Fatherhood
Author's note: All reviews are appreciated. For those of you who have read That's My Boy you will recognize Haru and Arashi (nicknamed Sparky.) In this story though they will be twins. You do not have to read the other story to understand it.
Chapter Notation: I realize that the concept for the story might be a little weird. But Orochimaru and Kabuto are devious, evil medical geniuses. They are also obsessed with power and Sasuke, so it's not that far fetched if you really think about it. Oh and I hope that Sasuke and Hinata are IC here. The story will have lots of romance eventually, I promise ;) I made up the Clan Song lyric.
Disclaimer: I own nothing and make no profit off of any of my stories.
Chapter One
Beautiful. The Full Moon's light illuminated the world's most infamous village with startling clarity, despite the late hour. Everyone should have been asleep by now. It was too late to be training and too early to be up. Yet, Sasuke Uchiha still heard beautiful singing coming from somewhere inside the village.
"The dungeons." He mutters to himself.
The singing was definitely coming from the dungeons. It was coming from one of the top floors. That was no deterrent to someone like Sasuke though.
"I didn't know anyone in the Sound COULD sing." He mutters to himself, finding the activity stood out amongst the Sound Village as being far too civilized and deciding that was probably part of the reason why he had to know who was singing.
He easily scaled the building and found a window. There were bars on it. He knew Orochimaru well enough to realize anyone dumb enough to touch the bars would get a nasty electrical shock that was nearly as strong as his Chidori. So this must have been an important prisoner. Interesting.
"Hush little one. Please don't cry. Keep your pride and your clan will be by your side." Hinata sang this line over and over again.
It was an old clan song. She was almost positive it predated the founding of the Leaf Village. She couldn't remember anything else of the song, just that line.
The song lyric provided her with an extraordinary gift. It gave her something to focus on besides her current situation. She had been captured by some Sound Ninjas.
"Just focus on the song. Don't think about what they'll do to you." She whispers to herself quietly between a repetition of that single lyric.
The Hyuga Heiress had no idea where she was. They had knocked her out and blindfolded her after injecting her with some kind of chakra blocker. She could remember that much.
"Don't worry Hinata. We're almost home!" Kiba had said cheerfully to his female teammate as they were heading back to the Leaf Village from a long mission.
"I have a bad feeling, Kiba." She admitted.
"You should listen to your instincts. Perhaps it would be best if we hurried home. If you are concerned, there is likely a reason." Shino said.
"Oh my God, I think that's the most words you ever said in a row since we all were assigned to the same team!" Kiba teased him and earned a slap from Shino for his taunt.
"Oh it's too late for that." Hinata heard a voice say and she instantly took a defensive position.
They had been ambushed by dozens of Sound ninjas. Kiba, Shino, and Hinata had fought hard. But their numbers had just overwhelmed them. At some point, she heard Kiba screaming when she was knocked to the ground and felt something prick her neck before she succumbed unconsciousness.
"Their intention must have been to take me a prisoner all along." She murmurs and sings the lyric again.
Clearly they knew that the Byakugan could see through clothes and by extension blindfolds. The fact that they knew that just terrified her more. She wasn't dealing with a group of amateur bandits, hoping to get a hefty ransom for her. No, she was dealing with psychotic criminal ninjas and they knew all about her family's bloodline, it seemed.
"Hinata." Sasuke whispers to himself once got a good look at who was down in that cell.
He sits on the window sill, careful not to touch the bars. Lightning was one of his natural affinities, but that didn't mean he wanted to get electrocuted. Still he found himself entranced. He couldn't look away.
Sasuke honestly couldn't explain why he couldn't look away. He just knew that he couldn't. Maybe it was because she had a beautiful voice. Maybe it was because she was a former classmate. Maybe it was because he KNEW that song.
"Naruto's an idiot." He says as notes that she had "grown well" to put it mildly and tries to square the image of the beautiful woman down below with that of an awkwardly cute, painfully shy girl from the Academy.
When she began singing again, he briefly stopped his internal musings on her "Butterfly Transformation," to concentrate on the song itself. It been passed down through all the "Noble Clans." No one knew who the original author was or when it had been created.
Perhaps because of this, it was popular amongst the children of all the Noble Clans. Children loved a good mystery. The song was generic enough that it could apply to almost any family, which had likely helped to boost its popularity.
"Damn her, making me dwell on such things." He mutters in disgust at himself for recalling an innocent childhood memory because it triggered the less innocent ones.
He decided he didn't care what the reason was. He needed a distraction to prevent the flood of images from THAT night from drowning him for the thousandth time. So Sasuke was going to keep watching her.
"Don't stop." He says loud enough for Hinata to hear once her singing had ceased completely.
He knew why. The youngest Uchiha could hear stomach growling like a starving lioness from the window.
This was a bit amusing because she reminded him of a stray kitten that he'd seen once in his District as a child. It was half starved. He remembered feeding it and his father telling him to get rid of it. It probably had rabies or something.
"Who is the-re?" She calls out.
Mikoto Uchiha though had interceded on her son's behalf and convinced Fugaku to let him keep the kitten. Unfortunately, it had disappeared sometime during the massacre. It hadn't been a ninja cat, just a regular pet. He doubted that Itachi would have bothered to kill it.
Perhaps it was still alive somewhere and had been adopted by another family or was living as a stray cat. Sasuke liked to think that Midnight hadn't died along with the rest of his family that night. But he pushes that thought to the side to focus on Hinata instead.
"It's odd. You don't stutter when you sing." He says.
Hinata blinks. She recognized that voice. It was a vague memory, but she recalled it from the Academy. Sasuke?
Well she was in the Sound. It had to be him. She tries to look up to get a better look at who was speaking to her, but it was useless. He was clearly behind the bars and they were too thick to see much else other than a flash of ivory cream colored skin here and there and some black hair. He could have been anyone.
"Sasuke?" She asks.
"You remember me. I'm surprised. I thought you only had eyes for Naruto." He replies.
She shivers a bit and not from the cold. He might be the Devil, but he had the voice of an angel. It was like a silken caress. Hinata didn't know Sasuke well enough to tell if he was joking, teasing her, or mocking her. But his voice…had her memorized.
"Of course, I remember you. We were classmates." She says and thanks the Gods that she managed to reply without stuttering.
The last thing she wanted was to be viewed as weak by him. Sasuke would probably kill her as soon as look at her. She knew what he'd gone through. Personally, she was shocked he hadn't left he village sooner.
After his entire family was murdered, they just left a seven year old child…all alone. And then they were shocked when he was easily manipulated by a psychotic criminal ninja who promised him revenge against his serial killer of a brother? She loved her village dearly, but she couldn't understand what had been going on in the minds of the council. How could they not see that was a disaster in the making?
"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" He asks in cold amusement.
"I guess not." She murmurs.
"Here, you'll be too weak to sing if you collapse from starvation." He says and throws something between the bars of the window.
"Thank you." Hinata says quickly and grabs the fallen traveling pouch.
It was a pouch that was used to store things like kunais, water, or rations. Every ninja had at least one on their person. She opens it and sees a water bottle and some dried jerky.
Thankfully, her chains allowed her just enough movement to eat the jerky and use her mouth to open the water bottle. She didn't have enough movement of her fingers to open it the normal way.
"You're welcome." He replies automatically without thinking about it.
Sasuke mentally kicks himself. S Class Criminal Ninjas did not say, "You're welcome." What was next? "Pretty please and thank you?" He rolls his eyes at himself. He was glad that Hinata couldn't see his face as he did so.
"Why do you want me to keep singing?" She asks curiously.
"I know that song. My mother used to sing it to me." Sasuke says.
What the fuck is wrong with me?! Why did I tell her that? Sasuke thinks to himself. Oh well. It didn't matter. It wasn't like she could actually use that little tidbit against him. Still he didn't like that he had told her something so personal, so freely. It unnerved him.
"Oh." Hinata says and she goes back to singing.
Over the next few weeks, they fell into a pattern. Sasuke would return every night. The youngest Uchiha always brought food and water with him. He'd sit on the window sill and listen to her sing or her talk.
Idly, Sasuke was amused at his own behavior. It had always annoyed him how girls would never shut up. But Hinata wasn't loud. She wasn't annoying. Her…naïve view of the world was a fascinating reprieve from the harsh realities of the real world.
She did most of the talking. It was better that way, Sasuke decided. There was little he could tell her that wouldn't horrify her and he didn't want to give her any useful information that might be used against him later.
There was always the chance that she would escape or be rescued later. Surely, the Leaf would send someone to rescue their Hyuga Princess. He wasn't going to give her anything that she could potentially use against him.
"Sasuke, why do you keep coming back?" She had asked him once about two weeks into his visits.
"It's a whim. Nothing more." He lied with ease and threw another ninja pouch through the bars.
Sasuke wasn't even sure why he kept coming back himself. There was no logical reason to visit. If anything, it was stupid to continue going to her every night and losing precious hours that could have been spent sleeping.
He hadn't gotten eight hours of sleep since he had first discovered her. He was managing on 4-6 now. But he didn't know how long he could continue without it slowing his training progress.
"I hope it's a whim that lasts a long time then." She whispered, but he had heard it all the same.
What disturbed him most is that deep down he knew if it came down to a choice between a full night's sleep and a productive day's training or hearing her sing or talk about whatever subject happened to enter her pretty little head that day, he knew that he'd choose Hinata.
"We'll see. How did you end up here?" He asked.
That should have been his first clue that he should have run like Hell. He couldn't afford bonds. He couldn't afford to get attached to anyone before Itachi was dead. Friendship was a luxury that was off limits to him for the time being.
"Our team was ambushed. We were overwhelmed with numbers. They knocked me unconscious, blocked my chakra with some sort of drug, and blindfolded me. I woke up here." She answered.
He felt irritated at her teammates. Sasuke could take out a thousand opponents. He didn't know how many that Orochimaru had sent out on that ambush, but he doubted he had spared a thousand for the task. Sasuke could have protected her. Her teammates were useless he decided.
"They should have protected you better." He muttered.
"We protected each other as much as we could! There were just too many of them. But thank you." She said.
"For what?" Sasuke asked in confusion.
"For caring." Hinata replied.
"For caring? Hinata, I do not care. I am simply making an observation. Your teammates let you down. You are a Hyuga. They should have realized that put you at a higher risk for kidnapping attempts." He scoffed.
"Forgive me Sasuke. Your whim shows remarkably similarities to caring from my perspective." She told him.
"I didn't know that you were capable of sarcasm." He said with a smirk.
"There's a lot that you don't know about me. Maybe you are just rubbing off one me." She said.
"Hinata." He calls out one night.
Sasuke frowns when he didn't receive a response. She always responded to him. He looks down and notices she wasn't in her cell. Had the Leaf somehow rescued her without his knowing and why did that thought bother him? She wasn't cut out for the Sound Village. She belonged in the Leaf anyway.
Meanwhile in the medical lab, Hinata comes to. She gulps. She didn't know what they did to her while she was unconscious during these times. But each time before, she had heard Kabuto say the previous session was unsuccessful. Something about cycles not lining up.
"Finally. Lord Orochimaru, the last session was a success." He says.
"Ah that is indeed excellent news. She'll have to be moved outside of the dungeon." He states.
"Naturally." He replies.
Hinata gulps. She didn't know what he meant by last session was successful. She didn't feel any different. But that didn't necessarily mean anything. Both of these men were known to engage in twisted medical experiments.
"I'm certain you are wondering what we are talking about, My Dear." Orochimaru coos at her.
She nods her head cautiously. She didn't want to risk setting Sannin off. Honestly, she didn't know what they wanted from her. If it was just her eyes, they could have taken those a long time ago.
She'd been here for a month at least. The Moon had gone through an entire cycle. She knew that because she could guess what stage the Moon was at based on how much light filtered through the window at night.
"Congratulations. You are going to be a mother." He says.
"But I ha-ven't been with anyone." Hinata stammers.
"Oh I'm aware of that. We used in artificial insemination." The dark haired man informs her.
Hinata felt like she was going to be sick. She was pregnant. The Hyuga Heiress was going to have a baby and she didn't even know who the biological father was. She felt like she was going to pass out.
"Oh don't worry, My Dear. If nothing else…I'm certain your child will be quite impressive. Such wonderful genes." He praises her.
"Please tell me who the father is." Hinata pleads.
"I suppose we should have expected that reaction. Hmm I'm not certain I should answer your question. If you told him, things could become most unpleasant for all of us." Orochimaru muses.
"Lord Orochimaru, I believe we should tell her. If we do not, it could cause her unnecessary stress. Such stress would not be good for the child." He states.
"A fair point. Very well. The father is Sasuke. Kabuto is his medic and was able to retrieve the samples from his physical evaluations. This will be the first time in history to my knowledge that the Uchiha and Hyuga Clans have mixed. The results should prove most fascinating." Orochimaru says.
"Sasuke?" She asks in shock.
Her knees almost gave out from shock. For the briefest of moments, she was furious at Sasuke. Is that why he had befriended her, if you could call it that? He had wanted her to warm up to the idea of him?
She dismisses the idea almost as quickly as it came. No. Orochimaru ahd said, "If you told him." Sasuke was unaware of this. Hinata was positive that was the case.
He wanted to restore his clan almost more than anything. If he knew that they were trying to impregnate her with his child, he would have said something. Sasuke was not a subtle person. She doubted the village would still be standing, if he knew.
"You monsters. How could you do something like this?! We are not guinea pigs for you to conduct your sick experiments on!" She actually snarls.
She didn't know what came over her. Years later, she supposed it was some sort of maternal instinct to protect herself and her baby (well babies, she would eventually have twins.) She lunged at Kabuto and Orochimaru. She knew that she couldn't use chakra, but she was so furious that she somehow still thought that she could take them out with just old fashioned punches and kicks.
BAM. SMACK. CRUNCH. She continues a flurry of bone crunching kicks and punches. It was satisfying to hear a few of their bones snap. Both men were stunned enough at her ferocity that she was able to deal some rather satisfying blows before Orochimaru slammed her into the wall, hard enough that the world spun.
"You are fortunate that you are now pregnant. Had you not been, I would have killed you for such insolence. You have a choice. You can spend your pregnancy in comfort or I can chain you right back up." He tells her.
Hinata was running on pure instinct at the moment. She rises to her feet and attacks. AGAIN AND AGAIN. She had to get out of there fast and she knew that she had one valuable advantage over Orochimaru and Kabuto right now. Neither would kill her. She was pregnant with Sasuke's child. They wanted that super baby far more than they might want her dead.
"Kabuto go chain her back up. She's going to be difficult." Orochimaru says and frowns as he noticed that he did indeed have a handful of broken bones and many bruises.
Mothers were dangerous animals. He supposed he couldn't entirely blame her. Hinata wanted to protect herself and perhaps her child. She'd been their prisoner for a month and they had inseminated her without her knowledge. Still, he wasn't going to tolerate such…displays in the future.
"Of course." He says and carries her back to the dungeon, after the fight was over.
Sasuke sees Kabuto carrying someone back into the dungeon. He blinks when he saw Hinata. He wasn't positive if she was unconscious or not. But he saw a bit of blood flowing out of her mouth and several wicked looking cuts and bruises.
She'd been fighting with her chakra still blocked. Fighting hard it seemed. Part of him admired her bravery. Mostly though, he was worried.
"Dammit." He mutters under his breath.
That pissed him off. He shouldn't be worried. She was only supposed to be a passing amusement. A pleasant distraction from the horrors of his every day life. He wasn't supposed to care about her!
He waited until Kabuto left. Then he jumps down from the window and heads to the entrance of the dungeon. He ignores the protests of the guards, knocking them out rather easily. Getting the open though, that was going to be more tricky.
"Fuck it. CHIDORI." He growls out and utterly destroys the damn door.
Hinata lifts up her head when she hears Sasuke call out the name of his signature attack. He didn't waste any time walking over to her.
"What happened?" He asks and takes a quick assessment of her condition.
He decided it fell into the ouch category and not the potentially lethal category. She was covered in bruises and he guessed that she had been thrown against a wall at least once judging by the faint trail of blood coming out of her mouth. Sasuke having been thrown against a wall by Itachi once, recognized that injury.
"It was Orochimaru and Kabuto. I got angry and fought them. They can't kill me now, at least not for several months. So none of my injuries are that bad." She mutters bitterly.
Sasuke blinks. Hinata didn't do bitter. She'd been a prisoner for a month and never once had he heard bitterness in her voice. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. And why couldn't Kabuto or Orochimaru kill her for several months.
"They had been taking me to a medical lab sometimes. I would wake up. I didn't feel any pain. They'd always say that the cycle wasn't lying up. That it had been a failure. I didn't understand until today what they meant. They were inseminating me. I'm pregnant." She explains and Sasuke could see that she was silently crying.
"Damn it!" Sasuke hisses.
He did wonder who the father was. There was a possibility it was a random ninja. Orochimaru might just want a quick super baby to use as a vessel later on. But he doubted it. Orochimaru and Kabuto weren't the sorts to do anything halfway. God only knows what the child in her womb was going to be like, if it was allowed to be born.
"Come on. Let's get you out of here." Sasuke says, drawing his sword and cutting the chains.
Sasuke didn't have an issue with scientific methods assisting in conception. Not really. There were for people who just had trouble conceiving. But Hinata was as far as he knew a healthy young woman. If she wanted to have children, she could have done it easily on her own. And they had done it without her consent or even knowledge. It was sick. Even by his standards. If they were willing to do that to her, God only knows what else they had planned.
"Thank you." She whispers and Sasuke nods.
"Can you run?" He asks.
"I think so." She replies.
"If you can't, I'll just have to carry you. Come on. We need to get you back to the Leaf as soon as possible." He says.
They raced through the Sound Village. Unsurprisingly, Orochimaru had guards around the village's perimeter and naturally, they saw Hinata and Sasuke. A fight ensued. Sasuke slammed his fist into the gut off one and was surprised when he saw Hinata doing spinning around rather quickly, to deliver several fast kicks.
He knew she was weak from her beating and less than ideal diet from the last month. Not to mention being chained most of the time. But she was still fighting. He was actually…impressed in a way. Still he knocked out the guards rather quickly and took off with her towards the Leaf. They traveled for hours until they came to the Forest of Death.
"I imagine you can get back to the Hyuga Estate from here on your own. I'll double back. If anyone followed us, I'll take care of them." Sasuke says.
"Thank you. Sasuke there's something I should tell you…" Hinata says.
"And if you decide to keep it, the child is lucky to have you as their mother." He says and was about to turn to go when she said that.
"What is it?" He asks.
"I know who the father is." The bluenette begins to say.
"Oh. Who?" Sasuke asks.
Sasuke normally was a ninja who had his guard up at all times. But he just found out that his friend had been artificially inseminated without her knowledge and conducted a rescue mission. So maybe he could be forgiven for not being as aware of his surroundings as he normally would have been. So he didn't see the hit coming.
Sasuke collapsed to the ground unconscious from the force of the strike to his neck. It had knocked him out completely. Hinata gasps and rushes over to him.
"Hinata, you are back. I am so glad. I was worried sick. I had thought that we had lost you when Kiba and Shino told us you were taken hostage by the Sound Village. And somehow you captured Sasuke Uchiha. Well done. I am very proud of you." Hiashi says.
"Father! I'm so glad to see you. But you don't understand…" She says.
"We will take him to the Hokage at once and she'll decide his fate. Likely an execution." He continues.
"Father! He can't be executed!" Hinata says horrified.
"He betrayed this village, Hinata." Hiashi says.
"Maybe. But he's also the father of my child." She says.
"WHAT?!" Hiashi roars.
"It wasn't like that. Orochimaru and Kabuto…they inseminated me without my knowledge. When Sasuke found me in the dungeons and I told him what happened, he took me here. He rescued me. He's not the villain that you would believe him to be." She tries to explain.
How could she explain though? She could barely process what had happened to her. How could she expect Hiashi to just accept the fact that two evil ninjas had inseminated her with Sasuke's child, without either of their knowledge? Furthermore, that Sasuke was kind or at least not evil.
"Daughter, you have never lied to me before. Is he aware that he is the father? If he agreed to have you impregnated against your will, I will execute him myself!" Hiashi says with a growl.
"No. He doesn't know. But he helped me escape anyway." Hinata says.
"So it seems I have him to thank for your safe return. It's truly a strange word we live in. If those injuries were not the result of your clash with him, then I assume it was Orochimaru who harmed you?" He asks.
"It was. Him and Kabuto." She answers.
"We'll go and speak with the Lady Hokage at once. His offenses are rather long. But he saved you and is the father of my grandchild, for their sake I will argue on his behalf." He promises Hinata.
"Thank you, father." She says and hugs him.
He hugs back. Hiashi sighs. He was so relieved that she was back. He wouldn't say that Hinata was okay exactly. She was now pregnant and that hadn't been by choice. Pregnant with a S Class Criminal's baby. He almost hoped that the child would be a girl. Just so Sasuke would one day would know what real terror was. Real terror was when you didn't know where one of your daughters was. When you had no idea what had happened to one of your princesses.
"Welcome to fatherhood, Sasuke." Hiashi mutters, taking the younger man into his arms, and heading off to the Hokage Tower with Hinata by his side.