Title: Changing it To Fit

Chapter: 1 (Prologue)

Rating: T

A/N: I'm very displeased with myself. I have gone against my one core pet peeves and started this story while still engaged in another one. I apologize if I end up working on this one for a while instead of Once and Again, but I found it impossible to resist the temptation to start this story.

Summary: Hinata has a secret, one that no one would suspect. Becomes/is NaruHina; not your usual time-travel fic.

And so begins my first Naruto fic.

It was raining.

There was a lump underneath her back, probably a rock.

Somebody was crying.

She was cold, something warm was pooling around her.

There was a copper taste in her mouth.

Somebody was whispering to her now.

'Hinata, please open your eyes...please!'

Hinata. That was her name! All of a sudden, she could feel the pain. It penetrated her entire body, but it was centered around her abdomin.

'Na-naruto-kun...' She whispered.

'Hinata! You can't die, you're the only one left.' Naruto whispered brokenly.

'Naruto-kun...' she trailed off, her vision was going fuzzy.

The Sound had been resorting to guerilla tactics as of late and one by one, the Leaf was crumbling. Naruto and Hinata had been the only ones left of the Rookie Nine plus Team Gai. Kiba had been killed last week, there was only a small pocket of resistance left in the forests of the once prosperous Konohagakure no Sato. It was made up mostly of Chuunin like Konohamaru and his graduating class. Tsunade had fallen in battle some years ago, shortly followed by Jiraiya. Naruto had been named Hokage in Tsunade's will and had been acting as such ever since. Orochimaru had taken Sasuke's body as his own only a year before Tsunade was killed and it had been four years since then. There was a prosperous year after Tsunade's demise in which the war with Sound was looking to be in the Leaf's favor but it was not to be.

'Hinata. I love you, always remember that.' Naruto said brokenly as he hugged her slowly numbing body to his chest.

'Naruto-kun, I love you too.' Hinata said softly, then she began to cough.

Blood was dribbling down her chin. It was an uncomfortable feeling, she noted distantly.

She looked up at her love's face, his eyes were distant now as if he was having a silent conversation with himself. She realized he must be talking with the Kyuubi no Kitsune.

Hinata could remember when Naruto's secret had first gotten out. It was towards the end of Tsunade's funeral, an angry citizen had shouted that Naruto shouldn't be there and after angry questioning by Sakura, another citizen had let it slip. Naruto had gone white as a sheet and fled to the Hokage monument to hide. Hinata had found him there, standing over the carving of the Godaime with silent tears running down his face. She had told him that she didn't care and had in fact suspected as such after examining him with her Byakugan so many times in missions and the like. One by one, the Rookie Nine and Team Gai had come to Naruto and told him that it didn't matter to them. Through the next few days, civilians and ninja alike had confronted Naruto about it and while there had been some negative reactions, a majority of the population thought him a hero.

'Hinata. I'm going to do something very stupid.' Naruto announced quietly, startling her out of her memories.

She looked at him, her breathing was slowing and she could feel her heart skipping beats as it struggled to keep what was left of her blood flowing through her body. All it accomplished was to send more out through the wound in her abdomin, she thought to herself. It was odd, the thoughts that came to you before death.

Naruto started to focus chakra into something. Hinata was coherent enough to discern what anymore. Right before she finally slipped into unconsiousness, she heard Naruto whisper again that he loved her.

She was floating. That was the only word to describe what she felt. It was all that she could recall ever doing or feeling, this floating feeling. All she could see was black, though her eyes might have been closed so that would explain it. Eyes? What were those? Deep blue. That is what she thought of when she contemplated these...eyes. Blue? Ah, a color. Where had that come from? She could not remember the color blue, only that it was precious to her in some way.

Then, she was falling. Then, she remembered.

Hinata sat up in bed with a start. She could taste copper in her mouth, she'd bitten her tongue badly and a small line of blood was falling down her chin. It was oddly familiar to her dream.

'Hinata.'

She whipped around, coming face to face with a mirror.

'Hinata, it wasn't a dream.' A voice said.

Her eyes widened, not a dream? Impossible.

'No, it's very possible. Naruto and his tennant made it so. Remind me to hit him when next we see him.'

"Wh-who are y-you and w-why can't I see you?" Hinata said aloud.

'I am you. You saw my last moments on my earth, didn't you? You know sort of what happened. Naruto did something to me, to us. I'm now just a voice in your head, you have my memories but it's mostly as if I had gone back to the past and into my younger self except now you have the bonus of a voice in your head.' The voice, the other Hinata said.

Hinata sat heavily on her bed. This was a lot to take in for a seven year old child.

'Though you have my memories, your future memories, you don't know how to use them. I will merge with your personality very soon, you wont stutter anymore and you will have the intelligence to go with the knowledge I have given you. Don't ask how I knew that just now either, I think it might have something to do with being dead for a few minutes before Naruto-kun worked his jutsu.'

"Na-Naruto-kun? D-do you mean th-that boy F-father said to s-stay away from?" Hinata asked the voice in her head.

'Ah, yes. That horrid prejudice is still circulating in the village. No matter, Naruto is a good kid. As you should know from my memories. Though it will take months for you to assimilate all of them so it's not surprising that you don't know about him yet.'

"What d-do you m-mean?"

The voice sighed, 'I mean that it will take time for all of my memories to be accessible to you. Right now you can 'remember' up to about a month from now. Though everything will doubtlessly change because of your foreknowledge. Again, I haven't the faintest idea how I know that. I stand by my being dead theory.'

Hinata thought she could get to like this voice, her future self?

'Enough talk for now. It is very late, you should go back to bed. I'm willing to bet that most of the memories will manifest themselves as dreams from now on. I expect that as you 'dream' or 'remember' more, the process will accelerate because of your increasing intelligence due to them. Though 'I' will cease to exist it won't really matter because you will have all of my or your future memories. Ah...this is so confusing...get to sleep, I don't want to think about this anymore tonight.'

Hinata nodded and yawned. She was very tired still, the moon was high in the sky so it was very late. Hinata crawled back into her bed and slowly drifted off to sleep and into her dreams.

Dream Sequence

Hinata saw herself sitting next to her mother, they were talking quietly about Hinata's becoming a ninja. Her mother was saying that she didn't have to if she didn't want to, a few short weeks later her mother died of an incurable illness. Her father was pressuring her to be a ninja now, he was saying things like 'It's your responsibility to the clan, Hinata!'. Thus, a little Hinata started at the ninja academy with everyone else that year.

Dream Sequence Kai

Hinata awoke slowly, she blinked her pale eyes slowly and rubbed the sleep from them with one hand as she sat up.

'...You are progressing faster than I had thought. You covered about five months in that one dream...it will go slower now though. You now know of the simpler times, when things were peaceful...'

The Hinata in her head trailed off and Hinata wondered what she meant by that but decided not to pry. Her questions would be answered soon anyway.

TBC...

I felt it was as good a place as any to stop. Though I had originally wanted to end it right after Hinata 'died'. It was far too short, now it's in the thousands.

Drop a review, they feed me and keep me writing faster.