This is a one-shot that takes place after the prelim fight between Neji and Hinata. Mainly it entails how I think it should have gone down, had Naruto not been the blockhead he usually is.

I don't own Naruto...He'd be a lot smarter if I did :P

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Bloody Red

His knuckles whitened as his grip on the metal railing of the arena tightened. "Hinata? HINATA!" Her frail, trembling figure met the floor with a grim finality. The Jounin that surrounded Neji relaxed with the boy, as he ceased his attempts to reach her, satisfied that the damage had been done, and this insignificant insect of a creature that was his cousin was finished. Sakura looked on in horror. As she glanced over the where Naruto was standing, she started visibly. He was gone. The boy had disappeared, a faint wisp of smoke the only hint that he had ever existed. As the dragged her eyes back to the frightening scene before her, she started again. There he was! The blonde nin was hunched over the shivering form of the Hyuuga girl, cradling her delicately in his arms.

A pale eye cracked.

"N-naruto-k-kun...?"

"Hinata! Don't worry, you'll..." He trailed off. She noticed something glitter faintly in his deep cerulean eyes.

"...You'll be fine." He choked out, finding it impossibly hard to finish.

Her eye closed again, and as the medical ninja rushed forward to take the battered girl away to E.R., A young boy stood, still as stone and deathly silent, in a world all his own. His eyes in shadow, his shoulders trembled as he trudged his way towards the older Hyuuga. He never slowed, never stopped, not missing a step as he approached the silvery-eyed boy. He suddenly halted, his face inches from the other's. Eyes still in shadow, a hand shot out from nowhere, gripping Neji's shirt collar, and pulling so that the fabric groaned against his skin and he felt his feet lighten as much of his weight was taken off them. Naruto's eyes were still shadowed, and for a reason Neji couldn't comprehend he was immensely glad for this fact.

"You're a sick fuck, Hyuuga."

Blood. Blood was on the hand that gripped him. It was Hinata's. It dripped from the hand buried in his collar, and seeped into the white, heavy fabric of his shirt. He wanted to protest, to make some snide remark about the filthy blood of the main house, or perhaps about the boy who held him in an iron grip, but he couldn't. All he could do was ponder the strange chill he felt running up his spine as his white eyes darted from the bloody hand to the shadowed face.

Is this...

...Fear?

A gentle hand lay upon Naruto's shoulder, another easing his grip from Neji's shirt, as the smiling eye of Kakashi looked on. "Now, now, Naruto, let's not be too hasty, eh?" As the sandy-haired nin backed off, the shadow left his eyes as he pierced Neji with a glare. "If she dies..." Neji heard him rasp, barely recognizing the words as he gaped in sheer, unabashed terror, "...You're gonna go with her." He turned away then, moving to accompany the Medical nins, all thought of the Chuunin trials temporarily escaping him.

"Those eyes..."

Neji shuddered.

They were a bloody red.

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Just a one-shot, hope you like it.