Alternate Hosting

By TwinEnigma

Warnings: AU

Tail Eight:

Hinata was determined to prove she wasn't a dud. She was meek, she was kind, and definitely very girly, but she wasn't going to give up just because it was harder for her sometimes. That was her ninja way.

Even when Neji was trying to kill her in the exams, she had resolved not to give up. Instead, she'd shown him she could defy her fate when she reached out and grabbed the fox's power, bending it to her will. She was weak and fated to lose, unable to ever use the power locked within her (because no one could control that; it'd be insane to try) and Neji knew it as well as she did, but she had something he didn't and that was hope.

He'd won, of course, but it was an empty victory: she'd made it clear she was allowing him to win. Her determination and the fox's chakra put him on the defensive and she'd screamed out her frustrations at him, because she knew she was weak and a soft little girl. All that, she'd sworn, was going to change and she'd change Hyuuga with it. Then, she'd deliberately missed hitting him with her last punch and told him she forfeited the match, not because it was fate, but because she chose to do so.

Neji knew who really won and so did the instructors.

He didn't know, couldn't know, that he'd come so close to dying. The Kyuubi was not as forgiving or compassionate as Hinata and its chakra did not like to be contained. It warped and twisted, trying to heighten every bad emotion in her body to break her will down. The fox wanted out and it would have crushed Neji like an ant if she had not pulled it back in time.

Hinata, if nothing else, prided herself on knowing her limitations.

Currently, those limitations were being put to the test as she, Rock Lee and Naruto tried to avoid the bone-spikes of Orochimaru's last disciple. Undoubtedly, behind them, their teammates were suffering and injured, but all they had to do was make it past this one and to Sasuke before he hit the border. They shared a look with an unspoken message: whoever gets the first opportunity will go, while the others stay.

What was she even doing here?

Hinata wasn't supposed to be on this mission. She'd snuck out, followed at a safe distance – well, at least until Neji spotted her – and here she was.

Naruto, her long-time idol, flung himself bodily back into the fray and she knew her purpose again.

Sasuke was like she was before his clan was killed: he'd been shy, quiet and desperate to prove himself. Hinata knew very well what terrible things could turn someone like that into. She'd very nearly done something unforgivable during the exams because she wanted to prove her power and get even. What had been done to Sasuke was far worse than what had been done to her and she knew that nothing Naruto could say, no matter how kind and well-intentioned it was, could hope to sway Sasuke from his path. Naruto just didn't have any understanding of what it was like being in the shoes of someone that a member of their own family was trying to kill and who had been regarded as an inferior all their life.

Naruto would die if he fought Sasuke. He had all the enthusiasm and stamina in the world, but many of his team's techniques were assassination techniques and Naruto would never use them on Sasuke. On the other hand, Sasuke was like a cornered animal, willing to kill to get away, and he didn't care who he had to go through. If they had chained him up, she'd no doubts that he'd have chewed his own arm off to escape.

But if he killed Naruto... well, she didn't know what she'd do. Naruto was her inspiration. He'd given her the courage to be strong, even if he didn't know it yet, and she couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to him.

Hinata muttered a brief apology and took off after Sasuke at the first opportunity that presented itself. He'd written her off as weak and insignificant too, but she was going to remind him that people can change – she did it and he can do it to, without Orochimaru. She'd never given up and she wasn't about to let him give up either. That was her ninja way.

AN: I think Hinata understands Sasuke a bit more than Naruto does even in canon, too, thanks to Cloud's, Hiashi's and Neji's respective dickery.