Blurry Perception

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After a mission gone wrong, Hinata found herself alone, injured and without her memories. When she found someone who knows who she is, she latches onto him. Too bad she doesn't remember he's a wanted missing-nin by the name of Uchiha Sasuke.

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Chapter 2: Take Me With You

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"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."
~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

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They tried to kill him.

Multiple attempts to end his life, all in the span of mere hours. And the last one was a hair-breath away from being successful.

The jeers of the villagers was not something he cares about, they could send in the best civilian to finish him off and he'd yawn in their faces at the futility of that. However, none of the attempts came from civilians. Which made sense because he was not even back in Konoha at the time.

He was in one of the medic tents that dotted the peripheral of the battleground, seconds away from total exhaustion from chakra depletion. Sealing the Juubi was an enormous task that drains every last drop of his chakra and he did not have the blond's ridiculous chakra reserve. They had not a better opportunity.

Morale were raging high from the disappearance of the Juubi and so was the resentment for the name Uchiha. And since only one was within reach for them to take out their bitterness on, they didn't wait to think it through. Or ponder the fact that he did just saved their collective assess from total destruction a couple of hours ago.

The earlier ones were a little more than drunken passes. The last one was when the medic had stepped out and the guard was nowhere to be seen. The Uchiha struggled to his feet, almost hunched to the waist as one hand gripped the table beside him with shaking fingers when he saw the hardened face. The stranger was closing in, moving with easy stride that could shift into battle stance in a heartbeat.

One glance at his wrist showed a pair of chakra suppression seals and the pain that flares at the back of his eyes when he tried to activate his Sharingan told him they had locked his bloodline limit while he was out earlier.

Even after he had almost given up his life to contain the Juubi, he was still technically a wanted missing-nin and they didn't want him to forget that.

Without the ability to use chakra and his Sharingan, he had to depend on taijutsu to get pass this murderous opponent. But try telling that to his exhausted limbs, they were shaking so hard he can't even stand straight.

"Hey!" he tried calling out but it came out as a raspy cough.

His would-be-killer let out an amused snort at his disability. The visible look of distaste aimed at him brought with it a surge of adrenaline and his legs straightened. His fingers closed over one of the medical tools as the man moved in.

He did not know how he had done it, his will to live must be stronger than he had realized because then he was standing over the man. The blood dripping from their wounds smeared the floor of the medic tent with red abstract trails; the evidence of a scuffle was plain to see. He gasped in air greedily, pushing the need to keel over at bay. To distract himself, he studied the pool of growing blood on the floor. His brain furiously strategized his options for the future and it didn't take long to come to the conclusion on how limited his were.

He knew he had to leave before Naruto appeared and talked him into putting it all behind him, all that forgive and forget crap, so that they could all have the happy ending the blond had envisioned. He pulled himself together, tossing the blood-stained tool aside to wipe his bleeding hand on one of the sheets. He then quickly bundled himself in a cloak he found, fill its pockets with whatever weapon and medicine he could get his hands on and left.

It was easier than he had anticipated to disappear. The surrounding area was a mass of chaotic movement of post-war. The dying and the wounded were literally everywhere.

The Juubi had been exceptionally vicious when it realized it was about to be resealed and that was about the time its Jinchuuriki lost control and it went on a murderous rampage.

He didn't know why he was alone (solitary confinement? And without adequate guards? Did he somehow forget how trusting the people of Konoha were?) and he didn't care. Moving quietly and as swiftly as his body could handle, he entered the frenzied crowd and disappeared.

No one had ever seen him again.

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She leans against the trunk from her perch on a branch, one hand curves around the thick wood for extra precaution. Her body is trembling from the strain of living on adrenaline laced pain for the last few days. She found out that she is able to scale up a tree without much trouble, although she finds that it drains her afterwards. For the last few days, she had spent the majority of her time on the tall trees and she uses her height to scout for any unseen enemies.

She had been in one hell of a fight (based on the state of her body) so it is fair to assume whoever fought her before probably would still be in the vicinity. They would want to finish off what they started. Oh yes, they would want to see her death and the proof of it with her cold dead body. With those thoughts constantly circulating around her head, suspicion and paranoia starts to be a close friend.

The drying blood coating the back of her head suddenly starts to throb. She runs her hand through her matted hair, tenderly pressing over the clotted mound and without her realizing it, her hand glows. The painful grimace eases a little from her pinched face and a sigh escapes her chapped lips.

The last few days had been a haze of pain, confusion and instinct driven struggle. She didn't know what had happened, she didn't know what she is going to do… she didn't know who she is.

Whoever she is, she clearly didn't believe in carrying any sort of identification on herself. What she could find is just what she is wearing on her back, a ripped jacket over blood stained top with stained pants. She would've laugh at her current situation if it isn't for the pain racking her body.

But one thing she could do is to keep on moving until she finds someone who knows her and didn't greet her with the sharp point of a weapon. She looks up into the overcast sky as slowly, fat drops of water starts to fall.

A loud crash pushes her out of her thoughts and she moves towards the sound, a little hesitant. She settles on the side of a tree and peers down to find a man surrounded by a number of well-armed strangers. Before a thought could even start to form, the lone man weaves through the crowd surrounding him and one by one, they drops to the muddy earth.

She pushed aside her wet hair, wincing when the water runs over her still painful wounds. Forcing her attention back to the ground below, she gasps when she realizes that the fight is already over. The man left standing is slowly cleaning his bloody katana, twisting the blade to catch the falling raindrops before he suddenly turns towards her, staring straight in her direction.

Her first instinct is to jump down and faces him before dragging him off... somewhere. Suddenly, she had a mental image of hiding him behind a wall of leaves (or was it hiding from him?). However, the idea of her facing someone like him, someone who just tears through a small army without breaking sweat terrifies her. Something about him, the way he is standing seems somewhat familiar. There is something in his black eyes that sparks a hint of recognition within her, something that whispers she knows him.

She didn't know if she is someone who would face her problem head on or run away from it but she didn't think if this is the time to find out. She keeps her muscles stiff, even forgo breathing when he takes a couple of steps her way. No, no… maybe there is someone else he has his eyes on and she fervently wishes she could just melts into the thick trunk and disappears. The rain water starts to soak through her ruined clothes and she bits her lips when the water lands on her open wounds.

She nearly jumps when he suddenly appears on a tree maybe ten feet away from where she is huddling, still wrestling with the decision when the choice is snatch out of her hand by his one question.

"They sent you of all people for me?" His disgust and repulsion feels like a toss of cold water right in her face but she straightens from her position, instantly alert when the meaning of his words sinks in. The desire to flee is overshadows by the glimpse of answers he holds in his grasp.

"You know who I am?" She tries to stand, all the while staring at him from the curtain of rain in between them.

"Stop with the stupid question, Hyuuga," he snaps and his grip on his katana tightens when she stumbles a couple of step towards him.

"Is that my name? Hyuuga? So you do know me!" She silently repeats the name the man calls her in her head to see if it rings anything. Hyuuga… Hyuuga… She made a move to decrease the space between them and he instantly stiffens in reaction. She mulls on the unexpected response, why is he avoiding her? Did she do something to him in the past, this man who finishes off a crowd faster than she could blink? "Look, I need your… uh… help. Please, I'm not going to hurt you so stop… running away!"

Sasuke frowns at her reasoning. What the hell is she talking about? He turns to leave and again the Hyuuga calls out, panic lacing her every syllables.

"Wait! You can't just leave me here, alone!"

He ignores her frantic call and jumps down. The second his feet touches the muddy ground, he notices the prickles of enemy chakra. The one he had been scouting for earlier is finally making his move. He curses the demented Hyuuga for her unwanted disruption but the Iwa-nin's senbon shaped rock bullets already whizzes past. He had already lost precious seconds while getting distracted by the girl.

"Hey! I'm still talking to him."

Both of their eyes dart up, startles out of their concentration by her angry tone to find the Hyuuga scowling with a hand on one hip while the other grips the rough bark with fingers that glows faintly with chakra. That's it, she really has lost her mind. Who would purposely announce your presence to the enemy you has no chance of winning? He had noticed how she is standing, the way she's hunching and favouring her left side. There is no way she could fight the nin and comes out with her life intact. His brow inches higher when the crazy girl continues berating his attacker.

"Yeah, you! I'm talking to you! You can't just… jumps in the middle of our talk and start hacking him to pieces. If he's dead, who's going to help me?"

She knows she's babbling and deep down knows that interrupting both of them is probably not the wisest idea but the desperation she feels when the dark haired man turns his back on her loosens every barrier she had and the words keeps tumbling out. "You can do whatever you want after I'm done with him. Now, I…"

The girl clamps her lips in irritation when the two ignores her and resume the fight.

"You think he is going to hack me to pieces?" The disgust colours the tone of his voice, even as he is flipping around the sharp projectiles. He lands on the edge of a tree, chakra fused feet keeping him in place and he scowls at the Hyuuga from his horizontal position. Oh yeah, she definitely had land one too many hits to the head or he's in one weird-ass genjutsu. A Hyuuga who did not have a stick shove up their asses is a pretty good indicator of a genjutsu-fueled incident but without his Sharingan he can't be sure.

"Did you see what he can do?" The girl retorts back. "Of course he's going to…"

"Shut the hell up, both of you!" The Iwa-nin flings his weapons into both of their direction.

Sasuke swipes the kunai coming towards him from its trajectory with a flick of his katana. He could hear the whiz as the other weapon slices the air to its other destination, the rustling of her clothes as she dives out of its path, her surprise gasp when it breaks her skin and the muffle scream when her body hit the earth. He heard all of that even as the Iwa-nin guard launches himself, sword already out and ready.

The Uchiha counters the strike with his own weapon, the katana singing as it slides against the guard's steel. With a deftness that comes from experience, he twists his wrist in such a way that the guard has no choice but to drop the sword to relieve the pressure on his hand.

With another rapid flick of his hand, the guard drops onto his knees. A few seconds later, the lifeless body topples down, the rain quickly turning the ground around him a dirty russet of mixed blood and mud.

Sasuke spares his fallen adversary a cursory glance as he makes his way to the Hyuuga. She is lying face down, limbs in an awkward angle. He pushes her onto her back, his dark eyes studying the unconscious girl. He could see where the Iwa-nin's weapon had grazed her, the wound an angry red line running under her slashed sleeve.

He knows without a doubt that the weapon had been dipped in some sort of poison from how her wound is reacting. He also notices the dried blood that coats the back of her neck as well as around her torso. Sasuke looks up into the dense canopy to see that the night sky is starting to come alive with faraway stars dotting the horizon. With her previous injury and now the poison, he knows that there is no way this Hyuuga would open her eyes to another day.

The Uchiha entertains the thought of quickly ending her suffering, she is after all a former comrade from his former village but as fleeting as the idea passes his mind, he dismisses it. He has no desire for any sort of tie to anyone from Konoha except for the time when he'll crush them under his heels. Sasuke shakes his head at the way his thoughts run. He had been living with the goal for too long, it was hard sometimes to remember he couldn't care less what happens to Konoha now.

He stands but something grips his hand to pull him back to his haunches. Cold fingers wrapped around his blood-stained wrist. His frown deepens when his effort to free his hand remains futile. "Let go of me, Hyuuga. I can't help you."

"My… name… My name… please."

The desperation on her face suddenly made him recall of a flash of his genin years, of another girl who was always shadowing his idiot team mate. With a shock he realizes this dying girl is one and the same.

"Hyuuga," he ransacks his brain for her first name, he could still remembers the fondness that colours Naruto's voice when it passed his lips. It was the least he could do to a dying girl. "Hinata."

"Hinata." Some of the tension melts away but her grip remains. "I… I… can't die yet… Please."

Sasuke watches how her eyes flutter. He waits for the moment her breath hitches and stops but it never come. He shrugs and turns to leave but the clasp on his hand didn't loosen. Slowly he pries her fingers off, one by one and watches silently as it falls onto the muddy ground. He spends the next few seconds studying her but her chest continues to move stubbornly. It hitches and skips a few beats but it continue to move.

There is no reason to as why he suddenly grabs the girl under her arms before tossing her over his shoulder. Her limp hands swing slowly with each of his step, her hair whispering against his back. He walks slowly, taking his time as if the half-dead girl and the rain is not enough reason for haste.

Sasuke rolls his shoulder, the one holding the unconscious Hyuuga and she groans at the jolt. The Uchiha finds her useless and obstinate cling to life exasperating but he still yet to find the reason to what he's doing with her. He blinks the rain from his eyes and when his vision clears, he spots a particular plant.

The leaves are struggling under the force of the downpour, the pliant stem is in danger of being snaps off if the rain continues on. Sasuke notices the distinctive shape of its leaves and the bluish hue of its unfurl buds. Without thinking about it, he pulls the plant from the ground, gives it a couple of shake to remove clingy drops of water and soil before he continues on.

Sasuke pushes the low hanging vines apart and ducks into an unseen cave. He dumps the girl onto the hard ground and her muted groan tells him she's still breathing. The inside of the cave is pitch black as the curtain of tangled weeds and creepers cut off any lights. So he puts together a pile of dry leaves and branches and with a spark of concentrated chakra, a small fire starts crackling at the mouth of the cave.

The Uchiha spends the next few minutes warming his chilly hands. He sits by the fire as he sifts through his clone's memory, trying to find the reason he's dodging enraged guards when it is supposed to be an easy retrieval job. Contrary to popular belief, he did not spend valuable time brooding. He had way too much things to take care off anyway. A scowl is etches deep into his face when he still couldn't find the flaw in his clone's execution. So what does that mean?

The wet shirt is clinging to his cold skin so Sasuke slips out of his soaked outer shirt and arranges it so that it it'll dries by the fire's heat. He looks at the crumpled plant he had tossed aside earlier and he suddenly recalls why he had taken that in the first place. He makes his way to her to see that she is still unconscious, still in the same position she was in after he tosses her down.

He quickly straightens her limbs and in afterthought pushes her hair off her face (after the trouble he had gone to save her, he could not let her suffocate on her own hair) and tears the sleeve off her bleeding cold arm. Sasuke runs one finger beside the angry red gash, brooding on his options.

With a sigh, he made up his mind and pulls out his kunai to prod the wound, reopening it to drain out the poison. He studies the way the red blood stains her pale skin as it slides languidly down with the pull of gravity before he turns to the plant. After smashing it into a mushy pulp, he smears it over her cut before tying her torn sleeve over it, bandaging the arm with efficient moves.

He wipes his grimy hand on the flapping edge of her sleeve before he sits beside her, staring at the shallow rise and fall of her chest. If he is questions for his actions later on, he would have no answer to give. Maybe it is the tenacious way she clings to life even if the probability of her seeing another sunrise is slim. He turns to the entrance when the sudden flash of lightning lights up the dark entryway.

Sasuke turns his attention to the back of his hand when it starts to throb. He lifts up his left hand to find the beginning of bruise marring his pale hand, fingers shaped marks that circles his wrist. His frown deepens when he notices deep gauges in his skin that suspiciously look like nail marks. He turns to glare at her direction, knowing full well the culprit is her but the scowl freezes when the Hyuuga shivers.

With the thought of leaving, he marches to the entrance, stopping to pick up his dried overshirt. He pulls the vines apart and stares at the dark sky, the way thick sheets of pouring water is obstructing his view. Sasuke sighs, this is no weather for travelling and he turns back into the cave.

Again, he can't say what possess him to walk over and throws the shirt on her small form. After placing a stout branch into the small fire, he leans against the wall and closes his eyes. He'll use this time to rest while waiting for the rain to stop. He could use the couple hours of sleep anyway.

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End of Chapter 2

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Preview for Chapter 3:

She lets the fear washes over her for a couple of heartbeats before she pushes the cloying terror aside and scrambles to her feet, stumbling in the near darkness as she makes her way to him. She fell on one knee, wincing when a particularly sharp pebble cuts open her skin. Ignoring the added jolt of pain she grabs his shoulder.

"Hey! Wake…"

The rest of her words are swallow up by a surprised shriek when she is abruptly shoves to her back, shoulders pin down under his weight. Her eyes widens when the biting feel of steel presses against her jumping pulse. His hand suddenly move from her throat to clamp down on her wrist, keeping her hands away from her body.

"Wait!" she forces air into her heaving lungs, her eyes on his. Waking him up like that obviously is a big mistake.

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A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews, alerts and favourites. Because of the nice feedback, the new chapter is out sooner. Yup, I respond well to reviews ;)

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