Naruto had fully expected Hinata to be at the hospital when he got there the day the Second Phase of the Exams had ended. The five days in the forest plus an extra amount of time for the preliminaries that may or may not have taken place due to his team's presence or rather lack thereof had passed hours ago. Since she should have the rest of the day off from training and it wasn't dinnertime and Hinata wasn't in the spot she usually occupied when she was following him around, he had assumed that she had gotten injured in the Preliminaries like she had the last time around and went to the hospital to visit her. She hadn't been at the hospital when he had arrived however.
Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't completely oblivious to Hinata's constant stalking. He had simply become so used to the girl's presence that she had become part of the normal Konoha background for him. What he had been oblivious to the last time around however was the fact that the girl had actually loved him. Before she had made her revelation as she fought Pein, he hadn't really believed that the heir to one of Konoha's most prestigious and influential clans would want anything to do with him, much less that, and he'd never once associated Hinata's constantly hanging in the background with Sakura's constant and overt pursuit of Sasuke.
Hinata usually hung around him when she wasn't busy with training or at home. The fact that she wasn't there following his every move from behind a tree, building, or fence, wasn't at the hospital, and wasn't home, as he'd learned when he checked by asking one of the Hyuuga after they had left the compound, was seriously starting to weird him out, especially considering the fact that this slightly disturbing change of routine had come immediately after a major pivotal moment in her life. Or at what should have been a pivotal moment.
After tracking Hinata by following her scent, which was a trick he rarely used because of all the other and often horrible smells he tended to pick up along with the one he wanted, he found her in an isolated section of forest in the back hills. It soon became obvious that he hadn't gotten there a moment too soon, as Hinata had a knife with her and was obviously building up her courage for something.
"Hey Hinata, what's up?" he asked in a false cheerful tone, hoping and praying that Hinata wasn't doing what he thought she was doing.
Hinata started sobbing at that point.
"I'm a total failure, even at this." Hinata said, gesturing towards the knife. "Neji-nii was right, I should do everyone a favor and die."
"Hinata..." he said, at a loss for words.
He felt rather low at that moment. His kind and gentle friend had most likely been feeling this way for a very long time, and he hadn't bothered to notice. If he'd payed a bit of attention to Hinata like he should have this time around instead of focusing almost exclusively on Sasuke and Sakura out of all of his friends and precious people, she probably wouldn't have reached this state. And, Hinata was only one out of several of his friends who were suffering right now. Even Neji...
"I can't do anything right. I couldn't even fight Neji..." Hinata said, still crying.
"You got Neji during the prelims?" he asked, now on more familiar ground.
"Yes, and I gave up without even trying, like I always do." she said.
"That fight was totally unfair." he said.
"Why? Because Neji is the strongest in our generation, and I'm nothing?" Hinata asked bitterly.
Obviously, this had been festering for a while, and her family's actions hadn't helped. Odds were that the instant the preliminaries were over Hiashi would have taken the opportunity to point out to Hinata how weak she supposedly was. He had a feeling that part of that was because was concerned and he wanted his daughter to get stronger, and that a part of that which Hiashi would probably never admit to himself was that a part of him resented his daughter because her kidnapping had led to the death of his twin.
"No." he replied deciding to give Hinata the answer she'd needed which was also a true one. "That fight was completely unfair because of who Neji is to you. I know you Hinata, and I know that you're a kind and gentle person who doesn't want to hurt anyone you care for. You feel that you've already hurt Neji, and you don't want to hurt him any further. Because I know you, I know that if someone tried to hurt the people you care for, you'd face them even if they were a hundred times stronger than you, and you'd hand them their ass."
Hinata sat there and stared at him unbelieving.
"You don't believe me?" he asked. "How about I ask you a few questions, and you answer me honestly."
"O-okay." Hinata replied.
"What would you do if someone hurt Hanabi right in front of you?" he asked.
From the slightly vicious look in Hinata's eyes at the thought of what would happen to anyone who would dare harm her little sister, he could tell that he had gotten through to her, at least a little. After that little display, he and Hinata spent several hours talking after he'd gotten her to relinquish the knife. Sitting still for that long and talking about feelings normally wasn't in his nature but, he would do anything it took to keep from losing even one of his precious people.
Eventually, Hinata became completely exhausted from all of the talking and the crying, and fell asleep. As he was debating whether or not to carry Hinata back to the village and risk a lecture for "trespassing" at the Hyuuga compound, he heard a noise coming from the bushes. When he turned towards the source of the noise, it was to see Gaara approaching.
"Hey Naruto, I had a few hours to spare, and was wondering if we could play "Ninja"." Gaara said when he finally arrived.
"We can but, can you do me a favor first?" he asked. "Can you drop Hinata off at the Hyuuga compound? I'd do it myself, but I'm not entirely certain how welcome my presence would be there after that prank I pulled on one of the Elders last year."
"Sure." Gaara replied as he picked the girl up with his sand and carried her off.
When Gaara was gone, he destroyed Hinata's knife, and made his way back to the village to get something to eat. Since it was rather late, Ichiraku was closed which meant that he'd have to disguise himself and go elsewhere because he wasn't in the mood to either cook or be alone at the moment. He could enter pretty much any restaurant as himself but, the glares tended to get to him and service tended to be rather slow.
Gaara's first impression of the Hyuuga clan when he'd first encountered him had been that they were stuck up snobs, and there had been very little to change that impression over the years. While there were naturally some exceptions to the rule like Hinata, that impression was completely correct in his opinion. When he got to the gate of the Hyuuga Compound, Hinata was taken off of his hands by a pair of annoying pricks, and he was led further into the compound. When he arrived at the destination he'd been led to, it was to find Hyuuga Hiashi sitting in some sort of formal audience chamber looking at him rather sternly.
"What were you doing with my daughter?" Hiashi asked him after the basic formalities which had been drilled into him when he'd become Kazekage in the future were over.
"Training." he replied after a moment of internal debate.
He wasn't certain how accepting of Naruto Hyuuga Hiashi was at this point, and he would rather not get the other boy into trouble if it were at all possible. Training was an acceptable answer in a Ninja village.
"And where was your chaperone while you were "Training"?" Hiashi asked.
"Chaperone?" he asked.
Oh crap. He should have known that the Hyuuga were one of Those clans. They sure were stuffy enough to be so.
"I see." Hiashi said, looking extremely displeased by his answer.
An ominous feeling overtook him. This was not good. This was most definitely not good. This was going to be a repeat of the Iwa incident, he just knew it. Why was it that nobody demanded that Naruto marry any of the princesses he rescued?
"You were out with my daughter without a chaperone, and you lied about training." Hiashi said. "At this point, you have two options. One, you can marry my daughter, or Two, I can kill you. Which will it be?"
Gaara stared at Hyuuga Hiashi in horror. Just as he suspected, it was a repeat of the Iwa incident and, he had the feeling that this time he wouldn't be getting out of it since Hinata seemed too well behaved to be the sort to elope with a wandering minstrel a half hour before the wedding. The Hinata he knew was Aburame Shino's wife, and he had a feeling that if he married the girl, Shino would find a way to rip apart the veil of time and beat the shit out of him.
In his time, the Aburame had quietly pined after Hinata until he had finally won her hand after some rather confusing series of events which had resolved that section of Konoha's infamous and rather convoluted three-dimensional love polygon. He wasn't entirely sure what had happened since he'd only heard about it thirdhand but, by the time it was over, Maito Gai had had a broken leg, Rock Lee had done something unspeakable to a tree, Hyuuga Neji had been locked in a bathroom, and Mitarashi Anko had ended up getting married to someone whose name was either Yamato or Tenzo resolving another section of the infamous love polygon.
Despite the fact that he didn't want to marry Hinata, it was starting to look like his only option since there would of course be a great deal of trouble for him and his village if he took option two and killed Hinata's father rather than allow the man to kill him. Suna was currently in a rather vulnerable state at the moment, and - though they didn't know it yet - without a Kage. If war were declared now, Suna could be destroyed. The invasion had been a rather desperate gamble the last time around, and it had failed to pay off.
At this point in time he probably had only one hope, and it was a slim one at best.
"Um, please give me some time to get ready." he said as he began to retreat from the Hyuuga who would more than likely hunt him down if he tried to leave the village.
He had to find Naruto and fast. At this age, Hinata was desperately in love with Naruto and would be willing to defy her father over him. A five year age difference wasn't nearly as bad as the one that was actually between him and this Hinata, and he had a feeling that he would be able to get Naruto to go through with it if he couched it in terms of helping out a couple of friends who were in a difficult situation. It was Naruto's fault he'd gotten in this mess anyways so, it was only fair that he tossed it back into the other boy's lap.
Neji had been practicing the Kaiten in the woods as he often did when he could find a spare moment away from his team who, in his opinion, belonged in an asylum rather than wandering around amongst the general public when a sudden wind came up, countered his spin, and slammed him into a tree.
"You should watch out for that. Someone from Suna spotted that particular weakness in the future." a vaguely familiar voice said.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Someone who has come to have a little discussion with you about your attitude." the voice said as a very familiar blond stepped out of the trees, a blond who had tried to take the Academy Graduation exam with his year and failed abysmally, a blond who had accidentally killed a fellow Konoha ninja during the written part of the Chunin Exams, and somehow managed to get his team disqualified during the second phase.
As he prepared to hand the loser who had somehow countered his Kaiten his ass and send him packing on his way to the hospital, the red haired Genin from Suna came racing out of the trees.
"Naruto, can you teach Neji the error of his ways some other time? I have a massive problem that needs to be solved immediately." the red haired Suna Genin said.
Edited 11-4-12