Love Me

'I should really get into action…' Hinata thinks, walking around the flower garden just outside the Hyuuga Clan. 'If I want to get Naruto, which I do, I really shouldn't hesitate as much anymore!'

A determined look creeps on to her face, but as soon as it appears, it disappears and she starts to look worried. What if he really doesn't like her? He only has eye for Sakura and the only conversations she had with Naruto were aboout missions and she usually stuttered like crazy. She doesn't want that anymore, she wants Naruto and will do just about anything to get him.

She looks around, picking a flower with a spiky yellow top, just like Naruto's hair and she starts talking to it.

"N-Naruto-kun…" she whispers. She shakes her head, this is no good, if she wants Naruto to notice her, she should NOT stutter. "Naruto-kun!" she shouts. No good either, shouting to your beloved one usually only scares him away. "Naruto-kun…" she says seductively, immediately getting sick of herself, this is Ino's style, not her's.

"Naruto-kun?" she asks, her voice casual and light, still a bit shy, but rather confident as well. 'That sounds better.' She thinks. "I have something I want to tell you." She says, feeling a rather tight knot in her stomach and willing it away, she's only talking to a flower for Christ sake!

In her mind she sees Naruto turning around with that great smile on his face. "Hinata? What's the matter? You look as if you're going to faint!" he says, walking up to her.

Hinata grins at this thought, that's true, whenever she's close to Naruto she indeed feels as if she's going to faint. She shakes her head. "No… I'm not going to faint… I just want to tell you something…" she says, starting to sound more insecure again and taking a deep breath. In her mind Naruto eyes her curiously. "Sure, what is it?"

Hinata swallows hard, twisting the flower in her hand and willing herself to stop fidgeting, she nods to herself. "Naruto, I've been watching you from the shadows for so many years, knowing that you are special, don't think I'm obsessed or anything… I just… I think… no, I KNOW I love you, very much." She nearly screams out the last sentence, glad that she was finally able to speak it out loud, ok, it wasn't in front of the person she wanted to tell it, but she's never been able to voice her feelings about him before.

"Hinata!" She suddenly hears, she turns around, looking into the eyes of Neji, she turns bright red. "Neji-nii-san…" she murmurs, wondering if he's heard what she just said.

"Haven't you heard the alarm? There's a group of enemy ninja's who's entered Konoha, all Shinobi have to assemble at the Hokage's tower." Neji says, practically pulling Hinata along in the direction of the tower.

"I'm sorry, I was…" Hinata starts, not finishing her sentence.

"You were too busy, as so it seems, but we have no time for that now, we need to solve this matter first. It's a large group of enemies, from what I've heard and they've got amazing powers, I don't know the details yet, we'll hear them from Tsunade-sama as soon as we get there." Neji explains to her.

Hinata merely nods, walking a bit faster.

Tsunade explains the details of this mission, the objective is to kill the opposing ninja's at all cause, they are well known for their wide variety of ninja skills, so far they've seen water, lightening, fire and earth, but Tsunade expects that there are more.

"Now for the rookie teams." Tsunade finally says, having already assigned the Jounin and Chuunin to their tasks.

"Those who are second year Genin will cover the lake-side, expect attacks from the water. Neji will be your team leader."

Neji nods and the second year Genin take off.

"First years." There's only a group of eight people left. "Yamanaka Ino, Amkimichi Chouji and Nara Shikamaru, you will guard the city from the entrance to the market place, don't get in the way of the Jounin there, but assist them as much as you can." Ino, Chouji and Shikamaru nod and run away immediately.

"As for the remaining group." Tsunade looks at the five who are still waiting for orders. "Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Hinata, Haruno Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto, you will cover the forest area, where we are immensly short on shinobi, I will trust on your strength and intuition to defeat all enemies there." Tsunade says. Motioning the last team into movement.

'I'm on Naruto's team!' Hinata thinks, promising herself to do her very best in the upcoming fight.

All around them they hear sounds of battle, pained screams or roars of laughter mixed with the clinging sound of kunai and shuriken.

Hinata looks at Naruto, he seems almost alighted at the prospect of battle and yet, she notices a glimpse of fear in his eyes, naturally, since he's been in a major battle like this before when he had to fight off Zabuza, and during the Chuunin exams, she had heard that Naruto was the one who had to fight a monster. She runs up to him.

"Naruto-kun?" She asks, her voice once again shy and scared.

Naruto looks around, nodding at her. "There's nothing to worry about Hinata, lets just do our best, ok?" he asks, giving her a comforting smile.

Hinata nods, smiling back, Naruto seems to be a bit startled, he hasn't seen much laughter from Hinata's side before.

"We're surrounded." Shino suddenly says in his normal, low voice.

Hinata and Naruto look up, seeing shadows in the trees surrounding them, knowing that they've fallen right into a trap.

"Couldn't you have noticed them?" Naruto hisses to Kiba, knowing that his nose has exceptional abilities.

"I don't smell anything." Kiba admitsm sniffing the air repeatedly.

"Maybe we're fighting clones? Or else Genjutsu?" Hinata suggests in her mousy voice.

Shino nods, still looking at the trees. "That's most likely." He says indifferently, silently releasing some of his bugs to scout the area, but before they returned or could attack, the air is filled with kunai and shuriken and the five rookies can do nothing else but run for their lives, immediately being followed by the enemy shinobi.

One kicks Kiba in the back, he rolls over the floor and lands aside a tree. "Well, they're definitely not Genjutsu." He says, standing up again. Naruto throws a kunai at one of them, it hits and the person starts bleeding.

"They're not clones either." He states.

"Then what are they?" Hinata wonders, turning around and activating her Byakugan. What she sees is no different from the body of an ordinary human being, except that their skin seems to be filled with something she can't decipher.

"Well? What are they, Hinata?" Kiba asks when Hinata turns around again.

Hinata doesn't answer right away. "They appear to be human beings." She then says. "Only… I think they've got some kind of natural layer around them to mask their scent."

Kiba nods, then he hears a loud squeel of pain and Akamaru flies through the air, right into Hinata's arms.

"Akamaru-kun?" Hinata asks, petting the dog a little, but then there's something else flying through the air and because Hinata and Kiba are too busy trying to get Akamaru back on his feet and Shino, Naruto and Sakura are too busy fighting, they have no warning. Hinata gets hit in the chest and falls down, Kiba shouts her name, Hinata tries to reply, but doesn't have the strength, she tries to breath, but it's too difficult, the world is turning in front of her eyes and she loses consciousness. From the distance she hears Naruto's voice screaming her name loudly and she smiles a little at this, she never even noticed the immense scary power that emerged from the boy's body after that.

"…nata… Hinata… HINATA!" Hinata opens her eyes, looking into the concentrated eyes of Sakura who is trying to heal her wound.

"The kunai has hit her heart, she needs to remain completely calm or else she might die." She tells the guys.

"NO!" Hinata hears someone scream, she wants to look around, recognizing the voice immediately, Naruto. Where is he? Why can't she see him? She tries to move, but it hurts her a lot, her body seems to have partially left the ground, she stares down a little, seeing legs, wrapped in orange fabric. No way! She's laying on Naruto's lap! Her heartbeat increases and Sakura screams when she gets hit in the eye by a squirt of blood.

"Please stay calm Hinata…" Sakura whispers, oblivious to the fact that she is awake.

Well awake… she could already feel her consciousness fade again, so she decides to see if she can speak.

"Hhm…" is the only thing she can produce.

"Hinata?" Naruto shouts. Hinata feels happy, he sounds sincerely worried about her.

"Na…ruto…-kun…" she stammers weakly.

"Don't try to speak just yet." Sakura bids her, continuing her job.

Hinata shakes her head with a painful look on her face. "I want.. you to… know… In case I… die…" she whispers, resting her head a little more comfortably in Naruto's lap. Naruto's head now appears above her, there seem to be tears in his eyes. "What do you want to tell me, Hinata?" he asks softly, laying a hand on her cheek.

"I… I wanted to tell you that…" she feels so weak, she can hardly stay awake, her mind is so tired, but she needs to get the words out, her eyes try to stay focussed on Naruto's and she whispers with her last strength: "I love you…" After that everything goes black again, but she thought she could hear Naruto whisper 'I love you too' back to her, sounding really sad this time.

This isn't how she pictured it.

"Hinata-chaaaaaaaaaaan!" Hinata awakes the next morning to a familiar and very welcome voice.

She had been transfered to Konoha's hospital an hour after she got attacked, she had hoped that she hadn't really told Naruto that she loves him, but when the door opened and Naruto came running in, flinging himself into her arms and kissing her on the cheek, she knew she had done just that.

Tsunade had told her that the ninja's were defeated and the threat was over, in his turn, Kiba told her that Naruto had killed about 50 forest ninja's on his own after she had been hit.

Now, about 12 hours later, she is almost back to full strength again and the only thing that still reminds her to the attack is a stinging pain in her chest and the fact that a grinning Naruto is sitting next to her, his eyes talking more of love than happiness for the first time in his life.

"You can go home tomorrow, eh?" Naruto asks.

Hinata nods. "Yes, that's what the medical nins told me at least." She whispers, feeling a little uneasy, but not as much as she used to.

"That's great! I'll stick around you if you want, I can imagine that putting too much stress on your body right away wouldn't be good, so I can help you out with day-to-day activities and such and…" Naruto keeps on talking, Hinata isn't really listening, she's just looking at him, smiling a little, everything seems good, this is how it should be, Naruto at her side, loving her.

"Hinata, are you alright? You look funny." Naruto asks, feeling her forehead to see if she's got a fever.

Hinata blushes furiously. "No… I mean, yeah, I'm alright, don't worry! I was just thinking…" Hinata says, feeling her confidence grow enough to say what she really wants to say.

"Thinking about what?" Naruto asks.

"About how I want to kiss you…" Hinata whispers.

Naruto grins and closes the distance between them, passionately locking his lips with hers.

Owari