Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

AN: Thanks for the reviews... and to those who are wondering... Hinata still doesn't know about Kyuubi.

Chapter 2: Jealousy, tension, mistakes, blood…

Naruto walked back into his apartment. He made a sad sigh when he saw the picture frame resting in the table near his bed with his alarm clock and other picture frames.

The picture had him and her. He was embracing her tightly and she was smiling warmly like she always does around him. That was three years ago, when they were eighteen. A single tear ran down his face.

To think that they were together for three long years and now he has given up for her… for her safety.

He sat in his bed, sighing once again. He grabbed the picture frame and he laid it in his lap. He cried like a lost boy. Tears from his eyes fell down in the picture frame's glass. The tears that were building up in his eyes blurred his vision. He closed his eyes, only to dream of her. Her smile, her eyes, her voice, all of her… he missed so much… just in a short span of time that felt like forever to him.

The pain won't just go away…

…And he can't turn back now…

After all, this is for the greater good…

He thought, sighing again for the hundredth time since he broke their relationship…

…Since he broke both their hearts.

He lowered his body into his bed. He was now lying in his back. He glanced at his clock and saw it was still too early. He decided to take a short nap… and he wished that in his dreams he would be with her…

---

"…Arf!" Akamaru barked gently at Hinata. He wagged his tail. He then whimpered back to his spot and he rested there.

"He looks sick…" Hinata said.

"I told ya!"

Hinata approached Akamaru and she squatted near Akamaru. She patted him in the head and Akamaru let off a satisfied and happy bark. Hinata smiled.

She froze on the spot when she remembered that Naruto was there earlier when Kiba was dragging her to his house to see Akamaru. She broke off her daydream when she felt Akamaru's wet tongue lick her hand. She patted him again. She stood up and she approached Kiba.

"So tell me, what happened?" Kiba asked. He dragged two chairs and placed it near Akamaru. He sat down and he gestured for Hinata to sit down too.

Hinata sat down. "…"

"Tell me, I'm your friend right?"

"He told me earlier that it was over, that we are over… There's no more 'we', it's just me and him."

"Damn Naruto…." Kiba said. He clenched his fist. "I'm gonna tear him apart when I see him next time!" He exclaimed.

Hinata placed her hands gently over his shoulder. "I don't want you to do that, I still want to ask him a few things… and I…" Hinata looked down on the ground.

"You still love him right?"

"Yes… It was so sudden… I think it will be hard to accept that it is over… it will be hard to forget him…" Hinata whispered.

"I understand…"

Hinata stood up.

"You're going already?"

"Yeah, I have a new mission, remember?"

"When are you leaving?"

"Tonight…"

"Take care then…" Kiba escorted her out of his house.

---

Naruto woke up by 6:30 PM. He went straight to the bathroom and he had a shower. He put on new clothes after and he packed up. He then locked up his apartment before he left.

After a few minutes of walking, he arrived at the east gate by 7:30 PM. He saw that Sasuke was already there leaning on the gates wall.

"You're early…" Sasuke said.

"Does it bother you?" Naruto asked and he leaned at the wall too.

"No it doesn't bother me… what bothers me is that you've been acting weird since you came back from the forest earlier…" Sasuke stared at him with his cold onyx eyes.

"It doesn't concern you, Sasuke…" Naruto said with a cold tone.

"See you've been acting in a very un-Naruto way…" Sasuke said.

Naruto let out an indignant noise.

"And you're not wearing your favorite orange suit…"

"Why? Don't I have the right to wear my jounin vest with a black shirt and black pants?"

"I'm not saying that…"

"People change Sasuke…"

"But not that quick…"

"…"

"It seems to me that you've changed in just a snap of a finger…"

"…"

"It's hard to set aside old habits…"

"…"

"… old routines…"

"…"

"…especially things and people that you love…"

Naruto widened his eyes at what Sasuke said. Naruto hated to admit it but he was somewhat amused that Sasuke always knew what was going on. He glared at Sasuke.

"My life is none of your business Sasuke…" Naruto said.

Sasuke glared back at him. After a few seconds, they looked away from one another.

Lee then arrived fifteen minutes after.

He saw the two looking away from one another. He sensed that they had a disagreement earlier. He approached them.

"Hello, Sasuke, hello Naruto." He greeted them. Sasuke didn't move but Naruto raised his eyebrows to acknowledge Lee's greeting. Lee then joined both ninjas who were leaning on the wall.

Five minutes before the said time of meeting, Hinata arrived. He bowed at his three companions as a way of greeting. He approached Lee and she tried to initiate a small conversation so she would get her mind off her other companion, Naruto. She tried hard to avoid thinking about him but she couldn't. During her conversation with Lee, her mind would often drift off and she would think about him.

"Tsunade-sama is here…" Lee said and Hinata broke off her dream.

"I'm glad to see that no one is late…" Tsunade said. "Well then, I have new orders. When you arrive at their HQ you break into two groups. Sasuke, you go with Lee; Naruto, you go with Hinata…"

Hinata's heart stopped beating for a moment when Tsunade announced their groupings. 'Fate…' She thought.

'Damn you, Tsunade… now how am I supposed to concentrate?' Naruto thought and he glared at Tsunade. Tsunade smirked evilly at Naruto. Naruto shrugged it off.

"Looks like it's already time to leave… here Sasuke…" Tsunade handed Sasuke a map. "Their HQ is marked there by an 'x'. Remember: You only fight them when you think you can take them on. But for the meantime… your mission is just to gather information about them. Then I wish you Good Luck in this mission. Do you best and…"

"…And I want to see all of you come back here in one piece, Ok?"

The four ninjas nodded and they left the village.

Shizune then appeared. "Are you sure it's alright to group them like that? I mean Naruto with Hinata? They just had a recent breakup right?"

Tsunade stared at the closing gate. "I think it will go fine…" "...Are you sure?"

"…"

---

The four Ninjas walked cautiously in the forest outside Konoha, carefully placing each of their steps on the road before them. Sasuke's mind was concentrated on the mission laid before him. He had already rid of his thoughts concerning Naruto earlier. Meanwhile, he was thinking that it was not such a good idea to put Naruto and Hinata together in the same team. He sensed a lot of tension between the two ninjas. He glanced at them and saw that they walked with quite a distance between them. Lee on the other hand only wished for a successful mission but he was sensing the tension between Naruto and Hinata too.

Naruto stared blankly at the road before him. He was still thinking about Hinata. Yes, the one and only Hyuuga Hinata, the object of his affection, his inspiration. He decided earlier that he would continue to fight for her…only for her…even if he would see her with another man.

Well as for Hinata, she was thinking of him too. Naruto didn't notice that all this time, Hinata was staring at him, like her eyes were glued to him. She would sigh time after time making Naruto feel uneasy. She was still confused, if it hurt so much for Naruto… why did he have to do it? She sighed again and she shrugged off her thoughts. 'Concentrate, Hinata! Concentrate!' She thought.

Lee then quickened his steps and approached Sasuke who was leading the way.

"Hey, Sasuke… did something happen bad to those two?" Lee whispered the question to Sasuke. Sasuke threw him a cold glance.

"Don't ask me…" He whispered the answer back.

"Maybe what Tsunade-sama planned is a bad idea…" Lee said still whispering.

"…Hn?"

"I mean placing those two in the same team… I can feel so much tension between them…" Lee said.

"I think it's a bad idea too… but orders are orders…" Sasuke said.

"…"

"I think you're right…" Lee sighed. 'Those two really worry me…' Lee said.

After a while, the forest grew darker and more silent. Lee had a difficult time to see but nonetheless he still can walk around the path properly without stumbling into something.

"Hey Sasuke, don't you need a torch?" Lee asked

"A torch would just help the enemy see us…"

"But can you still see the map?"

"…"

"I guess you can…" Lee said. 'Geez, he's still as cold as ever… I thought he has already changed…'

"OOF" Sasuke and Lee heard a female voice. They turned around. Lee couldn't see anything but by the looks of it, Sasuke was using his Sharingan to see.

"Hey Sasuke, What happened? Was that Hinata?" Lee asked.

"Shhh… keep quiet…" Sasuke said.

"At least answer my question…" Lee said.

"Hinata tripped and Naruto caught her in his arms…"

"Oh…"

"Now keep quiet…"

"Playing matchmaker Sasuke? That's very unlikely of you…" Lee chuckled.

"I said: Keep quiet!" Sasuke exclaimed in a whisper.

Hinata tripped over a tree's root and Naruto, coincidentally, because of his reflexes, caught Hinata… in his arms…even if he was a little far away from her…

'Damn, Hinata! I told you to concentrate!!!' Hinata screamed in her mind. She then felt the warm arm wrapped around her and the male built near her. 'It's so warm… just like… Naruto-kun…' She thought. She wanted to melt in the man's arms if it was Naruto. She wanted to use her Byakugan for at least to distinguish who it was from his male companions.

Well you know that it is Naruto, right? The one holding her like that...

Outside, he didn't want this to happen, he didn't want to get this close to Hinata but deep inside of him… he wanted to smell her perfume, he wanted to hold her close to his body like this, he wanted to embrace her like this forever…

'Snap out of it Naruto! Remember what you promised yourself!' Naruto said to himself inside his mind.

They remained like that for a few minutes, because even if Naruto was screaming to let go of Hinata in his mind… his body won't seem to.

"Ok, knock that off… we are on a mission, remember?" Sasuke said. "Stop doing that mushy stuff…" He added.

Naruto instantly let go of Hinata. Hinata regained her balance and she stood there bewildered that Naruto held her close like that…confusing her more about their relationship.

"I'm sorry…" Naruto said with a cold tone.

"It's alright…" Hinata replied.

Naruto then glared at where he heard Sasuke's voice. Of course Sasuke saw it; Naruto's glare was saying to him "We weren't doing anything mushy it was an accident."

"Come on, we better continue… we will arrive there in only a few minutes if we continue our pace…" Sasuke said.

After a few minutes, they arrived on a clearing where there were tents, many tents. They could see scaffolds erected at the ground and wood lying on the ground. There were also sacks of unprepared cements lying on the ground. They could see a couple of guards patrolling the area, 8 to be exact. The four Leaf-nins hid on a nearby bush to observe the clearing more before they split up.

Just then two Sound-nins approached a spot near the bush. One stood tall with a katana tied on his back, the other stood smaller than the other, and he had the common utility pouch tied in his back and the kunai holster tied at his left leg. It seemed that though they were on duty, their guard was not that tight.

The four Leaf-nins tried hard to conceal themselves and their chakra.

The man with the katana yawned. "When will the building be finished?" He asked.

"If the builders don't slack off like we do, it will be finished pretty early…" The shorter man answered.

"But they slack off longer than we do…"

"I agree… they're lazier than us…"

"Do you think the Leaf would discover this HQ?"

"I don't think so…"

"Why?"

"They're too occupied with guarding their precious village…"

"Makes sense… but they have more skilled ninjas than we have…" The tall man yawned again.

The shorter man gave off an irritated noise. "We better stop chatting before someone catches us slacking off…" With that they walked away from one another.

When the two Sound-Nins were very far from the bush Sasuke tapped his team mates.

"It's time…" He said. "It's time we split… Hinata and Naruto, you observed the area around this clearing within a radius of 20 meters. We will try and impersonate some Sound-Nins and we'll try to get information about this HQ of them…"

Naruto and Hinata stayed still for minutes.

"We don't have time to waste! Do you understand what I said?"

Naruto and Hinata nodded.

"Good." Sasuke said. "We meet back here in an hour; try to get all the data you can, when something happens bad…" Sasuke drove a kunai on the ground. "We meet here too, but if we are engaged in combat make some kind of signal of distress so either of us can be an aid to one another…" Sasuke added.

Naruto and Hinata then cautiously crawled out the bush and they leapt silently from tree to tree.Naruto and Hinata continued to leap from tree to tree trying to avoid one another. Often the both of them would stop at one area and observe it.

'I don't get it, why does Sasuke want us to observe the area around?' Naruto thought. He then stopped at one branch when he saw a group of Sound-Nins mysteriously gathering at one area. Hinata was driven by her curiosity why Naruto has stopped all of a sudden. She landed silently beside Naruto at the thick branch of the tall tree.

They watched the mysterious activity of the Sound-nins from the branch.

Naruto gulped, he didn't want to talk to her yet, he wasn't ready yet… but he had too.

"Err… Hinata, can you use your Byakugan to see what they are doing?" Naruto asked in a whisper.

Hinata was suddenly shocked, did just Naruto talk to her? Yes he did! A development! She thought positively. But she was a little sad that Naruto didn't include the "" suffix…

She shook her head. "No I can't they'll sense my chakra, Naruto…" Hinata said.

Naruto raised his eyebrows. Did he hear it right? Did she just say Naruto without the "kun" suffix? He dropped his jaws. Hinata almost laughed at his expression, she looked away and she smiled. Naruto was astonished, it was the very first time he heard it from Hinata, his name without the "kun" suffix.

'Seems like something happened, can she forget me that fast?' He thought and he frowned.

Hinata was still smiling while looking away at Naruto.

"What were y-you doing with Kiba earlier?" Naruto asked.

Hinata instantly turned her head and she looked at Naruto.

"Why are you asking?"

"I just want to know…" Naruto said and he looked away.

"Are you jealous Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked.

Naruto felt a lot more energetic because of the way Hinata called him, in a way she always does. Naruto didn't answer and Hinata was a little irritated.

"Nothing happened…" Hinata whispered.

Well Naruto felt more energetic.

"I just went to see if Akamaru was fine because Kiba said he was sick…"

"…"

"Naruto-kun…"

"…"

"Why did you have to do that?"

"Why did I have to do what?"

"Don't play innocent…"

"…" Naruto knew what she was talking about, he suddenly felt sad again.

"Answer me…"

"…"

"Please…" Hinata tugged his shirt.

"Stop doing that, Hinata…"

"Answer me please…"

"…"

"Answer me so I can understand…"

"…"

"So I can understand why you have to do this…"

"…"

"…Why you had to breakup with me…"

"I had to do that because…"

Hinata raised her eyebrows; she took her eyes off the Sound-nins who were still mysteriously gathering in the forest. She was now staring at Naruto.

She anxiously waited for the answer. There was a moment of silence.

She then noticed that Naruto changed his expression into a very serious one.

"Hinata, watch out!!!" Naruto exclaimed.

Naruto wrapped his arms around her in an instant. They fell off the thick branch where they were earlier. Naruto fell down in his back; Hinata was still in his arms.

Hinata heard a painful moan form Naruto. She sat up and she heard a whistle coming from the Sound-Nins.

"They… have… been a-alerted…" Naruto said while he gasped for air. "More…will come, Hinata-chan…you must run…" He added.

"Naruto-kun, are you alright?"

"I've been hit in the back…"

"You were hit? Let me see!" Naruto now lay on his left side bearing a painful expression.

"Run…" He whispered.

Hinata widened her eyes at the sight of Naruto's back. Five kunais were driven very deep into his back. By the looks of it, some hit his internal organs. Hinata wanted to cry. She saw Naruto smile at her.

"Don't cry… you must run now…" Naruto said. Hinata could hear the tone of pain in his voice.

"Naruto, Hinata, where are you?" It was Lee shouting.

"No I must heal you…." Hinata said seeing that lots of blood was flowing out of his wound. "Lee-san and Sasuke-san will help us!!!"

"No… you must run!!!"

"No, I must heal you!!!"

"Run, Hinata! I will… never… forgive… you if you die here!!!"

"And I will never forgive you too of you die here!!!"

"I don't want to be a burden to you…" Naruto said. Hinata was trying to do some healing technique to heal his wounds but first she pulled out the kunais from his back. Naruto moaned in pain. Hinata was now healing her but it seemed that he won't stop bleeding.

"I…don't want…you…to…die because of me…" Naruto whispered. He was gasping for more air.

Just then a Sound-Nin suddenly appeared behind Hinata, he was holding a katana and it looked like he would kill Hinata any moment now. Naruto saw the enemy swing his blade down.

"…HINATA-CHAN!!!"

AN: When they were on the tree, the kunai did not hurt Naruto that much but they slipped so they fell down. Naruto fell down on his back making the kunai wound him much more.

Leave your questions when you review and I will clear things up when I upload the next chap

next chap: Loss