CHAPTER SIX
A/N: Starts where the last one finished off!
Prepare yourselves.
_FURY_
A familiar chakra caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. Hanabi paused, spinning on her feet a grabbing a passerby by the collar of his shirt.
"Hey, I know you!"
The man stumbled, trying to catch his feet. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Hanabi glowered at him, "You were going to try and attack me and my team. You saw I was a Hyuuga and got scared, thinking I was my sister." Her Byakugan activated, scaring the purple-haired man. "Did you change your mind? Our Hokage not scary enough for you to stop from kidnapping my sister?"
"We were paid to do it!" He blurted, struggling to keep his voice from shaking, "It was that other guy's fault."
"Shut up Takumi!" The dark-skinned Ran glanced quickly to his friend. "We'll be in worse trouble if he finds ou-."
His voice cut off with a cough and a choke as a hand of cement reached out and wrapped itself around his throat silently.
"If by he you mean me. I have already found out." An angry voice echoed across the street. "And if you want to continue breathing then I think you should start talking." The voice deepened and was almost a growl at the end of the sentence. The two men didn't even need to look to realise who had just arrived.
He didn't look how they expected.
The Hokage was very famous across the land. Yes, he had bright yellow hair, but the boyish good looks that everyone spoke about weren't there, neither were the dashing blue eyes and cheeky wide grin.
Instead, his eyebrows were creased, framing the darkest red eyes Takumi had ever seen. The glare he was directing at Ran was enough to make the grown man shudder in fear and look to the floor in avoidance. His mouth was pursed, angry, and two sharp canines were peeking out of his lips, making the dark lines on his cheeks look feral, animalistic.
"I-I-… Uh…" Takumi stumbled over his words, breathing too quickly to be able to think straight.
Ran nodded quickly. "Look, we didn't know she was pregnant until it was too late. We wouldn't have done it otherwise."
Naruto sprung, grabbing Ran by the throat in a vice grip. He wasn't thinking about how hard he was holding, he wasn't thinking about anything except- "Where is MY WIFE?!"
"S-some guy took her." Ran choked out, reaching out to grab the hand that squeezed at his throat. He would have recoiled from the touch if he could; the burning hand setting his throat aflame. Even reaching up with his arm to try and pull it off was leaving chakra burns on his palms.
Takumi was too shocked to move. He watched, bug-eyed as his partner gasped for breath under the hands of a demon. He always swore he would help his friend if it ever came down to it – they had been through so much together. Sure, they didn't always get along. Ran spent a lot of time yelling at him for being stupid, or trying to get him to man up when they could win big. He loved that about Ran, though. They were brothers. Family. And that's what family did for each other; pushed each other when they needed it. They were only family each other had ever had. He would never leave Ran to his fate if he could help. There was nothing that could stop him from helping out his best friend. Not when he needed him.
Ran gulped, grasping onto his throat tighter now – no longer feeling the pain of the chakra burns. He was beginning to not be able to feel anything, to be perfectly honest.
And there was Naruto Uzumaki, the Hokage of Konoha, staring him down with no emotion on his face – with the exception of one; pure hatred.
Takumi spun on his feet, teeth clenched tightly together and ran. Sprinted as fast as he could away from what was happening before his very eyes. He couldn't watch any more. He knew he would be next.
Ran's eyes rolled into the back of his head.
So much for family.
_FURY_
Hinata held back tears as she carefully pulled herself to her feet, one hand to her stomach and the other to the cold stone wall beside her.
It was dark, but she had always had great vision in any circumstances.
She wished she didn't have to see this.
She was in a cell, riddled with rust and dirt, but strengthened with chakra wire and locks upon locks. This has obviously been around for a long time and continued to be reinforced as the bars started to rust. She was also ridded with a chakra restrainer, inked onto her skin with chakra ink, not even a blade could pierce through that fuinjutsu. Hinata rolled her eyes, she was heavily pregnant, there wasn't any chakra that she could use at this point anyway.
But what Hinata couldn't understand was why she was here. She hadn't done anything to anyone in months. Since her pregnancy she had been pretty much confined to Konoha, so she hadn't done anything to anger any prominent people.
Naruto, on the other hand, was a different matter.
She knew he hadn't been going on any missions lately – similarly, he had confined himself to Konoha to simply watch over her in her pregnancy. Usually, he still loved to go on missions, even as the Hokage. He tried to get out into the action as much as possible, even though it did make Hinata worry. She did love it when he would organise to go on a mission with her, though. They would see it is a bit of an adventure, and a bit of a holiday – which probably wasn't the smartest thing to be doing, but who was going to tell him off for it?
Probably Shikamaru. Actually, Shikamaru had probably already told him off for going on missions with his wife. "They take twice as long when you go on missions together" Hinata smiled at the thought, predicting what Shikamaru would complain about. Naruto, of course, would laugh it off.
Nevertheless, Naruto had not been out of the village almost as long as her. But he was also the Hokage of Konoha.
And no matter the circumstances, the Hokage of Konoha would have a lot of enemies.
I hope you're not blaming yourself for this, Naruto. Hinata sighed, looking up past the rusted bars.
Her eyes widened at the world just outside her prison. Cells were lined up across the walls, far too small for anyone to be comfortable. It smelt far too badly for her to even think about eating anything without vomiting, and she wasn't sure if that was coming from the questionable blood and other various stains around the place, or the people. There was no privacy, no freedom, nowhere to stretch or sleep without feeling watched.
And she was being watched.
Groaning was coming from the next cell over.
She glanced over to see a filthy man with dirt ridden strings of hair forming clumps of dreadlocks down his back. His skin was a sickly grey, as if he hadn't seen the light of day in years, and he was covered in nasty red scars, some healed, some stinging inflamed purple and blue, infected or still in the process of healing.
And he was masturbating.
Hinata cringed, turning away from the sight. She was going to throw up.
The man had been staring straight into her cell, wide eyed in pleasure as he groaned and pulled at himself. He was mumbling derogatorily under his breath, far too quiet for Hinata to hear – thank Kami.
Hinata needed to block it out. The man needed to stop staring at her. She couldn't breathe under this…. this disgusting invasion of her privacy. She was not a… a…
What was she even doing here? What was this place? What was going to happen to her? Trying to tune out the moaning, Hinata didn't want to know. She glanced over at the line of cells on both sides of the room. Each and every one was filled with one man, either standing or sitting around. It didn't matter what they looked like or where they were in the room, each and every one was looking in her direction.
She was the only woman in the room.
She didn't look too closely, there was only one man in the cell to the left of her, and no one was occupying the one on the right. Hinata didn't want to see what the other men were doing.
Hinata took an unstable breath. She really was going to throw up.
But she needed to hold it in. Wasting the last morsels of food she had eaten by throwing up would not be helpful in this situation. She needed to… think of something else. Anything else.
She really just wanted to go home.
She didn't really want to think to much into any of this either because she had been conscious for almost three minutes now and not a second of it had been good.
What did they want from her?
Hinata cried, turning to face the one solid stone wall of the cell, not wanting to see anything anymore. She felt a small kick from her stomach, and held her baby closer to herself. Whatever it was, she wouldn't let them get it. She was not going to let anyone hurt her, or her boy.
"Don't listen to that," She whispered to her baby, focusing on the cracks in the stone to distract herself from her environment. "I'm here, just listen to your Kaa-chan. Listen to my voice. It's just the two of us. Just the two of us." She rocked gently side to side to calm her upset baby – and herself.
"Tou-chan is coming soon."
I hope.
_FURY_
Tears sprung from Takumi's eyes as he disappeared from the scene.
The Hokage of Konoha was literally the scariest person he had ever met. If he stayed there for another second he had no doubt in his mind that he would have lost all control of all bodily functions and wet himself.
All he had heard about the leader was that he was kind, benevolent and a little bit dense in the head.
They must have all been lies.
Carefully constructed to make people underestimate the Hokage of Konoha. Which didn't make sense at all, considering none of the legends or the whispers had said he was weak. The opposite, in fact.
But this… malevolence was unheard of.
He didn't look like he had a soul.
No sense of pity, or kindness or even understanding. Takumi finally realised how that man could take control of a village; fear. He was genuinely so terrifying that the people of Konoha had to do everything he said out of fear for their own lives. You didn't need to respect someone to listen to them, you needed to fear for your life – that was much more successful. He had no idea how the people of Konoha could live in such a state of fear, but he knew that he needed to get out of here.
And never come back to this depressing desolated town.
Naruto Uzumaki was a monster, and people needed to stay away from him. Takumi had no idea who that guy who employed them was, but he thanked god he wasn't him right now. It didn't look like the Hokage would stop for anyone. No emotion on his face, he almost killed Ran-
Ran.
He was probably already dead by now. Takumi shuddered as tears tracked down his cheeks. "Why did we agree to this stupid idea?"
"What stupid idea?"
Takumi stumbled, looking up at the voice.
_FURY_
"Ah, Mrs. Uzumaki." Hinata startled as a voice cut through her thoughts. She had been staring at the wall for well over two hours now, using this time to meditate and calm her nerves. She had known stress was not good for her baby and she needed to be in a good headspace to be able to figure out what was happening – and how to get out of here. "I'm glad you're finally up."
She took two long deep breaths to calm her nerves before twisting on her bench. Making eye contact with the man in front of her, Hinata flinched in confusion.
"Who are you?"
The question was genuine. In all honestly, Hinata had expected to at least be able to recognise the people behind her capture. But this man did not jump her memory. He didn't appear to be from a clan she would have recognised, and he didn't appear to be anyone she had known of.
Also, he had referred to her as Mrs. Uzumaki.
Hinata shuddered. What this did mean was that he wasn't here for her – not really. He was really here because of who her husband was. This meant if anything happened to her, her husband would blame himself. Hinata knew Naruto wouldn't be able to recover from something like that. As his wife, it was her duty to look after his health and she had learnt over the years that one of the biggest ways she could do that was by looking after herself. Their son, on the other hand was an entirely new situation. She needed to protect them both. Naruto couldn't lose the both of them – not like this.
Hinata raised her chin defiantly, and closely watched the man in front of her. She would not say anything aggressive or confrontational; she couldn't afford to make this man angry. She knew her place and her position in this place. She was in a cell, he was on the outside.
He was the one with all the power in this situation. And he would be very happy in power, so she needed to appease his ego. He was winning – whatever it was he wanted. And she was relatively okay. Uninjured. Alive.
This was all she could ask for right now.
"Who I am isn't important right now."
Hinata narrowed her eyes. The way he said "right now" meant that he believed himself to be quite important. Is there a connection between this man and Naruto? Hinata took a breath. In all honestly, did it matter? If she knew whether he had a personal vendetta, she could at least be able to figure out exactly how much danger she was in.
Personal vendettas meant he would go out of his way to hurt her, because that would hurt Naruto. It also meant there would be very little for her to do to avoid getting hurt.
If she was here through some other means and this man had a bigger picture in mind. Her pain would be slightly less central to his goals and she might be able to manipulate her way out of here.
Either way, she had a lot of work to do.
She took a moment to analyse his appearance. He had dark skin, obviously tanned from spending a lot of time in the sun. His shape also reflected this; large corded biceps, thick forearms that hinted at similar strength and muscle tone underneath his clothing. This man wasn't new to training or battle. This was abundantly clear by the scar running across his forehead and the corner of his mouth, as well as the eyepatch covering his right eye, indicating the damage he has survived.
He had dark brown hair pulled back into a bun at the top of his head, probably held back to make it easier to fight with. And his one other identifying factor that Hinata could see were vine-shaped tattoos travelling down his left bicep and forearm, black and sharp even against his tanned skin.
Hinata filed all this information into her memory, as well as his chakra signature that she found hard to identify with her lack of chakra herself. Hopefully this could help her later on.
In these moments, the best thing for her to do would be to gather data. She opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted with his next words.
"What you do need to know, is that you are under my control as of now. I'd like to welcome you to your new home, and introduce you to your new housemates who appear to gladly accept your company for your future." He glanced over to her 'friend' from earlier with a smirk. "I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay here."
This time his words came out sarcastically, and he turned back to her. "Do as I say and I'll ensure that the cells between you stay firm and in tact."
Hinata nodded quietly. "I am not unaware of the situation I am in."
The man laughed aggressively, "Actually," he smirked, "You are."
Hinata watched him carefully.
"But it's okay," He turned to walk away, "You'll understand soon enough."
Hinata let out a slow breath as he left the room.
What that meant was there were plans for her.
Beyond being left locked up in a disgusting cell.
She needed to be careful.
_FURY_
He hadn't gotten far.
The man had only run a few blocks before he decided to move. He was flighty, this one, and more likely to spill under pressure.
The man was already trembling, even as he ran as fast as his gangly legs could take him. He was mumbling to himself, obviously thinking too hard to really concentrate on anything he was doing.
"Why did we agree to this stupid idea?"
The last of his thoughts were so violent they came out clearly between the incoherent mumbling.
An opening.
"What stupid idea?"
He moved faster than the flighty man would have anticipated. This was clear by the stumbling and gasping in surprised. Using the moment to his advantage, he reached down and grasped the man by the collar of his shirt.
"H-H-Hokage…" The gasp formed a choked word.
Naruto's eyes narrowed.
"You need to tell me everything. Right. Now."
_FURY_
Another chapter done.
Hope you enjoyed!
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