Wish For Something

Summary: Hinata and Sasuke find each other by chance in the middle of a cryptic forest, in the wake of night. A Shinigami appears to them and places a contract onto their hands: they must both help each other in some way, however big or small, and in exchange the Shinigami would grant them one wish each... What problems will just one wish bring them after this encounter, in the meantime?

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters. The new plots (meaning the ones you don't recognise) and my OCs belong to me, but anything Naruto related belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. Don't plagiarise, it's not cool.

08/05/2015: Correcting of grammatical errors is in progress. There will be no significant changes to the plot of this story. I want all spellings, punctuation and grammar to be accurate for future readers. Sorry to those of you who have already read this whole story. Thank you for your patience and cooperation. Ignore these updates!

What is a wish, really?

The corrupt dream of having it all?

The tempting power to control them all?

The envied wisdom that succeeds pure?

Or a dream that the mind will forever abhor?

What is a wish, really?

CHAPTER ONE

Written by 10ShizukaYuukiMistress10

Sasuke never thought he'd be returning to the Leaf village before he first accomplished his goal and killed Itachi. He no longer had business in the Leaf village and if he had been rightly informed, they'd stamped him off as a Missing ninja. He was nothing more than a sack of gold on legs, in their eyes.

It was solely Orochimaru's desire to return to the Leaf village, not Sasuke's. It was no doubt to do something sick and twisted. The Uchiha avenger hadn't even bothered to ask the ex-Sanin what exactly he intended to do here, but quite frankly, Sasuke didn't need to know and he didn't care about what Orochimaru did.

He had been left to wander on his own, aimlessly through clusters of forest trees, through a dozen clearings, and now he was staring blandly at the occasional owls perched in trees. Sasuke hated this, the feeling of being controlled, and receiving the treatment of a child. If only he knew of any other way of gaining power than by staying by Orochimaru, he would gladly take it...

Sasuke stopped where he was walking. He had reached deep into the wet, stifling expanse of the forest. He couldn't place his finger on it, but the air of the forest now seemed to breathe differently... It was like the air tasted a part of him as it brushed against his skin, then moved on.

Maybe it was just him imagining that because he could now sense someone's distinctive chakra signature evident, and it was interfering with his senses—although Sasuke could see no reason why that should happen.

He drew out his katana and stared back, the way that he had come, through dense, nightly darkness. Teasing sparks of lightening ignited and hissed along the surface of his blade as he held it to his side.

Then there she was, stumbling into the clearing, clueless, looking like she'd walked into there by accident, and staring up at him wide-eyed and shocked.

Sasuke didn't do anything at first. He thought he recognised her for a moment but dismissed the idea impassively. If he knew her what did it matter, anyway?

"Sasuke?" She uttered in a precarious voice, her expression soft yet torn between confusion, fear, uncertainty and surprise. The Uchiha narrowed his eyes at her, and watched her face slowly fill with fear and regret, maybe for saying anything at all: it seemed that the reality that maybe he was going to kill her had sank in. Was she right to think that?

The moment obliterated when Sasuke remembered who she was, finally.

Long, wet, indigo hair. Wide, pearl-like eyes.

Hyuuga Hinata. The arrogant Hyuuga prodigy's weak cousin.

Sasuke shook his head, smirking. There didn't seem to be any point in ending her. At her rate, she was bound to die early. She didn't appear remotely like a threat and if she was as weak as he last remembered her being, she was surely in trouble.

It was better her than Sakura, Sasuke finally thought, scornfully. If he was going to encounter anyone in the Leaf village while he was here waiting for Orochimaru to finish his business, he wanted it to be someone who wouldn't blab his existence to the whole world ... or to Naruto.

"Why are you here?" Sasuke asked with a purely scrutinising voice. It was the middle of the night and they were experiencing the warm up of an agitated storm about to kick off. If she had been training with her team here then they would have finished hours ago. Otherwise, she might have taken a walk, but one so deep into the forest?

Sasuke narrowed his eyes distrustfully.

"I was just training by the waterfall b... but I then I thought that I'd heard something and..." She trailed off, shaking from the cold and consciously zipped up her lavender jacket as she stared at him.

"I... I thought that you had left the Leaf village?" Hinata finally asked, her face returning to a state of confusion and uncertainty.

Sasuke closed his eyes, his senses tuning in onto the raindrops that were falling around them, and sliding against his skin, hair and clothes.

"I have left the Leaf village... You're right. I'm only here because I can't leave Orochimaru's side." Sasuke stated. He didn't know why he'd even bothered answering. He stared at her and waited for her reaction. He'd just relayed a valuable piece of information to her. What he expected was panic to fill those translucent eyes staring back at him, except they remained as they had been the whole time: confused, uncertain and slightly overwhelmed.

Had he missed something about her when he had lived in Konoha three years ago, other than being the timid, quiet Hyuuga heir who had been beaten by her cousin in the Chunin exams?

"Oh..." Hinata said finally. Her hand reached out for a tree trunk and she leaned against it wearily, like she needed the physical support. Her face seemed extremely exhausted and cautious. But otherwise, calm.

What Sasuke didn't know, was that on the inside, Hinata's surprise and shock at his sudden appearance was causing her heart to slam against her ribcage at least five times a second like it was trying to shatter itself into a thousand pieces.

Neither of them said or did anything in that instance: maybe it was because Sasuke knew that Hinata wouldn't be a threat to him, even if she tried, and there was no need to kill her anyway. Maybe he was just content with seeing a former comrade after being away from the Leaf village for at least three years, and finally being back with nothing more to do than wait for Orochimaru to return. And for some reason, Hinata seemed to trust him as she stood there idly and unsure of what to do next, shaking from the cold and exhaustion of her training.

She hadn't even tried to run away from him or challenge him yet.

The miserable, irate storm, launching itself at the forest and village overall, seemed to increase tenfold. Sasuke turned away, his head bowing under the downpour sweeping down on them.

Without warning, and from the cluster of trees directly ahead, a towering, ghostly figure broke out into the nightly air before their eyes.

In an instant, Sasuke's hand was clutching his impeccable katana and Hinata had formed the hand signs for Byakugan.

"There will be no need to put up any defences. I am not here to harm any of you." Said the spirit-being, as far as they could tell, as it drifted forward toward them majestically and they silently studied his face.

His eyes were dark and beady, almost like a beetle's. They held an ardent darkness to them. And his wide, parted lips were stretched out into a forthcoming smile. His body looked like it had been moulded purely from air—exactly what was he?

His skin, an unearthly blue, had mysterious patterns endorsed across his cheeks and forehead.

He lifted up his hands, showing long, sharp and foreboding fingers, and performed quick hand seals—in such a way that Sasuke couldn't even track them with his Sharingan, his eyes fruitlessly attempting to follow the erratic blur of the spirit-being's hands. When the spirit-being finished, he had produced a scroll which was lifted up into mid-air by the beaks of two aged vultures.

Sasuke caught Hinata's overwhelmed, confounded expression, and turned back to face the spirit-being, feeling a dangerous annoyance infuriating him. He had not planned on any of this happening. He needed to get back to Orochimaru soon.

"I am a Shinigami named Ryo. I have the power, once every two-hundred and fifty years, to grant anyone I choose three wishes. I could grant one person three wishes at once or three people one wish each. There is only one condition." The Shinigami continued, a teasing chuckle entering in his voice.

Sasuke shut his eyes in a moment of irritation.

"I don't care about who you are or what you can do, Shinigami. Why are you here and why are you telling us this? You're going to give us wishes?" The Uchiha questioned slowly, his voice sharp and harsh, edging with a mocking sardonicism in his last word.

Sasuke closed his eyes.

Hinata, on the over hand, looked at Sasuke and silently wondered what Orochimaru had put him through to make him behave so apathetic towards a Shinigami.

"Isn't there something that you desire, Uchiha Sasuke?" The Shinigami asked, his augury lips rising even higher. "...I came here because you both have fitting desires that I can help you to achieve."

Hinata and Sasuke looked at each other. Hinata quickly lowered her eyes to the wet forest ground and thought of herself finally being noticed by Naruto... or becoming stronger and a greater heir to the Hyuuga clan.

She looked back up at Sasuke. "...Sasuke?"

"What's the condition?" The Uchiha asked, disregarding Hinata for a moment.

The Shinigami pointed up to the scroll still being suspended in mid-air by the two aged vultures.

"You must both sign that contract and agree to do something for each other in exchange for the wishes, however big or small it might be..."

"B-But how is this all possible?" Hinata asked finally, her voice wavering gingerly. She felt confused and faint, surprised at the sudden turn of events in that day already: suddenly discovering Sasuke, then a Shinigami, who now wanted to grant them wishes. Was this all a dream? Had she just fainted from her prior training by the waterfall and couldn't release herself from this alarming nightmare?

The Shinigami turned his beetle-eyes onto Hinata, the black holes filled purely with amusement.

"Haven't you been told in your Ninja Academies? The First Hokage, who founded the Leaf village, had wished to discover and rule a great land. I granted him this wish and now you are standing in the great land which he had asked for. He would have surely spoken of the great Shinigami, Ryo, who had helped him achieve his dream?"

Sasuke shook his head, smirking slightly.

"Your kind are mainly known for Forbidden Jutsu and death. You can't teach that to Academy children and it's clear that the First Hokage wouldn't have stooped so low as to beguile for this village—he fought hard for this land." The Uchiha Avenger stated. Sasuke then stepped forward and glared intently into Ryo's beady eyes.

"If you're giving us one wish each and there are three wishes, who are you giving the third wish to?"

The Shinigami chuckled, his chilling intone soaking into their blood. "Deceptive young shinobi, that is for you to find out, if you so feel like. I could give it to anyone..."

Suddenly, and with a pang of annoyance, Sasuke realised why Orochimaru had wanted to come to the Leaf village in the first place. He had wanted to try and find this Shinigami, Ryo, and possess one of his wishes or all three of them for whatever evil purposes that he had in mind.

Sasuke closed his eyes. He reopened them and looked at Hinata resolutely.

"We're signing the Contract, Hyuuga."

Hinata's mouth trembled slightly, unsure, but she didn't say anything and merely gulped.

"Don't worry. He's telling the truth—I can tell that he is with my Sharingan. Be happy that you can have anything that you've ever wanted." Sasuke said shortly. He knew his reason for accepting the wish and wanting her to do the same too.

Sasuke hadn't originally had any interest in the wishes. In fact, he had planned on turning them down from the start—there was something about the Shinigami that Sasuke didn't quite trust and he wasn't about to risk anything to find out what.

But now that Sasuke knew why Orochimaru had come there all along, he didn't want the ex-Sanin to get his sinful hands on a single wish. If he and Hinata both accepted the first two, then there was a possibility, however slim, that the Shinigami would quickly give away the third wish to someone who wouldn't use it for corrupt purposes, so that Orochimaru would never get his hands on them, even if he so managed to find Ryo in the end.

He would have wanted to use it to receive real immortality, or something on new levels of evil.

Sasuke opened his eyes. He could not stand the monster doing much worse treacheries. And he had already been planning on commencing his plan to defeat Orochimaru for good soon, so he couldn't allow for interferences like the ex-Sanin getting stronger to obliterate his chances of defeating him either.

The Shinigami curtly chuckled and came forward towards them.

"Touch the parchment and the Contract will be sealed. Expect me to reappear when you have completed the conditions so that I can grant you your wishes, young shinobi."

Hinata's resolve appeared to harden when Sasuke glanced at her. She nodded, her eyes holding a small hint of determination, and stepped forward to touch the parchment first.

It engulfed in bright red fire the moment her fingers touched its surface and she nearly jumped back in shock.

"What was that?" Sasuke demanded darkly, watching the red fire retreat back into the scroll.

"My chakra." Stated the Shinigami simply, his lips rising into a painstaking smile once again. Hinata gave the Shinigami a fleeting, petrified look as she stepped back.

Sasuke came forward and touched the parchment next. He watched with narrowed eyes as the bright red chakra erupted and consequently departed back into the scroll.

The Shinigami grinned wider, showing them his long teeth for the first time.

"There is no time limit for when you need to complete my conditions but I do beg that you will not take two-hundred and fifty years to help each other, or I'm afraid your wishes will no longer be available!"

The blue Shinigami cackled at his own joke and vanished into thin air, the Contract scroll and the two aged vultures disappearing along with him.

Although he was gone, at least, as far as they could see, his voice still reached their ears for one last reminder.

"...The Contract permanently holds your names as the owners of the first two wishes. No one else can retrieve them from you however powerful they think they are."

Sasuke said nothing in the silence that followed.

But of course, Orochimaru doesn't know that. Sasuke mused darkly, as he stared into the dense forest darkness. If he finds out that we have the wishes, he'll go through any means to get them from us... experimentation to the darkest manipulation of the Curse Seal...

Sasuke turned to Hinata, so suddenly that he realised he may have scared her.

She's a strange girl, Sasuke thought, but otherwise remained impassive when he spoke to her.

"Meet me here again tomorrow, by sunrise. Don't bring anyone with you."

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