(A/N: Okay. So. I'm excited because tomorrow, October 3, is my BIRTHDAY! :D But, sadly, it is a Monday, so I'll have to go to school… Oh well. My mom is bringing me Chick-fil-A, so it's going to be an okay Monday. Now, typically, no one likes Mondays, am I right? I'm pretty sure that I am. But tomorrow will be an okay one. Anway, I just wanted to let you all in on the excitement. Know what I did for my party? Had a Disney movie marathon. All three of the Lion King movies, both Mulans [we watched the first one twice], and Tangled. I'm not ashamed of having a Disney marathon. Not even slightly, even though I am old now, it was fun to go back and remenisce. *sighs* So now I suppose I should let you get on with the story that you came here to read, right?
WRONG! XD Nah, just kidding. Mostly a recovery chapter, a bit of introduction to some stuff, you'll see. Not nearly as much excitement as last chapter though. I don't think I will ever be able to do something that violent and bloody again, but there's always hope, right?
Disclaimer: I do not/will not ever own Naruto.)
Mysterious Captivation: Chapter 16
The gravesite was crude, the stone was not made specifically to mark the body's location, and the kanji carved out by the kunai were rough, but it was one of the most touching sights she had seen in her entire life.
Konan watched as the small Hyuuga woman backed away from the stone. Inappropriately for the event, the sun shine brightly lit the area. It made the puddles of crimson glimmer as though they should have painted a beautiful picture, instead representing the bloody battle that had occurred there previously.
Her attention was caught on the other Akatsuki. They hung back, some mourning in varying degrees.
Kisame's head was bowed slightly. Though he hadn't been close enough for the man to call him friend, the Uchiha had been his backup for more years than he had belonged to Kirigakure.
Tobi didn't seem affected in any way, for he was dancing around at the top of the stairs, chasing a blue butterfly.
Hinata had carved the stone with a somewhat childlike determination. Thus far, her eyes had been clear, if a bit red and empyt. Otherwise, she had shown no outward signs of pain or sorrow since the Konoha ninja had fled.
Konan had been hurt by the Uchiha's death, but she had known it would happen to them all, sooner or later. His death had just happened to be sooner. Of course, that didn't make it less painful, but she knew how to deal with grief.
She was worried that Hinata did not.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Konan wondered whether what Hinata had said in the heat of battle had been true, the way she had retold it to them: she told them that she had commanded Itachi to live because she loved him, but had not.
She couldn't help but doubt. Deidara always seemed to be her stronger preference. She never really spent much of her free time with Itachi, other than when she learned her medical jutsu from him and that week we made her spend with him. Could she be hiding something?
The blue haired kunoichi wasn't sure how long the four of them stood in the clearing in front of the house they once shared, but it must have been hours. The sun was descending through a ladder of clouds, nearing the horizon, when Zetsu finally reappeared at the hideout.
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The ex-Hyuuga heiress felt the chakra of the man before he actually rose above ground. "Why did you not stay behind to help after you warned them?" she asked hesitantly, her voice lacking the emotions it normally held.
"You only asked for a warning. I never said I would die for them. He should have been able to fight for himself. It's his own fault that he died. Besides, we had to warn the ones who were still in the forest," the plant-like man managed to defend himself without sounding defensive.
"I see," the younger woman said shortly. "Are there still others out there, or have they all returned to the new hideout?"
"They're gone."
"Let us do the same, then. There is no reason for us to stay behind any longer," Konan stated. Hinata knew that the older woman was worried for her, but she didn't particularly feel anything. Only empty.
The others agreed, and Zetsu dragged Tobi down the stairs. They all took the last of their possessions and turned their backs on the building for the last time. The return trip seemed to pass by before Hinata even realized that it was far past midnight, nearly dawn, even. She wondered whether they were in Kaminari no Kuni yet.
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Kisame approached the small girl whom Itachi had taken under his wing. She seemed to have been in a daze for the entirety of the trip, but when she looked up at the descending moon, the transe-like state seemed to have broken.
"We're almost back at the hideout. Are you okay? You seem a bit out of your wits, Princess," he said, making use of the way his partner had secretly referred to the girl when she wasn't around.
"I'm not sure that I feel at all. I almost expect him to just appear beside me like he always did and everything is going to be fine, and I can use the pain to make me stronger," she admitted, though it seemed a bit reluctant.
"Well, Itachi always did tell the truth. You can do all of that. Now, I'm not really the one to come to for comfort, but if it helps, he will be missed," the Hoshigake stated, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder.
He wasn't used to the typically upbeat girl being so downtrodden, and it was a drastic change from her usual demeanor. He wondered if making it to the hideout and letting her see Deidara for comfort would help any. But that blonde is almost as bad at comforting people as I am!
"Thank you, Kisame-san. I appreciate that you're trying to help me," the feminine voice of his traveling companion sounded beside him. "About how much longer do you think our journey will take?"
"Fifteen, maybe sixteen more minutes at this pace," he responded.
He watched her face for a sign of recognition, but instead of acknowledging his answer, she sped ahead of him, probably to make it home quicker.
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Seven minutes more passed, and the new location for the Akatsuki hideout came into view. Hinata sighed deeply. It was nice to be back with the organization, even though it now seemed incomplete to her, and the other four were traveling still.
The sun was just rising over the horizon, meaning that the Akatsuki ninjas would be awake and preparing for training. Great. Now I'll have to explain to them what happened out there.
She sighed as she made the necessary maneuver, her hand signs and chakra flowing into the release of the cloaking jutsu, and entered the newly appeared stone door in the side of the mountain.
In the circular entrance hall, there were several darkly upolstered, cherry wood chairs located just inside the doorway.
A blonde blur rushed through the open door at the opposite end of the room, and the first thing it did was grasp onto the ex-Hyuuga heiress, his fingers roaming over the blood encrusted on her body.
"I was so worried when Zetsu arrived here to tell us that Konoha had planned an attack on the old hideout, un! Are you hurt? Where is everyone else, hm?" Deidara exclaimed, looking over her from head to toe to make sure there were no visible signs of injury.
"The other four are behind me a little ways," she said, not meeting the young man's bright-blue eyes.
"Four? What happened to the fifth, hm?" The blonde asked, hesitating when he realized the amount of blood that covered the younger girl. "Who didn't make it, un?" His whisper went unanswered for several more moments.
"Itachi-kun," she finally responded, her tone marred with a note of despondency.
As much as the blonde had hated the Uchiha, he hadn't wished death on him. He closed his eyes as the full impact of her words hit his eardrums. He was dead. His rival was gone. She had called him '-kun'. Her usual glimmer was subdued under a coat of crimson blood – quite a bit of it was probably Itachi's. "Come on, let me show you to your room," he said instead of addressing the distressing news, he decided to try to distract her.
He wrapped his arm around her bloody shoulder, not at all worried about his clothes getting stained, and led her down the hall he had come from previously.
He passed Pein while leading the girl. "The others will be back soon; they can explain, Leader-sama," Deidara said, bowing his head and walking onward town the twisting, dark passages
He stopped in front of a tall, oaken door. Opening it, he gently pushed her into her room. He followed shortly behind her. "This hideout's much larger than the other, so we each have our own rooms, yeah. This room belongs only to you, but we all have two beds. If you need me, my room is right across the hall from yours, mm," he pointed in the door's direction, and then to another one on the opposite side of the room, "That room is your bathroom. Go in there to scrub all the dried blood off your body, hm. I'm sure you'll feel warmer and at least a bit better afterward. Once you're dressed, walk across the hall, okay? I'll be waiting."
He felt her nod, then released her shoulder and retreated from her room. At the door, however, he paused. "If you aren't out in an hour, I'm going to come check on you, yeah. Don't take too long," he closed the door behind him.
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Word quickly spread through the Akatsuki ranks that Itachi had been killed. The last to find out had been Hidan, and he had cursed using several colorful words that never need to be strung together again. After the initial impact, however, Hidan asked about Hinata and how she was taking it.
Konan relayed the battle to him, and he gave a low whistle. "Who knew? She really did have some deadly claws."
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Methodically moving about on auto-pilot, Hinata went through the motions of undressing and stepping into the shower. She didn't even stop to ponder why Deidara didn't allow his hands to touch her still.
The water was cool at first, but soon warmed. She let the water run over her face and down her body, closing her eyes and allowing herself to relax for the first time all day.
It was difficult, but she eventually brought her mind to scrubbing the blood off of her body. The water flowing down the drain was still pink, and she knew that she would have difficulty getting the drying, sticky substance out of her hair.
She lifted the soap and washcloth from the shower wall. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she absently wondered who had set up her room and set out her possessions. All she had done was bring boxes into the main foyer of the base.
Finally, the blood was mostly gone from her skin. She lifted her vanilla-scented shampoo bottle and began the long process of cleaning the blood from her hair.
When the water stopped running pink, she lifted the conditioner and went through the cycle once more, then shut off the water and stood in the shower.
She wearily lifted a towel from its rack, dried off her skin, and dressed. She didn't know how long she had taken, and she didn't want to take the chance of Deidara entering to see her undressed.
The Hyuuga woman towel dried her hair as best she could and left the bathroom. She made the short journey across the hall to Deidara's room.
"Deidara-san?" She quietly called, lightly knocking on the door.
It opened, and the blonde man looked out at her with something that looked akin to relief. "What took you so long, hm?"
"It took me a while to get the water to stop running red. Did the others make it back safely?" She asked in return, attempting to divert his attention away from her and her mental health.
"They did. Konan and Kisame were rather worried about you, but I told them I would make sure you were okay, yeah." He smiled softly at her, watching as her eyes began to fill with tears for the first time since Itachi had died in her arms.
"Arigatou," she sniffled, lowering her eyes to stare at her feet.
Her chin was lifted by Deidara, and she frowned at the sorrowful look on his face. He hated Itachi, yet he is still sad that Itachi is dead… for my sake. This thought brought more tears to her eyes, and soon the crystal droplets were slipping down her cheeks.
Deidara let go of her chin and opened his arms, waiting for her to embrace him. Making sure it's okay for him to hug me. She lent into his chest and began to sob, burying her face in the fabric and grasping the cloth around his back as she had so many times with Itachi.
She slowly shifted her weight so that she was completely resting against him. Had he moved, she would have fallen limply on the ground, but she trusted him. She was sure that he would be there to support her throughout the next several days as Itachi's absence became truly pronounced. She rested her bent head against his shoulder, almost curling into herself so that he could rest his chin on top of her head.
Had it been another moment, in a happier time, she would have laughed at their lack of height difference, but now it only reminded her of how comfortable she had been leaning against Itachi.
Not that she wasn't comfortable with Deidara. She felt cradled in his grasp, yet free also. It was a feeling that she had never experienced before.
The blonde explosives expert did not offer soft murmurs to distract her, nor did he tell her everything would be okay. He didn't tell her to get over it, nor did he tell her that she would get past it. He merely held her and let her cry without judgement.
With the Uchiha, she had always felt as though she was a burden because of his brisk manner, and the way he constantly tried to distract her from her sorrow. She had felt loved, of course, but he was not adroit at showing the depth of his feelings.
However, with the ex-Iwa nin, she felt cherished, as though he could spend all day standing with her in his arms without losing patience. He was a few inches shorter than Itachi, with a slighter build, but broader shoulders.
Both of them truly cared for her, and the decision would have been a hard one to make, but that hadn't meant that she wanted one of them to die. Especially not when that person was only fighting to protect her. "It's my fault he's dead," she whispered when her tears had calmed enough for her to form words.
"It is not, Hinata-san, and you know that. Don't take responsibility for his death when you don't have to. Losing him will be hard enough, but if you convince yourself that it is your fault, then you will never move past this troubled time in your life," he said compassionately, "What would make you think that it's your fault?"
She closed her eyes, not wanting to see his expression when her logic made sense to him. "Because you kidnapped me and trained me, I became one of the Akatsuki. Since I stayed with Akatsuki, Konoha found out where our hideout was, and they came to get me back. I made them mad, so they came back to fight us. Since they came back for me, I was told to stay close to Itachi-san's side. I am the medic, and because I missed my mark, Itachi-san was killed. Even though I am the medic, I could do nothing to save him. It's my fault he's dead," she wanted to wail, but she didn't want to be heard by the rest of the organization.
She didn't even realized that she had reverted to calling him 'Itachi-san' again.
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His eyes lit up slightly at the formality she had unknowingly added to his late rival's name. Maybe she hadn't truly been in love with him. Maybe a familial love, but not in love.
Good thing I told Konan to warn everyone to stay away from this wing for a while. Hinata would be mortified if anyone saw her like this. I don't know what to do. I've never been good at dealing with the deaths of people close to me, so how can I offer her any advice? Deidara's mind shouted the question at him several times before he finally admitted defeat. "Listen, if you're going to take the blame like that, then it still isn't your fault. It's mine," he stated, hoping he wasn't making a huge mistake.
Tear-blurred eyes blinked up at him confusedly. "What do you mean?" She questioned, momentarily shocked out of her pain.
"I'm the one who kidnapped you, right? If you're going to take the blame like that, I am the root of the problem, not you, Hinata-san," he bowed his head, hair shadowing his eyes, to look to the side. Anywhere but into her eyes.
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Her eyes widened marginally as she realized the truth in his statement. She could not blame herself for something that general causing Itachi's death.
"Hinata-san, it would have happened anyway. Someone would have found us eventually, and even still, everything would have played out the exact same way," he finished, cupping her cheek, but still not looking into her eyes.
She sniffled again, searching his face for any sign that he was saying this only to make her feel better. Knowing that she would find nothing, whether he was being untruthful or not, it was a short process. "Are you sure no one will blame me?" She faltered for a short moment, then continued. "I'm going to miss him. When you two fought before, I used to get so frustrated. Now, there's so much that I would give to get those times back,"
"I understand. I felt the same way when my parents died. But listen to me," here he paused, placing the fingers of each of his hands on her shoulders and drawing her away from him. "You have to get past the guilt and sadness or it will eat you alive. Either you stop feeling entirely, or you accept the past and learn from it."
He's finally meeting my eyes again. She watched him and his facial expression for a long moment. Finally, "How?" she asked, running the back of her hand across her left cheek.
He tenderly shifted her hand from her left cheek, instead taking his thumb and swiping the tear tracks away as lovingly as he was capable. She gave him a watery, miniscule smile, taking hold of his gloved hand as he moved to put it around her back once more. She felt the flinch as she touched his palm, and immediately unwrapped her hand from his. Grasping his fingers instead, she whispered, "Thank you," bringing their hands to their sides.
She backed away from him, retreating into her room, and shut the door with a click.
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He heard the mechanical sound of the door locking behind her and worriedly looked at it, as though he could see through it.
I hope you're going to be okay, Hinata-hime. I don't know how this will change you, but I hope you let us go through this together.
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Hinata buried her head in her pillow, confused beyond words. She was in a strange room, in a strange land, with a strange atmosphere about it. And to make matters worse, Itachi was dead, Deidara was acting much more sober than usual, and the loving way he had held her was doing things to her mind.
I love both of them. She hadn't realized that while she was in the field, holding Itachi's body in her arms and crying her pain to the sky. She hadn't been able to really think on her feelings lately, but she knew for a fact that she loved Itachi.
She had possessed a crush on Deidara until she had begun training with Itachi. She knew the crush would never go away, but her feelings for the Uchiha were so much stronger, more intense than the ones for Deidara.
Deidara had been her first kiss, and both of them were on shaky ground there. She had believed that there could definitely been deep feelings between them, if given time to develop.
Instead, she had inadvertently focused on her relationship with the raven haired man, so that she could ensure her place in Akatsuki.
Maybe if I had focused on Deidara, this wouldn't hurt as much, she thought, then immediately dismissed the idea. Either way, it would still be excruciating.
She rolled onto her back, contemplating her choices and the future of the organization. Would she take Itachi's place, rather than have Pein rearrange the teams to make room? What if Kisame-san is angry with me for letting his partner die?
The last thought struck horror into her heart. Immediately, she stood back up, unlocked and opened her door, and knocked urgently on Deidara's.
The moment the door slid open, she threw herself into his arms and buried her face, panicking, into his shirt. "What if Kisame-san is angry at me because I wasn't skilled enough to keep Itachi-san alive?"
"Did he seem angry on the trip up here?" Deidara asked, making a mental note to talk with the shark-like man if it was true. His mouth twisted into a feral grimace, wanting to save Hinata from the pain, but completely incompatible with emotions such as the ones she was experiencing.
"Iie, but you are all so good at masking your emotions. I can never truly tell," she admitted slowly. She seemed almost ashamed at her lack of ability to read the S-class criminals, but soon shook it off, he supposed, because the look disappeared. He felt her weight shifting to lean on him again, and appreciated it. It meant she trusted him.
"He probably wasn't. He thinks of you more as a little sister than anything. I can't imagine that he would blame you for not knowing something. More likely, he was worried about you for the entire trip home. The first thing he did when he walked in the door was to find me and tell me that I had to talk to you. The only thing he didn't know was that I already had," Deidara smirked playfully at her, running his fingers through her hair and then patting her head with his fingertips.
"Oh," Hinata made a surprised sound at the information he had given her, but otherwise gave no response. She allowed herself to rest on him for several long moments.
"Are you feeling better now, Hinata-san? I know you've had a rough night, so you probably need to rest,"
There was no reply, so he said the same thing again, slightly louder. He stroked his fingers down her hair, then gently placed them against her face.
She didn't move a muscle, and he realized that she was asleep. For a moment, he stood in his doorway, wondering at the trust she had placed in him. He could do anything to her, from drop her to kill her, and she would be completely at his mercy.
His eyes softened as he knelt as carefully and smoothly as possible to lift her body into his arms bridal style. He carried her into her room and gently placed her on the bed.
He removed her outer cloak and lifted the covers over her body. The blonde shivered, reminding himself that, in this hideout, it would be a good idea to keep his own outer garments on so that he could stay warm.
Stupid cold cave inside of the mountain. At least it was hidden better than their other lair, and there wasn't as much need for a huge concealment jutsu.
"Deidara?" He heard his name as a half-asleep, almost-whispered question from the mouth of the young woman whom he loved.
"What is it, Hinata-san?" He murmured in return.
"I do not want to sleep alone tonight," she confided, eyes blinking shut for a long moment before opening again.
He approached her side, wondering at her forwardness. She reached up and hugged him, then allowed him to lie beside her. The Hyuuga girl snuggled up to his side, resting her head on his chest as her breathing evened out and she truly slept.
Deidara was wide awake at first, with an arm wrapped around her in an uncomfortable position so as to keep his palms away, but soon his eyelids began to droop. He had spent the entirety of the night before in wakefulness, worrying about the petite raven haired beauty by his side.
Before he was even aware that he was tired, he was sleeping soundly by Hinata's side.
(A/N: And there you have it. Mysterious Captivation Chapter 16, up for your viewing pleasure. I do so hope you enjoyed this installment, and let me know if there is anything that I can do to make this better. I'm open to all constructive criticism, and even flames, as long as they are well based and legitimate.)