Manipulation

Naruto watched carefully as Katya tried to get a book from the top shelf of the library.

Being just a few inches taller than she was, he could easily have reached the book himself and given it to her.

But no, Katya had insisted on getting it herself, and it was just one of those days—you know, where you try to help your girlfriend, she doesn't want your help, and if you help her anyway, she starts yelling and cursing at you. Yes, it was one of those days.

Not being able to get the book, Katya was beginning to get royally pissed. Naruto shrugged and said, "If you ever change your mind about help, I'll be in the area reading H. G. Wells…"

As Katya grumbled, indicating that she'd heard, Naruto turned towards the Science Fiction section. Looking up and down the shelves, he found an old classic that had just been checked in.

"'War of the Worlds', hm? This looks promising…" Sitting down in a chair to wait on Katya, Naruto opened to the first page….

"Naruto Uzumaki-san, I would like to speak with you."

Not looking up from his book, Naruto replied, "Hiashi Hyuga-sama. If a simple commoner like me might be permitted to ask… what do you want with me?"

Hiashi sat down and said, "We both know you are far from simple, but that is not the point. I will be frank with you: my eldest daughter, Hinata—whom you know, unless I'm mistaken—has absolutely zero pride, confidence, or even spine. I would ask you to… intervene, if you will do so."

Sighing as he put a bookmark to save his place, Naruto asked, "It's obvious what you stand to gain from this—but what's in it for me?"

"I have already spoken with my Clan Council. If you succeed in this… then you will have the support of the Hyuga Clan in all your endeavors. Political, social, financial, and so on. We would be willing to treat you as one of our own—as a member of the Main House."

Virtually reeling, Naruto stopped and considered that. The Hyuga Clan had quite a bit of influence indeed—and if the Clan Head was offering to share some of that influence, then it would take a fool to decline. Even though he'd already accepted the deal in his mind, Naruto said, "Give me a few hours to think it over, all right?"

Nodding, Hiashi left. Once it was quiet again, Katya suddenly popped up right behind Naruto and said, "See? I told you I could get it by myself!"

Then, noticing Naruto's contemplative mood, she asked, "Okay Naru-kun, what'd I miss?"

"The Head of the Hyuga Clan asked me to help Hinata grow a backbone in exchange for gaining the Clan's support in all matters."

Her eyes the size of dinner plates, all Katya could say was, "Oh. Well, I'll be damned."

"Indeed."

Sensing that Naruto wanted absolute silence, Katya sat down and started reading her book.

Suddenly wondering what she had wanted so badly (and had wanted to keep from him), Naruto snuck a peek at the book Katya had in her hands.

Imagine his surprise to find that it was a book on dating advice!

Giving no indication that he had even noticed her movements, Naruto began thinking about how he might succeed in making Hinata sure of herself.

Slowly, but surely, a plan started to form in his dark mind. "There's just as much of a chance that it will destroy what little confidence she has as there is that it will increase it… but given the rewards at stake, the risks are worth it."

_______

Naruto had to be absolutely certain that his current endeavors could be carried out in secret. Having cleared the plan with Hinata's father (but not after a good hour or more of debate), he now needed to… investigate a few matters.

Sneaking into the ANBU HQ was difficult to say the least, but by spending a few entire days learning the patrol shifts and times, as well as just who was on each watch, Naruto had learned how to get where he needed to be.

Rifling through the ANBU commander's desk—but memorizing the exact sequence and position of each item before moving it—Naruto eventually located what he wanted.

"Tomorrow? Well that's certainly convenient…"

________

When Hinata awoke the next morning, she immediately realized that something was wrong. Activating her Byakugan, she noticed that the entire complex was empty. There were no guards, no Branch members, and no trace of anyone. Pushing her bloodline to its limits, she saw out as far as she could, only to find that there weren't ANY people for about five hundred feet—beyond that, she couldn't tell.

There were no signs anywhere of a struggle. It was as if everyone had simply vanished from the face of the Earth.

Unwilling to accept this as truth, Hinata quickly got dressed, ate some breakfast, and started going through the Village with her Byakugan activated, searching for someone—anyone, really—to… well, to just be there.

After a few hours, she suddenly caught sight of someone. And best of all, it was someone she knew. She shouted, "Naruto-kun! I'm over here!!"

At first, he acted as if he hadn't heard her, but then he jerked to a halt.

Suddenly, he disappeared and then reappeared right next to Hinata, scaring her.

"Hello there, Hina-chan. I'm sorry if I seem a little distracted, but I haven't had breakfast yet."

Rubbing the back of her head in the same fashion that Naruto had before he met Doctor Lecter, Hinata waved it off and asked, "Don't worry about it. But… do you know where everyone is? You're the only person I've been able to find in the whole village today."

Inwardly, however, she was near to fainting—he'd called her Hina-chan, something that only happened in her dreams.

Shrugging, Naruto said, "No, I haven't seen anybody. And I'm not particularly worried about it either."

Then he got a strange glint in his eye as he said, "But I really must confess, Hina-chan—you look absolutely delicious today."

Blushing like a tomato, Hinata tried to joke away her embarrassment by replying, "I honestly hope you didn't mean that in a culinary sense…"

Naruto's face seemed to show what she could only describe as true love—although she'd have been the first to admit that it was likely just wishful thinking that made it so.

However, his silken voice shattered her entire world as he said, "Actually, Hina-chan, I did." Suddenly reaching out and scratching her cheek hard enough to draw blood, he knocked her to the ground before licking the blood off of his fingers.

Then, he sighed as he said, "Your blood, Hina-chan—it's even better than I could ever have dreamed! And if your blood is that good… just trying to imagine your heart makes my mouth water."

Throughout this declaration of intended cannibalism, his face still seemed to indicate that he wanted nothing more than to simply be within arm's reach of her—and not to devour her.

Getting up and backing away, Hinata asked, "Naru-kun, w-what are you doing? What do you mean—you… you want to eat me?!"

She was becoming hysterical, and even more so as Naruto replied, "But Hina-chan, I now want only to be with you. You once said your heart was mine—and now you wish to keep it from me? Once I have you in my system, there's a part of you that will never leave. We will be irrevocably together until the end of time. Is that not what you dream of? Now that you have me in your grasp, would you really push me away?"

Naruto was a silver-tongued devil, and he knew it. In fact, most of Konoha knew that between his appearance, his way with words, and his skill as a shinobi, he could easily have any woman he wanted. And since Hinata had practically been crushing on him since Day One, getting inside her head was far too easy.

"N-NO! You're not my Naru-kun—you're some kind of sick imposter! Show yourself now!"

Changing his face to appear critically hurt, he said, "Hina-chan, you wound me. If you really don't believe I am who I say I am, then use the Byakugan—look into my eyes and tell me if I'm lying."

Doing so, Hinata looked at him—his chakra network, his seal (Naruto's Jinchuuriki status had become public knowledge after he said that he didn't really care)—even wishful thinking wouldn't allow her to detect any abnormalities in his body, nor any trace of deceit in his eyes.

Suddenly realizing that the man she loved seemingly loved her as well and wanted to kill her—BECAUSE he loved her in the first place—Hinata started backing away again, slowly. She tried to avoid catching his attention, but knew it was futile; he was a far better ninja than she was.

Confirming her fears, Naruto asked, "Hina-chan, where are you going? Have I done something wrong?"

Then, he took one step towards her. It was slow, deliberate. The kind of step a man takes when he knows that he's going to get what he wants in the end, and has all the time in the world to either take it, or wait for it to be given to him.

He took one more step, the same way as the last.

And as he took a third step, Hinata bolted.

She didn't know where she was going, except that it had to be away. She didn't to die like this—hell, she didn't want to die period—but this felt too much like something out of a horror movie.

She kept running for five blocks, at which point she nearly ran into him. "Hina-chan, do you no longer want me?"

"YOU'RE NOT NARUTO!!!" she shouted, turning and running again. Naruto just followed after her, one step at a time.

But every so often, he would suddenly appear in front of or beside her, causing her to run in a different direction. It had never occurred to her that she might be being driven somewhere.

Twenty minutes later, she looked around, panting. "Thank God, I think I lost him."

If only she'd used the Byakugan…

Suddenly, a voice that both terrified and thrilled her asked from directly behind, "Does this mean that you're done running?"

Screaming, Hinata jumped before running away from the voice. She didn't need the Byakugan to know that he'd been close enough to whisper in her ear had he chosen to.

Bursting through the door to a gymnasium, she quickly turned and locked it, hoping to keep him out until she could get help—whenever that was.

Then she heard the crashing noises commonly associated with furniture being thrown around.

Afraid to look, she did anyway. And she found that there had been three doors total—two of which were now blocked by various exercise equipment too heavy for her to move.

And Naruto himself was in the center of the room. "Face it, Hina-chan. My stamina is more than twenty times yours, I'm stronger and faster than you are, and I have all the time in the world. Why struggle? I will try to make your death as painless as I can."

Turning to unlock the door she'd just used, she found that she couldn't open it—Naruto had had Shadow Clones on the other side blockade it.

She was trapped in a room with the only person around for who-knows-how-far, he wanted to KILL her, and had her overpowered in almost every possible way.

There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. If she wanted to live, her only possible chance was to fight.

'But he's so much stronger than I am! I probably can't even hurt him anyway!'

But then, a small part of her—the part that was cold and proud, like other Hyuga—said, 'Nonsense! You can see his chakra points, so just use the Gentle Fist to bring him down. Even Naruto won't be able to completely block your Taijutsu.'

'But he'll see me coming a mile away! And besides, even if I knock him out, he'll still wake up eventually, and then he'll expect it!'

'So you have to get him now, while he doesn't expect it. And when he can't fight back, you have to kill him. Either that or YOU die. Better decide now!'

"I don't know who you are, but I won't let you kill me!"

Moving in as fast she could, Hinata activated her Byakugan and said, "Eight Trigrams: 32 Palms!" With each attack, she sealed off some of his chakra and paralyzed a part of his body.

Then, screaming, she was about to pierce his heart with a Gentle Fist attack, killing him…

But suddenly Naruto's face resumed its usual apathetic scowl as he grabbed her arm and threw her against the wall as if she were no more than a rag doll.

As she got up, bleeding at the mouth, she asked, "So I couldn't do anything… kill me now, damnit!"

Smirking, Naruto sat down and studied her a moment before saying, "No."

At this, Hinata almost fell over again, but somehow remained standing. "W-what do you mean, no?!?! You were going to kill me and eat me!"

Shrugging, Naruto proceeded to explain. "Actually, I was trying to see whether or not you could be pushed to fight your way out of trouble instead of relying on someone to save you. It was a test imposed by your father, and needless to say… you passed."

Gawking at him for a moment, Hinata collected herself before asking, "But how did you manage the deserted Village? And you were so convincing…"

Naruto laughed and said, "This entire section of the Village was scheduled for demolition, so that's why nobody's in it. I merely… postponed it for a day, so I could test you. For the rest of the Village, I used a combination of Genjutsu, optical illusion, and some mind tricks. You thought I was convincing because A) I was trying to be, and B) you're not that good at reading people, Hinata. Anyone with skill at doing this—like the average Chunin, for instance—would've been able to eventually figure out I was lying."

"So then… you weren't going to eat me?"

His face now unreadable, Naruto said, "Maybe I was, and maybe I wasn't."

___

The next morning, Naruto went to Hiashi and informed him of the success. Astonished, the Head asked how it was done.

"Simple: she was easily manipulated into fighting me, or allowing me to kill and devour her. Turns out her will to live overshadowed her attraction for me. Eventually, I hope, she'll find someone else. And she certainly won't be manipulated so easily again."

Curious, Hiashi asked, "Why do you wish for her to fall for someone else? I think that you would make a fine husband."

Waving him away, Naruto said, "No I wouldn't. I don't love her—I'm taken by someone else, and gladly so. Besides, I have a tendency to manipulate the people around me just because I can. Hinata wouldn't be able to deal with that."

A branch member who'd just walked in asked, "So basically, you don't want Hinata-sama to like you because you're a bastard?"

Hiashi looked about ready to use the Mark, but Naruto laughed and said, "In a nutshell, yes."

_______

At last, Naruto was able to read The War of the Worlds in peace. After finishing with the 'Hyuga incident', as he called it, he managed to get through half the book before he was interrupted again.

This time, however, the interrruption was much more violent—an ANBU with a Viper mask (not the same Viper Naruto killed a few chapters ago—that Viper was working for Root. This one isn't.) kicked the door down, threw Naruto to the ground, and after placing an okatana (if you've ever played the 'Devil May Cry' series, this looks exactly like Vergil's Yamato sword) at his neck, said, "Naruto Uzumaki-san, you are under arrest. You will be taken to headquarters for interrogation, and pending the results, execution."

Infuriated, Naruto asked, "Arrest—under what charges!?!?"

His voice devoid of all emotion, Viper simply replied, "To be blunt… treason. But to be specific, you are under arrest for stealing the Forbidden Fuinjutsu Scroll and attempting to use it for unknown purposes. Do not try to defend yourself here and now—we have DNA samples, blood stains, and enough of other kinds of evidence to convict you in less than 15 seconds with a jury of your closest friends."

As the ANBU carried Naruto away, he shouted, "You KNOW me damnit! YOU KNOW ME!"

Watching, Viper said, "I thought I knew you. It seems I was wrong."

__________

So what the hell happened to Naruto? Has he really turned bad, or is he being framed? You'll have to read to find out. Oh, and if you liked this story, then please read the rest of what I've written. Shameless plug? Yes.

Very shameless.