Hinata's eyes snapped open, and she choked as she was met with the sight of blinding artificial light and unnatural white ceilings. She gasped, coughed, and her arms began to fail, trying to stop her choking and trying to breathe. As her face turned red and her cheeks streamed with tears, her hands knocked against a hard surface, and this action was followed by a loud crash and a louder curse.
The mysterious voice snapped profanities that Hinata couldn't even begin to understand and forced Hinata's mouth open to pour precious cold liquid in.
Gasping and breathing, Hinata looked around herself properly, and saw a girl with sharp eyes and red hair. "K-Karin Uzumaki?"
"You know me, then," Karin said, standing up and looking haughtily down at Hinata. She looked worried, almost concerned, but Hinata didn't dare give it much thought and instead focused on finishing off the glass of water. "Or rather, you know my appearance. Either way is good enough. Get up."
Hinata obliged, struggling to stand on wobbly, painful legs and self-consciously brushing her ripped and bloody dress. Her mind whirled as it tried to comprehend what was going on, where she was, what she doing, what she was wearing and where was Itachi?
Then she froze, stiffening as memories replayed themselves, and she looked around at the lab and the resting bed she had been lying on. She looked metal cuffs around her legs that had chakra seals and weights etched upon them. Her hands flexed as she remembered killing guard after guard after guard to give the Uchiha a safe escape, to avenge her dead family and to find them so that she could at least give them a safe burial. She remembered being finally taken down so very easily by an amused Kabuto.
Miserably, Hinata let Karin lead her out of the room, and paid no attention to the increasingly dark and morbid corridors. She'd failed. Her one chance of escaping, of returning to Konohagakure, and she'd failed. Not only that, she'd failed to keep her family alive, to keep her promises and to redeem herself. It was her fault they had been chained here, and now it was her fault that they were dead.
They were dead.
She would never see them again.
And she would live for all eternity knowing that she was the cause of their imprisonment and death.
Hinata felt her stomach churn and her eyes burn as she tried to grasp life without her beloved House and family, because she couldn't. She couldn't bear to live without her father's stern words of wisdom, her sister's small smiles and mysterious alliances, Neji's sudden protective streak, Akane's childish innocence and even the critics in the House who had always said that Hinata was the worst thing ever to be born into the House - and they were right. She was. She'd singlehandedly not only caused her House's downfall, but that of her country.
"You'll be staying in here," Karin said, pushing Hinata into a pitch black, large hall with a rough hand and a prod of a baton. Hinata paid it no attention, dully noting the slightly greenish tinge of the floor that could be seen through the dim light of the artificial lights in the corridor.
"It's a little dark. You'll get used to it," Karin said, her mouth twisting into an odd smile. "Just wait here, although I daresay you won't be going anywhere. I should warn you that any attempts to open the door without the proper key, seals and chakra signature will result in a rather painful electric shock that will have you unconscious for at least three days. There are no windows, no holes or cracks that you can escape, no air vents bigger than the size of your fingers and no probable weapons. You will stay here until the Emperor summons you. Until then, you will have no rations or anything but the clothes on your back and your conscience and the others as company."
Hinata turned to Karin in confusion. The others? Her heart began to pound. Surely, surely the Uchiha had escaped?
"Lots of people. And your family, of course. The rest of the Hyuga. They'll come later, much later, but I thought you'd like to know," Karin said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. She rolled her eyes and pushed Hinata into the darkness a little more, then slammed the door shut with a resounding bang, leaving Hinata alone in isolation.
Hinata fell to the concerning damp floor in despair, and the metal cuffs and chains clinked mutely. Was Orochimaru really that sadistic? That he'd leave Hinata in this horrible abyss with only the bodies of the family she'd failed to save for all eternity?
Yes, Hinata thought dully even as her hands trembled in horror and she began to shake. He was. But if she was lucky, maybe he'd tire of her, and perhaps before the bodies of the once perfect Hyuga began to decompose, perhaps Orochimaru would take from her her immortality and kill her too.
She closed her eyes. How had she come to be in this mess? It had been supposed to be the perfect plan, the perfect ending and the perfect move.
During the war between Konohgakure and Otogakure, the Hyuga and her cities had refused to fight, despite their allies, the Aburame and Inuzuka, pledging their forces. Instead, the Hyuga had smugly sat back and watch the carnage and consequences of the fiancée of the Uchiha Crown Prince being murdered in cold blood by the Oto ambassador, of Orochimaru's attempts to kidnap Itachi for dubious purposes, of the Uchiha's retaliation. But when Oto had penetrated the defences, had marched into the heart of Konohagakure and began the Invasion of the Imperial City that cost the life of Emperor Sarutobi, Hinata and Neji had plotted to help the country which they half hated but loved all the same. They'd thought of the perfect plan, the perfect ambush to suddenly appear. Each Hyuga would be devastating as any House's battalion, and as Konoha was losing miserably without their strong powerhouse, the return of the Hyuga would be welcome. So they rallied a large fraction of the Hyuga Army to fight for their country.
And they'd won.
The Hyuga had been devastating - they always were - and had won the battle for Konohagakure, and proceeded to win more and more and more until Hiashi finally sent out the rest of the Hyuga Army and darkly informed his Civilian Armies to stay put.
But somehow, in the midst of the golden-orange victories of the battles, the war was lost to betrayals and traitors, and the Hyuga and Uchiha Houses had been captured and marched to Otogakure's prisons. But even then, the perfect ending hadn't been out of sight, and Hinata and Itachi had planned an escape.
It had been supposed to be the perfect plan.
But at least Itachi was safe.
At least the Hyuga's blood rivals were safe.
Hinata screamed and buried her wet, tearful face in her hands.
In the hours and days and months and eternities spent in her dark prison alone, Hinata learnt how easy it was to knock oneself unconscious (so convenient, that safety measure to knock her unconscious if she tried to escape), that fighting invisible enemies from her bloody past was quite hard with heavy chains to her feet and that nothing, nothing would ever squash her ever growing guilt.
Sometimes, she'd sit down and remember Itachi telling her that she couldn't focus on the past, but had to focus on the present and the future. She'd smile a little, her heart would sing, and then she'd scream at herself for her selfishness and stupidity because she had no future, her present was imprisonment, and why was she in love with Itachi Uchiha? How could she face her House in the next life, knowing she had saved his family, and neglected hers?
How?
I promise, Hinata had said,bending down and smiling convincingly to a crying Hyuga child, we'll meet again.
Yes. Our corpses will meet again.
Even in the blinding darkness, Hinata could see Akane's tear stained face and the utter misery and desperation that had been etched on it the last time Hinata had seen her. She could imagine Akane's wide, glazed white eyes, wide with shock and pain. Her arms bent unnaturally and her legs gone together. There was a huge, gaping hole where Akane's heart had once been, and her torso was slashed open, revealing blood and organs and blood and intestines and blood and blood blood blood blood blood bloo-
Hinata bit her lip and decided it was time to knock herself unconscious for another three days.
Staggering upwards, she half climbed, half crawled to the wall and let her fingers guide her in the obsidian light to the door. It was really far too easy to pretend to try to escape. Her long fingers pried the cracks of the door carefully, as though to try to open the door silently. She waited expectantly for the electric shock.
It never came.
Normally, Hinata classified herself (as did others) as an exceedingly patient person, but she could not get the sight of Akane's possible corpse out of mind and imagination. She hissed and slammed at the door, asking, demanding her blissful dose of unconscious, but she was denied, as always, as usual.
Snapping her fury, her eyes wide as Hanabi's face began to edge her way into her imagination, Hinata executed a two legged kick that would have had any of her former friends and dead family proud on the door, battering the heavy metal with the thick metal chains and screaming hoarsely at the door.
In the end, Hinata was denied her family, her birth right, her position, her mother, her love, her freedom, her consciousness, her unconsciousness, her life, her death.
In the end, Hinata was denied everything.
(In the end, Hinata knocked herself out with a cracking of her head to the floor)
After many, many bouts of unconsciousness and self-pity, Hinata began to wonder if Orochimaru really was going to send her House's bodies into her dungeon. Perhaps not? Perhaps Karin was lying. Perhaps not. Hinata doubted that Karin would lie, that Orochimaru would not be so sadistic. Perhaps he was taking Father's eyes, or playing with human corpses. Hinata bit her lip nervously. Surely Orochimaru wouldn't decide to use some resurrection jutsu?
Suddenly, Hinata could see her House walking stiffly in a straight line, their eyes discerning and haughty, backs straight, heads high up, and hands straight out in front of them in the typical lumbering zombie pose. Hinata sighed and simply clapped her hand to her forehead.
She'd never been the creative type, and so, her imagination never had been active. But she was a dreamer, and in the past eternities in the dungeon, Hinata's nightmares and memories of the crimes of war had trudged up in her mind, replacing dead, murdered bodies with those of her family. At first she'd been horrified, terrified (guilty). But now, everything was spinning and tumbling upside down. She was falling into insanity and sensibility, where seeing dead bodies marching to Orochimaru's beat was becoming funny and where Itachi and Naruto and Kiba and Akamaru and Shino and everyone sometimes appeared to chat and spar and laugh with her.
"Isn't it nice in the darkness?" Naruto had said, sitting with her against a wall in his orange glow. "I love it here. You can do anything, and no one can expect you to do otherwise." He paused and sent her a heart wrenching grin and added, "Believe it!" for believability.
Hinata had frowned at him, the creation of her imagination, and then looked at her other creations - the re-enactment of the war Itachi had caused and that she'd lost, the dancing of the politics in the Imperial Court, Itachi's beautiful fiancée and his darling cousin. Then she'd closed her eyes, finally realised she was insane or depraved (would Naruto ever say that?), and let the light of her creations die awayso that she was left alone.
Later on, when parades of Hyuga walked down the ghostly streets of Taiyo no Miyako, Hinata found that for all she tried, Naruto, Itachi's fiancée and Shisui refused to appear.
Hinata wondered if she deserved it.
"You do," Itachi told her, sitting by her side. He didn't look at her, but Hinata refused to look at him. "You never even met Emiko nor Shisui. They were dead before you entered the war. As for Uzumaki, well, did you ever have the courage to confess your feelings to him?"
"I did," Hinata said. She paused. "You weren't there. You were in another battlefield, far, far away."
"And what did he reply to your courageous confession?" Itachi asked, lightly, mockingly. Uchiha Crown Prince indeed - he played politics and verbal spars like the rivals of his own House.
"He killed my enemy for me and never talked to me directly and personally again," Hinata muttered. She looked down, cheeks red and embarrassed. But what sane person would have wanted to be friends with the Hyuga failure?
"Perhaps," Itachi said slowly, distinctly, "that was for the best. Not even the charge of the Imperial House would have been good enough for a Hyuga Princess."
"Or," Hinata whispered, "this Hyuga Princess was not good enough even for the charge of the Imperial House."
"As true as that might be, I sincerely doubt it. The Hyuga were the largest House - the biggest, and admittedly, one of the most devastating during the war. The secrecy your alliance with the Inuzuka and Aburame Houses shrouded itself in made sure that nearly no enemy and a large portion of the rest of the country was aware of your abilities. Any clan, Imperial or not, would have been honoured to be allied to your House through a Princess."
"We are now a feuding clan of one," Hinata said sourly, "and this one member is the failure of the clan."
Itachi was silent for a moment. "Bitterness suits you not."
"What suits me, then? What am I, really? Push away all my titles, my Houses, my allies, what am I?" Hinata demanded. "What am I?"
"A weak, pathetic, shy, useless coward," Itachi answered promptly to Hinata's mortification. Surely, surely Itachi could have pretended to think about it! "But…"
"But?" Hinata asked hopefully.
Itachi met Hinata's eyes as they turned to each other. "'But'," he said, with an odd fond look on his face, "is what you have to admit to yourself. You see, I am not Itachi Uchiha. I am merely a figment of your imagination. My purpose is to tell you the truth, no matter how painful it may be to hear. But this truth I tell, it is only your truth. I know nothing of the truth of the world, the truth of others. If you do not understand something, I cannot tell it to you, for I would not understand it either. I am you."
"But… when, if, I do ever understand it," Hinata asked, "will you tell me?"
"I will. I am to teach this to you, after all," Itachi said. "Truly, all I am here for is to help you understand. And once you do, I will leave."
"But if you're part of me, Itachi, then why do I need you?" Hinata asked, not unkindly.
"Because you do," Itachi said solemnly. "You need someone to tell you what to do, even if it is yourself."
Hinata pondered this, and decided that it was the truth. It had to be. She needed direction, help, someone to guide her. She'd needed Neji to motivate her to lead the Hyuga Army into battle, and she'd needed Itachi to help her escape momentarily from Orochimaru's grasp. But without someone to tell her what to do, to give her some encouragement, she couldn't do anything. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Well," Itachi said with a rather matter of fact voice, "you cannot stay here."
I can't stay here. Hinata wanted to tell Itachi that she knew that already, but then, she knew that he would just ask her calmly why she hadn't left if that were the case. Yes, she knew she had to escape. But whether she'd actually acknowledge it or not was another matter entirely. Hinata bit her lip and waited for Itachi to continue.
"How much do you love your sister?"
"Hanabi?" Hinata blurted out, eyes wide. "Why?"
"I'm asking you how much you love her. Answer me," Itachi commanded imperiously. Hinata frowned.
"I love her," Hinata whispered. She closed her eyes. "I would have done anything for her."
It was hard, but painfully easy to remember Hanabi. The little child she'd half raised when their mother had died, the little girl who'd clung to her with huge eyes when Hinata had left for war, the little sister who'd grown up to be so brilliant that Hinata paled in comparison. The little sister, Hinata thought, that I gave up freedom and death for. She might have left her clan behind that fateful night, Hinata realised. She might have left them behind if Hanabi and Father and Neji weren't there. And even then… the only reason why she'd not doubted, not hesitated to stay was because of Hanabi. Anything for you.
"Would you still do anything for her?"
Hinata froze, eyes wide. "What is that supposed to mean?" Hinata asked guardedly. She thought of all the time she'd spent in the prison - time spent lamenting, feeling guilty, and knocking herself out or killing herself. None of that time had been spent considering whether or not if Hanabi was actually… Hinata gulped and waited for Itachi's reply.
"It's an innocent enough question," Itachi said, his face spreading into a large, concerning smile. Hinata shuddered (this was not her Itachi) and fought the urge to draw back. Why did she decide to sit in a corner again? "Try to answer it."
"Of course I would do anything. Of course. Anything. Everything," Hinata paused and carefully thought her reply through after a glance at Itachi. "Within reason."
"Define reason," Itachi said snarkily, an odd glint in his eye that Hinata recognised from back when she'd been first introduced to the Imperial Court and the Uchiha Crown Prince somehow tricked his adoring younger brother and the then Hyuga Crown Princess into doing something so unseemly and endearing that all three of them had been banned from the Imperial Court for the rest of the year, only to be invited back personally by the Imperial Emperor himself for some horribly stuffy and important dinner.
The Hyuga had never forgiven the Uchiha. The Uchiha never forgave Itachi. Hinata and Sasuke never really had been friends ever again. It had been a masterpiece.
"Common sense," Hinata said. Itachi's wide smile turned a little more sincere and gentle.
"Ah." Itachi said. Then his smile dropped and his face turned very stiff and serious. "You're a liar." Hinata sent him an odd look and then closed her eyes. Still, Itachi's cold voice filtered through. "If you still possessed any shred of common sense, you would have escaped with Itachi Uchiha. Did you truly believe that it was better to stay in the enemy headquarters and be captured, than to escape first, regroup and try a rescue mission with other people?"
"I… wasn't thinking?" Hinata tried, shying away. Itachi, who was already far too out of character to be taken seriously, made a disapproving sound. She ducked her head.
"Obviously not. Still, the question is, would you be willing to escape this prison to locate your sister and your House?" Itachi asked. Hinata pursed her lips.
"Of course. It's just… do you think it'll be that easy? Orochimaru would have made sure the strengthen the security after the escape Itachi and I made," Hinata said. Then she scrunched her nose. "It's hard to call you Itachi, and my Itachi another Itachi. Can I pretend you're my Itachi?"
"You may," Itachi said generously, easily interpreting Hinata's mashed up, jumbled words. "However, be aware that I am not Itachi Uchiha, and so, my personality and reactions will be far more different."
"Of course. You're me."
She turned to glance at Itachi, and was greeted by a pleased look. "Exactly," Itachi then stood, looking down at Hinata like a condescending Hyuga elder. "We must escape this prison to find and free your House. To do this, you need to regain your chakra."
Hinata frowned. Then she thought a little, actually taking in her situation properly for the first time and wondering how to escape. "Even if I somehow get rid of these cuffs, I'm sure Orochimaru would have seals around this place. Karin said I need the right seals, chakra signature and key. I have none of these."
"Has the House of the Hyuga fallen so low that they cannot do anything without chakra?" Itachi sneered. "Can their first daughter not think of anything?"
"No," Hinata said easily. "Can you?"
"Well," Itachi said, a smile on his face suddenly making him look positively wicked. "Perhaps you might consider cutting your legs off to take off the chakra restraints?"
"Cutting my legs off?!" Hinata squeaked incredulously. She stared at Itachi, then looked at her legs. Since when was Itachi such an extremist?!
"You did say you would do anything for your younger sister," Itachi said innocently, a smile playing on his face.
"Within reason! There's surely another way?" Hinata tried. "Besides, how would I even cut my own legs off?"
"Do you truly wish for me to answer that?" Itachi asked, an eyebrow quirked. Hinata deflated.
"No. But I don't want to cut off my legs! That's… what if they don't grow back?!"
"Is that what you care about?" Itachi asked, looking so disapproving that Hinata was almost converted into a leg cutter. Almost.
"How would I save Hanabi if I have no legs to walk with?" Hinata reasoned. "What if we need to escape quickly?"
"Then you would hope that Hanabi is free by that point to carry you," Itachi said smugly.
Hinata gaped at him, her eyes wide with shock. He was serious. And then she laughed, crinkling, giggling laughter that made Itachi look at her as though she were insane. Then she sighed, and closed her eyes. "I didn't think I would ever see Itachi, or someone looking exactly like him, act like this," she admitted. "But is there truly no other way of escaping? Cutting my legs off do not give me the correct chakra signature, key or knowledge of seals, if it gives me my chakra at all."
Itachi frowned and looked a little thoughtful before crinkling his nose distastefully. "I suppose it is rather grotesque to cut one's leg off, particularly without a knife or kunai or saw," Itachi said, to Hinata's spluttering. "However, I am you, and if I cannot think of anything, it surely means that you cannot either."
Hinata paused, and with a trembling, clammy hand, reached out to her left foot. "How would I cut my foot off?"
"Well," Itachi said, his eyes lighting up to Hinata's morbid fascination, "perhaps if you managed to snap the bone of this part of your leg in a jagged half, you could easily use the jagged end to cut through your sk-"
"There has to be another way," Hinata said quickly, nervously. Itachi sent her a look. "Please. Just help me, Itachi. I love my sister painfully, utterly, fully, but I can't save myself if I cut off my legs and find that I have nothing but stumps to move with. Every Hyuga attack relies on the fact that I'm either tall enough to actually hit the pressure points, or that I can move and pivot around without any pain."
Itachi sent her a sullen look, and Hinata couldn't help but laugh once more. He looked so childish, so petulant and sullen, just like that one time he'd found out that she and Sasuke had argued against his decisions to go to a tea shop after a court meeting for three months simply because they'd thought it was funny. It had been back when Hinata and Sasuke were not even five, when they'd still been children (all of them, even Itachi and his laughing older cousin) and when even Itachi hadn't yet fully grasped the reason as to why the children of the Uchiha and Hyuga were never really innocent. Why they were treated differently. Triple standards.
"You're disappointed," Hinata explained to Itachi, who had sent her another look - confused, this time. "You wanted me to cut off my legs. Our legs. Do I truly have a part in me that thinks so morbidly?"
"Well. I do represent truth," Itachi said, a small smile gracing his lips. For a moment, he looked so annoyed, so smug, so catty that Hinata couldn't help but think that he was exactly like her Itachi. Just happier, more free. He allowed himself to show emotions, he didn't give her double messages and didn't go out of his way to make her happy.
"Truth seems happy," Hinata said kindly, oddly being reminded of Hanabi when she looked at Itachi. When Hanabi had been very young and Hinata had been desperately trying to raise her sister up to be a worthy Hyuga and to be a worthy Hyuga at the same time, Hanabi had been as childish and petty as Itachi was currently acting. She had been as convincing as Itachi was too.
"Not always," Itachi said in a warning note. "Sometimes, the truth is something that we should never hear."
Hinata opened her mouth, but then she caught the look in Itachi's eyes. Somehow, throughout their confused introduction, a failed attempt by a sadistic Itachi to cut off her legs and Hinata's amusement at this Itachi's childishness, Itachi had always been telling the truth. "I have an odd mind," Hinata said miserably.
"And that is the truth."
After establishing the fact that neither of them could figure out any way to leave the prisons successfully, Hinata and Itachi simply sat in silence. It was for mutual benefit, Hinata told herself. With Itachi with her, she didn't see dead bodies or bloodied corpses, and his presence kept her comfortable and alert as the real Itachi's did. And since Itachi stayed as long as he did, and didn't leave like everyone else or when Hinata dismissed him, Hinata assumed that he had his potentially positive reasons for staying with her in the darkness. Itachi was mysterious. She'd long accepted that fact - no one could read him, least of all his own father, and so it was fitting that her imaginary Itachi Uchiha, representing truth, was hard to read.
Actually, it was kind of funny.
Hinata's mind didn't make sense. Least of all to herself. Funny? No, it was terrifying.
From time to time, other characters would appear to join them in their silent solitude. Mostly it would be Shino and Kiba, but sometimes Kurenai, or even Tenten or Lee. But all of them would eventually leave. Maybe it was the awkward silence, or Itachi's glares if they began to talk too much. Or perhaps it was the overall depressing mood as everyone (Hinata) began to realize that she could only wait. She couldn't do anything. And as familiar as that sensation was, it was something she was not used to at the same time. It was troubling. She'd never been in a situation exactly like this before. She'd never been this uncertain, this alone. It was troubling.
Of course, Kiba and Shino were completely ignoring her worries. As usual. Hinata allowed them a fond smile and beamed at Akamaru as Kiba chattered. Then, after a moment, she paid attention when she thought she heard someone's name. "So that's why I'm glad you aren't going to marry Itachi!" Kiba crowed triumphantly, backed up by a semi-pleased looking Shino.
Hinata spluttered, staring at Kiba in disbelief, before catching Itachi's eye. He looked amused, but seemed to agree, nodding to emphasize Kiba's argument. "I-I'm sorry," Hinata apologised, "I didn't quite… catch your last point. Could you repeat that please, Kiba?"
Kiba rolled his eyes. "You weren't even paying attention!"
"I am insulted," Shino added. "You did not listen our arguments. You did not listen to your lifelong friends."
"The last time you appeared, you spoke of nothing but the demerits of bug spray and the existence of cats," Itachi said sourly.
A beat.
"You're both talking!" Kiba shouted, his eyes wide and ecstatic in his epiphany while Shino sighed. "You have both been giving us the silent treatment for so long that I thought we'd never hear your voices again! Right, Shino?"
"That is an exaggeration," Shino said smoothly. "I am sure that Hinata and the Commander would have spoken. Eventually."
"I'm sorry," Hinata again apologised. "I didn't mean to hurt or offend."
"You never do," Kiba said with a smile. "So it's all right. It is the thought that counts, right? Besides, you've got all the reasons to mope and be depressed, but all the reasons to not. After all, I'm here, aren't I?"
Hinata sighed, and then smiled wistfully. "In a way, I suppose you are."
Kiba nodded smugly. "Exactly! You should be happy! Dance! Spar! Sing! Laugh!"
"Sing?" Itachi frowned, looking disapproving. "I doubt she has any reason to sing."
"Of course she does!" Kiba said. "Hinata's cities have brilliant songs about everything. If you catch a cold, you could sing a folktune about it, if you cut your hair, there's a children's song about it. Anything and everything - there's always something to sing about."
"Is there a tune to sing about when one is stuck in prison and the future is bleak and endless?" Itachi asked depressingly. Hinata blinked, and then smiled.
"Of course," she said. "The Hyuga loved the arts, after all. Anything and everything, exactly like Kiba said. But the song itself is depressing, making the situation more depressing. I'd rather not sing it. Or anything."
"Ah, but the Hyuga loved the arts," Itachi said, wicked gleam in his eyes, signifying that their feuding silence had come to a definite end. "Sure their first daughter loves it too?"
"I can't sing!" Hinata exclaimed, edging backwards and wondering if the silence had been so depressing after all. "Tell him I can't, Shino!"
"You can," Shino said with a smirk in his voice. "After all, the Princess Hyuga is perfection reincarnate."
Hinata spluttered in indignant outrage and sent Shino a look of mock betrayal. "Shino!"
"I think you should ask the grumpy old weasel. He'll tell the truth," Kiba said with a confident grin. And suddenly, Hinata was very, very afraid. She suddenly realised what Itachi was. What he represented. He represented truth. He'd tell her what she knew - what she wanted to know, and what she didn't want to know. His whole elaborate speech about him not being able to tell her what she did not know was true, of course (truth could never lie), but he could tell her what she did not want to admit to herself. It was as Itachi solemnly commented on Hinata's high, beautiful singing voice that Hinata fully comprehended how dangerous it could be.
A weak, pathetic, shy, useless coward.
That was the truth. But. The but was as important, and the but was something that Itachi had told her she had to find out for herself. Truth was refusing to tell. Why?
"I am not singing," Hinata said defiantly when everyone looked at her expectantly. Their faces turned menacing, and the three stood over her, looking so sadistic for a moment that Hinata was reminded why it was Kiba and Shino had made Team Eight known as a very bloodthirsty team during a time when bloodthirstiness was usually overlooked, and why Itachi's every word had been obeyed by his often terrified by adoring subordinates. She frowned. Was this what they called peer pressure?
"You will sing," Itachi said, with a positively malevolent look spread across his face. "That is the truth."
"That is not happening," Hinata said sulkily, eyeing Itachi warily. He smiled.
"It will."
"Come on, Hinata! Don't be such a party pooper!" Kiba said, his grin breaking his dark look. "You've got a great voice. You should use it."
"You sang for us, once," Shino muttered. "Why not again?"
"I was six! And Father…"
"Forced you to sing. Do you wish us to force you to sing? Or perhaps you believe us unable to. Your doubt in our skill offends, Hinata," Shino said, the picture of a kicked puppy somehow being his sunglasses and dark collar. "I am offended."
"I'm sorry," Hinata said automatically. "I didn't mean to offend."
"Liar," Itachi instantly accused. "If this were true, you would placate the Crown Prince Aburame by singing for him in apology."
"B-But," Hinata began, eyes wide, "I said I was sorry for offending. Not for not s-singing."
"Ah, but if you were sorry for offending, you would placate the Crown Prince Abu-"
"I get it!" Hinata squeaked. She turned to Shino. "I'm sorry for not being sorry, but not sorry enough to start singing to placate the Crown Prince Aburame by singing for you in apology."
"Why not?" Kiba asked plaintively. "You sing very well. Besides, we're the only people who will hear you. And we're you. You can't factor in shyness, Hinata, because you can't be scared of yourself."
On the contrary, Hinata thought, eyeing Itachi. I can. "But there is no reason to sing," Hinata said sensibly.
"But there is no reason not to," Itachi countered. He smiled thinly. "Just sing, one song. Then we will leave you in peace before coercing you into something else."
"Sing a lullaby," Kiba ordered. "It's… it's been awhile since any of us have heard one."
Hinata paused. How many years had it been since she'd sung someone to sleep? Less than half a month before the ending of the war, actually, something told her. Six months since she'd sung a dying civilian child to a deathly sleep in the middle of a brutal war. What had she sung on that cold, miserable, rainy day?
Almost unconsciously, she began to sing that haunting folk song, demanding a clear, sunny sky. For the war and bloodshed and darkness to end and leave, and for the golden days of innocence and peace to return. But back then, Hinata hadn't known what was to be her fate, that she'd be living in eternal darkness for forever and ever and eternity and infinity and all those other words she could use to describe a never ending destiny.
If you make my wish come true, we'll drink lots of sweet sake.
When they'd thought they'd won the war, Hinata, Shino, Kiba and all the others in their generation who'd been in their section of the army had snuck out and celebrated by drinking sake. Everyone had laughed, danced, joked and sung, but it had only been Hinata and her tracking team that had spit out the sake which their cultured and brawling Houses had once loved. It tasted like blood. The blood of the traitors whom Team Eight have tracked down and mercilessly killed.
But if it's cloudy and I find you crying, then I shall snip your hea-
Hinata faltered.
"Don't stop," ordered a possibly misty eyed Kiba while Akamaru whined softly. "Sing it again."
So Hinata did. All four of them, or rather, Hinata knew this song. It was an old song, a song which even Konoha child knew of, and every Konohagakure child sung. It wasn't precisely a lullaby, as Kiba had asked for, but it was soft and beautifully morbid. A plea for the skies to turn bright and sunny. A fitting song for Hinata to sing in the darkness she was shrouded in.
"Perhaps," Hinata said carefully when she'd finished the song once more, "you would sing it with me?"
Everyone readily agreed, nostalgia and the fact that they obeyed Hinata's will (but not totally, it seemed. Only when it suited them) playing factors. Before long, what felt and sounded like the entire dungeon was pleading to a doll to bring sunshine and threatening with decapitation if it failed.
Make tomorrow a sunny day, like the skies of my dreams…
"-and if it's sunny, I'll give you a golden ball," a voice, piercing through those of Hinata and her illusions', sang wryly back.
Hinata sat in sulky silence. Itachi sat beside her, the only thing she could see. Kiba, Shino and Akamaru had disappeared the moment Hinata had heard Neji's voice. She had turned to the blinding light, but by the time her eyes had adjusted, she'd only caught a glimpse of her entire House before the light disappeared and everything was sent back into darkness. Somewhere in the dungeons, her House and family were standing, whispering, talking, awkwardly waiting for Hinata to say something. Hinata closed her eyes. They were so loud. So… there. She could hear their silent whispers, their soft footsteps, their loud breathing, the thud of their hearts. She could smell their white plum stench and feel their presence. They were there. And Hinata wasn't sure she liked it.
When they realised Hinata was not going to say anything, Hiashi cleared his throat. It was that serious, stern cough of his, a warning that he was not amused, a sound Hinata had never thought she'd hear again. "Hinata?"
Hinata bit her lip in mutinous silence. She'd thought they were dead. She'd thought she would never see them again, no matter what the Itachi-who-represented-truth had said. No. They were dead. Her Itachi had said so, and Itachi Uchiha, darling Crown Prince and celebrated Commander would not mistake sleeping bodies for dead corpses. Not even a child would have - war did that. No, this was another bout of her brilliant imagination, her dreaming creativity and her wishful thinking.
"Or maybe," Itachi said, "you simply do not wish to accept the implications of your House being alive."
"Of course not," Hinata hissed, glaring at Itachi. "Of course not…"
"No," Itachi said, standing again. He looked ready to look back down over her again, and refusing to let truth intimidate her, Hinata stood up and bravely looked at him squarely in the eye. "You know what this means."
"Why don't you tell me, th-"
"Hinata? Are you all right?" Hiashi's voice drifted towards her. She heard his less than subtle footsteps - her eyes were already ringing from his overly loud, worried half-shouts. Hinata knew that as a daughter, she should walk towards him as he so obviously wanted, but instead, she held back.
"There's so much to gain from their deaths," Itachi whispered, his voice a poisonous caress. "With their deaths, you can believe that Itachi Uchiha did not betray you. With their deaths, you can believe you are not here, uselessly and pathetically. You can believe that you are brave. You can believe that you are noble. With their deaths, you become the Hyuga Crown Prin-"
"That's ridiculous!"
"-cess and you do not have to admit to yourself that you condemned your sister and your House to eternal torture! Am I not correct?"
"No!" Hinata snapped. "You're wrong! Of course you're wrong! Must everything I do be over analysed and over thought?"
"I am part of you. Did I not tell you? I will tell you everything you need to hear, everything you know and want to hear," Itachi said, making Hinata's eyes widen. "I am telling you the truth. Perhaps the overwhelming foremost reason as to why you believe your House is dead is because you love them and would have wished that they did not have to survive this horror, but there are other reasons. Selfish reasons. After all, Hinata, humans are incapable of selflessness."
Hinata looked at Itachi, half horrified, and half terrified at the idea that this was herself speaking. She felt tears streak down her cheeks and helplessly, she brushed them away and tried not to sob. "You're wrong," Hinata whispered.
"I am not wrong," Itachi said, even as the Hyuga began to whisper and start calling her name, asking if she was all right. The hall was long and huge, and although the Hyuga moved quickly to find their Princess, it would take even Might Gai at least three minutes to run at full speed from one end to the other. "Surely the proof is in their existence."
"They aren't real!" Hinata snapped. Itachi gave her a sceptical look, and she narrowed her eyes. "They aren't real!" she half screamed, desperate for Itachi, for the truth to believe her. "They aren't, they're just… just figments of my imagination, just like you are, just like everybody, just like this whole place!"
"So why do-"
"Sister, who are you talking to?"
"-n't they leave?" Itachi challenged. "Why can you not will them away?"
"Why can't I will you away?!"
"You're hysterical. Calm down," Itachi snapped. Then his eyes softened. "You are scared he lied."
"He didn't lie!" Hinata yelled, blinking her tears out of her eyes and trying to sound convincing so that she could at least convince her heart that was sinking very fast. "He wouldn't lie!"
"To you? He lied. He is Itachi Uchiha, not Itachi Uchiha. He lied the moment he met you," Itachi said, his voice malicious and dark.
"You're biased," Hinata said stubbornly. "He wouldn't lie. What purpose is there?"
"I am you," Itachi said, his eyes narrowed, and suddenly, he rose to his full height and his mouth was set in a grim, threatening line. "I think you know what truth I speak. What purpose is there? Do you really have to ask?"
"He wouldn't have," Hinata said, her voice breaking and cracking and whining. "He wouldn't. He… he loved Konohagakure too much to participate in the House rivalr-"
"Who is to say that it wasn't in the best interests of Konohagakure to see the Hyuga House dead?" Itachi asked sweetly.
"What is that supposed to mea-"
Suddenly, strong, sturdy arms that Hinata couldn't squirm out of were wrapped around her waist and hands. They refused to let go when Hinata screamed, yelled, begged for them to release her, for Itachi to tell her what he was babbling about, that they weren't real.
"I'm very real," Neji said in Hinata's ear. "Princess, please, calm down. You're hysterical."
"No, you're not!" Hinata told him, still punching and kicking and why wouldn't he let go? "You're dead!"
"I'm not dead," Neji informed her seriously. "Sorry to disappoint, Princess, but you truly need to calm down."
"I'll calm down when I feel like it! You're dead, you're all dead! He said you were dead!" Hinata screamed, finally successfully executing some back leg kicking sweep that caused Neji to stumble. His hold faltered for a moment, and Hinata instantly leapt away, only to crash into another body.
"Who told you this?" Hiashi's voice demanded. "Who is this 'he'?"
"What does it matter?" Hinata snapped, trying to escape her father's death grip. He refused to let her go, and within moments, he had her subdued on the dubious floor.
"I will only ask you once more, daughter. Who told you that your House had fallen?"
Hinata froze, closing her eyes. She felt the arms that restrained her, the tangible arms, arms that existed, that were real. That were real. "You're real," Hinata whispered dumbly, sagging into the floor in horror. "You're alive."
"Yes, we are," Hiashi said bemusedly. "Who gave you the idea that we were dead?"
"This, this isn't the resurrection jutsu, is it?" Hinata asked guardedly. Hiashi sighed.
"What must we prove for you to believe that we are not only real, but we are alive? Among the living? Your density is impeccable. We are immortal. We do not die," Hiashi said scathingly.
"You do not… of course not, of course not," Hinata whispered, confused, worried, nervous, terrified, but above all, beginning to panic. "No, no, because Orochimaru wouldn't have done immortality as half-heartedly, he wouldn't have put down all his subjects. But…" she turned her head and met the unwavering eyes of Itachi. "You said they were dead."
"I said no such thing," Itachi and Hiashi both said imperiously.
Hinata opened her mouth, ready to contradict, ready to scream and cry and yell and accuse, but she didn't. She simply closed her eyes and bit her lip. Silence. She'd been good at that, before all those characters from her imagination had come to haunt her, before her House had decided to live once more. How hard would it be to obtain it again? Perhaps another cracking of the head, a voice at the back of her mind whispered.
"Hinata, I never said anyone was dead," Hiashi said, clearly worried for his daughter's sanity by this point. "Perhaps if you would consider telling us who told you we had perished?"
Who told you… Hinata paled. She couldn't betray Itachi. Not like that. But… he'd betrayed her. Surely, surely… "No," Hinata said.
"No?" Hiashi asked, politely disinterested, but subtly startled.
"I c-can't tell, Father," Hinata said miserably, even as Itachi's eyes met hers. "I c-can't. It would be…"
"You would be betraying no one," Hiashi said, awkwardly patting Hinata's nose, then her forehead as he navigated in the dark. "Why don't you sit up?" The arms restraining Hinata suddenly vanished, and Hinata felt Hiashi's large hands pulling her up. Hinata sat on the floor miserably, slumped downwards.
"Was it Orochimaru, sister?" Hanabi asked, her voice clear and high. Hinata grimaced. So this was what it was going to become. A guessing game. And they would figure it out easily - of course they would. The Hyuga had always been adept at reading their Princess, especially Hanabi and Hiashi. Once they figured it out… perhaps they would mock her for trusting him. Perhaps they would give her their sympathies, their pity. Or perhaps they would reason that perhaps Itachi hadn't betrayed her. That perhaps she wasn't looking at the situation properly, that perhaps there was a perfectly reasonable and rational reason to all this mess. Perhaps it was all a plan, that Itachi would come back with the full force and might of Konohagakure. A perfect plan. Like the perfect plan of Hinata and Neji that had turned so terribly wrong.
"No."
"Kabuto, then?" Hiashi asked hopefully, as though Hinata's telling would let him… well, do whatever they were wanting to do.
"No."
"Who, then?" Hinata heard someone whisper. "Who would dare?"
"Itachi Uchiha," Neji suddenly said grimly. "That's who, wasn't it?"
Hinata closed her eyes and felt the urge to curl into a ball. She refused to reply. She refused.
"Silence can be a form of agreement," Itachi murmured.
Evidently, Neji thought so too, as did the rest of the Hyuga. They were silent for moments before cursing Itachi's existence, muttering obscenities about the art of genjutsu and Uchiha traitors. Never once did any of them consider Itachi's innocence. Hinata felt oddly hollow at this, perhaps slightly indignant too. She'd lived the better part of her life in awe of Itachi, and she'd trusted him with her life and family on more than one occasion, and he'd never, ever failed her. Perhaps this was a test. A trick. A plan. A perfect plan that would actually work because Itachi Uchiha was the mastermind, because everyone knew that the Uchiha could make brilliant plans (even if the same could not be said about their execution of their plans).
Yes. That made sense. Itachi was coming back. And if he wasn't, he was held up, or perhaps it was all just an honest mistake. Hinata could live with that - honest mistakes. She had made millions of them in her lifetime. If she could not forgive or understand Itachi's one… action, then she could not expect that for herself.
"Princess, please, what happened since we last saw you?" Neji asked quietly.
What happened? Hinata fought to unscramble her mind, to unlock the traps she'd placed around bitter, guilty memories. Neji was asking. Neji had never failed her, he'd never hated her (too much) and he'd almost always hovered by her side. He was her cousin, her now-protector. He wasn't like Father, who'd ask her for the House's sake, or Hanabi, who would ask her out of half adoring, half amused curiosity. Neji was asking because he cared, because he wanted to protect her from not just Itachi and the truth, but also from the House. She could trust him.
I can trust him, Hinata thought convincingly. Itachi gave an unimpressed cough, raising an eyebrow.
"I... We… that is, I-Itachi and I were locked in cell for a while," Hinata said, closing her eyes and trying to remember. Trying to sound detached. This was a report, she told herself, just like the reports she used to make during the war. "Then, we escaped and we split up because the two Houses were locked in different areas."
"You escaped?" Neji asked, sounding impressed. The rest of the Hyuga made noises of incredulous surprise, as though disbelieving that their failure of a Princess had actually managed to do what they could not.
"Y-Yes," Hinata said. She bit her lip. "I think it t-took us over three years to figure it out. We escaped on the t-thousandth day. We kept track."
"But you did escape," Neji sad approvingly. "Then what happened?"
"My eyes couldn't See which House was locked up where," Hinata said hesitantly. "So I ended up freeing the U-Uchiha House. We waited for Itachi to come with our House."
"He never came," Hiashi said, half questioning, half stating. Hinata bit her lip at the double meaning. He never came? Itachi never met the Uchiha House at the gates? No, no, that wasn't right. No, Itachi never went to free the Hyuga House.
"W-What?" Hinata choked out. "H-He did, o-of course he d-did. He wouldn't h-have lied. No, no, he must have. He said he went to the place you were locked up in and you were dead. I must have sent him to the wrong place, or maybe you were sleeping, or maybe there was a genjutsu, or seals, o-"
"Princess, calm down," Neji said, awkwardly patting her shoulder. "What I'm sure was meant was a question as to whether or not Crown Prince Uchiha actually arrived to meet yourself and the Uchiha House."
"Oh," Hinata said, half convinced (desperate to be convinced). "Oh. Right, yes, I'm sorry. He did meet us there, but he said that you were dead."
"But we obviously aren't," Hanabi added soothingly, just to make sure her possibly insane sister had understood that part.
"Yes, obviously," Hinata said, a little lost now. She glanced at the only person she could see - Itachi. He gave her a pursed, thin smile and nodded. "You're all alive."
"Princess, our immortality does not enable us to be classified as ali-"
"Shush," Neji snapped, his voice poisonously aimed at some Hyuga woman. "Princess, perhaps you could tell us some more?"
"Of course," Hinata said. I'm a soldier in the war. A ninja. There is no fear, no terror. Nothing. I am detached, I am a Hyuga. Right.
"You're not convinced," Itachi said helpfully. Hinata frowned at him.
"I am convinced," Hinata said. Then Neji coughed even as Itachi rolled his eyes and she realised her mistake. "Um… No, no, I'm… just… they left. The Uchiha House escaped successfully, with the Uchiha King, Queen, Crown Prince and their second Prince. I stayed behind."
"Why?"
Why? Why had she stayed behind? Hinata tried to think of an answer that wasn't sentimental, that wouldn't get her laughed at. She caught Itachi's eyes smouldering into hers, and she licked her dry lips. "I stayed because… because I didn't want to go. Yes. I… didn't want to go because I was immortal, and I thought… I thought it would be terrifying to be immortal and return to Konohgakure and… I would be different. And then they'd want to know, to find out why I'm immortal, and I thought I couldn't bear it. So I stayed."
Itachi turned away, and Hinata felt like she'd failed a great test. "You've always been a terrible liar," Neji whispered in her ear. Hinata bit her lip. "But never mind. What happened next?"
"I fell unconscious," Hinata said slowly. "Kabuto found me. I think. It might have been someone else. Then I woke up, and they brought me here."
"And you've been here ever since?"
"Yes," Hinata said. "A few years, or maybe months, or maybe days. No, not days. But at least three months, I think. I can't tell."
Hiashi made an odd sound. "I think a few more years than that."
"That would explain everything, wouldn't it?" Hanabi murmured.
"Explain what?" Hinata asked, worried, terrified.
"Daughter," Hiashi said slowly, his voice careful and words chosen with utmost care. "I am of the impression that you have been locked in dark solitude for over nine hundred thousand years."
"Nine hundre-" Hinata cut herself off and started to cough violently. There were cries of alarm - of course there were, the Hyuga Princess was weak and frail and had suffered a heart injury once upon a time. Long, long ago, it seemed. But nine hundred thousand years? No, possibly more. Definitely more. That would explain her insanity, her incapability to recognise the real from the false, the dead from the alive. Hanabi was right. Of course she was.
Of course she was.
"So I've spent an eternity here," Hinata whispered. Then she smiled. "A forever. Has it been a mega annum since our immortality, Father?"
"In a few weeks," Hiashi said, sounding almost hesitant.
In a few weeks.
Hinata laughed. She couldn't help it. It was morbidly funny, just like that image of zombie Hyuga walking. In a few weeks, it would be a mega annum since the Hyuga had become immortal. But, of course, the Hyuga experiments had been held over days and weeks. Perhaps it was the mega annum now. It would explain everything. Everything. Itachi had not returned because he was dead. He was dust in the wind. He would not ever return because it had already been a mega annum, and tomorrow, the next day, Hinata would stop loving him because it had already been a forever. It had already started. The doubt, the fear, and anguish, and the terror.
"Hinata," Itachi began, his eyes creased in worry. "Don't do this."
"I hate you!" she screamed at him, but not really him, but he was a mockery of Itachi Uchiha, so it was all right. Truth would understand.
"No, you still love him," Itachi said, voice hard and unyielding.
"But what about tomorrow?" Hinata said, voice still in a harsh giggle. "What about tomorrow? I'll hate him then. I'll hate him. I already half do."
Itachi didn't reply. They knew it was true. Well. She wouldn't hate him. She could not hate him - he was Itachi, whom she'd admired. But she would never love him again, because he'd never come for her, because he'd never gone for the Hyuga, and because he wasn't there. And perhaps, one day, she'd find herself hating him, for failing to do the one thing she'd trusted him to do, because who could love a person who had doomed everyone to another forever of torture and imprisonment?
I'll love you, for forever and a day.
Well. Never let it be said that Itachi Uchiha had never kept a promise.
First up, sorry for the long wait. I've been rewriting this chapter continuously, and I'm still not happy with it. Oh well. Anyways, it's a little longer than my normal chapters and somewhat dramatic and maybe overdone, and not my usual writing style - still, the plot will begin properly in a chapter or two (or maybe three, depending), and Itachi may or may not make an appearance. The real Itachi.
The song that Hinata was singing is the messed up, jumbled up version of 'Teru-teru-bōzu' - a song that's real. I used the lyrics from Wikipedia, and took a few lines in the story.
