Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.
Special Thanks: goes out to ASirensLullaby, TheUtsukushiiYume, McKazekage, BubbleWarrior32, xforeverherex, rao hyuga 18, TheGirlWithNoIQ, Guest, QueenP19, whisperwind-v, sailorangelmoon1, Daheim, lidianm, and Anonymous for all your wonderful, encouraging reviews! Also thanks to those who have added, and continue to add, this story to their favorite and follows lists - I get a fresh burst of energy and inspiration every time I see a new alert in my inbox!
Author's Note: This is kind of a transitionary chapter, so it's shorter than some of the others. But I hope the fact that you get a lot of questions answered makes up for its lack of length. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!
*~Chapter XXX~*
~Force~
The chair crashed to the ground, empty save for the katana stabbed to the hilt through its back.
Where'd he go? Gaara yanked his blade free and spun in one smooth movement, searching for Orochimaru. How could he have moved so fast? I thought for sure I had him...
"Your father was weak."
Behind me! Pivoting on his heels, Gaara paused with the tip of his sword a hand's-width away from the snake's throat. Was he really stupid enough to come in here by himself? Surely he knows he can never take on both Itachi and myself and win. He'll never leave this room alive. But first, there were a few questions to be answered. "How so?" The words ground out from between his teeth, tasting bitter.
Orochimaru's gold eyes glowed with obvious amusement. "Let's count the ways, shall we?"
"I really don't think you have time for that." Itachi moved up from Gaara's right, pinning Orochimaru in with the walls forming the other two sides of the square.
Licking his lips again - unnaturally creepy, and Gaara had seen some pretty freaky things in his time - Orochimaru let out a hissing laugh. "All right then. Perhaps we should skip ahead to the ways his son is weak."
"If you're trying to rile me up, it's not working." Taking a deliberate step forward, Gaara allowed his katana to nick the other man's neck. A bead of red, even brighter against the snake's pasty skin, welled to the surface. The monster inside him purred happily, straining eagerly to spill more. Patience. Patience. "Why have you come to Suna?"
One dark eyebrow twitched upwards. "You mean you've not figured it out yet?" He laughed. "Oh, this is good. You're even more foolish than I thought. Why did I even bother with Suna in the first place?"
"Any alliances you might have formed here have long since been severed." Itachi smiled coldly. "In case you haven't noticed, the leadership around here has ... changed."
"Unfortunately." Orochimaru appeared unmoved. "But unsurprising, since I killed Suna's former leader myself." His eyes drifted from Itachi's face to Gaara's, looking inordinately pleased.
"If you're trying to surprise me, you failed abysmally." Gaara's eyes narrowed. "My sister told me a long time ago you were the one responsible for Father's - untimely end."
Frowning, Orochimaru harrumphed slightly. "Well, that didn't go quite as planned." A moment later his feral grin returned, accompanied by a mad gleam in his eyes Gaara recognized all too well. "Pity I didn't take care of that meddling little witch the same night as her father. But she'll cause me no more trouble now, so it all turned out well in the end regardless, I suppose."
Though Itachi visibly twitched, bringing the twin blades of his dao sword closer to Orochimaru's neck, he restrained himself admirably. The hatred and grief burning in his eyes, however, were not so easy to smother.
"I'll tell you what we are going to do," Gaara said with a calm he was far from feeling. "We are going to go outside, and you are going to order your troops to halt the attack on Suna."
"Even though I have the advantage of outnumbering your troops five to one? Suna will be an easy victory for me." Orochimaru's right shoulder hitched upwards in a slight shrug. "You're running on borrowed time yourselves, gentlemen."
"Not to point out the obvious," Itachi said, "but you are outnumbered here. I think that takes precedence over the other, don't you?" He halted before saying, you abominable snake, but Gaara understood the unspoken words anyway. He was thinking the exact same thing.
"I did not defeat the former leaders of the Akatsuki by having the obvious pointed out to me." Orochimaru tugged casually on one of the voluminous sleeves of his cloak. Then, hardly raising his voice, "Wouldn't you agree, gentlemen?"
Gaara's instincts reacted for him. When he came out of his shoulder roll, he saw a kunai buried in the wall just past where his head had been a scant few seconds before. Scammed again! He clenched his teeth. Perhaps Orochimaru is right. A strong leader would have seen all this coming and been ready... He shut down the thought before Hinata's fate could distract him yet again.
Where only moments before there had been the empty doorway of Gaara's office, there now stood three men dressed in cloaks identical to Orochimaru's. Though two of the men were unfamiliar, the one standing slightly in front was instantly recognizable.
Akasuna Sasori. He'd returned to Suna yet again, but this time he wouldn't leave it. One way or another, Gaara would make sure of that.
The corners of Orochimaru's mouth tipped upwards almost gleefully. "Now who's going to surrender?"
Ching! Ching-ching! Ching!
Hinata stepped back in shock when every single one of her needles was easily deflected off the kunai blade she'd glimpsed in the darkness beyond the door. However, a moment later it made sense when a familiar face, topped by two panda-ear hair buns, appeared.
"Tenten!" Hinata gawked at her sister-in-law in shock, wondering if she'd hit her head somehow and was now dreaming. "What are you d-doing here?"
"What else? Coming to see you, of course!" Stepping through the doorway, Tenten nodded to an equally shocked Temari and then moved away from the opening behind her.
Two additional figures appeared out of the gloom. Hinata felt her hopes rise considerably as she kept herself from running and pouncing on them from sheer force of will. "Ino! Matsuri!"
Her former lady's maid grinned breezily, as if the five women had merely gathered to have tea together, as the current one managed a sickly smile from her place propped up by Ino. "I'm sorry, mistress."
"I'm glad you're all right!" From the blood spatters and the rips in her clothing, it looked like nothing short of a miracle had kept Matsuri alive. "What happened?"
Tenten pushed the door closed again while Ino and Temari got Matsuri settled on a cushion and started tending her wounds. "I showed Ino and Lady Tenten here," Matsuri said. "And if you'll pardon me, milady, I think I'll let them explain the rest." Obviously having reached her limit, the young woman's brown eyes rolled back in her head as she slid sideways into Ino, who gently lowered her down onto another cushion.
Hinata nervously kept half her attention on Matsuri as she turned the rest to Tenten. "What happened?" she repeated. "How d-did you get here so - so fast?"
"From the looks of things, it was instead the messenger bird which got here so slowly," Tenten said, her normally cheerful face uncharacteristically grim. "We've been riding nonstop day and night to get here."
Dropping her gaze to Tenten's barely-rounded stomach, she ventured, "Was that a g-good idea?"
Tenten sighed. "Not you too. Lady Tsunade said all willing and able ninja, and I am included in that number, thank you very much. Neji nearly went ballistic went I said I was going, too, but Lady Tsunade agreed as long as I stayed out of most of the fighting, I could come."
Trying to get a handle on her mental image of her normally calm, composed brother going "ballistic," Hinata shook her head. "I c-can't b-believe they let you c-come."
Taking a step closer, Tenten rested a hand on her sister-in-law's shoulder. "You're my sister too, you know," she said. "And I promise, the only time I intend to fight is if we're invaded here. And since even Matsuri nearly passed the entrance to this place up, I think we're pretty safe here."
"And the enemy who were chasing us...?" Temari arched one brow inquisitively.
Smiling, Tenten casually spun a kunai around her forefinger by a hole in the end of its handle. "Will no longer be chasing anyone."
The older woman looked suitably impressed. "How many have come with you?" she asked.
"Including those from Suna who originally accompanied us to Konoha? Around five hundred, give or take."
Hinata felt her breath catch in her throat. Is there anyone left to defend Konoha? Even though she felt reasonably certain the attack on Suna was genuine, not yet another diversion, she didn't like the idea of her birth village being left unprotected.
"How did you know?" Temari at last folded her fan and tucked it away, then absently lifted her hand to cradle her injured side. "How did you know the Akatsuki were coming here, instead of Konoha?"
Tenten's eyes darted to Hinata, then quickly away. "Hanabi," she said quietly. "It was she who told us."
All the oxygen in Hinata's lungs coughed out as if she'd been punched. "What?" How in the world had her almost-fourteen-year-old sister gotten involved in this?
Usually cheerful features suddenly very solemn, Tenten stepped closer to Hinata while simultaneously motioning toward one of the empty cushions clustered in the middle of the roomy cave. "You'd best sit down," she said, completely serious.
Even though she wanted to argue, Hinata agreeably folded herself down onto the indicated cushion. She knotted her hands together in her lap, breath coming in shallow, jerky gasps. Tenten immediately dropped down next to her, expression concerned.
"Calm down," Temari said, sitting down across from her sisters-in-law. Her expression, as cool and remote as it had been the first time Hinata met her, gave away none of her thoughts as she addressed Tenten. "Go on."
A muscle in Tenten's jaw jumped, as if unappreciative of the order she'd been given, but she made no verbal protest. "Believe it or not, Hinata, everything that's been happening recently ties in together."
Forcing herself to take calm, deep breaths, Hinata nodded her comprehension of the words.
"Apparently, the Akastuki have made several veiled threats to the Hyuuga clan over the past year or so," Tenten said. "That, combined with his illness, is why Lord Hiashi sent you to Suna, Hinata. He apparently intended to sacrifice himself to the Akatsuki to save the rest of the clan, but his illness took a turn for the worse. He decided to do the next best thing: hara-kiri."
Hinata nodded slowly. "Perhaps we were more right in our c-conjectures than we b-believed," she said. "Father-" she stumbled over the word "-I m-mean Uncle Hiashi did c-commit hara-kiri to prevent the rumored 'ultimate Hyuuga technique' from falling into enemy hands."
Tenten nodded. "Exactly. He knew if he handed himself over to the Akatsuki, they would realize too quickly his illness - plus, they might not believe him if he told them it didn't exist. However, by building upon things he'd done earlier - such as not training either you or Hanabi in the ninja arts - he could easily take away what the Akatsuki wanted."
"But that still doesn't explain everything," Temari interrupted. "What about Lord Hiashi's advisor's death? And how does Hanabi fit into all this?" Her eyes slid toward the entrance she and Hinata had used, fingers stroking the handle of her closed fan. Even though she was listening, it was obvious most of her attention was elsewhere.
"I'm getting to that part," Tenten replied calmly. "Hanzou was the only other member of the clan knowledgeable of the Akatsuki's threats and plans. Once Lord Hiashi died, his job was to make sure the Akatsuki got the message - and to make sure Hanabi's future was secure." She suddenly frowned, fists tightening against her knees. "However, things didn't go entirely as planned on that front, either."
"The letters," Hinata guessed. She had thought over the situation a thousand times, wondering why Hiashi would leave letters for his nephew and niece - neither of whom he'd even tried to grow closer to - but not write one for his only daughter. Though she'd not known the man well, for obvious reasons, it had made absolutely no sense.
"Yes." Tenten sighed, loud and long, her gaze falling to rest on the hem of the cushion on which she sat. "Apparently Hanzou was not as trustworthy as Lord Hiashi thought. He had been working as a spy for the Akatsuki. Neji and I found a few things among the papers in his rooms when we returned to Konoha, and it mentioned something they were holding over him, though it didn't go into specifics. We'll probably never know."
Hinata thought back to the man who had always seemed to be shadowing Hiashi's steps, day and night. If the Akatsuki were to have a spy within the Hyuuga, he was the logical choice. But still... "And what of Hanabi?" she asked softly.
"Hanzou destroyed Hanabi's letter," Tenten said. "We found bits and pieces of it among the trash in his room, but sadly not the entire thing." She sighed again. "Originally, the plan was to hand you over to the Akatsuki. But when Lord Hiashi sent you here to marry Lord Gaara, he had to come up with a new strategy. After tearing up Hanabi's letter, Hanzou told her about your and Neji's letters, and that her father had neglected to leave her one. By turning her against us, he had hoped to eventually drive her into the grasp of the Akatsuki to get revenge on all of us."
Hanabi has always been quick-tempered and easily influenced, Hinata thought, feeling suddenly very tired. "B-But Hanzou must have had a change of heart. He, too, c-commited hara-kiri and left that note for us..."
"True. He was feeling guilty about what he'd done, but he also panicked. He decided he'd rather die on his own terms than have to pay for his treasonous crime - or at the hands of the Akatsuki." Tenten pulled out her kunai again and spun it around her finger so fast the weapon's blade blurred. "Hanzou had already put Hanabi in contact with the Akatsuki before his death. It was she who helped Sasori break into Lord Gaara's office the night of the fireworks." A small smile curled up the corners of her mouth. "I'm very proud of her, though. She willingly came to Neji and me with all this information, adding she'd been intended to take Hanzou's place as a spy within the clan - at least for now."
"So the Akatsuki informed her of their plan to attack Suna instead of K-Konoha?" Hinata had no idea how the shadowy organization worked - had, in fact, known little of their existence in the first place - but she couldn't imagine their trusting such information to a thirteen-year-old. A tempermental thirteen-year-old, at that.
"Not exactly." This time Tenten grinned, proudly and infectiously. "When meeting with the person to whom she was meant to pass on any pertinent information, she overheard part of a conversation between him and another Akatsuki member. She heard Suna mentioned, then your name, and something about 'a real bang-up birthday present for that redheaded demon husband of hers.'" Her expression softened into a smile. "She still cares for you deeply, Hinata, despite her anger. It was for this reason she came to us and informed us the Akatsuki's real target was Suna - and you."
Fierce pride flared in Hinata's chest. Hanabi, I am so proud of you! She only hoped she'd have a chance to tell the younger girl those words in person. "How is Hanabi, after all this?"
"Feeling guilty," Tenten admitted. "But Lady Tsunade has already agreed to go easy on her since she snitched on the Akatsuki."
"Seems she would've made a fine ninja after all," Temari spoke up. At the inquiring looks from Hinata and Tenten, she added, "She was working as a double agent, and she kept her cool when things started going wrong. Those are definitely the makings of a good ninja."
"Perhaps after all this is over, Hanabi will want to join Konoha's ranks," Tenten agreed. "But for now, I think she just wants the chance to apologize for what she did - and try to make up for it."
Ino approached the trio, and Hinata looked up with anxious eyes. "How's Matsuri?" she asked.
The blonde smiled reassuringly. "She's going to be in a bit of pain for a while, but I'm confident she'll make a full recovery. She's got a couple of cracked ribs, a broken leg, and lots of bruises and lacerations, but nothing life-threatening. I gave her some pain medicine when she came around for a minute or two, so she's sleeping right now."
Hinata let out her breath on a shaky sigh. "Thank you," she whispered.
Temari echoed the sentiment, then added, "Looks like you all showed up just in time." She motioned for the other blonde to join them.
With a nod of thanks, Ino took a seat on the proffered cushion. "It seems that way."
The four women fell into silence, each lost in her own thoughts, for a few long moments. Now her questions about Hanabi had been answered, her full attention returned once more to her husband's plight. She knew deep down inside herself, he was still alive. But the same extra sense which offered her that slight relief also made her equally certain he was in unimaginable danger.
Her hands once again curled into fists in her lap. I should be helping him! She'd not had much training at all, but she hated sitting here uselessly, hiding like a coward. Gaara...
She glanced upwards from beneath her lashes. Across from her, Temari sat with one of her bladed fans in her lap. She kept absently running her fingers across the fan's ribs, then the fingers of her left hand, pausing when she reached her wedding band. A moment later, she repeated the process. Her lips moved silently, frantically, in a mantra Hinata couldn't discern.
It was probably quite similar to the one racing through Hinata's mind. Please stay safe, Gaara. I cannot imagine my life without you - could never forgive myself if I lived and you did not...
The lights suddenly, inexplicably, flickered.
Tenten and Temari leaped to their feet at the same moment, Hinata and Ino only a moment behind them, all four women looking around for the cause of the power fluctuation. "What was that?" Hinata breathed the question, afraid to raise her voice any louder. Had their hiding place been found?
In the silence which fell as the quartet listened, a low, distant rumbling began. The floor beneath them trembled ever-so-slightly, barely discernable. The lights flickered again.
Oh no.
The thunder grew louder, closer, causing dust to trickle down from the ceiling. Ino immediately went to crouch by Matsuri, ready to try to wake her if needed, her blue eyes focused on the nearest light, which was much dimmer than it had been just moments before.
The village! Hinata wanted to scream the words, but couldn't. Her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth in sheer terror. They're destroying the village!
As the thunder reached its crashing crescendo, the lights went out completely.
*~To Be Continued~*
Author's Ending Notes: No berserker Gaara yet, but I can promise you'll see him very soon! Even though this is kind of a transitionary chapter, I was kind of looking forward to it since I finally get to answer a lot of questions I've raised - and have been asked - in the past. I really hope you liked it, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you again for the next update!