AN: Greetings! I am your Mistress.

Welcome to a story that I wish to replace with one that I've already written. From those who may remember A Dark Influence, I want to let you all know that this was the direction I had wanted to go from the beginning, but I got too involved with trying to include my OC Shade. For that, again, I apologize.

So, what have I done?

I've cut the 'fat', per se.

What does that mean? No Shade. She will not be included in this story and I will use proper canon characters instead. Also, no fifty chapter 'Wave Arc'.

With that said, I want to thank you all for reading! Now, let the story begin!

It all starts before the Wave Arc with the history of Naruto and Hinata meeting when they were very young. It was introduced during the episode 'Confessions' anime. I SWEAR no overdrawn story this time around.

Your Mistress.

For The Good Of The Village

Ch 1 Going Down Memory Lane

"No way! I'm not doing another D rank!" A voice accused from behind the Hokage's door.

That outburst was soon followed with a harsh lecture by Iruka about being disrespectful to the Hokage. A tirade was in full swing to the dismay of the visiting Hyuuga Hinata.

Naruto-kun?

A messenger had sent for her to report to the Hokage's office for an urgent matter regarding an upcoming mission.

Just as her hand was poised over the door to knock, a very familiar and loud voice stopped her. Slowly...carefully she walked backwards till she felt the wall on the other side of the hall press against her back. The dejected heiress felt like her breathing was too loud, her heart was thundering like an elephant stomping, and she was sure the trembling fingers were making some kind of racket that she must be scolded for. When she waited long enough to be sure she was about to be banished for embarrassing herself yet again, she decided it safe enough to tap her fingers together...quietly.

Still, what would it hurt to listen to the door a little closer?

Taking a tentative step forward, the indigo haired Hyuuga was positive that as soon as her foot touched ground, Naruto and everyone else in that room were going to laugh at her for being so nosy, pathetic, and weak. Large lavender hued eyes closed tight, shoulders hunched, and hands covering her mouth to keep that darn breathing under control, she put her full weight on her first step.

Nothing happened.

In the next room, Naruto was in a deep debate with his team mates about ramen while Iruka was scolding him, yet again, for not paying attention.

She giggled into her fingers, braving yet another step.

Naruto-kun, you're being silly.

Finding an insurmountable amount of bravery, she took several steps at a time. The shy, young teen wanted to hear his voice again.

Pressing her cheek against the plain yet heavy door, her fingers tracing a knot in the thick wood. Naruto's voice, though boisterous and loud, was full of energy and confidence. Knuckles and fingers covered her mouth again, stifling a chuckle that Uzumaki Naruto would get so excited about something like a mission or ramen.

"Fine. I think it's safe to give your Team a C rank mission, Kakashi, however there will need to be a substitute included since Sakura has been injured..." Sarutobi said in his gruff but fatherly tone.

What was that? Had she heard correctly? Naruto-kun is going to be on a C rank? Sakura was injured? What happened to her?

She had to hear more. Pulling her hair away from her ear to press her cheek even closer to the door to hear better, the fabric of her jacket brushed ever so lightly against the frame when the door opened quickly, causing her to spill flat on her face with a startled "Eeep!"

Gathering herself up inside the threshold of the doorway, she looked up to see Kakashi still had the knob of the door in one hand and the naughty book Kurenai had warned the boys in her team about. It was rather amusing to watch Kiba squirm when those scarlet eyes of her sensei narrowed on him about what would happen if she ever saw that book in her presence.

He smiled down at her with his one visible eye and called out, "Yo!"

"It-itai," she squint one eye and rubbed the front of her of her head with the heel of her hand. Bracing herself into a more dignified position, she felt him squat down next to her. She didn't dare turn her head, however her eyes had more courage and their own mind to do what she was consciously unwilling herself to do.

There they were...that kind of blue, that perfect mix of dark and light that held so much strength, so much courage, and so much willingness to give and care. Those eyes had hypnotized her so often that she felt like she was being cruelly jested upon by some deity for giving her such a weak heart and even weaker spirit to talk to him, approach him, just anything to let him know she liked him so much.

Especially after that time a few years ago when he protected her from those bunch of boys that forced her to the ground, yelling at her to apologize for spilling one of their ice creams.

What had happened again?

Now she remembered...

Flashback...

She had lost horribly to Hanabi that day, and with her father quietly walking away in disappointment in front of her caretaker Ko, there were no words were said, but it was enough to be so mortifying that she could taste the loathing in the Clan Head's demeanor.

So she ran.

Fast, far, and blindly as her feet could go, Hyuuga Hinata put one foot in front of the other, breathing hard with her arms pumping to the beat of her steps with a scorching pain in her chest that just wouldn't let up.

Ko had called out to her but she didn't care. No matter how she tried, no matter how much she attempted to put her mother's death behind her, getting beat up by her sister so savagely and easily, and then the glaring dismissal of her father seared into her memory.

All she wanted to do was flee.

When she bumped into the boy with the ice cream cone, she really did feel bad that she had ruined his treat. The way him and his friends eyed her was just proof, yet again, she was loathsome and needed to be scolded.

Wasn't there a limit to how horrible people could treat her? Didn't the universe have enough fun taunting her at her every step? Wasn't it enough that the people who she loved and cherished above herself hated her?

She just wanted to run away.

No, she was not allowed to escape. They held her to the ground, speaking terrible things to her, calling her haughty and arrogant, like her cousin. She wasn't like her nii-san and they were so wrong about him. They didn't understand what he had been through and, yet, they didn't stop mocking her. Hyuuga Hinata just wanted to go, to run and she couldn't.

On her knees, their filthy ice cream covered fingers digging into her smooth indigo locks so she could lower her head even more, they continued to reprimand her till she cried with tears falling from her lavender eyes with her heart stuck in her voice.

Yet all she could do was say it over and over again...

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."

But for what?

For them, it was a simple ice cream cone.

For her, it was more. So much more...

She was sorry she was a failure. She was sorry, her mother, Hatsumi, was gone from the world and she couldn't stop thinking about her smiling face or gentle voice. She was sorry her father thought more of the recycled trash then her when she wanted to prove to him, with all her heart, that she was a worthy daughter to receive his love and his attention. She was sorry Hanabi didn't have a strong enough sister to show her the ways of the Hyuuga and maintain the standings of the Clan for her sake as well as her family. She was sorry Neji nii-san's father died because he had protected her when she was little and left his soul so full of hate for her when they used to be so close.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."

She was sorry for everything and to everyone for being so unsightly. So very, very sorry...

Then he came, drawing their attention and their wrath. With his dark blue eye'd glare, his firm bark to leave her alone. He turned their attention from her to him.

Young and sprightly, bold and unafraid, Naruto scolded them, telling the trio of bullies to leave her alone.

The young heiress couldn't believe what she was witnessing. This person she had been told to avoid at all costs because he was beneath her notice and would only cause trouble was here.

Protecting her, defending her, fighting for her...

WACK! WACK!

...taking a few punches for her.

That didn't stop him. Getting back to his feet, he seemed all the more enticed to take that challenge head on.

And he did.

How?

By making a horrible bushin...

When did he learn how to do that? He wasn't even a gennin in school yet, right?

...he distracted them enough to make them laugh so hard they never saw him coming full force with a tackle that knocked the breath out of the one who hit him.

"I'm going to be Hokage someday! Don't you forget it!"

Naruto's rain of punches was finished as soon as it began. The other two boys jumped him quickly, subduing him with kicks and flailing knuckles.

It was so unbelievably wretched to watch!

This violence was so horrible. There was no coach, no proctor to call point. This was a different type of fighting she was not used to. No rules, no boundaries...

...and blood.

The spikey haired blond boy was bleeding and they were still hurting him!

Hinata couldn't move and she knew if she could just get on her feet she could help him. The young heiress knew how to fight better then all three of these boys, but all she could hear was the sound of flesh meeting bloody flesh, the jovial laughter the young rogues took in dishing out pain for their pleasure, and she couldn't find it in herself to protect this boy, no, this young man that put himself in harms way for her!

She was so scared!

Ko, her guardian, arrived, calling her name and scaring the boys into fleeing.

When he arrived at her side, Byakugan flared, he appraised what was left of 'that boy'.

Bleeding, unconscious, and vulnerable, Ko was already pulling her home and away from what she was exposed to. No matter how much she protested, no matter how much it even surprised her that she could voice so firmly that the he needed help her blond savior, she was dragged back despite her attempts.

When she walked around the village and saw him again, stumbling down his lonely life of mischief and antics, she saw the one thing in him that no one else did.

He was NOT going to be torn down. This boy, Uzumaki Naruto, would show them all that he was alive! He existed and he mattered! Oh did he take their jeers, their taunts, and their accusations with a stiff upper lip.

The boy's will was indomitable.

A part of her was just so in awe at how little he had and, yet, how easily it came to him to feel so much pride in himself and his ability to want to protect those that would easily mock him.

Years later and after only a few brief times crossing each other at the Academy, his desire to pull pranks and annoy Iruka sensei left a legacy of laughter that was sure to be talked about for years.

For her, these weren't pranks so much as a point to show he, Uzumaki Naruto, needed to be recognized because when he became Hokage, and she was sure he would, they all could sleep safely in their beds because he would be there to protect them.

From that first day he protected her, to those years at their remedial Academy, till now, Hyuuga Hinata found herself desperate to talk to him and let him know she thought of him so, so much.

However, everything or anything she ever did to try and let him know she would like to be his friend was embarrassingly snuffed out by her inability to talk or, even as this moment was about to prove,...

"Don't you hate it when that happens?" Naruto chuckled disarmingly, his lips pulled back in an earnest and warm toothy smile. He offered her his hand to help her up, but his countenance changed when his eyes followed the ever increasing blush on her cheeks turn darker and darker till eventually her elbow buckled under her.

...to stay conscious when he so much as got within talking distance.

Naruto watched the Hyuuga girl with concern, turning ever so slightly to his sensei for some kind of answer.

"Are all girls this weird, sensei?"

The spike of killer intent made the small hairs on his neck curl.

"Naaruuutoooo!" Sakura growled.

He didn't even get a chance to turn around when Sakura, leg in a cast and crutches under her arm pits, successfully had him choked and gagged in an impressive headlock.

Sasuke gave the scene a brief glance before he turned his attention to an annoyed Iruka, an amused Hokage, and an aloof sensei who just turned another page in his book after closing the door.

"Hn," he voiced to no one. These people were not going to help him get stronger. He needed power and this was just proof that the obstacles in his way were many.