Summary: In a realm of princes, telepaths, seers, and stealers… SasuHina, NaruIno.
Scar Tissue
Chapter 1
She lay in a field she was unfamiliar with. There were no trees, weeds, or flowering plants, just the pale blue grass that tickled her ankles, and a sky so white she could sense it was supernatural.
She lay in the grass, against the shoulder of a stranger. He had hair as dark as hers, longish bangs hanging in his face. He was completely still on his back, even his chest unmoving. She reached up, unthinkingly pulling his hair away from his face. She wondered if he was another seer, but something about his hard features told her otherwise. His eyes were closed, faint bruises beneath them. His right hand lay against his heart.
Hinata wearily lifted herself from his shoulder. "Who are you?" she asked groggily.
The boy didn't respond. He looked to be her age of seventeen. She couldn't help noticing how handsome he was. Except for the bruises under his eyes, the hand on his chest, the general impression that he was unwell.
She returned to his shoulder, limbs surrendering as though she hadn't used them in months. She felt the strangest sensation that it was where she belonged. With him. Against him. Her fingers slid to the hand he held to his chest. It was cool. "Are you dead?" She continued to peer at his face.
She was surprised when he finally opened his eyes, but only to slits. She climbed over him, and stared into them for the first time.
Hinata sat bolt upright.
Veins flanking her temples, she gasped for a moment, eyes darting wildly around until she registered that she was in her bedroom. It had been a dream. She continued to deeply breath, wondering why she was suddenly gripped with panic. She lowered herself again.
Those onyx eyes…
She sunk against her pillows, trying to push it all to the back of her mind. She didn't acknowledge it as anything beyond a strange figment. Hinata fell asleep again, more fatigued than she had been before.
Little did she know, she'd had her first premonition.
At first she thought she was just fanaticizing about the outside world, imagining what non-seers were like, envisioning people with dark eyes rather than white ones.
But his were inky pools of ivory. Was that natural of the humans? She was with him again a few nights later, resting on his shoulder, an ill feeling in her chest. She glanced up at him, observing that he seemed paler. His hands were now at his flanks.
"Tell me what this is," she whispered.
He didn't say a word.
Hinata continued to see the dream-boy on a regular basis, until she finally acknowledged their visits for what they were. Premonitions. He was always unmoving, cool, and unresponsive. Hinata slowly became obsessed with his mysterious condition.
Sometimes when they were together, Hinata did not bother to lift her face from his chest. She felt comfortable there, and simply lay against him, her eyes shut as his were, and they hung in a placating silence. As time passed, he paled more. His muscles waned, and he seemed to be…declining. Soon, she was with him every time she closed her eyes, and when she was conscious, he permeated her thoughts.
As much as she tried to convince herself he was a figment—as much as she wished it to be the truth—she knew he was real. Somewhere out there was this organic, dying creature.
And she had to find him. That much was clear.
The dark-eyed boy was not a seer, which made her mission all the more illogical. Outsiders were not allowed within her village, and seers never left it. So how could she and the dream-boy have ever been meant to meet?
Yet he seemed relevant to her psyche. He pressed and pressed, more crucial and disruptive each time. She couldn't focus, couldn't sleep. When she tried, his image shot through her consciousness like a blaring alarm.
Hinata held her temple, trying to see straight. The books on the shelves had turned to the sharp ridges on the mountainous rocks that bordered her home.
"Miss, are you all right?" someone touched her arm.
Hinata gasped and staggered back, clutched her arm where the human had grabbed it. Seeing her fright, he took a step back.
"Just seeing if you needed any help," he offered. It was the clerk she had when she'd walked in.
Hinata said nothing, just stared at him, keeping her distance. Briefly, he peered at her white eyes with curiosity, then he shrugged and walked off to help other patrons.
Hinata's heart pounded.
It was her first day away from The Village of Sayce, the Land of Seers, and her home for the past seventeen years. No seer was allowed to leave, and if one did, they could not expect to be allowed to return, not with their adulterations from the outside world.
In absconding, Hinata had abandoned her sacred home, her family, and everything she knew—all for the onyx-eyed stranger, and this strange realm, its idiosyncratic inhabitants, their desultory ideals, and the noisome things that were scattered about it. There was not a moment she did not feel traces of regret about her decision. Pulling up her hood, she returned her attention to the bookshelves.
After walking several miles, she had found a village and a library, and was now hoping to read up on the dark-eyes of her dream-friend. At the same time, she tried her best to conceal that she was a seer. Her upbringing had been littered with reminders that the outside world was not safe for mages. And it wasn't just a tale to deter young seers from running off. History corroborated the warning. It was why the seers had isolated themselves to a village deep in Greys forest. It was why mage races had been killed off, warring for decades with those who wanted their power.
Mages, Hinata mused, as she walked through the shelves, where she felt safest, in the back. She stopped at a section with especially dusty books. She lifted one, reading the title.
Mage Ancestries and Offsets.
His black eyes couldn't have been human.
"Mage Ancestries and Offsets," he read aloud. "Just five years overdue," he added flatly. He stood in an apartment, or an inn, she wasn't sure. He was older, salubrious, muscled, and strong. He was standing by a table in the living room area, where he had picked up the book.
"I'll keep it a little longer," said Hinata, appearing with a cup in hand. She traded the cup for the text, and hugged it to her chest. Then she just stared into his onyx eyes. He was the paragon of life, as quiet and reticent as he seemed.
Her eyes trailed down to the shoulder of his tunic, which bore a unique insignia that looked military. It was a leaf.
"Why?" he said.
"It led me to you."
He raised his dark brow. "How?"
"It's how I realized you were an Uchiha. And then…I don't know…I must have—"
"You had a premonition." He reached out, pulling a strand of hair away from her face. "You're still decades young for that."
"I think you triggered something in me…like an distress signal going off in my head."
"I'm glad." His hand lingered there, against her ear. It slid to her cheek. His face was a mask of indifference, but his words were pithy, each deep syllable. "Thank you for saving me." But suddenly the shadows had returned at the bottom of his eyes, and his paleness was back. His hand trembled against her face. "If you hadn't…"
"If I hadn't…"
Hinata shot awake, all of her muscles braced in anxiety. She looked around impetuously, before realizing where she was, sitting in a dark corner of the library, the book perched in her lap.
Shoulders shaking, she gazed down at the book. She slid her fingers over the gilded lettering, then flipped it open, scanning the pages for what she sought. Uchiha.
"There—that's her."
Hinata looked up to notice that the store clerk was back, now accompanied by two uniformed men.
"The girl with those strange eyes," the clerk pointed an accusing finger at her.
Hinata grunted as she was jerked to her feet, the book falling to the floor. Her hood came down, and the officers scrutinized her for a while.
"She looks like—"
"I know. A seer."
"What do we do with her?"
"We bring her to Lord Itachi."
Hinata struggled as she was dragged off, throwing a final glance at the book left behind.
Reality was already proving to defy her premonitions, and she was scared of what it meant.
Author's Note: Spin-off of my one-shot "Seer and Snatcher." Not sure where I'm going with this. Not sure if I'm going anywhere with this. Not sure if the title is even gonna work. Oh well.