Disclaimer: I don't own the anime or manga Naruto, or any of its characters and plot and such. Please don't sue me.
The look on her opponent's face was one of true terror.
Slowly, painstakingly, she sealed off his tenketsu, one at a time. He fought his hardest to block her attacks, to no avail. As he collapsed, charka almost completely blocked, he realized that she hadn't even broken a sweat, wasn't even out of breath.
She was toying with him.
With one final punch, she thrust charka into his heart, killing him instantly. Triumph flooded through her veins. She hadn't known the man…but he had died fearing her.
It was like a drug, coursing through her system. Every time she had killed, she felt this confidence, she felt power.
Her teammates walked into the clearing. She bowed her head, wiping the triumphant grin off her face and instead replacing it with tears and shock. The face that looked at Kiba and Shino was not that of a killer, but that of a badly shaken teenager.
"Is he dead?" Shino asked, brows furrowed.
"I-I…" She started, giving way to wracking sobs. Kiba embraced her, letting her cry on his shoulder as Shino checked the dead man's body for a pulse.
"No pulse." He didn't show it, but Shino was deeply unnerved. To his knowledge, Hinata had never killed even a spider…and the look on the man's face was that of terror. It was the face of someone who had died pleading for life. The Hinata he knew was not capable of striking that kind of fear into the enemy, nor was she emotionless enough to kill someone in cold blood. So…either someone else had killed the man, or Hyuuga Hinata was not who she seemed to be.
Hinata lay her head on Kiba's shoulder. She looked at Shino's back, grinning through her fake tears. It was a good thing that Kiba mistook her giggle for a sob.
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Naruto kissed her tenderly.
She drew away.
"No…It isn't right…What about Hinata?" The pink-haired Kunoichi asked him.
"What she doesn't know won't hurt her." He whispered in her ear. That was all the encouragement Haruno Sakura needed.
Hinata appeared in the doorway. Bitterness and betrayal were etched into her face.
"Hinata-chan, I-" Naruto started. Hinata turned and walked away, back straight, head held high.
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Hinata trained in the Hyuuga training grounds. The trees and the fake targets were peppered with shuriken, kunais, and senbon.
She decided living targets would be more entertaining.
From the second story window of his bedroom, Neji watched, sickened, as his younger cousin launched senbon into the surrounding wildlife - squirrels, birds, anything that moved.
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Hinata kissed her former lover.
Naruto pulled away.
"What? Am I still not good enough for you? I waited for years…I changed myself for you. Am I still not good enough?" Hinata sealed off a few more of Naruto's tenketsu.
He winced in pain.
Hinata laughed.
"I don't want to hurt you…" Naruto told her. She laughed.
"You really are quite dense, aren't you? You couldn't hurt me if you tried." Almost lazily, she sealed off a few more tenketsu. This time he doubled up.
He furrowed his brows as he sent a punch flying straight into her gut. Suddenly, she was behind him, sealing tenketsu along his spine. Hinata threw her arms around him. Naruto buckled under the sudden weight, falling to the floor.
Somehow, too fast for him to see, she was in front of him again. She knelt next to him.
"Am I still not good enough?" She repeated, her words dripping with a malice that Naruto had never before heard her use. She patted his arm once, twice, three times.
On the third time she sent charka out from her hand into his arm, ripping his tendons, shattering the bone.
He screamed.
And it was in that moment that Naruto realized that Hinata had every intention to kill him, and he would not be able to stop her. No one would.
He finally saw the loneliness, the bitterness, the betrayal, the hate in Hinata's eyes.
He saw the truth: that Hinata was a cold-hearted killer, knowing only anger and hatred…and revenge.
He saw that she hadn't truly loved him…just that she worked so hard, for years, to make him hers, to own him, only for him to be snatched away in the blink of an eye.
He saw that in her eyes, Haruno Sakura had taken him from her…and for that, Haruno Sakura must be punished.
"What did you do with Sakura?" He spat, fearful for the pink-haired kunoichi.
"Haruno? She's already been punished…" Hinata laughed again. Naruto knew that by 'punished', Hinata meant that she had killed her.
"You're a murderer. A cold-hearted killer from birth." Naruto said harshly to the woman he had once loved.
"You still don't get it. Killers aren't born…they're made." And with that last statement, Hinata sent Naruto to his death…a look of pure terror forever frozen on his face.