Tag: sasuhina

In a sky star-pricked and brooding she watched the sailing shift of the comet searing towards the soil below.

Eyes blessed with the sharpness of a predator traced it’s descent until the limbs were visible within the flames, until the agony was tangible through the fall.

The wings would be charred black by the inferno of being born into the middle lands. It would take many more of their elegant curves to have the same potency as their pearl counterparts but no matter. After 100 years of waiting for the fall of a star one could not be picky about the details.

“Young. And with a heart full of darkness I fear.” Her voice broke the stillness of their souls poised to the trajectory of the heavenly body ripping through the navy sheet of the clouds.

“At least we will not need to feel guilt for slaying him to take his marrow then.” Her sister’s smile graced her face like a blood stain in the dimness and Hinata breathed in hard.

Twirling the glaive expertly above her head to cut the air and disperse the glowing dragonmoths intent on their blood she sighed, tucking the heavy weapon under her arm, close to her side next to heart.

“Ready to hunt?” Hanabi stood, gathering with slow careful breaths the energy from the earth below.

Behind her the fallen star exploded into being in sparks of crimson and indigo, trembling the long lemon grass and making the smell of earth and citrus rise around them.

Swallowing hard Hinata nodded, poised to release the coil of tension in her body. Still smiling her sister unsheathed the elbow blades at either hip, the metal settling to her forearms in a comfortable anticipatory clink.

“For our glory.” Hanabi prayed.
“And those of the Hawk Eyed Blood.” Hinata countered.

With a breath they shot into the darkness of the swaying trees where the smoldering angel had fallen, their bodies cutting through the grass- raptors aimed to slaughter.

Hyuuga / Uchiha fantasy AU.

Miserable Joy

When he found her he didn’t make his presence known although he had a feeling he didn’t have to. She was shinobi and so he doubted that she had not heard him, his steps had not been hushed on purpose. 

Instead of saying anything he stood with his hands folded tightly within the fabric of his black cloak and he tried to breathe as normally as possible. 

She was laying on the grass, her smooth pale calves and the backs of her knees glowing by the light of the evening sun. The dress she wore every time she visited was made of a combination of lace and something smooth and white and silky beneath it. It made her a piece of snow in the summer day, laying there on the grass with her head in her hands and her black hair a curtain to separate her from the world. 

In the stillness he could see the particles of dust and pollen and summer cotton floating in the air through the gold of the sun’s light. It sparkled and glimmered and he wondered that something as distasteful as dust could look so beautiful. 

And that was the truth of life, he knew it. Because even blood when shed in the snow had a startling jaw dropping quality and the eyes of the dying always took on a hue he could never find the words to describe and Hinata laying there with the angles of her shoulder blades elegant and breath taking and her hips smooth and pleasing was a thing of beauty even laying on top of the grave that housed her Sun. 

For her, there was no warmth on the anniversary of his falling. It was always winter, right in the middle of July. He knew it because like her he could not feel the sweltering touch of the summer day, only the ice in his bones and the ache of missing him, his longest and strongest bond. 

When finally her shoulders stopped shaking with tears and the shadow of his tombstone stretched to cover her bare feet Sasuke whispered, as he always did. 

“It’s late, Hyuuga.”

And like every year since the first year when she didn’t move he walked forward, pulling her first to a sitting position on the grass, leaving stains of green on the lace dress that Naruto had given her last. 

Her eyes were dull and unseeing. It was the only day of the year when a Hyuuga was blind to the world, fixed instead on memories within her mind that haunted. 

Wordless Sasuke slid her freezing arm over his shoulder and around his neck, tucking his arm beneath her knees and hoisting her up with ease. 

Head lolling tiredly she closed her eyes, red and painful from weeping through the day. 

“I’m sorry.” she always apologized, because it was unfair for him to see this. 

And he always shook his head, starting the walk back home from the cemetery in silence, his strides long and fluid. Letting her head rest on his shoulder she closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of him rocking her as he walked. 

“I know.” He said this time, and her eyes opened as he spoke. “I know you love him.” His pace didn’t change as he moved, and his grip didn’t shift on her body but with her lips near his jugular she could feel the pulse of his heart thumping blood at an increasingly quickening pace. 

Eyes half closed she watched the warmth of the sun through the rest of the tombstones of the fallen, among them her cousin, and now too her husband. 

“…past tense.” she whispered. And this made him pause, staring straight ahead towards the exit of the the cemetery where he would take a right turn to the village outskirts, to where the Uchiha Compound now grew. He would enter the house and lay her on the couch and she would let him kiss her, and kiss her until the heat began to flow back into her body and warm her skin. And her warmth would seep into his bones and fight away the chill that overtook him from missing his best friend. 

And they would moan and sigh and move together to forget, if only for a few moments their sadness. 

But she had never said this before. Never called it her past. It was always her present, even more so on the day of his passing, it was always fresh. 

Still without looking at him her lips pressed warm despite her tears to his neck, feeling the pulse of his heart on her mouth. Pulling back she whispered. 

“I loved him.”

Finally daring to look down at her in his arms he studied her face, not as pale as it usually was after so much weeping, so much feeling, so much misery. 

Breathing in softly and shakily as she often did after heavy tears she smiled and it struck him as the most painfully beautiful thing he had seen since the dying hue of blue that had come over Naruto’s eyes as he faded away. 

“He told me… to be happy.” She whispered again, and her fingers, warmed as they touched his lips, sliding smooth over the curve of his mouth. “I love someone else now.”

And he continued walking then, unable to say anything. 

He had told her more than once the depth of what he felt for her, and so there could only be one person she meant. 

He was glad that with certainty he knew she could only mean him.

11:31

It’s late- I am having trouble writing chapters to ongoing fics because of some issues with plot but words keep coming to mind and so I keep throwing them at you people here. 

Here’s another. 
No idea where this is going. Just following the ink spill. 

Half an hour. He was going to talk to her for half an hour. 

His eyes were burning with the lack of sleep. Absently he rubbed at his face and let his head hang against the back rest of the couch, breathing air deep into his lungs and releasing it with trepidation. 

She had yet to come out. His eyes flickered to the door at the end of the hall of the apartment, the glow of a lamp sliding gold and soft from beneath. 

Warily he checked his phone for the time and counted. If it was 11:31 pm then that meant that it had been exactly four hours and 15 minutes- give or take- since they had had their first actual fight. 

They had had disagreements before, but this he counted in a whole different category. Never in his entire life did he think he was going to get a chance to stand in front of Hinata Hyuuga and have her actually raise her voice at him. 

This event had been followed by the unprecedented shove to his shoulders and then her storming into her room and slamming the door with enough force to shake the hall wall and make a frame jump from it’s hook to shatter on the floor. 

He had meant to clean it up, had even grabbed the broom and dust pan to do it and then, still viciously annoyed had thrown the items on the floor along with the glass and left it there. 

Let her deal with her own damn mess since she was suddenly so freaking independent. 

That was of course four hours ago. More than four hours ago. It took that long for an Uchiha to calm from a full on fury. His hands had been shaking and his voice had taken on that frightening sharp edge that he recognized from his father and his brother when they were really in a sulky underwear knotting mood. 

Now he just felt tired. Exhausted even, and his chest hurt like her shove to his shoulders had been an actual fracturing blow. 

Unlocking his clenched jaw Sasuke gathered himself from the couch like being pulled by puppet strings, feeling disconnected and mechanical as he wandered, hands in his jean pockets towards the door. 

She had been quiet for some time and it was possible that she had fallen asleep. If she was sleeping he didn’t want to wake her but the possibility of going to sleep himself would be out the window. He had never fought with his best friend before and leaving it overnight felt like it was giving the thing rights to a pattern. 

Swallowing hard he knocked and when she didn’t respond pressed his forehead against the smooth surface, eyes closed, hand on the door knob as he thought. 

“Hinata?” His voice was a wreck, hoarse and stinging he cleared it and tried again. “Hinata?”

Nothing. The silence hummed with the refrigerator’s mechanical whine and the high pitched usually muted sound of the electricity passing into the light bulb of the lamp in the living room he had been reading by. 

Damn it. He was not going to sleep like this. 

Half an hour. Just…talk for half an hour.

Biting the inside of his cheek he turned the knob and peeked past the door, freezing at the feel of her eyes on his movement. 

Her room was chaos, or at least the floor was. Tidy alphabetized books lined the shelves that decorated almost all the wall space, and among them cactus plants and flowering herbs in tiny pots stretched. From the ceiling hung rows and rows of herbs drying in neat little bundles tied with ribbon or lace strips. But the floor, usually free of debris was covered in photographs. He could recognize himself in many of them, Hinata, their friends, smiling or running or jumping off diving boards. Happy memories. Like the scent of her room was happy.

It smelled clean and earthy and organic. It smelled like Hinata. 

The scent was making a knot rise to his throat and with the inside of his cheek pinched hard by his teeth he stepped into the room and closed the door, leaning against it hard so that his shoulder blades ached a bit. 

She didn’t move from her bed where she lay curled in fetal position in her clothes, unchanged into her usual lavender pajamas. Instead she still wore the sweatshirt she had asked to borrow from him and her work jeans from the green house stained with dirt and pollen. 

“I thought you might be asleep.” He said it dismissively, a little bit vexed still although he mostly wanted to let her know he cared enough to resolve this before the morning. 

Hinata looked back at him, her gaze unchanging from her position on the bed, peering at him through the loose tired fingers of her hands by her face. 

The silence wore on for several heart beats and Sasuke dragged in a deep breath through the nose, looking back at her with growing effort. Keeping eye contact was something he excelled at, and Hinata in fact struggled with. So it was unnerving to feel her gray gaze stabbing into him with the precision of a thrown knife while his own usually unerring stare wavered. 

“We can’t leave it like that.” He finally snapped, the anxiety he was starting to feel getting the better of him. “You can’t just storm off and leave it like that.”

She should have moved. This was the pattern. He would grow irritable, she would try figure out why he felt this way, she would ask questions and they would figure it out together and when he finally realized what bothered him he would say it and either apologize for it’s stupidity or she would apologize for not realizing what she was doing and they would watch a stupid show together or make breakfast at 1 in the morning and the argument would be over. 

That was the pattern. 

But she didn’t move. She didn’t sit up and look at him with her face earnest and her eyes apologetic and caring. She looked at him from her place on her bed and her shoulders shook slow at first then with more force as tears streamed from her eyes. 

He didn’t know this dance.

Paralyzed by the liquid escaping her face he breathed in slowly, carefully, focusing on the action of air coming in and out of his throat while he also felt his hands tighten and his blood turn cold. 

“…Hinata… what…the hell is happening?” 

She closed his eyes in response, bringing her relaxed fingers closer to her face until she was mostly hiding from view, her shoulders shaking although no sobs rang through. This silent crying was worse than a sob, or wail. He watched it like one watched the amputation of a limb performed by one’s own hands. 

They had known each other for so long. Their personalities so compatible that any notion of friction had always been so easy to diffuse. She was flexible about anything that he found irritating. He was generally so low maintenance it was hard for her to find a fault in his behavior. And when they did disagree… well it never lasted.

That was why they had been friends in elementary, in high school, room mates in college and now entering into their desired fields.

It was the easiest relationship of any sort they had ever been in. Easier than being around their parents, their siblings, their friends. It was like breathing.

Except for right then, he was suffocating. This was not going according to plan.

“You can’t just lay there and cry.” He was being an ass and he knew it but somehow that wasn’t enough to keep him from talking. His voice shook as he realized the terror that was manipulating his actions and words. “You have to tell me what is happening. Because, as far as I know I was just letting you know I find something irritating and usually our policy is that we tell each other that shit so we don’t have these kinds of….disagreements.”

He was rambling, the words tumbling out of him in a torrent. Hinata’s eyes opened at the end of his speech and she didn’t have to say anything for him to see her irritation flaring again. It was such a strange expression on her face, so unfamiliar. Usually so soothing she set her jaw hard and even with her tears frowned.

“Why are you looking at me like that? I didn’t do anything wrong. He’s annoying as all hell. I don’t bring irritating friends over here all the time to bug you.”

Her breathing was getting heavy, he watched as her side rose and fell beneath his sweater and felt the pinch of a frown that was likely turning his gaze into a glare. “You stop this. Stop giving me the silent treatment. I can decide who comes here and who doesn’t too. This is a shared space.”

That damn blonde with his damn laugh and his damn tickling. How could one human being be so irritating? Hinata hated being tickled. Why would she have allowed that moron to do such a thing? She had laughed and pushed him away. She had blushed.

Why the fuck was she blushing?

Hinata didn’t blush at home. Home was where she was most herself. The blushing stuttering thing most people knew was always left at the door.

“Are you going to be seeing him? Is that what this is? Because if that’s what’s happening then I need to move out.” The words were out of his mouth as he pictured her with Naruto, smiling and cuddling on the couch watching a movie or walking in from a day at work to see them kissing in the kitchen. He felt his stomach tighten painfully and his eyes itch.

Fuck no.

Hinata was however sitting up now, her jaw working like she was trying to grind her teeth away, gray eyes a glittering mess of tears and fury. Fists clenching hard around the covers of her bed she set her shoulders tightly.

“You just say the word and I’ll get the hell out of here.” How had it come to this? He had never thought much about when they would part ways but he sure as hell had not pictured it being over someone like the idiot Naruto. He should have never introduced them in the first place. If there was anyone to blame it was himself.

Her chest rose and fell with the contained agitation within her and he watched, rubbing at his eyes again tiredly, feeling the irritation of the late night and the reading more acutely even as he glared at her.

“Why won’t you talk to me? Why won’t you tell me why you’re so angry?” His voice sounded so strange, even to him.

He blinked several times, wiping at his now tearing eyes with frustration. Of all the times to have his eyes water it had to be now, when he was feeling like he was suffocating. His chest tightening until it ached and his hands shaking as she stared at him. In the middle of a fight he had to get something in his damned eyeballs.

She just looked at him then, her lips pressed into a thin line and her brow although furrowed a moment before smoothed slowly. Her hands relaxed on the covers and sighing heavily she just looked at him.

It took him several breaths and a lot of blinking to realize. He rubbed at his eyes over and over, confused by the sheer amount of water coming out of his face until something began to dawn on him. Something awful.

Oh shit… no.

Breathing in deeply he stared at his fingers, wet with moisture and trembling, rubbing at his cheek with the back of his hand.

“Sasuke.” It was the first time she spoke in nearly five hours now. Swallowing hard he turned his startled dark eyes from his soaked fingers to her face trying to decipher the arrangement of her features.

The only thing he could figure out was that she looked… soft.

With the same depth of feeling as her expression she sighed. “Why are you crying?”

It was so irrational that she should be asking him such a thing. God damn it she had been laying there weeping a second ago. If anyone should be asking that it should be him, right?

But even as he made a face bred from disgust and revulsion he wiped more tears from his cheeks and sucked in air hard to try to calm himself. 

It was monumentally disorienting not knowing why his body was doing what it was doing.

She stood then, taking the three steps from her bed to him with her hands in her back pockets, her chin wobbling as she stared at him, cocking her head to the right. He loved it when she did that, when her hair cascaded down the side of her body and her bangs slid along her cheek and forehead like an ink spill along the curve of her pale skin.

His chest was heaving and his throat was tightening and if she touched him he wasn’t sure what he was going to do, so he just looked at her and tried to get a grip on his sanity because it felt like it was slipping rather quickly out of his tear soaked fingers.

What had she asked again?

Sasuke, why are you crying?

Goddamnit, goddamnit.

Because… that moronic blonde had tickled her and he hated that his hands had been on her. The idiot had made her blush and Hinata didn’t blush at home, or hadn’t in so long it was foreign and it made him wonder if maybe she was nervous and if she was nervous then maybe it was because this wasn’t just a friend it was something else and what kind of something else could it be that made a girl blush?

And he didn’t want to move away, he didn’t want to go anywhere, but he couldn’t even think about walking into the apartment to see them holding hands let alone anything else. The thought of Naruto spending the night in her room was enough to make him light headed.

This was his fault, for introducing them. This fight was his fault because he had started by telling her she was being slutty which was not only untrue but also unkind and Hinata didn’t deserve it. And when she had asked him why he was so upset he had snapped at her that she should know. Even as she tried to convince him she and Naruto were just friends. 

How could she know what upset him if he didn’t know?

“Just… don’t lie.” And now her own eyes were filling with tears again, although they were more bearable since her voice accompanied them. “Don’t lie, okay? Why are you crying?”

There was that damned question again. Why are you crying?

He glared back, swallowing the growing knot in his throat again and again. 

Why are you crying? 

I don’t want you with him. 

I don’t want you with anyone. 

I don’t want to see it.

I don’t even want to imagine it.

I don’t want to think about it as a possibility. 

I just want…

I just want you.

“…I love you.” 

She didn’t move or respond, just smiled sadly an unaffected. It had been a long time since he said that. Somewhere along the age of 12 saying they loved each other had been out of bounds. But they had said it in other ways and so she didn’t really bat an eyelash, just gazed at him. 

But this wasn’t the kind of I love you that he had been saying to her by bringing her coffee to her room when she was extra exhausted on a weekend, or allowing her to pick the movie they were watching on a Friday night. 

This I love you made him reach up with both hands into his hair in a panic, watching as something flickered over her face as she read his eyes. 

Slowly straightening she took a step back, lips parting in surprise even as he began to pant with something that felt shockingly similar to horror. 

“Oh god.” He choked. There were no more tears at least, he could thank his lucky stars for that. instead he laced his hands behind his head and tried to keep from passing out as he stared at her and watched the color drain from her face. 

“…y..you what?” 

He was doing a lot of blinking, over and over. His eyes were a rapid shutter camera taking stills of her gaping at him, the horror that was in a dog fight with ardor in his chest captured candidly in his lens. 

It was out now though. There was no taking it back, and so he swallowed and let the burn rise over his skin, setting him slowly but surely on fire. 

“I love you.”

And when he said love he sounded like he wanted to say adore, need, want, desire, cherish. 

Her eyes were swimming again, bright and sparkling in her face by the dim light of the lamp and he waited, unable to breathe for her guillotine of a reply.

Instead she let out a soft wet laugh, rubbing her face with the sleeve of his sweater. 

“F..finally.” 

She had not quite finished saying the single word before he had his lips on her, his breath a rapid painful gasp against her skin where he trailed from under her jaw up, along the curve of her cheek. He almost asked if it was okay. 

She didn’t let him though. 

It was hard to get a grip on the electric shock that ran up and down his spine as she pressed her mouth to his, as his tongue felt the smoothness of her bottom lip. How many times had he ripped his thoughts from her mouth and chided himself for ever even allowing them to enter his head? 

She stole his air, her fingers in his hair and her moan caught between his teeth as he pressed her hips hard against his. 

Of course he loved her, he always had. Of course he was furious, jealous, shaken by a new flirting friend. Of course he was a the real moron. 

Gasping against her mouth he felt her fingers beneath his shirt, pushing the fabric up. 

“I’m sorry.” His voice didn’t sound like himself. This creature speaking was young and scared and drunk. Fragile. 

“Shush.” Hinata panted back and her mouth recaptured his, pulling him by a belt loop against her body again. He wasn’t sure he recognized her either. When had she ever told him to be quiet before? 

Fingers fumbling, hair a disarray she pulled his shirt over his head and heart writhing in his chest he realized what she was doing too late to even decide if he wanted to protest. 

Although it was rather unlikely that he would have been able to manage the moral fortitude to stop her as she pulled his sweater and then her tank top over her head. 

“Wait.” He just managed, even as he kissed her, again and again, bruising the delicate skin of her lips with the increasing desperation and force of his onslaught. “Wait- tell me you’re sure.” 

Soft chest rising and falling fast against the hard planes of his torso she cocked her head and kissed him back with the same desperate hunger he could feel already overtaking his limbs. Without faltering her hands, small around his pulled him closer, pressing the palms of his trembling hands up along the small of her back to the tight strap of her bra. 

“Undo it.” 

Blood pumping in an ocean crash through his ears and his forehead pressed against hers he breathed, allowing himself one second to glance at the clock on her nightstand.

12:01 am. 

It was a new day. 

As his fingers undid the clasp of her bra he shook, sliding his hands along her skin to release her from the slack folds of the fabric.

So many years of being her home. So many years of holding her hand, and making sure he never wanted more.

And then half an hour.

Her voice was sending goosebumps along every exposed inch of skin, even as she pulled him and he pushed her down against the softness and warmth of her bed. 

Just half an hour. 

And the whole world changed.

Not Yet

First attempt at a gender bender AU. Never done this before- it’s harder than I anticipated. 
Hinata=Hinato
Sasuke=Sasuki
Sakura=Sakuro
Kiba=Kabi
Shino=Shina
Naruto=Naruko
Gaara=Gaari



Hinato was just trying to stay under the radar. Even as he gazed longingly at the front of the class, eyeing the animated shape of a particular blonde girl.

A pair of hands slamming onto his desk shattered the possibility of discretion and he jumped, biting back a scathing remark with some effort. Not a lot got under his skin. Laid back and generally smiling he was a favorite of most of his classmates and although he couldn’t believe it and adamantly denied it, a favorite of the girls in class. 

It helped that his two best friends happened to be girls. Shina and Kabi were the protective types and had been with him so long that any possibility of a relationship had dwindled to nothing right around the time they were young enough to pick each other’s noses. Something about that kind of comfort just didn’t allow for romantic feelings. 

“You’re pathetic.” Kabi sighed, shoving her mane of wild brown hair back from her face as she leaned her elbows on his desk. Hinato sunk deeper into his chair, hands stuffed in his pockets to keep himself from fiddling nervously, dark hair falling across his face to hide the nervous shift of his eyes. 

Shina had spoken to Kabi a million times now about not leaning on his desk like that. The unnecessary amount of cleavage that was always on display when she did it almost always gave Hinato a nosebleed even when he was adamantly looking away. But Kabi had the attention span of a squirrel on acid and so here she was again, making heat rise slow and steady to Hinato’s cheeks. 

Her bra was teal colored and ruffly. He had caught a glimpse of the strap and part of the cup and absently while freaking out inside his head he wondered that it was rather contrary to any underwear he could have pictured Kabi wearing. 

Not that he ever pictured her in anything other than full outfits! Or pictured her at all! Like ever! 

Since Hinato didn’t reply Kabi glanced at Shina, cocking her head in her palms, butt stuck out as she leaned on the desk. “What’s his problem? He looks sick.”

Sighing the quiet girl sitting next to them pushed her glasses up her nose. “Stand up straight, Kabi. You’re flashing.”

“OH!” Laughter erupted from the loud mouth’s lungs in a spurt while Hinato tried not to become molten lava. 

“You’re such a perv.” And her punch on his shoulder made Hinato shrink further into his seat, eyeing the front row where Naruko sat chatting amiably and excitedly with the redheaded Gaari.

“Shss.” He finally managed, shooting a desperate look at Kabi. “Please. Please be quiet.”

“Ohhhh.” Kabi replied glancing over her shoulder at the blonde head framed with twin pigtails waving her arms around excitedly. “You know… at least if she thought you were a perv she would know you existed. That’s a step in the right direction, no?”

“No!” Hinato’s pale eyes shot back to Kabi. “God… Kabi, please… sit down.” He jutted his chin out to the chair at the desk next to him. “Please.”

“Pfft.” Smirking his friend complied, rolling her eyes. “You’re never going to get her to go out with you if you just stare at her all the time.”

“I don’t-” Hinato began and stopped because the sliding door of the class room slammed open and in walked Iruka-sensei with a pair of students in uniform he had never seen before following behind. 

“Settle down, settle down.” Iruka called lazily, waving a hand. “Come on, everyone take a seat. We have to introduce our transfer students and then get right down to business with our geographic presentations or we’re not going to have enough time.”

Buzzing with excitement now the class scrambled to their chairs, whispering at each other, eyes flickering to and fro between the two students hanging out at the front. 

One of them was a tall boy, broad shouldered and even through his shirt Hinato could see the definition of the muscles beneath the fabric. With his tie neatly done and his smile easy and a bit on the shy side he shifted his weight, running a hand through his shock of pink hair. 

“This is Sakuro and Sasuki.” Iruka began, and continued, droning on about their past school, their extracurricular preferences and other things that faded in the background.

Craning his head slightly to see past a class mate’s shoulders Hinato tried to get a glimpse of the other student only to freeze, stunned to stillness as his gaze met hers.

Her hair was a blanket of night, sucking in the light and turning it into shadow within the folds of the black mantle. Cut straight at the small of her back it framed her pale features severely. Only an elegance beyond normal could handle such aggressive contrast. And she possessed something beyond normal, that was for sure. 

Her black eyes cut through the crowd, narrowing sharp and vicious on his from the other side of the room and without meaning to a sound chirruped out of Hinato’s throat, a strangled choked sound.

Burning instantly he sank in his chair, staring at his desk with his jaw set hard and his hands clenched in his pockets while the class giggled at his reaction. 

With his head down he missed the intense expression on Sasuki’s face, her unwavering stare on him a laser beam that blasted through all the obstacles blocking him from view. 

Because he was not looking up he missed not just her stare, but also the hardly visible upturn of her full pink lips into a slight smirk.

Rolling his eyes beside her Sakuro sighed. “Don’t torture him, Sasuki.” 

Whispering as Iruka continued with his ongoing introduction Sasuki allowed herself one full predatory smile. 

“Mind your own business. Looks like you have your hands full without meddling in mine.” And her eyes slid to the right where a blonde blue eyed girl stared, eyes all encompassing as they took in Sakuro before blushing hard and turning away to her desk, blinking as though trying to clear the thoughts in her brain. 

Sakuro eyed her for a second and then smirked a little. “She’s kind of cute.”

So is he. Sasuki agreed, glancing back to the flushing face of the gray eyed boy at the back of the class. Not that she was willing to admit it out loud.

 At least… not yet. 

Easter Egg Hunt

He could not believe the stupidity of the Hokage. 

“You are an idiot.” He said it again, just to make sure that the blonde shadow clone standing next to him appearing increasingly sheepish understood how much he disliked him in that moment. 

The Naruto clone grinned, all embarrassment and humiliation in a package of gold and sunshine. “I don’t think this can be all my fault. If you and Hinata had bothered to help me-”

“We did help. If I do recall we were babysitting your spawn. If I had known you were hiding actual eggs all over the village I would have been less obliging.” Sasuke snapped sharply. 

Naruto sighed then. “Okay, okay… so the eggs not found may rot, that’s not a big deal though is it? Maybe some raccoons or something will get a nice treat out of it.”

“Or they could rot and stink worse than hell. You’re forgetting your wife is pregnant again. If she smells rotting eggs walking down the street-” Sasuke didn’t even have to finish that sentence, Naruto’s face pinched tightly as though he was sucking on a lime peel. “Okay. No. We have to find them for sure!” Images of Sakura green and sick followed by her fury at realizing it was his fault flashed through his mind and accelerated his heart beat into a frantic pulse.

To accent his worry a handful of Naruto’s popped up beside him in clouds of white and Sasuke rolled his eyes again as he pushed another patch of grass aside to check for brightly colored decorated eggs. 

“Where is your wife though?” One of the Naruto clones asked, and the other handful chorused in various tones “Yeah?” 

“I’m here!” 

She appeared through the trees at the outskirts of town in her Easter dress, white as snow, and covered in tiny pastel hand prints courtesy of their children. Sasuke had thought that she would think it was a ruined dress when their eldest had promptly painted his hand on his mother’s skirt but to his surprise Hinata had been delighted, proceeding to take all the babies with their candy colored palms to her skirt. 

In her arms were over a dozen eggs in various shades of pink, yellow, blue and green. 

“Oh wow!” Naruto was so thankful that all but one of his clones dissipated. “Oh thank god. Hinata, you’re a life saver.”

“She’s a Hyuuga.” Sasuke scoffed. “Those eyes can find anything.”

Raising her chin just a little Hinata shot him a look, it had the same effect as being glared at by a kitten. “I’m an Uchiha.” Her voice was firm. “Uchiha eyes see everything.”

Naruto smirked and glanced at his friend only to grin even more broadly at the red tint rising to Sasuke’s face. 

“Right.” He began, ignoring her satisfied grin as she wandered over and careful to not crush the eggs kissed his nose. “My mistake.” 

Chakra Control

(i dunno. written in fifteen minutes. just getting things out of my head that are taking up room. I have no idea what’s going on here.)

Returning to Konoha had been a mistake. He couldn’t compute what had made him think that he could waltz back into the village riddled with families of shinobi he had either hurt or murdered with impunity. 

What a fucking disaster. 

Covered in splatters of something- he had a feeling it was overly ripe vegetables from the market- he stormed through the town, letting the rolling rage of his energy carve a path through the crowds. People side stepped and stumbled to get out of the way of the incoming Uchiha, their eyes wide their mouths wider. 

Idly and with a lot more aggression than necessary he ripped a piece of something- tomato skin probably- from the side of his face where it had smashed to a stop. Courtesy of angry housewives with no husbands and children with no fathers. 

God-fucking-damn it. 

Above, the clouds were a blazing white against the azure blue of a summer day. The sun glimmered and sparkled with glory, unaware of spotlighting Sasuke’s humiliation as he ripped through town back towards the abandoned Uchiha district at the outskirts. 

Something wet and slimy was sliding down the back of his neck and sucking in a long breath he reached back and studied his hand for a second. Just long enough to ascertain that they had in fact thrown eggs at him as well. 

Cutting to the right, he headed towards the river, shooting a glare at a gaping pedestrian before shoving past through an alley and then pumping chakra into his legs jumped onto the roof top, smooth as a cat on a hunt. 

Although he felt more like a dog with it’s tail between his legs. 

What a fucking disaster he was. 

Standing on the surface of the water had a way of soothing nerves she couldn’t grapple with on land. The pulse and lick of the liquid beneath her feet was familiar and calming. Sometimes she wondered if perhaps it reminded her of being in the womb, tightly wrapped and swimming in an ever present hug. 

Eyes closed Hinata let the sunshine slide over her skin, the warmth almost a burn on her paleness. She had to be careful practicing her control in the water because without the cover of the trees she could end up blistered and in pain. More than once she had gone home mourning the loss of her smooth white shoulders, given way to freckles and aching red skin. 

It was a price she was willing to pay though, to calm the twisting knots of her stomach and the nerves that made her hands shake while speaking. 

Pulling her dark hair up into a ponytail she sighed, and keeping her eyes closed shifted her weight back and forth on her feet, feeling the slip and slide of the river lick the top of her foot and then sink back down below as she caused waves to dance along her ankles. 

Then with a flourish of her hand she pulled a ribbon from the river in an arc that followed her slender fingers. It sparkled in the light, casting rainbows where the sun shone through before spilling smoothly back into the water’s current on the other side of her body. 

Getting a feel for the stream’s mood Hinata smiled, amused by it’s playfulness and lifted another hand, arching it along her body. The water danced in a twirl above her head, sinking back into it’s mother river below with a splash.

Opening her eyes Hinata breathed in deep. Time to work. 

Setting her jaw seriously she spread her legs to anchor herself to the heartbeat of the water and extended her arms wide, letting her chakra roll out in a sphere of influence along the molecules of the current. 

One by one the dewy beads began to rise to her call, pearls of liquid that tightened and knit into each other in a solid orb of protection, tightening and tightening together to create a womb of safety. Brow furrowed Hinata stitched the water tighter determined that no kunai or jutsu should break through her shield. 

As her chakra intensified the river rushed around the glittering ball that shimmered like impure glass, sparkling in the daylight hiding the slim focused form within. 

He had never seen something like it before and so for a moment he forgot he was covered in the rotten tomatoes of disgruntled villagers and stared through the last of the trees before the river bed. 

The ball was crystal white and reflected the light of the sun in all directions, making it difficult to look at it directly. The river raged around it and tendrils of water snapped and hissed like snakes along it’s surface, hiding further what he thought might be a silhouette within it’s confines. 

Curiosity was an innate Uchiha trait and even in his state of dishevelment he found himself inching forward, hand sliding to his katana at his back, fingering the hilt absently. 

Black eyes focused he eyed the edge of the river bed where the water shuddered against the smooth rocks and glistened on the sparkling sand. Brow furrowed he slid out of his sandals and stepped into the water, watching with interest as the sphere at the center of the river shuddered and glistened in response. 

“What the…”

Idly he lifted a kunai in his hand, cocking his head slightly. 

Well fuck, curiosity killed the cat, right? 

And he tossed the blade true into the center of the glass orb. 

He may as well have picked a fight with a river god. 

Grunting he ducked as a solid mass of water shot from the liquid at his feet, aiming for his head, and another coming from his side. Startled now he moved to flip and sucked in a breath, looking down at the water wrapping tighter and tighter around his feet, where he had willingly placed himself at the river’s edge. 

Oh shit. 

Drawing the katana he narrowed his eyes slicing through the onslaught of prodding jabbing water, watching it disperse and tumble to the ground with every slash, soaking him to the bone rather quickly. 

Eyes flickering to the orb he slammed the katana between his feet and glad to feel the release of the chakra binding him to the river bed he snapped onto the water surface and shot forward towards the glittering sphere. 

Manipulating water was not his best skill, even walking on it caused him to flounder and concentrate but whatever the hell that thing was, it wasn’t friendly and he didn’t like leaving fights half finished. 

Raising his katana he dragged in a breath and launching himself from the rolling river surface lifting the blade in both hands, aiming to come down at the top of sphere with all the force he could muster. 

Hinata frowned within the warmth and security of her water shell, flinching as her chakra writhed violently outside of her defense. 

Calm down, Hinata. 

Her anxiety was getting the best of her. Fighting opponents that were not even visible with her chakra. The river was playful and responsive to her energy. Hopefully there was no one out there or she would be soaking them to the bone with her uncontrolled flailing. 

Grappling with the wriggling water she sighed, and shook her head, finally opening her eyes and releasing the sphere with a wave of her hand. No, why wouldn’t her chakra and the river relax? What was wrong with her?

The orb disintegrated like ice before a fireplace, falling apart at the top and with a gasp she looked up, a shot of electricity running through her as her shinobi senses screamed of threat. 

Byuakugan snapping to her face and with her feet sliding out to absorb the blow she cried out, not in fear but a battle cry, raising both hands. 

“Hn!”

Sasuke’s katana slammed hard into a blue sheen that looked like water but was solid as steel, the impact sent ripples of pain up his forearms and with a grunt of effort he flipped backwards, using the force of the impact and the incoming blow from the wielder below the shield to vault him back to his feet a few steps away on the river bed, panting. 

The shield melted away into the river again in sparkling tendrils of water, revealing the stunned and wide eyed shape of one Hinata Hyuuga, staring at him in shock and confusion, hands raised and at the ready. 

“Uchiha-san!” her voice was high pitched and confused as her face. “W-what are you-?”

“Hyuuga.” He stared, as confused and panicked as she was but with a little more control on his face. “What the hell are you doing?” 

Hinata didn’t lower her battle stance, Byakugan staring through his skin and into the folds of his chakra. “I… I was training.” 

Frowning Sasuke slid his katana back along his back. “Hn.” 

At the sight of his weapon disappearing Hinata slowly straightened and breathing deep allowed her Byakugan to fade. “…I…I am so sorry, was my- was I-?” realizing suddenly why her chakra had been so aggressive and unwilling to comply with her demand for calm she closed her eyes, blushing hard. “Was I attacking you?”

Sasuke didn’t move, interested in the fact that she was a little embarrassed. 
“You’re not the first today.” He grunted, starting back towards the river bed. “Don’t worry about it.”

Something about his last sentence made her start and taking a handful of steps after him she paused, hands to her lips, suddenly noticing the stains along his shirt and pants, the residue of vegetable skins at his neck and arms. 

“Oh….oh no.” she stepped a few waves closer along the river, and he stopped at her voice, glancing over his shoulder at her with a frown. 

“What?”

Lips pressed tightly together Hinata searched his face, lifting a hand up with a long slender finger not pointing at him so much as gesturing. A tendril of water rose by his feet and he shifted against it, unconsciously reaching for his katana again. 

“N-no… I…” Hinata frowned and the water moved slowly along in a ribbon of pulsing liquid, smoothing along his cheek, washing away the remnants of something thrown at him in hate. 

Holding perfectly still Sasuke blinked, focusing on breathing and the feel of her chakra infused river sliding over his skin, wiping away at his shame. 

“Who did this?” He had never heard Hinata Hyuuga’s voice so hard, and he wondered that like the water she could be fluid, warm, and gentle, or solid as the shield she wielded against his sword. 

“A lot of people.” He managed after a moment. 

The water slid back into the river and Hinata walked slowly towards him. Her frown unshakable now on her face. “I’m so sorry.”

Keeping his face still he stared at her some more, curious not just about her expression but the way his heart was reacting, thumping around angrily in his chest. 

“Your apology is useless, you did nothing.”

“Well.” She admitted softly. “I… I wouldn’t have let them, if I had been there.”

He stared some more, unable to reply. 

“I’m good at…shielding things.” She added and smiled finally, enveloping him in that moment in the warmth of the summer day. 

When he didn’t reply she cocked her head, just a little. She couldn’t imagine herself in his shoes, covered in the hatred people had for him, wearing it on his clothing and skin as evidence. 

“I…if you stand still, I can wash it off.” She added, and her hands spread wide, the river replying to her call and lifting in ribbons that danced and twisted around her like dragonflies and butterflies and bees all swirling at the silent song of her chakra. 

This was usually the moment when Sasuke would scoff, or glare and step away, dismissing the offer with distaste, maybe even a scathing remark. 

But her eyes were wide and open, and her smile was warm where he had felt freezing. 

He was tired of being cold. 

“…okay…” Then hurriedly. “I hardly believe you have that kind of chakra control. You’ll have to prove it.” 

Her smile didn’t waver, perhaps because the way he said it was obviously to excuse himself allowing her touch. 

“I guess, we’ll see.” 

Katana

Major Hinata OOC. I cry mercy. 

Music listened to while writing: Linkin Park: Recharged 

Bringing her weight down moving with the spasm of energy through her chest and spine she tossed herself head over heels backwards, slamming into the dirt so the ground shattered in craters around her knees and feet on impact. Chakra and excitement rolling out of her in waves.

This was the kind of battle when the light never came.

With a burst her body shot forward, the impact of her fist to the enemy throat knocked his Adam’s apple into the back of his neck. A nauseating crunch echoed. His eyes widened and the darkness of death ate away the life in that face. A flickering candle in a windstorm of her making, and then he was gone.

Breathing deep she ducked as a sword came flying from behind her, Byakugan eyes pulsed with the blood and chakra pumping through her veins. Huffing hard she kicked backwards, extra pounds of energy sending the man flying back into an ally in a matching black mask.

Behind her own Anbu cover she smirked, watching as the two impaled each other in their struggle to gain their footing from the force of her attack.

Snapping her turned head out of the way of incoming kunai from behind she smiled bigger. Hands lit with the blue flames of her gentle fist she twisted, ripping into the chest cavity of the idiot behind her who had dared to throw the knives and get close.

Fingers wrapping around the pulsing thing that was his blood pump she grunted, ripping it out with a vicious snap of tendons, breaking ribs and sucking sounds.

This seemed to cause a pause in the frantic energy of the incoming shinobi. Their weapons raised as she watched the now heartless man before her stare with uncomprehending eyes as his organ gave two more feeble pumps before his knees gave out and he landed on the moss below.

With her hands covered in the sticky film of someone else’s life she turned, her mask surveying the stillness on everyone’s limbs, counting quickly.

There were thirty. Perhaps this would take five minutes.

Either they would want to avenge, and pose an actual challenge or they were wetting themselves and it would be a slaughter.

She squeezed the heart until the pump crumbled thickly, like ground meat squished between her fingers and she let the scraps of red drop from between her digits, making wet slopping sounds as they landed next to it’s original host.

“So?” She settled into battle stance again, and her voice was light as the blood dripped down her forearm.

“Who is next?”

The spell broke at the crack of a branch behind them followed by the moan of a fallen comrade and she smiled within the confines of her mask, watching the tension on their bodies switch from terrified to furious.

Yes.

Come at me.

They were a multi layered mountain and she relished it as they fell upon her. Moving with the grace of her clan, the grace of all the clans she twisted through their blows, feeling the touches of the air being broken around her although nothing landed on her skin.

There was a reason why she was who she was. Called what she was called, whispered about, the Pearl Eyed Nightmare.

Although, few had ever seen such a thing. Few that still could talk anyway. It might have been something she encouraged. Fear was a better weapon than any sword. That’s probably why she never bothered to be afraid. Why hand her enemy an atomic bomb? It seemed stupid.

With a breath that was speeding up more from excitement than strain she ducked, kicking the legs out from under one of the men and throwing him over her shoulder at the incoming one from behind. She swept the legs of the next one as she dodged the blow of his kunai to her ribcage, using his wrist in two seconds to shove the knife he still held into his comrade on her right.

With a jam of her elbow down into his forearm she broke the limb making him scream and let go of the knife which she grabbed as it jumped into the air, throwing it into the head of the incoming attack from the left. Then with a deep breath she ducked as a katana swept the air above her, making her play limbo with the deadly blade.

In the speckled light the men clad in black from head to toe were shadows unable to reach for her, all of them a crowd over a small lithe shape that moved as the twisting light coming down from the trees, uncatchable, fluid.

Kicking the katana from the badly trained arm that held it she snatched it from midair and threw it as spear into it’s wielder and the man behind him skewering them both. With mild amusement she twisted and blocked the snap of a left hook coming at her from someone she had not noticed.

Her surprise was short lived, another mask glared at her, that of a red tailed hawk, it’s angry nightmare inducing beak evil as it stared.

The men were falling all around her as they finally realized their wounds. Knees weakening with the growing terror of understanding. The fight had lasted a total of three minutes and forty two seconds. It appeared that they had indeed wet themselves.

Muscles and hearts and lives had been lost in the fray, moans could be heard though not everyone was dead yet. She had to finish this or there would be talk and you couldn’t have that in her profession.

But there was the hawk, with his hand now wrapped around her raised wrist, his grip an iron shackle.

“Enough.” The voice that came from behind the hawk mask was smooth and tempered like steel and she had for a moment the inexplicable desire to launch herself at him to see if she could draw blood.

It would not be the first time that this thought fluttered it’s wings within her head, it would also not be the first time she had had to tell herself no.

There were other times of course that she had not refused her desire. She still sported wounds from it that would scab and leave pleasant slashes of memory in the scars along her torso.

God, how she wanted to taste his blood off her finger tips.

“They aren’t dead yet.” She replied, and her peregrine falcon mask almost made her sound breathless, although he knew better.

If she was breathless it was because she had been excited. The blood lust had been woken with the force of a tsunami off a coast. It would sweep them all away if he didn’t stop it from gaining strength and force.

He could see within her the spring wound tight, threatening to set her loose and for a moment he had the fleeting furious thought that he was glad he had not been sent out with her on the mission alone.

Two handlers had seemed like an unusual request at first from the Hokage, but upon seeing her movements on the first mission, watching her panting with the desire for chaos he had suddenly understood.

Up above, watching from one of the trees his older brother let out a soft whistle.

“We need them to talk. I think the stunt with the heart did the trick in getting them to understand the seriousness of their situation.”

Breath coming in slowly, carefully the peregrine falcon mask straightened, although the chakra was still pulsing just beneath her skin making everything around her feel both hot and cold, including the quickly numbing hand the Hawk was using to hold her.

With a final warning squeeze he let go, surprised yet again that nerves and instinct refused to let him walk away from her without keeping his eyes firmly on her shape.

He didn’t need to see her mouth to know she was grinning at him, the predatory smile matching her mask with a precision that tightened the muscles of his stomach until he felt a little ill.

“Now, now.” His brother sighed deeply. “Let’s not do this thing again. You know that in the end, we hold the final key, Peregrine.”

Her code name made her turn her head slowly towards the man on the tree, her curtain of black hair moving softly with the wind.

It didn’t escape either of them that she was beautiful, that like a masterfully made blade she breathed for the touch of blood with the elegance and awe inspiring smoothness of a work of art.

The thing was, unlike a blade she wanted everyone’s blood and even though the brothers had been tasked with being the wielders of this weapon, it often felt more like she wielded them.

If they had not been as close as they were, able to use each other’s strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses there had been a couple close calls where she would have taken them- if not to death’s door, then to the hospital for an extended stay.

“Fine.” She said it like she had never intended to do anything other than listen. Turning her back to them- a thing that always made him grind his teeth with either irritation or envy- she surveyed her work.

The men, a cohort of nearly forty, were sprawled in various states of death or dying along the ground and her eyes scanned them until she found one, he supposed, with the strongest flickering light.

Walking with the silky and leisurely strut of a panther to a kill she waded through the corpses, stepping uncaringly on the chest of a wide eyed and empty shell of a man to reach the one leaning against a tree trunk, his eyes widening with panic as she neared.

His eyes stayed fixed on her hand, now crusting with drying blood from her flourishing touch. Taking hearts out of men’s bodies was her signature. If anyone ever doubted who she was before a fight, after witnessing that they always knew.

Pearl Eyed Nightmare.

“Wait.” Hawk snapped, and above him Falcon hissed a curse as he jumped down, though neither of them did anything as she reached down and took the man’s throat in her blood crusted hand.

She was too small to pick him up the way she did, but the chakra was pumping in her with the same hungry lust she had from the fight, and with it’s help she lifted the man high above her head, too short to really make his feet dangle.

It didn’t matter, the terror on his face was enough. Her grip, digging into his throat threatening to crack the trachea within it did the trick of making the action awful to watch.

“We will ask questions, and you will answer.” She began conversationally.

“Peregrine.” Falcon snapped tensely, although he and Hawk stayed where they were.

They knew better than to approach. Better to lose a possible information source than a comrade.

Or brother.

“You will answer and then those two over there will double check by going into your mind, making you nightmare until they find the truth.” Her smile was heard in her voice, her pleasure a smell in the air and a taste on the tongue.

A taste like copper.

Like blood.

“Peregrine.” Hawk hissed with impatience.

The tone registered, the brothers watched as her head seemed to cock, like she had just caught wind of their voices.

Falcon shifted sharply.

Shit.

“Damn it.” Hawk whispered, realizing his mistake.

They had just enough time to drag in a breath before she flickered out of sight, their Sharingan activating hard like a blow to each eye in their hurry to see her and by that saving grace they were able to block the incoming explosion of chakra and raw murder aimed at both.

With a shout Hawk ducked the flashing light of energy in her palms, aiming to take his heart out of his chest while Falcon slammed an elbow around towards the nape of her neck, although she was no longer there, twisting around him instead.

“Itachi!” In his panic Sasuke let the name slip and his brother gasped before throwing himself backwards. It was not what she had expected. She knew their fighting styles, the grace of their movements, the speed in their limbs, the way they dodged instead of closing the gap. His shoulder blades slammed into her, and her chakra lined hands cut at his skin although it didn’t stab.

She let out a hiss of air and when they hit the ground she knew she was done for. With a grin beneath her mask she felt first the one brother and then the other join as they pinned her to the ground.

She was fast, she was strong, she was however still a woman and on the ground two men had the upper hand and she knew it. Letting for the first time her body melt into the moss below her she sighed, staring through her mask up at the heavens where the light shifted against the green canopy.

They had been training, clearly. They had been discussing her fighting style so as to be sure how to disable her.

She needed to take that into consideration for next time or they would get boring.

“Fuck.” Sasuke breathed from behind his hawk mask.

It was too late, Itachi’s name had left his mouth. All of the men laying on the forest floor were going to have to die. Angrily he ripped his mask off, and Itachi beside him sighed, doing the same.

“Damnit, Sasuke.”

“Me?” His brother hissed, jerking his chin towards the sprawled and surprisingly quiet monster they had pinned to the ground. “What about her?”

“Yes, what about me?” Hinata’s smile was broad and all encompassing in it’s beauty and terror as Itachi removed her mask and tossed it aside.

On her forehead the only marring feature was the caged bird seal. He reached out one long finger, pressing it to the center of the mark, watching as the smile on her face evaporated and was replaced by the steely eyed dead core that he actually feared.

This bantering, fanged creature that smiled was just a facade. She was being agreeable, in her own agonizing way.

When her face smoothed to a placid stillness, and her brows calmed to straight dark lines along her forehead he knew they were on serious ground.

Dangerous ground.

“It costs a lot when we use this.” He whispered, glad that Sasuke’s sharingan was focused on her with an intensity that would have predicted the movement of the oxygen molecules in the air around her let alone her movements.

“It costs you bits of who you are, does it not? It fries your brain.” He breathed out softly, irritated that the wound on his back was causing him to feel dizzy.

“You don’t want to lose yourself. We know that. You know that. Don’t make me use this.”

In her stillness and with her face so calm she looked impossible. Her mouth was pink and small and plump, her cheeks smooth, there were no scars, there was no red lipstick, there were no fangs.

She was a girl. Just a girl with wide pale eyes, long lashes, a small nose.

Very softly, hardly audible she replied. “In another world, in a different place, it is you who suffer the stigma of being an abomination, an avenger for your clan. A madman. A monster.” She stared into his eyes, her pearly gaze unaffected by the usually intimidating sharingan.

Shifting her gaze from Itachi’s to Sasuke she stared into him as well, as if her unblinking bland focus could transmit the information. “I endure this because I know, somewhere else both of you suffer what I suffer. I know it.” Then with more conviction she murmured. “I’ve seen it.”

The shivers that slid down their spines were uncontrollable and Itachi felt himself scrunch his eyes with dislike at her, his hands were hot where they pinned her wrists to the ground.

It was not the first time she had stated she could see the alternate timelines. She had hinted before that she had seen the Uchihas. It was an effect of her Byakugan’s higher awakening, something written in ancient scrolls that they had considered myth but were now being realized as an actual possibility. Now that she, the last of the Hyuuga was exercising such abilities.

Although how much was true was hard to tell.

“Whatever.” Sasuke grunted. “Don’t move while we interrogate the leftovers, or we’ll have to leave you seizing on the ground.”

A small upturn of her lips graced her mouth then and he froze.

“They’re dead.”

Itachi closed his eyes for half a second.

Sasuke didn’t take his eyes off her, knowing better than to let her distract him into looking over his shoulder to check. If she said it, it was true and that meant they had lost the information they needed.

“I guess we’re going to have to hunt for another.” she continued conversationally as if two men weren’t pinning her to the ground with growing frustration.

“Fuck.” Itachi whispered, shoving himself to his feet.

And that’s what she had wanted.

She had wanted them all to die because then she had to go out again, to destroy more. To hunt, as she put it.

This was all a game to her.

After killing her murdering cousin, destroying the elders and founders of Konoha in charge of the massacre of her clan she had had no purpose. She had gone mad.

She disagreed with those statement vehemently and said simply. “I am a sharpened blade. I cut, or I go dull. Would you let yourself dull?”

And they wouldn’t. They were shinobi. Becoming dull was not an option. Death was. But not dullness.

“One day, you’ll regret all this.” Sasuke whispered to her softly as he stood, watching her continue to lay on the ground, staring past him at the shifting light in the tree canopy, the greens and golds, the warmth seeping into her bones.

She smiled then, a real smile that made her look young and soft and touchable.

“You’re wrong, you know.” And the tenderness in her voice made him pause, made Itachi turn to look at her, ripping his gaze from the desecrated bodies splayed over the ground to the bizarrely sweet image of her laying in the sun on the moss, relaxed.

“Do you know what regret means?” with her eyes closed her voice was getting more and more gentle, her breath coming slow and steady. “It means to be disappointed or saddened by something, a missed opportunity for instance.”

Itachi glanced at Sasuke at the same time his brother glanced at him.

“I didn’t have a chance to decide if I would regret or not. When my mother was cut from me by my cousin, it happened. I regretted. Every day. Always.” She opened her pearl eyes then and with the sun shining right into them, they were jewels, and the brothers wondered if perhaps she was not human.

Perhaps she was death.

Perhaps she was the angel sent to take men home.

“So, I won’t regret it one day. I have already done all my regretting. Now, there’s only this.” She lifted her hand up, and the crusted dry blood all over her pale limb was in stark contrast to her skin.

“I hope in the other universe you speak of so often, you are not this.” Itachi finally whispered, frowning at her with something along the lines of pity. But only just barely.

She laughed then and closed her eyes again as she let her limb drop to the ground.

“I think I will do my mission correctly next time. I wouldn’t want the Hokage considering another pair of handlers.” she admitted then, her amusement lighting her voice brightly. “You two are too deliciously ironic not to have around.”

Ironic.

Sasuke tried not to think too hard about it, as did his brother while they moved into the mess of corpses, breathing in deep for Katon to burn them to ashes.

Sometimes the katana they had been tasked with wielding, seemed to be wield them.

Always Dark

She was the fire, the blazing heat that seared through the black and made the shadows of the shinobi shudder and dance in the flames of her gaze. She could spot them without any struggle without batting an eyelash. 

And he was the fan to the flame, building it and teaching it how to climb higher, burn brighter, destroy more. 

“Two on the right.” 

Her voice was soft, it whispered and long ago he had given up trying to convince himself that the smell of her breath, all soft flowers and pure brooks in summer didn’t make him drunk. 

He spun, and with his eyes he would have seen them, but a second too late to dodge the blow to his right. With her warning he was able to dig inside the chest cavity of one, disrupting in a very catastrophic way the energy flowing within the folds of his torso while her hands spit and sparkled with chakra, slamming her pulsing energy into the invisible points on the other attackers body only she could see. 

In the black of night with no moon due to the rolling black of the cloud cover they were demons. Nothing could hide from them, and they could hide from everything. 

“Where’s the mark?” 
She had already found it, but he loved to speak, watching her chakra shift in the darkness as she tuned herself to him. 
“Two miles south.” 
“These scouts will not be noticed until after we’re gone.” He stepped over the body bleeding into the forest ground and she followed. 

“Uchiha-san.” Her hand was suddenly on his back, along the blasting inferno he was ignoring on his shoulder blade where one of the enemy kunai had managed to carve into his body. 

“It’s not bad.” He dismissed it but had stopped moving at her touch and in the way she usually did things she ignored him, her chakra starting to seep into him between the chain links of his atoms. 

“You will be distracted by it. It’s nearly to the bone.” She murmured, and he hardly heard her. Her chakra was an ice bath after sunburn, it was a warm fire after a snowfall, a warm meal after starving. 

He tried to steady his heart beat, irritated with himself even as he relished her fingers on his skin. 

If only they didn’t always have to work in the dark. Maybe then he would have seen the heat that overwhelmed her face as she touched him. Maybe he would have noticed the shift of her all seeing eyes unwilling to meet his gaze or the tremble in her usually rock steady hands.

But it was always dark when the Fan and Flame, the two man elite team of Konoha was ever needed. 

It was always dark.