Hello all! A hellishly long time and no see!
I haven't submitted anything to this site in a while, let me tell you that one!
Anyways, I'm back for now, and here's the obligatory disclaimer!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Ghost Rider in any way shape or form. I do not make any money off of this work, this is purely a work of fiction from my mind, written for enjoyment and nothing else.
The first few chapters will act as an introduction to the story and some will be a bit short.
Do keep in mind that this story is rated the way it is for a reason.
Thank you.
"You can't live in fear." – Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage), "Ghost Rider"
"This power, that we have… It comes from a dark place…
But it is not who we are… It NEVER will be." – Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage), "Ghost Rider – Spirit of Vengeance"
(No…way…!)
Sitting on her bed on her knees, posture tense and gaze trained on the left wall, is the 7-year old heir to the main house of the Hyuuga clan.
The hour is late, far past her intended bedtime. Having been pulled from the warmth of sleep by a strange dream, the girl had sat up with the intent of going to her father's room for comfort. However, a muffled sound had reached her ears, which prompted her to make some hand seals, movements she had just learned, and gather Chakra in her eyes. With veins enlarging in her temples and pupils growing visible, Hinata looks through her bedroom wall.
Nothing.
Focusing harder, her sight penetrates the next wall.
Still nothing.
Focusing even harder, with more veins popping up, the third wall dissolves before her sight.
(Wh…what is father and the Council members doing up at this hour…? A meeting? Why now? Did something happen, I-)
But her worried thoughts are put to a halt, as one of the men suddenly slams his hand to the floor, seemingly yelling something and being quickly hushed by the others. (Uncle! Wh-what is uncle doing in a meeting with the main house? What is going on in there…?)
With worry and trepidation now rooted deep in her heart, Hinata turns her attention to one specific part of the gathered men's anatomy. Having been played with a lot since before she could remember and learned how to use her clan's eyes very early on made her develop a rare skill for someone her age. Hinata could read lips and read them with ease.
So with that, she focused on whoever seemed to be speaking at the moment, which happened to be her father.
"…-annot be serious, Hizashi! You honestly believe-"
"It is MY decision, brother! I will protect our clan!"
Sitting back with her brow furrowing in confusion, Hinata keeps watching.
(Protect the clan…? What is he-)
"I will not allow it, brother! If anything, protecting the clan as the clan head is MY responsibility!"
Seeing the two men arguing fills Hinata with a strange feeling as she has rarely ever seen them do so before.
"Brother… Why do you think, I am volunteering for this mission?"
(A mission…? This is about a mission? If so, then why is father-)
Then, slamming his palm into the floor right in front of his brother, Hiashi yelled, and Hinata's eyes widens.
"You're heading to your DEATH, Hizashi! Going there means you DIE! I will NOT allow you to-"
Staring through the three walls with her white and slightly violet eyes wide open, Hinata's hands start to shake. Soon, her entire body is trembling, as the argument comes to an abrupt end.
"Hizashi! I forbid-"
'Twack!'
"Ugh…!"
With his daughter secretly watching, Hiashi sinks to the floor, coughing and trembling, as Hizashi rises to his feet and walks over to the door. Upon reaching it, he turns and faces his brother with a smile.
"I am not acting as a member of the branch right now, brother… This, is my own decision. My own choice. I will proudly go to my death, if it means I can protect you, my brother. And Neji. And of course, Hinata as well.
A heavy lump forms in Hinata's throat. And though her vision blurs with tears, she still reads her uncle's lips perfectly.
"If it is to protect my son and the rest of my family, then I will do anything, brother. That, is how much I love my family and clan… So please brother…don't try to stop me. I am dying out of my own free will, something that is rarely offered to a branch member…"
With that, her uncle leaves the room and goes farther than her undeveloped sight can follow. Throwing her hands over her mouth as her chest contracts, Hinata lets her tears fall, and collapses back on her bed, mind reeling, burning with the images, the knowledge of what she had just seen. As she cries and tosses her small body back and forth on the bed, she wishes and prays, prays that what she just witnessed was a dream. A vision that is nothing more than a cruel nightmare, where she completely misread the men's lips.
And yet deep down, she knows…
She knows there is no way she misread anything this night… For despite her having walked this Earth for only 7 short years, her skill at reading lips is exceptional.
Four hours, she tosses and turns, young mind racing with horrifying thoughts, torturing itself with the knowledge she should never have obtained, that was never meant for her to know. Her uncle, her beloved uncle Hizashi, was steadily heading toward his death. He did so because he loved them. Loved his brother. Loved his son.
Loved her.
Hinata cries, screaming into her pillow and holding it to her face as she rolls around on the bed, body jerking as cold waves of horror assaults her at every second. Her uncle is going to die…she knows but cannot do anything about it. And that, if anything, that powerlessness, is what absolutely skewers her.
"Life is rather cruel, don't you agree? Plenty of unfair decisions to be made while heading down the road…"
Eyes snapping open and body sitting bolt upright, Hinata's mouth releases a shriek of terror, as her gaze lands on a man, standing in the middle of her room. Breathing quickening with fear pulsing through her, Hinata backpedals on her hands until she bumps into the headboard of her bed, pulling her blanket with her and trembling underneath it. She watches, terrified, as the man shifts his weight, calmly placing his gloved hands on top of his cane, as he watches her quiver in fear. He takes a step toward her, and her mouth opens to release a sound once again, this time a really, really loud scream. But the man, in the blink of an eye, brings a finger to his lips to signify a wish for silence, and the sound, dies in her throat.
"Please… Do not alarm yourself. I am not here to harm you…"
As he speaks, he slowly but surely makes his way toward her, with her trying desperately to shrink, to disappear from his gaze. But her limbs will not obey any commands other than curling up into a tighter ball, her eyes unable to look away from him, even though she so desperately wants to. The man speaks with a voice that is smooth and calm, like a businessman explaining a transaction to a child. And while such a thing would no doubt be mind-numbingly boring, what he was doing, was mind-numbingly horrifying. Despite his calm voice, Hinata felt absolutely horrified by his presence.
"My name…is Mephisto… I have come here tonight, because of a great injustice… This, cruel, cruel decision your Council has agreed upon…"
As his words slowly register in her frightened mind, Hinata sits up a little bit straighter. She clears her throat and takes a few shaky breaths, lips moving in several attempts to form words before finally succeeding.
"What… Are you talking about…?"
With the man's mouth widening into a smile, Hinata inwardly recoils as if struck. His smile resembles a sinister snarl, despite being made to look warm and inviting.
"You have come to know about the decision that has been made for your uncle… And yet despite know about it, you are still incapable of action…After all, you ARE just a child. Sometimes life is unbearably cruel. This is one of the truths of life and there is nothing you can do to escape it. Nothing you can do to avoid it…"
Shifting his weight, he takes another step toward her, smile ever present on his face.
"… Or, is there…?"
Setting his cane down on her floor, Mephisto smiles again, sending powerful and cold shivers down her little spine, and he asks, smilingly-
"Tell me… Hinata… Do you wish to save your uncle's life?"
The moment his mouth formed her name, for that single second, Hinata felt like she was out in a raging snowstorm. That's how much it chilled her.
With the chill passing, his question relentlessly bores into her ravaged mind, demanding her complete attention until she replies.
"Your beloved uncle will die tomorrow…in a couple of hours, actually… Unless something…is done about it…"
His smooth voice reaches her ears without trouble, the words he forms registers, and she cannot help but feel as if they're dripping with some deadly venom. Some instinctive form of intuition…
Somehow, Hinata knows this man is evil. She would have felt absolutely silly saying it to anyone else out loud, but with this man…who appeared in her room from out of nowhere… The label felt almost too right, somehow…
She also knows, in a logical sense, that she should not, by any means, trust the man. Not because of how he makes her feel…but rather because a man appearing out of thin air and offering something as outrageous as he did was, obviously untrustworthy. By all rights, she should have been screaming for the maids and guards the very moment he appeared before her.
But… But.
He offered to save her uncle. To miraculously save his life.
And despite all her training and all her instincts telling her, looking her in the eyes and screaming at her, not to trust him…
"What…"
Mephisto shifts his weight from one foot to another, his posture emanating a calm patience, as he waits for the child as she clears her throat and, taking a shaky breath-
"What…do I have to do…?"
Smile changing and taking on a different nature, Mephisto unrolls a piece of paper and advances, driving the little Hyuuga to scoot back until her back hits the headboard once again, trembling and desperately clutching her blanket to her in search of something, anything safe and warm, as whatever courage that prompted her to speak flees her mind.
"I will save your uncle's life, Hinata. Have no fear of anything otherwise happening… You will not be in any danger… After all, you are but a child and who in their right mind would put a child in danger, right?"
Swallowing, Hinata doesn't respond, as Mephisto takes yet another step, bringing himself very close to her now.
"All you will have to do…to save your uncle's life… Is to sign this little piece of paper."
Conjuring up a feather pen from who knows where, he gently tosses it to her and lets the paper go. As if caught and carried by some unknown wind, the paper floats down and lands right in her lap. Hinata swallows and looks at the paper. There is writing on it, but it is written in a language she doesn't understand. Looking between the paper and the pen right next to her hand, Hinata swallows several times, taking shaky breaths as Mephisto watches her, both hands on his cane.
"Take your time…" He says, voice smooth as silk, but devoid of warmth. "…There is still hours until your uncle has finished his march toward his unjust death…"
He then vanishes, fading away into wisps of shadow, leaving the bedroom once again to its occupant. Sitting there and staring at the paper, Hinata starts to cry.
She is scared. She is cold. She is confused. She wants her dad. She wants her teddy bear. She wants her mother. She wants her uncle.
Picturing his face and the times they've spent together, playing ball and such with him and her cousin, her little sister sitting clapping happily at the side, Hinata sits there, rocking back and forth in her bed for hours.
Until… With her young mind ravaged by despair, confusion, fear and grief, she raises a trembling hand, and reaches…for the pen. Fingertips pressing against it, she lifts it…and brings it…to her chest. Taking several shaky breaths, her cheeks stained with dried tears and eyes puffy and red, Hinata gives a final hiccup, before tightening her grip on the feather pen. It is with a healthy dose of fear and confusion, and trepidation weighing heavily in her young heart…that Hinata lowers the pen…to the paper.
But as it makes its way down there, her hand suddenly trembles violently, and she accidentally pricks her other hand, hovering an inch above the paper. Hissing and jerking both hands away in reflex at the sudden sensation, the pen leaves her hand and flies through the room, hitting the floor with a soft sound a distance away.
But…the damage, is already done.
For as she jerks her hand away, a few small drops of blood escapes her skin, barely having time to expand in the air before…hitting the bottom of the paper.
The same second her blood hits the paper, a resounding laughter suddenly erupts from out of nowhere, bouncing all across the room, being loud and seemingly coming from everywhere at once. Giving a frightened shriek and curling up in her blanket against the headboard once again, Hinata watches, with pale eyes wide with horror, as Mephisto materializes once more. This time, he walks right up to her bedside, making her scoot away from him as fast as possible, so much so that she falls off the other side of the bed, in fact. Having hit the floor and dragging her blanket with her, Hinata keeps backpedaling on one hand and jerking movements of her feet, her heels hitting the floor repeatedly as she frantically backs herself into a corner where she curls up into a trembling ball.
Peeking up from her blanket, the shivering child sees the man, the very, veryevil man, gingerly reaching down and grabbing the paper, then slowly bringing it to his face, whereupon his smile widens to new proportions, his mouth opening to let out a sound that would come to haunt Hinata's nightmares for years to come… The sound, of his happy, almost ecstatic laughter. Looking over at the bundled up child in the corner, Mephisto's eyes light up, and he says-
"Thank you, my child… This will do nicely…"
And then, with a loud burst of laughter, he lights up the room as he himself dissolves into flames, not leaving a single trace behind him to speak of his time there.
As the man abruptly vanishes in fire, Hinata whimpers and buries her head in her knees, pulling the blanket around her and once again rocking back and forth, sobbing as her tears wets her knees.
It is with gasps of alarm and worry, that the maids find her the following morning, still curled up in the corner, rocking back and forth.
Well! First chapter over and done with!
As I said at the start, the first few chapters will serve as more of an introduction and some will be short without much "action".
Worry not, however, for I have several bouts of hellfire already planned for this story, so do try and stay tuned.
Also, please feel free to review and tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is always welcome.