Les aveugles
Consider this my return to the Naruto fandom. Three cheers for the new year. Two cheers for old obsessions. One cheer for this one-shot. (Former alias: Troubled Spirit of Hell.)
Warning: Post-Chuunin exams, alternative universe, horror and dark romance.
Summary: In the land of the blind, One-eye is queen. Gaara x Hinata, horror, angst, romance if you squint.
I hereby disclaim any rights.
She was being constricted, breath squeezed out of her tender body excruciatingly slowly as if the deadly anaconda –consisting out of billions grains of sand- was enjoying her every struggle. Every nerve in her being was protesting, shaking, quaking, hurting and the oxygen, slithering a burning trail down her esophagus, was getting harder and more difficult to inhale. There was a chuckle when she yelped out in pain as the treacherous serpent wrapped around her legs and bound them together as it had done with her sides. The serpent had a master and the master was pleased. He paced past the sand construction, a boy with menacing green eyes, and halted when he reached the place where a small spot of pale and a flash of indigo was to be seen. Yet all she could witness was a blur of crimson, for her sight was getting hazy and her judgment clouded and grains of sand abraded the delicate skin in between her fingers. A plea for mercy escaped her parted plump lips but was merely silenced by a hiss. She whimpered softly as tears pricked her retina and soon slid down her cheeks.
He cocked his head to the right, not in surprise but in an attempt to capture the picture perfect and heard the demon howling in the back of his skull. A dull sadistic echo of snickering and cackling. And in that moment the boy with the menacing green eyes decided he would delight in seeing her suffer and observe how every speck of blood was absorbed by his ever so loyal serpent. She on the other hand, was trying to concentrate on her tormentor's face in an attempt to take her mind off of the pain. Barely making out the contours of his silhouette –for she only saw crimson and black and white.- the insides of her ribcage were suddenly starting to blaze and in a flare, she coughed up cloths of blood, eddying on the blanket of sand, which eagerly made the red dots disappear in a wave of soft brown.
"Hyuuga…" The boy with the menacing green eyes purred in an inhuman voice and his only response was a twitch of her upper eyelid. "Aren't you proud of yourself?" A tentacle of sand rose up to caress her cheek gently while the general hold of the serpent was like iron.
And Gaara knew he should forge the iron while it is hot.
Words of praise for the fragile mouse fluttered in the back of his head, the demon was uncharacteristically mirthful about the weak kunoichi. The boy with the menacing eyes on the other hand didn't quite understand all the commotion, even the blonde fox was more of a hassle to smother and he was under the impression Gaara could be trusted. What a pleasant misconception. No, the boy couldn't fantom how this mouse was worth the trouble, but the demon insisted quite vigorously on latching upon her precious blood, claiming it to be ambrosia. However, the demon also whispered some interesting details about those opal eyes of her, of how she saw through his calmed behavior, how she sensed the true threat he formed. The boy with the menacing eyes smirked and couldn't help but feel for an instant some sort of admiration. It dissolved as quickly as her hope for salvation had done when she first begged him to unchain her.
"You were the one who mistrusted me." He stated with slight hidden amusement. "But did it do you any good?" The tentacle that had first caressed her now rose in viciousness to strike down at her shivering form.
And as the sand tore her cheek, releasing a slight cascade of blood to drip oh so gracefully down on the serpent, little Hinata tried desperately to block his monotone voice out. Yet the pain was all surrounding and all consuming. She had no choice but to rely on sounds to preserve some of her senses, before the pain numbed her completely.
She remembered how Naruto had smiled when he first introduced his newly acquired 'friend'. A boy with menacing green eyes and black circles and crimson tousled hair. Arms crossed casually in front of his chest, a massive gourd on his back, a scowl present on his alabaster features and when she blinked, she could swear she saw an evil ghost floating behind his stature. Striped tail wagging in delight as beady golden eyes glanced at herself with sanguinary intentions and she wanted to scream, point, run and hide. But instead she forced a smile to curl up on her plump lips, twiddled nervously with the fabric of her coat and muttered a hushed hello. He didn't reply except for a nod in recognition. Naruto had then proceeded by slapping her roughly on the shoulder, making her stumble forward a bit, closer towards the welcoming embrace of the raccoon-like ghost behind the boy with menacing green eyes, and she quickly scrambled herself on her feet again.
"You should get to know him better, Hinata." Her beam of sunshine had uttered in an excited voice. "He's had a rough youth, but that's all in the past."
Now the mouse wondered when exactly the past molded into the present as she heard Naruto's bones crack, shatter and splinter by a cocoon of sand just before she attempted an escape. Her silence seemed to unnerve him because the sand grinded her body together as if it was a tight lethal corset and she yelped slightly when she heard something pop. An indescribable ache took over her ankle and in a flash the heart wrecking hurt jolted from her calve upwards to her upper leg and nestled itself in her brain.
Hinata had tried one time to converse with him, tried to ignore the Cheshire grin of the raccoon-like spirit, tried to look past his intimidating exterior but her words ended up in a knot. Pushing her fingertips together in pure fright, she stuttered useless remarks about the Hokage's office, about the Hyuuga compound and somewhere in between her monologue exterieur, Sakura appeared and casually lead the boy with the menacing green eyes away from her. Never had she been her secret rival this grateful then at the moment of Sakura wanting to show him some hospitality.
And never had she witnessed such regret as when she ran past the Hokage's office to find a few pink strands splashed with blood. He was quiet, she suddenly realized when she stopped being so usurped by her memories. Suddenly her body collided with a hard wall as the anaconda released her from its grasp in a playful throw. She gasped loudly and tried to gather herself together, puzzle all the broken pieces and fit them in a messed up assemblage. But her left foot refused to budge, her entire torso was bruised and battered and the usually white skin of her throat looked horribly swollen, a pallet of purple and blue.
Furrowing his nonexistent brows, the boy took a few steps in her direction and halted in front of her hunched form. "There is this saying, Hyuuga." His sand lashed out to her when she groaned. She would spoke when spoken too and not a second sooner.
"In the land of the blind, One eye is king." A splatter of blood landed just in front of his sandals and tentacles gingerly licked the precious fluid as the demon laughed in the back of his skull.
The mouse slumped against the wall and soon found herself on her right, lying down on the muddy soil, snippets of indigo in front of her opal eyes and her thumb convulsing from exhaustion. She didn't budge when the sand enveloped her and lifted her gently from the ground. The boy with menacing eyes glanced at her, mocked her with his stoic posture and the mouse's eyelids drooped close. She felt the sand breaking her left foot, finishing what was behind of the bone structure in her left leg and the flesh was being pried open by millions of skirmishing sand grains.
"Are you ready to abdicate, my queen?" He questioned and felt the demon beg for more of her velvet-like blood. She was immobilized by the pain, the serpent, the boy with menacing green eyes and blacked out.
Silence is a confirmation.
He didn't kill her. He wouldn't kill her. Gaara knew when to forge the iron. And he would forge the iron when it was boiling. Shukaku would never tire of her blood, just like he wouldn't tire of hurting her. Hunting her down and watch her eyelashes batter against the skin beneath those large doe-like eyes before she slipped into unconsciousness. There was a certain thrill in hovering above her sleeping form with fingers spread. In hearing her gasps and coughs whenever the sand weaved a cocoon around her as if she was a fly harmlessly falling prey to the itsy bitsy spider. In knowing those eyes saw the demon behind him, craving her blood and her screams.
There was a kingdom called Konoha. With many ants scurrying around. And one day an anteater came around disguised as a boy with menacing green eyes. While the ants were blind, their queen was not. She saw the dastardly tongue of the anteater stripping her subjects one by one. The queen could see but could not flee. What a tragedy.
Written in an hour and a half. Criticism and reviews appreciated.
Les aveugles is French for 'the blind ones' by the way, but I believe you've figured that out by now.