The Chaos Theory
Interlude 6
Hinata didn't speak to her as much as she used to. She couldn't seem to face her, always falling speechless when they came in contact.
She spoke to Sasuke, though.
Maybe the Uchiha pacified the rightful guilt Hinata felt for failing her.
Hanabi could sometimes hear Sasuke and Hinata talking in the next room. Hinata joined her for training quite often, and was well aware of Hanabi's scope. The conversations were therefore whispered, but Hanabi leaned on the wall, and shamelessly eavesdropped in her boredom. Sometimes it required imagination for the supplication of context. Other times it necessitated the opposite, a sort of mental censorship and suspension of belief. It still intrigued Hanabi how profoundly the rules had changed since her father had passed. Boys in bedrooms. She scoffed.
"I'm the only one left to inherit the clan," Hinata was saying. They might have been sprawled in her bed together. "I have no choice."
"Why are you telling me this?" the Uchiha asked.
"I need to know your opinion before it's too late."
"Why does my opinion matter?" He continued to be difficult.
There was a long enough pause that Hanabi began to suspect she'd been caught.
"Because this is a permanent position and we're going to be together—for a really long time," Hinata stated.
A scoff. "Don't get cocky."
A shuffle, as though maybe the Uchiha was smartly trying to escape.
Then kissing noises. Hanabi's amusement turned to disgust and she wrinkled her nose.
"I've been offered ANBU placement," said Uchiha.
The kissing ceased.
"The ANBU is dangerous." – Hinata.
"So?"
"We—always worked well together."
"But you're becoming the head of your clan."
"Un..."
"Fair trade?"
It was one she would regret. "Okay," Hinata agreed.
Hanabi pushed herself off the wall in irritation. She exited her bedroom at a leisurely pace, fully aware that she was going to be late for a training session.
She met Kiba in the woods a few minutes later. It was nighttime but it didn't make a difference.
She and Kiba never engaged in sparring or combat exercises. Her technique was faultless, and her sensei specialized in something more unique than taijutsu.
"What do you hear?" he asked her.
Hanabi joined him on a tree branch. "Nara Shikamaru being bitched out by his girlfriend a few yards away from here," she said with indifference. "Two genin are lost in the woods a mile westward. Ichiraku just closed its curtains, meaning it must be seven o'clock, and there's a bluebird flying above us. I think one of its wings is injured."
She heard Kiba scratch his head. Sometimes she wondered if he had fleas.
"A blue bird?" he said, finally.
"Yes. Don't you hear it?"
"No."
Her lips curled into a smirk.
"So you've surpassed me, oh great one." She couldn't determine if he was beaming or glaring. She liked the thought of the midpoint. Maybe he was blankly staring, perusing her with envy or—or something of the like. "I guess that's it, kiddo."
She furrowed her brows at the nickname.
He noticed. "That's right, you're fourteen now. You've really grown up."
I guess. Whatever.
"Well, congrats. You've graduated from whatever the hell this was." She felt him stand.
"When will I see you again?" said Hanabi, before catching herself. She clamped her lips shut, mortified.
She didn't want to be in Kiba's company if she could help it. It was a small blessing that she couldn't see him, as his presence was unsanitary, at best.
"At your sister's promotion," he said offhandedly. The branch shifted as he departed.
But privately, she regretted that she couldn't picture him perfectly. She had taken her eyes for granted in that regard. She had neglected the image of her sister's rogue teammate in favor of lesser things.
She sighed and reached up to touch her forehead, tracing where she would receive the cursed seal.
"Thank you," said Hinata, on the evening of her eighteenth birthday as she received the clan from the elders. She sounded composed and content, and Hanabi missed the days of her stutter. "I promise to serve the clan in the years to come, to protect it with my life, to provide an heir, and to guard the secrets of the byakugan, but—"
Hanabi was nonplussed by what Hinata said next.
"—I will not mark my sister with the cursed seal."
In time, she would regret that as well.
Around them, Hanabi heard the elders fall into silence, and before her, she heard Hinata leave the floor. A chair was pulled out beside her as the new Hyuuga head returned to her seat.
"Love you," Hinata said.
Hanabi was certain her sister was talking to her disciple until she felt herself being pulled into an embrace. She remained frozen in Hinata's arms, and offered a reluctant, "Happy birthday."
Over the next few days, Hanabi reveled in her freedom from the seal. She took on extra missions, appreciating Kakashi's growing reluctance to give her partners.
Unfortunately, it wasn't one of those days.
For a mission to Kumo, she had been partnered with a jounin: Yamanaka Ino. The woman was also Neji's wife, and her unsisterly sister-in-law.
As the mission progressed toward their destination, Hanabi came to realize that she wasn't in a partnership so much as she was being supervised. She wondered if that had been Kakashi's intent.
She could feel Ino watching her with the same wariness Naruto donned when they crossed paths. In the evenings Ino withdrew to a personal tent leaving Hanabi to make camp for herself.
Two days of travel brought them to a prison in the Lightening country. They were tasked with liberating a magnate's nephew being jailed there on suspicion of espionage.
"Based on his status, he's most likely being held on the top floor," said Ino. "We'll enter through the roof."
Crossing the perimeter was not difficult, nor was taking down the men on the roof with nonfatal blows. They weren't ninja, but prison guards, and it was all relatively simple.
"Let's hope we're as lucky when we get inside," said Ino.
A flight of stairs brought them down to a higher quality of guards, and at higher quantities. Hanabi could sense their auras occupying every sector of the building. There were so many people packed into the prison, she found difficulty discriminating the chakras of the guards from those of prisoners. The building was made of dense stone, making it all the harder for her to visualize without her working senses. She followed Ino through a passage of cells, running her hands along the bars to help herself gain perspective of the framework. The prisoners in turn called out to them; groaning, cackling, crying grievances. Sometimes they would reach out to touch her hand, but she was too fast to be interrupted.
"Shinranshin no jutsu!" said Ino.
A group of guards they encountered became frozen in place before they could react to the sight of the intruders. Captivated by Ino's technique, they couldn't even seem to call out for backup.
Hanabi continued to follow the older kunoichi, turning corner after corner, and exploring column after column in search of their charge. Ino stopped other guards as they were encountered, and held dominance throughout the search, leaving Hanabi to feel as impotent as she was being treated.
The blonde kunoichi breathed heavily as she finally stopped at a cell. Hanabi followed suit, touching the iron bars.
"He's here," Ino said. "But he's hurt."
It was true. Hanabi could sense the man's feeble aura at the corner of the cage. He wasn't conscious.
There was a clanging noise as Ino shook the bars of the cell door, testing their hold. "I need the key," she concluded.
"Can't we get it off one of the guards?"
"They don't carry keys," said Ino with unjustified annoyance. "I have to find out who does."
She said 'I' as though she didn't have a partner, just another of those irritating underlings.
"Come here," said Ino, grabbing her elbow. She dragged Hanabi to the next prison guard they could find. Hanabi heard his startled gasp and Ino's muttered technique.
"Shintenshin no jutsu."
Ino then sunk to her knees and collapsed to her side, but the guard remained standing. Hanabi reached behind her for a kunai.
"It's me," said the guard. "You're familiar with my techniques, aren't you?"
Vaguely.
"Stay here and watch my body."
As Ino darted off, Hanabi knelt down beside Ino's body and felt around her throat.
She had never seen or experienced the mind-body switch first-hand, and found it to be extraordinary. Ino's soul had jumped, leaving her body vacant. She had reduced herself to a vegetated state, and all for the sake of discretion. Didn't she ever fear that she wouldn't get back?
Hanabi rested her hand on Ino's chest. Her breathing rate had decreased, her heart rate alongside it. Like every technique, it had its detriments.
Straightening, Hanabi leapt into the air and caught the ceiling. Crouching against it, she furrowed her brows and tried to focus her senses. Though the stone was thick, it was riddled with subtle vibrations. Concentrating on all the animate chakras, she darted off and closed in on a clutch of them, then dropped herself to the ground.
She didn't care what happened to Ino's body. She was neither her subordinate nor her babysitter. Snatching a senbon from her weapon's holster, she slashed a guard across the eyes and listened to him scream. Others hurried to his aid.
She stabbed the next guard in his forehead, but couldn't dislodge the senbon from his skull. She instead grabbed a kunai and snapped a third's femoral artery.
Now other guards were pouring into the corridor, but the closer ones were backing away. They clashed messily, and Hanabi caught up to them, infiltrating the swarm and killing as many people as she could. She sliced at guts, throats, faces, and eyes before her victims could even spot her. When the corridor was finished and she was surrounded by bodies, she moved on to the next one, hitting guards with nasty sneak-attacks. She slashed someone across the throat, but their body dropped more lightly than the others.
Hanabi froze. "Ino?"
She knelt down and felt the body. A slim frame and feminine physique. It was Ino's body, and her chakra, restless, volatile, always teeming to move elsewhere. But this time it was withdrawing...fading into her core.
Ino must have returned to her body during the commotion.
Dropping her weapon, Hanabi began to back away, but something caught her leg. She nearly fell down.
Ino's cool hand was squeezing her ankle to hold her in place. The jounin's chakra flickered, and spiked, renewed somehow. Hanabi could sense the green tendrils of energy stitching her throat back together.
It was as though Ino body was on autopilot, programmed to save her without any direction. A thought crossed Hanabi's mind, one that would recur years later.
Medics don't die.
Releasing Hanabi's ankle, Ino sat up and climbed to her feet, her limbs shaking as she challenged her fatigue. Hanabi gasped as the woman suddenly grabbed her neck and slammed her into a wall.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"I—" Hanabi was at a loss for words let alone an explanation. "Where's our charge?"
"He's dead. They're killing all the prisoners from the Fire country."
Ino released her throat only to seize her arm. Long fingernails dug into Hanabi's skin.
"We have to get out of here."
They took no breaks during the trip back to Konoha, and Ino never released her. Hanabi was shoved through the door of the Hokage's office, and could feel the room ice over. She sensed Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi by the desk, probably going over some paperwork.
"She tried to kill me," Ino said. "The little psycho slit my throat!"
The air of confusion became one of caution. Hanabi felt Naruto's chakra bristle but the others remained sedate.
"Is this true, Hanabi?" Kakashi said, his tone dour.
Hanabi clenched her fists. "It was an accident."
"She murdered civilians," said Ino.
"I was pursuing the mission," Hanabi said through her teeth. "You were not."
"How many people are going to die before we handle this?"
It sounded as though the matter had been discussed before then. It confirmed that Hanabi's partnership with Ino had been some sort of test.
"She's right Kakashi," said Naruto morosely.
The door opened. "What's going on here?"
Hinata.
"This is a closed meeting—" Sakura began, but Kakashi cut her off.
"We're investigating the casualty rate of your sister's teammates."
There was a pause.
"Hanabi is strong for her age. She underestimates the others in her division," said Hinata.
"That still doesn't explain a lot of things," said Sakura.
"Hasn't she been through enough, without these—ridiculous accusations?" said Hinata acerbically. "If her teammates keep dying then give her ones who can keep up."
Hinata grabbed her shoulder and ushered her to the door.
"She's not leaving," said Naruto.
"If you want to charge Hanabi with something, you'll have to go through the Hyuuga clan," said Hinata. It was a threat and they all knew it.
The two Hyuugas exited the office, leaving two seething blondes in their wake.
Even after they had left the Hokage tower, Hinata remained tense and did not inquire about the matter, making Hanabi suspect that she knew more than she let on. When they reached the Hyuuga house, Hinata walked inside, but Hanabi lingered on the veranda. She bowed her head under the glare of the sun, before she climbed upon the railing and up the wall, where she knew she could sense the primary source of her sister's inconsistencies. She wondered if he was the one who had tipped Hinata off about her mission with Ino.
"What are you doing here?" said Hanabi as she clambered onto the roof.
It was easy to detect Sasuke, his electric chakra predictably erratic. He was sprawled back, arms folded behind him to pillow his head.
"She turned me down," he muttered.
Hanabi was startled by the implication behind his remark, but recovered her composure. "Then go away."
Sasuke remained unmoving. Teenage boys were dumb.
"She's really angry."
He didn't comment.
"It would never work out."
Still not a word.
Hanabi dropped onto her back and joined him under the sun. "Hinata's just so—flawed."
"So am I."