"I would like for Officer Itachi Uchiha to take the stand."

The crowd watched as the tall man entered through the door that was at the far right corner of the room.

His stride was full of pride, you could see it in the oh-so innocent smile he wore on his face. Don't get him wrong, Itachi has nothing against Hinata, he just cared about his job, all too much.

Sasuke was slowly sinking in his seat from the guilt; feeling as if he betrayed Hinata in some way. As if sensing his worries, Hinata turned around in her seat to mouth the words "it's not your fault" to him.

"Officer Uchiha, would you please tell the jury, and the people of the courtroom, the exact words you received from your youngest brother."

"Yes, he told me that Hinata Hyuga randomly shows up as the new transfer student with a new name and disguise. He mentioned that her mental state and behavior was strange, as if something had happened to her; well, not to her at least."

"Objection!" Shikaku shouted.

"Overruled." the judge responded back, then nodded to Itachi to continue.

"So, of course I decided to do some digging around, so I went back to the crime-scene. What I found was this."

Itachi nodded towards Officer Kisame's direction and he rolled out a small T.V and tape.

"This is the footage of that night from a security camera."

The footage started to play for the audience. At first, there was nothing there but the time and date; there was an empty sidewalk and an alley-way across from it. Then there was one gunshot heard, making most jump in their seats. There were very faint screams and rushed footsteps in the background; Hinata could be seen in a trenchcoat, one hand in her pocket that was obviously faced towards eyes-view, and her head looking back in a worried manner. She walked hastily past the alley and looked back once more until she couldn't be seen anymore. That's when the tape paused.

Itachi had the remote in his hand, rewinding it to the part where Hinata could be seen running away, then paused.

"As you could see, the suspect seems to be holding something in her pocket." Itachi started, as he directed the laser pointer at her hip pocket, in the trenchcoat.

"She so claimed that it was supposedly her library book, in that specific pocket, but why would she need to cling so desperately to a book? Because someone might steal it ? That's ridiculous, right? I would understand if she had said her wallet, but a book, that doesn't make sense."

He rewind it again, to where the sidewalk was empty again, then pressed play to see Hinata speed walking after the shot was fired; he pressed paused when she turned back for the first time.

"Hinata mentioned before that she heard three gunshots, but as you all heard, there was only one. A coincidental mistake, highly unlikely."

Hinata froze. She didn't even realized she made that simple mistake! There was no doubt in her mind that she she was going to jail now. She wanted to cry, today really wasn't the day to be stupid and look where that got her.

"You see this expression on her face?" he continued as the laser pointer landed on her face. "This is not one of a frightened civilian running away from danger. You could see it in her actions; this behavior, the expression on her face, shows guilt. I am a specialist on reading people, that is why I am part of the interrogation group. She holds guilt within her eyes; this could go unseen and be read as "worried" or "scared", but there is a difference."

"Thank you Officer Itachi for your time." the Yamanaka lawyer said.

"So you see ladies and gentlemen, actions really do speak louder than words." he finished off with a smirk, feeling that his little play on words were brilliant.

"Shikaku." the judge looked at the Nara lawyer, mentally asking him if he was ready.

"Jury, the people of this court room, put yourself in Hinata's shoes for a moment. She is being accused of murder, do you know how terrifying that is for a teen, for anyone to be exact. Of course she was bound to make one slip-up because she is simply scared. We are all overridden by our emotions from time to time. Look at her face one more time, some of you look at her and think it is guilt, others may view it as just plain frightened. But we all don't know. And you know why? Because we are not the suspect. We can all make assumptions, but we don't know how Hinata feels because we aren't her."

"Objection! Would you cut to the chase Shikaku!" Inoichi shouted.

"Yes, please go on Nara." the judge said.

"When you think about it, when we are terrified, we often cling to something, whether its a purse or a wallet, because it gives us that sense of reality that something bad is happening, we often cling to some degree of hope that it will all be over.What I'm trying to say is that the reason for her clinging to the book was probably a reflex."

The jury nodded there heads of some understanding and Shikaku continued.

"Officer Itachi mentioned before, that Sauske noticed her mental state was mostly negative; I would like to ask him to the stand so he could explain."

Sasuke got up and stalked his way towards the stand where he sat down and began talking.

"Hinata.. she seemed upset and angry."

"So her mental state isn't what you considered guilty of some sort, did she ever expressed any guilt, did she seem off, or afraid?"

"No sir."

"You know that you are under oath, so this is very improtant."

"If you're trying to say that I'm lying, then think again. Yes, I did tell my brother that she wore a new disguise and she changed her name, but she did tell me and my friends that she had ran away from home to get away from her father."

"Was that all she mentioned ?"

"Yes."

"Okay thank you."

Sasuke went back to his seat and sat down.

"As you can seen people of the courtroom, this was all just a coincidental misunderstanding. She was just a troubled teen trying to get away from her troubles, although we can all agree that running away from home is wrong, but she had her own valid reasons. I would have you know that forty-three to forty-seven percent of teens who leave home was because of conflict between parents and/or physical abuse."

The crowd immediately started to mumble against themselves, whether if it was the make assumptions or already guess if Hinata would be guilty or not.

"Okay okay, order in the court." The judge spoke loudly while banging his gabble to silence everyone. "Continue."

"Instead of pointing the finger at someone else, try actually finding the person who had something to do with Mr.Nagatomi's death."

The court went silent.

"Okay I call for a recess." Judge James ordered as he walked to the back room.

The people in the court started to talk amongst themselves

"I want to talk to my friends." Hinata said a little hastily to Shikaku. With a simple nod she was off, and everyone else got up too seeing her walking towards them.

By instinct, she was going to give Naruto a hug, but Hanabi ran up to her before she got the chance.

"Oh Hinata!! Are you okay ?!" she spoke into her chest, giving her eldest sister a bear-hug.

"I'm fine Hanabi, but I can't breathe."

Hanabi quickly released her grip after mumbling her apologies.

Hinata took this opportunity to hug Naruto, with him hugging back also.

"Don't worry, you will get out of this mess, I know you will." Naruto whispered quietly.

"But it feels like forever, this will never end." she whined while hugging him tighter.

"Naruto's right Hinata, the jury seemed to be on your side." Tenten tried to cheer her up.

That's when Hinata finally let go, and looked towards everyone else.

"Really?"

"We can't promise anything, but it sure looked like it! And sorry about my asshole father, I didn't know!" Ino said as she ran up and bear-hugged Hinata as well.

"It's okay Ino. But i can't breathe again!"

"Sorry sorry!"

"Okay we are now back in session everybody, and I would like for everyone to return to their seats."

The room was silent, and Hinata waited patiently.

"Have they decided?" she asked her lawyer.

"I don't know."

"Inoichi Yamanaka would like to bring out a surprise witness, and I think he should come out now."

'Surprise witness?' she thought to herself.

But when she turned around in her seat, she grew pale. All her fears and worries were sent to overdrive. She wanted to scream and shout her protests, but her voice was trapped in her throat.

Because now, her worse nightmare was at the door, walking closer to his seat. He was the reason she was in this mess and now, she needed to tell a new story.

The truth.