Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

encounter	By : karikara Category: Naruto > Het - Male/Female Views: 1099 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
Hinata was awoken early, by the light of the sun splitting the horizon. She was cold, and her body stiff. Around her the air smelled of cinders from the fire. She was surprised by the ease with which she�d fallen asleep. When he stopped speaking, it was as if Sabaku-san wasn�t even there. She sat up with a jolt. Where is he?

Hinata peered around her, now alert. All of her things were as they had been the night before, but her tent had been disassembled, and the canvas folded neatly. Had Gaara done that? He must have, she thought.
She found her canteen and took a swig from it, reminding herself that she should fill the large canteen today. Hinata looked up at the horizon and saw a figure outlined against the rising sun. She squinted to make out its features, it seemed to be walking towards her. As it came closer she could clearly see Gaara�s gourd protruding from his silhouette.
Hinata took this opportunity to slip off her shirt and quickly bind her chest again before he was close enough to see what she was doing.
After she was finished Hinata looked back at her tent, where it lay folded neatly. Gaara of the desert�who knew? Perhaps he felt guilty after burying it yesterday. She put her shirt back on, rolled up her bedding, and set about packing her tent.
She paused in her work when Gaara�s shadow covered her. Hinata turned around. His arms were crossed over his chest again, and the petulant look he wore the day before had returned.
�You�re leaving?� he asked.
�I guess so,� she said as she bent down to retrieve something from her bag.
Gaara watched as she began smearing a brownish ointment over the reddened skin on her arms. He stopped her right before she began applying it to her face.
�What are you doing?�
�Oh, this? It�s the sun. My skin is too pale, I burn up and it hurts really bad. This is supposed to help.�
Hinata went to apply the ointment to her nose.
�Stop,� Gaara said.
Hinata looked at him quizzically, Gaara looked back at her, equally alarmed.
�Why?� she asked, confused.
�There�s a better way. Come, I�ll show you,� he said, and began marching out across the sand.
Intrigued, Hinata smeared the dab of ointment onto her arm before running after him.
They stopped about hundred feet away from the rocks. Hinata shivered in the wind, the morning was still cold.
�I�m going to show you some basic hand seals, and then tell you the incantation. This is a basic sand-armor jutsu. It will keep your skin from burning.�
At first Hinata couldn�t respond, was he really going to teach her this? The techniques of each village were jealously protected. The Sand was no different in this respect.
�Will you be�in trouble, if you teach me this?� Hinata asked.
He smirked at her, and replied.
�Who�s going to punish me? It�s very basic anyway,� he said. �Watch closely, then do what I do.�
She watched as he made two hand signs that she recognized, boar and ram, and then another, that resembled dragon, but it was slightly different. If it had been a word, it would have been written in a foreign script. Hinata thought that she had it, but Gaara interrupted her.
�No,� he said.
Without thinking he grabbed her hands, and molded them firmly into the proper form. He realized what he had done, and quickly stole them away again. He glanced up at her face, she hadn�t flinched away from him.
Was this what it was like, for normal people? Gaara wondered. He was thankful at that moment that she had not grown up in his village.
Hinata could feel the heat rise in her cheeks, and prayed that he didn�t notice her blushing like some idiot academy girl. She noticed that her palms had become uncomfortably damp.
�Oh, I think I see now,� she said. �It�s like this�� she repeated the three seals for him, perfectly this time.
�Yes,� he replied, �Now the words, focus your energy on the forms, and repeat, sado mamori.�
�Sado mamori.�
Hinata gasped as a fine spray of dust fanned out from her feet and began to swirl around her legs. It collapsed against her skin, and began creeping upwards, seeking out her body beneath the hem of her loose pants. It was�the strangest feeling she had ever experienced. Gaara noticed that her concentration was lagging.
�Don�t break the sign yet,� he instructed.
Eventually the sand reached her neck, and she wondered if she would scream. Would it fill her eyes and blind her? But she held firm, and felt the sand as it crept into her ears, and fingered it�s way through her hair.
�You can stop now,� Gaara said.
�Wow�that was the strangest thing I think I�ve ever felt,� she said. �Thank you, though, Sabaku-san.�
Gaara wondered what it was like to live without sand. The armor had always been with him. He hadn�t even needed to learn the jutsu. It was the other children who had to learn such things to protect themselves. He learned the signs by watching them practice so many times.
Hinata bent her arm experimentally, and touched her skin. It felt as if it were covered by a fine powder, and nothing more.
�How do you get it off?� she asked.
�Generally, you don�t,� he replied.
�Oh,� she said, a little unnerved to think that this might be a permanent thing.
�That doesn�t mean that you can�t get it off,� he continued, amused by her look of distress. �Concentrate and release it, that�s all it takes, or so I understand.�
�Now,� Gaara said, folding his arms again. �It�s your turn to show me something, Hyuuga-san.�
Hinata stiffened at his words, had this become some sort of game of quid pro quoi? He had shared with her a secret from his village. Had he kept her alive only to extract information from her now?
�What�s that?� she asked, her arms at her sides, hardening herself for whatever would come next.
He smirked at her again.
�Spar with me,� he said.
* * *
Hinata paused to wipe the sweat from her brow. Of all the people that she had ever thought to she would spar with, Gaara was certainly not one of them. It was frustrating attacking him. Her blood limit relied on hand to hand combat, to be close enough to physically block the points of chakra that emanated from the skin of the opponent. So far she hadn�t gotten within ten feet of him. What was more she knew that he was going easy on her. Although she was certain that her taijutsu was superior to his, that was irrelevant. She simply couldn�t get close enough to him to use it.
But she was not without a plan. Each of her blows were met with a tendril of sand emanating from around Gaara. Once she began concentrating her sight on them, she could see the flow of chakra through them. The chakra was a muddy red color, and initially seemed solid, with no points of energy in them which she could attack. But as she observed them more closely, she could see that there were axes of energy within them, where power split and branched off into other parts. If she could cut his protection there, perhaps she could reach him, if she moved fast enough.
Gaara watched her strategize coolly. As fighters they were totally mismatched. Hinata�s skills relied on her speed, and her ability to inflict direct damage to the body of her opponent through the application of her Gentle Fist style. Gaara�s defense allowed him to keep her far enough away from him that she couldn�t get the opportunity to engage him directly. His powers trumped her blood limit, or so it seemed. He found his guard was relaxing.
This was fine, because purpose of this exercise was not to beat her, or even to really fight her, he just wanted to watch the way she moved. Understanding how an opponent fought was one of the few ways he was proficient at learning about another human being. Hinata�s movements were quick, agile and light. So quick and light, that sometimes when she danced through the attacks he sent at her, she looked as if she were floating, weightlessly.
Hinata looked at Gaara�s face. He stared back, dispassionately. It was time. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, focusing her power. When she opened them again she launched herself forward. Gaara was taken aback by her sudden burst of speed, he wondered briefly if she had only been playing with him before, too? Or if perhaps she had been merely testing him for weaknesses? It didn�t matter, he would block her.
Hinata jumped high into the air to pounce on her opponent. As she suspected he would, a tendril shot up to block her, but instead of dodging it, Hinata grabbed the tendril and looped around it in a somersault like a gymnast off a high bar. She plummeted towards him with renewed momentum, like a bird of prey. She gathered her chakra into her hand, performing the move that Tsunade-sama herself had taught her, the chakra scalpel.
Gaara sent up a shield of sand to intercept her in a haphazard attempt to block her fast attack, but to his surprise he watched as her hand ripped through it like paper. He realized that she was about to collide with him. He sent up a harder wall of sand to protect himself from her. He waited for her to collide with his barrier and launch herself off of it. There was a thud, but Hinata did not repel from the barrier backwards, as he expected her to. Had he hurt her? The barrier crumbled to dust, behind it was a�log?
Alarmed Gaara wheeled around and found Hinata behind him, a ball of bright of blue chakra beaded at the tip of her finger, ready to hit some vital spot. He was left agape. She smiled and the bead dissipated.
�I�m lucky you relaxed,� she said.
He stared at her. Few people had gotten this close to him in a match, even a practice one. Strangely enough almost all had been Konoha ninja. Rock Lee, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzamaki Naruto, and now Hyuuga Hinata. Gaara collected himself and crossed his arms once again. He was pleased.
�Keeping one�s guard up in battle is a skill that shouldn�t be neglected,� he said, parroting something one of his tutors had droned on about long ago. �I underestimated you.�
Hinata relaxed and returned to a normal standing position.
�Now I�ll show you something else,� Gaara told her.
- 3
- 4
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encounter