"Aahhhh…"

Hinata sighed deeply when her head finally met her pillow. After arriving to the village and reporting to Lady Hokage, the whole team went to a celebratory dinner at Ichiraku's. She wanted to spend the rest of the day with Naruto, however she knew that she needed to go back home to report to her father. After finding out that her mission was a success, Hiashi dismissed his daughter who immediately went to her room. Once she closed her door and her backpack hit the floor, her exhausted body collapsed onto her bed. She knew that she should not be laying on her bed before she had taken her shower but she could not help it. She noticed that although her boyfriend gave her so much energy and confidence, he also gave her more freedom to not act so formal all the time and to just relax sometimes and let it all go. She was still her usual stiff self in front of her father but she tried not to be like that in front of others. She was still keeping her polite and non-confrontational uprising though.

Sighing once again, she slowly rose from her bed and decided that she should unpack and shower before it got too dark outside. Finally done and freshened up she slowly spread out her duvet and crawled under it. With a soft yawn she finally closed her eyes and her body fully relaxed under her comforter.

"Pssst, big sis… wake up."

Hinata's eyes fluttered open to see her younger sister gently tapping her shoulder.

"Hanabi?"

"A messenger just left our compound. He came to tell you that the Hokage has a mission for you."

"Oh!" Hinata exclaimed jumping from her bed. "Thank you, Hanabi. I'll get ready right away!"

Hanabi giggled. "No problem. Natsu made breakfast by the way. You should have some before you leave."

"Thank you."

Hanabi smiled once again and left her sister's room.

The rest of the morning seemed to go by like any other. A bit of breakfast, meeting the others at the Hokage's office and listening Tsunade explain their mission. It seemed to be a simple one, just carrying some important documents from the Leaf to the Land of Sticks, a small place where not many people travel to. After the explanation, the three genin headed towards the gate and towards their destination. There were no interferences during their one day trip towards the receiver of the documents, it was way to quiet. The nearer they got the darker the forest became. The leaves and grass seemed to be changing color from a vivid green into a dark olive shade of green. Even the tree bark seemed to be almost black in color. There were no creatures of the forest in sight except some insects and bats. It was a nighttime atmosphere in the middle of the day.

"Geez, why is this place so creepy?" Naruto remarked, getting shivers from his voice echoing in the silent forest.

"People call this place the Land of the Stix." Sasuke added a bit more quietly.

"I know that's what it's called. Grandma Tsunade already said it." Naruto replied in a confused semi-whisper.

"No, not sticks, the Stix, S-T-I-X." Sasuke spelled. "That's the name of the river that flows through Hell." Sasuke replied.

"Oh." Naruto responded. "Why do they call it that? Is it a pun cuz this place looks like Hell?"

"Not only that, but there are legends and stories about evil creatures that live here who kill and eat everything."

"What?!" Naruto yelled out with fear, not only from hearing about the creatures but from also scaring himself with his own booming voice.

"There are monsters in this forest?!" He gulped.

Sasuke just hung his head and sighed in annoyance.

"T-that's why there are no animals here! They ate them all!"

"No." Sasuke looked at his terrified rival. "There are no animals because they have nothing to feed on here. The lack of sunlight prevents vegetation from growing around here. And if there is something here it's probably hiding because you scared it with your girlish screaming."

"It's not girlish!" Naruto blushed.

Hinata just giggled. "It's ok Naruto, we have fought scary things before, we can handle it."

"I know…" Naruto slumped his shoulders. "Let's just deliver these documents already."

A few minutes later they finally arrived in front of a large black gate. Sasuke stepped forward and knocked onto the small window of the gate. As soon as his hand pulled away from the cold metal, the window slid open with a deafening creak. A pair of eyes in the darkness looked back at Sasuke.

"State your business." The deep voice said.

"I'm a ninja from the Hidden Leaf Village. I have documents you are expecting."

"Yes, hand them over to me."

Sasuke handed him the scroll which seemed to just be pulled out of his hand by an invisible force. He did not see a hand take it.

"Thank you, your mission is complete. You may leave now." The voice said closing the window with another painful creak.

"Ugh, that was quick." Naruto shivered.

Sasuke glared at the window suspiciously then walked back to the others. "Let's go."

Walking back though the dark forest Naruto sighed. "Man, this mission was so boring."

"Hn. You want to run into a dark creature now, huh?"

Naruto gave Sasuke an annoyed expression. "I'm lookin' at one."

"And I have no idea what I'm looking at." Sasuke fired back.

"Haha." Naruto replied sarcastically.

Hinata's lips twitched while she was trying to contain her giggles.

"At least we can tell people that we literally went through Hell, huh?"

Now she actually giggled.

As they kept walking they felt too creeped out to talk so they just walked around trees in silence and they would wince every time they stepped on something that would make noise and break the deathly silence. At one point Naruto heard a very loud crackling noise which startled him.

"Jeez, Sasuke. Watch where you're going." He half whispered half yelled at his teammate who was walking behind him.

Sasuke stopped and looked at him.

"So it wasn't you?"

"What?"

"I thought that was you."

Naruto looked at him for a second. "So it wasn't you?"

"No." Sasuke frowned.

"It… it was not me either." Hinata answered carefully.

In an instant the boys pulled out a kunai while Hinata activated her byakugan.

"Do you see anything?" Naruto asked her.

"Nothing." Hinata replied. "Not even a single insect."

"Huh? But I saw a bunch of bugs when we came here earlier." Naruto added. "Where'd they all go?"

"What was that?" Sasuke said quietly.

Naruto looked at him and raised his brow.

Sasuke put a finger to his lips and they remained in complete silence for a few seconds before they heard a chilly raspy voice.

"Soul…"

"What the fuck was that?" Naruto whispered.

Hinata looked around frantically. "I do not see anything."

"Soul…"

Naruto began to tremble as he looked to his right. "G…guys…"

The other two turned to see two glowing white lights slowly making their way towards them.

Hinata's face bore a shocked expression as she switch from activating and deactivating her byakugan. "That's impossible… it's completely invisible to my byakugan!"

"What? How?" Sasuke asked.

"I don't know!" Hinata squealed back.

The closer the lights got the more visible the body of the creature became. A floating, transparent, black body with tentacles floating around its torso.

"Soul…"

The voice became louder.

Sasuke whipped out a shuriken and threw it at the entity but it just went right through its body and into the darkness behind it.

"No way." Sasuke whispered before doing some hand signs and spitting out a giant blazing fire ball at the creature. Remarkably, the fire just went through it and kept going until it hit a tree. The fire wrapped itself around the tree which seemed to absorb it and suddenly, small bright green leaves grew out of the branches of the tree.

"The trees absorb jutsu?!" Sasuke yelled out.

"Soul…"

We have to move, we can't fight this thing." He said and they started running… only to notice that Naruto has not moved.

"Naruto!" Hinata yelled out then watched in shock as the kunai feel from his hand.

"Naruto!" Sasuke yelled even louder.

"I… can't move…" Naruto barely panted out.

"What?" Sasuke ran back to him with Hinata who wrapped her hand around Naruto's and tried to move him but his feet seemed to be stuck to the ground.

"Come on, Naruto!" Sasuke yelled at him. After no response from his frozen teammate he looked in his eyes and saw that Naruto, without a single blink, was staring right at the creature's eyes. "Fight it Naruto!"

"Naruto please!" Hinata begged still desperately trying to move him.

"Soul…"

The creature extended one of his tentacles towards the blonde and Sasuke rapidly sliced at it with his kunai but it was like fighting smoke. He quickly threw a paper bomb at it which stuck to the creature's torso but his moment of joy was crushed after the paper bomb turned black and disintegrated without exploding.

"No!" Hinata yelled as the two tried to strike the tentacle but nothing happened to it. Until finally… the creature's eyes grew brighter as it plunged it's tentacle through Naruto's chest. Naruto choked out a gasp as the entity started draining his chakra. The creature's eyes turned from a bright white into a yellow, then into orange, then into a bright red which progressively turned darker as it absorbed Naruto's chakra.

Hinata and Sasuke were still trying to free their teammate. Sasuke stabbed Naruto's leg hoping that it would wake him from his trance but the wound did not even move him an inch, and it did not even bleed.

Suddenly, the creature's eyes turned bright blue as it joyfully exclaimed: "Soul!" Then it pulled his tentacle out of Naruto and all of his tentacles disappeared as it slowly backed away trough the forest which suddenly bloomed as it floated back. The grass became brighter, flowers grew everywhere and sunlight adorned the whole forest.

Naruto paled and collapsed to the ground. Hinata cried out and put her hands on his chest only to see that his wound was completely dry of blood.

"Naruto,no! Look at me! Please!" She begged caressing his freezing cold face. His eyes moved slightly to look at her. "Naruto! Don't! You can't! YOU CAN'T!" Her tears dripped onto his face and almost instantly froze on his skin. "Please don't leave me! I love you! I need you! Please!"

His blue eyes turned into a frosty grey before glazing over as a last shaky breath left his lips.

"No…no… No! NO! THIS CAN'T BE! NO!" Hinata cried in horror hugging her love's limp body. She sobbed and screamed in the silence.

Sasuke collapsed to his knees. He couldn't believe it. He's dead… His teammate… rival… his friend… was gone…THE Naruto Uzumaki… who vowed to become Hokage… was dead.

Trembling, he crawled to his body and gently moved Hinata from it and gave her a look she has never seen in his eyes. He then handed her a crumpled piece of paper and put his arms under Naruto and shakily lifted him up.

Without a single word, Hinata looked at the paper… it was crumpled and old, never used. It was an SOS signal paper bomb. She pulled out a kunai and wrapped the paper around it and threw it in the sky as high she could with her trembling sobbing body. She watched it explode into a big red light then looked back at Naruto laying limply in Sasuke's hands. His milky eyes looking at nothing.

A messenger bird spotted the light and flew to the leaf as quickly as it could almost breaking the glass on the Hokage building as it croaked and scratched over and over. Tsunade immediately knew so she quickly sent a team of jonin to go investigate.

After about half an hour her door opened and Izumo and Kotetsu walked in with grim expressions on their faces. "What are you two doing here?" She asked before the two moved away and a jonin walked in carrying Naruto's body.

She gasped in shock loudly before she watched the red faced Hyuga drop on her knees and start crying loudly.

Shizune dropped all of her papers while Tsunade slowly dropped onto the floor with tears coming out of her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Lady Hokage." The jonin asked. "But what do I do with him?"

"Lay him down and go to the graveyard and start digging next to the heroes' monument."

He nodded and did so, gently closing Naruto's eyes in the process.

"Shizune, let the others know."

"Why me?" Shizune replied through tears.

"Because I cannot move…" Tsunade replied.

A few hours later, almost every citizen of the village was gathered in the graveyard. Naruto lay peacefully in his coffin while his comrades cried. Tsunade walked up to him and loudly announced. "Tomorrow we are starting the construction on the top of the mountain! This boy's face is going on that mountain and it better mirror his likeness to a tee!"

Days after the funeral, while Hinata spend another day sitting next to Naruto's lavish headstone with a bowl of ramen in her lap, she looked up at the finished face on the mountain before putting the bowl down and kissing Naruto's picture one last time before she headed to the mountain. After climbing in between the carvings of Naruto's spiked hair she sat down. She pulled out a picture of him and a note and leaned them onto one of the spikes before pulling out a kunai and placing the blade onto her chest. She looked at his picture one more time with tears running down her face and soundlessly plunged the kunai in her chest and fell against a spike while her last breath left her black clad body.

After a few days of her missing Neji found her cold body and wordlessly collapsed next to it before spotting the note. He shakily took it and all it said was:

I died in that forest.

Days later after her funeral, her comrades lingered around her grave which unlike Naruto's was just a stone slab with her name on it.

She found her spirit floating above and watched as her teammates cried.

"I can't believe she did this!" Sakura said.

"I knew she was going to."Ino replied.

"Yeah, her sister is crushed and her father didn't even shed a single tear." Sasuke said.

Hinata gasped as she felt a painful blow to her heart.

"Naruto would have been so disappointed in her." Ino remarked.

"Yeah! He spent all that time trying to make her stronger and this is what she does?" Sakura said.

"The Hyuga clan lost an heir, Hanabi lost the person she loved the most, the village lost a valuable ninja and we lost a friend." Sasuke added. "All because she didn't believe in herself."

Hinata panted in disbelief before she felt everything around her turn gray. She looked around and saw blackness in front of her, then she turned around and saw glowing white light and her beloved standing in the middle of it.

"Naruto!" She exclaimed happily but when she ran towards him she found that she could not move past the gray space.

Naruto walked up to her on the edge of the white light. She smiled brightly in happiness to see him again but he had a serious frown on his face.

"What did you do?" He asked.

"I wanted us to be together again. For eternity! I could not live without you!"

"Well, now you're going to." He replied coldly.

"What do you mean?" Her smile dropped.

"Don't you realize what you've done? People who kill themselves don't go where murdered people go, Hinata!" He yelled at her. "I can't move past the light and you can't stay in the gray space because the darkness will take it over. You have to go in the darkness, and once you go we will never see each other again!"

She looked at him in shock.

"If you didn't do this we could have been together again someday! I would have waited for you! And I would have visited you every day down there. You ruined everything!"

She gasped and tears started flowing down her face.

"And I had to watch Hanabi almost rip the hair out of her head when she found you were gone!"

"I'm sorry!" She sobbed.

"Your apology means nothing now. You'll suffer in darkness while I suffer in the light because I know you will never be there with me! Your suffering will never end… but I don't want to waste my time suffering over you."

He turned and disappeared into the light while she cried out his name.

With a loud scream Hinata's body jolted upwards from her pillow as she struggled to breathe. She looked around… She was in her bedroom…

…it was all a dream…

All of it… just a terrifying dream…

She panted as she felt droplets of sweat sliding down her skin.

"Lady Hinata!" Neji burst into the room and turned on the light. He looked at her in shock and ran by her side. "What happened?"

Tears ran down Hinata's face, and then she looked at her palms only to see that they were, along with her chest, covered in blood.

"Big sister! What's wrong? I heard you scream." Hanabi came to her door.

"She had a bad dream and a nose bleed." Neji replied. "Go get her a towel."

Hanabi nodded and ran to the women's bathroom.

"A… dream?" Hinata mumbled out.

"Yes, whatever you experienced was not real." Neji replied.

"It was a dream…"

"Yes, calm down. Everything is alright."

At that moment Hiashi appeared at the door. "Just a bad dream?"

"Yes, sir. She has not been injured." Neji answered.

"Here!" Hanabi ran back into the room handing her sister a towel. Hinata wiped the blood off her face and hands then looked at Hanabi for a few seconds before enveloping her in a sudden hug. She had placed the towel on her chest beforehand as to not get any blood on her sister.

"Woah, big sis, are you ok?" Hanabi replied in surprise.

"I love you and I would never leave you, you know that, right?" Hinata sobbed out.

"I know, I love you too." Hanabi hugged her back.

Hinata looked at her father and broke the hug.

"Are you alright?" Hiashi asked.

She nodded half-heartedly. "Naruto… I need to go see him."

"It's 3 o'clock in the morning." Neji added. "It was all a dream, he's fine."

Hinata got up from her bed. "I need to."

"You'll scare him."Neji added.

"He gave me a spare key."

"At least change first, big sis."Hanabi said.

Hinata looked at herself in the mirror and sighed."Ok."

A few minutes later she was sliding a key in Naruto's lock. As she entered, Marshie started meowing loudly. Hinata tried shushing her to no avail.

"Gaah… what is it?" Naruto yelled as he opened the door of his bedroom and turned on the light. He instantly woke up when he saw his crying girlfriend in his living room.

"Hinata? What are you doing here? Did something happen?"

She sobbed and ran to him and tightly embraced him.

Some time later they were both on Naruto's bed. Her head was on his chest and he was rubbing her back and rocking her slowly. She had told him all about her dream. He listened in shock at the incredibly vivid event that took place in her head. She even told him that it was her own demons telling her that she's worthless as she couldn't save his life.

"Naruto…?"

"Hm?"

"I have been… working on a new jutsu…" She yawned. "Will you help me with it tomorrow?"

"Of course."

He broke the hug and pulled down his blanket. "Let's go to sleep now, shall we?"

She nodded and they crawled into his bed.

"Thank you." She yawned again.

He smiled. "Don't worry… I'll keep the nightmares away."