NOTE: You might want to reread the fic as I've moved chapters around and changed some stuff so that it makes more chronological sense.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, R.O.D., or any other quoted or cited material.

Summary: AU after Naruto leaves on training trip with Jiraiya. Hinata realizes that to become a strong ninja, she must find her own path. The ninja world seems to be heading for another war. NaruHina maybe others.

Justification: I really enjoyed Naruto anime/manga, but am currently quite unhappy with it. The manga's plot has become too stretched out and character development has become non-existant—the rookie 9 have been ditched and new characters like Sai are thrown in pell-mell without the kind of decent characterization devoted to earlier characters. Every single female ninja besides Tsunade seems to be a throw-away ninja who can't do shit (although I do admit Sakura appears to have finally gotten her act together). I haven't bothered to watch the filler anime episodes, and am just keeping up with the manga to get some damn closure on the whole story, and it seems that won't be happening for another few years. And so, I've decided to take the plot into my own hands.

Therefore, this story is AU. It takes place AFTER Naruto leaves for his training trip. It's been a few months since he left with Jiraiya.

Also, if you are interested in fight scenes, you shall be disappointed. I don't watch Naruto for the battles and know nothing about fighting, therefore, they will be kept brief. If anyone's interested in doing a collaboration so that there are descriptive fight scenes, please send me an email.

Also credit goes to Sgamer82 for the idea of Hinata as diplomat. I was inspired in part by the story Ghostly Eyes and its sequel Diplomacy (both of which I recommend) in which Hinata becomes a part of the diplomatic corps of Konoha. I thought it suited her.
.
.
.

Hyuuga Hinata had found the least likely place for training and the least likely teacher to help her. Really, it hadn't even started out as training. Well, at least not as training her ninja skills. She was writing up a history of trade treaties established during the past three decades between Rain and Leaf while sitting in the abandoned fiction section of the Konoha Public Library. It was the kind of busy work the heads of the Diplomacy Corps gave to rookies like her to break them in. They figured if she didn't drown in the sea of paper, then maybe, just maybe she was worth the effort of training.

She still wasn't sure how she had ended up with the Diplomacy Corps in the first place, but the Hokage herself had recommended Hinata for the job and this had gone a long way in boosting her confidence. Or at least it convinced her she had no choice but to do it. Although, honestly, Hinata suspected Sakura had her hand in this somewhere. After Naruto had complimented that ointment she'd given him during the prelims of the Chuunin Exam, Hinata had been convinced that medic-nin was the specialization for her. Then she actually started working in the hospital so that she could learn the basics and hopefully find a jounin level medic-nin to train under. The first two weeks observing in the ER had put an end to that experience.

Hinata was a ninja. She could deal with pain, with blood. She could deal with these things being inflicted on her and if she hardened her heart, she could deal with inflicting these things on her opponents. During the course of a mission or while protecting her precious people (another phrase she'd picked up from Naruto), she could inflict all sorts of damage on her adversaries without remorse. As she watched Inuzuka Hana get treated for third-degree burns all over her body after a run-in with a Grass-nin during her mission, Hinata realized she could not stand seeing that kind of pain day after day in the hospital. Hinata knew Hana. She'd come meet Kiba when Team 8 returned from missions sometimes, and always she'd bring a small snack for each of them and a bone for Akamaru. And now Hinata was watching Hana's face contort in pain as a team of medic-nins tried to heal her blackened and bloody skin. She saw the desperate look on the medic-nin's face. Hana's condition was getting worse.

Ninja kill. Ninja get killed. Hinata knew this. But she could not live in the face of this truth every single day as she would have to if she became a medic-nin. She was too weak.

"I'm a weakling. A stupid weakling," she thought as she watched Hana lying on the operating table. She'd decided to become a medic-nin because Naruto had liked her ointment. That thought seemed so frivolous now; it seemed like an insult to Hana somehow. She couldn't take it anymore. Hinata rushed out of the room.

She escaped to the hospital roof and breathed in the air in gulps as if she were drowning. That's when she ran into Sakura who had been taking her lunch break up there. Hinata was so distraught that when Sakura's green eyes looked up at her with concern, Hinata did something she had never done in her life before: she sobbed into Sakura's shoulder. As a Hyuuga she had learned early that showing emotion publicly was a humiliation not to be borne. Sobbing in the Hyuuga compound was one thing—certainly it added to her father's conviction that she was weak—but Hinata had never violated the taboo of crying before someone outside the clan. Crying out in pain was a weakness of the body to be trained out but it was forgivable. Crying from emotions in front of others was unforgivable.

And Sakura, who had been shocked at first, just sat patiently, patting Hinata's back as the storm passed until Hinata finally spilled out the entire tangled mess before her: Hana was dying and somehow it was Hinata's fault. She hadn't taken training for being a medic-nin seriously. She was just chasing shadows of Naruto. She didn't know what she wanted anymore. She wanted to prove herself, prove her way of the ninja. But she didn't know how.

As Hinata spoke, everything seemed to come into focus. Yes she would still prove her way of the ninja: she would not go back on her word. She would complete the basic first-aid training. Then she would prove herself. She would become strong for herself.

"Don't take it to heart," Sakura said just as Hinata was about to start berating herself again. "I did the same thing. Chasing Sasuke, always trying to get noticed by Sasuke, I never realized that if I had become a good kunoichi, maybe he would have noticed. So now, I'm becoming a strong ninja, so I can help save him. You wanted to help someone too. Being a medic-nin just might not be the best way for you to do that is all."

Sakura, Naruto, all the rookie 9 but her were facing forward, were getting stronger and she was just chasing shadows. Hinata swore then to make words into actions. She would become a strong ninja, a ninja would could one day support the people who were important to her.

Hana lived. She had terrible scars all over her back and right arm.
.
.
.

Even after Hinata finished her two month training in basic first-aid and chakra healing, she would stop by the hospital during lunchtime if she could and ate with Sakura. She felt awkward at first, exposed after her emotional outburst that first day. But Sakura was as close to "normal teenage girl" as a kunoichi could really be and to her Hinata's crying fit was nothing extraordinary.

Sakura often felt awkward too, but for entirely different reasons. It seemed as if Hinata was on another level entirely. As heiress to the Hyuuga clan, she had been raised with the manners of nobility—Hell, even the way she held her chopsticks was refined! "But," Sakura mused to herself, "there's more to it than just manners…"

Just then as if to prove the point, Hinata snapped Sakura out of her daze by saying, "Sakura, is something the matter?"

"That's just it!" yelled Sakura. "Ah, sorry, I didn't mean to destroy your hearing or anything. Anyone else would have nagged me and said 'Are you even listening to me?' Or maybe 'Quit spacing out!'"

"Ah, well I thought that if you were distracted, it would be over something important."

"Gah. You're doing it again. Now it's like I should feel guilty if I wasn't thinking of something important. Even though you never came out and said it that way! It's like you have the perfect way of speaking. Of not giving things away unless someone reads between the lines. Ok, so anyway, what were you saying?"
.
.
.

At the time, Hinata had simply disregarded the exchange as idle lunchtime chatter, but now as she stretched out the kinks in her neck from five straight hours of research she felt somehow sure that that conversation was at the root of her present situation.

Hinata was closer to the mark than she realized. In fact, it seemed that Hinata had accrued good lunchtime conversation karma:

"Ah, Sakura. My schedule's really tight today, so I'm going to have to postpone your lesson on surgical chakra manipulation but we can discuss the theory over lunch."

"Thank you, Tsunade-sama."

Tsunade always liked to indulge in at least a little personal conversation with Sakura not only to know her student better but also to keep herself informed about lower-rank ninja life. As Hokage, she hardly had time to chat to genins all and sundry, but at least by talking to Sakura she could get a glimpse into their lives. And so after the lecture, when Sakura brought up the Hyuuga heiress, Tsunade was particularly curious. After all, the Hyuuga were the strongest clan of the Leaf and if that Hinata girl realized the promise that Kurenai claimed she showed, Tsunade would be dealing with her as the head of the clan in the future.

"I'm surprised that you've become friends with her so quickly. Even her jounin instructor says the girl's too shy."

"Oh, now that we know each other better, Hinata's not so shy at all. In fact, she has just the right level of reserve: always polite but assertive, attentive but not easily swayed in her opinions, candid but not given to confession unless I press for details. I end up feeling like some kind of ignorant boor by comparison at times," Sakura laughed.

"Hmm. Is that so?" As Hokage, Tsuande's mind worked like a fill-in-the-blank section of an exam. And one of the current blanks was in the Diplomacy Corps, which oversaw the negotiation of treaties with other Villages. A well-trained diplomat-nin was as much a sign of the strength of a Village as the skill of its combat ninja. The ideal diplomat-nin would be a strong ninja with sophisticated manners and the ability to negotiate in favor of the Villagewithout giving away vital information about the Village. Training to become a diplomat-nin took a long time and it wasn't glamorous ninja training so it didn't attract many teenagers. So, while the jobs were high-ranking, the department was perpetually understaffed. The girl mostly likely already possessed the flawless Hyuuga manners. If she could get over her crippling shyness…Well, Tsunade would recommend her to the Diplomacy Corps and leave it up to them accept the girl or not.
.
.
.

Hinata's schedule had gotten hectic with the added work from the Diplomacy Corps, her usual missions with Team 8, her team training, and then family training. Her father had all but given up on her, saying that if she couldn't devote enough time to learning the Hyuuga fighting style, he certainly wouldn't waste his time attempting to teach someone like her. Hinata was trying to keep up by studying scrolls from the Hyuuga private library, but it was an uphill battle. The Diplomacy Corps couldn't spare the personnel to train her in fighting, and now that Team 8 had made chuunin, Kurenai-sensei didn't have the time to train them either.

Adjusting to an entirely new type of ninja skills had been hard at first, but it helped that that everyone in the Diplomacy Corps had been friendly. Well, perhaps that wasn't quite accurate. They were polite, helpful. They were not-hostile, unlike her family. And that was all she had needed. She was determined to do everything they asked of here, even if it was just paper-shuffling for now.

As Hinata walked around the Konoha Public Library to stretch her legs, she realized just how strongly she wanted to make this work. To be honest, she didn't feel compelled to continue in the Diplomacy Corps just because the Hokage had recommended her. She felt compelled because someone had recognized her, had seen something of value in her. Someone thought she could be good at this. And she would prove that she was.

"Oh my. May I help you?" a voice intruded on Hinata's reflections. It belonged to a elderly woman dressed in stereotypical librarian garb: a long black skirt, collared white shirt, and brown vest.

"Oh no, I was just walking around."

"Are you sure? No one usually comes to the fiction section, but there are some really interesting books here."

"Ah well, maybe I will. I could use something to relax."

"Relax? Then I would certainly recommend this one," the said woman proffered a book.

"Thank you," Hinata replied as she took the book and started cleaning up her papers to call it a day. "Ms.?"

"How silly, I didn't introduce myself. My name is Yomiko Readman."

And that is how Hyuuga Hinata met Yomiko Readman, the mysterious legendary ninja known as The Paper, and soon to be her new teacher.
.
.
.
To be continued...