Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto in any manner or fashion . . . no wait . . . I do own this awesome t-shirt, but as far as the characters go, I do not own them. They belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

Just to get some things cleared up so that no one asks any stupid questions, this fic takes place after the two-year lapse and it's about a year after Naruto returned. Got it? Good.

You people wouldn't believe all the trouble that I went through just to get this fic on here. When I uploaded it, all the quotation marks and apostrophes turned into question marks and all the text was crunched together like a potato-chip sandwich. So without further ado, I give you . . . this fanfic . . . um . . . yeah.

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"Take care and seeya' tomorrow guys!" Kiba waved to his two teammates and Akamaru barked a farewell. Hinata waved a small goodbye to Kiba while Shino gave an acknowledging nod.

When Kiba turned to leave, the other two seen fit to leave the training grounds as well and they all headed in the direction of their homes.

Shino and Hinata walked together since they both lived in the same direction.

If anyone else was there they would have considered the silence between the two as awkward, but the both of them were generally quiet people so the lack of sound between them was not the least bit uncomfortable.

Both of them were dwelling within their minds anyway and if one had spoken to the other it was doubtful that the other would have heard a word said.

No one really knows what was on Shino's mind since he talks so little that it would be hard to determine, but if one had to guess, they would probably say that he was thinking about insects and that people really needed to stop manufacturing bug sprays.

Hinata's mind was a little easier to predict since almost all of Konoha knew of her infatuation with a certain blue-eyed, blonde-haired shinobi except for the said ninja.

'I wonder what Naruto is doing right now?' Hinata thought to herself curiously, 'He's probably out training again. He's been doing that a lot ever since he came back from his long trip with Jiraiya-san.' Hinata blushed in remembrance of the time when Naruto had come back from his journey and she practically fainted when she seen him for the first time in nearly three years.

He had been gone for so long. It may have barely been three years, but it had felt like an eternity to her. She didn't even realize that time went by so fast with Naruto around until he left and then time just seemed to stand still. She wondered how many times she looked at the calendar and was surprised to see that only a few days had passed or none at all.

Although Naruto didn't know it ('And he probably never will,' Hinata thought grimly) the young Hyuuga had missed him terribly. She was glad that he was back for good, now that he had finally brought the stubborn Uchiha to the village. She hoped that he would never have to leave again for such a long period of time, and she also swore to herself that if he had to go that she would do her best to accompany him.

'Maybe I should go visit him later?' she thought wildly and then reconsidered. Even if she were to go see him, what exactly could they do? Besides it was getting pretty late and he probably didn't want to be bothered for something so trivial as seeing her.

A saddened look crossed Hinata's face at the thought, but in realizing the expression that she must have held, she tried to cover the look with a face that denoted apathy. It was a little to late for her though because Shino had caught her face of melancholy.

"Is there something wrong Hinata?" the usually quiet Shino asked.

"N-no," Hinata denied with a blush.

Shino did not pry into it any further with a thought stating that women were very confusing. Instead he slowed his pace when they came to an intersection in the street, signaling that he was nearly home and asked, "It's pretty late, do you want me to walk you home?"

Hinata's eyebrows raised in surprise. It was not often that Shino said more than a sentence a day. He was probably in a very good mood from how well training went that evening.

"N-no, I'll be f-fine. G-goodnight," Hinata bided to her friend. He probably had many things to do anyways and he really didn't need to go through the trouble of walking her home. In any case, she wasn't a little girl and didn't need to be looked after, she thought with surprising defiance.

". . ." Shino replied in consent and inclined his head in farewell. He then turned at the street corner and walked into a nearby building.

Hinata resumed her walk with a quick pace. It was kinda' late and she had to admit that she did feel a little uneasy walking by herself at such a late hour.

Perhaps she should have let Shino come along after all? "No," she dismissed the thought from her mind, "He's probably really tired from training and it's too late to change my mind now. I really shouldn't be worried anyway," she thought with rare esteem, "I'm a ninja! I wasn't promoted to chuunin for nothing!" She felt a smile form at her self-appraising thought.

Then a doubt crossed her mind, 'What if the judges were on drugs when they promoted me?' This wasn't the first time the thought had come into her mind. In fact when she received news of her advancement, the idea had reappeared in her thoughts frequently. After all, in the last chuunin exam one of the judges was high when they were discussing who should be promoted. She had reason to be worried.

'No!' she reasoned, 'Sensei said that I did very well after last year's exam! Even Neji-kun said that he wasn't surprised when I got promoted!' She smiled happily at the memory and uncommonly felt her ego inflate a bit. She really shouldn't let it get to her head though; she didn't want to end up like Neji or Sasuke whose ego's were the size of entire planets.

Nevertheless, she quickened her stride and before long she felt perspiration slide down her face. She wasn't going as fast as she could go, but she was still a little wore out from that intense workout.

"Oof!" she cried out when she bumped into some barrier before her. Startled, she looked up to see a tall man that was grinning down at her.

'How did he sneak up on me like that?!' she thought with amazement and then anger, 'I'm a Hyuuga! How could I let someone catch me off guard like this?!'

It was dark out and although she had Hyuuga eyes that didn't mean that she could see in the night, so she couldn't really recognize who this person might be until she seen something silver that reflected off of his forehead, 'He's a leaf ninja, she realized by the symbol engraved upon the metal.

"I-is there something wr-wrong?" she asked the man with some caution.

"Yeah," he said with a slow drawl that made Hinata conclude that he was drunk, "Me and my buddies were just wondering if you could talk with us for a bit."

Hinata jumped back from the man to put distance herself from him and activated her byakugan. There were about four other ninja nearby. Three were in the surrounding alleyways and directly behind her was the fourth.

Hinata had a pretty good idea what was going on, but she would much rather not believe it. Also, she'd rather avoid a fight at the moment since she wasn't exactly at her one-hundred percent and most of these ninja looked jounin material.

"Wh-why would so m-many leaf ninja attack someone?" she questioned the shadowy figure in front of her while at the same time watching the others.

"Attack?" the man parroted as if shocked by her question, "Why would we attack you? We just wanted to know if you wanted to chat with us for a while."

"W-we're talking right now, and if you'll ex-excuse me, my father expects me home," she said and cursed herself for stammering so much. Everyone always told her that if she didn't stop stuttering then some people might take it as a sign of weakness, which is really the last thing that she needed right now.

"Do you always do what Daddy tells you to do?" the man from behind her asked and took a step forward.

Hinata didn't reply, but instead moved into her defensive position.

"Why don't you come with us and we'll show you something really interesting?" the man in front of her said and the other three men came out from the alleyways.

"D-do you even know who I am?!" she took a leaf out of Neji's book. He had told her once that some fights could be avoided if you told your opponent your family name (of course, it only worked when your name was famous).

"No," said a man far to her right, "And we really don't care."

Ignoring the other man she said, "I am Hinata Hyuuga from the m-main branch, now leave before I report you to the Hokage or worse, my father." She took a small moment to mentally give herself a pat on the back for getting through the sentence with only one small falter.

"So what?!" a man at the left shouted with an impatient tone.

"Wait a minute," the man before her said and then a wicked grin spread over his face, "The Hyuuga's are such good friends of mine," he said with a note of sarcasm, "In fact I think I owe them a favor or two."

Hinata cursed her cousin in her mind; his advice had just possibly made the situation worse.

"Enough talk!" the one to her left said anxiously, "I'm getting bored!"

At that point it seemed like all the ninja around her had silently agreed and advanced towards her with excited steps.

Hinata then decided to turn offensive and attacked the closest one with her gentle fist technique. It would have worked to with her target's slow reflexes (most likely due to the alcohol) if the man to her right hadn't of knocked her to the ground with surprising speed.

Before she had the chance to get up she felt several hands pin her to the ground and some of them were upon places she would rather not have them be.

Hinata wrenched her right arm free from one of the weaker men and punched one of them across the face as hard as seven years of training could give. She felt a satisfying crunch beneath her knuckles as warm blood shot from the ninja's face and he gasped at the sudden pain.

One of the ninja hurriedly placed her free arm into its more useless state, while the injured man recovered from her unexpected assault.

"You damn bitch!" he swore and slapped her in return. Her head turned sharply to the side at the impact and she immediately tasted blood.

Caught up in all the shock of the situation and the harsh action that was applied to her face, her brain slowed down from the adrenaline that she had felt moments before and almost came to a total halt. Her mind barely even registered that her jacket was tore away and her shirt was next in line. She didn't come back to herself until she felt an unwanted hand grope her butt.

"Let me go you damned PERVERTS!" she screamed and kicked the offending man in the face so hard that she could feel and hear several bones being crushed. She then heard a gargled scream come from the unfortunate (but not pitied) man.

Her glory was short lived when the others decided to avenge their friend by pulling out a kunai and stabbing her in whatever manner they saw fit.

She tried to scream aloud, but before a sound escaped from her one of the shinobi decided that it would be best for her to be gagged.

Hinata felt the hot tears that flowed freely from her tightly shuteyes. She felt her pants being unbuttoned and screamed in her mind for anything or anyone that would save her.

TBC

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So what did you guys think? Yep, it's your typical damsel-in-distress story. Do you think that I should continue, or just drop it like I do many of my stories?