Sweets: YES! Another chapter!
Hinata: Yay!
Itachi:...walking away. Now.
Sweets: Anyway...I'll be posting at a steady stream thanks to summer. Updating is taking a lot out of me.
Please review!
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Chapter 8: Delerium
Hinata's pale, feverish body was first brought before the council, not Itachi. The furious, red-eyed man was sitting on his platform, resisting the urge to spill the clay master's blood right then and there. The rest of the Akatsuki got a good look at her dying form.
Deidara had scooped her up roughly and rushed her to Itachi's living quarters. Unfortunately, for the both of them, Leader-sama was there, discussing the very creature that had burst into Itachi's room in Deidara's arms. The Leader decided then and there that she was to decide her own fate in the Akatsuki by living or dying. They would deal with Orochimaru later.
The Uchiha scroll was left in Itachi's room, a forgotten bargaining chip.
The girl was slipping in and out of consciousness, only marked by the feble raising of the hand or the silent grasp of Itachi's robes. She was only a few inches away from Itachi and her hand always reached from skin, he brushed it away and she had to settle for his cold, black robes.
"She is dying." Hidan observed, scrutinizing her with his sneering eyes.
"You stated the obvious." Kisame snapped, his own eyes closed, his mind open.
Over the past few days, he had...well...grown accustomed to her. He liked to freak her out, like Deidara. He liked to play mind games with her, insult her, talk to her...Kisame opened an eye. This did not bode well.
"I still think we should sell her," Kakuzu hissed again from his platform, a hunchbacked mass of leering black material. "She would sell for a lot."
"We are keeping her here." Sasori announced, his voice cold, daring anyone to question him.
So Deidara did, because he was still galled at his whole 'rescue mission'.
"Why, yeah? She has a lot of catching up to do. We should just kill her, yeah." he took out a kunai. Itachi, without hesitation, took out eight gleaming shuriken, all poised for killing.
"Why waste her? Sell her!" Kakuzu roared.
"Kakuzu, your greed will be your downfall." Hidan snarled at his partner, trying to calm the tempoary uproar.
"Give her to me..." Orochimaru jumped gleefully into the verbal fray from his respectable platform, eying the girl with a strange zeal.
"Like Hell we will." Itachi muttred, drawing the girl closer to him.
"How about we eat her, eh...she looks like a filling meal." Zetsu whined in his corner, his yellow eyes blazing with hunger.
"Silence."
The translucent Leader glided over to the center of the room, beckoning for Itachi to bring her over. With some reluctance, Itachi carried her over to him and placed her gently in the center for all to gaze upon her. Finally, the Leader spoke.
"Orochimaru, you were instructed not to touch her."
"And I didn't." the snake answered, simply.
"And yet she's barely breathing." Kisame muttered, sarcastically, as Hinata began wheezed shallowly.
Orochimaru silenced him with a glare and hissed,
"You said for me to experiment with the curse marks, and so I did."
Deidara shifted, his visible blue eye was gleaming. He didn't care about the girl, but he didn't like that Orochimaru was lying to the Leader. But he just couldn't remember...
It was something else.
"Ah, but I also said for subjects to be well and whole." The Leader chided.
"It is her own fault for being weak. It is her decision to live or die. You can't experiment with curse marks without taking a risk, Leader-sama." Orochimaru grit his teeth in anger, though mocking the Leader's status.
There was a momentary silence, only to be broken by Kabuto walking in and taking his place in between Orochimaru and Sasori.
"If she lives, Itachi will decided what to do with her. An apprentice maybe? If she dies," the Leader paused. "Let's just say that you had better hope she lives."
The two men visibly stiffened, unsure of how to react upon hearing that their lives might depend on the living of a weak and fragile girl. The Leader dissipated, signaling that the meeting was over. Orochimaru smirked wickedly.
"She will die. And you will face the concequences." he laughed, dark malice coating his voice.
In a flash, Itachi had Orochimaru pinned against the cavern wall, little bits of dust and rock raining down upon them. The others turned to watch, while a few stared at the seemingly lifeless girl in the center of the room.
"You will tell me how to undo the curse mark, or face the option of having your head cut off here and now." Itachi snarled, his kunai pressing against the snake tamer's throat. Still, he laughed.
"Itachi, Itachi, Itachi...You are being foolish. There is no way you can save her. There is not enough time." he hissed, gleefully.
Itachi activated his Magekyou Sharingan. Instantly, Orochimaru's world turned red, his white body was literally, nailed to the floor. Itachi was standing over him, his eyes dangerously narrow. Above the tortured Orochimaru, hung an ax, held by the furious Uchiha.
"It's funny how you're willing to risk it all for her." Orochimaru laughed.
"You will endure me cutting off all of your limbs with this ax for seventy-two hours, unless you tell me the antidote." he hissed, raising the ax.
Orochimaru grinned, hideously.
Strike 1.
A true assassin never begs for mercy or compassion.
Strike 2.
A true assassin never screams.
Strike 3.
A true assassin never tell his secrets under pain of death.
Time and time again, Itachi Uchiha hacked off Orochimaru's limbs, watching the gaunt man's face shudder and wince as the ax fell over and over. Blood was spewing everywhere. It was disgusting and horrifying, but they both carried it out.
Seconds past. Deidara and Sasori blinked as Orochimaru collasped on the floor in front of the Uchiha victor. Itachi looked at them and then at a small scroll that was in the cold hands of the serpent conductor. He picked it up and unfurled it, his face remaining indifferent.
"What is it?" Kisame approached him.
"I-I don't know." Itachi said, putting his hands over his eyes, as if he had a headache.
"What? Give me that." Kisame snatched it out of Itachi's hands and read it. He triumphantly smacked the paper and shouted,
"This is the antidote."
Itachi was silent.
"Good." he whispered, his eyes never leaving the spot where Orochimaru once lay.
"Uchiha-san. Are you alright?" Sasori turned his attention to Itachi who clutched at his head.
For a split second, it looked as if Itachi was going to turn on them and slaughter his companions then and there. Then, Hinata gave a sharp cry and curled into a tighter ball. Itachi hesitantly walked towards her. He was beginning to understand...
Hinata had always, and will always effect him in ways he could not comprehend. She had capturedhim from the very moment they had met all those years ago.
"Itachi. Did you know this was the antidote?" Sasori asked, taking the scroll from Kisame who was bewildered.
Slowly, the Uchiha raised his weary head and shook it.
"Eh? Why?" Deidara walked over, making sure to kick Orochimaru in the head as he walked past, all thoughts of the poison gone.
Itachi glared at them.
"I couldn't see it." he said, his pale fingers roaming his face.
Kisame gave him a look.
"The hell does that mean?"
"Kisame, I'm blind."
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Orochimaru was not a happy camper at this time. His head hurt, and his eyes had bandages over them. Thick dark, ugly things that wrapped around his pale yellow eyes made him equally as blind as the Uchiha and lacking in a vital sense.
Kabuto had him on life support and every few hours, the silver haired man had to do a mental check and pratically tear open the bandages to see the eyelids, making sure his master's eyes were still functioning. However, Orochimaru was grinning all the while.
"Kabuto," he began lazily as heard the medic nin move about. "What do you think of Hinata Hyuuga?"
The man did not looked up from his work and answered quietly,
"She is too young."
Orochimaru gave a hollow, mocking laugh. A small, dark serpent slithered over his bed and disappeared into the shadows.
"She is a beauty, is she not?" he smiled, leaning back into the dark, dirty sheets.
Kabuto merely nodded.
"I wonder..." the snake hissed. "They do not know that it is not a curse mark...but a poison."
It was then the medic nin set down his clipboard and sighed.
"Orochimaru-sama, you are trying to make a point but I'm just not seeing or hearing it."
The older of the two gave another spine-chilling laugh.
"What if I was to say...take her in as my own pupil? Or rather...control her. She would certainly have some other uses besides training."
Kabuto stiffened.
"Itachi never lets her out of his sight. Besides, she might not live through this ordeal anyway."
Orochimaru waved his hand lazily, feeling quite disheartened at the lack of sight, but his ideas growing by the second.
"Oh no. She has time. I gave him the antidote you know."
Kabuto dropped a vial and it shattered to the floor, the sound echoing in the large room they were situated in.
"You what?" he asked, completely bewildered.
"Oh yes, our little Hinata-hime will be fine. The antidote works well. However," he laughed darkly. "It only treats the curse mark wound. It requires Itachi to draw some blood to take away the mark, leaving the poison and the chemicals used in the antidote. His blood will be used."
The dawn of understanding came onto Kabuto's pale face.
"Then...his blood will flow through Hinata's veins?"
The combination of poisoned blood with an Uchiha's.
"Hai. Really Kabuto, I sometimes wonder about you. You're such a simpleton. " the man laughed, knowing how much it vexed the medic.
He wants the Uchiha's blood so he can complete the poison inside Hinata.
Kabuto turned back to the charts and reminded himself never to underestimate Orochimaru and to never forget the cunningness of the snake that had made him a Sannin. Though the man had lost one of his senses, Kabuto might lose his life. He sighed.
"Hai, Orochimaru-sama."
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R-E-V-I-E-W. Sorry if it's complex. DON'T KEEEEEEEL MEE!