.

living in the night
'neath heavens torn asunder
you call on me
to solve a crooked rhyme

.

It wasn't that Hinata wasn't grateful. She was. It was just that, with everything going on in her otherwise awful life, making deals with preternatural voices in her head wasn't really high on the list of priorities. Today. Try tomorrow, when she was out of this hole, freaky voice.

"Umm...no thank you..."

"...Excuse me?"

Ah, the voice sounded angry. That probably wasn't good. Then again, being trapped in a hole in the middle of nowhere - with no chakra and a broken ankle - and accidentally summoning a demon god probably wasn't good either. Its words, not hers.

"I-I mean no offense! Umm...sir? I just... I don't think I'm what you're looking for?"

"Precious child," It laughed,"I'm afraid that you don't have a choice."

Well dang.

"Oh..."

"You brought me forth, girl. You summoned me in your dire moment of need. The contract is non-negotiable."

Had she though? Had she really? Technically the scroll had just fallen out of her pack and while she had been picking it up, cut herself on the paper's edge. How was she supposed to know that you weren't supposed to get blood on it!

'Whatever you do just don't get any blood on the damn thing. In fact, try to touch it as little as possible. Hinata! Are you even listening to me?'

She winced. Riiight...Tsunade-sama had said that, hadn't she? And what had she been doing? Oh yeah... staring at Naruto's butt.

"I-It was an accident?" She whispered to the voice in the dark, hoping it'd buy that and, you know, let her off the hook.

The voice laughed again, all demonic and terrible. Hinata shivered. Clearly it hadn't.

"Sweet, weak little Hyuuga... look at yourself. You stand no chance of getting out of here alive on your own. I can help you, make you stronger. I can disconnect those threads of mortality that bind you to your weakness. All you need do, is wish it, and pledge your loyalty to me."

Hinata tried her best to ignore the voice - and the tears forming in her eyes - and focus on the makeshift rope she was fashioning out of underwear. Unfortunately, four pairs of granny panties did not an effective rope make. Maybe if she ripped one side at the hip...

A strangled sound of frustration fell from her mouth as it became painfully clear that the underwear plan wasn't going to work. She threw them to the ground in a stringy huff. Now those were ruined.

"You can't ignore me, girl."

Obviously. Because it wouldn't shut up and leave her alone.

Pale eyes narrowed in the dark.

Alright. Fine.

Painstakingly, Hinata stood up on one leg, hobbled toward a wall and looked up. It was only, what, thirty feet deep, max? Constant feelings of uselessness and self-doubt be damned! She was kunoichi of Konohagakure for crying out loud! If she couldn't manage to save herself, how could she ever hope to save anyone else?

But how, exactly, was she going to manage a climb like that with no chakra to aid her and only one usable leg?

She stuffed her hand into her bag and pulled out a tiny flashlight. With a silent prayer to whoever might be listening - current company not included - she clicked the switch and waited.

Nothing happened. Not even a tiny glow to assist her sprang forth from the mouth. A distressed whimper left her and she smacked the flashlight against her thigh.

It flickered briefly and finally, came to life.

"Oh!"

That level of excitement was probably a bit much for something as mediocre as turning on a flashlight, but Hinata didn't care. Step One of the plan was a go! And now - she stuck flashlight between her teeth and pulled out a kunai and some wire - it was time for Step Two.

"And what... do you plan to accomplish with those?" The voice asked, sounding somewhat amused.

Hinata refused to listen, for all she knew, the voice wasn't even real. Ancient death god? - pssh, as if. Probably just some sort of psychotic break she was having. It wasn't like she had the best mental health in the first place. This situation had merely been the thing to finally make her snap.

Tentatively her gaze fell the scroll, open now and just lying there, innocently.

Well, forget the bloody scroll! Obviously she was just projecting and clearly had just gone insane! And that was no big deal anyway because, as she'd read once, you couldn't actually be insane if you were aware of your own insanity. And obviously she was!

She slipped the wire through the handle loop of the kunai and hobbled back, so that her back was pressed far against the other side of the hole. Trembling hands tied the knot - once, twice, three times to be sure - and with strength she didn't have, threw it as hard she could as close to the top of the hole as possible.

The kunai made its mark maybe a foot from the top. Hinata exhaled. Not too bad. With as much weight as she could support on a single leg, she gave a hard tug and was more than relieved when the kunai didn't budge.

Awesome. So...now what?

Climbing a thin wire was going to be extremely difficult, especially with her ankle holding her back. Maybe she could tie it around her waist, use another kunai and sort of...rappel up the side?

Not the best plan, sure, but definitely better than waiting quietly to die in a hole. She'd just have to take her chances.

With everything in place - to the best of her abilities - she slowly began to work her way up. One foot planted into the wall, two hands wrapped tightly around the her makeshift kunai stake and used her other leg - bent tightly at the knee - to support herself as she dug her way upward. The pain from her ankle was severe but after several minutes she had made some progress, if the fact that the bottom was getting further away was anything to go on. It was only a few feet but at least it was something.

Slowly but surely she made her way: knee snug against the wall, plant foot, kunai out, reach, kunai in, pull up.

What felt like several hours passed as time seemed to move agonizingly slow. The voice had apparently decided to shut up and let her work. Good. She didn't have anything to say to it anyway.

Until she hit the halfway point of course. Before she could even blink, the wire snapped and then she was falling. The hand with the kunai shot out in a vain attempt to stop her fall but without anything to brake against, all it had effectively done was slow it a little.

Somehow, maybe because of the kunai, she'd managed to land on both feet.

For about a second, until a horrific spike of pain and a sickening snap brought her down to her back.

"Ohhhh...godddd..." She wailed.

Whatever damage she had done to her ankle previously had been child's play compared to this. What felt like literal fire was now spreading up through her leg and her foot was freakishly numb.

Hinata was no doctor but she just knew that was a bad sign.

She pulled herself into a sit, teeth bore into her lip to keep from screaming and pulled her leg across her lap. A shuddering breath and one eye cracked open.

A gasp of horror echoed in the dark.

The appendage was swollen and deformed with an angry shard of bone that jutted out through the skin at an impossible angle. A gruesome mixture of blood and dirt were clumped around the open wound - and there was some even in the bone. Her entire foot was a sick shade of violet and a slow rivulet of dark blood pooled around it.

It was so much worse than before.

Unlike her dear friend Sakura, medic shinobi prodigy, Hinata definitely didn't have the medical skills to fix an injury of this magnitude. Even touching the thing would be detrimental at this point. The longer it went on in that condition, the more damage it would sustain. She'd be lucky if she still had a foot left after this!

She'd be lucky if she still had a life left after this...

Hinata wracked her brain furiously. What could she do? Should she attempt to wrap it up? Leave it alone? Just rip it off and die of blood loss?

The tears were coming in full force now. Any resolve she'd mustered up to claw her way out of the hole were gone, lost to absolute despair. Clammy fingers fumbled the bandage roll as she drowned in desperate sobs.

A sneer echoed in her head, "Oh my dear child... what exactly do you plan to accomplish with that ankle of yours?"

"...h-help..." A pathetic rasp at nothing.

"There is no one to help you here, Hinata. No one except me of course..."

"I don't- I- I don't-" She sucked in a breath of air, choked on more sobs, "I don't even k-know wha-what you want from me..."

"I've told you, child. You refused to listen..." It taunted smugly, "Are you ready to listen now?"

Hinata shuddered - from the cold, from the dark, from the thought of dying alone in a death pit. From the vicious voice sneering horrible things in her ear.

"What-" She sniffled, voice as small as a child, "...what w-would I have to do?"

Laughter, more cold and vile than anything she'd ever heard, filled the space around her. Flesh flared in goosebumps on the back of her neck. A crimson glow lit up the ground as the scroll - previously inert - shuddered violently. Curious fingers reached to touch it. She couldn't even stop them, it was as if she was being guided.

As soon as they made contact, a horrible searing pain spread through her hand and she snatched it back, cradled it against her chest. Something hot and wet leaked through her fingers and she looked down with fearful eyes.

A wide circle spanned her palm and within it, a triangle, bloody and massive, etched violently into her skin.

"There is but one more step...are you ready, my child?"

Lavender eyes widened, hand spread out in front of her face, watching enraptured as blood droplets drew into the crimson paper beneath her.

She swallowed. Her voice, however, did not waver as she was sure it would.

"Yes..."

"Hinata..." It whispered. Spoke her name as if it were a lover.

A feeling poured into her like that of ecstasy, as if she were being pumped full of narcotics. Like a thousand fingers drawing against her body. Previously clammy skin heated pleasantly, her eyes drifted half-shut heavily, a strangled moan fell from her lips.

The feeling didn't dissipate even when it spoke the words that made her stomach lurch and her heart nearly stop:

"You have to die."