Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me
Chapter 11
The droplets of water glistered on her pale skin under the hot afternoon sun. Her hands moved above her head before extending before her like feather wings. Her eyes were closed as her legs moved steadily on the surface of the river.
She tried to concentrate while using a technique passed down to the women of the Hyugas. It was something that resembled a ritual yet it was in all truth a combination of training and meditation that her mother had taught her about when she was still too young to understand anything.
Her delicate fingers moved ever so slightly, disturbing the peacefulness of the flowing water. She had to concentrate, yet the image of the woman that had brought her to life didn't seem to leave her mind lately. Ever since the Uchiha had mentioned her, she found it hard to store her memories in the back of her head once more and let go of them. She had taught herself to not think of anything those past years. She had thought that if she could let everything go, everything that made her vulnerable, she would grow stronger. Because as her father always told her, memories and people, only caused emotions that made her weak. And she had tried, she had truly tried. The memory of her mother was the first thing that she tried to let go of, while Naruto was the second.
Hundreds of droplets started raising from the surface of the water and swirled in a circle in the air around her.
She had loved him, Naruto already knew that. She had loved him ever since she was a child, yet that was a kind of love different from what an adult would experience. She loved his happy personality, his loyalty, his passion and will to help those around him. She loved him because he smiled the brightest even when he was the saddest because he was willing to encourage her when he felt discouraged. And she had told him when Pain almost killed them both. And as she grew up she understood that she would always love him, that he would always have a place in her heart, and that her hand would always be extended for him. But getting older she realized that this was more of a platonic love, that derived from admiration towards the boy with the sparkling blue eyes. She loved him because in his eyes she saw everything she had ever wanted to be, a person that never gave up, a kunoichi that moved on despite all odds, all the while keeping her humanity. And when the Uzamaki proposed to her, she was sure that this love towards him was totally different from the one she wished to experience as a young woman. She had denied his proposal, looking at him with eyes that said sorry. She had leaned in giving him a small peck on the cheek. Nothing had ever happened between them yet he was willing to help her all he could. She knew all of this, but she would never drag him in a marriage that would destroy them both.
The droplets swirled more and more around her as she raised her arms at the height of her shoulders. She was trying to stop the memories coming, yet as she turned her palms up towards the sky, she felt as if she could feel her mother hand on her again.
She had touched her hand like that a long time ago when she could still barely walk without stumbling forward. They were sitting by the bond with the koi fish at the Tsuki garden in the Hyuga compound. She had taken her small hand in hers, caressing it softly, all the while looking at her lovingly. She was beautiful she remembered, sitting there with her long blue hair falling like a smooth waterfall around her face and shoulders. She would touch her bulging stomach from time to time, telling her young daughter that she would be the greatest big sister. And then she showed her that magic trick Hinata always liked watching. Raising her hand above the surface of her small pond, Hinata watched as below her mother's fingers small droplets of water started raising in the air. Watching the excitement in her daughter's eyes, Hikari let the droplets drop, before taking her daughter's hand in hers and bringing it above the water's surface as well. Cupping the back of her hand as her small palm faced the blue sky above them, Hinata felt a warmth that made her hand tingle a bit.
"A shinobi's soul shall be like the water", her mother had said, "gentle yet wild". Tiny droplets of water raised in the air as the small girl had looked on excited. "cold but also warm".
She had started chuckling happily back then, looking at the droplets around her, mesmerized she had managed to do something like that. Yet now all she could think about is that she couldn't recall any other moment in her life that she had been happier.
Closing her fists the droplets took the form of thick needles. Then she felt it. A strong yet familiar chakra signature coming closer and closer. She quickly swirled around with the water needles doing the same and with a swift move of her hands the needles lunched forward, smashing on the trees next to the river.
"Interesting", she heard the man say and her eyes opened at once.
She looked intently at him, as she walked towards the shore with steady and slow steps.
"But let me make a remark", he said as he raised his hand to wipe the little blood that ran across his earlobe, where a water needle had previously scratched him. "If you wanted to kill me then I suppose you should perfect your aiming skills".
"If I truly wanted to kill you", she said as she set foot on the ground once more. "Then I would have done so a long time ago".
She was serious. Too serious for his own liking. The smirk fell from his face as he watched her take her kimono-like blouse from the ground so to throw it over her small black top that she was already wearing. His eyes lingered on her figure for some time, taking in the small barely seen muscles on her lean stomach, her small waist, her larger hips...
He coughed, bringing a hand to his lips, once he caught Hinata staring back at him with a blush all over her face. What had gotten into him, staring at her like that? Uchiha Sasuke was not a man to be driven by passion, he was not a man chasing after women or losing his time fantasizing about them. Naruto would always make fun of him, stating that the Uchiha would grow old with a dozen of cats walking around his house. It wasn't that he didn't yearn for the company and small touches of a woman, yet he had always been preoccupied with other things, so much even that he hadn't even dared to dream of something like that. To him, something like this would just be left as a dream. Because he could never have that kind of life. A man who had seen his whole family be slaughterer, a man whose brother had died in his arm, a man who had sought revenge... a man who had set to destroy everything and everyone... he was a man like that once... a man damaged to the bone... a man that didn't deserve any of this, that didn't deserve a happy ending. It had never passed his mind that he would ever be able to become the man that would return home, to a loving wife and kids. He just couldn't. Yet for some strange reason, his eyes always seemed to seek the form of a certain woman lately. The same woman that was now walking in front of him without exchanging a single word with him.
"That technique...", he said still walking a few steps behind her. "I've never seen you use that one before. What was it?"
He was trying to begin a conversation, trying to hear her say just anything. It had been five days since he met Satomi in the village of Miru, and day by day Hinata grew more and more silent and distant.
"Chakra control", she said. "It was showed to me by my mother".
She walked faster, making it pretty clear that she had no interest in carrying any kind of conversation with him at the moment.
A hand reached out, grabbing her arm. He turned her around, making the Hyuga heiress look straight at him, something she hadn't done as much lately.
"What's wrong?", he said, his voice sounding demanding. He looked at her face, trying to see that excitement and childish contentment once more, those expressions that were gracing every inch of her face all those days back. Yet he found none and for some reason, it bothered him a lot.
Hinata just looked into his eyes for a moment. He was holding onto her, not letting her go for even a moment. Then she let her eyes take in his appearance. He was dressed in his shinobi clothes and cloak, while his bandaged hand was still holding his katana. Ever since his secret meeting with the leader of the Tea houses in the village of Miru, Sasuke had taken them to a small hut in the woods a few kilometers away from the village. It only served as a place to stay for a few days in case of missions, much like the cave back in the Land of Rain. Yet, instead of spending just a couple of nights there to rest, Sasuke had prolonged their stay in the hut. For five days he would get dressed in the morning and disappear in the woods for hours without giving her any reasonable explanation of where he was going. She had offered to accompany him, yet he always left her behind, not bothering to even give her any excuses.
"Nothing", she said and then it hit her. That smell. That woman's scent that was all over him almost every time he returned from his mini-expeditions. The same smell that was all over the silk handkerchief with the sakura blossoms she had seen laying on the wooden table in the hut the other day.
Her facial features hardened ever so slightly. She tried to take her hand from within his grasp, yet the Uchiha didn't seem to let her go.
"Hyuga!", Sasuke said, more demanding this time.
"Stop calling me that!", she couldn't help but blurt out angrily, taking him aback. "I'm not just that. I'm not just a Hyuga".
He looked at the girl, sure that the expression his face carried at that very moment betrayed his surprise. Yet it didn't take him long to understand the meaning behind her words. Hyugas... Uchihas... all they ever were to others was determined by the name of the clan they carried upon their shoulders since the day they were born. At first, he was the Uchiha orphan, then he became the Uchiha traitor and after his redemption, he was just the last Uchiha. But Hinata had suffered a similar fate. All she was called her whole life was the Hyuga heiress, the Hyuga princess. He had thought that too at first, of how she was just all what the people around her used to call her. But she was more than that... much more than that.
"What's wrong?", he repeated, more sternly this time. He knew that this was not what had made Hinata so skeptical and distant those five past days.
She looked on the ground for a moment, trying not to lose her patience.
"You've been disappearing for days now", she said, keeping her calm as much as she could. "The women back in the village of Miru... I don't know if you have been visiting them regularly and I... I don't even care if you do. But I'm being left here, every day-"
"Are you jealous?", he suddenly said, interrupting her. Hinata looked at him through wide eyes.
"I-"
"You think I've been spending time with other women... is that what has been bothering you?", a smirk played on his lips once more. He was obviously teasing her, yet that only resulted in her getting angrier.
"Jealous?", Hinata said with a trembling voice. "Is that what you think my only problem with you might be?". Her eyebrows furrowed. "I've been following you for around one and a half months now... and after what I saw with my own eyes at the hideout where we found the scroll, I decided to follow you willingly. You had said it was just curiosity that pushed me towards walking beside you. My family has been involved in all this... in all this matter that I still don't understand what it truly is about. You told me about the Hyuga that has been chasing us... about that Raven... and then there are those scrolls that only I can see", she gulped, trying to keep down the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. "The Hyuga clan is involved in something big here. And I wanted to stop them from causing any more harm. Yet you've still told me nothing of what you're looking for, of what is in the Land of Iron that everyone seems to be looking for...".
He stared at her silently, his grip slowly loosening from around her arm, as he saw angry tears welling up in her eyes.
"I could leave...", she continued. "I had many chances to do so. I could have killed you ore left you to die at that cave, but I could never bring myself to do that. I healed you... yet you never trusted me...".
His hand fell on his side again, completely letting go of her now.
"You just wanted my eyes to guide you...", she said, wiping away those angry tears that couldn't help but stain her face. "You wanted me to be used as a tool... just like everyone else".
He just stood there as she turned her back on him, not waiting to hear his response. And his eyes stayed glued on her retreating form until he saw her closing the wooden door of the small hut behind her.
Sasuke walked through the dark corridor of the large house, with the moon shining through the windows being the only thing that lit up his way. He had stayed outside the hut, sitting under a large oak tree, just watching at the wooden door that Hinata had closed behind her. And he had stayed there for hours until the sun started setting in the sky. But the woman never came out.
The blade of his katana shined under the moonlight, as his black eye slowly turned into red.
He could have just gone in there and explain, but he just couldn't bring himself to do so. He had never found himself in a position like that before, and it was easy to say that he felt lost. Explaining though would have made things easier for them both though. Because he could have told her about how all those days he was just spying on the daimyo's advisor that Satomi had asked for Sasuke to teach a lesson to, in exchange for the name of the man that would give him valuable information considering the Raven. He had also met her once or twice, for she had made sure to provide him with information that would help him enter Hironaka Daiki's impregnable house. He needed to find the man at a day and time when his security system would be at its lowest. He couldn't just burg in killing Hironaka's men and causing havoc, or it would be just a matter of time before he was found out by both the Hyugas and Kakashi.
A mask was covering his features, revealing just his eyes. He walked slowly towards the end of the corridor when two men guarding Hironaka's office caught sight of him. They ran towards him, but it only took a couple of blows for Sasuke to bring them to their knees. He caught them by their necks, raising them high before smashing their bodies on the wall. Not letting them go he let his Sharingan pierce their minds, throwing them into a genjutsu out of which they would probably come out mad.
Releasing the strong hold on their necks, he simply let them fall on the wooden floor. He headed for the door again, as his eye turned back to its original black color once more. The men would never be in their right minds to provide information considering the man who attacked them, but he couldn't do the same to Hideoki. If it became known that one of the Earth daimyo's advisors was suddenly murdered or gone mad, Sasuke would make it easier for everyone to find out about him and his plan.
He threw the leaves of the door open, only to see a frightened Hironaka trying to find a place to cover himself from any possible attack. He had most probably already heard of the commotion outside his office, and he had understood that someone was coming for him.
"Please... please...", the fifty-year-old lord said in a trembling voice as Sasuke walked towards him.
He grabbed the man by the collar of his yukata, before pushing him to crush hard against his desk. Pieces of paper and many other of the lord's belongings scattered all over the floor, all the while Daiki begged for Sasuke's mercy. Punching him a couple of times on the face was enough for some of the man's blood to spiel on the expensive fabric of his yukata.
"They've told me you've been causing trouble lately lord Hironaka...", Sasuke said, as he grabbed him by the collar once more. He dragged the scared and begging man across the room. "They sent me here to give you a message..."
He then threw him with force against a wooden bookcase with glass doors. The man smashed against the glass, breaking it into hundreds of pieces. He then collapsed on the floor, with his back resting against the bookcase.
"This is your message Hironaka...", Sasuke said, throwing the silk handkerchief with the cherry blossoms on the man's lap.
The man breathed heavily, all the while averting his face from the Uchiha.
Sasuke raised his katana, letting the sharp blade to rest lightly on the man's lips.
"That mouth of yours... If I hear it caused trouble again, I promise you... I will shut it forever".
Hinata laid on the old bed lost in her thoughts. The words she had exchanged with Sasuke that same day were playing over and over in her mind. She had closed herself in that hut, but even though she had expected for the Uchiha to come barging in, Sasuke never came. Instead, she had seen him with her byakugan, sitting outside for hours, before disappearing once more.
She turned on her left side, sighing.
She had spent many hours thinking and she felt like a headache had now started to form. And as the Uchiha's face passed her mind once more, her eyes caught sight of the map, laying open atop of the wooden table at the other side of the room. She slowly stood up and walking towards the table she took a seat. Her hands touched the ends of the scroll as she activated her byakugan. She ran her eyes over the route leading up to the land of Iron once more as if trying to find something different from before. Yet, as her eyes landed on the part of the map where the land of iron was outlined, she focused on that small mark that signaled their destination. It was made out of three small circles and it had seemed weird to her from the start that someone would put a mark like that on a map. She leaned back on her chair, feeling kind of defeated.
It just probably bears no meaning at all, she thought. Then, her eyes caught sight of a different object laying on the wooden surface.
"Sasuke's necklace", she whispered to no one in particular as she took it in her hands. The tips of her fingers ran over the small object, taking in its simple yet delicate design. Sasuke had told her before, how it belonged to his long lost brother, Itachi. Yet as she ran her fingers over the three small metallic circles of the necklace now, she found herself almost dropping the precious memento on the floor, as realization suddenly hit her.
She immediately laid the necklace next to the mark on the map.
"It can't be...", she murmured in disbelief. "...Itachi...". What Sasuke was looking for, it had to do with his brother.
Her head popped up at once, her byakugan checking the perimeter of the hut once she sensed the presence of many different chakra signatures quickly coming towards the hut.
She immediately stood up and grabbing both the map and the necklace, she rushed to hide them under the mattress of the bed.
She only had enough time to grab her small katanas when the wooden door flew open and four men dressed in black shinobi clothes and masks that covered their faces rushed inside. They launched right at her with an intent to kill and she knew that she couldn't hold back.
Her blades crushing against the ones of the first ninja, Hinata kicked the next one with leg brushing against his stomach, making him stumble back a little. But at just that moment, the man in front of her smashed her hands away, before punching her in the face with the back of one of his daggers. She took a few unstable steps back, as blood started running from her now open and bruised lips. But as the same ran at her again with his daggers ready to cut her throat open, she immediately fell on her one knee. Quickly swirling around she managed a deep cut on his lower abdomen. The other shinobi that she had previously kicked, came pointing his own blade at her, but he was reckless. The Hyuga heiress grabbed the man she had just injured and putting him before her own body, she watched as his comrade's blade came crashing through his back, ultimately taking his life.
The first shinobi fell dead on the wooden floor, with his comrade's blade still sticking out of his body. But as the second ninja looked on in shock, Hinata found the opportunity to quickly and masterfully throw one of her blades at him, taking his life as well.
The other blade fell from her hand, as the other two shinobi that were only until now sitting at the back of the room ran towards her with great malice. They had expected that their comrades would have been more than enough to take out a woman, yet now, they only thing they wished for, was for her blood to be spilled upon the wooden floor.
Looking at them through wild byakugan eyes, light in the shape of lions engulfed her fists. But they didn't come to her one by one this time. The two men circled her making her look like an animal that was being hunted down. She received hits from both sides, yet she made sure to counter each and every one of them. But as one of the two ninjas fell unmoving on the floor, the other moved his hands and before Hinata could react what seemed to be large thick roots emerged from the ground. She let out a cry of agony as they entangled themselves all around her, lifting her in the air.
"It's over", she heard the ninja say, all the while keeping his jutsu strong. "Where's the map?"
The roots seemed to be clenching her body more and more, with each passing second, cutting through her skin and making it impossible for her to breathe.
"I", she breathed out with difficulty, as the roots seemed to cover every inch of her body now. "I'm not g-going to tell you anything".
Something in her eyes made the man start sweating, and as he was about to end it as quickly as possible, the twin lion fists engulfed her hands once more, breaking the roots that had been previously covering them up.
The man's hands trembled, making his jutsu weaker for a moment. That gave her the chance to cut through the binds around her body and jump forward. The man's hands moved fast, creating hand signs that made more and more of these thick roots to burst out from the ground. He tried to catch her again, but this time, she proved to be faster than him. Her fists found the crying man's heart twice, before he collapsed on the wooden floor, barely moving. The light died down from around her hands.
She felt her legs tremble and give out as her byakugan deactivated. She fell on her knees and her back rested against the wooden wall behind. She looked at the dead bodies on the floor breathing heavily. But it took her only a few seconds to understand that she was still in danger.
Her head immediately jerked towards the entrance of the hut, only to see a cloaked figure standing there suddenly. Her hands blindly checked for any possible weapons laying on the floor next to her, as the figure approached her slowly. The intruder kneeled down to her level and a pale hand came to grab Hinata's face, making the young woman stare in the eyes of her intruder. But what she saw, made her freeze.
White byakugan eyes stared back at her, eyes that belonged to a woman not much older than her.
She was that same woman Sasuke had been talking about the other day, the one whose men had attacked back in the Land of Rain as well. But when she thought the woman would simply try and take her life, she felt the hold around her face loosening.
"Hikari", the woman mumbled.
Well hello there! I'm back with a new chapter and booyyy if Sasuke didn't make Hinata mad!
So there were a few things I wanted to explain in a more understandable way in this chapter. First of all I wanted to explain how I view Hinata's and Naruto's relationship. Being a 22-year-old woman myself, I've learned that there can be differents kinds of love: the love of a parent or a friend, platonic love and passionate love. So, in my eyes Hinata's love towards Naruto, considering that she had had those feelings towards him ever since a very young age, was more of a platonic kind of love. You know that kind of love that will always warm your hand and that one never forgets. I also wanted to show the contrast between this platonic kind of love and the passionate love that one usually experiences as an adult, the kind of love that drives you crazy, that would make you throw yourself in front of a bullet just to make sure the one you love is alright. But that is merely the perspective I wanted to show in this story, it doesn't mean that I'm unhappy with how the events in Naruto actually played out.
Also a few key facts to keep in mind.
-Hikari Hyuga is Hinata's mother
-Shiori Hyuga is the woman Sasuke has been looking for, yet unlike us he only knows that she is a Hyuga and that people call her the Raven.
-The Tsuki Garden (which we've also seen previously in this story) is located in the middle of the Hyuga compound and the name I've given it actually means "Moon Garden"
- The handkerchied Sasuke was carrying and which he threw on Hironaka's lap was the one given to him by Satomi so that Hironaka understood that the 'message' was sent by her.
- Sasuke has two hands in my story, the one of which is a prosthetic much like the one Naruto has. One-arm-Sasuke is hella cool, yet I gave him both arms so to hug Hinata better I guess lol.
Alsoooo I'm IN LOVE with each and every one of your comments and I so love hearing your opinions. Hope to hear from you all soon!
See ya!