AN: I'm really nervous about the reception this chapter will get. This story is pretty much going in the opposite direction than I had originally planned, and I give the reason in the AN at the end of the chapter. However, I'm actually really pleased by this chapter because I think my writing skill has improved a lot in the last few chapters and I hope y'all like it too.
Also, I have over 200 follows and over 100 fav's! *throws confetti* And I have over 50 reviews! I am so happy! As exciting as all this is though, I really, really should be focusing on school instead of writing this. *guilty* So I don't know when the next chapter will be up. If my willpower and focus cave it will be sooner rather than later, but we'll see.
000
I couldn't concentrate in school that whole week; too caught up in thinking about the whole Uchiha situation. I must've stolen glances at Sasuke at least twenty times a day, wondering if he had to become an orphan or if there was anything else I could do. My schoolwork would've suffered if not for Hinata, who was able to fill me in whenever I missed something important.
A couple weeks after that I was ridiculously grateful when Kakashi finally showed up at the memorial stone again. I'd decided I wanted to tell him about the whole Ochugen thing, and the anticipation of telling him had just grown and grown until I was ready to explode.
"Kakashi!" I burst out happily when he appeared.
His head jerked back a bit in surprise. Then he lightly whacked me in the back of the head. "Don't be so loud." He complained. "You sound like Gai."
I giggled at the comparison, unfazed. "Who's that? Never mind, I have something to tell you." Pretending ignorance wasn't my favorite thing to do, but necessary sometimes.
"What?" He asked warily, like he expected me to start shouting that I'd found the power of Youth. I guessed my being bubbly was a little out of character, since I wasn't usually when I came to think here.
I skimmed over the background, telling him just that Arata Uchiha had healed my eye when I was kidnapped. Then I went more into detail about how I had this crazy idea to paint him and the head of the Uchiha clan a wall hanging when I only had three weeks to learn and how in the end I couldn't but it all worked out alright in any case because I had help.
"I heard about that." He said, idly scratching at his mask, "So it was all your idea? What's got you so excited anyway?"
I sighed mournfully at him. "You are a total mood-killer. I wanted to tell you! Then you were gone for weeks and I was bursting at the seams."
He processed this and then smiled. "Don't you use that saying when a place is crowded, or you're really full?"
"You know what I meant!" I folded my arms. "Anyway, yes it was my idea. Who else's would it be?"
"They're saying around town that your father put you up to it as some sort of political move. That's one of the rumors anyway. You were only three when you were kidnapped, weren't you? Most people don't remember things from that age, much less the name of a person, even just two years later."
"Well, I do." I shuddered. "I never really got to tell him thank you. I mean, I did that night, but I wanted to tell him again afterwards and I didn't get to." I looked at the ground, mood sinking rapidly now that my thoughts had been drawn in a darker direction. "Even if I had forgotten, I dream about that night too often to really forget anything about it."
After a minute I felt Kakashi's hand hesitantly messing with my hair before resting on the top of my head. It trembled ever so slightly before becoming still.
"Sa…I know what that feels like."
My hair bunched up under his hand as I lifted my head to look at him. I reached my own hand up and hesitantly patted the top of his a couple times. I wanted to hold it, but I was afraid if I made a move to remove it he would take that as a signal to step away. He was studiously not looking at me, but he didn't move his hand. My heart broke for him. He was still just eighteen, and he was so closed up and vulnerable at the same time. I felt some of that same vulnerability myself. I didn't like to talk about what had happened, or think about it either. The feeling of his hand on my head was comforting, almost as good as a hug, so I stayed still and just closed my eye, appreciating it. Minutes passed before he took his hand away. I opened my eye and ran my fingers through my hair to straighten it out.
"Thank you." I told him.
He shrugged.
"Really," I said, "That helped a lot. It felt like.." I searched for the right word "..safety."
He nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets. "You don't have to thank me."
"Ok." I said, casting around for a different topic. "How've you been?" I asked him.
"Busy." He said.
"With missions?"
"Yes." He said.
"Oh." I didn't overly mind his reticence. I was pretty certain he was in ANBU, so it wasn't like he could tell me anything even if he wanted to, and he probably didn't want to. We both let the conversation lapse.
Not too long after that I left and headed towards home. I didn't make it.
000
I woke up blind and panicked. My head was pounding and I felt nauseated. I can't see I can't see. They took my other eye, nonono this can't be real! Only after I blinked rapidly did I realize I must be blindfolded. I still had one eye. I was so grateful I started crying. Being completely blind was one of my nightmares and among my worst fears. I started to reach a shaking hand for the blindfold only for a voice to freeze me in place.
"Don't move."
I'm going to die.
The blindfold was yanked from my head from behind and I found myself sitting in a chair across from Danzo Shimura. Yep. Death is imminent.
"Hikaru Hyuga, it has come to my attention that you have the ability to see the future. Do not lie to me; is this true?"
"No." I said. There was little point in lying when my knowledge thus far had been so inaccurate.
"It is a good thing you did not lie to me." Danzo said, with deceptive mildness. "I know you come from another world. Hiruzen is sadly short-sighted in not utilizing you. Now, you will tell me several things immediately; we can go into more detail later. The first is what weaponry or power was available in your world, and whether or not it can be harnessed in this one. The second is what your occupation was."
"We used swords." I said, "knives, bows, spears. I was a student, I didn't have an occupation." He didn't know what he was asking. There was no way I was going to tell him about guns or nuclear weapons or anything of the sort. I hoped that the fact I was talking about warfare as it was a long time ago would not be as noticeable as an outright lie, especially since he didn't already know the answer to check whether or not I was lying. The fact that I'd answered truthfully to the first question also helped.
"A student of what?"
"…my native language." How do you even explain an English major? Compared to a ninja society's focus of learning it was almost ridiculous. Oh, well you see, I learned how to write papers and read books. No, I didn't die in elementary school. Yes, it does sound rather useless, doesn't it?
I could almost see the gears turning in his head as he reached what must have been a similar conclusion. "You had no military experience?"
"No."
"Your family?"
"No."
His visible eye narrowed. "That is unfortunate."
I was sweating by this point. My mouth was dry, but I had the urge to swallow anyway. My head was still pounding.
"I see that what you know about your world will be less useful than I had hoped." He said. I hoped I gave no visible indication to my rising relief. He had bought that Earth had weaponry no more advanced or dangerous than what this world already produced. His next words soured that relief very quickly. "However, you will tell me one more thing. I promise you that if you lie I will cause you to suffer in ways I am sure you do not know." Danzo's eyes shifted to the person behind me and immediately a hand grabbed my head by the hair on my scalp and roughly yanked it back. It was a painful contrast to the comforting gesture Kakashi had offered me what felt like only minutes ago. I found my vision filled with the tip of a kunai, only an inch or so away. "Starting with the immediate removal of your other eye."
"Yes?" I couldn't stop myself from shaking.
"In that 'story' of yours, do I become the Hokage?"
If I wasn't being held up by my hair I would have slumped in my chair in relief that I could even answer. "Yes." I said, not even looking at him, transfixed by the kunai in front of me, "but I don't know anything more than that, like when or why or how. I hadn't read that far. I only heard that you did." There was little point in lying. It was most certainly the answer he wanted to hear, and since I didn't know any of the circumstances in the story that led to his being appointed it wasn't like I was helping him get there faster.
"I see." He said. There was silence. The tip of the kunai was perfectly still. My heart was racing, because torture and death were still two very real looming possibilities right now. I barely breathed for what was probably a full fifteen minutes.
"I had planned on killing you outright." He told me. "It is likely you will not survive anyway, but for that information I will allow you a small chance of life. You may yet prove useful, in a more conventional sense." The kunai withdrew and the hand let go of me. Then Danzo smiled, and it was terrifying. "Come here."
I slid off my chair to obey, but my legs simply refused to support me and I collapsed to the ground. I barely, barely managed to stop myself from throwing up.
"Get up." Danzo growled. Two hands grasped me under my arms and I was lifted into the air like a doll.
"Danzo-sama, she is still feeling the after-effects of the knockout agent we used. She can't." A male voice said. The man carried me over to Danzo and held me out to him at about eye level. Danzo formed a few seals and then reached forward and quickly pried my mouth open, pulled my tongue out, and touched it near the back with two fingers. "Sealing Jutsu."
Just like that, I became part of ROOT. It was one of my worst nightmares come true.
000
Interlude: Hiashi
Hiashi has mixed feelings about Hikaru, to say the least. She is completely unnatural for one. Some days he can't decide if her story is true. Being what she says she is; a dead woman trapped in the body of a child, would be bad enough. It may be she is an insane genius, extrapolating an impossible amount of information from who knows where and making up this story as a way to cope with it all. He doesn't know what to think, though most days he admits that she's probably telling the truth, disturbing though it is. He cannot forget what Kō told him, that if she hadn't been born his wife would've lived longer, and he would've had another daughter. If he dwells on that too long then he thinks she is a demon.
She certainly knows more than she should. Even though she seems to be a genius because of her age, in reality she is merely smart for her mental age. She is hard-working and fiercely loyal to Hinata, protecting her against any perceived threat, even himself. That is something he is proud of, when he is done being angry about it.
When he hears that she and Hinata and Kō have been seen talking to the jinchuriki he is immediately suspicious. Hikaru hardly talks to children on her excursions to town. He knows because he has her shadowed. Of course he wouldn't allow her to run around unguarded so soon after the kidnapping. He asks Tadao, a clansman who is a former ANBU, to guard her on her trips outside the compound. He knows she rarely goes to playgrounds; instead she either explores or goes to the memorial stone. He knows that Kakashi Hatake is the only person she socializes with on these trips.
Then he learns that after he left the dojo that one day Hinata has run off and Hikaru has gone after her. His heart freezes before he forces himself to calm down. It has been over a year since the kidnapping. There are no foreign ninja in town. Tadao will be shadowing them. Still, he sends Kō to fetch them. Then when Hinata comes running inside and he takes her to her room and asks what happened he learns that she has met Naruto Uzumaki, the jinchuriki. This day keeps getting worse. He knows exactly who the boy is, obviously. There was a Hyuga there that night when Minato and Kushina sacrificed themselves for their son. Lip-reading the advice they gave him left little doubt as to the relationship. He is torn between the fact that Minato doubtless would want for the boy everything that he wanted for his daughters, happiness and success, and the fact that no one quite knows how the seal works, how stable it is, what it does. It's been four years with no problems, but that doesn't change the fact that Naruto is a potential danger. Hinata, his darling, precious, (disappointing, but he doesn't think that now) Hinata, must stay away from him.
And then after he storms from the room to his office Tadao reports what he overheard Hikaru telling Kō, and what strange things Kō said back to her, about knowing things she couldn't know without another source, and about Kō agreeing not to tell him about the conversation. The day cannot get worse. He is forced to swear Tadao to secrecy and explain that his daughter is not a spy of some sort, she is reincarnated, and the Hokage already knows so he isn't to breathe a word of this to anyone. After Tadao leaves he is tempted to go to a training ground and punch through some trees. Hikaru knows that Naruto is a jinchuriki. She also apparently knows that he's going to be "an amazing ninja" someday. By now Hiashi's mood is so black he wants to haul her to T&I immediately, but he possesses enough self-control to recognize he needs to calm down before making any decision on this or even thinking further on it.
Later that week the matter is brought forcefully to the forefront of his mind when he hears from Tadao that Hikaru and Hinata and Kō had stopped and chatted with Naruto in an otherwise empty park. He realizes, though, that this is comforting in a way. Hikaru would do anything to protect Hinata, but when they are both around Naruto she shows no sign of fear or concern. If she knew that there was even a possibility that the Kyuubi was going to tear its way free then she wouldn't let Hinata anywhere near him. This relieves his worries considerably. Naruto is not a threat. He decides to stay silent about it all. He now knows Hikaru doesn't trust him, and that she is keeping secrets from him, but she is right that they would get into an argument about it, one with too big a chance to be overheard. He is clan head, but he cannot possibly hope to keep Hikaru's situation a secret if his clan knows she knows about Naruto.
Still, it is suspicious that she latches onto Naruto as a friend. As he knows, she doesn't associate with other children. This suggests that Naruto has some importance in that "story" she knows. He may have even been her favorite "character." That is really the only reason he can think of why she would take such an interest in him. What else does she know about him? Does she know his parentage? There is little use speculating; over the months other concerns come to the forefront. There is far too much interest on Naruto and those he spends his time with. Dangerous eyes watch that boy. Danzo Shimura has begun making pointed remarks, interested inquiries about both his daughters, but Hikaru in particular has caught his interest. Hiashi is uneasy about him, he does not want the Hyūga clan to become ostracized like the Uchiha clan. Danzo Shimura has been quite outspoken in regards to them. His interest is not a good thing. And then Hikaru, overly intelligent but utterly foolish Hikaru, goes and gives an Ochugen gift to a member of that clan! Word reaches him in the evening from a clan member who talked to so-and-so who is a cousin of so-and-so who is a teammate to an Uchiha who saw them in the Compound and overheard their purpose there. Shinobi gossip travels fast and needless to say people have found the trip highly unusual and noteworthy. Some say he put her up to it, that it's a political move. Some say it is clear the Uchiha and the Hyūga are uniting. It is ridiculous how large and sensational the rumors become. They reason there is no way a five year old could remember the name of a man she met once two years before on that horrifying hectic day. He will be defending her and saying he did not know anything about the trip until afterwards all week and longer. They do not believe him. Hikaru is in the middle of it all, completely oblivious to the danger she keeps putting herself in. She is ignorantly self-destructive. He must control her. He must stop her. For her own safety. She may be headstrong and strange, but she is a good girl in the end.
His heart stops for a moment the day she disappears. August 12th. He does not forget. He does not forget how Tadao burst into his office, saying he followed her to the Memorial Stone as usual, watched as she and Kakashi had a conversation, watched her leave, and then on the way home, impossibly lost her. It is as though she vanished into thin air.
Kakashi Hatake, who had not even left the Memorial Stone yet, is brought into the Hokage's office immediately for hurried questioning and summarily dismissed. He showed no emotion throughout, but Hiashi watches with the Byakugan as his chakra betrays shock and a surprising amount of concern at the news, which convinces him of his innocence. Over the next few weeks his clan search everywhere they can. There are some places in the village shielded even from the Byakugan: ANBU headquarters, areas beneath the village, areas in the Hokage tower, but those of his clan in ANBU discreetly inform him that she has not disappeared into their ranks. It is those other, blocked off areas that he cannot see into that he is concerned about. He has heard about Danzo's shadowy special ANBU group, though nothing specific or concrete. Danzo Shimura seems far too smug around him for it to be anyone else who has taken her. He says that it is clear that Hiashi has been negligent with his daughter, that if he wanted to keep her safe he should've kept her more in line. He says that a shinobi who loses a child does not deserve to keep it. Hiashi wants to kill Danzo and tear the village apart looking for her. It is then he realizes that, impossibly, he really does care about Hikaru. He doesn't know why he cares so much. Perhaps it is pride; Danzo's self-satisfaction grates against him. Still, whatever it is, he makes a decision.
He doesn't know why Danzo Shimura is so set against the Uchiha clan. One rogue ninja does not make a whole clan suspect, or it should not. Still, the enemy of his enemy may be his friend.
"Fugaku, I believe Danzo Shimura has kidnapped my daughter. We need to talk."
000
5 Years Later
I was cleaning blood off of my kunai in a stream when my seal burned. I stood up immediately and turned my head towards my partner. He made a noise of confirmation. Emergency protocols had been called. Which ones could not be known until we returned to Konoha to determine the situation. We left immediately.
Two days later we were attacked entering ROOT headquarters. A Nara snared both of us in his shadow, but it was weaker than it should have been to immobilize me. I surged my chakra and broke free, jumping from the pillar to the walkway where he was standing, lighting up the area with a fireball jutsu and forcing him to dodge, causing him to drop the shadow possession he'd placed on my partner.
"Genjutsu: Piercing Spikes" My hands ran through the seals and the man stood stock still as the jutsu took hold. It bought me seconds, but that was all I needed. The kunai I threw at him, however, was diverted from its course by another kunai, and I heard my partner, who was fighting another assailant, cry out as it struck him. Before I could turn my Byakugan underneath the wrappings over my face to see where, a man barreled into me with a fist. Damage: three ribs broken on the right side, one pierced the lung. As we flew backwards I shot chakra straight into his heart in an overpowered version of the Gentle Fist, killing him immediately. I let the body fall to the side as I flooded the damaged area with chakra, numbing the pain.
Sounds of fighting: stopped. If my partner had won he would be clashing with the Nara, so he was not the victor. Partner status: Irrelevant.
Likelihood of winning injured against two opponents: slim
Retreating was the logical choice, but both of my opponents would get to me before I could leap back to the pillar and up and out. Capture was not acceptable. Capture would be punished.
I jumped onto the railing of the walkway, coughed, and let myself topple forward.
The woman who had fought my partner grabbed me before I had fallen more than four inches into the endless pit. For some reason I felt vaguely disappointed as she slammed me into the ground, but the feeling soon faded. The Nara captured me in his shadow again, adjusted to account for my strength this time. He needn't have bothered. I knew I was defeated. Cooperation was the most logical choice for now. I could escape later.
"Name." The woman demanded.
"Suté" I said. Danzo-sama had given it to me. It meant "forsaken."
"Suté, do you surrender?"
"Yes."
000
I was taken to an interrogation cell. The Nara and the woman left, and two different shinobi came in. The very first thing they did was place a chakra suppression seal on the back of my neck. Then they took away all of my weapons and most of my clothes. The only time I tried to stop one of them was when he reached for the wide black bandages I had worn since my second day in ROOT. At first they had been to hide my former identity and force me to learn to fight with only the slightest clues of scent, sound, and air patterns available. I only used my Byakugan when absolutely necessary, such as when I needed to read something. Now such reasons meant little to me, but I noted I was shaking in distress as the man knocked my offending hand away and sliced them off, cutting a thin line down my right temple as he did so. After he tugged the bandages away I was overwhelmed. The visual input was strange and almost meaningless. I blinked and saw the man's breathing quicken. His partner in the background was a woman placing a pile of my things outside the door. The man had brown hair. I stared at it.
"Y-you're Hikaru Hyūga." He said. I felt a jolt of an almost physical pain in my heart. My trembling increased. I was cold. Breathing was difficult. The woman whirled around and took one look at me, before beckoning to someone out in the hall. I heard her tell them to inform the Hokage that "we found her. She's alive." I noted that escape would be much more difficult if they had been looking out for me specifically.
"My designation is Suté." I said, still staring at his hair. Then I coughed into my arm. It came away speckled with blood.
"Nao, she's injured!" He said urgently, "She's coughing up blood!"
"I have" I coughed again, "three broken ribs on my right side. I think one has punctured my lung."
The woman came over and placed a glowing green hand on my skin. I saw bruises were already forming. Her chakra slid into me, healing the bones and my lung, before sliding out again. I took a tentative breath and then another stronger one.
"They were clean breaks," the woman told me, trying to make eye contact as I stared at a point on the wall beyond her, "you're fine."
I said nothing. They knew I could hear, so there was no point in acknowledging I had heard. Now that my ribs were healed, there was little difference whether the breaks had been clean or not. I had felt them heal, so it was unnecessary for her to tell me I was fine. The conversation, such as it was, was pointless. However, my chances of escape had now increased.
"We need to get someone else in here." She told her partner. "I don't know if we should start interrogating her as usual or not."
"No, you should not." A powerful voice said. A man with a black trench coat had entered the room. He was wearing a bandana headband, so I couldn't see his hair. I decided to stare at his buttons instead. "I'll take over from here."
The two shinobi hurriedly exited the room. The man walked around the interrogation table over to me and thrust a bundle of clothes at me. Black pants. White shirt. "Here, put these on."
I did so as he went and sat down on the opposite side of the table in the room. "Sit down." He said. I sat in the remaining chair. I stared at his buttons.
"Look me in the eyes." He ordered. I had been trained to obey orders. Disobedience was painful. Pain made completing missions harder. I must avoid pain, if possible. I must always obey orders.
I slowly let my gaze wander up and, afraid of what I would find there, looked him in the eyes.
After a minute I noted that I was crying. I did not understand.
"My name is Ibiki Morino. Who are you?" He said.
"I am Suté." The designation grounded me. I was Danzo-sama's tool. A foundling child that he had taken in and named. I stopped crying. That was better. Crying was distracting. I wiped my eye and went back to looking at the man's buttons.
I saw him nod, either to himself or to me it did not matter.
"Show me your seal."
I did so.
"How old are you?"
"I do not know."
"How long have you been in ROOT?"
"I do not know."
"What age were you when you entered ROOT?"
"I do not—" I hesitated. I knew this one, didn't I? No, I found I couldn't remember. I couldn't remember if I'd been four or five or six. Age and time were meaningless at this point. "…I do not remember."
He was silent for a minute. "What do you remember about your life before ROOT?"
I had stopped thinking about that time a long time ago. It was too painful, as far as I could feel pain. It was also pointless. I had lost myself in missions and training and physical pain as the days blurred together. I had let both of my lives go. Memories had blessedly faded. Feelings had quieted, and then died. Danzo-sama had given me a new identity. It was easier.
Perhaps you think that would be impossible, but the truth is memory is very fickle. Your brain doesn't even record things that you don't actively think are important. When you set down your keys and later think "If only I could remember where I put those!" you are trying to pull up a memory that doesn't exist. Other moments are automatically burned into your brain, but they still need to be replayed to be remembered, so that your thoughts wear the neurological thought pathway a little deeper with each remembering. If you don't, those pathways deteriorate. New ones with higher priorities take their place.
I realized that Ibiki was still waiting for my answer. "I…remember some people. The Hokage, the Hyuga clan head and his heir, the Yamanaka clan head, Ko Hyuga, Kakashi Hatake. I do not remember events." I felt nothing as I said their names and titles. "Except for losing my eye. I remember that."
"Stay here." He said unnecessarily as he rose from his seat. He went to the door and beckoned another ninja into the room. He whispered something to him that I didn't bother listening to and left. The new man sat down. I stared at the table. I realized I did not want to see anyone I knew from before. It would be inconvenient. Going on a mission would be better. However, it did not truly matter whatever happened.
It was unfortunate that he had ordered me to stay here. It contradicted Danzo-sama's orders, and his orders superseded all others. With my chakra suppressed and no weapons, escaping was going to be difficult, but I had no choice but to try. I stood up, bent backwards and grabbed my chair by the back, then straightened out and hurled it at the man. He body-flickered away and slammed into me as I vaulted over the table. I had time to note my greatly decreased strength and reflexes as I tried and failed to shoot chakra into his heart and then again, when he blocked my attempt to break his neck. Then he slammed my head into the wall.
000
Hokage's Office
Ibiki entered the room to find Hiashi Hyuga already there. He nodded respectfully at the man.
"I was told you'd found Hikaru-chan. Is this true?" Hiashi asked him. The man had aged ten years in the last five. Ibiki wished he had better news for him.
"Hokage-sama, Hiashi-sama." He greeted them both in turn before turning to Hiashi. "We have found a child who is almost undoubtedly your daughter." He held up a hand to forestall any outbursts. "However, she insists her name is Suté. She does not know how old she is or that it's been five years. She does not remember how old she was when she was kidnapped. She killed one of the shinobi in the team that captured her. When she saw she was about to be captured she attempted to commit suicide with no hesitation. She says she remembers a few people, and referred to you, your other daughter, the Hokage, and Inoichi-sama by title and to Kō Hyūga and Kakashi Hatake by name. She says she does not remember events before entering ROOT other than losing her eye." He stopped there to let both men process that for a few minutes. "She avoided all eye-contact unless ordered. If her seal is like the others, then as you know, in addition to any conditioning, she has been influenced mentally and emotionally to be loyal to Danzo Shimura and feel little to nothing else. To be honest, she is also one of the worst cases among the children I have seen. The seal helps the brainwashing process along, but it doesn't do everything on its own, especially if you fight it. From her condition, she stopped fighting it long ago, if she ever did." Left unspoken went the insinuation that this didn't speak well of her mental state even before the seal was placed.
"Thank you Ibiki, if you would wait outside for a few minutes?" Hiruzen said wearily.
"Yes, Hokage-sama." He exited the room. A certain amount of tension, which had lessened at his arrival, flared up again.
"You know what the best course of action is, Hiashi. She should be rehabilitated in ANBU with the other children."
If it were some other man, a civilian man, there would have been protests. Insistence that the best place for his daughter was at home. Hiashi was a ninja, however, and he knew the picture that Ibiki had painted for them of his daughter's mental state was bleak. He nodded.
"I want to see her, and I want her to have the option of sleeping at home."
"So you're making requests now? It's good to know you still respect me that much." Hiruzen said harshly.
"I did what I had to do to rescue my daughter, Hiruzen-sama, and you know that. Danzo—" Hiashi started.
Hiruzen held up a hand. "We've been through all that before. I don't want to hear it. You may see your daughter and she may have the option of sleeping at home. I don't think that would be wise, however. She would probably be a danger to the rest of you house."
Hiashi conceded the point with a nod, but did not retract the request. He turned to leave.
"Hiashi." Hiruzen said.
"Yes?" He turned back.
"Thank you for convincing Fugaku that I was not his enemy. If anything good has come from this whole mess, it is that we found a relatively peaceful solution to it all. I do not think Konoha could have stood the loss of either one of your clans."
Hiashi nodded again and left. He conversed shortly with Ibiki and then they both left the Hokage tower together.
000
I awoke chained to the chair. A medical ninja was healing my head injury. The man who knocked me out was gone. Ibiki was back. There was another man in the room who I refused to look at. After the doctor left, Ibiki spoke up.
"Your name is Hikaru Hyuga. You were kidnapped by Danzo Shimura when you were five years old and you are now ten years old. I have been instructed to inform you that Danzo Shimura has been tried and convicted of treason. He is to be executed in a week. You will be transferred to ANBU to help reintegrate you back into ninja society. You will have the option of sleeping at home or in the ANBU barracks. After two years you will be reassessed and either stay in ANBU or be transferred to a genin team."
I stayed silent.
"Hikaru-chan, look at me." The Hyuga clan head commanded me. This order was very difficult. He had not used my proper designation, but the order was clearly directed at me. I forced myself to look at him, at his clothes, at his hair, into his eyes. My heartrate had sped up, but beyond that I did not experience emotional imbalances or cry. My training helped me.
"Do you want to come home?" He asked.
My eyes slid back to Ibiki's buttons, familiar territory. "My opinion does not matter." I said stiltedly. "I was assigned room G in ROOT headquarters. I do not have a home."
"I see." He said stiffly. "She may stay in the barracks, at least at first." This was directed towards Ibiki, who nodded. Then he left.
-0-
Hiashi Hyuga was not a man who cried outwardly, but a person who knew him well could have seen his heart aching as he went home and broke the news of Hikaru's condition to his elder daughter Hinata. Hinata herself sobbed in his arms and for once he did not begrudge her a single tear.
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I had to give Ibiki a debriefing of the missions I had done for Danzo-sama, and then he took me to a cell where I would be kept until Danzo-sama was executed. I was chained to the bed. I ate. I slept. Danzo-sama was executed a week after that. My seal disappeared. I wondered why I felt like crying.
000
AN: I hope that Kakashi isn't OOC here. I felt it was an appropriate amount of emotion for him to show.
I thought briefly about having her be knocked unconscious again after Danzo interrogated her and then wake up as part of the Edo Tensei and being all like BAHAHAHAHA How's THAT for a plot twist! The biggest timeskip ever! But I decided there was no future in that direction.
Also, you might notice that I'm completely writing this by the seat of my pants. I have almost zero long term plans and the ones I do have are subject to continuous change. Everything I say in AN's or Review Responses regarding the future and/or developing parts of Hikaru's personality should be taken with a grain of salt. i.e. in one of my RR's last chapter I said Hikaru has outbursts of anger as part of her PTSD. Now in this chapter she becomes an emotionless girl. So the whole anger thing…went nowhere. I had plans to take that somewhere. My plans got derailed. HALP My characters control the plot.
I just have this thing where I am almost continuously thinking "Realistically, what would happen next? How would everyone act at this point?" And sometimes the characters act in ways I expect and at other times they don't. In this chapter Danzo reminded me that he existed and was just "You are overlooking how evil and smart I am. If you want this to be realistic, this is what I would do at this point. I should've already found out about her and taken action, in any case."
The interview was dicey territory, and I rewrote it a couple times. I'm still not sure how realistic it is that she lived through it. However, if she didn't then it would be a very short story. So, she did. (Ok, to be honest, she totally should've died. But I didn't want that to happen. I do have some control over my characters, after all.) Everything that followed after that just flowed out as a natural result of what she's been through. As a side result, did I just stop the Uchiha massacre? Why yes, yes I did. I was rather surprised by that myself. Do I have ANY idea of what I am doing? No, not at all. (Advance warning: I may or may not go back and change this later. I think at this point I need to sit down and plot out an actual plot. If I can't figure out a way to go from here or what the ramifications will be, then I will edit this chapter accordingly.)
How would Danzo have found out? Well, there were ANBU guarding the room when Hiruzen, Inoichi, and Hiashi were discussing Hikaru and her knowledge. There is a file on her in the Hokage tower. Danzo gets interested in Hikaru and has his plants in ANBU ask around about her and find any files on her, and succeeds in teasing out the information.
The stuff about how memories work was explained to me once by a friend. I think I'm remembering correctly how it was described.
Reader Response:
Cheifnewo: Thanks for the correction! I'll go back and fix that sometime. She had troubles with shurikens just because they are so weird. Kunai are at least like knives and learning to throw them is mostly straightforward, but I imagined with shuriken there's more of a feeling of "how do I even hold these without cutting myself?"
Wolftitan: I had thought about that in regards to canon, and the only conclusion that I could come up with was that they either had a couple specific kids picked out they were going to give Hinata's eyes to, or more likely they were going to use her as a brood mare when she got a little older (as well as stealing her eyes). However, since in this case the rescuers were catching up they decided that they'd take what they could get and started extracting them.
Skywiseskychan: Hi! Thanks for your review! Hiashi doesn't want to have false information influence his decisions. In the anime the kidnapping happened at night, there was only one kidnapper, he didn't make it out of the compound, etc. There were actually a lot of differences which would've been absolutely disastrous without the Uchiha police who discovered they were missing almost right away. Otherwise it would have been several more hours before they were discovered missing and then it would've been too late. He's afraid that if he thinks he knows the future that he'll be lulled into a false sense of security at other times when he should actually be on his guard. He does feel guilty, but he still doesn't think her knowledge will be helpful.
Guests: Thank you all! I'm glad you're enjoying it!