a/n:I'm sorry! I'm working on Reluctant I promise! But this...
when will i learn to stop the plot bunny. Spoilers: Based on recent chapters and the whole reincarnation thing, I've seen so many postulating that Hinata might be "someone's". As much as I love Hinata and her adorableness, I don't think it's plausible at all. But then again, anything can happen, so we'll see. But all the theorizing gave me this idea, and I just could not get it out of my head. I know there are many fics already having Naruto do the same thing, but I think it would be interesting to see Hinata do this.
Take note, there will be no overpowered Hinata here! And so let us begin!
The path chooses the traveler
A grotesque mockery of a tree loomed on the horizon, and all she could see were eyes, eyes everywhere. Its branches grew and grew, covering the sky and reaching for the sun. The moon turned blood red, red as the Sharingan that had been a part of it all, and it was then that she missed the color white the most. The white of the Byakugan, pure and unsullied.
The Alliance was done for; the Kage were defeated and Naruto-kun was…was…
Well…lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, his heart stopped and Sakura's hand still stuck in his chest, desperately trying to wake him up. Black Zetsu had taken their only chance at saving him, and Obito had given in so easily. His body was being used, for the ultimate end, for what he had wanted to start, despite his final regrets.
She stood speechless as the tears ran down her pale face, and her hair stuck uncomfortably close to her neck, the heat of the setting sun and the red of the sky reflected in her white gaze. Neji was impaled on a couple of wooden sticks…she almost wanted to laugh at the stupidity of it all. They had all worked so hard, trying again and again.
They had been so close…she had been so close. But they had failed and so it was time.
Madara's maniacal, ridiculously clichéd villainous laugh rang through the desert, and the tree's fruit grew considerably larger, its thick violet, red skin pulsating grossly. The branch inched closer and closer to his outstretched hand as he dodged the futile attacks.
The tree wanted him to eat its fruit, not like the first time.
The wind blew faster and then he pulled the ripe fruit off the stem, his hand clenching so tightly that the crimson juice and pulp ran down his hand and mingled with the ugly brightness of his chakra cloak. The hazy sunlight was slowly burning away, and she knew it was done.
"I promised…we promised." She muttered, crying and she refused to look behind her, knowing well what her Byakugan had seen. Kiba bleeding, dying. Shino's insects, drowning in his blood and weakened without his chakra. Akamaru in …half.
Ino's eyes half closed and her pretty face obliterated. Shikamaru's intelligence blown on the dirty floor, his precious thoughts leaking out like water from a tipped over vase.
Chouji, Lee, Tenten were standing on their last legs, trembling.
Sasuke-san was dead already.
Her family, clansmen were gone; as rest of the world would soon be.
She would not look back. Day was fading fast.
If one were to look at the situation objectively, she knew the biggest question that would arise. How the HELL was weak little Hinata Hyuuga still alive after all this?
It was simple really…who would notice her? This wisp of a girl, a see through ghost…an insignificant blip on the radar in the lives of these Gods of Shinobi. She had fought in self-defense, preserving her life, like a coward. But then again, she had learned that it was the best to be practical, as she was a very logical person by nature. And though she felt the fight and the Will of Fire burn through her veins, her legs itched to jump in and shout and fight the very sun itself.
But this would not do, she had learned it the hard way that no matter whatshe was always, always limited.
So she used the last of her strength to leap to where Madara was, a reckless abandon filling her as the trees roots extended towards those unconscious and ready to throw them all into a life of illusion and supposedly without suffering.
She was sort of curious, what kind of life would she find behind that veil, inside the Moon's eye?
She could not afford to find out. Not now and not ever.
So the pale eyed ghost, the insignificant blip on the radar leapt in front of the grinning Madara and he waited for her futile attack.
He laughed and looked at her incredulously as she pulled out a kunai, her fingers steady.
"HINATA-CHAN, NOOO!" She heard Tenten's cry, and Chouji's shout, and Sakura's sob.
She ignored them, kunai at the ready, the reckless rush of adrenaline pushing her to stupidity and revenge.
"Madara Uchiha…what you have done is unforgivable." She said simply, flatly with the air of one who had said the same lines over and over. And he stilled, intrigued by the bacterium that had dared to face him.
Such a transparent little thing, he thought. He could see her eyes and the tear tracks and the white of the Byakugan, cold and unwavering. And so he nodded, intrigued. His staff was at the ready to tear her apart…just as soon as she finished the customary heroic speech and last stand.
The mere surprise of such a weakling having the gall to challenge him made him stop. The universe was trying to amuse him further, wasn't it?
"I've heard it all, little Hyuuga." He smiled, his hand raised. The fruit was still in his grasp, just crying to be tasted, to be used. Hinata glanced at it, licking her lips and Madara smiled, knowing the lure of power to weaklings.
The shouts of her friends, and the cadavers of her comrades were fresh as anything in her mind as she looked him in the eye, raising her kunai.
'I'll see you soon, Naruto-kun...everyone…'
Then she did the unexpected. Timid little Hinata Hyuga, the little blip on a radar, smiled. It was bittersweet, but she smiled, her eyes glinting in defiance.
Then her kunai turned inwards, and straight through her chunin vest, into her heart. She heard the satisfying squelch of flesh tearing itself against metal and felt a brief breathlessness. Her head struggled to hold itself up, her eyes flickered, but even so, she managed to look up at a stunned Madara.
And in her lilting and perfectly cheery voice, she said… "Fuck you."
She dimly noted that the effect was ruined by her choking on her own blood, but she had gotten the message through.
Her heart stopped beating, just as Naruto's had…just as so many others today. She felt her sight grow dark and her body fall forward.
'Five…' Was the last thing to cross her mind before she died.
"I thought- I thought there was no such thing as destiny." She whispered hoarsely, clinging desperately to an ideal broken on the futility of their plight, the uselessness of her life.
And her companion gave her that same self-assured, enigmatic smile. Her plump lips stretching into an alien gesture that looked so out of place on the white, white face.
'A ghost or a Grim Reaper?' Hinata had thought upon seeing her companion for the first time.
Indeed the whiteness of her attire, the silver of her hair, of her eyes lent themselves to the image.
"Is there no such thing?" She replied, suddenly, her voice surprisingly soft and lilting. She spoke in a maternal tinge in her speech, and something about it made Hinata shiver.
It did not sound right.
But then again, maybe motherly fit more so than she thought, because this woman was after all her…
"Honorable Great Grandmother, I believe-" She was stopped by a light trill of a laugh, and she stood aghast as the mother of Shinobi laughed at her. A delicate hand came to cover the giggling mouth, ever so polite and ladylike.
She never let little Hinata forget that she was still a princess.
The woman looked down at the younger girl, her progeny, her descendant. What a tiny little girl, so transparent and as intangible as the cold light of the stars. Her luminescence lost in the multitude of even brighter celestial bodies. She found it laughable that this girl was one of her direct descendants; the Hyuga had succeeded in keeping their line pure…all to produce this ghost of a girl.
"What you believe is of little consequence. The path chooses the traveler. The traveler has no choice."
"So why, w-why am I here?" Hinata asked, reeling still from the memory of her last time around. "What can someone like me do, when Naruto-kun and Sasuke-san, when the Kage…the Kage…could do nothing?!"
The woman in white shifted, and her smile grew, splitting her pretty face nearly in two. "Because you have no self. You who are as a ghost, transparent and invisible…can slip in between the cracks, so to speak."
Hinata frowned, already knowing how invisible she had been. She had spent entire life fighting against it, strengthening herself. But it seemed even the Mother of Shinobi noticed her inadequacies, and the answer did not make her all the more reassured.
'Who is the ghost? Her or me…'
But she had promised, promised all of them and so she readied herself again, her very self aching to start, to leave this white void. Dressed still in her dirty Chunin vest and fatigues, she dusted herself off, feeling slightly ashamed at her state of being. Of course her clothes could not compare to the silky richness of her companion's cream robes.
She looked at her hands, coated in blood. His blood, and the tears fell down, because she had been unable to save them again. Her resolve renewed itself, her back straightened and her mouth fell into a thin line. She needed to find the sun again, and so she turned her back on her companion, fists clenching and chakra rising.
"How far will you go this time, little one?" She asked uncharacteristically, her cold tone curious for not the first time.
"Towards the sun." Hinata replied simply, still looking towards where she thought the horizon would have been.
"Remember, you are limited." The princess chided, an amused tone coloring her words.
Hinata nodded, having learned that the hard way. Then again her "companion" was not very much help with the whole endeavor. She was beginning to think it was a game to the specter, and she knew much more than she was letting on. But right now was not the time for such thoughts, and this time she had a plan…sort of.
She closed her eyes thinking. The image of three posts and a grinning boy came to mind, and she smiled fondly. Her chakra flared, wisps of blue essence cradled her and her hair lifted in a playful dance, the same sensation as before ran up her spine. It was the feeling of stars running through her veins and clouds running through her head. She lifted a hand in the air, saying farewell to her companion.
And then just like that, she was gone.
The ghost hummed thoughtfully in the wake of Hinata's absence, waiting again because she was simply a cynical type of being.