"Eight Trigrams, Sixty-Four Palms!"

The screams from the Hyuuga heiress could be heard well into the night.

"First!"

The post in front of her received two devastating blows.

"Second!"

The sounds of powerful blows impacting wood sounded through the training grounds.

"Third!"

Splinters flew off from the back of the pole.

"Fourth!"

The front of the pole was starting to get visibly damaged.

"Fifth!"

Her hands achieved great speed as she poured more and more chakra into the attack.

"Sixth!"

The pole in front of her, as thick as a large oak tree, started to buckle as her hands riped pieces of wood from it at great speed.

Finished with her attack ,she stood there; Byakugan activated, in the Gentle Fist stance, her eyes fixed on her inanimate opponent. She didn't even move a muscle for two whole seconds, until the very loud sounds of wood cracking could be heard and the tall, thick and rugged pole that had stood there for years now, taking all sorts of abuse from shinobi of all ages, fell to the ground with a loud bang.

Suddenly, she fell to her knees, panting heavily. Her body was gleaming with sweat, except for the places were her skin was obscured with dirt. Her shirt was wet in all the wrong places, and all her clothes were torn here and there. This, she felt, was very unlady-like; but, after all, she was first and foremost a kunoichi and a lady only when required (be it either by her clan, or by the dress code of some random village gathering her friends or teammates decided to attend).

Now, in the same position, breathing regularly, she sighed.

He would be proud of me...wherever he is.

She got up again to resume another one of her night training sessions when she heard a loud bang from the center of the village. As she turned around, she saw a plume of dust rising from the Hokage tower and light seeping from a new hole in Tsunade-sama's office.

Not again..

If you were to ask Hinata Hyuuga then and there, she would tell you with utmost certainty that at least ten percent of the village's gross revenue were spent entirely on repairing holes in the Hokage tower.

Sighing, she jumped in the air as she drew shuriken from her pouch and started target practice.

Shizune ran as fast as she could, pushing the heavy doors to the Hokage's office at the exact same moment that two ANBU operatives appeared from thin air at her sides. When the door opened completely, they saw a not-so-uncommon scene, but yet, one that hadn't been seen in three years: Tsunade standing in the middle of the room, legs slightly spread out, her right hand clenched in a fist by her side with slightly red knuckles, staring with fury in her eyes at the Jiraya shaped hole in the concrete wall.

Shizune let out a sigh of relief and slight annoyance.

"False alarm guys...again." she said addressing the ANBUs. "You can go now, thanks.", she said with a flick of her wrist.

"WAIT!" screamed Tsunade. Shizune could have sworn she saw the two battle hardened Back Ops men flinching. "Bring him up again, I'm not finished."

All three stood there staring wide-eyed at the Hokage, but to her, only Shizune was oblivious to the expressions of the mask wearing ANBUs.

"...with the debriefing!" all three showed signs of relief as Tsunade smiled awkwardly.

"Yes, Hokage-sama!" the two ANBU disappeared as Shizune crossed her arms and tapped her foot, staring at Tsunade.

"What? You know I have a hard time controlling my temper!"

"I'm getting you in some anger management classes."

"Like hell you are!"

"Ouch, that must've hurt like a bitch!"

"He's going to feel THAT in the morning!"

Naruto and the fox contemplated the scene as two ANBU's appeared at the foot of the tower and picked up a very hurt, and very unconscious Jiraya, and carried him back to where he would meet his doom for the second time that night.

After a lengthy pause, one of them finally spoke up.

"Hey, kid.. Can I ask you something?"

"Of course Kyu, what do you want to know?"

"Why do you love these people, this village, why do you protect them when they've always treated you like trash?"

Naruto sighed as he thought about the fox's question. It was a very personal one; if anyone else had asked him this he would have most likely dodged the subject, but this was his closest and best friend, he trusted him completely. And besides, he already knew the answer, he just wanted to hear it from him.

"Well.. Most of them are close minded little cunts indeed, but some.."Naruto though about his former teammates, Ino, Shikamaru, Neji, Lee, Kiba, Hinata, and all the others.".. some, are my friends, you know? And this village, it's inhabitants...they're all connected, if one hurts, all of them hurt. And I can't let my friends suffer."

"If it's all connected, why did no one suffer with you?"

"Because I'm special.."Said Naruto with a sad smile on his face.

"That you are kid, that you are. And you're very noble too: I would have just destroyed this village...No pun intended."

Naruto chuckled."Yeah, but don't think I'll still put up with all that they did to me back then. If anyone insults me or doesn't give me the respect I deserve, I'll gore their guts out, I don't care who it is."

"Ahh, you see what I was warning you about back in the apartment?"The Kyuubi no Yoko let out a very strong laugh, which if it were to be heard by someone other than Naruto, would sound more like a growl."I've really rubbed off on you!"

"You think? I thought that you'd noticed that I'm covered in the shroud almost all the time! Hey remember that one time I tried to take a shower without remembering to dispel it?"

"HAHA! It was precious! You were dumbstruck when you noticed that the soap wouldn't reach your skin!"

"Yeah and you waited a whole hour before telling me what was going on, you sly fox! The water was freezing cold by then, too...Haha, traveling with Ero-Sennin sure had it's moments!"

Naruto watched as he saw the ANBU's finally getting the very heavy toad sage to the Hokage's office, and slowly lowered him to the floor while Shizune screamed at Grandma Tsunade.

"Hmm.. Well Kyu, let's get out of here, I'm getting bored with this place and I don't want to spend the whole night watching that perv getting hit in the head."

"Hmm, you could pratice your chakra control, you're at an extremely high level compared to the one you were in right before we fused, but a bit more wouldn't hurt."

"To the training grounds it is, then."

"Tsunade-sama! You've really done it this time, he's worse than I thought!" commented Shizune on what lay before her: an unconscious Jiraya was struggling to breathe, his left cheek was swelling to the size of a tennis ball, and he was bleeding out of his ears.

"Oh, don't exaggerate. It's not as bad as it looks!"

"Not as bad? He's bleeding out of his ears! Healthy people don't bleed out of their ears!" Shizune screeched while gesturing franticly towards Jiraya's blood covered head.

"Don't be a baby, Shizune!" Tsunade said while she approached Jiraya laying on the floor. "You're both dismissed." muttered Tsunade to the two stoic ANBU who had been silently watching the whole thing, and they vanished in a puff of smoke. "He's not a regular ninja, Shizune! He's a Sannin! And on top of that, he's a Sage! Most regular shinobi would have died after a blow like this but this is a walk in the park for him. He'll be up and groping me in less than half an hour!" as she said this, she bent over Jiraya and started healing him with a jutsu, her hands glowing green.

"How do you know that? Someday he might not wake up Tsunade-sama!" Shizune was genuinely worried about Jiraya's fate. Ever the years he had become a friend and mentor, alike to Tsunade herself, yet, she feared more for her, for Tunade. She knew what Jiraya's death would do to her, after loosing her teammate, her brother, her lover.. Yes, after loosing so much in life, this would definitely destroy her.Tsunade-sama, you should value him more.

"I've been his teammate since my genin days. I know his limits almost as well as I know my own.. and I've sent him to hell and back. Believe me, he's been in far worse shape thanks to me." As she finished her sentence, Jiraya started waking up and unconsciously his hand reached out for support.

"...Huh...? Di-did anyone manage to get the license plate?" Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it), his hand was nearing one of Tsunade's large breasts.

"See? What did I tell you Shizune? He's going to be fi-" both of the women in the room froze as Jiraya's hand made contact. Shizune blushed violently and her eyes opened wide in shock and terror of what was to come. Tsunade's cheeks turned a slight pink color as she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, trying desperately to control her anger. To add fuel to the flames, Jiraya finally opened his eyes and gulped as he became very aware of his current "predicament", but didn't try to correct it. After what must've been the most tense ten seconds in Shizune and Jiraya's lives, Tsunade gently grabbed his hand and took it off her chest, finally making her way to her desk and sitting down.

"Shall we continue from where we left off, or are you two just going to stand there looking at me?"

Finally, they both let out sighs of relief.

Naruto now stood at the very top of the tallest tree in the area. His red eyes stared into the night, back to the full moon in the sky, same chakra tail waving behind him, filtering some of the moonlight. His shadow spread over the tree tops as he looked at the partially destroyed training grounds.

That's when his fox companion read his thoughts.

"She's a beauty.."

"Yes, that she is, that she is.."His jaw was slightly dropped as he admired her hourglass shape, the smooth curves that defined her figure, her long waving hair as she jumped from target to target in flexible and fluid movements.. Even the sweat and dirt on her, obscuring her perfect milky skin appealed to his animalistic side, yet she was turned away from him, he couldn't see her face.

Hinata jumped, twisted and backflipped as she threw kunai and shuriken hitting multiple targets, dead center in each one. Her aim had improved drastically since the chunin exams: back then she almost couldn't hit the broad side of a horse, now, using her kekkai genkai to perfect her aim, she was a master of accuracy and precision. All she lacked now was power, and she was slowly (but surely) working on that.

Her kekkai genkai, the Byakugan, is a wondrous thing to have: it can allow it's user to see far into the distance with a normal field of view or provide a near 360 degree view. She could use both modes at once, but with a much shorter distance range. Hinata was currently using the 360º view for two reasons: because she didn't need to focus on anything far away, the 360° view was much more useful since she could be aware of all that happened within the training grounds...which brings us to reason number two: she had to watch out for possible dangers to herself, even though she was within the most powerful shinobi village within the known world. After all, she was a Hyuuga (and the heiress nonetheless), if anything were to happen to her while she was on one of her night training sessions, which her father vehemently voiced his dislike of, she would never hear the end of it.

After she had hit all the targets she, turned around to look at the full moon, taking a break from training. With just the 360° degree view, all she saw past the training grounds was fuzzy and blurry, yet, the blurred light emanating from the moon seemed to calm her. But her calm didn't last very long, she felt watched. For a few moments she stood still, poking and prodding forward into the forest with her kekkai genkai trying to find the cause of her disturbance, but after a while she thought nothing of it and turned her back on the moon, walking towards where she had put down her backpack.

Naruto was completely still, admiring her. He didn't move a muscle, he didn't even breathe. The only movement emanating from him was his spectral tail. She was great with ninja weapons; she hadn't missed a single target.

Just who is she?...I've never seen a more beautiful or talented kunoichi in my whole life.

And then, when he thought he couldn't be more interested in what she had to offer...she turned around, looking straight at him. It was then that he realized: those lips, that face, that small cute nose, and especially those pools of a pale blue that were her eyes that either could give the most sweet, comforting, passionate looks he had ever seen or become threatening for her enemies.

"Hinata-chan?"

"Hinata? What do you mean? Wasn't that the small girl with the jackass cousin from the exam?"

"Yeah, I'm sure of it, I'd recognize those eyes anywhere."

"Well, she's.. matured, rather nicely."

"Shut up, you pervert fox! Sheesh, she's my friend, not a piece of meat!"Yes, because if she were a piece of meat, Naruto was sure he would be gnawing on it right now.

"Well what are you waiting for? Go, go, go!"

Suddenly something startled Hinata, she scanned the area around Naruto. At first he flinched a bit; for her, the chackra his shroud was giving off would be like a beacon shining through the night, but then he remembered what he had learned with ero-sennin about the Byakugan. When looking long range, it functioned more or less like a telescope: an extremelly powerful tool, but without knowing what you're looking for and a general direction in which to look at, useless. You could be searching for a Bijuu and you still would have trouble finding it.

So, he just let her scan blindly into the night, secretly praying that she wouldn't catch him spying on her, especially while giving off massive amounts of chakra. If she didn't recognize him after three years, the outcome could be...deadly. Finally she gave up and turned around, heading towards her things, and a thought popped into Naruto's mind, as he grinned like a fox, exposing unusually long canines.

Naruto took off leaving the tree top dangling, as he closed the thousand or so feet that separated him from Hinata in a few seconds. At the last moment, he dispelled the mantle so as to not hurt her. Even though he was resilient to the chakra (to the point that it actually healed and protected him), it still gave some nasty nasty burns to anyone else.

Hinata suddenly saw a huge chackra signature in her range, and realized with a start that it was right behind her! The most odd thing about this chakra was it's orange color, as opposed to blue.

Naruto was standing directly behind Hinata, he didn't give her enough time to react, not even enough time to think. He grabbed her wrists from behind and crossed his arms over her, keeping her immobile, with her back pressed against his chest. She was much shorter than him, the top of her head reached the place where his neck began.

Hinata gasped, realizing the situation she was in. Someone with an impressive chakra had just completely immobilized her, and was strong to the point she couldn't even hope to get out of that grip by her own means. Iff they wanted, she would be dead, and if no one came to help they could kidnap her and no one would notice until the next day...possibly the next week. Suddenly, stories shared amongst the Hyuuga clan and all the shinobi popped into her mind: stories of eye-gouging to attain the power of dojutsus, or worse...of rape.

Realizing just how scared she was and mentally berating himself for this prankster side of him, Naruto decided to stop it quickly before she would get mad at him. In a single quick movement he released her wrists and turned her around, pulling her into a tight hug and burying his head in her shoulder.

Hinata's brain was working hard, trying to figure out what exactly was going on. Whoever he was, he had had her pinned down, she couldn't do anything to him...Yet, he let her go, and now was hugging her. Hugging her! There's a reason to why hugs are such a friendly gesture; when you're giving them, you expose your chest to the other person. You're vulnerable; all it takes is a well-placed and fast punch to kill, and Hinata...well, she had been trained since she was able to walk to do that sort of thing (only more efficiently, with the Gentle Fist). If he knew who she was he would never have exposed himself like this, but then again, if he didn't know who she was, why would he be hugging her?

And suddenly it hit her like a ton of bricks.That hair.That familiar scent, those blond spikes she came to know, and love, so well over the years. And when he spoke, he sent shivers down her spine right down to her toes.

"I've missed you Hinata-chan."

It was Naruto, he had been gone for three years, but now he was back! Why? She didn't care, he wasback.She had started liking him has a child, but it had developed into full-blown and truelove in the chunin exams when he cheered her on against her cousin, and then when he swore on her blood that he would avenge her. What had been admiration turned into love, a feeling she had kept safe in her heart over the course of three long years whithout seeing him (she knew what they said, and now she had proof – absence does make the heart grow fonder). She wanted to hug him, but her body wasn't obeying her, and so she just stood there; her eyes closed and inhaling that smell, while blood poured to her cheeks and made her blush violently.

Naruto, realizing she wasn't hugging back pulled his head out to see her face, but never letting go of her.

"What's wrong, Hinata ?"

Hinata opened her eyes and gasped. Naruto was different, yet so familiar. He was older now, his wisker marks were darker and didn't take up all his face anymore, he was also more handsome, he was hot, his face framed by his long blond hair and Konoha hitaiate...but when she looked into those eyes, searching for the familiar deep, vibrant blue, all she found was red.

"Na-naruto, your eyes!"

Seeing his reflection in her lavender eyes, Naruto immediately apologized.

"Oh, sorry! Forgot to suppress my chackra." As he suppressed it, his pupils returned to normal and the red vanished, dulling his razor-sharp senses, but they were nevertheless sharper than those of the average shinobi.

Seeing the familiar blue and his foxy smile, she blushed even more violently. Naruto was hugging her, her! She desperately desired to hug him back, and finally gathered the strenght she needed to pull her arms around his neck and to come closer. She wanted to bury her head in his chest, she wanted to feel his skin on her forehead, she longed to finally be able to share such an intimate and friendly moment with him. When he hugged her tighter, what she thought was impossible happened, she blush became even worse, her heart was thumping like a tribal drum to a fast dance in her chest, and right before she touched his bare neck...her senses vanished, her eyesight blackened and she lost contentiousness.

"Na-naruto-kun..."

"Hmm? Hinata?"

He felt her go limp in his arms, and thought he had done something wrong. He quickly scrambled to hold her up, and then lowered her down gently to the ground, resting her head on his lap.

"Hey! Hinata-chan, wake up!"

"Why does she always do this?"

"It's not her fault kit, some people just can't handle...emotional situations."

"What the hell do you mean by that, fox baka?"

"Ahh, you've come a long way Naruto, but you still have a lot more to learn. Soon you'll see."The fox chuckled."Meanwhile, you've got an unconscious girl in your arms and you can't leave her here all by her lonesome. And you most certainly can't take her back to the Hyuuga complex, they would attack you on sight if they saw you after three years of absence carrying their unconscious heir."

"I can take them."

"I never said you couldn't, but I think the girl, and the Hokage, wouldn't be very happy if they found a crater where the Hyuuga clan house used to be. And besides, killing off her clan would defeat the whole purpose of taking her there in the first place, wouldn't it?"

Naruto didn't answer him, just sighing instead. The fox was right again. As he gazed upon the fragile girl, a warm, caring smile adorned his face. She was beautiful. And she was hot. Her midnight blue hair was sprayed behind her head like a halo, which made her seen even more gorgeous as it accentuated her delicate features and pale skin color. He slowly maneuvered her up onto his lap, cradling her like a newborn child. He ran his hand over her cheek, and placed a light kiss upon her forehead.

"Don't worry, I'd never leave you out here alone." he whispered.

Author's Note:

Update time guize. You all were wondering when Hinata would be introduced.. well here she is. Hope you like it.

As always a special thanks to my beta Temestuous Caeli, I'm sending her the next chapter right away, and this week a thanks to the band Oomph!, I really recommend them.

I took a week long break from fanfiction: had to get everything ready for college, so I couldn't write as much as I hoped, but still I finished chapter number six this morning and will begin writing up number seven this night.

I also activated anonymous reviews due to popular demand. Please review and send word to your friends.

Next chapter in a week or maybe sooner if I feel like it, keep checking in.