I had already given up on this story when YukiTenVianey Team convinced me to continue it. So, I will. I'm sincerely sorry if you are one of the first followers/reviewers. You probably want to curse me and are less likely to trust me when I say that I will continue this but I will. Earlier chapters have been edited, so you may want to go back. If you trust me that is. Again, I'm terribly sorry! T_T
Please enjoy! :
-X-
Perched on the roof of the Hyuuga compound, Gaara glamoured his presence, his demoniac aura spilling out of his human form. He sighed ruthfully, stretching out of the restrains of his past humanity. Despite the differences between Konoha and where he came from, humans weren't different. Everywhere he went over centuries of exile, they were the same creatures. They pretended to live by spending their life wishing for things they couldn't archive and they died.
Where he came from, wishes were fluttering promises of death. For them to come true, they had to be uttered in hushed but clear words, their index pressed to the side of their mouth. For as long as he remembered, Suna had always whispered about rolling grains of sand moving dunes and wishes that had damned men trying to move them in the other direction. Wishes gave wings to men the merciless sun would then trap in mirages angered spirits would create for them. As if as pathetic and weak as they were, humans could possibly escape reality. The sun would burn their wings to the ground, ruin their heart and feast on their carcass.
Wishes were cages.
Once, his wish for love had damned him to hell.
His pale glance hardened over the asleep city. Konoha didn't boil like it did during the day. It sway, still and glister in the areas where men never slept. When he had been alive, he had rarely slept. During the night was the time the urges had been the strongest. Southerners knew they should never wish anything during the night. It was said tongues couldn't be trusted in the moonlight, for the eyes were blind to the world.
He had never been blind.
Gaara fought the memories rising, gripping his mind in an iron fist. They taunted him. He had had wishes then. He remembered uttering them, secretive and lenient while his father growled in disgust.
Wishes only bred beasts in Suna.
His fingers found the tattoo on his forehead, his locks of blood tickling the inside of his palm. He had been a beast, made of sand and blood and love. He saw flashes of high sandy towers and heard howling winds that always filled his head whenever he killed or smiled. Gaara grunted jumping to his feet while craning his neck. He called back his true aura inside his body the tiles beneath his feet, fissuring under the pressure.
The Hyuuga compound turned ashen as the sun rose. He spotted the elders that had sought him out on his left. They were puppets of sand and despair, he told himself. He used to manipulate puppets a secure hand around his wrists.
"Kankuro," the wind whispered back to him and Gaara froze in the quivering sun rays. "His name was Kankuro."
The living only wished for death. They were always their last words.
The tattoo on his forehead burnt and his cold fingers once more found its edge, the first curve that he had engraved. He needed to convince Hyuuga Hinata to take as soon as possible before he lost himself to his old mortality or the name of his brother.
"Kankuro," the wind in his head kept whispering.
He jumped down the roof in the last exhale of the night.
-X-
Wish for Love
by Clementive
-X-
Gaara avoided the shoulders pushing past him. The crowd carried them and Hinata blent in. For his part, he was struggling to keep his human form and not burn them all. There were always too many of them, vile creatures bathed in the filth of their sins. There were too many thoughts and wishes glistering on their skin, stinking of their sweat and death. Some of them would stop, bow and stare at the Hyuuga princess.
He watched her, possessively hanging on the scent of her soul. Reaching the market place, she slowed and he was reminded that she was a human with her own wishes. Pitiful ones that would damn her in hell. Wishes for love were the most dangerous ones.
His robes flying around him, he set his jaw, his pale eyes glaring at her small form now trailing down behind him. Hinata twisted her hands in front of her, her pearl orbs searching the crowd. He almost grunted in disgust. His hand fell on her elbow and she startled, her lips agape.
"Didn't your father send you to buy a new kimono, Hinata-hime?" He smirked, feeling the rigidity of her body.
"I-I apologize," she stammered, her voice hollow and soft.
Her soul pulsed and his eyes shone, his smirk widening. He could tear it out of her body, make it a shell and escape the human world with it. Roughly, she nodded but she was barely seeing him. She didn't struggle out of his reach.
Hyuuga Hinata was lost in the echo of her wish.
She was too soft, too engrossed in the way she looked at Naruto to look around herself and realized she was falling. Her wings were withering, scorched by the hellish flames that curved on her lower back. All because of one wish she had uttered out loud.
His claws grazed her soul and he grimaced letting go of her arm. She blinked, her head finally turned towards him. In a fading green light, the chains around her midsection appeared. Her wish still grounded her soul to her body.
"It was cold," she muttered, her cheeks pale and his touch still rippled through her.
The brush of sand echoed in her head, her scent intoxicating, falling in tendrils of ether around of her. Gaara almost reached out again. He stopped breathing, frozen by the curiosity creasing her elegant eyebrows. When she opened her mouth, he watched her spirit force shimmering through her teeth. Her eyelashes veiled her eyes as she looked down at her body. She could feel the weight of the chains but not see them.
Gaara looked away, the wind plastering his red hair on the kanji of love on his forehead. His nostrils flared, shoving her in front of him.
"Why was it so cold?" she asked, her shivers running up his arm where she was holding him.
He clenched his teeth, feeling nothing but flames licking his sides. He had felt cold in centuries. Roughly, he pushed her hand away.
"Where is your stupid shop?" he growled, the voice of Shukaku amplifying the strength of his voice.
"This way."
He trailed behind her, expecting her to demand explanations. He expected her to act like a princess, noncompliant and hammering. He didn't escape the cold harmony detaching itself from her body or the blank accepting expression.
"I almost snatched your soul out of your body."
Her eyes widened, her fear bathing her forehead in cold sweat.
"But you can't," she paused, gnawing at her bottom lip. "My wish hasn't come true yet."
The smirk never formed on his lips. She hadn't been scared of losing her soul; she had been scared of losing Naruto. Wishes killed he had been taught all of his life. However, the way it hanged around her body, snaked around her delicate neck, it made her alive. Wishes were supposed to be cages.
"Why aren't you scared of death?" he asked harshly ignoring the startled glance of the pedestrians around him.
One by one, he invoked his victims through her. Their eyes were wider, their screams present in all the parts of their body. They never had calm orbs fixed on him or their arms held in front of their chest in a shy matter. It had been about blood, defence and death. Why wasn't there death on her? Why didn't her soul reek?
"You said I-I," the words died on her tongue, a smile gracing her lips.
He watched her turn her head towards Naruto. He watched her intake quietly, straightening her back. Waiting. Hoping.
"What do I need to do, demon," her voice was almost confident.
For the briefest moment, his glance found Naruto's and he couldn't answer her. She was too human.
She took a step towards them. Sakura let go of Naruto's hands reaching forward for an apple on a stand. He was too close to her, she wanted to protest. She wanted him to see her, finally. She took another step, Gaara falling back in the shadows.
Naruto felt the pull, the strength of the wish soaked in human tears and whimpers. She shone, her soul twisting out, reaching for him. He felt it brushed the emptiness of his body, stilling the flames inside him. His eyes widened as the shimmer exploded on her skin, blinding him.
He could have loved her. She had never been a mere shadow.
If he hadn't had Sakura, he could have had. Shaken, he let his true nature leak out, her soul turning to ashen. It screeched, her face falling, her lids heavy with her tears.
He looked away, gripping Sakura's hand before running in the opposite direction.
-X-
Her tears were too quiet, Gaara mused his back pressed against the wall of the temple. He had chosen the farthest corner. Her body caved in and she didn't point at him. She didn't shout or surrender. Usually, they scream at this point. Usually, they pull a dagger out of their robes and take their lives. He wished he could call her a coward but a coward wouldn't choose pain. A coward wouldn't choose to stay when the world crumble to dust and bury them.
"Why-y didn't it work?" She asked through her tears.
He pressed himself harder on the wall, his tattoo burning, his gut clutching for something that had never been there; compassion. He let his form leak out of his body welcoming the pressure of darkness and pain. There was no love among demons.
"Because you didn't say his name."
Her lips stretched, working around words she couldn't utter while she was on her knees.
"You said "him"," he added, his eyes turning yellowish. "You have to be as specific as possible when making a wish."
Pain he could understand. Pain he could mould with his hands and tear out of her, layers by layers. But love? He never could understand why humans would give up their soul for something as volatile as love. Love killed. Love was selfish.
He brushed his hair out of his eyes, his tattoo glowing. Had he been human he would have understood her.
"You tricked me," Hinata said quietly with not enough indignation to draw him out of the appeasing darkness.
Gaara narrowed his eyes. How could she be human and selfless?
"Stop crying," he snapped reaching out of the darkness to grip her arms.
She trembled, petrified by the putrid scent of hell rolling off his demon skin. His human face darkened. His claws inched closer to the tears running down her pale skin. Her apologies heaving out of her compressed chest, her eyes closed.
He shook her, her yelp not strong enough. He only wanted her to be human. He shook her again, harder, her dark hair spilling out of her bun.
"St-top!"
His claws sliced through the silk of her sleeves.
"P-please!" she begged, her skin boiling beneath his palms.
"Naruto is a demon," he exploded.
He panted, drinking in her surprise. He repeated it in her hair, his breath burning her neck until she blanched. He told her his real name, called him Kyuubi when he told her of the villages he had wiped out when he had been human. He kept talking of cadavers and ruins, her body drained between his arms. He licked his lips when he saw nothing but horror on her face.
Her face had withered when he let go of her, the whispers of the sand dying in his head. Finally, she was in pain.
-X-
They whispered she had failed again.
The silence of the gardens swept over Hinata. She couldn't reach for anything outside of her body. She let everything wash over her without reaching out, without protest.
Her new kimono had been for her engagement. It had been for her exile towards the land of her husband. At least, they wouldn't have to call her Hyuuga once she took his name. She heard the cold voices, saw the relaxed shoulders of two of her uncles who exchanged a glance, but her features were remained blank, out of reach. At least, they wouldn't have to call her a heiress anymore. Her sister avoided looking at her.
She didn't tell them of the coldness spreading in her veins of her heart that refused to beat and volatile soul a demon had claimed. She didn't tell them it didn't matter. She would obey, she would marry, but it didn't matter.
The man she loved was a demon.
The man she loved was hatred and flames.
All those years watching him, she hadn't noticed his shadow made of nine tails. She hadn't cared about the way he had looked at Sakura, his eyes deep and red. It hadn't been lust. It hadn't been meant for her.
"Hinata," Hiashi said at the end and she knew what was coming, but she sat and listened as he told her not to be a disappointment.
She always did, but this time, she barely heard, wishing for death. A curtain of ice fell between her and those men who had never loved her.
Gaara shifted behind her and his eyes found shining moons across the room. He hadn't expected them to act so quickly. Maybe he would have to get rid of them before he lost Hinata's soul to them. She needed to take her own life. Dying wasn't enough. She needed to die in pain, drenched in her worst fears.
"Subaku-san, you accompany my daughter to her husband. Return here when your mission is complete and you will receive your wages."
He was now certain that it would happen on her road; they would try to kill her. He almost growled as he bowed. His forehead touched the tatami, his katana pressed against his leg. He rose again.
"Of course, Hiashi-sama. I will walk Hinata-sama to her chambers and give orders concerning her escort."
Her father nodded dismissing them with a vague movement of the hand. He turned towards her younger sister almost immediately without a second glance as they bowed in unison as rigid as the other. Behind them, servants slid open the doors. Hinata looked one last time at her family. There wasn't anyone mission among them, their bodies closed in and there wasn't any interruption in their circle. She had never been more than a shadows.
They stepped outside on the veranda and she shivered despite the strong sun.
"Hinata-sama," a voice called almost immediately when the doors slid back shut.
"Neji-niisan," Hinata tried to smile but her lips refused to move for anything else than words that come naturally. Words that didn't request emotions.
"I heard congratulations are in order," he bowed his head slightly, his eyes suspiciously resting on Gaara.
He grunted, looking away as her cousin pulled her towards the other edge of the veranda. Blinking, she muttered her thanks, her arms familiarly folding in front of her body.
"They are not letting me accompany you, Hinata-sama, and this proposal... It's too early. The festival of isn't over yet."
"They are getting rid of me," Hinata looked down, noticing her meek stance.
It was all she had ever noticed about herself; the quietness, the fading aura and long fingers that never reached out to anything or anyone. She had never looked like a Hyuuga. She didn't have their proud stature or assured gait. She had nothing. She was made of passing sand that the wind would shape.
"It doesn't matter, Neji-niisan." she muttered pressing a hand against his elbow before he could protest.
She was tired of him fighting her battles. She was tired of pretending she wanted to fight. Hyuuga knew duty, it was all the only thing that had also been hers.
"I will write you once I'm seen safely to my husband."
"Can you trust him?" he trusted his chin forward towards Gaara.
"No," she answered without glancing behind her.
Smiling sadly, Neji nodded. She couldn't trust anyone.
"I wish you to find happiness with your husband."
It seemed he was as tired as her of fighting. The stood side by side quietly, her insides turned to ice and a firm grip on his guts. Then, Tenten appeared and his face changed. Hinata never felt lonelier when his eyes flickered towards his young wife. An unfamiliar weight circled her chest and she had to fight to keep breathing. It was the same look she would give Naruto, except Tenten stared back with the same intensity. His fingers and eyes would find Tenten wherever she was and she would do the same. Reciprocity, she never had that.
"I will see you off tomorrow, Hinata-sama," he bowed turning on his heels abruptly.
She stayed in place watching them mirror their affection and touch.
Maybe that was what she should have wished for; to be stared back at. Silently, servants slid the door open and shut behind her, shielding her from the world and his green eyes.
-X-
My love for this story is rekindled... *_* You will hear from me soon. ;)
P.S.: Forgive me! T_T