The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Chapter 14

And brave enough to push on! Will you determine the fixed point? I think you're smart enough, Okisaki.

You have to be.

###

Once again, Hinata Hyuuga fell blind.

It was only the second time it had happened in this particular way, spat out of a hole in reality with her chakra system rebelling and her eyes burning, but that still made it easier than the first. Just like last time, Hinata resigned herself to a hard landing.

The sky was blue; it was the middle of the day and warm for it, the sun blazing down on her. The buildings around her were familiar. Once again, she was in Konoha. At least that was consistent: it happening twice in a row was enough for Hinata to feel that no matter where she was dragged, it would at least be within the village each time.

With a grunt, Hinata crashed to the ground, and rolled over with a groan. This time, there wasn't silence; several people let out a shout of alarm, and she squinted in the sun. She was in the middle of a busy street in the market district of the village. From the look of it, she'd interrupted a couple dozen people's midday shopping. In just moments there was a crowd of people gathering around and verbally bombarding her as she shakily rose to her feet.

"Watch where you're going!"

"What were you thinking?"

"Are you okay?"

"It's a girl, a ninja…"

She looked around, hoping in vain for a familiar face, but while there were two shinobi in the crowd there wasn't anyone Hinata recognized. She grunted, finally back on her feet, and started turning from angry face to angry face with a conciliatory look.

"Sorry," she said, trying to mollify them one by one. "So sorry. Just a bad jump, my apologies, no, I'm fine, really, let me just get out of the way, I'll sit for a moment…"

After a couple rounds of that, people grumbled and went back to their business, and Hinata stumbled out of the street to take shelter in the entrance of a flower shop. She sat down, shaking her head and watching people go by as she gathered her thoughts.

She was somewhere in the village, living people were all around, and the sun was shining. She had been right; this time was a million times better than the last. Her chakra was recovering faster than the last time too; maybe you could get time travel antibodies? It was already easier for her to breathe, and she could feel the warmth and surety of her energy returning to her once more. She felt a thousand times better than before. Accepting that she'd had no choice but to come here had been the right choice.

The two ninja she hadn't recognized hadn't left, she realized as she finished catching her breath. They had stayed on the opposite side of the street, quietly talking. Almost as soon as Hinata realized it, one departed, leaping up and out of sight, and the other turned and cautiously approached her.

That… might not be good.

Hinata sat up, giving the coming ninja a quiet smile, and he cocked his head. The other shinobi was a tall man with a sharp, scarred chin and equally black hair and eyes; a spark of recognition stirred in Hinata. It wasn't because she knew him, though he did look vaguely familiar, more that she'd seen people like him before. But when, and where?

"Is something wrong?" she asked, and the shinobi narrowed his eyes. Yes, something was very wrong. Hinata's instincts were screaming at her, but she did her best to suppress her readiness; she could feel the man watching her with such intensity that it almost hurt. If she acted, so would he.

She'd been here for less than a minute. Some of her optimism faded in the face of the man's focus. Would every time she visited be hostile to her, or was she just unlucky?

Her Konoha had been smashed to dust. Of course she was unlucky.

"You…" the man said, and his rough voice drew Hinata out of her doubts. His fingers were drumming against his side; he had a pouch there, probably stuffed with tools and weapons. Hinata subtly slid her own hand behind her back, doing her best to disguise it by leaning back to look up at him. "What's your name, girl?"

"Hinata Hyuuga," she said, and the man pursed his lips. "Look, I really am sorry. I thought it would be an easy jump across the street, but-"

The man's eyes changed; a two-tomoe Sharingan spiraled out.

Hinata froze, staring up at him. An Uchiha; he was an Uchiha. That was why he looked familiar. Maybe she had seen him years ago when she'd been quite young, before Itachi had slaughtered his clan. Wherever and whenever she was, the Uchiha were still around. That was good, great even, but then why were things so suddenly tense?

"Not a henge…" he muttered. "Is this a joke?" He took a step forward, and Hinata tensed, ready to stand. He stopped, hand reaching into the fold of his jacket. "Or… did you really think you could just walk back in, traitor?"

"I'm sorry," Hinata said sincerely. "I really don't have any idea what you're talking about." She sighed; how many times would she have to explain this? "Listen, I'm-"

With a snarl, the Uchiha moved.

He drew a knife from his pouch and lunged forward, his other arm coming around. Hinata's whole body suddenly burned, adrenaline thumping through her and sending her flying forward with the same sudden violence. The Uchiha was trying to put her in a headlock; then, he'd probably put the knife to her throat.

Hinata thought the Sharingan gave Uchiha predictive sight, but if that was the case she must have been faster than she realized, because the man didn't have time to adjust his attack before she punched him in the throat.

He lurched back, gagging and barely keeping his feet, and before Hinata could blink or consider her actions she surged towards him, striking tenketsu across his arms and thighs and sending him crashing to the ground, paralyzed. It was over in one second, and by the time Hinata let out a breath and considered the sprawled mess before her, she was starting to regret it.

Okay, she thought. I think I'm still a little on edge. That's good to know.

"Sorry!" she said for what felt like the hundredth time, crouching at the Uchiha's side. His eyes jerked over to her, still jittering, and she averted her gaze, just in case he was trying to cast a genjutsu. "Really sorry. I didn't mean to… why did you attack me?"

She paused; the Uchiha just continued glaring at her. "You called me a traitor," she said after a moment. The exchange had been brief and quiet, but people were starting to notice what had happened, stopping and staring, some looking around and wondering if they should call for help. "What did you mean by that?"

When the man continued to stay silent, she frowned. "I didn't paralyze your throat," Hinata said quietly, "but I certainly could."

The man grunted. "I don't know what kind of game you're playing, Hinata Hyuuga," he coughed. It might have been a laugh. "But you just made the worst fucking mistake of your life. Not only did you come back to Konoha, you immediately attacked the military police. The village is going to bury you like the rest of your rotten clan."

A shock ran from the top of Hinata's head to the heels of her feet and she rocked back up, looking around. Her instincts were going wild; danger was approaching from every direction.

She activated her Byakugan and took in Konohagakure at a glance.

It took her perhaps three seconds to process everything, which almost wasn't enough time to start running but did leave her the moment necessary to reach down and drag the Uchiha she'd paralyzed to his feet. The way things were going, she'd probably need a hostage.

Konohagakure was alive and vibrant and huge, bigger than ever. The borders of the village had expanded, along with the walls, and more shinobi than Hinata had ever seen were now calling it their home. People were happy, rich, and content.

The Uchiha compound had tripled in size.

The Hyuuga compound had been leveled to ground, only leaving foundations in a few places, and was nothing more than a new forest within the village.

As Hinata prepared to run, she wondered just how much the word 'traitor' covered.

There were shinobi converging from every direction on her position, at least fifty. Though they weren't all Uchiha, they universally wore the symbol of the Military Police, the Uchiha crest in the midst of a shuriken. It had been so long since Hinata had seen it that she could hardly believe it. To come to a time where the Chunin Exam had gone horribly wrong and the world had been consumed by death had been alien and jarring enough; this was close enough to the familiar to be uncanny.

"Where the hell do you think you'll go?" the policeman she'd paralyzed cackled as she leapt, carrying him up to the roof and looking for a point to break out as the military police drew closer, some barely a hundred feet away now. "Don't think you can oppose the Uchiha clan, Hyuuga! Just give yourself up! Resisting arrest is only going to make things worse for you!"

"This is pretty bad," Hinata admitted, steeling herself.

She saw him. Naruto was alive here, the same age she remembered him from her home. He was hanging out with Sakura and Kakashi-sensei across the village, training and cracking jokes; none of them knew that a manhunt of impressive scale had just been mobilized.

"But I've been somewhere far worse," she muttered, and then she took off, dragging her hostage across the rooftop by his jacket as she powered towards the weakest part of the tightening circle.

Of course, 'weakest' still meant she was throwing herself into three Uchiha, all with fully developed Sharingan and a determined, almost frightened look on their faces, but that was better than any other direction.

Maybe it would have been better to surrender, but Hinata's father had told her that the military police had never exactly been kind to people who attacked them, and it seemed that something horrible had happened to her clan in this Konoha anyway. A sixth sense was telling her that if she stopped, she would probably end up the victim of police brutality.

And beside that, she felt strong. She felt sure. Naruto was alive, and she was here; she'd stepped into the Tear of her own will. She didn't want to start her next trip by getting beaten up and arrested, so if it was necessary she would settle for just being beaten up.

"Stop right there!" the Uchiha in front yelled, a woman with long purple hair and a naked blade in both hands. "You're under arrest, Hyuuga!"

"Sorry!" Hinata called, and then right before she and the police collided she dropped down, descending into the street and out of their direct line of sight. "I'm not really…!" She glanced at her hostage, practically frothing at the mouth from being dragged along at high speed without being able to control his limbs. "Okay, well, I guess I did do that."

People parted with shouts of alarm as she leapt through the street; two of the Uchiha followed her down, the last staying on the roof and tracking her from there. Hinata weaved through the crowd without missing a step, but her pursuers stayed with her; they both had three-tomoe Sharingan, and Hinata could tell it was guiding their movements with supernatural precision.

Well, the benefits of being a fugitive with the Byakugan; she could see every aspect of the manhunt for miles around without even having to turn her head, and she knew exactly where to go to escape it. Hinata turned with such speed that she actually skidded across the paved road for a moment before she leapt into a hardware store, slamming through a window and shattering it. As people inside started screaming, she changed direction again, charging for the thinnest wall on the far side of the building.

Someone jumped in front of her, confusion plain on his face; not a policeman, just a shinobi that had realized what was happening and was trying to stop her. Hinata knew him; it was Iruka, her old teacher from the academy. But there wasn't any recognition in his eyes, and Hinata didn't stop to think; she just grabbed a collapsed ladder as she rushed by it and swung the whole thing into Iruka's side, knocking him aside with a clatter as she left it to fall on top of him.

"Sorry sensei!" she shouted again, almost laughing at both the absurdity of the situation and at that she truly had no idea of what else to say. Everyone in the store looked on in horror she did her best to tuck the policeman she was still dragging (who was starting to let out an undignified scream) behind her body and slammed a Vacuum Palm into the wall just moments before she struck it, bursting through into the next street in an explosion of wood.

The third Uchiha was waiting for her there and looking proud of himself, which was rather idiotic; he should have known Hinata had seen him coming from both a literal and metaphorical mile away. He started running through hand signs with impressive speed-

But before he could complete them, Hinata spun, almost like she was attempting a Kaiten, and hurled his fellow officer into him like a runaway train.

Both the Uchiha went down in a tangle of limbs, and Hinata changed direction again, speeding off down the street in the opposite direction of the manhunt. By the time the man she'd bowled over managed to sit up and shout into his radio to send the other forty-seven police in the proper direction, Hinata was already several hundred feet away.

With that lead, she was almost to the edge of the village by the time some of the faster officers were catching up to her. The one at the front was strangely familiar, and after a moment Hinata's heart sank.

The officer who was chasing her was, without a doubt, Sasuke Uchiha.

Hinata hadn't seen him at this age except from an extreme distance with her Byakugan when she and Naruto's team had been hunting his brother, shortly before the village had been obliterated, but his face was the same, down to the look of grim determination. He was outpacing the rest of his clan, drawing closer to her by the moment, and proudly wore the crest of the military police on the lapel of his flak jacket. Lightning was sparking in his hand, and he was busy collecting senbon in the other; he'd run her down and disable her legs if she let him.

Hinata hit the village wall and went up it; the gates were already heavily guarded, but the top of the wall just had rotating patrols, and right now it seemed that it was mainly the military police who were pursuing her. Only two more shinobi to burst though besides Sasuke, and she'd be free to…

Be a homeless fugitive in a world that wasn't her own.

Well, it was way too late to reconsider now.

Sasuke hit the wall, barely thirty feet behind her now, and went up as well. Knowing he would catch her in seconds and with little idea of how to stop him, Hinata settled for screaming back at him.

"Sasuke!" she shouted, and he twitched. "It's really not what you think! I'm a time traveler!"

He didn't miss a step. "That's the dumbest one I've heard yet!" he shouted back, and hurled two lightning-charged senbon. Hinata dodged the first but the second stabbed into her right shoulder, and her entire arm immediately went numb; it felt like she had to drag it up the wall.

"Well, it's the truth!" she shouted, cresting the top. "I had to try!"

Hinata couldn't afford to stop and think; her escape continued, straight and fast, and she charged forward and leapt from the top of the wall, fifty feet in the air with her hair streaming out behind her like a dark kite.

Sasuke was right behind her, hardly ten feet away by the time Hinata hit the top, but she saw him hesitate; he wasn't as happy as she was to leap off the wall without care. Instead, he ran through four hand signs with lightning speed and hurled a volley of small fireballs after her. None of them were big or hot enough to kill her, but any of them hitting would smash her out of the air.

Hinata spun in midair, her palm cocked back, and Sasuke's eyes went wide. He started to jump away, his arms coming up to shield himself.

"Sorry!" she shouted one last time, and then she hurled a Vacuum Palm bigger than her body up at him and the crest of the wall. Sasuke leapt aside; his Sharingan had saved him, but Hinata's jutsu still tore a chunk of the wall apart, bombarded him with debris, and gave her the necessary second and a half to fall into the forests that pressed up against Konoha's wall.

She caught a branch and flung herself off of it, scratching her palms; it cracked and split at her velocity, but by the time it started to swing off the tree and fall Hinata herself was long gone, fleeing through the canopy like a huge bird of prey swooping from tree to tree. Behind her, Konoha was swarming with ninja, Sasuke directing the other military police who'd arrived at the top of the wall and were staring down into the forest, Sharingan whirling as they searched for her.

He was in charge, Hinata thought? Or at least higher ranked. That made sense, after all. Before he had defected to Orochimaru, Sasuke had been noted as a prodigy, both by the village and by her clan. If he'd stayed, why wouldn't he be a higher ranked ninja by now?

She might have made it out of Konoha, but it was still following her, it and its questions. What had happened to her clan? Why had their compound been razed? Why had the military police considered her a traitor, and an egregious enough one for so many to be mobilized so quickly off a mere suspicion? That had been what the other ninja had run off for while his comrade, probably superior, had confronted her: Hinata was sure of that. She was also sure that all three of her questions probably had the same answer.

The Hyuuga clan had done something terrible, and recently. It had betrayed the village, or at least people thought it had. What could have caused that?

And why, Hinata wondered, did she suddenly have mastery of the Vacuum Palm?

Hinata fled into the Land of Fire with a new burning power, and the military police chased after her like hungry dogs.

###

By the third day of being on the run from the law, Hinata had answered her own questions, accrued even more, and learned some extremely interesting things about the new Land of Fire she'd found herself.

The most salient bit of information in that regard was that the military police, and by extension the Uchiha clan and anyone it deputized to help uphold Konoha's laws, had legal authority to pursue and apprehend criminals across the entirety of the Land of Fire. That wasn't how it had been where Hinata had come from. Before Itachi Uchiha had killed them all, the military police had solely had jurisdiction within the territory of Konoha itself, which covered the village and several hundred square miles around it. If a criminal had fled beyond that area, the military police would have to work with the Land of Fire's own law enforcement to apprehend them, and could not make arrests without the Daimyo's officers being present. Hinata had learned that along with reams of other government and clan trivia in private lessons when she was young.

But since Fugaku Uchiha had become Hokage, that was no longer the case. Two years ago, the Hyuuga clan had launched an attempted coup, murdered the Hokage, and been scattered and destroyed in return. Fugaku had been elected as the Fifth Hokage, and used his new position at the Daimyo's ear to expand the authority of his clan, pushing the Uchiha clan's power all the way to the borders of Fire and beyond.

Hinata had picked this up in passing as she fled, first west and then north and then, in a moment of either realization or desperation, east. The Land of Fire was happy with the arrangement; though the Uchiha numbered barely more than three-hundred in total, they were spectacular investigators and enforcers, and it was a common opinion (though Hinata had no idea how true it was) that the country was safer than ever, crime decimated by the Sharingan.

It was because the military police could chase after her without regard for jurisdiction that Hinata had been hounded day and night, only ever staying a step or two ahead of them thanks to her Byakugan. She'd nearly been caught twice already and now, hiding in the basement of a laundromat in a small town near the Land of Lightning's borders, she was cornered.

The town was full of police, both military and the Daimyo's own. Hinata watched them from her hiding place as they questioned people, moving from building to building with polite efficiency. Hinata had been careful to move unseen after the scale of the hunt for her had become apparent, but the Uchiha didn't operate alone.

They were being led by Sasuke, and they had a deputy with them. Or maybe two, since Kiba Inazuka never went anywhere without Akamaru.

Seeing Kiba inspired such a strange mixture of feelings that Hinata could only marvel at them as she hid and pondered her situation. Relief, fear, curiosity, jealousy and more; he was apparently good friends with Sasuke in this time, given how they joked and relaxed around each other. Hinata could only dream of how that had happened, but in the face of all the other strangeness it barely registered.

She really couldn't figure out how all this could have happened; her clan's coup, the Uchiha surviving, the military police expanding, there were so many points where things could have changed that Hinata had given up on understanding what could have caused the change.

The new memories she'd received at the end of her first day here had been no help. Curled up in a sweaty ball in a hotel bed, not yet knowing that the staff downstairs had sent a telegram giving away her position, Hinata had remembered a world much the same as her own, except that Orochimaru and Sand had never attacked the Leaf, and Itachi hadn't killed the Uchiha, though he had still left the village for reasons unknown. It was only about four years ago, right before she'd graduated, that things had started to change.

Her father growing colder, the clan greedier; Hinata hadn't been told what was happening until things were happening, and never why. It hadn't made any sense to her.

'The Hyuuga are the greatest in the Hidden Leaf.'

She'd remembered how she'd died.

It was a sick sort of relief for Hinata to know that she, at least, hadn't been a traitor, no matter what the rest of the world thought. However, that barely bandaged the wound of being cut down by her own clan.

The other her hadn't seen who had done it. She'd left her home in the middle of the night, determined to stop her father's ruthless ambitions and warn the Sandaime of what was coming. Naruto would never have been able to respect her if she'd gone along with such a treacherous plan. She'd been trained by the clan as an assassin without her knowledge, forced to master the Vacuum Palm as Hinata never had been in her own world so that she could kill from afar.

She hadn't seen who'd done it, but the sensation of the Gentle Fist driving into her back and bursting her heart like a grape was unmistakable. They'd come from her blind spot, the single miniscule degree of vision that only a Hyuuga could know about. Hinata had fallen, and then she'd been left there shuddering and gasping in an uncomfortable bed, forced to flee not hours later.

Had it been her own father? Who else could have been skilled enough? The dread of the thought chased her as hard as the military police did.

At this point, she almost wanted to turn herself in. Maybe if she did it peacefully, they'd question her with a Yamanaka, and Hinata could prove she wasn't a lunatic. But she felt sure that if she did that she wouldn't be allowed to leave the village for a variety of reasons, and right now Hinata was determined to go east.

Even if this was a completely different world, things were still mostly the same. If she was a fugitive in the Land of Fire, then she'd have to flee the country to be mostly safe.

And the Land of Demons was to the east.

Hinata had no idea what she would find there, but she'd stepped into the Tear willingly because she wanted to find out more about the world. Time traveling like she did gave her an unprecedented advantage in that sort of information gathering. Even if the Land of Demons in this time hadn't drafted an invitation to her, who was to say she couldn't at least find out how they'd known how to in the first place? It was certainly a more promising lead than being interrogated by a village who thought he a traitor who'd help murder the beloved Third Hokage.

But then… it wasn't looking like she'd made it there either. Nothing was going her way. Hinata curled one hand into a fist. Turn herself in, or try and fight her way out? It was feeling like those were her only options.

Then…

In the corner of the basement, space twisted aside.

Hinata froze, sinking further down behind an industrial washer as the military police approached the laundromat; it was one of the only buildings they hadn't checked yet, but Kiba was leading the way with confidence. Did he think he'd finally get to confront her? Was there a conversation he'd never had a chance to have with his Hinata, after she'd been murdered? It hurt her heart to think about, but she couldn't spare more than a moment of speculation.

A man had appeared in the corner of the basement, peeking around with stilted movements. Hinata knew him; she'd met him for the first time relatively recently.

Tobi, of the Akatsuki. He wore the cloak and a swirling orange mask, and had kicked around Naruto with ease when he'd appeared to keep the tracking team from reaching Sasuke. He could teleport, and pass through objects like he wasn't there. Her Byakugan couldn't penetrate the mask, just like last time, and hadn't even seen him coming until he'd suddenly swirled into existence in the basement's corner.

And, Hinata realized with a chill, he definitely knew she was here. How? Why? The man straightened up, looking around and taking in the darkness, and spoke.

"Hyuuga," he said, and Hinata shifted. His voice wasn't like she remembered it. Tobi had been whimsical, goofing off and speaking irreverently even as he had humiliated the tracking team, but this man's voice was deep and dead serious. "I know you're down here. Show yourself; I mean no harm."

Hinata took a deep breath and stood up, watching the man from across the room and measuring the distance to the exit. It was about the same distance for the both of them, but she had a feeling Tobi would cover it faster.

He glanced over at her, and she saw a Sharingan slowly rotating beneath the mask. It was just as Kakashi-sensei had said. Was he an Uchiha, or a thief? Hinata averted her gaze, trying to keep her voice calm.

"How did you find me?" she asked, and Tobi cocked his head.

"That's your first question?" he rumbled. "I only had to follow the police, didn't I?"

A flawless lie; Hinata was sure of it. She narrowed her eyes. Tobi crossed his arms.

"Why are you here?" she continued, and Tobi chuckled.

"Now that surely must be obvious," he said, leaning against an industrial washer. Hinata felt like she was being sized up, but the way Tobi held himself made it obvious the feeling may have been mutual. He wasn't concerned, only aware. "You're an oddity. It's well known that the Hyuuga clan is all but extinct. A survivor like you, coming out in the open? I simply had to meet you; to make you an offer."

"An offer?" Hinata asked. She stiffened. "To join the Akatsuki?"

The idea made her feel sick, but there was a blindingly bright opportunity opening up before her. Hinata's heart sped up at the idea of everything she could learn if she was clever and careful. The Akatsuki was still an enigma to the village. If they were interested in her…

"That is perhaps dramatic. The Akatsuki prefers S-Rank ninja; I don't believe there are any Hyuuga your age that fit the bill." Tobi took a step forward, and Hinata held her ground. "But to exchange information, to perhaps have a chance at vengeance… you know of the Akatsuki, that much is clear. You must then know we could be a powerful ally."

We? Did Tobi have the power to make that kind of offer, or was the Akatsuki just that free-wheeling? He hadn't seemed broken up by Itachi's death, after all, even if they were ostensibly part of the same organization.

"What exactly are you offering?" Hinata asked, trying to give herself Naruto's confidence and her father's poise.

"Do you have time for all that?" Tobi asked with a laugh. "The military police are closing in, and quickly." He was right; they were moving through the building above; Sasuke nudged Kiba and pointed at the hatch leading down to the basement, half hidden behind a counter. Hinata hesitated, and he saw it. "Just say the word, and I'll take you away from here. We could work out the particulars later."

Without time to consider her words carefully and confronted by a crossroad with unknown danger at either end, Hinata stepped forward and spoke with all the determination she could muster. "I will, but only if you take me to Pain," she said, and Tobi stiffened. Then, she continued, like someone bringing a hammer down a second time to finish pounding in a nail. "If I'm going to talk to the Akatsuki, I need to speak with him."

Three seconds, and Tobi said nothing. Had she made a mistake? If it came to a fight, she was sure she could survive long enough to be arrested instead of killed.

Then, to Hinata's relief, Tobi chuckled.

"You're different," he said, stepping forward and extending his hand. Hinata carefully took it as the hatch to the basement opened and someone started to descend. "Offering information like that? You're no ordinary Hyuuga, are you?"

"I'm not," Hinata said, before the world began to drain away before her eyes. She was sucked into an empty space like water swirling down a drain, reality warping in bizarre ways under her Byakugan's all-seeing gaze, and left only her hasty words behind.

"But if you want to find out more, it'll be with Pain."