Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto the end.
Call It Fate: Part III
Tapping sounds of someone's shoes on the pavement drew her out of the trance.
Hinata straightened herself warily back up, in her clumsiness, knocking over her crutch. She blinked blearily and yawned.
Darn, she must've slept staring at the sun again.
The sitting position of the park benches wasn't the most comfortable thing either. Her neck hurt.
"Hey, Hinata!"
A voice to her right spoke up as it seated next to her, picking up her fallen crutch.
"Ah, hello Sakura."
The pink haired girl smiled warmly at her friend; "It's a nice day, ne?"
Hinata nodded numbly, wondering how long she had been asleep out in the park after lunch with Naruto and Ino.
"Your…leg…I hope you get better."
"Ah?" She looked down at the glaring white cast; "It'll heal soon."
It was such an obnoxious color.
Like her eyes.
She hated her eyes…
Hinata gazed at Sakura, why couldn't she have pretty green eyes like that? Or blue?
Blue, like that guy, Gaaras'.
Naruto had given her a full summary of what happened…ten years ago…
And then she had the relapse.
Gosh, it had been so long ago, she had forgotten.
Gaara had been the one in the Forest of Death that she had spied on. She had missed out on his two other fights though.
As she traced it back now, he did look the same as he had ten years ago. Funny, how she just couldn't remember him.
He was scary then.
Still scary now too…but…he was pretty cute now anyway. Maybe she had been too caught up on Naruto then to notice.
"…Neji?"
Her cousin's name snapped her out of the thoughts.
"Neji?!" She exclaimed.
Immediately, Sakura blushed.
Hinata didn't quite get it. All she heard was 'Neji'.
"Ah, could you repeat your question?"
"Oh!" Sakura blushed a deeper red color, "Like…how is Neji?"
"How is Neji?" Hinata repeated stupidly. The sun must've fried her brains as she sat out there sleeping, but why in the world would Sakura ask about her cousin's wellbeing? Neji never cared about anyone else.
She glanced back at the pink-haired woman, who was blushing.
"I…I haven't seen him in awhile."
Then it hit her.
She covered her mouth to avoid the big 'O' right in front of Sakura's face, "Y-You guys are going out?!"
Sakura jerked her head away from the fountain to her right.
"NO! I-I mean, no…I was just wondering!"
"Oh."
Hinata shrugged. She wasn't that stupid, she knew that Sakura had given up on Sasuke a while ago. Maybe moving on to Neji wasn't exactly the best thing, but at least Sakura wasn't moping around anymore. Hinata felt kind of sorry for Lee though. Still luckless with Sakura.
"He's fine, I guess. I…haven't seen him in awhile either."
Sakura's face faltered, "Oh…"
"W-We…could go visit him right now, if you want!"
Surprised by her ingenious plan, Hinata stood abruptly up, forgetting about her broken leg and crutch.
Immediately, she started to topple over.
Sakura made a move to catch her, but instead, as she as she tilted towards the ground, she was thrown back onto the bench.
"Ah-!"
A snort could be heard from behind.
"Che, you should be more careful."
Both women turned around to face a dark-haired man.
"N-Neji-niisan!"
"Neji-kun!"
They both exclaimed at the same time.
"Che, who were you going to visit?"
Hinata looked at Sakura, who in return stared at Hinata back. Her cousin really unnerved her sometimes.
"U-Uh…" Sakura's mind drew a blank.
Neji adjusted his gaze over to the pink-haired woman as she gave him a nervous smile.
Until Hinata's voice broke through.
"Um…it's okay, Sakura! I-I can go by…myself!"
She made ready to stand up, this time reaching for her crutch first.
"Y-You can entertain Neji-niisan here. There's no point for both of us to go!"
Neji frowned, "Go where?"
"V-Visit someone…?"
Hinata sounded unsure herself as she answered him.
"Who?"
"Ah…Visit…"
She couldn't say Naruto—she was just with him and Ino, she didn't know Lee that well either…Kiba and Shino were off in a scouting mission today.
"Er, Sasuke-kun! I-I heard that he was injured the other day!"
Neji's eyes narrowed and he turned away from her, snorting.
"That bastard is fine. You don't have to visit him. He should visit you."
"Ah…?"
She knew he was fine…she also knew that Neji still hated him. Hinata prayed that Neji wouldn't pursue the topic further.
Neji shook his head, "Whatever, I don't care."
With that, Hinata limped away slowly, turning back to wink at a petrified Sakura.
"BYE!"
"A place to stay?" Tenten scowled, "They're staying here?"
Shikamaru nodded, "That's Tsunade-sama's orders."
He turned to the three that stood in the far off distance from the rest of the group.
"Oi," He called out, catching their attention at once, "The Hokage is busy right now, she's arranged a place for you to stay temporarily though."
Temari nodded numbly, "Thank you."
So they had a place to hide for awhile. She turned to look at Gaara.
He seemed to look unfazed by it.
He's been in his own little world since the talk with Sasuke…She bit her lip.
I hope he doesn't do anything rash again…
"Sasuke will take you there." He turned to nod at a disgruntled man behind him.
Sasuke grunted in response as he motioned for them to follow him through the gate.
The streets were pretty messy. Probably from the somewhat siege they had before they were ordered by emergency to retreat.
But that was only the outside rim near the gates. As they proceeded further in, it was like nothing had really happened much.
Sasuke stopped in front of a two-story building. He turned to them and placed the keys in Temari's hands.
"It's the one on the top right, down the way."
She nodded in response as Kankuro and Gaara had already climbed up the stairs. Temari looked up to thank him, only to lock eyes, his dark hair falling over his handsome face. She wanted to reach up and brush it away so she could see his eyes more clearly.
"U-Uh…"
"It's better if you guys stay out of sight for awhile." He whispered to her. She could feel his breath tickle her ear as he bent down to her height.
"H-Huh?"
In a wisp of smoke, he disappeared from beside her.
"Ino-channnn!!"
"Ah, quit whining!"
Naruto whimpered but figured that they would get past it faster if he shut up.
He glanced over at his girlfriend, who seemed to be enjoying herself picking outfits out from the rack.
Geez, how boring…
Her long blond hair was tied loosely in a ponytail behind her.
He grinned, stalking up behind her, he yanked it.
"OW! NARUTO!"
Quickly, he grabbed a random outfit out of the rack.
"How 'bout this one? Ne? Ne?" He wanted to finish as fast as possible.
Ino rubbed the back of her head sorely before turning to him, death of Naruto in mind.
But it all stopped there, once she saw what was in his hand.
"EW! That's the WORST color-coordination I've ever seen!"
"Eh?"
He turned to the shirt in his hand. Green and orange seemed fine to him. Well, at least orange. He never really liked green that much.
Gai…He shuddered at that thought.
But if orange was a GOOD color, and green was a BAD color…they should balance each other out, right? Mostly when the good color (orange) dominated the bad color (green) on the shirt!
"She's right, dobe. That is hideous."
Both heads whipped to the side where the new voice came from.
"GAH, what do you want!?"
Sasuke shrugged, stepping up, he pulled a random outfit out.
"That's so cute!!" Ino grabbed it right away, "I'll be right back!"
As Ino disappeared into the changing room, Naruto crossed his arms.
"Now, what do you want? Hina-chan isn't here."
Ino was now over the whole Sasuke-kun fetish, but that still doesn't mean Sasuke didn't bother Naruto. Mostly when Naruto knew that Sasuke liked his best friend.
Sasuke shook his head, "I'm not here to ask you that." His voice lowered.
"Three Sand nins are staying here under Tusnade-sama's consent."
"WHAT?! SA—"
Sasuke whapped him over the head, "Shut up, dead-last. You want everyone to know? This is highly classified."
"Fine, fine. Why are they here?"
"I don't know, they had a message to deliver to Tsunade-sama, and she gave them authorization to stay here. For what reason, I don't know. But you and me were put to watch out for anything suspicious."
"Oh. Heh, don't worry! Just leave everything to me!"
"Dumbass, it's Kankuro, Temari, and Gaara!"
"EH?! They're back?!"
"Apparently."
"Hey!" Ino walked up to them, "Thanks for the help, Sasuke-kun!"
Naruto held up the light blue shirt with a white collar, "What's so great about this?"
Ino grabbed it back, "It's better than yours!"
"Is not! It's so…so DULL!"
"Well, yours was BLINDING!"
"Was not! It was EYE-CATCHING!"
Sasuke cleared his throat, "I'm going to find Hinata." He gave them a quick nod.
"Bye!" Ino waved to him happily.
"Whatever." Naruto snorted.
"Remember, Naruto."
"Yea, yea."
Hinata sighed, wiping the sweat from her forehead.
Gosh, it's hot today
Lugging around her immobile foot around the village looking for a place to eat wasn't exactly the easiest thing to do.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Get in already!"
She glanced up at the voice standing on the stairs of an apartment complex.
Her eyes widened. A certain patch of red hair caught her eyes.
What are they doing here? What is he doing here?
They haven't noticed her, and she decided to move along as if nothing happened. She'll ask the others later.
Before out of sight, she turned around, stealing a glance back.
As if on cue, Gaara turned around and gazed right in her direction.
His blue eyes locked with hers. She didn't want to look away, but his gaze was starting to freak her out. He hadn't blinked a single time when he was locking eyes with her.
Whipping her head back to the road, she limped away as fast as she could, not glancing back to the eyes that followed her movements.
"Ne, Gaara?"
He tore his gaze away from the retreating girl and faced his sister.
"Come on."
He silently followed Temari into the small apartment.
It was her again. Hinata.
He'll be able to see her again…
End: Part III
YAY! Part III is now finished! Well, the pairings are all decided.
Wanna guess the pairings? I've made up my mind, and I'm not going to say except that this ficcie WILL stay Gaara/Hinata, despite how it's swaying towards right now…
Well, sorry for that loong update, been so busy with my SATs and AP testing, and throw in the STAR testing too just to screw everything else up further. In other words, my brain was just frazzled. Oo…could barely think straight afterwards.
Other random news, I will have another Sasuke/Hinata thing out soon, courtesy for natszumi1107, who thinks there should be more of that pairing around. Maybe a Fruits Basket one too, for all those who know that anime/manga, Hatsuharu is MINEEEEE!! cackles …well, that's bout it.
Thanx everyone who reviewed!
Ame