This chapter is in Hinata's viewpoint. I decided the whole focusing-only-on-Sakura-thing really isn't working out as well as I'd hoped, so you can look forward to an expansion of POV's in the later chapters. This chapter is shorter than the last chapter (a measly four thousand words (this is sarcasm because four thousand words is a lot for me!) compared to the seven thousand words of last chapter), but I feel that it really gets the plot moving.
Thank you everyone for reviewing! As I'm putting this up I currently have 776 reviews! Holy shizzle! You're all awesome. :O
Thank you pandamari for your inspirational help this chapter! Also SunshineandDaisys! For more information about their awesomeness check out the Author's Note at the end of the chapter. ;D Also, haikus are mentioned in this chapter, so if you forgot what they were, once again, scroll down to the Author's Note at the end of the chapter to find out.
Also there wasn't much editing this chapter, since I wanted to get this up as soon as possible. And my spell check kept on automatically changing Uchiha to Unchaste. I mean WTF SPELL CHECK! So if there are any random "Unchaste"s in there somewhere, now you know why...
The Gate Amidst the Ivy
Chapter Fourteen
(I say it's time we taught the little bitch a lesson.
Terrified green eyes. Wh-what do you mean? What do you want with me!
Always hanging around with that demon brat… Little girls like you should know better!
St-stop! Leave me alone! If you don't, I—I'll tell the council elders!
And do you really think they'd defend the demon brat's bitch over us?
Leave me alo—
A sharp slap, echoing throughout the alley.
There's more where that came from.
Help me! SOMEONE, PLEASE HELP ME!
It's a shame you're not a little older though… perhaps then we could have had some real fun with you…)
Hinata couldn't say she minded the confines of her stone cell too much. Unlike others would, she did not chafe at the close, muggy surroundings. They were merely a physical translation of the oppression she had suffered every day since her birth as the Hyuuga heiress. Although she wasn't sure suffered was the right term to use. She knew she was far luckier than many of the people of Fire Country.
She sat stiffly in her cell, clenching her fists tightly. Her back was straightened regally although she longed to slouch. But a Hyuuga could never show weakness. Her eyes were closed, but that did not hinder her vision at all. In a place like this, however, she supposed she should be grateful for the gifts a Hyuuga bloodline had given her. She could anticipate the arrival of the guards far before she heard the scraping of keys in the lock. She could even get a picture of the inmates in the cells near hers, since her eyes could see through walls to a certain extent. She could also even see into the foggy future sometimes—the Hyuuga eyes were truly all-seeing, although she hadn't had a vision since her incarceration yet.
Her eyes were not a skill she employed often, however. As the Hyuuga heiress (though imprisoned, to be sure), she was granted a certain diplomatic immunity that protected her from sadistic guards. But unfortunately her cellmates were nowhere near as lucky as she. Through the thick stone walls of the solitary cells, she couldn't hear the snapping of their bones or smell the acrid scent of urine as they wet themselves in fear of the guards—her other senses were nowhere near as keen as her eyes—but she could see the agony on their faces, the fear, the groveling as they tried to avoid yet another punishment.
There was a pretty brown-haired girl in the cell directly across from hers—or she had once been pretty. But Hinata almost could not stand the sight of what the guards did to her body day in and day out, keeping her eyes affixed on the girl sometimes in a mixture of morbid curiosity and horrified sympathy. From reading the lips of the guards, she could tell that the girl's name was either Akane or Ayune—though more often than not the guards called her slut or bitch and other words Hinata did not recognize. Hinata knew she would never be able to survive that sort of degradation and was glad for the status her rank brought her—though she felt immediately terrible for so much as thinking that.
To her left there was a middle-aged man—almost old, but not quite—with emaciated features and stick-thin limbs. He wasn't visited often by the guards. She supposed it was because they had tired of him, because he never spoke a single word for fear of them now. He simply picked listlessly at his food, eating only because he knew that if he attempted to starve himself the guards would be back. (Secretly, Hinata wondered callously why they even bothered to keep him alive these days.) And whenever a guard did visit he simply curled up in fetal position, abandoning all of the dignity a man of his age and experience should have. He was named Goro or Haru, Hinata gleaned through careful observation, though she found it difficult to narrow his name down any further.
But the one who interested her the most was her cellmate to the right (was his name Naruno? Maruto?). He was blond-haired and blue-eyed and she could tell that his smile would have been something stunning to see, though of course he had never smiled in this hellhole. He cursed and spat and fought against the guards, even though it was hopeless, even though his punishments were painful to watch—whippings and broken bones and systematic starvation. She had only been here for three days, but already she could see he healed inordinately quickly. It was almost… unnatural.
Hinata wondered how long he had been here. His eyes were like dull rock, eroded and smoothened by the constant force of wind buffeting against him, but still there, still strong, still unbreakable. It almost seemed like he had been in this dungeon for years—his growth was stunted and his limbs were weak to prove it—but he fought with the spirit of someone who remained unbroken. He was near death from all the torture, but still he refused to bend. The most recent ordeal had left him unconscious, and Hinata knew his injuries this time were so terrible that unconscious he would stay for quite a long while afterwards... if he even managed to survive. His determination escaped her understanding, and Hinata found that it was all she could do to admire him.
Hinata noticed a guard walking down the narrow hallway in between cells. In case he was visiting her (finally? She hadn't been visited by a single guard yet, except for when the royal guard had brought her down here) , she straightened and arranged her legs in as regal a position as she could manage on a wooden bench. He stopped in front of the door to her cell, and Hinata watched through closed eyes as he searched through his tunic for his prison keys. As he buried the key into the lock, Hinata quickly deactivated her eyes. It simply wouldn't do for any guard to suspect her of attempting to escape.
The door swung open, and Hinata opened her eyes as if surprised that a guard had entered. He was hulking and brown-haired, with a somewhat clever if brutish face that was all broad planes and rough edges. He had brought the meal for the day with him, a bland affair of water and some strange porridge. But it was a meal, at least, and that was more than the other inmates here had had all week. The guard set the meal down on the floor by the door. Hinata knew he wanted her to come to him, to get down on her knees to pick up the food, but she had not lost that measure dignity yet. Even though she was starving...
"The meal is prepared," the guard told her. Hinata stared impassively at him and thought he was about to leave, until he paused. He continued mockingly, sneeringly, "Hyuugas delight in haikus, don't they, prisoner?" He sounded derogatory.
Hinata could not quite hide her surprise between the famed, impassive Hyuuga mask. Well... that was a random question... but as she pored carefully through his words, she realized that everything he had just spoken to her had been in haiku as well. Could this man be loyal to the Hyuugas, not the Uchihas? He claimed that Hyuugas enjoyed haikus... and then he had gone ahead and spoken in haiku. It was far too coincidental.
She was inwardly relieved. Before she had been allowed into an Uchiha stronghold like the main castle, the Hyuuga bodyguards must have made sure that at least a few of the people in the castle were loyal to the Hyuuga. Otherwise, allowing Hinata in was practically a death wish, and while the Hyuuga clan could be called many things, stupid was not one of them. And it seemed that their care had paid off, after Duke Orochimaru had betrayed his hospitality. If they did not have a plan for her escape, at the very least they had a plan to make her experience much easier than it should be, or else they wouldn't have tried to communicate with her.
Hinata let a lengthy silence stretch between them before answering consideringly, "Of c-course we do, guard. May I ask why y-you wonder? Is that too forward?" You're a Hyuuga. What is going on here? Tell me what's happening.
"Namikaze was—a great poet and seer. My most preferred verse—" The guard paused, waiting for Hinata to interrupt.
A sudden flash of inspiration hit Hinata. There was a famous Namikaze phrase... that dealt with birds and escaping... and birds were the favored imagery of the Hyuugas... could it be that the guard was trying to warn her of an impending jailbreak? "It would be: 'Hawks hunt silently/At midnight they escape, quick,/To their broods and nests', would it not, guard? It is the favorite of many." Will the Hyuuga guards be sneaking in at midnight to free me?
The guard continued sneering at her, but made no move to the negative. Hinata inwardly breathed a sigh of relief again. So she would be saved from this terrible pit. She almost trembled in relief, but she didn't want to jump to conclusions yet... She continued, "My most favorite of his more obscure verses, however, is this: 'But a little proof/Is needed for even the/Faithful believers.'" Prove to me that the guards are coming to save me. I'm still not sure yet.
The guard growled at her, "But Namikaze went on to say: 'When there is no choice/One must accept promises/That may be specious.'" I don't have any proof with me. You'll just have to trust me. He went on to say, " And I never asked for your opinion anyways, prisoner. Be glad I don't have you whipped for insubordination. Eat your meal quickly. It may be the last one I'll ever bring you."
This will be the last day you'll be in this prison.
The guard left, satisfied, as Hinata lowered her head in deference, his keys jingling in his tunic. She could keep up appearances for a bit longer.
Hinata decided to check on the blond again with her Hyuuga eyes. She had a strange, almost obsessive fascination with him and realized with almost suffocating sadness that she could feel his life force slipping away, trapped as he was in his prison. He was going to die soon, she was sure of it, from the injuries and the starvation and the abuse.
And she couldn't get the image of his fire-spitting, dull-rock river-blue eyes as he cursed at the guards out of her head.
Sometime later, a resting Hinata awoke to the sound of a key scraping against her prison lock. She had felt uneasy in this place—who wouldn't?—but had decided it would be wise to get some sleep before the escape attempt so she would not hinder her saviors too much. She sat up, ramrod straight, and watched quietly as two men entered her cell. It was the guard from before, as well as one of the best Hyuuga bodyguards in their history, a man named Neji Hyuuga. The bitter look in his blank eyes frightened her, almost as much as the sibilant Duke Orochimaru's leery gaze. She did not know what she had ever done to earn his animosity, but he did his job—far better even than those earnestly loyal to the Hyuuga name—and Hinata was not surprised that he had been sent on this crucial mission.
"Get up," he told her frigidly. "we're going to put a powerful notice-me-not spell on you. There's a carriage waiting by the main stables, ready to go. You must be silent at all times and obey us unthinkingly, without question. Do you understand?"
"Y-yes," Hinata nodded her assent shakily. While the brunette guard stood by the side, Neji strode forward. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he stared down at her, murmuring archaic words of magic that Hinata more felt than heard. She blushed shyly at his proximity—then a flash of pained blue eyes nearly unbalanced her. She wondered if those blue eyes would soften if they looked at her... and then in shock she wondered what was happening to her. She was fairly certain she was blushing harder as well.
"Come on, we have to leave quickly," urged the guard. "I've been assigned the sole watch tonight, but there's no telling if someone decides to come down here unannounced."
Neji said the closing words, and Hinata gasped softly at the strange feeling of pins and needles all over her body. It was unpleasant if not painful. What was more painful was the thought of leaving blue-eyes (Naruno?) behind. He was unconscious... near death... he didn't even know her, or she him, but his defiance... his eyes... she was half-sure that she was in love with him already, and she wasn't even sure that she knew his name. She was coming up with a plan, an idiotic plan...
"D-do you have the keys to all the cells here?" she asked the guard tentatively.
The guard glanced at Neji for permission to speak (this secretly embarrassed her—she should be the dominant presence in a room, her father had always told her), and then said, "Yes. Why do you ask?"
Hinata turned pleadingly to Neji, working up her courage. "P-please—there's a p-prisoner here. His name is Naruno. Could we—could we p-please bring him along?"
Neji did not even give her request a moment's consideration. "No." He began dragging her out of the cell, the guard following.
Hinata bit her lip, wishing she could twiddle her fingers. "P-please, Cousin N-Neji! He—he has an unnaturally fast healing rate," she said desperately. "Our h-healers could study him, f-find out his secrets—"
There was a sharp pain in her cheek. Hinata stared up at Neji in complete, wordless shock. As the Hyuuga heiress, no one had ever dared to raise a hand to her. Never. Cruel words were well within her experience, but actual physical violence—
"Listen, dear heiress," hissed Neji, making the endearment sound like a dirty word. "you have been living a spoiled, sheltered existence all your life. This is the one day you will not get your way, do you understand? It is your fate to be saved, just as it is this inmate's fate to die. This is inescapable—"
Hinata was filled with a cold rage unlike anything she had ever felt before. No one had hit her. No one had ever accused her of being spoiled and sheltered—she knew there were others who had suffered far more than she, but her existence was anything but idyllic, with the weight of the clan's future on her shoulders since her birth. And she knew above all that she would never be able to live with herself if she left Naruno behind. She wished she could take along everyone in these cells with her, but even she knew that was impractical, and someone like him, someone who refused to break or to bend, deserved to live. He deserved to live far more than her, anyways; Hinata knew she could never have stood a single moment of the pain he had. "No, you listen, my dear bodyguard. I am your mistress, and as your mistress I am ordering you free this man as well as me. I will refuse to leave this cell until you agree upon your honor as a Hyuuga to treat his life with the same priority you would treat mine."
That was a monumental declaration. In effect Hinata was telling Neji that Naruno was just as high-ranked as her, just as aristocratic. The guard coughed nervously. "We have to leave soon—"
Neji's eyes glittered coldly. "I should just knock you unconscious. Your attempt to circumvent fate—"
"I have no wish to listen to you prattle on about fate," interrupted Hinata with a confidence and coldness she was nowhere near feeling. "If you dare to knock me out, then once I return to the Hyuuga compound I will have you stripped of your rank and expelled from this family. You will be forced to live your days as an exile, as a half-living, half-dead man. No Uchiha land would accept you, you having been a Hyuuga, and no Hyuuga would accept you either, you having been exiled. You will be required to flee far from here, and nothing could save you from our righteous wrath."
Neji stared down at her, his face hateful. His eyes stayed fixed to Hinata, though his next words were directed at the guard. "Very well then, guard. You have heard the Hyuuga heiress's words. Free this Naruno." His gaze sharpened on Hinata. "I suppose that is your way of showing gratitude, is it, Hinata?"
Hinata stayed guiltily silent. She knew she would be expected to reprimand Neji for his inappropriate familiarity with her, but she could not find it within herself to do so. She couldn't blame him for being bitter, after all. She had just threatened Neji's entire well-being, all for a strange prisoner. Her actions were incomprehensible to her, but all she could feel now was a tremendous relief that Naruno would be saved.
As the carriage rolled off, the ebony horses running silently across the road, Hinata allowed herself a deep breath. Neji sat beside her, utterly stiff. The guard (she found out later that his name was Daitaro) sat next to their extra tag-along, making sure he did not fall off the carriage seat in his unconscious state. Their escape had gone off flawlessly, nearly too flawlessly almost, save for Neji's and her altercation at the beginning. There was a great tension between them now, far more tangible than before. He was dangerous to her now, Hinata realized with great sadness. It would be so, so easy for him to be lured into becoming a traitor... but thankfully, he still had a bone-deep loyalty to the Hyuuga clan that was unbreakable, though it had come close to shattering today.
But all those paled in comparison to the almost-relief she felt, staring at Naruno across the seat from her. He was smaller than she'd realized, but being trapped in prison had of course stunted his growth. His blond hair was matted, stringy, dirty. His skin was covered with a thick layer of dirt, and his clothes could barely be called rags. He had several wounds across his body, large, gaping, open wounds that had been inflicted only to hurt, that had been rubbed with sand and tar and oil until they were infected, festering messes. He breathed uneasily, making a painful wheezing sound with each inhalation. His right arm was bent at a sickening angle, and she was certain all of his fingers were broken. He was bleeding all over the carriage. She did not even want to think about the state of his back.
"Do you—do you think he'll s-survive?" asked Hinata softly.
Neji stared distantly out the window, though Hinata doubted it was for the landscape. It was impossible to see anything in the dark of night. "It is his fate to die."
Daitaro looked down at Naruno. "It's unlikely... although you did mention his remarkable healing rate."
"I-I did..." Hinata wavered uncertainly, worried for him.
"By the way, about Naruno..." began Daitaro.
Hinata looked up from her close inspection of Naruno, surprised to see the smallest hint of a smile on his rough, wide face. "Y-yes?"
"I believe his name is Naruto. That is what the other guards called him, at least."
Blushing furiously, Hinata said, "O-oh. I—I didn't know."
OH YES I JUST HAD NEJI BITCH SLAP HINATA. It was fun.
Also, I was originally going to have Naruto be dead (yeah, yeah, blasphemy, I know, whatever). So you have pandamari to thank for his current state of living. She harangued me last chapter over IM until I gave in and agreed to make Naruto reappear magically somehow (DESPITE THE FACT THAT I ORIGINALLY PLANNED HIM TO BE DEAD! NOW HOW AM I GOING TO FIX THE PLOT HOLES MARI! GRR!) ...Oh well. I think I have something figured out. And if I run into trouble I shall pester Mari until she helps me. Because she owes me now... So no worries noble readers!
Everyone give a big round of applause to SunshineandDaisys! She's reviewed EVERY SINGLE FREAKING CHAPTER of this story with the longest reviews I have ever seen for each chapter! I'd also like to take this moment to thank everyone else that reviewed, especially those who reviewed every chapter. You guys make me smile! :) Also, thank you for all the compliments on me trying to using science last chapter! XD I'm taking AP Bio next year (OH GAWD SUMMER HOMEWORK I STILL NEED TO START!), and I've heard that the class is a real killer, so I need all the extra knowledge I can get. xD
Anyways, notes for this chapter:
Haiku is a type of poetry usually found in Asian cultures. It follows a 5-7-5 syllable scheme; that is, the first line must be five syllables, the second line most be seven syllables, and the third line must be five syllables. I wrote all the haikus used in this chapter, which should be pretty obvious seeing as they all suck big time... clearly I am not cut out for a career in poetry. At least I learned that much from writing this chapter. xD Anyways, please forgive the epic fail-ness of most of these haikus. I tried my best but sometimes the best is not good enough... xD Just for kicks, here are all the haikus in this chapter, spaced out to make their poetic structure clearer. They are in order of how they appear in the chapter.
The meal is prepared.
Hyuugas delight in haikus,
Don't they, prisoner?
...
Of course we do, guard.
May I ask why you wonder?
Is that too forward?
...
Namikaze was
A great poet and seer.
My most preferred verse—
...
Hawks hunt silently.
At midnight, they escape, quick,
To their broods and nests.
...
But a little proof
Is needed for even the
Faithful believers.
...
When there is no choice,
One must accept promises
That may be specious.
God, poetry fail.
Remember to review! I would love you forever and ever! This time, if you review, I'll give you your own rainbow...
edited 8.17.10