posted un-betta-ed! so if you see ant errors...let me know and I'll fix 'em. (thanks to huffpuff for loving this pairing too and making me want to write even more)

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He could only run so far, so fast; he knew they would come for him. Perhaps it would be soon, he thought, but it would not be unlike them to bide thier time either. One thing he knew for certain: when he breathed his last it would be at the hands of his former team-mate.

Boy, girl, these words didn't mean anything to him. They used to, but you spend enough time alone in the woods the lines begin to blur. Then it's just sex, just love. Boy and girl cease to be. And that boy never took rejection lightly. Not that he had rejected him personaly, nothing that complicated. But he had to go. He had to do this thing, and nothing was going to stop him, not even death at the hands of a lover.

Hinata panted as she ran. Her limit was somewhere three days, seven ambushes, a hundred miles away. She couldn't feel her legs anymore, she just made them move. Her lungs burned from exhertion and her scarred heart threatened to break itself in twain. But she could not, would not stop. A part of her recognized the maddness that had taken root in her, the desperation that wanted Naruto to be alive, but that part of her brain also knew, knew, that he was dead. Sakura was the second-best med-nin Konoha had to offer, next to Tsunade. And besides, she was his team-mate, if she could not find him how could Hinata? But the part of her brain that used logic was but a whisper among the thumping bass of feeling.

She knew she was being followed. She could hear the faint rustling in the trees behind her, see the occational shaddow out of the corner of her eyes. She tried to increase her speed, landing in a natural game trail and taking off, but they kept pace with her. She ran faster.

He was being followed. He knew this because he could smell them, he could feel the pulse of thier chakra beating against his skin. They thought he didn't know. He ran because for once he did not feel like a fight. He just wanted to be left alone, was that so much to ask? Apperantly. But it didn't matter, he could out-pace these ametures, easy. Just so long as he didn't get cornered.

He skidded to a halt as he turned around a bend in the narrow trail and she almost ran into him. She jumped back, obviously as shocked to see him as he was to see her, falling habitually into a fighting stance. She looked frazzeled, worn out. She was being hounded, like him. Her breath came in short gasps as she stared him down with those liquid mercury eyes of hers, unruly ebon-blue waterfall framing her blood flushed face.

His team-mate had told him all about her. Well, not her in specifics, but her family. Those silvery eyes, that special stance. Only one thing was missing: that pattented smirk. Well, he would forgive the omission this time, he thought as he narrowed his eyes at the girl. She was covered in blood. He tested the air, some of it -not much, but some- was hers. She was dangerous, and from that look in her eyes possibly insane as well.

He let one hand slide to the skull-shaped pomel of his sword, shooting her a skeptical glare, "Hyuuga?"