Blah blah blah: regular text

"Blah Blah Blah" regular speech

'Blah Blah Blah' regular thought or flashback

"Blah Blah Blah" Kyuubi/demonic or summon talking

'Blah Blah Blah' Kyuubi/demonic or summon thinking

I would write a disclaimer but right now I just can't bring myself to care

Notice of Regime Change

Ok The Muse is taking to long so I'm taking over

Delta

Who's the Hostage

By: EDelta88

Chapter 4: Now or Never

"Oh I hated this part all you did was run."

'Well, that was kinda the point. You know, put some distance between me and the village to make it harder for them to catch me?'

"Feh, running. You should have just made a dramatic exit like in all those other fics."

'Fox what are you talking about?'

"Merely muttering incoherent nonsense to myself about how anticlimactic, confusing and vague the last chps were on why you left the village... and breaking the fourth wall."

'What! You know why I left; you bombarded me with all those scenes of my friends suffering because of me so I left to protect them.'

"Just keep telling yourself that brat and maybe you'll believe it."

'FAKE IT TILL YA MAKE IT!'

Location Unknown

As Hinata slowly made her way back to consciousness, she inevitably became aware that several things were out of the ordinary. First off, she was moving. This seemed rather odd considering she didn't sleepwalk and she wasn't doing anything to move herself. So that must mean someone was moving her. Next, she was bound hand and foot, her hands tied together and pinned behind her back. Also there was something over her mouth, that was odd she didn't remember putting on a mask that morning, for that matter she didn't even think she owned one. Then there was the fact that someone was carrying her.

Wait…

As the memories of the events leading to her 'nap' came rushing back to her, Hinata's eyes snapped open. Switching into fight or flight mode, she immediately began molding chakra to cut the ropes around her wrists, or rather she tried to but nothing happened. She tried to call out, scream, anything for some one to help her, but nothing came out but a muffled whimper. Whatever this thing on her mouth was, it was obviously there to keep her quiet.

Now in a full out panic, Hinata began to thrash in every direction to make her captor release her, later she'd think back on this and realize it probably wasn't a good idea considering she was roughly fifteen meters above the forest floor and given her current state she may not have landed well. As it was her actions caught the attention of whoever was carrying her.

She was quite convinced this was not Naruto. Regardless of how he looked, Naruto did not tie her up... not that she would mind if he did under certain circumstances.

As Naruto continued leaping from tree to tree, he kept going over his plan again and again searching for any loopholes or mistakes he may have made.

Flashback

After he had knocked Hinata out he had picked her up and moved further away from the wall to make sure he wasn't spotted. Then he had removed the majority of her clothing dressing her in some of his spares, after that was done he had made roughly twenty kage bushin giving each of them something of Hinata's whether one of her zori or a scrap of her pants or jacket. Once each of them had something he gave them their orders.

"Ok here's the plan, I want each of you to crisscross all around the village then head in a different direction and haul ass until your chakra runs out. Make sure you leave a trail, but don't make it easy to follow, you got that?" clones nod in unison, "Good, get moving," and with that they scattered each creating a false physical and scent trail (i.e. Hinata's clothes, and you thought he just wanted to cop a feel, shame).

After that was done, Naruto dug in his pack pulling out a scroll labeled 'Prisoner Kit' he broke the seal revealing its contents: several lengths of 700 lb cord, a chakra disruptor, and a gag tag(1). Moving quickly Naruto placed the sound stopping note over Hinata's mouth, then fastened the chakra inhibitor around her waist, then he gently rolled her over pulling her arms behind her back he tied her wrists together then using another length of cord her pinned her arms to her body, moving to her legs he used the last two lengths of cord one around her ankles and one around her knees.

Confident in the knowledge that Hinata wasn't going anywhere Naruto turned to his last task before he made himself VERY scarce. Sitting down he again dug in his pack this time pulling out a scroll and a sumi set. Unrolling the scroll Naruto paused looking thoughtful then began to write out his message. Once he was done he waited for the ink to dry then rolled it up.

Making several hand seals Naruto bit his thumb and placed his palm on the ground. As the seals spidered across the ground Naruto focused on the one he wanted, a small puff of smoke later his friend had arrived.

"Yo, what's up Naruto?" asked the small orange and blue toad.

"Hey Gamakichi," Naruto said grinning broadly at the little guy, "I need you to deliver a message for me. Think you can handle it?" Of course, he already knew the answer; he had pushed the magic button after all.

"Mail work, peh," scoffed the young toad summon, "You do know that I used to be second only to dad right. What makes you think this is gonna be a problem."

"Well first of all you don't get to pull the 'I was awesome' card, you lost that privilege when you called baa-chan flat," Naruto teased remembering the story of how his little friend had gone from the #2 toad summon to mail man, he still had no idea how Tsunade had shrunk him... probably some super complicated medic shit. All he knew for sure was that it involved one NASTY punch.

"How was I supposed to know the woman was so touchy?" the little toad pouted.

"Anyway this may take a while and next time I'll get you some candy," that perked the toad's interest. "Here's what I want you to do, take this," hands over the scroll, "and go back to Konoha. Wait till you're sure that they know I'm gone then deliver that to Tsunabe."

"Alright got it go ba-WAIT! WHAT? GONE?"

"SHHH keep it down, yes gone. I'm sick of being a scapegoat for those ungrateful pricks. Not to mention my friends getting hurt because of me, so I'm leaving."

"But what if they send hunter-nin after you?" he fussed worry for his friend's wellbeing written all over his face.

"That's what the letter's for," replied Naruto grinning evilly.

"Ok…take care of yourself."

"Don't worry I will."

"And make sure you summon me, it gets boring without you."

"Get out of here," Naruto chuckled, shooing the little toad away.

End Flashback

After that Gamakichi had left heading back toward the village and he had packed up grabbed Hinata and headed southwest. That was five hours ago and now it was pitch black as he moved through the trees. Then his passenger had begun to stir, at first he hadn't really noticed but after a while it became pretty hard to ignore (lets see you hold a thrashing thirteen year old and not notice).

Quickly jumping to the ground just in case he dropped her Naruto set Hinata down before attempting to calm her down and assure her that she had nothing to worry about.

"Hinata," he called trying to get her attention

Thrashing.

"Hinata!" he called again.

More thrashing this time accompanied by attempts to scoot away from him.

"Hinata stop!" he pleaded.

Thrashing

Slap

Hinata froze, staring at the boy crouched beside her who looked just as stunned by his actions as she probably did, it hadn't hurt much it just surprised her. Seriously what kind of self-respecting kidnapper just lightly slapped their captive… unless.

"Sorry about that but I needed to get your attention," said Naruto jerking out of his daze. "Here's the gist of what's going on, you caught me leaving so in order to keep you quiet I had to either kill you or take you with me," Hinata's eyes widened slightly at this, "You have never been anything but nice to me Hinata-chan so it would be rather rude for me to kill you so I brought you along. Once they know I'm gone and have stopped the manhunt for the most part it'll be safe to let you go until then you're stuck with me, ok?"

Hinata nodded slowly, allowing Naruto to pick her up again.

"Oh, and sorry about ropes but this way if anyone sees me you won't get in any trouble," he explained grinning sheepishly.

Again Hinata nodded and with that they were off once more, Naruto heading away from the village he had called home for so long while leaving Hinata to her own thoughts.

'He's abandoning the village!' she thought frantically, 'But if he does that they'll kill him.' It was at this moment that Hinata noticed that her jacket and zori were gone and that her usually pants had been replaced by a pair of Naruto's, 'He-he took off my clothes?'

Naruto noticing the alarmed look on Hinata's face as she stared at herself decided he still had a little explaining to do. "Heh-heh, sorry about the clothes I used them to make a false scent trail, just in case." He couldn't quite place the look Hinata was giving him, was it surprise, embarrassment, maybe a little of both? He couldn't tell.

'Maybe…they won't catch him?' Hinata thought hopefully. Then reality hit her, 'If he leaves I may never see him again, I'll never be able to tell him how I feel,' once again panic began to take hold of the young konoichi until another realization hit her. It was so simple and yet it was so hard, she either told him how she felt before he let her go or she lost her chance forever.

EDITED: 6/5/11

End Notes

Ok a thousand apologies for how long this took but I finally gave up on getting the Muse to write so I'm taking over, I'll be bouncing around between this, NoTNT , and maybe another fic later on. So read, review, and till next time.

for anyone confused, "Fake it till you make it" essentially means that, within reason, if you pretend to be something long enough you will eventually become it.

Cliff Notes

Gag tag- a little invention of mine basically following the same concept of the exploding note accept rather than a seal to make shit go boom, the seal stops/muffles sound. Like an exploding note it can be stuck onto things using chakra, like say... Hinata's mouth, hence gag tag.

Cakra Disrupter- a belt with seals that mess with the wearer's chakra flow making it nearly impossible to use any kind of jutsu.