Title: Changing It To Fit

Chapter: 8

A/N: heh, I'm just reusing documents in the document manager. I've been doing so since 6, I'll continue to do so until I finish. It's just easier that way, I hate uploading because my computer sometimes decides that it doesn't want to load the 'select document' screen and will freeze. Anyway, started this right after I posted 7, we'll see how long it takes to get it out.

A/N, sept. 4th: Wow, been a while since I was going to write this chapter. I think, since all my homework is done now, that I'll sit and do this chapter. Sorry for the (again) long wait. Hopefully I'll update more routinely now that school is in and I am looking for things to procrastinate with.

A/N, sept 7th: Now I'm really late. I'm updating tonight no matter how long it takes me to get a 3k chapter out.

Hinata reflected that some things never changed. Naruto would be fighting in the finals against Neji, first thing, once again. She smiled, though this time he didn't have so much of a reason to defeat the misguided Hyuuga branch-member. Hinata had given as good as she'd got in that fight, it just hadn't sat well with her to sit and take a beating the likes of which she had recieved before.

It turned out that now Naruto had a different motivation to defeat Neji, the boy had begun prattling on about fate and accepting ones lot in life without a fight in the beginning of their match as he had the last time, and it had enraged Naruto enough that he had begun shouting at the embittered boy at the top of his lungs. Not that this was surprising to Hinata, she had expected it in fact. Naruto was a person who had a cruel fate given to him almost from birth and he'd been fighting it ever since. To find someone who would calmly talk about how all he had done in the past twelve years of his life was pointless and that he should have submitted to fate (being angry and bitter, giving up his goals, and ultimately dying at the hands of some bitter villager) made him almost as angry as the boy beating on a defensless Hinata had before.

As it stood, that had been the icing on the cake and had pushed the past Naruto to further improve himself in a tremendous effort to defeat Neji, Hinata felt sure that Naruto would still do his absolute best to prove him wrong.

At the end of their fight, Neji had had something of a reality check and he was beginning to realize that there was something odd about his cousin, who was supposed to be extremely weak. So much so that she couldn't even beat her young sister.

"That guy really pisses me off..." Naruto mumbled beside her, taking a rare break from his month long training session.

Naruto was determined to beat Neji so soundly that the brunette would have to admit his mistake and take back the words he had said about fate and the futility of fighting it. On a certain level, Naruto could understand where Neji was coming from. Hinata had told him about the seal that was put on all branch members and thought it vastly stupid. Why anyone would do that to family was beyond him, but then he often thought that Hinata was the only sane Hyuuga among the whole lot.

Hinata smiled at Naruto's mutterings, he would frequently mutter about Neji. It was now two weeks before the Finals were to take place. Kakashi had apparently gone off to train with Sasuke (who had again easily defeated Yoroi) and left Naruto to be taught by a strange man named Ebisu who apparently thought himself the best instructor in the entire village. The man had lasted two days training Naruto before it became apparent to him that he didn't need his help. Naruto knew all the chakra exercises Ebisu had tried to teach him, and the one jutsu that he had taught him (Earth Style: Earth Wall) had been easy enough for the blond. A day after he had been shown the technique and the hand seals, he had it down enough that Ebisu couldn't break it with his strongest kick.

Bewildered at this show of skill and intelligence from the supposedly stupid prankster blond, Ebisu had pronounced Naruto already ready for the finals. Naruto hadn't accepted that, and had spent the better part of two hours in a shouting match with the man (it mostly consisted of screams of 'teach me, you damn pervert' and 'stop shouting that word outloud!') when Naruto finally got fed up with him and used his perverted henge harem technique to incapacitate the man in 'revenge'.

Since then, Naruto and Hinata had been practicing together as per usual and Hinata had been teaching Naruto a crude way to beat the Hyuuga Gentle-Fist style. It was simple enough, cover your body in a coating of chakra so that the weaker hits wouldn't penetrate and the stronger ones would do minimal damage. She told him that once he got good at it he would be able to summon chakra to whichever point of his body a Hyuuga was attempting to strike and make the protection infinitely more effective. She also promised that she knew of some special techniques that required the ability to cover oneself in chakra, assuring him that she would teach him after the Finals.

"How's this Hinata-chan?" Naruto asked, his entire body glowing faintly in the sight her Byakugan granted her.

Hinata lunged for him without warning and struck a blow at his stomach, she watched as the chakra covering his body coallesced to the one spot and completely deflected her blow.

"Very good, I think you have the hang of it now..."

Unnoticed by the two Gennin, a man with a white main of hair sat in a branch watching them. His eyes widened slightly as he watched the technique the blond used block a Hyuuga strike so effectively. This wasn't something he had ever seen before. The pair intrigued him; the both of them were far above the level of a normal gennin fresh out of the Academy. The Hyuuga especially seemed as if she knew what she was doing, and he frequently observed her pulling punches and glancing at openings and then pointedly ignoring them. It confused him, but also made a burning curiosity ignite in his belly.

The blond was no slouch either, and he also pulled punches and occasionally ignored openings in the girl's guard, though he speculated that it was more out of concern for his female companion than because he was potentially hiding anything. Both gennin paused in their spar (it had developed after the first initial strike, as the man watching had become enveloped in his own thoughts) and looked towards the tree he was hiding in.

The man cursed himself for letting the two youngsters sense him, but didn't really mind it. He had planned to reveal himself to them today anyway, so why not now?

With that thought, the man jumped from the tree to land several feet in front of the two.

"Who the hell are you?" Naruto asked rudely.

"Who am I? Who am I?? Why, I'm only the most amazing author of the best book series ever written, the infamous toad sage Jiraiya!" the man exclaimed, striking a pose.

While his introductory speech lacked some of its usual flare, the gennin both gawked at the strangely dressed man.

"You mean, Jiraiya, one of the third's old students and one of the legendary three?" Hinata asked.

"That would be right young lady!" Jiraiya exclaimed.

"I don't care who you are, what are you doing here? Me'n Hinata-chan were having a really fun spar before we sensed you watching in that tree..." Naruto glared.

"It just so happens that I've taken an interest in you and your female friend, brat. So show a little respect, I'm missing valuable research time to show you two a few tricks." Jiraiya shouted back.

Naruto's glare turned into a foxy grin almost immediately and Hinata laughed to herself at her friend's one track mind.

"So, you mean you're gonna train us old man?" Naruto asked eagerly.

"Hey, I'm not old...but yes. I have decided to bestow my superior training on you lowly genin, you should feel honored!"

Hinata was giggling audibly at this point.

"Bah, what would an old man like you know anyway." Naruto muttered.

Jiraiya sqwuaked a protest and grabbed the blond in a headlock before giving him a noogie, "Be greatful brat! Most people would kill to be in your shoes!"

As the two scuffled around in the dirt, Naruto eventually breaking the headlock and making as if to punch in retaliation, Hinata smiled and was relieved to know that things were still relatively on track.

She had been worried by the lack of Jiraiya in the last two weeks. As the old Naruto had told it, the pervert had showed up pretty much at the beginning of the month interval between tournaments. Hinata hoped that this time Naruto wouldn't be thrown off a cliff in order to be able to summon Gamabunta properly.

After Jiraiya began to train the two, they improved twice a fast as they had the previous two weeks. Naruto was having the time of his life, learning to summon toads and being able to spar with someone other than his teammates and Hinata. True, he lost every single time, but it was still a change of pace for the blond and he was eating it up.

Hinata however, was beginning to dislike the white haired sannin not because of anything he'd done, but because he was beginning to look at her suspiciously. She felt sure he would figure something out, or develop theories as to what was going on and as a result she would likely have to tell someone of her return to the past. Hinata knew she would have to eventually, and had planned for it soon after the sand-sound invasion. She was sure that the third would be able to hold off Orochimaru, and even if he couldn't she knew the secret to breaking the four point barrier the sound four would use to cage her Hokage in with his traitorous student.

When she thought about it, she still didn't know how Naruto had apparently sent her to the past. All she knew was that he had had something to do with it. If, for example, there was a technique in the Scroll of Forbidden Seals that he had used, it would solve many problems for her and make her story more believable. Hinata dreaded the interrogation that would follow her admission to being (at least partially) from the future. She often wondered why it hadn't really occured to her to go to the Hokage immediately but realized that he would probably have written it off as a little girl letting her imagination get away from her.

"Are you paying attention to this, Hinata?" Jiraiya asked sternly as he showed them both a taijustsu move.

He had insisted that she learn more outside of her clan style and though she already knew much more than that, she couldn't really demonstrate any other taijutsu to keep in line with her current self. Besides, what the pervert was teaching her was mostly new to her and she was eager to add more to her jounin-level repertoire.

"Sorry sensei, I was lost in thought." she replied.

Jiraiya huffed, the girl was odd sometimes. In addition to his previous list of odd activity, he now found that Hinata would drift into thought at the strangest times. He noticed that she would watch Naruto or himself sometimes, and while he could attribute her watching of the blond to a crush and himself to awe of a sannin, something in her gaze told him that was not the case. She would stare at the both of them with a look of intensity and determination, like she was reminding herself of a vow.

He shook himself, "Well, I'll show you again I suppose. Pay attention this time girl..."

The rest of the day went by smoothly.

With only half a day left until the tournament, Jiraiya was determined to see his male student summon the boss toad. He knew the brat could do it, he had enough chakra by himself, without drawing on Kyuubi, to do it. There was just something holding the blond back from summoning any toad larger than a horse. Jiraiya would try one last thing...

When Naruto arrived to the area they had come to use as a meeting place, Hinata wasn't there yet. Jiraiya knew the girl would throw a fit if she knew what he had planned and so breifly told Naruto to follow him before taking to the trees at a medium pace that Naruto could keep up with easily.

"Where are we going and why can't we bring Hinata-chan?" Naruto asked, mid-leap.

"Because, I'm going to show you a super special trick to summoning frogs and we'll be back probably before she even gets there...probably."

Naruto considered this, but couldn't see the harm in it. As long as Hinata wasn't left waiting for them for too long (even though she frequently had to wait for the both of them to show up in the mornings), she wouldn't be angry. And Naruto really wanted to summon the toad boss...he couldn't figure out why he was having so much trouble putting enough chakra into it, he usually put way too much!

They reached the edge of the forest and about twenty feet in front of them, a cliff dropped sharply and Naruto began to regret to agreeing to this 'special' training. He walked up to the edge to see how far down it went, when he felt a shove from behind and began toppling down into the chasm with an angry scream.

"I'm gonna kill you if I live!" he shouted up to his insane instructor.

"Stop wasting time talking brat! You'd better summon Gamabunta, he's the only one who will be able to stop your fall without you breaking at least three bones..." Jiraiya shouted down to his falling student cheefully.

Hinata reached the clearing just as the boys left it and got a bad feeling. She followed them closely and hid her presence so Jiraiya wouldn't notice. When she watched him push Naruto off the cliff, she gave an angry shout and burst from the tree line.

"You damn pervert, come here and let me push you off a cliff!" she screamed at him as she distantly felt a surge of strange chakra and heard the echoing words 'Kuchiyose no Jutsu'.

"Hey now, it worked didn't it?" Jiraiya mused, pointing to the towering figure of Gamabunta in front of them.

A/N: There, I told you I would finish it and get it out on the 7th. This brings my overall word count up to 20k or so, and I basically made my goal. At something like 2.8k words and at 5.35am, I think I'm going to bed now.