Hello there my fellow fanfictioners!
It's certainly been a while hasn't it?
Sorry for the long wait but I find that I have increasingly less and less time to write these days. I promise that I am trying to find the time to keep on writing but that pesky thing called life just keeps getting in the way.
I will admit that I had a lot of trouble with this chapter and it underwent more than a few revisions.
Disclaimer: I do not in any way claim ownership of Naruto or Naruto Shippuden, these are the properties of Masashi Kishimoto and his army of lawyers. I do however own my original characters.
Anyway enough of my paltry excuses! On to the story and so it is with great pride and hopefulness that I present the next chapter of Those Who Are Lost. I hope that this story continues to entertain you guys and in return you leave me lots of yummy review cookies. ;)
Those Who Are Lost
Chapter 14: A Promise of Vengeance
HI NO KUNI- THE FOREST OF FIRE
"An interesting promise, Himawari-chan." Sae drawled, her tone dripping with condescension. Turning her back on the pair Sae withdrew slightly from the clearing. As she did so, more and more humanoid shapes emerged from the bush and the trees until it seemed that the entire field was filled to capacity with black-clad assassins.
"It's too bad you won't get the chance to keep it." The kunoichi remarked. Sae stopped next to one of the shinobi and put her hand on his shoulder delicately, like a mother would with her child.
"Kill the Uchiha. Bring me the little bitch quickly, alive and relatively unharmed." She ordered once more before disappearing into the sea of bodies. The shinobi slid into their varying combat forms almost simultaneously before advancing towards the duo with a speed and silence that Himawari couldn't help but to find worrying.
Slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, Sasuke shifted his feet into position, ready to meet the oncoming horde. He raised Kusanagi so that its edge pointed towards the enemy.
"Okay then. So, who wants to die first?" The Uchiha asked, face grim and set in determination. The man's blade promised death. To their credit, the Sound-nin didn't falter and continued their charge. In the pale light of the moon, Himawari could make out dozens of subtle silver flashes indicating that the enemy were also armed with a variety of close combat weapons.
Oh well done! Good job! Now we've got an army of them to deal with!
The thought came unbidden and Himawari found herself flushing in shame. This was her fault.
"Don't beat yourself up about it." Sasuke told her, speaking as though he had read her thoughts. Considering how little she still knew about the man and his skills she decided that she couldn't yet discount that possibility.
"We were going to have to deal with them one way or the other. Personally, I prefer to handle my threats in a more… traditional fashion, but this will do just fine as well." As he continued to speak Sasuke raised a hand and waved her away.
Understanding his message immediately the young girl began to retreat, trying to put as much distance between her and the Uchiha as she could. Himawari couldn't help but feel that things were going to get very bloody very quickly.
Things unfolded rapidly just as she had predicted. The clearing in which they stood transformed from a place of tranquil beauty and flora to one of chaos, flashing steel and explosions of colour as jutsu of all kind began to barrage the area in which Sasuke stood occupation.
To Himawari's young eye it seemed as though events were taking place both in slow motion and at high speed all at once. Her protector had wasted no time and Sasuke sped forward to meet the small army of shinobi that stood against them. In the space of a few seconds several of the ninja dropped to the ground like flies, blood seeping from wounds to their vital organs.
What happened next was a sequence of blurs and the noise of ringing steel on steel as blades clashed with one another. Every few moments a cry would ring out and another body would fall from the tempest of combat unfurling before her.
A movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention and Himawari leaped back out of some forgotten instinct. A hand grasped at the space she had just occupied and Himawari traced it to identify her would-be kidnapper.
It was one of the sound nin. He must have slipped past the initial combat and took it as an opportunity to come after her. Time stood still just then and in the space of a single breath Himawari considered the options before her. She could turn and run or stay and fight. The decision was more difficult than she thought it would be. On the one hand, every instinct and muscle in her body screamed at her to run and she turned her body slightly in anticipation to do so.
What stopped her was her mind. A little voice in the back of her head whispering strands of logic. If she ran then she would definitely be captured. The man in front of her was a fully grown and trained ninja and she was his target.
Himawari knew that she would barely take three steps before she'd feel that same outstretched hand grasping at her neck. Even if by some miracle, she did manage to elude the ninja, the thought of leaving Sasuke alone to face that force left a sinking, gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She didn't know the man as well as she would've liked, but he had taken her in when no one else had. Helped her, defended her and sheltered her even when she could offer him next to nothing in return. Aside from Kouda, Sasuke was the only person in the world that she knew and trusted. That meant he was the closest thing she had to a family right now and if there was one thing that Kouda had told her it was to never let go of family.
That left her with the only other option. Stay and fight.
Where the thought of running away filled her with a sense of guilt and shame, this option left Himawari outright terrified. The hair on the back of her neck shot straight up and she felt the cold, icy shot of adrenaline shoot down her spine before coursing through her veins.
Himawari froze, locked in a mental battle with herself and the shinobi turned towards her. Clearly her would be kidnapper was suffering from no such hesitation and he took a step towards her. It seemed that time was starting to, unhelpfully, move forward once again.
Surprise is your greatest asset.
Ignoring her instincts screaming at her to run away Himawari instead followed her gut. Sucking in a deep breath the young girl bent her knees, crouched over and launched herself at the man clothed in shrouded garb. To his credit, the sound nin reacted surprisingly quickly to the unexpected attack. His reaction time was almost non-existent and yet he still found the opportunity to take a step back and brace for the impact to come.
Himawari managed to crash into him, putting as much of her weight behind her as she bowled into the ninja's stomach. The young Hyuuga was proud of herself in that she managed to knock her enemy to the ground despite his preparedness and larger size. Unfortunately, her confidence shook as the shinobi's reflexes allowed him to control his fall so that he didn't hurt himself. It didn't help matters when, after a moment of struggling Himawari discovered that the sound nin's superior acrobatics allowed him to reverse their positions and Himawari quickly found herself trapped beneath the man's heavier form, pinning her to the ground.
Himawari wriggled vigorously in an attempt to escape her makeshift prison. The man wouldn't budge, still dazed from the blow to his stomach he nonetheless knew that he had the advantage and wasn't about to relinquish it now that he had his target within reach.
It took Himawari a moment to realize that her left arm wasn't pinned like the rest of her body and she looked around frantically for something that she could use. Desperately she scrabbled to find something, anything to use as a weapon to reverse her fortunes. It was all she could do not to scream as the horror of her situation began to sink in. Her scrabbling became increasingly more frantic as her terror rose.
There was nothing. No kunai strapped to the man's back or waist. No blades or shuriken sticking up from the grass. Not even a damn stick! Her own kunai, strapped to her lower back in a sheath that Sasuke had procured for her was out of reach. Sasuke was still locked in a dance of death tens of meters away. There was absolutely nothing that she could use to help her now. As if Kami himself were set against her, her situation went from bad to worse as the ninja recovered more fully. She could feel a cold stare boring into her and he raised a hand toward her neck. If Himawari had to guess she would say that it was his intention to knock her out for transport. The young Hyuuga did the only thing she could think of and lashed out first. Her efforts were rewarded with a grunt of pain, a line of blood across the nin's right eye as her nails raked across his skin and the lower half of his mask ended up torn away in her grasp.
She looked on in horror at the features of her attacker. Dark, soulless eyes bored into her own single, blue one. What truly horrified her was his mouth. He didn't have one.
Where there should've been lips there was nothing save for a stretch of empty skin and the slightest hint of jaw and teeth behind it.
It was too much and Himawari screamed.
As if she had committed some grave taboo, the nin's dark eyes narrowed and he struck her harshly across the face.
Himawari's vision flashed red and she felt her lip split open and blood begin to pour from the tear.
In the back of her mind she found some small voice whispering to her. Irritatingly it sounded eerily like another one of Sasuke's many lectures.
If you can't find a weapon then never forget, you are the weapon. Sasuke's voice whispered from within the depths of her memory.
Charging chakra as she had been taught to do on one of their many 'training breaks' Himawari funnelled the energy to the tips of her fingers. With a yell the Hyuuga slammed her hand against the man's head. Apparently, this was not the smartest tactic to employ as the man's own hands snaked around her throat in retaliation. His grip tightened and Himawari choked, feeling her airways being closed off and her vision begin to darken. His grip was like a vice. It felt like he was trying to crush the life out of her instead of just rendering her unconscious.
Her fingertips tingled like they were charged, filled to bursting with static electricity. In one last effort, Himawari dug her thumb and index finger into the man's dead gaze. Himawari closed her eye in disgust and dug further into the man's skull, ignoring the jelly like texture of the man's eyeballs as they popped beneath her grip. Despite what was clearly an excruciating pain the ninja didn't make a sound and merely tightened his grip.
I need to end this now before he breaks my neck.
With a scream Himawari reached deep within herself and expelled the chakra she had built up in one go. It felt like her skin was trying to tear itself off her body. Still it was better than what was happening to her attacker. The back of the man's head broke open with a sickening pop and bits of blood, brain and gore showered over the battlefield. The force of her blow was such that it threw the body off her and so she was not spared from being covered in a fountain of gore and brain matter.
Sasuke looked at Himawari's trail of destruction and then spared her a quick glance before returning his attention to his opponents, slicing another's belly open in the process.
Was it just her imagination or did it seem like there was a glint of respect in his eyes? The moment passed and Sasuke spun to avoid a kunai flashing through the air and the flurry of combat resumed once more.
Greedily, Himawari sucked in a few deep breaths of air and forced herself to get to her feet. Whatever it was that she did, it worked but it seemed to have a detrimental effect as well. Her entire body ached and tingled. The world around her wobbled and her vision went in and out of blurriness at a rate which threatened to make her fall back down onto the ground. Her stomach growled viciously and there was a deep sense of nausea resting in the pit of her stomach. The cool night air sucked into her lungs felt good and served to keep her from emptying the contents of her stomach out onto the grassy fields around her.
Note to self, never do that again.
Nodding in agreement with her inner voice Himawari's vision reasserted itself more and more with each lungful of air that she took in.
She put all of her focus into not taking notice of the fact that she was covered in blood and gore. Her little inner voice reminded her that, were she to take notice of her current state, then she would lose her lunch. Ignoring the smell was a harder challenge and it took some considerable effort to not notice the odour.
Taking stock of the battlefield around her, Himawari's gaze swept around the area looking for her target. It didn't take long.
Sae was locked in combat with her guardian albeit at the very fringe of the fighting. It seemed as if the kunoichi hadn't fled as Himawari had assumed she would.
Guess I'm more important to them than I thought.
Nakata Sae seemed content to hide behind the faceless masks of her men and women whilst she weaved between the bodies, trying and failing to hit Sasuke with kunai and shuriken that dripped with a violent green liquid which spoke of some corrosive or poison.
Fortunately, to the Uchiha, these projectiles seemed to be almost non-existent as the man simply kept his ground, twisting his body out of the way with almost no effort at all. Himawari's single eye narrowed as she observed the conflict.
She looked at the man's corpse lying on the ground nearby and then back up at the fighting. It was clear that they were facing Sasuke with the intention of killing him.
From nothingness, a simple, dangerous and yet brilliant idea began to form inside of her mind. Steeling her resolve, Himawari moved towards the conflict with a singular purpose.
She had made a promise and she intended to keep it.
"Is this all the skill you possess? I thought that the infamous Sasuke Uchiha would be a lot more dangerous than this." Sae taunted, voice thick with false sweetness.
Sasuke despite the storm of blades and jutsu showed no sign of offence at the comment. His sharingan blazed crimson in the pale light of the moon. Tomoe spun rapidly as his eyes darted from place to place, working hard to keep up with the sheer number of attacks directed against him.
"I am. Just wanted to give you a fair fight." He replied evenly, casually sliding out of the way of another ninja's tanto. He returned the blow by slamming a chakra infused fist into the man's ribcage. The man was dead before his body hit the floor.
I'm glad Sakura told me how to do that.
Thoughts of his wife began to fill his mind. It cost him as his distraction cost a long cut across his forearm. Mercilessly, the Uchiha crushed the thoughts of soft pink hair, warm smiles and sparkling emerald eyes. His Sharingan glowed brighter as the tomoe transformed into the shape of the Mangekyo. Without missing a beat he incinerated the offending attacker and several of his colleagues using Amaterasu before his eyes returned to normal and he stepped out of the way of a flail aimed at his midriff.
Sasuke made sure to avoid the bodies, flailing about in agony and wreathed in black flame. The Silent Step made no noise despite the agony they were clearly enduring.
Despite his speed and apparent casualness, it wasn't enough to keep him entirely free from harm, considering the number of opponents and the proximity in which they were engaged in combat.
Already there were several small tears and cuts in his clothing. His left sleeve was singed from a stray fireball and there was a long cut on his cheek which was bleeding slightly.
Their choice of poison was certainly interesting. Haven't been exposed to this strain since I first started training with Orochimaru.
It wouldn't stop him though. Over the years under the snake's tutelage, the Uchiha had built up a resistance to most poisons and venoms, Black Spider excluded. While the poison wouldn't kill him it would certainly slow him down.
Sasuke, for a moment, struggled to hold his tongue from cursing out a string of expletives that would've made Jiraiya blush. Slowing him down was exactly their intention. Get in close.
They're certainly clever.
Getting in close might've appeared to be a foolhardy choice to many but, as any veteran shinobi who had fought the Uchiha before would know, the Uchiha was a master of the blade sure, but he was a true monster when it came to jutsu.
Sasuke Uchiha could single-handedly best most swordsmen in single combat but his techniques were capable of laying waste to entire armies in the span of a few moments. At range the sound-nin knew that they had no chance against the new Sannin. Up close, they at least had the chance of besting him by wearing him down.
They were keeping him close and preventing him from using jutsu more advanced than the occasional chidori.
Death by a thousand cuts. Smarter than they look indeed.
"I must admit that I am sorely disappointed in you Sasuke-kun. I've heard all the tales of the legendary sharingan and yet I fail to see why it is so feared. It is true that you also possessed the mythical Rinnegan. Any particular reason why you're being so shy about showing it to us?" Sae teased, her apparent jokiness laced with a thinly veiled contempt.
"You're not worth using it on." Sasuke replied shortly, ducking beneath a water jutsu from a caster at the back before bisecting a sound ninja who foolishly got too close.
There were other more personal reasons but he wasn't going to reveal them to the enemy in the midst of battle.
True their methods are working… but they're going to run out of shinobi long before they can take me out.
Unless they got lucky of course. Sasuke hadn't gotten to the age he was by underestimating the power of luck and misfortune. Something that he was sure had played a role in his battles against Naruto and his brother respectively.
The shallow cut on his cheek was clear enough evidence that even he couldn't avoid every attack. He needed to finish this before luck turned against him.
Just a single fire jutsu could turn the tide but the onslaught of bodies being thrown at him was done so for the specific purpose of keeping him from performing the necessary handsigns to end the battle on his terms.
Sasuke took another cut on his cheek, overlaying the previous cut he had received and leaving him with a bloody red 'X' over his left cheek.
That's going to leave a scar.
It was only through sheer effort of will that the man was able to keep himself from wincing from the pain, instead opting to disembowel his attacker with unnecessary vigour.
It was only as his blade sank to the hilt in the stomach of the man that he realized his mistake. The shinobi he had impaled grabbed onto kusanagi and held on tight so that Sasuke had to fight the dying man to retrieve his sword.
In his moment of distraction, Sasuke failed to notice the shinobi hidden behind his dying comrade. The ninja didn't hesitate to raise her own chokuto sword and prepared to cut down both her comrade and Sasuke as well with one blow.
Shit.
No choice for it then. Sasuke released his own grip on Kusanagi and attempted to rip himself away to evade the blow headed his way. His wounded opponent had other ideas and refused to let go, maintaining his death grip on Sasuke's grip.
Wasting no time, the Uchiha's free hand came up, sheathed in the signature lightning of his chidori with the intention to remove his captors arm.
No sooner had the lightning flickered into existence around his free hand that the Silent Step's trap sprung. Seeing their window of opportunity closing fast the other shinobi rushed forward in pairs latching onto the Uchiha's remaining limbs and holding him in place.
They only needed to hold onto him for another second or two. Just long enough for their compatriot to finish beheading him.
Not enough time! Rookie mistake... shit.
Himawari's gaze swept across the combat unfolding around her. Sasuke was doing incredibly well against the entirety of the shinobi strike force. Bodies littered the entire field as more and more ninja kept falling to the Uchiha's sword. By the time she had… dealt with her opponent there were little over a dozen of the sound nin left to oppose her protector.
Sae was still dancing around with her assortment of poisoned blades, throwing them towards Sasuke with frightening speed and accuracy. Thankfully, Sasuke evaded the projectiles with almost no effort. Himawari's eye narrowed as she watched how Sae was hesitating between throws.
She's going to run soon.
The Hyuuga knew that she was running out of time and so considered her options. For her plan to work she had to begin now or risk losing her opponent.
Her eyes narrowed when Sasuke's blade got stuck in the belly of one of the ninjas. The remaining ninjas began to swarm on his location.
It was now or never.
Time to go to work.
Taking a deep breath, the young girl ran. To any outsider observing the situation they might have thought it complete madness that the young Hyuuga was charging headlong into the deadly melee instead of as far away from it as possible.
It seems then, in that moment, that Himawari didn't care about the swirl of blades and streams of water and fire flying around her as she made her way towards the epicentre. Towards Sasuke, now trapped by a mass of bodies weighing him now.
Then Himawari was there. The small girl had zipped her way between the bodies, evading the desperate attempts of surprised sound shinobi trying to catch her small form weaving her way through the bloody combat. Himawari used her kunai, taken from Sae's dead teammate, and plunged the blade, tip first, into the dying man's wrist. The blade went straight through and Himawari found her efforts rewarded as the man's grip spasmed open allowing Sasuke the use of his sword hand once again.
He wasted no time in reclaiming his blade and in a microsecond used Kusanagi to block the sword slash aimed at his neck before sliding Kusanagi's tip forward into the breast of his would-be executioner, ending her life instantaneously.
Now Sasuke only had to deal with those ninjas holding onto his legs, arm and torso.
"Stand back from me." He warned Himawari as, in a moment he gathered and moulded his chakra.
Unaware of what was coming, Himawari nevertheless recognized the warning in his voice and scrabbled back in a hurry.
The air around Sasuke hummed and crackled before the immediate space around him filled with lightning. The sheer power surrounding Sasuke was so intense that the shinobi holding onto were more than just fried to crisp. They were turned to ash, disintegrated.
Shaking the residue from his arms Sasuke dashed forward in time to decapitate another ninja reaching out towards the stunned Himawari.
Sasuke was impressed despite himself. Himawari looked surprised at the power that he displayed but there was no sign of revulsion at the act. The little girl was tough as nails that was for sure. That didn't change things though.
"What the hell do you think you're doing Hyuuga?!" Sasuke hissed, eyes narrowed. The remaining shinobi had pulled back slightly, likely to gather their strength and take stock of the situation. This gave them a moment of respite.
"Helping you Uchiha!" Himawari snapped back, the tension of the situation she was in finally sinking in. Her entire body, from the skin to the bones, was aching from the stress of the day's events.
"How exactly is this helping me?"
"They're not allowed to kill me."
"Thanks for pointing out the obvious…" Sasuke trailed off when he realised what she was saying. They couldn't kill her. Even hurting her in any serious way was pushing the extent of their orders. For some reason the maniacs and mercenaries after Himawari needed her alive. Sae had even confirmed as much.
Himawari intended to use that to their advantage. Himawari's strategy was to use herself as a shield, protecting him from harm while he dealt with the ninja.
Sasuke's eyes narrowed in thought. It was a risky strategy. Himawari wouldn't be able to cover every angle and she'd have to stick close to him. There was also the chance that she could be hit by a stray blow.
For a moment Sasuke found himself considering the morality of it all. Using a child as a human shield even if it was her idea to begin with. The man grimaced.
Well he wasn't a hero… so it wasn't a problem.
"Shit. Alright, let's do this kid." He grumbled resolving himself to this decision.
"Cool. Let's do this. As a team." Himawari stated, her resolve strong.
Sasuke nodded and agreed with a simple 'Hn'.
"Isn't this just adorable! The two of you fighting together like some sort of family." Sae hissed. Her eyes were no longer shining with the same intelligence and cunning as before. Instead the woman had adopted a feverish outlook.
With Himawari acting as both shield and interference the Uchiha had had little trouble in dispatching the remaining shinobi.
It took just a few minutes.
Now all that remained were Nakata Sae and two more Silent Step ninja.
"You're not getting away." Himawari said softly, her tone filled with a deadly seriousness at odds with her normal demeanour. It was said with such certainty that Sae's next words died on her lips and Sasuke's eyebrow rose slightly in surprise.
After a moment's hesitation, Sae regained herself and with a subtle flick of her hand the Silent Step rushed forward.
Must've run out of kunai.
Himawari wasn't surprised when Sasuke rushed forward to meet the oncoming threat. Under different circumstances the girl supposed that she would've found that annoying. But these weren't different circumstances.
The woman standing in front of her, now without defence, was the same woman who murdered Kouda.
Kouda. The first person she ever saw upon waking into her new life. The old man who raised her, fed and sheltered her. The man who gave her both a family and a reason to keep on living. The man who gave his life for her.
As Himawari's singular gaze raked Sae's form her vision filled with red. Sae's expression became slightly nervous as Himawari's eye, unbeknownst to her, turned lilac and the strange, faint whisker lines adorning her cheeks became more pronounced.
Himawari took one step forward. Then another.
She kept putting one foot in front of the other towards Sae. Her knuckles bruised and bloodied shone prominently in the moonlight as she tightened her grip on the kunai. On some level, Himawari wasn't entirely sure how in control of her own motor functions she was anymore. Her mind was so consumed with focus on how to deal with this opponent.
One foot in front of the other. Sae took a slight step back.
Under different circumstances Himawari supposed that she would find the idea of making a trained shinobi retreat in fear from her, an untrained child, a funny one.
But these weren't those circumstances. She had earned that fear when she blew off a man's skull and covered herself in his blood and brain matter. She wasn't a scared little girl right now. Himawari was a monster out for revenge.
"You think you can defeat me?! You're just a little girl hiding behind a washed-up outcast!" Sae screamed at her. This time the fear was clear and present in her widened, frantic eyes.
Himawari understood her fear. Once there were over a hundred shinobi accompanying Sae, ready to kill any foe who dared to oppose their mistress. Now there were only two remaining.
A muffled cry rang out. Now only one remained.
"You people…" Himawari began quietly.
Another step and another retreat.
Himawari took off her eyepatch and put it in her pocket. Sae found herself confronted with a vision of a glowing orb and a deep dark pit that was the young girl's eye socket.
"You took my eye."
Another step and another retreat.
"You took my memories. In doing so you killed who I was before."
Another step and another retreat.
"You scarred my body."
Another step and this time Sae found herself unable to retreat any further. Sae backed up into the unmoving, cloaked form of Sasuke Uchiha.
In her retreat from the blood covered Hyuuga girl, the Sound nin had failed to notice that the Uchiha had dropped her last remaining ally.
He made no move to stop her as she sprang away. The Uchiha remained as still and silent as a statue. The scarlet eyes of his Sharingan met her own without emotion. The tomoe were spinning gently but Sae couldn't feel any of the tell-tale markers that she under a genjutsu.
"The worst thing you did? You did that all alone. Your gravest sin against me." Himawari spoke, her voice so much closer than it was before
"You killed my friend. A harmless old man who wanted only the best for me. A kind man who never got the chance to make up for his regrets." Himawari's voice whispered just behind her. Far too close for the kunoichi's liking
Sae, knowing that there was no way out now that the Uchiha was there turned to her only remaining option.
In a flash she threw a handful of shuriken at Sasuke before turning kunai in hand and aimed it with the intention of plunging the blade into the young girls' heart.
The lords' orders be damned!
What happened next was truly unexpected.
The blow had been quicker than Himawari expected and she didn't have the time or energy left in her body to dodge out of the way. Instead Himawari followed Sasuke's advice from earlier.
She did the unexpected.
Himawari let go of her knife, raised her hand, palm outwards and she caught Sae's blade.
… 'Caught' was certainly an optimistic term though. Rather the blade passed through Himawari's palm and stopped at the hilt.
The pain was agonizing and Himawari had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. As bad as the pain was it was little more than a pinprick compared to the burning hellfire she had experienced upon awakening for the first time.
Whatever Sae or Himawari's next intended actions were, they became irrelevant as Sasuke's blade protruded from Sae's ribcage.
The effect was instantaneous. Sae collapsed onto the ground even as Sasuke withdrew Kusanagi. Sae lay there on her back, blood pooling from the wound into the ground.
"This isn't possible… Isn't possible." Sae mumbled. The blood was gushing from the wound at a rapid pace. The increased blood flow must've been a result of the shock that Sae was experiencing.
"I told you how this would end." Himawari said quietly. The rage had left her voice only to be replaced with a quiet sadness.
"No! It can't end like this!" Sae gurgled, her lungs beginning to fill with blood. "The things I've done... the people I've hurt to get this far..."
Sasuke, for his part, crouched onto the ground next to Sae. He took Sae's hands into one of his own and began muttering something softly, his voice too low for the words to be made out and Himawari decided not to comment on it.
"You think this is over? You think that this hunt ends with me? We're everywhere little girl and we will never stop coming. We will hunt you until the end of days for as long as you live."
"I don't care." Himawari mumbled.
"What?" Sae mumbled, her voice slurred and bloody froth appearing at the corners of her mouth.
Himawari knelt down beside Sae and raised the kunai to deliver the finishing blow.
"I don't... I don't care." Her hand was trembling and the kunai shook in her grip like a leaf in the wind.
"I don't care who you people are. I don't care what you want with me. My life is my own and you bastards won't take it from me a second time."
"Himawari… she's gone." Sasuke informed her gently.
It was true. Sae had bled out and now Himawari's glare only met sightless eyes.
She's dead. Kouda's murderer is... dead.
"I don't care." Himawari repeated.
"Himawari…" Sasuke called to her gently.
"I don't care!" This time she screamed and Himawari used her free hand to wrap around Sae's throat as the Silent Step ninja had done to her not long ago.
"That's not true." The Wanderer told her. Slowly, so as not to startle her, he reached out and took the kunai from her grip. Himawari offered no resistance.
"I don't... I don-" Himawari started to say, her breath coming in shallow gasps.
"Silly girl. Of course you care." Sasuke chided her throwing the kunai away and pulling the girl towards him.
Sobs wracked their way up her throat and Himawari finally let go. Tears fell from her eyes, both the one that was there and the one that wasn't. Without thinking her arms came up and wrapped around the Uchiha's blood-stained poncho.
"I've got you." Sasuke murmured.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Himawari sobbed. No longer was she a person looking to take a life in revenge. Now she was just a terrified child covered in blood and surrounded by death.
For a brief moment the image of Himawari clutching to him was replaced with that of his stillborn daughter.
Is this what Mikoto would've looked like if she survived?
The image faded and Sasuke looked upon Himawari once more. Visions of pink replaced with long locks of soft indigo hair.
Mikoto is gone. Himawari is here now and she needs me.
Mind made up the Uchiha held the sobbing child close to his chest. He placed his head on top of hers and began to hum a soft tune.
The Raven's Wings
It was the lullaby that his mother used to sing to him as a babe.
"You're terrible at this." Himawari whispered softly to him. Sasuke replied with his signature 'Hn' and continued to hum the tune.
Despite her words, she remained where she was with her head buried into his chest. Tears continued to fall but the sobbing had subsided.
"This isn't you." Sasuke told her. "The blood. The death and mutilation. This search for answers to a life already gone. None of it is you. Whoever you were before is gone. You're just you now and it's up to you to define who Himawari is.
Himawari's grip tightened but she said nothing. Accepting her silence as answer enough Sasuke continued to hum.
"I've lost everything. I've lost everyone. I've got nothing left." Himawari finally whispered.
"That's not true." He informed her.
"What do you mean?" The Hyuuga asked quietly.
"You've got me. I'm still here."
A long silence stretched between the two as they considered the implication of those words.
"Don't leave me." Himawari implored of him. It was an incredibly unfair thing to ask of the man, she knew but Himawari needed to hear his answer. Sasuke had been there when she needed him most. In that moment she felt as breakable as glass.
"I won't... I promise."
It was a promise that he intended to keep.
Well there you go guys. I hope that it satisfied you.
I do apologise yet again that I wasn't able to post this sooner but it needed a lot of revision and I still wasn't completely happy with the final product.
Please leave a review if you are so inclined. Doing so helps me to improve my writing by pointing out mistakes and strong points and also allows me to better shape the story.
Big shout out to all of my regular reviewers including fanofthisfiction and TAYYABALARAIB.
The next chapter will start the last three or so "arcs" of this particular story. I do plan on writing a sequel, the majority of which has already been planned out.
See you all next time.
Those Who Are Lost
Chapter 15: Ghosts Of The Past