FicWad

AN: Just to make things perfectly clear, Muma is an AU, branching off from right after Naruto rescues Gaara. In other words, recent manga developments that Kishimoto pulled out of his ass are being very fervently ignored and Kabuto in this fic is based entirely off his pre-355 characterization (you know, the one that Kishimoto essentially up and threw away when he sprung “Kabumaru” out at us). More on this in a rant coming very soon to a livejournal near you.

Also, I feel I should warn everyone that the next few chapters are going to be kind of rough for Hinata. I've never intended to shy away from the darker aspects of this story, and this is Kabuto and Sound we're talking about here. So, uh, just prepare yourselves accordingly, because Hinata's not going to be having a happy time.



Aconite (Bloom and Branch)



Neji pins her for the third and final time before Hinata calls a halt to their sparring: the sun is up and it is almost time to leave for her mission.

"Lady Hinata, there's still a lot to work on," he tells her as he pulls her out of the dirt where she'd landed after his last successful blow: she doesn't answer, too busy panting softly, trying to catch her breath. "I wonder sometimes if we should concentrate instead on making you into a hit and run fighter, since you seem to lack the aptitude for sustained combat. You have the speed, but not the drive to attack, really attack. That will be your undoing."

She gets to her feet, leaning on his steadying hand and looks up at him with wide eyes, the pure white of her irises darker now with recrimination and sorrow. Watching those eyes, he can almost hear the march of her thoughts behind them: not good enough, never good enough, weak, pitiful, pathetic. Her pale skin is shiny with sweat. "Neji-niisan, I can't attack you in the way you want. I...could really hurt you..."

"Well, I won't know that for sure until you do, will I?" he snaps, then moderates his tone into something more forgiving when he sees the look on her face. He has to be harsh in order to force out her full potential, but harsh does not mean unbending."Don't worry about hurting me. Worry about knocking me clear into the other side of the compound. Nothing would make me happier than you breaking several of my ribs. Do you understand?"

That brings a tiny, uncertain smile to her lips: a firefly, blinking in and out of sight. In the guiltiest and most secret reaches of his soul, he has to sometimes admit that he--just maybe--cherishes the rare smiles she directs at him more than all of his considerable genius as a shinobi."I...yes."

They retreat to the veranda where breakfast and Hanabi wait, the little girl their eyewitness and eager student in one. Hanabi eats a dango in big, heavy bites, her knobby knees making a hill under the oversized white teeshirt she wears to school; she shifts position a little as Hinata and Neji approach and take their places on either side of her. All together they form a perfectly balanced triangle.

Hinata serves out breakfast from the plate in the center: three dango to him, two for herself. Hanabi has already claimed her share and is eating it as fast as grace allows.

Neji glares at Hinata and drops the third dango back onto her plate. "You need the strength more than I. You have a mission, stop being foolish."

"I-it's not that big of a mission. Besides, you need to eat more, you're larger. I have a smaller stomach, so I don't need to eat as much," she says, and places the dango back with him.

He passes it back to her plate and presses his hand down on it to keep it in place.

That gets to her, and her mouth straightens into that line he knows so well, the one that means This isn't over, not by a long shot. She nudges the dango out from his guarding hand and is attempting to send it back when Hanabi sighs through a mouthful of rice, intercepts the dango in midair and breaks it in half, putting one piece down on each plate.

"Any questions?" she mumbles.

They sit silent.

"Good," she says, and leans up against Hinata's shoulder, inspecting the bruises on her sister's arm.

His uncle materializes out of a doorway in a swirl of black and white robes just as Hinata is leaving. Hanabi hangs off her sister's back and presses noisy kisses onto her cheeks while Neji double-checks Hinata's pack to ensure that everything she needs is present and accounted for.

"You are off, then?" Hiashi asks in his dry-ice tones, hands folded beneath the long ends of his sleeves. "To lead your mission."

Hinata nods and accepts her pack from Neji with a grateful smile (that's two), tightening the straps so it will hug her shoulders. "We should return in a day or so, Father."

Hiashi clears his throat and his hands shift a little underneath his robes. "Hmmph. Well then. Don't cause trouble for anyone. Be a good girl and be careful."

She looks up at him with surprise. "Of course I will, Father," she replies as she steps off the veranda and walks off towards the front gates, giving them all a last wave and smile before she slips outside.

It is the last time Hinata will see her father alive.







Unforgivable was Neji's first thought when he woke, still seated on the damp and chilly grass outside the false ANBU office, shoulders stiff and back bent from his unexpected nap. I should never be so careless. It's all Naruto's fault, him and his damn yawning. It put the wrong kind of thoughts in my mind.

He reactivated his Byakugan and looked downwards once more, but the act did nothing except confirm his suspicions: Hinata and the ANBU were long gone, with Hinata likely in bed for the night. How long had it been since he'd told Naruto to go home? Almost two hours by his watch, which meant roughly an hour spent napping, as he couldn't remember anything past eleven or so. Precious time lost to the unnecessary demands of sleep, even if he had been able to watch Hinata for five whole hours before losing her again.

Not for the first time, Neji wished that the Hyuuga had concentrated less on improving their already superior eyes and more on developing other useful body parts: superhuman hearing, perhaps. The Byakugan could peer through several hundred feet of heavy earth to see the aquamarine chakra signature of the girl hidden with; nothing could hide from it, save for sound and speech, air and thought. Hinata's chakra system had been shut down to the bare minimum necessary for life: to Neji's sharp eyes, she appeared as a fragile and shivery light, faint as breaking dawn, one overwhelmed by the far brighter ANBU around her, and when the Hokage was present, Neji could barely see her at all. A ghost girl reduced to sticks of blue light, a lifeline of twigs and branches, all weighter substance gone into the dark.

But she's no ghost, she's alive/, he thought, as he rose and stretched his cramped limbs, stepping off the grass onto the path. /She is alive. That is the only thing that matters. As long as she's here, no matter what happened, I can help. I can make it up to her.



"This isn't my story to tell," the Hokage had said when he'd demanded news of Hinata on the second day of her return (protocol be damned, for just this once). She'd watched him with those hard, bright eyes of hers, the color of amber held in fire, her gaze scanning him slowly as if she already knew all his fears and merely looked for confirmation of them. "When she gets home, she'll tell you at her own time and her own pace. Do not, under any circumstances, try and force things out of her. Hinata's going to need peace and quiet and privacy, most of all. Understand?"

His face was heavy stone as he'd nodded, once: foolish of him to think they'd put his needs above village law, foolish to let so much of his self-control slip to an outsider, even if she was Hokage. But, a little voice inside him howled, she's been with /Kabuto Yakush/i and you expect me to just take this burden and go away?

"Neji," Lady Tsunade had said just as he turned to leave; he paused and looked back at her, one hand steady on the door.

"She wasn't hurt," she said, putting a very slight emphasis on the word /hurt/. "Physically, she's pretty much unharmed. Keep that in mind, okay?"

The news did very little to ease him.





Three more days until she should return. Three more days until we learn exactly how extensive the damage is, and what must be done to help repair her.

It was only when his jaw began to ache with a fierce throbbing pain that Neji realized his grinding teeth. I won't let this ruin her.

Especially when this is probably my fault.

His fingers slid into the hidden pocket sewn into his robes, rubbing gently against the smooth edged coins there, and without thinking he found himself turning down the dark and quiet path that led to not to home, but to the shrine.

Silk banners snapped in the wind as he approached, the wide marble path before him shining softly in the light of many lamps. No one else was present at this hour except the statue of Kannon, goddess of all mercy, her broad white face round with kindness, arms bent into arcs that suggested endless love. He tossed the coins into the offering box, clapped his hands three times, and bowed his head, silently giving thanks yet again that Hinata had been restored to them.

When the news of Hinata's disappearance had first reached the Hyuuga, Neji had outwardly stayed as stoic and unbending as his uncle had been until late night, when he slipped from his rooms and walked to the shrine as quickly as his legs would carry him, heart hammering in his chest. Heedless of any other worshipers that might be around, numbed by a thousand bright needles of anguish, he'd thrown himself down in front of the goddess and begged with all his soul: Take me. Take me. I'm the one who has sinned, not her. Don't carry out my punishment by way of an innocent. If I am so wretched as to deserve something like this, then strike me down. Take me instead.

Please, just bring her back.

Ever since he'd nearly killed Hinata at the Chuunin exams, ever since Naruto had opened his eyes to the corruption his hatred had wrecked upon his heart, he'd been expecting this, a divine judgment, a bolt from the blue in retribution for his misplaced rage. Karma demanded that he be punished for his sins, of course, but he'd never meant for it to come about like this.

Hanabi had coped as best she could, first by hysterical fits, then with a kind of grim defiance once the initial bloom of misery had faded, the only one who truly seemed to believe that Hinata would eventually come back. As the days slipped by, Neji continue to plead with the goddess and leave offerings both at the official shrine and his tiny personal one at home but grew less and less certain, and turned from wishing for Hinata's safe return to asking that they at least recover her body.

Then came the day when Kisame Hoshigaki had stood upon the roof of the Hyuuga compound, grinning at them with all of his sharp, shining teeth, and said, in a tone of studied casualness: You know, your missing girl's alive. We've seen her. Wandering around with Orochimaru's white rat. Limbs all intact and everything.

Give us the Kyuubi and in exchange, we'll bring her back.

Hiashi Hyuuga merely stared at him in silence for a long moment, one hand protectively cupped on Hanabi's head as she huddled into his leg--/so like, so very like that time, Lady Hinata.../--then spoke in a voice that made Neji think of endless sheets of black ice:

With no proof, you speak as if the Kyuubi is mine to give and act as if I should wholeheartedly believe the word of a criminal missing-nin and traitor in regards to my child. Regardless, I will not trade away a life that does not belong to me, even if it would bring my daughter back. I will not sacrifice the many for the one.

Your offer is rejected. Do not trespass upon my property again.

So softly that only Neji could hear him as Hiashi turned away: She would never forgive me if I did.


Before he left, he added another prayer, for his uncle's soul--/perhaps they're together again, Father and Uncle: if so, let them be eased, let them forgive-/-and turned back towards home.





It was a fairly short walk from the shrine to the compound where the clan had temporarily taken up residence while the estate was being rebuilt and Neji reached the main gate just as Konoha's clocks began to chime twelve.

He exchanged nods with the Branch members on guard duty, asked for news and was not greatly surprised to hear there was none. Passing into the tiny entranceway (which was flanked by two more guards, even though there was a grand total of six feet between the outer door and the main hall ) he bent to slip his shoes off when he heard her call out to him.

"Oniisan? Is that you?"

Damnit, she shouldn't be awake still. "I'm here, Lady Hanabi," he called back, knowing that she would resent the honorific, but it was best to keep it in situations where others could hear. "I'll be with you shortly," and thought he heard a faint but rudely insistent "hurry up!" in reply. Hanabi always saved her worst behavior for the people she loved, he thought, and smirked a little, inwardly.

There was a stick of golden lamplight on the floor in the dark hall, a paper door pushed partially open: Hanabi waited inside, bedside light blazing. The former Head of the Hyuuga held the largest suite of rooms in their borrowed lodgings but could only truly be said to occupy the six by five patch where her bed was kept and perhaps the water closet besides that. Hanabi did not suffer in silence.

Neji opened the door fully and walked inside with a stern mouth and raised eyebrow: Hanabi returned the look with one that plainly said Don't bother, Oniisan, and lowered the book she had been reading. The pulley holding her damaged leg in the air creaked as she squirmed to sit up a little straighter, her good leg hanging out of the covers and looking very white in the strong light.

"Hanabi, it's late," he said. "You should be sleeping."

"You're late," she said in reply, and closed the book (/True Tales of Spontaneous Human Combustion/, he noted with a sigh, one of the numerous horror pulps she loved and hid all over the Hyuuga estates) keeping one finger inside to mark her place. "Did...did something happen with Ane-ue?"

"No. Nothing beyond the ordinary. She seems well," he said, sinking down on the futon kept on the other side of the room for him when Hanabi felt lonely or afraid, which was more or less daily, now. Neji couldn't really blame her: first her sister lost to Sound and then her father and future as a ninja to Akatsuki in one blow, all the highest of the high and more than a little girl, even a very talented one, could hope to deal with on her own. Hanabi hadn't even graduated the Academy then and given the extent of her injuries now, she probably never would.

Oniisan, let's go/, she'd said the night he'd caught her on the roof, one leg already over the fence that separated the Hyuuga from the outside world. /I can't wait here. No one will do anything and if this keeps going on, Ane-ue will... She'd choked back a sob then, soft and smothered against the cricket noises in the night. I can't wait. I can't just sit here and stand this. Let's go.

Hanabi shifted to face him, the scars from where they'd sewed the metal plate into her head gleaming dully through the fuzz of her returning hair, and rubbed the knuckles of one hand against her eyes. "How much longer?" she asked, voice starting to go blunt with weariness. She knew the answer as well as he did, but it was a nightly ritual and a comfort.

"Three days," he murmured, eyes counting the cracks in the ceiling as he struggled to keep them open. Since when have I been so tired? "Just three more days."

Neji heard the covers rustle and the pulley squeak as Hanabi moved around in bed, the soft thud as she placed the book on her nightstand. "Well, let's go to sleep so it'll be faster then," she murmured and snapped off the light.

"Oniisan?" he heard Hanabi say a little later, her voice tiny, as if the words were straining to meet him over a great distance. "Do you know what I think would be nice? If, after Ane-ue comes home, we could go on a visit somewhere so she could relax. Somewhere outside the Five Countries, a place that's really far away from here. Do you think Ane-ue would like that? Seeing another country, a new place?"

"More than anything in the world, yes," he thought he said in reply, and lost himself completely.




Three more days of this, and I can go home, Hinata thought as she lay in bed, separated from the ANBU watching her by a thick sheet of iron grill. I'm tired of being surrounded by strangers.

She stared at the dark stone squares that made up the wall beside her bed, unable to call sleep and very conscious of the watchers at her back. Life is...funny, sometimes. In a way, I had more freedom at Sound than I do here. I made my own food, ate when I wanted, chose my own clothes. Went outside when I wanted. And everyone...mostly...stayed away from me.

I shouldn't be thinking such foolish things, even if I am locked down more tightly here.

But this particular here would eventually release her while Sound had loomed endless until the day of her surprise escape. Three more days, plus who knows how many more months of ANBU watching and waiting and prying.

No, this will not end here. And Sound hasn't gone away either.

Yesterday (or had it been the day before? time ran together so, in this place) Ibiki Morino had been in the middle of interrogating her when a new and unfamiliar ANBU had slipped into the room, to drop a piece of paper at Morino's elbow. He'd picked the paper up, scanned it with a tight-lipped scowl, then let it flutter to the desk again.

"Well," he'd said, watching her with narrow eyes that gave away nothing but scornful impatience. "It seems that despite Kakashi's best efforts, Yakushi is still among the living after all."

Though a small part of her mind reminded her that Morino could just as easily be lying, she'd started shaking all on her own at his words, no need to feign it.

"Not gone...T-that means he'll be back. To try and kidnap me again, won't he," she'd whispered and wrapped her arms around herself, working her shuddering into a near-fit so strongly that they'd had to call off the interrogation for the afternoon. She was not terribly surprised when they'd let her upstairs the next day.

Even if it had touched on the subject of secrets far too much for her liking, the interrogation with the Hokage this morning hadn't been too bad, although Hinata was sorry that she had upset Ms. Shizune so badly. Lady Tsunade's presence was always a comfort as she radiated the strength she'd held on to despite bitterness: more importantly, she'd not only lived with the darkness that made up the heart of Sound, she'd beaten him to a pulp in a fight. Hinata had soaked up that strength as much as she could, pulling in reinforcements for later and tried to see that the Hokage talked more than she listened. She'd released some of the smaller scraps of horror she'd collected during her time at Sound, glad to let them go, nodded at the news of her friends, and not mentioned the tiny slip of paper--which read, simply, We've missed you--- borne by two ants that had mysteriously appeared by her hand as she lay in bed the other night, or the bug she'd found crawling on her arm shortly after that. Before Shizune and Tsunade had come, it had been sitting behind her ear; after, it crouched on her shoulder or walked a little spiral around her left arm, a pepper speck hidden under the fabric of her shirt. At the moment, it was sitting on her collarbone and she raised a finger to gently stroke it.

That was one secret. There were others, much larger and far more troublesome, not meant for public consumption; these were bolted down fast in the reaches of her furthest self with clasps of iron and chains of steel, heavy with hope girded in lead and her own quiet request that they not rise up again. Most of them had to with him. In the beginning, his non-medically derived touches had been rare, quick and light; pinching the seams of her kimono straight, fastening her hair back up into the clip when he claimed it had been about to fall, his motions so deft that she had felt nothing until it was done and he was already stepping away. All the same, just knowing about those small, benign touches would give people the wrong idea.

In that light, Hinata had decided quite a while ago that Interrogation did not need to know about the incident at the lake with the leeches, or that Kabuto had spent the last three nights leading up to her rescue lying beside her in bed, or about the chaste kiss he'd dropped on her cheek, casually excusing it as a distraction, just before he'd gone in her form to destroy the Cloud nin who had tried to buy her away from Sound. How everyone in Otogakure, including Sasuke-kun, had assumed he was sleeping with her. Then again, given the way the Morino had reacted when she'd returned, probably everyone in Konoha assumed he'd been sleeping with her as well. It was simply the sad hazard of a kunoichi's life.

A hazard she'd escaped...mostly...

She exhaled quietly, with the hope that the ANBU on watch hadn't noticed: her head was starting to ache. It was fine for them to know about the pain, the pinching and probing, how he'd drawn blood from her daily, his brief stint at poisoning her, the myriad ways he'd hurt her when she'd made her ill-starred attempt at running away /(ah, let me count the bones he'd break)/, his torturous efforts at examining her eyes. The fact that she'd been retrieved mostly unscathed, still relatively sound in body and mind, was an obnoxious puzzle that ANBU kept turning in their hands during her interrogations, hoping to find the piece that wasn't there before, the one marked /why/. (They'd made a deal of sorts, she and he: the terms all laid out neat and correct in his softly reasonable voice--where there's life, there's hope.) Let them take the pain, she willed, and pray that it kept their minds off other things.

Not that much had happened. And I really shouldn't be thinking about such...things. All they can do here is get me into trouble. Even so, she deserved some privacy in the darkness of her own mind, she decided, and stretched an arm over the pillow in a vain attempt to get more comfortable.

Movement flickered at the grill: one of her ANBU watchers had turned to peer at her. "You seem very restless, my lady."

"It's nothing," she said quietly: nothing, one of the bywords of her new life. "I just have a little headache and it's making it hard for me to sleep. That's all."

A pause, then the ANBU turned completely around, resting one hand on the lattice that separated them. "Is it very bad? I could fetch you a remedy..."

Hinata weighed the idea of sleep, easy and without pain (and possibly without dreams as well; more of a lure than an escape from the pain) against the idea of a drug that might loosen her tongue and let her ramble, all unawares, in her sleep, her many secrets spilling forth like water from a split vessel to soak into the parched ears of her watchers. She lay, and wove the two possibilities into a coil for so long the ANBU grew irritated and turned away again, just as she timidly made her request: yes, she did want something for her head, thank you very much for the kind offer. He was a long time coming back.

The powders he handed her were so bitter she drank all of her available water on the first packet and had to ask for more; the second packet was poured into her lap with a neat slight-of-hand, where the fine grains would be indistinguishable from the white bedclothes and Shino's ants could take care of the rest, her compromise on the matter. Their fault for not watching her more closely.

By the time she finished drinking her second water the drug was already bearing down on her, the weight of it like hands pressing in at her temples, making her veins throb. It had to be something truly potent if it was affecting her so quickly: she'd been exactly right to dispose of the other then, assuming that she never got caught.

Hinata breathed softly, in and out, as she lay her aching head back down onto the pillow and felt herself begin to turn inward, mind trying to pivot over the edge of sleep as filaments of panic wove through her, wrapping a steel net around her heart and sending it racing. She couldn't let herself fall, not in this unguarded state. Not like this, they'll catch me this way!

Nerves bruised by panic, she floundered helplessly in the dark, casting around for something to hide behind, a strong place to shield her. Then there was a sudden bright snap of remembrance: somewhere inside her a door, a pocket, a vault of steel that was the perfect spot to go when things went really bad (/fathers who tell you they want you dead, people who hate you simply for being you, your own frail and bedraggled and stunted self, boys who caressed you with words and long fingers on your breasts, who smiled and smiled and there wasn't the slightest thing soft about them)/ The one place in the world where there was room for nothing and no one other than Hinata: she could crawl in there, pulling her consciousness in after her, tucking it all in as neatly as a snail into its shell and be perfectly safe.

Yes, that would be just right.

She shut her eyes and descended.





Oh, was her first thought upon touching bottom. This isn't right. I'm back here again.

Hinata looked down at the sleeping girl, burrowed underneath the blankets of the narrow bed despite the heat, one arm upflung as if to shield her face from light that never came. It was dawn or very nearly in the little room that smelled of wet earth and darkness; the sleeve that fell back from the sleeper's wrist was a murky blue-grey like oceanwater churning in a storm and she knew beyond all doubt that her feet were now planted in the memory of the day she'd been rescued.

So soon. I don't know if I wanted to come back so soon. Why is this here, of all places? I thought...I was getting away...

She very much wanted to touch herself, to find out if her other self was solid or nothing but a dream-husk (made of moonbeams and cobwebs, perhaps...she looked opaque enough) but fear of what might happen if she did kept her fingers still. Would she wake up looking at herself and if so, which mind would she think with? Hers, the other, or both at the same time? No, better not to risk it.

A shiver stuttered through her body and she wrapped her arms around herself, tight.

Kabuto's side of the bed was empty, lightly rumpled blankets and a lingering warmth the only sign of his presence. He never stayed for very long, a few hours at most, and slept less than he stayed, a side effect of his needing to be here, there and everywhere in Otogakure. No rest for the weary, he'd said, as he'd shone a light in her eyes, free hand probing for another vein. That's why I appreciate your compliance.

It was probably better that he was gone, she decided: if the thought of waking up to herself was terrifying, finding Kabuto there, awake and looking back was even more so. He'd see me. I know he would.

Minutes rolled by slowly as Hinata waited for the scene, or herself, to shift, feeling like a balloon bobbing lightly on a current. She was just about to see if she could move past the doorway in her current state when there was movement from the bed and her other self rose, shook the bedclothes back and stepped out.

She didn't seem to notice Hinata as she walked slowly around the room, loosening her hair from its sleeping braid, pulling off one blue-grey robe to exchange it for another. (Kabuto got all her clothing secondhand and never said from where: all she'd wanted to know was that they weren't the castoffs of Sound victims. He replied to her questions with a soft smile and said nothing more. By the time she'd been rescued, she'd acquired quite a wardrobe.) Slipping on sandals, she finally opened the door and stepped outside, making her way down the narrow little hall towards the kitchens, Hinata following quietly behind.

Yes, this is exactly what I did. I remember. Her other self unlocked the kitchen door with a key taken from her sash and walked over the chipping floor tiles to the tiny squeaking refrigerator, brought out the onigiri made the night before. It was Moving Day and that's why no one else was around. I didn't think it was strange until I heard the screaming.

As if cued by her thoughts, a thunderclap ripped into the silence, followed by yelling and then explosions that made the kitchen chairs wobble on the uneven floor. The door slammed shut.

Past Hinata froze for a long moment, eyes wide and a half-eaten onigiri clutched in her hand, then threw the food aside and yanked the door open, running for the outside.

Hinata, who already knew perfectly well what was going to happen--what had happened--followed at a more sedate pace. I was going to find Mr. Kabuto, but then I saw the fighting outside.

She reached the end of the hall and peered out at the clearing that marked the beginning of Otogakure, covered by rolling smoke, Leaf forces swarming all over. Past Hinata stood uncertain in the shade of a large boulder, clutching her hands against her heart, listening to faint words drift past on the smoke. Her head turned to the right, staring at something hidden by the fights.

Hinata! Hinata! Where are you? Hinata!

In one sudden movement, Past Hinata wrenched her gaze away and started running, her voice rising above her pounding footsteps--/I'm here, I'm here, Naruto-kun, I'm here!/--and vanished into the smoke.

And with that, I ran away.

Silence settled back over the clearing, though the fighting was still going on: Hinata could see shadows leaping, stabbing, falling, starbursts of chakra glittering through the air. Kunai studded the ground like iron grass. She braced herself, stepped out from the door, and knowing already what lay at the end of the other route, this time turned to the right.

Blood was the first thing that met her eyes; Kabuto was supplying most of it. Kakashi-sensei lunged at him, kunai in hand, and Kabuto dodged it by the merest inch, slipping down clumsily on his own blood. Another blow caught Kabuto on his arm, raking a new gash and he fell back a few steps, no longer smiling.

His hands are empty. His chakra scalpel...why isn't he using it? The more sensible part of her mind informed her that she hadn't witnessed this fight and could not possibly know what had happened beyond that moment when she'd locked eyes with Kabuto as he knelt bleeding on the ground. Kakashi-sensei had noticed her, jerked his chin towards Naruto and Neji-niisan without taking his own eyes off Kabuto and she'd obeyed the silent injunction without looking back.

The two men sprang at each other again, with Kabuto coming off worst once more. This isn't right. This can't be right/. Kabuto had fought more strongly then this during their infrequent sparring matches and she was nowhere near his and Kakashi's level. /It's almost like...he's not even trying...

Kakashi-sensei surely realized it too, because he spoke suddenly, his words tight and suspicious. "What are you up to now, you cocky little brat?"

That brought a smile back to Kabuto's face: through it, he coughed and spat blood on the ground. "Maybe I don't want your Sharingan copying all my tricks."

"Try again. You're fighting like a civilian with two broken legs /and I want to know why/."

Kabuto just shook his head and kept smiling, even as Kakashi-sensei went for his throat and Hinata cried out, unable to stop herself. A dull thud, an arc of metal that gleamed like obsidian and Kakashi-sensei was flying back, his face drawn in shock as Orochimaru's Kusanagi buried itself in his torso like a third arm.

"Kushinada. I knew I'd find you here."

The maelstrom died at the sound of his voice: figures, weapons, smoke and solids all went stiff and bright, like little cutouts made of sun, then flared up and vanished, leaving nothing but the landscape, herself, and Kabuto, standing at the edge of the path, watching her out of unprotected eyes.

One unprotected eye, to be specific: the other was bandaged heavily, blood-speckled white crossing over his skull like the thick hats the Sand-nin sometimes wore to protect themselves from the sun. His left arm was swaddled as well, and in a sling; the longer Hinata looked, the more bandages she saw and the greater the extent of his damage.

"You're...hurt..."

He looked at her shocked face for a long moment, then smiled his sweet, mutable smile. "Am I so altered?" he asked lightly. "Don't be frightened. I was getting complacent, after all: it's not good to let yourself become too easy with anything. I needed to be reminded about pain again. Besides, you know me. Wounds always heal, given enough time."

"That's not always true," she whispered, eyes on the bandages at his left shoulder, where a bloodstain puddled one minute, then ebbed away the next. "W-what happened to you...?"

"Lord Orochimaru happened to me," he replied, as easy as if he was discussing the weather. "Someone had to suffer for the Leaf attack, and we lost so many men that it was only practical that I take the brunt of his anger, lest we have any shinobi left at all. And I...well, never mind." Kabuto's chuckle was rueful and light, very close to her ear. Wasn't he just at the end of the path? "He's forbidden me healing for the next three days. It's sweet of you to care, though."

"And what about you, Miss Hinata? What have you been up to?" He pursed his lips, thinking, then went on without waiting for her answer, peering over her head as if he could see her ANBU waiting there, looking back. "Of course. Standard ANBU debriefing 3B, category 0107-A, for recovered shinobi who have been with the enemy as prisoners of war for five days or longer, a procedure set up by the Second Hokage after his own sister was taken by enemy nin during an S-class mission. Heavy on the interrogation, light on the torture, because you haven't really done anything wrong, but my goodness, will they do their damnedest to ferret everything out. How are you enjoying yourself, by the way?"

"P-probably more than you are, at the moment," she managed to say, and his half-smile widened into the arching bow she knew so well.

"I've missed you, Kushinada-hime," he said as he settled to his knees with a sigh, his back against the stone wall of Otogakure as if he couldn't support his own weight any longer. "It's not nearly the same without my blackbird flitting around, but I suppose it couldn't be helped." His gaze went inward for a moment, visible eye cloudy with something that might have been sadness, or an excellent imitation, but he recovered quickly enough and patted the spot next to him with an inviting hand. "Won't you come sit?"

Hinata added his words and the look to her ever-expanding Kabuto-catalog of speech and deed, then went to his good side.

Their shoulders bumped companionably as Hinata indulged his request, but she drew away almost immediately at the contact and kept her arms and legs tucked in tight, resting her chin on the bent column of her knees. He was just as warm as she remembered, full of an overspilling heat that soaked into anything he came into contact with. Especially me.

Kabuto drummed the fingers of his good hand on his own knee and watched her without comment, while Hinata maintained the silence in turn, trying to keep her eyes on her folded hands instead of his face. A tiny bead of sweat slipped down her neck, leaving a cooling trail on her skin.

"Miss Hinata," he finally said, his tone soft and pointed, leaning forward until she was forced to look directly at him, at his one unguarded eye. "Is there something wrong? Am I making you uncomfortable? You shouldn't be, after everything we've been through together."

She looked away, at the short curves of her nails, the blunt ends of her fingers tapping together. "...I was getting too comfortable with you. With everything. But that was the idea, wasn't it? Your plan all along. I...I think I see now. I think."

He came closer still, their noses almost touching, voice still low and even. "Oh?"

Better not to give him any advantage, she thought, and kept her silence. It was one of the better ways she'd found for dealing with him, though like all of her tactics it had a limited lifespan: retreat for too long and he'd start throwing around words like curse seal and childbirth until he saw that he had her undivided attention again.

When she failed to respond, Kabuto lifted his hand and placed it, very lightly, on her hair.

Hinata jerked at the touch and nearly darted away, but thought better of it, pressing her lips together until they hurt. "I...you shouldn't..."

Kabuto's smile was indulgent and just a touch exasperated as his fingers separated the strands. "Is that so? That's not what you said that night. You remember that, don't you? I did far more than just touch your hair then. Now you're shaking like a frightened rabbit. What happened to my brave Kushinada-hime?" His next words went directly into her ear. "Has ANBU poisoned your mind already? Or am I scaring you?"

"I've never stopped being scared of you," she said wearily, suddenly very tired of all this evasion and doublespeak and his hand went still for a moment; then he made an indistinct noise down in his throat and continued to stroke her hair. The gesture itself was soothing, but the feelings it engendered were not.

"And yet," he said, very quietly after a little silence had passed, "you chose to sit on the side of me that isn't damaged."

A wisp of scent tickled her nose, heavy and sweet, blurring her thoughts and making her sleepy. She needed to find some breathing space or her mind would dissolve entirely and he'd do exactly as he pleased with her, gulp her down whole like the river beasts from Mist that Hanabi liked to read about. It took a lot of effort to pull away from his hand, but she managed and walked away, hands clenched at her side.

"I see. You no longer intend to keep your promise," he said flatly, from right behind her. Of course he'd follow. "Is that it?"

She shook her head in immediate denial before she remembered that Kabuto had a serious dislike for nonverbal replies. "N-no. That's not true. I-I meant what I said," she whispered, staring off into the horizon as her face flushed, glad she was facing away. "I meant what I said," she repeated, her voice stronger now that she no longer had to look at him. "I keep my promises and settle my debts. That's my honor as a Hyuuga. I won't go back on that."

"I didn't say you were," he said, his voice full of gentle rebuke: he was very suddenly in front of her and moving closer with each step. "But the scales are unbalanced, aren't they? The weight of your debt dragging you down?" His smile gleamed metal-bright as he counted off, curling his fingers into his palm as he went. "One, two, three, four near-deaths, Miss Hinata. If this keeps up, I'm going to own you 'till the end of time.”

Her heart beat like a festival drum and he turned his soft smile down to her. “Don't let it worry you. I take very good care of my things, as you already know."

"You d-don't. Own me, that is. And you won't, after I repay you for everything. Once that's done..."

"And if I save you again? And again, and again? Keep telling yourself that things will someday end between us, Miss Hinata, if it eases your soul," he said kindly, standing so close to her that she could feel the cloth of his sleeve against the bare skin of her arm. One heartbeat later, he was reaching out to splay his long fingers over the hollow between her breasts, pressing down lightly against her heart. "But you've already cracked a little here, haven't you? Admit it: I'm already inside you. I don't need much room and you have so much space within. Just a tiny corner that no one else wants, that's all I ask."

Hinata swayed--that scent was becoming so much stronger, ash and honey all in one turn--then reached up and pressed her hand to his cheek, knowing from experience that Kabuto shied away from having his face touched.

He didn't flinch as she hoped, but went very still. Yet under her fingers Hinata felt something thrum at her touch, a ripple breaking through calm water. His good eye narrowed, searching her out and Hinata met his gaze for a minute, then dropped gaze and hand both to the pulse that beat at the hollow of his throat. There was a tenketsu point at that spot capable of blowing a man's head off his shoulders if enough force was applied but his heartbeat never changed.

The wind shifted again, waves of spice prickling her nose and again came the overwhelming sleepiness. Something warm brushed against her calves and she looked down, heavy-eyed, and saw that they stood knee-deep in fire, a bright field of burning poppy with them in the center, sparks drifting upward to gild the air with sweet-smelling gold.

Kabuto's hand closed around her elbow. "You can't go to sleep here: you'll go into the dream so far you'll never come out again," and she thought there was a touch of urgency in his voice. "Let's find more congenial surroundings, all right?"

Her eyes must have closed for a second because the next thing she saw was sunlight glinting off surgical tools and beakers lined in rows. This was a familiar place: dark cabinets and shelves crammed with books and jars and stuffed animals, the sunniest windowsill groaning under the heavy pots of poison flowers with the lone benign violet sitting forlornly in the center, papers strewn on every available surface. Hinata averted her eyes from the skeleton with the missing left arm that hung from one corner, looked for and spotted the vials of blood neatly stacked and labeled with her own name on one of the far counters. (It always gave her a queer feeling to see them lined up so precisely: when she'd asked him why he needed all that blood, he'd given her an odd look and said "For future contingencies", a point that had been driven home once Orochimaru had attacked her.)

Kabuto sat her down in his desk chair and knelt before her, slapping her cheeks, gently at first, then with increasing force until she sat up more fully and looked at him without blinking. "Good," he said. "I don't want you leaving me."

It felt strange having him at her feet like this. "I did leave though," she murmured, and he patted her hand as if she was a senile old grandmother trying her hardest to remember which child was this. "Keep telling yourself that."

A pen rolled off his desk and hit the floor, and suddenly his good arm was full of flowers. "Here," he said, handing her the bouquet. "I have something for you."

Kabuto had given her flowers plenty of times, but they were always to be ground into poison or pulverized into medicines that would help Konoha's enemies grow strong: this one was a riot of pinks and lavenders and whites, aconite and lilies, amaranth, laurel, rue. Her grip on the flowers was a little too strong and she crushed some of the amaranth petals beneath her hands, the sticky juice running crimson down her fingers.

"A love like blood," he said with a smile, and leaned up against her until she could see herself as a perfect miniature in his eye.

She closed her own and let him.

His lips were warm and smooth, just as she'd always thought they'd be and this first kiss was surprisingly gentle and hesitant. Not surprising. It's the way he operates. I should know by now. She didn't notice which of them was the first to open their mouth, too busy curling her fingers into his thick hair for a better grip.

Kabuto pulled his tongue away after a short eternity, panting slightly and looked up at her, his eye wide and wet. "Hinata...?" he said, sounding young and frightened and uncertain all in one word, the skin flushed pale rose over the rise of his visible cheekbone.

He's...probably faking it.

But, I want to kiss him again.

I need to.

It's all right if it's just a dream.

Kabuto licked his wet lips and she yanked on his hair, pulling him back to her mouth as the petals spilled between them and all the lights suddenly went out.

Wind as cold as lunar ice swept over her, chilling her to the bone, and something very large moved, rustling, in the darkness before them. Far above their heads, two suns slashed with ebony winked at them and a tongue a mile long flicked out to taste the frigid air. Well, well. What do we have here?

Hinata's muscles locked at the sight and she sat stiffly staring, but Kabuto clutched her hand so hard it felt like he would crack the bone, his face twisted with horrified fury. "No. No. Get away from me. Get out! Must you ruin everything? OUT!"

The snake's golden eyes barely flickered and it rasped a long dry snort. You left a door wide open and are surprised when something decides to step through? Be reasonable.

A shudder ran through the hand holding hers: Kabuto was trembling, and then suddenly gone, leaving her alone with the serpent. It curled its neck and leaned even closer to her, breath hot and arid as desert wind exhaling from its nostrils, blanketing her body and melting the ice away. She noticed, through the stillness of absolute fear, that its pupils were taller than she was and for some funny reason, she felt as if she had met this snake before.

I'm glad to see you two are getting along so well together. I like her, you know.

There was nothing left except the darkness and the burning embers that marked out the serpent's eyes.

I like her so much.




It took both of the ANBU guards to hold her down while a third called for a medic as she screamed: when all of their efforts proved futile, they finally called for the Hokage. Only after Lady Tsunade arrived and wrapped her warm arms around her, holding her close, did Hinata's maelstrom of tears finally subside enough for her to sleep.