One Long Mission

Her return to Michi no Sato had been quiet. Just a small date with Naruto, a return to the house, a nice long bath and then the sleep of the dead. It had been.... exactly what she wanted. There was no fuse. No one fawned over her because of her absence. She'd been able to help Itachi-sama gather more materials for the school. And she'd slipped back into her everyday life of working at the clinic in the mornings and going over the papers for Itachi-sama in the afternoons. Besides, she'd also been able to go back to visiting Itachi-san during lunch.

The only thing she regretted was that she really hadn't spent much time with her friends besides Sakura-san. She had missed them while she was gone and hadn't found a chance to visit them since she'd returned home.

Of course she'd heard about the accident with the little girl who managed to knock herself out attempting a technique that was far too advanced for her. How could she not since the child had been rushed to the clinic after fainting just an hour ago?

But now, now she was headed to the house, suddenly suffering from a migraine that had no known cause. It was the sound of someone approaching behind her that made her turn around to check to see if they were friend or foe.

She had noticed the villagers running around preparing things for the past few days. Every time she attempted to speak to one of them about what was going on, however, they seemed to be too busy to answer her questions. Finally, she'd braved asking Kakashi-sensei's landlady—the owner of the bookstore—and was informed about the festival to honour the dead.

Hinata had quite a few dead to honour, here or not, and she purchased her own candles and some ingredients to make dishes to put before the shrine. It would be awkward since she didn't have any photographs of her mother and putting one of her cousin would seem a bit morbid, but she hoped that they would appreciate the thought anyway.

That was what counted, right?

Perhaps she wasn't the only one of the shinobi intent on doing so as well.

She had left early in the morning for a jog before she started her training. Her routine since coming to Michi no Sato had been rarely broken. She woke up early, jogged around the village, trained for two hours—either by herself or with Neji-nii-san, and Naruto-kun later—before she went and did odd jobs for the villagers to earn some ryo.

When she reached the village proper, she noticed many slips of coloured paper on the ground. She stopped, trying to figure out where they'd come from. Surely if there had been some sort of celebration, she would have found out about it long before now, yes? She bent over to pick up the once closest to her, a lovely shade of orange that reminded her of Naruto-kun's jacket....

Naruto-kun had been in Michi no Sato for a few days now, and while after their first talk they'd shared many more, it still felt awkward and painful to be around him.

No matter that he'd said, and she understood, that he needed time to adjust to being away from the fighting and other things that had occurred back home, her heart was still heavy.

She didn't know how to talk to anyone about it. Would it be proper? Who would understand? Could she do it?

Lost in thought, she sat down in the dojo of Mikoto-san's house with the intent to meditate and clear her head, but it wasn't really working after an hour.