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XXXX
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Chapter 6:
Cursed
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"Somewhere deep into the memories of night
Secret signs are blazing a trail for
Somewhere far away in the cryptic mist
Two eyes still waiting for the light."
-The Crying of the Sun by Metal Wings
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XXXX
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When she awoke, she knew she wasn't alone.
The scent of lightning had returned, and with it, a sense of dangerous power that ran freely over her skin with contrasting rough care.
She didn't move, choosing to stay still, listening for any movements. Dread began to pool at the base of her stomach, heavy and uncalled for, raising goosebumps that made her shudder lightly.
Hinata rather felt than heard footsteps near her bed with predatory grace, the cool air of the room a tell-tale of the individual's position as it shifted and brushed her face. Her breath caught in her throat when she realized he was right beside her.
Hinata kept immobile when warm and calloused fingers traced her cheek, slow and torturing in pace, and swiftly cupped her chin, lifting it up from its position on the crook of her shoulder. She froze for a quarter of a second before flinching back, her reaction finally dispersing the feign of slumber.
"How do you do it?" a voice demanded, his whisper loud in the quiet space.
Hinata had the impulse of getting away but she remained in place, hands shaking from cold and a rare type of anticipation.
"How can you handle it without breaking, Hyuuga?" the voice continued, upset and reproachful, almost disgusted in a way. "Why don't you hate? How can you not be angry? What is wrong with you?" he hissed.
"Who are you?" Hinata whispered in response, words unusually calm as she fought to control her trembling.
There was a hushed silence and then she felt the presence brusquely back away. "I am no one, Hyuuga. Answer my questions."
"You...how did you find this room?" she countered softly, her hands now folded just below her chest, almost touching her pumping heart. Her mind was now sharp, alert, and...eager. When was the last time she had spoken? Held a conversation? Listened to a person that felt and smelled of power and misery, that albeit asking painful inquiries, was speaking to her nonetheless, normally, with no trace of pity in his words?
The answer? A few weeks that stretched behind her and that seemed to expand the more she thought about them.
"Your voice, I recognize it. I...know you."
The Hyuuga princess could clearly imagine eyes so dark they had no comparison staring at her with contempt and failed to think of a reason as to why he would ever speak to her after he very directly told her he didn't want her near. His reason to be here...was a mystery to her.
Yes. It was him. She was sure of it.
He had avoided her after their last encounter in training grounds. She had seen the intensity of those glaciers as they pierced her own amethystine ones, their hate for the world, their contempt and indifference for every single living thing that walked upon the surface of the Earth.
But she had also seen the pain and darkness wanting to take over, punishing him and well-hidden in his lies. Lies and deceptions that he always carried over his shoulders like an unbearable burden, shunning away light and welcoming nothing but what one might have called sin and forbidden air.
So instead of being scared, Hinata turned her head to the place she hoped him to be and said, "You're Uchiha-san."
XXX
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Midnight.
The beginning of the day and the start of his new guard schedule.
The Hokage had changed it (again), just as he knew she would. Though he highly resented her and more often than not felt like casting her into one of his genjutsus, he had to follow her orders. Shuffling guards and their hours in case something, or to be precise, someone, dared to enter the village without Konoha's consent was primordial, and Sasuke's eyes at night were indispensable.
Not only had Tsunade placed shinobi with tracking skills and powerful sensor abilities in strategic places, but enforced the implantation of more seals over the village. The number of vigilantes and ANBU had increased; security in Konoha was top-notch, or was aiming to be. Civilians and low ranked ninja, however, were kept oblivious. Hell, only several clan heads knew of the situation with the Hyuugas; many shinobi knew nothing of the suddenly missed Byakugan users. They, however, did know about the heiress being captured.
Sasuke suspected that the guy who'd taken the little doll made himself known on purpose. What decent shinobi allowed detection so early in the game? What shinobi with a grudge against the Hyuuga allowed the heir to live on? One with ulterior motives, the Uchiha thought. After all, hadn't Orochimaru sometimes operated in a similar way?
The way Sasuke had rescued her, without much resistance by the renegated Mist nin and with the doll's eye detached but unharmed, easily within reach, was suspicious. Too easy, Sasuke surmised.
As far as he was aware, Team 8 had returned from a mission and were walking the Hyuuga home when the kidnapping occurred.
He wasn't filled with facts, but he was observant. The way no one but her teammates visited her in the dead of night, the sworn to secrecy nurses that tried to keep their expressions carefree but failing. Something major was going on, something he didn't know. Something that was being kept from sight.
The Hyuugas he came across were tense, looking over their shoulders and activating their all-seeing eyes every time they heard a sound, the lavender orbs –once hardened like marble – crumbling to nothing but chalky dust due to terror balanced with distrust.
There was something out of place, aside from the apprehension surrounding the Hyuuga clan. Something about the Hyuuga being back but not acknowledged didn't sound precisely right.
The only valid conclusion he could draw was that neither the Hokage nor the head of the clan wanted the news of the indigo-haired princess leaking out.
His last ANBU team had left no evidence of their departure or infiltration during their mission, but he doubted the bad guy in the plot was stupid and didn't realize it was Fire shinobi who destroyed the hideout. After leaving Water Country on his summoned hawk, the Inuzuka female had gone back around the enemy's base and erased all evidence of their cell ever being there. Sasuke wouldn't have bothered since no ANBU ever left signs of their presence and all the men and guards likely to speak were dead anyway.
Killed, he corrected with a twist of satisfaction.
There had been only guards – none of them real shinobi –, a doctor, and nothing else, not even a lab for the Byakugan to be tested, which meant that the place had been temporary.
The mastermind wasn't caught. Whoever he was, he was too damn smart to allow capture easily.
I shouldn't be thinking about this, Sasuke scolded himself as he stared out into the desolated houses of the Uchiha Compound from the top of a towering tree.
This section in the outskirts of the village remained unvisited and, after a very unpleasant review on the past, not even Sasuke wanted to step in anymore.
It was too painful, but he had too much pride to admit it.
So now he watched from afar, detached and uninterested, despite the ache in his chest.
He was twenty-one and had nothing left to live for. It was ridiculous if he stopped to maul it over (which he didn't). He was only breathing and wasting oxygen to honor the memory of his brother and mother. That was the reason he was even here, in Konoha and looking at the empty compound, in the first place. His clan was dead except for him. His brother had sacrificed it all and allowed him to live, just to keep the peace in the village.
His hands didn't tighten and his hatred didn't show in the sharpened features of his face, but it was there. The black threads of hate were well woven, though useless. He couldn't kill any of the rotten bastards that forced Itachi's decision. Danzo was off burning in hell and enjoying the company of the devil, but the Third Hokage's old advisers weren't.
Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu.
How he wanted to kill them in the most torturing way...And yet he couldn't.
His fingers traced idly on the seal adorning his forehead and temples, a dark scowl etching on his face. The day he was sealed, the only things keeping him from killing the old woman and man upon seeing them together had been the chakra restrainers and his eroded physical state.
However, that didn't mean they were safe. He would kill them, he'd vowed it as the female applied the blue marks that would stay with him for half a decade. He would kill them and they would suffer, Konoha respected elders or not...But not now. He needed time to get rid of the seals first; there was no way he'd wait five years.
His eyes lifted to the heavens, the silvery light of the full moon giving the setting a mysterious, almost fairy-like glow to his surroundings, though he barely took notice. The angle of the moon on the crisp day of November was telling him the time.
Hm, a few minutes before midnight reached him.
It was time to get going.
Sasuke turned his back to the place of his memories and headed for the hospital. It didn't take him long to arrive and switch with the ANBU guard that stood outside the Hyuuga's door. Why he stayed outside was Sasuke's guess but the young Uchiha opened the door after performing his genjutsu and stationed himself in the usual corner, just watching over her form.
The Hyuuga girl was awake tonight, her hands caressing her silky waterfall of hair and placing it together in a long braid.
As he entered, she paused, bandaged gaze falling in the direction of the door. Sasuke paid her no mind, and eventually, she resumed her work.
She reached out to grab a hairband from the nightstand to her right, only to knock on a small flower vase instead.
The doll gave a startled squeak when the vase hit the floor hard.
Letting go of her unfinished hair, the Hyuuga lifted the thin blanket and carefully removed the IV needle from her arm before allowing her feet to touch the tile floor. The hollow resonance assured her no glass shards adorned the floor. However, with the danger of a slippery surface in mind, she moved slowly, her hands outstretched as if to keep the outer forces from making her stumble. Carefully, she keeled and brushed the floor with her hands, fingers seeking.
She was far from finding anything but a pool of water. The vase had rolled under her bed and in the opposite direction in which she committed her search. A single yellow sunflower rested beside the nightstand, unseen.
Sasuke watched the search for a couple of minutes. He averted his gaze when the urge of helping her almost overwhelmed him. No. He wasn't helping her. No way.
His fingers shook and he balled his fist to keep them from lifting her tiny form from the floor. Seeing her desperately looking for something she couldn't see, that she would never be able to find without outside help, infuriated him. But his anger was, for the first time, not directed at her.
She was in that pathetic state because someone had put her there and she had allowed it. She failed to defend what was hers, and her stupid teammates had done nothing but get themselves beaten up while trying to protect her. Some help they were.
And she wasn't giving up her search for the damn vase.
Half an hour passed and she had perhaps traced the whole floor with the exception of the place under her bed, where the object of her concentrations laid, innocently taunting from behind. The skirt of her gown was cold and wet, a result of the vase's overturned water.
Stupid Hyuuga, he seethed. Why wasn't she giving up? Why did she continue to degrade herself this way? Searching for something she would never find? Didn't she know how wrong it looked for her to be like this?!
The reflection of her on his shattered bathroom mirror appeared in his mind eye and he tensed.
"I know you're scared; I am too," he could almost hear her whisper, her lavender orbs gentle and understanding as she locked eyes, unafraid, with the demon he was.
No, he didn't have to think of this, didn't want to. The girl with the smile had been nothing but his imagination, a fragment of his maddening thoughts swirling in his mind wanting to tease him. The real Hinata would certainly not feel the way those fragments did; people in the real world were full of lies, and the Hyuuga, as strange as she was, had to be a fraud. No one was that naïve and innocent; she was an actress on a plot, acting her part. She had loved the blond idiot, maybe she still did, he wasn't sure anymore nor did he care, so she had played the let's-be-friends-with-the-pitiful-Uchiha.
Yeah. Sasuke wasn't buying it.
When she finally ceased her futile attempts but remained on the floor in a fetal position, all Sasuke wanted was to stride towards her, pick her up, and then dump her on the bed just to get her off the damn floor once and for all.
He hoped his mental prowess was enough to make her move.
It wasn't.
The girl stayed in the same position, unmoving for a long time, her hair coming undone and falling down on the ground in soft waves.
He waited.
And waited some more.
And almost face-faulted when he realized she was asleep.
He was tempted to leave her there – served her right – but a prick in his conscience made him move.
He picked her gently, a quality he always assumed he didn't possess and settled her with care on the hospital bed. A part of him wondered how she could sleep on the hard mattress but he discarded the thought from his brain.
That was the effect she had on him and he didn't like it. Being out of control was one thing, being unable to tell what he felt when she was around was another.
She was to be forever a puzzle, filled with gaps and not satisfying his inquiries, questions he didn't want but had.
He leaned his shoulder against the wall and refused to look at her sleeping form.
He had to put a stop to this urge of watching her sleep. It didn't feel like madness, it felt like a need, a storming desire he wasn't fulfilling completely and didn't dare to.
The girl, with her ungrudging gaze, had become a danger to him unknowingly from the very beginning. How he didn't catch on until it was too late was inexplicable.
But it had to end.
Once she went home to the Hyuuga compound, he would no longer be in charge of her security, and he would be free of her, of the revolution in his chest that hated her and simultaneously wanted to shield her from the darkness that had eaten at him long before it had touched her.
No, he shook his head in an attempt to erase those absurd thoughts. No, I want her in darkness. She was curious, let that curiosity be her destruction.
The Hyuuga's name and destruction had never sounded so good together. Two opposite sides, coming together to form a new creature.
"What kind of creature will you be, Hyuuga Hinata?" he asked the Hyuuga doll in a whisper.
"...Light..."
If not for his training, Uchiha Sasuke would have jumped. But he was ANBU and he refrained from reacting. Instead, his impassive, crimson stare settled on her.
"I want light," she murmured in her sleep. "It's...it's dark..."
Sasuke walked to her, his steps feather-light. "You live in darkness now, princess," he replied when he was close to her, bringing a strand of dark blue up to his eyes for inspection, the soft wavy piece brushing against his fingers.
Indigo eyebrows creased. "No," she breathed softly.
"You don't have a choice," he replied automatically and had someone witnessed the bizarre exchange, Uchiha Sasuke would have been labeled as a lunatic beyond salvation.
"...not over..." she sighed before her breathing evened out and she sank into a deeper slumber, her small fist curling and tucked itself under her chin.
Sasuke said nothing, his heart galloping loudly in his ears before he frowned.
Sometime later, he saw her stir.
The Jonin-level genjutsu dropped, and he allowed it.
He knew she was now awake; the small change in her vitals supporting his belief.
Part of his mind was telling him to think things through, but all he ever did was think and analyze. He wanted to stop thinking. The overload of information and observations was messing with his brain and he really was starting to get aggravated by it. He always went straight to the point, never beat around the bush, and it was time to stop doing just that.
His presence was immediately picked up by the girl.
He saw the Hyuuga go as still as she could possibly go, and if not because he already knew she was up, he would have thought her unconscious.
So he neared her bed, not quite knowing what he was doing but letting his body work it out for him, giving free reign to mere instinct. When it came to the doll, he was never in control anyway, he had learned that by now. And he hated it and despised himself even more for not giving a good fight.
He was breaking in the way he had hoped she would, but everything was going against him. Again.
Why? He didn't understand why. All he wanted was a good reason for this behavior, but then again, when was the last time he thought rationally when it was the Hyuuga he was talking about?
Never. Everything was hazy, and his hate was the only thing that kept him stable enough to keep her away.
His hand lifted and his finger traced her cheek slowly, delaying the trajectory until he reached her chin, lifting it up from its position on the crook of her shoulder to face him, though she couldn't see him and he knew that.
The Hyuuga tensed for a moment, only to back away from his touch.
"How do you do it?"
There was no response.
"How can you handle it without breaking, Hyuuga?" he continued, not caring if she answered or not. He needed to tell her this, to get it out there, to demand it. "Why don't you hate?" I hate you. "How can you not be angry?" I am angry. "What is wrong with you?" What are you doing to me?
"Who are you?" the girl whispered calmly in response as if she dealt with a livid Uchiha every night. And she did; she just wasn't aware of it.
Sasuke's mouth closed and he pressed his lips together, the question startling him.
Who are you?
He backed away; standing too close made him unable to think properly.
He was Uchiha Sasuke, last survivor of the Uchiha, Itachi's brother, Mikoto's son, a former traitor to Konohagakure no Sato.
Sasuke was...
He was...
No one important.
"I am no one, Hyuuga," he spat. "Answer my questions."
"You...how did you find this room?"
Sasuke scowled. She was ignoring his orders.
Her next words made the act of breathing very difficult.
"Your voice. I recognize it. I...know you."
A pause.
"You're Uchiha-san."
It was said so simply as if it had been oh-so-very obvious. And in a way, it was. But things such as identity and personal opinions were never an easy thing in the end.
"You know nothing," he said at the defensive. He should have ignored the urge of touching her skin, should have stayed away, covered in his genjutsu. What had he been thinking, coming to talk to her like this?
Another weakness.
"I know more than you give me credit for," the Hyuuga whispered, not wincing at the harsh tone of his words. "We are all someone, Uchiha-san."
"You don't know what you say."
The Hyuuga's lips curled into a ghost of a smile. "You don't wish to hear me, huh, Uchiha-san?" she asked him softly the way one might speak to a child.
"But you want to hear me," he retorted.
He saw her face deflate, her smile crumbling until nothing remained and the inhuman want of seeing her cry because of him entered his dark, twisted mind. If she fell now...what would I do? He questioned himself. A sigh called his attention back to her. "Perhaps. It gets really lonely here," she commented numbly. "Please tell me, how's everyone?"
Sasuke couldn't believe this girl. "You should worry about your situation, Hyuuga, instead of others that don't seem to return the same courtesy."
"They're my friends," was her poor excuse.
"Some friends they are," he sneered.
"What do- what do you mean?"
"They treat you like you're a stranger, or haven't you noticed?" Seeing her pained expression, Sasuke counted that as a yes.
"Can we please...not discuss this," she requested, turning away from him, her fingers playing with the hem of her blanket.
"How did it happen? How did they take you?" He ignored her supplications.
Her frightened gasp and her body language told him he was stepping into thin ice.
"How does it feel, Hyuuga, to have someone take everything you have? When your life is ruined in a moment? When everything you knew is gone?" With each question, he recovered the distance between them until he was once again close to her face and cupping her chin to make her turn his way.
A sob escaped her small body and he felt her tremble but didn't remove his hand and didn't back away.
"Tell me, Hyuuga," he whispered, unfeeling. "How does it feel?"
Her teeth rattled and she bit her lip, small, pained noises emitting as she tried to suppress them.
"Tell me."
There was no answer, and her smothering sobs didn't cease.
Sasuke let go of her and she didn't waste time in scooting back in her bed.
The bitter taste of guilt invaded his mouth and he turned his back on her.
Making Hyuuga Hinata cry didn't feel as pleasant as he thought it would.
"Y-you never told me...what you're doing here..."
Her voice shouldn't have surprised him, but it did. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his mask.
"Go to sleep, Hyuuga," he said softly. "Just...sleep."
It took a long time, but eventually, she did.
XXX
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The malevolent presence that entered the room made him move toward the Hyuuga in his fighting stance. His Sharingan activated by its own accord, gleaming in the dark like rubies in a cavern.
One moment and everything was calm, only for icy, stiff fingers to run down his spine the next, whispering the intrusion of an unwelcoming being.
His hand immediately settled on the hilt of his sword and he drew it out with a metallic hiss as it separated from its sheath.
The three tomoes in each of his pupil began to swirl as they looked around for the enemy, gaining speed as he tried to pinpoint their position.
The shadows cast by inanimate objects around him had never looked as menacing than in that long, endless second.
The hold on his katana tightened, and just as he was ready to send a chakra pulse to alert the rest of the ANBU guarding the room against the outside, the feeling of being watched and laughed at disappeared.
The soft intake of breath from behind him made him turn slightly in the Hyuuga's direction, his stance unwavering. He was not about to let his guard down.
"Uchi..." she panted only to double over and choke on her words. Her chest rose with heavy breathing and she suddenly sat up with a strangled, pained gasp.
Sasuke, still unmoving, kekkei genkai glowering, shot her a glance, thinking that she had come out from one of her nightmares.
"Uchiha-s..." she tried again, only to be cut off by a wet cough. Shaking fingers were raised to touch her forehead as if to massage it, and froze in mid-action.
That's when the sudden explosion of maleficent energy slapped him on the face and shrill feminine shrieks of terror and torment erupted, shattering the calm night
"SASUKE!"
Sasuke moved, his eyes blinking as they strained to see through the poisonous cloud of power that seemed to ooze out of her every pore.
"Hyuuga," he stated coldly, his facade of self-control failing when her hands immediately began to search for something in the air. He caught them in his grasp and she grunted in pain, her nails leaving crescent moons on his skin.
"Make it stop, U-Uchiha-san!" she grounded out, her breath agitated, her hold tight to the point of being painful.
What's wrong? Sasuke wanted to ask but his words didn't form and she wouldn't have answered because a strangled cry tore loose from her pressed lips. Her restraint lost, she let go of the Uchiha to crumble down on her bed, her hands now cradling her head, her body curling into itself.
"It burns! Make- make it stop! Make it stop!" she screamed, coughing out thick, warm blood.
Sasuke took hold of her wrists and pinned them down to her sides, trying to make her sit up so she wouldn't drown in her own plasma. "Hyuuga, oi. Stop thrashing, you'll reopen your wounds–!"
Hinata tried to shake him off and succeeded when his grip went limp, his eyes widened with surprise when he caught sight of her face.
There on her forehead, glowing red lines formed like cuts, hissing as smoke rose from them. He turned off his blood-limit and sent the signal, his chakra pulse groaning through the floor like an earthquake, before taking her in his arms
"Hyuuga, listen to me, breathe!" he raised his voice over her strangled yells. "Hyuuga!
"Make it stop, MAKE IT STOP!"
"Raven-san!" The door was kicked open and Boar, Dove, and Cat stepped in.
"Someone was here," Sasuke informed them and had to say no more. The words barely left his lips and the three ANBU were gone in search of an enemy Sasuke himself had not even seen.
"...Sasuke-kun?"
Sasuke cursed out loud, not caring if he was in the presence of women. His teammate sure had awfully bad timing
There in the doorway, dressed in her white uniform, stood Haruno Sakura, her eyes alarmed as they landed on the struggling form of the brunette he was trying to calm down, startled but not unknowing of his identity as they fell on his still-masked attire. "What are you –?" She started only to gasp in surprise. "Hinata!"
Sasuke wondered where an ANBU was when you needed one. "Get Tsunade, Sakura," he ordered.
"But–!"
"Go!" he roared, not ready to waste time explaining things to the pink-haired medic. He turned to the girl crying in pain as the lines on her forehead burned and spread like vines, her tears crimson as they mixed with her blood and tainted the once pristine bedsheets. "Hyuuga –"
"D-don't leave," she whimpered thickly, her body shaking. "Don't leave me alone."
"Sasuke..." a different whisper cut through his mind and he realized that Sakura had never left.
What was she still standing there for?! "Get the Hokage. Tell her Raven sent you. Move it, Sakura!" he added when she failed to move, rooted to the spot.
He didn't wait to see if she followed along. His gaze fell on the girl, on the mussed, tangled hair, on her bloody face, and on her ruined white gown.
"It...i-it hurts," he heard her raspy, weary voice confess before her dead weight became more evident.
"Hyuuga," he shook her, but it was useless.
She had passed out.
He brushed strands of her dark hair from her soaked forehead and felt jagged, marked skin.
His finger traced lightly over the injured flesh, the dripping blood on his uniform disregarded. His heart - an organ he'd thought frozen- unconsciously clenched. Dark eyes narrowed behind his mask when morbid awareness finally kicked in and he came to know what exactly he was touching.
There on her forehead, written in kanji, were the newly formed words in angry-red:
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Hate to the Hyuugas.
XXXX
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A/N: Thank you: Kibachow, genaille 11, umnia, Guest 1, Guest 2, Fiona, LIZA, TAIRA18, Tina, Peachie-Trishie, Dark Amy-chan, anlmoon, B. Lilack, Deedeecrazy8, Duchess23, crookishies, and Little Lily.
11.25.13