Well shit

Here we go again.

I dunno, we'll see how long this one decides to hang around. I have never written sci fi- let me tell you. I know for a fact that Sasu and Hina are a different pair than all my other fics in this round.

To those of you who reviewed- like... guys, you're so sweet and thank you so much. I honestly was bracing myself for an onslaught of "This isn't very good." so to see interest was great- and to see that what i wrote actually was understood despite my lack of world building abilities is even better.

Like, YAY! I didn't completely make a mess. So thank you.

Still, I dunno. I have no clue what I'm doing.
Mercy, I beg.

Much love,

Inky.

Introductions

The world beyond the copse of the trees lining the borders of their valley had always been a thing too dangerous to venture to without very adequate reasons.

Within their valley, confined and safe in the arms of the leaf covered mountains was water, soil, wind and the hot springs that boiled and heated their stones for warmth. More than enough to sustain the heartbeats of all those who lived within the protection of the mountain range.

Or it had been for many years at least.

In that time of peace some arts had been lost where others had been perfected. Painting, flute playing, carving. The training of architects who could make wondrous curving buildings that sang when the wind blew past them. Dance and singing flourished. Where other noble arts, those of hunting, skinning, killing and dying were mostly left at the wayside while peace and prosperity reigned.

Only one clan clung to some of the warrior ways, only one blood line held on to the knowledge that the peace would one day be broken. Like a wildfire to raze the soil to blackness and bring back the nutrients calamity came in fits and starts. When it happened they would be ready.

That was the mantra of those of the Hawk Eyed Blood. When the calamity did come in the form of the disappearing stars and the shattering of the moon they were not surprised. Except, they had miscalculated more badly than any of their ancestors would have believed. The bodies of the stars that fell from heaven may have decayed and brought on abundance from their graves, but there was a price too heavy to pay. With the last of the stars to fall over a hundred years ago the soil had become steadily more impotent. It yielded less and less with more and more strain.

Eventually the hope was pinned on another falling star, and the people of the Veil so long not interested in the happenings of the heavens became transfixed by the last remaining flickers in the navy and purple sky.

His fall could be seen weeks before he landed on the Veil Lands. The elders debated and argued about what to do about it. But it had all been for naught. A hundred years of expectation was hard to argue with. There was only one thing to do. They had to try to slay the star, if it fell living. Use it's bones, heal their fields, heal their sick with it's blood.

She had been right. His quiet, blushing cousin. The heiress of the Hawk Eyed clan always so buried in her books and scrolls had known something no one else had. The quest had all gone so terribly wrong.

"Veil have mercy, restrain Hanabi's soul within it's shell, keep her with me."

Neji's face was a mess of sweat and blood not belonging to him. With his heart in his throat and his limbs shaking he struggled down the hillside, cradling the small body of his youngest cousin to his chest. A cloak had been tied loosely over his shoulder, making a carrier of sorts that supported much of her weight as he struggled down the sharp incline of the mountain.

On either side of him two shadows ran, featureless and silent, breaths non existent, their vigilance on him and the dangerous terrain constant.

"Nightfall comes." On his right the blackness of the shadow took the shape of a woman, her hair a tangle in two knots on her head. "We will not be able to stay with you by moonlight. Let me come to you."

"No, Tenten." Neji grunted softly, scrambling over a boulder protruding from the slip and slide that was the rocky path the shadows had picked as his road. "I can't think of protecting you both in the black. Please don't."

"Protect me?" The shadows edges fuzzed and fizzled with irritation, and on the other side of him the twin blackness of the other shadow moved his head back as though surprised at Neji's words.

"I don't know why I bothered to ask." She snapped, beginning to spice the air with electricity. It was not subtle. The shadow was suddenly humming a high pitched noise that sent a bolt of power through the air and with the tingle of lightening on the breeze a woman climbed out of the blackness, stepping through her shadow until it fell, once more a normal thing against the ground behind her.

Her brown eyes matched the color of her tangled knotted hair on her head, and with her hands on her hips the sleeves of her tunic flowed in curtains along her thighs. Jaw tight she watched as Neji shifted Hanabi in his arms and scowled.

"I just told you not to come. It's dangerous out here-"

"I'm coming too." The other shadow began, and the first smack of shocks began to fizzle through the air.

"No!" Tenten and Neji shouted together. "We need someone to be in contact with the village." Tenten continued when Neji did not. "In the morning..." she paused, eyeing the limp bloody thing in Neji's arms with a tightening of her jaw. "If we're still alive, you will be able to let the elders know, Lee. You're more use through the blackness."

The young man's shadow seemed to think this through for a moment. The black of his being was not completely solid and through it Neji watched the dim suns begin to set due north.

"As you say." Lee agreed. "At the first touch of dawn's light, I will be with you."

"Dawn then." Tenten smiled, although her eyes did not meet the expression. Pressing a hand over the pounding heart hiding within her tunic she breathed slowly to keep calm. "You are missing from me, Lee."

If the shadow smiled she did not see it without any features on it's head shaped form but his hand lifted to his own heart. "And you from me, Tenten." and in a blink it had disappeared.

Now leaning on the rock he had been aiming to climb over Neji tried to steady his breathing. The air was so thin up on the mountain range that he felt perpetually dizzy, and carrying the weight of his cousin although she was tiny was soaking his tunic through with sweat.

In the carrier Hanabi's head lolled carelessly, stretching her long pale throat to the remnant touch of orange from the first setting sun.

Tenten eyed the sky, tracing the line of the second sun and calculating.

"Maybe we have an hour before Luminatus sleeps." She murmured, her earrings twinkled as she moved her head to follow the trajectory of the star. "Solatta is nearly gone." She watched then as the first and younger of the suns sank further between the mountains on the other side of their valley, only a sliver of shining white against the darkness of the range and then it was gone.

Neji was not watching the suns. His focus was on Tenten, jaw tight. "I told your brother I would keep you safe."

Ignoring him the girl moved forward, taking Hanabi's smooth cheek in her palm to study her expression. From having been with Neji in her shadow form when he arrived at the crash site of the angel she knew Hanabi was in no regular sleep. Covered in blood from face to knees the girl had been writhing in agony and unaware of the world beyond her closed eyes. This quietness that had overcome her was not natural.

Even still, it was hard to remember that when she looked so calm and young in his arms. If you ignored her blood soaked tunic she could have been having a well deserved nap.

"I see no wounds, despite the blood." She murmured, drifting her hands over Hanabi's little body, feeling for coagulating claret or awkwardly placed bone fragments beneath her fingers.

"Tenten." His voice was exhausted and it was that admittance that finally drew her brown eyes up. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his handsome face, his brows pulled tightly together as he stared at her, waiting.

"Lee knows I intend to serve my life at your side." Tenten shrugged. "What use am I if you will not allow me to perform my calling."

"Lee is my friend. I promised him I would let nothing harm you. What friend am I to break such a vow?" His tone was less than amiable, it had the edge of authority and although she almost always resented its use it was especially irritating aimed at her.

"It was a foolish vow." She snapped her head around, making her earrings swing and shimmer in the dying light as she studied their surroundings. They had been still too long, but judging from his hurried breaths he had needed the break. They needed to find a tree to make camp in and with the ravine full of rocks and hard clay there would be none big enough for some distance. They needed to hurry.

Neji's vexed growl was low but resigned and knowing what she was thinking was easy as her eyes trailed the nearby trunks.

"I think there may be some adequate forest further down. Would you like me to carry her?" Tenten continued, spotting what looked like a silkweed through the deep green and navy blues of the foliage that stretched out beneath them at the bottom of the rocky ravine.

The silkweed only liked to climb the tallest of the trees, with the sturdiest of trunks. Once entangled in it's bark it rose as high as it could for it needed much of the sun's touch to grow and thrive. It's smooth lime green tendrils were soft enough when fresh to chew and eat raw, bursting with citrus and jaw breaking sweetness from so much sunlight. Once well established it was shaped as a thick ribbon, smooth as silk spiraling around it's host tree. In a silkweed infested tree they would find shelter from the creatures that lurked in the night on the forest floor and food from it's softer tendrils without needing magic. If they were lucky it would have collected the cloudwater in the pockets of it's twisted length.

In that tree was food, rest, water.

Survival.

They had to get to that tree.

"I don't want you to carry her. One of us needs to be able to handle a weapon if it comes to it." Neji's sigh was more than just tired, and Tenten's decision to arrive despite his abhorrence was vindicated.

"Certainly. Let's go."

Together they struggled down the rest of the rocky incline, unconsciously taking turns to glance at the still and unresponsive bundle in Neji's arms.

They did not speak it out loud although it was singing within their heads in unison. It had been four days. If Hanabi did not wake up soon...

Instead of dwelling Tenten sighed in relief as they hit the smooth flatness of the woodland, showered in the gold light of dusk the silkweed glowed in the distance, having nearly turned the trunk of it's host tree green.

"There." She pointed and watched as the pale eyes of her companion stared through the trees. In seconds he was allowing himself a relieved sigh.

At least for this night, they might survive.

When she woke there was a fire, and she nearly screamed out loud.

The terror clawed at her throat to escape but even it quailed when her eyes landed on the creature across from her sharing in the dangerous heat and light of the burning wood. She shuddered violently as she watched the flames dance, spitting sparkles of violet and blue as bits of the wood released their juices in the burn.

His wings were gone, and he seemed so much smaller that she hardly knew what to make of him. Shoulders hunched he sat with his back to the cave wall and stared at the dancing flames with a calm that seemed irrational.

Inching back several feet Hinata stopped only when the other wall of the cave mouth hit her shoulder blades and she nearly melted against it's cool wet points, soothing in comparison to the chaotic burn before her.

She had only ever seen one other fire in her life, and it had not endeared her to it's chaotic frenzy. Of all her nightmares, the ones that rankled her to sweating and sobs were always brightly lit with flames.

"What are you doing?" His eyes did not lift from the heated thing that licked and spat and shimmied in the darkness between them. His voice was bored, but also on the brink of annoyed and thinking it best to keep him from irritation Hinata swallowed the dryness in her mouth as best she could before replying.

"...I... I'm sorry... I... I'm frightened of the flames."

His gaze did lift then, the blackness of those eyes piercing past the shaky reality of the heatwave emitting from the orange thing eating violently the wood.

"It's true then." He mused, not really replying to her but thinking to himself. He had heard of some dirt-crawlers fearing the warmth of flames. Although, he had been unsure about believing it. Surely nothing sentient was so backwards. Softly he whispered, "What stupidity."

Sitting stiffly now with her knees to her chest she breathed out slow, as slow as she could. The world out beyond the tangle of her limbs was too warm and yet within her a flash of something sharp and superheated as the fire threatened. It took her a moment to realize what it was, to take it in her mind and delicately turn it one way and then the other to study.

After another long pause it finally dawned on her.

She was angry.

"Fire ravages." She said it softly as he too spoke, straining against the emotion bubbling in her chest. He did not need to know that she had watched it flare high in the sky, had been too small to understand it, had basked in it's heat and watched as it caught on things she loved... things...people she missed.

His smirk, unshaken by the tremble of dislike in her voice was just as ravaging as the flames, beautiful as the snarling grin of a many toothed predator. "Yes." He agreed. "It does."

The shiver that traipsed down her back made her close her eyes against his expression.

"Come here." His command left no room for discussion and with her back pressed to the cave wall she forced herself to look at him across the blaze. The fire reflected on the blackness of his eyes, making him look like something hellish. Her sister, small and vicious like a strike of lightning had called him Firebound to his face, and in that moment she wondered if it had been an insult to a thing such as him. Somehow she doubted it.

"...I...I cannot get near it." She whispered, despite the urge in her limbs to comply. Those dark eyes blinked slowly across the sweltering waves of heat coming from the flames.

"I will not ask again."

The threat was silky smooth and with her heart thumping in her throat she pictured again her sister, broken and spitting blood, the crimson stain across her chin dripping in ribbons from her face.

If she was ever going to get back home to Hanabi she needed to stay alive. If she was ever going to look her father in the face again, she needed to comply.

There was a freezing knot cooling her throat to pain but her limbs moved, almost of their own volition, trembling and shaky from her wounds and terror. The higher she stood the more the smoke stung, and cinders snapped and crackled from the roaring thing between them, like it was enticed by her movements.

The fallen star leaned back, laying his dark head against the sharp stone of the cave, watching her through hooded eyes as she slowly wandered around the fire, her back to the darkness of the cave mouth where the woodland hissed and rustled with the wind.

Keeping her eyes always on the flames, shaking hard every time the fire cracked or hissed she made it across to where the angel lay, although without his wings she wondered if calling him an angel was accurate.

"Pathetic." His voice slid beneath the sound of the flames and her eyes flickered to him, filled to the brim with the panic and wariness.

Memories were tickling at the back of her brain, threatening to consume her like the fire consumed the logs within it's grasp. Blinking hard Hinata clenched her jaw, straining against the images.

He was fast.

Faster than any of her clan, who were renown for their speed, for their agility and grace. In a moment he was on his feet, making her start and nearly jump back into battle stance. However, his grip was on her face and waist, forcing her in a half dip that bent the small of her back and curved her to him.

It was a vulnerable position, one so against everything she had ever been taught that her heart hammered hard and any words she knew died within her mind. Protestation was only a gasped stuttering sound in her mouth, hands on his shoulders that half pushed before he had her wrist pinned behind her back.

"Enough." There was no patience, no kindness in his tone and when his lips met her cheek she froze.

Once on a gleaning walk through the forest with her back heavy laden with plants to bring home for the Acolyte banquet she had wandered upon a many-tailed fox. They were rare in their forests, beings made half of fire half flesh, the dirtied blood of a hell cretin and a woodland fox.

His tails had waved hard at the sight of her, flickering like the fire did now although she knew because it was in the lullabies she was sung by her Ayah that despite how hot the fox looked he did not burn.

He did however eat flesh.

In his mouth a long eared rabbit heaved for breath. White as the moon fragments in the sky it gasped and stuttered, and her eyes already so sharp despite her young age could see the pulsing of his heart beat, too fast for life, to hurried towards death.

The fox lowered the creature from it's mouth to the mossy ground between it's charcoal black paws and bared it's canines at her in the flickering light of it's glowing tails. Hinata had remained perfectly still, looking back with pain in her heart. The little rabbit lay still heaving on the ground, it's bright azure blue eye glistening as it gasped.

"...I...I mean you no harm." She had whispered, taking a step back to concede the fox this battle. It was young, but then so was she. Yet she was no fool. Training told her when to retreat as much as when to obliterate. This was not a battle she wanted nor needed to fight.

The fox let himself grumble low in his throat, and satisfied with her slow hesitant steps back proceeded to take the rabbit into it's mouth once more.

It was the moment that his maw snapped to the creature's snowy coat that the rabbit froze, his eye dimming, his breaths snapping to a stop as abruptly as the snap of a twig.

Either it's heart had exploded in it's chest from fear, or the terror froze it's bones.

In the angel's grip Hinata stared at the dark cave ceiling, with his mouth on her skin thinking of the fox and it's canines sharp against the snowy coat of the rabbit. She had been trained for so long to be one of the foxes, the wild dogs, the flesh eating birds of the trees, and yet she had always known.

With the heart in her chest, and the tears in her eyes. She was no fox.

She was a rabbit.

Snowy white, until gored scarlet.

The trembling was overtaking her despite her best intentions to be still in his grip. With one hand at the nape of her neck loosely tangled in her black hair and the other gripping her wrist hard she felt the smirk of his mouth against her chin before his tongue lapped at the tear condensing there.

"You taste of fear."

Slowly Hinata closed her eyes, straining not to crack her teeth with how hard she clenched her jaw.

"And shame." This was said with mild amusement. Delicately the tongue slid up her cheek, tickling her lashes before departing.

"You should be ashamed. It was a foolish thing to do, coming after a fallen star." He muttered, pulling away. As easily as he had taken her, capable of breaking her spine with the brute force of his hands he was done, releasing her to stand shivering despite the heat.

With shaky fingers Hinata rubbed at the wetness on her face, not from her tears but his tongue. It seemed surreal, that she so quiet and modest, so set to celibacy in the service of her people and clan would now be here... wiping the saliva of a male from her cheeks.

"I...I tried to tell them." She breathed out soft and uncertain, wondering if her reply was allowed let alone wanted.

His eyes did not reveal surprise or even interest as he lowered himself back down to the ground, although they did not deviate from her face.

"Them?" He grunted, turning back to the fire finally. "Who is important enough that you should go to your death willingly?"

With growing uncertainty Hinata shifted, still wiping at the wetness on her cheek with the sleeve of her ripped and battered tunic. "The elders... my father..." She swallowed. "It is what I was raised to do."

"To kill me." It was not a question.

He turned his eyes back to her then and to his surprise she did not look away. Studying her in the light there was the clarity of grayness to her iris, not just white. He watched, contemplating as her pupil dilated and narrowed sharply to the dance of the fire.

Pale eyes, fear of fire, weak heart capable of producing tears, and if he judged based on the throw of her weapon at his face she also had excellent aim which meant likely as not...

"Hawk Eyed." He stated the fact. "You're one of the Hawk Eyed blood." He was certain now where before he had only hypothesized.

Lowering her chin a little to her chest she continued to stare back, ignoring the shaking of her limbs.

His smile was worse than a snarl. "Of course you are. Only an idiot of your clan would try to take down my kind." He turned away. "I wonder how many more they will send before they finally realize even their heirs wouldn't faze me."

"They will send no more." Her voice was quiet, her swallow thick. He was unimpressed and unconvinced. "Why so sure?"

"I am their...I was their heiress."

It took effort to keep surprise from flickering over his face, coolly he studied her tight jaw, and the now weakening stance of her legs still wounded from their introductory tussle.

"What a pity."

"...I volunteered." This was an understatement, she tried to ignore the half lie. The truth was she had shown her first sign of disobedience when the decision to hunt the descending star was announced by the elders of her Clan. She would go whether they allowed it or not.

"You will have to keep me caged, sedated, tied up." Her voice had shaken, her stutter ripping her words apart and her eyes had been unable to raise to her father sitting among the elders, who was surely flushed with shame. "But I will not send one of our people out there to hunt the star I am sure will slay them. If I am ever to protect my clan in some way, the blood offered should be mine."

"You volunteered to die." He turned away, tired of the conversation.

Softly, as she lowered herself to the ground with a wince of pain from the cracking of half formed scabs all over her she sighed. "I know."

The thing they both didn't bother voicing although it twisted through their minds at the same time was the stark truth.

She had in fact not died.

Tenten did not regret her choice to magic herself to Neji's location. She did not regret it despite his irritated scowl or the shiver of fear that spider walked down her back or the fist of cold terror that tightened at her stomach every time the woodland rustled or sighed through the night.

Up in their silkweed infested tree they were silent, with Hanabi fast asleep in a makeshift hammock on a sturdy young branch, dead to the world in all ways but her heart and breath.

Together Tenten and Neji pried open her mouth and using the leaves of the iron tree that housed them collected mint tasting water. It had sat cool and refreshing in the twisted pits made by the silkweed's growth tangling like curtains around the tree's trunk. Once Hanabi had swallowed several mouthfuls they had settled with their backs to the trunk hands holding bunches of the chewy jaw breakingly sweet tendrils of silkweed roots for their supper.

Below in the darkness of the forest things moved and rustled. Glowing insects shifted and buzzed, sometimes humming loud as machines, other times whispering hardly audible over the sound of the wind through the leaves.

By their light the ground below was revealed to their tired eyes in shades of violet, navy blue and neon green.

Nothing stared back from the shadows. If they were lucky, nothing would notice them and try to climb to their nest to make a meal of them.

"You should sleep." Tenten whispered in the darkness after swallowing the third bite of the silkweed tangles. It almost hurt the teeth to eat them plain, but the sugar content would arm her with quick acting energy. It was as pure as energy got, almost a direct translation of the suns' rays and the magic within it to food she could absorb with her mouth.

It was as close to photosynthesis as she would likely ever get.

"I can't." Neji whispered, his eyes flickering through the darkness, searching. "You won't be able to see if something is hunting us from a mile away. I will though."

Tenten let out a breath through the nose that said more about her annoyance than any sentence she could have put together. "You've been going non stop for almost a full rotation of the suns. You won't be able to walk straight in the morrow let alone see anything if you don't sleep. Don't be foolish."

Neji's gaze continued to shift through the shadows, at half mast despite his best intentions. Beside him he could feel the pressure of Tenten's hip against his own, more comforting than his bed, more familiar than his pillow.

"If something happens..." he hesitated, picturing Lee's face should something occur to his precious sister. Already he was returning with only one of the Clan's heiresses. He could not arrive back to their village without Tenten.

"I'll tell you what," Tenten began then, tugging on his arm. For a moment he wasn't sure what she was doing, until she was wrapping her arm around his shoulder, and pressing him to her lap.

Drowsy half formed thoughts filtered through his mind. Thoughts about proper decorum, and about how his body should never be anywhere near a young lady's lap.

But he was so very tired. His bones heavy as the rocks he had climbed over all day yesterday, and the day before, and the day before.

It didn't take much convincing for him to find himself curled on the giant branch, his head in her lap, eyes already more than half closed. "If something is aiming to kill me, how about we both die and neither of us have to go back home to inform anyone of our failure." Tenten's voice sounded confident and assured, like her plan was logical, obvious, fool proof.

"That is so very not soothing." Neji grumbled, although he was still inching closer to slumber, his tight aching shoulders loosening.

"I can protect you too, you know." Tenten's fingers were in his hair, slow and steady they slid through the brown tresses, untangling knots as she found them. Usually Neji's hair, long and to his waist was a single sheet of brown, shining and neatly plaited down his back out of the way. To find knots was surprising, but then he had been travelling for days now.

"I never said you couldn't." His voice was worse than when he had indulged on nectar spirits at the last Acolyte Festival, more groggy and raw. That day he had looked at her long and hard, his hand always so steady and sure had shaken as it tucked a lock of her unruly copper brown locks behind her ear.

Under the swirling glow of the dragonmoths she had stared back, wondering how much of her his beautiful hawk eyes could see that others could not.

He had said nothing but her name, just the two soft syllables whispered over drunken vocal chords, but there had been a lot in that whisper.

That night she had told Lee she intended to offer her life to the Hawk Eyed Clan. It was for all intents and purposes willing slavery.

Her kind brother had smiled sadly, taking her chin in his hand to study her face. "Of course you are."

Surprising her in the quiet of the dark woods, with his breath so even she was sure he was asleep Tenten blinked to hear Neji's voice again.

"I know you can protect me...yourself...everyone." He whispered. "I just...wish you did not have to."

The words were heavy on her lips as she slid her fingers over his scalp, listening not only to the shifting woodland but the pounding of her heart.

She never said it, but when she was sure he was asleep she leaned to kiss his temple, hoping somehow that the words would pass through her skin into his.

I want to protect you. I want to.

The hunger had gone from a soft pulsing pain to a hollowness that threatened to grow into a blackhole, capable of eating her up with it's fervor. Breathless she followed after the angel, her hand pressing hard to her stomach where the throb of her heart echoed a second after it beat in her chest.

Around them the forest whispered and hissed, and her ears so long trained to compensate should her eyesight ever be gauged in battle heard every rustle, every shift, every crack of a branch beneath their feet.

It made her jump how he blazed through the woods like a scorching fire. He cared nothing for stealth, breaking branches of bushes with his shoulders, crackling the dry underbrush beneath his boots, his steps heavy and relaxed.

By contrast she skittered as much as she could through the woodland as a ghost. Without meaning to she began to make space between herself and the angel's broad back, aching that he was calling so much attention to himself.

To her.

Travelling through the woods during the day light was only a fraction safer than at night when the real toothy predators liked to stalk. It did not mean there wasn't anything out there in between the foliage eyeing them with interest.

In a world years into dying everything was ruthless, careful and cunning. Being invisible had been the only true defense against the dangers outside of her valley. And now with him...

"Stop dawdling." His shout made her jump and she breathed unsteadily through her nose, pressing a handful of her tunic hard into her belly button. Dizzy, and with sweat trailing down her face she looked at him, opening her mouth although no words came forth.

Several feet away from her he frowned, dark eyes and hair a match to the pants he wore. The material was unlike anything she had ever seen with none of the coarseness of hemp and none of the softness of insect spun silk. It was black as his hair and eyes, and on his thigh a single belt wrapped tightly, three little bottles sat snug within their leather bindings, besides that, and his boots he wore nothing else.

In a different situation she would have been embarrassed but exhaustion and hunger and fear had a way of driving her blushes to the back of her mind.

"I... I am..."she began uncertainly. "I'm starving."

A frown flickered on his face and he stopped, listening suddenly. Hinata too closed her eyes, focusing on a sound coming ever closer, quiet but not exactly stealthy.

Only one thing moved so carefully and rapidly. Something that was no longer counting on stealth to offer the element of surprise. Whatever it was must be close enough that if they heard it they still wouldn't have long to prepare.

Her eyes snapped open just in time to turn towards the thick bushes and meter wide leafy umbrellas of the mud wall to her right, spreading her stance and lowering her point of gravity.

Standing several feet away he watched, body loose- uncaring.

The pack exploded from behind the foliage in a tidal wave of black, brown, and blue gray fur. Besides the colors so in sync with the terrain there were the teeth, incisors so large the animals couldn't close their mouths and ears so wide they twisted and turned to follow sound.

With no eyes to speak of, the carnivorous hound-pigs were completely reliant on sound and smell, their flat noses snorting even as they trampled the bushes and coming from a five feet high ledge on her right Hinata had a moment to let out a scream tinged heavily disgust before they were on her.

The crush of the bodies was instant, there was pain as their meaty heated breath heaved onto her face and their soft bellied muscles strained to grab a mouthful of her limbs.

Thrashing to get her hands into the unlocking seals of magic she gasped and finally interlocking her third finger on her right hand with her thumb on her left she shrieked, "Environ!"

It took the wind out of her to do it with no food, little sleep and inadequate water in her body. The soil beneath her was too far from her skin to lend her the earth's power. Drawing from stores she did not have the magic sphere snapped to life around her, see through as glass when in her stronger moments it had always been closer to stone or in one particularly good day metal and precious jewels.

The hound-pigs smashed against the shield in frustration that their prey, only mildly mauled, was now impossible to access. Their mouths gnawed at the see through magic, leaving streaks of their putrid saliva on it's curves.

Hinata gasped for air, holding her torso with one arm and panting. Warily she looked past the threatening pack attempting to break her shield to the angel who stood now flanked by his razor sharp wings with his hands in his pockets, studying her.

Whenever one of the creatures dared to try it's teeth on him his wings moved elegantly, snapping over the body, sending it flying slashed almost to ribbons from the force and sharpness of his extra limbs.

"A shield." He muttered, eyeing the bubble in which she hid, jumping when one of the animals slammed into the curved surface with a resounding smack of breaking bone. "So this is what the heiress of the most renown warrior clan of Veil can do in an emergency." He sounded unimpressed.

"...I...I haven't... I haven't eaten anything in two days." She panted. A list of things tallied against her the length of her arm. Inadequate sleep, inadequate water, no food, no medicine for her wounds, no chance to even wash the wounds or wrap the more severe ones.

His face remained placid and as he approached another hound-pig came barreling at him when the attack on the bubble didn't prove fruitful. With more hostility than before his wing came slicing through the air, slamming into the four legged scampering creature. The force of the blow sent it reeling into a tree and as it hit the wood the resounding crack of it's spine snapping made Hinata jump to throw her hands over her ears.

"Well there." He jerked his chin at the bloody, now dead creature. "You can eat that."

The horror on her face was not to be ignored. Mouth slack and eyes wide she blinked at him, trying and failing still to regain her breath.

Through the tangles of her dirty black hair she turned away from the dead creature, one of her hands coming to her mouth as though to keep something in. He watched, perplexed as her body almost heaved.

Having finally grown tired of the mess he flicked his wings again sharply, forcing a wave of air hard through the clearing laced with the deadly black of his feathers.

In a moment every creature besides Hinata with her hands on her knees and her head low, lay dead. Black feathers embedded into throats, heads, and ribs.

"You can eat all of them, if you can do it fast enough." He added. "For all I care."

"I..." Hinata winced, feeling how thick her mouth felt with extra saliva she couldn't afford due to dehydration. "I...I don't eat flesh."

The shield flickered, appearing and disappearing in bursts like the batting of insect wings and then vanished, leaving her in the eye of corpse strewn storm.

Disdain, thick as the saliva in her throat dripped from his voice. "What do you eat then, princess?" The word was not endearing, said with a hiss and reminiscent of useless women unable to do anything but faint.

Hinata's head snapped up, looking at him through the mess of her indigo black hair. The gray of her iris had sharpened and his smirk was involuntary although he didn't care if she saw.

"I...I can forage, I just... need some time."

"Time is the last thing I have to spare."

With her knuckles white on her knees and her eyes unfocused as she counted the fallen hound-pigs she groaned, closing herself off from the carnage. "Where are we even going?" The exasperation in her voice was not hidden and the thought of striking her crossed his mind, it flickered and then died as quickly as it sparked to life.

No.

He glanced at the feathers then, ebony black and deadly, a reminder of how far he had had to fall to be where he was.

He had no intention of falling further, and striking her would be another rapid descent. Still, rather icily he murmured, "I would watch my tone in the future."

Shaking visibly she pushed herself to standing, her shoulders drooping, her lips turned down in a frown she could not hide. The glitter of her eyes drew his attention like dragonmoths to nectar and in a handful of rapid steps his wings were retreating into his back, making a sound like a chorus of knives being sharpened on stones. As the last of his feathers vanished, he was upon her and she closed her eyes, bracing for the onslaught that was growing more and more familiar with each instance.

Unlike usual his fingers traced the trail of the single tear on her face, sliding up along the curve of her cheek to her lashes. Carefully he licked his finger clean and when she finally opened her eyes he blinked mildly at her, dark eyes searching.

"Anger." He slid his tongue over the roof of his mouth, grating the tear into his taste buds. The spice of her fury was subtle, closer to cinnamon than cayenne but still strong. "I will let you forage, you will need to be able to do more than make a clear shield if you're going to survive to sustain me after our first goal."

She hesitated only a moment before sighing, "What goal?"

"We are going to The Scaled Worm."

Her eyes widened and as he turned and began walking away she scrambled after him, nearly tripping over the discarded bodies of the hound-pigs.

"T-the Scaled Worm? But... but..." Fear twisted in her gut. The ancient being that hid within the tallest mountain was a creature used to terrify children into behaving. Stories of it's unpredictable character were told by the glow of fungi lamps on long nights. It was the oldest and wisest of the Veil creatures. A being so ancient there were none of it's kind left. Sometimes it accepted offerings of precious stones, or rare plants as payment for it wisdom. Lost family had been located by his ability to taste the air with it's forked tongue, smelling out the person on the flecks of dust that traveled through the air.

But sometimes precious stones or impossibly difficult remedies were not payment enough. Sometimes after offering a service the worm would salivate, and through the dark of it's pitch black den only it's teeth glinting through the shadows would be seen.

On those times, the creature would tear it's supplicant apart, limb by limb, eating the person slowly, over the course of many days. Sometimes he stretched their death to unnaturally long periods.

"They-t-they say he's as likely to eat you as help you!" Her panic was not unfounded, but it rushed without restraint through her veins, making her dizzy. "I-it is a fickle and untrustworthy thing. I-is he who you go to slay?"

His grunt was offended. "No." Loudly, but with an elegance she could not deny he climbed over a fallen tree trunk so wide he had to use the thick rock hard mushrooms growing on it's sides as handholds.

Unable to breathe Hinata watched him scale the wall of timber, minty green with moss and spotted with vines and fungi. As he climbed she dug her hands into her hair, her face pinched with fear, wondering at the smoothness of his shoulder blades, rippling with muscles defined and sharp but with no sign of his wings or where they went inside him.

"W..why...why go there? Who are you looking for?" Finally unable to keep the rest of the words from escaping she bit her lip, tasting blood that made her nauseous. "Who are you?"

Now standing on the trunk of the tree he glanced down at her, impatience making him frown.

"Sasuke Uchiha."

Her hands dropped to her sides as she stared.

"...W...what?"

Frowning intently now he motioned to the tree. "Climb."

"You're...you're Sasuke-?" She paused, and the shiver that rankled through her rose gooseflesh over her skin. Gazing up at him her brain fought the information, disagreeing, begging to have not heard correctly.

But there he was, his elegant long fingered hands limp at his sides even as his face tightened in consternation, black eyes flashing with a fire she now could not deny.

"You're looking for the traitor." She clenched her hands so tightly the knuckles whitened and ached. "You're looking for your brother."

The angel flexed his jaw, saying nothing.

Suddenly it all made sense, and her heart plummeted to her stomach. Her mind flooded, with images of the half destroyed moon, the night sky so forlorn and dark with the ever decreasing number of stars where once there had been so many. The war that had raged in the heavens had not interested those of the Veil. Up above the angels and planets fought and lived, but it was then during the war that the stars had begun to fall or sometimes simply go out. At first in few numbers and then, all of a sudden in great sweeping patches of the sky. As suddenly as the lights above began to go out the fields began to produce withered dying crops, sickness began to seep into the bodies of the Veil clans.

The legend said the civil war had torn the galaxy in two. That one side aimed to enter the Veil and eventually Hell below the Veil's soil, believing themselves the rightful rulers of all three worlds: Heaven, Veil and Hell.

The other side fought hard, as guardians of the peace they moved to eradicate the extremists. They had the victory at hand, until one of their most glorious stars switched sides- some stories just said he went mad.

He was known as The Apostate. The eldest son of the Uchiha Clan. Itachi.

His younger surviving brother had one fate to perform, as one of the few stars left.

Kill the Apostate, and then mercy slay her dying world.

Sasuke, the second son of the Uchiha Clan.

"You're... you're The Vindicator." Her voice was more than just weak. Black ate at her vision in hungry vicious bites.

His smile was just as painful, just as raw as the gnawing hunger in her gut.

"Vindicator? No, princess. I'm the Executioner at best... and the Murderer at worst."

It was the last thing she heard before the hunger, the wounds, the terror took her into the black, and the words echoed through her mind long even after she collapsed.

TBC