Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of the characters created by Kishimoto-sensei.
"Congratulations to all of you who have made it this far," began the Hokage who then when of into a long speech about the exams being held as a substitute for going to war and a lot of other stuff that Naruto yawned through.
"However, because we have too many Genin for the Third Exam we will have a preliminary round right now," said the Hokage.
"Allow me to explain," said Hayate stepping over from the front. Naruto could see the blade he made strapped to the man's back. It made Naruto proud to know that his creation had found such a good user. "We will hold preliminary matches until only eight or nine Genin remain. However, you all have the opportunity to withdraw now and not have it affect your team."
A few of the Genin who were in really bad shape immediately withdrew and requested medical assistance, which was provided for free. That left Eighteen Genin in the room. Twelve of which were from the Leaf Village, and Three from Sand village. There was only one other Genin left from Stone and two from Cloud.
"Your names will appear randomly on the board. The winner of one on one combat will advance to the next and final exam setting," explained the examiner.
"First match, Hyuga Neji of Leaf vs. Sado Kunia of Cloud," called the examiner from the names that appeared on the board.
Naruto could feel the killing intent rolling off of Neji from the balcony where he stood waiting.
"I think Neji is still upset with Cloud over his dad," said Naruto to Hinata who just nodded her agreement.
Neji didn't even give the other Genin a chance to defend himself. Neji hit him once stopping his heart and killing him.
"You're cousin is scary," said Naruto in shock.
"Sometimes," said Hinata with a bit of a shiver.
"Don't worry, if you have to face him we'll find a way for you to beat him," said Naruto reassuring her.
"Thank you Naruto-kun," said Hinata as she turned to the board to see the next name.
"Second match, Temari of the Sand vs. Tenten of Leaf," called the examiner.
"Who do you think will win?" Hinata asked Naruto.
"Temari," said Naruto, "that battle fan won't let Tenten's weapons get close to her and Tenten doesn't know how to do anything else."
Naruto was exactly correct. Tenten couldn't even get close enough to hit Temari.
"Third match, Hyuga Hinata vs. Akimichi Choji," called the examiner.
"Good luck Hinata-chan," said Naruto reassuringly.
Hinata and Choji faced each other calmly.
"Good luck Hinata," said Choji with a friendly smile.
"You too Choji," said Hinata.
"Begin," said the examiner.
"Meat Tank," called Choji as he turned into a giant rolling ball steaming right at her.
Hinata performed a few quick hand seals for a technique she'd never tried before but hoped would work anyway. With her Byakugan active she careful watched Choji's rotation for the time to strike as she knew she'd only get one chance.
"Now," she whispered as she shot forward the spinning ball and struck once with the knife edge of her hand. Choji immediately lost balance and wobbled out of his meat tank landing on his stomach but no matter what he tried to move his body moved something. He moved his left hand and his right knee bent. "Chuusuusei Biribiri no Jutsu," said Hinata, "Choji, you're nervous system is completely disoriented. I confused the signal going through your body. It will wear off in a few hours. Surrender or I will have to knock you out."
"I give up," said Choji.
The medics came in and carted Choji off but before they did one compliment her on a perfectly executed attack. Hinata wanted to smirk at Neji when she saw the look of rage on his face. She knew it wasn't because she was better than him. It was because she was learning more than what the Hyuga family generally permitted.
"Way to go Hinata-chan," shouted Naruto, "That was so cool. You have to teach me that."
"Nope," said Hinata smugly, "It's my technique. If you want to learn it you can spend a few months researching everything involved."
Naruto pouted, "Fine, be that way."
Hinata just laughed, Naruto was always cute when he pouted like that but she'd been slowly building up a resistance to it over the last few months.
"Hinata, where did you learn that?" gushed excitedly Ino, "I could use that on him to help him with his diet."
"It's in the Hospital Library, good luck finding it. It was one of Tsunade-hime's most secret techniques," boasted Hinata.
"She needs to spend less time with you Naruto," yelled Ino at the poor boy.
"What did I do?" he asked dumbly.
"Fourth match, Yamanaka Ino vs. Haruno Sakura," called the judge.
"Talk about to perfectly even shinobi," said Naruto, "I'm betting on tie."
"So troublesome, if Ino win's she'll never shut up about it, if Sakura wins, Ino will never stop complaining about it. I hope you're right or life with become far too troublesome," whined Shikamaru.
As predicted it was a tie and more than that it was a double knockout.
"Thank Kami for the little things," said Shikamaru.
"Fifth Match, Nara Shikamaru vs. Kure Yuki," called the judge.
"Screw Kami for the little things," complained Shikamaru as he walked down the stairs and out onto the arena floor. "Can I get a redraw?"
"No, begin" said Hayate.
"But a man is not supposed to hit a girl," argued Shikamaru.
"In my home, when a girl hits you sure as hell better hit her back," said Hayate.
Just then Shikamaru smirked, "Kagemane no Jutsu successful." There was a thin black line connect Shikamaru to the girl. "You know, there is a reason I wear my weapon pouch on the opposite leg as most shinobi," he began and then reached into his pouch and removed a kunai while the girl was just grabbing at air. "If I throw this while holding you in place it will kill you and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Now surrender or I'll be forced to kill you."
"I give," Yuki said defeated.
"I thought so," said Shikamaru as he release the Jutsu and walked lazily back to his friends.
"You really are the laziest bastard alive aren't you?" asked Naruto.
"Pretty much," said Shikamaru who then yawned grandly.
"Sixth match, Gaara of the Sand vs. Inuzuka Kiba," called Hayate.
"Alright Akamaru, let's go," said Kiba as he jumped over the side with his faithful dog.
"Begin," said the judge. No sooner had he said it then a giant hand of sand punched Kiba hard enough to send him into the wall andknock himunconscious.
The judge simply raised an impressed eyebrow.
"Is he still alive?" asked the Hokage of the judge.
Hayate couch and checked the body, "Yes, just unconscious, maybe a dislocated shoulder but nothing permanent or serious."
The Hokage nodded.
"Winner, Gaara of the Sand."
Gaara bowed respectfully before vanished from the floor.
"Seventh match, Rock Lee vs. Aburame Shino," said Hayate.
"Yes!" shouted Lee as he flipped off the balcony excitedly, "I will show you that the power of youth can prevail."
Shino calmly and slowly walked down to the floor. "You can't use chakra?"
"No, I cannot. I will prove my nindo using my feet and my fist. I am a Taijutsu only shinobi," explained Lee.
Shino actually quirked and eyebrow, "I forfeit. I have no way to fight against him."
"What?" screamed Naruto.
"Shino's bugs eat chakra. Shino fights a battle of attrition slowly draining his opponents of Chakra. Against someone like Lee who uses almost no chakra at all he cannot hope to win," explained Kurenai.
"Bummer," said Naruto, "And Shino's really good too."
"Sometimes these things happen. You will almost never see a ninja that does not use or need chakra like Lee," explained Kurenai, "That is Shino's greatest weakness, though I think now he will take his training a bit more seriously and stop relying on his bugs so much."
"Lee must be devastated," said Hinata, "He was so much looking forward to proving his nindo."
"He'll just have to wait until the finals," said Naruto with a grin.
"Why are you smiling?" asked Hinata.
"There are only two fights left," said Naruto, "And one is my fight."
"Eighth match, Uzumaki Naruto vs. Kankuro of the Sand."
"Oh, good luck," said Hinata. Then she plucked up the courage and gave him a small peck on the cheek right as Naruto was about to jump over the side. Instead he tripped over the railing and landed on his back.
"Hinata, what did you do that for," yelled Ino and Sakura together.
"You're supposed to wait until after the match to kiss him," said Sakura.
"Yeah, now he's going to be distracted," said Ino.
"And he's probably injured," said Shikamaru lazily, "That one seemed the most troublesome problem."
On the arena floor Naruto was in a daze. Was he hurt from the fall? Not at all. Did Hinata really just kiss him? Yes. Did he have the first clue why? No.
"Is he alive?" Kankuro asked the judge.
"Get up Uzumaki," said Hayate, "You can worry about your personal life later."
Naruto got up as ordered but wasn't really paying much attention to what was going on. He obviously missed the order to start fighting. He didn't really notice when the freaky puppet had wrapped him up and began squeezing him in the hopes of crushing him only for the strings to snap and the puppet break. He didn't even notice when he got a ton of poison sprayed in his face nor did he really care. It didn't even register that Kyubi's chakra flowing through him to keep him alive while the fur-ball yelled at him. His mind was still back on the fact that Hinata had kissed him. Him of all the people she could have chosen to kiss that were better looking, smarter, funnier, wealthier, and more popular, she chose to kiss him.
Finally Kankuro just collapsed of Chakra exhaustion and passed out after trying everything he could think of to kill Naruto. He stabbed him several times only to pull out the blade and see the wound closed up just as fast as the blade came out. It didn't even matter if he twisted the blade. The look on Kankuro's face as he tried everything he could think of was priceless. It was even funnier when Kankuro kicked him in the groin only to feel like he'd kicked a solid rock and limped away after. (Unknown to him Kyubi said, "We need that you bastard.") To the majority of the Jounin and Chuunin present, that knew about the Kyubi vessel, had a difficult time holding in their laughter.
"I must say, that is a very unique way to defeat an opponent," commented the Hokage to Anko who was now rolling on the floor laughing her hardest though no sound was heard as she used a silencing Jutsu on herself before hand.
On the balcony most of the Genin were horrified as they watch all of this happen to Naruto. They couldn't understand for the life of them why most of their Jounin instructors were laughing their asses off. Poor Hinata was mortified. She didn't think that little kiss on the cheek would cause Naruto to lose focus that badly.
"Was that some kind of new Bunshin Jutsu?" asked the Tsuchi-nin to his instructor.
"I have no idea, but if it is no village would ever approach Konoha again," said the instructor.
Gaara maintain his usual cold and calm exterior but inside his head was wonder how he could have befriended such an absolute idiot.
"Winner, Uzumaki Naruto," said the judge after he determined that Kankuro had completely depleted his Chakra, but still Naruto just stood their. "Naruto, go back to the balcony with the other Genin." Then without a word or even blinking he just turned and walked up the stairs still in his complete daze.
"What the hell is he?" Temari asked Gaara.
"An idiot," said Gaara coldly and he meant it too. He would never understand how people could get so silly over a girl.
"Final Match, Tonba Katsu of Stone vs. Uchiha Sasuke of Leaf," called Hayate though not many were paying attention to him except the contestants. "Begin."
Sasuke activated his Sharingan eyes right away and quickly attacked the Tsuchi-nin. Sasuke was pretty fast and wiry were as the Tsuchi-nin was bulky and rather slow. The fight didn't last long and naturally Sasuke came out on top of that fight.
Meanwhile Hinata was hugging Naruto fiercely and crying her eyes out for distracting him so much. But then she began to check him over for injury but found nothing, just cuts and holes in his clothing a pink skin where long cuts and gashes should have been. Unknown to her Kyubi was huffing and puffing from exhaustion at having to heal so much damage between yelling at his idiot vessel.
Finally Shikamaru got tired of it and walked up to Naruto and slapped him hard in the face snapping him out of.
"What'd you do that for?" demand Naruto before he noticed his surrounding, "Huh? What happened?"
"Figures," said Shikamaru, "He doesn't even remember."
"What? What happened?" he asked again then he noticed the tears in Hinata's eyes. "What happened Hinata-chan? Are you okay? Did someone hurt you? Just tell me who did it and I'll make them pay I swear."
Hinata then did something that sent him right back into his dazed state. She pulled him down into a fiercely passionate kiss that he would never forget . . . erm . . . if he could remember it happening in the first place.
BREAK
"Okay, so tell me I'm not the only one that just sawwhat happened with Naruto in there," said Sakura having called a meeting of all the rookies except for Naruto and Hinata.
"I'm pretty sure we all saw it," said Shikamaru, "What I want to know is why the Jounin and the Hokage were laughing about it and not interfering to save his life?"
"Obviously he didn't need to be saved," said Sasuke, "Why are we wasting time discussing this? I should be training."
"Shut up Uchiha-bastard," said Shino coolly.
"Does Naruto have a blood limit we don't know about? I've heard that there are some blood limits that will let you heal from almost anything. I've even heard of a blood limit that makes your body like liquid," said Ino, "He could have something like that."
"I doubt it," said Sasuke, "I heard him once say that he has a second source of chakra."
"But that's impossible," said Sakura, "The human body only produces one kind of chakra."
"But we've all seen him use a second chakra," said Shikamaru, "Though it was barely visible he used it in that match ever time he was injured that chakra healed him almost instantly. It could very well be a blood limit that is emerging for the first time ever. He was an orphan from the Kyubi attack. His parents could have very well been test shinobi trying to breed to create a new blood limit."
"That hasn't been legal in Shinobi villages since the creation of the Aburame clan," said Shino, "The only new blood limits now come from random mutation."
"Has anyone considered just asking him?" asked a new voice. When they all looked to the source they found Kakashi glaring at them. "Come on Sasuke, you have training to do for the final match if you're hoping to beat Lee."
Sasuke nodded and followed his sensei out.
With them gone the others felt ashamed. The idea of asking Naruto hadn't even crossed their minds.
"He's right, we should just find him and ask him," said Shikamaru, "If he doesn't trust us by now, he never will."
"Shikamaru is strangely right," said Ino.
"So let's split up and find him," said Sakura.
BREAK
Naruto still felt as if he was caught in a dream. A dream that had Hinata-chan kissing him. Not once, but twice. The last being very passionate and on the lips. Then a swift slap across the face woke him from his dream.
Naruto was very confused. He was in his apartment when he could have sworn he was just in the arena in the center of the forest of death.
"How'd we get here?" asked Naruto highly confused.
"You seem to be having problems focusing when I kiss you," said Hinata with a blush.
"You kissed me?" he asked, "Funny, I was just dreaming about that and oh my Kami that wasn't a dream."
Hinata giggled at Naruto's antics as per usual. Somehow Naruto could always make her laugh no matter how serious things were. "I'm sorry if it distracted you too badly. In fact I am really very, very sorry it distracted you during your match."
"Oh no, my match, what happened? Was I disqualified? Did I even fight?"
Hinata could believe that he couldn't remember. "You don't remember any of it?"
"No, what happened?"
Hinata then retold the whole story trying not to cry again.
"Holy shit," said Naruto, "I can't believe I was that distracted. Why couldn't Kankuro have just slapped me?"
"Naruto-kun, how was that possible? You should be dead."
"But I'm not see," said Naruto smiling hoping to avoid the subject entirely.
"Naruto-kun," she pouted, "Tell me."
"I don't want to," said Naruto pouting just as much.
But then Hinata's eyes started to tear up, "I thought we were friends, but I guess I was wrong."
"We are friends and I want to stay friends but if I tell you this you'll hate me just like the rest of the village does," said Naruto trying not breakdown.
"Naruto-kun, I could never hate you. You mean the world to me. Without your friendship and caring for me I would have been lost. You can tell me anything, I swear."
"Fine," said Naruto resigning himself that he would forever lose the first person his age that ever really meant something to him, "I am a human sacrifice that was used to imprison Kyubi no Kitsune no Youkai. You can run away screaming now, I won't mind."
"What are you talking about?" asked Hinata clearly confused.
"I the academy we were always told that Kyubi was defeated by the Yondaime Hokage right?"
Hinata nodded.
"That true, but just because something was defeated doesn't mean it was killed. The truth was simply that Yondaime Hokage wasn't strong enough to kill the demon. No human would be. So he did the next best thing, he sealed it away so that it could never hurt another person again. He couldn't risk sealing it in an inanimate object for the risk of it escaping or being set free. So he sealed it in a living prison, a baby. I was barely part of this world when Yondaime sacrificed me to seal away the demon. And when I die I will take the Demon with me. My mother died in child birth and my father died fighting the demon imprisoned within me. That's all that the Hokage has told me. He won't even tell me their names. Anyway, I can use the demon as a source of information and chakra when I need it, but it also grants unparalleled healing, that's why nothing Kankuro did was able to hurt me. The reason no one of our generation know is because of a law made by Sandaime. It was forbidden to ever talk about the demon or that it was sealed inside of me on penalty of death. So, now you know and you can hate me just like the rest of the village does, feel free to tell the other too, they have a right to know now that you do." Naruto stood up emotionally drained. He really just wanted to curl into a ball and die. In fact that seemed like a really good idea at the moment. He looked once more at the complete stunned Hinata and walked away from her. He wouldn't let her see him cry. He walked into his bedroom and closed the door. As soon as he heard the door to the apartment open and then closed, he collapsed heavily on his bed and cried as he'd never cried before.
BREAK
Shikamaru had decided to check the most obvious place for Naruto, his apartment. He didn't expect to arrive just as Naruto laid out all the gory details of his life in plain English. He didn't even notice Hinata run past him. He was even more surprised when only moments later he could hear Naruto crying through the paper thin walls of the apartment building.
Shikamaru wasn't quite sure when or how he left the apartment building but he did. He was found sometime later in a complete daze by Ino.
"Shikamaru," she said to him but got no response so she slapped him good. He didn't really snap out of but just stared at her.
Finally he spoke, "We don't need to know anything about Naruto and we're going to stop all of our digging. Just forget whatever you saw in that exam and never ever mention it again."
"But Shikamaru . . ." protested Ino.
"No, Ino, listen to me this time. I don't feel like being executed by the Hokage and I'm pretty sure you don't want to be either and neither do any of the others so we're never going to talk about this again. No digging into Naruto's past and no digging into any of Naruto's current abilities," said Shikamaru.
Shikamaru understood that Naruto and the demon were separate but he knew that most of the others would completely fail to understand that and would probably only see Kyubi when they looked at Naruto again. Now everything made sense. Why Naruto avoided going places with them in public. Why he always waited outside of shops while all the other went inside to buy whatever they wanted, including candy, which he knew for a fact that Naruto liked and had money to buy. He now understood why his own parents often bad mouthed Naruto and talked down on him. Why people would cross the street if they saw him coming. The dirty looks and all the glares he received for as long as he'd known Naruto.
"Shikamaru, that just doesn't make sense," said Ino.
"Fine," said Shikamaru angrily. He'd never shown anger towards anyone for anything but this time was really pissed off. The one time he was deadly serious, she just had to question him about it. "If you want to know so badly then ask him about it directly, but don't say I didn't warn you. And if he does tell you, you'd better not ever say a word about it to anyone or I will have to kill you and whoever you tell."
With that Shikamaru stormed off angrily. Never in all the time Ino knew Shikamaru did he ever react so badly to anything. He never yelled at anyone, and he especially never threatened anyone, least of all her. Whatever he learned must have been unbelievably big news.
Unfortunately Ino just become more curious and went in search of Sakura to go along with her.
BREAK
Naruto didn't remember falling to sleep that afternoon. But when he woke up he still had that horrible empty feeling in his heart that he'd felt after he told Hinata about his burden. He hoped that she would accept him like some of the adults did but that apparently wasn't to be the case.
Naruto didn't want to get out of bed that day or any day ever again for that matter. He felt miserable and horribly depressed. If Kyubi wouldn't have been able to heal him right away he'd almost have considered attempting suicide. Sadly his only hope would be for another demon to kill him or for a really powerful shinobi to finish him off. Maybe he could get Orochimaru to do it for him, he liked killing things right?
Naruto just sighed heavily. He knew he wouldn't let that keep him down forever, nothing ever did but this one just hurt so much more than any of the other hurts ever cast down upon him. Honestly, who did he think he was kidding? How could the heiress to the Hyuga family ever care for someone like him once she knew the truth of what he was? The answer was that she couldn't and neither could any other girl.
The only thing left to Naruto now was to seek a way to kill off the Akatsuki and Orochimaru and maybe even Sasuke. It might be a hollow goal, but it was one that Naruto could get behind. At least that way, once he'd died he would have been able to say he'd done something good for the world.
Kyubi was yelling at him about feeling self pity but he didn't really care so he tuned the demon out. He just wanted to forget the world for just one day, to forget all the hatred and evil of the world. Couldn't he be granted just that one day of peace?
Naruto could feel his eyes tearing up again as another bout of sobbing racked his body. Why did he always have to face such pain and loneliness? Naruto cried for all the pain he'd ever suffered but mostly he cried for Hinata. He burdened her with terrible knowledge that she should never have known and now she was expected by law to keep it a secret. He cried for the fact that anytime she saw him she would be terrified of him.
"Kyubi, do you have a way of just killing us both?" Naruto asked inside his mind.
"Not going to fucking happen, now suck it up and get back to work. We've got shit to do," Kyubi shot back in reply, which Naruto just ignored.
Naruto didn't know how long he laid there. He heard someone knock on the door a few times throughout the day but he couldn't be bother to answer it. Besides, who would really want to ever talk to Konoha's dirty little secret. It was probably just a villager come to spit in his face and then defecate on him or attempt to kill him again.
After what must have been days someone finally entered his home. Apparently they had a key, so it was either Hinata there to try and kill him or break him even more or it was the Hokage.
"Hello Naruto-kun," said the old man.
"Go away," mumbled Naruto in a gravelly voice. He hadn't heard himself speak in several days and it sounded very strained from all of his sobbing.
"Naruto, you've been holed up in here for almost two weeks. Don't you think you've had enough of a pity party for yourself?"
"Do you know what I did?"
"You told Miss Hinata about your terrible burden," said the Hokage calmly.
"Yes I did, now go away, I just want to die in peace," said Naruto.
"If you die who will replace me when I decide to retire again?" asked the Hokage.
"Oh please, Orochimaru is going to kill you at the Chuunin Exam finals, or rather you're going to kill yourself using the Yondaime's sealing Jutsu on him which will fail because you'll only seal his arms and that won't matter for long because he can just take a new body but not before he seeks out Tsunade-Obaachan for his only little sadistic reunion in which he will betray her and then try to kill her. She'll survive, come back here and become the fifth Hokage and everyone will still hate me and despise me and be completely disgusted with me and somehow they will all blame me for every last trouble this village has ever suffered. There will be endless attempts by both drunk shinobi and villagers to try and kill me along with not so drunk shinobi and village trying to kill me and then you've got that damn Akatsuki out there looking for me so they can get there hands on the Kyubi for whatever game they've got planned. Basically I'm screwed, but you know what, I don't even care about any of that shit in slightest. I lived through it before, nothing will ever hurt me as much as the look on her face when I told her about my burden. So please just leave me to die, I don't really deserve to live, I never really did for that matter. I would have been better for everyone if you'd just killed me as soon as Kyubi was sealed inside of me. Why couldn't I have just died along with Yondaime or rather instead of Yondaime? The village obviously needs him more than they need me." Naruto couldn't stop the tears that were leaking from his eyes freely now. "I was broken once before and I though coming back here and trying again that maybe I could heal and for a while I was healing but now I'm just broken all over again."
Naruto only briefly glanced at the old man to see that he was crying a bit too.
"You can leave me now," said Naruto had he pulled his covers over his head and sobbed until his breathing slowed and he went back to sleep.
Sarutobi patted Naruto's shoulder before he let himself out. He knew there was nothing he could say or do the break that poor child out of his depression. He knew that depression would probably kill the boy too.
Sarutobi walked through town trying with the brim of his hat pulled down low to his face from the citizens. It wouldn't do for them to see their leader crying.
Somehow Sarutobi ended up outside the Hyuga estate where he requested to speak with Hiashi.
"Sarutobi-sama, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"
"I have just come from Naruto's home," said Sarutobi trying to brush away a tear that was begging to break free.
"Oh, is his training going well?" asked Hiashi fearing he would not like the answer.
"I have watched that boy for so long. I've seen him stand strong against the unjustified hatred this village has thrown at him everyday of his entire life and not once have I ever seen him break in the slightest. I have seen the boy struggle to get past the hatred of the academy to teachers to earn him a fair chance. He has always tried his hardest, when someone refused to teach him something he knew was important, he'd find someone that would teach him or he'd find a book and teach himself. He has always given everything he had to try and help the village. One of his secret goals that he's only ever told me is that he wanted to be worthy of Yondaime's sacrifice. I've watched him grow over the years into an amazing youth with the potential to actually become Hokage and through all of his struggles and trials he's never given up or felt broken. And when he finally had a person his own age who he thought would accept him, he told her his greatest secret, the one he feared that no one his own age would never see beyond and it completely broke him. He has completely given up on even living anymore. Even with Kyubi's amazing regenerative capabilities, he has simply lost the will to live. Don't expect he'll live to the end of the month."
"So why tell me this?" asked Hiashi sadly, he feared that he knew the answer once again.
"Because it was your daughter that completely broke him," said Sarutobi before he stood and left a bewildered Hyuga Headman.
Hiashi was surprised to say the least. He knew that his daughter and the vessel were teammates. He also knew that the boy helped his daughter really blossom into a caring and intelligent young woman. He knew the boy did things for his daughter that he was never able to do for her. And now he finds out that this boy, who had done so much to help her, was so destroyed because of her. He just didn't know what to think.
Hiashi contemplated this for a long time before he finally decided to see he daughter and talk to her about the matter. He knocked politely on the door.
"Come in," Hinata's voice replied calmly and clearly.
Hiashi opened the sliding door and stepped into the room.
"Hello father," said Hinata with a kind smile.
"What are you doing?"
"Just studying an anatomy scroll father. Understanding the human body will better will help me in understanding Gentle Fist," said Hinata coolly.
"Who gave you that idea?" asked Hiashi.
"My teammate Naruto-kun," said Hinata.
"Have you seen him lately?" asked Hiashi.
"No, not for a few weeks. I'm sure he has been busy training for the exam," said Hinata.
"Hinata, I just finished speaking to the Hokage. He said that Uzumaki-san told you of his terrible burden," said Hiashi.
"Yes, father, that is true," said Hinata looking a bit saddened.
"Have you spoken with him since?" he asked.
"No father, I thought that he needed space," said Hinata.
"Well, don't worry about that, he'll be dead in a few days so he'll have all the space he needs then won't he?" said Hiashi coldly.
Hinata was shocked that her father would say such a thing, "Father, why? Why would you kill him?"
"I will not lay a finger on him nor will anyone else in the entire village or even the world," said Hiashi, "and even the demon can't save him this time. He's a broken soul."
"What do you mean? I don't understand," said Hinata nearly in tears.
"Hinata, you broke that boy completely. After all the hate and anger he's suffered from this village his friendship with you meant more to him that anything else. When he finally tells you his greatest burden and his greatest fear you simply left him. He is broken now and will probably die taking the demon with him. But worry not daughter, many in this village will praise your name and have festivals in your honor for you have done what the law forbade. You have slain their demon." With that Hiashi stood and left his daughter to consider his words. He knew that he was probably overly harsh but for someone who at all other times could see when people hurt, had completely failed the person that he knew she loved more than anyone in the world, himself included.
Hiashi was hardly down the hall when he his daughter's footsteps running down the hall and out of the estate. Perhaps there was hope for her yet.