HA! I fulfilled my end of the bargain, I made this chapter longer. Ahem, anyway, on with the chapter!

I apologize for any and all clerical errors in the last chapter. I do plan on fixing them eventually, but I did not have a beta reader at that moment in time, but I went and found a couple, so there should be less of them in this chapter.

A/N: Can't find a couple, so there my still be errors in this chapter, but there are less.

All reviews that I've received will be answered at the bottom, because I do like to get to the story quickly, as I'm sure you all do as well.

All criticisms, flames, slaps on the back, free food, free money, and/or advice are welcome.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor would I want to…I just would like Hyuuga Hinata to be mine…as long as a certain someone didn't mind of course.

" Spoken "

' Thoughts '

( Random Thoughts )

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Chapter Two: Every Action Has a Reaction

'Father might not like it that I was out so late today but…He shouldn't do anything overly drastic I hope.'

What that semi-comforting thought, Hinata checked one last time to see if Naruto was watching her (both with her normal vision and with that of her Byakuugan) before turning around and walking in the actual direction that she lived. Naturally, that was in no way, shape, or form in the direction of Naruto's apartment, unless you counted walking past his small living space and turning completely around being in the same direction. The Hyuuga manor was actually all the way across town, but Hinata couldn't think of any good reason to go straight home; not when she could walk and chat a little with Naruto-kun.

She intended on going home after Naruto went inside, and was even headed there before she decided that a little discretion was in order. She'd never had to sneak home before, but what if, just what if her Father was angry with her? She shouldn't be attracting attention to herself by trotting along like she was, she should walk like she did at the academy, with the small mousey feeling to it, so no one would pay attention, and therefore, say that she was out of the manor after she should have been. Hinata slowed, and looked downward, and let her hands fidget with each other, so it looked like she was nervous or embarrassed about something.

'I wonder if Naruto was actually telling the truth about why he asked me to lunch. Well, lunch and dinner. We kind of kept talking. He did anyway; I couldn't get up enough courage to talk as much as he did. Maybe he talks when he's nervous instead of not talking? I'll have to ask him about it tom…'

She continued thinking along those lines, attempting to pick apart how Naruto had acted at the ramen shop in some feeble attempt to find some ounce of some hidden feeling in the loud-mouthed shinobi until…

"Ahh!" Hinata let out a small squeak as she walked directly into somebody else wandering about in the bluish twilight.

"Gomen nasai, Gomen nasai. I wasn't watching where I was…"

"But we were. And we were looking for you." whispered the person she had hit, and who hadn't even budged. 'A girl…' Hinata thought, right before she tried to stand up, ignoring the stinging sensation she felt in her palm and on her rear from the hard packed ground. This was when the girl she had hit shoved her back down to the ground, hard.

"Why was a no-talent thing like you put on Team Seven, with our Sasuke-kun?" The voice seemed even more irate now than it had originally for some reason.

More voices were chiming in now, with only two distinct voices coming out of the audible miasma. It was likely that there were more, but Hinata couldn't recognize any of the voices, and she couldn't see the faces.

"Yeah, why do you get to be with him?"

"Why not me? I'm better than you, both in shinobi skills and in looks you baka."

"He probably won't care that you're on his team; both you and that Uzumaki are both weak. "

"He'd probably be better off with someone good-looking, like me."

"Shut up Ino-pig!"

With this new bit of information, Hinata's mind went to work. Hidden under her timid exterior was a mind that rivaled Hyuuga Neji's in speed and accuracy of the thoughts that were produced within.

'Ah, so two of my assailants are Yamanaka Ino and Haruno Sakura. Both are girls after Sasuke's heart and are bitter rivals over the fact. I have no idea which one of them decided that it would be better if they were enemies. So, with that fact, only Sakura would call Ino, the only Ino in our class, 'Ino-pig'. But the rest…they're probably just other girls who love Sasuke; well, love is probably too strong of a word, like is better. I bet none of them even know what love truly is. I know because I love Naruto, even if I can probably never say it to his face, I still know that I do.'

Surprising how close that was in reality, as there were actually one or two girls who actually only liked Sasuke, and knew it, but the rest were convinced that they were completely in love with the mysterious Uchica. And it was a sure bet that, had Hinata stayed conscious, that she would have managed to correctly identify every person in the small mob, but she was struck from behind something long, hard, and probably metal. Sinking into unconsciousness, her last thought was,

'Naruto-kun…did you have a good time tonight?'

Meanwhile, at Naruto's apartment

After saying good night to Hinata, Naruto opened the door of his vaguely clean apartment. I mention vaguely clean simply because he didn't have enough stuff to make an extraordinary mess with. He had a bed, a couch, and the necessary kitchen stuffs to make minor meals for himself; pretty much just what he needed to survive. The dirtiest rooms in the entire place would have been his bedroom and his kitchen; both of them had dirty dishes strewn about wherever Naruto had finished eating. Looking around from the door, he sighed, and walked in. He stumbled over to his couch and threw some of the crap off of it and onto the floor before he sat, and let the events of that day run through his head.

'Why did Hinata seem so nervous today? Did she not want to come and eat with me or something? Maybe she doesn't really like ramen and didn't want to offend me…nah, no one would try to not offend me. Maybe she was worried about her parents and getting into trouble. We did stay kind of long at the shop.'

'Why did you ask her to eat with you? Iruka was going to treat you to ramen tonight anyway because of your rise to the Genin level. So why blow him off for Hyuuga Hinata? A weird, plain girl?'

'Well…we're going to be on the same Team, and I didn't know much about her, so I figured then was as good of a time as ever. You never know when knowledge like that might help, especially on missions. I can't wai…'

'Then why not ask Uchica Sasuke? He's on your Team as well.'

'He left before I could ask him though…'

'No he didn't, and you know it. You could have stopped him before he left. I think I should rephrase the question then. Was wanting to get to know her better the only reason that you invited her?'

'Huh?'

'Never mind.'

Thoroughly confused now, Naruto stood up and stretched a little before going over to the window to look out before he changed and went to bed. It was an old ritual to him, as he could see Hokage Mountain out the window, and envision his face on it. He saw the mountain, but he also saw a group of girls walking along the street and gossiping with each other.

'Strange,' Naruto thought. 'One of them is limping and another's being carried by the rest. Oh well, I'll ask Hinata about it tomorrow.'

Naruto kept watching them and, as they passed under one of the street lamps, he noticed something frightening. The limping girl was Sakura-chan, but the girl being carried, unconscious, with what looked like blood matting her hair to her head and with more dripping out of her mouth and onto her ripped sweatshirt and down her arms to her bound hands, was Hyuuga Hinata. Immediately his mind went into a deep confusion. Hinata had obviously been beaten by people, but the group down there had Sakura-chan in it, and surely she wouldn't hurt another person from Konohagakure.

'She had to have done it though…there's simply no other explanation. Go help Hinata.'

Following his own advice, Naruto opened his window and leaped, not caring about landing, but simply leaping into the air to land, kneeling, in front of the girls. The group, 'Lead by Ino.' Naruto noticed, came to a halt, with some of the people in the back wondering why they had all stopped.

"Why did you do this?" Naruto snarled at them. "How could you hurt another person of this village and then not care? Answer me!"

A kunai flashing towards him was his answer. Deftly catching it, he pocketed it while looking for the person who threw it, not wanting to know the truth.

"Give my Kunai back you loser."

Sakura-chan. It had to be Sakura who had thrown the blade, aiming to kill, at him. Why was fate so cruel? Why did it have to be the one that he loved? Wait, scratch that, thought that he loved. She called him a loser, and had attempted to kill him off in the street, hadn't she? She is unfit for his love. Shaking his head, he resolved to break down about it later; he had a job to do right now.

"What do you mean no? I said give it back." By this time Sakura was limping towards him, ignoring Ino's warning hand gesture. "It's mine, so you shouldn't keep it. It'd be stealing."

Naruto's heart had frozen when the kunai came flashing towards him. He'd regret it later, but for now…

"Okay." He uttered as he rose to his feet, pulled out her kunai, and slung it at her, piercing the ground and one of her zori as it landed with enough force to actually sink into the rock hard dirt. "Take it then. And then leave Hinata. We have a mission tomorrow, and our entire Team need to be there, and in good health. So she needs treatment, and none of you can be trusted with giving it to her."

Hinata stirred in her nightmares, most involving Naruto in some way shape or form. In some he saved her, in some he fought her, in some he killed her; those were the worst. Even if she wasn't likely to remember them when she woke up, they were still terrible. She struggled to get away from them, but to no avail, she simply sunk in deeper.

"Didn't you hear me? Please set her down and leave here. I can recognize three or four of you, so I can always go and tell some of the Jounin about this…"

Understanding the threat of the elite shinobi, the girls muttered amongst themselves for a moment while Naruto, fuming the entire time, stood implacably in the road at the edge of the light. Sakura, however, was lost for words, or anything else really, after watching him warn her with the kunai, knowing full well that if he had aimed just a little bit further up, it wouldn't be at the unused toe of her zori, it would be imbedded in her ankle, no, sticking through and into her zori.

Ino finally spoke for the girls. "How do we know that you won't simply tell them anyway?"

"You have my word as a shinobi of Konohagakure Village. And I won't take it back. That's my ninja way."

She nodded as she gestured to the rest of the girls to set the beaten Hyuuga down. Then, taking Sakura's hand, breaking her shock, she dragged her away, down the street, and the rest of the girls dispersed, muttering all the while. The only things Naruto caught were 'Sasuke-kun', 'taught her', and 'next time'. The fury that had boiled in Naruto before from seeing Hinata's limp and bloody form was nothing compared to what was felt when he bellowed out a final warning to the retreating kunoichi.

"If any of you ever think of telling anybody about this deal, or even consider doing it again, then I will personally hunt each of you down and remove an ear, or a pet, or someone valuable to you, and you will never see it again. This I promise you all as well." With his final words, the mob of kunoichi decided that it would be a far better idea to run away, rather than saunter away.

When they were all away, Naruto went over to the kunai in the ground, and pulled it out and put it in his pouch. Then we walked over to Hinata and grimaced at what he saw. Her bloody head, the blood dried on the side of her mouth, the various bruises that were beginning to show all over her body, the cuts from shuriken and kunai. He almost vomited at the viciousness of that…pack. Tired, he still knew enough to not have a 2 man Team, so he gently picked her up, and stumbled off towards the Konoha Hospital, so that Hinata could be treated. She didn't wake up once, even when Naruto stumbled and fell, dropping her onto the ground. All she did was groan a little.

'Come on, just a little bit further.'

After about an hour of stumbling, tripping, falling (usually on his back, so prevent her from even more injury, as well as to avoid opening the semi-fresh ones), and growing steadily more tired, Naruto and his fallen Team member made it to the Hospital. He was barely able to get to the doors and get them open before falling again on his back, and screaming for help.

"HELP! PLEASE, SOMEBODY…anybody…help her." His final words were spoken as he lay, panting for breath, his vision swimming with blackness and medical-nins. He passed out lying on the floor.

Later…time unknown

Naruto sat straight up, weariness gone, as it usually was, no matter how hard he had trained the day before. But what remained was a worry that Sakura and her cronies had almost killed another Genin from the same village. It made him sick to his stomach, so he rolled out of his…bed? He didn't remember being put into a bed. Or of obtaining all of the injuries that he obviously had, if the number of bandages covering him were any measure. He stumbled out of the bed and made it to the bathroom and had used it. After relieving himself, he removed the bandages, revealing that he was wearing a white long sleeved shirt and shorts.

'Probably because my other clothes were dirty or something.' he told himself. He looked in the mirror before leaving the bathroom, revealing a clean face with a few scrapes and scratches still, his usually messy blonde hair, and clear azure eyes, still a touch foggy with sleep. Grinning a sly grin, he left the bathroom, just in time to see a nurse frantically searching the room.

"Where did he go? He was here just a few minute ago, he couldn't have left in that amount of time, there's just no way." She was muttering, looking under the bed before noticing him standing near the bathroom with a devilish grin plastered across his face. "There you are, you shouldn't be out of bed yet, you were rather…erm…beaten up. Never mind. I guess. Must have just been the dirt that made it look worse than it actually was."

"Forget me." Naruto's face turned serious. "Where's my friend?"

"She's still in the emergency wing. She should actually be ready to go, but the hurts that were inflicted upon her were…grievous to say the least. The clothes that you brought her here in were almost completely destroyed, so we got her some new ones from the stores and put her family crest on those. She seemed worried about you however. Sure you're just friends?"

Naruto's face turned got a contemplative look on it. "Last I checked. We barely graduated from the Academy and we had just been put on the same Team. Where is the emergency?"

"Down the hall and on your…" the nurse held up her hands in an 'L' shape before saying, "left. Yeah, last door on your left."

"Thanks ma'am." Naruto bowed quickly before leaving his room, wincing slightly at cuts that seemed to have been earned from his shuriken pouch being fell upon several times. It seemed that those had not healed fully. They would in time however, he knew that much. As progressed down the halls of the hospital, feeling slightly ill; hospitals had that effect on him.

He reached the door of the emergency and found the desk and asked for "Hyuuga Hinata's room please." This earned him a secretive grin from the female clerk, who directed him towards room 43. He thanked her, and hunted down room 43 and knocked softly a few times.

Kakashi, their new sensei, answered the door. "Yes? Ah, Naruto. Come in, come in. Heard that two of my Team had fallen into the hospital, both bleeding from wounds, and collapsed in the lobby; needless to say, the mission for today was been cancelled until Hinata-san gets better."

Naruto nodded in understanding before slipping inside the room, under Kakashi's arm, and spotted Hinata lying under the pristine white sheets, a contrast to her cream skin, even paled as it was.

"N-Naru…"

"Shh…you shouldn't be talking Hinata-san. You'll get better faster. He was the one who brought you here this morning." said Kakashi. At this Naruto jumped.

"This morning?"

"I thought you knew Naruto. It's two in the afternoon after all. I wondered where you both were when I showed up to the meeting. Sasuke's currently attempting to climb trees using one arm and one leg." Kakashi paused for a chuckle before continuing. "When he learns how to climb like that, he'll only get his arm. Should be entertaining. I'll go check on him." As he left Hinata's room, he pulled out a small book, Ichi Ichi Paradise, Vol 2, from his back pocket, and started to blush as he weaved past the nurses, who looked at him strangely before giggling.

"How are you feeling Hinata?" he asked, his voice having a little ramble in it for some peculiar reason, but to no avail. Hinata had already slipped back into slumber. Naruto shrugged, and decided to sit and wait for her to wake up on her own.

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Wow, five reviews, and all of them positive. Too bad no one offered me money. Oh well, I'll answer all that need answering here.

Scorpio V1.2: I like to think it's cool, but I wrote it, so I have to think that, eh? I'll try not to have it be too long before they hook up, but it has to be believable, doesn't it? It will, however, be a while (one or two chapters) before anything happens, period.

Julian Amici: Thanks for the compliment, I got tired of crappily written fics, so I promised myself I'd write a good one. As for Iruka being a Jounin in my story, well…Let's just say that he's a Jounin and not a Chuunin. I always thought he should have been a Jounin in any case. As for the Writers Block Demon, have no fears, I can always go off on a quick Omake or something, or go to Sasuke and Sakura or something.

Xoni Newcomer: Thanks for the very nice review. I noticed that her arguing with herself was a bit confusing, but I figured that it might be on of the reasons of why she was so timid before; she over thought things. I tried to be realistic, but I don't think it worked that well myself. Naruto talking with himself works though…for reasons everyone is aware of (I hope). Naruto and Hinata keep becoming more and more OOC as this goes along, but Naruto is still all about being kind to his few friends. And I totally forgot I made it for signed only…I'll change that.

All other reviews: Thanks for the compliments, and I will work hard to try to bring a chapter every week or two.

'Till next time

Drahylin Estollcri