A.N. : Incidentally, that bit about blood and ashes in the following chapter isn't entirely made up. There's a documentary about the Taoist shamanic tradition entitled "Boredom in Heaven" if anyone is interested in further information. I personally found it fascinating, but most of classmates apparently did not so YMMV. The documentary itself does contain animal death, blood, and self-flagellation but this chapter does not.
There are some similarities to other shamanic traditions, but I would rather not go trawling through my undergrad files unless anyone is incredibly keen.
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Clack, clack.
Kiba tossed another coin into the collector with an insolence born of frustration. The girl's scent came from everywhere some days, others from nowhere at all though the path had been clear only minutes ago. Normally he didn't bother shrine spirits with human concerns, best to keep the earthly and ethereal separate to his thinking, but he was willing to believe that something other than human had abducted the Hyuuga heiress.
It was the only possible explanation, and what were a few coins spent currying the favor of the land's god when he had every intention of charging the Hyuuga half again their bargained price?
Beside him, Akamaru whined and leaned heavily against his leg. Kiba adjusted his stance to keep his balance, absently scratching Akamaru's ears. How did one go about hunting a god or a demon? How was he going to convince Neji that it was their best shot?
"Point me in the right direction," he murmured, turning it into a request with a bow just on the right side of respectful. Just.
Neji was waiting when he returned, regarding the shrine balefully from where he ate at a comfortable distance away. "Did your gods have anything to say?" He prodded as Kiba drew near.
"Silent as always."
"Of course."
"If you have any better ideas, I'll hear them," never a patient man, Kiba had reached the end of his tether with his demanding partner. "You paid me to find her and I am doing my damnedest."
"Yesterday you had us scouring the Southern bluffs. Today we turn to the North. I cannot help but notice that that is the opposite direction from where you assured me your hound had scented her."
"There is something wrong with your family's lands; there's something in the forest that's-"
Neji cut him off, an edge of asperity in his tone, "it's irrelevant to me who has her or how they intend to confound us. Find Hinata's trail and I will handle the rest. Only so far you haven't managed even that, and I'm beginning to wonder what exactly we're paying you for."
"D'you think you could do better alone?" Kiba sneered, "you couldn't track a howling monkey through the undergrowth in broad daylight."
"You can't track one woman in a small forest though you were raised for this work. Your hound might as well be a lapdog."
The tension snapped taut, both of them a split second away from brawling like unruly children. It was Neji who disengaged first, not out of any care for his companion but because they were wasting precious daylight in a fruitless argument, and he couldn't bear sending a letter to tell Hiashi he had no news because he had spent the day in a pointless quarrel.
"In any case, she's not in the shrine," Kiba said finally, acknowledging Neji's decision without addressing it. He hesitated before pressing on, "her trail should have vanished long since, even with my skills." When Neji didn't leap in to chide him, he forced himself to finish the thought. "Remember the feather?"
"You said you would hunt even a god for a fee. Changed your mind?" Finished with his rations, Neji shouldered his pack and turned North. "I don't have time for your misgivings, you can either stand by your word or quit wasting supplies."
Kiba seethed. Just how much off his fee would it be if he took a swing at a son of the Hyuuga?
"More than you could afford," Neji snapped, guessing his thoughts with an ease born of a closer acquaintance than either man wanted. "I'm no fonder of your company than you are of mine, Inuzuka."
"D'you think spirits leave a trail any human could follow? Doesn't make sense, does it? We could run around this forest forever chasing shadows, whispers and vanishing scents."
"And we will unless you suggest an alternative."
Kiba caught Neji's arm when he would have darted away on his fool's errand, "I saw a shaman once, from the mainland. He summoned a spirit to possess him by drinking a bowl of cockerel's blood and ashes. I've heard that blood is common in such rituals, that it draws things that would otherwise prefer to stay hidden."
"You saw a charlatan from a village a stone's throw away from yours drink juice once."
"I'm a mercenary, Hyuuga. I've hunted my share of tricksters and I know the genuine article to see it. D'you think it's any more useless than running around this forest blind? No harm in trying is there? If a bird could draw a spirit what d'you think a desperate man could do?"
"This is ridiculous," nevertheless Neji set his pack down, eying the shrine with new wariness. "If my family hears of this you won't live long enough to collect your fee." He marched to the shrine, pulling his knife from its sheath as he went and bounding up the stairs with a predator's grace. Whatever his protests, Kiba saw more fire in him for those few seconds than he had in days.
Neji slipped within, past the chambers where any worshipers might be expected to go. He made for the smaller altar inside, hidden behind a wall of wood and rush, painted with sigils he couldn't decipher, though they appeared freshly restored.
"Weapons are strictly forbidden within the shrine."
Neji pivoted on his heel, instinctively raising the knife only to find his arm caught and held in a steely grip. He twisted free and his attacker released him easily, one hand extended palm out in a placating gesture, or perhaps demanding his knife.
"There's no need for alarm," the stranger's voice was polite but firm, and Neji couldn't help but notice that he had positioned himself so that his uninvited guest couldn't proceed without going past him. He wore the robes of a priest, but looked nothing like any priest Neji had ever seen: chestnut skin tanned darker by long exposure to the sun, hair worn long but pulled back from his face by a serviceable leather tie. It wasn't a handsome face, per se, but arresting, bisected by a thick scar running across his cheeks and nose. Another above his left eye that cleaved his eyebrow in two.
"Are you the keeper here?"
"I live here," the man answered with a noncommittal shrug, "but you're still armed."
"I don't mean you any harm." Which wasn't to say he wouldn't ready himself for a fight. Those blunt, calloused hands had held more than their fair share of weapons in their day he was sure. "I'm here to entreat the guardian for aid."
"So you thought you'd prick yourself, bleed all over my newly waxed floors and so ingratiate yourself to the spirits here." The words were uttered so dryly, the accompanying look was so incredulous that Neji felt the faintest flicker of embarrassment. "Take your knife outside, I won't have it in the shrine. Then you can ask me your burning question."
They regarded each other silently, neither one prepared to yield. Knives weren't Neji's preferred weapon anyway, so he couldn't have said what it was that made him hesitate to do as the keeper asked. Some latent feeling of rebellion perhaps, or maybe, just maybe, a creeping sense of otherness about the man before him.
It took a man of some skill to approach Neji unheard and unseen, to stop his arm mid-motion with so little effort to show for it. Yet for all he didn't step aside, the keeper wasn't threatening him either. Silent and immovable as stone, with only the permanent frown lines etched on his forehead and between his brows to testify to his humanity.
"Have you seen a woman with eyes like mine?"
"Outside," the man repeated, but tellingly, those frown lines deepened. It was possible, although not probable, Neji insisted to a mental image of Kiba's face, that there was some merit to those provincial suspicions of his. And if he did not have to drink blood and ashes to find the answer to his question, so much the better.
"I'll be a moment."
"Of course."
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"Soft touch."
Watching the young men as they finally took their leave, Iruka refused to rise to the bait.
His resolve lasted for all of a few seconds. "The sooner they quit tearing this forest apart the sooner you and I can rest again. It's self-preservation, not altruism."
The white wolf behind him blinked slowly, managing to put worlds of polite disbelief into the gesture. "Right. It has nothing to do with your soft spot for lost causes."
"They're not lost, just a bit turned around," Iruka deliberately misunderstood, ignoring the harsh cough that passed for Kakashi's laugh in his wolf skin. "They've been out here too long, left unchecked they'll leave no stone unturned. Better to give them a nudge in the right direction than have them burn us out of our homes."
"Did I say you were wrong?" Kakashi sighed, "Of course, if we'd done it my way..."
"Don't start. You never would have carried through."
Kakashi didn't bother protesting. Iruka had trespassed ages ago, knowing very well the penalty was death for the uninvited but desperate to hide his burden, the adopted fox kit that clung to him like a creeping vine. Both of them ought to have died then, and Kakashi ought to have carried out their sentence. Instead, old and tired and sick to his back teeth of bloodshed, Kakashi had harrowed out a space for them.
These days Iruka kept watch over Kakashi's shrine and accepted its protection as his due.
The boy had been more of a challenge; there was no question of passing him off as human, not with that sort of power. But instead of taking the easy way out, destroying the infant and his keeper, Kakashi had poured as much of himself as he could spare into a forgotten shrine, long since swallowed up by the forest. There they had left the boy to grow as soon as he was able, and he had become a fine young man for one who had been forced to raise himself.
Neither one of them could have predicted that the humans would begin to encroach so close on sacred lands. Neither could have known, though both silently cursed themselves for not realizing, that Naruto would begin to mingle with the humans. Or that he would make so bold as to steal one.
"If I killed them the humans would send out more search parties. It's a matter of self-preservation, not altruism," Kakashi gently mocked.
"Ha," Iruka snorted, "I think you've grown fat and lazy lying before the fire. A proper guardian spirit would never have admitted them in the first place. Be honest, you're hoping they'll find the girl and leave us all in peace."
"It would mean a lot less work for me," Kakashi agreed.
"For us," Iruka corrected on a sigh. "This once I hope you're wrong," he admitted, blinking in surprise at his own admission. "I hope she stays hidden, for Naruto's sake. I wouldn't mind a bit of extra trouble if it meant he didn't have to be alone."
Kakashi didn't point out that between the two of them there had been trouble enough, or that without Iruka's interfering charge Kakashi could have lived out his days in peace. They had been worth the trouble in the end, though he had never said as much. "Why bother choosing one or the other? Send him back with her among the humans. Surely he's safe now."
Iruka shook his head, "you don't know what we ran from."
"No. After all these years, I don't," there was an invitation there if Iruka cared to take it. As always he remained deaf to the unspoken question, and Kakashi respected his silence no matter how it grated on him. He turned to retreat into the inner shrine, preferably to a warm meal and good company, if Iruka was of a mind. His game of Go was sadly lacking, but he made up for it by being an engaging storyteller.
Kakashi had wondered more than once if the truth of his and the boy's origins were secreted somewhere in the fanciful tales he wove.
"I can't, Kakashi," Iruka said just before he left. It was the first time in their long acquaintance he had ever directly acknowledged Kakashi's oblique questioning. "It isn't that I don't trust you, it's that I don't know the full story myself and what I do know doesn't make any sense. I can't risk getting it wrong."
"I always know when you're lying, Iruka. You don't have any skill in it."
"That is the truth," Iruka snapped, finally turning to face him instead of staring out to the horizon with disconcerting concentration.
"Only a very small part of it. You reek of fear, have since the day I found you." Kakashi left those words behind him as he finally padded out of the room. Forget the meal or the stories, he wanted to sleep away the better part of a century and perhaps when he woke Iruka would have either moved on or decided how to tell his story. He knew he wouldn't though. Most nights he could hardly manage more than a few hours of uninterrupted sleep anyway. Nightmares had always been his nocturnal companions, but it had grown worse after he brought Iruka into his shrine.
Not that he would ever tell him so. Iruka might have preferred to take his chances alone rather than inconvenience his host and Kakashi would have borne nearly any inconvenience for his company.
Still, the day they had met featured prominently in his worst dreams: the young man, his face laid open in several places while the brat in his arms squealed for comfort, arms twined tight about his neck fit to choke and face buried in the folds of his cloak.
Iruka's hand had trembled even as he extended the knife, exertion and exhaustion working together to overcome him with nothing but bloody-minded stubbornness to keep him on his feet. "Keep. Back."
Kakashi could scent the fear sweat on him, but the panic growing just beneath his skin had never touched his eyes, and while his fingers held the hilt in a death grip, the hand that clasped the child to him was careful not to squeeze too tight.
It would have been a simple thing to slip under his guard, tear the babe from his arms and bury wicked teeth in a vulnerable throat before he could recover from his shock. It would have been even easier to shake off the wolf's skin and gut him with his own knife while he gawked in disbelief. What were two more faces to add to an already endless litany?
Only then he had smelled the putrid rot of infection, seen the minute wince as the dying man felt his flesh ripped open once more by a baby's careless feet, watched him suck in a breath and adjust his weight like he was sinking into a combat stance to hide a stagger of weakness. Kakashi had dared another glance then, and realized the creatures before him weren't human at all.
And still something had nearly managed to kill them; Kakashi recognized a hunted beast when he saw one.
"You aren't in any shape to be brandishing that pig sticker at me. Toss it down."
An uncooperative knee buckled, and Iruka had knelt unwillingly before him. "You realize you're dying," and there had been something of a taunt in his words, like he just couldn't resist playing with his food.
Iruka's face had crumpled, half snarl of rage at his circumstances, half disgust with himself, but his words held an edge of forced laughter. "Still time to take you with me."
"But then who would care for your kit?" Kakashi shed his wolf skin, and Iruka didn't so much as bat an eye, panting heavily as Kakashi approached angled sideways to the knife. It wasn't his son, not with that golden hair, not with those unnatural eyes. Iruka could have passed for any of the peasants working the land near Kakashi's shrine were it not for that thread of something other that glared out at Kakashi from his ruined face.
The babe would never pass for anything approaching human.
"He'd freeze or starve or some hungry wolf would happen along and…"
"Don't. Please don't."
"What right do you have to ask anything of me, trespasser?"
"None, but please." Iruka dashed away the blood seeping from a gash in his eyebrow, "only let us rest. We'll be gone by sundown."
"You'll be dead by sundown." Kakashi nodded to the wound, "blood poisoning. By now it's probably spread throughout your whole body. You'll be delirious by this evening, cold and stiff by moon rise."
Iruka shook his head, "I know what to do. I can treat it."
"Can you? That's useful," Kakashi dared a step closer, hand lashing out quick as a striking snake to catch Iruka's wrist and twist until the blade fell from it. His resistance was pitifully feeble, and even kneeling there in the dust with his own knife inches from his skin he didn't flinch away. The child's wails had quieted, perhaps realizing its guardian had no more comforting words to spare, or perhaps its throat was too dry and parched for more than the pathetic hiccoughs that wracked its body now.
"You know the laws," Kakashi shoved him none too gently and Iruka fell back, twisting to shield his burden from the fall, "but you might make it out before I find you again if you leave the child."
He almost missed the leg that tried to twine about his own, twisted to dodge the foot that shot out toward his knee, Kakashi extricated himself easily. The man winced when Kakashi pinned his shin, leaning on it until a human bone would have cracked. The man glared up at him, teeth gritted and eyes calculating. He had to know he was finished, and the babe with him, but apparently the words "gracious in defeat" had no meaning to him.
Most of the day passed in uncomfortable silence while Kakashi watched the man die, the monotony broken only by the occasional hitching sobs of the child or gurgling growls. The man drifted in and out consciousness, feverish and too ashamed or wary to show it.
A web of possibilities spread out before him, and Kakashi considered every one, flipping his stolen knife from hand to hand. He could, and should, kill both of them now. It was his purpose, maintaining the boundary against both spirit and human encroachment. These two were not any of his kind, he was certain. He would return to his shrine, resume his duties, and his days would be the same these next years as they had always been. They blended so seamlessly together Kakashi had abandoned any concept of time, but he knew a great deal of it had passed since he'd last killed any creature like him.
He could spare them, leave them here and check in the morning for their corpses. He was reasonably certain he would find them, whatever the other guardian's skill at healing, death had already begun to sink its claws into him. Or. He could spare them, take them back with him. The penalties for disrupting the natural order were steep, but it would certainly relieve the monotony of an eternity spent watching.
The infant screeched again, summoning strength from heretofore unplumbed reservoirs. The cry was so weak Kakashi would have mistook it for a kitten if he wasn't staring at them, turning his thoughts over and over. He reached out, plucking at the infant's bundling and the man roused immediately, catching his hand and attempting to crush it in a hand that trembled with the effort. A clever finger crept down to the skin beneath his wrist and pressed viciously, the ache spreading to Kakashi's fingers instantaneously.
"He won't make it to sundown, even if you do," Kakashi offered, glancing pointedly around them at the dimming light of late afternoon. "Or." For all his careful consideration, his decision came down to a split-second impulse, "you might come with me."
"Why the hell would I do that?"
It sounded like a genuine question, so Kakashi answered it as though it had been asked in good faith. "You don't want to die here, and that's your only other option."
The weeks that followed had been grueling, and Kakashi still thought he could smell sickness when he walked into the room where he had first left Iruka. Weeks of fighting off an infection that should never have taken hold in one of his kind, the sickly-sweet smell of death just beneath. Mortality was not a force Kakashi had ever reckoned with in regards to himself. All of the deaths he had witnessed or caused had been quick and violent, nothing like the creeping waste of disease.
That final night was etched in his mind, perched in the corner like a carrion crow, bouncing the baby, Naruto, in his lap while he watched Iruka claw at the floor and his sheets in desperation. Iruka had rambled in his fever, calling names Kakashi hadn't heard since, looking through Kakashi and Naruto while mouthing promises to something that wasn't there.
Eventually Kakashi had moved Naruto out into the main shrine, away from whatever demons possessed Iruka that night. He had stumbled out of his room in the morning, gaunt, sweaty, famished and as ornery as sickness could make him, demanding to know where his charge was and what the hell Kakashi had been thinking to separate them.
That more than anything had frightened Kakashi. Hale, hearty and strong, it wasn't steel that had nearly killed Iruka. Not fire or fangs or any weapon like Kakashi had ever seen, but illness. Something that couldn't be fought by any conventional means, that couldn't be resisted or predicted. It felt unnatural, and he had given Iruka's room a wide berth for years after, much to Iruka's vaguely contemptuous amusement.
He thought nothing of the fever that had almost taken him, so closely intertwined with humans it had never occurred to him that he should not be subject to their weaknesses. That was really the only clue Kakashi had to his origins; his ease among the humans, how easily he identified with them and how readily he mingled among them.
Yet, despite the new fear that had taken root since those early days, Kakashi was glad he had chosen to spare them. It kept him occupied with worry if nothing else, and were it not for the worshipers Iruka had directed to his shrine Kakashi thought his own home might have been reclaimed by the forest now, just like Naruto's. His power might have begun to wane under the constant onslaught of skepticism. Instead he was sustained by gratitude, and a healthy respect from the villagers.
All of it carefully maintained by Iruka's inability to keep from meddling in matters that shouldn't have concerned him. And now, apparently, his fondness for Naruto and his stolen bride.
Settling near the fire Iruka had accused him of loving too much, Kakashi thought longingly of the days when he had practiced enough of a routine to be bored; he had the feeling those days would never return.
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Naruto woke alone, as he had nearly every morning since that second night they had spent together. He lay staring up at the ceiling, absorbed in uncharacteristically heavy thoughts. Hinata had perfected the art of eeling out of his arms with minimal effort; he always roused just enough to mark her leaving, but in the morning light her imperturbable mask was always firmly fixed in place and he dreaded following her to wherever her rambling led her. He wasn't welcome, and for once he sensed that without the need to be bluntly informed of it.
It was rather like sharing his home with two women: in the daylight, Hinata turned distant. Never cold; she had mastered that untouchable porcelain air common to ladies of her class, but there was always a softness about her edges, something not sharp enough to cut. By the time evening set in, she would lose some of that stiffness, more and more as the night progressed until she was an undeniably earthly creature, one who had grown comfortable matching his smiles, who laughed without looking away and mustered the courage to ask for what she wanted in every arena.
Neither aspect of her had said a word about the fast-approaching decision though, and for all he lacked his friends' experience, Naruto was clever enough to reason out what that meant. She was not bound as tightly to him as he felt to her. Oh, it was natural of course, expected even. Hinata had a family to return to, dozens of bonds holding her in place, the burden of a lofty heritage and bloodline.
Naruto had friends, all of whom had been enemies at one point or another, most of whom were so twined with their other halves they could have severed every other bond and never felt the sting. He had made the mistake of assuming Hinata's other bonds wouldn't be much more difficult to sever; it was easy to forget she was human until thoughts like these intruded.
Think. His kind were supposed to be clever, or so Sakura was fond of telling him with a tweak of his ear for good measure. Having never met another one of his kind, Naruto wondered how much longer it would be before he came into his inheritance. If he had ever thought he could entice her to stay with promises of devotion, if he had assumed he could tie her to him with affection and pleasure Naruto had been proved wrong.
If neither one of them bent, he would break. Hinata, protected by her humanity, could carry on. Naruto wasn't sure he could say the same, he had no standards for comparison. Shuffling out of bed, he had to crack a thin sheet of ice in the bowl to reach the water beneath and scrub the last of the sleep from his eyes. The water wasn't the only reason for the chill that raced through his body.
He felt the moment Hinata raced up the stairs like static dancing across his skin, an intruder breaking the barrier. She shouldn't have been an intruder, not any more with the scent of him all over her and hers clinging to him. Not with the few treasures she had accumulated taking pride of place next to his own, their room taking on a split personality of interesting stones, indecipherable scrolls, tops and cards and children's toys he hadn't known were waiting for him to find them tucked away in dusty corners.
Naruto had dug them out when Hinata had admitted she couldn't remember playing with most of them and it had been its own quiet delight, watching her learn to play with the carefree air that should have been afforded every child. It had stung too, when he realized that he must have played with them once. He knew some of the games too well to be a novice, but as always memory eluded him.
Fortunately he didn't have time to delve into self-pity; Hinata stole into the room behind him, making no attempt to be silent but managing it anyway. Long years of creeping through the halls of her ancestral home praying no one remarked her, Naruto thought with a tinge of indignation on behalf of the child she had been. Impulsively he spun about to catch her, yanking her up and into him and pressing a quick kiss to her mouth to quiet a squeal of surprise. She kicked half-heartedly, steadying herself on his shoulders and leaning back to catch his eyes.
"I found somewhere new today," she pressed her nose to his, a token of affection that still tied his stomach in knots. "I want to see your hand. Your thread, please." Once she would have stuttered on the request, now she waited impatiently for him to set her down. He reluctantly complied with the unspoken request.
"D'you think you can see it?"
"I can," he couldn't identify all the emotions twining through her voice but chief among them was surprise. "It's… it's like mine."
Naruto snorted, and Hinata hurried to clarify, "you said it was red, and I suppose I assumed it was straight but-"
"It is."
"Isn't," Hinata corrected, a frown flickering across her face, there and then gone. She clasped his hand, lifting it up to show him, "or maybe it is. What do you see?"
Red, straight and true binding him to her. Hinata didn't need him to speak it aloud, reading her answer in his expressive face.
"What does it mean?" She trusted him to follow her thoughts now, and he did, though he didn't like the answer that immediately suggested itself.
Naruto did what came easiest when confronted with an unpleasant truth. "'S a lot to take in on an empty stomach. Where did you go anyway?" He was already shepherding her out, toward a meal of rice and fish, then through their sparring routines. The trick was to fall into a familiar pattern that would give him time to think, and distract her from interrogating him until he did.
Hinata slipped easily behind her mask once more, raising his hackles, and allowed herself to be led, though he could see by the stubborn tilt to her jaw this was going to be much worse for the delay. "Somewhere off the path, a clearing with a little lake."
"I've never seen any place like that."
"How far have you explored?"
"Every inch of this forest." There couldn't possibly be a corner left unchecked or a stone unturned.
"Obviously not," she sounded thoughtful more than critical. Her eyes flicked to his thread, and he could see her weighing the merits of pressing him against respecting his silence.
Plucking up his courage, he took the decision from her hands. "I didn't lie. It's just," he swallowed and tried again, every word forcing itself past his teeth.
"It's different for you," Hinata finished. "Does it have something to do with my being human?"
"I don't know," he doubted it but didn't admit as much. "Could be. I've never heard of anyone like us."
"It could be, but you don't think so." Naruto almost smiled, strained as it was. It was little wonder he'd once mistaken her for a celestial. Not only did she have the look of one, but she had an unerring skill for ferreting out the truth as pieced together from the bits and halves he gave her. Fortunately their conversation petered out as they began to make breakfast, falling into step together easily.
They ate in silence for the first time in days, each absorbed in their own thoughts and neither willing to share them. Naruto knew very well what it meant, though he had never heard of it before. Their bond was as unequal as he had expected, as confused and bound up with others as the thread Hinata perceived about her finger. It was straightforward and strong for him, the orphaned boy with so few bonds to hold him, who had seized on the idea of fate because it assured him he hadn't been abandoned in any way that mattered.
For Hinata, always drawn in many directions, it was infinitely more complex. Snarled and tangled because even she couldn't have said what it meant to her.
"You're still going home."
Hinata pushed her food aside, no longer pretending to eat. "I have to."
Naruto drummed his fingers agitatedly, considering and discarding the ideas that flitted through his mind. He had given her his word, and he would keep it, but 'impossible' wasn't a word that rolled trippingly off his tongue or even dared to settle long in his thoughts.
"Because of your thread, the way you see it."
Hinata shook her head but didn't speak, looking cold and miserable, nothing like the woman that had crept into their room half an hour past.
"What then?" He wasn't angry, not at her anyway, but frustration made his tone sharp and of all things it was that snapped question that prompted an answer from her.
"This bond," Hinata hesitated on the words, clearly choosing them carefully. "Cannot take precedence over my family. It would be a poor repayment, to raise a daughter and lose her to a…" she gnawed at her lip, drawing her shoulders back and sitting up straighter under his scrutiny. When she spoke again, he heard the shade of the woman she became in the evenings. "I can't run, Naruto. I can't disappear and leave them wondering what became of me."
"Then if they knew where you were-"
"If my family consented-"
"It's your life, Hinata!"
"It is my duty, Naruto. I am a part of my clan, an integral part, even." She hadn't been sure of that once, had considered herself a bargaining piece, certainly, but not a cornerstone of the Hyuuga name.
These weeks spent with Naruto had set her to worrying, first groundlessly: would she be missed or would it come as a relief? What would Shino say of his vanishing bride? Now her fears had substance; what would become of the alliance her marriage should have sealed? What efforts would be made to locate her and what would it cost? Would her disappearance lead to conflict between any of the clans, accusations flying the more desperate her father grew to locate her?
And selfishly, what place could she ever fill here? She had few duties to speak of, her training in negotiation wasted, her perceptiveness no more than a tool for hearing the words Naruto wouldn't speak. She lacked Naruto's experience, Sakura's power, Ino's incisive wit, all honed over years, and one day she might match them but until then what use would she be besides a constant companion?
Naruto stood quickly, nearly knocking everything to the ground in his haste to gather it up.
"That doesn't mean we can't enjoy what time we have left," Hinata offered, almost choking on the words. She had grown by leaps and bounds here, thanks in no small part to Naruto himself. She was enjoying his company, was fond of him in her still way, and the idea of leaving him angry and bitter at her parting sat ill with her. The idea of abandoning him to his lonely existence here at all pricked at her constantly, like a splinter under her flesh and she suspected it always would.
"Spar with me?" Naruto asked with forced cheer, and Hinata's shoulders slumped in defeat. She had thought they were finally going to speak, that Naruto was just wounded enough that all his thoughts might come pouring out as hers had. Instead he had managed as he always had, turning the conversation to her and refusing to reciprocate in the slightest.
"Not today, I think," Hinata allowed him to help her up, grasping his hand tightly, memorizing the callouses and abrasions, that wiry strength just beneath. "I think I'd rather be alone."
She almost called the words back at the stricken look on his face, but it was gone again so quickly she didn't have the chance. "Alright then, suit yourself." He tried for a nonchalant shrug, but it looked more like a puppet jerking as its strings were cut, one final, violent twitch before it fell apart. "I'll cook, don't bother coming back early."
That stung, and Hinata knew well it shouldn't have. Soon enough she would be leaving and never returning, but just now it felt as though he was shoving her out the door. Never mind that supper was sure to be something too salty, oily and crispy by half to be palatable without her there to make sure Naruto didn't lose himself in thought and ruin it.
Hinata drew in a deep breath, "tonight then." Both of them said more in the darkness than either would have dared in broad daylight. He would speak with her tonight or she would tie him down and pry his thoughts from his lips piecemeal until she was satisfied.
Perhaps Naruto sensed the words were as much threat as promise, because he paused in his hectic flight to give her a stiff nod of agreement. Tonight.
!
!
A.N.: Remember I was saying that I was locked in a deadly struggle with part of this chapter? Well, I'm using Scrivener and somehow I managed to misplace the part of the chapter I hadn't posted because I moved it to another note card for editing. Heaven knows where it's stored now, but the good news is that this has taught me sometimes the best way to deal with a knot is just to cut it. I'm still sulking over that lost conversation though, and will probably find it years from now buried in a completely different category of fic and hopelessly mislabeled. But at least they've started talking! We are moving again.