Title: Dreams of Ice and Blood
Series: Naruto... kinda
Author: Snow Tigra
Note: MAJOR NOTE!
Ok, all who came in for a Naruto fic, this is your warning. This fic is for the Harem RPG, and explains the background of Haku. Yes, this is an AU. It's meant to be close, but not exact, because it fits in the world of the Bishonen Harem. But it should still stand pretty much on it's own. Anyway, enjoy. Some spoilers for Naruto, but they are cleverly disgused as AU plot points.
Dreams of Ice and Blood
Part 1
The power was in the eyes.
That's how my mother knew, she once told me, because my eyes were the same color as hers. Not the same deep violet of my father, but rather the muddy red color that resembled blood in the moon light. That was the color of my eyes, and my mother's.
**
"Haku!"
The little boy jumped in surprise as his mother slapped his hands harshly, sending the strange floating ball of water he'd been playing with out of his hands. The water splashed across the snow covered ground, and the boy stumbled down after it, in surprise from his mother's action. His hands stung from the slap and he immediatly curled up, not understanding his mother's outburst.
"I was just... playing..." he murmured in a small excuse.
"Never! Play with that again! Do you hear? I never want to see you play with that again! Never again! Never..."
Haku glanced up and watched with wide and confused eyes as his mother's angry screaming melted into sobs and trembling. The woman sank to the ground, her words disappearing as tears began to flow down her face. Haku immeidatly forgot his reddened hands and the slap, and crawled over to her in the snow. He crawled up into her lap and hugged her tightly, with forgiveness only a child could bestow.
"I'm sorry, mommy. I won't do it again, I promise. Please don't cry. Please."
The woman continued to sob softly and pulled her child into her arms, hugging him close as she began to calm down. The tears died away soon enough and her hold on him relaxed as she began to gently run her hand over his hair, smoothing it down. Haku made no objection as he knew his mother seemed to take comfort in this simple movement.
"I'm sorry mommy." He just repeated softly.
"No, it's not your fault Haku. Not your fault at all. I'm sorry I hit you, I shouldn't have."
Haku pulled back and looked down at his hands, noticing that the red marks were now mostly gone from her hitting him. He looked up at his mother as she wiped her eyes and gave a very soft and sweet smile. "It ok, see? They don't hurt anymore."
His mother blinked in surprise, then couldn't resist returning her own small smile. In apologee she lifted his hands and kissed each of them very softly, which only made her son smile more. Then her expression became more serious.
"You do have my eyes."
Haku blinked and looked into his mother's eyes in question.
"Haku, honey, listen to me. You must never play with the water like that again. It's a very special power, and it's a secret that only you and I can keep. We can not tell daddy, or anyone else."
"Why can't we tell daddy?"
The woman's expression turned sad. "Because Daddy will become afraid. People like us, with this power, get hurt, Haku. So we have to be quiet, and keep the secret."
The little boy remained silent for a long time, considering his mother's words, then he nodded. "I promise mommy, I'll never tell."
Haku's mother smiled at him, pulling him close in a hug. Haku relaxed in the hug, taking comfort in his mother's arms. He didn't understand why they had to keep it a secret, he was too young to, but it didn't matter while he was in his mother's arms. He always loved to be held by her, and would forgive anything, as long as she would hold him again. With her, he felt safe.
After a long moment she let go of her son and both stood up to step into the house. Haku kept held of his mother's hand as they moved toward the house, quite happy for the moment. Sadly that happiness didn't last, for in the next moment she was dead.
The sound of cracking ice screamed into his ears without any warning and his mother's hand was suddenly torn from his grip. Haku whirled around to face her and was assaulted with a vision his young mind could never have imagined.
All around him, surronding him on every side, were razorsharp pillars of ice, spearing into the sky and everything around him with a horrible intensity. As he watched even more ice pillars and spears shot out of the ground. But he wasn't watching those. Instead his young eyes were locked on his mother, who was now speared through in numerous placed with different sized ice spears, her blood dripping to dye the snow and ice below.
**
I bolted up in bed quickly, my eyes snapping open from the sudden dream. For a moment all I could see was the haunting image of my mother hanging from the towers of ice in front of me, then slowly the image melted away to reveal the darkness in the room surrounding me. The room around me faded into view, revealing the stark quarters in which i was staying. A bed to sleep on, no more then a mat, and a small table to sit at and eat, nothing else donned the room.
Sitting up in bed I wiped the very small amount of sweat which had beaded across my forehead, other then that there were no signs of the nightmare. The dream had long since stopped bothering me, perhaps I just didn't care anymore.
I stood up from the bed and rolled up the mat, then went about changing into my clothes. I left my Shinobi outfit folded next to the bed, opting not to wear it at the moment and instead dressed myself in a simple kimono with a tie around the waist. I left my hair down, letting myself enjoy the small freedom of not being on a mission, then exited the room, my Shiobi mask still resting next to my bed as the door closed behind me.
I didn't need to wear my mask when I didn't have a mission, so it usually sat back in my room. And yet, even without the mask, without my needles and puppet master string the other Shinobi around me backed away, always a little too scared to get any closer. I was the best in the camp, or so it was whispered. I was the best out of all of them, and only Gaara wasn't afraid of me, in spite of my feminine style clothing that I wore when i wasn't on a mission. Not even the kind girls would speak with me. Because Haku was someone to be feared.
I made my way to the sand garden where Gaara usually stayed. Our leader didn't have a room, he meerly spent his nights sitting atop a large boulder surrounded by a garden of perfectly smoothed sand that no one dared step into. Gaara was a sand demon, to step into his sand was to invite death in a matter of seconds.
As usual Gaara sat there, his short and unevenly cut red hair laying in disregard which ever way it wanted. A red symbol rested over one side of his forehead, whispered to be a seal of some sort, though no one really knew for sure. And as usual his eyes were darkened around the edges from lack of sleep. One of the great mysteries of the Shinobi, Gaara was the Shinobi who never aged and never slept, having been our leader since perhaps the Shinobi began.
"Enjoy your rest?" His dry voice asked as I approached. I meerly stopped to stand on the edge of his sand garden and gave a single nod. He usually greeted me as such, and I'd long since given up wondering if he counted dream reading as one of his abilities.
Gaara moved just slightly on the rock, turning to face me with mischeviously tilted eyes. "And what does the master Shinobi Haku dream about?"
"Ice and blood." I responded in a nuetral voice, not caring.
Gaara chuckled just a little, then moved his fingers, the sand below one of his hands beginning to swirl. "You have a new mission."
I nodded and turned my attention to the swirling sad as it began to take form into a human shape, completely to scale. As I watched a large figure came into view, an older man with horns and a beard. I know my eyes narrowed just slightly.
"My new mission is to kill King Enma?"
Gaara chuckled at my reation. "No. He has hired us. Or, more specifically, he has hired you. Only the best for the lord of the Reikai." Gaara's words held a tinge of laughter, as if he found that small saying amusing in some way. I only watched quietly, waiting to hear if there was more.
"Lord Enma has hired you to protect his son and his family."
I nodded.
The sand form melted back down to the garden, smoothing out as if nothing had happened. Gaara moved to walk past me, then stopped, his hand brushing over my shoulder in a light touch. Unconsiously I stepped back from his touch, surprised at it. I may be the Shinobi that everyone else feared, but there were those who scared me as well. Gaara being one of them.
Gaara noticed my reaction and glanced over his shoulder at me, an amused look crossing his face. Then he walked away, not saying another word. I didn't turn to watch his back, instead I walked away from him in the other direction.
Only when i'd reached my room did I realize that I'd walked straight through his sand garden and left my foot prints among the white grains. No doubt I'd recieve a punishment for that when i came back from my mission.
**
The Shinobi were originally created in the Spirit World. Granted, now there are 'groups' of Shinobi all over the three world, each quite deadly in it's own way, but the original Shinobi still reside in the Spirit World, in one of the back corners where no one would ever dare to disturb us. Even Lord Enma wouldn't dare to kick us out, even though we are the only group of people in his world who are not dead or in his employ.
Children are abondoned in every world. The Ningenkai. The Reikai. The Makai. The Netherworld. All worlds have children which are abondoned for some reason or another and left to fend for themselves, or die. No one is really sure who started it, but someone along the way discovered that children who are abondoned or left alone are clean slates and are very impressionable. After all, a child who has nothing, will do nearly anything once they've realize how unforgiving the world is to those who have nothing. Offer them food and a roof over their heads and they'll do anything you need them to, because they know they can't live without those two things. And for those who's parents kicked them out, or were killed, there is a deep well of anger which can be tapped and aimed at the right people, if one knows how to mold it.
Someone learned these facts, and someone put them to use long ago. And now, it is common practise. All abandoned children become Shinobi, if no one else takes interest in their plight first.
Myself?
My parents were killed in front of me. My mother abandoned me to my father, trying to save herself and he turned around and killed her. To escape with my life I did what any child would do with powers like mine, I killed them.
Ice and blood.
I arrived at Lord Enma's palace in the center of the Spirit World by myself, as the suns over head blazed through the clouds. Clouds covered nearly everything near the palace, bathing it in an etheral light that added to the effect. It was the world of the dead, everything was supposed to look whispy and sheer like the ghosts and spirits most think about. The effect was nice, but completely untrue. For most dead spirits are solid in the Spirit World. It's the Netherworld which holds those without bodies, that is in fact their specialty.
For example, the guards standing in front of the gates were very solid, with their weapons, watching the pathways with sharp eyes and even sharper reflexes. Apparently not sharp enough though. In spite of the fact that the cloud which covered my enterance didn't quite reach the gates, I was able to approach the gate and scale the large wall which surrounded the palace, without a single guard catching wind of my presence. The Shinobi never entered through the front door and were never introduced properly to their employers. Sneaking into their employer's home was perhaps part of the hiring process, for if you can't get past you're allie's guards, how do you expect to get past those of their enemy?
I passed numerous guards on my way up to Enma's office, none of which noticed me. The one complication came when I entered the main chamber, which was set up more like a Ningenkai office area then anything else, desks and papers flying about as the various workers scurried back and forth. This normally wouldn't have created a problem, except that I had to pass through this chaos to reach the one door which connected to Enma's windowless office. And oddly, the chaos was more challenging then the saturation of guards from the doorway.
Stepping back from the office area I disappeared further down the hallway until I was sure I was out of sight and not in a place where I could be glimpsed, then I closed my eyes and concentrated, pressing my fingers together in a symbol.
For a moment there was nothing, then I began to hear the air around me roaring in my ears. I visualized the space around me, exactly as the hallway and as my visualization became more detailed, the air seemed to scream around me more. The roaring raised to an almost deafening volume, but I ignored it, still concentrating. And then, suddenly, the sound was gone. The deafening roar disappeared along with any sound around me, including all feeling in my body. There was nothing, simply the feeling of floating, and yet no feeling at all. No sight, no sound, no taste, no smell, no touch... nothing.
I visualized the office area with the scurrying chaos of different workers and began visualizing myself floating without form toward the doors. Once I reached the doors I easily passed through them, and at that moment I broke my fingers apart, severing the spell which I'd just cast. The room shattered back around me, along with all of my senses suddenly coming back to life. The shock of such a change could have easily sent me to unconciousness, had I not been practising this technique for the last five years. Instead, I simply opened my eyes beneath my mask.
I found Lord Enma sitting at his desk. His posture was caught somewhere between alarm and pleasure as he was surprised to see me, yet very pleased that I'd apparently passed his little test. Not that it was much of a test at all, in fact, something like that was child's play.
"Haku, I presume."
I nodded and stepped forward up to his desk, giving a slight nod of my head in silent greeting. Though my eye sight was limited by the mask, I could easily sense his powerful presence in the room. His presence was so thick it could have lit of the room, had it been visable. And I also felt the presence in the next room over, that of a younger form, and yet... it was very much the same as Enma's.
Almost like a part of him.
I said nothing, but simply filed that away for use later, if needed.
"Very impressive, for a Shinobi. Now, Gaara tells me you are the best, but you certainly don't appear any different from the rest of the Shinobi I've met. Please, sit down so that we may talk. You may remove your mask. In fact, I insist that you do. I would prefer to know your face."
I frowned at that request, but didn't protest. Instead I did as he asked and stepped back, removing my mask, though I declined the use of a chair, electing instead to remain standing.
"Now I see," he murmured a bit, when he saw my face and the blank expression. I didn't know what he was refering to, but gathered it was something he'd heard from Gaara. It didn't concern me. I simply waited for him to give me what my orders would be while I was in his employ. Once, when I'd first been a Shinobi, I asked questions. Now I realized that asking no questions usually placed others on edge, and it gave you an advantage over them. one that was very useful, especially against those employers who were foolhearty enough to think of backstabbing the Shinobi. A very foolish notion indeed.
"Well then, I suppose you'll want to know your job."
I nodded once.
Lord Enma stood up and stepped away from the desk, leading me toward the other door, and also toward the other presense. I simply followed, replacing my mask as I stepped into the room.
The room before me was a bedroom, decorated lavishly with hanging clothes and a large bed nearly in the center, the headboard against one wall. The walls themselves were a deep red, set off by the bright colors of cloth which were draped all around. At first glance the room reminded me of some sort of harem, far too large to just be suited to one person. But then, royalty of all worlds loved to be lavish in their excessiveness.
Lying on the bed, curled up tightly under the blankets, was a boy, looking to be older then me, but only by five years or so. His sleeping expression looked troubled as he stayed curled up in a ball and I imediatly reconized the Jr symbol on his head. The boy whom I was now looking at was Lord Koenma, Lord Enma's son. I frowned just slightly under my mask at his condition. He didn't look well and I reconized that expression from my own experience. The moment he woke up, he'd try to bolt for the door. I had no desire to be around and see how his father would react.
"Your job will be to safe guard myself, as long as my son."
I gave a small nod, tearing my eyes away from Koenma. Gaara knew about my past and yet he still assigned me a job like this. I had to wonder if it was another one of his endless tests which he used to keep the Shinobi in line. Most likely.
Having recieved my orders I decided it was time to leave. Turning away from Lord Enma, I exited the room, keeping my walk steady and yet still listening. He made no move to stop me and that seemed enough. So I simply stepped out into his office and left a small icicle on the wall to help me listen in, before I walked out of the office to find a corner of the palace where I could stay myself and not be disturbed.
**
"Hey, kid."
The young boy glanced up from where he was crouched on the floor. Ragged and pale, he seemed to perfectly match the snow covering the ground around him, his skin almost blending in. He wore a simple ragged shirt and a pair of loose pants, with holes and the edges torn, smudged with dirt. And Gaara noticed the boy was excessivly thin, even for his age.
Gaara had seen so many abandoned children in his life, that he really didn't care, he simply observed their characteristics with a seemingly uncaring eye. And he would have done the same with this kid, had he not noticed something pecular. In spite of this boy's condition, there was still a light of life in his eyes. His grey eyes didn't hold the hatred from one who'd been kicked out, nor the lonelyness of being shunned by an entire villiage. Nor did he hold the sadness of those who had lost their parents, but rather his eyes were still lit with life, and pure innocence, something that was usually destroyed by such events. Oddly, apparently that wasn't true with this boy.
Gaara's lip twisted in a slight smile. How interesting.
"Do you have a name?"
The boy nodded, rubbing his eyes a bit. He didn't shiver from the cold, even though most of his skin was covered with ice. In fact the ice seemed to cling to his skin in a light cover, almost looking protective in a way. Gaara blinked at that and glanced at the boy's eyes again, watching them carefully as he answered.
"Haku," he said softly.
"Are you hungry?"
Haku blinked in surprise and his face seemed to light up just a bit as he nodded.
Gaara sat down in the snow next to him and pulled open his side pack, pulling out a large piece of bread. He broke it in half and offered both pieces to Haku, for him to pick which one he wanted. To his surprise, the thin boy actually took the smaller of the pieces and slowly began to nibble at it, not woofing it down like most of the children he'd met.
"You're a Shinobi, aren't you?" Haku asked softly after a moment, still working on eating the bread.
"If you know that, then why are you still sitting here?"
Haku shrugged. "Shinobi kill. And Shinobi take away children. You take away children and teach them to kill, don't you?"
Gaara watched Haku out of the corner of his eye, unable to hide the amused expression on his face, which appeared as more of a devilish tilt on his lips. "Yes. Aren't you afraid I'll take you too?"
Haku shook his head and stopped eating. "I can kill."
"Oh, so you want to kill?"
"No. But I can."
Gaara puzzled at the boy next to him, not quite comprehending what he was saying. The boy was refering to himself as a tool, as an actual weapon, rather then a person. Perhaps he had misinterpretted the look in Haku's eyes. The expressions he witnessed now reminded him of the older Shinobi, and other older assassins whom he had killed. Those who no longer saw a worth in themselves other then what they could be used to accomplish. And yet, that still went against the purity he could see reflected in this boy's eyes.
Was he truely that innocent to what he was?
"Would you like to be useful, boy?" Gaara asked in a low voice.
Haku nodded once and smiled just a bit. "I can be useful."
Gaara nodded to himself, standing to his feet. "I don't need a child to train. Nor do I need a spoiled little boy who cries when he gets hurt, or for those he hurts."
Haku simply looked back at Gaara, meeting his eyes without fear. "You need a weapon." Ignoring the slight ice cover on his skin and still holding what was left of the bread, he stood up. "I can be your weapon."
Gaara couldn't help himself and he raised an eyebrow in doubt. "Show me."
Haku nodded and his eyes flickered to the snow around their feet. Within seconds there was the sound of cracking, and icecicles shot up from the ground, surrounding Gaara in a cage of ice, which grew and formed around him in a thick spiked ice cube form. Haku took a step back and glanced back at Gaara. At the flicker of his eyes, the ice around Gaara suddenly shattered into thousands of tiny snowflakes, all of which floated calmly back to the ground to return to the light snowfall from which it had started.
Gaara watched Haku closely, the devilish smirk reappearing across his face. "Useful. Very useful indeed."
With those words he reached over and held out his hand to Haku. Haku didn't hesitate in anyway. he simply reached forward and accepted Gaara's hand, and both of them left that cold alleyway behind.
**
I awoke the next morning in the shadows, my sensative hearing picking up some heated speaking. Rosing from my sleep in the corner I listened closer. The sound of heated conversation was drifting to my ears from the icicle I'd placed in Lord Enma's office. Immediatly I stood up and closed my eyes, concentrating to travel to his office.
I appeared in the shadows and quickly took stock of the situation. Lord Enma sat at his desk, speaking calmly with a female who was dressed in a cotton candy colored kimono with her long blue hair pulled back in a high pony tail. The female seemed quite agrivated about Lord Enma sitting at his desk. I just listened to them arguing back and forth, not really caring what they were arguing about. But when she started to move closer to him in a threatening manner, then I made myself known.
Stepping forward so I was just barely visable I threw out my fingers, small metallic strings flying through the air and wrapping tightly around her. The concentration of the strings centered around her neck, effectivly cutting off her voice and any words which she might have screamed. Instead she reflexivly reached up to claw at the small strings, choking for breath.
At my actions, Koenma immediatly raced out of the bed room, from where he'd been standing in the doorway. The young Reikai heir looked at me in fear, obviously reconizing the mask of my trade. "Botan! Father... please... don't hurt her."
Enma turned and frowned at his son and I immediately saw whatever fight had appeared in him enough to bring out that protest, shrivelled back into nothing. I frowned under my mask, but said nothing. Instead I simply made sure that the female, Botan, made no more threatening movements.
"Take her to the holding area. I want her out of my sight." Enma ordered, dismissing me with a wave of his hand. I nodded and pulled Botan close to me, easily concentrating and transporting both of us down to the lower area of the palace where the holding cells were. Once there I stepped back and undid the strings so she could move once more. Almost immediatly she turned and back away from me, toward the bars.
"You're a Shinobi."
I nodded once, rewrapping my strings and hiding them back in my wrist pads as I kept watch over her. She wasn't a threat and there wasn't a way for her to escape, much less get very far without me catching her again.
After a moment of silence her voice took on a sharper edge. "Are you insane? You're actually working for that... that... that man up there?! Do you have any idea of what type of person he is?"
"He is the one who hired me," I answered in an indifferent voice. What did it matter what type of person he was.
"How can you work for him and not care?"
I tilted my head up, meeting her eyes, and from the slight shift in her expression I could tell she could see my own eyes through the mask. "What does a weapon care of the hand that weilds it."
With those words I reached past her and opened the bars, pushing her into the cell, then locked it tight, activating the wards which prevented any sort of magic or trickery from within, then turned and left the cell, not allowing her to have another word. I just left my own words to ring in the air along with her horrified expression.
**
The young girl stood on the edge of the cliff, just looking out over the clouded world around her. Somewhere in the distance, she could see the Reikai palace, just bareley visable among all the clouds and mist which covered this world. How fitting, that the palace of the dead seemed just like a illusion, along with the idea of death itself.
As she stared off into space she heard foot steps behind her, slowly approaching. Her sensative ears picked up the sound of metal needles as the soft breeze hit them and they cut through the air. Two of the needles landed at her feet, sticking securly into the ground, while two others sailed off the side of the drop, disappearing into the mist below as if they had never been.
"So he sent you after me. I suppose I should be honored," she said in her soft voice. It was a voice others always said was on the verge of tears, and she was always criticized for how it sounded and how meek of a young girl she appeared to be. Shinobi or not, even here she was an outcast. The weak didn't belong anywhere. And neither did those who thought too much and tried to be more then the lot they'd been cast.
Slowly she turned, ignoring the fact that her feet were litteraly on the edge of the cliff, and faced the one standing behind her. Her eyes travelled over the all too familiar mask to the rest of the body. She didn't have to ask him to remove the mask to know it was Haku. Haku was the one Shinobi who'd seemed so much like her at first. With his kind smile and innocent attitude... it was only when he put on his mask that Hinata saw exactly how un-human the sweet boy had become.
"We're just weapons right. Shinobi are weapons and that's all we'll ever be."
The masked boy in front of her said nothing. He simply watched her through the mask with emotionless eyes.
"You're in with Gaara on this, aren't you? Don't tell me you actually believe him! How can you believe that we are actually weapons to be picked up and thrown away at a moment's notice? We're living and breathing people! We're not objects for other's amusement. Damnit Haku, you're a person!"
Haku said nothing still, not giving her a response.
"I'm not going back to that... that... that man! No, not even a man. That thing! Gaara isn't human! He's not like us, surely even you have noticed that! Look at him, he hasn't aged one bit since we all got here, he's always the same. No one stays that young. It's not possible. He's not like the rest of us, I know even you, his prize, knows that Haku."
Haku still said nothing, simply waiting for her to vent everything. once she lost her anger it would be easy to take care of her and she would put up less of a fight.
"I'm not going back," she hissed. And for the first time in Hinata's life her expression twisted in anger. "I'll die before I give that monster the pleasure. And yes, I can die, because I'm a living and breathing human being!"
Haku stepped forward, completely taken off guard. But Hinata didn't give him a chance to do anything. Instead she simply grabbed his hand and took a sudden step backward onto thin air. Haku was jerked forward by her weight and suddenly found himself on the ground, clutching her hand as she hung over the cliff, his mask tumbling to disappear in the mist below. Haku winced a bit in pain as one of the needles from the ground pierced his shoulder. He gritted his teeth and looked down at Hinata in surprise.
"You can die too, you know."
Hinata watched Haku's eyes widen at that as he stared into her own. The young boy, now with his maskless face, gritted his teeth as he tried to pull Hinata back over the edge, but as he moved the needle in his shoulder tore at his skin and he gave a small cry, immediatly stopping in his effort.
"All I have to do is swing and kick the edge of the cliff, and you'll fall too. That needle won't hold you to the cliff. We'll both die. Cuz we're people, we won't survive the fall like your needles will. You can die too, Haku."
"Hinata, stop it-"
"Hurts, doesn't it? And it'll hurt more the longer you hold on. So now you get a choice, Haku. You get to kill me to save yourself, or we both die. And you can't bring my body back to Gaara if you drop me, and you know he won't like that. Either way you can't escape this now unscared. So what are you going to pick? There is no way to be the perfect weapon now, Haku."
"Hinata, this is stupid!" Haku winced once more as he tried to pull himself up, ignoing how much the needle hurt in his shoulder. The wound started to burn as he felt some of sand from the ground enter his wound and he grit his teeth more, still trying to pull her up. Hinata didn't make any effort to help him. Instead she actually purposely started swinging back and forth, immediatly causing Haku to crash back to the ground and the needle lodged deeper into his shoulder, coming unhooked from the ground as he slid closer to the edge. Tears started to bead a bit at the edge of Haku's eyes from the pain as he tried in vain to pull her up.
"You aren't getting out of this Haku. Make the choice. Tell me to let go, or fall with me."
Haku closed his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax and take stock of the situation. Then he opened his eyes and looked directly at Hinata.
"Let go."
Hinata's eyes widened for a moment, then she nodded slowly and let go of Haku's hand, immediatly falling into the clouds. Haku didn't waste a moment. Moving his hands he immediatly flung out his thin strings, aiming for them to wrap around Hinata. But she seemed to be ready for that, and a blade in her hand came out, slicing through the strings.
Hinata watched sadly as the cliff disappeared from view and Haku was soon out of sight, not moving from his spot as he seemed locked in horror at watching her fall. When he was out of sight she closed her eyes and a small smile crossed her face.
She wasn't a weapon anymore, and the feeling of her bones shattering across the ground would prove that. Take that Gaara. In the end she was human, and that was something that not even life as a Shinobi could take away from her.
**
Series: Naruto... kinda
Author: Snow Tigra
Note: MAJOR NOTE!
Ok, all who came in for a Naruto fic, this is your warning. This fic is for the Harem RPG, and explains the background of Haku. Yes, this is an AU. It's meant to be close, but not exact, because it fits in the world of the Bishonen Harem. But it should still stand pretty much on it's own. Anyway, enjoy. Some spoilers for Naruto, but they are cleverly disgused as AU plot points.
Dreams of Ice and Blood
Part 1
The power was in the eyes.
That's how my mother knew, she once told me, because my eyes were the same color as hers. Not the same deep violet of my father, but rather the muddy red color that resembled blood in the moon light. That was the color of my eyes, and my mother's.
**
"Haku!"
The little boy jumped in surprise as his mother slapped his hands harshly, sending the strange floating ball of water he'd been playing with out of his hands. The water splashed across the snow covered ground, and the boy stumbled down after it, in surprise from his mother's action. His hands stung from the slap and he immediatly curled up, not understanding his mother's outburst.
"I was just... playing..." he murmured in a small excuse.
"Never! Play with that again! Do you hear? I never want to see you play with that again! Never again! Never..."
Haku glanced up and watched with wide and confused eyes as his mother's angry screaming melted into sobs and trembling. The woman sank to the ground, her words disappearing as tears began to flow down her face. Haku immeidatly forgot his reddened hands and the slap, and crawled over to her in the snow. He crawled up into her lap and hugged her tightly, with forgiveness only a child could bestow.
"I'm sorry, mommy. I won't do it again, I promise. Please don't cry. Please."
The woman continued to sob softly and pulled her child into her arms, hugging him close as she began to calm down. The tears died away soon enough and her hold on him relaxed as she began to gently run her hand over his hair, smoothing it down. Haku made no objection as he knew his mother seemed to take comfort in this simple movement.
"I'm sorry mommy." He just repeated softly.
"No, it's not your fault Haku. Not your fault at all. I'm sorry I hit you, I shouldn't have."
Haku pulled back and looked down at his hands, noticing that the red marks were now mostly gone from her hitting him. He looked up at his mother as she wiped her eyes and gave a very soft and sweet smile. "It ok, see? They don't hurt anymore."
His mother blinked in surprise, then couldn't resist returning her own small smile. In apologee she lifted his hands and kissed each of them very softly, which only made her son smile more. Then her expression became more serious.
"You do have my eyes."
Haku blinked and looked into his mother's eyes in question.
"Haku, honey, listen to me. You must never play with the water like that again. It's a very special power, and it's a secret that only you and I can keep. We can not tell daddy, or anyone else."
"Why can't we tell daddy?"
The woman's expression turned sad. "Because Daddy will become afraid. People like us, with this power, get hurt, Haku. So we have to be quiet, and keep the secret."
The little boy remained silent for a long time, considering his mother's words, then he nodded. "I promise mommy, I'll never tell."
Haku's mother smiled at him, pulling him close in a hug. Haku relaxed in the hug, taking comfort in his mother's arms. He didn't understand why they had to keep it a secret, he was too young to, but it didn't matter while he was in his mother's arms. He always loved to be held by her, and would forgive anything, as long as she would hold him again. With her, he felt safe.
After a long moment she let go of her son and both stood up to step into the house. Haku kept held of his mother's hand as they moved toward the house, quite happy for the moment. Sadly that happiness didn't last, for in the next moment she was dead.
The sound of cracking ice screamed into his ears without any warning and his mother's hand was suddenly torn from his grip. Haku whirled around to face her and was assaulted with a vision his young mind could never have imagined.
All around him, surronding him on every side, were razorsharp pillars of ice, spearing into the sky and everything around him with a horrible intensity. As he watched even more ice pillars and spears shot out of the ground. But he wasn't watching those. Instead his young eyes were locked on his mother, who was now speared through in numerous placed with different sized ice spears, her blood dripping to dye the snow and ice below.
**
I bolted up in bed quickly, my eyes snapping open from the sudden dream. For a moment all I could see was the haunting image of my mother hanging from the towers of ice in front of me, then slowly the image melted away to reveal the darkness in the room surrounding me. The room around me faded into view, revealing the stark quarters in which i was staying. A bed to sleep on, no more then a mat, and a small table to sit at and eat, nothing else donned the room.
Sitting up in bed I wiped the very small amount of sweat which had beaded across my forehead, other then that there were no signs of the nightmare. The dream had long since stopped bothering me, perhaps I just didn't care anymore.
I stood up from the bed and rolled up the mat, then went about changing into my clothes. I left my Shinobi outfit folded next to the bed, opting not to wear it at the moment and instead dressed myself in a simple kimono with a tie around the waist. I left my hair down, letting myself enjoy the small freedom of not being on a mission, then exited the room, my Shiobi mask still resting next to my bed as the door closed behind me.
I didn't need to wear my mask when I didn't have a mission, so it usually sat back in my room. And yet, even without the mask, without my needles and puppet master string the other Shinobi around me backed away, always a little too scared to get any closer. I was the best in the camp, or so it was whispered. I was the best out of all of them, and only Gaara wasn't afraid of me, in spite of my feminine style clothing that I wore when i wasn't on a mission. Not even the kind girls would speak with me. Because Haku was someone to be feared.
I made my way to the sand garden where Gaara usually stayed. Our leader didn't have a room, he meerly spent his nights sitting atop a large boulder surrounded by a garden of perfectly smoothed sand that no one dared step into. Gaara was a sand demon, to step into his sand was to invite death in a matter of seconds.
As usual Gaara sat there, his short and unevenly cut red hair laying in disregard which ever way it wanted. A red symbol rested over one side of his forehead, whispered to be a seal of some sort, though no one really knew for sure. And as usual his eyes were darkened around the edges from lack of sleep. One of the great mysteries of the Shinobi, Gaara was the Shinobi who never aged and never slept, having been our leader since perhaps the Shinobi began.
"Enjoy your rest?" His dry voice asked as I approached. I meerly stopped to stand on the edge of his sand garden and gave a single nod. He usually greeted me as such, and I'd long since given up wondering if he counted dream reading as one of his abilities.
Gaara moved just slightly on the rock, turning to face me with mischeviously tilted eyes. "And what does the master Shinobi Haku dream about?"
"Ice and blood." I responded in a nuetral voice, not caring.
Gaara chuckled just a little, then moved his fingers, the sand below one of his hands beginning to swirl. "You have a new mission."
I nodded and turned my attention to the swirling sad as it began to take form into a human shape, completely to scale. As I watched a large figure came into view, an older man with horns and a beard. I know my eyes narrowed just slightly.
"My new mission is to kill King Enma?"
Gaara chuckled at my reation. "No. He has hired us. Or, more specifically, he has hired you. Only the best for the lord of the Reikai." Gaara's words held a tinge of laughter, as if he found that small saying amusing in some way. I only watched quietly, waiting to hear if there was more.
"Lord Enma has hired you to protect his son and his family."
I nodded.
The sand form melted back down to the garden, smoothing out as if nothing had happened. Gaara moved to walk past me, then stopped, his hand brushing over my shoulder in a light touch. Unconsiously I stepped back from his touch, surprised at it. I may be the Shinobi that everyone else feared, but there were those who scared me as well. Gaara being one of them.
Gaara noticed my reaction and glanced over his shoulder at me, an amused look crossing his face. Then he walked away, not saying another word. I didn't turn to watch his back, instead I walked away from him in the other direction.
Only when i'd reached my room did I realize that I'd walked straight through his sand garden and left my foot prints among the white grains. No doubt I'd recieve a punishment for that when i came back from my mission.
**
The Shinobi were originally created in the Spirit World. Granted, now there are 'groups' of Shinobi all over the three world, each quite deadly in it's own way, but the original Shinobi still reside in the Spirit World, in one of the back corners where no one would ever dare to disturb us. Even Lord Enma wouldn't dare to kick us out, even though we are the only group of people in his world who are not dead or in his employ.
Children are abondoned in every world. The Ningenkai. The Reikai. The Makai. The Netherworld. All worlds have children which are abondoned for some reason or another and left to fend for themselves, or die. No one is really sure who started it, but someone along the way discovered that children who are abondoned or left alone are clean slates and are very impressionable. After all, a child who has nothing, will do nearly anything once they've realize how unforgiving the world is to those who have nothing. Offer them food and a roof over their heads and they'll do anything you need them to, because they know they can't live without those two things. And for those who's parents kicked them out, or were killed, there is a deep well of anger which can be tapped and aimed at the right people, if one knows how to mold it.
Someone learned these facts, and someone put them to use long ago. And now, it is common practise. All abandoned children become Shinobi, if no one else takes interest in their plight first.
Myself?
My parents were killed in front of me. My mother abandoned me to my father, trying to save herself and he turned around and killed her. To escape with my life I did what any child would do with powers like mine, I killed them.
Ice and blood.
I arrived at Lord Enma's palace in the center of the Spirit World by myself, as the suns over head blazed through the clouds. Clouds covered nearly everything near the palace, bathing it in an etheral light that added to the effect. It was the world of the dead, everything was supposed to look whispy and sheer like the ghosts and spirits most think about. The effect was nice, but completely untrue. For most dead spirits are solid in the Spirit World. It's the Netherworld which holds those without bodies, that is in fact their specialty.
For example, the guards standing in front of the gates were very solid, with their weapons, watching the pathways with sharp eyes and even sharper reflexes. Apparently not sharp enough though. In spite of the fact that the cloud which covered my enterance didn't quite reach the gates, I was able to approach the gate and scale the large wall which surrounded the palace, without a single guard catching wind of my presence. The Shinobi never entered through the front door and were never introduced properly to their employers. Sneaking into their employer's home was perhaps part of the hiring process, for if you can't get past you're allie's guards, how do you expect to get past those of their enemy?
I passed numerous guards on my way up to Enma's office, none of which noticed me. The one complication came when I entered the main chamber, which was set up more like a Ningenkai office area then anything else, desks and papers flying about as the various workers scurried back and forth. This normally wouldn't have created a problem, except that I had to pass through this chaos to reach the one door which connected to Enma's windowless office. And oddly, the chaos was more challenging then the saturation of guards from the doorway.
Stepping back from the office area I disappeared further down the hallway until I was sure I was out of sight and not in a place where I could be glimpsed, then I closed my eyes and concentrated, pressing my fingers together in a symbol.
For a moment there was nothing, then I began to hear the air around me roaring in my ears. I visualized the space around me, exactly as the hallway and as my visualization became more detailed, the air seemed to scream around me more. The roaring raised to an almost deafening volume, but I ignored it, still concentrating. And then, suddenly, the sound was gone. The deafening roar disappeared along with any sound around me, including all feeling in my body. There was nothing, simply the feeling of floating, and yet no feeling at all. No sight, no sound, no taste, no smell, no touch... nothing.
I visualized the office area with the scurrying chaos of different workers and began visualizing myself floating without form toward the doors. Once I reached the doors I easily passed through them, and at that moment I broke my fingers apart, severing the spell which I'd just cast. The room shattered back around me, along with all of my senses suddenly coming back to life. The shock of such a change could have easily sent me to unconciousness, had I not been practising this technique for the last five years. Instead, I simply opened my eyes beneath my mask.
I found Lord Enma sitting at his desk. His posture was caught somewhere between alarm and pleasure as he was surprised to see me, yet very pleased that I'd apparently passed his little test. Not that it was much of a test at all, in fact, something like that was child's play.
"Haku, I presume."
I nodded and stepped forward up to his desk, giving a slight nod of my head in silent greeting. Though my eye sight was limited by the mask, I could easily sense his powerful presence in the room. His presence was so thick it could have lit of the room, had it been visable. And I also felt the presence in the next room over, that of a younger form, and yet... it was very much the same as Enma's.
Almost like a part of him.
I said nothing, but simply filed that away for use later, if needed.
"Very impressive, for a Shinobi. Now, Gaara tells me you are the best, but you certainly don't appear any different from the rest of the Shinobi I've met. Please, sit down so that we may talk. You may remove your mask. In fact, I insist that you do. I would prefer to know your face."
I frowned at that request, but didn't protest. Instead I did as he asked and stepped back, removing my mask, though I declined the use of a chair, electing instead to remain standing.
"Now I see," he murmured a bit, when he saw my face and the blank expression. I didn't know what he was refering to, but gathered it was something he'd heard from Gaara. It didn't concern me. I simply waited for him to give me what my orders would be while I was in his employ. Once, when I'd first been a Shinobi, I asked questions. Now I realized that asking no questions usually placed others on edge, and it gave you an advantage over them. one that was very useful, especially against those employers who were foolhearty enough to think of backstabbing the Shinobi. A very foolish notion indeed.
"Well then, I suppose you'll want to know your job."
I nodded once.
Lord Enma stood up and stepped away from the desk, leading me toward the other door, and also toward the other presense. I simply followed, replacing my mask as I stepped into the room.
The room before me was a bedroom, decorated lavishly with hanging clothes and a large bed nearly in the center, the headboard against one wall. The walls themselves were a deep red, set off by the bright colors of cloth which were draped all around. At first glance the room reminded me of some sort of harem, far too large to just be suited to one person. But then, royalty of all worlds loved to be lavish in their excessiveness.
Lying on the bed, curled up tightly under the blankets, was a boy, looking to be older then me, but only by five years or so. His sleeping expression looked troubled as he stayed curled up in a ball and I imediatly reconized the Jr symbol on his head. The boy whom I was now looking at was Lord Koenma, Lord Enma's son. I frowned just slightly under my mask at his condition. He didn't look well and I reconized that expression from my own experience. The moment he woke up, he'd try to bolt for the door. I had no desire to be around and see how his father would react.
"Your job will be to safe guard myself, as long as my son."
I gave a small nod, tearing my eyes away from Koenma. Gaara knew about my past and yet he still assigned me a job like this. I had to wonder if it was another one of his endless tests which he used to keep the Shinobi in line. Most likely.
Having recieved my orders I decided it was time to leave. Turning away from Lord Enma, I exited the room, keeping my walk steady and yet still listening. He made no move to stop me and that seemed enough. So I simply stepped out into his office and left a small icicle on the wall to help me listen in, before I walked out of the office to find a corner of the palace where I could stay myself and not be disturbed.
**
"Hey, kid."
The young boy glanced up from where he was crouched on the floor. Ragged and pale, he seemed to perfectly match the snow covering the ground around him, his skin almost blending in. He wore a simple ragged shirt and a pair of loose pants, with holes and the edges torn, smudged with dirt. And Gaara noticed the boy was excessivly thin, even for his age.
Gaara had seen so many abandoned children in his life, that he really didn't care, he simply observed their characteristics with a seemingly uncaring eye. And he would have done the same with this kid, had he not noticed something pecular. In spite of this boy's condition, there was still a light of life in his eyes. His grey eyes didn't hold the hatred from one who'd been kicked out, nor the lonelyness of being shunned by an entire villiage. Nor did he hold the sadness of those who had lost their parents, but rather his eyes were still lit with life, and pure innocence, something that was usually destroyed by such events. Oddly, apparently that wasn't true with this boy.
Gaara's lip twisted in a slight smile. How interesting.
"Do you have a name?"
The boy nodded, rubbing his eyes a bit. He didn't shiver from the cold, even though most of his skin was covered with ice. In fact the ice seemed to cling to his skin in a light cover, almost looking protective in a way. Gaara blinked at that and glanced at the boy's eyes again, watching them carefully as he answered.
"Haku," he said softly.
"Are you hungry?"
Haku blinked in surprise and his face seemed to light up just a bit as he nodded.
Gaara sat down in the snow next to him and pulled open his side pack, pulling out a large piece of bread. He broke it in half and offered both pieces to Haku, for him to pick which one he wanted. To his surprise, the thin boy actually took the smaller of the pieces and slowly began to nibble at it, not woofing it down like most of the children he'd met.
"You're a Shinobi, aren't you?" Haku asked softly after a moment, still working on eating the bread.
"If you know that, then why are you still sitting here?"
Haku shrugged. "Shinobi kill. And Shinobi take away children. You take away children and teach them to kill, don't you?"
Gaara watched Haku out of the corner of his eye, unable to hide the amused expression on his face, which appeared as more of a devilish tilt on his lips. "Yes. Aren't you afraid I'll take you too?"
Haku shook his head and stopped eating. "I can kill."
"Oh, so you want to kill?"
"No. But I can."
Gaara puzzled at the boy next to him, not quite comprehending what he was saying. The boy was refering to himself as a tool, as an actual weapon, rather then a person. Perhaps he had misinterpretted the look in Haku's eyes. The expressions he witnessed now reminded him of the older Shinobi, and other older assassins whom he had killed. Those who no longer saw a worth in themselves other then what they could be used to accomplish. And yet, that still went against the purity he could see reflected in this boy's eyes.
Was he truely that innocent to what he was?
"Would you like to be useful, boy?" Gaara asked in a low voice.
Haku nodded once and smiled just a bit. "I can be useful."
Gaara nodded to himself, standing to his feet. "I don't need a child to train. Nor do I need a spoiled little boy who cries when he gets hurt, or for those he hurts."
Haku simply looked back at Gaara, meeting his eyes without fear. "You need a weapon." Ignoring the slight ice cover on his skin and still holding what was left of the bread, he stood up. "I can be your weapon."
Gaara couldn't help himself and he raised an eyebrow in doubt. "Show me."
Haku nodded and his eyes flickered to the snow around their feet. Within seconds there was the sound of cracking, and icecicles shot up from the ground, surrounding Gaara in a cage of ice, which grew and formed around him in a thick spiked ice cube form. Haku took a step back and glanced back at Gaara. At the flicker of his eyes, the ice around Gaara suddenly shattered into thousands of tiny snowflakes, all of which floated calmly back to the ground to return to the light snowfall from which it had started.
Gaara watched Haku closely, the devilish smirk reappearing across his face. "Useful. Very useful indeed."
With those words he reached over and held out his hand to Haku. Haku didn't hesitate in anyway. he simply reached forward and accepted Gaara's hand, and both of them left that cold alleyway behind.
**
I awoke the next morning in the shadows, my sensative hearing picking up some heated speaking. Rosing from my sleep in the corner I listened closer. The sound of heated conversation was drifting to my ears from the icicle I'd placed in Lord Enma's office. Immediatly I stood up and closed my eyes, concentrating to travel to his office.
I appeared in the shadows and quickly took stock of the situation. Lord Enma sat at his desk, speaking calmly with a female who was dressed in a cotton candy colored kimono with her long blue hair pulled back in a high pony tail. The female seemed quite agrivated about Lord Enma sitting at his desk. I just listened to them arguing back and forth, not really caring what they were arguing about. But when she started to move closer to him in a threatening manner, then I made myself known.
Stepping forward so I was just barely visable I threw out my fingers, small metallic strings flying through the air and wrapping tightly around her. The concentration of the strings centered around her neck, effectivly cutting off her voice and any words which she might have screamed. Instead she reflexivly reached up to claw at the small strings, choking for breath.
At my actions, Koenma immediatly raced out of the bed room, from where he'd been standing in the doorway. The young Reikai heir looked at me in fear, obviously reconizing the mask of my trade. "Botan! Father... please... don't hurt her."
Enma turned and frowned at his son and I immediately saw whatever fight had appeared in him enough to bring out that protest, shrivelled back into nothing. I frowned under my mask, but said nothing. Instead I simply made sure that the female, Botan, made no more threatening movements.
"Take her to the holding area. I want her out of my sight." Enma ordered, dismissing me with a wave of his hand. I nodded and pulled Botan close to me, easily concentrating and transporting both of us down to the lower area of the palace where the holding cells were. Once there I stepped back and undid the strings so she could move once more. Almost immediatly she turned and back away from me, toward the bars.
"You're a Shinobi."
I nodded once, rewrapping my strings and hiding them back in my wrist pads as I kept watch over her. She wasn't a threat and there wasn't a way for her to escape, much less get very far without me catching her again.
After a moment of silence her voice took on a sharper edge. "Are you insane? You're actually working for that... that... that man up there?! Do you have any idea of what type of person he is?"
"He is the one who hired me," I answered in an indifferent voice. What did it matter what type of person he was.
"How can you work for him and not care?"
I tilted my head up, meeting her eyes, and from the slight shift in her expression I could tell she could see my own eyes through the mask. "What does a weapon care of the hand that weilds it."
With those words I reached past her and opened the bars, pushing her into the cell, then locked it tight, activating the wards which prevented any sort of magic or trickery from within, then turned and left the cell, not allowing her to have another word. I just left my own words to ring in the air along with her horrified expression.
**
The young girl stood on the edge of the cliff, just looking out over the clouded world around her. Somewhere in the distance, she could see the Reikai palace, just bareley visable among all the clouds and mist which covered this world. How fitting, that the palace of the dead seemed just like a illusion, along with the idea of death itself.
As she stared off into space she heard foot steps behind her, slowly approaching. Her sensative ears picked up the sound of metal needles as the soft breeze hit them and they cut through the air. Two of the needles landed at her feet, sticking securly into the ground, while two others sailed off the side of the drop, disappearing into the mist below as if they had never been.
"So he sent you after me. I suppose I should be honored," she said in her soft voice. It was a voice others always said was on the verge of tears, and she was always criticized for how it sounded and how meek of a young girl she appeared to be. Shinobi or not, even here she was an outcast. The weak didn't belong anywhere. And neither did those who thought too much and tried to be more then the lot they'd been cast.
Slowly she turned, ignoring the fact that her feet were litteraly on the edge of the cliff, and faced the one standing behind her. Her eyes travelled over the all too familiar mask to the rest of the body. She didn't have to ask him to remove the mask to know it was Haku. Haku was the one Shinobi who'd seemed so much like her at first. With his kind smile and innocent attitude... it was only when he put on his mask that Hinata saw exactly how un-human the sweet boy had become.
"We're just weapons right. Shinobi are weapons and that's all we'll ever be."
The masked boy in front of her said nothing. He simply watched her through the mask with emotionless eyes.
"You're in with Gaara on this, aren't you? Don't tell me you actually believe him! How can you believe that we are actually weapons to be picked up and thrown away at a moment's notice? We're living and breathing people! We're not objects for other's amusement. Damnit Haku, you're a person!"
Haku said nothing still, not giving her a response.
"I'm not going back to that... that... that man! No, not even a man. That thing! Gaara isn't human! He's not like us, surely even you have noticed that! Look at him, he hasn't aged one bit since we all got here, he's always the same. No one stays that young. It's not possible. He's not like the rest of us, I know even you, his prize, knows that Haku."
Haku still said nothing, simply waiting for her to vent everything. once she lost her anger it would be easy to take care of her and she would put up less of a fight.
"I'm not going back," she hissed. And for the first time in Hinata's life her expression twisted in anger. "I'll die before I give that monster the pleasure. And yes, I can die, because I'm a living and breathing human being!"
Haku stepped forward, completely taken off guard. But Hinata didn't give him a chance to do anything. Instead she simply grabbed his hand and took a sudden step backward onto thin air. Haku was jerked forward by her weight and suddenly found himself on the ground, clutching her hand as she hung over the cliff, his mask tumbling to disappear in the mist below. Haku winced a bit in pain as one of the needles from the ground pierced his shoulder. He gritted his teeth and looked down at Hinata in surprise.
"You can die too, you know."
Hinata watched Haku's eyes widen at that as he stared into her own. The young boy, now with his maskless face, gritted his teeth as he tried to pull Hinata back over the edge, but as he moved the needle in his shoulder tore at his skin and he gave a small cry, immediatly stopping in his effort.
"All I have to do is swing and kick the edge of the cliff, and you'll fall too. That needle won't hold you to the cliff. We'll both die. Cuz we're people, we won't survive the fall like your needles will. You can die too, Haku."
"Hinata, stop it-"
"Hurts, doesn't it? And it'll hurt more the longer you hold on. So now you get a choice, Haku. You get to kill me to save yourself, or we both die. And you can't bring my body back to Gaara if you drop me, and you know he won't like that. Either way you can't escape this now unscared. So what are you going to pick? There is no way to be the perfect weapon now, Haku."
"Hinata, this is stupid!" Haku winced once more as he tried to pull himself up, ignoing how much the needle hurt in his shoulder. The wound started to burn as he felt some of sand from the ground enter his wound and he grit his teeth more, still trying to pull her up. Hinata didn't make any effort to help him. Instead she actually purposely started swinging back and forth, immediatly causing Haku to crash back to the ground and the needle lodged deeper into his shoulder, coming unhooked from the ground as he slid closer to the edge. Tears started to bead a bit at the edge of Haku's eyes from the pain as he tried in vain to pull her up.
"You aren't getting out of this Haku. Make the choice. Tell me to let go, or fall with me."
Haku closed his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax and take stock of the situation. Then he opened his eyes and looked directly at Hinata.
"Let go."
Hinata's eyes widened for a moment, then she nodded slowly and let go of Haku's hand, immediatly falling into the clouds. Haku didn't waste a moment. Moving his hands he immediatly flung out his thin strings, aiming for them to wrap around Hinata. But she seemed to be ready for that, and a blade in her hand came out, slicing through the strings.
Hinata watched sadly as the cliff disappeared from view and Haku was soon out of sight, not moving from his spot as he seemed locked in horror at watching her fall. When he was out of sight she closed her eyes and a small smile crossed her face.
She wasn't a weapon anymore, and the feeling of her bones shattering across the ground would prove that. Take that Gaara. In the end she was human, and that was something that not even life as a Shinobi could take away from her.
**