A Naruto / The Host fanfiction by Lushard
A/N 31st March 2013: This fanfiction is a crossover from multiple novels and Naruto, The Host authored by Stephanie Meyer being the foundation and Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto being the tower. But I chose to not submit this story as a Crossover since the elements from The Host may be too vague.
Attention: This work of fanfiction will be set in the modern day (AU) with the exception of the Prologue. Enjoy, and please tell me what you think.
~ Prologue ~
Darkness Comes For Me
Shinobi are bound to die in battle.
It is a consequence that every child who is born in a shinobi family should be ready for. Especially if your family is among the most influental in the world where fighting never ceases.
Hinata Hyuuga had been taught of everything she must know as the heiress to the Hyuuga Clan. Prepared by her father to become a perfect Hyuuga who would fit to rule the clan someday, she had been trained in the arts of war since the age of four, taught in the principles of the world, and also the burdens she must bear as a shinobi. From words and experience, she knew that it was pretty rare for a shinobi to reach the age of fifty. And thus, the most basic knowledge she'd concluded as a child was:
Only the exceptional ones were able to survive.
And she was not amongst these people.
Hinata was lying motionlessly on the wet and muddy forest floor. Her jounin uniform was torn, and her headband missing. How long had she been there, she didn't know. All she could remember that she had been chased by a band of masked shinobi on her mission to retrieve a secret document from the Village of Sand: that they had ambushed her—lying traps all around her way back home, all across the forest—and had waited for her patiently to step into one. All the obvious ones, of course, had been easy to avoid, thanks to her Byakugan. But nontheless, she'd fallen into their tricks.
They had used a child, a small girl who couldn't have been older than six, to distract her. A moment was all that they'd needed to impale a blade—which undoubtedfully had been poisonous—at her. It had missed her vital organ by a mere inch, but a wound was a wound. And it was a deep one.
Clutching lightly to the broken flesh at her side, the heiress of Hyuuga struggled to fill her damaged lungs with air. Hinata felt them burning in response, making the process of breathing harder than she'd ever thought possible with the heat choking the air out of her the moment she inhaled. It was the poison: it was eating away her consciousness as well as disabling her organs to work, and thus, preventing her to use her chakra. Trying to roll to another side in order to inhale more air amidst the pouring rain, she mustered every last of her strength to move her numb body.
It didn't comply. A sharp pain shot through her at the merest attempt to move a limb, and before she knew it, she was already coughing more blood.
So determined were the ambush party that they had gathered more than twenty warriors, every each one of them had the skills comprabale to that of a jounin, to capture her. Their interest was, without a doubt, the secret behind Byakugan. Otherwise, they would not have prepared a group that large to seize a lone shinobi. Kiba and Shino, had, unfortunately been told to wait for her further on the road home. The mission had been an easy one, and the document was only a sum of data of Konoha's provisions after the Shinobi War.
She had been trusted to carry the simple task all by herself by the Hokage. And of course, no one had expected that a Hyuuga like her could be defeated so easily.
But the child...
"Compassion is weakness," a familiar voice echoed in her head.
Of course. She had been compassionate; she had been thoughtful of the child. She had been fooled.
She was weak.
As moments passed away, her head felt lighter and lighter from the bloodloss. She could feel her heart beating weakly against her chest, and realized that it only caused the wound at her side to leak more blood, soaking her already wet clothes with the rich color of life. This was bad.
There was no one whom she could call for help. Or, even if there were people nearby, she was sure che couldn't even build up enough chakra to alert them of her presence.
At the third attempt to move gather her remaining chakra, she finally gave up. There was not even a part of her body that was listening to her, much less capable of doing what she was meant to do. She could not send a signal, could not scream or shout, hell, she could not even move her fingers now. Her body was getting colder, and colder, and without a doubt, death was lurking around the corner, ready to dig its claws at her soul.
Death...
Was this what Neji had felt when he'd been about to die? This feeling of helplessness? This loneliness?
Ha. She doubted it. Her cousin had died a honorable death in the middle of a great war. He had done his part, had shared his last will, and had closed his eyes with a smile tugged at his lips. He had died a good death, just as her father had said.
Compared to him, she was a nobody. It was unlikely that her death would be remembered by her people. An heiress to a big clan of Konoha dying from bloodloss in a middle of nowhere? She could picture her father's desperation clearly in her head, with lips pursed and eyebrows tauted in supressed fury. Or maybe, it would be the exact opposite: her father would mourn, yes, she knew he would, but the grief would eventually lapse into acceptance, and, a little later, joy at the notion that the Hyuuga Clan could finally be led by a suitable heiress: Hanabi.
Yes, the second scenario seemed to be the most likely to happen. Her people would soon forget her name, made an empty grave in honor of a young woman whose life could be compared to that of a whistle of a breeze that died too soon for her liking, then life would go on.
Her friends too would mourn her, but again, it wouldn't be for long. She hadn't made any big achievements worth of their affection, after all.
A faint smile crept to her face. No, even Naruto would not grieve for her for long. He was a strong person: he would move on. He would honor her death, but then he would said his goodbye in front of her empty grave and turned on his heel, ready for a new day without her.
It was just the way of this world was... It was natural. Acceptable.
Slowly, her consciousness began to drift away. She could feel her thoughts slowing down, her body relaxing. The dark, gray clouds that hung abover her head were dissipating in her sight, nothing but a blurry image of gray, black dots and dark green of the forest canopy. She could not see the sun behind the thick clouds, and guessed that it probably was almost dusk. Second after second passed away. Breathing became a labored process, keeping her mind aware was a task close to impossible. She could barely feel the pool of mud and blood beneath her now.
So... This is death.
She knew it. She had been prepared for it. But again, she found her heart screaming against its tightening grip. She didn't want to let it end just yet... There were still so many thing she wished to achieve, so many places she wished to see.
Hinata closed her tired eyes, feeling the last breath being sucked from her chest.
This was the world she lived in. This was the shinobi world. The world she had accepted without questions; the world where she had struggled to find the meaning of her life.
I...
The world she scorned now.
... want to live.
And with that, darkness claimed her.
Coming up: Chapter 1 - The World I Had Wished For
