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She wakes up gasping; searching for the air that she can't quite find.

She heaves and huffs and clenches the blanket in her fists. Her mind is racing and her eyes burn—like the first time she activated her Byakugan, except a hundred times worse.

Attempting to ignore the pounding in her ears, she swings her legs over the side of the bed and leans down, resting her head in her hands and her elbows on her knees.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god." She whispers over and over, ignoring the liquid rolling down her cheeks. After several moments, she stands up, only to stumble back down. She lets out a whine and bites down hard on her bottom lip, not wanting to wake her parents. How would she explain this?

Sorry mom, dad... just had a nightmare about slitting the throat of an unsuspecting Mist shinobi! No big deal.

Her first kill. The first time she took away someone's life. She was 13 and she was with her team in Kumogakure. It was a long mission, but they had their sensei and all they had to do was deliver a scroll—nothing too important, Tsunade-sama had said. No one should have been trying to get the scroll from them, but there was.

Team 8 was ambushed. They were strong and Hinata was scared. She activated her bloodline limit and tried not to get hit; tried to protect herself, her teammates, and the scroll that they still hadn't managed to deliver. Kicks and punches were delivered to her person—the bruises took weeks to heal, she remembers, and she was left with a tiny scar on her collarbone—but she managed to incapacitate the one attacking her. She was proud or herself. She didn't need Kiba or Shino to help her, for once.

From the corner of her eye, she saw one of the enemies with his kunai aiming directly towards Kiba's throat. Kiba didn't see it coming, but the Mist nin didn't see Hinata coming either. She stabbed the man directly in his jugular—not even flinching as the blood squirted out and splattered against her cheek. Kiba turned and thanked her, and though Hinata would do it over and over again if it meant saving Kiba's life, she had nightmares about it for years. She thought she was over it.

Apparently not.

She knows, in the back of her mind, that it's silly to be so worked up about something like this. At least she killed protecting a teammate, and not for a mission or a petty political squabble—many people hire shinobi to take out their political adversaries, after all. Minor clan-heads; princes or princesses of tiny countries. Hinata had never done an assassination mission, and for that, she is more than thankful. She doesn't like the feel of having someone else's blood on her hands.

Wrapping herself tightly in the comforter of her bed, she stifles the tears and forces herself to stay still. As the minutes pass, she knows that sleep is impossible.

It's 3:07am and she doesn't want to sit still.

So she gets up, pulls on a pair of sweatpants, grabs her winter coat, stuffs her feet into a pair of furry boots, opens the window and jumps down. Her room is on the second floor of the house, but she's jumped from higher places; fallen even deeper. She smiles at the sound of snow crunching underneath of her feet.

Hinata walks through the woods for a long time, only stopping once she reaches a tree almost as high as the sky.

She places her right foot on the bark, pushing lightly. Sucking in a breath of frigid air, she pumps chakra into her feet and begins to climb.

It only takes a few minutes to get to the top. Would have taken less, if she wasn't taking her time, she muses.

As she stares down at the tiny town of La Push, she feels... almost like a god, looking down at her creation. Of course, she didn't create La Push, or anything in it, but... well, imagination has to count for something, doesn't it?

She waves her hand slowly through the air, allowing chakra to circulate around it. The blue glow calms her soul, and within moments, she feels exhaustion hit her.

Deciding to risk it, she plants her butt on the limb below her, leans against the trunk of the tree and—

and she sleeps.

She dreams of crimson flowing from the enemy's neck; gratitude of saving lives; scars that never go away, and bruises that never seem to heal. She dreams of missions gone wrong and nights where her own sobs awaken her. She dreams of feeling weak and inadequate; of feeling her bones ache. She dreams of never waking up—

–

She wakes up to the howling of wolves.

She huddles into her coat and watches as the sun come up; yellows and purples and blues swirling together to create an abstract work of art. As the howls grow in number, Hinata closes her eyes and wonders, silently, if one of these wolves is the same one she saw months ago. Body of a wolf... heart of a human.

Did their group—ah, pack, grow? Or is she just being silly?

There are many wolves in La Push. Just wolves. Not werewolves or hybrids or magical creatures.

She can't stop herself from activating her Byakugan—she hisses at the burn—and making sure, though.

There are 3 of them, only about 20 meters away.

Bodies of wolves; hearts of humans.

Though she wants to watch them—see if they're just wolves or something more—she knows that she needs to get home. Her parents are most likely already awake. If she's lucky, they haven't checked her room yet. If she's not lucky... then, well, she's gonna have to come up with something to say.

Sorry mom, dad; just went for a walk in the snow with temperatures below freezing.

Not completely impossible.