Alleviation

Notes: Ok. A longish chapter. Yay! Anyway, Thank you to MissShannell, darkangel211101, brokenAngel89, Meibou, Schural, and Kitsune onna no Rai for reviewing! And thank you to all the have read and will hopefully continue to read!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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Chapter 3: Nightmares and Dreamscapes

The girl did not wake up to sunlight. Instead, she awoke to more dirt and grass. Her head was against a tree trunk, a small bed roll under her dirty form. She smelled smoke.

Her eyes were fully open now and she shot up. Itachi's crimson eyes were visible through the opening dawn. Kisame's silent form was next to him.

"Go back to sleep." he ordered quietly.

Hinata stayed where she was, her eyes wide and frightened. His eyes turned from red to black. He looked at her. She couldn't tear her gaze away.

Hinata's mother always told her that if you looked deep enough, you could see a person's soul. Itachi's soul was something she did not want to look at. It would ruin her vision of him.

He was her savior. Her hope...and right now, her everything. Hinata practically worshiped him. He had saved her from her family.

Hinata wanted to break the gaze...but there was something in that black obsidian that held her.

He beckoned to her.

"Come here." he said, almost silently.

She obediently went to him. She crawled on her hands and knees, because her legs were numb and overworked. Hinata didn't know what to expect from him. She was scared.

For the first time in her life...she was actually scared of him. Her idol was...frightening.

Hinata felt the feeling of surprise creep up into her as Itachi gathered her into his arms and began to rock her gently. His motions were slow, yet it was as if he didn't know what he was doing.

Silence. A silent conversation was taking place between them as Itachi continued to move her to and fro in his arms.

Don't trust me, Hinata.

Why?

Just because.

But I do. I do trust you.

You shouldn't. I'm not the same as I once was.

What do you mean?

I shouldn't have taken you in the first place.

Don't say that. Please...don't say that.

You won't be accepted. You won't like my lifestyle.

You don't know that.

You aren't a demon. You aren't a murderer.

I know.

Leave.

No. I can't.

Itachi pushed her out of his arms and stared at her. Hinata looked at him shyly from behind her lashes. He broke the gaze and rolled over to catch up on a few hour's sleep.

So many unanswered questions.

How irritating.

It was unusual to see the three figures in that town. The sleepy town was not unlike Konoha in many senses. For one, it had many trees and shops. The people were the same. Optimistic and naive. Oh so naive.

It was nighttime when Kisame and Itachi wandered in, mystery and fog surrounding them. Hinata was concealed in Itachi's black and red cloak. She felt like she was suffocating, but she knew better then to tell that to the man who was protecting her.

She knew better.

The Byakugan was a prized tool in all of the nations. If people saw her, an unmarked Hyuuga, it would just cause problems for all of them. Kisame was still all for ditching her, but Itachi told him bluntly that she was in too deep and would probably die on her own.

Hinata was grateful for a short time being, but felt deeply wounded.

So much for love.

With her Byakugan activated, Hinata took in the surroundings of the town. She felt a stab in her heart when she saw the children playing and laughing. Her mind began to drift back to her home.

'What are you all doing now that I'm gone?' she thought, pained.

Hinata now just began to think of the consequences of her actions. Her poor mother. Hanabi...she would now have to deal with the pressure of the title. Neji. Her heart began to ache.

I'm sorry.

Bitterness clouded her mind and she felt the unwanted emotion come into view again. She knew she made the right choice. She had freed herself. She had done this for herself. And nothing and no one would take that away from her.

Always...she did things for other people. It was her time to be selfish. This was what she wanted. Her liberation from the family that tormented and dragged her down.

Liberation. How sweet was the word.

This is my salvation.

Night had settled on the sleeping village. Mist rolled in and touched the walls of the houses, and twisted over the whole area. It was a beautiful coverup. They entered a small, quiet building that was dark and broken. It was pushed to the wayside and not looked at. The perfect hiding spot.

Itachi withdrew his cloak and walked off silently, as Hinata slowly took in her new surroundings. Such a strange and forgotten place...

She was in a small abandoned building. Rust and dirt covered the once white walls and there was dust everywhere. The wood floors had a thin layer of grim and filth all over them. The remains and stench of the carcasses and skeletons of dead animals filled the air. Hinata would have usually shrunk away from these kind of buildings, but she didn't quite care anymore.

It seemed to be an old apartment building. Abandoned and left to rot. No one cared much about this building anymore. It was just there, like an afterthought that just didn't work out. Maybe that's why Itachi and Kisame chose it. No one bothered to look at it anymore.

In a lot of ways, the building was like Hinata. It had once used to have been white, but now rust and dirt covered it. The young, frightened girl was so innocent, but now she felt like a criminal, running away from home. She was filthy, physically, and her soul was stained.

She had always been 'just there' when she was in the Hyuuga compound. She was the afterthought of the house. No one cared about her anymore. No one really looked at her.

Hinata was a disgrace.

Tiredly, she looked at her dirty hands, all the while thinking that this was just a dream. Everything...was a bad dream. She would soon wake up, four years old, and loved. Her mother would be alive...her father would dote on her, Neji would hug her...no little sister to worry about.

It's all their fault.

Once again, Hinata began to seethe with an unknown fury. Her hands curled into fists and her blood was hot.

I hate them.

"Hey. You. Thing."

What a wonderful way for Kisame to call her.

Hinata slowly turned. Anger still painted her features and Kisame looked at her curiously. He could feel the hatred radiating off of her, but it was not meant for him.

'She holds some potential. Even if she is a weakling.' he begrudgingly began to admit to himself.

Hatred, afterall, was, and always had been, the first step towards the underworld of the Akatsuki.

"Yes?" she asked through grit teeth.

"Get over here." he beckoned and began to walk away.

Hinata scrambled up and regained enough balance and composure to follow the demon.

Suddenly, as if breaking from a trance, the girl unclenched her fists and opened her eyes. She breathed in deeply, trying to figure out why she was acting this way. The person she was didn't dwell in anger or self-pity.

What's happened to me?

Hinata almost sank to the ground, mentally exhausted. She forced herself to keep moving. She didn't need Kisame to give her a hard time about following him. She needed to prove to him...she needed to prove to everybody...she was something.

I'm nothing.

White, milky eyes began to well up with tears from physical pain and she felt an unbearable sadness.

Her mind flashed to when she was younger. When Itachi was, well, Itachi. He was kinder, somewhat emotional...loving.

She wished to go back when Neji would hug her and tuck her into bed, not beat her senseless, his mind full of hatred over something she couldn't control at the time.

When her father would pick her up and swing her high, not have bipolar disorder in all of the literal senses.

When her mother...she sweet, gentle mother was still alive...still whole and healthy, not six feet closer to Hell.

When Hanabi would ask if they could buy ice cream and flowers for mother. When she would actually care about her older sister, not order her around.

As Hinata followed Kisame, her mind was turning. She shuddered. Kisame was just about as frightening as Itachi. But Itachi's silence scared her even more. When someone was silent...you couldn't tell what they're thinking. It was even more frightening that Itachi was expressionless.

She was a simple girl.

The two assassins were not simple. They were complex; hard to understand. Their reasoning at first seemed rather strange, but their plans...they way they moved...they way they carried themselves.

Yes, these people, these humans, were superior to the rest. They were once young...but had plunged into the darkness of the world without regret or looking back.

No regrets. That's what I want.

Kisame came to a sudden stop and Hinata knocked her head into his side. The shadows of his cloak were ominous, but the look of pure disgust and hatred on his dark face was more then enough to send her reeling and running all the way back to Konoha.

He wasn't looking at her, though. He was staring at something, a figure crouched on the window sill. A sliver of his body could been seen in the moonlight. A body with a long, almost scorpion tail at the back. His face was in shadow, yet there was an outline of another Akatsuki cloak. There was a gleam of red, the small 'click' of gears as the shadow moved.

Kisame put his hand on the Samehada. If anyone hurt Hinata, he would be the one getting cursed and killed from a very enraged Itachi. So he pushed the startled girl back to the wall and grinned, bearing all of his teeth.

"Long time no see." he said, jovially.

"Yes." the figure nodded with passive acknowledgment.

"What brings you to us?" the shark man asked, his misleading smirk resting easy on his navy face.

"Oh, nothing. We were just on a mission and we thought," the figure's eyes turned toward her. "-we would stop by."

Gold clashed with white. Hinata began to back up slowly, her pearly eyes wide with fright.

There are more of them...?

"Boo."

Hinata screamed as another figure descended from the ceiling and gripped her around her waist. The new figure spun her around and she found herself suffocating against the figure whose grip was around her waist and neck.

"Shall I snap her pretty little neck?" a voice hissed. "Or can I slit her throat, yeah?"

She didn't want to look up. She felt herself trembling,and she hated herself for it. However, this wasn't the time to be scolding herself on her weakness. The figure who held her began to laugh mockingly. The grip tightened.

I can't breathe!

"Stop screwing around and let her go." Hinata heard Kisame growl, annoyed.

She suddenly began to appreciate him a little more. Just a little.

"It's just a dream. It's just a dream..." Hinata whispered hoarsly, willing all of them away.

Why aren't they leaving?!

"Go away...go away!" she whimpered as she felt the grip tighten.

Hinata could feel cold hands working their way up and down her body. The same voice on the window sill ordered,

"You've had your kill, Deidara. Let her go."

Still the hands did not release her. Why did Hinata feel like the person's palms were moving? She began to cry from horror.

"I'm dreaming! I'm dreaming!" she screamed hysterically and fought vainly against her captor.

All of a sudden, Kisame approached the two and hit the girl hard on the back of the head. Hinata plunged into the welcoming darkness.

A nightmare began.

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