Hinata gets home, and wonders if her father is occupied with the “village council”, an organization that has become a staple of Naruto fanon, as a shadowy organization that is out to get Naruto. Hinata continues to worry about whether her emotions are unbecoming of a Hyuuga, and fears that Hiashi’s supposedly near-psychic abilities will be able to detect them.
Hinata’s father finds her, and almost immediately orders her to go into the training area. Hinata follows, and gets a somewhat cold reception from Neji and Hanabi, the latter of whom apparently resembles her and Hinata’s mother. That resemblance, as well as the fact that Hanabi is her sister, makes it difficult for Hinata to fight Hanabi, even in a sparring match, much to Hiashi’s disappointment.
Hiashi then interrogates Hinata about her takedown of the spy, and immediately refuses to believe that she took down the spy, or that she did so with an advanced technique. He challenges her to demonstrate this technique, but she loses her nerve, and he coldly dismisses her as not just weak, but a liar. He then demands that she take part in an all-night training session, even knowing that Hinata is about to go on a mission the next day.
Thankfully, the Aburames are much better people, as they’re impressed with Shino’s performance during the capture. Shibi makes vague references to Naruto being host of the Nine-Tailed Fox, being careful to avoid saying anything that would give away the secret, but advises Shino to trust what he observes about Naruto first-hand over what others tell him. Naruto gets his pay for the mission in the form of a voucher, and has to go set up a bank account.
Unfortunately, two armed men guard the way, with orders to keep Naruto out, until Kurenai persuades them otherwise. Their boss is just as uncooperative, and it takes a threat to report him to the Hokage while walking out with enough money to make him think there’s a run on the banks for him to even start complying.
Kurenai teaches Naruto about having a bank account- how it works, and even how to save money. After he leaves, she speaks with the bank manager, demanding an explanation while using an interrogation genjutsu that she acknowledges is skirting the boundary of the law. The bank manager tells her that their representative on the Village Council told them to refuse Naruto service, and call the ANBU on him if he became violent. Kurenai tells the manager that he will regret causing Naruto problems when Naruto becomes Hokage, and terrified, the man complies. That's a bit of an interesting touch that people who cause others problems will regret it when they become more powerful, but I have to wonder what kind of Hokage Naruto will be if he gets revenge on his enemies in the village.
Naruto goes to dinner at Ichiraku Ramen, and is pleased that people are talking well about him, for a change, and tells “Old Man Ichiraku” (whose name, by the way, is Teuchi) about the battle, and how impressed he is with Hinata. The ramen shop owner tells Naruto that times have changed, as have women’s ways of impressing men- women now beat up others rather than dress up- but given that women have been kunoichi for decades, if not more, in the Narutoverse, this doesn’t seem to be true.
Naruto greets Iruka with “Ohayo”, which is not only Gratuitous Japanese, but it’s blatantly incorrect; the phrase means “Good morning” in Japanese, and treats him to dinner. Iruka is also less than happy with the idea of Naruto engaging the more skilled enemy ninja. Naruto explains that his clones can hold up to a substitution technique (in canon, they typically last unless they’re struck), that he and his team had a plan, and that he’s been training hard, the latter of which upsets Iruka.
Iruka meets with Kurenai at her home, which is “Western Style” (whatever that means in the Narutoverse). Evidently sensing Iruka’s reason for visiting, Kurenai prepares herself, both to put her arguments in order and to get an advantageous position over Iruka. All this seems slightly superfluous, considering that she's far more likely to win the argument in this fic.
Kurenai acknowledges that Iruka worries about Naruto (which is canon to an extent, as seen in Iruka’s concerns about the rookies entering the Chunin Exam, but not taken this far) and is concerned that if Iruka is not convinced of the rightness of her methods, he will only end up getting in the way, an unfortunate case of this fic promoting Kurenai as being in the right on everything.
Iruka expresses concern about Naruto’s training schedule, and Kurenai points out that he needs something to occupy his time without a family to go home to. Kurenai says that Iruka did his best, but she’s amazed he did as much as he did for Naruto in a place that Naruto believed did not serve any constructive purpose for him, which, again, ignores Naruto’s less than stellar ability to keep focus in class or do book learning.
Kurenai tells Iruka that she hopes to make Naruto strong enough to achieve his dream of becoming Hokage, but fears that he will end up hating the village before then- a disturbingly plausible prospect considering that Naruto is already quickly becoming more cynical than in canon, an unfortunate side-effect of those who want to make Naruto more “realistic.” Kurenai points out that this is not helped by the presence of a conspiracy against Naruto. Iruka leaves, promising to look into the Council’s plans against Naruto.
Naruto meets with Guy and Lee in the morning, informs them of his mission, and discusses the possibility of additional attempts to steal the Hokage’s scroll.
Naruto heads off to meet with his team, having a lot of money left over from the D-rank missions. He greets Hinata with the –san honorific (a gesture of politeness he canonically shows to hardly anyone except to Kabuto whom he respected before he showed his true colors), but then notices something’s wrong with her, as he’s walking as though she hasn’t slept.
He takes a closer look, noticing that she doesn’t react to him calling her “-chan” like Sakura does (although this is actually incorrect, since Sakura's gotten used to it in canon), and he observes that she has been beaten, evidently by Hiashi. Hinata refuses Naruto’s offers of help, and claims that her father was training her in a new jutsu, but refuses to elaborate on it.
At Ichiraku’s, Ayame comes out and calls Hinata away , while Teuchi asks Naruto what happened to Hinata, seeing this as a matter of taking care of his favorite customers. Ayame comes out, and Hinata looks slightly better, but is at less than half of her typical capacity, leaving Naruto concerned about how she will fare on the mission ahead; it’s almost as though Hiashi wants to get Hinata killed.
Kurenai meets up with her students, witnessing the scene that serves as the fanfic’s page image on TV Tropes; she finds it cute but wonders if she’ll have to leave Hinata behind. Naruto explains the situation, prompting Kurenai to say that he did the right thing. Shino remarks that the “family training” is “troubling”, and Kurenai wonders if he’s more pragmatically referring to how troublesome it would be for the mission before realizing he doesn’t misspeak.
As Kurenai examines Hinata, she ponders how little he understands of her skill, especially considering her performance against the ninja. She appreciates Hinata’s willingness to show up in spite of her circumstances, and they head off to meet with the Hokage.
Hinata is, again, caught in a spell of self-loathing over her circumstances, none of which are her fault, and wonders why everyone is being so nice to her, especially when her father “knows” she is a failure (ironic since the story paints him as the least qualified to judge Hinata’s worth). She recalls a conversation with Ayame, who notices her feelings for Naruto, and mentions how he treats her despite not having much money. She begins to feel guilty about eating on his ryo(this is how you adapt things such as sayings for the Narutoverse), and after judging that Teuchi cares for her for reasons that go beyond wanting to keep her as a customer, wonders if strangers pity her that much.
For a moment, Hinata tires of being a failure and vows to do something to change it, but begins to doubt herself when she sees Naruto’s eyes, a somewhat disappointing way to dash my hopes, as the chapter ends.
Now that this chapter has gone into Hinata’s home life, I’d like to take some time to discuss her. In canon, Hinata does have self-esteem issues that do inhibit her performance, but when Naruto cheers for her, she’s able to fight as hard as she can, and starts to like herself afterward. While this is clearly before that point, I don’t think things were ever this bad, both in terms of Hinata’s self-esteem and Hiashi’s treatment of her. It’s depressing to see Hinata lament her condition and denounce herself as weak, not only in that it’s sad, but that it’s such a shame to see her fall so far from where she was in canon.
And now let’s talk about the man responsible for how Hinata turned out. In canon, Hiashi is stern, strict, and quite possibly an emotionally abusive parent, but he also is concerned with the good of the Hyuga clan. In desperate situations, he cares for his loved ones, killing a ninja who was trying to kidnap Hinata, and being desperate to avoid having his brother die in his place for the sake of his brother, his family and his village, not as a branch house member. In later chapters, he warms up to Hinata, and entrusts her with the clan’s future. He’s far from a perfect person, but he has good intentions, and can change for the better.
Here, Hiashi seems to engage in displays of wanton cruelty that serve no purpose, and is completely stuck in his ways, unwilling to change. Not only does this make him much less likable, it also makes him a less interesting character, which is a shame. While Hiashi is one of the most demonized characters in Naruto, he also has the potential for an interesting story behind him, and portraying him as a villain with no redeeming features is not only out of character for him, but also a disappointing waste of a opportunity.
What I liked
- Showing the Aburames, who seem like fairly interesting characters.
What I didn’t like
- Hiashi becoming more abusive than in canon.
- The conspiracy returns, and is revealed to be more widespread than ever
- Kurenai is constantly being portrayed as in the right.
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