-o-o-o-o-o-o
When she opened her eyes, the sun was burning brightly and the spikes of gold were piercing her sensitive bloodline limit, causing throbs to surface near her temples. She wanted to drink in the light because she missed it so much but it hurt too much to keep looking at it. Her body ached with a familiar strain, like she'd overused it in one of those training sessions she frequently participated in against Neji – she quickly turned away from the thought when the image of glazed pearl eyes weeping blood stared back into hers. When she closed her eyes again, she found her senses allowing other stimuli to bombard her weary conscious; she felt fine silk encasing her skin, the scent of lavender tickling her nose, the cool autumn breeze brushing past her soft hair. There was a cold, hard floor below her that reminded her of where she'd fallen onto bruised knees, defeated, by her cousin's or father's hands in the dojo she trained in as a child. Behind her was the sound of crinkling, leaves being crushed by elegantly walking feet. Birds sang light, almost imperceptible, melodies in the distance as if they were muffled by the bars of a cage. It felt like home.
"Hinata-sama."
Weakly, she lifted her head from her supine position, shaking spare strands of dark hair away from her face with the movement. She allowed her eyes to focus briefly on the person who had called her name, jaw loosening in shock when she saw the familiarly silvery eyes of a Hyuuga. Her tongue felt heavier in her slightly agape mouth than the lead training-weights she had worn before the battle, her throat parched yet missing the tinge of iron she had remembered it had retained. It was difficult not to release the tears that finally found reason to escape from her own eyes.
"Hinata-sama. Get up."
That cold voice rang through the tranquil peace of stagnant air and she blinked wonderingly at the speaker who filled her empty, cracked heart with warmth and relief.
"N-Neji-nii-san?" she asked, ignoring the protests of her joints as she jumped upwards in the hopes of seeing that it was no dream at all, that everyone was still alive and well.
"What?" He stared at her impersonally, not even helping her as she lost her balance due to muscle strain. The same perfect porcelain skin, dark brown hair and piercing silver eyes; he was just as she remembered.
Overcome with emotion, she ran blindly into his body to enfold him in an embrace. She longed to feel his soft chuckles and reassuring pats on the back, a gentle smile or two. He was alive and not a mangled hunk of flesh lying broken on the ground, he hadn't been taken from her forever. He was before her and in her arms and everything would be okay –
The floor crushed into her nose, the familiar scent of paper screens, bamboo, and sweat flooding through.
"Don't touch me."
She looked up at him in shock, flinching when she was met with a malicious glare in return. His face was upturned, the brand on his forehead symbolizing his enslavement uncovered and slightly red as if the skin was still swelling and fresh. It wasn't quite a scowl decorating his expression, but it was enough to discourage her from attempting to hug him again. She wanted to ask why he was like this, why his mark seemed to be irritated and glowing that vindictive green, why his voice was so smooth and lacking a deeper timbre she remembered in his speech when he comforted her just hours before. Neji, her beloved big brother Neji, was not like this cold, sullen boy who looked at her in disgust and utter hatred… anymore.
And then it hit her like a bolt of painful lightning as she struggled back onto her bare feet.
She was the same height as her cousin and when she reached up habitually to brush her long hair back to its place behind her shoulder, she realized that there was no long thread of black hanging where it had been before. A light breeze behind her bare neck told her that her hair had reverted to its old bob-cut, and Neji did not have his long brown curtain of hair tied loosely behind him as she remembered of him. His hands were relatively unscarred and dainty like a lady's. His large silver eyes had none of the warmth they had mere hours ago and they were narrowed like icy senbon needles about to strike.
This was the Hyuuga Neji she had both loved and feared, the one whose wings were newly broken and who did not dare to venture from the cage he was forced into. He was not the Neji-nii-san she had forged a friendship with nor the Neji-nii-san who always brewed jasmine tea when she returned from a difficult mission despite his strange inability to prepare the beverage properly. This Neji was not the one who would willingly die for her. He was not a stranger, but he was someone she had tried very hard to forgive and forget in the very depths of her heart, the very organ he had nearly fatally disrupted when he tried to kill her during their first Chuunin exam. This was the Hyuuga Neji at five years of age, freshly imprinted with the seal of the caged bird.
And she was Hyuuga Hinata with three years of joy and one year of newly implanted suffering under her possession. She was the girl who caused her uncle, Neji's father, to die and the one who unknowingly crippled her mother with her birth. She was the failure, the unwanted, and the regret of the Hyuuga clan.
This was the physical body of her of the past, not the Hyuuga Hinata she knew herself to be.
Her hands shook as they clenched with this revelation, her long fringe covering her tightly closed eyes. Horrifying as it was, she was no longer where she had made her true home. There was no smiling Neji waiting for her here and she knew that the Naruto who hugged her so tightly before he went up against Madara was not here either. Her teammates, her teachers, her friends – they were not truly here to welcome her. She was not with them, she was not dead.
Her fingers trembled as they habitually formed the seal for genjutsu release – it had to be one, for Madara's and Sasuke's illusion inducing eyes had struck her multiple times as she lay helplessly on the ground. They'd sent her to hell instead of doing the slightly merciful thing and letting her go to paradise bathed in her own tears and blood.
"KAI!" she whispered harshly, disrupting her chakra to dispel the hallucination as she had been taught so many years ago. Her Byakugan was strong enough to see through most illusions and having a renowned genjutsu master such as her own Kurenai-sensei only added to her imperviousness to such tricks, but the Sharingan, especially those belonging to masters of the craft like Madara, were difficult to thoroughly evade without having to go through more traditional methods of release. "KAI!"
A thick vibration of chakra backlashed within her, causing her to fall onto her knees again.
The pain was real.
"What are you doing?" Neji asked derisively, staring at her fragile white hands still in the release formation. He'd never seen her form any hand seals before and he did not know this one; five year old Neji would start the Academy in a few months and his only repertoire of jutsu consisted of what he secretly observed from his father.
She gasped when she activated the Byakugan and saw that her chakra coils were contracting furiously, clutching at something to dispel or break through, but there was nothing there save her own spheres of energy. There was no genjutsu and whatever she saw was real. She remembered every detail of this very place, this very training session she'd spent with her cousin, and her own bitter hopelessness as she found herself bruised on the floor - it felt like every blurred memory of her painful childhood was suddenly reawakening and clearing as if what happened to her was merely a hellish daydream. This was indeed the past, more than ten years behind her and nearly forgotten and wiped away with tears and sweat. Her breaths came faster and faster, rushing through her lungs rapidly as if she were drowning. Her fingers clutched at her clothes, the cold floor, anything to restrain themselves from tearing out her shorn hair or reaching for a Neji that no longer was truly hers. From the corner of her eye, she saw her young cousin step back in discomfort as he watched her fight hyperventilation helplessly. Her heart thrummed intermittently and each pulsation brought a new strain of intense pain, causing her to blink away some mist and attempt to refocus her concentration on something else. She allowed herself to look at him completely, to further engrave this nightmare into her mind to ensure that it wasn't just an immaculately cast jutsu of some sort. She knew him well enough to know his every minuscule movement; his eyes shone a slight tint of worry although he still attempted to stay emotionless and suddenly she felt his conflict, his change in demeanor into something warmer and more familiar, anchor her to her remaining strands of sanity.
Though she was still panicked, years of being a well-trained and diligent kunoichi hadn't completely escaped her mental capacity. She forced herself to concentrate on her breaths, drawing them out and then inhaling just as deeply. The trembling of her hands slowly eroded away into a disciplined tension and her tears disappeared into oblivion, her sense of rationality washing over like a wave smoothing across a rippled beach. Reminding herself that she had seen hell already, a future of death and despair, she knew that this was nothing compared to what she had experienced those dreadful moments. Here, at least she knew the ones she loved were breathing and relatively well. And then, she logically concluded while ignoring the pang of loss stinging her chest, if this was really the past she was reliving, then she was well within certain lengths to prevent the end with her own bloody and scarred hands even if it was the last thing she would ever do and at any price.
Taking a final deep breath to compose herself, Hinata contemplated how she would be able to protect the home she had made in the future. Composure floated throughout her blood vessels and her blood cooled and slowed, her fluttering butterfly heart throbbing into a steadier and gentler beat. She attempted to remain in this rational train of thought, anchoring herself to the lone notion of being able to make a difference. She began with the most obvious flaws in her slowly forming plans, unknowingly narrowing her eyes in cold calculation. In her four year old body, she knew she was beyond weak and more likely a liability than anything else and the world almost darkened again with hopelessness. Would she fail to even keep sane just moments in this, fail her sun because she was utterly weak and useless? Flashes of Madara and Naruto's burned body steeled her as she forced herself to recall the images. These haunting memories lapped at her tender heart like acid, rooting her more firmly to her resolution. No, she had advantages over what she had been the first time she was four. She worked inordinately hard to become strong in the years to come and she now had the chance to exponentially increase that and use that strength to protect her loved ones as they protected her the first time around. The exacerbated heart condition that plagued her teenage years due to her Chuunin exam mishaps did not exist yet, meaning her body was surely more capable of exertion and speed. She hadn't developed her chakra levels as much as she had in the future, but her control over it was still intact as it was more of a mental faculty than a physical one. Her body was weak and lacking muscle, but she knew now how to discipline herself properly and her aim was superior to what it had been. Reflexes were similarly gone, but she knew how to hone them back.
Feeling a confidence she'd never really had before and greatly satisfied with her logic, she got off her now extremely bruised knees and brushed away any dust coating her black training suit with unshaking fingers.
"A-are you well, Hinata-sama?"
She looked at her unsettled cousin, a sunny smile on her face as she answered. "Never better, Neji-nii-san!"
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
She knew that when the sun rose, she'd have to attend the Academy for the first time. Or rather, her second time experiencing her first day – it really was a strange feeling to live her life twice with two different mindsets. She was both aching to see her beloved friends and comrades when they were still capable of laughter and smiles but she was also terrified to see how they weren't really hers anymore. They wouldn't have made those bonds with her since she hadn't met, fought by or against, shared conversation and meals with them yet. Naruto was still a distant star she couldn't hope to even look in the eye and Neji was the older brother she couldn't even wave at cheerily as he passed by. And she remembered that her killer would be there as well disguised as the popular class genius and top student. Her throat constricted as she thought of those black eyes, those empty swirls of darkness and the bloody monster they were hiding. She could almost feel smooth metal sliding through her back and belly again, the helplessness she felt as she stared at the cold hearted murderer.
Shaking her head, she reminded herself that he hadn't been like that originally. Uchiha Sasuke had been happy once, she knew it because she remembered his innocent, boyish grin before his family was taken. His uninhibited laughter, like any other boy his age, rang loudly and freely across the classroom, the halls, and the playground. He hadn't even managed to activate his bloodline limit yet unlike she had with her own inborn Byakugan. He was once pure and happy and human. Like herself, he had changed because life had forced him to adapt in order to survive. She had to make herself forgive him and to treat him as if he were still a fellow ninja of Konoha – a comrade to treasure. But every time she remembered the Sharingan spinning hypnotically at her as she lay dying by his feet and bloodied blade, she felt cold sweat pool in her every pore and a fierce trembling attack her limbs. She would have to make sure she avoided him at any cost; recalling her past interactions – or lack of – it wouldn't be too difficult of a feat, especially as she doubted he even knew her name when he killed her that day.
Her legs were no longer sore after her exercises, jumping from tree to tree in the starlit night. Brutal months of secretly regaining the strength of her prime were evident when she sprinted and vaulted over the Hyuuga compound wall without losing a single breath, stealthily making her way to the inner chambers of the Main Branch house where her old bedroom was located. It was difficult to reconsolidate her kunoichi skills from her seventeen year old self, but it was considerably easier to build up strength with her experience and her knowledge from the future than it had been the first time she tried to climb over these obstacles. She still hadn't completely obtained her old aptitude, as it was difficult to train efficiently by herself and her childish body had its own physical limits, but it was enough for one of her age. Perhaps she had already reached depths beyond the hailed geniuses of her class, she mused.
Padding silently into her room, she prepared for her morning accordingly. The same baggy tan coat she wore during her first time around lay on her bed, a fishnet mesh shirt folded neatly beside it. The ensemble was familiar and comforting, like greeting an old friend again.
She smiled as she took off her training gi before something dark on her skin caught her eye; right where she remembered the sword piercing through her flesh that day, there was a small collection of black marks that looked suspiciously like the tomoe of a crimson Sharingan painted on her ivory skin. The ochre inkiness of it as it glistened in the moonlight made it stand out against her snowy white belly and she knew that daylight would only increase the contrasts. It wouldn't come off no matter how hard she scrubbed and scratched at it, utterly disgusted at being marked by this hideous symbol of evil, and she had even tried to cut it off with a kunai in her utter desperation but it had remained unmarked and unflawed as if taunting her. Mere emotional revulsion and more painful methods of removing this taint did not affect it at all, she was forced to conclude.
Her cold fingers gently traced it, feeling for some abnormality that made it separate from her skin but came up empty. It felt like the rest of her flesh. It had become a part of her. And she would never forget how she was killed when she was seventeen, how her world was ended so terribly – this blemish would never let her live in her peace as long as she saw and remembered her first life. For that, she was both thankful and dismayed by its existence permanently etched into her flesh and soul. She wouldn't take this curse for granted nor would she forget her purpose, her mission. It was a dichotomy she was forced to accept even as the mark was embalmed in her bitterness every time her eyes happened to glance at it.
"Hinata-sama, you are to be escorted to the Academy this morning by Ko-san. He is waiting for your arrival at the front gate."
"Yes, thank you," she replied quietly to the voice at the door, knowing that it was still strange for her attendants to hear her speaking without her characteristic stutter.
Her clothes fit her easily as if they had been waiting for her and she grabbed her comb to gather her dark hair into a ponytail above her head, making sure that the silken threads wouldn't inhibit her eyes as they had back when she was originally at this age. She knew how to use them properly now and she wouldn't make the same mistakes again.
She strode through the hall gracefully, sliding her paper screen doors closed with practiced ease and approaching the tea-room where her father and sister and cousin were waiting. A long, low table of the finest mahogany lay across diligently cared for tatami mats, a teapot simmering softly with its matching cups emulating the wisps of steam like eager children watching their mother. Three pairs of identical eyes only watched under veils of disinterest as she knelt down into the traditional seiza like she'd been doing it for decades and began to serve the tea to each of them.
"Hinata, you should cut that hair of yours short," her father said as he looked at her dismissively mere minutes later, a careless glance shot at her from behind his steaming cup of morning tea. "It will become a boon when you are in battle as you are too weak to keep it from becoming one."
She smiled at him politely as he said those words, remembering the first time she had heard this exact conversation. Originally, she had bitten back tears of hurt, thinking that he really did believe her to be useless and too weak to even keep herself safe because of long hair, but now she knew that the trailing strands of dark hair made her seem too much like her deceased mother, whose looks she had already inherited much of. She recalled his sad glances at a photo of her mother while she hid behind a door and realized that she really did resemble the woman she barely remembered; physical appearance was also not her only inheritance, she later learned. Her soft voice and heart, the reluctance to adhere to the universal shinobi code, the gentle smiles and love for flowers were all things her mother was as well. It was rubbing salt into a still fresh wound, she knew now, to even share that very obvious trait and her father was not yet ready to accept his wife's death. He would undoubtedly in the future and additionally give her tacit permission to wear her own tresses like her mother's. And though long hair was a liability for the weak, Hinata knew that she was now strong enough this time around to keep it flowing down her shoulders just as her father, uncle, and cousin had.
Of course, he didn't know that she had been secretly training at night and between one-on-one sessions she had with him or the fact that she had more than a decade's worth of knowledge and memories waiting to be recalled at the tips of her fingers. So, she forgave him for his bitter words and simply sipped her tea with her characteristic quietness. He frowned in distaste at her mild reaction, somewhat irritated that she hadn't heeded his advice at all and concluded that she was too weak to accept the truth until it was beaten into her and too late to do otherwise.
"I'll be leaving now. Thank you for the tea," she announced softly, bowing before slipping on her shoes and readjusting her bag.
Neji glared at her with his silvery eyes, disdain still marking his every feature. It hurt Hinata that she might not be able to recover their old relationship, especially as much of it was based on his training her in the past that she no longer needed, but she was willing to sacrifice that love in order to prevent his premature death. His future counterpart had still helped her; much of her current knowledge of the Hyuuga techniques and his signature moves were now part of her arsenal. He wouldn't remember the memories and affection they managed to earn together and it would stab at her heart to see his obliviousness, but, she reminded herself, she still loved him enough for the both of them anyway. She was thoroughly willing to pay any price on her behalf in order for him to receive his rightful share of happiness in this world.
"Ko-san, let's go," she told her faithful attendant, who blinked with surprise, when she arrived at the gate. This wasn't the Hinata he had escorted times in the past, but he was glad she had finally outgrown her timidity if not her reticence.
He fondly smiled while she led him to the Academy, strides purposeful and her head held up high as if preparing to step into a fearsome battle.