within a poorly lit cave, only small slithers of sunlight managing to creep in, stood a lone  figure. on closer inspection, it would appear to be a statue. on even closer inspection, a very detailed statue.

'its been two days.' hinata thought as she felt the sunlight that seeped into the cave cover her marble form. since she was standing sideways rather than facing the deeper into the cave or towards the entrance, but instead staring a the side wall. thus she was unable to see the light that actually made into this cave as it was outside her range of view yet she could 'feel' it just barely as it touched her marble skin

though she was nothing more than a marble statue in body, her senses while dulled still worked for some reason. maybe it was a side effect of the justu or maybe it was just a freak accident, however in her current condition the young hyuga heiress had nothing but time on her hands to think.

in fact the only way that she had known it had been four days was by the rising and setting sunlight that managed to make it into the cave. she was really glad that the weather outside must have been clear without clouds for the last two days. that sunlight was the closest she had to a means of keeping the time.

'clouds…I wonder what shikamaru is doing.' hinata thought as her mind had been wondering to random thoughts as she needed to keep herself occupied thus she think about anything that came to mind to keep herself sane until naruto or someone else arrived to save and cure her.

little did Hinata realizes that slowly but surely her thoughts began looping so that on third day her mind looped back to when she was first petrified. she'd stood here for four...

'w...what if naruto saves me? what'll I say to explain how i got into this. how will I say anything as statue? will he even notice that it really me and not just a statue of me?!' she fretted as she then began rethink the same thoughts she'd had days ago.

this process happened twice so that while six days had passed, hinata's mind was stuck thinking she'd been here up to two days, or after the loop two minutes. however, there was no fourth time around as on the seven day her consciousness just went blank as her mind finally succumbing to the same justu that claimed her body a week again and became stone as well so that she was no longer a petrified kunoichi whose consciousness was still metally active with all her sense avaiable, albiet dulled.  now she was effectively a statue no different then those one would find in a museum, as her mind and senses joined her body as being nothing more then hunk marble within her stone form. she wasn't dead, far from it as if she had ever reverted she'd probably recover soon, but what had once been hinata hyuga was now just a powerful source of energy to let orochimaru live a greatly lengthened life.

now that she was almost completely inanimate with last bit of her human self falling to the orochimaru's justu, her inanimate body had just become even more useful for his purposes.  since without her mind there to need energy, she could last even long as the source of life force than desired to use her for. alone, the hyuga statue as she was now could probably sustain him for at least two centuries.

later that day the snake sanin had come to visit hinata and began talking to her thinking he could taunt and gloat to the hyuga statue.

'you have become a great asset.' he told the stone girl as held her stone chin in his hand.  

though her blank stone eyes held no reply to his taunt. she was no longer even aware that someone was there, talking to her to in her current state was like talking to the wall. but oblivious to hinata's state he continued onward talking to her.

'yes, you will help me greatly, but perhaps it's unfair to let you do this alone. a hundred years is a good long time for humans but for a statue like you it must be mere seconds. perhaps what I need is another to help you last longer, maybe a relative of yours?'

the last thought was simple. had hinata still been aware, she would have been furious. during the six days where her mind was looping the thoughts of the first two, and during her thoughts on what orochimaru meant by company, a few people had immediately came to mind. those being sakura, neji, her teammates, and finally her sister hanabi. sakura because he want to use the two of them being statues against naruto-kun as with them as his hostages he might not fight at his fullest. neji and her teammates because they were some of the closest people to her. while hanabi was her sister. even if hinata's sister didn't like her that much (so she thought), orochimaru wouldn't know that or would instead know that hinata loved her sister and was proud of her younger sibling. hinata did not know it, but her young sister had always looked up to her it. was just she did not want to admit it openly since hyugas as a whole were not an emotional family... hinata excluded, perhaps.

though because she was nothing more than a battery in the form of marble girl once known as hinata hyuga she could not possibly know what the snake sanin was planning, nor did her blank eyes watch orochimaru leave her line of sight.

nor did they notice when he returned later...

***

within the hyuga estate, in the main branch section where the head of  the clan and his immediately family lived.

'what do you mean I can't go out and search? ' hanabi yelled at her father, hiashi.

hanabi's anger had three sources. concern for her sister. dissapointment that even though she was a genin herself, her father had tried to say she was too young. and irritation at knowing the rest of her team was out there, and she wasn't able to help them.

'hanabi you cannot go. your sister is not the same person she was back when three years ago. she now a highly talented chunin as she finally discovered the drive she was lacking when she was young, thus if she was captured by enemies of our clan to use against us, then i will not take the chance of you going missing as well. what if the one behind your sister's disappearence were to target you as well?' hiashi said.

his youngest child tried to protest but it was true. as hinata was stronger now, as now hanabi could barely last against her older sister, this had started rumors that perhaps hinata should be reinstated as the heiress to the clan. the idea someone had heard this rumour and had planned some means of destablising the clan through them made sense. but it didn't calm her down.

angry at her father she left the room and as he watched his daughter leave he could help but notice that their images seem to mirror what they were three years ago. as then hanabi had long hair while hinata had short hair. However now the opposite was the case as hanabi was now the one with short hair that barely made it to her shoulder while hinata cascaded down to near her back.  

that night Hanabi's sleep was a restless one as the concern of what happened to her sister weighed on her mind. she had been gone a week, without any warning of leaving nor leaving any kind of note to tell anymore where she was going. If tusnade-sama was not the hokage then her sister might have been labeled as missing nin as she overheard some guy name danzo wanting to make that the case. through being official hyuga heiress she was around the bigshots of the village a lot and heard quite a number of nasty rumors about danzo, various underhanded plans and possible betrayal to the konoha that he was thought guilty of. thus she worried that maybe he was behind her sister's disappearence.  though her restless sleep was interrupted she was awoken to something moving around nearby.

'...hinata….big sis…is that you ?' she asked the darkness as she sat up her mind jumping to the person she wished it was. although there was no response, to her dissapointment, but all of sudden she felt incredibly tired.

'maybe its... just my mind... playing tricks on me.' hanabi said interpersed with yawns as plopped back down on her bed, her eyes closed before she even hit the pillow.

orochimaru waited for the younger hyuga until he heard hanabi's breathing become what one would expect from a sleeping person before making himself known.

'my sleep genjutsu worked perfectly.' he thought as the young girl was in such deep sleep she never even stirred as she was picked up and carried away...

***

hanabi awoke again after the sleeping genjustu she was under finally wore off, and she quickly noticed that she was no longer in her bed. she was sitting up but it felt like she was lying on her hands and something was around them. she quickly realized that she was in a cave, her hands tied behind her back, and her feet were tied to something. It was clear that even in this poorly lit cave that whatever she had currently found herself tied up to was not naturally part of the cave itself. though because the lighting was poor she could barely make out whatever it was; unknown to her the sun which had already risen about the horizon but had yet to strike the cave. however, it began filtering in and meaning that soon she would be able to see.

it was as the light slowly improved she noticed what her feet were tied to was a stone leg she had taken her apparent kidnapping calmly, but upon discovering who owned the leg, she felt fear and surprise.

'hinata!' she cried out in shock at  the sight of a statue that looked like exact replica of her sister.

right away the young hyuga had a gut feeling this was not just a statue in her sister's likeness. the hinata statue was in traditional gentle fist stance which looked as if she was about to either launch her eight trigrams thirty-two talms technique or simply run away. though the expression on her face seemed to show that she never got the chance to chose which she wanted to do. blank stone eyes devoid of pupils or irises and widen in shock along mouth open in protest stared out from the stone face. for a brief second she had through perhaps this was just a statue, but this stance along with the expression were too fishy as it was far too detailed to be created in only one week. there was no way that Hinata had been secretly having a statue made of herself and vanish for a week to get it done. knowing what she had to do as their was no other way to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that er biggest fear was well found or not Hanabi activated her byakugan.

once she had looked at the statue with her byakugan it was very faint as if it was hidden somehow possible by justu that fool her family's eyes, yet she was able to see it somehow. This statue was indeed her sister as it had her chakra. though rather then being in motion and flowing around her body it just stood still just like her.

though even she had learned that her sister had been rendered into statue somehow, hanabi regained compsure and calmy knew what she had to do. her sister hopefully was not dead as she still had chakra with her body thus it might be possible to restore her to normal... but first she had to get them both away from whoever brought her here and did this to her sister.

orochimaru approached having heard the girl cry out her sister's name, and was surprised to see she had already untied her hands from behind her back and was trying to untie her leg as she noticed him. having succeded before he got any closer, she tried to attack when he had reached her. her intial attack failed but stopped her from fighting onward without using his normal method of stopping someone was proving quite difficult as she put up quite the struggle.

'listen to me, girl! I need your help!' he lied.

'with what? so you want to petrify me just like you did to my sister?' hanabi retorted.

'you know this is your sister? i see... it make sense though, as your sister and cousin develop special skills with their eyes that unique to them... so why not you as well...' orochimaru said as he was amazed she use her byakugan to see past the justu he had in place to make appear as if hinata was nothing more than a statue even to the most skilled byakugan users, let alone specialist and powerful ninja like tsunade or jiriaya. but he hid his true surprise behind his comment.

the snake sanin then went about how explaining to hanabi what happened, though it left her wondering how you could ''accidentally'' cast what had to be a powerful jutsu that ''accidentally'' petrified someone and then you ''accidentally'' kidnap the petrified victim's sister a week after you had originally done the deed...

'so why did you tie me up?' hanabi asked, though she had pretty good idea why, but was ignoring the voice that telling her what was mostly likely the truth.

'if you were told you'd have misunderstood anyway. i want to help your sister and i need your help for that. i can only reverse my jutsu with your help because i don't know her well enough to be able to transform her back as there's no telling how she might react mentally to being stuck here for a week, and something close and familiar to her seemed ideal to help her stay... stay normal as she turns back.'
hanabi knew what he meant: that being stuck as statue in this cave could be good for her sister mental health, but she pressed for time, thinking every second counted. of course, in reality neither one of them realized that hinata's sanity was just fine, as she was not even aware that people were around her let alone one of them being her younger sister. hanabi also reasoned her dissapearance at least would result in people searching for her just like they were doing for her sister. though her mind was constantly telling her not to trust the evil sanin, her heart kept ignoring it as she wanted to help her sister out the mess by helping the very man that put her into it. a

'how do you need my help?' she inquired.

'uou need to stand near her. if i can see a mind similar to hers i can reverse my jutsu. it's easy to do it but harder to reverse' he explained.

'how do I know you won't have another accident?' the young hyuga asked curiously

'we can't, but this is your sister's only chance. you don't want her to be a statue forever, do you?' the pale skin man asked.

it was going against any sort of common sense to do so as this was the man that attacked and tried to destroyed her home three years ago, but never the less hanabi soflty shook her head.

'then i beg you to help me and help her' he asked

hanabi simply agreed with him as her mind was coming up with a number of questions that were being ignored because she was thinking more with her heart and emotions than with her head and reason. questions like about just why he cast the jutsu on hinata in the first place as he was hardly the type to just go randomly asking kohona ninja if he could use them to test new justu on. he took them and forced the justu on them. that what he done to sasuke and naruto during the chunin exam in meetings she overheard about the two of them one day. then there was how he knew there was no other cure as all he gave back increasingly worried answers that made her panic even more. if he was so remorseful about what he had done to hinata why not bring in tsunade-sama or jiriaya-sama (or even both) to help instead kidnapping her and bring her alone instead?

the only thought from her mind she seem to listen to was that she knew he wasn't some accident-prone fool he was one of the three sanin after all and an s-class missing nin. they didn't not make mistakes like this, what this man had done to her sister was clearly deliberate. however she could clearly see that she stood no chance and had decided that to play along. enventual rescue was a better chance for the two sisters than a suicidal attempt to fight her way out.

as well as that, hanabi had a gut feeling the first thing to be destroyed in the fight would be her sister's petrified body. more than that how was she, a normal eleven year old girl, supposed to lift and carry her sister's solid marble body away? she probably weighed nearly five hundred pounds in stone as her flesh and blood self weighed about a hundred.

'okay, fine. I'll help, but i'm not going to lie on your behalf. if you double cross me people will be looking for me as well. do you really think kohona will let you get away with taking both heiress to the hyuga clan and the last uchiha?' she said while glaring at him

'i don't care, just so long as i can save this girl... your sister.' he said almost convincingly.

hanabi stood beside her sister ingoring the nagging voice in her head telling her that she'd be petrified the second she was there, hoping that she really would be helping hinata.

'is this close enough?' she asked, keeping her distance from the man yet trying to stand in a way that she at could least attempt to lift her sister up and run or just flat out run.

'yes.' he said nodding as everything was going according to plan.

a second later, she didn't even flinch as he transformed himself for a few seconds but those few seconds were all he needed to accomplish what he wanted. his long black hair became long black snakes, his yellow eyes glowed a brighter yellow that illuminated the whole eye like a headlamp, and his skin turned pale and scaly.

unlike her sister who was clearly caught of guard by this justu, hanabi broke the  genjustu that threatened to hold her in place, performing her last act before her body started turning to stone. reaching out she grabbed on to her sister's marble left hand with her own flesh hand, but upon contact her hand turned to marble itself. the transformation slowly began working it way up her arm, but managing to move faster than the effects spreading through her body she wrapped her other arm around her petrified sister's body, pulling her still mostly mobile body against the stone torso.
doing so caused her body to go numb on contact as marble spread through across her body almost instantly, rendering her a statue like her older sister. even as her head was slowly turning to stone she managed one last act before she was frozen in place. she managed to look up at her sister's face staring blankly at the wall, her eyes wide and mouth open in shock, completely unaware that her younger sister's own petrified body was now pressed again her own. with a sad smile and melancholy expression on her face, a last thought ran through hanabi's mind before the transformation completed itself.

at least we're together, and he can't seperate us without risking damaging us. she thought while hinata had no response of course, since she was no more than solid marble basically.

orochimaru was impressed by her speed as he had expected her to be able to hug her sister like that as now the two hyuga sisters were also fused together as stone, thus hanabi was right in thinking that sanin could not separate them.

'it seems you managed to break the genjustu i had you under in the end. that genjustu worked better than i could have hoped, i had you fooling yourself into believing me. as for your claim of someone else coming looking for you two... let them come. i want to lure more people here. you and your sister are now my batteries, keeping my life charged up. you're both quite powerful in spite of your age. i'll live 500 years or more from you two.and you two will never be apart.' he said laughing.

triumphantly, orochimaru left his cave, leaving hanabi alone to her thoughts. she was unsure how long passed before anything happened, for all that was in this cave with her, was her marble sister whose mind had already fallen to  the secondary effect of the justu, thus hanabi was truly alone in this cave. when she a girl and saw a pink-haired girl about her sister's age call out their names and then look closely at both of them she was unable to warn her to run and avoid sharing their fate...

***

hanabi's claim about there being a search party for her along with her already missing sister was correct as a search party had been sent out for her shortly after it was discovered that she had gone missing. while she had no idea of how long had past since she had been kidnapped in had acutally been two days since that night.

it was here that one sakura haruno had observed orochimaru leave the cave, and knowing she couldn't take him alone, she had simply watched what he did. she knew she should have reported it to someone and brought in help, but whatever he was doing might be gone by the time they were back. there was a good chance that al least one of the missing hyuga sisters could be in the cave. to leave and go find back-up, or wait for back-up she called to come might take too long. If either of hinata or hanabi was in that cave and she lost a chance to save or rescue them, then it would be like three years ago all over again. she lost sasuke to orochimaru  and then she got naruto seriously injured as she pleaded with him to get sasuke back when all she did was wait in kohona hoping for the best. well she wasn't going to sit back and wait this time. even if it was just to see if they were in there or not. sakura went in, knowing that if she could rescue them she would, and if she was unable to do so then she'd still be able to fall back and get help, and hopefully before orochimaru returned.

with ghostlike movements not betraying a sound but still moving fast, sakura snuck into the cave. It didn't take long for her to see the two sister's figures in the distance. in her elation at this she slipped up and called out to them. cursing herself for being so loud she moved up closer, especially when they didn't respond.

'hey you two! what are you doing just standing there like...' sakura said, trailing off in shock as she neared. the sight before her had her instantly realise these weren't just statues.

the chunin walked around the two statue sisters, amazed at the detail in them and horrified by the implications. anywhere else she would have never jumped to the conlusion that they were once people, but since this was a cave orochimaru had just walked out of, she was willing to think that. almost anything seem possible with that guy.

while hinata was completely oblivious to sakura's presence or even her face staring directly in her own, the same could not be said of hanabi who mentally urged sakura to run and get help, hoping she'd be able to avoid joining them as well as getting the means to save them. though that hope was dashed when hanabi's muffed hearing hear his voice again.

'amazed by their eternal beauty I see. they will have this silky smooth marble skin for centuries, maybe even over a thousand years' orochimaru said making himself known. he'd purposely left the cave as bait to try and lure someone else in here and sakura had fallen hook, line and sinker for it.

he threw her across the room where she crashed again the wall, causing her cry out in pain as, the sudden attack not letting her prepare for the damage. though the real reason for the sudden attack was that orochimaru didn't want a repeat of what happened with hanabi.

sakura, unaware of what fate was about to befall her, groggily stood up but quickly took a fighting stance. both feet about shoulder width apart. her left hand was sticking out in front of her around chin level, while the right hand was held back at the same level near face to protect it if need. both hands were turned so that the side of the hand was being shown to the opponent, not the palm or back. her back foot was turned at a 45-degree angle along with the body, while the front foot was turned at around 5 or 10 degrees. both legs were be bent to allow for quick movement.

'excellent pose, I see that tsunade had truly taught you well and managed to turn a worthless girl like you into a decent kunoichi.' orochimaru said, truly impressed.

a confused look came across sakura's face as she didn't register his meaning until she saw his glowing eyes. by that time was far too late as being caught off guard she was unable to break her stance or even change the confused expression on her face, as both were now frozen in stone as sakura joined the hyuga sisters as part of orochimaru's collection.

'this truly is a excellent pose.' orochimaru said as he circled around sakura's petrified form.

'i wonder if i should give you to sasuke-kun as a trophy for his room, or possible giving you to maruto-kun and make it look as if you are giving him a statue of yourself as a present? the fool will search far and wide for you only to never realise you are right under his nose the whole time.' orochimaru said while laughing.

sakura within in her now marble body was raging at these taunts at her own foolishness. now she was stuck in fighting stance with a stupid confused looked frozen on her marble face, and stuck staring straight ahead a wall now that orochimaru was no long in her line of sight.

'i am getting quite the collection... these three girls alone should be enough to last me more than a milliena as not only are they powerful but their control over their chakra is almost unreal' he thought. he considered maybe these three would be enough for now, any others likely to create too much suspicion.

however fate was about to doom another girl to become part of the 'collection' that orochimaru was gathering up. on the ground near sakura's marble foot was a radio earpiece where the voice of one ino yamanaka blared into life.

'sakura...hey sakura...sa...ku...ra! hey forehead, respond already, i know you're there!' her blond freind's yelling came through the ear piece.

picking it up, orochimaru took a look at the marble girl whose mental yells of 'don't you dare' went unheeded

'i am afraid sakura-chan can not respond as she's... too petrified to do so at the moment.' he said before crushing the earpiece in his hand.
***

rushing to the area where sakura was supposed to patrol, she noticed a cave. at the entrance, sakura  stood in fighting stance. but she wasn't moving. there was no one else around so she presumed sakura was just playing some kind of prank. but the voice over the radio had sounded male...

'hey there forehead. what's scared you so much you can't move?' ino asked her, oblivious at the moment to sakura's state. she saw her as flesh and blood, unaware of the trick in place.

'come on it can't be that bad' ino said as she slapped her on the shoulder, but to her confusion the slap hurt her hand. sakura's shoulder felt stone cold too.

'sakura? really this isn't funny anymore, you're starting to scare me...' ino said placing both her hands on sakura's, worry written on her face.

'hey ino' a familar voice said causing her to turn her head.

'shika...' was all that was able to leave her mouth. soon ino yamanaka who had stood worried over her best friend was now an ino statue, her worried expression now forever etched on her face with her mouth frozen in the process of forming the name of her oldest male friend.

'for some that comes from the yamanaka clan you sure fell for these genjustu rather easily.' orochimaru told her as he released them, revealing sakura's true appearance and no longer using the voice of shikamaru nara.

'when i said that sakura-chan here was too petrified to respond i did not mean with fear. i was being literal. but look at this way, at least the two of you will always be together thanks to  where your hands are' orochimaru told her placing his own hands on top of ino's now marble ones.

with this done orochimaru thought he take a break for now, as three girls in one day might be pushing his luck. one was the remaining hyuga heiress, while the other two were tusnade's apprentices, thus getting anymore would seriously be pushing his luck. rather then trying to get them back into the cave himself, he summoned a snake to do it for him, having it place the two newcomers next to the hyuga sisters.

'now you four stay here!' he said tauntingly.

***

time passed as the minds of hanabi, sakura, and ino went through the same process as hinata's. the first two days of them being petrified repeated themselves three times.

hanabi thought of herself, her sister who had long since become no different from a hunk of sculpted marble, her family and friends, and what could possibly change them back. her last thought before the mind looping took place was at least how she always be close to her sister so that when restored, they wouldn't be alone

sakura thought how she had trained for three years to help naruto find sasuke only to realize that she had developed feelings for her blond teammate... or more like feelings she always had were just making themselves known. sure she thought naruto was annoying at times but she never despised him like the most of the villagers did back then. the last thought before her mind began to loop was that if she ever got out this with body and mind in one piece then she would admit her feeling to naruto. hopefully it would not be too late...

ino's thoughts were along similar lines to her pink haired best friend, as she realised how seh really felt about the two boys that were always by her side, and how they were all she thought of now as she was trapped in marble body. her last thought be the looping process was the same as sakura's, though not as easy since it wasn't just one person she had to pick from but two.

their thoughts ceased as everything went blank for them when the fourth rotation came around. they joined hinata as nothing more than inanimate statues having their life force slowly drained by the man that did this to them.

months passed after this but orochimaru never showed himself again, nor was a new addition to his collection ever left in the cave. the four were the exact same physically as when they were first petrified, not a blemish on their marble forms, not even any moss was growing on them despite being in this damp cave for months. of course,  their minds were now away with no thoughts in their stone heads, but this change was unnoticed by them too. this could be consider a blessing in diguse as after months of being trapped in this cave with no human contact or ability to speak to a person right next to them, it could have led to madness. though without their minds they possessed no senses, their eyes stared forward (or upward in hanabi's case) and the stone brains saw nothing. they weren't even aware that in the mean time, orochimaru had been sealed away. even with their senses it was unlikely they could have known.

once things had settled down a little he had traveled to suna and tried to petrify temari and matsuri, but he had been caught before he could add the two girls to his collection. thus they were spared the fate of the four that came before. he had fled and upon learning that despite the life force he leeched from the four girls before leaving them, he still need to transfer bodies as the process of  rejection that usually happened after three years never occurred but for some reason the pain and agony that usually came with it happened regardless. thus to ensure he could live a nearly eternal life without eternal pain would still have to use his older plan of taking sasuke's body.

that plan just like his previous one to add temari and matsuri to the 'collection' had failed as rather then taking over sasuke's body the reverse acutally happened as the young uchiha acutally took over orochimaru's body and with it gained some of the skills and knowledge that he had acquired during his life.

sasuke knew of what happened to the hyuga sisters, sakura, and ino because his of his absorbing orochimaru. though since he was an avenger that could only focus on one thing at time he did not care in the slightest about his former teammate, her best friend, or the hyuga sisters being marble statues. though he did leech some of their life force for himself to fight Deidara and his brother itachi almost back to backa remnant of the life force he leeched from them was also the reason he did not die instantly when killer bee ripped his neck and chest off. so in an indirect manner, and even though she was not even aware of it, sakura had helped save sasuke's life.

as it happened, sasuke could never make a second trip as orochimaru was sealed away during his battle with itachi as turned out the former konoha ninja did not fully absorb his former master: he was simply waiting for the right moment to appear and take over. unfortunately for the snake sanin, itachi was also waiting for his arrival knowing that pushing sasuke to his limit would force him to appear. thus he was immediately struck down and permanently sealed away by the legendary totsuka no tsurugi, an ethereal weapon capable of sealing anything it pierces in an eternal dream-like illusion. though it was ironic that sword orochimaru had searched for as it was described as the perfect counter to his own kusanagi sword, would be where he would spend eternity trapped.

despite orochimaru being sealed away, the four statues he had made still stood in stone. yet instead of draining their life slowly being drained away to feed orochimaru it was now being used to keep their marble forms in perfect conditions, undisturbed and nigh indestructible for centuries before even so much as single one mark would mar them smooth marble forms. the four unforunate souls  trapped in marble had no idea of this. they were inanimate stone, the only thing to show that they were ever anything else was their life force protecting their body from the ravages of nature and time itself until the day finally came that it finally ran out. however while they were fated it seemed to stay as barely-living statues until their life force expired, it was not their fate  to remain in this cave during the whole time. while they were pratically indestructible the cave was not.

so when a certain battle between certain red haired shinobi possessing the legendary rinnegan used it to trap a certain jinchuriki in their six tailed transformation within chibaku tensei (a justu that the original owner of the rinnegan used to create the moon itself) into a huge ball of earth about a mile in diameter, the four marble girls were collected up as part of the justu. they were freed from it when the same jinchuriki trapped within slipped into his eight tailed form and burst out the move with sheer brute force.

being nearly indestructible paid off as if they were not, the four of them would have shattered to pieces upon hitting the ground. instead they created two craters that were later found by the now exhausted jinchuriki who had not only beaten the his foe, but also got him to change his way thus reviving everyone with range that had died during their battle and his intital attacks on the jinchuriki's home. sakura, ino, hinata, and hanabi  had just taken their a step to being liberated from stone form. however this was only the first of a long road, and possibly one with no end, for only orochimaru truly knew what he had done to petrify them.

***

naruto was slowly making his way back to the village when tripped and landed in crater. opening his eyes after the fall, he found himself staring into the blank eyes of a familiar looking statue with a familiar hairstyle, in a familiar pose  with a smaller statue hugging against it.

'hinata... hanabi...' Naruto said in amazement as he could not believe that statues of them were just sitting here.

naruto tried to get up, but his hand slipped and landed face to face on the stone hyuga, with his lips covering over hers. if hinata hadn't been unaware of her surrounding for months she would have probably fainted at this, though her blank eyes had no response to his own eyes staring at her with mixed emotions.

naruto then saw a hand offering him help him up off the petrified hyugas.

'kakashi-sensei?'  he asked.

'seems that you managed to find the hyuga sisters. this explains why we were never able to find them.' he said.
'what are talked about? these are just statues...' he told his sensei.

'I'm afraid that's probably not the case. these statues are too detailed. and look over there.' Kakashi told.

As in another crater nearby where the statues of Sakura and Ino

'these four statues are too suspicious... too detailed. they could not been made in the few months that they've been missing.'

***

days later the four marble statues that were once normal human girls stood in the hidden area of the hokage residence which had managed to evade destruction during pain's invasion of konoha, as it was being called. along with them  stood shizune, hiashi hyuga, inoichi yamanaka, and naruto.

kakashi was currently at the five kage summit as the acting sixth hokage. danzo had tried forcing his way into taking theposition by mentioning that jiraiya was the one that taught pain, just like he taught the fourth hokage who in turn taught kakashi. however his plan to make himself look the better candidate backfired when it was revealed danzo was not hiding during the attack, but was the reason narutodid not come early. he killed the messager frog meant to inform him and this was discovered as one of the many slugs that tsunade had katsuyu split herself into to protect the villagers had managed to find it's way into danzo's bunker and overhear him not only admit he was hiding from pain, letting people die to further his own agenda, but had kept naruto in the dark by killing the frog meant to warn him.

shizune looked over the sisters and her juniors as apprentices of tsunade (as tsunade's first student she was their senior) and let out a deep sigh.

'so can you do anything to help them?' inoichi asked.

he had worried about his daughter for months, and was glad that she had finally been found but their reunion was bittersweet. she was standing just feet away from him, butnot as the daugther that was full of life just months ago, but the marble statue that she had been turned into somehow.

'i cannot say as for all intents and purposes these four are not human. their life force is so well hidden by justus that if their marble forms weren't as detailed as they are and if we hadn't been informed of a similar technique, i would not have ever thought these were anything more than statues,' shizune said sighing. she took a long look at sakura before continuing

'truthfully i haven't been able to find any sign of them being alive at all,  i'm only guessing their life force is hidden as i noticed a genjustu similar to one that tsunade-sama uses to appear as young as she does on them. if tsunade-sama was not in coma, jiraiya-sama wasn't dead, and sakura was not one of these statues herself then maybe it would possible for them to pass this genjustu.

wordlessly activating byakugan, hiashi saw what shizune was saying was true as even with his bloodline limit on and looking at his daughters from head to toe he could not see the slight bit of chakra coming from them.

the whole time Naruto was silent. first he'd failed to get back sasuke twice and now sakura was a statue along with her best friend, hinata, and hinata's younger sister.
    
every type of test that they could think of was run on the four girl statues and all the results came up the same. each one of them had proved what they had known to be false again and again, that the four of them were nothing but marble statues.

so it was decided that they would need somewhere to keep the four of them safe, and that the truth about what happened to them be a secret. it was decided that making them their own monument to conceal them in plain sight would be an effective way to guard them while some cure was sought. it was a secret known only to a few, including the boy who had found them. naruto had been reluctant to keep the secret, but had conceded. most of the village thought the four of them were dead, and only that handful truly knew.

to be sure that no one guessed these were really the four 'dead' kunoichi, their monument was revealed after the rebuilding to konoha had been fully finished, thus there was no question about how detailed they were since the story was that they had been in the works since the four of them were first reported missing.  there had been some confusion over the selected poses, but this had been shrugged off and ignored.

thus in contrast to the months the spend alone in the cave, as monuments supposedly made in their own honor they had people coming to see them daily, almost all unaware of the truth. then the daily 'cleaning' that happened which in reality was attempts to revert them though they always ended in failure. almost every night, though they didn't know it, the four of them had a speical visitor: naruto. . in flesh, sakura and ino would at least tolerate it and hanabi only knew of the boy as her sister's obvious crush. but in stone, the four simply stood like statues, not even thinking or knowing naruto was there. among them while they were still human, hinata especially would have been overjoyed by the attention that naruto was giving them.

ever since first meeting naruto all those years ago, all hinata had wanted was naruto's attention. she had it every night now, but she could never know he had even been there talking to her. she as was just as oblivious to her surrounds as was her sister blankly staring up at her and the two others beside them.