1The concrete was cold and pressed against Hinata's cheek as she waited for the footsteps to stop in front of her door. "Room 191. Solitary confinement." She heard the rustle of papers being shifted around. "Patient number 153905. Hyuga, Hinata. Admitted to the hospital for multiple lacerations to her left side that resulted in scarring all along her body. Was ready to be released when she woke up screaming and couldn't stop. Was sedated and admitted to the psyche ward without consulting the honorable Hokage Tsunade. Good work boys. Any way to get around that bitch."

Hinata shivered as she heard her brief medical history recited outside her door, but to hear that she had been admitted on purpose so that somebody could undermine Tsunade and take satisfaction from it made her angry. As they started to laugh, the silence of the psyche ward disturbed by their strange happiness, she trembled, her hands balling into fists and her muscles tightening to the point where they would start cramping in the cold. She longed to jump up and knock down the door, to crush their heads in and watch as their blood ran down the walls.

She was so startled by her reaction, she almost didn't notice that Night had suddenly dropped down next to her and had her cradled in his arms, pulling her in protectively and rocking her as she cried angry tears and beat her fists against him chest with rage. Night didn't even flinch from the blows, taking them all in silence and finally holding her tight so that she couldn't move anymore.

As the laughter began to die down, Night wiped away her tears with his scarf, catching the drops that stayed in her eyes with his finger and, without Hinata knowing, tasting and savoring them in darkness.

"You okay?" he whispered, clutching her to his chest, keeping her firmly there until she stopped struggling and her breathing began to slow. Her breaths, although ragged, began to steady, but not before she felt herself forcefully being laid down in her former position and Night had re-assumed his in the beams.

"Your red-rimmed eyes and ragged breathing will convince them you're not in your right mind until you get to the doctor. You'll be calm by the time they close the door, just don't say anything until you're sure that they're gone. I know you'll get out of here soon."

His whispered words were almost lost in the turn of the key in the lock and the twist of the single knob located in the hall, but she heard them and kept up her ragged breathing on purpose. As the shaft of light fell across her, she refused to move from her position, even when they nudged her in the ribs with their foot to see if she'd move. She looked up to try and see her assailant, but the lantern he held blinded her and made her squint.

"She's a mess all right," a gruff voice said, a chuckle in his voice, "and we can all blame this on Tsunade. This girl'll be right crazy if she ever gets out of this hell hole. Tsunade'll be screwed, especially since she knows this 'un." As the rumble of the men's laughter filled the oppresive air, Hinata thought she heard a hiss of anger from Night above, but the men didn't break in their humor and she knew they hadn't noticed.

"Get her up," another growled, this one more aggressive and the one who had been speaking earlier outside the door. Hinata almost tightened her muscles again, preparing to spring for his throat, but she heard a croon that calmed her into submission. She knew this was Night. He'd used it against her before.

She wanted to resent him for it, but his croon continued even after the men hauled her up and out of the room, slamming the door behind her. She heard it all the way down the hall, the hall she was seeing for the first time. It only faded when she was dragged out of the ward and the door was shut behind her, the window view in its wooden body covered over with a black veil.

Tsunade went over the scroll that contained the law that barred her medical access to the psyche ward. The scroll was at least two feet in length, the writing in it small and cramped. She didn't write the law; her memory was foggy in that area of time, but she knew that much. Somebody had kept giving her sake, and then they'd brought the law, saying it was some unimportant piece of legislation that only required her signature and nothing of her concern. She'd signed it and accepted more sake, finally passing out a while later.

Who gave me this scroll?, she thought, her brow creasing with the effort of remembering through the faded alcohol haze. She glanced for what seemed like the hundredth time at her name scrawled at the bottom, the signature wobbly and misshapen. How could anybody have actually have accepted it as hers?

She knew She had signed it, but to look at it from a different point of view, it looked like it had been forged. She shook her head and started to read the top of the law again, hoping to find some loophole or mistake in the wording. She hoped it wasn't as iron as she'd assumed it had been.

Miles away in a quiet apartment, Naruto perched on the edge of the window seat. He'd never gotten used to the emptiness. It disturbed him every time he walked in. The absence of the sounds and smells of cooking, Hinata's soft voice calling him barely above a whisper when he came home, her smile as she walked into his arms. His nails dug into his leg with the pain, jolting him out of his miserable reminiscence.

"She wouldn't want me to sit here and be miserable," he said, talking to himself in an effort to fill the oppressive silence. "Maybe I'll go out for a walk and think about ways to get her out of there." He walked out, not even bothering to look twice at the kitchen that was going dusty with unuse.

He'd been taking his meals at Ichiraku's. He couldn't bring himself to step foot into the domain which he still deemed Hers to make his own. They can make it better anyway, he thought glumly, continuing down the stairs that led to their upstairs apartment.

He ended up walking to all of their old special spots. The top of the hokage monument where he'd proposed to her under the stars on the full moon, the trees surrounding them draped with sparkling white silk that he'd placed there earlier which glistened silver in the moonlight and made the moment all the more beautiful.

Naruto's lip trembled a moment and a tear threatened to spill onto his cheek, but he bit his tongue and moved on, leaving the memory behind as fast as he could.

He passed by a local restaurant that he'd taken Hinata to on their first official date. Rosey's, her favorite. He remembered how red in the face she had been. He hadn't known about her crush until recently, had been so ecstatic at the news that he'd asked her out moments after finding out. He'd been so eager that she'd been embarrassed that she couldn't be louder and more expressive, but he'd said he loved her blush and that had made her flush all the deeper.

He laughed as he left it behind.

Naruto stopped in front of the ninja academy they'd both attended when they were younger. He hadn't realized it then, but many times he could recall looking around and Hinata looking away hurriedly. He'd never noticed; he'd been so involved in trying to find out where Sakura was sitting so he could sit next to her or at least nearby. He remembered her disappointed face on the day they'd been separated into teams, but he'd been so happy with being put with Sakura and so pissed that he'd gotten stuck with Sasuke at the same time, that he just assumed that it was because she got stuck with the dog and bug boys.

He smiled at his childish stupidity and strolled along with his hands in his black and orange jumpsuit's pockets, looking up as the sun faded over the horizon to watch as the first stars appeared in the darkening sky.

Tsunade's eyes grew wide and she knocked over the glass of water that was sitting next to her. She hurriedly jerked away the scroll from the spreading puddle growing across her desk and then refocused on the sentences she had just read, rereading them over and over to make sure she had gotten them right.

Whoever had tricked her into signing the scroll certainly hadn't anticipated the flaw in the iron wording that Tsunade had just found. Nobody would have noticed it, not even the original writer. Nobody, except Night.