Manicherryblossom33
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I am soooo late. Soo sorry, everyone! Thank you all for being patient! I had horrible writers block. It was especially annoying because I knew where I wanted to go but not where I wanted to begin. Ugh.
Anyway, please enjoy.
previous chapters
Naruto Fanfic A future without you
chapter 39: two years ago, part 4
HINATA'S POV [YONDAIME'S HOUSE, GENJUTSU FOREST; KONOHA, TWO YEARS AGO]
"Hm-hm-hm." She hummed softly to herself as she stirred the curry, pausing to breath it in and sigh in satisfaction. She cast a swift glance over her shoulder at the door, smiling.
The door stared mutely back.
Turning away, she looked up at the clock. Nearly time...
He liked to make a dramatic entrance this late in the day. What would it be this time? The window? Or maybe one of the trap doors? Or would he send a shadow clone again? Lady Tsunade had been keeping him late into the night for over a week now...
She jumped a millisecond before feeling a chin clap onto her skull and long arms envelope her.
"Gotcha!"
She gulped, casting him a wary look.
"You scared me!" She scolded breathlessly as he slid his chin from the top of her head to just above her ear, grinning. She turned her head so a small fraction of her vision was full of blonde spikes. "How did you do that?"
He laughed lightly, tightening his arms around her and dropping his head to her shoulder.
"Awesome, right?! It's Dad's flying raijin!" Naruto snapped his eyes open as she dropped her gaze to his.
Her mouth formed a small "o" of surprise. "How did you learn that?"
"Scrolls! Dad put some of his best jutsu in scrolls, just for me, and sealed them away somewhere safe!" Naruto told her, straightening up and crossing his wrists over her torso. "Granny's been showing me all these cool old books that granny Mito owned! They're full of awesome fuinjutsu!"
Hinata gaped. "Cool old books" was the last thing Naruto would say.
"But you hate reading." She said, noting the one exception by casting a quick glance at the Tales of a Gutsy Ninja sitting in the window sill.
Naruto frowned and cast a questioning glance at the roof.
"Yeah, I do. But for some reason these books are different! The instructions for the different seals they just...stick in my head...I dunno why..." He replied, his voice receding more and more as he spoke. He perked up suddenly, beaming at her. "Not that they're easy! I haven't even completely mastered the first one! And it's supposed to be basic!"
"What is it?"
"Ummm... I forgot!" He said enthusiastically. "But its a space seal, so you can slip through walls and floors like they're made of water! It can trap people and things and keep them there for as long as you want!"
She laughed whole-heartedly. "Wow. You really do remember it all."
"Yeah!" He threw his arms out. "I haven't figured it out yet, but when I do, just wait! Those black market guys that are selling the sharingan are going to pay! I'm going to nick all their merchandise!"
She smiled warmly back at him as she dropped patties of rice onto plates and ladled out the curry. Naruto stepped back as she turned to set the two plates side by side on the table.
"That reminds me, have Sakura-chan and Sasuke returned yet?" She asked as he fell into his seat.
"Nah, but they've been sending reports every hour." He told her as she took the second seat. "Those ex-Akatsuki members are tough! And smart too. Every time Sasuke and Sakura got close to them, they escape! But it's wierd. Kirigakure is the smallest of the five great nations, and its mostly mountains. But the enemy hasn't even tried to escape out to sea or use teleportation ninjutsu or anything. They just keep climbing over mountains..."
"Maybe they're looking for something..." Hinata suggested.
"Granny Tsunade thought so too, but Granny Mei says there's nothing in those mountains but man eating beasts and poisonous plants. And there's this wierd mountain range which is coated in something that repels chakra, so if you fall in, you can't save yourself. You can't even summon a giant toad like I did when ero-sennin tossed me down that spiked gorge."
Hinata knit her brow. "Why would they hide there? It's geographically hazardous..."
"Maybe their cowards. Sasuke says its difficult to make a move in the mountains because they're filled with this genjutsu fog that makes you think up is down and right is left. He and Sakura-chan would have been lost the second they stepped in if not for his sharingan. But even with his eyes its still hard to make sense of it all... Although there are these safe areas where you can see better..."
"But if they're powerful, why would they want to hide?" She asked.
Naruto shrugged. " But Granny's getting anxious. So are the rest of the kage. These ex-Akatsuki guys are causing trouble everywhere, even in out of the way nations that don't have ninja villages. And they slaughtered a group of samurai a few weeks back, so old man Mifune is furious. Gaara's called for an early gokage council, and Granny's leaving tommorow."
Hinata looked concerned. "But that means--"
"Yeah." Naruto slumped back in his chair. "No one's allowed to go beyond the village walls. Sasuke and Sakura and a lot of the others have already been called back."
"We won't be able to come here tommorow." She mouthed.
Naruto shook his head.
She turned resolutely in her seat and gripped her knees.
It had been three weeks since that rainy night when he'd promised her, and since that time they had continued to meet here in secret. Their relationship was being treated as classfied information at the moment, as it would cause problems with the older, more traditional members of they Hyuga clan if they knew about her and Naruto-kun. As a result, not even their closest freinds knew.
The advisors of the village had begun to be more considerate with Naruto, but they were scrutinous and forceful. They called him to the kage building for hours at a time, usually to warn him or bann him from doing this or that. He rarely heeded their words, telling them off and demanding reasons for their fussy ruling. Lady Tsunade sided with him on most occasions, but from time to time, she would agree with them.
Thus their three weeks together had been spent mostly apart. He was constantly busy delivering messages to the other kage's, running the spy network, and working with the anbu. The ROOT anbu, who had been place under captain Yamato's control following the war, and as he answered directly to Lady Tsunade, this caused tension edging towards mutiny. However, Naruto-kun's remarkable ability to make peace with even the worst of people was steadily bringing them over to his and Lady Tsunade's point of view, and many of the root anbu no longer judged Sai harshly for betraying Danzo shortly before his death so as to give Naruto leeway.
Meanwhile, Hinata had taken to coming to this house only once in a blue moon, or going to his apartment to drop off meals. Naruto would reverse-summon gifts to her. Random things, whose identity depended on his environment. If he was in the woods with the anbu, he'd send her a stone or a leaf. If he was trapped with the advisors, he'd send her a snatched bottle of ink, and so on.
She kept the gifts in a chest hidden beneath her floorboards.
"Granny's making me go with her, but I'll be back ASAP!" Naruto said hopefully. She whipped her head up.
"You're her escort?" She asked.
"Yeah. Kakashi-sensei and I aregoing with her to Suna." Naruto grinned. "Those old guys are in charge until we get back!"
"I see..." Hinata said. "Ah, our food is getting cold..." Hinata noted.
And just like that, Naruto began wolfing the lukewarm curry down.
NARUTO'S POV [SEVEN DAYS LATER, MID-AFTERNOON]
"So did you catch them?" Naruto asked Sasuke as they walked down the busy nightime streets.
"No." Sasuke replied stubbornly. "If we had, all of this wouldn't be neccessary."
He gestured to the entire street, indicating the jounin on patrol and the anbu black ops squads positioned on the roofs. But it was nothing compared to the security posted at the outskirts of the village.
Naruto looped an arm loosely around Sasuke's neck and earned a sideways half-threatening glance from him.
"If you and Sakura-chan couldn't do it then we might be in big trouble." He thought aloud.
Sasuke arched an eyebrow at him.
"That's an ODD thing for a class A showoff to say."
Naruto laughed. "Ha! I don't wanna hear that from you! And anyway, it doesn't matter, cause I'm gonna beat the crap out of anyone who threatens the peace!"
Sasuke "hmph[ed]" and smacked the palm of his hand into Naruto's left temple as he shoved him away.
"That's more like it." He stated.
Naruto looked angry, then stunned. Sasuke smiled confidently on, which made Naruto chuckle and grin as he crossed his arms behind his head.
"So where've you been disappearing to?"
Naruto flinched like a rock had dropped into his stomach. Crud. Why was he so curious, anyway?!
"Not that I care--" Sasuke began.
"Then don't ask!" Naruto snapped.
"--But people have been talking."
This didn't faze Naruto. "So?"
"So the root anbu that you haven't befreinded, the advisors, and the jounin and chunin who think poorly of you, are suspicious." Sasuke said, locking eyes with Naruto. "They think you're in league with the enemy, that you're paying the ex-Akatsuki members to do damage to the five great nations."
Naruto straightened up. "What? That's crazy! Why would I--"
"So you could end them and make yourself look good."
Naruto gaped. "How do you know that?"
"... Smiley's been keeping tabs on them, on Tsunade's orders." Sasuke admitted. "He told Sakura and she told me."
Naruto was takn aback by this. Granny was having Sai spy on people?
"A few of the root anbu were apprehended the other day for trying to slip you some poison." Sasuke told him. "We've got devils within the walls, so sleep with one eye
open."
Before Naruto could say anything, there was a shift in the air, a hint of black, and an anbu appeared before them, kneeling.
"What is it?" Sasuke asked.
"Lady Tsunade has summoned you. Its urgent. Please report to her office straight
away." The anbu reported.
Sasuke did not show even a hint of suspicion. Instead he turned to Naruto--"See you."--and disappeared in a flash along with the anbu.
Naruto stood there frozen for a minute while his mind processed everything that happened. He was shocked out of this trance when he heard a couple of giggling girls a few feet behind him and took off in a desperate sprint.
A few minutes later, he took the familiar sharp turn into what everyone else saw as a dead end alleyway, but was really the entrance to the genjutsu forest.
He broke through to the fog and hopped along the knots of concentrated mist until he reached the forest clearing where his parents' home was.
Upon seeing his house, he should have been ecstatic as he always was, but instead he nearly choked on his own tongue. Because something was there that should not have been there, and that was...
"There you are. I've been waiting for hours!" She griped, arms folded over her chest as she turned in front of the door to face him.
... Sakura-chan.
Naruto paled then turned bright red and stomped over to her, on the verge of panicking.
"What are you doing here?!" He shouted into her face, surprising her enough to make her cringe. "This is our-- I, I mean, MY, secret place! How'd you get here?! If Granny told you, so help me I'll--"
"How dare you talk about Lady Tsunade that way!" Sakura snapped. "I followed you. Yesterday."
"How'd you know how to get through the fog?!"
"I figured it out. And stop shouting!" She demanded, yanking on his earlobe.
"Ow, ow, OW!" He yelped. "Okay, okay, I got it! Let go!"
She released him and he rubbed his sore ear tiredly while glancing about fearfully.
This was bad. This place was just for Hinata and himself. It was where they met as often as possible for as long as they could. Where they talked and ate meals together and trained together and sometimes, when it was late, slept in the same bed together (only slept!). It went without saying that if Hinata found Sakura-chan here, with HIM, that it could bring disaster.
"Why'd you follow me anyway?" Naruto questioned.
Sakura lowered her eyelids. "Did Sasuke tell you what's been going on?"
She had to mean the suspicious members of their village that Sasuke had mentioned. He nodded.
"Good, that makes my job easier." She continued. "What is this place? This is where you go when you disappear, right?"
Hesitantly, Naruto nodded.
"Why have you been coming here so often? And why didn't you tell us where you were? What have you been doing?"
Naruto shifted uncomfortably. He couldn't answer those questions. He wanted to, but he really couldn't think of a reason to outright defy Granny like that.
"I... I can't tell you." He replied.
"Are you... Are you going to stop coming here?" She asked.
"No." Naruto answered immediately.
"Can you...At least come here less often?"
"No." He had to see Hinata as often as possible. He just had to...
Sakura sighed heavily. "Why? Why do you have to be so secretive? It's not like you!"
Naruto furrowed his brow.
"Naruto, we're... We're worried. Sasuke and I, and Lady Tsunade. That poison was tasteless and odorless, colorless... If Sai hadn't overheard those anbu talking about slipping it to you, there's no telling what would have happened!"
"Sakura-chan--"
"I don't understand! Don't you get that you're endangering yourself? Your dream? Everyone's really excited because they can't wait to see you become the rokudaime, even Sasuke! Sasuke, who said HE wanted to be hokage! You're so close and now you're--"
Naruto groaned in aggravation.
"Sakura-chan, you need to trust me! I can't tell you everything! I know what I'm doing!"
"Listen to me, you bonehead, you're going to--"
"Enough! You're not my mother or my sister, so stop telling me what to--"
His breath caught in his throat as a black puff of smoke exploded in front of his face and enveloped the world. The ground felt slanted and his body moved on his own. He blinked and pushed back mentally, unsure of what was happening. This did not help much. His hand closed around something soft and tube shaped and his mouth closed on something...
Angry, he pushed back again, and the darkness disappeared in a snap. He blinked and saw green eyes staring back at him in shock, mere centimetres away.
He gasped internally and pushed her away, bewildered, and feeling some nauseating sensation climb up his back, which he realised after a moment was shame.
What... What did he just do? Why would he...
He jumped as an odd sound from behind broke the silence. He swirled, coming face to face with...
"Hinata!" He screamed, glancing quickly a Sakura then back at her.
She had evidently arrived just in time to catch him in the act. She'd dropped the brown paper grocery sack at her feet, but her arms were still up in front of her as if she had not noticed it had fallen.
Her eyes shook and her mouth, agape, trembled with the rest of her. Slowly, she placed her hands over her mouth as tears rushed in streams down her face.
He gasped, realizing what this must have looked liked to her. Just as she had entered the clearing, he'd grabbed Sakura-chan by the arms and kissed her.
"No! No!" He rushed over to her, desperate to explain. "Hinata, lsiten to me! Look at me!"
As soon as he'd reched her, she'd dropped her gaze. Her eyes flickered over the grass, the fog, the trees. Anywhere but at the house or Sakura-chan or Naruto. And her fingers had curled, as if her hands were determined to stay clamped over her mouth forever.
"No! Hinata, I swear I didn't-- I mean, I dunno, it was accident or something-- Hey, listen to me--"
Due to his fear, he'd barely noticed. But at the words "I didn't", Hinata had whipped her head up. At the words "an accident" she had activated her byakugan. And when he had begged her to listen to him, she had raised her hand.
There was a sound like a balloon popping, and a moment later he found himself stumbling back. It took him a minute to regain his senses, and he soon realized that the sound had come from her slapping him. His cheek was burning, and the rest of his face felt numb. It was disorienting to say the least.
After the pain, shock filled him from head to toe. Hinata was looking at him in such a terrible way. As if she was ashamed of him, and angry, and hurt. She was still crying, but there was the tiniest hint of something, possibly frustration, in her features.
He shot to his feet, feeling just the tiniest bit wobbly, and reached out to her, taking the hand that had slapped him.
"You're wrong!" He told her. "Listen to me, that's not it! I know it seems that way, but trust me it's not. I... It felt kind of like someone had pushed me from behind, and there was all this black smoke and it felt like my body was moving on its own. I didn't do that on purpose!"
She had squeezed her eyes shut as soon as he'd started talking, shaking her head through every word, and when he was done, she looked up at him so crossly he flinched back.
She raised her head, drying her eyes with her free hand without breaking her locked gaze.
"Why?!" She sobbed, pressing the palm of her hand over her eye. "Why are you lying to me? I just saw you... There was no one behind you to push you... There was no black smoke... There was nothing... Just you and Sakura-chan, kissing, HERE! At our secret place... The place just for the two of us..."
He opened his mouth to argue, to plead, but the look in her eyes made it painfully clear: there was nothing he could say. His words would fall on deaf ears. She had seen what happened with her own two eyes. She'd already decided on the truth. What he knew and what she knew might as well have been on opposite sides of a mirror. It didn't matter that he was holding her hand, or looking her in the eye. They were a thousand miles apart.
The truth of that was so crushing it silenced him. His mouth closed and his head bowed, his bangs casting a dark shadow over his eyes.
He dropped his hand.
"When Ko confessed to me, I wasn't happy at all." She admitted. "I never thought of him that way, I never would. But part of me was so relieved... Because there was a chance. I could choose someone else if I ever wanted to, and let go of you. Maybe I already had... But you pulled me back. You made me believe in you again. Not even the smallest part of me doubted you. I knew all along that you wouldn't change how you felt about her. That's why you didn't say anything, right...? After you defeated Nagato, and became the village hero, you didn't approach me at all to ask or reply about how I'd confessed to you on the battlefield. That's why you came to me, of all people, with the key to your parents' house. You were bribing me, weren't you? You were trying to make me forget, WEREN'T YOU?!"
Naruto remained silent, but his eyes flinched open wider and he bowed his head lower. That wasn't true. That wasn't true. That wasn't true...
"Yes..." Hinata decided with a sob, as more tears continued to stream down her flushed face. "But if that's the case, then why did you bother? Why did you care about how I felt about you? Why couldn't you just leave me be after rejecting me...? I just... I just... I was so HAPPY when you said you liked me, so positive that you were incapable of doing this to me... But now.... If I'd known it would turn out like this then I wish I'd never laid eyes on you. Then I wouldn't be so angry with you now. I wouldn't be so envious of Sakura-chan. And I wouldn't be saying all of this!"
She broke off, sobbing in despair as her head dropped to her chest.
Naruto stared down at her, feeling a hollow ache reverbrate in his chest.
"I..." He began, but fell short. What... What should he do...?
Hinata pointlessly tried to wipe her tears away as they poured like waterfalls down her cheeks.
"Leave me alone." She begged. "Just... leave. It's okay to forget about me...I don't care anymore... Whether my future has you in it or not... Doesn't matter anymore..."
His fingers curled into hot fists filled with regret as he watched her turn and disappear into the fog. A moment passed in which he stood there before hearing light footsteps closing in on him from behind. He felt her reach out to him as she called out his name:
"Naruto...?"
He brushed Sakura off and walked solemnly into the fog, off the exit path. He continued on even after he noticed how lost he was, or that there was thunder booming overhead.
He felt something cold hit his cheek, and he stopped before feeling himself be doused in thousands of little droplets...
The rain had returned...
Accepting this, he continued, disappearing deeper into the trees, ignoring the mental nightmares being caused by the poison in the air.
Hinata... Hinata didn't care about him at all anymore. She had dismissed him from her life entirely,saying it was okay to forget her. She had left him behind, with Sakura-chan, at their secret place, and wouldn't return there ever again.
She... wouldn't be convinced this time, would she? He wouldn't be able to take her back this time...
He blinked, finally noticing that he had stepped out of the fog and had been on the verge of stepping off a cliff. Below, there was a river, which was overflooded and rushing...
He scaled upriver with his eyes and came to gaze at the two giant statues of the first hokage and Madara.
Turning, he made his way to the first hokage's statue and came to stand on his head, looking up.
He closed his eyes, reliving the past four weeks over and over again in his mind, questioning himself. How? How had it come to this? And why?
Why had he done that?
If he had just asked Sakura-chan to leave instead of answering her questions. If he had been more careful the day before so she couldn't have followed him...
His head dropped and he flinched, clapping a hand over one of his eyes. It was stinging for some reason, but then he realized why.
Twice. She'd hit him twice.
How had he not noticed?
"Naruto."
His eyes slid open and looked calmly over his shoulder. Sasuke was a short distance behind him, looking at him expectantly.
Naruto turned around fully, and reaized then just how bad his wounds must have looked. Sasuke's reaction said it all.
"Did Sakura do that?"
NARUTO'S POV [TWO WEEKS LATER]
"Oy."
Naruto's eyes snapped open. Shikamaru was standing over him, hands shoved in his pockets, looking both serious and lazy.
Naruto blinked drowsily, stretching out on the soft grass to yawn before sitting up and repeating the stretch.
He finished stretching and hopped to his feet, smiling (though halfheartedly).
"Hey." He replied. "What's up?"
"...I could ask you the same thing." Shikamaru answered indignantly, earning a near-genuine look of surprise from Naruto.
"What do you mean?" He asked.
Shikamaru frowned and raised an eyebrow at him, staring pointedly at the wounds on Naruto's face, which were concealed with some gauze and bandages. Sakura, whom he had been avoiding since the day he returned to the final valley, had taken to trying to spring some sort of conversation between them by telling him he looked like a mummy. But this only reminded him of way back when, after he'd failed to bring Sasuke back, when she'd said the same thing to him in the hospital. It only made him want to avoid her more.
It was odd, though, that she wanted to pretend as if nothing had happened. He'd been expecting her to be furious with him for kissing her, or trying to comfort him after Hinata had... Well, In any case, she wasn't behaving the way he expected her to.
On another note, Kurama wasn't speaking to him. Since the day Naruto had decided he didn't want the wounds SHE inflicted on him to heal quickly, Kurama had taken to hiding deep inside his cage with his back facing the bars so that he wouldn't have to look Naruto in the eye.
As for the others, he had tried to behave normally around them, but something was wrong. Maybe it was his wounds, or maybe he wasn't a very good actor. In any case, they'd all noticed that he wasn't feeling like his usual self. Sasuke had attempted to interrogate multiple times, or ordered him to get over it.
Naruto felt a surge of gratitude. Back then, after Sasuke had found him at the final valley, he'd taken Naruto back to Konoha via the genjutsu forest. With his sharingan, it was a little easier to navigate. Once they'd gotten back, he'd told everyone he had found Naruto wandering in the mist, so no one but he knew that he'd left Konoha without permission. He was also now the third of Naruto's freinds to learn the location of Naruto's parents house.
As for Hinata, he hadn't seen her at all. He had heard she'd applied to be a gennin squad leader, but wasn't dating anyone.
"Naruto, what's going on?" Shikamaru asked, looking as concerned as the rest of them.
Naruto frowned. Maybe he should just tell him. They all knew by now that he was acting strangely. But he couldn't tell them, could he? Granny Tsunade had said to keep his (former) relationship with Hinata a secret.
Hinata... Neji was her cousin... He hadn't seen him much either... What was that he'd said, years ago? When they were trying to rescue Sasuke from Orochimaru's Sound Four, Neji had volunteered to fight the spider guy, whatever his name was, and then he'd said...
Yeah, that's right he'd said...
YOUR EYES ARE BETTER THAN MINE.
Neji had known all along how Hinata felt about Naruto, and Sakura-chan too. But Naruto had taken years to notice it...
And now he was out of time....
"Neji was wrong." Naruto said, and with that he pushed past Shikamaru and left the very same clearing in which, so long ago,he had been telling Hinata about how Sakura-chan had not returned his feelings.
NARUTO'S POV [KIRIGAKURE MOUNTAIN RANGE, A FEW METERS SOUTH OF THE CHAKRA SLICK MOUNTAIN RANGE; MISSION TO CAPTURE THE EX-AKATSUKI ROGUES]
"Awesome!" Naruto clenched his fists as Sasuke rolled up the map of Kirigakure. "Now that we've got a strategy, we can move out in the morning."
Sasuke put the map away in one of his flak jacket pockets and gave Naruto a questioning look.
"What?" Naruto asked.
"I was expecting you to say 'let's head out now' or something." Sasuke replied.
Naruto shook his head, looking behind him at the dense, natural fog and ivy growing up the rocks and bends of the mountains. The sun was nearly set, and the sky above was purplish blue. Thanks to Sasuke's eyes and the maps Sakura had prepared on her previous missions here, they had navigated fairly easily through the flora and fauna so far. They had currently reached the safe-zone, an area filled with plants that produced a smell that most of the beasts here found repulsive but which was conveniently unnoticable to humans.
However, from this point on they were travelling blind. Sakura and Sasuke had avoided this area as it marked the entrance to the chakra-slick mountain range, and the fog was so dense you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. But this was where the enemy disappeared to every single time, where they hid. They didn't expect the four of them to pursue them into that area.
But they would. Just not right now.
"The safe-zone doesn't go past the fog, right Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked.
Sakura whipped her head up, as if he had ripped the ground out from underneath her. It WAS the first time he had openly spoken to her in weeks, after all. Naruto had promised Granny and Sasuke that he would put aside any issues he had with Sakura-chan and Hinata for the duration of the mission.
"Umm... Yeah." Sakura replied.
"Granny Mei told me that the animals living here get restless at night, that they can even tear apart a squad of jounin. I'm not afraid of any stupid animals! But we'll have to stay here for the night, just in case." Naruto decided.
"We should sleep in shifts." Sasuke suggested. "Just in case the enemy shows up. Don't expect THEM to get eaten alive."
"Yeah, we'll do that!" Naruto agreed. "I'll take first shift."
Since they were trying to conceal their location from enemies it would have been stupid to light a fire despite how cold it was. They had no choice but to pull their travelling cloaks around them and bear it as they set up traps around the safe zone. Catching the rogues like this was too much to ask for, but at least it would make it easier to detect an ambush.
Once they were finished, the other three tried to get some sleep while Naruto went to stand by a tree and kept a keen eye and ear on every sound, every moving thing, around for several meters.
For a few hours, he stood stock still and alert, waiting. At one point he heard a twig snap behind him and his hand shot instinctively to his shuriken holster as his head whipped around. He eyed a small shadow that seemed to be the culprit and deduced that it was a small animal. After double-checking, he confirmed it was not one of their enemies using the tansformation jutsu and turned back to see Hinata getting out of bed.
They caught each other’s eyes and froze. It had been weeks since they’d parted, and in that time neither had attempted to approach the other let alone speak to them.
But they had to work together now, no matter how awkward it was.
“I’ll take over.” She said, calmly and clearly, without emotion. “You should get some sleep.”
She hadn’t said his name. For some reason, he’d been eager to hear it...
He didn’t let the disappointment show on his face, but instead turned away from her.
“No, I can keep going. You get some sleep, Hinata.” He said. The sound of her name, spoken with his own voice, seemed to reverberate in his head.
“I can’t sleep.” She admitted. “Just let me take over, Naruto.”
He felt another wave of disappointment. She hadn’t said “-kun.”
“No.” He said, with force.
He expected her to snap at him, or to just give and go back to (trying) to sleep. But instead she sighed and approached him, tapping him on the shoulder. Slowly, he looked at her. She was so close to him…
“Why… Why haven’t your wounds healed?” She asked tentatively.
He felt some rage bubble up in his stomach. Why did she care? Why was she speaking to him at all? Why was she trying to get him to talk to her after saying it didn’t matter if he was in her life or not? No. No, he wouldn’t tell her. She wouldn’t listen no matter what he said, just like before.
“Stupid kid.”
Naruto jumped. Kurama had come to the edge of his cage, and was peering through the bars at him. His focus drifted to his mental self, who stared back at Kurama curiously.
“What?” Naruto asked in a demanding tone.
“I can’t believe you, that’s what!” Kurama replied angrily. “You’re not acting like yourself at all, and it’s repulsive!”
Naruto recoiled angrily. As if he would understand. He was a clump of chakra that just happened to have a mouth. He’d never felt this way, never been in this situation before. What would he—
“I know your every thought remember? You little ingrate!” Kurama snapped. “You’re Uzumaki Naruto, remember? Not some pathetic, whiny, depressing little brat who gives up just because someone tells him to! This is embarrassing. You’re the jinchuuriki of the nine-tails, show some grit or I’ll kill you and eat you! Remember who you are and tell her!”
Naruto blinked, taken aback. He felt some instinct to yell, to threaten, but for some reason these emotions died inside him before they could come to surface.
He drifted back to reality, to where Hinata was waiting there, right in front of him, without looking at him.
REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE, AND TELL HER!
Yeah… Yes… Of course! How stupid of him…
“Hinata!” He whispered, for fear of waking the others, and grabbed her hand. It got the results he’d wanted. She was so shocked, she whipped her head up in surprise.
She was looking at him.
“I didn’t do that on purpose.” He repeated with confidence. “I know you don’t believe me, but it’s the truth! I promised you, remember? I promised I would never betray you just so I could be with Sakura-chan. And I meant it, otherwise you wouldn’t have believed me, right?"
Hinata stared back in shock for a moment. Naruto waited hopefully, but her eyes slowly drifted away from his and she took back her hand, attempting to turn away from him.
But he grabbed her other hand and she hesitated.
He smiled. “I know you don’t believe me. I know. But you will. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make sure you believe me!”
Naruto felt her tense and grinned from ear to ear, even as she took her hand back and walked away from him. Somehow, he felt as if some of the guilt and contempt that had been weighing him down for some time had disappeared.
And that made a world of difference.
NARUTO’S POV [CHAKRA SLICK MOUNTAIN RANGE, CLIFF EDGE; AFTER THE BATTLE]
Naruto groaned as the combined weight of his three allies pulled him down. He attempted to blink away the fatigue and cast a weary glance down at Sasuke, Sakura, and Hinata.
After successfully defeating the enemy, who had fallen into the gorge, the other three had collapsed from weariness and injury. Immediately, the weakened ground had cracked, and the blood and rain provided a slippery slope. The ledge had given way at the base, becoming a ramp, and the three of them had fallen over the edge. But at the last second, he’d managed to snag them all with three of his nine tails.
Only he’d had no foothold, and now he was clinging desperately to the crumbly, muddy cliff edge.
He was fatigued and injured and had lost far too much blood and chakra. It was nighttime once again, and there were no other ninja out here but the four of them. Those three were in worse shape than he, and weren’t going to wake up any time soon—
He grunted as the ledge gave once more, lowering them into the gorge before coming to an abrupt stop.
He breathed heavily and dug his fingers desperately into the mud.
Was… Was anybody coming? Was there any back up… headed here, right now? He didn’t know the exact amount of time that had passed, but day had come and gone.
So tired… So tired… He almost wanted to let go, to fall. But he couldn’t. Sasuke, Sakura, Hinata, and everyone else… they needed him. They needed him to survive… to return…
He gasped as a large chunk of the cliff edge crumbled away and jumped to grab hold of something solid, groaning when his cracked, bloody fingernails raked through deep, unending, unreliable mud. He felt something wet and woody, twiglike, and grabbed hold, feeling his ribs and shoulders crack.
He screamed silently. The pain… the fatigue… it was all too intense. And he was running out of chakra…
He had to do something NOW, before he ran out completely, or they would all fall.
He felt a surge of determination. No. No, they wouldn’t fall. Absolutely not…!
Groaning, he stretched out, managing to pull himself up by the smallest fraction of an inch and grit his teeth as he focused all his remaining chakra, every last ounce, into the three kyuubi’s tails keeping his friends alive. He blinked as his vision became tunneled and a crushing pain in his chest told him he had just done something fatal.
He grinded his teeth together, tasting blood and his eyes zeroed in on a piece of cliff that was not connected to the edge. A flat, solid, safe piece of land.
His brain felt as useful as a clump of putty, but he focused on lifting his tails, on snapping them so they sent his friends to the safe space.
He smiled. He did it… He did it…
He gulped. Dammit. Dammit. He was… Afraid… Just a little… Was that okay…?
It didn’t help when Sasuke woke up, or when he tried to drag himself over to Naruto.
“Don’t come.” He wanted to say. It was no good. Any added weight would just make the ground give way faster.
He rested his head on the ground, feeling something wrap around his ankle and pull.
Dammit… Dammit… Was this it?
Had he failed?
He looked at Sasuke, who seemed about afraid as he was. That was no good. It wasn't helping...
“Sasuke!” He called out, and it took all that was left of him to speak.
The ground split. Naruto looked wearily at Hinata, and felt regret. He looked back at Sasuke just as he was pulled down by the ankle.
“Sorry.”
Sasuke, Hinata, and Sakura disappeared from his line of sight. Everything did. He sighed heavily, as he fell head first into the void. He was so tired… So tired…
It was such a long fall. His mind began to wander, far back. What had the old frog sage said…?
“You’ll be going somewhere far away, to a white room with a child’s voice.” He’d prophesized. “And when you come back, there will be a fight waiting.”
Was this what he meant? Going far away… To a white room…
Would he really come back? He was so tired. This was such a long fall… He felt almost certain he was going to die… Was somebody going to use edo-tensei on him… He really hoped not.
No, said a voice in his head that wasn’t Kurama’s. You WILL come back. You have to.
He smiled, feeling as if he might have laughed if possible. Yeah… Yeah he would make it back to them. No matter what… No matter what happened, he would definitely—
He felt himself hit water and wondered vaguely why it hurt so much, if he was dead. Even if it was water, the fall was long enough that it didn’t matter. But he’d barely had time to contemplate this when he felt himself breath again.
Curiously, he blinked his eyes open. White. Everything was such a blinding white that he just wanted to shut his eyes again.
He blinked. Wait… Why was he here?... How did he get here… He… He couldn’t remember…
He started to panic when someone, somewhere, called out:
“Don’t worry.” She said. “You’ll get it all back.”
FLASHBACK ENDS HERE
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Naruto Fanfic A future without you
chapter 39: two years ago, part 4
HINATA'S POV [YONDAIME'S HOUSE, GENJUTSU FOREST; KONOHA, TWO YEARS AGO]
"Hm-hm-hm." She hummed softly to herself as she stirred the curry, pausing to breath it in and sigh in satisfaction. She cast a swift glance over her shoulder at the door, smiling.
The door stared mutely back.
Turning away, she looked up at the clock. Nearly time...
He liked to make a dramatic entrance this late in the day. What would it be this time? The window? Or maybe one of the trap doors? Or would he send a shadow clone again? Lady Tsunade had been keeping him late into the night for over a week now...
She jumped a millisecond before feeling a chin clap onto her skull and long arms envelope her.
"Gotcha!"
She gulped, casting him a wary look.
"You scared me!" She scolded breathlessly as he slid his chin from the top of her head to just above her ear, grinning. She turned her head so a small fraction of her vision was full of blonde spikes. "How did you do that?"
He laughed lightly, tightening his arms around her and dropping his head to her shoulder.
"Awesome, right?! It's Dad's flying raijin!" Naruto snapped his eyes open as she dropped her gaze to his.
Her mouth formed a small "o" of surprise. "How did you learn that?"
"Scrolls! Dad put some of his best jutsu in scrolls, just for me, and sealed them away somewhere safe!" Naruto told her, straightening up and crossing his wrists over her torso. "Granny's been showing me all these cool old books that granny Mito owned! They're full of awesome fuinjutsu!"
Hinata gaped. "Cool old books" was the last thing Naruto would say.
"But you hate reading." She said, noting the one exception by casting a quick glance at the Tales of a Gutsy Ninja sitting in the window sill.
Naruto frowned and cast a questioning glance at the roof.
"Yeah, I do. But for some reason these books are different! The instructions for the different seals they just...stick in my head...I dunno why..." He replied, his voice receding more and more as he spoke. He perked up suddenly, beaming at her. "Not that they're easy! I haven't even completely mastered the first one! And it's supposed to be basic!"
"What is it?"
"Ummm... I forgot!" He said enthusiastically. "But its a space seal, so you can slip through walls and floors like they're made of water! It can trap people and things and keep them there for as long as you want!"
She laughed whole-heartedly. "Wow. You really do remember it all."
"Yeah!" He threw his arms out. "I haven't figured it out yet, but when I do, just wait! Those black market guys that are selling the sharingan are going to pay! I'm going to nick all their merchandise!"
She smiled warmly back at him as she dropped patties of rice onto plates and ladled out the curry. Naruto stepped back as she turned to set the two plates side by side on the table.
"That reminds me, have Sakura-chan and Sasuke returned yet?" She asked as he fell into his seat.
"Nah, but they've been sending reports every hour." He told her as she took the second seat. "Those ex-Akatsuki members are tough! And smart too. Every time Sasuke and Sakura got close to them, they escape! But it's wierd. Kirigakure is the smallest of the five great nations, and its mostly mountains. But the enemy hasn't even tried to escape out to sea or use teleportation ninjutsu or anything. They just keep climbing over mountains..."
"Maybe they're looking for something..." Hinata suggested.
"Granny Tsunade thought so too, but Granny Mei says there's nothing in those mountains but man eating beasts and poisonous plants. And there's this wierd mountain range which is coated in something that repels chakra, so if you fall in, you can't save yourself. You can't even summon a giant toad like I did when ero-sennin tossed me down that spiked gorge."
Hinata knit her brow. "Why would they hide there? It's geographically hazardous..."
"Maybe their cowards. Sasuke says its difficult to make a move in the mountains because they're filled with this genjutsu fog that makes you think up is down and right is left. He and Sakura-chan would have been lost the second they stepped in if not for his sharingan. But even with his eyes its still hard to make sense of it all... Although there are these safe areas where you can see better..."
"But if they're powerful, why would they want to hide?" She asked.
Naruto shrugged. " But Granny's getting anxious. So are the rest of the kage. These ex-Akatsuki guys are causing trouble everywhere, even in out of the way nations that don't have ninja villages. And they slaughtered a group of samurai a few weeks back, so old man Mifune is furious. Gaara's called for an early gokage council, and Granny's leaving tommorow."
Hinata looked concerned. "But that means--"
"Yeah." Naruto slumped back in his chair. "No one's allowed to go beyond the village walls. Sasuke and Sakura and a lot of the others have already been called back."
"We won't be able to come here tommorow." She mouthed.
Naruto shook his head.
She turned resolutely in her seat and gripped her knees.
It had been three weeks since that rainy night when he'd promised her, and since that time they had continued to meet here in secret. Their relationship was being treated as classfied information at the moment, as it would cause problems with the older, more traditional members of they Hyuga clan if they knew about her and Naruto-kun. As a result, not even their closest freinds knew.
The advisors of the village had begun to be more considerate with Naruto, but they were scrutinous and forceful. They called him to the kage building for hours at a time, usually to warn him or bann him from doing this or that. He rarely heeded their words, telling them off and demanding reasons for their fussy ruling. Lady Tsunade sided with him on most occasions, but from time to time, she would agree with them.
Thus their three weeks together had been spent mostly apart. He was constantly busy delivering messages to the other kage's, running the spy network, and working with the anbu. The ROOT anbu, who had been place under captain Yamato's control following the war, and as he answered directly to Lady Tsunade, this caused tension edging towards mutiny. However, Naruto-kun's remarkable ability to make peace with even the worst of people was steadily bringing them over to his and Lady Tsunade's point of view, and many of the root anbu no longer judged Sai harshly for betraying Danzo shortly before his death so as to give Naruto leeway.
Meanwhile, Hinata had taken to coming to this house only once in a blue moon, or going to his apartment to drop off meals. Naruto would reverse-summon gifts to her. Random things, whose identity depended on his environment. If he was in the woods with the anbu, he'd send her a stone or a leaf. If he was trapped with the advisors, he'd send her a snatched bottle of ink, and so on.
She kept the gifts in a chest hidden beneath her floorboards.
"Granny's making me go with her, but I'll be back ASAP!" Naruto said hopefully. She whipped her head up.
"You're her escort?" She asked.
"Yeah. Kakashi-sensei and I aregoing with her to Suna." Naruto grinned. "Those old guys are in charge until we get back!"
"I see..." Hinata said. "Ah, our food is getting cold..." Hinata noted.
And just like that, Naruto began wolfing the lukewarm curry down.
NARUTO'S POV [SEVEN DAYS LATER, MID-AFTERNOON]
"So did you catch them?" Naruto asked Sasuke as they walked down the busy nightime streets.
"No." Sasuke replied stubbornly. "If we had, all of this wouldn't be neccessary."
He gestured to the entire street, indicating the jounin on patrol and the anbu black ops squads positioned on the roofs. But it was nothing compared to the security posted at the outskirts of the village.
Naruto looped an arm loosely around Sasuke's neck and earned a sideways half-threatening glance from him.
"If you and Sakura-chan couldn't do it then we might be in big trouble." He thought aloud.
Sasuke arched an eyebrow at him.
"That's an ODD thing for a class A showoff to say."
Naruto laughed. "Ha! I don't wanna hear that from you! And anyway, it doesn't matter, cause I'm gonna beat the crap out of anyone who threatens the peace!"
Sasuke "hmph[ed]" and smacked the palm of his hand into Naruto's left temple as he shoved him away.
"That's more like it." He stated.
Naruto looked angry, then stunned. Sasuke smiled confidently on, which made Naruto chuckle and grin as he crossed his arms behind his head.
"So where've you been disappearing to?"
Naruto flinched like a rock had dropped into his stomach. Crud. Why was he so curious, anyway?!
"Not that I care--" Sasuke began.
"Then don't ask!" Naruto snapped.
"--But people have been talking."
This didn't faze Naruto. "So?"
"So the root anbu that you haven't befreinded, the advisors, and the jounin and chunin who think poorly of you, are suspicious." Sasuke said, locking eyes with Naruto. "They think you're in league with the enemy, that you're paying the ex-Akatsuki members to do damage to the five great nations."
Naruto straightened up. "What? That's crazy! Why would I--"
"So you could end them and make yourself look good."
Naruto gaped. "How do you know that?"
"... Smiley's been keeping tabs on them, on Tsunade's orders." Sasuke admitted. "He told Sakura and she told me."
Naruto was takn aback by this. Granny was having Sai spy on people?
"A few of the root anbu were apprehended the other day for trying to slip you some poison." Sasuke told him. "We've got devils within the walls, so sleep with one eye
open."
Before Naruto could say anything, there was a shift in the air, a hint of black, and an anbu appeared before them, kneeling.
"What is it?" Sasuke asked.
"Lady Tsunade has summoned you. Its urgent. Please report to her office straight
away." The anbu reported.
Sasuke did not show even a hint of suspicion. Instead he turned to Naruto--"See you."--and disappeared in a flash along with the anbu.
Naruto stood there frozen for a minute while his mind processed everything that happened. He was shocked out of this trance when he heard a couple of giggling girls a few feet behind him and took off in a desperate sprint.
A few minutes later, he took the familiar sharp turn into what everyone else saw as a dead end alleyway, but was really the entrance to the genjutsu forest.
He broke through to the fog and hopped along the knots of concentrated mist until he reached the forest clearing where his parents' home was.
Upon seeing his house, he should have been ecstatic as he always was, but instead he nearly choked on his own tongue. Because something was there that should not have been there, and that was...
"There you are. I've been waiting for hours!" She griped, arms folded over her chest as she turned in front of the door to face him.
... Sakura-chan.
Naruto paled then turned bright red and stomped over to her, on the verge of panicking.
"What are you doing here?!" He shouted into her face, surprising her enough to make her cringe. "This is our-- I, I mean, MY, secret place! How'd you get here?! If Granny told you, so help me I'll--"
"How dare you talk about Lady Tsunade that way!" Sakura snapped. "I followed you. Yesterday."
"How'd you know how to get through the fog?!"
"I figured it out. And stop shouting!" She demanded, yanking on his earlobe.
"Ow, ow, OW!" He yelped. "Okay, okay, I got it! Let go!"
She released him and he rubbed his sore ear tiredly while glancing about fearfully.
This was bad. This place was just for Hinata and himself. It was where they met as often as possible for as long as they could. Where they talked and ate meals together and trained together and sometimes, when it was late, slept in the same bed together (only slept!). It went without saying that if Hinata found Sakura-chan here, with HIM, that it could bring disaster.
"Why'd you follow me anyway?" Naruto questioned.
Sakura lowered her eyelids. "Did Sasuke tell you what's been going on?"
She had to mean the suspicious members of their village that Sasuke had mentioned. He nodded.
"Good, that makes my job easier." She continued. "What is this place? This is where you go when you disappear, right?"
Hesitantly, Naruto nodded.
"Why have you been coming here so often? And why didn't you tell us where you were? What have you been doing?"
Naruto shifted uncomfortably. He couldn't answer those questions. He wanted to, but he really couldn't think of a reason to outright defy Granny like that.
"I... I can't tell you." He replied.
"Are you... Are you going to stop coming here?" She asked.
"No." Naruto answered immediately.
"Can you...At least come here less often?"
"No." He had to see Hinata as often as possible. He just had to...
Sakura sighed heavily. "Why? Why do you have to be so secretive? It's not like you!"
Naruto furrowed his brow.
"Naruto, we're... We're worried. Sasuke and I, and Lady Tsunade. That poison was tasteless and odorless, colorless... If Sai hadn't overheard those anbu talking about slipping it to you, there's no telling what would have happened!"
"Sakura-chan--"
"I don't understand! Don't you get that you're endangering yourself? Your dream? Everyone's really excited because they can't wait to see you become the rokudaime, even Sasuke! Sasuke, who said HE wanted to be hokage! You're so close and now you're--"
Naruto groaned in aggravation.
"Sakura-chan, you need to trust me! I can't tell you everything! I know what I'm doing!"
"Listen to me, you bonehead, you're going to--"
"Enough! You're not my mother or my sister, so stop telling me what to--"
His breath caught in his throat as a black puff of smoke exploded in front of his face and enveloped the world. The ground felt slanted and his body moved on his own. He blinked and pushed back mentally, unsure of what was happening. This did not help much. His hand closed around something soft and tube shaped and his mouth closed on something...
Angry, he pushed back again, and the darkness disappeared in a snap. He blinked and saw green eyes staring back at him in shock, mere centimetres away.
He gasped internally and pushed her away, bewildered, and feeling some nauseating sensation climb up his back, which he realised after a moment was shame.
What... What did he just do? Why would he...
He jumped as an odd sound from behind broke the silence. He swirled, coming face to face with...
"Hinata!" He screamed, glancing quickly a Sakura then back at her.
She had evidently arrived just in time to catch him in the act. She'd dropped the brown paper grocery sack at her feet, but her arms were still up in front of her as if she had not noticed it had fallen.
Her eyes shook and her mouth, agape, trembled with the rest of her. Slowly, she placed her hands over her mouth as tears rushed in streams down her face.
He gasped, realizing what this must have looked liked to her. Just as she had entered the clearing, he'd grabbed Sakura-chan by the arms and kissed her.
"No! No!" He rushed over to her, desperate to explain. "Hinata, lsiten to me! Look at me!"
As soon as he'd reched her, she'd dropped her gaze. Her eyes flickered over the grass, the fog, the trees. Anywhere but at the house or Sakura-chan or Naruto. And her fingers had curled, as if her hands were determined to stay clamped over her mouth forever.
"No! Hinata, I swear I didn't-- I mean, I dunno, it was accident or something-- Hey, listen to me--"
Due to his fear, he'd barely noticed. But at the words "I didn't", Hinata had whipped her head up. At the words "an accident" she had activated her byakugan. And when he had begged her to listen to him, she had raised her hand.
There was a sound like a balloon popping, and a moment later he found himself stumbling back. It took him a minute to regain his senses, and he soon realized that the sound had come from her slapping him. His cheek was burning, and the rest of his face felt numb. It was disorienting to say the least.
After the pain, shock filled him from head to toe. Hinata was looking at him in such a terrible way. As if she was ashamed of him, and angry, and hurt. She was still crying, but there was the tiniest hint of something, possibly frustration, in her features.
He shot to his feet, feeling just the tiniest bit wobbly, and reached out to her, taking the hand that had slapped him.
"You're wrong!" He told her. "Listen to me, that's not it! I know it seems that way, but trust me it's not. I... It felt kind of like someone had pushed me from behind, and there was all this black smoke and it felt like my body was moving on its own. I didn't do that on purpose!"
She had squeezed her eyes shut as soon as he'd started talking, shaking her head through every word, and when he was done, she looked up at him so crossly he flinched back.
She raised her head, drying her eyes with her free hand without breaking her locked gaze.
"Why?!" She sobbed, pressing the palm of her hand over her eye. "Why are you lying to me? I just saw you... There was no one behind you to push you... There was no black smoke... There was nothing... Just you and Sakura-chan, kissing, HERE! At our secret place... The place just for the two of us..."
He opened his mouth to argue, to plead, but the look in her eyes made it painfully clear: there was nothing he could say. His words would fall on deaf ears. She had seen what happened with her own two eyes. She'd already decided on the truth. What he knew and what she knew might as well have been on opposite sides of a mirror. It didn't matter that he was holding her hand, or looking her in the eye. They were a thousand miles apart.
The truth of that was so crushing it silenced him. His mouth closed and his head bowed, his bangs casting a dark shadow over his eyes.
He dropped his hand.
"When Ko confessed to me, I wasn't happy at all." She admitted. "I never thought of him that way, I never would. But part of me was so relieved... Because there was a chance. I could choose someone else if I ever wanted to, and let go of you. Maybe I already had... But you pulled me back. You made me believe in you again. Not even the smallest part of me doubted you. I knew all along that you wouldn't change how you felt about her. That's why you didn't say anything, right...? After you defeated Nagato, and became the village hero, you didn't approach me at all to ask or reply about how I'd confessed to you on the battlefield. That's why you came to me, of all people, with the key to your parents' house. You were bribing me, weren't you? You were trying to make me forget, WEREN'T YOU?!"
Naruto remained silent, but his eyes flinched open wider and he bowed his head lower. That wasn't true. That wasn't true. That wasn't true...
"Yes..." Hinata decided with a sob, as more tears continued to stream down her flushed face. "But if that's the case, then why did you bother? Why did you care about how I felt about you? Why couldn't you just leave me be after rejecting me...? I just... I just... I was so HAPPY when you said you liked me, so positive that you were incapable of doing this to me... But now.... If I'd known it would turn out like this then I wish I'd never laid eyes on you. Then I wouldn't be so angry with you now. I wouldn't be so envious of Sakura-chan. And I wouldn't be saying all of this!"
She broke off, sobbing in despair as her head dropped to her chest.
Naruto stared down at her, feeling a hollow ache reverbrate in his chest.
"I..." He began, but fell short. What... What should he do...?
Hinata pointlessly tried to wipe her tears away as they poured like waterfalls down her cheeks.
"Leave me alone." She begged. "Just... leave. It's okay to forget about me...I don't care anymore... Whether my future has you in it or not... Doesn't matter anymore..."
His fingers curled into hot fists filled with regret as he watched her turn and disappear into the fog. A moment passed in which he stood there before hearing light footsteps closing in on him from behind. He felt her reach out to him as she called out his name:
"Naruto...?"
He brushed Sakura off and walked solemnly into the fog, off the exit path. He continued on even after he noticed how lost he was, or that there was thunder booming overhead.
He felt something cold hit his cheek, and he stopped before feeling himself be doused in thousands of little droplets...
The rain had returned...
Accepting this, he continued, disappearing deeper into the trees, ignoring the mental nightmares being caused by the poison in the air.
Hinata... Hinata didn't care about him at all anymore. She had dismissed him from her life entirely,saying it was okay to forget her. She had left him behind, with Sakura-chan, at their secret place, and wouldn't return there ever again.
She... wouldn't be convinced this time, would she? He wouldn't be able to take her back this time...
He blinked, finally noticing that he had stepped out of the fog and had been on the verge of stepping off a cliff. Below, there was a river, which was overflooded and rushing...
He scaled upriver with his eyes and came to gaze at the two giant statues of the first hokage and Madara.
Turning, he made his way to the first hokage's statue and came to stand on his head, looking up.
He closed his eyes, reliving the past four weeks over and over again in his mind, questioning himself. How? How had it come to this? And why?
Why had he done that?
If he had just asked Sakura-chan to leave instead of answering her questions. If he had been more careful the day before so she couldn't have followed him...
His head dropped and he flinched, clapping a hand over one of his eyes. It was stinging for some reason, but then he realized why.
Twice. She'd hit him twice.
How had he not noticed?
"Naruto."
His eyes slid open and looked calmly over his shoulder. Sasuke was a short distance behind him, looking at him expectantly.
Naruto turned around fully, and reaized then just how bad his wounds must have looked. Sasuke's reaction said it all.
"Did Sakura do that?"
NARUTO'S POV [TWO WEEKS LATER]
"Oy."
Naruto's eyes snapped open. Shikamaru was standing over him, hands shoved in his pockets, looking both serious and lazy.
Naruto blinked drowsily, stretching out on the soft grass to yawn before sitting up and repeating the stretch.
He finished stretching and hopped to his feet, smiling (though halfheartedly).
"Hey." He replied. "What's up?"
"...I could ask you the same thing." Shikamaru answered indignantly, earning a near-genuine look of surprise from Naruto.
"What do you mean?" He asked.
Shikamaru frowned and raised an eyebrow at him, staring pointedly at the wounds on Naruto's face, which were concealed with some gauze and bandages. Sakura, whom he had been avoiding since the day he returned to the final valley, had taken to trying to spring some sort of conversation between them by telling him he looked like a mummy. But this only reminded him of way back when, after he'd failed to bring Sasuke back, when she'd said the same thing to him in the hospital. It only made him want to avoid her more.
It was odd, though, that she wanted to pretend as if nothing had happened. He'd been expecting her to be furious with him for kissing her, or trying to comfort him after Hinata had... Well, In any case, she wasn't behaving the way he expected her to.
On another note, Kurama wasn't speaking to him. Since the day Naruto had decided he didn't want the wounds SHE inflicted on him to heal quickly, Kurama had taken to hiding deep inside his cage with his back facing the bars so that he wouldn't have to look Naruto in the eye.
As for the others, he had tried to behave normally around them, but something was wrong. Maybe it was his wounds, or maybe he wasn't a very good actor. In any case, they'd all noticed that he wasn't feeling like his usual self. Sasuke had attempted to interrogate multiple times, or ordered him to get over it.
Naruto felt a surge of gratitude. Back then, after Sasuke had found him at the final valley, he'd taken Naruto back to Konoha via the genjutsu forest. With his sharingan, it was a little easier to navigate. Once they'd gotten back, he'd told everyone he had found Naruto wandering in the mist, so no one but he knew that he'd left Konoha without permission. He was also now the third of Naruto's freinds to learn the location of Naruto's parents house.
As for Hinata, he hadn't seen her at all. He had heard she'd applied to be a gennin squad leader, but wasn't dating anyone.
"Naruto, what's going on?" Shikamaru asked, looking as concerned as the rest of them.
Naruto frowned. Maybe he should just tell him. They all knew by now that he was acting strangely. But he couldn't tell them, could he? Granny Tsunade had said to keep his (former) relationship with Hinata a secret.
Hinata... Neji was her cousin... He hadn't seen him much either... What was that he'd said, years ago? When they were trying to rescue Sasuke from Orochimaru's Sound Four, Neji had volunteered to fight the spider guy, whatever his name was, and then he'd said...
Yeah, that's right he'd said...
YOUR EYES ARE BETTER THAN MINE.
Neji had known all along how Hinata felt about Naruto, and Sakura-chan too. But Naruto had taken years to notice it...
And now he was out of time....
"Neji was wrong." Naruto said, and with that he pushed past Shikamaru and left the very same clearing in which, so long ago,he had been telling Hinata about how Sakura-chan had not returned his feelings.
NARUTO'S POV [KIRIGAKURE MOUNTAIN RANGE, A FEW METERS SOUTH OF THE CHAKRA SLICK MOUNTAIN RANGE; MISSION TO CAPTURE THE EX-AKATSUKI ROGUES]
"Awesome!" Naruto clenched his fists as Sasuke rolled up the map of Kirigakure. "Now that we've got a strategy, we can move out in the morning."
Sasuke put the map away in one of his flak jacket pockets and gave Naruto a questioning look.
"What?" Naruto asked.
"I was expecting you to say 'let's head out now' or something." Sasuke replied.
Naruto shook his head, looking behind him at the dense, natural fog and ivy growing up the rocks and bends of the mountains. The sun was nearly set, and the sky above was purplish blue. Thanks to Sasuke's eyes and the maps Sakura had prepared on her previous missions here, they had navigated fairly easily through the flora and fauna so far. They had currently reached the safe-zone, an area filled with plants that produced a smell that most of the beasts here found repulsive but which was conveniently unnoticable to humans.
However, from this point on they were travelling blind. Sakura and Sasuke had avoided this area as it marked the entrance to the chakra-slick mountain range, and the fog was so dense you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. But this was where the enemy disappeared to every single time, where they hid. They didn't expect the four of them to pursue them into that area.
But they would. Just not right now.
"The safe-zone doesn't go past the fog, right Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked.
Sakura whipped her head up, as if he had ripped the ground out from underneath her. It WAS the first time he had openly spoken to her in weeks, after all. Naruto had promised Granny and Sasuke that he would put aside any issues he had with Sakura-chan and Hinata for the duration of the mission.
"Umm... Yeah." Sakura replied.
"Granny Mei told me that the animals living here get restless at night, that they can even tear apart a squad of jounin. I'm not afraid of any stupid animals! But we'll have to stay here for the night, just in case." Naruto decided.
"We should sleep in shifts." Sasuke suggested. "Just in case the enemy shows up. Don't expect THEM to get eaten alive."
"Yeah, we'll do that!" Naruto agreed. "I'll take first shift."
Since they were trying to conceal their location from enemies it would have been stupid to light a fire despite how cold it was. They had no choice but to pull their travelling cloaks around them and bear it as they set up traps around the safe zone. Catching the rogues like this was too much to ask for, but at least it would make it easier to detect an ambush.
Once they were finished, the other three tried to get some sleep while Naruto went to stand by a tree and kept a keen eye and ear on every sound, every moving thing, around for several meters.
For a few hours, he stood stock still and alert, waiting. At one point he heard a twig snap behind him and his hand shot instinctively to his shuriken holster as his head whipped around. He eyed a small shadow that seemed to be the culprit and deduced that it was a small animal. After double-checking, he confirmed it was not one of their enemies using the tansformation jutsu and turned back to see Hinata getting out of bed.
They caught each other’s eyes and froze. It had been weeks since they’d parted, and in that time neither had attempted to approach the other let alone speak to them.
But they had to work together now, no matter how awkward it was.
“I’ll take over.” She said, calmly and clearly, without emotion. “You should get some sleep.”
She hadn’t said his name. For some reason, he’d been eager to hear it...
He didn’t let the disappointment show on his face, but instead turned away from her.
“No, I can keep going. You get some sleep, Hinata.” He said. The sound of her name, spoken with his own voice, seemed to reverberate in his head.
“I can’t sleep.” She admitted. “Just let me take over, Naruto.”
He felt another wave of disappointment. She hadn’t said “-kun.”
“No.” He said, with force.
He expected her to snap at him, or to just give and go back to (trying) to sleep. But instead she sighed and approached him, tapping him on the shoulder. Slowly, he looked at her. She was so close to him…
“Why… Why haven’t your wounds healed?” She asked tentatively.
He felt some rage bubble up in his stomach. Why did she care? Why was she speaking to him at all? Why was she trying to get him to talk to her after saying it didn’t matter if he was in her life or not? No. No, he wouldn’t tell her. She wouldn’t listen no matter what he said, just like before.
“Stupid kid.”
Naruto jumped. Kurama had come to the edge of his cage, and was peering through the bars at him. His focus drifted to his mental self, who stared back at Kurama curiously.
“What?” Naruto asked in a demanding tone.
“I can’t believe you, that’s what!” Kurama replied angrily. “You’re not acting like yourself at all, and it’s repulsive!”
Naruto recoiled angrily. As if he would understand. He was a clump of chakra that just happened to have a mouth. He’d never felt this way, never been in this situation before. What would he—
“I know your every thought remember? You little ingrate!” Kurama snapped. “You’re Uzumaki Naruto, remember? Not some pathetic, whiny, depressing little brat who gives up just because someone tells him to! This is embarrassing. You’re the jinchuuriki of the nine-tails, show some grit or I’ll kill you and eat you! Remember who you are and tell her!”
Naruto blinked, taken aback. He felt some instinct to yell, to threaten, but for some reason these emotions died inside him before they could come to surface.
He drifted back to reality, to where Hinata was waiting there, right in front of him, without looking at him.
REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE, AND TELL HER!
Yeah… Yes… Of course! How stupid of him…
“Hinata!” He whispered, for fear of waking the others, and grabbed her hand. It got the results he’d wanted. She was so shocked, she whipped her head up in surprise.
She was looking at him.
“I didn’t do that on purpose.” He repeated with confidence. “I know you don’t believe me, but it’s the truth! I promised you, remember? I promised I would never betray you just so I could be with Sakura-chan. And I meant it, otherwise you wouldn’t have believed me, right?"
Hinata stared back in shock for a moment. Naruto waited hopefully, but her eyes slowly drifted away from his and she took back her hand, attempting to turn away from him.
But he grabbed her other hand and she hesitated.
He smiled. “I know you don’t believe me. I know. But you will. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make sure you believe me!”
Naruto felt her tense and grinned from ear to ear, even as she took her hand back and walked away from him. Somehow, he felt as if some of the guilt and contempt that had been weighing him down for some time had disappeared.
And that made a world of difference.
NARUTO’S POV [CHAKRA SLICK MOUNTAIN RANGE, CLIFF EDGE; AFTER THE BATTLE]
Naruto groaned as the combined weight of his three allies pulled him down. He attempted to blink away the fatigue and cast a weary glance down at Sasuke, Sakura, and Hinata.
After successfully defeating the enemy, who had fallen into the gorge, the other three had collapsed from weariness and injury. Immediately, the weakened ground had cracked, and the blood and rain provided a slippery slope. The ledge had given way at the base, becoming a ramp, and the three of them had fallen over the edge. But at the last second, he’d managed to snag them all with three of his nine tails.
Only he’d had no foothold, and now he was clinging desperately to the crumbly, muddy cliff edge.
He was fatigued and injured and had lost far too much blood and chakra. It was nighttime once again, and there were no other ninja out here but the four of them. Those three were in worse shape than he, and weren’t going to wake up any time soon—
He grunted as the ledge gave once more, lowering them into the gorge before coming to an abrupt stop.
He breathed heavily and dug his fingers desperately into the mud.
Was… Was anybody coming? Was there any back up… headed here, right now? He didn’t know the exact amount of time that had passed, but day had come and gone.
So tired… So tired… He almost wanted to let go, to fall. But he couldn’t. Sasuke, Sakura, Hinata, and everyone else… they needed him. They needed him to survive… to return…
He gasped as a large chunk of the cliff edge crumbled away and jumped to grab hold of something solid, groaning when his cracked, bloody fingernails raked through deep, unending, unreliable mud. He felt something wet and woody, twiglike, and grabbed hold, feeling his ribs and shoulders crack.
He screamed silently. The pain… the fatigue… it was all too intense. And he was running out of chakra…
He had to do something NOW, before he ran out completely, or they would all fall.
He felt a surge of determination. No. No, they wouldn’t fall. Absolutely not…!
Groaning, he stretched out, managing to pull himself up by the smallest fraction of an inch and grit his teeth as he focused all his remaining chakra, every last ounce, into the three kyuubi’s tails keeping his friends alive. He blinked as his vision became tunneled and a crushing pain in his chest told him he had just done something fatal.
He grinded his teeth together, tasting blood and his eyes zeroed in on a piece of cliff that was not connected to the edge. A flat, solid, safe piece of land.
His brain felt as useful as a clump of putty, but he focused on lifting his tails, on snapping them so they sent his friends to the safe space.
He smiled. He did it… He did it…
He gulped. Dammit. Dammit. He was… Afraid… Just a little… Was that okay…?
It didn’t help when Sasuke woke up, or when he tried to drag himself over to Naruto.
“Don’t come.” He wanted to say. It was no good. Any added weight would just make the ground give way faster.
He rested his head on the ground, feeling something wrap around his ankle and pull.
Dammit… Dammit… Was this it?
Had he failed?
He looked at Sasuke, who seemed about afraid as he was. That was no good. It wasn't helping...
“Sasuke!” He called out, and it took all that was left of him to speak.
The ground split. Naruto looked wearily at Hinata, and felt regret. He looked back at Sasuke just as he was pulled down by the ankle.
“Sorry.”
Sasuke, Hinata, and Sakura disappeared from his line of sight. Everything did. He sighed heavily, as he fell head first into the void. He was so tired… So tired…
It was such a long fall. His mind began to wander, far back. What had the old frog sage said…?
“You’ll be going somewhere far away, to a white room with a child’s voice.” He’d prophesized. “And when you come back, there will be a fight waiting.”
Was this what he meant? Going far away… To a white room…
Would he really come back? He was so tired. This was such a long fall… He felt almost certain he was going to die… Was somebody going to use edo-tensei on him… He really hoped not.
No, said a voice in his head that wasn’t Kurama’s. You WILL come back. You have to.
He smiled, feeling as if he might have laughed if possible. Yeah… Yeah he would make it back to them. No matter what… No matter what happened, he would definitely—
He felt himself hit water and wondered vaguely why it hurt so much, if he was dead. Even if it was water, the fall was long enough that it didn’t matter. But he’d barely had time to contemplate this when he felt himself breath again.
Curiously, he blinked his eyes open. White. Everything was such a blinding white that he just wanted to shut his eyes again.
He blinked. Wait… Why was he here?... How did he get here… He… He couldn’t remember…
He started to panic when someone, somewhere, called out:
“Don’t worry.” She said. “You’ll get it all back.”
FLASHBACK ENDS HERE
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hope I dont have 2 wait as long for the next one tho :heh:
