I hate all of you. Why? Because you guys decided to like this. You read it, you liked it, you may have even favorited it. Yet, all I read was a piece of absolute garbage that I couldn't bear to have on my profile anymore. Did you guys even actually read it? I mean, oh my god, the grammar in this, the storytelling… Ugh, it's not a 100 but it ain't no "A for Effort" anymore.

So here, I made it better and ended it on a sweet note. Not a love-dovey note, but a sweet one… that could potentially help sprout a lovey-dovey moment or two between them. Maybe, I'll even be motivated to write such a scene and add it as a bonus chapter here.

Also, in case you're wondering where the second chapter went… I threw it out and added a bit of the concept on the tail end of the first chapter.


While skilled at her age, Hinata still had much to learn and much confidence to gain if she wished to use her skills to their max.

Her opponent, a seasoned mercenary would be hard to beat, but as long as she kept up her speed and dodge his attacks, she should be able to outmaneuver him. Or, at least, outlast him until backup arrived.

Except there would be no backup. Not for quite a while.

After unfortunately stumbling, Hinata took a hard hit to the side, the gaping wound sending a searing pain through her. She had gone through several lessons of pain tolerance, learning to hold her own on the field despite the pain. This was something different entirely.

He hit her, letting her roll a few feet before kicking her wound. His foot rested on it, adding agonizing pressure before easing up a little. The pain kept her immobile.

The pain didn't take long to render her unconscious, young, lavender eyes rolling into the back of her head.

With one kid removed from the equation, the mercenary left to help the others on his team.

Currently, everyone from teams eight and seven scattered across the large farmland, battling the mercenaries who aimed to remove them as an obstacle to their mission.

Two members were missing so far. Kurenai had accounted for both Sakura and Shino but became worried when she discovered Kakashi only had Kiba and Sasuke with him. No Hinata. No Naruto.

"Where could they be?"

"Hopefully just lost at this point," Kakashi reassured her, his gaze wandering to the woods. Searching.

"This mission just became over their rank. Way over-"

"Kurenai-sensei, they'll both be fine. We were fine." Kiba gestured the rest of them, most of who would need some downtime to regain their strength and heal.

"You had us with you, Kiba. They're most likely by themselves, one on one with mercenaries far above their ranking. Yours too for that matter." Kakashi gave the boy a droll stare before turning his gaze to the woods. "Let's regroup and rest for now. Hopefully, we'll find them by sundown."

This mission had meant to be a simple one. Retrieve a scroll and return it to the client. However, he had failed to mention the possibility of high-end mercenaries also gunning for the artifact.

So far, they had been ambushed on four different occasions. The first time, Kurenai had requested back up, understanding the mess they had been forced into. Kakashi's team responded, not informed fully of the sudden danger, and arrived in time to help beat back the second attack.

Right now, one mercenary had disappeared with Hinata while Naruto, has hot-headed as he was, followed a set of twins into the woods. For a while, they could hear them taunting him before all went silent.

Kakashi led them to a safe area to set up camp, while Shino and Kurenai scouted the area for any signs of their comrades. They came back empty handed.

An annoying tug to her sleeve woke Hinata. When she didn't immediately respond, the gentle tugging turned into shoves. Something continuously butted its head against her shoulder until she finally made a move to get up.

Hinata took a minute to gather her surroundings, taking note of the dark sky filled with stars. A whine by her ear followed by a tiny lick drew her attention to the furry little creature beside her.

It had a bright, glowing pair of yellow eyes, framed by scruffy, dark and white fur. Its whiskers jutted out from its face in long stands that looked just a bit too big for its face.

Once more, she felt its teeth tug on her sleeve, beckoning for her to get up. She did, with quite a bit of difficulty. Then, per its command, followed it through the forest.

Hinata used the trees to support herself, limping from one to the other, and keeping a hand over her wound. The cool blades of grasses, squishy moss, and crunching twigs disappeared after a while and were replaced with rocky terrain. Trees became sparse and the incline steadily increased until she was left to part walk, part crawl up.

On several occasions, she would fall and the creature would wait patiently, sometimes going to her aid and encouraging her to rise once more.

It led her to a small cave where she could finally rest against the ice-cold rock. With each step she had taken across the jagged terrain, her pain had only increased and each fall caused numbify-ing agony to rip through her. Now, the pain began to subside, but it remained ever present.

The woodland creature curled up next to her, resting its head on her thigh as she slumped over from exhaustion.

Naruto had lost the taunting twins some time ago, but unwilling to give up, he continued on. When night had settled, he kept only to the trees, using the shadows has a means of protection. His usual loud jumps had turned to silent swooshes.

His senses felt like they were in overdrive. The forest sounded louder than before, despite not a single chirp or croak from any wild life. The darkness could do little to blind him, in fact, it felt like the opposite. He saw clearer and sharper than before.

Never before had Naruto been out and about like this without some kind of flashlight. He wondered if the Kyubbi inside of him was providing the heightened senses.

Naruto nearly fell off the branch from the scent that hit him. He reeled from its pungent smell and nearly turned away, but something compelled him to follow it.

Jumping down, he followed it until he reached the spot where thick blood coated leaves and twigs. Something smelled familiar about it.

Lavender?

Aren't you the bright one in the group? Oh, wait…

Ever since he had first laid eyes on the creature, they had first spoken, the beast inside had sudden chatty episodes filled with sarcasm. Most days, he taunted him, mocking him, until he could nothing but curl up and try to drown out his voice.

Just… Just shut up!

Silence rang in his ears, whether from the sudden end in conversation or the quietness of the forest getting to him, Naruto shook his head. He sniffed the air and noted another scent. A creature. Like a dog or a cat, but it was neither of those things.

He followed, noting the trail of blood that led from the forest and onto a bare, rocky terrain. Whoever this person was, they were losing lots of blood. They might be dead at this point.

Naruto reached the opening of a small cave where the creature that dwelled inside growled in warning, making its way to face the intruder at the entrance.

The creature's noise woke Hinata. She reamined still and reached in her bag for a kunai to defend herself.

Activating her byakugan, she watched the stranger appraoch, hands up in a means of surrender. The blend of red and blue in his charkra points alerted Hinata immediately. There was only one person that could possibly have such a unique change of charka like that.

"N… Naru… Naruto?" The stutter in her voice made his smile.

It was Hinata!

"Hinata?" He peered at her, catching her pale face and bloodied clothes.

"How… how did you… how did you get all the way… all the way out here?"

"I uh… got separated and I came across this trail of blood…" Naruto moved to crouch by herside. The woodland creature watched from the entrance, no longer threatening.

"Oh…"

"You're injured! I got some bandages!" Naruto fumbled with his pack, pulling out supplies until he got to what he wanted. "This uh… this should help." He handed them over to her, watching as she struggled to lift her jacket and shirt up.

Naruto left for a few minutes, doing his best to make a fire so she could see better. He helped her take off her jacket and lift her shirt, much to her embarassment.

"This is bad! We need Sakura or Kakashi-sensei, they'll know what to do." Once she had banaged herself up as best as she could, Naruto moved to leave.

Hinata grabbed his arm in a moment of sudden panick before withdrawing quickly. Still, she had his attention and firmly shook her head no at him.

"But…" Hinata shook her head once more.

Naruto's shoulders drooped low but nodded at her request and sat across from her.

The fire burned low and died out as they slept on the cave floor.

The woodland creature remained by the entrance, watching the pair as they dozed throughout the night.

Naruto rose minutes before the sun. He noticed the dead fire and, despite his aching back, moved to go get fire wood. The creature turned out to be a small fox, who affectionately greeted him when he woke.

When he returned, Hinata was sitting up a scroll in hand.

"A healing scroll?"

Hinata blushed and nodded, continuing to keep her face down at the scroll.

"I uh… got some wood, water, and some food. Not much, but what I could." She nodded again, keeping her face hidden.

Shrugging off her closed behavior, Naruto sat beside her to look at the scroll.

"Sakura carries these a lot, ya know. They're really helpful when Sasuke or me get hurt real bad."

"Yes… yes...but uh… this one… it's… it's quite… advanced." Naruto nodded, leaving her to work on it while he set up the fire and wrapped the berries up for later.

The small fish he had caught wasn't the best but it would do. He hadn't wanted to be out too long.

"Do you need anything Hinata?" He turned to look at her over his shoulder.

Hinata shook her head, giving him a timid, quick smile, as she lifted the roll of bandages in her hand for him to see.

Naruto left again, reassured she was fine and attempted to fish again. The sun began to set and with the low light guiding him, he returned to the cave. He had two fish in hand.

Hinata had finally moved to cook the first fish he had caught. The berries he had left her already gone.

She ran a stick through the fish, using it to the rotate it over the fire and cook it throughly. As it turned, she used an array of spices to season it, all coming from a side pouch she still had on her.

"Do you always bring spices with you?" He sat across from her, watching as she worked.

The fox came up, wrestling a fish out of his hand to feast on further in the cave.

"Hey!" Hinata laughed as Naruto attempted to reclaim the fish to no avail.

"Let him have it, Naruto. He deserves something too." She smiled until she realized he was staring at her and she turned her face the other way in embarassment.

"So… the spices?" He returned to watch her.

"Oh… uh… yes. I… I generally take some with me on missions. They can… can be… be very helpful…" Her stuttering increased the more he intently watched her, listening.

"That's cool! Got anything for ramen?" He attempted to peer over into her bag where she kept them, but couldn't make anything out clearly.

"I… I'm sorry, Nar-Naruto, but no. I… I didn't bring… bring anthing for ramen." His face fell. "But… I'll try… try to remember… for next time." That made him smile again.

"I look forward to it." He gave her his signature grin, causing her face to explode with heat.

They split the first fish, eating while the second one cooked. When it finished, they split that one too, snacking on the berries afterwards.

"Do you need help with the bandages?"

"Oh… uh... th-thank you, but I'm fine." Hinata busied herself with cleaning up the spices and neatly organizing them.

Naruto helped make a softer pallet for her to sleep on before doing the same for himself. Then, they laid down to rest, the sun already disappearing.

"They'll come right?"

"Of course, Na-Naruto. They'll come." He nodded.

"How's your wound?"

"Okay…"

"You know I can head out and try to find them. They can't be far from us." Naruto turned to face her, seeing her by the light of the fire.

"Per… perhaps tomorrow." He nodded to that, turning to look up at the ceiling of the cave.

"Okay, tomorrow."

The next day, Naruto headed out, searching for the others, even reaching where they had been ambushed the other day. If anything, they should be close, but the demon inside refused to lend a hand and without heightened senses, he had nothing to go off of.

Hinata's bakyugan should work!

Naruto rushed back, finding Hinata just finishing up cleaning her wound.

"Is it okay?" She squealed in surprise, shoving her shirt back down to cover it.

"Nar-Naruto! Uh… yes! Yes! It's, It's fine!" She took a large breath, calming her racing heart.

"Sorry to startle you. I haven't found them yet." He scratched the back of his head. Something felt wrong.

Hmmm… She's lying. Can't you sense it? Oh, wait…

Naruto growled out loud, earning him a worried look from Hinata.

"Sorry…" He turned away from her to sit by the fox, near the back.

The furball laid contently, not bothered by the sudden company.

How bad is it?

The beast didn't respond but instead, the smells that surrounded him came at him, all at once. The forest, the stream, the creature beside him, even his own odor which wasn't entirely pleasant. Most importantly, he could sense something wrong, gross like with Hinata. A sickness.

It's infected?!

Again, he received no response.

That night they fed on berries and the little rations they had on them. The fox left to find better food for him, not even bothering to try and snatch the process food from either of them.

The stars twinkled above them, the moon shining a bright light down on the earth.

They sat in silence, gazing up at the night.

"Your wound… it's not okay, is it?"

Hinata didn't respond, not for a long while. Naruto thought she might not respond at all.

"No."

"The healing scroll?"

"I can't use it."

"I…" Naruto shook his head, unsure of what to say. "I couldn't find the others, but with you, I think we could. They can't be far from where the ambush happened. You could find them, right?"

Hinata nodded, a bit hesitant to answer. She didn't hink it would do much good, but she could try.

"Tomorrow. You should have enough strength, then?" Naruto laid back on his pallet, leaving Hinata to sit by the entrance alone to gaze.

"Yes."

"Don't worry, Hinata." Surprised, she looked back to see him not grinning like she thought, but completely serious. "I'll get you back to the others. Kurenai-sensei and Sakura will be able to help you. You'll be fine."

Hinata turned away from him, red covering her pale face.

"I promise." She glanced back at him, her hair keeping most of her face covered. "I promise to keep you safe and get you back to the others, so you can heal, and we can take down those mercenaries and complete our mission."

That made her smile. Naruto always kept his promises and no doubt, he'd keep this one.

I promise to do the same, Naruto.