A/N- I'm really sorry for making you all wait for so long and for not being able to reply to everyone's reviews like I usually do. My time has really been slimmed down so it's become a choice between replying to every review or replying only to ones who had questions and thus being able to update. So I chose the update because I know you guys are squirming in your seats and hey, that's why you're here anyway. I still read all of your wonderful reviews and enjoy them and be assured that if you ask questions (in signed reviews), they will be answered.
Also, a few people have mentioned different songs they thought I might have been listening to when writing some of my stories. My writing is very rarely ever influenced by music but I'll admit when I got seriously stuck at Sasuke's battle with Itachi and the aftermath, No Way Out by Phil Collins helped me through that because I think it personifies Sasuke perfectly. Everything afterwards was fueled by It Will Be Me by Melissa Etheridge, especially these last few chapters. Check them out on youtube if you like. It Will Be Me is really beautiful. I nearly made its verses into chapter headings.
Disclaimer: Naruto of course belongs to Kishimoto and I make no profit off this story that somehow made its way from my head onto paper and thus, here.
Enjoy!
Ikigai
in Certainty
Chapter 25
"Hinata-sama."
The raven-haired girl's death grip on the pillow muffled her muttered complaint.
Nanami smiled and pushed the curtains aside, sunlight filling the darkened room. "Hinata-sama, I do not think Sasuke-sama would approve of you squandering your entire day in bed."
A resigned sigh echoed across the room and Nanami turned to look fondly on her charge. Three days since the young master left on a mission and each day saw Hinata lingering longer and longer in bed, hugging his pillow.
The nightmares returned forcefully in Sasuke's absence. As much as three times in one night, Hinata would wake crying or screaming. Sometimes it took hours to soothe the girl back to sleep, so she was reluctant to wake her too early in the mornings. But neither could she allow her charge to wallow in the depression that was steadily creeping up on her.
Still, it was infinitely sweet seeing how much Hinata missed her stoic husband. When her marriage to the Uchiha Avenger came to light, the Hyuuga Council had been furious and Nanami had been afraid. Surely the cold, calculating traitor could never offer the love and kindness Hinata needed to flourish.
But it would seem in the span of a few short weeks that he could offer her a good deal more. In the keep of the single most frightening shinobi Nanami had ever met, Hinata blossomed like a sakura tree in spring. Sasuke was everything the rumors said he was; cold, ruthless, lethal; but with Hinata he was everything no one expected him to be. Where the Hyuuga Clan sought to conform her to its ideal of the docile, noble wife, Sasuke encouraged her to spread her wings and pursue the impossible. His quiet, steady strength bolstered her confidence to step out of the confines of everyone's expectations. It was no wonder she loved him so.
With the warmth of the sun beckoning, Hinata sat up and ran a hand through her tousled hair, scratching idly at the back of her head. The large shirt she wore slipped off one slender shoulder, the hem bunching around her hips. The delicate silk pajamas she'd been forced to purchase by Ino and Sakura hadn't seen the light of day or night since Sasuke left.
She turned away to drop her legs over the side of the bed, exposing the large red and white fan embroidered onto the back of her chosen nightshirt and Nanami wondered if she even knew the clan emblem was there. Probably not, but the overly large shirt smelled like Sasuke and that was all that mattered.
"What time is it," Hinata asked.
"Not quite ten."
She grimaced. Half the morning was gone and all she wanted to do was crawl back in bed and cuddle with Sasuke's pillow. Already his scent was beginning to dwindle and it'd only been three days since he left.
"I will check on breakfast while you get dressed, Hinata-sama."
Nodding absently, she waited until Nanami's footsteps faded before slipping out of bed. Her legs mechanically moved her to the closet and she plucked out a pair of pants, a tank top, and a button shirt from each respective pile.
At first she stayed busy training with whoever was available to indulge her, but as of yesterday the Hokage's office had been inundated with a flood of missions. With all of her friends out of the village, she was left behind; a casualty abandoned. Too nervous to train without someone to watch over and guide her, she was left with little else to do but weed her garden and attempt to mix more complex medicines. Her results hadn't been very promising.
Emotionally depleted, she brushed through her short hair with her fingers, idly fiddling with the soft tuft at the back of her neck. She knew she would miss Sasuke's presence, his warmth and silent strength, but she never thought she would miss his touch so much.
No matter how many blankets she wore at night, she was always cold. The bed was hard and uncomfortable. The shower was lukewarm and a poor substitute for his gentle caress and if she wore the silken garments to bed, she felt lonely instead of beautiful.
Chin up now, girl. This won't be the last time he goes away on a mission. He's more than capable of taking care of himself….
Shaking her head at the dangerous path her thoughts were taking, Hinata lifted her head and forced a smile on her face. Sasuke told her to wait for him and that is what she would do. Besides, it wouldn't do to fall into a depression every time he was away for an extended period of time. Someday he would be pulling serious A and S rank missions which could take him away for weeks, even months at a time. Of course by then, maybe she would have a little one to occupy her time and attention….
Hinata pressed her hands to her burning cheeks knowing her face must be the brightest shade of red and grateful no one was there to see it. When she acknowledged his claim in front of the Hokage and her father, she knew that he expected her to give him children one day. She just never thought she would want to; and she did, very much.
She'd always dreamed of having a family of her own with a small herd of sunny-haired children running about the house. Life never turns out the way one imagines it as a child and she had shed many tears over the dissolution of her precious fantasies long before Sasuke handed them back to her. Only now she dreamed of ebon-eyed children with a propensity to set things on fire and a taste for tomatoes instead of ramen.
"Hinata-sama?"
With a startled squeak, Hinata hurried down the steps into the kitchen, cheeks still flaming red.
Nanami smiled knowingly at her charge's abnormally rosy complexion. "Pleasant thoughts, Hinata-sama?"
Hinata pressed a curled finger to her lips, blush spreading to encompass her entire face. "Ano…."
The older Hyuuga chuckled, patting her head gently. "Eat, Hinata-sama. He will be home soon enough."
"I know," she sighed, sitting at the table and picking up her tea. "I just…."
"Miss him?"
Her unfading blush was answer enough but Hinata nodded anyway. "Is…is that wrong?"
"Wrong?" Nanami echoed in surprise. "Why would it be wrong?"
Hinata frowned. "Some people think I should hate him for deceiving me into marrying him, but he's been kind to me and…and I know it's only been two weeks, demo….
"You love him," Nanami filled in when she hesitated.
Hinata's lips pressed together and she nodded haltingly.
Nanami gently tapped her under her chin, raising her face up towards her own. "In whatever manner it comes to be, Hinata-sama, love is never wrong, especially between one who has so much of it to give and one so desperately in need of it."
A happy smile curved Hinata's lips and Nanami patted her cheek before turning away to attend the dishes. She'd vowed not to interfere in the young couple's life upon taking up residence in the Uchiha compound, but she could hardly ignore Hinata's insecurity. Sasuke wouldn't be pleased if she left the girl to worry needlessly in his absence. If nothing else, the man was devoted to Hinata's wellbeing.
Be safe and come back soon, wherever you are, Sasuke-sama.
Precious few places held pleasant memories for Uchiha Sasuke. This was not one of them. When he turned his back on the burning pile of stone and mortar with a wisp of a girl in his arms, he had no intention of ever coming back. Even more did he loathe the reason he was here now.
"Something's different," Naruto murmured from his perch on the branch beside Sasuke.
"You've been here before?"
Naruto shot him a feral grin. "Did you honestly think I wouldn't come looking for you after we figured out who brought Hinata back?"
Sakura eyed the two from her perch beside Kakashi. "So this is where Tsunade-sama sent you?"
Naruto shrugged and turned back to eyeing the rubble below with a frown. "You see it too, don't you Kaka-sensei?"
"Hn. Some of the rocks have been moved."
The crease between Sasuke's eyes deepened and he jumped off the branch to land precariously on the shifting rubble. He hadn't taken any time back then to admire his work, but the destruction caused by his explosive tags had been more than effective in obliterating the underground fortress. Why anyone would bother to dig through the mess was beyond him for they certainly wouldn't have found anything useful. He'd concentrated the explosives along the foundation pillars and in key research labs to make certain nothing was salvageable, especially with regards to Hinata.
It eased the knot in his chest to see that the general area of Kabuto's lab remained undisturbed, but knowing someone had been determined enough to dig through eight feet of compact rubble to breach the underground tunnels was beyond disturbing.
"Hey, over here, guys," Sakura waved at them from further down the pile. When her three teammates reached her, she pointed at her find. "Look."
Kakashi crouched beside the narrow hole to peer into the impenetrable darkness below. Selecting a small stone, he dropped it into the pit and listened to it thud against the unseen ground.
"Not too deep, ten feet maybe, but the ground sounds uneven," the copy-nin mused.
"It's going to be seriously unstable down there," Sakura warned when Kakashi stood to his full, slouching height.
"True. Maybe you should stay up here, just in case—."
"Don't even think about saying it, Kaka-sensei," she growled, green eyes flashing.
Kakashi scratched his head and chuckled nervously. "Now, now, Sakura-chan, no need to be defensive."
She snorted. "I'm not going to do anyone any good up here twiddling my thumbs if one of you gets crushed. I'm going, got it?"
Kakashi glanced at the two blank-faced and thoroughly unhelpful men beside him and sighed with resignation. It wasn't that he was worried about Sakura, at least not overly much, and he had quite a number of solid reasons for her to remain behind, her insane strength being one of them. If there was to be a cave-in she was the only one capable of digging their sorry butts out of the rubble. Of course, asking Sakura to take the admittedly safer route was always a life-threatening mission in and of itself. He should have kept his mouth shut.
"Fine," he sighed. "Who's fir—." He blinked as Sasuke promptly jumped into the hole followed immediately by Naruto and Sakura. Left to stand alone on top of the rubble, Kakashi's eye drooped. "They were so much cuter when they actually listened to me."
A warm glow flared up from the abyss and he hopped down to join his team in the narrow tunnel now lit with makeshift torches. The confines were uncomfortably narrow, strewn with debris and still decaying remains. Sasuke unflinchingly took the lead through the cramped passage, never once blinking at the evidence of his destruction.
Wrinkling her nose at the rank decay, Sakura fell in step behind him. "What exactly are we looking for?" she asked quietly so as not to disturb the precarious layers of rock forming the ceiling of the tunnel.
"A corpse," Sasuke said.
The rosette kunoichi carefully stepped over a skeletal arm poking out from under a rock. "Can you be more specific?"
Sasuke grunted and Sakura rolled her eyes. And he wonders why he and Hinata have so much miscommunication.
She didn't ask him to clarify, knowing he would fill in the details only when he was good and ready. Naruto also remained uncannily quiet as the four crawled through cramp spaces and over the occasional cadaver, blindly following their former teammate into the increasingly unstable mass of ruins. Just when Sakura was certain her muscles would freeze in a crouched crawl, Sasuke scrambled through a narrow hole and promptly stood up.
"Where are we," she asked as soon as she joined him, distractedly brushing dirt from her clothes and healing the cuts and scrapes on her bare legs with a near thoughtless touch. Stretching her arms over her head, she popped her back and eyed the cavern, the darkness ebbed only faintly by the glow of Sasuke's torch.
"I can't believe this place is still standing," Naruto's voice bounce off the walls.
"I'm guessing this was the main hall," Kakashi mused, eyeing the remaining pillars that kept the roof from falling in on them. It wasn't very reassuring considering there were only three and each one was missing serious chunks of mortar and stone.
"This is where we fought," Sasuke said, his blank expression telling nothing of the churning sea of unease he felt inside. Even when Orochimaru swallowed him, he felt no fear. Only cold purpose drove him forward and kept him alive. His abilities by far exceeded the snake sannin's and truly what fool honestly believed any form of genjutsu could supersede the Sharingan? Absolute confidence in his abilities and his destiny ensured victory. There was simply no room or reason for fear.
So why did he feel like his stomach was sinking into his feet?
"So we should find Orochimaru's body in here, right?" Naruto took several steps into the darkness, unhindered by the lack of light.
"And if we don't?" Sakura asked.
Her question was left unanswered as the three men immediately spread out into the cavern, intent on avoiding thinking about that possibility until it was absolutely necessary. Sighing softly, Sakura turned off into the opposite direction. She lifted the first of many rocks when Sasuke's voice drifted softly across the expanse.
"Look for a snake, not a man."
Three pairs of eyes turned on him sharply but he was too busy digging through rock to notice or care.
Naruto shook his head. "That's one story you can't keep to yourself, Sasuke."
Kakashi grunted his agreement. Sasuke hadn't exactly been forthcoming with details about his battle with Orochimaru and no doubt it had been a spectacular display of skill and ingenuity.
"Orochimaru's jutsus finally caught up with him," he mused.
"More or less," Sasuke agreed, kicking over a charred block.
"Seriously, Sasuke, a snake?" Naruto grunted with the effort of moving debris so he could peer underneath.
"Seems kind of logical," Sakura said, "in a weird and twisted sort of way."
Naruto and Sasuke grunted in union and a nostalgic smile flickered across Sakura's face. Different as day and night, the two were perpetually the same in the end.
Within the tomb of debris, time passed measured only by frustrated grunts and the clacking of shifting stone. One could only guess at the hours gone before Naruto finally sunk down onto a boulder, wiping sweat from his brow.
"How long have we been down here?" he panted.
"Too long." Sasuke kicked a rock. "We should have found something by now."
"He couldn't have just disappeared," Sakura huffed. "These tunnels would have preserved his remains and substantially slowed the decay. If this is where you left him we should find a full skeleton and some soft tissue remains."
"As appealing as that sounds," Kakashi's languid voice drifted over to them, "I believe we may have to settle for something considerably less obvious."
Sakura squinted at their former sensei's shadowed form crouching on the far side of the cavern, cursing the unnatural eyesight the male members of her team were blessed with. The three hurried to join him and Sasuke lifted his torch higher to illuminate the area holding the copy-nin's attention.
"What is that?"
Kakashi dusted a few small rocks aside. "Looks like a chakra grid, but none I've ever seen before."
"It's pretty faded," Naruto murmured, kneeling beside him. "Oi, Sasuke, was this here before? You know, before you demolished the fortress."
"No."
Sakura rummaged in her pack and pulled out a piece of chalk. "Give me some light," she said, putting the chalk stick to the ground. "I'll flesh it out so we can see what we're working with."
Sasuke surrendered his torch to Naruto and slumped down beside Kakashi who for once left his book in his pouch since it was simply too dark to read anyway.
"You seem to be taking this well," Kakashi murmured.
"Hn."
A lone black eye glanced at the scowling Uchiha. Only the faintest tick in his jaw muscle betrayed the agitation hidden beneath the façade of cold indifference. All in all, he was taking it well. Of course, he expected nothing less from Sasuke.
In companionable silence they watched Sakura redraw the grid, Naruto hovering above with the torch to aid her sight. As the true size of the circle became evident, a cold sense of dread settled over them all.
Finally Sakura sat back on her heels, drawing her arm across her forehead to smear dirt and sweat.
"It's big," Naruto observed.
"Look familiar to any of you?" Kakashi asked, standing so he could get a better look at the sprawling grid.
"Let me see that, Naruto." Sakura held her hand out and the blonde obligingly handed her the torch.
She walked the circumference of the grid, eyeing the crisscrossing patterns and markings meeting in the center and a chill unlike any other seep into her bones. "Oh, this is bad," she whispered.
"What is it," Sasuke demanded sharply, fists clenching at his side. This is not the time for dramatics! He flinched when a hand clamped down on his shoulder and glared at the one-eyed offender. The silent message conveyed with a touch and stare penetrated the frantic anxiety building within the former avenger and he deflated slightly.
"Sakura," Kakashi's smooth voice nudged the medic-nin out of her musings and her pink head snapped up, verdant eyes wide.
She swallowed and glanced back down at the grid. "I saw Tsunade use this once on an extreme case. It's a forbidden jutsu used to bind foreign cells to a living host. It requires massive quantities of chakra, causes excruciating pain and in many cases, kills both the host and the user." She met their inquisitive stares evenly. "It's a medical jutsu."
Sasuke cursed and Naruto turned on him with a dark glare.
"How could you let that two-faced psycho get away?" the blonde demanded.
"He wasn't even here at the time, baka," Sasuke snapped. "It shouldn't have mattered!"
"Well it sure matters now, doesn't it!"
Kakashi looked up at the ceiling and rubbed his chin, artfully tuning out the arguing duo. "Does he know Hinata's still alive?"
Fists froze half way to full contact and sapphire and crimson glares turned on the copy-nin. "What?"
"Well, you said he wasn't even here when you destroyed the fortress." He pointedly met Sasuke's Sharingan eyes. "Did he have any reason to think you took her with you?"
Sasuke's hold on Naruto's jacket loosened and his gaze turned thoughtful. "He knew I visited her sometimes, but I never interfered with his experiment so he didn't interfere with my visits," he murmured.
Sapphire eyes darkened with disgust and Naruto shoved Sasuke away from him. No matter how great it was to have his pseudo-brother back, he would never be able to accept or like the person he once had been. Oh, he could forgive him, but he still owed him several years of payback for his stupidity.
"Judging from her condition when you returned her to us, she must've been barely alive when you took her," Sakura said. "It wouldn't have been logical for…someone like you to burden himself with an invalid." She smiled sheepishly at his annoyed glare and shrugged. Maybe he didn't like hearing it, but it was true.
"Yeah," Naruto mused, tapping a finger against his chin. "Come to think of it, why did you take her with you? You're not exactly humanitarian of the year, you know."
Kakashi watched Sasuke's fists clench and unclench, the only outwardly visible sign of his seething temper and silently applauded his control. It'd always been easy for Naruto to push his buttons and the last Uchiha was seriously sensitive when it came to the issue of Hinata.
"I don't have to explain myself to you, dobe," Sasuke hissed.
Naruto moved towards him with a feral grin and cracking knuckles. "Wanna bet?" His advance halted with a startled yelp, echoed immediately by Sasuke's own startled cry of pain.
"This is not the time for a pissing contest!" Sakura snapped at the two men squirming to free their ears from her steely grip. "Yes, you are an overprotective ninny," she glared at her fiancé then turned sharply to Sasuke. "And you were, and sometimes still are, a jerk. Accept it and move on!" With that she released their imprisoned ears and both men jumped back to rub the pain away with perfectly matching scowls of contrite irritation.
Sakura glanced at Kakashi who had remained wisely silent and he quickly raised his hands and smiled with his eye. As much as he enjoyed the show, he wasn't about to provoke her and get an appendage ripped off.
"Ne, Sakura-chan, you didn't have to use chakra," Naruto whined, furiously rubbing his abused ear.
Sakura snorted, fisting her hands on her hips. "Now, where were we?"
"Assuming our perpetrator is Kabuto, it does seem unlikely that he would suspect Hinata's survival by Sasuke's hand," Kakashi mused. "We certainly didn't."
Sasuke crossed his arms and glanced away. True or not, it still stung every time he thought of how close he came to making the single biggest mistake of his life back then.
"However," Kakashi continued, "he is very dedicated to his experiments and one can only assume any experiment involving an unsealed Hyuuga would be greatly valued. How do you suppose he reacted when he found all of his work here, possibly including the subject itself, destroyed?"
Sasuke's head snapped back to him, eyes wide and as close to terror-stricken as the copy-nin had ever seen since their first mission together.
"He'll come after me," he whispered.
Naruto's stomach dropped. "And find…."
"Hinata," Sakura finished.
Sasuke was gone from the torchlight before any of them could draw their next breath.
Humming a happy tune, Hinata plucked a sprig of lavender and inhaled its soothing scent. Her heart felt light and unburdened after her little talk with Nanami-san. What did it matter to anyone else if she loved Sasuke? He was her savior and the light in her darkness, perhaps even literally. Without his support she never would've been able to endure the experimental treatments and she was sure the treatments were responsible for the strange things she'd been experiencing lately.
After mulling it over for days on end, she was positive she'd seen the tenketsu on Sasuke's shoulder the night his cursed seal activated. How else could she have unerringly found them and closed them off if those faint pinpricks of light in her world of absolute shadows hadn't truly been them?
The problem was she had never been able to see tenketsu before. Her Byakugan was never powerful enough and no matter how hard she practiced her chakra control as Sakura had instructed, she hadn't been able to "see" anything since.
Perhaps it was only an illusion, a memory imprint like the images I saw when my chakra released the first time.
Raising her hand before her face, Hinata narrowed her eyes at where she knew the appendage to be. A full minute passed and not even a flicker of luminance became evident. With a resigned sigh, she returned to the task of weeding her garden. She would have more answers when Sakura and the others returned.
Just thinking about her brooding husband's return curved her lips into a smile and she resumed humming. Three days had given her a great deal of time to reminisce on Sasuke's tender kisses. Her poor cheeks would never recover from her constant state of blush, especially when she finally decided on unearthing the slinky nightgown tucked in the back of the closet. Ino forced her to buy it along with everything else, promising she would have need of it one day. She hadn't agreed then, but she was quite grateful now.
When Sasuke first kissed her with such hunger and passion, she'd been frightened more by her own desire than his. She never believed it possible to love anyone more than she once loved Naruto. Oh, but she did. For all of his faults, mistakes, and social ineptitude, she did. So much so that every minute apart felt like years of separation.
When he got home, she was going to show him just how much he'd imbedded himself into her heart. She wanted to share that fairytale ending with her dark prince. If anyone deserved a happy ending, it was Uchiha Sasuke.
Blushing a bright pink from anticipation, Hinata didn't hear the object of her thoughts enter the inner courtyard until he spoke.
"Hinata."
Her head snapped up with a startled squeak. "S-Sasuke-kun? When did you get back?"
"Just now." He took several, near-silent steps across the grass and a frown creased her brow.
"I didn't hear you…" or feel you. I always feel it when you come home. Tilting her head to better listen to his movements, Hinata reached out her senses and brushed the tightly shielded form of chakra approaching her.
He grunted and she shivered as the familiar velvet warmth of his tone contrasted sharply with her senses. Turning back to the garden, she plucked several leaves of Eucalyptus and idly toyed with them. "Did Nanami-san see you? She wanted to prepare a special meal when you got back."
"I'm not hungry," he said. "What have you been up to?"
She shrugged and leaned forward to pat the dirt around her plants, rubbing the crushed leaves in her hand against her pant leg. "I've been here mostly, in the garden."
As soon as she felt him stop beside her, she grabbed the kunai half buried in the dirt and swung it towards his leg. The tearing of cloth and a soft swear was her only reward as her target leaped back to just barely escape the blow. He pounced on her before she could gain her feet and she gasped sharply on impact. The kunai was wrenched from her hand and pressed to her throat, stilling any thoughts of a struggle.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
The kunai eased slightly against her neck. "So it's true. You're blind." He chuckled. "I expected as much, but imagine my surprise when I came looking for an Uchiha and found a Hyuuga instead."
A long finger trailed down her cheek and she fought the need to tremble. "I thought you were dead, hime," he whispered.
Lavender eyes widened and Hinata struck out, heedless of the kunai at her throat. Her fingernails dug into skin and he hissed sharply as he tried to dodge her wild flailing. Dropping the kunai, he grabbed her wrist and flipped her over, twisting her arms behind her back until she cried out in pain.
"Now, now, princess. None of that," he breathed in her ear, tweaking her arm for emphasis.
A whimper escaped her clenched teeth and tears burned her eyes. This can't be happening! How did he get into the village and past Nanami-san? Nanami-san!
"What did you do to Nanami-san?" she demanded.
"You should be more worried about yourself, Hinata-chan," Kabuto murmured. Tucking his face into the crook of her neck, he breathed deeply and smiled when she cringed.
"I see why he kept you," he grinned. "I may have to reconsider my original plan."
Hinata's heart stilled. Plan?
"He will come for me," she said, hating how her voice trembled.
Kabuto smirked. "I'm counting on it."
Hime- princess
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