40 Friends

"Narutooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!! W-what was thaaaat?!" As soon as everything was clear Hinata jumped up and rushed towards Dix screaming. "That was nature energy transformation, wasn't it? Even jonins can only use two or three natural elements at once, h-how?!"

"Hahaha, don't get too excited now, I am not really good at any of them, but I still wanted to learn how to use every element. Don't laugh at me, but this is the best I can do, and even this is only flashy, without any power behind it..." he said with his voice trailing off at the end. Hinata just gasped hearing his bullshit. Even her timid stuttering resurfaced.

"W-what...? T-this is amazing! How could I laugh at... at this? I knew y-you were strong, but never imagined the gap is so... so wide..." she said, trailing off at the end the same way Dix did.

"Aaah, don't worry, as I said, with perseverance and dedication you can overcome anything. Also, don't take me as a comparison, but the you of yesterday. If you are better than before, then you should be satisfied." he said, seeing the complicated emotions on Hinata's face after what she said.

At this both of them cracked a smile and giggle a bit together. They chatted some, Hinata asked what other stuff he can do, but he evaded the question. Soon Hinata was supposed to get home, so they somehow had to get off Minato's head. Getting up was a bit easier than safely jumping down the side of the mountain. Hinata managed on her own for a while, but at one point Dix had to grab her mid-air so she doesn't fall and break her bones.

Dix caught her and carried her the rest of the way in a princess-carry pose. When they reached the surface he put her on her feet right away without thinking of the atmosphere, while Hinata was blushing so hard she barely managed to stand because of all the blood in her head. She had to grab onto Dix's shoulder so she doesn't fall, at which he grabbed her once again and help her stay standing.

"Are you alright?" he asked. First he thought she got injured somehow at the fall, even though he moved quite fast. Then he looked at her face and understood she was probably on the verge of fainting.

"Y-yes, t-thank you..." she said and quickly took a step back and started shyly scratching her right arm with her left hand. Seeing this Dix just giggled a bit and offered to see her home. Obviously she took the offer.

They chatted on their way, mostly talking about training and techniques.

"H-hey Naruto, what if we tried actual mock combat? I'm pretty sure I can't hurt you even with my Byakugan, and I need combat experience to grow... Would you help me?" she asked with sparkling and anticipating eyes when they were about to take a turn and arrive into the street where the Hyuga house was. They trained a lot together before, but Dix mostly helped her with chakra related stuff and the most basic hand-to-hand tricks he knew. Hinata was supposed to be strong at Hyuga-techniques together with his Byakugan for her clan to acknowledge her. That isn't something Dix can teach her. But a mock combat?

"Well... Okay, we can talk about it. I'm pretty sure I will prove to be a good punching bag, haha!" hearing this she pouted, which looked really cute and Dix liked, so he sometimes lightly tease her just to see it.

"That's not what I meant! I need an actual fight! Stop joking, this is serious!" she said, while pouting some more and turning away.

"Haha, okay, okay, you can count on me. The next time we train together we can fight for real if that's what you need." at this she giggled a bit, then start moving as she slightly tilted back and waved at Dix.

"Okay, that's a promise! Good night for now. Bye!"

"Good night..." Dix repeated with a slight sigh at the end and returned her wave, then turned away to go home himself.

The next morning was actually on a weekend, so he didn't have to go to school, as either a clone or himself. He remembered it was the day he was supposed to pick up the latest batch of custom-made kunais he ordered. Realizing this, after a breakfast, he moved towards the blacksmith right away.

This batch, which is actually the last of the four, were great pieces of work once again. The first batch wasn't too great, but after a few suggestions of modification the second order turned out to be really good and quite similar to what he remembered. He needed a lot of these to use in combat without problem. They were quite compact so he was able to store a lot of them at once. He took them home.

With that sorted out he decided to check on the 'gang'. Shikamaru, Kiba and the others usually hung around on either the mountain lazing around or out of the village in the woods training shuriken throwing or something similar. He picked up the pace and quickly checked around to see where they were.

At the end he found them at the 'running challenge'. There was a long beaten path where the kids would compete with each other to see who can reach the end goal, a huge lone tree in the middle of a hill, the fastest. Obviously Dix was the one to hold the first place, but with not a big margin, so others can catch up to him later. Just like this time.

As he approached the group of 6-7 kids Kiba came at him right away shouting.

"Ahahaha, Naruto! I beat your record! You lose! Hahaha!" he laughed with Akamaru, his nin-dog heavily wobbling on his head. Dix looked surprised when he heard the news, then with a smug face he replied:

"Oh, did you now? Well, I believe I just have to break your record now." Everyone around turned silent and watched Kiba's reaction. He was extremely competitive, so a challenge like this will make him excited for sure.

"Hehe, keep your boasting to yourself. Perform first. I beat your record by 12 seconds. I want to see how you can get over that!" he said with a smug face. Akamaru let out a small yelp in agreement.

Without replying Dix just stood next to the tree indicating the start. One of the kids stood next to him with a mechanical clock-like machine in his hands. He shouted 'go' and started the timer at the same time. Dix rushed away, calculating in his head the speed at which he has to go to beat the new record, but not by too much. In the end he only beat it by 5 seconds, but he was satisfied with the result.

He jogged back to the others and found Kiba on all fours banging the ground.

"God damn it! Why are you always in front of me by a step?!"

Dix just looked at him with a smug face and thought to himself:

*Just wait until I learn the Flying Thunder God Technique, hahaha! Haha... hahaha....*

This made him think of other things too, mostly unpleasant ones. His anxiety and doubts resurfaced once again, but with a shake of his head he was mostly able to suppress these dark emotions.

Shikamaru just turned away like he was about to leave. "What a drag..." he said and moved out with Choji in tow probably to laze around somewhere else. Dix moved after them.

"Where are you guys going?" he asked. Shikamaru slightly turned back while scratching his neck.

"I would absolutely love to run around with you guys all day, I can't think of anything more fun, but the thing is, my old man said he will teach me a jutsu after noon, who knows where he stands with that now... What a drag..." he said with a sigh and continued on.

"Oh, okay, see ya!"

After that he played around a bit more with the kids, and even watched as Kiba can't handle his boiling blood at the thought of losing, and he tried the track again, which didn't get him any results. With the failure weighting on his shoulders he said his farewells to go back to training.

With that, considering it was getting dark, Dix also left the group and went back to his home. There he checked out some of his books he bought sometime and didn't get the chance to read yet. He took his sweat time to read about some difficult ninjutsus and theoretical concepts without summoning any clones to speed up the process. He himself understood he needed some break, so now, even though he was learning, he still considered this kind of a break. The decision was made to continue the training the next day. Only this time he would use the normal schedule instead of the hell regimen he subjected himself to.

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