#Why No Input From Neji

[emeraldlupin]

Confused about Naruto Shippuden the Movie Part 2

Part 1

Okay, continuing on. So, the barrier goes down against the stated rules, Moryo is free, and a despairing Shion falls into a deep, dark pit which is actually the inside of Moryo's body.

Speaking of which, Moryo's "body" doesn't seem all that different from the mass of black energy that went into Yomi. Sure, he has a bunch of hydra heads, but they look like they're made of the same material, so it's more like it's a hydra made out of magic. Shouldn't his body be more...solid?

As Shion falls, Moryo taunts her.

Moryo: There's no need for tears. As long as that light is there, I cannot absorb you into me.

The "light" he's referring to is the magical pink light coming off of Shion's bell pin. On a side note, the thing always looked like it had a drop of blood inside it, but I presume that's just the clapper, the thing that makes a bell ring.

You know, Shion should be careful with that thing. After all, it is pink energy, and as the internet and certain YouTube comic shows would tell us, too much pink energy is dangerous.

Anyway, moving back to the transcript.

Moryo Continued: But are you sure? [You want to die] You may not like what you see...the end of this world.

Shion: I am alive. Then Naruto is...? If things go as is, Naruto will...Naruto will...

And then we switch to a flashback...if a glowing man with wings? Uh...okay.

Glowing Man: Why do you not understand? If you combined your jutsu with Moryo's power, ruling the world would be simple!

Glowing Woman: Such folly...Why do you not have faith in people?

Glowing Man: Have faith in people?! Are you serious, Miroku?!

Then the flashback ends, Shion recognizes Glowing Woman, and we move to a different flashback with a non-glowing Miroku and a young Shion resting her head on Miroku's lap.

Shion: Mother, your lap is so warm.

Miroku: *laughs* You're such a baby, Shion.

Shion: I want to stay like this forever.

And then it moves to a third flashback, one where Shion is not visibly present.

Attendant: Why would you give such a thing?

Miroku: I will not teach this child any jutsu. That is my order!

Attendant: B-But...

Then it moves to a fourth scene.

Miroku (in voiceover): Here. Hold onto this [the bell] all the time.

Shion: So pretty! Is it a good luck charm?

Miroku: Yes, this will protect you from now on.

And then the rest of Miroku's words are done in voiceover, while the scene shows Shion still floating in the dark...but naked. Why the hell is she naked?! Why does she need to be?! Ugh. Let's move on.

Miroku Voiceover: No matter what should happen to me, keep your heart true. Even if Mother should fade from your presence, know that all things in this world are ephemeral.

And then it moves into a fifth flashback showing a young Shion watching as her mother is confronted by a released Moryo.

Shion: Mother!

Moryo: Do you insist on getting in my way, Miroku? Enough! I will not borrow your power. But you realize what that will mean?

Miroku: Shion! Your bell?

Shion: [Does not have it and gets attacked by Moryo, only to be blocked by Miroku]

Moryo: What?

Miroku: Do not underestimate the power of a priestess!

Moryo: I see...you will risk your life and pass...

And then the dialogue gets a tad confusing. The next words are spoken in a woman's voice. They say "through time." But this dialogue is said on a flashback of Naruto from earlier in the movie, and is then immediately followed by some of his inspirational dialogue. So...who said "through time"? Shion? Her mother? This is not good.

And Shion is glowing in this flashback and her dialogue is different, so I'm guessing this is the Shion of the present? This is just weird. In this flashback, Shion takes the bell off of her jacket, but she doesn't pin it on Naruto.

Back in the present, Naruto is fighting, and Shion's voiceover commands him to live. There is a flare of pink light, and Naruto's death at the beginning of the movie is prevented by a magical pink energy bubble in the shape of a bell that appears around him. It even rings on contact. Naruto survives, and the demon hydra head that tried to skewer him pops.

Moryo: *laughs* I have seen that power once before. Are you sure? Giving up your priestess amulet to a man? Fine...if that is your wish, I shall grant it. And watch as my body becomes one with yours, and those who tried to protect you perish! Yes! As the world of humans rots away.

Shion: *crying* This would have been fine...If I had know this from the start, all those people of my homeland wouldn't have had to die! Isn't that so, Mother?

And then her mother's voice appears in a glowing patch of pink light, wishing that Shion could have lived a life of peace and calm. An then it moves to a flashback of Miroku and an attendant and the bell on a pillow.

Miroku says that Shion's power...even one mistake and she could become a menace greater than Moryo. And the child would be unable to control it. In that case, they have to seal the power in "this stone," and suppress what would awaken should she die, even at the cost of their people's lives.

And then an image of her mother hugs her and apologizes for not being able to protect her or have faith in her. But Shion doesn't blame her. She loves her.

And then Shion realizes how she must use her power and she glows with pink light and...takes on some weird angel form? What the hell? She can see all the priestesses that came before her, even those that died young.

Moryo is shocked by this and says "So that's it. That bell holds this power of yours." And then she gets ready to sacrifice her life and take out the demon once and for all, protecting all those that fought for her...only for Naruto to ruin the dramatic moment. Shion loses her super mode, and Naruto tells her she's stupid and asks her if she really wants to die.

Shion says she doesn't want to die, and Naruto goes on about how you don't need to accept a destiny you don't like, and together they use the power of her bell to, what else, make a special Rasengan to finish the enemy. Oh, and destroying Moryo inadvertently make a new volcano in the Land of Swamps.

The volcano's light can be seen from Konoha, implying that it is near Fire Country, but let's ignore that and how it screws up the map. In the post credits scene, Naruto says to Shion that her priestess days are over.

Shion says they aren't. She must continue on. When she was inside Moryo, she realized that it was the evil in people's hearts that gave rise to Moryo, and who knows when a second or third will appear. She says she will no longer curse her fate, that being a priestess is her mission, and the power must be passed on to the next priestess.

She asks Naruto if he will help her do that, basically propositioning him to father her babies, and like an oblivious fool, Naruto says yes, though Sakura, Kakashi, and even Might Guy catch on. And that's the end of the movie.

.......What?

Okay, let's start tearing this apart. Reading through this, do you see the cracks? The reincarnation thing is already confusing, plus this plotline about Shion and the demon being one being, and now we've got Shion's mysterious power?

And that power was sealed in "this stone"? What stone? You mean the bell? That's not a stone. Or did you mean the clapper? And what's this about her being a danger? I want to make a joke about her really have too much pink energy, but I am still legitimately confused. Her only "power" so far is sealing and precognition, and limited precognition at that.

Why did that man in the first flashback have wings? The glowing effect might have been symbolic or a way to hide the characters, but who was that man? Yomi? Didn't sound like him? One of Yomi's family? Why did he have wings? Was he a tengu? What is this about uniting powers to rule the world?

I suppose that was what Moryo was doing in the beginning, but now it feels kind of out of left field because the Moryo backstory is on shakier ground now than it was at the beginning of the movie.

How many times has Moryo been sealed exactly? And what's this about "other priestesses"? Moryo said he was split between him and Miroku. What other priestesses? And if Shion saw her mother die sealing Moryo, why didn't that come up before in her motivations?

If Shion's power was in her bell and she gave it to Naruto, how did she get Super Special Angel Form? And why was Moryo surprised by the fact that her power was in the bell. He already remarked on the power it had!

What is this about Moryo being born from the evil in people's hearts? What about Miroku? Was she evil? Gee, it would have been nice to establish that or something.

The problem with this movie is that despite the impressive fights, the story is rotten. It's internally inconsistent and confusing in just what it's saying or what the plot really is. Plot elements thrown in without any build up or cohesiveness.

This was the first of the Shippuden films, so let me briefly compare to the first of the Naruto era films.

As I said in another post, the plot of Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow is not terribly complex. It deals with no complex themes, and is pretty straightforward. But for what it is, the plot is solid. It has the proper amount of intelligent thought and polish to make it work, remembering character motivation and story cohesion.

Princess Koyuki's motivation and characterization are clearly presented to us with proper establishment and no unfounded surprises. the loss of her father resulted in hopelessness and a cold attitude. And while there is a moment that hints at even more trauma (falling in the ice) that is not commented on, it does not create confusion or contradiction in the understanding of events.

But this movie? This movie only produces a series of questions.

Did Shion have a dangerous power? When was that established? It cannot be precognition, as that is not a public hazard, and only applies to her attendants, anyway.

Why does Moryo's body look so much like Moryo sans body?

Was Shion always part of Moryo?

What about her mother? How can Shion be apart of Moryo too if Moryo said he was split in two?

Is there reincarnation going on? How can that be if her mother didn't die in childbirth?

Is it the power that's part of Moryo?

Why was Moryo surprised about the bell containing the power?

Why is Shion's emotional breakdown, the moment we're actually meant to sympathize with this brat, full of contradictions?

Does this movie really have a fatalism theme going on or not, because those contradictions call that into question.

What is with that line about "other priestesses?"

Why is Neji's life story thrown aside when it could have easily added depth?

Why is no one all that concerned about Shion's predictions?

Why didn't they get going at once after the attack?

Why did the henchmen have to make a U-turn back to the Land of Ogres?

Why did the barrier go down when it was not supposed to?

What was with the angel form?

Why was Shion naked in that one scene?

How can you have flashbacks to things where Shion is not present if, presumably, Shion is the one remembering?

The worst part is that I'm not sure the plot point about the priestess and Moryo being one even made a real difference. What point did it serve in the story other than to be a mental curveball? Everything around that revelation is just headache inducing. Couldn't they have just gone for a simpler plot?

This movie is steeped in stereotypes and tropes. It throws in potentially complex plot threads, but fails to build them up or think about them.

Even a simple plot can be great if it is solid, keeps characters in character, and gets us emotionally invested in said characters and their plot. More complex stories require greater care to get right. There are more twists and turns, and you need to look it over to make sure it all works correctly. That's just a fact of life.

And that's not to say simple plots don't have any care put into them at all. An author can still examine every nut and bolt of a simple story to make sure there aren't any issues. But the more complex the story, the more work involved, the more you are required to get this straight.

Shippuden the Movie did not do so. When you look beyond the fights and the animation, and look at the story, the true foundation of its existence, it falls apart.

[cricketwrites]

Dating Rock Lee is...

GIF by byakugo

Dating Rock Lee was a bit like dating a sentient tornado. He went at full speed all of the time, and rarely had time to stop or slow down. He always had to learn something new, exceed his own limits, do everything he could and then some. It wasn’t easy to keep up with him, but he made it all worth it.

Dating Rock Lee is being there by his side, trying to remind him of his limits while still encouraging him: “Lee… you need to rest.” You said, resting your hand on his shoulder. The nurses had caught him trying to get out of his hospital room… again. He needed time to recover after the harrowing Chunin exams, but he seemed to be the only one who didn’t realize it. It worried you, how your love would push himself far beyond his limits. His face was already covered in sweat, and his arms were violently shaking.

“I.. am fine. I need to continue.” Lee replied through gritted teeth. He was clearly not fine.

“Lee. I’m pretty sure that if I tap your shoulder, you will crumble like a sand castle. Please… just rest? Not just for me, but for everyone else who worries about you. Tenten, Neji, Me… Guy Sensei.” You added at the end, sure that would be what convinced him to finally listen.

He sighed, sitting up and leaning on your shoulder with an “okay.” and that was it. You managed to more or less drag him to his room, and help him get situated in the hospital bed. Once he fell asleep, probably from exhaustion, you decided to get ramen for the two of you for dinner. You caught the nurses giving you grateful looks as you left.

Dating Rock Lee is watching him train when he asks you to:

“Are you sure about this, Lee? I’m not sure I’ll be able to provide any good input.” You chuckled nervously.

“You are one of the most capable people I know! I need your input on my form.” He said, with a grin. 

You nodded, sitting down in the shade of a tree. “Alright, if you’re sure.”

After about 30 seconds of observation, you ended up staring at him fondly and sort of spacing out, thinking about how great he was, and how lucky you were. You weren’t sure how much time had passed, and you honestly weren’t paying too much attention.

“I doubt you could help him improve if all you do is stare.” Neji’s smug voice startled you out of your thoughts.

“Um..” You mumbled, embarrassed at having been caught.

Sometimes, dating Rock Lee included getting teased by his teammates.

But you wouldn’t have it any other way.

I hope you guys liked this fic! I feel like the ending falls a little flat but I'm not feeling great today so that's probably why hahaha Ask Box: Open! ~Cricket

[madelinesnarutoblog]

Hey! Thank you for your input!

I just don't read it this way, taking into account the rest of the manga. It is a bit inconsistent in how it writes SNS, making it a little bit more subtle after the Land of the Wave Arcs.

Of course, we had the scene where Naruto leaves the hospital room out of consideration with a grim face when Sakura cries over Sasuke and of course, we can't see Naruto's direct expression here, which yes, could be read as Naruto accepting Sakura never loved him back.

But on the other hand, Naruto has always had a huge amount of empathy towards everyone around him. He sure was a bit loud and immature in his ways, but the empathy was always were.

He empathized with Inari, as soon as he knew about his father. He empathized with Haku to the point of breaking down crying and changing Zabuzas's heart.

Hell, the last bit of the Konoha Crush Arc was him empathizing deeply with Gaara, who everyone saw as a monster.

Same with the selflessness. His own Nindo of "Never giving up on his word" is super f*cking selfless. Your promises made to others hold no real value for yourself, they even can get you into trouble and mean much work on your end. Nevertheless, they hold values towards those around you, and doing your best to keep them is a super selfless act of love.

What he lacked were love and acknowledgment. He got them from Iruka and then Sasuke... Well.

As to Sakuras feeling towards him: She rejected him in a very rude way right from the beginning. He knew from the first page that she was into Sasuke. Why else would he transform into Sasuke to go and kiss her? Then she says all these terrible things about Naruto but keeps talking about how much she loves Sasuke and this is a moment Naruto can relate to her.

She keeps on rejecting him, physically hitting him, insulting him, being condescending towards him, and being all over Sasuke. And Naruto just doesn't seem to care.

Hell, even then Rock Lee is all over Sakura, we get 0 reaction from Naruto in that regard... So our boy knows that Sakura doesn't have feelings for him.

So I really read this as Naruto knows how deeply Sakura feels for Sasuke because he feels the same for him.

And this is backed up by his further actions, even telling her later on that the promise never mattered, and that he wants Sasuke back for himself.

And to end this: I think there was a recognition of Hinatas feeling earlier from a lot of characters around her when she was fighting Neji.

And in the same Scene, Lee also recognizes and accepts Sakura's feelings. And Naruto is just very empathetic in general.

Yeah fuck that, that is Naruto admitting he feels exactly the same way as Sakura, who just screamed how deeply in love she is the Sasuke. So Naruto is in deep fucking pain right now and his wish of a lifetime is to bring his beloved Sasuke back, he loves so much it hurt him.

[oivsyo]

neji and hinata are literally cousins- their fathers are TWINS and hinata treats neji as her older brother she calls him "nii-san" why are you shipping them? disgusting. 🤢 at least ship something healthy there's tons of boys to ship hinata with. what a waste of talent.

Dear anon, let's take a closer look at your claims to my OTP :)

Prepare for a really long text.

>Neji and Hinata are literally cousins

Yes, they are first cousins, aaand?

Cousin marriages ARE legal in many countries in the real world, in case you didn't know. Use google to check it.

If you live in a country where cousin marriage is banned and illegal, well, it doesn't mean that it is the same in the rest of the world.

If personally you were raised in a culture/in a family where such a union is ‘strange’ and 'wrong', once again - it doesn't mean that the rest of the world is the same. No one makes you marry your cousin, if you don't want to. If you see your cousin as a family it is totally fine. But the reality is that not all ppl have the same mind set, cultural background and relationships with their distant relatives. And it is normal as well.

To make it clear - I don't support unconsentual arranged marriages that take place between relatives in some cultures (I don’t like this trope for NejiHina either, tho it is rather popular opinion in non-NejiHina fandom that they would have been forced to marry each other if Neji lived).  Especially when it involves minors. But I hope I don’t have to explain myself why these cases are not the same.

After all there are not a lot of such couples, and I am not calling for everyone to marry their cousins, this is ridiculous. But if it happens that two ppl fall in love with each other and they are cousins, it's a great thing that they have an option to make their relationship legal.

In real world from law pov Neji and Hinata are an ‘ordinary and boring’ heterosexual couple. And it’s strange to me that in 2022 there are still people who have prejudices against a group of people based on who they chose as partners for consensual relationship and marriage.

>their fathers are TWINS

Yes, their fathers are twins that makes them genetically half-siblings. In case you thought I or any other NejiHina shipper didn’t know that - we all are perfectly aware of it.

The fact that they are genetically half-siblings matters ONLY when it comes to childbirth. 

Let’s imagine that Neji and Hinata, whose fathers are identical twins ( if we assume that Hiashi and Hizashi were identical twins and not fraternal ones. As far as sometimes fraternal twins of the same sex may look really similar), live in the real world. And let’s imagine such a couple is thinking about their future and about children. Considering all input data such a couple will have plenty of options actually.

Marriage, being in a relationship and having sex =/= making children. Romantic and sexual relationships don’t necesserily result in child birth and it is not the main aim of it for some ppl. Nowadays there are many ways to avoid pregnancies and not everyone wants to have children.  If such a couple consciously chooses not to have children, then I do not see this as a problem.

In case such a couple wants to create a family with children there are still some options like:

adoption 

surrogacy 

IVF (in vitro fertilization) 

Full genetic testing before natural insemination in order to find possible pathologies. Nowadays this is used by non-related couples as well because there are many factors that may cause pathologies in children even when it comes to non-related parents. These factors are, for instance, increased age of the first pregnancy, not a healthy lifestyle, genetic illnesses and pathologies that a person may have. 

Despite grossed out statements that “inbreeding for sure will result in severe pathologies in children” it is not fully correct. Genetics is much more complicated than this. Even a non-related couple can get a genetically damaged child and a close-related couple can get a healthy one. There are too many factors that may cause such pathologies.

To sum up the decision to start such a relationship or not, to have a child or not is up to the couple. It is their responsibility.

In the canon setting it seems to me Neji and Hinata would want to have a family. They would want to raise their children without 'branch VS main house' prejudices, give them love and attention they both were deprived as children. And I think they would be great parents.

Considering everything written above we can't ignore the fact that in the end of the day Neji and Hinata are FICTIONAL characters. They were created in the fantasy world where live giant toads that can talk, eyes can be easily transplanted from one person to another, characters throw galaxies into each other and many other non-realistic things take place.Many things in Kishimoto’s fictional world don’t work the way it is supposed to work in the real world.  But he didn’t give us strict rules of how his world works, so there is enough space for creativity and imagination.

The Hyuga clan originated from Hamura, who was the son of Kaguya. Kaguya is an alien-goddess that makes Hamura a half alien-god. And the Hyuga clan are their descendants. And their Byakugan is the same Hamura had. There is no other way to get Byakugan except being born with it (except transplantation but it won’t make the user a Hyuga, Kakashi or Danzo are not Uchiha by blood and in case they have children - they won't get Sharingan).

Once again. Neji and Hinata were born in the clan that originates from ONE ancestor. I'm really very curious, how do you imagine that the Hyuga have managed to grow into a clan, managed to preserve one particular trait of their ancestor without close-related marriages. Moreover, all clan’s members share a similar appearance. Hmmmmm.

We know so little about the Hyuga clan, but many indirect signs tell us that is highly probable the complex of recessive genes, that's why marriages inside the clan was an only option to preserve it and make it stronger. Being the descendants of the alien god they probably had no damaged genes to pass and/or they have some “immunity” against harmful mutation. It's fiction after all. 

The Hyuga clan exists from the times of Hamura till the moment shown in Naruto, if I’m not mistaken, it is something about 1000+ years. There for sure were some natural or fictional way to keep them existing, otherwise all Hyugas would have died out after 5-6 generations of inbreeding or didn’t manage to preserve Byakugan. The indirect confirmation - Boruto and Himawari. Hinata is the heiress of the clan and should have the purest genes, but marrying with a non-Hyuga, we got the children that did not get the pure byakugan. It hints tha it is rather difficult to preserve Byakugan. This can also explain the existence of strict rules and traditions in the clan, but this is a topic for another discussion.

> Hinata treats Neji as her older brother she calls him "nii-san"

“Hinata treats Neji as her older brother” is only your own interpretation, your vision of the situation, much like I assume that they are a romantic couple. And you are free to stick to this version if you like it. And I'm free to stick to mine.

Tho I accept that for someone who is not interested in these characters it can be natural to look only on the surface without using imagination.   If anything, I'm not trying to insult you, I'm just stating the fact of how our thinking works. For example, I’m indifferent to such characters as Ino, Shikamaru, Sai, Temari and the whole trinity of Sand. That’s why, no matter how justified the canonical or fanon couples with these characters are, I won’t be able to feel them so much that I can see some kind of deep drama in them, think out the context, and so on.

Hinata is an heir of a noble ancient clan, she is timid and shy; it seems rather natural that she is well-mannered and polite with Neji. When they were first introduced to each other when they were children she obviously was told that she should address him with ‘nii-san’; Neji was told that he should address her with ‘sama’ because Hinata was an heir of the clan (as far as I remember he addressed Hanabi with 'san', but I maybe mistaken. He used 'san' because she was not an heir at that moment, but she was from the main house and the daughter of the clan's leader.)

I mean, how do you think Hinata should call him? Neji-kun? Neji-san? You know, I’m not a native japanese speaker, but I studied it long enough to say that neither of these variants seems to be reasonable enough when they were children, when they were in a conflict.

Suffixes in Japanese are extremely complicated lingo-cultural units. They imply much more meanings than it seems from the first look. Haven’t you watched any other anime or Japanese doramas? The theme of suffixes and its usage is frequently brought up there for a reason. The choice of a proper suffix is not an easy thing to do and it depends on such conditions as age of the one who uses it and the age of the one you are addressing to, related or not, male or female, and many other social and hierarchy nuances like your position in a company, your year at school and university, are you a client or the service staff, are you talking to the person from your company/family/circle of friends or to someone from outside. Suffixes express the attitude of the speaker to the one to whom he is addressing. And as you can see this topic is extremely complicated.  

“Nii-san” is polite enough and shows that he is her family (he is much closer to her than other clan's memebers, as far as Hyugas are obviously all related). This suffix is not necessarily used only in relation to a native older brother, it can also be used in relation to cousins. Maybe there were some clan rules that made her address him with ‘nii-san’ much like Neji addressed her with ‘sama’ suffix (which I don’t see as something humiliating for Neji, it is just a etiquette). 

Btw he called her without any suffix during the war when they were alone. I consider it as a signal that their relationship was close enough for him to call her that way. Hinata continued to call him ‘nii-san’ till the end. Maybe it was a much more difficult step for her to take at that moment, and it can be explained fully with her nature, so she kept addressing him ‘niisan’ out of habit.

In case you are interested, as a NejiHina shipper I think that it was natural for Hinata to call Neji with a ‘nii-san’ suffix because it took her much longer time to realize her feelings for Neji. And when they confessed to each other she still kept calling him ‘nii-san’ when they were not alone, especially before the clan's council. Becoming a family they would call each other without suffixes. 

> why are you shipping them?

I wrote about it a couple of times, but I will repeat it again, specially for you, dear anon.

I ship them because  this couple gives me the emotional experience I want to get from shipping in general.

To be more precise, NejiHina gives me everything I’d love to see in canon but the canon failed to give it to me.

First thing is character development. Both characters have a lot of potential to develop both together and separately within this ship. At the same time the characters will not be subjected to excessive OOC, their changes will be a natural result of canon events. NejiHina made me love and adore Hinata as an independent person and not an appendix to the main character, created to match the plot needs. Only when paired with Neji, she begins to shine for me to the fullest, becomes an interesting, deep, strong heroine.

Second, their conflict stands out of all conflicts in Naruto. They share the clan's drama which is extremely complicated and is a matter of gray morality. I love such mature conflicts in fiction. The fact Neji and Hinata are involved in it and share it gives me a decent  base for shipping and creating headcanons for them.

Third, this ship allows to take a closer look into the lore of the Hyuga clan and develop it. We were robbed in the canon so ok, I will do it myself. With NejiHina the clan can be changed for better and yet Byakugan will be preserved, Hyugas will keep on existing.

Fourth, it's not necessary, but this ship implies, I like it this way, that Neji will live. He's a good character, he deserves a longer story and a better ending. However even if he dies, with NejiHina his death becomes only more dramatic and makes more sense.

Fifth, they look good together and make an aesthetically beautiful couple. I’m not the one who ships characters basing only on the character's appearance, but this is just a nice bonus. They look appealing to me and I enjoy drawing them.

>disgusting. 🤢

It is only your subjective opinion.

Noone forces you to ship them if you don’t want to, so chill.

If a ship freaks you out that much, skip the content with it. Add the hash tags to the block list. I won’t mind if you add my acc to ignore list/block it. Everyone should take care of their own content hygiene and nowadays social media provides everything for it. But you are here, on a NejiHina acc, writing publicly that the ship is disgusting.  I wonder, did you scroll all my gallery before writing an ASK? The fact that you consciously consume content that you obviously don’t like and/or understand and get triggered by it is clearly not my problem.

>at least ship something healthy

If a consensual relationship between two adults who love and support each other, are devoted to each other, who share the same values and goals, overcome various obstacles together is not ‘healthy’ then I don’t know what is.

And this is exactly the way I ship them.

It is so funny that you can’t look deeper, you even don’t know how I imagine them and you are still making some groundless accusations. It’s rather childish, didn’t you know?

>there's tons of boys to ship Hinata with

You are probably a multishipper yourself, since it is so easy to offer to change one character in a ship for another. It doesn't work that way for me, I'm a one OTP shipper. All the characters have different stories, personalities, different dynamics and chemistry between them. As I’ve already mentioned I’m not the one who ships characters basing only on the character's appearance.So I can’t just take and change one character for another. I n no other ship with Hinata I can feel and find what I get from NejiHina.

>what a waste of talent.

Oh, was it a sloppy compliment on my art? I’m happy to know that you actually took a look at my gallery and you find my drawings good enough to make you write this phrase.

However. Thanks for your concern but this talent is mine and I will waste it the way I want.

I’m fully aware that my shipping preferences affect the amount of likes and followers on my accs, but it is my conscious choice. I love NejiHina, I enjoy drawing them, and I enjoy our small community.

If you want more art with your fav ship - find an artist who ships your fav couple and support them with your likes, comments. Order a commission and contribute to your ship’s community. Start drawing or writing fics and make your friends and other fans of the ship a bit happier. 

If you think I'm a sick and inadequate person, a freak, a pervert  only because I ship for NejiHina, then consider me lost forever and block me, I’m not ashamed for shipping Neji and Hinate and I don’t really give a damn :)

[thatwritercricket]

Dating Rock Lee is...

Dating Rock Lee was a bit like dating a sentient tornado. He went at full speed all of the time, and rarely had time to stop or slow down. He always had to learn something new, exceed his own limits, do everything he could and then some. It wasn’t easy to keep up with him, but he made it all worth it.

Dating Rock Lee is being there by his side, trying to remind him of his limits while still encouraging him: “Lee… you need to rest.” You said, resting your hand on his shoulder. The nurses had caught him trying to get out of his hospital room… again. He needed time to recover after the harrowing Chunin exams, but he seemed to be the only one who didn’t realize it. It worried you, how your love would push himself far beyond his limits. His face was already covered in sweat, and his arms were violently shaking.

“I.. am fine. I need to continue.” Lee replied through gritted teeth. He was clearly not fine.

“Lee. I’m pretty sure that if I tap your shoulder, you will crumble like a sand castle. Please… just rest? Not just for me, but for everyone else who worries about you. Tenten, Neji, Me… Guy Sensei.” You added at the end, sure that would be what convinced him to finally listen.

He sighed, sitting up and leaning on your shoulder with an “okay.” and that was it. You managed to more or less drag him to his room, and help him get situated in the hospital bed. Once he fell asleep, probably from exhaustion, you decided to get ramen for the two of you for dinner. You caught the nurses giving you grateful looks as you left.

Dating Rock Lee is watching him train when he asks you to:

“Are you sure about this, Lee? I’m not sure I’ll be able to provide any good input.” You chuckled nervously.

“You are one of the most capable people I know! I need your input on my form.” He said, with a grin. 

You nodded, sitting down in the shade of a tree. “Alright, if you’re sure.”

After about 30 seconds of observation, you ended up staring at him fondly and sort of spacing out, thinking about how great he was, and how lucky you were. You weren’t sure how much time had passed, and you honestly weren’t paying too much attention.

“I doubt you could help him improve if all you do is stare.” Neji’s smug voice startled you out of your thoughts.

“Um..” You mumbled, embarrassed at having been caught.

Sometimes, dating Rock Lee included getting teased by his teammates.

But you wouldn’t have it any other way.

I hope you guys liked this fic! I feel like the ending falls a little flat but I'm not feeling great today so that's probably why hahaha Ask Box: Open! ~Cricket

[leportraitducadavre]

Hinata was never going to get the seal. It seems like there are other main family members. That must be the reason why hanabi never got the seal. I think manga stated that hizashi got the seal because he was identical twins and it will be confusing when hiashi will become the head. I have a feeling that Hiashi didn't punish neji for chunin exam because he sees neji as partly main family. If another branch member died instead of hizashi, I don't think hiashi would have felt guilt as he did.

Hello Anon -let’s see through your input:

Hinata was never going to get the seal. It seems like there are other main family members. That must be the reason why hanabi never got the seal.

We don’t know exactly how the main family is composed, but it’s safe to assume that clan heads and their firstborn (heir) are the ones who can be considered “Main Family”. Canonically we only see one other Main family member (through Hiashi’s memory of Hizashi’s sacrifice). Edit to add: Kö Hyuuga is described as a Main Family member, so it's far more unclear how the clan divides their kin. Why one of the sons of the former leader is enslaved while a distant relative (at least, more distant than the actual son of the former clan head) is not...

-and we don’t know what type of relationship he possessed with the twins, for all we know, he was their father and previous clan head (as the seat is passed on from parents to their children), so to assume that all children of the Hyuga leader would be considered Main Family is a stretch.

I think manga stated that hizashi got the seal because he was identical twins and it will be confusing when hiashi will become the head.

No? What? Where exactly was that stated? -I’ve read many times Neji’s explanation about the Cage Bird Seal and Hiashi’s recollection of Hizashi’s sacrifice -and at no point it’s mentioned that the seal was put on Hizashi just to distinguish him from his brother.

And even so, how does that change anything? It’s canonically established that every branch member is marked with the Cage Bird Seal, whose purpose is to control and torture them in order to force them to follow orders. Hizashi even tells Neji that he wished he could have made him born inside the main family -meaning, Hizashi was never part of it.

There was no “I’ll put my child under the seal in order to distinguish him from Hiashi” but “I’ll put my second son under the seal because he belongs to the branch family”.

How is it possible for Hizashi to still -according to your vision- belong on the main branch and be marked? Or being tortured by his brother who canonically states he shouldn’t forget his place? Or for Neji to be on the branch family despite Hizashi, apparently, being put under the seal for merely “discern” reasons? Make absolutely no sense.

I have a feeling that Hiashi didn't punish neji for chunin exam because he sees neji as partly main family.

He absolutely -absolutely does not. He was happy with marking him and condemning him to serve his daughter for life when he was four years old-

-it’s only after Neji proves himself to be a genius (he literally had to be a prodigy for Hiashi to even consider telling him the truth about his father -and all in order to manipulate him for the main family to have his impressive gifts on his side) during the exams that he even spares a glance to him.

And punish him for what? For hurting Hinata? Neji inflicted wounds on her when he had the support of a structure that allowed him to fight against her (Chünin Exams) -and even then, she still possessed privileges (like when all the jönins but Asuma jumped in to save her even tho she hadn’t forfeited).

Punish him for learning the main family jutsus? That would be an admittance of his geniuses, the boy listened and learned main family techniques without anyone’s assistance -can you imagine how would that made him and his kin look?

Oh, Hizashi... perhaps you will bring down the House of Hyuga after all...

That's not something a person who cares about his nephew would say. Furthermore, that's not something that someone who cares about his brother would say. Neji was a threat to Hiashi and his heir -and taking advantage of the emotional manipulation Naruto started, he goes on and tells Neji the truth about Hizashi in order to make him fight alongside the main branch and not against -because he knew that Neji's sole existence put his power and dogma in jeopardy.

If another branch member died instead of hizashi, I don't think hiashi would have felt guilt as he did.

I don’t know and honestly, I don’t care. The fact that Hiashi only cares for a branch member when they’re specifically blood-related just fuels further my hatred towards him -he’s somehow responsible for the lives of all Hyuga members, yet, he only cares for those closest to him.

He cared not for Hizashi’s life -he even admits that his brother died in search of freedom: Know what that means? Hizashi resented his life -he was being tortured and unhappy and just miserable. Hiashi didn't care before Hizashi was sent to take his place. It wasn't about saving his brother, but about stupid honor. He never cared about his brother because he was raised to believe himself superior -but, to you, he was okay torturing his brother and nephew -yet, somehow, he drew the line in murdering him to protect him? Come on.

I have absolutely zero nice thoughts for Hiashi and his children. Hinata was allowed to live without the seal even tho she should have had it when she was disowned -that’s a fact.

[ncji]

Brat Tamer Confirmed?

Rating: Teen? Yeah, I'd say teen.

Summary: The local BDsM community tries to categorize a certain Hyuuga.

"Everyone thinks Sasuke is so dangerous. He's an overgrown brat who needs to be taught a lesson."

Neji's conversation with his teammate reached the curious ears of a certain pair of chuunin, the more carefree of which jabbed his companion in the ribs with his elbow. "Brat tamer confirmed?"

Izumo gave Kotetsu a light shove for the jab. "How? He doesn't have the patience. Pure Dominant."

Behind them, a usually light-hearted voice was low and scolding. "He's barely eighteen..."

The pair turned in unison to see Maito Gai with his arms folded across his chest and his normally bright expression shadowed with disappointment. The two almost apologized for the inappropriate conversation about his student, but--

"Give him enough time to realize he's a Master," the jounin told them, smirking with pride.

Kotetsu's features brightened, and he chuckled--

--a sound that was eclipsed by the laughter of one Hatake Kakashi. The ever-present mask covered his mouth, but not necessarily the smirk it was curved into. "You're all on the wrong side of the spectrum."

Confused about where he had come from, Gai scouted for more possible spies. "Are we talking about the same person?" He had never known Neji to be submissive. Even Gai was intimidated by him.

Kakashi contained his amusement as he casually strode between the Hyuuga and his teammate, Lee. As he cut through the pair, his book coincidentally slipped out of his hand and landed at Neji's feet. There it sat, while the three of them stared at it. "Hand that to me," Kakashi eventually requested of Neji.

Neji was immediately defiant, face scrunched up in confusion. "Why? Did you hurt your back, old man?"

Despite the insult, the copy nin's tone became softer, warmer. "It's the respectful thing to do, isn't it, Neji-kun?"

The cogs turned in Neji's head for a moment, softening his features with each rotation, and, eventually, he bent down and retrieved the book for Kakashi.

Book in hand, Kakashi smiled with enough force to squint his one exposed eye and tapped Neji beneath the chin with it. "Good boy."

The older group observed as Neji held a sour expression until Kakashi rounded a corner. Then, pink flooded his cheeks and he lost the battle against the proud smile pulling at his lips.

Izumo groaned. "Oh no..."

Beside him, Kotetsu pumped his fist in the air. Sure, he had been wrong, but there was something worth celebrating. "Yes! My brother in backtalk! He's a brat!"

Brow furrowed, Gai considered what he had just witnessed. "I hate how much sense that makes..." He then jumped a clean foot into the air when Kakashi's voice broke into the conversation behind him.

"It was obvious."

The whole group was surprised to hear Genma's input. "You're all idiots." The tokubetsu jounin was judging them all over Kotestsu's shoulder, with both his words and his eyes. "He is not a brat."

As much as he hated the addition to the community, Izumo shook his head. "The proof was in the smile, Genma."

"Brats aren't for everyone, yeah, but you can't deny them. As a representative of the SAM community in Konoha, I, for one, welcome another bratty little brother. I hope he makes some poor Dom's life a living Hell, and Heaven," Kotetsu declared.

Genma just shook his head, making the group feel like they weren't worth his time, and left their nonsense conversation to join Neji, who had just been abandoned by his teammate. "I saw what you did for Kakashi."

The Hyuuga prodigy restrained himself from rolling his eyes. "He didn't even ask. He just told me to do it. He's lucky I did it at all."

"Still, you did it, and that was mature of you." After brushing the thick veil of hair away from Neji's ear, Genma leaned in to whisper, though his mouth formed every syllable clearly enough for the snooping group to read. "Daddy's proud of you."

The color on Neji's face was immediately vibrant, and he didn't resist the smile that tugged at his lips. He was positively preening.

Kotetsu made a face. "I withdraw my support."

His best friend snorted. "He's still kind of a brat?"

"What am I missing?" Gai was clueless, probably because he hadn't even tried to read Genma's lips.

Kakashi was defeated. "He's a Daddy's boy...A sub with daddy issues. All Daddies' boys are brats if you're not up to the standard their Daddies set, which is an impossible standard..." Honestly, how was anyone supposed to live up to the standard of a Dom and a paternal figure?

"It could be worse. He could be a little," Izumo reasoned, though it was obvious he found the situation funny. It turned out Neji was his little brother in behaving.

Kotetsu groaned in disgust. "The worst part is Daddies' boys are good boys!"

"Why are you even part of this community if you won't obey?" It was a years long disagreement between the best friends that had yet to come to a conclusion. Izumo, as a true submissive, just could not understand.

"...Hold on..."

All five eyes fell on Gai, who seemed to finally be understanding what he had just witnessed. The chuunin were curious if he would, and Kakashi was hopeful.

"...GENMAAA!!!"

"Oh," was Kakashi's sudden realization that Genma was Gai's teammate and a 33-year-old man that Gai's 18-year-old student was definitely sleeping with...and calling Daddy. Kakashi wrapped him in a restraining embrace and shouted to the other two. "Tell Daddy and his boy that Gai's about to make sure Genma goes out to get some milk and never comes home."

[cozymoko]

hii I hope you're well.

I was wondering if I could ask for a yandere Neji and his ways of manipulating his s/o?

And if you're not taking requests I'm sorry to bother!

Note: You're no bother, I'm always open. This is shorter than usual. Enjoy!

TW: Manipulation

🥋 This isn't too hard to imagine but I don't believe he could honestly bring himself to do it, realistically. He was born to serve and not go against what he's been told but in a relationship, he has a bit more freedom with things like this. But he never wants to force you or be the main reason why you turn your back on all your friends.

——"You know I only want the best for you, {Name}. If I ever hurt you, I'm happy to die by your hands."

🥋 Slyly giving his input on situations that he considers "dangerous" or making backhanded remarks about your friends. You'll ignore it at first but eventually start to think. "Would Neji ever lie to me?" He only wants what's best. One by one they'll all distance from you, leaving Neji with a miserable lover that he'll carefully build up again.

🥋 Neji will bad-mouth those around you, telling you they are bad influences. That you are better than them and hanging out with them will only tarnish your reputation. Although not exceeding some boundaries that you've placed. It's ironic how his clan deemed him what he wants you to stay away from.

——"Why hang out with people who are inferior to you? You're wasting valuable time with people who don't compare."

🥋 As a man who has little to no shame with expressing his love for you, he'd drop to his knees, wrapping his arms around your torso, nestling into your stomach while declaring his love to you. He wants to lure you in, telling you how much you mean to him, how uneasy he gets when you interact with others.

🥋 In the end, he would just be happy if you relyed on him and him alone. He doesn't need any of the other teams tainting you when he can't be with you. All his work will soon pay off when you can hold little to no conversation with anyone else unless Neji is present. As bizarre as it is, nothing is ever impossible, right?

——Neji rested his chin on top of your head, taking in your nostalgic smell after being away for so long. "Were you okay while I was gone? You look quite pale, {Name}."

——"No, I'm okay! I just...I just wish you'd stop leaving me like this. I'm scared."

[nanakah]

Nisaka is my favorite character but tbh his arc gave both him & neji development and imo a separate ending with Neji would kimda ruin it + his entire arc would have been for nothing? If you get what I mean. At least that's how I feel.

And yeah, as you said, Nisaka just deserves better xD like; neji is a good guy but I just cant see them together and pretty much only shipped them because I was hoping to have more LGBT+ representation.

hey Anon, thanks for the input! <3 I can see where you're coming from, I'm just unsatisfied with how the whole thing was handled after the kiss to be honest. If the author was going for the long way of having alternative outcomes altogether it would be possible to pick up things from an earlier point (kinda like Boukuben did) and at least give a sense of closure or "what if" development for those who did want to see Nisaka's romance being fruitful. Because the multi-routes already make the other girls' challenges and growth feel "for nothing" in the first place, so if everyone gets a shot, why not our boy too? *sigh*

I was at peace with how things were despite being bittersweet (my relationship with Koi to Uso is forgetting it exists from time to time and picking it back up to track Nisaka's appearances lol) because I love Nisaka dearly as well but knowing it was going to be ~pick your ending~ all along makes the bitter notes feel all the sourer lol would have been such nice representation, but alas. Hope for Nisaka's happiness all the same, he's a gem. Neji is a good kid and there are good themes built around him (i.e. "value yourself more", "you're slandering yourself but that offends those who like you","you don't have to be extraordinary to be deserving of love") etc but himself as a character doesn't charm me nearly as much and at times he feels more like a device to proxy the reader to the characters. Even towards Nisaka, I also shipped them hoping for Nisaka to be happy because he liked him, rather than thinking it HAD to be Neji lol

[justangortchansblog]

I was tagged

Ty for the tag @venialityyy

RULES: Answer 30 questions and tag others, but I answered less than 30 because the copy/paste key fucked me over.

Name/Nickname: Input

Gender: Female

Star Sign: Aquarius

Height: 1,57m (I’m smol)

Time: 09:01

Birthday: that’s a secret lol, but you can guess from the star sign

Favorite Bands: Queen, Manic Street Preachers

Favorite Solo Artists: Frank Sinatra :’)

Song stuck in my head: If I had you (it’s instrumental, does it count?)

Last Movie: Wolfwalkers

Last Show: Attack on Titan

When did I create this blog: when Neji is still alive in Naruto manga

Last thing googled: Erwin Smith’s measurements XD

Other blogs: none but I have an instagram and dA, and a neglected twitter account

Why I chose my url: my dA account

Average hours of sleep: 6 hours with waking up during the night

Instruments: Guitar

What am I wearing: T-shirt and batik loose pants

Dream job: Illustrator

Dream trip: Scotland

Favorite food: Scrambled egg with mushrooms

Nationality: ID

Favorite song: Lots of it!

Last book read: Oral Biology (work things, meh)

Top three fictional universes I’d like to live in: - Victorian England (but not in Ripper Street) - wait it’s not fictional but nvm XD, Trine (all those magic! ooh!), Final Fantasy VIII 

I tag @roran24 @cinq-moon @foureyedbrows

[emeraldlupin]

Confused about Naruto Shippuden the Movie Part 1

So...Shippuden: The Movie. The first of the Shippuden movies. I talked about it a bit in my geography essay, but I want to talk about it more, and summarize the really weird things about it.

There were design elements in it that were cool. I'll give you that. The battles were engaging, too. But the story...had issues. Big issues.

For one, why in the world did the gang not leave with Shion once they repelled her attackers? I know they said the guards wanted to assemble, but the world is on a clock here. Introduce yourselves on the road.

Two, Yomi told his henchmen to "go back to the Land of Ogres" to deal with Shion. They were already in the Land of Orges to break out Moryo's soul and his statue army. Why is Yomi only realizing now that they needed to go back and deal with her?

Then there's the issue of Neji. He's a main character in this movie. He, Lee, Sakura, and Naruto are performing the mission to escort and protect Shion. Shion tells Naruto that she can predict the deaths of those close to her and that he will die. This freaks Naruto out. Sakura and Lee rather laugh it off, which seems weird. But what does Neji say? He tells Naruto to not let it bother him.

That's all he has to say about it throughout the movie, really. And that's bizarre. Neji Hyuuga, if you know the character at all, had lived with an extremely fatalistic outlook his whole life, and he had reason to. When Naruto beat him in the Chunin Exams, he started to have hope and think that not everything was determined by fate.

But Neji does not remind Naruto of this, nor does he confront Shion about her fatalism by telling her his story. It's the most obvious thing in the world, if you know the character. Plus, the film is only 95 minutes long. That's not too far over the average run time for an animated film. You could have squeezed something in.

This suggests to me, and pardon me for saying so, that the creative team either did not care to do the obvious, or even that they didn't really bother to learn very much about the characters. Oh, sure, they knew about Lee's drunken boxing skills, but that's as easily as looking up abilities. It does not mean looking up their stories.

No matter the reason, the fact that they missed something that easy is deeply disappointing.

One other thing that confuses me about this movie was a revelation at the end between Shion and Moryo, the demon she was supposed to stop. Moryo tells us that he and Shion...used to be the same person?

Okay, let me back up. First, let me give you this transcript of what Shion says about her precognitive powers.

"Foresight is the power to protect the life of a priestess. When a priestess perceives her own death, the soul of that priestess leaves the body, and shows her past self images of the moment of death. At the time of death, she sees her attendants around her. The priestess tells her attendants about her visions, and these attendants believe that they must take her place in order to prevent her death. That is the set-up for precognition. Sacrificing others, so that I may live."

Writing it out just now, I realize that I actually have to back up further. This quote would tell us that the priestess sees her own death, and then she tells her attendants, and then her attendants take her place in death.

That...makes no sense.

Let's hold off on the past self thing for now. But this quote would tell us that the priestess sees images of her own death, and seeing her attendants around her, she tells her attendants, and the powerful devotion of her attendants makes them take her place. That's how those sentences read, correct?

Well, that's garbage. Shion has two visions on screen. We get to see what she sees. And what does she see? She sees Naruto dying near the end of the movie, and then she sees her own body laying on the forest floor dead, that ends up being a fake out. Her attendant used some jutsu to take on her physical form.

She is not seeing the moment of her death, she's seeing the deaths of others, just like the film said earlier.

And yet that paragraph would tell us that she always sees her own death, and that her attendants take her place. The way it says "sacrificing others so that I may live" even suggests her telling her attendants of her visions is an act of conscious manipulation, rather than the reaction of blind loyalty.

That paragraph also refutes the entire fatalism theme in the movie. Characters talk about how her visions are absolutely accurate, etc., etc. But if she is seeing her own death and her attendants are taking her place...then her visions have been defied. Over and over, they have been defied.

This movie can't even get its own facts straight. Of course, if she is sacrificing people to preserve her own life, that makes her a vile and awful person. I get what the movie wants. It wants her to see the deaths of others and feel horrible about it. But that's not what it said. Not at all.

It's a black mark on the movie's record. This isn't just a case of a continuity error with the series at large, this is an internal continuity error, and that's kind of worse.

Now let's talk about the past life thing. When the priestess perceives her own death, her soul leaves her body and shows her past self images of her death. Her past self. That means she reincarnated, right?

But Shion's not dead yet. She's only seeing a possible death, so how can her soul show her past self the upcoming death of her current self? Why would her soul be showing the upcoming death of her present self to her past self? Entertainment value?

And speaking of reincarnation, let's get back to the Moryo/Priestess thing.

Near the end of the movie, when Shion is in the place with Moryo's body, she finds Moryo waiting for her. Moryo himself has spent the entire movie living inside of the body of Yomi, the guy who set him free and whose clan used Moryo to try and take over the world before.

Moryo: How you've grown...you resemble Miroku. Let us offer our greetings to the young priestess. My name is Yomi. Long ago, your mother Miroku stood in the way of my ambitions. Do you remember that day? We had resurrected Moryo as our leader and the Thousand Year Kingdom was within our grasp. Your mother...if only that priestess had not been there!

Shion: [Being chased by stone soldiers] Stay away....stay away! [Her bell/pin thing puts out a pink light that slices down the soldiers.]

Moryo: Why are you so shocked? Could you possibly...be unaware...of your power? What a surprise. Just what have you been taught all this time?

Shion: Just for this day...each and every day, I...

Moryo: Honed your Sealing Jutsu? Then hurry over here...and seal me. Can you?

Shion: [Walks over]

Moryo: I will tell you. I cannot kill you. And you do not have the power to kill me. Because...originally, we were one and the same entity.

Shion: That is a lie! You are trying to trick me with lies!

Moryo: Is there any reason for me to lie?

Shion: I shall, right at this moment...

Moryo: The seal...refers to you and I becoming one. Your mother Miroku accepted that. Yes, Miroku, your mother...is within me! Because of the enormous power to ensure we did not err in using it, we have separated ourselves into two hearts, two minds, and we have lived remonstrating each other, thinking of each other, staring down each other.

Moryo Continued: Although before long, our names were changed to the priestess and Moryo. Light, dark, good, evil...such words cannot bind us!

Shion: [Puts up magic barrier]

Moryo: A barrier?

[Barrier goes up, but Moryo goes through it to attack Shion]

Moryo: You were too hasty, priestess. You should've waited until this one [indicating Yomi's dead body] decayed to put up the barrier.

Shion: [Thinks] It was to get in here... [Sees the box containing Moryo's body, but is unable to stop Moryo from getting to it. Yomi's dead body is blown back out of the barrier, but Shion cannot pass through]

Moryo: Once a barrier is up, we cannot get out. Yes, until one consumes the other. And that is decided by each other's chakra. Now you shall return it. My flesh and body. You have my thanks. That one no longer had the power to break the seal on the shrine.

By "that one," I'm guessing he meant Yomi. But the barrier on the shrine goes away. So much for neither being able to leave the barrier without consuming one another. If that were true, it should have stayed up.

Are you already seeing the weird confusion here? Moryo and Shion used to be the same being. Or was it Moryo and Miroku? It seems like Miroku was also the same being. But Moryo and Miroku split into two. Two. If that includes Shion, then Moryo needs to learn how to count.

Or is this movie implying that Shion is the reincarnation of her own mother? That's the way I took it when I saw this movie the first time, and I still can't deny that interpretation of whatever this is. I mean, Shion did talk about past lives.

For one, I don't see how that's possible if Miroku is supposed to be a part of Moryo right now. But for another...doesn't that break the rules of reincarnation?

There's far more to the end of this movie than I put down at the moment, far more to disassemble. But I can tell you right now that there were flashbacks showing Shion and her mother being alive at the same time.

Look, I am not a theology student. I do not claim to have an absolute grasp on how reincarnation is supposed to work. But my own understanding of it, from everything I have ever seen or read, is that reincarnation is when someone's soul is allowed to live a new life without memories of their old one.

That being the case, how can someone's past life and next life be alive at the same time? You're supposed to die before you reincarnate.

This confusion of mine actually ties back into the main series with the Indra/Asura mess. Kishimoto said Naruto and Sasuke were "reincarnations" of the two idiot brothers, but so were Hashirama and Madara. But both Hashirama and Madara were reanimated, which you should not be able to do with a soul that has been properly reincarnated.

The anime, when they fleshed out the story of Indra and Asura, made this worse by constantly referring to "souls," but then again, why wouldn't they talk about reincarnation that way? If my understanding is correct, that's how it is meant to work. But Narutopedia says the reincarnation is "chakra."

I do not know where that "reincarnating chakra" thing came in. Was it in the manga, the anime, the books, I don't know. Honestly, it feels like a cop-out. The realization that you goofed up and you're trying to fix your moment of "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."

But I pose this question to anybody reading this: Am I missing something? Is there some nuance to the philosophy of reincarnation that I just don't know about? And when I say that, I mean real world reincarnation, not Naruto Brand Reincarnation. Seriously, am I missing something? I want to know.

More on this movie in another post.

Part 2

[chemicalmagecraft]

Foresight is 20/20 Chapter 14

Hinata's palm struck me in the jaw, making me grunt. "Kick his ass, Hina-chan!" Kurama cheered from the sidelines. It was nice seeing how well those two were getting along, even if it meant him encouraging her to beat me up. The two of them actually helped each other a lot. Hinata warmed Kurama up to humankind and got him to be slightly less angry, while Kurama made sure to rub some of his "I'm better than you lousy humans" pride off on her, causing her to be a bit more confident. Plus he liked imparting little bits of arcane knowledge upon his favorite human, meaning...

I just barely noticed with my chakra sense that Hinata was leaking a small amount of chakra out of her fingertips, so I jumped back. Unfortunately, I'd determined with my eyes that expressing too much interest in obtaining the Byakugan with my chakra assimilation would only cause most of the clan to grow wary of me, so I didn't have the ability to actually see her jutsu, but at least I knew to stay away.

I made a few seals, but had to stop when the barely-there chakra rushed me. Even though I moved my arms the chakra swerved faster than I thought it would, causing my left arm to go completely numb. "Ow," I said despite the fact that the problem was that I couldn't feel any pain in my arm. "You're getting faster with that, aren't you?"

"Yeah," Hina-chan said. "Kurama-chan helped me figure it out."

I tried to move my arm, but couldn't. Eight Trigrams Heavenly Will as it was called by most of the family, or much less pretentiously Tenketsu Puppetry Jutsu by Hinata, was a jutsu Hinata invented by combining the basics of Juken that she was learning with the chakra threads I'd showed her how to make and then some sort of advice from Kurama. In addition to acting like a ranged, though technically much less potent, version of Juken, the threads stayed inside the tenketsu of the victim meaning that not only was any recovery from the attack blocked until they were removed but she could also, as her name for it suggested, puppeteer my arm.

"Impressive, sis, but you know that that doesn't exactly work on me." I raised my right pointer finger, causing a single link of yellow chain to form on it. With a bit of concentration, I changed the yellow Adamantine Sealing Chain to a shadowy purple permutation, Adamantine Destruction Chain. I swiped at roughly where I felt the chakra threads with it, managing to snap all of them and suck the foreign chakra from my body.

I'd figured out that my assimilation could also adapt powers that were compatible enough together. I was already working under the assumption that I couldn't just make new elements by combining people's affinities because that would be broken, but I did alchemize Ai's Adamantine Sealing Chain together with the Kikaichu's Parasitic Destruction to make chains that could drain chakra as well as disrupt it for some extra chakra cost. Plus, the disruption and absorption effects synergized, enhancing each other's performance. And there was also the || combination, Parasitic Sealing, which allowed me to cover my body in an aura that disrupts and absorbs chakra. Though it was harder to do than Adamantine Destruction and wasn't perfect...

But I digress. I pointed the chain link at Hinata, shooting an entire chain at her. The general consensus of just about anyone who I used my special chains on was that if I got a grab in the fight was over. Sure, I could still only have more than a few links out for a few seconds without any boost before I got super tired, but between the draining and the throw I could easily pull off with the chains I only needed one good grab to wear down even adults. At least enough to jump in with a few cheap hits to finish them off. Hinata obviously knew this by now, so she ducked under my chain, then rolled out of the way when I tried to pin her to the ground.

I was expecting her to do that, though, and had already prepped my next jutsu. Metal marbles, designed so I could hurt but not kill with my magnet release, scored hits on her side. I charged, and she blocked my foot with her hand. I winced, realizing my mistake when my leg turned numb from the near-instantaneous point-blank Heavenly Will. I used my demon gem-based flight to try to kick her with my other foot, but she got it before I could.

"Full body takeover, eh?" I asked as the rest of my body below my neck was wrested from my control. Really, having a relatively non-draining jutsu that might as well be an automatic win to anyone in melee distance is even more broken than I am...

"Sorry, but can I practice this for a bit?"

I tried to shrug, but remembered the futility. "Go ahead. I still have control over my demon gems, so I can catch myself if you slip up." Hinata spent the rest of the sparring session finding stupid dances to make me do, egged on by Kurama. I did get her to work on her proxy chakra control a bit, though. She could almost make me do Juken by the end. And I could almost do Juken by the end.

kukukuku~

Tenten said something, probably about how much it stank that we had to go to school, as we walked ourselves to school. Well, they walked and I floated because I actually may or may not have a bit of trouble matching other people's walking paces, especially if I'm not paying too much attention... I didn't know what she was saying, though. I was thinking. I mumbled something in response and pulled out my sealing notebook and note-taking pencil, which I used to write down the formula I thought of. I tuned out their conversation even more as I sketched the complex seal down as best I could.

"You messed up a little there," Tenten said as I was finishing off the last strokes.

"Hm?" I asked.

She pointed to one of the runes and oh my that was very wrong. "I'm not sure, but I think it'll just tear a hole in the fabric of space if you don't fix that stabilizing rune." I thanked her and hurriedly fixed it.

"I feel like maybe you should not write down a seal that could potentially tear a hole in the fabric of space itself until you're absolutely sure it won't do that?" Neji said with more than a little concern.

To be honest, I didn't blame him, but... "Graphite's pretty much the worst for making seals," I explained, "which means that it's really good for practicing making the more dangerous seals because it's almost impossible to activate it accidentally. Unless you're a jinchuriki, maybe, but even then you'd probably have to be pretty distracted."

"Well why didn't you have me use a pencil when you were trying to teach me seals, then?"

Finished, I stowed the notebook. "Okay in my defense I wasn't expecting you to screw up the easiest seal in the book when given detailed instructions, much less screw it up enough to accidentally make an incredibly simplified explosive seal. And with the last seal I had you do, I think we both know that you should always assume that there will be an explosion when making a paper bomb."

I tried to teach Neji fuinjutsu once. Turns out he's literally the worst at it. He somehow managed to turn a basic light seal into a thankfully tiny bomb with only a big enough blast radius to burn itself off of whatever it's written on with a noise like a firecracker, which apparently was a theme with him. No matter what, he would always make bombs out of whatever seal I gave him. And then, when I tried to have him purposefully make a bomb, hoping that maybe he was just some sort of bomb savant, he somehow managed to make a seal tag that teleported itself and whatever it was touching to a random place within a fifty meter radius. Which, okay, free spacetime ninjutsu, but how? "I'm still scratching my head on how you managed to make a short-range teleport out of a bomb. Speaking of, what's your mom make of it, Tenten?"

She snorted. "She's still on that high from the wedding, so she's been more concentrated with being all lovey-dovey with Mommy than looking over the seal, but she did say to never let Neji near a seal again when I told her it was supposed to be a paper bomb."

"It wasn't really that bad, was it?" Neji asked.

Tenten laughed and shook her head. "Not at all, Neji..."

"...It's much worse," I finished her sentence with a slight grin. We high-fived. "When I looked at the seal you were making with my eyes, I saw a lot of different possibilities. Random teleportation was one of the better ones. You don't want to know what the worse ones were."

"Right." He didn't believe me. To be fair, I did tend to mess with him... And was messing with him. "So what's the seal you were working on supposed to do? I'm assuming it's somehow related to spacetime."

"Yeah, normally when people screw up seals that have nothing to do with spacetime, the result doesn't do anything to the fabric of reality," Tenten said, elbowing Neji.

"Shut it."

I shrugged. "You're right, though. It was most certainly a spacetime seal."

"Yeah, it looked a bit like an object summoning seal, but a little different," Tenten said. "Was it meant to swap objects between two paired seals?"

"Close. My hope is that it'll form a portal between two locations when chakra's input on both ends, and that it's compatible with demon sage chakra. It's still a little rough around the edges, though."

"Let me guess, secret base," Tenten said.

I brushed my hand through my hair. I was combing it less now, so it was a bit curlier and fluffier. And it was getting so long that my bangs started falling over my left eye more. I loved the way it looked, though. "Obviously. In fact, I have an agent working on finding the location right now. Haven't found anything good yet, though."

"How do you have an agent?" Neji asked me.

"Magic." I noticed a certain building and pointed at it. "Hey, isn't that the school? That looks like a school."

"Yup, that's the school," Tenten said. "Mommy took me here a lot. Mama's job is a little less kid-friendly, plus the teachers looked after me when I didn't want to sit through Mommy's classes."

"Oh right," I said. "Your mom's a teacher."

"Yeah, I said that earlier, weren't you paying attention?"

Something about that sentence felt a little doomy, though I couldn't tell why. "No, I was thinking about how to breach through spacetime to reach another location without accidentally summoning Mega Neo Beqthulhuzillaon, Destroyer of Souls and Eater of Worlds."

"Is that an actual concern?" Neji asked. "Are you messing with us or could you have actually summoned some sort of eldritch horror monster?"

I smirked. "You should know the answer to that question by now. I'm assuming you know the way, Tenten?"

"Duh."

kukukuku~

I tried very hard not to groan. "My name is Uzumaki Tenko," our teacher for the next few years said, writing it on the chalkboard. God I hate chalkboards. If I were Hokage I'd make chalkboards illegal. Which is probably one of the reasons I should not be Hokage, actually... "I look forward to teaching you." I slumped in my seat. It's not that I didn't like her. Tenko was really nice. No, the problem was that she knew I was a literal genius relative to my age level, and with that comes... expectations...

Before, my plan was to just rest on my near-complete high school-level education to put the bare minimum amount of work into the actual academic parts of ninja school, which considering what grades I got with how little effort I put into school before would've made me best in class or thereabouts already. But Tenko already saw me put actual effort into something, meaning she might have been able to tell when I didn't put in the work. So if I didn't want to hear about it from her and Tenten both I'd have to at least half-ass it. Ugh...

I sound like Shikamaru, don't I?

"Didn't I tell you she was going to be our teacher earlier?" Tenten muttered to me. I guess that was what I missed... "And why are you so annoyed Mommy's your teacher?"

"Because she'll actually care if I don't put any effort into my work," I whispered back.

"How terrible," Neji snarked. I flicked him with natural energy. Using natural energy without sage mode may have been a lot weaker, but I could at least flick someone sitting right next to me hard enough to feel. He flicked me back, though. My Neji may have been completely seal-illiterate, but he was just as much of a ninjutsu genius as in canon, and figured out how to feel and manipulate natural energy just by watching me do it, though he hadn't quite managed sage mode yet. We proceeded to engage in invisible and incredibly petty warfare that Tenko would probably have stopped if she were a sensor. Luckily, Tenten was too amused to turn us in. She almost gave us away with her giggling, though.

"Now, why don't you introduce yourselves?" I'm not saying that I completely tuned everyone's introductions out, but I am saying that the only names that I retained aside from Hyuga Neji, Uzumaki Tenten, and Rock Lee was someone from the Yamanaka family whose given name was Kaede. Kaede is a pretty awesome name. Why couldn't I have been a Kaede?

"Hello. My name is Hyuga Kouki," I said when it was my turn. "The reason why I don't look like Neji despite us having the same family name is because he's adopted."

"What!?" Neji spluttered. "No! You're the adopted one!"

"It's nice to meet you," I halfheartedly finished, pretending Neji said nothing. He flicked me for my troubles when I sat down. I flicked back, and as if someone assassinated a duke or something, Flick War II began.

kukukuku~

"Just remember that these are friendly matches," Tenko said when we were all sitting on the ground by the sparring ring. "If I feel like someone is being hurt too badly, I'll stop it there. And once more, it's taijutsu only."

"Why'd you look at me when you said that?" I asked. Her glare turned a little more accusatory. I pouted. "I wasn't gonna do it anyway..."

"Right," she said, turning away from me. "You may now look at the slips of paper I gave you. Who has one?" Tenten and a boy I should probably have known the name of raised their hands. "You two are first. And Tenten, try not to rough him up too badly, okay, sweetie?"

The unnamed kid grinned maliciously. "I hope teach doesn't get too angry after I beat up her precious daughter." Neji and I exchanged a look and snickered. Right, like that kid stood a chance. When they were told to start, the kid jumped in for a punch. Tenten dodged easily and shoved him to the side. He stumbled and fell.

"Get him with your Uzumaki strength, Tenten," I cheered dully.

She scowled at me. "For the last time!" Tenten shouted, then picked up the nearest object. Namely the unnamed kid. "I'm not!" She hoisted her hapless victim above her head. "Freakishly strong!" She threw Hapless Victim at me. Without even blinking, I deployed the demon gems hanging from my earlobes. One formed a springy barrier in front of me that safely absorbed the impact of the collision without too much damage to Hapless, while the other formed a barrier under him to cushion his fall.

"I have no idea why I would think that," I said as I recalled my gems. "Truly, your ability to lift over your body weight in small child despite being yourself a small child is totally unremarkable." She blushed and growled at me.

"Kouki, please stop antagonizing Tenten," Tenko said. "The match is over, Tenten wins."

"How did you do that?" another small child I probably should've known the name of asked me.

"Magic."

Hapless (I was now trying to commit his face and chakra signature to memory so I could keep calling him that) groaned and sat up. "I thought we weren't allowed to use jutsu!" he complained.

"You weren't," I said. "The Uzumaki bloodline manifests itself passively in the form of enhanced vitality and strength, something that Tenten definitely has even if she doesn't quite have the traditional looks."

"HEY!"

"So really, you didn't stand a chance."

Hapless stomped off to his seat and the rounds began again. After a few, it was my turn, as well as, "coincidentally" enough, a young Rock Lee.

"Remember, no jutsu," Tenko reminded me.

"Yeah, yeah," I said, then got into my fighting stan- "Ah, crud," I muttered, realizing that I had not been doing regular old sparring enough. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd actually practiced fighting someone without ninjutsu or genjutsu.

"Start."

I dodged a really shoddy punch. To be honest, it was pretty weird seeing Lee suck at taijutsu. Very lucky for me, but weird. I leaned away from another punch, then caught his arm. "Stop," I commanded. I uncurled his fist, removed his thumb from his palm, and then forced his hand into a proper fist. "It's a common mistake," I assured him. "If you punch someone with your fingers around your thumb, you'll probably break it. Oh, and hit me with those two big knuckles, not the entire fist." When I released him, he cautiously punched me. "Good," I said after catching his hand with mine. "However, I'm afraid that now I have to..." I twisted around and slung his arm over my shoulder in an attempt to suplex him or something. "Finish you!" Key word being attempt... I may or may not have only lifted him onto my back...

"I don't think you did what you were attempting to do..." he said.

"Stupid physics. I always hated that subject..." I shrugged and just dropped backwards in what I hoped looked like a planned move. I really needed to work on my taijutsu...

"Okay, that was not at all what I was expecting..." Tenko sighed. "Kouki wins, I guess..."

"You okay?" I asked as I got off Lee.

He sighed. "I am fine..."

The third noteworthy match was Neji versus Yamanaka Kaede, a hotblooded girl with orange hair like that one Fu guy and red eyes. While Neji was technically a pseudo jinchuriki by now from my experiments, his powers were weird and technically even his "passive" strength would be considered an active jutsu, especially because he could turn it off. The Yamanaka, on the other hand, was surprisingly strong for a Yamanaka. Maybe she was part Uzumaki? She did have red hair. At any rate, while Neji was almost overpowered at one point, he beat her. He was a genius after all.

kukukuku~

"Hey," I said, then sat down on the floor next to Lee. Okay, I actually floated just a bit off the ground, but the sentiment was there... "Sorry about beating you so bad."

He sighed. "No, it's okay... I already knew I would not do well here. I cannot use ninjutsu or genjutsu, and you saw how my taijutsu is..."

"Can you channel chakra into things?" I asked. I really wanted to know what would happen if I started him off early.

"I can, but no matter how hard I try, I will not be able to use a jutsu. The doctor said that there is a problem with my chakra coils, so I am incapable of molding my chakra into jutsu..."

I shrugged. "Not exactly a dealbreaker, if you're willing to work extra hard."

"What do you mean?"

I summoned my crystal ball. Yeah, I know it's kind of a stereotype, but I'd made the jutsu from that crystal ball jutsu Sarutobi used to see Naruto in the first episode, plus it did kinda look cool. "Watch this." I waved my hands over the floating crystal ball, casting the jutsu. Despite not activating my Shoraigan, the crystal ball changed to show another location. By using a physical medium, I could show my vision to others and didn't have the same backlash, though with the downside that it wasn't private and I didn't get nearly as much information.

"See that man?" I said, pointing to Gai training. "He used to be about where you are, but now he's one of the most dangerous shinobi in Konoha through taijutsu alone. Do you want to know how?" I put away the ball and looked at Lee. His eyes said yes. "An insane amount of practice, training, and diligence, combined with challenging himself to do something even more difficult whenever he fails a training exercise. You should probably take time to rest every once in a while, especially at first to keep from permanently damaging your body, but I see a fire in you. There's no reason why you couldn't become as good as or perhaps even better than him one day."

There were stars in his eyes, and he was almost crying. "Do you think so?"

I gave him a small grin. "I know so. Also..." I pulled out the other thing I had for him. "This is a bit of a beginner's fuinjutsu kit, at least my version of it. Try and see if you have some aptitude for it. You may not be able to inscribe seals with chakra alone, but if you pick up enough you might be able to work wonders with seals." Imagine Rock Lee with the ability to make and use seals. To be honest I have no clue what would happen but I do know it would be amazing.

He stood up, energized, and gave me a deep bow. "Thank you very much! I will make sure to become a splendid ninja!"

My grin was genuine. "I'm sure you will."

kukukuku~

Usagi

I lurched along the dirt path. My new body of stone and earth was not suitable for travel in the slightest, but I had no other alternatives. It seemed that compatibility with myself was not quite as common outside of Konoha as I assumed it was at first, and the rabbit was either a stroke of luck on my part or perhaps somehow related to how Kurama was present in End Valley at one point. Perhaps his chakra acted as a primer. Still, I did sense a few scattered people in small villages who had compatibility, though I couldn't in good conscience simply abduct and kill an innocent person. I needed to find a bandit with compatibility.

"Well well well, what do we have here?" a source of malicious intent jeered as two men appeared from behind trees. Speak of the devil... The two bandits, however, were nowhere near compatible.

"There's a toll to use this road," the other bandit said, brandishing his sickle. They had yet to realize my anomalous existence on account of the cloak, gloves, and mask I had fashioned for myself.

"Oh," I said. "I do apologize. I was not made aware of the toll. You really should put up a sign."

"You gettin' smart with us?" the first bandit asked. "We'll rough you up!" I probably didn't look like much of a threat either. The body I'd formed for myself was rather on the short side, to save energy. It was still definitely in the adult range, but not by much.

"You two are bandits, aren't you?" I asked. I already knew the answer, of course.

"Of course we're bandits, now give us all your loot!" The sickle-wielding bandit rushed me. That was a mistake. My body became fluid, the eyeholes of my mask gained two red lights where my eyes should have been, and I dodged effortlessly. I removed one of my gloves and placed my hand on his face, my hand like a lunging viper.

"Do you take chakra instead?" I asked, then infused his body with demon sage chakra. He dropped his weapon as his brain itself was altered in such a way that, while he didn't technically die, he certainly couldn't have been said to have been truly alive anymore. I removed my hand, revealing red markings across his face.

"What the hell!?" the other bandit shrieked. Without turning to him, I sent a signal to my new thrall. The bandit that I had just "killed" snarled like a beast and rushed at him. The... I suppose the best word for it would have been "zombie" bit the man on his arm with partially crystallized teeth. The man shrieked, throwing the zombie away and running in terror. I nodded to myself and split my attention in two, one half of my mind focusing on breaking the zombie down into more demon gems and the other tending to the bandit.

When my zombie bit him it infected him with my chakra, causing the cells in his arm to start to transform into the demon gem-like material that I'd used to zombify his partner. I altered the rate at which the infection spread, causing it to slow near the surface while speeding up within his blood and bones. My hope was that he'd notice the infection, cut his arm off and assume he got it all, then hurry back to his leader while carrying the infection. That would be fun. When I was done with the carrier, I turned my full attention to the zombie, which was almost prepared. With a final command, the corpse disintegrated into red powder. Some of it scattered to the wind, where it would be carried elsewhere. The rest came to me. About half of it went behind my mask, where it bolstered my existing gem. The other half I formed into another gem that I hid within my cloak.

With that done, I placed all of his belongings into a bag I had tied to my makeshift body under the cloak. I wasn't to know fuinjutsu, after all. I continued down the lonely road, ever-so-slightly quicker than I had before.

[oivsyo]

do you realize that your hinata is completely an ooc?

Good day!

I do realize that “my” (?) Hinata has some ooc. And it doesn’t bother me at all, because why should it? The only canon Hinata is depicted on pages of Naruto manga ( to my mind anime is the canon too, but even here views may differ). All fan-content is only numerous interpretations of the character. Fans take character traits they like the most and interpret them the way they want and the way it seems reasonable to them. And it is absolutely natural that different people see her in a differently. So every Hinata that you, anon, see on fanarts and come across in fanfiction is an ooc. Some Hinatas may be closer to your own interpretation of the canon character, some may not be that close. Some Hinatas get reasonable ooc, some are just OC with the name and appearance of Hinata.

However I can’t agree with you in the part that she is “completely” an ooc because it is actually not true and I have no idea how you’ve come to this conclusion. My answer could be more specific if you’ve pointed out what exactly you consider to be strong canon divergence in my interpretation of her. 

If you call “my” Hinata an ooc because she chose Neji over Naruto (and it is not an imposed arranged marriage, she chooses Neji with her own free will bc she loves him), then, well, I don’t think that the choice of the partner is the defining feature of the character. Hinata can be much more than just Naruto’s girlfriend. At least for me.

I take Hinata basic character traits, handle them with love and care and develop them reinforcing with the extended context that I make with headcanons for her and the characters that surround her. 

I don’t like Hinata character development in Shippuden and later;  there was actually no development. I say it out loud and I don't hide it. For the role that the author prepared for her, she is too poorly written. Moreover, I really like this character, she is interesting to me. I see great potential in her and want to show it in my arts and headcanons.

So I take Hinata from s1 and develop her character based on the canon events + adding more moments that didn’t take place (but could have) in the canon. Hinata is a secondary character so she has too little screen time so it is obvious that we are shown only a small part of her life. Of course there will be some divergence in her behavior because we all are the result of our life experience. Things that happen or not happen with us may affect our personality greatly. The question is to what extent it can affect us  and what the input traits were.

In my arts I draw Hinata the way I imagine she could have been in the canon, only making her gradually become more mature and self-confident.  If for you this is a terrible and inexcusable ooc then ok, call it this way. What can I do here?

If you don’t like “my” Hinata you can just reread manga or rewatch anime if you like canon Hinata only. Or find a fan-Hinata you would like. There are thousands of artists who draw her and like her. Support them, toss a coin to them, worship their Hinatas in comments, and discuss your headcanons with them. Those artists would be really happy to get your attention.

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Three Hundred Thirteen: Bright Lights ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina, vulgarity ] [ Verse: Oil and Blood ] [ AO3 Link ]

Another night...another bout of insomnia.

Giving up on keeping her eyes closed, Hinata instead lets them open to stare up at the ceiling. The last time this happened, she found a man half-dead in an alleyway, and subsequently almost got herself killed the other day when his rival gang snatched her up.

...it’s a long story.

She’s now on her third day off work. Her doctor contact managed to get her a full week with a cover story of being under treatment for something highly contagious. Her boss, not wanting anyone else to get sick and vanish, handed over the (unpaid) set of days off without question once the doc signed a note.

Which is good, because Hinata really hasn’t felt like going into work.

She’s had Uchiha casually stalking her apartment building, discouraged from leaving it unless absolutely necessary. And beyond Sasuke taking her to get groceries two days ago (the man she saved and who accidentally started this whole fiasco), she hasn’t left the building, much less her apartment.

As dragging as work can be, she never realized until now how boring it is to be stuck at home. She’s bounced between bingeing shows and movies to playing games to browsing social media...to even just people watching from her window. Something she normally detests, given her own distaste of being observed. Well...by people, anyway. It’s unavoidable otherwise, what with security being as high as it is in Japan anymore.

But now here she is, three nights in and she’s finally reached a point where even sleep can’t do anything for her. So, now what to do. She doesn’t feel like watching or playing anything…

...she almost feels like going for a walk.

Of course, there’s no avoiding how odd that seems, given that it was this exact scenario over two weeks ago that got her into this mess in the first place: being unable to sleep, going for a walk under the bright lights of the nightlife city, and stumbling across a mod-stripped Sasuke in the gutter.

Does she dare do so again? Or will she risk running into some other mess that will get her life all the more interrupted?

...but then again...how much worse can it get, really?

Sighing, she chews her tongue in thought. If she does want to go for a walk...she’ll have to do so with an escort to make sure no snooping Senju snatches her off the sidewalk like last time she was out and about.

But her next question is who exactly is on duty...Sasuke’s the only one she’s talked to. The rest she’s had no real reason to see given her reclusion in her apartment. Anyone else...she’s not sure if she should ask to leave. They might just get annoyed, and she’s not really eager to push her luck anymore than she has. Sasuke made it pretty clear she’s not likely to have the gang’s support for too long. She might have saved Sasuke’s life...but one favor was likely already paid off when they in turn got her out of Tobirama’s clutches.

At least, in most minds.

Sasuke’s convinced he still owes her, given that it was his involvement in the first place that got her taken. His father seeing it the same way, however...hasn’t been going well.

And she’s still not sure what she’d rather have. While certainly not eager to be tug-of-warred between Uchiha and Senju, Hinata would rather just...not have to deal with either. She did her good deed, she got Sasuke out of trouble.

So why is she suddenly the one in distress?

Deciding to try her luck, she accesses Sasuke’s contact information in her communicator mod. It awaits input for a long moment befores she simply asks, Are you on duty this evening?

There’s a minute of silence.

Yeah. Why?

She can’t help a small sigh of relief. ...I can’t sleep. Sorta want to go for a walk.

You mean even considering what happened last time?

Her lips purse in a pout. Well I won’t be going alone this time, will I?

...she can almost hear his vexed sigh. ...guess you’ve got a point. All right, fine. You get fifteen minutes. Then back to bed, missy.

Hinata deadpans. Missy? What is she, sixteen? Ugh… Getting out of bed, she throws on random clothes and makes her way down to the main floor, feeling almost odd after a few days not seeing it.

And as expected, Sasuke waits near the entrance, leaned and relaxed.

At least he’s not smoking this time...eugh.

“Anything in particular keeping you awake?”

She gives him a glance. “You mean b-besides being caught in a turf war I have n-no real part in on account of doing something nice? Wondering if I’m going to lose my job or my apartment or whatever else? Nothing much, I guess.”

He just snorts. “Never would have taken you for the sassy type.”

“Even I have limits to my patience.”

“Clock’s ticking. Let’s see if we can tucker you out enough to sleep.”

Falling into step with him, Hinata asks, “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Aren’t you...tired?”

“What, you think I’m not used to pulling all nighters?” Sasuke glances up, taking in the sights of the city’s neon lights. “I don’t really have much of a set sleep schedule. I just take it when I can.”

“That bad, huh?”

“My line of work isn’t exactly a nine to five. It’s whenever, wherever, however. All according to when my old man needs me to do something.”

Hinata gives a hum at that. And then a thought strikes her. “What...were you doing the night I found you? If...you don’t m-mind my asking.”

Shoulders shrug, indicating indifference. “Actually had the night off. Had been to a bar, was stumbling around...and they got the jump on me. Three Senju, all under direct orders of Tobirama. He’s wanted me dead for a looong time. Well...he wants us all dead, ideally. But as my dad’s more active son, I’m a pretty big target.”

Her brows furrow. “...active…?”

“My brother’s got some health issues. Mostly taken care of by mods, but...he’s still gotta be careful. So he’s more of an organizer, behind-the-scenes sorta guy rather than a runner-gunner like me. There’s only one reason he showed up to help bust you and the doc out. And a hint: it wasn’t you.”

“...oh…”

“Do I get to ask a counter question?”

“I guess there’s n-nothing else to do while we walk.”

“Why’d your dad cut you off?”

To her own surprise, the question doesn’t sour her mood. Maybe she’s too tired. “...my father is one of the biggest mod manufacturers in the east. Mostly medical ones rather than cosmetic. They help a lot of people, save a lot of lives...but are unethically expensive. When I got old enough to realize just what he was doing, I f-found my courage and confronted him about it. He ridiculed me, told me I didn’t understand, and...disinherited me. My sister is who will get everything when my father dies...partially split with my cousin, who is one of the main engineers behind the tech. But he’s not a child of my father, s-so...he’ll get less despite doing far more.”

Sasuke seems to mull that over for a moment. “...full offense, but...your dad’s a right prick.”

Hinata can’t help a snort. “...yeah. Yeah, he is.”

“And now you work in an insurance company who does pretty much the same thing, just from a different angle: extorts people for the mods they need.”

“...yeah.”

“Does that feel a bit...hypocritical to you, given what you tried to stand up for with your dad?”

“...in a way. But you also know I don’t do everything by the book. Whenever I can - when the case is bad enough - I refer them to Suigin-san and her ‘charitable’ work. I’ve never been caught.”

“How’d you meet her, anyway?”

“As a patient, believe it or not.” There’s a moment of hesitation, and then Hinata lifts a hand to her chest. “...I have an implant in my heart. I’ve had it since I was twelve. My cousin Neji, he…” She sighs. “...he and I had a very...s-strained relationship when young. His father, my father’s twin, was equal parts of the company, and...died when we were small. For the longest time, e-everyone suspected my father had him killed, to gain complete control. Obviously...that earned hatred from my cousin. And as my father’s heir...I was the target he could go after. He’s always been a genius, and...developed a subcutaneous mod that acts as a taser. He never told anyone, and experimented with it on himself. When he perfected it...he attacked me with it w-when we were preteens. I’d always been a little frail, and...the voltage stopped my heart.”

Sasuke’s eyes go wide. “Oh, shit…”

A somber nod. “...when I came to, I was in a clinic nearby the private school we were attending, where he attacked me. And it was Suigin-san who saved me. She implanted the device that keeps my heart stable, and...we’ve been connected ever since. So, once I got my job, I was talking to her about my f-frustrations, and...she admitted to her under-the-table work. And that’s...how that all got s-started.”

“...well I’ll be damned. How, uh...how do you guys get along now? You and your cousin?”

“After the...falling out, he approached me. Told me my father had blackmailed him to work for the company...saying he’d not press charges for attacking me if he agreed to use his genius for the tech. Of course, he had no choice...but once he realized what I stood for, and that I let it all go for my m-morals...he finally apologized. I couldn’t blame him for hating me...what I stood for. But we’re decent friends, now. We don’t talk much for fear of my father getting angry and s-sabotaging Neji somehow, though.”

“...and I thought my family had problems.”

Hinata can’t help a soft laugh. “Well...it could be worse. Anymore I’m just...getting by. Not really sure what else to d-do with myself. I help who I can with Suigin-san’s assistance, but...it’s drops in the bucket, y’know?”

“Yeah...well…” Sasuke gives her a glance. “...the offer still stands to go after him as my debt. Maybe I could do something about all that, huh?”

“...maybe. Right now, though...I’m too tired to think about it.”

“Tired enough to sleep?”

“Mm...I hope so.”

The pair then start angling back toward the proper building. Once there, Sasuke seems to...hesitate under the lights.

“...sorry if I, uh...pressed too hard.”

“No, not at all. I didn’t say a-anything I didn’t want to. Besides, it...sort of felt nice to get that off my chest. Maybe I really will sleep now.”

“...I hope so. I’ll be off in the morning to rest, but...I’ll keep you updated. Something tells me my dad’ll have made up his mind about things. We’ll see.”

“All right. Goodnight, Sasuke-san.”

“Night.”

Dredging back up to her room, Hinata collapses into bed. And by some grace, it takes her only moments to fall asleep.

                                                      .oOo.

     (This is a sequel to days 250, 254, 269, 300, 303, and 309!)       Aaand more cyberpunk AU. And a bit more detailed background on our two MCs...well, more so Hinata than Sasuke, but we'll get there. You think she'd be more wary of walking around at night, but...well, I guess she feels a bit safer given who she's with ;3      Also for anyone curious (which I doubt but whatever lol), this actually subtly mirrors the "canon" plot of how Hinata and Ryū meet, Ryū being one of the medics that helps save Hinata after her fight against Neji in the chūnin exams! Just a wee lil tidbit I threw in, lol      Buuut anyway, I am...EXHAUSTED so I'm gonna go crash! Thanks so much for reading~

[leportraitducadavre]

Hey about your hinata post while I understand what you mean and why you're saying it (and I do overall agree with your post) the way you talked about hinata's experience of abuse was pretty dismissive. I'm saying this from personal experience living with an abusive older sibling but the statements “It’s established in the Databook that she had a pleasant childhood, and while having carefree infancy doesn't exactly contradict the idea of Hiashi being mean to her, it does clash with the idea of her being absolutely scared of him rather than sad for the degradation” and “To claim that she was “still afraid” of her father when there’s not only a single indication of her uneasiness but there’re quite obvious displays of their good-terms relationship, it’s grasping at straws to defend something that doesn't exist” are just uhhh wrong. You could say the same about me - I had a pretty okay childhood, there's no indication of uneasiness when I'm around them, there are displays of our “good-terms relationships”. But none of these are in any way proof that things are okay - I've gone to parties and nights out together with them, we can laugh at each others jokes, we can spend time around each other without anyone else there and still be pleasant. But all the same I'm terrified of them, it's been a while since things were at their worst but I am still genuinely scared and don't see that changing in the near future. “when she’s not young anymore by shinobi standards and her relationship with Hiashi is fixed” - abuse can happen at any age and just because things seem okay doesn't mean they are.

I'm not saying any of this to excuse hinata's actions (or inaction) though. Because I have (many times) and I would again put myself into the focus, I guess is the word for it, of my sibling if it was an important enough issue or to stand up for someone else in my family. Despite knowing what it's like herself, Hinata is never really shown to do that, something I personally don't like about her character. Anyways, why I said all this and what I'm saying is that you can criticise hinata (fictional) without downplaying the (real) effects of abuse.

Hello Anon, thank you for your input.

About it, let me just clarify something, it wasn't my wish to downplay Hiashi's abuse, but you need to understand two things:

1) Your particular experience, while true for you, it's not universal. Meaning, your way to handle your experience with abuse or react to things isn't "the norm", nor invalidates other people's reaction (or lack thereof) to trauma.

2) We are speaking of a fictional character -what we know about them it's what we are told or what it's on display during the panels she appears on. She isn't real, therefore, what I can see or is inferred it's what gets analyzed. I, under no circumstance, will perform the same inquiry with a real-life person because there're things that I don't get to see/know.

In this case, Hinata's story is two-dimensional, because she is two-dimensional; whether she still is wary of her father, we don't know, because it's never told, nor shown, what we do get to see is the improvement in the relationship. In the same manner, we could say that Neji still holds resentment towards the Main Family for the abuse they put him through, but we also don't get to see that, what we do get to see is his complete acceptance of them and his condition as a slave.

I would never compare a real-life person with Hinata because she's nothing but a drawing. It's fine and more than correct to read Hinata in a way that allows you to reflect on your personal experiences, but as I've said before, those experiences aren't universal, not everyone will see them with that perspective in mind and, since Hinata is two dimensional, so is her characterization.

Edit to add: As you've noticed, I've replied to this ask as kindly as I could because I know you're coming from a place of concern -but please, take into account that you're accusing a real person of downplaying actual real-life abuse and/or harassment when I did nothing of the sorts.

I was analyzing what we are told and shown about a two-dimensional character in a manga. As I've said before, what we see/what we're told is what we get, adding things to her characterization that aren't canonically specified is well and plausible -but you can't fault people for not agreeing with them. It's a dangerous claim.

[proudxkunoichi]

@notasliceoflife [Frozen ANBU thread with Neji;]

Ino didn't realize that she had been holding her breath until Lord Rokudaime agreed to her demands. Truthfully, she hadn't expected him to. Sure, she could be pretty persuasive when she wanted to be but Hatake Kakashi, notorious for being a walking enigma who'd sooner play mind games on people than fall prey himself was something else entirely. But then she thought of how much the man valued his comrades and how Gai was Neji's sensei, Kurenai was Kiba's and the deceased Asuma had been hers. Three people Kakashi cared for, people he had grown-up with and fought besides. Would it be far-fetched to believe that he had taken sentimental factors into account? No matter the case, the end result pleased her and she agreed to forgive Kiba...in time. The incident was still too fresh and vivid but time healed all wounds and Ino would be damned before she let herself break.

She was stronger than that.

With a sincere 'thank you' and a bow, the blonde left the room, the weight on her shoulders feeling a tad bit lighter than when she had entered. The others followed after her and it was only when Naruto said something about telling Hinata that everything clicked. Ino had mentally blamed Sakura for nothing. Not that she could bring herself to be upset about Kiba telling Hinata, or Hinata telling Naruto. What was done, was done. She just hoped her team wouldn't find out.

Outside the Hokage Tower, she faced Neji, shaking her head when he made the remark about Kiba. "That was before I knew he fell victim to a similar circumstance." Ino never quite knew what the Hyuuga's opinion of her was. As a shinobi? That part was easy to deduce. But as a person? Not a good one, most likely. The majority saw her and thought vain, loud, shallow, dumb, temperamental, sensitive and while some of those were indeed true, she wasn't heartless or absurd. Teal eyes narrowed, sensing something in his tone that Ino couldn't quite put her finger on. "Well, it was either this or..." she waved a hand, thinking that it didn't warrant a mention. "Don't worry. After work is over with, you don't have to live with me or something. Kakashi has more important things to do than make sure you do your duty as 'my constant companion'." She'd rather not have Neji see the cracks in her composure, witness her crying, be awoken by the nightmares she had and so on. "Tomorrow, nine o'clock." Ino called over her shoulder as she walked away.

The next day, the Yamanaka was seated at her desk, several documents were neatly placed on it, waiting to be opened and dealt with. When Neji arrived, she had been humming a tune before stopping to greet him. "Alright, so, this is how we are going to proceed. I don't know how much you know about what is going on behind these walls. Which is why, I will have someone assigned to instruct you. There is the espionage section where Konoha recieves massages from the spies we had placed all over the Shinobi Nations. Before they get taken to the Hokage, we make sure our spies weren't compromised and the scroll is safe, meaning no bombs are attached to it or other potential dangers. The extracting information section is one that you won't fit in because it requires using the Yamanaka jutsu, the report section is a means of which Kakashi-sama gets notified of our progress and anything relevant but not threatening. The ones working here pay close attention to whatever is happening in the other sections and then talk to the shinobi involved for their input so, a report can be written. Other than that, there is a section I have just implemented. It deals with orphans and traumatized children in general. I work with them and interfere if I am needed in the other sections."

Ino bit the inside of her cheek, folding her hands togheter. She looked at Neji, knowing that he was made for battle, for striking enemies and protecting the village from the outside, not the inside. She also knew, however, that he was a genius. While the transition would, without doubt, be difficult...she could already picture him with her mind's eye learning in a month what others couldn't begin to learn in years. "Once you have the big picture, I expect to see you in my office and tell me what you decided that fits you best. I won't meddle in any of your affairs since I have caused you enough trouble as it is." Ino could have instantly appointed him as her assistant, of course. Instruct him herself about every section while she worked then hand out tasks. However, she got the feeling that it'd best that she leave him to his own devices.

The switch in dynamics, her in charge, him under her command...Ino was determined not to let him feel that. She was partially to blame for him losing face and have his position frozen, after all. Neji wasn't unkind but surely some sort of grudge was present, right?