Hero's Heart

Chapter 2

The Hero Leaves

Once the day was here, Hinata woke up bright up and got ready. Once she was ready, she stared herself down in the mirror and made sure she was ready to do what she had to do today. She was going to finally confess her love to Naruto. All of this time she kept telling herself not to do it for naught. This was finally her chance to be honest with herself. She walked outside and looked to the horizon. The sun was peaking over the horizon and she just knew that it was going to be a good day.

A couple more hours went by and she finally headed into town. Once she got there, she saw Naruto waiting for her outside of Ichiraku. He greeted her with a friendly good morning and then headed to the Final Valley.

When they arrived, Naruto took a seat and got in that same position as the other day. He was acquiring his Sage Mode so Hinata knew not to bother him. However, she had so much on her mind that she wanted to talk to him about. The only bad thing was that she was forced to wait until they were done with their training session.

Right as their training session began, Hinata knew that there was something different about Naruto. The amount of concentration and precision that went into his attacks was unlike anything he did yesterday. Even though it was just a sparring match, Hinata was forced to stay on her toes in case if he tried anything sneaky. Punch after punch, kick after kick; Hinata couldn't see a single opportunity to throw an attack his way. He was constantly on the offensive. Although this was a typical Naruto thing to do, it was just different in every way. She couldn't put her finger on it. It wasn't until Naruto stopped his attack and stood still. This told Hinata that there was something wrong.

"Naruto-kun, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Oh, you just didn't seem like yourself just now. If you're not feeling well, I can understand us stopping for the day. We trained pretty hard already."

"No, it's not that."

"Then what is it? Something does seem wrong."

There was a slight pause in their conversation before he spoke up again.

"Hinata, I need to talk to you about something."

"Okay." By saying that word, it automatically put her topic at the end of whatever he was going to say. However, Hinata didn't mind. For her, Naruto came first no matter what and if this was something she could help with, she'd be more than willing to do it.

"It's kind of stupid that it took me this long to figure it out, but I guess I'm finally going to do it." He took a deep breath and looked her right in the eyes. "Hinata, I love you."

At that moment, she was completely speechless. The thing she wanted to talk to him about was just spoken to her. Naruto just confessed his love to her, but now, she had no idea what to say. What could she say? How could she say it? All of this time, she assumed that it was a one-sided love. It only seemed that way and yet, Naruto was the one who finally confessed. And it was no joke either. Hinata was looking right into his eyes and could see that he did not falter. Those words were genuine and pure. He was telling the truth. The only strange thing about it was the timing.

"Naruto-kun, you… love me?"

"I do. I'm a horrible person for not realizing it when I should have. To be honest, I don't deserve to be with you after how patient you've been with me, but…"

"No." Hinata cut in with a strong voice to make sure that he would listen to what she had to say. "You've got it all wrong. All of this time, you were focusing on protecting everyone. You didn't have to think about something like love. You're not at fault. If anything… I'm the one at fault. I constantly tried to get close to you, but could never understand the extent of the situation. I'm sorry." She bowed her head, hoping that it would ease the mood. Unfortunately, there was more to come on Naruto's side.

"However, I can't accept your feelings just yet."

Hinata's eyes shot wide open as she raised her head to see a sad look on Naruto's face.

"What do you mean?"

"It all has to do with the War. Without the Sage's powers, we wouldn't have won and everything would be over. None of that was me and that made me realize. I'm not strong enough to protect the people I care about. That includes you. I can't go on knowing that there is still a threat out there that I can't stop on my own. I have to become stronger."

"But… You're already really strong. You're now the strongest person in the village. Everyone respects you and looks up to you. You've changed things around here."

"That's not enough though. I want the person I care about to know that I can protect them no matter what."

"Naruto-kun, you're always able to protect the people you care about. W-Why are you saying this?"

"I'm sorry Hinata, but I have to go away for a bit. I hope you can understand."

She couldn't believe the words that she was hearing. This was exactly the time when Jiraiya Sensei took him with on his voyage to train him. However, it was different. Naruto was doing it on his own accord. She knew that he was serious about this and that there wasn't really anything she could say that would stop him. She just didn't want him to go. The world was finally at peace and Naruto was still bothering himself about keeping the people he cares about safe. This only brought tears to her eyes; tears that she couldn't hide from him. Right as they started to form, he walked over to her and wiped them away.

"I know that by the time I come back, you'll see me as a true hero." He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. "Goodbye Hinata."

A puff of smoke appeared right in front of her and that's when Naruto disappeared. As quickly as she could, she tried to stop him from leaving, but it was already too late. Once again, she missed her chance to tell him how she felt. Because of the circumstances of the situation now, she was almost certain that her words might have persuaded him from leaving the village. Unfortunately, it was too late. He was gone and she had no idea where he went off to.

All alone now, she made her way back into town where everything was hustling and bustling. Some of her friends caught her on the street and said hi. She didn't respond. This caught their attention, but didn't really do anything about it. They knew that Hinata wasn't big on being social so they just let it go and moved on with their day. On the other hand, Hinata walked around purposelessly until she ended up running into Sakura.

"Oh, Hinata, great timing. I was wondering if you've seen Naruto anywhere. I need to talk to him about something."

"…'s gone."

"Huh? What'd you say?"

"Naruto-kun's gone."

"Gone? What do you mean by gone?"

"He left. I don't know why. He just said he had to go. I don't know why he would something like that." At that moment, her emotions got the best of her as tears started to roll down her face.

"Hinata, what's wrong?" Sakura was quick on the draw and grabbed her body before she could collapse onto the ground. "Sshhh. It's okay. Just tell me what happened."

It was hard for Hinata to say anything since her tears and everything else relating to that was just too much. Eventually, Sakura took her back to her house where she managed to calm her down a bit. Sakura waited a bit longer to ask about what happened, but she knew that this was something big since Hinata was not one to lose herself in public. Once she was calm, Sakura went ahead and asked her what had happened. It took Hinata a while to answer since she was a little unsure of it herself.

"Naruto-kun left by himself."

"He left? Like on a trip or something. Did he say something horrible to you?"

Hinata shook her head.

"No, he talked about not being strong enough to protect the people he cared about. That led him to confessing his feelings for me."

Sakura was now the one who was speechless. She knew that that guy was a blockhead, but to hear that he was the one who confessed his love was something else. She didn't even know how to react. She didn't want to smile since Hinata was saddened by this. She also didn't want to seem sad because Hinata was already sad and didn't want to make things any worse.

"Wow, I didn't see him as the one to confess to you. How did you handle it?"

"I-I couldn't. He disappeared by the time I could say anything else." She shoved her head in her hands and avoided eye contact with Sakura.

Meanwhile, Sakura was still a little confused. Disappeared? That kind of seems like a weird word to use in this situation, but since it was Hinata, there's no way she would exaggerate something like this.

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"I'm sure he left for a reason."

"I know he did. I just don't understand why he had to tell me those things and then leave immediately."

"I think he wants you to know that he'll constantly be thinking about you even though he had to leave. Don't you think that sounds like a good thought? Naruto never does anything to hurt others. What he's doing has a purpose. I'm sure of it. All we need to do is be patient with him and welcome him back whenever he decides to show up again."

Hinata raised her head to see a smile on Sakura's face.

"Thank you Sakura-san."

"Of course. You know I'm supporting you the entire way."

Hinata's face immediately turned red. Even though her and Naruto's feelings are a lot more clearer, it was still an embarrassing thing to talk about with other people.

…

A cloud of smoke appeared and Naruto emerged out of it. He took a good look around and breathed in the familiar air. He was back at Mount Myouboku with every intention of honing his skills to the max in order to be that hero he's always wanted to be… More like, the Hokage that he always wanted to be.

End of Chapter 2