SweetStealer: Ok guys, honestly, does anyone really like this fic?
Gaara: No comment.
Hinata: I do.
Sweets: OR should I stop it all together?
Gaara: Sweets doesn't own Naruto. Stop whining.
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Chapter 8
This was it. She was at breaking point. She had seen it all...she had seen people hurt. She had seen the loss of faith. She had seen strong men cry. She had seen families become torn. She had seen what it was like to face your own fears. She had seen people fall. She had met many people.
So many different people...But she had never seen someone so...
Hateful. Demonic. Angry. Frightening.
Hinata finally collapsed in an empty ally way, near hysteria, her cries getting caught in her dry throat. She could feel herself clawing for air, but she also felt the insane need to let this out...
Who was I, to think I could help him?
Her legs were askew, as if she was a crippled lamb, trying to stand, but in vain. She was paralyzed with fear. Her eyes were still frozen in their horrified expression, her hands shaking as she hastily tried to stop the flood of frightened tears.
I COULDN'T STAND HIM.
Why couldn't I...?
I...
"Hinata-sama..."
Hinata felt Neji's presence. He put a warm hand on her shoulder. She grabbed his hand and gripped it tightly. A sharp pain shot through her own.
Hinata looked at her thin, red wrist and cried all over again. Neji gently took off his own arm bandages and took her hand in his own. His own eyes held horror and distress but he hid it well. He knelt down and began to bandage her wrist gently.
By the time he had finished, Hinata had stopped crying. Her eyes were still wide, her face was still deathly pale. She turned to him and he blinked.
Her eyes...her soft milky eyes...
He had never seen her so...
Torn.
Neji looked her over. Yes, the young girl semed completely shred to pieces. He could tell, even without the Byakugan activated, she was still frightened and weary. He could pratically hear her heart pounding in her chest and he noted that her eyes were frozen to one spot on the dark wall in front of her.
Neji softened.
"Hinata...running from fear isn't a sign of weakness."
How did you know, Nii-san?
"However, you need to face it again."
The two remained silent.
So there Hinata was, staring at the blackened, concrete wall in front of them. Aimless, mindless grafitti littered the walls...scrawling, tainting the once white bricks. Most of it was in red...a bloody, crimson color.
Hinata reached up over her head to touch one of the words: evil. It was part of a chain line that read 'Apathy is the glove in which evil slips its hand'.
"Wise words..." she managed to say, dryly.
Neji looked up, his eyes breaking away from the message. His cousin was still on the charcoal colored concrete, her legs in slanting...crooked positions.
"True..." he agreed.
Neither of them mentioned Gaara or his siblings.
Evil...
The line ran through their heads over and over...never stopping...disturbing them more then they were.
They went home.
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Dazed.
Gaara was dazed. His eyes were glazed over and he sat so still one might have mistaken him for a puppet or a dead person. He didn't blink. He didn't seem to even breathe.
The sunset was a bloody one, with the warm colors of crimson, orange and gold being sucked into it's last moments of brillance before disappearing behind the mountains, leaving the night to have the stage.
Shadows lengthened. Silence echoed over the house. No one seemed to speak. Temari and Kankuro had disappeared. Vanished into thin, forgotten wisps of sand and air.
Everything seemed so distant. Nothing mattered. The replay of events ran over and over in his mind.
Her wide eyes.
Her pale face.
His crazed eyes.
His demonic face.
It had finally sunk in.
He had frightened her.
She had bolted because of what he was doing to her...destroying her.
'We don't even know each other...' Gaara thought, numb.
The world seemed so cold and dark...his thoughts ran through his head, over and over...never stopping, never seeing if he was still alive. How could one night...one meaningful night, change him like this? What had made him so...soft?
The memory of her voice...her laugh...her eyes..it was so...gone. No matter how he tried, he couldn't recall anything worthwhile about her. He wanted to remember her. He needed to.
"You're human too. You've been through a lot. You've been hurt. The hurt you've been through leaves scars...pains that can't be erased."
"It's strange I know...but back at my house, everything was supposed to be clean and neat. It must be nice to have so much freedom."
"You're adorable."
"Stop it..." he murmured. "I don't care..."
Afternoon turned to dusk...Dusk turned to night...and it wasted away, taking a lonely, hurt, scared boy with it.
"I DON'T CARE!"
The demon kept mockingly silent.
And so...the night turned into the bitter oblivion ebony of darkness, leaving faint traces of pain and hurt behind.
Apathy is the glove in which evil slips its hand.
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Sweets: Yeah. I know. I really tried to make this fic unique, but I don't know if I succeeded. REVIEW to tell me if I should go on or leave it! Sorry if it's kinda depressing!!! laughs
Hinata: Please review. She need her self-esteem back.
