Disclaimer: I don't Naruto, though I do wish.

Chapter 1

Hinata was in trouble. Of all the people she could have faced off with in the Chunin Exam, it had to be her cousin Neji. The genius. The prodigy. The one person she knew was better than her in all things. She fought as hard as she could, but even with Naruto's encouragement, she was still on the ground, having trouble breathing.

"You knew this would happen," said Neji with a confident air. "You knew you could never defeat me. Your fate was sealed the moment that I was named your opponent. You can never change your fate."

Hinata looked up at him with a sad look in her eyes. She knew his pain and only wanted to help him, but he never let her. He always pushed her away and called her weak, pathetic, a disgrace. Just like everyone else in the Hyuga compound.

Slowly, Hinata began to stand up, coughing up some blood on the way. Shakily, she took a fighting stance; all the while Neji was glaring at her.

Kurenai looked down at her student with worry and concern. Things were looking very bad for the shy girl. Deep down, Kurenai had expected something like this to happen. She knew that Hinata was too weak to be a Chunin, but had let her enter the Exam in the hope that she would succeed. Now, that looked like a dim possibility.

Hinata looked at her cousin, ready to begin fighting again, when suddenly her head jolted up and she looked around at the catwalks. Kurenai thought that she was looking at her, but then she saw that Hinata was looking just a bit to her left. Kurenai, and everyone else in the large room, followed her line of sight and were shocked at what they saw.

Leaning up against the wall was a man. He had a dark cloak with a hood that hid most of his features. He was both tall and broad. He had large combat boots and a pair of metal-plated gloves on his hands. His appearance wasn't what shocked people. It was the fact that nobody had sensed him at all, not even the Hokage. He wasn't one of the Jonin senseis, so no one knew who he was.

Slowly the man opened his eyes, or at least he must have, because two golden orbs appeared in the mask of darkness the covered his face. The orbs looked around the room, glancing at the people present. Almost everyone involuntarily shuddered at the feeling of dread and insignificance. The Hokage furrowed his brow in concentration, trying to remember where he had felt this feeling before.

The only one not affected was Naruto, who was thinking more along the lines of "That is sooo cool! I have got to learn to do that!" He did feel a strange feeling in his gut as the stranger's eyes passed over him, like a small pain. He just chalked it up as being hungry from kicking Kiba's ass in the last match.

The stranger's eyes eventually landed on the two combatants in the ring below, particularly the female ninja. Hinata locked her lavender eyes onto the stranger's golden ones, and Kurenai was sure that a silent conversation was going on between the two. Kurenai's head was further turned upside down when she heard her student breathe the word sensei. Now she had to get some answers, but that had to wait as the stranger got up from the wall.

The cloaked stranger walked over to the handrail, the almost silent clank confirmed that his boots had metal plates on the bottom. He gripped the railing, leaned over a bit and spoke.

"Hinata... kick his ass." His voice was deep and had an odd, ringing echo to it. It sent goosebumps down everyone's backs. Hinata merely nodded and straightened her back, suddenly not wobbling anymore. Neji clenched his teeth and activated his Byakugan. He was shocked to see his "weak" cousin's chakra points reopening and the damage from his previous assault vanishing.

His shock quickly turned to anger, caused mostly by confusion. How was his small, pitiful cousin, the disgrace of the Hyuga clan, standing there, tall, proud and without a hint of weakness?

With a snarl, Neji launched himself at Hinata, preparing a chakra strike right at her heart. He would end this once and for all. One can imagine his surprise when, just before his palm strike hit Hinata's heart, his hand was caught in a bone crushing grip. He looked up into Hinata's eyes and saw only strength and determination. A kick to his ribs caused him to spit up blood and a punch to his face sent him flying backwards.

Neji was now very confused and, by connection, very mad. His shy, introverted cousin, who would jump at her own shadow, had just landed two consecutive hits on him. The infuriating things was that she wasn't using the Gentle Fist style at all. In fact, he didn't know what style she was using. She was just standing there, with her hands at her side and a blank expression on her face. He raked his "genius" mind for an answer to this bizarre turn of events, but he was forced to stop when Hinata quickly did some hand signs.

"Water Style: Water Shot Jutsu." A ball of water formed out of the air in front of Hinata and shot out at Neji at lighting speed. The watery projectile hit Neji square in the chest, sending him flying backwards and slamming into the wall. He had no time to recover as Hinata went through another series of hand signs.

"Earth Style: Rock Pillar Jutsu." A column of earth appeared on the wall where Neji was still slightly embedded. It hit Neji in the back and sent him into the air again, this time towards Hinata. Everyone held their breathe as Neji hurled towards Hinata. Hinata took two steps to the right and held out her left arm. Neji's head hit her arm in a perfect clothesline and he instantly hit the ground on his back.

Neji struggled to get up. He was coughing up blood, his head was spinning and something in his body was definitely broken. He look up at Hinata and saw in her blank expression, something that look like...pity? Neji gritted his blood-stained teeth. He would not be looked down upon by the disgrace of the Hyuga clan. Rage and adrenaline blocked out the pain and he stood up and once again charged Hinata. Hinata just calmly took a fighting stance as her enraged relative came at her and engaged him in a fast bout of taijutsu.

"We cannot lose." Kurenai and several other turned away from hand-to-hand fighting, which Hinata was clearly dominating, when the stranger spoke again. He was looking at the arena below with great intensity.

"We cannot fail. We cannot falter," the stranger continued as Hinata got a series of hit on Neji. "We can never give up. For we are..."

Hinata swept at Neji's legs and for a few moments, he was upside down in the air. He was just able to register Hinata spinning around and thrusting a swirling ball of chakra at him.

"The Gods of Shinobi."

"Rasengan."

The Fourth's signature technique slammed into Neji's chest before an explosion of chakra sent him, once again, flying towards the wall. When he hit the wall, the force caused a small crater to form before he fell to the ground, unmoving.

Everyone was speechless. Even those who didn't know her were under the assumption that she was a weak, shy girl and had no hope of winning. But everything had been turn upside down when that mysterious man appeared. No one knew what to say.

"Ummm... Proctor?" Hayate closed his mouth and shook his head when he the soft voice of the female Hyuga. He looked over at her, wondering what she wanted.

"Shouldn't you...call the match?" Hayate looked from Hinata to Neji's still form. He nearly slapped himself in the face.

"The winner is Hinata Hyuga." Silence reigned in the preliminary arena, broken only by Naruto's shouting.

"Whoa, way to go Hinata, you kicked his ass," the blond said. Hinata smiled a big smile as she looked up her not-so-secret crush. Her head turned until it landed on the cloaked stranger. A bright white smile erupted from the dark mask that covered his face. He gave a slight nod and a thumbs up to Hinata, whose smile only got wider.

Everyone was dumbfounded at what they had witnessed. They, who lived in a world where people could walk on water and breathe fire, could not comprehend what happened. Neji and Hinata's teammates were especially shocked. Guy was also speechless, but inside hoped that this would do Neji some good, if he lived at all. He didn't want to sound uncaring, but his student had serious issues. He, for a lack of a better term, had no Flames of Youth in him.

As every ninja was picking their jaws off the floor, Kurenai moved to confront the man, intending to get some answers.

"Sorry, Kurenai. I'll explain everything at a later date," the cloaked man said, barely turning his head in her direction. He let go of the rail, straighten his back and then completely vanished into thin air.

Now, disappearing quickly with either speed, genjutsu or both is a common and expected skill of shinobi. But none of the ensemble of skilled ninja; not the jonin, or Anbu or even the Hokage could track his movement or sense any chakra used. One moment he was there, and the next he was gone. It was eerily similar to the Fourth's secret jutsu, especially given that use of the Rasengan in the fight.

The Hokage rubbed his forehead, trying to fight off the coming headache. So many mysteries had just surfaced in the past few minutes and he would have to attempt to solve them. He knew that wouldn't be a easy task.

The Third also couldn't shake the feeling that he had met that strange man before, somewhere in his now-distant youth. What he did know for sure was that things were going to get very interesting soon.

My very first fan fiction. Review and tell me what you think.