The woman with long blue-black hair crouched down into the deeper shadows of the forest and spun a kunai through the fingers of her right hand. She tugged nervously at her backpack with her left hand as she examined the enormous village wall in front of her.

She had a decision to make. She could either scale the wall and continue to move invisible within the shadows, or she could boldly walk through the front gates and announce her return to Konohagakure.

It had been over a decade since she left the shinobi village. She was a wanderer now. A rogue shinobi and no longer a brethren of the leaf. She guessed that many of her classmates …no teammates …no friends… had matured into completely unrecognizable people. She was a completely different person now.

Would anyone welcome her back to Konoha? Would HE welcome her back? She shook her head, attempting to shake nervous thoughts from her mind. She had not been nervous in years. She knew she should not be nervous now. She was no longer the seventeen-year-old girl who obsessed over a boy who barely acknowledged her existence. She was a wandering shinobi renowned throughout several lands, Hinata of the mokumokuren, the ghost ninja. She could do this. She took in a deep breath.

Her original plan had been to slip into the village quietly, unnoticed at least for today. She would use her byakugon to find the one she was she looking for. It would not take long. Her target had a knack for finding trouble. He would out himself quickly. But she was not sure if that was a good idea anymore. After all tomorrow was the hokage ceremony. The village would soon be flooded with shinobi… and not just leaf shinobi. There were those who knew her face from her time as a rogue ninja. She had to be careful. She had severed many bonds irreversibly.

A week ago, she heard he was finally becoming the seventh hokage. Before Hinata left Konoha, the sixth hokage succeeded Lady Tsunade after she led them in the great fourth war. That was Kakashi the copy ninja, who had taught him and led team 7. Kakashi knew Hinata well –he also knew too many of her secrets. But now Lord Kakashi was to be replaced by a new hokage, and she was not sure if this new hokage would not cut her down on sight.

When Hinata left Konohagakure, they were not necessarily on bad terms but things between them had become very complicated. She promised herself back then that she would not return to the leaf village until she made herself into someone Naruto Uzumaki could acknowledge. If he could no longer acknowledge her for who she had been, she needed him to acknowledge her for who she had become. And she had done that.

But now that she sat at the edge of the village, ready to walk inside, she wondered why she had allowed her target to wander so far –and on today of all days. It had been a long time since she thought about Konohagakure or about Naruto. She never actually took the time to work out how she felt about the way she was forced to leave her home. Did she still love him? Did she still long for her old home? Or was this just another test that she needed to pass in order to prove something to herself?

Suddenly, she heard approaching feet. In response, Hinata danced through the shadows and scaled Konohagakure's wall. As she landed softly on the other side, she pulled her mask down over her face so only her stunning white eyes were visible. Then she untied her headband from around her neck and tied it over her forehead. The silver forehead protector with a crossed out leaf carved at the front shone across her forehead. She guessed she had made her decision. She would not announce her presence just yet.

Hinata made her way quietly through the village, keeping to empty alleys and the fields and shrubbery scattered throughout. She had not made up her mind where she was headed, but her feet already had a determined destination. It was not until she found herself crouched on the railing of his balcony that she knew where her body was taking her.

She hopped down and padded quietly crossed the balcony to the sliding glass door. She hoped the occupant was inside. She checked her back to make sure her katana was secured there; set, and ready. Her many shuriken jostled quietly inside her black coat.

She knocked once softly at the glass. A head popped up from behind the couch inside of the apartment. And a large tuft of white hair waved wildly as the owner moved to set his book down on the coffee table before walking around the couch to open the sliding door.

Hinata pulled up her mask as Kakashi Hatake opened the glass door. "Lord Kakashi." She bowed to greet him politely.

"Hinata Hyuga." The soon to be former sixth hokage did not appear happy to see her. Kakashi's sharingan stared intensely at Hinata. For a second, she was taken aback though she had heard he gained both sharingan during the war. Those red eyes were intimidating –she had not crossed paths with an Uchiha in awhile –besides the one time she just barely dodged Sasuke Uchiha while wandering through a town in the Land of Water. Though Kakashi was not Uchiha, he used his eyes like one. For him to bring out the sharingan was a bit unnerving and not necessarily the welcome back she had hoped for.

"I came back for the hokage ceremony." She explained softly. Though this was not entirely true. She did not want Kakashi to know the real reason she had come back to Konoha.

Kakashi looked at the headband that Hinata wore and shook his head. "You should've stayed away."

"I may not have been a part of team 7 but I was one of his comrades. We fought together –side by side in the great war. He saved my life more then once. I owed it to him to return and pay my respects."

"You're no longer a leaf ninja." Kakashi replied. "You betrayed your clan and you left this village eleven years ago in exchange for the freedom that is granted to a shinobi with no village. Naruto sees you as a traitor –everyone in this village sees you as a traitor. He won't hesitate to capture and kill you –that will be his duty as the new hokage. I've heard that you have power now –but not enough power to challenge Naruto."

Hinata lifted her chin. "Naruto never gave up or turned his back on Sasuke. He would not give up on me."

"You aren't Sasuke." Kakashi responded.

Hinata huffed. Not only was she nervous but now she was flustered. She began to fidget with her fingers anxiously trying to clear her mind of the flood of regret that had just set in on her. She had only been in Konoha for about twenty minutes and already this place had completely sapped her of her confidence, turning her back into the old Hinata.

"Why did you send that message to me then!? You knew if I heard he was becoming Hokage, I would come back here." Hinata yelled at Kakashi. Her voice was light and airy but the force behind it was angry and intense.

Though his face did not show it, Kakashi was taken aback by Hinata's aggression. She had been an even tempered and soft spoken girl when she lived in the village. Her voice was still soft. And she moved quieter than any other ninja he had ever encountered. She even managed to sneak up on him and his sharingan. But apparently the world had also managed to light a fire in her.

Kakashi was not sure why he had sent that message. His actions seemed odd even to him. Maybe he did it because he had done to Hinata the same thing that Hiruzen Sarutobi, the third hokage, had done to Itachi Uchiha. He knew first hand how that sacrifice had destroyed Itachi and how it had almost destroyed Sasuke too. And he felt enormous guilt. That guilt ate him alive for ten years. So much so that he prematurely handed the hokage title over to his successor. He could no longer handle the burden. He wanted to go back to the peace of mind of a regular leaf shinobi.

Hinata had not massacred her entire clan like Itachi, but she might as well have. Hinata's father died of what most called a broken heart soon after she disappeared. Hanabi took over as the next in the line of succession, but Neji's and Hiashi's deaths and Hinata's betrayal had caused the young girl to grow into a cruel and bitter young woman who was eventually ousted by the Elder's council. An imposter, not from the main family line, was put in place as the Hyuga head of family after Hanabi. This caused an internal war and the eventual collapse of the clan. Hanabi was able to return to the Hyuga compound after that. But she lived completely isolated from the rest of the village. The local kids called her the white eyed witch and claimed that her broken down mansion was haunted. Though Kakashi had ways of knowing she was still alive, the village had not seen Hanabi in years.

Hinata viewed her past completely different then Kakashi, however. She only felt extreme gratitude and affection for the sixth Hokage. If it were not for Kakashi, she would not have been able to take the little that she had left when she disappeared from the village. And the fact that Kakashi continued to bare half of her burdens allowed her to live on all of these years.

"I didn't send the message for you." Kakashi finally said.

Hinata took in a deep breath and exhaled. Though she was hoping for another answer, she was not surprised that Kakashi's message was not meant for her. But the message had directly caused a string of events that forced her to come back to Konohagakure and to possibly come face to face with Naruto again. "I don't care who the message was for. I came as a result of it… and I am here, now, asking if you'll allow me to stay and help me with Naruto? Or will you run and tell on me and allow Naruto to kill me. It took me a long time to get here –both mentally and physically, Kakashi Sensei, and either way I don't plan on leaving today. But if you choose to allow Naruto to kill me, not only will our secrets be your burden to bare alone, you will have effectively destroyed any chance of Naruto gaining the one thing that he truly wants."

Kakashi sighed heavily. Tired, he closed his eyes. When he reopened them, they were dark brown and his sharingan was gone. "You need to stay hidden until I can speak with Naruto. Sasuke will also be in Konohagakure soon… so watch your back. Go to your sister's place and wait –no one will find you there."

Kakashi warned. "You can't let any one, who might recognize you, see your face here. Not Kiba or Shino or Sakura or any of the others."

Hinata never regretted anything so much as she did what happened as a result of her great obsession… her love for Naruto Uzumaki. She let out another long breath. Then she said, "I'm not the same kunoichi who you once knew. I won't be discovered unless I want to be discovered. You have until before the ceremony tomorrow only and then time will be up."

She pulled the mask down over her face and then backed out of the apartment onto the balcony. At that moment a strong wind came by and Hinata seemed to vanish inside it and with it. And just like that she was gone.