Chapter 43: Inner Demon

Naruto sat at the base of a stump at training ground 13, his legs crossed along with his arms. He looked up at the broken shuriken lodged in the stump a few inches above his hair then his eyes slowly gazed at the pieces of kunai, shuriken and rocks spread across the field before his eyes landed onto his panting girlfriend sitting in the grass.

"You wanna take a break?" He asked.

"No." She replied breathlessly. "One more time."

"You sure?" He asked. "We've been at it for hours. Even longer than yesterday."

"Are you tired?" She mocked him with a smile.

He chuckled. "I've been sitting here watching my clones do all the work so you know I'm not. But you are."

"I'm fine." She said trying to get up without Naruto seeing her shaking knees. "One more time."

Naruto watched her struggle to take her stance while she simultaneously desperately tried to hide her exhaustion from him. He sighed. "Alright. Just one last time for today, that's it. Then we need to go get you some food."

"Ok."She nodded and activated her byakugan while Naruto produced a dozen clones which spread out about the field.

He crossed his arms again and passively said. "Go."

At his sign, the clones roared. "Shurikenjutsu: Replication!"

A swarm of shuriken covered the air as Hinata waved her arms at remarkable speed and made a sharp spherical barrier around her which deflected the shuriken away from her, breaking most of them in the process. Naruto watched her carefully and caught her right hand losing speed. His eyes widened before he quickly stood up and ran towards her as he pulled a kunai out from his pouch. He reached her just as her hand completely lost strength and the barrier broke. He blocked the remaining shuriken with his kunai from hitting her and the noise of the shuriken swiping through the air was replaced with the popping sound of clones dispersing.

Hinata fell on her knees breathing loudly and holding her shaking right hand. She hissed in pain trying to hold in the moan that almost slipped out of her vocal cords.

"Ok, that's enough." Naruto sat next to her and gently grabbed her right hand. "Are you ok?" He massaged her hand and watched as the painful expression on her face softened.

"I was… so close." She swallowed heavily.

"Hey, you were awesome! You are making some good progress!"

"But my stamina is still so…"

"It's getting better and better! Don't tell me you're trying to keep up with me? You know that I'm abnormally energetic, right?"

"Yes, I know but… I can't always rely on you to protect me. I need to be able to protect you too."

"You are so strong, Hinata! If I was in danger you'd totally-"

"No." She interrupted him. "I know you think that I'm strong and that I can do anything and you have helped me realize that but… I'm not strong enough to fight someone that not even you could defeat."

"This is about that dream from a few days ago, isn't it?"

"Don't you see? It's telling me I'm worthless! You died right in front of me."

"It was just a dream, Hinata!"

"But dreams tell you something sometimes."

"Sometimes." Naruto emphasized. "The only thing that this one told you is that I crap myself when I see a ghost."

She tried to hold in a laugh. "That's not…"

"Listen, you think that Sasuke is really strong too, right?"

She nodded a bit confused.

"And he couldn't defeat that thing either. None of us could. So it's not telling you that you are weak, we are all equally weak when we face our inner demons. I think that is what that dream was telling you."

She stared at him as he spoke and massaged her palm at the same time.

"My inner demon is… well, my actual inner demon. Sasuke's is that he keeps telling himself that he must be strong enough to defeat anyone and anything, but yours… is that you always think of others and what they would think about you, especially me."

She blushed and looked away but he tapped her hand making her face him again.

"I love you, you know that. To me you are the strongest, smartest, most beautiful girl I know. You know that I think all the best about you. So you need to stop worrying about my and everyone else's opinion and start focusing on what you think about yourself."

She listened to his gentle words and felt them float directly into her heart. He was right.

"You are your own inner demon, Hinata. And unlike me, you can get rid of yours."

She smiled at him."You are right. Thank you, Naruto. And I love you too."

He smiled and kissed her hand before slowly pulling her up on her feet. "Shall we go eat now?"

Just as her mouth opened to say something her stomach growled loudly and she shut her mouth and blushed in embarrassment.

Naruto chuckled and squeezed her hand. "I'll take that as a hell yes!"

"Enough, Shikamaru." Asuma said through a groan. Shikamaru obliged and let go of his Shadow Possession Jutsu which his sensei had been struggling to get out of.

"Very good." Asuma complemented. "Your jutsu is getting stronger and harder to release."

"Hn, well you did almost have me there." Shikamaru smiled.

"But I didn't." Asuma added.

"Can we work on my Partial Expansion Jutsu now?" Choji asked eagerly.

"Well, well, aren't we all motivated today?" Asuma grinned.

"After that mission… all of us being trapped and not being able to save ourselves, let alone the others… I don't want that to happen ever again." Choji explained.

Asuma nodded. "You are all still young, there is time for progress and you are already making it."

"If we were too young for that mission you wouldn't have given it to us in the first place. "Shikamaru added. "Besides, you were trapped too."

Asuma sighed and wiped the bead of embarrassment sweat off his cheek. "I guess we'll have to work on escape jutsus the next time we meet."

"Will Ino be there?" Choji asked about his currently absent teammate.

"Yes." Asuma replied. "For now she and Sakura are working on healing jutsus under Lady Hokage."

Meanwhile, back in the Hokage's office the mentioned woman sneezed.

"See?!" People here might be sick too!" The small boy who has been in Tsunade's office for a while yelled once again.

Tsunade sneered at him discretely. "He doesn't trust ninja, he's mad we don't have water parks and expensive hotels in the Village even though he has been here less than a day, he wants his face on the monument and he ate my last dango! If this brat wasn't the son of the Lord of the Land of Pearls I would have clobbered him by now!"

Shizune tapped on the shoulder of her fuming mistress. "What do we do now? He's complained about almost everything, how are we supposed to escort him back to the Land of Pearls when he doesn't except any of your means of transportation?"

"Who do we have on call for babysitting missions? The guy that is annoyed by every kid but somehow ends up charming them at the end?" Tsunade asked.

"You want Naruto for this one?" Shizune asked.

"I want all three of them. Hinata, Sasuke and Naruto. Sasuke wil ignore him, Hinata is the polite one, and Naruto will find a way to shut this kid up like he always does."

"Now we just have to convince little Asari here to go with them." Shizune added.

"I'm not going anywhere until my mom and dad come to get me!" Asari yelled.

"That's why they had to leave, they had an emergency so they won't come back anytime soon." Tsunade replied annoyed.

"But I don't want to stay here any longer, it's boring!" The boy in the little green suit and slicked back hair complained.

Tsunade sighed. "Summon squad 7… NOW."

"Are you done already?" Naruto asked looking up from his half full ramen bowl and looking at Hinata's empty one.

Hinata lowered her head so that her bangs would cover her red face.

Teuchi chuckled. "Someone sure is hungry."

Hinata twiddled with her fingers in embarrassment as Naruto chugged the last bit of broth from his bowl. He then looked at her and smiled. "You want another bowl?"

She shrinked in her seat even more and nodded shyly. He laughed. "Hey, old man, two more bowls!"

"You got it!" Teuchi replied.

Naruto gently reached for Hinata's hand and squeezed it. "Why are you embarrassed of having an appetite? Who are you trying to be skinny for?" He teased.

"Am… I too skinny?" She whispered.

"What? No." He lowered himself to whisper back to her. "Eat as much as you want, whenever you want. You're a ninja, you need to eat when you can, you never know when a mission is gonna pop up and you can't fight on an empty stomach. I don't care if you're skinny or not, I just want you to like yourself, alright?"

She looked up at him and smiled. "Thank you, Naruto."

Right then, they heard a new voice join the conversation.

"Hey." Sasuke said lifting the flap at the entrance. "The Hokage summoned us for a mission."

Naruto looked at him before turning back to Hinata. "See? What did I tell ya? Hey, Teuchi! Where's our ramen?"

"It's coming right up!"

Naruto grinned at her again. "If there was ever a time to eat faster than me, it's now!"

"I don't want to go anywhere! I want my mom and dad!"

Naruto's hand flinched away from the door to the Hokage's office after he heard that scream. "The one time I remembered to knock…"

He sighed and walked straight in. "What's all the hollering about?"

Tsunade stood up in surprise and looked at him in annoyance.

"He was about to knock!" Hinata chimed in.

Tsunade's face softened at that and she sat back down.

Asari turned around and glared at the newcomers. "Who the hell are you? Why are you here?"

Naruto looked at him then looked back at Tsunade. "Don't tell me…"

"Why are you wearing orange? You look stupid!" The boy yelled.

"Your hair is orange, so you look stupid too." Naruto fired back.

The boy's face turned red and his eyes began to water. His lips quivered before he yelled even louder.

"I DON'T LOOK STUPID!"

"Well, then neither do I!" Naruto yelled back.

"Enough!" Tsunade yelled fuming and the bickering stopped. "Naruto, this is a VIP client so you have to treat him with respect!"

Naruto blinked wordlessly before he cocked his head at her. "Have you not met me?"

A vein popped out of Tsunade's forehead.

"And yet you're gonna give me another babysitting mission?"

Tsunade took a deep breath before grabbing a scroll from the table and throwing in to Sasuke who swiftly caught it. "Get little Asari here back to his home at the Land of Pearls by the Kaigara mountain by the end of the day."

"Why do they have to do it? They are kids!" Asari complained once again.

"They are perfectly qualified for this, they've done it dozens of times before." Tsunade replied.

Behind them the three genin were reading the scroll Tsunade threw to Sasuke.

"So he's from a super rich family?" Naruto asked quietly.

"Yeah." Sasuke replied. "He and his parents were visiting the village when they got notified that there were a few mysterious deaths at their pearl growing factory."

"Pearl growing?" Naruto asked confused. "Don't pearls come from shells?"

"Yes, they grow prom specs of sand that get inside the shell." Hinata explained.

"Ohh! So they grow the pearls with sand?"

Hinata nodded.

"They left Asari here because they feared for his health and they were supposed to come back for him but his father got sick too." Sasuke added.

"It looks like he doesn't know about it." Hinata deduced.

"Yeah, and when we get him back we are supposed to help them solve the deaths as a part of our mission." Sasuke continued.

"Hey, what are you reading there? Let me see!" Asari almost snatched the scroll from Sasuke's hand but he lifted it above the boy's reach.

"This is for us to read." Sasuke said. "We have to get going now."

"But I don't want to!" The boy pouted.

"Why?" Naruto asked.

"Huh?"

"You've complained about everything in this place, so why don't you want to leave then?"

The boy frowned. "Alright then, I want to go home to mom and dad!" The boy marched to the door.

Naruto smiled at Tsunade. "Well, that was easy."

She looked at him for a few seconds before slamming her head on her table.

"You ok there, grandma?"

"Just leave already, for Heaven's sake!"