FicWad

Hinata lay, and dreamed a dream.

She was kneeling in the dirt in one of the side-gardens at the compound, weaving a fortress together out of sticks as the bright noonday sun beat down upon her shoulders. A short distance away Hanabi crouched, arranging her soldiers into neat formations, ranked by size, her painted queen clutched in her hand.

Ane-ue, are you almost done?

Just a minute. Her own queen was waiting patiently at her side, loyal guardsman clustered all around her, a lady smiling serenely within a thicket of glittering metal points.

Ane-ue?

Nurse and Auntie Den watched from the veranda, smiling indulgently, baskets of peas to be shelled in their hands. She wiped one drop of sweat away, then another.

It's so hot, Hanabi-chan.

"I know."

The sun had grown enormous, blotting out the entire sky and every inch of her skin felt as if it was on fire. Hinata looked up, blinking away tears from the overwhelming light.

It's too hot...

"Shush." A cool hand stroked her forehead, brushing away tears. "It's all right. Everything will be all right. You're just running a little fever, that's all."

She was ill in bed. Was that all? Auntie Den sitting at her side, soothing her with damp rags and sweet tea brewed with herbs. But Auntie's hand was never this large, the fingers so smooth. Auntie had been tiny and wrinkled like a plum left to the sun.

No, it can't be. Auntie Den died years ago/, a little voice reminded her. /Remember? Right before the Chuunin exams.

"Yes. That's right."

I cried so much that day.

Was it Nurse? No. Nurse's hand was broad and soft, fingers plump with years of good eating. This person's fingers were narrow, their touch hard.

It was a struggle to open her eyes, but she managed, and blinking, she looked up and out. A great sunburst of light whirled before her, the only thing to see besides soft shadows smudged with grey, the color of the sky during rain, and a pale blur that struck off silvery sparks.

"Good," the blur said, voice rich with self-satisfaction. "You're starting to come back to yourself."




When she woke again later, the fever had vanished, but her sight had not yet returned: the world before her eyes was a sea of deep blacks and the grey rain-light, sprinkled here and there with lighter patches, opal billows shimmering against the dark. Hinata strained her eyes until the headache that resulted nearly made her sob from the pain, but nothing became any clearer.

It's all right/, she told herself as her heart banged against her ribs. /It's all right. I've been ill. I'm not completely blind, because I can still make out light. I shouldn't panic yet, because things might get better. I'll only hurt myself more if I give into fear.

If her eyes were useless, she'd have to make do with other senses. For the first time, Hinata wished that she'd been subject to the more vigorous sensory deprivation training that the rest of the chuunin received, but her father had vetoed it for both herself and Neji, using the argument that Hyuuga eyesight should not be tampered with, not even under the strictly controlled circumstances used for training. She could still clearly remember the week that Kiba and Shino had spent blinded, forced to rely on their other senses to compensate for the lack (Kiba, unsurprisingly, had spent the time bragging that the whole thing was just a walk in the park for him and Akamaru; he was much less cheerful the following week, when hearing had been the next sense to be taken). Hinata had made do with a heavy blindfold, but it wasn't nearly the same.

Counting her breaths to calm herself, she waited until her heart settled down and her body stopped trembling, then started to explore her immediate surroundings. Stroking the bedding with careful fingers, she found that it was heavy, coarse cotton and wool: not fancy, but not worn or thin or dirty either. Her robe was made of similar material and seemed to be clean as well, so she was in a place with some resources and being tended with a degree of care, but there was an musty undernote to the cloth that spoke of something that spent the majority of its time packed away in the dark and dust. The bed she lay on had a painted metal frame speckled with worn spots that snagged on her fingers as she felt her way around; it was also very narrow, as she had only to move her foot a little and it would hit the cool plaster of a wall. So...maybe some rural villager's cottage? But for some reason, this place feels very large. Like there's much more of it beyond my room. And lots of people are also inside. For some unaccountable reason, she shivered. I don't know why I think that when it's so quiet here. Something just feels off...it's almost like the air here is bad...

Hinata was debating whether to risk getting out of bed or not when there was a soft creaky noise to her left and the unmistakable sound of a lock clicking open, followed by light footsteps. She turned her head automatically towards the noise, and her weak eyes managed to make out something roughly human-shaped and light in color, coming towards her.

"Ah. I didn't think you'd be awake already. That's good, that you're making such a fast recovery," a young, male voice said cheerfully. There was a thump and a clatter like porcelain rocking against metal from somewhere near her shoulder and Hinata's nose was suddenly filled with the smell of rice. "I thought I'd have to force you up to try and get you to swallow some food, but I can see that won't be necessary now. I'm very pleased."

Her mouth was starting to water, but she couldn't risk eating anything until she had more of an idea about where she was. "Um, please, sir," she asked, her voice coming out much smaller and more timid than she would have liked. "Before I eat...a-are you the one who's been taking care of me all this time?"

"Day and night." Wood scraped against wood and his pleasant voice was suddenly coming from a much lower height: he must have dragged something over on which to sit. Bed, table large enough to hold rice dish, chair or stool. That's what I know is in this room so far. "Every moment I could get away from my other duties, I've been at your side. You were very sick."

"You're the one who found me in the woods then?"

"I'm surprised you remember that." His tone flattened very slightly. "Yes, that was me. You were nearly out of your mind from the poison. I'm shocked you remember anything about the last few days at all."

"A-am I in a hospital?"

He chuckled softly. "In a way. I am a doctor. You don't have to worry about that."

What does that mean? Her heart was starting to pound again. "My-my eyes--"

"Should make a full recovery in a few days. It was touch and go with the poison for a bit, but I managed to get it all out. The blindness is just a temporary symptom."

Her lips had gone very dry as she'd talked and she licked them with an equally parched tongue, wondering just how long she'd been without food or water. "Please...how much longer until I'm better and can l-leave? M-my family must be so worried and I don't--I don't even know where I am--"

"Why don't you try and eat now?" the man asked suddenly, cutting her off. "I'm sure you must be absolutely starving. Your body needs to regain quite a bit of strength before we can even think about you going anywhere, and the more you eat, the faster your recovery will go." His voice became very gentle, the words soft and low. "Do you think you can sit up?"

The pillow was raised and propped against the headboard while Hinata tried to raise herself up on hands that seemed to be made out of water, for all the support they gave her. When it became obvious that she didn't have enough strength to push herself up, the doctor slipped an arm around her shoulders and lifted her into place, laying her down on the pillow as if she was made of spun glass and would crack if even lightly jostled.

Once she was settled, something warm, flat and heavy was placed in her lap and he took hold of her left hand. "I'm not going to hand-feed you, because I think you can manage, and it would be embarrassing for both of us. You might as well learn, since you'll be like this for a few days," he said, and began to move her hand around to the objects on the tray, naming each in its turn. Rice, yam, egg, fish. Water on the table at her side--he took her arm and extended it until she could feel the smooth coldness of the cup and the little beads of moisture on its side.

With tiny, deliberate movements, she picked up her chopsticks and hesitated for only a moment before she placed them in the dish of rice, and began to eat. If she took only small portions, it really wasn't hard at all.

"Good girl," the doctor said, and even without her sight she could tell he was smiling.





Nothing happened.

Hinata spent the next few hours after her meal sleeping on and off, waking to check for new aches or pains, resting her palm against her heart to test her pulse and breathing. She wasn't so sickly that she hadn't missed the way the doctor had avoided answering her questions. Even in Fire Country, it wasn't unknown for shinobi from other lands to slip in and out for their own reasons, though it meant swift, harsh punishment if they were caught. The only outside shinobi that could be trusted even slightly were the Sand-nin, and if her doctor was one, he would have told her his identity and alerted someone from the village to come and pick her up, which obviously wasn't the case.

Therefore, two likely possibilities.

One, her doctor was an extraordinarily cagey civilian who might have an idea who she was, or might not. Civilians living away from Konoha tended to know of ninja, but not about them, and the Hyuuga bloodline was really only valuable to other ninja. That didn't preclude a knowledgeable outsider from taking in a vulnerable Hyuuga and then selling her to the highest ninja bidder though.

Her eyes would come very dear on such a market.

Sweat was seeping up all over her body, and she pushed the blankets away, curling on her side as the cool air swept down to cover her in place of the blankets. Don't panic! That's how things get ruined: lives, missions, everything. Just don't panic. You don't know enough to panic yet.

The other possibility was that she was currently in the hands of other ninja. The doctor hadn't seemed at all surprised or curious about how she'd come to be in the woods with wounds all over her body and suffering from poison; he had treated everything very matter-of-factly, which argued towards a medic-nin, and a fairly skilled one at that. He didn't sound that old, but there were a lot of skilled ninja around her age or even younger. He had sidestepped her questions about when she could leave and where she was currently located, which probably meant that he knew she wouldn't like the answers. He could be anyone, from anywhere.

Perhaps even from Sound.

Hinata pulled her knees to her chest, huddling into herself and accidentally bit her lip, a old childhood habit that she'd only managed to outgrow a year ago. The faint salt taste of the blood was almost exactly like tears.

Now I told myself not to panic...not to to worry. Little groups of Sound-nin have snuck into before. Didn't they say that they were told ANBU would be coming in our place? We weren't that far from home when we were attacked. For this to be Sound, there would have to be a fairly large group of Sound shinobi in the heart of Fire Country and so close to the village that they shouldn't have escaped notice.

How long was I lying out in the woods? I can't be that far from where I was attacked if my condition was so serious. I can remember him saying that I needed immediate treatment. I can't be that far.

Not that far...

Her eyes closed as she sketched a map in her head of the Fire Country, the places she'd been with her team and the place where she'd been attacked, the places she might be now, judging, weighing, rejecting. She fell asleep gradually, a skein of endless trees unwinding around a brilliant red dot that shone of home.

The sound of the door opening once more brought her out of sleep and she fumbled half-awake for the blanket, feeling exposed. "Doctor?"

"Dinnertime," he responded, sounding as cheerful and pleasant as before. "Did I wake you? So sorry."

"N-no, it's fine," she answered. "I probably should eat."

His warm hands slid onto her body, lifting her upright once more. "Such a wonderfully strong spirit you have. You'll do so well here. I can tell."

"Here?"

"In the matter of your recovery, of course," he said, and she realized after a minute that the faint, sneezy murmur she was hearing was laughter.

All the sounds and movements from earlier were repeated, and she fumbled with the chopsticks only briefly before getting everything in order again. The rice was easy enough to manage, though she was sure that she dropped a few grains here and there, and the egg could be pressed down into a sort of ball for easy handling. The yam was a problem, being stiff and slippery; she tried carefully breaking it into smaller pieces with her chopsticks, but only succeeded in rattling the dishes and making the doctor laugh at her.

Pushing the yam aside for last, she went to the fish and lifted it to her mouth; it was firm and easy to handle. It wasn't until the first salty-sweet strips met her tongue that she discovered that not only was this not the same fish she had been served earlier, it was one of the only foods she could say that she absolutely, entirely hated. Crab!

It took all her willpower to keep chewing and not spit the stuff out: not only was it hideously rude to behave in such a way about a meal someone else had made, she couldn't refuse food that was meant to help her get well. Some twitch of disgust must have shown on her face, however, for the doctor said quietly: "Not to your liking, is it?"

"Oh! Oh no. Please, forgive me," she said, words tumbling out in a frantic rush to appease. "I'm just being silly. It's fine, really." To prove her words, she picked up another piece and moved to eat it. "I don't mean to be a bother."

"No, no, it's me who should be apologizing. I should have known better, but in this village, we really can't be too picky about what food we can scavenge when there are so many mouths to feed. You can hardly grow crops and keep animals when you're constantly on the move, and here, the fish practically catch themselves, so that's what everyone's been eating these last few days. But I really shouldn't have forgotten that you don't like crab." She felt air move against her arm, a quiet scraping sound and the tray suddenly became a little lighter. "So, Miss Hyuuga, if you don't mind my taking it...? I hate to see good food go to waste, and I haven't eaten yet myself."

His words rattled in the air like stones into a pit. Miss Hyuuga. You don't like crab. She put the chopsticks down carefully, before her shaking fingers sent them out of her grip entirely. "How could you...W-who are you..?"

"That's right," he answered thoughtfully, "we never were introduced properly, were we? It really does seem that every time we come together, you're unconscious and nearly dying." The feeling of someone's presence moving very close to her. Hot air against the rim of her ear and a whisper: "Do you remember what happened at the Chuunin Exams...?"

She was wordless, breathless, flying fast in some realm called forth by fear beyond speech. Two fingers touched her wrist, crossed together against her pulse as if to count her heartbeats. "Too fast. You should calm down, Miss Hyuuga. It's not good for someone in your condition to be so agitated."

A red and white cat's face paired with a dark cloak, and hands that brought life back to her body. ANBU pulling her away, groggy and newly awakened, for an examination. That man...do you know what he's done? Traitor. Murderer. Liar.

Snake in the grass, poison poured down the well.

Why did he save you?

Her own small voice: I-I really don't know...I didn't know him...I never had anything to do with him.

Hinata made herself turn her head to face him, though every muscle she had was stiff with agonized fright, and managed to draw enough of a breath to ask: "...Why?"

The fingers around her wrist squeezed lightly. "Because I could. Because you're you. Now, Miss Hyuuga. Show me again what a smart young lady you are, and tell me my name and where you are."

A whimper slid free before she could suppress it: the words he wanted her to say were threatening to choke her, gobbling up all her air. "The village...hidden...in the...Sound, and you...are...K-Kabuto--"

"Kabuto Yakushi," he finished for her. "Yes. Welcome to my humble home, Lady Hinata. I do hope you'll enjoy your stay."

What can you say to something like that? she thought wildly, and against her better judgment, fainted.





The first thing that Hinata did once she regained consciousness was get out of bed.

Shivering and holding the edge of the mattress for support, she let go and took a few tottery steps forward, nearly pitching to the ground once or twice. She moved in a crouch when her legs became too weak to support her, then dragged herself up and continued when she felt stronger, sweating through her robes. The room was roughly twenty paces by twenty paces; she located a door that turned out to be a small water closet (toilet and sink) and the door that shut her off from the outside, which was fastened with a number of heavy iron locks.

Finished, she stumbled back to her bed and slept fitfully, waking with a frantic jump every so often. Food arrived, always while she was asleep, but she didn't touch it. Kabuto never came while she was awake, or if he did, she didn't know it. Another day passed before she composed herself enough to recognize that her behavior was not helping matters and if Kabuto was watching, likely causing him a great deal of amusement. She was better than this, and needed to calm herself down, find out as much information as possible, and try to plan an escape route.

For all my brave thoughts about panicking, when push came to shove, I fell apart, she thought, with more than a touch of rue. Time to make it up to myself and try again.

And don't think about him, she counseled as she made herself eat some rice, the only food she felt might be somewhat safe, as it was so bland that poisoning it would be very difficult. The only person supposedly capable of making odorless, tasteless poisons was Lady Tsunade, and Hinata was nearly certain that Kabuto planned to keep her breathing for at least a little while: besides, if she starved herself, she wouldn't be in any condition to escape even if she did find a chance. Just don't think about him. Pull yourself away.

Take another look around. Maybe there's something I missed the other day.

The one good thing so far was that her eyes were slowly, but definitely improving. Hinata now saw the world in shades of grey and bright shards of light, though edges were blurred and shaky, objects not always where they appeared. As time passed, the light inside her room grew stronger, and Hinata found herself drawn to one particularly vivid area not far from her bed; it looked to be shaped like a rectangle and about as wide as her outstretched arms.

Padding over to it, her feet rough against the cool stone floor, she reached out and touched the glowing rectangle, feeling cold smoothness under her hands, a material that squeaked almost inaudibly under her fingers when she dragged them on down. Going back, she discovered oily smudges where her hands had been; it was undoubtedly a window. Pushing against it did nothing; it was very likely locked and bolted, if not barred. Kabuto wasn't stupid. Her elbows banged into something set lower on the wall, by the feel of it a wooden shelf.

A minute's searching found her the stool again, and she pulled it towards the window, one hand outstretched so she could feel where the little shelf began. The stool made her just tall enough so she could prop her arms up on the shelf and rest her chin in the basket of her hands, tears streaming freely down her face as she stared against the light. She blinked often, every now and then freeing a hand so she could wipe away some of the tears. The first step to anything was getting her eyesight back, and she had to make it stronger, no matter what. Her eyes must be forced to deal with the light again, even if it burned with the same pain as catching a drifting spark in the eye.

Gradually, the light grew softer and her eyes stopped watering so badly, but she sat and continued to watch, wondering if the long dark streaks across the light might be trees.

Kabuto slipped up on her so quietly that she didn't notice him until he placed a hand on her shoulder; she shot forward and bumped her chin badly on the wooden shelf. He laughed his not-quite laugh.

"Daydreaming? You must be starting to relax; I've been standing here for fifteen minutes, just watching you. You never noticed a thing." He moved his hand off her shoulder, putting it before her face, his fingers stretched wide and wiggled them back and forth slowly; Hinata could see the movement and roughly make out the separate lines of his fingers. "What are they teaching you back in Konoha?"

"I-I'm sure you already know," she replied, her voice quavery and very low, skipping like a worn-out record. /It's like being twelve years old all over again/. "Y-you were a Leaf-nin. Once."

"Was I?" he said, equally low, then pitched his voice back to its normal volume. "I have a present for you. Close your eyes."

"W-what?"

"Close or be closed," he hummed, and suddenly put both hands down flat over her eyes, the inside fingers pinching her nose; Hinata tried to pull away, but his arms had her trapped. "Oh, and relax. This might hurt a little bit."

That really set her to struggling but he simply moved in closer, so that her head was pushed back against his chest and tucked his arms in, imprisoning her shoulders; she beat her knees furiously against the underside of the shelf and succeeded only in bruising them severely. "My goodness, whatever happened to gratitude? Count of three: three, two, one..."

Iridescence burst behind her eyes, shattering into fragments that glittered silver and gold, a diamond in sunlight. It felt as though something was torn free inside her head and all the glittering faded and turned darker, shrinking away into nothing. She slumped down against his chest as all the lights went and realized she was crying freely.

"Open your eyes."

Her eyes were gritty and sodden with tears, and her first tentative blinking showed her the same fuzzy world she had grown used to. Then she blinked again, and saw the scabby white frame of her bed, the deep blue of its blankets. She was wearing a pure white robe and the arm across her shoulders was wearing a blue-grey shirt and covered with fine, silvery hairs. There were three small moles on his lower arm.

She lifted her chin to see him smiling down at her, glasses shielding his eyes with light.

"How would you like," he asked, "to have a bath?"





Kabuto led her away after dinner, a small basket over his arm with a change of clothing, a towel and some soap. He'd also produced a pair of old-fashioned reed sandals from somewhere and bade her put on them on: "The floors can be quite chilly at night."

Roots wound themselves into snarls and knots overhead as they walked through the little puddles of light cast by torches placed high on the packed-dirt walls; it looked as if Otogakure had been carved out of a forest hillside, Orochimaru only bothering to bring in what was absolutely necessary to his lair and letting the rest run wild. Here and there, they passed a door set deep into the wall: every one was barred and studded with iron and closed fast with heavy locks. The soft slap-slap-slap of her sandals was the only noise to be heard: Kabuto's footsteps were utterly soundless. No other people were present, or if they were, they kept their silence.

Hinata was so busy trying to memorize every little detail of her surroundings-/-but everything looks the same, and I'm sure that was deliberate/-- that when Kabuto abruptly stopped walking, she continued forward and ended up bumping into his back, hurting her nose against the sharp wing of his shoulder blade. He shot her an amused look over that shoulder, his eyes knowing and smug, and pulled out a large ring of keys, rapidly sorting through them. It took him only a few seconds to find the right one, though there looked to be hundreds.

"There's already water inside," he said, wiggling the key in the weighty iron lock. "The rest is here. I think ten minutes should be enough for you to clean yourself, don't you?"

About to answer, she thought better of it, not trusting her voice, and settled for a stiff, brief nod. Handing off the basket to her, he put his shoulder to the door and shoved it open, then bowed her inside with a smile and an adjustment of his glasses.

The room was small and round, with concrete walls and far better lighting than the hallway outside; taking up much of the floor space was the pool, filled with clean-looking water and set into the ground in the center. Heavy with moisture, the air was so warm that Hinata felt herself beginning to sweat, and her hand moved to the tie of her robe, then dropped back to her side. Kabuto was posed on the door jamb, one hand still holding the lock. She looked at him, and got yet another smile.

"I'll be just outside if you need anything. Ten minutes," he said again and backed away, pulling the door shut behind him.

Once he was gone, she walked over to the door and peered all around it, but the walls seemed solid enough and there were no spyholes that she could find. Not that it really mattered, for he must have seen her naked when he was tending her--someone had undressed her, after all--but it was the principle of the thing that mattered. Hesitantly certain that she was really and truly alone, she unknotted her sash, and laid it aside, but left the robe hanging loose off her shoulders, not willing to leave herself completely exposed. The fresh robe she put on a bench that ran along one side of the wall, next to a old bucket with a fraying rope handle.

The soap from the basket was black and smelled strongly of pine; it was very much like the kind some of Konoha's oldest residents still kept in their homes, made from some kind of tree resin. Hinata walked over to the pool and dipped a hand in, testing; the water was as warm as a hot spring and up close, carried a trace of mineral scent. Her feet went in next and she wriggled her toes, feeling her muscles ease up and relax.

That was when she noticed the chains built in to the sides of the bath.

She drew her feet out immediately, backed off a few steps, and stared. Long ropes of metal hung from thick plates that had been set into the concrete that lined the pool, each as wide as her arm and probably weighing more than three of her did combined. Chains in a bath. Several notions about what exactly those chains could be used for began to creep into her mind, all involving boiling water and a sadistic ugliness that made tears blur her eyes.

Her next few minutes were spent in a huddle on the floor away from the pool, her head cradled in the warm angles of her arms as she cried silently for a while; then she stopped, wiped away her tears as best she could and got up. The ten minutes she had been granted had to be nearly up, and Kabuto would certainly ask why she hadn't washed if he came in and saw her still in her old robe, her hair a thick, snarled mess down her back.

Taking the bucket from the bench, she crept back to the pool and dipped up some of the water in that, then squatted next to the edge and hastily washed herself, scrubbing down every inch of her body with the harsh soap until she was certain all the dirt had been washed away. By the time Kabuto opened the door again, she'd dried off, put the new robe on and was attempting to comb through her hair with her fingers, pulling out strands all the while.

He looked her over and smiled, eyes gleaming with satisfaction.

"Doesn't it feel better to be clean?"





He never said anything about the damp, moved bucket, or the water spilled next to the pool. He'd simply collected her dirty clothing, walked her back to her room, said good night and locked her in.

She lay awake for a long time that night as her damp hair dried against her neck and she strained to hear any noise, no matter how small or soft, that would give her a better idea of what was waiting for her out in Otogakure's halls. After hours passed with no sound aside from her own quiet breathing, she put that task aside and instead tried to piece together what little she knew about Kabuto, determined not to go into their next meeting unarmed. He wasn't the only one who could make use of hoarded information.

Kabuto Yakushi. War orphan, foundling from who-knows-where, left alone and alive on a bloody battlefield at the age of three and three-quarters. The Chief Medical Officer at the time had found the boy among the corpses, taken pity on him, and brought him up as his own son, perhaps thinking that he would fill the void left by the untimely death of his pregnant young wife some years before. (This--according to Ibiki Morino, in charge of briefing the chuunin at the time--was just more proof that good ninja avoided emotional entanglements. "If Mikage had gotten the hell over his wife and kid when he should have, /years ago/, would I be standing here talking to you pigs and wasting good air on the little bastard today? No. I'd be doing something much more interesting with my life, like torturing that Hidden Mist asshole we've got locked up in cell 3.")

He had been a shy, sweet-natured child, not outstanding in any way, save for a mildly expressed interest in his father's medical practice. It had taken him three tries to pass the Academy's exit exam, and his career as a Leaf genin had been entirely unremarkable: everyone who had been interrogated after the fact agreed on this. There had been no warning signs of hidden talents, no indication that the stammering boy in their midst was secretly jounin-level and capable of killing ANBU with ridiculous ease. Seven times a dropout at the Chuunin exam. Five years with Orochimaru (that was ANBU's best guess, based on available evidence). Only he knew for certain exactly how long he had been a traitor.

Hinata shut her eyes.

There was a grey-haired boy lurking around the edges of the memory of her mother's funeral procession, standing with his father and the rest of the hospital staff as they bowed their forgiveness to her father for not being able to save her mother's life. He must have been around twelve or thirteen then, an adult to her six year-old eyes. During the round of condolences she had stared at the ground the whole time, too shy and well-bred and frightened to look any of the adults in the eyes. A cluster of voices surrounded her, well-meaning hands patting her hair. "Poor little thing."

"Such a pity."

"She's cute. How horrible, losing her mother like that."

Was he the one who had slipped her a piece of candy?


Another memory rolled up: herself at eight. Sitting nervous and tearful on the crinkled-paper edge of an examining table with a painfully throbbing ankle and a stomach that felt as if it was filled with humming bees. She had fallen badly during school--/small hands pushing at her, stumbling, flailing wildly in the air, then the pain/--and the teachers had sent off to the hospital to be treated, fearing a broken bone and Hyuuga wrath. The doctor who examined her was tall and thin, all gawky angles and a fluffy mass of grey hair; his hands were cold and bony, though gentle and deft. He told jokes to try and cheer her up, offered her a sweet to suck, which she took less from actual want and more from politeness and fear. Only later would she find out he was Chief Medical Officer Yakushi, sent to her because of her status as a Hyuuga and the anticipation that her family would find some minuscule flaw in the work of a lesser doctor. Midway through the procedure, the door opened and a young man came in, moving slowly, his hands filled with rolls of bandages.

"You're late," the doctor said with a frown that drew his bushy eyebrows together into one fierce arcing line. "What took you so long?"

The boy glanced at at her first, his eyes oddly flat behind his shiny, round glasses, then turned towards the doctor, his gaze lowered. "I'm sorry, father," he said, voice dull and even and not sorry at all. "It won't happen again."

"Kabuto, you--" Hinata cringed against the noise, hating raised voices: the doctor snapped off his sentence after a look at her. "Never mind. I'll speak to you later. Yuzu is waiting for you down in Exam 7. Mind yourself and don't forget to thank her after you're done."

"I don't know what's wrong with him these days," his father said as the boy slipped out without another word. He shook his head so his hair flew around wildly, like dust sent up by a vigorous broom. "He was always so polite, so cheerful, and now..." Trailing off, he reached for the roll of bandages that Kabuto had left on the table beside her and stooped so he could bind her ankle. "I suppose it's just teenage nonsense, but he's always been such a good boy, if a little shy. I was hoping to avoid it."


Later, her ankle finished, she sat in the waiting room, where someone from the family would come to pick her up. A quiet noise behind her made her turn, and she saw the boy from before, watching her from the deep shadow cast by the doorway.

"Oh," he said awkwardly when he saw her looking, apparently just catching on that he'd been spotted. "Father sent me to see if you needed anything else."

"No, thank you," she whispered. Her fingers twirled together in her lap as she fought the urge to run away and find a safe dark spot in which to hide. There was something really funny with his eyes, she decided; they looked like glass, like a doll's, with no life behind.

"You're a Hyuuga, right?" he asked through a sudden cough, startling her. "We hardly see any of your family. Here, or anywhere else."

She made an indistinct noise down in her throat and hoped fervently that he would take it as an answer and go away. Instead, he came around to her and knelt, his body just out of arms' reach, looking up into her eyes. Behind the glasses, his own were the deep grey of a storm cloud, darkening to black towards the pupil.

"You're a little shy, aren't you?" he said kindly, and for the first time there was warmth and something like life in his gaze. "Don't be. You have such pretty eyes."



Her tenth year. The Chief Medical Officer's funeral procession. A swift-spreading cancer had left him with only a year to live; he had died within a month. Kabuto lead the crowd behind the coffin as chief mourner, clutching his father's black-rimmed memorial picture in his arms, his face pulled thin in the rainy grey light. His father's plot was not far from her mother's and she caught a last look at him standing graveside, his back hunched up like a sickly old man's, as the Hyuuga left the cemetery for home.



A torrent of noise at the stadium drowned out by the pain in her chest, and Kiba-kun calling out to her. A voice, the red and white swirls on a mask. Arms bearing her up. A warmth creeping slowly through the icy cold of her heart, blood flowing back through her body, veins unfrozen, lungs heating. She drew one breath, held it, drew another.

Words came to her, soft rushes of sound: No more for her, or for you either, and that was the last thing she heard.




Hinata lay quietly in the darkness.

Kabuto could pluck anything out of her and use it for his own liking: words, gestures, how quickly her heart beat, the number of breaths she took per minute. He likely meant to pull her apart, crack open the vault of the Hyuuga bloodline and take that knowledge for himself, for his master and his own ends. Very little could be hidden here, and she was in the hands of someone who could literally manipulate every molecule of the air around her.

She could die, but even that wouldn't save the Byakugan; there was no cursed seal emblazoned on her forehead to keep her silent after death. She could give herself up as a lost cause. Neither was acceptable, even if the only alternative sent her sick and dizzy at her own daring.

What are my options? she thought, watching the blackness behind her eyelids. I die. I fold. I fight.

Fight someone who now has all the power in the world over me. But Naruto-kun fought him and in a way, won.

Naruto-kun would want me to fight.

Neji-niisan would fight. Hanabi-chan would fight.

She folded her hands over her heart and felt strangely calm, almost giddy. Perhaps this is my ultimate test of strength. If I can make it out of this, I can make it through anything.

It's decided, then.

I will not let him change me.

I will go home to my family.

I will survive this.



Only later would she recognize that the hollow hope and determination underlying her words had not been enough to entirely save herself from him.