Depth
A NaruHina fanfic
Chapter 5: Familiar Faces
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A reunion!
Disclaimer: Pointless
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"Megumi Hinata, here she is" Tsunade said, flicking though the bingo book as Ino and Sakura fawned over their now very alive 'Sasuke-kun'. Naruto stared at the picture. She looked very strangely like the girl stalking through his mind, which sent a shard of pain through his heart, but he reasoned he must be seeing things due to her last name being Hinata.
Tsunade continued, reading the page out loud. "A resident of the Hidden Cloud Village. Not good. Apparently, she popped up only a year ago. Seemingly to come out of nowhere she started with small killings throughout the Land of Lightning. There was a strange pattern to these killings, they range from civilians to S-rank ninja, yet th majority of them, in fact more than eighty percent, were men."
Tsunade looked at Naruto, who grimaced. "Great, a psycho bitch who hates men, and somehow knows me" he said.
Tsunade looked back at the book. "Rank: S. That's amazing for only one year. Warning: Do not go near her, she kills without abandon for no reason. She can kill in any way, making no wound on your body or tearing you apart. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. Seems she has quite a bounty also." Tsunade remarked then read it out, shocking the young ninja in the room. "50,000,000 Ryou. Wow, that is quite a bit."
She finally got to the bottom of the page, where it read one last side note of her special traits. "Jinchuuriki" she whispered, her eyes widening and looking again at Naruto.
He grabbed the book off her and scanned through the page again and again, then dropped it and turned to Sasuke. "Tell me everything you know!" he shouted.
Sasuke shuddered unintentionally as he remembered what had happened to his team. "She literally ripped them apart" he said. "She said she was here to avenge the death of Kumo's jinchuuriki, KillerBee the eight tails, but when she saw we still had him alive, she killed him herself before we even had a chance to retaliate. Then she was into my team, she ripped them apart with some strange chakra threads, then literally tore Kisame's head off."
The girls turned green at this. "Literally?" Sakura squeaked.
Sasuke nodded the affirmative. "Literally. Then she took his sword, and when it rejected her and stabbed through her hand, she just looked at it and subdued it. Then she was on me. My Sharingan had not effect whatsoever; it was like she wasn't even looking at me, even when I could see her staring right into my eyes. She taunted me, and for some reason, she reminded me of someone that lives here. Hinata Hyuuga."
Naruto gasped. "What!" he shouted, grabbing his long lost friend's shoulders.
Sasuke continued. "And she knew her too, but she assured me, Hinata Hyuuga was long dead. Then, she tortured me, and for some reason, I ended up here? Did you guys find me? And is Hinata really dead?"
Through their stony silence, he knew it to be true. Finally, Naruto took a deep breath. "That girl must have brought you here, I woke up in the morning and found you hanging in the town square" he said solemnly. "There was a note on written on your head that said 'To Naruto'."
Sasuke pondered this, as did every other ninja in the room. 'That's… annoying' he thought.
"Alright" Tsunade finally came to a decision. "We cannot have a killer like this roaming around, especially in the hands of our enemy. Naruto, since you are on your way to becoming Hokage, and the only jinchuuriki we have, I am sending you to detain her. This will be your final test as Hokage. Succeed, and the place is yours. I want you, Sasuke, and Sakura; the old team 7, to find this Megumi Hinata and bring her to Konoha, dead or alive, understood?" she said. Naruto nodded solemnly, as did Sasuke and Sakura. "However, I would prefer it be alive if that is possible. I would like to hear her reason for returning Sasuke to us."
Ino was too scared by the whole thing to worry about being left out, and so kept her calm until they had all left the room, then waved goodbye to Team 7 that was to head to Cloud in the morning.
One thought rushed through Naruto's head. 'Finally, I can bring vengeance on Kumo for what they did to Hinata!'
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"Raikage-sama" Hinata announced her presence.
"Good Megumi, you're back" the Raikage said. "Very well, there has been some bad blood between us and Konoha ever since you were taken from them. Therefore, I want you to infiltrate Konoha and take out their Hokage and resident jinchuuriki who is about to become Hokage, Naruto Uzumaki, whom I think Hinata Hyuuga used to have a crush on."
He smirked at this. It was too perfect, getting the girl to kill her own love of her life while at the same time crippling Konoha by ridding it of their most powerful ninja. There was no response from the girl as she awaited the rest of her orders.
"Also, if you get the opportunity, you are to kill Kakashi Hatake, Kurenai Yuhi, and Maito Gai. These are top jonin in their village, and are still important targets, but the kage and soon to be kage are the top of your hit list. Do not return until these two targets are dead, understand?"
"Yes Raikage-sama" came the cool reply and she was gone again, using an instant transmission technique to transport herself out of the kage tower, leaving behind only a wisp of purple smoke.
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Hinata looked up at the cage Nibi resided in, both buried deep within the recesses of Megumi's mind. Megumi was Hinata, but she was everything Hinata had always held back. When she had almost been raped, all that darkness she had buried when her mother died had come out, trapping the part of Hinata that everyone knew and loved. Now, her only company was the demon and the occasional speck of reality when she got out if her subconscious recognized something.
Like when she had seen Sasuke, it was all she could do to stop herself from killing him and taking him back to the village that had hunted him for so long. That didn't stop Megumi from leaving him an inch from death though.
She felt her body leaping through the forest at extreme speeds, feeling the sun for direction, the shape that the trees bent up towards it. She had a mental image of a map in her mind; Nibi's eyesight had some photogenic qualities, and so she knew where she was moving just by the feel of the land and sun, and the sounds of the environment. There were not many, but as she sped past she heard the singing of birds grow louder, the rustling of animals in the underbrush grow more frequent, and she knew it meant that she was moving further away from the barren forests of the Land of Lightning, towards the lush and plentiful wildlife of the Land of Fire.
Her mind sank back as Megumi took over, chatting to her tenant. 'So, Nibi' Megumi thought to herself, knowing the demon would hear. 'How does it feel to be finally working for your country again?'
The demon grumbled. "You are not the girl I made this contract with. I am protecting her spirit from you, and no matter how much you bribe me, you'll never fully take over. She will destroy you one day."
Megumi's eye twitched, the only thing showing her immense annoyance. "Oh but she is me, she is what made me. Why would you ever think I would destroy her dear Nibi?" she said to herself, but stopped suddenly when an out of place sound caught her sharp ears.
Her blackened chunin vest creaked slightly as she settled into a crouch on the branch, blind eyes closed. She sought out the source of the unnatural sound in the brush, and found it was voices. Four of them.
"Why are we stopping for the night Kakashi-sempai!" a hyperactive voice was shouting, but even from this first encounter she could hear the strained tones to it. It was a cover. She tilted her head closer though. Apparently Kakashi, one of her targets, was in the clearing.
A nonchalant voice replied. "Because, if we want to capture an S-rank Jinchuuriki, we can't just go rushing into Kumo on three days without rest Naruto, even if it was slow travelling."
Something shook deep inside Megumi then. Her eyes popped open in shock at that name. "Naruto?" she whispered. Hinata fought against the mission orders desperately. With every fiber of her spirit she resisted her body from just going in there right now and killing him.
"I've got to get away from him!" she screamed in the recesses of her mind, even as Megumi leapt towards the clearing. Hinata forced herself into control with the help of Nibi. A chakra cloak swept over Megumi just as she leapt out of the tree, gaining enough dominance to force one leg in place. She gasped as they fell out of the tree and hit the ground, but it was enough to drag Megumi out of control.
What she didn't realize was that Megumi latched onto both Hinata and Nibi, dragging them too in with her, so that her body fell unconscious out of the behemoth tree to the ground fifty meters below.
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Team 7's heads snapped up when they all heard the dull thud resound through the forest. Sakura spoke first. "What was that?" she whispered.
They had crossed the border earlier that day and were now in enemy territory, so they had to be on their guard. "I'll go check it out" Kakashi said, creeping away.
"Wait, I'll come too" Naruto said. Kakashi glanced back to the emotion ridden future Hokage and nodded. Who was he to deny him? While he had been their sensei, they were all now the same rank as him. Well, except Sasuke, who was a missing nin but had temporary probation for this mission.
The two crept off while Sakura and Sasuke stood on guard in their campsite. Kakashi and Naruto were lured to a faint fog of purple chakra in the bushes around a kilometer from their campsite. Even as they reached it, it faded to show the unconscious body of a girl.
She wore a black chunin vest complete with a dark fishnet undershirt and a short black skirt folded in the middle to allow for movement. Her dark black hair, with a slight blue sheen, tumbled out around her. Little leaves and twigs had stuck to the tussled mass from her fall through the branches above.
Something twinged in Naruto when he saw her, but he had no idea what it was. She looked somehow familiar, but somehow, completely not. He looked to Kakashi, who nodded and picked up the unconscious girl, trudging back to camp.
When they walked in with Kakashi carrying the jinchuuriki, Sasuke almost shat his pants at the shock of such a sight. He raised a shaking finger to point at her.
"Th-that's her" he whispered.
The two who had found her looked at the girl in a new light. This was the jinchuuriki they were hunting, the one that had ripped apart Sasuke's team and tortured him so effortlessly?
"Kill her now before she wakes up!" Sasuke shouted. He knew what the girl was capable of, and did not want to face that again. He leapt with kunai drawn, but Naruto was instantly in front of her, hands held out protectively.
"We'll make sure to seal her up good so she can't escape, but the mission was dead or alive ok? We have here a chance to bring her in alive, and we're taking it!"
Sasuke grumbled and turned away, he could see the reason in his words. "Fine, but seal her now, I don't want to risk her waking up, we have no idea why she was even here anyway."
And with that, the team set to work bindings her muscles with various seals coupled with real ninja rope. They then placed chakra suppressing tags up her arms and legs, and Kakashi stuck one on her chunin vest over her stomach also, where he knew the seal for a jinchuuriki was placed.
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"You've killed us Hinata." Megumi said coldly, staring down the quivering girl before her. Hinata looked up into the face of ice, standing before her in the shape of her own body, within the confines of her own mind. She herself was naked within her own mind, she had not been strong enough to bother saving her imagined clothing. She felt what was happening to her, felt the seals binding her limbs and chakra.
Nibi stalked back and forth in her cage, glaring at the two girls facing off before her. This was not going well, if a fight erupted in her container's mind, it would become extremely unstable. She knew that Megumi was more powerful, and the only one able to fully repossess the body at the moment, so she forcefully pushed the evil personality back to the surface. The demon was saddened about betraying Hinata, but it was the only thing she could do to avoid further insanity for the girl.
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Naruto looked into the face of the girl tied up by the fire. There was something strangely alluring about her unconscious features, something that struck cords deep within his heart. Maybe he was seeing things, but she did look awfully like Hinata. The same hairstyle; if a bit longer, the same flawless porcelain skin, the same delicate looking but intensely strong build.
This was obviously why Sasuke had thought it was Hinata, not knowing she had died a year ago. Even as he watched, her face twitched, and her eyelids slid open to reveal the strangest eyes he had ever seen. They were pale lavender with murky dull white swirls in them, along with golden flecks speckling the eye everywhere but where the pupil should have been.
The girl looked around. Hearing his breathing, she turned to him. He was on guard duty at the moment; it was the middle of the night, so the others had gone to sleep. She attempted to sit up, only to find that only her facial muscles worked, anything from that down was paralyzed. She opted instead to glare at where she knew her captor was.
"What do you want with me?" she said coldly.
Again, something twinged in Naruto. That voice. It was so familiar, so soft, yet it was covered, overwhelmed by snow. He cleared his throat. "You are our prisoner from here on, murderer Megumi" he said, his voice equally cold.
This girl was part of the Cloud village, the village that had killed his Hinata. He would have no sympathy for this girl, even if she did swamp him with nostalgia.
"And may I ask why that is, and why I am bound. Are you going to rape me?" she asked, her voice blank, devoid of all emotion, but Naruto didn't fail to hear the ever so slight undercurrent of fear in her tone. Finally, some emotion. But it was fear…
Plus, he was taken aback by her. "No, no" he assured, waving his hands in front of him defensively. Of course Hinata didn't see any of this, but she felt the slight air currents his hands made, and her blind eyes jerked back and forth where they swished.
Naruto frowned at her strange jerky head movements. 'Is she that uptight about it that she's going to watch everything my hands do?' he wondered. "You are just going to be Konoha's prisoner. I don't know what those bastard's in Cloud do to their prisoners, but you will not be abused. Maybe one day we can come to an agreement, as you could help us. I'm a lot more like you than you think."
Hinata stared at him in cold silence. "Yes, Kumo prisons allow the women to get raped" she said coolly, shocking him into silence. He had not expected that, he was just using a figure of speech. "And yes, they are bastards, every one of them" she hissed.
'Another emotion' he thought, but then added sadly 'And this one's hate… she's worse than Gaara was.' "If you hate them, why do you work for them?" he queried.
She shook her head. "That is not for you to know, now who are you?" she asked.
Naruto turned cold again at her dodging his question. "I'm the one asking questions here" he hissed.
Megumi showed no emotion, other than a slow blink. "I am Megumi Hinata, kunoichi jonin of the Hidden Cloud Village, personal servant of the Raikage. Now you know me, I expect to know you."
"What, you don't have any dreams, aspirations, likes, dislikes?" Naruto asked.
She just continued to look at him, cold and blank, unblinking. It was unnerving. "No" she said simply and icily.
Naruto flinched. "W-well, I'm going to be the next Hokage of Konoha, I'm Naruto Uzumaki!" He saw her stiffen at that name, then start to shake for a few seconds, but she calmed herself quickly. 'What was that?' he wondered, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"Pleased to meet you Naruto Uzumaki, you are not like most men I have encountered" she said, and without a smile lifted her arm for a handshake.
Naruto fell back, completely shocked. 'What the fuck!' he screamed in his mind. Without him even noticing she had cut the ropes and broken the seals on her arms, along with what he now noticed most of the seals on her body. Certainly enough to sit up, and definitely enough to weave hand seals if she so chose.
"Shit. Kakashi! Sasuke! Sakura!" he called and got into his battle stance. Megumi only continued to sit there, slowly picking away at the seals with her chakra. She wasn't worried about them, they were not what she'd thought, and she had just figured out the perfect opportunity to infiltrate Konoha. Plus, she enjoyed toying with them.
Kakashi and team rushed out of their respective tents to see Naruto standing battle ready before their prisoner, who was merely sitting there, arm outstretched as if to shake his. This innocent gesture put them on edge too. How the hell had she broken the seals without them even feeling the difference in their own chakra!
Kakashi was the first to gain back his cool. He slowly approached the girl on the ground just as she overcame the other seals and stood up. She kept her arm up.
"Pleased to meet you Kakashi Hatake" she said with an all too obviously fake closed eyed smile. Still, it was the first time Naruto had seen her smile, and how it made her cold face so beautifully warm set his heart fluttering. 'Cool yourself Naruto! This is an S class enemy, responsible for the deaths of hundreds!' he thought, clamping down on his emotions. After being suppressed for a year, they were going crazy for this girl that looked so much like her. He had fricking butterflies in his stomach!
Kakashi carefully shook her hand. "Mind telling us why we found you unconscious back there?" he said carefully.
"Oh, that was just an internal struggle of mine" she said simply, still with the sickly sweet voice. Sasuke involuntarily shivered. What was up with this girl? "Oh, hi Sasuke-kun, I'd recognize that breathing anywhere" she said as she heard his breath, her voice sickly sweet. He took an involuntary step back.
Sakura stepped in front of him. "Was it you that hurt him like that?" she said menacingly.
Hinata's demeanor changed drastically, the smile falling from her features. "Of course" she whispered, the icy spikes of her voice ripping away Sakura's defensive attitude. The pinkie's mere killing intent was blown away by the force Hinata directed at her. She stepped back behind Sasuke before she even knew what she was doing, staring with wide eyes at the girl.
Hinata again turned her fake smile on. "You should be thanking me Sakura, I brought him back to Naruto-kun and you."
"H-how do you know my name?" Sakura stuttered in fear.
Megumi frowned. "I don't know, just witnessing you all together again made something click in me. Strange. Anyway, Kakashi, are you going to bind me again?" she questioned.
'What is with this girl?' Kakashi thought. 'Her personality changes every second, but always reverts back to that emotionless mask, it's like she was trained in ROOT or something…' "Of course, we must bring you back to the village" he said and slowly lifted his hitae ate to reveal his Sharingan, about to put the girl into a comatose state.
She continued to stare off into the woods between him and Naruto, even as he focused his eye on her. Nothing happened, he felt no connection whatsoever. Even thought she wasn't looking him in the eye, he should have felt something. And this was not like Sasuke said, like it was just pushed off, this felt like there was just nothing to connect to.
"What is this?" he said aloud, making her head jerk to him. Realization dawned on him. "Are you blind Megumi?" he asked, more a statement than a question.
While he couldn't connect to her eyes, he could still see more subtle things with his Sharingan, and while the others missed it, he picked up her tiny flinching movement. Then, she turned the tensing of muscles to flinch into movement and before he had a chance to move she had a kunai to his precious Sharingan eye.
"If I was blind would I be able to do this?" she whispered almost seductively into his ear, the kunai point hovering rock solid a millimeter from the black pupil of the Sharingan.
Kakashi knew when to keep his mouth shut. She stepped back, now the center of a square of battle ready shinobi. Then, she sat down.
"Well, seal me then" she said resignedly. "I doubt I could fight all four of you off."
She then laid back and closed her eyes, not that it did anything. Completely unworried about what seals they could put on her, the battle hardened jinchuuriki drifted off to sleep. This was a talent picked up after many nights of training, if a ninja wanted rest they needed to be able to do it anytime, anywhere, even in the midst of a battlefield. Or surrounded by four ninja about to pounce, as in this situation. Said four ninja gaped as their free prisoner simply ignored them, her breathing slowly evening as she drifted off to sleep.
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"Seems like we had nothing to worry about" Megumi smirked to Nibi within her mind. Hinata was once again locked in her barrier, kneeling down and gripping the bars of her own little cage that both trapped her and protected her from Megumi. "I thank you for your co-operation" Megumi continued, still with that sick smirk on Hinata's face.
Nibi growled in response, and with that Megumi walked over to Hinata, glaring down at the naked, quivering girl. "Don't worry, I'll be sure to kill your poor Naruto-kun last" she said with that sickening mock innocence. "So I'll have the most time to torture him" she hissed, then cackled, slowly drifting away into true unconsciousness, reveling in the sound of Hinata's now full-fledged crying.
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"Ok, we're going to have to use a lot more powerful seals. Naruto, are you ready for this; we'll need the Kyuubi's power if we're going to fully restrict another jinchuuriki" Kakashi said as he stared down at the sleeping form, a disturbing smile lingering on the girls face. Naruto nodded and his body was engulfed in red chakra. Once again the four ninja set to work on the prone girl.
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Hinata found all she could do was open her eyes. Nothing else would work, even her senses had been shut down, other than her sight and touch. But that didn't help, because, of course, she was blind.
'Great, that doesn't help at all' she thought. She couldn't even move her mouth, her jaw muscles were locked shut. Her chakra was also sealed, so there was no way she could see with her demon's eyes. She couldn't even reach Nibi.
She was truly alone, even if she could feel the shoulder carrying her. No, she was not alone. She started to panic. There was a man holding her and she could do absolutely nothing about it! She started panicking even more and delved into her mind, seeking out anything to get her free and away from this man, but found it was blocked by strange red chakra.
'Kyuubi chakra!' she thought in a panic. 'I didn't think Naruto would be able to use those powers for sealing. I really did go too far this time!'
With that despairing thought she sank back into unconsciousness as the red chakra wrapped around her, caressing her with insinuating tendrils as it pulled her into the dark.
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Not the reunion you thought, but I promise you, we're getting there. Well, next chapter actually. I think… Well, we'll find out soon hey? Btw thanks for the reviews everyone