In response to a reviewer's question that I totally forgot to reply to, I haven't decided who I want Hinata to end up with so it's pretty open. I'm curious to know who other people think Hinata should end up with, though I'll end up choosing whichever character develops into the right match for her since all of the characters (Hinata included) are going to change and grow throughout the course of this story.
I want to thank TAYYABALARAIB, Naruhina999, WhiteGems, Thesunkunoichi, EAsis, K, and dumdeedum for taking time to review and leave comments. It's pretty difficult to want to keep posting if I don't know if people are actually reading and enjoying this fic. It's because of you all that this next chapter has been posted (although this is a shorter chapter). Thank you so much!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and this story has no beta. There will probably be spelling & grammatical errors.
Read and review, please.
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Chapter 7
Hinata saw the door slam close, completely separating her from the others. Just as she was about to try to fight back, the spirit picked her up and threw her into the ground so that the wind was knocked out of her lungs for a brief moment. He grabbed her by the head with both hands on either side of her face and slammed her head into the hard, tiled school floor. She heard the sickening crack and felt the warmth of her blood trickling through her hair, leaving her incapacitated and bleeding from the head as the spirit removed all of her weapons from her body. She tried to kick him away when she regained some focus.
"Tsk," he taunted and caught her by her leg easily. "There's nothing more satisfying the taking all the fight out of a girl."
Hinata let out a scream when the spirit grabbed a desk from a nearby classroom and smashed the edge of the desk down on her legs so that her bones broke and the limbs were useless.
She could barely stay conscious, but did so because of the pain that shot through her body when the spirit grabbed her by the ankle, dragging her behind him as he ran to the locked door that led to the basement.
"You know, you're lucky. If I wasn't bound to my master, I would have defiled you already. She likes to have first dibs and you're her type, Hunter," the spirit said, unlocking the door.
As soon as the door opened, Hinata let out a shriek of intense pain as she was bombarded with a tsunami of emotions from whatever was waiting for her in the basement. The amount of hate, animosity, disgust, cruelty, and bloodlust belonging to it was like nothing Hinata had ever experienced before and it felt like it was shredding her heart, stabbing hot pokers through her eyes, slamming a sledgehammer repeatedly into her skull, and tightly wrapping her entire body up in barbed wire all at the same time.
"STOP!" Hinata cried out. "STOP, PLEASE!" She began to sob when the heavy door slammed shut behind them and she saw the dark symbols drawn into the door to block the supernatural activity in the basement from Hunter detection and prevent it from being opened by Hunter enchantments. The only way into the basement was to physically unlock it or break it down, both of which would be a difficult task since the door was reinforced and sturdy. Either way, she knew that she would have to endure what was to come for a while before anyone could get to her. She prayed that help would arrive before she gave up.
The spirit smirked as he dragged her down the concrete steps, bruising her body even more in the process, but she couldn't feel that over the onslaught of emotions that were torturing her psychologically so severely that she began to bleed from her nose and ears. When she lost the strength to even scream, her entire body convulsed with the pain she was trying to fight through while streams of tears were accompanied by shallow gasps as she struggled to even breathe. She wished she could just pass out, but she knew that if she did black out now she risked being trapped by these emotions and she might never return to consciousness again, and so she fought against the darkness that threatened to swallow her whole.
"It must be so nice to be young."
Hinata shifted her eyes to look through blurry tears and heavy lids at the woman who was looking down at her. The woman herself was quite beautiful. She looked to be in her late thirties, but she was undeniably beautiful and eerily familiar.
Hinata let out a whimper when the woman reached out to caress her cheek. The woman's touch burned seeing as she was the source of all the emotions bombarding Hinata. The moment the woman's bare fingers game in contact with Hinata's cheek, a searing white pain erupted in Hinata's head and her body froze, completely paralyzed in agony so brutal she couldn't even breathe.
Hinata gasped and silently sobbed when the woman finally removed her hand.
"You poor, poor thing," the woman cooed though her gentle tone was dripping with mock concern. "You must be a very strong Empath for my touch to have this sort of effect on you," she said as she fixed her slightly skewed silk blouse.
A glint of light reflecting off a pendant hanging around the woman's neck caught Hinata's eye. And that was when she realized who this woman was. She was Hayate Misul's third wife Yui. In addition to the key pendant around her neck, Hinata could recognize the woman from a photo that was on display in the case at the front of the school. She had been older in the photo, closer to fifty, and she looked different dressed in modern clothing with hair dyed from dark brown to bright red that was styled in a much more flattering way.
"Clever girl. You know who I am," Yui saw the moment of recognition pass Hinata's eyes. "Yes, Hayate succeeded in bringing me back to life. Imagine how frightening it was to be brought back into this wretched world only to be welcomed by my husband's corpse. When I saw the markings and symbols that he used to bring me back to life, I started to study sorcery. If I could be brought back to life from the dead, then I should also be able to find a way to stay young and live through all the ages. I found a way," she giggled. Turning to the spirit she spoke, "Get the knife."
Hinata braced herself for the inevitable when the spirit returned with a ceremonial knife. The blade had intricate symbols that Hinata couldn't recognize etched into it. It was obviously a knife that was used for dark rituals that she was about to be used for. The spirit tore her shirt off before pinning her shoulders to the ground.
Yui sliced her finger with the knife and began to draw a foreign symbol on Hinata's chest, her touch leaving a burning trail on Hinata's skin. "Thank you for your heart," the woman smiled as she held the knife with two hands over Hinata's chest while she straddled Hinata's torso. "I'm sure your heart will taste delicious," the woman lifted the knife up above her head and plunged it down towards Hinata's heart but stopped when the unmistakable clunking sound of the door unlocking interrupted.
…
It had taken Kakashi a while longer than anticipated to pick the lock of the door to the basement after all of the typical methods they usually used failed, but once he had opened it, Itachi rushed in with Kakashi on his heels.
His eyes quickly took in everything before him. The basement was clearly a sorceress's lair with said sorceress binding the spirit to herself so that it could never be cleansed while she was still alive. Hinata was pinned to the ground by the two with the sorceress about to use a ceremonial knife to cut out Hinata's still-beating heart in order to ingest it and steal Hinata's youth.
"I got the spirit, you go save the girl from the sorceress," Kakashi said from behind Itachi.
"Get them," Yui ordered the spirit who immediately attacked Kakashi.
Itachi could see shock pass over Yui's features when she realized that her pet spirit was not much of a challenge for Kakashi, even with her assisting it with her magic.
"Stay back!" Yui shouted when she noticed Itachi's eyes shift down to Hinata and back up. "I will kill her painfully if you come any closer."
"Hina Hime," Itachi said in a calm voice, "I need you to be strong for just a bit longer."
Yui snarled at him before she planted both her hands on Hinata's exposed skin. Itachi rushed forward, unsheathing a katana as he did.
He could see that, in addition to bleeding from her nose and ears, Hinata was now also bleeding from her eyes. Her scream was silent, but her face was contorted in pain, mouth agape and foaming. Deep gashes began to appear all over her body. The pain she was feeling in her mind felt so real, that it was materializing as actual injuries on her physical form. Itachi had heard that this was possible, but it was his first time witnessing it.
It only took him a second to reach Hinata, swing his katana, and sever the sorceress's head from her body. It took Kakashi only a moment longer to finally cleanse the spirit after the master had been killed, as evidenced by the burst of lights. It was only then that Itachi allowed his emotions to be shown.
"Hina," Itachi knelt down at Hinata's side, checking her vitals with a faint sliver of concern ghosting over his normally stoic features. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around her before he lifted her up in his arms with her head resting on his shoulder, one of his arms supporting her back while the other was hooked under her knees as he hurriedly made his way towards the stairs.
"Key," Hinata's soft whisper stopped him in his tracks.
"What?" Itachi looked down at Hinata's barely conscious face, his chin smearing the blood from her eyes over her face.
"We n-need the k-key pendant from-m-m the sorceress," Hinata choked out through her fatigue and pain before she finally succumbed and passed out.
Itachi couldn't help feeling conflicted. As a Hunter, he felt proud that even in her condition her mind was still focused on the original mission, but at the same time disappointed in her and the others that their skills and preparation were so lacking that they had been so utterly destroyed by such weak adversaries. He had already known that they weren't strong enough to win, but he had thought that they would have been strong enough and have enough intuition to get out without any serious incident.
As someone who thought of her as a younger sister, he was worried out of his mind for her and wondered if she would recover without any serious permanent side effects. A large part of him wondered if she would be okay when Neji finally came for her.
…
"I need someone to tell me what the fuck happened tonight," Itachi's voice was dangerously calm which was in stark contrast with his strong language and dark, stormy aura.
They were back at the base after Haku had done some emergency healing on Hinata while Sakura stayed passed out. At the same time, Naruto and Sasuke had retrieved Itsuki's body, and Kakashi and Itachi had used enchantments to repair and erase any evidence of what had happened that night. Itachi had made sure they collected the pendant and the knife as well since there was no way they could risk the knife falling into the wrong hands again.
It was currently almost five in the morning and Sakura had been placed on the sofa to rest and recover from her shock. Haku was doing everything he could, with the help of Kakashi, to heal Hinata's most serious injuries first. This left Naruto and Sasuke in the office to answer and explain everything to Itachi.
"You guys have never messed up like this before. What happened with your preparation process and your training that you've ended up with a dead hunter, an unconscious civilian, and Hinata in critical condition? You obviously didn't research properly, but regardless of the fact that you missed crucial information, if you guys had been training properly, you should have all been able to make it out of that school alive and with only mild injuries."
"Sorry," Naruto hung his head in shame.
"I'm not asking for an apology. I'm asking for the facts," Itachi spoke through a tight, but not quite clenched, jaw. He looked from one brother to the other before letting out a sigh when neither of them answered after a full two minutes of silence. "We're all tired and stressed. We'll talk about this later after we've all had a chance to rest and calm down. Wash up and get some sleep," he said before he left them alone in the office.
He made his way to the medical room where Haku was bandaging up all of Hinata's wounds while she remained unconscious. He watched from the hallway until Haku was finished, leaving only the bottom half of Hinata's face uncovered while the rest of her was wrapped. She had various injuries all over her body that Itachi wasn't surprised that she had to be bandaged to this extent.
Kakashi looked up after closing a jar of salve and gave Itachi an encouraging smile. If they had not been partners and friends for so long, Itachi would not have been able to tell that Kakashi was smiling because of the mask he wore. "She's a tough one. She'll pull through," Kakashi said to both Itachi and Haku.
Neither responded, but Itachi could see guilt written all over Haku's pale, exhausted face as he finished up what he was doing.
"How is she?" Itachi asked Haku.
"She still requires a lot of healing. I don't know what they did to her, but it's a good thing I focused on healing her head first. If I hadn't, there's no doubt that she would have suffered from brain damage. I did enough back at the school to heal all of that, but it drained me and I haven't been able to do anything about her concussion, all of the wounds on her body, her broken legs, the burns – basically anything else. All we've done since we've returned is clean and dress the wounds to prevent infection until I can use healing symbols and spells again."
Itachi nodded his head as he stared at the pile of Hinata's bloodied clothes on the ground. "Alright. Check on the girl and then get some rest," he said, referring to Sakura. "I'll clean up in here."
Haku nodded his head and left the room with his head hanging in defeat.
"This must be their first time losing a teammate," Kakashi sighed and sat down on a chair before he pulled off the mask that he wore during missions.
Itachi stood at Hinata's head and absentmindedly caressed her head gently as he nodded his head. "Yes, it is, but honestly, I think they're more devastated about Hinata's condition."
"And how are you holding up?" Kakashi asked, a rare seriousness taking over him as he observed his friend.
"You and I have both lost a lot of team members," Itachi scoffed.
"Yeah, but you almost lost her today too. If we had been even a moment slower, she would have died."
"And what's your point?" Itachi asked, turning away from Hinata to look at Kakashi with steady eyes.
"Isn't she like your baby sister or something?"
"We weren't too late and even managed to get her to Haku in time to prevent any serious brain damage so there's no point in dwelling on what could have happened. That's the difference between us and them. They're broken up and falling apart because they're focusing on how much worse it could have been instead of focusing on what they need to do better next time. It's just a matter of perspective. They're looking at all of this from the wrong perspective. If we obsessed about every failed mission and every person we almost lost in addition to those we did lose, we wouldn't be able to be as efficient or as effective as we are now. That's why we're Elite Hunters."
"True, but you know it's okay to have emotions and be human sometimes," Kakashi said, standing up and clapping his hand on Itachi's shoulder once before leaving Itachi alone with Hinata.
