I don't own Naruto. I own no-one except Hiroshi Hyuuga, Anzu Hyuuga, Sibai Hyuuga, and Chiru Hyuuga.
If I did own Naruto, the world would be on fire.
Chiru Hyuuga decidedly hated groceries. And old men. And perverts.
It was bad enough she was forcing herself through the mid-morning rush (in the opposite direction it was heading) with a huge bag of food on her shoulder. It was even worse taking as she could barely see over the hulking masses of bigger men and the bosoms of bigger ladies. Yes, that was bad enough.
But no. Someone just had to touch her butt. They just had too.
That was the main reason Chiru hated crowds, too. So crowded and canned in, never able to keep track of everyone around you, never able to see where you're going when you're my height. Anyone could do anything to you, but the moment you turned around, they were gone. But this man was slow, and old. Chiru turned fast enough to catch a man with wispy hair trying to retreat.
"Hey! Pervert! Old man is a pervert! He touched my ass!" A large circle emerged around the said man.
Sometimes it was good to be a woman.
The man waved his gnarled hands around in circles, violently denying it all. "No, no missy! I didn't-!"
"You liar! Pervert! Pervert!" Chiru screamed dramatically, clutching her groceries to her chest and making a swift departure. The judgmental denizens could do the rest. Chiru had some groceries to deliver.
She sent a wicked smirk at the blurry image of the geezer and ran faster, eyeing his fading figure. "Ah, that was nice."
She turned, smirk still on her face. Now it was slipping, slipping. She dragged her heels in the dirt, backpedaling violently...
She swear she didn't know the wall was there until the moment before she ran into it. She swears.
She fell to the ground, her groceries- her mission- sent spiraling into the air, flipping in a perfect arc to the hard, unforgiving ground. Chiru tried to rid her eyes of the water they were emitting. Hit someone square in the nose, their eyes water up, and they can't see.
She groped around desperately, rubbing her eyes with her arm. "Kuso," She whispered savagely.
"Kuso!"
She forced her eyes open, only to see and hear the pathetic crushing of eggs and fragile milk bottles. The bananas, apples, and cabbage were no doubt bruised, and the covering to the meat was probably broken, dirt all over their rich flesh. The groceries were ruined. Chiru failed her mission.
She was going to kill her. No doubt about it. She was going to kill Chiru.
"Kuso! Jigoku e no chikuso!" Chiru cried out pathtically, rushing over to the paper bag and digging though its contents, kneeling by the bag. "Come on, come on, come on!" Chiru yelled as she tossed aside broken eggs, yolks oozing out of their shells, bruised apples, and broken celery sticks.
Chiru nearly cried in relief. "Yes! The shrimp are OK!" She held the visibly unscatched shrimp to the sky, staring at it in relief! "Something to salvage! Yes, yes-," The rip in the plastic ripped open, succesfully dumping slimy, ice-cold shrimp onto her unsuspecting face. In her eyes, even. Why was it always her eyes?
Chiru let out a squeal and fell to the ground, smearing off shrimp goop and crystallized shrimp goop. Dirt squiggled its way into the goop, muddying up her face and making her look like a wild-woman fresh from the outback.
"Did you trip again, Chiru-chan?" Tokuma Hyuuga's tiredly aggravated tone of voice made her stop her spasms and her squeals. She sat up slowly, wiping the rest of the slimy liquid off her face with a flourish. Bloodshot byakugan eyes slowly opened up to see her annoying kind-and-calm cousin/best friend standing before her, an identical brown paper bag in one hand. He rolled his eyes.
"Why do you always show up at the most embarassing moments, Tokuma? Why?" Chiru asked grumpily. Tokuma replied by holding out his hand, a pleased smile on his face. "I swear, Tokuma. We met when my jacket was snagged on a tree I was climbing, and you had a full view of my chest."
Chiru held the imagine of how bright the usually pale nine-year-olds face dear. Alos how he then immediately helped her down, stuttering all the same.
"Shush." Tokuma ordered, face turning red like it always did when she mentioned that. She smirked and let out a guffaw, inwardly glowing with proudness. Tokuma was such a gentleman. A shy, taunting little bastard of a gentleman, but a gentleman all the same.
"What's in the bag?" Chiru asked pointedly, pointing at the bag. "Your groceries. I picked up some extra, just in case this happened."
"Man! You're kidding me! I'm that predictable?"
Tokuma rolled his eyes. He gifted Chiru with a pointed look and answered, "Yes. Come on, lets clean up this mess and get these home to your mother. You know she'll kill you if she knows you broke them."
"I know my mother well enough to know that!" Chiru snapped, swooping down to gather up the ruined foodstuffs and throwing them in the nearby dumpster. Tokuma was staring at the remaining egg yolks and milk puddles. "Oh, suck it up, you big baby. It'll decompose."
Tokuma shook his head and rolled his eyes to the sky. "Me? A baby? I have the best Byakuugan in the family, you know."
"You're taunting me again."
"I know."
He was making a reference to her naturally weak Byakuugan. Being born with a civilian mother and a Hyuuga father, her Byakuugan barely made it through the process. Byakuugan was a recessive trait. It was a miracle she ended up with it at all, really. But her younger sister, on the other hand...
The walk to the compound was filled with boisterous teasing and dangerous shoves, mostly by Chiru. Tokuma was the kind of polite, shy kind of man that was so easy to pick on. Mention the word 'boobs' and someones flips his color switch. Pale to red in a drop of a hat. It was feat to be seen.
The gate of the Hyuuga compound was soft under Chiru's calloused hands. "Hey, remember that time-," She said to Tokuma, chuckling. She rammed into something solid and hard, and her height. She stumbled, stepping back. But Tokuma's steady hand was already on the small of her back. "Hey, watch it buddy!" Chiru snarled, looking up the culpable Hyuuga.
Her gaze was met with the even glare of Neji Hyuuga. Chiru stopped dead, looking down into the firey gaze of the angry branch-member. "Neji."
"Chiru."
She looked over his head. "I'd like to deliver my groceries, so can you please...?" Chiru motioned to the side. It was customary to move aside for an older member of the family.
"What makes you think I'd move for you, Nanmon?"
Chiru closed her eyes and furrowed her brows. She has hated Neji Hyuuga since the Hyuuga affair. She had been at Neji's birth. Hizashi Hyuuga had been her sensei. She had only been a Genin at the time, but the way she couldn't help but fuss over him made her feel thirty years old. But then...
"Listen to me, Neji! I am a branch member, just like you!" She swiped away her bangs, showing him boldly the green-ish seal on her forehead. She was the only member of the branch that didn't fully hide it. You could see the right side of the seal.
Her thinking was simple: What was the point of hiding something everyone knows you have?
"I demand equal respect! I have a Byakuugan, as do you. I was a friend of your fathers," she couldn't help but feel accomplished at his hardened glare. "And I held you as a baby. What have I done to make you not respect me?"
"You are weak." Chiru rubbed under her right eye self-consciously. Her Byakuugan again...
"I was born with a naturally weak Byakuugan, due to a scarred Chakra system around my crown. You know that."
"Destiny has made you weak."
Chiru shot a glance at Tokuma, who had been staying thankfully quiet the whole time. Tokuma shot a glance back at her, shrugging. His face read, You know how Neji is.
Yes, and I don't like it. She shot back.
Tokuma shrugged. Chiru sighed at the lack of help and just said, "I'm tired of you Neji. Now move."
She pushed him aside, (with the help a tad bit of chakra, she admits. Neji is not an easy one to move) and stepped around him, Tokuma following with the groceries. Neji sent them an icy-hot glare and moved on as well.
"I used to adore Neji."
Tokuma sent Chiru an amused look. "You like all adorable babies." Chiru crossed her arms crisply. "Touché."
"Thank you for coming to dinner, Tokuma-kun." Anzu Hyuuga told Tokuma merrily. "Sibai, Chiru, what do you say?"
Sibai answered obediently, "Thank you for coming, Tokuma-kun."
Chiru rolled her eyes. "Come on Mom. He'd come to dinner if we threw him into the sun."
Tokuma chuckled and tossed a pea at her head. It bounced off her forehead as he answered, "True."
Chiru growled and crossed her arms. "Don't you have, you know, a life to get too? What about your moms dinner?"
Tokuma opened his mouth to talk but the cry of, "TOKUMA HYUUGA! DON'T MAKE ME GO FIND YOU!" Tokuma sighed and stood up. "Thank you for the food, Anzu-san, but I must go. Mother calls."
He disappeared in a poof of smoke. Anzu stared at the place he was. She blinked in disbelief. Sibai and Chiru could only stare at their mother. Being the mother of a Field Jounin, (Chiru) and a Chuunin Medic (Sibai) you'd think she'd be used to people disappearing like that.
Anzu smiled, her wrinkled eyes turning into little upside down U's. She flapped her hand at them, smiling widely. "Oh, that still surprises me, that's all!"
Sibai and Chiru sighed as their mother chuckled 'he he he' behind them endlessly. "Come on big sister, let's go to bed." Chiru sighed and tussled her little sisters hair. "That may be a good idea."
They left their mother chuckling 'He he he' in the dining room.
Later, when they were changing into their PJ's, her sister asked the unavoidable question. Chiru was busy tying her robe, looping through the knots, her tongue peeking out of her mouth. "Hey, sister?"
"Hm?" Why wouldn't this knot tie right?
Sibai's voice was hesitant, faint. Her voice trembled as she spoke, "W-what was daddy like?"
Chiru froze half-way through her knot. Her hands slowed and dropped to her sides. "Sibai...," She turned to her younger sister. She was pretending to be occupied with tying her hair up into a long pony-tail for bed, but Chiru knew otherwise. The way her eyes stayed firmly on the ground and the way she just seemed to be flipping her hair around in loops.
Chiru collapsed on their bed, patting the spot next to her fondly. "Come here, Sibai. Sit down."
Sibai hesitantly sat down next to her sister. Sibai stared at Chiru anxiously, blue eyes curled in concern. Chiru's eyes scanned over her sister, amazed. Sibai inherited their mothers fawn brown hair and deep blue eyes, not to mention the flawless tanned skin. The only thing they shared were fathers leptorrhine nose and their mothers roundest-almond eyes.
Chiru had black Hyuuga hair, Hyuuga eyes, and pale skin. Her mother would seldom say, "Why, Chiru; you're looking so much like your father every day."
"Sibai...," Chiru started softly. She didn't like talking about Hiroshi Hyuuga and neither did her mother. It was a painful memory left best buried.
"Please, sister! Mother never talks about him, and you're the only one I can go to!" Sibai begged, latching onto her sisters sleeve. Chiru sighed softly and took her sisters hand. "Father was kind and he liked to play ball. He would toss the ball to me and he would cheer and clap when I caught it. He liked to tickle me and Mother...,"
Chiru didn't like talking about their father, though it was a big weight off her chest. She laid her sister down on her side of the queen-sized bed before laying next to her.
"He was a bit sloppy, sometimes. One time he gave me a grocery list to show Mother, but Mother made me take it back and have him rewrite it. Father was a very nice man."
Sibai looked disappointed. "But, sister... then why is he dead?"
"He's not dead! He's not dead...," she rolled over and mumbled the last bit into the pillow. Sibai, sensing her sisters pain, stayed silent. She rolled to face the opposite direction of her sister. "Good night."
"Good night."
And they slept.
Everything was blurry. Soft green grass under her feet, the familiar Hyuuga compound surrounding her. Three men with clear pools of skin-color faces. Their body languages suggested shame, hatred. Chiru didn't care. She yelled and ran about in her pink-and-purple yukata, short black hair bouncing.
"Here, Chiru. Catch the ball." A featureless man threw her a red-and-blue ball. He had long black hair brushed back and traditional clothing. She stumbled, but caught it. "Hey! Hey! I caught it! I caught it!" Chiru yelled happily, running up to the man.
"Good job, Chiru!" He picked her up and span her around and around. She laughed and laughed. They rubbed noses. "I love you, Father."
"I will always love you, my Chiru."
A splitting scream pierced the air. Suddenly Chiru was on the ground, alone. Hiroshi was walking away, fading out of existence quickly and rematerializing seconds later, paces ahead. He left Chiru alone, holding the ball.
Her father was in the distance, holding the source of the noise. Chiru's mother was next to him. "Hiroshi... she... she doesn't have...,"
"I know. She doesn't have the Byakuugan." He lowered his head, kissed his wife's forehead.
It all happened at once. A seal on Chiru's wide forehead glowed green, everything around her dimming. The seal on Hiroshi's forehead was glowing, too. The men were approaching, their milky white Byakuugan glowing on their featureless face. Hiroshi, the baby, and Anzu were fading, growing farther away. The cheery scene disappeared, replaced with a dull, gray landscape.
She felt something tugging at her arms, something cold and metallic clasped around her forehead, where her new seal was. She ignored them, tugging at the bonds. Anzu and the baby had disappeared, but Hiroshi was so faint and only growing fainter. No, she couldn't lose Hiroshi. Anyone but Hiroshi.
"Father!" She cried out desperately. Hiroshi turned and held out his hand, smiling kindly. She reached towards his hand, stretching farther and farther. The bonds held her back. The bonds wouldn't let go.
Blackness was creeping closer to Hiroshi. It was blurry and opaque. Closer, closer... it had reached him. Identical chains snapped around his wrists and his forehead. The silver flashed before it slipped him into the dark. The monster that took her father away drifted away on rapid winds.
"No! Father!" Angered, Chiru turned. Who held her back? Who chained her away from what she wanted? Who kept her so close yet so far?
Hands gripped her arms, the leaf emblem burnt on their palms. A pulsing chain with the Hyuuga symbol scratched on its shiny surface trapped her. They gripped tighter, pulling her against the grey wall, her arms to her sides. Helpless and broken, Chiru sank to the ground, legs curled to her side. The bonds left, but she was stuck to the wall. She couldn't move, she couldn't breathe. She was alone, only the distant cries of a baby echoing in her ears.
She was not a little girl anyone. She was a trapped twenty-one year old.
She hung her head, defeated. Tears leaked from her eyes. The Caged Bird hung tauntingly on the wall she was trapped on. "Father," she whispered as a last resort. She could do nothing but sit and cry.
Cry and wait.
Wait and suffer.
Why bother to hope when there is nothing to hope for?
Chiru bolt upright in a cold sweat. White eyes wide in fright, she wiped her forehead. "Sister? What's wrong?" Sibai sleepily asked beside her. She ignored her younger sister and dropped her head.
Tears freely streamed out of her eyes. Chiru could taste the salty water in her mouth.
Destiny has made you weak.
Destiny has made all of us weak.
Kuso- Damn
Jigoku e no chikuso- Damn it all to hell!
I liked how this chapter turned out. I apologize for any errors. I was in a hurry to get this out, and I neglected to spell-check. I'll do better on the next chapter, though. I promise!