Naruto 1. A Lesson in Doujutsu

The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Hinata could see everything.

That was her gift. The Byakugan sees all.

But she'd never wished that she _couldn't_ see everything.

She could see all of Konoha. Or what was left of it.

Everything recognizable was gone. The Hokage's tower was gone: the academy was gone.

Her home was gone, completely demolished, left to pile up with the rest of the rubble that had stacked itself against Konoha's walls. All of her possessions, what little they were, were doubtlessly lost forever in the mass of wood and concrete.

It had all been replaced by a crater. The walls of Konoha stood tall, but the village they protected had become nothing more than an enormous pothole.

Hinata found that, at the moment, she hardly cared.

She could see every person that remained in the crater that had once been her home. Standing, slumped, lying prone, others kneeling next to them, tears in their eyes, pinned beneath support beans, being shaken by students, eyes open, eyes closed, faces whole and faces empty.

She could see two thousand six hundred and thirteen circulating shinobi chakra systems. Less than half of the villages' total number of ninja.

The rest… weren't moving. Weren't breathing, weren't responding to the cries of their students or their teammates or their friends.

The rest were dead.

There were two more chakra systems in the village. These two were special.

The first was right in front of her. It was completely unlike anything else in the village. In a land of dust and dark, this chakra shone like the sun, bathing her face in a light only she could see.

Naruto Uzumaki's face may have been horrified, his eyes wide and his mouth open, but his chakra hadn't stopped being warm.

But there was something wrong with it. It flickered, red highlights shooting through it like neon, and something heavy, malevolent and oppressive and _cold_, was working its way through the unbelievable light, plastering it a sickly hue and filling its tenketsu with tar.

It was chakra, but chakra nothing like Hinata had ever seen. Chakra wasn't supposed to remind her of industrial waste, of mudslides, of the kind of silt drudged up from the bottom of a lake.

The other chakra system, the one to her right, was the source of the polluted chakra.

It belonged to a man with orange hair and purple, rippling eyes.

Pain.

The man who had destroyed Konoha so utterly that nothing but rubble remained: who had singlehandedly killed half its ninja, and who had crucified Naruto where he lay, cold black rods slicing through his hands and legs and pinning him to the dust.

Hinata took another trembling step forward.

The world seemed empty. The only sound in it was the unsteady plodding of her feet in the dirt.

Hinata's whole body was on fire. Broken ribs ground together, and something thick and coppery dripped steadily from her mouth. There was a cut on her forehead, running blood into her eye, but it didn't obscure her vision: the Byakugan could see right through it.

She'd tried to save Naruto.

It hadn't gone well.

Hinata stayed on her feet. Her injuries didn't matter. The pain in her chest didn't matter.

All that mattered were the horrified blue eyes.

Naruto's mouth was moving, but words weren't emerging. Pain was just watching the both of them, frowning slightly.

He looked almost curious.

Hinata, like most ninja, could read lips. She could read the lips of the terrified genin trying to get their academy teacher on his feet, she could read the lips of the female ANBU screaming at her teammate to pull himself out from underneath several tons of concrete and shattered wood, and she could read Naruto's.

Why, he said, his face screwed up in pain and maybe even fear, and it broke Hinata's heart to see that.

Why are you doing this.

Hinata.

Stop.

Please stop.

She thought she might laugh.

As if she could just "stop".

Instead, she just smiled, falling to her knees in front of him, resting her hands on the rod struck through his hands, pinning him to the ground.

The blue eyes grew wider. Naruto closed his mouth.

Hinata bent in close. "Naruto," she said quietly, taking great pains not to choke on the blood in her mouth, even as it dribbled from her lips.

"Hinata," he whispered back, sounding hollow. The alien chakra in him surged, and Hinata watched his heart jump a beat. "Stop, please. Before he hurts you more."

Pain continued to watch the both of them. Slowly, one of his hands began to rise, the fingers relaxed.

"I can't stop, Naruto," Hinata said, closing her eyes. She could still see everything: she was just so tired.

Something fell over her.

The turgid chakra. It surrounded her, coating her system, tensing itself in anticipation.

"And why," the man who had destroyed her home said, his voice cautious and low, "would you not? If you continue to fight…"

The chakra tensed. Hinata felt herself rise into the air slightly, suddenly weighing less.

"You will die," the man concluded, extending his arm fully.

Hinata sighed painfully, and opened her eyes.

"I can't stop…" she whispered, loud enough for both Pain and Naruto to hear.

"I can't stop, because…"

And she remembered something her father had told her long ago.

###

"You'll fail," he said, his voice as flat as the dojo's floor.

Hinata flinched, shuffling her feet. She kept her hands rigid at her sides, but couldn't help the nervous movement of her fingers. They shifted, looking for something to fidget with.

Her father continued, slowly pacing on the gleaming wood floor, his long white robe soundlessly sliding along the surface. His face was completely unreadable: his mouth pulled down into a habitual frown, his pale eyes regarding her unblinkingly.

"I am not telling you this out of spite, Hinata," he said, stopping and staring her in the eyes.

"I-I know, father," Hinata said quietly, unable to maintain the eye contact and dropping her gaze to the spotless floor.

He paused, and he felt his stare boring into the top of her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping he would look away.

Hoping he would look away from her failing.

"I don't believe you are ready for this art, yet," he said calmly. "Nevertheless, you will certainly never achieve it unless you try." He narrowed his eyes. "But know this: you will probably fail. Many, many times, before you get it right."

Hinata pursed her lips, trying to keep her shoulders from shaking, trying to keep her voice from trembling. "Is… is the sixty-four palms really so hard to master-?"

"You must have _absolute confidence_," he said, cutting off her barely-audible voice, "that your strikes will land. All of them. There must not be a shred of doubt in your mind, not a single misguided worry. If there is, you will fail."

Hinata's eyes opened wide. "Like Neji…"

"Yes." Hiashi sounded almost amused. "Neji believes that he is a vassal of fate. Even if his… "talk" with Uzumaki has convinced him somewhat otherwise, he still believes that there is a degree of predestination to his actions."

The Hyuuga clan head shifted. "And In a way, he is right."

Hinata finally raised her head, looking her father in the eyes. She desperately kept her arms at her sides: they were begging to clasp in front of her. "He is?"

She remembered the horrible things Neji had said about being a slave, about the hopelessness of his situation, and of the main house of inflicting it upon him. How could she not?

After Naruto had broken his jaw, he had stopped talking that way, even begun to train with her to help improve her jūken.

But her father was saying that he was _right_? That Naruto had been wrong?

She shook her head. "That can't be. Neji… destiny doesn't-"

"No." Her father answered her question before she could finish it. "Destiny doesn't work like that."

He sighed, and sank to his knees. Hinata blinked, and followed him to hers. "However, his _belief _that his actions are 'meant' to be has given him access to some of our clans most powerful jutsu at a very young age. Do you understand?"

"I… I don't think I do, f-father." Hinata clenched her hand, not looking away from her father's seemingly empty eyes.

He sighed again. "Hinata," he said seriously. "What I'm about to tell you is one of the deepest secrets of our clan. A year ago, I wouldn't have considered giving this information to you… but you have shown tremendous improvement since the chūnin exams, and so I believe you are ready."

Hinata stared, her back unconsciously straightening. "Thank you, father." She hesitated, her natural doubt reasserting itself again. "But, what is this secret?"

Hiashi took a deep breath. "The Byakugan is a feared doujutsu, yes?"

Hinata nodded silently, paying her father her absolute attention.

"This is not just because of our visual acuity," he continued. "Of course, the range and discerning ability of our eyes are something to fear on their own: most of our clan ranks among the most lethal taijutsu ninja in the world thanks to these advantages alone."

He shifted forward, bringing his hand up and tapping his forehead. "But our eyes are capable of far more than just that."

"What?" Hinata's hand clenched. She focused on it, suppressing its shaking.

"The Byakugan sees all," Hiashi said calmly. "Even that which is normally invisible, correct?"

Hinata nodded again.

"This goes beyond the obvious. Chakra, hidden seals: all that is child's play. A Hyuuga can instinctively grasp such things."

Hiashi shifted his legs, crossing them under his body. Hinata mirrored him.

Her father brought his hand up to his chin.

"But there are deeper things. With the right mindset, under the right conditions, the Byakugan can perceive far more."

"Like what, father?" Hinata asked. She was enthralled, barely paying any attention to the twitching of her hand and the fatigue in her legs. Her father had never confided in her so seriously.

"Hmm." Hiashi scratched his chin. "To put it simply… time."

Hinata blinked, and then her eyes went wide. She rocked back slightly, her mouth coming open.

"T-time?" she murmured.

Her father nodded stoically. "Though I hate to put it so simply, that is the easiest way of stating it. You'll understand yourself when you begin to see more: it can be… hard to explain otherwise."

"I…" Hinata hesitated again, her father watching her carefully. "I don't think I… how can we…"

"I'll get to that in a moment," Hiashi said firmly, and Hinata shut her mouth.

"Now, this acuity is the root of many of our most potent techniques, used in conjunction with our jūken. Do you remember when Neji used the Hakke Rokujūyon Shō?"

Eight Trigrams, Sixty-Four Palms: Hinata remembered Neji's invocation, which he'd hissed out seconds before he'd beat Naruto so viciously the boy hadn't risen from the ground for nearly a minute.

"I remember," she confirmed, wondering what her father was getting at.

"Do you remember his speed?" he shot back without blinking.

Hinata started, and cast her mind back to the arena.

"He was… fast," she said quietly, wondering why she'd never questioned it before.

Neji _had_ been fast. Impossibly fast. Throughout the fight, he had displayed incredible reaction time, but never the kind of raw speed he had used to close with Naruto so quickly the blond hadn't even had time to counterattack. The kind of speed that had ensured Hinata hadn't even seen him move.

Hiashi inclined his head solemnly. "That is the power of the upper levels of the Byakugan. Something that is never supposed to leave the Main House, and yet your cousin learned it anyway. His _certainty _in his actions allowed him to do the impossible."

Hinata licked her lips. "And what was that, exactly?"

"The Hakke Rokujūyon Shō, and others like it, operates by allowing the user to see a 'time' in which they are before to their opponent," Hiashi said simply. "Then, you place yourself there."

"But… how?" Hinata still didn't understand.

"Showing you 'how' is the root of what we will be doing today." Hiashi shifted back on his feet, ready to rise.

He continued. "As I said before: the sixty-four palms are beyond you unless you are completely sure that your strikes will land. That certainty is what allows you to rotate through time and place yourself not where you are, but where you _could _be. Once you have enough practice, it will even allow you to land every strike you envisioned, with perfect confidence, simultaneously."

Hiashi rose, shaking his head. "At the moment, that is something that is beyond even Neji." As Hinata pulled herself to her feet, he pinned her with his marble eyes. "However, Hinata… I believe you have the potential for such an act."

"M-me?" Hinata almost tripped as she stood up, barely regaining her composure.

"Of course," Hiashi said simply. "You are my daughter."

Hinata stared as her father fell into a jūken stance, his hands stretched out in front of him, his wrists relaxed. "Now," he said, uncaring of her stillness. "You must strike with perfect confidence. Otherwise, you will only take half measures."

He cocked one of his hands, gesturing her forward. "Let's begin."

###

Hinata pulled herself to her feet. Pain's chakra tensed around her, but didn't carry her. It licked against her tenketsu, but didn't permeate it.

Naruto watched her, despair plain on his face. Hinata could see Sakura, hundreds and hundreds of meters away, glancing worriedly at the Hyuuga next to her with a similar expression.

"Hinata…" he groaned, baring his teeth. "Go, please. You can't-"

"I can't go," she said back, quietly, her voice quavering. "I can't stop." She hesitated, all too aware of Pain watching the both of them.

She decided she didn't care.

"I love you, Naruto." It was barely a whisper, but it was enough.

She finished standing, turning away, towards Pain. She could see Naruto staring at her back, his mouth gaping, and his eyes wide. There was something more than terror in them.

Pain glared at her, his hand still raised.

"Answer my question," he ordered, and his chakra tightened around Hinata.

It didn't matter.

Hinata took a deep breath, dropping her head and slid one of her feet back. There was a curl of wind through the crater that had once been her home, stirring the dust around her sandal.

Pain's fingers curled, and the chakra sprung with them, reducing Hinata's weight to nothing, ready to fling her upwards with a single impulse.

She felt completely free.

"It's futile," he said coldly, staring at her with an odd sheen in his eyes. "Surely you realise that." The Akatsuki's leader took a step forward, hand still raised, fingers tensed, chakra swirling. "Why fight, when you _know_ you'll die?"

Hinata raised her head, expelling her breath. Her eyes were closed, the veins pulsing around them. Some of the blood from her forehead dripped into her tear duct.

That didn't matter either.

_There must not be a shred of doubt in your mind, not a single misguided worry._

She stiffened her hands, drawing them up besides her, and twisted her ankle, as if preparing to spin.

_If there is, you will fail._

"_Why_?" the man with orange hair rumbled.

Hinata opened her eyes, her face serene.

'_I won't fail. I _can't_.'_

"Because," she said with utter calm, her voice carrying perfectly over the dust and dirt, impossibly clear.

"You are within range of my divination."

Hinata spun, and time slipped aside.

Pain's eyes widened, and his chakra surged.

And the center of the crater exploded.

###

There are three legendary doujutsu in the shinobi world, and two of them belong to Konoha.

The Sharingan, the Byakugan, and the Rinnegan.

Had things gone differently, all three could have been within the hands of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, and then a single small change would have become many.

But things went the way they did, and so they aren't, and now that is neither here nor there.

Ask any ninja what the powers of the Sharingan are, and you're likely to get as many different answers as there are ninja being asked.

It can read minds, it can copy jutsu, it can cast unbreakable illusions, it can build unbreakable armor, it can turn an unskilled genin into a merciless killer and it can turn a prodigy into a force of nature.

All this, and more.

For the most part, though these ninja wouldn't know it, they would be right.

The Sharingan bears the marks of significant influence by something older than recorded history: the power of the Jūbi, amplifying the Uchiha clan's natural talents. From their fire affinity is born unnatural black flames, and from their pursuit of a wonderful lie is brought a genjutsu that can create worlds, however temporary.

Yin and Yang. But once more, that's neither here nor there.

What is important is that the Sharingan understands all, though its wielder might not always be so lucky.

Ask any ninja what the Byakugan is capable of, and you won't receive nearly as much hearsay as you would about the Sharingan. The shinobi of the Five Nations are confident they understand the capabilities of the Hyuuga's distinctive pale eyes.

Telescopic, all-encompassing vision, capable of perceiving chakra itself; the Byakugan sees everything.

This is true. But it's not everything the Byakugan can do.

The irony that the doujutsu thought to be the best understood holds a secret that most would consider puts the others to shame is, of course, lost on everyone but the heads of the clan.

The Byakugan can see all. This includes, as Hiashi would say, 'time'.

Time is a misnomer, of course. It's _possibility_ that the Byakugan can see: both in the past, and the future.

But the effect is essentially the same, and so for ease of classification, it can be called 'time'.

What the Hyuuga can see, the Hyuuga can touch.

It's from this bizarre trait of perception that the Hyuuga pull their most devastating tricks: the Eight-Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms and its variants, which allow a Hyuuga to spin through probability itself and place themselves precisely where they need to be.

But, also as Hiashi would say, it's not something for the faint of heart. Attempting the Hakke Rokujūyon Shō sends a Hyuuga adrift in time for a fraction of infinity: without a clear objective, being lost becomes a real possibility, just like any other.

Thus, the Byakugan sees all.

The Rinnegan is the most mysterious of the legendary eyes. They were the sole purview of the Sage of the Six Paths himself, he who created the shinobi world.

Nearly everyone who knows of them regards them as a myth (though many of Konoha's ninja now know otherwise). After all, they have nothing but impossible feats to their name: mastering all jutsu, creating the moon, and other such ridiculous things.

All true, in reality. But who would believe it?

There is only one pair of Rinnegan in existence, and they are much older than the man whose sockets they're placed in.

But that's neither here nor there.

What does matter is that the Rinnegan knows all.

And so, these three legendary eyes cover every aspect of reality.

The Byakugan sees all, the Sharingan understands all, and the Rinnegan knows all.

For example, let us see how these eyes perceived Naruto Uzumaki.

The Byakugan saw that Naruto was a failure, but couldn't understand what he would become.

The Sharingan understood that Naruto was powerful, but didn't know why.

The Rinnegan knew why Naruto was powerful, but couldn't see how he would use it.

With this in mind, perhaps it will be easier to understand precisely what happened to Hinata Hyuuga as she unclasped herself from time and embraced possibility, at the precise moment Pain struck her with all his indomitable strength.

###

Konoha vanished, along with Naruto and Pain.

The world shortly followed.

Hinata found herself nowhere.

Drifting through utter darkness. Flying into blinding light. Falling through nothing. She could have been in the depths of space, or within the center of a star.

It made no difference. In either case, she had nothing to find her way.

'_Did I fail?'_

Yes, she had. Of course she had. Hinata had always been a-

_Pain, staring at her with wide eyes, a snarl on his face. _

"_Two Strikes."_

_His hand fell limp. _

"_Four Strikes." _

_His left arm followed._

_Eight Strikes-"_

No, she hadn't.

She had executed the Sixty-Four Palms perfectly. It had gone exactly as her father had told her it would.

But something had gone wrong.

Pain had still hit her.

From their brief engagement, she'd thought that he'd been able to control some aspect of gravity.

Now, she was beginning to question that.

'_Where am I?'_

Impossible to know; the Byakugan saw all, but that didn't help Hinata one whit here.

And yet…

'_Adrift.'_

Yes. That's what she was.

She was adrift.

With the concept solid in her mind, the nowhere shifted. Falling and flying ceased to be: now, Hinata seemed to be lying on her back in an invisible ocean, staring up into an ever-shifting blankness.

Hinata blinked, but it didn't change a thing.

It hurt to look at, but she couldn't shut it out, even by closing her eyes. Her Byakugan wouldn't deactivate.

'_I have to get out of here. I'm not supposed to be here. This is wrong.'_

'_Oh god. What I if I don't get out. What if I can't-'_

Hinata stomped down on the thought without mercy, forcing herself not to panic. Naruto still needed her help: if she got herself stuck here, she wouldn't be the only one in trouble.

How had this even happened? She'd seen herself in front of Pain, seen herself slamming his tenketsu shut, seen him falling to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, seen herself collapsing a moment after…

And then Pain had struck her. Sent her flying. Not with gravity, though it had been the same jutsu. That push had been a _demand_.

_Get back_.

Even though she'd no longer been rooted in reality, had already stepped into the 'maybe' between possibility and realization, he'd pushed her anyway.

And now she was here, drifting through…

_Time_, Hinata realized, her eyes widening as she took in the nothing around her.

With that thought, the absence of everything vanished, replaced by a set of concentric rings, eerily like the Rinnegan, before splitting once more and becoming a spiral. Hinata bent with it, watching herself twist out of shape.

With a thought, she put herself back into her own familiar form. Hinata was _Hinata_, not a spreading set of lilac coils.

The spiral shattered at the action, endlessly long fragments of it forming uncountable straight lines, drifting into a lattice of ever changing colors around her.

Hinata looked around, no longer drifting. She stood amidst an impossible, utterly black space, thousands of streams falling around her.

Hesitating, she reached out towards the closest one, which gleamed a familiar lavender color.

Her fingers brushed it. The whisper of a familiar warm night's air brushed back.

Hinata pulled her hand away, staring at the stream in shock.

She paused, unable to understand what she'd just felt, and then took a step forward, slowly pushing her whole hand into the gleaming line.

She just remained there for a moment, feeling the light breeze against her hand.

Then, the stream twisted, pulsing darker lavender for a moment.

'_Uh oh.'_

Hinata's Byakugan went wide, and she tried to jump back.

Tried, because her hand refused to leave the line, which was rapidly deforming into something else entirely.

As Hinata struggled, shaking her arm, looking frantically about for something to help he get free, to get leverage on, knowing there was nothing but searching anyway, the line-turned-ribbon curled up, looming over her, and then swept down.

She snapped her head back to it, her mouth set in a determined line.

But that didn't matter. What could she do to something like this?

The lavender ribbon fell over her, curling around her, tying her in place, squeezing with the weight of history.

Hinata tried spinning, ejecting chakra, flaring her Byakugan. Nothing worked.

And so, with a final, desperate cry, the twisted stream covered her completely, and then she was gone.

###

She hit something hard a moment later. Ridges: a sloped, tiled roof.

Hinata bounced. Her broken ribs ground together, and she whimpered.

Everything else, unfortunately, seemed numb. She had trouble moving her limbs: her chakra was sluggish.

After the moment/eternity spent in the nothing, figuring out how her arms and legs worked was more challenging than it should have been.

Her Byakugan was off. Finally. Hinata was tired of seeing everything.

She tried to shift her head, barely able to twist it to the side.

Where was she now? Had she gotten back to Naruto? And if she had, where was-

Hinata froze, finally having shifted her head enough to get a look at something besides tiling.

She was staring up into the night sky.

_Night_ sky.

How long had she been gone? Or, how _far _had she gone? There wasn't a tiled roof left in Konoha: she must be entirely out of the village.

Out of the village, staring up into the night sky, listening to a troupe of cicada, unable to bring a coherent thought together in her scattered mind…

And slipping.

Hinata groaned, slapping a hand out and trying to get a grip on the slick, _sloping _roof.

She failed. Her chakra quivered around her hand, unable to assist her hand and stick it to the roof, and she tumbled off the ledge, yelping in alarm as she did.

And then landed a moment later on top of whatever unfortunate soul had been walking by beneath, bringing them down in a flurry of limbs and a shout of alarm.

Hinata rolled over, groaning. "S-sorry," she said by reflex. "I didn't mean to-"

She paused.

"What are you doing?" she said quietly.

She'd fallen on top of a man dressed in all black, like a backstage Kabuki actor. He had a balaclava pulled over his head, concealing his features. It left his cold grey eyes the only discernable thing about him.

He was carrying a little girl in his arms, dressed in a fine kimono. Her eyes were closed: sleeping, or unconscious. She hung completely limp.

She looked just like Hanabi Hyuuga. Just like Hinata's younger sister.

Which would be impossible, because Hinata couldn't be in Konoha, and even if she somehow was Hanabi _definitely_ wasn't, and she couldn't recall the last time the girl had worn anything but her new light flak jacket.

And yet, here she was, held by a stranger, and utterly helpless.

Hinata pulled herself to her feet. Her chakra was still in flux, but her legs felt steady. Something cold was gushing through her, and her eyes narrowed at the sensation, the Byakugan straining and failing to activate.

The man, watching her cautiously, mirrored her actions. He kept Hanabi between himself and her, almost like a shield.

"Put her down," Hinata said as calmly as possible, and then she coughed up a splash of blood. Her ribs were still burning: most were broken.

The man's eyes narrowed, and then he turned and ran.

Hinata sprinted after him, completely uncaring of the pain in her chest.

The pursuit barely lasted a moment. Hinata may have been injured, but carrying Hanabi slowed the man, and Hinata drew up behind him in little more than two seconds.

He didn't give her the initiative. He immediately spun into a high kick, aiming to take her out with a blow to the temple. Hinata brought her arm up, neatly blocking it, and winced at the impact.

She considered attempting to close the tenketsu in his leg in the frozen moment he hung in the air, his kick stopped cold, before deciding not to: her chakra was far too unstable to try such a delicate technique.

Jūken wasn't going to work. She'd have to do this more conventionally.

So she punched straight out with a loose hand.

The man's other leg came up, diverting her straight-arm… and Hinata leapt into the air, leading with her knee, and slammed it into the kidnapper's crotch.

The first sound Hinata had ever heard the man make was a choked squeak.

He dropped Hanabi and fell back, and Hinata landed with a muffled crunch on the gravel beneath her, catching her sister effortlessly as she did.

She set Hanabi gently on the ground, brushing the smaller girl's hair back from her sweating forehead, and stood back up, staring at the man with cold eyes.

Her glared back, standing bowlegged, the humid night air ruffling his balaclava.

"Why are you here?" Hinata asked, shifting her hand back. Her doujutsu still reused to activate. "For the Byakugan?"

The man in black refused to answer her, circling to the left, his eyes shifting her and Hanabi… and their foreheads.

'_He's looking for the seal.'_

There was no doubt about it. He was definitely trying to steal the Byakugan.

Hinata circled with the man, keeping herself between him and Hanabi. His hands flexed, wandering down towards a pouch on his hip.

Another couple drops of blood ran into her eyes, and she blinked heavily, clearing them. The man didn't take the advantage, remaining where he was.

"You should leave," Hinata said, staring right into his eyes, her own stinging. "I don't know what's going on, but you can't win today."

The kidnapper just cocked his head, and then _moved_: the hand dipped and rose, a kunai gleaming in it, and he flung it forward, diving behind it, intent on Hanabi.

Hinata stepped forward, completely ignoring the kunai, and kicked the man in the face as he completed his roll.

The knife dug into her left shoulder in the same moment, but that didn't stop her from drawing her foot back and kicking again, breaking the man's noise with a distinctive 'crack'.

And then, the man exploded into a miniature lightning storm.

The Hyuuga screamed, stumbling backwards, parts of her jacket catching fire. If the pain in her ribs had been her body burning, than this was being kicked off of a snowy peek into an active volcano.

A lightning clone. How had he-

Of course. When she'd gotten blood in her eyes. He'd used the opportunity to substitute himself for one, and then sent it at her on a suicide mission.

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid _stupid_. She really was useless, falling for something so _obvious_.

She grit her teeth, lightning still playing over the metal parts of her jacket and causing her fingers to jerk with unconscious tics.

Where was he?

She blinked, catching something in her peripheral vision, and turned just in time to see the man shoot forward and sweep her feet out from under her.

Hinata hit the gravel with a painful sounding crunch, rolling to the side and avoiding another brutal kick. She completed the motion, and her hands came up, catching the follow-up.

She and the man in black strained for a moment, glaring at each other: his foot poised over her throat, and her hands clutching it, holding it in place.

The man had lost his balaclava at some point, and his face was revealed to Hinata: craggy, with a sharp goatee, and a patch over his left eye.

He bent down, doubling the weight on his foot. "You've already made too much noise," he hissed, pressing down. Hinata grunted with effort, her hands trembling. Her vision was going dark: the lightning clone hadn't done her other injuries any favors.

"Just _die_," the man snarled, and raised his foot, stomping it down.

'_Mistake.'_

Hinata jerked her head to the side, and the foot crashed down next to her, flinging a shard of gravel into her ear and dirtying her hair. She ignored both sensations and swept her hands out, wrapping them around the man's leg and dragging him to the floor.

He dropped with a frustrated yell, and Hinata rolled on top of him, her hands balling into fists.

"I won't die," she growled, punching the man in his sneering face. His head smashed into the gravel, bouncing back up.

Hinata punched him again.

"I made a promise!"

The man's nose broke for real, and blood sprayed across Hinata's knuckles.

"And I never go back on my word!"

A spasm of her chakra shot through her hands on her final strike, hitting the man in the forehead.

He immediately slumped, unconscious, breathing shallowly through his swelling mouth and shattered nose. Hinata panted, staring down at him, expecting him to rise again.

He didn't.

That was it?

She laughed, her entire body aching, and fell to the side, toppling off the man's insensible body.

Compared to Pain, that had been nothing.

She pulled herself up on her hands and knees, breathing raggedly, and slowly crawled to Hanabi, before collapsing again, more blood running from her mouth.

Her eyes started to slide closed. She was so tired… maybe it would be better just to find Naruto later…

They snapped back open when she realized that Hanabi was awake.

The little girl was staring at her, a terrified look on her face. She was slowly pulling herself onto her knees.

Hinata smiled. Considering the blood staining her teeth, it probably wasn't the most encouraging one.

"Hanabi. You're okay." She closed her eyes for a moment, exhaustion overcoming her. "It's all okay."

"Who are you?" the little girl quavered. Hinata cracked an eye, staring at her.

"What do you mean?" she slurred, her tongue becoming just as numb as the rest of her. "Don't you recognize me?"

The little girl shook her head, and Hinata opened both of her eyes, trying to struggle to her feet. She barely made it to her knee.

"Hanabi," she said seriously, exhaustion turning her voice into a rasp. "It's me, Hinata."

The little girl in a kimono just stared at her with wide eyes.

"But _I'm _Hinata," she said, her confusion only making her look more adorable.

Hinata froze, staring at the girl she'd thought was her little sister.

"What?" she whispered.

"How odd."

The deep, familiar voice pierced the night air like a flare, and Hinata twisted towards it, almost losing her tenuous balance on her knee as she did so.

She found Hiashi Hyuuga staring at her, an eyebrow cocked, standing with his arms crossed above the unconscious kidnapper, staring her down.

"I considered stepping in, but seeing as how things have gone…" Hiashi shrugged, kicking the man at his side seemingly as an afterthought.

"So," he said in a curious voice, nothing like the iron-hard one which normally greeted Hinata at home.

"What did you say your name was, child?"

Hinata stared at her father, who gazed back at her without an ounce of recognition.

Instead of answering, her eyes rolled back up into her head, and she crashed face-first to the gravel, completely out cold.

"Hmm," Hiashi said, striding forward. He gestured to his daughter, taking her hand after she stumbled over to him.

"Come, Hinata," he said, leaning down and gently slinging the unconscious woman over his shoulder.

"I suppose answers will have to wait."

###

**AN: Hmm. **

**So, this isn't Not Sick. Or Obito-Sensei. Still working on both of those, by the way. **

**But I noticed a dearth of good Hinata time-travel fics, and decided that if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. **

**And so, this exists.**

**Also, as I'm sure you noticed: Byakugan in this fic? _Hilariously _overpowered (provided you have the right mindset). It's going to get... pretty ridiculous. **

**So that should be a lot of fun.**

**Serendipity, out.**


	2. A Lesson in Exhaustion

The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Chapter 2

_Oh? What is this wandering soul?_

* * *

Hinata didn't wake quickly.

The world slipped back to her, seeping into her consciousness, leaking into the cracks in her brain. Shapes, vague shapes: a grey mass kneeling to her left, the arch of a ceiling.

Colors came soon after, but almost nothing changed. The grey lightened, going dull-white. The ceiling was colorless.

Hinata, still not truly awake, closed her eyes.

Sounds. Sounds were next.

Muffled murmurs, from the wall to her left. A slight creak: someone shifting on a wooden floor, uncaring of any noise they might make.

Her own breathing, uneven but deep. Blood, thrumming through her body, pounding in her head. Her fingers were numb.

Touch.

She was wrapped in something warm, covering her entire body: her arms were at her sides. The floor beneath her was soft, with something hard beneath it: a mat over lacquered wood.

Everything ached. Not hurt: not the persistent burn or stabbing or _pulsing _of an actual injury. But her whole body felt bruised and sore: like something had been forced through her veins, like her skin had been stripped off and then sloppily reapplied.

She wasn't wearing her jacket. Wondering what had happened to it wandered towards her brain, got waylaid around the nape of her neck, and coiled there, waiting to come up later.

Hinata opened her eyes, and blinked.

She turned her head, and found an eerily familiar face to her left.

It was a little boy. He stared at her with pale, blank eyes, his brow furrowed slightly. There was a strip of bandages tied around it. His cheeks were still puffy with baby fat, but his angular chin had begun to emerge from the mounds they formed in his face.

Hinata blinked again.

The little boy looked just like Neji Hyuuga, if he were many years younger.

"Am I awake?" she asked, her voice quiet, barely an exhalation. The boy stared back, silent for a moment.

"Apparently," he said.

Hinata tried to smile, but gave up after a moment, the effort of moving her mouth into the proper shape too much to ask. She settled for hoping the expression made it into her eyes.

"That's good," she said, lying back and staring up at the ceiling again.

Where was she? She'd been in the village, looking for Sakura.

No.

No, that wasn't right.

She'd been… somewhere. There'd been a man. He'd kidnapped Hanabi.

She had fought him. She'd been hurt…

Had he hurt her?

Hinata frowned, her Byakugan unconsciously pulsing.

No. Could he have? She hadn't been able to even use the Gentle Fist, and she'd beaten him. She remembered that.

What had-

'_I love you, Naruto.'_

The village. Pain. The Sixty-Four Palms.

Naruto.

Hinata's eyes snapped wide open, and she lurched to her feet.

Or tried to.

She didn't even make it halfway before her body gave up on the effort and sent her crashing down on her side. She yelped, her sides and ribs protesting viciously.

The boy rushed to her side, his eyes wide, and Hinata ignored him completely, scrambling forward. Her hands slipped on the hardwood floor, and she fell again, banging her chin. Her blanket slipped off, leaving her all too aware of the chill wood below her.

"Father!" the boy yelped, watching her carefully. "She's-"

Hinata twisted towards him, distantly hearing a door slide open.

"I have to go!" she panted. "Naruto… he's in trouble! I have to-"

"Go where?" a calm, familiar voice rolled over her, and Hinata did her best to spin towards it, managing to prop herself up on one arm.

Her father's stern face stared down at her, silhouetted against the early morning sun pouring in through the doorway behind him.

But there was something wrong with it. Hinata blinked, focusing. Less stress marks and wrinkles, softer cheeks, warmer eyes… and a forehead protector, which her father almost never wore.

Nevertheless, the man looked just like Hiashi, despite undeniably being _not_.

"Father?" The words slipped out of Hinata's mouth before she could check them, as she finished making it to her knees. She rose slowly, her left leg shaking. "Is that you? What's going on? Naruto's in trouble! The Leaf…"

The man blinked, and there was a crushing silence as he stared at her. Hinata unconsciously trembled: even if the man seemed subtly different, his stare was the same.

"What about the Leaf?" he finally said, his tone careful.

"It… it's been destroyed." The man jerked back, his eyes going wide, but Hinata barely noticed, the devastation of her home flashing through her mind. "We have to go back as soon as we can!" Hinata looked around. "Where are we? I thought you and Hanabi were-"

'_But I'm Hinata.'_

Hinata froze, her whole body stiffening, and her breathing suddenly cutting off. Both of the other Hyuuga in the room watched her, the boy sliding to his father's side.

She tried to activate her Byakugan, and her eyes _burned_. Hinata stumbled backwards, clutching at her face. The man who wasn't her father took a cautious step towards her.

Hinata grimaced, and brought her hands up into a focusing kai sign. She hadn't had to use crutches like this for years. The man's pace quickened, and her drew closer.

"_Byakugan_," she muttered firmly, and the world spiraled out around her. She ignored the twinge that shot through her skull.

She _saw_.

Konoha. _Konoha_.

The Hokage's tower, the academy, the towering walls. The Hyuuga grounds sprawling out around her, the crowded apartment blocks, ANBU winging across the rooftops, crowded marketplaces. Children laughing in the streets, adults watching them out of the corner of their eyes, the abandoned Uchiha district…

Wasn't abandoned.

Hinata stayed like that for what seemed like hours, drinking in her unbroken home. The other two Hyuuga stared at her, clearly not understanding her reaction.

Eventually, she took a deep, steady breath, and allowed her straining eyes to deactivate, the invisible pressure that had been building in her head leaving them burning.

"What's going on?" she asked, her voice steady. She clenched one of her hands. "We're in the village. How is that possible? Who are you?"

The man watched her, before glancing down at the little boy at his side. The pale boy looked up at him, trying to keep his eye on Hinata at the same time.

"Neji," he murmured. "Go get your uncle, right now."

Hinata watched the boy leave with wide eyes. "Neji?" she whispered.

The older man whipped his head towards her. "What did you say?"

"_That's _Neji?" Hinata asked him, her head feeling hollow. "I don't…" she stumbled back a step, sinking to the ground. She shook her head, and looked back at the man. "And you're… his father?"

"Of course," the man said patiently. "Hizashi Hyuuga."

Hinata shook her head again. "That's impossible. You're dead. And the village is gone…"

Her breathing picked up, edging towards hyperventilation. "What's happening? I have to... I don't…"

"It seems," another voice cut in, "that you've had an interesting mishap."

Both Hinata and Hizashi turned, and found a man who looked completely identical to Hizashi standing in the doorway, the little boy who couldn't _possibly _be Neji besides him.

Hinata stared without comprehension. _That _was, without a doubt, her father.

Just to be sure…

"Hiashi Hyuuga?" she said, her voice trembling.

Her father nodded, and Hinata just continued to stare, unable to understand what she could be seeing.

"And what is your name?" he asked, his mouth set in a characteristic line.

"Hinata," she whispered. "Hinata Hyuuga."

Hiashi crossed his arms. "As I thought." He glanced at his brother, and then meaningfully at Neji. Hizashi bowed slightly, and went to his son's side, taking his hand and leading him out the door.

Hiashi stared at her over his crossed arms. "Get up," he said softly, and Hinata scrambled to her feet. "We've got a lot to talk about."

"What's going on?" Hinata asked for the third time. "I don't understand what's-"

"You've traveled through time," Hiashi said bluntly.

The words snapped Hinata out of her shock, and for a moment, she just stared at her father. A thousand questions ran through her mind, and her leg started jittering again.

But eventually, what emerged from her mouth was a lonesome, timid, "What?"

Hiashi uncrossed his arms, striding towards her. His Byakugan pulsed into existence, the veins pushing the skin of his temple up.

"You have done something that has only been accomplished once before in the entire history of this clan," he said, his bluntness not fading. Then, he hesitated. "And… you're my daughter, aren't you?"

It wasn't really a question, but Hinata nodded anyway. Her father chuckled, lowering his head.

"Remarkable," he muttered, before regaining his composure. He continued walking towards her. "But something is strange about this."

"What-" Hinata didn't understand the look in her father's eyes. He bent in, the near invisible pupil of his Byakugan tightening, and stared intently into her eyes. Hinata almost activated her doujutsu by reflex: she'd never seen her father look at _anything _like that.

"Your eyes are barely damaged: they'll certainly heal, though not quickly," he said, his voice equal parts confused and curious. He leaned back. "Tell me: how did you do this? And why?"

"I.. why?" Hinata asked. "It w-wasn't on purpose. I tried to use the sixty-four palms-"

Hiashi cocked an eyebrow. "And you ended up back here?"

"No. I was fighting someone… he hit me with his jutsu in the middle of the technique."

Her father's eyes grew indefinably sharper. "Your opponent struck you _as _you executed the sixty-four palms?"

Hinata blinked at his tone. "No, during. I was already… 'loose', is what you called it."

Hiashi frowned. "That's impossible. How could they have known when to strike, then?"

"He wasn't an ordinary shinobi," Hinata said. "He had these eyes… they were purple, with rings around the pupil. I'd never seen anything like them."

Hiashi sucked in a breath. "_Rinnegan_?"

"I don't know," Hinata admitted. "But he destroyed the Hidden Leaf with a single jutsu." Her leg wouldn't stop jittering, and she clamped a hand down on it, trying to stop the nervous motion. "There were a lot of casualties… if it weren't for Lady Tsunade, I doubt anyone would have survived."

"Tsunade?" Hiashi muttered. "Wait, no." He shook his head: the motion looked the same as Hinata's. "When… how old are you, Hinata?"

"Seventeen."

Hiashi smiled dimly. "Grown up so fast… and I haven't even seen it yet." He frowned. "Fourteen years? That's all the village has left?"

He stared off into the distance, and for a moment, Hinata was left alone with her thoughts. She stared at her blurred reflection in the hardwood, the glow of an overhead lamp obliterating her face's features.

Despite being alone with them, Hinata didn't have many thoughts. Instead, there was just one repeating itself over and over in her head.

'_Time travel?'_

It made sense, in a way she never thought she'd have to rationalize. The Byakugan could see 'time', and what the Byakguan could see, the Hyuuga could touch. That was how the sixty-four palms worked.

But the trigram techniques just 'unstuck' the user in time, allowing them to place themselves in a place they _could _be, instead of where they _were_. Moving _through _time, let alone backwards through it fourteen years, made no sense.

Unless…

'_Get back.'_

Pain's jutsu. The _push_. What had he called it?

Shinra Tensei. Heavenly Push. Or Almighty: she'd never seen Pain write down the jutsu's name, and it could be either.

The semantics didn't matter. Whatever the Shinra Tensei had done, it had _pushed _her while she was still in the untethered state between _could _and _were_.

And now, she was fourteen years back in the past.

What had happened to the present? To Naruto, and the Village Hidden in the Leaves?

Were they just _gone_? Unmade by her presence here? Or were they still there, waiting in the future, moving on without her?

Was Naruto already dead?

No. Even if the future were still moving forward, it would take three days for him to have the Kyuubi taken from him. Probably more, if what Sakura had told her about Gaara stayed true.

Did it even matter, though? Now that she was back…

Hinata's eyes went wide, and Hiashi glanced at her.

She could change _everything_.

The first Chunin Exams, and the Sound Invasion. Sasuke Uchiha's flight from the Village. Pain's attack-

Wait.

Hinata almost fell down as her father watched her with concern. She wasn't thinking big enough.

The Uchiha were _still alive_. So was the Sandaime, and Naruto's master, Jiraiya the Toad Sage.

And _Hizashi_. She'd saved Neji's father. That man she'd fought had been after the Byakugan, after _her_. He had been the Cloud's 'ambassador' who Hizashi had been killed for, in the name of averting war.

Hinata, seated on the floor, giggled as her father watched in perplexed amusement. She'd saved her uncle by falling off a roof.

If Neji still existed, she was sure he'd find that funny, in a strange way.

Her father, after watching her for a second, spoke up. "We have to go," he said. "I mustn't be the only one you pass this information to."

"Go?" Hinata laughed almost manically, her ribs aching. Her whole body was shaking. Why had _she _been the one sent back like this? She couldn't possibly hope to change enough… she just might end up making it worse.

It should have been Naruto. He would have been able to make a change. As it was he was just…

Three years old. And more alone than ever.

"Go where?" she asked her father, picking herself up off the floor. He gave her an odd look, which she ignored.

It didn't matter if she couldn't hope to change enough. She had to try. Giving up now would be failing everyone Pain had killed.

No, not just them. Anyone who'd _ever _died to anything Hinata knew about. There was no excuse: she could save them _all_.

And Naruto, in the bargain.

Hiashi eventually gave up on trying to figure out what his daughter was saying, and shrugged, turning back towards the door he'd entered through. He strode forward, his pace urgent, and Hinata hurried after him, ignoring the constant soreness that every step made worse.

"To the Hokage, of course."

* * *

**Well.**

**This has been frustrating.**

**Real life has been doing it's best to murder me: I've beaten it off for now. My writing, unfortunately, has been a casualty. **

**This is the shortest chapter I've ever written for a story. It's also one of the worst... but it's really not okay to leave something so simple sitting for a month. Hopefully, the next one will be better.  
**

**Serendipity, out.**


	3. A Lesson in Foresight

The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Chapter 3

_Ah. She is lost. What will she do, I wonder?_

* * *

"Remarkable. Truly remarkable." The man leaned back, toying with his pipe. Sunlight from the window behind him gave his many wrinkles a warm cast, while also covering the upper half of his face in an impenetrable shadow. "And yet, rather alarming."

Hinata shifted in her seat, her hands clasped in her lap. Her father was standing behind her, his arms crossed. He was staring out the window, a severe expression on his face.

"So… one more time. This 'Akatsuki'." The old man rolled the name off his tongue, languidly drawing his pipe away from his mouth. "They will be after Naruto, will they?"

Hinata nodded. "Yes. They did terrible damage to the village…"

"So I've heard." Hiruzen Sarutobi breathed, leaning forward and setting his pipe down on his desk. "Fourteen years, yes?"

"Fourteen years," Hinata confirmed.

"But of course, I wasn't there to see it," the Sandaime chuckled grimly. "To think that I'd be killed by Orochimaru…" He leaned back into his chair, leaving his pipe behind, and sighed. "Well, it was to be expected, I suppose. It would hardly do for my greatest failure to go unpunished."

"You shouldn't say things like that, Sandaime-sama," Hiashi spoke up. "How could you have known that he would go to such lengths? Slaying the Kazekage…"

"Orochimaru hates the Leaf like he does nothing else," Sarutobi said, looking over Hinata's shoulder. "Those are _exactly _the kind of lengths I would expect him to go to, if it could secure the village's destruction."

He dropped his gaze to Hinata's. "However… you mentioned the Godaime Kazekage, didn't you? Suna's Jinchūriki?"

At Hinata's confirmation, Sarutobi laughed. "Incredible. So young; and the carrier of a beast as well." He leaned back. "And the Uchiha... There are certainly interesting, and terrible, things in your future, Hinata."

"About that, Hokage-sama," Hiashi said, stepping forward and laying a hand on Hinata's shoulder.

She winced, a spike of soreness shooting down through her arm. It didn't hurt nearly as much as it should have, but it certainly wasn't comfortable.

"Should we perhaps," Hiashi continued, "address that problem as soon as we can? I can have men watching the heir, if you wish. With the Byakugan-"

"Leave that to me," Sarutobi said abruptly. "I will handle Itachi Uchiha personally. For now… don't trouble yourself with the affairs of other clans."

Hiashi nodded politely, and the office lapsed into silence.

The Sandaime stared at Hinata's father's hand for a moment.

"Hiashi," he said slowly. "Answer me something, will you? Your daughter has certainly addressed enough questions for now, wouldn't you agree?"

"Of course, Hokage-sama," Hiashi said formerly, and the Sandaime raised one of his wrinkled hands.

"Enough of that," he chuckled good-naturedly. "On a day like today, Hiruzen will do."

Hinata's father hesitated, before inclining his head slightly. "Very well… Hiruzen," he slowly said.

"Good," the Hokage smiled. Then, his face turned to ice, the warmth fading from his eyes, and he slowly rose from his chair, hands splayed against his desk. The wood groaned, and Hiashi's eyes widened slightly.

Hinata watched in confusion, and not a little trepidation. The Hokage didn't look like the kindly grandfather he'd seemed when she'd seen him all those years. Now, he was The Professor.

"Hiashi," the Hokage said, his voice bleeding authority. Hinata unconsciously straightened her back, bringing her hands away from her lap. Her father let go of her shoulder.

"Why did you bring her here like this?"

"I… I'm sorry, Sandai… Hiruzen?" Hiashi said. He didn't sound frightened; just wary.

"She's obviously in pain," Sarutobi said, gesturing at Hinata.

How did he know? She tightened one of her hands, ignoring the numbness in her fingers.

"I'm… I'm really not," Hinata murmured. "This is more important anyway…" The Hokage glanced at her, and she froze.

"Not in pain?" he asked, striding around his desk and coming to a stop in front of her. He knelt down, and took one of her hands in his own. It was warmer than Hinata would have guessed.

"Hinata," he said kindly. "Don't lie to me."

The Hyuuga heiress winced, as Hiashi watched both the Hokage and his daughter with concern.

"Your injuries aren't even close to healed," the Hokage continued. "I see it in the way you sit, the placement of your hands; how you moved when your father put his hand on your shoulder. It is obvious."

She really had been stupid, Hinata thought to herself, if she'd thought that she could have hidden something from the Third Hokage.

"So…" The old man raised his head to Hiashi. "My question is, again: why did you bring her here like this, Hiashi? Could she not have visited the hospital first?" Something masquerading as a smile crept onto the Sandaime's lips. "We've got years, after all."

Once more, her father hesitated. "Hokage-sa…"

"Hiruzen," the Hokage carelessly corrected, maintaining his hold on Hinata's hand.

"Hiruzen," Hiashi conceded. "This… I have my reasons. I would prefer to discuss them with my daughter… alone."

"Oh?" the Hokage asked, releasing Hinata's hand and standing up. He barely came up to Hiashi's chin. "Clan secrets, eh?"

"Of a sorts," Hiashi admitted. "If you would allow us to leave for a moment, I can-"

"No need," the Hokage snorted. He turned away, reaching down towards his desk and seizing his pipe and distinctive white hat. "I was in need of a walk anyway."

"But… Hokage-sama!" Hiashi said, shocked.

"We can't kick you out of your own office!" Hinata spoke up.

The Hokage just laughed. "Trust me: it's not as special as you think. Though…" He placed his hat upon his head, and raised his pipe. "It _is _one of the most secure places in the village. You can speak freely here."

He strode towards Hiashi. The other man instinctively stepped aside, but he didn't say anything as the Sandaime brushed past him.

"Hiashi…" the Hokage murmured, just loud enough for Hinata to hear. "I hope your reason is a good one."

And then the old oak door swung open, and the Hokage was gone.

Hinata blinked, and turned to her father.

He stared back at her, incredulity and not a little guilt in his eyes.

"Did we just steal the Hokage's office?" she asked quietly.

Her father's eyes shifted a little, towards something warmer. "Indeed we did," he deadpanned. "Truly, the Hyuuga are the strongest in the Hidden Leaf."

Hinata giggled, and then coughed, her throat feeling like sandpaper. Her father sunk down next to her, his expression moving back towards serious.

"Hinata," he said morosely. "First, let me apologize for any suffering I brought you."

"It's fine, father," Hinata smiled. "It doesn't hurt that much; I just need some rest."

Hiashi grimaced. "You may not get it."

Hinata hesitated. Her fingers wandered towards each other, before she viciously crushed the impulse to rub them against together. Now was no time to indulge in her nervousness. "What do you mean?"

"It would have been better to bring you to the hospital, my daughter," Hiashi admitted. "Our medics did what they could, but the Hokage was right. You're not quite healed yet. However, time was of essence."

Something cold stole over Hinata's heart. "Father? Why? I'm not going to…" Her mouth snapped shut, and her father's eyes grew horrified.

"No! No," he said again, more calmly. "You are not going to die. Nothing like that! You are _fine_."

Hinata's relief was palpable. "Then why-"

"I don't know how much longer you'll… _be_ here, Hinata," her father admitted, grimacing once more.

"Be here?" Hinata stared at him, something heavy swelling in her gut. "You mean-"

"In this time," her father confirmed.

"I don't…" Hinata shook her head. "I don't understand. You're saying I'm going to be sent back? To the… present? The future?

"Where you came from. Your 'present'," her father said. "Hopefully, with the changes you set in motion all around you."

"How do you…" Hinata started to ask, before something her father had told her about two hours ago crept across her mind.

'_You have done something that has only been accomplished once before in the entire history of this clan.'_

"What happened to the other one?" she asked, straightening up. Her father looked at her questioningly. "You said that only one other person had traveled through time like I did," Hinata said, biting her lip. "What happened to him?"

"Her," her father corrected. "And she vanished."

"Vanished?"

Hiashi nodded. "After eight hours."

"Who was she?" Hinata asked.

Hiashi hesitated, before his face flattened out again, his confidence returning.

"That doesn't matter."

Hinata stared. Her father had never lied to her; she couldn't understand why he was doing so now. Every line on Hiashi's face, every crease, even the way his eyes darted up and to the left for a moment, indicated he was.

She resolved to find out later. If her time really was short, she couldn't afford to be caught up in details.

"Eight hours?"

Her father nodded. "Indeed. She simply disappeared, vanishing from under her guard-ians' eyes without a trace," he said, correcting himself midway through one of his words. "The Byakugan sees all: what she did was no shunshin, or a teleportation jutsu like the Yondaime's. It was judged she had returned to whence she came. And indeed, thirty years later, she _appeared_, inexplicably, even though…"

Her father hesitated, and then waved his hand, beginning to pace around the room. "Well, she didn't_ exist _anymore, thanks to certain circumstances. Yet, she appeared anyway: a clear indication that after her time was up, she returned to her present, though it had been drastically altered by her actions."

He sighed. "She was also still blind."

"Wait… _blind_?" Hinata gasped. Her father flinched.

"This is why I rushed you, Hinata," he muttered. "I was afraid you would disappear much quicker." He resumed pacing the room. "It's no exact science, but for a long time the Hyuuga have attempted to replicate your predecessor's feat. Willful travel through time would ensure that no one would be able to challenge the Leaf, or this clan, would it not?"

He frowned. "But every attempt ended in failure, or worse. The damage the Byakugan receives _forcing_ itself through time is catastrophic. So when you arrived, badly injured, but with entirely functioning, nearly undamaged eyes, I began to worry."

Hiashi finally stopped pacing. "And when you slept for six hours without vanishing yourself, I couldn't allow the risk of you disappearing before I understood _why_._ Why_ you were here, and what had done such damage to you."

He looked out the Hokage's window, out onto the village. "I had several clan medics do their best to heal you as you slept, but as you no doubt feel, it was by no means comprehensive. Again, I hope you will forgive me for that."

"Of course, father." As always, Hinata managed to be demure, even as another ache set her ribs on a dull sort of fire. "But… if I've been here for six hours already…"

"Seven," her father corrected her.

"Seven, yes," Hinata said. "If I've been here seven hours… and I haven't gone back to my present? Could I vanish at any moment?"

Hiashi stared at her for a moment. "I don't know," he finally said.

Hinata looked down. She'd been afraid of that.

Her father kept speaking, even though she was no longer making eye contact with him.

"I suspect it was the method of your travel," he said. "You were… assisted?" He chuckled grimly. "I suppose that's the best word for it. The leader of Akatsuki, 'Pain'; the man who possesses the Rinnegan. He attacked you as you used the Sixty-Four Palms: struck you, _somehow_, as you moved through time. I believe he gave you a push, so to speak."

"Almighty Push," Hinata said distantly. She raised her head, meeting her father's eyes. "That's what he called it."

He smirked. "An appropriate name, then."

"I was lost," Hinata continued. Her father's smirk slowly faded, replaced by undeniable curiosity. "Lost somewhere… I don't even know how to describe it. Endless. I was falling through it… or floating." She smiled faintly. "It was very confusing. But… I think I understand what happened."

She stood up, her left leg minutely shaking. The Hyuuga robe her father had given her trailed softly against the wooden floor.

"I was _pushed _into the past. I didn't travel myself," she said quietly. "That's why my eyes weren't damaged; that's why I haven't been pulled back yet."

She mulled the idea for a moment, before nodding. Then, she looked back to her father.

"How long will I be here?"

Hiashi watched her for a moment, his eyes narrow. "It's impossible to say," he admitted. "You are an anomaly. There's no way to know how long you will remain here, or even if you will travel back at all. It's entirely possible you could vanish at any moment."

Hinata leaned back, looking around as her father watched her with something between concern and wariness. Outside, the sun rose higher as noon approached. There was barely a shadow remaining in the Hokage's office.

Her brow furrowed.

She didn't know what to feel.

There was disappointment: undeniable, gnawing at the bottom of her stomach and rendering the greater part of her hollow. Fragile. She had done something incredible, something that only one other had done in the history of the clan.

She had _traveled through time_. She'd met a dead man. She'd met _herself_. It was the most remarkable thing that had ever happened to her.

And now, it was already going to be drawing to a close. If her father was right, her time in the past was limited. _Very _limited.

But, below the disappointment that she would be leaving before the novelty had faded, Hinata felt something deeper.

Relief.

Relief that she wouldn't be trapped in the past. Relief that she wouldn't have to be the one to go about securing the present, making it a better place than it was. Relief that people more capable than her would be in charge of it, and that she would be able to return to a changed future, one where the Akatsuki had never demolished Konoha and brutalized Naruto.

Relief that she wouldn't have to grow up around her friends, watching them from a distance, unable to reconnect with them.

And, an undercurrent below the undercurrent, a twisting toxin that had defined most of Hinata's life, one that pulled itself to the surface now…

Fear.

Fear that she would return to a future that wasn't hers. Fear that she wouldn't understand what had happened around her.

Fear she would be left behind.

'_Don't be selfish.' _It almost sounded like Neji. Neji, who now had a father because of her. _'It's only a possibility; you can't give up the Leaf's future just because you're afraid.'_

She knew that. But the fear didn't disappear. It only grew deeper, freezing her gut.

Hinata stared out the window. Out at the village.

She had an idea.

Perhaps, this one time, she _would _be selfish.

Her father's eyes narrowed as she stood up, her left leg slightly shaking.

"Are you leaving?" he asked. She looked to him. The familiar frown had reasserted itself.

"If I really am here only temporarily," Hinata said quietly, her voice uncertain, "if I really might leave without warning…"

She took a deep breath.

"There's something I have to do."

Hiashi didn't hesitate. He just nodded.

"I can't let you out of my sight, you know," he said with a hint of regret. "The Hokage…"

"I know, father." Hinata smiled. "But I'd have to go rather far for _that _to happen, wouldn't I?"

Hiashi paused for a moment, and then a grin, a craggy mirror of Hinata's, crept across his face. He stepped aside.

"Good luck, my daughter."

Hinata nodded and then, without a backwards glance, strode past him and out of the office.

She couldn't see him, but Hiashi watched her go with a hint of bemusement.

And a cloying pride.

* * *

The adults wore wary looks, but the children didn't care.

Hinata marveled at that. She'd never seen it like this.

They must have been too young to understand. They didn't see the suspicious looks and pursed lips.

They just saw a blond boy their age wearing a wide smile, and decided it would be perfectly acceptable to play with him.

The older kids, however, weren't the same. There was a clear demarcation between any of the children over the age of five and those under.

But it wasn't one the adults had enforced. It was just the natural consequence of the orphans' preference. Those that had been there longer considered themselves above the rest: it was only natural.

Though that didn't make it right.

Shifting slightly on her bench, Hinata leaned back, laying her head on the backrest and staring up into Konoha's cloudless blue sky. The street around her was mildly busy: civilians, some on business and some not, rushed and ambled respectively, filling the village with pleasant chatter. There was a shinobi or two among their numbers, but they were unobtrusive, and usually given a respectful distance.

One of them, a young chūnin with unusually spiky hair and a temporary medical eyepatch, glanced at Hinata as he slid by, his feet not making a noise on the paved street. Her Byakugan made it clear, but she didn't look up at him. Instead, she just closed her eyes, though it did nothing to impede her vision, and after a minute the man picked up his pace again, vanishing back into the crowd.

Hinata sighed. She didn't want more questions. Not that they would matter, in all probability.

Her gaze wandered back to the building across the street, and the Hyuuga bit her lip. Coming here had been a mistake.

It only served as reminder of what she might lose.

Naruto, three years old, with adorably chubby cheeks, a thick, trusting grin, and stubby, childish limbs, was not the Naruto she knew. Not yet.

And maybe not ever. She simply couldn't know.

But that wasn't necessarily bad.

Naruto's battle against his loneliness may have inspired her, but that didn't mean it had been a good thing.

If she could change something, with what time she had left… plant the seeds of something to be _different_…

Hinata opened her eyes, and her head came back up. The Byakugan deactivated.

Slowly, she pulled herself off the bench, ignoring the ache in her legs. A man nearby looked at her for a moment as one of her legs twitched, but she took a deep breath, straightening up, and after another second he moved on with an invisible shrug.

She took a step forward, and then another. A crushing sensation of dread pulled itself out of her throat, and she swallowed it, smashing it down deep into her stomach.

Now wasn't the time to worry.

Now was the time to make a direct change, no matter how small it was.

It took Hinata about thirty seconds to reach the other side of the street. Navigating through the crowd on legs that felt hollow wasn't easy, but most of the pedestrians noted her slow pace, and made room for her to pass through.

She paused in front of the entrance, doubt worming its way up through her body again, filling her hollow legs with lead.

Then she blinked, shattering the deadlock, and opened the door.

"Hello!" There was someone there to help her immediately: a young woman, just a little bit older than her, with dark eyes and a warm face. The caretaker stopped when she saw Hinata's eyes.

Her tone dropped, becoming more formal, but not losing its natural cheerfulness. "Oh, Hyuuga-sama! What can I do for you today?"

Hinata smiled, and the girl smiled back, her worries at one of the main ninja families visiting the rather tiny orphanage slipping away.

"I'd like to speak to one of the children," she said patiently, clasping her hands in front of her.

The girl's smile didn't fade, but her eyes gained a questionable aspect. "Oh? That's… somewhat unusual." She looked Hinata over for a moment. "You're a little young for adoption, aren't you?"

Hinata's face burned red, and the girl backed off as quickly as was humanly possible. "But, I mean… I suppose you're more than old enough to-"

"It's… it's not that," Hinata muttered, and the woman shut up. "I just want to talk to one of them."

"Just talk?" the caretaker asked, before shrugging. "I guess... if you want to, there's nothing against it. Did you have a child in mind or-"

"Yes," Hinata said clearly. "Naruto Uzumaki."

At that, the young woman's warm face froze over.

"Why?" she asked carefully.

"I have something to tell him."

The caretaker blinked. "You have something to say to… _him_?"

If the girl's face had frozen, then Hinata's made hers look like a desert by comparison. The caretaker took a step back as the Byakugan flashed at her. Hinata's mouth drew into a severe line, and she took a half-step hobble into the girl's personal space.

"Yes," she said coldly.

"Ah…" the girl croaked, going pale. "Alright then. If you'll just follow me-"

"I can find my own way," Hinata flatly stated, and then she swept past the sweating caretaker, leaving her alone in the entrance hall.

Hinata didn't have much time; she had to make the most of it.

As she slowly half-limped her way down the hall, she wondered just how much time that really was.

* * *

"What's wrong with your eyes lady?"

He stared up at her, his own bright blue eyes wide. A small plush toad sat on the floor in front of his crossed legs.

Hinata stared back.

He was so _small_.

"My eyes?" she echoed back, unable to think of anything else to say. She knew why she'd come here, but now that reason seemed petty and pointless in the face of the reality before her.

"Yeah!" he peered into them. "They're all white! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Naruto," she said, her voice distant. "They're supposed to look like that. It's a Kekkei Genkai."

"Keka Genke?" Naruto asked, tilting his head. "What's that?"

"It's kind of like… I was born with them," Hinata settled for. "I can still see." She let out a small smile. "In fact, I bet I can see better than you."

"Wuh!?" Naruto scrambled to his feet, glaring up at her. "No way! I can see better than anyone!"

Hinata frowned. "Really?"

"Uh huh!" Naruto insisted emphatically, nodding his head.

"Okay," Hinata said, her smile spreading. "What's on the other side of that wall?"

She pointed to her left, at a rather plain wooden wall. There was a tapestry hung across it, depicting a man with thick red armor and bushy, midnight-black hair. Hinata didn't recognize him.

Naruto squinted. "It's a picture of a supercool ninja!" he declared, grinning widely. He looked sure that he'd won.

"And behind the wall?" Hinata asked him.

He turned to her, his face twisting into an adorable frown. "How would I know? People can't see through walls!"

Hinata activated her Byakugan, the veins spiralling out. She half expected Naruto to stumble backwards but instead he just stood stock still, staring at her. His mouth fell half open.

She turned to the wall, pretending to focus, her forehead scrunching up.

"There's a desk on the other side," she said calmly, as Naruto continued staring. "There's a women sitting at it, with long black hair, and an orange dress."

"That's Nanako-sensei!" Naruto said enthusiastically. "She teaches us how to write and stuff!"

Then, his eyes swelled in an almost comical realization. "Hey wait! How can you see her?!"

Hinata tapped her temple knowingly, and Naruto made an exaggerated "Oh…" sound.

They were both silent for a moment. Hinata's eyes brought the street outside into clear focus.

She frowned. That couldn't be-

"Hey, Lady?" Her attention fell back to Naruto, who was sitting down again. He was toying with his frog, pulling errantly on one of its legs.

"Yes Naruto?" Hinata asked quietly, sitting down next to him. The veins withdrew, her Byakugan deactivating.

"Who are you?" he asked. "People don't usually come visit me, 'cept for Jiji, but you're not all wrinkly like him. Did I do something wrong?"

Hinata stared at him, frowning slightly.

What was she supposed to say to that?

Oh, Naruto, I'm one of your friends from the future. The last I saw of you, you were flat on the ground with holes in your hands and legs, telling me not to get myself killed. Don't worry, you'll become a strong ninja just in time for someone even stronger to come along and beat you.

You also inspired me to become a shinobi as strong as you. You will be brave, and kind, and never, _ever _give up, even the face of someone you can't possibly defeat.

She blinked.

"You didn't do anything wrong." Hinata had never sounded more sure of anything in her life. "I came to check on you."

"Huh?" Naruto blinked back. "Check on me?"

"Yes." Hinata took an unsteady breath, ignoring the throbbing in her shoulder. "You are very precious to me. I wanted to make sure you were alright."

Naruto just stared at her.

It was entirely possible he had no idea what she was talking about.

"Precious?" he said, his mouth twisting around the word.

"Yes Naruto." Hinata's frown disappeared, transforming back into a gentle smile. "Someone I knew made a vow, once, that he would protect people who were precious to him, no matter what. I decided to do the same. There was no way I couldn't check on you: I want you to know that no matter what, no matter what happens, there's going to be someone looking out for you."

There was another pause as the little blond boy absorbed her words. He nodded meaningfully, closing his eyes, trying to make it look as if he understood them perfectly.

"Are you going to take me away?" Naruto asked innocently.

Hinata blinked again.

"I see some of the other kids leave," Naruto said quietly. "Bigger people come and take them away. Are you here to do that to me?"

"I can't, Naruto." Hinata almost choked on the words. Now, he was staring at her, his curiosity fully peaked.

"Why not?" he said.

"I have to leave soon," Hinata practically whispered. "I don't know when. I can't take you with me."

"Oh." He didn't sound disappointed.

But a faint light abandoned the vibrant blue of his eyes nonetheless.

"Do you have to go now?" he asked.

She could leave at any moment. Be pulled away any second. Just vanish from besides him. And who knew what would happen to her afterwards.

Or it could be hours from now. It really didn't matter anymore.

"No," Hinata decided, settling herself besides him. "I can stay for a while longer."

And so she did.

* * *

She limped outside about three hours later, leaving a sleeping Naruto behind her. He'd passed out in her lap, and Hinata had taken that as her cue to leave.

She didn't feel any better. In fact, she now felt more unsure of everything than ever before.

Perhaps she shouldn't have come. All she'd done now was make a promise she couldn't possibly fulfil.

Hinata turned the corner, moving away from the crowds still traversing the streets. And then she slumped, leaning against the wall. Just sitting with him, talking, entertaining him, taking in the surreality of his presence, had been exhausting.

She really was alone now. All of her friends were like that. Would she even know any of them when she returned to her own time?

The Hyuuga let out a long, trembling sigh.

There was something else, too. Something that had caught her attention hours before, when she'd first looked through a wall for Naruto.

She activated her Byakugan, ignoring the twinge in her chakra system.

And she saw him.

A story above her, and two streets away. But doubtlessly peering in her direction, his brow furrowed, the stress lines on his face already forming.

He was younger. The lines were softer. His hair was shorter; _he _was shorter.

But it was undeniably him. His was not a forgettable face.

Hinata almost laughed.

Of course he was here.

It was almost inevitable. With her luck, the kind of luck that had thrown her back through time, that had doomed her to return to people she hardly knew, that had made her father lie to her for the first time in her memory…

With that kind of luck, was there any doubt that she was being followed by Itachi Uchiha?

* * *

**AN: ****Haha wow. My update rate is terrible, huh?**

**Blame college. And Not Sick. But mostly college.  
**

**Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Serendipity, out.**


	4. A Lesson in Interrogation

The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Chapter 4

_Hmm. More than lost. This could prove interesting._

* * *

For a minute or so, she considered killing him.

She could prevent so much with a single death. The Uchiha wouldn't be cut down in their compound, slaughtered to the man by their own heir. Naruto's teammate wouldn't grow up without parents… though he would probably miss his brother.

And she would become the person who had killed Itachi Uchiha. However much Hinata believed herself lesser, that title wouldn't be something to leave her.

But it was only a minute, because logic reasserted itself almost immediately.

This wasn't _Itachi Uchiha_, The Walking Genocide, one of the world's youngest S-Ranked killers, the man you weren't supposed to even consider approaching without a ten-to-one advantage.

This was Itachi Uchiha, respected Konoha ninja and heir to the Uchiha. He would be joining the ANBU in several months, even.

He wasn't even guilty of anything yet. As far as anyone knew, he was utterly devoted to the Leaf. If she attacked him, there would be consequences, even if she had the Hokage's ear.

And anyway, the Sandaime had told her father to leave Itachi to him. The same order applied to her.

Hinata bit her lip.

Why was he following her, though?

She was hesitant to say the answer was obvious. Her first thought had been that his family must have sent him.

But why would they? No one knew she was a new arrival: as far as the village was concerned, she was just another Hyuuga, one among many.

Who had just met with the Hokage, and somehow been involved in the incident with Kumo a day prior.

Perhaps he did have reason to watch her.

A team of brightly-colored genin wandered by, chattering loudly. She could see Itachi's eyes dart to them for a moment, before resettling on the entrance to the alley she'd stumbled into. He began to reposition.

Hinata slipped out the alley, keeping her Byakugan active. Itachi was moving along the rooftops, keeping her within his line of sight, but moving slowly enough to be practically unnoticeable. She never would have spotted him without her doujutsu.

She kept her focus on him as she moved through the crowds, her head down. If anyone cared about the veins pushing themselves out alongside her eyes, they didn't make it apparent, though she did get several strange looks.

She stopped at a crossroad, leaning against a store wall.

Where was she going?

The Hokage's office, maybe. She could wait there. The Hyuuga compound? Could she risk meeting herself again? Was there any harm in it?

Maybe she could go to the hospital. Some of her injuries were still bothering her.

Hinata's stomach growled, and she glanced down at it out of reflex.

She was hungry. Starving, even. She'd eaten once, twelve(?) hours ago, before Pain had arrived.

She didn't need to look up to know that the building she was leaning against was a teriyaki shop. Not her favorite food, but hardly the worst.

Hinata decided to get lunch.

* * *

"Miss, would you mind…"

"Hmm?" Hinata turned to the restaurant's owner, half of a beef teriyaki hanging from her mouth. She pulled the rest in as the clearly uncomfortable man finished his sentence.

"It's just, Hyuuga-sama… your eye-thing." He bent in apologetically, his voice falling into a whisper. "You're scaring away some of the customers."

Hinata blinked, scanning the building without turning her head. The man was right: no one was sitting next to her, probably due to her Byakugan, and everyone who was in the room was giving her uncomfortable glances.

They didn't know why she had her Doujutsu active, she realized. It must have looked like she was preparing for an attack.

She checked on Itachi again. He was still crouched on a nearby rooftop, watching the entrance of the building like a hawk. He hadn't followed her in.

"Oh!" she said. The whole thought process had taken barely a second. "I'm sorry!"

She allowed the Byakugan to deactivate, the veins fading away and leaving her pearl eyes relaxed. "Is that better?" She smiled.

The man gave her a short bow. "Much, Hyuuga-sama. Thank you for accommodating me. If you need anything, just ask."

"Of course," Hinata said demurely. The man gave another, slightly deeper bow, and left her to enjoy her meal.

The Hyuuga turned back to it, sighing. The world always seemed smaller when her eyes weren't 'on'. The wooden walls of the booth she was seated at seemed to press in on her.

"Mind if I join you?"

Hinata froze.

She turned her head just slightly to the right.

Itachi Uchiha was standing there. His head was almost level with hers: his diminutive height was never more apparent.

She didn't say anything, but that didn't stop him. He slipped over to the other side of the booth, sliding into the seat without a word.

They both watched each other for a moment in total silence. The sounds of the restaurant washed over them, ignored.

Hinata's mind whirled.

How had he done that? How could he possibly have known precisely when her Byakugan had deactivated, and moved with the speed to approach her in the two or three seconds afterwards?

Genjutsu? Clones? He was only _ten years old_. He shouldn't have been capable of something like that.

And he was still staring at her, entirely placid.

She straightened up, allowing her expression to grow colder, and attempted to affect the kind of Hyuuga nobility that her father and Hanabi emanated so effortlessly. Showing weakness to Itachi Uchiha struck her as a terrible idea.

"Why are you following me?" Hinata asked, her meal forgotten.

"Following you?" he asked. Itachi was younger than she had been when she'd graduated, but despite his age, his voice was completely composed, and it already held hints of the baritone it would eventually become.

Hinata frowned, tapping her temple and indicating her eyes. Itachi's expression didn't shift. He looked nothing but innocent.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about, ma'am," he said politely. "I was just going to turn a mission in. I didn't mean to follow you."

How he could say something so blatantly false so confidently after walking in and sitting down next to her was baffling.

"You shouldn't lie." Hinata leaned back, keeping her eyes on him. "You were watching me; you followed me in here. Did your family send you?"

Itachi's eyes narrowed, just very slightly, and his Sharingan activated. Three tomoe spiraled out, and the dull red sheen of his eyes was visible even in the brightly lit restaurant.

The temperature seemed to drop several degrees.

"You don't belong here," he said, colder than Hinata herself could ever have hoped to be.

She rocked back, her façade cracking.

"What?"

How could he know? Did his eyes see something that no one else could? Was something about her irrevocably alien to the past?

"I have memorized the faces of eighty percent of the village's ninja; I am currently working on the rest," Itachi said, echoing Hinata's motion and tapping his temple in reference to his own Doujutsu. "In particular, I have made sure to know the faces of the major clans: the Yamanaka, the Uchiha, the Aburame, the Inuzuka, the Akamichi, and Nara, the Sarutobi, and the Hyuuga."

He dropped his hand to the table, casually resting it. "And you are no Hyuuga. You look like several of them, but match none of them. Thus, you do not belong here."

Or maybe he was just hellishly observant.

"So you _were_ following me?" Hinata asked.

"I saw you leave the Hokage's tower," Itachi said. "Why are you in the village? Who sent you?"

When had this become _her _interrogation?

"I _am _a Hyuuga," Hinata said.

"You have the Byakugan," Itachi conceded. "And it's clearly real: you were able to track me from a street away."

He frowned. "But I still have never seen you before. And you knew immediately that I was from a clan."

"I was… on a mission," Hinata lied. Poorly. She shouldn't have given away that she knew who he was. "I was reporting back to the Sandaime."

"You're lying." Itachi immediately called her on it. His face shifted slightly. "But only about being about on a mission."

Hinata's eyes widened minutely. She really couldn't hide anything from the Sharingan.

"You were meeting with the Hokage?" Itachi asked, and she nodded.

"Why?"

'To tell him that you're going to murder your whole family in a couple years,' was what Hinata wanted to say.

"I can't tell you," was what she _did _say.

Itachi stared right through her. "Clan secrets?" he asked.

"If you really are curious," Hinata said politely, glad that the conversation had shifted towards something less accusatory, "go ask the Hokage. It's up to him whether you should know anything."

Though the chances of the Sandaime actually giving Itachi any information were incredibly unlikely.

"Hmm." Itachi didn't frown, though he sounded like he wanted to. He stood up, slipping out of the booth as soundlessly as he'd entered it.

He turned to her, and bowed. "I'm sorry for taking your time, Hyuuga-san," he said, his voice as polite as ever. "Have a pleasant day."

And then he vanished in a puff of smoke.

'_Kage Bunshin.'_

Hinata activated her Byakugan on reflex, just in time to see the real Itachi slip away into Konoha's crowd. She deactivated her eyes with a sigh.

He hadn't acted threatening at all. In fact, he'd been unfailingly polite after his initial accusation. But talking to him had still been chilling. There had been something off: his words were measured unnaturally, especially for someone so young, and he'd seemed _too_ relaxed.

Even as a child, Itachi Uchiha was an unusual one.

She looked back at her food. She wasn't really hungry anymore, but it would be terrible to waste it. Especially after the owner had insisted on her not paying.

Hinata shrugged, and went back to her meal.

* * *

She finished with a satisfied noise and left the restaurant, bowing to the owner on the way out. The man favored her with a grin, and made a vague invitation for her to return anytime.

It seemed somewhat surreal. For all she knew, the next time she saw him would be ten years from now. Or maybe her younger self would pass by this very place the next day.

It made her head spin. She almost stopped as she stepped out the door, leaning against the frame for a moment.

If she were here, and her younger self was as well… would there be two of them when she returned to her own time?

Her father had said the women to go before her had appeared, even though she hadn't been born due to circumstance. Hinata could only assume she'd prevented her own birth. At least there was no danger of that here.

But by consequence, would she come back to a Konoha with a second Hinata, one that was her own age?

She hoped not. That would be incredibly confusing.

Though, Hinata reflected, _that _Hinata would probably be very different. She would have an uncle, and hopefully a friendlier cousin.

And a father who knew that she would become a ninja. Not a great ninja, but a ninja nonetheless.

Perhaps that Hinata would be better off.

Perhaps-

"Hyuuga-sama?"

She started, turning towards the voice. An ANBU had approached her.

He stared at her through a sparsely decorated mask. It looked like an emaciated hyena. He was also wearing a thick grey cloak, non-descript even with his distinctive mask.

"Yes?" she almost stammered, pushing herself away from the door. Her side didn't hurt when she did it: it seemed she was finally starting to truly heal.

The ANBU inclined his head. "I have been sent to collect you," he said, his voice a hollow monotone. He sounded dead tired: Hinata supposed he might have just been on a patrol, though his cloak seemed clean.

"Collect me?" Hinata echoed. "By the Hokage?" The ANBU nodded.

"Alright then." The Hyuuga stepped into the street proper, leaving the door open behind her. "Which way?"

The ANBU silently turned away, striding down the street, and Hinata followed. Her leg didn't hurt as much anymore either. Maybe some food had done her more good than she'd thought.

They walked in utter silence for several minutes, threading their way through the dwindling crowds. The midday was coming an end, and the greater part of Konoha's foot traffic had vanished with it.

Hinata watched the back of the man's head with some confusion. He hadn't even tried to talk to her. ANBU were supposed to be stoic, but he went somewhere beyond that.

She activated her Byakugan for just a moment, taking a look at the face under the mask. The man was completely blank looking, staring straight ahead without a hint of emotion or inflection. Each of his steps was perfectly measured, the distance the same each time.

Hinata deactivated her eyes, internally worried for the ANBU. He looked like he could use a nap. Or five.

The man suddenly turned, walking towards the entrance of an alleyway.

Hinata frowned.

"We're not going the right way," she called out.

The man stopped, slowly turning his head towards her.

"Pardon?" he asked politely, his dead voice making the inquiry anything but a question.

"The Hokage's Tower," Hinata said, stepping forward. "It's in the northern part of the village: we're walking south. Where are we going?"

The ANBU paused for a moment, and then gestured at the alley.

Hinata walked up next to him, peering into the slice of darkness between the buildings. "What's in there?" she asked.

"A man who very dearly wishes to meet you," the ANBU said. Hinata looked at him, doubt clear in her eyes.

"Do not worry." The reassurance may have well have been silence for all the good it did. "Your father is watching us at this very moment, along with some of your clansmen. He would intervene if you were in danger, no?"

Hinata stared at the man for a moment. He was right about that, at least.

The ANBU didn't wait for an answer. He just moved into the alley, his walk as robotic as ever, and turned towards one of the darkened walls. Then, he paused. He was waiting for her to follow.

Hinata, her mouth twisting in worry, did just that.

The man promptly reached out and laid his hand on the wall.

There was a pause, a rumbling noise, and then a portion of the wall slid aside, revealing itself as a facade. Behind it was a complete darkness, so black that Hinata couldn't see more than three feet inside.

The ANBU unflinchingly walked into it, wordlessly expecting Hinata to follow.

She hesitated. Walking into a dark hallway after a masked stranger, while injured, was probably not the best idea.

But her father was watching her, and besides, Hinata found herself intensely curious about who could want to talk to her… and who had the influence to send an ANBU to 'collect' her.

She strode into the black after the masked man, and the wall slid closed behind her.

* * *

There were stairs. Stairs everywhere.

It was a labyrinth of them. A seemingly endless maze, spiralling out into the darkness in every direction.

Hinata and the masked man descended through them, deeper into the dark. The Hyuuga looked around in wonder: there was an entire world here, hidden beneath the village. A world of shadows, catwalks, and winding stairs. If she listened carefully, she could hear water far below, the sound of it sloshing echoing up to her, carried by metal and reflected by stone.

It was amazing. And also undeniably ominous. Hinata had never heard of this blackened undercity: what she was witnessing was no doubt a village secret.

Then again, at the moment _she _was most likely a village secret…

They reached the end of their stairwell, moving onto a wide catwalk, seemingly suspended by nothing at all. The man didn't shift his relentless pace, or turn toward her: he just moved down the metal road, and Hinata followed, not wanting to be left behind in the dark.

They reached a crossroad, and turned right, moving down a walkway that was just slightly narrower.

Then another crossroad. And another.

Hinata lost track of how many turns they'd made. It could have been anywhere between eight and twelve, and they all seemed to lead to the same place: the walls always seemed the same distance away, and the sound of water far below never changed in volume.

Finally, they came to a walkway that tapered itself out, becoming just wide enough for two people. It had no railings, though Hinata wasn't worried about falling: she wasn't nearly so weak anymore that gripping the metal beneath her with chakra was at all difficult.

At the end of the walkway was a door. It was a simple iron construction, with a blue finish and a polished knob. It seemed utterly unremarkable, just like her guide.

The man finally turned to her. It was the first time she'd seen his mask in at least ten minutes.

"Through there," he said, gesturing to the door. "He's waiting for you."

"Who?" Hinata asked.

The man didn't answer. Instead, he stepped backwards, melting into the deeper darkness behind him; there was nowhere for him to go, but nevertheless he vanished without a sound, lost to the shadows.

Hinata stared at where he'd been, and then looked at the iron door.

She swallowed, at stepped forward, reaching for the handle.

It opened soundlessly, swinging on well greased hinges.

A warm light spilled out. Hinata cocked her head, and then stepped through the door.

What she found on the other side was completely at odds with everything she'd seen so far.

It was a small room. A lamp burned gently in the corner, and there was a short wooden table in the center, a fine white teapot and twin cups laid out upon it. Two cushions sat on either side of the table.

Hinata blinked.

"Ah. You came."

It was a voice. Old, cracked, but almost soothing, with a velvet undertone. Like silk laid over gnarled wood.

She looked around, and found the owner of the voice.

An ancient man, standing in the corner of the room. He held a wooden cane in a tight grip in his left hand, leaning slightly on it. His face was covered in bandages, concealing his forehead and wrapping around to cover his right eye, and his right arm was hung in some sort of oversized sling, the collar of which came up over his neck.

"I'm glad," he said, stepping forward. He slowly limped himself over to the cushion farthest from Hinata, sinking down onto it with a deep, relaxed sigh. He laid the cane aside, clenching and unclenching his hand.

The bandaged man looked up at Hinata. "Won't you join me?" he asked, his visible eye crinkling.

"Who are you?" Hinata asked.

The man pursed his lips, and gestured slowly with his free hand.

Hinata walked over to the table, not taking her eyes off of the older man. Carefully, she sank to her knees on the cushion.

The man silently reached out for the teapot, and gently lifted it into the air with his sole hand. It didn't shake in the slightest as he gracefully poured Hinata a cup of steaming tea.

"There," he croaked, moving the pot back and pouring himself a cup. "Such things must be done carefully, you know."

"What do you mean?" Hinata asked, still watching him carefully.

"Well," the man said, with a hint of humor. "At my age, it can be difficult to do something as simple as pouring tea. I must stay in practice."

Hinata stared at him, reaching out for her tea. She cupped both her hands around it, appreciating the warmth.

"Who are you?" she asked again.

"Inquisitive, aren't you?" the man asked.

Hinata didn't answer. The man sighed.

"Very well. Straight to business, then?" he said.

He placed the teapot back down. It made a subtle clink on the table.

"My name is Danzo Shimura," Danzo said, his hand to his cup.

"Why was I taken here?" Hinata asked.

"Taken?" Danzo asked, his head rocking back slightly. "You weren't _taken_, were you? I insisted that you be invited."

"Your man said that he'd been sent to 'collect' me," Hinata said, shifting. Danzo lifted his tea to his mouth, taking a sip.

"Tssk." Danzo shook his head, setting his cup back down. "My apologies, Hyuuga-sama. I'll have to reprimand him: I'd never dreamed he'd be so brusque."

"That's... alright," Hinata said slowly. She lifted the tea to her mouth, subtly smelling it.

As far as she could tell, it was fine. And Danzo himself had just drank from the same pot.

Besides, what would he gain by poisoning her?

"Why have I been invited, Shimura-san?" she asked, sipping at her tea.

"I wanted to have a conversation with you, of course," Danzo said, his mouth crinkling into a gentle smile. "Hiruzen never comes to me fast enough anymore, you see."

Hinata hesitated, setting her cup back down. "The Hokage?" she asked.

"Oh yes," Danzo said, drinking some more of his tea. "He and I go very far back… though you probably wouldn't know much about that. It's not common knowledge."

"You're a friend of his?" Hinata probed.

"One of the oldest," Danzo confirmed. "It's why I make my home down here, you see."

"I… don't understand," Hinata said, reaching for her cup.

"Ah… it's an old rivalry," Danzo said casually. "Hiruzen is the Hokage, and I work beneath him.."

He chuckled. "In a somewhat literal sense, I suppose." Then, he composed himself again.

"Sarutobi is the trunk, the body of the tree that is Konoha… and I, the roots that support it. I remain below, in darkness, so that I can do what is necessary for the village's survival."

"Black-ops?" Hinata asked. "But I thought the ANBU-"

Danzo waved her off. "The ANBU, yes. It's an open agreement between myself and Hiruzen: he handles the running of the village, and I ensure that no one grows to threaten it, operating from the shadows."

"I see."

"So you do..." Danzo said, leaning back with a muffled crack from his back. "Well, to get to the point… You met with Hiruzen earlier. I know you are a new arrival in the village: I was unaware any Hyuuga were on long term missions outside the village, especially any so young."

He gave her an inquisitive look. "What were you meeting with him about?"

Hinata hesitated.

"You're the Hokage's friend?" she asked.

"Of course," Danzo affirmed. He leaned in. "Even now, your father is watching the both of us. I'm sure you can feel it. Trust me: anything that passes between us will be with his blessing."

Hinata took a deep breath.

"I'm a time traveler," she said.

Danzo blinked, leaning back. "Really," he breathed out.

Hinata nodded.

"From the past, or…"

"The future," Hinata confirmed.

"_Amazing_," Danzo said. He sounded like he really meant it.

"How could you possibly have done that?" the old man mused, his tea forgotten.

Hinata told him.

* * *

"How much did you tell him?"

Saying Hiashi looked grim would be an exaggeration, but he far from happy.

Hinata looked up at her father. The street seemed unusually warm, compared to the labyrinth of stairs she now knew was below her.

"Not everything," she said calmly.

That man may have been friendly, may have been the Hokage's friend... but he was not the Hokage.

Hiashi smirked. "Well done, my daughter."

Apparently, she had made the right decision.

He turned, and Hinata walked beside him.

"You acted well with Itachi, too," Hiashi said. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop him approaching you."

"It's fine, father," Hinata said. "Talking to him was… interesting." She paused. "Did he actually go to the Hokage?"

Hiashi paused, and Hinata stopped with him.

"He did," her father said flatly. Then, he chuckled.

"What happened?" Hinata asked.

"Oh, I think you'd best find that out yourself," her father said, resuming his walk. "How was your visit to the Jinchuuriki?"

This time, Hinata was the one who stopped.

Slowly, a smile spread across her face.

"It was… good. I'm glad I went," she declared. Her father smiled.

"I'm glad you feel that way, then," he said. He resumed walking once more, and Hinata had to jog for a moment to catch up to him. She didn't feel nearly as sore anymore.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"The compound," Hiashi responded. Glancing at her. His smile was slipping away, but his eyes still held a hint of lightness.

"There's something you should see."

* * *

**AN: Don't think I'll make a habit of this. This is just what happens when I give up a Saturday.**

**Unfortunately, I don't usually have that luxury. **

**Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Serendipity, out.  
**


	5. A Lesson in Hope

The Girl Who Spun Through Time 

Chapter 5

_My apologies, lost one. It's time to set the board._

* * *

"What on earth is it?"

Hinata stared up past the lip of the roof, her eyes narrowed in confusion. Her father, standing next to her, crossed his arms. They weren't the only ones there; Hizashi had joined him, his face mirroring his twins. Both he and his brother wore identical looks of mild curiosity. All of their Byakugan were active. It was the only way to see the thing.

"It's where you arrived from," her father said. He stirred, tapping his arm with his index finger. "Rather peculiar, isn't it?"

Hinata didn't know what to call it. A rip? A hole? A tear?

She settled on that one. That's what it was. A tear in space: a distortion in the air, beyond which something was invisibly rippling. Looking directly at it was making the hair on Hinata's neck stand on end. It was only about two meters tall and a foot wide, somewhat resembling her proportions. Colors that Hinata had never seen before flickered across it like lightning, occasionally pushing into the ordinary air around it before snapping back into the tear. It wasn't making any noise, but Hinata almost wished it were. The silence was more disconcerting than a sound would have been. Her fingers involuntarily twitched.

The tear was sitting just above the roof she'd fallen off of. It was a surreal anomaly against the cloudy blue sky. Everything about it was simply out of place.

"Was there something like that with my… predecessor?" Hinata asked, taking a moment to decide on the word. Her father shook his head, and Hizashi glanced at him.

"No," he said. "When she arrived, there was no residue. She simply snapped into existence. This must be due to the Rinnegan."

Hinata peered more deeply at it. Something about the sight was tickling her conscious. It almost seemed familiar.

"Is it dangerous?" she asked distantly. Her father's lips creased: his equivalent of a shrug.

"We don't know," he responded. He shared a look with his brother, and Hizashi idly drew a kunai from his sleeve. Without ceremony, he tossed it up into the tear.

Hinata flinched, expecting an explosion or something equally dramatic. Instead, the knife slipped right through the distortion. A single arc of purple-green light snuck along the blade, and then it was through, sailing deeper into the compound.

It landed directly on an oni figurine a couple feet from the Branch Houses barracks, a figure that was all ragged teeth and oversized ears. The knife dug deeply into the stone statue's forehead and settled there, eating up the sun's light. Hiashi cocked an eyebrow.

"Oh come," his brother said without looking at him. "We both know that thing was already hideous." Hinata stifled a giggle. She'd been too young to remember much of her uncle when he'd died, but her father had mentioned his sense of humor before. He hadn't been lying.

Hiashi snorted. "Well," he said, moving on. "It doesn't seem to have any effect on metal." He put his hands together in a familiar sign, and Hinata cocked her head. It almost looked like-

A shadow clone popped into existence, and Hinata started. Her father glanced at her.

"What?"

She blinked back. "I didn't know you knew that jutsu."

Hiashi frowned. "It's relatively simple, though not especially helpful in the field. Far too much of drain." The clone set off, leaping up onto the roof. "It's exceedingly useful for recon, though. Particularly in situations like this."

Hinata nodded as the clone reached the edge of the tear. It stopped, slowly reaching a hand out. More oddly-colored light played across his fingers, and then Hiashi's double stuck its hand fully into the tear. The distortion twisted the clone's hand, making it look as though it were underwater. The kage bunshin clenched his fist, and then withdrew, shaking its hand out. It popped a moment later, and Hiashi frowned, looking down.

"Hmm," he muttered. "Cold." He looked up at his daughter. "It didn't seem to do the clone any harm though. Whatever it is, it's not dangerous."

"Hmm." Hizashi made the exact same noise. "Have you told the Hokage yet?"

"Of course. I sent him a messenger." Hiashi's mouth twisted. "Though he still may be dealing with Itachi. We'll see, I suppose."

"Wait," Hinata meekly spoke up. "This wasn't here when we went to meet with him?"

Her father shook his head. "Precisely. It came into being while we were there; I was only made aware afterwards."

Hinata turned back to look at the tear. "That…" she said uncertainly. Hizashi picked up her thought.

"That could just be coincidence," he cautioned. "But it also implies certain things. It's possible someone, or something, has activated this from the other side."

Hinata paused. 'The other side.' The words resonated in her for a moment.

"You mean the present," she said. Her uncle nodded.

"Exactly." He hesitated. "This may be your way back, Hinata."

Hiashi turned to his brother in surprise. "It didn't react to me," he said. "Why would it-?"

"She's the one who was thrown through time," Hizashi stated, staring at Hinata. "And I'm sure you've noticed by now, Hiashi. Her chakra is _different_. There's something about it that's simply off. I always expect it to be a step or two behind her."

Hinata started, and more so when her father grimly nodded. She hadn't been aware of that. Maybe Itachi Uchiha had been pursuing her for reasons more than what he'd revealed after all.

"I believe," Hizashi continued, "it would have a different reaction if she were the one to touch it."

Hiashi stared at his brother, his brow creased in thought, and then he shifted his gaze to Hinata.

"What do you think, my daughter?"

Hinata looked away from her father and back up at the tear. It seemed to swell in her vision.

A way back?

Back to the present: to Naruto, and probably to Pain. Away from all these familiar unfamiliar faces and too young blonds. Back to the familiar, though she might be stepping into just as much danger as when she left. Her body wasn't hurting anymore; she was nearly healed. Could she undo her mistakes? The gap between her and Pain was far too high, but if she were able to free Naruto-

Hinata shook her head, blowing the thoughts away. A new one crept in, a freezing ice in her heart as she watched her father await her answer.

'_She didn't_ exist _anymore, thanks to certain circumstances. Yet, she appeared anyway: a clear indication that after her time was up, she returned to her present, though it had been drastically altered by her actions.'_

Her present was gone. Her Konoha was gone. Her Naruto was gone. It had vanished, replaced by whatever village had been crafted by her actions here. It wouldn't be her home she'd be returning to. She'd be just as much a stranger there as she was here; a girl out of time.

Hinata fell to her knees. Her father took a step forward, his hand reaching out. "Hinata?"

"Why should I go back?" she whispered. Her father stared at the back of her head. "Why should I go back?"

"Why?" her father asked, confused. "It's-"

"It's not," Hinata said quietly, shaking her head. "It's not. You said my predecessor appeared even though she'd never been born." Her father's eyes narrowed. "She didn't go back to where she'd come from. It was different; she'd changed things."

Hiashi's daughter looked back at him, her lip trembling. "_I've _changed things." She nodded towards her uncle. "I saved your brother. I told the Hokage _everything_. I told Danzo about Pain, Orochimaru..." She lowered her head. "I can't go back. I erased my home. There's nothing to go back to."

Her father didn't respond. Not immediately. Hizashi didn't make a noise. He just silently watched Hinata kneel. A breeze rushed through the compound, carrying with it an ozone tang.

After a moment, Hinata's father stepped to her side, and dropped to one knee. He rested his hand on her shoulder.

"Stay, then," he said. Hinata looked up at him.

"Father?"

"If there's nothing for you to go back to," he said assuredly. "You simply stay."

Hinata blinked. "You'd… let me? What if I-?"

"Of course I'd let you." Hiashi almost seemed affronted. "And I don't believe you'll be disappearing like your predecessor. She had no such tear appear for her; that leads to the conclusion that your travel was fundamentally different from hers, aside from your undamaged eyes." He gave her a hard smile. "It's entirely possible you'll never travel back at all, unless you step through that tear."

"But… w-what if you're wrong?" Hinata asked. Her father shrugged.

"Then I'll have been wrong. But better you be sent back accidentally than purposefully, if there is nothing for you there," he said confidently. He squeezed Hinata's shoulder, rising to his feet. Hinata stayed on her knees for a moment, and her father stuck out his hand. She looked at it as though it were an alien object.

A new home, amongst the familiar unfamiliar faces. A chance to make real change, instead of watching it happen.

A chance to make sure Naruto wasn't alone.

The ice in her heart crept away. Hinata reached out and took her father's hand. He pulled her to her feet.

"Come," Hiashi said. "Let's go inside. We need to talk about what comes next."

Hinata nodded, and her father smiled. Behind him, Hizashi grinned, a much more unrestrained motion. Then, his eyes went wide.

"Hiashi!" he shouted, and Hinata's father looked up and away from her. He blinked, veins spiraling out around his eyes, and his mouth went wide. Without hesitation, he spun, not releasing Hinata's hand, and threw her back towards her uncle.

Hinata tumbled into Hizashi's arms, her mind reeling.

'_What?'_

"Go!" her father shouted. Hinata finally activated her Byakugan as Hizashi turned and sprinted away, still holding her. He set her down mid-sprint and suddenly they were both running. The world expanded, the tear becoming visible again, and Hinata choked as she saw what had made her father throw her away.

There was a thick snarl of chakra protruding from the tear, moving towards her at ludicrous speeds. Hinata recognized the pursuing chakra: it looked exactly like the ribbon that had engulfed her in the endless and lightless void she'd been thrust into by the Rinnegan. Before, she had needed to touch it. Now, it seemed happy to try and consume her regardless.

Her father sidestepped the bolt of lavender light, chopping down with a hand lit with Jūken chakra. He sliced clean through the ribbon, and the chakra past his cut wilted and vanished, no longer sustained. But before Hinata could draw another breath, more arcs of light shot from the tear, all the same lavender color. They went over and around her father, a shoal of sharks slicing through the air, intent on their target.

Hiashi didn't say anything. He just immediately spun into a Kaiten, cutting several of the ribbons and driving a deep divot in the ground around him. More Hyuuga were bursting from their homes across the compound, at least half a dozen. Drawn towards the commotion, their Byakugan flaring, they leapt onto the scene and began cutting the ribbons apart without question, following Hiashi's lead.

It was impressive, but it wasn't nearly enough. Hinata was nearly fifty meters away, nearing the compound entrance. Distance was the only safety here; the ribbons were too agile, and fast, to evade. Hizashi was still beside her, his lips set in a grim line.

"What is it?" he asked her. A dozen more ribbons died, and two-dozen replaced them. The tear looked like some sort of many-armed monster, reaching out to devour her, heedless of the damage her clansmen did to it. Hinata bit her lip.

"I saw these," she said. "When I was travelling. It's how I-"

Three of the ribbons broke through the Hyuuga assault, speeding towards Hinata. She and Hizashi turned, striking out; Hizashi's blow severed two, and Hinata's split the last clean in half lengthwise.

But instead of withering as the other ribbons had, the two Hizashi had struck down tied together, remaining functional. Neither of the Hyuuga had time to react before the reborn ribbon punched through Hinata's chest.

"Guh!"

Hinata looked down at the ribbon transfixing her. There wasn't any blood, or pain. The chakra had transfixed her, pinning her in place, without harming her. Hizashi stared in horror. Fifty meters away, her father echoed the look. The ribbon pulsed.

She didn't hesitate. As soon as she realized she wasn't dead, Hinata brought her arm up to chop the impaling chakra in half. But as she did so, it retracted towards the tear at insane speeds, the acceleration dragged her arms back, and her attack was neutralized before it began. She covered the distance to her father in the blink of an eye, and then shot past him without a sound. She struggled the whole way to attack the ribbon, expel chakra, do _anything_, but it was all in vain.

Her father's hand shot out, just half a moment too soon. Instead of piercing the ribbon, his hand just brushed his daughter's.

Then she was gone. She hit the tear like a cannonball, and the rippling light swallowed the world. The last thing she heard was Hiashi's voice, raised like she'd never heard it before: a bark that propelled her out of time.

"_Hinata_!"

* * *

She was adrift in the void once more.

Hinata stared around at the nothing, her father's cry echoing through her head. All she could think of was what a cruel joke it was to be taken away at that moment. It almost made her think something out there in that colorless emptiness was out to get her.

"Heh."

The Hyuuga couldn't tell if she were laughing or crying. The ribbon in her chest was gone; she was utterly alone, and blind.

Blind. Why blind? The last time she had been here, the nothing had hurt to look at. Her head had felt like it was on fire. All she'd wanted to do was shut off her…

Ah. Her Byakugan wasn't active.

She switched on, bracing for the pain. The sense of being _lost _was far worse. Like she had flicked a switch, the void was no longer a void. Colorful ribbons, just like the one that had dragged her here, swirled across every space, impossibly overlapping yet distinct. Each was a unique shade, though some were undeniably the same. It didn't make sense to look at, didn't make sense to _think _about, and Hinata winced.

She wasn't able to find her feet, kept afloat in the place between times. Last time she'd been here, she'd simply reached out and grasped the closest ribbon before being drawn into the past. Here, they were all an infinite distance away, though they were right in front of her face. Hinata could never have reached them, would never, could not…

Hinata shook her head. The pain was getting worse with every moment. She had to escape this place; she wasn't supposed to be here. It was wrong all wrong going to be wrong was wrong-

Suddenly, she was _moving_. Not under her own power; Hinata glided through the vibrant abyss like a ship without a sail. One of the ribbons, no tears, they were _tears_, one of the tears was drawing closer and closer. Unlike the lavender one, it was an ugly gray color, the color of burned dirt or decaying moss. Hinata flailed her arms to no avail. She was going to crash right into it. Or was it moving towards her? In this place, it was impossible to tell.

The ugly ribbon-tear reared up over her. Hinata stared at it hopelessly. This was the future she had made for herself; the future she'd cut herself out of. She probably deserved it.

The Hyuuga closed her eyes, though it didn't hide a thing, and the rip in time swallowed her whole.

* * *

It was extraordinarily cold. That was the first thing Hinata noticed as she plummeted through the air. It almost nevergot this cold in Konoha: the Land of Fire was a rather temperate place. It rarely rained, and it had only snowed once in Hinata's memory. The chill was entirely shocking to her. If wherever she had ended up was so cold, it definitely wasn't The Village Hidden in the Leaves.

The thought wasn't exactly comforting. Neither was the fact that the jump through time had once more deactivated her Byakugan and shocked her chakra system. All Hinata could see was the sky, sleet grey and empty of stars. She was falling blind. The Hyuuga cringed. This was probably going to hurt.

The impact came without warning. Hinata crashed to the ground, all the air expelled from her lungs in a single harsh grunt. The landing wasn't soft, but it hadn't been as bad as she'd imagined it. She lay still for a moment, staring up at the starless sky. Slowly, she began to realise it wasn't the only thing above her. Buildings, colored red and green and other vibrant shades, loomed all around her, reduced to grey by the dull night.

They looked oddly familiar. Groaning, she levered herself up on one shaking arm, trying to clear her head. The pain in her head was fading, banished by the chill air. She looked around, her hair sliding over her shoulder.

Her mind hiccupped, resetting after a moment. Hinata frowned.

This _was _Konoha. She recognized this place; she'd been there earlier today… no, just earlier, no longer today. She was only a street or two away from the teriyaki shop Itachi Uchiha had tracked her too.

This was Konoha, it was cold, and Hinata had no idea where anyone was. The streets were as quiet as a graveyard. Usually, there was some sort of sound emanating from deeper into the village: people having parties, ninja training in the dark, late night restaurants doing business. But there was none of that. The air was still, and most of the lights that should have decorated the streets were hanging unlit.

Hinata pulled her under arm under her. Why was everything like this? What possible change could she have made that would result in such a… dead place? Was this even _her _present?

The sound of rushing feet drew her attention. Attempting to activate the Byakugan just drew a twinge: the Hyuuga had to resort to turning her head.

She found herself looking down the length of a gleaming steel sword. Hinata blinked, scrambling backwards with sudden strength, and the sword followed her, staying right before her throat. She looked up the blade, finding a featureless gloved hand holding it. Above that, the arm was completely wrapped in bandages.

After a moment of eternity, her eyes found the face of the man holding a sword to her throat. She started, a small gasp escaping her. She knew this face. The last time she had seen it, it had been healthy and wrinkled, though covered in bandages. Now, it was horrifying and alien. The man's skin was pale as parchment, and run through with cracks. Ruptures ran all across his face, bisecting his lips, marring his cheeks… and driving directly through the glaring Sharingan in his right socket. Its sclera was black, harsh against the gleaming red, and as Hinata watched, it twisted, transforming from its three-tomoe configuration into a harsh four-pointed star.

"And who," Danzo Shimura, teaming with cracks and peering down with an impossible Sharingan, asked, "are you?"

* * *

**AN: Well, I suppose there's no going back.**


	6. A Lesson in Expectations

The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Chapter 6

_Ah. It's as I thought. Let's begin._

* * *

Hinata didn't move away from the sword at her throat; she was sure the man in front of her would shove it through her trachea if she did. He was completely on edge, ready to take action at a moment's notice.

He couldn't be Danzo Shimura. Danzo didn't have a Sharingan; Danzo didn't look like a porcelain cup that had been dropped and hastily glued back together. At least, he hadn't the last time she had seen him.

Hinata realized that had been thirteen years ago. A lot could have happened in thirteen years. Her chest constricted, as though her someone were squeezing her heart, and Hinata's face went white.

"Shimura-san?" she asked respectfully. The man didn't lower his sword. "Don't you recognize me?"

The man's eyes narrowed, his Sharingan gleaming in the dim light. "You look like Hinata Hyuuga," he said, his grip tightening around his sword. "That is, of course, impossible. So I'll ask one more time. Who are you?"

"I am Hinata Hyuuga," Hinata said warily. Her eyes ached, and she closed them momentarily, trying to blink the wariness away. Her chakra system felt tangled; every inch of it buzzed with dull pain. Something coldly familiar was coursing through it, leaving her covered with goosebumps. "We met, thirteen or so years ago. After I had traveled through time. I'm… back." Danzo blinked and cocked his head, the crack running through his shining red eye folding with the motion.

HInata looked around at the silent village and then at Danzo's marred face. The man was staring at her, his brow wrinkling. His Sharingan slowly rotated, seeing something she could not.

"No such thing happened," he said flatly, and Hinata rocked back. "All this proves is that you are not Hinata Hyuuga." He sneered, just a little. "You could have at least provided a more plausible story."

"I am!" Hinata protested. "What happened while I was gone? Why is the village so dark? And your face!" Danzo's free hand unconsciously raised to his cheek before falling away. "I don't understand what's going on. I thought-"

She blinked heavily, slamming her mouth shut.

'_I thought I'd changed things for the better.'_

"Prove it then," Danzo said after a brief pause. "Activate your Byakugan."

Hinata frowned, and after some hesitation she slowly brought her hand up with two fingers extended. Danzo watched the whole thing intently, ready to cut her down. Her skin prickled with more goosebumps, and her hand trembled. Her chakra refused to respond. It felt as though her internal organs were in a vice: she could not breathe.

She wanted to scream.

"As I thought," Danzo said.

"You can't!" Her hand came up, curled into a fist from the pain. It knocked away the blade as it bit into her neck, leaving a small cut on both it and her palm. "I've still got to-!"

Danzo snarled and swung once more, and the blade moved in an inexorable arc towards her chest. Hinata watched the attack that would end her life, unable to believe what was happening.

There was a burst of dull yellow, and everything disappeared.

Hinata blinked.

Konoha was gone, along with Danzo. She was on top of a building, looking out over a field of snowy field spotted with patches of black. A mountain, enormous and craggy, loomed in the distance, as though the earth had grown teeth. Before it, though still kilometers from her, was an extensive forest cloaked in white. The darkness of the dull night had vanished; now, her sight was filled with anemic light.

The Hyuuga stumbled back with a gasp and tripped. The world spun, tilting upwards into an endless expanse of grey and white. Hinata hit the roof, her breath exploding out of her along with a pained grunt. Her fingers dug into the snow, dampening her hand and magnifying the stinging from the cut on her palm, her nails scraping on the stone beneath her.

Slowly, the prickling pain in her chakra system receded. Her heart started beating more regularly; the vice loosened.

For nearly thirty seconds, she stared at the sky, unable to understand what had just happened. It seemed completely dead. The clouds hung heavy and low, unmoving, like stones ready to slam down on the world. But it wasn't dark anymore, like it had been in Konoha: just pale.

Eventually, she voiced out loud what was invariably echoing through her mind. It was a quiet sound in the ocean of emptiness around her; Hinata's own voice nearly frightened her.

"Naruto?"

That color she'd seen had been unmistakable. There wasn't another like it in the world. Yellow, bright even in the dark. That had been Naruto's hair.

He must have been there, with the cracked, fake-looking Danzo and the empty village. Naruto must have been there. And if he'd been the last thing she'd seen before coming here…

It could be a genjutsu. A very strange one, considering Danzo had been about to execute her. There'd be little point to it. But how else could she have arrived here? It had been instant. One second, the sword had been at her neck. The next, she had been on top of the building, clearly far away from Konoha. Traveling so far in an instant was just as impossible as traveling through time.

And yet, here she was.

Hinata finally started to pull herself, rubbing the back of her head. A small bruise was already forming where she'd slammed it into the stone. She pulled her foot back, and it dragged over whatever had tripped her. She looked down.

It was a man, clad in hefty grey plate armor. He was spattered with ash and blood, and an arrow covered in dry blood transfixed his throat. One of his hands was clutching a thick sword. The other was missing. A horned helmet lay nearby, split nearly in half at the crown. Hinata imagined it had been his.

She recognized the armor. It was worn by samurai in the Land of Iron: thick and heavy, effective at diminishing the dangers of hand-to-hand combat and the possibility of mass casualties via large-scale ninjutsu. It was not, as she recalled from her father's lessons, very effective against the Gentle Fist.

Samurai rarely left the Land of Iron. That probably meant she was somewhere there, hundreds of miles away from Konoha. The thought swept across her mind, detached and cold as her surroundings. Hinata felt herself shut down parts of brain as she regarded her situation: the parts screaming about broken old men and flashes of blond hair. She needed the quiet.

Back on her feet, she could look around with clearer eyes. The dark patches in the field weren't shrubbery or exposed grass, as she'd initially supposed. They were more bodies, all lying about like littered trash. Most were samurai, but there were shinobi as well, seemingly from Iwagakure. There were even several civilians in heavy jackets, men and women both. They had all been killed with blades and arrows, or torn apart by ninjutsu.

Hinata shivered. All of these people hadn't died long ago. The bodies hadn't decayed; this massacre had happened within the last several days. She looked back at the dead samurai. He had a beard full of frost, and a terrified twist to his lips.

She stepped away from the body, feeling at the cut on her neck. It was shallow, but painful. Steam rose from the snow where blood had dripped from her neck, across her shoulders, down her sleeve, and onto the roof of the building. Just one more ache in the days to come.

Hinata leapt off the building, landing in the snow without a sound, and regarded the scattered bodies once more. How had samurai, civilians, and shinobi from Iwagakure all come to die here? There didn't seem to be anything around. Judging by the positions of the bodies, they'd been attacked by multiple enemies, with the civilians dying first.

She brought her hand up, attempting to activate her Byakugan once more. Her chakra system wasn't as debilitated as it had been just a minute ago; she'd recovered faster from the journey through time on her second trip. While it sent unpleasant twinges racing through her entire body to focus on the energy inside her, like someone was yanking on a thread extending from the back of her neck that ran through her whole body, she wasn't close to edge of paralysis as she had been last time.

Hinata couldn't suppress a flinch as she forced chakra through her choked system. It brought with it a harsh cold rather than its ordinary warmth. It wasn't healthy to use it like that. Her eyes twitched, but gradually, the Byakugan's veins pulsed out.

The battlefield was revealed entirely to her. Thirty bodies in total: the building she'd jumped down from was a simple, bunker like construction, its entrance melted to slag. There were wolf-heads emblazoned above the disfigured rock. The field of snow was mostly flat, with several soft hills. It extended all the way to the forest at the base of the mountain she'd seen when she'd first arrived, dotted with patches of withered brown plant-life.

Hinata hardly noticed any of that thanks to the woman standing stock still about one-hundred and twenty meters to her left.

She was rather short, barely more than five feet tall, and her brown hair fell to just above her shoulders. The woman was dressed like an ANBU, though she lacked a mask and hitai-ate. She stared up at the sky, as still as a statue. The effect was enhanced by the cracks and fissures crawling across her body, and the paleness of her skin.

'_The same as Danzo.'_

Hinata shivered, and took a step towards the distant women.

'_Is it some kind of disease?'_

Her concentration punctured for a moment, the snow crunched under Hinata's feet. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, the woman spun towards her. Her eyes were wide; they were entirely black, with the exception of a yellow-red slit of a pupil.

"Umm." The Hyuuga stopped dead in her tracks. The eyes bored into her, freezing her voice in her throat. She felt as though Danzo's sword were once more pressed to her neck; the sensation made her take a step back.

The cracked woman broke in a dead sprint right at Hinata, screeching at the top of her lungs. A trail of snow exploded out behind her in a cascading wave, thrown up by the speed of her passing. She covered the space between herself and Hinata in less than a second.

The woman thrust her hand out like a spear, aimed right for the Hyuuga's heart. Hinata, acting entirely on instinct, bent backwards. She found herself looking at the sky again, with the woman's hand suddenly blocking her view. Her back ached, and the clarity of the sudden pain embedded itself in her mind.

'_What?'_

Enemy. No time to think. Muscle memory that had been trained into her since before she could walk took over, and Hinata brought her hands down to complete an ad-hoc backflip. Her feet came up, striking the screeching woman in the chin and kicking her away.

Hinata came back to her feet, settling into a low Juken stance. The madwoman spun, regaining her balance, and immediately went on the attack once more. Her bone-rattling screams continued unabated as she leapt into the air for a set of kicks. Hinata ducked the first, feeling the force of the blow send her hair whipping to the left, and plucked the second out of the air with three precise strikes to the woman's shin and kneecap. The screaming woman's leg went limp, and Hinata wrapped her free arm around it.

She intended to slam the woman to the ground and use the opportunity to seal more of her tenketsu. Unfortunately, that opportunity vanished when the woman finished drawing the tanto from the sheath in the small of her back, and unable to reach Hinata herself thanks to the length of the blade, cut off her own leg instead.

Off-balance, Hinata staggered back with the woman's leg clutched in the crook of her arm. Another kick, sent as the screaming woman fell to the ground, grazed the Hyuuga's chin and left a small scrape. Then, the woman slammed to the snow, and Hinata dropped the severed leg in shock.

The limb didn't bleed; neither did the woman it had come from. She scrambled up, falling onto her three remaining limbs like an animal. Writhing black marks scrambled up her neck and over her face, wrapping around her face. They swirled like whirlpools around her slit eyes, and her features grew steadily more monstrous under the black.

"What?!" Hinata couldn't contain the exclamation. The woman came at her again, leaping off the ground, leading with her tanto. Hinata met her with both fists.

The tanto went skittering away through the snow, knocked away by a burst of chakra, but the woman finally got a blow in. Her fist smashed into Hinata's throat, knocking the Hyuuga's breath away. Hinata rocked back, and then the woman's hand drove at her chest.

Hinata skipped back and kicked in desperation, barely evading the thrust. The woman deflected the kicks with her free hand and came on once more, drawing her hand back with her fingers forming a wedge. Hinata narrowed her eyes and refused to fall back. Instead, she rushed in and slipped past the blow, stabbing at the arm with the tips of her fingers. Tenketsu slammed shut, and the woman's arm fell limp. Hinata completed the pass, knocking away a backhand directed at her face, and dropped low to sweep the woman's feet out from under her.

The sweep was stopped by a kick to the ankle; Hinata flinched. The woman had her leg back. That was-

No: stupid to think like that. She had to stop thinking like that or she'd be-

Her opponent kicked upward, catching Hinata in the jaw and sending her tumbling backwards. She rolled back to her feet, ready to meet the inevitable follow-up. The woman looked like a beast now: her skin was pitch black, and horns had sprouted from her shoulders, her hair turning a light green and extending to nearly the length of her body. Combined with the cracks that covered her, she seemed little more than a horrific pastel monster.

The woman-turned-beast screamed again, leaping forward. Hinata threw a hand out, hoping to destroy her brain with a blast of chakra directed through the woman's eye-socket.

There was a yellow flash.

The woman staggered back. She had a pronged kunai through her head. Hinata's blow fell short, and she blinked.

By the time her eyes opened again, the woman had vanished. The kunai fell to the snow, landing point down.

Hinata froze. There was a man standing behind her, taller than her, with a long coat and bright blonde hair. Just like the woman who had abruptly vanished, he was covered in surreal fissures, like crinkled paper. He was staring at the back of her head with cold blue eyes.

He had Naruto's hair, she realized. Naruto's hair and Naruto's eyes. The effect was bizarre, seeing them in a grown man's face. He looked familiar, in a manner beyond the familiar features. Hinata couldn't help but think she'd met him before.

They stared at each other for a moment, and Hinata knew the man was making eye contact with her through the back of her head. Slowly, she dropped her arms to her sides.

"I sent her away." He spoke in a calm baritone. "Though I must apologize for putting you in such a position in the first place. I was sloppy."

Hinata started. This man was the reason she'd appeared here; he must have been the one to save her from Danzo. Perhaps with the same technique he'd used to make the beastial woman disappear.

"Who are you?" Hinata slowly turned around, keeping her Byakugan active. The man seemed totally relaxed, but she hadn't even seen him stab the woman earlier. If he decided to attack her, she wouldn't be able to react in time. "Do I know you?"

The man smiled, through the cracks in his face murdered any chance it had at being comforting. "If you really are Hinata Hyuuga, you've probably seen my face almost every day of your life."

Hinata narrowed her eyes, analyzing his features.

"I'm sorry," she said, and she couldn't help but be a little genuinely apologetic. "It's been a very long day."

The blond man snorted.

"I'm the Fourth Hokage," Minato Namikaze said as Hinata nearly swallowed her own tongue. "And if what you told Danzo was true, I think the both of us have a very interesting story to share."

* * *

**AN: I'm back.**


	7. A Lesson in Changes

The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Chapter 7

_Send her along. She requires no shepard. _

* * *

'_I really have no idea what's going on anymore,' _Hinata thought as the Yondaime Hokage stared her down with Naruto's eyes.

"So, is it true?" Something in the Hokage's face changed, and the ghost of a smile appeared. "Are you a time traveler?"

She shifted, rubbing the small cut on her neck; it had started itching. Her hand came away smeared with blood. "I guess I am." Slowly, her Byakugan withdrew.

"You look about… sixteen, maybe seventeen, I'd say," The Yondaime said. He frowned. "Are you from the future? When I died, there weren't any Hyuuga that were anywhere near your age."

"You died in October of 55," Hinata said, trying to keep calm as she spoke to a dead man. It was surprisingly easy; the last day had inured her to something like this. "I was born in December, the same year." Fifty-five, of course, referred to the number of years since the Hidden Villages had been established. Rarely, Hinata considered what a small number the year of her birth really was, and how new the system of life that had dominated her entire life. "And yes, I'm sixteen."

The Yondaime's frown intensified, and he scratched his chin. "Sixteen, huh…" His eyes narrowed. "So you're from 71, then? That doesn't seem possible."

"I didn't come straight from… there," Hinata said, struggling with what word to use for a moment. A gust of wind whipped by, whirling snow up and ruffling her jacket. She shivered. "I was sent back to when I was three, before something else… pulled me here." The vagueness of the phrase bothered her, but she couldn't think of something that could replace it.

"Pulled you here." The Yondaime crossed his arms. "So you didn't travel of your own volition."

Hinata shook her head. "Neither time."

"Interesting." The Yondaime looked away from her, staring out at the dead forest in the distance. "You're not like the other one, then."

Hinata stiffened. "Other one?"

"The only other Hyuuga I know of to travel through time. Or claim to, anyway," the Hokage appended. "Do you know of her?"

Hinata nodded. "My father told me, before I came here. He didn't give me any details, though."

The Yondaime shrugged. "There's little to say. I'd been Hokage for barely two weeks. She showed up one day, out of nowhere according to Hiashi…" He paused, then snapped his fingers. "You must be his daughter, then!" Hinata nodded once more, and the Yondaime smiled for the first time. "It's a pleasure to meet you then, Hinata. Anyway, you must not be like the other traveler: you're not blind, for one. How did you get here?"

"It's complicated," she said with hesitation. The Yondaime didn't smile like Naruto, despite the similar eyes. That disturbed her more than the fact the man was dead, for some reason. "I was hit by an enemy jutsu as I used the 64 Palms: that's what sent me to the past, before I came here."

"What jutsu?" the Yondaime asked, and Hinata shook her head. She rubbed her arm at the same time, trying to warm it up.

"Some sort of… gravity attack," she said, struggling to describe the Shinra Tensei. "It was used by the leader of the Akatsuki. do you know them?"

The Yondaime went strangely still. "Describe him."

Hinata pursed her lips. "He had orange hair, lots of piercings, all made of very black metal. His eyes were probably his most identifiable trait, though. They were purple, with rings." The Hokage didn't say anything, so Hinata continued. "My father and the Sandaime called it the Rinnegan."

"Yes." The Yondaime spoke abruptly. "That's exactly what it is." He looked up at the sky silently, and Hinata stood uncomfortably, waiting for him to say something else. One of her hands slipped behind her back, wrapping around her elbow, and she felt herself buckling inwards.

"Hmm." The man finally made a sound, somewhere between a grunt and thoughtful murmur. "You must come from a much happier future than this one, Hinata, if you lived to be sixteen." Hinata shivered again; it wasn't from the cold. The Hokage's wistful tone brought to mind a question that had been buried by the snow and fear earlier.

"What year is it, sir, if you don't mind me asking?"

"68." The Yondaime shook his head. "I wonder, did you know my son?"

Hinata didn't answer the question. Her head dropped, and her eyes bored into the snow, unseeing. She was entirely consumed by her own thoughts.

'_Only ten years later. Not thirteen.'_

Something was wrong: she hadn't been sent back to the present that had been altered by her actions. It was the wrong year. Had she appeared early? It was a tempting thought: there was only one other example of time travel, after all. But something about her situation seemed wholly different from the one her father had told her about. The rift, the grasping purple chakra, even the current situation. How could her telling the Sandaime about the future have brought the Yondaime back to life and placed him in Konoha, even strange looking as he (along with Danzo and the woman who had attacked her earlier) was?

No: whatever Pain's jutsu had done, it had altered the normal rules of time travel with the Byakugan, if any had existed in the first place. She couldn't take anything for granted anymore.

"Hinata?"

The Yondaime quiet but firm voice snapped the Hyuuga out of her fugue, and she jerked, looking up at him guiltily. He looked concerned. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I mean…" Was she about to cry? It almost felt like it. She was so lost. "I don't know. I'm sorry. What did you ask earlier? I didn't hear you."

"I asked if you knew my son," the cracked Hokage said patiently. Hinata blinked.

"The Yondaime… you had a son?" she asked, and the man frowned. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"His name was Naruto," the Yondaime said.

'_Oh.'_

Hinata took a step back, and the Yondaime cocked his head.

'_Oh my god.'_

"I knew your son, Yondaime-sama," Hinata heard herself faintly say. It didn't really seem like she was the one speaking.

"Well, that's good," the Yondaime said mutely. His voice came to Hinata as though there were a long tunnel between the two of them. She could see him smiling. "I barely got the chance. What was he like?"

'_What was Naruto like?'_

All Hinata could see was his horrified eyes, the same eyes looking at her right now. Those eyes staring at her, begging her to go, to run away.

'_Stop, please.'_

"He's brave," Hinata said. "Incredibly brave, and selfless, and kind. He inspires everyone around him. When he was in the academy, he wasn't the best in the class, but he was always the one who tried the hardest. He's… he's friends with most of our class, people just can't help it, he's so sincere and kind, and he's strong, he's probably the strongest one out of any of us, even stronger than Neji or Sakura or Lee. He had a tough time when he was younger because he didn't have anyone, but he never gave up, and now the whole village knows his name. And–"

'_And the last time I saw him he was begging, pinned to the ground.'_

"–and he's always wanted to be Hokage, ever since he was a child, and now I think he's really closer than ever. No one believed in him, but he's shown them they were all wrong about him."

Hinata took a breath, shaking. The Yondaime took a step forward and then another, drawing closer, and lifted one of his cracked arms. Hinata almost stepped back, before the man's hand clapped down on her shoulder, squeezing gently.

"Thank you," he said. "I can tell you were close with him." He squeezed again. "It's good to know my son had such dedicated friends."

"Has." Hinata practically whispered. "I'll see him again."

The Yondaime smiled, but it looked even falser than it should have.

"I hope so, Hinata."

"I…"

The Hokage pulled his arm away, back to his side. Hinata watched it go, her eyes playing over the fissures running all across both it and the Hokage's sleeve.

'_I wasn't really, was I? I was always too afraid to get close.'_

She didn't want to think that, so she tried to focus on something else instead.

"Sir… what's happened to you?" Hinata looked around. "What's happened _here_? I don't understand what's going on. You, and Shimura-san, and that woman...? Why do you look so… How are you even here? I need… I need to know what's going on. It doesn't make any sense."

The Yondaime gave her a dour look. "That would be _my _interesting story, I suppose." He held his hand out open-palmed, examining the back of it. "I hope you don't know what the Edo Tensei is, Hinata?"

Hinata shook her head, wondering at the Hokage's wording. The man smiled grimly.

"It's a forbidden jutsu, invented by the Second Hokage. It brings the dead back to life, through the sacrifice of another."

Hinata abruptly understood why the Yondaime had hoped she wasn't aware of whatever jutsu had reanimated him.

"So you were…?" she started to ask, before realizing it was a stupid question. Instead, she settled on what she hoped would be a more intelligent one. "Who resurrected you, Hokage-sama?"

"The Sandaime."

Hinata felt sharp shock shoot from the top of her head down to the bottom of her toes. The Sandaime? She knew he had been Hokage for most of Konoha's existence, and that such a position brought with it a certain necessary ruthlessness. Nevertheless, she could not picture the kind man who had cared so much for her aches and pains sacrificing someone's life to call a previous Kage back from the dead.

"Yes, it doesn't sound much like him, does it?" the Yondaime said, obviously having seen her muted reaction. "I doubt he would have ever resorted to it if the situation weren't so desperate."

"What do you mean?" Hinata asked.

"When you were about twelve, Hinata," the dead Hokage responded, "did Orochimaru invade Konoha during the Chunin Exams? With the assistance of Sunagakure?"

"Of course," Hinata said, and the Hokage blinked, obviously surprised. "He killed the Sandaime, but the invasion was beaten back. The alliance with Sunagakure was strengthened after." She looked down at the snow. "I was unconscious for most of it. And well… since the Sandaime had been killed by Orochimaru, Tsunade of the Sannin was made the Fifth Hokage. Then-"

The Yondaime's eyes lit up. "Interesting!" he said, and the Hinata almost smiled at the childish exclamation. "That must be the difference, then! Wherever you come from, Hinata-"

"That's not how it happened… here?" Hinata asked. One side of the Yondaime's lips quirked.

"Orochimaru must have summoned different Edo Tensei," he said, almost to himself, and Hinata leaned in slightly. "It couldn't have been Madara after all…"

Hinata frowned, considering the name. "You don't mean Madara Uchiha, do you?" It was obvious, but seemed impossible; Madara Uchiha had been one of the co-founders of Konoha. He could hardly be forgotten, even if he was nearly as famous for going mad as he was for helping create the village in the first place.

"The very same," the Fourth Hokage said in a tone Hinata couldn't identify. "He is responsible for the sorry state of Konoha, and–" he gestured at the bodies, "–what you see around you."

"So… he was summoned by Orochimaru and murdered the Sandaime?" Hinata asked, and Minato chuckled.

"No," he said. "The Sandaime didn't die. It was much worse than that."

* * *

In the end, it really was Orochimaru's fault, despite the Fourth Hokage's harsh words.

The Snake Sannin had summoned help when he had attempted to murder the Sandaime. That much, Minato Namikaze made clear to Hinata. He had used the technique devised by the Nidaime that the Hokage had told her about: the Edo Tensei. Using a genetic sample, the jutsu recalled the soul of a dead shinobi from wherever such things went, and manifested them as a nigh-immortal zombie (for lack of a better term) that was controlled by the summoner.

Orochimaru had used the Edo Tensei to summon assistance against the Sandaime, and that had been the beginning. The Sandaime had explained the rest to Minato when he had been summoned, and now Minato gravely imparted it to Hinata.

Madara Uchiha had broken the Edo Tensei, freeing himself of Orochimaru's control, and left. Left Konoha entirely. He hadn't bothered to fight the Sandaime; all he done was laugh, as the Sandaime had put it. In the wake of the invasion, it had taken nearly a day to realize that Naruto Uzumaki and the Sand's Jinchuriki Gaara had vanished along with him.

(Hinata had felt something hot in her eyes at that, but she suppressed it with a vicious jab of cold determination.)

Orochimaru had gone mad in the wake of it. Or madder, as the Yondaime put it. The Sandaime believed it had been due to Madara's peculiar eyes. The Professor hadn't recognized them initially, but he'd learned afterwards that they had been the Rinnegan: the very eyes responsible for Hinata's condition. How Madara had gained such peculiar eyes was impossible to know, but Orochimaru had recognized them, and the revelation had driven him into a frenzy.

(The idea that one of the Village's founders had possessed the Rinnegan confused Hinata: the knowledge that the First Hokage had defeated him anyway brought to her a peculiar mix of admiration and fear.)

The Snake Sannin had thrown himself into pursuit of Madara. He had crafted new jutsu and gone to lengths no shinobi had ever dared to before. He had "improved" upon the Edo Tensei; he'd sent out a new breed of summoned shinobi to retrieve Madara, each endowed with one of his curse seals and, more horrifyingly, the ability to produce another Edo slaved to Orochimaru's will.

(The Yondaime had demonstrated the process with a brief mock motion; the jerk of a clawed hand up below an invisible rib cage, followed by a vicious twist, made Hinata's stomach curl. She recognized it. That had almost happened to her)

This escalation had been useless. Madara had scattered the armies, leaving them to slowly pull themselves back together, and had destroyed Orochimaru. Bound to the Sannin's will, the Edo Tensei had gone insane and directionless with his death, rampaging across the Elemental Nations; driven by some final inexplicable order, they propagated, creating more of themselves wherever they could. With every new Edo Tensei created bearing one of Orochimaru's Cursed Seals, even a civilian could be transformed into a potent threat to shinobi.

The other villages were, as far as Konoha was aware, gone or scattered. Sunagakure had been overrun, the desert proving no impediment to opponents who couldn't tire. Iwagakure fought till the hordes of Edo Tensei had breached the village itself. After which, its shinobi had broken apart with startling speed, scattering across the nations; the Yondaime had been there to witness it personally. Kirigakure, already unstable, had unceremoniously collapsed, its ninja vanishing into hiding in and across the sea. Kumogakure was the only village the Kage knew of that was still intact as Konoha was.

For most living in the Nations, it was as good as the end of the world.

"So, that woman that attacked me," Hinata said, her mouth dry. "She was one of those created by Orochimaru?"

"One of thousands." The dead Hokage closed his eyes. "They cannot be killed, only sealed; and many of them know how to undo the seals on their… comrades, I guess." His mouth twisted around the word.

"How is Konoha still…?" Hinata couldn't imagine it. Even if the village had such powerful shinobi like Might Gai, the Sannin, Kakashi Hatake, the ANBU, and the thousands and thousands of Chunin and Special Jonin that made up the ranks of Konoha's dedicated fighting force… even they couldn't possibly defeat an army of thousands, tens of thousands, that fought without any care for self-preservation. An army that couldn't be killed, that never tired, that could make more of themselves from their enemies.

At that, the Fourth Hokage did something Hinata never dreamed she see. He flinched.

"I… am not the only one the Sandaime brought back," he said. "There were others."

The way the Yondaime said the word brought a certain chill to Hinata's mind. "Others?"

"Hmm." The Yondaime crossed his arms, looking up at the sky. "Anyone who could fight." His mouth was a flat, unreadable line. "The previous Kage, the Uchiha clan, any deceased at the level of a Jonin. And…"

He stopped, jerking his head to the left, like a dog picking up a new and interesting scent. Before Hinata's eyes, the man instantly switched from his relaxed posture to a low combat stance: she hardly saw him move. In a moment, every bit of the dead Hokage screamed efficient, remorseless violence. Hinata's arms came up instinctively in a futile defensive gesture. However, despite this, the Hokage's words were firmly stuck in her mind.

'_Anyone who could fight.'_

The Yondaime's hand shot out, wrapping around her arm. She flinched back, and the man's eyes narrowed in concentration.

Nothing happened.

"Damn." The dead Hokage released her arm. "He's set the barrier."

'_What?'_

"Hinata," the Yondaime said flatly. "Listen to me." He turned to her. "There's a Leaf outpost about… twenty-three miles from here. To the west. With your Byakugan, you shouldn't have difficulty finding it. It's pretty standard. Go. Right now."

"What is it?" she asked. "What's-?"

The Hokage's eyes narrowed. "Madara. He's coming_._"

"He's _here_?" Hinata asked, feeling a cold sweat creep down her neck. The Yondaime was putting off copious deadly intent; none of it was directed at her, but the wash of it was intimidating nonetheless.

"Don't ask questions." The Yondaime pointed towards the grey forest in the distance, and his voice dropped. It was the voice of a man commanding soldiers in the face of death. "_Run. Now._"

Hinata did just that.

She took off, running west. The snow slid by under feet; she pushed chakra to her legs, practically gliding across the white expanse, building up more and more speed. It was similar to walking on water. She just had to make sure she didn't break the surface tension of the snow. Speed started stretching her vision: she'd have to slow down once she reached the forest, but out here, with no obstacles and with the snow as an accelerant, she could go as fast as she cared, faster than she'd ever normally be able to. There was a certain undeniable thrill to it.

She thought about that instead of the mad Uchiha with a Rinnegan. It was all she could do. Nevertheless, she activated her Byakugan; not being able to see what was coming could be a death sentence.

The world opened up.

There was a man standing where she'd been just a couple minutes ago, atop the crumpled samurai bunker. He was wearing heavy red armor, and his long black hair whipped in the wind. Cracks ran across both his armor and skin, the telltale sign of an Edo Tensei. He and the Yondaime were staring at each other. The dead Hokage had pulled two peculiar pronged kunai from a hidden pouch. The new arrival's eyes were indolent, dismissive; despite their purple color and pattern of rings emanating from the pupil, the man's scorn was obvious.

Hinata realized after a moment that she recognized him. She'd seen a spitting image of him back in the past, on a poster in Naruto's orphanage. It seemed that no matter what year it was, Madara Uchiha wore the same thing when he went to war.

He was saying something; the Yondaime responded. Hinata could read their lips.

"-alive?" Madara looked towards her, and for a second there was undeniable eye contact. Hinata felt like she was staring down an oncoming tidal wave.

"You won't touch her." The Hokage raised his kunai.

"Why are you standing in my way, Minato?" Hinata hadn't expected the man to use the Hokage's name with such familiarity. The environment started vanishing behind the Uchiha and the Kage: the limit of her Byakugan's vision was rushing up behind them, creating a chilling visual illusion.

"I'm here to save her."

Both men disappeared; there was the occasional flash of sparks, and the snow was thrown up in all directions in huge explosions of wet powder. A body was picked off the ground and hurled into the distance like a small black ragdoll. Hinata realized with a start they were moving faster than she could perceive. She hadn't seen that in half a year, not since she'd turned sixteen. Even her father couldn't pull that trick on her anymore.

It wasn't a shunshin. They were just fast.

She pulled out of range, and any chance of watching the fight vanished.

Hinata focused on running. The Yondaime was buying her time. She couldn't afford to let him down.

The forest was getting closer. She'd traveled about six miles in the last fifteen seconds; it was time to slow down. She planted her feet, surfing off the snow and bleeding speed rapidly, and entered the outskirts of the woods. Dead trees and plants surrounded her, some covered by sheets of snow thrown up by her passing. The vegetation grew thicker, and moments later she had entered the canopy. What anemic light made it through the thick grey clouds enough was rapidly blocked off. Hinata's eyes pierced the gloom effortlessly, but the sudden darkness was still noticeable.

Twenty-three miles, the Yondaime had said. She had be close to that now. Hinata started to actively scan for the outpost, her eyes darting about as muscles reacted unnecessarily to actions transcending them. All of Konoha's outposts were well hidden, often high in the canopy or set inside a tree. In the face of the Byakugan, that wouldn't be enough.

As she searched, her mind wandered back.

The Fourth Hokage couldn't die, she knew. He was already dead, after all. Worrying about that was pointless.

She just hoped he hadn't stayed behind for nothing.


	8. A Lesson in Arrogance

The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Chapter 8

_Impress him. It is your only chance. Assure me of my choice._

* * *

The outpost had been as easy to find as Hinata had hoped. Situated high in the canopy and concealed by a snarl of branches, the small structure was essentially invisible from every angle except directly above it. The outpost itself was rather spartan: it was barely more than a small room with a single cot, under which was tucked a storage shelf. A lookout point offered a commanding view of the entire forest and several miles beyond it, including the bunker from which Hinata had come.

There hadn't been any food, but the shelf held a canteen of stale-tasting water and several ninja tools: about a dozen kunai, a single tanto, a flak vest, and a picture of a little boy with brown hair and gold eyes. The pockets of the flak vest were empty with the exception of one, which contained about a meter of spooled steel wire.

Hinata had slipped on the flak vest: every bit of clothing helped to keep her warm right now, since she couldn't afford to burn chakra regulating her body temperature. It also, undeniably, made her feel a bit safer. She'd filled the pockets with the kunai as well, though she left the tanto where it was; a Hyuuga was never unarmed, and a weapon she had minimal training in would only slow her down. Now, she was sitting on the cot, slowly taking sips from the canteen. She hadn't realized how thirsty she was until she'd found it.

Her Byakugan was still activated. She could see most of the forest, though her range didn't quite extend to the edge of it. She could see her own heart, as well. She was at about one-hundred beats a minute now: far faster than sitting on a bed in the middle of nowhere merited, but it was gradually slowing down.

The forest was dead. There wasn't a single living thing in it. No animals, no plant life. Nothing. Snow covered everything in a soft white pall. Hinata had never seen anything like it. Even in the middle of winter, there still should have been something alive out there. Instead, she was as alone as she could possibly be.

She couldn't decide if being so alone was good or bad.

On one hand, it gave her an opportunity to think. More obviously, being so alone meant there was nothing out there to threaten her.

But she couldn't help but want someone with her. Anyone, really. Someone to talk to. She could feel it all welling up inside of her: the pathetic terror and confusion that she had managed to suppress, briefly, while in the company of the Yondaime.

Hinata Hyuuga was alone, far from home, and she had no idea how to get back.

Hinata sat on the cot, both of her hands clasped around the canteen. She held it between her legs, leaning down, curling in on herself and her hair cascaded over her shoulders and covered her face like a long dark drape. Her eyes closed, though that did nothing to block off her sight.

She started shaking, her whole body silently trembling.

Three seconds later, as the first tear reached her chin, Madara Uchiha strode into her field of vision.

Hinata's head jerked up, and she swiveled towards the man, though he was a little less than six miles away. She stared intently as he wandered towards her. However, despite her sudden physical movement, her mind was seemingly frozen.

Madara Uchiha was coming for her.

Madara Uchiha was coming for her.

If he was here, that meant he had defeated the Yondaime. The Hokage had said Edo Tensei couldn't be killed; the Uchiha must have sealed him, or scattered him beyond all ability to regenerate as the woman she'd fought had. The method didn't really matter. Whatever the reason, it was clear that Minato Namikaze, the man who had defeated the Kyuubi, could not protect her anymore.

She watched Madara with morbid fascination. The man moved like an Inuzuka's dog, slinking across the snow. Could he be a chakra sensor? She didn't think so. He would have already pinpointed her location if that were the case. No, his distinctive Rinnegan eyes were darting about. He was tracking her, Hinata realized, as a Sharingan user would track someone: perhaps he still had the acumen of the famous Uchiha eyes despite his apparent lack of them, or maybe the Rinnegan had sight just as keen as the Sharingan itself. It was impossible to know.

Hinata had masked her movements through the forest with chakra. She hadn't left tracks in the snow, and she'd gone out of her way to not disturb the environment in any other way. Nonetheless, she could tell that the famous Uchiha was following a trail of sorts, and she had no doubt that trail was leading directly to her.

Uchiha Madara was tracking her through the forest; he'd find her within the minute, at his current speed.

Hinata's mind started moving again, and she rose to her feet, too terrified to make a sound.

She could run. No, she had to run, didn't she? She didn't have any other choice. She had to get out of here right now. Maybe she could hide, somewhere in the forest. She could hole up inside a tree, or dig a hole in the snow and pray he walked over her without noticing. Her breathing sped up at the thought: the image of being trapped in a small, icy hole, her heat being leached away, waiting to be found.

No no no no. It wouldn't work, it couldn't. It didn't matter how she concealed her passage: he would be able to track her through the forest easily enough. Those eyes of his would lead him right to her if she ran. And he was faster. She'd seen it just minutes ago. She couldn't outrun someone who moved faster than she could see.

Not to mention that it was Madara Uchiha. If he couldn't find her, he might just settle for leveling the forest instead. She certainly wouldn't be able to hide from that.

One-hundred and sixty beats per minute now. Her heartbeat was everywhere. Her fingertips pulsed with it. It was like the whole word was resonating with its pounding. She could feel freezing sweat dripping down her neck.

Running wasn't an option. She would just die tired.

Could she fight? She couldn't fight. He'd defeated a Hokage. It had taken the First to end him. She had a better chance of…

She couldn't think of anything. Hinata couldn't think of something less likely than her defeating Madara Uchiha. It felt like a gear in her mind was grinding against another, sparking and making a terrible racket. She could barely hear her own thoughts. It drowned out her heartbeat.

'_I'm going to die.'_

Hinata could not run: she'd be caught. She could not fight: she'd be beaten.

Dead end. The heartbeat was still there, like the sun behind an eclipse. The world pulsed three times a second.

Madara was about two miles away now.

What could she do? What could she do?

She wasn't going to wait calmly for her death. She couldn't stand that. Everyone died. She knew that. But this wasn't how she wanted to die, trapped in this outpost waiting for her doom, like a rabbit in its burrow.

Hinata's jaw clenched, her teeth grinding. Slowly, her hands curled into fists. Her fingernails, still humming with the beat of her heart, dug into her palms and drew blood.

She didn't want to die for no reason. She didn't want to die in a place where no one would find her, when no one would remember her. Vaguely, the notion made her angry.

A thought came to her in a burst of clarity, piercing through the deafening heartbeat.

'_What would Naruto do?'_

What would Naruto do?

Naruto wouldn't run, obviously. She couldn't picture that at all. All she could see was him struggling back to his feet, bleeding and broken, in the face of her cousin. Even after he'd had every one of his tenketsu sealed.

Naruto couldn't have won that fight. He shouldn't have. But he'd stepped up to it anyway. And he'd won, despite all logic.

Hinata couldn't win. She knew it in her soul. She wasn't Naruto. But she couldn't run. If she had to choose between dying as she fought and dying as she ran…

There wasn't any choice at all. Hinata Hyuuga decided that if she was going to die, she was going to die like Naruto would.

Madara was close now. Half a mile, perhaps.

Hinata took a deep breath, slowly blowing it out, and straightened up. The omnipresent pulsing of her heartbeat faded away. The world, expanded by her Byakugan, tapered down into a tunnel of darkness. It narrowed into a bright needle, focused on Madara Uchiha.

The man became Hinata's entire existence.

She burned every bit of him into her mind; the cracks on his face, the rings of his eyes, his dull red armor, the gunbai he carried on his back. Her Byakugan regarded him from every angle, reading every facet of his body. The man screamed bored confidence; he was entirely unworried.

She could use that.

Slowly, Hinata dropped her head and slid one of her feet back, lowering her stance. Her hands came up, pointed like knives. There was no wind, no sound, nothing to break her concentration at all. Her father's voice slipped up from deep within her as she closed her eyes. Madara was fifty meters away. He seemed as though he were looking right at her, through her.

You must strike with perfect confidence.

Forty meters.

She opened her eyes.

Thirty.

'_You are within range of my divinations.'_

She spun. She thought, in that null space between different presents–

'_I will _hit you_.'_

Time slipped aside.

Madara Uchiha was twenty meters away, staring up at the outpost.

Madara Uchiha was two feet away. He raised an eyebrow.

The Hakke Rokujūyon Shō brought Hinata before him in an instant. She threw sixty-four strikes at the same time: an unblockable combo.

'Four strikes.' Madara's left hand, lazily raised, jerked back. She'd hit him.

'Eight-'

Madara moved.

Hinata was carried off the ground by a force she couldn't see, the world going black from the acceleration. All thoughts of completing the Eight Palms fell away, banished by panic and pain. She couldn't breathe.

The darkness immediately dissolved, and she found herself dangling three feet above the ground, a crushing pressure slamming her windpipe shut. It took her a moment to understand what was happening.

Madara held her at arm's length, his hand wrapped around her throat. The man was staring at her, his eyes full of quiet contempt. He squeezed, and Hinata heard the cartilage in her throat creak. One of her hands came up, scrabbling at his, trying to dislodge it. She kicked out on reflex, aiming for his neck.

Her leg had gone less than a foot before he brought his other arm around, slamming his elbow into her ascending shin.

Something snapped. It was a hollow, abrupt sound. White fire exploded out of Hinata's leg and wormed its way up through her body, stopping her heart, before erupting into her brain. The pain burned out everything it touched, and her mouth opened wide in a silent scream as her right leg fell back, completely limp.

The Uchiha hurled her to the ground, and Hinata slammed to the snow, digging several inches down into the icy slush. She still couldn't breathe.

Her heart started beating again, and Hinata let out a weak gasp. Her Byakugan receded.

There was a soft buzzing in her ears; her leg was still on fire, and her back was as well. She dug her hands into the snow, trying to pull herself backwards, away from the man standing imperiously above her. Chakra boiled off of him, giving the air around her the flavor of ozone; he looked like nothing less than death itself.

Hinata's eyes went wide, the pale outline of her pupils shrinking to little more than dots.

Madara tilted his head as she yanked herself away, barely gaining a couple inches of distance. Her leg dragged through the snow, and Hinata bit her lip to keep from screaming. Her breathing was ragged, panicked. But the man didn't pursue, or step in to finish her off. He just stood there, his ringed eyes boring into her.

"Pathetic." His baritone voice struck at her like a fusillade of hurled rocks as he stepped forward, squatting down. Hinata, her limbs paralyzed by shock and terror, could only stare numbly as he looked her over with narrow eyes. The contempt was still there, but it was joined by a deep disappointment.

"Hyuuga," he rumbled. "Did you really think I would have no idea how to counter that pitiful trick of yours?"

"Haaa-" She sucked in another breath, scrambling backwards. Hinata didn't care about the numbing pain in her leg anymore; she just needed to be away from the man. She couldn't think.

"I would have thought," the Uchiha said, standing back up, "that any of your clan entrusted with that technique would know better."

She didn't know better. She shouldn't be here at all. She couldn't be here. She couldn't-

Hinata collapsed, the pain of her shattered leg sending her fingers twitching. She dug tracks through the snow, her arms trembling.

This was the end. She hadn't died fighting; she was going to die here, face down in the snow, unable to run. The worst of either option.

She may as well have killed herself in the outpost. It would have been less humiliating.

"Hmm." Madara prodded at her side with one of his feet, flipping her back over. "That little Kage was telling the truth. You are alive." Hinata just wordlessly stared up at him, unable to speak.

He snorted. "You're alive, and you threw yourself like that at me? Perhaps you are even more foolish than I thought."

Hinata quietly waited to die.

Madara crossed his arms, looking down at her. His armor clattered as he did so. Hinata couldn't help but think that it was bizarre for a shinobi to wear such loud protection.

He didn't say anything, but he didn't move to attack either. She didn't understand why the Uchiha wouldn't finish her off.

"What's your name?"

'_What?'_

Had she said that out loud?

He bent slightly at the waist, leaning over with a mocking expression. "Tell me your name, or I'll break your neck."

'_Not much of a choice then.'_

"Hinata," she choked out, the pain in her leg slowing her words. "Hinata Hyuuga."

"Hinata." The Uchiha considered the name. "Fitting." He straightened back up. "You're not going to try and get back up?"

Was that a real question? Or was he just mocking her? Why would he bother in the first place?

"You broke my leg," she said slowly. Her mouth was dry; it tasted like copper and cotton.

"Yes." He inclined his head slightly, looking at the leg in question. "Multiple fractures, by the look of it." His eyes slipped back to hers. "If you stay on the ground, I'll break the other."

He was playing with his food. It was the only answer that made sense. Hinata's mind was growing clearer: the pain, initially shocking, had settled into a steady intense cold, along with the snow pressing against her palms. She wasn't calm by any means, but at least now she was lucid.

She could stay on the ground and lose her other leg, or she could play his game and live a little while longer. Perhaps he'd get bored and leave her. A broken leg would slow her down, but she'd still be able to make decent progress towards… wherever wasn't here.

There really wasn't anything else for her to do.

Hinata pulled herself up as the Uchiha watched curiously, before propping herself off the ground with both her hands and slowly levered her left leg under her torso. She did the best to keep the other straight and still, ignoring the flares of pain from it. With a grunt, she pushed herself up on her left leg, standing crookedly as she kept herself from putting any pressure on her right.

"Good," he said. "Now, tell me: what possessed you to attack me?" His lips quirked. "You knew it was pointless. I could see it."

Hinata considered. Lying wouldn't save her anything, but the truth was embarrassing.

The man's Rinnegan gleamed, and she recalled how he had tracked her through the snow despite her precautions. If it had the same acuity of the Sharingan or Byakugan, he'd see if she lied in her body language. It wouldn't be worth it.

"I saw you fighting the Yondaime, just for a moment," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "There there was no way I could outrun you, and it was clear you could track me even if I took precautions." She licked her lips, feeling their dryness. "I didn't want to die running."

"Ha!" the Uchiha barked, his laugh harsh. "Maybe you're not as stupid as I judged you, Hyuuga. You know who I am, then?"

Hinata blinked, despite herself. "You're Madara Uchiha. You're… well known."

"Hn." The man looked vaguely satisfied. "I suppose as the man Hashirama had to put down?"

Hinata looked down at that. She couldn't risk offending the man.

"No surprise." The Uchiha made a gesture with one of his hands, flicking it upwards. Hinata found herself lifted into the air, mirroring the Uchiha's hand. She yelped, struggling and flailing her unbroken limbs, until the man took a step forward and the invisible pressure grasping her doubled. Her leg made a popping noise, and her mouth slammed shut, her lips going white.

Madara stretched his cracked hand out and laid it on her shattered leg. Hinata tensed, expecting another bout of white agony.

Instead, the pain vanished.

She blinked. A green aura of thick chakra surged around the Uchiha's hand, and then he carelessly drew it away. Just as abruptly as it had appeared, the force holding her in the air vanished, and she fell backwards. She landed on her left foot, almost losing her balance.

"Don't bother," Madara said. Slowly, Hinata set her right foot down, testing her weight on it. There wasn't any pain, not even an errant twinge of discomfort. It was as if her leg had never been broken.

Medical jutsu. Extremely powerful medical jutsu, at that. He'd set multiple fractures in her leg in a moment. That wasn't ordinary; it was on Sakura's level.

"What?" The words slipped out of her mouth before she was fully aware of them. The Uchiha snorted as Hinata stared at him without comprehension. "Why?"

"Are you thinking of running away now?" he asked flatly. Hinata struggled not to let her confusion show on her face, but she suspected she was failing.

"I…"

'_Couldn't.'_

She saw him read the unspoken word in her face. The sensation was unnerving; it was as though she were made of glass.

"Then there wasn't any reason not to," the Uchiha said. He shifted, dropping his arms.

"You want something from me, then," Hinata said. There was no way he'd healed her on a whim; it didn't fit what little she knew about Madara Uchiha, or his body language.

"What could you give me?" the man chuckled. "I'm here because I sensed the jutsu of that pitiful Senju imitator. I only discovered you when I arrived."

"You chased me, though." Hinata grew a bit bolder. If the man wanted her dead, she'd die, but aside from the initial brutal counterattack, he hadn't laid a finger on her. Now that her initial terror had abated, she recognized the flow of this conversation. The man wanted to say something but was unwilling to go directly to it. Maybe it amused him to play word-games with her; high-level shinobi tended to be eccentric. Or it could be something else entirely.

"That's true," he admitted guilelessly. "I always chase down the living. They are in short commodity nowadays."

"The Yondaime told me," Hinata said, shifting back. This was a conversation now; she was still at the man's mercy, but communicating with a kage-level opponent wasn't the same as fighting one. This was an engagement she could at least stalemate him in. "About your summoning, and Orochimaru. What he did."

Madara chuckled again. "He was an amusing creature. So consumed with stealing other's power; like a leech in the shape of a man." He frowned. "Disgusting as well, I suppose. He set in motion something even I couldn't fix."

"You mean the Edo Tensei?" Hinata asked.

"Hmm." Madara looked away. "You know a lot for a little Hyuuga." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, half the rings of his Rinnegan being obscured. "Why was a clone of Minato with you anyway?" He said the Hokage's name as he would a child's.

"Clone?" she asked. It didn't surprise her, not really: the situation that the Yondaime had described was far too serious for him to waste time with her.

"Yes; his real body is combating mine, last I saw him." Madara drummed his fingers against his arm. "This latest skirmish has already lasted two days. It's always so interesting, two shadow clones fighting, especially with these tepid bodies. It turns a tedious brawl into something that at least approaches a true battle between shinobi."

"So you're a clone too, then." Madara was still as stone. 'But I hit you?" If this man were a shadow clone, he should have dispelled at that.

At that, he raised an eyebrow. "Not nearly hard enough."

'_Jerk.'_

"So why are you still here then?"

Madara shook his head. "No, girl: you have to answer my question first."

Now, Hinata cursed the fact that the Uchiha would see through any lie instantly. She had to be careful with her words.

"He saved me from an Edo Tensei," she said, attempting to keep it simple. "We talked afterwards."

Madara was clearly unimpressed. "How convenient. And why was he in a position to do so in the first place?"

Think fast. Hesitation had no place here. Hinata could already see the verbal trap forming, but she also couldn't find a way around it. She had to keep herself from taking a step back.

"Because he sent me here from Konoha," she said.

Madara sighed. "So vague."

His eyes glowed, and Hinata found her gaze drawn to them against her own will. It seemed like the concentric rings were undulating; the Rinnegan was taking on a life of its own. They were growing, taking up her entire line of sight, filling her with dread.

"Tell me the truth," Madara commanded, and Hinata's knees almost buckled. Every muscle in her face went slack, and she stared blindly ahead, unable to see anything but the dominating eyes.

"I was dropped in Konoha and confronted by Danzo Shimura," Hinata said without a hint of inflection or emotion. It was perfectly natural for her to be telling him this. Why wouldn't she? "He had been transformed into an Edo Tensei; he accused me of being a spy and attempted to execute me." The wound on her neck was mostly scabbed over my now, but her hand slipped over it anyway. "The Yondaime saved me with his transportation jutsu."

"Dropped from where?" the eyes asked.

"The past. I am a time traveler," she answered.

The genjutsu broke. Hinata almost fell back, her balance lost, before she caught herself. She shook her head, clearing her disorientation. Her hands curled into fists.

"There," Madara said calmly. "Was that so difficult?"

Hinata panted, trying to expel the excess chakra from her system. As she did, she tried her best to keep the rising anger in her chest down. Anger would be completely counterproductive. She had to stay calm: had to keep her head clear.

"That wasn't necessary," she said, channeling every inch of vicious politeness her father had trained into her.

"Quite the contrary," Madara sneered. "It became entirely necessary the moment you started boring me with your amateurish deflections."

The message was clear. Hinata decided to switch subjects, before the man hypnotized her again.

"You don't seem surprised," she noted.

The Uchiha's eyes narrowed. "Your Yondaime told me of your situation when it became clear he would not win. He seemed to think it would change how I treated you."

The Hokage had told Madara that she was a time traveler during their fight? It made sense: the man would have wanted her safe, and no one in their right mind would destroy such a valuable resource.

Oh. Wait.

"You wanted to see if I'd tell you the truth," she said, stating the obvious.

"Of course." Madara didn't move, but Hinata was getting better at reading his mood. She could sense the implied eye-roll, even if he refrained from it. "A test you failed, by the way. Perhaps I should re-break your leg."

Hinata was losing the conversation almost as badly as she'd lost the physical competition. Not exactly what she'd wanted.

"Then what happens now?" she asked, trying to regain the initiative.

"Now?" the Uchiha frowned. "Now, we have been talking here for entirely too long." Thick blue chakra started flickering around him. "We're leaving."

"Leaving?" Hinata asked. The chakra surrounding Madara was only slightly warmer than the snow; the blue aura was steadily expanding, sweeping past her with a similar sensation to walking through a thick, icy waterfall. "What–"

Madara Uchiha closed his eyes, and everything within twenty meters erupted into the air.

Hinata yelped, once again carried upwards by an invisible force. The yelp transitioned into a full startled shout as the upwards momentum refused to vanish; the blue chakra continued expanding, decimating everything that got in its path, while Hinata shot straight into the sky.

Then, as suddenly as the event had begun, it ended. Hinata looked around with wide eyes. She was held suspended in cold blue chakra more than half a kilometer in the air; her arms and legs were free to move, but no matter what she did, she couldn't budge from her place. She'd never been this high up. Seeing the world stretching out below her in all direction, a field of white and gray, sent her head spinning.

"Be quiet," Madara grunted. He hung in the air just to her left, his arms crossed. Hinata glanced at him. It seemed like they were both being held inside of a gem of sorts, comprised of a thicker, deeper blue chakra than the rest of the construct. She could see it sprawling out around and below her; the chakra construct held the rough shape of a man in heavy armor, similar to the armor Madara himself wore. Hinata could see two massive swords extending from its waist, hundreds of meters below.

She activated her Byakugan, taking a closer look. Now it was clear to her: the two of them were set in the forehead of the massive chakra armor, the jewel-like centerpiece of a sneering oni-esque mask. Two gargantuan wings extended out behind the armor, framing it with blue scales.

Madara opened his eyes.

"What…" Hinata's throat closed up. "What is this?"

Madara glanced at her. "The Susano'o," he said, his voice dripping with condescension. "I suppose you've never seen one before."

"I…" Hinata settled for shaking her head. The notion that a single man could create such a massive technique was terrifying; the height wasn't helping at all. "Why are you using it?"

At that, Madara actually smiled. It was mirthless, but it was there.

"It's faster than walking," he rumbled. As he spoke, the Susano'o began slowly rising into the air.

Hinata looked down in astonishment once more. The earth was receding, moving even farther away. The chakra construct was entirely off the ground now: its massive wings slowly flapped, far too slowly to actually provide any lift, and yet the Susano'o rose higher nonetheless.

"There's no–" she started to say, and then the Susano'o ascent ceased being slow in any manner whatsoever.

The blue warrior rocketed up into the sky, and tears were squeezed out of Hinata's eyes by the speed and sudden pressure difference. The temperature didn't change at all, though it should have: the Susano'o's chakra maintained a steady cold around her. Now, they were nearly three kilometers in the air. The crushing grey clouds that had been present ever since Hinata had arrived seemed to be close enough to touch; the world stretched out below her like an endless pale blanket, cloaked in snow and interspersed with dead forests and craggy mountains.

Hinata couldn't breath. She knew she wouldn't fall, but her body didn't seem to. The cold sweat was back, and her breathing was elevated. She hadn't really known till today that she didn't like heights. Maybe it was just not having anything to stand on that was getting to her.

Madara clearly didn't care. The Susano'o took off, darting across the sky faster than it had any right to. Hinata stared, her Byakugan still activated; she didn't move a muscle.

The world swept by, a streaming plain of snow. Hinata had seen the sea, once, about a year ago. Seeing the world flying by below her reminded her of the ocean. It had been a placid expanse of still water, occasionally disturbed by a subtle wave washing upon the beach. Though there was no sun reflected in the snow, as there had been in the ocean, Hinata couldn't help but see them as the same.

Hinata's breathing started to slow down. She turned her head, looking around, though her Byakugan made the motion pointless. Grey clouds above, white snow below: the Susano'o blocked the effects of the environment. It was a kind of rushing purgatory. She could feel her eyes growing heavy, her heart truly slowing down for the first time in what seemed like forever.

Was it another genjutsu? Hinata didn't think so. She could see her own chakra system: there was nothing wrong with it. Madara could have occluded that as well, of course, but Hinata felt in her gut that that wasn't the case. She was exhausted, mentally and physically; she hadn't had more than a couple minutes to rest since she'd been ripped out of her family compound.

Here, soaring above the bizarre and unfamiliar world she'd found herself thrown into, there was a kind of peace she hadn't felt in the last day. Even if her only companion was a spiteful undead Uchiha, one who pointedly refused to look at her, she couldn't deny that for the first time today, she felt safe.

Hinata started to close her eyes.

'Just for a minute,' she thought.

'I'll just rest for one minute."


	9. A Lesson in Gravity

The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Chapter 9

"You're more a fool than I suspected."

Hinata opened her eyes with a sigh.

She was still in the Susano'o, high above the ground. There was a series of mountains rushing by below, thick with rain and snow. Turning her head, Hinata could see the sun setting behind her. It hung a couple feet above the horizon, its burning light dulled by the harsh blue of the chakra construct.

"How long was I asleep?" she asked, looking back towards the Uchiha. Despite the change of location and the sun's position, Hinata never would have known any time had passed, if she had to rely on the Uchiha. He was in the exact same position she'd left him in; standing stock still in the air, staring forward, his arms imperiously crossed.

"Nearly an hour." That made sense. It had been night in Konoha but not in the Land of Iron: it was farther to the west, after all. Now, Madara was traveling east, away from the setting sun. The man looked at her with a sneer. "Falling asleep like that; perhaps you have a bit of a death wish. What if I'd decided to drop you?"

Hinata tried to keep her face expressionless; she didn't want to show fear, though the man did frighten her, even now. He knew it too, but knowing something and seeing it were entirely different.

"We both know you don't want me dead, Uchiha," she said. The man quirked an eyebrow at the moniker. "And even if you did, there would be hardly anything I could do about it."

"Hah." It wasn't a laugh, more of a grunt tinged with mirth, but it let Hinata know she hadn't misspoken. "You're polite, if little else."

Hinata didn't have an answer to give. How were you supposed to respond to something like that? 'Yes, I'm very polite, thank you for noticing?' That wouldn't be very polite itself. She decided to ignore it.

"Where are we going?" was what she settled on, after a second or so.

"Hm. You'll see soon enough," Madara grunted. "We're nearly there now."

His posture very clearly indicated he wouldn't be saying anything more, so Hinata didn't waste her time trying to pry anything out of him. Instead, she watched the sunset behind them. The orange glow it cast over the land was comforting, setting the brown of the mountains and the grey of the land in a warmer light. However, the land they soared above was barren, and no amount of sympathetic lighting could change that. Hinata had never seen something so… plain. The ground seemed to be nothing but muddy stone, wet dirt, and dark rivers; everything seemed as though it had recently been rained on, washing out any sort of individuality.

They were traveling extraordinarily fast. Madara hadn't been lying about his Susano'o being more efficient than moving on the ground; Hinata guessed that it could be four times faster than a shinobi could manage at full sprint, maybe more, but the distance from the earth and the lack of especially noticeable landmarks made any solid estimation doomed to failure.

She wondered what her father had done after she had been dragged from him, into the rift above the Hyuuga compound. That was another… world? Time? It was difficult to come up with a name that sounded appropriate for something so other. A different place, in every sense. She hadn't been his daughter, if she really thought about it. The Hinata she had saved had been his daughter.

The concept of saving herself made her blink. The idea of there being another her was still confusing.

The Hiashi she'd been pulled away from hadn't been her real father, but he'd treated her as his real daughter nonetheless. Her father wasn't stupid; he must have understood the difference as keenly as she did now. It could have been political. Gaining another Hyuuga her age would be a boon to the clan no matter what, and with her knowledge of the future, she was a potent resource even after telling the Hokage everything she knew.

Still: a part of Hinata hoped he had treated her the way he had without regard for her being an asset, even if the thought was unrealistic.

How would the other her live, she wondered, with an uncle? She'd never really known Hizashi, but the man had seemed like a good influence, from what little time she'd spent with him. Maybe she'd pick up some more courage at younger age. That would be nice.

It didn't really matter. It was almost certain she'd never see those people again.

Was she trapped here, though? Hinata closed her eyes, blocking out the monochrome land. Madara had the Rinnegan, bizarre as that was. It was possible he could do the same thing to her that Pain had, hurling her into that torturous in-between. But even if she ended up there once more, what could she do? She couldn't find her way home: she had no idea how.

So, it was possible she wasn't trapped in this world of the dead… but the only method of escape was just as dangerous.

There had been another her in this place. That one hadn't been saved, at least according to Danzo Shimura. If Hinata were unlucky, she could end up like her.

Morbid, and confusing. That seemed to sum up the last–

The mild chill of the Susano'o vanished, and Hinata opened her eyes in surprise. Suddenly, she was falling.

Falling.

Hinata's eyes went wide, her mouth opening. Her hair streamed out behind her, like the long dark tail of a kite as she careened through the sky. She was alone, high above the earth, exposed to the cold of the elements and shooting forward like a star and she was–

_Falling_.

The word wasn't strong enough. She was hurtling through the sky at the same speed the Susano'o had been, moving faster forward than she ever could hope to actually fall towards the earth. Where had Madara gone? Had the Uchiha just vanished? Had the clone dispelled?

He must have grown bored of her. Now she was _falling_.

Hinata's mind went into overdrive. She could survive this fall, probably, especially if she landed in one of the rivers. Theoretically, her terminal velocity was low enough that she would be able to survive the impact, so long as she were prepared for it. Her arms and legs spread out, widening her profile as she furiously tried to calculate the distance. She was moving forward so quickly; she would have to slow herself down substantially to get back to a safe speed, and it was unlikely she'd have the time–

There was something in front of her, she realized, as she stopped staring at the looming earth long enough to observe her surrounding. She wasn't alone in the sky.

It wasn't Madara. She still had no idea where the man had gone.

It was impossible. A massive shadow hanging in the sky: multiple spheres of earth, some crowned with flashing spikes. Hinata stared at it, uncomprehending. She was falling and flying towards a huge ring of marble-like stones, each punctured with metal as the ground grew closer and closer and her breathing faster and faster.

Hinata did, on instinct, what any Hyuuga did when they saw something they couldn't understand. The veins around her eyes bulged out, and her eyes grew wider yet.

It was a city. A city set upon on a series huge floating orbs, chains of massive roots stretched taut between them.  
_  
A city in the sky. _

A pretty big one, too.

Hinata's mind grew more and more detached from the situation. It was practically a survival reflex. Distantly, she thought it would probably help her. She was falling towards a flying city. It was held aloft by a circle of enormous floating spheres of compressed stone (as her Byakugan made extraordinarily clear), each daisy-chained together by roots more massive than any building in the Elemental Nations. Why were the spheres floating? Why was there a city on it? Where had the roots come from? Was this where Madara had been taking her?

None of those questions mattered. She was heading right for the side of the nearest orb. All that mattered right now was landing safely. It was a sheer wall of rock: the curvature of the sphere was such that the area she would impact was essentially flat.

How fast was she going? She'd slowed down, cutting a significant amount of speed thanks to her spread arms, but it was still too fast. Five-hundred meters per second? It seemed close to that. She'd reach the orb in about seven seconds.

Hinata spun herself about, keeping herself spread as she shot towards the sphere. Still losing some speed; still not enough.

Five seconds. What else was there to do? She pumped more and more chakra to her legs, feeling it suffuse her entire body in a warm buzz of high-energy anticipation. The air around Hinata's body started to glow a faint blue as she hurled forward; she imagined that she looked like a lithe blue bullet.

Three seconds. Hinata deactivated her Byakugan, focusing on the point of impact. The sphere filled her entire field of vision. If only she had learned the Kaiten. It would have been invaluable.

This was probably going to hurt.

One second.

Hinata hit the orb like a meteor, smashing feet-first into the stone and tumbling. The impact was tremendous, rattling her teeth and sending her brain spinning; her right leg cracked, something splintering inside of it, and she gasped in pain. She reached out with her chakra, feeling the stone on her skin, desperately anchoring herself to it as she rolled down the orb, trying to defuse even the slightest bit of the impact. Feet, knees, right shoulder, upper back, lower back, all her limbs; each tingled with clinging chakra in turn as they stuck her to the stone.

Hinata came to a sudden stop, breathing rapidly. She stared at an upside-down world, her body stuck to the stone behind her, her limbs splayed out like a cross. Everything hurt, a deep aching sensation stabbing at the base of her skull.

Her right leg was broken again. It wasn't as bad as the first time, but the sensation was unmistakable. Perhaps Madara hadn't done as good a job as she'd thought. More of her body was bruised than was not. Badly, too.  
_  
'Bastard.'_

Hinata yanked her arms from the rock, curling upwards into a crunch and trying to establish contact between the palms of her hands and the stone above her. They bounced off once, her concentration shot by pain, and for a stomach-wrenching second she slipped downwards. Her vision spun, and Hinata gritted her teeth.

_'Fucking _bastard_.'_

The thought took her aback as her hands slapped down on the sphere, sticking fast. This was probably the angriest she'd been in a long time. Even Pain hadn't inspired such spite in her; that man had seemed to have purpose, at least. Madara had just let her go in the air, to smash into the side of this floating impossibility. For what? Petty amusement? Because he was tired of her?

If anything else had gone wrong with the landing, she would have died. The Hyuuga knew it in her gut.

Hinata decided that no matter what, if she saw the man she'd punch his throat in, the consequences be damned. She let her body slip down, setting herself against the rock in a more ordinary climbing pose. Her right leg hung limply, the knee brushing against the rough rock, but Hinata forced herself to ignore it.

Now, she had to climb this thing.

* * *

With the setting sun beating at her back, Hinata hauled herself up the sheer face of the sphere. It was slow going with one of her legs disabled, though she had established a rhythm despite the handicap. She would reach one hand upwards, establishing solid contact with the stone, and stick the palm of her hand and fingers to the surface. Then, secured by chakra, she would lever up her left leg, cocking it beneath her and sticking it as well. From there, it was simple enough to slightly loosen her grip with her hand and extend her leg, sliding her way up the rock without too much effort.

Sweat dripped from Hinata's nose, leaving wet traces where it touched the stone, and slipped under the hood of her jacket, as well as down her arms. Her right leg trembled, hanging loosely. Whenever it brushed against anything, be it the face of the sphere or her own leg, an unsuppressable flinch rattled up through Hinata's ribcage.

It might not have been much effort to go through her routine once or twice, but she'd done the same thing nearly a hundred times now, and the top only seemed marginally closer. If her leg hadn't been broken, walking up the orb would have been simple enough, but with only one foot, she couldn't guarantee a secure enough purchase.

And yet–  
_  
'I'm going to make it.'_

Hinata pushed herself up another meter, her body flush to the stone. She refused to look down; knowing how high up she was didn't matter. She had to reach the top.  
_  
'That's all that matters.'_

Was she lying to herself? Hinata didn't know. But for once, she couldn't bring herself to entertain failure. She reached up once more, her arm twitching, pumped full of lactic acid. There was only so much that chakra reinforcement could do.

Maybe she could carve out a real handhold with some of the kunai in her jacket and use it to rest. Or perhaps the top was closer than she believed. At any rate, giving up was out of the question.

"That looks painful."

A voice Hinata didn't recognize came from her left, and the Hyuuga froze. Her Byakugan was deactivated, conserving chakra; it hadn't been necessary for the climb, and she hadn't considered the possibility of any threats here of all places. She couldn't see anything but the seemingly endless expanse of stone.

"Khh." It wasn't a real response, just a frustrated grunt, but it gave Hinata the focus to turn her head towards the sound.

Hinata blinked.

There was a woman floating next to her, held aloft by widespread paper wings. She had her arms crossed; it reminded Hinata of Madara Uchiha. The winged woman had sharp features, along with a small piercing right above her chin, and her hair was a dull blue, but her eyes held a strange warmth: they were a harsh shade of amber, such that Hinata practically expected to find an insect frozen within them.

But the paper wings, unique hair, and peculiar eyes: none of these drew Hinata's attention for more than a moment. The woman's clothes drew the brunt of Hinata's gaze. She wore a body-length cloak with a high color, utterly black but for several images of red clouds traced in white. The uniform of the Akatsuki.

Hinata didn't move; neither did the paper woman. They watched each other, aware of an invisible stalemate. The woman didn't betray any emotion, and Hinata, despite her position, did her best to mirror that.

"I know who you are, Hinata Hyuuga," the Akatsuki member eventually said, when it became clear Hinata wasn't going to speak. "Madara sent me; he said you may have needed assistance." The woman glanced at Hinata's obviously broken leg, and Hinata's eyes narrowed. "It seems he was not lying."

"You're Akatsuki," Hinata said without preamble, and the woman tilted her head.

"Hmm. So you do recognize the cloak."

Hinata leaned into the sphere, trying to rest. "How do you know him?"

"Madara?" the woman asked, and Hinata nodded, just a slight motion of her head. "We're… working together." Hinata took note of the pause. Hesitation to disclose information, or hesitation at the concept of working with Madara? Hinata couldn't read the woman, not yet. "We have similar goals."

The notion that Madara had kidnapped Naruto out of Konoha, an idea that Hinata had desperately been suppressing since the man had broken her leg for the first time, suddenly burned its way to the forefront of her mind. It was a cold anger, one that suffused her entire body and washed away the pain of her myriad bruises. The stubborn agony in her leg remained, a discordant pressure.

Two pieces she'd refuse to acknowledge suddenly came together. The Yondaime had told her Madara had kidnapped Gaara and Naruto the moment he had been resurrected, but the information had been blotted out by everything else on Hinata's mind. The only other group Hinata knew of that had any interest in the Jinchuriki was the Akatsuki, and now one of them was here, professing to a similar goal as Madara.

There was a connection between the Uchiha and the organization led by Pain, a connection born out of something more than necessity, and knowing that only hardened Hinata's heart.

"I don't need your help." She shifted, raising her arm and resuming her climb. The winged woman watched, unimpressed, as Hinata scaled another three meters of the sphere.

"Don't be a fool." The Akatsuki member effortlessly floated up after her, keeping pace. "You won't make it to the top at that rate."

Hinata resisted the urge to snap back. "What did Madara tell you?"

"That you were alive," the woman said. "I didn't need much else. These days, anyone who can claim that is worthy of my attention."

"Did he tell you how I got here?" Hinata asked. The spike of anger hadn't diminished, but there was some curiosity joining it. This woman was proof that Madara wasn't alone: something the Yondaime hadn't mentioned. The fact that she was Akatsuki made the whole thing both more intriguing and more dangerous.

The Akatsuki member shook her head. "No. Just that this is where I would find you."

Bits of paper flitted off of the woman's wings, swiftly darting towards Hinata. She bitterly watched them come and swung herself sideways off the stone. One hand and foot remained anchored, while her free hand came up, faintly glowing with excess chakra. She struck at the first piece of paper to come within reach of her, neatly slicing it in half. Both parts fluttered downwards, losing whatever strange animation they'd possessed.

"Hmm." The woman frowned. "If you insist."

She held her hand out, and paper streamed out of it, moving in on Hinata from every direction. The Hyuuga sliced at it with her fingers, but it was a futile effort. Within three seconds, enough had slipped between Hinata and the rock to push her off of the stone. There was a brief sensation of falling before more paper pressed in. It wrapped around her lower body, encasing it along with her arms, forcing them to her sides. No matter how Hinata pushed against it, she couldn't budge; the paper provided a preternaturally strong binding. Some wrapped around her broken leg as well, straightening it and acting as an impromptu cast.

Hinata winced at the sensation as the paper around her leg cinched, followed by the rest of the material encasing her body.

"If you had not resisted," the woman said, seeing the slight movement, "I wouldn't have had to do that."

Hinata refused to reply, and the woman's lip quirked.

"My name is Konan, Hinata Hyuuga." They both started to ascend, slowly at first and then faster and faster. They covered nearly a kilometer in about twenty seconds, Hinata studiously avoiding Konan's eyes the whole time. "Let me be the first to welcome you to Amegakure."

They crested the top of the orb, and Hinata finally saw the city in the sky in full.


	10. A Lesson in Survival

The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Chapter 10

_That fool nearly killed her. She has to be more careful._

* * *

The city in the sky was a sprawling mass of jagged steel and concrete structures, sticking up out of the sphere like vicious knives. Cast in the light of the setting sun, half the city seemed to be on fire as ember-like reflections leapt from one surface to another. There were electric lights too, massive ones, highlighting signs and elaborately constructed faces hanging from the buildings.

Hinata wondered how a floating city could possible have electricity. Generators? They would have to be very large ones. She could probably find them with a cursory look. Maybe some raiton users were providing energy; it wouldn't be very efficient...

Hinata's attention was drawn outward. There was more orbs beyond the one floating before her. Six others, all connected by the roots she'd seen earlier. Four of them were covered in the same kind of urban construction, but Hinata noted that two seemed to be entirely devoted to what looked like farmland.

Konan brought her towards the 'ground', and the other spheres vanished behind the looming buildings. They landed upon a concrete bridge that extended out into nothing: it had clearly led somewhere once upon a time, but now it jutted out of the orb, leading to the empty sky. Hinata touched down with a wince, her leg protesting, and Konan glanced at her.

The constricting paper unwrapped itself from Hinata's body and arms but remained around her leg, and she looked down at it. Something must have shown on her face, because Konan spoke.

"Don't worry; it's not a security measure." The woman looked past her, deeper into the city. "Until you get that fixed, I'll be keeping that on. We can't have you walking around with a broken leg."

"Madara broke it, you know."

Hinata narrowed her eyes.

_'Twice.'_

"Oh?" Konan's eyes widened, just a little, but her expression didn't change. "That's unusual. You must have done something particularly… foolish."

Hinata refused to grace that with an answer. Instead, she did what any responsible ninja would do, and began shamelessly fishing for information.

"What is this place?" was her first question. At that, Konan gave her an amused look.

"Usually people ask 'How is it floating?'" she said with a twist of her lips. "And besides, I already told you; this is Amegakure."

"Amegakure was…" Hinata looked around. Amegakure: the Village Hidden in the Rain. It was reclusive, but most certainly not known for floating several miles above the ground. "You mean…"

The scale of it washed over her in a moment, making her knees wobble. Someone, or something, had ripped the entirety of the Village Hidden in the Rain out of the earth and sent it skyward, where it now stood in complete defiance of gravity. That kind of power was unthinkable.

Konan started walking, and Hinata followed after her with some hesitation.

"This place is a sanctuary," the paper woman said. "It was necessary. As I'm sure you've seen, almost nowhere is safe for the living now." She looked back, and Hinata was struck by the genuine melancholy in the woman's eyes, and for the first time, the fact that this woman was the first living person she'd set eyes upon since arriving. "Many of the survivors of the Nations call this place their home."

'Many' of the people left alive on the continent called a single city their home. Hinata had to stop and take a deep breath as the implications struck her dead on. Despite what the Yondaime had told her, the gravity of her situation continued to compound upon itself. There was only so far she could step back from reality. Hinata could feel it eating at her: hopelessness and terror, rolling in her gut.

Still, Konan's earlier comment had stuck in her mind.

"How _is _it floating?" Hinata asked, still rooted in place. Konan quirked one of her eyebrows.

"That is thanks to Amegakure's god," she said. Hinata blinked. Konan added another three words, though they looked as though they left a sour taste in her mouth. "And Madara Uchiha."

"Indeed. Without little Nagato, this would have been a challenge even for me."

The Uchiha seemed to materialize out of thin air, directly behind the two women. Konan turned towards him, seemingly surprised, while Hinata stood stock-still. Two paradoxical urges overwhelmed her, freezing her in place. The first was to remain quiet and try to sink into the confines of her vest; the second was to break the Uchiha's nose.

She was tired, and injured, and _angry_, and some of it obviously manifested. Konan gave her a warning look.

"I'm sure you can see why I took an interest in her, Konan," Madara said, stepping forward. Hinata felt him approach from behind, like an oncoming thunderclap. "When was the last time someone in her position struck at me?" She could sense the smirk. "She even wants to now."

_'Hit him.'_

"Hinata." Konan laid her hand on the Hyuuga's shoulder. "Calm down."

An Akatsuki member warning her not to attack a dead Uchiha as they stood on the outskirts of a city floating thousands of meters above the earth. Hinata's mouth was dry. Her hands curled into fists.

_"Right now.'_

She shouldn't be here. She couldn't be here.

But she was. She was. She was acting stupid. She had to get a hold of herself, or all of her effort up till this point would be wasted. Hinata could feel it, like a string stretched taut between two of her vertebrae, just below the nape of her neck. If it snapped, she wouldn't be able to put it back together.

She took a deep breath, and turned around.

Madara Uchiha stared at her with narrowed eyes.

"Hm." She couldn't read his face. "You broke your leg again."

Hinata threw herself at the lifeline presented. The string became a little less tight.

"_You _broke my leg again," she said quietly, her voice humming with soft aggression.

Madara snorted. "It's not my fault you have all the grace of a drunken dog. Any decent shinobi wouldn't have been injured by something so pathetic." He crossed his arms. "I won't be fixing something that wasn't my fault."

Anger and humiliation, hot and stinging, shot up into Hinata's face, and she felt it grow red. Konan squeezed her shoulder once more.

"Madara," the paper woman said. "Why are you doing this? You've never taken such interest in any of the others."

The Uchiha scowled. "She attacked me," he said, crossing his arms. "Though she knew it would be her death." The rings of his Rinnegan bore into Hinata, and once more she had to fight the urge to shrink away. "I normally don't care for the suicidal, but this one is peculiar."

Was he lying? It was more likely he had "taken an interest" in her thanks to her time traveling. Though, that wouldn't explain why he had dropped her. Maybe he really had thought she would have been fine?

It was something more than that. It must have been another test, like the conversational one he had laid down back in the Land of Iron. Had she failed it? Did that _matter_?

Hinata turned back around, and Konan's hand slipped from her shoulder. She started walking, moving forward with a slight limp.

"Where are you going?" Konan asked. Hinata didn't look at her.

"Away," she answered. "I need…" She paused, not really knowing what to say.

What did she need? Safety, a moment to rest? Quiet? Food? Sleep?

"I need some… space," she eventually decided. She kept walking: Konan didn't come after her.

"Hmph." She heard Madara grunt, and then a soft pop. Hinata looked over her shoulder in time to see the last traces of smoke from the shadow clone whip away. Konan stared at the empty space, looking distinctly annoyed.

"Fine," the paper woman said. "I understand: but I'll be coming for you later. There are things we have to discuss."

Konan melted away in a wave of paper butterflies, and the setting sun burned Hinata's eyes in her place. The Hyuuga turned away, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

She had to find somewhere to sit. Her legs would buckle otherwise. A bench was all she needed.

Hinata staggered onwards, every step sending a ping of dull pain shooting up her leg. The bridge to nowhere she stood upon led directly into the thick of Amegakure; concrete buildings, each more than five stories tall, immediately met Hinata as she moved away from the burning sun.

Without ceremony, she activated her Byakugan.

Amegakure was much smaller than Konoha; perhaps it had been larger before it had been lifted into the sky. There were seven spheres, arranged in a circle, each with a chunk of city sitting upon it. Hinata turned her attention downwards, peering towards the interior of each of the spheres, though she remained aware of the rest of the floating village, her mind subconsciously processing what her eyes had already seen.

Something terrifying sat at the core of each sphere: a smaller orb comprised of pure darkness, burning with cold chakra. Hinata analyzed the one closest to her, beneath her own feet. She could see space, and something less tangible, twisting around the orb. It was a hole, drawing everything around it towards it.

These must have been the genesis of the floating city, she realized. What she was looking at was strangely familiar. Something had created these spheres, twisting and molding gravity in an incredible manner to produce these artificial… moons, almost. They were miniscule ones, but as Hinata gazed at the small black hole, the interplay of gravity became clear to her. This circlet orbited the earth, denying its own much more massive gravity...

_'But I almost fell off the side.'_ Hinata twitched.

Artificial gravity, strong enough to form these floating spheres of rock and keep them elevated high above the earth, but not extending beyond the surface of them? It didn't make any sense. She should have been pulled towards the black hole in the middle from any angle.

Her head hurt. Hinata couldn't tell if it was thanks to the bruises or not. It was a pounding sensation, like someone playing the drums against her temple. She shifted her attention.

Still, something about that was–

_'Without little Nagato, this would have been a challenge even for me.'_

Madara had done this, at least some of it. Wide scale gravity manipulation, completely beyond the scope of anything else Hinata had seen chakra be capable of.

Madara, who had the Rinnegan.

Hinata felt dizzy. Her leg trembled, threatening to give out from under her. She really needed to find someplace to sit down.

She collapsed to the pavement instead, her broken leg stretching out. Her body seemed to sink into the concrete as the world kept spinning.

That worked too.

Nausea with the Byakugan activated. It had only happened to Hinata a couple times, but it never ceased to be incredibly peculiar. She tried to ignore it. Her mind was focused on more important things.

It made sense. Gravity manipulation: the same kind Pain had been capable of. Somehow, he and Madara had created this impossibility. No wonder Konan was here: if Pain really was the leader of the Akatsuki, then it was unlikely he'd be alone.

Three years before he would destroy Konoha. Though now… that would probably never happen.

The thought brought no relief, but it did slow down the panicked spiral her mind was slipping down. Hinata was able to pay more attention to the city around her. In many ways, it seemed identical to any other, regardless of its location in the sky. People going about their daily lives; talking, laughing, crying, playing, training, relaxing, sleeping…

How many were there? The city was rather dense: it looked to Hinata there were about twenty thousand people calling Amegakure their home. Her eyes took them all in, effortlessly absorbing a massive amount of information.

Most of them she didn't recognize, but she could tell they came from all walks of life. She spotted shinobi from every major Hidden Village, though for some reason nearly none were from Konoha. Many kept their headbands somewhere on them still, though their homes were gone. They were outnumbered in total by shinobi bearing Amegakure hitai-ate, but there were still thousands of them. Some of the foreign ninja were together, drinking or eating or talking; it hadn't occurred to Hinata, but if anything would bond enemies, it would be the end of the world as they knew it.

Almost unconsciously, she searched for Pain, not really wanting to find him. To her relief, she couldn't. She did, however, spot Konan approaching from the east.

The woman had company. Hinata couldn't believe her eyes.

She'd seen them earlier. She just hadn't been able to accept it then, and she was having difficulty now. Distracted by the ringing pain across her body, the gravity-warping masses at the center of each sphere, the weight of the situation, the expanse of the city, the presence of the Rinnegan, her remnant low-burning fury at Madara leaking out and coloring everything…

She was still lying down. In the middle of the road, as it were, though no one was nearby. Should she get up?

Could she?

Hinata pressed her head back into the concrete, keeping her eyes wide open, trying to find some sort of comfort in the solidity. Her leg felt hollow.

She was so tired. They were less than a hundred meters away, with just a couple buildings between her and them. She had to get up. She didn't want to be seen like this.

Hinata dragged herself to her feet, putting all her weight on her left leg, and staggered towards the side of the street. She leaned against a plain grey wall: as far as she could tell, the building was an apartment complex of some kind, all but empty. The only inhabitant was an old lady on the fourth floor, bustling around a pot of soup.

She closed her eyes, breathing heavily, and deactivated her Byakugan. For the next several seconds, she just focused on breathing; in through her nose, out through her mouth. The repetitive action filled her head with the sound of rushing air, and the feeling of her chest expanding and contracting provided a calming metronome.

Out, in, out, in, out, in…

It wasn't much, but it grounded Hinata enough for the pain in her leg to slip away. The aching in her head receded with it. Her breathing evened out, becoming quieter.

"Hyuuga."

Konan's voice deflated the momentary quiet Hinata had bought herself. She opened her eyes, looking to the left where the sound had come from. The paper woman was there, along with…

Sakura Haruno was so young. Thirteen years old. A good foot shorter than when Hinata had last seen her, and so uncertain looking. Her hair was short, roughly cut, and her plain clothes were unusually dirty. She was staring at Hinata with hard green eyes. Suspicious eyes. But it was impossible not to recognize her. The hue of her hair refused to be dimmed, especially in the harsh light of the sunset. The little girl saw something in Hinata's eyes, probably her disbelief, and glanced away just for a second in discomfort, trying to make eye contact with her other companion.

Sasuke Uchiha, just as young as Sakura, didn't look over at her. His eyes remained locked on Hinata, the characteristic red glow of the Sharingan backlit by the hard orange of the burning sky. Young as he was, Hinata felt as though he were still looking right through her. Just like his brother had, back in the past, she couldn't shake the suspicion the Sharingan saw something she could not. He was thinner than she remembered: the Uchiha reminded her of a bird of prey.

Why were his eyes activated?

"These two were the closest Konoha-nin I could find," Konan said, and Hinata made eye contact with her. Was the woman lying? She wouldn't have much reason to. "I assumed they would be the best to… 'show you around,' I suppose."

"You're not Hinata," Sakura cut in. Sasuke just kept staring at her. Hinata was tired, but not too tired to ignore the fact he seemed on the edge of attacking her. She couldn't deny the feeling anymore: the Sharingan saw something she could not. Itachi, Danzo, Madara: they'd all given her this peculiar hostile look.

Sakura though, Sakura just saw a teenager instead of her comrade. Hinata sighed.

"I am, Sakura," she said wearily. She looked to Konan. "Can I talk to them?"

The woman nodded, silently acquiescing, and disappeared in a flurry of paper. Sakura spoke up, a bit louder, before the paper had fully dispersed.

"Hinata's dead," she said, her eyes narrowing. "Why are you lying?"

"I'm not lying," Hinata said, her lips numb. The sun had nearly set. She had died here. The Yondaime had mentioned something similar, but the idea still sent a chill down her spine.

"I'm from the future."

* * *

When Hinata was done explaining, Sakura's eyes had changed. The younger girl was no longer paranoid. Now, she was just struggling to believe what she'd heard. Sasuke, on the other hand, looked just as suspicious as ever. They were looming over her now, their shadows cast long by the nearly set sun. Hinata had sat herself against the wall, propping her broken leg out.

"Are you telling the truth?" Sakura asked for the second time, and Hinata nodded. She could feel her consciousness draining out her broken leg; the world grew darker and narrower by the minute, but she refused to give in to exhaustion. She could not afford to.

"Why would I lie?" Hinata asked back, and Sakura frowned.

"I don't know," she said. She looked to her teammate. "What do you think, Sasuke?"

The Uchiha glanced at her, and then back to Hinata. Though his eyes bled caution, his expression was unreadable and flat.

"You never mentioned me," he said, and Hinata grimaced. That was true. She'd explained as much as was reasonable about the Akatsuki, Pain, the Chunin Exams _she _had experienced, and how she had ended up in front of them: she'd talked about how Naruto had fought the Akatsuki's leader, and Sakura had ended up training under Tsunade to become a world class medic. Hinata had wanted to inject as much detail into her story as possible; the more there was, the better a chance Naruto's teammates would believe it.

But she hadn't talked about Sasuke. She'd been worried what he would think. That was stupid, in retrospect: of course he would notice. Her exhaustion was clouding her judgment.

"I didn't want to," she said, and she could tell Sasuke saw the truth in her words.

"Why?" Sakura asked, and Hinata sighed.

"Sasuke left the village," she said, shifting her unbroken leg to help its circulation, and the Uchiha finally showed recognizable emotion: confusion. "He abandoned Konoha for Orochimaru."

"That's…" Sasuke said, staring at her. "That's impossible. I would never…"

Hinata gave him a humorless smile. "I didn't know you very well, Sasuke. I don't know what you were thinking. You'd confronted your brother–" Sasuke's whole body jolted, and he took in a short, sharp breath, "–and he had put you in a coma. You left a little less than a month after waking up." She took in a deep breath, feeling her lungs straining against her ribs. Sakura was staring at her, eyes comically wide. What Hinata was saying seemed to shock her more than her story about time travel. "Naruto went after you, with a team that included my cousin: neither of them ever told me what happened, but you got away, and Neji came back on the brink of death."

She let the silence settle, glad for a chance to breathe uninterrupted. It was easier to think about the past, however terrible it might have been, than her confusing and terrifying present.

"Well," Sakura said, shaking her head. "That doesn't matter. Sasuke wouldn't…" she looked at her teammate. "The Sasuke I know would never do that."

"I wasn't accusing him," Hinata said quietly. "Trust me."

"I didn't say…" Sakura said, before her voice died. Sasuke was shaking, his eyes screwed shut.

"Sasuke?" The Uchiha waved Sakura off.

"I'm fine," he rasped. He looked back to Hinata. His Sharingan was finally deactivated. "We've been asking enough questions: Konan brought us here to answer _yours_, anyway."

He wanted to change the subject. It was obvious, but Hinata was happy to take the opportunity. She never liked talking about herself.

"Who else made it here? From Konoha?" she asked.

"Not enough," Sakura shook her head. "Shikamaru's here. He's the only other one from our class to make it. I don't know how Konoha is doing, but I doubt anyone left there is…" The younger girl wasn't able to complete the sentence.

"I was there," Hinata said, "but only briefly. The village was too quiet. What happened to everyone?"

Sasuke spoke in a dead voice. "We didn't get the whole picture, at the time or afterwards. Both Naruto and Gaara were barely outside the stadium when Madara showed up: he grabbed them before we could do a thing about it."

"You saw it happen?" Hinata asked mutely, and the Uchiha nodded. She couldn't imagine how terrifying something like that must have been… or what Sasuke and Sakura must have felt, living here by the grace of a man who'd captured their teammate right in front of them.

"After that, everything was too crazy," Sakura said, while Sasuke looked down, closing his eyes. "Both the Sand and the Sound kept attacking until practically all of their ninja were dead; they never got the order to retreat, like you told us about. The Hokage went after them, and after that they didn't stand a chance. There wasn't any communication. The Village was in terrible shape by the end of everything."

"There were about two months of quiet after that," she continued. "No missions, no traveling outside the Village; everything was focused on rebuilding and fortifying. But then, the Edo Tensei started showing up." Sakura's mouth turned down, but her eyes showed Hinata the terror that sentence inspired inside her.

"It was small groups at first, nothing that patrol teams couldn't handle with the right tools," Sasuke said. "But soon enough, it was hundreds, constantly attacking the walls. Some started making it through." He swallowed. "After that, everything changed."

"We couldn't beat them," Sakura said. "Not when they would just regenerate from everything. A lot… a lot of our classmates died. So the Hokage started making Edo Tensei of his own."

Hinata had already heard this from the Yondaime, but hearing it from the mouth of a terrified young girl cast it in an entirely different light. To Sakura, the Sandaime's actions must have seemed the ultimate betrayal.

"At first, it was really powerful people," she said. "The older Hokage, Kakashi-sensei's father… there were less than a dozen the first week that it happened, but they made a huge difference. People could walk the streets again without having to worry about dying to a stray jutsu, even if you could hear the battles happening from anywhere in the Village."

Sasuke soundlessly growled, baring his teeth. Sakura grimaced.

"Eventually, they must have decided that wasn't enough. The Hokage started bringing back any jōnin that had died in the fighting. He brought back Sasuke's family as well: any Uchiha who had been career ninja. But they…"

"He made them puppets," Sasuke snarled, and Sakura shut her mouth. "They walked around with blank eyes: none of them would talk to me. And they fought like…" His expression twisted. "Not even my parents…"

The Uchiha balled his hands and dropped his head, falling silent. Sakura gave him an anguished look, before turning back to Hinata. The Hyuuga barely noticed the look, her mind occupied by what Sasuke had said. Why make the Uchiha into puppets? Why take away their free will? It didn't make sense.

"At that point, we thought about leaving," Sakura said. "Well, Sasuke did, and I wouldn't let him leave alone. Neither would Kakashi-sensei. But we didn't really decide to until…" Sakura took a deep breath and blew it out. "There was a big announcement. One of the Hokage's advisors, Danzo Shimura, he called all of the Village's ninja together during one of the lulls, when most of the Edo Tensei had been contained or driven off."

Danzo. Hinata remembered the last time she'd seen the man, and shivered. The temperature was dropping along with the sun.

"He told us there had been a breakthrough with the Edo Tensei." Sakura looked disgusted. "That for anyone who wanted to volunteer, there was a way to transform yourself into one, while keeping all the strength you had in life. He told us it was the best way to defend the village from an enemy that couldn't die: to become undying ourselves."

"There was no shortage of volunteers," Sasuke said with a hollow voice. "Konoha became a village of the dead. We couldn't take it anymore."

Sakura sniffled, and Sasuke continued. "We left at night, with Kakashi. Away from the main fighting, heading north. Some people went with us." He bit his lip; something Hinata had never seen Sasuke do before. "But a group of Edo Tensei caught up with us, at the Valley of the End."

"You were with us, Hinata," Sakura said, her voice breaking. "We couldn't…"

"Kakashi told us to run while he held them off," Sasuke said. "None of us wanted to, but he didn't give us a choice. But you… one of them hit you with a suiton dragon while we were hesitating." His composure cracked. "Like idiots. It killed you on impact: you went right over the waterfall. After that, we all knew we had to run."

Hinata stopped breathing. She had to focus on her heart, on her lungs, to make them start again. She'd always known she'd die ingloriously. No. She was here. She was alive. She hadn't–

"Konan found us, barely an hour after that," Sasuke said. Or was it Sakura? Hinata could hardly tell; their voices sounded like they were coming from underwater. "She said she was looking for survivors, and she was going to take us to a safe place. She didn't take no for an answer. When we asked her to go back for Kakashi, she told us it was pointless. He'd already–"

"It didn't kill me on impact," Hinata muttered, and Sakura, or Sasuke, stopped talking. They were both looking at her with confusion, guilt, regret, fear. Sakura was crying silently. "I was still alive."

"What?" The warbled sound came from a black gulf eating her vision: she couldn't see the people in front of her anymore. All she could see was the waterfall, whizzing past her.

"It broke my leg." The creeping agony in her leg was doubled, overlaid by fresh pain. Another layer of concrete, dragging her down. "My arm." A phantom pain seized her left arm and crippled it, driving stakes into each major muscle, snapping her tibia in two. "Most of my ribs." Her lungs were filling with weightless blood. "But it didn't kill me."

Her voice dribbled out of her mouth, choked by blood that wasn't there. The waterfall was going faster, faster. "I didn't die when I hit the water, either." The impact was sudden. Hinata was spinning. The world was spinning. The sun had set. She could see the light vanishing beyond the darkness enveloping her sight. It didn't make sense, but she could see it nonetheless.

"I drowned," she croaked. "I tried to swim. I couldn't. I drowned."

Water was rushing into her mouth, stinging her eyes, pulling her down down down down down–

She could see everything they had told her. The Edo Tensei storming the village, vast forests and tornadoes and floods springing to its defense just beyond and inside the walls, the Uchiha moving everywhere like blind dolls spitting fire without care, shinobi fighting and screaming dying, Neji coming back from the walls painted in blood that wasn't his own, Hanabi crying in the night, Danzo calling the Village together, the shouts of relief as people gave up their humanity, the Will of Fire being reduced to kindling.

Hinata saw it all, as though she'd been there herself. _She_ _had been there herself._

She was remembering what she'd never experienced. Her head sunk lower, her body curling in on itself.

"Hinata!" Sakura was screaming. Someone grabbed her shoulder, wiry fingers with an iron grip. Sasuke. He was shaking her. Hinata didn't care.

_'Why should I care?' _she thought.

_'I'm already dead.'_

* * *

**AN: This chapter's rougher than most of the recent ones. Going back to school has taken up a lot of my time. Nevertheless, despite both that and a recent job offer, I'll be doing my best to keep this regularly updated. Thank you for reading: I hope you enjoyed it.**


End file.

Naruto, Adventure