Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Chapter Fourteen

Sunrise109

It took him six hours of travelling to reach the Akatsuki base. The prolonged genjutsu he had used on Danzo, which had culminated in being powerful enough to control his body and make him remove Shisui's eye, came at a cost. Itachi had come out of that encounter with one-quatre of his chakra reserves depleted. He wanted to conserve as much chakra as possible, in case Danzo characteristically sent out a battalion of his men after him, and a battle ensued—which ironically meant travelling at a slower pace, and allowing his chakra to replenish itself naturally, rather than expending it by travelling at breakneck speeds, would put him at an advantage when it came to wiping out Danzo's strong-arm foundation—should they make the mistake of pursing him.

However, the Uchiha heir surprisingly arrived back at the Akatsuki base with absolutely no incident at all.

Itachi entered the doorway to his room, closing the door tightly shut behind him.

He strode over to his modest-sized and plain-looking single bed, and sat down, his body relaxing gradually.

Weaving through the hand seals, Itachi summoned Hima, the name of his crow which was in possession of Shisui's left eye, entrusted to him by his childhood friend for his safekeeping. The empty right eye socket of the summoning was now waiting for the other powerful eye which Itachi had retrieved from Danzo earlier.

A few moments later, the crow blinked back at Itachi with two activated Mangekyou Sharingan.

"It's complete."

And before Itachi knew it, the toll of the previous night's events catching up to him, he lay down on his bed and slept for the next few hours as dawn quickly approached.

Strangely enough, his dreams were occupied by the images of a certain translucent-eyed female shinobi, one who never seemed to evade his thoughts, especially of late.

She had surprised him, getting this far.

~.~

"Here, our strongest, as requested."

"Thank you," Hinata said, and drank the liquor leisurely, perhaps savouring her last drink, and she knew it.

The male attendant was watching her out of the corner of his eye, as if she reminded him of someone, but a second later, he straightened up and turned way, as if dismissing the thought.

"No problem."

As he disappeared through the flittered curtains at the back of the Ichiraku ramen stand, the Hyuuga heiress' ears caught onto the chatter of some familiar voices...

"… Hinata? I haven't seen her for almost two years, since she left our team to train under Danzo. I ought to go visit her sometime, perhaps at her Clan compound, but I hear she's now living in Danzo's headquarters with the other Root members."

Kiba.

"Don't get ahead of yourself with worry, Hinata can handle herself. She's intelligent and knows what she's doing. Believe it." An encouraging voice spoke those words. Someone who seemed to have faith in her... someone who saw the best in her. Someone who believed in her best intentions.

Naruto.

Afterall, wasn't he the one who had vigorously spent the last three years not giving up on his teammate, who had taken the wrong path? … So why would he give up on her, or assume the worst in her, especially if he did manage to bring Sasuke back, in the end? Naruto seemed very close to achieving this, and it looked like all his strenuous training under Jiraiya would soon pay off...

But wasn't it because of Sasuke, a much more cherished and valued shinobi, someone constantly on everyone's minds, an enigma everyone was strategising to bring back home, that they had all forgotten about Hinata, when she suddenly stopped turning up for assignments with her team, and when the rumours broke out that she had joined the number of Danzo's followers? Wasn't she still residing in the Leaf village, after all? What did it matter if they suddenly stopped seeing her entirely? It was strange enough that her father had disowned her unexpectedly from the Hyuuga Clan, but the ban couldn't last forever, could it?

They all had better things to preoccupy themselves with, after all.

She was easily forgotten.

And thus, Hinata Hyuuga became a thing of the past.

… Or so she had always assumed.

"I still can't believe she went to work for someone like Danzo, though. The man gives me goosebumps."

Shino.

"She had no other choice." A new voice pointed out stoically.

Neji.

"Work in the shadows for a powerful elder, who wields influence in the inner happenings of the village, or become no one, disowned from her Clan but still holding the title of heiress. Inadvertently, she was seen as a threat for learning a forbidden jutsu and no one wanted to deal with the responsibility of that. She's dangerous, and people get afraid of such things—"

Hinata downed the last of her drink and slammed the glass on the wooden tabletop slightly more forcefully than she had intended, drawing many stares from passers-by and fellow customers in her direction—including the male attendant who'd served her.

"Sorry." Hinata stated calmly. Rising to her feet, she nonchalantly dropped some coins onto the table. "Keep the change. If there's any long-term damage done to this table, tab it on the Hyuuga estate. They can more than afford to repair it for you. Tell them Hinata advised you to."

Then without waiting for his reaction, she left the stall.

Her teammates and fellow comrades were now almost out of earshot, but Hinata's trained shinobi ears caught onto the last of their conversation about her, as their forms disappeared into tiny dots.

"Forget about Hinata, she's made her decision; let's focus on becoming super-class jonin, and on bringing Sasuke-kun back to the Leaf village."

… Sakura.

Without warning, the scene changed, and Hinata was now standing in front of the familiar structure of the Hyuuga compound.

This time it was not Hanabi who met her there, but her father.

"Otou-san..." Hinata gasped.

His pale eyes looked right through her, as though not seeing her at all... as though she wasn't even standing there.

"I must be imagining things," Hiashi finally stated, before turning away.

"Otou-san!"

Hinata reached towards her father, and tried to move forwards, but couldn't.

Then suddenly, she next found herself standing inside an all-too-familiar cottage, and her father was no longer to be seen, but... Itachi.

His raven-black eyes and long eyelashes gave his already noble features a handsome undertone, she noted in puzzlement—why was she even thinking that? And what was with the way he was looking at her so intensely, as though there was no one else in the world that he wanted to behold, but her?

"Uchiha...?" Hinata muttered out blearily, still half-asleep, but consciousness was slowly returning.

Confusion.

Then Hinata finally woke up.

Two opalescent eyes fluttered open and she gazed up at the wooden-tiled ceiling of her new room, a simple traditional room, with a bed to sleep on rather than a futon this time, unlike at Kikyo's. She had fallen asleep whilst wearing her Akatsuki cloak and undergarments, rather than the night clothes Konan had provided for her earlier in the week. Her black hair dye was now slowly but surely wearing off, and now her hair colour was starting to resemble its natural midnight-blue hue more, with its length beginning to reach down to her upper back.

Two lanterns were attached to the walls on the adjacent sides of her door, casting her new room in a faint glow that was an unusual blend of amber and crimson.

Her initiation had been rather brief, mainly consisting of a lecture on the Akatsuki's unbending principles, but Konan had explained to her that she would soon learn everything through time and experience... and likely through many, many mistakes too.

It was probably around midnight. However, the Hyuuga heiress felt like venturing outside of her room and taking a stroll outside of the base for the first time—perhaps a quiet midnight walk would help sooth her mind and allow her to recollect her thoughts, especially with the recent changes that had taken place in her life—and that disturbing dream would surely take a while to walk off.

It had been exactly one week since Pain's audience in front of all the members of the Akatsuki. Coincidently, that had been the last time she had laid eyes on Itachi Uchiha.

At the very least, Kisame had paid her a short visit in order to show her around the most important places in the Akatsuki base—namely, the kitchen, in his opinion—which Zetsu was strangely in charge of. Zetsu was arguably a decent cook, second only to Kisame himself, whose specialty could already be guessed. Next, the Swordsman of the Mist had taken her to the meeting room reserved solely for their team, to use as a meeting point in order to strategise and discuss their upcoming missions. It was a spacious meeting room, simply and prettily decorated, with a round glass table in the centre. There were floor-to-ceiling windows occupying the east and west sides of the room. Hinata imagined the room would've been irradiated with sunlight on a beautiful day, but right now it was raining heavily, and the trails of raindrops on the transparent glass surface resembled thousands of tears...

But without Itachi there, the place already felt oddly vacant, as if something vital was missing. The two of them soon departed.

"Not much is happening right now for our little team, Hyuuga, in terms of high-paying missions from clients—we're focused on Phase One, whilst most of the other members are working on Phase Two. So it may take a while until a new mission pops up... In the meantime, enjoy your time off! And have fun!"

Apart from the Hoshigaki's single gratuitous visit, Hinata had been left largely alone, except for a surprise visit from Konan, who delivered her Akatsuki ring to her yesterday. Her nails were now painted purple, the same colour as her teammates', and her ring sat on her left little finger, with the kanji for dove, hato, (鳩) engraved on its surface.

Everything was all so strangely unfamiliar... it would take some time to get used to. But this ring now signified her membership to the Akatsuki organisation. She hoped she wouldn't encounter anyone she knew from Konoha anytime soon. It would be very difficult to explain to them why she was wearing all this gear...

The rest of the places in the Akatsuki base, Hinata had discovered with the aid of her Byakugan.

Since her team hadn't been assigned any missions yet, Hinata spent most of her free time in a private area of the base that had its own indoor training grounds, refining the sequences and techniques that Itachi had taught her. No one had disturbed her.

I better get going, Hinata thought, before carefully exiting her room... And yes, at midnight.

Perhaps she secretly hoped to cross paths with the Uchiha heir somehow, while she ventured outside of the base. She had not actually set foot outside the Akatsuki base yet, and wondered if she would be prohibited from doing so—but Konan hadn't mentioned anything about leaving the base being off-limits.

It was an unspoken reality, surely, that if anyone tried to resolutely flee without returning, they would be hunted down. So of course, there was no real need for Konan to reiterate the point. Pain had made that fact crystal clear during his audience.

The hallway outside her room was already illuminated by torchlight, imaginably by some kind of jutsu. No one else apart from her or Konan shared this floor. It was for woman only.

Konan had explained to her that the other two floors below were for the male members of the Akatsuki. When you had a serious organisation such as this, you didn't want there to be... any conflict of interest.

The Akatsuki meant business.

Hinata reached the ground floor before she knew it, without the guidance of her Byakugan this time, and she found the entrance to the base—an intimidating meter-thick sandstone wall.

This cavernous underground hideout was like a labyrinth, and she had no idea how she would've navigated around it if she hadn't initially used her Byakugan during the past week to commit its many quirks, contours and hidden pathways to memory—there were truly understated benefits of possessing her prized bloodline-limit, and Hinata shakily wondered whether her visual prowess had played a determining factor in Pain's decision-making regarding her admission into the Akatsuki.

Thankfully, the entrance wall was raised high up. She could leave.

However, before Hinata was able to set foot into the open space outside, which was cloaked in darkness, apart from the illumination provided by the moonlight, she felt the metal tip of a weapon pry against the skin at the nape of her neck.

"Hyuuga."

A delicate male voice spoke her family name softly, sending surprising shivers down her spine, as it reached her ears. He sounded rather young... and deadly.

"I'm Sasori of the Red Sand, by the way." Or, as he was popularly known, Akasuna no Sasori.

Hinata finally activated her Byakugan, but found that she couldn't move an inch in order to escape his ambush, due to the many chakra strings now attached to every limb of her body...

"... What do you want?" Hinata uttered out quietly, fully prepared to forcefully expel chakra from her tenketsu in order to get rid of the pesky strings, and simultaneously launch a Heavenly Rotation to deal with the weapon pressed against her neck...

"Well, it depends, to be honest." He stated softly, delicately. "I just wanted to ascertain something."

Sasori knew that not just anyone could waltz into this organisation, and that Itachi had risked his reputation by asking Pain to consider her admission.

Perhaps I'm just curious about her, or maybe... I'm a little bit suspicious...

"... Are you a Konoha spy?" He finished quietly, but there was a serious note to his tone. "I've known Itachi for a while, and he doesn't have any female accomplices."

"I'm... not a spy. "

"Then what are you?" Sasori asked dangerously, narrowing his maple-brown eyes at her. He was a rather impatient man, after all. "Being the heir to the Hyuuga Clan, a prestigious noble in your own right, you have no reason to betray your village and defect to a criminal organisation... So what's your purpose?"

"I have none." Hinata stated, not daring to move an inch just yet. Her assailant was a crimson-haired male, standing behind her with a kunai pressed against her neck and dressed in the signature Akatsuki cloak, just like her, and he wore a purple ring on his left thumb. He was frowning deeply, in irritation. Clearly dissatisfied with her responses thus far.

Hinata did not recall seeing him during Pain's audience last week. He was a completely new person, whom she hadn't seen up until now... was this another member of the Akatsuki that she was unaware of?

What Hinata least expected, was for him to suddenly back away, withdrawing his chakra strings from her limbs and producing a scroll from his right pouch.

Dropping down into a crouch, he drew blood from his thumb and slammed his right palm violently down against the scroll, which was now unravelled on the ground.

A poof of smoke revealed a familiar form on all fours, with a scorpion-like mechanical tail protruding from its rear and a masked human face.

"When I am serious about killing, I summon my Third Kazekage puppet. But Hiruko will do just fine for you, little brat." He growled.

Without warning, the mechanical scorpion-like tail, with a likely highly lethal poison coating its edge, shot out towards her like a firework.

Her reflexes kicked in, and Hinata began to twist, rotating her palms and igniting them with azure chakra to launch her ultimate protective defence: Eight Trigrams: Revolving Heaven...

Am I going to make it?

At that moment, something unexpectedly forced Sasori to withdraw his puppet's tail—a strike that had been mere millimetres from colliding with her—as he now instead used the iron tail for his own benefit, in order to shield his body from a golem-shaped clay object, that promptly exploded near him. Thankfully, the iron tail from his puppet wrapped around Sasori's body securely like a nest, completely blocking out the blast.

BOOM!

Now Hinata understood. As she viewed the puppet with the penetrating field of vision permitted by her Byakugan, she noticed that the large shell covering the puppet's back, which was liftable, revealed a small compartment that could fit a human body inside. The kanji inscribed on its underside read: Hiruko.

The crimson-haired man in front of her was the owner of this creation, rather than the other way around, despite how human and real it looked—it was merely his skilled puppet.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Akasuna no Sasori," Deidara dawdled, a mischievous smirk occupying his handsome features. "Why are you terrorising this poor female Akatsuki member, humph? I thought you had enough fun on our mission today, to last you for a whole week, before you went and attacked anyone else?"

Sasori shot Deidara with a death glare. "Shut up, brat. This interrogation has nothing to do with you."

"Hey, I just got back from our failed mission, trying to locate Orochiamru with you in order to assassinate him for his betrayal... and when I came back from a toilet break, I found that you had ditched me and disappeared... So I got lost, yeah, and couldn't find my way back to the Akatsuki base, because guess what—I'm new here and all! It took me quite a while to get back here, because I was drained of my chakra, and I had to wait a while before I could use my C2 dragon, and fly my way back."

Sasori had a protruding vein twitching on his right temple. He huffed as he carried on listening to Deidara's ranting, as though his complaining caused him physical pain to some degree.

Hinata just stood there, unsure of what to say or do, exactly...

"So much of a partner, you are!" Deidara accused angrily, clearly annoyed at being ditched. He indeed wore an eye scope device over his left eye, signifying that he was a long-range user.

"If you can't get over being left behind, maybe you should leave."

"Oh, only so that you can get the task of hunting me down and dealing with me, huh?"

"Perhaps..." Sasori dawdled, smirking handsomely. He shot Deidara a final disinterested look before turning away. "I'm bored of our conversation. Hyuuga Hinata, consider yourself lucky. I also no longer have an interest in you."

And with that, he left.

Whether she's a spy or not, I no longer care... Sasori thought listlessly, his mind turning to the next mission in store for him and his new partner, Deidara, who was the replacement for his previous partner, the Sanin, Orochimaru. He had characteristically separated himself from the Akatsuki, and he had gotten away before they could eliminate him on this mission, by order of Pain. I guess snakes know how to evade death, huh?

"My debt has now been repaid to you."

"Huh?"

Hinata looked up into Deidara's steely ocean blue gaze.

"That was me returning the favour. You saved my life by healing me, un, don't you remember?" He explained simply.

Then he winked at her, and as he did so, he raised his right hand for her to shake.

"Um, thank you for your assistance tonight, Deidara. And that was nothing. I was just doing my duty. I'm glad you're back in good form." Hinata responded politely. She was admittedly a pretty awkward person, and equally terrible at small talk; in these kinds of situations, it was hard for her to find the right words to say, and she felt embarrassed about him bringing up how she'd healed him—as she knew she'd messed it up a little bit at the beginning, but thankfully Itachi's calm encouragement had helped her to pull through.

With her Byakugan now deactivated since she was no longer in danger, or so she thought, the Hyuuga heiress' vision was limited in the darkness, and she didn't notice the mouth on Deidara's outstretched hand.

As she kindly accepted his offer of a handshake, it was no surprise that a yelp of shock issued from her lips, and she recoiled in surprise at the sensation of a warm tongue licking her palm...

Ew.

"Oh, my bad." Deidara shrugged, far too innocently for her liking.

"I'll walk you back to your room, huh, in case stuck-up puppet guy decides to change his mind about leaving us alone."

And with that, Hinata followed Deidara's form as he led her to her floor in the base.

Little did she know, that just at the very moment that her head hit her pillow that night for a second time, and sleep once again took hold, Itachi finally arrived back at the Akatsuki base from his outing in Konoha, now finally in possession of both of Shisui's eyes...

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A/N: There was supposed to be an encounter between Itachi and Hinata in this chapter, but it got too lengthy, so I'm sorry I gotta end it here, despite my desire to cover a lot more in this chapter... oh, well! 😊 (Amendment 01/08/2022—Credit goes to Itachi's Queen for my reference to Hinata's Akatsuki ring)!

Love you all, and thank you for all your lovely reviews and for sharing your intriguing thoughts. 😊

Until next time!

Take care,

Sunrise109