During the battle of the 4th Shinobi War Gaara becomes the vessel of Shukaku again. He loses it for a moment, but Hinata is there to help.

(requested by uzumaki-wannabe)

"See you," Naruto said hoarsely. Hinata could see the tears in the corners of his eyes. For just a few moments, the tailed beasts had been part of him. "C'mon, get out of here!"

After only a pause, the beasts began to disappear one by one. Naruto stared in confusion, and Hinata suspected only she could see the streaks of red chakra as the tailed beasts took off in all directions. Her eyes drifted back to Naruto, who wobbled, then fell down. Her heart clenching, she began to hurry over to him, but gasped when one of the streaks shot towards her. Instead of hitting her, it flew passed her shoulder, and Hinata spun just in time to see it shoot into Gaara's chest.

The Kage gasped, then trembled as his siblings looked on in concern. They had not been able to see that Shukaku had returned to Gaara's body.

He dropped to one knee, sand circling him fitfully. His trembling worsened, then abruptly stopped. As his eyes closed, Hinata felt panic manifest in her chest.

Gaara had barely recovered from the battle with Madara, and was too drained to accept Shukaku's energy. With the byakugan, Hinata could see as his blue chakra withdrew into his core, to be replaced with a fiery, crimson energy, that crawled through his body and spread down his limbs. She watched his fingernails distend just as Kankuro made the mistake of grabbing his shoulder.

Hinata blanched. "Don't–!"

A massive sand claw shot forward, catching Kankuro around the torso, and slamming him into the cliff side. Rising, Gaara released an inhuman growl, and with it, a torrent of wind that plummeted all those in its path. Kiba, Shino, and Hinata barely managed to dodge. They stared as the earth disintegrated in the path of the technique.

"What the hell," Kiba snarled, his temple sleek with sweat from his own fatigue.

"Shukaku," Hinata murmured, resisting as he tried to pull her away.

She could see Naruto several yards back, struggling for release from Sakura's healing hands. But it was in vain. He could barely even stand up on his own. Her focus returning to Gaara, Hinata watched as he gathered chakra in preparation for another wind attack, but a flash of navy and white shot forward and intervened. Uchiha Sasuke slammed the hilt of his sword against Gaara's head with enough force to cause his face to snap to one side. To Hinata's surprise, the Kage did not wake up. Instead, his claw curled at Shukaku's command. Sand shot up from beneath Sasuke, swallowing him, then lifting him into the air. It choked him until blood burst up from his throat.

"Desert coffin," Kiba hissed.

It was a technique Hinata was familiar with; she had seen many fall victim to it before. She did not know whether it was stupidity or panic that jolted her into action, but she dematerialized and reappeared behind Gaara. With her pointer and middle finger, she struck him beneath the shoulder blade that wasn't covered in Shukaku's flesh. She was rewarded with a pained grunt, trickles of sand falling from the capsule enclosing Uchiha Sasuke. For a fraction of a second, Gaara hesitated, as if conflicted between killing Sasuke and killing her. And in that precious, broken second, Hinata delivered several additional strikes, closing off as many tenketsu as she could.

Snarling in pain, Gaara released Sasuke from his technique, the Uchiha falling from the sky to a knelt position on the ground. Breathless, Hinata lowered her arms, and stared at Gaara's turned back. She waited for him to kill her, but instead, he was stationary. She hesitated, then walked around to face him. His eyes were open again, but they seemed vacant; far-off. She observed his ragged breathing, and knew he was at his absolute limit. So was she.

Wanting nothing more than to collapse at that moment, Hinata tentatively reached out, her fingers grazing the sleeve of his human arm. "You have to stay awake," she whispered. It seemed as cruel as it was irrational.

Gaara's eyes focused, and Hinata knew he had heard her. The sand around him stirred, some of it returning to his gourde, and some of it dispersing throughout the valley. His beast claw withered and shrunk back down to an arm, his dirty fingernails, and his calloused hand, that honed more power than he could have ever wanted; more responsibility than any boy deserved.

"I know," he said, through his shallow breaths. As his eyes met hers, Hinata instinctively withdrew her hand from his sleeve, but he caught it; gripped it. Tightly, because he was holding on, holding out, because - of her. "Thank you."


Uh…this prompt was hard.