Berserk

SasuHina: Probably a One Shot. 

AN: I really need to write something.
None of my current works are willing to comply and so I’m starting a new thing that is likely just a one shot. My brain feels swollen, honestly. i don’t know what the deal is but I can’t write well so I’M GOING TO WRITE CRAP. 

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In the tundra the wind blew with the kind of ferocity of a jilted lover’s slap. Behind folds of fabric a pair of red eyes surveyed the cold and desolate sweep of hills stretching against the horizon’s gray pallor.

There, against the smudged line of the land touching on the sky were the twisting tendrils of red that denoted the enemy camp, battered one way and then the other the flags moved in tandem with the twisted smoke of what had been a camp fire.

It was too far for him to see clearly what had caused the flames to be doused so that smoke rose so dark. If he was honest he would have passed by their encampment through the night without noting it were it not for the swirls of black that rose against the aurora filled sky.

It was an unusually inept mistake from a group that had proved to be able and so the last Uchiha hesitated. 

They had avoided him for the better part of two weeks, once they realized who was on their tail.

They should have thanked their lucky stars that Konoha could not manage the absence of it’s Hokage, or any of the dozen people who wished so desperately to come in his stead. They should have been glad that the one that could be spared, the one who rarely stayed within the village proper more than a handful of weeks a year was a rapid death, a quick end.

Instead there they were, mocking him with that smoke.

Brow furrowed, Sasuke breathed in and looked up to where his falcon circled patiently, eyes fixed on their target, awaiting his command. Raising his arm had the bird diving through the still gray slate of early morning sky towards his master, flaring wings wide before landing gently upon his forearm.

The little scrap of paper he attached to the bird’s leg would be an easy burden, and by his wing would be delivered to the Hokage’s impatient hand within a day or two of steady flying. Well ahead of Sasuke’s own return. If the Hyuuga who had been kidnapped had suffered injuries in her kidnapping then he would be even slower.

“Go.” He murmured, tossing the bird high for a quick exit. The screech of the falcon’s earnest voice would herald any enemies his coming, and he turned with his nose tucked against the high collar of his travelling cloak to inspect his reception.

The fire had been set to burn between jagged boulders sprinkled in a half lazy circle through the tundra’s brown landscape. The flags tipped two of the four poles that held up tents bowed against the pull and push of the wind but even after Taka’s good bye call nothing stirred in the still distant camp.

Frowning slightly the Uchiha began moving forward, sliding one hand easily over the curve of his katana’s hilt at his side. There were no jutsu, there was no chakra to be seen or felt, no ink for kanji hastily written on scrolls to smell.

There was the cool heather touched scent of the wind, the heady perfume of smoke and beneath it the iron tang of blood.

It was then, as the copper drifted through the breeze that Sasuke Uchiha began to run.

---

Taka delivered his message with the promptness that had been trained into his being. The village and Hokage awaited the return of the Hyuuga and Uchiha with relieved tension. Naruto especially braced for the mind numbing impatience that overwhelmed him as days turned to weeks and still nothing was heard from the Uchiha sent to return one of the village’s most prized shinobi.

“It will all be fine.” Sakura assured him softly one evening. The light of the lamps lit in the Hokage tower cast shadows on her face that highlighted the haggard tiredness of badly slept nights. Naruto smiled weakly at her assurance, wondering if it was him she was trying to convince or herself.

“You sound very certain.” He allowed himself to tease, and Sakura let out a disgruntled breath before burying her hands into her hair to hide her face.

“It’s been nearly two weeks. I did not think he would take so long unless she was wounded. Everything in me wants to go to them. I could be of help. I could-”

“You can’t.” Naruto cut in quickly before he could let himself be swept up in the strengthening current of her thoughts. “We can’t. We are needed here.”

The kidnapping had taken place in the chaos of a battle. Buildings had been destroyed, streets ripped to shreds. Between the debris and disaster it had taken well over a day before anyone realized Hinata had vanished in the fray.

Sending Sasuke had made the most sense. His tracking was impeccable, his speed unmatched. Kiba and Shino’s desire to go after their team mate had been as loud as Naruto and Sakura, Ino and Tenten- everyone really who knew and was friends with Hinata.

But being Hokage had taught Naruto a handful of things that even his bright and overly positive attitude could not ignore. Emotional missions made for bad decisions, and when the life of a dear friend was in danger there was nothing to be done but to take the safest most logical route.

Hence Sasuke.

With barely a word exchanged between the Uchiha and Hyuuga in the entirety of their growing up and subsequent professional lives he was by far the most cool headed in regards to her kidnapping, and the best equipped for rapid retrieval.

The kidnappers had not requested ransom, had not left demands and presumably did not realize who they had taken captive.

it was a mistake that would cost them their lives. Naruto was sure of it.
What he did not realize was by whose hands the lives would be forfeit. 

---

She slept for the better part of three days, and on the fourth, hours before making the decision to haul her to Sakura for evaluation her eyes fluttered open to stare at the darkness only night and the thick canopy of a deep forest can bring.

Beside her the fire burned steady and calm, soothing compared to the whistle of the wind through the trees above, rustling and moving as though they fretted in their eternal slumber.

Sasuke waited from his place on the other side of the flames for comprehension to make her muscles tighten and her fear to show. It would be disorienting to wake in the dark with a new companion if the last memory within her was one of battle.

And battle there certainly had been.

Arriving at the camp expecting an ambush had been the logical conclusion for a mind trained as his was, but that did not change the fact that he had been wrong.

The fighting had been done for him. Blood and bone, sinew and innard smeared the tundra’s moss and gravelly ground. The tents upon closer inspection were leaning not just because of the wind. Upon their sides the bodies of men were torn and gutted in places, sprawled as though languishing against the tense cloth of the tent sides.
  
The fire had been put out by the splash of blood upon it’s embers and the smell of burning hair and blood punched at Sasuke’s face as he inspected the clearing carefully.
  
The battle had happened during the night, barely hours before. Soon wolves and other creatures would be inspecting the gore, searching for bits of edible flesh to gorge on.

Returning with hands empty but for a horrific tale to the village waiting expectantly was making his stomach tighten, and with gritted teeth Sasuke followed the tracks of the battle.

There someone had kicked the teeth from one opponent. The trace of white enamel and blood continued to the next victim, where a knife had taken out his belly, spilling the links like sausages of his innards upon the ground. A step or two from him another had been executed at the throat, not by knife or blunt force blow. Not by chakra or jutsu…

Sasuke studied the torn bits of his neck, the bloody shreds coagulating but still shining in the growing dawn light with increasing unease.

That was the work of teeth.

Human teeth.

The trail continued in the same growing tone, kneecaps kicked in, bellies sliced wide, jaws unhinged, eyes gauged. This was the method of the wild. There was no elegance to this dance, it had been the berserk chaos of a thing gone mad.

And he found the thing several yards from camp, collapsed upon the tundra, tucked between the rough moss and stone, tangled in the base of heathery bracken.

One look at her blood stained chin, at the browning crimson beneath her fingernails and the bruised knuckles, elbows and knees of her pale skin told him all he needed to know.
  
He would have been a fool not to be wary of this creature he cradled to safety through the tundra cold.

Now she lay in relative quiet. The blood long washed from her face would likely still be in her mouth, leaving a bitter taste among her thirst. Quietly Sasuke gathered the water skin in his hand before tossing it in her direction.

It should have landed at her side, instead her hand moved as thought to swat it from the air, her flinch so hard she was mostly out of her sleeping mat and in a crouch before catching it.

As he anticipated dizziness knocked her onto her butt and had he been slower onto her back, but for the fact he was there to catch her stumbling.

“Sasuke-kun?” Pale eyes blinked confusedly at him. “What are you-?” she paused, closing her eyes either against nausea or memories.

Sasuke lowered her to the ground where she gained some control of her spine, enough to sit in a crumpled heap upon the dirt.

“You were kidnapped during the attack.” He explained, succinct as always. “I was sent to retrieve you.”

Things were left to linger in the air between them. Words about the fight he did not have and the fight she had clearly indulged in. Despite his ministrations the blood of her foes still crusted beneath her nails and stained her torn clothing.

Beneath the cloak he had placed over her the shredded bits of her original mission gear still boasted a story about her capture. Hinata did not reply, studying instead her hands and their smudges.

“Thank you.”

It was not what he had expected her to say.

He had questions, many questions where one would have been more than usual. Options were few in this situation. He could indulge in the questioning, and watch her squirm beneath his curiosity or he could pretend like she seemed to be determined to, that he did not know what she had done.

Uchihas were not prone to considering other people’s feelings.

“What happened?”

The water skin was at her lips in a moment, her throat still crusted with dirt and dried blood shifting with her desperate swallows and only after she had nearly emptied the contents did she stop to wipe at her mouth with the back of her hands, staring into the fire in silence.

“I don’t know.”

He did not expect the fury which rose in reply to her answer. It surprised him. Feelings of such stregnth were a deadly thing within him and besides general annoyance with other living things he did not often feel much. Emotions once inspired inside him were often the cause of people’s deaths. Or pain, at least.
It took effort not to glare, and he was not in the mood for trying all that hard.

 
“You were captive for days.”

Hinata seemed unperturbed by his glare, more concerned with the rippling waves of the fire before her as she sighed heavily, rubbing at her face with the sleeves of her shirt to remove the crusting bits of blood left over.

“Did they say what they wanted?”

The water skin rose to her lips once more, her wince at the crackle and pop of the fire merited as the smoke billowed towards her for a moment on the breeze and then away.

“Why did you-?”

“Do I need to debrief?” Her words cut in, surprising again considering who he was talking to. Sasuke blinked several times as he stared at her, watching as her eyes finally unglued themselves from the fire to look at him, mouth cracked and bleeding with the cold. With her lips smudged red it was hard not to remember the teeth marks on so many of the corpses.

He had not been asked to have her report. His task had been simple. Locate, secure, retrieve.

There had been days, in the darkest of his times when he had been tasked with the slaughter of men. His sword had thirsted for the blood, the edge shining with his need to prove himself.

And yet he had hesitated, landing damaging blows that rendered men useless but not dead, and his Orochimaru’s mild mocking had grated.

Yet here she was…
  
Looking at him with the eyes of pale white. Innocent as a dove and yet soaking in blood.

The lie came off his tongue easy.

“Yes. Debrief now.”

She swallowed and he watched the pink wetness of her tongue lick the blood from her cracked lip before turning away to bury her fingers into the darkness of her hair.

“I was not a special target.”

He watched as she pulled one hand from her mane to study the crusted bits of blood beneath her nails.

“I was just female, and to their liking. I must have been knocked unconscious during the battle. I remember the falling of a tower, the crumbling of stone and then darkness.”

Quieter now, her voice was like the whisper of the wind through the trees.

“Being defeated made them bitter.”

It was subtle, and Sasuke would not have noticed it but for the fact that so far she had sat perfectly still. With her legs splayed where she had landed at her waking she now curled tightly, clenching her knees together, closing her eyes to keep back tears determined to fall.

Only the fire dared say anything now. Creaking with displeasure it puffed black blooms of smoke into the atmosphere, hissing with heat.

It was Sasuke’s turn to hold perfectly still. His dark eyes took in the bruises along her throat, the smudges of purple at her wrists. The rings of yellowing damage on her shoulders, the shreds of her clothing.

“I did not get all of them.” Her voice was dark as the smoke rising between them, raspy with thirst and something more primal. “Some got away.”

He moved after a long extended silence, dropping more wood into the fire with a clatter that made her flinch.

“Go to sleep.” Deftly he removed the strap of leather on his thigh, heavy with half a dozen kunai sheathed within. “We find their tracks in the morning.”

HInata lifted her eyes finally from the flames, searching his face as she reached hesitantly for the knives.

“…d…do you think we can find them?”

“With our eyes?” It was a rhetorical question, but he looked right into the pearls on her face to emphasize his point. “What can we not find?”

They were going to be late returning home. With the grip of her fingers on the leather and metal he offered he knew.

Together, they would make them a mess of spilled blood and broken bone.

Together, they would go berserk.