Everyone was heading to the arena where they would take the chunin exams. Hinata stood in a corner and searched around for Naruto and found him standing there with some people. She was as giddy as any girl with a huge crush but she was also nervous and scared, tiny butterflies were fluttering around in her stomach making her uneasy and unsure of herself.

What if she was chosen to go up against Naruto? What if she went up somebody stronger and older than herself? What if the person was too weak and young and her family decided that all she could do was beat people who weren't any competition for anyone? What if she went up against Neji? What it she wasn't strong enough? What if she did defeat someone and her family still didn't care? So many what ifs crossed her mind that her brain was nothing but a scrambled mess of confusion, fear, and self doubt.

Neji watched his cousin fighting an internal struggle with herself while trying to remain calm and unafraid on the outside. He laughed a quick huff of a laugh. He knew better, he knew his cousin was more afraid than a person in red in front of a bull. His cousin was scared of her own shadow. Too weak, too small, too gentle, too frail, too much like her mother and not enough like a Hyuga should be. If ever there was a perfect candidate for carrying on the Hyuga bloodline it would be Neji with his tough outer shell and demeanor combined with amazing fighting skills and practiced Byakugan related jutsu's.

His eyes roamed the crowd and checked out the competition. Naruto wasn't to his level and far too immature, Rock Lee was just like Hinata at times, undetermined towards Shino, Kiba would be interesting, definitely not Choji, Ino, or Sakura, Ten Ten was a maybe, but what he most wanted was Sasuke. Sasuke came from a clan that was the sister to the Hyuga's. The Uchiha clan was famous for their shuringan just like the Hyuga's were famous for their Byakugan. Sasuke and his brother, Itachi are the last of the clan because of his brother performing a mass murder on the entire clan. Sasuke's purpose in life ever since was to destroy his brother, who joined a group of people called the Akatsuki.

Neji continued his scan over people he didn't know and tried to sum them up based on looks and every now and then would get general information from others about them. In the corner were three people, a girl, much older than he, with her blonde hair sectioned into four spiky pigtails with an enormous fan. Then there was a guy in a full bodied black suit that had a hood with pointed ears like a cat, and purple paint on his face like war paint and had a large, bandage-bound object on his back with something that looked like brown hair jutting out the top.

In the front of both of them, like the leader, was a boy, Naruto's age, standing there with his arms crossed with a dark, gloomy, malicious, frigidness and absolute loathing in his eyes but, Like Sasuke he had a stoic, coolness about him that made him interesting but his looks and aura put off a bad vibe that told you this guy was bad news and to stay FAR away. He was…scary. Yet Neji was too proud to say he was afraid even in the slightest because he assured himself he wasn't afraid of any man, woman or beast. This boy was familiar though with his spiky red hair, and black lined, aqua eyes as if he had over done it on the eye liner. Where has Neji seen this before? He didn't recognize the red scar that read LOVE on his forehead or that gourd but the face was a memory locked deep inside his brain. The names spun and spun on the screen calling out two people to battle against each other. Hinata watched the fights trying to soak it all in and wondered what her fight would be like. Would she come out victorious and shine in her family's eyes or would she be defeated and prove to be a failure once more? Once more the names spun and spun. While the names were spinning Gaara was evaluating the maggots that crawled this desolate planet.

All of them were too weak to even consider themselves ninjas in any level but oh how delicious it would be to take a young whelp and squeeze their eyes out, to cover them inside and out with sand, devour their souls, send blood out of their bodies to cover the arena, himself and all those in it. They were pointless, useless, pathetic. They would all be at his mercy. As his eyes went from the fight to the people that hadn't fought yet in the crowd he saw someone that made his eyes go round and his wide eyes locked to her form.

She had a short boyish bob of indigo hair that slightly jutted back because it was layered that way, soft, lilac eyes, porcelain skin and a china doll face. She wore a fur lined jacket, dark navy capris, and regular sandals. Her clothes didn't interest him and people in general didn't interest him, especially females but something about her face…particularly those eyes. Again he started convulsing and grabbing his skull. A pain like an arrow piercing his cranium riveted him. His eyes twitched, pupils dilated, he gritted his teeth, and his nostrils flared, you could see his veins throbbing up the side of his skull. Memories hit him like a ton of bricks or were they just dreams? No, he never slept but he couldn't remember it all. He just kept seeing those eyes, those strange pearl and lilac eyes floating around in his line of vision.

'WHO ARE YOU?! Shukaku answer me…Who is this girl!? Why does she make my head hurt? ANSWER ME!'

Shukaku grumbled then sighed languidly. A smile could almost be felt inside of Gaara's head.

'What have I told you, boy? Hmm? You foolish boy you don't listen. Trust me when I say she is nobody of importance. A person from the past is all but we know now that nobody cares…isn't that right my boy?'

Gaara's convulsing had stopped, the twitching eased down, everything was fine. In one heavy sigh Gaara returned to his "normal" self.

'You are right. You are always right. Never before and never again has a person cared for me or loved me in any way. I do not care about this girl…whoever she is. She is a worthless pathetic excuse for a being whose life will end shortly…preferably in my claws.'

Shukaku rumbled happily about this idea. Yes, a perfect addition to his plan. Get rid of the girl and there will be no distractions.

'Marvelous idea, boy. With luck, she will be our opponent. She is weaker than all the others here and will be easy to demolish. It will be beautiful, like blood on fresh, fallen snow.'

Shukaku growled then laughed full of malicious glee. His plan was coming along fine. His boy, his vessel would destroy her then once she was out of the way nothing could stop him. Suddenly her name got called along with Neji's.

Fear. The smell of it emanated from the girl whose name was Hinata. The name made Gaara's head hurt for a few minutes and his left eye go into a twitching fit. She took her place on one side Neji took his place on the other. This was how it was meant to be in Neji's eyes. Cousin against cousin and Hyuga against Hyuga. It was a perfect match, it was easy, it would be interesting. In Hinata's eyes it was the same, she could physically prove herself to Neji. She conjured up everything she had in her as she came to terms with fighting Neji.

At first it was hard for Hinata to fight back against her own blood, against someone who she considered a friend long ago, at first she was too weak and Neji assaulted her back and forth using Byakugan techniques and gentle fist. Her blood spilled onto the floor and the scent wafted up to greet Gaara's nose. It was…delicious. The sight of blood excited both Gaara and the demon and her blood was special, it was even colored differently. Such a beautiful shade of red mixed with a slight purple color and the scent was…arousing. Never before had Gaara had such a turn on toward blood or such a turn on in general but her blood smelled sweet with the vinegary sharpness blood has. Shukaku was beside himself.

'Her blood…her blood. It entices us, boy. It calls to us…I want that girl. I want her blood.'

Shukaku's voice was deep and riveted with a seductive, passion for this blood and this girl with her almost alabaster skin. Hinata, for he learned that was the name of this girl he craved, decided to pick up the pace. Inspired by Naruto, her love, her deepest crush, her secret heart, she pulled herself together and fought back using the same techniques. Their skills were matched until Neji blocked her Chakra flow and almost killed Hinata. Somebody had to step in and stop him before he did and Hinata was taken away to get fixed up.

Gaara was up next against a boy with a bowl haircut and bushy eyebrows that wore a lot of green. He looked just like his sensei. Like Hinata he trained hard and just wanted to shine in somebody's eyes. As Gaara settled into his place he stepped in something wet and warm. He looked down. It was blood and not just any blood but her arousing, stimulating, beautiful blood. He bent down, pretending he had to get something or was stretching and scooped up some of it with two fingers. In a quick, fluid motion he put his fingers into his mouth and savored the taste.

It was indeed sweet with a metallic tang that all blood possessed. It tasted special and slightly watery, not thick like most blood. It enthralled Shukaku and he decided to keep a little bit of her blood in his mouth so the whole time he was fighting his tongue would be lapping his gums, the wall of his cheek, his teeth, his lips and swirling the taste around. The fight itself ended strangely. Yes, Gaara won but weirdly enough he did get hit a couple times. The super fast movements of Rock Lee broke through the protective sand barrier. After all the battles were over and everyone departed a cleanup person came by. He had his work cut out for him. Sweat, blood, scrape marks, hair, bandages, and shreds of clothing. There was a uniquely colored blood on one area and strangely…it looked like somebody had taken their pointer finger and their middle and taken a quick swipe through it. Not letting his curiosity wonder he went about cleaning up the blood and such, finding stray piles and grains of sand here and there, especially right next to that puddle of unique blood as if they were one.