Hinata and the Orange Juice!

Revenge is best if it involves sugar!

The preliminaries of the chuunin exams had been brutal. Especially Gaara and Lee's match.

Halfway through the match, the two boys had gotten into a disagreement on the meaning of life. Lee had tried to convince Gaara that 'hark work of smiling youthfulness of pure love and friendship and unequivocal devotion' was the way to go. Gaara had argued that, in fact, 'absorbing virgin blood into my sand and eating placenta' was the key to a successful life.

Hinata wondered if he was trying to be funny. Because, from what she knew, Gaara was a very funny but murderous person with a sort of inner party girl.

Or maybe that was just the juice.

Either way, the match ended with Gaara absorbing Lee's extravirgin blood into his sand and the green-clad genin having to have his mangled body rushed to the hospital.

Hinata, of course, had not been lucky enough to assist this match as she had been hospitalized after her failed match against Neji.

Thankfully for her, Naruto had given her a detailed description of Lee and Gaara's unbelievably nasty match. After having relayed his victory against Kiba with stunning accuracy, of course.

After a few bedridden days, Hinata hobbled back to the Hyuga compound, occasionally coughing her guts out.

Her father sighed when he saw her and shook his head in disappointment. Part of Hinata felt shameful for embarrassing the main branch... But her darker side was growling.

What? How was it her fault that Neji was such a douchy, violent asshole? The injustice of the Hyuga, of her cousin, of her father, of life in general, bit through her soul.

For the first time in her life, she wanted revenge. After all, she had come back from the brink of death and that type of dangerous thrill could not be topped easily and did leave her sort of horrified in an angry, bitter way. Kind of like biting into a sour orange.

Hinata froze.

She blinked.

She slammed her first into her palm. A tiny grin stretched her face.

Even though she had promised to train with Shino that afternoon, Hinata had to cancel, claiming to have accidentally reopened her wound.

Of course, she was just breaking into Ino's house to steal some of her 'sugar' again.

The girl carefully climbed through her friend's kitchen window and tiptoed to the cabinet above the sink. She bit her lip and slowly opened the cupboard, wincing when it made a loud creaking noise. Her eyes roamed the space inside the cabinet.

Her heart sank.

Empty.

No.

Where could it be?

"Hinata?"

The blue haired girl yelped and spun around, coming face to face with Ino, who was staring at her in shocked suspicion.

"I-I-I-I..." stammered Hinata, frantically twiddling her thumbs and desperately looking for a way out. Then, she remembered that she had an alibi. She quickly pulled out Sasuke Uchiha's selfie (which he had given her, autographed). "I c-came to give you this!"

Ino bounced over, her eyes gleaming.

"WOW! A signed photo of Sasuke-kun! Thanks! I can't believe that you climbed in through my kitchen window to give me this!" laughed the blond. "Liar."

Hinata jolted.

"I know why you came here..." muttered Ino. The girl walked across the kitchen in three long strides, bent over, opened a cabinet and pulled out a container of white power. "Some of it has been disppearing recently... I saw how Gaara and Sasuke acted that day. I may not be a genius, that's Shikamaru's job, but I can still do simple math!"