Sorry for the wait, guys! Completely unintentional. This chapter aggressively didn't want to be written, and coupled with the fact that I've been basically non stop since I last updated, finding time to get this out was tough (apparently I have a "life" now? It's very inconvenient). Good news is, everything for this story is 100% planned out – as in, approximate amount of chapters, what will happen in each, the whole nine yards. Hopefully that kicks my butt into gear with writing them. Thank you to the wonderful people who reviewed last chapter, you guys are absolute gems and I adore you :)
Chapter 24 – and so it begins
The vision nestles itself somewhere between dream and memory. Everything about it is muted, as if viewed from underwater.
I don't remember the nightmare that wakes me, but I remember my racing heart, beating like a caged bird as I wake, screaming and sobbing and confused. Sweat has slicked my sheets to my skin, and the innocence found only in childhood has me calling out.
"Mama! Mama, help me!"
A beat, then I hear the soft padding of footsteps walking swiftly down the hall. Already my fears start to drain, like water released from cupped hands, and she enters the room. I can't see her face, but the feeling of safety that envelopes me as she walks towards me identifies her.
"Oh darling, did you have another nightmare?" she asks, enclosing me in her arms.
"Mmhmm," I sniffle, snuggling close. "It was awful."
"Shh, it's okay, they won't hurt you. I'll always be there. I'll protect you."
Waking comes to me slowly, at first. I can feel the last vestiges of the dream leaving me, like sand between my fingertips, and by the time my eyes are fully open I remember none of it.
I wonder briefly if yesterday was a dream. If I really decided to start protecting Hinata instead of killing her. I dismiss the thought immediately. I can almost feel the slight brush of her lips against mine, and know I would never have dreamed that.
Groaning, I rise from the cot, finally taking full stock of my decision.
There's a war coming in a little under five weeks. And with that war will come Itachi. Somehow I have to train Hinata to be good enough to stand a chance against Itachi in less than five weeks. And by extension, I'll have to train Neji and Tenten as well.
All without igniting their suspicions that I'm the Demon, or that I know about the war.
Yeah, that'll go down a real treat. I'm sure Neji will relish the criticism from someone he considers his inferior.
I put my face in my hands and wonder belatedly if it's too late to go back and just kill Hinata and be done with it. Death is so much simpler than this mess.
But no, I've made my bed and now I have to lie in it. And besides, there's the small notion that I don't actually want Hinata to die. And the fact that she kissed me last night, which has me spiralling. I can feel unidentifiable emotions assault my senses, burning like fireworks under my skin, and I palm my eyes, trying to banish them back into a box where I never have to think about them or process them. I don't have the time or the brain power to consider how Hinata and I feel about each other right now. I just need to focus on keeping her alive. I did not spare her life only to see her killed in five weeks.
Keeping someone alive when they're doomed to die is exhausting.
I grab my gear and head to the showers, remembering that Tenten is coming back today. That'll be interesting. I wonder what my new role will be once she's back. I hope they don't start sending me home at night, again. I really don't need Itachi breathing down my neck right now. As annoying as not going home is, I really do enjoy the safety that the Hyuuga building grants.
I use the privacy of the shower to think for a moment, wondering what I can start training Hinata in that will improve her chances against Itachi.
The answer comes almost immediately, as if summoned. I can train her to throw kunai and shuriken. After firearms, Neji shouldn't have a problem with throwing knives. And besides, it's never a bad thing to know how to use them – they're especially handy when trying to stay quiet or when you've run out of bullets.
Finishing my shower, I get changed and head towards the kitchenette, where Neji and Hinata are having breakfast. Hinata is excitedly discussing when Tenten will be arriving, and Neji is trying not to let his excitement show.
"Morning," I say, not missing the flush on Hinata's cheeks. It's sweet and adorable and I feel my heart do a double take. I fill a bowl with cereal and milk and start eating, trying desperately to look unaffected. "So Tenten's coming home today, then?"
Neji opens his mouth to answer, but Hinata beats him to it. "Yes! She'll be here around lunchtime, apparently. I can't wait to see her again, it feels like forever since I have."
I nod contemplatively over my cereal. "Have you got anything planned before then?"
Hinata shrugs. "I was going to make her a cake or something, but Tenten doesn't really like sweets."
"And we should probably avoid poisoning her when she's just gotten back," Neji adds, to which Hinata flushes a deep crimson.
I try not to look too guilty at the idea of poisoning someone.
"Apart from that, though," Hinata continues, "I don't really have many ideas. I could show her how well I can shoot, but we don't know how well she'll take that development."
"I'm sure she'll be proud of you," says Neji, finishing his breakfast. "In the meantime, we could do some more shooting, or we could practise our hand to hand…"
"I was thinking I could teach her how to throw shuriken and kunai," I interject before Hinata can reply. At Neji's glare I shrug, feigning indifference. "I just figure it's a useful skill to have, and would go well with her shooting."
Hinata perks up at the idea. "Oh, I'd love that! Please, Neji? I've always been interested!"
Hinata's excitement has Neji looking torn. I haven't seen him use them before, so I'm not sure how adept he is with them. I'm certain Tenten knows how to use them, though.
"It's just an idea," I say, my tone apathetic. "If you'd rather not…"
"Neji, I want to try it," says Hinata decisively. "I'm not a child anymore. You can't make all my decisions for me. Besides, it's a good skill to have. It can't hurt to try, at least."
I finally allow myself to study her, taking advantage of Neji's distracted state to do so. Something about her appears… different today. Her eyes are brighter, hair brushed and done neatly, rather than falling apart around her face. She looks pretty today. Very pretty. Pretty enough that I struggle to take my eyes off her. But the ghostly apparition above her head quickly turns my stomach, and I look away.
Thirty-three days. Fuck.
I look over at Neji, and sure enough the time over his head is nearly identical to Hinata's. Maybe a few minutes less. Far too close to be a coincidence.
Hinata might not have to deal with the Demon anymore, but she still has to survive the Devil.
And honestly, I'm not convinced that she, Neji, Tenten and I will be enough to stop him, when the time comes.
The night of the Senju massacre flashes bright behind my eyes. God, there was so much death. Itachi and I killed so many people that night. I couldn't count the lives I took – it's easily in the hundreds – and Itachi's would have to be at least double that.
The man is a freak. Somehow he's a pacifist – he'll only kill when he absolutely has to – but that doesn't negate the fact that when he gets going, the only thing you can pray for is that it's quick.
"Fine," Neji's voice grates in my ear, pulling me back to reality. "You can learn. But Gaara, I want to see how good you are first. Otherwise I'll discuss it with Tenten when she gets back."
I nod, accepting his conditions.
Passing Neji's test doesn't take too long. I was right in my assumption that they're not his forte, and take secret pride that he knows I have a skill that he doesn't.
So Neji gives the floor to me, and Hinata nervously approaches, not quite catching my eye. I swallow the lump in my throat, let it settle in the pit of my stomach along with the aggressive feelings that won't go away, and ask her, "Have you ever thrown a shuriken or a kunai before?"
She shakes her head, fingers twitching where they twist with each other.
From my peripherals I watch as Neji looks curiously between the two of us, trying to figure out what has changed. Hinata is usually many things around me, but nervous hasn't been one. He narrows his eyes at me and I shrug at him, as if to say I don't know what's going on. A lie. But lying is second nature to me, so it's easy, like breathing. As much a part of me as my arm.
"Right," I say to her. "So we'll start with the basics."
I start her off with shuriken, allow her to feel the texture and the weight of them. I bring the target closer, and get her in to position. Show her how to hold the weapon, how to hold herself. How to distribute her weight and find her centre of gravity and how to aim and how to throw. It's all very clinical, like how it was with Matsuri. Only touch when necessary. I do my best to give Neji as little fodder as possible. I'd finally started to find a middle ground with him, and it has certainly made my life easier. I'd rather not fall back into the tense armistice we'd started with.
"Alright," I tell her, standing back. "Give it a throw."
She does, and the shuriken bounces off the target, clattering to the floor. A look of defeat flashes in her eyes, but she picks up another and tries again. The second joins the first on the floor. And the third. And the fourth. But the fifth manages to wedge itself in the bottom corner of the target, and I'm reminded vividly of Matsuri's first time practising with shuriken.
"That's good, Hinata," I say, as she turns excitedly towards me, a smile lighting up her face. "Work on putting power into your throws. Don't be afraid of the shuriken."
She nods, and turns back to the target, picking up another shuriken and flinging it at the target. It embeds itself closer to the top, and Hinata is almost glowing with pride. She turns to face me again, and I let satisfaction seep into my gaze. "That's two in a row," she says to me, then turns to Neji. "Neji, did you see? I got it!"
I watch as Neji smiles at her. "I see, Hinata. Good job."
She continues practising, and within a few hours she's at the point where the shuriken always digs into the target and sometimes gets close to a bullseye. I watch as sweat slicks her skin, shining in the sterile lights of the training room, and her arms get heavier and heavier with exhaustion. But there's fireworks in her eyes and determination in the line of her lips, and none of us notice, at first, when the door to the training room opens.
"Well that's certainly not something I thought I'd see," Tenten says, and we all shift to face her.
There's a beat of stillness, which Hinata recovers from first.
"Tenten!" she exclaims, flinging herself at the girl, mindful of her shoulder. "It's so good to see you! How are you? How are you feeling? How's your arm? Was the hospital okay? Did they treat you well?"
"Slow down, Hinata," Neji says, gathering himself and walking over to join them. "You're going to get whiplash at that pace." He reaches the two women and pulls Tenten into a one-armed hug. "It's good to see you."
"You too," Tenten replies, smiling first at him, then at Hinata. "And I'm good. My arm's a lot better, but it's still weak. I need to work on strengthening the muscles before I'll be properly up and running. But what's happening here? Tell me everything."
I hang back, trying my best to keep any attention off myself, but Tenten has other ideas, and her eyes quickly seek me out. I look at the numbers above her head, and they're near the same as Hinata's and Neji's. Tenten's numbers are the lowest, by maybe three minutes. So she'll die first, then Neji, then Hinata. "So you're teaching Hinata how to throw shuriken, huh? I never thought I'd see the day," she says, her voice carefully neutral.
I shrug. "Seemed like a good idea. A good way for her to protect herself."
Tenten narrows her eyes at me, immediately picking up that there's more to the story. I watch as she files the information away for later, and just know that she's going to grill me when Hinata's not watching.
"How about we break for lunch?" Neji suggests, shifting the conversation, and I feel I can breathe a little easier now. "It's almost one, and I'm sure you're hungry."
Tenten and Hinata nod, enthusiastic, and happily talk together as they leave the room. I start cleaning up the mess of shuriken and ignore Neji's gaze.
"Did something happen?" he asks me, far closer than I'd anticipated. "Between you and Hinata, I mean."
"Not that I know of," I reply, not meeting his eye. "Why do you ask?"
He shrugs, tugging a shuriken out of the target. "Hinata was acting odd around you."
I shake my head, and sharpen the weapon in my hands. "Hinata's always acting odd around me."
He doesn't say anything, but I can feel the burning of his eyes against my skin, as if he were willing me to spill my secrets. But my secrets are my sins, and he will have none of them.
"Come out for lunch when you've finished with those," he finally says, putting the shuriken in his hands away, and I listen as the door clatters shut behind him.
Neji and Tenten wait until Hinata has gone to bed before they corner me. They do so in the kitchen, close enough to Hinata should there be an emergency, but not close enough that she can overhear.
"We need to -"
"Discuss what to do with me now that Tenten's back? I figured," I interrupt Neji, folding my arms over my chest while he glowers at me.
"I think you need to catch me up on what's been happening around here, first," says Tenten, leaning against one of the counters. "I've never seen Neji let Hinata even look at a throwing knife, let alone practise with them. How did that come about?"
Great. Hinata and Neji left it to me to tell Tenten about the shooting and the weapons. Fantastic. I'd really planned on being skinned alive today.
But to my surprise, it's Neji who responds.
"Hinata wasn't coping after you were shot," he says, looking directly at Tenten. "She barely slept, and when she did the nightmares were worse than they'd ever been. She wasn't eating. She wasn't watching television or practising her flute or training or reading. She wasn't functioning. I suggested everything I could to help her, but nothing was getting through to her. Gaara had the idea that the problem was that she felt helpless. That as good as she is at aikido, it's not going to do her any good in a gun fight. That all of the attacks made against her have been ranged attacks, and she's been powerless to stop them. So… he suggested teaching her how to shoot."
Tenten's eyes widen, but she otherwise makes no response.
"She's gotten very good at it, too," I start, and Tenten turns to face me. "We've only had her on handguns so far, nothing too powerful, and Neji and I are both with her at all times. She's been on them for about a week, and she can hit a bullseye almost every time. We've taught her how to handle them, clean them, reload them, respect them, everything. We just started on shuriken today, and I was going to start her on kunai soon."
"And what are the two of you hoping to achieve in all this?" Tenten asks, cutting me off. "It's all well and good, teaching Hinata how to defend herself, but I hope you're not giving her the wrong idea. I hope she's not under the impression that if a fight does happen, then she'll be out in the thick of it."
Neji physically recoils at the insinuation, as if the mere concept of it fractures his soul. "Absolutely not. These are precautionary measures, and she knows that. It's just about giving her a feeling of being in control. That if, heavens forbid, she were put in a room with the Demon or even with Itachi, then she might stand a chance. We're preparing her for the worst and hoping for the best."
Tenten's nodding her head, processing everything she's been told. "It's a change, but I think it's a good one," she eventually concedes. "There may come a time where we can't protect her, Neji. This gives her a chance to survive without us."
"So that's it, then?" I ask, indignant. "You come back, and suddenly I'm out? I'm sure Hinata will love that."
"Don't be a fucking moron, Gaara," Tenten says, acid in her voice. "Do you honestly think we're stupid enough to get rid of one of the only people Hinata trusts? Probably the only person Hinata feels genuinely safe around? I'm going to need help while I get my arm back to where it should be, and we're going to need all the help we can get to prepare for this war."
I blanch at the mention of the war, wondering if I could have possibly slipped up and said something. Tenten misinterprets the look on my face and continues.
"God, don't delude yourself into thinking they won't attack, I thought you had brains. I don't know when they'll do it, but of course they fucking will. It's only a matter of time. And when they do, it'll probably be a blood-bath, like it was with the Senju. And if Itachi and the Demon work together again… I shudder to think. Why the fuck do you think I've been trying to hack into their system? For shits? For fun? I'm trying to get as much information on them as I can. I'm trying to find dates, find strategies. I'm trying to find identities. I'm sure we all know what Itachi looks like, but the Demon is a complete wild card. We have no idea who they are, we don't even have a name. We don't know their exact capabilities, strengths, weaknesses. If the Demon comes here they could slaughter their way through half the building before we know they've even arrived. There's a war coming and we need to get ourselves fucking ready for it. If you hadn't already started Hinata on firearms I would have insisted on it the moment I got back."
"So I'm staying here, then?" I ask, not even hiding my relief.
"Of fucking course you are," Tenten replies, exasperated. "You're too damn valuable. The Uchiha probably know exactly who you are by now. If we let you go, they'll probably kidnap you and torture you until you tell them everything there is to know about me and Neji and Hinata and this building. Letting you leave here is too much of a liability. You're absolutely staying."
I run a hand over my face and card my fingers through my hair, sighing. Thank fuck I won't have to convince them. But knowing that she's hacking into the database, looking specifically for me isn't reassuring. I don't know what they would do if they were to find out I'm the Demon, and I swallow heavily at the thought. Hopefully the war happens before she breaks through. Hopefully.
Fuck.
"So how far have you gotten into their database?" Neji asks, and I pull my hand away.
Tenten looks uncertain, for once. "Not very," she says, apologetic, and I feel my knees buckle slightly. "Their system is… I don't even know how to describe it. Every time I think I've made headway I'm forced back ten steps. I've never seen anything like it. It's almost as if they know everything I'm going to do hours before I do it. I'll keep working on it, there's bound to be a way in."
I stand there silently, contemplating, trying not to let any distress show on my face.
"Have you had any thoughts on what happened at the library?" I hear Neji ask, and perk my head up, curious as to what Tenten has to say on the matter.
"Yeah, actually," she says slowly, and rubs her arm. "It's going to sound crazy, so hear me out. But I don't think Hinata was ever the target. I'm not completely sure why. From that distance it's possible that they were trying to kill me and just missed, but I don't know. It felt almost as if they were messing with us. Like, a power play, almost. Like they were threatening us. Like they were trying to tell us that they are fully capable of killing Hinata any time they want, and she's only alive because they don't want her dead yet. That they didn't intend to kill me, only wanted to disable me, so they took out my dominant arm – it felt like they were toying with us. I feel like I'm only alive because they didn't want me dead. I feel like Hinata is alive because she was never the target. I feel like it was a show of how powerful they are, and it was meant to frighten us. Hitting me twice felt deliberate. Like they were driving that message home."
"Do you think it was the Demon?" Neji asks, and I glance briefly to him, then turn back to Tenten, but she's shaking her head.
"No way," she says. "As if we could kill the Demon that easily. And that's what was part of the power play, I think. A show of how good even those who are disposable to them are. If that gunman could hit my shoulder that accurately from that far away, and be disposable, they're trying to scare us into realising just how good the Demon is. Just how good Itachi is. And I don't -"
But whatever Tenten was intending to say is cut off by the most soul-shredding scream I think I've ever heard. It doesn't sound human. I can feel it shattering through my cells, tearing through my body with the subtlety of a chainsaw. The other guard runs around the corner and Neji flies into Hinata's room, slamming the door behind him.
Hinata doesn't stop screaming.
Tenten's gone white as parchment, and she turns to me with wide brown eyes. "Is this normal?" she says, her voice a whisper of panic, and I can barely hear her over the piercing shrieks coming from Hinata's room.
I feel like I'm going to be sick. "It's never been this bad before," I tell her, half of me wanting to move to Hinata's door and the other half rooted to the spot, almost terrified of what I'll find.
I watch as Tenten steels herself, and the other guard disappears back around the corner. Hinata's screams have filled the floor, cutting through the walls like shards of ice.
"Maybe I should go see if Neji needs any help," she says, more to herself than me. Shoulders stiff, she makes her way across the room, but Hinata's screams finally settle into sobs when she's only feet from the door. She stops, and moments later Neji walks out, looking like he's taken a knife to the heart.
"They're getting worse," he says unnecessarily. "Gaara, make her some tea. Use the sleeping tablet. Tenten can bring it in when it's ready."
I busy myself with boiling the kettle as Neji slips back in the room. Tenten seems rooted to the spot, and when the tea is finished and spiked with half a sleeping tablet, she jerks out of her daze and carefully brings the steaming mug in to where Hinata's sobs are still ringing in the wake of her nightmare.
I anticipate that there will be around twenty-ish chapters left. Assuming everything goes according to plan. Sorry for the filler feeling of this chapter, I needed to set a lot up. It was meant to be combined with next chapter, but I figured I'd made you guys wait long enough.
I hope you all had a wonderful New Year! Thank you for reading, reviews are always welcome and wanted and appreciated.
All my love,
Alia xoxo
