"Do you think you can do it?" Hinata asks. Her voice is hushed – barely a breath, even though the two of them are alone in Karin's apartment. There's enough seals plastered everywhere to keep out even Naruto, if Karin so wished it, but it doesn't change the tension that hangs in the air, the frightening details that lay between them on the table.
Karin presses her lips together. "Maybe," she says. Medical seals are her specialty – everything to do with biology. She picked up a lot, some reluctant some not, from Orochimaru. This, ironically enough, does fall under that category. Despite what it's used for, it is a medical seal. It affects the wearer's biology, is hooked up directly to their neural pathways and possibly their chakra ones as well, and that means it's something that Karin can maybe, maybe deal with.
She looks up from the papers and meets Hinata's eyes square on. "It won't be pleasant," she warns. "I'll need a test subject, and it might be painful."
Hinata hesitates. "Would it… would it be deadly?"
Karin scoffs at that, shaking her head and wrinkling her nose. "What do you take me for, some amateur? Painful, sure, but never deadly. I'm no Orochimaru."
Hinata pales. "I didn't- I didn't mean-"
"I know," Karin interrupts, not wanting to hear whatever apology she's stuttering out. Mostly because it'll take forever. "I didn't take it like that. But don't worry, seriously, whoever plays test subject won't be in that kind of harm." She's not a monster, geeze.
After a moment, Hinata nods. "I think… Neji-nii will be okay helping," she says quietly.
Good. Perfect. "Can you activate the seals?" she asks.
Hinata looks startled. "What?"
"Can you activate the seals?" Karin gestures at the rough sketch on the table before them, and Hinata somehow looks even more nervous.
"Um, I can…" she says, which is great.
"Perfect," says Karin, and Hinata stares at her like she's insane. Except like, polite about it? It's weird. "I'll need your help, too. I need to see how it works."
Hinata stares at Karin for a long moment. "That's… what you mean by painful," she whispers.
Karin nods. "Among other things. You still in?"
She waits, only semi-patient, while Hinata seems to mull it over. "If… if Neji-nii agrees," she says, not quite meeting Karin's eyes. "Then I'll help."
"Sounds like a plan."
Neji agrees.
"Explain it… again, please," Hinata says, almost begging Karin. Despite the weariness she feels in her bones, she can see the terror on the other girl's face, and she sighs.
"Neji's got a diagnosis seal on him," Karin says – and indeed, the longsuffering boy has a paper seal stuck to his cheek. "I want you to activate the Caged Bird Seal, just for a little, so I can get a proper look at how it's affecting him and where it has its hooks in."
Hinata nods, very slowly. "You can do that with the seal?"
Karin waves a hand. "And I can sense his chakra fluctuations. It's fine, trust me."
"Neji-nii?" she asks softly.
He meets her eyes. "Hinata," he says, simply. "I'd rather just have it be done."
Karin can't exactly blame him – she's not sure how painful it is, or even if Neji has had to endure it before, but it's apparently bad enough to terrify Hinata and make her shake, and make Neji tense and ready. But that solidifies it for Hinata, because they both agreed and they'll have to do it no matter what, so she might as well do it. There's no use prolonging it.
She nods, and opens her mouth.
Neji screams. It's horrifying. That kind of scream would be horrifying from literally anyone, but somehow it's even worse than it would be because it's coming from Neji.
He screams, tears springing to his eyes as he clutches his head and falls to his knees and it's over with in less than a minute, maybe 30 seconds of it at most but Karin thinks she's going to hear that ringing in her ears for the rest of her life, see the way his chakra ripples every time she closes her eyes.
Hinata runs to her cousin, pressing hands to his shoulders as she calls his name, frantic with worry, and Karin tries to pull herself together.
She's seen awful things. Experienced awful things. Hell, she's done awful things to many of the strays that Orochimaru brought home, things she doesn't want to remember she's done because they'll make her stomach turn.
But she's never quite heard anyone scream like that.
Karin refuses to show weakness, breathing in and out and then dropping to her knees as well. She pulls the seal paper off of his face, rolls up her sleeve and shoves her arm in his face. "Bite," she orders, and shaking, he does.
Fortunately, the data is enough.
Karin can see where the seal has sunk its claws in – can tell what neural pathways its hooked in, see how it destroys them.
(It would take maybe ten minutes of the seal, and you could completely destroy someone's mind. It's a really good thing she's never met Hinata's father because she's very positive she would just start swinging on sight.)
Unfortunately, she doesn't think she'll be able to take the seal off. It's sunk deep enough in, burned its way into Neji's mind, and attempting to remove it could cause major damage. That's the case with most seals like this, so she can't exactly say she's surprised.
What she can do, however, is negate it. Slap another seal on top to stop any possible damage. Even if it's activated, make it so it does absolutely nothing – that's doable. That's something Karin is sure she can do.
The issue here, though, is test subjects.
Karin can't test this on people. Not that she has… qualms about it, honestly, because she's done a lot of shit throughout the years, but she can't exactly go testing this on random Hyuugas and possible cause them to go accidentally braindead or something like that.
One, she's like, extremely positive that's illegal here in Konoha. Two, it will definitely attract a ton of attention and the Hyuuga head will find out what they're doing and put a massive stop to it, probably by rendering Neji braindead. Three, it'll make Hinata sad as all hell and that's something definitely to be avoided.
So Karin reverse engineers the Caged Bird Seal until she can apply it on her own and key it into her own chakra signature and promptly tests it on animals.
Wild ones, of course – Konoha has a plethora of nin animals and summons so she always has to be careful whenever she catches one, but fortunately her chakra sensing comes into super huge handy. Nin animals and summons always feel different to her, so she makes sure she's only getting wild ones. Squirrels and birds and other things, where she can apply the Caged Bird Seal and then apply her own work-in-progress seal as well as a diagnosis one, to test and check and see how everything's going.
That's where Hinata finds her, one day.
Or night, actually – it fell into darkness at some point, and Karin had been so absorbed in her notes and testing that she hadn't even noticed. She's muttering to herself, jotting down notes in her notebook, dead bird by her foot, when Hinata walks up.
"Karin?" she asks softly, and Karin's so absorbed in her work she almost jumps. "Have you been here all day?"
It's when Karin has to squint slightly at her to see her in the dying light that she realizes what time it is. "Oh," she says. "Yeah, I guess so."
Hinata's brow creases in concern. "You shouldn't work yourself this hard," she says softly. "When is the last time you had… had a good night's sleep?"
Karin is fully aware she doesn't look the best. She will admit it! It's been awhile since she's had a good night's sleep, but how can she rest when there's a massive group of people who could literally have their brains destroyed at any moment? God, that scream…
She has morals! Maybe not a lot, but she still has some!
"I need to get this done," Karin tells Hinata frankly, because surely the other girl is on the same page and understands why this is so important to get done as soon as possible.
Hinata doesn't waver. "Come on," she says, and she holds out a hand. Karin stares at it blankly, and Hinata repeats herself. "Come on," she says again. "We're going to the bathhouse, and then you're going home and sleeping."
"But-" Karin protests, even as she takes the hand and lets Hinata pull her up.
"No," she says, firm. "My father won't do anything different in a single day that he hasn't done so many times over. If… If you don't rest, you'll make mistakes."
The dead bird can attest to that. Karin grimaces, and caves. "Fine," she says, and Hinata doesn't let go of her hand.
"Do you trust me?" Karin asks.
Hinata doesn't hesitate. "Yes," she says.
When his cousin has replied, Neji gives a nod as well. "Yes," he says. "If you are positive this will work, let us try."
"Right," Karin says, very carefully not letting her voice shake at all.
She paints her seal over Neji's forehead – definitely doesn't tattoo it, not yet and not when she's not super accomplished in something like that. It'll work, or it won't, painted or not. If it does work, then she's got it. She's finished, she's done, and they can figure out what to do from there. If it doesn't work, then Neji's going to be in pain very soon and it's back to the drawing board and god, Karin does not want to hear him scream again.
His forehead looks strange – Karin's black paint over the lines of his permanent seal, marking it and messing it, but Neji meets her eyes steadily. "If it works," he says, "Then… we will be forever in your debt."
He's very serious. Karin snorts. "I don't do debts," she says. "Treat me to lunch or something." With that, she glances at Hinata. "Ready," she says. "Do it."
Hinata breathes in and breathes out. Meets her cousin's eyes, and she speaks.
Nothing happens.
There's no screaming. No pain, no screaming, just the slightest chakra fluctuation at his forehead that Neji doesn't even appear to feel. When nothing happens, Hinata speaks again.
"Nothing," says Neji. "I don't… feel anything," he says, and his eyes are damp.
Hinata stares at him, and then her gaze drags over. Karin is fully aware she's grinning like a lunatic (or like her cousin – actually, that's basically the same thing, let's be honest here), but can't bring herself to care because holy shit she did it, she actually fucking did it-
And all of a sudden Hinata is kissing her.
It's open-mouthed and desperate and overwhelming and it's done way too quickly before Hinata is pulling back, cheeks dark and not meeting her gaze. "I'm sorry," she says. "I shouldn't have- I-"
Karin is gaping, she realizes, her mouth hanging open as she stares at the other girl. "Don't you dare fucking apologize for that," Karin says, and she grabs her for another kiss.
It's so much and what she's been craving for far longer than she'd ever admit to herself, and quite honestly Karin could suck her face for literally forever but Neji coughs after a little bit. "I'm still here," he says, but he sounds amused, and Hinata pulls back with an embarrassed squeak.
Karin laughs a little. "Right," she says, but she doesn't apologize because that would be a big fat lie. "Rain check, Hinata? We've got a hell of a lot of Hyuuga to mark up."
Hinata takes a deep breath, cherry pink, but manages a nod. "Rain check," she says, soft but smiling, and yeah, okay, all three of them are grinning like lunatic cousins. "Let's… do this."
Hell yeah.
A/N: Thanks for reading! As always, you can find me on tumblr on my writing blog, ftcoye, and my personal chadsuke.