distance was her heartbeat as it grew in intensity within her. I paused, and a particularly idiotic part of me wondered if I'd made her uncomfortable—as if I didn't know that it was the exact opposite.

I got even closer still, and while I still experienced nothing different, some part of me urged me to get closer still. Slowly, I closed even more of the distance until our very foreheads touched. Her rapid breaths tickled my jaw, and as I placed a hand on her shoulder, her squirming stopped in its tracks as she froze.

Instinctively, I raised that hand up to her soft cheek, and the other on my own temple.

My senses withdrew; Gone were the shinobi that flitted from rooftop to rooftop. Gone were the villagers as they worked and socialized. Gone was the wildlife that frolicked in the nearby woods. Gone were the vigorous trees that laid only a few paces away. The grass around us shook intensely under the weight of my presence for a mere moment before they too disappeared.

In the end, all that remained was just us. I felt it as much as I saw it when I encompassed all that she was, all that she could be, and I felt a jolt as something slotted into place.

I slipped.

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I instantly noticed that something significant had changed, the stark dichotomy between how my resting state felt was incredibly jarring. I was calm, and it was one part simmering—like a sizzling steak as it fried on a pan— and one part serene—like a lily that sat upon a lifeless tepid lake.

Both sides felt completely foreign, but natural at the same time.

What graced my eyes when I opened them were two shimmering bright green orbs. The familiar pale eyes stared at me with an unexpected intensity.

I felt my panic rise, before it immediately disappeared—as if it never existed in the first place.

I blinked. I blinked.

With a staggering amount of effort, I tore my eyes away from the ones that stared into my everything, but at the same time… I watched. I watched beyond sight with an intense focus as my own lithe body lit up with blue tinged pinpricks. My confused surprise was pushed back by my intimate understanding.

Tenketsu.

I felt an almost crippling wave of happiness and awe surge forth.

This is the Byakugan?

My own hot breath tickled my cheek as I looked on in awe at how beautiful my own Chakra flow looked. My pathways buzzed with vigorous activity as my Chakra flowed seamlessly through my body. Yet on the other hand, my pathways were still like a calm river.

"Woah," two sets of voices sounded off in wonder—the two distinct pitches made me halt in confusion, before my sight ballooned outwards. My range was far greater than typical, with a much more physical clarity to it. I watched as a pair of villagers, three districts away, played with their daughter. I felt their joy as she guessed the right answers to their questions—which were just veiled attempts at training.

I tasted the sweets she was fed as a reward. A sweet chocolate treat, with a tangy orange center.

My own wonder bubbled up to the forefront, and I luxuriated in the unexpected warmth that it brought.

It's so much.

I wasn't sure where that thought came from, but I agreed.

It's all so…

My range expanded slowly at a linear rate, and my focus jumped from target to target.

A group of old men laughed uproariously as they threw dice into a bowl. They powered through their aged lethargy with a forceful vigor that they knew would bite them in the morning.

It kept going.

At the playground across the village, a group of pre-teens played shinobi. They hid in alleyways, and ambushed each other as they passed. Their mock combat amused me greatly, and I watched their Chakra dance through their limbs with a joy so pure.

Soft fingers lingered on my cheek, and with it came a heat that abruptly pulled me back to where I sat. I shivered and squirmed as I took in the mellow scent of my own perfume. The familiar scent of strawberries filled me with a strange nostalgic giddiness. As if I'd finally met up with an old partner.

I overflowed with affection as I lost myself in my own green eyes.

I… we? I wasn't entirely clear about what was happening, but the one thing I knew with certainty was that lines were being blurred somewhere. The me that was Ino, the me that was Hinata, I wasn't sure where one ended and one began. I wasn't sure how much of me was a we.

But… it was nice.

The comforting embrace of my presence, the foreign surety in myself, the boisterous energy.

Affection bounced between my… our minds constantly, and gained strength with each reverberation. It grew and grew as it flowed in a cyclical incessant manner. I felt my thoughts speed up alongside my shallow breaths that stained my lips with a scalding heat. My eyes grew damp from the sheer awe of the experience.

I felt all these things with an extreme clarity as time itself seemed to grind to a halt.

Part of me wanted to pull out. Part of me wanted to stay forever, to deepen the connection. I hesitated with indecision, and sank under the rising tide of feelings. Those two conflicting desires grew and surged with emotion, and it was only when a distant part of me screamed danger! that I realized what was happening and pulled back with all the fight I could muster.

I felt the connection between us snap closed with a disorienting twang, and my back slammed into the soft grassy field. I groaned through rapid heavy breaths; I'd felt drained in a way that I hadn't felt in a long, long time. As if I stretched a muscle that I hadn't ever touched.

I forced myself up into a sitting position, which was an enduring struggle.

My senses were in disarray, and it was incredibly hard to focus on anything with them. I absentmindedly watched the rhythmic rising and falling of Hinata's chest as she breathed heavily, as I wondered why that experience was so… different from what had happened with Chouji.

Before, it was distinctly a one-way ordeal. He hadn't mentioned feeling anything out of place at all, and I was sure that I'd have remembered if something like that happened.

Essentially, I had become Chouji, in a way that was more like a mirror. I was more like a Chouji flavoured Ino than anything.

But this time? I felt like I became Hinata, and Hinata became me. It gave me so much perspective, to experience life through her. As her.

I watched through two sets of eyes, through two sets of senses. I felt two sets of emotions that spawned from what was distinctly me, but the contrast between how they felt was extremely obvious after the fact. For Hinata, there was a serene tint to everything she felt, and the difference between that and my own was incredibly stark.

I just didn't do calm. Not really. Not like that.

I… I saw Chakra as it flowed within the body. My body. I lacked the words to describe that experience properly, but I was definitely in awe? I wasn't sure why either, as Chakra was visible once outside the body, so why was it so special seeing it as it flowed—or in my case, rampaged— through the pathways?

Perhaps… there was something distinctly her about the way in which Chakra moved; It mirrored her personality so clearly. It felt as if I got a peek at who she really was, underneath it all.

Was that how the Hyuuga saw the world?

That… made some amount of sense. Maybe they were generally so stuffy and stuck up because they could see a glimpse at who people really were, and most people… didn't show that, ever.

I knew it better than most that people often lied with a smile on their face.

And that… that was really sad, if true.

I was broken out of my thoughts by a growing wave of… embarrassment? It had a familiar undercurrent of happiness. I looked into the pale eyes of my friend as her eyes blinked rapidly with a fluster. I didn't have to be confused for long though, as her thoughts were filled with the notion that I was staring at her… chest.

Oh.

I looked away with a groan, and she immediately burst out with a flustered, "I-it's okay," which only made my groan more pronounced as I leaned my tired body back into the grass.

Eventually, she tittered, and I couldn't help but laugh along with her.

"That was…" she said with powerful feelings of awe as she tapered off into silence.

"Yeah…"

It was a lot alright.

The silence lasted for a few moments as I just stared at the sky. I was too tired to move. Too tired to think anymore.

"Do you feel all of that… all the time?"

"Mhmm," my voice slurred with exhaustion, and I heard the distinct shuffling of clothes on grass, before a soft palm grasped my own as she laid down beside me.

Between the comforting presence glued to my side, the soft grass, and my general all encompassing exhaustion, I couldn't muster the slightest struggle to keep my eyes open.

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I woke to the smell of grass underneath a painfully bright sky, with a droning ache that suffused throughout my body. I immediately closed my eyes to shield them from the sun. I don't know how long I'd slept, but it clearly wasn't enough.

I heard a shuffling sound as grass was displaced off to my right, and a "Hey," made me wince from the volume of her voice.

"Sorry," this time, when she spoke it was with an apologetic whisper, "Your dad stopped by earlier."

I didn't have the energy or the desire to formulate words, so I responded with a simple intonation, "Hmmm?"

She briefly laid a cool hand on my forehead, before saying, "He left lunch."

"Hmm."

"Oh dear," three fingers touched my neck briefly, "Hungry?"

"Mmm."

I was left with only silence as she shuffled away. My confusion grew, and almost at the same moment where I decided to risk opening my eyes, I felt a small piece of something seek purchase against my lips.

Bread. It was bread. With foodstuffs between.

I opened the path, and accepted tribute. It was cooled, but I wasn't without options. I gathered energy from my core, and brought forth a flicker of my inner flame up through my throat, and into my mouth.

Now, while it did actually heat up my food as expected, I didn't actually think it would immediately disintegrate the food into ash; Which of course caused me to profusely cough up a cloud of what was once part of a sandwich.

Oops.

I felt the cloud of ash above my head with pristine clarity, and willed it away, scattering off into the field.

I groaned and shrugged off Hinata's potent mix of worry and confusion. My mouth hung open, intent on receiving more, and before long her worry faded into exasperation as she gingerly placed another piece into my mouth.

Gingerly, because I'm sure the air around my mouth was as hot as a furnace at the moment.

This time, I had my flame sit in my throat, and only used the ambient heat to ready the food in my mouth. The bread became toasted within seconds, and I knew I made the right call.

She poured chilled water into my mouth, and I wondered what I'd ever do without a Hinata in my life.

But all good things come to an end eventually. As if it were fated, she ran out of food.

She placed a wet towel on my forehead, before returning to her place beside me on the grass. She grasped my hand as she whispered, "I guess training today isn't happening," I gave a groan laced with exhaustion in response and she continued, "That's fine," and ended with a giggle on her tongue, "This is nice."

We laid there in silence, as my mental faculties took their sweet time returning to me.

Once they did though, it didn't take long for me to notice something odd. Hinata's thoughts, her inner voice, had been flitting by with uncharacteristic haste. The sheer alacrity reminded me of Shikamaru's, and at first I thought something was wrong, but all of my ensuing mental fussing over her did was prove to me that she was completely fine.

A bit antsy as she worried over my apparent fever, but fine.

Still, I couldn't help but worry, and I scrounged up the energy to speak, "Is something wrong?"

Her simple reply was laced with confusion, "Hmm?"

"You're thinking really really fast."

"I am?" her thoughts grinded to a halt momentarily as she processed what I'd said, before they resumed at their previous pace. She had no idea what I was talking about.

I dragged my tired hand to shield my eyes, and physically looked her up and down. Between my eyes and my senses, it was very clear that there was no problem.

I must really be out of it.

"It's nothing, I guess."

She shrugged, which dragged our interlaced fingers upwards with the motion.

Idly, I played with an ember of flame that sat in my mouth. It was weird how controlling my fire didn't take any energy out of me at all; Also, I wasn't sure if I expected it to or not, but my flames didn't really… taste like anything. They were just warm, and nice.

"Your flames are really pretty by the way," Hinata looked away as she spoke, "The way your Chakra interlaces with them is just…"

She was at a loss for words, and I found myself overcome with embarrassment as I fought off the urge to squirm in place; The worst part was that I had no idea why. I'd never reacted to complements like this before, "Err, thanks."

She vigorously pumped her other fist—the one that wasn't grasping my hand tightly— into her torso in a rare moment of pride and triumph. The sheer incredulity of the action forced a withered chuckle out of me, and then it was her turn to feel embarrassed. I wasn't supposed to see that, I gathered.

Too bad.