Title: Hope Will Find a Way
Author: ontuva
Beta: HollyKalinaStabler (huge thanks to you!)
Rating: T
Genre: adventure, humour
Disclaimer: I don't own related to the Stargate series or Naruto. :)
Word count: 2,268
A/N: Again, sorry for the wait. ;_; I have been spending a lot of my summer vacation away from home (I even went to Estonia!). Hopefully I'll make the next update a bit quicker than this one. One can always hope... ;_; And oh, I'm leaving to Croatia for a week next month (also visiting Venice!) and I'm super hyped! *_*
The chapter might not be as long as you've hoped, but I just couldn't drag it on any further. I wanted to end it right were it ends. Because I'm evil. And when my beta added her spice to it, it was just perfect to me.
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Chapter 6: Meanwhile...
Her head hurt. And lately it had been hurting a lot. She was sure she had at least some sort of concussion and probably even a large bump in the back of head but she couldn't move her hands to feel for it. The dried blood on the floor indicated that it had been bleeding. Or was it from her nose? When had it been bleeding? She couldn't tell. Time went on differently here.
Sometimes she could hear others. Small sobs she heard when she pressed her ear to the left wall of her holding cell and she had a deep feeling that the sobbing was coming from Hinata. Once, she saw a glimpse of blonde ponytail passing her cell's door and she was certain it was Ino's hair. She wasn't sure whether there were any other from Konoha villagers on board the large, metal-like ship they were taken into. Times like this, she didn't care where they were in, only who and why had they captured Konoha and its people.
The days dragged on, merging together like a blurred world in her head. She couldn't concentrate. She feared she was going crazy. She hadn't been sleeping well, due to the guards loving to bang their staffs on the door to her cell. She hadn't been eating well, not that there was much worth eating anyway. She was sure it was some sort of torture strategy for the prisoners they captured but it still wasn't clear what they wanted. The guards didn't talk to her, besides their usually mocking. She was beginning to lose hope that she and her fellow Konoha villagers would ever escape from this prison. Even the voice inside her head, that always told her to drive forward because nothing was impossible, had died down.
She felt utterly and completely alone.
She had tried yelling through the wall so Hinata would know that she was still here. She was still alive and not quite ready to give up. She wasn't sure if Hinata had heard her. The guards, on the other hand, had. They took out their punishment on her, hitting her harshly with their fists, feet and staffs because she refused to try to contact her friends. That, she was certain, was when she had received a nasty bump to her head that left her with this constant throbbing.
But she was Haruno Sakura, a shinobi from the village of Konoha, and while her body still hung on to life, she wasn't going to give up. She was going to get herself and her fellow villagers free. She just didn't know how.
The shackles in her hands prevented her from using Chakra. She didn't how they worked but everytime she tried even basics of the shinobi training, she started feeling nauseous and powerless. Like her Chakra was being drained from her and then being slowly restored when she stopped trying. Somehow the aliens attacking Konoha had invented a restraining system for their Chakra.
Sakura was smart - she had always been good with her mind. There was no way the invaders could have known how to attack them and how to beat them without some help. Sakura wondered who from the shinobi world was in league with the Goa'ulds. And why? To get alien technology? To wipe out Konoha from the existence? Konoha had enemies that was for sure – every shinobi village had – but still the puzzle missed some vital pieces.
Her racing thoughts were interrupted when the cell door opened. She readied her body in case the guards wanted to give her another beating. Her jaw started hanging towards the floor when she realized it was actually Ino who was standing in front of her. She had two guards behind her. In her time on the ship, Sakura had learned they were called Jaffas. Why would they let Ino visit her?
"You really look uglier than usual, Haruno," Ino stated coolly. Sakura couldn't answer her. Why was she looking at her with so much disdain in her eyes? They had been friends and rivals, but never had she looked at her like that. It frightened her. Ino had changed. "What? Cat got your tongue?"
"Ino-chan... Why? How?" Sakura blurted out. She was in utter disbelief. What was happening in here? Why was Ino in her cell? Were the Goa'ulds going to release them? She didn't even dare to hope that one to happen because she knew her hopes would be dashed, crushed and pummeled until there was no hope from which to scavange inspiration and drive.
"I got the permission to come and say goodbye before I depart," she announced, a bright smile on her lips, "You are a fool, Sakura-san. I know you. I know how you've insulted our good hosts and spat on them when they want nothing but good things to us! But know that it ends today. I'm going to became something great, something greater than a mere shinobi could ever even be! And definitely something greater than you've ever hoped to be."
"I... I don't understand. What's happened to you, Ino-chan? Have you forgotten how they killed our parents, how they killed our friends and how they destroyed our home? What has gone into you? What are you talking about?" Sakura was starting to feel frantic. This wasn't Ino she knew and had grown up with! Why was she talking like that?
"They deserved to be killed," Ino said matter-of-factly, with a toss of her hair. She acted like she didn't even care. Sakura felt all the color fade from her face. How...could...she?
"You don't really think like that", Sakura whispered with large eyes. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. This wasn't Ino, this couldn't be Ino! She had always been vain, but she had loved her family and friends!
"But I do. Only strong deserve to live. Only beautiful deserve to live. And those traits are something you clearly don't possess, since you haven't been picked. But I have! I'm going to become a god, Sakura-san! A god! I'm going to conquer worlds, rule them and all the people will worship me, because I'm going to be a god!" she yelled the last words with a gleam of madness in her eyes. Sakura felt her heart froze. A god? She was... she was going to be host! A willing host!
"Ino... You can't... You can't become one of them!" Now she really was frantic. What had gone into Ino? Why would she do such a thing! She was throwing her life away, living in a body she wouldn't have control over ever again!
"I am going to become a god," Ino said with a certainty. "Goodbye, Sakura. We won't see each other again. At least I hope so." She spitted the last words like a curse and turned her back on Sakura. "Let's leave." She left the cell without looking back, the guards on her heels after having locked the door. Sakura couldn't do anything but gape after her. What had gone into Ino? It took a moment for Sakura to realize that Ino had been serious. She was seriously going to have a parasite living inside her!
"Ino! Ino! Come back! You can't be serious!" Sakura yelled from her cell, hoping Ino would hear her. "You'll be a slave! Do you hear me? You will be a slave! Believe me, we will find another way out! You don't need to do this! Ino!" She tried clawing the door, throwing herself at it, but it didn't budge at all. She even tried using her Chakra, which resulted in her lying on the floor having spasms. Ino was going to be one of them. She felt now the tears running on her cheeks. Ino had given up. She had really given up! Was there any hope left for her either? She could hear Hinata screaming from her cell before an eerie silence fell to the cell block. All hope drained from her body. She was going to die here. She was going to die, far away from home in cold space. She let the tears fall. There really was no hope left.
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Hinata was sitting in the corner of her cell. It was the only place where she felt relatively safe, although the word 'safe' had lost its meaning after Konoha had been attacked. Her home had been safe. She had thought that nothing could touch her while she stayed inside those walls. Sometimes she wondered whether she would've been imprisoned if she had actually stayed home.
When the attack had come she was inside the hospital, visiting Lee. It had been Neji, her cousin, who had dragged her out of the collapsing building. She still didn't know why he had done it. He had always treated her coldly, mainly because she was part of the main house and he was not. Perhaps he had felt it was his responsibility to ensure her safety.
Sometimes it all felt like a bad dream and after it ended she would wake up happy inside her home. She would see her father smiling at her before she would venture to meet her friends at the training fields. She would have fun and feel like she could do anything in the world. And then there would be Naruto...
Now it felt like silly childhood thing. Naruto was probably dead, like all the others too. She had seen Lee die. She had witnessed how Neji had grimaced when a piece of shrapnel from explosion had buried itself deep in his left arm. She had witnessed how Akamaru had licked Kiba's unmoving face while his dead eyes had stared right at Hinata. She witnessed those every time she closed her eyes. Every time she closed her eyes she witnessed the destruction of Konoha all over again. And again. And again.
It haunted her.
She didn't know if anyone else was aboard. She sometimes thought she heard Sakura yelling and telling her not to give up, but she feared it might be just her imagination. Crazy people didn't know when they went crazy, right? She spent most of her time sitting in the corner, trying to erase everything from her mind. She had tried to be strong but she feared she just wasn't strong enough to survive.
They were after her eyes. They were after Byakugan. She wasn't stupid. Everyday, the Jaffas would come and collect her from her cell and take her to a place she recognized as a lab. They were experimenting on her – trying to find a way to get the eyes. Someone had told Goa'ulds what the Byakugan was capable of. The Goa'ulds just didn't know how to harness the power of her eyes for themselves.
From what she had gathered from her captors, they couldn't make her a host to a Goa'uld parasite without her approving it. She had a feeling they had tried it on someone else and the result had been one dead parasite. So everyday, they tried to make her believe in their words, believe in their way of living. She didn't even listen to them. Every time the make-believe god opened his mouth, Hinata zoned out. She listed every person she knew was dead in her head. She blamed everyone's death on the man before her.
And she wouldn't crack.
Her father had taught her since she was a little girl. He had pushed her to her limits over and over, preparing her. He had lectured her of how important it is to keep the Byakugan safe. He had taught her how to react if she were to get caught, imprisoned or tortured. But she was afraid. She was afraid and believed she was too weak. Hinata knew what had to be done. She would have to protect the secrets of the clan, even if it meant her life. Or her eyesight.
She sat stoic when the Goa'uld again commanded her to activate Byakugan. To give in. To feel no more pain. Her face didn't even flinch when the hand device was activated. The pain the hand device delivered was nothing compared to the aching in her heart. And what would happen if they got their hands in Byakugan? How many more would suffer? How many more would die?
How many lives would stain her hands with blood?
She had always been the quiet one, the shy one, the vulnerable one. Everyone had thought her to be the weak link. Her shy stuttering made everyone believe she was frail and needed protection. And perhaps everyone's opinion had made her to believe so too. But now there was no-one to help her. It was up to her now. She was the heiress of Hyuuga-clan. It was time she started acting like one.
The Goa'ulds were too cocky and arrogant to think her as a threat. They thought she was too weak. They wouldn't get their hands on Byakugan. Her honor demanded it. She would prove herself she was strong.
She was a real Kunoichi.
Still, when she was back in her cell and watched the pointy needle she had smuggled with her she couldn't resist a shiver of fear. But pain would be temporary. She was going to be a real Kunoichi. She was going to protect the secrets of her clan. She would be true to her name.
She wouldn't give the Goa'ulds the pleasure of getting her eyes.
Never would they get their grimey hands on something so powerful. And delicate.
