The four robed shinobi walked underneath pale blue, almost grey sky. The wind whipped their cloaks back every timed it barred its fangs and howled its angry sound. A whistle, more like, the sort of screech that sounded when one tried to cut glass. One that was only ever naturally heard in the mountains.
It was starting to make Hinata's head hurt.
This was supposed to be a Jōnin assignment, but she wasn't sure why.
The mission was fairly simple, albeit almost annoyingly repetitive in its nature.
Everything looked exactly the same up here, because they'd walked so far north that no matter where she looked, no matter how far into the distance she tried to see, all that there was to see was white. Snow. Icy lakes with snow atop them. Leafless trees to their rear, all with snow clinging to their branches. Mountains, like the one that they were treading up now, which were covered in the fluffy white stuff.
It had been bliss when they'd first gotten off of the boats, because the times when snow would fall in Konoha, even in the middle of the winter, were far and few between. It hadn't even rained last year, nor in January this year, but it was spring and somehow these lands were buried in it. It had been astonishing, such that she could hardly contain the giddy excitement that came from seeing so much of the powdery substance in one that.
Their mission was lead by the Uchiha.
All three of them, Team Kakashi, were Jōnin, though Hinata herself was in the process of becoming one, and she was sure that her father had a special arrangement with the Hokage. Because all with all of the paperwork, weekly exams, and meetings with ANBU Agents to see rather she was interested in joining the Black Ops, it seemed like her rank had been predetermined. This wasn't at all what she'd have expected, however.
The assignment had originally been given to Team 7, of course, but Sasuke had asked her if she'd like to come. He'd said something along the lines of: "I don't want to be stuck with Sakura and Naruto, and you're the only person I could think of who isn't annoying." But, for the majority of their expedition he hadn't spoken to her. They chatted a little on the boat, though. Small talk. Just a friendly exchange while they leaned on the rails and watched the icy water, about Naruto and Sakura, strangely. Ever since he'd come back to Konoha he'd become a bit nicer than she thought possible. She felt oddly comfortable speaking to him, because he seemed to be able to understand her in a way that no-one else did.
She stopped walking once Sasuke lifted his cloth-wrapped, left hand. His onyx eyes resting on a distant beacon of light, a beam that broke the clouds above it, for a moment before Naruto brought a hand up to his shoulder. When their eyes met, they exchanged non-compatible looks with one another, the blond giving a grin and the Uchiha narrowing his eyes.
"Tired already, Sasuke?"
"No." The dark eyed Jōnin returned his gaze to the white landscape below them. "How long do you think it'll take to get there?"
A short silence followed, and from the sudden change in mood that was visible in Naruto's eyes as well as his now straight, strong posture, she assumed that he was accessing the distance. If she used her Byakugan, the woman knew that she would be able to see those muscles... But she had been so lost staring at Naruto that she hadn't even noticed Sakura's elbow nudging hers, the pinkette's voice ringing in her head to snap her from the daze she hadn't known that she'd slipped into.
"Hinata? Are you listening to me?"
The Hyūga nodded quickly and gave a halfhearted laugh, a small, sheepish smile finding its way to her lips while she rubbed her gloved hands together, her cheeks reddening from the cold. Her soft spoken voice came out in puffs of fog, and her lilac eyes met the deeper, emerald ones of the Haruno.
"Hai... What did you say, again?"
A sound skin to a pouting whimper left Sakura's glazed lips and she folded her arms, watching the Hyūga from beneath her lashes. "If you like him so much why don't you-"
Hinata's hands flew to cover the pinkette's mouth and she shushed her repeatedly, though the other kunoichi kept talking under her hands. Her muffled speaking added a deeper red to that which was already present, but this one was all blush.
"A-are you c-c-crazy?" The heiress hissed, or rather tried to hiss, her stammering keeping her from being even a little intimidating. "He's right there..."
She felt Sakura sigh under her hands and, after careful consideration, lowered them from the other woman's small lips. "Sasuke needs a girl to dote on him." The green eyed kunoichi whispered, batting her eyelashes ever so innocently and pushing out her lower lip teasingly. When Hinata didn't answer, her eyebrows raised a little, a look of confusion starting to bleed together with the façade of naïveté she'd been trying to keep up. "You were staring at him... right?"
"N... no..."
It would have felt so much worse to lie, but even admitting that she hadn't been watching Sasuke made her feel horrible. Now... she was well aware that the Uchiha was startlingly handsome, and she wouldn't deny having given him a glance here and there when he'd come back to the village. She'd watched him grow into the young man he was now from a far, from the confused, hormonal mess of a nigh-bipolar teen he'd been a few years ago. But she had never... NEVER stared at him.
But it wasn't the momentary, inner thought that she'd subjected herself to that had gotten her to stutter a continuance of her previous proclamation, it was the way that Sakura furrowed her brows upon hearing it. As though she were able to see straight through to the Hyūga's very soul. Such a suddenly serious glare that the dark haired woman turned her eyes away as she spoke. Ino had teased her about Sakura and Naruto spending more time together in the last few months, and had even suggested that they might be dating, but Hinata had vehemently denied it. Now she doubted herself on it.
"I was just... wondering how they'd gotten so friendly..."
She felt the glaring lighten up, and lifted her eyes to see that the pinkette's grinning had come back. The Haruno brought her hand up and rubbed the back of her head, in a way surprisingly similar to how Naruto would. Sakura's demeanour had changed so quickly that Hinata couldn't properly return the smile she received, and the Jōnin hooked an arm around her shoulders and tugged her aside.
"They tried killing each other as soon as they could move their arms." Her grinning hadn't ceased when her speaking began, "But I think they got tired of beating each other up and called a truce, or something. I haven't seen Sasuke around much, but Naruto is always trying to run off to train with him." Sakura glanced over her shoulder and sighed, "They have some sort of unspoken rivalry, so they tolerate each other for the sake of fighting."
"Oh..." the heiress twiddled her fingers in front of herself, her eyes dropping down to the ground in front of her. "I... I see..." She touched the tips of her index fingers together, her eyes flicking up when she felt Sakura's gaze on her again. The meeting of their eyes was short, but watching the deep green irises of her senior shinobi eased the tension that the heiress felt. If even just a little.
"You haven't changed at all, Hinata."
It was the damn wind.
The sound of it, that whistle that he thought he'd be numb to by now, and the needle-like cold that was stabbing the shit out of all the exposed skin that it could get its claws on. There were no words that could describe how much he hated this journey, and it had only just began. Sakura's giggling just a few metres behind him didn't help, either, and nor did the utterly insipid jests that Naruto made to her delight.
He'd made a good choice in bringing the Hyūga, because she was quiet. And, probably as unimpressed as he was.
Sasuke took a backward glimpse at the lavender eyed young woman, and one that didn't go unnoticed. She lifted her eyes the instant that his found her, and a small smile curved her full lips. The Jōnin waved her over, and the Chūnin, who'd moments earlier been walking apart from the group, picked up her pace until she was at his side.
"You know that you can talk to me, if you're uncomfortable with them, right Hyūga?"
She nodded, replying with a short "Hai" and looking up to him.
Her lilac eyes held his this time, and the Uchiha, feeling a bit of an adrenaline-like rush beginning to build in himself, cleared his throat and turned his obsidian gaze elsewhere, looking toward their destination in the north, which didn't seem to be getting any closer. There was something about this woman that he found unsettling, though it wasn't necessarily bad. Her innocent composure and gentle, quiet way of carrying herself, sparked an innate interest in her that he had held since their Academy days, but had always denied fervently due to his goals.
But now that he had no tangible justification for it, and the Haruno and Yamanaka had both moved on from him, he supposed he could satiate the long dormant hunger for understanding that he bore toward her. And he knew that as long as Sakura occupied the dobe, she would be easy to poke at. It'd be fun.
Sasuke folded his left arm over his chest and lifted her right hand to his chin, lowering his eyes to her again, and not being so surprised when her lavender eyes found his. Those eyes were full of mystery and wonder, and a naïve purity that he found a sudden need to keep to himself.
And he very well would.
"What's it like?"
A slight tilt of her her and the way that Hinata's lovely lilac eyes shone under the light of the distant, setting sun changed, just a little. Confusion came first, and then a bit of interest flashed in them. "Elaborate, Uchiha-san?"
The Uchiha nodded and spoke again. "Given that you're the Hyūga princess, you must be treated like one at home. What's it like to have legions of Hyūga doting on you?"
For a moment she stared up to him with raised eyebrows, but the sweet smile returned to her lips in an instant. The heiress lifted her hand and waved the comment away. If she took the comment as a compliment, he didn't intend for it to be. "It's nothing like that at all." She admitted, her tone shifting a bit before she spoke again. Her voice bearing a subtle, curious lilt.
The majority of her questions were rather tame. She had asked him about his travelling across the Shinobi World, and about Team Taka. The Hyūga seemed far more interested in Uzumaki Karin than anything else, and he supposed that it was justified. This woman was infatuated with Naruto, after all, and she seemed too timid to talk to him. More so with Sakura clinging to his arm the way that she tended to do. She asked about his Sharingan, and how it worked, how he used his Rinnegan.
And then she asked him to show her.
He hadn't actually used it since his battle with Naruto, and with the First Hokage's cells in him he had no idea if his Rinnegan was even the same as he remembered. He even questioned rather or not he could still use it, because in his sparring sessions with Naruto he hadn't thought to pull it out again. His Eternal Mangekyō had been enough whenever the dobe wasn't using Rikudō chakra.
Sasuke politely declined.
Much to her disappointment. She had a strangely uncharacteristic allure about her, and it didn't seem like she was trying, either. It appeared to be natural for her. Maybe it came from her being raised among the Hyūga. His parents had told him about their traditional values, and strict rules, and his mother had often told him that she dreamed of what it may be like to be raised that way, rather than in the Laissez-faire environment that the Uchiha Clan tended to keep.
"You know, Uchiha-san..." His dark eyes shifted down to her again, to find that her pearl gaze was turned to the distance. He followed her gaze out to the beacon that they'd been following for hours, and for a moment wondered why they were walking. "You're a lot nicer than I thought..."
...
What?
As soon as Sasuke realised that his mouth was agape, and his eyes locked on her again, he pressed his lips into a firm line and composed himself again. Silence followed, and in that silence he found it a bit harder to stop staring at her than it had been before. Her light eyes came again, but this time he immediately averted his focus. The little laugh that managed to escape those perfect lips made him hate that he'd never taken the time to talk to her, before. It was a better, softer laugh than Sakura's or Ino's.
"You have an interesting face, Uchiha-san.."
A second round of silence ensued, and this one stretched on for a few minutes while they walked, nothing but the combined howls of the wind and the laughter of the Haruno and the Uzumaki just a few metres behind them. Maybe, he thought before speaking, his comment was a bit late.
"Dōmo, Hyūga."
They were on level ground, now, and were nearing a forest of barren trees. There seemed to be very little life up here, and it was reasonable given the climate, but the lack of any sounds outside of the group of shinobi and the wind still came off as quite unsettling to her. Night had fallen an hour ago, and the already freezing temperature had plummeted. Even tucking her hands under her arms didn't do much to warm her.
The Uchiha ahead of her, just a little more than a metre, didn't seem at all effected, and nor did Naruto who walked at his side. If they were talking, then she was certain her ears had chilled through because she didn't hear them. The sound of crunching snow underfoot, however, was still very apparent to her, so that probably wasn't the case.
Not too long ago Naruto had suggested that they find somewhere to set up camp. "In this tundra?" She remembered Sasuke asking, a sideways look directed at the blond who, in turn, patted his back and assured him that they'd find a way. She loved that about Naruto. His optimism always inspired her to push forward, even when she felt that it was useless to do so, and his energetic demeanour always gave her to drive to go to great lengths to achieve her goals.
There were no natural shelters for miles, and by the time that they'd finally come upon one Hinata was so utterly intoxicated by exhaustion that she didn't question a cave conveniently being present just as she was starting to blink in and out of sleep. The heiress simply trusted it, just as she accepted the Uchiha taking a seat at her side, both him and herself sitting across from Naruto and Sakura.
Drunk off of her fatigue, and maybe the sweet aroma inside the cave, she almost thought that they looked cute together.
Almost.
A shiver passed over her and she hugged herself again, tugging her legs up to her chest and resting her chin on her knees. Despite her being so tired that she felt as if she could drift away in an instant, sleep refused to come. The piercing cold was too much. It went straight through her robes and her jacket as if she weren't wearing them at all, and it managed to sink its cold teeth into every inch of bare skin that it could find on her body.
"Are you cold, Hyūga?"
Her head came to rest on his shoulder when she spoke to answer, her mind to muddled by the need to sleep for her to constitute herself in a manner any more formal than was absolutely necessary. "Hai..." she replied, and felt his arm come around her. The Uchiha drew her in, pulling her closer until she was in his lap with both of his arms wrapped around her waist.
Sasuke's voice bore a slight chuckle, and at the sound of it Hinata was suddenly glad that the Uzumaki and Haruno were so quick to sleep. She was glad because despite her possibly being to tired to speak anything more than a word or two at a time, what he told her brought an undying flame to fruition in her cheeks, and caused her heart to pound so hard that she knew he felt it, too.
"Then I'll warm you up..."