SweetStealer: Wow, I've gone pretty far...
Notes:// I'll be relasing during the week so keep watching for the chapters!
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CHAPTER 13
Neji couldn't help but feel put out. Kiba and Shino had beat him to seeing Hinata for the first time in days. As he looked her over, for the first time in his life, Hinata made him feel...afraid.
She was dangerously pale and looked so fragile...as if she would break if he, or anyone else, touched her. Her white dress hung limp around her figure, but was still fitting. Neji noticed the lack of the formal kimono or yukata. Just a plain white dress that was a little above the knee, with a red ribbon under her bust.
'So her color is red now...' he thought as he approached her.
Hinata turned to him, their eyes fully meeting for the first time in ages. He realized how cold and empty they looked, so unliked the fullness of warmth she had always shown them before.
Kiba and Shino also turned. They were standing outside the Hyuuga household, feeling uncomfortable. Kiba was in a loose blue shirt with dark blue cargo pants. His jacket was tied carelessly around his waist and Akamaru was at his feet.
Neji watched as Kiba reached out to touch Hinata's bandaged arm but drew back and sighed.
'He must feel guilter then me.' Neji thought, eyeing the physical damage Kiba and Akamaru had done.
Shino was in his white jacket and looked about the same. Same sunglasses, same hair, same pants, same jacket...same mystery. Neji wondered whether the blue butterfly sitting ontop of Hinata's head was due to him.
"Nii-san." Hinata greeted quietly, her voice as empty as her eyes.
"Hinata-sama." Neji stopped in front of them.
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Neji did something totally out of character for him.
He hugged Hinata.
Hinata didn't make any move to get out of his way as he drew her into a tight embrace. She was still so small compared to him...so fragil and weak.
Neji felt tears. He never cried. He never showed any emotion towards her before, and he wondered whether it was guilt or relief that brought them on. He decided it was both.
Now, salty liquid drops of pain leaked out of his eyes as he managed to say,
"I'm sorry. Forgive me...for everything..."
Hinata gently put her arms around him and looked at her exahusted cousin's back. He was gripping her tightly, as if he didn't want to let her go. For the first time in a long time, she smiled gently, as if to understand...it was still a dark, hesitant smile, but it was enough to raise his heart a fraction of a milimeter.
Kiba went around and hesitantly put his arms around his former teammate also. Unlike Neji, Kiba burst into tears and sobbed full out. He had lost so much sleep knowing he was the cause for a lot of the blood loss. He had been so worried...so insanely worried over her. She was, after all,...like his little sister.
Hinata just stood there, outside her former home, with two great and powerful shinobi crying on her. Shino just stood there. He had never been one to show emotion and he wasn't about to now. He just went over, squeezed Hinata's hand and wouldn't let go.
"Hiashi-sama will see you now." a sharp voice cut through their reunion like ice.
They all looked up. A man from the Main house was there to greet them, his eyes mysterious. The white was tinted with flecks of gold. He bowed low and motioned for them to follow him. Hinata gazed at him and the man's eyes flashed.
Kiba and Shino looked at each other.
"We'll wait out here." Shino offered quietly. Hinata was amazed at how deep his voice had gotten.
She nodded and entered into the familiar home. The servent walked at an infuriating slow pace with Hinata and Neji trailing behind him. The house was a silent and as cold as she remembered it.
So cold...
Hinata watched as a passing maid gasped, and dropped the stack of small boxes she was holding, and then looked down. She knelt down to pick up the boxes only to find that Hinata was in front of her, the boxes neatly stacked up in her arms. She handed them back without so much as a word.
"Hinata-sama..." the nurse bowed again.
They continued down the long corridors that led to her father's private office. Light footfalls were heard coming down the hall way. Hinata and Neji activated their Byakugan only to find-
"Nee-chan?"
Hanabi had thrown herself onto Hinata and cried into her dress. Everyone seemed to cry when they saw her. To Hinata, whose heart was still cold, it was almost annoying and disgusting, but she allowed her sister a hug. She had somewhat missed her.
"Hanabi..." Hinata murmured.
Even though they had been separated for two years, it felt more like 50 to the reuniting sisters.
"Father is expecting you." Hanabi rubbed her eyes and she stepped back.
"I hear you're going into questioning." Hinata smiled gently and took her sister's hand.
Hanabi nodded seriously and Hinata gave a laugh. Hanabi hesitantly smiled. It was a rather odd reunion for her. But she knew something was off...Hinata had changed.
Her laugh had been empty.
"Hurry up." the servent snapped and Neji gently tugged on his cousins' arms.
Upon arriving at the door, Hinata didn't need to knock. Her father could already see her through the door, his Byakugan activated. Hinata didn't need at genius to figure that out. She opened the door.
"I'm here," she whispered, hands clasped together and eyes staring straight ahead.
Hinata watched as Hiashi went around to face her. He had been standing at the window, his features weathered and aged as time worked furiously against his body. His rough hands were cracked with scars and withered with age. His face had deep lines of worry and pain.
Her eyes widened in surprise, her hands twitching as her old habit of bringing her hands to her mouth surfaced. She expected him to glare, to hiss, to taunt her. She expected him to shout, to disown her, to drive her out. She expected anything but this.
Oh how old he looked!
A heavy silence filled the chamber as Hiashi, head bent, turned to face a ghost from his haunted past. His white eyes, dark rimmed from insomnia, and slightly bloodshot from worry, gazed on at the beauty before him. She looked like her mother, and it pained him to remember even more cracked faces.
They continued to stare.
How long have I been waiting?
"Are you ready to accept the concequences of your actions?" he asked her, his voice breaking.
"I am." she murmured, eyes closing.
He rushed at her.
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Hinata shut her eyes and waited for the hardness of the familiar Juuken she was prepared to defend herself against. But the Juuken never hit. Instead, warm arms envloped her and her father latched onto his daughter's body and cried.
Hinata relaxed, her body loosening up against an action she had so desperately wanted as a child. But time works in various ways. Hiashi was old, and Hinata was breaking. She could feel the shell that Itachi had worked so hard to put up, crack straight down the middle and fall to shattered pieces.
"I will never forgive myself-"
Hinata couldn't move as her father's words penetrated her heart. In truth, she hadn't missed him...so how had he missed her? After everything she went through?
She bit her lip.
Fate was being nasty to her.
Hiashi sighed and you could pratically feel unhappiness and regret seeping off of him.
"Some father I am..." he muttered, as he let of of Hinata and slumped into his brown leather chair, worn with age like its owner.
Hinata stood very still, confused as to what happened. Hiashi watched her with tired and defeated eyes. Hinata stared back. He realized, that she looked so empty... it was the same expression that she had when her mother had died.
Itachi said there was no going back.
"You look so much like her..." he whispered.
Hinata bit back tears of regret and fear. Her mother had not been mentioned in over nine years. This wasn't right. Guilt worked under her skin...pieces of her old life came floating back, putting themselves into her empty heart like a puzzle, filling the space where Itachi's shell had once been.
He said I would die.
The girl supressed a sob and resisted the urge to hug her father as he put his head in his hands and get that tired look that fathers get. It clawed at her heart, pushing away all of Itachi's teachings and warnings about the fragilness of the ever emotional heart.
But he was wrong.
"Hinata. You will be interrogated tomorrow. You will be staying with us until then." Hiashi said, quietly, turning to face the window where light streamed in.
The reply caught in Hinata's throat and she murmured the words that could destroy all that she ever believed and worked for.
I went back.
"H-hai, Otou-san."
So why am I still alive?
Outside, the servant stiffened, narrowed his golden eyes and shot off when the younger Hyuuga and her elder cousin vanished from sight. The servant slipped out through the back gate and into the awaiting forest.
This was news worth spilling to Itachi.
Afterall, Sasori need to know Hinata's situation before any of them could form a plan.
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