Summary: Hinata awakens her true self, Sasuke contemplates life, and Neji just can't catch a break. Warnings for this chapter: brief depictions of childhood abuse, thought disorder, and hallucinations.
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"To anyone that ever told you you're no good ... they're no better."
- Hayley Williams
Chapter 7: Tulips
May - Konohagakure
The sun shone high in the sky, glinting off of the droplets of sweat running down Arata and Hinata's faces. Arata stood with her hands on her hips, watching her hunched over and panting 'student' - a loose term, because in truth the teaching went both ways. In the month since Arata's arrival, the two women had been training intensely during their time in-between missions. Which was a lot of time, because Arata's missions were nonexistent unless you included periodic interviews with the Hokage and the intelligence division as 'missions', and Hinata just hadn't been assigned very many to begin with.
Arata had been gradually chipping away at Hinata's walls, apparently desperate to release her passion and rage from the cage of restraint it had been kept inside of for so many years. A few days ago, Hinata told her about how Hiashi appointed Neji to lead their clan's division in battle instead of her, and Arata finally gleaned some real understanding as to what Hinata was trying to suppress.
"Hinata," she said.
"Yes, Arata-sensei?"
"My entire life before coming here, I lived in the prison my abusive father created for me. I was not allowed outside of the village, and could only talk to the people he personally approved of. If I disobeyed or questioned his will, he would beat me, or torture me. At one point he began performing medical experiments on me as well."
"Arata-san..." Hinata whispered, unsure of what she could say to comfort her companion.
A small part of her wondered if Arata's father could perhaps be Orochimaru, because Orochimaru was infamous for his experiments, was pale enough, had black hair, yellow eyes, and even had sort of similar eye markings. However, Arata said she was from the Land of Grass, and Orochimaru's goons always came from Otogakure.
Thinking back to her childhood, Hinata recalled the old emotions she had long since learned to ignore. Back when she was a young girl, though, they would hit her like a wave of acidic water, threatening to seep through the cracks in her resolve and fill her core with rot. Hinata remembered how she felt worthless when her father berated her, powerless when he forced her to spar against shinobi who far outclassed her abilities, helpless while her own family members beat her weakened body to the brink of death without ever actually killing her, just so she could experience it all over again the following week, empty when Hiashi had disinherited her after she refused to harm her younger sister, and broken while she recovered from the brutal fight against Neji during the chunin exams, thinking that she really was destined to be a failure and that no one could ever understand the pain she was in.
"It's okay. I used to pity myself, but then I realized that none of it was my fault. That it wasn't me who was the problem. Do you know what else I realized?" Arata asked.
Hinata shook her head. In a flash of lightning-quick speed, Arata's fist became a ball of electricity and she lunged at the training dummy nearest to her, eviscerating the piece of equipment and leaving the resulting debris to catch flame in the dirt. Retracting her hand calmly, Arata turned to face Hinata once more.
"I realized that my father and everyone else who facilitated the abuse is a piece of shit, and that just because he is 'family', that doesn't mean he has the right to control me, or to determine my worth as a person. Blood alone does not determine familial bonds. And so, I am becoming powerful in spite of him, not because of him."
All her life, Hinata had been soft-spoken and polite. She always followed the rules, always used the proper honorifics, always treated people with kindness. Hinata always put other people first rather than thinking or caring about herself, she was always prioritizing someone else's feelings and well-being. She absolutely hated confrontation, and especially hated being confronted about said hatred. So, she has always been seen as timid and weak by others, an image not helped by her proclivity for overwhelming kindness, or tendency to clam up, and at times to literally faint from both the fear of offending someone and the effort of not offending anyone.
These were traits which her father had fought like a madman to change, continually pushing Hinata towards and past her limits, physically and psychologically. Unfortunately for his goals and also for Hinata, reaching her child self's psychological limit had meant retreating further into shell. Like a turbulent river, her father's mistreatment and disappointment eroded away at the rocky shores of her self-confidence, until what might have been a beautiful gorge became a flat and unremarkable pebble beach. Until Hinata placed so little faith in her own thoughts and opinions that she stopped sharing them, even if someone genuinely wanted to hear either of those things.
But what good reason, she now asked herself, had her father ever given for those traits he so hated to be considered bad or weak in the first place?
Kindness and compassion weren't weak, this she knew for sure. Only a coward refused to step into the shoes of his enemy: to see that subjective experiences mattered, that everyone had their own reasons and justifications for doing things, that suffering was universal, and that perhaps a foe was not truly evil or less-good than themselves, but instead was simply responding to the same kind of pain in a different way than most would.
Hinata did not verbally respond, but she knew Arata could see the sparks of fury in her eyes as they both faced their dummies and took up a fighting stance. They resumed practicing the lyrical movements of the gentle-fist art, both ignoring the smoldering mess that had become Arata's previous opponent. After their eighth cycle through the motions, they activated their byakugan simultaneously. Arata infused the dummies with some of her chakra, artfully shaping its flow to mimic the chakra pathways and tenketsu points of a flesh-and-blood opponent.
"Eight trigrams, sixteen palms!" they shouted in unison. Hinata, thanks to Arata, had recently come to realize that there was no real reason to announce what technique she was using out loud. However, it was still helpful in training, making it easier for them to stay in-sync.
Arata watched from the side as Hinata expertly prodded the imaginary pressure points, the anatomy so ingrained in her mind that she could have hit them without looking; something Arata had made a reality by convincing Hinata to spend an entire week training while blindfolded, and without using her byakugan to cheat the blindfold either. Hinata was far cleverer than she let on, Arata quickly realized, and had memorized the anatomical structures, figuring out how to sense and seek out the tenketsu points using only her chakra. She had come a long way since the beginning of their training sessions - just a few weeks ago sixteen palms would have already been half-way to the kunoichi's limit, and now it was their starting point.
The entire thing was a bit comical, since Arata was far from being an expert in the art of ninjutsu. In fact, Hinata was still perplexed as to how she had mastered the gentle fist techniques in the first place, considering that she never crossed paths with any known masters, and did not grow up living with the clan. Unbeknownst to her, Arata was wondering the same thing about the Hyuga clan. But Hinata never asked; naturally, she didn't want to offend Arata by doing so. Nonetheless, Hinata had been able to teach Arata some things in return, such as the substitution technique. Arata had begged Hinata to teach her the multi shadow clone technique as well - apparently unaware of its kinjutsu status - but Hinata didn't know it herself.
So, being both bitter and unwilling to go without learning the jutsu, Arata tried to guilt Kakashi into teaching her instead. This was wildly unsuccessful. In the end, however, Arata managed to learn on her own - by spying on Kakashi's training sessions, and observing his chakra network whenever he formed additional clones. She eventually deduced the method, and immediately began testing how many clones she could make at once. Last Hinata heard, she was up to four-hundred and thirty seven.
It worried the village elders, and sparked rumors about Arata being a secret jinchuuriki. Of what? Well, that didn't matter so much as the intrigue did. But whenever anyone questioned her abilities, Arata simply replied that 'motivated people find a way'.
"Alright, Hinata - show me what you can do."
"Yes, Arata-sensei," she responded. "Eight trigrams, thirty-two palms!"
They both increased their pace, and Hinata's breathing picked up in proportion with the added effort. Arata knew Hinata wasn't at her limit yet, though, and she was determined to push her past it that day.
"Is that all you've got? Come on, Hinata!"
Neji stood over her, fist clenched, jaw set, and without a drop of sweat on his face. He had defeated her effortlessly. Meanwhile, Hinata lay in a trembling heap on the ground, desperate to hold in every whimper of pain that bubbled in the back of her throat. Daring to glance at her father, she saw that he had risen from his seat in order to better look down upon her.
"Is that it, you've no more fight? Come on, Hinata!"
"I'm trying, Arata-sensei," she panted.
"I know you're not maxed out yet. Let it all out!" Arata demanded between hits.
Her chest heaved violently as she coughed, speckling the ground with blood and saliva after each rough wheeze. Every muscle in her body screamed in agony when she tried and failed again to get back up onto her feet.
"I c-can't get up," Hinata choked out.
Another hard kick to the abdomen sent her flying back towards the wall, mind reeling from the unimaginable physical pain accompanied by the blow.
"I can't," Hinata cried. But despite her confidence-lacking words, the speed of her jabs never slowed.
"That's bullshit and you know it. You'll never surpass him if you don't overcome this, Hinata. Quit
holding back!"
"You're pathetic, Hinata. You'll never surpass your cousin if you don't abandon that weak personality," Hiashi spat.
Hinata didn't understand how she was supposed to change her personality. She had been like this forever. Obviously it was possible, though, and she was just too stupid to figure out how to do it. Time was running out for her to get it together - she was only getting older, after all.
Today was her seventh birthday.
Arata knew she had struck a nerve, and stopped to observe when something snapped inside of the young kunoichi. A roaring fire ignited her gaze, and in less than fifteen seconds the training dummy was on its last legs. Arata took the opportunity to summon a barrage of shadow clones, sending them after Hinata in waves. Her heart swelled with pride while she watched her adapt, taking them down in droves.
"Eight trigrams, sixty-four palms!" Hinata shouted.
Hinata's fists became a flurry of deadly punches, moving faster than any ordinary eye would be able to keep track of. Arata found herself creating more and more shadow clones in order to maintain the challenge, sending them in groups of nearly thirty at a time while sweat poured down her face and back from the effort.
"Hinata, don't stop now - take back your power!"
The day that she reached her limit seemed to have finally come along, and Hinata decided to just let herself feel every emotion she'd shoved down and bottled away over the years; she stopped fighting back. It was the most excruciating moment thus far in her life - even more painful than when she thought she'd failed Naruto, after being put down by Pain like a lame horse - but it passed. She survived, and she would become stronger because of it. Hinata broke through the surface of her ocean of hurt and allowed herself to breathe for the first time since her seventh birthday. She would never stop letting herself breathe again. She would never go back to that place, back to being that weak girl who let others determine her worth.
Screaming with determination, Hinata unleashed the infernal resentment that had built up within her. A stream of curses exploded from the depths of her consciousness, as shadow clones poofed out of existence almost more quickly than Arata could create them. Hinata's chakra began gathering in her fists in the form of blue flames.
"Fuck you, father. You are the one who is weak. How dare you belittle me - I may forgive you, but I'll never forget!"
The chakra shrouds covering her fists transformed, taking the shape of two massive lion-heads. Arata stopped her shadow clone assault and stood back to witness the kunoichi's evolution - and also because the collective pain memory of her bygone clones was starting to get to her.
What Hinata was about to perform was a unique jutsu she had created herself, and had used on that fateful day when she stood up against Pain. But she had not used it since then, she had let that moment of inspiration fall to the wayside, back into the bottomless chasm of self-loathing.
Now, she reached into that pit and pulled it out, re-infusing it with her heart - where it ought to be.
"Gentle Step: Twin Lion Fists!"
At that point Hinata was in an almost manic state of hyper-focused killing intent. Well, not quite killing intent, since she didn't have a living target, but as close to killing intent as one could get while training. She pummeled the last of the shadow clones into puffs of air and rammed the ground with her fists once there was nothing else to murder the shit out of, and the force of the impact sent a shock-wave rippling through the clearing - all the way to the edge of the forest and beyond. Her energy spent, Hinata suddenly snapped out of her heightened state of consciousness, kneeling on the ground in a daze as she fought to control her breathing.
Arata walked over and crouched down next to her.
"Hinata, pick up your head," she commanded. "Look at what you just did."
Hinata reluctantly pulled her chin out of her chest, taking in the scene before her. The patch of forest that had existed only moments before was now an amalgamated mess of splintered and broken trees. Her volley of destruction cut a clear path of ruin through the surrounding nature, reaching nearly a kilometre away from their position before it stopped. Thankfully, they were training a good five kilometres or so outside of the village.
"I...I did that?" Hinata whispered.
"You did that, Hinata. Not me, not Naruto, not Hiashi, not Neji - you ," Arata replied.
Even though all she'd done was make a mess of some innocent flora, Hinata still felt powerful. Not because of the destruction itself, but because she'd allowed herself to cause it. She allowed herself to let go , to stop holding back, to stop holding in everything. Instead of worrying about someone else, she'd gone and done precisely what she wanted to do.
"I did that," she repeated, her voice rising in volume. "Yeah, of course. I did that."
They both stood up and faced one another, and Arata placed her hands on Hinata's shoulders. Hinata had suspected her to be an empath of some sort since the day that they met, so she couldn't tell if Arata was emotional for her, because of her, or with her. However, it didn't matter either way, because they were sharing this moment, this relinquishing of anguish, together. Both women had tears in their eyes, but they didn't cry. Not yet.
The old Hinata would have already let the tears flow and dismissed her achievement, but now she was someone new. There was no longer a scared, broken, and beaten-down little girl standing in that field; instead there was a powerful, unashamed woman who wasn't going to take shit from anyone ever again.
"From this day forward, Hinata Hyuga, you are stepping out of the shadows and into the light. Never again will you let a single person - regardless of who the fuck they think they are - tell you that you aren't good enough," Arata said.
"I am good enough," Hinata repeated with confidence. "I was always fucking good enough."
While it may have seemed a tad cheesy or dramatic to an observer, neither woman gave a damn. Men spoke in poetry to one another, screamed curses, and gave emotional monologues all of the time, sometimes in the middle of battle; why should it be shameful for a woman to do the same? Why should that make them histrionic, or hysterical? It should not, they decided, and sent their small inkling of self-consciousness back into the void of ignorance from whence it came.
In a much-needed twist of fate, Arata - as in, someone else, and not Hinata - was the one to cry first, and the two women embraced as tears finally began to stream down their cheeks.
Arata had never witnessed such an incredible blossoming of character, and to watch a soul such as Hinata's burst out of its shell was a thing the beauty of which could only be experienced once in a lifetime. Everything that had happened to Aratashiki, her horrible childhood and imprisonment, garnered her the knowledge she needed to be there for Hinata. There was no longer any doubt in her mind that she'd ended up in this village for a reason, a reason that had little to do with Kaguya or anyone else in her family. Arata didn't know what that reason explicitly was, and perhaps she never would, but it was there. A profound sense of fulfillment ballooned in her chest, accompanying the realization that she had been able to provide for Hinata that which Arata had also so desperately needed as a young girl:
Someone to believe in her, so that she could believe in herself.
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Elsewhere
"You weren't able to pierce through any of the illusions he created," Madara said, gripping a kunai and walking over to where Sasuke sat slumped against the wall. "Itachi killed his friends, his superiors, his lover, his father, his mother - but he couldn't kill his little brother."
Standing before him, Madara squatted until his one visible eye was level with Sasuke's, and held the kunai in front of the orange, swirling mask that covered the old Uchiha's face.
"He killed every shred of feeling in his heart in order to slaughter his own kin, for the sake of his village-" Madara swept the kunai down and across the ropes binding Sasuke's wrists "-but he just couldn't bring himself to kill you."
The blood was roaring in Sasuke's ears. He was unable to look away from Madara, petrified by and transfixed upon his every word, mind trying and failing to make logical sense of what he was being told.
"Do you understand what that means?"
Sasuke snapped back into the present. His hands had been clawing at the soft grass underneath him, unconsciously clenching and ripping out handfuls of the stuff. He could smell the grass's distress: it was the scent of green leaf volatiles, Jugo had explained to him once, a chemical released by the plant whenever it experienced trauma. It smelled sweet and green like the chlorophyll providing its color. Sasuke wondered if it was the same for the grass as when a human cried.
When people were in distress, did they also smell sweet and red like the blood flowing through their veins?
He had never noticed such a thing from a sobbing or heartbroken individual, only the metallic scent of blood from those who were physically injured, and there was nothing sweet about that smell. Raising his arm to his face, Sasuke gave his skin a good sniff; but all he could detect was sweat, and there was no underlying aroma to hint at his tumultuous internal state. So maybe, maybe it was just the blood that was a human's distress signal, maybe traumas of the mind didn't have a smell. The grass wasn't crying, then, it was bleeding - that seemed very obvious once he thought it through, and like the most logical conclusion, to Sasuke.
Itachi bled when he died. Which shouldn't have been a surprise to Sasuke, but nonetheless he'd found himself nonplussed while Itachi had dragged his broken body forwards, all but choking on the blood that welled in his throat and trickled from the corners of his mouth. Itachi Uchiha, a man of God-like powers - at least in Sasuke's mind - had, in the end, still been just one of a billion sentient bags of flesh roaming the Earth, had still bled as any other man would, had still died and uttered his final words in the company of another.
He was never evil, never invincible, never ascendant like he pretended to be; no, Itachi Uchiha was human, as human as any other human Sasuke had ever known.
'Human' should not be confused with goodness, however; 'human' simply implies the presence of a specific level of complexity derived from the unique combination of homo sapiens with the capability of having subjective experiences.
To say that Itachi was a hero or even a good man would be an outright lie. It would be shameless and disrespectful to not only his victims, but also to heroes and to good men. A hero did not slaughter their family indiscriminately, did not drive a katana through the chest of a young mother and her wailing infant, did not skewer children as they slept, did not cut the throats of unarmed men who were unable to defend themselves or their families. A hero did not compound the trauma of his eight year old brother, nor did he repeat this action when his brother was twelve; and a good man certainly never did these things, either.
While it may be true that Itachi himself had been deeply traumatized at just five years old, had been taken advantage of by the adults and leaders in his life, and had been brainwashed into becoming some nationalistic zombie, Itachi was still not a hero. He may have gone completely, irreversibly, and profoundly insane the night of the massacre, but that did not make him a 'good man' deep down. Doing everything thereafter in the name of his beloved little brother's well-being did not excuse the harm he caused, it did not make him 'a good man who was unfortunately enslaved by insanity'.
The fact of the matter was that Itachi had not properly lived within reality since the night of the massacre, and likely hadn't for years before then as well. Itachi often spoke of false-realities, illusions and ignorance, yet he himself was a perpetrator of all three.
"People live their lives bound by what they accept as correct and true….their "reality" may all be a mirage. Can we consider them to be simply living in their own world, shaped by their beliefs?"
His own exact words revealed the devastating truth about Itachi Uchiha's world, about his reality. Itachi was bound by his duty to the village and his Will of Fire, which he accepted as correct and true. In his own world, killing everyone he loved for the sake of that village was also right and true. It was his belief that the best thing he could do for Sasuke was to force him to live with the aftermath, to torment him, to make it so that Sasuke could become strong and could avenge his clan.
Because that was what Itachi wanted, and that was not selfless, it was wholly selfish. It was not for Sasuke's benefit. No, all of it was for Itachi's own sake because he needed it to happen. He needed someone to have revenge on him so that he could at least say that his family received justice. He needed to believe that what he was doing to Sasuke was correct and true, because he couldn't handle the reality that he was ruining his brother's life, that he had spared Sasuke in vain. That it had all been in vain.
Itachi lived in his fantasy world, where he was a tragic hero and where he was making things right, or as right as they could be. But that wasn't consistent with reality. In fact, it was so far removed from reality, that it was incredibly disturbing that Itachi managed to so thoroughly blind himself in the first place. Itachi coped with his life in a way that only someone who was totally insane could cope. So no, he was not a hero or a good man, he was flawed and human like everyone else.
Obviously, this did not make Itachi special. Rather, it made him unremarkable in a fundamental and brutally honest way.
Sasuke knew all of this, and yet he could not accept it, he could not cope as Itachi had. He thought that everything in his heart had already been killed, but after learning the truth about his brother, another hidden piece of Sasuke had shriveled up and died. There was nothing left - so he thought - to hold his fragile, necrotic mind together, and so it had shattered. Sasuke became completely unhinged; he went on a suicide mission to battle against the five Kage, he killed Danzo and avenged his brother, he fought his own teammates with the intent to end their lives. He thought that doing this might grant him some relief, or some peace.
Yet after all of that, Sasuke still felt utterly empty, and an infinite nothingness yawned and stretched within the cavity of his body. Like the moon, Sasuke was a desolate, dusty rock suspended in a vacuum, a mere remnant of what once might have been something more.
The sun beat down on Sasuke as he laid in the grass, making fractals of the sweat coating his warm and sticky flesh. Squinting, he turned his eyes to the relentless celestial presence: the sun. It never left. Each day it rose again and each night it fell beyond the horizon in a ceaseless cycle. Even underground he could not escape its influence, because the sun affected everything - its solar radiation was instrumental to all environmental processes, and there were no exceptions to that rule. But Sasuke knew that it was more than just the sun in the sky that he could not escape.
Sasuke was bound to another sun, one he had tried to push away, to cut ties with, to kill . He was never able to kill his sun, though, and he knew he never would be. It had always been that way, and anything that spoke to the contrary was a facade and a front that Sasuke put up in order to avoid facing the truth of their bond.
Like the star at the center of their solar system, Naruto's light was in everything. Naruto was everything. Naruto was the only thing.
And Naruto was the one thing that Sasuke could not have. His ultimate desire, which he did not deserve. When Sasuke had nothing left, he still had Naruto; but he didn't get to have Naruto, so instead he had nothing.
His head rolled to the side, and when the sun spots cleared from Sasuke's eyes they became transfixed on a bright patch of orange and red tulips growing nearby. They were breathtaking, and so beautiful - Sasuke wondered how he hadn't noticed them before.
"You have no face," they said to him.
The flowers spoke in a lilted, faerie-like tune. It was a strange sound, stranger than the talking flowers themselves, but it was nice and felt like company; company was the opposite of loneliness, of his constant state of being alone. Their presence moved Sasuke, and he almost felt as if they had bloomed out of sheer love for him.
"I wish to efface myself," Sasuke replied.
"Shine down, Great Sun, on flower and field," the Tulips began to sing. "And never say goodbye-"
On an impulse, Sasuke reached out and plucked one of the Tulips, wishing to inhale its scent and to study its vibrance up close. The music stopped, replaced by screams once the small roots emerged from the ground.
"Forever and ever give us your light," Sasuke said, joining in with the chorus.
He was not bothered by their wailing.
"From out the wide blue sky."
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Konohagakure
Neji ambled along the deserted road, taking his precious, sweet time. He was sent out to check on Hinata and Arata, who had been gone all day since they left to train.
It was the longest stretch of peace and quiet Neji had gotten all month.
After spending so much time together in those initial few weeks, he and Arata had grown more accustomed to the other's presence. Neither of them would ever admit it, but they had even begun to enjoy one another's company. In small doses, of course, which was in part due to the increasingly suffocating tension that existed between the two. At least, from Neji's end. Regardless, the idea of eventually becoming 'friends' seemed less and less ludicrous with each passing week.
On the contrary, Arata had already become extremely close with his cousin Hinata, and by extension had become friends with Ino, Sakura, and Tenten. They even considered her a part of their 'inner circle' now, magnetized by her peculiar and sometimes unpredictable personality, that often could leave one feeling like they had whiplash.
Despite her acceptance into that particular group, however, Arata was far removed from fitting in. Even with her somewhat disguised appearance and the seal on her back, she stood out from the rest of the village. It was understandably difficult to hide power like that. Nevermind her constant need to wear gloves or wrappings of some kind in order to conceal the eyes in her palms. A habit which was not at all unusual for a shinobi; but Arata was a mysterious and formidable outsider, and supposedly a relative of the Hyuga - from a long-since defected branch of the family - and so the ritual was novel. The civilians and shinobi alike watched Arata with curious gazes, like an exotic animal in a sprawling menagerie.
Something she evidently was aware of, as indicated by her undiscussed refusal to wear the hitai-ate she'd been given. Neji knew it was not for lack of duty, and so it must have been due to something more personal, of which self-denial or alienation seemed the likely culprit. However, it was not a subject Neji ever brought up, as he did not feel like he could provide any meaningful discussion around the matter, nor did he desire to make her uncomfortable by crossing such a personal boundary unprovoked.
A mayfly buzzed dangerously close to Neji's face, and as he lifted his eyes to swat it away he noticed that the sun was already starting to set. Quickening his pace, he jogged the rest of the way to where he had spotted both of their chakra signatures emanating from with his byakugan.
As Neji approached their location, he struggled to make sense of the scene in front of him. A square kilometre of forest had been destroyed, and two training dummies were mutilated beyond repair. Amidst it all stood the tightly-embracing figures of Hinata and Arata as they violently trembled and sobbed in one another's arms. Neji couldn't make heads or tails of whether or not he was seeing tears, sweat, snot, or all three covering their faces.
"What the hell happened?" he yelled while running towards them, worried that they had been attacked.
Arata lifted her head from Hinata's shoulder, sniffling and choking as she attempted to answer. "Hinata is a strong, independent woman and she doesn't need the approval of men!"
Neji stared at them in confusion. "What?"
"I am worthy! Appreciate my empowerment, Neji!" Hinata shouted between hiccups. "Like a hermit sage, I have emerged from a dark cave of doubt to show my true self to the world!"
"I don't even know what that means," Neji said.
This was way above his pay-grade, and Neji wasn't being paid a dime for this retrieval errand in the first place; he had no idea how to handle his own emotions, let alone the emotions of two hormonal women. So, Neji did what his mother would have done, and the only thing he knew to do.
Neji took a deep breath before reaching out and gently patting each of them on the head.
"There, there, little birds," he said in the most unnatural and forced tone they had ever heard from anyone - ever - that probably only he could pull off.
Immediately, the two women stiffened in shock, slowly turning their heads to stare at him with wide-eyes. Neji swallowed nervously, removing his hands and preparing to apologize - and then they exploded with laughter.
"What on earth, Neji, that was so out of character," Hinata wheezed.
"I didn't know you were bilingual, you never said you could speak motherese," Arata mocked.
They were practically howling at that point, bracing their hands on their knees to keep from collapsing. He couldn't understand why they needed to make such a big scene of it, he was only trying to help. Besides, what was so odd about what he said as to beget hilarity? Neji turned his back to them, face hot enough that one surely could have fried an egg on it. He dug his nails into his palms, resisting the urge to run off towards where the Nakano diverged and to launch himself off of the surrounding cliffs. Of course, a volcano would have been more preferable to a turbulent river, but there were not any nearby, so he wasn't going to be that picky.
"Tenten is having a girls' get together. She said to be at Barbe-Q in two hours."
Neji's voice barely rose above a whisper when he spoke, and then he began speed-walking back to the village, unsure of whether he wanted to cry or get drunk when he returned. Maybe he could even settle for both.
Arata and Hinata eventually calmed down enough to stand up and look at each other.
"Damn, we look like shit," Arata commented.
"Yeah," Hinata agreed. "What a day…"
They sprinted to catch up with Neji, much to his annoyance, and looped their arms with his so that he was trapped between the pair. Arata and Hinata stared at him as they walked, biting back giggles when he started to blush again.
"Would you two cut it out? You positively reek ," he huffed.
"Ah, but Neji-kun, that's just the smell of our feminine pheromones," Arata taunted in a sultry voice.
It did not happen frequently, but whenever Aratashiki did use that honorific around him it filled Neji with irritation more quickly than even Lee was able to do.
"Well if that's the case, consider me a gay man."
"But Neji nii-san, if you don't cuff Arata then someone else might," Hinata stated.
Part of him wanted to joke that he'd already arrested her once, but that would only prolong the banter, and by extension his humiliation. His cousin knew him too well, sometimes, and despite her outward innocence Hinata had not encountered any trouble sniffing out Neji's irrational physical attraction to their guest. It wasn't his fault, he couldn't just decide someone was unattractive after the thought had already crossed his mind. At least, that's how he rationalized it to himself.
Neji coughed, increasing his pace until they struggled to keep up without being dragged by their feet. He sensed a shift in Hinata, something subtle but important, and to him she was acting very strange. Normally she wouldn't even be able to think about the concept of romance without asphyxiating, let alone joke about such things. And the way she was drawing out the word 'nii-san' right now sent chills down his spine, and not the pleasurable kind.
"Oh, nii-san is feigning ignorance," Hinata jeered, successfully grating even further on his nerves.
He yanked his arms from their grasp, wondering what kind of drugs Arata had given his cousin. Without giving either of them the satisfaction of a response, Neji broke out into a sprint once again, effectively leaving them in the dust. Hinata winked at Arata, who had remained uncharacteristically silent during her teasing - well, silent relative to their specific relationship, because Arata was somewhat quiet in general contexts - before they both started running as well, following him the rest of the way to the village.
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When the women finally made it back to the Hyuga compound Neji was nowhere to be found, so they decided to use the opportunity to bathe in the private hotspring and relax their muscles. They made light chatter while they scrubbed away literal blood, sweat and tears, and nearly forgot that they were supposed to be somewhere soon.
"Ah, we need to go change," Arata said, once she noticed the darkness beyond the narrow window slats at the top of the walls.
They wrapped themselves in towels and headed off towards their respective rooms, and Arata stopped by the sink in the kitchenette to hydrate herself. She heard the door to the common area open and spun around to see who it was, coming face-to-face with Neji; because who else would just barge in, if not one of the residents? She immediately started turning red, redder than a tomato. Maybe she was actually a tomato and not an Otsutsuki, Arata thought, that would explain why she was so different from the rest of them.
Right now, she was standing in nothing but a towel with Neji Hyuga looking right at her. This was just like the dreams she had, except not at all, and way more horrifying. If anyone was going to see her naked - which was a big 'if' at the time - it was going to be on her own terms.
Neji decided there and then that some evil deity must be out to get him. All he wanted to do was grab the wallet he had forgotten, without ending up in any more embarrassing situations. But no, the incident earlier apparently hadn't been enough, and this had to happen as well. He had thought about seeing her naked more often than he ought to about any female acquaintance, but this was just awkward. The towel barely covered her chest and only just touched the tops of her smooth thighs. If she turned around he would probably be able to see her- no, Neji thought. He had to stop this train of inner dialogue before he pitched a tent in their living room, even if it was technically camping season.
What was the most unsexy thing he could think about? Neji wondered. Probably his uncle, naked. Yes - Hiashi and his sagging, old-man testicles.
Aratashiki and Neji just stood there, mortified and staring at each other. She noticed his eyes starting to drift downwards towards where the towel only partially covered her breasts, which for some reason caused her to startle and drop her glass of water.
"If you don't stop looking at me...I'll hit you," Arata growled.
Hinata heard the commotion and popped her head outside of her door. She looked at Neji, then at Arata, and then back at Neji. Storming out of her room wearing nothing but a set of more fashionable than functional underwear, which only worsened the situation, Hinata and her raised fist made a beeline straight for her cousin. If someone were to walk in right then, they might think that something scandalous and extremely improper was going on between the three of them.
"Neji, I can't believe you've done this! How perverted-"
"Uh, sorry."
Neji knew that there was no talking his way out of that one. He didn't even try to make an excuse or insult her appearance to save face, opting to turn around and walk right back out of the door instead. Wallet be damned, he could get Kiba to cover his portion, he thought. The guy owed him around three-hundred Ryo, anyways.
Now, Neji decided, he was definitely going to drink.
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AN: I said I would have this chapter out last week, and I apologize for that not happening. I was crunching to finish my coursework AND also distracted trying to finish a short story. Sigh. But I've finally worked out the things I want to change and am genuinely excited about this rewrite now(even more so than the original - I've gone down the path of angst...and I can't go back lol). So, I've decided to focus more on this story for the time being, outside of school. Woo!
Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and that you will enjoy Hinata's character development(which will NOT be as extreme as in Exegesis because, ugh). Also, I realize it probably was not obvious before, but yes - Sasuke is one of the main characters/perspectives, and Sasuke/Naruto is listed in the ship tags for a reason. This is because, simply put, there will be significant changes to Sasuke's life and relationship with Naruto due to 'the arrival'. For a good while, his perspective is going to be the darkest one featured, and I don't tip-toe around mental illnesses - so prepare yourselves.
Feedback is always welcome and appreciated! x