AN:
So... anyone who was subscribed and then got this in their email box and then bothered to click because they were like, what? What is this story? And then scrounged the depths of their memories to find the semblance of this plot, I recommend clicking the past chapter, because that's the true newest chapter :D
I've actually been posting this on AO3, and I was like, man, I really need to update ff . net too, with all the edits to take out all my dubious attempts to be humorous from years ago. (I feel like I've lost my sense of humour in these years of adult life D:). This is just a minor edit of what was previously chapter 5, now chapter 6.
...I'll leave all future ANs to the latest new chapter aye.
Most would look at Hinata and describe him as cheerful, sociable, funny, happy, easily moved, a little idiotic, and a genuinely good guy. He dicked around with any of his friends, ogled and got easily flustered with girls. He tip-toed every health test that needed to test his height, loved to eat sweet things, and without fail, got dizzy from overusing his brain whenever there was a looming math test. Most people saw Hinata and marvelled over his natural athleticism, eagerness, and friendly smile.
The first time Kageyama met Hinata…
Kageyama looked at him, and saw wasted potential.
Because Hinata burned with a bright, vicious vein of ambition to prove himself, to defy expectations, do what people thought impossible and show his achievements to every face that would ever doubt him. Hinata owned the deepest, most instinctual desire to win.
Kageyama had loved volleyball because he had been naturally good at it. He loved how the ball went wherever it told it to, he loved knowing how scenarios that he thought in his head would succeed (if other people did their jobs) and he loved testing his abilities against other people and winning, knowing, competing.
Hinata, despite not knowing how to block, or throw, or roll, or smash, lacking any volleyball technique and relying on his base abilities. Despite never even playing volleyball before he paused in front of an electronics store—
Hinata saw the Small Giant of Karasuno, and thought
I want to be that
To surpass the wall of his limits, to gain advantage over people naturally born with gifts, in a sport where height, something he couldn't control, held all the advantage –
And to win, despite all odds. That was why Hinata played, for burning, visceral equality in a sport that no-one told him he was allowed to love and succeed in.
So Hinata chased. Chased, and chased, and chased, further, more driven, more enthusiastic than many others. After the Small Giant. After the view from the top. After other players, their skills only driving him on for more more more more
Kageyama would know.
After his first match with Hinata in middle school, Hinata had then, forever more, painted a large target sign on his back. No matter if they were on the same team, Kageyama had existed as his number one rival, the number one partner, the strongest, highest, most difficult wall to climb… But also paradoxically existed as the one person who enabled him to run the most free and uninhibited. Hinata placed the most expectations on Kageyama, foisted him on the highest pedestal, saw him through rose-tinted, volleyball shaped goggles, demanding him to win, yelling that he'd catch up, so run while you still can.
Hinata chased his back, uncaring of his attitudes, insecurity, mood-swings and arrogance, him being dethroned and scorned, because who cared about all of that when he played well?
Hinata's unwavering belief in Kageyama, gradually, turned into the first source of faith for himself after he was abandoned.
So Hinata chased, and Kageyama ran. Ran as quickly as he could, ran as he always had run, pushing to his utmost, striving for the win. But it was freeing, so freeing when he knew that there was someone who understood the race to the top with his own driven, unexplainable, single-minded wavelength. For he and Hinata had been similar in all the ways that mattered.
He had been waiting, just as long as Hinata, for their race to truly begin.
Shouyou.
Not a brother, not a singular love. But all-encompassing, all the same.
Was the word friend enough to cover that?
It was a question that he'd never answered.
"Kojiiiii," Hinata complained, linking his hands behind his head as he stared beyond the forest canopy. In the distance, the bright rays of the morning sun shone an inviting shade of white-blue that made him want to laugh, made his feet itch to run and run and run, to the edge of the island, over the sea and fly into the air. But… He side-eyed his friend, feeling bored bored bored. "You're taking foreveeer. Are you done yet?" Life was boring, his village was boring, and his long awaited break (he'd rushed his chores and skinned a knee for his efforts, you know?) was now boring too, because Koji couldn't even finish the one task that his teacher had given him yesterday!
Koji just shrugged and continued to squint at the tree as he muttered weird incantations under his breath.
Hinata resisted a pout, scrunched his nose up, and tried to be the bigger man. His ma was always on about that. Being the bigger person and stuff.
Not that, you know, it was easy when certain people were ignoring him.
Koji was sun-dappled and partially burnt from the sun, because he'd been sitting in the same spot for far too long. Even as Hinata watched, Koji continued his stupid stare-down with the tree he was trying to talk to. As a trainee-monk, he could hear the voices of trees. And, and that sounded great and all, but Hinata had heard Koji complain about what trees gossip about too much to want hear plant voices. Apparently all they talk about was how pretty their leaves were or boast about who had more sunshine, constantly, because trees never sleep.
(Hinata shivered. That actually sounded quite nightmarish. Imagine sneaking down towards the toilet and hearing a random whisper from everywhere around you! Hinata would prefer to stay away from such ghostly things, thank you very much).
And monk-hood was very hard, Hinata understood, really he did okay, it's just that Koji and Yukitaka had promised to go with him to their tree, and… they were all stuck here because Koji couldn't do his job right!
Bleh. Hinata made a face.
"Koji, what's your task anyway?" Hinata asked, swinging his legs and tracing the weathered bark of the tree he was sitting on. It was a nice tree. Hinata patted it.
"My teacher is a dumbass who wants a complete list of all the bugs that lives in this tree in front of me," Koji managed to grunt out. "I didn't think it'd take this long. The tree is being really annoying."
Yukitaka, who'd mainly been silent because a shaman was never idle, had been counting the strands of monkey butt fur in peace on the side, deciding to peace-keep a little.
"Maybe you can let us all hear, so that Hinata can understand what you're going through?" Yukitaka grinned, carefully putting the monkey fur back into the pocket of his bag, drawing out a handful of scarab beetle shells to sort instead. Blues had to go with yellow, he absently noted. "You know Hinata's deaf to that kind of stuff."
Koji sighed, before drawing a sigil onto the tree, before gesturing impatiently for Hinata's hand. And suddenly Hinata could hear a girl's voice that he heard in his brain instead of like, through his ears.
Man, that never stopped being creepy. Having Yukitaka in his head sometimes was weird enough, but thinking that trees sometimes had voices too…
Well, that was a monk's job, wasn't it? Making sure trees had their rights and all. Hinata was just glad he didn't born with the talent, because he didn't have the head for it, to be honest.
"Koji, Koji, Koji, Koji," the tree sang in a light airy laugh, and a little girl's voice danced around his head. The tree Koji was sitting in front of was relatively new, after all. Just thirty years old. "Koji, Koji, Koji is stuuupid, he can't answeeer a single riddle can heeee? If you don't, I won't tell you your fifty-fifth bug you knooow?"
Wow. Hinata blinked, rocking back on the limb a little. That tree sounded like all the girls Natsu, the most adorable little sister a brother could have ever, hated. Natsu had the shortest temper sometimes, it was hilarious, and the last time Natsu had a birthday party they'd invited Mina just for kicks, and Natsu had been huffy for weeks.
"SHUT UP, WOMAN! LET ME THINK!" Koji yelled, blocking his ears with his hands. Since Koji had only drawn the sigil on the girl's tree, Hinata could only hear her voice. But Koji heard all the trees at all times and…
"Huh, Koji," Hinata asked randomly. "How do you sleep with all those voices talking all the time?"
"You tune them out," Koji said with a very pointed glare in his direction. Okay. Hinata would be supportive. With a sigh, he flomped back onto his tree.
Kouji was flimsy monk who couldn't do anything with inner qi anyway, he huffed. Hinata's qi boosts were so much more awesome!
"I'll give you a hint. It starts b and is two words and ends with d and it's what you are to meeee!"
Hinata watched in fascination as Koji reluctantly answered. "Best friend?" His ears burning as his annoyance died.
"Yeah! Dumby Koji answered!" The tree laughed in their heads as her leaves shivered and rained a few leaves and a beetle onto his hand. "That's another one. It's blue and shiny and humans have a weird name for it that starts with… T!"
Another riddle?
"Ugh, Kojiiiiiiii," Hinata rolled himself off the branch and onto another one with some incredibly awkward acrobatics. "Just bludge your assignment or something, you teacher doesn't care! Old Genta's probably drinking!"
"I care," Koji replied shortly, rolling his shoulders with a grimace. "Just because he doesn't want to teach me doesn't mean I don't wanna learn, okay? Not everyone has exercises that just involve jumping around." He eyed the tree and her blatant, childish expectation and sighed. "Sorry Hinata," Koji admitted, scratching his hair. "Negotiating is taking a lot more time than I thought it would. You should go to our tree first? I'm not great at talking, you know that. This will take a while."
At Koji's apologetic grimace, Hinata paused before laughing, scratching the back of his head.
"Right, I sometimes forget that you're a dumbass," Hinata teased, letting the slightly offended look wash away his annoyance. Having cheered up, Hinata glanced up at the sky. The day was… surprisingly pleasant! That makes it more fun! Grinning, Hinata sprang up to stand on his branch again. He couldn't help it, he had the jitters, okay, and started bouncing on his heels and slowly let his disappointment go with every bounce. Then he stared longingly at the sky. "Yukitaka, let's go?"
Yukitaka, always glad to have a lazy afternoon lolling about in a shady patch of grass, gave Hinata an apologetic smile over his collection of beetle shells.
"Sorry, Hinata! Next time?"
Hinata bit his lips. "But, but, but Yukitaka, you promised we'd go to the tree this afternoon!"
When Yukitaka shrugged lazily against the grass, Hinata sighed, before glancing at the sky and realising he should start moving now. Sticking his tongue out at the both of them, he leapt to another tree to prepare his own brand of qi. Nothing as fancy as communing with trees or evoking the spirits of the dead, of course, but still amazing and all his.
It always took a few seconds for him to activate any deeper layers of qi.
Physical qi was all about awareness, surprisingly enough, so any novice like Hinata had to focus a little before things could happen much. So Hinata stood there, orange hair still, eyes closed, breathing deep. His qi was always coiled around his heart and backbone when he wasn't using it, and when he tugged on it to shift it around his veins, his skin started to glow a slight orange. A breath in. Tugged a strand of orange light into fingers and out. To his toes. To the tips of his hair.
He cracked his knuckles.
Using that as momentum to push the qi around his body, Hinata's hearing sharpened to the point he could hear the brush of air inside Koji's mouth as he breathed in, the hum of his vocal chords that hadn't been manipulated into words yet, and the faint sloshing of beetle juice in Yukitaka's bag. His muscles tightened until the jitters of energy smoothed into a thrum that became near unbearable. The next time he blinked, he spotted an eagle's nest up the volcano's crag a mile away, the individual flecks of dead bark and twigs clear in stark detail. His toes curled on the branch of the tree.
His qi reflected him, his intentions, and right now he wanted to move.
With a goodbye yell at his friends (Yukitaka happily flicking through beetle shells while Koji pleaded the tree for a hint), Hinata took a leap forward onto a stronger tree branch, jumping up from there. Leaves streaked past him, thin branches avoided, as he ran up the trunk and sank straight into the sky. In the moments before he fell again, he regarded the whole of the forest he lived in beautiful detail, each tree and leaf clear to him stretched for miles upon miles, before distantly, the glitter of the sea.
Then he fell back into the shadows of the trees, landing on a bough as he leaped forward, gleeful as the air cut clean around him. He worked towards the lower, stronger boughs, as his feet led him deep into the forest to their tree, the one that the three of them had found when they'd gotten lost once, and promptly decided as their hideout.
When he was eight, it took him fifteen minutes, Koji thirty-two, and Yukitaka forty-four minutes to get to the hideout. Now, Koji improved a little to twenty-eight, Yukitaka was still at forty(ish) if he really pushed himself (his qi wasn't inclined to the physical at all), and Hinata could get there in three minutes even while lugging Yukitaka over his shoulder.
Now it took him two, alone, and he wasn't even rushing or anything.
He loved the world in speed – a blur that flashed by in a crisp detail that only the strain of his qi could catch. Using last minute's adrenaline to swing around this branch, to push his feet vertically onto a trunk and run, knowing gravity wouldn't catch him until he let it—it felt like the world was limitless, like something was beyond his small village if he just let himself continue to fly, faster and faster, out of his island, across the sea, to somewhere unknown and exciting.
When he got close to their tree hideout though, he let his speed bleed off, letting the qi fizzle out into a tree and felt it sigh a thank you in its shiver of leaves as Hinata did his last big leap and stopped right at the crest.
Hinata started dropping towards the ground, and on his way watched some grubs through a gap in the trunk as he walked down a particularly thick bough, the path ingrained in him after four years of repetition. Dappled sunlight, weak from winter, stretched its yellow limbs towards him and Hinata reached out, trying to grasp it back with a small laugh.
The tree was only half a minute away when a buzz, a pain that started near his left ear and exited in a streak of pain made Hinata wince before blinking in confusion.
Huh? Did he strain his qi too much?
Hinata flexed the whirl of qi around his heart with a small poke to his chest. Nup.
Weirdest headache ever.
He was still trying to figure it out, brows furrowed in confusion as he jumped down from the tree and sank his bare feet into the forest mulch, dank shade making him suddenly cold as he headed towards the small lake of water, and the tree that grew out of its seemingly fathomless depths.
The water was as clear as usual today, and Hinata didn't hesitate to jump in, opening his eyes to stare into the depths that bled slowly from white-clear water shadows to a midnight black that was impenetrable. Once, Yukitaka had dared Koji and Hinata to swim to the bottom of the lake, but even Hinata, at maximum boost, with his qi extending his lung capacity to fifteen minutes, couldn't reach the bottom of the roots.
But he liked diving in it anyway.
The water coursed over his head as he swam towards the tree, blinked a few times to get used to the small glimmers of light that the water allowed through. The great tree that grew from the fathomless lake had roots that just curled up from the depths, down, and down, and down. Within a few strong kicks, he reached the edge of the tree, and underwater, the great twines of roots were slippery with green algae and only grew thicker and thicker in the depths that grew too harsh for even Hinata to bear.
This tree, more than anything in his life, felt like an adventure, something great and exciting and unknown! No-one in the village knew anything about the bottomless lake when they asked but just seeing it (and maybe exploring whenever he had the chance with Yukitaka and Koji) was the most exciting thing in the world.
But exploring deeper would need to be left for another time – Yukitaka was the only one who could manifest light without oxygen and fuel, and Hinata mentally stuck his tongue out at Koji again, who'd made them miss out on another adventure just because he couldn't answer riddles!
So instead of exploring alone, Hinata hauled himself out of the water and onto a thick root, quickly wringing out his clothes before shading his eyes as he glanced upwards. The tree trunk was thick and whorled, but the sheer size of it made it seem like a curved, fat, cylindrical cliff, and their hideout was a carved out hole half way up the tree just… there!
Hinata cracked his knuckles, letting the orange warmth of his qi seep into his legs before eagerly leaping upwards, reaching their cozy nook in a leap, and a quick catch of the fingers.
They'd sneaked cushions in there, and even a few old blankets that they'd washed and tried their hardest to mend (which made them extremely ugly and warped, but still so comfortable!) and it was the best place to take an afternoon nap when there wasn't anything else to do for the rest of the day. They'd carved a small cabinet at the back of their tree-cave, and at the bottom, Yukitaka had rigged a small cloth bag with rope that dipped into the water whenever they wanted to store cool drinks.
Hinata always felt a frission of pride whenever he saw their hideout, a little birdbeat of mischievous glee that they'd sneaked a little of themselves into such a mysterious place. Like they were part of that adventure, away from the village and its homework, training, and chores.
Hinata climbed in eagerly, already reaching for one of the towels they'd stacked at the edge of their hideout to dry his hair when a dry voice broke the calm. An tiny gnarled crone tapped her wizened staff to the floor as she hauled herself up. "Shouyou," she said, extremely dry. "I knew you'd be here soon."
Hinata blinked comically, before he promptly squawked a panicked 'Granny Kobume?!' and fell backwards out of the hollow to plummet towards the water. The old lady listened with a serene face as she heard the familiar sounds of Hinata's alarmed squawking – after all, she was his teacher.
"Granny Kobume!" Hinata shouted with surprise as he bounded straight back up the tree, none the worse for wear. "H-H-How did you get in here? Why do you like scaring me so much? Are you here to scold me? Did I do anything wrong? Oh no, you found out about the bucket thing, didn't you?"
Babbling, Hinata hauled himself inside and plopped himself onto a cushion as he closed his eyes in anticipation of retribution for the bucket. It wasn't even his fault, to be honest. He just kind of, you know, tripped with a handful of food, and maybe some of it landed in the bucket of ritual water, and maaaaybe he just picked it up tossed it over her vegetables, and maybe they mutated because of that, and maybe Uncle Hi's food poisoning came from that…
"Shouyou," Kobume merely rolled her eyes. "You're twelve. Even if I scare you, you're not gonna get a heart attack. And what's that about a bucket, hmm?"
Hinata clapped his hand over his mouth so that he didn't accidentally babble anything more about the bucket thing because he was still safe hahahaha bucket? What bucket?
"This is a good hollow though," Kobume continued, whacking her cane into the hollow of the tree. "It's pretty impressive, considering how special this tree is. It wouldn't have allowed you to do this if it didn't like you," Kobume eyed her student through one, sagging eyelid and shook her head in disappointment. "Heaven knows why."
Hinata suppressed an indignant squawk and swallowed.
"Wh-what are you here for, Granny?" Hinata asked tentatively.
"Have some spirit, boy," Kobume complained, "you always go on and on about the adventures you're going to have, but you have the courage of a fainted rabbit." Rolling her eyes, she slowly moved towards the entrance, bypassing Hinata with the overwhelming scent of stale mothballs.
"Well, you know how I know some divine magic because I was a delusional girl back in the day and ate one too many sacred mushrooms?" Kobume drawled, peeking up at the large, towering branches of the tree.
"Uh-huh?" Hinata nodded, who had already started to rock on his cushion because he couldn't stay still for his life. "Yeah, but didn't you get kicked out of priestesshood because you got too high or some— Ow!"
"Shut up! I'm your teacher!"
Hinata obediently shrank back down and pretended that he was a mushroom, innocently growing in this corner of the tree hollow.
Kobume nodded her wrinkly face in satisfaction at Hinata's compliance before she rose up. "Come. Follow me. This hollow you made lacks class," and there was this sniff and another waft of mothballs as a series of cracks and pops sounded from her skeleton, power rising off her body.
"Granny," Hinata groaned, trotting after her as she power-jumped twenty metres up to land on a ridge of tree bark, before jumping around the huge curve of the tree (he quickly flared his Boost and did the same), "our cave has so much class! Me and Yukitaka and Koji worked really hard on it you know?"
He duly followed though, as Kobume continued jumping up, going around in zigzags that left the canopy of the forest long ago, and continued up to the very tip of the tree, the highest he'd ever been. He had a few moments of standing at the topmost branch of the large tree, tempted to reach out towards the sky (so close he could nearly touch) before his teacher did one of the old people harrumphs that disparaged any and all cheer in the world and jumped… in?
"Woah," Hinata's eyes widened in awe as he followed the hunched back of his teacher, as a large ledge of bark at the top of the tree tipped into a large cave and never stopped, leading to a cave he'd never ever noticed. His insides tingled with excitement, as he started bouncing at the thought of adventure.
Inside was another pseudo-doorway, where inside that small cave was another corridor that was pitch black, as Hinata squeezed himself in and blocked the rays of light. His head nearly touched the ceiling of the strands of wood fibres that hung down from the ceiling like spider webs.
Kobume, who had been silent the whole time ignoring Hinata's oohs and aahs, raised an old wrinkly hand, making her palm glow blue.
"Come, you doof child," Kobume said with kindness that Hinata knew existed, deep, deep, deep inside, "I saw a… well, there's a truth you need to see here…" she trailed off, wrinkly face conflicted before snapping back into sternness. "And there are things that you need to see that I have hid from you."
Hinata blinked eyes that were still wide from inspecting this secret-secret cave that he'd never known about (since if he'd known, he would never have bothered digging out that cave hideout. He would've just lugged Yukitaka and Koji here, they'd wasted so much time!)
"Huh? Granny, what do you mean hide?"
Kobume only lead him through the corridor, and as the little light that had squeezed through the small opening faded, Hinata started getting the creeps.
N-not that he was scared or anything, duh!
…but maybe it was a little, um, creepy.
Maybe.
While he was trying to find anything to distract himself with (Granny would mock him for the rest of his life if he even tried to grab the back of her shirt for support), he realised the bark beneath his feet suddenly cooled, before becoming noticeably moist and wet.
In two steps, water was up to his ankles.
Kobume abruptly stopped in front of him.
"Shouyou, dive," she ordered. "This pool leads to the very bottom—"
Hinata's eyes could not boggle any more. If they did, his eyeballs would probably fall out of his eye sockets. Even his fear got washed away when sometimes promised to wash away the boredom.
Was this... adventure he smelt?
"No worries, granny!" Hinata said with an enthusiastic grin, stripping his shoes and most of his clothing off, "leave diving into cool pools to me!"
And with a flare of his Boost, he was gone.
Kobume just stared at the little trail of bubbles Hinata left and snorted.
"Idiot. He didn't even let me tell him about the water dragon."
Okay, so this might not be what Hinata was expecting when he took a dive in a mysterious pool of water in the middle of a magically huge tree that his granny-teacher lead him to.
Nah, he would totally believe granny would do something like this.
"PFBBBTHSH!" Hinata screamed into the water, white bubbles exploding in front of his face as he immediately started kicking upwards, his qi going slightly haywire as he strained his muscles to haul himself out of the tree and hopefully away from that hugeass gigantic creature that he'd, maybe, kinda, okay he totally did, kick the eyeball of. Quite hard. His foot had even skid on the surface before he bounced backwards, and the whole thing swivelled to follow him.
Hinata blubbered inside.
Accidentally! He didn't really notice it was an eyeball!
When he felt something cold winding around his ankle, he started yelling panicked apologies to whatever monster, creature or deity he just kicked.
"I'M SORRY!" His mind screamed in a last ditch effort as the thing around his ankle dragged him lower, and lower, and lower…
His lungs screamed for air since he wasted it all on screaming.
…This was worse than that time Yukitaka disappeared on that horror-hunt thing the adults set-up last year! He thought that was fear!
'Be still, little squirmy orange one," a voice squirmed into his mind.
Even while he was screaming and struggling, and maybe slowly dying from oxygen, a little part of Hinata's brain protested at being called little. Even short people can do amazing things!
'I know, small human. Be still.' The voice swelled again his mind, even as a bubble of air popped around his head. Hinata blinked in surprise as he took a huge, desperate breath.
So, so, so it wasn't going to kill him? Or eat him or anything?
'I am not a creature of metal, human. I am of water, and I only need water. The contaminated water in your veins is useless to me,' it replied to his thoughts, and man, mind-reading was actually kind of creepy when it wasn't Yukitaka doing it, huh…
After a few deep breaths, his mind settled enough for him to realise wait, he hadn't actually seen whatever the thing he was talking to was yet, so he swivelled his head even as the thing around his ankle let go. Twisting around, he was greeted by a huge snout, the thing around his ankle apparently the thing's tongue. He was about the size of the creature's pupil, maybe, a creature of river-currents and water qi, the swirl of its eyes a funnel like a whirlpool.
Hinata tried not to gawk. He truly did. Natsu had hit him too many times for gawking at merchant wares, because they then thought Hinata had money to buy it which was... hahaha. No. Anyway, it got merchants all disgruntled, and Natsu annoyed because that meant she couldn't use her cute kid eyes to get more discounts...
Not that, Hinata hysterically thought, discounts were relevant to this situation.
Yeah.
That.
Because, haha. Dragon.
The river dragon-creature blinked, and Hinata saw something like skin covering its eyes – a small sheen of transparent scales. 'I am not so easily offended by your habits, human, especially for one I've been waiting for such a long time," the creature replied with a surprising amount of humour.
Hinata tried to be nonchalant as he glanced at the thing's ('Guardian', it rumbled in his head) snout, which promptly opened to reveal a gaping maw of rows and rows of… absolutely terrifying teeth. Hinata blinked rapidly to not faint.
"Why do you need so many teeth if you don't eat people?" Hinata asked weakly, trying to ignore the fact that he was still wrapped in this thing's magical tongue, before his eyes widened in realisation. "Oh, oh no, you're one of those stories, aren't you? Those ones where they make you feel safe and then start roasting you alive, or dig you into the ground, or, or," and Hinata's panicked screaming in his brain for the stupid granny who sent him in here in the first place TO SAVE HIM PLEASE was disturbed by a warm chuckle.
'Come, funny human. Hero you may not be yet, but you can only start your destiny if I give you one of the treasures I guard.'
The water bubble around Hinata's head moved, and forced his head to move with it. It felt kind of like glass, actually, since his head kept knocking on the back of the bubble kinda painfully, really, and uh.
"…My mother told me not to trust strangers," Hinata said, in his last ditch attempt to escape whatever this was, and the Guardian only laughed again.
'I have watched your village since the beginning of time. I have watched you since you were born. Little one, be calm.'
Hinata tried his best to contain the thought that immediately popped out of his head.
'Hmm? How interesting, I do not understand your word. Pray tell, what is a stalker?'
"Nothing! Absolutely nothing!" Hinata insisted, before starting to babble about how gloomy and dark the place they were going down into was. Even the gaps of the tree roots showed no light now – probably because they were way underneath the lake by now, the only glow the soft white shimmer of the Guardian's long, long line of spine and ribs.
His was sat on the middle part of the Guardian's sinuous body, as it slowly glided down, and down, and down. The water became colder and colder, dark and heavy, and if it had been anyone but Hinata, who had just pushed his qi to such lengths he'd started to glow for warmth, Hinata thought they'd probably have died already. The weight of the water alone, the lost sight of the glimmers of the surface, gave rise to Hinata calming down, actually. The dragon did nothing except for swim downwards in a curling spiral within the tree's roots, which were lit up once in a while by the Guardian's body.
It was certainly an experience he wasn't expecting to have this morning, an extremely small part of Hinata reflected. All the rest was dedicated to asking highly productive questions of the Guardian, as his teacher would be proud to notice. The dragon answered it all surprising amiability, for a creature with so many sharp teeth.
Hinata quickly forgot about being nervous.
"You've lived here for ten-thousand years?" Hinata squawked, the air bubble having encased his whole body after the Guardian realised when Hinata had finally felt his bones creak from the water pressure. "That's so depressing!"
'Why?' The Guardian humoured, even as it gave a disapproving hum when Hinata tried to see if he could touch its spine through some watery-jelly-like flesh. Since it didn't really have scales on its body it seemed just like a simple task of him dipping his hand into a transparent version of his little sister's baking dough, really…
"You must get lonely! I would!" He bounced a little, poking the seemingly solid surface of the air bubble instead.
'You are human, I am not,' the Guardian easily replied, one of its whirlpool eyes swivelling impossibly to stare at Hinata dead on. 'But we are here. Wait, little wriggly one,' it said as it settled down onto a dark rock floor, and its skeleton gradually dimmed its lights.
Total darkness.
So he cracked a knuckle, blinked hard, and looked.
His vision amped up the shadows, but also revealed all those weird black shapes that had been creepy and dangerous looking were just humongous tree roots, the gaps between them letting him see the vague water currents that flowed beyond the Guardian's lair. He was currently seated on a clean circle of rock as big as his village, really, with loads of cool carvings etched into it. Sitting near the middle, he could see the roots on all sides anchored into the rock, making a protective cage around it all.
Wait, right in the middle, the Guardian's tail was curled in huge loops around something. Was that…
Hinata squinted. Why was there a stone house all the way down here? Human-sized too, with missing doors and windows, all cracked and lonely-looking.
Before Hinata could move to explore it, the Guardian finished its business and turned its head back to Hinata.
'This is yours if you wish it, tiny hero,' the Guardian suddenly echoed underneath him, and with his enhanced vision, Hinata saw the Guardian's tongue that had been extended towards some dark shadowy corner came back with something curled in it. A little glimmer of something practically dainty in comparison to its large size.
However, the tongue kept it out of reach when he leaned in and tried to grab it. Hinata pouted and looked back at the one eye the Guardian had kept on him, the whirlpool eye swirling a little slower, maybe.
"What is it?" Hinata said, trying to keep his bouncing to a minimum as he squinted as best as he could.
'Destiny.'
When the tongue slowly unfurled, Hinata quickly retracted his eye's Boost because ow, that hurt. The mirror itself shone like a palm-sized sun when presented to him, a small thing that radiated energy in waves of intensity that Hinata had never felt before.
Hinata's hands twitched, before he clenched them, shaking.
The Guardian noted his reaction with a sort of detached amusement.
'I will give this to you,' the Guardian said, shoving it into Hinata's waiting hands. It flashed when it touched his skin, the light suddenly near-blinding before fading away. 'I will give this to you so you can choose…hero.'
The Guardian suddenly shifted again, its head tilting up. Hinata clutched his legs a little tighter around the jelly-like body of the creature as they started rising up in slow spirals.
Hinata clutched the mirror to his body.
"Hero?" he echoed, hearing it again. Making something in his soul shiver.
'I will give you a month for your decision,' the Guardian said. 'If you refuse your destiny, throw this mirror back into the pool in which you first dived into. It will land safely back to me, and your destiny will be left to another.'
It sighed.
'It may even be a blessing if you do so…'
When Hinata reached the top, old lady Kobume just raised an eyebrow.
"Did you find anything? Strange, not strange...?"
Hinata blinked at her, before glancing down at the old, stately mirror in his hands. Sure, it was palm-sized, but it was by no means small enough for him to hide it, and it reeked of old qi. Granny Kobume wasn't one for tact; if she noticed she would ask.
Surely…?
"Nah, I didn't find anything! And the dragon-thing was really nice!" Hinata said while waving the mirror around, pretending to flail. Sure enough, Kobume didn't even notice it. Hinata faltered, but ploughed on. "We talked a lot. It's really smart. And I think it's lonely, but it said it wasn't lonely, and also it's been there a long time, did you know, hey, granny?"
Kobume gave Hinata a strange, considering look, before turning around with a small huff.
"Stop blabbering. Let's go back to village."
Hinata watched his teacher's back as she lead back out the little tree cave, glancing back at the pool, then at the mirror on his hands.
Back at home, after he'd apologised to his ma for being late to dinner, hugged his little sister, and practically dumped all the contents of his plate into his mouth in one go ('boys', his mother and sister muttered with a simultaneous eyeroll and man that was creepy), he raced to his room and slammed the sliding door shut.
Then he pulled out the mirror.
His reflection stared back, big eyed, soft cheeked, a shock of orange on top. His felt along the sides of the mirror – nothing stood out, the metal was all smooth. He mushed his face against it. Traced the qi characters for 'unlock' and other stuff onto it. Accidentally threw it against the wall (he'd shrieked and nearly had a heart attack, but it wasn't damaged at all, thankfully), and when he finally settled back, he was confused as to what all the qi inside this mirror did.
'Ask it a question', the watery, wavery voice of the Guardian swelled in his mind, and Hinata dropped the mirror again with a yelp of shock.
"Guardian?" He called out into the air, and then bit his lip to stop all the other questions from spilling out of his mouth. Nothing. No reply.
Hinata looked at the mirror in his hands.
"Ummm… Okay! Mirror, can you show me what Yukitaka is doing?"
In an instant, his reflection warped into an image of Yukitaka's creepy room. Yukitaka was counting something, and Hinata drew away in disgust when he realised Yukitaka was counting salamander eyes. Again. Ugh!
Hinata was so glad he didn't have any talent for ritual magic at all. Hinata wondered what he could ask next, before his lit up.
Of course!
"Mirror, can you show me my dad?"
Yukitaka's image shifted into a tall man (Hinata still dreamed he got his dad's genes – he was nearly thirteen, and it was about time his dad's tall genes trumped his mother's, right?) with a shock of orange hair carrying a long sword, staring into the dawn with flowing long guild robes. Hinata could barely believe it as he let his fingers rest on the mirror. He hadn't seen his dad in years, as they only kept in contact through fortnightly letters, if the mail allowed.
'Ask for the person most important to you,' a voice whispered in the air right over his shoulder
Hinata yelped and fell off the bed. The Guardian really had to stop doing that, Hinata thought with a sour face as he hauled himself back up.
"Mirror, show me the person most important to me!" He ordered imperiously, feeling like a cool, powerful wizard.
The mirror wavered, sifting through a few scenes – a boy with his hair all shaved and his sister leaning over a map with only a long track and the starry sky above them, then to another boy (more plain faced and less fierce) tending bees in the late afternoon. It flitted over a plain village girl praying inside a church, to a fancily dressed boy smirking at a servant next to him, then a short bouncy guy with hair that had a shock of yellow grinning wildly at a whole wall of painted masks…
Then it settled down on a boy Hinata had never seen before.
The boy had a scowl on his face, the sharpest eyes he'd ever seen, and something was oddly unsettling about the way he moved, a gingery too-careful jerk, defensive and awkward inside his own skin. He was thin like an unhealthy stick, sitting next to a small field that was overlooking a huge, white desert. His blue-black hair was swept away from his forehead in the wind, but the boy didn't even shiver, just hugged his legs closer to himself with those sharp eyes that seemed to glare at the horizon, challenging it for something unknown and Hinata might've thought to protest about how the mirror was obviously ripping him off (he'd expected his mother, or his sister, or even maybe his dad), or maybe he would've just left the scene by asking another question but… but he couldn't look away.
He couldn't look away at all, and his heart thundered in his chest as he held the mirror tighter in his hands. It should've been the most boring thing in the world, to watch this boy watch the world and yet—
After five minutes, Hinata finally felt like he could breathe.
"Who is he?" He whispered to the air, suddenly feeling decades older. His heart was still thump thump thump heavy and his fingers were digging into the mirror surface like they were trying to reach him. Hinata slowly unclenched his hands, feeling his bruised fingertips absently as his eyes tracked the boy's face, somehow dissatisfied with what he saw (but what had he been expecting?), before settling down in bed, lying down and putting the mirror in front of his face. For the next few minutes, the boy in the mirror just continued sitting there, hair flapping away in the wind, sitting on the mountain way past sunset. Hinata found himself sitting still too, like he was next to him staring into the night-time stars with him, something in him desperate not to leave.
Then the boy got up, brushed off his pants, and the mirror's view followed the boy as he walked down the mountain to a small place where he slept on a tiny mat. And just like that, Hinata conked out too, because he hadn't realised, but he'd actually sat there for half a night. Waaaay past his bedtime. A person should always get ten hours of sleep!
(He got woken up by Natsu pouring a cup of cold water on his face though. Harsh! His little sister was way too harsh!)
Throughout the next few weeks, Hinata settled into routine. He'd do his stuff, finish his chores, do the exercises his old sadistic teacher thought up (Kobume was such a slavedriver) before going somewhere private to pull out the mirror and just… watch.
Kageyama Tobio (Hinata had found out his name as he lip-read one of the villagers calling his name) was a few months younger than him, quite silent, and lived in a mountain village instead of an island tribe like him, and was so, so lonely.
Hinata wanted to leap through the mirror and give him a hug. Make him smile, shove food at him. Wanted to punch him, for some reason, whenever the boy looked defeated. Even though he hadn't seen a smile even two weeks in, Hinata could somehow imagine it like he's seen it dozens, hundreds of times before.
Which, admittedly, was strange, because Hinata's imagination had always been kind of crappy to be honest.
The village noted his strange behaviour though, but copped it to weird growing up antics – Hinata was totally fine doing everything he was supposed to, after all. Koji and Yukitaka were concerned, because they realised something wasn't right when Hinata brushed off their offers to go their hideout. Hinata had always fiercely craved for something more – their friend had never really fit into the sleepiness of the village, always bouncing, eager to go, eager to find something exciting when there was nothing exciting to be had.
It had become routine for Hinata to take out the mirror in the mornings, settling on a tree so high no-one could follow. On the third week, Hinata noted with interest when Kageyama hefted up a pack and set off down the mountain – something totally new.
Hinata had to stop watching for lunch, training, helping Yukitaka catch monkeys for their butt fur, and then dinner, but when he started watching again, Kageyama was sleeping inside a small hut next to the desert with another boy next to him.
The next day, a nice-looking light-haired boy wearing armour started travelling with him.
Hinata may or may not have screeched for a few minutes at Kageyama for trusting a stranger so easily before Natsu slammed his door open and body-slammed him into his futon (Natsu was still mad at him, because she was one of those light sleepers who couldn't get back to sleep easily even though he'd already bribed her with at least three sticks of candy! What else did she want?)
Hinata watched, as they got attacked, as they camped. As the two boys ate and laughed, gradually, more naturally as time went on. Hinata really should've been bored and started watched something else by now (he had an all-powerful mirror, and man, there were so many things he could do with it), maybe looked up his father a little more, or checked out what was behind those screens his mother always told him not to check, but... There was a feeling of anxiety when he looked away from Kageyama.
Something in him tore when he reached out towards the mirror, and couldn't go through to the other side.
(look at me)
Like, why?
No, really. Why?
Hinata was even starting to feel a little annoyance at himself, perching on a branch to watch how currently, the light-haired boy (Sugawara, Hinata knew, because Kageyama called his name often enough) and Kageyama ate lunch together, Kageyama beaming when Sugawara praised his food.
But talking about weird things, it was totally weird right, that even with his annoyance at his sudden obsession on watching Kageyama for his emotional health, he also kept finding a lot of things that Kageyama did funny? Like, that weird scrunch of the eyebrows when Kageyama struggled with chopping mushrooms for dinner made him laugh, and the way he started following Sugawara like a duck behind its mother was hilarious (especially since he could see Sugawara's face from the front, usually exasperation mixed with reluctant fondness).
Hinata just... he just couldn't look away.
Even Hinata found himself a little creepy. So on the last week, he put down the mirror. Lived village life, connected to his friends again. Played with Natsu, helped his ma do chores willingly. Smiled at his uncles and aunts, guarded the village against beasts.
It was nice. It… wasn't that bad, Hinata thought.
Then the deadline that the Guardian had mentioned arrived – after a month, if he wanted to reject 'destiny', he'd just have to throw the mirror back into the pool of water. Simple. Easy.
For the first time in a month, Hinata raced back to the tree in the middle of the lake with his heart doing that weird heavy thump thing again, in anticipation and adrenaline. Choices. He'd never really needed much of those in life - a child never needed to choose much, and his ma had only recently started giving him more responsibility.
This was, Hinata complained in his head, such a heavy choice too! It was like being given a taste of water when he'd never known what water was, before being told he was allowed to choose to live a life without water and live with knowing he could have had it!
Hinata jumped unerringly back into the little cave that old lady Kobume had led him to that one time, his mind whirring with thoughts. Gazing into the pool, he clenched the mirror nervously in his hands. His fingers did that nervous tick thing, and he visibly stilled it, pulling the mirror out of his pockets, now.
The pool was as fathomless as always. Hinata imagined he could see a flash of the Guardian's light-bones, deep within.
The mirror was in his hands. It would be so easy to just... let go.
He stood there though. Waiting. It was a few minutes late, but Hinata wasn't all that surprised with the Guardian's voice echoed in his brain.
'Choose', the voice urged.
And Hinata had thought long and hard about this, and he had two last questions left for the mirror. Just two more, before he decided.
"What will happen if I threw you back into the pool right now?" He asked, and the mirror showed him.
The mirror's Hinata went back into the village and smiled at Yukitaka and Koji, whose worried faces relaxed as he fully integrated back into their group again. The next scene was obviously a few years later, as an older Hinata leapt through the trees and accidentally crashed into a tree from excess enthusiasm and got knocked out. A girl found him, and even Hinata now found her really pretty, all pink hair and gold eyes. A smile that burned beautiful, pure. Years later, they married, and Hinata had a daughter just as pretty as his future wife. A son with orange hair and gold eyes and liked studying, horrifyingly enough. He grew old with a smile on his face, with good friends around him, grandchildren insisting he play with them.
Hinata fingers trembled.
Then he asked.
"What will happen if I kept you? Can you show me?"
The picture of a smiling old man with greying orange hair with his daughter next to him, his son singing a song with his wife deep in the house, and Natsu next to him laughing at a stupid joke he made immediately disappeared as another one rippled forth.
Hinata saw himself struggling forward with tears on his face as he raced towards some sort of fire. A city was burning, and Hinata screamed and hurled himself straight in, desperate for something he didn't know—then something broke, shifted, and he was suddenly laughing around a campfire with a group of people, and there, Hinata's eyes widened. Kageyama. Kageyama sat next to him with those sharp eyes and his expressionless face, warming as Hinata obviously told a joke and the other boy hummed, bumping their elbows together. The picture shifted, to where an older him was fighting for his life, surrounded by all sides by darkness filled with red eyes and the Hinata in the mirror stabbed and whirled as he protected a glowing azure figure behind him…
In the last scene, Hinata and Kageyama were sitting in a young spring field, still muddy and not grassy enough yet. They tilted back to splat on the ground in unison, uncaring of the mud as they... Stargazed? Hinata was waving his arms around happily, babbling about something, and Kageyama next to him was struggling to contain a smile, shrugging in reply. Then mirror-Hinata glanced slyly at Kageyama, saying a joke maybe and Kageyama laughed. A full-blown, happy laugh.
But there was no old age. No promise of a happy end.
'Choose'.
His whole life and everything he knew, for the possibility of meeting one person he's never even met with. That probably doesn't even know he existed. It was crazy, it was so obvious what people would want him to choose, what his common sense told him to choose. The pink-haired girl was gorgeous, and his daughter had the prettiest gold eyes. His son became a scholar. Natsu, all grown up, his ma aging and caring, as she scolded him into becoming a functional adult...
And the other side. A flash of sharp eyes, a look of loneliness.
(look at me)
A yawning gape in his soul, reaching out for something his whole life.
For some reason, it was the easiest choice in the world.
Hinata stepped back, clutching the mirror to his chest, and right then, he felt the dragon rumble in his head.
'I bid you good luck, young Hero,' it said, before quietening down.
Well, Hinata thought blankly, still unbelieving that he actually did that.
His mother had always called him reckless. He'd never argue back again.
The next day, he told Kobume everything. When her eyes widened at all that whirling heavy destiny around her student, she just rolled her eyes and grumbled that he should've known better than accept, the idiot. After doing a reading for him, the former priestess-in-training then helped him to say farewell to his family (his mother was horrified, his sister was crying, but he'd already chosen) because his best chances of success would be to leave on the day.
In their village, it wasn't so odd for a youth to test themselves by going out over to the mainland, even if youth usually meant fifteen-ish and not thirteen.
When his mother protested, Kobume hobbled into the house and helped his mother with supplies, and when they both came out of the kitchen, his mother was calm and accepting, if not smiling. Hinata had been sitting out on the porch, writing letters for Yukitaka and Koji, Natsu quietly nibbling some winter melon by his side.
"Stay safe. Don't trust strangers so easily," his mother said, hugging him tight. "You're only thirteen. Remember you have an uncle somewhere over on the mainland, and you can find him whenever you need to, okay? Your father is a bit busy now, but I know he'll drop everything for you too, if you need it."
His mother drew back, but her hands were still on his shoulders. "Kobume, are you sure he can't… wait a few more years?"
Kobume sighed, her old wrinkled hands wrapping around each other. "I did a reading for Hinata after he tell me about this destiny. If he wants to even try success, he leaves by tonight."
Their village still believed in the old ways and Kobume's words hit his mother like a rock. His mother's look wavered and looked a little teary, before she let him go, mumbling about some extra bandages in the cabinets and stepped back into the house.
"Will you come back?" Natsu asked, quiet. "Will you be like dad?"
Hinata swallowed, before grinning, fierce.
"Of course I'll come back, Natsu!" Hinata pounded his chest with a fist. "I'm your older brother! I'm awesome at all the boosting exercises Granny gives me! I'll kick all this bad-guy butt, find the person I keep seeing in the mirror and come back all cool and tall and stuff! I'll even find dad and lug him back here!"
Natsu smiled at that, and bumped fists with him. "You promised!"
They all took a photograph together before the house, and his mother promptly copied it so that they all had a copy. It was with a heavy backpack that he set off on a small boat to the main continent, with hope and adventure in his heart.
Natsu stared at the small speck of orange, as her brother slowly sailed away.
"I hope you find Tobio too, brother," Natsu mumbled, before turning back to hold her mother's hand for the village.
Okay, so Hinata might not have expected this.
"Oi, you okay?" A voice above his head said, sounding gruffly concerned as another shadow turned him over.
"W-w-water," Hinata croaked out, his hands shooting out to grab the other's pants. "Fooooooood," he groaned.
"Dammit, watch the pants!" The voice yelled even as the hands gently extracted the pants from Hinata's grip.
There was a girl laughing somewhere.
"Ryu, just give him some water and food. We have a little extra, don't we?"
"But sis! We might need it, just in case!" The other voice griped even as Hinata let his head flop back dramatically back into the dirt. In a ditch next to the road. Some type of weed was poking into his back, but he was too tired to even scratch that.
"Thanks!" Hinata beamed, vigorously bowing ten times to his saviours. They were truly angels! The Samaritans of all Samaritans! "You guys are really, really nice!"
They had even found his backpack for him, when he thought he'd lost it when the boat sank! When he rummaged through his bag, everything was still there too!
What wonderful people!
The girl laughed boisterously, and the two siblings gave him a terrifyingly identical smile.
Wow, they looked alike.
"No problem, kid! What's your name?" The girl said, punching his shoulder lightly. The younger brother was still packing their bags after giving him something to eat (the extra food had been all the way at the bottom, dammit all).
"Hinata Shouyou! Please call me Hinata!"
"Well, Hinata. I'm Tanaka Saeko, and this is my idiot brother Tanaka Ryunosuke. It's nice to meet you too! Just call me Saeko, you can call my brother Ryu!"
Tanaka spluttered at his sister even as Hinata laughed.
"Ryu? We only just met the guy!"
Saeko laughed boisterously, hand on her back. "That's what happens when you travel with family, Ryu! Too many last names makes people confused!"
Hinata looked around, now that he'd revived. The sea was close by, rising into some small, scraggly shrubbery before joining into a coastal road that ran parallel to the coast. The coastal road was straight and empty except these two, mostly, and Hinata raised a curious eyebrow at them now.
"Hey, why are you guys here? Why is nobody here? Where did you get those awesome swords? And where am I?" Hinata shot rapid fire, craning around to try and see whether he could see any other landmark that wasn't beach, ocean, or road.
"Woah, easy, Hinata," Saeko responded, as Ryu straightening now that he'd finished packing. "Calm down."
Ryu pushed forward though, and with a grand pose and gesture, gave a wide, glinting smile.
"Young Hinata, let me wisen you up to our ways. Me and big sis here, you know? We're adventurers. Isn't that cool?"
Hinata's eyes sparkled. Wow! Life on the road, stepping into the unknown with every step with only your heart to guide the way! Vigilanteing across the nation! Fulfilling requests and getting rewards from kings!
"Adventurers?" Hinata managed to gush out his enthusiasm around the garble that wanted to explode out, "that's so cool."
"Right? And you said my sword was awesome, right? Here, behold!" Tanaka unsheathed his sword and held it high under the sunlight to make it as glint mightily. Tanaka slyly looked over his shoulder, and saw the other kid had his jaw dropped (swords hadn't been allowed in Hinata's tribe, generally speaking).
Hey, this kid ain't bad!
"You're so cool, Tanaka!"
"Ahahaha! Praise me again!"
"So cool!"
Tanaka struck another pose. Hinata clapped enthusiastically.
Saeko facepalmed.
Idiots.
Extras
Hinata is the very annoying room-mate who doesn't think before grabbing food from the fridge, and not realising that he grabbed someone else's food by accident. It's not his fault it looked tasty! This may, or may not have been a source of why Kageyama is tempted to commit homicide at least once a week, because there is no safe space to store food if one lives with Hinata. NOWHERE.