A/N: Written for the "Groundhog Day Loop" prompt as part of NaruHina 2020.

Warning for pain, injury, and Hinata (kind of) dying.

Word count: 982

Pain radiated from Hinata's stomach, traveling to every last inch of her body. Though it was her abdomen–not her chest—that had been pierced, she struggled to breathe. She whimpered as the curled in on herself despite the sharp sting of pain that came from any kind of movement.

Her vision blurred. She only had a few moments left before unconsciousness would take her. With what little energy she had left, she raised her head to look for her friends.

She could hear enough to know they we're still putting up a fight, but there was no one in sight. Even her opponent had fled, leaving her for dead.

Her head fell in the dirt, and she let her eyes flutter shut, physically incapable of fighting for consciousness any longer.

The world faded away, leaving Hinata relieved, but the darkness was short lived.

Instead of the relief of unconsciousness, the world reformed.

Hinata opened her eyes to her comrades and opponents once more around her. Their battlefield was the same as it had been before things went south.

Her pain was gone, but as she realized that she had travelled back in time, nausea took its place.

She looked at the five ninja they were facing, wondering who was capable of such a jutsu. There had been no hint of it before.

Fear gripped her as she realized she'd have to fight the excruciating battle once again. She could only hope that this time she would overcome her opponent.

No matter how she'd tried to shift the fight and put herself at an advantage, nothing changed.

Hinata still found herself stabbed in the gut again and again. She curled into a ball, whimpering as pain enveloped her body. It wasn't any easier to deal with the fifth time around as it had been the first. The more times she repeated the cycle, the harder it became to remain conscious after being stabbed. She felt weak, even though her body was as physically fit as it had been the first time around.

Mentally, it was too much.

She cried to herself as the darkness began to take over, already resigning herself to a repeat of the same dire situation once more.

But finally, finally, the darkness didn't overtake her before one of her comrades came to her aid. Hinata gasped as she heard a blade make contact with the same ninja who had brought her down.

A second later, someone knelt at her side and scooped her up carefully in their arms. Hinata used what was left of her energy to open her eyes and find Naruto looking down at her, pain on his own face despite his lack of injuries.

"I've got you," he said quietly, brushing a strand of hair slick with sweat away from her forehead. "You'll be okay, Hinata."

Hinata wasn't sure if it was true, but finally, she smiled as the darkness overtook her.

The next time Hinata woke up, it wasn't to the beginnings of a battle. Instead, she found herself inside one of the familiar rooms at Konoha's hospital.

She gasped.

At a certain point, she had begun to believe that she would never escape from the loop, and the sight of the ceiling above her was enough for tears to sting at her eyes.

Once she had accepted the setting was real, she looked around her and found Naruto sleeping in a chair beside her bed. His head had dipped towards his chest, and his lips were parted. Hinata smiled at the soft sound of his breathing.

Using what energy her sleep had given her, she reached out and covered his hand with hers.

Naruto startled awake, sitting straight up and hovering over Hinata's bed as if he was about to find an enemy. When he didn't, he collapsed back into his seat, his smile blinding. Hinata smiled back, even more at peace now that she was aware of his presence.

But she couldn't feel entirely happy. The pain of the repeated deaths, the feeling that she would never escape the cycle… It was still there.

Naruto sensed the shift in her mood, his own smile fading. He entwined their fingers and ran his thumb along the back of Hinata's hand.

"Is everything okay?" he asked. "Do you want the doctor?"

"No," Hinta responded quickly, shaking her head.

The physical pain was nothing more than what she was used to. Whoever had healed her, they'd done a good job with her physical wounds. The aching was to be expected. The turmoil inside her head, however, they'd have been harder pressed to make disappear.

"I was in a loop," she said quietly, looking at the ceiling instead of Naruto. "We kept fighting the battle again and again. I died again and again. I don't even know what jutsu it was, but I couldn't escape it."

"I know," Naruto said softly. He raised Hinata's hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her fingers. "We figured it out pretty quickly, but it took a while to get to you. They were powerful. I'm sorry we couldn't help you sooner."

With a shaky breath, Hinata removed her hand from Naruto's to caress his cheek. He leaned into the touch, and Hinata smiled.

"It's not your fault. I know you did everything you could. And I'm fine now. I'll be okay."

And she would be. Eventually, the memories of what had happened would join the memories of so many other battles she'd fought over the years. She would get past it.

Naruto nodded. Without another word, he leant forward and pressed his face into Hinata's stomach just above where the sword had punctured her. He wrapped his arms around her as Hinata's hand wound through his hair.

They stayed in silence like that for a long time, and with each passing minute, Hinata felt more and more at peace.