Hinata pushed back her exhaustion as she ran, no longer leaping through the trees. She had to reach Naruto-kun before that strange red chakra took over him completely. She didn’t use her Byakugan. She needed to reserve her chakra for the fight.
        Suddenly she burst into a clearing. Around the periphery of the clearing lay four dead ninja. Another unconscious shinobi with spiky white hair lay partially inside the battlefield. To her right stood a silver-haired shinobi with glasses. She could see several tears in his white and purple clothing. On his forehead –
        Hinata gasped. A forehead protector with a single music note gleamed dangerously in the dappled sunlight. The Hidden Village of Sound. Orochimaru.
        And to her left –
        “Naruto-kun!” she started to yell, but her voice dwindled down to a whimper. He wasn’t the same Naruto-kun she knew. All around him, a fiery wall of red chakra sparked and flickered, almost like an aura. His eyes, instead of the familiar sky-blue, were dilated in an orb of vivid, blazing orange. His pupils were slitted and wild, not pure and calming.
        As he turned towards her, she flinched. But as he looked at her, the aura of red seemed to recede, and for a moment, his eyes were no longer orange, but blue.
        “Hinata?”
        “I will not let you interfere,” the Sound shinobi yelled, throwing several kunai at Hinata. Hinata felt frozen. She had heard his voice before… but where? She watched as six kunai whirled her way. She flinched against their impact.
        Suddenly, she was knocked off her feet, and an intense aura emanated above her. Hinata looked up. Naruto blocked all six with his own kunai, moving faster than Hinata could follow without her Byakugan.
        “Hinata, what are you doing here?” Naruto grunted, ducking under another kunai. Hinata quickly got to her feet. She wouldn’t be a burden any longer.
        “I-I…” she shook her head to stop the usual deep red flush from working its way up her neck and across her cheeks. “I’m here to help.”
        The unnatural orange eyes replaced his blue ones. Naruto frowned and snarled, “Go away, it’s too dangerous for you.”
        Hinata shook her head no. “I-I will help you, Naruto-kun. I’m not so helpless anymore.”
        Naruto had no time to respond. The Sound shinobi ran at the two, throwing enough shuriken and kunai to darken the air around him.
        Hinata pushed Naruto out of the way and ran forward, drawing her own kunai in both hands. Clinkclinkclinkclinkclink. Hinata blocked all the Sound ninja’s projectiles, and formed a seal with her hands. Twenty yards, she mentally calculated.
        “Byakugan!” Her opponent’s chakra system appeared. Diminishing, but still strong enough to put up a good fight. He was forming a glowing, blue chakra on his hands. Hinata felt her stomach drop. She had felt his chakra somewhere before.
        Ten yards. This Sound shinobi had been the one to heal her after Neji-nii-san… It couldn’t be, she thought, shaking her thoughts loose. She crouched down, lowering her center of gravity. Five yards.
        She had seen his type of attack before. Only it wasn’t on the battlefield – it was in the Konoha hospital. Tsunade-sama had used this formation of chakra for medical uses, often using it as a scalpel during operations. So he was a medic-nin? Two yards.
        “Hinata! No!” In the back of her mind, she could hear Naruto-kun running to her defense, but she blocked that out for now. She had something to prove to Naruto-kun.
        She ducked under both her enemy’s hands, but the blue chakra grazed her long, black hair. She felt a lock waft down to the ground.
        She kicked out at her enemy’s legs, but he jumped up. She grinned. Perfect.
        With her other leg firmly tucked under her, Hinata lashed out upwards, planting her foot firmly in the center of the Sound nin’s chest. Momentum carried his body up, and through his glasses, his eyes held immense surprise.
        “Jyuuken!” Hinata slammed her open palm into his chest. She felt her chakra enter his body, blocking chakra holes and doing internal damage. Thank you Neji-nii-san, she silently prayed. The Sound ninja coughed up blood, spattering her face. She kicked off his body and leapt a good distance away.
        She landed facing away, and she heard as his body collided with the ground with a deep thump. She smiled. That went just as she planned.
        Suddenly, pain shot through her body, and she doubled over. She noticed that her precious hoodie was sliced in several places. Blood seeped through, staining her jacket.
        The Sound nin must have gotten past her defenses somehow. Cuts from the chakra scalpel began to open and bleed freely. The Sound ninja’s chakra. She looked up at the silver-haired shinobi. He was the one who healed me during Chuunin Exam.
        She watched as the silver-haired Sound ninja rose, and faced the two genin once more. Who – no. What was he? He shouldn’t have enough strength or chakra left to even stand, Hinata thought desperately.
        “Kabuto!” Hinata whipped her head around. Naruto was running forward, but he was still too far away to protect her. She would have to protect herself. She tried to stand, but another wave of pain washed through her and she collapsed again.
        The Sound shinobi – Kabuto – threw a spattering of shuriken Naruto’s way to slow him down. Naruto dodged them all, and continued to advance. Kabuto shrugged and turned back to Hinata.
        Kabuto raised an eyebrow. “Surprised that I’m still standing? I use a jutsu that allows me to regenerate my damaged cells. You have appeared to have blocked some of my chakra holes. I commend you on that. But in a moment, when you’re dead, it’s not going to matter,” he sneered at her.
        “Kabuto, you bastard! I’ll never forgive you for this!” Naruto was suddenly at Hinata’s side.
        “Gatsuga!” Two silver, whirling figures drilled through the air, both crashing directly on top of a surprised Kabuto. Kiba and Akamaru leapt away from the crater in the ground. Hinata’s eyes widened. So Kiba and Akamaru had come also?
        Naruto’s red aura dissipated as Kiba and Akamaru approached.
        “Kiba?” Naruto helped Hinata to her feet, catching her when she staggered. She flushed slightly at his touch, and bit back the urge to push her fingers together and look at the ground.
        “Yeah, do you think that I’d let Hinata do all the dirty work? Nice move, though, Hinata,” Kiba grinned.
        Naruto smiled. Hinata noticed that his calm blue eyes were back. Naruto stepped forward to high-five Kiba and pat Akamaru on the head. He commented on how big Akamaru had gotten in the past year.
        Hinata glanced toward the crater, formerly known as Kabuto. She didn’t want to see his body. She had seen the kind of damage that Kiba’s jutsu did to unsuspecting enemies. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
        Kiba followed her gaze. “Kabuto, eh? Wasn’t he that one genin from the Chuunin Exams a long time ago?”
        “Yeah,” Naruto said, “but he’s actually Orochimaru’s subordinate – a Sound ninja, and he’s a much higher level than he led us to believe.”
        “I’m not done with you, yet!” The trio and Akamaru whirled around. Kabuto stood at the very edge of the crater, panting heavily, but, unfortunately – Hinata trembled – alive. Kabuto’s glasses had broken from Kiba’s jutsu and lay in a mangled heap at his feet.
        Hinata shivered. Kabuto’s gray eyes turned red at the edges. This was something unnatural. Naruto shuddered, and Akamaru growled. Kiba drew a handful of shuriken and sent them whirling through the tense air at Kabuto.
        Kabuto snatched all four shuriken out of the air. And he threw them back.
        Without her Byakugan, Hinata couldn’t see them – they were moving that fast. All four were simply a slight shimmer in the air. She could hear their whining trajectory – straight for her and Naruto and Kiba and Akamaru. She felt frozen to the spot.
        Suddenly a great buzzing black wall dropped down to block the shuriken. The shuriken dropped to the ground – useless. Shino materialized beside them in a dark cloud of Destruction Bugs.
        “Shino!” Kiba and Naruto said simultaneously. Both grinned, glad to see their comrade. Hinata smiled. Shino had chosen to help her and Naruto-kun as well. Shino nodded to her. His way of apologizing.
        “No more interruptions!” Kabuto staggered forward wildly. His eyes were now completely red, instead of just tinged red at the edges.
        “Byakugan!”
        “Jyujin Bunshin!”
        “Kikaichu no Jutsu!”
        “Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!”
        All four genin and Akamaru faced Kabuto, each at the ready with their own jutsus. Kabuto’s uneasy gaze passed from each of them. He frowned, calculating the situation. Finally, he stepped back, drawing something from behind his back. Through her Byakugan, Hinata could see that it was a smoke pellet.
        “This is a very inopportune time, Naruto-kun. Perhaps we will meet again later when your annoying friends aren’t around,” Kabuto smirked, throwing the smoke pellet to the ground. A dark, thick cloud blossomed from the floor.
        “Bastard! I’m not letting you get away!” Naruto and his clones ran towards the cloud of smoke. Through the smoke, Hinata could not sense Kabuto’s chakra – only Naruto-kun and his clones. She shook her head as the smoke cleared and let her Byakugan drop. Shino and Kiba dropped their jutsus also. Akamaru transformed back into dog form in a puff of gray smoke. Only Naruto was still looking for Kabuto.
        “Where is he? Where? Where?” his clones echoed as they fanned out, still searching for Kabuto.
        “Oi, baka! You're a little late! He’s gone, face it,” Kiba grinned at Naruto’s unwillingness to give up. Naruto’s kage bunshin all disappeared in their own plumes of gray. The real Naruto ran up to Kiba. “Who are you calling baka?”
        Hinata smiled slightly and shook her head. Same old competitive spirit.
        Suddenly Naruto froze and smacked his forehead. “Damn it! I forgot all about him! Ero-sennin! Ero-Sennin!”
        “Naruto, what’s wrong?” Shino asked. Naruto was searching frantically now, running around the periphery of the clearing.
        “Kabuto and those four Sound-nin over there,” he pointed at the four dead ninja at the far side of the battle ground, “knocked out Ero-Sennin – er – Jiraiya-sama. And during the battle, I sort of forgot about him.”
        Kiba rolled his eyes. Hinata formed the seal with her hands, very aware of her own limited chakra supply.
        “Byakugan!” She panned her gaze right and left. Finally she found him. Jiraiya had been the fifth person that she had seen – the one with a dwindling chakra system. “Naruto-kun! He’s over there!” She called, pointing.
        “Ero-Sennin! Hm? What’s wrong with him?” Naruto tipped his head to one side. He clasped Jiraiya’s shoulders roughly. “E-RO-SE-NNIN! Wake up!” He shouted, shaking the legendary San-Nin’s shoulders roughly.
        Kiba and Shino shuffled their feet awkwardly in the background. Hinata blushed, slightly embarrassed for Naruto. “Uhm… Naruto-kun? His chakra’s been nearly depleted. He’s not going to wake up until he restores it… and… uhm..” Hinata petered off, blushing even more.
        Kiba stepped in to finish her sentence, “And you shaking him isn’t helping his condition any! C’mon Naruto, hurry up and let’s get him to the nearest village.”
        Naruto laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. He helped Kiba load Jiraiya onto Akamaru’s back. Akamaru barked, slightly annoyed at his new baggage. Kiba consoled Akamaru, telling him that he would get the poor dog a nice steak if he behaved. Akamaru whined once more, still sulking, but only slightly now. Hinata smiled. Kiba always had a way with Akamaru.
        Suddenly a ragged bolt of pain shot through her. She collapsed slightly, gripping her upper arm. A thin layer of red oozed out from under her fingers.
        Shino crouched beside her, his brow furrowed.
        “It’s deeper than it looked at first. We should get you to a medic as soon as possible, Hinata.”
        “Hm? Hinata? What’s wrong?” Naruto materialized beside Shino. Hinata felt herself blush from her toes to the very top of her hairline. “Hinata? Do you have a fever too? What else did Kabuto do to you?”
        “Uhm. Uhm. N-nothing Naruto-kun. I-I’ll be fine,” she stuttered, attempting to stand up. Another sudden flash of pain sent her stumbling – directly into Naruto’s arms.
        He looked at her with wide, blue eyes. She trembled and blushed again, willing the dancing black dots at the edges of her vision to overwhelm her. Please, she prayed, let me faint before I embarrass myself in front of him anymore.
        “Hinata! Hinata, what’s the matter?” Naruto shouted at her, turning her over so that she was lying on her back facing up towards him.
        “It’s a combination of blood loss and chakra exhaustion. We’ve just come from a mission concerning missing-nin,” Shino said. If I’m suffering from blood loss, why is all of it going to my cheeks? Hinata irritably thought.
        “I-I’m sorry, Naruto-kun,” Hinata let the words tumble from her lips.
        “Why are you sorry, Hinata? You did great!” Naruto beamed at her. I’m not a burden anymore! Hinata thought, mentally jumping for joy. Another wave of pain washed over her.
        She couldn’t remember if she smiled back before the looming blackness overwhelmed her.