Neither Here Nor There

In which the title refers to Tenten's name, Kiba has no clue how to use a sword and Naruto is frustrated. Omake is kind of NSFW. You have been warned!

"Come on Hinata, your lips are flapping but I ain't getting any sound."

The only thing more pitiful than the begging note of his comment is Akamaru's low whine.

The series of unintelligible grumbles coming from her lips continue. There's only that and the rattling of her sword hitting her side that comes from her person. And even then, she is trained so well, that her steps are quiet, and the click clack is muffled by her steady grip on the hilt. Even the chirping birds and rustling wind of the sunny day seem to be louder than her.

She stares resolutely ahead, gaze fierce and brows furrowed as she struggles to maintain her usually warm control over her expressions.

"Hinaaataaa….." Kiba calls her name once more, and it's the long drawn out last syllable that breaks the proverbial horse's back. She whirls around, quick as silver and her glare is just as sharp.

"Yes, Inuzuka-san?"

Kiba winces because her tone is cutting, like steel on flesh and he is sorry and she is angry, and a new friend is one you would least like to make angry. He decides that now would not be the best time to tell her she can call him Kiba, just Kiba. She is mad and has a right to be, and they've only known each other for the span of two weeks, but she is firmly on her way to becoming one of his favorite people. It might not be the same on her end, however, especially in light of last night's events.

He thinks to himself, a bit morose, that that's all he's good at. Messing things up and letting down others…

But he's trying right now, by heavens, he is trying and he would fix this. Now all he had to do was tell her that-

"You're going the wrong way."

Without another word, she pivots on a tiny heel and goes in the direction his finger is pointed in. There's no bend to her spine and now relenting of her glare. Just a slight sigh of embarrassment on her lips and Kiba decides that one more apology should be okay.

"Hinata, I'm really sorry okay. I can pay for the damages. It's just you were shivering and it was cold and the fire was low. I didn't know you weren't supposed to...I..I'm just sorry."

And Hyuuga Hinata has never been one for grudges. She'd forgiven her father for the brand on the back of her neck and forgiven Kami-sama for her weakening heart and frail body. These are transient things that must be lived with.

So forgiving Kiba was simple. It was simply the matter of her sword being a last gift from her mother that made it all the more difficult. And where sentimentality reigns, forgiveness is often hard to grow, despite earlier habit.

"Grow strong. You can carry this and be strong Hinata. Strong in your own way."

And she's long learned that being strong enough to forgive has a merit all its own.

"It's okay, Inuzuka-san. There's nothing to forgive. I mean, you couldn't really know that a sword is not meant to fell a tree, right?"

He nods eagerly, his mouth slack with disbelief because that had been the last thing he had expected her to say. He stops gripping the sleeves of his gray haori, and makes a mental note to treat her to some sweets once they reach town.

Sensing the dissipating tension, Akamaru decides to circle the two companions, bounding from one to the other with his doggy grin and wagging tail.

Hinata's expression brightens as she threads her fingers through his mounds of fur, comfort and ease making everything seem like the sun was glinting off of it like gold.

She sighs.

"I'm sorry too. You were just doing it to keep us warm. "

She bows her head slightly and her voice is muffled behind her curtains of hair. There is shame because she has let something so material bother her, and it is not her way nor in line with the way. Her life was signed too short for her to waste time with minor nuisances. And a friend is a friend is a friend.

Kiba's garbled response is barely comprehensible, because he cannot stand to see her so sad on his account and it was his fault for not asking in the first place, but Hinata is exactly the wrong kind of stubborn in matters like this and he knows his protests will do no good once he sees her expression.

So instead he smiles slightly.

"I'll call it even if you call me Kiba."

"Kiba…?"

She tastes the name on her lips and it reminds her of open fields and blazing fires and fuzzy dogs and fierce loyalty, which are things that hadn't come to mind the first time she had looked at his name on red bean stained paper. But back then, he was nothing but a dawning hope and a hesitant recommendation.

Now...now he is hope, friendship and companionship. Things that are much welcomed where before there had only been laughing streams and singing stars.

But she is still a Hyuuga and manners are as much a part of her as the dulled sword at her side.

"Okay. Kiba-kun it is."

He spends the rest of the way to town trying to take off the -kun from the end of his name.

It doesn't work.

The weapons master is a surprisingly young girl, perhaps a year or so older than the two of them.

She is dressed in a strange ensemble, a pretty high collar and fitted blouse reminiscent of fashion from the continent. It's when she twirls a shiny shuriken between her slim fingers that Hinata finds herself frozen in awestruck admiration.

Tenten is her name, and it doesn't stop Kiba from making a joke or two about where she's from.

"So, where exactly are you from? Because here and there is kind of vague, eh? Perhaps, heaven?"

Hinata gives an apologetic shake of her head and Akamaru sets his heavy head on his paws because his partner is a fool and likes flirting with cute girls no matter the situation.

But Tenten is good natured and waves off his advances with a wise little quip every so often, and her disapproving look once she's seen what he's done to Hinata's wakizashi is enough to shame him into good behavior.

"Fools with clumsy claws should never be allowed to handle a weapon."

Her grumbling is reminiscent of Hinata's and it has none of his friend's gentleness to curb the biting tone. Tenten's love for fine weaponry exceeds her regard for people and Hinata's blade is of exceptional craftsmanship.

"There's so much love in here, Hyuuga-san! I mean, look at the detailing on the scabbard alone! And this metal, it's so precious. The sword practically sings when I swing it!"

The tears in Hinata's adoring eyes and her clasped hands tells him he's lost her to the shuriken girl.

"It does, doesn't it? My mother had it made for me when I was younger."

Soon Tenten's sleeves are rolled up to her elbows as she lays the sword on the large whetstone at the back of her shop. The room is dim and sweltering with the heat of the furnace. The summer sun has no reach in here, but a slight sheen of sweat coats her brows before she has even started smoothing the blunted edge.

Hinata and Kiba are shooed out of the back room when one of them tips over a pot of nails and one goes straight through Kiba's straw sandals.

The dull shashing of a metal file over the wakizashi eventually fades away as they return to the front.

Kiba takes the time to admire the other weapons on display, fixating on a pair of glistening kama, the deep cherry wood of their grips smooth and their sickle blades sharp.

He hefts them into his hands, grunting in satisfaction as he feels their sturdy weight.

"Do you know how to use them?" Hinata asks, eagerness coiled into taut lines of her calves as she bounces on the balls of her feet.

"I...Not really. Just for farming stuff. But these are way nicer than the ones we use for rice."

"I see."

And there's a contemplative spark that he does not like in her gray eyes. She places a finger to her chin, humming thoughtfully.

"I'll teach you."

"What?!" He says a little too loud, and looks down apologetically at Akamaru napping in the corner near the counter.

Akamaru twitches in his slumber and gazes up at Kiba with an almost disdainful look. Then he snorts and falls back into sleep, the lazy summer heat making it the most welcome option at the moment.

"Sorry. It's just, timing and stuff like that. I know how to- I mean I can fight. I just...not since the last time, I don't think I can do any good."

There's a story behind his words and Hinata knows that it is one just as painful as hers. His cheeks are drawn and his face has become the tiniest bit paler, though it's hard to tell with his skin tanned from working the fields. She notices his troubled gaze drift every now and then to Akamaru, and it is hollow.

She tries to bridge the silence.

"I failed so many times too. I was overconfident. And for that, I lost my sister."

"How do you-"

"I'm going to find her. I'm going to find her and bring her home. I gave my word, and I will never break it."

And she says this with such a concrete finality that Kiba hopes and Kiba dreams that he can one day too be so confident in an outcome.

"So you're trying. But what if-"

"What if has yet to pass, Kiba-kun."

And she tugs at his limp sleeve in an awkward attempt to comfort him, because his what if had come to pass and it has weighed heavy on him.

"Uzumaki-san and I believe very much in your abilities."

Her smile becomes laced with a certain softness, and her cheeks flush and Kiba's mood is lightened because the tiny girl with sunflowers on her sleeves seems to have a crush on a man who personifies the sun itself.

"Naruto huh? Gosh, you've surprisingly got more in common than I would've thought."

"W-What?"

"Nothing. It's just he's tried to encourage me in the same way after…"

He trails off, and Hinata decides that prying any further would be crossing a line she has no permission to even tip toe.

"O-okay...so, can I teach you? Logically, I cannot defend us both at all times, and it would be really nice to have back up sometimes?"

Her question ends on a high note, and the sweet hesitancy of her request and her earnest support reminds him of home. He says yes without another thought.

"Remember, widen your stance. Keep your body lowered!"

And then there's a faint woosh as he swings the right sickle, then the left. Then the right. Then the left as he steps forward.

There's a feral grace to his movement and Hinata has to admit that he has nearly nicked her several times and he has picked it up quick.

Tenten watched from the sidelines, occasionally shouting a few pointers.

It's only when Akamaru is introduced to the spar that Hinata sees what has been missing, and she catches a glimpse of why he is a partner and not a pet.

The two move together, weaving in and out of each other's paths until they are nothing but two parts of a whole. A terrifying whole that winds her and makes her use every ounce of nimbleness in her footwork to avoid sharp sickles and bared fangs. They are wind and forest, tripping, ripping and snarling to disarm her.

But they forget that she is starlight and is still far more experienced than they and they are still rusty from disuse, cogs frozen in sorrow for years. It's taken sun and star to awaken them again.

They fight for each other. Protect and conquer because life is precious with the other one in it, and Hinata remembers.

"Live for her. Fight for her. You're advantage when living for her is that you are prepared to die."

"Everything. Everything I have for her." She mutters, and Hanabi's wide eyes and reaching hands pass through her mind's eye like pain. It is blinding and with a silent step, has reached around Akamaru's snapping jaws and stepped into Kiba's defense.

A quick upward swipe and his kama are flying away, clattering on the small courtyard stone. The metallic ringing beats in time with Tenten's impressed claps.

They are both sweating, panting and looking positively winded, but there's a distant echo in Hinata's eyes and she is flying away, arcing through memories like the kama.

"Hinata...you're...really...good." Kiba says in between pants.

Akamaru's lip has fallen to cover his fangs and his snout has opened into his doggy grin again, and Hinata is awoken from her thoughts when he shoves his muzzle into the palm not holding the sword.

She laughs, but it is breathless and Kiba sees that kindred look again.

"Akamaru...Akamaru had a brother."

And he's no longer looking at her, but at the ground where his fallen kama rest.

She waits and Tenten listens intently, because there was talent in those clumsy claws and a sadness nesting on this boy's shoulders.

"Naruto and I are from the same village. A few years ago, a group of us left to...to find a friend."

Akamaru's whine is supportive in a way, and he returns to his partner's side because he recognizes that tone and remembers his brother.

"I took Akamaru and Shiromaru with me. Supposed to be the best trackers this side of Kyushu. Instead, we ended up with a lost friend and one partner less. I haven't been home since."

"Kiba-kun, it' o-"

"IT'S NOT OKAY! I wasn't...wasn't strong enough to protect him. Wasn't good enough to find our friend and wasn't strong enough to save my partner!"

His expression is shadowed, his form trembling and Tenten is blessedly silent. It's only when he feels Hinata's thin, calloused fingers pressing one of the kama into his hands that he realizes he is teary eyed.

She says nothing. Does not look into his face, but merely curls his fingers around the smooth handle of the of sickle and places his other one on a worried Akamaru's head.

And he is grateful and quiet because someone who has failed like him is telling him to keep on fighting.

Omake:

The heat is nearly unbearable, but it's only tiny calloused fingers that rake across his back and the feel of her like a wave across a tide. She blooms, like the blossoms on her sleeves, and she shines like the armor discarded in a heap somewhere in the room.

There is nothing but he and her, and they burn together in a crescendo.

She rises and falls with every turn of his hips, and he grips her tighter and tighter, burying his face in the crook of her neck.

He smells the brine of sea and honey in her hair, and he can't see her gray eyes, but he knows they are glittering like stars.

And just as she heaves and they reach the crest of a wave, his eyes snap open.

"CRAP. NOT AGAIN!"

Naruto wakes to find himself sweaty, sticky and frustrated in a small hut by the sea. And he tries to go back to sleep, plagued once again by dreams of a small swordswoman with sunflowers on her sleeves.

a/n thank you to everyone who reviewed this story! If it seems disjointed, it's because it's meant to be told in fragments! The omake is canon! for this though!

kama- a pair of small sickles used in farming but also popular weapons for samurai and standing armies. There are martial arts techniques for proper use, but they are definitely close range weapons. They seemed like the closest things to actual claws without being too much historically inaccurate.

the way- Hinata follows Bushido code, as she has been brought up as a swordswoman following her failure to thrive as a child.

Tenten's name- Means here and there, but Kiba is also playing on the syllables, because ten sounds like the a character used in the word for heaven tengoku and in the word for angel, tenshi.

Of note, I tried to make this as accurate as possible for geography. They are currently on Kyushu, the southern most island of Japan, and the reason is because when I looked at a map of the old provinces, Hyuuga was a real one! And it was on Kyushu, hence why we start there and move north!