Venatori

Summary: Kankuro was a few minutes too late, and Kiba died. Now, Shino and Hinata work to ensure that no more traitors get away alive. Divergence from chapter 212.

The Laughing Phoenix does not own Naruto and makes no profit from this work, other than her sense of accomplishment.

WARNING: Massive spoilers in future chapters. Character death. Blood, gore, and questionable use of medical knowledge and techniques. Some OOC-ness.

Double-Ended Candle

If Hinata and Shino had hoped for a little time off when they got back from Suna, they were doomed to disappointment. Jakkaru summoned them daily to the outer training grounds, where he began to put them through long, jam-packed schedules, with the occasional help of other members of the hunter-nin. The days were spent tracking some of the active hunter-nin, sparring, and doing conditioning, with verbal drills every time they took a quick break. Draw a map with outposts, list the gear you would take for a mission in Nami no Kuni and compare with that for a mission in Tsuchi no Kuni, demonstrate a basic knowledge of protocol, both shinobi and court... the list went on and on. The two trainees were worked for fourteen, sometimes sixteen hours every day, returning home only to clean up, eat quickly, and catch a little sleep.

The occasional breaks they'd depended on earlier in their training were gone. There were no good chances to rest, no opportunities to catch more than six, perhaps seven hours of sleep in a night after a day spent on the move. Days began to blur into each other as the hunter-nin's regime consumed their time.

Shino saw his father for perhaps an hour during the week, spread out into five- and ten-minute intervals. Hinata saw her sister for perhaps a half-hour, mostly when Hanabi was already half-asleep, and her father not at all.

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Neji was worried about his cousin. It was an unusual feeling for him, and a short year ago he'd have glared poison at anyone who told him he'd one day care about Hinata's well-being, but there it was. Hinata had been spending almost all of her time out of the clan compound for at least the past two months. He couldn't blame her, as he'd often done the same, but lately it seemed that the only time she came back was to eat and sleep. Little things, the chores Hinata did almost automatically, like tending her mother's garden or adding to the supply of healing ointments and salves in the stillroom, began to go undone.

Then came the day when he had to fight down a flinch at seeing Hinata. He'd not seen her in almost a week, and she looked terrible. Her already pale skin was an unhealthy pasty color, her eyes were sunken from tiredness, and she was moving a little too slowly to be normal. For one irrational moment he wondered if something had gone wrong on her team, but then her teammate met her at the gates to the compound and he had to dismiss the idea. Whatever was affecting Hinata was clearly also affecting the Aburame – there were lines of fatigue on his face and his shoulders were slumped in a way that screamed tiredness to a Hyuuga.

Neji would have been willing to ascribe it to mission-related issues or a change in the training regime, but that didn't add up either. He knew Team Kurenai was taking fewer missions than normal because he'd heard one of the mission office workers comment on the fact. And this had been going on too long to blame on adjusting to a new training regime.

He might have been willing to leave it alone, to trust that his little cousin could handle herself, except for one crucial detail: Hiashi-sama was starting to notice.

After some internal debate, Neji came to a conclusion. He'd sworn to himself that he was going to protect Hinata properly, now that he'd been given a second chance, and he figured that that meant more than dealing with would-be assassins.

The next time Neji saw Hinata, it was late evening a couple of days after he'd come to his decision. She'd come in long after dinner was cleared away, and he caught her on her way to the kitchen, presumably to find something to eat. "Hinata-sama."

She all but jumped, and Neji felt incredibly awkward. "O-oh, Neji-niisan." She sounded exhausted.

"Hinata-sama, if you will pardon my asking, is everything all right?"

A stunned look crossed Hinata's face, and Neji began to regret asking the question as she stared at him silently. Then her face cleared and she smiled at him. "E-everything's fine, Niisan. Why wouldn't it be?"

For some reason this obvious lie irritated Neji. "Hinata-sama, it's not fine. You're exhausted, you've been tired for months and something's wearing you down. Please, Hinata-sama, what's going on?"

Hinata was shaking her head. "Neji-niisan, it's fine. Yes, I'm a little tired but I'll be alright. It's nothing to worry about."

Neji hesitated. He hated to do this, but if it would impress upon her the seriousness of the situation… "Hiashi-sama has started to notice."

Whatever the reaction Neji had been expecting, it was not the one he got. Hinata cursed softly and colorfully, using vocabulary she had definitely not picked up from the Hyuuga as she rubbed her temples with her hand.

"Niisan, please don't say anything to Father," she said, hand still over her eyes. "It – it'll be alright. I knew what I was getting into."

"Which is what, Hinata-sama?" Neji was frustrated. Getting anything useful from Hinata was becoming difficult.

His cousin shook her head. "Don't worry about it, Niisan." She smiled gently at him, before turning to walk away. "Goodnight."

Neji, however, would not be foiled so easily. When his team reported to the Hokage a week later, he asked to speak with the Godaime privately. Hands in front of her mouth to disguise her smile, Tsunade agreed.

"Hokage-sama, I am…concerned…about Hinata-sama."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "Oh? May I ask why?"

"She is…exhausted." This was harder than Neji had thought. "She looks like she is going to collapse where she stands. I also know that this is probably not due to problems within her team, as Shino-san appears to be in much the same state. I confronted her on the issue, but she refused to speak about it."

Tsunade watched the boy for a minute, then sat back with a sigh. "Aburame Shibi and Inuzuka Tsume came to me separately four days ago with the same concerns. You are the first Hyuuga to do so."

Neji wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he stayed silent.

"In answer to your question, whatever is going on with Hinata and Shino is out of your hands. It's good of you to be concerned, but don't pester them about it, alright? I have no doubt that if Hinata were able to tell you she would have already."

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The grueling regimen continued for Hinata and Shino. They began to let things slip in their exhaustion, make stupid mistakes they'd normally have caught. Even their normally calm tempers began to fray, although they were careful not to snap at each other. More meals were skipped, as by the time their training was complete for the day they were too tired to do more than fall asleep, and both began to shed weight.

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Tenten followed behind Neji as Team Gai made their way to the Mission Office, hoping to request a mission. Gai had been sent off on a jounin-level solo earlier in the week, but there were probably some more interesting D-ranks lying around, or maybe even a low C that they could take.

Distracting Lee from a loud discourse on taijutsu with a leading question about adding close-quarters weaponry to his regime, Tenten breathed a slight sigh of relief when the volume dropped, the taijutsu specialist falling quiet as he considered the advantages of such an action. She hoped he took her up on her suggestion – it'd be a nice change to have someone to practice on with close-quarters weapons. Her boys were good for target practice or hand-to-hand, but she wanted to diversify a bit. She was about to see if she could get Neji in on it as well when someone beat her to the Hyuuga prodigy.

"Oi, Hyuuga!"

A pair of nearly-identical Inuzuka approached the group, accompanied by their dogs and followed, oddly enough, by a bevy of Academy students. The two adult dogs ranged alongside them, flanking the group.

"Can I help you with something, Inuzuka-san?" Neji's voice was distant, but Tenten knew him well enough to tell that he'd been startled. There was no reason for him to be accosted by an Inuzuka.

"Yeah, you can." One of the Inuzuka said. "What's up with Hina-chan?"

"Hina-chan?"

"Hinata," the other Inuzuka snarled, obviously irritated by Neji's lack of comprehension.

Hinata? Tenten wondered. Now she thought about it, she'd not seen the girl in weeks, even when she'd stopped by the Hyuuga compound to let Neji know that Gai had been called away on his most recent mission.

"Hinata-sama has assured me that she is doing well." Neji said, voice cold.

The Inuzuka didn't take kindly to the tone, but anything the adults might have said was interrupted by the students. "Then why hasn't she come t'see us?" "I saw Hina-neesan last week, an' she looked tired!" "Did she get sent on a mission?"

The first Inuzuka turned a quelling look on the kids, while the second stepped in close to Neji, a soft snarl escaping his throat. "That's bull, Hyuuga, and you know it. Somethin's wrong, you can smell it on Hina-chan and Shino. Now we know better than to try to get information out of them if they're not gonna tell us, but we figured you might know something. You Hyuuga pride yourself on your "all-seein' eyes", after all. Unless," and here the man's expression turned truly feral, "the Hyuuga are the problem?"

Neji bristled, and Tenten had to fight the urge to reach for a scroll. If it came down to a fight, she wanted more than two-dozen kunai, a dozen shuriken, and three dozen senbon to hand. "Hinata-sama's condition has been noted, but she has refused to answer inquiries on her health with more than misdirection." Neji snapped.

"An' your eyes aren't picking up anything else?" The Inuzuka's tone was just short of scathing.

"To my frustration, no." Neji's voice could have frozen flame.

"Hmm." Something about Neji's answer convinced the Inuzuka to leave the conversation alone, at least for the moment, and he turned back to his charges. "C'mon kids. Time we were gone."

The two adults and their dogs shepherded the kids down the road and out of sight.

"What was that about?" Tenten turned to Neji, hands on her hips.

"An excellent question, my eternal rival! Such behavior is quite unusual!"

Lips pressed together in a tight line, Neji refused to answer.

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Ryouken glanced over the progress report Jakkaru had left on his desk, going through the training regime and his second-in-command's analysis of the two trainees. Nodding to himself, he picked up a pen and wrote his instructions at the bottom. Keep pushing them.

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Shino slipped quietly into the house, shedding his outer coat and sandals. Pulling the coat to eye level, he examined the rents in the sleeve. Fukurou had joined their training session midway through the day, and she was good at coming just a little too close with a weapon. Deciding that he could probably repair the worst of the damage, Shino crossed the living room and moved deeper into the house, bypassing the kitchen. He was too tired to be hungry.

"Shino."

Shino cursed in his head as he twitched minutely, the Aburame equivalent of a full-bodied flinch. Hinata had mentioned her confrontation with her cousin, and he'd been hoping to avoid his own familial scolding. Straightening up, he turned to face his parent. "Father."

Shibi examined his son for a long, slow minute before shaking his head slightly. "Let me see your coat," he said, the unspoken I hope you know what you're doing falling heavily between them.

Passing the bundled-up garment over, Shino stood quietly as his father examined the sleeve, then rolled it back up into a bundle. "I will fix this. You go get some sleep."

Shino blinked, confused. A slight smile turned up the corner of Shibi's mouth. "Go to bed, Shino."

Shino went.

Shibi allowed his shoulders to fall slightly as he watched his only child walk away. He had an inkling of what Shino was doing, and he could understand the rationale behind it. That did not, however, mean he had to like it.

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More drills with traps, tracking, and some basic anatomy and body disposal. An entire afternoon was spent learning how to summon local carrion-eaters to accelerate decomposition. (Shino got the insects down without any trouble, but had some difficulty with the birds. Hinata proved to be competent with both after a couple of hour's hard work.) Tracking drills were added and routines altered slightly – not only were Shino and Hinata tracking their superiors through the forests, but through the village itself, which proved to be far harder.

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Hyuuga Hiashi was not happy with the current state of affairs in his household. While Hinata might not have been the heir he wanted, he could recognize that his firstborn was nonetheless capable at managing an estate as well as any noblewoman. Hinata had quietly taken on many of the household duties after the death of her mother years before, and whatever was causing her prolonged absence meant that things were not being done.

Hiashi did not think he was an unreasonable man. He recognized that, as a chuunin, Hinata would have more missions out of the village and there would be times when she was not available. When that happened, she usually arranged for another clan member, sometimes several, to take over her chores for a time. That had not happened. For that matter, she was not being sent on missions, insofar as he could tell.

At any rate, Hinata was definitely returning to her room at night. After the kidnapping attempt when she was three, Hiashi had gotten into the habit of checking on his daughter, and later, daughters, every night with his Byakugan. To a Hyuuga of his caliber, identifying a person by their chakra signature was nearly as good as identifying them by sight, and he'd seen Hinata's signature every night.

Hiashi frowned. Something was keeping his eldest out at all hours, and he did not know what it was. He found himself missing Hinata's little gestures, like the tea she'd bring him during the afternoon when he'd spent all day dealing with the massive amounts of paperwork needed to run a clan as large as the Hyuuga. His frown deepened. If he knew what was keeping Hinata so busy that she'd neglect her preexisting duties, then he might be more inclined to accept the lapse, but Hinata was refusing to volunteer the information.

Well, he thought, turning to look out over the courtyard, if Hinata was reluctant to divulge, then he'd just have to try other sources.

Neji and Hanabi were running through Jyuuken kata together in the stone-flagged courtyard, the chuunin leading his smaller cousin through the forms. As they brought the kata to its close, Hiashi stepped down into the courtyard. "Neji."

The boy in question turned to face him, Hanabi trotting to the elevated walkway, taking the chance to grab a drink of water. "Hai, Hiashi-sama?"

"Have you spoken to Hinata recently?"

Neji shook his head. "Not within the past two weeks or so."

"Hm. And you have heard nothing from her about her…current schedule?"

"No, Hiashi-sama."

"Father, could Nee-san be training for promotion?" Hanabi piped up. "Maybe she's trying to get better missions."

Hiashi considered that a moment. "That is possible." If it was, though, surely Hinata was intelligent enough to realize that all she was accomplishing was her own exhaustion? Something still didn't fit. "Neji."

"Hai, Hiashi-sama?"

"The next time you see Hinata, tell her I wish to speak with her."

The boy bowed. "It may be a while before I see her next, Hiashi-sama. My team leaves on a mission later this week."

"I do not expect you to seek her out, Neji. The current state of affairs has been going on for some weeks now. At this stage, I do not think that a few days more or less will make that much of a difference."

"Hai, Hiashi-sama."

The older man turned away, and, taking the dismissal for what it was, Neji and Hanabi went back to their practice.

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Jakkaru glanced up as another weight settled onto the branch next to him. "Ah, Mitarashi-san. Thank you for responding so promptly."

Anko gave him a sideways glance, but her attention was distracted by the two figures in the clearing below them, deeply engrossed in meditation. "I happen to like the kids, Jakkaru-san. 'Course I'd help."

"Never the less, it's always good to hear you say so. Your experience with disguises is something more of our division would do well to have, and we don't have anyone back in the area who could teach them as well as you can."

Anko snorted quietly. "That's unusual, an ANBU admitting that they don't have something."

Jakkaru shrugged expressively. "But, as hunter-nin, I'm a little odd by ANBU standards, now aren't I?" He cocked his head sideways. "I find life more fun that way."

The expression on Anko's face might have been called a grin, if there had actually been any real emotion behind it. "I just hope you know what you're doing with them." She said softly. "This," she gestured at the two figures, "goes on much longer, and you'll break them."

Jakkaru's voice was soft and implacable. "This will be over before long. One way or another."

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Kurenai extricated herself from a hot pot of soup and went to answer the knock on her door. She was a little startled to find her students on the other side. "Shino, Hinata. What can I do for you?"

Hinata passed over a few papers. "We just came by to drop these off, Sensei. Kotetsu-san caught us on our way past the Missions Office and asked if we minded giving you some papers to look over."

"Thank you both," Kurenai said, glancing them over. "I needed something from the records room, but I wasn't expecting it so soon."

"No problem, Sensei." Shino said calmly.

Looking up from the papers, the genjutsu mistress took her first good look at her students in some time, and very nearly shuddered. They looked terrible. Shino's shoulders slumped, like he was too tired to stand properly, and Hinata looked nearly as fragile as she had when Kurenai had first become her sensei. That they had both visibly lost weight, even through their heavy coats, made her nervous. "How have you two been?" she asked, deliberately keeping her voice calm and steady.

But before either could answer her, another voice hailed her from behind. "Hey, Kurenai, what do you want me to do with these noodles?" Sarutobi Asuma popped his head out of the kitchen.

There was a moment of silence, which Shino broke. "Are we interrupting something?" he asked dryly.

"A-ah, well," Kurenai found herself stammering nearly as badly as Hinata had, back at the beginning.

"We'll be on our way," Hinata said softly, a slight smile on her face. "It was good to see you again Asuma-sensei," she added, bowing slightly to the man behind her sensei, Shino moving in unison with her.

"See you later Sensei." Shino said, and turned to walk away. Hinata made her own hasty goodbyes and followed him.

Kurenai closed the door behind her and turned to look at her boyfriend. "Well," Asuma said, "That could have been worse, I suppose." Unable to help herself, Kurenai broke into helpless laughter.

Two days later, Team 10 was out at their usual training grounds when they were hailed by two visitors. Shino and Hinata, both a little the worse for wear, dropped from a tree and approached the team. "You'll have to forgive us for the haste," Hinata told them. "We're supposed to be elsewhere shortly."

Asuma raised an eyebrow. "I suppose this is about the other afternoon."

Shino bowed his head. "That is correct, Asuma-sensei."

"And now you're here to give me the third degree and find out just what I think about your sensei?"

Shino shrugged. "In truth, we trust Kurenai-sensei's ability to assess others and take care of herself. However, should the situation change…unpleasantly…" He let the sentence trail off.

Asuma barked out a laugh. "Let me guess, 'they'll never find my body'?"

"Mmmm, not quite," Hinata disagreed. "There will probably still be some…important bits left."

Eyebrows went up. "I see." Asuma said. "Can I at least assure you that…that…won't be necessary?"

"Then we understand each other," Shino nodded. "Please excuse us." And he turned and leapt back into the tree and out of sight.

Hinata bowed slightly, said "Please forgive us for interrupting your training session," and followed him.

Ino rounded on her sensei. "So, Asuma-sensei, what was that all about?"

Asuma had to fight down the urge to imitate his smartest student as Shikamaru muttered a 'troublesome' behind him.

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One day, once Fall really had a grip on Konoha, Jakkaru whistled Hinata and Shino to him just before sunset. Unusually, Ryouken was with him. Breathing heavily, the two chuunin managed a bow.

Ryouken nodded at them. "All right, you two are done. Don't bother to show up here tomorrow."

A/N: I know. This got done a lot faster than I had anticipated. That being said, I suddenly found myself with a lot of (relatively) free time on my hands and a fair amount of emotional turmoil and frustration to deal with. Writing was a fairly productive way to channel it.

My grandmother died on August 12, 2010, at the age of 94. She'd been doing poorly for the past few months, but in the last three days or so she had a sudden decline that pretty much blindsided the rest of us.

For those of you curious about the title: It's a corruption of a phrase: "Burn the candle at both ends", which means living a hectic life, going to bed late and getting up early, and generally burning yourself out.

I couldn't say when the next chapter's coming out, so just keep your eyes open.

Next Chapter: A Matter of Fortitude