Shattered Sun

Family reunion

Hinata learned a lot during Naruto's meltdown but also not enough. When he came to his senses, he had gone silent, hollowed, and led her straight to Konoha. He handed Kakashi their mission scroll and promptly left Hinata with him. Kakashi blinked, "Well...I can guess that something had happened. Care to share?"

Hinata looked at him in conflict. She didn't know what to say. Apparently she's married to Naruto. They were about to have children. Then something happened and Naruto killed her. That's all she knew. It didn't look like Naruto had gone insane either even when he looked every part of it.

Kakashi recognized that look. Shikaku had that look, so does Shibi and Inoichi when they figured out that Naruto knew their family's hiden jutsu too well for an outsider. He signaled for the ANBU to give him privacy, flaring his chakra in that special way Naruto taught him just in case ROOT had taken root in his office. They're in the clear and he erected a barrier in his office, "This discussion do not leave the office, understand? This is Leaf level confidentiality,"

Hinata gulped, realizing the gravity of what she had gotten herself in. Leaf level meant possibility of war breaking out should the information leaked. She nodded in agreement. Kakashi sighed, "This is going to sound crazy but it all started when Naruto collapsed on our return journey from Nami..."

Hinata listened, her eyes widening at the impossibility of it all. The cats out of the bag and she started to understand Naruto's complicated relation with her. She realized how hard it must be for him facing people he had failed to save. And from what he had let slip to her...her death must be the hardest on him. She rubbed her belly right where she knew her womb lie dormant. She had a child with Naruto. She was married to him. They were about to have a family.

And he had to kill them for the sake of the world.

She had asked him to kill her...and their unborn child.

Hinata closed her eyes in pain. As she lied on her bed in her room, she imagined this other future. She imagined the other Hinata and wondered what goes through her mind as she asked Naruto something so cruel to the lonely boy...no, man. But as she thought and thought, she realized that death must have been the only answer.

Kakashi said the symptoms was losing her humanity, becoming a monster whose only thought was to consume all that lived. She won't wish that on Naruto, she would never hurt him. And if he's really the Hokage of his time, then she would never harm those he had taken the oath to protect. She'd rather die than hurt Naruto. She also must have thought that even if she died, he will soon move on. That out of the many women vying for his affection, one would finally take her place. He will be fine because unlike his childhood, there're so many people in his life.

He will be fine.

He wasn't.

He's breaking with each death, each failed rescue and each successful invasion of the camps the survivors set up. Sasuke's death was the final nail on the coffin of his sanity. Hinata sobbed, her eyes heating up with unshed tears as her heart broke for Naruto. That night her dream was filled with nightmares of white creatures with wide bloody mouths, of pregnant mothers whose belly burst open with little white babies that then consumed their flesh, growing and growing with each bloody bites until they're fully grown only to seek out their fathers to consume them too. She dreamt of a desolate world with dried, cracked ground and equally dry air without a single cloud or a drop of water, and in the horrid vision she saw Naruto struggling to save them, struggling to save her. But he was outnumbered as his allies and friends died around him, overtaken by the monsters.

He was soon overwhelmed and drowned by the ever hungry white creatures. His dying screams of being eaten and torn apart woke her up in cold sweats with a cry, "NARUTO!"