Sorry the update was so late! I was sick and planning weddings for people (and ignoring them when they said they weren't going to marry each other…) so I didn't have a chance to write anything! Also keep an eye out for a oneshot that I'm going to write someday about Sasori/Hinata/Deidara. Or amv… maybe both…
SxH SxH SxH (gonna confuse you guys with that one)
Sakura had left the room as quickly as possible. The subject at hand was too much for her at the moment. She had left the village. Hanabi shouldn't have come.
"You're mission," Sasori said when a few people got ready to follow their pink-haired friend. "Is to heal Deidara's arm. Only you two," he added, pointing at Ino and Hinata. "The weapons girl has no medical talent."
"And how exactly are we supposed to do that," Ino snapped. She didn't want to be a medic. She hated it. The fact that she was going to be forced to prove herself worthy by healing someone was hitting a very sensitive spot.
"We'll f-fix it," Hinata said soothingly to Ino. "And then later you can sh-show them what a g-great spy you are, and they'll n-n-never make you heal anything else again."
Ino nodded to her friend, and grabbed Deidara's arm, examining it carefully. "What did you do to it?"
"I was on a mission, yeah. And I needed to kidnap the Kazekage, and while we were—"
"THAT WAS YOU?!" Hinata jumped a few inches in the air, Ino turned wide eyed, Deidara flinched, and Sasori took a step away from the brown haired girl.
"What are you talking about, yeah?!"
"You were the one that did that to Gaara-san?!" Tenten shrieked. Deidara nodded slowly, looking as if he regretted moving at all. "Kankuro-kun had nightmares about it for ages! And it was all your fault!"
Tenten reached into her weapons pouch and was about to horribly maim the blond artist, when several things happened. Sasori grabbed onto Tenten's arm, Deidara let out a shriek of pain, Ino laughed, Hinata started muttering apologizes as fast as she could, and Tenten dropped her kunai in confusion. Here was a sight all too strange. Hinata stood, slightly blushing, with a handful of gold hair in her left hand, "I'm so s-sorry Deidara-san… b-but I was sure you w-w-w-wouldn't have let me pull your hair out if you weren't d-distracted…."
"Of course not! Why the hell would you do that, yeah!"
Ino stopped laughing and comprehension dawned on her face, "To fix your arm."
Hinata nodded, "Ino-chan did it in the ch-chunnin exams… I thought we could use the same principle to heal your a-arm." Deidara's face brightened, so she hadn't just yanked out his precious hair because she hated him!
"And because K-Kankuro-san's s-sleepless nights should be a-avenged." He thought too soon.
Ino smirked, "Then should I pull Tenten-chan's hair too? I'm sure poor Kankuro lost a bit of sleep because of her as well."Tenten opened her mouth to either protest, or question Ino's innocence (or a combination of both, who knows) when a rather gruff voice cut across. "Shouldn't you be on a mission. If you have time to mindlessly gossip than you should be healing Deidara's arm. Akatsuki does not have time for pointless things such as this."
"You're r-right… sorry Sasori-san," Hinata muttered, turning back to Deidara's arm.
"Don't you apologize," said Ino crossly. "You were working. And stop stuttering, he's ugly not scary." Hinata hid her smile and together she and Ino got to work on healing the artist's injured limb. While the previous attachment was done well enough to hold, if it was ever pulled hard enough it would come off and be extremely painful. But by using his own hair to hold together the skin and flesh, it would eventually heal completely and he'd never have to worry about it again.
SxH SxH SxHTwo days later Sakura still hadn't left her room. People regularly went in to try to talk to her, but she refused to speak to them. Itachi stayed in her room the longest out of all of them, including Ino who said that she was just too short tempered to stay and be ignored by Sakura for long.
Itachi also refused to let anyone bring her meals besides him. Her friends had volunteered often, but he ignored them. Though they did go and tell her she needed to come out of there and was being childish often, mealtime they were forbidden to enter.
"It was his job when she was… here last time," Kisame explained one day when the kounichi was well as Sasori and Deidara were eating dinner. "Old habits die hard, kind of thing."
"She needs to get over her self pity soon," Sasori said bluntly. "We'll be leaving in a few days, Leader needs to see them."
"I'm still not sure what the big deal is, yeah. Sure Hinata-san was hurt, but that doesn't mean she needs to be so upset…. She must really want to look out for you, yeah."
"It's only because it's the younger Hyuuga," said a voice from the doorway. "Sakura has always held a grudge against the girl. For her to show up, where she's come to hide, and attack her friend must bring up a lot of old memories that Sakura obviously wants to forget."
"Wow Uchiha-san," said Ino, her clear blue eyes wide in surprise. "How do you know Sakura so well? I thought she only talked to us about that kind of thing."
Itachi didn't answer, simply set a tray filled with food down on the counter, letting it hit the surface a little harder than what was needed. "She used to talk to Itachi all the time," said Kisame. "He'd be in her room for long periods of time and never tell us what was going on. And when he didn't show up to give her food, Sakura-chan would get anxious and start asking questions about him. I used to think they were having an affair until the inside jokes started popping up."
Itachi glared at the blue man.
"Like cookie recipes?" Sasori said, glaring at nothing in particular.
"Yeah," Kisame said, grinning. "And that time that Deidara made her the sculpture and Itachi told him he had to get rid of it and almost cut his arms off… though you didn't need to make it explode," he added. "Oh, and she kissed him…"
"WHAT?!" Ino yelled.
"When she had to leave—"
"Look at all of you," snapped Tenten. "Getting angry at us for gossiping, when that's exactly what everyone's doing while Sakura-chan is in a state of depression! Uchiha-san is the only one here that's been consistently doing something helpful, what are we doing? None of us are actually going to make her feel better, so we're just going to sit around and discuss what a mess she is?"
She looked around the room, waiting for someone to question what she had said. Tenten herself had always felt a bit out of the group of her friends; she was a year older than they were, and not as close as Ino and Sakura would ever be. She was close with Hinata, if only because her cousin spoke of her often while they were on the team. So it upset her that no one else seemed to be taking this as seriously as they should have. Finally someone spoke.
"I'll talk to her… I know what she needs to hear."
SxH SxH SxH"Sakura-chan, are you ok?"
The pink haired girl didn't look up to see her visitor. She wasn't in the mood to talk to her friend at the moment, especially that particular one. "Sakura-chan… I know you're upset, but I think its time you… you should know… why it happened."
Sakura didn't acknowledge that she was listening. She felt slightly guilty about it, after all, her friend must have worked up a lot of nerve to manage to say this much without stuttering, but she wasn't in the mood to deal with Hyuugas. She had come here to get away from her old life, and now that Hanabi knew where they were, Hinata seemed more like a link to that life than a friend.
"I know you're awake… j-just please… at least listen t-to the other side of the story." Hinata leaned against a wall a distance away from Sakura's bed and slid down to the floor. She bowed her head slightly, took a deep breath, and began the longest speech Sakura had ever heard her say.
"Hanabi's life was n-never easy. She's stronger than I am, by a lot. Everyone knows that. She'd make a b-b-better Hyuuga Head than I ever would have… but she was born second. Because of f-five years she's going to have to have a h-horrible fate for the rest of her life. Since she is younger than me, she'll b-be placed in the Branch Family. She will have to have the c-curse seal placed on her forehead, as well as all of her children….
"I don't want that for my sister. That was one of the reasons why I choose to l-leave with you. She won't have to give up the freedom of the Main House, while the Clan w-w-will have a suitable l-l-leader. I won't have to hear countless times why I'm g-going to fail. And you didn't have to come here alone… really everybody wins," Hinata had silent tears streaking down her face, but she kept her voice as steady as possible.
"But before you were k-kidnapped, that wasn't an option. There was no doubt at all that when she was older imouto-chan would be p-placed in the Branch House. There she would live out the rest of her life as a servant to the Main House… to me. Strong, capable, smart, and confident Hanabi w-would have to serve as a lesser member, just as Neji-niisan had t-to. It's the vicious cycle of the Hyuuga Clan. It doesn't matter who's more capable, it matters who has the birth right."
"I already know all of this," Sakura snapped. She wasn't in the mood to hear of the faults with the Hyuuga Clan, or listen to Hanabi's sob story. Why should Sakura care what happened to the little brat? The source of her unhappiness being looked down upon didn't sound like too bad of a trade at the moment.
"Then you know why the marriage was arranged?"
Sakura sat up in spite of herself. "Arranged?" she gasped. "What do you mean arranged? Sasuke-kun proposed and Hanabi said yes. Not much more arranging than that!"
Hinata shook her head sadly and continued with her sister's story, "Sasuke-kun met Hanabi because of the r-relationship between Uzumaki-san and myself… because of that, he already knew a great d-deal about the Hyuuga Clan, and that included the Byukgan. So when he knew I had a sister, he was thrilled… in the few t-times that the two of us had had an actual conversation, Hanabi had never come up, and so he knew n-nothing about her. You know very well what happened then…."
"He wanted to marry her… have extremely strong children that would be worthy of the name Uchiha," said Sakura bitterly, fists clenched. "And along the way he did actually fall in love with her, didn't he?" Hinata nodded.
"And outo-sama was thrilled at the idea as well. So he m-made a deal with Hanabi… he told her that if she married him, she wouldn't be put into the Branch House… he wanted to see the Sharingan mix with the Byukgan as much as Sasuke-kun did. She wanted nothing to do with Sasuke-kun… in fact; she always looked up to you. Apprentice of the Godaime, skilled medic, and super strength… Hanabi wished she could d-do that, though she was never into healing. Still you were a role model for her, weather sh-she'd admit it or not. She never wanted to do anything that would upset you, Sakura-chan." Hinata stood back up, and for a moment Sakura believed she was going to leave her for a bit, but she let out a small laugh instead.
"I guess none of that matters anymore. You hated imouto-chan for stealing Sasuke-kun from you, and the only w-way that she would've been able to refuse is if I left. But the only reason I left was because you moved on. Ironic isn't it?"
The pale-eyed girl left the room, and Sakura sank back into her bed. Hinata didn't lie, she never had. Sakura herself was great at lying, but Hinata had always failed at it. So there was no way that she was making all of this up, but at the same time, it was far too bizarre to be true. Getting out of the Branch Family just by marrying someone else? Surely that was against all kinds of rules! There was no way the Hyuuga's would allow such a thing… was there? Sakura realized that she didn't know much about Hyuuga pollicies, so maybe that was allowed. Hinata's father was head of the Clan, so he could do whatever he wanted. But still….
"There's no point in worrying about it now. Sasuke's dead. Hanabi might have been innocent of this but it doesn't matter anymore. I'm…" she paused and stared blankly at the ceiling… she had never voiced the next words that would've escaped her mouth. Ever. But, the sooner she admitted it, the sooner she could move on… "I, Haruno Sakura, am over Uchiha Sasuke."
"About time."
SxH SxH SxHOk, so I have to explain something. This story is slightly AU in the sense that while Sakura never met Sasori, the Rescue Gaara Arc still happened. You can decide for yourself how it happened… Sakura had a cold and didn't go on the mission works just as well as some complicated explanation would.
Also, when Ino was being 'rude' to Hinata about her apologizing, it was simply to help Hinata. I see her as having really low self esteem, so Ino was simply making a joke out of the whole thing to make her feel better, not making fun of her.
Sakura-baka
