Hi! Hello! A quick update because I am SO excited. The story officially picks up from here. I can't wait for you all to find out what is really happening.
Fair warning: Remember. This is angst. This is going to be messy and our characters are not going to act "good" all the time. Just. So you know.
Chapter title from the song Crystalized by the XX.
My gratitude towards these people for their reviews:busi sibeko1 and Lovehinata.
Thanks for reading.
oOo
Chapter Thirteen: You Don't Move Slow
Hiashi summoned Hinata to his office as soon as she returned to the compound from work. She demurely kept her head down as she walked through the halls of her childhood home. An elder escorted her, since she was not allowed to stay in the house by herself anymore.
Hiashi did not stand to greet her. She did not sit because he did not invite her to do so. The elder did sit.
She stared at the floor and waited for her father to speak.
The elder went first. He happily motioned to Hinata but spoke about her like she was not there. "I am pleased with the training she's undergone. Look at her pretty manners. Very subservient."
"Hmm," Hiashi said, his face blank.
Hinata bit the inside of her mouth. Her family spent so many years trying to train her to be strong, to be a lioness, to be the best Clan Head possible. Now, they sealed her and expected her to be a completely different person. They wanted someone soft, and invisible. They wanted her to take the steel out of her spine, after implanting it there in the first place.
Tears of frustration pricked her eyes. But she swallowed them and refused to let the men in front of her see. They would see what she wanted them to, no more, no less.
"Any progress?" Hiashi asked curtly.
"He is allowing me to prepare tea for him, Hiashi-sama," she murmured.
The elder scoffed. "Took long enough."
Hiashi waved off the other man's comments. "We have time."
He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a glass jar. The dried, russet colored plant material inside caught Hinata's eye. She did her best not to stare.
He held it towards her. "You know what to do. Make sure you give the right dosage."
Hinata accepted it gingerly and walked backwards out of her father's range. Rage, which had been a constant companion sitting in her belly, suddenly caught flame, burning up her throat. She almost let out an angry complaint. How could she give the right dosage if he did not allow her to compare this to her mother's notes? The name of the concoction had been scratched off the side.
She clenched her teeth so that not even the smoke of her fire could escape her lips.
She knew what to do. She was ahead of them. She had to believe it.
"Yes, Sir," she whispered.
"Dismissed."
With slow, steady steps, she walked out of the office and towards the Branch part of the compound.
oOo
Hinata knew the rumors about her mother. How her mother, the poison master, actually committed suicide. During Hanabi's birth, or maybe before, she managed to dose herself to make it look like a difficult birth that led to death. For a long time, Hinata hated people who spread that rumor.
Her mother's death was a tragedy, not a conspiracy. How dare people in the village soil her memory and impugn her honor?
The older Hinata became, the more she began to understand something else. People feared her mother. Her mother was not just a good poison master, she was the premier poison master. The people who spread those rumors could not believe a kunoichi of legend, with her snow-white eyes and clan secrets, could die from something as pedestrian as childbirth.
Like a flame being snuffed out, no one saw the death. But they smelled the smoke of the still smoldering wick.
With a slow turn of a brass knob, Hinata lit the tiny lantern in her room. She padded over to the kotatsu. Flipping it over, she unscrewed one of the legs. As soon as she lifted the leg from the tabletop, a long, thin vial slid out of the hole bored inside the wood.
She replaced the leg, flipped the kotatsu back over, and set the vial on her tabletop. She stood again to recover the kettle and teacup from their spots by the door.
The lantern light flickered, casting shadows on the walls as Hinata changed clothing. That done, she poured herself a cup of steaming water. Taking out the sachet from the belt of her Hyuga robes, she pinched a couple of leaves and put them in the cup. Methodically she counted out the seconds, even as she twisted the top off the glass vial.
She carefully put a couple of drops into her cup. The water slowly turned a light brown.
She waited. And waited. Until she waited for five minutes.
Hinata drank the tea, leaves and all. Even steeped and softened, they seemed hard to chew, difficult to grind under her molars. She wondered if it was just her imagination being fanciful.
She washed it down with another cup of water. Then another. And another until the kettle sat empty.
Standing, she tucked the vial right next to the tea sachet into her belt. She left her room and headed to the communal bathrooms to start her nightly hygiene routine. As she brushed her teeth and flossed to rid her mouth of any lingering plant matter, she thought about her mother. And her father.
Hiashi did not like Hinata, because Hinata looked like her mother. And her mother was a mystery, a ghost, even to her own husband. Because she was a poison master. No one trusted someone who could kill them easily, silently, behind their back.
But Hiashi also trusted Hinata. He trusted her with the most important task of his master plan. He knew that his sweet, demure daughter could get close to the Hokage.
Hinata returned to her room. She snuffed out the lantern and took deep breaths of the lingering smell of the kerosene as she slipped under the covers of her bed. She took one last breath and held it. She fell asleep.
oOo
When the morning light peeked through Hinata's paper walls, she woke up. She let the breath go.
Hinata's mother was death personified. Hiashi did not like Hinata, because Hinata was also a poison master. He needed her to be a jonin. Hinata, following her mother's example and father's orders, became a Tokubetsu jonin with a specialty in poisons and herbal remedies.
Hinata knew how to read the codes in her mother's journals. She knew what the strange tools in her mother's workshop were used for. The knowledge of how to kill easily, silently, behind someone's back sat in Hinata's mind like a heavy safe. Only Hinata knew the combination.
And it seemed like only Hinata knew the first law of poisons. The first law required that one never, never used a poison unless they had an antidote, or were ready to die by said poison.
Hinata had her antidote. She woke up.
Slipping out of bed, she headed to the communal bathrooms to start her morning hygiene routine. Haruko walked out, patting her damp hair with a towel.
"Hinata-sam-san," Haruko greeted.
Hinata caught the girl's elbow.
Haruko blinked in confusion. "Hinata-san?"
Hinata looked deep into Haruko's eyes, which were just like hers. Wide, pale, and proof that even people who could see everything could still be blind. Brave Haruko, who managed to steal blood from a former nin without their notice.
"The antidote worked," Hinata murmured.
Haruko froze in place. "It… it worked?"
Hinata nodded.
Haruko blinked tears from her eyes. She used her damp towel to pat her face. "I'll… I'll be sure to spread the word."
"Please."
Haruko patted Hinata's hand with her own. "I can't thank you enough, Hinata-sama."
Hinata sighed. "Thank me when this is all over."
oOo
Hiashi did not like Hinata. But he trusted her to listen to him. And he wanted her to assassinate the Hokage with her mother's poisons.
oOo
Coming up: The Branch Hyuga have a frank discussion about Hinata's next moves.
Next chapter will be posted on September 19, 2022.