THE TIGRESS' LANTERN - A HINATA HYUGA FANFICTION

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: TRUMP CARD

[Hidden Leaf Forest - Shino's POV]

My battle of Kankuro of the Sand was won but my body was unmoving from the poison his puppets injected into me - there was only so much my bugs can do to slow the spreading but I will need treatment soon or I shall know no more. I laid on the tree branch, trying to calm my breathing to slow my heartbeat and slow the poison but I could still feel it moving within me. 

My breath caught in my throat when I sensed a familiar chakra signature, I opened my eyes and from behind the dark veil of my glasses - I saw the friend that I betrayed.

'Hinata.'

She leaped through the trees with her sapphire eyes focused ahead - she was on a mission and found the pressure of her chakra, she meant business. She jumped, her feet landed on my branch right above my head, I looked at her...but her eyes did not even look down at me. She was still looking ahead but her face took a scowl as my scent reached her nose and she darted away - going deeper into the forest; leaving me alone once again. 

She didn't look in my direction.

She was angered by my scent.

She didn't lift a finger to aid me - her former teammate.

'Hinata...' I thought as I balled my fist, my vision blurring from the tears building up behind my glasses, 'I have really failed you, haven't I?' 

[Location Skip: Gaara's Location - Sasuke's POV]

This was not good: Gaara of the Sand was transforming into some kind of sand creature - the beast had already taken half of his body. I was damaged and he lunged for me but Sakura stood in the way of me and him, something about that triggered something in his mind before he lashed out his transformed arm out at her and sent her crashing into a tree trunk before pinning her there with his monstrous claw before he began grunting in pain and clenching his head with his human hand. I wanted to move but he got me in my right calf, I couldn't even stand without it hurting like hell. Just then, I felt someone grab the back of my shirt and leap over to a further away platform; once I was placed down, I looked up to see that kid from the Hidden Mist Village - the one Kakashi killed and Tigress...Hinata brought back.

"You." I glared at him.

"Not now, Uchiha. I didn't want to save you either but I need to buy some time." Haku said, not even facing me as he looked down at Gaara's form. "I just need to distract him for a while until she gets here." He reached into his robe and pulled out a paper with some kind of writing on it - he placed it on my clawed calf and a green glow surrounded it as it began healing. "Wait here." He said before he jumped down to the same branch as Gaara, making the creature look at him before he smiled wildly.

"You." He exclaimed, "You were there with her - The Feline Hybrid - she's a true killer." Gaara growled out in glee.

"My wife kills but that doesn't make her a killer - she only kills when she has no other option...or when she gets angry; depends on what happens first." Haku said with a shrug.

"Not a killer, huh? Lies - I could smell the blood on her sword! On her claws! So much blood! She will prove my existence and I shall make her embrace what she is...BY KILLING YOU!!!" Gaara roared as he detracted the arm from the hand holding Sakura to the tree and formed a new one and the creature took the other half of his human form before lunging at Haku, who just looked at him and jumped away just as the claw came down - crashing into the bark where he was standing. Haku reappeared standing on a trunk adjacent to the tree branch Gaara was on.