Hinata: Byakurenden

To the Land of Wind

The Village of the Sand had fallen.

What exactly that meant wasn't entirely clear, even Sasuke unaware of the precise details. The one with the answers was his big brother, Itachi, the Fifth Hokage. So Hinata and Naruto followed after Sasuke, their date all but forgotten now.

To think that one of the five most powerful military mights in the world had been destroyed, it was almost inconceivable. And yet that was the reality of the power they were dealing with. It was exactly because something like this could happen to any country at any time that Hinata had been training so hard. And now she was going to have to prove herself.

The three arrived in the Hokage's office. However, Itachi wasn't alone in his office, one other occupant with him. A man that Hinata recognized immediately. News of Suna's fall must have come from him, for it was his village: Kankuro. In other words, the older brother of Gaara, who Hinata had defeated in battle at the Chunin Exams over two years ago.

"…You!?" Kankuro recognized her for this, his gaze hardening the moment she entered the room. He took an aggressive step towards her, only for Naruto and Sasuke to immediately put themselves between him and her. Hinata briefly lost sight of him, and he of her. That brief disconnect was enough to snap the Sunanin back to his senses.

"Is there a problem?" Itachi asked, studying Kankuro with his Sharingan. It couldn't be helped, as he wasn't yet the Hokage during the Chunin Exams, so he couldn't possibly know about the details of what happened. It wasn't just that Hinata beat his brother in battle, she had interrupted their invasion plans and along with Naruto, killed his Jonin-sensei.

Kankuro grit his teeth, eyes flicking as he debated what to say. "…I heard the White Lotus wasn't in the village." He mumbled under his breath, turning back to face Itachi as he spoke. The fact that someone from a foreign village knew even that much about her movements was concerning.

"Is that so?" While Itachi didn't have all the information, he was smart enough to put most of the pieces together from this small interaction alone. Hinata wondered if their team would be dismissed and another chosen. Instead, the edge of the Hokage's lips curled in a barely perceptible smile. "How fortunate for you that she just returned. This team was just put together exactly for the purpose of dealing with a mission like this." He said.

"Fortunate is one word for it." Kankuro grumbled, eyes glaring into the floor. The exact meaning of his words were unclear, but before Hinata or anyone else could ask, he turned back to them. "Well, as they say, beggars can't be choosers. I'll accept your help. Consider it your chance to undo all the damage you've done." He said, voice oozing with a sarcastic bite.

"The hell did you say?" Naruto growled, taking another step forward. He would have gone further, if not for Sasuke's right hand resting on his shoulder. "You guys are the ones that tried to invade us! If your village is having problems, don't blame Hinata."

"They're not "problems", our village has been completely taken over!" Kankuro shouted, unable to control his emotions any further. It was hard to blame him, as Hinata could barely begin to fathom the idea of the Leaf falling. She didn't want to imagine it. "Sasori of the Red Sand arrived with an army of puppets and completely took the village. Only a handful of us escaped."

"Who?" Naruto asked, having no idea the terror inspired by a name alone. Hinata knew very little herself, only the rumors that Sasori had once brought an entire nation to its knees with his mastery of the puppet arts. And it would seem he had done it again, only this time it wasn't a minor country, but one of the biggest, most powerful.

"Sasori is the one that Kankuro-dono is hiring you to assassinate." Itachi answered. "It's also because it's him that I've called on the three of you: Sasori was once my ally. In other words, a member of the Akatsuki." He didn't need to say anything more than that. If Sasori was with the Akatsuki, then the Sand had been taken in the name of Amaterasu.

This was all part of Hinata's duty.

Defeating Sasori would be the first step on her path to fixing the mistake of having allowed Amaterasu into this world.

"Understood." Hinata answered, stepping past Naruto and Sasuke to approach Kankuro. He tensed as she approached, but instead of lashing out, she bowed to him. "I'll do everything within my power to get your village back to you. It's the least I can do." In truth, she held some small resentment for the Sand deep inside. If they hadn't helped Orochimaru, then Kurenai would have never been stabbed and forced to suffer from the poison of that sword.

Yet at the same time, she couldn't help but pity them. In her battle against Gaara, she had seen it. He was scared and lonely, in a way not too different from how she had once been. Her duty compelled her to act, but she also felt a personal desire to set things right.

"Heh, good." Kankuro scoffed, still refusing to look at her directly and instead glaring over at Naruto. "At least the White Lotus recognizes she's been hired for a job. That makes me your boss for this mission." He grinned cockily, enjoying the feeling of power that he got from Hinata's willingness.

"You seem to be misunderstanding something." Sasuke responded before Naruto had a chance to. He then couldn't help but give a small laugh, "Naruto has never once treated a single client with respect from the offset, least of all when they have an attitude like yours. This goes from a noble bridge builder to the princess of another country. They had to earn it, and so do you." At his words, the tension in Naruto's shoulders dropped and the two shared a smirk before turning it towards Kankuro.

"There's something seriously screwed up in the head of you Leaf Ninja." Kankuro's smile cracked slightly, staring at them in pure and utter disbelief. It was hard to blame him. Their attitude was hardly befitting hired Shinobi, yet Hinata couldn't help but be enthralled by the both of them. They so easily did the things she could never imagine, even now.

"That's enough of that." Itachi cut off any further argument, knowing full well it was only delaying the inevitable. "It's a long journey to the Sand and you'll have to move under cover to avoid being spotted. Remember, this is an assassination mission." Even if he said that, Hinata doubted they could quietly kill someone that stood in the same arena as Itachi.

"We'll take our leave then." Kankuro said, bowing deeply to Itachi. "Thank you, Hokage-sama. I'm in your debt." With his head bowed, he missed it as Itachi's eyes narrowed the slightest of fractions. It wasn't lost on Hinata, however, and as she glanced at her teammates, she saw that Sasuke had seen it also. The two briefly nodded at each other. Whatever it was Itachi suspected, they did not know, but they couldn't afford to drop their guard, even enroute.

"I wish you luck." Itachi said, dismissing them from his office. As they left, he continued to stare at the door for several long minutes. Only until he was satisfied that no one else would be entering, did he perform a summoning jutsu. A small crow appeared in his office, turning its head to look at Itachi with its beady black eye.

He reflected his Sharingan back into the eye, planting a genjutsu. This way, when the crow made eye-contact with the intended recipient, he could transfer his message via the genjutsu. It was just insurance, but he couldn't risk this message being intercepted by anyone else.

The lives of Hinata, Naruto, and Sasuke might just depend on it.

Deep in the Village Hidden in the Sand, a red-haired man sat alone on a throne of his own making.

No, to call him alone would be incorrect. The hall was filled with others, yet not a single one was a living person. They were all mere puppets. His puppets. It was these he had used to conquer the village that had once been his home.

To think that he would return in such a matter. It was truly outside the realm of thought, and yet here he was. In a village he had no love for, ruling over it as the true Fifth Kazekage. Not that you could call him a ruler in any sense of the word.

After all, there were no people left. Not in this hall and not in the village.

It was only puppets.

"Is this the art I had been looking for?" He wondered aloud. There was no response. After all, his puppets were mere tools without a soul. They couldn't speak and they never would.

At least, there shouldn't have been a response.

"Feeling lonely?" A voice spoke from the empty air. A moment later, and the owner was revealed by a twisting tear in space-time. The man formerly known as Tobi stepped out from the tear, materializing as if out of thin air.

"That happy-go-lucky attitude hardly suits you as you are now, Uchiha Obito." Sasori said with a sigh, leaning back on his throne and glaring down at the scarred face of the true Akatsuki leader. Back when he was just Tobi, Sasori only saw him as a fool. Even if the persona had been a mask, like the orange one he used to wear, only a man without pride would debase himself with such a routine.

Sasori couldn't possibly respect such a person. Or so he had once believed.

"That so?" Obito asked, placing a hand on his hip and tilting his head as he smirked up at Sasori. "You might be surprised to know this is how I had always been as a kid then." It was hard to tell if he was joking or not. After all, the Uchiha clan hadn't been well-known for being light-natured. Whichever the case, Sasori decided that he didn't care.

"It's not loneliness that troubles me." He returned the conversation to Obito's original question. "I would say what I lack right now is inspiration." It sounded so contrite when he said it out loud, and he was beginning to fear that Deidara was affecting him. "With the power Amaterasu has given me, I can create any art piece I want. My quest for perfection has essentially been completed. Yet I still live… and to live means to seek out something higher. Even still, I can't imagine heights higher than what I've already achieved."

He had no idea why he bothered telling Obito of all people these things. Maybe he actually was a little lonely, after all?

"Hmm, in that case I might have some good news for you." Obito didn't tease him for his honesty like he expected. Instead, he seemed genuinely interested in his issues. Almost like a proper leader. "One of the rats you allowed to escape went to the Leaf village just as we predicted. He's recruited some allies and is bringing them here as we speak."

"Is that so?" Sasori rested his cheek on his fist, feeling disappointed that he allowed himself a brief moment of excitement at what Obito might have meant. "Unless they're sending the whole village, I don't see what threat they could pose to my masterpiece." There was no one person that could match him now. Or so he thought.

"They're sending the White Lotus." Obito said, and Sasori's eyes widened. If he still had a heartbeat, it would have hastened from the adrenaline. If Hinata of the White Lotus was coming, things might actually get interesting after all.

"Is it really alright to allow this to happen?" Sasori asked, studying Obito's face for any hint of his true intentions. "Weren't we forbidden from interfering with her by our Goddess?" He had little understanding about the whims of an alien woman like Amaterasu, but he didn't care. Thanks to her, he had reached his goal, so he would at least honor her desires.

"It can't be helped if she is the one attacking you." Obito answered, glancing at the windows as he spoke. No, he wasn't looking at the windows, but where the sunlight fell. Fortunately for him, they were both in the shadows- Outside of her sight.

"Well, I can't help but be curious about her abilities myself. So it's not like I'll complain." Sasori shrugged, not actually caring either way. He would do what was required of him, nothing more and nothing less. "And? You surely didn't come all this way just to give me a warning?" He asked.

While it was true Obito could be anywhere he pleased with the power of Kamui, he was also incredibly busy putting all the pieces for their plans into place. Not to mention, Amaterasu had taken somewhat of a liking to him- something about the asymmetry of his face appealing to her- meaning he had to attend to her whims as well.

"Of course not." Obito agreed with Sasori's assessment. "The White Lotus isn't coming alone. Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke are joining her." Two more powerful names, their recent feats on the field preceding them. "That's why, you won't be alone either."

"You have the people to spare?" Sasori wondered. As far as he knew, all the others were busy with their own assignments. And at such a critical time in their expansion, he failed to see how they could pull assets away from the other villages.

"I wouldn't have come if I didn't." Obito opened another tear in space-time. "Well, I say that, but all I'm doing is just returning an old pawn of yours." As he spoke, Yakushi Kabuto stepped out from the other dimension.

"You look well, Sasori-sama." Kabuto greeted, pushing up his glasses with his left hand. His right arm was concealed behind a cloak, but Sasori knew what was beneath it already. He and Orochimaru had been busy, after all.

"Fighting dirty as always." Sasori noted dryly, but his words were far from the condemnation they sounded like. This was just the truth of their world, and Amaterasu hadn't succeeded in changing it yet. "Is that all?" He asked, not that he had expected much more.

"Well, we also have him." Kabuto held up a cylindrical container filled with a glowing green liquid. Inside the container was a decapitated head, red eyes glowering at them from within. If the mouth of the head hadn't been gagged, he would no doubt be throwing all kinds of obscenities at them right now.

"You really are desperate for men, if you're sticking me with Hidan." Sasori sighed, already predicting the headache this would be. "Well, I can probably stick his head on one of my puppets." Not that he expected much out of it.

"I'll leave it to you then." Obito said, disappearing into the same tear that Kabuto and Hidan had come out from just like that. It was fine with Sasori, as they had never been close to begin with. In the end, they were all just using each other to gain what they wanted. And what Sasori wanted now was new inspiration.

That was why he would welcome the battle that was to come.

At the border of the Land of Wind, Hinata, Naruto, Sasuke, and Kankuro set-up camp for the night.

It was Hinata's first time outside of the forests that made up her home country. All eighty-eight shrines of the Hinoshita clan had been located within the Land of Fire, many of them at the borders, but not a single one beyond.

Yet after only a couple days into this journey, she was finally able to experience a landscape unlike anything she had ever seen. The desert stretched endlessly before them, disappearing into the darkness, the stars of the sky not enough to illuminate their way ahead. And without the warmth of the sun, she found the desert surprisingly chilly.

Over the past few days, the team of four had been rotating watches in pairs. The first night, Naruto and Hinata took the first watch. The second night, it was Sasuke and Hinata. Now on the night of their third day, the first one in the Land of Wind, it was finally Hinata and Kankuro that sat around the crackling campfire alone.

Naruto and Sasuke had turned in, disappearing into the tent to catch some sleep while they could. Nothing suspicious had happened on their trip so far, but they couldn't afford to drop their guard. Not with so much at stake.

Hinata and Kankuro, meanwhile, sat in complete silence. He stared into the bright orange campfire, prodding it occasionally with a stick, while she scanned the unfamiliar surroundings with the Nichiren Byakugan. She couldn't help but admire how flat it all was, how similar. And she couldn't help but wonder if that was how people from other nations saw the forests of her home. To her, every tree was uniquely different, no two areas exactly alike. Did Kankuro see the Land of Wind in a similar way?

"How did your village fall?" Hinata asked instead. It was the same question Sasuke would have asked him on the first night when they did watch together. As such, she already knew the story as it was recited to him. However, she wanted to hear it for herself. Not just to verify that Kankuro's story remained consistent, but out of her own curiosity.

"Tch, don't think I don't know what you're doing." Kankuro turned to look at her, his gaze hostile. "I know you guys doubt me… and well, I guess it's not unearned." He signed, turning back to gaze into the fire. Hinata could almost swear she saw the past flashing into his retina through the flame's reflection.

She didn't say anything, waiting patiently for him to continue. Finally, it seemed like he found his thoughts.

"I think our village fell a long time ago." He whispered, all strength gone now. "We've always been a poor nation and after we lost the support of our Daimyo, we were desperate. That's why my father turned to Orochimaru. Probably the last mistake he ever made: That snake bastard killed him and took his place. We didn't even realize it until after everything was over."

"I'm sorry." Hinata didn't know why she apologized. Perhaps just a reflex, or maybe she actually felt sympathy for them.

"We don't need your pity." Kankuro spat. "After the death of our father, it should have been one of us- his children- that took the role of Kazekage. Temari and I weren't strong enough individually, so we split the role. As for Gaara… he was never the same after he lost to you. He became terrified of the world and unable to fight, and with our greatest weapon unable to protect us, it was only a matter of time before someone came to take the village."

He sighed deeply, burying his face in his hands. It took him several seconds to reign in his emotions, sitting back straight and staring at Hinata without the slightest trace of any feeling.

"I just never imagined it would be Sasori. When I was younger, I idolized him- Even if he was a missing ninja. I couldn't even help but be impressed when he took over, you know?" He laughed derisively to himself. "It was genius. He had his puppets infiltrate the village. Little at a time, until we were outnumbered without even realizing it. How could a normal man master the craft to that extent- to be able to blend his puppets in with society and have no one notice until it was too late?"

Hinata thought about saying that Amaterasu might have had something to do with it as well, but she thought better of it. Kankuro didn't want to or need to hear that. So instead she just continued to listen.

"After the puppets began killing everyone, we tried to fight back." Kankuro looked down at his own hands. "Well, some of us did. He took control of my own puppets, along with every other puppet user. I still don't know how he did. Only his grandmother, Chiyo-sama, was able to maintain control of hers. She died, buying time enough for Temari and I to gather a small handful of civilians and escape. I don't know how many others managed to; for the past few weeks now, we've been scattered throughout the desert, linking up with Shinobi that did the same as us." He was nearly at the end of his recount now, and so far it had all been as he told Sasuke.

"In total, there's maybe a hundred of us left alive from the whole village. And less than a dozen of them are trained Shinobi. Our group is getting too large to hide for much longer, which is why I made the decision to go to Konoha. Even if we don't have the right to ask for your help, I can't trust any of the other villages to actually do something for us. You're all we've got."

His story finished, he turned back to the fire and went silent.

Hinata mulled the details over in her head, trying to think of any possible inconsistency or point of suspicion. The problem was, she had never been a particularly suspicious person by nature and the idea of doubting anyone made her feel guilty. No, the best thing for her to do was relay the story back to Sasuke and let him make the possible accusations. For now, her job was simply thinking about what to do about Sasori of the Red Sand.

"Is it even possible to assassinate someone like him?" Hinata asked more to herself, but she would welcome any kind of input if Kankuro had something to add. In the first place, the village was completely under his control and with his puppets everywhere, there was no successfully sneaking up on him. They could just go in with a full show of power, but that would likely destroy the village in the process and would leave the survivors without a place to return.

"We have a strategy for that." Kankuro answered. "Once we link up with my sister, we can-" His sentence was cut abruptly short. However, the exact reason why was a mystery to Hinata. She couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing atop the sand, except for the wind…

No, she saw it now. What she assumed was sand being carried by the wind was actually something coming right at them. Whatever it was, it was massive too.

"Shit, no. Why now of all times?" Kankuro jumped to his feet, glaring out at the coming sand-wave with nothing less than abject terror. "We haven't had any incidents for so long, and its not even a full moon, so what's going on?" He didn't even seem to be aware he was talking out loud, his words nothing more than meaningless noise to Hinata's ears.

"What is it?" She asked, running up to stand at his side. Her presence shocked Kankuro back to reality, and as he glanced at her, he seemed to realize something.

"It's you…" He whispered as if not entirely believing it himself. "He's coming for you."

"Who is?" It wasn't Hinata that asked, but Naruto. He and Sasuke ran out of the tent, having apparently sensed something was happening themselves. They all stood side-by-side, facing the incoming sand storm as one.

"It's Gaara." Kankuro answered, and Hinata immediately realized what he had been thinking earlier. Was it possible that Hinata's presence in the desert triggered something in him? He had supposedly been docile until now, but as the one responsible for his trauma, did he desire revenge against her? No matter what the answer was, they were about to have a crisis on their hands.

"No, this is worse than just Gaara." Kankuro corrected himself.

"It's Shukaku. His Tailed Beast is the one coming after us."

Chapter End

AN: Thank y'all for coming back to my latest update.

Mostly an exposition chapter this time around as I set things up for the future. Since Naruto and Gaara never got their big fight in Canon in this version, he never found that friend he needed to change himself. So I tried to show how in some ways, Hinata's actions have negatively impacted someone's life from what we would expect. There will be more on that next time, and I've got some plans for his character yet.

So please look forward to that and I'll see everyone in the next one!