"She's weak."
It had been a week since their agreement for training and Sasuke had learned one thing about the woman he had been forced to marry. Compared to those he had teamed up with during his time as a shinobi, even on the run, she was vastly weak. Naruto looked at him with curiosity evident in his blue eyes but finished his mouthful of ramen before he decided to respond to such a short and blunt statement.
"Don't you think you're being a little too critical? Your idea of weakness compared to mine also differs. Hinata-chan helped a lot during the war and while I can agree she isn't on our level, she also is far from weak." Naruto chimed in before helping himself to another mouthful of ramen.
"You're too soft," Sasuke responded curtly. "Her kindness is no excuse for you or anyone else to baby her. You know how people feel about me and you know they will treat her differently having the Uchiha name attached to her.
"Hinata-chan was essential in the war, Sasuke. Perhaps her kindness to worry about others has rubbed off on you, bastard."
"I should have known better than to listen to your dumbass." Sasuke huffed before standing up.
"Only because you know I'm right." Naruto called after the retreating back of his best friend, laughing when Sasuke waved him off.
He headed home, feeling frustrated that Naruto was in fact right. He knew he was being an asshole for no reason and perhaps he needed to understand that she didn't have the same training that Team 7 had. Each one of them trained under Sannin, Hinata had not had the same training. Sasuke vowed to ease back and train her to at least be able to battle outside of what she was taught to do from her family. Recalling the training he had from Kakashi and even Orochimaru had been helpful. Looking down at the sword attached to his hip, he wondered if she would be interested in trying something like that. With a smirk, he finally found himself facing the door and opened it.
Hinata was cooking dinner, the aroma heavenly, but he caught her sniffling. Normally he would turn away, something like this not being his problem, but that's when it hit him. This exact situation was, in fact, his problem. Like it or not she was his wife and anything that was an issue in her world could inevitably be an issue in his own. And outside of Sakura, he had never really had to deal with emotions from a female and he lacked the capacity to be able to assist.
"Are you alright?" He asked, watching her stiffen and then turn to glance at him.
"My cousin came over a bit ago." Hinata finally said, her voice cracking, but she waved her hand to dismiss him. "I'll be fine, thank you."
Shrugging he took off his shoes and cloak, placing them in their proper places and then heard a new sniffle. He felt his eyes twitch at the sound, knowing that she would eventually have to talk about it and he wondered if it was something that he wanted to know. He figured that if it was important, she would tell him outright, so he equated it to family matters. He went to the bathroom to clean up, glancing up at his face and frowning at how annoyed he looked. Sasuke blamed Naruto and left the bathroom to see her setting a plate down. One plate.
"Are you not eating?" He asked, raising a brow at her.
"I may take a walk Sasuke-san, if you'll excuse me." Hinata stated quickly before rushing out, leaving him to feel uncertain if he should follow her or not. He ate, giving her time and when she didn't return, he sighed and put on his sandals and cloak. Activating his sharingan, he sensed her chakra and followed, especially after noticing she wasn't alone and with a chakra signature he didn't recognize.
Hinata sat on a swing in an empty park, her feet holding her in place as she clung to the metal chains. A few tears had found their way down her cheek, but the energy to wipe them away seemed to be too much. Neji had visited her, stating that he felt that their grandmother had plans to use her. He confirmed what Sasuke and she had thought and that made everything worse. She was a tool in her grandmother's eyes and nothing more or less. Hinata had told Neji she would decline, as she was no longer a Hyuga and his worry was that they would use Hanabi to coax her into it. Hinata knew Hanabi was too strong willed for such a task, but Hinata couldn't believe that their lust for something out of their reach was more than her life. Did she really mean so little?
"Why are you crying?"
The strange voice brought her out of her thoughts and she looked up, the silhouette beyond the light as unfamiliar as the voice behind it. "Who are you?"
The man smiled at her question, "I'm Toneri and I've come for you."
As he said this, he came into the light and Hinata immediately knew she didn't know the man. He was very pale, from his hair down to his clothes. She frowned, feeling that his appearance was somehow familiar, but she found that she couldn't pace it at all. Taking in his words, her eyes widened and she stood abruptly, unsure of whether he was someone she needed to fight against or not. Before realizing what was happening, someone in a black cloak wrapped her in their arms, immobilizing her. Lack of chakra from training earlier was now entirely working against her. Toneri stood before her, a glint in his eye as she cried out, asking that they let her go. She heard her name being called from a distance, but couldn't place who it was as Toneri raised a hand near her chest, a bright light building between them. Her limbs instantly went limp and a cry tore through her lips as someone else came into view.
Just as they did, a group of shinobi seemed to appear and she realized that the person who came to help her was none other than Sasuke. Sword unleashed, he was taking down the shinobi as Toneri and his partner took that moment to run away with her, several of the shinobi that had appeared following in their pursuit. Her limbs refused to move, but she could feel her fingers twitch as she attempted to force something to work against whatever it was that they had done.
Sasuke took no time to realize that these were puppets, so taking them out was easy. However, he underestimated how many would appear and felt annoyed as he leapt up the building he saw the three had gone moments before, running as quickly as he could after them. He called out Hinata's name, hoping to gain her attention, but he didn't miss the ball of light that seemed to be forced out her body. No doubt her chakra, which caused him to grit his teeth in annoyance. He continued to run on rooftops, using his sword to slay any of the puppets that attempted to stop him from catching up to them. As he reached an opening and could see them in the distance, a handful of the same puppets jumped into the air and shot balls of energy his way, which he easily dodged.
He felt his sharingan begin to change, the eternal mangekyou sharingan taking it's place as he looked at more puppets spawning. Just then the area around him exploded, he managed to leap behind just in time and as the smoke began to dissipate, he watched each puppet begin to fall, their bodies covered in black flames. The usual feel of warm, thick blood ran down his face but he ignored it, watching as the bodies fell before disappearing before his eyes. He turned, sending a kunai in his hand hurtling towards the puppet that had Hinata, watching as the puppet fell, Hinata falling as well. Before he could run to catch her, another puppet formed several energy balls to hurl at him. Sasuke held his right hand out, the chirping sound that filled the air followed as he jumped from a rooftop and held his arm out, making contact with the puppet.
"Chidori!" His voice echoed around him as his hand slammed into the puppet, watching as it disappeared like the others. It was only then he saw the form of Hinata falling and he raced as fast as he could, managing to catch her before she hit the ground. Using his chakra to push him upward, he landed on a nearby rooftop, setting her down and with his sharingan could instantly see that most of her chakra was depleted enough that she was unable to do much more than a civilian. Clicking his tongue in annoyance, he bent down and looked her over, seeing that overall she was fine, but would need time to regenerate what she lost.
"Are you alright?" Sasuke asked, watching as she gripped the hem of her jacket and gave a nod. "Where did they come from?"
"I'm not sure."
"I guess I underestimated the power of the Uchiha clan."
Both Sasuke and Hinata looked up to see the strange man he had seen removing chakra from Hinata floated before them. It was then he noticed that this man was also a puppet, but whoever was controlling him was able to do so from a long distance. The man continued to talk as Sasuke took in his words, but began to piece together why this man was familiar. He reminded Sasuke of Kaguya Otsutsuki and that bothered him. Was there some sort of relation to the two of them? Or was there something more sinister at play?
"Before that day, I will come for you." The man's words were directed at Hinata who's eyes were wide as the man disappeared.
A small light was now in his place, seeming to come from the moon and it was then Sasuke realized it was, in fact, a meteor coming toward them. He grabbed Hinata and held her close as the light continued to get brighter until they were nearly blind. It flew over their heads, the size of something Sasuke had never seen before as it flew beyond the Hokage Monument, seconds later causing a large explosion in its place. They both planted their feet firmly as the explosion caused a somewhat small earthquake from the impact, the building below them moving along with the earth below.
They both went back home, neither saying much just to see a member of the Hyuga clan standing at their door, looking frantic. He turned in time to see the two and ran toward them, out of breath. "Lady Hinata, Lady Hanabi has been kidnapped. We have called for your cousin, but we were unable to stop it."
Once the shock wore off, Sasuke had helped Hinata to the Hokage Tower, watching as she demanded in her own way to help bring her sister back. Sasuke couldn't blame her, as he would have done the same for his own brother, even his friends. Kakashi looked between the two before he nodded, granting her wish to help locate Hanabi. Hinata then went to the hospital, needing a boost of chakra recovery in time for the mission, watching a doctor he didn't recognize give her a pill, which she took instantly. Sasuke could see the determination in her eyes and somehow felt proud that she was finally showing what she held back. He didn't feel his had spoken out of turn when he referred to her as weak, but he also knew that she had potential and felt that looking for her sister would bring that potential out of her.
A/N: So, I've never been this long between updates and this one isn't as long as planned, but it helps lead into The Last (just SasuHina version of it). Unfortunately, life hasn't been kind and why I've gone so long without an update. Between death, illness, and just overall bad luck, I've had to take a pretty long hiatus and can't confirm if I'll be able to update like I used to. That said, I'm not giving up on this story, either! Hopefully this helped to bring us a bit further into things, though! And don't have plans for our SasuHina pairing to have any further issues but needed them to acknowledge things so that it can play a factor for later.
As for me in general, I've been sick since October, around Halloween to be precise, and just continued to get various illnesses between now and then. On top of that, I lost two of my dogs (one had a heart attack and the other had major health issues, both of them seniors so it wasn't a terrible shock). Literally 2 months apart, along with my other senior dog I've learned (1 month anniversary of my first dog passing away) he has terminal cancer. It's been rough on top of being sick and various things just going wrong. I would consider writing but the energy to do so was pretty low. Be patient with me but know that I have no plans to give up on this story or the other one, though I may redo parts of the other one. We shall see.
Thank you all for your patience! I apologize that there may be grammar issues among other things, but I'll fix that soon enough!