Hey guys, another update! This entire chapter I took careful thought in writing, and even went so far as to leave my laptop (yeah, I know, crazy) and go for a walk so I could think about how to write this chapter. Walking helps me think. So, I hope you guys like this chapter! I'd like to thank all my followers, readers, people who've favorited my story, and my reviewers. I appreciate the time you take out of your day to read my story.
Enjoy! Tell me what a horrible job I did, or otherwise, what a good job I did! I appreciate the criticism.
~Omo no shi
I opened my eyes and immediately recognized the pain in my body. The flames that burned across my right shoulder and left ankle were intense, and I didn't have a fleeting hope that the inferno would recess anytime soon. I reached up with the hand that was not being controlled by pain and placed it across my eyes, and for a moment, remembered what I had seen. Had it all been just a dream? The sounds around me were my comrades in battle. I didn't have the strength to get up and help them, but what use would I be? In all of my memories, I was helpless. In the first one, I had nearly been violated by a handful of men, but someone had come to rescue me, whoever he had been. In the second one, the Hokage had planned a meeting with the Sound ninja to give me a means to hear. I had truly been deaf then, and if something had happened on our journey, I would have been a burden. In the third memory, I was a premature baby who had been birthed by a woman who hated my very existence. In each of these memories, or dreams, or whatever they were, I was no more than a nuisance.
If I were to use the last of my strength in an attempt to help in this fight, would I only get in the way? Would I be the reason that, if we had had a chance to begin with, we would lose? How could I even summon the strength to fight when I knew that I would only get in the way? I was a hindrance to those who were seeking strength. I was seeking strength, too, but was my way in doing so different? It seemed that, over the years I had become a Leaf shinobi, I had been piggybacking on the ones I knew. I was slowing them down by my inability to get stronger. Neji was trying his best to help me, but I could only see him keeping me on a level that ensured that I could never get stronger. Is it my own bitterness at the hand I was dealt in life that made me believe that those who were only trying to help me were trying to knock me down and hold me back from my dreams?
It was true that I didn't believe life was fair. I didn't like the fact that, out of everyone else in the Hidden Leaf, I was the only one who had been chosen to have this handicap. Was it that some greater power also hated my very existence? Did this power, whatever it was, believe that I was a mistake that couldn't be erased? I had once believed in everyone being born for a reason. But from the moment I had opened my eyes after seeing those memories, I've come to realize that somewhere along the way, my purpose had become a lie. Everything around me was controlled by long since placed lies that had been created by a man my mother had asked for the help of. According to these lies, I had been alone and scared and trapped in an agonizing silence for eleven years. It was after these eleven years that someone had decided to take pity on me and devise a plan to allow me to break free of the silence. Had that had some purpose? Even now, lying on the ground in pain and being utterly useless, was I being used for a specific purpose?
My goal in life was to be a top-class Jonin. I wanted to prove to the world that even a deaf girl, who had been seemingly left for dead and had no obvious outstanding abilities as a ninja, could succeed at becoming a strong women whom her subordinates looked up to. I no longer wanted to be the one who went crying to their sensei for advice because there was something I didn't know how to handle. Even Naruto could handle things on his own, albeit just a little messily. Even Sakura, my adopted little sister who on the outside appeared to be weak, could somehow summon the strength to pull through a tough situation. And even Sasuke, who was immobilized by fear by that horrible snake woman, could force himself to protect his comrades in a situation that proved to be deadly if immediate action wasn't taken. But what had I done at that time? All I had succeeded in doing was telling Sasuke what he already knew. Sure, I had devised what had seemed like a clever plan for the exam itself, but in the face of true danger, what had I, Mizuki Hyuga, deaf Hidden Leaf shinobi, do to protect her comrades? Absolutely nothing.
What could I do, even now, in the state that I'm in? The pain in my shoulder and ankle were keeping me pinned to the ground and immobilized. If I couldn't even find the strength to pick myself up from the ground and defend my friends, did I deserve to become a Jonin? If I had succeeded one day in that endeavor, did this moment prove that I didn't have what it took to protect my comrades? Did this moment prove that I didn't have what it took to protect my home? Surely if I thought of those things I could find it in me to fight against this overwhelming pain and fight against those who threatened those things I protected. Surely... if I summoned the iron-like will of my friends and family I could do something. Even if that something meant stalling for time. If I could stall, whoever was out there fighting our assailants could use that time to defeat them. Then maybe I and whoever else who had suffered my burden could look past the hindrance I had caused them and remember me with a smile. I had been born from a woman with hatred in her heart; a hatred that burned at the very thought of me. Maybe if I did the right thing in my last moments, I could die and leave happiness in the hearts of those who had been weighed down by me.
As I forced myself into a standing position, with my body howling obscenities at me with every second that screamed by, I thought of the ones who had protected me in the past. Sakura and her mother, who had so kindly taken me into their home without a second thought, and who had also become my pseudo-family when no one else would take me as their own. Not even my actual family, for a reason I still couldn't fathom. Sasuke, who defended me against the harsh words of my peers, and who also defended me against the negative thoughts I cast upon myself. Naruto, who believed that in spite of my handicap, I could do anything and become anything I wanted; Naruto, who had been despised by the village and who now was encouraged on in his endeavors by it, had decided to become one of my closest friends and allow me to borrow his own passionate courage to plow headstrong through any situation. Neji, who despite his harsh words and even harsher training, took the time out of his day to make sure I was being given the proper tools to continue towards my goal. Iruka-sensei... who also fought against everyone who believed that I couldn't amount to anything because of my handicap. Old Man Hokage, who had by his own desire to see me prosper, asked a neighboring hidden village to devise a method to allow me to hear. Kakashi-sensei, who believed that despite my handicap, I had proven myself worthy enough to take the Chunin Exams. All of these people who I had met in my relatively short life believed in me and, despite their own goals and desires, also desired to see me reach my own goals. All of these people who I had once believed were only there to set me back, when only now did I realize I was the one who was setting them back. Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto, Neji, Kakashi-sensei, Iruka-sensei, Old Man Hokage... it seemed to me that the list would never end. This long list of people who had decided to stop their training and help me. It was only now that I realized that I was the only one who could stop this list from getting bigger.
At a glance, I realized that the only one who was fighting against the ones who had attacked us was Sakura. She was being held up, with her knees just barely touching the ground, by a woman who had her hand twisted around and through Sakura's long pink hair. I could see that she was trying desperately to figure out a way to free herself, but it didn't seem like there was any way to do that. I steeled myself against the pain in my ankle and, knowing that this would be my last chance to do anything useful for my team, I ran as fast as I could towards the man who was about to attack. Immediately his comrade shouted at him to attack and I was thrust away from them with a force as strong as if someone had thrown a large sack of rocks at me. I hit the ground and rolled for a long time before I hit a tree. I heard a sickening crack and black spots danced across my vision. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized that I should have thought my plan through for a little while longer before I had executed it. It was no longer just my shoulder and ankle that were on fire; my entire body had been engulfed in flames, and it dawned on me then that this was not the feeling of someone who was going to die. This feeling was one that made me realize that I was just going to continue to suffer. I hadn't helped at all. Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto... they would all be killed by the Sound ninja because of my recklessness. Why was it always me who did this? Why couldn't I do anything right? Along the way, sure, I had given my friends a means to get through the test, but what did that count for when death was only a breath away?
I closed my eyes, determined to lie where I was silently until death took me. There was no way I could face my friends again if they were to survive the fight they were in. There was no doubt in my mind that they would cast me away and blame me for the bad things that had happened to them during this test, and there would be no way that I could argue with them. I truly was the cause for their suffering. I was the cause for my mother's suffering, and eventually, the cause of her death. Deep down inside, in the recesses of my mind, there was a small awareness that kept on telling me that I should never have been born. If I hadn't have been born, then my mother never would have died. I was a monster in its own right. No child who was destined for success could kill their mother at birth. She had asked that man to keep her alive inside of me with her memories. Hotaru, the woman who died by the child she hated, wanted her hatred to live on in the form of something that I would never be able to escape. Even in death, I believed that her memory would never cease to haunt me. None of these thoughts were like me, but then again, everything about must have been a lie. There was no way around the fact that everyone around me was trying to make me believe in a story that they had written.
So what did I have to believe in?
A sudden wave of pain forced my eyes to open. My body tensed and I could feel a scream rising in my throat. The black spots still made my vision hazy, but what I could see were the light green eyes lined in black hovering over me. They were filled with an expression that I couldn't quite place; the world spun as whoever he was turned, and it was then that I realized that he was carrying me, and that him lifting me from the ground had been the source of the pain that had resurfaced. I wanted to talk to him, to the boy that I wanted so desperately to learn the name of, but I had a feeling that I had been forced into a strange mix of the past and the present. If my hearing aid were working, I would have been able to hear his footsteps, or at least the heavy beating of my heart. His lips weren't moving, therefore he wasn't talking, but I was the one who wanted to talk. I wanted to ask him all the questions he had refused to answer back when I was in the hospital. That time seemed like years ago, when it had only realistically been about week.
When he stopped walking, he slowly laid me on the ground with a gentleness one would use when setting down a heavy crate on a ground made of eggshells. Only the slightest amount of pain decided to flare and make me wince. I looked up at him with blurry vision and realized he had chosen that moment to talk to me. Why was the world so cruel? I reached up slowly with the arm that could move and removed my hearing aid. He stopped talking and watched what I was doing, wondering why I would do such a thing when he was trying to tell me something. With the last bit of strength I had, I reached up with the arm that shouldn't have been able to move and clapped it over my hearing aid, in a manner that said that I was breaking it, even though it was already broken. He gently took my bad arm and laid it on ground and then took the hearing aid from my hand and set that on the ground, too. He took my good hand, the one I could actually move, and began tracing the words he had tried to tell me.
Your shoulder is dislocated. This is going to hurt really bad, but please don't scream.
My eyes went wide before I snapped them shut and braced myself for the pain. Before he could move his hand away, I had laced my fingers with his and was holding onto his hand for dear life. I bit my lip and bit back a scream as he yanked brutally on my arm, effectively snapping it into place in one lithe movement. I could taste the metallic tang of my blood from biting down on my lip too hard. The boy loosened the grip I had on his hand and, for a brief moment, my hand was cold. I opened my eyes and blinked away the tears that had formed and looked up at him. He was holding up a shredded piece of white cloth which, upon further examination, had come from the white sash he had wrapped around his body. From a small bottle, he doused the cloth in water and then began wiping my face with it. The coolness of the soaked cloth on my face made my body shudder. He wiped the blood on my mouth and then slid his free arm under my shoulders. He lifted me up from the ground just enough to tip the bottle of water against my lips and make me drink. I'll be honest, I drank every last drop of that water in such a way that would have embarrassed me, if this had been under normal circumstances. He set the empty bottle down on the ground and then laid me back down with it. He folded the cloth and placed it on my forehead. I grabbed his hand and stared up at him for a moment before I decided to ask my question.
What's your name?
He looked like he was really considering telling me who he was, but he didn't look happy about it. I knew there had been something wrong. He didn't want me to know who he was, and yet, I got the strange feeling that I knew him from somewhere, but the question was: when?
That was the only thing that mattered to me now. If there was nothing else I could figure out, this boy's name would be the one thing I would. One day, sooner or later, I would make him tell me. However, I wanted that day to be today, and I wanted that moment to be now. I tightened my hold on his hand, and with the arm that I really shouldn't have been moving at that point, I reached up and placed my hand on the back of his neck. With the weight of my arm that had now gone slack, I forced him down towards me. He was able to stop just before our lips touched and hovered over me, unable to move away. There were visible drops of sweat lining his brow, and it made me wonder if I was frustrating him just as much as he was frustrating me. I forced my hand to move up from his neck and into his hair. It was the strangest color of red I had ever seen, and yet, I figured that he just wouldn't look right without it. His hair was surprisingly soft, and I wondered briefly why I hadn't done this in the hospital. Then I realized the answer. I hadn't been nearly as delirious.
I think you're interested in him. You like sand-boy.
Naruto's words echoed through my mind. With his face so close to mine, I could see every detail with perfect clarity, even though my vision was impaired at the moment. I could see the flecks of almost white in his eyes, which were what made his eyes such a bright green. I could see just how black the outlines of his eyes were, and that, too, seemed to be the reason his eyes were so intriguing. I could see the shape of his lips and the shape of his jaw and nose and eyes. I trailed my hand down from the back of his head and down to his face. The pain was intense in my shoulder, but I ignored it and instead focused on the softness of his skin. He was warm against my cold hand. His eyes drooped closed of their own accord; seemingly against his will. My hand moved lower to his mouth, where I traced the shape of it with the tips of my fingers. My body tensed as another wave of pain shot through my shoulder. Sensing the new atmosphere, his eyes opened and he took my injured hand away from his face. His eyes, which had only moments ago held an expression of wonder, were now completely guarded. It was just like that moment in the hospital, where after I had traced my words into the palm of his hands, he couldn't conceal that same look of wonder in his eyes.
A dull and sudden ache started in my temples and it seemed like every time I blinked, I saw an image of a stormy night. My heart began to pick up in pace and I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth. I clenched my eyes shut and refused to let go of the boy's hand. He removed the cloth from my forehead and placed his free hand in the place it had previously vacated to check my temperature. Even though I was freezing cold, my body was burning like it was on fire. My breath was coming in short gasps, and I knew even without looking, that I was probably worrying him. What was wrong with me? Despite the pain, I had been just fine moments ago.
In a rippling image, like watching a movie in a pond during a rainstorm, I could see a young girl. She had short black hair and pale, pupilless brown eyes. Her skin was pale and she was thin and fragile looking, giving the impression that she was sickly. However, she suddenly flipped around with a grace that immediately made the previous impression dissipate. Looking in the same direction she was, there was a young boy, probably about the same age as her, with light green tanuki-like eyes and strangely colored and unruly red hair. The image faded until they were sitting beside each other, writing in what looked to be mud. The girl grabbed his hand and traced her question in his palm, and then without hesitation, he wrote his name in the mud.
Gaara.
I gasped and my eyes flew open. I stared up at the boy who hovered over me, who was clearly wondering what in the world was going on with me. My memories... I knew they had all been locked away so everyone could control me and lead me in the direction they wanted, or at least that's what I had believed, but there would have been no reason to tamper with my early memories as a child. Could this boy sitting beside me truly be the boy who had rescued me from a life of solitude? He had surely grown from that time, and it was a wonder I had been able to recognize him, even with the aid of my memories. He had changed so much, and even though back then he had been guarded just as he was now, he had allowed more expressions to come through. Now, being with him again, he didn't have those same slip-ups as he did back then. Had this memory been altered, too? Could this really be the boy who had saved me? I knew I couldn't hear what I was saying, but after talking and hearing the sounds of specific letters and vowels, I should be able to form a word without having to hear it. He knew I was fine now. He knew that and wanted to know what had just happened. He wouldn't answer my question, so my subconscious had somehow decided to answer it for me.
"Gaara..." The name felt right in my mouth, and I knew I had said it right. His guarded expression slipped and he seemed to completely forget that I was lying there in front of him. He stared down at me, opening his mouth as though he were about to say something, but he stopped himself. It was obvious now that he really was the boy from my memories. This was why he seemed so familiar. Somehow, my memories had been locked away, and yet, by sheer willpower, I'd drawn this one out. Did this mean I could do the same with all of my memories? I had no idea who I was or where exactly I had come from, but if I could forcefully draw out my memories, then I could remember everything and find out what had happened to me that had left me in the forest all alone for all those years. It was strange, and I had known it ever since I had been brought to the Leaf, that even then, being in the forest was the only thing I could remember. How could that even be possible?
I held his hand tighter, knowing that I was saying his name just right. There was no mistake about it; the expression in his eyes told me everything I needed to know, without ever having to hear a single word. I wanted to sit up and look him directly in his eyes and I wanted his hear his voice confirm that, yes, he was indeed the boy from my memories. But, briefly glancing over at the hearing aid on the ground, I realized that it was impossible. There would only be one way to get another hearing aid, and that would be to return to the village Hidden in the Sound, and I just didn't think that was possible. I felt his hand twitch in mine, and then he lifted it and stared down at our hands; our fingers were laced together, mainly because I had no intention of letting him run off when I had only just recognized him and remembered his name.
"Gaara... I knew... I remembered... you... from somewhere..." The words came out slowly and deliberately, so I could form each and every syllable perfectly so he would understand me. This moment was so different from when we had first met in a forest all those years ago. Both of us had been so young, and yet both of us had known the hurt of being alone. Even without asking him, it was evident in his eyes just how truly alone he had been. It was also different from now, because back then, I hadn't been injured and hadn't been able to form words to talk, even without a hearing aid. I hadn't known how to form a word, but now I did. I could talk, but he couldn't talk back. He looked amazed; his guarded expression had been completely forgotten, and it was obvious now that he was thinking about how it was possible that I had learned his name without him telling me it. Granted, it had taken a lot longer this way than it would have if he had just told me his name from the beginning, but I was enjoying this moment. Gaara hadn't even bothered to remove his hand from mine. He honestly didn't look capable of speech.
I had a sudden and horrible feeling that this moment would be the last one we would have truly to ourselves for a long time. I had finally remembered him on my own, and all I knew at this point was that it was going to be for naught. I wanted to prove that all I had wanted to know was his name, and that Naruto had been wrong about my feelings for this boy. But I didn't know if my experiment would give me the results I wanted. There was only one way to find out though, and if I was right about this bad feeling, then I needed to do this while I could. I forced my bad arm to move and reached up once more to place my hand on the back of his neck. His eyes still hadn't returned to their former guarded state, but he had at least snapped out of whatever trance he had been in. I knew from the first time that he had resisted, but as I pulled him closer to me, I met absolutely no resistance. There was still that wonder in his eyes, and from my past encounters with this boy, it made me wonder if he, too, wanted to attempt this. He wanted to understand why I, of all people most likely, had the ability to keep him on his toes. He didn't look like the type to get surprised, and he also didn't look like the type who liked surprises. I had a feeling that he wanted to prove just as much as I did that, wherever his thoughts had taken him, he was wrong.
He stopped just before our lips met, and I found myself becoming impatient. All he needed to do was lean forward and complete the experiment. If he was right, then he could just leave and we could forget this ever happened. Then I realized why he had stopped. What if we were right about this feeling our thoughts had taken us to. What if, after this experiment, we had concluded that the words only I had heard from Naruto were correct. Did I like Gaara? It just didn't seem possible, because I really had no idea who he was. And yet, I knew that if this experiment went the way I feared it would, there would be no doubt for my feelings for him. There was an undeniable lure; a relentless pull that made me want to know more about him. My patience was running thin, and I found myself trying to pull him towards me again, but all I succeeded in doing was just barely lifting myself off the ground. I let the muscles in my arm relax and fell back against the ground with a huff, and then Gaara did the most unexpected thing: he smiled. It wasn't a real smile, and it didn't reach his eyes. It was that same ghost of a smile that he had given me all those years ago when he had placed me in the care of Iruka-sensei.
Finally reaching a conclusion, a resolution I could see in his eyes, Gaara leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine. My heart was beating against my rib cage like a drum; faster than I imagined a bird's heartbeat would be. My hand slid up his neck and my fingers ran through his hair, closing around a fist full of it. I closed my eyes against my will and realized that Naruto had been right. I had never been kissed before, and yet when I thought about it, I imagined it didn't get any better than this. His lips were soft against against mine, and they held no urgency, and yet they were firmly pressed against my own. If I were to open my eyes, I could imagine that his were closed as well. If he had reached a different conclusion than I had, he probably would have pulled away from me by now, probably sooner. I was becoming short of breath, and I was rapidly getting lightheaded, but I had no desire for him to stop kissing me. I was injured and winded easily, but he was healthy, and didn't even appear as though he had engaged in battle. There wasn't a scratch on him. But unless I wanted to die, we had to stop. My hand loosened and I gasped as he pulled away from me, but I never opened my eyes. If I looked at him, I was afraid he might not have the same expression as I knew I would have. What if he really hadn't liked it, and had only continued kissing me because he knew I had liked it and took pity on me? Slowly, I allowed my eyes to open. He was staring down at me with slightly narrowed eyes, but there was no rude expression on his face. He looked like he was thinking through something very hard. Gaara wasn't looking at me, but through me. It was like I wasn't there.
I squeezed his hand to grab his attention, but instead of looking at me, he turned his head to the right as though someone had called his name. His eyes widened slightly as though he were caught off guard. He turned back to me, and pressed two fingers against my lips with one hand, and then closed my eyes with the other. Did he want me to pretend I was sleeping or something? I opened my eyes just enough to peek under my eyelashes, and saw that Gaara was arguing with the same boy and girl I had seen a little over a week ago. This was what had caught him off guard. When his comrades gestured towards me with a disdainful expression, Gaara glanced at me with an expression of apathy, but it wasn't right. There was another expression he wanted me to see, but that he didn't want those other people to see. He turned back to them and said something that made the girl go pale. My body shivered involuntarily, but then I felt Gaara's leg against mine. He had shifted towards me slightly without the other two people standing before him noticing. He knew I was watching but had realized it too late. I wondered briefly what he had said to her to make her pale the way she had.
I watched him wave them off, probably telling them he would meet up with them later and that he needed to do something. It just seemed like something he would have said, since they had found him sitting here with me. Naturally, they were probably curious as to what he had been doing, but he had led them away for now, and that was all that mattered. He grabbed my hand and began tracing his words into my palm. It was funny how habitual it all seemed now.
I'm going to take you to the tower. With that guy in your team, I'm pretty sure that they'll pass. I'll set you in front of your door and you'll wait for your team there. That's as much as I can do. I can't heal you, and I can't take you with me to wait with my team. We've already completed the challenge. I'll leave you with water and some food. I'm sorry.
As he picked me up, the pain intensified. I hadn't realized then just how bad it was whenever we were moving. I had ignored it for many reasons over the period of time we had been sitting there, and none of those reasons I regretted. He was running for what seemed like forever, but soon we reached the tower. He set me in front of the huge double doors and brushed my hair out of my eyes, letting his hand linger for a moment before he turned and ran back in the direction his team had gone. The pain was steadily getting worse, so I carefully positioned myself in a way that didn't hurt as bad. I reached up and touched my lips, remembering for a moment the brief moment we had shared before we had been interrupted. Naruto had been right about Gaara.
For once in my life, I had incorrectly analyzed the situation.
