The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Chapter 8

Impress him. It is your only chance. Assure me of my choice.

The outpost had been as easy to find as Hinata had hoped. Situated high in the canopy and concealed by a snarl of branches, the small structure was essentially invisible from every angle except directly above it. The outpost itself was rather spartan: it was barely more than a small room with a single cot, under which was tucked a storage shelf. A lookout point offered a commanding view of the entire forest and several miles beyond it, including the bunker from which Hinata had come.

There hadn't been any food, but the shelf held a canteen of stale-tasting water and several ninja tools: about a dozen kunai, a single tanto, a flak vest, and a picture of a little boy with brown hair and gold eyes. The pockets of the flak vest were empty with the exception of one, which contained about a meter of spooled steel wire.

Hinata had slipped on the flak vest: every bit of clothing helped to keep her warm right now, since she couldn't afford to burn chakra regulating her body temperature. It also, undeniably, made her feel a bit safer. She'd filled the pockets with the kunai as well, though she left the tanto where it was; a Hyuuga was never unarmed, and a weapon she had minimal training in would only slow her down. Now, she was sitting on the cot, slowly taking sips from the canteen. She hadn't realized how thirsty she was until she'd found it.

Her Byakugan was still activated. She could see most of the forest, though her range didn't quite extend to the edge of it. She could see her own heart, as well. She was at about one-hundred beats a minute now: far faster than sitting on a bed in the middle of nowhere merited, but it was gradually slowing down.

The forest was dead. There wasn't a single living thing in it. No animals, no plant life. Nothing. Snow covered everything in a soft white pall. Hinata had never seen anything like it. Even in the middle of winter, there still should have been something alive out there. Instead, she was as alone as she could possibly be.

She couldn't decide if being so alone was good or bad.

On one hand, it gave her an opportunity to think. More obviously, being so alone meant there was nothing out there to threaten her.

But she couldn't help but want someone with her. Anyone, really. Someone to talk to. She could feel it all welling up inside of her: the pathetic terror and confusion that she had managed to suppress, briefly, while in the company of the Yondaime.

Hinata Hyuuga was alone, far from home, and she had no idea how to get back.

Hinata sat on the cot, both of her hands clasped around the canteen. She held it between her legs, leaning down, curling in on herself and her hair cascaded over her shoulders and covered her face like a long dark drape. Her eyes closed, though that did nothing to block off her sight.

She started shaking, her whole body silently trembling.

Three seconds later, as the first tear reached her chin, Madara Uchiha strode into her field of vision.

Hinata's head jerked up, and she swiveled towards the man, though he was a little less than six miles away. She stared intently as he wandered towards her. However, despite her sudden physical movement, her mind was seemingly frozen.

Madara Uchiha was coming for her.

Madara Uchiha was coming for her.

If he was here, that meant he had defeated the Yondaime. The Hokage had said Edo Tensei couldn't be killed; the Uchiha must have sealed him, or scattered him beyond all ability to regenerate as the woman she'd fought had. The method didn't really matter. Whatever the reason, it was clear that Minato Namikaze, the man who had defeated the Kyuubi, could not protect her anymore.

She watched Madara with morbid fascination. The man moved like an Inuzuka's dog, slinking across the snow. Could he be a chakra sensor? She didn't think so. He would have already pinpointed her location if that were the case. No, his distinctive Rinnegan eyes were darting about. He was tracking her, Hinata realized, as a Sharingan user would track someone: perhaps he still had the acumen of the famous Uchiha eyes despite his apparent lack of them, or maybe the Rinnegan had sight just as keen as the Sharingan itself. It was impossible to know.

Hinata had masked her movements through the forest with chakra. She hadn't left tracks in the snow, and she'd gone out of her way to not disturb the environment in any other way. Nonetheless, she could tell that the famous Uchiha was following a trail of sorts, and she had no doubt that trail was leading directly to her.

Uchiha Madara was tracking her through the forest; he'd find her within the minute, at his current speed.

Hinata's mind started moving again, and she rose to her feet, too terrified to make a sound.

She could run. No, she had to run, didn't she? She didn't have any other choice. She had to get out of here right now. Maybe she could hide, somewhere in the forest. She could hole up inside a tree, or dig a hole in the snow and pray he walked over her without noticing. Her breathing sped up at the thought: the image of being trapped in a small, icy hole, her heat being leached away, waiting to be found.

No no no no. It wouldn't work, it couldn't. It didn't matter how she concealed her passage: he would be able to track her through the forest easily enough. Those eyes of his would lead him right to her if she ran. And he was faster. She'd seen it just minutes ago. She couldn't outrun someone who moved faster than she could see.

Not to mention that it was Madara Uchiha. If he couldn't find her, he might just settle for leveling the forest instead. She certainly wouldn't be able to hide from that.

One-hundred and sixty beats per minute now. Her heartbeat was everywhere. Her fingertips pulsed with it. It was like the whole word was resonating with its pounding. She could feel freezing sweat dripping down her neck.

Running wasn't an option. She would just die tired.

Could she fight? She couldn't fight. He'd defeated a Hokage. It had taken the First to end him. She had a better chance of…

She couldn't think of anything. Hinata couldn't think of something less likely than her defeating Madara Uchiha. It felt like a gear in her mind was grinding against another, sparking and making a terrible racket. She could barely hear her own thoughts. It drowned out her heartbeat.

'I'm going to die.'

Hinata could not run: she'd be caught. She could not fight: she'd be beaten.

Dead end. The heartbeat was still there, like the sun behind an eclipse. The world pulsed three times a second.

Madara was about two miles away now.

What could she do? What could she do?

She wasn't going to wait calmly for her death. She couldn't stand that. Everyone died. She knew that. But this wasn't how she wanted to die, trapped in this outpost waiting for her doom, like a rabbit in its burrow.

Hinata's jaw clenched, her teeth grinding. Slowly, her hands curled into fists. Her fingernails, still humming with the beat of her heart, dug into her palms and drew blood.

She didn't want to die for no reason. She didn't want to die in a place where no one would find her, when no one would remember her. Vaguely, the notion made her angry.

A thought came to her in a burst of clarity, piercing through the deafening heartbeat.

'What would Naruto do?'

What would Naruto do?

Naruto wouldn't run, obviously. She couldn't picture that at all. All she could see was him struggling back to his feet, bleeding and broken, in the face of her cousin. Even after he'd had every one of his tenketsu sealed.

Naruto couldn't have won that fight. He shouldn't have. But he'd stepped up to it anyway. And he'd won, despite all logic.

Hinata couldn't win. She knew it in her soul. She wasn't Naruto. But she couldn't run. If she had to choose between dying as she fought and dying as she ran…

There wasn't any choice at all. Hinata Hyuuga decided that if she was going to die, she was going to die like Naruto would.

Madara was close now. Half a mile, perhaps.

Hinata took a deep breath, slowly blowing it out, and straightened up. The omnipresent pulsing of her heartbeat faded away. The world, expanded by her Byakugan, tapered down into a tunnel of darkness. It narrowed into a bright needle, focused on Madara Uchiha.

The man became Hinata's entire existence.

She burned every bit of him into her mind; the cracks on his face, the rings of his eyes, his dull red armor, the gunbai he carried on his back. Her Byakugan regarded him from every angle, reading every facet of his body. The man screamed bored confidence; he was entirely unworried.

She could use that.

Slowly, Hinata dropped her head and slid one of her feet back, lowering her stance. Her hands came up, pointed like knives. There was no wind, no sound, nothing to break her concentration at all. Her father's voice slipped up from deep within her as she closed her eyes. Madara was fifty meters away. He seemed as though he were looking right at her, through her.

You must strike with perfect confidence.

Forty meters.

She opened her eyes.

Thirty.

'You are within range of my divinations.'

She spun. She thought, in that null space between different presents–

'I will hit you.'

Time slipped aside.

Madara Uchiha was twenty meters away, staring up at the outpost.

Madara Uchiha was two feet away. He raised an eyebrow.

The Hakke Rokujūyon Shō brought Hinata before him in an instant. She threw sixty-four strikes at the same time: an unblockable combo.

'Four strikes.' Madara's left hand, lazily raised, jerked back. She'd hit him.

'Eight-'

Madara moved.

Hinata was carried off the ground by a force she couldn't see, the world going black from the acceleration. All thoughts of completing the Eight Palms fell away, banished by panic and pain. She couldn't breathe.

The darkness immediately dissolved, and she found herself dangling three feet above the ground, a crushing pressure slamming her windpipe shut. It took her a moment to understand what was happening.

Madara held her at arm's length, his hand wrapped around her throat. The man was staring at her, his eyes full of quiet contempt. He squeezed, and Hinata heard the cartilage in her throat creak. One of her hands came up, scrabbling at his, trying to dislodge it. She kicked out on reflex, aiming for his neck.

Her leg had gone less than a foot before he brought his other arm around, slamming his elbow into her ascending shin.

Something snapped. It was a hollow, abrupt sound. White fire exploded out of Hinata's leg and wormed its way up through her body, stopping her heart, before erupting into her brain. The pain burned out everything it touched, and her mouth opened wide in a silent scream as her right leg fell back, completely limp.

The Uchiha hurled her to the ground, and Hinata slammed to the snow, digging several inches down into the icy slush. She still couldn't breathe.

Her heart started beating again, and Hinata let out a weak gasp. Her Byakugan receded.

There was a soft buzzing in her ears; her leg was still on fire, and her back was as well. She dug her hands into the snow, trying to pull herself backwards, away from the man standing imperiously above her. Chakra boiled off of him, giving the air around her the flavor of ozone; he looked like nothing less than death itself.

Hinata's eyes went wide, the pale outline of her pupils shrinking to little more than dots.

Madara tilted his head as she yanked herself away, barely gaining a couple inches of distance. Her leg dragged through the snow, and Hinata bit her lip to keep from screaming. Her breathing was ragged, panicked. But the man didn't pursue, or step in to finish her off. He just stood there, his ringed eyes boring into her.

"Pathetic." His baritone voice struck at her like a fusillade of hurled rocks as he stepped forward, squatting down. Hinata, her limbs paralyzed by shock and terror, could only stare numbly as he looked her over with narrow eyes. The contempt was still there, but it was joined by a deep disappointment.

"Hyuuga," he rumbled. "Did you really think I would have no idea how to counter that pitiful trick of yours?"

"Haaa-" She sucked in another breath, scrambling backwards. Hinata didn't care about the numbing pain in her leg anymore; she just needed to be away from the man. She couldn't think.

"I would have thought," the Uchiha said, standing back up, "that any of your clan entrusted with that technique would know better."

She didn't know better. She shouldn't be here at all. She couldn't be here. She couldn't-

Hinata collapsed, the pain of her shattered leg sending her fingers twitching. She dug tracks through the snow, her arms trembling.

This was the end. She hadn't died fighting; she was going to die here, face down in the snow, unable to run. The worst of either option.

She may as well have killed herself in the outpost. It would have been less humiliating.

"Hmm." Madara prodded at her side with one of his feet, flipping her back over. "That little Kage was telling the truth. You are alive." Hinata just wordlessly stared up at him, unable to speak.

He snorted. "You're alive, and you threw yourself like that at me? Perhaps you are even more foolish than I thought."

Hinata quietly waited to die.

Madara crossed his arms, looking down at her. His armor clattered as he did so. Hinata couldn't help but think that it was bizarre for a shinobi to wear such loud protection.

He didn't say anything, but he didn't move to attack either. She didn't understand why the Uchiha wouldn't finish her off.

"What's your name?"

'What?'

Had she said that out loud?

He bent slightly at the waist, leaning over with a mocking expression. "Tell me your name, or I'll break your neck."

'Not much of a choice then.'

"Hinata," she choked out, the pain in her leg slowing her words. "Hinata Hyuuga."

"Hinata." The Uchiha considered the name. "Fitting." He straightened back up. "You're not going to try and get back up?"

Was that a real question? Or was he just mocking her? Why would he bother in the first place?

"You broke my leg," she said slowly. Her mouth was dry; it tasted like copper and cotton.

"Yes." He inclined his head slightly, looking at the leg in question. "Multiple fractures, by the look of it." His eyes slipped back to hers. "If you stay on the ground, I'll break the other."

He was playing with his food. It was the only answer that made sense. Hinata's mind was growing clearer: the pain, initially shocking, had settled into a steady intense cold, along with the snow pressing against her palms. She wasn't calm by any means, but at least now she was lucid.

She could stay on the ground and lose her other leg, or she could play his game and live a little while longer. Perhaps he'd get bored and leave her. A broken leg would slow her down, but she'd still be able to make decent progress towards… wherever wasn't here.

There really wasn't anything else for her to do.

Hinata pulled herself up as the Uchiha watched curiously, before propping herself off the ground with both her hands and slowly levered her left leg under her torso. She did the best to keep the other straight and still, ignoring the flares of pain from it. With a grunt, she pushed herself up on her left leg, standing crookedly as she kept herself from putting any pressure on her right.

"Good," he said. "Now, tell me: what possessed you to attack me?" His lips quirked. "You knew it was pointless. I could see it."

Hinata considered. Lying wouldn't save her anything, but the truth was embarrassing.

The man's Rinnegan gleamed, and she recalled how he had tracked her through the snow despite her precautions. If it had the same acuity of the Sharingan or Byakugan, he'd see if she lied in her body language. It wouldn't be worth it.

"I saw you fighting the Yondaime, just for a moment," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "There there was no way I could outrun you, and it was clear you could track me even if I took precautions." She licked her lips, feeling their dryness. "I didn't want to die running."

"Ha!" the Uchiha barked, his laugh harsh. "Maybe you're not as stupid as I judged you, Hyuuga. You know who I am, then?"

Hinata blinked, despite herself. "You're Madara Uchiha. You're… well known."

"Hn." The man looked vaguely satisfied. "I suppose as the man Hashirama had to put down?"

Hinata looked down at that. She couldn't risk offending the man.

"No surprise." The Uchiha made a gesture with one of his hands, flicking it upwards. Hinata found herself lifted into the air, mirroring the Uchiha's hand. She yelped, struggling and flailing her unbroken limbs, until the man took a step forward and the invisible pressure grasping her doubled. Her leg made a popping noise, and her mouth slammed shut, her lips going white.

Madara stretched his cracked hand out and laid it on her shattered leg. Hinata tensed, expecting another bout of white agony.

Instead, the pain vanished.

She blinked. A green aura of thick chakra surged around the Uchiha's hand, and then he carelessly drew it away. Just as abruptly as it had appeared, the force holding her in the air vanished, and she fell backwards. She landed on her left foot, almost losing her balance.

"Don't bother," Madara said. Slowly, Hinata set her right foot down, testing her weight on it. There wasn't any pain, not even an errant twinge of discomfort. It was as if her leg had never been broken.

Medical jutsu. Extremely powerful medical jutsu, at that. He'd set multiple fractures in her leg in a moment. That wasn't ordinary; it was on Sakura's level.

"What?" The words slipped out of her mouth before she was fully aware of them. The Uchiha snorted as Hinata stared at him without comprehension. "Why?"

"Are you thinking of running away now?" he asked flatly. Hinata struggled not to let her confusion show on her face, but she suspected she was failing.

"I…"

'Couldn't.'

She saw him read the unspoken word in her face. The sensation was unnerving; it was as though she were made of glass.

"Then there wasn't any reason not to," the Uchiha said. He shifted, dropping his arms.

"You want something from me, then," Hinata said. There was no way he'd healed her on a whim; it didn't fit what little she knew about Madara Uchiha, or his body language.

"What could you give me?" the man chuckled. "I'm here because I sensed the jutsu of that pitiful Senju imitator. I only discovered you when I arrived."

"You chased me, though." Hinata grew a bit bolder. If the man wanted her dead, she'd die, but aside from the initial brutal counterattack, he hadn't laid a finger on her. Now that her initial terror had abated, she recognized the flow of this conversation. The man wanted to say something but was unwilling to go directly to it. Maybe it amused him to play word-games with her; high-level shinobi tended to be eccentric. Or it could be something else entirely.

"That's true," he admitted guilelessly. "I always chase down the living. They are in short commodity nowadays."

"The Yondaime told me," Hinata said, shifting back. This was a conversation now; she was still at the man's mercy, but communicating with a kage-level opponent wasn't the same as fighting one. This was an engagement she could at least stalemate him in. "About your summoning, and Orochimaru. What he did."

Madara chuckled again. "He was an amusing creature. So consumed with stealing other's power; like a leech in the shape of a man." He frowned. "Disgusting as well, I suppose. He set in motion something even I couldn't fix."

"You mean the Edo Tensei?" Hinata asked.

"Hmm." Madara looked away. "You know a lot for a little Hyuuga." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, half the rings of his Rinnegan being obscured. "Why was a clone of Minato with you anyway?" He said the Hokage's name as he would a child's.

"Clone?" she asked. It didn't surprise her, not really: the situation that the Yondaime had described was far too serious for him to waste time with her.

"Yes; his real body is combating mine, last I saw him." Madara drummed his fingers against his arm. "This latest skirmish has already lasted two days. It's always so interesting, two shadow clones fighting, especially with these tepid bodies. It turns a tedious brawl into something that at least approaches a true battle between shinobi."

"So you're a clone too, then." Madara was still as stone. 'But I hit you?" If this man were a shadow clone, he should have dispelled at that.

At that, he raised an eyebrow. "Not nearly hard enough."

'Jerk.'

"So why are you still here then?"

Madara shook his head. "No, girl: you have to answer my question first."

Now, Hinata cursed the fact that the Uchiha would see through any lie instantly. She had to be careful with her words.

"He saved me from an Edo Tensei," she said, attempting to keep it simple. "We talked afterwards."

Madara was clearly unimpressed. "How convenient. And why was he in a position to do so in the first place?"

Think fast. Hesitation had no place here. Hinata could already see the verbal trap forming, but she also couldn't find a way around it. She had to keep herself from taking a step back.

"Because he sent me here from Konoha," she said.

Madara sighed. "So vague."

His eyes glowed, and Hinata found her gaze drawn to them against her own will. It seemed like the concentric rings were undulating; the Rinnegan was taking on a life of its own. They were growing, taking up her entire line of sight, filling her with dread.

"Tell me the truth," Madara commanded, and Hinata's knees almost buckled. Every muscle in her face went slack, and she stared blindly ahead, unable to see anything but the dominating eyes.

"I was dropped in Konoha and confronted by Danzo Shimura," Hinata said without a hint of inflection or emotion. It was perfectly natural for her to be telling him this. Why wouldn't she? "He had been transformed into an Edo Tensei; he accused me of being a spy and attempted to execute me." The wound on her neck was mostly scabbed over my now, but her hand slipped over it anyway. "The Yondaime saved me with his transportation jutsu."

"Dropped from where?" the eyes asked.

"The past. I am a time traveler," she answered.

The genjutsu broke. Hinata almost fell back, her balance lost, before she caught herself. She shook her head, clearing her disorientation. Her hands curled into fists.

"There," Madara said calmly. "Was that so difficult?"

Hinata panted, trying to expel the excess chakra from her system. As she did, she tried her best to keep the rising anger in her chest down. Anger would be completely counterproductive. She had to stay calm: had to keep her head clear.

"That wasn't necessary," she said, channeling every inch of vicious politeness her father had trained into her.

"Quite the contrary," Madara sneered. "It became entirely necessary the moment you started boring me with your amateurish deflections."

The message was clear. Hinata decided to switch subjects, before the man hypnotized her again.

"You don't seem surprised," she noted.

The Uchiha's eyes narrowed. "Your Yondaime told me of your situation when it became clear he would not win. He seemed to think it would change how I treated you."

The Hokage had told Madara that she was a time traveler during their fight? It made sense: the man would have wanted her safe, and no one in their right mind would destroy such a valuable resource.

Oh. Wait.

"You wanted to see if I'd tell you the truth," she said, stating the obvious.

"Of course." Madara didn't move, but Hinata was getting better at reading his mood. She could sense the implied eye-roll, even if he refrained from it. "A test you failed, by the way. Perhaps I should re-break your leg."

Hinata was losing the conversation almost as badly as she'd lost the physical competition. Not exactly what she'd wanted.

"Then what happens now?" she asked, trying to regain the initiative.

"Now?" the Uchiha frowned. "Now, we have been talking here for entirely too long." Thick blue chakra started flickering around him. "We're leaving."

"Leaving?" Hinata asked. The chakra surrounding Madara was only slightly warmer than the snow; the blue aura was steadily expanding, sweeping past her with a similar sensation to walking through a thick, icy waterfall. "What–"

Madara Uchiha closed his eyes, and everything within twenty meters erupted into the air.

Hinata yelped, once again carried upwards by an invisible force. The yelp transitioned into a full startled shout as the upwards momentum refused to vanish; the blue chakra continued expanding, decimating everything that got in its path, while Hinata shot straight into the sky.

Then, as suddenly as the event had begun, it ended. Hinata looked around with wide eyes. She was held suspended in cold blue chakra more than half a kilometer in the air; her arms and legs were free to move, but no matter what she did, she couldn't budge from her place. She'd never been this high up. Seeing the world stretching out below her in all direction, a field of white and gray, sent her head spinning.

"Be quiet," Madara grunted. He hung in the air just to her left, his arms crossed. Hinata glanced at him. It seemed like they were both being held inside of a gem of sorts, comprised of a thicker, deeper blue chakra than the rest of the construct. She could see it sprawling out around and below her; the chakra construct held the rough shape of a man in heavy armor, similar to the armor Madara himself wore. Hinata could see two massive swords extending from its waist, hundreds of meters below.

She activated her Byakugan, taking a closer look. Now it was clear to her: the two of them were set in the forehead of the massive chakra armor, the jewel-like centerpiece of a sneering oni-esque mask. Two gargantuan wings extended out behind the armor, framing it with blue scales.

Madara opened his eyes.

"What…" Hinata's throat closed up. "What is this?"

Madara glanced at her. "The Susano'o," he said, his voice dripping with condescension. "I suppose you've never seen one before."

"I…" Hinata settled for shaking her head. The notion that a single man could create such a massive technique was terrifying; the height wasn't helping at all. "Why are you using it?"

At that, Madara actually smiled. It was mirthless, but it was there.

"It's faster than walking," he rumbled. As he spoke, the Susano'o began slowly rising into the air.

Hinata looked down in astonishment once more. The earth was receding, moving even farther away. The chakra construct was entirely off the ground now: its massive wings slowly flapped, far too slowly to actually provide any lift, and yet the Susano'o rose higher nonetheless.

"There's no–" she started to say, and then the Susano'o ascent ceased being slow in any manner whatsoever.

The blue warrior rocketed up into the sky, and tears were squeezed out of Hinata's eyes by the speed and sudden pressure difference. The temperature didn't change at all, though it should have: the Susano'o's chakra maintained a steady cold around her. Now, they were nearly three kilometers in the air. The crushing grey clouds that had been present ever since Hinata had arrived seemed to be close enough to touch; the world stretched out below her like an endless pale blanket, cloaked in snow and interspersed with dead forests and craggy mountains.

Hinata couldn't breath. She knew she wouldn't fall, but her body didn't seem to. The cold sweat was back, and her breathing was elevated. She hadn't really known till today that she didn't like heights. Maybe it was just not having anything to stand on that was getting to her.

Madara clearly didn't care. The Susano'o took off, darting across the sky faster than it had any right to. Hinata stared, her Byakugan still activated; she didn't move a muscle.

The world swept by, a streaming plain of snow. Hinata had seen the sea, once, about a year ago. Seeing the world flying by below her reminded her of the ocean. It had been a placid expanse of still water, occasionally disturbed by a subtle wave washing upon the beach. Though there was no sun reflected in the snow, as there had been in the ocean, Hinata couldn't help but see them as the same.

Hinata's breathing started to slow down. She turned her head, looking around, though her Byakugan made the motion pointless. Grey clouds above, white snow below: the Susano'o blocked the effects of the environment. It was a kind of rushing purgatory. She could feel her eyes growing heavy, her heart truly slowing down for the first time in what seemed like forever.

Was it another genjutsu? Hinata didn't think so. She could see her own chakra system: there was nothing wrong with it. Madara could have occluded that as well, of course, but Hinata felt in her gut that that wasn't the case. She was exhausted, mentally and physically; she hadn't had more than a couple minutes to rest since she'd been ripped out of her family compound.

Here, soaring above the bizarre and unfamiliar world she'd found herself thrown into, there was a kind of peace she hadn't felt in the last day. Even if her only companion was a spiteful undead Uchiha, one who pointedly refused to look at her, she couldn't deny that for the first time today, she felt safe.

Hinata started to close her eyes.

'Just for a minute,' she thought.

'I'll just rest for one minute."