Summary: Alternate Universe. Post-apocalyptic world. Survivors try to piece together what has happened and protect what remains. Eventual Itahina.

Timeline: After Naruto goes into training with Jiraya for two and a half years, though certain events have been delayed or expedited.

Warning: Character death.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

They were all dead.

Hinata numbly stared past the bloody carnage to the smoking crater of what used to be Konohagakure. Each shallow breath she took brought the scent of burning flesh to smother her, the smoke cloying in her lungs.

She detachedly noted that she was in shock and should probably start searching for her teammates or at least deal with her injuries, but she couldn't tear herself away from the scene before her.

When the sudden blasts of energy had rained down from the sky, no one had time to react when half the world was wiped out in a blink. The centers of impact obliterated all traces of life and the following shockwaves blew down surrounding buildings and landscape for miles around. Debris littered the landscape and fires burned the remains.

Hinata and her teammates had just completed a mission that took months of tracking and had ultimately ended with a short but bloody battle that left them exhausted. They were hurrying back with minimal stops and Hinata was looking forward to finally getting uninterrupted sleep within the safety of Konoha's walls. She had just sighted the gates at the edge of her Byakugan-powered eyesight when the blindingly bright flash caused her to recoil. Her teammates had not even managed to stop their momentum when they were all caught by the shockwave and thrown backwards.

She heard Akamaru yelp before a flying chunk of what had been a piece of the wall surrounding the village struck her and the world went dark.

She awoke to find herself pinned between the trunk of a fallen tree and a boulder.

Brute strength was not her forte and because she was still drained from the mission, Hinata had barely managed to exert enough chakra to move the tree as she struggled against the stabs of pain radiating from two- no- three possibly fractured ribs and the abnormal throbbing below her left knee.

When she freed herself and lay panting on the ground, she squinted at her leg. The fabric had torn and she immediately closed her eyes to fight off the rising nausea brought on by the sight of her broken fibula bone protruding through her skin. But all worries for her leg fled her mind when she looked around and found the land unrecognizable.

This cannot be real, she thought faintly.

She rose, gripping at the side of the boulder and activating her bloodline limit for a better look.

Where am-

Her gaze landed on the cluster of rocks in the distance once called Hokage Mountain. She would not have identified it as such but for the cracked half of the Godaime's sculpted face resting at the base.

As she stood there, she began to tremble. No- This is not Konoha. It can not be. She must be caught in an enemy genjutsu that fools even the Byakugan or something similar. Konoha can not just-

Where is her team? The sudden thought jolted her from frozen horror and she continued scanning her surroundings with Byakugan.

It was chaos. Trees upturned; clothing, furniture, fruits, various knickknacks caught in the roots. There were doorways, windows, and entire walls scattered brokenly across the land, like shattered pieces of a once whole egg-shell. Thick black smoke rose into the air from various areas where flames were slowly consuming everything in the area.

But she could see no animals.

A chill ran up her spine.

No living human life forms.

The dread pervading her body settled somewhere in the pit of her stomach. She tried to calm herself and strained her eyes to look more carefully.

There was blood.

And bodies.

Her trembling turned into visible shaking.

A multitude of bodies beneath the rubble, all without any sign of chakra flow. All dea-

There! A faint chakra signature about a kilometer to her left. She must have missed it in her initial panic. She could tell that it was Shino from the kikaichuu surrounding his chakra. The sense of relief was almost more nauseating than the worry. His chakra flow was feeble and thready.

She needed to get to him. But her leg- she needed to conserve her remaining chakra for Shino. Fortunately she still had her pack with her and she took out her medical kit and a handkerchief. Biting down on the cloth, she braced herself to set her leg. As soon as she pulled together a makeshift splint, she began limping towards where Shino was, apprehension fueling her steps and hurrying her along.

Hinata finally came upon a large mountain of debris, rocks, and wood. She clambered up and dug through to where she can see he was buried. Removing a board, she turned off her Byakugan as she uncovered his face at last.

Slightly hysterical, she noted that he was still wearing his glasses, though the lenses had broken and fallen away. A deep gash along his cheek bled sluggishly.

"Hinata."

"Shi-Shino-kun! Please hold on-I-I will get you out!" Her anxiety had brought back her stutter. He was far, far too pale. Sweat beaded at his forehead.

"There is... no need to waste your energy... Why you ask? Because... the wound in my abdomen is too large and I... have lost too much blood. "

"No-S-Shino-kun! Just let me-" She scrabbled at the rocks.

"Listen," he said, stilling her movements with his gaze. "My insects cannot find Kiba and Akamaru...or anyone else. And from what they've gathered...the destruction extends... even farther than what you can see. My pack... to my right... take it. " She began to sob, tears spilling over as she shook her head.

"There is a scroll inside, a letter to my father ... If..." A pained expression crossed his face. " If you find him... please, leave it with him... Why? Because they were words... I could never say... I'm sure you understand... what clans are like." At this, his lips quirked up in a rare smile, which only made Hinata bite down into the flesh of her hand to muffle herself as she cried harder, because it was too unlike Shino and too much like a goodbye and if she accepted it to be so-

"Hinata..." His breaths became shallower. "You are strong... Stand by your beliefs... Live on for those who cannot..." His gaze grew distant as his breathing slowed. "I...have been fortunate... to have lived alongside you." He let out a final sigh and his face slackened, eyes closed.

Oh Kami- this can not be happening- No-no-no-no-no-"No! Shino-kun! Don't-" die- her mind whispered the word fearfully. Frantically, she resumed pulling away at the rocks and managed to unearth half his body. She stopped short by the sight of his blood still seeping out of the wound where a thick wooden post had skewered through his stomach.

Oh-

As reality set in, she crumbled.

She wept- tears of mourning, confusion, fear.

She cried for Shino-kun who had probably known that an empty crater is all that's left of home.

For Konoha, the one constant she had always taken for granted, now reduced to nothing but rubble in a split second.

For friends who have died, for they would no longer pursue their dreams.

For friends who still live, for they were lucky, or unlucky, enough to be away on a mission and continued to live not knowing that they had just lost their families and the stability of their world.

She cried for her own family, for though they were strict and full of unresolved issues, they were hers to keep, hers to fix, hers to love.

She cried for herself, for now she was alone and Shino was wrong, wrong, wrong, because she is weak and no longer sure if she had anything to believe in.

She cried until she no longer had the energy to cry or feel or do anything but huddle next to the corpse of her friend thinking that maybe the emptiness within meant that she too had died and the remaining warmth in her body would drain away with the sunlight until she became as cold as all the other lifeless things surrounding her. She let exhaustion take her into the comforting oblivion of sleep.

When she cracked open her swollen eyes, she saw the night sky. She was covered with a blanket she did not recall having. Hinata turned her head in an attempt to puzzle out her surroundings and started when she met with flickering eyes peering at her from across the campfire.

"Well, well, well. Seems like the little guppy we caught is awake."

Hinata jerked her eyes away from Uchiha Itachi and identified the position of his partner by the sharp flash of teeth in the darkness to the right. In a rush of adrenaline-fueled terror, she bolted from the bedding only to collapse in a spasm of pain.

"Ara ara, I think you won't get far with the state you're in."

Kisame stood and walked over to where she curled on the ground, trembling and clutching at her ribs. He hauled her up by her shirt and deposited her back onto the bedroll. Hinata whimpered through clenched teeth as her broken leg made contacted with the ground.

"Gently, Kisame. We will have no answers if she dies from your... care."

"Going soft, Itachi-san?" Kisame smirked.

Itachi ignored the comment. "There do not appear to be other survivors in our vicinity."

Kisame shot a considering glance at him before turning to leer down at her. "Guess it's your lucky day, Nibbles. Now that you're up, you can answer some questions."

But Hinata wasn't paying attention. When Itachi stated that there were no survivors, she remembered the events that occurred before she passed out. The bodies, the blood, and the broken remnants of Konoha. Her team, her friends, her family- they were all gone. Grief threatened to overwhelm her once more.

Itachi appeared before her, grasping her chin and tilting her head up to capture her eyes with his. "Calm," he ordered, Sharingan activated and whirling mesmerizingly.

Her breathing leveled and an unnatural stillness settled over her. She knew she was being manipulated, though she couldn't help but be grateful for the reprieve from the horrifying currents of loss that her thoughts would have swept her into.

"Tell me what you had seen of the events that transpired during and after the decimation of Konohagakure."

She didn't have the will to dispel the effects of his Sharingan and began relaying what she knew. But, she didn't have much to say and her narration was cut short as she became agitated nearing the event of Shino's death, enough to break through Itachi's light hypnosis.

"So there really is no one left," Kisame said, frowning.

"I-I couldn't find any other chakra signs but I didn't continue looking after-" after she found Shino only to watch him die.

Itachi looked away, changing the subject. "You said a bright flash... Was that all you saw before the impact?"

Curiously enough, they had yet to kill her, so she decided to continue speaking. Focusing on that time frame, Hinata closed her eyes and slowly replayed it in her mind. She spoke softly. "There were large balls of energy...of different sizes... But I don't know... They were not quite spheres... If-if I were to speculate.. I would say that there was something...chaotic about them..." When she opened her eyes, they were both staring at her. She backtracked, flustered. "B-but, it was fast and I don't know if I- if I saw it and remember correctly."

The look Itachi gave her seemed to penetrate through her mind, laying it bare before him and she tensed, wondering what the infamous genius could be thinking. "...Do not doubt your eyes."

Kisame raised an eyebrow at Itachi who proceeded to stare off into the distance, murmuring "... Much of the land we've seen on the way here resembles the current state of Konoha."

Throwing a log into the dying fire, Kisame's face hardened in thought. "I don't like this Itachi-san. There's nothing from headquarters. Something is fishy about this and it's not me."

"I have my suspicions," Itachi said, closing his eyes. "We must prepare to move forward under the assumption that this is not the only area that suffers from the blasts and perhaps the headquarter is gone as well. We need to gather more information." Itachi turned to face Hinata. "You can be useful, Hyuuga, should you choose to join us," he said, inadvertently sending a stab of sadness through her as she is reminded of her clan.

But he has handed her a purpose and she clung to the safety of it. In that moment, she found the will to live on. "H-Hinata," she said tentatively.

Because she remembered, because she knew, it is better to take control of your fate than to wallow in despair. That is also part of her ninja way.

"What was that Nibbles?"

She lifted her head to meet their eyes and firmly told them, "You may call me Hinata, if we are to work together."

Itachi nodded slightly. "Hinata."

She got the sense that he was...pleased. Or maybe that was just her imagination and she had already gone mad, as proven by her decision to follow to two highly dangerous ninjas out into the unknown.

But, though they will be using her, they had let her live. And they had helped her regain a sense of self. She plucked at the blanket they left her with and thought that they were undoubtedly deadly but perhaps they are not as cruel as their reputations say.

"Then it's settled." Kisame smirked, good humor restored at the prospect of traveling and potential fighting in the future. "Looks like it really is your lucky day, Nibbles, if Itachi-san has accepted you. We'll be leaving at dawn." He flashed his teeth at her in a menacing smile, his eyes flicking to her leg. "Don't slow us down now, little guppy."

They retreated to the other side of the fire to converse out of her hearing.

Now that she was left to her own devices and in no immediate danger, she unwrapped her leg to tend to it. The sleep she had gotten had restored some of her chakra reserves so she was able to carefully mend the bone, vessels and muscle fibers, sealing the skin with the Mystical Palm Technique. When she finished, she realized that even moderately minor healing had drained more of her energy than it normally would have.

Her ribs will have to wait.

She carefully shifted down onto the bedroll and drifted into slumber once more.

"The guppy is asleep. How...trusting. "

"She has been through an ordeal."

"My, you really are getting soft. Your village meant that much to you?"

"No."

Kisame appraised him knowingly. "If you say so, Itachi-san." Then he stretched and walked off into the darkness, calling out over his shoulder, "I will take watch."

Alone, Itachi allowed himself a grimace before schooling his features back into a mask of impassivity. He relaxed the muscles that had been tensed since the mass destruction occurred. To think that all his efforts to protect the village amounted to a pile of ashes. He knew that he could not have predicted this outcome and thus would have been unable to prevent it, but... He clenched his fist.

The time for mourning and regrets must come later.

He hoped that Sasuke, at least, had been spared. All was not yet lost. He needed to find him.

His gaze fell on the still form across the campfire.

Konoha, the village, is gone.

But, villages are made of more than just land and the Hyuuga girl-Hinata, though the recent events traumatized her, he could see that she had inherited the spirit that will help rebuild what was lost.

She will be useful, but he predicted that she will need more training to survive this world. Kisame, for all his gruffness, will undoubtedly jump at the chance to mold her into a worthy opponent.

He released a quiet sigh and looked up at the sky. Dawn will arrive in a few hours. There was much to think about.

And so, Itachi settled back to begin salvaging his plans and formulating new ones on how to proceed from here.

AN: This turned out a lot darker than I originally intended. It's my first shot at a multi-chaptered story and updates will undoubtedly be slow. Feedback is welcomed. :)