Awake chapter 2 – Awake (Part 1)

Naruto

Naruto was falling gracefully towards his own self inflicted demise. His mind blissfully empty for the first time he could ever recall. His eyes closed, he could feel the wind against his body, in his hair. It felt good. Suddenly the wind stopped, he stopped. Then he started again, but this time it was in the opposite direction. What was going on? He realized that he had his eyes closed still so he opened them. He was in someone's arms, but whose? She looked down at him, and he realized who it was. "Hinata? Why?"

Hinata, earlier

She was sitting on the ground in Tsunade's office, sobbing. Also in the room was Sakura and Tsunade, Sakura was sobbing into her hands and Tsunade looked shattered. Hinata started thinking about everything. Then a light bulb turned on in her head, her dream! She thought back to her dream, she finally realized where those cliffs were, she sometimes snuck out of the village to think there. Naruto said he was going to jump off a cliff, maybe her dream wasn't a dream after all, and maybe it was a premonition! She stood up and rushed out of the Hokage's office without saying a word, the two remaining in the office just took it as her wanting to get away to think. She knew that Naruto wasn't only doing this because of Sasuke; she knew that he needed someone to be there for him, she knew he needed her. She also knew that she had to tell him how she felt for him before… before it's too late. She recalled her dream, Naruto had been falling in daylight, and it was night now, so she had some time. She rushed to the spot she knew he would be and scoped the place out. She knew from extensive hours spent here that there was a ledge a little ways down that would be perfect to catch Naruto when he jumped, you couldn't see her if she hid right. She sat down and worked out a plan on what she was going to do. As the sun was rising she molded chakra onto the bottom of her feet and walked down to the ledge where she would wait. A little while later she heard footsteps up on the cliff and she saw a forehead protector fly over, which she quickly grabbed and shoved into one of her pockets when it was close enough. She heard Naruto spring into the air and readied herself for catching him. She snuck out of the little indent in the wall and jumped into the air, grabbing Naruto. She then molded chakra to her feet and ran back up the cliff wall with all of her might. Naruto looked up at her, "Hinata? Why?" Her tears broke loose.

"Naruto-kun, I love you." She said releasing pent up emotions from watching his forehead protector to hearing him spring into the air.

Naruto

'She loves me?' Naruto took a second to let him mind process what had just been said. 'How can she love me? She doesn't even know me.' "You love me?" He let himself ask her.

"Yes. I do." She said to him, still clutching him tight into her arms. "I couldn't let you do something like that having not told you." He didn't know how to respond. "You weren't stuttering, Hinata-chan." He blurted out. She looked at him for a moment, and then held him again. After another hour of being held this way, Naruto looked at Hinata, who looked to be enjoying this very much. "Hinata… can we get up now?" Hinata looked up at him, blushed and let go.

"O-of course." She said, her face still reddening. She looked at Naruto, then back out to the cliff. "Let's go home Naruto." Naruto looked at her, saddened.

"That place isn't home, no one wants me there."

"Where will you go then?" Hinata had a concerned expression on her face.

"Anywhere, anywhere that isn't Konoha."

Three years later

"Wait another minute,

Can't you see what this pain has fuckin done to me,

I'm alive and still kickin'

What you see I can't see,

And maybe you'll think before you speak…"

All was peaceful in the quiet town of Konoha, except for the young, brown-haired boy running around causing problems just like his nii-chan had. After all, what better way to honor his memory then by continuing his legacy? "KONOHAMARU!" Ebisu yelled at him, and the next thing he knew he was being held up by his collar, but not by Ebisu.

"Seriously Konohamaru, such childish pranks." Konohamaru swore he recognized the voice… But it couldn't be him, he's dead… Before he could look at his captor, he was on his butt on the ground and the person was gone.

"Found you!" Ebisu yelled, reaching for Konohamaru, who quickly vaulted away. 'Was I imagining things?'

Naruto

Toying with Konohamaru like that had cheered the young ninja up some, and it was apparent by his face. Hell, just seeing Konohamaru again had been enough of a boost in happiness by itself. Being in Konoha again was nice, even though he knew that he wasn't really welcome, Hinata had wanted to come back, she missed their old home. She was waiting for him on the roof of his old apartment building, and when he got there she flashed him her biggest smile, something she had learned from Naruto.

When they first started traveling together, Naruto and Hinata were still very awkward around one another, if you were around them at all the level of awkward was very apparent. Naruto also noticed that when Hinata smiled, it appeared to be pained, and not genuine. When he asked her about her smile, she explained the intricacies of her life within the Hyuuga house, how her family mistreated her. He consoled her, and after a while he was able to extract her first true smile from her. That was over two years ago…

Naruto nodded at her and she walked over to him, "It's empty, no one's moved in, it looks just like it did when you left." She knew what his apartment looked like because of the time she found the letter on his door and then barged in to see if he was there. The two teleported into the apartment below, leaving behind two small cloud of smoke. Not far away someone noticed a slight bit of chakra that they thought they recognized. Inside the apartment Hinata settled down into the chair at the kitchen table while Naruto checked the expiration date on the packages of cup ramen he had in the cabinet. "Damn things never go off," Naruto said with a smile "you want one?" Hinata shook her head, she wasn't hungry, probably because of how nervous she was. Naruto busied himself with making the instant ramen while Hinata just sat thinking, what would her family think? Probably because of their not paying attention to their surroundings, they didn't realize someone was coming until they heard a knock on the door. Naruto froze mid-movement, how could he have been so careless? 'Oh well, they were all going to find out sooner or later,' "Who's there?"

Sakura--

Sakura felt a slight spike of a very familiar chakra in a direction which only helped her think further that what she felt had belonged to him. But it couldn't really be him, could it? He had killed himself three years ago. Sakura left quickly and headed towards his old apartment, which had been where the chakra seemed to have come from. As she drew nearer to his apartment, two suppressed chakras were apparent, she had received extensive training with this, and without it she probably wouldn't have been able to notice them. She decided that it would be best to use some stealth while heading there, they obviously didn't want to be noticed. Suppressing her own chakra, she crept to the door which she knew belonged to his old apartment. She reached her hand up and knocked. After a moment a response came from inside, "Who's there?" Sakura's heart skipped a beat when she heard the voice that matched the face she had been wishing to see for too long now. She was on the verge of tears.

"Naruto?" She asked weakly, still trying to hold back her tears. She heard footsteps getting closer to the door and it opened to reveal a taller version of the friend she had lost three years ago. She latched her arms around him and started sobbing. Naruto just stood there dumbfounded, until Hinata cleared her throat from behind him, at which point Sakura released her death-grip on Naruto to see who else was there with him. When Sakura saw who it was she put Hinata into her death-grip hug. After a minute she let go and just stood there. No one knew what to say, leaving an air of tension in the room. After Sakura recovered from the shock of seeing her friends again, she walked over to Naruto and punched him in the face, knocking him out the window facing the street. A couple seconds later Naruto climbed back in through the hole that was his window and massaged his cheek.

"What was that for Sakura?" Both of the girls present noticed that Naruto had not used 'chan' on the end of Sakura's name, and both had different feelings about this. Shaking it off, Sakura replied in an extremely peeved voice.

"Where in the hell have you been?" She was now glaring daggers at him, his face drooped.

"I… I couldn't stay in Konoha. I wasn't wanted, and I didn't want to stay in a place that didn't want me." Sakura frowned, she knew about kyuubi, it had been announced after Naruto's 'suicide.' She didn't understand what he had gone through, but she knew that it must have been painful, having everyone think that you were a monster and seclude you for that. She couldn't even begin to comprehend how Naruto had faced with all of it since he was a little boy.

"We were told about kyuubi after you… 'died.'" She looked at Naruto fondly, "No one cared, everyone just missed you. Everyone who knew you at least, others were happy, and Tsunade made sure that everyone who threw a party because of your death, or anyone who down-talked you was punished, everyone." Naruto looked curiously at Sakura.

"Punished?" Naruto asked, curiosity dripping out of him.

"She personally knocked each of them through a wall, saying 'no one talks that way about my Naruto nii-san.'" This brought a smile to Naruto's face, he could just imagine Tsunade baa-chan doing that. "She's going to want to see you y'know?"

"She can wait for me to eat my instant ramen." The microwave beeped, letting him know that his ramen was done. Both Sakura and Hinata sweat dropped while Naruto just scratched the back of his head.

TO BE CONTINUED… (Hopefully in a shorter period of time than it took me to get this done ;)

A/N: Starting with this chapter, I'm going to respond to reviews on the review page. So if you have a question you want answered, just put it in a review (hopefully along with a review) and I'll do my best to respond quickly. I stopped this chapter because I thought it was getting too long for it's own good, I'm gonna keep working on the rest and hopefully I'll have the next chapter out within a week.