Alright, I guess I should apologoze for a few things.

First of which is my arrogance, I shouldn't have been so demanding about looking for a BETA, it was really piggish and stupid of me especially because I have little room to brag about grammar.

Second of which is where I have brought this story. I've noticed that is has slowed down and I'm thankful for everyone who stuck through it just because you liked Look to the Future. It's been my observation though, that many fanfictions reach a point where you only read it because it's there, and not because you actually want to read it. That has killed many fics before for me as I just lost interest and I fear that mine has reached that point. Bear with me as I try to do what I haven't seen done before (at least very often), and that is bring another interesting section of this story.

Chapter 9:

Normally, a hospital is a quiet, bland place where hundreds of people either fight to stay alive, or take precautions to stay healthy. Those who aren't struggling are the ones who've already lived through the trauma and are on their way to recovery, basking in the silence interrupted only by pleasant beeping of machines that let them know that they are alright. Knowing that family and friends surround them at the time they are weakest, they go on with a smile on their face happy to see those who truly love them, and with a new outlook on life, they re-evaluate their lives. Some find religion, some find love, some find resolutions. Then there are those that celebrate new life, the realization that through the most pain and the toughest hardships can come the most beautiful creatures that either enrich a life or destroy multiple ones. Normally, it is in silence that all this is observed, the peaceful serenity setting an atmosphere of life and death; however today was not the case.

Naruto shouted for all he was worth at the two ANBU guards standing at the door to Tsunade's room. He'd been here an hour and had tried to go in but was rudely held back and turned away. The guards stood unmoving, they had seen the kid attempt to get through the door for the last hour and they had grown used to his loud and obnoxious screaming. Years of assassinations and slow missions taught them the value of patience, and they knew that the young blonde was far from pushing them to the breaking point. One of them was actually impressed by Naruto's vocabulary and made a few mental notes of insults that would reduce a normal man to tears if coupled with some nasty genjutsus and intimidation. Over the course of the hour, they had watched him try multiple different tricks, trying to fool them into letting him through, each of which was sharply denied. At first, they shut him down at the first sign of chakra usage, though after a while, they began to find amusement in his schemes and even let them get to the last steps of his plans before stopping him. He had impressed them both in the Chuunin Exams, and he was impressing them now, though required professionalism kept them from telling him. Though it did help them feel much more accomplished since the level between "almost Chuunin" and ANBU was greater than they had remembered.

Out of the corner of their eyes, they saw a modest looking nurse walking down the hall. Clad in a white uniform with the shirt all the way zipped up and a skirt that came a little past her knees. Glasses sat on her nose and poorly hid hazel eyes that stared at the ground. She took small steps and clutched a clipboard close to her chest as if she thought she was being stared at from all sides. She walked down the hallway, shrinking away at the loud sound of Naruto's voice but walking nonetheless. It took a little while, but she finally reached the door to Tsunade's room, and she slowly and hesitantly brought her eyes from the ground look one of the ANBU in the eyes.

"Excuse me...I...I need to c-check on Hokage-sama..."

Her voice was soft and frail and she blushed as she stuttered, as soon as the words left her mouth, her gaze hit the floor again and she watched his feet. After a moment, she heard him shuffle and saw him move slightly to the right, allowing her passage into the room. She muttered a thanks so quiet that it could hardly be heard and took a step forward.

No sooner had she stepped than the ANBU grabbed her arm and violently tugged her back. He pulled her out of the door way and back into the hallway, and without saying a word, he grabbed the clipboard that covered her chest. She looked up as if she was about to scream but at the same time, looked so scared that she couldn't utter a sound. Her eyes got small and scared as she tried to back away from his grip, slowly shaking her head while looking straight at the ANBU mask with a panicked expression. With an effortless motion, the ANBU threw the clipboard across the hallway, and hit the still screaming Naruto straight in the chest. There was a puff of smoke and the bunshin disappeared, the ANBU then brought up his freehand in the sign that Naruto recognized as the single seal for a dispell jutsu. The nurse had enough time to form a sour expression before a puff of smoke surrounded her. The ANBU held the arm, and felt as it went from a sleak and feminine one, to a small and course one. The smoke disappeared and Naruto stood there, his arm still being held and the sour expression still on his face.

He took a deep breath to start swearing again, but was thrown back to the place where his bunshin had just been a moment ago. When he caught his footing again, he looked up to see the ANBU just standing there as always. He was about to start unloading a fresh new vocabulary on them when he heard a slight snickering coming from the guard who had just watched the whole thing.

Naruto formed his best glare at the ANBU.

"What are you laughing at?"

The guard merely continued to snicker until eventually his shoulders started to shake a little. Naruto did his best to deepen his "glare" yet got the feeling that it wasn't as effective as Sasuke's or Neji's.

"Hey! What? Do you think that was funny?"

"Yeah kid, it was."

Naruto was surprised, that was the first words he had heard come from the ANBU since they said he couldn't come in an hour ago. As taken aback as he was, he regathered his composure quickly.

"You think it's funny now, just you wait. I'll get in there, I swear."

"Right kid. Just a word of advice, shy women don't walk with a sexual switch in their step. If you're gonna imitate one, make sure that you get all the details correct."

"Oh..."

The advice also surprised Naruto a bit. Something about the detached nature of ANBU didn't allow him to expect that they would ever be helpful unless they were doing things related to ninjutsu. Thing was, he caught himself switching at the end of the hall and made note not to do it since he realized that the more sexual illusions didn't seem to work on the ANBU. Since that point he was sure he didn't walk provacatively at all and even had a mental image of Hinata to use as a reference point.

"How did you know? I didn't walk like that except at the end of the hallway."

"We knew that was a Kage Bunshin since you sent it over here seven minutes ago and had it start screaming at us. It moved slightly different and the language wasn't as original, so knew that you were distracted with something else, from there we just had to watch for anything out of the ordinary, and a shy nurse that swings her hips on one step then stops is definitely out of the ordinary."

From there the other guard continued.

"Though it was impressive, you should make in interesting ninja, especially if you couple that with the Kyuubi's chakra like you did in the last Chuunin Exam."

Naruto sighed, it wasn't the comment about the fox, it was that he was simply running out of ideas, and that scheme was one of his more brilliant ones. It was slightly annoying, yet at the same time it was comforting to have an ANBU say that he was impressed with the ploy, even if he picked it apart so easily. He was a bit surprised about the casual mention of Kyuubi, though he let it slide. He leaned back against the wall, standing directly across from the doorway. He could see Tsunade's bed though it had wooden boards attached to the sides that blocked her body from view and direct projectile attack. It was frustrating that his goal was so close, yet at the same time, was so impossible to achieve.

Heslid his hands into his pockets and closed his eyes, trying to keep his frustration down. He fished around until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a silver shuriken, sharp and usable, yet it glimmered in the light, polished and clean. The ANBU switched to being on-guard without hesitation and watched the boy with a keen eye while still watching the surroundings. A sad expression went onto the boy's face as he looked at his reflection in the shuriken.

"You know...when Ero-senn--I mean--Jiraiya-sensei and I first found Baa-chan, she said some things that got on my nerves. At first she didn't want to be Hokage, and she had even gone and said that the Sandaime had wasted his life trying to be the Hokage...It made me so mad that..."

Naruto let out a sad chuckle as he turned the shuriken around in his hand and returned to his story without looking back up at the guards.

"...that I challenged her to a fight. I don't know why she accepted, maybe because she had a little too much to drink, but we went outside right afterwards to fight in the street. I drew a kunai, and she drew a silver shuriken just like this one...she told me that since it was silver that it couldn't be thrown against a normal steel weapon or else it would get ruined, so when we fought, she held it and waited until the right moment, then she threw it when I couldn't deflect it and pinned my shirt to a wood fence."

He looked up at the guards with a sad and partially empty look in his eyes.

"Later on she told me that that shuriken was a gift from an old friend and that she cherished it so much that she never used it unless she was sure that it wouldn't get ruined from the throw. I spent the whole night thinking about it and working on a jutsu that I was working on, and passed out from exhaustion later on in the night. The next morning she said she had a change of heart and we started heading back for Konoha. We spent the whole day walking, but I was exhausted and fell behind and by nightfall we got attacked by thieves. I think some of them had ninjutsu training because I couldn't hold my own as tired as I was...I remember turning around and seeing a kunai flying towards me though, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to react in time. All I could do was shut my eyes and wait..."

He paused a second letting what had happened sink in before continuing.

"I heard the sound of metal hitting metal, but it was softer than I normally hear it. I looked up to see the kunai was nowhere to be found andBaa-chan was punching the last thief in the face. I looked down and I saw that silver shuriken, bent and deformed on the ground...she let it get ruined to save my life."

"I just wanted to surprise her with another one..."

He took a step forward and held out the hand with the shuriken and the guard on the right took it so gracfully that Naruto hardly felt it leave his hand. He let out a sad smile and turned to walk away.

"Just make sure she gets that ok?"

The ANBU chuckled again before grabbing Naruto by the shoulder and pulling him back again.

"Nice try kid, that one almost worked."

Naruto groaned and waited. The guard's hand slid up his shoulder and into his neck, dispelling the Kage Bunshin in a plume of smoke. Then he tossed the shuriken down the hall and watched as it also exploded in a plume of smoke, only to have an annoyed blonde go flying out of the cloud. He rolled over in mid-air and put his feet underneath him to touch ground first. He slid on the tile for a few feet before stopping and he stood up to full stature, his face in another sou expression.

"How did you know that time!"

"That time was only intuition kid."

Naruto took a second to ponder that, extremely upset that his double ploy had failed, especially after he took the time to construct that lie.

"By the way kid, I think someone behind you is trying to get your attention."

"Huh?"

Just as he muttered that, he heard a small meep from behind him and he turned around in time to see the last strands of black hair disappear behind a corner.

"Who the...?"

Naruto muttered to himself as he apporached the corner, positive he had seen someone or something disappear behind it. He didn't really give much thought to it, but he assumed that it would at least distract the guards from him long enough to get another plan in motion. The thought of even recruiting whoever was hiding from him even crossed his mind, and with the gears in his mind turning, he rounded the corner and ran right into the bearer of the black hair he had only gotten a glimpse of.

The sound of impact was coupled with only the small "meep" as the Hinata fell to the ground.

"Hinata-chan?"

Naruto's face turned quizzical as he reached out to help her up. Dressed in the same light blue jacket along with a pair of form fitting shorts in a color something close to navy, she lay there not moving and not looking up at him. He caught her eyes go wide for a moment before she turned them to the ground, her face was already turningthe ratherdeep shade of red that he always seemed to see on her, jumping off of her skin as noticeably as the moon in the night sky. She supported herself on her hands, laying them on the ground, palm-down.

"H-hello...Narut-to-kun."

She seemed to shrink into the ground as she spoke, and she turned over and pushed herself up to stand on slightly wobbling legs. It didn't particularly offend Naruto that she didn't accept his hand, since he noticed that she never seemed to actually see it. When she managed to get to her feet, her hands quickly dropped before her and she clasped her hands together, with the right covering her left, and set them as far down as her arms would allow. She kept her head bowed, masking most of her Byakugan eyes from Naruto's gaze, and some of her black locks actually shifted on their own to cover some of her face.

Her whole form seemed to shake as she simply stood there in his presence, and Naruto was beyond confused at the girl's strange actions. She looked so fragile that part of Naruto wanted to simply step away before he could break her and be blamed for the damages, but before he could slowly back away, he saw her draw a deep breath as if summoning the courage to speak to a king, and he stayed put for whatever she decided to stay.

Hinata's body quivered and her voice caught in her throat for the third time. She opened her mouth to speak but found her throat close by a will other than her own. Her heart pounded and her stomach constricted as she tried so hard to talk to this boy before her. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't speak, all she could do was quiver as she tried in vain to ask the simplest of questions. A simple question that raced through her mind, that she mentally berated herself into a corner trying to ask.

What are you doing here?

That was it, that was all. Yet, for the life of her, and everything else within her, she couldn't manage to summon the courage to say those five words.

"Hinata-chan...what are you doing here anyway?"

She drew a quick breath in surprise. The last thing she had expected was for him to address her with the same question she meant to ask him. At that moment, torn between her deeply engrained sense of formality and her inherent terror of talking to the boy, she sat a a cross-road about whether or not she could answer him.

"I..."

Her voice was so frail that Naruto barely heard it, and inwardly he groaned. The last thing he felt like dealing with right now was her inability to speak. Normally it wouldn't have bothered him, and on some level he felt a little guilty that it was now, but those damnable ANBUs had gotten under his skin with their smug confidence while guarding the door, and he was beginning to woner if he should just put a Rasengan through which ever one he could touch first. As for now though, he mentally counted the seconds that it took her complete her answer and wondered if she would answer him at all.

"K-kiba-kun's here...I just wanted to..."

Her voice faded into nothingness as she spoke and she attempted to shrink away into nothingness yet again. She bowed her head further to an angle that Naruto assumed was hurting her neck and she squeezed her hands down in front of her so that Naruto could hear a crack or two of her knuckles, which caused her to shrink some more.

He had forgotten that Kiba was here, and now that he remembered, he figured that he should at least apologize to him.

"Do you think he's awake?"

A simple nod of the head was her only response, and Naruto sunk his hands into his pockets as he looked to the ceiling.

"Well, I mind if I come with you?"

Hinata's eyes rose to meet Naruto's for the first time in the whole conversation. Her whole body jumped a little as the surprise of his offer hit her. Her eyes were wide and Naruto managed to pull his gaze from the ceiling to meet her gaze. For a single moment, they looked into each other's eyes, neither moving, neither having even the intention of moving, and in the same time it took for the moment to occur, it passed and Naruto shut his eyes and dawned an innocent smile.

Seeing him so happy and seemingly carefree brought a small smile to her lips, and she managed to turn an even deeper shade of red.

"T-that would be nice, Naruto-kun."

And with that, the two took off down the hall. Naruto's mind a flame with all the things he needed to say to Kiba; of apologies and condolences. Hinata's mind was at a sense of half piece; between standing next to Naruto and wishing to speak to him. Each donned a smile on their face for completely different reasons, masking completely different thoughts; and the two walked down the hall with the same destination in mind.

Author: I can't think of anything that I should say that could convey apologies. I'd say "I'm Sorry" but that generally means that it'll never happen again. I can't promise that the next chapter will come soon, and I can't even promise that it'll even come at all. Look to the Future has been my pride and joy, and Causality has been a fic that I enjoy writing, but it seems that whenever I try to sit and write, every possible distraction comes up to block me. And every so often I think about simply giving up and not posting another chapter. To me, that's the coward's way out of a commitment I have made, but that doesn't make it any easier to sit down and put more wordsdown on these pages. I am not expecting to discontinue this fanfiction, though I ask that you simply bear in mind that I don't know when the next chapter will come out, it could be tomorrow, or in 3 months. If I apologize for anything, it'll be the frustration that you may go through waiting for another chapter, if any actually experiences any.