Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Ghostly Eyes ❯ Escape! ( Chapter 8 )

      At daybreak, the Konoha ninja saw Hinata again. Kurenai watched as her student, wearing Nimmor garb and surrounded by what could only be called an honor guard, walked to them. Kiba noticed immediately that Akamaru was in Hinata’s arms. The pup was whimpering sadly behind leather muzzle tied around his mouth. Shino kept quiet, his eyes never leaving Hinata. Naruto, who was tied behind Kurenai with his back to everything, kept trying to see around the log he was tied to, asking what was going on every few seconds.

     ““Hinata!” ; Kiba shouted, “You better have one damn good reason for muzzling Akamaru!!”

     Hinata ignored Kiba, who began shouting various expletives, and turned to Kurenai.

     “Our honored leader, the Ki’ge, has decided your fate. I have been instructed to inform you of it.”

     Fearing their sentence could easily be immediate execution, Kurenai decided that it was time to make a move. She and the Genin boys had already planned their actions out to coincide for the inevitable moment when Hinata, for one reason or another, would come to confront them. She had to, she was probably the only one among the Nimmori who spoke their language.

     Kurenai used her hand, tied behind the log and out of sight, to touch Kiba’s hands gently. Kiba quieted for a moment while he ran his fingers through Kurenai’s palm, acknowledging the signal to begin. Kurenai thought he heard Kiba mutter a quiet apology to Hinata.

     “Hey!! Hinata!! I asked you! Why is Akamaru muzzled?!”

     This time Hinata turned to the boy.

     “He was noisy, so I had him quieted. Do I need to muzzle you as well?”

     “What did you say?! You wouldn’t be so tough if I weren’t tied up!”

     Hinata just smirked.

     “I won’t fall for such a simple trick.” she told him, obviously believing he was trying to trick her into releasing him.

     “You won’t face me like a ninja! Like a Hyuga!”

     Kurenai saw Hinata tense at the mention of the name Hyuga. She recovered by resuming her message from where she left off.

     “In two days’ time, your are to be purifi-”

     “Coward!” Kiba yelled, “Weakling! You wouldn’t dare face me in an even fight, would you!”

     “Quiet!” Hinata snapped. Kurenai couldn’t help but find it just a little creepy to hear Hinata speaking that way.

     “I picked up little of the language sitting here all night! The girl of the ghostly eyes! That’s what your fake name means, right?”

     “It is not fake!!”

     “Oh, because I thought your name was Hyuga-”

     “SHUT UP!” Hinata screamed suddenly. Just as suddenly, her balance became unsteady. She let go of Akamaru as she began clutching her head, as if struck by some invisible object. The Nimmori honor guard, as well as bystanders, surrounded the girl to see to her. The dog ran towards Kiba.

     “Now!” Kurenai said, just loud enough so that the Genin would hear her. Kurenai brought forth her hands, loosened from their bonds by several hours of work during the night. She formed a sign in front of her, causing a smokescreen to suddenly blast out from nowhere. Shino loosed his bonds and quickly helped free Kiba and Naruto, who hadn’t been so fortunate with their own ropes.

     In the seconds needed to free the two Genin, the Nimmori’s surprise had faded. Some began weaving signs Kurenai knew would result in her smoke being cleared. She touched Naruto on the shoulder, who immediately placed his hands together.

     “Kage-Bunshin-no- Jutsu!!” Four Narutos appeared in the smoke.

     “Henge!” Naruto cried, making three of the Narutos transform into replicas of Kurenai, Shino, & Kiba. The Bunshin charged from the smoke and into battle. Meanwhile, the real Shinobi made their escape in the opposite direction.

     The doubles were cut down quickly by the Nimmori, disappearing in puffs of smoke. But the distraction gave the Leaf Shinobi time to retreat. They made their escape by leaping from the various tree branches to the village entrance they had been brought in from. Most Nimmori they crossed were surprised enough by their sudden appearance and disappearance that none thought to grab a weapon or raise an alarm until the ninja were safely distant from them.

     “Kurenai-sensei!” Naruto asked as they passed the outskirts of the hidden village, “What exactly happened?!”

     “Kiba.” ; Kurenai said, indicating he should explain.

     “I’ll put it in tiny words for you.” Kiba said with a grin, one Naruto didn’t return, “When me, Hinata, and Shino first got teamed up, you can figure I had a hard time.”

     “Yeah!” Naruto said, now grinning, “You’re an even bigger loudmouth than me and you got stuck with two of the quietest people in the village!!”

     “Exactly.R 21; Kiba said, letting the loudmouth remark slide, “It drove me nuts. Shino wouldn’t say a word, and Hinata was so shy she couldn’t! I figured out right away Shino was a lost cause, so I started bugging Hinata all the time, trying to get her to open up a bit. To at least say something to me!”

     “How’d that go?” Naruto asked as he jumped from a branch.

     “He failed.” Shino answered, “If anything, he only scared Hinata.”

     “Finally,” ; Kiba said, resuming his place, “I walked up to Hinata and told her flat out…”

     “I’ll make you speak to me! Even if it means the only words you ever say are ‘Shut up, Kiba!’”

     Kashghyu N’Ga held her head as those words echoed in her mind. The moment she had told the dog’s master to “shut up” those words, his words, had burst from her lost memory. Everything else was drowned out by the Kiba boy’s words.

     Da Iri‘ga, a member of Kashghyu’s honor guard, held his foster-daughter tight. Her feet had become unsteady with the reemergence of memories. He kept her from falling to the ground.

     After a few moments, the voice subsided and Kashghyu was able to look around. She saw the empty logs and broken bonds and immediately recognized what happened.

     “They escaped…” she said, stating the obvious, “I’m sorry…”

     “Do not be.” Da Iri‘ga told her.

     “They escaped because of me! Because I’m not strong enough to put the past behind me!”

     “To do that is difficult for anybody. For you even more so, because the sources of your memories were here before you.”

     Indeed, fearing such an occurrence, Da Iri‘ga had asked that someone else be the one to tell the Shinobi of their purification. Unfortunately, nobody could do it. Even those who were themselves purified in the past had long forgotten their own language. Kashghyu was the only person who had any knowledge of it. Meaning she was the only one to tell them what was going to happen.

     “Others will take up the hunt.” Da Iri‘ga told her, “For now, put what happened from your mind. Prepare yourself for the coming rituals. Strengthen yourself, body and soul, so that you may do the Nimmori proud.”

     “I will, Father…” she responded, her voice lacking the confidence of Kashghyu N’ga and sounding more like Hyuga Hinata.

     In the dense wood outside of the Nimmori village, Kurenai leapt from tree to tree. The Genin followed behind her, bewildered. Kurenai seemed to be searching for something. Naruto even asked Kiba if she was lost.

     “Doubt it.” Kiba answered, “She’s got a good enough sense of direction to know we aren’t near the crack in the mountain we got in her from.”

     “That would be a dangerous place to go.” Shino said, “The Nimmori will likely swarm there to cut us off. Besides that, she’s also been looking at the ground, she’s searching for something.”

     “What?” ; Naruto asked.

     “Right below us.” Kurenai said, surprising her students, “I was looking for them.”

     She pointed to the ground beneath them. There the Genin saw a group of people camped out. About four in all. Three men, one woman. They were all looking right at the ninja. The ninja saw the four individuals, all with milky white eyes and Hitai-Ate bearing the Leaf sign on their foreheads, and immediately recognized who they were.

     “Are they…” Naruto asked.

     “Hyuga?!” Kiba finished.

     “Yes. They’re our backup.” Kurenai answered.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: If this chapter isn't as good as some of the past ones, I apologize. I wanted to continue the story, but I hit something of a writer's block. Fortunately, some of the stuff I'm most eager to write is coming up soon, and that comes fairly easy for me. But I needed to actually get to that point. So, even if it is a bit lackluster, I needed a chapter (possibly two) to act as a go-between from one point to the next.