"We had no home front, we had no soft soap"
-Billy Joel, "Goodnight Saigon
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Goodnight Saigon. They belong to Masashi Kishimoto an Billy Joel, respectively.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
He found her dodging a bullet, sliding to the side with a small "eep" escaping her lips. He himself had to dodge the same bullet, yanking himself back around the corner.
Darnit, he thought, peeking around the corner. He heard Sakura call him and knew she had followed him. But he focused on his girlfriend.
She was still running forward, and ducked another bullet.
"There, I think I saw him!" yelled a male voice.
Hinata whipped her head around and paled when she saw Naruto's blonde head peering from around the corner. She flung herself at one of the gunmen, yelling.
Naruto sprinted into action, charging.
"Hinata!" he cried. He vaguely noted that he was not the only person running; his classmates, as well as other students (Tenten, for one) were also charging the enemy.
Hinata tackled the man to the ground, wrestling for the gun. Naruto saw another man reaching for her, and another begin to raise a gun to her.
No, he thought in a panic. I'm too far still, I-
And then Shino was beside Hinata, roundhouse kicking the man who had nearly shot Hinata. The Hyuga girl noticed the man reaching for her and swept her foot out, kicking his knee. He stumbled, and Hinata continued to fight the fallen man over the weapon.
And then Naruto was by her side. He grabbed the gun as well, and together, they yanked it from the man. He then punched the dude in the face as Hinata scurried off him.
"THAT'S for attacking us!" he yelled. He heard Sakura let out a "SHANAROOO!" and glanced over to see her punch an assailant in the stomach. He cringed as he saw the kunai in her hands; it already had blood dripping off of it.
"Hinata," said the blonde, turning his attention to his girlfriend. He tried to hand her the gun, but she shook her head.
"Duck, you guys!" screamed Tenten from somewhere in front of Hinata. Naruto reacted instinctively, yanking his girlfriend down with him; he heard the whizz of a bullet barely miss their heads as they slammed into the ground.
In a flash, he was pushing himself back up.
"Don't shoot him!" he heard someone yell, along with a, "Don't let them get Naruto!"
They want me alive...
He took the gun and raised it to his head.
The fighting stopped. Not a single person from either side moved.
"N-Naruto?" asked Hinata, frozen midway in getting back up.
"Shoot anyone else and I die," snarled Naruto. He looked around him, identifying the attackers amongst the sea of chaos. They were obvious, dressed in black clothes that were a stark contrast to the white and khaki school uniformed students. The wounded were lying on the ground, looking up if they could; he saw pools of blood here and there and cringed. He avoided looking at their faces; good or bad, the dead were dead, and he didn't want anything to do with them right now.
He certainly didn't want to see the face of anyone he might know among them.
"Lower the gun, boy," said an assailant slowly. "Or we shoot every person here."
Naruto tightened his grip on the gun and cocked the trigger.
"Do anything," he said, "And I mean ANYTHING, that might make me twitch, and I'm a goner."
Naruto heard Hinata take a sharp intake of breath. There was a stirring of some kind among the students, a rousing of sorts, and slowly, starting with Hinata, they shifted back into their fighting stances. In his peripheral vision he saw Sakura raise her bloody kunai and saw the attackers becoming tense with anticipation.
And then Sasuke rounded the corner, dashing, a box of baseball bats from the gym rattling in his hands, and after a momentary pregnant pause in which all eyes were on the Uchiha, confusion resumed. Sasuke literally had to drop the box and roll backwards as students and enemies alike converged on the box to grab a weapon; those who were already armed or willing to fight empty-handed charged. Naruto could only watch as Hinata slipped away amongst the crowded war-field that had once been a hallway. He was helpless to defend himself of anyone else, with the gun poised at his head. He occasionally caught a glimpse of someone he knew: Sasuke fighting over a baseball bat with an enemy, Tenten punching a temporary path to the other end of the hallway, Sakura slashing down an assailant headed for him. And then Naruto felt Hinata tentatively brush his arm with her fingers. He hadn't registered how or when she had returned to him. He felt her slide them up his arm towards the gun, felt her finger the metal death-machine in his palm.
And then he felt his hand being jerked sideways, away from his head.
He felt the gun shoot; the reverberations strained his arm muscles and he struggled not to stumble backwards.
He heard a scream and knew that whoever Hinata had aimed for had been hit.
He felt tears soak his chest as he held Hinata in one hand to his chest, and the gun in the other, ready to defend them if needed.
He was not aware of Sakura's scream and Sasuke's roar. He was not aware of Shino's ragged breathing and Chouji's shouts of desperation. He was not aware of police sirens, distant at first, and then glaringly loud; he was not aware of weapons raised, arms raised, shots fired, screams and cries of fear and relief and pain and exhaustion and grief.
He was aware only of the girl in his arms.
Unbidden, the thought came to him:
There were now two porcelain dolls he had smashed into pieces. One was fixed, or at least partly repaired.
One might never be.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
When Naruto visited the white walls of the hospital again, he did not come for just one person. This time, he had four trips to make.
He first stopped at Shino's room. Chouji and Shikamaru had been by Shino's side since the boy with glasses had taken some bullets for them. None had been deadly; in fact, his sunglasses had, bizarrely, made the possibly most lethal bullet rebound. Shino was likely to be released in a few days, Naruto was informed. Shino himself was relatively unscathed by the whole ordeal, and admitted to Naruto that he would be a little proud of any scars that might be left behind.
The second stop was at Sakura's room. Sasuke and Sakura's mother sat with the girl hooked up to the ventilator, each clutching one of the pinkette's hands as if their very lives depended on it. When Naruto entered, it was like the room was suddenly lit up. Sakura's mother smiled, and Sasuke and Naruto teasingly bantered back and forth. After about thirty minutes, Sakura's eyes fluttered open, and she groaned. Naruto felt the atmosphere tense up. Sakura looked to Naruto, then at her mother, and finally at Sasuke, before smiling to hide her pain.
"What's so funny?" she asked.
Sasuke faked a smirk and struck up a mostly one-sided conversation with her (with him, oddly, being the more talkative this time around). Sakura nodded and smiled; Naruto noticed Sasuke said nothing that might make her laugh. He did not want to aggravate her healing stomach wound where one of the ninja had turned her –My, thought Naruto bitterly– kunai against her. Sasuke, Naruto knew, was probably taking it worst, of all four of them in the room. He had seen his parents murdered, seen his entire family dead, and now had seen his girlfriend nearly be killed and had been powerless to do anything but cut down anyone who might want to finish her off. He had been too busy trying to protect her to be able to provide medical need; and it was only because Sakura herself knew first-aid that she was alive at all.
Naruto left after Sakura had drifted back to sleep. He did not want to risk seeing his best friend - the bravest, strongest person he knew - cry. He doubted Sasuke would, seeing how prideful the Uchiha was, but all the same, Naruto excused himself and headed to see the person who would be the most difficult for HIM to see and not break down.
Hinata was looking out her window when he came in. She did not look away.
"Hey," he said after a long, awkward pause.
"Mm."
She still didn't look at him. He gulped. He, unlike Sasuke, had not been powerless. He had all the power in the world, with a gun at his temple. He had commanded absolute attention, total dominance and the utmost control over the situation.
Except that when the fighting ensued again, he couldn't bring himself to shoot the leader of the attackers.
He would have been the most obvious, the easiest, to kill. He was the only one who had been willing to talk to Naruto during the Uzumaki's power moment.
But Naruto couldn't do it. His arm had trembled, and his muscles had been so tense he had wondered if he would be able to move his arm at all.
And so Hinata had taken all the pressure, placed it on her shoulders, and let it crush her.
This time, it had to be his fault.
"I..." He couldn't think of anything else to say. He wanted to break up, because he was the worst possible choice for her, but he couldn't, because she was all he had left that could possibly make his life better; but he had destroyed her, and unlike with Ino, she was not going to heal within a week or two of being within pure walls and hearing him say it would be okay.
Because, as it stood, it would NEVER be okay again.
She turned to him. Faced him. Met his eyes.
She reached out her arms.
"Hold me...?"
It was so shy, so quiet, but Naruto ran to embrace her.
That was his Hinata who had spoken, his Hinata's eyes that had met his, HIS Hinata who had reached for him.
She still needed him, too, even after everything. She did not blame him. It was not his fault to her.
That was all he could ever have asked for.
After a long time, he heard her sniff.
"Ha-have you showered, Naruto?" she asked, half-mockingly and half-seriously. Naruto laughed and pulled away slightly so he could see her face.
"Nope," he replied.
She squealed and pushed him away, and he laughed again.
"Eww!" she cried. "B-but it's been th-three days!"
Naruto grinned mischievously and opened his arms, looming over her.
"So it has," he said, and Hinata screamed and burst into giggles when he tackle-hugged her. Peals of laughter rang throughout the room, and Naruto and Hinata shooed the worried nurse who came in away. They held each other, letting the laughter die away slowly.
"I don't blame you," said Hinata finally. "I'm sure y-you're blaming yourself, b-b-but I wanted to get that gun aw-away from you, so I did."
Naruto blinked.
"Weren't you aiming for that guy, though?" he asked.
Hinata shook her head.
"No," she said. "But I knew I was go-gonna hit someone."
Naruto buried his head in the crook of her neck. Hinata was woozy for a moment, then got control of herself. She patted his head lightly, running her hand through the tangled spikes of his hair. She sniffed again.
"You still need to take a bath, Naruto."
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The last person Naruto visited was Ino. She happily told him she was leaving the following day, to which he replied that he would be there to see her out. She grinned and nodded.
"And you know Hinata will be out in a week or two, right?" she said. Naruto shrugged.
"She'll be here as long as she needs to be here."
Ino laughed.
"No," she said, "Hinata will be here as long as she wants to be here." In reply to his questioning glance, she continued, "Hinata is the sweetest person I know, but she's good at lying to everyone except you. She can't lie to you, she wouldn't even if she needed to. She loves you too much. That's why she's even in here at all: she loves you. We all do, actually," she added, "But she loves you most."
Naruto grinned.
"And I love all of you," he said. Ino smiled and sent him away, claiming she wanted her beauty sleep. Naruto left the hospital happily, confident in the well-beings of those he loved.
But the attacks were another story.
The grin fell off his face, replaced by a serious, contemplative look.
This isn't how things should be going, he thought to himself as he walked towards his mother's car. Even the schools were not safe anymore. For all he knew, the next attack would obliterate the entire village. He shuddered at the thought. Konoha was his home. But home wasn't safe anymore.
He had to change things, fast. Before everything went down the drain for good. Already, his Father was beginning to make war preparations. Naruto was not willing to let his friends, who had been through so much already, lay down their lives for him again. He had to figure something out. Fast.
He wrinkled his nose.
Well, it could wait until he took a shower.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
AN: thanks to all my reviewers and watchers! You guys motivated me to hurry up and get my butt writing again, lol! I've been pretty down lately (school and life in general hav been bein poop-faces) but a review and watch alert can put a smile on my face, even on the worst of days! Thank you!
I will update again. Eventually. Hopefully before next year, but I make no promises XD
