She wasn't the greatest at explaining herself. Kakashi-sensei had taken her off missions twice in a row already. But the third time was the charm, right? She thought. She hoped.

Perhaps her letter to sensei was far too long at two and a half pages. He was a busy Hokage, having to sort through reams and reams of paperwork every single day. Perhaps she oughtn't to have added to his burden.

But still...

She had a debt to fulfill.

She could only hope that Kakashi-sensei would agree. She raised her hand to knock on his office door.

"Ahhh, Tsunade-sama, this one sure is persistent," said a low voice. "The third time she's come up to ask me to put her back on missions."

Hinata's hand paused in midair.

A hiccup and a booming laugh. "I reviewed her medical records. Really, she went into cardiac arrhythmia and still kept fighting when she was twelve? That reminds me of someone."

"Ah, yes, Hinata is one tough girl. My cute little student kept cheering her on all the way through. Told Hayate not to call the match."

"I'm not surprised."

"Naruto always had this uncanny intuition that served him well. He was right about a lot of things."

"I bet against him once. I lost." Tsunade-sama's voice was fondness blending painfully with melancholy. That aching sweetness that humans called nostalgia.

Homecoming pain.

Home was in warm, soft smiles and gentle hands playfully covering her eyes. The sky and the sea spinning off into infinity, forever and a day away. Him and her and two hot bowls of miso ramen with extra naruto.

But green leaves were blooming in her lungs now, and yellow petals in her heart.

Naruto-kun, is that how you felt, all those years you were on the swing?

"He was the first to have passed my bell test."

"Never bet against Naruto, Kakashi. Just as I thought, he grew into a fine young man."

"And what do you think he would have said about dear Hinata?"

"That's easy. He would have told us to get off our asses and put Hinata on a mission where she could blow someone's head off."

"Hmmmm...Perhaps."

"Kakashi."

"Tsunade-sama?"

"I think he'd be right. Girls like her need a purpose in life. I know what she's going through. I loved someone once, a long time ago."

"Kato Dan-san?"

"Yeah, Shizune's uncle. He died in one of the many accursed wars that we fought. A part of me died with him. I tried so hard to heal him, Kakashi, kept thinking, "Don't die, don't die, don't die." Well, obviously it didn't work. I packed up and left Konoha for years and years, gambling, boozing it up, just trying to numb the pain. From what I understand, you did much the same, after the loss of your teammates."

"Drink and gamble, Tsunade-sama?" asked Kakashi-sensei in a dry voice. "I would never."

"Gah! You know what I mean. There was an emptiness in you. I know there was. But he came in, him with his stupid face and his promises. He made you want to bet on him. Made you want to change. Made you want to bet on yourself."

There was a long silence, punctuated only by a stamp thumping on paperwork. Something stirred in Hinata, not the usual numbness spliced with occasional agony. Something different. Something she couldn't name.

She knew that the current and previous Hokage were war heroes of the old generation and all that entailed. And yet none had told her this.

The Rokudaime sighed.

"Did you know, after our first real mission together, he said that he'd find his own ninja way? The way of Naruto?"

Tsunade-sama snorted. "Sounds like the brat."

"Well...maybe we should bet on the person he bet on. What do you think, Tsunade-sama?"

"I think I'm in the mood to win a bet for once."

Hinata peered into the office through a small gap between door and frame, mind racing, palms sweating, heart spasming. Kakashi-sensei was resting his chin in his hands, staring at the Yondaime's portrait on the wall. Tsunade-sama was sitting on a cardboard box, idly thumbing through a thick stack of papers with one hand and petting a drowsy Tonton with the other.

Kakashi spotted her, eyes lighting up with his signature smile.

"Ah, Hinata. There you are. Perfect timing, we were just discussing you."

Dull orange embers crackled in the warm air. Crickets chirped, frogs croaked, and Akamaru was chomping on a large, blackened fish. Stars blanketed the dark canopy of the sky and Team 8 was on a mission again.

Hinata poked at the campfire with a stick, one hand wrapped around her knees. This was just like before, but there was no going back to before. There was only after.

Why did after seem so much like before? Kiba and Shino off to fetch water and food, Hinata keeping an eye on the clearing for fear of wild animals, Kurenai-sensei unpacking their belongings inside the tent.

"Yahoo!" Kiba crashed through the forest with thick, heavy steps. So much for being an expert tracker, silent and deadly. "Look what I got!"

He was carrying an entire bushload of berries in his arms, some dark purple, others blood red, still others a vivid, eye-catching pink.

"Kiba-kun?"

"Yeah, Hinata?"

"I think those are poisonous."

"You sure?" Kiba sniffed at them suspiciously.

"Don't do that," came Kurenai-sensei's sharp rebuke from the entrance of the tent. "If something is poisonous, why on earth would you inhale it, Kiba?"

"Because, Kurenai-sensei," said Shino, emerging with five canisters of water. "Kiba once knocked his head against a tree in the Forest of Death and his brain was irreparably damaged."

Kiba threw a berry at him. Shino deftly dodged, settling down next to Hinata.

"Perfect. It's been a long time since I've supervised you three. If I wasn't able to get Mirai a babysitter for today..."

"Then Kiba would be stuck in the forest with acute food poisoning," Shino said in a smug, satisfied sort of voice.

"OI! Don't talk like I'm not here!"

"Shino-kun," Hinata pleaded. "Please don't antagonize Kiba-kun. He did his best."

"Yeah!"

"You are too kind to the undeserving, Hinata."

Kurenai-sensei grinned at Team 8's antics and sat down at Hinata's other side, stretching her arms and shaking out her dark hair. She took a bottle from Shino and dropped a soluble baby blue pill into the fresh spring water.

"Well, here you are, Hinata. Tsunade-sama's special medicinal tonic for you. Drink up."

Hinata eyed the mixture warily. The instant hangover cure pill had tasted like rotten milk. Who knew what this magic bullet would taste like? Toenails? Unwashed socks?

"Now, Hinata, you must drink. That was the condition that Tsunade-sama and Kakashi set for you joining this mission." Kurenai-sensei crossed her arms, crimson eyes fixed on Hinata impassively.

She always was a demanding instructor. Kind and generous, but exacting in standards. Not in the "we must do ten thousand push-ups while yelling about the beauty of the sunset" way of Guy-sensei, nor in the strict code of moral discipline that Kakashi-sensei expected. Not that Kurenai-sensei didn't put them through grueling physical tasks. Not that she didn't expect scruples or discipline (oh, yes, she did, most definitely).

Kurenai-sensei was a genjutsu expert. She made sure, while training Team 8, that their minds would not bend. Made sure that they wouldn't break. Perfect mental fortitude. No getting sleepy on long scouting missions. No turning up noses at eating potentially poisonous berries. Strength and tenacity.

Hinata gulped down the powdered pill water, bracing herself for the foul taste of curdled leftover milk.

It didn't come.

The pill water was pleasantly warm, soothing her itchy, scratchy sore throat, with all its burst blood vessels. A creamy, nutty texture, perfect after a long, tiring day.

The taste of miso ramen.

Something heavy lifted off her chest.

She jumped from tree to tree, wind roaring in her ears, the forest passing in a deep green blur.

"The target's over there!" yelled Kiba from thirty feet behind her.

The target was a rogue ninja, suspected of assassinating several chuunin from Suna, on top of detonating a bomb in a playground for children and evading capture ever since. A tip-off from Gaara suggested that he was lurking somewhere in the forests surrounding Konoha, lying in wait until he could strike again. A real scumbag, in Kiba's words.

Which is why I'm betting on your team to track him down and subdue him, Kakashi-sensei had said.

A grainy voice reverberated through Hinata's walkie-talkie. "Shino, did you set the trap at three o'clock, thirty kilometers away?"

"Yes, sensei."

"Kiba, is Akamaru ready in the formation we discussed?"

"Yes, sensei!"

"Good." There was a pause in the static. "Hinata, I'm counting on you to take him out."

This is your chance. Show them that you won't lose the bet.

Hinata cleared out her throat, making sure no stray petals would obstruct her voice.

"Yes, sensei."

She'd been off missions for a while. Warned to neither activate her Byakugan nor to practice her taijutsu. Told to rest, that she was everything, her fundamentals had been perfect for years.

She wasn't very good at following sound medical advice, though.

Thick splinters had found their way into the gashes on her hands, and something painful prickled in her eyes as she activated her Byakugan.

Hinata ignored all this, and more. The wind was roaring in her ears, whipping her long hair into her eyes. A slice of yellow light illuminated the verdant path in front of her. Her heart leapt, jolted by lightning.

Because...

Because –

Because.

He bet on her.

And maybe...maybe she'd be able to reach out and graze a hand against his back.

Finally.

The rogue ninja was slight of build, with a cruel face, a deep slash over his Suna hitai-ate, and a wickedly sharp, peculiarly designed chakra-channeling sword that glimmered in the greenish-golden light. A thick black cloud of bugs was buzzing around his feet, so dense that it seemed as though this man were wearing a second pair of shoes. At this point in any typical search and capture mission, the criminal in question would have been screaming in terror. Shino's kikaichuu had a way of activating the most primal fear and disgust hidden deep within the human mind. Learning not to flinch in their presence required prodigious time and effort.

This man, their target, was eerily still and unblinking.

Akamaru growled, baring his fangs, showing off his blood red gums and the flesh stuck in his teeth.

"Stop and lower your weapons," Shino said, dropping down from his perch on a tree. "You are being taken in by tracking team number eight from Konohagakure. You are wanted in the bingo book in connection with the assassinations of ten Sunagakure shinobi and for plotting the murders of unarmed, defenceless innocents. The Kazekage has issued a statement regarding your wanted status."

The man smirked in response.

It was impossible to make out Shino's expression through his dark glasses, but dark blood dripped from the man's legs onto the grass.

The very same bugs that had tried to suck out the illness from Hinata's hands.

"You don't know when to quit, do you? Least you could do is look a little nervous. You're being apprehended by the greatest Konoha team to ever exist! Make any sudden moves and...well, you'll find out why Akamaru is named the way he is."

"Right. Hinata. Please neutralize the target."

This was it. This was how Team 8's tracking missions would end. Find the target with enhanced sight and smell. Immobilize the target using techniques that couldn't be easily countered. Knock out the target with a series of well-aimed strikes to his tenketsu.

Kurenai-sensei had been a strict instructor. She'd drilled this routine into Team 8's minds a million times. It led to a 99.9% mission success rate.

Hinata advanced, concentrating chakra into her fingers.

The rogue ninja's smirk widened for the briefest half-second, and bubbling, acidic agony suddenly tore through Hinata's stomach and brought her to her knees.

Not now.

"Hinata!"

She didn't know who called out; having exploded into another coughing fit.

There was the glimmer of a sword and a cruel smile. She'd fallen to the ground with a thud, her Byakugan narrowing in on anything and everything: the pale greenish tint of the White Zetsu's skin, Akamaru's coarse unwashed fur, coated with dirt and blood and other things she did not care to name, the clods of mud that momentarily rose into the air when her feet skidded.

Something red spewed from her mouth. It seemed her blood was fire. Her throat was searing.

First came the petals. Not in separate clumps. These were all perfectly attached together, radiating outwards from a brown floret.

Next came a fuzzy green stem. And another flower, perfectly intact.

And another.

And another.

It didn't stop. Wouldn't stop.

They were perfectly round, yellow, bloodstained.

Yellow petals. Blood red.

Orange.

A flash brighter than the sun, a big, wide smile.

"Don't worry, I'm here now!"

She blinked and he was gone.

The color yellow seemed a million times more vivid lately, ever since that day when he bled out on the ground, his signature orange robbed of its essence.

It hurt her eyes.

His phantom voice echoed in her ears, as clear as a stream of gushing, gurgling water.

Don't worry.

A flash of silver cut through the air.

I'm here now.

The world didn't become blurry when she cried with her Byakugan on. No, it became a hundred times more vivid and distinct.

"Hinata, look out!"

Her eyes narrowed.

It wasn't wise to do this. She wasn't drunk like before, but she was definitely ill.

But then, he'd always made her feel brave.

A warm hand wrapped around hers.

Two palms.

Thwack.

A blow to his stomach.

Four palms.

Thwack.

A blow to the neck.

Eight palms.

Thwack.

His arm turned as purple as a plum.

Sixteen palms.

Thwack.

So did his leg.

Thirty-two palms.

Thwack.

Another blow to his neck.

Sixty-four palms.

Thwack.

Lightning speed, hammerlike blows.

I am nothing without my fundamentals, she protested.

Her older brother sighed. You are everything. Please rest.

She couldn't rest, though. Not until...

Naruto-kun...did I change...a little?

Hinata caught someone's eye.

Warm, crinkling, as blue as the sky above.

She blacked out.

A/N: Something very big will happen in the next chapter. Take a guess! The tide of the story is turning at last! :)

Edit 2023/02/27: Some of you may be wondering, why doesn't Shino immobilize this man's arms? It's a fairly obvious oversight, right? I should have caught it in my first edit of this chapter. He has a special sword that channels his chakra and can be used against Shino's bugs. Slightly (very slightly) changed the wording to reflect that. Not the only edit I made...had to go and change Ino's job to working with the barrier team in Chapter 4 after checking the wiki, along with some other small corrections.