Chapter-Sealed.
A/N:- Yes I know, I have written after months but studies and job have stopped me from doing much. Nothing but apologies. This is from Sasuke's POV.
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It felt like a millennium had passed before she woke up, at least in Sasuke's nous of time. Not that he was complaining, he actually loved watching her sleep. It was his favourite pastime during their mission together. Sometimes he was even jealous of how she could sleep without a care in the world or amazed at the fact that she never caught him watching her like a hawk. That's how deep her sleep was. At times he wondered what she was dreaming about when he was getting plagued by nightmares.
It had been fifteen long days after the attack and she was showing him some desired recovery. He knew one day or the other they will come for her or more specifically for him. He still felt hot rage coursing through his veins when he reminisced about those evil men trying to scourge something that belonged to him.
How foolish can you be? But then again it was Hyuga who brought herself into this mess and dragged him with it. Was her feeling to serve Naruto so deep that she risked her life with it?
His smile broadened because that's what he liked about her. She was just like him. They felt things deeply. There was no in between. They could both go to any limits for the things they love.
He observed her again. He had kept her in good condition. What did she mean that he needed to take her to Konoha or else she might die? He will not let her die. Even death will not dare to take her away from him otherwise the world will end and that's a promise he made to himself. Kami knows better not to test him on it.
He never once left the room and an old lady who he never bothered to know the name of, would come every day and supply him with the necessities like medicines, food and spare clothes. She would also help him around Hinata in cleaning and bathing her. She had tutored him on how to apply the medicine that she had prepared and dress the bandages. She was a mute and he wasn't worried about her snitching on him unless she had a death wish or something. Not that she would do because she took care of the place they were in. He was currently in one of Orochimaru's old hideouts. It hadn't yet been discovered by any hidden village and the sanin had given up on it while the old lady had made it her abode, not wanting her discovery. So it was perfect.
He sighed getting up from the only chair in the room and went up to her, removing her long bangs from her face, "When are you fucking waking up?"
And like some kind of miracle he saw her fingers twitch, reacting to him. They were healing faster and yet he felt guilt flooding his inside. He did what he did and he wasn't ashamed to do more harm if she forced him to. He was cruel like that.
"N-neji?" She called out.
"I am not your dead brother" He answered. It wasn't his intention to be so brash but it came out like his second nature.
She opened her eyes in shock and then she calmed down when he saw him but after a moment she panicked again. Sasuke wanted to laugh at her reaction. Yeah it was funny to him like some kind of dark humour.
"Don't worry. You are alive and I guess safe too" Again the words must have seemed sarcastic to her given his earlier threat to her. Must be so fresh on her mind.
"We…" She heaved, her throat croaked due to her dry and dusty vocal chords. " …aren't in Konoha"
He breathed in deeply while his fists tightened into balls for his threat might not have fallen into deaf ears.
He said nothing but dropped beside her bed to rest his head. He silently watched her and she stared back dumbfounded. He was aware of the fact that she was scared but she was brave too. Not many had the fate to say that they had matched his stare and lived another day to tell the tale.
"What did I say before? Are you really that desperate to not walk on your feet? Ah! You must want me to carry you around" He smirked when she futilely tried to squirm way from him. She couldn't even move an inch. He had drained her chakra. Thanks to the drug he convinced Sakura to give him on their last visit to Konoha. At the time he had other intentions to use it for but now things have changed. He has changed. Hinata wasn't an enemy any more.
He didn't want to kill her but now he would protect her with his own life. Well his life depended on her.
"Why?" She inquired and that made his blood boil. His eyes narrowed but he maintained his composure.
"Do you really want to know why after what you did to me Hyuga?"
He was sure she would play dumb but she wasn't such a good liar. He just couldn't fathom why she would even try. He could easily read through her thoughts and see through her façade.
" W-what?" She stuttered.
He quickly disposed of his thin shirt to show her the seals she had marked on him. They were like ink on his marred skin, swirling and glowing. Somehow even after being ugly as hell, they still looked good on his pale skin. "These seals. Are you never planning to reveal their truth? Not even to your beloved Naruto"
She flinched this time and managed to put some distance between them. The truth was always bitter but she can't run away anymore. He had her right where he wanted- under his palm. Did she really think he would never figure out? Every seal has a shortcoming and a forbidden one of such competence always requires a sacrifice. In her case, she just claimed there would be no casualties.
She must have mistaken that no one would figure out her lie.
Stupid.
"They would never" She whispered hiding her face with her hands, hyperventilating and on the verge of crying. She refused to look at him and he didn't like it one bit.
"Look at me" She refused ignoring him as if he wasn't there, as if he never existed and she should have known better that Sasuke never liked being overlooked.
He snatched her hands away from her face and placed them above her head. This time he was careful not to hurt and yet he was anything but gentle.
"What did you sacrifice Hinata?" The question forced her to look up at him or maybe it was her name that sounded so painfully good that it even surprised him. Whatever it was, he wasn't letting this trance to break. He will keep her captive now because she had enslaved him already. She thought she could get away after making such a deal with the devil himself and pay nothing in return.
"I …" Her voice broke again. "I-I " She cried. The culpability showing itself on her countenance but he wasn't satisfied.
The venom and hatred found their way on his tongue and he spat out. "Is proving yourself to Konoha that significant? They are not that important." He slowly traced the side of her ribs till he reached her heart. "Now see they want you dead for your loyalty"
She shivered under him and he blacked out on when did he climb on the bed with her? It was as if he had lost control on himself. However, he stayed that way. If he wanted he could kiss her again, he missed the sensation. So many nights spent in her presence had left him longing and unsatisfied that he needed nothing more to descend his mouth on her. To claim her. To love her. To bed her.
All these but he wanted her to be willing.
To claim him. To love him. To be his and nothing more.
He then brought both of her hands on his shoulders, her fingers burning on his cold skin. She moved on her own after that, shame taking over her body. She intently scrutinized the marks of her curse on him. He still remembered how he was gagged and chained to the wall when she came into his cell to perform those excruciating procedures on him. He at the time couldn't see her for he was blindfolded but he sure cursed her with every being of his Uchiha gene. Coincidently, it always rained when she would arrive and the smell of earth, lightning and the green tea would invade his nostrils. She never said anything to him but he would hear her sniffle one or two time even when there was a storm brewing outside. That infuriated him to no end because he hated pity at the hands of his torturer. He couldn't collect when was the last time he had handled so much agony in his life? Even the last fight with Naruto wasn't this hard to bear. It was as if his entire body was on fire and his nerves were melting his insides. He had thrown up multiple times during her visitation, all sweaty and shaky that he must have looked so pathetic and frail to her. What could be more humiliating to him?
He had wished her to drop dead so many times that he couldn't count. He had even planned on ways to eliminate her from the face of this earth. Oh, how could he torture her in similar ways before slaying her?
Then there was this comfort that she would provide after causing him hurt and for some miniscule seconds in his life he would mistake it for his dead mother's touch. He questioned himself on how could the same hand that brought him pain and misery could provide warmth and protection? Her touch would linger sometimes on his chest and sometimes unnecessarily on his hair soothing and combing through his throbbing head but he would say nothing and could do nothing except leaning against the comfort she provided. He even felt like a puppy that had been kicked multiple times on the stomach only to be picked up again and petted.
After she was finished with him, he would be left confused alternating between an aching body and a yearning soul.
He had been unable to see how much all this had impacted on her but now he could clearly make out the tears behind her lids trying not to show themselves.
He knew she was reminded of the dark past of her life and how she gladly committed another one to the same doom just as her elders. How was she any different no matter what she claimed?
"I had wanted to stop" She admitted. "but I couldn't"
She continued and he listened like a follower would to a preacher but she was no saint. "Y-you are r-right. I am selfish"
He huffed as if loving your home could be selfish. If it is, then Itachi was the definition of that. However, She wasn't selfish for that but for an entirely different reason. She had wanted to prove things to the wrong people including someone whose name she took next.
"B-but Naruto w-would not . . ." And that's what he didn't want to hear because people like her and Itachi would defend that piece of land and its people even for their life. She still hasn't realised it yet. How naïve could she be? This is why he concluded that this world, for the cold-hearted ninjas, is not for her. That she shouldn't be a shinobi at all.
He barred his teeth at her. All his playfulness gone in an instant. He must have looked deranged to her as he could see his reflection on her mirror-like eyes.
"Naruto is an idiot who got played into the politics of Konoha again" He bit back. " …and you even a bigger one for letting him take advantage of you"
"He thought he was saving me and you just wanted to prove your worth that you didn't think about the consequence of this stupid fuinjutsu. You hid it from him for him and Naruto trusted you blindly". It was as if she never cared for herself as long as she proved that she was of some kind of help to her friends and to her clan.
"They want you dead. Do you know why?" He had wanted to scream but he didn't and instead delivered his next statement slowly for her to grasp. "For if you die, I die"
And maybe that was the time she had fully understood the liability of her action for her eyes grew bigger than possible and her mouth fell open. The same one he desired to ravish just some moment ago.
"You knew this would happen. This forbidden jutsu of your family couldn't be performed on someone without a Hyuga blood so you put the seal on yourself too". It made him mad and bothered at the same time that she was insane enough to put herself on the line like this. For whom? Konoha? Naruto? Herself?
It is uncanny that the world calls him crazy and unreasonable but here she was.
"The time when you will activate the seal on me will be the time you'll be taking your last breath"
The seal didn't just bear a threat to the one getting it but also to the one performing it. The main clan Hyugas had perfected their fuinjutsu but there needed to be a Hyuga blood involved. The council had found a perfect way to assassinate him by letting someone perform the jutsu on him because it was an impossible task to save him. No one could have jeopardized it except his hard-headed best friend who brought this mousy woman into the picture. She found a loophole and abused the system without much thoughts and fabricated lies.
He would give her some credit that it even took him much time to place the picture together and still be doubtful of his discovery. The realisation that she could go to such level had him cynical but maybe it was this realisation that made his obsession with her grow profound because finally he was able to decipher the real Hyuga and not the one she presented herself in front of others.
He had figured out pretty soon that the Hyuga was lying to Naruto that the seal wouldn't be deadly. Yeah she managed to not kill him but at what cost. Now this jutsu would make sure to kill them both because this jutsu was a double edged sword.
She didn't just put the seal on him. She became his master. Now his life belonged to her. Not only was he at her mercy to not kill him in just one hand sign but he would perish regardless, if she dies first even without ever activating the jutsu. He would never be freed and his power would be sealed completely. He would be nothing but a mere mortal, an easy prey for even a trained genin to slaughter.
She had chained him to herself for eternity. Their fates are now intertwined but damn him if he goes without a fight. He wouldn't be an Uchiha then.
"I am s-sorry" She apologised to him, the magnitude of one decision to use herself as a guinea pig along with him, now dawning upon her. She had failed in her promise yet again and gained nothing out of it. She had become a feebleness to the person she was supposed to protect. He had expected that she hadn't thought of the likelihood that his enemies could use her to harm him. They had discovered her lies just like he had. It was the matter of 'when' and not 'if'.
He broke into laughter like her apology was some kind of sick joke that made him happy. "Keep your apology to yourself. Save it. I want something more from you"
And wasn't it justified after she took everything away from him. His pride. His power. His freedom.
He might forgive her when he has all of these and maybe not even after that. He would still need more from her as his hunger for her had become insatiable. He would consider her as his reason to live just as a drowning man would search for a land. Maybe this was what Itachi meant for him. Maybe Itachi had already seen his future and planned accordingly. He wouldn't guess anything to be outside the realm of the possibilities of his dead brother or maybe Sasuke had become too desperate to find meaning behind his brother's last words that he was willing to make Hinata a scapegoat. It didn't matter. As long as she would become a device to fulfil his promise because even though unknowingly, she took away his chance to redeem himself.
She gathered her wits to ask him "What?" and regretted soon after. She shouldn't have asked him. There was nothing she could pay him with, her body and soul combined.
He didn't hesitate to fill her in for he had already told her before.
"I want you" He kissed her once again on her lips and she didn't stop him this time for she had anticipated his demand.
" … to become mine"
-to become his.
To give her his everything that she had taken away.
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Thank you.