A blinding prismatic melody of colors danced in front of Hinata's eyes. The colors dispersed before merging to form an array of striking images; a small bouquet of sunflowers, a golden ring adorned with a sparkling sapphire gem, and a freshly plucked white lily tucked into long, navy blue hair.
Flashes of these small details swirled around her, making her dizzy until she found herself standing in front of a tall, black-haired man. Hinata tilted her head to the side to inspect his features, but his face was concealed by his unruly hair as his eyes were directed downward. Hinata followed his gaze to see what he was staring at so attentively and she caught sight of his hands slipping a gold ring onto her lean fingers.
Snapping up her head, her pale eyes met with mismatched ones—one black and one purple.
"Sasuke," Hinata whispered as the identity of the man in front of her finally clicked into place. She was about to reach out to touch his pale skin when his face distorted into a dazzling light that sent her reeling and wreaked havoc on her mind.
She blinked a few times and pushed her palms against her temple, trying to ease the hammering inside her skull. The room was spinning, and the pain was so unbearable she believed she would throw up.
She pushed herself onto her elbows in hopes it would help, but two strong hands gently pushed her back. With furrowed eyebrows, Hinata lifted her head to search for the owner of the hands, but when her eyes finally focused on him, she wanted to scream.
"Don't move. You had a long surgery. You need to rest." He smiled at her warmly, hoping to provide her with a sense of safety and security. Although, when Hinata's lavender eyes locked with his ocean blue ones, she only felt a sense of dread coupled with a shiver down her spine.
Tearing her gaze away from the ghost, she turned her head, carefully observing every corner of the room she was in. It looked awfully like a hospital room with its white walls and minimalistic furniture. Hinata would've never expected the afterlife to be this sterile, but it was still better than the timeless limbo world she had previously been trapped in.
Her eyes flickered at the two kids whom she recognized from before—Boruto and Himawari—, standing at the end of her bed. Looking at their fragile postures, Hinata's heart ached for them. Himawari's puffy, red eyes revealed she had cried not so long ago. The right arm of Boruto was placed around her tiny shoulders drawing soothing circles on her upper arm.
Hinata studied their features and the idea of them being siblings jumped into her mind. She quickly pushed the impossible thought away as she recalled her own theory about Namikaze clan members and distant Hyuuga relatives.
"How are you feeling?" Naruto's silky voice dragged Hinata out of her observations, making her flinch. Hearing a voice that shouldn't exist anymore sent goosebumps up her arm.
She forced herself to look away from the two children as she slowly turned her head to shift her attention to Naruto. Seeing him in his thirties still shocked her greatly and she wondered if she could ever get used to this older version of him.
Naruto must've sensed her uneasiness because a sad frown spread across his face. He leaned over Hinata which prompted her to draw in a sharp breath. She didn't mind that he was here, in fact, she wanted to throw her arms around his neck to pull him into a tight hug, whispering into his ear how happy she was to see him after such a long time, but it didn't feel appropriate. For now, the safest thing to do was to keep her distance.
While Hinata was lost in her own thoughts, Naruto sat down on her bed next to her legs. He reached out to hold her hand, but she instinctively pulled it away. A hint of hurt passed through Naruto's face upon witnessing Hinata quickly hiding her hands under the blanket. Even though hurting Naruto was the last thing Hinata wanted, she wasn't yet prepared to be touched by him.
"Do you know something about my children? Or my husband?" she asked suddenly as she pushed herself up in a sitting position, not caring about the dizzying pounding of her head.
The two kids at the end of her bed muffled a yell of awe and Naruto's eyes grew unnaturally large. Himawari started sobbing, drawing Hinata's attention. Boruto pulled her into a consoling hug, but before Hinata could inquire about the sudden outburst of sadness, the gravity of the situation dawned on her.
"No," Hinata covered her mouth with her hands, shutting her eyes closed to hinder the salty tears from streaming down her cheeks. "They died, didn't they?"
Even with her eyes tightly shut, she could clearly picture the mourning glances surrounding her. Listening to Himawari's agonizing sniffing didn't make accepting the truth any easier either. Hinata's fingers clenched around the blanket as if holding onto something tangible could stop the warm trails of tears that would inevitably escape her closed eyelids.
Abruptly, Boruto's high-pitched yell dissolved the heavy silence, "Mom, what are you—"
"Kids," Naruto cut the screaming off and Hinata felt the bed slightly move as his weight left the mattress. "I need to talk to Mom for a second, okay? You go find Sakura-chan, alright?"
When Hinata opened her hazy gaze, she was greeted with the sight of Naruto whispering something into Himawari's ears. She nodded, rubbing the remnants of tears away from her eyes and Naruto pushed a quick peck onto her wet cheek. He touched both Boruto's and Himawari's shoulders and smoothly directed them toward the door.
Boruto looked back at Hinata over his shoulders while he was being gently pulled away. His blue eyes shimmered with concern as he muttered, "Something is very wrong with her."
"She doesn't remember us, does she, Papa?" Himawari tugged at Naruto's sleeve, looking up at him with fearful curiosity.
Hinata's eyes widened and narrowed in a fraction of a second upon hearing Himawari calling Naruto 'papa'. With dried tears on her cheeks and parted lips, Hinata stayed completely still in the bed and she had to remind herself to breathe. She heard Naruto mumbling an answer, but the words themselves didn't reach her mind.
Naruto closed the door behind the two kids and sauntered back to Hinata's bed, but he didn't sit next to her legs this time. Instead, he pulled a chair next to the bed and plopped down on it, his shoulders slouching forward.
His palms firmly pressed together and a deep crinkle carved between his eyebrows, he studied Hinata's face without saying a thing. Hinata had never seen him this solemn—the Naruto she knew had always been cheerful, even in the hardest of situations. He was just the same when she had seen him for the last time thirteen years ago. Under the glare of this version of Naruto, Hinata couldn't help but squirm.
The pregnant silence strained her nerves and Hinata was desperately trying to come up with something to say. Abruptly, she noticed that Naruto wasn't wearing the cloak she had seen on him before. She swallowed to avoid her voice being raspy and parted her lips to voice her remark, but Naruto was faster with his own question.
"Hinata, do you recognize me? Do you know who I am?"
After staring into each other's eyes for a few seconds that felt like hours, Hinata answered as confidently as she could, "You're Naruto."
"Yes," Naruto let his mouth form a faint smile and a hint of relief flashed through his face before the contemplative expression crawled back onto his whiskered cheeks. "And do you know who I am to you?"
Hinata eyed him with lips pressed together, not understanding where he was going with this question. Minutes passed as she dwelled on her response, but Naruto didn't rush her. He patiently waited for her answer, the only clue giving away his nervousness was the constant waggling of his thumbs.
Hinata briefly wondered if this was some kind of a dream instead of death. The Naruto she knew couldn't be associated with patience at all.
When Hinata sensed the silence drawled for too long, she decided to give a careful answer. "You're my comrade."
"How long has it been since I last heard you say that?" Naruto let out a painful moan, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.
Hinata raised an eyebrow at him. Before she could say anything though, Naruto continued, "It looks like you don't remember the past few years. It might be a shock, I know, but I will just put it bluntly." He paused, taking a deep breath. His eyes bore into Hinata's as he declared, "I'm your husband, you know."
Intending to dismiss the impossible statement, Hinata's mouth hung open, but she couldn't force words out. Naruto's expression hinted that he wasn't joking, but this simply couldn't be true.
Hinata had regained all of her memories about her loved ones during the dream-like sequence she experienced before she woke up in this room. She was uncertain of many things, but there were two facts that were unquestionable—Naruto was dead, and she was married to Sasuke.
"You remember the kids that were here a few minutes ago, right?" Naruto continued, ignoring Hinata's visible confusion. "They're your children. Our children. Boruto and Himawari."
No, no, no, no, Hinata wanted to shout this word to his face, but she was only gaping like a fish. This must be one big misunderstanding—her husband was Sasuke, not Naruto. She had three children, not two, and they were called Hiroki, Kosuke, and Aiko, not Boruto and Himawari. They had dark eyes, not ocean blue ones, and Hinata was fairly certain none of them had blond hair.
Unable to process the unimaginable reality Naruto presented, Hinata buried her face into her hands. The merciless pounding in her head tormented her physically, but it couldn't come close to the mental torture she was experiencing.
Trying to recollect her sanity, Hinata stroked her hair, but when her fingers slipped into thin air long before they should've, she flinched. Her dark locks ended near her shoulders, but that shouldn't be possible. In her last memory, her hair ended at her waist.
"You cut your hair when Boruto was born," Naruto explained after noticing Hinata's desperate attempt to find the long-lost length of hair.
Hinata's hand stilled. She remembered wanting to cut it shorter when her oldest was born, but she refrained knowing Sasuke's preference for long hair. Though she eventually cursed her preference for aesthetics over practicality when the little boy pulled and tugged at it like a play rope.
However, she still hadn't learned her lesson from her time with Hiroki because she kept her hair long after the birth of both Kosuke and Aiko. Her long hair was the one feature that still reminded her of blissful times that had long passed.
"I hope you didn't upset her too much, Naruto," Sakura's lighthearted cackle lifted the heaviness in the air as she stepped into the room. Boruto and Himawari peeked in from the corridor, but Sakura closed the door before they could enter.
"She doesn't remember us, but I think she received the news quite well," Naruto turned to Sakura, rubbing the back of his neck while a frustrated grimace stretched over his face.
Sakura walked to the bed while inspecting Hinata's medical report in her hand. "Yes, Boruto told me she lost her memories. Interesting. I didn't expect that to happen. She didn't suffer any injury to the brain that could cause a memory loss."
An almost inaudible whisper left Hinata's mouth, "You're not my husband."
Both Naruto and Sakura snapped their heads in her direction, waiting for her to elaborate. When Hinata didn't say anything else, they exchanged rattled looks.
Clearing her throat to draw Hinata's attention to herself, Sakura handed the report in her hands to her patient. Hinata glared at the piece of paper shoved to her face for a minute, but eventually, she took it in her shaking hands. Skimming through the report, she didn't understand any of the medical descriptions about her injuries, but then, her eyes found what Sakura had intended her to see.
The report said her name was Uzumaki Hinata.
A gasp tore from her throat as her mind echoed one word: impossible. In a desperate attempt to prove that it was only a mistake, she read through all the personal information listed about her. Everything was right from the birth date and place to the blood type, except for her name.
She clenched the report, wrinkling its sides before she handed it back to Sakura.
A sudden flood of peace swept through Hinata's soul as she posed the question that had been swirling in her mind, "Did I die?"
Sakura tilted her head to the side, hugging the report to her chest as she put a reassuring smile to her face. "No, why would you think that?"
Hinata's eyes flickered at the pair next to her bed. "Why are you here if I'm not dead?"
Naruto briefly looked at Sakura, searching for an explanation in her green eyes, but they were filled with just as much confusion as Naruto's blue ones. He turned his head back to Hinata and leaned closer to her. "Hinata, why wouldn't we be here?"
Hinata gawked at them and as if it was the most natural thing to say, she articulated, "You both should be dead."
Sakura's smile froze on her face and Naruto inhaled a shrill breath, stiffening in his seat.
"What do you mean? What's the last thing you remember?" he asked, nervousness glimmering in his eyes.
Hinata sighed and lied down as though Naruto's question wasn't worth answering. Turning her head away from her long-lost friends, she stared out the window, recalling her last memory once again. The attack had hit her, she was sure about that. Moreover, she was convinced she had spent years in the boundless nothingness.
Perhaps she had gone crazy spending such a long time in complete darkness.
Yet, it looked like she wasn't passed out for years. Remembering what Boruto and Himawari had told Sakura, Hinata must've been out for no more than a few minutes. She was pondering if it was the result of the jutsu that had been aimed at her daughter. It was supposed to hit Aiko, not Hinata; perhaps the situation had something to do with that fact.
In her futile attempt to come up with a logical explanation, a memory of a book she had once read popped into Hinata's mind. The extensive library of the Hyuuga clan was filled with books explaining theories on the strangest of things. There, she had once found a book detailing a theory on the existence of alternate realities.
Shaking her head in disbelief, Hinata concluded she must've simply gone insane.
"Hinata," she heard Naruto's concerned voice as he grabbed her hand, squeezing it with a reassuring grip.
She turned her attention back to Naruto and even though it was odd to feel the warmth of his skin around her hand, Hinata didn't pull away.
Her head was reeling with her inane idea of being tossed into an alternate reality. She desperately tried to convince herself that she lost her mind. That might've been easier to accept than wholeheartedly believing in Naruto and Sakura truly being alive.
But staring into those trembling blue pupils and feeling the warm touch of his skin on her hand, Hinata began to allow herself to be lost in the insanity.
The corners of her lips almost curled up in a bright smile when a disturbing thought swung into her mind. If she accepted the fact that this place was an alternate reality, it meant there must be an alternate self of herself, too. Somewhere. Where was the Hinata of this reality now? Did her arrival here cease her out of existence in the other reality? Did she simply switch places with the other Hinata?
In her heated craziness, Hinata decided it didn't matter. If her appearance overwrote her counterpart in this world, there was nothing they could do about it. If they swapped places, she most probably got killed by the attack. She guessed the Hinata of this world was dead either way.
Looking at the worry etched onto both Naruto's and Sakura's faces, Hinata decided to keep this detail to herself as of now.
Her thoughts diverted away from her counterpart to the reality she had supposedly come from. She guessed it didn't stop existing just because she wasn't part of it anymore. Most probably, her children and husband were still out there somewhere.
With a firm resolve, she made up her mind to find a way to make it back to her reality. However, she needed help to get back. Even someone as clever as Hinata wouldn't be able to do it alone.
She slipped her hand out of Naruto's hold and looked deeply into his eyes, declaring, "I need to talk to the Hokage."
After an initial gasp of surprise, Naruto let out a hearty laugh. "You're in luck. I'm the Hokage."
Hinata gaped at him, but her eyes beamed with happiness upon hearing Naruto saying those words. Becoming the Hokage had always been his most cherished dream.
Even if it was only her insanity playing a joke on her, Hinata liked this reality. In this place, she could live the life she had yearned for long ago. She had always wanted to see Naruto become the Hokage and she had once wished to stay by his side until the very end. In her past daydreams, she had often imagined how their children would look like. Thinking back to Boruto and Himawari, they looked like they were designed directly from her imagination.
Hinata's heart sank into her stomach as she remembered this life wasn't her life. In her life, Naruto had died, and she had another family to take care of.
Bowing her head, she rushed out the words, "It will sound crazy, but you have to believe me, Hokage-sama."
"Please don't call me that. It's just Naruto to you," Naruto protested, waving his hands in front of his chest. "And please, don't you ever bow to me again," he pleaded and Hinata raised her head.
When their eyes locked, Naruto pulled his chair closer to the bed. "I'm listening."
"I think I will leave you two alone," Sakura turned around and tucking a wisp of hair behind her ear, she took quick, long steps toward the door.
"No, Sakura, please stay," Hinata's voice stopped Sakura in her tracks and after a brief second of hesitancy, the pink-haired kunoichi marched back to the footboard of Hinata's bed.
Hinata ran her gaze through her visibly uneasy friends. Under their piercing gazes, she wetted her lips as though it could give her more courage. "Umm… I was wondering if you could bring Sasuke here."
"Sasuke?" Naruto's eyes widened and his eyes flickered at Sakura who only gave him a small shrug. "Well, he's away from the village now. He usually spends his time traveling to gather intel. I can send a messenger bird to him if you want, but I think it will take him a few weeks to get back."
Hinata hummed, playing with her fingers. "No, it's alright. We can inform him later."
It might've been for the best. Hinata needed some time to figure out how to interact with her husband in this reality. In this world, the nature of their relationship could range anywhere from amicable to nonexistent, but Hinata was sure it was entirely different from the one they shared in her own life. Sasuke most probably was married to someone else now.
Exhaling all the air that had been stuck in her lungs, she stammered, "I think I'm not the Hinata you know. I am a Hinata, just not the one you know."
Naruto narrowed his eyes at her. "What do you mean by that?"
"I think I'm from an alternate reality." Saying the words out loud sounded even more ridiculous than they did in her head, but at least they were out.
Sakura fumbled with the report in her hand and Naruto's blue eyes bulged to an extent that Hinata thought they would jump out of his eye sockets.
Fixating her gaze at her hands in her lap, Hinata jabbered, "I remember everything about my life, which is very different than my life in this reality, apparently. I don't remember Boruto or Himawari because I've never met them before. But I didn't lose my memories overall."
"So," Sakura cleared her throat, being the first to regain her composure. "Let's say what you're saying is true. You said Naruto and I should be dead. Does that mean, according to your memories, that we both died in your reality?"
Hinata clenched her blanket as she muttered, "Yes, unfortunately. Thirteen years ago."
A small laugh escaped Naruto's lips, startling Hinata. "Oh, so that's why you don't know Boruto and Himawari. Because in your reality, we didn't have the chance to, you know, make them."
Abruptly, Sakura hit Naruto in the head, yelling at him, "This isn't the time for saying things like that, you idiot."
Hinata couldn't help but let out a faint chuckle. These two were indeed the Sakura and Naruto she remembered.
"Ah, okay, I'm sorry," Naruto massaged his head and tried to force the serious expression back onto his face. "So, any idea about how you got here?"
Hinata lifted her head to look at her should-be-dead comrades. "My husband and I were fighting a powerful enemy. Long story short, they're after our children. They almost got my daughter, but the attack hit me instead of her. After that, I spent some time in a dark, barren place and then I woke up here."
Hinata noticed Naruto flinching when she was talking about her children. She figured it must be hard for him, hearing about children that weren't his own from the mouth of his wife. But they were a very important part of this story and they indeed were her children.
Just as much as Boruto and Himawari, she realized suddenly.
"Why are they going after helpless children?" Sakura tilted her head in confusion.
"Um…" Hinata paused for a moment, thinking about the simplest way she could put this into words. "They've unlocked a new, special dojutsu. Our enemies are after that."
Scratching his cheek with a finger, Naruto inquired, "What dojutsu is that?"
"Um…" Hinata tore her gaze away from the expecting glances around her, not to see their reaction to the news. "It's a combination of the Byakugan and the Sharingan."
Sakura dropped the report from her hand and held onto the bed frame, her face paling rapidly. Naruto blinked a few times in utter bemusement before realization cleared his fogged gaze.
"Oh. Are you married to Sasuke?" his voice had a flat tone and Hinata couldn't interpret the exact feelings behind it.
"Yes," she nodded and shifted her eyes to peek at Naruto from under her bangs. "You're taking this much better than I expected."
With a shrug and a small laugh that sounded feigned, he answered, "Well, I'm dead, so it's not like you're cheating or something."
Sakura gathered the report from the ground with shaky hands. "Naruto, this is nonsense. Hinata, you just bumped your head, and you think you remember things, but you don't. It's just your brain playing with you, most probably. It will pass eventually."
Hinata's words converged in desperation. "I can prove it somehow. Maybe if a Yamanaka—"
"No need," Naruto cut her off firmly, but not aggressively. "Sakura-chan, I think she's telling the truth. I know my wife and she indeed seems somehow different."
Sakura clicked her tongue. "It's because of the injury."
"An injury that we cannot explain," Naruto commented, closing his eyes and folding his arms.
Sakura stilled, looking as though she was searching for a retort but unable to come up with anything.
Hinata noticed the silent question lingering in the room. Naruto wanted to know where his wife—his real wife—was, but Hinata couldn't answer that question for him.
"I believe you want us to help you get back to your own reality," Naruto opened his eyes, his gaze as sharp as a piercing sword.
An odd tightness squeezed Hinata's chest. The world she had been living in wasn't the happiest one to ever exist as it was full of dead friends and grave threats. But yet, her family was there—a family that she loved with all her heart.
She must go back even if it meant facing the absence of Naruto and many of her other comrades again.
Her children needed her.
"Yes." Hinata's answer filled the room, bouncing off the walls.
"Alright," Naruto nodded. "We will do everything we can, but your true identity must be kept as an SS-rank secret. It also applies to Boruto and Himawari, they can't know about this either."
Hinata gave him a quick bob of her head. Even without Naruto asking her to, she would treat Boruto and Himawari as her own until she could go back to her own world.
"I hope you're feeling better," Naruto grinned at her, "because we're going home."
I want to say thank you to all of you! I would've never imagined this many of you would be interested in this story. Reading your reviews never fails to make me happy!