The Girl Who Spun Through Time
Chapter 16
Even united as they are, the danger remains. Nonetheless, you both have my trust.
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"You could take off that silly mask." Shion gestured at the spread of cups set out on the short table before them. The tea had finished steeping at precisely the same moment they'd sat down, Hinata and Tobi, no, Obito, on one side of the table and Shion on the other. That timing had only added to the priestess's mysterious impression, and a tense detente had settled across the room.
"It will make it hard to drink," Shion explained, but the masked man shook his head.
"I don't intend to," he said flatly. If Shion was offended, she didn't show it: she shifted her gaze to Hinata, who politely took a sip.
Ocha. It was quite good, but also not her favorite. Hinata nodded in thanks, and Shion smiled.
"Well, I'm glad someone's enjoying it," she said.
"Explain yourself, girl," Obito said. He didn't move, but the promised violence boiling off of him made it seem like he'd struck the table and sent everything flying. Hinata took another sip, wondering at her chances if it came to a fight. The entire tracking team sent after Itachi Uchiha hadn't been able to touch the masked man; her odds alone seemed terrible.
"I'm gifted with sight of both the past and future," Shion said, a puddle of calm in Obito's ocean of rage. "Knowing someone's name is trivial, if it's important for me to know."
Obito stared ahead, not moving and not responding, and Hinata took her chance. "So you knew we were coming," she asked. "Do you know why your mother sent for me, in the past?"
"Most of it," Shion said, seeming delighted to have a conversational partner that wasn't obviously thinking about dismembering her. "So we have a couple of things to discuss."
Obito didn't interrupt; it was as if he was frozen. There was a lot to think about, Hinata thought, but she didn't have time for that. She leaned forward, trying to speed things along as best she could.
"The important thing to know," Shion told her, "is that you can go home." But, before relief could even begin to penetrate Hinata's heart, the priestess continued with a serious look. "But my mother told me you would have to accomplish something impossible first."
"Oh," Hinata said, stuck between despair and hope, and Shion gave her an encouraging smile.
"Don't worry: you've done the impossible before," Shion said, but Hinata shook her head.
"But what is it I have to do?" she asked, and now Shion was the one to shake her head.
"I'm not sure," she said frankly. Hinata gave her a confused look. Precognition was supposed to solve that sort of problem, wasn't it? "My sight is still developing, so unless you want to wait around here for a decade or more, you'll have to speak with my mother to get a full answer. She died four years ago, on the twenty-seventh of December. She will always die on the twenty-seventh of December, and always in that year."
"On my birthday?" Hinata asked hesitantly. Shion nodded.
"And mine," she confirmed. "If there's meaning to that, I don't know it."
"That she dies on that day, or that we share a birthday?" Hinata asked, feeling like the room was spinning, and Shion giggled.
"Both," she said. "Time is a strange thing, full of false meanings; it's why telling the future is such a pain in the ass." She leaned back, her priestess headdress slipping a little, and fully looked her age for the first time. "My mother was the hundred and seventh Divine Priestess, and the wisest of any of them. And that's saying something, with that many before her, you know." She chewed her lip, eyes flitting over to the masked man, but Obito was silent and still as a statue. "She foresaw a path towards us finally fulfilling our generational duty forever, and setting our descendents free from the curse of foresight, but she couldn't share it. With me, or anyone else. Whether that was because of some binding only she could understand or because she couldn't explain it without destroying it, I couldn't know."
"The curse of foresight?" Obito suddenly said, his voice without inflection. Hinata almost dropped her cup in shock. He stood up, towering over the both of them and staring down at Shion with malice so strong it was practically visible in the air between them. "Why would anyone want to throw away such a thing?"
Shion returned Obito's glare, looking up at him coldly. "You must understand, Obito Uchiha. Maybe better than most," she said, any illusion of her age immediately dispelled. Hinata felt as though she were sitting before an ancient monument, cracked and weathered by time. "You've suffered. You've lost. That's where the Infinite Tsukuyomi comes from, isn't it? An ultimate escape from pain." She shifted, adjusting her headdress; Obito's malice faltered, shot through with shock and doubt. "I believe the Sharingan grants eidetic memory. But a memory is not the same as the reality. Could you bear to have what you've lost play out in front of you again, and again, and again? Forever? For the rest of your life? And not just your own loss. To see everyone's pain, always, in both directions? The agony of the past and the trepidation of the future, and, always, inevitably, be unable to stop it?"
"Help me, then," Obito demanded, a sudden desperation in his voice. "End that pain, and your own. Bring paradise!"
Paradise? The world hit Hinata like a brick to the back of the head, and it took her a second to realize why. It was desperation here, not sorrow, but the way the word was said was the same. An Uchiha demanding a girl with blank eyes help manifest a paradise. It wasn't deja vu; it was some manner of fated recursion.
What was the connection between Obito and Madara Uchiha, beyond their blood?
"I will not," Shion said plainly, and as Obito's hands curled into fists she kept speaking in the same unhurried tone, somehow immune to his menacing presence. Immune, or hiding it so well even the Byakugan could not detect her discomfort. "I've seen plenty of futures where the Infinite Tsukuyomi has succeeded, and I've never been met by paradise. My foresight always ceases at the moment of entrapment."
"A limit of your sight, then," Obito spat, and Shion slowly shook her head.
"No. A limit of my mortality. The only time my sight fails," she stated, with the same lack of inflection Obito had, "is at the moment of my death."
Obito paused; Hinata found herself content to watch. She had no idea what was going on, but Shion seemed to have it handled for now. Perhaps Obito could not tell in the same way she could, but the priestess was playing him expertly: every word was perfectly weighed to keep him both off-balance and hungry for more.
"You're lying," the masked man decided. Again, Shion shook her head with the same deliberate slowness.
"Somehow, the Infinite Tsukuyomi kills everyone on the planet, every time," she said, and Obito seemed like a caged beast, straining to leap over the table and bite her throat out. And yet, something held him back. "It doesn't matter who is responsible for casting it; you, Madara, Pain, one of the Great Villages: the result is the same. Every. Time."
"You're… lying," Obito said again. But he was cursed with the Sharingan, Hinata thought. He could see just as she could, in every one of Shion's breaths, the beat of her heart, the earnest determination in her eyes, that she was telling the truth. "That can't be. The Tablet…"
A tablet? Just another thing for Hinata to file away. She sat there absorbing everything and trying to not exist: Obito was not paying a single ounce of attention to her anymore.
"I've no knowledge of that," Shion said. "I can only tell you what will happen."
"The future is set in stone then?!" Obito raged. "All this was predestined to fail?! Why wouldn't you tell me?!"
"I am bound to this place," Shion said calmly. "And leaving to confront you with the truth would result in my death. Always. Nor is the future set in stone: it is a current, and can shift at a moment's notice." She arched an eyebrow. "Which makes my inevitable death at your hands quite impressive. If you-"
Obito let out a scream of frustration and swirled out of existence, leaving Hinata and Shion behind. They both froze for a moment, trying to determine if he was truly gone: Hinata scanned the surrounding miles with her Byakugan, and nodded.
"Oh thank the gods," Shion said, bending forward with a relieved expression and resting her forehead on the table. "I thought I was going to shit myself," she murmured face down in the wood, and Hinata let out a startled laugh.
Just excellent at pretending then. It was a strange relief to learn that the priestess, who was the exact same age as her, wasn't perfectly unflappable.
"Are you alright?" Hinata asked, starting to reach across the table, but Shion jerked up, flipping her hair back into place with a loud sigh.
"Fine. It usually turned out like that. I'm glad you didn't have to come to my defense," she said playfully. "Thank you, Hinata. You played that perfectly."
"I didn't do anything," Hinata pointed out, and Shion took up her own cup of tea, swallowing it all in a single gulp.
"That's why it's probably good you're the one in this position," she said. "You understand better than most people that sometimes the best thing to do is nothing."
As Hinata pondered the strange words, Shion started digging in her robes. "I said there were a couple things for us to discuss," she continued, "but I couldn't speak of some of them with that man present. He's a truly terrible person: I'm sure you've figured that out for yourself."
"Who is he?" Hinata asked. "I knew of him, but… he doesn't seem like someone who would follow Pain. And he's connected to Madara Uchiha in some way. I know that."
"He's Madara Uchiha's apprentice, and the vessel for his will," Shion said, removing something from a cleverly concealed pocket. "For now, that's what is important for you to know. I would tell you more, but it would be better for you to learn from others."
"Why?" Hinata asked, desperate for more information, but Shion shook her head.
"Context changes everything. You understand by now: how and why you learn things can change more than you know. Please, trust me." She held out her cupped palm, holding what was inside with infinite care. "You do trust me, right?"
Hinata did. She wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do, but even if it was incredibly frustrating to have knowledge dangled before her face she couldn't help but trust Shion after seeing what she'd accomplished. She nodded, and Shion smiled, opening her hand.
Hinata had already seen what lay inside, her Byakugan piercing both Shion's robe and hands without effort. It was a small seed the size of her thumb nail, like a tree's: maybe an oak. She took it carefully, turning it over and examining the inside, through the shell. It was like no seed she'd ever seen: a marvelously complicated web of vein-like structures ran through the inside of the shell, almost like an organ. It was so complicated that even with the Byakugan, it would take her several minutes to truly see it in full, like a painting full of countless details.
"What is this?" she asked, and Shion shook her head. Hinata felt a bit of frustration blossom in her chest, but shoved it down. Be patient: it's the least you can do after she placed herself in such danger for you.
"That's a similar situation," Shion said, and Hinata gave her a confused look. "If I tell you what this is, Hinata, you'll misuse it when the time comes. I'm sorry-"
"It's fine," Hinata decided, deciding that there was bliss to ignorance. She tucked the seed into her flak jacket's pocket, and Shion gave her a grateful smile. "Your mother will know more?"
"She definitely would. Hopefully you get the chance to speak with her soon," Shion said earnestly. "And when you do… if you could say hi for me, I'd appreciate it."
"I will," Hinata said, wondering at yet another similarity between her and Shion. Would she be able to see her own mother the next time? Right now, nothing sounded better. "Is there something else?"
"Keep that safe," Shion emphasized. "Aside from that, know that the moon holds the key. To a lot of this. That's something to look into as soon as possible, if you can. Though ideally," she held up a finger, "in the past. Before my mother's death, if at all possible. If not, oh well."
"The moon?" Hinata asked, even more confused, and Shion nodded. "Alright." Hinata screwed up her courage. "I'll remember that. But answer me this, if you can."
"If I can," Shion agreed with an apologetic look.
"Is there a purpose to my traveling?" Hinata asked, and Shion grew excited. "I've been sent from place to place, and there seems to be a… will to it. The first time I arrived in is the same one I've returned to once now, and it's the only one where I'm also alive. Both the others I've experienced so far, I've been dead." She sighed. "Is it just random chance, or…?"
"There's a purpose to it," Shion confirmed, and Hinata felt a thrill of both relief and fear at her suspicions being proven correct. "The void craves you; absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? Well, it's the same for time. But there's more to it than that. You're being taught lessons, Hinata Hyuuga. There is a will behind your destinations."
"The void? Lessons?" Hinata asked, now even more concerned than before. "What sort of lessons? And what will? Whose?"
"That, I do not know. Truly," Shion said, and Hinata was sure that was a lie. But before she could say anything more, Shion reached across the table and took Hinata's hand. Hinata flinched back at first, but then relaxed; she hadn't realized how tense she was until someone had touched her without malice. Shion smiled, and gave her a squeeze. "I've been waiting for you for years, just to deliver a couple words and a seed, and now, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. So let me tell you, sometimes it's nice to know there's a purpose to things."
"I don't want that," Hinata admitted, the question lost in the flood of emotions Shion had pulled to the surface. "I've never wanted that. Ever since the day I was born, people have been telling me I have a purpose." The words came so easily in front of the earnest girl that Hinata wondered how she'd never been able to articulate them before. "But I don't want to be someone special. I don't want to lead the clan, or have powerful eyes; some days, I don't even want to be a ninja. And I definitely don't want to be a time traveler. I don't think I can handle this."
Shion paused for a time, not letting go of Hinata's hand. After a moment, she closed her eyes with a little laugh. "I've felt the same way many times," she admitted. "So I won't lie to you and say you can do it. You're the only person who can decide that, Hinata." Now, she let go. "But you're also the only person who can do this. So just like me, you're going to have to make that decision."
She pulled back. "My family has guarded this land for more than a hundred generations; sometimes, your path is chosen for you long before you're even born. My mother told me this day would be one of the most important of my life, even if it wouldn't feel like it, and now it's past and gone." She let out a long, slow breath. "So, learning how to do the best you can with that may be one of your lessons."
Hinata stared at her empty hands, wondering if she should feel bitter. Shion was manipulating her, to a degree; after seeing how she had handled Obito, she was sure of that. But nonetheless, she felt gratitude. To finally have someone in a similar position to her agree with her, even if they told her she had to soldier on; it wasn't a feeling she'd ever had before, but now Hinata was wondering how she'd lived without it.
"And the sucky thing is, you'll have to get stronger," Shion said with a decisive tone, like she was talking to herself too. "You've got a difficult journey ahead of you." She fixed Hinata with eyes that were as bright as Hinata's were pale. "You've already absorbed the chakra of two Hinata Hyuuga's; I'm sure you've learned things from them. But you can't rely on others' strength alone. The Byakugan is more powerful than you, or anyone in your clan, could know. Its real strength hasn't been brought out for millenia."
"What?" Hinata asked, and Shion nodded gravely. "That's impossible. The clan's been developing Byakugan techniques for hundreds of years… it's well understood."
"Not developing. Your clan has been controlling Byakugan techniques for hundreds of years," Shion said. "That goal has granted it consistency and reliability. But there's a price to be paid from such things." She held up a single finger, quelling Hinata's objection without a word. "You don't need to agree with me right now, but you do need to listen. If you want to think about it later, ponder the Branch Seal: consider what kind of lesson that is trying to teach. But for now, listen."
Hinata, speechless, did not have the power to turn away.
Shion's stare was deadly serious. "All bloodlines are born of the same source, but they interpret that power differently. The most important thing for you to know is that the Rinnegan's power comes from knowledge: the Sharingan's from understanding; and the Byakugan's from divination. But that power can be twisted. Knowledge can become delusion, understanding can become denial, and divination can become deception. Does that make sense?"
"It doesn't! What does that even mean? What are you telling me to find?" Hinata said, feeling some of her bravery collapse, and Shion's face twisted in concern. "I don't…" She crumpled. "It seems like I'm going to be alone, forever. The one place I'm safe, I'm going to be dragged away from, even if I get back. I've never been strong enough to stand on my own."
"You are," Shion insisted, abruptly standing up. "But you gotta get going. Your ticket out of here is going to be in trouble otherwise."
"What?!" Hinata exclaimed, standing up as well. "Do you mean Nagato?!"
"Obito's going to make a bad decision, like he usually does. But you have a bit of time: I've made sure of that," Shion said with a laugh, walking towards the front of the temple. Hinata followed after, desperate for more time but feeling they were running short. "If you're worried about being strong, think about the people you've met that are strong. Think about their strength: think about how it makes them weak. And then don't make the same mistakes, okay?"
"I don't think I understand," Hinata said, shaking her head, and Shion shrugged.
"You will," she said, confident. "That, I've seen."
They both stepped out into the sun, and Shion turned to Hinata with an apologetic look. She held her hand out, hesitated, and then stepped in for a brief hug. Hinata was too shocked to step away or hug her back: the priestess pulled back after just a moment with a light blush.
"Sorry," she said, not looking sorry. "Look for the light at the end of the tunnel, and make sure you can reach it. That's all you need to do."
Then she went back into the temple, leaving Hinata behind, incredulous and terrified.
Hinata turned, wanting to call out; she had a hundred and one more questions, but none of them emerged. Shion could see the past and future, even if it wasn't perfect: if she'd told her she had to go, then she had to go.
She started walking, passing through the torii gates and ignoring the wary gazes of the returning soldiers. How long would it take to get all the way back to the Land of Rain, if she ran? Most likely a couple days, perhaps even a week. Not only would she have to cover the Land of Demons and Lightning, she'd have to pass through the Land of Fire and risk running into the Uchiha clan again. It was a hopelessly long journey for someone in a hurry, even a ninja.
And if Nagato really was in danger, probably at Obito's hands, what could she do, even if she reached them in time? There was a difference between punching someone like the First Hokage in the back of the head while his guard was down and trying to get involved with S-rank criminals: she'd managed to negotiate herself into this position, but now had no way out of it.
If Obito was still here, he could carry her there in minutes, Hinata thought. But he wasn't, so it was hopeless. She started running, tearing out of the temple grounds and into the forest as she went entirely too fast, ripping the branches from trees with her speed as she leapt between them.
Murdered by her own family here, and by the undead in a different past. Was this how she would die for a final time, Hinata wondered? Hunted down by Uchiha from Konoha or the mad one who had somehow apprenticed himself to Madara Uchiha?
'Madara was only able to be resurrected because the Yondaime had slain him over a decade before. If that did not come to pass in your… time, then it must have been because he was still alive.'
She hadn't put the pieces together herself. Even though she'd told the Hokage exactly what Konan had said after returning, Hinata only now thought about the fact that Madara must have still been alive, at least in her original time, ancient as he'd be. His death at the Shodai's hands had been mistaken, or a trick; he'd still been out there, and he'd taken another Uchiha as an apprentice, Obito, who was doing his will in the Akatsuki. Was the Akatsuki itself just a useful patsy, or another product of Madara's machinations? Hinata had no idea.
Itachi Uchiha was an Akatsuki member; he'd joined after leaving the village. Had that been why he'd murdered his whole family? Was he another one of Madara's apprentices? Had the Uchiha patriarch decided his clan needed to be exterminated? Did it have something to do with the 'Tablet' Obito had mentioned? Itachi and Obito both had unusual, impossible powers thanks to their Sharingan: the teleportation, and the black flames. Were those something that only Madara could teach? Was the Susano'o something else they could learn?
Hinata nearly slammed into a tree as a completely arrogant thought, unlike anything else she'd ever experienced, upset her balance.
Had that been what Shion was trying to tell her?
If all three of Konoha's legendary eyes came from the same source, could she learn something like that?
Hinata perched in the tree, staring forward but, for once, seeing nothing. "That's ridiculous," she said, chiding herself for the silly idea. "The Byakugan can't…"
'Not developing.'
Even though it was obviously fruitless, Hinata fell into herself, absorbed in deep and sudden thought.
The Sharingan could project chakra, she thought, and the Byakugan could not. The most basic form of that was genjutsu, which was the clan's most well known trick beyond their predictive vision. That was where the black flames came from, the spectral armor. But what about Obito's trick? His teleportation? She'd seen the space behind his eye; it was a physical place that was pushed or pulled into reality, a real place that his time-space jutsu gave him access to.
That was how he passed through attacks. The realization was like a lightning bolt from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine. She'd seen it, but hadn't understood. Could never have, without the context Shion had just provided. When the jutsu was active, whatever touched Obito's body passed through, because his real body wasn't there anymore. That was how he'd fooled her Byakugan too: his body was present until the last moment, and then phased into his personal reality so other matter could pass through it. And the rapid travel itself… the space had to be smaller than reality, but still connected to it. It was like he was shrinking the world down to travel it faster.
There was no way the Byakugan could do that. Obito was stepping into another dimension and popping out somewhere else. But the Byakugan-
'Then, you place yourself there.'
Could do something similar. Hinata almost fell out of the tree in shock. Of course: the Hakke Rokujūyon Shō. Her father had explained it to her years ago, and it had been what had gotten her into this mess in the first place. See a time where you could be, and then be there. But its range was small because of the focus needed to see a target.
But could she expand the range, if she also didn't have to focus on landing sixty-four simultaneous strikes?
Hinata hopped down to the scrub-filled floor of the forest, activating her Byakugan and focusing on a weather-beaten tree three hundred feet away; close, but not close enough to strike, if she wished. She slid into the preparatory pose for the Sixty-Four Palms, feeling ridiculous.
She pictured herself before the tree, and spun.
Nothing happened.
She pictured herself before the tree, channeling chakra to her feet, core, eyes, and arms as she would if she were to strike it, and spun.
Nothing happened.
Hinata frowned, suffusing her whole body with energy, and spun hard enough to dig out a divot in the ground.
Nothing happened.
"Oh for-" she grunted, cutting herself off before she could get too frustrated. "It's pointless. You're an idiot. Even if it were possible…"
Even if it were possible, what, she'd figure it out immediately? Hinata was no genius; she had never been able to master the Kaiten, and the Sixty-Four Palms had taken her years. She wasn't like Neji; she had never thought she could be.
But Hinata also wasn't an idiot, and she knew it. Even if she just wanted to lie down and curl up in a ball and die of embarrassment, she couldn't let herself. She was on to something. She'd never felt so certain of that before in her life, and the feeling was raw and painful to touch.
I can be anywhere, Hinata thought. And I know that because I'm here. Stop worrying about it. Stop wondering why another Hyuuga hasn't done it before: you've already done something no other Hyuuga has done, haven't you?
Something not being done before doesn't mean it's impossible. You've already gone beyond the impossible. You're using the chakra of your dead selves to attempt this. You're both dead and alive; why couldn't you be in front of that tree?
Hinata closed her eyes and spun, emptying herself out of all but the barest touch of her chaka and the chakra of her other selves, as if she was doing nothing more than trying to pirouette and gracefully land a step ahead. For a heartbeat, the world went black, and she stumbled when she landed, her inner ear screaming that something was wrong.
She could see through her eyelids, of course. But Hinata was still surprised when she opened her eyes, and found herself face to face with the tree.
It worked? Hinata looked around, half-expecting to see herself back where she should have been. And for a moment, she could have sworn she was. But the image faded, and she was once more grounded in the present, and alone.
Was she going crazy? She had just invented a brand new jutsu, and a space-time one at that, by far the most infamously difficult. It was a fluke. It had to be. Hinata Hyuuga wasn't the kind of person that could do that.
But what could she do but accept it? It had worked: to deny it would be just as crazy. Hinata stood there, breathing heavily, feeling a leaden weight in her chest.
Could she just go home right now? Is that what Shion had been trying to tell her? Could she go back to Naruto right now, even if she couldn't see him, and show him she was okay? Maybe she could surprise Pain, use what she'd learned to make him retreat, or at least hesitate long enough for her to free Naruto and run. Could it be that simple?
Hinata couldn't see him, but she could remember him. She closed her eyes again, trying to devote her entire existence to the memory of Naruto's chakra. Its brightness, its vibrant orange, its simultaneously calm and energetic nature. She shoved aside how it had fluctuated as Pain's rods pierced it, the malignant crimson chakra of the Kyuubi, everything that didn't matter.
Just the light at the end of the tunnel.
Hinata spun.
"So I told Shikamaru whaaaaaaat the hell?" Hinata staggered, her balance thrown off once again, though not quite as severely this time. The transposition slammed into her brain with painful clarity, and she deactivated her Byakugan on instinct, like a child taking their hand from a hot stove before the pain even arrived.
It had worked, but it hadn't. She was suddenly in the forests that surrounded Konoha, recognizable trees and smells and sounds all around her. Up above, Naruto and Sasuke were sitting in a tree and chatting, while Sakura and Kakashi-sensei went through a series of katas below them. They were out of the village, maybe just sent on a mission or maybe just on a training exercise.
But it wasn't the right Naruto; she was still in the same time. Hinata felt herself well up, her eyes burning with both chakra and tears. Even if it would have been too good to be true, for a moment she'd let herself believe it could be that easy.
"What…?" Naruto scrambled to his feet, and Sasuke followed him; at the tree's base, both Sakura and Kakashi stopped in place, watching Hinata in shock. Kakashi tilted his head like a dog trying to figure out what he was seeing. "Who-?"
"You again?" Sasuke asked, remarkably quick to recover. His Sharingan spiralled out, and Hinata held her hands out, trying to show she wasn't a threat. "Where the hell… have you been following us? Where did you come from?"
"I'm really sorry," Hinata said, wiping away a tear that had slipped out. That seemed to confuse them all even more. "I didn't mean to… this wasn't what I was trying to do."
"Are you…" Sakura stepped forward. "Hinata, is that you?"
They hadn't been friendly, but Sakura had probably known her the best at the Academy; they had both been girls the same age, after all. Hinata nodded, unable to hold back more tears of frustration.
"Sort of. I don't know. It's complicated," she said, her voice cracking. "I'm sorry. I'll just go."
"Wait!" Naruto called out as Hinata turned away. She wasn't sure if she was just going to run, or where she would run to, but she didn't want to be here. "That's you, Hinata? You're okay?"
Hinata froze, and found herself jerking back around like a poorly controlled puppet.
"I'm not okay," she said, unable to control what was coming out of her mouth. "I'm sorry, I'm not okay." She looked up at Naruto, desperately trying to control her tears. "You've got to be careful, Naruto. I don't know how much you know about the Akatsuki or what's going on, but Pain might try to take you soon, or Tobi, I mean Obito, or Madara, or someone else, I don't even know if they're still going after Jinchuriki or not, I have to get there and find out. I didn't mean to come here, it was stupid of me to think that would work-"
"Obito? The Akatsuki?" Kakashi said quite suddenly, and Hinata jerked over to him, shocked by his immediate intensity. "What are you talking about?"
"Obito Uchiha. The masked man. And the Akatsuki…" she said unsteadily, and Kakashi went as pale as his hair. Something penetrated the haze, and Hinata felt a degree of focus return. "Wait, maybe that's it?" she muttered, half to herself and half to the group. She looked up at the tree, where Naruto and Sasuke were still frozen in confusion.
"Sasuke," she called out, finding her voice. "Where's your brother? Is he still alive?"
"What?" Sasuke asked, sounding furious. "Is that… are you threatening him?"
"I told you I was a time traveler," Hinata said, finally solid, and Naruto blanched, looking back and forth between her and Sasuke; he'd clearly been told the story, but it was another thing to hear it from her. "I found out a bit about your father becoming Hokage, but I didn't hear anything about your brother. But I was on the run. It wasn't exactly careful information gathering. So tell me: where's Itachi Uchiha?"
Sasuke seemed ready to leap down from the tree and kill Hinata then and there, but Naruto spoke up, grabbing his friend by the shoulder. "He's the head of the Military Police," he called out, and Hinata found herself smiling at him despite herself. How could she not? "Are you really Hinata?"
"Like I said, sort of. It's hard to explain," she said, and Naruto's face screwed up in his distinctive cute expression of not understanding what she meant. She was busy trying to figure out this new information. Itachi hadn't killed his family. Did that mean he was happy with the power of being in charge of the Military Police, or had her theory been correct? Did Madara have something to do with the difference? Was he dead in this time, then?
No, it had to be more complicated than that. There was something she was missing.
"You just disappeared," Naruto said, letting go of Sasuke's shoulder, who stood rigid, clearly confused and at war with himself. "We were all worried about you, with what happened to the clan. Sakura thought it might have been you who showed up last week, from what Sasuke said. But… you're a time traveler? How the heck does that work?"
Hinata didn't know what to say: did the right words even exist?
They didn't, so she went with her best try instead.
"I'm sorry, Naruto, everyone," she said, bowing her head. "For being so confusing. But I'm dead. Hinata's dead. She…" She swallowed, seeing their stricken faces. "She opposed the coup, so her family killed her. She died trying to warn the Sandaime."
"What?" It must have been sick and wrong, Hinata thought, for her heart to jump at the torn expression on Naruto's face. But it happened, and there was nothing she could do about that. "That's…"
"Hinata, we're so… sorry," Sakura managed, stepping forward. Hinata stepped away. "But then… what are you?"
"I don't even know," Hinata admitted, feeling a giggle bubble up at the absurd answer. "But I have to go. It was good to see you all." The absurdity of the situation somehow helped her focus, and she activated her Byakugan and closed her eyes once more, focusing on a memory of chakra. But this time, it wasn't the warm light of Naruto's, but rather the rancid, boiling energy of Pain. It slipped like tar across her mind, and she shifted back, falling into the pose for the Sixty-Four Palms.
"Wait-!" Kakashi rushed forward, and Sasuke too: the both of them could see how her chakra was surging, and combined with her pose Hinata was sure they thought she was about to attack.
She breathed out, and spun.
The sense of transposition, now on the edge of being familiar. This time, Hinata didn't lose her balance, though once more her Byakugan deactivated to protect her brain from the sudden and impossible influx of information. However, she staggered nonetheless. While the last teleportation had seemed effortless, this one struck her like a kick from the horse right in the stomach. Her core burned like she'd been running for days without rest, and her eyes ached terribly.
"-this instant!" Pain's voice rang through the air. Hinata had appeared in a room similar to the one she'd met Pain and Konan in; both of them were there, and Obito as well. The three seemed to be in the middle of a terrible argument, such that it actually took them a second to notice she'd suddenly appeared in the corner of the room. "It makes no difference what this priestess told you: the Akatsuki's goal is unchanged!"
"It's been pointless from the beginning!" Obito's voice was full of a kind of rage Hinata had never heard before, not even from his scream. "That girl-!" He did a double take, and Pain and Konan followed his line of sight, noticing Hinata in the corner of the room.
"What?" Konan asked, clearly confused.
"What?!" Pain asked, obviously alarmed.
"You," Obito hissed, coiled like a spring with enough power to tear down a mountain. Hinata stepped forward, looking around and trying to take stock of the situation. But before she could, Obito took the same step, glaring at her. Pain and Konan both immediately went into defensive stances, and the whole room, maybe the whole building, shook from the force of their clashing chakra.
"None of this matters anymore," the masked man said with so much disgust that Hinata instantly realized he no longer perceived her as anything close to a human being: just a means to an end. "Not so long as she exists. And she's mine."
Obito charged, Hinata struck back, Konan took flight, Pain gestured, and the room exploded.