By Zhong Wanting

What is there to be done when all is too late. KibaHina tribute, angst.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

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‘Hinata.’

Slowly, Hinata looked over her shoulder at the slanting shadow cast through the dimly-lit doorway.

The ninja studied her silently from behind his dark glasses. Nobody spoke a single word. Hinata clenched her fists, feeling herself trembling with the sudden rush of sinister foreboding.

‘What…what’s ha…happened, Shino-kun?’ She craned her neck to look past him, as if trying to figure out somebody obscured from view. ‘And wh-where is Ki-Kiba-kun?’

Her voice was trembling with apprehension as she noted the solemn gloom almost emanating behind his collars. Something terrible must have happened.

‘Hinata.’

Shino took a few steps forward. He took a deep breath.

‘The mission had failed.’

He paused hesitantly, wondering whether he should break the news.

‘And he…he had died in the battle.’

Even with his desperate attempt to keep his voice calm and steady, Shino’s usually detached and composed voice suddenly quavered as he said the last few words…which he had tried hard not to believe, but in the end had forced himself to accept.

There was a deadly silence. Then a piercing crash as Hinata’s cup was smashed on the ground.

‘Is..is h-he…dead?’

There seemed to be a hard lump of lead in her throat. Hinata’s voice was shaking uncontrollably as she uttered the words. In the dim light her face looked ghastly pale and shocked.

Shino bit his lips. He did not want to hurt the scared, frail Hyuuga girl with the terrible news. But he knew he had to. Sooner or later she would have to know. Sooner or later she would have to face the agony and sorrow. He diverted his gaze, and nodded his head numbly, almost imperceptibly.

There was a suffocating silence for a long time. Then Hinata, fighting to restrain the anguish and grief in her voice, said, ‘I…I d-do not be-believe it. H-how can it b-be?’

Shino sighed. ‘We were ambushed on our way back. Kiba strayed behind to tackle the attackers…we never thought…he was stripped of his senses and manipulated by the enemy…to prevent himself from hurting us he…and then when Sakura arrived…she said it was too late.’ With every syllable his voice got lower, until it reached the point when it became barely a whisper.

Hinata’s expression_r was unreadable. She stared at Shino blankly for a long time, before she suddenly whispered, her voice unnervingly quiet and composed, ‘W-When is the funeral?’

Shino lowered his head. ‘The day after tomorrow.’ Then he added gently, ‘Perhaps…you would want to bade him farewell, one last time.’

-

Hinata felt strangely vacant and disoriented as she knelt before the simple plaque that bore his name. Inuzuka Kiba. Beside that was a small tomb. Akamaru. They had been buried together.

Bending slightly, she put a bunch of pure white roses on the gravestone.

And when she looked again at the name engraved in the tablet she couldn’t brace herself to think that he was really gone and would never come back. When she thought about it, the old days suddenly seemed so far away, strangely dim and faded.

Hinata closed her eyes and remembered. His warm, gentle smile when he turned to face her. His straight, determinate figure when he stood to his enemy. His laughing eyes when he played with Akamaru. His soft words when she was weeping.

All the memories rushed back to her in a flash, stinging her eyes all of a sudden, and tears rolled down her cheeks uncontrollably.

So after all he had not known, for she had not yet plucked up the courage to tell. She had wanted to wait, perhaps for a more proper time to reveal it to him, to tell him that through their years together as companions she had slowly changed, and that all the times she flushed as he mocked her good-naturedly it was because of him solely. She wanted to tell that during their many missions she had secretly packed and tidied his things when he was asleep, and that during all those nights out in the wild, when the moonlight cast a dim shadow of frost on the ground, she would lie huddled in her sleeping bag, the covers half concealing her eyes as she surreptitiously gazed at his silhouette leaning on the tent entrance, intent on his watch shift.

But she had not had the courage to tell, and now when she really wanted him to know, that she had really returned his many tender feelings in the days long gone, it was already too late. And he had gone before her, had crossed from the living world into a place unknown, and beyond her most desperate reach.

For a while Hinata stared numbly at the headstone. Then she heard gentle footfalls from behind her. The person paused for a minute or two before whispering softly, ‘Hinata?’

Hinata turned around to find her sensei, Kurenai, clad in pure white.

‘I can understand…’ She said gently as she bent down beside her bereaved student. ‘But this will pass…only that we shall not forget the dead, and not let their sacrifice be in vain…’

She stopped, as if lost for words, caught up in her own musings. Then Kurenai said, ‘I shall not interrupt you long. But there is something I think you’d want to have. From him.’

She dipped her hand into her pocket and fished out a single scrap of yellowed paper. It looked somewhat ancient, as if it had dated from a long-gone memory, because the edges were torn and tattered. With trembling fingers, Hinata took the bit of parchment from Kurenai’s fingers. Her gaze fell on the worn out writing on the crisp, yellowish surface and her eyes widened…although the markings were blurred by age, she could still discern the writing at ease…it was unmistakable…

‘I found them among his effects.’ Kurenai said quietly, as Hinata atared at the paper feeling at a loss. ‘Stuffed in his weapon pouch it was, and it must have been carefully placed there a long time ago. And I thought…perhaps you’d like to see it.’

Saying this, she hugged Hinata’s shoulders tenderly and got up to leave.

For a long time Hinata was motionless. Then, with shaking fingers, she lit a flare and set fire to the yellowed piece of parchment. The scrap of paper was ignited at once, the flames licking the faded writing on it, devouring it in barely a flash.

Tears streamed down her face silently as the paper, now reduced to ash, fluttered upwards toward the heavens, along with Kiba’s piously careful handwriting.

No need to let you know.

Love is only my affair.

It is enough, to stand behind you, to watch you smile.

Even if it is for him not me.

Even if it hurts so much.

H loves N, but K loves H.

For Always…itsumo…

Fin.

-

A/N: I know it’s poorly written…somehow I just had to get an idea finished…and I just can’t get rid of this angsty feeling stuck in my throat! …I really do feel so lazy these days…but comments as always are welcome!

- hell butterfly

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