I wrote some Madara/Hinata smut for LavenderEyedAssassin (it's over on AO3). My brain did not let me write that until I wrote this. Same deal as all my other stories. Short-ish chapters and no guaranteed update dates. Sorry.
But it'll be a happy ending.
Enjoy?
oOOo
"You have a limited amount of items you can bring on a mission, and yet you brought a book?" Sasuke asks.
Hinata carefully peers at him from over the pages.
Sasuke does not talk much. He has spent most of the mission ignoring when the girls joke and laugh, preferring to stay away from them and silent. When he does speak, it is usually for something important.
Except for now.
Tenten, across the campfire, pauses for a second before returning to her task of sharpening and oiling kunai.
Sakura stops feeding sticks into the fire and gives the book in Hinata's hands a considering glance. Hinata can practically hear the other woman's thoughts: Sasuke likes women who read?
Hinata does not understand Sakura and Sasuke. Sakura is an accomplished, beautiful, smart, funny person who has achieved more than any other woman Hinata knows. And yet, Sakura is still trying to contort herself into the woman Sasuke wants. Nothing is good enough for Sakura, because nothing about her has caught Sasuke's eye.
Tenten gives a subtle signal with a flick of her fingers. Hinata watches it out of the corner of her eye. She hides her upturned lips with her book.
All the other girls know that Sasuke will never pay attention to Sakura no matter what she does. Not because she is lacking. But because she is not Naruto .
Sasuke still manages to pick up on Hinata's smile and frowns, thinking it is pointed at him.
Hinata wants to point out that Sasuke's judgement is misguided, considering he grew up around Kakashi. She holds her tongue for a moment before she says something cutting. Ever since Neji's death, she feels made up of jagged, sharp parts.
She never liked being known as timid, weak, and shy. But she would prefer it to people knowing that a bitter creature now possesses her body.
"Sakura gave me a book about seals," she attempts to deflect attention. However, her mouth continues to move, which defeats the purpose. "And I brought a book on herbal remedies. As this one is about history, I actually brought three books."
Tenten snorts. Iruka looks up from where he is inking new binding tags, his eyes narrowed as if looking for any signs of a disturbance.
Sasuke's lips press together tightly. Iruka clears his throat.
When Kakashi set up the mission, they sent Iruka, mostly to corral Sasuke. Kakashi thought Sasuke might listen to another man, but the only one he had a history of listening to was Iruka. Hinata did not know if Sasuke cared enough to heed the commands of his former pre-genin teacher.
But now, Sasuke rolls his eyes, returns his attention to respolling chakra wire, and leaves Hinata alone.
Hinata smiles sweetly at Iruka and he gives her a wink before resuming his task.
oOOo
In theory, the group is supposed to find any last artifacts left over by Madara and Obito. In practice, however, Hinata suspects the mission is really to let Sasuke finish destroying any last trace of the Uchiha Clan from the planet.
She also suspects that herself, Tenten, and Iruka are tagging along only because they are the most respectable people Kakashi can think of, and they lend credibility to this exercise. Sakura invited herself along.
Kakashi and Naruto are back in the village and busy with rebuilding. Hinata would rather be there. But Hinata also has issues being in the village. Namely, she does not know how to relate to Hanabi anymore, and she resents her father for not lifting a finger to remove the curse seal before Neji's death. Both Hanabi and Hiashi expect quiet and docile Hinata.
Hinata is quiet. But she is angry.
The anger sits like a simmering pot behind her breastbone. It almost boils over when they stand on the edge of a cliff, looking over a large seal array carved into the valley below them. There are large scars in the ground, marring what would otherwise be a serene landscape filled with wildflowers and butterflies.
"What the absolute hell is that?" Tenten asks, her voice full of horrified awe.
It belongs to the Uchiha, based on the fan right in the middle.
Sasuke grinds out: "I intend on being the last Uchiha. So things like this will end. Our Curse of Hatred destroys everything."
Sakura flinches as if she was slapped.
Hinata wants to shake her shoulders and tell her to get over it. She wants Sakura to understand that her feelings are not more important than Sasuke's. Partnerships work on compromise, and Sakura should give up on her plans of a gaggle of children with Sasuke if she wants to be happy.
But she also has to bite back a sneer at Sasuke's words as well. She crosses her arms and allows herself to shiver when a sharp breeze passes by.
The Hyuga do not consider themselves in the same way other clans do, jockeying for power and status. The Hyuga hardly see themselves as human. The Hyuga are like the river that flows through their territory. Powerful, sometimes serene. During drought, it might be sickly and slow, but the riverbed reminds everyone how expansive and deep it can be. During storms, it breaks its boundaries and brings destruction with it.
Feelings do not matter as much as constancy does. Good Hyuga are enduring and unchanging.
Which is why Hinata can never be a leader of the Hyuga. She puts too much stock in emotions, which are fickle. She cares too much about individuals instead of considering the implications for the whole clan.
Yet, when Sasuke talks about this Curse of Hatred, she finds his words incredibly stupid. The Uchiha are not a river, and their clan members have never almost drowned in the rapids. When Hinata's brother died, the river continued to flow over his body. When Madara's brother died, Madara made the choice to punish people who never even knew what an Uchiha was.
She does not say anything, though. Rivers constantly make noise but not many people care to listen to the message.
"I think…" Iruka muses, "that it might be related to time." He points at a gigantic symbol nearest to them.
Just that symbol is longer than Hinata is tall.
Sasuke hops off the edge and slides down the incline towards the carving.
Sakura, their resident seal master, jerks out of her misery. "Sasuke. I don't think you should get so close!"
The man, of course, does not listen.
Iruka, the appointed Sasuke Wrangler, repeats Sakura's warning. "We don't want you to set it off!"
As soon as Sasuke's chakra gets close enough, the seal lights up. It does not look like Hinata imagines it should. The red glow is sickly underneath the afternoon sun. It appears underpowered but still manages to remind Hinata of the luminescence of Susano'o.
"Sasuke, you're turning it on, get out of there!" Tenten yells in frustration.
Hinata can only see the corner of his jaw and how it clenches. His shoulders tense then relax as he ignores them and steps onto the first ring, and then deeper still. Her anger-pot boils over and she just cannot abide this man anymore.
The array lights up more and begins humming.
Hinata is moving before she can think better of it. She feels a moment of shame for acting in anger when her former teacher is watching. But the thought leaves her immediately as the array turns so bright, it almost blinds her. Even Sasuke, a dark smudge against the red light, takes a step back. Then another.
But he is not moving fast enough. The ground begins to shake as she hurtles down the incline, sending boulders after her that she barely dodges. Then, a rock pierces her shoulder, causing her to cry out, and throwing her forward.
It sends her stumbling down the last of the hill. She tucks in her head and rolls with it, even as she uncomfortably rolls over her backpack. Slipping to her feet, she sprints until she reaches Sasuke. He gets his foot caught in the outside ring and pauses.
The humming is so loud it rattles her teeth. The hair on the back of her neck stands upright. Her chakra vibrates in a discordant jumble of nerves as the power amasses.
She grabs Sasuke's backpack with both hands, spins to the side and throws him out of the circle. The momentum causes her to stumble into it.
She understands for a second why Sasuke looked like he was moving through fluid amber. The chakra in the circle grabs at her as if it had hands. It latches onto her ankles.
Sasuke slides backwards and stares at her in horror. Hinata's hair flies up and points towards the sky. Her clothes, also buffeted by the strange wind, snap and fly everywhere.
Looking at Sasuke straight in the eye, she knows and he knows that she is going to be the next casualty of an Uchiha. He looks heartsick with the thought of it.
She lets the serpent in her mouth surge forward and bite. Because she is about to die and she is tired of pretending to be polite.
"I can't stand you." Even though she does not scream, her voice is audible over the howling wind, due to the strange magic of the seal. Or maybe he is just reading her lips. Whichever it is, he flinches ever so slightly. "I hope you are the last Uchiha."
Then, the light blinds her. The heat is next, stabbing through her body like a knife, melting her from the inside out. She screams, and she knows only because her mouth is open. She cannot hear anything any more other than the vibration of the magic, like an electrical transformer exploding. Her head feels like it is about to burst with pressure and pain and then…
… And then Hinata cannot feel anything.
She does not know what relief is. Not without a body capable of feeling emotions. But for the last crystalline second before her consciousness disappears, she imagines that she is relieved to be dead.
oOOo