(Opening notes)

There may be a need for extra clearification, Naruto 'died' while training with Jiraiya when he found Sasuke for the second time, not on the retrieval mission for Sasuke. There were a few that got that mixed up, and where one messes up there are sure to be more.

Up From the Shadows

Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own the anime/manga Naruto; nor do I profit from using any likenesses of the characters portrayed.

Dates appear as such: 'June 18 – 015 AK – Midday' meaning the obvious the 015 is basically saying that October of that year Naruto is 15

'thoughts' - just a reminder

(Iwa) June 21 – 015 AK - Morning

This morning was about the same as the last. Rantou injured himself a bit trying to drag himself out of bed. Once again he was surprised that he missed evening but didn't dwell on that for too long. He quietly went to the dining room and ate breakfast while Kenji explained his own stipulations before offering the forehead protector. (If you forgot already, back up a chapter to refresh)

"Do you accept my boy?"

"Before I give an answer, what does being a noble entail?"

"Very astute my boy, nobles usually are mostly just for show. Usually you only see them during village events. Another use is to be a medium for disputes helping the parties to settle their differences. We are also required to list your marital status to be reported to other nobles and noble clans for possible betrothal. Nearly all requests of that nature will be optional only requiring a letter of declination, but every so often you may be involved with one that is mandatory requiring you to meet with the person before you can decline; that is usually reserved for events that may strengthen village's alliances. One more thing they get is a weapon specially built for your strengths."

"So I don't have to get married at all, but some betrothal meetings require attendance correct?" Rantou got a nod in agreement and picked up the forehead protector wrapping it around his head securely. "Thank you Kenji-sama, I will report to Sanyoto-sensei for more training." Rantou excused himself from the table and left to find his sensei in the dojo.

(Konoha) June 21 – 015 AK – Midmorning

Hinata had her breakfast and got in her light morning training but still couldn't focus until he had gotten the anger she felt taken care of. Bringing the journal along for proof, Hinata marched her way to Sakura's house. Filled with determination Hinata walked up to the door and knocked loudly bringing the pink haired medic to the door.

"Hello Hin…" Sakura never got the rest out before the young Hyuuga slapped her across the face knocking her back in pain and shock "What the hell was that for Hinata!?"

"Let's just say we have some things to talk about." Hinata held the journal up and stepped into the house without asking permission. Sakura closed the door and sat her down so they could talk about the issue. After some short explanations, one being Sakura didn't think Naruto would remember her threats which Hinata unfortunately agreed with for a logical reason. They decided to sit down and read a couple entries together of course after Sakura apologized for threatening him again.

March 2 – 012 AK:

Argh, first I get stuck on a team with Sasuke-teme, and then I get stuck with a chronologically challenged, always late not old, pervert sensei. There is some good news though Sakura is on my team and hopefully she will see that I am just as good as the teme and acknowledge me. Anyways, Kakashi-sensei sucks with his stupid bell test but in a weird twist of events we ended up passing his stupid test and became his first team of genins and tomorrow we get our first mission!

March 9 – 012 AK:

Argh… they call these missions!? I bet even Konohamaru could do these. I mean really, how many times do I have to get scratched by that stupid cat before I get a real mission? Apparently us genin are also the local weed pullers as well, this just sucks I need a better mission!

March 10 – 012 AK:

Today I yelled at old man Hokage for giving us all these crappy missions all the time, and he finally gave up and gave us a C mission guarding a drunken old bridge builder on his return to wave country. I think it will be nice to leave this village for a while.

May 12 – 012 AK:

I don't bring my Journal with me on missions for security reasons… our team just got back from our dangerous mission to wave. It was supposed to be a C mission, but it ended up being an A instead because Tazuna and the Wave country didn't have the money for an A class. I will make this story very short. On our way there we ran into a couple missing nins and they ended up poisoning me in the fight. They were defeated and we carried on until we met up with another couple nins known as Zabuza and Haku. Kakashi-sensei got trapped in a jutsu and Sasuke and I had to free him and then he beat him until Haku showed up and faked Zabuza's death and retreated with him. We got to Tazuna's house and met Tsunami and her son Inari and then Kakashi-sensei made us climb trees with chakra. Sasuke and I sucked at it but Sakura did it almost perfectly the first time. I passed out during training and met Haku and mistook him as a girl but he was actually quite nice. He showed me rule # 25 of shinobi code is stupid, we are humans we can't ever not show emotions, some emotions make us stronger. It was after Zabuza and Haku died, after Zabuka killed of Gatou the bastard that hired him, that I decided I would make my own way of the ninja, I will never give up, never go back on my promises, and I will protect all those precious in my life.

June 12 – 012 AK:

A few days ago some of us ran into some strange ninja from the sand village. They told us they were here for the chuunin exams, I've never heard of them, but later Kakashi-sensei told us we could enter them as well.

July 1 – 012 AK:

Today was the start of the exams, we ran into some problem getting to the exam room mostly due to Sasuke being a show off and drawing too much attention to himself, but I didn't do much better when we were in the exam room. We met a guy named Kabuto, he seemed strange since he hasn't passed the exam in 4 years. Well the written part of the exam was a pain, I didn't know any of them. I was quite frustrated until Hinata surprised me by letting me cheat off her paper, I didn't even see her there. I didn't cheat just because I didn't want to take the chance of getting her failed for helping me, but I guess I missed the point of the test. I figured I should have known them since I've seen them all the first year of academy on those tests, so how was I supposed to know I was supposed to cheat? Now that I know those questions were never intended to be answered, I'll be sure to stick Iruka-sensei with an extra large bill next time we go out to Ichiraku's. We all passed before a crazy ass lady jumped into the room announcing the next part of the exam.

July 8 – 012 AK:

Woohoo! I won my match against Kiba! Oops I never wrote about anything else. Well we went into the forest of death and got attacked by Orochimaru. I got swallowed by a huge snake and then we fought, and lost badly, and Sasuke got bitten by the freak while I got punched and that felt really weird. Well we then fought some other weird dudes to get our scrolls and we ended up in the tower. Since there was quite a few ninja teams that passed we had an preliminary round to remove some people. Sasuke fought a dude named Yoroi and barely won. Next Shino decimated that sound bastard Zaku with his bugs.

Kankuro, the puppet dude from sand, fought Tsurugu, the puppet dude won but I wasn't paying attention much. Sakura and Ino fought and they ended knocking each other out. That sand lady Temari easily defeated Tenten since her weapons were useless. Shikamaru won against Kin even though he said it was too troublesome. I got my match next with Kiba, but It was all just a blur. Luckily I won against him but I won't tell him it was that lucky.

The next match was mean, pathetic and probably one I will never forget. Before that match Hinata gave me this awesome ointment that instantly healed my cuts, although I wonder why she did that for me when all I do is ignore her. I don't like remembering her match with Neji his attacks were brutal and I really hated seeing Hinata get hurt so badly, but she kept going like a strong ninja should. Sakura said something about her watching me and that was why she didn't give up. I know that is a huge hint to something really big, but I'll think about that later. When Hinata coughed up blood and fell to the ground, I couldn't stop myself from jumping down and vowing on her blood to defeat Neji for hurting such a kind girl.

The fight with Gaara and Lee was huge. Lee used these gate thingies and got really fast, but Gaara still nearly killed him. Last Choji got put down quickly by Dosu with a single punch. I now have about a month to train to fight Neji and that favorite playing bastard sensei went to train Sasuke while leaving me with that perverted ass Ebizu.

"Well sorry for slapping you Sakura, I was just so angry."

"That's not a problem, but what got into you recently, you don't seem like you anymore?"

"I decided I need to change. If I could have talked to Naruto-kun, things may have been different. If I want to keep any other people in my life, I need to stop being so shy, I would completely die if another person is taken from my life, I still don't know how I'll survive without Naruto ever coming back."

"Well, before you do anything stupid, be sure to come by and talk." Hinata turned around and walked out the door, shutting it and ran back to the Hyuuga manor and returned to her room locking the door again.

July 9 – 012 AK:

Today was quite weird. I went to go train with Ebizu. He was in the process of teaching me how to walk on water when we got interrupted by perverted giggling. We saw a old guy peeping into the woman's side of the bath and Ebizu wanted to cover for being a pervert himself and tried to stop him, that was a bad idea since it turned out he was Jiraiya of the3 legendary perverts, well actually sannin, but I end up with 3 perverts to teach me so you get the idea. I tricked Jiraiya, ero-sennin, into training me where Ebizu left off by using my sexy jutsu. I found out that the weird punch the snake freak gave me messed up my chakra control. Once that was fixed water walking was easy and he decided to teach me summoning with my red chakra.

Aug 10 – 012 AK:

Chuunin finals are today and a lot has happened since I started training. I woke up in the hospital yesterday after depleting my chakra. Ero sennin thought that the only way to bring out my red chakra was to put my life on the line so he decided to throw me off a freaking cliff! If that didn't work I would have been dead, but it did and I managed to summon Gamabunta, the toad boss after demanding chakra from the bastard fox. I ended up in a contest to stay on the huge toad's back and it ended with me passing out, but I think I won. Also yesterday Gaara and his crazy ass tried to kill off Lee in the hospital; this guy is nuts!

Aug 13 – 012 AK

Man shit sure has hit the sky recently, but I'll just start from the beginning. Two days ago I was so worried about fighting Neji that I went for a walk to calm myself and I ended up at the training area where I became a genin. Surprisingly Hinata was there, she really seems to be popping up a lot recently, and I guess I surprised her since she tried to hide behind one of the stumps. I decided she would be the perfect person to ask about Neji. I told her I felt like a failure but she nearly yelled at me that it wasn't true. She thought that if anything I was a proud failure and that I filled her with admiration and that she thought I was a strong person. I got the feeling that she was tempted to say more but it could have just been me. She made me feel so good about myself, I really think I like people like her.

I beat Neji by a little trick and help of Kyuubi's chakra. Sasuke got special treatment again and got his match postponed with Gaara. Let's skip though the other matches since they were boring. The sound invaded and Gaara ran off to transform into a weird creature of sand, he has a demon as well, and attacked Sakura and Sasuke. They got beat pretty bad and I had to step in and save them. I summoned Gamabunta, but not before summoning Gamakichi accidentally. I battled with him and things got fuzzy from there on and we both ended up passing out. Unfortunately the snake bastard fought old man Hokage and killed him before he was run out of the village. His funeral is in a few hours.

Sept 12 – 012 AK:

I haven't written in a month and I have done a lot. Ero-sennin and I went to find the fifth Hokage outside of the village. During the trip I learned the Rasengan and even won a bet with Baa-chan earning her necklace in return. We finally convinced her to come back after fighting the snake bastard again, once again he got away. When we returned home Shikamaru was promoted to chuunin and Tsunade-baa-chan healed the seriously injured ninja, Sasuke got his ass kicked by his brother Itachi early in the trip to find baa-chan. After Sasuke was healed he was a complete ass and we ended up fighting on the roof of the hospital. Shortly after it was broken up, Sasuke left to find power with Orochimaru. Sakura was so sad with him leaving even after trying everything to stay with him. When he left, she just cried like I haven't seen her do before. That was when I saw that she really did love him, and I realized that was not the same I felt towards her, so I guess me liking her was a big lie even to myself, but I still promised to bring Sasuke back to her.

A team of genin were assembled to chase down Sasuke and bring him back, but along the way we ran into quite a few sound bastards with curse seals. Quite a few of my friends were hurt badly in fighting them , but I did catch up with Sasuke. We beat the hell out of each other, but he always seemed to be ahead of me in everything. I believe he really was trying to kill me since I should have died three times during the fight, but Kyuubi kept healing me. At one point I could have killed him, but I decided to scratch his forehead protector instead just to show that I could have, but that got me a hole in my chest again. Again I woke up in a hospital bed and I felt so useless, but Ero-sennin decided I should go with him on a training trip for about 3 years. We will be leaving in a few months and he said I should do some missions here to gather some money.

Dec 7 – 012 AK:

I leave with ero-sennin today and it has been kind of crazy around here. I did some 'guard this' and 'get that' type of missions but nothing to help find Sasuke until on mission. I was sent with Shino and Hinata to find a bug I still can't pronounce. We failed it horribly, but I did remember a few things about it. While we were sleeping, I needed to relieve myself and for some reason I was drawn to a river and there in the moonlight I witnessed the most beautiful sight. There was a beautiful girl dancing naked on the water. Her moves were elegant as the water splashed all around her, she was mesmerizing. I'm glad I couldn't see her form in detail otherwise my head would explode, but I was still drawn to get closer.

I got to the edge and slipped and fell into the water scaring her away. I first thought it was a dream, but for something being more beautiful than I have ever seen, it would have to be real since dreams are based on what you've seen. Now I know I can be seen as quite stupid at times, but some things never get by me so this is what I figured out. She was about my age and since she was on the water, she had to be a ninja, now who was around in that area that is my age and a ninja and also a female, oh and who else wasn't asleep in the tent… Hinata. I do see why she wears that coat now, it is to hide all that beauty. I played my experience off as a dream and told Kiba about it making Hinata glow red in the face. Well I guess I should be off from here for three years…goodbye Konoha.

'Naruto-kun… you knew it was me, and you liked it? I wish I could have talked to you more, now all these feelings about you possibly liking me back are all wasted' Hinata closed the journal and hugged it close to her as she cried herself to sleep for another session of restless slumber.

(Iwa) Same time frame

Rantou found his day of training to be exhausting. He was introduced to the chakra amplifier (the special weapon for nobles), in the form of a hilt, and managed to make a small dagger of wind based chakra after 3 hours of trying. Once again he fell into his usual slumber not to awake before morning again.

(Konoha) June 22 – 015 AK – Morning

Hinata woke early determined to reach the end of the journal in the last sitting no matter what. She took a quick shower and sat down at her desk to finish her reading.

Oct 10 – 014 AK:

Ero-sennin's training is really hard; he only gives me my birthday off to myself since he does his research while I train. I usually find him standing next to me saying I shouldn't be lying around when he comes by the next morning to where I passed out training. I guess he did manage to teach me some new jutsus and I got the Rasengan perfected to one hand so it isn't a complete waste. The problem I have is ero-sennin is getting obsessed with the Kyuubi chakra and wants me to concentrate most of my time on controlling it. I hate using too much of that chakra since it makes some of my emotions disappear in favor of anger and the need to kill. I hate that feeling.

March 21 – 015 AK:

I managed to get some time away to write since Ero-sennin is doing his peeping for those damn books all day. He even wants me to read them for my training, yeah right. Well today I read everything I wrote in my journal so far, and the strangest thing popped out at me. In all the years Hinata has made it into nearly every entry. I noticed many entries said that she was always red, like blushing, when she was looking at me. Can that really mean she likes me? I must be the only person in Konoha to not notice, I must really be dumb. I want to entertain the idea of being with her, but I know it can never be. She is from a prestigious clan and will most likely married away for someone to gain power, besides I'm an orphan with a freaking demon stuck in my gut, I'd be killed on sight anywhere near the manor and even if we did manage to be together how would the village see her? I can't let her experience those looks from all the people.

Oct 10 – 015 AK:

I guess I'm 15 now, boy time flies when you have no idea what is going on sometimes. I'm creating a twist on the Kage bushin and it is quite difficult to get what I want. I'm trying to get a more durable clone, but when I think I'm coming close, I loose a day of my memories somewhere. I usually find myself wandering around aimlessly. Ero-senin keeps yelling at me for wandering around recently due to Akatsuki, since they are supposedly on the move again. Because of that, he decided to personally supervise my training, but that means more fox chakra training. I got to about two tails worth of chakra easily, but ero-sennin says I need much more. Every time I use that chakra it makes me sick with all that blood lust. Anyways, I am really looking forward to returning home in 8 months.

Feb 12 – 016 AK:

A few days ago, not sure how many, I managed to pull out 3 tails of chakra and still felt mostly in control, but Ero-sennin wanted more so I pulled for more, and that was when everything went black. When I woke up I was in the middle of 2 acres of destroyed land and almost no clothing was on me and ero-sennin was barely conscious. According to him 4 tails has exponentially more power than the other tailed stages. This was exactly the reason I hated using that chakra and now he is stuck in a hospital for a while, but at least I can work on my modified jutsu.

Feb 21 – 016 AK:

I think I just made a breakthrough on my jutsu. I tried reinforcing my clones with even more chakra, but if I did it in a certain way, they actually generate chakra on their own. They are almost as durable as I am and are different in personalities than before. The only way to dispel them is to make contact with them and then try to cancel the jutsu. The coolest part is your chakra isn't wasted when they dispel but what they didn't use comes back to me.

May 12 – 016 AK:

I've gotten better at my new clones but every so often I get a clone that looks drastically different than I look and even has an almost opposite personality, not just a different one. But the worst part is we both think we are the creator of the jutsu. It's just creepy.

June 12 – 016 AK:

We should be heading back home soon, but it is possible I won't be able to. Somehow Orochimaru found a way to shorten the time between uses of his jutsu which means he can use it in about 5 days. Therefore I just got an idea. We are just barely outside of Sound right now and the only reason Sasuke is with him is he thinks he will get the power he wants, but the only way to do that is for him to kill his best friend or family, and I'm the closest thing he has to that. What I'm about to do may cost me my life, but there is a chance it won't and I'll take that chance to bring him back, people love him in Konoha, and everyone needs love. I hope to see Konoha again, but if I don't, I hope I see my friends in the next life. Please everyone take care of yourselves, and if you find this, please give it to the person that knows me best.

'What were you planning Naruto-kun? I really want to know how you let this happen without destroying half the area.' Hinata was about to shut the book but caught a glimpse of something out of the ordinary with one of the pages. 'What? Is this a chakra sensitive page?' Hinata channeled a bit of chakra into the page and a message revealed itself.

Hinata –

I really hope you aren't reading this since it means I didn't come back from my stupid plan. I'm sure it is you that got this journal since you always seemed to know exactly what I was thinking and as such you knew me best. I figured you were most likely the person watching me all these years, and I thank you. Your calming presence is what got me through those times I felt worthless. I really would give anything to have you here to say something to get my hope back like you did before the chuunin exam, or at least be near so I feel that calm you bring. I feel like something wont go right when I chase Sasuke, but I must get him back, if I don't Orochimaru will be undefeatable and I cannot allow that to happen.

I'm sorry I couldn't see you and tell you about the things I feel. I never really realized how much you pop up in my life and now after looking back I feel you are a big part of it. I really wish I could figure out these things I have been feeling when I think of you, but I don't want to make things worse by telling you about it. I really wish you weren't reading this. I hope you can move on and have a happy life with someone, you deserve to be happy and I can't be there to do it. You never had to try so hard to get my attention, I already know you are the strongest kunoichi of our generation and make sure you believe that, and keep trying to get stronger. As my last written words I want you to promise that you will continue training to get stronger, and please find someone to love and have a happy life. Just promise me this and I know you will do it since we both live by the same ninja way.

'Naruto-kun, why? I really needed you I don't know how to love someone else, but for you I need to move on…' "I promise I will try to move on… I'll try to live without you." Hinata curled up on her bed hugging the journal and cried her eyes out. She stayed in her room for most of the day drowning in her sorrow until she couldn't possibly create another tear. Dragging herself from her bed she walked out to find a place to train to cause physical pain to hide her emotional pain.

...Later