Demon's Ball
Chapter Three: Faust
xXx
The thunder boomed and the lightning sizzled with electric currents. An unknown household, blood painted the once white walls, splayed across them like a painter's mistake. There were no bodies and Hinata had the sinking feeling as she thought back that they had been torn to shreds by those scraping claws that scuttled across the floor around her. They scrabbled across the wooden floors, scratching up the polished floors and leaving deep marks. The bodies were more than likely devoured by the wide jaws of a behemoth that had fangs nearly as long as she, crimson rusting the white away from them. A monster's much too enormous body blocking all the exits from the unknown house when she tried to run. It rumbled like thunder and roared at her almost teasingly. How could a monster roar teasingly? Obviously it was skilled in that department when its large tail shoved her against a wall and pressed down so hard she thought she felt her ribs touch her spine.
It leaned till it was eyelevel with her and she was surprised when it wasn't a dragon but a misshapen creature; a badger or raccoon that held her captive behind a very heavy tail. Eyes of gold gleamed at her and her own white ones widened. It dropped her and scuttled away. The tip of the tail, however, lingered in a dark hallway slick with blood. It twitched invitingly, beckoning her to follow it and she stood; following it like a blindly loyal dog. It went down another corner when she nearly reached and was leading her somewhere. A gust of wind blew open a curtain that had an open window but she'd bypassed it. Not realizing she'd just went passed an exit, she followed the tail till there was an exit at the end; leading to a main gate that swung open wildly that gave way to a dark, twisted road of a forest resembling a jungle of hell.
The beast was gone and its place, a boy who stood with his feet shoulder width apart, as though in a defense stance and a gourd on his back. His red hair moved with the wind, reminding her of twisted flames. Odd colored eyes stared at her with an unreadable multitude of emotions that blended to create something that both frightened her and left her mystified. His white sash danced on the wind like a small ballerina figure. His arms were at his sides though his fingers were twitching and suddenly the sand beast was looming over him. It grinned with worth of a Cheshire cat at her, widely displaying impressive fangs rusted with blood. It seemed to spot something out of the corner of its eye she didn't see and turned its head sharply to snarl soundlessly at whatever it was while the real sound came from the redheaded boy.
Hinata turned to it to see a faceless person, arm out with fingers beckoning to her gently. Trying to coax her as one would with a flighty animal. Dressed in fine clothes with a sword at the apparently male figure's side, she felt something gentle strike her. A gentle person and she stepped towards them rather than the sand beast which now roared with animosity at her impudence. The male's hand switched from holding out to apparently grab her hand as she thought to take a wild swipe at her eyes. She yelped with no sound when the hand scratched at her face while trying to claw out her opal eye. He approached her and she took another step back. He stepped forward again, same outcome. He reached for his sword and her legs felt warm and something grainy wrapped around her calves, tugging her away. The sand beast behind the redheaded boy was gone she noticed as the sand tugged her back towards him. The redhead looked at the man without question and his lips peeled back to reveal teeth perhaps rivaling in ferocity as the beast's, saliva dripped down from his exposed teeth to dribble off his chin and fly to the ground.
The sand wrapped about her waist and tugged at her clothes, as though trying to make sure there was no other harm to her. The man screamed and the redhead advanced. She saw teeth flash and the boy mutate into something of a cross between he and the beast that had shadowed him earlier. The sand covered her eyes when the man shrieked like a terrified animal and the boy roared. The thunder boomed, covering over the screams.
Hinata's eyes snapped open, twin opal spheres gleaming eerily in the darkness when the thunder growled and the lightning split the dark, stormy sky like the crack of a whip. Her breathing was fast and she reached unconsciously to her waist. No sand. She sat up to observe her small room; no blood on her plain walls and none on the floor. The covers were tangled over her ankles and she reached down to yank them off. Rolling off the bed, she stood shakily on her feet, muscles still killing her and she maneuvered one hand to massage her thighs to make them a little more cooperative. Her breathing, still fast paced gradually slowed and she made her way out of her room, opening her bedroom door with a click from the knob. She ignored the faint traces of her shaking in fear mind that whispered it wasn't a dream or a nightmare-maybe it was just reality.
She looked down at the couch where her formal kimono was laying innocently with a formal scroll rolled up next to it, from Tsunade.
-
Even though the rain soiled his clothes and made the gourd heavier, Gaara ignored it instead to turn to his thoughts. An infiltration mission to the Lightning country on the Sound and what exactly was happening in that country to have made them withdraw their truce proclamation was what lay ahead for he and one Hyuuga girl named Hinata. Neither teenager objected to the assignment, but he knew what she was thinking; he felt something tear up at them from the ground with icy shackles and hold them. Something was happening and they were not in the equation though this was their mission, Tsunade was holding something back with sealed lips. The rain poured down heavily from his place in a tree in the local park. Thunder roared like a proud lion and the lightning lit up the sky with heavy cackles.
His hair was sodden and lay askew over his tattoo of love and forehead. The wind howled like a baying wolf with a high voice, it tore through the leaves and clawed impatiently at his clothes like a wanting child. With on knee up and the other leg, slung over the side of the branch, he balanced on arm atop his protruding knee while his thoughts drifted over the mission with a suspicious air. He would go to the Lightning country as the 'blind' girl's companion; but it wasn't good enough. There needed to be another back story, a good one that was common, but also not common. Enough for those Sound obeying idiots to swallow up and give them a slight pity fest because of their misfortunate position in life. Not too much as to smother them with attention or affection or whatever; but enough for them to be given space and not such a wary aura.
His thoughts also flipped over the facts of what would be expected of her as a blind girl. Basically, a lot of the time, until she could make some 'friends' in the Lightning country, she would have to stick with him. So, probably for the first month or two, they would be 'inseparable' until they could gather some friends. The only actual friend he had, though he thought of him as more of a pest, was Naruto. The Hyuuga girl didn't count because she was stuck with him; willingly or not, since everyone else Naruto had asked to watch over Gaara so he wouldn't have to go back to Suna had declined. The Hyuuga girl had been his unknowing savior of sorts since she finally accepted, otherwise, he'd have been deported back to Suna immediately for his awaiting execution since Naruto could no longer stay in Konohagakure. So he really didn't know how to go about the process of making friends, as he also doubted that Hinata had any idea as well.
The rain was leaking past his lips and he spat out some of the unwanted water. He heard laughter coming from the street; people were standing out, hanging up decorations and preparing covered food vendors for the ninja congratulatory festival. Children were scurrying about, clinging to their mothers or chasing one another as people soon came out with umbrellas for the festival. He felt his upper lip curl into a sneer; disgusting. He smelt her before her initially heard her; lavender and something sweet. He heard the click-clack of wooden geta shoes and he turned to the source. A large black umbrella greeted his view; beneath it was the hem of a kimono with white borderline and green flower petals. The umbrella tilted and it was who he suspected. Pale opal eyes blinked up at him and she wore a light purple kimono. He stared down at her and she stared back up at him-not very odd she knew where he was, she knew he liked to be perched somewhere like some dark gargoyle without master.
To people who didn't know them well, their relationship anyway, thought it was a scene of the love proclaiming Juliet and her reluctant Romeo. In such reality, it was more of a case, 'I'm waiting for you to come down so we can find Tsunade' and 'Why the hell are you dressed up?' she twirled the umbrella slightly. Gaara blinked when the rain trickled into his eyes and leapt down, the wet grass sticking to his sandals. She raised the umbrella higher, awkwardly and hesitantly as though she didn't really mean what she invited. He knew that and that was probably what made him walk under the umbrella as well. He gripped the umbrella's handle and stole it from her clasp; holding it higher so he didn't have to slouch. Women saw Hinata dressed up and murmured how cute she was; men averted their gaze from Gaara's constant glower at the attention they were already prey to. A child nearly ran into them, but stopped, looking from the scary, ghost like gaze of the girl to the boy with black circles about his unfriendly eyes. He made something like a whine and ran off to find his mother.
Her hands were folded before her and both young teenagers were at the edge of the umbrella; barely getting any coverage from one's wanting to get away from the other, the other hating contact. People were laughing and plates of warm food to others, smiling and getting along. Gaara wanted to crush their throats for making those sounds, tear off their lips to prevent such expressions and Hinata sensed his growing tenseness. While not daring to touch him, she spotted a food stand giving out rice gruel, peppered beef and curry rice. She muttered something probably only Gaara's sharp ears would have caught before she ran under the rain unprotected to the sheltered stand. "O-one bowl of r-rice gruel and two s-servings of your beef?" she took out her coin purse and handed the man's waiting paw four coins. "A-ah and two chopsticks?" He handed her a plain white bowl with bubbling gruel and the beef wrapped in a two sets of large green leaves. "T-Thank you!" she called out when he dropped the set of chopsticks into her hand.
"Come again, lady!"
She weaved through the crowds to find Gaara where she'd left him, glaring at her and with her observant eyes (more so than usual since she'd grown accustomed to Gaara more) saw his muscles coiled tightly probably painfully so. She ran under the protection of the umbrella, and unraveled the chopsticks. "I have m-money left over f-from my last mission w-with Team 8, s-so let's just stock up." He didn't object and she saw his fingers twitch. He probably smelled the beef. She nudged him with her elbow as the sand now longer came up to block her save when she was attacking him, and he glanced down at her. She gave him half of the beef; a package of green leaf. He didn't say thank you, but opened the leaf up and stole one pair of the chopsticks from her hand. The sand balanced the umbrella while Gaara ate and Hinata held the rest of the food. He was eating at a fast pace, but also not messily. The peppery sauce concoction didn't have time to drip down from the thinly sliced cow with his pace. She held the rice gruel close to him; giving a hint to eat some of it because her arm was getting tired.
His chopsticks dipped into it and he was eating a little faster. Hinata almost chuckled, he did have mercy. The rice gruel was warm and made her hand sweaty. While they wove between crowds of people, he continued eating and she held the bowl up for him. "The leaf is ed-edible," she started, but cut off when she saw his nose wrinkle slightly. Right. He held a nearly childish vendetta against vegetables. "Give i-it to me th-then." Wordlessly, he placed the leaf over her own set of beef wrapped in a leaf, and she gave him the bowl. Their fingers were careful not to brush one another's and though it may have seemed romantic or a sappy 'let's help each other eat' to outsiders, they were wary of each other and hungry. Mostly hungry right now. Gaara's free hand shooed away the sand holding the umbrella and held it himself. Hinata nibbled on his untouched leaf and teethed the thick vein out of the soft and tasty leaf. Her own beef was soon nearly polished off and the rice gruel was gone and most of her left over vegetation had vanished.
Eating the last of her meat, she resisted the urge to wipe off the grease of the beef and leaf on her kimono. She stuck her hand out in the rain and wrung it till she no longer felt the slick grease of fat. Other stands sold sweets; sweet potato dumplings, onigiri, green tea cakes, mochi, sticky rice cakes and multitudes of other things. She heard a stomach growl a little and couldn't tell if it was her own or Gaara's own bottomless one. People were sort of, not really sneaking glances trying to be inconspicuous but failing at looking at the two whom were apparently causing a commotion. Up ahead, however, there seemed to be raucous people causing trouble which drove away the stares that made Gaara agitated and Hinata nervous for she unconsciously stooped closer to Gaara by a fraction. Hinata frowned and wondered who it was who was making such a scene.
The rain pelted at the umbrella more harshly and Gaara watched it warily as though it would sprout holes from the needle sharp rain. The thunder rolled across the sky, making it known with loud growls and roar while white blue lights hissed and sizzled across the never ending dark grayish blue of the sky. Hinata frowned and veins from her temples bulged like cracks in the earth, her eyes focused all around her save the tiny blind spot they had. Her visual warped into a world of odd colorlessness with an eye of the all seeing; veins in her eyes popped out and made themselves known like a silvery serpentine with a crystal ball replica of the world in its tail. The Byakugan filtered through the bodies of people and stands and stray animals to the scene. Fists flying, blood spraying, kicks being launched; there was a brawl and Gaara seeing a brawl right now might not be for the best as he'd just eaten which slightly soothed him, but his muscles were still tightly bound like a snake's sinewy body preparing for a strike.
The festival would be coming to a close soon, at this time, Hinata found it to be a fair time to prepare to leave…in her mind, before she directed the both of them out of the way of the thickening crowd when the food stands were giving away freely what was left of their stores, was something morbidly gory. A dark forest with a pathway to hell, a kind man with a flashing sword and an unkind boy with fangs. She blinked and Gaara was staring straight ahead, seemingly glaring or carefully observing who looked to be Tsunade calming the crowd and thanking everyone for coming. Instead of approaching Tsunade to ask about their mission to see if they could abort, he went the opposite way of the Hokage. He turned sharply, back in the general direction of where she knew she lived and she wondered briefly, not for the first time, where he lived. A trickle of water she knew was not sweat ran down her face and she looked up to see a miniscule hole in the umbrella.
The festival was ending and they both knew it was time to leave Konoha to go on a mission neither favored. Hinata hadn't liked the look in Gaara's eye when he took to stare at Tsunade; as though he knew something Hinata herself had no clue of. It was as though he was seeing past Tsunade to see something uglier buried beneath her kinder exterior. He looked like he wanted to disembowel her. The thunder boomed.
-
The guards in front of the gate nodded their way while Hinata bowed politely; already dressed in a dark blue set of pants and a shirt with sandals, and Gaara just stared unnervingly at them. They pushed the gate open with their brute force making the heavy wood scratch at the earth like an angry cat. Gaara walked forward, and then turned to his left while Hinata stared unseeingly at the gate, into the dark forest while the rain hit at them more softly than it had when they'd been at the festival. "Hinata," she twitched and absently turned her head to him, pale eyes asking a question. 'Why are you letting us go into that hell?' she felt it too. All ninjas-good ninjas- could sense hells and heavens, and demons and angels. This happened to be the mission that triggered both of their 'hell' sensors. Unlike Hinata, he had the gall to turn away from the Hokage when she specifically asked for them for this mission, and he didn't. Despite what happened between them, they relied on each other no matter how small their connection was, no matter how brittle. She didn't move and he didn't either, glaring back at her for her childish fear. "Move."
There it was a finality that broke Hinata's hesitation; it was the life of a ninja to move on through hell-fire and pain and all. She knew he knew more about that more than any thirteen year old boy should. Her feet moved of their own accord and soon she was following him, with her heavy set backpack on her shoulders, rain slapping at her gently. She fingered the straps of the pack while walking forward, eyes staring at the gourd on Gaara's back as though she had blinders on the sides of her eyes. She trotted till she was on his left again, his longer legs allowed him to move quickly and she walked a little faster. He didn't slow and she didn't ask him to. They swept past the gate and Hinata cringed when she heard the heavy gates closing behind her. Why did that sound like death's bell?
She'd been on life threatening missions before with Team 8-but as the team's aggressor they had Kiba, not Gaara, as their silent strength there had been Shino, not Gaara. The forest closed around them, threatening to choke them with its long vines and too much vegetation. Team 8 was no longer with her, they were with Hanabi who was another Hyuuga prodigy, Tsunade had removed her from her team to 'care for Gaara' as Naruto had put it, her family had turned their back on her till they finalized her marriage-setting her out in the world where she would hopefully 'toughen' up and now, all that remained was a redheaded boy murderer with the sign of love on his forehead beside her. All that her world was left in was this nameless purgatory with a death certificate written in blood with her name printed on it and a boy who always came close to nearly killing her, but let her go. Konoha was quite cruel to her, especially adding to the punishment on the forsaken mission.
The rain was nearly gone, but the sky was pitch black and thunder rumbled low in the heavens. About the two of them, shadows reached out with long, alien fingers to scrap delicately at their flesh, eyes grew in the darkness and stared unblinkingly while the trees moaned a living dead song. The wind grew in force, tearing at her hair, raking claws through her hair; it snared at Gaara's clothing and twisted his sash. The forest even seemed against them going, apparently. Perhaps Konohagakure wasn't all that cruel. The night went on and they continued to trudge on, going for an inn quite a ways from Konoha; to meet the contact Tsunade had established for them.
Hinata looked over her shoulder and through the thick of the forest; she couldn't see her home anymore. "Hinata," she snapped out of her daze once more to trot back up to Gaara's place. The clouds rolled and there was no moon tonight.
-
Faust (in literature, a man who sells his soul to the devil for gain)
You guys are so awesome! One of the most heard comments I keep hearing is that I keep them in character, so I hope I'm still doing at very least a mediocre job of it and that my descriptions haven't rusted since the last chapter. And…and-sniffles- you all leave such long reviews! I'm unworthy! Even so! I hope you enjoyed this installment as much I enjoyed twisting it up a bit and writing it. Review if you liked it! Even so...I hate this chapter. It's way too OOC for me, but I needed to put things in there that didn't match with the last descriptions I'd left them with. Ugh. Hate this chapter -stabs- anyway, things will be back to normal in the next chapter.
So unfortunately, you have to suffice with this crappy entry. For those of you who sorta know my writing pieces...look for the dreaded...FORESHADOWING! Yeah, there's a lot in this chapter. Beware.
For creynoso; I stole my own ideas from Neverland for the story to be properly proportioned, so more or less it's just an alternative, but it has many of the same circumstances from Neverland. That was a very good point you pointed out though…also…can you even steal your own ideas…O.O…Huh.