Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto there would be Byakuugan babies everywhere! So I guess it's not mine.
Hinata-18, 35 weeks pregnant
Neji-19
Warnings: Language, mild blood
"All persons are puzzles until at last we find in some word or act the key to the man, to the woman; straightway all their past words and actions lie in light before us"
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Chapter 20: Abdominal Cramps
Though neither one of them would ever dare admit even in the privacy of their own minds (let alone aloud) Hyuuga Neji and Hanabi were actually very much alike in many ways (including their explosive tempers, probably the biggest reason they couldn't cordially stand one another for longer than a minute). For starters they both displayed many of the more common Hyuuga traits in abundance, such as being prideful and, quite often, arrogant. They both held themselves with the same air of confidence, sure of themselves in nearly everything they did, and they always seemed able to do just about everything well. Unless, of course, you counted getting along with other people. That was habitually a failure on both their parts.
And like Neji, who had managed to outgrow some of his less than pleasant tendencies, especially where others were concerned, Hanabi was slowly beginning to do the same herself. Lately, the teammates she used to look upon with undisguised disdain had begun to grow on her. And while she still thought of Kaoru as annoying and immature and Masato as weak and a bit lazy... well, maybe they weren't truly all that bad. In fact, maybe her expanding tolerance towards them could someday morph into something more. Maybe she could someday come to like them.
Maybe they could even be her first real friends.
That being said, it wasn't a surprise that when Kaoru had decided to get her ears pierced not long ago and invited Hanabi to do the same, the young Hyuuga had barely even hesitated. It had nothing to do with the piercings themselves, she neither liked nor disliked the little pieces of decoration, it was just the fact that someone had asked her to do something with them. Her. She had been invited to do some fairly intimate bonding with someone her age who, quite frankly, she was pretty sure was a bit afraid of her. Never before had anything of the sort happened. Of course she wasn't taking the damn things out.
Not that she had bothered to explain any of that to her father, but really... If she said she wasn't going to do something, then she wasn't going to do it. He should know that by now.
"Hey, how about we get something to eat?" Masato piped up suddenly, turning to the two girls with raised brows. "Ramen. My treat."
As Kaoru nodded her enthusiasm at the idea, Hanabi merely shrugged, an action her teammates had learned to decipher as a definite positive answer. After all, it wasn't only them growing on her.
Walking up to Ichiraku's, the three young genin all paused, staring with wide eyes at the scene before them. Two older chuunin, both of whom Hanabi recognized as friends of her sister and cousin, one of them Neji's teammate even, were arguing... to put it mildly. More it was like they were yelling, screaming at each other, attracting quite a bit of attention from passerby, and would very likely have escalated things to physical violence had a very green young man not been standing resolutely between them, begging both fruitlessly to calm down. Or at least lower their voices. Because everyone in the near vicinity heard it loud and clear when the brunette of the pair snapped, "It had nothing to do with them liking each other! He slept with Hinata when she ordered him to!"
Hanabi didn't need to hear anything more than that. She saw red. "That's not true!"
Any retort Tenten may have had died immediately, seeing as how it hadn't been Ino who had answered her accusation. Swiveling around and scanning the (she winced) small crowd that had gathered, her gaze finally landed on a flushed face framing white eyes. Which earned another cringe.
Hanabi honestly didn't have a clue what was going on, but she was far from stupid. That bun-haired girl who was on Neji's team had just seriously insulted her sister. What's more, she had a feeling the previously mentioned 'he' was, in fact, Neji himself. Which just made the whole statement all the more ridiculous. Hinata order Neji? To do anything? To do... that?
Clenching her fists repeatedly, brows drawing down sharply in anger, the small girl insisted once more, "That's not true at all! Hinata isn't like that!"
Tenten glanced around, almost as if looking for a way out, before sighing a bit. Despite any ill will she might currently be feeling towards the girl, she had never meant for Hinata's little sister to hear that. She did her best to ignore the guilt gnawing insistently at her stomach. "Look, kid—"
"No, you look!" Hanabi's chest heaved with the intensity of her anger. How dare this stupid bitch? How dare she say things like that about Hinata? How dare she! "Hinata would never do something like that! Never! And she would never do anything to hurt Neji!" She felt her body begin to quake, muscles tensing beyond their usual limit. Why on earth did this bother her so much? "Hinata's one of the nicest people in the whole world! She's too nice to do something like that to anyone! Especially not him! She— she cares for him! And he cares about her too, even if he is a jerk, I know he does! Just..." Her voice softened as she swallowed convulsively, trying desperately to reign herself in. "Just look at how happy he makes her."
A soft hand on her shoulder and Masato's gentle, "Calm down, Hanabi," were enough for her to grasp the remaining threads of her anger and keep ahold of it. He was right, she shouldn't have flown off the handle like that. She was a Hyuuga, dammit.
As if she needed another reminder of this last statement, the girl suddenly felt a very... ominous presence appear directly behind her, forcing her to shudder a bit when her teammate's warm hand fell away. What—
"Well now, what do we have here? Causing a scene in the middle of the street? Such disgraceful behavior."
That voice. Shit, that voice was—
"What, pray tell, do you have to say for yourself, Hanabi-sama?"
Fuck, it was Hideki. Deep breaths. She had to take slow, deep breaths, school her face into its usual sneer, couldn't let the man see how much he unnerved her—
"Hey, she didn't do anything wrong!" a voice suddenly cried as Kaoru shouldered her way to stand beside the shorter girl. "She was just defending her sister!"
Oh, for the love of— Hanabi wanted to tell the other girl to just shut up, that this wasn't any of her business, it was clan affairs, but... well, it felt nice the way her teammate had immediately jumped to her defense. In fact, despite the rather dire situation, it nearly made her smile.
"Ah yes, another matter of precedence," the man purred, clearly paying no mind to the brash genin. "I couldn't... help but overhear a few very interesting things." His gaze lingered on the very uncomfortable-looking Ino and Tenten for a brief moment before drilling holes into the back of a dark head once more. "Very enlightening things. Perhaps you could clear up a few misconceptions for me, Hanabi-sama? Since you seem to know about the situation with your dear sister so well."
Hanabi didn't need to turn around. She didn't need to look into Hideki's cold eyes of frost. She didn't need to see the terrifying, triumphant smile stretched obscenely across his face. She still didn't know just what the hell was going on; but she knew somehow, for some reason, Hinata was in trouble.
~To protect what's precious~
"Okay... all right, so it was after that mission. What... what exactly do you remember, Inuzuka? Exactly."
Kiba frowned, giving Neji a long look. He didn't know what, but something here was obviously wrong. The Hyuuga was starting to get really agitated, and even more than that, he was actually showing it. Outwardly. That in itself was enough to set the dog-nin on alert.
"Well, at first everything was fine, though Hinata was actin' kinda weird. We sealed the guy's body up in a scroll, brought it back, turned it in to the Hokage, all the usual stuff. Hinata was fine. Then..." He got a pained look on his face as the memories began to come towards the surface. "Things just started feelin'... off. First of all, unless we were training or practically begged her it kinda felt like... like Hinata was avoiding us, y'know? And then, she started with this whole 'no touching' thing." He paused to contemplate his words. "I mean, she never actually said anything like that, but..."
A small pout stole across his features. "Hina-chan used to hug us, like, all the time, and then one day... it just stopped. We didn't know what was goin' on. Then... then it just got worse. If we went to touch her, I mean at all, she would sorta... go all stiff and pull away. We tried to get her to go see someone, but she just kept sayin' she was fine."
Neji eyed him carefully. "You didn't agree."
The look Kiba gave him in answer made him feel about as bright as an earthworm. "Well, I dunno, Hyuuga, I kinda thought she was sufferin' from PTSD or a type of delayed stress syndrome, but you're much smarter'n me. Tell me, oh wise one, what would you call it when a fairly tactile person suddenly couldn't stand basic human contact without flinchin'? When their stutter, a nervous habit that was almost gone, suddenly got worse'n it ever was?"
"I wasn't trying to argue, Inuzuka." Neji meant for the words to have some bite, but really he just sounded... tired. "What is the worst instance you can recall?"
"You mean her worst reaction? Well, one time..." Kiba bit his lip nearly hard enough to draw blood. "One time when I came up behind her, went to put my arms around her, just hug her like I've always done... She screamed." Here he barked out a bitter laugh, looking like he may very well start to cry. "She screamed because of me and jumped away, kinda curling in on herself... Neji," brown eyes sought out ivory beseechingly, "what the hell's wrong with Hinata-chan? It has to be really bad because... why hasn't this gone away?"
Because besides the trauma of the incident itself, she's been carrying around a constant reminder for nearly nine months.
There was a long silence, Neji too afraid that if he opened his mouth he would lose his lunch all over the floor to answer. It fit. Everything fit so fucking perfectly, and he wished to Kami it didn't; but it fit.
Neji had found the last piece of the puzzle.
~To protect what's precious~
A bag with several nicely ripened specimens of eggplant hit the alley floor, the pregnant teen's hands flying up to frantically clutch her abdomen.
Maybe coming out wasn't such a good idea after all.
Sucking in a slow, deep breath, Hinata blinked impatiently to dispel the water in her eyes, previous purchase now lying forgotten on the ground. Both arms had come up to wrap snugly around her middle, waiting until the current wave of pain passed, though it hadn't escaped her notice that it was beginning to take longer each time. She'd gone from thinking it was nothing, to thinking it might be real labor pains, until... The time for being stubborn was over. Something was wrong, and she needed to get to the hospital.
Now if only she could make it there...
~To protect what's precious~
An irate brunette stomped away from the ramen stand, away from Ino, and, consequently, away from Lee as well, seeing as how he had made no move to follow her but was trying to placate the tall blond instead. Fuck it, she didn't care anymore. What did she care if Neji was being used, if he was being lied to, or if he had lied once again to her. What did she care if her juvenile and completely uncalled for fight with the Yamanaka in the middle of a public street had rather obviously stirred up some kind of trouble within the Hyuuga clan. What did she care if one of her oldest and best friends was in trouble. She didn't. She didn't care anymore. She was done.
A smaller figure came stumbling blindly out of an alley, colliding harshly with the seething kunoichi and nearly sending them both to the ground. Spinning on the spot to snap at whoever had gotten in her way, Tenten nearly saw red when brown eyes landed on the very last person she wanted to see right then.
"Hinata." The nearly violent urge to ask, no demand, that the younger girl explain just what the hell was really going on down to the very last detail swelled up inside her. She wanted to know which version of the truth was real, the one she and Lee had been told or the one Ino had insisted upon, if either. She wanted to know, were the latter the case, why she and Lee had been so blatantly lied to. She wanted to know so many things she couldn't even work it all out properly in her mind... but mostly she just wanted to know that Neji was really okay with whatever the fuck was going on. That was the most important...
She bit the impulse to ask down even as the questions formed on the tip of her tongue. No. She was done getting involved in all this sneaky, deceitful bullshit. If the damn Hyuugas wanted to keep their secrets so bad let them. She was done.
"Ten... Tenten." The bun-haired girl startled a bit when two small hands whipped out to clutch at her forearms, thin fingers digging painfully into the skin. What on earth—
"Tenten, help... p-p-please..."
Oh... shit. Hinata... looked horrible. She was bent over nearly double, skin whiter than snow, whole frame trembling badly while she fought to stay upright. This was... "Hinata— Hinata, what is it?" Tenten's heart suddenly skipped several horrible beats. "Is... it the baby?"
"Yes... please—"
The next second Hinata's arm was slung across the older girl's shoulders, a strong appendage was wrapped around her waist, and she was being hustled down the street as fast as Tenten could manage to half help, half carry her. She panted desperately through the exertion of it all. "T... T-t-t—"
"Don't worry, Hinata, everything's going to be okay," the brunette said, and despite the near-panicked expression on her face, her words came out strong and confident, reassuring the smaller raven. Maybe everything would be okay. It still hurt, and she was still terrified beyond all reason for her baby's safety, but maybe... yeah... yeah...
"Lee!" Brown eyes scanned frantically as the pair pushed through the people in their way, wishing they would get a clue that something was wrong and just move... That was the problem living in a shinobi village, everyone became so used to seeing injured or exhausted ninja being supported by their comrades, much like this, that they became desensitized to it...
Tenten winced as someone jostled hard into her side, and she tightened her grip on her charge, afraid she might let go and leave the girl to fall. She knew it couldn't be good to drag her around like this, but she also knew time was of the essence. "Lee!"
"Tenten?"
There, still near the ramen stand and still with Ino who was already dashing over in her ridiculously over-done outfit, hands flying through the signs of a medical jutsu. Tenten shifted her grip and hoisted Hinata up into a slightly more erect position to give Ino better access to her abdomen, muscles straining all the while. She didn't at all like the unnatural pallor nor the look of horror that slowly twisted the blond's face right before she snapped, "Hospital!"
"Lee!" Tenten barked in turn, and without needing further instruction the junior green beast did what his girlfriend had been unable to manage, scooping the pregnant girl up into his arms with ease and taking off through the evening crowd at full shinobi speed.
After only half a second to catch her breath, Tenten followed, Ino doing the same after pausing to remove her heels. From up ahead they could vaguely hear Hinata stuttering something absurd about how she was too heavy for Lee to carry while he politely reassured her in his typical way. Tenten thought rather inappropriately for the situation how cute the little Hyuuga really was. "Ino, what's going on? What's wrong?"
The blond shook her head, loose strands flying about her face, complicated knot having finally given way to gravity. "Something's wrong with the baby, but... I don't know."
The brunette's head whipped around, brows scrunching in disbelief. "You don't know? What do you mean you don't know?"
Ino shook her head once more but never answered as the hospital came into sight. "Lee!" she yelled as loudly as she could, still trying to just keep up with his incredible pace, "take her directly to the third floor! Don't let anyone stop you!"
"Hai!" As expected, Lee did just that, bursting through the front doors with such force they nearly flew off their hinges, barreling down the hallways at breakneck speed, literally mowing down two orderlies who made an attempt to stop him and yelling an apology back over his shoulder. The two girls behind attempted to keep up, Ino shouting at someone to get Tsunade immediately. Then they came to the third floor and Lee paused, looking around him uncertainly and shooting the blond an anxious glance.
Ino flew past him and began doling out orders, several nurses and other medics scurrying to comply, and the door to an empty room was shoved open. "Lee, set her down on the bed!"
Doing as directed and stepping back, Lee's eyes widened to the size of saucers at what greeted him. Not only was the image of Hinata, with her face devoid of any color, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, mouth twisted into a grimace, and beautiful lavender eyes glazed with pain enough to scare ten years off his life, but, "Blood. Ino, there is blood. On— Ino!"
The medic turned from where she had been rummaging through the cabinets of the room, gathering things she would need, and her own eyes turned frantic at the sight. Time seemed to freeze and no one moved. The side of Lee's hideous jumpsuit had blotches where the color had darkened, and when you then looked to the girl on the bed, lying on the white sheets... white sheets slowly beginning to stain with red...
Hinata jerked from the bed with a heart-wrenching cry, writhing for a moment before becoming still once more, breathing labored. It was more than enough to break the spell and Ino continued getting the necessary tools, demanding once more to know where Tsunade was, though her voice had gone up a pitch and her screaming seemed less controlled.
Tenten, not knowing what the hell she was doing but feeling she needed to do it, had leapt forward towards the bed and taken Hinata's clammy hand into her own. Maybe she shouldn't have been surprised when the small girl clutched at her desperately like a lifeline, but she was. Opal eyes bright with unshed tears sought hers beseechingly, and the girl mumbled something that made absolutely no sense whatsoever, clearly delirious from the pain and shock of whatever was happening but clearly needing someone there. Someone... Tenten reached out with her free hand to gently pet her hair. "Lee... Lee, go find Neji. Bring him here."
Lee blinked slowly, coming out of his own stupor, before registering his girlfriend's words and nodding, dark eyes set in clear determination. He was gone the next second, off to find their missing teammate, and Tenten continued trying to comfort the girl on the bed, patting her and speaking softly.
Ino was suddenly there again, hands doing another scan. Again she shook her head. "I don't understand. I don't— I've never seen anything like this!"
"The blood... she's... Is it a miscarri—"
"No, that's not it. There's... I don't know! There's something wrong with the chakra flow around the baby. It's... spiking and ripping the area apart."
"Not just that time of the month then?" Tenten said shakily, not sure where the pathetic attempt at a joke had come from but needing to say something to keep her cool. Spiking chakra ripping the area apart from the inside... She felt sick. "What— how can you fix it?"
Ino didn't look her way. She didn't have an answer.
Okay, so this chapter's much shorter than a lot of them, but at least I got it out a little quicker. Life's busy and all that.
Anywho, now Neji's knows the truth for sure, but that's the least of Hinata's worries. You'll have to stop back next time to see how everything plays out.
BL00DofTheViNE, Inner Poise is great, NinjaSheik, SarahJaneTennant, nitrolead, XxPRiscillAxX, winterkaguya, Sepsis, Crimson Cataclysm, ignis'caereleus, guerrera221, Maerchen Freunde, peachy88, toni, cluekitty, cheh, athcagaluv, Athena, swk3000, Victoria Levi, TheAweOfTheBeautifullyBroken, Christian, eyes0nme19, Pinky Bulma, Death's Serenade, ShiningXSky, wickedlover-36, KibasNo1Fan, frogflower, swandreamer, annoynomous-beth, sPaRkLe-HiMe, itachi's mistress, HyuugaLegacy, whiteninja, hyuugahime, ice_queen, Inner_Sakura, hermitprincess, Magical Fox, Midori, Shadows Dancing in the Mist, DFC, Meowchan82, baby-zero, iTomo, MeeCee, Iz-Insane, nameless101, gracemis, HeartBrokenHinata, Lady Moiraina, mieuwings, hungrytiger11, Ryuudan, Royal blueKitsune, Arya May, chaosdragon82, CityLightsFallingLeaves, anon, 0xRosethornx0, Typewriters in the Attic, Aalaa, MicaChan89, Sakura Kuchiki, yumchaitea, Khopzie, Peace-Love-Yaoi, salote, xX Angel of Agony Xx, X-105 Strike, firegoat, shaky memories, quill-writer22, Amelie, Tsubasa-chan, lexc-angel, Neji For President, lovergirlalot, unyeilding reader, EmiliaMoore, New Skiea, alanabanani, Orange-Tamaki, Gwynuvere, vampireangeltigeranimechick, sillypandalover91, abortnaw22, fire19, gaara-sasusaku7, Saskie, catiescarlett, jHeyTTernallie, Jinmi, Imperial Dragon, A Mere Essence, Cptn. Suz, rao hyuga 18, SinShu, worldreminiscence, spoozy, Jessxmn, Shinimegami7, SnowWhitetiger, MaNgA. jUicE XD, Midnight Marquis, ScarletChakra, anony, TuffChick, Bikami, KakashiisWifey, Reinakai, Anime Writer2, Stacey. and. stars, Catastrophic Monsoon, seto'swifey, IYAddict.x3, fireworkmage, Master Solo, Sqidly, ANIME HIME69, Vika, Felix02, senbo-sama, lovingo0Kawaii0oGirl, alwaysNaruHina, JamKa, LilBlueBear, Peach-chu, Eru no Tsubasa, Dark, FallingSnowDream, Soraya the All Speaker, Reviewer, Chai Mol, houen, you make me chuckle, Finally, oombala, Kannebas, Black Diamond07, J, Were-Tiger94, Midnight Wolfy, Willow-Bee the Cat, Sykopaths, Sarralyyn, Writing. Esperance, CrazyAce'n'PokerFace, LittleZmogTheCrimsonMooMoo, Kiame, Dark Moon Maiden, panda, Mimi-sama, K.a.R.a. Nature., Sprytes, NewSkiea, GermanRaspberries, Zetsubel, twist'd saccharines, Saphira113, TheLuciferPerson, AndYourPointIs, l lawleit, Aqsa D
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