Genre: Horror/Romance

Paring: Naruto/Hinata

Rating: M

Summary: The world has been at war for two years and it seems as though Konoha may be the only village still standing tall. In the early afternoon of another precarious day, a girl with pale, lavender eyes is stolen.

Notes/warnings: Foremost, the Naruto you will encounter in this piece of fiction is dark. The Hinata you will meet in this fiction will gradually be dark, too. She's still our precious Hyuga, but you know what they say: it's the quiet ones you need to worry about.

Finally, this is an AU.

…

If tomorrow never comes

…

…

The first time Hinata meets him, villages abound have been calling the Village of Sand the Village of Ash.

The Village of Ash has been burned down to chipped stones and dust. The air scents nothing short of musty and bleak. Heaven is black around these parts as if the fires have incinerated the sky, shriveled the stars into colorless meteorites and shaped it to before the world knew of daylight. Civilians have died with the fire, remnants of bones and burned flesh litter the earth, and amidst death… Ninja walks.

She's gathering samples for the Hokage, anything that could help Hokage-sama find their enemy. The world has been at war for longer than two years with the demon-fox, and it is slowly losing the fight. This village has not been the first one to have been massacred like sheep, left to rot away and haunt the history books, but it is the first to be burned with its people in it.

''They had nowhere to go,'' Hinata had overheard her fellow Hyuga say back in the Hyuga's household, ''the demon-fox had sealed them in their homes and watched their skin melt off their bodies until he reckoned he had enough of the sight.''

Then the demon-fox grinned, the elder had said, and Hinata had shivered the cold away.

Hinata is eighteen years old now, grown into a stronger, young woman, but the fear was palatable in the eyes of her kin that day. The world is not performing well in this war and many people have died already, Hokaga-sama fears to send Konoha's ninja off into the unknown lest they never return, Kiba-kun's smile is brittle; his jests tampered and Shino-kun watches his comrades longer now as if they may disappear if only he blinks.

Hinata cannot pretend that she is not terrified.

The mission is meant to be harmless; a quick retrieval. The Village of Ash has been ash and bones for days and the Hokage believes the demon-fox to have no reason to abide by his tracks. The mission is meant to be easy and most importantly safe. Team eight can handle such a mission. Easy. Akamaru will sniff out the evidence, Hinata will use her Byakugan to look for anything suspicious and Shino-kun can put his bugs to good use.

But by the time Hinata reaches what looks to be the ruins of a manor, white ivory grayed and in shambles, she senses someone—or something—watching her.

The hairs on the back of her neck rises, she's acutely alert. Hinata has her Byakugan activated to scan the area behind her. She refuses to wait until whoever is watching her catches up.

She whirls around, stance ready and sorts out the night; the ruins and beyond, but she sees no one.

The tingle of being watched crawls back up her neck and Hinata twirls around, again. Oh, no! This whoever is fast.

An ominous feeling crawls all over her limbs and tickles her senses.

Stay alert, Hinata, she chastises herself. Hinata breathes in deeply, exhaling shakily. She scans all around her, trying to catch sight of something moving, but the wind is silent and the ash is still. Her nose is not as strong as Kiba-kun's or Akamaru's, there is no way she can sniff out the impending danger, though Hinata has her eyes and they have saved her countless of times.

Hinata refuses to believe that she has imagined the uneasy feeling. She is a ninja, after all! If a ninja has an ominous feeling than it is almost always correct. She must trust her gut, she must believe in herself!

She turns back to face the ruined manor and yelps, eyes meeting the sheerest kind of blue she could ever find the pleasure of facing. Her palms are gracing the synthetic fabric of the boy's shirt as he's bent to her face; nose so very close only a petal can sway pass.

Hinata has half a mind to ask these beautiful eyes what they're doing here, if they're the sole survivor of the Village of Ash priory known as the Village of Sand or if they saw who did this—but the hysterical fog clears from her mind when a tail inches, thick and fluffy, over the man's right shoulder, ensnaring her gaze.

Correction: his tail!

He watches her watch him with a peculiar look on his face. Silence befalls upon them. His ears, which should normally sit behind his temples, are perched on top of his head in a triangle shape. Each of his cheek dons three, sharp, straight lines that oddly look like whisker marks and as her eyes travel down she notes that his hands, hanging down his sides, have unnaturally long nails.

The shock expands in ten folds. He reminds her of a wolf.

Hokage-sama was wrong, oh so very wrong. Hinata has heard the stories of the boy with the tail and whisker marks.

This is the demon-fox.

Trying to climb out of her stun and managing, albeit stoically, Hinata thrusts her right arm back, twisting her hand. ''Gentle fist!''

She hits thin air.

Hinata twirls around. The blue-eyed fox stands several feet away looking down at her warily. She uses his confusion to her benefit and sprints towards him. She needs to cut his chakra off; Hinata can sense abundance of it streaming within his body.

He may be too strong for her.

''Twin lion fists!'' She screams, thrusting her hands. He dodges her first hit—second—third. He moves like a blur, hardly inching away from his position as if Hinata is not breathing wildly and giving it her all.

Then he thrusts two fingers out, hitting the center of her chest and Hinata is suddenly falling down, just barely managing to throw her palms on top of the debris and dirt to keep her from landing face first. Her arms are shaking; her body feels very weak—how?

''W—what… did you… do to me?'' Her voice is quiet, shaking like a branch during a hurricane.

She looks up, her sweaty bangs sticks to her forehead and several of hair strands are caught between the clutches of her eyelashes. Hinata blinks profusely.

''Cut off your chakra points,'' he quips. His voice makes her shiver, thick and raspy like scrunching tarmac.

Then, he grins.

Hinata would reckon his grin was boyish in another life, cheeky and kittenish. But there's this faint glimmer of sharp canines touching his bottom lip and his eyes are no longer incomprehensible blue, but quaintly dark like the fires caught up with the demon-fox, too.

He reaches forward with his hand, sharp nails inching towards her cheek. Hinata heaves her right hand, despite knowing that her body cannot stay up without it, and attempts to slap his hand away. She hardly manages to pull her hand further than an inch from the ground before she's losing the strength to hold herself up and ends up tasting the earth.

She makes a sound that sticks to the base of her throat. Oh, she feels so numb. Did he really only cut her chakra points?

She feels her hair, draped across her back, move scantily to the side. Almost shyly.

Hinata mutters against the dirt, tongue forming the shapes and bends required to call out her teammates—her friends, Kiba-kun and Shino-kun. It seems, though, that she has lost her voice. She needs to do something. Perhaps Hinata can leave a warning for her friends, alert all of Konoha about the danger that still lurks; that will never yield to hope and insurgence. She inhales deeply, her arms feel like lead, but somehow she manages to place her forearms beneath her and dig her fingertips into the earth. Trembling and huffing, Hinata brings herself to her knees; hair hanging like a curtain passed her face, the ends gracing the ash.

She curves her head up, squinting at the world's greatest threat to have ever laid a foot upon this earth.

He's still watching her impassively.

Then she sees a flash of skin, feels a piercing sting through her brain that chases her breath away.

Sleep falls early.

…

She wakes lying down, eyes opening up to an orange ceiling. The color is bright, artificial so; nothing like the fruit, the glow of a dying sun or the embers of a flame. Instead it is lifeless; corroding. It pricks her sight and Hinata blinks the sting out of her eyes, pain shuffling stringent through her temples. Hinata moans as she places a hand on top of her head, carefully sitting up.

Her arm deflates. The heat in her face plummets to her stomach and Hinata pales.

There it is, again; the odd sensation of being watched.

Reposeful, Hinata inches her left hand to the waistband of her cropped trousers, fingertips flitting over the cool metal of her kunai. Her hand envelopes the hilt carefully, right leg tensing, eyes facing the orange sheets Hinata finds herself perched on top.

Where can he be standing? She only has one chance, but even so… the probability of hitting him and rendering the demon-fox innocuous is slim. Her opponent is fast, his chakra is none she has ever sensed and with but two fingers he has the ability to cut off Hinata's only potent force. Will she manage to get further than the door? The beast may have accomplices she has yet to meet, eagerly waiting for her slip-up; a reason to quench their blood thirst. Yet… have these monsters not shown time and time again that they will have a head whether it is bound with reasoning or lacking?

What if Hinata does manage to flee the building housing this room, does it guarantee her survival? Ever since Kyuubi's War, the streets have been nothing short of dangerous. The world has turned upside down and its inhabitants are falling, scrambling for soil, cutting down civilians to aid in their downpour. The people are merciless—brute beings that have lost their sense of humanity.

''This is exactly what the demon-fox had wanted,'' Tsunade had confided in Hinata four months after the start of this horrifying war. ''The beast is after nothing but destruction.''

Yes, if Hinata wants to make it out alive, patience is necessary.

Hinata relinquishes her grip on the hilt, lifting her head up to scan her environment.

He sits on a wooden desk that is placed in the far left corner of the room, legs tugged and crossed beneath him and eyes immobile, settled; staring at her face. They are a quiet blue again, the feral grin has vacated him and his eyes shift leisurely in his aloof face.

The silence strangles her. Hinata feels the telltale crumbling and slip slide of words in her mouth. She swallows them back down, yokes her chest, forces them back up.

''Where am I?''

The demon-fox blinks, attempting to pull his mind back from the gutters. ''My room,'' his voice rumbles.

In a flash, the demon-fox is kneeling next to the bed, eyes precariously large in his tanned face. She scrambles against the pillows, shivers then at the thought of it being his pillows, but she doesn't move. The tales her kin, Hokage-sama and all of Konoha have relayed about the fox bearer are plentiful to put the fear of God within Hinata, but the beast looks at her with eyes that remind her of better days when the sky was electric blue and the ocean turquoise—and Hinata has stopped believing in a God two years prior—when the war was lost even before it begun.

He looks so young.

His right hand lifts to the edge of the bed just to plummet back to the floor. He doesn't seem to understand what to do with his body, looks almost foreign in his own home.

His upper lip lifts to bear the row of glimmering white teeth and sharp canines. His tail, long, soughs over the sheets and lays still. The demon-fox heaves his hands up again, but they do not go further than the edge of the bed, nails digging into the sheets.

He watches.

Hinata wraps her arms tightly around her body, steeling her nerves. She is in the house of the demon-fox, breathing, very much alive—what is going on?

''I—'' she inhales. ''What am I doing here,'' her small voice squeaks.

The demon-fox curves his head sideways, eyeing her with curiosity.

''Name's Naruto Uzumaki,'' he grins boasting, canines poking his skin. ''What's yours?''

''What am I doing here,'' Hinata holds vast, though her heart stutters, retreats into the caverns of its cage as if it senses an intrusion.

The demon-fox blinks up at her strangely, finally pouting.

''I like your hair,'' he evades the question—or doesn't—and reaches that same hand forward just to pull it back. His grin brightens and he sits on his hunches. Quiet.

Their respiration runs soundly through the room, dancing and twisting around each other as though assessing their company.

What is death really? If she is to die here, away from her friends and family, nameless and in pain then so be it. Hinata has spent many nights thinking about death, wondering when life will have graced its limit. In war, there is nothing more unbalanced than time. In a losing war, there is nothing more certain than short time.

''Don't ignore me,'' she whispers haughtily, squeezing her hands into fists around her body. It feels like she is ten years old again: itsy-bitsy Hinata with a too-soft voice, heavy, trembling limbs and ever to miss the sliver of strength to look anyone in the eye. Never loud enough and always ignored. ''Why am I here? Free me! Or…''

Or.

The weight of Hinata's kunai is heavy.

His perched ears move once left and another right. They are orange, but not like the ceiling or his sheets, but paler and brown-ish, lively and breathing in the current of sound. The demon-fox rises, blinks down at her.

''Gotta take care of somethin'. See ya.''

''Wai—'' She reaches up to her knees, but he's gone before she can finishes her word.

Hinata rises in her full height, still, stumbling to the ground and falling on her bottom.

…

She doesn't move from the floor, curved into herself on her side and fingers tangled together. Her eyes blink profusely, trying to stay awake, but she is not frightened. She is at ease. Hinata has made peace with death since the beginnings of this war. So, when night falls, sleep follows swiftly.

Naruto, she thinks.

Hinata dreams of monsters and men.

…

''She left a message,'' Shino Aburame says. He hides his face in the collar of his jacket, but the Hokage can hear his muffled sniffs, nevertheless. ''In the ash. Just one word: fox.''

The village is quiet, as it has been for two years. Afternoon has come vastly, but the citizens of Konoha have surreptitiously decided to only walk the streets at utmost necessity. After all, this can be the day the demon-fox finally attacks and no one wants to tread through the village when time spent with family members and friends is limited. The Hokage does not have the same privilege, sadly. If Tsunade is to lock herself up in her house, hiding beneath her bed as she had done back when the fox had made its first appearance many years ago, Konoha will fall. There is much to a ninja war than only its ninja. The people cannot stand without hope and if their leader has abandoned conviction, how can they believe a chance of survival still exists?

That is why Tsunade wakens every bitter, cold morning to this ruined world. Hope has not abandoned the Hokage and for that she cannot abandon the people.

It is only today, as the remaining teammates of team eight stand before her shivering—crying—livid, does she question whether hope is limited, prone to run out sometime a lifespan.

''He took her,'' the Hokage's voice is odd, it seems, a distant tang of her former self. She rises, back creaking. She has gotten older beyond her years in looks and body, tired because of the lack of sleep. The war is draining the life out of her.

The Hokage turns her back to her ninja.

''That bastard!'' The Inuzuka boy howls. His voice is thick and croaked with the tears that decorate his marked cheeks. ''If only I—bastard!'' She hears a hard crunch and the Hokage shields her eyes.

This is her fault.

Tsunade should have never sent her ninja off to a village that had not been destroyed for longer than a week, but it was so very important to gather evidence on the whereabouts of the demon-fox. Every time the beast hit, the Hokage would wait at least a month before looking through the destroyed village, hoping to find something important, always coming up with nothing. So, the Hokage had changed the way the council approached Kyuubi's War. Perhaps something could be retrieved from a stricken village if they reached it a little sooner.

She was wrong, and because of her faulty decision, one of her own was captured.

The Hokage clenches her hand.

Damned that beast!

Why would he want Hinata in the first place? What is his purpose with the Hyuga girl?

''He's not getting away with this, is he, Hokage?'' Shino asks.

She lifts her head, unable to recall when it had fallen and speaks while accentuating every letter, ''Never.'' Tsunade turns around to face her ninja. Inuzuka's fist is bloody and there is a hole in a previously unmarred wall behind him. Aburame has hidden his face completely in the collar of his jacket. None of them seem very much aware of her presence. ''Shizune, come in here,'' Tsunade screeches.

The Hokage's assistant walks in, glancing at Tsunade. ''Yes, madam Hokage?''

''Send an alert to the council,'' Tsunade turns around again to watch over the village. ''We are having a meeting.''

…

There is no reluctance in her eyelids when she moves them and Hinata does not feel tired when they open. The analgesic feeling has been haunting her for longer than this war; a void to extend its vines into her fetal organs. Nowadays Hinata does not look with dread at the upcoming day as the mornings have always made her feel. Instead it is with curiosity, a soft whisper in the back of her mind that questions her existence.

She wakes to blue. The fox boy is lying next to her on his side and they're facing each other. Perched on top of his right fist and half an arm's-length space between them, Naruto watches her with his hair unruly and eyes unblinking.

Hinata inhales sharply.

''You're like a cloud, y'know?''

She quivers at his voice, crimson heat touching her cheeks. It is odd to hear someone sound so lively during these dark days. Hinata sits up straight, cautiously eyeing the boy in front of her and pulling her legs up to her chest.

''I'm sorry?''

''A cloud,'' Naruto grins. ''Soft, sinking—slipping—like you'd drip right pass my fingers if I'd tried to touch ya. Would you do that? You look soft. Are you soft?''

Her eyes flutter, not quite knowing how to respond to that.

His tail dances round in circles slowly as Naruto continues. ''You haven't told me your name yet. What's your name or are you, like, not allowed to say it? You're like a princess, huh? You look like a princess. Can I call you hime? You're really pretty. Sort'f reminds me of torn flesh. Have you ever heard the sound of torn flesh? It's like shlck, y'know? Ever seen dripping blood? You're like a ninja, right? You are, aren't you! Ever felt the dying of a pulse? It's so real and raw. You are real, aren't you? You are raw, y'know? I bet you're soft, huh? Can I touch you?''

She frowns tightly—torn flesh, dripping blood—Hinata shudders. The demon-fox is insanity in a palpable form. Her arms encircle her whole body as she swallows the ball of spit down her throat in exchange for her words. ''I don't think that's a good idea.''

''Oh well, next time, yeah?''

With wide eyes, the Hyuga girl stares him down.

Her stomach grumbles.

Swiftly, Naruto sits up, sliding closer. In return, Hinata propels her feet forward and scoots towards a wall.

He stops, curving his head. ''Ya hungry? I can get you some food.'' He drops down to his stomach, hands holding his head up and feet in the air. All this staring is unnerving. Why is he doing that the whole time? And why is she still alive?

''Give me a sec.''

He vanishes.

Hinata scurries over to a corner of the room. At least he won't be able to show up behind her back and surprise her. This position gives her an overall clear view of the room.

He's insane. He's twisted and he's about to deliver her some food that most likely has poison in it. Of course she had to get into this mess. Who else would have been captured so easily? Surely Hanabi would have been able to avoid Naruto's chakra block attack, Sakura would have rendered Naruto unconscious with her brute strength, and any capable and stronger ninja would have fought for as long as they had the power to fight. Hinata still has her kunai and she does not feel as weakened, thus she has the power to fight back, but the fear of losing is as palpable as her current situation. She has already tasted the bitter defeat that comes with the demon-fox; Hinata knows she cannot beat him.

So, what is she to do? Fight, even if the outcomes do not favor her or lay down her life with the bite of a piece of bread because it is easier? Hinata has never believed in herself, with good reason. After all, would her father turn his back on a strong daughter?

She bends her head.

Hinata cries.

She senses him without looking up. Accepting his presence and sensing his lingering gaze is getting easier.

''T—tell me,'' she grits out, but her voice is still too soft and she is still too quiet. ''What is the use of feeding me?'' She reaches a wrist to her nose, wiping it clean. ''Are you going to use me so H—Hokage-sama relents, because that will not work. Do you intend to plump me up so you can eat me—go ahead. Have you mapped out how to weave fear until it levels with my essence just so the kill is more enjoyable—good on you.'' She whips her head up; eyes clenched shut and hands ctight. ''As long as you know that Hokaga-sama will never relent and I am not afraid to die, so, give me your worst!''

The seconds go by in quiet. Hinata is too afraid to open her eyes and see his hauntingly blue ones.

Suddenly, something soft graces her face and Hinata is perplexed enough to allow her eyes to fall open.

In front of her is the tip of his soft, fluffy tail moving across her cheeks, dabbing underneath her eyes as if it has done that many times before fully content and familiar and actions controlled. She cannot close her eyes and she cannot stop staring at the tail.

A poignant heat crawls up her neck.

Where is her dread—where is the piercing hatred that comes from being this near to a beast—what is this urge to run her fingers through this downy?

''Why?'' She whispers.

Naruto blinks stupidly; cocking his head in what Hinata now understands is his way to dissect the odd human being he has collected and locked inside his bedroom.

''Why not?''

He pushes the plate of bread and cheese to her toes and grins. ''There's no poison in it, promise. Cross my heart and hope to die. I like your hair too much to see it lifeless across my floor. Anyone else, definitely! Not you, though. Believe it!''

…

He is a very talkative person when he gets going.

Naruto asks her several of questions about her life: friends—she refrains from going into detail about her comrades, family—she refrains from going into detail about the Hyuga, and just overall her. What is her favorite color (purple, ''mine's orange!''), what does she like to do in her free time (pressing flowers, ''killing lotta people, torturing, that sorta thing''), what her favorite season is (spring, ''winter, there's something about pale skin that reminds me of the dead''). They talk for a while, but really, Naruto does most of the talking and she does a lot more of the listening.

He still hasn't told her why she's here or where he goes during the days and nights. Then, Hinata busies herself by counting the cracks in the walls and the ceiling. Sometimes Naruto brings her to the restroom by teleporting and she'll sit on the seat for at least half an hour, counting the cracks she finds in those walls, but most of the time Hinata just stares at nothing. Lost in the memories of a life she may never see again. During his time away she also wonders about Naruto and if he washes his hands after he stains them with blood, if he changes his clothes before he visits her in his room because he's afraid she'll smell the metal in them, and whether he endeavors to be presentable for the girl he stole, because a part of him is sane enough to comprehend the weight of clean hands before touching something chaste.

Sometimes he asks her: ''Can I touch you now?''

But she always tells him not yet.

…

''Maybe tomorrow, but not today.''

…

''I wanna show you something.''

He's lying on his right side, facing Hinata's profile with his left hand splayed between their bodies. He fingers the orange sheet slowly like the fabric must be handled with care and love. Does this beast know love, though? Do those enchanting blue eyes that glister and flicker house the only sensation a heart can scintillate? She's too afraid to look at him. He's always so close and hesitant to touch her; afraid he'll burn at the tips of his fingers once he does.

She faces the ceiling.

Her heart has been quiet for a while.

''What?''

The tips of his fingers slide to a loose thread of the sleeve of her sweatshirt, pinching it, twirling it between an index finger and a thumb.

She does not flinch.

''Close your eyes.''

Hesitantly, Hinata shifts her gaze to the boy lying next to her. He gazes back in earnest.

She closes her eyes—

—and opens them to a city of bones, torn flesh, bloodied bodies, mutilated faces, splattered blood—blood on stones, blood on trees, blood on tiling, slapped and drawn with the streak imprints of hands and fingers. Empty eye sockets, agape mouths without tongues as if they were cut into silence, fingers with broken nails like they had attempted to scratch their way to freedom through steel. Limbs ripped into ruffles, arms and legs bent in ugly shapes and dipped in blood—blood—blood—so much blood.

''Isn't it beautiful?'' Naruto asks. ''Not as pretty as you, but close, yeah? Almost interchangeable, right, hime?''

Hinata screams her throat raw.

…

The moment the demon-fox teleports them back, Hinata is standing, the kunai in the grasp of her right hand and body hunched in her combat position.

She has to do it.

He has left her no choice.

The beast has his head bent in that infuriating way of his, watching her like he doesn't quite understand her reaction, cannot comprehend that she is the foe, deadly armed and ready to strike. To kill him.

Is she really that pathetic? Is she really so weak that she cannot move a single person into shielding themselves against her fury?

Her right hand starts shaking.

''Didn't you like it?'' Naruto asks quizzically.

''You—you—why?'' She screeches. ''Wh—what is wrong with you?''

What kind of ninja is she to get so easily shaken up and so very weak that even the tears flowing into her eyes are too afraid to fall?

''Too soon, eh?''

''You are insane,'' she howls. ''Y—you—I can't—I need to…''

He must die, but her body won't cooperate as if her cerebellum has shot down.

She drops to her knees, curling into herself. Wide eyed and horrified, Hinata stares at the floor, moving back and forth—easy and steady—back and forth—simple and conceivable—back and forth, back and forth; attempting to shake herself back to sanity.

He is kneeling in front of her, having moved ghostly closer. He tips his head down, stirring it to and fro until he finds a set of wanly, lavender eyes staring at a clear spot on an orange carpet.

''Aren't you going to attack me?'' The fox boy asks, sounding genuine curious.

Hinata hardly recognizes the voice that creeps passed her lips, ''wh—what's the use? You're going to overpower me, anyway. I'm going to lose… all I ever do is… lose. I am weak. The weak never win.''

''I don't think you're weak.''

Here she frowns. The quiver, moving insistently through her body, tempers.

''You're really strong, actually, never met anyone who was brave enough to take me on. I think that's strong, don't you?''

She shifts herself to look at him, still wide eyed but now with a crease between her eyebrows.

''Really?'' She whispers.

''Yeah, and you're pretty, too. Never saw anyone as pretty as ya. Really pretty.''

She blushes to her toes like a little school girl. No one has ever called her pretty; never the weird, sequestered dark haired Hyuga heir that hides behind poles and watches people on the streets as though they are foreign concepts.

''But I lose all the time.''

''But you get up all the time, too, yeah? You're strong, really strong. Believe it!''

The shaking ceases.

…

The days that follow are more than bearable; they are actually nice. Naruto shows her more of the outside world. Not the ruins inflicted by his hand, but the villages and cities that are still quiet, unscathed with a relative tranquility while still conscious of the demon-fox lurking around the corners, waiting to strike. Sometimes Hinata thinks about asking him why he enjoys hurting people, watching them bleed out or demolishing villages and cities. But then she thinks; she must already know. Hasn't Naruto made it clear from the moment she met him? He does it because he loves it the same way her father loves to win, the same way Sakura-chan loves Sasuke-san, the same way the moon loves the night enough to return come darkness, the same way a sailor loves the sea to sail it when the waves call and the same way Hinata loves Naruto's blue eyes. There is never a real justification afterwards, and many reckon that just loving it is enough.

There are times he steps into his bedroom when night has fallen and Hinata is already in his bed underneath the sheets making vast to sleep that she can scent the metal on his skin. He'll lie down on the sheet draped over Hinata's body and she'll feel the telltale prickling of being watched.

Those days she thinks about turning around and reaching for him, rubbing the dried blood into his skin until it soaks into his veins; until it taints her cells and devours her existence.

Every day she gets a little braver.

…

Bravery finds her in the late night of another uncolored day when curiosity overcomes her pliant self.

''C—can I ask you something, Naruto?''

He stiffens at her epithet, kneeling in front of the bed like he has done every time he falls into another one of his long, passionate, monologues that range from bloody exploits or a set of inquiries for Hinata.

He nods pleasantly and quirks the corner of his lips up so only one canine peeps out his pale lips.

''Do you live alone?''

He shakes his head vehemently. '''Course not, hime. I live with you.''

She blushes, squeezing her crossed arms against her tummy to settle the riotous swirling. ''Aside from me,'' she murmurs. ''Is there anyone else?''

His eyebrows twitch a little in thought. ''No, just you, no one else.''

''No parents, either?''

He flinches. Hinata instantly feels bad when his usually lively blue eyes turn downcast and his chin lands haphazardly on top of the bed. He can't even look at her. Perhaps there is a subject that even Naruto Uzumaki does not feel comfortable sharing.

''M—my mother is dead,'' she suddenly stutters out, because what better way to invite someone into an agony-fest than to put the first meal on the table. His head shoots up to look at her. ''And my father lives, but I am dead to him.''

Naruto frowns, and to clarify the numerous of question surely spinning through his head she continues. ''My father has always wanted strong offspring; children worth his name. I was never what he desired and for that… I am not worth his acknowledgment.''

It is true. Hinata is not as good in battle as Hanabi Hyuga or as strong as the late Neji Hyuga. Often than less Hinata has failed her missions and in retrospect, isn't her abduction—failing to acquire anything of worth for the Hokage—another failed mission? Who is she kidding? Hinata hasn't grown stronger. She hasn't changed, at all.

''You don't need it anyway,'' Naruto says.

She creases her eyebrows together. ''He is my father. It is the only thing I need.''

''There are more things people need, really. You just gotta find it. Why'd you need anyone who can't understand how breathtaking you are, anyway? They're all peasants; rotten little insects who can't understand a wildfire unless it takes down their whole town. You wanna know what? If they don't want to understand you, then you have to make them get it.''

He is so passionate. His eyes are raging and his mouth is stretched wide open as if the beast within him throbs to hurl itself into the plain. Hinata has never seen anything more enticing.

''The only way you can get what you want is by taking it,'' he tells her. ''You should take it all as their punishment for withholding it from you in the first place and leave nothing behind.''

''You think I can do that?''

She: the most incompetent Hyuga to have ever been born?

''I think you can do anything, hime!''

…

She tells him, after two months of living with him, that she is called Hinata.

''Hinata,'' he whispers reverently, over and over again. ''Hinata.'' He plays with the letters, rolls the word around his mouth and over his tongue. He chants it like it's a song and blows it into her ears like a summer's breeze, warm and inviting.

She smiles.

''Hi-na-ta,'' he accentuates.

''Hinata.''

He grins until his canines bear in full length and whips his fluffy tail up and down erratically. He is a mischievous boy up to no good and Hinata can feel her heart flutter.

…

Kiba Inuzuka realizes the manor Shino, team seven and he are sent to is the wrong building when he can't scent Hinata's smell several of meters away.

He follows his comrades nevertheless. His nose has never been wrong, but he has always been stubborn. It's been more than two months with no sign of Hinata and he's terrified—so fucking terrified of the very real possibility that she may be—

He sniffs the interior out in every crook and every space. He lifts up dusty, old pillows, rakes through a moldy refrigerator that does horrible things to his senses and pulls equipment from its haunches in the cellar. He doesn't stop. Not when Sakura leaves the room in tears, not when Sasuke takes a seat on the floor; closing his eyes, not when Sai follows Sakura out and definitely not when Shino dashes into the bathroom, coughing up his ingestions on a clear bathroom floor.

Kiba does not stop.

It is a dark world and the Inuzuka boy may not be able to see as clear during the night as Sasuke or Hinata—dammit Hinata—but he still has his nose. He can sniff the dark out. He can scent the beast.

He's been raking the house for hours when Sakura finds him sniffing underneath the master bed for the tenth time today.

''Kiba,'' she starts, but he holds up a hand to stop her right there, because he knows what she's going to say and he does not want to hear it.

She squeezes her lips together until they pale underneath the synthetic light of the light bulb. There are dried tear streaks running down her left cheek, he notes, as she turns her face to hide the faint red in the whites of her eyes. ''We need to leave,'' she squeaks. ''There's nothing here.''

His arm slackens to his side, hitting the floor.

''I'm sorry,'' she whispers.

''What're you apologizing for,'' he shakes his wild, brown locks. ''You're not the beast that took her.''

''I know, it's just… I never know what to say in a moment like this. Apologizing has always been this standard conduct. I guess it stuck with me. You know how parents always tell you to apologize when you've hurt someone? Like the word sorry can ease the pain, the balm to the wound, the bandage to the breakage. It's not, though, but we like to think it is. We like to think something can ease the pain, because if there's nothing to ease the pain then there's only pain.''

He sits back on his buttocks.

''Let's go. I'm sure Tsunade has a different plan. We won't give up,'' Sakura assures.

They may not give up, but how long does Hinata have, if she's even still alive?

…

The bed creaks as it dips down.

The scent of blood, bitter like Hokage-sama's homemade sake, assaults Hinata's senses. She turns to her left side, the sheet inching down her chest and warping around her legs. She shifts just so the ruffles cling loosely, the sound of faint grating soughing through the quiet room. The night lamp burns eerily this night.

The blue eyed boy faces her on his side, nose to nose, breath with breath. His eyes are riveted, passive; gaze ingrained on the stolen girl, sown and fused. He has never stopped watching her for all the days that have come and passed with eyes the color of burnished blue that the sea must have bereft from him. A streak of blood slants over his forehead, a sharp contrast against his tan, but somehow still so fitting that Hinata reaches her hand out; an eye focused on the smudge of blood and, mesmerized, touches it with light fingertips.

Naruto's eyelids fall shut like dropped lead. His lips flatten over his teeth as a strident hiss escapes the hard grit of his jaw. He inches closer. He knows now not to ask for permission, not when her wrist is near his nose, so close to his canines he only ought to move scantly to sink his teeth in her radial artery. His tongue darts out, but only the tip reaches the soft, thin skin of her inner wrist, lapping a long line across the width.

Hinata shivers persistently, the hand on his forehead inches slightly down because of it.

Against her wet skin, Naruto speaks. ''You're so warm.''

He must have thought her cold. Pale like winter.

Naruto closes the space between their bodies, even after their chests touch he presses onward, attempting to become one with her body. He nuzzles the crook of her shoulder, inhales her scent deeply. There's a clawed hand that raves through her heavy hair, pulling and kneading. A leg shifts between her own two, the thigh pressing against her heated core. He holds her vast, he inhales her essence and he licks the score of her neck until his tongue dries out, just to wring the pink flesh back in, wetting it and lapping up her skin again.

She writhes in his embrace. Her neck pulls back to show the coil of her esophagus. The sounds that vacate her are none she has ever uttered; low rolls of pure, unadulterated ecstasy. The heat that traps her skin is different than her usual flush, pleasanter even. Whatever Naruto-kun is doing to her: Hinata wants more.

He turns her over to her stomach and covers her back with his body. The strangulation of the sheet eases off her legs and in return his legs twist around her until the soles of his feet stretch to touch her shins. His hands creep underneath the hem of her sweatshirt, across the indentations above her rump and along the ripples of her spine. Her heavy breaths moisten the pillows beneath her face, and her nails dig into the mattress when Naruto places his head in the cavity where shoulder meets neck and rubs his erection against her bottom. The shadow of his breath tickles the cavern of her ear, his tail swooshes rapidly in the air and his lips voice his desires; urging her wantons to set free.

He whispers her name into her ear. ''Hinata,'' he forcefully grinds his pelvis against her plump flesh, pushing her hips into the mattress and allowing it to bounce up and down with his thrusts.

He grunts lowly. His hands move up her stomach and pave a way to the cups of her bra. There he wrings his hands beneath the confinements, pushing them over her mounds and filling his hands with the soft flesh; squeezing them, fluttering his thumbs over the puckered peaks that harden after two flicks. His thrusts become enraptured, frenzied and wildly uncoordinated as he swirls his erection around her rump. His tongue has gathered more wetness, splaying its spit across her cheek, the curve of her jaw and the corner of her lips. She moves her right hand up to his taut blonde hair and tugs, hazily trying to find something to ease the throbbing in her core, quiet the rapture of her heart and unfold the twist in her stomach.

He grabs the hem of her sweatshirt and wrings it passed her arms and head. His head leaves the curve of her shoulder and Hinata is forced to let him go, mewling as she feels his weight leave her back.

His fingers follow there where his hands had taken a detour to her breasts. They trail over the knobs of her spine, the edges of her shoulder blades and the outlines of the band of her bra, pulling Goosebumps from their slumber. He moves delicately as though touching a fragile piece of porcelain and fearing the possibility that too much pressure may shatter her bones. There is a tug on the last upper remaining fabric before it loosens across her chest and she shimmers out of it, leaning on her forearms as she does.

Naruto-kun reaches for her as she leans up. His right hand shifts languorously to her collarbone, an index finger pressing against the dip of her throat. It shifts slowly to the valley of her breasts, skipping her pebbled nipples and finding her belly button instead; encircling. She erupts into a shivering and flinching mess that yearns for his heat.

''I knew you were soft, hime,'' Naruto-kun croaks. ''So soft.''

His hands grab the elastic band of the waist line of her trousers and she shifts up, curving her plump bottom against his erection; assisting the pull of the fabric and her panties.

A chill runs down her body. He must be watching the color of her skin against the light of the night lamp, the little freckles dusting her cheeks; dissecting her being.

She lays her face down, pressing her chest against Naruto's mattress, ever the bashful of being gazed upon like never before while naked.

Hinata hears the ruffling of fabric. The bed shifts underneath Naruto's movements and it almost feels like seconds have adapted to hours as she waits for him. His skin. His flesh. To feel his twitching thickness between her wet folds and to hear him call out her name as the sailor who had finally found the waves that had beckoned him forward since his calling to the sea had started.

Finally, he touches her again. She feels only his flesh against her back and she moans at the twitch of his tip against her wet slit, gliding. He holds her tight against his body. A hand creeps between the mattress and her body to grab a hold of her breast, the other curves around the top of her head, the palm pressed against the head board, cocooning her in with his skin and bones.

He inhales her scent, again, hides his lips against the center of her neck and then he begs. He hymns her name and he begs for it. It doesn't make sense, but at an indefinite point Hinata has stopped attempting to make sense of anything that is Naruto-kun.

He plunges into her sharply without restraint. They both jolt; one with a sharp breath of ecstasy and the other in sudden discomfort. But she wants more, still. She wants the ache and the mania, to be turned inside and out and made anew. She wants it all.

Hinata craves the welcoming madness.

Her walls clench around his thick girth.

He plunges in fast, pushing her deeper into the mattress, slamming his hips hard against her skin in his untraceable craze. She grinds her cheeks against his skin and clenches a hand on his muscular thigh, nails digging into the flesh. They ride the high, they ride the craze; they move insistent and fast, flesh slapping against each other, breaths out of tune but still chasing. He rolls his length within her hastily, rubbing his thighs against her inner flesh. He growls inanity words inside her ear, thrusting his erection in and out in slick, soppy sounds that make her grasp the edge of the heard board in both hands; fingers splaying—just so—over Naruto-kun's thumb.

''Mine. Mine. Mine,'' he chants in her ear. His hand that was grasping the head board shifts to her chin. He twists her face, as far as it is willing to bend sideways, and for the first time tonight, they kiss. Sloppily, tongues running along each other and teeth clasping against one another. He sucks in her spit and bites deep enough on her bottom lip to redden the skin, but not far enough to draw out blood.

''Mine!'' He growls with hooded eyes as they part.

Yes, she thinks. All his.

Naruto incinerates the cells of her body to imperceptible dust, until she is nothing but one with the earth.

…

Out of the dirt a sparse, little weed grows.

…

She wakes with a single gasp for air.

Nails run up and down her back slowly, summer sky blue eyes gaze down at her face and once Hinata looks up to the carrier of the chest she is pressed against, it feels as though she can breathe again.

A lazy grin spreads across Naruto-kun's face. Automatically, she smiles back. Her heart flutters at the sight of him. It skips away from her reach out into the open and Hinata allows it to soar.

''Hey,'' he says.

''Good morning,'' she whispers.

He leans his head down to brush their lips together, one hand grasping the hair on the nape of her neck. Fleetingly, the tips of their tongues chafe just before he pushes her down on her back and throws his legs on either side of her waist, broadly lapping at her lips and deepening the kiss.

She keens into his mouth, trembling at his electrifying touch. Her hands trail over his back, up to his neck and down again. His skin is firm, he feels imperishable. He smells of murder and sweat, but tastes like fledged understanding; sweet and musky.

He nips at her upper lip a final time.

''You're my hime, yeah?'' He doesn't impose it as a question, even though the lilt of such hangs in the air. He nuzzles her neck gently and licks the nape as if to mark her skin with him. She hums.

He gets off the bed. Her hand follows his wake, but she does not rise with him. She watches him curiously, one arm pressed against her chest in a futile endeavor of modesty and the other holding her up. He throws on his boxers and orange tracksuit bottoms quickly.

Hinata frowns.

''Are you going so soon?''

He turns his head to grin at her, causing the coil in her stomach to clench loopy. His eyes trail over her breasts and the nape of hair between her legs so very dauntless. She flushes at his straying gaze.

''I hafta finish something really important,'' he stills momentarily, contemplating his next words, Hinata can only assume. His sight drops to the floor as he picks up his discarded shirt. ''New village. Konoha's the name, we go way back. It was a long time coming and time's near. I gotta take care of it, but after…'' He turns around to grin at her, throwing the shirt on. Once it's settled across his hips, he throws himself back on the bed and she giggles at his throaty breath against the supple skin of her collarbone. ''I'll be back and we'll do whatever you wanna.'' He pecks her flesh.

Before he has the chance to rise and leave her, Hinata grabs a hold on the front of his shirt, her fingers digging into the hard planes of his chest. She waits for the sense of dread to overwhelm her at the prospect of Naruto slaughtering her hometown, but then she wonders… would it really be such a bad thing to watch all those people who had litigated her strength and her bravery for something less than it actually was? ''K—Konoha is my hometown and I want to come with you.''

He doesn't flinch once she speaks. Won't tell her no because he's afraid she may abandon him the moment she has the chance. It's as if he knows that she does not want to stray from his side. She must suffer the same fate Naruto-kun suffers from since the day he met her, but even so, Hinata does not care. The feeling that chews away at her heart is exquisite. She wants it. Oh, she wants it all.

He cups his head sideways. ''Want me to help ya?''

''Yes,'' she whispers. ''Help me, Naruto-kun.''

…

A cherished kunai scratches a long trail into a brown wall. Suctioned footsteps echo through an empty, blood ridden training room.

Her mind is hazy with metal and sweat.

She tips open the door leading to a once brown, immaculate room, but now red; brought back to life. She fixed it. This room breathes again. Hinata puts the tip of the kunai against her bottom lip and a drop of blood sneaks underneath her tongue.

Naruto envelops her waist with his right arm, pushing his unruly head of blonde hair on top of the curve of her shoulder. She leans her head sideways, presenting the neck for him as an offering and like the blood thirsty beast he is, he laps the metal and sweat of her skin.

''You taste spicy,'' he groans against her flesh.

Her eyes stare down at the torn sheets of the bed, the broad blood streaks on the floor as if a body had been dragged to and fro, cut up in pieces with its blood sputtering out and drained on clean carpeting.

She grips his forearm firmly.

…

On the blood soaked floor Hinata has her way with Naruto-kun. She sucks the crimson off his flesh until he is covered with her; she rides his erection until her voice is raw from screaming and drowns herself in his entity, right next to the corpse of her late father.

…

They hold hands on top of the blackened Hokage building and watch Konoha burn to the ground.

…

Once, Hinata was too afraid to lay down her life, knowing that the odds stood against her.

Fear was she and weakness was her soul.

But, Hinata is no longer afraid to lay down her life, because Naruto has taught her just how strong she can really be, whether the odds stand against her or they don't.

Fear is not Hinata, Hinata is fear.

Weakness is not her being; it is everyone else that is weak.

And Hinata will eradicate them.

Hinata will destroy them all.

…

…

…

…

…

End