::Chapter1::

Tears of blood were spreading all over her pale cheeks. Her tiny raspberry-tainted lips outlined a smile of regret. Her voice fluttered away in the sunrise, like a butterfly. The sky was lavender coloured. The color of her eyes when they were not drowned in red blood. Maybe a little darker shade.
"So … sorry, Kiba … I … I … love you so much …"
A breeze past over her long black hair, sending it towards his neck. He could not budge. All his members were petrified. Her head on his chest weighed at this moment as much as a rock. Around ten shurikens bit into her soft flesh, some seconds ago, and one, directly cut her throat open. Her blood was staining his white clothing.
'Hinata!'
He could not talk. The man in front of them was just as puzzled as him. No, he was sad. Angry … Suffered. He as well opened his lips. Another announce of death? A cry, a scream. An animal torn apart by pain.
But he, Kiba, could not hear it. Why didn’t all those weapons touch him? Were they not for him? Why did the second breeze make her body detach itself from him?
"Mother!"
This shriek, though, he could not ignore it. His wandering glance turned toward an eight-year-old, horrified little boy. Who was it? Kenshi? What was he doing there?
"Mother!"
Then, he realized. The corpse lying before his feet was none others than HIS Hinata’s, losing her life to protect his. Sacrificing AGAIN for his stupid sake.
He kneeled by her side, turning her body so he could capture her loving face in his pupil for the last time.
"Why? Why did you do this?"
She was still grinning. As the first time they met. This timid smile that never left his mind during all those years.
"I … I … am so … sorry I be … betrayed you … b … but I love you … so …so much …"
She was starting to gasp for breath.
Loved him? She LOVED him? Could it be that all those moments they have shared as friends finally gave birth to something else than respect?
"Hush! Akamaru is just by my side, and we are not this far from Konoha, so we are going to make it in no time. They are going to take care of you. Just don’t abandon now."
Why was he saying such nonsense? Hana, his older sister, told him once that when severely wounded people did not feel pain anymore, it was because they were silently going away.
Hinata’s pure face was not anymore contracted in sufferance. She was smiling as the day she became jounin. But that, he could not know because he missed it. Why did it happen like this? Why didn’t Amida Buddha leave him some more years with her?
"Ta … take good ca … care of Ken … shi …"
And then … nothing. A blank. At the third breeze, her soul went away, twirling in a dance of death (A/N LoL, Iron Maiden influence) to the sky.
'Wait for me over there, Hina …’
He cried. Yes, he did. Never since he was two had he let tears pass the bounds of his eyes. Yet, the sadness, hate and rancour he felt were too heavy for him to oppress.
Hyûga Neji, too. How did he dare? He was the one that killed her!
'You forget he loved her just as much as you did … maybe more! Those shurikens were not intended for her … but for you.’
By his side, was now sitting Akamaru, his enormous canine companion.
"Don’t mess up my mind now, Akamaru."
Why did it occur like that? Why didn’t anybody protect her from him? Why was it that their story was just a lie? Such a big disgusting lie she died for.

°*°

He was sleeping during class … again. Since he entered school, his mother was incessantly receiving complains about him. Kiba’s violent, Kiba’s disturbing, Kiba’s sleeping during class, Kiba’s impolite. His mother, at the third meeting, very aggravated, just asked the teacher to tell her what her son was doing well instead of that eternal gibberish. It would be less exhausting for both of them. However, what really was disturbing, in fact, was that the little monster had good marks for all technical work. Of course, for written exams, it wasn’t that wonderful. He was taking the time of silence to nap comfortably.
This day again, without paying more attention to the teacher, he was calmly sleeping while a new student was presented to the class.
"This is Hyûga Hinata. Although she is only five years old, she was promoted here."
A tiny, very timid-looking girl was stubbornly standing behind the instructor’s back. She didn’t seem to want to move from her place, scared that her new classmates would stare at her … which probably would happen.
"You can go sit over there, with Kiba."
He didn’t think it was a good idea to send such a sweet and shy girl sit beside the Beast of Hell. Even he adopted this peculiar nickname other kids gave to the Inuzuka brat. He really chopped anyone’s head off that dared approaching him. He LITTERALLY chopped anybody’s head off. Or tried to.
A new, unknown smell entered his nostrils. A fragrance of purity and loneliness, a lot of pain, mental suffering and a field of love to give and share. All those feelings and experiences compressed in one’s scent.
Just by her perfume he could guess she was a black-haired female. Black-haired people had a very sweet, fruit-like scent. Intrigued for the first time by anyone, he opened an eye, than the other,
Just by his side, a very, very little girl was sitting, a pen in her tiny grip, ready to take notes. He stared at her for a long time before her realizing she was observed.
She was cute. Nice cheekbones, adorable nose, gorgeous enormous lavender eyes. He never saw such eyes. If her hair wasn’t that short, with its black color, she truly would look like the china doll his sister used to play with.
When she actually felt his glance on her swan-like neck, she turned her head and blushed.
Timid …
Not knowing what to do to escape those deep black eyes looking hardly at her, she hid her face in her minuscule hands, starting to tremble like a leaf.
WEIRDO …
When finally the sensei stopped soliloquizing, everybody just got up from their seats and ran out in the play ground, eager to rest a little from all this junk they were forced to assimilate.
Kiba did so too. Not that he had any friends to play with, and frankly, he didn’t need any, but sleeping all day long made his back sore.
Walking around, minding his own business as always, he spotted a bunch of girls he knew being mean. They seemed surrounding someone. Being bitchy. No change. Yet, he couldn’t disregard their words.
"Princess Hinata? Hyûgas’ little darling, huh? Whateva!"
"A princess? Her?"
"She looks like a mouse!"
"Yeah! Princess of mice!"
"No! Princess of rats! Look! There is a rat-tail just behind her butt."
"Hehehe. And what’s the deal with those hideous eyes?!"
How could girls be so cruel to each other?
At that moment, she raised her head, so their looks could meet. Before, in her smell, he sensed the daily mental pain she was used to, however, he couldn’t figure how important the damages could be. Now, in her watery eyes, he did figure out. He felt as if he could reach her mind.
'God! I am gonna hate myself for this!'
He approached the crew that started to get physical, pinching her little bare arms. What he did was just insane, and he realized it. He started growling and showing his teeth as if he was a big, dangerous dog. Turning around those girls, he started barking.
The bunch of girls stared a while, in petrified astonishment. But, when he started getting nearer and nearer, fright overflowed their spirits, installing itself more and more in there spirits, until they just ran away.
"YEAH, SURE! RUN AWAY NOW! WAS EASY ATTACKING A WEAKLING! WHY DON’T YOU (*!%?) COME OVER HERE SO I CAN KICK YOUR ASSES ?!"
He was so vulgar.
"Hey, you! Relax, they’re done with you!"
Hinata had rolled into a ball, hiding her face under her frail arms. She looked so beautifully pathetic. When finally she decided to peek, Kiba just stayed under the spell of her amazing eyes for a second time.

°*°

Sitting in front of his dwelling’s portal, a fifteen-sixteen-year-old young man was spitting watermelon seeds on the ground, his back laying on a gigantic wolf’s flank. Sun was blinding him, but he didn’t care.
"Hey, retard! What the hell are you doing here?! Don’t you have any work?! Just because you and flee-bag there are back from a mission, doesn’t mean you can skip your chores…"
Hana had always been such a loving sister.
"Go take care of your brats and your wife, bitch."
And he really was fond of her.
A very well placed side kick, right on the nose, made red liquid submerge the lower part of his face.
"What the f*?&%!, you crazy old witch!"
A killing aura made Akamaru raise his head from his paws.
"D.O.N’.T. E.V.E.R. D.A.R.E. I.N.S.U.L.T.I.N.G. A.S.H.I. A.G.A.I.N."
"Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to …"
A thing to be remembered about Inuzuka women was: …crazy, highly dangerous, rabid bitches. Nothing to do with normal people. And the worst part was that the Inuzuka clan was a matriarchy.
"Well, now, as you’re acting like a jerk again, I don’t think I am going to tell you about the good news I’ve got."
At the same time, Akamaru and Kiba lifted their ears …kinda. Why, for God’s sake, was he so curious? And how come did his sister know him so well?
"Come on, don’t be an asshole for a change and spit it out, Hana!"
She frowned.
"Hey, be polite, idiot, or else I’m gonna kick your ass."
He growled and bowed his neck in approval.
"That’s better. And now, tell me how wonderful I am!"
She really was taking advantage of the situation. Man, would he have loved to punch her once.
"Hana-nee-chan, you really are the most … the most …"
Before he could humiliate himself some more, two pink and purple lightenings brushed before him, jumping all over Hana. They seemed so happy. He was so jealous of her.
"MMMMOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM! You’re back!"
"Calm down, girls! I was just gone for three days. My, my, you’re both so dirty! Where have you been?"
"Dad brought us with him to pick up berries!"
Another sound of steps was resounding not much further. In no time, a young man appeared. His long brownish hair tied neatly, elegantly flew around his neck. His dark eyes seemed so calm and comprehensive. Whoever said he was a pure Inuzuka was mocked out loud. The only thing that associated him to the family were the giant black dog following him respectfully and those red signs he painted on his cheekbones.
"Well, hi there, honey! You came back sooner than expected. That’s marvellous!"
His voice was low and slow. Inuzuka Ashi was a jounin of the lowest rank, but still, one of the most considerate members of their family for his intelligence.
He gently smiled to Kiba, who just turned his head away. With the little dignity left to him, he stood up and stepped away to let the family pass. Akamaru slid his head under his hand, begging for a caress.
Passing through the portal, Hana turned her head, a beautiful smile lightening her features
"Hinata has become a jounin at last. It’s too bad you two aren’t friends anymore. Even if the rest of the family was telling her not to be proud of such a common thing, she wouldn’t stop grinning. You know what she did when she saw me? She ignored her father’s glare and came up to chitchat with me. She asked me about you. Don’t make me think you didn’t know about the ceremony. If you weren’t such a stubborn bastard, you would have come and made her happy. When I told her you weren’t around, she just lost her joy and faded away. You’re such a jackass."
She couldn’t understand. Nor could his mother. They didn’t know everything.
The day Hinata became chûnnin, he abandoned her.
It was simple. Neji came to talk to him.
'Hyûgas do not want to be associated to Inuzukas. Yet, whatever we told her about dignity, she would ignore it. You are her friend. If you really consider yourself as a companion, do never talk to her again. Starting tomorrow, both of us will start the Hyûga training. You will probably never have any contacts with her anymore, but she may try to disobey to the orders. So if you don’t want her to get beaten up worse than ever, just ignore her. Act as if you were the real royalty. Aburame Shino agreed to our request. We hope you do so too.'
He went away not waiting for Kiba’s answer. Then, stopped without turning around.
'Don’t be frightened. I won’t let anything happen to her. Hinata-sama is the most important person in my life … just like yours. I … I know this is difficult to believe after everything, but I will protect her with my life. So for her sake, don’t make her suffer more than she did already.'
His words were clear enough. And he understood. For her sake and for the love he nourished for her, he would restrain himself to peek once in a time in her direction.

°*°

She remembered her father’s last words.
'You are not meant to be a leader …'
There was no animosity, no hate in his voice. He was just stating a fact. She knew that too. Since she was born, a curse was blurring her image.
'… I am sorry I have been torturing you with all those duties you never should have known about. My last wish is for you to be happy. Wherever happiness leads you, I will be proud.'
And he died.
One month ago, his soul left his body dropping a whole clan on her frail shoulders.
As leader, the first thing she did was to adopt Neji as a member of the Sôke, main house of the Hyûga family. The second was to make him her heir. The third was to die.
HAPPINESS?! Those words made her laugh her head off. And cry all the tears she could release. She was a curse for them all. If she wasn’t born nothing would have happened. Her mother’s and father’s death, Hanabi going crazy … Neji being enslaved.
But she still had tasted joy. How could a monster like her dare tasting joy? Yet, it was taken away from her.
She was sixteen. She had no future. She had no past. Her friends fled away. Her love left her.
And at that very time, with her elegant writing she banned herself from the Hyûga’s clan.
"You did the right thing, Hinata."
Her grandmother tapped her shoulder.
"Now, you can go."
Outside, rain was pouring from the sky.
FREE! She felt so free. This world she tried to adapt to wasn’t just simply made for her. And now, rain was washing of the pain. And death was going to close this Danse Macabre.
Her laughter in the darkness sounded insane. She couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop messing up her tears with the drops of the sky.
He found her so, giggling madly, crying desperately.
To him, she had changed. Her short black hair grew well. She seemed taller … and more fluid. Even if he felt concerned about her alone at night, under such heavy rain, so lightly dressed, he couldn’t ignore those new curves drawing a very aerodynamic silhouette. No wonder she was known for her slyness.
He called her name out loud. She didn’t budge. Akamaru wanted at first to jump all over her. Yet, he restrained himself, evaluating the situation.
He called her name again. She slowly turned her head in his direction. She damped her maniacal cackle, not able to stop the race of the stream on her cheeks.
She was so beautiful in her misery. He could not believe it. Hana and Tsume told him about her changing a lot. However, this was too radical to be true.
"Kiba."
His name in her mouth felt as a melody of a very sad song.
She wasn’t stammering anymore. What a relief.
She raised a pale hand of hers as if greeting him, and losing the little strength moving her body, fell on the ground, in a puddle of mud.

::Chapter 2::

BEING ANBU?! He was back since three days and Ba-chan was already pressuring him to work harder. He wasn’t even a jounin! What a pain in the ass!
Walking through those beloved streets he missed for the passed six months was a special little treat.
He didn’t really pas attention to anything, but when a familiar laughter resonated, he just had to turn his head in its direction. At first sight, he didn’t recognize her. He was more interested in the tall, black-haired, fifteen-sixteen-year-old boy holding her hand, dragging her in his crazy race. Hyûga Neji! He really changed. Openly showing his Bunke seal on his forehead, he was smiling with joy while running through the crowd. As he wouldn’t let go of her hand, the young girl couldn’t do anything than beg him to stop for a moment. They just brushed past him, not even noticing him.
However, he couldn’t overlook her. The young woman following the fully-grown Neji wasn’t known by him. In fact, by her so characteristic eyes he could guess, but she was an utterly NEW person. The small frightened shadow he once met transformed herself in an amazing light. She was laughing so freely. And for once, between her and Neji it seemed to be some fraternal love. FRATERNAL?
They stopped their race. They recognized him after all. And before he realized it, they were heading towards him. Well, Neji was, obliging Hinata, trying desperately to escape, to follow him.
"N-no, p-pl-ease, nii-s-san! H-he d-doesn’t even r-re-rememb-ber m-me. L-let’s n-not dis-distur-rb h-him and y-you p-p-promis-sed me a sur-surprise. I-I w-w-want to h-h-have i-it r-r-right n-now. P-pleeeaaaaaaassssssssseeeeeeeee!"
"Why hello there, Uzumaki-san! I heard about you coming back!"
His voice was neither warm nor friendly. It even seemed somehow menacing.
"Eh? Oh, the Hyûga guy! How’s life?"
They were actually glaring at each other. Hinata, hidden behind her nii-san’s back, felt the tension growing, and didn’t like it. Not that they hated each other, but, let’s say, they disagreed on some points.
"It is good, thank you. And yours?"
"Dunno. The Uchiwa brat was a real pain in the ass, so I have to recover."
"Yeah, the traitor."
At that very moment, they had the same look. Both of them couldn’t stand betrayal less than everything.
"Well, Hinata-sama, are you not going to greet Uzumaki-san? This is very rude of you!"
A little head surrounded (A/N do we even use that word in this case?) with heavy raven-black locks showed itself from Neji’s back, a timide smile on her face.
"H-Hello N-Naruto-k-ku-kun …"
"Still stuttering, aren’t you, Hinata-chan?"
Neji frowned. Even to him it seemed too cruel to make such an offending remark. Yet, the thirteen-year-old girl didn’t seem mortified at all. She even chuckled a bit.
"Yes, N-Naruto-k-kun."
She was doing her best for it to disappear.
"Anyways, gotta go! See you one of these days."
He ran away, not turning around.
"Hmm, what a peculiar guy, this Uzumaki! Oh, well! Let’s go Hinata-sama! It’s getting late and I absolutely want to show it to you."

°*°

She was burning from fever. Who was brainless enough to get out in such heavy rain?
Why did she always act so …?
He brushed away a hair strand crossing her nose.
The shoji slid open and a tall, wild-looking woman stepped into the room, followed by a younger one.
Inuzuka Tsume, Kiba’s and Hana’s mother was the most powerful chief ever known in the family’s history. At first sight, she resembled a blood-thirsty, untamed, uncontrollable monster, but she was so much more, considering that twenty percent of Konoha’s population were Inuzukas and that there was at least one Inuzuka in each third family’s history. Without Inuzukas’ support, Konoha would be lost. Still, everyone managed to hate them, and treat them like some dirt on expensive clothing.
"You know what, mom? I hate Hyûgas!"
"Calm down, Hana. You almost chopped the old hag’s head off. That wasn’t really diplomatic of you, was it?"
"She provoked me!"
"Don’t start acting like a rotten spoiled brat now, Hana!" growled Tsume, exasperated.
She approached her son, and peeked over his shoulder.
"How’s she doing?"
He sighed slightly.
"She hardly ever wakes up. When she does, she doesn’t recognize me, only asks for water. She coughs a lot, as if she was chocking and burns from fever. It stinks pneumonia. And the Hyûgas? They must’ve worried sick."
"Pff! They didn’t even ask for her. They tried to 'shoo' us away! They really don’t have any common …"
"Shut up, Hana! What happened is that according to them, since yesterday, Hinata isn’t anymore part of their family."
Kiba’s jaw dropped. How could the clan’s chief be kicked out? That was not logic!
"Whaa …?"
Tsume rolled her hazelnut eyes. Why, for the love of God, did she end up with so stupid kids?!
"She signed some paper. You know, when a girl wants to marry someone her parents don’t accept, she gets rid of her family name. She’s still a member of the family, but there are no more obligations from any side. Well, no official links, let’s say."
The young man’s eyes widened. His jaw dropped some more if that was possible.
"H-Hina w-wants t-to m-marry?"
Hana smirked badly before answering.
-The little blonde ANBU finally proposed to her? Aww, how cute!
Kiba rushed to retort kind of happy, without even feeling the trap.
"No, he didn’t! Hina and him broke up last year!"
Or did they?
Hana clapped her fine hands over her mouth, more to mask her grin than to show shock.
'Oh my, my! I knew you were a sick one, but it’s getting an obsession (A/N does that word even exist?)! You know how people like you are called? Voyeurs! You’re such a perv! And all those nights you went out with Akamaru, supposedly training, you were climbing on the tree in front of her window and watching her put on her pyjama …"
She went on like that, uttering all the nonsense that overflowed her mind.
At each word, Kiba got redder. How could she know the truth? He was somehow infatuated (A/N do we use 'by' or 'with' with infatuate?)with his childhood friend, and sometimes followed her in the darkness of night, when she was heading home. And, yes, he did climb up the tree to survey her while sleeping. YET, HE NEVER WACHTED HER PUT ON HER PYJAMA! Okay, maybe he peeked once or twice, but that was about it!
'Shut up! SHUT the hell up! AWWW …'
"… AWWW!!!"
Stunned by this involuntary rail, Hana stopped soliloquizing, giving a rest to Tsume’s poor ears.
'God? Why are you making me live this hell? Did I really deserve an idiot as son and a superficial fool as daughter?!'
The head posed on Kiba’s lap moved faintly. An imperceptible moan came from it.
"Hinata? You woke up?"
She started coughing, violently shuddering of pain. Her voice was broken and guttural.
"W-water … p-please …"
Awkwardly, he reached for a gourde nearby. Pushing her chin up with his free hand, he poured the fresh water in her throat. His mother almost knocked him down by snatching the bottle out of his grip.
"YOU IDIOT! YOU WANT TO DROWN HER?!"
She kneeled by the petite silhouette’s side, pulling her into her arms, like a lost puppy.
A strange sentiment overwhelmed him. Something very painful. The same feeling as those times he saw her with Neji or Naruto. Why was everyone aloud to hold her tight but him? Was he cursed by his kami-sama? Did he do something wrong? Was his love filthy?
His fingers bent into a raging fist.
Why was everybody on the other side of the mirror, but him? Why weren’t they from the same world, so he could just dream about dreaming about her?
He could touch the silk of her skin. Yet, it was as if he didn’t feel it. He knew she smelt like fruit, more precisely like blackberries, but that was just theory. Something was always hindering him in possessing all those images of her that other didn’t even care about. Like her laughing, walking, smiling, sulking, crying, dancing, jumping or just breathing. This was unfair.
-Didn’t I ever teach you that to feed puppies you had to make sure they weren’t lying on their back or else the milk could overflow their lungs and drown them?! Well, it’s the same with people! You are so reckless, Kiba! You should really be ashamed of you! Being to lazy to even remember such basic things!
He didn’t react. Why should he? She was right as always. But he did remember that and he knew it applied to humans as well as for animals.
Hate and crushed desire had been stronger than love.
At that moment tough he couldn’t know that such behaviour of his he didn’t cure would cost him one of the most important things of his life and drag him directly off to death. However, if he didn’t have those reflexes of a straying dog he would’ve never lived those few years that gave him joy and strength to pass through the Gates of Hell.
She had heard the name. She was sure about it. Even if her mind seemed somehow frozen and full of mist, she was sure it was his deep voice that was saying those words she couldn’t get. Feebly, doing her best, she tried to call him.
"K … K … Ki …ba?"

°*°

"H-he s-so c-c-ute, K-Kur-renai-s-s-sensei! H-he h-has y-our e-e-eyes!"
"Thank you, Hinata-chan. But for the eye color, I’ve heard babies got very changing eyes, so I don’t really count for him to keep them like that forever."
A young fourteen-year-old girl was holding a baby against her, his sleepy minuscule head posed on her arm.
An older woman was agreeably looking at them. She seemed somewhat exhausted and sore, laying in her bed, a cup of tea in her hands.
"And you, Hinata? What is up with you, now that you are chûnnin?"
The young girl lost her smile. She thought a little before answering in a shaky voice:
"I-I am t-training t-t-to become j-j-jounin."
Kurenai-sensei’s red eyes closed in sadness for a moment. She still didn’t have a goal for herself. Hinata was following the others’ orders despite her own will. This was heartbreaking.
When she opened her eyes, she did the best she could to glare severely at the young woman cuddling the tot.
"You know, Hinata, I think it’s great time for you to grow up. I understand you wanting to be acknowledged, but still … Most of the chûnnin become jounin in their twenties. There’s plenty of time for you to train. What I think is that you should get yourself healed . Everybody knows that the injuries that occurred to you during the chûnnin prelims three years ago aren’t cured yet. You are trying to hide it, but it’s very visible. Before you came in, you chocked so hard I was sure you would throw your lungs up. You should loosen up on the A and S-rated missions, you’re just a chûnnin, and I will never understand the godaime sending you on solo assignments to other dangerous lands. Stop acting like a kid, Hinata! It’s time for you to think about you and leave your father’s shit to stink by itself."
Hinata’s stunning eyes widened. Kurenai-sensei never was vulgar. Those mean words she spit out were so not like her.
Before she could even manage to stammer out some words, two very noisy specimens of the human species ran into the room, jumping and shouting:
"CONGRATULATIONS, KURENAI-SENSEI!!!"
Okay, maybe just one bounced and shouted, but still, it was as if the room was filled with people.
"Shut up, Kiba. There’s a baby in here."
Shino’s voice. Shino and Kiba.
Looking up at them, her eyes started to sparkle. Her red lips drew out in a smile.
Noticing her, Kiba gasped. The enormous bouquet they brought for the new mommy was just pushed into Kurenai’s arms.
"Sorry, Kurenai-sensei! We can stay no longer, but we’ll come again another time!"
They went away as they came, like a hurricane.
A moment later, Hinata fled too.
"I-I am g-g-oing to b-be b-back t-t-ommorrow. And I s-shall put s-some order a-around t-the house. A-Asuma-s-sensei r-really s-sucks a-at h-housekeeping."
She ran down the street to reach her two friends she haven’t seen for a while. Often, she asked herself how come she couldn’t find them at all those special places they shared together. When finally she was trotting by their side, she was stroke by the little attention they paid her. For the first time of her life with them, she blushed, ashamed, not knowing what to do to start a conversation.
"H-hello t-there, g-guys."
They ignored her.
So she was right! It wasn’t possible for her to imagine they wouldn’t have had any chances to see each others before. She really did something to piss them off. But what?
They speeded up the pace, making the young woman run by there side. They didn’t even glimpse at her.
"Uh, h-how a-are y-you doing? Long time n-no s-see …"
Shino just stopped and sighed in desperation. He turned around, mumbling something like 'You take care of it, Kiba!', before running away as fast as he could.
It was as if she had plague … or WAS plague.
She blushed of humiliation and sadness.
"Uh, K-Kiba? W-what i-i-is w-wrong?"
He stopped as his companion before but did not manage to run away. She slyly approached him. He just bent his neck, avoiding those almighty pools of magnificent glimmer that could make him her slave by one glance. He couldn’t afford losing now. For her own good.
Swallowing his saliva down his throat, he closed his eyes, imagining him in another place, before reciting with a cold mechanical voice those words he always hoped he wouldn’t be obliged to use.
"Don’t ever talk to me again! Didn’t you get the message? Your family’s right! You’re a failure! I am sick of you holding me back! So, shit, go away, Hyûga!"

°*°

She tried to forget his words. They were so hurtful. They killed her more than his hands pushing her in dust, expecting it would chase her away.
'Don’t ever talk to me again! Didn’t you get the message? Your family’s right! You’re a failure! I am sick of you holding me back! So, shit, go away, Hyûga!'
Did she cry? No, she went to train. Kurenai-sensei was absolutely right. Her wounds didn’t heal. They could be mortal.
Suicide.
It was the first time she thought about ending her agony by the easiest way she knew about … and surely wasn’t the last.
She was fourteen. She had a loving boyfriend she couldn’t talk to, a nice cousin she trained with and that probably took care of her by guilt, two ex-friends ignoring her, a father beating her up to a pulp for anything and weakness.
Killing herself openly though would harm the name of her family, and that was the last thing she wanted.
She never thought it would take so long for natural causes to cost her her life.
But, it was okay.
Because now, Kiba’s face was above hers. And he appeared worried … for her.
It was good to see him again. He didn’t ignore her anymore nor was cruel.
Before accomplishing what she intended to, she was happy seeing her childhood companion for the last time.

::Chapter 3::

They were all over her again. He truly hated Hana’s sons. There were seven of them. Septuplets. Seven ten-year-old predators full of testosterone, hanging all over this newly fixed doll Hinata was. This morning wasn’t different from the others. Not different at ALL. But it was enough for Kiba to finally freak out.
In the middle of the garden, just beside the lavender his mother was growing, they were sitting. It seemed like they were picnicking.
She had been living with the Inuzukas for two weeks now, and he had personally watched over the development of her health states. All those years he managed to treat her like shit, he haven’t really been able to follow her changing and that was now killing him.
With his back leaning against the wooden wall of the main house, he was testing for how long he would be able to stay away from her before feeling the urgent need to brush his hand over her skin.
Those boys were really getting affectionate. They were playing with her hair, undoing, redoing braids, ponytails, pigtails; resting their heads on her lap or shoulders.
And then, a very courageously stupid kid, he didn’t know which one -they were all the same-, dared to sit on her lap and pose his head on her cosy breast.
That little MONSTER had the guts to do what he only dared dreaming about for ages. This angel-faced perverted brat just realized one of his phantasms.
‘One of your phantasms?! God, Kiba! Hana’s REALLY right! I am a SICK DEPRAVED ASSHOLE!’
But still, he could not let that pass. For Hinata … They had to learn how to respect women, or something like that.
WAIT A SEC! Was that just Akamaru licking her cheek?!
That traitor!
Stomping all over some flowers his mother was fond of, he walked right at that bunch.
She lifted her head to face him.
Having the possibility to do so, he detailed each feature of her face. She was pale and lost some weight. Yet, it suited her well. Her cheekbones seemed much higher than before. This new finesse of her skin was putting an accent on her pulpous, crimson lips. She was pretty. Like an angel … and not a corrupted one.
“Good morning, Kiba. Would you like to join us for breakfast? The boys had the terrific idea of organizing a picnic.”
She was slowly passing her fingers through Akamaru’s silky fur.
She turned her head again towards him, just for him to be lightened by her beam.
He sat down beside her, their hips touching slightly. He blushed madly. In a shiver, he faintly raised his eyes to meet seven identical glares, considering the fact that the degenerated one pushed himself off when he realized who was approaching.
There never has been any connection between Kiba and his nephews … since the day he gave one of them, not really sure which one it was, such a correction that the kid surely still had nightmares. Since that bloodcurdling day, they did the best they could to avoid him.
But now, he was trying to play with their new toy … and they didn’t feel like sharing with him. In fact, they didn’t like it at all.
Beyond doubt, there was a major problem, residing in the fact that uncle Kiba was terrifying them to death. So, not one of them thought about complaining … Backing off like wolves in front of the Alpha male.
Hinata was elegantly pouring some tea in a cup she would hand to the young man by her side. Her fingers felt somehow cool, like porcelain. Her hands, crossed by very visible blue, green and purple veins, were shaking.
So feeble. She was not weak. She never was, anyways. But the disease she had been overwhelmed with had seriously affected her. As agreeing to this statement, while putting some rice with vegetables in a bowl for him, she started coughing intensely.
Everybody just jumped all over her.
“Give me the bowl, Hina-chan.”
“Do you want something to drink, Hina-chan?”
“You should maybe lay down, Hina-chan.”
“Woof!”
Yet, the only one physically reacting was Kiba. He pulled her over on his lap to stroke her backbone and whisper to her ear:
“Calm down, Hinata.”
He imitated his mother when she was taking care of the young woman.
‘Hinata’s often coughing when she is upset. More she’s tense, heavier it gets. The only way for her to stop is to quieten down. The best way I know to help her is to do like with dogs.’
His mother really was a genius.
“It’s okay, K-Kiba.”
She separated herself from his chest, tainting her cheeks in a nice shade of pink.
She had stopped, suffering, very ashamed, of her weakness.
‘Always so weak, aren’t you?’
Blushing even more under the glance of those mini Inuzukas, she sipped, pretending to be casual, some more tea for herself.
She did the best she could to restrain herself from turning her head again towards him.
God, had he changed! The joyful, laughing kid had become a man. And what a man! He didn’t smirk stupidly anymore nor did he brag. He seemed so distant, like a vast, unexplored land, as cold as an iceberg. No more joy, no more laughter. She just wished she had the guts to cup his head in her hands and ask him what was wrong, how she could soothe him.
Yet, that was not the behaviour bashful Hinata would adopt.
…And she had no more time for it. It was too late for her.

°*°

“Tomorrow? You’re sure you want this, Hinata?”
Tsume didn’t show her regret. Truly, she adored this girl. Since the day, at seven, she was presented to her; she grew a special affection for her. Anybody able to tolerate Kiba was worth her fondness. In fact, she reminded her of herself at that age.
But people like that don’t survive. Tsume knew and she hoped during all that time for the Hyûga to change.
She never did.
For people that don’t evolve, there’s only one exit.
“Oh! Inuzuka-sama! Don’t be concerned about this. The Hyûga family didn’t really kick me out as you seem to think. They already organized everything. I have a nice apartment near the market and some money to start off. I am also willing to take Hanabi out of the hospital so we could live together, so I have to get prepared. And it’s getting rude for me to stay …”
She was lying. Her pale hands were frenetically grapping the yukata she was wearing, her breath was irregular and her fair eyes, wandering.
“Don’t lie to me, Hinata! I know what you are about to do …”
The young woman gasped.
“… and I am not going to stop you …”
Big, crystal-like drops of tears came falling in front of Hinata’s knees.
“…It is your life and I have no right to interfere with it …”
She started to sob gently, without any drama added to it.
“…But if ever you change your mind, be sure that there will always be a place for you to come and a family wanting you.”
The older woman stood up. If the younger one would have dared to peek through the long strands of black hair at the face of the one leaving, she would have seen tears traversing her visage just like her owns and maybe would have thought about thinking about the true gifts life, joy and pain represented.
But she didn’t. She had to lose her last pillar of strength to realize how her wishes always have been selfish and childish, and how they have been pulling her towards darkness, weakness and death.
Stepping out of the room, Tsume turned around to observe the figure that, still like a statue, didn’t detach her gaze from the tatami she had left.
‘As innocent and pure as an angel, huh? Oh, Kiba! You were right … and that’s what leaded her into darkness instead of light. You always wish to possess what you don’t have, angel or demon!’
“As you will stay with us until tomorrow morning, I would like you to participate to our annual procession to express gratitude to the Inugami. It will be a last present for us … to have you by our side.”
Her voice broke down.
Hinata heard the shoji slide to leave her alone.
Alone with her sorrow. She grew to worship this feeling of mental pain mixed with physical. It was luxury for her to give a harsh nip to her lower lip, suck the blood while thinking how she loved those who hated her and how life wasn’t worth suffering so hard.
It reminded her that she still was alive.

°*°

“Ouch! Hana-san! You are pulling my hair …”
Sitting on her ankles, Hinata was containing herself from dandling her buttock starting to feel numb.
“Stop complaining, Hina-chan. Have to suffer to be beautiful.”
If that was true, she would have to undergo hell to get less repulsive. She giggled a bit at the thought.
For sure, Hana never had that kind of problem. She always has been astonishing. Covered in mud, or wearing a ceremony kimono, she was surrounded by an aura of grace.
‘Waouh! Her hair’s absolutely gorgeous! Maybe that’s why he doesn’t stop stating she’s so … Na! That’s not it! Has to be something deeper …’
“You truly have amazing hair, Hina-chan. I am so jealous of you.”
The young one felt heat creep on her cheeks. She never received compliments on her appearance, and definitely not by women. In fact, only her cousin Neji noticed such details.
“You’re going to see how wonderful it is going to be, pulled up in a chignon.”
The young girl shifted uncomfortably.
Hana noticed it. She sighed regretfully.
“Listen, Hina … For this morning, I am sorry! I really don’t know what he thought. But I suppose he didn’t mean to be … rude!”
Hinata’s face got beet red. Yes, this morning had been especially … nerve-racking. And for all her life she wouldn’t be able to forget it, but eventually, it transformed itself in a delicious memory that she related to her kid, making it laugh.
“I-it’s o-okay … K-Kiba a-apologized al-already …”
‘Gosh! This geezer really doesn’t realize what he’s able to do to her … Hmm … They should absolutely get together!’

°*°

“Hey, you mutt! Go get a bath! We’re letting you men take it first for once. You are all a stinking bunch and it always takes me hours to fix the boys, so you better get in before I kick your ass.”
He shrugged.
‘What a frustrated bitch!’
Wrapped in a towel, he headed to the garden where an enormous traditional wooden bathtub had been disposed. Around fifty people could fit in it. That was about what would get in.
Imagining all those nude bodies swimming around him was just disgusting him. He needed privacy, his own space. He hated to see what wasn’t made to be exposed ostensibly. Okay, maybe was there one person he wouldn’t mind seeing … all natural.
Stepping into the hot water, he let the shivers immerse his body in a delectable sensation of fever. It was so pleasant to feel the steaming liquid run over one’s uncovered members.
The haze blurred his sight. The moist was attacking his nostrils and he just let himself invade.
Until the other lot of Inuzuka males would come to disturb his peace, he was willing to relax to the paroxysm.
Where could Akamaru be right now?
Where could she be?
He shut his eyelids so he could trace each one of her traits in his mind. Her mouth, her nose, the form of her face, the curve of her neck intersecting with her shoulders, the black locks falling down her back, her backbone stroked by his finger, her smile, her sparkling amethyst eyes, hoping they were so enchanting for him.
How lousy! How lousy could he get? Hadn’t he already touched the bottom, long ago?
His unperturbed new mood made him march over the bath, until he felt something smooth and warm shock his hip.
His eyes shut open. The glance, the nose, the lips he dreamed about some seconds ago were actually facing him. All … natural. In an expression of horror.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!”
To increase Kiba’s dismay, all of a sudden, around fifty maybe more women stepped into the tub.
Encircled by the enemy!
‘Why? Oh, why? Why did I have to think about her?’
“Hey, what’s a guy doing here?We’ve got this big tub once a year and he comes to disturb us?!”
“Ah, whatever! Who cares?!”
“What about respect?”
A young woman that jumped in the bath at the moment shook her soaked head desperately.
“That’s my brother! Let him do! He’s just a degenerated voyeur!”
Hana! HANA! Always HER!
He never understood her intentions to make him suffer humiliation and most of the time didn’t care. Yet, today, it had been too offensive for him to overlook.
Calmly in appearance but boiling inside, he approached his sister, bypassing each other female on his way, put his hand on her damp hair and pushed her head into the water to drown her. But she was too agile to let herself murder so easily. She simply swam away.
“YOU BITCH! I HATE YOU! I AM GOING TO STRANGLE YOU, CUT YOUR THROAT OPEN AND PAINT MY FANGS (A/N have no idea how else to call those paintings on each side of Inuzukas’ cheeks) WITH YOUR BLOOD!”
In no time, they were running all over the bathtub, bumping into very irritated Inuzukas.
“Gosh, Tsume-sama! Tell your son to calm down! We’re trying to have some good time here.”
“Nah, let the boy be! He’s exploring his femininity.”
“Yeah! And we can explore some new masculinity. He’s free, isn’t he? Indubitably would buy that piece of meat to become my concubine!”
“YOU BLOOD-SUCKING WHORE! ONCE I’LL BE FINISHED WITH YOU, YOUR DARLING ASHI WON’T BE ABLE TO RECOGNIZE YOU!”
She was too good of a swimmer for him to catch her and he was dangerously losing concentration as the hunt was getting longer.
Not noticing the leg of a certain woman in the clear water, he stupidly tripped over it, under Hana’s mocking gaze.
‘What a goof up!’
Losing balance, his whole body flew threw the liquid. Stretching his arms to seize the edge of the tub not to hurt anybody with his force, he stopped himself before crushing a frail un-Inuzuka figure.
She found herself facing a broad chest. His tanned skin seemed to glow because of the reflection of the sun on each tear running through his torso. It reminded her of one of father’s art pieces. She desired to permit her fingers to dance over this unfamiliar territory.
Looking up at him, her eyes half-closed in fascination, she didn’t blush. She let herself be submerged by the darkness of his pupil.
He felt her thigh on his knee.
Unfortunately, he broke the link between their glances, brushing away, humiliated by the situation.
Why did he have to think about her? Why did his mind turn around her?
“I am truly gonna smash your face, Hana. Just wait for it!”
Doing his best to regain some composure, he leaned his back to the wooden wall, not noticing Hinata’s peek toward the veins of his neck. Why was the world doing this to him?

::Chapter 4::

A shakuhachi (A/N bamboo flute) held by a pale minuscule hand, singing a hymn of hatred and grief .
He remembered that day as the beginning of the end.
“I-is i-it l-like th-this, o-oka-s-san?”
Another hand, shaking and tired, caressing her little cheek. Her wide pale glimpse drenched in hope and faith was the first thing that attracted him.
“Very well, Hinata-chan. But don’t forget to raise your pinkie (A/N is the little finger truly called like this?) for elegance.”
The five-year-old Hinata giggled a bit. Her oka-san’s voice was so comforting and tender. That became her heritage after her mother’s death.
The woman bent over her belly, where baby Hanabi was living at the moment, to kiss the indigo hair dancing in the wind. Then, escaping the embrace, the child spotted him behind the oak prevailing the Hyûga garden.
“Neji-kun!”
One of her mother’s frail hands curled around her shoulder to reach for the wooden instrument.
“You can go play with Neji-kun, now … Hinata …”
His white eyes shut painfully, unable to escape his aunts blood red tears.
“ … be careful …”
She died not longer after the fulfillment of the scene he was replaying in his mind.
He had felt the black shadow of sickness devouring her flimsy soul.

°*°

The night had been astounding. She had never seen the moon like that! They were all around her. Yet they weren’t there. Only Kiba and her. As if they were the only two souls left. This was such a strange feeling. Something that resembled the sentiment she experienced when she was near Neji. She appreciated Kiba. Good old smiling Kiba as much as irritated taciturn Kiba.
It felt good to walk in the morning sun. Asahi. What a beautiful name. If she ever had planned on having children she would have called one of them like the sun that was illuminating her path towards the clearing in which she intended to die.

°*°

He penetrated the room.
She was laying in front of him, her back stripped by bloody lesions.
This time, Hiashi had gotten too far … Yet, he couldn’t do anything against it. If he only dared to touch this man, Hinata would pay even more.
He bent over her body to lift it. He was holding her bridal style while examining all those new wounds.
The sick bastard found another way to terrorize her, trying now to possess her soul.
She was awake. He could see her wandering eyes roll in their orbits. She wasn’t crying nor sobbing.
Placing a cold kiss on her cheek, he tightened the grip on her body, wishing for it to take some of his warmth. She was cold as a corpse she would become later on by his gentle hands.
Her leaking blood was staining his clothing, passing through the material to rub against his torso.
That wonderful colour that obsessed him.
“I am going to make you sink a good, hot bath. It will help you.”

°*°

She wouldn’t see Hanabi nor Neji before leaving this world. Hanabi. Poor onee-chan! Why had it to be so painful for her.
At ten, coming back from a C-rated mission, she had been rejected from the Hyûga clan. Just because everybody else died. Just because she came back broken like a bamboo branch kids were playing with.
God did she hate the Akatsuki.
Poor onee-chan never could subsist after the scenes of horror she had endured. Her friends and sensei being tortured in front of her eyes, and her, not competent in helping them. She would stay forever the ten-year-old little girl she knew and loved.
Father had been so cruel. Wasn’t she his favourite daughter? He hadn’t looked at her widened, agonizing stare, full of tears that never shall be shed, just pushed her away. Towards all those medic-nins calling her crazy and unfit for social life.
She would have loved to be strong enough to oppose herself to his iron will and require for her status to be maintained. She wasn’t though. She just saw her fade away little by little in a hospital room.

°*°

And Neji! Her darling Neji! The one that always was there to fix her when she shattered. She hoped the gift she gave him pleased him.
She would have loved to see him for a last time. To thank him for all those years he had been by her side, never leaving her alone … and to tell him she pardoned him his acting of the past. His Hate towards the Sôke was justified and she had accepted to leave him let off steam on her body. The Chûnnin prelims had to be tolerated for them to continue their lives in a proper and human way. He could have killed her, it wouldn’t have mattered. Just for him to pardon her weakness that leaded to the sacrifice of his father. Uncle Hizashi. One that understood her.

°*°

He thought before that he could never understand her.
Always training, alone.
Fighting against imaginary enemies.
Sparring with trunks of trees.
She was weak back then. And she knew it. There was no way she could get stronger, thought he. Everything in her was exposing how lame she was. From her stammer to these strange gestures she executed with her fingers.
And then, she started to move. She hadn’t sensed him, so without any trouble, she took off her coat, threw it away from her and passed a hand through her sweaty hair.
She tied her frontal band on her eyes.
Her feet budged. She tackled, feigned. Always faster.
That was not Hinata.
Or was it?
Alone, by herself. She was still weak in matter of chakra. But her control was good … she was fast, silent … furtive. Like a snake. Dangerous. That was the word. The other Hyûga Hinata, the one hidden in the darkness of her mind, could be a potential foe.
“Don’t do it that way Hinata-sama …”
Surprised, she slid in the mud, splashing sludge all around her.
That’s how she became the one she was.
Under Neji’s sculpting grip.

°*°

Everybody always thought Uncle Hizashi hated her. Did he?
Maybe he did.
That didn’t matter. She had treasured her uncle.
The day oka-san left, he took her silhouette in his arms to hold her up as high as he could.
His words were calming and comforting. Oto-san wouldn’t have appreciated seeing him touching her so openly. Bunke shouldn’t even get near Sôke.
Hizashi should be grateful to be considered as his brother and shouldn’t act so easily.
She didn’t care. She never cared about stupid Sôke rules.
Perhaps if she did, her life would have been easier. But the easiest path isn’t the best. Never.
“Hinata-chan, always climb higher. Never stop climbing, as difficult as it gets. Don’t rest. Once you sit down, you are not able anymore to stand up. And above all, you shall not take off your eyes from the sky. Like that, you will forever stay in the sun …”
It was unfair he had to die.
Still now, she was obeying his last order for her. Before he started to avoid her … like everybody did once in their life. Here eyes were raised towards the azure sky.
‘I hope I am going to see you again, Uncle Hizashi …’
… and mom, and dad …
They would all be together again … and no more blood would stain her body.

°*°

Another cup of sake. Sake, sake, sake. Was he willing to drink himself drunk to see her face in that poison? Very pertinent question! He was willing to see her.
A sip. A gulp.
‘What is happening to you, Neji? Are you stupid enough not to understand her message? She is fed of it. She is fed of you. If only it was still there …’
He rubbed his forehead where the Bunke seal once had been embedded.
It was their only link.
Where was she now that she left him?
Her dream was to take Hanabi out of the asylum. Maybe was she proceeding to accomplish her goal.
‘Hinata-sama? Are you still somewhere … in my mind?’
He reached over the bottle and poured the amber-coloured liquid in his throat.
Sake didn’t taste like her at all.
She was the most intoxicating drug he had ever been in contact with.

°*°

A kunai pulled under her gullet. Threatening. Threatening herself. How low could she fall. Her lips opened in a last word.
“Sayonara …”

°*°

He woke up.
‘Must be around noon.’ he told himself.
Shoving his enormous dog off him, he sat up. ‘Stylishly’ yawning, he let his tongue roll out of his mouth. He was getting more and more influenced by Akamaru.
Ruffling his messy hair even more, he jumped out of his futon.
“Hey, Aka! How diddya sleep, boy?”
For an answer, the specimen of the canine specie in front of his eyes stretched his body and barked faintly.
“Breakfast? Yeah, sure!”
He stepped out of his room to head towards the Ima (A/N living room) where his mother and sister’s family were taking their lunch.
Glancing at that lot fighting over pork chops, rice and fish, he sighed greatly. It reminded him of himself when he was younger. Before his little talk with the Hyûga shitter. To sit down, he insensitively pushed his niece over to the side.
“Hey, that’s my meat!”
“Geroff!”
“Ashi! Give that back, or else I’ll poke you to death with my sticks.”
“Moooooom! He stole my chop!”
“That’s my fish!”
“Gimme, gimme, gimme!”
“Hands off!”
“SHUT UP! I AM THE CHIEF, I EAT FIRST!”
“Whatever!”
Looking suspiciously at the food disposed in front of him, Kiba dared to ask:
“Uh? Why’re you guys eating lunch?”
The only answer he could expect was the one he received. A good, heavy punch behind the head.
This time, it wasn’t Hana but his mother that replied so thoughtfully.
“Baka! It’s noon!”
“Well, yah! But during the last week, we have been eating breakfast at noon.”
Hana just couldn’t hold from stepping into the conversation.
“That’s because poor Hina-chan couldn’t wake up earlier. And breakfast is the most important meal of the day …”
Realizing her blunder, she shut her big mouth before sinking herself more into it.
Gazing around the table, Kiba didn’t find her.
“Uh? Where’s Hina?”
Strangely, all the motion paused for half a second. Everybody just stared at him, before his mother cut the silence.
“She’s gone.”

°*°

Running as fast as he could through Konoha’s streets, he was managing to keep his mind focused on what could take place, than what had already happened.
She was somewhere. She couldn’t have disappeared. Lost in her black thoughts, ready to do something. Something could as well be just living. But that something had to be hindered. His instinct told him so.
He could almost imagine Hell engulf her bony shadow.
Clad in red drops that tasted salt and misery, attempting to break out of new claws. He could not let his prophecy realize itself. He wouldn’t allow it. He couldn’t survive it.
‘The woods!’
Since their childhood, she had favourite the company of tree and animals than human beings. Sure enough, the only human that could approach her was him, and he was not what could be called a full person … until they became genin. Then Neji imposed himself. Even Shino was not welcome from his side. She had always been a dear frightened soul, and he never wanted her to change, so all those new faces just pushed him deeper and deeper in hate. But then, the wounds of her mind were unbearable for both of them, he didn’t want her adorable weakness to become an obstacle to her. Wounds so painful, so bloody, leaking without him having the capacity to heal them, were the result of his wish that turned itself against him.
He could almost feel her soul ripped by her own hands, slipping through her fingers, like a ribbon she would have undone from her locks of obscurity and now was shredding with disgust. From those lavender half moons her eyes were when afflicted, streams of liquid diamonds would slide.
Never. NEVER.
He couldn’t let that occur. Whatever happened. Even if it was her choice. He needed her. Now, by his side. Suffering or not. He realized too late. When living would be for her just one pain more she didn’t deserve. Still, he needed her. Love wasn’t anymore a stake. She was his narcotic. The poison running through his veins, while he was running to find its origin. And he was not willing to die at the moment. Too much things he hadn’t seen … they hadn’t seen.
Not knowing he was destroying his worship for her with such egoistical and possessive comportment.
Taking away an easy end to substitute it by some more torment. Just to prove his almightiness … to himself more than to anybody else. Assured he was acting by love.

°*°

Some strange taste of blood, not at all related to the savour of sake, overwhelmed his taste buds.
Even if the Bunke seal wasn’t anymore adorning his forehead, he felt a horrible sting passing from his head to his heart, as a communication of decease. For the first time of his life, weakness was experienced. The one in front of unknown happenings. The one that devours more than one’s confidence. The one Hinata had bared and still did. Even if she proved to the world she wasn’t feeble.

°*°

He seized her hand before it cut her throat open. Thanks to Akamaru’s infallible nose, he found her in no time, but seeing her numb glance, he thought he was late.
But no. No blood. She was still sitting. Motionless, yet breathing.
Before her noticing his presence he rolled himself with all his strength in front of her to grab her daunting arm. He squeezed her wrist hard enough for any normal person to let go of anything she was holding, but not for her. It was as if dolour was blocked by some invisible gear. Like Gaara.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?!”
Her lips pulled out into a sweet grin. Something that reminded him of Naruto. His sister told him that a first love changed everything about a young girl. He printed his trademark on her more than any other man in her life.
“I think it’s time for me to go. I fixed the best I could all the things that there were to fix. I did my best to leave no mark … And now, it’s time for me to erase my existence.”
How could she think like that?
“No!”
His voice resounded in his head.
Her grin grew wider. As if she was taunting him.
“‘Good job!’ That’s what you want me to tell you? Well you can still run for it! You didn’t fix anything! Just making Neji the clan chief, -don’t look at me like that, everybody knows about it-, didn’t give him the family he lost back. And that’s about everything you did. Yeah, yeah, I know! You proved you weren’t feeble and all that shit, but did you prove you were strong? Not at all. Again, you are running away from difficulty! There’s muscle strong like all the fuckers of my style, and there’s mental strong as you should be. Now’s the time to demonstrate that you are truly sturdy.”
Her smirk disappeared. Her lower lip started to tremble.
She let go of the kunai.
‘Hey, that’s my kunai! She wanted to kill herself with MY kunai!’
“I can’t … go on. It hurts so much.”
“I know. I know it does.”
He pulled her towards his hard chest. She posed her cheek on his madly bouncing heart. And cried. She cried so much.
But the shade of death was gone.

°*°

He clutched to a knife that was nearby. Raising it above his hand, he shot it down in his flesh. Nothing better than ache when fright was getting a grip on one’s mind.
Pain was so relieving.

::Chapter 5 ::

Just remembering his mother’s facial expression when he brought her back home made him chuckle.
“Why are you laughing, Kiba?”
Her sweet, quivering voice caught him off guard. He quasi jumped from surprise, snapped out of his daydream.
He lowered his head to inspect the face staring oddly at him.
“Nothing.”
His glance softened even more when he saw her frown. She looked like a crushed child. Even if he hated kids, she was still beautiful, with her chaste eyes scanning his.
As a pretext to touch her, he measured her temperature, setting his hand on her forehead. Before he could retrieve it, becoming conscious of the fact it had stayed too long on her soft skin to be suitable, her grip caught his wrist.
“Don’t! Y-your h-hand is hot. I like heat.”
‘Well, I surely could give her some more heat … Argh! I did not just think that!’
He was being struck by some thoughts he would have preferred to avoid.
‘Ah! Kami-sama, I beg you … Not that!’
Blushing furiously, he turned his glimpse away from the young girl holding a doll in her arms. His sister’s old doll. The one that had a fascinating resemblance with Hinata. Shiragiku.
Pretending he wanted to leave her alone, he straightened his back. She increased her grip on his wrist she hadn’t released yet.
“Please, Kiba, don’t leave. Sleep with me tonight.”
He choked on … nothing. His throat was too dry for him to have difficulty to swallow saliva. She was so naïve. Any other girl would have sounded like a whore. But not her.
In a moment of delusion, he caressed her lips with the tip of his forefinger.
Realizing what he had done, he shivered in disbelief taking back his hand from her forehead.
It seemed like his kami appreciated him a lot. Hinata had fallen asleep before he had dared making his move.
He sighed in relief. Seizing his chance to approach her without being disturbed by anybody, he laid by her side. Far enough for him not to snap completely out and do something he could regret, but sufficiently near for him to be enveloped by her perfume.
She looked like one of his nieces, her arms wrapped around Shiragiku’s body, her mouth forming an endearing pout.

°*°

“How did you manage to do that?”
“Didn’t mom teach you it’s rude to point?! And stop yelling, she has a headache.”
Hana’s widened eyes just gawked at the little sobbing figure trying to hide herself in Kiba’s chest.
The sun was starting to set. It was sending some purple and orange glints on Hinata’s porcelain skin. She appeared to him like a fairy, a rather tall fairy, but still.
“Aww, the poor girl.”
Perceiving some more words of pity she was sick of, yet couldn’t fight against in her actual state of mind, she shuddered violently, laboriously worming her arm around his neck.
He flushed greatly at the contact of the unclothed flesh of her shoulder on his chin.
“You are so insensitive, Hana” did he add before climbing some stairs to enter the genkan (A/N entrance hall), getting rid of his zoris (A/N straw sandals, like those in Rorôni Kenshin) before stepping in.
Tsume was awaiting them, her face pulled in a scowl.

°*°

“That’s no fair, Hina-chan. You’re too fast.”
She chuckled, dodging one of the septuplets’ attack.
Sitting under an oak tree, Hana’s two younger daughters were playing dolls, now and then peeking indifferently at the other group playing ‘it’.
“I am gonna getya, Hina-chan!”
All at once jumped on the lass, that didn’t know to which side to dodge without harming one of the kids, overthrowing her like a tower.
One of the boys, -really impossible to say which on it was-, landed directly on her stomach, pinning her on the ground. To maintain his balance, he had to place his hands somewhere, in occurrence on her breasts … under some very murderous eyes that just came out to check on Hinata.
Over the last week, aware of her fragile state of mental and physical health, he had strangely grown overprotective of her. As if she was a possession he wasn’t ready to lose.
He was also conscious that he only had prevented one suicide attempt. He still had to prove her that life was worthy for her to live and to train her for future troubles that could damage her.
Yet, at the moment, he was very far of his chivalry concepts. In fact, they were his last worry. He was much more concerned about that ten-year-old son of Hana, squeezing something even Naruto had never dared looking at.
For once calmly did he approach the lad, snake his finger to his ear and … lifted him without pity.
“Ayayayayayay … Uncle Kiba … you’re hurting me!”
“Oh, am I?” did he hiss.
“I am sorry … Gomen Nasai …”
He slightly turned the boy’s ear, knowing by his own experience how sensitive the member was for his clan.
“For what, dear?”
“Ouch! For hurting, Hina-chan …”
The youngster was starting to sob, while Hinata was still laying on the ground, wholly dazed.
Thanks to some compassion popped out of nowhere in Kiba’s mind, the young boy was finally released. But he did two main mistakes that earned him a week of some very uncomfortable pain in a certain area of his body, hindering him from sitting properly.
Number one, he turned his back to Kiba. A major “no, no”.
And number two, having some trouble comprehending his position of disadvantage toward Kiba, he grumbled something loud enough for the alpha male to hear:
“Fuckin’ asshole …”
At the moment, he could thank his kami and God for still being an underaged brat, because if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have survived. Kiba’s widened, furious eyes, ready to murder in one endeavor, proved his state of mind.
Yet, instead of a bloody wound, he won a magnificent kick right in his coccyx, which made him fly right on his brothers, in a piteous whine.
“AND IT’S NOT ‘HINA-CHAN’! FOR YOU ALL, IT’S GOING TO BE ‘HINATA-SAN’!”

°*°

He observed her putting on her coat bordered with fur. It was crummy. She needed some new cloths, taking in account she didn’t have anything to wear but the cloths she came in, some old Hana’s stuff she was dressed in actually, a yukata she was sleeping in and his old crummy gennin jacket he lent her because it was the only thing fitting the petite woman.
She was at last putting something over that large tank top she had been training in all morning long. It was white! She had sweated in it! Kiba had sparred with her!
He would have lied if he had said he wasn’t completely aroused and didn’t have the urge to help her get rid of it. Thanks to Akamaru who was barking him commands like: “Don’t look at it, it’s made to confuse you!” he had found the will power to lock his besmirched thoughts in a compartment of his psyche. He had to stay a gentleman … because she was a true lady.
That morning, before the unscheduled training, she had jumped into his room, full of energy for once.
“Kiba, Kiba! I feel like fighting today! Let’s go! Hey, Akamaru!”
She kneeled down to scratch the dog behind his ears, while he growled in pleasure.
He sat down on his futon, completely taken aback by the situation, a puzzled look adorning his drowsy face.
What had just happened?
Bashful Hinata had actually rushed into his personal space, not even announcing herself, and yelled as hard as she could her wish for sparring.
This was not like her at all. But he didn’t mind. She just seemed less tense, and maybe happier. It was good.
He had never been faced with such a fast and vicious opponent. Throughout those years he had to hide himself to observe her, he had realized she had mainly improved thanks to her dear cousin he would have love to hammer to death. Under his “I-am-all-into-family-honor-and-I-don’t-care-about-my-cousin’s-life-because-of-that”exterior, he was some mighty obsessed creep. Supposedly to teach her the steps to follow did he always stroke her hips and pull her towards his chest. It was making Kiba boil from jealousy and combust in hate. He would have given his soul to be Hyûga Neji at that moment. Well, it was one thing to watch and another to be confronted with those speed assaults. Natural speed, gift of an aerodynamic body, plus jounin skills in spying were an explosive mix. He felt it on his own body when the gentle fist closed his stomach’s chakra well without him noticing her proximity to him.
Then, she had jumped to dodge an attack. He had felt her hot breath caress his neck.
“Where do you want to go first?”
She lifted her head to encounter his stare. Before she could open her lips to respond, her stomach took care of answering with a pretty loud growl.
Highly amused, Kiba chuckled, tapping her head affectionately, as if she was a dog.
“Feel like ramen? Ichiraku?”
She cracked a frank smile that matched his.
Snaking her arm around the muscles of his, she dragged him off, not noticing the stiffening of his body.

°*°

She couldn’t disregard those aghast glares that followed each one of their steps, stopping all their action just to stare at them and make them more uncomfortable than they already were. Was it her or him?
A lick on her palm made her lower her head to perceive the overgrown hound pursuing them loyally. Absentmindedly, she tapped his head.
Noticing the very ashamed blush emerging out of Hinata’s skin, he couldn’t but be chagrined at the thought it was his fault she started to be oppressed in his company.
It wasn’t really his fault, not even Hana’s, however they were accused of it. Still he didn’t hold a grudge towards those unfair accusations. Did people be stupid enough to think he would care about such rubbish? Well, he did now. Everything concerning him or his clan could be unnoticed on purpose as it was before by him. But he couldn’t allow her guilt. A guilt that had no reason to be.
When he was least expecting it, she grasped for his hand, sighing wretchedly.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?”
He would remember those words as prove of her delusional consciousness. Thinking everything was her fault. Thanks to her father who would always blame her for sun and rain. It wasn’t though. It was his and Kiba’s. Everything was their fault. It was their own mistake they reverberated on her. It was their entire fault. This blood leaking of her lips he wasn’t able reap on his owns.

°*°

“Kiba, I changed my mind. It’s okay. I am not hungry anymore.”
As to deny her words, her belly let out such a howl that Kiba couldn’t stop staring at it as if he was expecting a puppy to break out of it.
“Don’t be a kid, Hina. I am hungry too.”
‘Don’t be a kid.’ It felt strange to pronounce such words when examining her. She was one head and a half smaller than he was, had to weigh around thirty-five kilos and had enormous sparkling eyes. Who was he kidding? She could be twenty and still look like a child. Partially. There was this part of her anatomy that was fully mature … and his nephews seemed to appreciate it.
Noticing her backing up little by little, he couldn’t restrain himself of smiling tenderly. She was so cute, all confused and scared. Good old Hinata.
It was as if she didn’t leave them three years ago. As if nothing had happened in-between.
He snatched her arm, pulling her towards the entrance.
Entering the genkan of the restaurant with Akamaru at her heels, she started sniveling for pity, which made Kiba even more inclined to push her right into the restaurant. He squeezed her hand to give her courage.
But, hearing those voices, his own bravery left him.
He wouldn’t have expected them to be there at that time of the day. Why weren’t they training, knowing who their superior was.
This was ass! He started panicking just like her.
And she felt it. It was her turn to clutch his hand to cheer him up.
“Whatever! Anything he says is gold for us, so shut up and obey.”
“Choji! Stop slurping, you’re sending ramen all over my clothing!”
“*slurp* Sorry *slurp* Ino-chan …”
“Well, I think it’s too troublesome to disobey.”
“Old man, I want some more ramen.”
“With a wife like yours, Nara, it sure is troublesome to disobey.”
“Ah, troublesome ANBU.”
“Instead of complaining, you guys should better take him like a model and do your best to become just like captain Hyûga.”
“Yeah, sure, TenTen! You’re TOTALLY not saying that because you want to fuc-”
“Youthful companions, we shall not discuss our respectable superior’s orders.”
What was that hell? Who was the idiot that suggested Ichiraku? Oh, right! Him.
He turned his heels, wanting to escape this peculiar situation before it went out of control, doing his best to avoid Hinata’s concerned glance.
“Eh? Feel like sukiyaki?”
She nodded frenetically, conscious of his bad disposition. She didn’t know though that after the scene at Kurenai’s, he had broken all the bonds he shared with his old friends, only accepting missions with people he had never heard about. And she had no idea that he was supposed to be sitting and joking with those men and women over there. But he had overgrown them. Memories of the past weren’t meant to be relived in the present. The only shadow of ancient times he required was her.
They both thought that if they were subtle enough, they wouldn’t be spotted, but Akamaru didn’t seem to have the same plans. He just trotted towards two gray, very common, dogs that were resting their heads on their paws. A young man in his twenties, the owner of the two husky hounds, tore his glance away from his food to welcome this giant newcomer.
“Why, hello there! And … uh, who are you?”
Akamaru barked softly.
‘I am going to kill you, Aka! Just let us get out of here!’
The man raised his head to look directly at Kiba.
“Kiba-san?” did he ask with a baritone voice.
Argh! Burned!
“Ohayo, Ryôshi-san.”
His voice was weary and afflicted. This very man was Ashi’s best man at Hana’s wedding. He was just like Ashi, mentally talking. But much more powerful. So powerful that even Kiba feared and loathed him. Loathed him to death.
Ryôshi was everything he wasn’t. It wouldn’t have disturbed him if there wasn’t always this little voice in his head telling him that this man will cause him some great harm in the future. Some harm he won’t b able to look over, that will affect him so that he could act in dangerous ways. Like an injured animal. However those were just illusions of his mind. Still, he compressed Hinata’s hand as if that man would have taken her away from him. He didn’t even know her!
And, Ryôshi was a true gentleman. Always offering his help to everybody. He wouldn’t proceed so lightly. And yes, he was handsome.
It killed Kiba to admit that there was another Inuzuka male that could outdo him. And why did that male have to be this fop, which was actually smiling friendly at him. Argh! Stupid Inuzuka family!

°*°

The room silenced. At once, all eyes turned towards him. While he was greeting the other Inuzuka, Hinata had furtively slid behind him, surrounding his torso with her arms. His face had turned in a nice, deep shade of red.
But it made him realize that he was the first person that she so openly made contacts with. Even her dear cousin never had the chance to feel her so close by her own will. She acted more openly when accompanied by someone she trusted. Which meant that she trusted HIM!
His chest lifted in pride while he was sucking in air as much as he could, fearing he could suffocate. He affectionately patted her little claws grabbing his shirt, not wanting them to let go of him.
“Kiba?”
“Huh? Kiba? Where? WHERE?!”
“INUZUKA Kiba?”
“Which other Kiba could it be? Is there any other Kiba in Konohagakure?”
“Aww, troublesome! He’s back!”
In no time, before he could even realize that he was trapped, he became crowded with old memories.
Shikamaru, Ino, Choji, Lee, TenTen… Shino, and… Naruto.
“Dear friend of my childhood, how magnificent to see you back!”
His hand was ruthlessly shaken by Lee’s, while his glare couldn’t leave some pale blue eyes.
“I wasn’t gone anywhere.”
His voice was raspy and cold. Nothing to do with ol’ Kiba. He seemed so in control of himself that it was freaky. It reminded them of that person they were talking about some minutes ago.
Through his blackly tainted glasses, Aburame Shino, the heir of the well known Aburame clan, was hatefully staring at the newcomer.
“Maybe, but that’s just as if! You ignored us like shit for one and a half year.”
Woah! Shino had never said this many words in his whole life. And never with such anger. His Kikaichû beetles where buzzing in fury, ready to pop out of his skin and attack.
If Shikamaru hadn’t posed his hand on Shino’s shoulder, he would have done something he would have truly regretted.
Spotting the hands around his trunk, Ino couldn’t but ask:
“Kiba! You have a girlfriend?!”
And all the attention turned towards her.
Uh-Oh! Busted!
He felt her burying her face in his shoulder-blades.
Ino and TenTen, excited by those news more than by Kiba’s return, just had to see the girl.
Turning her head away from those startling gapes, Hinata made a huge mistake. She ran away. Trying to escape two highly indiscreet girls she didn’t really appreciate, she directly ran into one’s hard chest. She hoisted her head. When she saw the face of the man she disturbed by her childish behavior, she yelped, dashing back to Kiba, her eyes full of embarrassment.
“Hinata?!”

°*°

He wouldn’t have minded to meet them and have a chat. But not accompanied by her. He would have preferred to stay alone by her side. And maybe would he have been able to study her. MENTALLY! Understand what pushed her to what she had intended to do. Try to help her. And KEEP her away from them. They were all petting her! True enough they haven’t seen her for around three years, and they knew she hadn’t been trying to avoid them like him, but still! Hold your dirty hands to yourself!
They were all so sweet, so loving, so understanding towards her and he hated it. God, why was everybody wishing to pull them away from each other?
And Naruto! The way he talked to her, smiled. Everything in him made Kiba boil. He had his chance, he screwed it so why didn’t he fuck off?
A little hand grasped for his. He glimpsed at her. She was grinning.
“I was scared they would reject me.”
Her voice calmed him down. After all, she hadn’t stayed with them, but was walking by his side, gripping his hand … not Naruto’s.
The only thing he could answer with was:
“Do you want some Dango or Mochi?”
Her beam grew wider.

°*°

The sun was setting, slowly permitting the streets of Konoha to be engulfed by darkness. He looked down at her. She was stunning in light as in darkness, but there was just the sunset that gave her china skin this sparkle that drove him crazy.
Noticing a little piece of Dango stuck in the edge of her lips, he made her stop by seizing her shoulders. Lowering his upper-body, he approached his mouth from her to lick boldly the little piece of sweet. She didn’t pull away. She just moaned so lightly that if he wasn’t completely under her spell he wouldn’t have heard this little message of pleasure.
Ceasing the movement of his tongue on her lips, he looked into her eyes. Those magnificent pools of tranquil lavender water, losing the modest amount of good judgment left to him.

::Chapter 6::

He stormed into the Ima, where two men, in occurrence Ashi and Ryôshi, were playing a game which seemed to be shogi (A/N a Japanese strategy game similar to chess, not to confound with Go). What was that jerk doing there, anyways? He didn’t remember he gave his blessing for such a commoner to enter the chief’s home. Ah, whatever!
Kiba stomped towards them, doing as much noise as he could, as if he was worried not to be noticed, and violently grabbed Ashi’s arm, hindering him in playing.
“I-have-to-talk-to-you!”
He was panting from panic and mumbling some words under his breath.
Lazily looking up at his assailant, Ashi smiled, tapping the place by his side to invite Kiba to take a seat.
Kiba had never met his father. This man died two months before his mother delivered him by herself in a middle of a battle. He never found out how he died. Every time he tried to touch a word about him to his sister or mother, they chocked or laughed it off. Therefore, it had to be assumed that he never had personal contacts with other men that could have served as an example, but Ashi, his sister’s husband. Of course he once had had friends, but none of them could have helped him out with character-building dilemmas. That’s what Ashi was needed for. Even if Kiba was acting cold and insolent towards his sister’s husband, when he required advice he turned himself to the man. Since age eight, Ashi was his confident, a substitute father.
Collapsing on the floor, the young man hid his face in his callous hands, sighing dreadfully.
“Hmm, so what happened, Kiba?”
His voice was soothing, comforting. Ryôshi had the good sense of abstaining him from meddling in the conversation, glancing at a very lost Kiba. He felt uncomfortable in front of such display of consternation.
“I kissed her …” he whimpered, traumatized by his own boldness.
A little chuckle escaped Ashi’s friend’s lips. It made Kiba hiss in anger, before he was sunken again in self-pity. This Ryôshi guy truly didn’t know where his interest was.
“Well …?”
“I licked HER!”
Ashi couldn’t withhold a groan. Why did this boy always manage to screw everything up? It was as if his advice didn’t serve anything, totally useless.
“I told you to keep control over your feelings. God, Kiba, if you’re not able to restrain your hormones, don’t go near temptation.”
“Huh? Who did he lick?”
It’s seemed that Ryôshi had a hard time holding back his questions.
“I suppose it was Hinata-san?”
Kiba whined some more.
“WHAT?! You mean the little girl that was with you at Ichiraku? How old is she? Ten?”
Pushed to the end of his patience, he spat irritably:
“She’s sixteen!”
“No way! She looks so young. Well, okay, she does have good –”
He paused his nonsense to describe what he wanted to say with movements. He weighted some air in front of his chest as to reefer to her breast.
“SHUT UP!”
Well, at least, this fop wasn’t that much of a gentleman after all.
Ashi shot a menacing glare to his rude friend; which clearly meant: “Don’t mess with his mind.”
Ryôshi rolled his eyes, glimpsing at a totally overcame Kiba, ready to burst in tears.
“Okay! Did she freak out?”
Kiba shook his head.
“Good! Did she seem to appreciate it?”
He shrugged.
“Well, did she say anything?”
He shook his head for a second time.
“What DID she do?”
The ANBU really appeared to be enjoying provoking him.
Before he could shut his mouth, he whispered, his face tainted in a nice, shiny tomato colour:
“She moaned.”
The two older men glanced at each other, grinning like mad fools.

°*°

Sliding a large t-shirt that once belonged to Kiba over her head, she sat on her futon, yawning so hard that even Akamaru wouldn’t be able beating her.
Once she was dressed, after having contortioned herself to pull her legs through some really tight pants Hana was wearing at her age. They weren’t too little, but just a hell to put on, and once they were on, they were too big. Those pants were her worse enemies.
She felt miserable having to use others’ clothes, and was assured that she was mightily disturbing the owners of those same outfits.
And now, on the stress she was already confronted to, this very awkward situation with Kiba was adding itself on her more than enough messed up life. She had the impression of being some kind of a very filthy whore, flying from Naruto right to Kiba. Or worse … a tease. She groaned heavily at those thoughts. She maybe had broken up with Naruto and had realized that there was never anything like romance between them, but still felt some scruples to, after only one year of single life, jump on another boy.
And the worse part was that she had enjoyed it. When it came to kissing, Kiba would beat anybody, Naruto as much as Neji. They couldn’t compete. Oh dear, she truly was a slut! She had had intimate intercourses with three different boys in three years. Ah, kami! But Neji didn’t really count. It had been an accident with him. Uh … well, she hoped so!
Feeling heat crawl up her cheeks, she covered her face with her cool palms. Why was the picture of Kiba kissing her under a dying sun harassing her?! It had been so … pleasurable. So stirring. So … pure. Not pure in the meaning of innocent, rather far from that, more like primal. It had awoken some unknown emotions of wildness in her heart. And it wasn’t even a true kiss. Just a lick on her lower lip. That had smouldered her soul in a wish of a harsh nip on the gentle skin of this lip he had so lovingly stroked. She had wanted to seize his head and kiss him senseless. But she didn’t! Thank Amaterasu, kami, inugami and all those deities that were playing with her mere existence. Still, she felt that it had only been because of luck. If it had to happen a second time, she wouldn’t be able to put a stop to her instincts.
Why was she thinking about that again? Oh, yes! BECAUSE EACH TIME HER EYES WOULD BRUSH OVER HIM, SHE WOULD BE DROWNED IN THE DESIRE OF JUMPING RIGHT ON HIM AND TEAR HIS CLOTHES OFF!!! Those were such un-Hinata feelings and she had no idea how to handle them. The best way out she had found was to avoid him and try to escape politely their hospitality and run away as fast and far as she could. But, wait a sec, that was NO solution at all!
What a mess!

°*°

“Where’s Hinata-san?”
Ashi looked up from his fascinating food, a smug smile on his face. He loved to taunt his brother-in-law, since he understood him enough to know he would heat up and spill the beans about anything, even his private life.
“WHAT?! WHY’RE YOU LOOKING AT ME?! NOT AS IF WE’RE GOING OUT OR SOMETHING! KISSED HER ONE TIME! DOESN’T MEAN WE’RE GONNA GET MARR-”
Oh, holy shit! He had said it! In front of his nephews and nieces, his sister … and his mother! Sweet! And now, according to his mother’s and sister’s air, he wouldn’t even have the joy of choosing his own instrument of torture. A hell of possibilities of suffering was extending in front of his eyes.
He shot a stabbing glare, full of hatred and grudge, to the man sitting in front of him and that at first sight seemed to be the faulty one. Being diplomatic, this one only lowered his head to observe his food as if it was some uncommon insect.
“WHAT THE FUCK YOU FUCKIN’ IDIOT! I HOPE YOU’RE FUCKIN’ PROUD OF YOURSELF! SHE MUST BE ALL FUCKED UP BECAUSE OF YOU NOW! DO YOU EVER FUCKIN’ THINK BEFORE ACTING! WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO TO MY FUCKIN’ KAMI TO HAVE YOU AS A FUCKIN’ SON! I WAS FUCKIN’ THINKING THAT YOU’D BE SENSITIVE ENOUGH TO SEIZE THE GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION AND NOT FUCKIN’ MESS HER UP MORE THAN SHE ALREADY IS!!!”
His mother had been gifted with some extended vocabulary since he was born, and it always made him feel good about himself to hear her love outburst in such affectionate and tender words.
He was seventeen going on eighteen, and according to his mother he had “fucked up” his life with ONE hormonal mistake. He was surrounded with kids he hated, had a mother that was Inuzuka enough to beat the crap out of him, a sister that was just waiting her moment to make minced meat out of him, a brother-in-law that would get his ass chopped of by his foot just like his brats if he didn’t learn when to shut up and finally, a dog that was laughing his head off, if that was possible, about his miseries. Ah, just great! Really! What wouldn’t he do without his happy family (A/N I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family and so on with traumatizing purple dinosaur)?
“Uh … is everything okay, over here?”
He hadn’t heard her.
Nobody had.
“God, Hina-chan, don’t ever do that again! You could’ve killed me!”
Tsume compressed her heart to put an accent to her words, shooting a menacing glance to her son.
Hinata rapidly peeked at the man sitting in front of her, damning herself for blushing under the multiple eyes of a whole family. Trying to regain some kind of composure, she tuned her attention to Hana’s to daughters, Aimeito and Tenrôsei, waving eagerly for her to sit down between them.
Noticing the light shiver running down the young woman’s spine, Tsume bit the inside of her cheek. This could truly get hellish if she encouraged this -oh! so visible- attraction between her useless son and the shy lass. However, if she didn’t, she knew she would lose her son.
Sacrificing a young virgin to calm the beast’s appetite down. How fairytale-like! Yet, this time, there would be no Prince Charming to save her from his claws … for the simple reason the young woman would be assured that the monster in reality is her knight in shining armour. Till the end. While he would be sucking her soul out, plunging her pure body in a sea of blood. Just like his father did with Tsume. She would be his chew toy until he would get tired of playing with dolls. And darkness and sorrow would follow. Love didn’t exist. It was all an affair of a sick mixture of pheromones and lust.
What wouldn’t a loving mother do for the sake of her child! What WOULDN’T she do for Kiba’s sake?
“Hum, come sit down, Hina-chan, and taste my eboshi, everybody says they’re to die for.”

°*°

Konohagakure’s streets were silent and empty. She didn’t remember them to be so. That’s why she would stroll so openly, without hiding her new colors.
Nobody nowhere …
It seemed to be spring according to all those sakura trees that had blossomed, painting the landscape in pink. Who did that color remind her of?
The perfume of the flowers had spread through all the village, making the air unbreathable. It felt bad being back. She hated that place. All the elegance was a lie, a blur. Like her life.
Had it been wise to leave Kenshi in Kisame’s, Deidara’s and … Itachi’s company? The two first ones weren’t a danger. The seal was to stable for them to attempt whatever. They needed him for at least the next nine years. He would risk no harm with them. Yet, there was Uchiwa Itachi. She wouldn’t trust him with anything linking with her. It was obvious he hated her as much as she detested him. He was this icon of her father she has dreadfully tried to break away from. No emotions, no principles, nothing, not even a spark of a soul. Just blood injected eyes.
And for him, she was somewhat of a painting he had created to express the weakness abhorred so strongly by him he had destroyed long ago. She was for him a monster of failing. He ached for killing her, smashing her frail psyche so nothing would be left of her.
And, God, she didn’t give it a damn. She was more upset about the fact that his desire of destroying could lead him in hurting her darling. And she knew that whatever he would do, she couldn’t avenge herself.
‘The fuck with Itachi, Kisame will hamper him in messing up! After all, they all need Kenshi, for a purpose or another.’
Everything was still perfect. Joy, happiness all through this land of fire.
‘Pathetic’ was the only thought that snaked in her mind. Being with people she was hanging around, she started to subside steadily in a sea of blood and darkness that brought some sarcasm and cynicism in her newly formed personality.
Being Itachi’s scapegoat, she had adopted some of his characteristic as hating everything that had a semblance of feebleness inside of it. She began to kill anything that seemed wretched to her. Anything that hadn’t possessive or egoistical as a motto. She wouldn’t be able to say she loved Kenshi like a mother would care for her child. She cherished him as a puppeteer prized his puppet. Like a tool. She needed time and fierce and he gave her that by being the supposed future slaughter of their temporary clan.
She stopped in front of an enormous steel portal above which was written in a strange occidental writing she had been educated to read, but still didn’t understand, two words: ‘Cave Canin’. According to Kiba, the one that had written this message to dissuade anybody from occident to approach his clan, it meant: “Beware of the dog”. It was a very old, extinct language he had used to mark those words, however he assured her that, if it wasn’t spoken, it was still considered as important and anybody from the other side of China would understand. It was named Latin or something like that. She remembered Neji’s face when she told him how Kiba was cultured. His big eyes had grown even wider in bewilderment, as if it was unimaginable that an Inuzuka could know anything about ancient occidental civilizations.
She sighed. An old mannerism betraying her thoughts, considered as a flaw from Itachi, she couldn’t get rid of. Tsume-sama wouldn’t be happy to finally learn what happened, especially after what occurred to Ryôshi-san. A human life squandered for nothing. That was one of the many reasons that had held her back in bringing Kenshi with her.
She would certainly be confronted with screams and swears for at least fifteen minutes, and she wanted to spear all that unhealthy excitement to a five-year-old lad that didn’t know a bit about who his family was but its name. That would be a great first impression, to view his mom being yelled at by a besieged clan leader that didn’t know who to glare at.
Pushing the gate, she felt herself sucked in the domain. It was just as she recalled. A path separating in various roads heading towards different main houses of some important family units of the clan.
And, extending itself as a dragon of black wood and shojis in front of her amazed glance was the chief house, detailing her as if it had eyes. It was still as freaking as always, even if beautiful … in a very harsh way. But this time, it wasn’t resounding with Aiken’s, Chûken’s, Genken’s, Kyôken’s, Seiken’s, Ryôken’s and Tôken’s laughs. They maybe had moved out. After all, they have long ago exceeded the Inuzuka wedding age. They must’ve founded their own family units, and had plenty of kids by now. She was almost excited to meet them. How weak! If Itachi-teme was with her, he would have killed her right there, not even leaving her the time to slide her katanas strapped on her back out of their sheaths.
Thinking about their respective names that took her a hell of a time to remember, she smiled weakly, meditating on the joke Hana had pulled out of her obligation of raising identical septuplets. Even for the Inuzukas, it was a true gag to have so many children in one shot, and this clan was known for their high breeding capacity. And then, Hana had to mess about some more and give them all dog names. Some people gave their dogs human names, and she thought it would be witty to name her sons with some deliberately chosen canine terms.
Climbing the few stairs leading to the genken, she slid the shoji, eagerly running in the building, almost yelling out for everybody to know that she was back.
Just imagining Itachi’s face at the outburst of such joy. She surely would have gotten her ass kicked so solidly that she would never felt anything on it for the rest of her life. Aww too bad that blood-sucking rodent wasn’t with her, she almost missed him.
“T-Tsume-s-sama … i-is a-anybody h-here?”
How peculiar that Inuzuka Tsume’s habitation was silent. That never happened. Even at night, when everybody was sleeping, there was this comforting buzz of snores. Kiba snored.
A strange smell flooded her. A fragrance of blood. And now, coming nearer of the Ima, she could hear a faint noise she knew too well. The one of a sword swirling through air, cutting something like flesh.
The Ima was open, and as an idiot, she just sprinted in. She, Hinata, the new one, not the old pitiable one, would have never acted so unconscientiously. Rushing to a more than palpable death.
Red blood everywhere.
Corpses laying on the tatamis.
No, still breeding. Members cut and scattered everywhere.
Almighty Tsume, begging for mercy, while a tall, wild looking man was slashing without pity the body of a younger woman. Hana.
Ashi, huffing and letting tears of blood run down his cheeks.
Two young girls.
Seven older boys.
All crying, screaming, praying for deliverance, their faces deformed in pain.
The monster turned his head, letting his long brownish hair dance around his face. He had smelled her. Brown eyes, long and elegant. A strong jaw. Beautiful hair. Long and wild. As he was.
A sadistic smile stretched his lips. He let go of the lifeless body he was hitting non-stop.
Getting nearer and nearer, stabbing her with his vicious, intoxicating glower. The smirk grew broader, noting the fright in her lavender tainted eyes.
Lifting his massive Chinese sword over her head, he let out a few words:
“Welcome back home, darling.”
Blood was truly coming out of somewhere. Out of her mouth. Something grabbed her long hair fiercely pulling her face closer to his. Onyx stained eyes lighted with some red swirls running frantically in his indifferent glance.
Tsukuyomi.
“Are you willing to ask for mercy?”
Sarcastic, hurting voice of his.
She feared her scalp to detach itself and leave her hairless.
He was this image of father.
She thanked her kami for having met him.
Byakugan and Mangyekô Sharingan fighting.
Blood rushing through her body.
Her dying.
With her last strength, she gathered the blood in her mouth and expulsed it right on his right cheek.
“Or not.”
Her head hammering the cold ground.
A smirk of satisfaction spreading across her fine traits.
Round one to Hinata.
He was this representation of father. She was grateful to Amaterasu for meeting Uchiwa Itachi. Now she could redirect her revulsion and rancour to someone else. Hiashi was back on the place of her first and only true love.
All little girls dream of marrying their father.

::Chapter 7::

No screaming, no begging, no swearing … nothing but his mother’s orders and his sister’s lamentations.
This wasn’t good. He felt the odour of death slithering on the walls of their house, filling the air around him with a disturbing aroma.
His body was numb and uncoordinated. His mind, pained and tortured.
Akamaru’s head lying on his lap was mechanically caressed by frozen fingers. His canine companion had attached himself as well to this frail being losing her life at that moment within those ramparts of wood that separated him from her.
That day he made contact with It for the first time. The first time its scornful, vicious voice sent shivers all over his body, poisoning his mind.
‘You see … she wants to die. She wants to leave you by any means. Kru, kru, kru … She knows you don’t deserve her … She loves that Hyûga guy or maybe Uzumaki … It is unfair … It is so unfair …’
In the beginning it was an almost inaudible whisper, following powerful emotions.

°*°

A high silhouette stormed out of his dwelling, not paying attention to him.
The night was blank, no stars, no moon, no light. No sounds other than those of the nurses Haruno had brought along.
One month and a half sooner than expected.
He remembered that they haven’t realized before the fourth month. How ridiculous! She did throw up a lot and often, however, even if he bugged her to go see a med-nin, she always laughed it off and teased him about him overprotecting her. And he wouldn’t insist, knowing how little she liked to undress in front of strangers. He thanked his kami he was no stranger … though if he had been one, nothing would have happened …
She was the kind to crave and hunt for sweets of all kind. Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries. Berries all over his psyche.
She would wake up in the middle of the night and roll over on his chest, while her belly allowed her to. As she still was light, she wouldn’t crush him so he wouldn’t wake up immediately. And depending on what she wanted, she had different methods to catch his attention. She could blow on his face, tickle him, pinch his cheeks, bite his neck, nibble his lower lip.
He would crack one eye open, moan or groan depending on how she managed to disturb his holy sleep.
“What’s up, Hina?” would he ask with the raspy voice he had when waking up, sliding a hand over her backbone.
“Kiba?”
“Huh?”
“I feel like strawberries.”
He would suddenly open both of his eyes to arrow them right in her pupilless pale ones. Suspiciously, he would state that there were some in the fridge of their kitchen.
She would pout and snuggle her head in his neck, sending black hair all over his face. Her words, damped by his skin, would draw a smile in his eyes, while he did his best to frown.
“I know, but … I am scared of darkness …”
He would sigh and shove her off delicately, getting up.
“Okay for this time, however, it’s the last one! You’ve got to take care of yourself. You’re not a little kid anymore.”
Yet, they both knew he would get up the next night. He simply just couldn’t say no to her. It was as if she controlled him. Since the day he asked for her hand, she intruded his soul, twirling herself around him and asphyxiating him as a python …
God did he love this sentiment of dependence.
It was venom crossing the trails his veins were, poisoning his mind, drowning him in the drool of his own heart. She was a spell turning him in a wandering spirit, looking for a harbour. She was everything from his childhood to his manhood, or nothing else than a lost memory attaching him to her.
She was like opium, obsessing him so only she could remain.
When he would come back with whatever she had demanded, he would find her sitting on her ankles, her upper body lightly tilted forwards, her little hands posed in between the gap of her knees, stopping her from falling asleep.
She reminded him of Akamaru when he was a puppy.
Letting her be, freeing her from all kind of cruelties she was used to, belittling words, he had awoken a new Hinata, the one that she had to be. She needed care, affection, company … and he had always been willing to give her all those things.
He would hand her the fruits, looking at her grabbing them as if they were jewels. She was so easily satisfied … well, not in all matters.
He knew she didn’t love him. Still, their relationship was based on trust and a hard friendship. And it was enough for the moment. They wanted to live their lives together, get old one beside the other. Most of the time, it was easier when love wasn’t implied. His sister was a good example of that theory.
Before marrying Ashi, at fifteen, five months before the septuplets’ birth, she was in a relationship with Ryôshi. Since they were three have they been chasing after each other, yet one night had been enough for everything to stumble. Ryôshi made the big mistake of leaving his best friend and girlfriend with enough sake to drown an army, wanting to escape their non-stopping quarrels.
What had to happen occurred.
Before Ryôshi could even blink, Hana was married to his best friend, obliging him to be his best-friend’s best man, and giving birth to SEVEN bloody brats. But their union wasn’t a catastrophe like everybody had expected. Living together calmed both of them down to the point that Ashi’s vocabulary didn’t contain the word “anger” anymore. They were very harmonized with each other. And he didn’t recall any problems in their couple. The only one to be pitied was the fop. Nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, the bad guy always gets the girl. In your face, Hyûga genius.
Sadness flooded him while glancing at her. She still was a caged bird. She was not displaying the Bunke seal, but her wings were troubled in spreading out. She maybe fled her cage, he perhaps liberated her from her chains … yet something stayed behind. It was in her head. He had seen the marks on her back, around her legs, on her ribs, around her neck, and still, she was buying flowers each Sunday and heading towards the Hyûga graveyard to pray on her father’s and mother’s sepulchre. He would have been just too glad to be allowed to follow her just to explode Hyûga Hiashi’s tombstone and spit on his ashes.
She was too forgiving. That was maybe what he appreciated the most in her very flexible character.
However, even if she was enchained in somehow of a complex of Stockholm, there was no will in living. Actually, she was by his side, breathing, because she knew she was needed by him. Before, she didn’t dare undermine her life, being aware of the fact, that her father would harm somebody else, not having her around. It was a big mistake, but she realized way too late.
Yet, her father was dead, her clan never reclaimed her, her sister refused to share her existence in her company. Who else was left to her than him? He would be there for her until death slipped between them and tore them apart. Little did he know that she would be first to depart for the Grand March.
But for how long could he stay by her side, keeping her from doing some stupid things to herself?
Strangely, since the day he refused becoming ANBU for the second time, the missions he was sent to were getting longer and more dangerous each time. Akamaru had also noticed the changes. His A-ranked assignments gave more the impression of being like S-ranked to him. Maybe was it just him getting lame …
He sneered, redirecting his attention to the petite figure cutting off in the darkness.
Hinata was so loveable, taking pleasure in eating those little red fruits. She would seize one in between her forefinger and thumb and lift it towards her pulpous minute mouth, where pearl-white teeth were awaiting to cut the strawberry in half.
There was something sadistic in the way she would lick her lips after having swallowed her piece. As if there was some blood on them, and she didn’t want to lose the precious liquid before having tasted it.
As she wasn’t paying attention, he rapidly snatched a berry from the porcelain bowl. It was the last one, so when she extended her arm to reach for it, she couldn’t but be startled at the fact that it had disappeared.
Enjoying the view of her puzzled features, he couldn’t help smirking.
“Kiba!”
She pointed a pale finger on him.
“You stole my strawberry!”
He chuckled, shaking his head.
“Liar!”
He stuck out his tongue, replying playfully:
“Innocent until proven guilty.”
And as to prove his guilt, he threw the berry and waited for it to fall in his wide open mouth.
She pouted lovely, turning her head to the side, ignoring his mocking apologies. She never had understood how dangerous it was to break a staring contest with Kiba. Or, perhaps, did she want him to jump on her and pin her on their futon, before hungrily attacking her mouth.

°*°

Before they would put a finger on her problem, she would run out of their bedroom towards the washroom, and vomit her heart out.
Since it wasn’t stopping, but increasing each day, offering her a day long of migraines, the thought of him being the cause of her new illness stroke his mind. After all, there were married only since seven months, so maybe was she starting to realize some disgust for him …
Her vomiting made her very feeble, and in one month did she lose the little weight she had gained during those same seven months. It wasn’t as if she had melted, but she was sharper, trenchant, physically talking. She reminded him of an ANBU sword. Her skin had the same glow as the steel of a katana.
And then, one day, not at all different from any other day, he remembered how Hana had acted while pregnant of her twin daughters. She had also suffered of severe heaves of stomach, just like Hinata.
It had hit him like a tribe of infuriated wolves running after a prized prey. For those past four months, she hadn’t pushed him away once! There were always those three days in a month she wouldn’t want him to try anything on her (A/N yes my dears, Kiba is such a beast in bed), and he wouldn’t insist, being aware of how women could get moody in that period, and after all, as kind and discreet she could be, she was a woman. But for the last four months, he didn’t remember having to take a forced break. Not once. And Kami! When it was up to that, he had a very detailed and clear memory.
‘Oh, fuck!’
He didn’t like and never wanted children. They were loud and clumsy, impolite and vicious. However, he remembered that he had stipulated in their verbal contract preceding their union that Hinata and him would have children. Not one kid, but children. Still, he had hoped that by a miracle he would become sterile. Not impotent though, it would have been too cruel for both of them.
“Oh, Kami!”
He had let go of her hair, to pass his hand through his own rough, dark strands.
How could he have overseen something so obvious? He was so absurdly oblivious, if not dense! He couldn’t blame it on Hinata. She was way too distracted to realize anything, always running in between Inuzuka puppies; diplomatic paper work for the Godaime that had almost bullied her into summarizing one by one all the papers she was sent to steal some years ago from potentially dangerous kages; her sister and him. She truthfully had no time to think coherently. She even once tried to feed a puppy with a treaty between Sunagakure and Konohagakure, and had brought a bottle of milk back to Tsunade.
He, though, was another story! If he wasn’t on stalking missions or training younger dogs, he had plenty of free time to meditate about his life, his dreams, his future, his present, his past and read books and maybe, if it wouldn’t cause a contusion to his atrophied brain, review his ACTIONS.

°*°

He overheard a shriek at last. It was a horrible blood-icing noise. Another followed not long after. He somehow felt attracted to them. Yet he was not willing to discover her deadened body, covered in gore, so refrained his urge to check on those cries.
Akamaru removed his head from Kiba’s lap, standing up on his paws and raising his head towards the sky. He howled with respect, surprising the Inuzuka. Following his glance, Kiba caught a sinister blister on the black scarf of night. There was no moon, but Sirius still shone in his modest light.
An omen.
Never did Sirius shine without the moon to protect it like a possessive lover.
What did this prophecy mean? Death was so near, wrapping her arms around the frail silhouette that was pacing each one of his breaths. He would have to fight a force much stronger than him. Perhaps was he wrong thinking he could attack fate. Maybe Hyûga was right. Fate was death and he was Sirius trying to release the moon from the ties of night. He knew that his life with Hinata would be tracked. She was the last of those wallflowers, elegant, beautiful, spreading the most crazing scent around her. Which meant she was too precious. Was his pure worship enough to fight not only a man encaged by his feelings for her but also Death, the mistress of his lover? She was lonely in gorgeous pearl-like tears. Lonely. The last of one kind.
Could he believe that he himself was lost in her gorgeous tears? Could he realize it before they would drown together?
Hinata was ephemeral, a butterfly, a may-fly, not meant to live, just to dream … He was a straying dog, just strong enough to howl to Death to leave him a little more time with his ethereal mistress … Neji was the night, strong enough to engulf Hinata’s light with one move, but not willing to harm her little fragile wings.
They were all stuck in a phantasm, a fantasy.

°*°

He entered his dwelling.
He had been called in by his mother.
He didn’t feel at all like going in.
He was scared, afraid, ready to flee. So frightened to find out that all those months he kissed a white porcelain skin were nothing more than the chimera of a delusional fool.
He had known having kids would bring them bad luck. Yet, she had been so happy. Her eyes sparkled, her mouth always was pulled in a grin, a fucking Naruto-like grin, she couldn’t restrain herself from humming those Nagauta (A/N traditional Japanese songs) her mother had once taught her and she remembered partially, she gave it all she got to tease him, spoil him with delicious food.
He couldn’t have taken away her joy. He never would have pardoned himself if the thought had even brushed over his mind.
He stepped into his neat kitchen. It was one of an occidental style he personally disliked … like the whole house but their bedroom. However, as it had been his mother’s first residence, he couldn’t even dream about doing any changes, therefore he stopped complaining long ago.
Tsume was sitting by a wooden table, a cup of tea clutched by her strong hands.
Her dark eyes were blank, as if crystallised. No emotion was displayed on her regular features.
Pulling a chair out, he sat right in front of her, darting his ablaze orbs into her lifeless ones.
“We have a problem …”
Her voice matched her expression, cold, almost pitiless.
“Really?!”
His sarcasm didn’t seem to disturb her. He noticed stains of gore all over the white tunic she was wearing to sleep. His breathing fastened as a stingy feeling installed itself in his gullet. He was so hurt, but couldn’t bring himself to shred one tear.
“Hinata is actually being taken care of by Haruno-san’s nurses. As we have foreseen, she lost a lot of blood, but fortunately, her sister, residing at the hospital, had agreed to donate, so there were no complications in this matter. Unfortunately, her heart flinched during the caesarean, because the only anaesthesia medicament there was at hand was morphine. Of course, adrenaline was injected, and her state seems stable. But because of those major difficulties, she will not be able to be transported to the hospital, so some nurses will install them for the next week. Gather your belongings. To not disturb those women you will be leaving with us until her health improves enough for your clumsiness to be bared again.”
He was not used hearing his mother talking this way, especially about topics concerning her precious dear daughter-in-law. An unknown pain travelled from his spine to his legs. He shivered.
A door opened and closed right after.
A smallish pink-haired woman passed right before him. Her hands were covered in blood, her mouth drawn in a thin line. She seemed to be broiling dark thoughts …

°*°

A pale hand clasped desperately the sleeve of his haori.
Kiba pushed it violently away, making the petite body kneeling in front of him cry out.
“Don’t touch me, you wench!”
He wanted her cool fingers trailing on his boiling skin. Like before. Before Hanabi’s death, before the Yaken, before the betrayal.
Her misty eyes were inspecting with pain, apologetically, full of terror his being.
“I hate you!”
‘I love you!’
“Leave me alone forever!”
‘Please stay by my side.’
“I don’t want to have this constant image of your pathetic self in front of me!”
‘I need to see your smile, your pout, anything. I need to see you. I need you.’
“Go fuck that Naruto or your precious Neji-nii-san! Seems like it’s the only thing you’re good at!”
‘I beg you, don’t betray me again.’
“You’re disgusting me!”
‘You’re my strongest obsession.’
“You’re so weak, it’s insulting to be seen with you.”
‘Nobody’s worth for you to bow your head.’
Tears. Those same gorgeous pearl-like tears they were drowning in not so long ago. Milky ice leaking from her black eyelashes. Her full lips distorted in a grimace. He craved to kiss them. Her cheeks were flaming. He wished he could extend his hand to stroke them.
He loved her so much. That was why Hinata and Kenshi had to be removed, taken away from his sight.
He became a monster, his only presence endangering his family.
The only one tolerating him would be Akamaru, his only loyal friend. She would tell him she could bear him as well, not knowing that at night his hands were crawling up her neck, thinking what a wonderful corpse she would be. He couldn’t afford killing the only good part of him, he preferred losing to another man.
She would run back to Neji and Fuyubi. Kenshi would have a brother.
He glimpsed at the four-year-old boy sitting on Akamaru’s back. He never should have let Fuyubi slip away. Selling his own blood to save a clan that at the end would manage killing him.
Leaving, he could hear her scream for help.
“KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKIIIIIIIIIIIIBBBBBBBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!”

°*°

Always those same memories he couldn’t erase.
One of his women stoked his torso another played with his thighs. He pushed them both away. Women were all whores.
He took in a sharp puff of opium out of his pipe. The drogue of oblivion. He had the strange impression it didn’t work as well on him as it should have. It was now almost two years he hadn’t seen her and started intoxicating him to forget, and still all those memories of their skin entering in contact remained. The birth of their sons, the betrayal to each other, all those sad but happy memories were still present. Maybe was it this painting of a beautiful black-haired woman with pale eyes he had insisted an artist to do without model and that was presently hung right in front of him, or all those women with black hair, pale skin and enormous eyes he was fucking lately, that were making him go crazy. He had no idea. Knowing him it could be anything. He was already crazy.
‘Indeed you are …’
A moan escaped his lips, attracting those whores he didn’t even remember bringing over. Perhaps another gift from the Tsuchikage? This man truly didn’t know how to offer presents.
“Fuck off before I kill you!”
“Hm! Yajû-sama (A/N yajû means beast, wild animal) is mean with us! But maybe didn’t he receive enough affection?”
The younger lass tried to graze over a scar on his arm, but he just moved her little hand away.
“You better leave me before I get a grip on your filthy beings.”
The other one chuckled, before replying sweetly:
“We’ll be back tonight, just for Yajû-sama …”
Why was the Tsuchikage insisting for him to have a harem? Oh, right! For the beauty with strange eyes painted on the wall of his room not to make his dear toy and personal bodyguard go completely insane.
Once the two sluts were gone, his shoulders relaxed while his mouth took in another draught of the silver steam, only cure for a broken heart.
Forget.
Forget.
Forget.
Forget her pain, your pain.
Forget the curse on both your existences.
Hinata where are you?

::Chapter 8::

He hated all those machines surrounding her, buzzing non-stop around her sickly pale face.
Weren’t medic-nins healing with chakra? They told him they would prefer not to use it on her. Something about Hyûgas rejecting extern chakra and complications he didn’t understand at all.
Closing the door behind him with no excessive noises, he approached the bed were she was lying. They had removed the enormous pipe shoved in her throat a week ago, so her lips were closed on her pearl-like teeth.
To his mother’s demand, she had been placed in a private room for her to recover in peace. It was better like that, taking in account that anything could disturb her rest once she came out of her coma.
He sat down on the chair beside her bed, gazing at her relaxed features. Her long eyelashes bordered by brown circles around her eyes send shadows on her pale cheeks.
Her lips parted a little in her sleep, calling a faint smile upon his lips. Snaking his hand through the covers that were maintaining the temperature of her body on a convenient degree, making sure not to disturb all the intravenous injections swirling around her arms, he searched for a hand to caress. Once he had found it, he couldn’t but notice the freshness of her skin. The blood had difficulty to circulate through her narrow veins. However, the medics did not pay any attention to it. After all, wasn’t she an Inuzuka? A filthy half-breed, or even worse, the human mother of a filthy half-breed. A traitor to the human race, a goddess of evil and orgies, meant to expand her damnation all over her environs.
Frankly, before he hadn’t cared for the prejudice and hate Konohans had towards his family, however, he couldn’t bear to see them slowly suffocating his precious may-fly, his wife. The only times she was awake, it was to be tortured by nurses and medic-nins that enjoyed her dolour. They would make her stand-up, ignoring the tears of pain and sufferance filling her ponds of melted silver, and walk all the way towards the washroom without any assistance, her minute hands grasping to the drip she was pulling with her like a bullet. As she was not of the kind to complain, she would swallow the ache and courageously drag herself towards the bathroom, not requesting any help.
Once, while such a situation was occurring, he had entered the room, eager to see his loved one, but was not welcomed by the scene he had expected. Hinata was gripping the drip with all her strength, close to fainting, the blood of her face drained towards her lips, her jaw contracted, and drops of sweat appearing on her forehead, making little, insignificant steps, as two nurses were chatting in the corner of her room. Hadn’t Haruno forbidden her strictly to walk? Of course, he had hurried to raise her in his arms and escort her to the restroom, pulling the drip along. Once she had been laying, protected in her bed and drowning in covers, he had taken the nurses outside, quite decided to literally kick their lazy asses.
The only answer he had received as to explain their disgusting behaviour was that Hinata was not the only woman that had given birth to kids and that the others were gone by now. In other words, she was exaggerating according to them. First of all, there were no other women that had given birth to two kids after only seven months and a half of incubation, without sedatives nor epidural and right in the middle of a caesarean had some kind of a slight heart attack. And if there were, well, there was no way they had survived. The words that were pronounced by their fucking unfair mouths could have cost them their lives if Kiba hadn’t controlled himself, which did not happen often.
He was paying for their assistance, for the medics and for the room, so it was not to them to tell him when and why Hinata had to go back to one normal existence. So if needed, she would stay there for the next six months and that was final.
He had been sitting there for a while now, cursing stupid nurses under his breath, one hand clutching to hers, the other holding an orange book he didn’t know why everybody was making a fuss of. It was quite a lame story, a parody of love. And, since he had found his one and only, he didn’t find what there was interesting in pursuing stupid relationships based on sexual intercourses that dared to be called love.
She stirred in her bed, announcing her awakening. He took his eyes off his book, a fake beam painting his lips.
“You woke up.”
His statement sounded strange even to his own ear, but it only made her uncover the rare treasures her eyes were, vaguely turning the edges of her lips. It clearly meant she was happy to see him. A little squeeze on his hand proved it.
“How do you feel today?”
She frowned somewhat and raised a pasty, shaking hand towards her throat. They had removed the enormous pipe quite a while ago, but she still felt pain. Naturally, she had tried to talk properly, only to let pass some low growls.
“It still hurts, huh?”
She nodded, pouting. He posed his book on the table adjacent to her bed, using the freed hand to pass his fingers over the skin of her cheek heating up. She closed her eyes to fully enjoy the contact, pushing her head towards his hand so he would completely cup her face, feeling the brush of his lips on her dry ones.
Once he broke the link, she followed his movements to sit back, with her entirely awoken eyes, seeking contact with his own glance. Their hands under the covers, interlaced as secret lovers, had never let go of each other, clasping harder than ever before. If she couldn’t let vocals escape her throat, she at least could form silent words with those lips he praised, attracting Kiba’s attention towards them.
‘How is he?’ did he read. His eyes saddened at once. It was hurting him not to hear her ask for the two of them. But she couldn’t know. She once would pass by his side, perhaps sending him a grin, never realizing that they had a link. He would be a full Hyûga, the chief’s son, the future leader, while her days would be filled with the other one, depriving this head of a clan in becoming of a mother.
Kiba felt like a monster, having sold his own blood, having betrayed his love, only to save his unworthy life.
And he would keep lying, never turning back to truth.
“He’s quite little, not bigger than my palm.”
He showed her his hand. Tears welled up in her orbs. She wasn’t even a good breeder. Her mouth formed the word ‘sorry’, while streams of crystal sank down her cheekbones he had lovingly touched not so long before.
“What are you sorry about? Such cases as ours happen quite often in the family. Me, for example. I was born two months early, in the middle of a battle. According to Hana, it was really funny to see mom with a newly born babe in her arms, slaying enemies and yelling I was a hellish, hurtful mistake and that she would drown me like a straying cat if I didn’t shut up.”
Hinata stopped crying, her already big eyes widening. It was so like Tsume to be courageous and combative so her son could see how the world was wonderful. And what was she doing? Lying in a hospital bed, when her own son maybe needed her assistance.
He could see determination installing itself in her eyes. She wanted to be a good mother, and there was no doubt she would be, while he just screwed his part as a father.
He miserably smiled for a second time. Why was the world doing that to them?

°*°

“We shall discuss some matters, Kiba.”
He sat on the tatami in his mother’s office, bowing respectfully, understanding the fact he wasn’t talking to his mother, but to Tsume-sama.
“First of all, congratulations! I hope you will be a better father than shinobi …”
The joke was heavy and only added to the growing tension. He frowned of displeasure. That same morning, a week after what he liked to call the slaughter, Hinata had been moved to the hospital, where his sons were awaiting her. She hadn’t woken up once and the possibility of her kidney threatening to abandon function forbid the medic-nins to feed her in any way. In other words, he felt like the only good part of him was dying just by his side and he found himself unable to help her. Truly, it had been one great week!
Tsume cleared her throat, visibly uncomfortable.
“I have to talk to you about your first born.”
He almost pierced his mother with his stern glower. His first born was his favourite in a way. Even if he was mostly the cause of all the complications. He really was big for his age, weighing the same as any other infant born after nine months. But not only that. He was a real hell raiser. He had went a few times to the hospital to give a glimpse through the pane separating the tots of the extern world, not especially worried about the fact his son was the only one not to have a tag stating his family name on his tiny wrist, only to see him yell his lungs out whenever anybody dared touching him. He was calm all alone, however, when a nurse dared approaching to cuddle him, he would almost explode. He would get all red of anger and start shrieking as if a demon inhabited him. Yet, without crying one tear.
‘Heh! Show them they’re not your mother.’
Even if it seemed he was starting to have the Inuzuka stubbornness, he was all Hinata. His hair seemed slightly paler, more of a very dark brown than black, and it did appear that he would be honoured with the Inuzuka nose, but that was about it. He had her chin, the form of her face, her lips. His cheekbones would be faintly higher, but not much. And his eyes! Melted silver captured in the same long eyelashes. When he opened them, deploying his thick dark lashes, Kiba had the impression a part of Hinata’s soul was imprisoned in him. It only pushed him to adore this little imp.
The other kid as well was treasured. However, Kiba had only seen him once. He was a tiny piece of nothing, desperately clinging to life. He gave the impression of having paler hair, more like Kiba, his eyes, Tsume’s mouth, Hana’s nose. A pure Inuzuka if it wasn’t for the frailness of his health. The older one seemed to have had the monopole over the mother’s body. Each time, he recalled the other baby, tears would start welling up in his eyes, only to be swallowed back. He even had taken the habit of going, each morning to the shintô temple, near the edge of the woods, where he had married her, only to pray for her and the younger one’s lives. He was even very generous when it came to money. Just with what he had given in two days, the monks could wear golden robes.
“Kiba, we have to get rid of the kid as fast as we can.”
‘What?!’
“What are you talking about?”
His tone stayed calm and cold, while his heart was beating like crazy, not believing the words that had escaped the mouth of his mother. Tsume was quite a peculiar woman, but she couldn’t be implying killing his son. WHAT WAS ALL THAT HELL?!
He was getting angry, not receiving an answer at the very moment.
Tsume sighed, knowing very well that it would be difficult to discuss with her son in such a situation. He was tensed and scared to death. A wounded wolf, barely walking, breathing, still ready to defend his territory with the strength of despair. Yet she had to push some sense in his thick scull, for the well-being of the clan. There was no way, she would let him keep that little time bomb. That little time bomb with a fucking Byakugan.
She peeked at his hands on his laps, nails biting down the flesh of his thighs through the fabric of his hakama. Why was he wearing a hakama? Oh right, he went to the shrine again. She had to focus, not let herself be distracted. Knowing him, he would jump at the occasion to run away.
“Kiba.”
Her voice became colder, trenchant.
“The kid has a Byakugan. And as you know, Hyûgas are very sensitive when it comes to there bloodline. We shall hand them the baby before they learn from anybody else that he has an active Byakugan. For the well-being of the clan.”
It was said. Everything had been stated, and now it was up to them to accomplish their fate. He stood up, not replying at all, glaring highly at the leader still kneeling. He turned his heels heading to the exit.
“Then it seems the well-being of the clan will have to suffer.”
“KIBA! WE ARE A TRIBE WITHOUT ANY LINK TO KONOHA! WE ARE ALONE! WE GET EXPLOITED BY THEM, PROTECTING THE LITTLE FREEDOM LEFT TO US! I CANNOT LET YOU DESTROY EVERYTHING WE HAVE BEEN WORKING FOR FOR DECADES! YOU WILL OBEY ME, AS AN INUZUKA!”
‘The clan? Heh, who cares?! Take the girl and leave this fuckin’ place. You don’t need a family, you don’t need anything but pleasure.’
“I spit on the clan, I spit on the name. I don’t care. We can move and live our lives without being part of this family. I will not sell my blood.”
Her voice smoothened, becoming sly and pernicious.
“…Than, you are ready to spit on both of your sons and Hinata...”
He stopped all motion, freezing at once.
“Kiba, my son. There is no way they will let you keep the kid. There are strong, powerful. The council is full of Hyûgas. Even the Godaime can’t do anything against them. But not only will they take him from you, but being aware of the fact that we don’t have the exile contract between them and Hinata, they will ask for her and the other kid. And you will not be able to fight against them either. You can be damned or you can walk in light. Choose your way. But be sure that if you don’t choose the light, she will suffer much more than you. After all, isn’t she the traitor that gave birth to filthy half-breeds?”
He slowly turned around, the thought of losing his only illumination in darkness making all his defences shatter. A sigh of pain came from his lungs, while he approached his mother.

°*°

Hyûga Neji felt more than uncomfortable at the moment. He was surrounded by highly irritated Inuzukas frowning at him and his pretentious behaviour. In front of him was Inuzuka Tsume sitting, a grimace on her lips, on her right side, her daughter and heir was cuddling a whimpering little bundle of cotton covers, while on the other side of his mother, Kiba was blankly looking in front of him, not meeting anybody’s glance, his fists clenched.
He knew why his presence had been required, and he couldn’t but accept to show himself, under the orders of the clan’s Elders. He did not at all approve of tearing a kid of his mother. However, his egoistical little self, desired to take away this little part of the man sitting by his mother’s side. Inuzuka Kiba had to suffer just as much as he had when HIS Hinata had been taken away from him.
“If I understand well, Inuzuka-sama, you want me to hand in all the papers concerning Hyûga Hinata, in exchange of the bearer of a Byakugan she had given birth to, am I right?”
“Indeed, you are, Hyûga-sama.”
“Don’t you think it would be to her to decide if she wants her son to be raised by the Hyûga house?”
Tsume let out a laughter that seemed more to be a howl, which made Kiba frown even more. His mother had a great advantage taking in account that the man she was dealing with hated the father and loved the mother of the kid he was being offered. She would win however it turned out.
“Hyûga, you little shit! Who do you think you’re talking to? I am Inuzuka Tsume! The leader of the Inuzuka clan. I decide what happens with my people, not any of my vassals, and if I say I do not want to have some filthy Byakugan in my family, I will not allow anybody to question my decisions. For me Hyûgas are sick, filthy scum Konoha should get rid of, and as to show the example I am getting rid of the kid. You can take it, you are not obliged to, I don’t care at all, because the Inuzukas are not going to keep it.”
Her words seemed harsh and cruel, but her family knew better. Tsume loved her grandchildren and never cared about whatever they looked like, she just attached herself to them and once she was linked with them, she wouldn’t want to let them go. It made her heart bleed of sadness only to say those words, and even more to being obliged to lie to Hinata, who shall never know of his existence.
Neji sighed in some sick mix of sadness and triumph at the eyes of Inuzuka Kiba, ready to go hang himself. He was suffering very hard. The little bundle of covers whimpered some more, while Hana tried to calm it down. Neji glimpsed over there, thinking on how the little one would grow up to look like Hinata. But still, he was only three weeks old, and he couldn’t imagine how he would survive without a mother to take care of it.
“He is only three weeks old …”
“Therefore, we have appointed an Inuzuka as wet nurse for the next six months.”
She clapped her hands for a young woman, not older than Hinata herself, to enter, holding a babe by her own. She bowed respectfully to Tsume and turned herself to the Hyûga to greet him and introduce herself.
“She is ready to leave at the minute for the Hyûga compound. You just have to sign a paper, and an heir will be handed over to you …”
This woman truly was the devil in person. She was so convincing.
“Where do I sign?”
She beamed openly at her own victory, pointing with her index at the thin line where his name had to be apposed.
“As for the kid’s name? Do you have any idea, Hyûga-sama?”
Her voice became softer, maybe even mocking.
“Asahi.”
Hinata had told him once she loved the morning sun, and that her first born would be named in honour of it.
“No.”
The first word Kiba had pronounced since the beginning of the reunion.
This name wasn’t meant to be given to a kid being separated from his mother, being condemned to a life within the cold walls of the Hyûga compound. He knew this child would turn out as cold and expressionless as the man that was willing to adopt him. He would be the light of winter, just taunting life, not aiding anybody.
“Fuyubi. Call him like your clan is.”
Those words did not sound like his usual self. Fuyubi wouldn’t be a name he would have given anybody, not even to a dog. Winter sun. Fuyubi, the cold light of his hate towards the Hyûgas.
Why had this to happen to them? Why couldn’t they live like a normal family, with normal offspring?

°*°

He was quite scared. The people living by his side had always told him that Inuzukas were monstrous beasts, not worthy living. He had seen some of them. They seemed turbulent and impolite, acting before thinking. However, they also gave the impression of being so free. They would run in the streets, get all dirty, followed by their puppies and even get their buttocks kicked by merchants without losing their smiles. Their laughter was so relieving. Of course, him, he couldn’t act so lightly. He was the Hyûga heir, and Hyûgas always acted like their rank imposed it to them, without any outbursts of emotions.
He lowered his eyes at the picture held by his white fingers. She was so beautiful. He couldn’t believe she was his oka-san. She had long black hair and an angelic face. He was sure she was the most beautiful woman in the world. On the photograph, she was sitting on a dangerous looking man’s lap, while a one-year-old tot was pulling her hair. He didn’t like the man. He seemed very mean and violent and the tot on the image was just like him. It was strange to look at her, surrounded by them. Like a rose encircled by poison ivy.
He shivered at the thought.
Raising his eyes towards the sign adorning a thick metallic door, he read ‘Inuzuka’. He took a sharp breath in, encouraging him by discussing with himself.
“You’re great, Fuyubi! Rookie of the year, at six! You’re a genius, Fuyubi! Nobody can harm you!”
A genius? What was a genius again? Everybody was calling him that. Was it an insult? No, it appeared more like praise. When people called him that, his oto-san would always ruffle his hair.
Once he had trespassed on the Inuzuka entrance, he headed right to the first black, traditional like house he was seeing. It must have been the leader’s house. If it was like the Hyûga compound, he would find there all the information about the woman he was looking for. Hyûga Hinata. What a wonderful name. It sounded quite good. He preferred it mightily to Inuzuka Hinata as his father was always calling her.
He knew he shouldn’t be there. He should’ve been training by himself in the dojo, since his father had no time for him that day, but he just couldn’t restrain his curiosity anymore. He had waited six years for that day. He wanted to hear her voice his father described as sweet and caring, and to touch the skin that must have been silky and smelling good.
He knocked on the shoji of the house, waiting for it to slide from the inside.
A man appeared.
“What can I do for you, sweetie?”
Why was everybody interpellating him as if he was a girl? He did have long hair but his father as well and nobody dared calling him a girl.
When he raised his enormous gleaming lavender orbs towards the man, he froze.
“Come in.”
He haven’t even had the time to tell him what he wanted, but was pulled in.
“Hana, come here!”
A woman, her arms full of a three-year-old toddler, stuck her head out of a doorway. Catching a glimpse of him, she gasped, almost making the little tot fall out of her arms.
“MOM! MOM, COME HERE! YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!”
What was happening? Had he done something bad? He just wanted some information, nothing else. However before he knew it, he was sitting in an Ima, a cup of tea and mochi disposed in front of him while six enormous brown eyes contemplated each one of his movements.
He became all red, flushing at all that attention.
“Hana, did you see that? He blushes just like her! But he doesn’t look like him at all!”
“I am not blind, Ashi! And thank Kami he doesn’t have any similarities with him, his life wouldn’t be easy! But look at his eyes, the same! They have the same eyes!”
“What did you expect, idiotic daughter? He after all is her son! And if Hyûga had even dared touching him, he would have been dead for a while now!”
“Uhm … I … uhm … w-would … l-like to kn-know where I c-could f-find Hyûga Hinata-san …”
Oh, no, not the stutter again! It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it was always when he was ill at ease.
“Oh, dear!”
A sigh escaped the older woman.
“She does not live here anymore, Fuyubi-kun.”
Huh? They knew his name? Woah!
The younger woman had a sweet voice.
“Oh, uhm, o-okay! Iamsorryforthedisturbance!”
He wanted to stand up and run away as fast as he could, before the furi of his haori was seized by the man’s hand that said in a quite voice:
“Sit down, Fuyubi-kun.”
He obeyed, not willing to have problems.
The older woman took a sip of her tea, before smiling melancholically to the boy.
“You are six years old, aren’t you, Fuyubi-kun?”
He nodded.
“Then I have a gift for you.”
His eyes widened in disbelief. He didn’t even know that woman and she was willing to offer him something.
“Hana, go fetch the furisode for me.”
A furisode? A FURISODE ?! Why was everybody taking her - he meant him- for a girl?!
Once the younger woman came back, she handed a white large box to the older one, who pushed it towards him.
“Open it.”
He obeyed. He slid the lid open, revealing the back of a black silk. There was flame encompassing the kanji of ‘Hi’, the fire and the first syllable of his oka-san’s name, which was surrounded by a plant of lavender, the same his father was lovingly taking care of.
A smell of berries and lavender escaped it, engulfing him.
“She wore it at her wedding.”
“It … s-smells good …”
“It’s her smell.”
He extended a hand to take a little handkerchief lying on the black fabric. When he opened it, it was to discover a dried stem of lavender, its perfume making him almost cry.
Where was this Hyûga … Inuzuka Hinata?

::Chapter 9::

He looked at Hanabi that was helping her sister dress up, while he himself was busy gently lulling a five-month old Kenshi.
“What are you looking at, you mutt?”
He really felt accepted by his sister-in-law that had opposed herself to their union in the middle of the event, overlooking the fact that it was a shintô ceremony and that the monk had not asked for her agreement.
“Be polite, you bigmouthed … sister of Hinata’s!”
“Hn.”
People could say whatever they wanted. Hanabi was neither crazy nor delusional, tortured for sure, but nothing else. And even if she wasn’t anymore under her clan’s jurisdiction, she still considered herself as well as her sister as Hyûgas, and Hyûgas do not marry Inuzukas. Such rational thoughts only proved she was perfectly sane. A delusional Hanabi would have enjoyed the fact of her sister having found somebody to be loved by, however the real Hanabi preferred insulting that mutt that served HER Hinata as husband.
Kenshi let out a little whimper.
“What does auntie’s little Kenshi have? Is it the big mutt that’s scaring auntie’s little baby?”
She may have been thirteen but if she didn’t shut up soon, the big evil mutt would kick her out with all his strength.
“Why did you call him Kenshi anyway? It is quite an ugly name for a kid. Not as hideous as Kiba but still quite inconvenient.”
Before he could even open his mouth to reply sourly, Hinata’s recovered voice resonated in the room.
“I like the name. I wanted something that could refer to his clan as much as to his parents.”
Kenshi and Kiba. The canine (A/N if my dictionary is right canine is a synonym for fang) and the fang.
She stood up, wobbly on her feet. Five months. Five months of sitting around and not doing anything but reading and writing, waiting for her son to pull through. He was so tiny … so fragile. Just as Hanabi had been. A little baby that needed care and love.
She didn’t care about her health. She would’ve gone away right when she woke up if it wasn’t for him. She had waited, she had prayed, she had begged, and finally she had him, with her.
“What are you daydreaming about again, nee-san?”
She glanced at her sister, now holding the baby that fell asleep right away. Kiba, haven’t found anything to occupy himself with, not having moved from his chair, in the corner of the room, was at the moment sulking and cursing his sister-in-law under his breath.
“Huh? Uh, nothing.”
“Than take the kid and go away. Kami! I’ve been waiting for you to get ready for over two hours. Of course, if HE …” She accusingly pointed at Kiba. “…hadn’t disturbed you, we would’ve finished packing up way sooner.”
Indeed, early in the morning, without any consideration for her nee-san’s rest, not knowing that in reality at the moment she hadn’t any, Hanabi stormed into Hinata’s hospital room, to help her get ready. As she hadn’t paid any attention to her footsteps, she had almost found herself tripping over a cover that mysteriously was lying on the floor. Raising her head towards the bed in front of her, a very infrequent blush appeared on her features, proving her to be Hinata’s sibling.
This said sister had her arms loosely crossed around one tall brown-haired man’s neck, her slender legs tangled in some way more muscled ones, while the man’s hungry mouth was grazing the skin on her collarbone. They were making out in a HOSPITAL bed. In a HOSPITAL BED! They may have been all dressed and everything, it still was impolite to do such things in a public place. What if a nurse entered the room?! (A/N I tell you what if! If that nurse was just half as idiotic as that Haruno girl, she would be taking notes on ‘how to make out on a hospital bed’ … Sorry for Sakura fans, and relax, no Sakura bashing here)
She tried to hide her sadness and jealousy under shock.
She was envious. So jealous of her older sibling. When they were kids, Hanabi had always been oto-san’s little girl. Hinata was the unworthy, hated first born. She would observe her sister getting beat up and spat at with a smirk, enjoying her pain. However, it didn’t last. That mission … it shattered her life. She felt pain as well. But, oto-san didn’t care. He just threw her away.
‘She’s useless now. What do you want me to do with her?!’
She was expecting everybody to reject her the same way. She desired everybody to do so. To cut the strings and to let her divert like an abandoned vessel. Yet, Hinata had to change everything, to do as she felt.
‘It’s okay, Hanabi-nee-chan. It’s finished now. I am here …’
Yes, she had been there, without grudge, without mockeries. Hinata-nee-san. The woman with an iron mind … the weakest link of the Hyûga housing? What was she? Whatever you did to her, she could ignore it and still love you. The marks all over her body and the flowers on their father’s grave proved it.
And yet, Hanabi found the strength to envy her, to hate this poor little happiness she had earned fully.
She knew there would never be anybody to love her so perfectly with all his heart as Hinata was loved. The man she had born the child of was ready to slide his throat open for her. All his being belonged to her.
And kids couldn’t be an eventuality either. She had always pictured herself as the mighty Hyûga heiress, knowing that her older sibling would never be accepted, mother and wife. But all of those charming illusions have disappeared long ago. It just hurt to see Hinata of all people succeed to accomplish what she had craved to achieve … minus the leadership.

°*°

“I can walk, you know, Kiba …”
They were giving quite a show. Kiba holding Hinata, hugging a baby, while an almost snow white, around two meters long, dog was trotting by their side.
“Who cares?! I just can’t let you walk when the possibility of holding you is offered.”
She flushed in consternation, hiding her crimson face in his chest.
‘Still having some effect on the girl, huh?’

°*°

“P-please, I b-beg y-you, h-help u-us …”
It was deep night and he didn’t appreciate being disturbed at that time of day, during his sleep. Especially not, by people in need. The sign of ‘Doctor’ may have been apposed on his front door, however it did not mean he was in duty during the hours of darkness.
At first sight, she seemed young, not older than seventeen. However, the kid sitting on an enormous mutt’s back was at least three, if not four, and he supposed he was hers, which made her older than her appearances.
“What do you want?”
They weren’t interesting for him. They didn’t seem very poor, but he supposed they had no money on them.
“M-my h-husband … p-please …”
Her husband indeed! Two long arms were swinging around her neck, while what seemed to be a brown head was nested in her neck.
A thick trail of red liquid had been following her steps.
The man she had been pulling along appeared tall and heavy, way too difficult for her frail body to transport. However, she had succeeded. Yet, it gave him the impression she was quite late as undeniably he had lost too much blood.
But maybe, this time, even if he didn’t receive the right honoraries, could he have some fun with something way more interesting than money …

°*°

She pushed the shoji aside.
“Tadaima!”
She heard her voice resound throughout her little dwelling, awaiting the cheerful ‘okaeri’ and an amused giggle that should come right after. They didn’t arrive though. They both must have been sleeping at that time of night.
Kiba was seldom home and when he was, Tsunade-sama seemed to become even lazier, which meant extra-work for the department. If Neji-nii-san hadn’t stayed longer to help her out with her sorting, she wouldn’t have made it before midnight. What would she do without his helpful self? He was not only an almost perfect clan leader, considering the fact he had been chosen by a familial deserter and what happened to be a suicidal traitor, but also a man full of good feelings. She had met the little branch member he had adopted not long ago. He was not older than Kenshi and if she remembered well, was named Fuyubi, quite a suiting name. At first sight, she had dared thinking he was Neji’s illegitimate son for he was so resembling it was shocking. He was not though. Once she had observed him better, she noticed some quite un-Hyûga traits, and knowing her nii-san, there would never be a possibility of a relationship with an outsider.
Also, she had never seen such an excited kid. He was not at all as calm and composed as any other member of the clan. He would profit of his adoptive father’s slightest inattention to flee and lose himself somewhere in the Kage building … If he hadn’t dark, almost black hair and marvelous Byakugan eyes, she would have sworn he was an Inuzuka. The nose, the grin, that spark in the eye once a simple prank of his was discovered. In other words, between him and Hinata it had been love at first sight.
Often, when Neji wouldn’t train with his men, only come over to put some order in his papers, the one-year old toddler would arrive with him, enchanting all the female staff, Hinata included.
She, however, noticed a certain overprotectiveness and possessiveness she knew way too well from her cousin’s part towards the tot, as if always someone would be there to try tearing them apart one from each other.
She understood him. The same feeling inhabited her when it came to Kenshi and Kiba. Sometimes the impression of, once there were all three together, a black shadow being ready to engulf the men in her life took over her whole body, paralyzing her in the middle of a street, her eyes widening from distress at the thought of remaining alone. And that shadow’s name, as she would learn too late, was Konohagakure.
She let her heavy clothing slide down her body and remain motionlessly in the hallway, covered by only a mesh shirt and tight black pants.
Stepping in her living room, she threw her briefcase on a wooden table nearby, not paying any attention to the form laying on her sofa. Jumping over Akamaru’s body, peacefully raising and lowering at the rhythm of his breathing, she almost let herself sink in her sofa. Yet, before she could touch the fabric of the piece of furniture, she had the luck of catching in the edge of her eye a glimpse of two silhouettes calmly dozing on it.
A very strange and touching image displaying in front of her. Kiba was slumbering on his back, his long legs sticking out on the edge of the couch, his right cheek settled on a drool covered pillow, while his son was sleeping on his torso, plastering his father’s t-shirt with saliva.
It was so adorable. They looked alike so much. Definitely, they were absolutely the same.
Already one year old … Already … Yet, the feeling of him dying in a close future washed over her whenever she glimpsed at him. It destroyed her little by little, making her even more unstable than she previously was.
She hadn’t been a good mother … At night, when he had cried for food, it hadn’t been her that would have gotten up to go breast feed him, but Kiba … by bottle of course… well, she supposed so. She wouldn’t change his diapers nor make him take baths. Kiba would always be faster, readier. She had the impression of being useless and unworthy as her father would have wanted her.
Of course, it was an Inuzuka tradition for the men to take care of the offspring while the women brought the money back home. But even if she really did make more money than him, she was jealous of him, of the link he was sharing with HER son. Oh, jealousy was one wicked sentiment, pushing one to commit or think about carrying out quite condemnable acts.
She also noticed how Kenshi would always be on the border of tears when Kiba went away on his assignments, while he just innocently smiled when she left for her own responsibilities. And as to provoke her even more, his first word was not “oka-san” as Kiba hadn’t stopped repeating to him, but “Aka” standing for Akamaru.
That is how it started to crackle. That is how the black presence of Hate and Distrust infiltrated itself between them, gnawing at her heart, making her want to seize a pillow and lay it down on her husband’s face and uphold it till the feeling of a stranger’s death would brush over her.
Yes, she was jealous … and jealous mothers were dangerous animals.

°*°

He silently ran a finger down Fuyubi’s soft cheek. His flesh had the same texture as his mother’s. It was silky. Not peachy. He hated that kind of skin, it had a strange consistency. His skin was like that. Detestable. Hinata’s though was absolutely loveable like herself. Everything on her was matching perfectly. Nothing was clashing. Each particle of her ideal body would lay out heavenly with the rest of her being. Physical perfection. Something no Hyûga had ever reached in his opinion, and never would.
The little boy was so endearing. A good boy. That would turn out to be a weakling like his mother … something Neji would be sure to change. If Hinata attained corporeal faultlessness, her mind was weak and more than unperfected, which attracted him even more to her as she made him feel strong and powerful, almost almighty.
And he already hated that feeling that had installed itself with his baby’s arrival. The one of truly loving something that never was meant for him. Inuzuka though did not take in account that kind of human emotions. He enjoyed without shame or bother one other’s woman.
Fait did not intend for Hinata to get together with that half-breed. As Inuzuka wasn’t sophisticated enough to respect the rules one’s life would establish, Neji hadn’t expected anything better coming from him. Of course, there was no way he would succeed in his goal of damning his dear, weak-minded, obedient little Hinata. Neji would let her play ‘family’ with that fiend that served her as husband for a bit longer, but soon enough her vacation would take an end for her to recover her place as the worthy wife of Hyûga Neji-sama, leader of the strongest and richest clan ever.
“Don’t be scared Fuyubi … Oto-san is going to bring oka-san back … By any means …”
The child stirred in his sleep, frowning at the same time as letting out an almost inaudible whimper. Neji removed delicately his hand from the tot’s hot forehead, preparing to exit the nursery.
At night, he usually would let all the bad feelings accumulated during the day escape in form of rage. However, that very night, there was nothing to disturb him. First thing in the morning, Fuyubi had let out a loud “oto” as his first word, his ANBU, for a change, did not act as incompetent idiots, maybe because Uzumaki had been absent, there hasn’t been that much paperwork to be done, and … he had passed quite some time with this adorable obsession of his … doing paperwork, but still, he had never felt that much bliss in his whole life.
The way she would lean over him to grab some papers to sign, not noting how her breasts would faintly rub on his arm, or how her tunic would slightly open around her neck, revealing more than what was supposed to be seen. She didn’t know how enticing she could be, what mind power it took Neji not to snap, seize her by the hips, sit her right on the desk and process in doing all the inconvenient stuff that crossed his brain and that definitely was not meant to be done in an office to her.
Yet, with the cold-blooded logic his ancestors were proud of, he restrained his lust, because it was lust he had felt at the moment.
‘Is your love lust … or is your lust love?’
Inuzuka had spoken those words the day Neji had threatened him of killing him and all his clan of scum at the announcement of Hinata’s marriage.
‘Is my love lust, or is my lust love? My love is love, and my lust is lust … And my ideas are good and right … I will take her away one day or another!’
Little did he know that day would be coming sooner than predicted.

°*°

“You don’t move, understood Kenshi?”
The boy grinned wildly, proudly showing off his eight teeth.
“Aka …”
The only word he knew by then was shrieked with joy.
Hinata was at work, he was at home, Kenshi was sitting on a low table, Akamaru was eyeing the toddler suspiciously … everything was just okay …
“Akamaru, I am gonna go shower, so keep an eye on Kenshi, ‘kay?”
The over-sized dog only rolled his eyes in desperation.
“And get yourself dog friends. Frankly, I am not quite sure if eye-rolling is normal for a dog … I am perhaps just saying that because I can’t do it …”
He tried to roll his own orbs, but in vain.
“Whatever …”
He simply shrugged the matter off, heading towards the bathroom.
Akamaru, not willing to baby-sit an annoying brat, however not able to refuse a favor to the man that took care of himself when he was the baby’s age, pulled his carcass towards the table and let himself fall on the ground, quite decided to nap in peace. This without counting on Kenshi’s mischievous mind.
The toddler, insured it would be droll, seized a jar of spruce resin, set down by his side on the table, his mother was using as aromatizer and threw it right on Akamaru’s head, laughing his ass off.
The problem with spruce resin was that once it glued itself on something, it was impossible to get it off.
A howl of death made Kiba run out of the shower, taking a fraction of a second to tie a towel around his waist.
“What the fuck is happening in here?!”
His eyes widened while his mouth stretched in a large grin, containing a howl as well … of laughter.
Akamaru had something yellowish and sticky all around his head which seemed to make Kenshi clap his hands in delight.
Reaching for his son, still traveled by hilarity spasms, Kiba solidly installed Kenshi under his armpit as his other hand covered the loose knot maintaining the towel around his hips.
Half-naked, he exited his dwelling, saying he would go find Hana.
He came back accompanied by an exasperated and stomping nee-san, silver scissors sparkling in her claw.
“Kiba-baka, you should better take care of Akamaru.”
“It’s not my fault, it’s Kenshi’s!”
She threw an irritated glance to the males in front of her, noting the growing resemblance between them.
“You know it’s pathetic to reject your culpability on a one-year old baby?!”
Poor Hinata … she didn’t have one whiny baby to nurture but two of the worst specie. He lowered his head in an ephemeral shame.
“ ’Kay, let’s get going with this!”
She approached herself of the outsized animal, still sulking in a corner, her scissors in a hand, blade shocking against blade.
He turned his head around at the sound of the footsteps, his pupils dilating in horror at the menacing Inuzuka heiress, armed with threatening razor blades, preparing to cut his precious fur.
‘No way in hell!’
Starting to bark like a mad-fool, the big dog obliged Hana to sit on his back, and Kiba to cover his son’s ears with his hands.
“Akamaru! Stop swearing!”
That evening, when Hinata came back, she almost died out of shock. Indeed, a big rat without a hair on it’s head had replaced Akamaru and taken monopole of the carpet while Kiba was innocently whistling and Kenshi was playing with a bundle of what seemed to be … real fur.

°*°

She wouldn’t cry. No, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. It was too late for that, way too late.
“Why didn’t you use your chakra to protect yourself from the flames, Byakugan, yeah?”
His mocking voice rang in her hazy psyche, drawing all her attention towards him.
Her eyes moved in their orbs so they could catch a glimpse of a delicate visage. Deidara flashed her a smile, pulling recklessly on her clothing, not caring for her pain.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Byakugan! You are completely burned, yeah …”
Tears welled up in her eyes. How could she have done that? It had been just too much …
“No, no! Don’t cry! It’s okay, yeah!”
The young man passed the sleeve of his black coat on her enormous watery eyes to dry the streams running down the pale flesh on the line of her jawbone.
“You better not do that around here, Byakugan, yeah! You know that very well!”
The little reflection of light in her gaze disappeared at his words, abandoning her to her bloody fate.
His hands started roaming all over her upper body, not embarrassed at all by the bold movements of his hands on her breasts, having escaped the flames, to remove the mesh shirt she was wearing underneath her Akatsuki tunic.
Remarking it had sunk into the burned wound of her flesh, he grabbed a kunai in his pocket and cut some of the strings so he could get rid of the fabric piece by piece.
The pain was unbearable, however relieving as it made her forget about somebody else’s sufferance.
“It will get infected in no time! Eww! I’ll have to burst the pus lesions, yeah!”
He talked too much, way too much.
Yet, his little-talk didn’t soothe her sore psyche as it used to. It couldn’t make her overlook all her bad acts anymore. She craved for the feeling of absolute indifference she usually was known for in the organization but she couldn’t summon at the moment. Kisame was right, she was a monster, a datenshi (A/N fallen angel, demon) …
During those past four years, she had murdered without any scruple or guilt. She had bathed in red waters, drenching her long tresses in the silkiest ointment she knew about. Men, women, children. She hadn’t paid any attention to the age or gender. She just obeyed what the hand granting the money required her to accomplish.
The pure lust of blood all the members were more or less encaged in. However, soon enough, money stopped being the goal of her life. Kenshi just became any other kid. Their last string broke. She was only a shadow of void. Kûchin. Around her left little finger.
Nonetheless, the last bit of sanity left to her shrieked at her sordid behavior, at what a bad mother she had been when her only dream was to protect the last piece left of her happy days.
‘Hinata, you monster! YOU MONSTER! He was the last part of him! What have you done? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!’
Sensing the quiver of her pale body under his fingers, Deidara looked up from the bandages he was managing to tie around the burn on her right ribs. He sighed at the sadness that showed through her stiff features and her clenched jaw.
“You did the right thing, Byakugan … I know you linked yourself with us only for him to have a better future, but it was not how it had to occur. We are murderers, cold-blooded and brutal and you definitely belong to our society. I do not regret at all I have introduced you to our manner of living, but the kid always restrained you in acting freely, in liberating your real fierce. However, now your are no more obliged to look after him. He isn’t your son anymore. He’s nothing but a demon that will be sacrificed for the sake of the organization in a few years, yeah … Cut the bonds …”
His fingers on her skin were like Shino’s kikkaichû beetles. Their touch on her blazing skin felt heavenly. As good as being able to flee from reality again. All her life long had she ran away. Naruto had been right, completely right. She had never tried to battle for her happiness after what happened between her and her father. She just let go thinking it was for the world’s good, only cowering and rejecting the fault on others. And the sufferance that would come would have the name of Kenshi. Vessel of Hôkô. The Gobi’s jinchuuriki. The five-tailed guardian of the bloody gates of her personal Hell.

°*°

‘Nobody loves me … I hate it … I hate it … Do you hate it, little boy? DO YOU HATE IT?!’
His smallish grip tightened around her neck, hidden under soiled bandages with half of her face. He felt her wince in pain.
‘Don’t look at her that way … It’s her fault … ALL HER FAULT! HATE HER!’
“Oka-san, why don’t you love me? WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME?! I WANT YOU TO LOVE ME! I AM SCARED OKA-SAN! WHY DON’T YOU MAKE IT STOP?! IT HURTS!”
His hands were so strong around her slender, delicate … breakable throat. She could almost sense the life escaping her lungs while the air couldn’t pass her mouth. Something of his voice reminded her of Kiba when rage shook his high stature. But his wasn’t deformed by a demon.
Why not die? Why note let him crush her like a little porcelain doll she vaguely remembered? Better of his hands than Uchiha Itachi’s! Nevertheless, something made her cling desperately to life for once. She desired to see him again, see him for one last time. Where was he? Why wasn’t he coming to save her from that monster she gave birth to? From that monster she loved dearly and couldn’t harm even when she got the chance to. She didn’t hate him but herself, however she preferred hurting the poor inoffensive being he was instead of sacrificing herself. She was just one egocentric piece of trash. And cruel … murderous … hateful … a nuisance. She was a nuisance worst than any demon she had ever seen.
“OKA-SAN! I AM A MONSTER! I AM A MONSTER! IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT! ALL YOUR FAULT! SAVE ME!”
His roars grew stronger while he started quaking her body. She couldn’t believe she was getting beaten up by a five-year old, demon or not.
‘Why had she sacrificed you to me?! You see she doesn’t love you! She hates you! GWAAAHHHAAAAHHAAAA!!!’
“I AM A MONSTER!”
He let go of her, shoving her away from him as violently as he could. His pain got to its paroxysm, making him clutch to his brown hair now highlighted by white strands, letting escape a wolf-like howl, his overgrown fangs exposed to her sight. She now knew where the legend of the Ookamiotoko (A/N werewolf) came from.
‘Nobody’s there to help you! YOU ARE ALONE! ALONE WITH ME!’
And then, heat overwhelming his broken being. His head laid softly down on her breasts like when he woke up from a bad nightmare and she comforted him. She was tender like he wanted her to be with him but her fruit-like smell was replaced by the more metallic perfume of gore.
“Hush, Kenshi, hush … Oka-san’s here, oka-san’s here.”
His new claws nailed themselves in her back, ripping ribbons of her flesh through the thick textile of her attire.
“I … a-am ... a m-monster …”
His shrieks calmed themselves into heartbreaking sobs. A scared kid, a poor lost baby. A blood hungry demon she would have to tame. She had no other choice. The Void. Kûchin. All around her … but still to come.
“A monster? So what?!”

°*°

A hand grabbed her arm fiercely enough to make her turn around, a spark of fright illuminating her pupil. She almost expected it to be Itachi ready to punish her for some abstract reason. Her head shifting towards the body matching the arm that had seized her made rain unleashed black strands of hair. He had noticed long ago the dance those black lianas were performing accompanied by the monotonous chant of the wind. The movement of each was so sensual. Enticing was the word he was looking for.
Her wide clear eyes, tinted with the slightest shade of lilac, narrowed at his way too familiar gesture, softening when a familiar lick escaping his hand informed her of his identity. He threw a glance to the door of the room she had exited, scowling disapprovingly.
“You shouldn’t waste too much time around this place. He’s dangerous, yeah. Remember the last time you went in there, you almost bled to death. He’s not the same anymore, he’s not the one you gave birth to. One day he won’t even identify you …”
Even to him, his word sounded quite cruel, sharp, but it was more than time she stopped feeling guilty about something so trivial. He felt a shudder travel down her spine.
She was so little. So slender. So fragile. As if one blow would make her disappear in dust.
He was at least one head taller than her. Her whole form was two times leaner than his, considered as too feminine for a man his age.
And when tears invaded her wide orbs, when trembles shook her already tiny silhouette, she seemed to shrink even more, making a felling of pity and sympathy rush through his system as adrenaline.
She did something absolutely unexpected. Something he would have thought as a display of weakness.
She just threw her minuscule arms around his chest, delicately laying her cheek upon his heart, its beats reminding her of painful memories. She cried. Without a sob or any other sound. Streams leaked down on his shirt.
For him, on their first encounter, it had been love at first sight. She was like a wonderful painting you couldn’t get your eyes off. Te way her pulpous, crimson orchid her mouth was moved, the way the fan of dark lashes opened and closed revealing her opaque gems. Her brows were black half-moons, her hair, chains of silk he would have loved to be imprisoned in. This emotion she made rise in his chest each time she would pass by his side, her perfume enveloping each cell of his organism, was not as vain as the ardor she had shared with the father of the Gobi jinchuuriki. It was way more. Way stronger. The passion of an artist for an unfinished masterpiece. Life was creating her. Each new scar was a stroke of brush, each glimpse a new shade. The only things that could tarnish the beauty of this sculpture of a goddess of damnation were diminishing sentences uncultured people like Uchiha or her husband could come up with. They couldn’t feel at all the colors one smile of hers could make explode in one’s head. People like them based their knowledge on lust … and bloodlust.
She was just like this sister he had loved with all his heart. This poor one-san that didn’t survive his world of artfulness and superficial beauty.
As to reward his goodness and somewhat strange fervor for her, she spoke.
Nobody in Akatsuki had ever heard her voice but that monster hiding behind that door he now was leaning against.
It was a chant, a sound, a waterfall, the wind in the leaves, a moan of pleasure, a cry of pain, the noise of paper being crumpled, the whisper of bold hands passing on enflamed skin. All this at the same time. As well as the Void she was wearing on her left little finger.
It just made him sigh, satisfied. This pleasure of uncovering a rare jewel, of possessing something no hand had ever grazed over. More than that.
Yes, she was quite useful as the Leader had supposed when handing her the last ring remaining. She could call love, lust, hate, passion, obsession, pity upon her. A powerful weapon where her pretence of weakness was the first bullet. And Deidara had discovered her.
“I-I a-am a m-m-monster, D-D-Deidara-s-san …”
A monster? A monster indeed! A creature of evil gorgeousness, of power and weakness, white and black, pureness and dirt.
“I-I s-s-sold h-him … m-my own b-b-blood, my o-own f-f-flesh … I-I a-am a-a m-monster …”
A smile of felicity pulled on his lips. She was so naïve. The world wasn’t tinted in contrasts. She forgot about the shades and colors.
“A monster? So what, yeah?!”
The nicest thing he had ever said to anybody.

°*°

She swam towards him, her pale flesh illuminated by the full moon.
Already two years since they had left and she changed quite a bit. Her body became toned, not bulky but just firm. She wasn’t so sickly thin anymore, however under the shock of her first murder, the stammer she had succeeded to tame came back, pushing her back again in the darkness of insecurity.
He grasped for her arm and pulled her towards him, meeting her blazing icing eyes.
He couldn’t believe what had been happening to them.
They went away not to be obliged to endure the hate anymore and now they were drowning in the blood of strangers. All this because of this insane obsession Hyûga had developed over Hinata. He couldn’t blame him though, he hadn’t been better before he got what he wanted.
He pulled her onto his lap, her legs either side of him.
He buried his head in her neck, hoping the voice wouldn’t come back that night, letting him freely enjoy her soft skin.
They changed so much.
He became so violent, starting to feel the need to kill running his body more and more often.
It was all the Hyûga’s fault. If he had abstained himself of trying to get his cousin back, nothing would have gone so out of control.
His lips pressed themselves on hers, his tongue begging for entrance. His hand roamed all over her backbone, fiddling with her wet silky strands.
She was frozen, but his burning body maintained her warm.
He loved her so much. She was the last part preserving the few particles of sanity left to him. She drew his attention to her constantly making his head cool down.
His hands traveled down her hips, memorizing each part of this body he knew by heart.
“Kiba … y-y-you’re t-tickling m-me …”
That definitely was the least romantic thing he had ever heard when his intentions were pretty clear. Still it made him chuckle.
How long would they be able to live this way? How long would he stay normal? Before he became like his father?
He pressed his tongue further past her full lips, playing with her own tongue, enjoying that simple intimate contact.
She was the last thing that reminded him of the happiness of his childhood. Of Kurenai-sensei, Shino, and the others. The one and only thing he really craved for, he loved.
“I love you, Hinata-koishii (A/N my beloved) …”
Her eyes flew open. The tone was clear. He wasn’t awaiting an answer, just stating what she already knew.
She was his and that was the only thing that mattered for the moment.
Not even their sins.
Better die sinful than live without Hinata.

::chapter 10::

He was out. Killing again she supposed. The snow was twirling outside. She could see it through the window of the hotel room. It illuminated the night so it seemed less darker than it truly was.
It depressed her.
She was born in winter.
She knew she would die in winter.
Kenshi’s whistling breathing tore her eyes away from the flakes hypnotizing her to drive it towards its source.
Bronchitis. Burning fever. Coughs. Pain. A lot of it.
It was her fault. She should have insisted for them to settle down before winter started. Kiba became too insensitive towards his son to even think about it, Akamaru could bear anything and Hinata was too silent to even dare peeping a word about their situation.
Living was already too demanding for her so talking wasn’t even an option. Each stutter she would utter softly was a precious present Kiba would cherish until the next would come to replace it.
Her doe-like orbs brushed over the sleeping silhouette in the corner of the room.
Her poor little baby.
If only she had had the courage of fighting a bit more.
Naruto had been right the day he had told her she was acting like a child. A coward.
She had always ran away. Ran away from her father’s spite. Escaped the mixed feelings towards her cousin that pushed her into horrible sufferance. Fled from the responsibilities of a clan heiress.
The only time she had not cowered away was the day she had accepted Kiba. It was as if claws had seized her and violently pushed her into his strong arms. As if chains around her neck attached her to him. She didn’t care if he would become a blood-hungry beast. A feeling lacking tool. He fascinated her like never before anybody had done. Everything in him attracted her. Intoxicated her. She loved him free, savage, blunt, beastly, violent, without shame. Everything she never could be.
She wasn’t even sure that if he was missing one of those traits she would adore him enough to be following him so willingly into darkness.
His being crushed the last remains of a possible love for Neji and admiration for Naruto only to fill her mind with images of him.
Kenshi stirred under his covers.
She sighed deeply. Kiba had destroyed so much in her only to rebuild it all as he wanted.
Foot steps could be heard in the hallway.
The grip on the kunai she had been clutching to for hours now tightened dangerously. She didn’t like people nearing her room. She wasn’t stupid enough not to be aware of the fact that they were wanted for all the murders and mysterious disappearances of highly confidential documents. She had told him to be more subtle but once his blood rage started it couldn’t even be stopped by her calming voice. He would not only slaughter the people he was paid for but all their entourage as well.
He definitely was not careful enough.
The steps were getting closer by the minute. It seemed they were heading towards her room. A sigh escaped Kenshi’s lips.
She hadn’t taken the time to study the steps of the servants bringing her her diner. It was quite reckless from her considering the fact that her Byakugan became almost useless because she hadn’t taken care of it. It was a real sufferance to use it now.
She heard a little knock on the wooden panel of the shoji.
If it had been any special forces, they would have broken into the room, shattered everything around, beaten her up, maybe killed Kenshi while they were at it, but she frankly doubted they would have knocked politely before entering and butchering the living in the room.
It wasn’t Kiba either. He was slier and never entered by the door. He appeared to have a preference for the window, which Akamaru’s big self personally despised.
It only could be someone from the hotel.
She did her best to stand up on her weak legs. She had been sitting on them for hours now, so they lost their sense of sensibility as much as stability.
Each step was painful, however not as much as the hunger gnawing at her stomach. A loud growl escaped her intern organs, making her damn that useless body of hers.
Once she was standing in front of the shoji, she obliged herself to take again the same position she had bore for too long, as to slide de panel open.
Her fine, white fingers, reminding of sticks of porcelain, slipped easily into the little wooden opening for her to push the gliding door aside.
It was moving on a screeching sound as to warn her not to open further.
Nevertheless, it was too late.
The opening did not reveal a woman as expected, but a broad-shouldered man dressed in a plain white yukata matching hers where only a glimpse of a mesh shirt could be noted around the collar.
Her lips parted slightly in shock, calling a smirk on his own.
“I found you. Again.”

°*°

Holding her hand, he was running as fast as he could without tiring her, hoping not to be late. I he was, he would have to witness Hiashi’s outburst on his six-year old niece, and he wasn’t sure he would be able to withhold his rage towards his brother, Sôke or not.
It was a shame to see such a composed man permit his sentiments to overflow him to the measure of almost beating to death his own child.
Hanabi however would have luck. Her father wouldn’t do twice the mistake. In the beginning, Hinata had been judged skilled, almost the same level as Neji when he was her age. The only thing she gave the impression to lack was a certain quantity of chakra. Nevertheless, her speed and sharp reflexes for a child that young could compensate to some extent her deficiency in other matters. However, it had never been enough for Hiashi. At three he started training her as if she was a genin. When she couldn’t succeed his expectations and the goals he was setting for her, she would be insulted and beaten.
Three broken ribs, fractured right wrist, broken thumb and forefinger on the left hand and a cerebral concussion where Hiashi’s record on her, if he remembered well. It had been quite a bloody experience. Hizashi had had to call for five men to stop his brother in his fury. And she was only five at that time.
Hiashi never stopped complaining of her supposed weakness that was completely artificial, considering the fact that with his reign of terror over her he created it completely.
How could he expect her to improve when permanently under the horror of failing and getting punished?!
She had not to see loss as a failure but as a source to learn. He had to admit she was not a quick learner. Yet, if only somebody would take the time to explain and encourage her, miracles could get extracted from her minute being.
When training with him, she had never those problems of breaking down or paralyzing from fright. In fact, if she couldn’t attack him, at least she could block and dodge a great number of his attacks considering on how young she was. And Neji, when sparring with her, did not have it as easy as it could have seemed.
She of course wasn’t a genius as his son, but had quite some talent for those old techniques based on silence, speed and subtlety ancient ninjas, not yet knowing how to use their chakra were recognized on. She was already more advanced in her Shiko wo shinobu (A/N knowledge of the life as to reach a psychological awakening to penetrate the totality of the surroundings before reacting) than Neji would ever be, with his tantrums and strong character. Her Mi wo shinobu (A/N development of the body) would be much better if only her father stopped destroying her in physical ways. As for her Kokoro wo shinobu (A/N mental), at the young age of five she had completely lost it and there was no way, in how hard she worked, that she would ever be able to rebuild it. Only dread would be there as to burn it down more and more each day.
In other words, to him, she was a fossil. A remain of the past. The last of one kind that couldn’t adapt. And that was a shame, because, definitely, it would cost her her life.
A faint tug on the sleeve of his yukata made him lower his silver eyes. They have been sprinting for a while now, perhaps she wanted him to carry her. She after all, was still a kid. No. In her non-existent pupils there was no need to be read, only sadness. She had that color her mother loved encaged in her eyes. Lavender.
The very day Hyûga Haruna had died, she and Hinata had been taking care of her beloved lavender plants, perfuming the whole Hyûga compound, a few weeks after Hanabi’s difficult birth. The woman, at a certain moment, had started to cough violently, spluttering her blood all over her beloved flowers, under her daughter’s horror-struck eyes.
She had fallen asleep that very time and had never woken up again. When Hiashi and he had arrived it was to observe the macabre exhibit of servants crying over Haruna’s blood soaked body and Hinata tearing out the flora around her, not a tear staining her pure doll-like flesh, while mumbling words such as: ‘I d-don’t l-l-like l-l-lavender a-anymore, o-o-oka-san …’
“U-uncle Hi-Hizashi?”
He redirected his attention towards her.
“Hmm?”
He saw a blush creep on her cheeks. Hum, something delicate to ask? She was too young for THE talk, right? He sincerely hoped she was.
“W-why d-doesn’t o-o-otô-s-san l-love m-me? H-he l-loves Ha-Hanabi-ne-nee-chan …”
Frankly, he would have preferred THE talk. If he would have traumatized her, at least her heart wouldn’t have been damaged.
Yet, he couldn’t lie to that sincere and pure Hina-doll (A/N some kind of a doll representing court-ladies, each rich little girl receives quite a set of those for her fifth birthday), not demanding at all, only hopeful.
‘What have you done, Hiashi?’
“I don’t know, Hinata-hime …”
Those words never were meant to be said to somebody like her. To somebody so fragile … so breakable. He was not Haruna, he was not strong enough to tell her she was loved and desired.
He saw an almost invisible little twitch in the edge of her pulp lips. He was expecting tears to be shed any moment, however they never came. Only the grip on his yukata’s sleeve strengthened.
Her voice became even more upset.
“A-and y-you, u-uncle Hi-Hizashi, d-d-d-do y-y-you l-l-love m-me?”
Why did she even have to ask?! Of course he did! She was more his daughter than Hiashi’s as he was the only wanting to take care of her!
“Yes, I do, Hinata-hime.”
The way his firm voice called her hime washed away her sadness at once. It was neither sarcastic nor respectful. It was his pet name for her. It was tender. She was his tiny princess. His shattered porcelain doll.
Her puzzled features relaxed somewhat, understanding installing itself upon her childish visage.
“T-then i-it’s o-okay, U-u-uncle Hi-Hizashi …”
A head popping out from Hizashi’s side cheerfully exclaimed itself, sending strands of brownish hair all over his face:
“I love you too, Hinata-chan!”
She let a giggle escape her lips.
“A-Arigato, Neji-k-kun…”

°*°

He was towering her, his cold glance inspecting her rigid being.
“No …”
Distress was visible on her face. This was a nightmare. How could he have found them … again. It couldn’t be true. This couldn’t have happened. The memories of the last time thronged in her mind, closing all breathing orifices.
On of his hands was holding a plate of wood where food had been disposed. He seemed quite relaxed, all the opposite of the last-time Neji. His other hand, beautiful and smooth as they always have been, removed a few strands making his nose wrinkle.
Still, he didn’t move from the frame of the shoji, and it appeared to be disturbing him.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in, Hinata?”
His voice was so calm and low. He wasn’t mad. He seemed perfectly at ease, all the opposite of her.
He stepped in, noting she wouldn’t be talking from shock, sliding the gliding panel behind him, smirking at her scooting away from him.
Looking around him, he sighed disappointedly. He had been searching her in all the worst hotels and inns there were around this town and its surroundings, not expecting his dear Hinata to be intelligent enough to hide herself in an expensive and well-built building. She wasn’t as unconscious as he would have thought. It only made it more fun to chase after her.
Nearing a low table, he delicately put down the platter without spilling any of the food or tea.
“I just had to say you were my sister and that you were expecting me for them to tell me where you were. I suppose it is because of those eyes we share. A very recognizable trade mark.”
He gave an alarming impression of casualty when sitting by the table and pouring himself a cup of tea. Before bringing it to his mouth, he turned his head towards her slender, trembling silhouette, doing its best to disappear in the wall behind her back, holding do hard onto the kunai between her fingers that her knuckles were becoming red.
Lifting an amused eyebrow, a smirk came playing on his lips.
“My! Do you look wild! Compose yourself and come have dinner. I am sure you are starving.”
As to prove him right, a growl broke through her stomach. She had no intention of approaching him. However, she noticed how he was between her and Kenshi, dozing in a corner of the room.
She remembered more than well the last time Neji had emerged.
It had almost cost Kiba his life and Kenshi, both of his parents.
It had pushed her to do things she preferred neither to recall nor to come out.
Nevertheless, carefully and suspiciously, she forced herself to stand up for a second time, her eyes painted in the sinister color of lilac.
Her legs were shamefully quivering. Yet, she managed to somehow make unsure steps towards his sitting form, never letting her only arm absconding (A/N frankly, do we use abscond in this sentence) her claws.
His orbs couldn’t restrain themselves in urgently swallowing her image in their non-existent pupils. She was different, so much different from the little girl he had known. So much better, as if finally bloomed.
She seemed a somewhat more solid, but not a lot though. What marked him the most however was the spark in those eyes he never had stopped praising … As well as the bitter curve of her pulp crimson lips.
She was at last drowned in harsh realisation and hatred towards the world.
He understood it was his fault. Mostly his fault. He had known since forever her tendencies to masochism and delusion not only destroying her but the people around her.
He was aware he never should have overprotected her. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to abandoning her in her misery. He had let her play around, even if it meant for her to be taken away from him for a certain time. But, when he realized she truly loved Inuzuka, it became way more than a childish game of hers. He shouldn’t have let it happen. He had suffered and still did. Each time he had seen her with him, he hadn’t wanted to kill them and after slay his abdomen open. He had been accumulating it all. And when she ran away for he-didn’t-know-which time, it only unleashed it all. He had to see Inuzuka’s life be taken.
She had messed everything up again. He simply knew that in the end, it was all her fault. While he had her in the same territory as him, he could have watched over her naïve yet dangerous behaviour. Protect her from herself as well as others from her.
And he loved all the poisonous feelings she was making him resent, knowing she was a venom only he was immunised against.

°*°

The way she pulled on her frail silver chain drew all the attention towards her long neck.
It was stainless however crossed by faint tinted lines. As pale as the snow if not translucent. His vision moved as his head did, from the fine veins of her throat to her full mouth. A ripe fruit only begging to be bitten in and savoured. The shade in the edges of her lips reminded of the extremities of the petals of a crimson rose starting to darken.
Yet, even if his eyes were admiring her physiognomy, she appeared to have more important to say and do than be a target for his thoughts. He would have liked if she had at least let the time to his mind to compose a few opinions about those expressive eyes of hers, her most enthralling charm.
Nevertheless, at the scowl she was displaying, he could deduce there was no time for his inner fantasies.
The branches of the peach-tree she was kneeling under, their leaves moving in the wind, sent deranging shadow run across her flesh and pale yukata.
Her calm, almost inaudible voice he had been training not to stutter for ages dissipated the invisible haze in his sharp orbs.
He heard the shudder in her tone.
Once her hands extracted the chain completely out from the collar of her attire, a miniature flask, full of an unknown white substance, started dancing from it.
His first and truthful thought had been to name the powder poison.
The dark hues on her face were modifying her traits in a strange manner. Each shade took away from her beauty, to add to the quasi-invisible incongruity of her nose and chin. When light ran away from her face in the movement of the leaves of the peach-tree to leave only darkness, he couldn’t disregard how she resembled a Nô (A/N traditional court theatre having inspired Kabuki and the Inoue dances) mask.
Her lips started juddering. He caught the glimpse of tears welling up in her eyes.
Gently, he extended his arm to grab the chain she now was holding out for him to take. Once the flask opened, he poured a certain amount of the substance in his palm, bringing it to his mouth where his tongue was awaiting to snatch it and taste.
It was alkaline. The flavour of course. He was familiar with its savour, however he couldn’t place a name on it. It was a very old poison. Made of peach kernels (A/N that poison truly exists, however I don’t remember its name, I don’t know how to make it, which is good, and it’s not very effective, used in medieval times). It was long to prepare and to kill one it had to be consumed in great amounts. Yet, if taken in little quantities but regularly, it could put a liver or a kidney out of function. Or both.
His eyes shot wide-open in shock at a certain thought. It just couldn’t be.
Her head was hanging low, her long black tresses of silky hair covering her facial expression.
The only person that would have been able to create such a substance was his aunt, Hyûga Haruna. Not Hinata. Not his innocent lily.
But still …
And how would she have been capable of disguising the taste? He loved bitter tea! His one and only weakness.
“He had to pay …”
She spoke again. Finally. Sadly.
“He had to suffer just as Hanabi does …”
That was all Hinata. You could harm her as much as you wanted, she wouldn’t react. Until you touched her family … Then, a beast, horrible, painted in grudge, was unleashed. Her conscience in those moments vanished without a note.
He approached her a little more, kneeling down as she had, to pull her in a comforting embrace.
Nobody would ever find out the reason of Hyûga Hiashi’s strange disease. Neji would make sure of that.

°*°

“If I would be you, I would put that kunai down. You wouldn’t want to be hurt like last time …”
Why had he always to remind her of that? Even if he always talked about love, to her it appeared more like he appreciated making her suffer. She was sure he enjoyed the pain drawn across her now stiff features, the way shivers would cross her seated body, the blood on her bitten lower lip. He did not love her, he loved how she made him feel.
She doubted he would ever sacrifice anything for her.
He wanted her as a trophy, to show her off.
At least, that was the impression she had.
An uncomfortable silence installed itself between them, timed by Kenshi’s whistling breathing.
Even if panic ran the biggest part of her brain at the moment, she couldn’t restrain her glance to wander over Neji’s symmetrical traits, making her remember her little girl fantasies before Naruto crashed head first into her mind.
Neji had been … so unreal. Everything about him had been amazing her when she was younger. All the girls found Sasuke incredible, but for Hinata there was no one better than her breath-taking pseudo-brother. At that time, she was already friends with Kiba. She had always found him great as well, yet in another manner.
If anybody had told her she would finish up banning herself from her clan, marrying Kiba , bearing his child and finally leaving Konoha, she would have … fainted for sure.
“You are quite pensive, aren’t you?”
His voice wasn’t matching his actual expression. It was warm and welcoming while his clear eyes sent daggers at her.
She perceived the birth of a small smirk, caused, she supposed, by her aghast face. She must have seemed on the border of tears, which she was.
“Hmm. It appears I will have to converse for both of us …”
He cocked an inquisitive brow, but as no answer came, lowered it.
“I am sure you would like to know how I found you this time, considering the fact Inuzuka was way more careful than before.”
The way he pronounced Kiba’s family name proved his intentions. This time, Hinata thought they were lost.
Before he continued, he took another sip of tea, handing her with his free hand a bowl disposed on the plate.
As she didn’t budge to reach for it, he just put it down in front of her, sighing some more of disapproval.
“That very time you escaped me, it left quite a bitter taste in my mouth. Of course, Aburame paid as well as all those that lived in the village. Do you remember that little girl? What was her name? Saki? The one just like Hanabi. The one calling you Hinata-nee-san. I am sure you recall her. She was a sweetheart. Such an adorable girl. Too bad she had to die the way she did. You know, if you weren’t so stubborn and had followed me instead of fleeing, I would have spared her life, as well as the existence of all those missing-nins … But, they were only missing-nins, and if I haven’t gotten rid of them, somebody else would have.”
He had started quite aggressively. He had wanted to hurt her. To feel her shatter in between his fingers. However, when quivers became replaces by sobs and tears, he had to soothe her. In the best way he knew.
Yet he didn’t stop talking.
It hurt her.
He had wanted it.
But not anymore.
He was sorry.
He had to continue.
“I thought you wouldn’t get far enough to escape. Ryôshi had made sure your Inuzuka wouldn’t survive. But I have underestimated you. You seem to know too well were I wouldn’t be looking for you. Do you realize what your half-breed is charged against? Multiple murders, the massacre of an ANBU, deserting and betrayal … An A-ranked missing-nin. His head costs way more than all that money you made by butchering and stealing.”
Big drops of crystal were now hitting the tatami in a regular rhythm.
“It took me a whole year to find you for a second time …”
Why was he doing that to her? Why? Why her nii-san? Why again? Weren’t they friends not so long ago?
Her voice broke when she asked him.
“W-why?”
His muscles tensed, especially around his jaw. A sneer escaped his lips.
Almost violently he put down his cup.
In one endeavour, he was in front of her, between the table and her knees. He became fast. He always had been faster. In shock, she scooted away for a second time, until her back hit the wall behind her.
And again, he found himself towering her, rage running through his white orbs.
“‘Why?’ ‘WHY?’ How dare you ask something like this?! Hinata … you are cruel.”
And he meant it.
He had been ready to give her anything. His life, his heart, anything. He had always only been passionate about her. She had had his adoration during childhood, his hate throughout adolescence and finally, his love in adulthood. His feelings for her have been so strong, so pure that he had almost killed her and after, accepted for her not to be his. Almost …
He crouched down, his knees encaging hers. He noted her frightened glance brushing down the visible tsuba (A/N hilt of a katana) of the katana strapped to his back.
She hadn’t let go of the kunai, but when one of his hands grabbed it, she almost pushed it away.
“Good girl …”
The one hand not occupied with the kunai raised itself towards her jaw, tracing its line with his cool fingers, his thumb caressing her sensitive, pulp lips.
She felt something on it. Maybe an old scar on his thumb.
An old scar she remembered more than well.

°*°

She was sitting by herself again. He never understood why she wouldn’t mix with her cousins. He supposed it was because of her sickening shyness. And it was good that way, he could keep her for himself. He on the opposite had plenty of friends all over the Hyûga compound and at the academy he just entered a year ago.
He could have entered two years ago but otô-san thought he was too young, not mature enough and … maybe a little of a show-off …
He approached her, trying to be just as silent as she was usually. She really was cute, even if he preferred long-haired girls.
They looked more like … girls.
“Ohayo, Hinata-chan.”
She jumped from surprise. She hadn’t seen him? She was really daydreaming a lot.
“So, how was your first day at the academy?”
She had entered one year before her normal age. That’s because she was brilliant! She knew a lot more than him about … anything. However, he was a way better fighter than she would ever be. She knew the name of jutsus and all that theory, but he was the one using them. And it was good that way!
“It w-was o-okay, n-nii-s-san … I m-made a n-new f-friend …”
He didn’t like the sound of that. He let her go one minute out of his sight and she already replaced him! At least, he hoped it was a girl.
“His n-name i-is K-Kiba. I-Inuzuka K-Kiba, I t-think …”
A boy?! AN INUZUKA BOY!
He liked his little scared cousin. He liked her that way and only that way. He wanted to be her only friend. She was not aloud to have other friends.
As he was older, taller and stronger he only had to seize her by the shoulders and push her to the wall she was leaning her back on.
“You like him more than me.”
He had not to shout to scare her. Her lavender-tinted eyes widened in surprise and fright. She didn’t seem to understand why he was touching her when she knew he loathed physical contacts between humans.
“N-nii-s-san ..?”
His orbs from friendly passed to furious. He sneered.
“You like him more than me.”
How dared he even think about something like that?! She was friends with him for now two years and Kiba, she had just met him. She found him funny and nice, but nii-san was … her nii-san.
“N-no, I d-don’t!”
Her shaky statement did not appear to relieve Neji. His grip on the flesh of her shoulders only intensified.
“You are lying, Hinata.”
His voice became deeper, more manlike. Not childish. It only increased the bad feeling that was starting to form itself in her stomach.
She was not lying. And she was not ready to be called a liar as well. She flushed deeply. But not of consternation. She was pissed beyond normal.
Violently, not at all in her nature, she shoved his hands away from her shoulders, almost shrieking of rage.
“N-NO, I AM N-NOT! I L-LIKE Y-YOU M-MORE TH-THAN K-K-KIBA-K-K-KUN!”
She expected to receive a slap like from otô-san. However, he answer was greeted by a large, predator-like grin, exposing her cousin’s white, shiny teeth.
“Prove it.”
She would have never imagined a trivial conversation could turn out like that. But, as she was one stubborn little girl, and the Hyûga heiress, she couldn’t let anybody humiliate her that way.
“H-how?”
Her voice was shaking with anticipation. She did her best not to look as pathetic from fright as her otô-san always said she was, yet she couldn’t muster her courage as to push away the feeling of something horrible happening.
When Neji retrieved a kunai out of his pocket, her heart skipped a beat. How could he have found such a weapon.
“W-where d-d-d-did y-you g-get that?”
He couldn’t hold back a smirk at the sight of her shocked features. He desired her to cry just to be then one comforting her after.
“You promise you love me and only me? I love you, and I am ready to seal my words with blood.”
Weren’t they a little young to be thinking about blood sealing?
When a shiver crossed her backbone, a sentiment of triumph as much as of grief overwhelmed him.
‘She doesn’t love me.’
“How do I do it?”
He couldn’t believe what he had heard. She hadn’t stuttered once when asking him how to exhibit his wrongness.
He felt like crying for the first time of his life.

°*°

Maybe was it because of that same scar they were sharing on their respective thumbs of the left hand that she let him burry his lips in the crook of her neck, sucking at a pulsing vein. Way too gently, way too calmly … way too casually.
Once he detached them from her smooth flesh, he approached his head of hers, breathing on her mouth.
His voice by then was only a husky whisper.
“I will tell you why I am doing all this … It is because I love you, and only you … And because you are my belonging and nobody else’s …”
His mouth crashed on hers, parting his lips to lick her lower lip.
She did her best to struggle away from his grip, her hands on his broad chest, trying desperately to push him away.
He appeared to forget she also was a jûken user, or perhaps hadn’t he thought she would use it against him. The truth being he knew she would attack and him being more than prepared to it. He could sense her chakra flow interrupt itself as to concentrate on her hands resting on his chest.
It would have worked on any non-jûken ninja because the physiognomic change was almost imperceptible. You had to see it. And since he had left her mouth to take delicious licks of her throat, collarbone and shoulders, she couldn’t take note of his activated Byakugan. When she thought she should bring him down, he only seized both of her wrists in his wide palm pulling her on top of him while he let his back fall on the tatami of the room. In no time, he changed places, she being under him, encaged between his knees, her arms pinned above her head by one of his claws, while the other one was dangerously playing with the piece of long fabric serving her as an obi.
She started trashing even harder, trying to aim for his genitals with her knees.
A smile, of those bone chilling ones, plastered across his features, he lowered his head towards hers as if wanting to attempt to kiss her again. However, he deviated to her ear, as she didn’t stop struggling and squirming.
“If I would be you, Hinata, I would be a good girl. You wouldn’t want something tragic to happen to your poor, sick baby, would you? He is the way I found you. After I almost did in your Inuzuka, I have been looking around all hospitals and doctors, nin or not, I could find. And –oh, my– at a certain place, I learned quite a few interesting things about you. You seem to enjoy acting like a prostitute. But I suppose it could be considered as a good payment. Yet, after that, I lost you and had to go back to Konohagakure, until a cadaver of one of our shinobis had been found around Amekagure. I did not know you specialised in senbon needles. For anybody, it wouldn’t have meant anything. Nevertheless, I noticed some strange things like the perfect precision of their placement. Right in the center of each vital point but the heart. How cruel of you! I am sure they could feel their hearts pumping the poison of your senbon and sending it towards their nervous system. Such a deadly accuracy could only be the fruit of the Byakugan, am I right? Of course, all the hints on your direction were perfectly erased. Your stalker of a husband doesn’t seem to like being the target of his own methods. Nonetheless, I knew I would get you there because of the kid …Winter …”
He stopped abruptly his speech, pulling away from her as to examine her now calm body. She was being a good girl, a sobbing good girl. She had stopped struggling, only cried silently.
He would have never thought a kid could mean so much to a woman. Enough for her to execute licentious acts.
“I am sorry you and your mutt have to learn the hard way. I only hope he will get the message.”
He sat up, maintaining her hips under him, passing his ANBU katana over his head.
Once he got rid of it, he lowered his upper body again, sending silky locks all over her face, letting his tongue lick away the salty trails of tears running down her cheeks, while his hands still fought with the knot of her pseudo-obi.
Once he undid it and opened the flaps of her yukata, revealing a scarred, translucent skin. Her stomach was shaking at the pace of her sobs. His fingers passed over the remains of her caesarean.
He had very soft hands. Hers have been like that as well before she chose to start working with poisons more actively. She hated his kind of hands. It only proved laziness or coquetry. However, Neji was everything but lazy.
His hands stroking her bared body became more demanding, more intimate, making her wish for more against her will.
His kisses became more passionate, stealing her breath.
He tore himself away from her to look at the now exposed body under his he had craved for.
She was waiting to be broken, begging for death to come soon and deliver her. He loved the image of her displayed weakness under his strength. She made him feel alive.
“P-please N-Neji-n-nii-s-san … I b-beg y-you, d-d-don’t …”
She was hushed by the most brutal kiss somebody had ever given her. And she had been living with a blood-craving Inuzuka since a while now.
“Hinata … I am not your brother.”

°*°

He could feel a strange chakra hub evolving in his surroundings. He had only felt something as violent and strong once. Only once in his existence. Uzumaki Naruto.
It was displacing itself in the darkness of the woods. It was nearing him. Swiftly, noiselessly, his heavy Chinese sword was removed from its sheath. Akamaru by his side whimpered. He must have had the same stomach heaves as him. The same feelings of hatred installing itself little by little in his mind.
With his only functional eye, he scanned the trees. The thing had no odour. Jut like himself. And it did not seem to be human. He felt it nevertheless. If he only had raised his eye to the branch over his head, he maybe would have understood particles of what it was, but he didn’t. He only prepared himself to face something that gave the impression of being worse than hell itself. Something making him almost cry, eating him inside.
It remained him of those stories his sister was telling him when he was eight.
‘ … And then the Gobi will eat your eyes and drink your blood … and explode your body …’
He didn’t miss her. He didn’t miss anybody. No, he didn’t.
The beast, or whatever it was, had sensed him at last, jumping through trees and bushes. He was scared like never before. He wanted to abandon his sword behind and run through the forest towards Iwagakure as fast as he could. Yet, that was the worse thing that could occur. The beast would follow taking his cowardice as an invitation to chase after him. He had to get rid of it the best way he knew or at least harm it as to escape.
A flash of white and red bypassed him in a fraction of a second. It was rapid. The chakra emanating from the being was so strong. He felt as if each one of his particles would disintegrate from that much energy. Akamary let another whimper escape him. He seemed to be aware of the nature of the thing.
‘What is it?’
His question was left unanswered as the being launched itself at him in an unimaginable speed.
Before its exposed fangs, bloody from previous fights, could close themselves upon his throat, something fast jumped behind the monstrous thing, raising what appeared to be a blade and fiercely shoved it into the solid ground.
He was awaiting for his death, however it never came. The beast was in front of him, struggling to advance itself or pull him towards its claws. Nonetheless, it couldn’t reach him. Something was hindering it in approaching.
The shadow that had jumped behind it, being aware of the fact that the creature was covered in chains of all kinds, around his neck, his wrists, his ankles, had seized the opportunity to pass a katana through the ones around his neck in its fall from the branch. At any normal moment, he would have just killed the beast, the guy that saved him from the beast and punish Akamaru for his behaviour. This was everything but normal though.
The thing was little and could have been considered as human without the red liquid smudging the lower part of his face and the veins on the right side of its visage popping out around a blank eye. The colour of its hair was white, yet travelled by strands of a darker shade.
It was monstrously disgusting. In an indescribable way.
‘Inugami …’
Akamaru’s response came a little late to Kiba’s likings.
Before he could even think of disposing of the demon, Inugami or not, an arm slithered across its neck. The shadow stepped further into the light of the moon, feebly visible through the foliage.
The creature, in its frustration, bit into the warm and soft flesh under a thick, black fabric, grazing it with its claws.
“G-gômen n-n-naisai … Kenshi …”
Kiba had perhaps after all missed somebody.

°*°

“Are you certain of your decision, miss?”
The nurse could not be but concerned about the little woman and her feverish son.
“It is something you will have to think over. If ever the intervention goes wrong, you might become sterile.”
The nurse inspected the poor thing facing her. It was a tiny, black haired female, holding a maybe three-year old kid that appeared pooped to her heart.
“I a-am s-s-sure …”
She could have been a prostitute that needed to get rid of another mouth to feed. The nurse sighed in sadness. The world was cruel to young woman such as the one she had been introduced to.
“Very well, but we should take care as well of the child. He seems quite tired and I am concerned about his fever.”
The woman nodded her head with uncertainty.
As another nurse approached to take the boy, it tightened its grip on his mother’s neck, whispering incoherent words into her ear.
She gently detached her son from her, murmuring sweet words to him. He nodded, after having softly uttered a whining ‘Kaa-san’.
“I w-will b-be b-b-back s-soon, K-Kenshi. Get a l-little s-sleep.”
She turned her heels. She was in a shinobi hospital which meant she had to be extra careful. But, until somebody noticed she was a missing-nin, she would be out of there. Trailed, but still! She had to get herself out of the trouble she was actually in. Three months of hell. Three months he had left her.
It was not Kiba’s. He was way too concerned to let that happen for a second time. After Kenshi, he had sworn he would never have another kid. He was not reckless enough to let it occur again. It was Neji’s. It could only be his. And not only was she in no situation to be pregnant regarding her lifestyle and health, but she had no intention in raising a baby that couldn’t be loved by her. She was sorry about it, yet it was unwanted.

°*°

“Phh! You see that Akamaru? Iwa-nins are pathetic.”
A charging ninja got his face caught in his palm. He squeezed it violently, hearing the bones of his skull crackle.
That was the real power of an Inuzuka. Liberated of everything. Nothing could stop him now.
He turned his head around to glimpse at the bleeding bunch of corpses he had left behind. It was funny. They were all dead.
“What do you think? Is their kage better?”
He brushed his blood-stained fingers over his companions silky fur.
Yes, his life would be fun from that day on.

::Chapter 11::

He tried to push the drug past her lips but she wouldn’t cooperate by opening up, tightening her pulp little mouth at each of his attempts. She was being one stubborn woman, forgetting in which delicate position she was.
He sighed in exasperation. Every one of them had undertaken the complicated mission of maintaining the diminutive godsend they had put a hand on in life. Not only had they found a Byakugan wielder, but they had had the luck of having discovered the first member of the next generation of their own modest clan. He would have never admitted it, but he felt pity for the two little creatures those idiots Deidara and Tobi were had brought back from a mission.
“Listen carefully to me, Datenshi. If you do not open your tiny mouth at the moment, I’ll just cut open your throat so we can get the peace we deserve, Byakugan or not!”
He had adopted the mania of calling her datenshi. To him, she appeared like one. Once a pure, ethereal being now smudged, disgusting, broken, fallen from its paradise.
He could almost see and archangel’s broken wings hanging lamely in her back. As she stirred, the chains retaining her still emitted a sinister sound. She didn’t undo her jaw as to receive the daily sedative they were bringing her and that she refused time after time.
He took a deep breath through his multiple gills as to calm his temper and restrain himself in performing an act that would carry more problems than benefits. His hand was only itching to free the Samehada enchained to his shoulder blades.
With his sickly bluish, stiff fingers he seized the chin of the shackled petite woman. Raising her head as to examine her traits with ease, he couldn’t stop the thin line of his lips to dislocate in revulsion. She seemed dead and in decomposition. The sparkle of light visible in each conscious being’s eyes was absent in hers. Even if her orbs were famous and more than special at least a little animation could be expected. He turned her head from one side to another, taking mental notes on her health state. She was on the border of death because of her obstinate refusals of nourishing her body. Kakuzu’s harsh treatments and Zetsu’s attempts in swallowing her had worsened the already messy situation. Her carcass was covered in old and more recent scars, some of them badly infected. Her hair was crusted with blood, and she hadn’t taken a bath in two months now. According to Hidan, the best way of making a woman go crazy was to hinder her in cleaning herself. It didn’t seem to work hard on this wench. Anyway, what could a monk now about women, even if he looked like a god himself. (A/N Hidan’s hot, hot, hot … BURNING!) Yet, the most revolting in her behaviour was that she was acting in such an unworthy manner on purpose. She would provoke Kakuzu, knowing how short his temper was, by opening her mouth, masticating the food for a while and then throwing it up right in front of him, spitting on his feet when he approached her or playing with her chains to make as much noise as possible. She would gulp down the slaps and spanks, a triumphant smile plastering her features. All that without a word or noise. She dared to proceed as if death was her only goal, which might have been a plausible conclusion. Who would have thought that a little thing that at first appeared shy, obedient and weak could cause so much trouble?
“Datenshi, you have been here since a while, haven’t you? You should know how we operate with people like you. You remember my promise, don’t you, dear? Nobody would touch the kid, right? Well, if you don’t move, you can shove my promise up your ass! Did I make myself clear? If you cause any more complications starting tomorrow morning, I swear I will introduce the boy in your cell and make him bleed till death shows up and takes him away.”
At those last words, he stood up, towering her with all his height, letting her head drop for her long dirty tresses of night to cover her convulsing features.
A faint sob escaped her lips, making the jailer smile broadly, exposing peculiar, dangerous, and yet mesmerizing shark-like teeth.
The situation was evolving. Very slowly, very defectively. Yet, evolving. Regularly. Just in the bad way. Whatever they did now with her, it would profit them. However. Whenever.

°*°

What had he done? Was it the last image he gave away to the only being to whom he had counted? The figure of an assassin? The illustration of a rapist?
He brought a shaky hand to his tresses, a drop of sweat racing down his left temple. Falling down on the tatami of the Hyûga dôjô, the drop resonated through his head, sending all kinds of pains in his neurons. For the last few years, since a tragic event, he had been training to exhaustion, forgetting that he wasn’t of the kind to die from an excess of exercise. That he wasn’t of her kind to collapse under physical effort. Not of her kind, as much as he wished he would be. If his muscles developed, his psyche had been crumbling more and more, the beautiful white and soft arms of sake and other toxins drawing him into immorality. The formerly smug expression had been replaced by the lines of an excessively grave and somewhat saddened man. The once most admired shinobi of Konohagakure became nothing more than a shadow, wandering desperately to find a body to attach to. A walking, talking, breathing … corpse. He had given up on the title of ANBU taichô in favour of the Uzumaki-baka. He had given up on his dignity. He did not only appear like a shadow, he now felt like one. A shadow of nothing. Of void.
And the worse part was that he didn’t have remorse of anything he had sacrificed. The one thing he regretted was the way he had taken her. However, the sensations he had reaped on her scrumptious lips and between her gentle thighs were nothing he was ashamed of or would ever want to turn away from. He had no more morality. Consciousness, maybe. But no decency was limiting his acts anymore. Anything for her or of her.
She had destroyed him. Aspired all the essence of his mind like a sponge. He would have thought he was immunised against her and her venomous smiles. What a chimera! She was not poison after all. She was water. A need as much as repulsion. A servant as much as a master. A friend as much as an enemy.
His love for her, once confessed, became tainted by hate. His arms maintaining her hips had sought in reality to break them, feel the bones pulverize under his powerful grip. His mouth on her neck had yearned to open up and seize her veins between his teeth to cut them in one movement.
Yet, those realizations have not been the most excruciating.
What truly had achieved the downfall of Hyûga Neji’s spirit had been the revival of old memories. Those where he had desired with all his heart to see her disappear. Where she was nothing more than a weak link of a strong chain.
Never had he abandoned this idea of seeing her disintegrate under his strength and almightiness.
He had been the one to push her to run away ever since that day Uzumaki Naruto had let go, had abandoned in his fight of preserving her head of drowning in the black waters of despair. He had provoked her in assaulting his brain and burning down all his sanity left, in sacrificing her own blood for survival.
He had made an animal out of her.
And if there is one thing a person can regret, it is to observe himself do such things without would it be an ounce of compassion.
He had ruined her life before she even had started gnawing at his existence. All those words of his, his darkness enveloping her having as pretext protection had forced her into panic, and panic had made her doubt even more. And if there was one thing dangerous, one thing that makes the shinobi lose his sanity for sure, it was doubt. Doubt in what you were doing.
She was a monster, no living creature could contradict him in his assumption, yet created by the hands of a man that was aiming sanctity.
Every tear shed was his opus. Every cry of pain the oeuvre of the edge of his ANBU katana.
Love had been an excuse as to sustain himself in the blood she would drop through tears of sufferance.
‘Love me’
Never minding.
‘Hate me’
What.
‘Save me’
Would.
‘Kiss me’
Happen.
‘Destroy me’
Once.
‘Bath in my blood’
The.
‘Cut the links’
Dream.
‘More, more of my pain and your pleasure’
Dispelled.
‘Let me have your soul’
In.
‘While time stopped for us to suffer’
Dawn.
‘Breathless under red waters’
The only thing he wanted now was her pardon for everything and her blessing to continue to cherish her image, to protect the life that was the dearest to him.

°*°

He turned around. The night engulfing him hindered his senses in examining his environs. He had the presentiment of another being nearby, approaching. It might have been imperceptible to any normal human, yet, him not being anything near normal, could breathe in its aroma, feel the heaves each inhalation of air would bring to its breast, as it only could have been a woman with such a little presence.
‘Kiba …’
He heard it. Even if silence was its only accompaniment. That very voice. He knew whose.
‘W-where a-are y-you, K-Kiba? …’
He opened his mouth as to answer her, yet no noise would escape his throat. Her cries of pain were torturing him, however he couldn’t seize her hand and pull her towards him to comfort her.
‘D-don’t l-leave m-me, K-Kiba, p-please …’
Where was she? At least could she be real this time? Or was it one of his disease’s illusions meant to torture him some more? His heart felt torn up from sorrow. Why had he made the wrong choice?! Was it a way his kami had found to punish him from not being somebody else? For being Inuzuka Kiba, the son of the one of most known of all criminals of Konohagakure? For being the fruit of the man that had tried to assassinate the Yondaime and that had died stomped by the feet of peasants? Was that his sin? Or was it of having had the presumption of hoping that a beast like him could make her happy, protect her from the evil, restore her shattered hopes?
He knew why he had made that very move. He had wanted to save the only thing precious to him from the wrath and insanity of that other man. The one always awaiting his moment in Kiba’s shadow.
At once, the blankness of the scene coloured itself with the dye an imaginary artist had chosen to paint his world of chaos. It revealed the strangest landscapes he remembered having ever seen.
The few trees visible were suspended in the air by their roots, birds flying, their back to the ground. Three suns were enlightening that odd work of art in a blood red sky.
An incongruous movement attracted his attention back to a new road, having materialized at the moment he had done a step. Somebody, a female by her looks, was scampering towards him. She seemed to have long dark hair flowing ghostly around her silhouette. An amused, high-pitched, laughter echoed the peculiar land. Even if shrill, it remained soft and naïve. The real expression of a kid’s joy compressed in a mature woman’s figure.
A pain crossed his chest. So many fractured memories came running through his lifeless eyes. The kind you didn’t want to remember because you knew you couldn’t retrieve and spread into reality. For a faint moment, he gave the permission to his eyelids to fall down as to cover his brown orbs. Yet, he couldn’t manage to escape the scene displaying in front of him. The young woman turned around, her yukata opening around her fine legs, revealing the regular, milk-coloured porcelain flesh he had abandoned behind him.
She brought her hands around her mouth, amplifying her voice to be heard far away.
“Coooome … Huuuuurry …”
She was not calling him. She probably wanted the monster he had seen one year ago accompanying her to meet her.
He recalled the disgust at his first contact with it, the thing’s orbs glistening in some repulsing thoughts. He couldn’t believe Hinata and his relationship had given birth to such a product. Wasn’t that the best proof that their rapport was against the wills of the kamis and nature?
The being she had been calling came out from a black hole having formed itself at the moment.
His silhouette, tall and broad-shouldered, progressed lazily with his long, muscled legs towards the woman Kiba already knew to be Hinata.
Jumping with joy to be clearly seen, she was happily waving to the newcomer, a blush breaking through the perfection of her skin.
She looked lovelier that she ever had, draped in bliss. Her scars and tears took no place of importance in her ideal delight. Nevertheless, even if he himself was completely drowned in merriment at her view, the man approaching her more and more made an uneasy sentiment pass through his veins, while a shiver crossed his backbone.
That man’s features were vaguely familiar to him, even if a great distance blurred the clarity of the complete image.
The male could have been his height, his stature, his composition. Yet, his hair was long compared to Kiba’s, however, it was of an identical tint and messy in the same way. His strands were covering a large back and most of a triangular strongly tanned face.
At each of the stranger’s steps, a new trait of his became clear, like the scar on his left eye, having destroyed his vision, the yellowish glow of the other one or his wolfish grin, covered in malice, exposing sharp canine-like fangs.
Kiba’s form shuddered at the revelation of the man’s identity once all his features were discernible. He couldn’t be wrong. It was him! That man he had tried so desperately to save her from. The being that had enchained his life in darkness and sorrow. The ghost that at nights, long ago, would have slithered his fingers around her fragile neck and struggled to suppress her. It was his shadow. The strong one. The wild one. The lively one.
And there was Hinata, all smiling, opening her arms for him to come and take refuge in her sweet caresses and kisses.
Kiba knew that he couldn’t do anything but dreadfully scream her name. In vain that was. His eyes couldn’t tear away of the formation of a precipice behind her, red waters hitting at its rock face.
He couldn’t disregard, even if he would have given all the sanity left to him to escape that, the way she wrapped her arms around the Evil’s waist and flushed at his devilish smirk.
Her lavender eyes, bordered by thick lashes, inspected that creature with adoration. A feeling never having been seen in her glance when she was with Kiba.
He could see words being formed by that demon’s mouth. Instantly, Hinata’s arms let go of him, a pout drawing itself across her full lips.
She took a step backwards, her heels brushing over the void of the sheer drop.
He wanted to yell with all his lungs for her to get away. She couldn’t perceive any sound having him like origin though.
She simply stayed there, looking straight in the other man’s orbs.
With all his attention aiming at her, Kiba could read the last words she told him.
‘H-he is n-not a m-monster …’
And before he could even think about launching himself to seize her hand, she was falling in the void pushed by that Imp’s might.
No shrieks were heard. Only an amused, naïve laughter before being drowned in red waters.
Kiba closed his eyes as the man disappeared. He hoped to wake up soon from this nightmare. By her side. Her breath stroking the nape of his neck, her little hands posed on his back.
Yet, fate wasn’t as merciful. The moment he dared peeking, a new form come into view. It was a little body covered in droplets of red, long black strands gluing to its porcelain skin.
“Hinata …”
No breath was heaving her exposed chest. No light was to be seen in her amethyst eyes. It was a corpse standing motionless in front of him, damp in blood or whatever else that liquid was.
‘Play with me.’
Horror installed itself in his soul.
‘Play with me.’
She extended her arms as to touch him, but didn’t.
‘Play with me.’
Her chapped lips opened as a droplet penetrated her mouth.
‘Play with me.’
Words could be read on them.
‘Play with me. Play with me. Play with me. I am all yours.’
Words that were not hers. A reflection of what she was never to be.
Her expanded fingers, rigid as those of a dead, gripped on his haori with a fierce that was not hers.
He would have wanted to reject them from him, yet couldn’t bring to do so, because fascinated with those black filaments of hair sliding and lengthening to the ground. Propelled by an unknown force, they came creeping up his own body to coil up around his oesophagus.
His eyes wandered down to her fingers and arms becoming blacker by the second, her putrid flesh falling of because of decomposition, revealing ebony bones.
Terror came like wind blowing on his psyche.
“You made me so … Kiba-koi (A/N means love) …”
It was not her voice that flew to his ears but a metallic sound, nothing to do with the sweet tonality he remembered her by.
Her once clear eyes were starting to dye themselves in the same shade as her flesh.
And finally, as to do him in, water came spluttering from her mouth, her lungs purifying themselves from the extern organisms that penetrated them. Yet, she never stopped forming words with her lips, even if no tone came to enlighten their meaning.
When finally all the motion in her body stopped, her eyes closed. She didn’t give any sign of life anymore, her fingers still clasping Kiba’s clothing.
When he expected it the least, her eyelids shot open, revealing enormous amber lights, and she launched her whole body at him.
Before even knowing what was occurring, Kiba’s palm came in contact with a polished, hard texture. With all the strength he had accumulated throughout his years of anguish, he pushed away the object that came crashing on nothing put thin air.
He could see her face bloodied by his movement. There was nothing she could have collided to, yet there she was, losing her life essence, dropping from an invisible wall on the ground that at each drip became darker.
This time, he knew she would not surprise him for the simple reason she was destructed at last.
Still sticking to the imperceptible barrier like a smashed fly, her lifeless orbs were the only think to shine in the darkness that assaulted Kiba’s vision.
A breathing, harsh and irregular, could be heard at his ear. He could feel an inhalation nearby.
A little chuckle came from the night. Even if he concentrated all his senses to seize the identity of this new character, Kiba was conscious of the fact he would never truly know who it was.
It was not his jailer, it was not her, it was nobody he could think of.
A deep calm voice characterized that being.
“Cats have nine lives … Two to go … Beware of the eagle, he is circling above your head …”
Cats. Cats. Cats. Cats and eagles. Cats and eagles. Cats and eagles and dogs.

°*°

He would have expected something less formal coming from Inuzuka Tsume, yet there she was, in an opulent sapphire kimono, a fan encaged in her fingers, tapping nervously on her knee.
“Uzumaki-san, what can I do for you?”
He hated to be addressed so formally. He himself not long ago would have maybe called that woman oba-chan … just like the Godaime. However, he knew since Hyûga had abandoned all his functions to become a simple jônin that he would never receive any warmer welcome than the one the Inuzuka housing had given him.
Clearing his throat, he did his best to look as serious as he could. It was difficult for a never-dying optimist like him to impose himself a grim visage, yet he succeeded quite well when recalling why he came to visit the Konoha’s ‘plague’.
“I would like, first of all, to express my gratefulness for your acceptance of receiving me. I understand the Inuzuka clan is very occupied by the preparations of your ceremony. I would, secondly, want to congratulate you, Tsume-sama, for your long and appreciated ruling of the Inuzuka family and to wish all the luck to your successor.”
He turned to the woman he had named Hana-nee-chan in his childhood and briefly gave her a nod of acknowledgement which she did not return in any manner. He couldn’t blame her though, he sounded like a phoney. A real ANBU.
He was no good at butt kissing and preferred to go right to the goal without any detours.
“And third, I want to know what is it that you are hiding about Kiba.”
That was direct, alright. Not having prepared themselves for that, the two women that had taken a sip of sake at the same time choked simultaneously.
“Uhm … what are you talking about, Uzumaki-san?”
Tsume had a priceless expression plastered on her face. She resembled a fish that was missing air. He really had to restrain himself in not howling in laughter. Her daughter for her part, after having composed herself, stayed as immobile as a Buddha in meditation.
“There’s nothing such as hidden information about Kiba. Everything to be known about him is in his file, at the Kage tower …”
He could swear she was lying. The way the movement of her fan against her right knee became more aggressive or the way her eyes abstained themselves of meeting his only confirmed his hypothesis. There was something very dubious about his behaviour. Something good ol’ Kiba would have never done.
The man they have been chasing around for now three years was way more unforeseeable and violent than his childhood friend. The Kiba he knew would have never slaughtered in vain, nor put his beloved’s life in danger. Yet, this man that had replaced him only accomplished such things. There was something that had changed Kiba, and Naruto frankly did not think it was the hideousness of the world. The one time he had seen him, now a year ago, he himself had almost let his guard down. Not only was that man dangerous, but he became more intelligent than Naruto remembered, Kiba never having been a light. He had lured him in thinking that he had killed Hinata and the kid and that he regretted, his only wish being to rejoin them in the flames of Hell. Of course, back then not being more than a miserable ANBU, Naruto had let himself get touched by his old friend’s repentance. When he had expected it the least, Kiba had launched himself at him cutting his body almost in two with an enormous, black sword that without any doubt would have broken his own ANBU katana if he had given any resistance. Yet, Naruto had been faster, dodging the attack.
Once he had properly taken the stance of a fighter, Naruto had had all the time to inspect the man that was facing him. It was Kiba without any doubt. Wearing a head band around his neck, in Hinata’s style, representing the emblem of Iwagakure, he was standing still like a statue, a strange glint passing through his orbs. One thing was sure at that very instant. Kiba was sick … in a dangerous manner.
Of course, they never closed up their physical encounter, for the simple reason that Naruto never should have revealed his presence, only spied on the Tsuchikage for a while. However it had became mission impossible regarding the fact that the captain of the Tsuchikage’s personal escort had improved his hearing and smelling senses. Naruto would have never envisaged to be so easily found and fought away. It had been quite a hit for his ego, even if Kiba still was way behind his level in being a worthy shinobi.
Naruto obliged to obey, had fled that day without looking back. And now, when he was back in Konoha, he had, without his taichô’s consent, to find out what that yellow spark in his old friend’s eye meant.
“You do understand, Tsume-sama, that hiding important information about criminals, especially A-ranked ones, could be seen as treason.”
If there was one thing Inuzuka Tsume hated, it was to be named a traitor. Ignoring all the bad treatments her clan had undergone, the Inuzuka, with her at their head, had always battled loyally at Konoha’s side. They were less traitors than anybody else, and the country they lived in should have learnt to respect them. They had had luck Tsume had been brought up like a weapon for her nation. She had leaded her own clan like such. Nonetheless, the new head of the housing would not be so obedient. Hana, even if she loved her homeland dearly, would never be ready to sacrifice her honour and her family to save it. Ever since her best friend had depleted his relatives and fled away, she had sworn that she never would let such ignominy happen to her and her clan. The problem with Konoha was simple. The counsel, in his desire for the country to be the strongest, would release immature shinobi, not yet prepared to affront death and sufferance, or, to get rid of the ‘weak ones’ would send them on overly dangerous missions. That created or very deranged shinobi, having as example the Hatake and the Hyûga, or pushed other shinobi to horrible acts that transformed them afterwards into criminals, like Uchiha Itachi, her own father or her brother, Inuzuka Kiba.
They had undergone enough of the misery and pain in the name of a supposed country that had always treated them like what they had been and not what they were. There was no way, the former nor the new leader would divulge anything that could help them get even more humiliated. Konoha wanted the old Inuzuka clan to revive from the death. That was more than possible.
The two women exchanged a fleeting look.
“There are no unknown details about Kiba’s childhood, records, family ties, descendants or health state. We have already provided every fact we knew about to the ANBU forces. I am grateful for your visit, Uzumaki-san. Good luck with your occupations. Hana, can you please accompany, Uzumaki-san.”
Tsume’s daughter stood up. With a wave of her hand, Hana beckoned to Naruto, who hadn’t had the time to protest, his curiosity flaming as he felt something was delicately being dissimulated, to follow her to the main door.

°*°

The little girl stepped into the hallway, once she had succeeded in forcing the padlock that forbade her entrance in the house remaining behind her own dwelling. She didn’t appreciate the way the occupant of that residence was treated. There was a simple reason for her indignation. The being inhabiting the modest abode was the only man that counted for her, that would ever have an immortal place in her heart.
She moved forward in the corridor to penetrate a smallish living room, adorned with a low table, an armchair, a few cushions disposed around the table and a couch, all in a very occidental style he appreciated greatly with his mind opened to foreign cultures.
An animalistic groan welcomed her in the quarters. Her brown eyes brushed over a massive form, lying all spread on the floor of the lounge.
“Ohayo (A/N good morning) Gunshin (A/N god of war)!”
She knelt down as to scratch an enormous grey dog behind his ears. The animal licked her hand once it separated it from his silky fur as to express his gratefulness for the treat.
A distant voice could be heard coming from where the child thought the kitchen should be situated according the teachings of the zen sect.
“Tsume-itoshii (A/N synonym for beloved)? Is that you?”
The minute silhouette stood up right away when his tone rang at her ears.
“No it’s not oka-san, otô-san! It’s Hana!”
A crashing sound came from what she now was sure to be kitchen.
“H-Hana?!”
In a fraction of a second a tall, brown-haired man, only covered by his underwear, was standing in front of the girl, a hand ruffling his already messed up hairstyle. Her eyes shot up to him, a hint of adoration making them gleam in delight.
He was not an especially handsome man, yet he had nice, regular features. His skin appeared strong like some good quality leather which she shared the color of. He hoisted a sheepish smile that discovered shimmering, white teeth easily competing with those of his canine companion in sharpness. In other words, he was his own daughter’s first love.
“W-what are you doing here, Hana, sweetie?”
His normally tough tongue became stuttering when facing his offspring. She looked older than what he remembered. It was normal since he hadn’t seen her for a few months now.
“I came to see you, otô-san, silly!”
A distressed sigh broke his composure. If Tsume learnt her daughter had broken into his home for the only reason of visiting him, they would both, Hana as much as him, suffer from the leader’s wrath.
Not even asking for the permission, the seven-year old child by-passed him and jumped on the divan, installing herself between two plump cushions, a discreet giggle rewarding the comfort of the piece of furniture.
He turned around, glaring at the tiny imp that was installing herself contentedly for a long, very long visit.
“You cannot stay here.”
His words weren’t meant to be so trenchant. Nonetheless, his daughter didn’t abandon her beam.
“It’s okay, nobody will know if you don’t tell and oka-san won’t ever suspect it. She thinks I went to play with Itachi-kun.”
A malicious light passed through her eyes. She resembled her mother in that matter. It was pretty much Tsume’s style to say such things as ‘nobody will know’ in the most awkward situations she created. Hana was pretty much a ‘nobody will know’ kid. As Tsume hadn’t expected her body to be a better player than her, she had taken a risk that had tied him to her for the rest of his life. And he didn’t complain about it at all. Hana was his warranty that the one he loved the most would never escape him.
His legs shaken from fright obliged him to approach the sofa as well and to let his carcass-to-be fall at his descendant’s side.
“How did you get in?”
She had held back her juvenile joy until her adventures came into their ‘conversation’. In no time, she started thrilling with excitement at the thought of her exploit.
Within the next minutes, her father could admire all the cuteness of his progeny when enlightened by zeal.
He laughed when she described the way her five-month pregnant mother looked like, and scowled at how she had proceeded to steal the key to his dwelling while helping her Tsume to kneel down over her supposedly enormous belly. She used the term of ‘grounded whale’ to describe not only the appearance but as well the state of mind of his wife. It seemed that Tsume was in a murderous mood these days, which in fact didn’t surprise him a tiny bit, recalling her behaviour before Hana’s birth. Nothing could be worse than that period of time.
“You should see the shinobis that come to ask her advice! When they come out of her office they are livid and sweating and stink fright! You would be very amused, I swear, otô-san!”
He doubted it would entertain him as his daughter thought. He himself wasn’t able to hold his head high in presence of his wife. That woman had the ability of making anybody shiver in horror. She was smaller and slenderer than him, but still, the aura surrounding her expressed fierce and knowledge. She terrified him in the nastiest ways.
A pleasant silence installed itself between the two interlocutors. Hana gave the impression of being very interested in his domicile he had never made her visit. Her eyes were lost in haze as she swung her feet back and forth.
It was getting very late and it would be better if the girl got away before it became completely dark outside.
“Hana, sweetie, I think it is time fro you to go. Your oka-san must be worried sick. You never play so long with your little boyfriend.”
His daughter shot him a glance. He had hoped he would make her react by his comment, but it seemed that, even if it was said that she was just like him, she had her mother’s indifference.
“Itachi-kun is not my boyfriend, otô-san. And I would like to stay here for the night.”
The man choked on his saliva. There was no way he would let her stay overnight at his house, for two good reasons. First of all, Tsume would come to cut him in pieces shrieking how she had been worried and how he was an irresponsible jerk. And secondly, Hana was the most precious thing to him. There was nothing he loved the most than her, knowing that she had made her mother appreciate him. And he would never pardon him if he ever harmed her.
“No.”
His answer was cold and biting. Nevertheless, the child did not seem to be shaken at all by his severity.
She let a sigh of deceptions escape her lips, yet did not try to argue back. She only scooted closer to him, snuggling in his shoulder, under Gunshin’s suspecting glimpse.
“Otô-san?”
“Hmm?”
She readjusted herself on the couch to be able to swallow his whole image in her pupil. Her voice was distant and not childish as it was supposed to be, and her father could see the shape of her mother replacing gradually all the traits he and her shared together.
“What is a yâken?”
He had expected her to come up with such a question a day or another. Her pure soul did not understand what shame was. She was too sensitive to be able to comprehend the injustice life was able to affix to a living being. And it had to stay like that as long as it could. He didn’t want the bliss in her eyes evaporating like it had been her mother’s case. He still bore in mind the picture of Tsume’s face convulsing at the sight of her grandfather’s chopped off head.
He knew he had to respond if he didn’t want to be stalked by a very stubborn and annoying kid, yet couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth and see the disgust installing himself in her at his sight.
“It is a person touched by a disease proper to the Inuzuka clan. It derives from normal paranoid-schizophrenia and attacks the center of the behaviour of oneself. Only the males of the family are sensible to it because it is a hereditary malformation of the chromosomes. Yet, not all the men of the family are ill with it. That is explained by the fact that the chromosome y and the chromosome x must both be bearers of the malformation for it to take control of one’s mind. In other words the mother and the father of one must both be carriers of the dysfunctional gene for their son to come down with it. And it also depends of the mental development and the kind of existence one has. Some people should become overwhelmed by it but never do. Others after a while completely lose the track of reality. It only depends how it expands. But what truly makes it dangerous are the negative changes in one’s manners. The yâken will progressively detach himself from his family and friends to adopt a violent and dispersed lifestyle. He will experience regular and deranging illusions. Nonetheless, it has a few advantages to compensate. A normal schizophrenic will experience a tearing in the bubble surrounding him and separating him from the world, making him become vulnerable to delusion. However, the yâken loses completely that bubble that every human has to protect himself. For any normal being it is horrible, yet for a shinobi it is an amazing opportunity. Each shinobi has a few potential chakra reserves that are not concentrated in the tenketsu, but those reserves are unfortunately held by once subconscious. In other words, nobody is able to get a grip on those reserves, that is without getting rid of his subconscious. The exact effect of that disease. The yâken’s conscious gets buried under his subconscious which also explains the hallucinations.”
Hana had never heard such sadness in once tone than at that very moment. Her father’s eyes were lost in the void. Frankly, the seven-year old girl hadn’t understood one word of what had been said, yet, as those animals she love passionately, she could feel by instinct that what had been uttered with a dismay filled voice was a truth revealed to a deaf ear. She couldn’t figure out what it meant to be a yâken, and it made her miserable.
“Otô-san … Are you a yâken?”
He suddenly came back to reality, turning around to glance at his daughter. He shouldn’t have talked. He could already see the doubt installing itself in her eyes.
He gently stroke Hana’s cheek with his callous hand.
“Don’t believe in everything your crazy otô-san says, Hana-chan.”
Sometimes lies were better than the truth particularly when a soul was to be saved from the cruelty of veracity.

°*°

She flushed of a heated crimson shade, which made him laugh throatily.
“You look like a tomato, Byakugan!”
A yelp escaped her when she noticed how amusingly he inspected her face, while she was floundering around in an onsen (A/N hot spring), with him in a … woman’s body.
Finally after a few weeks of good comportment, they have made her go out of her cell and the man she had mistaken for a female not long ago had received the task of bringing her to an onsen and making sure she would not run off cowardly. And seeming to find necessary to follow her wherever she went to accomplish his mission decently, the blond used a particular Henge to transform himself in busty, quite attractive woman that reminded a little the Godaime, entering legally in a place reserved to ladies.
He swam towards the little woman that in an instinctive impulse crossed her white arms, crossed by violet stripes, over her bosoms. Her eyes fluttered to the man’s … uhm woman’s … uhm … breasts that could rival with her own that in her case were one hundred percent natural.
Once he was in front of the blushing Byakugan wielder, he couldn’t suppress a feminine giggle. Poor little thing, she felt so menaced by his masculine person, at that moment carefully dissimulated under large hips, a busty chest and pulp tighs. She must have been highly maltreated by men. But then again, there was nothing unexpected in that, if she had traveled by her own and had been tracked by Konoha and Suna nins.
He placed a warm hand on her shoulder, feeling her muscles tense under his grip.
“Relax, yeah! There is nobody that will harm you, if you behave and obey, I promise, yeah.”
He gave her a cheeky grin. He would have expected her to calm down, but she only shrugged his hand away, eying him with suspicion. Why wouldn’t she believe him? It took him quite a while to understand that she had the conduct of someone having not only been harmed by men. She was disbelieving everybody, especially those knocking her out with a gigantic clay bird’s wing while she was fighting a certain number of Sand shinobi sent by the Kazekage as a proof of his loyalty to Konohagakure.
Women were so complicated these days! But at least, he had nothing to do with them! Thank God there were other options as well.

°*°

She did her best to look somewhat presentable. She wouldn’t want her son to think she had been badly treated by those monsters. She hadn’t seen him in a few months, but hoped he wasn’t too affected by her disappearance.
A white hand brushed over her yukata’s little crumples on her lap. She shifted uncomfortably on her heals.
She still didn’t know what their plans were with her were. She supposed they would ask for a ransom that would be paid off without any wait. Neji was just awaiting the perfect moment to get a hold on her and they would present her to him tied up like a pig for a reasonable price. She hadn’t heard of him for a while though. Not that she could have, closed up in her cold and silent cell.
She perceived the sound of a metallic gate being slid, screaming from pain as she would have under the murderous grips of her enemies.
“Be careful not to spill anything, Kenshi.”
“Hai, Kisame-sensei.”
Their voices could be barely heard because of the pounds of her heart misleading her audition.
She was going to see him. The one she had damned her own life for. The one that had made her renounce to her dignity. All that without an inch of regret.
“Her room is over there.”
“Do you think she will be happy to see me, sensei? Is she doing better?”
A strange chuckle came from the hallway. Could it be that Hoshikage Kisame had chortled? No it couldn’t. She was becoming crazy. Crazier than she already was, at least.
In no time, her vision became overcome by the image of a little four-year-old boy holding a plate in his minute hands, a bluish claw grasping carefully his small shoulder. He looked better than he ever had. His fragile health seemed having calmed herself for a while. He was sweetly smiling at her.
“Ohayo, oka-san.”
His tone of voice was peaceful and respectful. Kisame, preferring not to get sentimental at the heartbraking reunion of a mother and her son, took out a key to unclasp the padlock. She noticed how Kenshi followed each movement the shark-man would make with his intelligent pupils. Once the entrance to her cell was widely opened. Cautiously, the lad came into the room watching each of his steps not to drop anything. If there was something Kisame-sensei despised the most it was clumsiness.
Once he was in front of his oka-san, he bent his knees to sit in front of her on the cold ground, laying the plate down by his side.
“I will be back in half an hour.”
Hinata’s lavender eyes locked for an instant with the Akatsuki member’s. He turned away at the gratefulness he could read in them. What was wrong with that woman? They kidnapped her, they tortured her, they took away her child, and she still had the strength to express thankfulness for something as normal as giving her the right to see her own blood. She was not normal at all. And frankly, his fishy sense told him that having her around wasn’t the best thing that could have happened to them.

°*°

His clear eyes brushed over that silhouette that had appeared in front of him. She was standing there, a sword in each hand, long tresses of black hair flying in the night. He couldn’t believe that their spy in the Organization had told the truth.
Her pale skin was prettily complimented by the darkness of her cloak adorned with red clouds. Her orbs were filled with sadness at his image.
“N-nii-s-san …?”
“BYAKUGAN, HURRY!”
“HYÛGA, GET HER! SHE’S AN AKATSUKI!”
However, disregarding the exclamations of their respective parties, they just stood still, examining each other, measuring the ravine that now separated them.
“Hinata …”
He noted the tears that came leaking down her cheeks when he softly pronounced her name.
“LISTEN, BYA! WE’RE GONNA MOVE FORWARD, YEAH! I GIVE YOU FIVE MINUTES TO FINISH UP, UNDERSTOOD?!”
At those words, two shadows ran deeper into the woods, not staying for the pitiful spectacle of the strongest Hyûga ever falling to his knees, his eyes widening in shock.
As the Akatsuki members fled, the Konoha shinobi regained a little courage and made the stupid decision of moving a step forward into an unknown territory. They of course had not thought they would be overmastered by simple criminals. At the moment their feet touched the ground strong explosions activated, killing a certain number of shinobi and flung back the majority of them.
For an instant, Hinata and Neji were lost in a deep smoke, giving them the impression of being alone, reminding of their childhood games before hate came staining their relationship.
He felt her approaching him. He would have wanted to stand up, yet couldn’t bring himself in doing so.
Once the smoke dispersed in the air, her form was standing right in front of him. She was more beautiful than she ever had, yet it was of a fragile saddening beauty. He could feel all the pain he had imposed by force into her life, see it on her pulp lips.
“Pardon me.”
Those were the only poor words he could articulate to accompany the tears that came to him as well. His love had suffocated her, destroyed her existence. He had pushed her to this. To become the Akatsuki’s little tool.
“I beg you, pardon me …”
She couldn’t believe what was observing at the moment. Her nii-san, strong, violent, confident, was kneeling in the dirt imploring for pardon. What did he have to be pardoned for? Everything had been her fault not his. And even if it were, she would have never asked for him to excuse himself.
Neji felt something soft pass through his long strands. He raised his head to meet orbs full of forgiveness and brotherly love. He never should have yearned for something that was out of his reach. More tears came reaffirming his thoughts. Yet, he did not think Inuzuka deserved her more.
Her firm grip on his head pulled it to lie on her stomach as she never stopped stroking his hair soothingly. They didn’t care at the moment if they were in danger, the only thing they wanted was too cure those wounds.
He breathed in her scent of flowers, fruits and blood.
“W-whatever m-m-my n-n-nii-s-s-san d-d-does he s-stays m-my n-n-nii-san …”

°*°

A strange sentiment passed through his veins, making his intestines shrivel up inside him. He clenched his teeth. Opening his eyes, he noted the darkness on the right side. He hated him. He had taken everything away from him. His wife, his son, his dignity and now his eye. Hyûga Neji finally achieved what he had wanted. He became his number one enemy. And there was no way his deeds would go unpunished.
“Come now, Yajû. We have a lot of things to plan, my dear pet. I promise, Konohagakure will suffer.”

Author’s note

Okay, my dear readers, my beloved reviewers, and all those others that will read this, as you have noticed I have not updated for quite a while. If I told you I was overwhelmed with work and couldn’t even think about writing I would not be lying, however it is not the only reason.
The truth being that this fic bores me to death. It is really a first fic … I am very happy I have started with the end of it, therefore I have given myself the right to stop it wherever I felt like it.
However if I remember well, I have promised a sequel which still enflames my imagination. Hence, I am announcing that ‘Breathless under red waters’ will be the official sequel to ‘Blood red lavender’. And believe me or not, it will not be all mixed up and completely confusing. Every little part will follow the next and so on, well mostly. I still have not started writing it because I am really drowning in school work and because of job responsibilities (don’t remember the last time I have slept decently). Oh and if ever somebody is interested in becoming my beta reader *puppy eyes*, you are welcomed … What am I saying?! WHOEVER FEELS THE COURAGE OF CORRECTING MY HORRIBLE GRAMMAR WILL HAVE MY UTTER GRATEFULNESS FOR HIS/HER WHOLE LIFE!!!! Anyway, if ever somebody is interested please tell me, you all know how much I need one …
So … READ AND REVIEW MY NEXT FIC!!! That is when it will be published …
Thank you to all my lovely reviewers, you are all so great, I love you all. You are so great!!!