Concept Pitch Part Truex: Fierce Snake

[Nasdaq]

Hinata settled into her stance, the veins of her eyes bulging ever so slightly as she opened up herself to a higher way of seeing. Forward, behind, to the left and right, to the sky and ground; it was all clear before her byakugan. She could see her opponent, which in this case was her embittered cousin Neji. she could see her teammates amongst the vast crowds, watching her from various places in the arena; Shino watched from the competitors waiting area, face affixed with the stoic expression that their sensei always found fun to try and break, and Kiba watched from the stands, cheering wildly like and howling like the dog's his clan both raised and resembled. Her sensei, on the other hand, was perhaps unusually reserved; she was sitting calmly in her seat, but could not hide the feral and eager grin that crept onto her face.

She saw others watching her with mixed expressions; her old classmates were a cornucopia of varied looks. Ino watched her with a mix of respect and contempt, having not yet gotten over her quick defeat in the preliminaries. Sakura showed simple respect and maybe a little bit of awe. Hinata realized that it was jealousy of a sort; Sakura wished she could have been a kunoichi of Hinata's caliber, and this realization made her ego swell a bit. The one classmate's expression she most cared about, enjoyed, and that warmed her was that of her long-time crush, however; Naruto was entranced, gripping the bars of the contestant waiting area with a white-knuckle grip. She smiled; sensei had been right about how to get him to notice. Hinata had spoken with him earlier, when he had seemed so depressed and dejected that it almost made Hinata feel the same. Some choice words, however, had turned that around and brought an admission of sorts from him. She was still riding that high.

The young girl mentally shook that from her head; no time to be distracted.

Hinata could see her family too; father was here, along with Hanabi and some other members of the clan. She felt nothing seeing them, a fact that, despite herself, she still found surprising. She cared nothing for their disapproving and scandalized looks at her form and how she was dressed, and in truth felt bit of amusement at it even. It felt good to make them gawk at her, to mock them in such simple ways; they had cast her out, and so she had cast them out. A lovely turnabout. This fight would be an extension of that. That thought caused the young kunoichi to smile, stretching out for a moment to bask in the sunlight and flaunt a bit before she settled back into her fighting stance.

The sun felt good on her skin, and she was idly thankful for both her choice of light attire and the fact that her match was early in the day. The prodigal Hyuuga girl had discarded the brownish-tan coat she had taken to wearing in homage to her sensei, and stood instead clad in an outfit of fine fishnet-like chained-mail, her normal hitae-ite hanging loosely around her neck, a pair of gear holsters strapped to her legs, and a set of clothes consisting of a short belted skirt, designed for mobility more than modesty, and a black spandex-like top with long flared sleeves that exposed her midriff to the heat of the sun. The top was made of a material that, while almost form fitting, was almost elastic in properties, allowing her to retain her much valued mobility and flexibility in combat. It also made her look 'damn fine' as her sensei had said and was more than a bit useful in distracting simple-minded men.

She was not expecting her cousin to be so effected, and knew better than to overly rely on such a simple diversion. But that was alright, she had more than a few tricks up her sleeves, quite literally in some cases. A grin crept onto her face as she watched her cousin's look of appraisal, eyes filled with contempt. He judged her peculiar version of the juuken opening stance to be simple ineptitude on her part, rather than an intentional choice on her part. Instead of the open palms of traditional juuken only her pointer and middle fingers were extended, slightly parted and slightly hooked, as if imitating a pair of fangs; that was, of course, the entire point. Neji, however, saw it as another weakness. This, of course, was also the point.

“It's obvious that you cannot beat me; your stance is sloppy, your hands are horrendous, and we both know your speed is inferior to mine. This is but the surface of your ineptitude. Give up now and stop wasting my time.” he said harshly, still standing up despite the proctors command to begin. He hadn't even activated his byakugan, a fact that Hinata was both bemused about and grateful for; it made her life so much easier and kept him from noticing the chakra she was gathering towards the soles of her feet, nor the light haze of chakra she was releasing from the various tenketsu across her body. She just need him to gloat a little bit longer and she could finish this without exerting herself too much, saving her strength for fights that might actually require her to exert herself.

“You seem very preoccupied with telling me what we both know, Neji-niisan; the byakugan is wasted on someone so blind.” she replied, the honorific on her cousin's name clearly dripping with sarcastic venom in place of the previous reverence or respect it had held. Neji seemed surprised by the response.

“Hmph, so you've replaced your timidness with false bravado; no matter, you're still the same failure you always have been. People don't change, cousin; people are who they are fated to be, and you are fated to be a failure, now and forever.” he replied, stoic expression turning angry as she laughed.

“Is that what you really think, Neji? That you're somehow fated to be superior? Fated to beat me? Is that how you cope with things? Is it how you put up with the travesty we call a clan?” she snapped back, enjoying the outrage that spread on the face her family in the stands. Neji recoiled like he'd been slapped, caught off guard by her bluntness. She didn't stop.

“Your attitude is endemic of the farce that is the Hyuuga clan. I pity you, Neji. You're a caged bird who has grown to love it's cage as much as it hates it; you're as much of a sham as our clan is.” she continued, internally frowning a bit as she saw Naruto's mixed expression at her words. She supposed he would think she was being overly harsh, but he didn't know any better. Maybe she'd tell him some time, and then he'd understand. They were very much alike, Naruto and her; both hated for something that was not their fault, both showing those that had once reviled them that they were not only wrong, but dead wrong. She smiled, knowing exactly what to say next.

“I reject your fate, Neji. I will make my own way; I will never back down, I won't run away, and I will never quit. That is my nindou, my ninja way, and you'll never take that from me!” Hinata shouted, causing the scowl on her cousin's face to deepen. She suppressed a blush as she saw Naruto leap up and cheer at her words, focusing back in on Neji instead.

“You're a disgrace to the Hyuuga name.” Neji said simply, finally beginning to settle into his opening stance.

“I take that as a compliment.” Hinata said, quietly marveling at her own words. She really had changed, hadn't she? Yes, she'd changed so very much since that day so long ago, and she had one person to thank for it. Her teacher, her guardian, and, she was happy to admit, her friend; a person who understood what it was like to be cast aside too: Anko Mitarashi.

-

Came up with this along with a friend. We often discuss random ideas about Naruto, and other things, and how stories could be done. Do so love our What Ifs. In this case, we began thinking about the effect Anko would have on Hinata. I've seen 'Anko as a teacher' before, and wanted to try my hand at it. Thus, as my brain works, I began working out a plausible scenario, which goes like this:

Although legally and operationally considered shinobi, genin, particularly fresh ones, are hardly considered to be shinobi by virtue of their inexperience and lack of skill. They are expected to go through some learning time, hence why they are paired in trios with a jounin-sensei, and then rank up to chuunin after a few years where they can actually begin undergoing actual missions in place of the small-change makework they are usually deployed for. The chuunin exams are, for the most part, simply a way of finding exceptional genin and showing off the villages prowess; most shinobi are promoted outside of the exams, after some years of service. However, ranking up from chuunin to jounin is a longer process, and many shinobi never make it past chuunin. Some end up instead going to the rank of tokubetsu jounin and remaining there for the rest of their careers, while others go straight from chuunin to jounin. Many go through tokubetsu jounin and into jounin, however. This is because, unlike ranking up to chuunin, the ranks of tokubetsu jounin and jounin itself are not automatically given, and are instead given out based on more comprehensive testing. Each year there are only a few slots for new jounin, and ranking up is based upon a point-based scoring system, factoring in time-in-service, missions completed, status as a chuunin or tokubetsu jounin, and also scores on written academic tests.

Anko Mitarashi had not gone up for promotion as often as many of her peers, mostly by her own choice. What had made her change her mind was directly linked to a mission she'd been assigned while she was just a chuunin. She had been assigned to look after a young girl, one Hinata Hyuuga, until more permanent arrangements could be found. After some time with the girl she decided to put herself up for this role, becoming her legal guardian due to the Hyuuga's essential disowning of the girl. Hinata had a greater effect on Anko than she'd expected, and in the year she was set to graduate from the Shinobi Academy, Anko pulled out all the stops to pass her promotion exams, hoping to request a special duty job as a jounin-sensei, and then attempt to cash in every favor she'd ever earned in her years of service to end up as the teacher of her young charge's team.

It payed off; Anko managed to take the slot in a close fight, shutting out a slightly older genjutsu specialist named Kurenai Yuuhi. They had similar scores, but Anko had slightly greater scores in intelligence, infiltration, and reconnaissance, and thus was selected for these facts. Her request for duty as a jounin teacher was somewhat unorthodox, with jounin usually serving as field agents before going to teacher, but was granted never-the-less due to the presence of graduates who fit her specialties perfectly, including the young and significantly different Hinata Hyuuga.

I based the concept of promotions off actual military practices, loosely equating genin to the junior enlisted ranks, and chuunin to a mix of E-4 and the NCO ranks, while a tokubetsu jounin would be something like an E-6 or even Senior NCOs. Jounin are, thus, more along the lines of real senior NCOs or even officers.

Plausible scenario being set, I started planning out the story a bit more. I'll need to figure out a long-term plot before I really throw myself into this one, though I really want to do it, as it sounds very interesting and would be nice to write a non-Naruto focused story. I want to show a Hinata that, while not as totally timid, is still fairly insecure in different ways, and has her own issues that may or may not be actually worse then her canon self; I hate stories that just swap something and make things just better all around. This Hinata may have more spunk, but she's also a bit colder and definitely has a bit of hate in her heart. Also, snake-enhanced Juuken will be very fun.

The title comes from another name for the Inland Taipan, the most venomous land snake in the world. It has a venom 200-400 times worse than a rattlesnake, and 50 times worse than a cobra. However, it is mostly docile and timid, and will not strike unless provoked. I find this to be a suitable description of how Hinata will be most of the time, and it'll be core to a speech Anko gives the girl early on in the fic.

[ewuvi]

I like it, I like it! Not much else I can say, except perhaps that I would like for Hinata to lose to Neji and continue to grow into a 'Fierce Snake'

[spudman]

I like it as well. Kick some @$$, Hinata! Woo!

I agree and disagree with ewuvi's sentiment. Hinata will need to continue to grow in order to become a Fierce Snake, win or lose. But I think I'd prefer if she won the fight, as the exam finals seems the best place for proving her clan wrong. Once that's accomplished she can better move out of her clan's shadow and develop her motivations and what she wants to achieve as an individual. Clan issues could still come up, of course, but I think after the Chuunin Exams it's better if the Hyuuga clan is just one of many potential problems, and not the central one.