"Kiba, Shino, have you seen Hinata

"Kiba, Shino, have you seen Hinata? We need to report immediately to the Hokage. We were assigned a B-ranked mission to find an old man lost near the Raiden Mountain range. There are known to be numerous bands of thieves and missing nin," Kurenai questioned.

"No Kurenai-sensei, we haven't seen her for about a day and a half," Shino replied stoically.

"Fine then, go to her apartment and see if she's there. Here are the keys to her apartment, and I expect you to respect her privacy and not do anything stupid. Especially you Kiba, and you know exactly what I'm talking about. Now go, and be quick about it."

"Awww man Kurenai-sensei, don't even bring that up," Kiba whined.

"As you wish sensei," Shino replied.

--

"Minato was finally waking up again after the Shinigami's little talk, and he was already feeling his memories being sucked from him. "If I hope to even keep some of my memories, I have to enter my mindscape and find the soul of the girl who used to inhabit this body. But, the only way I can do that is if I enter her mindscape, and even then it could take months to find where she is. Then again, every second I waste, I lose another precious memory. So let's get started with this," Minato thought to himself. He inhaled deeply and concentrated his chakra at the base of the cerebrum, a trick he had developed to enter his own mindscape. After what seemed like hours in his new body, Minato was finally able to enter his mindscape.

He fell with a plop onto something very soft and fluffy. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the girl's mindscape was a large meadow filled with flowers, and the meadow was surrounded by a large, dark forest. "She must be somewhere in the forest," Minato thought silently. As he got up, he noticed another thing about the meadow. There was a large blanket with a picnic basket on top. He decided to walk up to it and examine it more closely. When he finally reached the basket, he reached down and opened it. He was immediately surrounded by darkness as a memory started to play out right before his very own eyes.

Flashback

Hinata was standing behind a wooden post deep in thought as a blond-haired boy called out to her. It was Naruto-kun she thought to herself as she turned around nervously. "Why did you come here? Isn't today the main matches?"

The blond boy replied, "I uh …You know. I just came to see this training area. Since this is where I became a Genin."

Hinata replied cautiously, "Really? But why?"

"No reason! Who cares about the reason," the boy replied.

"Yeah. Sorry," she muttered

The blond asked the girl, "Hey, Hinata. Neji is your relative, right?"

"Yes," replied the girl.

"Is he strong,"

"Yes…"

"I see," said the boy with a tinge of insecurity.

"But… You might be able to defeat him, Naruto-kun."

"Yeah! I am strong!"

"I'm sure you can beat him, Naruto-kun. Um, when you cheered me on, I felt like I had become stronger than before. After the preliminaries, I was able to like myself a little more. If a stranger looked at me, it might seem like I haven't changed… But I think I was able to change. And I think it was thanks to you Naruto-kun."

"Hey, Hinata. Did you really think that?"

"What?"

"I may look strong from your point of view. But I always screw up, and I just act strong because I'm mad.'

"That's not true! Even if you did make a mistake, you were always … …from my point of view, a proud man who makes lots of mistakes. When I looked at you there was this impact on my heart. You're not perfect… You make mistakes and get stronger from them. I believe that is true strength. Naruto-kun, you are a strong person, I think." After saying this, Hinata's short lapse of courage was up as she moved behind the post which hid half of her body from the one that she truly loved.

"Thank you, Hinata. I've always been last place in everything. I was nervous over nothing. I was a bit depressed, but I feel better now!"

"Naruto-kun."

"I'll be off to the matches now. Hinata… I always thought of you as…"

The girls thoughts were racing. "What?What?"

"… a dark, timid, and weird person."

"Naruto-kun…"

"But you know something… I like people like you."

End Flash back (a/n those who read Two and a Half Years should recognize thus.)

Minato stumbled back as the memory slowly ended. "Naruto… You're alive" He whispered to himself. As he was lost in his thoughts, a door started to appear right in front of him. A bright flash of light finally caught Minato's attention as the door fully materialized in front of him. "What is this?" Minato thought as his hand slowly reached down to grab the handle of the white, almost transparent door. Due to Minato being so surprised by the door's sudden appearance in front of him, he failed to realize how intricate the carvings on the door were. The door had vines carved into them, and if you looked closely enough, you could see dew drops carved onto the vines. Also, a small child was carved upon the door with pale white eyes wearing a light lavender kimono, holding hands with a small blond boy with whisker marks upon his face. He had a extremely torn up shorts and shirt, and you could make out the look of a faded swirl on his stomach. "A small portion of his stomach was shown threw a tear in the shirt, and if you looked closely enough, you could tell that the small child hadn't eaten in a while, and was recently beaten. He sported a small bruise right below his bottom rib, and his skin was so tight upon his ribs, not only could you count each individual rib bone, but also feel the jagged places where the bone was once broken.

--

Kiba and Shino had finally reached Hinata's apartment, and had unlocked the door. As the swung the door open, they could be heard calling Hinata's name. Unfortunately for them, they wouldn't have a team of four for their next mission. "Hey Hinata, where are you," Kiba yelled bashfully. "We have a mission today, and it's not like you to miss a mission and a training session."

"Kiba come quickly," said Shino stoically.

"H-hinata?!" stammered Kiba. "Quick, Shino we got to get her to the hospital!

"Hai," replied Shino.

Three figures could be seen rushing from apartment 64 on the third floor of the Shinobi apartment, and the two were carried the third person who looked like a female. The cloak figure sighed as she left from her perch on a certain ramen bar, losing sight of the three shinobi as they became a dot in the sunset.

--

As Minato slowly turned the knob of the mysterious door, and slowly, very slowly opened it, revealing a long white hall which seemed to go on forever. As soon as he stepped into the hallway the door disappeared as mysteriously as it had appeared. Minato began to slowly wander down the seemingly endless hall, until he could see two more doors blocking his path. They seemed to hover just above the ground and were designed exactly the same as the door that had led him into this hallway. He decided to enter the door on the right, and it was as if by fate that he decided to choose this one as he was halfway through the door, the door on the left exploded into a shower of splinters and granite, completely marring the once perfect surface of the door on the right. Another light blinded Minato as he squeezed his eyes shut to the blinding white light.

In front of him was a large door with chains all across the cold iron door. It was not intricately carved as the other doors that Minato had seen so far, but it had an elegant beauty to it as well as a cold, desolate feel. The carving was simple, yet it still was a masterpiece in its own right. To the sides of the large metallic door where six smaller doors, three on each side of the door, and on top of the door to the very left was the letter "a," next to it was the word "river". Next to the door with "river" over it was the door with the number "42." The door on the very right had the word "paradox," the door to the left of it had the phrase "Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori," and finally, to the left of that door was the number "1." There was a large lock that connected all the large chains. Inscribed on the ground was a simple riddle. The end of time, the beginning of eternity, the end of the "force", the beginning of the end, and the beginning of eons, what am I?

Minato thought long and hard, but came up with no answer. Finally after what seemed like an eon, Minato said, "Eureka!" He entered into the correct door, and inside he found a field full of keys about six feet tall, and each and every one was different. "How am I going to find the right one?" After taking about six keys out of the room and trying the on the lock to no avail, a being walked from the distance, and in its hands, he held a key about 5 feet long, with a chain dangling from the handle. Once he spotted Minato, he started to charge at him. "Shit," Minato thought to himself.

Grabbing the nearest key, Minato charged towards the beast and their keys met in a shower of sparks, as both exchanged blows too fast to see with the naked eye. Even an Uchiha would only see a blur of motion. Trying to turn the tides in its favor, the cloaked beast brought his hands together in a blur, as it screamed Katon: Goukakyu no Jutsu. Minato was barely able to dodge, the jutsu, and countered with a weak rasengan knocking the key out of the beast's hand, the beast landed a few feet away from the blade. Throwing one of his special kunais at the blade, Minato Hiraishinned to it , and grabbed it. He then ran to the monster stabbing it through the heart. The hood fell off the beast's face revealing a man with pale white eyes and a constant scowl upon his face. "Hiashi?"

--

"Tsunade-sama, Hinata has a steady heatbeart, and seems to be breathing normally now," Shizune, the black-haired assistant pf the Godaime Hokage, Tsunade said.

"Good, keep her on the machines, and make sure she is watched twenty-four seven by at least one non-Hyuuga Anbu, and attended to by at least two nurses at all times.

"Hai, Tsunade-sama." The situation had only gotten worse. Not only did she have to deal with a mysterious explosion which left the charred arm, leg, and headband of a missing-Cloud nin, but now she had to deal with one of her best students in a vegetative state, and only being kept alive by a machine that feed her, and kept her hydrated. Not only that, but she had sent one of her best ninja to find his missing mother, and that her best friend was also in a vegetative state, and had been for almost a year. Then to top things all off, her two Chunin attends Izumo and Kotetsu had been carted away for psychology appointments because they wouldn't stop ranting about seeing a ghost with fiery red hair. Her day had just gone out of the frying pan and into the fire. She sincerely hoped tomorrow would be a much better day for her.

--

After prying the key from his ex-teammates dead, cold hands, Minato walked back to the room with the seven doors. He placed the key Hiashi had previously possessed, and shoved it into the lock that held all the chains on the door together. The lock clicked open, and the chains fell to the cold floor with a rattle. An odd thing happened after the chains touched the floor, the started glowing, and in a bright flash, they disappeared, along with the six smaller doors. A loud booming voice asked Minato, "What is the answer to life, the universe and everything. This is the final task you must complete to enter this room," the voice boomed. Opening the crumpled piece of paper, that his "dead" friend held in his cold, clammy hands, he read…

"Forty-two."

"You have passed the trials, and you may now enter this room," the voice said as it disappeared into the silence.

The doors turned bright purple, and materialized into thin air. The room was the whitest thing that Minato had ever seen. In the center of the room was a transparent chair, with a teenage girl with lavender eyes, long black hair, and was wearing a pale white kimono. "Who are you?"

"I am Minato Namikaze, who are you?"

"My name is… Hyuuga Hinata." Minato slowly walked forward, and for a long while, both of these people stared at each other, until Minato bent down, and slowly reached to touch the girl's cheek. The instant they touched, Minato's whole body felt like it was on fire, and he fell to the floor cringing in pain. The girl disappeared from the chair as Minato began glowing light lavender. He let out a scream that could have been heard all the way in the Wind country. Luckily for everyone, it was all taking place inside the mindscape of Hyuuga Hinata.

--

A/N So what do you guys think, was it okay? Please read and review. Also, I have decided to occasionally add more chapters to Two and a Half Years, as well as incorporate some of the ideas from Two and a Half Years into this story.