I don't own naruto
The eerie call of a howling dog echoed in the air, followed by the barks and yelps of the responding pack. The heavy panting and the rapid increase of accelerating footsteps.
They had been running for hours, but they had been chasing for days. They were so close, overwhelmingly near.
She woke in a sweat, feeling clammy and having strands of her disheveled hair clinging to the side of her face. She tried to sit up but found she needed her hands to help with the extra weight.
Glancing down at the empty space beside her for Sasuke, then searching the cheap hotel room they were staying in. Despite the window being open and the thin net curtain twisting in the slight breeze. The night air was still humid and moist.
Out side a dog's growling and barking could be herd. 'Dam thing' she thought 'gave me a nightmare.' She got to her feet wanting a glass of water, but the jug on the nightstand was empty. Muttering a curse she made her way to the door she'd have to go downstairs.
She walked with a slight waddle now, her stomach was very prominent, and they'd need to settle soon, she couldn't continue to journey from place to place, the was no real point now anyway. They made painfully slow progress each day. Any self-respecting sinobi would be able to catch them at their pace.
Approaching the middle aged man behind the wooden counter at the reception. "Can I get some drinking water please." Hinata asked politely handing him the empty jug. The man sneered and pulled a disgusted expression, believing her to be blind and suffering from a plague of some sort, due to her partly bandaged face and scarred eye.
The man slipped out back to refill her jug with out a word, She could still hear that dam dog barking, wondering what had gotten it so agitated. Perhaps it was trapped or caught on something, just as she made her way outside.
She felt unnatural wave of blistering heat, wash over her followed by thundering roar of a bomb exploding, knocking her off her feet. Flames erupted from the upper part of the building, she had just exited. Debris, bits of wood and timber showered down on to the on lookers below.
It took her a moment to decipher and process what had just happened. The top half of the hotel, she had been staying in was now on fire. More importantly the room she was residing in, only moments ago was completely incinerated.
It was an assassination, not a very subtle one, hell someone had just blown up half the building. But the target was clear; their enemies' had found them.
'Sasuke' she thought and froze in panic, had he been caught in that explosion. No he wasn't in the room she reminded herself, attempting to calm down by taking in a slow deep breath, but the smoke now bellowing from the fire just made her choke and wheeze.
Clambering to her feet she kept her head low as she walked away from the now inferno, pushing past the crowds of hysterical people exiting the surrounding buildings. And others who ran towards the fire with buckets of water at hand.
She searched the crowd for the familiar blue tinted, black spiky hair. Instead her well-trained eye caught the figure of a shinobi in the middle of a hoard of people. He was dressed like any other citizen, but the way he moved, cutting through the crowd with ease, and a purpose, gave him away.
She instantly tore her gaze away, they were checking for survivors she realized. 'Dammit' she cursed, it couldn't be a worse time to be separated from Sasuke, and she could barely run let alone fight in the condition she was in.
All she could think to do was hide, pushing further in to the crowd, unfurling the bandages around her face, and marring her pale complexion with shoot. Smearing it over her already dirty and singed clothes. She tried her best to merge with the frenzied crowd.
She was pushed and shoved her bare feet trampled on, but she carried on making her way to the centre, she needed to get away. There was no way she would allow herself to get caught now.
The enemy nin was in touching distance now and he was coming closer, She clenched shut her eyes, and pushed her face into the back of the person in front of her, the adrenaline was pumping through her, sharpening her senses, seeming to make everything else slow down. Each shove she felt faintly and the noise muted down into a low din
The tension and panic seemed to seize control, forming a painful lump in her throat, she couldn't shallow, and all of a sudden it was hard to breathe. She stopped all together when the man was behind her, taking a sharp intake of breath as he brushed along her back, everything was drowned out by his footsteps.
"Keep moving, keep moving, don't find me," she screamed in her head over and over.
To her relief he moved past her and carried on searching, scanning the out skirts of the fray. Sighing and allowing her self to breathe again, Hinata moved with the flow of the crowd. She needed help she decided, she couldn't do this on her own and with Sasuke missing again.
She pulled off the black bead she wore as an earring, holding it in her palm Hinata applied a little of her chakra to it, like she had once been instructed to do. It was time she pulled in a favor, an insurance policy she had planned a head for.
Hinata felt she could trust the young ninja she had a brief meeting with in a bar, in a city she didn't know the name of. 'Yes he'll definitely show' she assured her self. 'Lets hope it soon though,' she added as an after thought, as she made her way to a new shelter and in the search for Sasuke.