Hinata left the house with no detection. She paused by the dining room to hear easy conversation between her family. "Where is Hinata tonight, Hiashi?" her mother's smooth, calm voice asked her father.
"That boy, Naruto and her are having difficulties." Was his gruff reply.
"Mm. Well, I hope she can get over it, I worry about her sometimes you know."
"Of course you do, dear."
Hinata slipped through the front entrance before she could hear any more. She and her mother had never been particularly close. In fact, as soon as she was of age to start training as a ninja her mother had hardly spoken a word to her. It was customary for the head of the house, who happened to be her father, to take the heir under their care for training. Hinata got along well enough with her father. She had come to the conclusion this was because she was so much like her mother; calm, introverted and for the most part, very easy to control. Even living in the same house rarely helped them in ways of communication. The mansion was just so big that her mother got a whole wing to herself and hardly ever ventured out of that comfort zone. Hinata didn't like thinking about it too much. She didn't feel any fondness for her mother, even on special family occasions when they could do little else to avoid each other and talk, Hinata found they had increasingly less in common as she grew older. Her mother enjoyed relaxing evenings with her friends, jewelry and her father as far as she could tell. Hinata had little in the way of friends, couldn't care less as to what jewelry she wore and she had mixed feelings towards her father.
Before she had anymore time on to dwell on this matter, Hinata had arrived at her destination; The Hokage's office.
"I must talk to Hokage-sama." Hinata's naturally quiet voice could barely be heard by Tsunade's assistant, Shizune.
"She's eating right now, you could come back tomorrow." Shizune smiled pleasantly.
"You don't understand! This is urgent." Hinata's voice strained to be louder.
Shizune looked Hinata up and down. Finally she picked up her pig, which, if Hinata recalled correctly, was named Ton-ton, and slipped inside the office. Minutes later an annoyed voice called out. "Come in."
Hinata stumbled over her feet trying to get to the door, all of a sudden nervous. "Ah, Hinata…what brings you here at this ridiculous time of the evening?" Tsunade looked less than enthused.
"I have a request Hokage-sama." Hinata started. "I would like to give an eye to Naruto."
For seconds that seemed like eternity Tsunade just stared at Hinata in disbelief. Then the volcano erupted. "That is ridiculous, Hinata! You are a valuable ninja and an heir to the Hyuuga household! Why would I ever in a million years agree to this? You are a fool."
Hinata bit her lip, fighting back tears. "He hates being the way he is, and I love him. Please, if that isn't reason enough, I don't know what is." Hinata wiped away at her nose with the back of her hand.
"I could never condone to this without the permission of your father, Hinata. What do you think he'd say?" Tsunade countered.
Hinata hung her head and slowly exited the room. It was time for plan B.
Hinata studied the bulletins of wanted ninjas. Specifically, the ninja's who were wanted dead. Her eyes landed on a woman, Fukui Yoshiko, a red haired, grayish-blue eyed rogue ninja who was wanted dead for killing a rich family to get to some heirloom. She was last seen around the Konoha area.
Hinata stopped by her home to pick up some supplies; water, food packets, kunai and shuriken to put in her hip pouch and thigh holster. Last but not least she slipped on some arm and hand protectors, a jacket and a forehead protector. This time actually, resting on her forehead rather than around her neck. With all her equipment set, she headed out into the dark forest, armed and ready to kill.
It had been three hours of Hinata jumping from tree limb to tree limb, disappearing even deeper into the untamed forest. Cries from monkeys and various birds were the only sounds she could hear, and they were not as comforting as she would have liked. To her right, a rustling sound was becoming louder. Hinata stopped, turning slowly and activating her byakugan. A human sized shape was walking up the tree trunk. She threw two kunai, pinning the figure's clothing to the tree. "Ugh, how troublesome…" was not the response Hinata had been hoping for.
"Shika…maru?" Hinata jumped closer to the pinned figure.
"That's my name, don't wear it out." He replied lazily, rolling his eyes skyward.
"I'm so sorry…I thought you were someone else." Hinata pulled the kunai out of his clothes. "Wait, what are you doing out here?"
"I could ask you the same question." Shikamaru continued walking up the tree, all Hinata could do was follow.
"You're still here?" Shikamaru turned to face her as soon as he was resting on the highest branch.
"Well, yes. I still want to know what you're doing here." Hinata looked at her feet, plastered to the tree.
"Fine…" he sighed. "I come out here sometimes to watch the clouds and stars… the day time is not the only time they are out. In fact, did you know that stars are always there? It's just you can't see them in the day…" He trailed off, as he did with most of his sentences.
Hinata admired the genius somewhat. She would love to possess his uncaring and laid back attitude. And sometimes he seemed almost sensitive. "What are you doing here?" Shikamaru mused; it sounded more like a rhetorical question than one she should answer. "Do you like being in a dark and scary forest at night all alone too?"
Hinata cleared her throat. "Actually, I'm hunting…sort of…for a rogue ninja, Fukui Yoshiko."
He laughed, which sounded a bit like a bark. Probably due to the bad habit he picked up from Asuma. "Her…I've seen her on the notification board at the Hokage's office, why her, at this time of night especially?"
Hinata decided to lie. "I really need the money and I guessed she'd be easier to find if she were sleeping at night."
"Lies, lies, lies…I'm not stupid. Why would a Hyuuga need money?" Shikamaru looked over at her; his eyes alit with the need to solve this puzzle.
"Erm, well…it's personal actually."
"It's not like you have a vendetta for her."
"No."
"But she does have sort of blue eyes…"
"Does she? I never noticed."
"And she shouldn't be too hard to take down, easy to do in one night."
"That's the idea; I don't like long term missions."
"And you have no backup, meaning this is not a mission."
Hinata was out of lies. "No, it's not."
Shikamaru laughed again, regarding her with a knowing look. "Have fun then."
Hinata frowned at how he had interrogated her then showed no further interest once he figured out what she was doing. How could he live like that? For all her admiration, her annoyance matched it. She jumped from the tree and left, forging even deeper into the increasing darkness. Is this what Naruto feels like? She wondered. Going into a darkness he can't escape?
Without realizing it, tears slipped from Hinata's gray eyes. She had been crying too much lately, she decided. It wasn't healthy. She activated her byakugan once again. About a kilometer ahead a figure was eating something. Hinata rammed as much chakra as she dared into her feet and sprang to life, advancing on the unknowing soul silently.
It was her, Fukui Yoshiko. It was time to take her down. Hinata pulled some shuriken from a pouch and flung them at her with deadly accuracy. Well, it would have been deadly if her target stayed still. Yoshiko heard the air being displaced by the objects and dove to the side, looking wildly around for the person who had sent them flying.
Soon, Hinata was at her side, palms ready. "64 palms!" She cried.
Yoshiko's look of confusion turned to one of anger as she dodged a few of Hinata's attacks. She took a hold of Hinata's wrist and twisted it until she felt the bone break. Hinata did not scream, instead she kicked her Yoshiko in the face, trying to miss her eyes. But Yoshiko did not control her pain; she howled and reeled back, holding her now misshapen nose. Hinata did not give her time to regain composure and came at her again, hands flying to all her chakra points. "You…little…bitch." Yoshiko breathed in her ear. She had somehow gotten behind Hinata and was holding a kunai to her throat. "You…will not…kill--"
Hinata spun, deflecting her knife and sending the woman flying into a tree. Yoshiko though, was unusually resilient. She stood up and threw kunai and explosives at Hinata, one of the kunai got her right leg. Hinata gritted her teeth and pulled it out, using what little knowledge she had of medical jutsu to staunch the bleeding. Yoshiko laughed. "Look behind you, little girl…you won't get away this time."
An explosive note was taped to the tree behind her. Hinata's mouth opened, but nothing came out, she realized she didn't have enough chakra left to spin, reflecting the explosion. She started to run, going to dive behind a rock. But when the note exploded she realized the rock was too close. It broke apart, shards of granite flying everywhere. Everywhere included her neck and back. Hinata's vision was starting to blur, but she couldn't stop now. She was so close, it was plain Yoshiko was on her last leg. Hinata barreled towards her at a surprising speed, a kunai in one hand and her other fist loaded with as much chakra as she could afford. Her broken wrist was not going to get in her way. The kunai slid into Yoshiko's stomach like a knife into butter. Hinata twisted it around and used the rest of her fist to blow through her chest, crunching bones along the way. Yoshiko went limp. Her eyes rolled back in her head and blood gushed out of the lifeless body onto Hinata. Hinata sank onto the damp forest floor, looking up to see a few bright stars shining through the canopy. There. They can't refuse me now.
Hinata sat on the ground for hours, letting bugs crawl over her blood stained body. Finally, she had the strength to reset her wrist and wrap a tenser bandage around it. She didn't dare touch the granite that was lodged in her neck and back though, she knew she didn't have enough chakra left to heal them properly. So instead, she stood up, picked up the corpse's hand and proceeded to drag her through the mud and slime back to Konoha. About two kilometers along, a familiar face dropped beside her. "Shikamaru." She growled his name weakly, aware she looked very pathetic and probably resembled the walking dead.
He just looked at her with a worried eye and picked up her mud collector and walked beside her, not saying anything the whole way. Hinata refrained from touching her face, knowing it would probably be sensitive enough without her rubbing at it. The battle had ended as quickly as it had started, but she knew she would be left with more than a few bruises.
At the Hokage's office Shikamaru dumped the former Yoshiko into her arms and left. Hinata slogged up the stairs and barged into Tsunade's office. "Here." She spoke plainly.
"Ah, is that Fukui Yoshiko on my, freshly cleaned office floor?" Tsunade glared at the muddy body that Hinata had unintentionally dropped.
Hinata couldn't take it anymore; she too, dropped like a fly, furthering the collection of guck and slime on that marble flooring.
"Hinata-chan? Can you hear my voice?" Hinata's eyes fluttered open, but she couldn't focus on anything.
"W-water…" she croaked at the blurry figure.
"Right away, one second Hinata-chan." The person whisked away, only to bring back a glass of liquid, not water though, to Hinata. "You suffered a lot of damage last night. Mind telling us what was going on inside your head when you headed off into the forest alone to finish of a rogue ninja?"
"Nngh…what…is this?" Hinata placed the glass full of a bitter tasting substance on a table beside her, her vision finally starting to clear.
"Miracle water, as we medical ninjas like to call it. It has every vitamin and mineral you need to recover." The figure turned out to be Sakura.
"I was…" Hinata fought to remember what had happened, she was still very groggy. "I was there for Naruto-kun. For his…eyes. You can do that right? Transplant eyes?"
"Of course we can!" Sakura exclaimed. "Dear Lord, Hinata! But there's a reason why we haven't done that for Naruto yet… I'll get Tsunade-sama to explain it for you later. But for now, do yourself a favour and just sleep."
"B-but…I need to see Naruto…" Hinata started to protest, but Sakura had injected her with something that was making her eyes close, no matter how hard she tried to keep them open.
"Just sleep, Hinata." Were the last words Hinata could hear before she slipped into unconsciousness.
Hinata was frequently waking up to unfamiliar voices floating around her and forcing water down her throat then falling back into a worried sleep. At some point she was connected to an IV. At another point pills were being shoved into her mouth. Hinata just groaned at these awakenings, thinking they were very lucid dreams. A century or two passed before Hinata could find it in herself to wake up. Her eyes immediately focused on Naruto, of all people, sitting on a chair at the end of her bed. Hinata's first instinct was to play dead, so she rolled over and tried to look as lifeless as possible. At the sound of sudden movements she could hear Naruto's voice. "Tsunade-sama, I think Hinata is awake."
And then she was being poked and prodded by what seemed like every medic nin Konoha had. Lights were being shone in her eyes, her tongue pulled out and checked for redness and IV's being detached. All of a sudden Hinata was aware of a shooting pain extending down her spine. She groaned. "Well, she's not dead yet." Tsunade proclaimed.
"Good." Naruto's voice drifted towards her. "Please do not tell her I was here. Let's go Candice." She could hear the clicking of a dog's nails on the linoleum floor.
"Of course, Naruto." Tsunade replied.
Hinata could feel a breeze and realized that she was naked! The pain was from being rolled onto her stomach and having old bandages ripped off to be replaced with new ones. Konoha was known for their extremely practical and efficient medical ninja. Some would say they were the best of medical ninjas everywhere. What they were not known for, however, was their sensitivity. Hinata let out a strangled cry. "So young lady, would you mind informing me of your little midnight escapade?" The Hokage leaned over to look Hinata in the face.
"The eyes, did you keep the eyes?" was all the speech that Hinata could muster.
"Lucky for you, Sakura has very keen intuition as to what the patient might want. She convinced me to keep the eyes. But you won't be very happy about the news I am going to tell you." Tsunade's eyes held a little bit of pity, for what though, Hinata could not figure out.
Finally, Hinata's embarrassment came to an end as she was swathed in a warm hospital gown and blankets. "I just wanted to help him. And I didn't realize she was so dangerous."
"Are you illiterate? Her fighting statistics were clearly stated on the bulletin! She was at least worth a B class mission. You were lucky, Hyuuga Hinata."
Hinata bowed her head, struggling to sit up. "What is wrong with me?" she winced at the sudden pain.
Tsunade rattled off all her injuries. "Two concussions, one broken wrist, a rather deep puncture wound that tore your muscle, severe gashes to your back and neck…really you are lucky you weren't paralyzed. And a lot of bruising, some of your muscles were strained enormously so you will be taking quite a while to repair, even with my help. But Hinata, you have to know about how Naruto got his…injury."
Hinata's head snapped up, looking Tsunade in the eye. "I thought it was just from an unexpected fire attack that he misjudged."
"Well…you see," Tsunade started off. "It really isn't that simple. Naruto was just about to finish off this highly dangerous ninja and well, he had been fighting long range for the whole time up until when he went in for the killing blow. He didn't think that the man he was fighting had anymore techniques left, but just as soon as he was upon him, a technique I had no idea existed until Naruto found it, was unleashed. As you know, you can concentrate chakra into specific points of your body. This ninja found a way to…well, to simply put it, set his chakra on fire as he concentrated and released it from his body. Naruto's face was the closest thing and he went for the eyes. The 'fire' basically burned Naruto's eyes through and through. The least I could do for him was repair the actual eyeball. I did this in hopes of seeking a way to repair them eventually but all I could find was…well, that doesn't matter. The optic nerve's tissue was so thoroughly damaged that he'd need to grow new material for any chance of regaining his vision. So in short, Hinata, your adventure was really quite useless." She finished bluntly.
"Keep the eyes, please." Hinata gripped her blankets so hard she could hear her knuckles popping.
"Yes, yes. After all, if I ever do find a way to restore Naruto's vision, I'll need those handy." With that, she left the room, beckoning for the other medics to follow.
After they were gone, Hinata screamed into her pillow.
After that, she died inside.
News Flash: Cripes! Drama, drama, drama. Seriously, I need to stop being so obsessive about writing this, it hardly helps to build suspense! I hope this was good and long enough to everyone's liking.
