Wish For Something
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Written by 10ShizukaYuukiMistress10
"Heiress status was temporarily given to Hanabi until your return. In fact, if you hadn't returned, we would have made it permanent. No worries, though. You will be restored your former title . . ."
The first few days adjusting back home were hectic for Hinata. Everyone thought that she was dead, and answering questions about her kidnapping frequently spoilt an otherwise pleasant day. Her teammates always wanted to know the details of her capture, and how she had escaped. This happened at least six times a day. They argued that they needed this info so that they could prevent it in future circumstances.
Hinata tried her best not to think about Sasuke at all.
It went without saying: he was fighting arguably one of the most powerful shinobi in history, and she was sitting in her bedroom pressing flowers or eating out with her teammates at Ichiraku Ramen.
Definitely, Hinata was having the time of her life: enjoying well earned peace, solace, normalcy and tranquillity. She didn't doubt that she deserved a break from the life spent being a missing nin—both in the literal and figurative sense—however she couldn't be at peace.
Sasuke. One word.
She loved him.
She wanted him to survive or have survived his fight with Itachi. And despite her mind's protests that it was utterly ridiculous—she wanted him to come back to her—if he had. She could no longer stomach worrying about him every walking moment.
"Hina, why aren't you finishing your noodles?" Kiba said, interrupting her thoughts.
Hinata noticed that her chopsticks lay upright in her bowl, untouched. Normally, that was meant to be a bad omen, something about disrespecting the dead, although that was the least of Hinata's worries.
"Go ahead and finish it, Kiba. I just remembered—my father wanted me to join him at an heiress meeting today. I-I'm going to be late, so bye! Thank you!" Hinata hastily added. It wasn't a complete lie. Her father was hosting her restoration of the title of heiress pre-discussion today—but he had made it clear that it was her choice to come.
Kiba furrowed his eyebrows and watched Hinata go. Shrugging, he pulled her bowl closer and soon frowned.
She didn't eat anything! Not a single bite!
XXX
A week later
It dawned on Hinata: what she was meant to do but had delayed for a long time now.
Will a bundle of dandelions suffice? She wondered. She had never really known what Sasuke liked. Like what his favourite colour was, place, interests.
Sure, he enjoyed juicy tomatoes, and getting stronger, and training, and possibly overusing Chidori. But in the context of flowers, that choice was all up to Hinata.
Activating Byakugan, she entered the Uchiha compound, scouring for their graveyard.
Sometimes Hinata would conjure up fantasies of the day Sasuke would return. A few were absurd—he was riding on the back of a horse in shining white armour. It made Hinata feel like a widow, in a sense: grieving over somebody who was assumedly far gone, alas dead.
Her current grief was far different to any she had experienced in the past.
Tears prickled Hinata's pulsing eyes.
I… I r-really h-hope Sasuke likes these flowers… She thought woefully.
It had been eleven days. He couldn't still be alive . . . Hinata hiccupped . . . So she had to be strong for him now. He needed an honourable grave. Although she didn't agree with his terms of revenge, he had only done what he thought was the right thing. And he had quietly died for it.
Her tears were long rubbed off her face when she reached the gravesite. Gripping the dandelions tighter, Hinata kneeled down and placed them on a rock. It stood out to her because the sun streamed across it blindingly like liquid gold.
The breeze swept past lightly as Hinata backed up. She sent a few, quiet heart-wrenching words in departing before turning around. Letting those words go was like a direct stab to the heart.
Hinata had had many fantasies about the day she would see Sasuke again. Some were absurd, some were hopeful, some were realistic . . .
The tears streamed down her face.
The horizon titled as Hinata slid against a tree.
Thud.
Will I ever fall in love again? She wondered. Her mind answered almost immediately. Probably. But it won't be the same—it seems like he was the one and only.
Hinata lowered her eyes even more. Right.
All I ever did was be ungrateful to him . . .
She had said she despised him . . .
Why did I lie to him?
It was just like the time her mother had died. Hinata hadn't had the chance to say "thank you" for everything.
"All I ever did was hurt you, not the other way around." Someone suddenly drawled out of the blue. ". . . Get your facts straight."
Sasuke? Hinata looked up.
Assertive obsidian eyes met hers.
Hinata stood up from the tree, dropping the bag in her hands in the process. She couldn't multitask and function properly when he was standing right in front of her eyes.
"I . . . think I'm going mad. Or seeing ghosts." Hinata said aloud, on second thought.
Sasuke's ghost raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really?"
Hinata nodded. "Yes."
He can't appear so suddenly. It just isn't possible.
Sasuke stepped forward. As fast as lightening, he grabbed a hold of her and pulled her flush against him. For a ghost, Sasuke was surprisingly strong and substantial. . .?
He looked the same, though slightly drained and slightly solemn. His charcoal hair – like always – was spiky. Dishevelled. His mouth, the bones in his face, his eyes . . . all seemed the same as she last remembered . . . perfect like the Uchiha prince Sasuke was.
I . . . I can't believe his ghost is making me blush like this!
Hinata didn't move, fully conscious of her dangerously red cheeks.
"Um . . ."
"What is it?" Sasuke asked.
"I-I just . . ."
"It is me, Hinata. I'm real."
She barely took three steps back before realising he was serious.
". . . I-It is really you? Hinata asked, to make certain of it. She would not give up so easily on the idea that he was dead.
Sasuke's eyes flashed with emotion and after a moment, he nodded.
Hinata immediately felt a thunderstorm of emotions swirl in her chest.
He's real.
Hinata's brain went into sudden reality overload: the situation with their wishes had been left unfinished. Tsunade and Kakashi were trying to act as if the wishes didn't exist. That would have been gratifying for Hinata initially, but unfortunately she realised it was dangerous to ignore the potential danger of having a wish holder in their midst. Hinata had already been targeted once by Orochimaru. Who would target her next? Akatsuki? Would they hurt her comrades first to get to her? Even if she had gotten stronger over the months, she and Sasuke alone were no match for a whole organisation.
She wanted it to all be over; gone and done with. She wanted to use up the wish.
Sasuke being there right now meant that he had won his fight with Itachi. There couldn't be any other explanation. Anything else he wanted to do other than finish up the business with their wishes once and for all. Or had he come back because he wanted something . . .
Her.
However, the idea that Sasuke wasn't dead was still such a so new and disorientating idea to comprehend, Hinata forgot about all the above and let her emotions do the speaking.
She blurted out the first thing that came to mind. How could she not make a lunatic out of herself when Sasuke was watching her so assertively, as if searching for something that only her soul could reveal?
"I thought your ghost came back to haunt me." Hinata confessed.
Sasuke chuckled.
"…Watch out. You never know," Then, he added seriously. "… We need to talk."
Sasuke had missed her . . . and awaited this day. He never remembered Hinata being so breathtakingly mesmerising, even as she scraped tears from her eyes, and inwardly scorned himself for not treasuring her beauty enough before. However, the sadness that reflected back at him in her translucent eyes could not be overlooked.
She was crying.
The pain Sasuke found himself feeling at that moment raked his stomach, and chest, and throat. He couldn't destroy her tears even if he wanted to: or better yet, the source of it. He couldn't do that when it was himself. He was the culprit. He had made her cry. He had tried to discard her feelings that day he returned her to the Leaf village. He had said he wanted revenge more than anything, more than her . . . and had been wrong.
I want nothing more than to be with you! Sasuke thought furiously. But he was there to warn her. Not claim her heart. He had pressing . . . issues to deal with. Danzo.
The Shinigami.
It was not over yet.
Hinata had to be safe before Sasuke made any real move towards her heart.
Hinata stood watching Sasuke with unsure eyes. Maybe she was still uncertain if any of this was real . . . if Sasuke was real.
He reached out and yanked her hitai ate off, which had been keeping her hair in a tight bun.
Hinata's hair immediately streamed over her back: lush, long, full of life. He breathed in her hair, her scent, her neck, everything about her.
"S-Sasuke . . ." Hinata stammered. His warm breath tingled against her ear.
Sasuke pressed her against the tree. Their bodies leaned precariously closer.
". . . We have much more in common than we think. As we were younger, we went through the same troubles with our fathers to gain their approval." Sasuke said, close to Hinata. "One day, I want to become the father that my own father never was."
A shiver ran down her spine.
It took her a few moments to notice that Sasuke had stepped away.
The morning sun shone on his pale features with flourish.
"One day that will happen." He said to her. "I came back to tell you that, and this,"
Hinata waited for Sasuke to resume.
Gesturing to his own body, Sasuke said, "As you may have gathered, I killed Itachi."
"Um . . . how?" Hinata inquired. Inwardly she puffed a sigh of relief. Sasuke was the opposite of what she expected him to be—indifferent.
Sasuke closed his eyes. He hadn't killed Itachi. Itachi had died of an illness but Sasuke was sure as hell he had worsened it during their final battle to the point that Itachi had coughed up all the blood in his body and died on the spot. So he had killed Itachi. Then encountered that strange masked man "Madara". . .
"That's not what I came here to tell you." Sasuke evaded, like a natural. Always avoiding the full-story, the truth . . . what he didn't want to utter.
Hinata nodded understandingly. She was fine with that—he didn't want to tell her, and it was a touchy subject after all. Truthfully, she didn't want to know. She didn't need the nightmares. But in time, she would get the truth out of him. Whether he wanted her to or not.
Sasuke's voice took a sudden seething turn. His eyes filled with resentment.
"Let me tell you the truth about my brother, Itachi."
And thus, Sasuke explained to Hinata, from what he understood from Madara, everything about the truth of the destruction of his Clan.
Hinata wanted to gasp. She really did. All bodily functioning failed her though; it was a tragic story to hear. All she could do was stare at him.
Sasuke closed his eyes. ". . . but that main point is, Itachi was never a traitor to the Leaf Village. He was ordered to massacre the Uchiha Clan by Danzo to protect the Leaf village, and because of his stupid humanly bonds, he couldn't kill me in the process."
"Please don't say that," Hinata interjected.
Sasuke shrugged Hinata's reasoning off. He had listened to her and that was more than enough. He didn't have to agree with her. He wasn't meant to be alive—a fact universally known.
The serious part was far worse.
Turning hard eyes onto Hinata, Uchiha Sasuke said it.
"If the true condition of the Shinigami's Contract was to change each other emotionally, then it would've worked by now." Sasuke stated, looking piercingly into Hinata's flabbergasted face without halt.
Hinata's widened eyes were like two translucent moons.
Sasuke continued.
"What you said a long ago has disturbed me for some time. Who told you that to get the Seal off you had to change someone?"
Sasuke didn't stop. "I don't know where you got the idea from but it was wrong." Whoever told her about it was wrong.
"That's why I need you to tell me. Who, Hinata?"
It had been disturbing him for some time, what Hinata had told him at the Clan festival in Konoha countless months ago, about changing each other's Emotional Districts. It was a few days after they had met the Shinigami. And it didn't seem right.
"Who have you spoken to about this? Who told you about emotional change breaking the Seal?" Sasuke asked, serious, eyes narrowed.
Hinata realised that she hadn't actually told Sasuke who had brought about the theory of emotional change.
Who was it, Hinata?
Hinata vaguely remembered the night long ago that she had told Sasuke that there was a way they could remove the Seals through changing their emotional districts . . . That had been at the Clan festival in the Leaf village where Sasuke had met her in disguise, and Kakashi had confronted them shortly after.
". . . I need you to tell me who told you about the Emotional Districts, Hinata."
But where had she gotten the idea of changing their Emotional Districts from in the first place?
Think. Think. Think.
A pale face, a fake smile and short black hair immediately flashed in front of Hinata's eyes.
"Sai!" She gasped.
Sasuke's eyes darkened.
". . . A-At the library!" She finished.
Now that Hinata reminisced that day, she recognised two things: one of them being that she suspected Sai had followed her there, and two, he had been the one to plant the idea of the emotional districts.*
Why? Why would he do something like that?
Sasuke watched Hinata.
"H-He . . . Sai works for Danzo. Danzo is an elder in the Leaf village and he may have ordered Sai to lie to me. Danzo likes to work in the shadows, dealing with issues that even the Hokage has no recollection of. But how could he have known about our wishes? Now that I come to think of it, Sai was very suspicious that day in the library," Hinata said very quietly, and looked up at Sasuke, regret in her eyes. "I'm so sorry! I was distracted. It's my fault we've wasted so long trying to unlock the wishes the wrong way! I-I'm such. . ."
It seemed an unforeseen force was at work before they were aware of it. This Danzo person didn't want Sasuke or Hinata to unlock their wishes, for whatever reason. Sasuke wanted to spit at the thought of his name: he was also responsible for the lives of his Clan, and Itachi's misery, according to the mysterious masked man.
". . . but . . . then . . . what is the real way to unlock the wishes?" Hinata stammered.
"Regardless of if we're ever going to unlock the wishes or not," Sasuke said. ". . . I am more angered by the thought that someone tried to deter us from getting them in the first place."
Sasuke was insanely angry.
"I found something in Orochimaru's base hinting where the Shinigami Summoning scroll might be, and I sent Suigetsu on a high bounty mission to collect it for me when you left with Rukon." Sasuke said.
"And you did answer the question that has been disturbing me for some time."
Hinata breathed in.
"What is going to happen now, Sasuke?"
Suddenly, a massive scroll the length of Hinata's leg and the width of Sasuke's arm appeared at his side. It had blazing red outlining which, if stared at it too deeply, looked suspiciously like fire.
. . . A swelling Red Chakra squirming to burst.
"He got it for me. The truth . . . will be ours in the next few hours."
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". . . The truth. W-We deserve it."
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He let his eyes drop darkly.
"We need to go and reacquaint ourselves with our old friend. Ryo, the Shinigami."
I WILL BE POSTING CHAPTER SOON TOMORROW! BE ON THE LOOKOUT!
*If you have no idea what on earth I'm on about, stop reading this chapter, and go alllllllll the way back to chapter 2 towards the end. I didn't want to do a lengthy flashback 'cause this chapter was getting too long, LOL. :D
A/N: Yeah you do deserve, it – the truth I mean – seeing as you have had to wait 21 chapters for it lol.
Indeed, you will be getting, like, one hundred answers and truths fired at you at unbearable speed next chapter! *CACKLES* OK, only joking! Well, I'm not, actually. ^_^
Stay tuned! You do not want to miss this. Will be posting chapter 22 very soon!
Acknowledgments: OriSweatshirt, Saki-Hime and Michiyo-chama3! Ultimately, thank you for all your supporting reviews. I treasure them all. :33
See… you! ^^ :D