Somebody
By. Misery's-Toll
Chapter Eight: Hinata's Interlude
Breathe into my hands
Or cup them like a glass to drink from
Are you still, still breathing?
Are you still breathing?
- "Glass Vase Cello Case" by Tattle Tale
Warning: Mature-ish Themes Ahead.
She had been born into a world of testosterone-fueled battles, a family of fighters, strong-willed opponents, and she had always been the odd one out.
The idea of having a daughter that wanted to heal instead of inflict damage was ludicrous, spat upon in this world she had been born into. She was supposed to inherit the dojo, teach others to defend themselves, how to attack, just what areas upon the human body you could pinch to make the strongest of men scream. Instead she spent her days studying text books, visiting pharmacies, asking questions. She wore the finest silk clothing, lived in the best home money could buy, but she didn't care for any of it.
All she wanted was to help people, and still receive her father's satisfaction.
One.
"Hiashi! Hiashi! It hurts! I think the baby is coming!"
"Now? But, it's a month early!"
"Either the baby is coming, or I just wet myself, and I don't think it is the latter, Hiashi! Get me to the hospital now!" she gasps. Crimson liquid trickles down her inner thigh. She frantically looks to her husband for help, her forehead glistening with sweat. Her eyes roll back into her head, and she collapses.
"There have been a few…complications, Mr. Hyuuga," the doctor tugs at his jacket collar.
The Hyuuga clears his throat, stern as always, "I'm sure whatever it is, I can take it."
"Because your child was born prematurely, there is the possibility that her brain had not completely finished developing. So there is the chance that she could have been born mentally handicapped and physically stunted."
"You're saying that my child will be slow. Incompetent. Useless. Incapable of carrying on the Hyuuga tradition of the first child running the family dojo," the man's eyes narrow, his nostrils flaring.
"There is…one more thing. Your wife. She's lost much blood…she may not last through the night. You have my deepest condolences."
Two.
Hinata is four years old.
The walls of her bedroom are covered in hand-drawn pictures of rainbows and horses and family portraits done in markers she borrows from her pre-school teacher. Her cousin Neji comes to visit her and they play games until he leaves to spar because she's heard that even though she is the Hyuuga heiress, she is 'incompetent' and Neji is not. And even though she doesn't know what that word means, every time she hears it she gets a little sadder.
Her daddy brings home ladies she's not allowed to talk to, and sometimes they make scary moaning noises in his room that give her nightmares, and usually the lady is gone by morning, and Hinata wonders if maybe there is a monster in daddy's room that eats the women that are unkind.
Hinata isn't allowed out of her room when she's not at school or training in the dojo, because of that word 'incompetent.' So Hinata tries hard at school and when she spars because she's hoping that maybe then she will be allowed to talk to pretty ladies that make moaning noises at night, and she'll be allowed to talk to daddy and make him proud.
Three.
Hinata is six years old. She's been held back a year in school, and she's shorter than the other kids in her class. The other kids know their alphabets and their numbers and their shapes, but she doesn't know hers, but Neji tells her that it's okay because she's special. She doesn't know how being small and stupid makes her special, but he reassures her so she believes him.
Hinata has a half-sister named Hanabi. Hinata doesn't know who Hanabi's mother is –the baby's mother only stayed around long enough for Hanabi to be born, and then she was removed from the Hyuuga household. Hinata only saw the baby once. A beautiful little girl with tuffs of feathery-brown hair upon her crown. Her daddy spends all of his time looking after the little girl, playing with her, buying her toys, taking her to watch Neji when he trains.
Hinata wonders how a baby is more competent than she, but she still doesn't know what the word means, and she thinks that maybe if she is special, then maybe Hanabi is more special.
Four.
Hinata is eight years old.
She has a baby-sitter because she's left the house too many times to go ask questions to the men and women who work at the pharmacy around the corner.
Her baby-sitter is a teenage boy with silver hair and glasses, and he makes her take off her clothes so that he can touch her, but she lets him because he teaches her about medicine, and she doesn't know that those places aren't to be touched. And besides, Neji doesn't talk to her anymore. She has a daddy and he doesn't and he hates her for it, though she doesn't understand why, because he never cared for her to begin with.
Five.
Hinata is twelve. She has caught up with the other kids in her grade through hard work, and she while she is clumsy and still short, she has learned a lot in martial-arts. She has given her father hope, and is to spend three hours a day watching Hanabi and Neji train, and she knows she will never be half as good as they are.
The kids in her class make fun of her because she has breasts and she started her period in the middle of art class once, and cried because she thought she was dying.
She learns at school that what her baby-sitter does is called sexual-harassment, and that it is a very bad thing. She tells Kabuto this, and asks him if he knew, and he just gives her a twisted smile, and soon her clothes are on the floor, and he's touching her in a different way. But her nice baby-sitter gives her whispered assurances and tells her that it is just a kind of game, and he promises to teach her a lot of medical techniques and terms. After that day, her baby-sitter never returns.
Even after seven weeks Hinata has no period, and she begins to vomit, and her breasts get larger and the teasing becomes almost unbearable.
After two months, her father tells her to spar with her cousin, Neji. She doesn't want to fight him because she gets queasy and tired easily, and she can still remember the way that he would speak to her when no one else would except for the boy who lives in the house behind her godmother, and Neji still hates her and she's afraid of getting hurt.
The spar is more painful than she had possibly imagined, and she begins to cry when blood begins to seep through her robe and spurt from her mouth.
Hinata gets open heart surgery and after a month of hospitalization, she learns that she was pregnant, that she had a tiny child inside of her, and that that day she lost it. And she thinks that maybe she wishes that she could have died with it.
Six.
Hinata is fourteen.
She goes to the same school as the boy who lives behind her godmother, and her cousin, and she becomes friends with a blonde boy with the most beautiful blue eyes she's ever seen. He is the only one she ever tells about her baby, and he never tells anyone else. He follows her around and even though he's in only two of her classes, he does everything he can to keep people from teasing her.
She knows what the word 'incompetent' means now, and she no longer cries when her father calls her it, because he never loved her and he never will. Neji is nicer to her now, constantly looking after her, as if trying to make up for killing the child she didn't know she had in his own way, compensating for the sin little by little.
And at night she curls in on herself, as if protecting her empty womb, often murmuring to her baby that she hopes is up in heaven, and she wonders if maybe the child is an angel now.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
A/N: Good news for you guys, I have the next chapter already typed. This is a little different from the other chapters, but I decided awhile ago that before any chapter that will be majorly non-Sakura centric, I will have a chapter that is back-story for that character. Like this time, you get Hinata's back story, and the next chapter is Hinata's birthday. I typed this entire thing up in one night, so forgive me if there are any major errors…I'm kind of really tired. I actually intended on making chapter eight Hinata's birthday along with something else that will probably happen quite a bit later on in the story, because then it would work better postponed, and then I was going to combine this chapter and the next one, but the different POVs didn't work together. This chapter and the next chapter will be a little shorter than usual, but I'll be posting the next chapter in probably three days so that I can go over it again and maybe take some of you guys' responses into consideration.
Whoo. Sorry for the long Author's Note…
Please review! I would really like your opinions and criticism.
-MT