24
While speaking, she put her hand into her arms, and pulled out a scroll, then walked two steps to him, holding the task with both hands.
Her voice was soft: "This is your mission brought by Sarada. Please take it, Sasuke kun."
Sasuke paused for a moment before he took a step to the side of the corridor and accepted the scroll. He quickly found the seal had been demolished, which made him frown.
After shaking off the scroll, he was even more surprised by the content written on it: Naruto sent him and all the new students to the frontier of the fire country. He would supervise their training and protect their lives and complete various tasks according to the order of Daimyo. The time limit was at least six months.
Over the years, Naruto did not give Sasuke many tasks, but once he gave one, it will be extremely difficult, dangerous and complex, even assassination was more seasonable for him comparing with drillmaster work. After all, when talked to the ability of the babysitting, if he counted himself the second from the bottom, who else dare honor the tailender?
"Why..." Sasuke closed the scroll and frowned. "Why does Naruto send me to do such work?"
Hinata lowered her eyes and pondered for a moment, recalling Sakura's explanation: "I think he must have a good reason..." She perceived his the puzzled eyes and awkwardly covered up, "I, I have just opened the scroll."
Sasuke glanced at her lightly and looked back, holding the scroll in his hand: "You needn't cover that. I know it's not you open it. "
She felt his trust and it brought a joyful sorrow to her quiet heart.
When her sweet-bitter mood was about to die away, his cool voice suddenly rang:
"I will refuse this task."
She looked up in surprise, as vacillating as the white water lily and the rippled pond in the breeze. The pale lotus shook like her lips: "But, Sasuke kun... How could you do that? I, I never think it's possible... "
Sasuke held up his arms and his eyes reflected her face. Her gentle disguise was quietly broken, showing a little hasty look, which suddenly made his heart tighten: "Why impossible? I have never been Konoha's servant. Certainly I have the right to choose."
"But Sasuke kun, why would you," Hinata lowered her eyes hesitatingly, and raised one hand to hide her lips, as if a child fearing any wrong word spoken out, "...make such a choice? "
Behind the sleeves, her snow white face was like a lotus flower in the rainy night, which reminded him of the night he came back. He gazed at her. And her frightened and dodging eyes were the jewel-like pistils.
His eyes were deep and dark, but at the moment lit up a hot spark. The words he told were already determined to speak out, but eventually were armed with his own unfriendliness: "What do you think? - I'll let you guess."
Hinata's thin shoulders and her whole body started trembling all over. Her face bloomed with rosy ruddy and soon turned wan. There seemed to be too much happiness and sadness fighting each other, and the war flames had almost consumed her soul.
Sasuke didn't talk any more, but to wait for her answer. There was a line of his life, seperating himself from the whole world. On this side of the line, he possessed his loneliness that won't be forsaken. So she must come forward to his territory by free will. It only needed one step and he would abandon all he has to gain her.
He was patiently waiting for her footsteps.
"... I think, "After a century-long silence, Hinata finally calmed her breath. She closed her eyes and opened it again, and looked straight at him," I think Sasuke kun should consider the big picture and leave for mission as soon as possible. "
Sasuke was almost stunned. He with his confused eyes stared at her, slowly asked:"... What did you say? "
Her eyes still looked straightly at him, with a tame, friendly, but unemotional pearl white: "I knew Sasuke kun felt yourself not suitable for this kind of work, but Naruto's arrangement must be out of some important intention. As members of Konoha, we both need to support him. Besides, Sasuke kun you should pay more attention to Sarada. Maybe you can take advantage of this opportunity to get along well with her. She's your only daughter after all, and that's Sakura's wish..." At last, she paused and added another sentence, "I urge you so because, because Sasuke kun, you are a... very good friend of mine."
He squared up his black eyes and stared at her. In his indifferent voice there slowly ignited cold fire: "...Ah, a 'friend', isn't it? '
She stood here and clenched her hands. Finally she looked away from him.
In her heart, Uchiha Sasuke was a proud man with too much pride. So she can't bear to watch his latent injury under the anger. It will make her heart broken into two pieces even if by only a smallest slice.
In this long silence, she suddenly took a step forward, with her white eyes woodenly lowering and her knees about to bend.
Hyuga Hinata sometimes hated herself being such a loser, too weak to find another way rather than the humble imploration. Even if she had sworn to never kneel to anyone again since the day she left Uzumaki Naruto.
Just then, a hand suddenly came up, and grabbed her shoulder hard, so that she could not kneel down.
The hand was big, and the long fingers crossed her clavicle, almost have her thin bones crushed.
Uchiha Sasuke looked at her pale face filled with pain and panic, and felt the drastic agitation of her heart from his fingers. She got hurt but did not resist at all. He felt that the anger in the chest was going to burn himself. In the fire there was a grim sorrow.
He was almost suffocated, and when he spoke again, he couldn't recognize his own broken and fierce voice. It was like a voice of a beast:
"How dare you... kneel? "
"Hyuga Hinata... Aren't you always having your... own way in front of me from the beginning? Aren't you always the wayward winner...since we met? ...I can't bear your begging! I don't need it... And I don't care no more. "
She was biting her lips with her eyes closed and trembling, like a blind butterfly in a deadly storm. His crushed voice was as sharp as a knife, stabbed into her eyeballs. Too much was the pain burst yet too few was the tears left.
"I..." She tried hard to strip the shelter off from her heart to tell the hiden truth, "I did not leave Naruto for my cowardice, and did not leave you for the transgression."
"Stop your graceful embellishment." He sneered icily, "To dress your betrayal up as an honorable sacrifice, like you always do."
Then he finally released her and looked at her coldly for the last time, and turned back indifferently:
"As your wish, I will set off tonight."