Yo, good reviewers
Um... this is a horrible chapter, i'm warning you all now. I wrote a first draft and it was crap, so i rewrote it, and then... i closed the window without saving.
I was really, really mad.
Anyway, this is the third, very forced, very unreliable draft, which will probably be rewritten sometime when i reread it and get ticked off enough to rip it to shreds. (i've actually done that, lol, printed it out just to rip it- knowing full well that it's STILL on the net.)
anywho, i figured you all deserved something to go on at least, but this one sucks, so i just,... ugh, i'm sorry, lol. it's also a bit of a crappy cliffhanger, but... meh. read at your own risk Xx
you wont enjoy.
-ink
Running, running, she was always running. The darkness of the forest was suffocating, slipping down her throat like liquor. Gasping she ripped through the thorns and the vines that reached for her and ached to trip her, make her fall.
Unexpectedly she hit the ground; something had finally managed to grab hold of her ankle. Sobbing she rolled into herself, the pain of air being shoved out her was incredible, her whole torso was throbbing painfully.
But that didn't matter, her mind was still focused on running, on getting away somehow, but her body wouldn't function, not under the strain of so much pain.
There was blood, on her face and her hands, and bruises, surely something was broken. She couldn't even think.
But she could remember, flashes of very recent memory rolling through the clouds of utter agony. How they had abandoned her... how he had appeared, shoved her away, told her to run...
And there it was. The scream, the scream she knew would come. It always did, and it always made her feel the same horrible agonized panic as before. She knew in the darkness there was a pair of eyes watching, and the thought of them made her want to shriek, hold herself and pretend the world didn't exist.
Sobbing she pushed herself up to her elbow and strained to move towards the sound of the scream... she knew that voice, it was his voice.
"NO!"
Gasping Hinata sat up sharply, her hands throwing off the blankets rapidly. She almost rolled out of the bed, but managed not to, straining to regain control of her heaving breaths and the drum beat that was her heart raging in her ears.
Breathless she lowered herself back against the blankets and pillows, looking around dazedly at the brightly lit bedroom. Outside there was snow falling in great big snowflakes.
The window was open, something that didn't happen very often in her bedroom, mainly at night. It caused her dreams to be more powerful, more believable, for some reason.
Licking her dry lips she struggled over to the window right above the side of her bed and moved to close the curtains, but stopped, looking up at the bright orb that was the moon shinning between the twinkling snowflakes.
It was February, so it made sense that it would be snowing, but the snow had come and gone already, it was surprising to be seeing it there all of a sudden again.
Her mind settled back into it's calm state, pushing away the yearning to examine her dream. No, she didn't need to think about that... there was something else she was forgetting. It was almost dawn, perhaps in an hour the sun would be up in the sky, so then why was she so worried.
I'm forgetting something, I'm certain of it... but what...
With a gasp her eyes widened and she tripped her way out of the bed, stumbling over to her closet in a hurry.
Training! She had forgotten about training! With Uchiha-san! How could she have forgotten?
Should she bring lunch with her- goodness, should she maybe bring two? What if Sasuke didn't? What if he didn't expect to take a lunch break? Could she even eat anything right in the morning feeling that ill?
Already wanting to throw up from the nervousness she knelt by her closet, fiddling with the clothing in the darkness.
What in the name of all the gods had she gotten herself into? She must have been more drunk on that sip of sake than she had realized! Sasuke Uchiha... training Hinata Hyuuga? There were a thousand reasons why that was not only weird, but wrong- or at least harmful. Her father would have a fit- actually Neji would have a fit, most of her friends would and what if Sakura...
No, she couldn't train with Uchiha Sasuke; she had to get there quickly and apologize profusely and attempt to make him realize the absurdity of the situation. What had ever possessed her to think it was okay in the first place?
Her fingers stumbled over each other as she shoved her shirt over her head, glancing around for her sweater before remembering that Sakura and Ino had managed to throw it away somewhere. Sighing heavily she examined the rows of unused clothing that filled most of her wardrobe. Hanabi too had tried to loosen up her ways of dressing several times and no one had prevailed.
Until they took her sweater away.
Grumbling in a very uncharacteristic manner about how unfair it was she finally pulled out a loose black knit turtle neck and threw it over her mesh shirt, fiddling with the wraps around her thighs and forearms as she headed out the door.
"Guh!" she gasped softly, blinking and stumbling down the hall anyway, trying for the love of god to hurry up. Absently she slipped into the empty kitchen, glancing around to find the empty cup of tea that Neji had probably had right before leaving to train on his own or with Tenten somewhere in the darkness of the woods. That was their favorite spot.
Not that he would ever admit such a thing.
Sighing she looked around, wondering just what to do. Maybe in apology she could take Uchiha-san a good lunch. She wasn't a bad cook, and seeing as she was just ditching him...
Biting her lip she began to undo the bandages wrapped around her arms, getting ready for the most intense fifteen minutes of cooking she would ever see in her life
Oh, I hope he doesn't get upset with me...
You are such an idiot, such a complete idiot...
Sasuke stared at himself in the mirror, leaning shirtless over his sink. What in the name of all the gods had given him the idea that he could get the style of gentle fist from Hinata Hyuuga?
The girl was hopeless, she probably didn't know enough about it herself- he should have gone to Neji in the first place. He couldn't deal with someone so slow and so bloody shy. He was not the one that did the talking, that was the rule. But with her it was like he had no other option, she couldn't pull out more than three short sentences without fainting in a puddle of flushed goo.
Irritated with himself he dipped his head back into the cold water in the sink, feeling it's bite with some sort of odd satisfaction.
No, he would have to tell her that he couldn't train her, not at all. It didn't make any sense. He couldn't help someone at her level anyway. She wasn't good enough to even get help from a professional teacher like Kurenai why the hell did she think he could help?
Not that he hadn't pushed for her to think that he could...
Damned!
Silently the Uchiha heir moved about his room, pulling out the first random shirt he could find. It didn't really matter, all of his clothing matched. White, black, and navy blue. And the white was rare, so rare it wasn't even considered part of his wardrobe really.
Shaking out his wet hair he stumbled down the stairs to the middle floor where the Sakura tree sat in the darkness of the predawn morning, smelling of it's cherry blossoms.
The smell usually irritated him. The last thing he wanted was to wake up and get smacked around the face by a cloud of perfume.
But it felt good that early in the day, when he wasn't quite awake. It made the house feel less cold and utterly silent.
Rotating his sore shoulders he glanced at the kitchen, knowing full well that there was not a single thing there fit to eat. That didn't matter though. Shrugging to himself he pushed his way out the door and began his gentle trot towards the training site, wondering just how he'd tell the Hyuuga girl that he couldn't train her, without making her burst into tears.
That, would just be messy...
The sun was already halfway through being born again, it's orb was white, unlike the usual bright orange.
It was just the snow, covering it as it rose up. It's large fat flakes swirling as the wind blew.
Hinata sat with her back against the trunk of the willow tree that reached furthest into the training area, in her lap were two small bags of white cloth. The lunches she hoped would patch things up between herself and the Uchiha, whom she was terrified would be insulted by her sudden desire not to train.
Or what had been a small desire not to train. Sitting there in the cold of the snow with the sun rising she wasn't so sure. Facing things she didn't want to do was part of training, part of being stronger. And he had offered to help, the genius of her class had offered to help her get stronger. Her father would probably be upset, but even more so if she quit in front of the Uchiha…
Rubbing her nose she sighed, uncertain as to what to do, dazed slightly by the brightness of the morning as the sun began to reflect itself off the millions of crystals that were falling from the sky, causing the sheer white of the oddly winter morning to blind her slightly.
Squinting, she rubbed her cold nose, trying to get it to feel something more than utter numbness.
Humming quietly to herself she swung her feet, biting the inside of her cheek nervously and straining not to glance around again. It was dawn... she had expected him to be the most punctual person on the planet- actually she had worried that 'she' would be late from having to cook so quickly...
"Hn, if I had wanted, I could have killed you." Sasuke's voice suddenly cut in from below.
Hinata blinked down at him, startled. "Oh! Ah- h-hai! Good morning, Uchiha-san."
"Stop calling me that." he muttered, making her shrink into herself slightly in confusion. "Nani..?"
"It's so formal. I don't call you Hyuuga-sama." he continued to grumble before sitting down at the roots of the tree. Hinata remained still, unsure of what to do.Truth be told... he never said her name, so she didn't know exactly 'what' he called her. Hesitantly she pushed herself to her feet on the tree and jumped down, landing softly nearby, bags in hand.
"Gomen... um... w-what should I call you then?" she mumbled, trying to see his face in the darkness, but the sun wasn't high enough yet. Sasuke shrugged. "Dunno."
"Oh... uh... Sasuke-san?" she blinked, struggling to find something with which to please him. He was hard to keep happy- or at least hard to keep from grumbling. Most people weren't like that, she wasn't used to it.
Except for her father... he was like that.
"Still too formal." He sighed, sounding bored. "How about just Sasuke?"
She blinked again, uncomfortable with the first name thing. "Sasuke-kun?"
"Sure."
"Okay." her eyes lowered down to the bags in her lap and she bit her lip, worried that just maybe it would be taken badly.
"Uh... Uchi-er... Sasuke-kun. I... I didn't know if you would ano, have time t-to make lunch so I- well I just thought that... " she blinked again.
"Um... I made lunch... y-you don't have to take it if you don't want though! I'm a horrible cook and-"
Sasuke stared at her a moment, surprised and feeling vaguely miserable. She had made lunch... and she as apologizing for it.
He couldn't help but want to smirk, it was irritably cute.
But damn it, now she was making it hard for him to let her off easy. He couldn't just take the bloody thing and suddenly say that he wasn't going to train her- but if he said he didn't want it she would probably burst into tears anyway.
A long string of curses followed this thought and Sasuke sat in silence, blinking at Hinata as though he didn't know what to say. Luckily that happened to be the truth.
Hinata on the other hand panicked, realizing in his head he was trying to figure out why she would make lunch and the possibility of him getting the wrong idea was very likely-
"Ano!" she gasped. "I-I well, I had extra t-time and I-" the lie didn't sit right. He eyed her again, blinking thoughtfully at her attempts to explain away something, though he didn't have a clue what.
"No, it's fine... I didn't think I would be eating today."
Hinata almost flinched, expecting a rejection and receiving none. The idea was almost more horrible. How could she suddenly tell him that she didn't want his help when he had been so graceful in accepting her possibly misinterpreted peace offering.
Thoughts of confusion were rolling around in her head as she sat silently, blushing and looking down at her hands clenching her knees.
"So, what are you struggling with anyway?' Sasuke finally enquired, feeling defeated. Maybe he could tell her that they wouldn't train tomorrow... he could lie, say that something had come up. A mission or something.
He frowned inwardly at himself, surprised by his sudden kindness towards the girl. Had it been Sakura, Ino or even Tenten he probably would have just dropped the bomb and told him he was no longer interested, but truth be told, she just seemed to be different.
They would have possibly had underlining ideas behind training, she didn't.
He started. Hell... "I" am the one with underlining ideas. She just wants to train, and here am I ready to rip her off for her gentle fist...
"Ano- I..." Hinata fidgeted, trying to get the words out, but finding it hard. Now what could she do? The gift had only made him think she wanted him around more than before. Hinata wasn't one to swear, as a matter of fact curses rarely left her mouth and if for some reason she did happen to let one slip it was because she was under intense physical, emotional, mental strain... or all of the above rolled into one, but right there she wanted to let something like a swear word out. It might make her feel better.
"...I'm not sure." she found herself saying, surprised with her own decision. The results of it would be nasty...
"Well, let's see." He muttered, dusting his hands off on his pants. He glanced around in the dim light until he found the training posts. The one she had cracked was still there, traces of her blood were still on it's once smooth surface.
His eyes flickered to her fists, bandages were rolled form her knuckles up to her forearms.
"Are those healed?"
"Ano? Oh, hai." she nodded rapidly. "Sakura-chan... she insisted on the bandages. When I train, at least."
Sasuke almost scoffed, but managed not to, letting out a "Hn." of acknowledgement instead. "You use gentle fist, correct?" he almost kicked himself. Sneaky selfish bastard that he was. Still he walked towards the posts, leaving the lunches behind. Hinata followed quietly a few steps behind, eyeing the posts with distaste. Gentle fist did little damage to things without organs.
"H-hai... demo, it won't do anything to those posts...They don't have organs for me to target and I-"
"You need to target organs at all times?" He enquired suddenly, turning to look at her in surprise. Hinata blinked at him, noticing quickly his curiousity for the gentle fist. "H-hai... organs and chakra points."
"Can you seal eyes?" he asked rather bluntly, ready to get it all over with. Maybe if he helped her a little after finding the information he needed he wouldn't feel so bad about it.
Hinata stared at him a moment, eyes flickering to meet his onyx orbs for half a second, making the connection like any other girl with brains would have.
He was surprised... Sakura and Ino wouldn't have noticed the connection at all.
"I could s-seal your Sharingan, maybe." she admitted slowly. Sasuke blinked, surprised again by the boldness. This girl truly wasn't what he had thought she was. "Okay. Do it."
Hinata's eyes widened. "N-nani? But- why?" she trembled out, hands up to her lips in surprise.
"Because." He muttered, resisting to roll his eyes at her reaction. "I want to see if you can."
"But I- what if I-"
"Do it."
Hinata jumped slightly, even though he hadn't really raised his voice at all. "H-hai..."
These sort of moments were the exact reason she had hesitated to let him train her. Goodness, her face was going to melt off...
Slowly she lowered herself into the fighting stance for the gentle fist, uncomfortable with him just standing there ready to receive the blows.
"C-can we... can we spar?" she enquired, beating herself over the head. The very thing she didn't want to do was spar, and yet here she was asking for it. "M-maybe I won't feel s-so bad i-if-"
He blinked and then smirked.
Smart girl indeed. Slowly he lowered himself into a fighting stance as well. "Fine. Go."
Hinata gasped in surprise, realizing that the Go had not been for her, but for him, like a gun out of the barrel he was going at her, his speed making her head swim.
But byakugan eyes aren't anything less to the sharingan.
With a gasp she side stepped, flipping her fingers through the motions to open her blood line limit. His eyes were already red- he hadn't even bothered to wait.
"Byakugan!" Hinata gasped, flinching as he moved forward rapidly to hit her.
But her byakugan had opened, her eyes were seeing more than just his expression of surprise, they were seeing the glowing points rimming his eyes.
Biting her lip she shoved forward, rather than away as his punch came in, missing her by a few inches as she bent her knees, her fingers tapping gently the sides of his face.
But he was still the faster of the two.
The surprise of having two of his chakra points shut down wasn't enough to keep him from grabbing her around the waist and forcing a kunai to her throat.
Eyes wide, byakugan disappearing Hinata stood there, panting heavily from strain of pushing her limits, in those few seconds he had still managed to prove he was the faster and more capable one.
Her heart fell, a few inches more than it had before. This was going to be hard work...
"A-ano.." she began, shivering from having him still be so close.
"Shuddup. Do you know why I was able to win this?"
Some emotion moved inside of her, like a cat turning in it's sleep, irritated by having been prodded in it's slumber, but it didn't wake.
"...N-no..." she stuttered, wishing he would just let go of her and get on with it.
"You weren't trying."
The cat in her chest shifted again, uttering a grumble.
"I-I was-"
"No. You weren't even pushing your normal speed limit, and that's pretty slow anyway."
The cat cracked open one eye. "T-that's why I'm training. To get better." Her voice was thin, but soft still.
He let go rapidly, blinking in surprise. She had sounded almost irritated. Hm, perhaps he had to consider his way of speaking more with this one...
"Hn." he commented as she rubbed the place on her throat that had felt the touch of the kunai. He had still managed not to cut through the high black turtle neck.
"So, your speed is lacking." He eyed her body thoughtfully, watching her squirm in the dawn light, snowflakes landing on her hair as she blinked at him, catching her breath.
His mind however was on something else. His sharingan was sealed now, already he had tried twice to open it and it hadn't come forth. The gentle fist was indeed the tool he needed. Now he just need to figure out how to do exactly what she had done.
He needed to learn the gentle fist.
"You'll have to wear weights." he muttered, crossing his arms. She was small, and no, muscle wouldn't do anything, so they didn't have to think about that. What she needed to do was improve her speed first, and accuracy too, though that had been pretty good.
"You'll have to wear them all the time."
Hinata stared at him in surprise. "Weights... w-well... what kind?"
"Sand, first." he muttered, rotating his shoulders as he walked towards her. "Probably copper second." He smirked for half a second as she flinched.
"Possibly lead third. "
The girl stared at her hands then. "That... will be heavy."
"You should be able to use it to your advantage when you take them off."
"L-lee-kun, he used this training technique, yes?" she enquired, running her fingers over her lips, making the words muffled. Sasuke heard anyway and shrugged. "I wouldn't know."
"Oh-h-hai... you were..."
"Was this during the Chuunin exams?" his eyes darkened slightly. Hinata paled, realizing she had hit a sore spot. It was no secret the things that had happened during those exams so many years ago.
"Ano... h-hai."
"Hn. Undo whatever you did to my eyes." he muttered, stopping right in front of her despite the voice in his head that said she would panic at his proximity.
Surprising him again the girl just nodded and reached up rapidly to tap just in front of either temple.
Immediately the chakra began to flow and his eyes turned crimson. "S-so...what do I-" Hinata began, taking a step back, looking lost.
"Spar." he replied, lowering himself to a fighting stance. "It's just an evaluation." he added, noting her nervous expression. "I need to know what you can do."
He couldn't believe it, he was actually serious about training this little princess.
Hinata however just nodded, lowering herself into a fighting stance. "Oh- h-hai."
"Go."
Hard panting, squirming, unable to breathe...Christ, it was so hot... and yet there was the snow, right up to her face where she had hit the ground for the second time. Feeling miserable again she pushed herself up, flinching as her whole body throbbed painfully.
The only comfort was that Sasuke was panting just as hard as she was. He had had to strain to keep her off that time, at least a little bit.
Still catching her breath she pushed herself slowly up to her feet, struggling despite herself. "I-I... Ano... Uchi-er...Sasuke-kun I-c-can't-"
"Let's take a break." He cut in quickly, saving her the humiliation of asking for one. Her shoulders dropped in relief as she followed him. The snow was still going, and had been falling for the last four hours, all of which he had forced her to continue through, pushing her harder than either Shino or Kiba ever had, even when she had asked them.
Her doubts about this working was fading, but her fear of whether or not she'd be able to do it was growing. Tomorrow would undoubtedly be the same and she didn't know if she could handle that sort of strain day to day- with weights no less.
The idea was making her want to shrivel up into a little ball.
Sasuke stopped by the willow tree, pushing through it's frozen tendrils to get to the lunches hidden by it's trunk. "Let's see your hands." He added, sitting down with a sigh.
Hinata flinched but obeyed, crouching beside him, her eyes to the ground. Without much thought to it being awkward he took one of her hands and began to undo the bandages, frowning at the already bruised and sometimes ripped skin.
"You don't train with contact often." he pointed out bluntly, sounding vaguely irritated. Hinata just blushed horribly. It was true, she used gentle fist more than anything else. When she had been younger she had used contact training, thinking it would strengthn her but when it didn't she stopped. Bloody hands were not something her father wanted to see every time she came back from training.
"You're going to have to use it more." He sighed, standing. "But first I need those healed, you won't be able to do much if you can't even clench your fist without feeling pain during training."
Hinata stared at him as he stood, looking amazingly small from his standing point. "But... they'll take forever to-"
"We'll go see Sakura." he put in quickly, bending down to dust snow off her lunch bag before tossing it to her. Hinata made a soft 'eep' sound as she caught it, struggling to her feet to follow his path through the snow. "I thought you were a medical nin." he added.
Truth was, he couldn't stand the quiet any more, not with her. She hadn't said more than three sentences since they had begun. Odd as it was, Naruto and Sakura's constant babbling had filled the silence whenever they trained, it had felt better.
"Ano... w-will Sakura-chan and Naruto-kun b-be up now?" Hinata blinked, glancing at the sky and because of the snow unable to read the time. She knew it had been a while, but she didn't even know when she had left her house.
"Should be." Sasuke replied, trying to be slightly more talkative and failing miserably.
"Hai." Hinata mumbled, walking just a little bit behind him. The silence stretched out ahead of them, like the untouched banks of snow that covered the ground they would have to walk over.
Irritated by it's obviously awkward tone Sasuke glanced over at Hinata, who happened to have glanced at him at that exact time.
Blushing furiously Hinata lowered her eyes to the ground, noting that Sasuke had not looked away still.
"Why do you need to train again?" He asked, suddenly irritated by this girl trying to get stronger when she couldn't even look at a person without blushing furiously.
"Nani?" Hinata stuttered, eyes flickering off the ground to his face for half a second.
"You don't seem motivated." he muttered, sounding both bored and bothered at once. Hinata's face burned a little more, her eyes widening on the ground.
"...Gomen."
"That's not the point."
Hinata didn't reply. She knew that wasn't the point.
"...I am not sure I want it." she mumbled, rubbing her fingers over her lips nervously at speaking her thoughts outloud. This was the first time it had ever been said to someone else.
Sasuke stopped, frowning at her. "Your title as heir?"
"Hai." Hinata stopped as well, refusing to look at him for fear of seeing the disgust there. Sasuke eyed her thoughtfully, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
"Then do it for yourself." he turned away, starting to walk again against the flurry of snowflakes and wind.
"Getting pushed around will stop if you would just make it." He grumbled, rotating his shoulders. He'd never in his life met a pushover.
"I don't get pushed around." Hinata mumbled, following after him quickly. "I-I don't like making people angry is all-"
"You shouldn't care."
"Demo...w-why not?"
"Why should you?" he turned and stopped, looking at her for an answer. Hinata blinked at him, puzzled and slightly irritated, something she wasn't used to.
"...I care about people. That's all."
Surprised, Sasuke shifted his weight, trying to find something to say back that would make sense. But for some reason Hinata Hyuuga had a way of saying things that made it sound like the conversation had ended.
"Hn." he said lamely, turning to continue their walk. Hinata smiled, noting that she had perhaps changed his perspective or at least inspired him to look closer at his own decision.
Or, at the very least... she had confused him.
Suddenly in a far lighter mood than before she followed after him, a bit quicker than before.
Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.
...if only she had known.