The silence of the Hyuuga compound was a fragile thing. Hinata knelt in the center of the clan's private dojo, the polished wood cool against her knees, her eyes closed in meditation. In the quiet aftermath of the invasion, her training had shifted inward. It was a process of integration, of feeling the silent, ceaseless hum of the symbiote within her, as a second circulatory system, a second layer of thought. The hunger was a constant, a low, banked fire that she was learning to manage, but here, in the stillness, there was a sense of quiet equilibrium. Her teammates were occupied with their own clan duties, leaving her to this solitary, internal work. The peace, however, was not destined to last.
A soft shuffling of feet on the tatami mats behind her was the only warning. "Lady Hinata," a voice, respectful and hesitant, belonged to a member of the branch house. "The clan head requests your presence in his study. He says it is a matter of great urgency."
Hinata's eyes opened, the soft lilac returning from the depths of her concentration. She rose in a single, fluid motion, the serenity of her meditation already hardening into a focused readiness. As she approached her father's study, the shoji screen slid open before she could reach it, and a figure in the stark white and gray of the ANBU Black Ops stepped out, their porcelain crow mask betraying no emotion. The figure gave her a curt, almost imperceptible nod before melting into the shadows of the hallway, leaving behind the faint, sterile scent of a mission report.
She entered the study to find her father, Hiashi, standing behind his low desk, his hands clasped behind his back. His face was a mask of cold, stern authority, but the tension in his shoulders was a tell she had learned to read. Something was wrong.
"You wished to see me, Father?" she asked, her voice a calm, resonant harmony.
"Information has come to light," he began, his tone clipped and devoid of preamble. "Several hours ago, the village was infiltrated. The intruders were highly skilled. S-rank threats. Several of our jounin were engaged and injured before the enemy retreated." He paused, his gaze meeting hers, his eyes like chips of ice. "Your sensei, Kurenai Yuhi, was among the wounded."
A cold knot tightened in Hinata's stomach. Kurenai, in the hospital. The thought was a dissonant, jarring note in the quiet resolve she had been cultivating. They dared to harm our pack's leader? Venom's thought was a low, dangerous hiss in the back of her mind. Unacceptable. They will be… corrected.
"The purpose of their infiltration has also been ascertained," Hiashi continued, his voice unrelenting. "They were not here for secrets or sabotage. They were hunting." He let the word hang in the air for a heavy second before delivering the final, devastating blow. "They were searching for Naruto Uzumaki."
The cold knot in her stomach shattered, reforming into a single, sharp shard of ice. Naruto. The mission he was on, the journey he had just begun, had painted a target on his back. Her worry was no longer a vague, abstract thing. It was a cold, sharp-edged weapon, and it demanded action.
"The acting council has convened," Hiashi stated, his voice pulling her back from the precipice of her thoughts. "Jiraiya-sama is a formidable shinobi, but his mission has become compromised. He is now being pursued by enemies who specialize in hunting targets like the Uzumaki boy. He requires support. Specifically," his eyes narrowed, "he requires a tracker of unparalleled skill to anticipate the enemy's movements and to ensure his charge remains safe. The council has requested you."
It was a deployment.
"They are at the hospital now," he concluded, "debriefing the wounded jounin and finalizing the mission parameters. I have already given my approval. You are to go there at once."
"I understand," Hinata said, her voice steady, betraying none of the cold fire coiling in her gut. She bowed her head in a gesture of respect and turned to leave, her mind already a whirlwind of logistics and pursuit vectors.
"Hinata."
His voice stopped her at the door. It was different. The cold, hard edge of the clan head was gone, replaced by something softer, heavier. She turned back to face him. He had moved from behind his desk, and he looked at her now not as a weapon to be deployed, but as… a daughter.
"The enemies you will be facing are not chunin from a rival village," he said, his voice low and serious. "They are monsters who hunt people for sport. Against such power, even your own is an unknown quantity." He took a hesitant step closer. "Your duty to the village is absolute. I do not question that. But your survival is paramount."
His gaze was intense, unwavering. "If you find yourself in a situation you cannot win, if the threat is absolute… you are to abandon the mission. Do you understand me? You will use the summoning pact you forged. You will escape to that… other realm. That is a direct order. From your father."
The last two words were a quiet admission, a crack in the icy facade of the Hyuuga patriarch. He was afraid for her. A wave of warmth, fierce and surprising, washed over Hinata. She met his worried gaze, and for the first time, she offered him a small, genuine, and deeply reassuring smile.
"I will be careful, Father," she said. "I will come back."
With that promise hanging in the air between them, she turned and slid the shoji screen open, stepping out of the shadowed quiet of her home and into the bright, urgent sunlight of her new mission.
The efficiency of packing for a hunt was a skill she was rapidly mastering. Her mission pack, once a repository for standard-issue kunai and scrolls, was now primarily a larder. Into it went soldier pills, compact and nutrient-dense. High-protein ration bars followed, stacked with geometric precision. And finally, the most critical fuel source: three dense, foil-wrapped bricks of dark chocolate, the raw material for advanced cognitive function and high-level jutsu. The symbiote purred its approval, a low thrum of anticipatory pleasure. Within minutes, she was moving, a blur of lavender and black cutting through the bustling streets of Konoha, her destination a place of healing that now housed the wounded heart of the village's leadership.
The air in the hospital corridor was thick with the sterile scent of antiseptic and stale linens, a smell that clung to the walls and seemed to leech the warmth from the air. She found the room, her hand pausing for a fraction of a second on the door before pushing it open. Kurenai lay in the bed, her face pale against the stark white of the pillows. A thick bandage was wrapped around her chest, visible beneath her simple hospital gown, and the faint purple of chakra exhaustion shadowed the skin beneath her crimson eyes. She was alive, but she would not be returning to active duty for a long time.
"Sensei," Hinata's voice was a soft, resonant murmur of concern.
Kurenai managed a weak but genuine smile. "Hinata. I knew they'd send you."
Her attention was drawn to the other figures in the room. Asuma sat in a chair by the window, his arm in a sling, a fresh dressing on his cheekbone. He looked more tired than she had ever seen him. Standing near the foot of the bed were the two figures who, in the Hokage's absence, now held the reins of the village. Koharu Utatane and Homura Mitokado, the Konoha Elders. Their faces were etched with the deep lines of decades of war and political maneuvering, their presence lending the quiet hospital room the severe gravity of a council chamber.
"Hyuuga Hinata," Koharu's voice was as brittle as old parchment. "Your sensei is correct. We have a mission for you."
Homura took over, his own voice a low, gravelly rumble. "The shinobi who attacked Asuma and Kurenai have been identified. Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki of the Akatsuki. They have escaped the village, and their objective is clear. They are after Naruto Uzumaki."
He let the name hang in the air, freighted with an importance he didn't need to explain further. "Naruto is a person of immense value to this village. His safety is a matter of paramount importance."
"Jiraiya-sama is currently escorting him on a mission to locate Tsunade of the Sannin," Koharu continued, her sharp eyes appraising Hinata. "With her medical expertise, we can begin to truly heal the village, particularly shinobi with heavy injuries. But Jiraiya's mission has been compromised. He needs a tracker who can help him locate Tsunade, and more importantly, anticipate the movements of the Akatsuki."
"Our forces are spread thin," Homura added grimly. "The invasion took its toll. Kakashi is incapacitated from his own encounter with Itachi. We are still in recovery. Your performance in tracking the Sand genin with demon during the exams was… exceptional. Your report was thorough." He gave a curt, decisive nod. "You are to be deployed immediately on a A-Rank mission. Rendezvous with Jiraiya-sama. Assist him in locating Tsunade and protecting his charge. Do you accept?"
"I accept," Hinata said without a moment's hesitation. The words were a vow, a cold, hard promise. She bowed her head to the elders and her sensei, turning to leave. The hunt was all that mattered.
"Hinata, wait." Kurenai's voice, though weak, was sharp enough to stop her. Hinata turned back, her eyes questioning.
"There's something else," Kurenai said, her gaze dark with worry. "Sasuke Uchiha… he was here about an hour ago, visiting Kakashi. He overheard some of the jounin talking. He knows Itachi is in the area." Her voice dropped, heavy with dread. "He's gone, Hinata. Enraged. He went off on his own to find him."
The mission parameters in Hinata's mind fractured and reformed into a new, more complicated and terrifying equation. Find Naruto. Evade the Akatsuki. Locate a Sannin. And now, stop Sasuke from walking into his own grave.
The whelp has chosen a suicidal path, Venom hissed. Intercept and contain.
"I understand, Sensei," Hinata said, her voice a calm, deadly promise. "I will find them all."
Without waiting for a dismissal, she turned and was gone, a phantom moving through the hospital corridors. She burst from the front doors into the sunlight, her mission pack a solid weight on her back. She ran towards the nearest wall. With a single, explosive leap, she cleared the thirty meter barrier, landing silently on the grass outside the village perimeter.
The moment her feet touched the earth, her senses exploded outwards. The world dissolved into a multi-layered images of information. The gentle thrum of Konoha's life-force behind her, the whisper of the wind through the trees, the frantic, panicked spike of a rabbit fleeing a fox half a mile away. Her Byakugan flared, the veins around her eyes pulsing with a soft, silver light, her vision expanding, piercing the veil of the physical world. She scanned the horizon, sifting through the millions of threads of chakra, searching for two specific signatures. One, a bright, chaotic, sun-like flare of yellow. The other, a dark, cold, and vengeful spark of indigo lightning. And over it all, she sniffed the air, her enhanced senses searching for the faintest, lingering trace of enemies.
The hunt was on.
The forest canopy became a rushing green river beneath her, the ground a blur of motion. Hinata moved with a speed that was a predatory lope, an effortless consumption of distance. Her mind was a cold, crystalline structure of logic and calculation. Target location: unknown. Enemy strength: S-rank. Mission objective: intercept and protect. But beneath the ice of her focus, a frantic fire of worry was burning.
Why Naruto? The question echoed in the quiet, analytical chambers of her mind, a persistent, illogical variable that refused to be solved. The data points did not align. He was an orphan, a boisterous, lonely boy who had been a pariah for most of his life. And yet… the council, her own father, spoke of his safety as a matter of paramount importance to the village. Akatsuki, an organization of rogue S-rank criminals, were hunting him.
The pieces began to click into place, forming a picture she didn't yet understand but could no longer ignore. The Land of Waves. The eruption of that horrifying, crimson chakra that had felt so alien, so utterly wrong. Her conversations with Naruto himself, the casual way he spoke of the Third Hokage, as if speaking of a doting grandfather. The way the Third Hokage had so easily accepted Karin into the village on Naruto's word alone, an unprecedented breach of protocol for an unknown foreign shinobi. And Jiraiya. A Legendary Sannin did not take on a student out of simple annoyance. Naruto's explanation had been a convenient falsehood, one she had been happy to accept. Now, it felt like an insult to her intelligence.
He is a focal point, Venom's voice was a cool, dispassionate whisper, cutting through her turmoil. A piece on the board that appears to be a pawn, but is treated by all players as a king. The reasons are irrelevant. The fact remains. He is the center of the storm. Therefore, we must be his shield.
The logic was undeniable. The mystery surrounding Naruto Uzumaki was a critical tactical consideration. He was important, and he was in danger. That was all that mattered.
She burst from the treeline, the quiet forest giving way to the low, sprawling buildings of a small post town. The air was thick with the smell of woodsmoke, roasting fish, and damp earth. The low hum of civilian life was a cacophony to her enhanced senses, a wall of meaningless noise she had to filter.
Left. The large building with the faded blue roof, Venom directed, its own senses processing the ambient data, cross-referencing smells and sounds with the chakra signatures Hinata's Byakugan was feeding it. The scent of ozone and old blood is strongest there. And beneath it… the scent of wet dog, cheap sake… and the orange one.
Her focus narrowed, her vision piercing through the wooden walls of the inn. She scanned the rooms, the hallways, her sight passing through civilians and furniture until she found them. Her breath hitched. The scene was a frozen picture of violence. A long, narrow corridor. Sasuke, his body limp, was held aloft by his throat, his feet dangling inches from the floor, his face a mask of pained disbelief. The hand holding him belonged to a man whose face was a ghost from Konoha's darkest history: Itachi Uchiha.
And blocking the path stood the other one, the shark-like man with the massive, bandaged blade. He was a mountain of blue skin and cruel amusement, and before him stood Naruto. He wasn't a cowering child, he was a cornered tiger, a whirlwind of furious, ineffective motion. He would throw a punch, and the tall man would swat it away with contemptuous ease. He would form a clone, and the massive blade would cleave it in two before it could even move. Naruto was safe, for now, his opponent toying with him, but he was utterly, hopelessly outmatched.
There was no time for a plan. No room for stealth. There was only the objective. Protect.
Hinata veered left, her sprint becoming a ground-eating charge that tore up the dirt road. She launched herself into the air, a blur of lavender and black aimed directly at the second-story window of the inn corridor. Her right arm transformed, the Klyntar biomass flowing and hardening into the sleek, crackling drill of her Raikōwan.
KRA-SHASH!
She erupted through the paper screen and glass window in a shower of splintered wood and glittering shards. The two Akatsuki members turned, their eyes widening in surprise for a fraction of a second. It was all the time she needed. Her lightning drill, a screaming vortex of Raiton and raw, kinetic fury, slammed directly into the flat of Kisame's bandaged blade.
The impact was a deafening KRAKOOM! of thunder and screeching steel. Samehada, for all its chakra-eating might, was not designed to stop a living cannonball. It held, but the sheer, overwhelming force of the blow lifted Kisame off his feet. He became a projectile, his massive body flying backwards down the narrow corridor, directly into his partner.
Itachi, his attention torn between the sudden, impossible threat and his brother, was forced to make a choice. He released Sasuke, letting his brother crumple to the floor in a heap, and used the freed hand to brace himself against the impact of his flying partner.
The ruckus settled in an instant. Kisame was disentangling himself with a furious snarl. Sasuke was gasping for air on the floorboards. Naruto was staring, his face a mask of pure, joyous shock. And Hinata stood in the shattered remains of the window, her lightning arm crackling, her glowing lilac eyes locking onto the man who had brought so much pain to her friends.
She met the calm, dark gaze of Itachi Uchiha.
She saw the black tomoe in his crimson eyes spin, faster and faster, until they bled together into a black, three-pronged shuriken.
And the corridor, the men, the very world, shattered into a million screaming crows.
The world snapped instantly. One moment, the splintered, ozone-scented reality of the inn corridor. Then the next, a silent, screaming crimson hellscape. The sky was the color of a fresh wound, weeping a slow, scarlet rain. A sun of blackest pitch hung silent and dead in the center of it all. The air itself smelled of rust and old regret. And she was bound, her arms and legs stretched wide, shackled by thick, iron-like restraints to a colossal, obsidian crucifix that rose from a sea of bleached white bones.
A figure materialized before her, coalescing from the red mist. Itachi Uchiha. He looked down at her with the cold, detached curiosity of a scientist observing a specimen.
"Welcome to my world," his voice was a calm, dispassionate echo that seemed to come from everywhere at once. "Here, space, time, matter… they are all my playthings. For the next seventy-two hours, you will experience a thousand years of torment. I will peel back the layers of your mind, one by one. I will break your bones, flay your skin, and force you to watch as I do the same to the ones you seek to protect. And when I am done, your spirit will be a hollow, shattered thing."
He expected tears. He expected screams. He expected the desperate, futile struggle of a trapped animal. He did not expect the quiet, cold calm that met his gaze. Hinata's lilac eyes, even in this blood-red world, were clear and utterly unfazed. She looked at him not with fear, but with a flat, analytical pity.
Itachi frowned, a flicker of annoyance disturbing the placid surface of his superiority. He took a step closer, his hand raising to begin the first of a million tortures. "Your will is commendable," he admitted. "But ultimately, it is irrelevant."
"Our will," a new voice corrected, a low, doubled harmony that was not just Hinata's. "Is absolute."
He saw it then. A thin, black ooze, like living ink, began to seep from the pores of her skin. It flowed over the iron-like restraints, not breaking them, but consuming them. The hard, unyielding material hissed and dissolved into black mist upon contact. The black goo swirled around her, a second, liquid skin that began to swell and grow, detaching from her body and coalescing into a monstrous, hulking form behind the crucifix.
This world is… small, the new form's voice was a guttural, ancient rumble that shook the very foundations of the illusion. It was a towering, vaguely humanoid shape of shifting, muscular shadow, its surface rippling with barely contained power. A wide, jagged gash of white split its featureless head, a grin filled with a hundred needle-like teeth. A quaint little prison built by a quaint little god. But you have made a fatal error. You presumed this mind was yours to invade.
The monster grew, and grew, its form swelling to eclipse the black sun. The crucifix splintered and shattered into dust beneath its immense weight. The sea of bones cracked and turned to powder. The red sky itself seemed to recoil, tearing at the seams.
This is not your playground, Venom roared, its form now a titan of pure, symbiotic fury that dwarfed Itachi, dwarfed the entire landscape. It is ours!
Itachi's composed, godlike expression finally shattered, replaced by a flash of pure, primal shock. He took an instinctive step back, but it was too late. A colossal, shadowy hand, vast as a mountain, shot down and snatched him from the ground. The illusionary Itachi, the god of this domain, was now a helpless doll in the grip of something far older and far hungrier.
And you, little god, the monster purred, bringing the struggling figure towards its grinning, fanged maw. Are the appetizer.
It threw him in. The world shattered.
THWUMP.
Hinata gasped, her knees buckling as reality slammed back into her with the force of a physical blow. The corridor. The smell of ozone. The splinters of wood under her boots. It had been two seconds. Maybe three. She was breathing heavily, a fine sheen of sweat on her brow, but her eyes were clear, sharp, and locked on her target.
"Hinata! Are you okay?!" Naruto was there instantly, a flash of orange at her side, his face a mask of frantic concern.
"I'm fine," she managed, her own voice sounding thin to her ears after the monstrous roar of Venom. She straightened up, her focus absolute.
Across the ruined hallway, Itachi stumbled back a step, his hand pressed to his temple. A thin trickle of blood dripped from the corner of his right eye, another from his nostril. His Sharingan, for the first time, held not cold confidence, but a flicker of genuine, stunned disbelief. His ultimate mental assault had not just failed, it had been broken, devoured, and thrown back in his face. The psychic backlash was a searing migraine behind his eyes.
Kisame saw his partner's distress, and his amusement vanished, replaced by a shark-like, furious snarl. "You'll pay for that, you little brat!" he roared, Samehada twitching eagerly on his back as he lunged forward.
But he never reached her. The walls of the corridor suddenly bulged inwards, the wood groaning and splintering as something vast and pink pushed through. The floorboards warped, and the ceiling seemed to sag. In a matter of seconds, hallway they were inside, turned into a cavern of damp, pulsating, pink flesh.
A figure stood in the center of it all, his back to them, his long white hair and red vest a familiar, reassuring sight. "Now, now," Jiraiya's voice boomed, echoing off the fleshy walls. "That's no way to treat my student's girlfriend. A little rude, don't you think?"
Itachi's eyes narrowed, his gaze flicking from Jiraiya, to Hinata, to the incapacitated Sasuke. He made a swift, tactical calculation. His partner was winded, he himself was injured, and they were trapped in a Sannin's jutsu with two unpredictable and dangerously powerful young shinobi. This was a losing battle.
"Kisame," he said, his voice a low, urgent command. "We're leaving."
He closed his bleeding eye. When he opened it, it was no longer red, but black, bleeding inky, unnatural flames. Amaterasu! A wall of black fire erupted between them and the Akatsuki, forming an impenetrable barrier that began to eat away at the fleshy prison wall. Through the shimmering black curtain, they saw the two figures break turn, destroy other walls, and vanish, their mission a failure.
With their retreat, the fleshy walls of the toad's gullet receded, melting away to reveal the ruined, smoking corridor once more. The immediate danger was gone. Jiraya proceeded to seal leftover burning black flames.
Naruto, his relief and adrenaline finally crashing together, spun on the Sannin, his finger jabbing accusingly. "Where have you been, Pervy Sage?! They almost turned Sasuke into a kebab! And Hinata was… she was doing that weird standing-still thing! You're supposed to be the super-strong! You're late!"
His tirade was cut short as his own eyes fell upon the still form of his teammate. The anger vanished, replaced by a rush of pure concern. He forgot about Jiraiya, forgot about the Akatsuki, and scrambled to Sasuke's side, dropping to his knees beside his unconscious rival.
The immediate threat was gone, but the ghost of it lingered in the trashed corridor. Naruto scrambled to Sasuke's side, his hands hovering over his teammate's still form, his voice tight with a fear that pushed all his earlier bravado aside. "Sasuke! Hey, Sasuke, wake up, ya jerk!"
He was alive, his breathing shallow but steady. Unconscious. Hinata knelt beside Naruto, her hand gently resting on Sasuke's forehead, her touch a cool island of calm. She could feel no immediate internal damage, just the deep, profound shock of a chakra system that had been violently manhandled.
"He is stable," she murmured, her resonant voice a soothing balm on Naruto's frayed nerves. "Just exhausted."
The quiet was a fragile thing, and it was about to be shattered. Hinata's head snapped up, her senses flaring. A new signature was approaching, rocketing towards them with an impossible, heedless velocity. It was… familiar. A chakra signature blazing with a familiar, almost nauseatingly positive energy, a green comet of pure, unadulterated passion.
"Someone is coming," she warned, rising to a defensive crouch. "Fast."
Before Jiraiya could even turn, a green blur erupted through the same window Hinata had, a dynamic entry to cap off a day of dynamic entries. The sound of a sandal connecting with a jaw echoed through the ruined hall with a sharp, wet CRACK!
Jiraiya was launched, a stunned expression on his face, his body flying through the air like a discarded toy. In the space he had just occupied, Might Guy hung suspended in the air, his leg still extended in a perfect, flying side kick, a brilliant white smile on his face, his thumb raised in a pose of absolute self-assurance. He was a monument to his own glorious victory.
The monument landed. His eyes focused. He saw the unconscious Sasuke, the worried Naruto, the battle-ready Hinata, and the groaning, white-haired Sannin picking himself up from a pile of rubble. The glorious victory pose crumbled.
"Oh!" Guy exclaimed, his confidence deflating like a punctured balloon. "Jiraiya-sama! My sincerest apologies! In the dim light, I mistook your magnificent presence for that of a dastardly fiend! My youthful exuberance has gotten the better of me once more!"
A few minutes later, they stood outside the inn, the cool evening air a welcome change. Guy, having apologized profusely for another five minutes, was now carefully lifting Sasuke's unconscious form into his arms.
"I shall return this promising youth to the village for immediate medical attention!" he declared. He turned to Hinata, his expression questioning. "And what of you, Hinata-kun? What is your mission here?"
Hinata reached into her pack and produced the sealed mission scroll, presenting it to Jiraiya. "I have been ordered to join your mission, Jiraiya-sama," she explained, her voice clear and formal. "The council has deemed your task of finding Tsunade-sama to be of the highest priority. They have assigned me to provide tracking and combat support."
"Whoa, really?!" Naruto's face split into a massive, joyous grin. "You're coming with us?! Awesome!"
The name 'Tsunade' had an immediate, effect on Guy. His eyes widened, his posture straightening as if he'd been struck by lightning. "Tsunade-sama! Of course! Her miraculous medical arts are the only hope for my dear Lee! His flames of youth have been tragically dampened, but with her help, they shall roar back to life brighter than a thousand suns!"
"Don't you worry, Guy-sensei!" Naruto chimed in, pointing a confident thumb at his own chest. "We're gonna find her, and she's gonna fix Lee right up! Believe it!"
Guy was overcome. Tears of pure, passionate emotion streamed down his face. "Oh, Naruto-kun! Hinata-kun! Your youthful determination is a beacon of hope! To embark on such a noble quest requires not only strength and skill, but also the proper attire for peak performance!" He fumbled in his own mission pack and, with a flourish, produced two tightly rolled bundles of vibrant green fabric. "As a token of my eternal gratitude, please, accept these spare training suits! They are designed for maximum flexibility and minimal wind resistance!"
He pressed one bundle into Naruto's hands and the other into Hinata's. Naruto unrolled his with childlike wonder, holding up a skintight, one-piece spandex suit, a shade of leaf-green so vibrant it seemed to hum with its own energy. "Whoa! So cool!" he breathed.
Hinata, caught completely off guard, could only accept the bundle with a polite, stiff nod, holding it as if it were a strange, possibly venomous snake.
"I must depart!" Guy announced, carefully cradling Sasuke. "May the flames of your youth guide you to victory!" And with that, he was gone, a green flash disappearing back towards Konoha.
Jiraiya watched him go, rubbing his still-sore jaw with an irritated expression. His gaze fell on the aggressively green suits, and his irritation melted away, replaced by the slow, spreading grin of a predator who had just spotted a particularly foolish rabbit.
Naruto, completely oblivious, was holding the spandex up to his own body, trying to imagine how it would fit.
"You know, brat," Jiraiya said, his voice taking on its familiar, lecherous purr as he sidled up to Naruto. "I'm not sure that's your color. But… I bet a suit like that would look absolutely fantastic on your pretty Hyuuga girlfriend over there. A perfect fit."
Naruto froze. His eyes went from the vibrant green suit in his hands… to Hinata. He took in the way her simple mission shirt stretched taut across her impressive chest, the powerful curve of her hips and thighs clearly visible even in her loose-fitting pants. He imagined that powerful, perfect form sheathed in skintight, shimmering green spandex. A slow, dawning, and utterly brilliant grin began to spread across his face.
Hinata, who had heard every word, felt a blush of pure, atomic heat explode across her entire body.
The orange one is contemplating a primitive but enthusiastic mating display, Venom noted with clinical amusement. His hormonal response is… predictable.
"Hey, Hinata!" Naruto said, his voice cracking with a new and dangerous level of excitement as he took a step towards her, holding out the green suit like a sacred offering. "Pervy Sage is right! You should totally try this on! It would look… amazing!"
"I will not," she managed to say, her voice a strangled whisper, her face now a shade of red that made Jiraiya's vest look pale in comparison.
The awkward energy of the spandex incident slowly dissipated as they left the small town behind, the rhythm of their footsteps on the dusty road a steady, grounding beat. The setting sun painted the sky in streaks of orange and deep violet, casting long shadows before them. The easy silence that fell was comfortable, born from shared battle and a strange, mutual understanding. But for Naruto, the silence was a canvas, and the horrifying images of the fight kept replaying on it. He had to know.
He slowed his pace, falling into step beside the Sannin. "Hey… Pervy Sage," he began, his voice uncharacteristically subdued. "Those guys… the ones in the black cloaks. Who were they, really?"
The question made Hinata's ears perk up. Her own pace slowed slightly, her attention, which had been scanning the horizon, now focused entirely on the conversation beside her.
Jiraiya stopped walking. He turned to face Naruto, his usual lecherous grin completely gone, replaced by an expression of profound, weary seriousness. The mood on the road shifted instantly, the air growing heavy and cold.
"They're called the Akatsuki," he said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. "An organization made up entirely of S-rank missing-nin. The worst of the worst. And they weren't after you, brat. Not exactly." He looked Naruto directly in the eye, his gaze unwavering. "They were after what's sealed inside of you. The Nine-Tailed Fox."
The world seemed to tilt on its axis for Naruto. The chirping of the crickets, the rustle of the wind—it all faded into a dull, roaring silence in his ears. A thousand disconnected memories slammed into him at once: the cold stares of the villagers, the whispered insults he'd never quite understood, the loneliness of an empty apartment, the strange, burning rage that would sometimes bubble up from a place deep inside him. It wasn't just him. It was never just him. He wasn't hated for being an orphan, or a prankster. He was hated for being a cage.
For Hinata, the revelation was not a shock, but a key clicking into a lock. A perfect, final, clarifying click. Suddenly, everything made sense. The monstrous red chakra that had erupted from him in the Land of Waves. His casual, familial closeness with the Third Hokage. Jiraiya's sudden, intense interest in training him. The council's declaration that he was a person of immense value. Even the reason the Akatsuki, hunters of immense power, were pursuing him. It all snapped into a perfect, terrifying, and deeply tragic image. The boy she had admired from afar wasn't just a lonely outcast struggling for recognition. He was a fortress, a living prison tasked since birth with containing a catastrophe, and he had done it all completely, utterly alone.
So that is the nature of the second parasite, Venom's voice was a low, analytical hum, devoid of any judgment. A rival power. A crude, chaotic, and uncontrolled entity. But its energy reserves… are immense. The host contains a sun. Fascinating.
The silence that followed was heavy and profound. For several long minutes, they simply stood there on the road as the last vestiges of daylight bled from the sky. Naruto stared at the ground, his fists clenched at his sides, his shoulders slumped under a weight far heavier than any mission scroll.
Finally, he looked up, his gaze not meeting Jiraiya's, but finding Hinata's. His voice, when he spoke, was small and fragile, stripped of all its usual bravado.
"So… do you hate me now?"
"No," she answered instantly, the single word a sharp, definitive crack in the oppressive quiet. Her resonant voice was firm, absolute, leaving no room for doubt. He looked at her, his blue eyes wide and vulnerable, and she took a step closer. "Nothing has changed, Naruto-kun."
He just stared at her, as if trying to decipher a language he'd never heard before. A small, sad smile touched her lips. "If anything," she continued, her voice softening, "it explains a few things." She tilted her head, a flicker of her own gentle humor returning. "Perhaps that is the real reason you can eat so much ramen."
The joke, so simple and so deeply them, seemed to bypass all his defenses. He blinked, a flicker of confusion in his eyes. Then, a slow, watery grin spread across his face, a sunrise after a long, dark night. A small, choked laugh escaped his lips.
"Heh," he managed, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve. "You're one to talk. You still eat more than I do."
The heavy, suffocating weight that had settled over them lifted, dissipating into the cool evening air like smoke. The horrible truth was still there, but it was no longer a wall between them. It was just another part of the landscape they would navigate together. Jiraiya watched them, a knowing, almost sad smile touching his own lips before he turned and continued down the road.
With a final, shared look, Naruto and Hinata fell into step behind him, their journey continuing into the encroaching twilight.