Ninety minutes into the forests surrounding Konoha, Hanabi pulled on the reins. She got down from the horse, and stepped forward, her visage already frowning. The feisty young Hyuuga cleared her throat, her fingers tightening around the leather.
"Come out," she shouted, "I don't like talking to people whose faces I cannot see."
The leaves rustled and the wind blew, but it would be a full minute before the shinobi would step out of the shadows. Subconsciously, Hanabi's eyes softened and her shoulders relaxed. Yet she didn't take one step away from her steed.
"Shinobi aren't supposed to be seen, Hanabi-sama."
Her grip on the reins slackened. "I would have thought you'd reached Oto already." Her tone was polite and somewhat warm, and her other arm fell lamely to her side.
He hesitated. "Not yet."
Confused, Hanabi tilted her head sideways by a fraction of a degree. Then her opalescent eyes narrowed and suddenly she sighed, irate but not really. "You're waiting for her, aren't you?" Hanabi mumbled, and it wasn't a question. "Where do you think you'll bring her for now? You know you can't go back to Konoha now."
The older man dismissed her skeptical questions. He shook his head. "Hinata-sama thinks I did it?"
She nodded numbly, and she clutched the reins with more force. Her voice became a whisper, impudent and angry. "You never told me Father ordered you to do it." Hanabi stopped staring at the ninja standing just five metres away from her.
He let out a hearty laugh, cynical and sordid but hearty nonetheless. He turned around slowly, shamelessly showing his back to Hanabi. "Would you have carried the plan out if I did?"
Before Hanabi could respond, he shot her one last sidelong glance over his shoulder, and jumped to the nearest tree branch. He crouched to maintain his balance as he gripped the bark.
"Make sure you deliver the letter to Hinata-sama," he reminded with a note of finality, and then Neji was gone.
~X~
Temari cringed. If there was something she hated the most, it was having to restrain a comrade. Yes, she considered Hinata to be somewhat of a comrade ― she'd be stuck with her brother, and as much as he'd changed over the years, he still screamed intimidation. Initially the blond kunoichi thought of downplaying Hinata's abilities, but she figured her brother wouldn't have relented, and she hated it when people insulted their friends.
Somehow Kankuro was able to pick up on her unhappiness. "It's necessary, Temari," he pointed out, tightening the knot. Hinata flinched, still unconscious. "She's proven herself to be dangerous." The puppeteer took a step back from the restrained form of his sister-in-law and gesticulated in the direction of the improvised weapon, still surrounded by a faint blue chakra.
And then he took a close look at his sister, scrutinising her visage. Temari shifted her weight, uneasy.
Kankuro's painted eyes narrowed. "This isn't about Shikamaru, is it?" His voice was accusatory and highly suspicious, and for a moment Temari couldn't answer. The puppeteer sighed, gasped, and walked wearily toward a chair. He fell into it, leaving his sister to prop Hinata upright.
"Well," he murmured, quite dazed. "Can't say I don't particularly like him."
Temari blanched. "I…" she hesitated. "This isn't about me or Shikamaru. This is about Gaara." Her teal eyes focused on the stirring form of her sister-in-law, decidedly avoiding her brother's invasive gaze that seemed to be able to dissect her soul. Hinata's eyelids started to flutter in a way that would have normally induced unbearable nausea.
The man opened his mouth to protest, but their attention shifted as they heard the front door open. When they heard two pairs of footsteps, when Kankuro felt two familiar chakra signatures enter, he shot a look at Temari and this time, she reciprocated.
Inside his room, Gaara took a moment to process the scene and attempt to understand why his wife was tied up and his two siblings appeared to be the culprits. The Kazekage shook his head after a few silent minutes, and moved aside to allow his guest entry to his bedroom. He had the satisfaction of seeing his siblings' eyes pop out for just that split second as they recognised the shinobi Gaara brought along.
Matsuri stood by the ajar door, uncomfortable and uneasy and just plain unnerved. She felt Temari's harsh gaze on her, like the sister of the man she so admired was trying very painfully to comprehend why she of all people had been chosen. Matsuri felt the apathetic look of dull sympathy and unwarranted pity from the eyes of Kankuro, as if he actually understood her feelings.
Her broken heart fell further.
Temari took five minutes to understand what Gaara was trying to telepathically tell her, and she dragged Kankuro out by his cat-like ears on his hoodie. The redhead followed behind his whining older brother, and a brief nod was all that he addressed to his former student, whose legs were together and whose arms were crossed. She wasn't looking at his wife.
The wooden door closed behind the renowned sand siblings. Matsuri breathed in deeply and held it while she sat down awkwardly on a study chair. She ran her fingers on the smooth, varnished wood, traced the artistic lines in the material that made the furniture all the more beautiful. Her arms sat on the respective arm rests, and Matsuri allowed herself to think that this could have been hers.
On cue, Hinata stopped stirring and her eyes opened slowly. Her throat was dry and she felt absolutely horrible, but that was pushed to the back of her disorientated mind. The ex-Hyuuga willed her hand to rub her grieving eyes, and this was when she realised there was rope wrapped around her body.
Hinata could have screamed. She could have thrashed around in her restraints and yelled bloody murder to anyone who wad unlucky enough to be in her presence. She could have channeled her chakra to her hands like she always did, and break through the cords that wound around her body again and again.
Hinata sat limply, allowing her mind to slowly absorb her situation. She replayed the few events prior to her unconsciousness in her head, and her hand twitched in response to her will.
It was only when Matsuri spoke that Hinata realised there was someone else in her bedroom.
"Hinata..." her words were soft and disjointed, and she looked as if she were staring right past her. "That's your name, isn't it?"
Matsuri received a rather confused expression in reply, and an extremely cautious, "Yes it is."
The girl almost punched herself; she researched everything about her Kazekage's wife the day he told her, and she had read and re-read the information it was probably permanently burned into her memory. There was no doubt about it; Gaara had went ahead and married Hyuuga Hinata of the Hyuuga Clan, and the woman sat just a few metres away from her, held back and ― as Matsuri thought ― defenceless.
Matsuri sighed. "I don't know what's going on, but I'm guessing it's pretty bad. Gaara-sama didn't tell me anything else about your situation."
A delicate eyebrow was raised over a pair of soulless white eyes. "Gaara-kun asked you to talk to me?"
The suna kunoichi bit her lip. Yes, he did, she wanted to say, He asked me. Which is so unlike him, because Gaara-sama hardly ever takes the initiative to ask anyone anything when it comes to personal matters. Matsuri nodded.
Hinata remembered Temari telling her Hanabi was coming to visit her. She chuckled. Suddenly she was the centre of a covert debacle. "Your parents are dead, aren't they?" It came out more aggressive than Hinata actually meant it, but if Matsuri was offended, she didn't show it.
"Yeah," the younger girl answered with a small shrug. "Murdered before my very eyes. With weapons. Gaara-sama cured me of my trauma."
Hinata flashed a little warm smile that cracked the other girl's fallen heart. "He must have been a good teacher."
He must be a good husband.
Matsuri realised she'd said this out loud when the white-eyed beauty with gorgeously silky tresses sent her a quizzical look, underlined with a small restrained curve of her lips that would have been pretty if she meant it. Matsuri felt her cheeks burn and blood rush to her ears.
"He has been good to me, so far," came her distant reply. Then she rearranged her expression and Hinata said sadly, "He doesn't deserve any of this. I'm very sorry he has to go through this too."
"He needs you," Matsuri blurted out, because she was an idiot and because she always said the most forward things. "Gaara-sama, he needs you."
"I need to go home," Hinata countered sharply, and her sudden assertiveness almost knocked Matsuri off her chair.
Hinata's pale face coloured. "Excuse me, please," she pardoned herself politely, "You don't deserve any of this either." At that moment she was thankful for the feeble rope; at least it blocked her from acting on pure impulse.
Matsuri started chewing the insides of her cheeks. "I don't know why you're doing what you're doing or why Gaara-sama's doing what he's doing, but if he's gone this far, I don't think you should pass him up. Gaara-sama never does anything for a girl." Not even for me.
Hinata took one good long look at the girl sharing her air, and vice versa. Matsuri wasn't too bad of a looker ― pretty face, thin body, hormones that practically defined her entire being... She seemed atypical of a kunoichi her age. Then Hinata saw something familiar in Matsuri's eyes ― adoration, blind adoration in its purest form, coupled with crushing heartbreak and absolute helplessness.
Hinata almost scooted to the wall; she saw herself in Matsuri's eyes in more ways than one. Suddenly she was twelve years old again, weak and worthless and pining away for things she'd never get.
Hinata focused on the duvet. "What would you do, if your parents were still alive? If your parents were just killed yesterday?"
There was a long pause, and Matauri decided to choose her words carefully. "Well," she murmured, her eyes on the Kazekage's wife.
She saw the nose that was shaped like a doll's, not too small an not too large, not too high and not too low. She saw how her lips were so delicate looking and how they looked so unbearably soft, even from her distance. She saw her fair complexion, white and even and so clean it made her despair.
And her eyes ― oh, her eyes ― they were the most captivating things she'd seen in her life, even more so than the beautiful pair of green ones from her boss. They held a sort of mysterious aura, and they seemed to hold more than a million secrets. Hinata looked so normal, so un-ninja it was beautiful, and it kidnapped your attention and held it for ransom. Matsuri no longer wondered why she was picked.
"You're the wife of the Kazekage now," the suna kunoichi pointed out. "Your first duty is to your husband. If I were married to Gaara-sama I'd put him first. He would have been my family first."
Hinata wondered, if she was married to Naruto, how would she have reacted? Granted, there was some form of peace and she even dared to say there was a small inkling of, perhaps, affection. Her father never thought much of her anyway, and neither did any of the Hyuuga Council. They weren't worth the trouble, not even if she had duty as their relative, were they?
Besides, Hanabi was coming.
"You're lucky," Matsuri continued when Hinata stayed silent. "If it were me I would've been so happy." She gained rhythm and force. "If it were me I would've―"
"I'm sorry, alright?" Hinata interrupted, because she was sick of girls who looked to the past when they hoped for the future. Naruto and Sakura flashed in her mind. "I'm sorry I took the man you loved away from you. I'm sorry he was the one. I'm sorry you knew him. I'm sorry you became a shinobi. I'm sorry your parents died. I'm sorry you were born. I'm sorry you're living a pathetic existence, but could you please get out and leave me be?"
Matsuri made a sort of strangled sound at the back of her throat, and she stood up, apprehensive. Her eyes narrowed and all she could see was a shrew of a woman, angry and miserable and so ungrateful.
"Gaara-sama really cares for you," she repeated with a substantial amount of strain in her voice, and then she started walking.
Hinata saw Matsuri's shadow leave the bedroom.