"You what?"

Naruto stared at Hinata, his insides frozen stiff. The sound of her voice was so... so cold. He couldn't believe that she could make such a tone emerge from those beautiful, full, red lips.

"I, well, I thought...." Naruto was actually frightened. He hadn't thought it out, and now that Hinata had brought it to his attention, he felt down right stupid.

"Naruto," she said, standing up, " we can't allow them to go back now for sure. If Konoha launches a war on us, we are screwed. Do you understand that? Screwed!" She screamed at the sky, unnerved by her own anger. She walked to the river and looked down at her reflection, noticing that her irises were red and her usually non existent pupil was a slit of lavender. That only infuriated her more, knowing that the Fox was fuelling her anger. But she was angry, nonetheless.

"I realize that, Hinata." Naruto looked a little hurt, and tried to pull himself into a sitting position. After managing that small task, he stared at her trembling back. "We can still get them. They aren't too far away...." Hinata whipped around to look at Naruto, tears of rage welled up in her eyes. Her ears seemed even sharper and keen, the canines of her teeth a little more profound than usual.

"They are probably halfway to Konohagakure by now! And what about Neji? How are we supposed to retrieve everyone that has seen us. And you called for war! Ha! How will we manage when a hundred shinobi march into Wave Country, brandishing their most powerful jutsus and weapons? What will we do when they burn half the land to ashes, and slaughter our people? What, Naruto, what?" Hinata was straight scary now, looking more and more like the Kyuubi.

"Hinata, calm down! Please! Just sit down, and we can talk this over. Plan it out, like we've done for the past few years. When we're together, we can do anything! Remember?" Hinata did remember, and her features softened a bit as she reminisced.

Hinata was ten years old, locked in a dank, steel cell. She had just been separated from Naruto after being captured by Rock nins. "Stupid mission..." she sobbed, hugging her knees. She was wearing a ragged jacket that looked like it was pulled from a dumpster. Her black pants were in shreds; the remains of her hitai-ate was clutched in her left hand. "Stupid Naruto...." she sobbed again, giving her legs a squeeze.

Screams erupted around her, amplified by the steel walls. She covered her ears, crying. 'Naruto-kun...' she whispered in her mind, then looked through the bars. Across from cell was a steel wall with an assortment of torture equipment. 'Where are you?' she stood up, grabbing hold of the cold bars. 'We should have known better than to mess with an A-ranked mission.' she slammed her head into the bars and cried out in pain, falling backwards onto her butt. She pulled her knees to her chest and sobbed again.

"Heh heh, looks like this one wants out. Maybe we should show her just how much she doesn't want out." the man laughed, then walked in front of the steel bars, brandishing a long, rusty knife. Hinata recoiled, moving as far back as she could, until she was in the corner, pressed hard against the steel wall. The man laughed again. "Now, little girl, why were you and your friend sneaking around our fort? Tell us, and we might just let you go..." the man bellowed with laughter, making Hinata sob harder.

"Rot in hell," she managed to say, glad she didn't stutter. The man blinked and stared through the bars.

"Hell? I go there every Friday for poker," he grinned at her, showing off his abnormally long and pointy teeth. Hinata pressed her face into the fold between her knees. If she had a kunai, she thought she would rather kill herself than sit here wondering what's going to happen to her.

When she finally looked back up, the man was arguing with a short, rigid looking boy. "The hell do you mean he's gone?" The man bellowed, kicking the small child in the stomach. The boy cried out in pain.

"Sir, it's like I s-said. The boy you c-captured was in his cell one s-second, and when the g-guard turned to grab his t-tools to begin the... process, the boy was g-g-gone." The boy painfully muttered, looking up at the man holding the rusty knife. The boy suddenly jumped and ran, seeing that the man was about to throw a rage.

"It seems your friend left you all alone, and we'll have to extract the information from you instead." The man was actually smiling. Hinata gave a small whimper, and put herself into as tight a ball as possible. "I don't know how your friend escaped with all of the seals and protections we had around him, but he did, and you might just know how." He stuck the rusty knife into the back of his pants as he began to fumble with his keys. Hinata thought this would be her last chance, so pumped chakra through her body, and got on all fours.

As soon as the she heard the click and the bars were rolled into the wall, she launched herself at the man, pumping as much chakra into her open palms as possible. She took him down, grabbed his rusty knife, and plunged it into his arm, embedding the blade deep into the floor. He was pinned down, and she took off running down the damp tunnel. She was barefooted, so she could feel the worn, damp earth beneath her feet. She past many cells, some of them containing moaning captives, but she wasn't going to stop until she was out of here.

Suddenly she slammed into someone, and began a rapid flurry of jabs, but all were deflected. She suddenly found herself in a warm embrace, holding her limbs from movement. She knew who it was and suddenly her legs became weak and she sobbed into her friend's shoulder. "I feared you left me here to die, Naruto-kun.... But I knew you wouldn't do that to me." She saw him smile, and he grabbed hold of her hand, saying he knew the way out. Something was different was about him, though. His eyes were green.

As they ran through many doors and down infinite tunnels, hiding from the eventual guards, a siren finally sounded, but they were making their own paths now. Hinata could vaguely see it happen with her skilled eyes, but was too worn out for it to make a difference. As soon as a hole appeared in a five foot thick steel wall, which had slowly opened up, they jumped through it. They fell about ten feet, landing in a roll on some hard-packed dirt. Kunai fell all around them, and they were soon twisting and contorting their bodies through the onslaught of weapons, not wanting to be ripped apart.

As soon as they were in the clear, they ran in their odd way as fast as they could, not stopping for anything. Their mission was complete, the information was gathered, and they were together again. As long as they could get together and not lose faith in each other, there was nothing they couldn't do. This thought was only fortified when Naruto mentioned it himself later that night.

Hinata's fox-like features dulled, and she plopped herself down by Naruto again, ashamed of her anger. "I'm sorry..." she whispered, moving closer to Naruto, and huddled up next to him. He leaned against her a little and put his arm around her.

"We'll get through this like we got through everything else. Nothing will stand in our way. We will seize our dreams, and no one will tell us how to live, or what to do." Naruto said soothingly. Hinata smiled and closed her eyes, trying to relieve herself of worry and stress. This lasted all of ten seconds, before a melancholy voice spoke up.

"Having fun, are we?" It came from behind them, and they were both up in a fighting position instantly. They could have been dead, but their intruder had let himself be known. But still, sneaking up behind them is saying something.

"H-Hatake Kakashi?" Hinata said, astounded. Naruto was pretty surprised as well. Kakashi's mask seemed to be unscarred, but the rest of his clothes and himself seemed to be in bad shape.

"I had underestimated you, Hinata, and I am sorry. I went easy on you, thinking I could convince you to come home. I see now that this is impossible," Kakashi droned, sounding worse for the wear. He suddenly kneeled down, which utterly confused the two Kaimu ninja. "I am pledging my allegiance to your village." Both of the Jinchuuriki were shocked, and their mouths stood agape. Suddenly three more people appeared on either side of Kakashi, kneeling as well.

"Us, too," said Sakura, Sasuke, and Kiba in unison. Now they really threw Hinata and Naruto for a whirl.

"Y-you want to join us? How can we trust you?" Hinata said, examining each of the kneeling shinobi. Each of the four former Konoha nins took off their forehead protectors, and pulled a Kunai out, slashing a mark through the Konoha sign, then threw them aside. The ultimate sign of rougehood.

"This is great, Hinata! With experienced shinobi on our side, our village can grow even faster. It won't be only us teaching the villagers the shinobi ways." Naruto said, excited. Hinata still looked suspicious.

"But why?" Hinata asked simply enough.

"We admire your plight, and would like to be a part of something as big as this. If we can pull this off, our names could go down in history." Sakura said, gazing at Naruto.

"You would leave your clans to join us? Your whole family?" Hinata said, doubtful. Their faces darkened, all except Kakashi and Sasuke.

"It's simple enough for me. I have served Konoha faithfully, going on many missions, and have met no one who could bring me down as you have, Hinata-sama. And my whole family is dead. My allegiance rests with you." Kakashi said, his right eye smiling again.

"Same for me.... I know you can make me stronger a lot faster than Konoha can." Sasuke's voice droned, his face all serious-looking. Kiba and Sakura were silent.

"Well, maybe Kiba and I could convince our families to come over to our side. We are the youngest, but I'm sure they would respect our decisions." Sakura said thoughtfully, and Akamaru gave a yelp of agreement as Kiba nodded.

"It's too risky to let them know, and too risky because Konoha would get suspicious." Hinata said, staring at the two. "It's all in, or nothing at all." Both Sakura and Kiba looked at each other, Akamaru gave a low whine. They each nodded. Hinata smiled a little, "In due time, they will see the importance of this village, and will join us. Until then, we are the village hidden by nothing. This is outright bold, and will probably upset many nations for the cockiness," she grinned and cocked her head to the side," but "who cares" is the village motto. Be sure to live by it." All four new Kaimu ninja nodded.

" All right then, first thing's first. Kakashi, seeing as you're the most experienced ninja, you will be our lead trainer in the village. We need to begin the education of ninja immediately. Hinata and I will write our village's Scroll of Techniques, and will begin the construction and industrialization of Kaimugakure. Sasuke, Sakura, Kiba, you have your first mission. Capture Hyuuga Neji and bring him back to the village. We will have a cell waiting for him there at our stronghold. Any objections?" Naruto said, looking around. There weren't any objections. "Then let's begin!"

Each ninja leaped into the air, off to their assigned duty. Kaimugakure was well on its way to becoming a full fledged Hidden Village.

Naruto fell back onto his bottom, looking up at the Chakra-enhanced wall that bordered the new village. He had began taking money out of his own account to pay for extra work. Things were well on their way. The hundred Shadow Clones began to disappear from exhaustion, and Hinata sat beside the real Utsurokage.

"Long day?" she said happily, and he smiled. Naruto nodded and formed a seal, pushing out another 20 clones to begin more construction work. He had an idea about routing hidden tunnels throughout the village. Each Naruto, besides the real one, charged up their eyes. Each of them had an elaborate chart that Naruto had schemed up to plan exactly what each clone was to do before they ran out of chakra.

The Utsurokage fell back in exhaustion. "We've been working for 12 hours straight. I mean, the mansion wasn't hard to turn into a full blown fortress, and I'll admit the wall was a little challenging, but to make 20 clones use that eye technique... to dig holes, no less!" He laughed, closing his eyes. Chakra exhaustion usually didn't last long with these two, but Naruto was beginning to think even the Kyuubi was starting to feel it.

"But just look at how much we've got done! And each villager approves wholeheartedly! They trust us so completely, as they should. We have to have their loyalty to keep this thing going. Half the villagers have been working rigorously honing their ninja skills. They aren't half bad." Hinata lay down beside him, snuggling up to his side, blushing deeply. She hoped she wasn't being too bold in her actions.

Five Hinatas walked up to the two to report on their classes, then walked away. "Kakashi's a really hard worker. We'll have to give him a raise," Hinata laughed and stared up at the stars. It was really early in the morning, and she was beginning to feel the fatigue. "I think we'll be able to rest in a couple of hours, after we are sure our defenses are solid. The hollow parts in the wall were ingenious, Naruto...." She almost fell asleep. His body was so warm and comforting.

"We are going to start recruiting for our village tomorrow, right?" Naruto yawned and Hinata nodded. They had planned to send out word of a new village and recruit different sorts of merchants and specialists to establish an economy. The sooner they got everything going, the better.

They needed people to make weapons, but needed miners to get the material, and needed to start constructions of even more buildings. Most of Wave Countries economy was based on fish, but all that had to change. Fishing would be a main supply of wealth, but they needed other services. As soon as they set out word, they were sure people would come join them.

"That reminds me, the villagers have begun to form ninja clans already! I suppose a little change in a place livens things up a bit, and everyone wants to be active in the reform. But, I'm sure you realize, even at this pace, we cannot construct a Hidden Village in a day. It'll be a gradual progress, and you need to realize that. You cannot work yourself to death, okay, Naruto? We've been careful enough to not let any other Hidden Villages get word of it. But, after Konoha's ninja do not return, they will send specialized scouts, mostly Hyuuga due to the missing member." Hinata began to reflect on Neji, who now resided in a chakra suppressed cell under their fortress, with a special blindfold she designed to be nearly impenetrable by even Hyuuga eyes. It was a good thing he was drugged, though. It wouldn't be too inhumane to keep someone locked up when they're aware of it.

"And you know that we cannot be so easy on our enemies, now, don't you, Hinata-chan?" Naruto said with a reassuring smile and she nodded, sort of startled that he predicted her thoughts so accurately.

Naruto suddenly stood up and took off, Hinata quickly on his trail, wondering what he was up. Hopping from roof to roof, Naruto looked around quickly. "One of my Clones was just destroyed in this area, and it wasn't an accident." he explained briefly, before diving into an alley.

Naruto was suddenly on his opponent, wrapping him or her in steel wire. He gave a swift knee to the aggressor's back, making her grunt in pain. Picking her up by the air, Naruto through her against a wooden wall of a building, putting a kunai to her throat. "Who are you?" he snarled, showing off his abnormally sharp teeth.

Deep blue eyes that almost looked black stared at Naruto, and he was shocked. Her eyes were so pretty. "Ooh. Naruto Uzumaki! You don't remember me?" the girl flashed a grin and Naruto remembered.

Naruto clutched at his chest, stumbled a bit, then fell. He dropped the bound body he had been carrying. It was night, the ground was soft and wet, carpeted with dead leaves. The bare trees around the immediate area seemed so dead, so lifeless. Most things did right now, anyway. He let out a cry of pain, then crawled towards the person he had been carrying. It was a child about his age, female. The Kazekage's daughter. A special mission that he and Hinata had taken at age 11, hoping to get a quick, big payload. They were forced to take precautions, though. A special device that they were forced to swallow that would go off after a certain amount of time. They had only two days to get the Kazekage's daughter to their employer, and time was running short.

Naruto gazed into the girl's eyes, and felt a little sympathy. Earth Country had hoped to get some leverage on Wind Country by taking their Kazekage's daughter, purely to make Wind Country listen to them, they were told. Naruto knew that was bullshit, but a mission was a mission.

"It's not like we can't use the money, Naruto. In fact, we need this if we are going to takeover Wave Country." Hinata had told him, trying to pep him up for the invasion of the Kazekage's compound. Naruto had held onto his precious idea for a Hidden Village all throughout their ordeal. Now he didn't even know where Hinata was, but somehow felt that she was all right.

The girl, as it turned out, had been the real problem. She was an extremely advanced shinobi for her age.

Naruto coughed up some blood. It must be a warning from Rock Country, "Dammit, I need to get up." Naruto struggled over to the figure lying so helplessly on the ground. If she wasn't gagged and drugged so immensely, he thought she might spit at him and attempt to bite him.

Naruto was trying to not express his regret of taking her, but he had no time. He had to get her back and tell Rock Country to deactivate the devices. They would then eventually be digested, and nature would take its course eventually.

He got back on his feet and roughly picked up his captive. He took a running start, then jumped into a tree and proceeded to hop from branch to branch to shorten his arrival time. If he could get there fast enough, he could stop the device, collect the money, and search for Hinata. If he didn't... well, that was not a very happy subject for him.

The drug must have been wearing off, though. He could feel her begin to struggle, then it progressed to an outright thrash as she strengthened. She slipped from his grip in mid-air, making him panic. Damaged merchandise was even worse than none at all. as she began he decent to the ground, he could see her start to pull free fro her restraints. as soon as Naruto hit a tree, he launched himself at the ground, grabbed his uncooperative merchandise, then landed in a crouch. He could hear his knees pop as he landed, but it wasn't too painful. He dropped the girl and decided he would have to knock her out.

When Naruto stood up straight, the girl was finally free. A quick kick to the area where men were most vulnerable brought Naruto to his knees, convulsing in pain. She must have pulled the gag out because she was now screaming at him, something along the lines of "how dare you." She kicked out at him but he caught her foot and pulled her off her feet. He didn't let go, though, but stood up. He ignored the protesting kicks and screams. He began to drag her onto the progressively clearing, rocky ground. They were finally out of the cover of trees, and in a vast expanse of dark dirt. He threw her foot down, then turned towards her.

"Shut up. You're coming whether you like it or not. You can come independently, or by force. I don't care which. Choose." Naruto glared daggers at her, emanating as much dominance and control as he could. His voice was strong and demanding.

"I just want to go home!" She screamed at him and scrambled to get away. Before she knew what was happening, she was being dragged again. "Pleeeeeease! Let GO!" se yelled and yelled, but to no avail. This kid was determined. Suddenly, she changed tactics.

"Please..." she whimpered, trying to look as scared and helpless as possible. Naruto dropped her foot and looked at her, shocked. Suddenly, tears were streaming down her face, "Please...."

Naruto was stunned and had no idea how to react to this. Then he found his steel and threw her over his shoulder, moving quicker than before. This action was met with much protest, but he didn't care now. Time was running out.

"It's you or us." Naruto said, streaking across the boring landscape.

"I'd rather it be you!"she spat, pounding on his back. Naruto could feel pain welling up in his chest, and knew he only had a few minutes, but Iwagakure was insight.

"I'm sorry about this." He had said, walking up to the Iwa gates. She screamed again and he dropped her, glaring down at her. The Iwa nins were descending from the highpoints of the wall to retrieve what they ordered. Naruto quickly put his mask on, stood stock still, and waited.

"Hello, Mr. U." the Iwa nin who quickly bound the girl said. The other had a remote control in his hand. He pressed a button and the pain Naruto had experienced was gone. Naruto was handed a black briefcase. The sleek angles of the case had a certain style. "Thank you for your service, and we are sorry if you lost your comrade." Naruto nodded solemnly, glancing at the girl who was giving him a final, pleading look. He inwardly shuddered.

"Of course, you'll tell no one." the guy who handed Naruto the payment said, and Naruto nodded.

"There's nothing to tell." Naruto said, then took out the Iwagakure shinobi with a quick jab to the throat, and the second with a hard knee to the forehead. The girl landed in the dirt with a thud, and Naruto didn't bother removing her bounds. He just picked her up and put her over his shoulder again, then took off. He soon found a roughed-up looking Hinata in the nearby woods, and they debated on what to do with the girl who claimed to be named Temari.

"We can't just release her, can we? " Hinata had asked, sitting against a tree, fatigue in her eyes. Naruto shrugged, but Temari nodded fiercely, still in her binds. So they had brought her back to Wind Country's border, which had sent out several search parties for the missing girl. They apologized, but their attempts to make amends fell on deaf ears.

Since then, Iwagakure has been uneasy with Sunagakure. Violent fights have broken out all over Bird Country, which lies between the two quarreling countries. Naruto had forgotten about that vital mission, and even the death warrants that had made it into Iwagakure's bingo books.

"You're still holding a grudge on me for kidnapping you?" Naruto said, astonished. The girl smiled.

"Ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome?"

Well, my End of Course exams have been coming up, but there's no excuse for such a late update. Sorry about that. And for those of you who do not know, Stockholm Syndrome is when a person falls in love or feels affection for their captors. Also, I need someone that may be able to read over my chapters, tell me to make changes, and correct my horrid grammar. If you would like to do so and feel you have a fairly adequate knowledge of the English language, then message me with your e-mail enclosed. Thank you. (No biggie if no one wants to, I'll struggle through)

See you in the next chapter.