Smoke and Lightning (A Naruto Fanfiction) [Complete]

Chapter Three: The Blonde

The girl, unsurprisingly, didn’t respond. She simply stared at him, rather astonished behind her deadpan expression. Hayate, on the other hand, smiled after he’d thought the idea over.

“That’s a pretty good idea,” he commented for her. “Okaasan and Otousan think she needs one as well.”

“You do need one,” the third added, watching her expression carefully. From the lack of expression, he was almost wondering if she was against the idea, as strange as that might be. Why would she be against receiving a name? “Do you want one?”

She didn’t respond, simply continuing to stare back at him. The third couldn’t help the slightly amused expression that appeared when he finally was able to recognize the emotion she seemed to be feeling. Along with that amusement, however, came a swell of sadness. What had she experienced to be so surprised by the idea of a name?

“There’s no need to be surprised. People will need to be able to call out to you if you’re going to go through this. Why don’t you go home with Hayate and discuss it with all of them. I’m sure that one of them will have an idea that you’ll like.”

She blinked, her own way of acknowledging the suggestion. At the same time, she didn’t move until Hayate reached forward to grip her arm and steer her towards the doorway.

“We’ll do that. Sorry about intruding like this!” Hayate apologized as they left.

Reluctantly, she pulled her gaze away from the two left in the room and trailed him out of the building.

 

_____________________________________

 

“Well, I know quite a few people,” Hayate commented, scratching the side of his head. “Maybe I can come up with something and we can surprise them when we get home. Let’s see… Akari?”

She shook her head, not bothering to even look in his direction as they started back towards the house.

“No? Hm… Mei? No again.. Yumi? No?” Hayate frowned as she shook her head once again. “Well, that’s all I’ve got at the moment.”

She paused and shot him a look that he could easily interpret. For a split second he wondered if perhaps he should stop automatically responding to the expressions, if anything he was allowing her to keep from speaking since he seemed to be able to read her easily. He pushed that thought away without a second’s consideration, however, and focused on the current matter.

“Hey! I said I knew a lot of people, but you can’t use the names of people we talk with daily, so there aren’t actually that many names I can think of right away. For example, you couldn’t just go around being a Asuma, imagine how confusing that’d get!” he argued.

The girl shrugged, her own way of agreeing with the matter. Hayate signed in return, coughing lightly into his hand. She shot him another look just as something caught her eye. Without warning, she took off for the third time that day. If he’d known that her growing interested in the world would cause so much trouble, he never would have hoped that she’d decide to do things without being told.

“H-” Hayate began, breaking off with a cough, then trying again as he chased after her. ”Hey!”

Ignoring him, she ducked around people before pausing at one of the shops. Stacked on tables and displayed on stands outside of the shop were dozens of different books. By the time that Hayate had caught up with her she’d already searched through the stacks, locating the cover that had caught her attention.

‘Kakashi was reading… this.‘

“You know how to read?”

She jumped at the sound of Hayate’s voice. As the words sunk in, however, she clutched the book to her chest and shot him a dirty look. Sheepishly, Hayate held his hands up in surrender.