Crimson Seal - 11
And now my version of the Chunin Exam Arc can really start.
"Come on! Sakura already said she would go with me. You can take a few minutes out of your training to go visit Hinata with the two of us." When Sasuke didn't reply, still glaring at Naruto for interrupting him ten minutes before and not leaving him alone for the duration of those minutes Naruto started up again, "Did I mention Sakura will be there?"
Great. Now he had to torture his teammate. "What difference does that make? You'll still be there." At Naruto's crest fallen face he relented somewhat. "Why do you want to go and visit Hinata anyway? She's not in your squad."
"Because I heard she finally stabilized after her fight with Neji and she can take visitors now. Don't you want to go and wish her well at the very least? That fight was brutal."
Did he really need to answer this question for the millionth time?
"Her own team is out on a mission and won't be back until tomorrow. Sakura even agreed with me that it would be nice to go and give her some company for today. She's going to bring flowers to liven up the room somewhat."
Sasuke had to stop himself from sighing out loud. "I'm not bringing flowers."
Naruto perked up instantly. "You'll go?" A second of silence confirmed that he wasn't going to say it again and Naruto jumped to his feet. "Great! We'll meet up at the hospital in an hour, okay? I got to go and tell Sakura that you caved!" Somehow it seemed like too much effort to stand up and punch Naruto in the face for being unable to control the filter between his brain and mouth. If he even had a filter that is. "Remember it's room four hundred thirty six." With that Naruto left in a hurry to find Sakura.
Sasuke turned his attention back to the training grounds in front of him, but he didn't move back over to the kunai he had left on the grass. His mind was back at that last test for the Chunin Exam, the preliminaries anyways. He had been training for the finals coming up before Naruto came over.
The truth was that the fight between the two Hyuuga had been brutal, and for the life of him he couldn't understand it. His brother and him would never beat each other an inch from death.
It was obvious that there was some animosity between them or something, but to go so far as to kill a member of your family; to beat them down until they're bruised and puking up blood for an exam? What kind of a person did that? He knew about the two different houses in the Hyuuga clan just like everyone else, but why was the relationship so strained between them? He didn't get it and he didn't particularly want to anyways.
He had wished Neji had been taken down a peg or two. The older brat might as well have been dilerious with his own talent. It's no wonder he snapped when Hinata actually landed a lasting hit. That 'genius' probably hadn't even thought it was possible and he wished the jounin hadn't intervened so he could see Neji in the hospital as well. Not to go and wish him well though. Just to taunt him.
Why had the jounin intervened? It was the only thing he agreed on when it came to Neji. It had been unnecessary in his eyes. He had seen Hinata going for her kunai, about to completely drop the gentle fist style and go for the artery on Neji's wrist when he got into range. The fucking self-proclaimed genius probably wouldn't have even seen it coming.
Timid Hinata slicing at Neji's major artery? That would have put him in the hospital, possibly out of the Chunin Exams all together. The Hokage had said to fight like it was a real mission.
Well, he could put Neji in the hospital himself in the final test. He had chosen the stick with the Hyuuga's name.
The village had to be looking forward to that fight, along with all those influential people that hired shinobi. With the known feud between the clans it would certainly be hyped up. Even though the feud itself had died down with most of his clan years ago. For some reason he had heard villagers whispering about it before, which had grown more frequent and less rare over the past few days. In a way it was ridiculous, but at the time he didn't care much for the Hyuuga himself. One Uchiha left in the village and there was still a feud. But it was just because of Neji, he could care less about all the other members. He held no real opinion on them.
Why had he let Naruto talk him into going to visit Hinata?
Sasuke bent down to grab one of the kunai, throwing it at a tree so it sunk in by an inch. Maybe he should bring something. Just to make the people stop talking about the damn feud. Not flowers though. Sakura was taking care of that. What was an appropriate gift for someone in the hospital that you didn't really know? Some sort of food maybe? He heard the hospital cafeteria sucked.
What did girls like? Besides chocolate that is. Sakura would have a fit whether Hinata was conscious or not if he gave her that. Fruit, then? That seemed to be the safest bet.
He got up from the fallen tree and began the walk to the market. Sasuke glanced into one of the stores, checking the time.
Ten minutes left to get to the hospital. It took about fifteen to walk there from where he was and he still needed to pick up the fruit. Well, he didn't feel like running there for someone that he didn't even consider a friend. He had told Naruto he would be there and he would. Just five or ten minutes late. It shouldn't be a big deal.
He stopped at a stand, picking out about a dozen strawberries from the shelf and dropping them into a bag. Sasuke handed the woman running the stand the money and started walking in the direction of the hospital again, the bag swinging at his side.
When he got to the hospital he took one look at the front desk and walked away from the door. It was way too crowded and he was already late. Plus if they were that busy they wouldn't notice him going in through the back anyway.
Sasuke pushed the back door open, walking in to turn right and start ascending the stairs that were adjacent with the door. There were a pair of loud voices above and he instantly recognized both.
"What do you mean we have to leave?" Naruto.
"Hyuuga Hinata is stable, but the doctor is still concerned that she could go back into a critical state." Bullshit nurse.
"We're not leaving until visiting hours or over and-" Sakura, yelling at the top of her lungs before being cut off.
"I'm not asking you to leave I'm telling you to leave for your friend's health. Now," A string of rather colorful language sounded in the second the nurse was silent. "Just take the two of them out of here."
Sasuke paused on the last step to hear an extra pair of footsteps and scowled. Apparently the nurse had gotten security involved to the haul the two off. Well, this was just perfect. Naruto and Sakura were being thrown out of the hospital for the day by the sounds of it and he still had the fruit on him so he couldn't just leave and go back to training. Eh, he could, but he had gotten them for Hinata originally not himself. The room wasn't that far so it wasn't much of a time consumer as it might have originally been had Naruto and Sakura been able to remain there.
He would just drop them off and leave. Sasuke waited a good half minute before entering back into the hall once he was sure the security and that nurse were gone. He slipped into the room, closing the door silently behind him.
The room only had the one bed, so at least no one could call for security and Hinata looked out of it anyway. With a sigh Sasuke went over to set the bag of strawberries on the desk next to her before glancing over the screens. Now, he wasn't an expert or anything but as far as he could tell Hinata was in the green. That nurse really had been bullshitting.
"Well Hinata, you got two deranged visitors and me. Enjoy the strawberries and..." he glanced over to the window to see the flower Sakura had brought. "A sunflower."
Well, it was something until her squad could come and visit her instead of his own. If they had even been able to do much visiting. It didn't really sound like it though. The nurse probably let them give her the flower then demanded that they leave. Temperamental bullshit nurse.
A cough sounded from the bed and he glanced to Hinata to see thin slits of her eyes from below heavy eyelids. "Where..." She coughed again, wincing a moment later from the pain the simple action must have caused.
"Your squad is out on a mission. They won't be in to see you until tomorrow, at the earliest." Because it really was just an estimate. There was no way to know if a mission would ever go as planned and even though Shino had made it to the final test he was still a genin. Sasuke was just thankful that so far Kakashi had kept him out of any missions so he had more time to focus on the test.
"N-no," she coughed mid-word. "Ita... where's... Itachi."
His fingers twitched at his side. Itachi? How would he know that? He hadn't seen him for years. Not since the night everything went to hell and he lost everyone he ever cared about. Why was she asking for his brother opposed to her own squad?
"This is the best time to do it. This way it will be official, like it was with Hiashi and Hizashi." His mind came to a screeching halt at the voice of the Hyuuga elder coming from down the hall. "If you need to hold her down during the process then do it. I want the seal on her by the end of the day. And when I say, 'the end of the day' I mean in the next hour. This isn't an all day jutsu. Her sister will remain the heiress since Hinata clearly isn't qualified." A snort sounded after the words and Sasuke turned his attention to the door.
By the sounds of it the man was still halfway down the hall. It would take at least a minute for him to get here, most of which Sasuke was attributing to his old age. He turned back to look at Hinata as the elder began speaking again, "Just be quick about it. If she gives you problems knock her out or something. I don't care. They're not getting the byakugan from her. That secret remains with us, no matter what. Got it?"
At least two men replied, "Yes, sir."
Damn it. Sasuke stopped himself from tearing his lip open. These idiots would appear right when he finally had a lead on his brother. And beyond that issue what was this curse they were trying to apply to Hinata? Who was they? Who wasn't getting the byakugan? About half of the ninja world could answer to that last one.
He reached forward, tearing out the wire leading to the alarm button if anything happened to the equipment first even though he suspected it was disabled. Hold her down? They were going to force a curse on her and she would have been jabbing at the button instantly with the condition she was in.
Sasuke moved quickly now as the footsteps drew closer: tearing off the tubes connecting to her arms and feeding some pain killer into her body - he assumed it was pain killer, - cutting off the power to the equipment, removing the pad from her wrist that had been monitoring her heart rate, and grabbing the bag of strawberries to hold the rolled up end in his teeth. There was no reason to leave any evidence that he had been here after Sakura and Naruto. For all his friends knew he hadn't even showed up.
With a glance at the window to check that it was open he slipped his arms beneath Hinata's body, picking her up and jumping out, not sticking around for even a second more to listen to what would surely be outrage of some sort.
He seeked out the back passages of the village, sticking to the alleys and the shadows as he sprinted between the buildings. Hinata had sunk back into sleep before he even left the hospital so he didn't have to worry about her making a noise that might direct someone's attention to them. The only thing Sasuke had to worry about was running into someone else using these paths, but thankfully he met no one and made it to the Uchiha compound that was still mostly barren after all these years. Which was partly his doing. He hadn't allowed for a villager to come inside and set up shop or take even one of the houses. They belonged to his clan, not the village.
Once inside his own house he laid Hinata down on the couch, moving instantly into the bathroom to root around the cupboards for some medicine similar to the one he had seen in the hospital. He grit his teeth before moving into his parent's old room and opening his mother's closet. She always seemed to have everything required for an emergency, something only a practiced shinobi would do when they happened to be raising a family of them.
Sasuke snatched the medicine bottle from one of the baskets, glancing around for a second longer until he found another bottle for coughs and grabbed a few packets of cough drops as well. He moved out of the closet, shutting it securely behind him before moving back into the living room to set them down on the coffee table. He dropped the bag out from his mouth as he set the medicine he had collected down in front of her form. "Here." He spun open the bottle of cough medicine, pouring some into the cap of the bottle before setting it closer toward her.
He watched from the corner of his eye as she sat up partially and drained the liquid from the cap, coughing a second afterwards before her gaze turned to him. Her eyelids were still heavy, obscuring most of her vision, but he could tell from the look of her that she had heard the words of the Hyuuga elder not too long ago. "Thank you."
Sasuke muttered a, "You're welcome," in return. As much as he wanted to ask her about Itachi now didn't seem appropriate. He doubted she could concentrate long enough to answer even one of his questions anyway. She needed sleep, even he could see that. He would just have to wait.
He tore open one of the packets with his fingers and handed her the cough drop next. With the amount of pain killer she had been receiving he didn't see any reason to give her any now or even later. It was only there for if she needed it and she would be a much better judge of that than him.
"Do you need something to drink?" At the small nod of her head he got up to get a glass and some water from the tap. Sasuke retrieved a bowl while it was getting filled, grabbing the glass a second later to set out on the table and then taking the bag with him back into the kitchen. He cleaned the strawberries off before cutting them up and setting them into the bowl, turning the water off after he was done.
He walked back out to set the bowl of strawberries down in front of her. "You can stay here for now." He wasn't going to let the Hyuuga find her until she was better and he had gotten answers from her.