In the Forest of Death, Shino tossed and turned in his sleeping bag, thinking about the day's events. They had been... odd. Yes, odd was a good way to describe them. He sighed. So many of his observations had marked Hinata Hyuuga as an ordinary genin. Her taijutsu was poor for a Hyuuga. She had never displayed any qualities that distinguished her from a normal ninja - until recently.

He shifted slightly, finding a position that felt better for thinking in. Most people thought he was very intelligent, from the way he acted and spoke. He found that this suited him. Better to be overestimated than to be an outcast. The truth, however, was that half his brain was designed for communication with his insects through careful, subtle pulses of chakra - the way the insects communicated with each other. To make up for it, the insects had a primitive hivemind that supplemented his thoughts and automatically presented him with strategies in combat. But bug minds were never designed for the forming of theories and the careful trial-and-error of deduction. Sometimes, he wished he wasn't an Aburame.

Carefully, he half-turned his head to look at Hinata's sleeping bag - and saw her looking back at him, her lips twisted in a thoroughly uncharacteristic smirk. He panicked and turned away quickly, the noise startling a forest mouse that had sneaked into their camp to scavenge their leftovers. With his shinobi-trained hearing, he listened to its scramble to escape slowly fading into the sped-up beating of his central blood-pumping insect.

A second passed, then he realised - he was still wearing his shades. He never took them off. They were part of the "style" of the Aburame clan, his father had explained to him. To remove your shades was to turn your back on a hundred years of clan tradition, an offense he could be disowned for. They were like the fang tattoos of the Inuzuka. Through his shades, in the middle of the night, Hinata shouldn't have been able to see that he was awake. He wouldn't have been able to see her either if some of his eye insects hadn't had night vision. He realised he should have sent the insects out of his eye sockets. Stupid! Now she had seen him, she would know he was suspecting she wasn't who she said she was -

Involuntarily, his thoughts flashed back to the scene he'd observed earlier that day.

Shino's breath rushed out of his lungs in a long whuff as he was hit in the sternum through his trenchcoat. He arced though the air, hit the ground and skidded to a landing near the downed body of Kiba and his dog. He winced at the feeling of some of his bugs getting crushed under his body, and concentrated on trying to get his breath back. The blow from the enemy genin had been incredibly hard. He suspected that another Hidden Village was sneaking in fake genin to show off its power - a practice he had heard about from his Kurenai. He sent out all his insects at once, except the ones that maintained his body, to provide an emergency line of defence for when the enemy genin followed up on his attack. Grimly, he gritted his teeth. It was likely that Team 8 would lose their scroll to them.

His eye-insects, linked directly to his visual cortex through chakra, informed him that Hinata was standing between him and the enemy team. He watched her turn to look at him and Kiba with her Byukugan activated, then let out a chilling laugh. The enemy genin watched her warily for any trap, already starting to form handseals to provide cover fire.

"Now that nobody important can see, I can finally let loose! Eternal Byakugan!"

Shino hadn't known such a doujutsu existed. Moving so fast that the only sign of her movement were the fallen leaves thrown up in a whirling storm, Hinata was momentarily hidden from Shino's sight. When the leaves settled, Hinata was hefting a broken and - were they burned? - body in each hand. Contemptuously, she drew her hand back and swung - a perfect baseball pitch, Shino would have said if baseball had been played in Konoha - sending the bodies arcing into another part of the forest. Then, she turned in his direction, deactivating her strange doujutsu. Shino caught a momentary glimpse of dark blue filling her entire eye socket.

Who was this person? She could be an impostor, or maybe a - she was coming this way! Quickly, he pretended to return to consciousness. Drawing from his shallow pool of experiences involving waking people, he brought his - admittedly somewhat weak - acting skills into play.

"Oh, my head!" he exclaimed in a completely uncharacteristic manner. "Dearie, would you get me a glass of water?"

Hinata eyed him suspiciously. He almost flinched, but pressed on.

"I was unconscious, and now I am waking up," he explained, pulling his insects back into his body and sitting up. "I didn't see anything."

"Really."

Hinata looked him in the eye. He looked away, a couple of bugs buzzing. She suddenly smirked, a mocking expression that looked completely out of place on her face.

"Let's wake Kiba and get a move on."

And then she'd smirked at him all evening, when Kiba wasn't looking. It got on his nerves. When they'd fought another, weaker, team for their scroll. When he'd fried some kind of giant lizard his bugs had brought down for lunch. When he'd bathed in a stream. Shino had been somewhat embarrassed during the last one.

If she was an imposter, she would have done something by now, wouldn't she? They had a scroll now. Perhaps she was waiting for them to get a complete set? He couldn't bear the tension any more, and sent out his insects to look. She now looked like she was asleep. Silently, he rose, dressed in just his trenchcoat in case they had fight someone during the night - it provided valuable protection against weak taijutsu blows - and picked up a kunai from his equipment. He moved like a ghost over to her sleeping bag, crouched next to her sleeping form and held the kunai over her neck.

"Who are you?" he hissed quietly so that Kiba wouldn't wake. A second later, he wondered why exactly he wasn't waking Kiba up. If she was an imposter, he would need Kiba to help him take her down. And it was hard to sound aggressive enough to interrogate people properly while whispering.

Hinata murmured, "Naruto-kun... no need to be gentle...", her cheeks flushing slightly. Shino cleared his throat, and repeated slightly more loudly, "Who are you? An impostor?"

Without warning, he felt a kunai against his neck. Startled, he twitched and the firmly held razor-sharp kunai drew blood. He judged the feel of the stinging pain. It was just deep enough to hurt, but not dangerously deep. This was the grip of a professional shinobi, one who was used to threatening enemies from behind. Even as he held still to acquiesce the ninja behind him, the Hinata in front of him poofed into smoke. It was a bunshin! Even as his insects stirred to swarm the enemy, the kunai was pressed harder into his throat. He hastily called them off.

Hinata's voice whispered, "Who do you think I am?" A second later, she laughed her chilling laugh. It sounded even creepier in a whisper - perhaps he was wrong about having to whisper being an impediment to interrogation.

"I'm... Hinata," she said at last. He could hear a mocking tone in her voice.

"You are not. Because... Hinata has not displayed the abilities you have," he accused, "Hinata does not act like you do."

She sighed, and pulled the kunai away. He turned, tensing up for action.

"All right, I guess I have to tell you the truth. I'm a time traveller, back from the future to prevent Madara Uchiha from reuniting the Tailed Beasts."

Shino was at first inclined to disbelieve her. A time traveller? What next, espers and aliens? But the more he thought about it, the more it fit the facts. A future Hinata, embittered by the loss of her precious Naruto and possessed of great and unimaginable power, would indeed act the way she did. He thought for a minute, then suddenly realised something was out of place.

"You don't use the Gentle Fist," he accused. "You haven't used it since we graduated the Academy - that must be the time you replaced her! And Neji's disappearance just after that - that must have been -"

"Me. That's right," she answered. "I don't use the Gentle Fist... because I use the Strong Fist." She smirked again. "I'm not future Hinata. I'm future Rock Lee."

Shino's jaw dropped. Rock Lee?

Looking determined, the newly revealed Lee pumped his fist (her fist?) and whispered, "And if I don't stop Madara Uchiha, I'll run twenty laps around Konoha! And if I can't do that, I'll destroy all the Hidden Villages! And if I can't do that, I'll ask... N-Na-Naruto-k-kun out for a d-date!"

At the last quiet exclamation, Hinata's cheeks flushed and she poked her fingers together and stared down at them. Shino realised dully that the person before him was quite insane. Probably driven mad by whatever had happened in the future with Madara Uchiha.

"I'm afraid I have to erase your memories now, though," he heard faintly, and he realised with alarm that he couldn't feel his insects any more.