Sealed

Sealed
XIII

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Author: Ms. Trick

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Note: Reviews make my life. No seriously.

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Chapter 13

Hinata sat with her legs under her on the stone steps at the back of the main Inuzuka house. They were cool against her skin. She listened to the howling laughter and barks of her clan mates as Kiba and Hana played some of their cousins in cards in the kitchen. The light filtering through the window shade cast her small shadow in front of her. Aside from the light around her silhouette, the rest of the grounds had melted into the dark, humid night.

She stared glumly at her feet and her hands, wishing Kiba would come find her. It had been an uncomfortable evening. Neither had said much during dinner, earning them both a curious look from Hana and a rolling of the eyes from Haekoe, who muttered something about teenagers and their issues, while Hinata ate, feeling small and guilty, and Kiba only met the eyes of Akamaru.

Hinata sighed and picked herself off the uncomfortable ground. Kiba wouldn’t be in the mood to try and talk this through until tomorrow at least, she knew. She stretched and meandered out to the path running through the large fields, which had lost their spring blossoms and were now filled with thick, green summer foliage.

She followed the path, lost in thought, the darkness unthreatening as it always had been because of her keen eyes. She cynically mused on the irony of how she could wear the Inuzuka markings on her face with pride but she couldn’t change her eyes. There was only so far she could improve her sense of smell and she got along instantly with any dog she met but she’d never be able to understand their speech. She would never fully be an Inuzuka no matter what she did.

Hinata found herself at the foot of the bridge she had helped build over three years ago, where her entire life had changed. She eyed it, remembering that day. Then she caught a flash of movement and immediately berated herself for allowing herself to become so distracted.

She looked at the four figures surrounding her and her instincts screamed ENEMIES.

“W-who are you?” She asked, trying to fight away her stutter. She activated her bloodline without waiting for an answer and centred her weight on the balls of her feet.

She half-listened as they introduced themselves as the Four Sounds and gave their names. She was too busy utilizing her ability and studying the details about them: the Sound note emblazoned on their headbands, the flute secured at the back of the girl’s hip, how one fighter was actually two melded together judging by the twin chakra systems. She searched for clues as to their fighting styles but wasn’t given more than a few seconds.

The introductions were done and she was under attack.

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Naruto lay comfortable and boneless with his naked back against the headboard while Sasuke and some of the blanket lay sprawled across his lap. The dark-haired teen had his arms folded under his chin and his eyes closed but he was far from sleep.

“Well, Shikamaru could just hit you with a shadow and then undress himself,” Naruto said thoughtfully.

His rival gave a small snort from where he was resting on the blonde’s thighs but he didn’t open his eyes. “Shikamaru likes girls. He’d have to put a bra on beforehand and then perform the jutsu and undress himself.”

Naruto laughed and Sasuke could feel the vibrations through the teen’s body.

“And I bet Gaara could do some kinky stuff with sand,” Naruto added mirthfully.

“Don’t even go into the Hyuugas,” Sasuke mumbled.

“What? Why?”

“Naruto, they can see through things.”

“What does that have to do with...oh, like they could see through shower curtains.”

“And bedroom walls. And clothes. And bathhouses.”

A startled look came over Naruto’s face and Sasuke glanced up at his husband’s form, which was illuminated somewhat by several beams of moonlight pouring in from the balcony doors. It was barely midnight.

“Ack! I’ll never be able to talk to Neji again!” Naruto yelped. “Or Hinata.”

The memory of the girl’s skittish, depressed manner that afternoon came back to him and his expression grew serious. His eyes sought out the seal on Sasuke’s wintry skin but it was on his other side and blocked from Naruto’s view.

“Hey, how’s Hinata doing? Y’know with Orochimaru’s seal and all?”

Sasuke stiffened slightly, his eyes closing again. “Fine. Why wouldn’t she be? Why would she need power?”

“You don’t think she’ll go to Orochimaru?”

The dark-haired teen was silent for a minute, debating and hesitating over whether now was the time to tell Naruto everything. Instead, to his own disgust, he copped out and merely said, “Probably not. But she might--she is weak. People are complicated things.”

“I kind of want to go check on her and make sure she’s okay. It’s not too late and she seemed really upset this afternoon.”

Naruto found himself under Sasuke’s patented apathetic gaze. He tried to read the emotion in those dark eyes but was met with a wall.

“Do what you like,” Sasuke finally said in a bored tone.

He moved from his comfortable position on Naruto’s thighs and rolled over, turning his pale back to his bed mate. He listened as Naruto shuffled out of the bed and scrounge around for his boxers and orange pants before leaving the bedroom.

Naruto scratched the back of his head as he glanced around the apartment’s kitchen/living room area in what little light there was. He couldn’t remember where the light switch was for the life of him and he had absolutely no idea where Sasuke had managed to throw his black shirt, his jacket, or his forehead protector during their earlier activities. A rumpled blob of white near the wall by the door caught his eye and he recognised it as the shirt he’d stripped off his rival.

Naruto fought back the heat rising to his cheeks at the scalding memory of what it had felt like running his hand up Sasuke’s muscled abdomen and made his way over to the shirt. He picked it up and pulled it on over his head as he stumbled towards the front door in the dark, nearly tripping over his sandals as he did so. He grimaced at the tightness of the shirt; his shoulders were a little broader than Sasuke’s.

At least he doesn’t have the massive Uchiha fan in the centre of the back anymore, Naruto thought. That would be too embarrassing.

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Hinata ran a finger over the edge of a picture frame on her large windowsill, watching the moonlight play over the faces in the two photos she kept there. One was Team 8’s standard picture from when they were twelve and the other was one that made her smile every time she looked at it. It was of her and Kiba on their wedding day.

She sighed sadly and shifted under the straps of the pack on her back, recollections of the earlier fight swimming through her head.

She had lost. Even after she had given in to temptation and accessed Orochimaru’s seal. The sensation of it gliding over her skin had almost been like silk. But it didn’t matter, she thought, remembering the smirking faces of the four Sound shinobi as their own seals spread across their bodies. With a humiliated flush, she remembered being dangled over the water’s surface, wondering why she had lost so badly while the one who’d introduced himself as Sakon tightened his grip around her ankle.

With his words bouncing around her skull, she quietly slipped out of her room, past Kiba’s door, and down the stairs.

/What would Orochimaru-sama want with a weakling like her? Heh, keep playing the housewife and you’ll rot. Listen princess, you won’t be anything but less than ordinary unless you leave this shitty town./

/Come with us,/ the flute-player had said. /That way Orochimaru-sama will give you strength. It’s pointless if we force you to come. You must decide./

Hinata had disguised her injuries as best as possible when she’d returned to the house after her walk. Her ribs were still a little sore, though thankfully not broken. Now, she took no notice of the pain as she slipped out the front door, still thinking of the two photographs in her room. She had placed their team photo face down but had left the one of her and Kiba standing.

She’d come back to Kiba someday, if he’d have her. She would never hurt him and was as loyal as any Inuzuka. But this departure was for herself. She would need strength if she was going to be worth anything to herself or her husband. And if Konoha wouldn’t let her reach her full power, maybe Sound would.

Hinata wasn’t sure how many of these thoughts were of her own conclusions and how many stemmed from what the Four Sounds had told her. But it made sense regardless.

Her train of thought from earlier on not being fully Inuzuka and not being fully Hyuuga came back to her then. Her clansmen and their canines couldn’t train her to use her bloodline to the best of her ability and her father had made it abundantly clear that the Hyuugas would be unwilling to do so past the friendly sparring with Neji.

She frowned as she recalled how the unfairness of her position had been fully bared to her thanks to the four Sound ninja. They were right. How was she supposed to grow as a ninja at all? Was she supposed to just allow herself to improve only marginally for her entire life?

Her footsteps made a small, hushed sound on the dark street and for a long time that was the only noise. The streets were mostly deserted and she stuck to the shadows until she reached the road leading directly out of the village.

“Hinata-chan!” A voice suddenly called loudly.

Her heart clenched. She stopped walking and slowly, silently turned to face the familiar figure.

Naruto’s grin turned to a confused frown as he noted the backpack and her sullen gaze. “I was actually just going to go and look for you and make sure you were okay but then I saw you here.”

She didn’t respond. Her white eyes were focused on him but unnaturally blank.

Naruto proceeded to launch into a long talk about why she couldn’t leave the village and how everyone loved her even though she was quiet and how Kiba would be really upset.

Perhaps his talk would have succeeded once. But as he stood in front of her in Sasuke’s shirt with his hair still mussed from sex that even her weak nose could pick up, Hinata couldn’t listen. Her mind was quiet and she reconfirmed that no, she could never have him. He was offering her reasons to stay but none were ones she wanted to hear.

“You CAN'T leave, Hinata-chan!” Naruto yelled.

The wind whistled through, tossing her long black hair around her and tangling Naruto’s further. She approached him slowly and his smile cautiously returned to his face. His eyes were still on hers though and their eerie stare hadn’t diminished at all.

“Naruto-kun...” She said softly. “Thank you.”

With a sudden burst of movement she shot forward and slammed a chakra-enforced palm into his solar plexus. A hushed cry of “Jyuuken!” met Naruto’s ears and then the world faded to blurs. And then to black.

Hinata caught the unconscious blond teen awkwardly as he was much heavier than her and she hurriedly heaved him onto a nearby bench. She left him with an apology he couldn’t hear and her forehead protector as an afterthought. Her neck felt a little cool without it but she walked away with her nerves steady.

/In order to gain something, you must throw something away./ Isn’t that what Tayuya had said?

As she left, Naruto lay unaware on his back on the hard bench with the forehead protector folded neatly beside his head, where Sasuke would find him nearly two and a half hours later.

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Temari finished stirring sugar into Sakura’s tea and dropped the spoon onto the counter. She picked up the two cups and walked from the yellow kitchen to the bedroom, where the pink-haired girl was sitting on the bed in her nightdress with her knees pulled up to her chest.

Temari held out her tea and Sakura reached to take it.

“Thanks. Um...is there--”

“There’s sugar in it,” Temari confirmed absently as she crawled back into her half of the bed, being careful not to spill her own drink.

She got comfortable and took a sip, then glanced sideways at Sakura and let out a small, exasperated sigh.

“Still feeling crazy guilty? Knock it off, you couldn’t have known,” the older girl said, tucking a strand of recalcitrant dirty blonde hair behind her ears. Sheesh, if she’d had known she’d be up this late, she’d have left her pigtails in.

Sakura sank a melancholy gaze into her unsuspecting tea. “Sorry. I just...remember how awful the townspeople were to him. And I never thought to question it. I just...drank in that atmosphere completely and I let it influence my opinion of him before I ever really got to know him. That wasn’t fair of me.”

“Naruto doesn’t hold anything against you, you know that,” Temari said tiredly between sips and small gulps.

“I just...maybe I would have been a better friend or maybe he wouldn’t have annoyed me so much.”

Temari snorted into her drink and Sakura gave her a dirty look. When the older girl noticed it, she smiled, put her cup on the table and turned to fully face her wife.

“I’m only going to say this once,” Temari warned, crossing her legs and putting her hands on her knees like a wise woman about to impart precious information. She fixed her sea green eyes on the pink-haired girl and said, “Naruto is VERY annoying and that has NOTHING to do with the giant demon fox sealed inside him. You are ALLOWED get pissed off at him for making stupid remarks and you CAN be annoyed at him for marrying the boy you wanted.”

Sakura’s grip tightened and a hairline crack appeared up the side of the tea cup. Temari smirked at her.

“Naruto is Naruto and you have always treated him as such, from what I’ve seen. The poor-me, poor-Naruto, poor-world act is getting really boring. Now shut up and let me go to sleep.”

And Sakura found herself in sudden darkness; Temari had flicked off the light.

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“We’ve been waiting, Hinata-sama.”

She looked up, though was used to the moniker thanks to her childhood in the Hyuuga main house and so was unbothered by it. With Konoha sleeping below and behind her, she stopped, faced with the bowing figures of the four Sound ninja.

She frowned, unsettled by their sudden submission.

“What are you plotting now?” She asked, pleased that she hadn’t stuttered.

“When you left the village, it was decided that you would become our leader. Please forgive our rudeness earlier.”

Hinata’s eyes widened slightly as they bowed their heads lower.

“It’s f-fine. Let’s just go,” she said, hurriedly walking through their line, her eyes on the looming forest ahead.

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