Hikari; The Forgotten Otsutsuki

Chapter 13

I woke up relatively early that day. With my towels and toiletries in hand, I got out of my room. I noticed Neji was closing his doors and he was already fully dressed for the day.

"Aren't you a bit early?" I asked groggily as I rubbed my eyes. I heard him chuckled at my question.

"I got training for the day with my team," he answered and he moved the doors.

"Come to think of it, I never saw your team. How are they like?" I asked and on cue, he stopped short and shivered.

"Nightmare. Total nightmare," he simply said and that had piqued my interest, "later then, Hikari."

I didn't answer it because I was still sleepy instead I made my way to the bathroom. Inside, I tried to stretch out my shoulder to see how far has it recovered, a smile made its way on my face as there was no pain that I could felt. I turned around trying to look at the long diagonal slash at my back through the mirror and found that the wound was healed now. I concluded that I could finally do some mission today. After the C-Rank mission that turned B-Rank, Sarutobi-sensei had me permanently placed on the team 7. He felt that I could learn some more by being in an actual team. After stretching out some more parts of my body, I took my bath. Twenty minutes afterward, I was freshly changed and headed out to the dining room. As usual, Hinata was already there prepping breakfast.

"Morning, Hinata," I said as I sat down at the table. I noticed that Hinata had already prepared me a cup of tea. Since the mission in the Nami no Kuni, I grew fond of drinking tea in the morning. Hinata had naturally substituted my morning milk to the tea instead. Not only that, she prepared it with a pot of hot water that was not mixed yet and a cup along with tea sachets just the way I liked it.

"Morning, Hikari-Nisan. Feeling better?" she asked as she was kind of chopstick-fighting the frying pan.

"Yes, thank you. I think I'm going to do a mission with them today," I said, grinning. She then handed me my plate of Omurice for breakfast. I sniffed the warm vapor that came out of the meal and exhaled in bliss.

"This is heaven. You're the best, Hinata," I grinned at her to which she just nodded and smiled at me, "oh, I think I might have ramen for lunch with Naruto today. I've promised him yes...urkk..."

A lump of rice got stuck in my throat. I punched my chest in despair. Hanabi appeared out of nowhere and slammed her fist onto my back and my throat is cleared.

"Geez, Oni-chan! How many times did I tell you?! Eat slowly!" she yelled while crossing her arms.

"It is so good, I can't help it, Hanabi-chan," I whined. Hinata just laughed at our antiques. That was how my morning normally began. To be honest, I wouldn't trade it for the world. After breakfast, I headed straight for Sakura's house since she was the nearest. I was lucky to catch up with her when she got out of the house.

"Oy, Sakura!" I waved at her as I ran. When she turned to see who was calling her, her eyes lit up.

"Hikari-kun!" she yelled at me and we high-fived when we got close to one another, "feeling better?"

"Yeah, all healed up. I think I am ready for a mission," I said and grinned at her while giving her a thumb up, "up for a stamina training after the mission? I feel like I lost too  much of it since Nami."

"Hell, yeah!" she yelled while cracking her knuckles, "let's go! We're going to be late."

We ran towards the meet point together. Since the mission, Sakura was visibly changed. No longer the same girl, she was more calm and happy now. His eyes were no longer bearing the strange sudden darkness and occasionally tired expression anymore. We managed to get there on time. Naruto hadn't arrived yet but he will be because we could hear the sound of his running from miles away.