note: I do not own naruto. please don't sue me, I'm poor. I also don't own a word program with spell check. Please bear with me, and if you find any errors: let me know.
Thanks!-cp
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The sky was the clearest it had been all week, not that this would have been difficult. The past three days had been as dark and leaden as a cloudy dawn all day, storm clouds accompanied by a miserable drizzle that seeped into the clothes and a chill that soaked into her bones.
To be honest, Hinata was annoyed at the turn in the weather. She had found solace in the sky's sharing of her misery, but now, well now it was cheerfully bright out and her aching heart was alone again.
It had been four long years since she had graduated, three of which she had not seen him. And then, just as he had reappeared and she had begun to work her courage to talk to him, truly talk to him, not just a stuttering "hi-howareyou-imfine-bye", but to invite him out for ramen, he was gone again after Sasuke. She worried about him then more than ever, knowing that her childhood love would rather die than leave his friend in the clutches of the snake-like Sannin.
Another year had passed, and she begged Tsunade to send more teams for the boy, surely one more would find him, but the Hokage just shook her head sadly. Every team that had been sent after Naruto had returned, if at all, with heavy casualties. Then, one day, the watch tower sounded the alarm. Strange ninjas coming up the road. Hinata bolted up to the highest perch she could find. The pair staggered into view, a dark haired boy, and a pale haired girl supporting each other as they trudged in exhaustion towards Konoha.
She rushed down to greet her former classmates at the gate, but it wasn't them she was concerned about, if they had made it this far they would be fine, it was the absence of their tow-headed, Naruto. She arrived just as the guards where making way for Sakura, even as they ripped Sasuke from her side. Sakura looked as if she had been crying for days, but her eyes were dry. Perhaps she simply had no more to give. Sakura looked up, jade eyes meeting silver, and then she looked away guiltily. Her face said it all.
"N...Naruto...?" Hinata stuttered, and Sakura shook her head "He's dead." she rasped, eyes threatening to tear up again, "He's dead, Hinata. I'm sorry...I'm so..." Hinata grabbed the kunoichi by her shoulders and shook her slightly "Did you see him fall?" her voice was high pitched, frantic, and she forgot her stutter "Did you?" Sakura shook her head, "No. No, no, no, no... We left him. He made us leave him. He would have killed us if we had stayed. We waited, searched...for days, but all we found was this." she lifted her hand and Hinata realized for the first time that she had been clutching something in it since her first appearance on the road. Sakura had to pry her own fingers from around the metal plate enclosed there. It was the broken two-thirds of a Konoha head protector, black and scorched along one side. Hinata turned the plate over. There on the back were scratched two names; the first was Iruka's, his last name melted off the end, the second, though also partially obscured, was undoubtedly Naruto's.
She was shaking. No. He couldn't be. He just couldn't. Not Naruto. She shoved the tears that threatened down into her throat. He couldn't be.
This is how she had ended up on the ill-marked road to Sound. Through a combination of fierce denial, steely determination, and a significant amount of stupidity, she had decided that Naruto was still alive and that no one, no one, was going to stop her from bringing him back.
