Swirling Chaos Ch. 34 (Naruto) (Patreon)

A/N: Naruto tells Hanabi the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Results are... weird.

-x-X-x-

He can feel Kurama’s surprise in the back of his mind once he makes his decision. He can tell the Kyuubi isn’t sure it’s the right one, though she doesn’t actually try and object. In the end, Naruto moves through the village in relative silence, traversing Konoha while seeking out Hanabi Hyuga for what some would say was a long overdue talk.

He finds her training, of course. Whether it was under Mikoto’s orders or simply of her own volition, Hanabi is hard at work when Naruto finally comes across her. She looks good with a faint sheen of sweat across her brow, her body flowing as she strikes at the training dummy in front of her with her family’s signature Taijutsu.

She’s in her family’s training yard, probably because the training dummies there are set up to mimic the effects of having tenketsu, allowing Hyuga Ninja to practice the Gentle Fist in a safe environment. Of course, the Hyuga Clan Compound is well-watched. Guarded by several active duty Hyuga Ninja.

Naruto has no issue slipping in all the same. But slipping out again… heh, in the end he can’t help himself. He appears between Hanabi and the target dummy, blocking her latest string of attacks and letting her get a good look at his face for a moment. Then, her white eyes widening, he goes right ahead and steals her.

Slipping into the Hyuga Clan’s holdings with them being none the wiser is child’s play in spite of their dojutsu. The Byakugan is incredibly powerful and those who covet it are right to do so, but even still… it has its weaknesses.

Slipping out again however, with a certain package over his shoulder and with no one catching him… that’s a little harder. Still doable though, especially with Hanabi knowing exactly who was ‘kidnapping’ her and thus keeping her resistance to a minimum. They leave the Hyuga Compound behind in moments, Naruto’s treasure secured, and in less than a minute they’re back at his home, at the Hokage’s Compound, where Naruto can set Hanabi down on the bed in his room and activate a dozen security seals.

As he does so, Hanabi calms her breathing, her chest heaving up and down for a moment while she looks around herself and studies her surroundings. Truthfully, he expects this display of prowess to really get her suspicions raised. Surely even after everything she’s seen so far, she’ll be in disbelief that he really managed to steal her out of her clan’s compound from right under all those guards’ noses, right?

Like he should have been with Tsunade, Naruto is on guard, ready for Hanabi to perhaps decide to attack him for being an imposter. But instead, when he’s finally done putting up the security seals and turns back to her, the young kunoichi lounges back on his bed, having loosened the bandages wrapping down her chest and showing more skin than she was before.

“O-Oh dear… it seems I’ve been taken by an enemy ninja. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to fight him off… he might just have his dastardly way with me and there’s nothing I can do to stop it~”

Hanabi’s… seductive roleplaying is a bit amateurish, but Naruto gives it an A for effort. Of course, a couple things detract from the attempt. Number One, the real reason he’d brought Hanabi here… and Number Two, Kurama once again cackling like a hyena in the back of his damn head.

It was very, very tempting to just forget his true purpose here and indulge in Hanabi’s little games… but no. He feels like if he’s not going to tell her now, he might not tell her ever. So it has to be now. Smiling, Naruto chuckles sheepishly.

“That’s… not why I pulled you away from your training, Hanabi. There are some things you need to know. Secret things I should have already told you.”

Hanabi blinks at that, and sits up a bit more on the bed, her brow furrowed.

“What sorts of secret things?”

He can’t back out now. Well, he could… he could change his mind at the last second and choose to obscure the truth like he did with the others. But… he doesn’t. He tells Hanabi everything. Every single thing.

-x-X-x-

At first, Hanabi is elated when he tells her about Kushina’s planned diplomatic trip, and about the fact that she and her mentor would be joining them on the tour of the Elemental Nations. When Naruto gets into the second part, the fact that he’d fucked not just Hanabi’s mentor, but also the Fifth Hokage and Tsunade Senju to boot in the last twenty four hours, Hanabi is shocked… but also aroused.

Then… then he gets into the rest of it. He tells Hanabi the truth about his sudden increase in abilities. He tells her how he’s the product of the two Narutos, of both the Naruto she knew and the Naruto who traveled across dimensions merging together. And he tells her how he lied to the others, how they don’t know that he’s a completely new Naruto, made up of the other two Narutos.

By the time Naruto is done talking, Hanabi’s face is blank… or at least, as blank as she can possibly get it. Naruto tries not to read her too hard. She’s clearly doing her best to hold in her emotions and maintain an expressionless exterior, and even though she’s failing, it doesn’t feel right for him to notice it right now, as weird as that might sound.

Silence falls between them once Naruto is done speaking. In the end, he’ll wait as long as it takes for Hanabi to find her voice. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if she tries to run, so he can only hope she’ll talk.

“… The Hokage, Lady Mikoto, and Lady Senju… all think that you’re still our Naruto, just with a library of memories from the other Naruto?”

Naruto grimaces but nods, looking down at his hands.

“That’s right. To them, it’s ‘me’ and ‘him’, but the truth is… there is no ‘me’ and ‘him’. There’s just me… and I suppose them. Both the Naruto from this world and the Naruto from that world have come together completely at this point. There’s no separating me back into my original components anymore. It wouldn’t be as simple as removing one set of memories from my head or something like that… I make up a complete whole now.”

Hanabi slowly nods, processing this. But at least she’s not raging. At least she’s not attacking him.

“So that’s why you suddenly became so much more capable?”

Again, Naruto nods.

“And why I finally recognized your feelings for me, yes. I needed alternative perspectives to finally understand that we weren’t just rivals.”

Hanabi cracks a faint, weak smile.

“Heh, and in getting those perspectives you surpassed me to the point where we can never be rivals again.”

Naruto frowns and reaches out, grabbing Hanabi’s hands in his own. She startles at the sudden display of affection and comfort.

“That’s not true. No matter how strong I am now, it doesn’t mean you can’t one day reach me again, Hanabi. You have limitless potential. You just have to keep working and you’ll achieve everything I’ve achieved and more.”

The Hyuga stares at him with wide, white eyes for a long moment before blinking rapidly.

“That’s… what was I to the you from the other dimension? What sort of interactions did he have with the other me?”

Naruto almost corrects her, wanting to remind her that ‘he’ in this case was still part of the ‘him’ of now. But he gets that it’s a lot, and more than most would be able to wrap their heads around so quickly. That said, as far as answers go… he can only hope this one doesn’t upset her.

“We didn’t have many interactions, truth be told. It wasn’t just the future, but an entirely different version of our world. So things were… different in a lot of ways. For one, we weren’t part of the same age groups. I actually went to the Academy with your sister instead…”

Thinking about Hinata and what could have been makes Naruto grimace a little bit… and he probably shouldn’t have, because Hanabi immediately latches onto that.

“My sister? You trained with Hinata? What was that like?”

Naruto considers the question for a long moment.

“It was… interesting. We didn’t so much train together as we were just… classmates. I was the class clown you see, more interested in pranks and making a fool of myself than actually sitting down and learning. And Hinata… Hinata was a wallflower, to say the least. Shy and withdrawn. I didn’t even really know she existed until years after the Academy.”

That gets an incredulous look from Hanabi, prompting Naruto to laugh. While he’d certainly been boisterous in THIS timeline, with Kushina in his life, Naruto Uzumaki hadn’t been Konoha’s Number One Prankster or anything like that. He hadn’t been ostracized by the entire village either. In the end, he just hadn’t needed the extra attention. But in the other timeline…

“I was an orphan, Hanabi. No Kushina left me at rather loose ends… and I acted out. A lot.”

Hanabi slowly nods, clearly able to at least imagine it. But her incredulity doesn’t completely fade away, and a moment later he finds out why.

“I can sort of see that. But Hinata? A wallflower?”

Tilting his head to the side in confusion, Naruto slowly nods.

“Err… yeah? She was… well, she had a hard time of it I suppose. Your father pushed you two pretty hard, and while you’re a natural genius, Hinata had to work twice as hard just to keep up with you despite the gulf in ages. There was even talk of you replacing Hinata as Clan Heiress and her taking the Caged Bird Seal.”

That last part causes Hanabi to jolt, but Naruto isn’t finished yet. Now that he’s getting all of this out… he feels the need to get it ALL out.

“Hinata and I… we got closer only after we’d both left the Academy behind. I didn’t really find out she had feelings for me until some… pretty crazy circumstances. After that, everything was so hectic… we only got to go on a couple of dates before it all went to shit. I don’t know where things would have gone if we’d had more time, truth be told.”

There. He’d said it all now. Or so he thought. Hanabi shakes her head and at first he assumes the thing she’s having trouble reconciling is Hinata’s feelings for him. But as it turns out…

“The Caged Bird Seal… that doesn’t make any sense. I’m also my father’s heiress in this world as well, as I already told you… but Hinata doesn’t bear the Caged Bird Seal. Our mother would never have allowed that.”

Wait, what? Naruto’s eyes widen as he realizes the key difference here. Hanabi had said it before, all the way back during their first time together. And he’d heard her, filed the information away, and completely missed how fucking important it was. Letting out a steady breath, Naruto looks at Hanabi.

“Hanabi… I think… in that other world at least… your mother was dead.”

That causes Hanabi to go still for several long seconds, before scowling furiously.

“How? When?”

Naruto shakes his head, feeling rather bad for not knowing any exact answers.

“I don’t know the ‘how’… but the ‘when’ was way before now. If she was going to die in the same way as she did in the other dimension, it would have already happened. I don’t know what changed things…”

Except no, he did. Kushina had lived and as a result, Tsunade had stuck around. Konoha hadn’t lost its greatest healer and in fact the Hospital had been remade in Tsunade’s image. Naruto didn’t know how Hinata and Hanabi’s mother had died, but because he didn’t know, he could assume it was something that wasn’t talked about much… like complications in childbirth.

But if Tsunade Senju was on hand, there was no way a pregnant woman giving birth would die on her watch. That, Naruto was sure of.

He’s just about to tell Hanabi about this epiphany when she suddenly perks up.

“You feel guilty for lying to me about all of this, right?”

Blinking at the sudden tangent, Naruto slowly nods.

“Uh… yes?”

Hanabi grins wickedly and he feels like he’s suddenly let himself be baited into something.

“Guilty enough that you feel like you owe me, right?”

Well he couldn’t exactly say ‘no’ now, now could he. Raising an eyebrow, Naruto sighs.

“Sure, Hanabi. What do you want?”

Suddenly on her knees at the edge of the bed, her hands reaching out to run along his chest, Hanabi grins wickedly.

“I want you to fuck my sister.”

“Excuse me?”

And there’s Kurama, wheezing in the back of his mind again. Hanabi, meanwhile, refuses to be deterred by his nonplussed reaction. She just grins wider and more wickedly.

“Hinata Hyuga. I want you to fuck her. I guarantee she’ll be on board. And you never got to in the other world, did you? Consider this an opportunity to make up for that!”

Hanabi Hyuga… was incorrigible. And incredibly perverted. She even put the great perverts that Naruto had known from his previous life to shame! Neither Jiraiya nor Kakashi had anything on this young woman!

At the same time… did Naruto really have any room to object? Especially after everything he’d already done. Ultimately, could it really be said that he had any moral grounds to say ‘no’ here? The only thing that really gave him pause was… well, Hinata herself.

“You say she’ll be on board… can you guarantee that she really will be on board, Hanabi? That there won’t be any coercion on your part? I don’t want to find out you bullied her into something she didn’t want to do here. She and I didn’t grow up together, I wasn’t her idol like I was in the previous world.”

His concerns just make Hanabi laugh, irritatingly enough. Though when she sees that annoys him, she does at least stop and sigh, giving him a couple of pats.

“You don’t have to worry so much, Naruto. You’re right, you weren’t Hinata’s idol here… and I couldn’t get away with bullying her into anything even if I wanted to. So? If she agrees of her own volition, will you do it?”

Naruto grimaces, considering the issue for a moment. Kurama was still snickering and wheezing in the back of his mind, so of course she was being no help. In the end though…