I was reading a bit of a Naruto story earlier when this entirely unrelated scene came to me. It's got a fair bit of Hyuuga-Bashing and references to both NaruHina and Super!Naru. There are also a couple of vague homages to Naruto-fics I've read in the past, but I can't recall the story titles or their authors at the moment. Authors are welcome to include this work in their own stories, so long as they don't take full credit (you need not mention where you found it, just that it's not entirely yours). I have deliberately structured this so it can be set any time before or after the Time-Skip, though it probably fits best some time around the anime's Filler Hell.

I know many of you are impatient for me to continue BW (heck, I'm upset with myself about it), but I've not had much input in my poll regarding the next chapter. There's also the not-so-minor detail that I've yet to picture the physical setting for that chapter, so.... *blush*

----

Had Hyuuga Hinata not been paralyzed from her fear of what she knew was about to happen, to say nothing of the systematic series of jyuuken strikes her father, Hyuuga Hiashi, had deliberately landed on her not minutes ago, she would have been struggling desperately as she was strapped into place. She stared at her father pleadingly one last time, but the Head of Clan Hyuuga kept his stoic expression, the only hint of his disgust showing through in his glowering eyes.

The Hyuuga Clan Elders looked on in glee barely disguised by a thin veneer of smug approval. They had waited years to have the Caged-Bird Seal applied to this girl, seeing her as weak and unbefitting of the title of Heiress. Their bias against the girl had originally formed as they thought her tainted due to the modified form of jyuuken her mother had favoured as her personal style over the traditional, and hadn't been helped by her...association with...that boy. That she was known to be interested in medical jutsu and had been found to be making some of the same modifications to their perfect style as her mother had done had cemented their opinion, and they had finally managed to coerce Hiashi to go through with what he should have done after the pathetic girl had originally shown her weakness by managing to be kidnapped - they proudly ignored, in their self-righteous arrogance, the fact the girl had been but a toddler at the time and had yet to begin training in even their Clan Techniques.

Two of the Elders stepped back, having been the ones to bind the youth into position, before each grabbed a calligraphy brush, dipped it into the Sealing ink and began inscribing the Seal upon the formerly flawless skin of her forehead - considered so even by the Hyuuga, whom took as much pride in their facial features as in all other matters they believed made them superior. The pair finished connecting the Control Seal to the Sealing Circle long since laid into place and began channeling their chakra to complete the process, agonizing pain ripping its way through the girl's very being. As Hinata began screaming horrifically, only one thought was able to form in her mind.

'Naruto-kun...help me!'

----

He paused in the doorway.

He had seen many terrifying sights in his time as an ANBU, but there was only one other he felt could truly compare the one he faced now. It had been just his luck to be join his squad on the very night of the Uchiha Massacre all those years ago, and it was just his luck that he should bear witness to this one on the final night before he began his retirement.

Almost the entire Main Branch of the Hyuuga Clan lay piled before him. The only individuals missing from the grisly scene were the Clan Heiress and her younger sister, Hyuuga Hanabi, though he had a suspicion the former may have no longer been considered a part of the Main Branch when the incident he now saw the results of had occurred.

Hyuuga Hiashi lay on his back atop the entire Hyuuga Council of Elders, situated directly above the Sealing Circle in the middle of the floor, likely positioned where all those who previously became members of the so-called 'Branch House' had probably been strapped down to prevent their struggling. The symbol that all those in Konoha whom had seen it associated with the Caged-Bird Seal was readily apparent on his bared stomach, though several times larger than was the norm. Blood had spilled profusely from the wound shaped into that mark, and the ANBU could enough of several of the individuals beneath the man to gather that their conditions would be no different.

A great spiral had been carved smoothly into the floor, spreading all the way to the walls. It was engraved as a perfect extension to the Sealing Circle, and he would not be surprised to learn it spread inward to the center of those engravings without disrupting the pattern whatsoever. The blood from the gory exsanguination had already spread throughout the entire spiral without spilling over, but he saw as he stepped into the chamber itself that it had yet to coagulate.

He rushed forward as he saw Hyuuga Hiashi's hand twitch almost imperceptibly in a weak sign of life. Finding a pulse, he called in his squad's medic and sent another member to gather others. After carefully removing Hiashi from the room, he checked the Elders for pulses whilst systematically removing them from the pile.

He found none.

----

Hyuuga Hinata was later found resting in an in-patient treatment room at Konoha's Senju Memorial Hospital, connected to an EKG and a saline drip. The room was otherwise empty, except for a vase on the bedside table containing several Lavenders surrounding a single sunflower. The duty-nurse who found her immediately notified a supervisor, and she was swiftly and thoroughly examined.

A list of recent injuries was compiled, and largely consisted of jyuuken-related stresses to a number of her tenketsu and to her keirakukei, chafed skin around several points on her body and a concussion complicated by a large influx of foreign chakra to her brainpan.