SasuHina Month 2019 #1: Living Together
I can't even begin to tell you how many more unfinished fics i have. :P
Her hand was thinner and bonier than it should have been, shaking, clammy, and frail in his larger one.
When he had offered to take it, bent down to her height with his arm outstretched, she jumped at the sound of his voice and cowered away from his touch. His heart went out to her as he thought to himself, How much have you been through, poor child? She would be even more starved of love and affection than she had already had been. But with a trembling lip, she slipped her hand in his, seeking what little warmth she could find in this cold world had left her in.
Hiashi's eldest hadn't been with the main clan the night of the massacres. Hyuuga Hinata was the only one untouched. The younger sister had just been named heiress in her place, and she had perished along with everyone else. Deemed weaker of mind and body, more incompetent, and less qualified to lead the clan, her father had shunned her. Was that why she was not harmed?
Across the way, another boy left alone. The youngest child of the head family was not as skilled as his older brother, hadn't even begun to receive education on Uchiha techniques, had not even activated his sharingan once.
Two children, the last of their family. Considered harmless to the murderer that had wiped their clans away. Was it mercy? Or was it an insult?
Minato squeezed the hand in his a little harder and her white, red-rimmed eyes peered up at him beneath inky lashes that had clustered, held together by dried tears.
"This is it," he said softly, and her eyes dragged to the small apartment in front of which they stood.
He knocked on the door and after a few minutes, it opened slowly.
Ucihiha Sasuke stood on the other side, one hand on the doorknob. Dark hair, dark eyes with dark shadows beneath them, and the dark, lightless interior of the room behind him welcomed them. His hair was standing up on one side, almost as if he had been laying down on that side for hours. His lips were turned down slightly, traces of Fugaku showing there.
He didn't greet them and his eyes flickered to Hinata's. They looked at each other, but only numbness stared back.
Minato cleared his throat and both pairs of white and black eyes turned to him. "From now on, you will be living together," he said gently.
As if remembering her place, Hinata slid her hand out from Minato's grip, folding them and turning towards him. "Arigatou, Hokage-sama," Hinata said, bowing respectfully. Her voice was hoarse and whispery.
She met Sasuke's gaze and the door was opened just wide enough for her to step through. They stood facing Minato like polar opposites, yet they were mirror images of melancholy.
"Take care of each other," he swallowed thickly, guilt flooding him as the thought of his own sunshine son and his carefree laughter and smiles. What would he do if his own son were left alone just like they were?
The memory of the matching seals on the pale, creamy skin of their forehead would forever be a symbol of his failure.
Minato had been forced to issue an emergency meeting with the clan heads to search and destroy. They, along with his ANBU, had just barely managed to terminate the shinobi who had gone on what seemed to be a suicide mission to slaughter two of the greatest clans of Konoha.
The shinobi seemed to have a gift for evasion, knowing how to stay just out of reach. Even in Sennin mode and flickering between seals, Minato grew increasingly frustrated as his chakra sense was inhibited. Inoichi hardly could discern the foreign chakra from a distance, his mind transfer technique rendered useless as he fell to the ground in agony by a defense mechanism the enemy had used. He still hadn't woken up from the resulting coma it had caused.
Finally, Tsume had caught the trail from the scent of the deceased's blood.
"Who else is there?" Minato demanded furiously, spit flying everywhere as he slammed his fists into the enemy's face. Usually calm and composed, a rage bubbled up in him as his village was thrown into an uproar with the news of the Hyuuga and Uchiha massacre, each remaining clan on edge. "To which village does your allegiance lie?" Shikaku had him tied down by his shadow vines, with Chouza's super-enlarged hand encircling his entire body. "Answer me!"
"It was either them or the jinchuuriki, Yondaime Hokage-sama. Konoha can't have it all, now can they?" The cracked mask on his face fell to splinters, and instead, Minato saw his own face in genjutsu mirrored under the mask laughing maniacally before the shinobi died, choking on Shibi's beetles. They had entered every orifice of his body and laid eggs, hatching and multiplying by the thousands and ripping his body from the inside out into shreds.
The village remained on high alert for the next clan extermination, with all the clan heads rightfully concerned.
"If the Hyuuga and Uchiha have fallen, how many more will fall before the whole of Konoha is destroyed?" old Hiruzen asked, the former hokage just as concerned as Minato.
Chouza nodded in agreement. "How do you know they won't come after my son? Or Shibi's? We are the last of the remaining noble clans."
"We are not even considered noble clans," Shikaku's voice was hard as he spoke up, "but we are large ones, and our alliance is formidable." It was a rare occasion when the Nara spoke, when he did, everyone listened. "I doubt that it would be enough."
"I have a suggestion, Hokage-sama," came a voice from the shadows. All heads turned towards the source as Danzo's bandaged face appeared. "Give them to me."
Minato's eyes narrowed, but before he could open his mouth to respond, Danzo accused, "You failed to protect us, Minato-sama." There was a pregnant pause and Danzo turned to address the others. "Let us train these children. Let them be a symbol of our power, our resilience. Let them avenge their clans and protect the rest of us from dying out."
"That's ridicul - "
"Consider it wisely, Hokage-sama. They live to serve you. And your son. Wouldn't it only be fitting to be protected by these two?" His eyes gleamed. "Think of the power. They wouldn't be restricted by their clan rules or secrets either."
No, Minato had thought grimly. They would be restricted by you.
In the end, he had been overruled. It was for the benefit and protection of the village, they had reasoned, and the techniques of both clans would be kept secret and safe. Minato warned Danzo to stay away from the two-he would not have them in his care. In the end, they compromised that once they became genin, they would become part of Anbu Root Division to complete their training until deemed ready.
Minato was furious at Danzo and the elders when he didn't make it in time to prevent their sealing.
The black diamond-shaped seal, much like Tsunade's strength of a hundred, was deemed less daunting than the caged bird seal, though the restrictions and punishment were much harsher. They would also not be able to activate their dojutsu and their techniques without extreme pain. As they completed their training, Danzo promised, they would be allowed more and more access - but only on Konoha's terms.
Hinata had activated her byakugan at Danzo's request when he had presented her to Minato. Her eyes turned black as the seal gleamed until the sockets seemed to fill with liquid onyx. She had fallen to the floor paralyzed and her breathing seemed to stop, mouth slack-jawed and an expressionless mask on her face.
"What are you doing?" Minato's voice rose in horror.
"Hyuuga," Danzo said in a commanding tone.
The seal stopped shining and the blacks of her eyes slowly faded back to signature Hyuuga white, and then she was sweating, gasping for air. Tears flooded her eyes and she sat up quaking in fear, pressing her hand to her chest as if trying to hold herself together.
The elders' faces remained impassive, and Danzo continued, "We retained the influence of the caged bird in that if we see signs of their insubordination, the same effects occur, whether or not they activate their dojutsu."
Hinata choked, "P-please -" as his arms raised towards her.
"That's enough."
Danzo's hands froze mid-seal formation, Minato's hand encircling his wrist. One moment, he was across the room, and the other, he had flashed into existence beside him.
"As the Hokage, I order you to not use the seal on them -"
Danzo's eyebrow rose.
"Until they come of age," Minato bit out, releasing him reluctantly from a vice tight grip. "Is that agreeable?" he demanded the other clan heads. "She is only five years old! Would you want your own child to suffer this?"
The young Hyuuga shivered on the floor, and as every eye turned to her, she shrank under their gazes.
He released Danzo, throwing his arm. "I will not have harm come to them." Never had they seen the blues of their hokage's eyes so dark and threatening. "Or else your life is mine."
That was all he would allow. He had disappeared from the meeting in another flash.
They would only be future weapons of the village, like Kushina was. They would only endure more pain. They would be essentially stripped of their bloodline, left alone to learn the horrors of what their dojutsu could do.
"You have to help them, Minato," his wife had urged him. Her violet eyes were glimmering with tears, but remained fierce in their request.
She had been the last of her clan too.
There wasn't much he could do but provide a temporary safe space for them. The Yondaime returned in the dead of night, painting his seals in discreet places near the apartment. He would try to keep them safe. He owed Fugaku and Hiashi that much.
The apartment was small and dim, and there was a faint lingering smell of mold. The building itself was vacant and dilapidated. The living area was just an empty space, devoid of all furniture and sentiment. When the door clicked shut, she turned to face him, but he only pushed past her.
"Y-Yondaime..." she tried, reaching for the sleeve of his shirt and effectively pulling him back. He glared at her, and as if surprised by herself, she snatched her hand away. Bowing her head, she whispered, "G-gomen."
"What do you want?" Sasuke snarled.
"Yondaime-sama and Kushina-san s-said these are for us." She reached in her bag and presented onigiri. "P-please. Please eat."
The Uchiha's lips flattened, but he took one from her hand and led her into a cramped kitchen with an old wooden table that creaked when she set her small bag of belongings on it and sat gingerly on one of the two chairs facing each other.
He brought a cracked cup filled with water, setting it in front of her. "We don't have tea," he muttered before taking his own spot across from her.
"Iitedakimasu," she said softly, and he grunted with her before starting to eat.
"Yondaime-sama and Kushina-san said we will be p-provided tea, miso, rice, and other necessities once a month," she recited. "We can pick them up in the morning."
He nodded between wolfing down bites of his onigiri, finishing it off and reaching for another.
Blank, numb eyes watched him. "Yondaime-sama said we are to meet every day."
"And the academy?"
Her chin fell to her chest as she dropped her gaze to her hands fumbling with the fabric of her pants. "We return as scheduled."
There was one bedroom with only a large futon in the middle. Sasuke was a lump on one end. She assumed the other end was for her. They fell asleep without saying goodnight.
"Ohaiyo, Uchiha-san," she said in the morning.
His eyebrows had turned down with disdain. "Don't call me that. I don't want to be reminded of my dead family."
She flinched. Even as she brushed her short hair in the bathroom, when she stared in the broken mirror, she saw her family, dead and gone. There was dried blood on the cracked edges that couldn't have been more than a few hours old. It matched the bandages with fresh blood wrapped around Sasuke's knuckles.
She didn't want to be reminded either.
"Just call me Sasuke."
He woke up in the middle of one night with a start. She lay next to him fast asleep sprawled halfway on the futon, halfway on the floor. He saw a bowl of water beside him and felt a washcloth on his forehead that must have once been cold. His skin felt damp and his shirt was sticky, as if sweat had dried only recently.
When he woke up again, she was back on the other side of the futon, and the washcloth and bowl of water were gone as if nothing had happened.
She didn't mention his nightmares, and he didn't mention her crying.
They hovered cautiously around each other in the beginning, interacting only when necessary, mostly trying to avoid each other and not get in each other's way.
But one day, Hinata burned herself while making tea. Sasuke heard a crash in the kitchen and found her picking up the broken shards of glass on the floor, slicing her skin open in her haste as she tried not to cry. "I'm s-sorry."
"Don't cry." He came over to sit on his knees in front of her, but she tried to hide her face from him.
"I'm sorry," her voice trembled as she held her arm to her chest. "I don't want to be a bother. Let me get someone else to -" She started to rise to her feet, but Sasuke grabbed the edge of her shirt.
"You don't need anyone. You have me." He guided her back to his height on the floor and helped her pick shards out of her hand. "Right?" he asked hesitantly a few minutes later, almost as if he was scared to hear her answer.
"Y-yes," Hinata rubbed away the rest of her tears with the back of her other hand.
"We're all we need. Just us."
"Just us," she repeated.
She was better at the household duties, but he was better at cooking and eventually they found a routine. Isolated, shunned, and ostracized as if a curse to the village, they had no choice but to depend on only each other.
She tried to practice some katas one early morning, but she felt eyes on her. Sasuke sat watching her until she beckoned him shyly over, prompting him to imitate her movements. They practiced his taijutsu, which she was better at, as she helped him improve his stance. In return, he helped her practice her weapon wielding, which he was better at. He let her use some of his kunai and shuriken, and they set up makeshift targets in the yard.
After their studies, they spent one week dedicated to training with one clan head from the village. They learned battle tactics with Shikaku, interrogation, torture, and pyschological terror with Inoichi. Tracking with Tsume, strength and power with Chouza. Infiltration with Shibi, fuinjutsu Minato and Kushina. Even young jounin were chosen to work with the two. They honed their taijutsu with Gai, practiced hand to hand weapons combat with Asuma. Genjutsu with Kurenai, poisons and medicines with Shizune. All the while grooming to become the perfect killers.
"Do you know how…?" he asked, gesturing to her eyes, as they cleaned their weapons in comfortable silence.
She pressed her lips together, pausing in the middle of dipping her senbon in poison. "I've always known how."
"I've only once before." Sasuke gripped the shuriken in his hand, his eyes glazed over as he seemed to stare right through it. "The night they all died. I don't know how to do it again." Blood trickled down the sides of his fingers, dripping slowly onto the floor for a few minutes before he released his hold, immune to the pain. "I don't think I ever will."
She exhaled slowly, putting her materials down and coming over to kneel beside him. She took the bloody shuriken, wiping it on the edge of her yukata. Tearing a clean piece off, she reached for his hand, placing it on her lap as she patiently wrapped it. "You do it every night. When you dream. I-it's… it frightens me. I-I...I worry." She kept her eyes hidden behind her lashes.
"My sharingan activates every night?" Sasuke asked as she finished up, wiping her stained hands on the rest of her ruined yukata.
"Yes. You don't realize it? It-It's painful to watch." Her hand reached out instinctively to brush the seal on his forehead lightly. He reached up to catch it, bringing her hand between them.
His dark brows furrowed. "Hinata, thank you."
Her eyes flickered to his in question, her name rarely on his lips.
"You don't have to take care of me, but you do."
Her fingers threaded through his, squeezing softly. "Y-you're all I have."
That night, they faced each other, staring at each other in the dim moonlight. He put his hand out for her and she entwined their fingers.
"Say my name."
"S-Sasuke," she whispered.
"No. My real name."
White eyes filled with understanding. "Uchiha Sasuke."
His eyes tightened in not quite pain as he remembered the family that had been taken from him and the new family and comfort he found in the girl before him.
"I don't want to be reminded," he murmured, "but I don't want to forget either."
They fell asleep with their hands clasped together, nose to nose.
It was the first time they truly slept.
They had been in the middle of making dinner. Hinata had an apron on over her sweaty training clothes as she scooped rice into small bowls. Sasuke was still drying his hair with a towel with one hand, fresh out of the bath. It was barely a faint rustle in the leaves, but they slung their weapons in the direction of the intrusion.
"Hmm, not bad," a deep voice rumbled.
They looked up to the shadow perched in the window.
"Yo," the Anbu said, reaching to push his fox mask up his face so that it sat on his forehead, brandishing the kunai and shuriken they had thrown at him between his fingers. "I'm Kakashi. You can call me Captain." With a flick of his wrist, he aimed for the seals on their heads, to which they dodged, and the weapons landed along the wall behind them with a resounding THWACK THWACK. Only a few strands of hair fluttered from the tops of their heads to the floor.
The red of their new captain's lone sharingan eye gleamed brightly in the dark shadows, and Sasuke's face darkened with anger at the sight.
"Not bad." Another mask concealed the bottom half of his face, but his eyes seemed amused for a second before they turned serious and his voice became hard. "Time for training." He placed his Anbu mask back on. "You meet at the hokage tower at 4am. If you're late…" he trailed off. And in a puff of smoke, he disappeared.
They straightened up from their defensive stances, glaring at the empty spot where he had been.
Minato's face was grim the next morning. He barely was able to manage a hint of a reassuring smile to the two, as he laid a soft hand on Sasuke's head and gave Hinata's shoulder a gentle squeeze.
They were presented before Danzo, with their new captain at point, other ANBU members surrounding them in a semi-circle. "Ah, Hinata, my lovely doll. How you've grown. You really are more like your mother." He ran a hand through her hair, which now reached the middle of her back. Hinata's eyes narrowed in response. "How old are you now?"
"12, Danzo-sama," she answered in a hard voice, her chin pointing the opposite direction as she leaned away from him.
"Now, now," he clucked his tongue, "You used to be so sweet. May I remind you who you belong to?" With one wrinkled hand, he took hold of her chin, the other hand holding her wrist in place, forcing her head up towards him.
"Don't touch her!" Sasuke's dark eyes were wide in a frenzied rage.
Danzo turned his attention to him. "Oh my, Sasuke-kun," he purred, practically salivating. "It seems you are ready." He let go of Hinata's chin and with a one-handed seal, Sasuke fell to the floor in pain.
"Sasuke!" Hinata cried, struggling to release herself from Danzo's hold. "Stop it!" she pleaded.
After he finished gasping for air and convulsing on the ground, Sasuke managed to raise his head. "Don't. Touch her," he bit through gritted teeth.
Danzo chuckled. He released Hinata and she ran to Sasuke, dropping to her knees to clutch at him.
"I think they're more than ready," He laughed darkly to Kakashi. "And give this message to our dear hokage: Don't get in my way." Kakashi nodded, disappearing in an instant, the other Anbu dismissed with a wave of Danzo's hand.
They were left alone, and Hinata reached out to touch the seal gently on his forehead. Once again, Sasuke found himself leaning into her touch.
"Does it hurt?" she asked.
"No."
"Should I get Hokage-sama?"
He reached out for her hand, holding her in place. "I don't need anyone else," he muttered. "Just you."
Her lip trembled, and they leaned their foreheads together, black diamond on diamond, as she repeated in a whisper, "Just you."
As long as they had each other, they would survive. They would make any place a home together, even in the deepest hell.
A/N: Danzo eventually allows them access to their dojutsu and they become a formidable assasination unit with Kakashi as their captain in Root. At age 16, they desert and become missing nin, assassinating Danzo and fleeing Konoha. Eventually Hina and Sasu find out how to fully use their dojutsu and rise to revolution across all the shinobi countries. By this time Naruto is Hokage, and …
