Red Sun Rising

Part One

Hanabi

Summary: A red sun rising has always meant a bad omen for the Hyuuga Clan, and it cannot be coincidence that Hinata and Gaara met on a red sun. Hyuuga centric companion piece to DB.

It was on the blood red sun that she met him and where she would meet her final fate.

Hanabi looked at her sister out of the corner of a discreet eye. It was dinnertime in the Hyuuga household and Hinata had received her latest mission from the Hokage, passed from Naruto who she'd explained was going training with the legendary sannin; Jiraiya. She'd said that they were going to find a replacement for her teammates and that she'd met the one she was going to 'take care of'. Hanabi had watched Hiashi's eyes widen when he took in the countenance of his eldest daughter and shaken, Hanabi studied his reaction. He was seeing something that she wasn't. Something plausible, so solid within the air that even her genius cousin Neji was staring at Hinata with something queer in his unnatural gaze.

They could sense something squirming beneath the surface like an animal in water trapped beneath thick sheets of ice.

After some time had passed, Hanabi could see it as well. Hinata's Byakugan had gotten slightly stronger, her hits in their spars meant to hurt and burn. She wasn't as gentle as she used to be and it frightened Hanabi slightly. Only slightly. Frightened her slightly to watch her sister's usually kind and soft eyes harden and sharpen like a hawk calling out a battle cry. Frightened her a little when she watched her sister charge at her father during their spars with one hand out, spitting up blood when his hits connected with her and watch the fury pulse beneath the surface, blending with the furious glare of the Byakugan.

More time had been spent with the boy and Hiashi had her removed from the household, saying it would make her stronger and more durable.

But you can't hide anything from Byakugan eyes, the eyes of ghosts who had long since passed away from the earth. They saw too much, knew too much and for all their knowledge were silent because they believed in destiny.

Hanabi had watched her sister's wide eyes travel from the stern council to her firm father, disbelief in her glance. She watched her father look away from Hinata's eyes slightly, pained as though he was seeing something – not the new emotions that leaked from her now like a poison, but seeing something not from now but from far from now; his own daughter's future.

Hanabi looked at her sister hard, trying to read what Hiashi and Neji could and she saw it when her sister's eyes met hers. Perhaps not her future, or her death or the rest of her life…but her destiny as her father would explain it. "Our eyes are able to see in the soul and decipher in ways what their destiny is."

She saw red hair and green eyes, a red love tattoo and a rising giant behind those mysterious features wrapped in chains. It faced her and grinned, canines smiling and the chains were on her sister, crushing her and bleeding her like a sacrificial pig. The chains on the beast led to the features which mutated into the fierce face of a boy, and from him it went to Hinata. They were all being crushed.

Hanabi fell from her seated position and onto the floor, feeling nauseous. She held a hand to her mouth. Hinata, Hiashi and Neji were around her and she too, like her cousin and father couldn't meet her sister's concerned gaze.

Even thereafter, Hinata still came to the Hyuuga compound to train accordance to her father. Days after Hanabi had talked to Neji and his teammates of this person Hinata was caring for.

"He's not a person – he's a monster…he almost killed Lee."

"He was incredibly strong…and a different fire burned in him – not of youth but it was something old – it wasn't angry but…it wanted to see death and so did he. His name…is Sabaku no Gaara."

"He is the one who fought and lost against Naruto. The idiot says he's changed but I still see the same boy who almost killed my teammate. All he's doing is reigning in his bloodlust. Even Hinata-sama sees that."

Hanabi bit her lip as she thought back to the team's cryptic words. If Hinata knew what he was, could see it with her eyes and it was so tangible then why was she staying? Pride? Concern for him? She didn't want him to be executed as the Kazekage had claimed – from what her father told her? Why?

She had taken over Hinata's position on Team Eight and she found them tolerable in their own ways. They worried for Hinata, who had broken off ties to them slowly withdrawing and keeping away from people entirely. She'd become the leash for Gaara and in turn had become his shadow. Gaara went nowhere without her and vice versa. Hanabi knew she wouldn't disregard her teammates without reason, 'What are you doing?'

They were going to the Lightning country and Hanabi watched her sister as she told them this – they would be going after the festival. Her eyes turned to them and Hanabi looked away; she could still see the chains on her sister.

The next day she was gone, far away and Hanabi went to her room, climbing the stairs slowly, body detached from her mind. She passed Hinata's old room and stopped. The feeling of a ghost living in their house wouldn't go away, ever since she'd been assigned to that 'demon' boy. It bothered Hanabi to no extent that while her sister was still alive that her ghost would find it fit to haunt them early on. Hanabi turned to the door and with slightly trembling cold fingers slid the paper door open.

Her breathing was ragged as she stepped into the room, feeling something in her chest rise. Nothing was touched and she saw something out of the corner of her eye, moving within the mirror. Hanabi noticed as she moved closer to the vanity mirror, that it had been shattered, broken bits lying dead on the desk.

They saw too much.

She leaned in close to the shattered glass and there were parts that had not been shattered into small pieces, larger pieces intact. What looked to be scratches of angry nails lay across the larger pieces. In the reflection of one, light shining on it and creating a glare, Hanabi turned to it and stared at her sister's face. She screamed and fell back. Hinata was not in the room or even on the grounds of the Hyuuga compound.

She turned to the door and saw that it had been shut securely, probably masking her small shriek. She gulped in large amounts of air and calmed herself while she stood. She looked over at the shard of glass and saw no reflection. Nothing. She scurried hurriedly to the door, opened it and slid out of her sister's room.

Even still, Hanabi always felt the chill of her still alive sister's ghost wandering the halls, hovering around her father who now had lines under his eyes from lack of sleep. Neji was absent from the house as often as possible and when he was, he would constantly look at a corner and Hanabi knew, she knew – her sister was watching Neji as well. Hanabi herself couldn't look at her herself in any of the house mirrors, always seeing her sister behind her, always seeing those eyes. Those eyes…

The eyes of a ghost which shouldn't exist.

-

Some of you may think that this was in fact pointless, but contrary to the madness that is me, if you hadn't realized it – it shows a different look on the Hyuuga's family relationships. If you can at least read that much from this confusing start – kudos. Review if you have no idea what's going on and I'll be able to explain as best as I can, or review if you understand it or liked it or disliked it.