Not many people knew this, but sometimes even the coldest of faces and the stoniest of hearts were only facades. A scowl could merely be an awkward lapse of social aptitude, a glare similarly misinterpreted as a show of menace when it could just as likely be an unfortunately timed symptom of interpersonal retardation. What one believed to be killer intent may as well be just a sudden blast of self-consciousness. A bloody sword in the face could instead be a shaky salutation of some sort, horrifyingly misleading as the gesture was. Expounding upon this notion, nothing from any such specimen of apparent negativity and evil could be taken point-blank.
This is what Hinata Hyuuga believed she learned the day she found herself in the arms of one Sasuke Uchiha.
It was a completely foreign feeling to be enfolded in his arms, carefully tucked against his cool body like a coveted treasure of some sort; she'd been almost completely certain that the sensation was some variation of mirage caused by chakra depletion or extreme thirst. She was bent more towards the former, as the rain slowly trickling about her body and into her slightly open mouth soothed all of her desire for water quite satisfactorily. Her chakra levels, however, were dangerously low and even though her Byakugan was deactivated she could tell that there were some blockages in her system that were preventing her from escaping her current circumstances. She even questioned her chances of outliving the situation.
He was uncharacteristically gentle despite his face remaining a stone solid mask of stoicism, his strides fluid so as to not disturb her, but she was sure that it was only because he had no idea who she was or even what she truly was. The wind lightly batted at her face as he ran across the deserted wastelands, probably already miles from the obscure little village he had lifted her from just an hour ago, and she tried hard to stay still, hoping that perhaps the dark-haired man holding her would eventually forget her presence and release her.
A sudden lightning strike flashed through the dark sky and a responding bolt of furious thunder shook the air. Hinata flinched at the terrible sound, the echoing aftershock ringing in her sensitive ears and her delicate head ached. Forgetting her plan, she squirmed uncomfortably against the rock hard abdomen she was held to and hissed in pain when one of her broken legs was jostled by her shifting.
A large hand patted her head gingerly as an awkward attempt at comfort, but Hinata was probably more discomfited by the action than by her physical pain. Large silvery eyes looked upwards cautiously, but his own pitch black ones remained steadfast and glaring at the nonexistent pathway stretching towards the mountains in the horizon. She was about to edge her head away from the hand as best she could but then his fingers became more confident, rubbing at her ear soothingly, and she soon found herself – to her horror – nearly vibrating with pleasure at his caress.
She looked up again and saw a faint smirk glimmering on his pale lips even when his eyes maintained their customary stale glaze. Hinata stiffened, trying to break from the state of pure bliss his touch had given her, and her tail twitched distractedly.
Had she been human at that moment, she would have undoubtedly blushed a thousand variations of red and perhaps explored some shades of violet before collapsing into a comatose state, but alas, she was not a human at that particular moment and was incapable of performing according to her perceived character.
Instead, her traitorous body mustered another purr and edged closer to the Uchiha's pale fingers.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
Her mind whirled with an excess of emotions, the most prominent of which was utter horror. She could barely remember what had happened to her, just flashes of enemy shinobi surrounding her squadron and a sudden blast of chakra coursing through her every pore. She recalled the sharp pain she had felt all over her body and in her bones, like steel needles slicing through every nerve she had from in her skin to the deepest reaches of her inner tissues, and the strange feeling of being compressed until she could barely breathe. White fire had licked at her from the inside-out and even now there was a slight after burn thankfully contained in her thoracic cavity.
But even as some invisible flame melted and re-forged her entire skeletal system, the exterior of her body felt like it was being bathed in polar ice. Her legs wouldn't hold up the storm of fire and ice nor could any other limb make movements beyond twitches of agony, so she had found herself on the hard stone floor of what looked like a run-down teahouse for what seemed like many hours with only the capacity of squirming helplessly like a fish out of water.
She couldn't remember the presence of her captors or the ones who had tortured her so ruthlessly, but she did know that she couldn't sense her teammates or any other shinobi in the decrepit teashop as she lay on the ground writhing pathetically. There was no noise – not even her own screams, which she was sure she had let out – and only the heaviness of silence became her burden in addition to the discomfort she already experienced.
The tempest brewing inside of her had only just dimmed down when a flash of lightning burned through her pupils and the sound of rain sloshing down streets and gutters came into her ears.
Surprised at this new development and relieved that she hadn't gone deaf, she had raised her face from the floor as gently as she could to see who or what had brought in the sudden influx of sound but once again lowered her eyes when she realized that hooded strangers had invaded the emptiness of the teahouse. The sudden spike in chakra in the air was noticeable and she knew that they were all ninja of impeccable caliber, possibly more refined than her own skill-level. Wondering if she should be more worried that they were the ones who had done this to her or if they had worse intentions, she weakly attempted to wriggle to a more sheltering area of the teahouse floor.
Unfortunately, at that very moment when she attempted to find a darker corner to hide in, one of the hooded figures swiped a lazy hand across the hood and a black head of hair peeked out from under the rough cloth. Hinata squinted, wondering why this particular head looked nostalgic.
Something about their appearance was strange, however; they seemed taller, stronger, and more intimidating than what they should have appeared. Of course, Hinata normally saw S-class missing nin as impossible fixtures of power scarcely less frightening than a lightning storm aimed at only her, but this time it was like Susanoo himself hurling divine retribution unto her. Needless to say, she was utterly terrified by their sudden interference in the midst of her mission especially since she then recognized the lightless charcoal eyes suddenly raking over her prone form with a terrifyingly emotionless gaze.
Letting out a squeak that sounded devastatingly more undignified than even what she was accustomed to when dealing with Naruto, Hinata had attempted to hurriedly drag her somehow nonresponsive lower torso and attached limbs under a rickety table or freakishly large chair but then realized that her forearms were almost just as incapacitated and a shock of new pain charged through a strange appendage she never realized existed somewhere near her hindquarters.
A strange glint entered Uchiha Sasuke's voided eyes and Hinata prayed fervently that it wasn't a signal that he was heading towards a killing-spree or something along those lines. He came closer, slowly, as if trying not to disturb a weakened animal – prey, she thought helplessly as she squirmed under his glare – before pouncing and killing the unfortunate creature mercilessly. She trembled as he walked up to her and then kneeled to her level with the strangest expression on his usually blank face.
It seemed like his facial muscles were in battle amongst each other, his lips twitching miniscule movements and his eyebrows furrowed slightly. She wouldn't have noticed these obscure details if she hadn't been a kunoichi or a Hyuuga trained from birth to see, but the fact that his infamous Noh mask had cracked just a bit shocked her utterly. And to augment her horror, his statue-like face was ironically more animated than Hinata had ever seen it.
"Sasuke-kun?"
Red hair peeked out from another hood and curious scarlet eyes met Hinata's for a scant moment.
"What a raggedy little thing," the girl with spectacles said with a tint of derision. "Let's go get some dango or something. Suigetsu's getting a bit edgy."
"Hn."
"Sasuke-kun?"
It was then when he turned his head and thankfully reattached his intrusive gaze at something other than Hinata herself. Something in the stone eyes must've disturbed the other girl enough for her to giggle uneasily and scurry off towards the other hooded figures, all the while promising the Uchiha a hot cup of tea and some red-bean dango.
When he re-concentrated himself on staring at her – with her still lying helplessly on her belly like some kind of upturned tortoise or snail – she realized that something was infinitely wrong. His expression was still unreadable and the small flickers of motion at the corners of his lips and eyes made her wonder if he recognized her, if he knew she was a Konoha ninja, if he figured he should just kill her and end her suffering.
But alas, he didn't suddenly have an epiphany about any of the above.
He instead slowly reached for her head with a very large, calloused, and ultimately very intimidating hand.
She flinched but he didn't stop his careful survey of her head, fingers that were capable of ending her gently rubbing at her hair and her ears –
Ears?
Now, Hinata couldn't say she was the best of students at the Academy but she could claim that her knowledge of the human anatomy was rather satisfactory due to the basic chakra-point locations her Byakugan training had made her aware of. And as far as she knew, as a human, she was to have a pair of ears on either side of her head and not on top.
Oh gods…
She forced herself to look into the usually fathomless, lightless eyes of the man patting her head and was utterly surprised at the two things she found in his gaze.
One, his eyes maintained that strange glimmer she had seen before and now seemed to have a very reflective quality in them.
Two, what she assumed was her own reflection peering out of his black eyes was not quite what she expected.
She saw a cat with dark fur and shaky lavender eyes staring back in terror before finally letting herself succumb to unconsciousness.