Depth

A NaruHina fanfic

Chapter 11: Despair

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Angsty as fuck

PS: Also a short out of it lemon.

Disclaimer: Dam I didn't do one for chapter 10. Meh.

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"Naruto! What the hell are these reports I have coming in from every one of our spies in the Land of Lightning!" Tsunade screamed as Team Kage wandered into her office. They all froze when she assaulted him.

"Uhhhh" Naruto started awkwardly. He scratched the back of his head. "Yea, we kinda destroyed Cloud…"

You could literally see the vein bulging out of Tsunade's forehead. She used every ounce of her strength to not kill Naruto right then and there. "Get out before I do something I'll regret" she grinded out, and the three teens all too happily obliged.

"Th-thanks for taking the blame for me Naruto" Hinata said apathetically. In fact, when he thought about it, she hadn't really shown much emotion the whole trip back. It seemed she was reverting back to what she was like when they first found her.

"No problem Hinata!" he said enthusiastically and brushed it off. Then he smirked and leaned in, kissing her cheek. "Maybe you can repay me for it when we get back to my house" he whispered seductively.

Her face turned bright red. Now there was some emotion! She kept her wide eyes straight ahead and didn't say a single word for the remainder of the walk through town, until they reached his apartment, said goodbye to Sasuke, and dumped their mission gear on Naruto's floor.

"So, I guess this is where I'm crashing too?" Hinata asked, uncertain whether to go home after giving Naruto his reward or stay the night.

"Yea, you can stay here anytime you want Hinata-chan!" Naruto said. She sighed lightly and unzipped her chunin vest, dumping the bulky, torn up piece next to her pack. She slumped down on the couch next to him, now clad in just her fish net tee.

"So you wanted your reward?" she asked politely, but for some reason, she didn't really care. Her mind was not on the outside world, she was still searching her mindscape. Both Megumi and Nibi hadn't made their presence known ever since the explosion, but she knew they were in there, just waiting to get out. And so she searched.

Naruto looked at her, but noticed her blank expression. "Uh, you know I was joking right? We don't have to if you don't want to…"

Hinata jerked back to reality and put on a fake smile for him. "Oh yes, I want to" she said, attempting to make her tone seductive.

She bent down and discarding all tease and foreplay, pulled his pants down and grabbed his dick in her hand. Fondling it and rubbing the skin up and down his shaft until he was hard, she then popped him in her mouth and started to bob up and down.

Naruto groaned at the sensation and put a hand on Hinata's head, helping her go deeper with the movement. His other hand began roaming over her body, finding its way down the underside of her skirt for his fingers to penetrate the folds of her clit. Hinata's eyes widened when she felt the contact, but her focus was quickly brought back to the matter at hand when Naruto's penis jerked in her mouth and he groaned even louder, his hot cum spilling down her throat. She kept her tongue wrapped around his head and swallowed every ounce of his cum to keep it clean; after all they still had clothes on.

When she'd licked it all up, she sat back up straight on the couch with a slight blush on her face, now slightly back to reality. Her eyes met Naruto's, and then subtly shifted towards the bedroom. Naruto saw the hint and picked her up by her waist, carrying her and laying her down on the bed. Feeling her mood, he too discarded all foreplay and pulled down her tight black skirt and now slightly damp undies from where his fingers had had a quick session.

He looked at her for confirmation, and when she nodded he inserted his dick into the folds. Slowly at first, he thrust it in, going about an inch, then back, then a little more. It was a slow, tantalizing process but it really helped with the pain of entrance for a girl. Soon enough he was fully in and pounding deep into her pussy.

Despite her melancholy, Hinata couldn't ignore the sensations coming from her privates, and started moaning as waves of euphoria emanated from her pussy. She absently rubbed one of her nipples underneath her bra with one hand as she was jerked up and down by Naruto's hard pumping.

He was groaning harder now and she felt an orgasm building, this one in time to match his own instead of 2 for 1. She let out an extra loud, long moan as she orgasmed, but not a scream this time. Naruto yelled as her walls tightened hard on his penis, bringing his pumping to a stop and finishing him off so that he jerked inside her, his cum again meeting hers as it had that first night.

He flopped down off her and lay beside her on the bed. When there panting calmed, he gently brushed the hair out of her face with a loving hand.

Then, he smirked. "I still owe you one" he said and began to rub her pussy again with one hand. It didn't have a very good affect though; Hinata closed her legs and turned away from him. "Wh-?" he started, but she rolled back to him.

"I'm sorry Naruto, go ahead" she said blankly and opened her legs, not an inch of lust in her tone.

"What? No. What's wrong Hinata? It's obvious something's bothering you. Please don't think I'm in this just for the sex, I wanna help you out if you have any problems."

She sighed and rolled onto her back to look up at his ceiling. "Don't worry about it Naruto-kun" she said, forcing some emotion into her voice. "I just won't be able to forget all those people from Cloud right away, that's all."

Naruto nodded solemnly. "I understand, you'd be a monster if you did. But remember Hinata, I'm here for you if you need it."

She nodded meekly and he wrapped her in his arms, cradling her head in one hand and pushing it lightly to his chest in a protective manner. However, the faraway look stayed in Hinata's eyes as they both drifted off to sleep, and her last thought was not of him like his was of her, it was of one simple idea that was steadily growing in her.

'I'm a threat to everyone…'

(Fuck not Inception! :o )

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Naruto woke that morning to find Hinata already gone. He missed the feeling of her warm soft body beside him, and although that was only the second time it had happened he'd already grown fond of it.

He got up and had a shower, revealing by the drips of condensation on the glass walls that she had used it before she left. 'Man I must have been pretty out of it' he thought.

After the shower he got dressed and proudly adorned his father's kage cloak, then stepped out the door to go see what punishment Tsunade had in store for Team Kage, or probably more specifically, himself.

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Hinata slowly walked through the graveyard, searching for a stone she hadn't visited in over a year. She used to come here at least once a week, and when her family really got to her it sometimes got up to every day.

She walked the familiar route through the sea of dead loved ones, to the grave stone on a small rise, where lay the wife of the Hyuuga head, and Hinata's mother. She sadly saw a few vines growing over the plaque, and shed a tear knowing that no-one would have visited her mother in her absence. Hiashi was to grief stricken whenever her name was mentioned, let alone actually coming to her grave, Hanabi never knew her mother very well so had no inclination to come visit a stranger, and the woman's own family were already dead.

Hinata pulled the vines away and swept off the dirt and dust with her hand, placing the small bouquet of tulips that she had bought off Ino on the stone. More tears fell as she remembered her mother. She was in the mood for mourning, so where better to do it than here, probably the saddest moment that defined her young life, when her mother had passed.

But still that feeling lurked here, the cause of her grief. She could feel it deep within her, in her paranoia, she could feel Megumi, ready to leap out, to pounce and destroy her village, to destroy everyone she loved. She, Hinata Hyuuga, was a danger to everyone in this village.

She pulled out a kunai from the holster on her arm and drank in the well-honed edges of the steel, seeing her reflections in its perfect sheen. 'But I can't do it here' she thought. 'I can't taint my mother's grave with her own daughters blood, no parent wants to feel they outlived their child.'

She slowly passed time, spilling her heart out into the empty air. Whenever she was here, she had always felt she was talking to the ghost of her deceased mother, and had found comfort in the imagined presence; she had always come back feeling better. Not today though.

She trudged back through the cemetery, the kunai twirling around her finger which was stuck through the ring on the hilt, like a child dangling a bell. Only this was death she was toying with. She finally reached the gate of the graveyard and paused, not really wanting to take the path back through town. She just wanted a nice quite place where they would hopefully never find her body, where she could end the threat to the village in peace without interruptions. She had got what she had always wanted; she was with Naruto now, so she was content. She was happy with her short, dark life, because it had all come to such a bright sunny future. That sun was Naruto.

She walked back through the village, deciding it would be faster than going all the way around. She started thinking of where she could find a quiet, lonely place, which was actually extremely hard in a bustling village like Konoha, despite being a ninja. Because, there were other ninja who were all extremely good at getting to places and sensing things out of the ordinary. Someone out there could probably sense her dark, suicidal emotions right now, but what would they care about one girl? They didn't know she was Hinata, and they sure as hell couldn't sense she was a jinchuuriki.

That was only something another one could do, like she and Naruto could feel where each other were if they were close enough. She could feel him now as she passed the Hokage tower, he was in Tsunade's room, and by the raised voices she could hear, was most likely arguing, as usual.

She smiled wryly. Even being Hokage he hadn't changed. Of course, since she had come back he was back to normal, so she hadn't seen his drastic change when she was gone. She had heard about it though, the dark, depressed, Sasuke like Naruto that had emerged when she was thought dead, but ever since she returned he was back to hyper go lucky, if now with a little bit more maturity. Well, tiny bit more.

'I'm rambling now.' Hinata interrupted her own musings, getting too far off the issue at hand, that she was endangering every single person in the blurry crowds around her just by her presence. That she was putting Naruto's life in danger right at this instant. She kept a tight grip on her mentality as she kept walking, not wanting to lose it now and kill him.

She kept picturing stabbing herself, bleeding out in a lonely forest, and actually smiled thinking of how she would be saving everyone. From the beast that was within. It was different than with Naruto. He was stronger than she was, and he didn't have a split personality that literally took over your demon. And, it wasn't too late for him. He had kept the Kyuubi in check, while she had unleashed the Nibi, and now because of her ignorance she would pay for it so no more thousands of lives would be lost. Yes, her hands were steeped in the blood of thousands.

"Hinata" the blank voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and she turned around to see a familiar figure standing in the crowd of moving people. She discretely slipped the dangling kunai back into the holster on her leg, but what she didn't notice with her limited eyesight were his own eyes following that very movement.

"H-Hi Sasuke" she said uncertainly "What are you doing here?"

He came over to her and leant in close. "We need to talk" he said and walked ahead, expecting her to follow. She huffed at his obnoxiousness but followed anyway, she was curious to hear what the Sasuke Uchiha needed to say to her. Finally they were alone in a deserted training area, and Sasuke turned to her.

"What were you doing with that knife?" he asked coldly, straight to the point.

Hinata flinched, looking at him but a meter away. "Nothing" she said just as coldly, with Megumi's blank face.

Sasuke straightened. "Your eyesight's getting worse, isn't it?"

Now it was Hinata's turn to flinch. "W-what?" she asked.

"I'm using the Sharingan to see if your lying, but since you can't see it, which you would have before our mission, it is saying you're not, even when you obviously are…"

Hinata leaned towards him, peering up at his face, and sure enough she saw that his eyes had gone red. "What do you want Sasuke?" she said, getting annoyed.

"What do you want Hinata?" he countered right back. "I've been picking up strange signs from you. You with knives. When there are no actual threats around. What are you planning to do with them?" he interrogated her.

She pulled back so she could no longer distinguish his red eyes from his face. "That's none of your business" she said, forcing her voice to stay emotionless.

"It is my business. You're my teammate and a fellow ninja of Konoha, now tell me what you were planning to do with that knife!" he raised his voice in annoyment at her constant evading.

Something inside Hinata snapped all her admonitions. "Saving the village!" she screamed and yanked out her knife. Sasuke cursed and lunged for her but it was too late, she had already plunged it through her heart.

"FUCK!" he swore and grabbed her body before it could even hit the ground. He pulled out the knife and put a veil of chakra over the wound to stop the bleeding, but after the initial surge, not much came out , her heart had stopped pumping the blood around her body.

Then he was boosting with all speed possible to the Hokage's office where he knew the two Kage's were currently in a heated discussion.

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"I am NOT going to teach any genin team! I'm a freaking Hokage! I'm way above the level for teaching kids!" Naruto's voice met Sasuke as he crashed through the window of Tsunade's office, forgoing the stairs in his haste. They whirled towards him, eyes looking for a threat, only to see Sasuke with a very pale Hinata, her black vest darker than usual around her chest area. Then they noticed the puncture in it, and that the dark area was actually blood stains.

"What happened!" Naruto shrieked in shock and concern. Sasuke kicked all the papers off Tsunade's desk and laid Hinata gently on it, then grabbed one of Tsunade's hands and stuck it on the girl's chest.

"Heal her!" he yelled.

"Sasuke, what's going on?" Tsunade questioned, hesitating before exploring the wound with her chakra. She quickly found a heart that had stopped beating. Her face went deathly pale.

Naruto was hopping around in anxiety, fretting. "What is it, what's going on Sasuke, what's wrong with her Granny?" he said without a breath.

Tsunade gritted her teeth. "She already passed" she grinded out, but persisted and started forcing green chakra into the girl. "I'll use Lady Chiyo's technique" she explained without hesitation.

"What!" Naruto yelled. "But that means you'll die!" he said. He very much wanted Hinata to be alive, but for Tsunade to exchange her own life...

"It's the only way" Tsunade said, starting to pant. "She is more valuable than me to the village, being a jinchuuriki, and we have you to step in as Hokage, plus you would become dysfunctional again if she died. I have to do this" she said and continuously poured her life chakra into Hinata.

"No, no, this can't be happening" Naruto said, grabbing fistfuls of hair in his hands. "No No NO!" he yelled.

He rushed over to the desk and put his hands on Hinata as well. Tsunade looked up at him, but his eyes were only for the girl beneath him. He dug deep within himself and dragged out the Kyuubi chakra. He dredged Hinata and Tsunade in it, overflowing their chakra pathways.

"Use this chakra to heal her!" he shouted.

Tsunade got the gist of what he was trying to do. He was trying to give her so much chakra that wasn't her own life support to heal Hinata. It was a noble effort, but she was still unsure if it would succeed. Still, she manipulated the foreign chakra to jump start Hinata's heart and begin healing, simultaneously using her own chakra to keep the process stable. Bit by bit, she repaired Hinata's punctured heart, sewing the cordlike veins going in and out from the great muscle back together.

She finally slumped down and fainted when the process finished, and Hinata opened her eyes with a strangled gasp. Sasuke crouched by the current Hokage and checked her pulse. It was weak, but it was there. She was still alive. Naruto looked a bit pale, but this quickly faded when he saw Hinata sit up and look around confusedly.

"A-Am I dreaming?" she wondered, taking in the blur of orange beside her and Sasuke's figure off to the right, crouched down to something. She vividly remembered the exquisite feeling of the metal touching her heart.

Naruto hugged her tightly, and she felt his tears drip onto the back of her neck. "Please, don't let that happen again" he sobbed, his voice husky with tears. Then, he opened his eyes to meet Sasuke's on the other side of Hinata. "How did this happen" he ordered.

Sasuke cleared his throat. "She did it to herself" he said emotionlessly and Naruto felt Hinata flinch in his embrace. He pulled back suddenly and looked in her eyes for any hint of denial. He willed her to say Sasuke was lying, that it had been a mere accident. There was nothing except embarrassed acceptance.

"Hinata, y-you, tried to kill yourself? Wh-wh-why?" he forced out.

She looked down into her lap and fingered the bottom of her fishnet tee, her chunin vest having been opened when Tsunade healed her. "I-I'm a danger to everyone here" she whispered, almost too quiet to hear, but they did in the deathly silent room. "The threat needs to be put down" she said emotionlessly, then stood up and reached for another kunai strapped to her arm.

Suddenly, two different hands were locked onto her own. Her other rose, but the same happened. She saw Sasuke and Naruto looking at her in severe concern, and sighed.

"I'm sorry guys, I have to do this. Naruto-kun, I-I… still love you. I'm sorry, but this is to protect you as well" she mumbled.

"No!" Naruto growled but was blown into the opposite side of the room by a huge wave of chakra that emanated from her body. Sasuke went flying out the window and into the street below, and Naruto quickly picked himself up out of inches of wall as the aftereffects of chakra in the air died down. He saw her pull out a kunai even as her wildly fluttering hair drifted back into place, and he used his Father's instant transmission technique to be beside her, catching her hand inches before the kunai plunged into her bared throat. Her head had been tilted towards the ceiling, her eyes closed in acceptance, but they shot wide open and her irises moved to the side of her eyes to see his grim face.

"N-Naruto, kill me" she said blankly.

Naruto forced back his tears. She had no idea how much this was killing him. "Hinata, don't do this!" he shouted in her face and hit the kunai out of her hand with his free one. She eyed him blankly, then twisted her hand out of his grip and sent a jyuuken strike to his stomach. He doubled over with the unexpected hit and saw her running towards where the kunai had been embedded in the wall.

"Hinata. I'm sorry" he whispered, then ran after her. "Rasengan!" he shouted, and rammed a rasengan into her back.

Hinata went flying forward into the wall beside the kunai, a ragged wound in her back. She crumpled to the ground and coughed up a bit of blood. Looking up, she saw a dim, blurry vision of Naruto crouch down beside her and felt him lift her up gently. "Th-thank you" she murmured before she passed out, fully expecting to never wake again.

Heaven is white walls. Bright flowers by the bedside shining like gold. Photo's littering the room. Porcelain sheets. A slowly bleeping machine. A drip beside the bed. Cords penetrating everywhere. This is what Hinata woke up to.

'Seems a strange heaven' she thought as she looked around with her limited eyesight, not seeing the person sitting on the other side of the room. She did however when he got up and hurried over to her.

"Naruto-kun?" she whispered in confusion. Why was he in heaven? No! Had she killed him? Had she killed everyone in the village before she got herself? She started to hyperventilate at even more imaginary blood on her hands. "No,no,nonononono" she began repeating to herself. A soft hand on her shoulder made her pause, then lips over her mouth stopped her for good. "Naruto" she mumbled into the lips.

He pulled back and smiled gently at her. "How are you feeling?" he asked. There was a strangeness to his voice she had never heard before. It was, distrust. She felt her heart break hearing it.

"I-I'm fine" she lied. "What are you doing here though? Y-you're not dead too are you? Please tell me no."

Naruto smiled again. "No, I'm not dead, and neither are you Hinata-chan. You're in the Konoha Hospital, you've been here all week."

"Week?" Hinata repeated dumbly. She had been out of it for a week?

"Yea" he said simply.

'I-I'm still alive?' she thought in despair. 'No, no, not after all that.'

Suddenly she heard the door open, then a voice call to Naruto. He leaned down and kissed her again. "I'll be back in a second" he whispered and stood up slowly.

She saw him cast a worried look over his shoulder towards her before he faded from view. As soon as she heard the door click shut Hinata was up. She pulled the cords out of her arms as she fell out of the bed and stood on shaky legs. She scrambled over to the table and dragged open draws, looking for anything sharp, or even any meds. Her hands trembled uncontrollably as she searched through the draws, things clattering to the tiled floor cold on her bare feet. Finally finding an unknown tube full of pills in the bottom draw, she ripped the lid off and shakily put the opening to her mouth, spilling half the pill in her haste. She chucked back as much as she could and continued her search.

Suddenly, a thought hit her. She ran to the window and punched it with full strength. It carved bloody arcs in her fist and arms as her hand went straight through it, but she ignored the pain and grabbed a large piece of glass, slicing her palm as she did. She heard the door open and footsteps come rushing in at the sound of glass breaking, but Hinata was triumphant.

She raised the glass and slashed it hard across her wrist, cutting it down to the bone. The large shard stuck in her wrist when her fingers slipped off it from the copious amounts of blood spurting from her severed veins, and she felt herself falling on wobbly legs as the pain flooded through her. Then, something orange tackled her and pinned her to the ground while an unknown nurse stabbed her neck with a needle and she faded back into the oblivion she had known for the past week.

:::

Hinata woke up again, but this time there were no pictures around her, no flowers. She only saw walls. White, blank walls. And they were soft and pillowy, the same as the ground she was on. She reached out her hand to touch the wall experimentally, only to find she couldn't move it. She looked down to find she was in a straightjacket, and a chakra suppressing seal tag stuck on it glared right back at her.

She looked around with new eyes. She knew exactly where she was, and again started hyperventilating. No, she could not be here. In solitary confinement, in a mental ward. She could not be here! She could see the simple tag on her could not stop the Nibi chakra if it decided to come out. She stood up and ran to the outline of a padded door and jumped into it. Over and over. But to no avail. "Let me out!" she screamed. Over and over.

:::

Naruto cried as he watched the staticky screen, his heart dead as his lover screamed and ran into the door, over and over. He didn't know what was wrong with her, only that she thought she was a threat to everyone around her and so thought she had to kill herself.

He sighed and looked away, unable to bear to watch it anymore. He turned to Sasuke who stood as blank as ever beside him, and looked him straight in the eye.

"What are we going to do?" he asked, the despair obvious in his voice.

Sasuke sighed also. "I don't know" he admitted. "But you are the key Naruto, you know how much she loves you, if anyone can convince her to stop this, this, I don't even know what to call it, it's you."

Naruto nodded softly and exited the room, slowly making his way to where his girlfriend now sat backed up into a corner, her knees up against her chest and her eyes darting everywhere, searching for anything that could cause self-harm. She had even tried holding her breath, but found that physically impossible to kill herself with.

Finally, the door swung open to reveal a familiar orange blur. He stepped slowly into the room, the door closing behind him, and she saw his features sharpen as he knelt in front of her. She pushed back into the pillowy wall further, not wanting to look into that face, to see that distrusting expression that was now written across it.

"Hinata-chan" he whispered. "Why are you doing this? I know you're stronger than this. You're as strong as me, and I can keep the Kyuubi in check, so you'll be able to hold your demon too. And I'll always be there to help you."

She mumbled something incoherent to confirm that she was indeed listening, though all the while her gaze was locked on her bare feet.

"I believe in you Hinata. I believe you can get through this, beat this demon, and again become the Hinata I love. Please, please, don't let me down on this."

And with that, he stood up and left the room. Hinata continued to sit there and stare into nothing, tears slowly leaking down her face, until she sunk into a limbo that was her new rest in this place without day or night.

:::

Days, weeks, months, passed in that room for Hinata. She didn't care. She just sat there and did nothing, thought of nothing, just a blank zombie. In reality it had been just a week, but the door opened after that week and various nurses and supervising men came in. They carefully picked up the limp Hinata and stood her up. She locked in her muscles that had already begun to waste away, and they walked her down a too long white corridor to a new room.

This one had a bed, a toilet and washstand, and a chair in one corner. They led her inside, and she heard a nurse softly saying that she would now be staying here, that it would help her recover more. She felt the straightjacket being taken off her, but noticed they stuck the chakra suppressor on the outside of the door as they left.

Then, she was alone in her room. She vaguely looked at her twin in the mirror, and something in the back of her mind flinched at her dead appearance. Dead smile, dead hair, dead eyes. She saw how she could easily smash the mirror and slit open her throat with a shard of glass, saw her lifeblood spray across the wall as her jugular was sliced open, but for some reason, she no longer felt any inclination to do that. In fact, she felt nothing. She didn't even remember why she was in here.

She looked dully at the already formed scar on her wrist, wondering why she had opted for that over her throat. They must have healed her for it to already be a scar, or maybe it was Nibi's chakra healing her. And they must have somehow taken all the drugs she had swallowed out of her system, because despite how she felt, she was still very much alive.

She fell back into her bed and stared up blankly at the yellowy haze of a ceiling above her, then closed her useless eyes and drifted back into oblivion.

:::

She drifted in and out of consciousness for what seemed like hours, but it was really only the few minutes it took Naruto to walk solemnly down the hallway to her room. The nurse leading him gestured to the door and said "She's in there Hokage-sama" before taking her leave. Quickly, he noticed.

Taking a deep breath, he entered the room his lover was sealed in. He saw her eyes drift open as he closed the door with a solid thunk behind him, trapping him in with the so called dangerous mental patient. Dangerous to herself anyway. He saw her look around the tiny room in confusion; she had heard the door close but her eyesight had deteriorated to the point where she couldn't even see him leaning against the closed door, having not moved an inch.

"Who are you?" her voice rasped out.

He flinched at it. It was just so completely devoid of emotion. Even when he had first found her when she was an enemy, it was not this bad. This was just, uncaring.

"H-Hinata" he stumbled over his words, his heart breaking seeing her in this state. "It's Naruto. Your Naruto-kun" he said.

"N-Naruto-kun?" she softly repeated his words.

"Yes, Naruto-kun, and I'm here to help you Hinata-chan" he said solemnly. He stepped forward into her view and she gasped when she saw the familiar orange blur.

"N-Naruto-kun" she repeated, recognition entering her voice. He smiled gently and kneeled by the bedside. He slowly took her fragile hand in his own and held it to his chest.

"Hinata, I need you to tell me why you are doing this to yourself."

She remembered why she was in here now. All the self-harm. Because of what she was. "I'm a danger to the village" she said, but he instantly cut her off.

"No, not that, I know that's a lie, you've been able to control it before. I want to know why you're doing this now. I know you're strong. Stronger than me even. And if I can keep the Kyuubi in check, you can kick the Nibi's ass back into its cage if it ever tries to escape."

She didn't so much as giggle at his joke. She sighed softly. "Naruto, there's something you need to know about me. The only man that knew about her was her creator, who is now dead." She looked into his blue eyes just inches from her own, close enough for her to see the sparkling clarity in them. "The Raikage made her. And she is in me. She is me. N-Naruto, I have a split personality. Megumi…"

She trailed off as she involuntarily shivered. Naruto squeezed her hand tight to urge her on, so she continued. "W-when you helped me kick her out of control, the Nibi also helped. See, she was actually quite nice for a Bijuu, they're not all evil. They're just neutral forces of nature. But, when Nibi dropped her guard to kick Megumi out of my mind, she entered Nibi's and took her over before she had a chance to defend herself. Megumi is everything in my dark side that I always held back, and now she is a bijuu. That is why I am a danger to this village, because she could come out and overpower me at any second and destroy everything."

Naruto grimaced at the circumstances. "But the seal" he said. "Isn't that stopping her."

"It is for now, but Megumi is a part of me, she's not just inside the cage, so she has a bigger influence on me" she replied. "That's why…" She grasped his hand and slowly led it up to her throat, leaning her head back to bare it. She placed his hand on her throat and squeezed it against her. "You must kill me" she said simply and squeezed harder, choking off her air flow with his hand.

He quickly took his hand back and used it to hold down her own now flailing one. "Hinata" he said firmly. "I'm going to help you. I made a promise, and you know this intimately, it's the same as you, we never go back on our promises."

With that he placed a hand on her forehead and closed his eyes, using the foreign connection between jinchuuriki and bijuu to enter her mindscape, appearing before the cage in her mind, holding Hinata's hand.

"W-what?" she said in confusion as she suddenly found herself standing before a growling Nibi behind the bars of her cage, and Naruto in there with her.

"So this is the Nibi, or should I say, Megumi?" Naruto said, coming dangerously close to the cage. A giant paw swiped out through the bars, just out of reach.

"Yes, that's me" a voice said, and the two humans heads whipped around to see another Hinata walking up stoically. Though she had a much, much darker visage.

Hinata gasped. "You're back out here!" she said in fear. Megumi smiled sadistically, ignoring her for-the-moment dominant personality, and glared at Naruto.

"And you know, I hate men!" she hissed and leapt at him. Even as she did, the Nibi's chakra flooded through the cage bars and joined her, boosting her power. Naruto started to respond until he suddenly found a blur in front of him, and a hand catch Megumi's fist.

"Hinata!" he cried.

She looked so fierce, so determined. It reminded him of what happened with Pain. She was once again protecting him, while he did nothing. He would not let the result of that happen again.

"Leave him alone" she hissed at Megumi, her voice deadlier than the split personality could ever manage. "And the Nibi is mine!" she shouted.

Now that Megumi had made her move, and was no longer inside it, they could both draw on its power. The trail of purple chakra split so that some entered Hinata as well. The practically identical girls' hair went flying around with the power emanating from them as they growled at each other, turning feral with the power they were soaking in from the bijuu.

Naruto looked into the cage to notice that it was now unconscious, though huge amounts of chakra were still being dragged from it. And he didn't forget; this was Hinata's mindscape. Any damage done here would damage her brain, her personality. He couldn't help but notice the lines of cracks and fragments of stone already in the room, hinting at her fragile mental state.

But one resolution was obviously clear, she would protect him. But she wouldn't fight her inner demon, literally, alone. He would be there with her. Drawing on the Kyuubi's chakra, he decided he needed to finish this fast, before anything else could go down in Hinata's mind. He used his father's instant transmission to teleport next to Megumi and yanked her out of Hinata's grasp, sending her flying across the room. He again used it to catch her before she created a crater in Hinata's mindscape, and pulled out a kunai, ready to thrust it into her with inhuman strength and speed.

"Wait, I'm Hinata!" she screamed.

He didn't even hesitate; he could feel the dark aura emanating from her. The kunai plunged down into the split personalities gut. She screamed but it was cut off when he ripped it up into her heart. Naruto dropped the body dead on the floor and turned to his girlfriend, only to find she too was on the ground.

"Hinata-chan!" he yelled in concern and rushed over to her, the dead body behind him disintegrating into nothingness. Thankfully, he found Hinata breathing and her heart beating well, just unconscious due to the strain on her mentality. He glanced over to the cage to see the Nibi also still unconscious. He finally looked back to see the last wisps of Megumi fade away and smiled. All he could see from this situation were happy endings, so he withdrew from her mind.

Seeing her sleeping peacefully in reality, her hair fanned out on the pillow propping her head up, he wrapped her in his arms and lay down next to her, drifting off to sleep with her still protectively in his arms.

:::

Phew, 4 in one day, I think that's enough. Hope you guys are okay with this, but the next one could be a few days late, I've got lots of stuff to do in the next few days which is mainly why I updated so much today.