Crimson Seal - 12
Surprise, surprise.
"Have you heard of anything?" A second of silence filled the room before his father's fist hit the table. "Nothing. From either of you? How can she just vanish in thin air?"
Hiashi kept his lips pressed into a thin line as his gaze stayed on the red angry face of his elder. It was a stupid question, really. One didn't vanish into thin air. Hinata was out there - somewhere - she hadn't evaporated like water in a boiling pot.
Besides that, it wasn't his responsibility to keep an eye on her. He had tossed that aside to Kurenai years ago when Hinata had lost the fight against her sister and therefore lost the right to be called heiress. It wasn't his fault the woman hadn't been there in the hospital room keeping an eye on his daughter; she had been out on a mission, being held responsible for her duties and that's what should come first. One's duty to the village, to the clan. He hadn't bothered to look for his daughter the first day when his father came storming into his room announcing his first daughter was missing, probably kidnapped by Cloud Ninja or a number of anyone else interested in obtaining the byakugan.
If that was the case she wouldn't be gone for long. It made no sense to him to waste his time on a fruitless search when Itachi was sure to hunt those people down - if that was even the case, he wasn't entirely sure himself. He was missing a piece of the picture and that irritated him. It was the only thing about all of this that set his teeth on edge. He had always known everything concerning Hinata, there was no reason for him to be left in the dark now.
"I'm sure she'll show up-" Hizashi tried to calm their father down but it only seemed to get him more riled up.
"Right," his father sneered. "He probably took her."
"It's a couple years to early for that," Hiashi spoke up, not dropping his gaze when his father narrowed his eyes at him.
"Who cares if it's early for him to snatch her away? He's always been after her eyes, not her. She could show up in the next day blind and you wouldn't bat an eyelash would you?" Hiashi had to stop the snort of laughter that was trying to escape his lungs. Him bat an eyelash? Over such an impossibility? And even if by some odd chance that that did happen he knew his father would only feel joy over the matter.
Huh. He was calling his own son a monster when he himself was the monster. Fucking hypocrite. "You seem very certain that it's him. So why are you bothering to look? If he doesn't want you to find him or her you won't."
"You could show more concern for your daughter if he had taken her," his father spat.
Hiashi had to stop himself from rolling his eyes at the performance.
If Itachi had taken her - and that was a big if - he would have moved her completely out of the Fire Country. Not wait for the Anbu to catch up with him, a group that he would know the inner workings of well since he had led a squad of his own when he was younger. It would be a walk in the park for the S-class ranking criminal to avoid them. As for all the other potential people that might have taken her... they would have a much harder time evading the Anbu, if they were used to find her like his father seemed to want so desperately.
The Hokage had already made his stance clear on the matter. That without any evidence of foul play he wouldn't waste resources like the Anbu on a missing member of the Hyuuga clan. Hiashi knew it wasn't out of spite - like his father seemed to think - but a genuine lack of evidence.
No demands had been made. There was no news from surrounding villages of a girl that looked to be Hinata showing up there. No other ninja village was taking responsibility for her disappearance. She could have just ripped out the wires herself and gotten out of bed.
He had heard of a few genin doing just that to go and train instead after losing their match in the preliminaries. Besides, the nurses had already assured him that Hinata was stable and not likely to go into a state of emergency care. She had developed a case of the cold while recovering but that was it, nothing serious. If she had checked herself out early there was no need to panic like this.
So what was the big deal?
"I told you all those years ago not to sign that damn contract. You know they were after her eyes, didn't you?" Hiashi had figured that was part of the reason the Uchiha had agreed with the marriage contract, but he doubted that was the complete reason. With the death of most of the clan though he had given up on figuring out the real reason that might have caused problems for his own reason for signing the contract. It just wasn't important anymore. That and with the Uchiha Clan in it's current state he had lost interest in his own reason for it years ago. The fact that he couldn't make a different arrangement for her even after that had only been irritating for those first few years after the massacre. He had made a new plan to take care of that years ago and it was the definition of simplicity.
The gears shifted so quickly in his head it nearly made his vision do a one-eighty. All this talk of her eyes, always the damn eyes; her being blind, eyes gorged out when she came back. How had he missed it?
"You didn't go to the hospital to check on her that day, did you?" he had to stop the anger from becoming apparent in his voice. The damn old fool.
"I set out to do exactly what I said I would."
Hiashi let his fingers curl from beneath the table, away from his father's searching gaze. "To put the seal on her you mean. No wonder you can't find her. She's hiding from you."
His father only scowled at the accusation, leaning forward ever so slightly to glare at him head-on. "You said you would take care of it and you haven't. What else do you think I was going to do? Wait around for you to do it yourself when she was in such a perfect condition so that it could be taken care of then and there? If she had still been in her room that is."
It was certainly a good thing she hadn't been there. "I said I would take care of the issue with Hinata and the contract and that's exactly what I've been doing all these years. So don't try and step in with your own ideas of how to handle the situation. I have everything under control. I'm the Head of this clan, you put me in the position when I was old enough so worry about yourself instead of my daughter."
"Maybe I should have given the position to your brother instead. He couldn't be nearly as incompetent as you." His father straightened then, the trademark sign that he was about go on a long rant and after the first few sentences it would be time to tune out. "You haven't done a damn thing after finding that contract beneath the rubble. You couldn't even get to it beneath the stone." The jutsu surrounding it didn't allow for the contract to be extracted at the time he had found it and recognized the flow of chakra as Mikoto's and the jutsu that kept the contract sealed there in the first place. But his father already knew this. It was impossible to remove it until the time on the seal ran out and even if he had been able to remove the contract from the place it wouldn't have changed a thing. "The only progress you've made this whole time is making Hanabi heiress and preparing her for the position, and while I agree with that decision you have done nothing-"
He chose then to tune out completely. His father would just keep regurgitating the same shit until he thought he had gotten his point across an hour or two later.
Part of it was because his father was blind to the whole picture. But he didn't want to think of what solution the elder would make if he knew about the last and final piece. The one Itachi had left for him the night of the massacre to find later that day.
It had been in his room, actually. A leaf caught in the panes of wood leading outside, and scrawled onto the green flesh was just one message, one promise.
If the seal is on her when I arrive your entire clan is dead.
/ / /
The sound of birds chirping erupted in his ears just before the rock wall shattered into pieces, chunks of the rock falling down onto the ground to kick up large clouds of dust around them. When the air cleared up there was a noticeable missing part of the rock that Sasuke had just hit with the chidori.
"Good job," he said, eyeing the cracks that had splintered out from the area. One strike with taijutsu alone would be capable of breaking the rest into pieces. But that wasn't important it was Sasuke's training that was taking priority; which could go so much faster if the young genin didn't insist on going back to the village to his own house to rest rather than just sleeping out here. To his credit though he made the trip lightning fast from the two destinations. "You want to try it once more for the day?"
It was completely up to Sasuke. He knew his chakra limits better than Kakashi did as his mentor.
"No," the reply came fast, but the genin was looking in the direction of the village rather than at him. He was distracted. Sasuke always got like that recently when the sun began to go down, and he was always looking in the direction of the village, as if he could see it from here.
"Do you think the Hyuugas found Hinata yet?" The news of her disappearance had been flying around the village for the past few days. Some of the ninja had gone looking for her but it was mainly the Hyuuga that searched. Except for Hiashi, he had noticed, the man didn't seem concerned about the matter at all. That way he saw it was if the father wasn't worried there was no reason for anyone else to be. Hiashi either knew where she was or he had an idea. Why he didn't share it with the rest of the clan was a Hyuuga matter though and he didn't care to put himself in a position that had to deal with that clan's inner workings.
Sasuke let out a snort. "Are they still talking about that? She probably just doesn't want to be there and they're making a big deal because she usually bends over backwards to try and please them."
He wouldn't have thought anything more of it if Sasuke hadn't gotten so defensive, spouting a usual story that might have gone over just fine if he had known Sasuke and her had ever interacted. But he couldn't remember much times when Sasuke wasn't with his own teammates and he certainly had never taken interest in ninja from other squads unless he wanted to beat them in a fight. Hinata fit neither category though. Plus Sasuke didn't know her well enough to know what was going on in the Hyuuga clan at the moment. Even Kakashi didn't pay much attention to them. So he knew the supposed reasoning of why she might not be there was just made up on the fly.
Naruto had mentioned going to visit Hinata in the hospital with Sakura and dragging Sasuke along with him - there was no way the Uchiha would go of his own free will. Except Naruto and Sakura had been thrown out of the room from what he had heard, shortly after arriving and Sasuke had never shown up.
At least, they thought he had ditched them.
Kakashi glanced to Sasuke again to see he was back to looking at the village. He must have shown up afterward, though there had just been flowers left in the room Hinata had gone 'missing' from. It had been shortly after his entire squad of genin was suppose to be there that this happened.
It would certainly explain why Sasuke left for the night to go back home if the girl was at his own home and sick. Something must have happened in the hospital for him to take her from the room even if all she had was the sniffles. She had been in critical condition the day before, recovering from treatment for her heart.
"Okay, then. Well, time to go-" Sasuke had taken off before he was even done dismissing him from his training.
/ / /
He was walking fast down the empty street and towards his house. Surely tonight he might get something out of her about his brother. Anything that could help him locate him or - hell, even make everyone stop talking about him as if he was the murderer. His brother couldn't come back if the whole village thought he was the one that had killed the clan. It would make living here impossible for him.
When had that crap started anyway? It had to have been pretty quick for Itachi to just disappear like that - the Hyuuga knew nothing when it came to someone actually leaving you - to decide to get out of the village before they found him and killed him for something he hadn't done. There was no way he could have actually done it.
A whole clan? Even his brother - poster child for the Uchiha - couldn't have been capable of that.
Sasuke stopped at the door, taking out his keys to unlock the door and slide it open-
His hand stopped in midair, his head whirling quickly in the direction of Hinata, who had taken to sleeping in his brother's room. There was another chakra signature in the room. He stepped inside, turning to quickly shut the door and lock it before walking through the house and down the hallway, fingers twitching at his sides. His senses had to be off. It couldn't be him. It just couldn't-
He pulled back the door and it slid silently over the ground to reveal two figures. Sasuke recognized both instantly.
Hinata was laid out on a new mattress, sound asleep, chest rising and falling easily for once. It seemed she was finally over that cold. Sitting next to her, one hand resting on her forehead was his brother, Itachi. He had moved her bangs out of the way and was stroking the skin so that it held a light pink tinge from the continued action. But he was here, actually here. It wasn't a ghost, a snippet of his imagination.
Itachi shifted, raising a hand up and Sasuke's eyes quickly moved to the hand that held Hinata's; the fingers loosening their grip and placing her own hand on her stomach. The dark figure leaned over as he did this, placing a kiss on her forehead before standing up and his eyes met his brothers an instant later. "Hello, Sasuke."
His lips parted but he couldn't force any words out. The harder he tried the more he felt the trembling of his lips begin to spread to the rest of his body. "I-ita-chi," once the name had finally fallen from his lips he could feel a burning along his cheeks. His eyes were on fire when a sob slipped from him, the tears coming down even faster now.
His brother was back. He was home.
He felt arms grip at his shoulders, could hear Itachi's words that he wanted to talk in the living room, away from Hinata; but it all passed over him like a fog as his brother led him away from the room, the door closing softly behind them. The dull thump of the footfalls echoed in the head as he walked back into the living room to sit down on the couch.
His brother sat back on the coffee table, facing him. "You came back," he forced the thoughts out and into words.
Itachi gave a thin smile in reply and he felt the tears sting at his cheeks. He wasn't going to stay. "I heard that Hinata went missing."
"You came back because Hinata was missing?" his own words sounded hollow in his ears.
"That's what I heard anyway. That she was taken out of the hospital while in critical condition."
"She was stable, " Sasuke snapped, raising his hands to brush away the tears as he looked at his brother.
"So you did take her from the hospital," his brother just seemed to be confirming his own suspicions.
"Yes," he replied, tone more even now. "Naruto and Sakura wanted to check on her after the preliminaries since her teammates weren't in the village when Hinata was allowed to take visitors; they still aren't here yet. There suppose to be back tomorrow from their mission, but it could be another day or two until then. So we went to visit her," he explained, since his brother hadn't said anything else he figured he wanted to know the details. "Naruto and Sakura got there on time and went to see her. Sakura left flowers before the nurse threw them out, I heard them from down the hall since I arrived late due to training. I went into the room to drop off some fruit when Hinata said your name," Sasuke paused, still unsure why she had spoken it. As if she knew him and yet whenever he had asked her a question about his brother she would go silent. Which was just a tad quieter than she usually was. "Then I heard the Hyuuga elder talking in the hall, saying something about placing a seal on Hinata. So I took her out of the hospital since after hearing him say that she looked petrified and she couldn't really move to defend herself as it was."
His brother remained silent even after the explanation and Sasuke glanced to the room Hinata was resting in before looking back to Itachi. "Why did you come back when she supposedly went missing?" It made no sense, and now that his head was clearing out it made even less sense with how he found his brother; kissing Hinata before even looking at him.
Itachi's gaze only softened at his own harsh tone though. "I've been watching you. Both of you, when I can."
Sasuke blinked, staring at him. Watching him? Why? Why hadn't he ever shown himself before now if Itachi had been watching him all these years? A million questions were swimming through his head but only one managed to get out, "Why are you watching her? She's a Hyuuga."
"Hinata..." Itachi paused for a moment, looking back towards his old room and when he turned back to Sasuke he spoke in a softer tone, "She's my fiance. Has been since I was seven. Her father still hasn't told her about the contract."
He could feel his fingers twitch at his side. What? "Mother never said anything about it."
Itachi only gave a small shrug of his shoulders. "I was the one involved with the contract. You were only two at the time."
When Itachi didn't offer up a further explanation Sasuke sunk back into the couch, still staring at him. Hinata was Itachi's fiance? Future wife? Then that made her his sister-in-law. He had a sister-in-law.
"Sasuke." He raised his gaze to meet Itachi's. "Don't say anything to Hinata about it. Her father should be the one to tell her. But... could you keep an eye on her? Just when I can't."
"Yeah," the word slipped from him instantly.
"Don't let the elder near her, okay?" Sasuke gave a nod of his head. "I'll be back for the final test. I need to get back to my own mission." He just gave another nod of his head, listening to the sound of Itachi's footsteps on the floor before they vanished out the side-door.