Chương 32: CH 32

Asuma was hitting his head on the wall, "Damn Shikamaru. I should have known he would do that shit. Why didn't I put him on sooner?"

Tsunade was hanging on the railing laughing, "Well at least he knows when he's outmatched, maybe he should be a chunin Asuma?"

Kurenai checked his name off, "Six down, four to go." Her eyes widened when she saw who was next on the list, "Oh no. I didn't think it would get this far."

XxX

"Jan-!"

"-Ken-!"

"-Pon!"

Anko pouted at the results, "You brat…"

Naruto slapped Anko's closed fist, "It's not my fault you always choose rock Anko."

Anko kissed her fist, "Ahh good old rock, nothing beats that."

Naruto sweat-dropped, "Yeah, sure… why not?" Naruto growled in frustration, "Kami! When's the next fight? I want to finish kicking everybody's ass so I can get my promotion and go home!"

Anko looked behind Naruto and turned him around, "Oh, Hinata's next I guess."

Naruto jumped backwards and set himself in his stance. Hinata shakily set herself in her Jyuuken stance and looked out at him, "N-Naruto-kun."

Naruto's eyes hardened, "Talk later, fight now. Come on Hinata, bring it on."

Naruto's eyes bored into hers. Analyzing everything he could find, stripping her bare, 'This isn't Naruto-kun. His eyes have never been so cold before. There's none of the warmth there was before, just strength, strength that I can't match!'

Anko noticed the fidgeting of the girl, 'This girl is going to get destroyed if she doesn't shape up. This gaki will be ruthless once the fight starts.' She lifted her hand, "Seventh match, Naruto Uzumaki vs. Hinata Hyuuga! Hajime!"

Naruto wasted no time and dashed in to deliver a hook to Hinata's body and a side-kick to her head, sending her to the ground quickly. Hinata laid on the ground with her eyes welling with tears, 'Naruto-kun. Could you really hurt me like this? What happened to you?'

"Get up."

Her eyes turned onto the boy in question who was patiently standing and waiting for her to get up to continue, "There is no way that that was enough to put you down so get up and fight me. Don't lay down and quit, I can accept that from Shikamaru but not you, I thought you had more in you than that."

He began pacing as she remained on the ground, "I remember watching you fight Neji, and I remember how you fought him. Yes, he was more skilled than you, but you showed fire, you showed that you have drive, and you showed that you have the courage to fight." He stopped and looked at her, "Not now I have to say."

She locked eyes with him again and tried to find the Naruto she had come to love during the days in the academy and again found nothing, none of the upbeat, positive, bright Naruto she had known back then. This one was serious, professional, with the eyes of someone who knew just what kind of world he was living in, the scar simply added on to that. She began to stir from the ground and looked at him defiantly, "You're not Naruto-kun…"

Naruto jerked an eyebrow, "Excuse me?"

Hinata's eyes sharpened as she raised her voice, "You're not Naruto-kun! Naruto-kun never acted like this, never spoke down to people, he would never use techniques like he used on Kiba-kun. Who are you?"

Naruto's eyes narrowed at her insinuation, "Oh I get it. I don't have my head in the clouds and can see things around me for what they are so I'm not Naruto. I can find people's flaws and will actually comment on them openly so I'm not Naruto. I'm actually skilled enough to use more techniques than Kage Bunshin and they don't put me in direct danger so I'm not Naruto."

Naruto saw her falter with every word he made, "I know why you're so upset about it."

Her eyes widened, 'D-Does he really know? How did he find out?'

Naruto nodded to himself, "You probably saw me as I was in the academy and liked my never say die attitude, how I always got back up and shrugged off what everyone did and said to me. You figured, 'There's no way anyone can take all of that and still smile and keep on trying.' So you thought I was strong." Naruto saw her react as if solidifying his thoughts, "Well that statement would be accurate. No one can keep on going through all of that and keep smiling, unless you're brain-dead or something."

Her reaction was priceless, he jaw dropped before she began speaking rapidly trying to rescind the previous thought. Naruto raised a hand for her to stop, "This is me. I'm still strong like I was back then, I'm just not willing to take bullshit like I was back then. Taking people's shit and coming back for more with a grin doesn't make you strong, it makes you stupid and weak. The reason people like you and people like me tend to want to get strong is to prove others wrong to spite them, or to get strong enough that no one ever tries to fuck with you again."

Naruto pointed at her, "That's what you want. You want strength for the second reason. You do, even if it's subtle. You never want anyone to treat you the way Neji treated you during the preliminaries again, which by the way you act and the way you almost took it laying down must happen regularly. You want to be left to do things your own way, for those in stations above you to just let you be to live your life, but you quit. You saw me taking all my lumps in the academy and getting back up and you didn't want to put the work in anymore, you wanted to settle for the 'strength' to just deal with what life handed you, you didn't know that it's impossible for a human being to take that the way I did, and I became an ideal to you, an unreachable paragon."

Hinata looked up with tear-filled eyes, "No that's not true! It isn't… I looked up to you as someone to be like, someone to strive after-."

Naruto rolled his eyes, "Like a paragon."

Hinata shook her head, "No, not like that. It's because I-I…. admire you."

Naruto caught on and spoke lowly, "You don't admire me Hinata. You admire the idea of me, or the old me I should say. If you had me then you thought that it wouldn't matter if you could never get the desire you had of just being able to deal, that if you had me that I could lend you enough of my own to get you by. Don't do that. I'm not your golden ticket, I'm not the answer to your problems, I'm just a guy with a sword and a whole can of whoop-ass."

He spoke up now, "If you want me to teach you how to fight, or how to get stronger, I can't do that, and I can't take your problems away from you. Do you know why?"

Hinata shook her head, tears were just about to fall. Naruto smiled sadly, "Because you can't respect someone that kisses your ass. Hinata, you didn't even try to fight my reasoning for why you thought you saw something in me, you were too afraid to go against me. What if that manifests again in something else later on and I'm not there for you to get a boost from? If you won't defend yourself to me, the person you admire, then how can you defend yourself against others when I'm not even there?"

Naruto sighed and ran his fingers through his spiky hair, "Enough of this. This really isn't the time or the place for this kind of thing. This is the time for a fight, now come, give me your best."

Hinata let tears fall from her eyes. Naruto had yet to slip into his uncaring phase before he saw them hit the ground, "Hinata!"

Her eyes floated up to him once more, "Prove me wrong then. Show me I'm full of shit. Take an actual step towards changing yourself and fight me damn it! Don't just go with the flow, your life won't let you do that! The things you need and want to accomplish in this world won't just come to you, no one's going to hand you the answers. Everything you want… it's there! So take it!" Despite the harshness of his words she looked into his eyes and saw something, concern, something that she had overlooked earlier.

The fox in Naruto's head chuckled, "Nice monologue ningen, you should write movie scripts."

Naruto inwardly sneered, 'Fuck you Kyuubi that was serious. She needs to get it together, life is way harder than this.'

Hinata looked shocked for a moment before she wiped her eyes and fell into her stance, activating her Byakugan to begin. Naruto motioned for her to come and she ran in quickly and began to furiously engage him with Jyuuken strikes, 'He's right. I need to show that I'm willing to change for good, not just when the situation calls for it. I'll show you Naruto-kun!'

Despite the potential damage the strikes could deal with just a touch, Naruto was still faster. He was blocking the strikes with the palms of his hands rather than letting her close off his teneketsu otherwise.

Eventually Naruto tired of blocking strikes and shot an axe-kick to her hand in the middle of a strike. The kick ended up breaking her hand. She drew it back and tried a second attack with her other hand, this time Naruto latched on and elbowed her in the wrist, breaking it.

Naruto jumped back as she cried out in pain. He simply stared her down, 'Okay… What are you going to do now? Will you walk away?'

Hinata hissed in pain of her now useless hands but soon set a defiant gaze on Naruto and charged back in to lash out with kicks. Naruto was pleasantly surprised with her last ditch attacks and marveled at the fact that she was flexible enough to launch certain kicks that he knew shouldn't have been possible for the angles he was moving to.

Naruto nodded to himself and slapped one of her kicks down to the ground and ducked down before delivering a rising palm-strike under her chin, sending her flying and slipping her into unconsciousness, 'That's better, now let's see if you can keep that spirit this time around.'

As her body hit the ground Naruto sighed and walked towards Anko who simply nodded, "Shousa, Naruto Uzumaki!"

Naruto retook his position by Anko who was frowning at him, "Nai-chan is going to kill you when this is all over you know that right? She loves that little girl like a daughter."

Naruto looked up at Kurenai who was glaring heavily at him, he could have sworn she was trying to cast a genjutsu on him via eye-contact but he shook it off, "Well then I should never have had to do that. She should have gotten her on track way before she fought me here. Except for Tenten all of these girls need a reality check if my ass-kickings didn't already do it."

Naruto looked up to the box, "All of you guys suck! I hope the last three can show something here, I haven't even taken a punch yet! I guess I'm not the only genin that got shafted by their sensei here huh!"

Anko looked Naruto over, "Getting tired yet gaki?"

Naruto shook his head, "Nope, just getting warmed up Anko-san."

Anko grinned at him, "None of that –san stuff gaki, it's Anko-chan to you. You're one interesting kid."

Naruto kept himself limber waiting for his next fight, "Whatever you say Anko-san."