Dreamcatcher
By Airyo
The Price of a Secret - 6
They were in her mindscape again.
Hikaru looked at her as she untangled her fingers from the hand seal. "I guess you come with me when you're awake," she murmurred. "Not that it matters."
The bonds of the physical world did not hold here, and Hinata's body responded smoothly when she stood and stepped in front of Hikaru, arms extended to her side. But the loose hairs of her braids still tickled the damp skin of her neck, and her heart still beat a hard staccato against her rib cage.
"You can't." It was both a request and a demand. Hikaru turned her head away so she did not have to look at Hinata. .
"I have to. Please don't fight me, Hinata-san." Then she flickered out of reach. "It's worse when you do," she finished from behind her. Hinata spun around. The other Hyuuga was already at the center of the clearing, close enough to the central tree to touch it.
Hikaru turned to look back at her over her shoulder, hair streaming down her back like ink to bisect the canvas of her chuunin vest. She seemed older here, closer to twenty-six than her sixteen. Hinata wasn't sure if it was a reflection of her perception or Hikaru's jutsu. But in a way, she was - Hikaru had seen far more of the world than Hinata. More death. More life.
In that moment, Hikaru was a reflection of a symbolic self that could have been. Replace the side-swept bangs with Hinata's straight bangs, and from the distance, it could have her. So even though she knew Hikaru was her enemy, Hinata still regarded her fondly. A familiar presence. That was why there was no reaction from her mindscape like there had been for Inoichi or any other stranger in her mind.
She understood then. The nightmares in which she was running away from the intruder dubbed the Bad Man, the incessant need to protect secrets she didn't even knew existed, the strange aversion to genjutsu because of the mental intrusion, waking up exhausted as if she really had been running...it was all because she had been fighting Hikaru in her mind all these years, night after night.
"You've done this before quite often, haven't you? When I slept?" Hinata asked.
"You could say that I know you better than yourself." The younger girl chuckled sadly. Then all emotion disappeared from her expression, as abruptly as if she'd donned a mask. "You shouldn't distract me. Hiyoshi-sama will be displeased."
She reached her arm into the nearest memory.
There was no doubt that Hikaru would pull the information from Hinata. She will tell Hiyoshi, and Hiyoshi will use it to destroy the Hyuuga and possibly Konoha. The Hyuuga was flawed, but it was still her clan, her family. Konoha was still full of her precious people - the Hyuuga, Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto, Kurenai...everyone who were so kind to her.
Itachi.
Something dark and unrelenting flash through Hinata's eyes. This is MY mind.
She charged. Midstep, everything flashed out of view as if she had blinked, and then she was tackling Hikaru with a shoulder in the other girl's middle. Hikaru grunted in surprise. They tumbled to the ground - hardwood floors, Hinata noticed distantly, they must have landed inside a memory - elbows and knees knocking against each other's.
In the background, a young Hinata practiced her kata for Jyuuken with Kyokki. Hiashi was smiling as he watched them. Hinata tripped, but both Kyokki and Hiashi were there in time to catch her before she ever hit the ground.
Fists rained down Hinata's back. She struck back, digging her knuckles into Hikaru's ribs. A hard punch to jaw made her teeth ache and coppery blood pool over her tongue. White dots peppered her vision. With a wordless scream, she wrestled Hikaru to the ground.
The soft sounds of a spar filled the dojo. Hizashi stepped in a complicated movement, and Hinata realized she was falling. His expression was cruel, but he caught her arm with a gentle hand, and slowed her momentum so the landing didn't hurt. "Again," he said.
She clawed at Hikaru's face with blunt nails, ignoring the hard kicks the other girl landed in her gut. Hikaru expertly flipped her over and pinned her, slamming her head onto the wood floor with a forearm pressed against her throat. Hinata choked, white threatening to overwhelm her field of vision. Yet as her vision grayed out, all she could think of was how the ground beneath her back had changed, how the dew on the grass pressed cold points into her skin.
The smell of damp earth after rain tinged the air. Hinata lay gasping on the ground after yet another spar. "You're improving," he said. Itachi extended his hand to her. She accepted, and he pulled her to her feet with ease. "But you have to keep trying."
Hinata snarled. All the careful technique her teachers taught her was forgotten in favor of a primal, protective fury. She was weak - she was kind and compassionate and meek and only genin. But she was still a soldier.
It was stupid of them to provoke her.
She reached up and viciously yanked a fistful of Hikaru's hair. The other girl bit back a yelp of pain. Hinata squirmed free, only to have Hikaru kick her legs out from underneath her. She fell, and the gravel made hard points of pain in her side. There was no one to catch her now. Here, all she had was herself. But her parents, then her uncle, and Itachi - they had taught her to be strong, to stand back up.
It was her turn to protect them, to protect their memory, their legacy.
Hinata lunged at Hikaru, knocking her back with her knees. Her fists followed, fueled by pure rage. Her last strike landed with a smack that reverberated across the sunlit clearing.
Hikaru went slack. Her head lolled to the side, and dark hair split over the poison green of the grass.
Hinata sat up. She wiped the blood from the edge of her lips, leaving a scarlet smear across her cheek. Her breaths scraped the raw inside of her throat - she didn't remember screaming - and the waning adrenaline left her muscles as weak as wrung-out dishrags. Her head throbbed, and she wasn't sure if it was real or imagined. Her control of her mindscape was still tenuous at best.
But she won.
"You can't," she reiterated. This time, it was a triumphant declaration.
Hinata stood, gathered Hikaru in her arms - she was weightless, insubstantial, a helpless child - and willed them both to wake up.
AN: Highly allegorical. Just because she doesn't have mental defenses doesn't mean she can't open a can of whoop-ass.
Also, I be stealth-fic-ing and it's awesome.