Hinata came to a stop in the center of the woods. To her satisfaction, no one had followed her.
Good. Sasuke and the others needed to care for their own mess.
She could hear heavy pounding in her ears and she wasn't sure if it was her own pulse or the thumping of approaching feet.
There were six.
"Hinata!" Her father appeared before her from the trees above. Hinata took a broad stance and prepared herself. "Are you ready to come home?"
"I will not come home."
"We are prepared to force you. You are my daughter, therefore I can do so."
"Daughter doesn't mean the same as property."
"You wish to continue this rebellious charade, you leave me no choice. I am disappointed in you."
A large explosion erupted in the distance behind her. Lightning filled the air and a strong gust of wind threatened to take away every Hyuga that wasn't nailed to the floor. Naruto.
But the lightning must've been Sasuke. Things were getting pretty heavy back there. She needed to finish things up quickly here and return to them. Hinata returned her gaze to Hiashi. "I'm not interested in talking anymore. So let's just do what you came here to do."
"Very well then."
"Sasuke! Get your head in the fight! What's wrong with you?!" Said Uchiha gritted his teeth harshly. "Shut up, dobe!"
"She's not even here and she's distracting you, endangering you and your comrades. She needs to come home, Sasuke, before she's anymore of a burden to you..!" Naruto lectured as he dodged an attack.
"Shut up, Naruto! I don't want to hear you say that again!" Lightning broke the ground beneath them and gathered around him. "Or you'll be fighting me next!"
Naruto had a talent for making Sasuke mad. "You know I'm right!" Sasuke sent blades of lightning flying through the air at their opponents. When each blade hit, a small explosion erupted. All of them together causes one larger explosion.
"Learn to mind your own business, Naruto!"
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
They all came at her at once. Hinata knew from training that fighting five byakugan users was her limit, and so did her father. Which is why he approached last. He took a stance and held his palms out. "I hope you're really prepared because I will not go easy on you."
"Neither were they." It was a dirty trick, something the Hyuga clan was known for, unfortunately. Her little sister could run things so much better if he would just give in and allow her to do so. "I will give you one last chance to come home, Hinata. If not then it is my responsibility to see to it that you are dealt with."
She was in bad shape after the five before him. Her heart was beating against her rib cage, her chakra was extremely low, and the palms of her hands were going numb. "Look at you, you can barely stand."
Maybe. But she was still standing.
She made the first move. He blocked, she would have to do better than that to land a hit. Dammit. His chakra powered hand swooshed by her head in slow motion, because she had barely managed to dodge it.
Hinata heard a high pitched ringing sound and glanced to her left, at his hand. Her eyes widened as he released a paper bomb. She jumped back to avoid being caught in the explosion, though it was a small bomb.
Once it went off she felt her left ear getting hot. The left side of her head experienced pain in high pitched frequencies. She cupped her ear and fell to the floor. Her petite hand was covered on bright, warm, velvety liquid.
That bastard.
She didn't have time, she had to force herself up off the ground to dodge another attack. He planned to throw her off guard and render her unconscious. If she had to guess she would say her left ear drum was busted from the small explosion. "Dammit..!"
"Give up and come home!"
"That was a cheap trick..!" She yelled out as she did her best to dodge him through the pain rattling the left side of her head.
He wanted to play dirty.
Well alright.
She pivoted off to the right, out of his direct line of sight and gathered chakra in her left knee. Hinata sent her knee flying into his gut with enough force to knock him back off of her. She fell backwards and scuffed up her elbows on the way down.
Her head fell back as she narrowly escaped the spikes of two shuriken. However, consequently, they cut fine lines up either side of her face. "Thought you had more pride than to fight like this..! You're pathetic!" She hissed out and bounced to her feet.
"You've already lost so much blood, Hinata. From your ear and now your face. Why struggle?" Anger boiled up from the pit of her stomach, it was as if someone dumped hot water over her head. She held her hands out to her sides and focused on gathering what mass amounts of chakra she had left.
"You plan to use the twin lions? Tch. You must be at your wits end in this fight then."
"Shut up! For once in your life will you shut up and realize you cannot have everything you want?! I do not belong to you or anyone else!"
"Are you prepared to die here, Hinata? Why are you staying?! Why won't you come home? Do you like being alone?!"
"I'm not alone! Stop playing mind games with me! I'm not your toy!"
They must have fought longer than she expected. Hinata had somehow managed to wear him down, but she had nearly nothing left in her. Her chakra was used up almost completely. She could pass out at any minute.
"This rebellious nature.. where did you learn this from? You were never this unruly!"
"Probably has something to do with being raised by a complete psycho.."
She was on her knees, barely able to hold herself up with both palms in the dirt beneath her. Why was this so hard? Her biceps were screaming in agony and she didn't even want to think about the pain she was experiencing in her left ear. The blood was still pouring down her neck from that injury alone.
And what could be worse? It started to rain. Not just a drizzle, but more like a complete downpour. Not even the downpour could wash away all the blood from her body as it continued to flow heavily.
"I suppose this is it. Let me give you medical attention and take you home or die here on the ground like a dog." Hinata tried to stand back up, but she was far too dizzy to even look up at him. "I'm ashamed of you. I've given you everything and you turned your back on me and joined this league of rogue shinobi. I raised you to be a fine kunoichi.."
"You raised me to be someone's trophy wife that shouldn't speak unless spoken to and that's just the same as being a dog, so I might as well lay here and cut my losses."
Hiashi staggered toward her, barely able to hold himself upright. Hinata did a pretty good job at wearing him down to near exhaustion, if she could've just held in there a little longer..
It became dark, but she was certain she hadn't passed out as she could still see the ground. Hinata leaned to the right and forced herself to look up. If Hiashi was going to kill her then he would at least have to look at her face while he done so.
"I think that's enough. You've seen that she won't willingly go with you and you have no rights to her. Any parental rights were severed when she denounced her citizenship."
"Move aside, Uchiha." Hinata's eyes widened. The sudden darkness was from Sasuke's shadow looming over her. "I get that this is family business, but I won't let you take her. Call it meddling if you want, but unless you feel like fighting me she isn't going anywhere with you."
"You act so cocky. You think I couldn't handle a fight with you?"
"If I had found you in better shape then I don't doubt your ability in the slightest. I'm not trying to insult you, but do you really think you could take me right now? With the shape she's left you in. Look at me, Hiashi, I don't have a scratch on me and I have more than half of my chakra."
"Tch."
"Look at you, you're pathetic. The head of the Hyuga clan brings five other guys and beats his daughter half to death in the woods. You must be proud of what you've done."
"Don't lecture me, Uchiha."
"If you're tired of hearing it, leave. If you take one more step in this direction, I'll kill you."
When Hinata woke, she was laying in a hospital bed in the center of Konoha. She tried to raise up, but someone pushed her back down. "Stop, lay there for a while."
"Sasuke..? Are we in Konoha?"
"Yeah."
"Why? Where are the others?"
"Well, after prying Karin off of you I managed to convince her that you would be alright. She and Suigetsu left. They promised we would meet up when you got back on your feet. It's hard to say about Jugo, he's probably on the coast by now.
"Coast..wait..how long have I been asleep?" Sasuke hesitated to answer, as if he were afraid of freaking her out. "You lost a lot of blood.. you've been out cold for nine days.."
"Nine days?!" If his hand hadn't been on her chest she would've bolted out of bed. "Why would you let me sleep for that long?!"
"You needed the rest. Karin couldn't heal you enough to stabilize you. She, and some other medical ninja, healed you nonstop for five straight days. It took her two days to recover from it, but we managed to get you to the hospital here in Konoha.. Thanks to Naruto."
"My dad..?"
"He's fine.. he was treated for his injuries.. and he went home."
"He didn't say anything?"
"Not a word."
"Then he..?"
"I think he's done, Hinata." She looked relieved and for the first time since joining his small team, she smiled brightly. "Really? But what about you? You can't be here can you?" Sasuke leaned against the bed and smirked,, "I can be anywhere now, thanks to you."
"They gave you your pardon?"
"Yeah, three days ago."
"That's amazing! You can do so much now!" Hinata started to audibly laugh, but she stopped when she realized something was off. Her hand came up to gently touch her left ear, just to make sure it was still there. It was indeed still there, but she couldn't hear out of it at all. "What..?"
"About that.. you won't be able to use that ear anymore. You'll be deaf on the left side.. I'm sorry..We couldn't fix the permanent damage. Maybe if I had gotten to you sooner Karin would have had a better chance with it..but.."
"Stop. The important part is that it's still there and I'm not missing any limbs, so you didn't do too bad, Uchiha."
"Tch. Well when you look at it that way, I guess not."
"Well, what now?"
"You focus on healing up so we can get the hell out of this place."
"They aren't going to make me stay?"
"Nope, Naruto got them to let you go after they seen all the damage you'd taken just trying to get away from your family. Now you can do whatever you want too. "
"Well... where to next, Sasuke?"
"I was thinking somewhere quiet for a while.. I'm not a fan of these big nations and all.. so maybe a small place in between them somewhere. Once we start traveling again I'm sure we'll find something."
"The others...they aren't coming back are they?"
"No. But we will keep moving until I can find some place where I can give you what you want." Hinata furrowed her brows and tilted her head to the side. "What I want? Wait.. what do I want?" His brows shot up and he motioned toward himself, "You don't remember? You said you wanted all of me. Did you change your mind that fast?" She struggled not to blush beneath her bandages, "No! But I didn't think I would actually get it..don't say stuff like that, weirdo!"
Sasuke chuckled and rubbed her head gently, "Sleep for now, a new day is coming."