So, taking a break was a bad idea.
When I went to pick back up, I found I was blocked, really blocked despite knowing exactly where the story wanted to go and so I have been trying to write this chapter for several days.
I am not happy with it, I feel I could have had more clarity and that my battle scenes were boring and stale but I think if I hang out here much longer I might kill the story. It's time to move past this chapter and head towards the wasteland and the mountain of the Scaled Worm.
I apologize in advance, but I thank you all for your encouraging reviews on all the last chapters. Some of you guys really left me shocked that you found the story so engaging. I am so very glad and happy. THank you thank you.
Much much love,
Inky
Elegance had been bred into her body from the moment of her conception. She was a thing made blessed, with eyes to see and ears to hear and muscles to move all more smoothly more beautifully than most. This was not something she knew, although it had no need to be known for it to function.
There was something perhaps more blessed in her deadliness due to her self deprecating ignorance.
Even as her heart quailed to slaughter.
"Hn!" Grunting hard Hinata spun, her arm aching with the force of her draw, eyes shining by the light of the moon slipping and sliding through the thickness of the fog and mist. Her turn gave her three seconds through the fanning darkness of her hair to draw, aim, fire.
Hissing as it cut the air the arrow snapped from her bow with deadly intention and rising above the misting white of twirling fog through the trees it found its mark in the pursuers throwing themselves from trunk to trunk, their ululating cries punctuated by the fall of bodies as she ran and slayed due to necessity.
Amaterasu beside her growled, his hackles raised and ears flat to his head as they sprinted again, skipping over the treacherous rising curls of roots hidden in the mist and shadows, dodging through the thick pillars of ancient pines. Breathing in the coolness of the night and the ever present pungent tang of the Rot, now more prominent with it smeared all over her hunter's bodies.
"Rasu!"
Hinata's voice echoed back to her strangely in the dark, and as her eyes took in the shifting floating lights of torches ahead her heart clenched painfully in her chest even as her lungs burned and sweat poured.
There would be no escaping- she had been cornered. Before her a trap lay with an unknown number of assailants.
Behind her predators flocked, their voices echoing with their eerie war cry so much like beasts of the trees.
"Rasu, now!"
Together they spun, turned heel hard like they had been together forever, Amaterasu in complete harmony with his adoptive mother's body. Leaving scars of their tread in the forest floor from the aggressive turn they shot back towards their attackers, a charge that would prove deadly one way or the other.
The question was, would Hinata or the Rot Clan who chased her be left standing.
Heart in her throat the Hawk Eyed heiress raised the bow, took aim and hearing Neji's comforting steady voice in her ear took heart as well, "Do not hesitate. It's in your blood."
The explosion of crimson as her arrow hit home again and again splattered the trees, a macabre paint that marked her growing panic.
There were dozens. Too many, she realized as she and Rasu came upon their encroaching descent. Too many for her arrows.
He came out of the darkness of the pine boughs, spear shining it's bone tip high as he slammed down, teeth bared and eyes wild.
There was time only for a widening of her own gaze, a gulped breath to fill her lungs and then the bracing for impact.
Training, so long hated, so constant in her life, beaten into her skin by the bamboo rod and sheer desperate determination took over, spreading her legs, lowering her core she clenched her teeth and swung the bow in a wide arch up to meet him.
The man took the blow from the curved wood hard to the face, the crunch of his nose succumbing to her fury and terror loud enough that for a moment only the high pitched sound of her disgust rang on her ear drum and then like a nightmare taken off mute sound erupted again.
The drums hitched a rhythm of craze and unrest. Her heart throbbed within her chest, pumping blood so hard each beat pained her jugular and beside her Amaterasu growled deeply. Snapping and snarling, he launched himself at the next attacker to try harming his new love. As they went down Hinata gasped, dodging another swinging spear, another flashing pair of teeth curled back in a snarl on a face too pasted with Rot for any other feature to be visible.
"Hn!" Twisting hard she threw her elbow into the attackers face, hearing the snap of his teeth and the gurgled shriek of his mouth filling with blood at the near clean slice of his tongue between his slammed jaw.
Turning hard and sending him flying backwards into an ally with a kick to the stomach she dodged, falling to a crouch, sweeping the feet of the next with a hissing cut of her bow across enemy knees. The cry of her victim died abruptly by Amaterasu's bloody maw snapping over his throat as he hit the forest ground.
There were too many.
Her eyes flashed as she straightened, as she spun the bow in her hands like a short staff and blocked a blow from a spear shaft hard, feeling the vibration of the impact on her forearms and palms deep within her bones.
Too many for her.
Too many for Amaterasu.
Her heart twisted painfully, even as she heaved for air, as she kicked her opponent away, reached back and raised another arrow to her bow string.
Too many for Sasuke.
Out in the distance a sound like the crackle of lightning echoed and a roar filled with magic and power shredded the silence of the empty wood.
If anything other than the vermin and crono birds she had spotted on their journey lived in the woodland it had made the correct choice to hide in the shadows for the night. Deep in it's hovel it listened to the twist of power and agony that rippled through the darkness and wondered what terrible creature was being felled- and by what terrible means.
Hinata knew.
She paused, stunned to silence and stillness by the echo of the cry, by the rippling magic that shuddered through the fog and left a tang of electricity in it's wake.
Around her the Rot Clan stilled as well, and in the moment of peace Amaterasu bared his bloody teeth.
From above in the swirling shadows of the pine tree boughs a voice, lazy and uninterested called.
"She bleeds crimson."
Hinata let out a breath then, feeling her chest heave and from her cheek a warmth seeped, leaving a trail of red sliding down. A tear of no value to the Star who screamed.
"Tch. Waste of time. Retreat to assist our brothers in the culling of the Star." The same voice continued, and the warriors hesitated only a second before pulling back, melding into the fog as though they had never existed.
"You," The voice hissed and Hinata snapped her bow up, although her eyes could not find him hiding in the darkness. "You would do well to run from this place and not look back. You would do well to leave. Today, the People of the Rot have desecrated a Star. Tell anyone with ears of the might of our Clan."
Heart still thumping too quickly to think, Hinata trembled, watching as the tip of her arrow gave a shudder, her gaze two blinding moons in the semi darkness.
"It is foolish... to think you can overwhelm a star. Your people are dying." She wished so desperately that no tremble in her voice would betray her fear, her lack of faith in her own words.
A chuckle, low and unamused replied.
"Pearl eyes... Hawk Eyed are you? How very interesting." The shadow shifted, and even as she stared up the Rot Clan retreated back into the trees. She was unimportant with no silver in her veins. As were the dozens of bodies littered on the ground torn to shreds by Amaterasu's talons and teeth, scored with her arrows.
"It would appear your people have been relegated to secondary in the hunt for the Fallen. We will use his Ichor, we will heal our sick...We were humble enough to seek assistance from one who is wise beyond our capabilities. We came well armed. It would appear your Haw Eyed arrogance has cost you your freedom. Lucky for you my orders are to retrieve his body, otherwise..." The silence that followed was oily and Hinata shuddered, her arm straining to hold the arrow in place. "...perhaps you would have been of interest to us."
Amaterasu's growl broke the tense silence and the creature- for Hinata could no longer think of him as man- let out a chuckle again, lacking all mirth.
"Run, little rabbit. Run."
Like crows hopping from branch to branch they disappeared and Hinata kept her arm raised listening to their shifting bodies through the trees, her arrows aimed at the shadows.
The moment they were silent, she ran, grabbing arrows from bodies of the fallen she had slain to refill her quiver as she went, her chest tightening and her breath hot as lava with pain as she sprinted.
Please be okay.
Through the chaos the drum had died, the silence was empty, there were no sounds, no screams, no battle fray.
Sasuke, please be okay.
Quiver full, lungs aching she shot like an arrow aimed at the heart.
The council meeting was supposed to be something that the heir of the Hawk Eyed Clan always oversaw. There the heir became familiar with the members of the council. These were elders from each family that branched from the Main House, the house with the purest Hawk Eyed Blood.
Among them were the respected and selected individuals from the families of the Village and at least one member of what had once been a strong farming guild, but now had been cut down to a handful of starving families trying to scrape the earth for left overs.
Hiashi was not pleased when he found himself sitting in the court yard in the evening with the mass of elders clad in their dark robes peering at him. Their faces were stiff despite the warming tea in their wrinkled gnarled hands. Even with his lack of imagination, he had to admit they looked like eerie carrion birds. What, he wondered, were they eyeing as a soon to be carcass for their picking?
"Where is the heiress?" He inquired before the scribe beside him could begin blathering about points of discussion to fill the air with words.
The elders shifted, and like dominoes every single one of them moved to express curiosity of their own, hesitation in some and stubbornness for the last few. Hiashi fixed his pale eyes on the woman and man at the end of the semi circle, facing each other, looking not at him but at the ground.
"We thought it best that Hanabi be asked to join us after we had a chance to discuss the issue of her current activities."
This came from the same gray haired woman that had so blatantly fought against suspending the hunt for the star in favor of retrieving Hinata. Her pale milky eyes had a distant quality, for their sight so blessed in her youth had faded to near blindness when a fever had taken her to deaths door only years ago.
It was ironic that Hinata with her knowledge of the woods and their abundance had been the one to drag her back from the eternal sleep. Gratitude obviously did not sweeten her to the heiress.
"The issue of her activities." Hiashi murmured, putting the smooth wooden cup in his hand steaming and fragrant with herbs on the ground beside his carefully folded knees. The displeasure in his tone could not be mistaken for anything else.
"You must admit that, like our last heiress, Hanabi has taken to hiding in the cellar rather than attending to the duties of her rank." The elder woman continued and as she turned in the direction of Hiashi her gray hair shone a brilliant silver in Solatta's pink and orange dusk hues. "The eccentricity of Hinata nearly cost Hanabi her life, nearly left this clan without heirs, and it most certainly cost us the angel bone we so desperately need to keep the Rot from gaining ground into the Valley."
Nods from a handful of the carrion birds sitting around accompanied her speech. Only a select few stared determinedly at Hiashi, their jaws set, their eyes flashing with displeasure he too was feeling.
Hiashi's gaze was sharp, and rapid. He didn't have to count to know that those looking at him with loyalty in their gaze were few in number compared to those in agreement with the merciless oration.
It took all the effort Hiashi had to stare determinedly at the elder, at her thin lips lined with age, at her familiar leathery skin and set jaw. Elegance in age hinted at riveting beauty in youth.
Hiashi knew she had been wonderfully beautiful of course, having stared at that face from the moment of his birth.
"Your granddaughter's eccentricity is the reason Hanabi was returned to us with a beating heart and not drowned in her own blood." His pale eyes lingered, watching as his mother clenched her jaw, as her brow flickered with irritation. "It is Hinata's eccentricity that reduced the disaster of the hunt to manageable size."
"Manageable size?" This was coming from the man across from the Dowager Hawk, his blue dyed sash around the black robe of elder signifying him as one of the Village appointed representatives. "Two of our young pure bloods are gone, there is no angel bone to replenish our soils, the Rot encroaches ever nearer- four of five shadows have left the Main House, perhaps never to return. With a task to solicit, of all creatures, the Scaled Worm." He let out an indignant breath then, turning to look at Hiashi with disdain. "We need the star's body. We need it to live."
"For how long?"
Hiashi let his mouth close, having the words taken right off his tongue and said by none other than the oldest of the elders, eyes half closed and wrinkled fingers loosely grasping the tea before him.
"What?" The snap from the Dowager Hawk was impatient as it ever was when Hiashi's father-in-law spoke. "What do you mean? For as long as we possibly can- until another star falls- until-"
"And have you looked to the heavens?" The old man's trembling wrinkled face lifted, gazing with white eyes towards the reddish gold hues swirling with the indigos and blues of coming night. "Have you counted the stars, Dowager Hawk? How many years have we waited for one star to fall? What shall we do if the years between their presence grow longer until our children's children no longer know to slay the angels? What shall our people do when the Rot comes too fast and there is no star to murder?"
"Murder?" The dowager's snap was bitter. "Murder is what we commit if we do not act to protect our people . The fate of our children's children and their forgetting cannot happen if we do nothing now. There will be no time for forgetting if we all starve to death."
"Oh I doubt I will be starving." The old man's grunt was mildly amused, his needling tone hard to ignore. "I'm old as time, you're just young enough perchance you'll feel those first pangs of hunger before your luck runs out though, so I see why you worry."
Before the Dowager could gather herself into a fit of rage Hiashi cut in.
"Hanabi's time spent in the cellar- as was so eloquently put- is in the service of our people. Her sister's wisdom saved her life, and Hanabi is attempting to do what an eccentric but wise heiress did before herself. She is trying to learn."
"There is no time for learning." The Dowager was suddenly pushing herself to her feet, the tightness of her jaw visible even through the leathery skin of her cheek. "There is only surviving. She must stop this nonsense. She must focus on a plan to retrieve the star we require to survive. Or I will call for a vote."
This was followed by a silence so thick the buzzing whisper of the dragonmoth lamps being woken throughout the Hawk Eyed Villa seemed loud. Hiashi stared, pearl eyes wide as he took in his mother's strong ancient body standing like a battlement on the other side of the court yard.
"What?"
Murmurs broke then, whispers as the elders turned to each other, nervously, panicking, some smugly exchanging words.
"If the ruling family is unable to manage the safety and well being of the Valley, the council is fit to call for a vote of confidence- and if you and your family are found wanting..." she drifted off then, looking at her son steadily, letting him fill in the gap of her unfinished sentence.
"I doubt there will be another family capable of finding a solution to our current predicament." Hiashi finally managed, grinding the words out between his teeth. "The Rot is unstoppable. Even the angel bone is but a loosely tied bandage over a gaping wound."
The dowager smiled. "Well, perhaps at the very least there might be a family with sons or daughters capable of bringing down the star. Willing an attempt to apply that loose bandage, since it appears your children cannot, or will not."
"This foolishness..." The old man's shaky murmur had lost any hint of mirth. "This foolishness will haunt you, Dowager. It will follow you to your grave."
"We shall see." The dowager murmured, and with an incline of her head hardly visible began a brisk walk towards the gates leading to the village. Behind her by half a step the village elder ran to keep up.
Sighing heavily, with the whispers of the rest of the council buzzing like flies Hiashi turned to his father in law, peering at him from beneath bushy white brows.
"I apologize in advance, dear son. But I have to admit to you truly, there is nothing I thank the heavens above more for, than the fact that your daughters take after your wife and not your mother."
Hiashi sighed deeply as well, catching the movement of Hanabi's shape on the verandah, her arms full of books, her mouth set in consternation.
"I'm afraid it was only the eldest that followed that blood line." He admitted softly then, watching a familiar iron core shifting within his youngest daughter's eyes as she set her jaw in determination. "The truth is, perhaps my mother doesn't realize that. She has never faced someone like herself before."
"Oh?" His father in law followed his gaze, peering intently through weak eyes at his granddaughter in the distance before she turned and disappeared into the darkness of the Main House, followed closely by her shadow.
"You think Hanabi has the grit to put someone like the Dowager Hawk in her appointed place?"
"Yes." Hiashi nodded. "Unlike my mother... her steel has been tempered by gentleness into a sharper edge."
"Once upon a time everyone's heart beats with gentleness." There was scolding in the elder's tone then, glancing at his son in law as he began to stand. "Your mother, like every sentient being has been taught to be who she is by the life she has led." Smiling a little he sighed. "If she thinks being hard is the way to survive then perhaps life has been equally hard to her... Once you too would have been considered...stony."
"Stony." Hiashi whispered, remembering his wife and her hesitant smiles, her nervous fumbling fingers as the marriage contract between their two families was signed. She had been afraid of him, afraid of his silence.
"My point is," the elder waved a hand, moving away slowly at his crawling turtle's pace. "Have compassion for your mother... it is compassion that thawed your heart to my daughter. Perhaps compassion can be effective again."
Hiashi watched him go, a frown deeply ingrained into his face that communicated something of the doubt he felt within his heart. Where his mother was concerned it seemed almost that compassion had the opposite effect in turning her determination to fury and her disdain to hatred.
For her, compassion meant pity and pity meant weakness. And weakness was a luxury those facing the extinction of life on their land could not afford.
The fire was spluttering and dying far below in the clearing, it's shifting flames battered by the pounding of his wings and the hurricane they created. The force of the wind ripping through the pines swayed the Rot Clan on their tall perches, sending pine needles and forest debris swirling through the clearing in painful stabbing whirls of wind and power.
Pulsing through the air, between the molecules of oxygen the magic from within him throbbed and ached, sparking and snapping. White hot and electric blue flashes of his anger glittered in the dim light, like stars, like deadly contained bits of lightning.
Like hatred.
"What a mistake you have made." The metallic voice that escaped his mouth pulsed with the power of the heavens, his eyes flickering black and red as fiery coals. "To be wise enough to desire the ichor of my veins, to be foolish enough to try and take it."
The men shifted and swayed, no longer still, no longer quiet. Their bodies shivered, their limbs twitching with energy that was borderline terror, frenzy, insanity. Wide open eyes flashed white around their iris, and the glare of snarling teeth through their roan red smeared faces made them look primal and animalistic.
Bubbling and treacherous as simmering poison the war cry began from one throat and then another, until their chorus of ululating wails fluttered through the pounding of Sasuke's wings and the rhythmic hypnotism of the drum beat, rising and rising into a crescendo of high pitched cries.
Sasuke's gaze slid from face to face, not counting but assessing the damage he would have to do. Bodies would bleed, necks would crack, hearts would explode. The snarl on his face was steadily less human, the hatred that tinged his wings black sharpening the edges until each flap cleaved the air as a whetted blade.
"I give you one last chance to retreat."
In his heart, in his mind, he almost prayed they would not.
And then- as abruptly as their warbled cries began they vanished, silence erupted between the end of one drum beat to the next. In that stillness Sasuke's body tensed, watching as the muscles of dozens of men coiled with power. Teeth bared, spears raised they launched from their perches aiming for the star that floated among them.
It was a massacre.
Ebony black feathers flashed, the blood sprayed and the bodies fell. Dark ribbons of crimson splattered the pine trees as Sasuke's powerful body swept the hordes coming at him in careless swipes of his giant wings.
His heart was galloping with the strain, and although he was panting the smirk on his face had not changed. The darkness in his eyes gave way to the blazing red of his magic rising within his veins.
There were many, and like insects they jumped one after the other to their deaths, holding on to his wings only to be slayed to ribbons as he shook them off roughly, a torrent of bodies crashing to the earth below him.
But, by the Veil, they were many. Their weight pulled on him and cursing he struggled as more and more of them slammed into his body, his arms, his chest, his back, not- he realized wielding those staffs in any particular fashion for harming, but trying to lock his limbs.
Growling like the monster he was, the spear shafts snapped against the power of his magic and muscles, splintering to chaos even as his strange black wings still unfamiliar, suddenly heavy laden with bloody whimpering opponents failed him under the strain.
Cursing he drew in a breath, his eyes snatching up to the pines above, poking at the black of the heavens, only three stars visible in the navy expanse above.
The unfamiliar feeling of his innards being left behind as he fell, as the world pulled him viciously down with no intention of allowing him the gentleness of a flared wing landing shot panic through his stomach and clenching his teeth gasped in a breath.
The air was knocked clean out of his lungs at the slam of impact. Coughing for a moment, wincing as he shoved bodies off and struggled to his feet he growled. Snarling he threw an elbow into a spear wielding shadow, grunting in satisfaction at the crack of a nose beneath the mighty weight of his blow.
"We were told you would be arrogant."
Eyes flashing, wings flaring out like a bird of prey to dislodge any attempts to hold him Sasuke turned, trying to find the voice that shouted the words. Kicking backwards hard into a knee cap, he listened to the shatter of the leg of, the shriek of pain satisfactory in the chaos.
"We were told you would offer mercy first."
Growling now, ears straining to hear over the grunts of dying men, over the crackling heat of his magic Sasuke spun yet again, red gaze flashing from face to face, wings shivering as they crashed into handfuls of attackers.
"You should not underestimate the desperate, Fallen One."
He caught sight of him in the shadows, a black shape that did not move where all the other bodies seemed to writhe and flail with murderous intent, spears spinning in hands, limbs running to destroy him.
This shadow stood just outside of the flickering dying light of the fire, his face hidden in the shade of the pine trees, hands folded neatly behind his back, a composed and thoughtful stance for someone covered in Rot. Every nerve in Sasuke's body flared with intuition, knowing without a doubt that the threat hid there, in the shadows, in that smirking half visible face.
And then the pain shot through him.
The explosion of agony did not build slowly. It was not and then was. From darkness to light, from joy to despair there was the moon and the trees and the smell of earth and Rot and then there was nothing, just the blinding hell of something tearing at his neck, destroying him, consuming him.
It was the first time that fear had tinged his thoughts. More agonizing than the pain, more terrible than the wound spilling silver down his shoulder and back. Fear.
...I cannot die here...
The world went silent, sound muted, the edges of everything dulled to a smudged outlines and gasping for air his hand flew to his neck where one of the dozens of nameless shifting Rot Clan had stabbed him.
Blood pumped through his body sluggishly, loudly, the only thing to make a sound. No one touched him as he half collapsed to his knees, blinking through the sudden sweat and confusion that overwhelmed his mind.
His fingers fumbled, trembling as they gripped the thing that was sunk so deep into his neck, feeling the smooth hard curve, the jagged unfamiliar top.
The shadow from within the trees was speaking again, his lips moving although no sound could reach him now, not with the agony of the wound burning his ear drums, pulsing with each pump of his heart.
The magic in the air so potent and crackling a moment before flickered and like miniature vacuums throughout the space blinked out, leaving nothing but the normalcy of defeat in it's wake.
Panic, for the first time since arriving at the Veil tsunami-ed through him and chest heaving for air he gripped the offending weapon lodged in his body.
This... this can't be happening...
Out there somewhere Hinata was waiting, her pale eyes searching the dark for his presence. What would they do to her, if he did not...
Tongue dry, he winced, listening as sound trembled and pulsed into his ears and the man's voice was suddenly clear in uncertain fits and starts.
"...that we should have a chance to defeat a Star is no small honor. I am pleased to see that our informant was indeed correct."
Just touching the thing at his neck sent blazing hot shards through his whole body. Like a web whatever they had pierced him with seemed to be spreading, coursing as wildfire through dry grass. Poison? What kind of foul magic was this?
"To show you the respect deserved of a being celestial, I will make the final strike."
Steps.
His ears listened, hearing too much and too little. The scrape of feet on the pine needle carpet, the crunch of twigs and leaves as the would-be murderer approached, the pound of his blood through his veins in protest.
Mouth dry, confusion tangling his thoughts he winced up, his wings slumped in a mess of black razor sharpness beside him, reflecting the light from the dying embers of the fire he had shared with Hinata that night.
Hinata.
"Would I could slice the head from your shoulders, but... we cannot waste the blood within your flesh. Forgive me that your death will not be clean as I would have desired to perform for you. Know at least, that your executioner is Jirobo."
This voice, so sick and tangled, so dry and choked made Sasuke's clenched jaw ache with distaste. With difficulty he raised his head, glaring into a face hidden behind the crusted mud, the tangle of hair, the shadows of the night. He was a giant of a man, and if it weren't for the fact that like all the Rot Clan he was closer to starving than strength Sasuke would have found his menacing size impressive. Flexing his dirty broad hands he reached forward, and the intention to twist his neck to bring Sasuke's demise was clear.
"Sitting on the sidelines until the battle is won, letting your men die before entering the fray. Do not delude yourself with words like forgiveness, and honor. Strike me down a coward, if you can and be done with it."
His blazing red gaze flickered between ebony and scarlet, his magic fighting the agony of his wound, pulsing to regain it's footing, fury fueling the fight.
"I warn you though. Strike true." His snarl left no room for confusion on his intent, "If you do not kill me, it will be the last thing you attempt."
Jirobo stared back, a twist of his lips allowing one deadly smile.
"Sasuke!"
Eyes wide Sasuke turned, his wings lifting at the sound of her voice, and before he could find her in the dark an arrow hissed.
To see him on his knees, the silver dripping down his chest, the white ivory point protruding from his neck left no room for thinking, for considering.
Panting from her full on sprint back towards the fight she drew, breathed in, and before releasing felt magic unlock within her, a shimmering gold heat sparkling along the already blood stained shaft of the used arrow.
His name left her mouth with more panic than she would have thought possible, and his face so pale in the moonlight turned to her, disarming in it's disbelief.
With a grunt her arrow flew, flashing gold with the magic woven around it and as it cut the air it's deadly song ripped through the clearing, right before it shattered into Jirobo's shocked face, sending him crumbling backwards as the projectile lodged itself perfectly through his eye.
Before he had even hit the ground Sasuke had ripped what looked like a giant fang from his neck, growling as the pain tore through him from the effort.
A call rang out, panicked and high pitched and primal from another of the Rot Clan, just as the first touch of Sasuke's magic returned, thickening the air to choking.
Furious and now mad with the agony from his neck Sasuke spun, his wings flashing through the dark, feathers flying in a wide deadly spray of razor.
Panting and breathless Hinata threw herself behind a trunk, holding her bow tightly to her chest, her hand on Amaterasu's head to keep him still and out of harms way. Eyes closed she listened to the sounds of dying permeating the sudden stillness of the wood.
A voice, familiar from her encounter so recent in the mist ripped past her as a handful of them made their escape, launching from tree to tree above her.
"The fang! Did it not work?"
"The poison did not spread! The markings did not rise on his flesh!"
The fading sound of their voices made her shiver and still struggling to calm her raging heart she peered around the tree, her hands white knuckle tight around her bow.
She had sprinted, run as fast as her legs could carry her. Sweat and tears were on her face, her cheeks red with the blood pumping just beneath the surface. Grabbing a hold of a tree she winced to see the wide arc of a mud painted body slamming into the branches of a red pine. The sight reminded her eerily of the hound pig he had told her to eat shortly after taking her from her sister's side.
Hand to her chest she watched as the stillness of the wood resumed, and shakily he straightened, rotating the shoulder coated in the silver of his blood, his gasps audible in the quiet. Still struggling for air herself, Hinata let out a sound, half sigh half moan of relief and sighing deeply, let her knees buckle beneath her.
"...y...you're alive." Beside her Amaterasu keened worriedly, nuzzling his black snout beneath Hinata's shaking hand.
Bristling still from the battle Sasuke let out a heavy breath, eyes snapping from the body littered ground to her wide eyes staring at him. Ripping his gaze away he withdrew his wings, making her wince the expression so unreadable on her face off at the sound of the feathers grating.
"Yes. I apologize for the disappointment." It had been a close call however, and the realization that he had let his arrogance get to his head and nearly cost him everything was loosening his tongue more than any spirit or fermented brew could have a human. Fear, for the first time truly felt while walking the Veil slithered beneath his skin just like the pain of the wound at his neck.
A sound escaped her, one which he had never heard before and ripping his gaze from one of the many bodies at his feet he paused, surprised by the frown so deeply ingrained on her face.
He frowned back, still easily triggered by any sign of animosity after so close a brush with death. Turning to face her fully he glared. "Did you think I wouldn't assume you were hoping for a different outcome?"
Hinata's recoil was worse than if he had struck her, although in an attempt to keep herself from bursting into sobs she scrambled to her feet, using the tree trunk to steady her hateful shaking.
Hiding her face behind her hair she patted Amaterasu's side. "We...we need to move, they may come back with more forces."
Surprise flooded his face like a blood stain, the startle so bad after the fight that he couldn't keep the expression at bay and he thanked any deity that would hear that she had her back to him. Unable, however to keep it out of his voice he called, almost petulantly. "You...were worried about me." It was not a question despite his disbelief and he wasn't sure he was expecting a reply, nor what he would do if he did receive one.
Nothing about Hinata was loud, but the tension across her shoulders was screaming something and still stunned he followed her rapid steps.
"Hinata."
"O-of course I was w-worried!"
Stunned, he stopped watching the coil of tension move from her shoulders to her arms, her hands, until she was trembling like summer snow buffeted by a strong wind. Beside her Amaterasu keened again, tail low, long pink tongue sliding on the back of Hinata's hand.
"I...I said I didn't want to kill you. I don't want anyone to kill you, I said..." she stopped and buried her face into the crook of her elbow only to pull away sharply.
"I'm... I'm crying, there's tears everywhere... Do you need them? Are you hurt?"
Head down she turned, moving towards him only to stop in surprise at his rapid steps back from her, his breath feeling shallow and uncanny in his chest.
A wariness had come over him at the thought of tasting her tears despite her willingness, despite his tiredness and the throbbing wound darkening his usually smooth skin a metallic sheen at his neck. The thought of holding her hurt in his mouth made him flinch, to taste the metallic acrid heat of pain was a repulsive thought.
Because it was obvious, his frightened sarcastic snap had hurt her.
"No. I'm fine. We should go." swallowing hard he dropped the hand holding the bruise to his side like it suddenly burned and her eyes narrowed there, then to his neck, rising to his face in confusion.
"You-"
"I said I'm fine."
A set in her jaw made him pause, and for the first time he considered the fact that he knew exactly what that meant having instigated this obstinate part of her before. A fleeting question shot through his mind like an arrow from her bow. Were there others in her life who made her clench her teeth and plow on stubbornly? Or was it only him?
Why did that matter anyway?
With hands still not fully in her control she was pulling at her lashes, gathering the diamond drops from her fingers to drop onto the basin of her palm. Stubbornly she extended her hand in offering.
Opening his mouth to refuse again he stopped, silenced by her flat unwavering voice, so small and resolute.
"This is why I am here. This is why I abandoned everything I knew and loved, to trade myself and these tears for my sister. My new Calling is now your well being." Her pale eyes filled again, dew drops alighting on her lashes. "P-please don't insult me a second time."
He could hear the boom of his heart beat in his ears, echoing through his head even as he reached out and raised her palm to his lips. The drumming throb burned through his thoughts, silencing everything else. The expectation of brine and metal, rust and dislike on his taste buds made the flowery sweetness of her care a shock as it slid down his throat and began the familiar bubbling boil of his bones. Honey from a thousand blooms, the spice of passion and indignation, the full bodied undertone of resolution, her emotions were a tea blend too complex to truly decipher.
However, as she pulled away and began walking the pulsing of his blood in his ears was easier to understand. In the quiet caused by her flashing eyes one word throbbed with his pulse, terrifying him more than the death he had been unsure he would escape.
In time with his hitched breath the word whispered...
Lovesick, lovesick, lovesick.
Hanabi had been intent on learning all she could before the council meeting she had witnessed from the shadows. She had been determined with the same dogged stubbornness that made the Hawk Eyed Clan so proficient in their killing arts. Of all the pure blooded members of the family Konohamaru knew through and through that although many of them were as strong and intelligent and determined as the one to whom he had offered his life- it was Hanabi whose fire burned the most brightly.
And it flared to a blazing glory when faced with a battle of any sort. If there was anything her grandmother the Dowager Hawk could have done to set her granddaughter on a war path to her demise, insulting her family with questions about their ability to lead was the one sure fire way. He smiled, despite the situation to see her in her bedroom.
Minimalism was a thing prized by the Hawk Eyed. Service to their people required giving of everything, and the keeping of the least possible. The wide expanse of the room was mostly bare polished red wood floor, a mat thick with cotton and a patched but well made blanket of hemp. A low table sat in the middle of the room with two cushions on either side heavy laden with scrolls and books in various states of ancient fragility.
From the porch where the sliding doors had been opened the dawn rays of Solatta turned the sky to strawberries and cream and sitting in the one indulgence in her room Hanabi swung slowly. The hammock chair had been a gift from Neji and Hinata many years ago. Her sister had spent months weaving the fibrous bits of bark into ropes and then into an enormous mesh caccoon. A gap in the weaving allowed for entry into the nest-like inside padded soft with cushions in white cotton. Neji had collected the bark for nearly a year before they were able to complete it.
It had satisfied Hanabi's constant need for movement even when studying. Hinata and Neji often sat in her room with her, attempting to help her memorize the many plants and creatures of their Valley mountains. Hinata would lay on her back, one leg crossed over the other, her toes tangled in the woven pattern of the hammock. Hanabi sitting within it would scowl at diagrams and pictures of plans, soothed to silence and concentration by her sister's constant rocking.
She had never told her, but something about being gently rocked, with her sister's voice gently coaxing knowledge into her head had always made her think of a womb, of being safe, of being swayed with love.
Feeling the sting of longing for her sibling Hanabi shoved the heel of her palm into her pale eye, biting the inside of her cheek in her frustration. Konohamaru watched from the floor, his lap covered in several of the books, his eyes bleary from having worked through the night, stubbornly unwilling to leave his Opaque until she relinquished herself to sleep.
"Hanabi?"
Sighing deeply the girl looked up, fixing him with the intensity of her feeling. "I think I may loathe my grandmother, Konohamaru." She whispered, rubbing her collarbone and wondering at the tight pain that pulsed there. "I am afraid I am a sinful granddaughter."
Konohamaru sighed deeply as well, face softening. "I do not think it is easy to incur your wrath. It must be justly felt."
"Your bias is strong." Hanabi's smile was weak but the change in her face was instant. "However, I am appreciative."
Slowly, with many creaking joints and sore muscles she pulled herself from the hammock seat, peering out to the porch. History and myth, legends and unfounded whispers roiled through her mind. The books had things she had heard of before, sometimes the same, other times changed in minute details.
The one thing she had been looking for however did not arise, only stories she wished she could dismiss, more fairy tales than truthworthy history.
Except... some of what they said was true.
"Did... you have a moment to read the story of the Apostate?" Hanabi murmured, pressing a hand to her forehead to think as she relished the touch of dawn's light on her face.
Konohamaru watched her, dark against the brightness of the heavens beyond. An elegant shadow. He winced as thoughts of his own shadowy existence poked through his mind in painful stabs.
"Yes." He breathed. "I knew bits of it, not the entirety."
"Itachi and Sasuke Uchiha." Hanabi whispered, finally opening her eyes and looking once more at the rising Solatta. For a few hours the sun would be lonely in the heavens without it's sibling. Like the young star, Sasuke had been when left abandoned by his older treacherous perhaps mad brother.
Like herself, missing her sister so deeply.
"...did the star...say it's name?" Konohamaru finally dared after a long silence. Hanabi smiled, admiring his quick thinking, his ability to read her mind and ferret out what she could not articulate.
"No... but then, we were not exactly polite in introducing ourselves either."
"Then perhaps it is not..."
"Look at the Rot, Konohamaru." Hanabi whispered, cutting him off. "Come look at it."
Hesitantly her shadow rose, moving stiffly to stand beside her, looking out into the wide expanse of the Valley dark and muted beneath the shadows of the mountains. Patches, small in places, large in others were bare. The wet bubbling Rot was mostly on the other side of the mountains, encroaching to the edges of the basin they made around the flatlands.
But within the Valley itself, it was dryness that had taken bits of their home. Patches of dusty red soil lacking in nutrients, endlessly thirsty when watered, unable to quench itself with the rains. In those patches nothing grew. In those patches, once upon a time their vegetable fields had flourished.
"Our world is dying." Hanabi murmured. "Perhaps he is here to end it. Perhaps he is the Uchiha- the Vindicator."
A shiver slid down Konohamaru's back and jaw tight he turned from the sight of the beautiful dawn to his mistress, face carefully placid as he waited.
"My grandmother is right to be afraid, unfortunately. I hate to ever have her be right about anything but..." Hanabi smiled without humor, shrugging her shoulders. "...perhaps finding the star is the only thing I can do."
Surprise flooded Konohamaru's face then, unchecked as worry bloomed with it. "But... but Hanabi-" Fear at being left behind once more tore through his insides, wriggling like worms in the casing of his abdomen.
Hanabi finally turned her glowing gaze to him, features raw and unmasked in the flood of morning light. "You will come with me, won't you? One way or the other... that star has answers we need, whether in his blood, or in his mind."
Relief, so obvious it made her smile washed over him and closing his eyes he sighed.
"...I'm afraid its unlikely I would have stayed behind...even had you ordered me to."
"Hm." Hanabi grinned to hide her fear, to hide the terror that had haunted her every moment of being out in the wild where the beasts roamed hungry and the trees themselves seemed keen to betray her to her death. "Insubordinate and bold." she scolded mildly. "Good thing that's just how I like you."
Ignoring the flush of crimson that rose to Konohamaru's face at her words she turned, gathering up her reading material in steady hands, breathing in the smell of the pages that reminded her so much of her sister's arms.
"We best go inform the council we will be heading out to do their bidding." She mused. "The Dowager Hawk will likely be happy to hear I will soon be out there where beasts will likely slay me and leave room for her chosen heirs to take over the Clan."
"I intend to foil her plans by keeping you alive." Konohamaru grunted, a tinge of something that sounded dangerously like dislike piercing his voice. Surprised, for Konohamaru was anything but respectful Hanabi looked up, studying his face again intently.
"I am very glad to hear that."
The wound was refusing to close. Sasuke felt his bones ache, his breath hitch even as he marched on, determined to keep his body from showing the wariness in his stance, in his movement. Hesitantly he glanced once more at his shoulder, catching the seeping silver now staining the blue tunic he had thrown over himself.
Everything else had healed. The bruises had faded, the slashes from the bone tipped spears had been erased. Her tears had simmered within him, warm and pulsing with a comfort he could not deny.
But his shoulder blazed. Stubbornly he tried to keep his hand from reaching to press against the wound out of instinct, feeling again Hinata's unshakable gaze on his back, studying him.
They had been walking for most of the night, and with the glimmers of gray blue light filtering through the trees he realized dawn was on the way.
The sounds of the Rot Clan moving in the distance had been intermittent, never lasting longer than a few minutes as their hunt took them further and further from Sasuke's careful path.
Moving like the huntress she was Hinata left no trace of her step, her feet landing delicately on roots, on rocks, on moss where she could find it, skipping from step to step to leave nothing disturbed.
Beside her Amaterasu followed in his gangly loping walk, tongue out and sides panting gently in his tiredness.
Twisting slightly to look behind them Sasuke winced, and the flicker of pain fluttered over his face without his permission, making Hinata finally stop, frowning worriedly.
"Sasuke."
Turning away he continued, cursing himself and his weakness. Never would he have thought that something as minor as a mad pack of mud splattered men would cause so much damage. They had called him arrogant, well he could not disagree. It had truly been his arrogance that had placed him in such danger.
Not just him however.
Her hand on his shoulder blade suddenly had him turning to look at her, straining to keep his face clear, calm, uninterested. He could not however hide the sweat that glistened on his skin, or the soaked shoulder of his tunic at his neck.
"...Oh no." Hinata's pale eyes flickered over his features and gentle as a soft breath her fingers moved to his tunic neck, touching lightly where the silver blood refused to stop flowing. "Sasuke, why... why are my tears not helping this?"
He watched as she blinked rapidly, and knew instinctively she was trying to work up an emotion, anything to overwhelm her, to overflow her gaze for him and the simple action made his stomach tighten.
"I don't know." He admitted, turning brusquely away. "We must keep moving however. There's no time to stop. We're less than half a day from the forest edge."
Wide eyed Hinata watched as he took another step and swayed ever so slightly. Clenching her jaw she winced, her eyes alighting on his white palm pressing to a tree trunk to steady himself, his head bowed as he braced himself against something invisible to her powerful eyes.
"We... we have to stop. You need to stop."
"I said keep moving." Like her words were irritating he shoved from the tree and started again, moving slowly.
Hinata clenched her jaw again, mulling over the words inside her mouth, tasting them truly before deciding on releasing them.
"Sasuke... I..." She waited then, watching him pause, watching him turn with his features so carefully still she knew he was holding something back from showing.
"I'm not moving."
Amaterasu lay on his belly then, as though her words had been understood and happy to comply he settled. Sasuke's dark eyes were not amused, but then they glimmered with pain that was unmistakable now that she was looking for it.
"Your stubbornness is hardly an endearing character trait." He grunted then, unable to bring up the energy required to argue properly. Hinata blinked at him mildly, the healer in her already shoving the more timid and hesitant part of her mind beneath the roiling waves of worry that threatened to overwhelm her. Briskly she rolled up her sleeves, dumping her bag, bow and quiver on the ground by a tree trunk.
"I might say the same to you." She grumbled, missing the flicker of a smirk that flashed on his mouth. "P...please sit down."
"We are right out in the open."
"I suppose..." she frowned, unwilling to look at him as she rummaged through her bag absently. "...I suppose you're just... going to have to trust me to keep us safe then."
He hardly took much convincing, in three steps he had practically thrown himself to the ground near her things and using the trunk as a back rest he lay his head back, focusing on breathing the air clean and smelling of resin and moss, of pine needle oil and earth even as he tried to ignore the ever present pungent odor of the Rot wasteland so nearby.
Hinata observed him out of her periphery as she pulled out the last of her water reserves and some of the left over clean fabric from his modified tunics. Licking her lips mildly she settled on her knees before him.
"L...let me just look at it, yes?"
Shrugging absently Sasuke kept his eyes closed, his fingers loose straining not to jump when her warm hands fiddled with the neck of his tunic, her smell overwhelming him as she leaned over his frame.
He had been close to her many times, had slid his tongue over her face, had tasted her lashes, had wandered dangerously close to her mouth and been unaffected.
Yet sitting there in the silence he could feel the heat of her body inches from his, the slide of her hair over his arm and the smell of sweat and soap and earth that seemed to come off her clothes.
Frowning slightly he opened his eyes to see her studying the wound on his neck intently, her mouth pursed tightly making the fullness of her lips pout.
"It's only about two inches wide." She murmured in a voice that made him think she was not speaking to him but to herself. "But from looking at the fang I would say it went several inches deep."
The water from her small water skin flooded the wound and although he should have been looking at it to see the damage his eyes focused on her some more, watching the slight wince crinkle the corners of her gaze as she wiped at the entry point. There was nothing telling about the tear in the skin. There were no veins, no darkness, no bruising of the skin to suggest poison. And yet it refused to close, it obviously pained him.
Biting her lip hard Hinata finally lifted her gaze to him, startled to find herself so close. With a choked yelp she moved back, rubbing at her suddenly heated neck idly. "I... I can't see infection or poison. Yet it is not behaving like any wound I have seen you sustain." She pushed herself hurriedly to her feet, taking a deep drought of water with her back to him.
"You must need more starwater."
Sasuke stayed perfectly still, watching her hands flutter through the repacking of her bag, her long fingers shaking from time to time as she moved items around and surprising him withdrew the fang from within the pack.
It was a wicked thing, six inches long and thick as a bottle of wine at the top tapering to a pointed viscous looking point. It had been broken off a creature at an uneven angle and so the top was grooved and speckled.
Looking up at him Hinata extended the thing in her palm. "I have... never seen an animal big enough to house a tooth this big." she shook her head. "Have you?"
Sasuke almost snorted in amusement but sleep, an unfamiliar stranger to his mind, was tugging at his limbs. Eyes half closed he shook his head. "So few things roam in heaven." He allowed. "Spirits mostly, nothing so...carnal."
Hinata's eyes remained on him for a long moment, their softening expression puzzling before she was pushing herself to her feet towards him again. "You are so tired."
She was not asking and if he was honest he was glad, the idea of using energy to answer was exhausting in itself.
"So stars do sleep." She murmured, and he forced his eyes to open then, fixing her with a look of mild consternation. Her smile however was unaffected, confusing in it's complexity.
"You should..." she hesitated then and he waited, straining to keep conscious even as she swallowed hard, her lashes fluttering rapidly until he could see the tinge of wetness at the edges.
There was something innately beautiful about her tears, he realized. They beaded and shimmered, they clung to her lashes like dew or traveled her face like meandering rivers.
"I'm not.. um... I'm not upset enough to..." she waved a hand at herself. "This is all I can do." she admitted finally and Sasuke's dark eyes remained on her steadily, tiredly.
Biting her lip and unsure of why she was so nervous she leaned forward, placing a hand on the trunk of the tree behind him to brace herself as she hovered near his mouth.
His fingers on her throat made her jump, warm and calloused they slid from the curve of her shoulder to her jaw, cupping her cheek as he brought her to him, his breath hot on her skin before the feel of his lips kissed the tears from her lashes.
In his mouth the sweetness of compassion and care exploded, firework flutters of irritation tangled with her amusement and below all that the soothing citrus flavor of companionship lingered, brightening everything.
"Sleep." Her whisper fluttered his bangs as she pulled away. "I'll stand guard."
He told himself the reason his heart had hammered so painfully before, confusing him with it's ache was that he had had many years since someone cared for him at all. That was why it was threatening to burst from his chest again now.
He told himself that he had anticipated nothing but violence and pain on the Veil, that her gentleness was such a shock his mind was confused by it.
He told himself he knew nothing about love, and so could simply not be love sick.
As he faded into darkness he put thoughts of her away, determined never to pick them back up again.
He told himself... he deserved no such joy.
TBC