I'm on a roll~
9.5 - gimme a sign
Hinata was happy.
How could she possibly be anything else? For once, it felt like everything in her life was going well. She was maintaining good relations with her cousin, clan tensions hadn't worsened her camaraderie with her little sister, and even her rocky relationship with her father was looking up. She had fully mastered the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, and was now working on more advanced Hyuuga techniques. And perhaps most importantly of all, Uzumaki Naruto was finally, actually, Hinata's g-girl-girlfriend.
Hinata was happy, she really was.
So why was she seriously contemplating ruining everything for herself?
Because Hinata has loved Naruto for years and years now. It seems as if as long as she'd been training to be a ninja, she'd had a crush on Naruto. But that wasn't quite true, was it? She entered the academy before she ever met Naruto, and to say that Naruto was her only motivation for becoming stronger would be a lie, and a discredit to herself. Naruto hadn't even been here for three years, and while Hinata had remembered her, had kept her in the back of her mind...
The people who really kept her going were the ones she saw every day. Kiba, who was brash but always kind and never stopped encouraging her, never stopped telling her to try again and to try harder. Shino, who was calm and quiet but not as mysterious as he seemed at first, who always listened to her problems and responded with thoroughly thought-out advice. Kurenai-sensei, who had more faith in Hinata than Hinata had in herself and consequently pushed her to constantly improve. Neji-niisan, who was willing to give her advice about the Byakugan and didn't pull punches, verbal or otherwise, who told her that she had a responsibility to better herself and the clan. Hard-working Hanabi, who never stopped admiring or loving her.
Hinata had gotten so used to the idea of loving Naruto, and it wasn't a lie to say that she still did. She would die for her, had in fact almost died for her already and would do it again at the drop of a hitai-ate.
But now that she had everything she'd always thought she wanted, she wasn't sure whether Hinata was in love with Naruto. And while a part of her was willing to nurture this love, allow it to grow into something sweet and content and fulfilling—
More than anyone else in Konoha, more than anyone else on this entire damn planet, Naruto deserved a passionate love, a love that consumed her and spurred her on and made her desperately, breathlessly happy. Because Hinata knew that Naruto had an infinitely large heart that didn't want to hurt others, so Naruto would stay with her, happy that Hinata loved her, because Naruto never asked for too much for herself. She gave and gave and gave, always doing her best for her precious people, always upholding her nindō, her way of the ninja.
But Hinata's nindō was adopted from Naruto's, and she, too, wanted the best for her precious people. Naruto would always be important to her, the catalyst that jumpstarted Hinata's determination and tempered her will to a shuriken-sharp edge; but perhaps Hinata was not the one meant to stand at Naruto's side for the rest of her life.
So now (even though a part of her didn't want to give this up), Hinata resolved to do what was best for Naruto.
After all, it was the one thing she couldn't trust Naruto to do for herself.
notes: woah this is some unprecedented shit (it's only been what, three days?)
this obviously takes place before last chapter hehe. thanks to fluffpenguin for asking the question that prompted this chapter!
writing this chapter I had to confront my—honestly—dislike for Hinata as a character. because as Kishimoto-sensei (shakes fist) portrays her, she's just so...flat. like many people, I basically ignore Naruto canon after chapter 699 /sigh