Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Summary: Sasuke would be pleased to learn that his daughter was following his footsteps. Unable to endure her husband's abuse any longer, Sakura runs away with her children. Seven years later, the eldest daughter comes back for revenge.
"Talk"
Present Situation
Past Situation / Thoughts
Hell Flower
Prologue
A Great and Terrible Beauty
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Her name was Uchiha Higanbana.
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Her husband had left behind her bruised, beaten body for the children to see. Sakura chocked back a sob. How could this happen? She had loved him...he had loved her. But now…
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She was named after a flower, a kind of cluster amaryllis. Another name for it was the red spider lily. Some others called it by its scientific name, lycoris radiata.
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She pulled her knees close and breathed, and in moments a soft green glow enveloped her. Sasuke got irritated when she healed herself. Maybe it was the thought that he'd gone through the trouble of beating her up for nothing. Well, she wasn't going to be broken again. Never will he touch her, never will he hurt her. She had made her decision.
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And others…called it…
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Moving around still hurt her, but Sakura forced herself to turn around towards the hallway. She wished she didn't know what she would see—but she did. And she burst into tears at the sight.
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Hell flower.
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"Kaa-chan…?" Her daughter whispered. She was standing in the dark hallway. Behind her, the faint wail of a child could be heard from another room. "Kaa-chan, why are you bleeding?"
The little girl ran to her mother, and Sakura hugged her tightly, hating herself for letting her child see her in such a horrific state. Tears clouded her vision, and all she could do was to repeat apologies into her daughter's ebony hair. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"
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The flower of hell.
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"—Higanbana! Kaa-chan was too weak to protect you all…"
The little girl stayed in her mother's embrace for a long time. Finally, after patting her mother's back, she backed away. For a seven-year-old, her black eyes were hazy and unfocused. No trace of fear remained, and Higanbana began in a steady voice.
"It was because of me, right?"
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Higanbana stopped to pluck the flower of her namesake from its soil. She twirled the thick stem in her hands, her fingertips brushing along the flower's sleek petals. On a closer examination, she decided that it did not resemble a spider.
It resembled a person's blood trickling down the windowpane.
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Words got stuck in her throat. When Sakura could speak again, her words held utter disbelief.
"What are you talking about?"
But under that coating of disbelief, there was also a chime of regret.
Higanbana heard that chime.
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Or maybe it was someone's bloodied lips.
One day, she will ask what the flower looked like. And one would answer, 'a present from Lucifer' and another would answer, 'a great and terrible beauty.'
To think that she was named after such a flower.
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It scared Sakura how much her daughter could understand.
"It's because I was born as a girl, right? He didn't like how I was born a girl, and he said I was a failure because I don't have the Sharingan." Higanbana did not sound like a seven-year-old any longer. She continued on, unsmiling. "And he said—he said that—I reminded him, of his brother. He said my eyes were like his."
Eyes like the night—cold, empty, unforgiving. It was the essence of darkness, a black hole.
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It would be a mistake to think she was sadistic.
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Sakura's face hardened.
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Because she wasn't.
She knew the flower appeared like dripping blood because she had seen such a sight and had time to compare the two. She knew it looked like bloody lips because she had seen her brother's cut lip. And she knew they would say it was 'a great and terrible beauty' because she had asked her neighbor grandfather.
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"That's not true."
Higanbana blinked.
She reached out and pinched her daughter's cheek. The girl yelped and, for a moment, she was back to being a normal child again.
"Your eyes are yours alone," Sakura said.
No one could change that.
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The old man had pushed on his glasses and received the flower with trembling hands. The man glanced back and forth at the flower and the girl, and he noticed how pretty the girl was, and how her eyes were completely void of any emotion.
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Her body had completely healed. Sakura sprang into action. Time was running out and it would only be a matter of time before Sasuke came home. Quickly she began to raid the kitchen for food and packed away her medical kit.
"Kaa-chan?" Higanbana asked.
Sakura handed her a pack. "Higanbana, I want you to wake up your brother and start packing up your things. Things that you need but doesn't take a lot of space."
"Where are we going?"
Sakura stopped, and grinned.
"We are ascending from hell."
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And grandfather knew then, that the girl...
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Higanbana was happy.
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…was destined to never smile.
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But she did not smile.
That night, Sakura, Higanbana and her brother Hakuro crept out of the Uchiha Household. The pink-haired kunoichi wrote and left three letters to her closest companions: Naruto, Ino, and Kakashi-sensei.
She did not, in fact, leave anything for Sasuke.
As they reached the village gates, Sakura turned to her daughter. Her little face was set in a determined line as she clutched her sack, but her eyes remained empty.
She saw her daughter's silhouette against the moonlight. The effect made her look soft and serene, but it was then that she realized that…
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She was a great and terrible beauty.
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She was a great and terrible beauty.
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Higanbana tossed the flower into a nearby stream and walked on.
Author's Note
The prologue may be confusing.
Sometime or later, my dear reader, the reason why Sasuke abused Sakura and hated his daughter, and the reason why Higanbana is such a morbid character will be revealed. So stay with me until then, won't you?
Higanbana's character was influenced by two anime/manga characters that I love very much. One is Enma Ai from Jigoku Shoujo, a hell girl who lives in a purgatory of eternal sunset and where the Higanbana flower grows in massive numbers. She runs an internet site called Jigoku Tsushin, where you can access every midnight if you have a very strong grudge of hate towards another person. If you write down the name of the person you hate on it, the Jigoku Shoujo will drag that soul directly to hell, but for one condition: if you send a person down to hell, your soul will be sent to hell too—after you die, of course.
Another character which Higanbana is based on is Auna Shay Copris, from the Korean manga/manhwa Platina. Auna is a rich noble girl who became the Princess's servant after her family went bankrupt and was destroyed. Now the only living member of her deceased family line, Auna is granted by the Princess a fox, told that if she 'turns it into a human' she could keep it. Auna is not sure what the Princess means at first, but later she finds out that the fox is actually a boy trapped under a curse by the Princess herself. And so begins their adventure…
Maybe if you have time, dear reader, you might consider trying out these two brilliant manga (well, Jigoku Shoujo is better as an anime) while I gruelingly strive to continue this story on. They would certainly help you better understand what kind of a character Higanbana is, though not by one hundred percent, because after all, I'm the creator. When I reveal the secret behind Higanbana's void eyes, you will be, I hope, surprised…
Though, admittedly, getting translation for Platina would be extremely hard.
The title for the prologue, A Great and Terrible Beauty, is from the book of the same title by Libba Bray.
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