"We're about half a day from the Sun Country, so we should rest up here." Hinata told Naruto as he nodded and started setting up the tent.
"So, all we have to do is scouting right?" Tsunade had sent Naruto and Hinata on a mission to the Sun Country to check the ground for their village; apparently, it was a battlefield before the Sun Country existed, so there were bound to be traps.
"Yes, then we have to ge-"
"All done!" Naruto said as he marveled at his ever-improving tent pitching skills.
"-t rid of them." Hinata finished as she looked at her crush with amazement, he had been yelling at her all day to 'pick up the pace', the truth was she ran out of energy much before the 8 hours it took to walk to this clearing, and Naruto could have gone for another 16.
"Well, should we find some berries? Or do you want to eat something good?" Naruto asked thoughtfully, Hinata blushed, well, she had been blushing the whole time since they left the village, but more so this time.
"I made some rice balls and tempura." Hinata stammered as she took out the bag, which contained the dinner. Naruto and Hinata then divided the food evenly, and chowed down.
"I swear you'd make an excellent wife someday Hinata!" Naruto said, caressing his swollen stomach. Hinata turned beat red at the comment; she had always hoped that she would be wife to Naruto one day.
"Thank you." Hinata bowed and wrapped up the empty cloth, Naruto smiled as she put her bag in the tent and then sat down next to Naruto. "Um, is this too close?"
"Eh? No, it's fine," Naruto answered uninterested, Naruto didn't have too much of an attraction to Hinata, he had thought she was cute from time to time, and she did have a nice body (Naruto shook his head, thinking he had to stop training with Jiraiya so much); But Naruto didn't feel any connection, still, wouldn't hurt to ask her on a date one day.
"So, um, what are you going to do when we get back?" Hinata asked timidly, she hoped the answer would have something to do with a date.
"I dunno, if Pervy Sage gets back I'll finally be able to train with him. Other than that, I guess I'll just hang out." Naruto told her, he forgot that he was also going to go somewhere with Sakura, to cheer her up (lately, Sakura had become much more depressed that Sasuke was no longer in the village).
"How long, urm, will you train with him?"
"Well, I guess taking away the few months he hasn't been here..." Naruto counted on his fingers to counter the fact that Naruto had lost count of the months. "About 2 and a half years." Hinata's heart immediately shattered, she couldn't go a few minutes without wanted to see Naruto, could she handle not seeing him for a few years?
"That's, uh, that's a long time."
"Well, I need to spend a lot of time training, to get Sasuke back, and to beat Orochimaru." Naruto also thought about Atasuki, but Itachi and that blue freak Kisame could wait.
"Oh, I see."
"When I get back, I might be able to become Hokage!" Naruto dreamed, Hinata giggled at the naive daydreaming habit that Naruto had contracted since his days at the Academy.
"I'd like to see that." Hinata said, she gasped that she hadn't even stuttered that sentence.
"That would be the best day of my life," Naruto muttered, staring at the beginning sunset.
"Yawn, how could you run that far for 8 hours?" Hinata asked Naruto, everyone had noticed Naruto's seemingly un-ending stamina.
"I got a lot of Chakra," Naruto chuckled; he forgot that almost all of the Genin (and Shikamaru) had no idea of the demon inside of him.
"Huh," Hinata said as she dozed off, neatly landing her head on Naruto's shoulder, Naruto blushed and decided not to wake her up.
"What did I set that tent up for?" Naruto asked as he watched the now intense sunset in the distance.
"DEMON!" Hinata yelled a few minutes later, as she shook herself awake, she then blushed, realizing she slept on Naruto's shoulder.
"Bad dream already?" Naruto asked, Hinata nodded and told him about the strange dream she had about being in a room with the Nine-tailed fox.
"It was a weird, musty room, and a seal was on the cage, and, and, uh... he said something about a boy." Hinata drifted off as she tried to recollect everything she heard.
'Should I tell her?' Naruto debated with himself as Hinata was repeating the dream to herself.
"Oh! He, urm, said something about a... container." Hinata told him.
"Oh come on, it was just a dream, now then, let's get some sleep." Naruto told her as he started to walk to the tent. Hinata then looked at him oddly, and then forgot about it and entered the tent as well.
The next morning was solemn, Naruto ended up waking up early and made some Ramen for him and Hinata, when they finished, the two headed off for the Sun Country, while it was beautiful, Hinata and Naruto quickly realized that they WERE standing on a battlefield (as pointed out by the numerous skulls and weapons in the dirt).
"Ok, so you track the traps, and I'll set them off and dispose of them." Naruto told Hinata, Hinata thought it wasn't very thought out, but it would work. Hinata and Naruto announced themselves to the Feudal Lord, and got to work.
"Shadow clone jutsu!" Naruto yelled as his hand sign gave birth to 9 other Naruto's.
"Byakugan!" Hinata yelled as her veins around her eyes bulged, as she looked around, she noticed that there were almost no visible traps, she pointed to a few bear traps and explosive tags, to which the Naruto clones sacrificed themselves to destroy them all. Hinata gave up looking and concluded that the mission was just paranoia. But then something caught her eye, about 1000 meters away, she could see a group of ninja camping in the forest at the edge of the landscape, she recognized the three as Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji.
"Um, Naruto, Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji are in the forest, should we meet with them?" Hinata asked.
"Yeah!" Naruto answered excitedly, to which he immediately rushed off to meet them, Hinata, still tired from the 12-hour walk to the village, had to lag behind with a slight jog. To find that, when she got there, the three ninja, and Naruto, were now sprawled out across the dirt floor.
"Bastard..." Naruto muttered as he slowly got up to see Hinata gasping in shock. "Hinata, get out of here, rogue ninja..."
"I can't just..." 'Leave him?' Hinata thought in her head, she wasn't sure, well, she was sure that Naruto could handle himself, but could she really do anything if she was here helping him?
"Hello there little girl!" Came a voice from the trees, followed by a kunai flying in her direction. By the time Hinata's brain processed what was going on, she was on the floor, clenching her chest, and the kunai that pierced it.
"HINATA!" Naruto yelled out; as he kneeled down to see that Hinata was now slipping in and out of consciousness, the lightness in her eyes slowly fading away.
"Nar...u...to?" Hinata asked, "I feel...cold,"
"Hinata, c'mon, don't die." Naruto commanded her, sobbing at the dying girl who was now in his arms. "Don't die on me damn it!"
"I...lo...ve..." Hinata didn't get to finish the sentence, as she had passed out from the pain of having the kunai partly embedded in her lung.
"HINATA!" Naruto yelled again, this time, his sanity snapped. He had seen this before; Sasuke had died in his arms like this (he had woken up later, but the pain of thinking he had died was the same).
"Ahh, what a shame." Came the leader of the three man ninja team behind Naruto, the leader was a tall man, with long blond hair that came over the purple robe that he wore; next to him was a husky, brown skinned man, with a similar robe, and a ponytail coming out of the short turf of brown hair on the top of his head, and on the other side, was a skinnier man, who was taller than the leader, with long white hair and eagle eyes. "The poor girl died confessing her love to a boy."
"You...bastard..." Naruto muttered as he put Hinata down, he felt power surging through him, the red Chakra of the Nine-Tailed Fox pulsing in his veins, driving his broken heart.
"Eh? The kids glowing red, and his eyes are too!" The husky man pointed out as Naruto was bending over in his transformation, his eyes red and narrow, his whisker marks growing, his fingernails growing larger by the second, until his entire body was oozing a red Chakra.
"I'LL KILL YOU!" Naruto yelled as he cried in sorrow over his dead comrades.