So I've been waiting for this scene. I've had it planned out for at least thirty chapters. Hopefully I did it the justice it deserves and it's as good as it was in my head.
I thank my friend lexkixass for use of her twins. As always, Naruto belongs to Kishimoto.
The ground cracked under the force of Hinata's strike, pushing the final Akatsuki back enough that she now stood between him and Naruto. There was a strange confidence that came with the knowledge she wouldn't survive this fight. Nothing to hold her back or fear. The outcome was set for her, leaving only a foolhardy determination to ensure Naruto didn't suffer the same fate. The village—the clan—needed him to finish what no one else could.
Naruto's voice came from the ground behind her, frantic and terrified. "Hinata! Get out of here! He's too strong for you!"
"I know," she said, watching her enemy. The man seemed almost amused at her presence, curious but unconcerned.
"Then leave! You'll die if you—"
"Naruto-kun!" she called with such intensity it silenced him. "Right now you are the closest thing to a hokage we have to protect the village, so you need to act like it. I was taught the reason the head of the clan is protected is because when the world is at its worst, when the hokage calls us to action, it is the head of the clan's duty to stand at the front. The same is true of the hokage. Those who aren't nearly as strong will die to protect their leader so when the village is in need, he is ready to fight the battle no one else can. You're my hokage, Naruto-kun, and you're the only one who can defeat him. If my life is the cost of your freedom, I'll pay it."
"Hinata, don't do this! Run!"
Hinata let her sight fall back for the moment to Naruto trapped behind her. Fear. Confusion. Shock. Dread. Desperation. Anger. There were so many emotions in those blue eyes Hinata doubted anyone but Isamu or Osamu could identify them all. Hinata didn't need to name each one though, because the picture of them all together was just as powerful. He didn't want his friend to die and especially not to save him. The fool was never afraid to die for someone he cared about, or even one he barely knew, but to have the roles reversed terrified him. And yet if she pointed that out to him, he'd never understand; Hinata almost laughed at the irony of it all.
"Tell Neji-niisan it's not his fault he's not here. He couldn't be my shield forever," she said, preparing herself. Not to die, that she'd resolved the moment she ran from Hyobe, but to look at him, one last time. She wanted to make it easier for him. Naruto—none of them—should blame themselves for her decision. "And since I won't be there when you become hokage . . ." Hinata turned her head enough for him to see the smile on her lips. "Congratulations, Naruto-kun."
Naruto went silent.
With the Akatsuki still seemingly bored with her presence, Hinata used her already twisted body to push off into the rotating force of the kaiten. She didn't use as much chakra as she could, already having exhausted too much earlier, but it was enough to reach Naruto pinned by the black rod. Whether his scream was of pain or surprise was of little consequence, kaiten was a force that repelled everything in its path. The rod in Naruto's hands pinned him to the ground, but the rest weren't too deep and a couple were quite close to her. Kaiten would hit at least one.
Being a complete defense, there was no reason to see beyond the chakra burning blinding bright around her, so there was no chance to prepare for the pressure that struck her barrier. Kaiten did its job and the force of the Akatsuki's ability didn't hit her body, but even kaiten, or at least her weakened version, couldn't hold against the force colliding with it. She flew over and beyond Naruto's body, her rotation and chakra providing sufficient cushion to avoid serious damage as she tumbled. Once her rotation slowed enough, Hinata twisted herself into a sliding stop, her blood-marked hands moving through the necessary seals before the momentum ended.
A puff of smoke later, eight ninja hounds stood poised for battle in front of her. Hinata hated bringing anyone one else into this battle, but the Akatsuki's ability made it impossible to help Naruto without someone distracting him. Dying here would be pointless pain for too many people if she didn't succeed in her mission.
"Free Naruto-kun!" she screamed, already jumping past them and taking a longer route away from Naruto. She needed to get the Akatsuki's attention away from him long enough to make a difference. Hinata only hoped her chakra held out.
The Akatsuki raised his arm toward the hounds rushing to Naruto's aid. "No matter how many come to save you, this fight is already over."
"You've obviously never heard of Konoha's Will of Fire!" Hinata was too far to hit him yet, but he enjoyed pushing people back, so it was time someone returned the favor. Gathering up enough chakra to cross the distance, Hinata released a Vacuum Palm.
At her current chakra level, it didn't do serious damage, but it was enough to force him back. With so little emotion in his face reading his intentions was difficult, but for the first time the orange-haired Akatsuki looked at Hinata as a frustration, perhaps not more than an annoyance but one he'd have to deal with. He raised his arm again, this time at her.
Hinata felt it this time. The force that had destroyed her home, killed so many others, pushing her away like an invisible kick to her chest. Instinct took over, and chakra expelled out throughout her coils to try and protect her. Without the rotation of kaiten it wasn't as effective, but it kept her from suffering more than a spar against Neji might yield. Unfortunately, it was also more chakra being used in quantity.
Hinata stood up stretching her muscles as she ran forward to make sure there weren't any hidden injuries. She needed to get close. Distance fighting and kaiten took too much chakra for a long fight, not without the kind of stamina Neji or Naruto possessed, and Hinata needed to buy as much time as she could. From watching the fight before, Hinata knew the Akatsuki never used his ability in quick succession. He must have a short delay to recover chakra, and that was enough for Hinata to turn this fight to her skills. Jyuuken required far less chakra and the effects would keep compounding even after the fight was over. At this point, every last second was important.
Landing a hit on him was another matter. Physically he was too fast, but she managed a few nicks to his coils system. That would build up over time if she could keep the fight going her way.
A clatter of metal in the distance caught his attention and Hinata struck forward as fast as she could in his distraction. Not fast enough. His hand twitched up, almost too casually for the stakes of this fight, and Hinata felt the kick again. She flew back, the barren, brown scar that had once been her home blurring around her as she slammed into the ground. There wasn't a chakra barrier protecting her this time, and the sickening snap of bone echoed through her spinning head. She blinked a few times to focus.
"Hinata! Stay down, Hinata!"
She looked around, reorienting herself to shake off the confusion. Three rods remained in Naruto, whose frightened eyes were on her and not the advancing Akatsuki. Two of the hounds, Bull and Shiba, sprinted toward the enemy while the rest worked to detach the remaining rods. They wouldn't last long. Hinata had to reclaim his attention before she lost the entire pack.
Forcing herself to her feet was easier said than done. The humerus in her left arm was fractured; sharp jolts of pain each time she moved it told her that. Her hand still moved, but without the support of her upper arm, there'd be no way to fight with it. On another day in another fight, she'd look for a way to spare herself any further damage, but that was not today and that was not this fight.
Her medical training wasn't up to her mother's or grandmother's skill, but she knew enough to numb to pain to toleration. She'd need it. Reaching into her hip pack, Hinata pulled out small blue and red scroll and grasped the edge between two fingers on her injured arm, forcing it out to her side. Not the easiest way to make hand signs, but she managed. As the chakra activated through the scroll, the paper unraveled and encircled her arm to the shoulder, snapping tight to a chorus of shrieking howls. Hinata wasn't sure if it was her or the dogs skidding across the dirt who made the noise.
The Akatsuki cocked his head, a curious expression staring at her as she tucked the edge of the scroll into her wrist. Physical sealing wasn't normally used as a stop-gap measure for broken bones, but it would give her enough support to fight again. If the bones broke further, that wouldn't matter in the end. Fighting on mattered.
"It's useless to continue to struggle," the Akatsuki said.
"That doesn't make it wrong."
From her position, she could see Naruto, the hounds still working as best they could to detach the rods, which glowed with chakra to her enhanced sight. If they'd been anywhere else and she'd seen such an expression on his face, she might have laughed. Beneath his fear and frustration was an expression she'd seen once before a long time ago when they were younger than Hinata could even imagine being anymore. That first day after her bumbling attempt to talk to him when he came to her seat and waited for her to stammer out they could be friends. He saw her again, for the first time, saw her anew after all these years. What did he think as she ran once more toward the Akatsuki? Was it merely his friend grown and changed, a person he knew but didn't recognize, or did he see the head of the Hyuuga clan fighting for her hokage like they'd always talked about? Maybe, and this she hoped, maybe it was both.
Her injuries were taking a toll on her, though. Despite running as fast as she could, too much time had passed since the Akatsuki last used his ability. She barely made two easily avoided attempts to strike him before the kick of pressure hit her chest as if she'd run full strength into a wall of stone, only the wall fought back. Hinata heard herself scream more than she was aware of producing the sound. There was too little chakra for her to defend, and if she landed as hard as last time, it could be the end of her fight. But it couldn't be over yet. Naruto wasn't free. She had to keep fighting!
Suddenly she felt a warmth behind her, and a softness cushioned her body as it hit the ground to the sound of breaking bones and high-pitched whimpers. Hinata pushed herself out of the crater tail she'd created to see Akino lying limp beneath her, his sunglasses broken and puppyish cries muffled beneath every labored breath.
"Hurry," he hissed between the pain. "Almost free."
Hinata found Naruto again. Two rods remained, which Pakkun and Urushi desperately worked to dislodge while the remaining hounds charged the enemy. Hinata had known summoning them could get them hurt or killed, but they were ninja hounds. They understood the stakes of this fight. It was all about buying time, and she had a better chance of distracting the enemy than they did.
"I won't fail," she said, thanks and apology all in one.
Jyuuken would get her nowhere anymore. Her chakra was nearly depleted and her injuries would just make her a target for his ability once more. There had to be something she had left to try, anything to force him to deal with her and maybe hurt him in the process. But how did she fight someone with rinnegan. Those ringed eyes watched them as if they were ants to be stepped on. Byakugan and sharingan were powerful, but rinnegan was what the Sage of the Six Paths supposedly had.
Hinata paused, her eyes watching the three attacking hounds being tossed through the air while her mind was elsewhere, making connections she hadn't considered before.
Byakugan . . . sharingan . . . rinnegan . . .
"Grandpa, are sharingan and byakugan really connected?" A nine-year-old Hinata held up a scroll for him to identify as explanation for her question. It was one of many journals from past clan heads that he'd insisted she read. Hyuuga Hiroki's to be precise, the clan head who agreed to join the Hyuugas with the other clans to form Konoha. "Hiroki writes that he didn't get along with the Uchihas. He thought they should show more deference to him since sharingan came from byakugan. Is that true?"
"It is, according to the stories. There are no records left from so far back to confirm the tales, but our history has always said that sharingan was born from byakugan. The Uchihas were never ones to believe it to be true, but even they acknowledge our techniques are connected."
"So, we were once family?"
"I suppose, long, long ago. It is said that the three great ocular techniques all once came from the same source, but since there are none left who possess knowledge of how rinnegan came about, I can't say if it was true. As the Hyuuga clan is one of the oldest clans among all the villages, it is only logical to believe ours came before the other two."
Hinata knew what she could do now. It was her last chance; though, being thrown away by that ability one more time would probably hurt her more than she could fight through, so she had to try something fast. She needed to get close to him, closer than she'd been able to so far. Hinata looked between the Akatsuki and Naruto, gauging her choices. Hopefully her insight was good enough to make the right decision. Hinata reactivated byakugan and ran toward them.
The Akatsuki watched her, confusion or irritation leaking through his impassive expression—Hinata couldn't tell which. "Still resisting?"
"Until my last breath!" She turned, sprinting for where Naruto lay rather than for the Akatsuki again. Each time she'd advanced on him, he used his ability to toss her away, but she'd seen him pull Naruto to him before. If he had any of the same psychological triggers as a normal person, running away from him—along with her taunt that he'd have to kill her—should trigger him to pull her to him. Then she'd have a few seconds to fight back before he tossed her away again.
"Hinata! Please, just go! Save yourself!"
The terror in Naruto's voice ripped at her heart. She was glad she wasn't watching him, that she didn't see the tears in his blue eyes or the desperation of someone who wanted to protect everyone but couldn't. Her eyes might have been on him, but her gaze was behind her, watching every twitch, every muscle in the Akatsuki's body.
Years ago doubt would have been in her every step, each strike hesitated a second too late to connect. She would have wondered if what she planned was capable of helping at all and failed to act. But there was one thing that Hyobe taught her that she never forgot, like a seed planted long ago ready to bloom and flourish: trying wasn't always an option. She had only one chance, so she had to do it right.
Hinata spun around as the Akatsuki finished raising his hand, and she felt the kick come from behind this time, pushing her forward as if on an invisible track straight into his waiting palm. Fingers clamped around her throat so tightly she could feel her trachea compressing in her neck. Her body dangled from his arm, hands at her sides, thick and glowing green with the last of her chakra.
"It's time you stopped breathing then."
Five.
Hinata didn't need to breath; she just needed to not die yet. With all the strength she had left in her abused body, Hinata wrapped her legs around his torso to keep from being detached too soon and shoved his forehead protector up with her chakra-laden hands, thumbs digging in deep against his forehead without care for the pain or damage she caused.
Four.
Blood trickled over her thumbs as the chakra burst into his coils system, through the pathways down to occipital lobe. Shit. His coils system wasn't the same as those with byakugan. The pathway she'd entered into didn't lead to the brain stem; there would be no chance of a quick kill without reaching the brain stem. She had to alter it fast.
Three.
The grip on her throat went lax as the Akatsuki writhed beneath her. Taking her chance, Hinata pulled her body close to leverage her weight against his attempts to tear her away from his face. There was something liberating about not caring how much pain she was causing. All her attempts to remake the seal suffered from the necessity to reduce the damage done to the coils system and thus the brain. Now she followed the instinct that came with knowing the seal so intimately. If she couldn't kill him, then maybe she could ruin his rinnegan instead.
Two.
There was nowhere to let all the chakra pouring into his pathways rest. In Hyuugas, it settled around the brain stem; without that pathway available, Hinata brought the chakra back up to overfill behind his eyes. At first it would only hurt, but over time that much chakra would eat away at his sight.
One.
She had to finish the seal. Hinata pushed the chakra through with all her might, blood making her hands slicks as her thumbs cut the final parts of the seal into his forehead. She pressed her palms against his wounded skin, and the green glow faded from her hands as the seal burned bright beneath the blood.
Zero.
The sky was around her, wind howling in her ears. All the air had been forced from her lungs and she couldn't breathe in. Was she flying? Falling? Was she already dead and this was some strange afterlife? Would it ever—
Darkness.
"Hinata! Hinata! Hold on, Hinata! Hinata!"
The screaming voice sounded soft and weak, like a phantom drifting in the fog. Every muscle in her body was on fire. She didn't want to move. Didn't want to open her eyes. But the cries wouldn't stop.
"Hinata! Wake up! Hinata!"
More shrieking. Not the voice this time. Deeper. Hinata fought her way through the fog, forcing her eyes to open. The world was a burry mess of shapes and colors. She blinked searching for something to focus on. She found a red blob. It split in two before finally coalescing into a coat fluttering in the wind. She looked up to the face of the wearer, his hands still trapped by the black rod. One left. The hounds were gone. There was no one to help him, yet he wouldn't stop looking at her, calling for her, and how happy he looked to see her staring back at him.
"Hold on, Hinata! You'll be okay!"
Naruto finally looked up at the enemy standing over him. The Akatsuki was saying something, but Hinata couldn't hear and her head was throbbing with every attempt to pay attention. She could see, though. The blood still dripped from the seal-shaped cuts on his forehead, a black rod gripped in his hand.
It wasn't over. Naruto was still trapped and there was no one left to remove the last rod. If she didn't do something, the enemy would win and Naruto . . .
Hinata cried out as she pulled her still working arm from underneath her battered body, the other refused to move at all. She only needed one, not that she had any chakra left to use or the concentration to utilize what little kept her alive. But there was someone who had chakra and he was watching her. That she didn't doubt. That meant he could do what she couldn't; she just had to make him see. He had to let her take the blame.
"Stop! Hinata, don't do anything else!" Panic flooded Naruto's face. He wasn't even paying attention to the enemy sticking the rod into his leg again. "Hinata! Please!"
Hinata wanted to smile at how much he cared. She wasn't sure she managed it, but she hoped she did. She hoped the last thing Naruto saw of her was a smile.
Too weak to raise her arm from the ground, Hinata wrenched her shaking fingers into position. It might not work—if she didn't complete the seal correctly nothing would happen—but she had to try. She was still breathing after all.
Please . . . please . . . save him . . . please . . .
Save him!
"Stop! He's going to kill her!"
Osamu and his brother held fast against Naomi, small compared to them but fighting with a maternal strength that made them strain to hold her at bay. Behind them, Hyobe sat, byakugan active and hand raised to use the seal.
"It's what she wants, Aunt Naomi," Osamu said, the words catching in his throat. That was not a plea he wanted to ever see on Hinata.
Isamu buried his face into Naomi's shoulder; the skin around his eyes was smooth. He couldn't watch this. Naomi couldn't watch this. Hyobe had to focus on the seal. So Osamu watched. Someone had to tell Neji what happened to her. He needed to know that she was ready, that she wanted to save Naruto—save them all. He needed to know that she smiled.
Someone had to bear witness to her death. Quick and clean. A black rod piercing her skull. Her body, finally, limp.
"It's over," he whispered.
Naomi collapsed, a shock so unfathomable tears couldn't fall. "You bastard. You fought us every step of the way to keep her safe and now you just let her die."
Hyobe never wavered, his focus on the enemy screaming in the crater. "She acted as a leader of this clan. It was her right to do this."
"Bastard!"
How many times had Osamu wished he couldn't see so much? It would've been easier to hate Hyobe the way Naomi did. Easier not to see the slight tremble of his hand or the way his eyes glistened though no tears ever showed. Easier never to have known the hesitation in his face . . . or the pride. Easier not to have seen a grandfather who just lost his granddaughter. Osamu's grief would have been so much easier to feel if he could've just hated him.
A wave of wind burst from the crater, breaking everyone out of their shock. A column of pure chakra rose high into the sky. Osamu had never felt anything like it. Raw, unchecked power that triggered a primal fear buried deep inside him.
"What is that?"
Hyobe lowered his hand, eyes wide. "It's the Kyuubi."