FOR LOVE.

Disclaimer: I do NOT write too slow! I just, uh...

Claimer: OK, I write too slow. Sorry.

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CHAPTER 9: Sacrifice for Duty.

The tears stung at the corners of Hinata's eyes, but she fought them back to maintain the dignity expected of her. She had already shed all the tears she needed to.

Beside her, Naruto wasn't so restrained, sobbing loudly enough to attract disapproving looks from the other Hyuugas standing around them. Hinata squeezed his hand comfortingly and he choked back his tears and wiped his dripping nose with the back of his other hand.

It was a sad circumstance for Naruto to make his first visit to Hinata's home, but Chizuru had grown surprisingly fond of the orphaned boy in the year and a half they'd known each other. So Hinata had put her foot down and insisted that Naruto be allowed to attend the old nursemaid's funeral service. Her father had not raised an objection, so the day before Hinata had taken him out to buy some suitable mourning clothes to wear to the service, and met him out the front of her family's home that morning.

Hyuuga Chizuru, born into the Hyuuga main family, had lived a modest life. She had served during two shinobi world wars and fulfilled her duty to a satisfactory level before retiring to tend the household instead. She had been the midwife who had delivered Neji, Hinata and Hanabi, and had been the primary cafegiver for the sisters after their mother Hotaru had passed away. She had been well-respected within the Hyuuga household for her good sense and dedication to her duties, and every member of the clan not currently assigned outside of Konoha had come to pay their respects.

After the service, Hinata led a sniffling Naruto out of the hall into the garden. The two children peeled off from the mass of departing Hyuugas and stood to the side out of the way as they filed out and returned to their duties. Last to leave was Hinata's father, who stopped in front of the pair as they stood side by side. Hinata felt suddenly extremely conscious of Naruto's hand gripping hers as the clan head stared down at them, but instead of releasing it she gave it another reassuring squeeze. Her father and her friend had met in passing a handful of times before, most recently on their first day at the Academy, but Hiashi had never talked to Naruto seriously before.

After a brief and uncomfortable pause, Hiashi spoke. "Thank you for your presence here today, Uzumaki Naruto. Chizuru-san was quite fond of you."

Naruto blushed. "Um... thank you, um, Hyuuga-sama. I... I liked her too. Very few people are nice to me like she was."

Hinata's father regarded the boy in a calculating manner. "I see. I have heard much about you from Hinata. She has a very high opinion of you." Naruto's entire face lit up with wonder. "She is my eldest child and the heir to the entire clan. I trust you will do your best to be a worthy companion to her?"

Her father's pointed words made Hinata bite her lip, but Naruto rushed to answer. "Oh, oh yeah, absolutely, I'll, I'd, I'll do anything for Hinata, she's my first and best friend and I-I love her more than anything, I-uh..."

Hearing the words that tumbled from his mouth, Naruto went scarlet to the tips of his ears and clammed up like his lips had been superglued shut. Hinata felt a similar flush rushing across her face and stared at her feet, afraid to look at her father's face. While her friend's words struck a pang in her heart, it was just an echo of the many times she'd heard the same words before, imbued with an entirely different, more passionate meaning.

"I love you, Hinata," Naruto had said. "More than anything."

"More than ramen?" she'd teased him, tracing her fingers across his bare chest.

"Anything," he'd assured her, pulling her naked body close against his and squeezing her tight.

Of course, this Uzumaki Naruto meant something completely different from that. Glancing up at her father, Hinata saw him staring down stone-faced at Naruto. The blond boy shuffled his feet awkwardly. "Um... I'm sorry..."

He was interrupted by, of all things, the sound of a chuckle. Hinata stared in astonishment as a small smile bent her father's lips. "You are... an earnest child, Uzumaki Naruto," he said. "I hope you remember that commitment when you grow up to become a dutiful shinobi of Konoha."

"I-I will!" Naruto yelped, standing to attention like he was on a parade ground. He glanced sideways at Hinata, the blush still covering his face, and she met his gaze with a small smile of her own.

The smile gone but not forgotten, Hiashi nodded gravely. "Good. Hinata, now that the service is over the two of you should return to the Academy by lunchtime. See Naruto-kun off, then go and get changed." Hinata nodded in mute acknowledgement. Chizuru had passed away in the middle of the school week, requiring her and Naruto to skip their morning classes to attend her funeral. Her father looked at Naruto again. "Thank you for coming today, Naruto-san. You are welcome in our clan's household."

The boy bowed awkwardly. "Uh, no, thank you for having me."

And that seemed to be it. As Hiashi strode off, Hinata and Naruto exhaled synchronized sighs of relief and glanced at each other. Hinata smiled. "I think my father is starting to like you, Naruto-kun."

The boy's face brightened. "Really? That's a relief! I was worried that your family might not want me here." His face pinked again. "Uh, about that... thing I said, y'know, about, uh, you know how I..."

To save him further embarrassment, Hinata put her arms around his shoulders, and pulled him into a quick hug. "It's OK, Naruto-kun, I know what you meant. I love you too." She meant it. Her feelings for the young Uzumaki Naruto were totally different from the ones she'd had for her past lover, but as her best friend in this new timeline, she couldn't help but at least return his platonic love in full. Releasing him and stepping back, she giggled at the goofy grin on his face. "Father was right, though, we need to be getting back to school."

Naruto snapped out of his reverie. "Oh? Oh, yeah, I'd better hurry home and get changed!" As the two children headed for the front gate of the Hyuuga compound, a wistful expression drifted across his face. "I'm still going to miss Chizuru-san, though."

Hinata found his hand and squeezed it once more. "So will I, Naruto-kun."

oooOOOooo

Hinata watched Sasuke closely as Haruki-sensei described the necessary amount of chakra that would need to be channeled to perform the henge techique. After she'd received her father's permission, she'd been intending to invite the Uchiha boy around to visit her home the day immediately after she'd visited his, but she'd lost her nerve and convinced herself she could put it off for a day, thinking it would be suspicious if she was seen to be too eager. She'd made the same excuse the next day, and after that was the day their half-yearly report cards had been issued, with Hinata reasoning that Sasuke would be too eager to head home and show his results to his family to be interested in accepting her invitation. That night, when she'd finally resolved once and for all to ask him the next day, had been the night Chizuru had passed away. With the Hyuuga household suddenly having to deal with her passing, inviting Sasuke around was completely out of the question.

As the unplanned delays had piled on top of her initial procrastination, Hinata had cursed herself for her hesitation, knowing how crucial every day now was. She couldn't afford this timidity with the life of an entire clan, and possibly the entire world, hanging in the balance. Despite not arriving back at school until after lunch and missing the chance to talk to him then, she'd resolved to invite Sasuke around to her house today. The Uchiha boy seemed quieter than usual today, looking distracted as if something was bothering him.

Eventually class was dismissed for the day. As the students were filing out of the classroom, Hinata took a deep breath and seized her chance. Sasuke was lagging at the back of the group. Steeling herself, Hinata walked up behind him and said "Excuse me, Sasuke-san?"

The young Uchiha started in surprise and turned to face her. "Hinata-san?"

She took a deep breath. "Um... I was wondering... well, my Father said that to thank you for having me around to your home the other day... um, would you... be willing to come and visit my house?"

Sasuke stared at her as if she'd just offered him a cheese and shuriken pizza. Behind her, Naruto made an unidentifiable sound. After a few awkward seconds, a shy smile crept across Sasuke's face. "Um... that would be nice, actually. Do you mean today?"

"Today would be fine," Hinata assured him, relief washing over her. "Do you need to tell your parents, or can we go now?"

The black-haired boy squirmed. "Uh, I... think it'll be fine if we go now, as long as I'm not too late going back home."

"I'm coming too," an unexpected voice cut in harshly, startling Hinata. Naruto stepped up to stand beside her, glaring at Sasuke. "Your father said I was welcome at your place, so I'm going with you." A thought seemed to hit him and he deflated slightly. "...if that's OK with you, of course."

Perplexed, Hinata and Sasuke both stared at him. After making such a bold statement, Naruto was shuffling awkwardly on the spot, staring at his sandals. Why does he want to come with us so badly all of a sudden? Hinata wondered. The other day when I went to Sasuke's place he was determinedly uninterested. Again, she found herself wondering whether Naruto was becoming jealous of her apparent interest in Sasuke. Hinata was no fool. Even the first time around, Naruto had been envious of the boy he saw as his rival- Sasuke had been talented, respected, admired, the top student in the class and the idol of almost all of the girls, including Naruto's first crush, Sakura. Although at this point in time he wasn't yet being hailed as the genius Uchiha who nobody else in the class could touch, he was still at the top of the class and it might not be that surprising if Naruto felt threatened by Sasuke getting too close to his first and only friend.

But maybe... this could be an opportunity? If she could get the two boys to socialise with each other, with her acting as a mediator, maybe she could foster a proper bond between them even before the vitriolic rivalry-turned-friendship they'd formed on Team 7? And perhaps this could give Sasuke the additional stability he needed to avoid falling to the darkness again?

Of course, that would only really matter if she was unable to prevent the massacre of the Uchiha clan, and she hadn't given up on that. But having a contingency plan never hurt anyone.

She smiled. "Of course you can come along, Naruto-kun. All three of us can do our homework together." Sasuke and Naruto exchanged sideways glances, the former curious and the latter dubious, but neither voiced a word of protest. "Shall we go then?"

The two boys followed her out of the classroom quietly.

oooOOOooo

A painful silence hung over the three children as they sat around the table. Sasuke had taken his seat first and Hinata had positioned herself opposite him, only for Naruto to protectively sit himself down right beside her the same way they sat in school, glowering belligerently at the Uchiha boy and casting an awkward air over the gathering.

A young branch family maid Hinata didn't know by name had brought them drinks- green tea for her and Sasuke, apple juice for Naruto, who wasn't a tea drinker yet. Taking a cautious sip from her steaming cup, Hinata placed it back on its coaster and prepared herself. "So, how have things been with you lately, Sasuke-san?"

The Uchiha boy had been gingerly touching the sides of the hot ceramic vessel containing his own drink, but when Hinata addressed him he gave up and left it to cool a bit. "Um... I'm fine... I guess." He shifted uncomfortably, giving lie to his words, before sighing. "Well... you know how we took our report cards home yesterday?"

Hinata nodded, while Naruto only fumed, his face burning. Hinata's father had been quietly satisfied with her own report card- she had topped the class in chakra control, ninja history, kunoichi taijutsu (which would remain gender-segregated until their third year), and all secondary academic subjects such as maths and literature, while coming in second in ninjutsu, seal forming and projectile weapons. She'd deliberately restrained herself from using the full extent of her abilities so as to try and stand out a little less, but even so only a single other student had managed to challenge her, and she had a good idea of who it had been. Unfortunately Naruto, despite all his best efforts and all the help she'd been able to give him, had still come out at or near the bottom of the class in almost every subject, only managing to climb to near the lower end of the middle of the pack in the boys' taijutsu rankings through sheer determined enthusiasm. The sad truth that Hinata had been forced to come to terms with was that Naruto hadn't been the dead last of the class the first time around entirely because of the neglect of the teachers or his isolation from his peers- regardless of how hard he tried, he simply wasn't a good student, at least when it came to traditional teaching methods. Learning theory in a classroom was simply not the key to unlocking his hidden potential.

"Well," Sasuke continued, "I... gave my report card to my father. And I was either first or second for every subject-" Naruto's expression went from a glower to a scowl. "-so I hoped he might... praise me for once, the same way he does my brother."

A twinge of sympathy bloomed within Hinata. She knew all too well the burning need for recognition and acknowledgement that came from having a demanding father, something that had taken her an entire lifetime to finally fulfill.

Sasuke squirmed uncomfortably, before finally finishing "But all he said was that... I should work harder to be more like my brother."

"Oh!" Despite herself, Hinata couldn't help making a small noise of sympathy. Beside her, even Naruto looked stricken. With Sasuke's confession, Hinata grasped the distinction between the three of them. All of them were driven to seek the approval of others, but while Hinata had to live up to the demands of being the heir of the Hyuuga clan, and Naruto had taken it upon himself to win the acceptance of everyone in Konoha, Sasuke's father did not demand anything from him- because he already had his perfect brother, Itachi. Sasuke felt superfluous. The only person who he felt was demanding anything from him was himself.

Hinata didn't know what she could say to that, and Naruto didn't have any words either. Looking at their awkward faces, Sasuke coughed. "Um... so how are you doing, Hinata-san? Both you and Naruto didn't arrive until after lunch today."

Grateful for the opportunity to change the subject, even to such a sad topic, Hinata recounted the circumstances of Chizuru's passing and memorial. Sasuke listened soberly. "Oh... I'm sorry to hear about that, Hinata-san." His brow furrowed momentarily as a thought struck him. "Um, does that have anything to do with why Naruto was late as well?" Hinata couldn't help but notice that Sasuke had again left any honorific off Naruto's name. Neither boy had ever used an honorific of any sort when addressing each other in the past, but despite Sasuke's unfailing politeness towards her she couldn't tell whether this was a sign of familiarity towards the other boy, or merely contempt. Considering the hostility Naruto had already shown towards Sasuke, she found herself worrying that the latter was more likely.

Naruto hadn't missed it either, his sympathy towards Sasuke already dissipating again. "I was at Chizuru-san's funeral too," he cut in sharply before Hinata could answer. "She was a friend of mine as well, so of course I was invited."

Sasuke looked like he was struggling to find the most tactful way to ask a difficult question, then gave up and went for the direct approach. "I was wondering... why is Naruto always so close to you, Hinata-san? It's kind of weird that-"

"Why not ask me yourself, Sasuke?" Naruto snapped angrily. "Stop treating me like I'm not here!" The two boys locked gazes belligerently and Hinata held her breath. As the mutual point of contact between them, as well as the host of this gathering, she could almost certainly shut down the confrontation with a few well-chosen words- but her instincts told her to let it happen. If one of her goals was to try and establish a friendship between Naruto and Sasuke earlier than before, she had to let them learn to deal with each other, rather than separating them whenever they clashed like a fussy kindergarten teacher.

Eventually Sasuke broke the tension. "How is it that you're friends with Hinata-san, Naruto?" he asked tersely. "Is your family connected to the Hyuuga clan somehow?"

Naruto didn't blink. "I don't have any family," he stated bluntly. "I don't even know who they were. I don't have anyone. Or I didn't until Hinata-chan said she'd be my friend. Because Hinata-chan is the kindest person I've ever met."

This time it was Sasuke's turn to look shaken by Naruto's admission. The hard, confrontational look in his eyes vanished and he was once again the cheerful young first-year student Hinata had hardly recognised on the first day at the Academy. "I..." He floundered for words. "I'm sorry... I didn't know. I guess I, uh, I took for granted what it's like to have a family to worry about. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have my mom and dad and my big brother." A shiver ran down Hinata's spine.

Mollified, Naruto sat back and had a sip of juice. "S'okay. Just don't forget that Hinata is my best friend, right?" Sasuke rolled his eyes, but just smirked and nodded placatingly.

Hinata thought this was an opportune time to reassert herself in the conversation. "Of course, this doesn't mean you can't be my friend as well, Sasuke-kun," she said meaningfully. Naruto hastily put on an apologetic look. "If you want to."

The young Uchiha boy nodded vigorously, smiling brightly at her words. Hinata felt more keenly than ever how vast the gulf was between this cheerful, innocent child and the embittered, sociopathic madman who had sworn to destroy Konoha. Hastening to change the subject before she became maudlin, Hinata picked up her school pack and placed it on the table next to her tea, flipping it open and rummaging around in it for her textbook. "Um, so do you want to get started on our homework while we're here?"

Sasuke's eyes lit up and Naruto groaned.

oooOOOooo

Hinata was immensely satisfied with how things had gone during the week since the gathering at her house. The two boys had reached a sort of wary agreement that, if they were both Hinata's friends, then that made them legally step-friends, so they were obligated to at least get along. To Hinata's pleased surprise, she found that it reminded her of the relationship the two boys had established back in her old life, before Sasuke had fallen to the darkness- endlessly bickering with and sniping at each other, but in a good-natured manner, without any real sense that they genuinely couldn't stand each other. As expected, Naruto had developed a rivalry with Sasuke, constantly trying to one-up him with an enthusiasm that belied their massive gap in natural ability but, to Hinata's mild surprise, Sasuke seemed more interested in matching his abilities against her instead. She supposed it made sense, as she was easily the only student in the class capable of matching him thanks to her unfair advantage, but it was something she'd need to keep an eye on going forward. While Sasuke didn't spend time with them outside of school again, the three would eat lunch together on a daily basis. Hinata had quickly grown accustomed to the jealous scowls of the other girls in the class.

On the Monday after their first get-together, however, something was different.

Hinata felt a twinge of unease as soon as she entered the classroom and saw Sasuke already in his seat, staring blankly into space with an expression of distress on his face. There was still a minute before the teachers arrived, so she quickly stopped beside his desk, Naruto hovering curiously behind her shoulder. "Um, Sasuke-kun?" she asked hesitantly. "Is... is something wrong? You... don't look so good."

Sasuke blinked, and a wan smile forced itself onto his face. "Oh... good morning, Hinata-chan." After a few days, he'd finally started addressing her the same way Naruto did. "Um, I'm fine. It's... nothing." He squirmed for a few seconds at telling such an obvious lie, then admitted "Actually... something happened. Can I talk to you about it at lunch?"

"Of course you can," Hinata said, leaden worry settling on her like a heavy wet blanket.

All throughout morning class, Hinata fretted about what was bothering Sasuke. She was so distracted that she was caught out when Yoko-sensei asked her a question about the ninja rules and had to be prompted by Naruto to keep up, earning them both a reprimand. By the time the lunch bell finally rang she was a bundle of nerves, practically grabbing Sasuke and Naruto and dragging them out of the classroom in her haste to reach the bench at the far end of the playground where they usually shared their lunch.

No sooner had they opened their bentos (Hinata had brought one for Naruto as usual) than Hinata began her interrogation. "You said something happened, Sasuke-kun?"

The boy fumbled with his chopsticks nervously. "Um... well it was..." Sasuke was more uncomfortable about speaking than Hinata had ever seen him. "Well... on Saturday afternoon after school I was talking to Nii-san, when three members of the clan came to the door. They wanted to ask Nii-san about a friend of his who'd..." He squirmed awkwardly. "...apparently killed himself the night before. Nii-san got angry and asked them if they were accusing him of killing his friend, and they said they were. And then..." Sasuke looked like he was going to be sick. "...he beat all three of them up in an instant. Father tried to stop him, but Nii-san argued with him and then... and then threw a kunai right into the middle of our clan symbol on the wall."

Naruto and Hinata sat, listening in rapt fascination and growing dread respectively. Sasuke looked down at his lunchbox, absently picking at individual grains of rice with his chopsticks. Right before Hinata could find her voice, Naruto spoke up. "Your brother beat three guys on his own? He really must be strong!" Sasuke had enthusiastically talked about Itachi several times in their lunchtime conversations over the last week, so Naruto was already passably familiar with the Uchiha heir, despite not having met him. Hinata tried not to cringe at how badly Naruto had missed the point.

The admiration in Naruto's voice didn't evoke the same pride from Sasuke that it normally would; indeed he only looked more miserable. "He... he might be the strongest ninja in the entire clan. Maybe even stronger than our father. But I... I thought he was about to fight all of them, even Father. And he said..." He licked his lips nervously. "...he said that he'd... lost all hope for the clan."

"What happened next?" Hinata asked quietly.

Sasuke looked miserable. "I shouted for Nii-san to stop and... he bowed down and apologised. He swore that he hadn't... killed Shisui. And Father convinced the other three to drop the issue. He said he'd take responsibility for Nii-san."

"Did you notice anything else?" Hinata pressed insistently.

Sasuke squirmed for a moment before admitting "Actually... I saw Nii-san's eyes for a second and... he had his Sharingan on. But-" He scrambled for the right words. "-it looked weird."

"What's a 'Sharingan'?" Naruto asked suddenly.

"It's the Uchiha family doujutsu," Hinata answered slightly impatiently, eager for Sasuke to continue. "Like my family's Byakugan."

"Huh." Naruto seemed both impressed and jealous. "So Sasuke has magic eyes too?"

A faint blush of shame tinted Sasuke's face. "Um, not yet," he admitted. "We don't usually awaken our Sharingan until we're older. Although Nii-san got his when he was only eight." He fiddled with his chopsticks again, picking up a slice of pickled radish and dropping it back into his bento. "Anyway, when I saw his eyes, his Sharingan looked... pointy. Like shuriken."

Hinata's hand tightened on her chopsticks until the bamboo was about to snap. The Mangekyo Sharingan. There's no mistake. It's about to happen already. The Uchiha Clan Massacre.

"Uh, are you alright, Hinata-chan?" Naruto broke in nervously. Hinata blinked and realised that, judging from the looks of the faces of both boys, she'd been making a pretty scary expression. Hastily settling herself, she forced a smile and started digging through her own bento.

"Um, I'm fine," she managed, popping a clump of rice into her mouth to buy herself some thinking time. What, exactly, could she say to Sasuke here, knowing that his brother was on the verge of (apparently) snapping and butchering the entire clan? Telling him not to worry would be cruel, while telling him to be careful would be pointless. Eventually she decided to go with a noncommittal "I hope everything works out OK, Sasuke-kun," and she still felt horribly insincere about it.

The boy stared miserably down into his lunch, lacking any appetite. "So do I."

The silence drew out awkwardly for several seconds, before it was finally broken by Naruto. "So, uh, Sasuke?" he said, gesturing at the other boy's lunch box. "You gonna eat that karaage?"

oooOOOooo

"So, what was this dream about, Hinata-chan?" Sarutobi Hiruzen asked amiably, putting his mug down on its coaster and settling back into his seat. Despite his relaxed, reassuring air, Hinata knew his razor sharp mind was paying careful attention to every word she would say.

Hinata had approached her father first thing the next morning, even before breakfast, and told him about another strange dream she'd had that night. Hiashi had taken her directly to the Hokage's office as soon as breakfast was done without even asking her what the dream had been about. They managed to be the first people in to see the leader of Konoha that morning, catching Sarutobi halfway through his morning cup of coffee.

Hinata took a deep breath. She'd put a lot of thought into this story, now she just had to hope it would be good enough. Naruto had related to her the tale of the massacre Sasuke had recounted during their clash at the Valley of the End, Shikamaru's investigation had uncovered a little more, and filling in the rest had been up to her creativity. "Um... I was walking towards the Uchiha clan district and it was late at night." The Hokage raised a bushy eyebrow but said nothing. "Um, I recognised it from when I visited it a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, it was late night and the moon was... really, really big." It would be full moon in a day or two, but Hinata wasn't certain enough about the exact day to declare the massacre would fall on such a specific time. "I walked through the gate of the district and stepped in a puddle of..." She faltered theatrically and licked her lips. "...of b-blood."

A troubled look swept across the Hokage's face, but he said nothing. Hinata snuck a glance up at her father, standing unmoving beside the small wooden chair she'd been seated on, but Hiashi's face was as stoic and emotionless as the ones on the Hokage monument. She went on. "Th-there was blood all over the ground, everywhere, a big stream of it running through the street. I walked through the district and saw..." She paused again and took a deep breath. "There were d-dead people. They were lying all over the place and, and the blood was coming from them."

The Hokage sat forward in his chair and folded his hands together under his chin staring at Hinata intently. "What kind of people were they? Were they civilians or shinobi? Were they members of the Uchiha clan, or others?"

"Um... I didn't recognise any of them, but there were both civilians and shinobi," Hinata said. "But the shinobi had the Uchiha clan symbol on their uniforms."

The Hokage nodded gravely and took a sip of his cooling coffee before sighing and sitting back in his chair again, cradling the mug. "Very well. What happened next?"

Hinata fidgeted for a moment. This was the tricky part. Anyone could draw an obvious conclusion from what she'd described so far, but the next part required some subtlety. "Then I heard... crying. I got to the front of Sasuke-kun's house and found him... sitting on the ground, crying hard. Then..." She gulped. "Then Itachi-san walked out the front door... with a bloodstained sword in his hand."

The Hokage fumbled his drink, giving a startled grunt of frustration as hot coffee splashed across the knees of his robes and his mug smashed on the floor. Hinata's father flinched and stepped forward. "Are you alright, Hokage-sama?"

Cursing under his breath, Sarutobi mopped at his legs with a piece of paperwork snatched off his desk. "No, no, never mind, Hiashi." He crumpled the coffee-stained paper into a soggy ball and tossed it absently over his shoulder. "Never mind me. Hinata-chan, are you sure it was Uchiha Itachi you saw?"

She nodded. "I met him the other day. But he looked strange. He didn't have any expression on his face, but I could see he was crying. Um, the tears were dark and I... I think they were blood." She'd wondered whether this detail might be a bit too much, but felt it helped convey Itachi's reluctance to commit this atrocity.

The next part, however, was the lynchpin of her entire plan. "Then I noticed that Itachi-san had some kind of... chains attached to his hands and feet, going up. I looked up and saw a man standing on the roof, holding the chains like Itachi-san was a puppet."

The Hokage leaned forward, staring piercingly at Hinata. "What man, Hinata-chan? Describe him."

She squirmed in her chair under the intensity of his gaze, staring at the floor. It wasn't an affectation. "He... he was wearing a black robe. Um... I think it had a pattern of... red clouds on it." Truth be told, she had no idea whether Madara had been wearing the uniform of Akatsuki during the time of the massacre, or even whether Akatsuki actually existed at all yet, but even if he hadn't she was supposed to be predicting the future anyway. "And... he was wearing a mask. A mask shaped like the head of a fox. But it was orange, and it had only one eyehole."

Stealing a glance up at the leader of Konoha, Hinata saw his wrinkled brow furrowed in confusion as he tried to make sense of her words. Then in the course of less than five seconds, his expression flowed through shocked realisation and into one of icy fury, the likes of which she'd never seen on the kindly old man's face before. The Hokage clenched his trembling fists so tightly that she swore she could hear his tendons creaking. Hinata's eyes flicked up to her father's face and saw that even Hiashi was shocked by the transformation. "What happened next, Hinata-chan?" the Hokage asked flatly.

"The- the man dropped the chains, and Itachi-san dropped the sword," Hinata said hesitantly. "Then the man turned into a cloud of red smoke and just... drifted away. Itachi-san grabbed Sasuke-kun by the throat and picked him up off the ground. Then..." She swallowed and tried to look ill. "Then he shoved his other hand into Sasuke-kun's chest and... and pulled out his heart."

The Hokage and her father watched her intently, hanging on her every word as she continued. "But... but there wasn't any blood and the h-heart kept beating. Sasuke-kun stopped crying and... and his face was completely blank. Itachi-san put him down on his feet and then he... turned into red smoke just like the other man did and vanished, taking Sasuke-kun's heart with him. Sasuke-kun was just standing there with an empty hole in his chest. And that's when I woke up."

The tension broke. The Hokage slumped back in his chair with a weary sigh. Glancing up at her father again, Hinata saw that the normally stoic leader of her clan looked almost stricken. It was Hiashi who broke the silence. "Hokage-sama, this... what this means is-"

The Hokage held up his hand to forestall him. "I know, Hiashi, but don't say anything right now. I need to think a little more."

The Hyuuga clan head obediently fell silent. Hinata sat quietly with her hands folded on her lap as Sarutobi Hiruzen absently stroked his white goatee, waiting patiently for the results of her plan. After what felt like an hour, but was probably more like a minute, the Hokage sighed again, reached out to take his pipe from its resting place on his desk and pulled open a drawer to look for his tobacco. As he worked a measure into the pipe's bowl, he suddenly spoke. "Hiashi, you will not speak of this to anyone, nor will you take any action about what Hinata has just told us. However, I would advise you to covertly put the Hyuuga clan's shinobi on alert, just in case. This is not a matter concerning your clan, but you should be prepared in case things spread out of control. I will handle this. Is that clear?"

The Hyuuga clan head shifted uncomfortably and Hinata could sense how strongly her father wanted to argue with the leader of Konoha. "Hokage-sama..."

The Hokage did not cut Hiashi off. He merely stared at him with a piercing gaze that brooked no argument as Hinata's father trailed off. Hiashi straightened himself up to stand at attention, a slight, almost unnoticeable sinking of his shoulders conveying a nonverbal expression of resignation that only his daughter would recognise. "Understood, Hokage-sama."

The Hokage nodded, striking a match and setting it to the bowl of his pipe. "Good." He shifted his gaze from Hinata's father to her. "Thank you for informing me of this, Hinata-chan. Now, unless you have any further dreams, try and put it out of your mind. Please don't mention anything to anyone else either, especially Sasuke-kun." A thought occurred to him. "Or even Naruto-kun." Hinata nodded solemnly. "That will be all then. You'd best be getting to school."

The Hokage rose from his seat at the same time that Hinata slipped from her chair. Putting the stem of his pipe in his mouth, he gave father and daughter one more nod to dismiss them, then turned to face the window, gazing silently out over the village of Konoha. Without another word, Hinata and Hiashi quickly departed, leaving the Professor alone with his thoughts.

oooOOOooo

"You called, Hokage-sama?" the young aide asked, shutting the door behind him.

Sarutobi Hiruzen snapped out of his brooding and turned from the window to face the young man. Ebisu had been his assistant for a year now, and while he was efficient, his uptightness and obsessive attention to detail was beginning to wear on the Hokage, who was wondering whether the chuunin might be better-suited to another role, such as teaching.

Still, this wasn't the time to worry about such things. "Ebisu, I need to speak to Uchiha Itachi immediately. I don't care what he's doing, I want him in front of me as soon as physically possible. And send for Uchiha Fugaku as well-no!" He caught himself as his aide nodded and began to turn to leave. "No, on second throughts, don't bring Fugaku yet," he amended. "I want a chance to talk with Itachi in private first. In fact, if possible don't let Fugaku know I'm talking to Itachi. I don't want any member of the clan to know about how urgent this is either."

With a questioning expression on his face beneath his small black glasses, Ebisu bowed and departed. Forcing himself not to resume brooding, the Hokage returned to his seat and took the top piece of paperwork from his in-tray. Regardless of his worries, his workload as the Hokage would not wait, and staring out the window would not make Itachi arrive any sooner. He expected it would only be about ten minutes before the young chuunin received his message and arrived, but in fact it was half an hour before he heard another knock at his door.

To his concern, though, it wasn't Uchiha Itachi who entered the office, but Ebisu again, a hunted look on his face. "Um, I'm sorry, Hokage-sama, but... Uchiha Itachi wasn't there. Nobody I asked knew where he is either." He looked awkwardly at his sandals as he shuffled his feet. "I thought of asking Uchiha Fugaku to come instead, but you said you wanted to speak to Itachi first. Um, I'm afraid Fugaku-san got wind of me when I was asking after Itachi-san. I had to plead ignorance when he asked why you wanted to speak to his son."

The worry that had been simmering inside Hiruzen ever since Hinata had told him of her prophetic dream started to boil over. "Did anyone say anything about him? Any clues about where he might have gone or why?" Ebisu shook his head mutely and the Hokage made up his mind. "Then go and get ANBU Captain Hatake and send him to me, now!"

Ebisu stared at him in surprise for a moment, then sprang to attention and scurried from the room. Sarutobi slumped back into his chair. He'd been hoping there might be a simple way to head off the events of Hinata's dream, a way to stop Itachi before Konoha was shaken its roots, but it looked like things would not be as simple as reining the young prodigy in.

A treacherous thought at the back of his mind whispered to him that at least this could be one way to resolve the tensions between Konoha and the Uchiha clan, but he quashed it angrily. He was fully aware of the clan's plans for revolution and was not, regardless of what Danzo insinuated, merely turning a blind eye to them. But genocide was not the way of the Leaf, not while he drew breath. And regardless, he could never allow things to proceed as Hinata had foreseen- not when they involved the mysterious figure in the one-eyed mask. The man behind the catastrophe of the Nine-Tailed Fox, the man who may even be the supposedly-dead Uchiha Madara.

Sitting back in his chair, the old ninja rubbed his eyes wearily with the palms of his hands. He suddenly felt very old. Unbidden, a whispered name escaped his lips.

"Biwako..."

oooOOOooo

Hinata didn't know what it was that made her sneak out of the Hyuuga compound that evening. Maybe the uneasy feeling in her stomach was a sign of her developing real powers of precognition. More likely it was just nerves, paranoia and her dinner disagreeing with her. She knew the single most important incident in Konoha's history since the attack of the Nine-Tailed Fox was about to take place any night now and there was no way she could be expected not to be on edge.

At school after she'd warned the Hokage yesterday, Sasuke hadn't seemed any more bothered by new developments. Today he'd even been quite cheery, enthusiastically telling her and Naruto about how he'd managed to earn his father's approval by performing a certain traditional fire jutsu. But Hinata couldn't shake the thudding warning in her head screaming at her that doom was about to befall them, and after agonising about things all throughout dinner and into the evening, she snuck out of her bedroom window and slipped over the compound wall, using all of her stealth abilities to evade the sentries her father had assigned at the Hokage's advice.

The full moon hung low in the sky as she ghosted through the night village. The streets were empty, although lights shining from house windows spoke to the people living their ordinary lives within. Hinata slipped down a narrow side alley, dashed across the road and turned a corner, the walls surrounding the isolated Uchiha district coming into view in the distance. She gulped nervously, then steeled herself and stepped forward, all senses on full alert.

She was only a few dozen paces from the gateway when unconcealed movement caught her attention. Jogging casually down the street from the other direction, almost skipping... Sasuke-kun! Returning home late from a training session, the boy was cheerfully oblivious to the tension in the air, or the ominous silence coming from the Uchiha compound. This... this IS the night! Hinata realised frantically. She remembered what Naruto had told her- that Itachi hadn't turned on and attacked the clan before Sasuke's eyes, but that Sasuke had returned home late one night to find the slaughter already over and his brother standing among the corpses. If the Hokage hasn't managed to stop it then... the Uchiha Clan Massacre is happening right now!

Panic struck her like an electrode being jabbed into her back, sending her sprinting forward to intercept Sasuke before he could reach the entrance. If there was nothing else she could do, at least she could keep Sasuke away from his brother's psychological torture and the sight of his parents' lifeless corpses. And if the Hokage had somehow managed to stop Itachi and Madara and everything was fine, then the worst thing that would happen was that Sasuke might think she was weird. She could live with that.

Sasuke visibly jumped in shock as Hinata materialised noiselessly beside him and grabbed him by the arm. "WAH! Hi-Hinata-chan?! What are- what are you doing here at this time of night?"

Hinata's mind froze. She hadn't planned that far ahead, her only thought being to keep Sasuke from entering the Uchiha district. What could she say? "Um..." A myriad of ideas flew through her head, lame excuses and unconvincing lies all. I was just out for a walk. I was training late. I wanted to see you suddenly. My father sent me to invite your father around for a drink. I got lost.

Lost was indeed how she felt. The tension in the air was growing palpable, to the point where she was surprised Sasuke couldn't feel it himself. She couldn't think. She squeezed his arm tighter. "Sasuke-kun, you can't go home right now. Please! You have to come with me for now!"

The young Uchiha looked at her like she was speaking a different language. "Wh-what are you talking about, Hinata-chan? What's going on? Are you in trouble? Do you need my help? Has something happened to your family?"

She shook her head. The sense of foreboding was only growing stronger with every second. Before she'd been afraid, now she was certain. "No, you don't understand, you need to get away from here, now!"

She watched his face twist as the horrifying realisation dawned on him. "You... you mean... my family...?" He turned away from her to stare at the gateway of the Uchiha district, as if expecting to see flames billowing from the houses, but there was nothing moving. Nothing at all. "What-? Why do you-? How-?" His voice trailed off and he shook his head. "What's going on, Hinata-chan? Why can't I go home? Is my family safe?"

Hinata bit her lip. What could she tell him? Should she spin him the same story about dreaming of the future that she'd told the Hokage? Should she mention Itachi, or lie about the danger? Should she blame Madara? "Sasuke-kun, the Uchiha clan is-"

The silence of the night was split by an animalistic howling roar, like some kind of great beast, and a crashing sound of smashing wood and crumbling stone, coming from inside the Uchiha district. Both children jumped. While Hinata didn't recognise the animal cry, the noises coming from within the compound were unmistakable- the sounds of ninjas locked in battle.

With a strangled cry, Sasuke wrenched his arm free of Hinata's grip and ran through the gate. Cursing herself for losing him, Hinata sprinted after him. Instead of heading towards the sounds of combat coming from the back side of the district, Sasuke had headed up the street leading towards his home. Hinata caught up with him as he stumbled to a halt, staring in horror at a dozen bloodstained corpses littering the street in front of him. She grabbed his arm again. "Sasuke-kun-!"

He rounded on her, shaking her off furiously. "What is happening?!" he shouted, tears beading in the corners of his eyes glittering in the moonlight. "Who did this?! Why are you trying to keep me from my family, Hinata?! I don't understand what's going on!"

Am I going to have to knock him out and carry him away from here on my shoulders? Hinata wondered. While she was confident she was easily stronger than Sasuke at this point in his life, he was still not to be underestimated even as a half-trained Academy student, particularly when he was as frantic as this. Worse, taking such actions would drive a stake into the heart of their relationship- and inevitably into Sasuke's friendship with Naruto as well. "Sasuke-kun, please, I need you to trust me! I'm just trying to protect you. Please, just trust me and come with me!"

The boy wavered. "But... my family...? Father... and Mother... and-"

"They're dead."

A chill ripped through Hinata's body like a blast of polar wind, freezing her to the spot. A dark figure had appeared in the street behind Sasuke like a shadow rising up from the ground, black droplets falling from the tip of the sword in its hand to spatter on the hard-packed dirt. The cold, emotionless declaration sent a shock through Sasuke- not only because of the words, but because of the voice that had spoken them. Slowly, he turned around to face the figure. "Wh-what? What are you saying, Nii-"

"I killed them."

Despair howled in Hinata's soul. Despair for her failure- and terror for her life.

Uchiha Itachi had come out to meet them.

oooOOOooo

Isn't it ironic, that the almighty Uchiha clan would finally fall, not at the hands of its vengeful banished leader Madara, but at those of a boy they gave up for dead, merely playing his role?

Another corpse dropped limply from Obito's hands, the dead Uchiha crumpling to the ground. Obito didn't recognise the man -some member the military police, apparently- nor did he care who he was. Unlike the real Uchiha Madara, he held no grudge against his former clan. He just knew that, like everyone else in the world, their lives ultimately didn't matter in the long run, not once the Moon's Eye Plan was complete. No matter how much he had to destroy, it would all be fixed once the Infinite Tsukiyomi was in place. And in the meantime, the Uchiha Clan was a wild card, an unpredictable factor that was better off removed, just to be on the safe side.

It looked like this building was clear. Obito had killed the four Uchihas inside without making a sound, bringing his total up to twelve so far, with a lot more to go. The plan had seen him enter the Uchiha district from the back while Itachi came in the front so they could meet in the middle once Itachi had slain his parents, a duty he'd stoically insisted was his responsibility alone despite Obito offering to do it for him. Itachi had not confided his personal thoughts to "Madara", but Obito was pretty sure he knew what the young man was planning to do with his younger brother. But as long as young Uchiha Sasuke's attention remained fixed on taking revenge on Itachi rather than disrupting his and Madara's plans, Obito was willing to let him be. He might even prove useful as a backup, should Itachi prove impossible to control.

Either way, it was time to move on. Obito could have departed the building by phasing through the wall, but instead he decided to just leave through the front door. It wasn't like anyone would see him this late at night. Sliding the screen open, he stepped casually out onto the street, considering his next target- and was struck by a blizzard of shuriken.

Only the reflexive last-second activation of Kamui in response to the faint telltale hiss of steel in the air saved the renegade's life. Despite being taken completely off guard in his overconfidence, every shuriken after the first three passed harmlessly through his body, tearing the screen door behind him to shreds and dotting the building with enough steel to cut down an entire regiment of shinobi. Of the three that hit him, the first deflected off the spiral mask covering his face, while the third only buried itself harmlessly in his artificial right arm, but the second one struck him in the left side of his stomach, doubling him over with pain that he hadn't felt in seven years.

Cursing his carelessness as he tugged the shuriken out of his midriff, Obito desperately looked around for the source of the attack. Even if he'd been assuming that nobody knew of his presence yet, there shouldn't be any shinobi in the Uchiha clan capable of concealing themselves from his enhanced senses well enough to get the drop on him. The sheer number of shuriken that had been aimed at him at once would have required at least half a dozen shinobi to throw- or a single one capable of Shuriken Kage Bunshin.

His uncovered eye widened in shock as Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage, stepped out of the shadows on the other side of the street, dressed in full shinobi battle gear.

Why is the Hokage here, now?!

Could it be that... Itachi set me up...?

"So I imagine you could only be... Uchiha Madara?"

The Professor's voice was just as calm and controlled as it had been the last time Obito had heard it, back when he was still just a newly-minted Chuunin in Konoha's military during the Third Great War, but there was an undercurrent of tension beneath the conversational tone. Obito said nothing. Normally he enjoyed a bit of banter in combat, as he usually had nobody to talk to aside from various incarnations of Zetsu, but he hadn't planned for this. The Third Hokage, even in his old age, was not an opponent to be taken lightly. He had been the teacher of the teacher of Obito's own teacher, and even if you held to the theory that every generation would surpass the one that came before it (a theory Obito himself scoffed at when he considered the near-godlike power of men like Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama) and the belief that Namikaze Minato had been even stronger than him, Obito would be a fool to underestimate the "God of Shinobi" and his decades of experience. Besides, despite all of his power he had ultimately been unable to defeat his teacher the Fourth Hokage the last time he had come to Konoha, and he had no intention of repeating that debacle.

Should I... try and take him out now? How would Konoha react if the Hokage died? Who would take his place as Hokage? Obito wavered, uncertain of how to deal with the unforeseen complication.

The Hokage stroked his long white beard as he studied Obito. "Yes, I see," he observed, apparently to himself. "It's not a fox mask, but... you were the one who unleashed the Kyuubi on the village seven years ago, weren't you? Minato never got the chance to tell me who was responsible, but we suspected the Uchihas might have been involved... or rather, one specific Uchiha. You were responsible for the deaths of Minato, Kushina, and hundreds of my people." The anger finally boiled up from beneath the flat tone. "And you murdered my dear Biwako!"

Biting the tip of one wrinkled finger, the Hokage's hands blurred through a flurry of seals and he crouched to slap it against the ground. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" There was a burst of smoke, and a hulking humanoid figure appeared as it cleared. Obito had never seen Enma the Monkey King before, but he knew the Hokage's personal summon by reputation.

The simian warrior regarded Obito stoically for a moment before addressing his summoner. "So what's going on this time, Sarutobi? Who's this guy? Do you need me, or the staff?"

"He would appear -somehow- to be Uchiha Madara," the Third stated grimly. "One of the most powerful shinobi of all time. And he seems to have some kind of time-space ninjutsu that makes him intangible at will, so it's your presence I need rather than the Kongonyoi."

The Monkey King shrugged. "As you say, Sarutobi." He dropped into a combat stance, his body held low with his long arms defensively out in front of him. "Uchiha Madara, huh? Wasn't he, y'know, one of the founders of Konoha and the strongest shinobi his clan ever produced?"

Ths Hokage nodded calmly. "Let's put the legend to the test, shall we?"

oooOOOooo

Before the glowing red eyes of Uchiha Itachi, Hinata was frozen like a mouse caught in the gaze of a snake. The cold, impersonal malice that spilled from the teenage shinobi sent shivers down her spine like few she'd ever felt before. Not even standing against Pain to protect Naruto had imbued in her such a strong premonition of her own death.

Hinata belatedly realised that she might be in very real danger. She'd prepared herself for this evening by reminding herself that Uchiha Itachi had only been pretending to betray Konoha and had in fact murdered his own clan on the orders of the village's leadership in order to protect it, so would not be likely to seriously harm her. But now she found herself standing here with Itachi right in front of her, holding a sword that dripped with the blood of his own parents, she began to doubt whether that story had actually even been entirely true. And even if it had, Itachi had been willing to go to such gruesome extremes, slaughtering every single member of his own clan and even aligning himself with the monstrous Uchiha Madara, solely to protect his beloved little brother Sasuke, to convince him of his older brother's villainy and make him devote himself to the village.

What guarantee was there that, if her interference threatened his plan, he would not casually cut her down, if only to make Sasuke hate him even more?

"Wh- Nii-san, you... you can't have..." Sasuke's plaintive voice beside her jolted Hinata out of her terror-induced fugue. The boy was staring at his brother wide-eyed and visibly trembling. "Mother and Father... you-"

I have to get him away of here! Hinata realised wildly. Putting thought into action in an instant, she grabbed Sasuke by the wrist and fled. Putting all the power of her chakra into her legs, she leaped into the air, dragging the shocked boy off the ground. He barely managed to keep his feet as they touched down, too startled to resist as they stumbled back towards the entrance to the Uchiha quarter. She was dimly aware that the sounds of combat they'd heard earlier had ceased, plunging the district back into horrible silence, but her only concern was getting Sasuke away from Itachi and his misguided mind games.

Behind her, Sasuke was finally starting to collect himself. "Hinata, what are you-" He tried to plant his feet and pull back against her, but was roughly yanked off his feet as Hinata barreled on without slowing, her chakra-enhanced strength carrying him along. She knew at the back of her mind that she was revealing far more of her true power than she should, but she was too desperate to care.

"You have to get away, Sasuke-kun!" she shouted as she ran. Sasuke desperately propelled himself back onto his feet to stumble along beside her. "He wants to hurt you. And I'm not going to let-"

She stopped dead in her tracks, Sasuke tripping over and falling to his knees beside her. Itachi had materialised out of the shadows ahead of them as if he'd been lying in wait there all along. His eyes glittered angrily in the dark. "Why are you here, girl? Why are you inter-" He cut himself off abruptly. "Never mind. You are inconsequential and will be removed."

So that's it then, Hinata thought dully. He was simply too fast to flee from. She knew that even if she used the full extent of her concealed abilities, her chances of even slowing Uchiha Itachi down were extremely slim, close to nil. But any alternatives were nonexistent.

Hinata sucked in a deep breath of air and, with grim resignation, folded her hands together. Byakugan! She stepped in between Itachi and his little brother and dropped into her Jyuuken stance as her vision expanded almost three hundred and sixty degrees around her. From her experiences in the future fighting against first Sasuke and then Kabuto, who had claimed Sasuke's eyes, she knew that the Sharingan gave its users both subtle and not-so-subtle hypnotic doujutsu and had developed a technique that allowed her to create an automatic blind spot in her otherwise-uncontrollable Byakugan vision that blanked out her opponent's face. She only needed to stall him for a few seconds to let her calibrate it. "Itachi-san, what you're doing is-"

He did not give her a few seconds

Oh no...

Itachi's barbed shuriken-like tomoe bored through her unprepared vision like blades. "Tsukuyomi."

Beside her, Sasuke's eyes went wide with horror. "Nii-san, sto-"

Hinata's world turned inside out.

oooOOOooo

Hinata screamed.

"Hinata will be in my care from now on. But are you sure it's OK?" she heard Kurenai ask, concern in her voice. "She is a member of the Hyuuga main family. Being a field genin may end in her death."

"Do as you will with her," her father answered coldly, preoccupied with Hanabi's training. "The Hyuuga clan has no use for her. She is even weaker than her younger sister here. If there is nothing else, please be gone." Hinata was sure her father had not failed to notice her standing quietly outside the doors of the dojo, so she could only assume that he simply did not care whether she heard his words. In the depths of her heart, for just a moment, she wished she was dead.

Hinata screamed.

She watched in horror as Neji's hands moved in a blur, striking precisely at Naruto's tenketsu and sealing them one after another. How could her cousin, talented as he was was, have mastered not only the Kaitan, but the Sixty-Four Hands of Hakke entirely on his own? Naruto hit the ground hard, and the crowd roared- and then roared again even louder as the boy slowly, unbelievably, pushed himself to his feet.

A chill ran down Hinata's spine. Normally she was comforted to witness Naruto's determination and refusal to give up, inspired to follow his example, but she could still feel the pains in her chest from the injuries Neji had inflicted to her, an agonising lesson that sometimes no amount of determination would be enough. And she knew that if Naruto was willing to die rather than submit, Neji would not hesitate to oblige him.

Suddenly she realised that the pains in her chest were more than just memories. A sudden spasm wracked her body and she coughed violently, struggling to draw air into lungs tainted with her blood. Beside her, Kiba called out to her in a panic, clutching her shoulder, but her mind was fogging over as the pain clutched at her heart like a claw. She barely managed to whisper "Please... Naruto-kun... no more..." before the world faded around her.

Hinata screamed.

The outsized slug that had appeared from nowhere to shield her from the worst of the blast oozed off her body. Ignoring her aches and pains, Hinata pushed herself to her feet. Ko was lying next to her, the fallen roofing beam he'd shoved her away from collapsed across his legs. Desperately she scrambled to his side, carefully lifting the beam off him and calling his name. Relief flooded through her when his eyes flickered open, but then he winced and she saw at a glance that at least one of his legs was broken.

Reassured that her bodyguard was at least alive, Hinata stood up, looking around for any potential threats. A shock ran through her as she surveyed surroundings so unfamiliar it was as if she'd been transported to a different planet. Only seconds ago, she and Ko had been running down a street in Konoha together, watching for any further attacks from the mysterious Akatsuki force that had assaulted the village. Then they'd seen that bright light in the sky before the shockwave had hit, bringing the closest building down on top of them, with Ko shoving her aside before the slug had appeared to save them from the worst of it.

Now, gazing around herself in confused horror, Hinata found herself standing in a rubble-strewn wasteland, with a gigantic empty crater at the center. The mountain with the Hokage monument could still be seen on the far side of the crater and some buildings remained standing further away from the blast zone, but almost all of Konoha was simply... gone.

Hinata screamed.

Her body felt heavier than lead, the agony wrapping around her like barbed steel chains. Time and again she'd been able to force herself to her feet, no matter how many times Pain had struck her down, but her body would not obey her any more, paralyzed by his last attack. She told her arms to push her back up, but they would not move. She told her fingers to curl into fists, but they would not even twitch. She even tried to tell her eyes to blink, but they refused.

Through her blurry, fading vision, she could just make out Naruto, still pinned to the ground by Pain's black rods, restrained by the web of invasive chakra they channeled into his body. She'd tried to break them, and almost succeeded- but she'd failed. And now the boy she loved would pay for her failure.

A shadow fell across her vision and she saw Naruto's mouth move as he screamed something, but no sound reached her ears. Then there was a new explosion of agony in her back and her world went black.

Hinata screamed.

"Kiba-kun! Wait!" she shouted desperately. Her old teammate didn't listen, bounding towards the fallen woman, claws extended and a snarl on his face, Akamaru at his side. Konan lay unmoving where she'd landed after Naruto had struck her down, apparently unconscious from the Sage-mode empowered blow, but Hinata could see with her Byakugan that she was just playing possum.

"Kiba-kun, it's a trap," Hinata screamed, but her teammate couldn't hear her over his bloodlust. Kiba had been growing angrier and more reckless, bordering on unhinged, ever since Akatsuki had wiped out the rest of Konoha's survivors three months earlier, and a feral snarl escaped his lips as his claws reached out for the fallen woman's throat, Akamaru right beside him with fangs bared.

The world seemed to slow down as Hinata desperately lunged forward to try and drag her friend to safety. She saw Konan's flesh unravel under Kiba's hand, the empty shell of her robed body uncurling into a mass of scribed paper that whirled up to float around him like a cloud of flies- paper that started to smoke and char. And with horrible clarity, she watched Inuzuka Kiba lay a hand on the shoulder of his faithful companion Akamaru and give a final howl of defiance as a massive explosion engulfed them both, blowing Hinata violently off her feet.

Hinata screamed.

A sudden chill of foreboding ran up her spine. Hinata didn't know why, but she felt heavy, like there was an unseen weight pressing down on her entire body. She gasped as a shock ran through her, emanating not from somewhere in her body, but deep within her soul. A sudden feeling of hollow emptiness rose up inside her, as if part of her had been torn away.

She didn't know how she knew, but she could somehow tell without a doubt that Naruto was dead- and she and their child were alone.

Hinata screamed.

An entire lifetime of pain, loss, suffering and despair played out before her over and over and over again. Every failure that shook her self-confidence, every death of a friend or loved one, every defeat that brought Akatsuki closer to their ultimate victory and the doom of the world- Hinata relived it all for what felt like an eternity of despair.

Hinata screamed.

Hinata screamed.

Hinata screamed and Uchiha Itachi looked on in horror.

oooOOOooo

"-op!" Sasuke shouted.

Even before the cry had escaped his mouth, Hinata's body spasmed like a harpooned fish, pierced by Itachi's gaze. For several horrible seconds she writhed in agony as the power of his brother's strange new Sharingan held her transfixed, unable to break free.

Then Sasuke landed on her back, his weight bearing her to the ground. The instant the eye contact was broken, her body went as limp as a cooked noodle.

The young boy lay protectively on top of Hinata's body, breathing raggedly. He'd acted entirely on reflex. The entire world seemed to have gone insane in the space of only a few minutes. Hyuuga Hinata showing up out of nowhere at this time of night, all the dead Uchiha clan members strewn around the streets, his brother claiming to have killed their parents and then assaulting Hinata with his strange new type of Sharingan- nothing made any sense any more. He half expected all the dead people he'd seen to come running down the street led by his parents, shouting "SURPRISE! Fooled you!" in unison, and for Itachi to whip out a camera.

He reached for Hinata's neck with one trembling hand and was relieved to find her pulse was still thumping strongly- if anything, her heart seemed to be racing unnaturally fast. Turning her head slightly, he was less relieved to let the full moonlight illuminate her face. Her white eyes were wide open but completely glazed over and lifeless, utterly dead to the world. Whatever Itachi had done to her, Sasuke hadn't acted in time to keep him from taking the Hyuuga girl out of action. Greatly daring, he cautiously raised his head to look up at his brother.

What he saw was almost as shocking as the sight of the Uchiha clan shinobi lying dead in the street had been. Uchiha Itachi, his beloved older brother, maybe the strongest shinobi in the entire clan, had fallen gracelessly backwards onto his butt. For a moment Sasuke thought his brother had been struck by some kind of psychic backlash when he'd knocked Hinata out of the technique, but Itachi's eyes were clear, coherent, and showing an expression of terrified horror as he stared at the unconscious girl beneath Sasuke.

Hesitantly Sasuke scrambled to his feet, watching his brother carefully. Itachi was panting like he'd just been running for his life, his chest heaving up and down, and he was staring at Hinata as if she was the embodiment of all of his nightmares come to life at once. Gathering all his nerve, Sasuke took a tremulous step towards Itachi. "Nii-san, w-what is-"

"The girl!" Itachi gasped suddenly, ignoring his little brother. "Th-the girl! Wh-who is she?! Who- h-how did she-?!" He was cut off by a violent retch and, before Sasuke's appalled eyes, he rolled over onto his hands and knees and threw up. It must have been several hours since he'd eaten as nothing came up except a trickle of watery bile.

Reflexive concern overrode Sasuke's confusion and fear. "Nii-san!" he cried, running to his brother's side. Kneeling down beside him, he put a hand on Itachi's shoulder. "Wh-what happened?" The confusion came flooding back as the inherent wrongness of what he was seeing struck him again and his eyes welled with tears. "What's going on?! Someone tell me what's going on!"

Itachi lifted his head and managed to focus on his little brother, looking at him like he'd only just realised Sasuke was here. Reaching up, he placed a trembling hand on top of Sasuke's. "S-Sasuke..." he gasped. "I... I'm sorry. F-forgive me. I was..." Itachi retched again, but swallowed and Sasuke was shocked to see tears beading in his eyes as well. "I was... a fool."

"What do you mean, Nii-san?" Sasuke implored. "What did you-" He gasped as Itachi's grip on his hand suddenly squeezed tight.

Itachi's eyes bored into his like a blade. "Sasuke," he managed, sounding almost like he was choking. "The... the girl!" His gaze drifted past Sasuke to rest on Hinata's crumpled form. "The girl, she... she..." He seemed to be struggling with himself, uncertain, then he managed to grit out just two words: "Trust her!"

Before Sasuke could even process his brother's words, Itachi exploded into action, shaking off Sasuke's hand and leaping away faster than his eyes could follow. Within a heartbeat, he was gone.

Sasuke was left sitting alone in the middle of the dark street. He felt like he'd been stabbed in the guts by a blade. Ahead of him, his clan lay dead in the street. Behind him, his friend lay comatose, struck down by his brother's Sharingan. And his brother had gone.

Zombie-like, he climbed to his feet again and staggered unsteadily back to Hinata's side. Dropping down beside her, he carefully gathered the unconscious girl into his lap, checking her pulse again. Her heart rate had settled down, but her eyes still stared blankly into the night sky, the round pale moon reflecting off her round pale irises. Sasuke had no idea what Itachi had done to her, but she obviously needed help.

It finally filtered through his dazed state that he should have called for help a long time ago. Shaking his head angrily, he took a deep breath to shout- only for the Third Hokage to land in front of him, dressed in full battle regalia.

"Sasuke?" Sarutobi Hiruzen demanded, breathing heavily. "What's going on? Where's Itachi?" His eyes landed on Hinata, cradled in Sasuke's arms with her white eyes staring blankly into nothing, and his face fell. "Oh no..."

oooOOOooo

Itachi's panicked flight didn't end until he reached a small wooded grove far outside the walls of Konoha, remote enough that he was confident nobody would discover him. Desperately he attempted to settle himself, taking deep breaths to try and clear his thoughts, but the chaos rampaging around in his head would not be stilled.

The mission had gone off the rails right from the start. As he'd made his approach to the Uchiha District, he'd been unexpectedly intercepted by ANBU Captain Hatake Kakashi, possessor of the only Sharingan outside of the Uchiha Clan. He'd ordered Itachi to stand down by the authority of the Hokage, but Itachi had already resolved himself to his course for the greater good of Konoha. The Hokage had presumably despatched Kakashi to stop him under the belief that the ANBU Captain's own Sharingan would let him match Itachi, but the power of the Mangekyou Sharingan Itachi had acquired thanks to Shisui's sacrifice had let him quickly disable Kakashi with Tsukuyomi.

Nevertheless the encounter had shaken Itachi's resolve. Danzo had convinced him that the only way to preserve peace in Konoha -and to spare Sasuke- was for him to exterminate the Uchiha Clan, even if the Hokage would not approve of it, and justify himself later. But the confrontation with Kakashi, and the revelation that the Hokage was aware of what he was doing and actively opposed it, shook him to the core. Itachi was no longer merely acting on his own initiative- he was openly defying the Hokage, and that made him truly a traitor.

Despite Kakashi's interference, Itachi had gone ahead with the plan as he and his co-conspirator Uchiha Madara had agreed. Charging into the Uchiha District through the front gate, Itachi had cut down the first dozen people he'd encountered on the night street before they'd even realised what was happening. He'd quickly but systematically hunted down and eliminated the clan elders and senior shinobi who were the ringleaders in planning the coup, and slaughtered his way through the village until he'd finally returned to his home.

His parents had been waiting for him in the meeting hall. Itachi's greatest fear had been that he would have to fight his own father, and possibly even his mother, to the death to carry out his mission. But his parents had quietly accepted their fate at his blade, their only request being that he would look after Sasuke. On this matter Itachi had needed no prompting, but he had promised all the same.

But his plan to protect his little brother, to demonise himself in his eyes to compel Sasuke to become as strong as possible in order to avenge his clan and eventually become a hero of Konoha, was supposed to start with Sasuke returning home just in time to miss their parents' final moments. And for whatever reason, Sasuke was late.

Itachi had hesitated until his father had sternly reminded him that he had no time to waste. Then, with no other choice, he had regretfully done what needed to be done and gone to look for his brother.

He hadn't even given a thought to the possibility that the sight of his previous victims' bodies might have scared Sasuke away. Young as he was, there was no way Sasuke would flee if he thought his family was in danger. After his encounter with Kakashi, Itachi had considered that somebody sent by the Hokage might have waylaid the boy, but the last person he'd expected it to be was Hyuuga Hinata.

He'd intended to use Tsukuyomi to temporarily incapacitate the young girl, forcing his way into her head and making her relive her most traumatising experiences. He'd been certain that this would have been her attempted kidnapping at the hands of the Cloud ambassador about a year and a half ago, and hoped this would not have harmed the girl too badly.

Instead, he'd witnessed the end of the world.

Hyuuga Hinata was not just an ordinary young Academy student, not even an exceptionally talented one from a prestigious family. Hyuuga Hinata had come back in time from the future.

The impossible memories he'd seen inside the girl's head would have been enough to disturb anyone. For Itachi, who'd been steeling himself for days to commit the greatest of sins in order to protect his village and his brother, who still had the blood of his own parents on his blade, it had nearly shattered his mind. He'd seen how everything he'd done, and everything he still planned to do, had led only to his brother going mad with misguided vengeance, the village he loved being annihilated and its people wiped out, and the entire world doomed by the insane plan of Uchiha Madara.

At best, his efforts had all been futile. At worst, he had been responsible for the ruination of everything he had ever loved.

His empty stomach lurched again, but Itachi steadied himself. The initial shock was starting to subside, and with an effort of will he forced himself to think rationally. Yes, he'd seen the world end as a result of his failures- but that was just a story now, a record of a future that had yet to come to pass and could still be changed. He had no idea what had brought Hyuuga Hinata back into the past with all this precious knowledge, but she was clearly working behind the scenes to try and prevent the future he'd seen in her head from repeating. Tsukuyomi didn't allow him to read her entire mind, but some things weren't hard to put together. It must have been her who warned the Hokage about his plan, leading to him dispatching Kakashi to stop him.

Well she wouldn't have to work alone any longer. Maybe Hinata had resorted to attempting to manipulate events because she didn't think she could get anyone to believe her, but with Itachi backing her up he was certain that together they could make at least the Hokage believe the truth and take more proactive steps to change the future. He had been planning on returning to report to the Hokage after the massacre anyway, to explain himself and beg Sarutobi to look after Sasuke for him. And while he was there, he could hopefully undo any damage he might have done to Hinata with Tsukuyomi.

A wry smile slipped onto his face. Now that he thought about it, the seven year-old Hyuuga girl was actually his senior, really a woman in her twenties. That would make things odd if they ended up working together much.

And above all, he could explain things to Sasuke. His plan to manipulate his little brother into becoming a hero of Konoha may have been doomed to backfire completely, but if he could just sit down with Sasuke and tell him-

"Quite an evening we're having, wouldn't you say, Itachi-kun?"

Dread bubbling in his heart, Itachi slowly turned around. He had neither heard nor sensed Madara approaching- it was like man had stepped out of thin air. Madara's voice was deceptively friendly and the blank mask gave away nothing, but the single Sharingan eye visible through its eyehole transfixed him with a hawklike gaze.

"You'll never guess who I happened to run into just now," the disgraced former leader of the Uchiha clan continued in the same conversational tone. "Dear old Sarutobi Hiruzen, who just coincidentally happened to be hanging around in the Uchiha District in the dead of night. If I didn't know better, I'd think he'd been waiting for me. You wouldn't happen to have any idea what that was all about, would you Itachi-kun?"

Itachi's eyes flickered over Madara's body, expertly picking out the bloodstain on his torso that was only just barely noticeable against his black clothing in the darkness. So that was another reason why Kakashi had been dispatched to stop him instead of the Hokage coming in person. "I have no idea," he said, keeping his voice carefully flat. "Maybe Danzo leaked our plan to the Hokage?"

Madara's eye glittered. "Oh? So after you met me and enlisted me to help you with the plan you'd already committed to, you thought it necessary to go back and update Danzo about my involvement? That wasn't very conscientious of you, Itachi-kun." Itachi cursed silently, his mind racing. For all his apparent friendliness, Madara seemed to already be certain that Itachi had betrayed him. Could he still bluff his way out? He needed to escape and make it back to Konoha. But instead of pursuing the issue further, Madara gestured invitingly towards the northeast. "Well then, shall we go, Itachi-kun? It's time to begin your new life as a missing-nin. I'm sure you're going to enjoy it."

Itachi nodded and followed the masked man as he leapt into the trees, his mind working in overdrive. He'd have to time this very carefully. He followed along behind Madara in silence for several minutes as they leapt from tree to tree, casually falling back to slowly, almost imperceptibly, open the distance between them. Then, when they broke from the treeline to leap across a small river flowing through the forest, he saw his chance. As Madara sailed through the open air above the moonlit water, Itachi swiftly created a clone and surreptitiously swapped places with it, sending it across the river after his would-be benefactor as he slipped back to hide among the foliage.

Holding his breath as he lurked in the darkness of the forest, Itachi waited ten, twenty, thirty seconds. With no indication that Madara had caught on and was returning to look for him, he released the breath, relief flooding through him. Breaking cover, he turned back towards Konoha and started to run. If he rushed back to the village as fast as he could, he'd be explaining things to the Hokage within ten minutes.

"Did you forget something, Itachi-kun?"

Itachi's soul shrivelled inside him.

Uchiha Madara was leaning casually against the trunk of a tree with his arms folded, barring his path back to Konoha. Once again, Itachi hadn't even sensed him approach- he was just there, as if he'd been part of the shadows themselves. With a sense of fatalism, akin to what he imagined Hinata felt when she'd raised her hands against him back in the village, Itachi realised he had no choice but to fight. He couldn't talk his way out, he couldn't outrun Madara, and they'd moved too far from Konoha for him to hope for rescue.

Now, his only hope was to kill Uchiha Madara himself, here and now.

Itachi had been called a prodigy, and the strongest shinobi in the Uchiha clan, and that had been before he'd received the Mangekyou Sharingan from Shisui. But he knew his chances of taking on Uchiha Madara, the legendary warrior held as the strongest in the history of the clan, and one of the founders of Konoha, were so slim as to be almost nonexistent. He had only one chance of victory.

Madara pushed himself away from the tree he was leaning on and strolled towards Itachi, his casual manner belying the menace radiating from him. "I believe you owe me an explanation, Itachi-kun. And possibly an apology. After all, when you asked me to lend you my assis-"

The young ninja ignored his enemy's words. He had no time to banter with Madara, and the worst thing he could possibly do would say anything that might betray his knowledge of Hinata's secret. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. He had never tried this technique before, but it was his only chance. Opening his Mangekyou Sharingan again, he focused his gaze directly on the Uchiha renegade's spiral mask. "Amaterasu."

Black flames exploded around Madara's head- but an instant later redness exploded in Itachi's vision as the violent surge of chakra ruptured a blood vessel in his eyes. Clutching his head in pain and feeling the blood from his eye sockets running over his fingers like bloody tears, the boy cursed his weakness as he stumbled blindly away, hoping that even if his attack hadn't killed Madara outright, it would at least buy him time to recover. If he'd had an opportunity to practice the technique first it might not have affected him so badly, but desperation had driven him to this dangerous extreme. Shaking his head, he found his vision beginning to clear surprisingly quickly as he blinked the redness out of his eyes, scarlet tears trickling down his cheeks.

Looking back towards where his opponent had been standing, Itachi could only make out a blazing black fire through the crimson mist staining his vision. Staggering towards it, the unlight of the dark flames revealed only a spiral-patterned mask, crumbling into ash within the heart of the blaze. Frowning, he looked around warily for any other trace of his foe. He knew Amaterasu was supposed to burn as hot as the sun (although standing next to the blaze, that seemed to be poetic license) but could it have consumed Madara entirely in such a short time? He hadn't even heard the man scream.

A whisper in the air behind him was his only warning. Itachi only just managed to spin around before an iron hand gripped him by the throat, forcing his head up, and he found himself staring into the unmasked face of Uchiha Madara- one eye an empty socket, half of his face a mass of scars, but strangely younger-looking than Itachi had expected. The man's short black hair wasn't even singed. With a rattle of steel, a chain lashed out from Madara's sleeve, wrapping around his body like a snake. Managing to slip one hand free, he lashed desperately out at his captor, only for his fist to pass through the unsmiling face like it was made from smoke before the binding snare pinned his hand back against his side.

Any trace of joviality had vanished from Madara's voice with the loss of his mask. "Enough of this nonsense. You have a lot of questions to answer for me, Itachi." Desperately Itachi tried to unleash Amaterasu again, but Madara's fingers squeezing against the underside of his jaw kept his head tipped back, so he couldn't even angle his head down enough to see the tangible arm that was holding him. Futilely he aimed it at Madara's face, but in the instant before the pain blinded him again he watch the black fire simply flare out of existence as it failed to find any purchase on the man's ethereal visage. Sightless, he felt the chain tighten painfully around his body, robbing him of any ability to escape, or even resist. "You will tell me everything."

Uchiha Itachi made his choice. It was the only choice he had that would protect Hyuuga Hinata, the secret of her essential knowledge, and any hope for the future of Konoha and the world.

Choosing it was no choice at all.

Amaterasu!

Agony, inconceivable agony the likes of which he hadn't imagined possible, tore through Itachi as the black fire erupted from his eye sockets. Blessedly, within an instant the pain reached a level beyond human comprehension and he felt only a numbness as his eyes melted, his face disintegrated, his hair flared into ash and the flames spread to consume his entire body. Just before his hearing went silent, he heard Madara roar in shock, pain and fury as he reflexively threw Itachi's blazing body to the ground.

In the seconds before his consciousness vanished into the hellfire he'd unleashed, Itachi's second-last thought was a desperate prayer was that Hinata could still find the way to save the world without his help.

As oblivion claimed him, he carried one final thought into the darkness.

Sasuke, forgive me...

TO BE CONTINUED...

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AFTERWORD:

OK! So! This chapter rather got away from me. I know it's been far, far too long since my last release, but in fairness this is by far the longest, and also the most eventful and, I hope, shocking chapter of the story so far.

First things first, you might or might not have noticed that this chapter's name has changed since the preview at the end of last chapter. I realised right at the last second that chapter 6 had been called 'Blood for Loyalty', and I want to try and avoid using repeated words in chapter names, particularly so close together (in story terms at least, even if not in terms of publication). I couldn't be bothered correcting chapter 8 after all this time, so I just left it. Coming up with an appropriate new title was almost as hard as finishing the chapter itself!

Writing hasn't been easy lately. I've actually been getting some aspects of my life back on track at last, but opportunities to write have been sparse. I'm particularly sorry if any of you are also readers of Secret Songs of the Ninja (or Melody of the Shinobi) because I just haven't made any progress on that story at all. I'm afraid I can only blame my video game addiction, which is honestly starting to completely take over my life. At least I hope I'm not going to allow For Love to take as long for the next chapter.

The original plan for the story was NOT, in fact, to kill Itachi so early. Actually, this took so long to write that I don't even entirely remember what the original plan was, or even if I really had a plan. I was having trouble for a long time working out how I was going to resolve the Uchiha Massacre in a satisfactory and interesting manner. Previous story arcs had generally ended with Hinata not really managing to change events all that much, despite her best efforts (Neji still got branded, Hizashi still died) but still managing to make subtle differences, most notably to Neji and Naruto. This time that wasn't going to cut it- my goal was to make some something drastic happen this time. But I couldn't really come up with a way she could prevent the Massacre itself, not entirely- it simply wasn't plausibly possible.

I don't recall at what point I had the idea of killing Itachi off. I think I asked myself "What would happen if Itachi used Tsukuyomi on Hinata?", then "What would Itachi do if he realised every thing he'd ever done was completely wrong?" Yeah, I'm not actually a big fan of Itachi in general, his whole story about being a secret double agent for Konoha all along who'd brutally traumatised Sasuke and basically ruined his entire life (eventually turning him into the irredeemable jerk he was by the end of the series) being motivated by his love for and desire to protect him never really rang true for me. I'm far from the only fanfic writer to take the approach that Itachi's plan was terrible, although believe me when I say I didn't kill Itachi off just because I don't like his character much. I'd like to think I'm far more professional than that.

Anyway, this afterword is running long and delaying the publication of the chapter. I hope the chapter was worth the wait, and didn't upset anyone too much. So once again, I beg your patience for the next chapter, which I'm pretty sure will be much shorter and should hopefully take a lot less time to write.

NEXT TIME...

Konoha reels from the fallout of the Uchiha Clan Massacre, but none feel it more keenly than Uchiha Sasuke. Does he find himself all alone again, or is there a different way open to him? Hinata must tread carefully on the new road laid out in front of them in chapter 10 of For Love, 'Ask for Answers'.

-Arcane Azmadi, 2020