Den of the snake -

２５：United We Stand

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"SASUKEEEE!".

The world faded to gray. The sounds and voices dwindled into the background, becoming mere noise. Senses became dulled and unresponsive.

In that one moment, she realized the meaning of true fear. She only felt this feeling once before in her lifetime. And that moment gave her far too many nightmares to count. That cursed moment on the battlefield when her most precious cousin sacrificed his life to protect her and the other man that she wanted to protect at that time.

But, now things were different. The same man her cousin had died protecting was about to end the life of the man who gave her life meaning, who gave her heart a reason to beat, who gave her lungs the oxygen to breathe. Her one last lifeline in this wretched world and she was watching with eyes widened with tears as that man took the full force of a massive rasengan at his back, while she was helpless and could only watch.

Hinata's throat constricted, as her heart tightened the moment she saw her Uchiha prince fly off like a ragdoll in the direction of the village. The rasengan had clearly burned through his clothes and had inflicted excruciating damage to Sasuke. Whereas Naruto also immediately stopped and landed on the branch of a tree the moment he realized that the damage was done. His face remained impassive, while his gaze slowly diverted from his former friend who was out of the fight, to the Hyuga heiress who had also landed on a tree branch, not too far away from him.

She looked miserable at that point. Her eyes were widened with tears and too many emotions flowed through them. Rage, Sorrow, loss, empathy, hopelessness, regret, and more. But slowly her eyes also found themselves set on the Uzumaki.

And at that point, every other emotion burned away in her eyes, and only one thing remained.

Hatred.

Hellfire induced hatred. Seeping from every cell in her body. From every pore in her body. Coming off in waves from her entire being.

His sage mode allowed him to sense the shift in chakra that occurred in her at that moment. It was completely different from anything he had ever seen before. It felt so raw and unyielding that it even made the Uzumaki uncomfortable and fidgety. The veins around her neck slowly became protruded, as her byakugan came into play.

"Don't, Hinata. You don't want to do this. I don't want to hurt you" Naruto said as he noticed the malice in the Hyuga's stance. The sheer killer intent in her eyes was enough to make the even most fearless shinobi fearful.

"No more talking, Uzumaki Naruto. For what you have done. What you did to him.......I'll be taking your heart" Not a second had passed after that statement that she dashed over to the Uzumaki in the blink of an eye and engaged him. Her palms filled with chakra and her aim directly targeting the most precious organ of the body.

'Crap! She's fast' Naruto thought gritting his teeth as he blocked her attack at the last moment by substituting himself with a clone. He knew that she wasn't going to stop, so immediately he got into fight mode.

This time it was Naruto who initiated the attack. Lunging at the Hyuga, his sage mode in full force, he leaped and reached her in mere seconds. But the byakugan allowed her to see through his attack, and easily dodged him. The two got into a close quarter fist fight. Naruto noticed that Hinata wasn't going for mere incapacitating attacks, she was fighting with the intent to kill him.

"Eight Trigrams Vaccum palm".

Out of nowhere Hinata used her technique, catching Naruto by surprise as she didn't cast any hand seals. He noticed the chakra palm heading for him. He sidestepped at the last moment, but the palm connected with his right arm, and in an instant Naruto yelped in pain as he felt his elbow bone break. He also noticed as the palm flew past him and cut down nearly every tree it came into contact with. But he wasn't the one to give up so easily. Jumping back, he used only one hand to use his jutsu.