Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
CHAPTER 6
Some would say, that Ane was smiled upon by Kami. She was born into a decently high ranking family, had constantly been told she was pretty, and always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. Yes, some would say that she was quite lucky indeed.
Ane would say that some people are damn fools. The only way to make a niche for yourself in this life was to carve it out yourself with your own two hands. And if you happened to find a knife along the way to ease your struggle, then what idiot wouldn't grasp the thing by the handle and start hacking away? There were two existences within the Hyuga. Main and Branch. Freedom and Slavery. Royalty and Peasant. To find a bridge across the divide from one domain to the other was a rare thing, but Ane was sharp. She was not just another pretty face with decent breeding. Life was a race, and when she saw a shortcut, she tore after the opportunity with a single minded determination.
As the daughter of a council Elder, Ane had managed to escape being sealed for longer than most. The Main house was quite the male dominated place, and women often died in childbirth, even with the best of Hyuga medicine at their disposal. So ever since the beginning of the clan it had been the practice to allow girls to remain unsealed until at least puberty, when betrothals were secured, determining their fate as either Branch or Main house for the rest of their life. Ane's father was a rather conniving bastard, if she did say so herself, and had managed to keep her unmarked at the generous age of sixteen.
It had been during an afternoon tea ceremony with the Clan Head's wife and several other women of rank that she had first heard the gossip of Hiashi's displeasure with the Clan Matron and his subsequent tendency to dally outside of his marriage bed. Ane had kept her head down, her ears open, and her mind spinning. It was so stupidly simple, all she had to do was play the game.
She waited with patience, and several months later, on a carefully chosen afternoon ripe with opportunity, Ane went for a stroll around the koi pond near the Main House quarters. The bindings she had been using to minimize her bust so as to downplay her age had been "forgotten", her rich dark brown hair let free down her back, her obi tied just so, to accentuate her wide hips which were begging to bear sons. When she had "coincidentally" encountered Hiashi-sama on his own walk through the adjoining gardens, instead of demurely bowing her head, she had smiled at him coyly with her painted lips, and reached to offer him some food for the colorful fish.
Honestly, so simple.
The tricky part was keeping her prey locked within her trap and not allowing him to escape after sampling the treat that had lured him in. Here is where her brains, which women were not supposed to have, served Ane well with securing her prize.
Several heated "encounters" over the next few weeks easily convinced the man that he would not sleep in peace ever again until he had possessed her body and soul. Ane laced their passionate moments with whispered promises of undying devotion and hero worship. She praised his physical prowess, astute skills, and brilliant mind. Assuring him with heated kisses that no true wife would ever give such a man anything other than strong boys to proclaim his virtue and legacy.
Perhaps not the most exciting pillow talk ever, but again, she was not stupid. Ane had done her homework, she knew where his weaknesses were. Which lead to the linchpin of her whole design. Her virginity.
Hiashi-sama could have her, when Ane had her fate. Until he set aside the useless Hitomi and her forgettable daughter, installing Ane herself as Honorable Wife and therefore ensuring that she and any of her children would have a chance at a position within the Main House, Ane would not yield the one thing that kept her from truly belonging to him.
Hook. Line. Sinker.
Perhaps she should thank her father a little. There was no way that political ambassador from Kumo would have been able to sneak into the Hyuga compound alone, and single-handedly abduct the only child of the Clan Head by no other means than simply knocking out the guards at the gate. The way Hizashi-san had interrupted the plan had actually played out quite well for her when all the dust settled in the end. Even the wedding ceremony itself was a complete success, Ane had never felt such satisfaction as when she surveyed the looks of jealously upon her friend's faces as she paraded through the garden and up the steps of the Main House side of the compound to her new quarters. It was one hell of a way to start her seventeenth year on earth. In the heady moment, she had nearly forgotten about Hiashi-sama.
What she had not forgotten, were the ways of the birds and the bees. She may not have a broad education in financial investments, she may not have a vast knowledge of history and politics, she may not be well versed in the latest scientific theories. But Ane-san, knew people. She knew how to observe them and read their behavior. How to approach just the right person, and put them at ease, get them to open up, and draw out their secrets. Ane never forgot a secret. She never underestimated how far a person would go to protect their secrets. And she never hesitated to push her advantage.
Her whole life was built like a delicately balanced house of cards, carefully fit together and held by hidden truths. One well placed piece of knowledge could cement her architectural dreams, or a single careless slip of the hand could cause the whole deck to collapse, bringing her down in chaos. Ane had become aware of just such a threat, one that was staring everyone in the face but was refused acknowledgment. The Clan Head was suspiciously lacking any decent progeny.
Ane had given it a month or two before she realized that for all his vigor, Hiashi-sama was sorely lacking in virility. It didn't take a genius to suppose that Hinata was not his natural child, she bore zero resemblance to the man, physical or behavioral. And Ane knew of at least three different Branch maids by name who had regularly kept Hiashi-sama's bed during his previous marriage, all of whom would have loved to claim a bastard child as a means to elevate their status, or at least improve their living conditions. And yet there remained little evidence to support his capacity to procreate.
The truth was staring her in the face, and she would be foolish to deny it. Seeing a weak spot in her carefully constructed house of cards, she quickly formed a plan. A few surreptitious visits to that sot of a Branch chunin who had always held a candle for her (pitiful lush that he was), and her paper mansion of aspirations was looking more like a stone castle of certainties.
The flawless execution of her role as the new Honorable Wife left her nearly waltzing around the Koi pond with self satisfaction as Ane enjoyed her daily exercise and air. In the far back of the outdoor area she spied a small head of dark midnight blue hair, bent over and pulling weeds from a nearby flower bed that was bursting with blossoms in the bright spring sunshine. The woman couldn't resist the smirk that pulled up her red lips.
She sauntered over to the girl, who ignored her crunching footsteps until her shadow was cast across small, filthy hands. Ane studied the dirt smudged face that turned up to look at her. The girl's skin had lost the pristine pallor of elite rank, the bandages around her forehead look scratchy, and what on earth had she done to her hair? Her eyes though, Ane saw those eyes. The girl had gotten good with her mask, but her eyes still betrayed her emotions.
Ane ran a hand over her lower abdomen is a very suggestive way. "Girl, I seem to have forgotten my umbrella back in my quarters. Do be a dear and fetch it for me. The sun is hotter than I anticipated, and it would not be good for a woman in my condition to overheat, would it?"
Hinata's eyes flicked down at Ane's hand that was laid across her stomach, and then shifted her gaze towards the house where painful memories of her mother walked the halls like a ghost. Sorrow flashed through her silver gaze, but was quickly smothered. The girl stood and wiped her hands on her apron before dipping a quick bow and silently heading off.
Her hand reached out and snatched Hinata's thin arm before she could brush past her. Ane stood with all the authority of her new rank, looking down her nose with an air of superiority meant to force those lavender tinted eyes to meet her own.
"You will address me properly, girl."
Well, if looks could kill, Ane might actually be scared.
"Hai, Ane-sama," Hinata ground out through clenched teeth. The Honorable Wife watched from the edge of the ornamental garden as the demoted heiress practically stomped back to house. After all that Ane had gone through to earn her place, it would not do to allow others to forget their own, now would it?
"Hyah! Hyah! HYAH!"
Naruto swung down to the lowest limb of a tree that was on the edge of a clearing that he, Hinata, and Neji had taken to using as a training ground of sorts. He hesitated before dropping from the branch, hanging by one arm and one leg, studying his best friend as she attacked the training post with a flurry of vicious palm strikes that had splinters shooting off in wild directions.
Holy hell, Hinata is piiiiiiiissed. It was probably an understatement. She had obviously been here for a while, the bandages on her forehead were soaked with sweat. Dust covered the bottom of the pants she had recently started wearing instead of the long, hindering kimonos. The ground was littered with grooves and footprints from where she had been practicing the basic katas Neji had taught them. Landing lightly and approaching the panting girl, Naruto's chest tightened with concern when he noticed her knuckles were cracked and blood was starting to stain the abused log. Something bad must've happened.
Without thinking Naruto leapt in front of her flying punches and grabbed her by the wrists before she could knock his block off. Hinata was startled but quickly scowled and tried to rip herself free of his tight grasp.
"Let me go Naruto-kun! I'm t-training!" she growled.
"You're hurt!"
"I'm f-fine! Leave me alone! I have to-"
"Hinata your hands are bleeding!" Naruto shook her tiny arms a bit, and held one of her hands up in front of her own eyes to prove his point.
"I don't c-care!"
"I do." The whiskered boy was up in her face now, his mouth set in a frown but his eyes were soft. When she didn't answer him immediately, he lifted one brow as if to ask if she was ready to give in now.
Her lip began to tremble but her eyes were still glaring at him. Naruto sighed, but refused to relent and gently pulled her over to sit under the shade of the broad tree nearby. Hinata resisted at first but knew the blond was more stubborn than a rock when it came to this kind of thing and finally trudged after him. He plunked down on the grass and pulled her to sit by him as well, telling her with a look that she better not move. Hinata pouted but obeyed, and huffed her bangs out of her eyes as she laid her hands open, palms upward, on her knees.
Naruto's mouth quirked up on the side at her sulky submission as he rummaged some bandages and the healing ointment she had made out of his make shift ninja pouch. He gently took her tiny hands in his own and slowly began to administer the herbal remedy before wrapping her knuckles and hands the way he had observed some of the shinobi do when he spied on their training exercises.
"Talk to me Hime."
Hinata turned her head away so he wouldn't see her blush at the nickname. After learning that she was the clan heiress Naruto had been super excited that his best friend was a real live princess. Hinata had tried to explain to him that it wasn't the same thing, and that she wasn't even part of the Main House anymore let alone the next in line for Clan Head. The boy had shook his head so hard she thought his brains would rattle loose, refusing her denials because the name just fit, no matter what her actual position in the clan. He had called her that ever since, much to Hinata's secret pleasure. But lately, she had not felt very royal, or demure. Certain people had a way of ruining everything.
"I saw Ane-sama t-today," Hinata mumbled, pretending to study the bark on the tree. Naruto snorted, "And what does the Honorable Bitch want? She need you to follow her around with a fan so she doesn't sweat all that face paint off in those humongous kimonos?"
The insult worked its intent as Hinata giggled but gently flicked Naruto in the forehead for his language. She had been trying to break the boy of his foul mouth. But it was hard to be angry at that cheeky grin he shot her before refocusing on wrapping her hands.
Wild blond hair tousled as the wind kicked up a bit and Hinata allowed her body to relax. Naruto's gentle ministrations soothed her frayed nerves and his very presence itself seemed to always steady her when she felt like everything was falling apart. Even her stutter had all but disappeared, only popping up when her emotions were especially out of control. The more time they spent together, the more she realized just how much she had needed this friend and how important this connection was for her sanity and her soul. He kept her believing that it was possible to be happy and find joy despite one's circumstances.
If anyone could understand what it meant to be discarded, it was the scrawny village outcast sitting across from her right now. Hinata had heard more town gossip now that she was a part of the Branch House and tasked with their daily errands to the market. She had no idea why in the world Naruto was treated with such disdain by the village at large, and even most of the Hyuga as well. All she knew was that they were dead wrong about her best friend. Nobody could listen to her and understand her the way he did. Neji-niisan, and Otou-san, and Hiro-san were all pillars of strength for her, but only Naruto-kun seemed to understand. He was the only one she could tell anything to; the truth of her mother and father, her demotion, her hopes and fears. They trusted each other on deeper level than would seem possible for two children who had forged a bond so quickly. And everything really did seem to be happening so quickly as of late, how could the world keep moving on so easily?
"She's going to have a b-baby," Hinata whispered. Naruto's hands paused briefly, before he shrugged and deftly tied off the wrap of her left hand, slicing off the tail of the bandage with his kunai and moving to repeat the same motions on her right.
"So what? Maybe she'll leave you alone finally." When he didn't get any response, Naruto leaned forward a bit to catch her eyes from where they stared blankly into her lap. Her eyes were like an open book, he could always see what she wasn't saying. Lavender tinted orbs looked up at him, blinking away tears that were trying to fall. But while there was anger and sadness in their depths, he could see that these feelings were not the true cause of her outburst. There was another emotion, barely restrained under the presented false front, one that was all too familiar to the frequently abused boy.
"Hey, you can't keep blaming yourself. None of this is your fault, those people are just assholes," his face was serious and his hands squeezed hers to emphasize his point. "They only win if you let them. Just keep training, and become the best shinobi they've ever seen and show 'em all how stupid they are, believe it!"
"How can you s-say that so easily?" Hinata snapped. She had never raised her voice at Naruto, but everything lately was just so hard, and she was tired.
Dealing with all the complicated facets of her ever shifting roles made her feel like one those circus performers who would spin ten plates simultaneously while standing on a ball; everything delicately teetering on thin poles lest it all collapse. She was a servant, a child, a failure as a Hyuga, a wannabe ninja, an emotionally broken human, and a demoted heiress. She was exhausted with always trying to maintain her balance, but never entirely keeping everything from wobbling wildly. No matter what she did nothing got better. She was constantly spinning and spinning, faster and faster, for fear that all the plates would come crashing down around her.
"We've been t-training out here day after day and I still haven't even activated my Byakugan!" Hinata squeezed her eyes tightly, trying to keep her control for once in her stupid life, but the need to vent her frustrations was overwhelming. "What if they are right? What if am useless? I'll n-never be able to escape this place unless I can prove that I'm worthy to be a kunoichi. And I can't stay here, I c-can't..." The tears she had been fighting so hard started to trickle down her face and sobs punctuated her words "I c-can't even s-stop c-crying, I'm s-so weak—" two warm hands cupped her face and rough fingers thumbed away the wet tracks on her dusty cheeks.
Hinata managed to stifle her hiccups down to sniffles as Naruto scowled at her without heat. "Silly girl, always doubting yourself. You're the strongest person I've ever met, y'know? Even without that Byakugan you've already pushed yourself to do more than you ever thought you could, right? You will be a kunoichi, because you never give up! It's our nindo, remember?"
Hinata stared into blue eyes that twinkled with confidence and determination. She envied his faith in himself, in her, in the ability of others to change. It was just so hard to leave the self-doubt and hurt behind.
"But I should have been a b-better heiress," Hinata argued halfheartedly, "then maybe he wouldn't have hated Kaa-san so much, and she c-could have s-stayed..."
"Shoulda, woulda, coulda, blah, blah, blah," Naruto dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand before settling to finish his work with her bandages. "From what you have told me, the only way they would have accepted you was if you had completely changed yourself into some stuck up prissy lady. And that would suck big time because," he snugly tied off her right hand with a flourish to drive his words home, "I like you just the way you are, because you are already super awesome!"
Once again Hinata ducked her head to hide her pink cheeks while she experimentally wiggled her fingers in the surprisingly comfortable wrappings. She turned her hands palm up and flexed them into tight fists, pleased with the way the bandages kept her cracked knuckles from stinging in the open air. She smiled up at whiskered boy, "thanks Naruto-kun, for everything."
"No worries Hime! That's what friends are for, dattebayo!" And with that Naruto exuberantly yanked her to her feet and pulled her back to the middle of the clearing, intent on showing her the "super cool shinobi moves" he'd seen while "gathering intelligence" at the training grounds.
Hinata trotted behind him and laughed out loud as he tried to explain what he'd seen while sneaking around the edges of the fields where the new genin teams were practicing. Naruto-kun has the funniest ways of describing things, she mused. Listening to him impersonate of one of the Jonin sensei who had been frustrated to the point of tears with trying to teach his genin to walk up trees, something suddenly clicked in Hinata's brain.
"Wait, Naruto-kun, say that part again," she gushed and the wild boy eagerly whipped around to resume his over exaggerated mimicry of the I'm-a-super-important-sensei-pose. His chin tucked in and one fist firmly pressed onto his back whilst the other waved a haughty finger in the air.
"When I was your age," he drawled in deep voice, "I had to learn to climb trees in the snow, and we weren't allowed to eat for days until we had mastered the art of—"
"No, no! The part before that!" the girl could hardly contain herself as an epiphany nibbled on the edge of her brain.
"Eh? Oh! Um, you mean the part where he said to concentrate your chakra into your feet? He said it was like picturing a bowl of water in your gut and filling it up, then pouring it through your body and letting it flow down to pool in your feet, finally forcing it out, but with control, or else it'll just blast you off the bark and dump you on your ass." The blinked at her blankly. "Why?"
"Pooling water, then pushing it out. Hmm.." she murmured, picturing the chakra flowing through her system like a river which she commanded. For what felt like the millionth time since she had started training, Hinata carefully made the hand seals of her clan's infamous bloodline. Naruto was just about to launch into another imitation of the stuffy sensei when he noticed something. Turning to Hinata, his eyes grew big and his mouth popped open. She feels different. She feels...deeper?
Hinata focused on that funny feeling in her gut, the one that she got whenever she really hit her stride going through her katas, it was like a euphoria born of movement. As if everything within her suddenly synchronized, her body becoming an incredible machine, and she was unstoppable, she was high, she was soaring. She sought that feeling, grabbed it, and pulled it up, up, up into her head, building and building until her skull felt like it might explode. Using every last bit of focus and concentration she possessed, she pulsed, and cried out in a confident voice, "BYAKUGAN!"
Her eyes flew open and the world began to whirl. The landscape was a colorless profundity careening around her. Pictures flooded her mind, tripping over each other and colliding until she started to feel nauseous. Hinata grit her teeth and fought the boiling vertigo down. Sharper, she thought, calmer, smoother.
Suddenly the images aligned and Hinata gasped. She could see. It was like rapidly flipping through a stacked deck of cards with her thumb. The more she pushed the faster she flipped, the deeper she went, layer after layer was peeled away as the panorama stretched on forever.
Hinata had never seen anything so amazing. She was afraid to even blink as her temples pulsed and she continued to feed her bloodline with the flowing internal river of chakra.
"Hime you did it, dattebayo!" Naruto was bursting with joy for his friend's success. He hopped over to hide behind the post and yelled back to her, "how many fingers am I holding up?" Hinata's grin was so big her cheeks hurt. She enthusiastically announced all his hand gestures correctly one after another until her vision started to blur and she cut off her bloodline before she lost her lunch. It didn't help that Naruto was suddenly swinging her around by her hands and making all the blood rush to her head.
"Thank you Naruto-kun." Hinata gasped out, breathless from the exertion and exhilaration of her triumph. "I was ready to give up and you pushed me. Now I'm even closer to my dream because of you."
Naruto was already shaking his head. "No way Hime, that was all you. Ya just needed to think a bit differently. Neji is great and all, but sometimes you just gotta feel it for yourself, y'know?" He placed one hand over his heart and another on hers. "When you find what feels right, everything else just falls into place."
The rest of the afternoon was spent "practicing" all the other jutsu that Naruto had seen. When Neji arrived later with a stack of bento boxes that Hiro-san and forced him to bring, (seriously, did he look like a delivery boy to everyone?) he found the pair laughing and attempting to mimic a "water justu" by spitting streams of water out of their mouths and seeing who could shoot the farthest. Neji wrinkled his nose in disgust at their childish shenanigans, but was inwardly pleased to see Hinata-san so happy. The pleasure ceased abruptly when Naruto spied the newcomer and immediately began to attack him with his new "jutsu", relentlessly chasing Neji around the training ground despite the threats of physical harm being hurled his way.
Hinata barely saved the food.
