Disclaimer/Author Note: I don't own any characters or storylines of 'Naruto'.

Protector & Creator

This feeling was not new, but it had never been so strong – so overwhelming - now that she looked in the slowly fading eyes of her own creation…

Hinata has always been a protector and creator, she planted flowers, tended to them and pressed them to create something new - pictures out of their petals.

But she was also ninja and ninja do fight, kill and destroy - not the kind of profession she wished for herself or anyone else. She would have loved to be a musician, a painter or even a baker but those were no options for someone sired, born and raised a warrior. It was against her nature to kill and she hurt every time she took a life but she was a protector and so she fought to protect, killed to protect and suffered in silence. And because she was also a creator she created – created to protect, created to maim and kill.

When her families fighting style didn't work for her she created her own – picked it apart und used what worked for her, assembled everything around her – and it was every bit as formidable as the original. She created her own perfect defence, something that even outshone the original from her family. But now when she looked at her newest creation she was torn – yes, she used it to protect but it was something she felt she shouldn't have created.

When she made the decision to improve her Taijutsu, the creator in her practically screamed to strengthen the Juuken strikes. The process of creation is a long one, a hard one and one littered with failures, there where many options: use more power, use an element, use a different chakra manipulation or do something different altogether. To use more power was something everyone could do and it wasn't effective, element chakra would be incorporated into her fighting style sooner or later but was impracticable for Juuken strikes themselves. So she came to the decision to do something else altogether – she would create a Jutsu. A Jutsu using the principle of the Juuken strike.

Every Jutsu has two key ingredients, one is chakra – power taken from the strength of the body and mind, and the other is a name – it gives the Jutsu a place to start, a purpose in our realm, it grants existence. Everything else as handseals - to pressure the chakra into shape faster and efficiently, elemental and/or animalistic affinities – to empower the Jutsu, are but a bonus.

After three months of work Hinata had created her new Jutsu - a Juuken strike strengthened through an animal affinity. Many of the widely known Jutsu made use of the dragon zodiac but she wouldn't have been able to call it up without handseals – unthinkable in a Taijutsu fight, because she was not a destroyer. 'Fight to protect, kill if necessary', with this mindset there was only one animal spirit that she could use – the lion. So she created Gentle Step Lion Fist.

The first time she used it was against a chunin class missing nin. When the Jutsu launched itself from beneath her palms, created and guided by her chakra but controlled only by the fierce spirit residing in its core, she was afraid. Her team members congratulated her on a kill well done but she could only see the jaws of the lion head – wide open and hungry, could only feel the jaws closing around the chakra-centre of the enemy and ripping it out of his body.

Then she didn't know what she had created, that she had created so much more then she had bargained for. Hinata had used it again, this time against an opponent much stronger. He had tried to evade the Jutsu but the glowing mass chakra was not to be denied. It chomped down on the arm of the unlucky enemy and devoured the chakra residing there, growing in the process. Even when the nin chopped of is own arm there was no escape, the now fully formed lion launched itself at him and tore apart his chakra system. It was a gruesome death, not visible for anyone but a Hyuuga.

Afterward the lion was standing over the still body of her enemy, looking for new victims, and finally looking at her.

…she was once again afraid of it and herself, but mostly afraid of herself - what would she create next?