The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Chapter 7

Send her along. She requires no shepard.

'I really have no idea what's going on anymore,' Hinata thought as the Yondaime Hokage stared her down with Naruto's eyes.

"So, is it true?" Something in the Hokage's face changed, and the ghost of a smile appeared. "Are you a time traveler?"

She shifted, rubbing the small cut on her neck; it had started itching. Her hand came away smeared with blood. "I guess I am." Slowly, her Byakugan withdrew.

"You look about… sixteen, maybe seventeen, I'd say," The Yondaime said. He frowned. "Are you from the future? When I died, there weren't any Hyuuga that were anywhere near your age."

"You died in October of 55," Hinata said, trying to keep calm as she spoke to a dead man. It was surprisingly easy; the last day had inured her to something like this. "I was born in December, the same year." Fifty-five, of course, referred to the number of years since the Hidden Villages had been established. Rarely, Hinata considered what a small number the year of her birth really was, and how new the system of life that had dominated her entire life. "And yes, I'm sixteen."

The Yondaime's frown intensified, and he scratched his chin. "Sixteen, huh…" His eyes narrowed. "So you're from 71, then? That doesn't seem possible."

"I didn't come straight from… there," Hinata said, struggling with what word to use for a moment. A gust of wind whipped by, whirling snow up and ruffling her jacket. She shivered. "I was sent back to when I was three, before something else… pulled me here." The vagueness of the phrase bothered her, but she couldn't think of something that could replace it.

"Pulled you here." The Yondaime crossed his arms. "So you didn't travel of your own volition."

Hinata shook her head. "Neither time."

"Interesting." The Yondaime looked away from her, staring out at the dead forest in the distance. "You're not like the other one, then."

Hinata stiffened. "Other one?"

"The only other Hyuuga I know of to travel through time. Or claim to, anyway," the Hokage appended. "Do you know of her?"

Hinata nodded. "My father told me, before I came here. He didn't give me any details, though."

The Yondaime shrugged. "There's little to say. I'd been Hokage for barely two weeks. She showed up one day, out of nowhere according to Hiashi…" He paused, then snapped his fingers. "You must be his daughter, then!" Hinata nodded once more, and the Yondaime smiled for the first time. "It's a pleasure to meet you then, Hinata. Anyway, you must not be like the other traveler: you're not blind, for one. How did you get here?"

"It's complicated," she said with hesitation. The Yondaime didn't smile like Naruto, despite the similar eyes. That disturbed her more than the fact the man was dead, for some reason. "I was hit by an enemy jutsu as I used the 64 Palms: that's what sent me to the past, before I came here."

"What jutsu?" the Yondaime asked, and Hinata shook her head. She rubbed her arm at the same time, trying to warm it up.

"Some sort of… gravity attack," she said, struggling to describe the Shinra Tensei. "It was used by the leader of the Akatsuki. do you know them?"

The Yondaime went strangely still. "Describe him."

Hinata pursed her lips. "He had orange hair, lots of piercings, all made of very black metal. His eyes were probably his most identifiable trait, though. They were purple, with rings." The Hokage didn't say anything, so Hinata continued. "My father and the Sandaime called it the Rinnegan."

"Yes." The Yondaime spoke abruptly. "That's exactly what it is." He looked up at the sky silently, and Hinata stood uncomfortably, waiting for him to say something else. One of her hands slipped behind her back, wrapping around her elbow, and she felt herself buckling inwards.

"Hmm." The man finally made a sound, somewhere between a grunt and thoughtful murmur. "You must come from a much happier future than this one, Hinata, if you lived to be sixteen." Hinata shivered again; it wasn't from the cold. The Hokage's wistful tone brought to mind a question that had been buried by the snow and fear earlier.

"What year is it, sir, if you don't mind me asking?"

"68." The Yondaime shook his head. "I wonder, did you know my son?"

Hinata didn't answer the question. Her head dropped, and her eyes bored into the snow, unseeing. She was entirely consumed by her own thoughts.

'Only ten years later. Not thirteen.'

Something was wrong: she hadn't been sent back to the present that had been altered by her actions. It was the wrong year. Had she appeared early? It was a tempting thought: there was only one other example of time travel, after all. But something about her situation seemed wholly different from the one her father had told her about. The rift, the grasping purple chakra, even the current situation. How could her telling the Sandaime about the future have brought the Yondaime back to life and placed him in Konoha, even strange looking as he (along with Danzo and the woman who had attacked her earlier) was?

No: whatever Pain's jutsu had done, it had altered the normal rules of time travel with the Byakugan, if any had existed in the first place. She couldn't take anything for granted anymore.

"Hinata?"

The Yondaime quiet but firm voice snapped the Hyuuga out of her fugue, and she jerked, looking up at him guiltily. He looked concerned. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I mean…" Was she about to cry? It almost felt like it. She was so lost. "I don't know. I'm sorry. What did you ask earlier? I didn't hear you."

"I asked if you knew my son," the cracked Hokage said patiently. Hinata blinked.

"The Yondaime… you had a son?" she asked, and the man frowned. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"His name was Naruto," the Yondaime said.

'Oh.'

Hinata took a step back, and the Yondaime cocked his head.

'Oh my god.'

"I knew your son, Yondaime-sama," Hinata heard herself faintly say. It didn't really seem like she was the one speaking.

"Well, that's good," the Yondaime said mutely. His voice came to Hinata as though there were a long tunnel between the two of them. She could see him smiling. "I barely got the chance. What was he like?"

'What was Naruto like?'

All Hinata could see was his horrified eyes, the same eyes looking at her right now. Those eyes staring at her, begging her to go, to run away.

'Stop, please.'

"He's brave," Hinata said. "Incredibly brave, and selfless, and kind. He inspires everyone around him. When he was in the academy, he wasn't the best in the class, but he was always the one who tried the hardest. He's… he's friends with most of our class, people just can't help it, he's so sincere and kind, and he's strong, he's probably the strongest one out of any of us, even stronger than Neji or Sakura or Lee. He had a tough time when he was younger because he didn't have anyone, but he never gave up, and now the whole village knows his name. And–"

'And the last time I saw him he was begging, pinned to the ground.'

"–and he's always wanted to be Hokage, ever since he was a child, and now I think he's really closer than ever. No one believed in him, but he's shown them they were all wrong about him."

Hinata took a breath, shaking. The Yondaime took a step forward and then another, drawing closer, and lifted one of his cracked arms. Hinata almost stepped back, before the man's hand clapped down on her shoulder, squeezing gently.

"Thank you," he said. "I can tell you were close with him." He squeezed again. "It's good to know my son had such dedicated friends."

"Has." Hinata practically whispered. "I'll see him again."

The Yondaime smiled, but it looked even falser than it should have.

"I hope so, Hinata."

"I…"

The Hokage pulled his arm away, back to his side. Hinata watched it go, her eyes playing over the fissures running all across both it and the Hokage's sleeve.

'I wasn't really, was I? I was always too afraid to get close.'

She didn't want to think that, so she tried to focus on something else instead.

"Sir… what's happened to you?" Hinata looked around. "What's happened here? I don't understand what's going on. You, and Shimura-san, and that woman...? Why do you look so… How are you even here? I need… I need to know what's going on. It doesn't make any sense."

The Yondaime gave her a dour look. "That would be my interesting story, I suppose." He held his hand out open-palmed, examining the back of it. "I hope you don't know what the Edo Tensei is, Hinata?"

Hinata shook her head, wondering at the Hokage's wording. The man smiled grimly.

"It's a forbidden jutsu, invented by the Second Hokage. It brings the dead back to life, through the sacrifice of another."

Hinata abruptly understood why the Yondaime had hoped she wasn't aware of whatever jutsu had reanimated him.

"So you were…?" she started to ask, before realizing it was a stupid question. Instead, she settled on what she hoped would be a more intelligent one. "Who resurrected you, Hokage-sama?"

"The Sandaime."

Hinata felt sharp shock shoot from the top of her head down to the bottom of her toes. The Sandaime? She knew he had been Hokage for most of Konoha's existence, and that such a position brought with it a certain necessary ruthlessness. Nevertheless, she could not picture the kind man who had cared so much for her aches and pains sacrificing someone's life to call a previous Kage back from the dead.

"Yes, it doesn't sound much like him, does it?" the Yondaime said, obviously having seen her muted reaction. "I doubt he would have ever resorted to it if the situation weren't so desperate."

"What do you mean?" Hinata asked.

"When you were about twelve, Hinata," the dead Hokage responded, "did Orochimaru invade Konoha during the Chunin Exams? With the assistance of Sunagakure?"

"Of course," Hinata said, and the Hokage blinked, obviously surprised. "He killed the Sandaime, but the invasion was beaten back. The alliance with Sunagakure was strengthened after." She looked down at the snow. "I was unconscious for most of it. And well… since the Sandaime had been killed by Orochimaru, Tsunade of the Sannin was made the Fifth Hokage. Then-"

The Yondaime's eyes lit up. "Interesting!" he said, and the Hinata almost smiled at the childish exclamation. "That must be the difference, then! Wherever you come from, Hinata-"

"That's not how it happened… here?" Hinata asked. One side of the Yondaime's lips quirked.

"Orochimaru must have summoned different Edo Tensei," he said, almost to himself, and Hinata leaned in slightly. "It couldn't have been Madara after all…"

Hinata frowned, considering the name. "You don't mean Madara Uchiha, do you?" It was obvious, but seemed impossible; Madara Uchiha had been one of the co-founders of Konoha. He could hardly be forgotten, even if he was nearly as famous for going mad as he was for helping create the village in the first place.

"The very same," the Fourth Hokage said in a tone Hinata couldn't identify. "He is responsible for the sorry state of Konoha, and–" he gestured at the bodies, "–what you see around you."

"So… he was summoned by Orochimaru and murdered the Sandaime?" Hinata asked, and Minato chuckled.

"No," he said. "The Sandaime didn't die. It was much worse than that."

In the end, it really was Orochimaru's fault, despite the Fourth Hokage's harsh words.

The Snake Sannin had summoned help when he had attempted to murder the Sandaime. That much, Minato Namikaze made clear to Hinata. He had used the technique devised by the Nidaime that the Hokage had told her about: the Edo Tensei. Using a genetic sample, the jutsu recalled the soul of a dead shinobi from wherever such things went, and manifested them as a nigh-immortal zombie (for lack of a better term) that was controlled by the summoner.

Orochimaru had used the Edo Tensei to summon assistance against the Sandaime, and that had been the beginning. The Sandaime had explained the rest to Minato when he had been summoned, and now Minato gravely imparted it to Hinata.

Madara Uchiha had broken the Edo Tensei, freeing himself of Orochimaru's control, and left. Left Konoha entirely. He hadn't bothered to fight the Sandaime; all he done was laugh, as the Sandaime had put it. In the wake of the invasion, it had taken nearly a day to realize that Naruto Uzumaki and the Sand's Jinchuriki Gaara had vanished along with him.

(Hinata had felt something hot in her eyes at that, but she suppressed it with a vicious jab of cold determination.)

Orochimaru had gone mad in the wake of it. Or madder, as the Yondaime put it. The Sandaime believed it had been due to Madara's peculiar eyes. The Professor hadn't recognized them initially, but he'd learned afterwards that they had been the Rinnegan: the very eyes responsible for Hinata's condition. How Madara had gained such peculiar eyes was impossible to know, but Orochimaru had recognized them, and the revelation had driven him into a frenzy.

(The idea that one of the Village's founders had possessed the Rinnegan confused Hinata: the knowledge that the First Hokage had defeated him anyway brought to her a peculiar mix of admiration and fear.)

The Snake Sannin had thrown himself into pursuit of Madara. He had crafted new jutsu and gone to lengths no shinobi had ever dared to before. He had "improved" upon the Edo Tensei; he'd sent out a new breed of summoned shinobi to retrieve Madara, each endowed with one of his curse seals and, more horrifyingly, the ability to produce another Edo slaved to Orochimaru's will.

(The Yondaime had demonstrated the process with a brief mock motion; the jerk of a clawed hand up below an invisible rib cage, followed by a vicious twist, made Hinata's stomach curl. She recognized it. That had almost happened to her)

This escalation had been useless. Madara had scattered the armies, leaving them to slowly pull themselves back together, and had destroyed Orochimaru. Bound to the Sannin's will, the Edo Tensei had gone insane and directionless with his death, rampaging across the Elemental Nations; driven by some final inexplicable order, they propagated, creating more of themselves wherever they could. With every new Edo Tensei created bearing one of Orochimaru's Cursed Seals, even a civilian could be transformed into a potent threat to shinobi.

The other villages were, as far as Konoha was aware, gone or scattered. Sunagakure had been overrun, the desert proving no impediment to opponents who couldn't tire. Iwagakure fought till the hordes of Edo Tensei had breached the village itself. After which, its shinobi had broken apart with startling speed, scattering across the nations; the Yondaime had been there to witness it personally. Kirigakure, already unstable, had unceremoniously collapsed, its ninja vanishing into hiding in and across the sea. Kumogakure was the only village the Kage knew of that was still intact as Konoha was.

For most living in the Nations, it was as good as the end of the world.

"So, that woman that attacked me," Hinata said, her mouth dry. "She was one of those created by Orochimaru?"

"One of thousands." The dead Hokage closed his eyes. "They cannot be killed, only sealed; and many of them know how to undo the seals on their… comrades, I guess." His mouth twisted around the word.

"How is Konoha still…?" Hinata couldn't imagine it. Even if the village had such powerful shinobi like Might Gai, the Sannin, Kakashi Hatake, the ANBU, and the thousands and thousands of Chunin and Special Jonin that made up the ranks of Konoha's dedicated fighting force… even they couldn't possibly defeat an army of thousands, tens of thousands, that fought without any care for self-preservation. An army that couldn't be killed, that never tired, that could make more of themselves from their enemies.

At that, the Fourth Hokage did something Hinata never dreamed she see. He flinched.

"I… am not the only one the Sandaime brought back," he said. "There were others."

The way the Yondaime said the word brought a certain chill to Hinata's mind. "Others?"

"Hmm." The Yondaime crossed his arms, looking up at the sky. "Anyone who could fight." His mouth was a flat, unreadable line. "The previous Kage, the Uchiha clan, any deceased at the level of a Jonin. And…"

He stopped, jerking his head to the left, like a dog picking up a new and interesting scent. Before Hinata's eyes, the man instantly switched from his relaxed posture to a low combat stance: she hardly saw him move. In a moment, every bit of the dead Hokage screamed efficient, remorseless violence. Hinata's arms came up instinctively in a futile defensive gesture. However, despite this, the Hokage's words were firmly stuck in her mind.

'Anyone who could fight.'

The Yondaime's hand shot out, wrapping around her arm. She flinched back, and the man's eyes narrowed in concentration.

Nothing happened.

"Damn." The dead Hokage released her arm. "He's set the barrier."

'What?'

"Hinata," the Yondaime said flatly. "Listen to me." He turned to her. "There's a Leaf outpost about… twenty-three miles from here. To the west. With your Byakugan, you shouldn't have difficulty finding it. It's pretty standard. Go. Right now."

"What is it?" she asked. "What's-?"

The Hokage's eyes narrowed. "Madara. He's coming."

"He's here?" Hinata asked, feeling a cold sweat creep down her neck. The Yondaime was putting off copious deadly intent; none of it was directed at her, but the wash of it was intimidating nonetheless.

"Don't ask questions." The Yondaime pointed towards the grey forest in the distance, and his voice dropped. It was the voice of a man commanding soldiers in the face of death. "Run. Now."

Hinata did just that.

She took off, running west. The snow slid by under feet; she pushed chakra to her legs, practically gliding across the white expanse, building up more and more speed. It was similar to walking on water. She just had to make sure she didn't break the surface tension of the snow. Speed started stretching her vision: she'd have to slow down once she reached the forest, but out here, with no obstacles and with the snow as an accelerant, she could go as fast as she cared, faster than she'd ever normally be able to. There was a certain undeniable thrill to it.

She thought about that instead of the mad Uchiha with a Rinnegan. It was all she could do. Nevertheless, she activated her Byakugan; not being able to see what was coming could be a death sentence.

The world opened up.

There was a man standing where she'd been just a couple minutes ago, atop the crumpled samurai bunker. He was wearing heavy red armor, and his long black hair whipped in the wind. Cracks ran across both his armor and skin, the telltale sign of an Edo Tensei. He and the Yondaime were staring at each other. The dead Hokage had pulled two peculiar pronged kunai from a hidden pouch. The new arrival's eyes were indolent, dismissive; despite their purple color and pattern of rings emanating from the pupil, the man's scorn was obvious.

Hinata realized after a moment that she recognized him. She'd seen a spitting image of him back in the past, on a poster in Naruto's orphanage. It seemed that no matter what year it was, Madara Uchiha wore the same thing when he went to war.

He was saying something; the Yondaime responded. Hinata could read their lips.

"-alive?" Madara looked towards her, and for a second there was undeniable eye contact. Hinata felt like she was staring down an oncoming tidal wave.

"You won't touch her." The Hokage raised his kunai.

"Why are you standing in my way, Minato?" Hinata hadn't expected the man to use the Hokage's name with such familiarity. The environment started vanishing behind the Uchiha and the Kage: the limit of her Byakugan's vision was rushing up behind them, creating a chilling visual illusion.

"I'm here to save her."

Both men disappeared; there was the occasional flash of sparks, and the snow was thrown up in all directions in huge explosions of wet powder. A body was picked off the ground and hurled into the distance like a small black ragdoll. Hinata realized with a start they were moving faster than she could perceive. She hadn't seen that in half a year, not since she'd turned sixteen. Even her father couldn't pull that trick on her anymore.

It wasn't a shunshin. They were just fast.

She pulled out of range, and any chance of watching the fight vanished.

Hinata focused on running. The Yondaime was buying her time. She couldn't afford to let him down.

The forest was getting closer. She'd traveled about six miles in the last fifteen seconds; it was time to slow down. She planted her feet, surfing off the snow and bleeding speed rapidly, and entered the outskirts of the woods. Dead trees and plants surrounded her, some covered by sheets of snow thrown up by her passing. The vegetation grew thicker, and moments later she had entered the canopy. What anemic light made it through the thick grey clouds enough was rapidly blocked off. Hinata's eyes pierced the gloom effortlessly, but the sudden darkness was still noticeable.

Twenty-three miles, the Yondaime had said. She had be close to that now. Hinata started to actively scan for the outpost, her eyes darting about as muscles reacted unnecessarily to actions transcending them. All of Konoha's outposts were well hidden, often high in the canopy or set inside a tree. In the face of the Byakugan, that wouldn't be enough.

As she searched, her mind wandered back.

The Fourth Hokage couldn't die, she knew. He was already dead, after all. Worrying about that was pointless.

She just hoped he hadn't stayed behind for nothing.