saving.
"You have to trust me," Hinata said, her brows furrowed. She looks restless and uncomfortable for the first time since they dated. "Naruto-kun, I'm not weak."
"I know, ttebayo." Naruto blinked. He knew Hinata wasn't weak. Hinata wasn't as fast as him or rumbling like Sakura, but each of her punches landed painfully.
Hinata took a deep breath. "Y-you can't just swoop in to save me on a mission. I don't need that; I can knock him out alone. I'm not a girl in distress, and you're not a prince on a white horse. I'm a capable kunoichi."
"But I don't want you to get hurt," Naruto said dejectedly. Hinata's opponent used so many weapons, some of which were gigantic in size, and if they landed on someone's head, it could definitely crack a skull.
Hinata smiled gently. She still looked a little disturbed when she put her hand on top of Naruto's. Her hand was tiny compared to his; it had white stripes from intensive jyuuken training.
"I know you don't want your loved ones to get hurt," Hinata said tentatively, her pale purple eyes looking into Naruto's. "But we're ninjas, Naruto-kun. We get hurt sometimes, and that's okay. We brought iryonin with us on missions for a reason."
But iryonin is not a safety guarantee. Naruto remembered Neji and Hinata bleeding in front of him; Sasuke battered without an arm in the Valley of the End; Iruka-sensei jumping to protect him from Mizuki's fuma shuriken.
Neji was never the same after the war, and Hinata would die if she was handled not by Sakura. Sasuke had random cases of phantom pains far more often than he did. While on cold days, Iruka-sensei's back would be so stiff that he was in trouble move. At that moment, Naruto's stomach would spin, and his chest would ache.
I should have saved you guys better, he always thought.
"You used to want to fix everything, save everyone." Hinata continued. "But you don't always have to. We can save ourselves."
And there are people you can't save sometimes, but Hinata won't say it now. Naruto believes everyone can be saved; he had the power to do such impossible things. Hinata is more realistic, raised in a firm and unfriendly clan.
At sixteen, Naruto became a hero by saving the world from sliding uncontrollably towards its end. Yet, this doesn't mean he has to do it all the time, Hinata thinks.
