Pluck

by PianoCoat

AU. Realms away from her family, unable to reach them, Hinata has herself tucked away between dimensions, using her strange ability to see other's "stickers" to meet new faces and try to get back to her home. When the infamous Thor warrior Sasuke Uchiha stumbles upon her, she soon begins to realize that stickers aren't the only things she can pluck from people.

30. Chapter 30 - Hinata Hyuuga, Moon Witch

- Pluck -

Part II

Chapter 30: Hinata Hyuuga, Moon Witch

---

Companion song: A Lifetime Ago by Sid Acharya

---

His memories were in her eyes.

The dusty cell that no longer seemed so murky or void homed the holder of his memories, Ino Yamanaka. When he entered, she watched him with a sort of fluttering look of realization, of acknowledgment, as though the words that balanced on his teeth were already out in the air, floating against her ears. She looked, and so did he, and he saw those memories — he saw Hinata's wings. White feathers against the blue skies of Ino's eyes.

They were there.

He — He just wanted to reach and pull them out. Is this what Hinata felt like when she could see those invisible things beyond the sight of anyone else? When she saw a face so full of worry and trepidation, did her fingers tense up? Did her veins turn into steel? Did her finger muscles grow stiff with the urge to just pull and pluck and yank?

How did she manage to just —

To stop?

He hardly could. Those wings were right there, and Sasuke slammed the door and almost tripped inside. Ino didn't stumble back. She didn't shrivel into a corner. Ino stayed like she had expected this time, like she had been counting down the seconds since the day she took away his memories — or even the day she met him — or even the day she was born. Her hands on her lap, her legs folded beneath her, she watched him struggle to keep himself at bay and not just rip his history out of her irises.

"You realized how important they are." Her mouth hardly moved when she spoke. "You want them back."

He didn't remember a time when he ever wanted them gone, but that was the point. The reason why they were washed away in the first place, like grime, like filth. And perhaps there was good reason for him asking her to take them away. Perhaps it had been painful to him.

But he wanted those memories.

Hinata Hyuuga with wings; he wanted that image so bad it hurt.

"I'm asking for a lot."

Sasuke crossed the way and settled on his knees in front of her. The dust settled with him, around him, around her. The cell suddenly felt ancient, like they'd been there for decades.

Ino snorted. Nothing about her grin looked old. "Who are you? You can't be the Thor Warrior I've heard about." And maybe she felt brave, or maybe she understood he would give anything for her to hear his plea, for she slapped his knee playfully. "Look at you — on your knees! When has that ever happened?"

"Ino."

He didn't know how to describe his voice at that moment, but it made something in her click and change and understand how serious he was, how much he wanted this.

"Al . . . right."

The already freezing cell cooled down another few degrees when her fingers glowed with magic.

"Alright," she said again. "I'll give them to you. I won't explain how careful you have to be because — well, you out of all of us know that the most." Her hands were slow to reach his head, like she was giving him time to opt out. But he didn't. "Tell me if you ever need me to stop."

Sasuke closed his eyes and leaned into the coolness.

"I won't."

---

His mother kept fixing his hair; licking her thumb and pushing a piece of his bangs back, as if the spit was enough to keep it from flying into his face. But Moon 2, he discovered the moment they arrived, was a very windy place, and there was no amount of brushing his mother could do to keep his hair from falling into his face.

"Sasuke, back straight."

His father talked as if they were going to meet the Moon Queen.

They weren't, of course.

The Hyuuga were just nobles. And even if they were a family of kings and queens, his best friend was the next Apollo, so he didn't really understand why it was such a big deal.

Huffing, Sasuke straightened his spine, and in the corner of his eye, Itachi grinned at him.

"Just a few hours," he whispered under his breath so their father didn't hear him.

That didn't really help Sasuke, as a few hours for Itachi stretched on for a few years for Sasuke. And it wasn't like he didn't know what they would be doing with the Hyuuga. His father and the Great Head Hiashi Hyuuga would sit in the library with no books between them to read, and they would talk under their breaths, and their wives would peek in every now and then with tea in hands, waiting for the right time to come serve it to them. Sasuke would be in the kitchen or in the living room or in one of the large, empty rooms that was only filled when the Hyuuga were hosting a small gathering of people. He would try to play because he is young, and maybe Itachi would try to play with him, or maybe one of the Hyuuga children would play with him — but they wouldn't get much time, because Sasuke knew that when his father talked with other important and serious fathers, no noise was allowed. Even if he was on the other side of the house, they'd hear him, and he would be forced to sit still and be quiet.

Sasuke did not want to sit and be quiet for a few hours that stretched on into decades.

But nothing he said would convince his parents to turn around and go back to Cloud 8, and even if Sasuke did think of some way to change their mind, it was too late. They had already arrived. The Hyuuga home was very white, just different enough from the silver soil and stone that made Moon 2, and it looked very big. Sasuke has been to noble homes before. They didn't know what hallways were. It was just one room smacked next to another. A door between kitchen and bedroom. An archway between study and sitting room. They ate lunch in the luncheon and breakfast in the breakfast room, and it was all so very confusing. Food was food, Sasuke thought. It didn't matter where you ate it.

These ideas were the sorts of things his father told him to not speak on just an hour before they left. Sasuke found it annoying to have to keep his mouth shut, but he didn't want to make his father angry, so as they waited at the front door, he closed his mouth and held his breath and begged the Gods to let time move quickly.

...

It was as he expected.

When they were let in, they were greeted by the Hyuuga family — Sasuke had to bow his head to at least six people in that one, small minute — and then his father and the great Hiashi went off to discuss adult things in the library. Hiashi looked like a noble, from what Sasuke could tell. The wrinkles that should have been in his robes were instead on his face, under his eyes, along his forehead. His hair was flat. It looked like something the painter his family hired to make their portraits would depict. It didn't look real. It looked too perfect.

Everything about the Hyuuga was too perfect.

A perfect husband and a perfect wife. A perfect brother with a perfect son. The toddler in the mother's arms did not cry; her eyes looked like two, miniature moons. They were so perfect that it scared Sasuke a bit, so he looked away from her and stared at the girl at her mother's leg. She was his height, and her wings were drooping down her back, like they were broken or too heavy for her to lift. She had Moon eyes, too, but they were different. Less scary. More real.

And that's when it clicked in his head.

That was Hinata Hyuuga.

Sasuke knew the name because Naruto was close friends with her, and he never stopped talking about her when they were together, so even if Sasuke had never met her before, he felt like he already knew a lot about her. And he did. He knew she liked cinnamon apple muffins. He knew she was learning to sew dresses.

He knew she couldn't fly yet.

Naruto always told him he would have to fly to her because she did not know how, because for someone who was born in Moon, who lived in Moon, who looked everything like a Moon person, Hinata Hyuuga was strangely afraid of heights.

Sasuke couldn't help it.

He laughed, and that earned him a pointed look from his father before he disappeared with Hiashi in a dark room full of books and polished wood.

His mother said something, Itachi nudged his shoulder, and Sasuke couldn't stop himself.

"Good morning, Princess."

...

Naruto had been right.

When she blushed, she looked like the sunset.

It made him —

But —

It was strange. He wanted to keep seeing that blush.

...

Their mothers were making tea and twittering. Itachi was with the brother — Hizashi, Sasuke believed his name was. The son Neji hardly ever looked up when they were meeting one another, and when they were allowed to go their separate ways, he went into a room, closed the door, and Itachi told him he wasn't allowed to go in that room. When Sasuke had asked why, he didn't really give him an answer, only saying something vague about that Neji boy bringing trouble wherever he walked.

Sasuke liked the idea of being friends with that sort of person, so it irritated him that he wouldn't be allowed to see Neji for the rest of the day. Stretching his wings, hearing them pop, Sasuke went outside and cooled his face in the wind.

The door squeaked behind him.

There were light footsteps followed by the drag of feathers on the ground.

"Y-You can call me Hinata," said a soft voice. It matched what Sasuke always believed she would sound like. When Naruto would talk about her, his voice got softer, too, so it only made sense that Hinata had a soft voice. "I'm just a normal person."

He had to hold back another laugh because his father could hear him a million miles away. "That's a lie."

She didn't understand, so he gave her cape of feathers a pointed look and explained that normal people would be able to fly, and she seemed so startled and confused that it took her a long while to reply. Sasuke arched his own wings over his head because looking at hers on the floor made his back itch and feathers curl.

"I'm just no good."

And that was another lie because from all the stories Naruto told him about her, none of them were bad.

So he sighed, grabbed her wrist, and yanked her with him as he rocketed through the air, into the night sky. In the far, far distance, he can see the sun, but the sky was always dark in Moon 2, so it was strange to fly in a sky full of sunlight and stars.

Hinata was screaming and holding onto his arm. Her wings were slow, and they didn't flap hard enough to keep her up and balanced in the air. He kept on flying, going higher and higher, and when he was high enough where he was sure his father could not hear her, he released her.

Her lips peeled back to let loose a monstrous cry, but her breath died on her lips as her eyes widened, and she looked down, looked at how the ground did not come closer and closer, and realized that she was flying on her own.

Her face turned red again with a childish glee Sasuke did not get to see often, and it made his own face feel like a sunset when she grinned at him.

...

He flew with her all day, teaching her how to fly backwards and showing off his backflips and skydives. When Itachi flew up to tell him they would be leaving, Sasuke was angry at himself. He shouldn't have told the Gods to make time go faster.

He wanted to fly with Hinata forever.

When they were in the portal going home, he told his mother this, and she folded his hand into her own and smiled at his father.

...

He came to see her more now that he knew that Moon 2 was not full of boring nobles and tired, old men. Her flying got better, and by the second week, it was almost as if she had been flying all of her life.

Hinata liked to take him to the fields behind her home, where the moonflowers shined. "These are special," she had told him when first taking him to that field that seemed to stretch on forever. "They are hard to kill. They will survive as long as they can."

"Like a weed," he had said, because his mother used to say he was as tough as a weed. If that meant Sasuke was as tough as these flowers, then he would not mind one bit.

But when he said that, Hinata looked at him in a way she had never looked at him before. Her eyes looked at strange places on his face where gazes would not stray for as long as hers had. With her so close, with her eyes trained and stuck on him, Sasuke realized her irises were like the petals of the moonflowers. Silver, but with touches of lilac. He could smell the sweet fragrance; when she blinked, it was like her eyelashes were waving the scent towards him.

"Are . . . weeds bad things?" she asked, and her voice trembled like she was scared, like he was a monster about to eat her.

"Bad?" His nose scrunched up. "Why are they bad?"

Maybe it was his face or the tone of his voice, but that tremble disappeared, and Hinata smiled and giggled and leaned over to kiss the spot between his brows. When she did, Sasuke's hands flew out and grabbed the flowers, and her lips were plush and smooth like the petals. Petal eyes and petal mouth.

Maybe Hinata was more of a moonflower than he ever could be.

When she pulled away, Sasuke felt different. Like the bones in his face were lighter. Like his muscles were thinner. He felt he didn't even need to use his wings to fly. Like he was floating ten centimeters off the ground.

When she pulled away, Sasuke dipped his hands further into the field of flowers, and he whispered, "What did you just do?"

And she whispered back, "Magic."

...

When he visited the Hyuuga house, the mother always smiled and the father always sipped his amber drink from a tall, crystal glass before he made company with the books in his study. Little Hanabi played with buttons in the sitting room. Hizashi pulled on his shoes and stretched out his wings to take a fly down to the market. Hinata greeted him at the door and followed him into their next adventure of games.

But the cousin, Neji, was never out.

He was always behind a door that was locked, stuck, unable to be moved by Sasuke's fingers. The Hyuuga adults did not speak of him when Sasuke was there. Like he did not exist. Like Neji Hyuuga was only a figment in their imagination that only they could see, could talk to, could interact with. Was it always like this? Even when Sasuke was gone, back in Cloud 8, chasing Itachi around the house, did the Hyuuga still pretend that Neji was not real? Did they still lock him behind doors that no one other than Hyuuga could open?

These questions were answered on a summer evening. The home was empty when Hinata and Sasuke returned from exploring the shops of Sun 1 with Naruto. He didn't know if it was alright for him to enter a noble's home without the head of the house there to allow him entrance, but Hinata tugged him in without any signs of hesitation, and he followed her to the kitchen, where she poured three glasses of honey milk.

"Neji," she called, small knuckles tapping on the wood of a door a few rooms away from the kitchen. They were in some sort of music room. There was a grand piano by the window. Flutes of all shapes and kinds hung like trophies on the wall, glowing in the moonlight that poured in through the glass pane. Between a crimson dizi and a piccolo stained by the midnight was the door Neji hid behind, trapped and locked. Hinata's fingers tranced the small crack between door and frame as she placed the extra glass of milk on the floor. "Are you reading today or sharpening the katana?"

Suddenly, the room they were in seemed all the less impressive. Sasuke stared at that door, willing it to open, to welcome him into a room full of katana. He could imagine them hanging from the wall, decorating it in exquisite patterns. There would be katanas from all the different universes. A pearl blade from Ocean 2. A rose blade from Forest 5 — he's seen one, once. It was so strange how something so delicate as a petal could be morphed and shaped into something so deadly. His father used to have a blade made out of the rainwater of Cloud 4.

What blade did Neji have?

He wanted to go in. He wanted to see.

But he knew he couldn't.

There was a muttering of something. Hinata smiled and sat on the floor next to the glass. "When you practice next time, can you show me how to strengthen my tenouchi?"

Slowly, Sasuke inched close, turning his head to incline his ear more in the direction of the door.

There, he could hear the dim voice of that mystery the Hyuuga had tried to hide from him.

"Lady Hinata, your tenouchi is strong enough."

"But I want it to be as strong as yours," she said. "You'll let me practice with you. Won't you?"

A small pause, then: "We'll see."

Hinata giggled, giddy, and tapped on the door once again. "Neji, your milk is getting warm."

"Isn't that Uchiha still there?"

That Uchiha!?

Sasuke frowned, but Hinata waved a hand at him, motioning for him to stay quiet. "Yes, but he's not in the room."

There was a small click on the other side of the wall. "I can hear him, Lady Hinata. He breathes like a dog."

Sasuke, having enough of this, slid next to Hinata and kicked the door. "And what about you!?" he snapped. "You hide like a coward! Come out and say that to my face!"

His skin burned with electricity, which hasn't bothered him for years. It was a part of his life, now; even his family was used to the feeling of lightning brushing over their arms and faces when he was in a particularly bad mood. But Hinata was not family. Her eyes blinked and squinted, her shoulders arched, and she hummed, as if hurt. At that, Sasuke dragged in a deep breath, shoving all his lightning into his lungs, where it rumbled and tumbled and throbbed like a second heart.

"Sorry," he whispered. "Sorry, Hinata."

Her smile was forgiving, and as she stood from her spot on the floor, he checked her face and pulled her sleeves up her arms to make sure he didn't burn her. She laughed at how his hands touched the undersides of her forearms. Leaving the milk on the floor, Hinata walked over to the piano, sat on the bench, and relaxed her palms on the polished keys.

"Did you know," she said, "that Neji's favorite song is actually very simple? Even I can play it."

Her fingers pressed into the keys, one by one, joints a bit stiff and hands too small to play some parts correctly, but she played, and the melody turned the walls soft. The flutes vibrated and talked with the piano. The wood under Sasuke's feet felt like clouds.

He went over to her, he leaned over her shoulder, and he asked, "Why is he always hiding?"

Hinata's eyes stayed on her hands, like she had to concentrate to not mess up.

"He does it to protect you."

Sasuke frowned. "What?"

"You're not Hyuuga, so it's dangerous."

Her hands danced to the right. The sounds got higher, lighter.

"I don't get it."

The song slowed down. He didn't know if it was because it was supposed to be played that way or if it was because she looked away to find his gaze hovering over her. "When you look at his face, you'll l…-sl. tr.. ! Uo —L-h'te IMm-."

Sasuke peeked back at the door, now aware of how something dark and . . . foreboding surrounded it, enveloped it, clung to its surface like weeds.

"Really?"

Hinata looked back at the piano. The song sped up again.

"It's not just you. It happens to everyone who isn't Hyuuga. One time, the Moon Queen and Toneri came, and t . B_tri.! Th;...sSse-ou. -.! fo-r.!"

The music stopped. The flutes stopped discussion. Hinata dropped her hands to her lap, and she smiled.

"But he is not a monster," she told him. "He is there because he likes you, because you are my friend. Neji has a very big heart."

When Sasuke looked back for the last time before they left to go look at the stars in the front yard, he saw that the milk glass was gone and that the weeds had disappeared, perhaps not even there to begin with.

...

He didn't mind waking up early to fly Hinata to school.

A school in Moon 2 was a school meant for nobles. Hinata would sometimes show him the books she's have to read and the flute solos she would have to play and the dances she would have to learn. It was all very weird stuff — stuff Sasuke's regular school in Cloud 8 did not teach him. But it wasn't like Naruto's school, either, which was specifically organized and constructed around princes and princesses who would eventually take the role of being Gods.

Hinata was right in the middle of them.

Not too normal, but not too sophisticated and posh.

So, really, Sasuke didn't mind waking up early to fly to Moon 2.

Because Hinata was there, and because —

"Oi! Hurry up, or we'll be late, Bastard!"

And because Naruto was there, too.

...

For his age, Sasuke was a very intelligent boy.

That's what his mother always told him, and his mother didn't lie, so it had to be true.

So at the ripe age of nine, Sasuke began to notice things that many, regular nine-year-olds would glance over. If you asked the young Sand King Gaara why Naruto would hang out with Hinata so much, he would say something along the lines of "Because they're friends . . . right? Isn't that what friends do?" And, really, what a simple and dull way of thinking that was!

And if you asked the Ocean Princess Karui why Naruto always insisted on being there when Hinata got out of school, she would say, "Well, it's very dangerous for a girl like her to be alone. I'm sure he wants to protect her." Which was a seriously uneducated guess, if you asked Sasuke.

If you asked Shikamaru, Cloud's God-to-be, he might have the right idea in his head, or he might not. He was usually too busy snoozing to pay much attention to things.

The only one who Sasuke figured knew the real reason behind Naruto and Hinata being so close was Toneri, Moon's Future Baldur. Really, he had been the one to really solidify what Sasuke was piecing together. He had come to the Academy for Gods first to leave with Naruto, but the guy flew off in a burst of light without even realizing he was there in the first place.

"Oi," Shikamaru sighed, arms stretching over his head, "what are you in a hurry for?"

"Princess had a big test today," Naruto yelled, already starting up the portal to Moon 2. "I need to see how she did! She's been worrying about it all week!"

Sasuke was also well aware of the test. In fact, with the amount of time he's spent helping Hinata study for it, he could probably take it, himself. He sighed and shook his head, and next to him, Toneri stared at the open, gaping portal of silvers and blues that swallowed up Naruto without mercy.

"Oh," he said, like he had just discovered a new species of plant. "He likes her."

And that's when it clicked in Sasuke's head.

Of course.

So that day, after he had flown after Naruto and found that he was already spinning Hinata in the air, congratulating her for her pass, he flew to the Hyuuga home, bowed his head when Hiashi allowed him entrance, and sat himself between piccolo and dizi.

"Naruto has a crush on Hinata," he told Neji through the door.

Over the years, he's become something of a mailman for him. It just felt right. Her cousin wanted nothing but the best for her, but it was hard to do so when he had to be stuck in these walls all day. He felt like he owed him something; after all, he hid his face all the time so that Sasuke was allowed to come over whenever he pleased without fear of something disastrous happening.

When those words left his mouth, the clinking and clatter on the other side of the wood paused, and light footsteps came closer to the door.

"He doesn't even try to hide it," Sasuke continued. "He's all over her." He thought back to that scene that played out before him just minutes ago. Even from so far away, Sasuke could feel the sunlight, could see how it glowed in Naruto's smile. And Hinata sparkled, too. "But . . . I don't know how she feels."

And he wouldn't.

Not for another ten months.

It was her birthday. She was only allowed one hour to spend it with her friends because, for some reason, birthdays were important to nobles and especially to Hyuuga nobles.

He found her by the field of moonflowers, looking up at the dark sky, hand reaching out and trying to capture the sunlight that waved at her from so far away.

"You want to see him that bad?"

She didn't even look away from the sky. Her eyes didn't look like moons at that moment. They looked like the sun was trying to burst out from her chest.

Scratching the back of his head, Sasuke rolled his shoulder to the left, where, far along the silver path, the road of moonstone, past train stations and homes and gardens and fields of flowers stood a portal to the very place she currently held in her hand.

"Just go," he said, "I'll make something up. Go see him."

Her face was red, and she flung her arms and her wings around him, and the warmth of her face against his chest did not leave even after she was gone, even after he had taken himself to the Hyuuga, to that room, to that door.

"Hinata likes him, too," he told Neji. "She really likes him."

He didn't know why, but when he touched the door, it rattled with his electricity, and the flutes moaned with the static.

...

It was the weekend after.

Sasuke would not leave the dining table.

"I thought you were going to see Hinata."

Sasuke glared at Itachi, who only smiled and leaned his chin into his palm. Their mother piped up from the kitchen, recalling the date the second Hinata's name was mentioned.

"Oh my!" She dried her hands on a rag and rushed over to pull out Sasuke's nice pair of shoes. "Today is when you get to celebrate her birthday, yes? I'm surprised you never mentioned it to me."

Sasuke made sure to sharpen the daggers in his glare before he folded his arms and huffed. "I don't need to go," he said. "She'll be fine with just Naruto."

His mother paused, his dress shoes hanging from her fingers. Itachi glanced over his shoulder and shot her a look. "Really," he mused, "why do you think that?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. Of course his brother didn't realize. It seemed only he and Toneri and Neji knew. "Because they like each other."

Itachi smiled at him. "What makes you think that?"

"He flies her to school all the time."

"Is that so?" Itachi tapped his chin with a finger. "You do that, too, don't you?"

Well, yeah. But that was different.

"He's always talking about her."

"You talk about her, too."

It wasn't like he had anything better to talk about!

"He is always coming to see her."

"Really now? You do that, as well."

Wait . . .

"And when he's around her, he's always smiling and —"

This time, Itachi didn't have to say anything.

Sasuke face felt like the sun — which was annoying and stupid because he didn't want to be anything like the sun at that moment! Jumping from his chair, he ducked behind his mother and shoved on his normal shoes.

"I need to go somewhere."

He shot into the air and dived to the portal, twisting the dial without even having to look at it. When he reached Moon 2, the air was hotter. Everything felt humid and sticky.

Even Neji's door looked weird and out of place, like the wood was made of sap, like the bronze knob was butter.

"I —"

Sasuke nearly collapsed into the door.

"Neji, I think I —"

Skin on wood. The lightning poured right into it. The frame cracked. Splinters splattered on the floor.

"I . . ."

He gasped, holding his breath. If he breathed, the lightning would get out, the door would fall, and Neji's hideout would be exposed. Sasuke sunk to the ground and pressed his face into the wood, and he shook with the electricity and the realization and the scariness of it all.

...

If Toneri were there, he'd probably sit next to him, back against the door, and look out at how the lightning danced on the piano keys like fingers and kissed the sides of the flutes.

"Oh," he would say to Neji, "he likes her."

...

He came back a week later. When Hinata opened the door, water spilled over the sides of the shining moons in her gaze, and she first hugged him, then slapped her right hand against his clavicle, then tugged hard at his sleeve, like she was scared he would leave her.

"You didn't come," she cried. The house shifted with the irritation of her father — irritation, Sasuke feared, was directed towards him, so he quickly pulled her outside and shut the door behind her. "Naruto and I waited. We just sat and waited. He said he didn't want you to miss anything because — because that day, when you told me to go to Sun 1, you stayed behind, and we thought it wouldn't be fair for you to miss two parties." Her jaw clenched. "But you never came!"

Sasuke thought about lying. He'd say Mother got lost in Forest 2. He'd say Itachi broke his foot. He'd say anything that wasn't the truth — that wasn't that he had spent three hours leaning against Neji's door, sick to his stomach, wishing he could just go in that room full of katana and shadows and hide himself from the world with him.

But he didn't.

He stayed quiet and watched her dry her eyes with the soft undersides of her wrists.

...

It was a little irritating, but Sasuke could handle it.

He could get used to it.

Eventually, this feeling would fade; one day, he'd watch Naruto and Hinata fly together and not feel a raging, shocking heat burn his tongue. One day, he'd watch them laugh together, dance together, and he'd be happy. He'd roll his eyes when Naruto would linger by the front door after taking Hinata home, not wanting to say goodbye. He'd scoff when Hinata would fly circles around the portal, waiting impatiently, checking her hair and flattening her skirt every so often.

It would get better.

Easier.

He would be alright.

Sasuke would get through this, and things would be better.

But then —

". . . Mom?"

"Sasuke, don't look!"

But then it —

"Itachi . . . how . . . ?"

"Don't touch her. Come over here, Sasuke. Don't look!"

Then his parents were killed.

He woke up and found them dead in the hallway right outside his bedroom.

His mother's hand was stretched out, like she was about to knock on his door to wake him up.

"Sasuke, come on."

"Sasuke!"

on-IT..!(lle;kiiiIi.

HEeehe_. k—Illll.!d

mO-

.!..Uib_)u lO

"Sasuke!"

He was on the floor of the cell, the cold stone stinging the side of his face. His eyes refocused. The walls of his home turned dark and gray. The corpses were replaced by Ino's hands, which hovered by him, scared to touch him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to throw you into that so suddenly."

His legs felt like wood, and his insides knotted into one mass, but Sasuke pushed himself up, bangs stuck to his face.

"Why?" was all he could say. He wanted to say more, but his vocal cords were decaying. Nothing else would leave him.

But Ino understood. "It has to do with Hinata," she said. "You connect her with those memories."

Hinata? With something as vile as the death of his parents?

Bile boiled in his throat, along the back of his tongue.

"Keep going."

Ino looked hesitant, but she said nothing. Her hands were cool against his temples. Her magic pushed into his synapses. He melted back into the world that was taken from him.

...

"Sasuke."

Itachi had always told him that, like him, Hinata had a way with her that was unusual for someone her age. She was only eleven, but sometimes, it was like she could read people's minds. She just looked at them and knew what they were struggling with, what was roaring in their heads, what made them sink into the concrete like it was quicksand.

Though, for his situation, it wasn't all that hard to figure out.

She knew.

Everyone knew.

But, somehow, Hinata went beyond the surface. She looked at him and she saw something that was beyond him — that was a part of him, but not him as a person.

So when she came to his, when she passed over the very spot where his parents had laid in a pool of their blood, mixed together, holding one another, Hinata collapsed next to him and sobbed. She hugged his hand between hers and pressed her nose against the back of his thumb and cried like she was crying for two people.

Because she was.

Because, somehow, she knew that he wouldn't, that he couldn't, that he was a husk, and statue, a house with nothing inside — no furniture, no clothes, no people.

Hinata sobbed and her tears soaked into the sheets of his bed, and that night, he'd lay in them and feel his eyes sting, but no tears came to him. It was like he ran out. Hinata had already cried them all out for him.

Her tears were cold. At midnight, they were almost freezing, and his sheets were stiff, like ice was braided between the fibers.

That was the first night in weeks he fell asleep and didn't wake up to the soft knocking of his mother, moments before she was murdered.

The next morning, Itachi was at his door. He normally would put his hand over Sasuke's eyes when he passed the hallway, but that day, he didn't have to. Sasuke left his room. He didn't feel like he was walking on his parents' spirits when he went to the kitchen.

It felt empty and cold, but he was there.

And so was Itachi.

And so was —

"Shh, Sasuke. Careful."

And so was Hinata.

She slept on the sofa, the skin under her eyes red and dry. Her hands curled close to her face, like she was still holding his hand, like she was breathing her warmth into his muscles.

As Itachi worked on breakfast, Sasuke sat on the floor next to her, carefully slipping his hand between hers. She sighed, held him close, and in his room, the ice of her tears melted and slipped to the floor.

...

Naruto came later that day, dragging him out of the house.

"We're going to Sand 1."

"No," Sasuke huffed, kicking away the shoes Naruto threw at him to put on, "I'm not going."

Naruto glared at him. "Gaara invited us. This is important."

Sasuke had no idea why the Sand King would want him of all people to come to his kingdom. He tried to push away again, but Hinata bent down and pulled his shoes back to him

"I think we should go," she said.

So, with the skin on the back of his neck rising with a mixture of annoyance and shame, Sasuke shoved his feet in his shoes and let Naruto pull him down the streets and to the gate.

...

"The sandstorm comes in at sunset," Gaara, His Majesty, the Devil Himself, informed Naruto when they just walked into the palace.

Naruto didn't look bothered in the slightest, and Hinata grinned and greeted Gaara with a curtsy and that made the young king blink and gawk, like he didn't expect her to do something that was so common for a noble to do for a king.

It would be two hours until sunset.

The chefs made a grand feast, and when Temari and Kankuro joined at the long dinner table, chaos ensued. Kankuto and Naruto fought over dishes like it was a game of tug-and-war. Temari tried to act dignified, but when she thought no one was looking, she'd pour extra hot sauce on her brothers' meals and laugh behind her hands when they'd gag at the sudden hit of spice. Gaara, being the Devil, was not scared to use his power to command the maids to sit Sasuke, Naruto, and his siblings all the way at the bottom end of the table while he and Hinata enjoyed the food at the upper end. Naruto was huffing with jealousy the whole time, and Sasuke had to kick his leg every so often and remind him not to glare at the Sand King.

Afterwards, they were all dragged into separate rooms, where maids and butlers washed them, clothed them, and did their hair.

Sasuke felt like he was going to a ball, but when he left his room, he was instead escorted to the Sand King's study, where everyone gathered, equally dolled up.

Outside, the wind was roaring. The horizon was a beige monster that grew bigger and closer. Most of the windows were boarded up, but the glass doors that lead out to the large balcony were left untouched.

Naruto was the first to push them open, and he grinned at Sasuke and nodded his head back, gesturing for him to come out with him.

The whole group filtered outside.

The wind flung Hinata's braid around her shoulders. Gaara's robes flapped in the wind.

The sandstorm was approaching. The city around the palace was vacant, locked up, prepared. But they were outside. Naruto stared at the storm with a light in his gaze.

"What are we doing?" Sasuke shoved his shoulder into his. "Why are we out here?"

Naruto only grinned. "We're fighting the storm."

...

It was loud. Wind roaring and whistling and crashing about them.

It tried to push them over, to shove them into the ground. Hinata held onto the post for her life. Kankuro had strings wrap around his palms, tying him to the railing.

But Naruto stood.

He stood, and when his wings shot out, it was like the light was trying to battle against the dark of the storm.

"I'M NOT AFRAID OF YOU!" he screamed, his voice shattering the cacophony of the sandstorm. "I'M LOUDER THAN YOU!"

He sucked in the air, his wings pointed to the sky, and he screamed.

He screamed hard against the wind, the sand hitting his face, the angry growl of the storm. He yelled like he wasn't afraid, like he could win, like he would win.

He screamed as the hem of his dress coat was ripped into shreds. He screamed as the golden pins of his cuffs were ripped out. His hair was flying. His eyes were wide and ferocious.

Everyone screamed with him, too.

Sasuke didn't know what they screamed about, what demon they were fighting themselves, but they screamed with all their heart. They yelled. They hollered. They roared.

Hinata bellowed like Neji. Her lips shimmered with gloss, capturing the dying light of the sunset and the monstrous shine from Naruto. She screamed because he was trapped and hidden, because he deserved to be free. And when her voice cracked and her pitch shifted, she screamed for herself, for a curse, a misery, a terrible secret. Sasuke did not understand, but at the same time, he did.

So he joined her.

He joined Naruto.

He joined everyone, and he screamed at the sandstorm, cursing it for taking his parents, for ruining his family, for stealing the tears from his soul.

...

When they were back inside, everyone was exhausted, torn, and relieved.

Hinata crawled over and caught his head before he fell to the ground, leaning Sasuke's head against her shoulder, wiping her thumbs to collect the sweat from his brows. He relaxed. He felt like light itself.

"Thank you," he croaked. His throat hurt.

She smiled into his hair. "Thank Naruto. It was his idea."

He glanced over at Naruto, who shared his support with Gaara, grin tired but satisfied. It made something heavy sink into his gut. It made him feel guilty that he was still like this, that last night, he had been sleeping in her tears, that his hand had been captured by hers.

Maids crept in to board up the glass doors.

He fell asleep to their hammering, to the muffled howl of the storm outside, to the faint beat of Hinata's pulse.

When he woke up, he hoped his heart changed its mind.

That would make things . . . easier.

...

When Itachi fell, it was sudden, and it was horrible.

His wings had disappeared.

They were there, then they were gone. It was a normal day. Sasuke woke up from a nightmare, remembered it was the fourth anniversary of their parents' deaths, and when he quietly mentioned it at the table, Itachi fell.

His wings cracked, then drooped like dead flowers, and he collapsed, and the floor could no longer hold him up.

Sasuke tried to grab him, but he couldn't.

He kept falling and falling and falling — for years, for decades, for eons. Sasuke managed to grab his arm a minute before impact, and that was probably the only reason Itachi survived.

When he landed, smacking hard against the surface of the ocean, the bones in his legs shattered immediately. His skin was ripped into pieces, like a monster had attacked him. The pain rattled through his spine, and Itachi passed out mere seconds later, just as Sasuke dived in to drag him back to air.

He didn't wake up for three days.

The doctors said it was a miracle he survived.

They said his legs couldn't be fixed, but it was still a miracle.

They said it was a shame what happened to his wings, but it was still a miracle.

Sasuke was tired of miracles.

He was tired.

...

For three days, he stayed in the medical wing of the Guard because he didn't want to go home, to that empty prison. He didn't want to go there with no parents and no brother.

The Guard took in Itachi because they had a doctor who specialized with wings. His name was Kabuto, and when he came, he looked at his brother like he was an object, a picture in a book, something to be played with and examined.

"Don't touch his back like that," Sasuke hissed every day.

"Don't hurt him," he barked every hour.

Kabuto barely listened to him. When he was done, he pulled off his gloves and threw them into the trash and didn't even spare Sasuke a look.

When Itachi woke up on the fourth day, Hinata was there with him. She brought a vase of moonflowers and sat them on the small table next to Itachi's bed, next to the small bouquet of poppies Sakura had brought the day prior.

Hinata hardly looked at Itachi when she was there, but when he stirred awake and groggily muttered something into the still air, she looked, and she gasped, and her face was as white as the walls.

Sasuke was next to his brother, pushing hair out of his face and asking him if he was alright, if anything hurt, if he needed something.

Itachi said he couldn't feel his legs.

Sasuke stayed and squeezed the life out of his hand, and Hinata excused herself into the hall and sobbed every ounce of pain those words made Sasuke feel.

...

When Kabuto came in the next day to ask Itachi if he wanted the wing process to get his wings back, Sasuke had said, "No."

But Itachi had said, "Yes. Tomorrow."

Kabuto spent five minutes checking his back, feeling his back muscles and examining the holes in his back that were slowly getting smaller and smaller from lack of use.

When he left, Sasuke hissed, "You don't need them! I'll live down here with you."

Itachi shook his head. "I want to go back home. I don't want to leave Mom and Father there alone."

"It doesn't matter!" Sasuke snapped. "You could die. I'd rather live in Forest or Sand."

Itachi gave him that stern, older brother look that Sasuke hasn't seen for a long time. "It's my decision," he said. "I want my wings back."

Enraged, unable to control his lightning, Sasuke stormed out before he hurt his brother any more. He raced to the Sky Gate, flew through Moon 2's portal, and when he got to Hinata's home, he didn't wait for Hiashi to allow him in. He barged inside, tore through the home, and fell on his knees in front of Neji's door.

Hinata had been at the piano, playing for him. She jumped up and grabbed Sasuke and let him lean into her, and for the first time in a while, she didn't have to cry for him.

"I'm going to lose him!" he screamed into her shoulder, like it was a sandstorm. He could feel bits of it stuck in his eyelashes. He could hear the wind shake around in his ears. "It's only a 5% survival rate. He's leaving me!"

The door rattled.

Hinata pushed him closer.

"You won't," she said in a way that made him want to believe her. He didn't, but he wanted to. "You won't lose him, Sasuke."

...

They took Itachi to a new room for the wing process and laid him down on a low bed. His wheelchair was outside, looming in the hallway. Sasuke pushed it inside when he came in, rolling it into the corner, telling himself that when this was all done, Itachi would be fine, and the wheelchair would be right there for him.

"You don't have to be here," Itachi told him as Kabuto was mixing up the formula that would start this agonizing process. "You can wait outside. You can wait in another room."

Sasuke knew why he said this. If he wasn't that lucky 5%, he didn't want him to see.

Sitting next to him, grabbing his hands, Sasuke did not move, and Itachi smiled something sad and scared, something he tried to hide but just couldn't.

Kabuto came with the vial and asked if he was ready.

Itachi's fingers dug into Sasuke's palm when he said he was.

...

It was worse than Sasuke could ever imagine.

Watching his brother's back bulge with wings, the skin sloping, ebb and flow, tearing and stretching to its breaking point; bones cracking so loud that they rung like bells; muscles swelling; blood and puss leaking out like those holes in his back were eyes and they were tears.

Itachi was screaming.

He's never heard Itachi scream before.

Even as he fell, even as his legs broke against the ocean's surface, Itachi didn't scream.

His body shook like it was soil and the wings were an earthquake. His teeth ripped the mattress into shreds. His grip slid to Sasuke's wrists and made them pop and burn.

Sasuke shook, as well. With him. Without him. Together and apart.

The blood kept spilling and staining the bed and the air and white skin that turned paler and paler. Itachi's upper body rocked and howled and tried to fight the pain, to get away from it; but his lower body was still, bruised and battered, already dead.

"Itachi," Sasuke croaked, leaning in. "Itachi, come on. It's almost over!"

He didn't know if that was true or not.

He just had to say something to give Itachi hope, to give himself hope.

"Hang on," he kept saying. "Hang on."

And Itachi tried. He wailed and he cursed and he cried out to Mom, to Father. He told them he was sorry. He begged for their forgiveness. He prayed they didn't hate him.

His hold was getting weaker. He was growing quiet. His body was collapsing on itself.

"No, Itachi!" Sasuke begged. "Keep going. Please, Itachi."

He knew they shouldn't have done this. He should have pushed harder. He should have —

"Itachi!"

He should have —

The door cracked against the wall as Hinata flew in. She landed on top of Itachi, knees on each side of him, and her hands tore down his back, through rivers of blood, trying to rip at something.

"Don't stop, Itachi!" she yelled. Her head snapped up and glared at something behind Sasuke. "Your wings are coming out. Look!"

She tore and tore at nothing. Her hands were soaked red.

"They're coming," she said. "They're coming out!"

Itachi's hands stiffened in Sasuke's grip. Suddenly, they tugged at his fingers, and Itachi's body rose and shook, and his mouth was wide as he tried to swallow all the air in the room.

There was a crack. A watery croak.

And then the wings sprung out.

Tall and wide and wet, dripping, stained, but still there.

Hinata's face was splattered. Her own wings were dripping.

She toppled off of him and Itachi shuddered and breathed and lived. Sasuke pressed his face into the back of Itachi's skull, trembling, unsure if this was real or if he was dreaming.

Kabuto stepped in a minute later, glanced at Hinata, who was pressed against the wall, barely conscious, and then looked down at the two, alive brothers. He hummed in surprise, and he pulled the wheelchair closer to them.

...

"Itachi!"

Two weeks later, his brother was finally allowed to go back home. He had wanted to fly there on his own, but Sasuke was still worried about his back, so he insisted on pushing him back on the wheelchair.

When they got there, Hinata was there to let them into their own home. She hugged Itachi and kissed his cheeks like a mother, and he grinned and patted her head.

"There's my angel."

Sasuke scoffed as he pulled out plates for the lunch he and Hinata and Naruto had spent all morning making. "Sure, Itachi."

"Hmm?" his brother cooed. "Then is she your angel, little brother?"

Sasuke choked, and Hinata twittered on about the food as she pushed Itachi to the table.

...

That evening, after Itachi had gone to bed for a long sleep, he and Hinata sat in the back and watched the sun slowly sink down.

"He's doing well, all things considered," she hummed.

Sasuke nodded, wings stretching out behind the both of them. "He'll have to stay home for a while, but even when he is well enough to travel, it will be a lot of work. It will be hard for him to travel around the realms. He cannot access everywhere in his wheelchair, and he'll tire faster by flying."

Hinata's hands curled in her lap. "That's . . ." Her voice was soft, and she cleared her throat. "I can't imagine. He's always wanted to visit all the realms and districts."

Sasuke waited for a moment, staring at how the sky slowly faded into purples and magentas. Then, he pulled out a few pieces of paper that were folded in his pocket and dropped them between him and Hinata.

She looked down, and as she picked them up, he said, "That's why . . . I'm thinking about joining the Guard." Hinata, startled, snapped her gaze his way. "They have access to all the districts. Even the God and Noble ones. I thought I'd . . . try to bring him something every time I go somewhere new."

This time, when Hinata had tears slipping down her face, it seemed to be for Itachi's sake, and Sasuke curled his wing over her shoulder and basked in her smile.

...

Two days later, there was a katana on the front porch. When he pulled it out of its scabbard, his room was filled with the blinding, startling, white light of lightning.

When Sasuke asked Hinata about it later that day, she smiled and pretended to know nothing about it.

...

Naruto let him train in one of the three dojos the Sun Palace owned, and Hinata would often stop by to bring food and check in on his progress.

It was getting close to summer when Naruto stopped by one evening. Sun was always hot, but with the approaching season, it seemed borderline scorching — enough for Sasuke to seriously consider taking Sakura's offer in training at one of the clearings behind her manor.

When Naruto entered, there was a nervous drag in his step, and Sasuke sheathed his katana and walked over to the bench to grab his water and down half of it as Naruto slowly approached him.

He didn't say anything immediately, which was so totally unlike Naruto, so Sasuke sighed and wiped his mouth with his arm and said, "Get on with it, already."

And the dam broke.

"I'm going to ask Hinata out!"

The water bottle almost slipped from Sasuke's hand, but he caught it at the last minute and squeezed his fingers hard into the metal sides.

"Is that . . . so."

Naruto's face crumpled. "You think it's a bad idea." Sasuke didn't even get a chance to open his mouth. Naruto fell on the bench, head in hands. "Shit! I'm screwed. If you think it's a bad idea, then what the hell am I supposed to do!?"

Sasuke stared at the slumped back of his friend for a moment, let out a low, slow breath, and dropped the bottle to the floor and sat next to him on the bench.

"I never said that."

"It's written all over your face." Naruto brought his pointer finger a few inches away from his face and twirled it around, like he was writing something invisible on his skin. "It says 'Wow. Are you stupid? Hinata doesn't even LIKE you!'"

Sasuke elbowed his arm. "You are stupid," he said, "and Hinata DOES like you."

Naruto's body glowed. "Sh-She does!?"

"It's obvious. She drools about you all the time."

Naruto's frown turned into a sheepish grin. "Really? What does . . . she, y'know, like about me?"

Sasuke squinted at him, then aimed his elbow for his stomach. "How am I supposed to know?" He stood, snorted, and walked back to the middle of the dojo. "Ask her yourself."

Filled with newly-found courage, Naruto bounced off the bench, wings out and singing with sunlight. "Sasuke!" he called, and when Sasuke looked over, his grin took up the room. "Thanks!"

Naruto bolted out of the room in a flurry of feathers and laughter, and Sasuke had to sink his teeth into his tongue to keep the static locked away in his chest.

That night, after a few more hours of training, he dropped by Moon 2 to knock on Neji's door and warn him about Naruto. And when he got home and Itachi asked him if he was sick, he lied and said he was, and then went to bed early and didn't eat for the next twelve hours.

...

Three years later, when he was nineteen, he was accepted into the Guard.

"You did it."

Naruto was already flying out to tell Sakura the good news, but Hinata stayed, tugging lightly at his sleeve, coaxing him to turn her way and look at her.

"Congratulations."

And when he looked at her, the letter of acceptance fluttered to the ground, forgotten for a moment. She was smiling, and she was glowing in the sunshine, and her wings were framing her body. No matter where he looked, they pulled his gaze in, and he couldn't look away.

He couldn't . . .

He . . .

He was staring at the ceiling. His own wings were out, flapping, filling the cell with wind and fluttering feathers and a cool breeze. Ino's fingers slipped from his face, magic startled.

No matter how many times he blinked, he couldn't get the image of Hinata out of his head. Her. Her wings. Both of them, together, stitched together in one memory.

It looked right.

It felt right.

He could barely remember her without them.

A second of breath trembled out from between his teeth, and he dropped his gaze and focused back on Ino.

"Keep going," he said. "There's more, right?"

Her lips pressed together. "I . . ."

"I want them all," he told her. "No matter what, I want to remember all of her."

Ino swallowed, and she nodded. "Alright. Close your eyes."

He did. Behind his eyelids, Hinata's wings greeted him and smiled at him and coaxed him closer.

...

"I'm going to propose to her."

Naruto had called for him. Now the Apollo, he couldn't just leave his palace whenever he wanted to, so Sasuke was used to being called for.

But when those words were the first thing that met him when he entered the Sun King's office, he froze. He barely got himself all the way into the room.

"I'm in love with her," Naruto said, sitting on his desk, perfectly molded into a room full of light and yellow warmth and shine. "I want her to be my wife."

His katana crackled at his hip. Sasuke kept his gaze on the floor.

"Is that so?"

"Can you help me?"

No, he wanted to say. No, I don't want to!

His mind screamed it. His chest roared it. His eyes — they must have yelled it, as well, for when he finally looked up, Naruto blinked, and he stilled, and his shoulders fell like one would if they looked in a mirror and they were startled at what they saw.

Slowly, Naruto slipped off the desk.

"Sasuke . . ."

"Give me a day." He turned around and pulled back the door. "I'll return tomorrow."

And when he left, he went straight to Forest 3. He almost went to Moon 2. His legs begged him to go there. His wings tried to pull him in that direction. They wanted him to sit on his legs in front of Neji's door and tell him he was a coward and he was giving up.

Sasuke wouldn't go.

Because he was scared that if he told Neji his plan, he'd try to talk him out of it.

He went to Forest 3, he went to Sakura's manor, and he found Ino in her room.

"I need you to make me forget," he told her. The teeth of his ribs sunk into his lungs. His bones felt like rubber, snapping, wobbling. "Before I do something I regret, make me forget this feeling."

Ino's smile was sad, and she did not hide how she pitied him.

Sasuke didn't let it bother him. Not this time.

He went onto his knees, and she leaned forward in her chair, pressed her palms into the sides of his head, and poured her magic into him.

"Make me fall in love with Sakura," was one of the last things he told her, "so at least some good comes from me."

...

He went back to Sun 1.

He stepped into the office, and Naruto dropped his pen and raced around the desk.

"Sasuke," he said, grabbing his shoulder. "Sasuke, look. Just be honest with me, okay? I won't be angry or anything, alright? So — so do you — uh — is there some chance you like —"

"Yeah," he said, and Naruto's eyes grew wide. "I like Sakura."

Naruto coughed in shock, his hand dropping from Sasuke's shoulder.

"S-Sakura!?" he yelped. "Really? You like Sakura?"

"Yes," Sasuke droned.

"But — for years, you've never —"

"I changed my mind," he said.

It took a moment for Naruto to catch his breath, fist pounding into his chest.

"Then," he gaped, "then you —"

"I'll help you propose to Hinata." Sasuke walked around him and sat on his desk. "What's the plan?"

…

He pulled out of her magic the final time, head filled with Hinata, chest filled with her, too. The wings that had been stuck in Ino's eyes were now flying in his head, flapping, feathers brushing the ends of his mind.

"Sasuke?" Ino called. "Are you alright?"

He didn't answer. He couldn't.

He forgot how to speak.

---

When he went to Hinata to take her to Cloud 9, it was like he was a new person. A new Sasuke Uchiha. A version who has been in love with her for decades, who's been holding it back for so long, who went so far as to forget parts of himself to prevent himself from remembering such a tragedy.

But he knew, now.

He knew it all.

And when he saw her, he almost couldn't stop himself. The lightning pulled him forward. Shoved him. Scratched at his knees and tried to make him fall into her.

His fingers dug into the wood, which groaned, and he held his breath and swallowed his resolve hard so that it would meet the storm in his chest and cool it down, calm it for a second, give him a moment to think.

...

"Are you ready?" he asked himself.

But Hinata was the one who answered.

"Yes."

...

When he took her to Shikamaru, he told her to lift up her shirt so he could see her back. Hinata gave him a look, silently asking him if this was okay, and he nodded and let her lean into him and wrap her arms around him as Shikamaru touched her back. She shivered. He could feel her teeth take in a small section of fabric.

He tried not to think about it.

He tried not to think about how all this reminded him of months ago, when she was in the Guard, and she was holding onto him as her only source of comfort as Kabuto stitched her back.

Things would be a lot easier if he didn't think about such things and focused on the important matter at hand.

"Her wings are in there."

It took Shikamaru three minutes to come to such a conclusion. He tugged down the back of her shirt and readjusted her cloak for her.

"Her muscles feel fine. Nothing is really in the way and preventing them from coming out."

Hinata breathed slowly into his chest, and Sasuke held her closer.

"Then what's the problem?"

Shikamaru hummed, and that somehow stirred Hinata, coaxing her to look back at him. They stared at one another, and then Shikamaru sighed and fell back into his cloud.

"Isn't it the Guards' job to figure out these kinds of things?" He yawned and folded his arms behind his neck. "Come back to me when you bring her wings back."

...

When he took her to his home, to Itachi, he was only a tad nervous. Not because he thought they'd not get along — his memories proved otherwise — and not because he thought it would be too overwhelming for Hinata — because he knew she was strong.

He was slightly nervous because Itachi was his older brother, and older brothers loved to tease their little brothers.

Example One:

"You cannot keep your hands off her, can you?"

And Sasuke knew he would not get a break. He sighed heavily into the air, then glared down at his brother, who only smiled like he hadn't said a thing in the world. For once, couldn't his brother just act accordingly? If only for his sake?

Telling him off, reminding him how Hinata's severe lack of wings was the main reason he held onto her so, he quickly looked down at her to make sure she wouldn't melt or pass out or —

Wait.

That . . .

Why did she look so scared?

Sasuke looked back at Itachi, who seemed oblivious to the scared white of her eyes. What was she scared of? What gave her such a look? Did she fear she would fall? Sasuke held her closer, and Itachi must have thought that was the case, too, for he offered her a moment to rest in his wheelchair.

She took the offer without much hesitation, and Sasuke helped her into the seat as Itachi grabbed onto the handles on the back, wings helping him stay upright.

When Itachi asked him to grab a notebook from his room, he was unsure, at first; he didn't want his brother to whisper something weird in her ear when he was gone.

But maybe —

Maybe he wanted a moment alone with her.

Itachi was weird like that. He liked special, one-on-one time with people.

So Sasuke went along with his excuse, flying off to his room to search his desk for a notebook that he simply could not find. He snorted, hoping that next time his brother would at least have him grab something that actually existed.

And then he heard it.

Choking.

Sputtering.

Screaming.

It was Hinata.

Forgetting about the notebook entirely, Sasuke shot down the hallway, and when he made it to the living room, Itachi was there. Alone.

"Where —"

"Sasuke." Itachi's smile was strained and awkward, like it wasn't his, like he stole from someone and forced it onto his features. "You have to take them off of her, alright?"

Off?

Take what off?

Where was Hinata!?

He looked at the floor, he realized, and Sasuke rushed out of the house, leaving behind his brother with a face that wasn't his.

---

"Swim!"

The stickers were like an anchor, pulling her down by her ankles. Her skin sagged under the weight. Her gills pushed them back, gaping, giving her a chance to breathe.

But Sasuke had no gills. Sasuke could not breathe, and the surface was getting farther and farther away.

"Swim, Sasuke!" she yelled, but he was holding onto her, and his grip would not loosen on her arm, no matter how she tugged and flailed, and he kept sinking with her. It made Hinata feel like she was the anchor. She was dragging him down to his death. "Sasuke, please."

The only thing he did was stare at her, the whites of his eyes turning red and irritated as the saltwater bit and scratched at them. His irises melted into the background, the dark water, the coldness, the emptiness. A frustrated cry vibrated on her tongue as Hinata squeezed her eyes and tried to kick, tried to make herself go up. Not for her own sake, but for Sasuke. She tried to rip the stickers off, but they were stuck, and no matter how she pulled, no matter how much it hurt, the thorns were deep in her skin. They wouldn't come off.

She was heavy. She was sinking.

The surface was far away, now. Even if Sasuke did start swimming, it was too late.

Panic shot through her brain. Eyes flying open, Hinata leaned forward, pulled his cloak away from his neck, and tore her teeth down his skin. He stilled. His hands jumped to her shoulders. The magic from her teeth dripped into his skin, threaded through his cells, and when the gills began to form on the right side of his neck, she moved to the left and did the same thing.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so sorry. I don't want to do this, but you'll drown if I don't."

His gills stretched like the hands of a child, searching, discovering the world around them. They opened, they swallowed, and he breathed, eyes flashing and cracking with a sort of light that should never exist at the bottom of the ocean.

Her muscles still would not move. They were cold with fear, so all she could do was lean into him and bring him further and further down.

...

"You shouldn't have followed me," she said just as their feet found the ocean floor. A few yards away stood her house, dull and colorless, walls never feeling the warmth of the day. She didn't want that to be Sasuke. She was scared that would be Sasuke if he stayed down here with her. "Why did you have to come after me?"

Sand and soil swirled around his legs, the lull of the water wrapped around the cape of his cloak and pressing it against the side of his leg. The stickers on his mouth were pressed close together. His eyes squinted through the dark. His skin was pale and cold.

Quickly, Hinata took his arm and brought him to her house. She unlocked the door and pushed it open, did not bother to peel off her shoes at the entrance, and left Sasuke at the front as she swam into her room and dragged out her heavy, waterproof blanket to wrap it around his shoulders. Her hands rubbed up and down his arms, hoping the friction would give him some warmth, and then she swam to every lamp and overhead light to help him see.

"You should have just left me." Her fingers tugged down the chain of the final lamp by the bookshelf in the corner. "Now you're stuck here."

He hadn't moved from the entrance. When she came over to warm him up some more, scared he was too cold to move much, one of his hands pushed out from behind his cloak and the heavy blanket to touch the side of her shoulder. "Moon Witch." It was the first thing he said in the depths of Ocean 11. Hinata hated how muffled and quiet it sounded. "Tell me what happened."

The walls of her throat tightened when she remembered what Itachi did to her. Her hands lifted to rub at her eyes, which still stung, but at the sight of her dark, covered fingers, she snapped away. Her stomach rolled upside down.

How could she tell him?

How could she say that his own brother did this to her, that she fell because he made her see all the weeds, that he was like her?

It would kill him.

And Sasuke was already stuck here. It was already bad enough for him.

"I fell," she whispered. "It's too heavy. I couldn't stay upright."

Sasuke tried to touch the side of her neck, but she stepped away. She didn't want him to touch her stickers. She worried they would somehow pass over to him, cling to his skin, make him heavy like her.

That seemed to irk him to some degree, for he pushed his shoulder into her, moving her back. When her legs hit the sofa, she was forced to sit, and Sasuke stood in front of her like a rock, a boulder, not allowing her to move, to escape.

He said, "Tell me the rest of it."

She didn't want to. Her eyes squeezed shut. Her chest felt so heavy. It hurt.

"He sees them, too."

Sasuke leaned in to hear her better.

"He sees the weeds," she whispered. "He saw them on me, and he made me see them. It hurt so much — I just — I just fell."

The adrenaline of it all made her shake, made the water shake, made the house shake. She swallowed hard and tried to relax her throat, but it wasn't working. Everything was so tight and molded together, like the stickers were pushing her into herself, like they were slowly crushing her. All energy left her. Hinata fell against the sofa, no longer able to move, to lift a hand; her eyes could barely stay open.

She was tired.

If Sasuke was not here, she would have gone to sleep, to let it take her for the next week.

"Itachi did this?"

The weeds climbed onto her tongue. She could only nod.

Sasuke pressed a hand against her neck. She couldn't move away this time, so a strangled, soft groan dripped past her lips. His thumb found her pulse, and then his other hand brushed the skin under her eyes. His skin pushed the thorns further into her skin.

"You have them, then," he said. "The weeds. The ones you see on everyone. They're covering you now?"

An extra pound weighed down on her eyelids. Hinata caught sight of her cousin's form creeping around Sasuke. Another tremble battled against her bones and muscles as he stared down at her. There was something in his gaze. It made her feel like a failure. Like she had been in the wrong, like it was all her fault. Being stuck here, Sasuke now with those damn gills attached to his neck — this was all because of her. Her actions.

The sob that croaked and bloomed from her throat shook the weeds off of her tongue, making them topple over and stick to the sides of her mouth.

"I-I'm so sorry," she cried. "I'm sorry I wasn't better."

Neji looked startled, and Sasuke yanked the blanket off and wrapped it around her. He sat next to her. The tips of his fingers nearly kissed the back of her head, but then he stopped, and he pulled away, gills gaping. It made guilt drum and hammer and sink into her chest.

"Moon Witch." His eyes glanced around the room, as if searching for her cousin, who hovered at her other side, transparent fingers grazing the underside of her cheek. "Will you listen to me for a moment?"

Her throat burned, but her heart skipped a beat, and she managed to open her eyes just enough to look at him. He sounded so much like the people at the bar. The call for her help, for her attention, for the need to just be listened to. A sensation she nearly lost and completely missed filled her soul, and she was sent back in time, back to when she was fine, when her stickers were still invisible to her gaze; it wasn't perfect, and life wasn't always safe, but she could handle it. Suigetsu sat with her, drinking his coffee and telling her stories of this and that, of his adventures in the Guard; and when a customer scouted her out, his lips twisted in a smirk, and he gave her that look like he knew she was about to change another person's life. Neji hovered about the place, a constant reminder of what she was working for, and what she wanted to return to. He was her light. He helped her remember. He was her savior when it was quiet and she nearly fell back into her fits of worry.

Those were the days when Sasuke would come and they were still unaware of one another. He was still a Guard stuck in his work, and she was still a Moon Witch who wanted to help him get those stickers off his face for the mere reason of paying off a favor.

But it was different now.

She wouldn't go back to those times, but in some ways, Hinata did not mind.

Because she remembered him; and Sasuke — he —

"I told Ino to give me my memories of you back."

He . . . remembers, too?

Her eyes widened.

When did he —

"Before we went to Shikamaru," he said. "She gave them to me all at once. I remember everything about you." His eyes remained dark like the ocean water, but they wafted like feathers in the sea, like cattails by the river, and that made them so much more than the background, the drab ocean floor. "I used to fly you to school. We'd visit the field behind your house all the time. You'd play your piano for me and Neji in that room with the flutes."

Hinata felt something warm built up inside her. It was so nice when compared to the icy water surrounding them.

"I was in love with you back then, too." What? "I'm sure you never realized. I never told anyone but your cousin. I'd go to him when you weren't home and tell him everything that happened, and when I realized it and had no one else to tell, I went to him." Again, his eyes looked around, searching for her cousin's form that he could not see. "You probably thought me a fool. This kid you hardly knew coming to you all the time, telling you these sorts of things. It must have run you up the wall."

Next to her, Neji laughed. She couldn't remember the last time he did that. "You were a bother," he said, knowing his words would not reach Sasuke — but, perhaps, that didn't matter all that much to him. "But you helped me see the world. You were always there for her. I trusted you with Hinata."

"He never told me anything," she told Sasuke. "I . . . . Sasuke, I didn't know —"

"That's why I'm telling you now," he said. "Do you remember what you did for me after my parents died? What you did for Itachi and me after he got his wings back? Do you realize how much you gave me when I was trying to get into the Guard?"

There was a slight pitch to his voice, and Sasuke closed his eyes, letting his body expand and shrink with his slow breaths.

"So never say you're not good enough," he told her. "Since the beginning, you've been carrying everyone on your back." Her palms tickled. Her fingers popped, and that's when Hinata realized. Some of her stickers were loosening, wobbling on her skin, pulling their thorns from her skin. Sasuke's hand found her jaw, helping her look at him, no hesitation in his touch. "Let me carry you this time."

Her breath wheezed from her lungs.

Her arms shook.

Hinata leaned into the warmth of his hand, and though she was tired, though the weight of it all was stealing her strength away, she smiled.

...

"Tell him to remember what his brother told him."

Sasuke helped her back onto her feet, allowing her to lean against his shoulder. Neji hovered, as if to catch her if she toppled over, and when she found her balance, he said that to her, but his eyes drilled expectantly into Sasuke.

Hinata swallowed hard, then whispered into Sasuke's cloak, "He says to remember what Itachi told you."

The muscles in his arm froze. "Ah."

Curious at such a reaction, she pulled back just enough to catch his gaze.

"What was it?"

Sasuke paused for a moment, then answered, "He told me to take them off."

She looked down at the black weeds wrapped around her arms. "Can you?"

"I . . . don't know," he said.

It was strange. Hinata thought only people who could see them could actively take them off. But Itachi was like her, and though she was a little nervous to put all of her trust into his word, Neji and Sasuke seemed to have no issue in doing so.

Sasuke's hands wrapped around her, keeping her up and steady. His eyes were narrowed and determined. "I don't know, but I can try."

...

She told him to take her to the bathroom.

Neji, understanding, stayed behind, and Hinata was glad.

It made things a little less embarrassing.

"Sasuke," she mumbled, "about the stickers."

He helped her to the door, and her palm rested on the knob.

"They're all over." The saltwater bit at the sensitive, blushing skin of her face. She took a shy look over her shoulder at him. "Do you understand?"

She could see the cords in his throat move. His hands twisted into the fabric of his cloak. Lightning spiraled in his left eye, and he closed them and pressed his mouth in a firm line and gave a single, stern nod.

"Yes."

...

The tall mirror in the bathroom made her insides rattle and moan.

It was just a mass of stickers. That was all she saw. No skin. No eyes. No mouth. Nothing. She saw Sasuke standing behind her, but she could hardly give him any attention, despite the situation that they've found themselves in.

Her hands were at the button of her cloak, but they wouldn't move. Her fingers camouflage with the black fabric, and she couldn't tell skin from cloak. It made her nervous. It made panic scream through her ears.

"Moon Witch," Sasuke called before her, and she stared at his reflection. "Focus. Talk to me."

And now her joints were stiff with panic and nervousness. Trying to ignore the heaviness, the pinch of thorns, Hinata said, "Let's switch roles, Sasuke. You're the Moon Witch. You can see the stickers on everyone around you. Do you see them?"

His gaze was hot on the back of her neck. "Yes," he said. "They're dark, and they look like burweed."

That made Hinata smile a bit. "There's a lot on me. You have to loosen them before you get them off. Do you understand?"

He took a small step closer. "Tell me how I can help you."

Slowly, Hinata unbuttoned her cloak and allowed it to slide down her back, sinking around her feet. "Moon Witch, I'm worried about my cousin. He's keeping things from me. He might have caused the issue at the Inuzuka hideout. He —" Her voice broke. "He might be dead. I don't know what to do, and it hurts that he doesn't trust me enough to tell me the whole truth."

Sasuke's gaze was thin, his black eyes lingering down, staring at the body of the cloak on the floor before sliding back up to her. "Sometimes, brothers hide things to protect the people they love." She watched how his eyes tried to fight off the heavy pull of guilt. "Sometimes, they don't realize how it can hurt people. But there's a reason you can see him. He's here now. He's sticking by you to the very end. What does that mean to you?"

The stickers on her neck loosened, and Hinata kicked off her shoes.

"Moon Witch, I betrayed Naruto."

"We both did," Sasuke murmured.

"What are we going to do? He has done nothing to deserve this."

This time, there was a small moment of hesitation before Sasuke took another step closer. "We beg," he said after a while. "We beg for forgiveness, and we take whatever he gives us."

Her hands floated around the hem of her tunic, and then she lifted it over her head and dropped it over her shoes. "Moon Witch," she whispered, shivering as his eyes slid down her bare shoulders, "I may never get my wings back.

His hand pressed into her back, making her jump and squeak. His hands rubbed the skin that Shikamaru had touched. They traced the scars. They pushed their warmth into the places where her wings would be.

"Wings or not —" And his words are hot when they simmer against her neck. "— I will get you to Moon. You're not getting rid of me that easily."

Her chest felt a thousand pounds lighter.

"Moon Witch," came her hushed call that made him close his eyes again to keep the electricity within him at bay. With a swipe of her hands, all her clothes were on the floor, and she saw all of her stickers rumble and tremble in the mirror. "I wish I loved you from the start."

His hands were on her arms, and he pressed his mouth against her shoulder. "Then from now on," he said, "don't stop."

...

One by one, the stickers fell.

The second his mouth found her skin, they collapsed, they hissed into the water, they vanished out of existence. His hands brushed over every inch of her back, freeing them from the thorns, the heavy weight that kept her stuck and still. He trailed his lips down her arm, massaged her worn fingers with his tongue, and when he moved to her face, his teeth bit and loosened the weeds on her ears.

"Well?" His eyes found hers in the reflection. "Is it working?"

Her answer was grabbing his hands and moving them to her stomach, and his laugh made the hairs on her now weedless arms stand tall and proud.

When her upper half was clear, he lowered himself on his knees and lifted her left leg first, then her right, hands wiping the stickers off her feet while his mouth cleared off the one on her knees; and when his hands moved up her calf, his lips moved on to her thigh, and the stickers on his own skin tickled her and made magma replace the blood in her veins.

The last thing he did was stand and kiss her eyelids and brush his thumbs over her cheeks and lips, and when it was over, Hinata didn't have to look in the mirror to know she was free.

She felt weightless.

She felt like the most powerful woman in the universes.

...

Sasuke leaned his head into her shoulder.

He looked tired. His spine was bent with exhaustion.

"Take me to the surface," he whispered, "please."

...

Hinata pulled on her clothes, fastened her cloak around her, then grabbed his arms and pulled him out of the house. She led him to the surface, pulling him, carrying him, and when they got there, he broke into the air, and his wings sprung out and he was flying and shaking water off of his form, and he breathed like he hadn't breathed for the hour they were down there.

Hinata wasn't even fully on the surface when he flapped away, twisting the dial of the portal to The Hall. As the colors stitched together, Hinata tried to go to him, but he held his hand out to her and hissed, "Stay there. Just — stay, Moon Witch."

He panted like he had been flying and diving for days. He seemed almost breathless. When the portal was ready, he flew inside, and Hinata, worried, followed after him.

She could feel the static burn her ears.

When she stepped out, he only got a small glance of him behind the bar before he disappeared behind a door, which slammed shut behind him. Kakashi gave her a look when she rushed over.

"My, my," he hummed, "what did you do to the poor boy?"

The second Hinata approached the door, she heard the crackling, the zapping, the hissing of smoke and electricity. When she entered, the sheer amount of lightning blasted against her form and nearly sent her falling back; she had to grab the frame to stay upright. Sasuke was in the far back of the storage closet, and when she managed inside and closed the door behind her, his head snapped her way.

"Moon Witch!" He glared at her. The lightning roared and curled into her ears. "Don't come in here!"

Hinata did not follow his desperate order. She came further inside, and he pressed his back hard against the back wall and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Hinata." His voice was low and begging. "Please. I don't want to hurt you."

When she reached him, her hands cupped his jaw. "Sasuke," she said, "say it again. My name."

He frowned, but there was nowhere for him to go. So, in the span of a few seconds, his eyes opened, he looked down at her, and he said, almost sheepishly, "Hinata."

Her eyes stared at the stickers just inches from her face.

"Sasuke, you still have some."

The lightning snapped. His skin burned with his power. So did hers.

"Take them off," he said.

She leaned forward, but he was too tall, and she was nervous she might not reach him, so her fingers touched his lips instead. The very ones that freed her, that helped her, that —

"Coward."

Sasuke leaned down, pushed his mouth to hers, and filled her with his lightning.

---

Chapter 30 - End