Naruto and Kurenai set up a camp, and plan on doing so in a more orderly fashion than Dariketsu’s group did.
Naruto asks Kurenai many questions, among them why she is being so receptive to his questions. He believes Iruka, the only instructor to answer his questions "cuts (him) a break" because of growing up without parents, but Kurenai points out that the actual explanation is that Iruka, unlike the other instructors, is doing his job. Interestingly enough, in canon, Mizuki claims that Iruka’s hard on Naruto because Naruto reminds him of himself, and he also had to learn many things on his own- Mizuki might have been trying to manipulate Naruto, like he was when he argued in favor of letting Naruto graduate, but everything else seems to suggest that his assessment of Iruka was accurate.
Kurenai points out that Naruto wanting to know is a good thing, the best thing a teacher could ask of a student. Kurenai does not excuse the others’ behavior, but believes that they need to take out their anger on the demon inside of him, which killed so many of their fellow citizens and forced the Fourth Hokage to give his life. Again, it seems like a somewhat overly gratuitous method of revenge on Naruto, one that doesn’t necessarily do much to even impact the Nine-Tailed Fox.
Kurenai approves of Iruka’s protectiveness of Naruto, as well as his anger over the idea that she ordered him to fight the spy, and hopes Naruto puts more practice into understanding others’ motivations.
Kurenai and her subordinates patrol through the trees, while comparing jumping through trees to running on the ground, an interesting bit of detail.
They work on some more jutsus, and it’s suggested that the “extra chakra” bit is why Naruto often fails with Substitution, although I suspect that it’s not always used because since virtually every ninja knows about it, they have means of countering it. Kurenai then shows the group an Earth element jutsu, bringing them up to three elements each in the space of two chapters. Despite some initial difficulty, Naruto gets the hang of it before long.
In the second week, the group encounters the Rock ninjas who are patrolling, and wonder why they are over the line. The group alternates between being dismissive of the Leaf ninja "children" and assuming that they’re out to get them. The latter is implied by Naruto’s resemblance to the Yellow Flash of Konoha (while it wasn’t revealed until the Hunt for Uchiha arc, the foreshadowing of Naruto being the Fourth Hokage’s son was obvious back then), a bit of fanon that the Rock Village hates Naruto because of how many people the Fourth Hokage killed in the war.
Kurenai gives Naruto a lecture about the Fourth Hokage’s resemblance to him and performance in the war, which Naruto doesn’t find out for a while in canon. Kurenai mentions that the Fourth Hokage killed half of the Rock Village, and says it while slightly impressed, but also recognizing the brutality of war. Kurenai dismisses their reaction to resemblance between Naruto and his father as an irrational belief born from fear, which makes me wonder if she really doesn’t know who his father is, or whether the Fourth Hokage won’t be Naruto’s father here.
Naruto ponders whether he’ll have to kill, and while some people criticizing his policy in canon point out he doesn’t kill villains, he did kill Yuura-as-Itachi with his double Rasengan, and his Rasenshuriken reduced Kakuzu to the point at which he was all but dead, and Kakashi could finish him off without going into an uncomfortably morally gray area.
The next encounter is evens less pleasant than the one before it. The opposing group opens with a genjutsu, and after Naruto chakra pulses it, Kouro fires off a fire jutsu. Naruto counters Kouro’s next attack with his water jutsu, while Hinata fights with someone who has a staff made out of “gleaming ice”, ignoring that it’s an ability that only Haku possesses (it’s established as rare and involving the use of a bloodline limit, even if it isn’t revealed how hybrid elements work until the same time as the elemental affinities).
Their enemies turn out to be kidnappers, who have Hanabi and Konohamaru. Hinata quickly gets to work on freeing her sister. Team 8 continues fighting against the kidnappers and starts doing well, until the leader turns his skin into metal, and Konohamaru reveals that they killed Iruka. The ice-using ninja knocks Hinata out with a well-placed attack.
Kurenai orders her subordinates to retreat, but the kidnappers plan on finishing off the Genin before teaming up on Kurenai. Kouro becomes Wreathed In Flame. The fox takes control of Naruto, and he surges into action, snapping Kouro the Flame’s neck and punching through the leader, Kazuyo the Anvil. Lisuke the Ice Knife, despite seemingly being at an advantage over Kurenai, barely has time to express his disbelief before being killed.
In the aftermath of the battle, Naruto wonders what happened, and learns that his fear enabled the fox’s power to leak out, not unlike the battle with Haku. With that set aside, Naruto is told to see to Konohamaru and Hanabi.
Naruto tries to reassure Hanabi of Hinata’s condition, but finds she’s not surprised or impressed at how Hinata was defeated while trying to save her, and is similarly ungrateful toward the presumably deceased Iruka. And apparently, the fact that she’s talking with the current Hokage’s grandson and the boy who canonically is the previous Hokage’s son means nothing to her.
While Naruto is contemplating his failure to protect his teammates, Shino walks by, injured but alive, and Hinata comes to. Hanabi doesn’t like being referred to as Hinata’s sister, which doesn’t seem like too much of a problem when you’re speaking to someone else, and only know that person through her. At the very least, she seems like a hypocritical Etiquette Nazi given her inability to grasp something as simple as “thank you.”
The group returns to camp, and while Kurenai is concerned about Hinata’s charging in, realizes that she saved the captives’ lives and prevented a diplomatic incident that could have caused a war. Only one of those captives is at all grateful about it, much to Naruto’s annoyance.
Naruto shows Konohamaru his weights- incidentally, I have to wonder whether the entire encounter with Konohamaru (the second episode/manga chapter) played out off-screen, since even though it took place in the course of Chapter 1 of this fic, Konohamaru hadn’t appeared until now. Hanabi refers to Lee as a "loud crazy baka," and it’s unintentionally hilarious to hear Gratuitous Japanese out of the stuck-up girl’s mouth. I was expecting some synonym of a word for a stupid person, like "ignoramus, “cretin," or "imbecile," so Hanabi could make herself look more sophisticated than the others.
As Naruto pointedly asks Hanabi if she thinks her cousin’s teacher is a fool, right on cue, Guy arrives, along with Lee, a few Anbu, Tsume, Shibi, Hiashi, Tenten and Neji. Hiashi dismissively talks about the defeated kidnappers, while Shibi, in his own way, checks Shino for injuries. Although the team is wounded, they remind the new arrivals that they have three days left on their patrol, and are only to return once they have received word of being relieved. Kurenai reassures the others that her team can continue the mission, and that the enemy is scared off by Naruto being mistaken for the Fourth Hokage.
Shino has lost some of his swarms, and Shibi offers to give him one of his, since Shino is now ready to host a second group. I had not thought of the Aburame clan’s insects as divided into groups, or so easily quantified (Shino says he lost 60% of his bugs) but I suppose the author has other interpretations here. Naruto hears that his enemies won’t be buried, and that Iruka survived.
As the new arrivals prepare to depart, Hinata and Naruto discuss Iruka’s survival, and the teaching that ninjas should be emotionless, which Kurenai dismisses as impossible. Naruto expresses amazement over how Hinata moved to protect her sister, and vows that if their way goes against the way of the ninja, they should make their own way, a good reference to one of canon Naruto’s driving motivations. Konohamaru agrees, and promises to tell "Oji-san" that he will follow that way. This bit of Gratuitous Japanese comes off as even more confusing since it can either mean "Grandpa" (Hiruzen, the Third Hokage) or "Uncle" (Asuma), depending on how it’s written, although I can’t claim to know the specifics.
Hiashi insists on getting going, and refers to his desire not to risk his heir near a semi-hostile border (the fact that Hinata doesn’t count as such is all but said outright, and it was a nice touch that the author allowed us to extrapolate that rather than spelling it out). Shibi follows suit, and tells Kurenai that the Hokage will want to hear from her team. As Naruto thinks over what has happened, the chapter ends.
The author provides a glossary for some of his jutsu names, and other Gratuitous Japanese in the author’s note, and it seems easier to actually write out the English terms. He also points out Naruto’s "Shocking Grasp" technique doesn’t work the same way Chidori does, and would be ineffective against Gaara’s sand.
Let’s take a moment to discuss Hanabi. She has a mere handful of scenes in Naruto, only one of which has dialogue, and relatively little can be gleaned from that, since she’s on her best behavior in front of her father. As such, like many characters in Naruto without much screentime, how she is characterized varies wildly from fanfic author to fanfic author.
Some arguments can be made for Hanabi not being very loving toward Hinata. It can be assumed that until Kurenai and Naruto came along, no one approved of her very much, and her self-esteem would suffer accordingly. Since that previous assumption is putting Hinata’s situation in that fic mildly, it would thus follow that Hanabi would be as much of a jerk as the rest of the Hyuugas who aren’t Hinata.
Of course, just because the author can characterize her this way doesn’t mean that he should. One has to wonder whether Hanabi would be under as harsh standards as her sister, since in the sparring match scene (one of Hanabi’s few scenes), Hiashi harshly tells her to stand up, indicating that he doesn’t think she does as well as he expects, and he points out that Neji’s talent surpasses Hanabi’s. In any case, there are possible reasons to portray her sympathetically, and it's a bit disappointing that the author doesn't use them.
What I liked
- A fairly entertaining battle against the kidnappers, if not quite up to the canon battles with Haku and Zabuza.
What I didn’t like
- Hanabi turning out to be almost as much of a jerk as her father.
Comments
