There shouldn't be many, if any, errors in that last Chapter. Thank you oh mighty beta reader, (I only have one…and he's a pain to get a hold of).

Bear with me with the next few chapters…math is being evil, so I'll be updating maybe every other week, depends on how hard I work on my grade. That and my Naruto DVDs are coming in soon so…updates my get longer in between.

All reviews that I've received for the last chapter that need answering I'll answer 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 Three: Wishful Thinking

It was now 9 at night, and Naruto was starting to get worried. True, Hinata had woken up earlier when he first came in, but since then, she hadn't moved at all.

'I wish Hinata would wake up…I don't really want one of my friends, especially a new friend, to have to stay in the hospital.'

Several times the nurses had come in to check on Hinata, and he fervently watched the nurses work each time, as if that would allow Hinata to wake up sooner than normal. Each time the nurses comforted him, and told him that his girlfriend would be all right, she was just tired, that was all. Each time he responded that she wasn't his girlfriend, to which the nurses simply smiled and told him of course she wasn't, before leaving them alone again.

'Can I truly forgive those…girls… for what they did to Hinata?'

'Good question, can you really forgive them? Or will you harbor hatred in your heart from now until you die, just over their one action?'

'They hurt one of my friends. I just don't know if I can go back to talking to Sakura or Ino; never mind the fact that they never talked to me in the first place.'

'Then don't Naruto. Ignore them. It will hurt them, even if they didn't like you in the first place; they'll miss the attention, Sakura most of all.'

'But…maybe they didn't mean to...'

'Heheheh.'

'What's so funny?'

'Nothing boy. Nothing whatsoever.'

Naruto was kind of startled at the fact that he called himself boy. He'd never do that...Wait! Hinata was…struggling in her sleep. At least she was moving…

Hinata's Mind

"No! Please stop! Let me go!" Hinata was screaming at the group of kunoichi after recovering from the blow she had received before. She was being carried like a prize that they had all won, one person holding onto her wrists, another holding onto her ankles so that she was dangling about three, four feet off of the ground. She writhed in their grasps, attempting to get free before she realized that escape was possible at any moment in time, simply by virtue of her blood. She gathered chakra in her hands and feet before releasing it into her captors' hands chakra coils, burning them so that they would let her go.

'Not the best idea in the world, but it worked.' She thought as she landed, knocking the wind out of her. The girls that she had burned were busy screaming and rubbing their burnt palms against their thighs in a futile effort to cool them. Hinata was satisfied to know that the chakra damage that she had caused in their hands would heal after a few minutes, leaving no lasting damage behind. Even if they had knocked her out, she truly wished no real harm on them. The burns would simply stop them from using their hands for anything until it wore off. She started to get up, getting to a kneeling position before…

One of them, 'Sakura by the voice' Hinata thought, screamed at her.

"BITCH!"

Sakura had evidently assigned to watch Hinata to make sure that she remained out cold. Failing that, she dashed over to Hinata's kneeling form, and kicked her as hard as she coiuld in the stomach. Hinata grunted as she flew a couple of feet away before landing in a crumpled heap.

Sakura started to saunter towards her, speaking to her. "First you steal our Sasuke-kun, now you try to hurt us. When will you learn baka? You are going to punished for your transgression, no matter what you try to do." She reached Hinata's shuddering form and decided that it would be a good idea to punish her a little now, to show her what she in for later. So she once again kicked Hinata in her stomach, hard;

'For Sasuke-kun!' and then again, 'For Ino!', and again 'For your Team leader, and for anyone who has had to put up with a worthless being such as yourself.', until Hinata was coughing up blood onto the ground.

"Sakura, stop!"

"Not a chance Ino-pig. You know what she did."

The rest of the girls started to plead with Sakura to please stop, stop before she killed Hinata. Their pleads fell on deaf ears, however, as Sakura grinned an evil grin, and turned to kick Hinata once more, 'For Sasuke-kun, again!' ,and would have knocked her unconscious had her zori actually connected with Hinata's head.

Unfortunately for Sakura, Hinata had decided that it was a life and death situation now, and that she didn't feel like dying. Hinata had drawn upon her Clan's personal Taijutsu, the Gentle Fist style. Her Byakuugan activated, she saw the foot's chakra move start to swing towards her and blocked it with one hand, using the momentum to flip herself into the air to land on her feet. She noticed Sakura's chakra coils start to move in a way that suggested that Sakura was nervous now, very nervous.

"Not so brave when your opponent is standing, now are you Sakura? Besides, I didn't ask to be put on Team Seven with Sasuke, it just happened. I don't particularly like him at all actually." Not actually telling the half-truth was one of Hinata's best talents. It had gotten her out of trouble several times before with her Father, who could tell, with his own Byakuugan, if she was lying or not.

'Father's not going to be happy when I make it home.'

Sakura moved suddenly, sprinting towards the ready Hinata, forgetting that she had shuriken and kunai at all. Hinata blocked the oncoming fist with a chakra-laden hand, relieving Sakura of its usefulness. A few more hands, which softly brushed against her chest, caused Sakura to stumble. Hinata glanced at the fallen kunoichi before kneeling down and placing her hands over the chakra coils in Sakura's leg. The rest of the group, first recovering from Hinata actually waking up, and then from the alacrity of the brutal fight, muttered and began to advance on the Hyuuga, who leaned into Sakura's ear, to pass on a secret it seemed, although that definitely wasn't the case.

"Since you like to kick those who are down, here's a tip…don't do it." Hissed the strange voice, so unlike Hinata's usual tone. The voice sounded like a whispering banshee; it was so full of uncharacteristic malice. Hinata grinned as her chakra flowed from her hands and into Sakura's leg, almost severing the thick coils. As she had left them, the leg couldn't hold Sakura's weight for very long for a good 6 months. It was akin to breaking her leg, but without the mess. After all, in a life and death fight, Hinata still didn't wish permanent harm on them.

The pain, however, was still akin to a broken femur, but, instead of screaming, which Sakura knew would wake up some of the nearby neighbors, she simply clamped her mouth shut, and glared at Hinata, who started to have second thoughts about injuring her this severely.

'Maybe I shouldn't have done that…at least now she won't do it again, to me or to anybody else. Perhaps I should have tried talking to her instead or something.'

The rest of the girls had finally advanced to within a few feet of Hinata, who rose from next to Sakura to look at them. Then the enormity of what Hinata had said before sank into them, and they all looked at her with varying degrees of shock and disbelief on their faces. Ino decided that she was still the spokesman of the group, especially now that her hands had stopped hurting.

"You said you don't even like Sasuke? Then do you want to switch teams with me?"

"Or me!"

"Pick my team to be on!"

"No, mine!"

"Ah!" was Hinata's reply, stumbling back a bit from the overeager girls. "No, no, I want to stay on Team Seven."

"Oh really? came the voices of the gossip hungry pack.

"Then do you like the other boy? Uzumaki Naruto I think his name is…" Ino's question somehow managed to break out of the ceaseless chatter and silenced the entire group all at the same time. Hinata simply stood and started to blush a bit before commenting.

"I-it's not like that; I-Iruka-sensai p-put us all on t-the teams so that we'd all be a-about equal in str-strength, so we should k-keep them that w-way."

"Ohhhh. Maybe we shouldn't have done this then." was the general consensus of the crowd of kunoichi. Most used different words, but that was what it wall boiled down to. Except for Sakura, who was attempting to get to her feet, well, foot, and stand. Finally getting there, but being unable to even touch the ground with her chakra-less leg, she scowled.

"Perhaps we shouldn't have done this, but perhaps you shouldn't have screwed with my leg and Ino's hands. We're going to make you pay for it wench, aren't we?"

A muttering was Sakura's only answer, so being impatient, she chucked a shuriken back into the group, nailed one girl in the chest. She stumbled a little while the entire group stared at the injury their de facto leader had caused.

"I said aren't we, so answer!" was her low growl towards them all. The girls were all thinking that maybe they should have spent tonight having a sleepover or something else less harmless, like stealing the Hokage's hat.

"Are we going to let this brat get away with what she's done to me?" Sakura raised one of her hands to show the dirt encrusted on it from her fall, and then to her face, which was in much of he same way, and then to her leg, hanging limply below her. Sakura wasn't dumb though, she was already having her chakra repair the damage done. She should be able to place some weight on it in a little bit, but beyond that it would have to heal normally, or else she might damage the coils. Although she couldn't see them, she knew they were there still.

"Are we girls? She ended up with Sasuke on her Team, so what? I say we simply remove her from our Sasuke-kun and that totally useless, noisy orphan Naruto."

The assemblage agreed more out of fear of her rather than wanting to do anything to Hinata.

"Good. Now then…" turning to Hinata, Sakura grinned. "What shall the punishment be? Oh! I know! This!" Sakura pulled and threw a kunai at Hinata, hitting her in the shoulder, before throwing one that hit her leg.

"Come on you baka! Throw things at her, just don't get close enough, or she might kill you."

Then, again out of fear, each girl took up a kunai or a shuriken, and aimed carefully and threw it so that they only caused superficial wounds, albeit bloody ones, or so that the kunai's handle hit Hinata instead of the deadly blade. Sakura didn't notice this as she kept throwing all of her kunai and shuriken at Hinata, hitting her everywhere; arms, legs, torso, didn't matter to Sakura as she let each potentially lethal bit of metal fly. Eventually Hinata couldn't stand the pain, and fell to her knees, which caused one of the girl's kunai, which would have hit her chest with it's handle and done nothing due to the sweatshirt, to hit her in the forehead instead, and knocked Hinata backwards onto her back. She knew no more as the world turned black.

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"Phew." said Sakura, no then, let's tie up her hands so she can't use them against us if she wakes up again. Or I'll make sure she doesn't wake up again." She stalked over to Hinata's prone and bloody form and began methodically pulling out her weapons, as well as those of the other girls, and tossed the ones not belonging to her back to them. Producing a rope out of one of her leg pouch and then going to the numb Ino and taking her rope, went and tied Hinata's hands several times.

"There Sakura, now let's take her to the Hospital. She does need treatment." came Ino's pleading argument.

"Fine Ino-pig, let's fix up the little wench." Sakura gestured to Hinata's unconscious form and to the girls, pantomiming that they should all carry her, so she couldn't perform a repeat of her actions again. Frightened, the girls did as bidden, leaving Ino and Sakura to lead the way, figuring that Ino could best handle a very pissed off Sakura, given their time as friends/rivals.

'That'll teach her to screw with the Team dossier.' was Sakura's thought.

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Hinata stirred in her sleep in her hospital bed, before opening her eyes wide in shock, first thinking that she was bleeding from a dozen or more wounds, and then hoping that the events of…yesterday? had not actually happened. Her eyes were greeted with darkness, so Hinata reached over, felt out a light, and turned it on. One look at her body told a different story; people usually don't put a healthy person in the hospital with bandages.

'Did they bring me here?' she wondered. A small snoring sound coming from one of the semi-darkened corners caused her to bolt straight up, fully alert, and then to fall back down with a muffled moan of pain caused by the unhealed cuts and bruises.

The snoring continued unabated however, telling Hinata that one of her Clan's member's had come to watch over her while she stayed in the hospital.

'Or they're watching over the Byakuugan.' she thought. 'Either way, it was sweet of them to have someone stay overnight. They must have done some fairly convincing arguing to get to stay in my room if nothing else.' Hinata smiled at the form against the wall before leaning back in her bed and closing her eyes once again, this time, hopefully to dream of better things.

The next morning

Naruto yawned as he woke before attempting to roll out of his futon, which he quickly discovered he wasn't in when he hit the wall, face-first.

"Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow." he held his nose as he rolled around for a moment, before the events of the previous two days came rushing back to him, stopping him with their enormity. Team Seven being declared. Eating and talking with Hinata. Saving Hinata from the pack of kunoichi. Visiting the hospital. Falling asleep waiting for Hinata to wake up.

Other thoughts in his head now, he get up to his feet to check on Hinata again.

'At least this time she's not thrashing around in her sleep like she did last night…' he thought, vividly remembering her frantic motions as she attempted to get away from something. He had to call in the nurses to make sure that she didn't hurt herself. He was a little frightened still over Hinata and what those…harlots had done. Naruto still had no idea why they would do such a thing. Or why Sakura would do something like that.

'It still makes no sense, Sakura wouldn't do something like that. She's not that violent of a person.'

A stirring on the bed brought him out of his contemplation of Sakura's reasoning. He strolled over to the bed and looked at Hinata's sleeping face.

'She is quite attractive…wait, why did I think that? No matter, it is true. It's pretty cool to have a beautiful friend.'

'Heheheheheheh.'

'Why are you laughing?' Naruto had decided that it couldn't have been him thinking half the time, he never would think of laughing at himself in his head. He did that out loud and at full volume.

'I'm just laughing because you have no clue do you?'

'Clue about what?'

'A clue about your comrade there Naruto.'

'What are you saying?'

'You'll figure it out eventually. And if you don't, then I still won't help you.'

'Baka.'

Slowly Hinata's eyes opened and looked into Naruto's cerulean ones.

Shocked, Naruto thought, 'Wow, Hinata's eyes aren't white, they have…purple in them? No…it's lavender or something. Huh…things you didn't know.' What he said, however, was, "Hey Hinata, how are you feeling?"

It was Hinata's turn to be shocked now. 'Naruto? Why's he here? Wait, he's wearing the hospital's clothes. He must have been hurt last night somehow…was he the one who brought me here? But if he was, then how did he manage to convince them to let him stay in my room?' But Hinata didn't actually say anything, she was too happy that Naruto had watched over her that she couldn't. All she could do was nod.

"Good, glad to hear that you're better. I'm going to get out of here though, 'cause my own clothes are way more comfortable than these." With that he stood up and gave Hinata a genuine smile before turning to leave.

"N-naruto, wait, pl-please." Her voice was soft, but he still managed to pick it up, and so he turned and came back to her side. Blushing a deep crimson, she slowly placed one of her hands over one of Naruto's and gave it a small squeeze. "Could y-you c-come back l-later Naruto?"

"Sure Hinata, no problem."

"T-thanks."

"Yeah, gotta go now though, See you later, and get better quick, all right?"

"I'll try." Was the last thing Naruto heard before he left her room and then, shortly thereafter, the Hospital. He had to go find out why Sakura did what she did, and to apologize for the kunai incident and return it to her. This task in mind, Naruto walked off to his house, striding confidently in his white clothes.

'Wow, Hinata's hands are soft.'

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Fear the cliffhangers! Well, this isn't really a cliffhanger, but it's kinda close.

Okay, so I got a lot of reviews this time, didn't I? I love it, and I like all of you. Let's review; love the reviews, like all of you.

Oh, and I NEED BETA READERS! I'd like if I could ask AlphaC, Xoni Newcomer, and Scorpio V1.2 if I could recruit them as beta readers for this fan fiction. If any or all of you three want the job, it's yours. E-mail me or say it in the reviews and I'll e-mail you. It's hard getting a hold of the people I know around here and have them do it, although it is possible, it's just harder than hell.

Onto the reviews!

Squirrelnoshi: How much money could you send? Just kidding, thanks for the offer though.

Nonengel: You'll just have to find out, eh? Should be in the next chapter or so.

JohnnyG: They will…next chapter.

Scorpio V1.2: I actually DID take my time with the chapters…I just write a lot, and now that it's focused, I'm cranking them out…I might take a break eventually, but you never know…

Xoni Newcomer: You are still the coolest reviewer I think. And you are right, I didn't put that forward enough, but the reasons for her actions are in this chapter. I hope they work. If not, tell me about it. Great review and thank you.

Dan Inverse: Yeah, but cliffhangers are fun!

ALL OTHER REVIEWERS: Yes, Sakura and Ino bashing will be occurring.

Hinata did pay them back, but she might do more alter, I don't know yet.

Revenge will be gotten…eventually, but I will choose the punishment.

Hinata will worm her way in, it'll just take a while damn it, because I want to see it happen as well.

Okay, that's all of the reviews, keep 'em coming in, and the story will keep getting better and better!

'till next time.

Drahylin Estollcri